attributed to matthew turner (d. ?) and william hammon. transcribed by the freethought archives note: irregularities in orthography and punctuation have been reproduced without emendation from the first edition of . answer to dr. priestley's letters to a philosophical unbeliever. part i. london. mdcclxxxii advertisement. the editor of this publication has more in object to answer dr. priestley than to deliver his own sentiments upon natural religion, which however he has no inclination to disguise: but he does not mean to be answerable for them farther, than as by reason and nature he is at present instructed. the question here handled is not so much, whether a deity and his attributed excellences exist, as whether there is any natural or moral proof of his existence and of those attributes. revealed knowledge is not descanted upon; therefore christians at least need take no offence. doubts upon natural religion have not hitherto been looked upon as attacks upon revelation, but rather as corroborations of it. what the editor believes as a christian (if he is one is therefore another affair, nor does he reckon himself so infallible or incapable of alteration in his sentiments, as not at another time to adopt different ones upon more reflexion and better information; therefore, though he has at present little or no doubt of what he asserts (taken upon the principles laid down) he shall hold himself totally freed from any necessity of defending the contents of this publication if brought into controversy; and as he has no desire of making converts, hopes he shall not himself be marked out as an object of persecution. speculative points have always been esteemed fair matters for a free discussion. the religion established in this country is not the religion of nature, but the religion of moses and jesus, with whom the writer has nothing to do. he trusts therefore he shall not be received as a malevolent disturber of such common opinions as are esteemed to keep in order a set of low wretches so inclinable to be lawless. at least, if he attempts to substitute better foundations for morality, malevolence can be no just charge. truth is his aim; and no professors of religion will allow their system to be false. or if he should be thought too bold a speculator, such of the ecclesiastics as will be his opponents may rather laugh at him than fear him. they have a thousand ways of making their sentiments go down with the bulk of mankind, to one this poor writer has. they are an army ready marshalled for the support of their own thesis; they are in the habit of controversy; pulpits are open to them as well as the press; and while the present author will be looked upon as a miracle of hardiness for daring to put his name to what he publishes, they can without fear or imputation lift up their heads; and should they even be known to transgress the bounds of good sense or politeness, they will only be esteemed as more zealous labourers in their own vocation. prefatory address. dr. priestley, your letters addressed to a philosophical unbeliever i perused, not because i was a philosopher or an unbeliever; it were presumption to give myself the former title, and at that time i certainly did not deserve the latter; but as i was acquainted with another, who in reality, as far as i and others who know him can judge, deserves the title of a philosopher and is neither ashamed nor afraid of that of an unbeliever, i conceived them apt to be sent to my friend, and when i presented them to him, he said he was the person whom he should suppose you meant to address, if you had a particular person in view; but he had too much understanding of the world, though much abstracted from the dregs of it, not to conceive it more probable that you meant your letters to be perused by thinking men in general, believers and unbelievers, to confirm the former in their creed, and to convert the latter from their error. you shall speedily know the effect they have had in both ways. for myself i must inform you that i was brought up a believer from my infancy; a theist, if a christian is such; for i suppose the word will be allowed, though the equivalent term of deist is so generally reprobated by christians; i had before my eyes the example of a most amiable parent; a moral man, a christian undoubtedly; who, when i have been attending upon him, as much from affection as from duty upon a sick and nearly dying bed, has prayed i might be stedfast in the faith he held, in accents still sounding in my intellectual ear; a parent, whom for his virtues and love of his offspring, like a chinese, i am tempted to worship, and i could exclaim with the first of poets, _"erit ille mihi semper deus."_ with such habits of education then, such fervent advice and such reverence for my instructor, what can have turned me from my belief; for i confess i am turned? immorallity it is not; that i assert has not preceded my unbelief, and i trust never will follow it; there has not indeed yet been time for it to follow; whether it is a probable consequence will presently be discussed; but it is _thought_, free thought upon the subject; when i began freely to think i proceeded boldly to doubt; your letters gave me the cause for thinking, and my scepticism was exchanged for conviction; not entirely by the perusal of your letters; for i do not think they would quite have made me an atheist! but by attention to that answer from my friend, which i have his permission to subjoin. in mentioning that doubts arose by reading your very letters, which were written to eradicate all doubts, let me not accuse you of being unequal to the task assumed. i mean no such charge. you have in my opinion been fully equal to the discussion, and have bandied the argument ably, pleasingly and politely. i am certain from the extracts you have made from dr. clarke, the first of other divines, i should have been converted from my superstition by his reasoning, even without perusal of an answer: i pay you however the compliment of having only brought me to doubt, and i find i am not the only person who have been led to disbelieve by reading books expressly written to confirm the believer. stackhouse's comment upon the bible, and leland's view of deistical writers have perhaps made as many renegado's in this country as all the allurements of mahometanism has in others. what can be said to this? they were both undoubtedly men of abilities, and meant well to the cause they had to support. all that i shall observe upon the matter is, that what cannot bear discussion cannot be true. reasoning in other sciences is the way to arrive at truth: the learned for a while may differ, but argument at last finds its force, and the controversy usually ends in general conviction. reasoning upon the science of divinity will equally have its weight, and all men of letters would long ago have got rid of all superstitious notions of a deity, but that men of letters are frequently men of weak nerves; such as dr. johnson is well known to be, that great triumph to religionists; it requires courage as well as sense to break the shackles of a pious education; but if merely a resolve to reason upon their force can break them, what can we observe in conclusion but _"magnus est veritas et prevalebit."_ that religion or belief of a deity cannot bear the force of argument is well known by divines in general, is manifest by their annexing an idea of reproach to the very term of arguing upon the subject. these arguers they call free-thinkers, and this appellation has obtained, in the understanding of pious believers, the most odious disgrace. yet we cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any purpose without freedom. therefore free-thinking, so far from being a disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. how absurd, and how cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men who shall exercise their understanding in attending to their arguments! no tyranny is greater than that of ecclesiastics. these chain down our very ideas, other tyrants only confine our limbs. they invite us to the argument, yet damn us to eternal punishment for the use of reason on the subject. they give to man an essence distinct from his corporeal appearance and this they call his soul, a very ray and particle of the divine being; the principal faculty of this soul they allow to be that of reasoning, and yet they call reason a dark lanthorn, an erroneous vapour, a false medium, and at last the very instrument of another fancied being of their own to lead men into their own destruction. _"in the image of himself made he man."_ a favourite text with theologians; but surely they do not mean that this god almighty of theirs has got a face and person like a man. no; that they exclaim against, and, when we push them for the resemblance, they confess it is in the use of reason; it is in the soul. i am aware that i am not here to mix questions of christianity with the general question of a divinity; subjects of a very distinct enquiry, and which in the letters to a philosophical unbeliever are very carefully separated. the subject of revelation is indeed promised afterwards to be taken up, provided the argument in favour of natural religion meets with a good reception. how, dr. priestley, you can judge of that reception i am at a loss to know, otherwise than by the number of editions you publish. it is then in the sum total just as much as if you had said, "provided this book sells well i will write another." yet it may be sold to many such readers as i have been, though you will hardly call such reception good. you that have wrote so much, to whom it is so easy to write more, who profess a belief of revelation, such a laborious enquirer, and so great a master of the art of reasoning, should rather have engaged at once to prove in a subsequent publication the truth of revealed religion in arguments, as candid and as fairly drawn as those you have used in proof of a deity independent of revelation. different as i am in qualifications from you, not very learned, far from industrious, unused to publish, i do now promise that when you shall have brought into light your intended letters in behalf of revelation i will answer them. i hope you will take it as an encouragement to write that you are sure you shall have an answer. i mean you should, and i am sure i shall think myself greatly honoured if you will descend so far as to reply to my present answer. i know you have been used in controversies to have the last word, and in this i shall not baulk your ambition; for notwithstanding any defect of my plea in favour of atheism i mean to join issue upon your replication, and by no means, according to the practice and language of the lawyers, to put in a rejoinder. should your arguments be defectively answered by me, should your learning and your reasoning be more conspicuous than mine, i shall bear your triumph without repining. i declare i am rather pleased there are so few atheists than at all anxious to make more. i triumph in my superior light. i am like the jew or the bramin who equally think themselves privileged in their superior knowledge of the deity. with me and with my friend the comparison holds by way of contrast, for we are so proud in our singularity of being atheists that we will hardly open our lips in company, when the question is started for fear of making converts, and so lessening our own enjoyment by a numerous division of our privilege with others. it has indeed often been disputed, whether there is or ever was such a character in the world as an atheist. that it should be disputed is to me no wonder. every thing may be, and almost every thing has been disputed. there are few or none who will venture openly to acknowledge themselves to be atheists. i know none among my acquaintance, except that one friend, to whom as a philosophical unbeliever i presented your letters, and to whose answer i only mean this address as an introduction. i shall therefore not enter here into the main argument of deity or no deity. my address is only preliminary to the subject; but i do not therefore think myself precluded from entering into some considerations that may be thought incidental to it. i mean such considerations as whether immorality, unhappiness or timidity necessarily do or naturally ought to ensue from a system of atheism. but as to the question whether there is such an existent being as an atheist, to put that out of all manner of doubt, i do declare upon my honour that i am one. be it therefore for the future remembered, that in london in the kingdom of england, in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, a man has publickly declared himself an atheist. when my friend returned me your letters, addressing me with a grave face he said, "i hope, if you have any doubts, these letters will have as good effect upon you as they have had upon me." my countenance brightened up and i replied, "you are then, my friend, convinced ?" "yes, he said, i am convinced; that is, i am most thoroughly convinced there is no such thing as a god." behold then, if we are to be believed, two atheists instead of one. another question has been raised "whether a society of atheists can exist?" in other words "whether honesty sufficient for the purposes of civil society can be insured by other motives than the belief of a deity?" bayle has handled that question well. [footnote: _pensees sur la comete_.] few who know how to reason (and it is in vain to speak or think of those who lay reason out of the case) can fail to be convinced by the arguments of bayle. i shall discuss the question no farther than as it is necessarily included in the discussion of some of those supposed results of atheism, such as i have before mentioned in the instances of immorality, unhappiness and timidity. in my argument upon this subject i shall carefully avoid all abuse and ridicule. controversies are apt to be acrimonious. you, sir, have certainly shewn instances to the contrary. you have charity beyond your fellows in the ecclesiastical line, and your answerers seem not to me to have a right in fair argument to step out of the limits you have prescribed yourself. to dispute with you is a pleasure equal almost to that of agreeing with another person. you have candour enough to allow it possible that an atheist may be a moral man. where is that other ecclesiastic who will allow the same? your answerers ought also to hold themselves precluded from using ridicule in handling this subject. i am no great supporter of lord shaftesbury's doctrine that ridicule is the test of truth. i own truth can never be ridiculous, that is, it can never be worthy of laughter, but still it may be laughed at. to use the other term, i may say, truth can never be worthy of ridicule, but still it may be ridiculed. just ridicule is a sufficient test of truth; but after all we should be driven to an inquiry, upon the principles of reasoning, whether the ridicule were just or not. boldness, which is not incompatible with decency and candour, i do hold to be an absolute requisite in all speech and argument, where truth is the object of inquiry. therefore when i am asked, whether there is a god or no god, i do not mince the matter, but i boldly answer there is none, and give my reason for my disbelief; for i adopt my friend's answer by the publication of it. that mischief may ensue to society by such freedom of discussion is also another argument for me to consider; i do not say to combat, for though i were convinced or could not resist the argument that mischief would ensue to society by such a discussion, yet i should think myself intitled to enter into it. i have a right to truth, and to publish truth, let society suffer or not suffer by it. that society which suffers by truth should be otherwise constituted; and as i cannot well think that truth will hurt any society rightly constituted, so i should rather be inclined to doubt the force of the argument in case atheism being found to be truth should apparently be proved prejudicial to such a society. i come unprejudiced to the question, and when i have promised you an answer to your future letters in support of revelation, i have neither anticipated your argument nor prejudged the cause. i hold myself open to be convinced, and if i am convinced i shall say so, which is equally answering as if i denied the force of your observations. in that sense only i promise an answer. if i believe i shall say, i do; but i shall not believe and tremble, confident as i am, that if i act an honest part in life, whether there be a deity and a future existence or not, whatever reason i may have to rejoice in case such ideas he realised, i can upon such an issue have none to tremble. i look upon myself to have more reason to be temporally afraid than eternally so. dr. priestley or any other doctor can put his name boldly to a book in favour of theism, loudly call the supporters of a contrary doctrine to the argument, and if no answer is produced, assert their own reasoning to be unanswerable. in that sense their sort of reasoning has been frequently unanswerable. here however is an instance of a poor unknown individual, making experience of the candour of the ecclesiastics and the equity of the laws of england, for he ventures to subscribe his publication with his name as well as dr. priestley does his letters, to which this publication is an answer. perhaps he may have cause to repent of his hardiness, but if he has, he is equally resolved to glory in his martyrdom, as to suffer it. whatever advantage religion has had in the enumeration of it's martyrs, the cause of atheism may boast the same. as to the instances of the professors of any particular form of religion, or modification of that form, such as christians or sects of christians, suffering martyrdom for their belief, i shall no more allow them to be martyrs for theism than pagans similarly suffering for their belief, shall i call martyrs for atheism. theism very likely has had it's martyrs. i can instance one i think in socrates, and i shall mention vanini as a martyr for atheism. the conduct of those two great men in their last moments may be worth attending to. the variety of other poor heretical wretches, who have been immolated at the shrine of absurdity for all the possible errors of human credence, let them have their legendary fame. i put them out of the scale in this important inquiry. not that i really think the argument to be much advanced by naming the great supporters of one opinion or of another. in mathematics, mechanics, natural philosophy, in literature, taste, and politics the sentiments of great men of great genius are certainly of weight. there are some subjects capable of demonstration, many indeed which the ingenuity of one man can go farther to illustrate than that of another. the force of high authority is greater in the three former sciences than in the latter. theism and atheism i hold to be neither of them strictly demonstrable. you, dr. priestley, agree with me in that. still i hold the question capable of being illustrated by argument, and i should hold the authority of great men's names to be of more weight in this subject, were i not necessarily forced to consider that all education is strongly calculated to support the idea of a deity; by this education prejudice is introduced, and prejudice is nothing else than a corruption of the understanding. certain principles, call them, if you please, data, must be agreed upon before any reasoning can take place. disputants must at least agree in the ideas which they annex to the language they use. but when prejudice has made a stand, argumentation is set at so wide a distance, through a want of fixt data to proceed upon, that attention is in vain applied to the dispute. besides, the nature of the subject upon which this prejudice takes place, is such, that the finest genius is nearly equally liable to an undue bias with the most vulgar. to question with boldness and indifference, whether an individual, all-forming, all-seeing and all-governing being exists, to whom, if he exists, we may possibly be responsible for our actions, whose intelligence and power must be infinitely superior to our own, requires a great conquest of former habitude, a firmness of nerves, as well as of understanding; it will therefore be no great wonder, if such men as locke and newton can be named among the believers in a deity. they were christians as well as theists, so that their authority goes as far in one respect as in the other. but if the opinions of men of great genius are to have weight, what is to be said of modern men of genius? you, sir, are of opinion that the world is getting wiser as well as better. there is all the reason in the world it should get wiser at least, since wisdom is only a collection of experience, and there must be more experience as the world is older. modern philosophers are nearly all atheists. i take the term atheist here in the popular sense. hume, helvetius, diderot, d'alembert. can they not weigh against locke and newton, and even more than locke and newton, since their store of knowledge and learning was at hand to be added to their own, and among them are those who singly possessed equal science in mathematics as in metaphysics? it is not impossible, perhaps not improbable, from his course of learning and inquiries, that if dr. priestley had not from his first initiation into science been dedicated for what is called the immediate service of god, he himself might have been one of the greatest disprovers of his pretended divinity. in england you think, sir, that atheism is not prevalent among men of free reasoning, though you acknowledge it to be much so in other countries. it is not the first time it has been observed that the greater the superstition of the common people the less is that of men of letters. in the heart of the papal territories perhaps is the greatest number of atheists, and in the reformed countries the greatest number of deists. yet it is a common observation, especially by divines, that deism leads to atheism, and i believe the observation is well founded. i hardly need explain here, that by deism in this sense is meant a belief in the existence of a deity from natural and philosophical principles, and a disbelief in all immediate revelation by the deity of his own existence. such is the force of habit, that it is by degrees only, that even men of sense and firmness shake off one prejudice after another. they begin by getting rid of the absurdities of all popular religions. this leaves them simple deists, but the force of reasoning next carries them a step farther, and whoever trusts to this reasoning, devoid of all fear and prejudice, is very likely to end at last in being an atheist. nor do i admit it to be an argument either for revelation or natural religion, that the same turn for speculation that would convert a christian into a theist, will carry him on to be an atheist, though i know the argument has been often used. if upon sick beds or in dying moments men revert to their old weakness and superstitions, their falling off may afford triumph to religionists; for my part i care not so much for the opinions of sick and dying men, as of those who at the time are strong and healthy. but in the opinion of the one or the other i put no great stress. my faith is in reasoning, for though ridicule is not a complete test of truth, reasoning i hold certainly to be so. i own belief may be imprest on the mind otherwise than by the force of reason. the mind may be diseased. all i shall say is that though i have formerly believed many things without reason, and even many against it, as is very common, i hope i shall never more. my mind (i was going to say, thank god) is sane at present, and i intend to keep it so. i am aware that at the expression just used some will exclaim in triumph, that the poor wretch could not help thinking of his god at the same time he was denying him. the observation would hold good, if it were not that we often speak and write unpremeditately and though what is in this manner unpremeditately expressed upon a revision should be certainly expunged, yet i chuse to leave the expression to shew the force of habit. in fear lies the origin of all fancied deities, whether sole or numberless. _primus in orbe deos fecit timor._ but the great debasement of the human mind is evidenced in the instance of attributing a merit to belief, which has come at last to be stiled a virtue, and is dignified by the name of faith, that most pitiful of all human qualities. when the apostle spoke of faith, hope and charity, he might as well have exclaimed the least of the three is faith, as the greatest is charity. one enthusiast cries out _un roi_ and another _un dieu_. the reality of the king i admit, because i feel his power. against my feeling and my experience i cannot argue, for upon these sensations is built all argument. but not all the wondrous works of the creation, as i hear the visible operations of nature called, convince me in the least of the existence of a deity. by nature i mean to express the whole of what i see and feel, that whole, i call self-existent from all eternity; i admit a principle of intelligence and design, but i deny that principle to be extraneous from itself. my creed in fine is the same with that of the roman poet; _"deus est ubicunque movemur."_ if then i am admitted to explain my deity in this sense, i am not an atheist, nor can any one else in the world be such. the _vis naturae_, the perpetual industry, intelligence and provision of nature must be apparent to all who see, feel or think. i mean to distinguish this active, intelligent and designing principle, inherent as much in matter as the properties of gravity or any elastic, attractive or repulsive power, from any extraneous foreign force and design in an invisible agent, supreme though hidden lord and maker over all effects and appearances that present themselves to us in the course of nature. the last supposition makes the universe and all other organised matter a machine made or contrived by the arbitrary will of another being, which other being is called god; and my theory makes a god of this universe, or admits no other god or designing principle than matter itself and its various organisations. the inquiry is said to be important. but why is it so! all truth is important. it is a question of little importance, merely whether a man had a maker or no, although it is of great importance to disprove the existence of such a deity as theologians wish to establish, because appearances in the world go against it. supposing however that it was granted, that the question, whether there is a deity or not, was as little important as other truths, yet the question becomes important with this reflexion, that other events may follow as deductions; such as a particular providence, or a future state of rewards and punishments; but whether such deductions or either of them necessarily follow may well be queried. as to a particular providence you give up the reality of it, and i give it up too. but i cannot give up the argument, that if there were a god with all his allowed attributes of wisdom, power and justice, there ought to be a particular providence to counteract the general laws of nature, in favour of those who defend the interposition. though the deity should not interfere unless there be a worthy cause, agreeable to the horation rule, _"nec deus interfuit nisi vindice nodus;"_ yet surely from the same principles it should follow that the deity ought to interfere where there is a worthy cause. here however arises another dilemma, for if the deity has really those attributes of power and justice, there would never have been occasion for such temperaneous interpositions. a particular providence must indeed prove one of these two principles, either that god was imperfect in his design, or that inert matter is inimical to the properties of god. if that wished for interposition of the deity is put off to a future existence, i cannot help observing, that future day has been already a long while waited for in vain, and any delay destroys some one attribute or other of the deity. he wants justice, or he wants the power, or the will to do good and be just. that a future state of rewards and punishments may however exist without a deity, you, dr. priestley, allow to be no impossibility. it may indeed be argued with apparent justness, that a principle of reviviscence may as well be admitted as a principle of production in the first instance: and as to rewards and punishments, judgement may be rendered, as well as now, by beings less than deities. for my part i firmly wish for such a future state, and though i cannot firmly believe it, i am resolved to live as if such a state were to ensue. this seems, i own, like doubting, and doubting may be said to be a miserable state of anxiety. "better be confident than unhinged; better confide in ignorance than have no fixed system." so it may be argued; but i think the result will be as people feel. those who do not feel bold enough, to be satisfied with their own thoughts, may abandon them and adopt the thoughts of others. for my part i am content with my own; and not the less so because they do not end in certainty upon matters, from the nature of them, beyond the complete reach of human intelligence. there is nothing in fact important to human nature but happiness, which is or ought to be the end or aim of our being. i mean self-happiness; but fortunately for mankind, such is by nature our construction, that we cannot individually be happy unless we join also in promoting the happiness of others. should immorality, timidity or other base principles arise from atheism it tends immediately, i will own, to the unhappiness of mankind. if it is asked me, "why am i honest and honourable?" i answer, because of the satisfaction i have in being so. "do all people receive that satisfaction?" no, many who are ill educated, ill-exampled and perverted, do not. i do, that is enough for me. in short, i am well constructed, and i feel i can therefore act an honest and honourable part without any religious motive. did i perceive, that belief in a deity produced morality or inspired courage, i might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from atheism. but the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended to believe in a deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem at a stand. the believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base, equally immoral. superstition is certainly only the excess of religion. that evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice. i am tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a deity is apt to drive mankind into vice and baseness; but i check myself in the assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really believe in a deity out of such as pretend to do so. it is impossible for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can give no account, or of which he can form no conception. i hold the deity, the fancied deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we form (as appears when we scrutinise into our ideas) no conception and therefore can give no account. it is said, after all this, that men do still believe in such a deity, i then do say in return, they do not make use of their intellects. the moment we go into a belief beyond what we feel, see and understand, we might as well believe in will-with-a-whisp as in god. but i would fix morality upon a better basis than belief in a deity. if it has indeed at present no other basis, it is not morality, it is selfishness, it is timidity; it is the hope of reward, it is the dread of punishment. for a great and good man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it, who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in preference to happiness, whose honour is his deity, whose conscience is his judge. put such a man in combat against the superstitious son of spain or portugal, it were easy to say who would shew the truest courage. the question might be more voluminously discussed, but i feel already proof of conviction; if you, dr. priestley, do not, perhaps some other readers may. i have nothing to do with men of low minds. they will always have their religion or pretence of it, but i am mistaken if it is not the gallows or the pillory that more govern their morals than the gospel or the pulpit. after all, atheism may be a system only for the learned. the ignorant of all ages have believed in god. the answer of a philosophical unbeliever though written in the vulgar tongue may probably not reach the vulgar. if argument had prevailed they were long converted from their superstitious belief. the sentiments of atheistical philosophers have long been published. if mischief therefore could ensue to society from such free discussions, that mischief society must long have felt. i think truth should never be hid, but few are those who mind it. i will therefore take upon myself but little importance though i have presumed to preface an answer from a philosophical unbeliever to letters which you, dr. priestley have written. if you deem that answer detrimental to the interests of society, you will recollect that you invite the proposal of objections and promise to answer all as well as you can. if you should happen to be exasperated by the freedom of the language or the contrariety of the sentiment, this answer will gain weight in proportion as you lose in the credit of a tolerant divine. therefore if you reply at all, reply with candour and with coolness; heed the matter and not the man, though i subscribe my name, and am reverend sir, your friend, admirer, and humble servant, william hammon. _oxford-street, no._ . _jan._ , . answer from a philosophical unbeliever. it is the general fashion to believe in a god, the maker of all things, or at least to pretend to such a belief, to define the nature of this existing deity by the attributes which are given to him, to place the foundation of morality on this belief, and in idea at least, to connect the welfare of civil society with the acknowledgement of such a being. few however are those, who being questioned can give any tolerable grounds for their assertions upon this subject, and hardly any two among the learned agree in their manner of proving what each will separately hold to be indisputably clear. the attributes of a deity are more generally agreed upon, though less the subject of proof, than his existence. as to morality, those very people who are moral will not deny, they would be so though there were not a god, and there never yet has been a civil lawgiver, who left crimes to be punished by the author of the universe; not even the profanation of oaths upon the sacredness of which so much is built in society, and which yet is said to be a more immediate offence against the deity than any other that can be named. the method which dr. priestley has taken to prove the existence of a god, is by arguing from _effect_ to _cause_. he explodes that other pretended proof _a priori_ which has so much raised the fame of dr. clarke among other theologians. as to the attributes of the deity, dr. priestley is not quite so confident in his proofs there; and the most amiable one, the most by mortals to be wished for, the _benevolence_ of god he almost gives up, or owns at least there is not so much proof of it as of his other attributes. his observations are divided into several letters, this is one answer given to the whole; for it would be to no purpose to reply to topics upon which the writers are agreed. what therefore is not contradicted here, dr. priestley may in general take to be allowed; but to obviate doubts and to allow his argument every force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof, inadmissible or inconclusive. the conclusion will contain some observations upon the whole. truisms. . "effects have their adequate causes." . "nothing begins to exist without a cause foreign to itself." . "no being could make himself, for that would imply that he existed and did not exist at the same time." . if one horse, or one tree, had a cause, all had." . something must have existed from all eternity. . "atoms cannot be arranged, in a manner expressive of the most exquisite design, without competent intelligence having existed somewhere." . "the idea of a supreme author is more pleasing to a virtuous mind, than that of a blind fate and fatherless deserted world." . "the condition of mankind is in a state of melioration, as far as misery arises from ignorance, for as the world grows older it must grow wiser, if wisdom arises from experience." . "all moral virtue is only a modification of benevolence." . "virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice." . "no instance of any revival." . "atheists are not to think themselves quite secure with respect to a future life." . "thought might as well depend upon the construction of the brain, as upon any invisible substance extraneous to the brain." . "if the works of god had a beginning, there must have been a time when he was inactive." . "where happiness is wanting in the creation i would rather conclude the author had mist of his design than that he wanted benevolence." false assertions. . "a cause needs not be prior to an effect." . "if the species of man had no beginning, it would not follow that it had no cause." . "a cause may be cotemporary with the effect." . "an atheist must believe he was introduced into the world without design." absurdities. . "a general mass of sensation consisting of various elements borrowed from the past and the future." . "since sensation is made up of past, present, and future, the infant feeling for the moment only, the man recollecting what is past and anticipating the future, and as the present sensation must therefore in time bear a less proportion to the general mass of sensation than it did, so at last all temporary affections, whether of pain or pleasure become wholly inconsiderable." . "the great book of nature and the book of revelation both lie open before us." . "a conclusion above our comprehension." . "a whole eternity already past." . "since a finite being cannot be infinitely happy, because he must then be infinite in knowledge and power; and as all limitation of happiness must consist in degree of happiness or mixture of misery, the deity can alone determine which mode of limitation is best." . "we have reason to be thankful for our pains and distress." . "if the divine being had made man at first as happy as he can be after all the feelings and ideas of a painful and laborious life, it must have been in violation of all general laws and by a constant and momentary interference of the deity." . "it is better the divine agency should not be very conspicuous." . "if good prevails on the whole, creation being infinite, happiness must be infinite, and god comprehending the whole, will only perceive the balance of good, and that will be happiness unmixed with misery." . "if a man is happy in the whole he is infinitely happy in the whole of his existence." . "although all things fall alike to all men and no distinction is made between the righteous and the wicked, and even though the wicked derive an advantage from their vices, yet this is consistent with a state of moral government by a being of infinite wisdom and power." . "as ploughing is the means of having a harvest, though god has predetermined whether there should be a harvest or not, so prayer is the means of obtaining good from god, although that good is predetermined upon; it is therefore no more absurd to pray than to plough." . "notwithstanding happiness is the necessary consequence of health, yet man's happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings." . "evil is necessarily connected with and subservient to good, although in the next world there will be all good and no evil." . "by reason we can discover the necessary existence of a deity, yet to be a sceptic on that subject is the first step to be a christian, because reason not sufficiently proving it we fly to revealed truth." . "the power, which a man has by the comprehensiveness of his mind to enjoy the future, has no apparent limits." . "it is of no avail in the argument concerning the existence of a deity, that we have no conception of him, since it does not imply impossibility of his existence that we have no idea at all upon the subject." inadmissible or inconclusive. . "the question of the existence of a deity is important." . "a theist has a higher sense of personal dignity than an atheist." . "the conduct of an atheist must give concern to those who are not so." . "an atheist believes himself to be, at his death, for ever excluded from returning life." . "there are more atheists than unbelievers in revelation." . "men of letters may have the same bias to incredulity as others to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of ideas, as well as other persons though in a less degree." . "whoever first made a thing, for example a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use." . "if a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and men." . "all the visible universe, as far as we can judge, bears the marks of being one work, and therefore must have had a cause of infinite power and intelligence." . "we might as well say a table had no cause, as that the world had none." . "a being originally and necessarily capable of comprehending itself, it is not improper to call infinite, for we can have no idea of any bounds to it's knowledge or power." . "a series of finite causes cannot possibly be carried back _ad infinitum_." . "our imagination revolts at the idea of an intellectual soul of the universe, that is, of an intelligence resulting from arrangement." . "the actual existence of the universe compels us to come at last to an _originally existent and intellectual being_, because if the immediate maker of the universe has not existed from all eternity, he must have derived his being and senses from one who has, and that being we call god." . "god must be present to all his works, if we admit no power can act but where it is, he must therefore exist every where, because his works are every where." . "as no being can unmake or materially change himself (at least none can annihilate himself) so god is unchangeable, for no being god made can change him and no other being can exist but what god made." . "two infinite intelligent beings of the same kind would coincide, therefore there can only be one god." . "nothing can be more evident, than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other from all eternity." . "that happiness is the design of the creation because health is designed and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule is as evident as that the design of the mill-wright must have been, that his machine should not be obstructed." . "as a state of sickness is comparatively rare with a state of health, happiness the result of health, and the end of the creation happiness, so the end of the creation is already in a great measure answered." . "pleasure tends to continue and propagate itself, pain to check and exterminate itself." . "as our knowledge and power in respect to shunning pains and procuring pleasures advance with our experience, nothing is wanting to enable us to exterminate all pains, but a continuance of being. . "our enjoyments continually increase in real value from infancy to old age." . "a future moral distribution is probable, because god is infinitely powerful and wise." . "since reverence, gratitude, obedience, confidence are duties to men, so they are to god; and as we pray to men, so we should pray to god." . "prescience, predetermination and infinite benevolence are no argument against prayer to the deity." . "a wish produced by nature is evidence of the thing wished for, but a future state is wished for, therefore there is evidence of a future state." . "as we have no idea how we came originally to be produced, for what we know to the contrary our reproduction may be as much the course of nature as our original production.." . "a gloom and melancholy belong more to atheists than to devout people." observations. dr. priestley will hardly doubt, after this collection from his work that it has at least been read before it is attempted to be answered. it is in the writer's power to quote the page and line for each assertion, but it would be stuffing this publication with unnecessary references. dr. priestley will be able to know what are his own sentiments and what not without recurring to his printed letters. there has been also another difficulty in classing the several exceptions under the different heads; what is false, what is absurd, and what is inadmissible bordering so nearly on each other. nice distinctions cannot in such respect be made, but the whole together form the main argument which is to be answered. the first and principal assertion is, that effects have their adequate cause; it is then added, that the universe is an effect, that it therefore must have a cause, and to this cause in the english language is given the name of god. this proposition is true, provided the universe is an effect, but that is a _postulatum_ without concession and without a proof. this _original being_ he advances in another place to be that only something which existed uncaused from all eternity, and which could not have been a being, like a man or a table, incapable of comprehending, itself, for such existences would require another superior being. but if the universe is not adopted as an effect, if it is taken as existing from all eternity, the universe becomes an intelligent being, and there or no where is the deity sought after. such a being we may properly speak of and reason upon. the whole is subjected to our sensations and our experience. but of his own _uncaused being_ dr. p. says we cannot properly speak. is not that alone an argument of there being no such thing? his friend dr. clarke says, we cannot have an idea of an impossible thing. now this discovered deity is allowed to be that of which we can have no idea. so far at least it is allied to the impossible. as to the argument of cause and effect, the latter certainly implies the former; but when we give the name of effect to any thing, we must be certain it is an effect, for we may be so far mistaken perhaps as to call that an effect which is a cause, at least what is an effect to-day may be a cause to-morrow, as in the instance of generation; for though a son does not beget his father, he too has his offspring in which he may be said to live over again, and if we are to argue only from experience, most probably that alone is the resurrection and the life to come. but if it is contended that our experience relates only to finite causes, or causes incapable of comprehending themselves, it must at the same time be allowed, that all our reasoning is founded only on experience. this dr. p. at least allows even while he keeps reasoning about a deity, which he calls an infinite cause capable of comprehending itself, though nobody is capable of comprehending it, and of which we therefore can have no experience. yet he will assert, that _thinking_ persons seldom are convinced by _thinking_. this is odd language for a reasoner. when another philosopher or divine attempts to prove a god in their own way, dr. priestley can readily see his fallacies and absurdities. dr. clarke, the former great champion of god almighty, is made very light of. he thought, foolish man, to prove the existence of a deity merely by our having an idea of that existence, which would go to prove the truth of every unnatural conceit that ever entered into the heart of man; and contended farther that it would be equally absurd to suppose no deity as two and two did not make four. it would indeed be absurd, says dr. priestley provided we agreed that the universe is a _caused_ existence, for god is the name we give for the cause of the universe, which in such case must exist. it is only denying that the universe is a caused existence, and then the absurdity is taken away. dr. priestley, for the sake of making dr. clarke absurd, will readily allow the denial capable of being made; and for the same purpose he seems gravely to have taken upon himself to prove that school-boy's difficulty, that two and two do make four, for he says, that four is the term agreed upon in language to be given to the sum total of two and two, and that to deny the deity is at least not so absurd as to say that two and two do not make four. dr. priestley says he finds no difficulty in excluding every thing from the mind except space and duration. he allows then at least, that there is no manifest absurdity in supposing there is no deity, for nothing can be proved by reasoning if the conclusion can be denied without absurdity, nor can there be a manifest absurdity in denying the existence of what there is no difficulty in excluding from the mind. yet after all he adds (somewhat inconsistently) that we cannot exclude the idea of a deity, if we do not exclude an existent universe. this deity he defines to be a most simple being; simple and infinite; terms which but ill agree together. the infinite or boundless existence of this pretended deity is a property more insisted upon than any other, and whatever other properties are given to him they are all in the infinite degree. the properties alledged to be proved are, eternity, infinite knowledge and power, unchangeableness, unity, omnipotence, action from all eternity, and independence. benevolence and moral government are also ascribed to him but confessedly with a less degree of certainty, though the most desireable of all his given properties. upon the subject of benevolence, dr. priestley only advances, that where it is not proved by the happiness of his creatures to exist, he would rather chuse to conclude he mist of his design, that is, he wanted power or knowledge, than that he wanted benevolence. if he means to argue that it is more rational to conclude this deity wanted power and knowledge than that he wanted benevolence, and because dr. priestley fancies himself to have proved the deity cannot want the two former, he concludes the deity cannot want the latter, as the less probable for him to be deficient in, his argument is no more a truism. as a wish, that the deity may not want benevolence, in that sense let him take it as agreed upon. he allows that misery in the human species proves malevolence in the deity, and happiness the contrary. all the proof adduced in favour of benevolence is in asserting that throughout the universe, good is more predominant than evil. the infinite extent of benevolence he will allow incapable of proof; but then it is said that the evils which mankind endure are not so great as might be inflicted upon them; that virtue to vice, happiness to misery, health to sickness bear at least equal proportions. that lesser evils exist instead of greater is indeed but a poor proof in the favour of the benevolence of an all-powerful being. or grant, that good is more predominant than evil, this surely is no proof neither of the benevolence of a kind and all-powerful being. yet dr. priestley adds that the general benevolence of the deity is unquestionable. how unquestionable? it is questioned by the author himself, and he declares he cannot prove it. after this he asks, who will pretend to dictate to such a being? he might in the same stile conclude that no objection deserved a reply. the whole of this is absurd; but when the doctor begins to feel enthusiasm he is like the rest of the ecclesiastical arguers. they reason themselves into imaginary beings with more imaginary properties and then fall down and worship them. god is said to have made man in the image of himself. if he has done so, man is up with him, for he in return makes god in his own image. much as the imagination of one man differs from another, so differs the god of each devotee. they are all idolaters or anthropomorphites to a man; there is none but an atheist that is not the one or the other. the admission of evil into the world is an argument so exceedingly conclusive against at least a good deity, that it is curious to see how dr. priestley studies to get rid of that difficulty. he partly denies the fact, at least he says there is more good than evil in the world. at last he even turns evil into good, or what ought to be the effects of one, into what ought to be the effects of the other, as he says pain is necessary for happiness. but if pain is, as he says, in this world necessary for happiness, why will it not still be necessary hereafter? he answers, because by that time we shall have experienced pain enough for a future supply of happiness. if it is objected, why have we not had pain enough by the time each of us are twenty or thirty years of age, instead of waiting 'till our deaths at so many different ages? he can only finish his argument by allowing that the ways of god are inscrutable to man, that every thing is for the best and refer us to _candide_ for the rest of his philosophy; nor will he ever resolve the question, "if evil and pain are good and necessary now, why will they not always be so? take a view of human existence, and who can even allow, that there is more happiness than misery in the world? dr. priestley thinks to give the turn of the scale to happiness, by making it depend intirely upon health, notwithstanding he says in another place that human sensations are a mass collected from the past, present and future, and as a man grows up the present goes on to bear a less proportion to the other two. it would indeed be a short but lame way of proving that "happiness is the design of the creation" because health is designed, and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule." many a healthy man has certainly been unhappy, or else had a man better study health than virtue. if the mill-wright make a poor machine he is a poor workman; god in like manner designing health and introducing sickness is but a poor physician. in another place dr. priestley having considered, that he had asserted that human sensations arise from ideas of the past and future as well as the present, finds himself obliged to alter his notions of happiness, so far as to say that happiness is more intellectual than corporeal. but it is rather extraordinary to assert at the same time, that happiness is the necessary consequence of health, and that happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings. surely health, if any thing, is corporeal. another curious fancy about pain and happiness is, that our finite nature not admitting infinite or unlimited happiness we must leave it to the wisdom of the deity to determine which is best for us (since happiness must be diminished) a little pain to be added to it or somewhat of happiness to be taken away. it hardly requires the skill of a benevolent deity to determine which is best for the creatures he has made (and whom he wishes to be as happy as their finite nature will admit) to lessen their degree of happiness or mix therein a proportion of misery. to conclude he asks, "how it is possible to teach children caution, but by feeling pain?" it is easy to allow in answer, that it might not perhaps be possible in us. but he is arguing about the benevolence of a deity. it was possible, he will allow, in him to have given these children knowledge without pain, at least if he continues to him the attribute he allows of omnipotence. next he observes that parents suspend at times their benefits to their offspring, when persuaded they are not for their good; so does the deity. but before this argument holds he must therefore say, it is not for the good of man to be made happy now, and that the deity can be infinitely benevolent without willing either infinite or universal happiness. take the argument any way, it must go against his benevolence or his power; and the same observations hold as to his love of justice, whilst he is so tardy in punishing offenders. after observing that things are in an improving state, dr. priestley allows, that the moral government of the universe is not perfect. from thence he proceeds to assert, that atheists may believe it within the course of nature, that men as moral agents may after death be re-produced, and therefore that there may be a future state though there be no god, because he reasons it may be in the course of nature. this allows that the course of nature may be as it is without a god, and that there is therefore no _natural_ proof of a deity. his farther argument on this head is, that "things usually happen in a state of nature that are proper. a future state is proper. (to carry on the supposed state of melioration and complete the moral government of the universe.) it is therefore probable." this is an argument perhaps more of wish than probability, but let it have such force as belongs to it. it is not the wish of the answerer by supporting atheism to give encouragement to immorality, but should he unwarily or with weak minds do so, the argument of the deity's existence is independent of such considerations. it were better to seek another support for morality than a belief in god; for the moral purpose in believing a deity (an invisible being, maker of all, our moral governor, who will hereafter take cognizance of our conduct,) is not a little checked by considering, that he leaves the proof of his very existence so ambiguous, that even men with a habit of piety upon them cannot but have their doubts, whilst on this existence so much of the moral purpose depends. if this is not an argument against the morality of a deity, it is at all events one against his _infinite_ morality though moral is an attribute to be given to him in the infinite degree as much as any other. it is said, infinite intelligence must have procured a necessary fitness of things, and that this forms morality. "his will could not be biassed by other influence; therefore he must have willed morality, because necessarily fit. then comes infinite power, and yet no morality in the world or a very small portion of it. we cannot to any purpose, do what we will, argue against experience. that it must be, yet that it is not. what must be, will be. if it is not, there is no _must_ in the case. it is next said, that virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice. this also is but a weak argument for the moral government of the universe, unless it be for a moral government by chance. virtue ought to be the certain and immediate parent of happiness, if a moral governor existed with an uncontrouled dominion. if virtue tends to happiness, or has only a better chance of doing so, it is allowed, that a sensible atheist should hold it right to be virtuous. the latter end of a righteous man is certainly more likely to be happy than that of an unrighteous one. but let an atheist be righteous, and he can be as certain of happiness in his latter end as any other. let another life be desirable, as it certainly is, his doubts upon it will not prevent it. who could wish an end better or more happy than that of mr. hume, who most indubitably was an atheist. but if an atheist be not so good as a theist, dr. priestley perhaps, will allow him to be better than a sceptic, as any principles for systematising nature are better than none at all. a theist is not without his doubts as well as the sceptic; an atheist, once firmly becoming so, will never doubt more; for we may venture to say no miracles or new appearances will present themselves to him to draw his belief aside. still every thing is as god intended it--so asserts dr. priestley; and therefore it cannot by him be denied that crimes and vices, are of his intention. the theist exclaims in triumph, "he that made the eye, must he not see?" but who made the eye? or grant that god made the eye, which can only see in the light, must he necessarily see in the dark? it is again asserted, "the power which formed an eye had something in view as certainly as he that constructed a telescope. if any being formed any eye, grant it. but if the eye exists necessarily as a part of nature; as much as any other matter, or combination of matter, necessarily existed, the result of the argument is intirely different. it is far from being a necessary part of the atheist's creed to exclude design from the universe. he places that design in the energy of nature, which dr. priestley gives to some other extraneous being. it is rather inconsistent also in him to say, that an atheist rightly judging of his own situation upon his own principles, ought not to hold himself quite secure from a future state of responsibility and existences, and yet to say he must in his own ideas hold himself soon to be excluded for ever from life. as to the immutability of the deity, it is difficult to guess how that is proved, except by the argument of _lucus a non lucendo_, because every thing is changing here; therefore the deity never changes; which is neither an argument _a priori_ nor _posteriore_, but _sui generis_, merely applicable to the deity. from the imperial infinite intelligence of the deity an argument is formed of his unity. dr. priestley says, "that two _infinite_ intelligent beings would coincide, and therefore that there can only be one such being." two parallels will never coincide. that is one of the first axioms of euclid, in whom dr. priestley believes as much as in his bible. if the beings are infinite in extent and magnitude they must certainly coincide, but if they are only infinite in intelligence, it does not seem to be necessary that they should. the ubiquity of god is proved in this short way: "god made every thing, god controuls every thing. no power can act but where it is. therefore god is present every where. the workman must certainly be present at his work, but when the work is done he may go about other business. if all the properties of matter, such as gravity, elasticity and other such existed only by the perpetual leave and agency of the deity, it may be argued he is in all places where matter is. space, empty space will still exist without him. in this mode of proof dr. priestley must, contrary to the newtonian system argue for a _plenum_, before he proves the ubiquity. he cannot exclude space from his mind, nor can he exclude gravity from matter. yet can he admit matter as well as space to be eternal, because he will not allow the inactivity of god." "if god's works had a beginning he must have been _for a whole eternity_ inactive." he seems to have an odd notion of eternity, for he there allows it could have an end. the argument would be fairer in concluding "he must have been inactive _or doing something else_." the deity set up, if not the creator of matter, is at least the matter of it, nor will his advocates by any means allow him to be material himself. they see some incongruity in admitting one piece of matter to be so complete a master of another. however dr. priestley and other arguers for a deity would do well to consider, that whatever is not matter, is a space that matter may occupy. therefore if god is not matter, and also is not space, he is nothing. dr. priestley allows matter eternal, and its properties of gravity, elasticity, electricity and others equally eternal. he says directly, that matter cannot exist without it's perpetually corresponding powers. the adjustment of those powers he places in the deity. but as we never see matter without the adjustment of those properties as well as the existence of them, this drives him at last to say, the deity must also have created matter, according to his system eternally created it, cotemporarily with himself. ideas absurd and irreconcileable! discoursing upon the hypothesis of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms" dr. priestley asks, "what reason we have to think that small masses of matter can have power without communication _ab extra_?" let this question be returned, "have we not reason to think so from attraction the most common property in matter." to get rid of this difficulty he will not allow an atom of matter to be possessed originally of the most simple powers, though he is ready to allow matter to have been eternal. a magnet according to this system must sometime have existed without its magnetic power. he concludes there must be some original existent being. he shall be allowed many original existent beings if it pleases him. a man may be an originally existent being, as well as any other. he is superior to other animals in this world. in like manner there may be allowed superior beings to man (as most probably there are) and yet those superior beings not have made man. dr. priestley will have it, that all bodies are moved by external force. that does not seem quite necessary. motion may as well be asserted to be originally a property of matter, or its true natural state and rest a deprivation of that property, as that rest should be its natural state. hume thought so and hume was no great fool, notwithstanding dr. priestley makes so light of him. in fact matter never is, and therefore most probably never was found to be in a state of rest. nor has dr. priestley any reason to suppose gravity, elasticity and electricity to have been imprest on bodies by a superior being, and not originally inherent in matter, unless to favour his own hypothesis of a deity. he absolutely says matter could not have had those powers without a communication from a superior and intelligent being. if matter is perceived in regulated motion, it is added bluntly, that it must be by a mover possessed of a competent intelligence, and that a being therefore of such power and intelligence _must_ exist. whoever finds no difficulty in believing the contrary will find as little difficulty in mr. hume's hypothesis, that motion might as well as other powers and properties have been originally inherent in matter, or at least have been a necessary result of some matter acting upon another. it has always been a doubt with theists, whether they can better prove their god's existence by moral or physical considerations. dr. priestley seems to think the _forte_ of the argument lies in the latter proof, and lays particular stress upon his observation respecting cause and effect, which therefore cannot here be so readily dismissed. he makes great reference to the works of art. theists are always for turning their god into an overgrown man. anthropomorphites has long been a term applied to them. they give him hands and eyes nor can they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal being. in which, as before has been said, they are very right, for there can only be in the world body and the space which bodies occupy. but granting this great workman to have done so much, is it not quite an incontrovertible proposition, that whoever first made a thing, as, for example, a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use. dr. priestley speaks more correctly in another part, by saying, he must have been _capable_ of comprehending it. the nature and use of things are often found out after they are made and by different persons than the makers of them. neither is there any analogy between the works of art, as a table or house, and of nature, as a man or tree. therefore there can be no arguing from one to another by analogy. hume observes that the former works are done by reason and design, and the latter by generation and vegetation, and therefore arguing from effect to causes, it is probable, that the universe is generated or vegetated. at least after all the observations about a table, it may be modestly asked, whether there is not some difference between a table and the world? the doctor will also find some difficulty in explaining the propriety of any argument of analogy between men and metals, which he does not at other times scruple to make? a _gratis_ assertion is first made, that all things we see are effects; then because we see one thing caused, every thing must have been caused. his conclusion of the argument is still more curious, "because every thing was caused there must have been something that was not caused." the cause ought to be proportioned to the effect. the effect is not infinite. why then attribute infinity to the cause? this is hume's argument. priestley calls it shortly unworthy of a philosopher. let others judge! but surely, with all this infinity it may be asked, why may not there have been an infinity of causes? another argument is, that being unable to account, for what is, by any thing visible, we must have recourse to something invisible, and that invisible power is what he calls god. apply this argument to gravity, and the external force that is said to cause every stone to fall is god. but if nothing visible can to us account for the operations of nature, why must we have recourse to what is invisible? why necessary to account at all for them? or why may not visible things account for them, although this person or another cannot tell which? if nothing can begin to exist of itself or by the energy of material nature, it is more consistent to allow a plurality of deities, than one immediate deity. an equality in a plurality of deities might be objectionable. but that is not at all necessary, rather the contrary; and so was the pagan theory, which is not so absurd as the modern one. this universe or mundane system may be the work of one hand, another of another, and so on. where is the absurdity of that? if the universe is applied to the solar system, there is an appearance of its being formed by one design, and in that stile it might be said to be the work of one hand. but this deity is asserted to be infinite, and to have made all other worlds and universes, though it does not appear by any unity of design that all other worlds and universes are one work with this. dr. priestley himself allows that reason would drive us to require a cause of the deity. he is himself obliged to conclude, after all his reasoning, that we must acquiesce in our inability of having any idea on the subject; that is, how god could exist without a prior cause. at the same time he says the deity cannot have a cause, and therefore we cannot reason about him. why then all his own reasoning? we make a deity ourselves, fall down and worship him. it is the molten calf over again. idolatry is still practised. the only difference is that now we worship idols of our imagination; before of our hands. "still we must necessarily rest at a being that is infinite;" that is, when our reason drives us to the admission of an infinite cause we must necessarily stop finitely in our career. not content with this conclusion he adds, that we cannot help perceiving the existence of this cause, though he owns that it is not an object of our conceptions. but even the theist's argument does not necessarily drive us to the admission of an infinite cause. the argument is, "because there is a man, and man has intelligence, we must necessarily admit of a being of infinitely superior intelligence." would it not be nearly as well to argue, "because there is a goose, therefore there must be a man." what is there more which hinders a series of finite causes to be carried back _ad infinitum_, than that the reasoner or contemplator of the course of nature is tired. if this eternal series could not exist, a deity might with some propriety be said to follow. put the argument into a syslogistic form. "the universe shews design;" "it is absurd to suppose an infinite succession of finite causes;" "therefore there is an uncaused intelligent cause of this universe." deny the second assertion and the problem is destroyed. so far from its being difficult to suppose an eternity, it is the most difficult thing in the world to suppose any thing but an eternity. a mind, not afraid to think, will find it the most easy contemplation in the world to dwell upon. it is at least a bold assertion, that _nothing can be more evident_ than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other by succession from all eternity. surely to this may be answered, that it is more evident that two and two make four. but dr. priestley goes on to say, "that the primary cause of a man cannot be a man, any more than the cause of a sound can be a sound." experience shews us all sound is an effect of a cause. does experience shew us more of a man than that he came from a man and a woman? to allow therefore that all men must have come from a man and a woman is as far as we can argue upon the subject, whilst in reasoning we trust to experience. an argument is well built upon similarity, therefore it is probable if one horse had a cause all horses had. but will not the argument be more consonant to itself, in supposing all horses had the same cause, and as one is seen to be generated from a horse and a mare so all were from all eternity. it were a better argument in favour of a deity or some invisible agent to shew that a new animal came every now and then into life, without any body's knowing how or where. it is allowed by priestley and all other reasoners, that the most capital argument that can be formed in support of any thesis is to be built upon experience, or analogy to experience. yet will many of these reasoners, dr. priestley at least for one, contend at the same time for the probability of a future life, when no instance can be given of any revival whatsoever. the same will contend, that their deity can at pleasure form new species of animals, though in fact we never do see new beings come into existence. we ought only to argue from experience; and experience would teach us, that the species of all animals has eternally existed. grant that we do not know, whether man has been eternal, or from a time, is it therefore because we do not know, that we must say he came from god? that unknown being, as he is sometimes pompously and ridiculously called! the devil is equally an unknown being. the admission of evil under a good deity opens a ready door to the manichean system, which seems much more rational than simple deism. the following chain of reasoning, as used by dr. priestley, is well linked together to prove the weight and force of experience in reasoning, but it proves nothing more. "chairs and tables are made by men or beings of similar powers, because we see them made by men; and we cannot suppose them made by a tree or come into being of themselves, because that is against experience. no one will say one table might make another, or that one man might make another. we see nothing come into being without an adequate cause." yet for this adequate cause we are at the same time referred to a belief in a causeless secret invisible agent, and to our own experience, for a proof of his nature. dr. priestley allows, that what is _visible_ in man may be the feat of all his powers, for it is (as he says,) a rule in philosophy not to multiply causes without necessity. but he affirms that what is _visible_ in the universe cannot be the feat of intelligence. this is breaking the very rule of reasoning which he himself has chosen to adopt; and he gives no other reason for it, than because we do not see the universe think as we do man. sensible of this dilemma, soon afterwards he inclines to allow principle of thought to the universe, for he adds, that if we allow it, yet the universe has so much the appearance of other works of design that we must look out for its author as much as that of a man; and it is allowed that most probably it had the same author. every difficulty vanishes with the energy of nature, or at least is as well accounted for as from an independent deity. it is an usual question to those philosophers, who maintain that the present existence of things is the result of the force and energy of nature acting upon herself, "why this force does not perpetually operate and produce new appearances?" besides that this question may be retorted upon the supporters of a deity, i am thoroughly persuaded, that this force is constantly in action, and that every change which animals and vegetables undergo, whether of dissolution or renovation, is a manifest and undeniable proof of it. man, and the other beings which occupy this terrestrial globe, are evidently suited to its present state, and an alteration in their habitation, such as that of extreme or excessive heat, would inevitably destroy them. this is so certain, that bones of animals have been dug up which appertain to no species now existing, and which must have perished from an alteration in the system of things taking place too considerable for it to endure. whenever the globe shall come to that temperament fit for the life of that lost species, whatever energy in nature produced it originally, if even it had a beginning, will most probably be sufficient to produce it again. is not the reparation of vegitable life the spring equally wonderful now as its first production? yet this is a plain effect of the influence of the sun, whose absence would occasion death by a perpetual winter. so far this question from containing, in my opinion, a formidable difficulty to the epicurean system, i cannot help judging the continual mutability of things as an irrefragable proof of this eternal energy of nature. those who ask, why the great changes in the state of things are not more frequent, would absurdly require them to ensue within the short space of their existence, forgetting that millions of ages are of no importance to the whole mass of matter, though beings of some particular forms may find a wish and an advantage to prolong the term of their duration under that form. if it is said, nature or the energy of nature is another name for the deity, then may dr. priestley and his answerer shake hands; the one is no more an atheist than the other. and if it is observed that the energy of nature having produced men may be capable of re-producing them, so that an atheist is not sure to escape punishment for his crimes, it is easy to say in return, neither is a deist sure. a good atheist has no more reason to be afraid to be re-produced than a good deist or a christian. it may be useful for both of them to be good. if necessary let it again be repeated, that it is not at all meant in this answer to make atheism a plea or protection for immorality. that is a charge long and most unjustly put upon the poor undefended atheist. the knowledge of a god and even the belief of a providence are found but too slight a barrier against human passions, which are apt to fly out as licentiously as they would otherwise have done. all, which this creed can in reality produce, scarce goes beyond some exterior exercises, which are vainly thought to reconcile man to god. it may make men build temples, sacrifice victims, offer up prayers, or perform something of the like nature; but never break a criminal intrigue, restore an ill gotten wealth, or mortify the lust of man. lust being the source of every crime, it is evident (since it reigns as much among idolaters and anthropomorphites, as among atheists) idolaters and anthropomorphites must be as susceptible of all of crimes as atheists, and neither the one set nor the other could form societies, did not a curb, stronger then that of religion, namely human laws, repress their perverseness. if no other remedy were applied to vice than the remonstrances of divines, a great city such as london, would in a fortnight's time, fall into the most horrid disorders. whatever may be the difference of faith, vice predominates alike with the christian and the jew, with the deist and the atheist. so like are they in their actions, that one would think they copied one another. religion may make men follow ceremonies; little is the inconvenience found in them. a great triumph truly for religion to make men baptise or fast? when did it make men do virtuous actions for virtue's sake, or practise fewer inventions to get rich, where riches could not be acquired without poverty to others? the true principle most commonly seen in human actions, and which philosophy will cure sooner than religion, is the natural inclination of man for pleasure, or a taste contracted for certain objects by prejudice and habit. these prevail in whatsoever faith a man is educated, or with whatever knowledge he may store his mind. but it will be said, those who commit crimes are atheists at the time at least they do so. but an atheist cannot be superstitious, and criminals are often so at the very moment of their crimes. religious persuasion men are not doubted to have when they vent their rage upon others of a different way of thinking, when they express a dread of danger or a zeal for ceremonies. these at least are not virtues; and few indeed must be those, who at any time are really theists, if their faith is lost or forgotten every time they have a mind to indulge a vitious passion. to support still the efficacy of religion in making men virtuous is to oppose metaphysical reasoning to the truth of fact; it is like the philosopher denying motion, and being refuted by one of his scholars walking across the room. if then it is true, as history and the whole course of human life shew it is, that men can still plunge themselves into all sorts of crimes, though they are persuaded of the truth of religion, which is made to inform them that god punishes sin and rewards good actions, it cannot but be suspected that religion even encourages crimes, by the hopes it gives of pardon through the efficacy of prayer; at all events it must be granted, that those who hold up a belief in god as a sufficient proof and character of a good life are most egregiously mistaken. some theists may have lighter sense of personal dignity than some atheists. if the theist thinks himself allied to and connected with the deity he may plume himself upon his station; but how apt are those worshipers of a god, instead of having a high sense of personal dignity, to debase themselves into the most abject beings, dreading even the shadow of their own phantom. an atheist feeling himself to be a link in the grand chain of nature, feels his relative importance and dreads no imaginary being. an atheist, who is so from inattention and without intelligence, may indeed feel himself as much debased as the meanest and most humble theist. another argument against atheists is, that where men are atheists it is generally found that their usual turn of thinking and habits of life have inclined to make them so. is not this to be turned upon theists? but granting that the idea of a supreme author is more pleasing, and that the argument with respect to the existence or non-existence of a god was in _equilibrio_, it is not therefore right to conclude that the mind ought to be determined by this or any other bias. nor is it quite clear if there is no god (by which term let it again be noticed, is meant a being of supreme intelligence, the contriver of the material universe and yet no part of the material system) that the world in which man inhabits is either fatherless or deserted. the wisdom of nature supplies in reality what is only hoped for from the protection of the deity. if the world has so good a mother, a father may well be spared especially such a haughty jealous, and vindictive one as god is most generally represented to be. dr. priestley being clear in his opinion; that the being of a god is capable of being proved by reason, is not so weak as some of his fellow-labourers, who hold the powers of reason in so low estimation as to be incapable of themselves to arrive at almost any truth. he must however allow, if reason proves a deity and his attributes there was less use of revelation to prove them. but the learned advocates of a deity differ greatly among themselves, whether his existence is capable of being ascertained by fixt principles of reason. after such a difference and the instance of so many great men in all ages, from democritus downward, who have confidently denied the being of a god, whose arguments the learned dr. cudworth, in the last century, only by fully and fairly stating, with all the answers in his power to give (though his zeal in religion was never doubted) was thought by other divines to have given a weight to atheism not well to be overturned, it is surprising that it should be the common belief of this day, that an argument in support of atheism cannot stand a moment, and that even no man in his senses can ever hold such a doctrine. all that epicurus and lucretius have so greatly and convincingly said is swept away in a moment by these better reasoners, who yet scruple not to declare, with dr. priestley, that what they reason about is not the subject of human understanding. but let it be asked, is it not absurd to reason with a man about that of which that same man asserts we have no idea at all? yet will dr. priestley argue, and say it is of no importance, whether the person with whom he argues has a conception or not of the subject. "having no ideas includes no impossibility," therefore he goes on with his career of words to argue about an unseen being with another whom he will allow to have no idea of the subject and yet it shall be of no avail in the dispute, whether he has or no, or whether he is capable or incapable of having any. reason failing, the passions are called upon, and the imagined god is represented at one time, with all the terrors of a revengeful tyrant, at another with all the tenderness of an affectionate parent. shall then such a tremendous being with such a care for the creatures he has made, suffer his own existence to be a perpetual doubt? if the course of nature does not give sufficient proof, why does not the hand divine shew itself by an extraordinary interposition of power? it is allowed miracles ought not to be cheap or plenty. one or two at least every thousand years might be admitted. but this is a perpetual standing miracle, that such a being as the depicted god, the author of nature and all its works, should exist and yet his existence be perpetually in doubt, or require a jesus, a mahomet or a priestley to reveal it. is not the writing of this very answer to the last of those three great luminaries of religion a proof, that no god, or no _such_ god at least, exists. hear the admirable words of the author of "the system of nature;" _comment permet il qu'un mortel comme moi ose attaquer ses droits, ses titres, son existence meme?_ dr. clarke, mr. hume and helvetius, are writers whose arguments for and against a godhead dr. priestley has much noted. the former says, "the deity must have been infinite, if self-existent, because all things in the universe are made by him." are all things in the universe infinite? why an infinite maker of a finite work? it is juster to argue, that whatever is self-existent must have been eternal. nor is there any great objection to the converse of the proposition properly taken, that whatever is not self-existent must have been created and therefore cannot have been eternal. if this is fair arguing, matter cannot according to dr. priestley's system have been created and be eternal also. but dr. priestley has no inclination to reconcile his opinions with those of dr. clarke. he has chosen a fairer method, and that is, to refute the arguments of former asserters of a deity as well as to establish his own. dr. clarke he most effectually exposes where he enters upon the subject of space. it seems as if dr. clarke, having asserted that the deity necessarily existed, had a mind that nothing else should necessarily exist but the deity; and conscious that space at least also necessarily existed, he makes universal space an attribute of the deity. with this reverie in his head he raises a syllogism of complete nonsense (_vide priestley's letters_, p. .) where he supposes space to be nothing though he also supposes it to be an attribute of the deity. making it therefore an attribute of the deity and knowing that space is eternal and unmeasurable he takes upon himself thereby also clearly to have proved that the deity is so. exclude the deity, space will still exist and still be eternal and immense. dr. priestley knew well that dr. clarke's argument in this respect was all a fallacy, and therefore he shews his sense in not adopting it. it is in fact an abuse of terms unworthy of a scientific reasoner. the only argument attempted by dr. clarke, why the deity must have had no cause, is, because it is necessary he should have none. dr. clarke says roundly that necessity is the cause of the existence of the deity. this is very near the language of the ancients, who held that fate controuled the gods. necessity is therefore the first god. why then any other god than necessity? what more has helvetius said than that? it is an old and unanswerable argument that, granting a god and his power infinite, whatever he wills is executed; but man and other animals are unhappy, therefore he does not will they should be happy. or take the argument the other way and it will equally conclude against his power. with regard to mr. hume's famous observations upon the evidence of miracles, dr. priestley thinks to make a short havock of them by observing that new, and therefore miraculous appearances, are continually presenting themselves; but although such new appearances may be instanced, they are not contrary to former experience, only in addition to it. with this allusion to natural philosophy, dr. priestley thinks himself in one short sentence to have discussed all mr. hume's observations upon miracles. _"which is more likely, that the relater of a miracle should have lied or been deceived, or that the thing related should have existed contrary to experience prior and subsequent?"_ let the force of this observation be considered and believe in the history of miracles who can! to give a finishing stroke to poor mr. hume, dr. priestley observes that literary fame was hume's only motive and consolation, as he said himself, in all his laborious enquiries and enlightened writings. at this he exclaims, "what gloomy prospect and poor comfort he must have had at his death!" if so, how much was he the greater man so well to have gone through that last scene! the honour which dr. priestley gives to helvetius, the author of that ingenious and satisfactory work intitled "the system of nature," does credit to his own candour. he applauds him for speaking out, he ought therefore to applaud this answer for the same reason. it is true he seems to have discovered one incongruity in the reasoning of helvetius. the words he imputes to him are, "that nature has no object, because nature acts necessarily; man has an object; yet man also acts necessarily." in the same way nature might have an object though it acted necessarily. but helvetius adds, that the object which man has is a necessary object. the best defence of helvetius (not in behalf of that passage, but of his general system) is to let him speak at large for himself; and the following quotation dr. priestley and the reader may accept as a specimen of the strength and justice of his argument, and as the conclusion of this answer. "theologians tell us, that the disorder and evil, which is seen in the world, is not absolute and real, but relatively and apparently such, and does not disprove the divine wisdom and goodness. but may not one reply, that the goodness and wonderful order which they so much extol, and on which they found their notions of those qualities in god, are in a similar way only relative and apparent. if it be only our co-existence with the causes which surround us, and our manner of perceiving them, that constitute the order of nature for us, and authorise us to attribute wisdom and goodness to the maker of what surround us, should not also our mode of existence and perception authorise us to call what is hurtful to us disorder, and to attribute impotence, ignorance, or malice, to that being which we would suppose to actuate nature. some pretend that the supremely wise god can derive goodness and happiness to us from the midst of those ills which he permits us to undergo in this world. are these men privy counsellors of the divinity, or on what do they found their romantic hopes? they will doubtless say, that they judge of god's conduct by analogy, and that from the present appearance of his wisdom and goodness, they have a right to infer his future wisdom and goodness. but do not the present appearances of his want of wisdom or goodness justify us in concluding, that he will always want them? if they are so often manifestly deficient in this world, what can assure us that they will abound more in the next? this kind of language therefore rests upon no other basis than a prejudiced imagination, and signifies, that some men, having without examination, adopted an opinion that god is good, cannot admit that he will consent to let his creatures remain constantly unhappy. yet this grand hypothesis, of the unalterable felicity of mankind hereafter, is insufficient to justify the divinity in permitting the present sleeting and transitory marks of injustice and disorder. if god can have been unjust for a moment, he has derogated, during that moment at least, from his divine perfection, and is not unchangeably good; his justice then is liable to temporary alteration, and, if this be the case, who can give security for his justice and goodness continuing unalterable in a future life, the notion of which is set up only to exculpate his deviation from those qualities in this? in spite of the experience, which every instant gives the lie to that beneficence which men suppose in god, they continue to call him good. when we bewail the miserable victims of those disorders and calamities that so often overwhelm our species, we are confidently told that these ills are but apparent, and that if our short-sighted mind could fathom the depths of divine wisdom, we should always behold the greatest blessings result from what we denominate evil. how despicable is so frivolous an answer! if we can find no good but in such things as affect us in a manner which is agreeable and pleasing to our actual existence, we shall be obliged to confess that those things which affect us, even but for a time, in, a painful manner, are as certainly evil to us. to vindicate god's visiting mankind with these evils some tell us, that he is just, and that they, are chastisements inflicted on mankind to punish the wrongs he has received from men. thus a feeble mortal has the power to irritate and injure the almighty and eternal being who created this world. to offend any one is, to afflict him, to diminish in some degree his happiness, to make him feel a painful sensation. how can man possibly disturb the felicity of the all-powerful sovereign of nature! how can a frail creature, who has received from god his being and his temper, act against the inclinations of an irresistable force which never consents to sin and disorder? besides justice, according to the only ideas which we can have of it, supposes a fixt desire to render every one his due. but theologians constantly preach that god owes us nothing, that the good things he affords are the voluntary effects of his beneficence, and that without any violence of his equity he can dispose of his creatures as his choice or caprice may impel him. in this doctrine i see not the smallest shadow of justice, but the most hideous tyranny and shocking abuse of power. in fact do we not see virtue and innocence plunged into an abyss of misery, while wickedness rears its triumphant head under the empire of this god whose justice is so much extalled? "this misery, say you, is but for a time." very well, sirs, but your god is unjust for a time. "he chastises whom he loves (you will say) for their own benefit." but if he is perfectly good, why will he let them suffer at all? "he does it, perhaps to try them" but, if he knows all things, what occasion is there for him to try any? if he is omnipotent, why need he vex himself about the vain design any one may form against him? omnipotence ought to be exempt from any such passions, as having neither equals nor rivals. but if this god is jealous of his glory, his titles and prerogative, why does he permit such numbers of men to offend him? why are any found daring enough to refuse the incense which his pride expects? _why am i a feeble mortal permitted to attack his titles, his attributes, and even his existence?_ is this permission of punishment on me for the abuse of his grace and favour? he should never have permitted me to abuse them. or the grace he bestowed should have been efficacious and have directed my steps according to his liking. "but, say you, he makes man free." alas? why did he present him with a gift of which he must have foreseen the abuse? is this faculty of free agency, which enables me to resist his power, to corrupt and rob him of his worshippers, and in fine to bring eternal misery on myself, a present worthy of his infinite goodness? in consequence of the pretended abuse of this fatal present, which an omniscient and good god ought not to have bestowed on beings capable of abusing it, everlasting, inexpressible torments are reserved for the transitory crimes of a being made liable to commit them. would that father be called good, reasonable, just and kind, who put a sharp-edged and dangerous knife into the hand of a playful, and imprudent child, whom he before knew to be imprudent, and punished him during the remainder of his life for cutting himself with it? would that prince be called just and merciful, who, not regarding any proportion between the offence and the punishment, should perpetually exercise his power of vengeance, over one of his subjects who, being drunk, had rashly offended against his vanity, without causing any real harm to him, especially, when the prince had taken pains to make him drunk? should we consider as almighty a monarch, whose dominions were in such confusion and disorder, that, except a small number obedient servants, all his subjects were every instant despising his laws, defeating his will and insulting his person? let ecclesiastics then acknowledge, that their god is an assemblage of incompatible qualities, as incomprehensible to their understanding as to mine. no: they say, in reply to these difficulties, that wisdom and justice in god, are qualities so much above or so unlike those qualities in us, that they bear no relation or affinity towards human wisdom and justice. but, pray how am i to form to myself an idea of the divine perfection, unless it has some resemblance to those virtues which i observe in my fellow creatures and feel in myself? if the justice of god is not the same with human justice, why lastly do any men pretend to announce it, comprehend and explain it to others?" postscript. previous to this publication the editor sent the following letter to dr. priestley. "reverend sir, had you thought it impossible for man to hold different sentiments respecting natural religion and the proof of the existence of a god than you do, the letters to a philosophical unbeliever would not have appeared, much less would you have invited an answer by promising a reply to every objection. differing from you in sentiment i am the man who enter with you in the lists; but i find myself upon consultation with my friends under more difficulties than you were, and more to stand in need of courage in taking up the glove, than you needed to have in throwing it down. for this dispute is not like others in philosophy, where the vanquished can only dread ridicule, contempt and disappointment; here, whether victor or vanquished, your opponent has to dread, beside ecclesiastical censure, the scourges, chains and pillories of the courts of law. i accuse you not of laying a trap for an unguarded author, but i ask your friendly opinion, whether i can, with temporal safety at least, maintain the contrary of your arguments in proof of a deity and his attributes. if i cannot, no wonder the theist cries _victoria!_ but then it is a little ungenerous to ask for objections. of you, i may certainly expect, that you will promise to use your influence, as well with lawyers as ecclesiastics, not to stir up a persecution against a poor atheist in case there should be one found in the kingdom, which people in general will not admit to be possible; or, if a persecution could ensue, that you and your friends, favourers of free enquiry, will at least bear the expences of it. i am, reverend sir, your most humble obedient servant, william hammon. oct. . . _to the reverend dr. priestley._ to this letter dr. priestley sent no answer; or no answer ever came to hand. the end. flowers of freethought (first series) g. w. foote. london . contents: preface. old nick. fire!!! sky pilots. devil dodgers. fighting spooks. damned sinners. where is hell? spurgeon and hell. is spurgeon in heaven? god in japan. stanley on providence. gone to god. thank god. judgment day. shelley's atheism. * long faces. our father. wait till you die. dead theology. mr. gladstone on devils. huxley's mistake. the gospel of freethought. on ridicule. who are the blasphemers? christianity and common sense. the lord of lords. * consecrating the colors christmas in holloway gaol. * who killed christ? did jesus ascend? the rising son. st. paul's veracity. no faith with heretics. the logic of persecution. luther and the devil. bible english. living by faith. victor hugo. * desecrating a church. walt whitman. * tennyson and the bible. * christ's old coat. christ's coat, number two. scotched, not slain. god-making. god and the weather. miracles. a real miracle. * jesus on women. paul on women. mother's religion. preface. heinrich heine called himself a soldier in the army of human liberation. it was a modest description of himself, for he was more; his position was that of a leader, and his sword was like the mystic excalibur, flashing with the hues of his genius, and dealing death to the enemies of freedom. humbler fighters than heine may count themselves as simple soldiers in that great army, whose leaders' names are graven deep in the history of modern europe. i also venture to rank myself with them, and it is the summit of my ambition. to be indeed a soldier in that army, however low and obscure, is not to have lived in vain; to persevere, to fight to the end, is to live (if unknown) in the future of humanity. in the course of my service to "the cause" i have wielded tongue and pen as weapons. the spoken word has gone, like spilt water, except as it may have made an impression on the listeners. the written word remains. most of it, in truth, was only the week's work, done honestly, but under no special impulse. some of the rest--as i have been told, and as in a few cases i feel--is of less doubtful value; having occasionally the merit of a free play of mind on subjects that are too often treated with ignorance, timidity, or hypocrisy. this is my reason for publishing in a separate and durable form the articles in this collection. whether it is a sufficient reason the reader will judge for himself. no serious attempt has been made at classification. here and there articles have been placed in intended proximity, though written at different intervals in the past ten years. sometimes, for an obvious reason, the date of composition has been indicated. otherwise there is no approach to systematic arrangement; and if this is a defect, the reader has on the other hand the benefit of variety. the ambitious, and hardly excusable, thing about this collection is its title. but the selection of a label for such a miscellany was not an easy task, and i ask the reader's indulgence in consideration ef the difficulty. the title i have chosen is at least a pretty one, and in a sense it is appropriate. these articles are flowers of _my_ freethought; the blossomings of my mind on particular occasions, after much investigation and pondering. wherever i have made a rash statement i shall be happy to be corrected; wherever i may have argued wrongly, i shall be happy to be set right. but i am less amenable to appeals on the ground of "taste." they are almost invariably made by those who wish failure to one's propaganda. a fair controversialist will refrain from personalities. i have done this, and i will do no more. i believe in free thought and honest speech. in the war of ideas there is neither treaty nor truce. to ask for quarter is to admit defeat; and to give it is treachery to truth. april, . g. w. foote. old nick. this gentleman is of very ancient descent. his lineage dwarfs that of the proudest nobles and kings. english peers whose ancestors came in with the conqueror; the guelphs, hapsburgs, and hohenzollens of our european thrones; are things of yesterday compared with his highness the devil. the cæsars themselves, the more ancient rulers of assyria, and even the pharaohs of the first dynasty, are modern beside him. his origin is lost in the impenetrable obscurity of primitive times. nay, there have been sages who maintained his eternity, who made him coeval with god, and placed upon his head the crown of a divided sovereignty of the infinite universe. but time and change are lords of all, and the most durable things come to an end. celestial and infernal, like earthly, powers are subject to the law of decay. mutability touches them with her dissolving wand, and strong necessity, the lord of gods and men, brings them to the inevitable stroke of death. senility falls on all beings and institutions--if they are allowed to perish naturally; and as our august monarchy is the joke of wits, and our ancient house of lords is an object of popular derision, so the high and mighty devil in his palsied old age is the laughing-stock of those who once trembled at the sound of his name. they omit the lofty titles he was once addressed by, and fearless of his feeble thunders and lightnings, they familiarly style him old nick. alas, how are the mighty fallen! the potentate who was more terrible than an army with manners is now the sport of children and a common figure in melodrama. even the genius of milton, goethe, and byron, has not been able to save him from this miserable fate. when this sobriquet of old nick first came into use is unknown. macaulay, in his essay on machiavelli, says that "out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his christian name a synonym for the devil." a couplet from _hudibras_ is cited to support this view. nick machiavel had ne'er a trick tho' he gave his name to our old nick. "but we believe," adds macaulay, "there is a schism on this subject among the antiquaries." the learned zachary gray's edition of _hudibras_ shows that "our english writers, before machiavel's time, used the word old nick very commonly to signify the devil," and that "it came from our saxon ancestors, who called him old nicka." no doubt butler, whose learning was so great that he "knew everything," was well acquainted with this fact. he probably meant the couplet as a broad stroke of humor. but there was perhaps a chronological basis for the joke. our saxon ancestors did not speak of old nicka in a spirit of jest or levity. the bantering sense of our modern sobriquet for the devil appears to have crept in during the decline of witchcraft. that frightful saturnalia of superstition was the devil's heyday. he was almost omnipotent and omnipresent. but as witchcraft died out, partly through the growth of knowledge, and partly through sheer weariness on the part of its devotees, the devil began to lose his power. his agency in human affairs was seen to be less potent than was imagined. people called him old nick playfully, as they might talk of a toothless old mastiff whose bark was worse than his bite. at length he was regarded as a perfect fraud, and his sobriquet took a tinge of contempt. he is now utterly played out except in church and chapel, where the sky-pilots still represent him as a roaring lion. yet, as a curious relic of old times, it may be noted that in the law-courts, where conservatism reigns in the cumbrous wig on the judge's head, and in the cumbrous phraseology of indictments, criminals are still charged with being instigated by the devil. nearly all the judges look upon this as so much nonsense, but occasionally there is a pious fossil who treats it seriously. we then hear a judge north regret that a prisoner has devoted the abilities god gave him to the devil's service, and give the renegade a year's leisure to reconsider which master he ought to serve. during the witch mania the world was treated to a great deal of curious information about old nick. what robert burns says of him in _tam o'shanter_ is only a faint reminiscence of the wealth of demonology which existed a few generations earlier. old nick used to appear at the witches' sabbaths in the form of a goat, or a brawny black man, who courted all the pretty young witches and made them submit to his embraces. some of these crazy creatures, under examination or torture, gave the most circumstantial accounts of their intercourse with satan; their revelations being of such an obscene character that they must be left under the veil of a dead tongue. it is, of course, absurd to suppose that anything of the kind occurred. religious hysteria and lubricity are closely allied, as every physician knows, and the filthy fancies of a lively witch deserve no more attention than those of many females in our lunatic asylums. behind these tales of the devil there was the pagan tradition of pan, whose upper part was that of a man and his lower part that of a goat. the devils of one religion are generally the gods of its predecessor; and the great pan, whose myth is so beautifully expounded by bacon, was degraded by christianity into a fiend. representing, as he did, the nature which christianity trampled under foot, he became a fit incarnation of the devil. the horns and hooves and the goat thighs were preserved; and the emblems of strength, fecundity and wisdom in the god became the emblems of bestiality and cunning in the demon. heine's magnificent _gods in exile_ shows how the deities of olympus avenged themselves for this ill-treatment. they haunted the mountains and forests, beguiling knights and travellers from their allegiance to christ. venus wooed the men who were taught by an ascetic creed to despise sexual love; and pan, appearing as the devil, led the women a frightful dance to hell. but as the christian superstition declined, the gods of paganism also disappeared. their vengeance was completed, and they retired with the knowledge that the gods of calvary were mortal like the gods of olympus. during the last two centuries the devil has gradually become a subject for joking. in shakespeare's plays he is still a serious personage, although we fancy that the mighty bard had no belief himself in any such being. but, as a dramatist, he was obliged to suit himself to the current fashion of thought, and he refers to the devil when it serves his purpose just as he introduces ghosts and witches. his satanic majesty not being then a comic figure, he is spoken of or alluded to with gravity. even when macbeth flies at the messenger in a towering rage, and cries "the devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon," he does not lose his sense of the devil's dignity. in milton's great epic satan is really the central figure, and he is always splendid and heroic. shelley, in fact, complained in his preface to _prometheus unbound_ that "the character of satan engenders in the mind a pernicious casuistry, which leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs, and to excuse the former because the latter exceed all measure." goethe's mephistopheles is less dignified than milton's satan, but he is full of energy and intellect, and if faust eventually escapes from his clutches it is only by a miracle. at any rate, mephistopheles is not an object of derision; on the contrary, the laugh is generally on his own side. still, goethe is playing with the devil all the time. he does not believe in the actual existence of the prince of evil, but simply uses the familiar old figure to work out a psychological drama. the same is true of byron. satan, in the _vision of judgment_, is a superb presence, moving with a princely splendor; but had it suited his purpose, byron could have made him a very different character. the devil is, indeed, treated with much greater levity by coleridge and southey, and shelley knocks him about a good deal in _peter bell the third_-- the devil, i safely can aver, has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting; nor is he, as some sages swear, a spirit, neither here nor there, in nothing--yet in everything. he is--what we are! for sometimes the devil is a gentleman; at others a bard bartering rhymes for sack; a statesman spinning crimes; a swindler, living as he can. these and many other verses show what liberties shelley took with the once formidable monarch of hell. the devil's treatment by the pulpiteers is instructive. take up an old sermon and you will find the devil all over it. the smell of brimstone is on every page, and you see the whisk of his tail as you turn the leaf. but things are changed now. satan is no longer a person, except in the vulgar circles of sheer illiteracy, where the preacher is as great an ignoramus as his congregation. if you take up any reputable volume of sermons by a church parson or a dissenting minister, you find the devil either takes a back seat or disappears altogether in a metaphysical cloud. none of these subtle resolvers of ancient riddles, however, approaches grand old donne, who said in one of his fine discourses that "the devil himself is only concentrated stupidity." what a magnificent flash of insight! yes, the great enemy of mankind is stupidity; and, alas, against that, as schiller said, the gods themselves fight in vain. yet time fights against it, and time is greater than the gods; so there is hope after all. gradually the devil has dropped, until he has at last peached the lowest depth. he is now patronised by the salvation army. booth exhibits him for a living, and all the salvation army captains and hallelujah lasses parade him about to the terror of a few fools and the amusement of everyone else. poor devil! belisarius begging an obolus was nothing to this. surely the lord himself might take pity on his old rival, and assist him out of this miserable plight. old nick is now used to frighten children with, and by-and-bye he may be employed like the old garden-god to frighten away the crows. even his scriptural reputation cannot save him from such a fate, for the bible itself is falling into disbelief and contempt, and his adventures from genesis to revelation are become a subject of merriment. talking to mrs. eve about apples in the form of a serpent; whispering in david's ear that a census would be a good thing, while jehovah whispers a similar suggestion on the other side; asking jesus to turn pebbles into penny loaves, lugging him through the air, perching him on a pinnacle, setting him on the top of a mountain whence both squinted round the globe, and playing for forty days and nights that preposterous pantomime of the temptation in the desert; getting miraculously multiplied, bewildering a herd of swine, and driving them into a watery grave; letting seven of himself occupy one lady called magdalen, and others inhabit the bodies of lunatics; going about like a roaring lion, and then appearing in the new part of a dragon who lashes the stars with his tail; all these metamorphoses are ineffably ludicrous, and calculated to excite inextinguishable laughter. his one serious appearance in the history of job is overwhelmed by this multitude of comic situations. poor old nick is on his last legs and cannot last much longer. may his end be peace! that is the least we can wish him. and when he is dead, let us hope he will receive a decent burial. those to whom he has been the best friend should follow him to the grave. his obsequies, in that case, would be graced by the presence of all the clergy, and the burial service might be read by the archbishop of canterbury. fancy them, burying their dear departed brother the devil, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection! fire!!! do not be alarmed, dear reader; there is no need to rush out into the street, like poor old lot flying from the doomed cities of the plain. sit down and take it easy. let your fire-insurance policy slumber in its nest. lean back in your chair, stretch out your legs, and prepare to receive another dose of free-thought physic--worth a guinea a bottle. so! are you ready? very well then, let us begin. what would man be without fire? would he not be a perfect barbarian? his very food, even the meat, would have to be eaten raw, and as knives and forks would be unknown, it would have to be devoured with hands and teeth. we read that the tartar horseman will put a beefsteak under his saddle, and supple and cook it in a ten-mile ride; but we cannot all follow his example, and many would think the game was not worth the candle. but not only should we be obliged to eat our food uncooked; we should enjoy none of the blessings and comforts bestowed upon us by science, which absolutely depends on fire. nay, our houses would be too cold to shelter us in the winter, and we should be compelled to burrow in the ground. the whole human race would have to live in tropical countries; all the temperate regions would be deserted; and as it is in the temperate regions that civilisation reaches its highest and most permanent developments, the world would be reduced to a condition of barbarism if not of savagery. no wonder, then, that this mighty civiliser has figured so extensively in legend and mythology. "next to the worship of the sun," says max müller, "there is probably no religious worship so widely diffused as that of fire." at bottom, indeed, the two were nearly identical. the flame of burning wood was felt to be akin to the rays of the sun, and its very upward motion seemed an aspiration to its source. sun and fire alike gave warmth, which meant life and joy; without them there reigned sterility and death. do we not still speak of the _sunshine_ of prosperity, and of basking in the _rays_ of fortune? do we not still speak of the _fire_ of life, of inspiration, of love, of heroism? and thus when the tide of our being is at the flood, we instinctively think of our father the sun, in whom, far more than in invisible gods, we live and move--for we are all his children. like everything else in civilised existence, fire was a human discovery. but superstitious ages imagined that so precious a thing must have descended from above. accordingly the greeks (to take but one illustration) fabled that prometheus stole jove's fire from heaven and gave it to mankind. and as the gods of early ages are not too friendly to human beings, it was also fabled that prometheus incurred the fierce anger of jove, who fastened him to a rock on mount caucasus, where he was blistered by day and frozen by night, while jove's vulture everlastingly preyed upon his vitals. the sun himself, in oriental countries, shining down implacably in times of prolonged drought, became a terrible demon, and as baal or moloch was worshipped with cruel and bloody rites. the corruption of the best is the worst; beneficence changes to malignity. thus fire, which is a splendid servant, is an awful master. the very wild beasts dread it. famishing lions and tigers will not approach the camp-fire to seize their prey. men have something of the same instinctive apprehension. how soon the nerves are disturbed by the smell of anything burning in the house. raise the cry of "fire!" in a crowded building, and at once the old savage bursts through the veneer of civilisation. it is helter-skelter, the devil take the hindmost. the strong trample upon the weak. men and women turn to devils. even if the cry of "fire!" be raised in a church--where a believer might wish to die, and where he might feel himself booked through to glory--there is just the same stampede. people who sit and listen complacently to the story of eternal roastings in an everlasting hell, will fight like maniacs to escape a singeing. rather than go to heaven in a chariot of fire they will plod for half a century in this miserable vale of tears. man's dread of fire has been artfully seized upon by the priests. all over the world these gentlemen are in the same line of business--trading upon the credulous terrors of the multitude. they fill hell with fire, because it frightens men easily, and the fuel costs nothing. if they had to find the fuel themselves hell would be cold in twenty-four hours. "flee from the wrath to come," they exclaim. "what is it?" ask the people. "consuming fire," the priests exclaim, "nay, not consuming; you will burn in it without dying, without losing a particle of flesh, for ever and ever." then the people want to get saved, and the priests issue insurance policies, which are rendered void by change of opinion or failure to pay the premium. buddhist pictures of hell teach the eye the same lesson that is taught the ear by christian sermons. there are the poor damned wretches rolling in the fire; there are the devils shovelling in fuel, and other devils with long toasting-forks thrusting back the victims that shove their noses out of the flames. wherever the priests retain their old power over the people's minds they still preach a hell of literal fire, and deliver twenty sermons on hades to one on paradise. hell, in fact, is always as hot as the people will stand it. the priests reduce the temperature with natural reluctance. every degree lost is a sinking of their power and profit. even in england--the land of shakespeare and shelley, newton and darwin, mill and spencer--the cry of "fire!" is still raised in thousands of pulpits. catholics bate no jot of their fiery damnation; church of england clergymen hold forth on brimstone--with now and then a dash of treacle--in the rural districts and small towns; it is not long since the wesleyans turned out a minister who was not cocksure about everlasting torment; mr. spurgeon preaches hell (hot, without sugar) in mercy to perishing souls; and general booth, who caters for the silliest and most ignorant christians, works hell into his trade-mark. "blood and fire" is a splendid summary of the orthodox faith. all who would be saved must be washed in the blood of the lamb--a disgusting ablution! all who are not saved fall into the fire. a blood-bath or a sulphur-bath is the only alternative. happily, however, the people are becoming more civilised and more humane. science and popular education are working wonders. reason, self-reliance, and sympathy are rapidly developing. the old primitive terrors are losing their hold upon us, and the callous dogmas of savage religion are growing impossible. priests cannot frighten men who possess a high sense of human dignity; and the doctrine of an angry god, who will burn his own children in hell, is loathsome to those who will fight the flames and smoke of a burning house to save the life of an unknown fellow creature. how amusing, in these circumstances, are the wrigglings of the "advanced" christians. archdeacon farrar, for instance, in despite of common sense and etymology, contends that "everlasting" fire only means "eternal" fire. what a comfort the distinction would be to a man in hell! away with such temporising! let the ghastly old dogma be defied. sensible people should simply laugh at the priests who still raise the cry of "fire!" sky pilots. the authorship of the designation "sky pilot" is as unknown as that of the four gospels. yet its origin is recent. it has only been in use for a few years, say ten, or at the outside twenty. nobody knows, however, who was the first man from whose lips it fell. probably he was an american, but his name and address are not ascertained. surely this fact, which has thousands if not millions of parallels, should abate the impudence of religionists who ask "who made the world?" when they do not know who made nine-tenths of the well-known things it contains. whatever its origin, the designation is a happy one. it fits like a glove, repeat it to the first man you meet, and though he never heard it before, he will knew that you mean a minister. for this very reason it makes the men of god angry. they feel insulted, and let you see it. they accuse you of calling them names, and if you smile too sarcastically they will indulge in some well-selected bible language themselves. there are some trades that will not bear honest designations, and the minister's is one of them. call him what you please, except what he is, and he is not disquieted. but call him "sky-pilot" and he starts up like macbeth at the ghost of banquo, exclaiming "come in any other form but that!" go down to the seaside and look at one of those bluff, weather-beaten, honest fellows, who know all the rocks and shoals, and tides and channels, for miles around. call one of them a "pilot," and he will not be offended. the term is legitimate. it exactly denotes his business. he is rather proud of it. his calling is honorable and useful. he pilots ships through uncertain and dangerous waters to their destination. he does his work, takes his pay, and feels satisfied; and if you cry "pilot!" he answers merrily with a "what cheer?" but "sky" in front of "pilot" makes all the difference. it makes the man of god feel like having a cold shower bath; then the reaction sets in and he grows hot--sometimes as hot as h---- well, hades. we are not going to swear if the parson does, but after all, he _is_ a "pilot" and a "sky" pilot. he undertakes to pilot people to heaven. let him board your ship and take the helm, and he will guide you over the black sea of death to port felicity that, at least, is what he says in his trade circular, though it turns out very differently in practice, as we shall see presently. let us first notice a great difference between the sea pilot and the sky pilot. the honest salt boards the ship, and takes her out to sea, or brings her into port. when the work is over he presents his bill, or it is done for him. he does not ask for payment in advance. he neither takes nor gives credit. but the sky pilot does take credit and he gives none. he is always paid beforehand. every year he expects a good retaining fee in the shape of a stipend or a benefice, or a good percentage of the pew rents and collections. but when his services are really wanted he leaves you in the lurch. you do not need a pilot to heaven until you come to die. then your voyage begins in real earnest. but the sky-pilot does not go with you. oh dear no! that is no part of _his_ bargain. "ah my friend," he says, "i must leave you now. you must do the rest for yourself. i have coached you for years in celestial navigation; if you remember my lessons you will have a prosperous voyage. good day, dear friend. i'm going to see another customer. but we shall meet again." now this is not a fair contract. it is really obtaining money under false pretences. the sky pilot has never been to heaven himself. he does not know the way. anyhow, there are hundreds of different routes, and they cannot all lead to the same place. certainly they all start from this world, but that is all they have in common, and where they end is a puzzle. to pay money in such circumstances is foolish and an encouragement to fraud. the best way to pay for goods is on delivery; in the same way the sky pilot should be paid at the finish. but how is that to be done? well, easily. all you have to do is to address the sky pilot in this fashion--"dearly beloved pilot to the land of bliss! let our contract be fair and mutual. give me credit as i give you credit. don't ask for cash on account. i'll pay at the finish. your directions may be sound; they ought to be, for you are very dogmatic. still, there is room for doubt, and i don't want to be diddled. you tell me to follow your rules of celestial navigation. well, i will. you say we shall meet at port felicity. well, i hope so; and when we do meet i'll square up." of course, it may be objected that this would starve the sky pilots. but why should it do anything of the kind? have _they_ no faith! must all the faith be on _our_ side? should they not practise a little of what they preach? god tells them to _pray_ for their daily bread, and no doubt he would add some cheese and butter. all they have to do is to _ask_ for it. "ask and ye shall receive," says the text, and it has many confirmations. for forty years the jews were among the unemployed, and jehovah sent them food daily. "he rained down bread from heaven." the prophet elijah, also, lived in the wilderness on the sandwiches god sent him--bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening. there was likewise the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of flour, which supported her and the man of god day by day without diminishing. these things actually happened. they are as true as the bible. and they may happen again. at any rate they _should_ happen. the sky-pilots should subsist on the fruits of prayer. let them live by faith--not _our_ faith, but _their_ own. this will prove their sincerity, and give us some trust in their teaching. and if they _should_ starve in the experiment--well, it is worth making, and they will fall martyrs to truth and human happiness. _one_ batch of martyrs will suffice. there will be no need of what gibbon calls "an annual consumption." the men of god pilot _us_ to heaven, but they are very loth to go there themselves. heaven is their "home," but they prefer exile, even in this miserable vale of tears. when they fall ill, they do not welcome it as a call from the father. they do not sing "nearer my god to thee." we do not find them going about saying "i shall be home shortly." oh no! they indulge freely in self-pity. like a limpet to a rock do they cling to this wretched, sinful world. congregations are asked if they cannot "do something," a subscription is got up, and the man of god rushes off to the seaside, where prayer, in co-operation with oxygen and ozone, restore him to health, enable him to dodge "going home," and qualify him for another term of penal servitude on earth. it appears to us that sky pilots, like other men, should be judged by their practice. if they show no belief in what they preach, we are foolish to believe in it any more than they do. it also appears to us that their profession is as fraudulent as fortune-telling. many a poor old woman has been imprisoned for taking sixpence from a servant girl, after promising her a tall, dark husband and eight fine children; but men dressed in black coats and white chokers are allowed to take money for promises of good fortune in the "beautiful land above." it further appears to us that the sky pilots should be compelled to come to a reasonable agreement before their trade is licensed. they should settle _where heaven_ is before they begin business. better still, perhaps, every applicant for a license should prove that _some_ human soul _has been_ piloted to heaven. until that is done, the profession is only robbery and imposture. devil dodgers. most people suppose this phrase to be a recent americanism. it occurs, however, in the memoirs of james lackington, published in . speaking of certain ranting preachers, he says--"these _devil-dodgers_ happened to be so very powerful that they soon sent john home, crying out, that he should be damned." admitting the age of the phrase, some will ask, is it respectable? well, that is a matter of taste. is there any standard of respectability? does it not vary with time, place, and circumstance? some people hate wearing gloves, while other people feel half naked without them. a box hat is a great sign of respectability; when a vestryman wears one he overawes philosophers; yet some men would as soon wear the helmet of don quixote. flannel suits are quite shocking in town; at the seaside they are the height of fashion. and as it is with dress so it is with speech. the "respectable" classes are apt to rob language of its savor, clipping and trimming it like the trees in a dutch garden. you must go to the common, unrespectable classes for racy vigor of tongue. they avoid circumlocutions, eschew diffuseness, go straight to the point, and prefer concrete to abstract expressions. they don't speak of a foolish man, they call him a fool; a cowardly talebearer they call a sneak; and so on to the end of the chapter. but is this really vulgar? open your shakespeare, or any other dramatic poet, and you will find it is not so. a look, a gesture, is more expressive than words; and concrete language carries more weight than the biggest abstractions. let us break up the phrase, and see where the "vulgarity" comes in. there is nothing vulgar about the devil. he is reputed to be a highly-accomplished gentleman. milton, goethe, and byron have even felt his grandeur. and is not "dodger" clear as well as expressive? david dodged saul's javelin. that was smart and proper. afterwards he attempted a dodge on uriah. that was mean and dirty. so that "dodge" may be good, bad, or indifferent, like "man" or "woman." there is nothing objectionable about it _per se_. and if "devil" and "dodger" are respectable in their single state, how do they become vulgar when they are married? of course it is quite natural for the clergy and their thorough-paced dupes to cry out against plain language. the clerical trade is founded on mystery, and "behind every mystery there is a cheat." calling things by their right names will always be ugly to impostors. "reverend" sounds so much nicer than "mystery-man," "priest" is more dignified than "fortuneteller," "clergyman" is pleasanter than "sky-pilot," and "minister" is more soothing than "devil-dodger." but plain speech is always wholesome if you keep within the bounds of truth. it does us good to see ourselves occasionally as others see us. and if this article should fall under the eyes of a christian man of god, we beg him to keep his temper and read on to the end. we tell the men of god, of every denomination, that they are devil dodgers, and when they cease to be that their occupation is going. old nick, in some form or other, is the basis of every kind of christianity. indeed, the dread of evil, the terror of calamity, is at the bottom of all religion; while the science which gives us foresight and power, and enables us to protect ourselves and promote our comfort, is religion's deadliest enemy. science wars against evil practically; religion wars against it theoretically. science sees the material causes that are at work, and counteracts them; religion is too lazy and conceited to study the causes, it takes the evil in a lump, personifies it, and christens it "the devil." thus it keeps men off the real path of deliverance, and teaches them to fear the bogie-man, who is simply a phantom of superstition, and always vanishes at the first forward step of courage. what is the christian scheme in a nutshell? god made man perfect--though some people, after reading the life of adam, say that god made him a perfect fool. this perfect man was tackled by the devil, a sort of spiritual pasteur, who inoculated him with sin, which was transmitted to his posterity as _original_ sin. god desires man's welfare, but the devil is too strong tor omnipotence. jesus christ steps in with the holy ghost and saves a few men and women, but the devil bags all the rest, and hell is thronged while heaven is half empty; the one place having three families on every flat, the other having leagues of spacious mansions "to let." now in every generation the devil is after us. without schools, or churches, or armies of professional helpers, or even so much as an occasional collection, he carries on single-handed a most successful business. the clergy tell us, as the bible tells them, that he is monstrously able, active and enterprising; never overlooking a single customer, and delivering damnation at the door, and even carrying it upstairs, without charging for carriage or waiting for his bill. all that sort of thing he leaves to the opposition firm, whose agents are clamorous for payment, and contrive to accumulate immense sums of the filthy lucre which they affect to despise. this accommodating fiend is the _bête noir_ of the clergy. they are always on his track, or rather he is on theirs. they help us to dodge him, to get out of his way, to be from home when he calls, to escape his meshes, to frustrate his wiles, to save our souls alive--o. "here you are," they say, "he's coming down the street. we are just running an escape party. if you want to keep out of hell, come and join us. don't ask questions. there's no time for that. hurry up, or you'll be left behind." and when the party turns the corner the clergy say, "ah, that was a narrow escape. some of you had a very close shave." and the next morning a collector calls for a subscription for the gentleman who saved you from the devil. nearly fifty thousand gentlemen are engaged in this line of business, to say nothing of the salvation army. fifty thousand devil dodgers! and this in england alone. if we include europe, america, south africa, and australia, there are hundreds of thousands of them, maintained at the expense of probably a hundred millions a year. yet the devil is not outwitted. mr. spurgeon says he is as successful as ever; and, to use mr. stead's expression, spurgeon has "tips from god." by their own confession, therefore, the devil dodgers are perfectly useless. they take our money, but they do little else. honesty would make them disband. but they will never do that. they will have to be cashiered, or starved out by cutting off the supplies. the real truth is, they never _were_ useful. they were always parasites. they gained their livings by false pretences. they dodged an imaginary enemy. the devil is played out in educated circles. presently he will be laughed at by everybody. then the people will dismiss the priests, and there will be and end of devil dodgers. fighting spooks. "spooks" means ghosts, sprites, goblins, and other such phantasms. the word is not yet endenizened in england, but it will probably take out letters of naturalisation here, settle down, and become a very respectable member of the english vocabulary. twelve months ago i met an american in london, who told me that he was a freethinker, but he did not trouble himself about freethought. his mind was made up on the supernatural, and he did not care to spend his time in "fighting spooks." that is, being emancipated himself from superstition, he was indifferent about the matter, although millions of his fellow men were still in bondage. this american gentleman's remark shows how people can be misled by phrases. "fighting spooks" is a pretty locution, and every freethinker would admit that fighting spooks is a most unprofitable business. but, in reality, it is not the aggressive secularist or atheist who fights these imaginary beings. he fights those who do fight them--which is a very different thing. let the priests and preachers of all religions and denominations cease abusing the callow mind of childhood; let them refrain from teaching their fanciful conjectures about "the unseen"; let them desist from a peopling the air with the wild creations of their own lawless imagination; let them tell no more than they know, and confine their tongues within the strict limits of honest speech; let them do this, and free-thought will be happy to expire in the blaze of its triumph. there is no joy in fighting superstition, any more than there is joy in attacking disease. each labor is beneficent and is attended by a _relative_ satisfaction; but health is better than the best doctoring, and mental sanity than the subtlest cure. the clergy are the fighters of spooks. they babble of gods, who get angry with us; of devils, who must be guarded against; of angels, who fly from heaven to earth, and earth to heaven; of saints, who can do us a good turn if they are properly supplicated. but the chief spooks are of course the devils, headed by _the_ devil, satan, beelzebub, lucifer, abaddon, the serpent--in short, old nick. "we have an army of red coats," said old fox, "to fight the french; and an army of black coats to fight the devil--of whom he standeth not in awe." before the great procession of humanity go the priests. "hush!" they cry, "the hedges are full of devils. softly, gently, beloved! do not rush into unspeakable danger. we will bear the brunt of it, out of our fatherly affection for you. see, we stand in front, on the perilous edge of battle. we dare the demons who lie in wait to catch your immortal souls. we beat the bushes, and dislodge them from their hiding-places; strong not in our own strength, but in the grace of god. and behold they fly! did you not see them? did you not perceive the flutter of their black wings? did you not smell their sulphurous taint? beloved, the road is now clear, the hedges are safe. forward then! but forget not our loyal services. remember, beloved, that the laborer is worthy of his hire, and--shell out!" the services of the black-coats are imaginary, and their payment should be of the same description. let them live on _their own_ faith, and trust to him who fed elijah in the desert with sandwiches brought by ravens' beaks. clearly the belief in spooks is profitable to the clergy. just as clearly it is expensive to the people. whistling between the hedges is as good as keeping a parson. but that is not the priest's teaching. he says the spooks are real, and he is the only person to keep them off. grant the first point, and the second is sure to follow. but _are_ the spooks real? can the clergy show a single live specimen? they cannot, and they know they cannot, either for love or money. why then does the business hold out? because an imaginary spook is as good as a real spook, if the clergy can twist and prejudice the youthful mind in their direction. if a showman never lifts the curtain, it does not matter whether he has anything or nothing on the other side. the belief in spooks is more than profitable to the priests. it enervates and paralyses the human mind. it is the parent of all sorts of mischief. it is our worst inheritance from our savage progenitors. the black spirits that haunted the swamps and forests of primeval ages, and terrified the ape-man who lived in mystery and fear, are not suffered to depart with the ignorance that gave them birth. they are cultivated by priests, and used to overawe the cradles and schools of civilisation. the freethinker does not fight spooks. he would not waste an ounce of powder upon them. he fights the fighters of spooks. he assails the superstition on which they flourish. he seeks to free the human mind from gratuitous fears. he dispels the shadows and deepens the sunshine of life. surely this is a good work. whoever takes part in it is giving the race an unmixed blessing. war with the army of enslavement! down with the seducers of childhood--the spiritual profligates who debauch the youthful mind! banish them, with their spooks, from the school, the college, the court of justice, the hall of legislation! let us train generations of sound minds in sound bodies, full of rich blood, and nervous energy, and frank inquiry, and dauntless courage, and starry hope; with faces that never pale at truth, hearts that hold no terms with falsehood, knees that never bend before power or mystery, heads that always keep a manly poise, and eyes that boldly challenge all things from height to depth. damned sinners. "thou shalt be brought unto the blood of sprinkling, as an undone helpless, damned sinner." --john wesley, sermon on "justification by faith." polite ears, which are often the longest, will be shocked at the title of this article. this is an age in which it is accounted vulgar to express plain doctrines in plain language. spurgeon was the last doctor of a good old school. their theology was hateful: an insult to man and a blasphemy against god--if such a being exists; but they did not beat about the bush, and if they thought you were booked for hell, as was most likely, they took care to let you know it. they called a spade a spade, not a common implement of agricultural industry. they were steeped in bible english, and did not scruple to use its striking substantives and adjectives. when they pronounced "hell" they aspirated the "h" and gave the full weight of the two "l's." "damn" and "damnation" shot from their mouths full and round, like a cannon ball sped with a full blast of gunpowder. but, alas, how are the mighty fallen! no longer do the men of god indulge in thunderous saxon. they latinise their sermons and diminish the effect of terrible teaching. you shall hear them designate "hell" with twenty roundabout euphemisms, and spin "damnation" into "condemnation" and "damned" into "condemned," until it has not force enough to frighten a cat off a garden wall. let us not be blamed, however, if we emulate the plain speech of the honest old theologians, and of the english bible which is still used in our public schools. we despise the hypocritical cry of "vulgar!" we are going to write, not on "condemned transgressors," but on "damned sinners." yes, damned sinners. now, beloved reader, it behoves us to define and distinguish, as well as amplify and expatiate. we must therefore separate the "damned" from the "sinners." not indeed in fact, for they are inseparable, being in truth one and the same thing; for the adjective is the substantive, and the substantive is the adjective, and the "damned" are "sinners" and "sinners" are the "damned." the separation is merely _mental_, for reasons of _convenience_; just as we separate the inseparable, length from breadth, in our definition of a line. this is necessary to clear and coherent thought; man's mind being finite, and incapable of operating in all directions at once. what then are _sinners_? a simple question, but not so easy to answer. _all_ men are _sinners_. but what is a _man_? a featherless biped? so was the plucked fowl of diogenes. a man is--well a man; and a sinner is--well a sinner. and this is near enough for most people. but it does not satisfy a rational investigator, to say nothing of your born critic, who will go on splitting hairs till his head is as bare as a plate, and then borrow materials from his neighbor's cranium. in ancient egypt it was a sin to kill a cat; in england cats are slain in myriads without a tremor of compunction. among the jews it is a sin to eat pork, but an english humorist writes you a delicious essay on roast pig. bigamy is a sin in the whole of europe but the south-eastern corner, and there it is a virtue, sanctioned by the laws of religion. marrying your deceased wife's sister is a sin in england; four thousand years ago, in another part of the world, it was no sin at all; in fact, a gentleman of remarkable piety, whom god is said to have loved, married his wife's sister without waiting for a funeral. did not jacob take rachel and leah together, and walk out with them, one on each arm? sin as a _fact_ changes with time and place. sin as an _idea_ is disobedience to the law of god; that is, to the doctrines of religion; that is, to the teaching of priests. _crime_ is quite another thing. it is far less heinous, and far more easily forgiven. of course crime and sin may overlap; they may often be the same thing practically; but this is an accident, for there are crimes that are no sins, and sins that are no crimes. it is a crime, but not a sin, to torture a heretic; it is a sin, but not a crime, to eat meat on a friday. a sinner is a person on bad terms with his god. but who, it may be asked, is on good terms with him? no one. according to christianity, at any rate, we have all sinned; nay, we are all full of original sin; we derived it from our parents, who derived it from adam, who caught it from old nick, who picked it up god knows where. now every sinner is a damned sinner. he may not know it, but he is so; and the great john wesley advises him to recognise it, and come as a "damned sinner" to god, to be sprinkled or washed with the blood of christ. what is _damned_ then? we take it that "damned sinners," that is _all_ sinners, are persons to whom god says "damn you!" to whom does he say it? to all sinners; that is, to all men. and why does he say it? because he is wroth with them. and why is he wroth with them? because they are sinners. and why are they sinners? because they are men. and why are they men? because they cannot help it. they were born in sin and shapen in iniquity, and in sin did their mothers conceive them. every christian admits this--theoretically. he goes to church and confesses himself a "miserable sinner," but if you called him so as he came out of church he would call you something stronger. a sinner may be damned here, apparently, without being damned hereafter. he is liable to hell until he dies, but after that event he is sometimes reprieved and sent to heaven. but the vast majority of the human race have no share in the atoning blood of christ. they were "damned sinners" _in posse_ before they were born, they are "damned sinners" _in esse_ while they live, and they will be "damned sinners" for ever when they leap from this life into eternity, and join the immortal fry of almost everybody born to die. this is a very comfortable doctrine for the narrow, conceited, selfish elect. for other people--all the rest of us--it is calculated to provoke unparliamentary language. why should god "damn" men? and how can men be "sinners"? certainly they can sin against each other, because they can injure each other. but how can they sin against god? can they injure him? he is unchangeable. can they rob him? he is infinite. can they deceive him? he is omniscient. can they limit his happiness? he is omnipotent. no, they _cannot_ sin against him, but he _can_ sin against them. and if he exists he _has_ sinned against every one of them. not one human being has ever been as strong, healthy, wise, noble, and happy as god might have made him. nor is man indebted to god for his creation. there cannot be a debt where there is no contract. it is the creator and not the creature who is responsible, and the theological doctrine of responsibility is the truth turned upside down. suppose a man had the power of creating another thinking and feeling being. suppose he could endow him with any qualities he chose. suppose he created him sickly, foolish, and vicious. would he not be responsible for the curse of that being's existence? man is what he is because he is. he is practically without choice. the cards are dealt out to him, and he must take them as they come. is it just to damn him for holding a bad hand? is it honest to give him hell for not winning the game? let us use for a moment the cant language of theology. let us imagine the _vilest_ of "damned sinners" in gehenna. does not every scientist, and every philosopher, know that the orb of his fate was predetermined? would not that "lost soul" have the right to curse his maker? might he not justly exclaim "i am holier than thou"? do not imagine, reader, that this new reading of the book of fate has no practical significance. when we get rid of the idea of "damned sinners," when we abolish the idea of "sin" altogether and its correlative "punishment," and learn to regard man as a complicated effect in a universe of causation, we shall bring wisdom and humanity into our treatment of the "criminal classes," we shall look upon them as moral lunatics and deal with them accordingly. and this spirit will extend itself to all human relations. it will make us less impatient and angry with each other. we shall see that "to know all is to pardon all." thus will the overthrow of theology be the preparation for a new moral development. another link of the old serpent of superstition will be uncoiled from the life of humanity, leaving it freer to learn the splendid truth, taught by that divine man socrates, that wisdom and virtue are one and indivisible. where is hell? this is a question of great importance, or at least of very great interest. according to the christian scheme of salvation, the vast majority of us will have to spend eternity in "sulphurous and tormenting flames," and we are naturally curious as to the situation of a place in which we shall experience such delightful sensations. but there is hardly any subject on which we can obtain so little information. the clergy are becoming more and more reticent about it. what little they ever knew is being secreted in the depths of their inner consciousness. when they are pressed for particulars they look injured. sometimes they piteously exclaim "don't." at other times they wax wroth, and exclaim to the questioners about the situation of hell, "wait till you get there." just as heaven used to be spoken of as "up above," hell was referred to as "down below." at one time, indeed, it was believed to be underground. many dark caves were thought to lead to it, and some of them were called "hell mouth." volcanoes were regarded as entrances to the fiery regions, and when there was an eruption it was thought that hell was boiling over. classic mythology, before the time of christ, had its entrances to hell at acherusia, in bithynia; at avernus, in campania, where ulysses began his journey to the grisly abodes; the sibyl's cave at cumæ, in argolis; at tænarus, in the southern peloponnesus, where hercules descended, and dragged cerberus up to the daylight; and the cave of trophonius, in lebadea, not to mention a dozen less noted places. the bible always speaks of hell as "down," and the apostles' creed tells us that christ "descended" into hell. exercising his imagination on this basis, the learned faber discovered that after the second advent the saints would dwell on the crust of the earth, a thousand miles thick, and the damned in a sea of liquid fire inside. thus the saints would tread over the heads of sinners, and flowers would bloom over the lake of damnation. sir john maundeville, a most engaging old liar, says he found a descent into hell "in a perilous vale" in abyssinia. according to the celtic legend of "st. brandon's voyage," hell was not "down below," but in the moon, where the saint found judas iscariot suffering incredible tortures, but let off every sunday to enjoy himself and prepare for a fresh week's agony. that master of bathos, martin tupper, finds this idea very suitable. he apostrophises the moon as "the wakeful eye of hell." bailey, the author of _festus_, is somewhat vaguer. hell, he says, is in a world which rolls thief-like round the universe, imperceptible to human eyes: a blind world, yet unlit by god, boiling around the extremest edge of light, where all things are disaster and decay. imaginations, of course, will differ. while martin tupper and other gentlemen look for hell in the direction of the moon, the platonists, according to macrobus, reckoned as the infernal regions the whole space between the moon and the earth. whiston thought the comet which appeared in his day was hell. an english clergyman, referred to by alger, maintained that hell was in the sun, whose spots were gatherings of the damned. the reader may take his choice, and it is a liberal one. he may regard hell as under the earth, or in the moon, or in the sun, or in a comet, or in some concealed body careering through infinite space. and if the choice does not satisfy him, he is perfectly free to set up a theory of his own. father pinamonti is the author of a little book called _hell open to christians_, which is stamped with the authority of the catholic church, and issued for the special edification of children. this book declares that hell is four thousand miles distant, but it does not indicate the direction. anyhow, the distance is so small that the priests might easily set up communication with the place. but perhaps it only exists in the geography or astronomy of faith. father pinamonti seems particularly well informed on this subject. he says the walls of hell are "more than four thousand miles thick." that is a great thickness. but is it quite as thick as the heads of the fools who believe it? our belief is that hell is far nearer than the clergy teach. omar khayyam, the grand old persian poet, the "large infidel," as tennyson calls him, wrote as follows--in the splendid rendering of edward fitzgerald:-- i sent my soul through the invisible, some letter of that after-life to spell, and by and bye my soul returned to me, and answered, i myself am heaven and hell. hell, like heaven, is within us, and about us in the hearts of our fellow-men. yes, hell is on earth. man's ignorance, superstition, stupidity, and selfishness, make a hell for him in this life. let us cease, then, to dread the fabled hell of the priests, and set ourselves to the task of abolishing the real hell of hunger, vice, and misery. the very churches are getting ashamed of their theological hell. they are becoming more and more secularised. they call on the disciples of christ to remedy the evils of this life, and respond to the cry of the poor for a better share of the happiness of this world. their methods are generally childish, for they overlook the causes of social evil, but it is gratifying to see them drifting from the old moorings, and little by little abandoning the old dogmas. some of the clergy, like archdeacon farrar, go to the length of saying that "hell is not a place." precisely so, and that is the teaching of secularism. spurgeon and hell. charles lamb was one of the best men that ever lived. he had his failings, but he never harmed anyone but himself. he was capable of astonishing generosity, and those acquainted with the inner tragedy of his life know that it was a long act of self-denial. he was also extremely modest but not utterly devoid of indignation; and if he could not denounce bitterly, he could speed a shaft of satire into the breast of wickedness or cruelty. on one occasion, in the days of his youth, he was justly annoyed by his friend coleridge, whose character was very inferior to his own, though he always assumed a tone of moral superiority. lamb was so galled by coleridge's air of virtue and piety, at a moment when the humorist was suffering terribly in consequence of his sister's calamity, that he sent the transcendental poet a list of stinging questions. one of them asked whether one of the seraphim could fall, and another whether a man might not be damned without knowing it. this last question suggests itself in the case of mr. spurgeon. mrs. spurgeon, dr. pierson, and other of the great preacher's friends, are all assuring us that he is in glory. writing seven days after his death, mrs. spurgeon said "he has now been a week in heaven." it is natural that she should think so, and we do not wish to rob her of any consolation, nor do we suppose that this article will ever come under her notice. but is it not just possible that spurgeon has gone to hell? and why should not the question be raised? we mean no personal offence; we speak in the interest of justice and truth. spurgeon was very glib in preaching about hell, and we do not know that he had a monopoly of that special line of business. he never blenched at the idea of millions of human beings writhing in everlasting torment; and why should it be blasphemy, or even incivility, to wonder if he himself has gone to perdition? predestination, as the church of england article says, is wonderfully comforting to the elect; that is, to those who imagine themselves to be so. but what if they are mistaken? what if a man, yea a fancied saint, may be damned without knowing it? god almighty has not published lists of the sect. many a calvinistic pharisee is perhaps a self-elected saint after all, and at the finish of his journey may find that he has been walking in the wrong direction. one of spurgeon's rooted notions was that unbelievers were _sure_ of hell. they bore the mark of predestinate damnation broad upon their fore-heads. now at the bottom this means that a man may be damned for believing wrongly. but how can anyone be sure that spurgeon was absolutely right? the baptists are only one division of christians. there are scores of other divisions. all cannot be right, and all may be wrong. even if one is entirely right, how do we know it is the baptists? according to the law of probabilities, spurgeon was very likely in the wrong; and if wrong belief, however sincere, entails damnation, it is quite possible that at . p.m. on sunday, january , spurgeon entered hell instead of heaven. * * the next article will explain this matter. far be it from us to wish a fellow creature in hell, but there is always a certain pleasure in seeing the engineer hoist with his own petard. all tragedy has a touch of comedy. fancy spurgeon in hades groaning "i sent other people here by the million, and here i am myself." how would this be worse than the groan of any other lost soul? few men are devils or angels. most are neither black nor white, but grey. between the best and vilest how much difference is there in the eye of infinite wisdom? and if god, the all-knowing and all-powerful, created men as they are, strong and weak, wise and foolish, good, bad, and indifferent; there is no more injustice in spurgeon's burning in hell than in the damnation of the worst wretch that ever cursed the world. spurgeon used to preach hell with a certain gusto. here is a hot and strong passage from his sermon on the resurrection of the dead: "when thou diest', thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin-hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. in fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, for ever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall for ever play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament." after preaching this awful doctrine a man should be ill for a fortnight. would it not afflict a kind-hearted man unspeakably to think that millions of his fellow beings, or hundreds, or even one, would suffer such a terrible fate? would it not impair his sleep, and fill his dreams with terror? but it did not have this effect on spurgeon. after preaching hell in that way, and rolling damnation over his tongue as a dainty morsel, he went home, dined with a good appetite, drank his wine, and smoked his cigar. there was not the slightest doubt in spurgeon's mind as to the endless doom of the damned. here is an extract from another sermon-- "thou wilt look up there on the throne of god and it shall be written, 'for ever!' when the damned jingle the burning irons of their torment they shall say, 'for ever!' when they howl, echo cries, 'for ever!' 'for ever' is written on their racks, 'for ever' on their chains; 'for ever' burneth in the fire, 'for ever' ever reigns." how bodies are to burn without consuming, how a fire could last for ever, or how a good god could roast his own children in it, are questions that spurgeon did not stop to answer. he took the damnable doctrine of damnation as he found it. he knew it was relished by myriads of callous, foolish people; and it gave such a pungent flavor to a long sermon! his listeners were not terrified. oh dear no! smith, the newington greengrocer, was not alarmed; he twirled his thumbs, and said to himself, "spurgeon's in fine form this morning!" archdeacon farrar protests against the notion of a fiery, everlasting hell as the result of fear, superstition, ignorance, hate, and slavish letter-worship. he declares that he would resign all hope of immortality to save a single human soul from the hell of mr. spurgeon. but is not the hell of mr. spurgeon the hell of the new testament? does not jesus speak of everlasting fire? why seek to limit the duration of hell by some hocus-pocus of interpretation? it is idle to pretend that "everlasting" means something less than everlasting. if it means that in relation to hell it must also mean it in relation to heaven. dr. farrar cannot have two different meanings for the same word in the same verse; and should he ever go to hell (he will pardon us the supposition), how much consolation would he derive from knowing that his doom was not "everlasting" but only "eternal"? there was more honesty and straightforwardness in mr. spurgeon. he preached what the bible taught him. he set forth a hateful creed in its true colors. his presentation of christianity will continue to satisfy those who belong to the past, but it will drive many others out of the fold of faith into the broad pastures of freethought. is spurgeon in heaven? when mrs. booth died, the wife of the famous "general," the "army" reported her as "promoted to glory from clacton-on-sea." it was extremely funny. clacton-on-sea is such a prosaic anti-climax after glory. one was reminded of sir horace glendower: sprat. but the sense of humor is not acute in religious circles. mr. spurgeon frequently gave expression to his dislike and mistrust of the antics or the salvation army. he was far from prim himself, but he held that if people were not "won over to christ" by preaching, it was idle to bait the hook with mere sensationalism. yet by a strange irony his closest friends, in announcing his death to his flock, actually improved on the extravagance of the salvationists. here is a copy of the telegram that was affixed to the rails of the metropolitan tabernacle the morning after his decease: mentone, . . spurgeon's tabernacle, london. our beloved pastor entered heaven . sunday night. harrald. this harrald was mr. spurgeon's private secretary, but he writes like the private secretary of god almighty. a leading statesman once said he wished he was as cocksure of anything as tom macaulay was cocksure of everything; but what was macaulay's cocksureness to the cocksureness of harrald? the gentleman could not have spoken with more assurance if he had been saint peter himself, and had opened the gate for pastor spurgeon. we take it that spurgeon expired at . on sunday night. that is the _fact_. all the rest is conjecture. how could his soul enter heaven at the very same moment? is heaven in the atmosphere? he who asserts it is a very bold speculator. is it out in the ether? if so, where? and how is it our telescopes cannot detect it? if heaven is a place, as it must be if it exists at all, it cannot very well be within the astronomical universe. now the farthest stars are inconceivably remote. our sun is more than , , miles distant, and sirius is more than , times farther off than the sun. there are stars so distant that their light takes more than a thousand years to reach us, and light travels at the rate of nearly two hundred thousands miles per second! it is difficult to imagine spurgeon's soul travelling faster than that; and if heaven is somewhere out in the vast void, beyond the sweep of telescopes or the register of the camera, spurgeon's soul has so far _not_ "entered heaven" that its journey thither is only just begun. in another thousand years, perhaps, it will be nearing the pearly gates. _perhaps_, we say; for heaven may be a million times further off, and spurgeon's soul may pull the bell and rouse saint peter long after the earth is a frozen ball, and not only the human race but all life has disappeared from its surface. nay, by the time he arrives, the earth may have gone to pot, and the whole solar system may have vanished from the map of the universe. what a terrible journey! is it worth travelling so far to enter the bible heaven, and sing hymns with the menagerie of the apocalypse? besides, a poor soul might lose its way, and dash about the billion-billion-miled universe like a lunatic meteor. it appears to us, also, that mr. harrald and the rest of mr. spurgeon's friends have forgotten his own teaching. he thoroughly believed in the bodily resurrection of the dead, and an ultimate day of judgment, when bodv and soul would join together, and share a common fate for eternity. how is this reconcileable with the notion that spurgeon's soul "entered heaven at . " on sunday evening, the thirty-first of january, ? is it credible that the good man went to the new jerusalem, will stay there in perfect felicity until the day of judgment, and will then have to return to this world, rejoin his old bodv, and stand his trial at the great assize, with the possibility of having to shift his quarters afterwards? would not this be extremely unjust, nay dreadfully cruel? and even if spurgeon, as one of the "elect," only left heaven for form's sake at the day of judgment, to go through the farce of a predetermined trial, would it not be a gratuitous worry to snatch him away from unspeakable bliss to witness the trial of the human species, and the damnation of at least nine-tenths of all that ever breathed? as a matter of fact, the christian church has never been able to make up its mind about the state or position of the soul immediately after death. only a few weeks ago we saw that sir g. g. stokes, unconsciously following in the wake of divines like archbishop whately, holds the view that the soul on leaving the body will lie in absolute unconsciousness until the day when it has to wake up and stand in the dock. the controversies on this subject are infinite, and all sorts of ideas have been maintained, but nothing has been authoritatively decided. mr. spurgeon's friends have simply _cut_ the gordian knot; that is, they are only dogmatising. laying all such subtle disputes aside, we should like mr. harrald to tell us how he knows that spurgeon has gone, is going, or ever will go to heaven. what certainty can they have in the matter? saint paul himself alluded to the possibility of his being "a castaway." how can an inferior apostle be _sure_ of the kingdom of heaven? saint paul taught predestination, and so did spurgeon. according to this doctrine, god knew beforehand the exact number of human beings that would live on this planet, though omniscience itself must have been taxed to decide where the anthropoid exactly shaded off into the man. he also knew the exact number of the elect who would go to heaven, and the exact number of the reprobate who would go to hell. the tally was decided before the spirit of god brooded over the realm of chaos and old night. every child born into the world bears the stamp of his destiny. but the stamp is secret. no one can detect it. lists of saved and damned are not published. if they were, it would save us a lot of anxiety. some would say, "i'm all right." others would say, "i'm in for it; i'll keep cool while i can." but we must all die before we ascertain our fate. we may feel confident of being in the right list, with the rest of the sheep; but confidence is not proof, and impressions are not facts. when we take the great leap we shall know. until then no man has any certitude; not even the most pious christian that ever rolled his eyes in prayer to his maker, or whined out the confession of his contemptible sins. all are in the same perplexity, and spurgeon was no exception to the rule. when predestination was really believed, the friends of the greatest saint only _hoped_ he had gone to heaven. when they are _sure_ of it predestination is dead. nay, hell itself is extinguished. spurgeon's friends think he has gone to heaven because they feel he was too good to go to hell. they knew him personally, and it is hard to think that a man whose hand once lay in yours is howling in everlasting fire. such exceptions prove a new rule. they show that the human heart has outgrown the horrible doctrine of future torment, that the human mind has outgrown foolish creeds, that man is better than his god. god in japan. japan has just been visited by a terrible earthquake. without a moment's warning it swept along, wrecking towns, killing people, and altering the very shape of mountains. a vast tidal wave also rushed against the coast and deluged whole tracts of low-lying country. it is estimated that , houses have been destroyed, and at least , men, women, and children. the first reports gave a total of , slain, but this is said to be an exaggeration. nevertheless, as a hundred miles or so of railway is torn to pieces, and it is difficult to convey relief to the suffering survivors, the butcher's bill of this catastrophe may be doubled before the finish. if earthquakes are the work of blind, unconscious nature, it is idle to spend our breath in discussion or recrimination. even regret is foolish. we have to take the world as we find it, with all its disadvantages, and make the best of a not too brilliant bargain. instead of screaming we must study; instead of wailing we must reflect; and eventually, as we gain a deeper knowledge of the secrets of nature, and a greater mastery over her forces, we shall be better able to foresee the approach of evil and to take precautionary measures against it. but the standard teaching of england, to say nothing of less civilised nations, is not naturalism but theism. we are told that there is a god over all, and that he doeth all things well. on the practical side this deity is called providence. it is providence that sends fine weather, and providence that sends bad weather; providence that sends floods, and providence that sends drought; providence that favors us with a fine harvest, and providence that blights the crops, reducing millions of people, as in russia at this moment, to the most desperate shifts of self-preservation. it is providence that saves smith's precious life in a railway accident, and of course it is. providence that smashes poor jones, brown and robinson. now it will be observed that the favorable or adverse policy of providence is quite irrespective of human conduct, there is no moral discrimination. if grace darling and jack the ripper were travelling by the same train, and it met with an accident, everybody knows that their chances of death are precisely equal. if there were any difference it would be in favor of jack, who seems very careful of his own safety, and would probably take a seat in the least dangerous part of the train. some people, of course, and especially parsons, will contend that providence does discriminate. they have already been heard to hint that the russian famine is on account of the persecution of the jews. but this act of brutality is the crime of the government, and the famine falls upon multitudes of peasants who never saw a jew in their lives. they have to suffer the pangs of hunger, but the czar will not go without a single meal or a single bottle of champagne. no doubt a pious idiot or two will go to the length of asserting or insinuating that the earthquake in japan is a divine warning to the people, from the mikado down to his meanest subject, that they are too slow in accepting christianity. in fact there is a large collection of such pious idiots, only they are deterred by a wholesome fear of ridicule. hundreds of thousands of people have seen mr. wilson barrett in _claudian_, without being in the least astonished that an earthquake, which ruins a whole city, should be got up for the hero's spiritual edification. let the pious idiots, however numerous, be swept aside, and let the christian with a fair supply of brains in his skull consider providence in the light of this earthquake. it is folly to pretend that the japanese are particularly wicked at this moment. it is greater folly to pretend that the earthquake killed the most flagitious sinners. it slew like jehovah's bandits in the land of canaan, without regard to age, sex, or character. the terrible fact must be faced, that in a country not specially wicked, and in a portion of it not inhabited by select sinners, the lord sent an earthquake to slay man, woman, and child, and if possible to "leave alive nothing that breatheth." lay your hand upon your heart, christian, and honestly answer this question. would you have done this deed? of course not. your cheek flames at the thought. you would rush to save the victims. you would soothe the dying and reverently bury the dead. why then do you worship a moloch who laughs at the writhings of his victims and drinks their tears like wine? see, they are working and playing; they are at business and pleasure; one is toiling to support the loved ones at home; another is sitting with them in peace and joy; another is wooing the maiden who is dearer to him than life itself; another is pondering some benevolent project; another is planning a law or a poem that shall be a blessing and a delight to posterity. and lo the mandate of moloch goes forth, and "his word shall not return unto him void." swifter than thought calamity falls upon the gay and busy scene. hearts that throbbed with joy now quiver with agony. the husband folds his wife in a last embrace. the mother gathers her children like niobe. the lover clasps in the midst of horror the maiden no longer coy. homes are shaken to dust, halls fall in ruins, the very temples of the gods are shattered. brains are dashed out, blood flows in streams, limbs are twisted, bodies are pinned by falling masonry, cries of anguish pierce the air, groans follow, and lastly silence. moloch then retires to his inmost sanctuary, filled and sated with death and pain. is it not better, christian friend, to defy moloch instead of worshipping him? is it not still better to regard this deity as the creation of fanciful ignorance? is not existence a terror if providence may swoop upon us with inevitable talons and irresistible beak? and does not life become sweeter when we see no cruel intelligence behind the catastrophes of nature? stanley on providence. buckle, the historian of civilisation, points out that superstition is most rampant where men are most oppressed by external nature. wild and terrible surroundings breed fear and awe in the human mind. those who lead adventurous lives are subject to the same law. sailors, for instance, are proverbially superstitious, and military men are scarcely less so. the fighter is not always moral, but he is nearly always religious. no one acquainted with this truth will be surprised at the piety of explorers. there is a striking exception in sir richard burton, but we do not remember another. from the days of mungo park down to our own age, they have been remarkable for their religious temperaments. had they remained at home, in quiet and safety, they might not have been conspicuous in this respect; but a life of constant adventure, of daily peril and hairbreadth escapes, developed their superstitious tendencies. it is so natural to feel our helplessness in solitude and danger, and perhaps in sickness. it is so easy to feel that our escape from a calamity that hemmed us in on every side was due to a providential hand. whether stanley, who is now the cynosure of all eyes, began with any considerable stock of piety, is a question we have no means of determining; but we can quite understand how a very little would go a very long way in africa, amid long and painful marches through unknown territory, the haunting peril of strange enemies, and the oppressive gloom of interminable forests. indeed, if the great explorer had become as superstitious as the natives themselves, we could have forgiven it as a frailty incident to human nature in such trying circumstances. but when he brings his mental weakness home with him, and addresses englishmen in the language of ideas calculated for the latitude of equatorial africa, it becomes necessary to utter a protest. stanley has had a good spell of rest in egypt, and plenty of time to get rid of the "creeps." he should, therefore, have returned to europe clothed and in his right mind. but instead of this he deliberately sits down and writes the following rubbish for an american magazine, with one eye on god above and the other on a handsome cheque below: "constrained at the darkest hour humbly to confess that without god's help i was helpless, i vowed a vow in the forest solitudes that i would confess his aid before men. silence, as of death, was round about me; it was midnight; i was weakened by illness, prostrated by fatigue, and wan with anxiety for my white and black companions, whose fate was a mystery. in this physical and mental distress i besought god to give me back my people. nine hours later we were exulting with a rapturous joy. in full view of all was the crimson flag with the crescent, and beneath its waving folds was the long-lost rear column." danger and grief are apt to make us selfish, and no one would be hard on stanley for showing weakness in such circumstances. but he rather glories in it. the danger is gone, and alas! the egotism remains. others perished miserably, but he escaped. omnipotence took care of him and let them go to the devil. no doubt they prayed in their extremity as heartily as he did, but their prayers were unheard or neglected. stanley was the lion of the party. yes, and in parading his egotistic piety in this way, he is in danger of becoming a _lion comique_. there is something absolutely farcical in stanley's logic. while he was praying to god, millions of other persons were engaged in the same occupation. agonised mothers were beseeching god to spare their dear children; wives were imploring him to restore the bread-winner of the family to health; entombed miners were praying in the dark depths of coalpits, and slowly perishing of starvation; shipwrecked sailors were asking for the help that never came. providence could not, apparently, take on too much business at once, and while stanley's fate trembled in the balance the rest of mankind might shift for themselves. but the farce does not end here. stanley's attitude was much like jacob's. that smooth-skinned and smooth-tongued patriarch said that if god would guarantee him a safe journey, feed him, clothe him, find him pocket money, and bring him safe back again--well, then the lord should be his god. stanley was not so exacting, but his attitude was similar. he asked god to give him back his people (a few short, killed or starved, did not matter), and promised in return to "confess his aid before men." give me the solid pudding, he says, and i will give you the empty praise. and now he is safe back in europe he fulfils his part of the contract, and goes about trumpeting the praise of omnipotence; taking care, however, to get as much cash as possible for every note he blows on the instrument. even this does not end the farce. stanley's piety runs away with his arithmetic. he reminds us of a christian lady we heard of the other day. she prayed one night, on going to bed, for news from her daughter, and early the next morning a letter came bearing the edinburgh post-mark. this was clearly an answer to her prayer. but a sceptical friend showed her that the letter must have been posted at edinburgh before she prayed for it. now stanley reasons like that lady. nine hours is no time in central africa. the "long-lost rear column" must have been near, though invisible, when stanley struck his little bargain with the almighty. had it been two or three hundred miles off, and miraculously transported, the hand of providence would have been unmistakable; but in the circumstances its arrival was natural, and the miracle is obviously the creation of stanley's heated brain. he was "weakened by illness" and "prostrated by fatigue," and the absurdity was pardonable. we only protest against his playing the child when he is well and strong. gone to god. stanley, the african traveller, is a man of piety. he seems to be on pretty familiar terms with the "one above." during his last expedition to relieve emin--a sceptical gentleman, who gets along with less bloodshed than stanley--he was troubled with "traitors"; that is, black fellows who thought they had a better right in africa than the intrusive whites, and acted upon that opinion. this put stanley in a towering rage. he resolved to teach the "traitors" a lesson. one of them was solemnly tried--by his executioners, and sentenced to be hung. a rope was noosed round his neck, and he was taken under a tree, which was to be his gallows. the poor devil screamed for mercy, but stanley bent his inexorable brows, and cried, "send him to god!" "we were troubled with no more traitors," says stanley. very likely. but the great man forgot to say what he meant by the exclamation, "send him to god!" did he mean "send him to god for judgment?" if so, it was rather rough to hang the prisoner before his proper trial. did he mean, "the fellow isn't fit for earth, so send him to heaven?" if so, it was a poor compliment to paradise. or did he simply use a pious, impressive form of speech to awe the spectators, and give them the notion that he had as much traffic with god as any african mystery-man or mohammedan dervish? the middle one of these three theories fits in best with the general sentiment, or at any rate the working sentiment, of christian england. some brutal, drunken, or passionate wretch commits a murder. he is carefully tried, solemnly sentenced, and religiously hanged. he is declared unfit to live on this planet. but he is still a likely candidate for heaven, which apparently yawns to receive all the refuse of earth. he is sedulously taken in hand by the gaol chaplain, or some other spiritual guide to glory, and is generally brought to a better frame of mind. finally, he expresses sorrow for his position, forgives everybody he has ever injured, delivers himself of a good deal of highly edifying advice, and then swings from the gallows clean into the kingdom of heaven. the grotesque absurdity of all this is enough to wrinkle the face of a cab horse. society and the murderer are both playing the hypocrite, and of course society is the worse of the two, for it is acting deliberately and methodically, while the poor devil about to be hung is like a hunted thing in a corner, up to any shift to ease his last moments and make peace with the powers of the life to come. society says he has killed somebody, and he shall be killed; that he is not fit to live, but fit to die; that it must strangle him, and call him "brother" when the white cap is over his face, and god must save his soul; that he is too bad to dwell on earth, but it hopes to meet him in heaven. religion does not generate sense, logic, or humaneness in the mind of society. its effect on the doomed assassin is simply horrible. he is really a more satisfactory figure when committing the murder than when he is posing, and shuffling and twisting, and talking piously, and exhibiting the intense, unmitigated selfishness which is at the bottom of all religious sentiment. the essence of piety comes out in this tragi-comedy. personal fear, personal hope, self, self, sell, is the be-all and the end-all of this sorry exhibition. a case in point has just occurred at leeds. james stockwell was hung there on tuesday morning. while under sentence of death, the report says, he slept well and ate heartily, so that remorse does not appear to have injured his digestion or any other part of his physical apparatus. on learning that he would not be reprieved, and must die, he became very attentive to the chaplain's ministrations; in fact, he took to preaching himself, and wrote several letters to his relatives, giving them sound teetotal advice, and warning them against the evils of drink. but the fellow lied all the time. his crime was particularly atrocious. he outraged a poor servant girl, sixteen years of age, and then cut her throat. he was himself thirty-two years of age, with a wife and one child, so that he had not even the miserable excuse of an unmated animal. a plea of insanity was put forward on his behalf, but it did not avail. when the wretched creature found he was not to be reprieved, and took kindly to the chaplain's religion, he started a fresh theory to cover his crime. he said he was drunk when he committed it. now this was a lie. the porter's speech in _macbeth_ will explain our meaning. james stockwell may have had a glass, but if he was really drunk, in the sense of not knowing what he was about, we believe it was simply impossible for him to make outrage the prelude to murder. if he had merely drunk enough to bring out the beast in him, without deranging the motor nerves, he was certainly not _drunk_ in the proper sense of the word. he knew what he was doing, and both in the crime and in his flight he showed himself a perfect master of his actions. religion, therefore, did not "convict him of sin." it did not lay bare before him his awful wickedness. it simply made him hypocritical. it induced or permitted him to save his _amour propre_ by a fresh falsehood. james stockwell's last letter from gaol was written the day before his execution. it was a comprehensive epistle, addressed to his father and mother and brothers and sisters. "god" and "christ" appear in it like an eruption. the writer quotes the soothing text, "come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and i will give you rest." he was evidently familiar with scripture, and thought this text especially applicable to himself. "many a prayer," he says, "have i offered to god both on behalf of you and myself," and he winds up by "hoping to meet you all hereafter." not a word about his crime. not a word about his injury to society. not a word about the poor girl he outraged and murdered. james stockwell had no thought for her or her relatives. he did not trouble about what had become of kate dennis. he was careless whether she was in heaven or hell. not once, apparently, did it cross his mind that he had destroyed her young life after nameless horror; that he had killed her in the bloom of maidenhood; that at one fell swoop he had extinguished all that she might have been--perhaps a happy wife and mother, living to a white old age, with the prattle of grandchildren soothing her last steps to the grave. such reflections do not occur to gentlemen who are anxious about their salvation, and in a hurry to get to heaven. "i and mine"--my fate, my mother, my father, my sisters, my brothers--this was the sole concern of james stockwell under the chaplain's ministrations. in this frame of mind, we presume, he has sailed to glory, and his family hope to meet him there snug in abraham's bosom. well, we don't. we hope to give the haunt of james stockwell a wide berth. if he and others like him are in the upper circles, every decent person would rather be in the pit. let not the reader suppose that james stockwell's case is uncommon. we have made a point of reading the letters of condemned murderers, and thev all bear a family likeness. religion simply stimulates and sanctifies selfishness. in selfishness it began and in selfishness it ends. extreme cases only show the principle in a glaring light; they do not alter it, and the light is the light of truth. james stockwell has gone to god. no doubt the chaplain of leeds gaol feels sure of it. probably the fellow's relatives are just as sure. but what of kate dennis. is _she_ with god? what an awful farce it would be if she were in hell. perhaps she is. she had no time to prepare for death. she was cut off "in her sins." but her murderer had three weeks to prepare for his freehold in new jerusalem. he qualified himself for a place with the sore-legged lazarus. he dwells in the presence of the lamb. he drinks of the river of life. he twangs his hallelujah harp and blows his hallelujah trumpet. maybe he looks over the battlements and sees kate dennis in hades. the murderer in heaven, and the victim in hell! nay more. it has been held that the bliss of the saved will be heightened by witnessing the tortures of the damned. in that case kate dennis may burn to make james stockwell's holiday. he will watch her writhings with more than the relish of a sportsman who has hooked a lusty trout. "ha, ha," the worthy james may exclaim, "i tortured her before i killed her, and now i shall enjoy her tortures for ever." thank god. the peculiarly selfish character of religion is often exemplified, but we do not remember a better illustration than the one which recently occurred at folkestone. the twenty-seven seamen who were rescued from the _benvenue_ attended a thanksgiving service at the parish church, where the vicar delivered "a short address suitable to the occasion." their captain and four of his crew were drowned, and the lucky survivors thanked the lord for saving them, though he let the others perish in the yeasty waves. we should like to see a copy of that vicar's suitable discourse. we suspect it would be an interesting study to a cynic. no doubt the man of god's chief motive was professional. the saving of those shipwrecked men was a splendid piece of work, but it required to be rounded off. it was not complete unless the parson blessed it and approved it with a text. he came in at the finish when the danger was all over, and gave the perfecting touch in the shape of a cheap benediction. probably the man of god put in a good word for providence. the poor sailors had been snatched from the jaws of death; their minds were therefore in a state of agitation, and at the very best they are not a logical or reflective race of men. very likely, therefore, they assented to the theory that they owed their deliverance to the blessing of god, but a little quiet thought about the matter would possibly make them see it in a different light. the persons who visibly _did_ save them from drowning were gallant lifeboat-men, who put their own lives in deadly peril, fighting the storm inch by inch in the hope of rescuing a number of unknown fellow creatures. all honor to _them!_ we would sooner doff the hat to them than to any prince in christendom. some of them, perhaps, take a drop too much occasionally, and their language may often be more vigorous than polite. but all that is superficial. the real test of a man is what he will do when he is put to it. when those rough fellows saw a brave task before them, all the skin-deep blackguardism dropped away; the heroic came out in supreme majesty, and they were consecrated by it more truly than any smug priest at his profitable altar. as they jumped into the boat they proved the nobility of human nature, and the damnable falsehood of the christian doctrine of original sin. what share providence had in the matter is not very apparent. strong arms and stout hearts were in the lifeboat, and that accounts for her reaching the wreck. had the rowers the choice of a stimulus, we dare say they would have taken a swig of brandy in preference to any quantity of the holy spirit. what providence _might_ have done if he, she, or it was in the humor, was to keep the shipwrecked sailors safe until the lifeboat arrived. but this was _not_ done, those who were lashed to the rigging were saved, while the captain and four others, less fortunately situated, were lost. where the _material_ means were efficacious there was salvation, and where they failed there was disaster and death. so much for the logical side of the matter. now let us look at the moral side. religion pretends to minister to the unselfish part of our nature. that is the theory, but how does it work out in practice? thanking god for saving the survivors of a shipwreck implies that he could have saved those who perished. it also implies that he did not choose to do so. it further implies that the saved are more worthy, or more important, than the lost; at least, it implies that they are greater favorites in the "eye of heaven." now this is a frightful piece of egotism, which everyone with a spark of manhood would be disgusted at if he saw it in its true colors. nor is this all. it is not even the worst. there is a viler aspect of this "thanksgiving" business. one man is saved in a disaster and another is killed. when the first realises his good luck he congratulates himself, this is natural and pardonable, but only for a moment. the least disinterestedness, the least sympathy, the least imagination, would make him think of his dead companion. "did he suffer much, poor fellow? what will his wife do? how will his little ones get on without a father? after all, mightn't it have been better if he had been spared instead of me? who knows?" if these reflections did not occur under the stimulated instinct of self-preservation it would be bad enough. how much worse when the survivor keeps up the selfish attitude in cold blood, and deliberately goes about thanking god for _his_ preservation! ordinary reason and humanity would cry shame on such egotism, but religion steps in and sanctifies it. some of these days an honest man will be provoked into a bit of good strong "blasphemy." when he hears a fellow thanking providence for _his_ safety, while others perished, this honest man will shrug his shoulders. and when the fellow cries "bless god!" this honest man will exclaim "damn god!" no doubt the priests would burn that honest man alive if they had the power. but his logic and his feelings will be better than theirs. he will abhor selfishness even in the disguise of piety, and he will argue that if god is to be credited with the lives of those who are saved, he should also be debited with the lives of those who are lost. and how would the account stand then? judgment day. the end of the world has been a fertile and profitable theme with pulpit mountebanks and pious adventurers. ever since the primitive ages of christianity it has served to frighten the credulous and feather the nests of their deceivers. in the apostolic days the second coming of christ was generally and constantly expected. according to the twenty-fourth of matthew, jesus predicted that the end of all things would soon arrive. the sun and moon were to be darkened; the stars were to fall from heaven; and the son of man was to come through the clouds with great power and glory, and gather the elect together from every quarter of the earth, according to the twenty-fifth of matthew, this wondrous scene was to be followed by a great assize. all the nations were to be judged before the heavenly throne, and divided into two lots, one destined for heaven and the other for hell. and jesus significantly added, "verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." st. paul also, in the fourth chapter of the first of thessalonians, said that the lord would "descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of god: and the dead in christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the lord in the air." nothing of the sort has happened. there is no sign of the lord's coming, and he is already eighteen centuries behind date. "behold i come quickly"--"surely i come quickly." such was the announcement. but, like many other divine promises, it has been falsified. the only orthodox way out of the difficulty is to say that the lord does not reckon time as we do; with him a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. the general public, however, eighteen hundred years ago, did not know how long the prophecy was to remain unfulfilled, and it had an extraordinary power over them. being mostly very ignorant, and therefore very credulous, they were easily terrified by the notion that the world was to be burnt up speedily; and they as readily embraced the doctrine which promised to bring them safely through the catastrophe. from the way in which the game answers still with the christian mob, after nearly two thousand years of exposure, we can understand what a splendid instrument of proselytising it must have been in the hands of the fanatical preachers of the early church. combine with it the millennium promised to the saints after the second coming of christ, in which they were to enjoy themselves royally, and you will feel the justice of gibbon's remark that "it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the christian faith." it was inculcated by a succession of fathers, from justin martyr to lactantius. but when it had served its purpose it was allowed to drop. as gibbon says, "it was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism." the millennium is stigmatised, in what once stood as the forty-first article of the english church, as "a fable of jewish dotage." we wonder whether the plain-spoken divines who drew up that article included jesus christ, st. paul, and st. john among the jewish dotards. at the end of the tenth century the doctrine of the second coming was revived. the people were led to believe that the old serpent's thousand years of bondage was nearly up, that he would be let loose about the year , , that antichrist would then appear, and that the end of the world would follow. churches and houses were therefore left to decay, as they would cease to be wanted. whenever an eclipse of the sun or moon took place, the people ran into caverns and caves. multitudes hurried off to palestine, where they supposed christ would make his descent. they transferred their property to the priests, who could say with iago, "thus do i ever make my fool my purse." others not only gave their property to the priests, but actually became their slaves; hoping, says mosheim, that "the supreme judge would be more favorable to them if they made themselves servants to _his_ servants." jortin justly observes that the priests industriously cherished the delusion for the sake of filthy lucre. they accepted the gifts of their poor dupes, although earthly possessions would be as useless to them as to the laity if the last days were at hand. donations to the church were given by fools and received by knaves. the reason assigned for the gift is generally thus expressed: _appropinquante mundi termino--the end of the world being now at hand_.* when the tenth century ended without a sign of the second advent, people looked at each other and said "he is not come then." and the priests chuckled, "no, he has not come, but your property is gone." there was no chance of bringing an action for obtaining money under false pretences, and holy mother church never gives back a farthing of what she obtains, for what is once devoted to god can never be alienated without sacrilege. although the delusion has been milder since then, it has always lurked among the ignorant, and occasionally become acute. silly christians still shake their heads when a comet is visible, and regard it as a blazing portent. they even hint that one of these wanderers through space may collide with our globe and cause the final smash; not knowing that comets are quite harmless, and that hundreds of cubic miles of their tails would not outweigh a jar-ful of air. dr. cumming foretold the grand collapse several times. his books were read by thousands of superstitious people. finally, he was played out, and he went to his grave a discredited prophet. had he been wiser he would have fixed the event some time after he was likely to be buried. then the game would have lasted his lifetime, and what does it matter if you are found out when you are dead? how far gumming believed his own prophecies is a moot point. it is said that he bought the lease of a house, which expired about twenty-five years after his date for the day of judgment. prophet baxter, of the _christian herald_, now runs the business. he wrote a book to prove that louis napoleon was antichrist. louis napoleon is dead and nearly forgotten. then he proved that gambetta was antichrist. gambetta is dead and not forgotten. then he proved that prince jerome was antichrist. prince jerome is nowhere, and baxter is looking out for a fresh antichrist. yet his paper is read by hundreds of thousands. as heine said, the fool-crop is perennial. over in america the second adventists are a numerous body. they watch and pray for the coming of christ, and keep white robes ready for their ascension. some time ago they donned their linen in the expectation that the lord was coming that very night. but the lord did not put in an appearance, and the robes were laid up in lavender again. a fat matron trying to fly in that outfit would be a sight worth seeing. it would take several angels to float some of them. even the archangel michael might shrink from tackling twenty-stone. like everything else in christianity, except the accursed doctrine of salvation by faith, the idea of the end of the world and a day of judgment is derived from older sources. the hindu _kalpas_, covering thousands of millions of years, are periods of creation and destruction, and each is called a day of brahma. during this enormous interval the universe begins and ends. brahma wakes from his slumbrous solitude, and his thoughts and emotions embody themselves in worlds and creatures. when he falls to rest again, the whole system of finite things vanishes like the baseless fabric of a vision. the stoics also believed in a periodical destruction and renovation of all things. they, as alger says, "conceived of god as a pure artistic force or seed of universal energy, which exhibits its history in the evolution of the cosmos, and, on its completion, blossoms into fire and vanishes. the universal periodical conflagration destroys all evil, and leaves the indestructible god alone in his pure essence again." the persians entertained a similar conception, which more closely resembles the christian doctrine. ahura-mazda creates all things good, and the race of men happy and immortal. but angra-mainyas, his adversary, the old serpent, corrupts them, brings upon them misery and death, and leads their souls to his dark abode. good and evil spirits fill all creation with their conflict. but at last ahura-mazda subdues angra-mainyas, nullifies all the mischief he has done by means of a great deliverer, who is sent to instruct and redeem mankind, raises the dead, purifies the world with fire, and restores all nature to its paradisiacal condition. the scandinavians had their ragnarok, or twilight of the gods, when all the powers of good and evil join in battle. the horn sounds, the last day dawns in fire and splendor from the sky, in fog and venom from the abyss. flames destroy the earth, the combatants mostly slay each other, but gimli, the heaven of the all-father, is a refuge for the survivors, and the beginning of a new and fairer world. chiefly influenced by the persian, and partly by other systems, the later jewish theology, as represented by the pharisees, taught that jehovah would reappear in the last days; and the day of the lord, which in former ages meant any national calamity, became transformed into the day of judgment. what was to happen on that occasion is described in the book of enoch. this was written about a century before christ, yet it is quoted in the epistle of jude as the work of old transported enoch, the seventh from adam; a fact which throws a singular light on the critical acumen of the early christians. jesus christ, paul, and especially the author of revelation, are indebted to the book of enoch. it provided them with nearly all the plot, dialogue and scenery of their judgment drama. as judges of the dead, the greeks had minos, who presided at the trial of souls from europe; rhada-mauthus, who examined those from asia; and Æacus, who tried those from africa, america and australia were then unknown, and souls from those continents were not provided with inspectors. of course the dead who held communication with the living, never told them more than they knew. the same thing continues to this day. all the messages from the departed given at all the spiritist _séances_ have not added a single fragment to the world's stock of information. the ancient egyptians believed in "after death the judgment." souls were tried in the hall of the two-truths, or the double justice. they were weighed in the balance. thoth noted the result, and osiris pronounced sentence. before burial, also, the egyptian dead underwent a saner trial. the friends and relatives, the enemies and accusers of the deceased, assembled around the sarcophagus before forty-two assessors. he was put on his trial before them; and if justified, awarded an honorable burial; but, if condemned, disgraced by the withholding of funeral rites. kings, as well as commoners, were apparently subject to the same ordeal. does this account for the beneficent character of their government, and the prosperous-content of the people, which is reflected in the placid smile of their sphinxes? probably the antique notion of a general day of judgment arose from the imposing trials, where the king sat in judgment, throned, jewelled, and guarded; where all were free to approach and claim justice; and where the sentences were executed by the soldiers-directly they were passed. add to this scene a general _auto da fé_, in which christ plays the part of grand inquisitor, the saints that of familiars, and the devil; that of executioner, and you have a very fair idea of the christian day of judgment. "day," we presume, must not be taken too literally. the mohammedans believe the great assize will last thousands of years. in that case the people who are fond of hearing trials will have a fine time, until their own turn comes. after all, even the mohammedan computation seems too slender. to say nothing of the scientific antiquity of man, and reckoning according to the bible chronology, about two hundred thousand million souls have passed into eternity already, and the lord knows how many more will join them. imagination fails in conceiving the time it would take to try all that multitude, especially if there are a good number of tichborne cases. besides, the whole thing seems unfair. those who get a ticket for heaven at the end of the day will enjoy a few thousand years less of bliss than the more fortunate ones who came early; and those who get a ticket for hell in the first hour will suffer a few thousand years of torture more than those who are sentenced at the finish. the criterion at the day of judgment will be faith. that is a difficult virtue to wise men, and an easy one to fools. the ninnies, therefore, will have the best chance. this must be very consoling to mankind if carlyle's estimate of england's population--"thirty millions, mostly fools"--may be extended to the rest of the world. all who have faith enough to secure a seat in heaven are called "sheep," and they could not be labelled better. all the others are called "goats," that is, lusty, strong-legged fellows who despise the game of follow-my-leader, who object to walking along the road made for them, and are always leaping the fence to see what is on the other side. there was war in heaven once, we are told, but that was before satan and his crew were kicked out. there will never be war in heaven again. jesus christ will easily be able to manage his sheep. but the devil will have a tougher job with his goats. there will always be a kingdom in heaven, but ten to one there will be a republic in hell. christianity says we are to be saved by faith. our view is different. men are saved by thinking and acting. while christian monks were trying to degrade men below the level of brutes, some unknown secularists invented windmills and glass windows. while the inquisition was exterminating heresy and purifying the faith, galileo was inventing the telescope. while church of englandism and methodism were fighting over the faith in england, watt was discovering the use of steam. faith never saved men here, and why should it save them hereafter? god, if he exist, must be too humane and sensible to judge men according to their belief; and if he endowed us with reason, he will never damn us for exercising it. wandering in an immense forest during the night, said diderot, i have only one little light to guide me. a stranger comes to me and says, "my friend, blow out your candle to find your way better." that light is reason, and that stranger is a theologian. science, no less than common sense, dispels christian superstition. evolution destroys the idea of a general catastrophe. there was a time when life could not exist on the earth, and there will probably come a time when it will cease to exist. long before then man will have disappeared. but the aeon of our race may extend to millions of years. is not this time practically infinite? and do not those who make it a cause for lamentation and despair resemble the man that spinoza ridicules, who refuses to eat his dinner to-day because he is not sure of a dinner for ever and ever? sit down, you fool, and eat. shelley's atheism. * * on august , , the centenary of shelley's birth was celebrated at horsham, where it is intended to found a shelley library, if not a shelley museum. the celebrants were a motley collection. they were all concealing the poet's principles and paying honor to a bogus shelley. a more honest celebration took place in the evening at the hall of science, old-street, london, e.c. six or seven hundred people were addressed by dr. furnivall, gr. b. shaw, and g. w. foote; and every pointed reference to shelley's religious, social, and political heresy was enthusiastically applauded. charles darwin, the newton of biology, was an agnostic--which is only a respectable synonym for an atheist. the more he looked for god the less he could find him. yet the corpse of this great "infidel" lies in westminster abbey, we need not wonder, therefore, that christians and even parsons are on the shelley centenary committee, or that mr. edmund gosse was chosen to officiate as high pontiff at the horsham celebration. mr. gosse is a young man with a promising past--to borrow a witticism from heine. in the old _examiner_ days he hung about the army of revolt. since then he has become a bit of a philistine, though he still affects a superior air, and retains a pretty way of turning a sentence. the selection of such a man to pronounce the eulogy on shelley was in keeping with the whole proceedings at horsham, where everybody was lauding a "bogus shelley," as mr. shaw remarked at the hall of science celebration. mr. gosse was good enough to tell the horsham celebrants that "it was not the poet who was attacked" in shelley's case, but "the revolutionist, the enemy of kings and priests, the extravagant and paradoxical humanitarian." mr. gosse generously called this an "intelligent aversion," and in another sense than his it undoubtedly was so. the classes, interests, and abuses that were threatened by shelley's principles, acted with the intelligence of self-preservation. they gave him an ill name and would gladly have hung him. yes, it was, beyond all doubt, an "intelligent aversion." byron only dallied with the false and foolish beliefs of his age, but shelley meant mischief. this accounts for the hatred shown towards him by orthodoxy and privilege. mr. gosse himself appears to have an "intelligent aversion" to shelley's _principles_. he professes a great admiration for shelley's _poetry_; but he regards it as a sort of beautiful landscape, which has no other purpose than gratifying the aesthetic taste of the spectator. for the poet's _teaching_ he feels or affects a lofty contempt. shelley the singer was a marvel of delicacy and power; but shelley the thinker was at best a callow enthusiast. had he lived as long as mr. gosse, and moved in the same dignified society, he would have acquired an "intelligent aversion" to the indiscretions of his youthful passion for reforming the world; but fate decided otherwise, and he is unfortunate enough to be the subject of mr. gosse's admonitions. shelley lived like a spartan; a hunk of bread and a jug of water, dashed perhaps with milk, served him as a dinner. his income was spent on the poor, on struggling men of genius, and on necessitous friends. now as the world goes, this is simply asinine; and mr. gosse plays to the philistine gallery by sneering at shelley's vegetarianism, and playfully describing him as an "eater of buns and raisins." it was also lamented by mr. gosse that shelley, as a "hater of kings," had an attraction for "revolutionists," a set of persons with whom mr. gosse would have no sort of dealings except through the policeman. "social anarchists," likewise, gathered "around the husband of godwin's daughter"--a pregnant denunciation, though it leaves us in doubt whether shelley, godwin, or mary was the anarch, or all three of them together; while the "husband" seems to imply that getting married was one of the gravest of shelley's offences. but the worst of all is to come: "those to whom the restraints of religion were hateful marshalled themselves under the banner of the youth who had rashly styled himself as an atheist, forgetful of the fact that all his best writings attest that, whatever name he might call himself, he, more than any other poet of the age, saw god in everything." we beg to tell mr. gosse that he is libellous and impertinent. he knows little or nothing of atheists if he thinks they are only repelled by the "restraints of religion." they have restraints of their own, quite as numerous and imperative as those of any religionist who fears his god. what is more, they have incentives which religion weakens. mr. gosse is perhaps in a state of ignorance on this matter. he probably speaks of the moral condition of atheists as a famous american humorist proposed to lecture on science, with an imagination untrammeled by the least acquaintance with the subject. so much (it is quite enough) for the libel; and now for the impertinence. mr. gosse pretends to know shelley's mind better than he knew it himself. shelley called himself an atheist; that is indisputable; but he did so "rashly." he was mistaken about his own opinions; he knew a great many things, but he was ignorant of himself. but the omniscient mr. gosse was born (or _was_ he born?) to rectify the poet's blunder, and assure the world that he was a theist without knowing it--in fact, a really god-intoxicated person. what wonder is it that mr. gosse became intoxicated in turn, and soared in a rapture of panegyric over a shelley of his own construction? "the period of prejudice is over," he exclaimed, "and we are gathered here to-day under the auspices of the greatest poet our language has produced since shelley died, encouraged by universal public opinion and by dignitaries of all the professions--yea, even by prelates of our national church." here the preacher's intoxication became maudlin, and there should have been an interval for soda-water. curiously enough, the very last page of trelawny's _records of shelley and byron_ contains a conversation between that gallant friend of the two poets and a "prelate of our national church." "some years ago, one of the most learned of the english bishops questioned me regarding shelley; he expressed both admiration and astonishment at his learning and writings. i said to the bishop, 'you know he was an atheist.' he said, 'yes.' i answered: 'it is the key and the distinguishing quality of all he wrote. now that people are beginning to distinguish men by their works, and not creeds, the critics, to bring him into vogue, are trying to make out that shelley was not an atheist, that he was rather a religious man. would it be right in me, or anyone who knew him, to aid or sanction such a fraud?' the bishop said: 'certainly not, there is nothing righteous but truth.' and there our conversation ended." trelawny's bishop was willing (outside church, and in private conversation) to deprecate prejudice and acknowledge the supremacy of truth; and perhaps for that reason he allowed that shelley _was_ an atheist. mr. gosse's bishops will soon be converting him into a pillar of the church. trelawny knew shelley a great deal better than mr. gosse. he enjoyed an intimate friendship with the poet, not in his callow days, but during the last year or two of his life, when his intellect was mature, and his genius was pouring forth the great works that secure his immortality. during that time shelley professed the opinions he enunciated in _queen mab_. he said that the matter of that poem was good; it was only the treatment that was immature. again and again he told trelawny that he was content to know nothing of the origin of the universe; that religion was chiefly a means of deceiving and robbing the people; that it fomented hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; and that it also fettered the intellect, deterring men from solving the problems of individual and social life, as well as the problems of nature, out of regard for the supposed oracles of omniscience, which were after all the teachings of bigoted and designing priests. shelley called himself an atheist; he wrote "atheist" after his name on a famous occasion; and trelawny says "he never regretted having done this." "the principal fault i have to find," wrote trelawny, "is that the shelleyan writers, being christians themselves, seem to think that a man of genius cannot be an atheist, and so they strain their own faculties to disprove what shelley asserted from the earliest stage of his career to the last day of his life. he ignored all religions as superstitions." on another occasion shelley said to trelawny--"the knaves are the cleverest; they profess to know everything; the fools believe them, and so they govern the world." which is a most sagacious observation. he said that "atheist!" in the mouth of orthodoxy was "a word of abuse to stop discussion, a painted devil to frighten the foolish, a threat to intimidate the wise and good." mr. gosse may reply that shelley's conversations with trelawny are not absolute evidence; that they were written down long afterwards, and that we cannot be sure of shelley's using the precise words attributed to him. very well then; be it so. mr. gosse has appealed to shelley's "writings," and to shelley's writings we will go. true, the epithet "best" is inserted by mr. gosse as a saving qualification; but we shall disregard it, partly because "best" is a disputable adjective, but more because _all_ shelley's writings attest his atheism. let us first go to shelley's prose, not because it is his "best" work (though some parts of it are exquisitely beautiful, often very powerful, and always chaste), but because prose is less open than verse to false conception and interpretation. in the fine fragment "on life" he acutely observes that "mind, as far as we have any experience of its properties, and beyond that experience how vain is argument! cannot create, it can only perceive." and he concludes "it is infinitely improbable that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar to mind." be it observed, however, that shelley does not dogmatise. he simply cannot conceive that mind is the _basis_ of all things. the cause of life is still obscure. "all recorded generations of mankind," shelley says, "have wearily-busied themselves in inventing answers to this question; and the result has been--religion." shelley's essay "on a future state" follows the same line of reasoning as his essay "on life." he considers it highly probable that _thought_ is "no more than the relation between certain parts of that infinitely varied mass, of which the rest of the universe is composed, and which ceases to exist as soon as those parts change their positions with regard to each other." his conclusion is that "the desire to be for ever as we are, the reluctance to a violent and unexperienced change," which is common to man and other living beings, is the "secret persuasion which has given birth to the opinions of a future state." if we turn to shelley's published letters we shall find abundant expressions of hostility to and contempt for religion. those letters may deserve the praise of matthew arnold or the censure of mr. swinburne; but, in either case, they may be taken as honest documents, written to all sorts of private friends, and never intended for publication. byron's letters were passed about freely, and largely written for effect; shelley's were written under ordinary conditions, and he unbosomed himself with freedom and sincerity. from one of his early letters we find that he contemplated a translation of the _system of nature_, which is frequently quoted in the notes to _queen mob_. he couples jehovah and mammon together as fit for the worship of "those who delight in wickedness and slavery." in a letter to henry reveley he pictures god as delighted with his creation of the earth, and seeing it spin round the sun; and imagines him taking out "patents to supply all the suns in space with the same manufacture." when the poet was informed by oilier that a certain gentleman (it was archdeacon hare) hoped he would humble his soul and "receive the spirit into him," shelley replied: "if you know him personally, pray ask him from me what he means by receiving the _spirit into me_; and (if really it is any good) how one is to get at it." he goes on to say: "i was immeasurably amused by the quotation from schlegel about the way in which the popular faith is destroyed--first the devil, then the holy ghost, then god the father. i had written a lucianic essay to prove the same thing." in the very year of his death, writing to john gisborne, he girds at the popular faith in god, and with reference to one of its most abhorrent doctrines he exclaims--"as if, after sixty years' suffering here, we were to be roasted alive for sixty million more in hell, or charitably annihilated by a _coup de grâce_ of the bungler who brought us into existence at first."--a dozen other quotations from shelley's letters might be given, all to pretty much the same effect, but the foregoing must suffice. a thorough analysis of shelley's poetry, showing the essential atheism which runs through it from beginning to end, would require more space than we have at our command. we shall therefore simply point out, by means of instances, how indignantly or contemptuously he always refers to religion as the great despot and impostor of mankind. the _revolt of islam_ stigmatises "faith" as "an obscene worm." the sonnet on the fall of bonaparte concludes with a reference to "bloody faith, the foulest birth of time." shelley frequently conceives faith as serpentine and disgusting. in _rosalind and helen_ he writes-- grey power was seated safely on her ancestral throne; and faith, the python, undefeated, even to its blood-stained steps dragged on her foul and wounded train. in the great and splendid _ode to liberty_ the image undergoes a miltonic sublimation. like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves hung tyranny; beneath, sat deified the sister-pest, congregator of slaves. invariably does the poet class religion and oppression together--"religion veils her eyes: oppression shrinks aghast."--"destruction's sceptred slaves, and folly's mitred brood."--"and laughter fills the fane, and curses shake the throne." mr. herbert spencer writes with learning and eloquence about the power of the universe and the unknowable. shelley pricked this bubble of speculation in the following passage: what is that power? some moonstruck sophist stood watching the shade from his own soul upthrown fill heaven and darken earth, and in such mood the form he saw and worshipped was his own, his likeness in the world's vast mirror shown. in one verse of the _ode to liberty_ the poet exclaims: o that the free would stamp the impious name of ------ into the dust or write it there. what is the omitted word? mr. swinburne says the only possible word is--god. we agree with him. anything else would be a ridiculous anti-climax, and quite inconsistent with the powerful description of-- this foul gordian word, which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind into a mass, irrefragably firm, the axes and the rods that awe mankind. "pope" and "christ" are alike impossible. with respect to "mankind" they are but local designations. the word must be universal. it is _god_. the glorious speech of the spirit of the hour, which terminates the third act of _prometheus unbound_--that superb drama of emancipate humanity--lumps together "thrones, altars, judgment seats, and prisons," as parts of one gigantic system of spiritual and temporal misrule. man, when redeemed from falsehood and evil, rejects his books "of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance"; and the veil is torn aside from all "believed and hoped." and what is the result? let the spirit of the hour answer. the loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king over himself; just, gentle, wise; but man passionless? no, yet free from guilt or pain, which were, for his will made or suffered them; nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, from chance, and death, and mutability, the clogs of that which else might oversoar the loftiest star of unascended heaven, pinnacled dim in the intense inane. what a triumphant flight! the poet springs from earth and is speedily away beyond sight--almost beyond conception--like an elemental thing. but his starting-point is definite enough. man is exempt from awe and worship; from spiritual as well as political and social slavery; king over himself, ruling the anarchy of his own passions. and the same idea is sung by demogorgon at the close of the fifth act. the "earth-born's spell yawns for heaven's despotism," and "conquest is dragged captive through the deep." love, from its awful throne of patient power in the wise heart, from the last giddy hour of dread endurance, from the slippery steep, and narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs and folds over the world its healing wings. gentleness, virtue, wisdom, and endurance, these are the seals of that most firm assurance which bars the pit over destruction's strength; and if, with infirm hand, eternity, mother of many acts and hours, should free the serpent that would clasp her with his length, these are the spells by which to re-assume an empire o'er the disentangled doom. to suffer woes which hope thinks infinite; to forgive wrongs darker than death or night; to defy power, which seems omnipotent; to love, and bear; to hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates; neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; this, like thy glory, titan! is to be good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; this is alone life, joy, empire, and victory! this is the atheism of shelley. man is to conquer, by love and hope and thought and endurance, his birthright of happiness and dignity. humanity is to take the place of god. it has been argued that if shelley had lived he would have repented the "indiscretions of his youth," and gravitated towards a more "respectable" philosophy. well, it is easy to prophesy; and just as easy, and no less effectual, to meet the prophet with a flat contradiction. "might have been" is no better than "might not have been." was it not declared that charles bradlaugh would have become a christian if he had lived long enough? was not the same asserted of john stuart mill? one was nearly sixty, the other nearly seventy; and we have to wonder what is the real age of intellectual maturity. only a few weeks before his death, shelley wrote of christianity that "no man of sense could think it true." that was his deliberate and final judgment. had he lived long enough to lose his sense; had he fallen a victim to some nervous malady, or softening of the brain; had he lingered on to a more than ripe (a rotten) old age, in which senility may unsay the virile words of manhood; it is conceivable that shelley might have become a devotee of the faith he had despised. but none of these things did happen. what shelley _was_ is the only object of sane discussion. and what he was we know--an atheist, a lover of humanity. long faces. every one who has turned over old volumes of sermons, adorned with the authors' portraits, must have been struck with the length of their faces. they seem to say--parodying the famous line of dante--"abandon jokes all ye who enter here." those men preached a solemnly absurd creed, and they looked absurdly solemn. their faces seemed as devoid of merriment as the faces of jackasses, and the heads above them were often as stupid. justice forbid that i should run down a hooker, a barrow, a taylor, or a south. they were men of _genius_, and all genius is of the blood royal. i read their writings with pleasure and profit, which is more than nine-tenths of the clergy can say with any approach to honesty. but a single swallow does not make a summer, and a few men of genius do not elevate a profession. i am perfectly convinced that the great bulk of the preaching fraternity have cultivated a solemn aspect--not perhaps deliberately, but at least instinctively--in order to impose on the ignorant and credulous multitude. the very tone of voice in which they pray, give out hymns, and preach, is _artificial_; in keeping with their artificial ideas and artificial sentiments; which, if they were expressed in natural tones, would excite universal contempt and derision. now this solemnity is the best trick in the priest's game. gravity is always mistaken by the multitude for wisdom. a round-faced merry fellow shall make a bright, sensible speech, and he will be voted frivolous; but a long-faced, saturnine fellow shall utter a string of dull platitudes, and he will be voted a solon. this is well known to the clergy, who have developed a perfect art of dullness. they talk an infinite deal of nothing, use a multitude of solemn words to hide an absurdity or no meaning at all, and utter the inherited shibboleths of their craft like the august oracles of a recent revelation. concede them the advantage of solemnity, or reverence, or whatever else it is called, and you give them the victory at the beginning of the battle. if _you_ pull a long face over their nonsense, the spectators, after all your arguments, will say, "there _must_ be something in it, though, for see how _serious_ he is." whereas a light jest and a merry smile will show you are heart-free, and beyond the range of clerical artillery. i do not pretend, however, that the efforts of free-thought critics should have no background of seriousness. wit without reason, says heine, is but a sneeze of the intelligence. but has not wit ever been the keenest weapon of the great emancipators of the human mind? not the mere plaything of an idle mind in an idle hour, but the coruscating blade to pierce the weak places of folly and imposture. aristophanes, lucian, rabelais, erasmus, and voltaire--to take a few great instances--were all serious in aim and intention. they valued truth, goodness, and beauty, as much as the dreariest preachers. but they felt, because of their temperament, that while the dry light of the intellect is suited to the study of science, it is inadequate in the realm of political, social, and religious debate, where everything is steeped in feeling, and hopes and fears strive together, and imagination kindles the very senses into keener play. after all, perhaps, this word _temperament_ is a solution in itself. when bishop south was taken to task by a brother bishop for his witticisms, he replied, "do you mean to say that if god had given you any wit you would not have used it?" thus is wisdom justified of her children. my friendly though severe critic, dr. coit, who recently discoursed at south-place institute (or is it chapel?) on the national secular society in general and myself in particular, could hardly deny that voltaire was a master of wit, sarcasm, irony, and ridicule. well, now, let us see what some serious writers have said of this nimble spirit. robert browning, in _the two poets of croisic_ thus salutes him: ay, sharpest shrewdest steel that ever stabbed to death imposture through the armor-joints! carlyle says "he gave the death-stab to modern superstition," and "it was a most weighty service." buckle says he "used ridicule, not as the test of truth, but as the scourge of folly," and thus "produced more effect than the gravest arguments could have done." "nor can any one since the days of luther be named," says brougham, "to whom the spirit of free inquiry, nay, the emancipation of the human mind from spiritual tyranny, owes a more lasting debt of gratitude." there is a story of the manuscript of harrington's _oceana_ being filched and given to cromwell, and the sagacious "usurper" returned it saying, "my government is not to be overturned with paper pellets." but the ironical pamphlet, _killing no murder_, produced a different effect. nor did the royal and imperial despots, and their priestly abettors, in the eighteenth century, dread the solemn lovers of freedom. but the winged pen of voltaire was a different matter. "bigots and tyrants," says macaulay, "who had never been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name." if dr. coit imagines that voltaire has lost his influence in france, i venture to say he is mistaken. the hand of voltaire is on renan, and on dozens of living soldiers in the french army of progress. and what man of letters in england--a country abounding in "the oxen of the gods," strong, slow, and stupid--is free from his influence? carlyle's early essay on voltaire is a mixture of hatred and admiration. but read the life of frederick, and see how the french snake fascinates the scotch puritan, until at last he flings every reservation aside, and hails with glowing panegyric the savior of calas. let me refer dr. coit to the delightful preface of a delightful book--leland's introduction to his fine translation of heine's _reisebilder_. "woe to those who are standing near," says leland, "when a humorist of this stamp is turned loose upon the world. he knows nothing of your old laws,--like an azrael-napoleon he advances conscienceless, feeling nothing but an overpowering impulse, as of some higher power which bids him strike and spare not." but, after all, the main cause of progress is _agitation_, and though the agitation may be "eminently disagreeable to many, even friends, who are brought within its immediate action, it will be eminently beneficial in the end." yes, the hard-bound human mind, like the hardbound soil, has to be ploughed up. let it shriek as it will, the work must be done, or the light and air will never penetrate, and an ocean of seeds will lie barren on the surface. dr. coit need not fear that ridicule will excite apprehensions about the multiplication table. ridicule has a fine scent for its proper prey. it must detect the _ridiculous_ before it couches and springs. truth, honor, consistency, disinterestedness, are invulnerable. what ridicule can kill deserves to die. mr. george meredith writes of "that first-born of common-sense, the vigilant comic, which is the genius of thoughtful laughter." folly is the natural prey of this hunter, and folly is found in the churches as well as in the streets. some men, however, are non-laughers by birthright, and as men are apt to make a virtue of their deficiencies, it is not surprising if, as mr. meredith observes, the "laughter-hater soon learns to dignify this dislike as an objection in morality." persons who have read the _freethinker_ from the first do not need to be assured of the earnest spirit of its conductors. they fight no less sternly for the iridescent jewels in their swords. but dr. coit appears to object to fighting altogether. he seems to bid us rest content with what we have won. that is, he bids us leave superstition, with all its brood of lies and wrongs, in possession of the schools, the universities, the churches, the hospitals, the workhouses, and every other institution. he bids us leave it with its large grasp on the private and public life of the community, and go on with our constructive work in face of all this overwhelming frustration. no doubt he means well, but we are not foolish enough to take his advice. we tell dr. coit that he does not understand the obstructive power of theology, and that he is thus unable to appreciate the work of the national secular society. but let us return to the point of ridicule, and the point of "blasphemy." dr. coit found two "lessons for the day" in my _philosophy of secularism_, and he spoke of my _shadow of the sword_ as "a noble plea for peace." but he complained of my exposing the absurdities and immoralities of the bible--a book which is thrust into the hands of little children in our public schools. he also complained of my dragging to light the crimes of christianity. but his anger was most excited by one of my "bible romances"--_a virgin mother_. some fastidious persons even object to the title, thus showing their abysmal ignorance of christian literature. the phrase is common in catholic books of devotion, like the mother of god. it occurs in milton's ode on the nativity and in _paradise lost_. i have marked it a dozen times in professor palgrave's collection of sacred songs. but dr. coit objects to my comparison of the holy ghost's "overshadowing" of the virgin mary with the divine impregnations of earthly women by the gods of the greek pantheon. he regards the one as a "mystery" and the others as vulgar amours. but this depends on your point of view. lord bacon found a mine of hidden wisdom in some of these "amours," and mr. morris makes beautiful poetry of the loves of zeus and danae, which is more than any one has ever succeeded in doing with the relations between the holy ghost and mary. i admit, however, that taste is not disputable; and i refer dr. coit to the passage of my _virgin mother_ in which i cite justin martyr as appealing to the pagan not to mock at the incarnation, on the express ground that they also taught the same doctrine in their stories-of the demi-gods who were born of women after the embraces of deities. surely, then, it is idle to complain of _my_ disrespect of this christian dogma. nor is it just to say that my criticism of it cannot be read to a mixed audience. that is the fault of the _doctrine_. so far as my _words_ go, there is not a syllable to shock any but a prurient modesty. with respect to dr. coit's plea for bringing the kindness of social intercourse into the war of ideas, i have this to say--it is impossible. timid persons have always sighed for this policy, but when the fight began they have found themselves "between the fell incensed points of mighty opposites." religion should be treated as freely as other subjects. that is all i claim, and i will not be satisfied with less. i cannot consent to relinquish any weapon that is legitimate in other warfare. nor for the sake of temporary _feeling_ will i be false to the permanent _interests_ of my species. i will laugh at folly, scorn hypocrisy, expose falsehood, and bathe my sword in the heart's blood of imposture. but i will not descend to personalities. i do not war with _persons_, but with _principles_. my object is to destroy the christian superstition and prepare the way for a more rational and humane condition of society. i shall adapt myself, as well as i can, to the shifting conditions of the struggle. my aim is to _succeed_. my policy, therefore, will never be determined by a personal preference. i shall follow the path that promises victory. but i do not, and will not, dictate to others. within the scope of our principles there is room for many policies. let each do his best, according to his light and opportunity. let dr. coit, too, go his way as i go mine. we travel by different routes, but perhaps we shall meet at the goal. our father. god's in his heaven, all's right with the world. --r. browning, pippa passes. the apostles' creed, with which the apostles never had anything to do, begins with the words "i believe in god the father almighty." the last word, "almighty," is an adjective which we owe to the metaphysical genius of christian theologians; and the first words, "i believe," are the customary shibboleth of the priests of every religion. for the rest, this extract from the creed is taken from the lord's prayer, which itself is a brief selection from common jewish prayers before the days of jesus. according to the evangelists--whoever _they_ were--jesus taught his disciples to pray to "our father which art in heaven for a number of things which no one ever obtained by that process. nevertheless the petition is offered up, generation after generation, by millions of christians, whose hands are first folded in the gesture of prayer on their mothers' knees, and whose lips are taught at the same time a form of words that clings to them for life. "our father!" the words are pretty and touching. when the child hears them he thinks of some one like his own father, but immensely bigger and more powerful; and as the child is taught that all the necessaries and comforts of life he enjoys, at the expense of his parents' labor and loving care, are really gifts from the father behind the scenes, it is no wonder that this mysterious being becomes the object of gratitude and affection. _which art in heaven!_ up there in the region of dreams, beyond the sailing clouds, far away through the deep blue, where imagination builds its fairy palace of delight, and god sits on his golden throne, and swift, bright angels speed forth to execute his commands. tell a child anything you please about that land of fancy and you will be believed, especially if the tale comes from beloved lips, or from lips that bear the glamor of authority. and what the child is to the adult, early or savage man is to the civilisee. to the african negroes the highest god is the sky; the great deity _dyu_ of our aryan ancestors was the sky; the greek _zeue_ and the latin _jupiter_ were both the heaven-father; and we still say "heaven forgive me!" or "fear the vengeance of heaven!" this heaven, however, is no longer credible to any one with a tincture of science. hard as the truth to a child or a savage, the sky is not a reality, but an optical illusion. for forty or forty-five miles from the earth's surface there is a belt of atmosphere, growing rarer and rarer as it approaches the infinite ocean of æther. gone for ever is the old delusion of a solid heaven overhead, with windows in it, through which god and the angels looked down upon the earth and its inhabitants. and what site is there for heaven out in the cold blackness of space? that heaven is gone, and where is our father? science shows us a world of absolute order, in which what we call the laws of nature--the observed sequence and recurrence of phenomena--are never broken. the world was not fashioned for man's dwelling, nor is it maintained for his benefit. towards the poles he freezes, towards the equator he burns. the rain nourishes his crops or rots them, without asking his pleasure; the sea bears him or drowns him, with equal unconcern; the lightning slays him or spares him, whether good, bad or indifferent, as he happens to be in or out of the line of its dazzling flight; famine pinches his! cheeks if he cannot procure food; the pestilence seizes upon his nerves and blood unless he learns the antidote to its ravages. he stands amidst the play of terrific forces, and only preserves himself by vigilance, patience, courage and industry. if he falls the enemy is upon him, and the doom of the vanquished is death. nature shows him no mercy. his mistakes are as fatal as his crimes. "god" has been in his "heaven" for eternity, but all is _not_ right with the world. man is always endeavoring to improve it, but what assistance comes from above? a father in heaven would be a glorious fact. but who can believe it? "our father" is utterly careless of his children. the celestial rousseau sends all his offspring to the foundling. the late hard weather has thrown thousands of honest men out of employment, and increased the death-rate alarmingly. where is the wisdom of this? where is the goodness? the worst of men would alter it if they could. but god, they say, can do it, and he does not. yet they still look up and say "our father." and the father looks down with a face as blenchless as the sphinx's, gazing forthright across the desert sands. what father would permit in his family the gross disparities we see in human life? one gorges and another starves; one is bloated and another is death's counterfeit; one is dressed in three-piled velvet and another goes in looped and windowed rags; one is idle and another slaves; one is sated with pleasure and another is numbed with pain; one lolls in a palace and another shivers in a hovel. what human father would not be ashamed to treat his children with such infamous partiality? look at the physical and moral filth, and the mental abasement, in our great christian cities, where new churches are constantly built for the worship of god, where bibles are circulated by the million, and where hundreds of sleek gentlemen flourish on the spoils of philanthropy. read mr. rudyard kipling's story of east-end life; read the lucubrations of general booth; listen to the ever-swelling wail over the poverty, misery, and degradation of hosts of our people; and then say if it is not high time to cease all this cant about our father which art in heaven. man has always been his own savior. his instrument is science, his wisdom is self-help. his redemption begins when he turns his eyes from the delusive heaven and plucks up his heart from the fear of hell. despair vanishes before the steady gaze of instructed courage. hope springs as a flower in the path of endeavor. wait till you die. pascal remarked that, whether christianity were true or false, the christian was on the safe side; and diderot replied that the priests and apologists of mohammedanism, or any other creed, could say the very same thing with equal force. the argument, if it be an argument, implies the possibility of error, and what applies to one religion applies to all. the votaries of every creed may be mistaken if there is no absolute certitude; or, if there should be one true religion among the multitude, and but one, only the devotees of that single faith can be on the safe side. but as no one knows _which_ is the only true religion, it follows, according to the law of probabilities, that the odds are greatly against any particular religion being the right one. the christian therefore would have one chance of being right, and nine hundred and ninety-nine chances of being wrong. he has thus one chance in a thousand above the atheist. but, on the other hand, if all religions but one are certainly wrong, what is the chance of a single one being certainly right? does not the christian's slight percentage of safety fade into something quite inappreciable in the light of this question? and is what is left--if _anything_ is left--an adequate price for the abnegation of manhood? would it tempt an honest man, with a sense of human dignity, to play fast and loose with his intellect, and accept a creed because it appeals to his selfish hopes and fears? could such a slender chance of profit in the next life compensate for slavery in this life? if belief is the safe side, the proper course is to believe _everything_. and it is useless to cry that this is impossible. faith enables men to believe against reason, and one act of credulity is little easier than a thousand. he whose creed is determined by his fears should give free scope to such emotions. if they are his guides let him follow them. why should he argue when argument may mislead? why should he stumble at trifles when he has surmounted the first great obstacle to credulity? let him believe all the religions of the world at once. he can do this as easily as he can believe in the trinity. and having embraced all, he may rest satisfied that if there be a true religion he undoubtedly possesses it. we do not suppose, however, that this reasoning will have any effect on christians, buddhists, brahmins, mohammedans, or jews. but that very fact shows the hollow character of the argument from which we started. when the christian talks about the safe side he is only displaying the weakness of his faith, and appealing to timidity when he has no further appeal to reason. the argument of "the safe side" would have no pertinency, even with the imbecile, if man were immortal. it seeks advantage from the fact that every man must die. it tries to paralyse reason with the clutch of fear. how frequent is the superstitionist's remark, "wait till you come to die!" he does not always use these very words, but this is the meaning of all his verbiage. he forgets, or does not know, that philosophy destroys the terror of death. a rational man is aware of the truth expressed by mill, that death is but one incident in life, and often the least important. he recognises with bacon that we die daily. he knows that every hour is a step towards death. he does not play, like an ostrich, with the universal law of mortality; nor, on the other hand, does he allow the tomb to cast its chill obscurity over the business and pleasure of life. he lives without hypocrisy, and when the time comes he will die without fear. as hamlet says, "the readiness is all." another word also comes from the wisest of men--"cowards do often taste of death; the valiant die but once." a belief that will do for life will do for death. the religionists prove this themselves. whatever a man is confident of is sustaining. the christian dies a christian, and the mohammedan a mohammedan. the one has dying visions of angels--or may be of devils; the other sees heaven burst open, and the black-eyed houris of paradise beckon him with rosy fingers. what they leaned on in life supports them in death. its truth or falsity makes no difference at that moment. freethinkers are sustained by _convictions_. intellect and emotion concur in their case. they have no visions of angels or devils, but dear loved faces are better than phantoms, and he who has done a little good in the world, however humbly and obscurely, may dream of the happier and nobler days to come, when true words and good deeds will have brought forth the glorious fruit of happiness for the children of men. we do not mean to assert that no freethinker, at any time, ever relapsed on his death-bed. such cases have apparently occurred during life, and while one particular religion is in the ascendant it is not difficult to understand them. the relapses are always to the creed a man finds about him, or to the creed of his childhood. they simply prove the power of environment and early training, and that a man needs all his strength to stand against big majorities. at best they are cases of mental pathology. great historic freethinkers have always died true to their convictions. they were used to standing alone. for ample proof of this the reader is referred to my _infidel death beds_. and when smaller freethinkers are numerous enough they avoid the greatest danger of physical weakness. it is easy for christian relatives or friends to pester a dying freethinker; it is easy even, in the worst moments of weakness, to put words in his mouth. but if freethought friends visit him, he feels strengthened and relieved. allies may well be needed, sometimes, in such a battle with bigotry. after all, "wait till you die!" is an argument of folly and cowardice. what can we conjecture of any other life except from our experience of this? on this earth reason is the safe side, honesty is the safe side, humanity is the safe side; and what is the safe side here is likely to be the safe side elsewhere. dead theology. this is an age of "series." every publisher issues one, and the number of them is legion. as far as possible they are written by "eminent hands," as old jacob tonson used to call his wretched scribblers in grub-street garrets. but not every publisher can secure such an eminent hand as a live archbishop, this has been achieved, however, by messrs. sampson, low, marston, and company. having projected a series of "preachers of the age," they were fortunate enough to enlist the archbishop of canterbury under their banner. his grace, as it is etiquette to call him, though his natural name is edward white benson, leads off the publishers' attack on the british public with a volume of sermons entitled _living theology_. it is well printed on good paper, the binding is appropriate, and the price of three-and-sixpence puts it within the reach of the great middle-class public which cares for such things. we are far from sharing the opinion of a carper who remarked that, as sermons go, this volume is rather dear. thirteen sermons by an archbishop! could any man in his senses expect them for less money? the real wonder is that a man with £ , a-year should condescend to publish at all. we ought to feel thankful that he does not charge us a guinea a volume. prefixed to the thirteen sermons, at fourpence apiece, including the binding, is an excellent photogravure portrait of the archbishop. the face is keen and scholarly, and not unpleasant. a noticeable nose, a large fluent mouth, shrewd eyes, and a high well-shaped head, make on the whole an agreeable picture. something about the features shows the preacher, and something more the ecclesiastic. it is the type, and the best type, of the learned priest. nobody could look at this portrait and call edward white benson a fool. but is any one in danger of doing so? would not every one admit some ability in the unhereditary recipient of fifteen thousand a year? parsons are not a brilliant body, but to wriggle, or climb, or rise to the top of the black army involves the possession of uncommon faculties. the archbishop is seldom eloquent, in the popular sense of the word; but his style has a certain force and color, always within the limits of exquisite breeding. if he consigned you to gehenna, he would do it with bland graciousness; and if he swore at all, he would swear in latin. his language in these sermons, as in another volume we noticed a year ago, is pure and nervous, with an etymological reason for every word. sometimes he is quite felicitous. now and then he uses metaphor with skill and illumination. the habitual concreteness of his style shows the clearness of his perceptions. occasionally he is epigrammatic "strong enemies," he says in one place, "are better to us than weak friends. they show us our weak points." finer and higher is another passage in the same sermon--"the yearning of multitudes is not in vain. after yearning comes impulse, volition, movement." it would be difficult, if not impossible, to better this, unless a great poet cast it in the mould of a metaphor. we confess that, on the whole, we have read the archbishop's sermons with some pleasure, as well as with much attention. it is to his credit that he defies a superficial reading. we do not expect to find another volume in the series at all comparable with his. dr. maclaren, who comes second, is on a lower level, and the next descent to mr. price hughes is a fall into a slough of incapable and reckless sentimentalism. _living theology_ is the title of the archbishop's volume, but this is a misnomer, for the title belongs only to the first sermon. it misled us in this general application, as it will probably mislead others. we took it to be a setting forth of so much theology as the archbishop thought _living_, in contradistinction to what he allowed to be _dead_. but we find a very miscellaneous lot of sermons, sometimes rather on church work than on church teaching. the title, therefore, is what walt whitman would call "a suck and a sell." yet it is hardly worth while to labor the complaint, for titles are often better than the pages that follow them. sometimes, indeed, a writer puts all his head into the title, and the rest of the book displays his imbecility. but this cannot be said of the archbishop. another difficulty is this. the archbishop's sermons are hard for a freethinker to criticise. he seldom expounds and rarely argues. he addresses an audience who take the fundamentals of christianity for granted. yet he lays himself open here and there, and where he does so we propose to meet him. in the first sermon dr. benson is surely going beyond his actual belief in referring to "the earliest race of man, with whom the whole race so nearly passed away." he can scarcely take the early chapters of genesis literally at this time of day. in the very next sermon he speaks cheerfully of the age of evolution. that sermon was preached at st. mary's, southampton, to the british association in . it is on "the spirit of inquiry." "the spirit of inquiry," he says, "is god's spirit working in capable men, to enlarge the measure and the fulness of man's capacity." but if _capable_ men are necessary, to say nothing of favorable conditions, the working of god's spirit seems lost in the natural explanation. still, it is pleasant to find the archbishop welcoming the spirit of inquiry, under any interpretation of its essence; and it may be hoped that he will vote accordingly when the liberty of bequest bill reaches the upper chamber. it is also pleasant to read his admission that the spirit of inquiry (we keep his capitals) "has made short work not only of the baser religions, but of the baser forms of ours"--to wit, the christian. some of those "baser forms" are indicated in the following passage: "i know not whether any stern or any sensuous religion of heathendom has held up before men's astonished eyes features more appalling or more repulsive than those of the vindictive father, or of the arbitrary distributor of two eternities, or again of the easy compromiser of offences in return for houses and lands. dreadful shadows under which, thousands have been reared." dreadful shadows indeed! and not thousands, but countless millions, have been reared under them. those dreadful shadows were for centuries the universal objects of christian worship. they still hover over spurgeon's tabernacle and a host of other houses of god. but they are hateful to dr. benson. to him the god of orthodoxy, the god of the thirty-nine articles, is dead. he dismisses predestination, a vindictive god, and everlasting torment. he speaks of the very "prison" where christ is said to have preached after his death, as a place "where spirits surely unlearn many a bias, many a self-wrought blindness, many a heedless error." hell is therefore a place of purgation, which is certainly an infinite improvement on the orthodox idea of eternal and irremediable woe, however it fall(s) below the conception that the creator has no right to punish his own failures. let the reader note who makes these admissions of the intellectual and moral death of the "baser forms" of christianity. it is not an irresponsible _franc-tireur_ of the black army, nor an expelled soldier like mr. voysey, nor a resigned soldier like dr. momerie. it is the archbishop of canterbury, the highest dignitary of the church of england. his grace does not reflect--he cannot afford to reflect--that as the dead theology of to-day was the living theology of the past, so the living theology of to-day may be the dead theology of to-morrow. the archbishop still dogmatises, even in this sermon on the spirit of inquiry. in opposition to the man of science who knows of no limits to nature, he declares that "there is a _sum_ of created things, and therefore a real end (however far off) to what can be known of them." in a certain sense, truly, there _is_ an end to what can be known of nature, for human knowledge must ever be relative and not absolute. but the archbishop's limit is not qualitative in man; it is quantitative in the universe. herein he goes beyond the bounds of knowledge, and indulges in the very dogmatism for which he reprehends the materialist. it is dogmatism also to assert that "the soul has every reason to believe itself absolutely eternal." absolutely is a word of vast significance. how can it apply to "the soul"? were "the soul" to subsist eternally in the future, it could not be _absolutely_ eternal if it once began to be. "every reason" is also too comprehensive. dr. benson may think he has good reasons for "the soul's" immortality, but he must be aware that divines of his own church have held the contrary doctrine. before the spirit of inquiry, says dr. benson, every other religion than christianity fades away; though he has admitted that some parts of christianity, the "baser forms," have shared the same fate. every fresh conquest of the spirit of inquiry has "brought out some trait in the character, or some divine conception in the mind of jesus of nazareth." this sweeping statement is supported by "three very clearly marked" instances. the first is that science shows us the unity of life. "the latest discovered laws involve at least this, that the life of man is one life." and this is "no more than the scientific verification of what was long ago stated, and by christians (at least for a while) acted on." in support of the christian idea of the unity of life the archbishop cites st. paul, who once asked in a callous way if god cared for oxen. had the archbishop appealed to jesus he would have found the oracle dumb, or something worse; for the nazarene distinctly told his apostles to preach only to the jews, and leave the samaritans and gentiles in darkness. st. paul took a flight beyond this narrow patriotism. it was he, and not the personal disciples of jesus, who broke down the barriers between jew and gentile. it was he who scorned the idea that jesus, to use his own language, was only sent to the lost sheep of the house ot israel. it was he, and not peter, or james, or john, who said that god had made all nations of one blood; he who declared "ye are all one in christ." yet it is easy to make too much of this; for st. paul did not include the heathen and unbelievers within the fold of brotherhood; and when he asserted the fatherhood of god, he appealed to the previous utterance of a greek poet, thus conceding his own want of originality. one might imagine, too, that the old jewish story of creation--which in turn was not original--involved the common descent of the human race; and as this idea was almost, if not quite, universal, being based on the obvious generic resemblance of the various races of mankind, it seems a stretch of fancy to put it forward as "a christian statement" in some way connected with "jesus of nazareth." the archbishop's second instance of the concurrence of modern progress with the teaching of jesus, is, to say the least of it, peculiar. "from the liberty to inquire," he says, "comes the liberty to express the results of inquiry. and this is the preamble of the charter of jesus christ." we defy dr. benson to find a single plain passage about freedom of thought in the teachings of jesus. the nazarene was fond of saying, "he that hath ears to hear let him hear." but it was reserved for ingersoll to say, "he that hath a brain to think let him think." the archbishop goes on to claim darwin as "our aged master"--darwin, who rejected christianity for forty years of his life! he quotes from beale the sentence, "intellectual work of every kind must be free." "and the new testament," he adds, "is still the one volume of books on religion which accepts thia whole statement." this is a bold--some would say a brazen--assertion. if the new testament teaches anything clearly, it teaches that belief is necessary to salvation. that doctrine stifles free speech and extinguishes inquiry. why investigate if you may be damned for your conclusions? and why allow investigation if another man's errors may involve your perdition? these questions have been answered logically enough by the christian church, and the "charter of jesus christ" has been the worst of spiritual oppressions. no religion has been so intolerant as the christian. mohammedanism has been far less bigoted. buddhism has the proud distinction of never having persecuted one human being in twenty-four centuries. the archbishop's third instance is fantastic to the point of grotesqueness. both christianity and the spirit of inquiry, he says, are at one in "the demand for fruit." does he mean to imply that other religions set their faces against "fruit"? buddhism is quite imperative about moral duties. mohammedanism gets itself obeyed in matters of conduct, while christianity is quite ineffectual. drink, gambling, and prostitution abound in christian countries; in the mohammedan world they have been sternly repressed. this is admitted by dr. benson in his volume on _christ and his times_; admitted, and even emphasised; so that he may, as it were, be confuted out of his own mouth. if we take a leap to the penultimate sermon in the present volume, we find archbishop benson indulging in the same kind of loose statement and inconsequential reasoning. its title is "christ's crucifixion, an all in all." the preacher scorns the greek notion of the crucifixion as "the shocking martyrdom of a grand young moralist." such a notion, he says, is "quite inconsistent with the facts." either we know not what christ taught, or else he was more than man. and the archbishop sets about proving this by means of a series of leaps over logical chasms. after dilating on the innocence of christ, who was certainly guilty according to the mosaic law, and deserving of death according to the express command of jehovah, the archbishop writes as follows: "then we look back through our eighteen centuries, and we see that before the age of three-and-thirty he had fashioned sayings, had compacted thoughts, had expressed principles about duty, about the relative worth of things, about life, about love, about intercourse with god, about the formation of character, the relation of classes, the spirit of law, the essence of government, the unity of man, which had not existed, or which were not formulated when he opened his lips, but which have been and are the basis of society from the time they were known till now." this is a tissue of false assumptions. the sayings, thoughts, and principles of jesus _did_ exist before, and they _were_ formulated when he opened his lips. not one original utterance is ascribed to him in the whole of the gospels. it is idle to bandy generalisations; let the archbishop select specimens of christ's teaching, and we will find parallels to them, sometimes better and more wisely expressed, in the utterances of his predecessors. nor is it true that christ's teachings have been, or are, the basis of society. society exists in defiance of them. it is never based, and it never will be based, on any abstract teaching. its basis is _self-interest_, ever increasing in complexity, and ever more and more illuminated by the growth of knowledge. take the case of oaths. jesus said plainly, "swear not at all." but when earthly potentates wanted their subjects to swear fidelity, the christian priests discovered that jesus meant, "swear only on special occasions." and it was reserved for an atheist, in the nineteenth century, to pass an act allowing christians to obey jesus christ. take the injunction, "lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth." society could never exist upon such a basis, so the clergy find that jesus, like polonius, spoke tropically. every christian is busy laying up treasures on earth, and archbishop benson is well to the front in the competition. having made ridiculous claims for jesus christ, the archbishop proceeds in this wise: "next ask yourself whether a stainless, loving, sincere, penetrating person like that makes or enlarges on unfounded declarations as to matters of fact. is it consistent with such a character?" now jesus speaks of "the immense importance of his own person," he speaks of "my flesh, my blood" as of vital power, he says "i and my father are one." could he have been deceived? well, why not? honesty does not guarantee us against error. the best of men have been mistaken, and sincere natures are most liable to be deceived by taking subjective impressions for external realities. there is another explanation which the archbishop is too shrewd to pass over in silence. perhaps others said those things for jesus, perhaps they "attributed to him sayings which he did not utter." but this, the archbishop says, only multiplies the difficulty and the astonishment; for, to put it briefly, his biographers in that case were as good at predicting and inventing as himself. and why not? do we not know that the story of the woman taken in adultery, which is finely told, and has all along been thought to contain some of christ's most characteristic teaching, does not exist in the earlier manuscripts? it was invented by an unknown writer. and if one unknown writer could (and did) invent this story, other unknown writers may have invented every part of the gospel narratives. the attempt to make jesus sponsor for himself is the last refuge of hard-driven christians. the frame of mind it evinces is seen in dr. benson's interpretation of the exclamation "i thirst," ascribed to jesus on the cross. crucifixion produced an intolerable thirst, and the exclamation is very natural; but dr. benson says that jesus meant "i thirst for souls," and and adds that "no man can doubt" it. such are the shifts to which christians are reduced when they cling to faith in defiance of reason. dr. benson's "living theology" is dead theology. it is sentimentalism and make-believe. perfectly scriptural doctrines are cast aside while others are arbitrary retained. vague talk about "christ and him crucified" takes the place of time-honored dogmas, logically deduced from the "word of god," and stamped with the deliberate approval of councils and synods. christianity, in short, is becoming a matter of personal taste and preference. the time is approaching when every christian will have a christianity of his own. this is the moral of the archbishop's volume. had space permitted we should have liked to notice other features of his sermons. in one place he says that "the so-called secularist is the man who deprives things secular of all power and meaning and beauty." we think that he deprives christianity of all meaning, and that being gone its "power" and "beauty" are idle themes of wasted eloquence. mr. gladstone on devils. when the grand old man crossed swords with professor huxley on the miracle of gadara, he spent all his time in discussing whether the pigs belonged to jews or gentiles. the more serious point, whether a legion of devils were actually cast out of one or two men and sent into a herd of swine, he sedulously avoided. professor huxley, however, is too wide-awake to be drawn off the scent; and while he disputed the points of geography and ethnology, he insisted upon the fact that their only importance was their relation to a miraculous story, which marked the parting of the ways between science and christianity. the demonic theory of disease, including insanity, is universal among savages. for proof and illustration the reader has only to consult dr. tylor's splendid work on _primitive culture_. there are special demons for every malady, and the way to cure the disease is to cast out the evil spirit. of course insanity is a striking disorder, and in default of the pathological explanation the savage regards the wild, wandering words and inexplicable actions of the sufferer as the words and actions of a demon, who has taken possession of the man's body, and driven his soul abroad or put it in abeyance. this theory of madness survived through all the centuries of christian history until the advent of modern science. mad people were chained up, exhibited as objects of derision, and often beaten unmercifully. it was the _devil_ in them, as in the poor witches, that was treated in this fashion. and it was a recognised part of a clergyman's business to cast out devils. the church of england canon is still unrepealed which provides that the clergy, before engaging in this useful if not agreeable occupation, must obtain the written authority of their bishops. laugh or smile as we will at this superstition, it is an integral part of the new testament. the demonic theory of disease is confessed in the story of jesus rebuking the fever of peter's mother-in-law, so that it left her instantaneously, flying out of the door or window, or up the chimney. jesus repeatedly cast out devils. he expelled seven, in succession or at one fell swoop, from mary magdalene. he turned a legion--that is, several thousands--out of the possessed gadarenes; there being at least one apiece for the bedevilled swine who were driven to destruction. paul likewise cast out devils. indeed, if demonic possession in the new testament is explained away, there is no reason why every other miraculous element should not be dealt with in the same manner. mr. gladstone perceives this, although he does not commit himself in his _impregnable rock of holy scripture_. "i am afraid," he says, in a letter to the rev. j. w. belcher, "that the objections to demoniacal possession involve in germ the rejection of all belief in the supernatural." this is wonderfully clear and straightforward for the grand old man. give up the belief that mad people may be tenanted by devils, and you should immediately join the national secular society. you have taken the first decisive step on the broad road of "infidelity," and nothing but a want of logic or courage prevents you from hastening to the inevitable conclusion. archbishop trench, in his _notes on the miracles of our lord_, rejects the theory that the "demoniacs" were simply insane. no doubt, he says, there was "a substratum of disease, which in many cases helped to lay open the sufferer to the deeper evil." but "our lord himself uses language which is not reconcileable" with the naturalist theory. "it may well be a question moreover," says trench, "if an apostle, or one with apostolic discernment of spirits, were to enter now into one of our madhouses, how many of the sufferers there he might not recognise as thus having more immediately fallen under the tyranny of the powers of darkness." dean milman, the discreet, plausible, and polished historian of the christian superstition, did not shrink from regarding the new testament demoniacs as merely insane; and "nothing was more probable," he remarked, "than that lunacy should take the turn and speak the language of the prevailing superstition of the times." precisely so. but why did jesus imitate the lunatics? he addresses the evil spirit and not the madman. "hold thy peace," he says, "and come out of him." no doubt the demoniacs were simply insane; but in that case jesus himself was mistaken, or the evangelists put into his mouth words that he never used. the first alternative destroys the divinity of jesus; the second destroys the authority of the evangelists. mr. gladstone's position is the only honest and logical one for a professed christian. demonic possession cannot be cut out of the new testament without leaving a gap through which all the "infidelity" in the world might pass freely. devils are not confined to hell. they are commercial travellers in brimstone and mischief. they go home occasionally; the rest of the time they are abroad on business. when they see a promising madman they get inside him, and find warmer quarters than the universal air. very likely they have started theosophy, in order to provide themselves with fresh residences. little devils of course involve the big devil--apollyon, beelzebub, abaddon, satan, lucifer, old nick. he commands the infernal armies, and is one of the deities in mr. gladstone's pantheon. he is even embedded in the revised version of the lord's prayer--like a fly in amber. "deliver us from evil" now reads "deliver us from the evil one." thus the devil triumphs, and the first of living english statesmen is reduced by christian superstition to the level of modern savages and ancient barbarians. mr. gladstone is perhaps the highest type of the christian statesman. but how small and effeminate he appears, after all, in comparison with a great pagan statesman like julius cæsar, whose brain was free from all superstition! were the "mighty julius" to re-appear on earth, and see a great statesman believing the story of devils being turned out of men into pigs, he would wonder what blight had fallen upon the human intellect in two thousand years. huxley's mistake. no one will suspect us of any prejudice against professor huxley. we have often praised his vigorous writings, and his admirable service to freethought. we recognise him as a powerful fighter in the great battle between reason and faith. he is a born controversialist, he revels in the vivisection of a theological opponent, and it is easy to understand how the more placid darwin could cry to him admiringly, "what a man you are!" but for some reason or other it seems the fate of professor huxley, as it is the fate of herbert spencer, to be made use of by the enemies of freethought; and it must be admitted that, to a certain extent, he gratuitously plays into their hands. mr. herbert spencer has been a perfect god-send to the christians with his "unknowable"--the creation of which was the worst day's work he ever accomplished. it is only a big word, printed with a capital letter, to express the objective side of the relativity of human, knowledge. it connotes all that we do not know. it is a mere confession of ignorance; it is hollowness, emptiness, a vacuum, a nothing. and this nothing, which mr. spencer adorns with endless quasi-scientific rhetoric, is used as a buttress to prop up tottering churches. professor huxley has been nearly as serviceable to the churches with his "agnosticism," which belongs to the same category of substantially meaningless terms as the "unknowable." no doubt it serves the turn of a good many feeble sceptics. it sounds less offensive than "atheism." an agnostic may safely be invited to dinner, while an atheist would pocket the spoons. but this pandering to "respectability" is neither in the interest of truth nor in the interest of character. an atheist is without god; an agnostic does not know anything about god, so he is without god too. they come to the same thing in the end. an agnostic is simply an atheist with a tall hat on. atheism carries its own name at the hall of science; when it occupies a fine house at eastbourne, and moves in good society, it calls itself agnosticism. and then the churches say, "ah, the true man of science shrinks from atheism; he is only an agnostic; he stands reverently in the darkness, waiting for the light." nor is this the only way in which professor huxley has helped "the enemy." he is, for instance, far too fond of pressing the "possibility" of miracles. we have no right, he says, to declare that miracles are impossible; it is asserting more than we know, besides begging the question at issue. perfectly true. but professor huxley should remember that he uses "possibility" in one sense and the theologians in another. he uses it theoretically, and they use it practically. they use it where it has a meaning, and he uses it where it has no meaning at all, except in an _à priori_ way, like a pair of brackets with nothing between them. when the agnostic speaks of the "possibility" of miracles, he only means that we cannot prove a universal negative. let us take an instance. suppose some one asserts that a man can jump over the moon. no one can demonstrate that the feat is impossible. it is _possible_, in the sense that _anything_ is possible. but this is theoretical logic. according to practical logic it is impossible, in the sense that no rational man would take a ticket for the performance. why then does professor huxley press the "possibility" of miracles against his freethinking friends? he is not advancing a step beyond david hume. he is merely straining logical formulæ in the interest of the black army. now let us take another instance. in a recent letter to the _times_, with respect to the famous letter of the thirty-eight clergymen who have given the bible a fresh certificate, professor huxley is once more careful to point out that science knows nothing of "the primal origin" of the universe. but who ever said that it did? atheists, at any rate, are not aware that the universe ever _had_ an origin. as to the "ultimate cause of the evolutionary process," it seems to us mere metaphysical jargon, as intolerable as anything in the mounding phraseology of the theologians. but this is not all. professor huxley delivers himself of the following utterance: "in fact it requires some depth of philosophical incapacity to suppose that there is any logical antagonism between theism and the doctrine of evolution." this is food and drink to a paper like the _christian world_. but what does it mean? certainly there is no antagonism between the terms "theism" and "evolution." they do not fight each other in the dictionary. but is there not antagonism between evolution and any kind of theism yet formulated? the word "god" means anything or nothing. give your god attributes, and see if they are consistent with evolution. that is the only way to decide whether there is any "logical antagonism" between evolution and theism. the trouble begins when you are "logical" enough to deal in definitions; and the only definition of god that will stand the test of evolution is "a sort of a something." we leave professor huxley to present that highly edifying theistic conclusion to his old theological opponents, and, if he likes, to flaunt it in the faces of his freethinking friends. but is it really worth while for samson to grind chaff for the philistines? we put the question to professor huxley with all seriousness. let him teach truth and smite falsehood, without spending so much time in showing that they harmonise when emptied of practical meaning. a sovereign and a feather fall with equal rapidity in a vacuum; and if you take away fact and experience, one proposition is as "possible" as another. but why should a great man waste his energies in propagating such a barren truism? the gospel of freethought. christians are perpetually crying that we destroy and never build up. nothing could be more false, for all negation has a positive side, and we cannot deny error without affirming truth. but even if it were true, it would not lessen the value of our work. you must clear the ground before you can build, and plough before you sow. splendor gives no strength to an edifice whose foundations are treacherous, nor can a harvest be reaped from fields unprepared for the seed. freethought is, in this respect, like a skilful physician, whose function it is to expel disease and leave the patient sound and well. no sick man claims that the doctor shall supply him with something in place of his malady. it is enough that the enemy of his health is driven out. he is then in a position to act for himself. he has legs to walk with, a brain to devise, and hands to execute his will what more does he need? what more can he ask without declaring himself a weakling or a fool? so it is with superstition, the deadliest disease of the mind. freethought casts it out, with its blindness and its terrors, and leaves the mind clear and free. all nature is then before us to study and enjoy. truth shines on us with celestial light, goodness smiles on our best endeavors, and beauty thrills our senses and kindles our imagination with the subtle magic of her charms. what a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in quest of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of the chase and the gladness of capture! what a noble privilege to pour treasures of knowledge into the alembic of the brain, and separate the gold from the dross! the freethinker takes nothing on trust, if he can help it; he dissects, analyses, and proves everything, does this make him a barren sceptic? not so. what he discards he knows to be worthless, and he also knows the value of what he prizes. if one sweet vision turns out a mirage, how does it lessen our enjoyment at the true oasis, or shake our certitude of water and shade under the palm-trees by the well? the masses of men do not think freely. they scarcely think at all out of their round of business; they are trained not to think. from the cradle to the grave orthodoxy has them in its clutches. their religion is settled by priests, and their political and social institutions by custom. they look askance at the man who dares to question what is established, not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ages ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed in nakedness, war-paint, and feathers. the mental stultification which begins in youth reaches ossification as men grow older. lack of thought ends in incapacity to think. real freethought is impossible without education. the mind cannot operate without means or construct without materials. theology opposes education: freethought supports it. the poor as well as the rich should share in its blessings. education is a social capital which should be supplied to all. it enriches and expands. it not only furnishes the mind, but strengthens its faculties. knowledge is power. a race of giants could not level the alps; but ordinary men, equipped with science, bore through their base, and make easy channels for the intercourse of divided nations. growth comes with use, and power with exercise, education makes both possible. it puts the means of salvation at the service of all, and prevents the faculties from moving about _in vacuo_, and finally standing still from sheer hopelessness. the educated man has a whole magazine of appliances at his command, and his intellect is trained in using them, while the uneducated man has nothing but his strength, and his training is limited to its use. freethought demands education for all. it claims a mental inheritance for every child born into the world. superstition demands ignorance, stupidity, and degradation. wherever the schoolmaster is busy, freethought prospers; where he is not found, superstition reigns supreme and levels the people in the dust. free speech and freethought go together. if one is hampered the other languishes. what is the use of thinking if i may not express my thought? we claim equal liberty for all. the priest shall say what he believes and so shall the sceptic. no law shall protect the one and disfranchise the other. if any man disapproves what i say, he need not hear me a second time. what more does he require? let him listen to what he likes, and leave others to do the same. let us have justice and fair play all round. freethought is not only useful but laudable. it involves labor and trouble. ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of faith. the freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he spreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. what though tempests beat and billows roar? he is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of danger to the sluggard and the slave. he will not pay their price for ease and safety. away he sails with vigilance at the prow and wisdom at the helm. he not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped coasts and ventures on uncharted seas. he gathers spoils in every zone, and returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. some day or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lost. perhaps. all things end somehow. but if he goes down he will die like a man and not like a coward, and have for his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the anthem of the waves. doubt is the beginning of wisdom. it means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. faith means negligence, serfdom, insincerity and deception. the man who never doubts never thinks. he is like a straw in the wind or a waif on the sea. he is one of the helpless, docile, unquestioning millions, who keep the world in a state of stagnation, and serve as a fulcrum for the lever of despotism. the stupidity of the people, says whitman, is always inviting the insolence of power. buckle has well said that scepticism is "the necessary antecedent of all progress." without it we should still be groping in the night of the dark ages. the very foundations of modern science and philosophy were laid on ground which was wrested from the church, and every stone was cemented with the blood of martyrs. as the edifice arose the sharpshooters of faith attacked the builders at every point, and they still continue their old practice, although their missiles can hardly reach the towering heights where their enemies are now at work. astronomy was opposed by the church because it unsettled old notions of the earth being the centre of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars mere lights stuck in the solid firmament, and worked to and fro like sliding panels. did not the bible say that general joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and how could this have happened unless it moved round the earth? and was not the earth certainly flat, as millions of flats believed it to be? the catholic inquisition forced galileo to recant, and protestant luther called copernicus "an old fool." chemistry was opposed as an impious prying into the secrets of god. it was put in the same class with sorcery and witchcraft, and punished in the same way. the early chemists were regarded as agents of the devil, and their successors are still regarded as "uncanny" in the more ignorant parts of christendom. roger bacon was persecuted by his brother monks; his testing fire was thought to have come from the pit, and the explosion of his gunpowder was the devil vanishing in smoke and smell. even at the end of last century, the clergy-led mob of birmingham who wrecked priestley s house and destroyed his apparatus, no doubt felt that there was a close connection between chemistry and infidelity. physiology and medicine were opposed on similar grounds. we were all fearfully and wonderfully made, and the less the mystery was looked into the better. disease was sent by god for his own wise ends, and to resist it was as bad as blasphemy. every discovery and every reform was decried as impious. men now living can remember how the champions of faith denounced the use of anæsthetics in painful labor as an interference with god's curse on the daughters of eve. geology was opposed because it discredited moses, as though that famous old jew had watched the deposit of every stratum of the earth's crust. it was even said that fossils had been put underground by god to puzzle the wiseacres, and that the devil had carried shells to the hill-tops for the purpose of deluding men to infidelity and perdition. geologists were anathematised from the pulpits and railed at by tub-thumpers. they were obliged to feel their way and go slowly. sir charles lyell had to keep back his strongest conclusions for at least a quarter of a century, and could not say all he thought until his head was whitened by old age and he looked into the face of death. biology was opposed tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. it exposed genesis and put moses out of court. it destroyed all special creation, showed man's' kinship with other forms of life, reduced adam and eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the fall. darwin was for years treated as antichrist, and huxley as the great beast. all that is being changed, thanks to the sceptical spirit. darwin's corpse is buried in westminster abbey, but his ideas are undermining all the churches and crumbling them into dust. the gospel of freethought brands persecution as the worst crime against humanity. it stifles the spirit of progress and strangles its pioneers. it eliminates the brave, the adventurous and the aspiring, and leaves only the timid, the sluggish and the grovelling. it removes the lofty and spares the low. it levels all the hills of thought and makes an intellectual flatness. it drenches all the paths of freedom with blood and tears, and makes earth the vestibule of hell. persecution is the right arm of priestcraft. the black militia of theology are the sworn foes of free-thought. they represent it as the sin against the holy ghost, for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the next. when they speak of the holy ghost they mean themselves. freethought is a crime against _them_. it strips off the mystery that invests their craft, and shows them as they really are, a horde of bandits who levy black mail on honest industry, and preach a despot in heaven in order to maintain their own tyranny on earth. the gospel of freethought would destroy all priesthoods. every man should be his own priest. if a professional soul-doctor gives you wrong advice and leads you to ruin, he will not be damned for you. he will see you so first. we must take all responsibility, and we should also take the power. instead of putting our thinking out, as we put our washing, let us do it at home. no man can do another's thinking for him. what is thought in the originator is only acquiescence in the man who takes it at secondhand. if we do our own thinking in religion we shall do it in everything else. we reject authority and act for ourselves. spiritual and temporal power are brought under the same rule. they must justify themselves or go. the freethinker is thus a politician and a social reformer. what a christian _may_ be he _must_ be. freethinkers are naturally radicals. they are almost to a man on the side of justice, freedom and progress. the tories know this, and hence they seek to suppress us by the violence of unjust law. they see that we are a growing danger to every kind of privilege, a menace to all the idle classes who live in luxury on the sweat and labor of others--the devouring drones who live on the working bees. the gospel of freethought teaches us to distinguish between the knowable and the unknowable. we cannot fathom the infinite "mystery of the universe" with our finite plummet, nor see aught behind the veil of death. here is our appointed province: this world which is the world of all of us, and where in the end we find our happiness or not at all. let us make the best of this world and take our chance of any other. if there is a heaven, we dare say it will hold all honest men. if it will not, those who go elsewhere will at least be in good company. our salvation is here and now. it is certain and not contingent. we need not die before we realise it ours is a gospel, and the only gospel, for this side of the grave. the promises of theology cannot be made good till after death; ours are all redeemable in this life. we ask men to acknowledge realities and dismiss fictions. when you have sifted all the learned sermons ever preached, you will find very little good grain. theology deals with dreams and phantasies, and gives no guidance to practical men. the whole truth or life may be summed up in a few words. happiness is the only good, suffering the only evil, and selfishness the only sin. and the whole duty of man may be expressed in one sentence, slightly altered from voltaire--learn what is true in order to do what is right. if a man can tell you anything about these matters, listen to him; if not, turn a deaf ear, and let him preach to the wind. the only noble things in this world are great hearts and great brains. there is no virtue in a starveling piety which turns all beauty into ugliness and shrivels up every natural affection. let the heart beat high with courage and enterprise, and throb with warm passion. let the brain be an active engine of thought, imagination and will. the gospel of sorrow has had its day; the time has come for the gospel of gladness. let us live out our lives to the full, radiating joy on all in our own circle, and diffusing happiness through the grander circle of humanity, until at last we retire from the banquet of life, as others have done before us, and sink in eternal repose. on ridicule. goldsmith said there are two classes of people who dread ridicule--priests and fools. they cry out that it is no argument, but they know it is. it has been found the most potent form of argument. euclid used it in his immortal geometry; for what else is the _reductio ad absurdum_ which he sometimes employs? elijah used it against the priests of baal. the christian fathers found it effective against the pagan superstitions, and in turn it was adopted as the best weapon of attack on _them_ by lucian and celsus. ridicule has been used by bruno, erasmus, luther, rabelais, swift, and voltaire, by nearly all the great emancipators of the human mind. all these men used it for a serious purpose. they were not comedians who amused the public for pence. they wielded ridicule as a keen rapier, more swift and fatal than the heaviest battle-axe. terrible as was the levin-brand of their denunciation, it was less dreaded than the greek fire of their sarcasm. i repeat that they were men of serious aims, and indeed how could they have been otherwise? all true and lasting wit is founded on a basis of seriousness; or else, as heine said, it is nothing but a sneeze of the reason. hood felt the same thing when he proposed for his epitaph: "here lies one who made more puns, and spat more blood, than any other man of his time." buckle well says, in his fine vindication of voltaire, that he "used ridicule, not as the test of truth, but as the scourge of folly." and he adds-- "his irony, his wit, his pungent and telling sarcasms, produced more effect than the gravest arguments could have done; and there can be no doubt that he was fully justified in using those great resources with which nature had endowed him, since by their aid he advanced the interests of truth, and relieved men from some of their most inveterate prejudices." victor hugo puts it much better in his grandiose way, when he says of voltaire that "he was irony incarnate for the salvation of mankind." voltaire's opponents, as buckle points out, had a foolish reverence for antiquity, and they were impervious to reason. to compare great things with small, our opponents are of the same character. grave argument is lost upon them; it runs off them like water from a duck. when we approach the mysteries of their faith in a spirit of reverence, we yield them half the battle. we must concede them nothing. what they call reverence is only conventional prejudice. it must be stripped away from the subject, and if argument will not remove the veil, ridicule will. away with the insane notion that absurdity is reverend because it is ancient! if it is thousands of years old, treat it exactly as if it were told the first time to-day. science recognises nothing in space and time to invalidate the laws of nature. they prevailed in the past as well as in the present, in jerusalem as well as in london. that is how science regards everything; and at bottom science and common-sense are one and the same. professor huxley, in his admirable little book on hume, after pointing out the improbability of centaurs, says that judged by the canons of science all "miracles" are centaurs. he also considers what would happen if he were told by the greatest anatomist of the age that he had seen a centaur. he admits that the weight of such authority would stagger him, but it would scarcely make him believe. "i could get no further," says huxley, "than a suspension of judgment." now i venture to say that if johannes müller had told huxley any such thing, he would have at once concluded that the great anatomist was joking or suffering from hallucination. as a matter of fact trained investigators do not see these incredible monstrosities, and huxley's hypothetical case goes far beyond every attested miracle. but i do say that if johannes muller, or anyone else, alleged that he had seen a centaur, huxley would never think of investigating the absurdity. yet the allegation of, a great anatomist on such a matter is infinitely more plausible than any miraculous story of the christian religion. the "centaurs" of faith were seen centuries ago by superstitious people; and what is more, the relation of them was never made by the witnesses, but always by other people, who generally lived a few generations at least after the time. what on earth are we to do with people who believe in "centaurs" on such evidence, who make laws to protect their superstition, and appoint priests at the public cost to teach the "centaur" science? the way to answer this question is to ask another. how should we treat people who believed that centaurs could be seen now? why, of course, we should laugh at them. and that is how we should treat people who believe that men-horses ever existed at all. does anybody ask that i shall seriously discuss whether an old woman with a divining-rod can detect hidden treasures; whether mr. home floated in the air or mrs. guppy sailed from house to house; whether cripples are cured at lourdes or all manner of diseases at winifred's well? must i patiently reason with a man who tells me that he saw water turned into wine, or a few loaves and fishes turned into a feast for multitudes, or dead men rise up from their graves? surely not. i do what every sensible man does. i recognise no obligation to reason with such hallucinate mortals; i simply treat them with ridicule. so with the past. its delusions are no more entitled to respect than those of to-day. jesus christ as a miracle-worker is just as absurd as any modern pretender. whether in the bible, the koran, the arabian nights, monte christo, or baron munchausen, a tremendous "walker" is the fit subject of a good laugh. and freethinkers mean to enjoy their laugh, as some consolation for the wickedness of superstition. the christian faith is such that it makes us laugh or cry. are we wrong in preferring to laugh? there is an old story of a man who was plagued by the devil. the fiend was always dropping in at inconvenient times, and making the poor fellow's life a hell on earth. he sprinkled holy water on the floor, but by-and-bye the "old 'un" hopped about successfully on the dry spots. he flung things at him, but all in vain. at last he resolved on desperate measures. he plucked up his courage, looked the devil straight in the face, and laughed at him. that ended the battle. the devil could not stand laughter. he fled that moment and never returned. superstition is the devil. treat him to a hearty wholesome laugh. it is the surest exorcism, and you will find laughter medicinal for mind and body too. ridicule, and again ridicule, and ever ridicule! who are the blasphemers? atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit. god is to them merely a word, expressing all sorts of ideas, and not a person. it is, properly speaking, a general term, which includes all that there is in common among the various deities of the world. the idea of the supernatural embodies itself in a thousand ways. truth is always simple and the same, but error is infinitely diverse. jupiter, jehovah, and mumbo-jumbo are alike creations of human fancy, the products of ignorance and wonder. which is _the_ god is not yet settled. when the sects have decided this point, the question may take a fresh turn; but until then _god_ must be considered as a generic term, like _tree_ or _horse or man_; with just this difference, however, that while the words tree, horse, and man express the general qualities of visible objects, the word god expresses only the imagined qualities of something that nobody has ever seen. when the atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. he is incapable of insulting god, for he does not admit the existence of any such being. ideas of god may be good or bad, beautiful or ugly; and according as he finds them the atheist treats them. if we lived in turkey, we should deal with the god of the koran; but as we live in england, we deal with the god of the bible. we speak of that god as a being, just for convenience sake, and not from conviction. at bottom, we admit nothing but the mass of contradictory notions between genesis and revelation. we attack not a person but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy. lord brougham long ago pointed out, in his _life of voltaire_, that the great french heretic was not guilty of blasphemy, as his enemies alleged; since he had no belief in the actual existence of tne god he dissected, analysed, and laughed at. mr. ruskin very eloquently defends byron from the same charge. in _cain_ and elsewhere, the great poet does not impeach god; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. we may sum up the whole matter briefly. no man satirises the god he believes in, and no man believes in the god he satirises. we shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of "blasphemy!" which is exactly what the jewish priests shouted against jesus christ. if there is a god, he cannot be half such a fool and blackguard as the bible declares. in destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. and as it is better, in the words of plutarch, to have no notion of the gods than to have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the lord (if he exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in his name. the real blasphemers are those who believe in god and blacken his character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart of a savage and the brain of a fool. these are the blasphemers. when the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of god on his lips, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he resists education and science, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he opposes freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he opposes the equal rights of all, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he preaches content to the poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. and when he takes the bible in his hand, and says it was written by the inspiration of god, he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness. who are the blasphemers? not we who preach freedom and progress for all men; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, to burden it, in god's name, with all the foul superstitions of its ignorant past. christianity and common sense. there are two things in the world that can never get on together--religion and common sense. religion deals with the next life, common sense with this; religion points to the sky, common sense to the earth; religion is all imagination, common sense all reason; religion deals with what nobody can understand, common sense with what everybody can understand; religion gives us no return for our investments but flash notes on the bank of expectation, common sense gives us good interest and full security for our capital. they are as opposite as two things can possibly be, and they are always at strife. religion is always trying to fill the world with delusions, and common sense is always trying to drive them away. religion says live for the next world, and common sense says live for this. it is in the very nature of things that religion and common sense should hate and oppose each other. they are rivals for the same prize--aspirants to the same throne. in every age a conflict has been going on between them; and although common sense is fast getting the upper hand to-day, the war is far from ended, and we may see some fierce struggles before the combat closes. there can, however, be no doubt as to the issue; for science has appeared on the scene with the most deadly weapons of destruction, and science is the sworn ally of common sense. nay, is not science the mighty child of common sense--the fruit of reason from the lusty embrace of nature? common sense is primitive logic. it does not depend on books, and it is superior to culture. it is the perception of analogy--the instinct of causation. it guides the savage through trackless forests, and the astronomer through infinite space. it makes the burnt child dread the fire, and a darwin see in a few obvious facts the solution of a mystery. it built the first hut and the last palace; the first canoe and the last ocean steamer. it constructed docks, and laid down railways, applied steam to machinery and locomotion, prompted every mechanical discovery, instigated all material progress, and transformed an ape-like beast into a civilised man. even the highest art is full of common sense. sanity and simplicity are the distinguishing marks of the loftiest genius, which may be described as inspired common sense. the great artist never loses touch of fact; he may let his imagination soar as high as the stars, but he keeps his feet firm-planted on the ground. all the world recognises the sublimity of greek sculpture and shakespeare's plays, because they are both true to nature and fact and coincident with everlasting laws. the true sublime is not fantastic; it is solid and satisfying, like a mighty alp, deep-rooted first of all in the steadfast earth, and then towering up with its vineyards, its pastures, its pine-forests, its glaciers, its precipices, and last of all the silence of infinitude brooding over its eternal snows. common sense, the civiliser, has had an especially hard fight with that particular form of religion known as christianity. when tertullian said that christianity was to be believed because it was incredible, he spoke in the true spirit of faith; just as old sir thomas browne did when he found the marvels of religion too weak for his credulity, david hume expressed the same truth ironically at the conclusion of his _essay on miracles_, when he said that it was not reason that persuaded any christian of the truth of his creed, which was established on the higher ground of faith, and could not be accepted without a miracle. common sense is blasphemy. it is the thing which religion dreads most, and which the priests most mortally hate. common sense dispenses with learned disquisitions, and tries everything with simple mother wit. if, for instance, it hears that a whale swallowed a man, and vomited him up safe and sound three days after, it does not want to know all the physiology of men and whales before deciding if the story is true; it just indulges in a hearty laugh and blows the story to hades. miracle-mongers are quite helpless when a man turns round and says, "my dear sir, that story's just a trifle too thin." they see his case is a hopeless one, and leave him to the tender mercies of the lord of hosts. learning is all very well in its way, but common sense is a great deal better. it is infinitely the best weapon to use against christianity. without a knowledge of history, without being acquainted with any science but that of daily life, without a command of hebrew, latin and greek, or any other language than his own, a plain man can take the bible in his hand and easily satisfy himself it is not the word of god. common sense tells him not to believe in contradictory statements; common sense tells him that a man could not have found a wife in a land where there were no women; common sense tells him that three millions of people never marched out of any country in one night; common sense tells him that jesus christ could not have "gone up" from two places at once; common sense tells him that turning devils out of men into pigs is a fable not half as good as the poorest of Æsop's; common sense tells him that nobody but a skunk would consent to be saved from the penalty of his own misdeeds by the sufferings of an innocent man; common sense tells him that while men object to having their pockets picked and their throats cut, they want no divine command against theft and murder; common sense tells him that god never ordered the committal of such atrocities as those ascribed to him in the bible; and common sense tells him that a god of mercy never made a hell. yes, all this is perfectly clear, and the priests know it. that is why they cry out blasphemy! every time they meet it. but that is also precisely the reason why we should employ it against them. the best antidote to superstition, the worst enemy of priestcraft, and the best friend of man, is (to parody danton's famous formula) common sense, and again common sense, and for ever common sense. the lord of lords. * * written in august, . we are in the midst of a political crisis. the house of lords opposes a reform unanimously voted by the house of commons. great demonstrations are being held all over the country, to insist on the popular will being carried into effect, and there is a growing cry of "down with the lords." a spectator from another planet might wonder at all the fuss. he might marvel how forty millions of people needed to stamp and gesticulate against a handful of obstructives. he might imagine that they had only to decree a thing and it would immediately be; that all opposition to their sovereign will would melt away the moment they declared it. this traveller, however, would soon be undeceived. a little study would show him that the people are kept in check by faith and custom. he would learn that the nation is tied down like gulliver was, by ligatures springing from its own head. behind the king there is a king of kings; behind the lords there is a lord of lords. behind every earthly despotism there is a heavenly one. the rulers of mankind overawe the people by religious terrors. they keep a body of men in their pay, the black army of theology, whose business it is to frighten people from their rights by means of a ghost behind the curtain. nobody has ever seen the bogie, but we are taught to believe in it from our infancy, and faith supplies the deficiencies of sight. thus we are enslaved by our own consent. our will is suborned against our interests. we wear no chains to remind us of our servitude, but our liberty is restrained by the subtle web of superstition, which is so fine as to be imperceptible except to keen and well-practised eyes, and elastic enough to cheat us with a false sense of freedom. yes, we must seek in religion the secret of all political tyranny and social injustice. not only does history show us the bearing of religion on politics--we see it to-day wherever we cast our gaze. party feeling is so embittered in france because the sharp line of division in politics corresponds with the sharp line of division in religion. on the one side there is freethought and republicanism, and on the other catholicism and monarchy. even in england, which at present knows less of the naked despotism of the catholic church than any other european country, we are gradually approximating to a similar state of things. freethougnt is appearing upon the public stage, and will play its peculiar part as naturally as religion does. those who fancy that theology and politics have no necessary relations, that you may operate in the one without affecting the other, and that they can and should be kept distinct, are grossly mistaken. cardinal newman has well shown how it is the nature of ideas to assimilate to themselves whatever agrees with them, and to destroy whatever disagrees. when once an idea enters the human mind it acts according to the necessary laws of thought. it changes to its own complexion all its mental surroundings, and through every mental and moral channel influences the world of practice outside. the real sovereigns of mankind, who sway its destinies with irresistible power, are not the czars, emperors, kings and lords, nor even the statesmen who enact laws when public sentiment is ripe; they are the great thinkers who mould opinion, the discoverers and enunciators of truth, the men of genius who pour the leaven of their ideas and enthusiasm into the sluggish brain of humanity. even in this crisis it is easy to see how religion and freethought are at variance. the liberal party is not pledged to the abolition of the house of lords, but the radical party is. orthodox liberalism is christian, only a little less so than orthodox conservatism; but radicalism is very largely sceptical. it would surprise the dullards of both parties to learn how great a portion of the working energy of radicalism is supplied by freethinkers. true, many of them are unavowed freethinkers, yet they are of our party although they do not wear our colors. but setting all these aside, i assert that radicalism would be immensely weakened by the withdrawal of declared freethinkers from its ranks. no one in the least acquainted with political organisation would think of disputing this. belief in god is the source and principle of all tyranny. this lies in the very nature of things. for what is god? all definitions of religion from johnson's down to that of the latest dictionary agree on this one point, that it is concerned with man's relations to _the unknown_. yes, god is the unknown, and theology is the science of ignorance. earl beaconsfield, in his impish way, once said that where our knowledge ends our religion begins. a truer word was never spoken. now the unknown is the terrible. we become fearful the moment we confront the incalculable. go through the history of religions, consult the various accounts of savage and barbarous faiths at present extant, and you will find that the principle of terror, springing from the unknown, is the essential feature in which they all agree. this terror inevitably begets slavishness. we cannot be cowardly in this respect without its affecting our courage in others. the mental serf is a bodily serf too, and spiritual fetters are the agencies of political thraldom. the man who worships a tyrant in heaven naturally submits his neck to the yoke of tyrants on earth. he who bows his intellect to a priest will yield his manhood to a king. everywhere on earth we find the same ceremonies attending every form of dependence. the worshipper who now kneels in prayer to god, like the courtier who backs from the presence of the monarch, is performing an apology for the act of prostration which took place alike before the altar and the throne. in both cases it was the adoration of fear, the debasement of the weak before the seat of irresponsible power. authority is still the principle of our most refined creeds. the majority of christians believe in salvation by faith; and what is the god of that dogma but a capricious tyrant, who saves or damns according to his personal whim? the ministers of protestantism, like the priests of catholicism, recognise this practically in their efforts to regulate public education. they dare not trust to the effect of persuasion on the unprejudiced mind; they must bias the minds of children by means of dogmatic teaching. they bend the twig in order to warp the tree. now god is the supreme principle of authority as he is the essence of the unknown. he is thus the head, front and symbol of terror and slavery, and as such must be assailed by every true soldier of progress. we shall never enfranchise the world without touching people's superstitions; and even if we abolish the house of lords we shall still dwell in the house of bondage unless we abolish the lord of lords; for the evil principle will remain as a germ to develop into new forms of oppression. freethought is the real savior. when we make a man a freethinker, we need not trouble greatly about his politics. he is sure to go right in the main. he may mistake here or falter there, but his tendency will always be sound. thus it is that freethinkers always vote, work and fight for the popular cause. they have discarded the principle of authority in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, and left it to the conservative party, to which all religionists belong precisely in proportion to the orthodoxy of their faith. freethought goes to the root. it reaches the intellect and the conscience, and does not merely work at haphazard on the surface of our material interests and party struggles. it aims at the destruction of all tyranny and injustice by the sure methods of investigation and discussion, and the free play of mind on every subject. it loves truth and freedom. it turns away from the false and sterile ideas of the kingdom of god and faces the true and fruitful idea of the republic of man. consecrating the colors the queen has recently presented new colors to the first battalion of the seaforth highlanders. there was a great parade at osborne, half the royal family being present to witness her majesty perform the one piece of business to which she takes kindly in her old age. she has long been, as lord beaconsfield said, physically and morally unfit for her many duties; but she is always ready to inspect her troops, to pin a medal or a cross on the breast of that cheap form of valor which excites such admiration in feminine minds, or to thank her brave warriors for exhibiting their heroism on foreign fields against naked savages and half-naked barbarians. the ruling passion holds out strong to the last, and the respectable old lady who is allowed to occupy the english throne because of her harmlessness can still sing, like the grand duchess in offenbach's opera, "oh, i dote on the military." but the queen is not my game. i am "going for" the priests behind her, the mystery-men who give the sanction of religion to all the humbug and hypocrisy, as well as to all the plunder and oppression, that obtain amongst us. those new colors were consecrated (that is the word) by the dean of windsor. the old colors were consecrated forty-two years ago by the venerable dr. vernon harcourt, archbishop of york, who was probably a near relative of our pious home secretary, the fat member for derby. if i were a courtier, a sycophant, or an ordinary journalist, i might spend some time in hunting up the actual relationship between these two harcourts; but being neither, and not caring a straw one way or the other, i content myself, as i shall probably content my readers, with hazarding a conjecture. consecrating the colors! what does that mean? first of all it implies the alliance between the soldier and the priest, who are the two arms of tyranny. one holds and the other strikes; one guards and the other attacks; one overawes with terror and delusion, and the other smites with material weapons when the spiritual restraints fail. the black and the red armies are both retainers in the service of privilege, and they preach or fight exactly as they are bidden. it makes no real difference that the soldier's orders are clear and explicit, while the priest's are mysteriously conveyed through secret channels. they alike obey the mandate of their employers, and take their wages for the work. in the next place it shows the intimate relation between religion and war. both belong to the age of faith. when the age of reason has fairly dawned both will be despised and finally forgotten. they are always and everywhere founded on ignorance and stupidity, although they are decorated with all sorts of fine names. the man of sense sees through all these fine disguises. he knows that the most ignorant people are the most credulous, and that the most stupid are the most pugnacious. educated and thoughtful men shrink alike from the dogmas of religion and the brutalities of war. further, this consecration of the colors reminds us that the christian deity is still the lord of hosts, the god of battles. his eyes delight to look over a purple sea of blood, and his devotees never invoke his name so-much as when they are about to emulate his sanguinary characteristics. the dean of windsor does not shock, he only gratifies, the feelings of the orthodox world, when he blesses the flag which is to float over scenes of carnage, and flame like a fiend's tongue over the hell of battle, where brothers of the same human family, without a quarrel in the world, but set at variance bv thieves and tricksters, maim and mangle and kill each other with fractricidal hands, which ought to have been clasped in friendship and brotherhood. yet these hireling priests, who consecrate the banners of war, dare to prate that god is a loving father and that we are all his children. what monstrous absurdity! what disgusting hypocrisy i surely the parent of mankind, instead of allowing his ministers to mouth his name over the symbols of slaughter, would command them to preach "peace, peace!" until the war-drums beat no longer and the battle-flags are furled in the parliament of man, the federation of the world. of course there is a comic side to this, as to almost everything else. the priests of the various nations consecrate rival banners, pray for victory for their own side, and swear that god almighty is sure to give it them if they trust in him. now what is the lord to do when they go on in this way on opposite sides? he is sure to disappoint one party, and he is likely to get devilish little thanks from the other. a wise god would remain neutral, and say, "my comical little fellows, if you will go knocking out each other's brains because they are not strong enough to settle your differences by peaceful means, by all means get through the beastly business as soon as possible; but pray don't trouble me with your petitions for assistance; both sides are fools, and i wash my hands of the whole affair." i have heard of an old dutch commander who actually prayed the lord to remain neutral, although from a different motive. on the eve of battle he addressed the deity in this fashion: "o lord, we are ten thousand, and they are ten thousand, but we are a darned sight better soldiers than they, and, o lord, do thou but keep out of it, and well give them the soundest thrashing they ever had." our prayer book pays a very poor compliment to the god of battles. "give peace in our time, o lord," says the preacher. "because there is none other that fighteth for us but only thou o god," responds the congregation. the compilers of the prayer book evidently blundered, unless they secretly felt that the lord of hosts was used up, and not worth a keg of gunpowder or an old musket. consecrating colors, like consecrating graveyards, is after all only a trick of trade. the dean of windsor only practises the arts of his profession, and probably laughs in his sleeve at his own public performance. perhaps he knows that god, as napoleon said, is on the side of the big battalions; just as, probably, every bishop knows that church corpses rot exactly like dissenting corpses, although they lie in consecrated ground. priestly mummeries will last as long as there is a demand for them. it is of little use to quarrel with this supply. the freethinker's duty is to lessen the demand. christmas in holloway gaol. * * i was imprisoned there for "blasphemy" from february to february , by sentence of a roman catholic judge, mr. justice north. the dullest christmas i ever spent was in her majesty's hotel in north london. the place was spacious, but not commodious; it was magnificent in the mass, but very petty in detail; it was designed with extreme care for the safety of its many guests, but with a complete disregard of their comfort; and it soon palled upon the taste, despite the unremitting attentions of a host of liveried servants. how i longed for a change of scene, if what i constantly gazed upon may be so described; but i was like a knight in some enchanted castle, surrounded with attendants, yet not at liberty to walk out. the hospitality of my residence, however, was by no means sumptuous. the table did not groan beneath a weight of viands, or gleam with glowing wines. its poverty was such that a red-herring would have been a glorious treat, and a dose of physic an agreeable variety. why then, you may ask, did i not quit this inhospitable hotel, and put up at another establishment? because i was invited by her majesty, and her majesty's invitations are commands. speaking by the card, christmas-day in holloway was treated as a sunday. there was no work and no play then, the dinner was the poorest and worst cooked in the whole week, and the only diversion was a morning or afternoon visit to chapel, where we had the satisfaction of learning that heaven was an eternal sunday. the fibre put into my cell to be picked by my industrious fingers had all been removed the previous evening, lest i should desecrate the sacred day by pursuing my ordinary avocation. my apartment was therefore clean and tidy, and by the aid of a bit of dubbin i managed to give an air of newness to my well-worn shoes. the attendants had, however, omitted to provide me with a sunday suit, so i was obliged to don my working clothes, in which graceless costume i had to perform my religious devotions in the house of god, where an ill-dressed person is always regarded as an exceptionally bad sinner, and expected to show an extraordinary amount of humility and contrition. linen was never a burning question in holloway hotel, and cuffs and collars were unknown, except when a short guest wore a long shirt. my toilet was therefore easily completed; and with a good wash, and the energetic use of a three-inch comb, i was soon ready for the festivities of the season. at eight o'clock i received the first instalment of my christmas fare, in the shape of three-quarters of a pint of tea and eight ounces of dry bread. whether the price of groceries was affected by the christmas demand, or whether the kitchen was demoralised by the holiday, i am unable to decide; but i noticed that the decoction was more innocuous than usual, although i had thought its customary strength could not be weakened without a miracle. my breakfast being devised on the plainest vegetarian principles, there was no occasion for grace before meat, so i sipped the tea and munched the bread (eight ounces straight off requires a great deal of mastication) without breathing a word of thanks to the giver of all good things. after a remarkably short hour's tramp round the exercise ring in a thieves' procession, doing the rogue's march without the music, i returned to my cell, and sitting down on my little three-legged stool, i was soon lost in thought. i wondered what my wife was doing, how she was spending the auspicious day. what a "merry christmas" for a woman with her husband eating his heart out in gaol! but "that way madness lies," and i had fought down the demon too long to give way then. springing to my feet, i sped up and down my cell like a caged animal, and after many maledictions on "the accursed creed," i succeeded in stilling the tumult of my emotions. a great calm followed this storm, and resuming my seat and leaning my back against the plank-bed, i took a scornful retrospect of my prosecution and trial. how insignificant looked the tylers, giffards, norths and harcourts! how noble the friends and the party who had stood by me in the dark hour of defeat! a few short weeks, and i should be free again to join their ranks and strike hard in the thickest of the battle, under the grand old flag of freethought. the chapel-bell roused me from phantasy. the other half of the prison disgorged its inmates, and i could hear the sound of their tramping to the sanctuary. while they were engaged there i read a chapter of gibbon; after which i heard the "miserable sinners" return from the chapel to their cells. at twelve o'clock came mv second instalment of christmas fare: six ounces of potatoes, eight ounces of bread and a mutton chop. being on hospital diet, i had this trinity for my dinner every day for nine months, and words cannot describe the nauseous monotony of the _menu_. the other prisoners had the regular sunday's diet: bread, potatoes and suet-pudding. after dinner i went for another short hour's tramp in the yard. the officers seemed to relax their usual rigor, and many of the prisoners exchanged greetings. "how did yer like the figgy duff?" "did the beef stick in yer stomach?" such were the flowers of conversation that afternoon. from the talk around me, i gathered that under the old management, before the government took over the prison, all the inmates had a "blow out" on christmas-day, consisting of beef, vegetables, plum-pudding and a pint of beer. some of the "old hands" bitterly bewailed the decadence in prison hospitality. their lamentations were worthy of a conservative orator at a rural meeting. the present was a poor thing compared with the past, and they sighed for "the tender grace of a day that is dead." after exercise i went to chapel. the schoolmaster, who was a very pleasant gentleman, had drilled the singing class into a fair state of efficiency, and they sang one or two christmas hymns in pretty good style; but the effect of their efforts was considerably marred by the rest of the congregation, whose unmusical voices, bad sense of time, and ignorance of the tune, more than once nearly brought the performance to an untimely end. parson playford followed with a seasonable sermon, which would have been more heartily relished on a fuller stomach. he told us what a blessed time christmas was, and how people did well to be joyous on the anniversary of their savior's birth; after which i presume he returned to the bosom of his family, and celebrated the birth of christ with liberal doses of turkey, goose, beef, pudding, and communion wine. before dismissing us with his blessing to our "little rooms," which was his habitual euphemism for our cells, he said that he could not wish us a happy christmas in our unhappy condition, but would wish us a peaceful christmas; and he ventured to promise us that boon, if after leaving chapel, we fell on our knees, and besought pardon for our sins. most of the prisoners received this advice with a grin, for their cell-floors were black-leaded, and practising genuflexions in their "little-rooms" gave too much kneecap to their trousers. at six o'clock i had my third instalment of christmas fare, consisting of another eight ounces of bread and three quarters of a pint of tea. the last mouthfuls were consumed to the accompaniment of church bells. the neighboring gospel-shops were announcing their evening performance, and the sound penetrated into my cell through the open ventilator. the true believers were wending their way to god's house, and the heretic, who had dared to deride their creed and denounce their hypocrisy, was regaling himself on dry bread and warm water in one of their prison-cells. and the bells rang out against each other from the many steeples with a wild glee as i paced up and down my narrow dungeon. they seemed mad with the intoxication of victory; they mocked me with their bacchanalian frenzy of triumph. but i smiled grimly, for their clamor was no more than the ancient fool's-shout, "great is diana of the ephesians." great christ has had his day since, but he in turn is dead; dead in man's intellect, dead in man's heart, dead in man's life; a mere phantom, flitting about the aisles of churches where priestly mummers go through the rites of a phantom creed. i took my bible and read the story of christ's birth in matthew and luke. what an incongruous jumble of absurdities! a poor fairy tale of the world's childhood, utterly insignificant beside the stupendous wonders which science has revealed to its manhood. from the fanciful little story of the magi following a star, to shelley's "worlds on worlds are rolling ever," what an advance! as i retired to sleep upon my plank-bed my mind was full of these reflections. and when the gas was turned out, and i was left alone in darkness and silence, i felt serene and almost happy. who killed christ? without committing ourselves to a full acceptance of the gospel story of christ's death, with all its monstrous miracles and absurd defiance of roman and jewish legal procedure, we propose to take the story as it stands for the purpose of discussing the question at the top of this article. the ordinary christian will exclaim that jesus was murdered by those infernal jews. ever since they had the power of persecuting the jews--that is, ever since the days of constantino--the christians have acted on the assumption that the countrymen of jesus did actually cry out before pilate, "his blood be on our heads!" and that they and their posterity deserved any amount of robbery and outrage until they unanimously confessed their sin and worshipped him whom they crucified. it made no difference that the contemporaries of jesus christ could not transmit their guilt to their offspring. the christians continued, century after century, to act in the spirit of the sailor in the story. coming ashore after a long voyage, jack attended church and heard a pathetic sermon on the crucifixion. on the following day he looked into the window of a print-shop, and saw a picture of jesus on the cross. just then a jew came and looked into the window; whereupon the sailor, pointing to the picture, asked the hebrew gentleman whether he recognised it. "that's jesus," said the jew, and the sailor immediately knocked him down. surprised at this treatment, the hebrew gentleman inquired the reason. "why," said the sailor, "didn't you infernal jews crucify him?" the poor son of abraham admitted the fact, but explained that it happened nearly two thousand years ago. "no matter," said the sailor, "i only heard of it yesterday." now it is perfectly clear, according to the gospels, that the jews did _not_ kill jesus. unless they lynched him they had no power to put him to death. judæa was then a roman province, and in every part of the empire the extreme penalty of the law was only inflicted by the roman governor. nevertheless it maybe argued that the jews _really_ killed him, although they did not actually shed his blood, as they clamored for his death and terrorised pontius pilate into ordering a judicial murder. but suppose we take this view of the case: does it therefore follow that they acted without justification? was not jesus, in their judgment, guilty of blasphemy, and was not that a deadly crime under the mosaic law? "he that blasphemeth the name of the lord," says leviticus xxiv. , "shall surely be put to death." were not the jews, then, carrying out the plain commandment of jehovah? nor was this their only justification. in another part of the mosaic law (deut. xiii. - ), the jews were ordered to kill anyone, whether mother, son, daughter, husband, or wife, who should entice them to worship other gods. now it is expressly maintained by the overwhelming majority of divines that jesus asserted his own godhead, he is reported as saying, "i and my father are one," and, as st, paul says, "he thought it no robbery to be equal to god." were not the jews, then, bound to kill him if they could? let it not be supposed that _we_ would have killed him. we are not excusing the jews as men, but as observers of the mosaic law and worshippers of jehovah. their god is responsible for the death of jesus, and if jesus was a portion of that very deity, he was responsible for his own death. his worshippers had learnt the lesson so well that they killed their own god when he came in disguise. it is contended by some christians that pontius pilate killed jesus. according to these arguers, pilate knew that jesus was innocent, and the execution was therefore a murder. but is it not perfectly obvious from the gospel story that pilate tried to save jesus? did not the obstinate prisoner plead guilty to what was really a charge of sedition? did he attempt any defence? did he call any witnesses? was he not contumacious? and had pilate any alternative to sentencing him to the legal punishment of his crime? other friends of jesus lay the blame of his death on judas iscariot, but the whole story of his "betrayal" of jesus is a downright absurdity. how could he _sell_ his master when the commodity was common? what sense is there in his being paid to indicate the best-known man in jerusalem? even if the story were true, it appears that jesus knew what judas was doing, and as he could easily have returned to galilee, he was accessory to his own fate. it may also be pointed out that judas only killed jesus if the tragedy would not have occurred without him; in which case he was the proximate cause of the crucifixion, and consequently a benefactor to all who are saved by the blood of christ. instead of execration, therefore, he deserves praise, and even the statue which disraeli suggested as his proper reward. who killed christ? why himself. his brain gave way. he was demented. his conduct at jerusalem was that of a maniac. his very language showed a loss of balance. whipping the dove-sellers and moneychangers, not out of the temple, but out of its unsanctified precincts, was lunatic violence. those merchants were fulfilling a necessary, reputable function; selling doves to women who required them as burnt offerings, and exchanging the current roman money for the sacred jewish coins which alone were accepted by the temple priests. it is easy to call them thieves, but they were not tried, and their evidence is unheard. if they cheated, they must have been remarkably clever, for all their customers were jews. besides, there were proper tribunals for the correction of such offences, and no one who was not beside himself would think of going into a market and indiscriminately whipping the traders and dashing down their stalls. certainly any man who did it now would be arrested, if he were not lynched on the spot, and would either be imprisoned or detained at her majesty's pleasure. quite in keeping with these displays of temper was the conduct of jesus before pilate. a modicum of common sense would have saved him. he was not required to tell a lie or renounce a conviction. all that was necessary to his release was to plead not guilty and defend himself against the charge of sedition. his death, therefore, was rather a suicide than a martyrdom. unfortunately the jurisprudence of that age was less scientific than the one which now prevails; the finer differences between sanity and insanity were not discriminated; otherwise jesus would have been remanded for inquiries into his mental condition. as a man jesus died because he had not the sense to live. as a god he must have died voluntarily. in either case it is an idle, gratuitous, enervating indulgence in "the luxury of woe" to be always afflicting ourselves with the story of his doom. great and good men have suffered and died since, and other lessons are needed than any that may be learnt at the foot of the cross. did jesus ascend? the story of the ascension of jesus christ is as absurd as the story of his resurrection. both, in fact, are the products of an age prone to believe in the wonderful. so prevalent was the popular belief in the supernatural character of great men, that the comparatively cultivated romans accepted a monstrous fable about julius caesar. "the enthusiasm of the multitude," says mr. froude, "refused to believe that he was dead. he was supposed to have ascended into heaven, not in adulatory metaphor, but in literal and prosaic fact." similarly the enthusiasm of the first followers of jesus, and especially of hysterical ladies like mary magdalene, refused to believe that _he_ was dead. the fable of his resurrection was gradually developed, and his ascension was devised to round off the story. whoever will read st. paul's epistles first, and the gospels and the acts afterwards, will see how the christ myth grew from vagueness to precision under the shaping imagination of the church of the first century after the age of the apostles. it is a significant fact that the appearances of jesus after his resurrection were all made to the faithful, and his ascension took place before them, without a single impartial person being allowed to witness an event of which it was of the utmost importance for the world to have positive assurance. when we turn to the gospels and the acts, five documents whose authorship is absolutely unknown, we find the most contradictory accounts of what happened after the resurrection. it may safely be affirmed that five such witnesses would damn any case in a legal court where the laws of evidence are respected. these witnesses cannot even agree as to whether the risen jesus was a man or a ghost. now he comes through a closed door, and anon he eats broiled fish and honeycomb; now he vanishes, after walking and talking with his disciples, and anon he allows the sceptical thomas to examine the wounds of his crucifixion as a proof that he was not a spirit, but solid flesh and blood. according to matthew's account, jesus first appeared to the women--as is very probable! mark says his first appearance was to mary magdalene alone; luke says it was two of the disciples on the road to emmaus. his subsequent appearances are recorded with the same harmony. while matthew makes him appear but once, mark makes him appear three times--to the women, to the two disciples going to emmaus, and to the eleven apostles. luke makes him appear but twice, and john four times--to mary magdalene alone, to the disciples in a room without thomas, to the same again with thomas, and to the same once more at tiberias. john is the only one who tells the pretty story about thomas, and john of course is the only one who mentions the spear-thrust in christ's side at the crucifixion, because he wanted a hole for thomas to put his hand into, and the other evangelists had no need of such a provision. matthew and mark relate that the disciples were told by an angel to go to galilee, while luke keeps them in the holy city, and acts declares that jesus expressly "commanded them that they should not depart from jerusalem." the ascension itself, which involved the last appearance of jesus, as well as his disappearance, is not related by matthew, nor is it related by john. now matthew and john are _supposed_ to have been apostles. if the ascension happened they must have witnessed it; but both of them are silent, and the story of the ascension comes from three writers who were _not present_. nor do these three writers agree with each other. luke informs us that jesus ascended from bethany, a short distance from jerusalem, on the very day of the resurrection, or at the latest the next morning; while mark, without any precision as to time, distinctly affirms that jesus ascended from galilee, which was at least sixty miles from jerusalem. now the ascension could not have occurred at two different places, and, in the absence of corroborative testimony, mark and luke destroy each other as witnesses. the author of acts agrees with mark as to the place, but differs both from mark and luke as to the time. he declares that jesus spent forty days (off and on) with his disciples before levitating. this constitutes another difficulty. mark, luke, and the author of acts must all leave the court in disgrace, for it is too late for them to patch up a more harmonious story. according to the detailed account in acts, jesus ascended in the presence of his apostles, including matthew and john, who appear to have mistrusted their eyesight. after making a speech he was "taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight." he was in a cloud, and they were in a cloud, and the millions who believe them are in a cloud. the time of the year is seasonable for an examination of the story of the ascension. would that the opportunity were taken by christians, who believe what they have been taught with scarcely a moment's investigation, and read the bible as lazily as they smoke their pipes. we do not ask them to take our word for anything. let them examine for themselves. if they will do this, we have no fear as to the result. a belief in the new testament story of the supernatural christ is impossible to any man who candidly sifts and honestly weighs the evidence. if christians would pursue their investigations still further they would soon satisfy themselves that the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of jesus christ are largely, if not entirely, mythical. now, for instance, when they are preparing to celebrate the ascension of christ, they are welcoming the ascension of the sun. the great luminary is (apparently) rising higher and higher in the heaven, shedding his warmer beams on the earth, and gladdening the hearts of man. and there is more connection between the son and the sun than ordinary christians imagine. the rising son. you are requested to read the above title carefully. notice the spelling of the last word. it is _son_, not _sun_. the difference to the eye is only in one letter. the substantial difference is very great. yet in the end the distinction between the son and the sun vanishes. originally they were one and the same thing, and they will be so again when christianity is properly understood. supposing that jesus of nazareth ever lived, it is impossible to know, with any approach to accuracy, what he really was. with the exception of four epistles by saint paul--in which we find a highly mystical christ, and not a portrait or even a sketch of an actual man--we have no materials for a biography of jesus written within a hundred years of his death. undoubtedly _some_ documents existed before the canonical and apocryphal gospels, but they were lost through neglect or suppression, and what we have is simply the concoction of older materials by an unscrupulous church. during the interval between the real or supposed death of jesus and the date of the gospels, there was plenty of time for the accumulation of any quantity of mythology. the east was full of such material, only waiting, after the destruction of the old national religions under the sway of rome, to be woven into the texture of a non-national system as wide as the limits of the empire. protestants are able to recognise a vast deal of paganism in the teaching and ritual of the roman catholic church. on that side they keep an open eye. on the other side their eye is shut. if they opened it they would see plenty of paganism in the gospels. the only fixed date in the career of jesus is his birthday. this is known by every scholar to be fictitious. the primitive church was ignorant of the day on which jesus was born. but what was unknown to the apostles, one of whom is said to have been his very brother, was opportunely discovered by the church three hundred years afterwards. for some time the nativity of jesus had been celebrated on all sorts of days, but the church brought about uniformity by establishing the twenty-fifth of december. this was the pagan festival of the nativity of the sun. the church simply appropriated it, in order to bring over the pagan population by a change of doctrine without a change or rites and customs. it may be objected that the primitive church did not inquire as to the birthday of jesus until it was too late to ascertain it. but this objection cannot possibly apply to the resurrection, the date of which is involved in equal uncertainty, although one would expect it to be precisely known and regularly commemorated. for many ages the celebration was irregular. different sundays were kept, and sometimes other days, in various weeks of march and april. finally, after fierce disputes and excommunications, the present system was imposed upon the whole catholic world. easter is, in fact, decided astronomically, by a process in which sun-worship and moon-worship are both conciliated. the starting point is the vernal equinox, which was the time of a common pagan festival. the very name of easter is of heathen origin. all its customs are bequeathed to us from far-off pagan ancestors. easter eggs, symbolising the life of the universe, have been traced back to the romans, greeks, persians, and egyptians. when the christians celebrate the resurrection of christ they are imitating the ancient "heathen," who at the same time of the year commemorated the resurrection of the sun, and his manifest triumph over the powers of darkness. and when the moderns prepare to celebrate the ascension of christ, they are really welcoming the ascension of the sun. the great luminary--father of light and lord of life--is then (apparently) rising higher and higher in heaven, shedding his warmer beams on the earth, and gladdening the hearts of men. churches and altars are decked with vegetation, which is another relic of nature-worship. life is once more bursting forth under the kindling rays of the sun. hope springs afresh in the heart of man. his fancy sees the pastures covered with flocks and herds, the corn waving in the breeze, and the grapes plumping in the golden sunshine, big with the blood of earth and the fire of heaven. according to the apostles' creed, jesus descended into hell between his death and resurrection. that is also a relic of sun-worship. during the dark, cold winter the sun descended into the underworld, which is the real meaning of hades. misunderstanding this circumstance, or deliberately perverting it, the early church fabricated the monstrous fable that jesus "preached unto the spirits in prison," as we read in the first epistle of peter. one of the apocryphal gospels gives a lively account of how he harried the realm of old harry, emptying the place wholesale, and robbing the poor devil of all his illustrious subjects, from adam to john the baptist. a volume might be filled with illustrations of the mythology of the resurrection. our present space is limited, and we must let the above suffice. anyone who reads the gospel story of the resurrection and ascension of jesus christ, with a careful eye and a critical mind, will see that it is not historical. such witnesses, so loose in statement and so contradictory of each other, would collapse in a few minutes in any court of law. they do not write as spectators, and they were not spectators. what they give us is the legendary and mythical story that had taken possession of the christian mind long after all the contemporaries of jesus were dead. our belief, in conclusion, is that the rising sun will outlast the rising son. the latter is gradually, but very surely, perishing. even professed christians are giving up the miraculous elements of the gospels. but who would give up the sun, which has warmed, lighted, and fertilised the earth for millions of years, and will do so for millions of years after the death of christianity? st. paul's veracity. a very pretty storm has been raised (and settled) by the _independent and nonconformist_. it raged around the apostle paul and mr. herbert spencer, who both come out of it apparently not a penny the worse. mr. spencer has a chapter on veracity in his recently published _principles of ethics_, wherein he cites paul as a violator of this virtue, and remarks that "apparently piquing himself on his craft and guile," he "elsewhere defends his acts by contending that 'the truth of god hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory.'" this roused the ire of the _independent_, and mr. spencer was informed that his extraordinary aspersion on the apostle's character was wholly without justification. whereupon the great evolutionist replied that two days before receiving the _independent_ he had "sent to the printer the copy of a cancel to be substituted for the page in which there occurs the error you point out." mr. spencer goes on to say that he had trusted to assistants, and been misled on this particular point as on a few others. "the inductions contained in the _principles of sociology_ and in part ii. of the _principles of ethics_ are based mainly, though not wholly, upon the classified materials contained in _the descriptive sociology_, compiled between and by three university men i engaged for the purpose. when using this compilation of facts concerning sixty-eight different societies i have habitually trusted to the compilers. for even had i been in good health, it would have been impossible for me to verify all their extracts from multitudinous books. in some cases, where the work was at hand, i have referred for verification; and have usually done so in the case of extracts from the bible; now and then, as i remember, rejecting the extracts given to me as being not justified by the context. but in the case in point it seems that i had not been sufficiently careful. it is only after reading the preceding chapter that it becomes clear that the passage i quoted must be taken as part of an argument with an imaginary interlocutor, rather than as expressive of st. paul's own sentiment. it must, i think, be admitted that the presentation of the thought is a good deal complicated, and, in the absence of the light thrown upon it by the preceding chapter, is liable to be misunderstood. i regret that i misunderstood it." this explanation and apology are, of course, most satisfactory. saint paul is cleared by mr. spencer's certificate, and the _independent_ remarks that this is "a noble codicil to mr. spencer's chapter on veracity." nay, it professes high "admiration" for him as the "greatest living philosopher of the english-speaking race." thus the "comedy of errors" is followed by "all's well that ends well," and the curtain falls on compliments and embraces. it really seems a shame to disturb this pleasant harmony, but we feel compelled to say something to the _independent_ and to mr. herbert spencer about the apostle paul. in the first place we must observe that mr. spencer's "erroneous" statement about the great apostle, while it may be an _aspersion_, is certainly not _extraordinary_. it has repeatedly been made by the apostle's adverse critics, and even by some of his admirers. without citing a long list of them, we will give two--both english, and both judicial. jeremy bentham, the great reformer of our jurisprudence, wrote a work entitled _not paul, but jesus_, in which he contends through four hundred pages that paul was mercenary, ambitious, and an unscrupulous liar. to cull a single passage from bentham's book is like picking one raisin from a rich plum-pudding. every sentence is an indictment. and surely after bentham's trenchant performance it is idle for an english journal to pretend that there is anything "extraordinary" in mr. spencer's "erroneous" accusation. the other judicial writer, also belonging to the english race, is sir richard david hanson, who was for some time chief justice of south australia. in his able work on _the apostle paul_ there is an admirable summing-up of the hero's character. after admitting paul's ability, persistence, courage, and other virtues, he remarks--"but these are accompanied by what in an uninspired man would be called pride, jealousy, disdain, invective, sophistry, time-serving and intolerance." this is pretty strong; and "sophistry" and "time-serving" are only euphemisms for lying in preaching and practice. so much for the independent, and now for mr. spencer. it must be observed that one part of his "erroneous" statement _cannot_ be repudiated. the apostle distinctly says, "being crafty, i caught you with guile" ( uor. xii. ), so that "piquing himself on his craft and guile" must stand while this text remains in the epistle. mr. spencer allows that, in the third of romans, the "presentation of the thought is a good deal complicated," and "liable to be misunderstood"; but, if read in the light of the preceding chapter, the passage about lying to the glory of god "must be taken as part of an argument with an imaginary interlocutor." perhaps so; but _which_ is speaking in the seventh verse? paul or his opponent? mr. spencer does not say. yet this is the real point. to us it seems that _paul_ is speaking. of course it may be urged that he is speaking ironically. but this is not mr. spencer's contention. it is not clear what he _does_ mean; in fact, he seems to have caught a little of paul's confusion. we have no objection to reading the seventh verse of the third of romans in the light of the preceding chapter. but should it not also be read in the light of christian history? have honest openness and strict veracity been _ever_ regarded as essential virtues in the propagation of the gospel? and why is it likely that paul, of all men, escaped the contagion of fraud, which has always disgraced the christian church? the ordinary protestant imagines, or pretends, that the catholic church has been the great impostor; but this is nonsense to the student of early christianity. mosheim remarks that the "pernicious maxim" that "those who make it their business to deceive with a view of promoting the cause of truth were deserving rather of commendation than of censure," was "_very early_ recognised by the christians." bishop ellicott similarly observes that "history forces upon us the recognition of pious fraud as a principle which was by no means inoperative in the _earliest ages_ of christianity." middleton likewise reflects that the bold defiance of honesty and truth displayed by the fathers of the fourth century "could not have been acquired, or become general at once, but must have been carried gradually to that height, by custom and the example of former times, and a long experience of what the credulity and superstition or the multitude would bear." so far, indeed, were the "earlier ages" from being remarkable for integrity, that middleton says there never was "any period of time" in which fraud and forgery more abounded. the learned casaubon also complains that it was in "the _earliest times_ of the church" that it was "considered a capital exploit to lend to heavenly truth the help of invention, in order that the new doctrine might be more readily allowed by the wise among the gentiles." mosheim even finds that the period of fraud began "not long after christ's ascension." and it continued, without a blush of shame on christian cheeks; not growing worse, for that was impossible; until eusebius, in the fourth century, remarked as a matter of course that he had written what redounded to the glory, and suppressed whatever tended to the disgrace of religion. now if fraud was practised as a pious principle in the very earliest ages of christianity; if it continued for as many centuries as it could pass with impunity; if it was so systematic and prolonged, and carried to such a height, that herder declared "christian veracity" fit to rank with "punic faith"; what right has anyone--even a christian editor--to place paul above suspicion, or to find a "monstrous" blunder in his being accused of lying, especially when the historic practice of his co-religionists seems to many persons to be more than half countenanced by his own language? we are not concerned to _press_ the charge of lying against st. paul. there have been so many liars in the christian church that one more or less makes very little difference. on the other hand, we cannot accept mr. spencer's certificate without reservation. he admits that paul's language is obscure; and perhaps a little obscurity is to be expected when a man is replying to an accusation which he is not wholly able to rebut. no faith with heretics. during the crusades, when the christians were wantonly fighting against their superiors in civilisation and humanity, the doctrine, was promulgated and obeyed that no faith should be kept with infidels, and this was subsequently put in force against heretics. thousands of mohammedan prisoners were butchered in cold blood, although their safety had been confirmed by an oath; and this infamous practice was afterwards pursued with respect to the "heretical" sects when the papal troops desolated some of the fairest parts of europe. not only was there no salvation outside the church, but even the ordinary laws of human society were held to be abrogated. this wickedness, perhaps, reached its culmination in the spanish conquest of america. few christians were civilised enough to condemn these purjured banditti, but montaigne in france, and raleigh in england, were glorious exceptions, and both of them were under a just suspicion of heterodoxy. protestants as well as catholics were infected with this infamous bigotry. luther himself was not free from taint, and calvin's treachery against servetus is an eternal blot on his character. "no faith with heretics" took a new form when the downright violation of an oath became too dissonant to the spirit of an improved civilisation. it found expression in robbing the heretic of political and social rights, and above all in treating him as outside the pale of honor. slandering him was no libel. every bigot claimed the right to say anything against his character, for the purpose of bringing his opinions into hatred and contempt. all the dictates of charity were cast aside; his good actions were misrepresented, and his failings maliciously exaggerated. if voltaire spent thousands in charity, he did it for notoriety; if he wrote odes to beautiful or accomplished ladies, he was a wretched debauchee. if thomas paine made sacrifices for liberty, he did it because he had a private grudge against authority; if he befriended the wife and family of a distressed republican, he only sought to gratify his lust; if he spent a convivial hour with a friend, he was an inveterate drunkard; and if he contracted a malignant abscess by lying for months in a damp, unwholesome dungeon, his sufferings were the nemesis of a wicked, profligate life. an english precursor of voltaire and paine wrote _a discourse on freethinking_. his name was anthony collins, and in a certain sense he was the father of english freethought. he was a man of exemplary life and manners, yet the saintly bishop berkeley said he "deserved to be denied the common benefit of air and water." one of collins's antagonists was the famous dr. bentley; and although collins was a man of fortune, the ridiculous calumny was started that he sought and obtained bentley's assistance in adversity. the author of this calumny was richard cumberland, a grandson of bentley, and in other respects an estimable man. his mistake was pointed out by isaac d'israeli, who told him the person he meant was _arthur_ collins, the historical compiler. but cumberland perpetuated the calumny, remarking that "it should stand, because it could do no harm to any but to anthony collins, whom he considered little short of an atheist." another story about collins, which has frequently done duty in christian publications, is that a visitor found him reading the new testament, and that he remarked, "i have but one book, but that is the best." fortunately i am able to give the origin of this story. it is told of _william_ collins, the poet, by dr. johnson, and may be found in the second volume (p. ) of that writer's "miscellaneous and fugitive pieces," published by davies in johnson's lifetime. it was not anthony collins, therefore; but what does that matter? it was a gentleman named _collins_; his other name is indifferent. besides, the story is so much more affecting when told of _anthony_. look at the lying stories of infidel death-beds; glance at the scurrilities of an outcast minister which are gratuitously circulated by the enemies of colonel ingersoll; observe on how many platforms mr. brad-laugh has pulled out his watch and given the almighty five minutes to strike him dead; listen to the grotesque libels on every leading freethinker which are solemnly circulated by christian malice; and you will behold the last fruit of a very old tree, which is slowly but surely perishing. it once bore scaffolds, stakes, prisons and torture rooms; it now bears but libels and insinuations. the logic of persecution. neither the cruelty of tyrants, nor the ambition of conquerors, has wrought so much mischief and suffering, as the principle of persecution. the crimes of a nero, the ravages of an attila, afflict the world for a season, and then cease and are forgotten, or only linger in the memory of history. but persecution operates incessantly like a natural force. with the universality of light, it radiates in every direction. the palace is not too proud for its entrance, nor is the cottage too humble. it affects every relationship of life. its action is exhibited in public through imprisonment, torture, and bloodshed, and in private through the tears of misery and the groans of despair. but worse remains. bodies starve and hearts break, but at last there comes "the poppied sleep, the end of all." grief is buried in the grave, nature covers it with a mantle of grass and flowers, and the feet of joy trip merrily over the paths once trodden by heavy-footed care. yet the more subtle effects of persecution remain with the living. _they_ are not screwed down in the coffin and buried with the dead. they become part of the pestilential atmosphere of cowardice and hypocrisy which saps the intellectual manhood of society, so that bright-eyed inquiry sinks into blear-eyed faith, and the rich vitality of active honest thought falls into the decrepitude of timid and slothful acquiescence. what is this principle of persecution, and how is it generated and developed in the human mind? now that it is falling into discredit, there is a tendency on the part of christian apologists to ascribe it to our natural hatred of contradiction. men argue and quarrel, and if intellectual differences excite hostility in an age like this, how easy it was for them to excite the bitterest animosity in more ignorant and barbarous ages! such is the plea now frequently advanced. no doubt it wears a certain plausibility, but a little investigation will show its fallacy. men and women are so various in their minds, characters, circumstances, and interests, that if left to themselves they inevitably form a multiplicity of ever-shifting parties, sects, fashions and opinions; and while each might resent the impertinence of disagreement from its own standard, the very multiformity of the whole mass must preserve a general balance of fair play, since every single sect with an itch for persecuting would be confronted by an overwhelming majority of dissidents. it is obvious, therefore, that persecution can only be indulged in when some particular form of opinion is in the ascendant: and if this form is artificially developed; if it is the result, not of knowledge and reflection, but of custom and training; if, in short, it is rather a superstition than a belief; you have a condition of things highly favorable to the forcible suppression of heresy. now, throughout history, there is one great form of opinion which _has been_ artificially developed, which has been accepted through faith and not through study, which has always been concerned with alleged occurrences in the remote past or the inaccessible future, and which has also been systematically maintained in its "pristine purity" by an army of teachers who have pledged themselves to inculcate the ancient faith without any admixture of their own intelligence. that form of opinion is religion. accordingly we should expect to find its career always attended with persecution, and the expectation is amply justified by a cursory glance at the history of every faith. there is, indeed, one great exception; but, to use a popular though inaccurate phrase, it is an exception which proves the rule. buddhism has never persecuted but buddhism is rather a philosophy than a religion; or, if a religion, it is not a theology, and that is the sense attached to _religion_ in this article. all such religions have persecuted, do persecute, and will persecute while they exist. let it not be supposed, however, that they punish heretics on the open ground that the majority must be right and the minority must be wrong, or that some people have a right to think while others have only the right to acquiesce. no, that is too shameless an avowal; nor would it, indeed, be the real truth. there is a principle in religions which has always been the sanction of persecution, and if it be true, persecution is more than right, it is a duty. that principle is salvation by faith. if a certain belief is necessary to salvation, if to reject it is to merit damnation, and to undermine it is to imperil the eternal welfare of others, there is only one course open to its adherents; they must treat the heretic as they would treat a viper. he is a poisonous creature to be swiftly extinguished. but not _too_ swiftly, for he has a soul that may still be saved. accordingly he is sequestered to prevent further harm, an effort is made to convert him, then he is punished, and the rest is left with god. that his conversion is attempted by torture, either physical or mental, is not an absurdity; it is consonant to the doctrine of salvation by faith. for if god punishes or rewards us according to our possession or lack of faith, it follows that faith is within the power of will. accordingly the heretic, to use dr. martineau's expression, is reminded not of arguments but of motives, not of evidence but of fear, not of proofs but of perils, not of reasons but of ruin. when we recognise that the understanding acts independently of volition, and that the threat of punishment, while it may produce silence or hypocrisy, _cannot_ alter belief, this method of procedure strikes us as a monstrous imbecility; but, given a belief in the doctrine of salvation by faith, it must necessarily appear both logical and just. if the heretic _will_ not believe, he is clearly wicked, for he rejects the truth and insults god. he has deliberately chosen the path to hell, and does it matter whether he travel slowly or swiftly to his destination? but does it _not_ matter whether he go alone or drag down others with him to perdition? such was the logic of the inquisitors, and although their cruelties must be detested their consistency must be allowed. catholics have an infallible church, and the protestants an infallible bible. yet as the teaching of the bible becomes a question of interpretation, the infallibility of each church resolves itself into the infallibility of its priesthood. each asserts that _some_ belief is necessary to salvation. religious liberty, therefore, has never entered into the imagination of either. the protestants who revolted against the papacy openly avowed the principle of persecution. luther, beza, calvin, and melancthon, were probably more intolerant than any pope of their age; and if the protestant persecutions were not, on the whole, so sanguinary as those of the roman catholic church, it was simply due to the fact that catholicism passed through a dark and ferocious period of history, while protestantism emerged in an age of greater light and humanity. persecution cannot always be bloody, but it always inflicts on heretics as much suffering as the sentiment of the community will tolerate. the doctrine of salvation by faith has been more mischievous than all other delusions of theology combined. how true are the words of pascal: "_jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand oh le fait par un faux principe de conscience_." fortunately a nobler day is breaking. the light of truth succeeds the darkness of error. right belief is infinitely important, but it cannot be forced. belief is independent of will. but character is not, and therefore the philosopher approves or condemns actions instead of censuring beliefs. theology, however, consistently clings to its old habits. "infidels" must not be argued with but threatened, not convinced but libelled; and when these weapons are futile there ensues the persecution of silence. that serves for a time, but only for a time; it may obstruct, but it cannot prevent, the spread of unbelief. it is like a veil against the light. it may obscure the dawn to the dull-eyed and the uninquisitive, but presently the blindest sluggards in the penfolds of faith will see that the sun has risen. luther and the devil. "luther," says heine, "was not only the greatest, but also the most thoroughly german, hero of our history." carlyle says that "no more valiant man, no mortal heart to be called _braver_, ever lived in that teutonic kindred, whose character is valor." michelet calls him "the arminius of modern germany." twenty tributes to luther's greatness might be added, all more or less memorable; but these, from three very diverse men, will suffice for our present purpose. martin luther _was_ a great man. whoever questions it must appeal to new definitions. a great difference lay between the cold, saturnine pope of geneva and the frank, exuberant hero of the german reformation. their doctrines were similar; there was a likeness between their mistakes; but what a diversity in their natures! calvin was the perfect type of the theological pedant--vain, meagre, and arid; while luther had in him, as heine remarks, "something aboriginal"; and the world has, after all, profited by "the god-like brutality of brother martin." the nature of this great man was suited to his task. it required no great intellectual power to see through the tricks of papal priestcraft, which had, indeed, been the jest of the educated and thoughtful for generations. but it required gigantic courage to become the spokesman of discontent, to attack an imposture which was supported by universal popular credulity, by a well-nigh omnipotent church, and by the keen-edged, merciless swords of kings and emperors. still more, it required an indisputable elevation of nature to attack the imposture where, as in the sale of indulgences, it threatened the very essence of personal and social morality. hundreds of persons may be hatching a new truth in unknown concert, but when a battle for humanity has to be fought, someone must begin, and begin decisively. luther stepped out as protagonist in the great struggle of his time; and freethought is not so barren in great names that it need envy brother martin his righteous applause. indeed, it seems to me that freethinkers are in a position to esteem luther more justly than christians. seeing what was his task, and how it demanded a stormy, impetuous nature, we can thank luther for accomplishing it, while recognising his great defects, his faults of temper and the narrowness of his views; defects, i would add, which it were unnecessary to dwell on if protestants did not magnify them into virtues, or if they did not illustrate the inherent vices of christianity itself. strong for his life-task, luther was weak in other respects. like dr. johnson, there were strange depths in his character, but none in his intellect. he emitted many flashes of genius in writing and talking, but they all came from the heart, and chiefly from the domestic affections. he broke away from the papacy, but he only abandoned catholicism so far as it conflicted with the most obvious morality. he retained all its capital superstitions. mr. froude puts the case very mildly when he says that "erasmus knew many things which it would have been well for luther to have known." erasmus would not have called copernicus "an old fool," or have answered him by appealing to joshua. erasmus would not have seen a special providence in the most trifling accidents. erasmus would not have allowed devils to worry him. above all, erasmus would not have pursued those who were heretics to _his_ doctrine with all the animosity of a papal bigot. such differences induced mr. matthew arnold to call luther a philistine of genius; just as they led goethe to say that luther threw back the intellectual progress of mankind for centuries. another poet, shelley, seems to me to have hit the precise truth in his "ode to liberty": luther caught thy wakening glance: like lightning from his leaden lance reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance in which, as in a tomb, the nations lay. shelley's epithet is perfect. luther's lance was big and potent. it wrought terrible havoc among the enemy. but it was _leaden_. it overthrew, but it did not transfix. this is not the place to relate how luther played the pope in his own way; how he persecuted the zwinglians because they went farther than himself on the subject of the real presence; how he barked at the swiss reformers, how he pursued andreas bodenstein for a difference on infant baptism; how he treated münzer and the anabaptists; how he hounded on the nobles to suppress the peasant revolt and "stab, kill, and strangle them without mercy"; or how he was for handing over to the executioner all who denied a single article which rested on the scripture or the authority of the universal teaching of the church. my purpose is to show luther's attitude towards the devil, witches, apparitions, and all the rest of that ghostly tribe; and in doing so i have no wish to indulge in "the most small sneer" which carlyle reprobates; although i do think it a great pity that such a man as luther should have been a slave to superstitions which erasmus would have met with a wholesome jest. neither jews nor witches fared any the better for the reformation, until it had far outgrown the intention of its founders. brother martin hated the jews, thought many of them sorcerers, and praised the duke of saxony for killing a jew in testing a talisman. as for witches, he said, "i would have no compassion on them--i would burn them all." poor creatures! yet luther was naturally compassionate. it was the fatal superstition which steeled his heart. still there are dainty sceptics who tell us not to attack superstition. i point them to martin luther burning witches. brother martin lived in god's presence, but they were generally three, for the devil was seldom absent. his satanic majesty plagued the poor reformer's life till he wished himself safe in heaven. sometimes the fiend suggested impious doubts, and at ether times suicide. he attributed his chronic vertigo to the devil, because the physic he took did him no good. so familiar did the devil become that luther, hearing him walk overhead at night, would say "oh, is it you?" and go to sleep again. once, when he was marrying-an aristocratic couple, the wedding ring slipped out of his fingers at a critical moment. he was frightened, but, recovering himself, he exclaimed, "listen, devil, it is not your business, you are wasting your time." the famous scene in which luther threw an inkstand at the devil is legendary, though coleridge, carlyle and others have made it the theme of their eloquence; and the ink-stain still shown on the wall at wartburg is like the stain of rizzio's blood in holyrood palace. luther's own visions were largely due to dyspepsia and an active imagination. he said that the devil troubled him less at night when he took a good "nightcap," which made him sleep soundly. he found that the devil could not stand music, being a sad and sombre personage; just as, long before, music was found a sovereign recipe for the melancholia of king saul. but the surest specific was railing and derision. when luther called him names, or laughed at him, the devil vanished in a huff. brother martin was plain-spoken at the best of times, but on these occasions he was too-downright for quotation. michelet gives a choice sample; but though the french language allows more licence than ours, he is obliged to give but the first letter of one of luther's vigorous substantives. brother martin displayed a sly humor in one of his stories about satan. a possessed person was taken into a monastery, and the devil in him said to the monks, "o my people, what have i done?"--"_popule meus, quid feci tibi?_" according to luther, fair and foul winds were caused by good and evil spirits. he spoke of a terrible lake in switzerland, haunted by the devil, and said there was a similar one in his own country. if a stone was thrown into it, a frightful storm shook the whole locality. the devil made people idiots, cripples, blind, deaf and dumb; and luther declared that the doctors who treated such infirmities as natural had a great deal to learn in demonology. one or two of his stories of possession are extremely gruesome. with his own lusty love of life, luther could not understand suicide, so he attributed that also to the devil. satan made the suicides think they were doing something else; even praying, and thus he killed them. brother martin, indeed, sometimes feared the devil would twist his neck or press his skull into his brains. nor did he shrink from the darkest developments of this superstition. he held that the devil could assume the form of a man or a woman, cohabit with human beings of the opposite sex, and become a father or a mother. "eight years ago," said luther, "i saw and touched myself at dessau a child who had no parents, and was born of the devil. he was twelve years old, and shaped like an ordinary child. he did nothing but eat, and ate as much as three peasants or threshers. when he was touched he cried out like one possessed; if any unfortunate accident happened in the house, he rejoiced and laughed; if, on the contrary, all went well, he wept continually. i said to the princes of anhalt, with whom i then was: if i commanded here i would have that child thrown into the moldau, at the risk of being its murderer. but the elector of saxony and the princes were not of my opinion." here is a case in which the doctor of divinity, though naturally a kind man, is quite ready to take human life at the behest of a devilish superstition, while the less fanatical laymen shrink from such inhumanity. the only devil in this story is the devil of fearful ignorance and misbelief in brother martin. he it was who needed the exorcist, although the truth would have greatly surprised him. carlyle may use his snarling muscles at the "apothecary's apprentice" who is able to give a scientific explanation of luther's visions; but, after all, the unfortunate persons whom luther would have murdered by mistake might be pardoned for preferring the apothecary's apprentice to the protestant pope. the fact is, the doctrine of devils, of demoniacal possession, of incubi and succubi, and of sorcery and witchcraft, was not fostered by laymen so much as by the clergy. lecky remarks that "almost all the great works written in favor of the executions were written by ecclesiastics," and tylor asserts that "the guilt of thus bringing down europe intellectually and morally to the level of negro africa" lies mainly upon the church, protestant being as bad as catholic, for they vied in outraging and killing those who were doomed, by the ghastliest of superstitions, to be "for life and death of all creatures the most wretched." eternal honor to luther for the heroism which sent him to worms, and made him exclaim to his dissuaders: "i will go if there are as many devils in worms as there are tiles upon the roofs of the houses." but eternal hatred and contempt for the creed which degraded heroes into jack the rippers. i say _the creed_; for christianity cannot be exculpated. witchcraft, possession, and sexual intercourse between human and superhuman beings, are distinctly taught in the bible; and if there were no other indictment of christianity, the awful massacre and torture of millions of helpless women and children would suffice to damn it everlastingly. bible english. turning over the pages of coleridge's "table talk" recently, my attention was arrested oy several passages i had marked, many years ago, in that suggestive book. two or three of these, referring to the _style_ of the bible, resuscitated some reflections i made on the first reading, and which i now venture to express: with all deference, let me add, to coleridge's ethereal genius and magical mastery of words. "intense study of the bible," he says, "will keep any writer from being _vulgar_, in point of style." granted; and the sacred scriptures of any people and any creed would have the some influence. vulgarity, unless it is bestial, is monkeyish. obviously this is a characteristic alien to religion, which is based on the sense of wonder, and deals chiefly with the sublime. while the mind is absorbed by the unseen, imagination is called into play; and imagination is the antithesis of vulgarity. the unknown is also the terrible, and when the mind is alarmed there is no room for the _puerilities_ of egotism. any exaltation of feeling serves the same purpose. the most vulgar woman, in terror at a danger to her child, is lifted into the sphere of tragedy, and becomes a subject for art; nor could the lowest wretch exhibit vulgarity when committing a murder under the influence of passion. vulgarity, in short, is self-consciousness, or at least only compatible with it; and displays itself in self-assertion at the expense of others, or in disregard or in defiance of their feelings. now monotheism, such as the bible in its sublimest parts is pregnant with, naturally banishes this disposition, just in proportion as it is real. it may tolerate, and even cherish, many other evils, but not that; for vulgarity, as i understand it, is absolutely inconsistent with awe. how then do i account for the vulgarities of the salvation army? simply by the fact that these people have _no_ awe; they show the absurdities of religion without its sentiments. they are _townspeople_, used to music-halls, public-houses, street-fights, and frivolous crowds. their antics would be impish to religionists whose awe was nurtured by hills and forests, the rising and setting sun, and the majesty of night. not only do we find the same austere simplicity in the vedas, the kurân, and other sacred scriptures; we find it in most of the old world literature. the characteristic of modern writings is subtlety and dexterity; that of the ancient, massiveness and directness; and the same difference holds good in a comparison of the various stages of our literature. the simplicity of the elizabethan lyrics, to say nothing of chaucer, is only to be emulated in later ages, whose life is so much more complex, by a recluse visionary like blake. even when shelley approaches it, in such songs as that of beatrice in the last act of the "the cenci," we feel that stream of music is crossed and shaken by subtle under-currents. what coleridge claims for the bible may be claimed for all imaginative and passionate literature. Æschylus, lucretius, dante, milton; how does the bible excel these in that respect? when we come to shakespeare we find a sublimity which transcends that of isaiah, ezekiel, and job, with a pathos, a humor, and a wit, such as no hebrew writer ever imagined. and shakepeare's superb style triumphs easily in all these fields. coleridge recommends the bible as an antidote to vulgarity. i would recommend milton as much, dante more, and shakespeare beyond all. "our version of the bible," coleridge elsewhere says, "has preserved a purity of meaning to many terms of natural objects. without this holdfast, our vitiated imaginations would refine away language to mere abstractions." this is merely saying that our bible, designed for common people centuries ago, is a monument of saxon english. clearly that is an accident of our translation, and not an essence of the bible itself. as much may be said for all our ancient standards. coleridge admits that our new testament is less elegant and correct than the old, and contains "slovenly phrases which would never have come from ben jonson, or any other good prose writer of the day." yet our new testament, according to mr. swinburne (and there is no better judge), is translated from canine greek into divine english. the truth is, the _style_ of our bible is owing to the translators. they lived before the hurry of our cheap periodical press, when men wrote leisurely for leisured readers. there was also no great accumulation of native literature, and scholars studied almost exclusively the masterpieces of greece and rome. their sense of style was therefore superior. read the dedication to king james in our authorised version, then the introduction to our revised version, and see what an immense difference there is between the styles. or read paul's noble praise of charity in the two versions. by substituting _love_ for _charity_, the revisers have vitiated the sense, and destroyed the balance of the style. their mincing monosyllable is too weak to bear the structural weight of the clauses. a closer analysis shows that they have spoiled the passage throughout. they had no ear: in other words, no style. the old translators _had_ ears, and knew other people had. their work was meant to be read aloud, and it bears the test. that test is the supreme one, and goes deeper than hearing. flaubert, a great master of style, always read his manuscript aloud; holding that phrases are right when they correspond to all the necessities of respiration, while ill-written phrases oppress the chest, disturb the beatings of the heart, and contravene the conditions of life. shakespeare bears this test triumphantly. in his great passages, respiration is easy and pronunciation simple; the language is a splendid and mellifluous stream. i venture to say in conclusion: consult the revised version of the bible for meaning, but read the old one for style. it is a treasury of musical and vigorous saxon, a well of strong english undefiled; although hebrew is a poor language, and the greek of the new testament is perhaps the worst ever written. but do not think, as macaulay pretended, that the language of the bible is sufficient for every purpose. it sustained the genius of bunyan, but the mightier genius of shakespeare had to draw from other sources to support its flight. our english bible contains six thousand words; shakespeare's vocabulary contains nine thousand more. living by faith. what is faith? faith, said paul, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." this is a faith that sensible men avoid. the man of reason may have faith, but it will be a faith according to knowledge, and not a faith that dispenses with knowledge. he believes that the sun will rise to-morrow, that the ground will remain firm under his feet, that the seasons will succeed each other in due course, and that if he tills the ground he will reap the harvest. but his belief in these things is based upon experience; his imagination extends the past into the future, and his expectations are determined by his knowledge. the future cannot indeed be demonstrated; it can only be predicted, and prediction can never amount to an absolute certitude; yet it may amount to a height of probability which is practically the same thing. religious faith, however, is something very different. it is not belief based on evidence, but the evidence and the belief in one. the result is that persons who are full of faith always regard a demand for evidence as at once a heresy and an insult. their faith seems to them, in the language of paul, the very _substance_ of their hopes; and they often talk of the existence of god and the divinity of christ as being no less certain than their own existence. properly speaking, faith is trust. this involves a wide latitude beyond our knowledge. if we trust a friend, we have faith in him, and we act upon that sentiment. but we are sometimes deceived, and this shows that our faith was in excess of our knowledge. sometimes, indeed, it is quite independent of knowledge. we trust people because we like them, or because they like us. this infirmity is well known to sharpers and adventurers, who invariably cultivate a pleasing manner, and generally practise the arts of flattery. the same principle holds good in religion. it was sagaciously remarked by hume that we ought to suspect every agreeable belief. the mass of mankind, however, are not so fastidious or discriminating. on the contrary, they frequently believe a thing because it _is_ pleasant, and for no other reason. how often have we heard christian advocates prove the immortality of the soul to the complete satisfaction of their auditors by simply harping on man's desire to live for ever! nay, there have been many great "philosophers" who have demonstrated the same doctrine by exactly the same means. religious faith, to borrow a definition from _chambers's dictionary_, is usually "belief in the statement of another." there are a few mystics who profess to hold personal intercourse with god, but the majority, of mankind take their religion on trust. they believe it because they were taught it, and those who taught them believed it for the very same reason. when you trace back the revelation to its beginning, you always find that it is derived from men who lived a long time ago, or who perhaps never lived at all. mohammed vouches for the koran. yes, but who will vouch for mohammed? thomas paine well said that what is revelation to the man who receives it, is only hearsay to the man who gets it at secondhand. if anyone comes to you with a message from god, first button your pockets, and then ask him for his credentials. you will find that he has none. he can only tell you what someone else told him. if you meet the original messenger, he can only cry "thus saith the lord," and bid you believe or be damned. to such a haughty prophet one might well reply, "my dear sir, what you say may be true, but it is very strange. return to the being who sent you and ask him to give you better credentials. his word may be proof to you, but yours is no proof to me; and it seems reasonable to suppose that, if god had anything to tell to me, he could communicate personally to me as well as to you." in ancient times the prophets who were thus accosted worked miracles in attestation of their mission; but our modern prophets have no such power, and therefore they can scarcely claim our belief. if they ask us why we reject what they tell us on the authority of the ancient prophets who possessed greater powers, we reply that what is a miracle to those who see it is only a story to those who hear it, and that we prefer to see the miracle ourselves. telling us that a man rose from the dead is no reason why we should believe that three times one are one; it is only proving one wonder by another, and making a fresh draft on our credulity at every step in the demonstration. there are men who tell us that we should live by faith. but that is impossible for all of us. the clergy live by faith, yet how could they do so if there were not others to support them? knaves cannot exist without dupes, nor the church without subscribers. living _by_ faith is an easy profession. living _on_ faith, however, is more arduous and precarious. elijah is said to have subsisted on food which was brought him by inspired ravens, but there are few of god's ministers willing to follow his example. they ask god to give them their daily bread, yet they would all shrink with horror from depending on what he sends them. victor hugo. * * may , . two years and a half ago france was mourning the death of gambetta. every hostile voice was hushed, and the whole nation bent tearfully over the bier, where a once mighty heart and fervent brain lay cold and still in death. never, perhaps, since mirabeau burned out the last of his great life had paris been so profoundly moved. gambetta was carried to his grave by a million of men, and in all that tremendous procession no priest figured, nor in all the funeral ceremony was there a word of god. for the first time in history a nation buried her hero without a shred of religious rites or a whisper of any other immortality than the immortality of fame. france now mourns the death of victor hugo, the great poet of the republic, as gambetta was its great orator and statesman. these two, in their several ways, did the most to demolish the empire. gambetta organised and led the republican opposition, and when the _déchéance_ came, he played deep for the republic in the game of life and death, making the restoration of the empire an impossibility. but long before the young orator challenged the empire, it was arraigned before the bar of liberty and humanity by the great poet. from his lonely channel rock, in the bitter grandeur of exile, victor hugo hurled the lightnings and thunders of his denunciation at the political burglar of france and his parasitical minions. practical people laughed at him, not knowing that he was more practical than they. they saw nothing but the petty present, and judged everything by its immediate success. he was nourished by sovereign principles, rooted in the depths of the human heart and blossoming in its loftiest aspirations. he was a prophet who chanted his own inspiration to the world, knowing that few would listen at first, but assured that the message would kindle some hearts, and that the living flame would leap from breast to breast till all were wrapt in its divine blaze. he scorned the base successful lie and reverenced the noble outcast truth, and he had unfaltering faith in the response which mankind would ultimately make to the voice of their rightful lord. great he was as a poet, a romancer and a dramatist, but he was greatest as a prophet. he lived to see his message justified and his principles triumphant, and died at the ripe old age of eighty-three, amid the love and reverence of the civilised world. we are not blind to his failings; he had, as the french say, the defects of his qualities. but they do not obscure his glory. his failings were those of other men; his greatness was his own. victor hugo, like gambetta, was a freethinker. we know he professed a belief in god, but he had no theology. his god was nature, suffused with passion and ideality; and his conviction of "some far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves," was only his faith in progress, extended into the remotest future. he was a true freethinker in his grand assertion of the majesty of reason and conscience. he appealed to the native dignity of the individual, and hated priestcraft with a perfect hatred. lacking humor himself, and brilliant without wit, he could recognise these qualities in others, and he thought them as valid as his own weapons against the dogmas of superstition. how fine was his great word about voltaire--"irony incarnate for the salvation of mankind." like gambetta, victor hugo is to be buried without religious rites, according to his will. no priest is to profane the sanctity of death by mumbling idle words over his grave concerning what he is as ignorant of as the corpse at his feet. in death, as in life, the freethinker would confront the universe alone from the impregnable rock of his manhood, convinced that there is no danger to a man that knows what life and death is: there's not any law exceeds his knowledge: neither is it lawful that he should stoop to any other law. not only did victor hugo will that no priest should officiate at his burial, he ordered that none should approach his bed. but the carrion crows of the death-chamber were not to be deterred by his well-known wishes. the archbishop of paris offered to visit the dying heretic and administer to him the supreme unction on behalf of the church. m. lockroy, the poet's son-in-law, politely declined the offer. our newspapers, especially the orthodox ones, regard the archbishop's message as a compliment. in our opinion it was a brazen insult. suppose mr. bradlaugh wrote to say that he would gladly attend the sickbed of canon wilberforce for the purpose of receiving his confession of atheism; would the orthodox regard it as a compliment or an insult? we fail to see any difference in the two cases, and we know not why impertinence in an atheist becomes civility in a christian. fortunately, victor hugo's death-chamber was not intruded upon by impudent priests. his relatives respected his convictions the more as they were freethinkers themselves. no priest will consecrate his grave, but it will be hallowed by his greatness; and what pilgrim, as he bends over the master's tomb, will hear in the breeze, or see in the grass and flowers, any sign that a priest's benison is wanting to his repose? desecrating a church. there was a pantheon at rome, which was a monument of the religious tolerance of the empire. it was dedicated, as appears from the inscription on the portico, by agrippa, son-in-law to the great augustus, to jupiter and all the other gods, with the same generosity that prompted the athenians to erect an altar to the gods that might be unknown. a niche was afforded within its walls to every deity of the provinces whose devotees were willing to accept the hospitality; and christ himself might have figured with the rest, if his worshippers did not scorn all other gods but their own. the old pantheon still exists, and bears the name of the rotunda. but it is no longer a pagan temple. it was re-dedicated by pope boniface the fourth, in a.d. , to the virgin mary and all the saints. another pope, a thousand years later, despoiled it of its ornaments, which had been spared by so many barbarian conquerors. he cast some into cannon, and with the rest formed a high altar for the church of st. peter. these alterations were of course justifiable. they were all made in the interest of christianity. what could be more proper than the transformation of pagan temples into christian churches? what more admirable than devoting to the worship of christ the edifice which had echoed to the tread of the priests of jupiter? what more pious than singing the praises of mary and all the saints in a temple where idolaters had celebrated the glories of all the gods and goddesses of olympus? such is christian logic. but if the temples of one faith may be so transformed, why may not those of another? if christianity had the right to devote the temples of paganism to its own uses, why has not modern civilisation the right to devote the temples of christianity to secular purposes? the church thinks otherwise. it is at present denouncing the secularisation of the church of st. geneviève, in order that victor hugo, who died a freethinker and was buried without religious rites, might repose in an unconsecrated place. this building is the french pantheon. it was secularised during the revolution, and dedicated by the republic, not to the gods of religion, but to the heroes of liberty. when the monarchy was restored it was re-consecrated, and purged of the luciferous taint of voltaire's dust. but now the republic is once more established on the ruins of monarchy and imperialism, it again secularises the church of st. geneviève as a tomb for its mighty dead. the church is naturally indignant, but its anathemas are powerless. god does not interpose, and the republic is too strong. nay, there is even a rumor that the roman pantheon may be secularised also, and changed into a national mausoleum, where the youth of italy may bend reverently before the tombs of such glorious soldiers of progress as mazzini and garibaldi, instead of honoring the very counterfeit presentment of fabulous old saints, chiefly renowned for their laziness and dirt. the church of st. geneviève is desecrated, cries the archbishop of paris, and special prayers are offered up to that ancient lady in heaven to avert her wrath from the infidel city which has so insulted her. in one sense the archbishop is right. the church is desecrated in the strict etymological meaning of the word. it has been converted from sacred to secular uses. but in the secondary meaning of the word the building is not desecrated, but honored, by being made a fit receptacle for the mortal remains of victor hugo. a government decree and the removal of the cross on top of the church were the only steps necessary to its desecration. the consecrated character of the temple is gone. to the carnal eye the structure remains unchanged, within and without, except for the loss of a crucifix; but it is quite possible that a priestly nose would be able to scent the absence of the spirit. the holy ghost has fled, angels no more haunt the nave and aisles, and st. geneviève hides her poor head in grief and humiliation. no doubt; yet we dare say the building will stand none the less firmly, and if it should ever be pulled down, its materials would fetch as much in the market as if they were saturated with divinity. consecration is, after all, nothing but a priestly trick. what sensible man believes that the holy ghost, if such a being exist, is at the beck and call of every catholic or protestant bishop? can the "universal spirit" dwell exclusively in certain places? can the third person of the trinity have sunk into such an abject state as to dodge in and out of buildings, according as he is wanted or not? is there any difference that the nose, or any other sensitive organ, can detect between a consecrated church and an unconsecrated chapel? can the geologist or the chemist discern any difference between the consecrated and the unconsecrated division in a cemetery? is the earth affected by priestly mutterings? do the corpses lie any more peacefully, or decompose any more slowly, for the words pronounced over the mould that covers them? or is there any appreciable virtue in the consecrated water, with which the protestant and catholic are alike baptised, and with which the latter sprinkles himself periodically as a preservative against evil? season finds no difference; it is perceived only by faith, which may be defined as the faculty which enables a man to see what does not exist. walt whitman. * * april, . walt whitman's death can have taken no one by surprise. for years he had been at the brink of the grave, and the end comes as a relief. a great soul may be cheerful, or at least serene, in all circumstances; but there is neither pleasure nor dignity in living on as the ghost of one's self. few superber specimens of physical manhood than walt whitman's have appeared on this planet. "he looks like a man," said abraham lincoln, as his gaze followed the poet past a window of the white house. whitman stood six feet two, his limbs and torso were splendid, and his head was magnificently proportioned. his vitality must have been wonderful, and his health was absolutely perfect until after the war, during which he too assiduously nursed the sick and wounded, to the lasting detriment of his phenomenal constitution. the flame of his life burnt on for another thirty years, but his strength was seriously undermined, and he is far better entitled to be called a martyr than many who have more cheaply earned the distinction. walt whitman's great personality can hardly be disputed. he impressed himself as something colossal on all who came into close contact with him. the magnetism of his presence in the military hospitals was more sanative than the doctors' physic. men, women, and children felt glad and satisfied in his company. his large, frank, healthy nature radiated a perpetual benediction. one who knew him intimately has said that he never saw upon whitman's features any trace of mean or evil passions. the man was thoroughly wholesome. even his occasionally free utterances on sexuality are only sins against decorum. they do not violate nature. he never spoke on this subject with the slobbery grin of the voluptuary, or the leer of prurience. he was at such moments simply unreticent. meaning no harm, he suspected none. in this respect he belonged to a less self-conscious antiquity, when nothing pertaining to man was common or unclean, and even the worship of the powers of generation was not without dignity and solemnity. some of the foremost englishmen of our time have acknowledged whitman's greatness and sanity--notably carlyle, ruskin, and tennyson. mr. swinburne is the only one who has unsaid his praise. tennyson's intimacy with whitman--always through correspondence--was simply beautiful. a superficial reader of human nature might have inquired what they had in common--the rough, amorphous american poet, and the exquisite english poet, a flower of millenniums of culture. but there is something deeper than form. it is substance. there is something deeper than language. it is manhood. and on the common ground of the deeper things of life, the american and english poets--otherwise so diverse--clasped hands, as it were, across the sundering ocean. whitman's claim to be considered a great poet, or even a poet at all, has been the subject of hot dispute. but such questions are not so settled. only give time enough, and every writer falls by mere gravitation into his proper place, from which all the controversies in the world can never shift him. where the evidence is largely subjective, as it must be in appraising genius, there is sure to be much in our judgment that is incommunicable. the logic of events, as we say in politics; or the proof of the pudding, as we say in the vernacular; is not so brilliant as logical sword-play, but it has the merit of being decisive. whitman's poetry looks strange to a reader accustomed to conventional models. it positively offends his eyesight. the ear may detect a certain rhythm, but where are the set lengths of orthodox versification? here, however, there lurks a fallacy. poetry is not the antithesis of prose. the antithesis of prose is verse. some of the finest and noblest poetry in the world's literature is not cast in rhyme, though rhythm--often subtler than all possible rules--is indispensable. yet there is something precious in poetical form; ay, and something durable. many an exquisite lyric, with no great depth of feeling or reach of thought, has come down the stream of time, and will float upon it for ever. no doubt dr. johnson was right in calling it a waste of time to carve cherrystones, but precious stones are the more valued and admired for the art of the lapidary. whitman did not cultivate versification. he almost despised it. he sneered at "dulcet rhymes." yet this may hinder his access to posterity. mr. meredith hints as much in his sonnet entitled "an orson of the muse," which surely refers to whitman. he allows him to be the muse's son, though he will not wear her livery. him, whom he blows of earth, and man, and fate, the muse will hearken to with graver ear than many of her train can waken: him would fain have taught what fruitful things and dear must sink beneath the tidewaves, of their weight, if in no vessel built for sea they swim. that whitman, however, could do great things with rhythm, and without rhyme, is proved by his "funeral hymn of president lincoln," which james thomson ranked with shelley's "adonais," and mr. swinburne called "the most sublime nocturne ever chanted in the cathedral of the world." that this is a great poem, and will live, we have not the slightest doubt. some other of whitman's poems will doubtless live with it, but whole masses of his poetry will probably sink to the bottom--not, however, before doing their work and delivering their message. because of his want of form, whitman suffers more than other poets in extracts. we shall make none, but refer the reader to the whole body of his poetry, some of it is almost wearisome; the rest will repay study. it contains the utterance of a great soul, full of love and friendship, patriotism and humanity, brooding over the everlasting problems of life and death. untrammelled by schools and systems, whitman was a true freethinker. cosmopolitan as he was, he preached the gospel of individuality. "this is what you shall do: love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of families, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body." whitman appealed to the brotherhood of all and the dignity of each. he declared he would have nothing which every other man might not have on equal terms. the business of the great poet was "to cheer up slaves and horrify despots." men, too, should keep in close communion with nature, yet always feel that they could "be good or grand only of the consciousness of the supremacy within them." "what do you think is the grandeur of storms and dismemberments, and the deadliest battles and wrecks, and the wildest fury of the elements, and the power of the sea, and the motion of nature, and of the throes of human desires, and dignity and hate and love? it is that something in the soul which says-rage on, whirl on, i tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the sea, of all terror and all pain." america, perhaps even more than england, has need of whitman's teaching as the poet of democracy. he derided "the mania of owning things," he scorned distinctions of caste and class, he sang the divineness of comradeship--and, what is more, he practised it. full-blooded, strong-limbed, rich-brained, large-hearted men and women are a nation's best products, and if a nation does not yield them, its wealth will only hasten its doom and pollute its grave. tennyson and the bible. * * october, . we owe no apology for speaking of the dead poet as "tennyson." this is how he will be known by posterity. the rank is but the guinea's stamp, and in this case it was not requisite. a true poet's gold can neither be made more precious nor more current by empty titles. in our opinion, it is a degradation, instead of an honor, for one of nature's aristocrats to herd with the artificial nobility of an hereditary peerage. we also take the opportunity of regretting that tennyson ever became poet laureate. the court poet should not survive the court dwarf and the court jester. it is painful to see a great writer grinding out professional odes, and bestowing the excrements of his genius on royal nonentities. the preposterous office of poet laureate should now be abolished. no poet should write for a clique or a coterie; he should appeal directly to the heart of the nation. tennyson's funeral took place at westminster abbey. the heads of that establishment, following the example set by dean stanley, now act as body-snatchers. they appropriate the corpses of distinguished men, whether they believed or disbelieved the doctrines of the service read over their coffins. charles darwin's body is buried there--the great agnostic, who repudiated christianity; robert browning's too--the poet who said "i am no christian" to robert buchanan. carlyle took care that his corpse should not join the museum. tennyson's, however, is now in the catalogue; and, it must be admitted, with more plausibility than in the case of browning--with far more than in the case of darwin. christian pulpiteers, all over the country, have been shouting their praises of tennyson as a christian poet. they are justified in making the most of a man of genius when they possess one. we do not quarrel with them. we only beg to remark that they have overdone it. the christianity of tennyson is a very different thing from the christianity they vend to the credulous multitude. there is no real evidence that tennyson accepted the legendary part of christianity. even in "in memoriam," which was published forty-three years ago, the thought is often extremely pantheistic. it is nearly always so in the later poems. god, not christ, became more and more the object of the poet's adoration, "strong son of god, immortal love"--the first line of tne earlier poem--does not necessarily mean christ; while the exclamation, "ring in the christ that is to be," is more symbolic than personal. there is also a strong hope, rather than the certitude, of a future life. no thoroughly convinced christian could have written of the shadow cloaked from head to foot, who keeps the keys of all the creeds. nay, the very deity of christ is held loosely, if at all, in the thirty-third section, where he whose faith has centre everywhere, nor cares to fix itself to form. is bidden to leave his sister undisturbed when she prays; the poet exclaiming oh, sacred be the flesh and blood to which she links a truth divine! in the last line of the next stanza this "sacred flesh and blood" of christ (it is to be presumed) is called "a type"--which is a wide departure from orthodox christianity. and what shall we say of the final lines of the whole poem? one god, one law, one element, and one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves. like other passages of "in memoriam," it is a distinct anticipation of the thought of "the higher pantheism," "flower in the crannied wall," "de profundus," and "the ancient sage." much has been made of the "pilot" in one of tennyson's last poems, "crossing the bar." i hope to see my pilot face to face when i have crossed the bar. this has been treated as a reference to christ; but a friend of tennyson's, writing in the _athenæum_, says that the reference was really to the poet's son, lionel tennyson, who "crossed the bar" of death some years previously. how much more natural and human is the reference in the light of this explanation! yet it appears, after all, from a later letter to the press by tennyson's surviving son, that he _did_ mean christ. this is not, however, a confession of orthodoxy. the sentiment might be shared by men like the venerable dr. martineau, who deny the deity of christ and strongly dissent from many time-honored christian teachings. tennyson most assuredly revolted against the brutalities of christianity; which, by the way, are countenanced by very explicit texts in the new testament. he did not approve the text, "great is your reward in heaven." he was above such huckstering. he sang of virtue-- she desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, to rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky. give her the wages of going on, and not to die. a noble petition! though in the teeth of a too patent destiny. the doctrine of eternal hell he first turned from, then denounced, and finally despised. it was for wavering as to this hideous dogma that the rev. f. d. maurice got into trouble with his college. he was godfather to tennyson's little boy, and the poet invited him, in exquisitely charming verse, to share his hospitality. for, being of that honest few, who give the fiend himself his due, should eighty-thousand college-councils thunder "anathema," friend, at you; should all our churchmen foam in spite at you, so careful of the right, yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (take it and come) to the isle of wight. tennyson had already, in "in memoriam," proclaimed himself a universalist, as browning did afterwards in his powerful lines on the old morgue at paris. he had expressed the hope that nothing walks with aimless feet; that not one life should be destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when god hath made the pile complete; that not a worm is cloven in vain; that not a moth with vain desire is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, or but subserves another's gain. such, a poet could never see the divinity of the wicked, awful words, "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." he denounced it in "despair," a poem of his old age. well does he make the agnostic cry out to the minister-- what! i should call on that infinite love that has served us so well? infinite cruelty rather that made everlasting hell, made us, foreknew us, foredoomed us, and does what he will with his own; better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan! this is fierce denunciation, but it pales before the attack on hell in "rizpah"; that splendid poem, which is perhaps the very noblest effort of tennyson's genius; outweighing hundreds of balaclava charges and sea-fights; outshining the flawless perfection of "maud":--a poem written in heart's blood and immortal tears, with a wondrously potent and subtle imagination, and a fire of humanity to burn up whole mountains of brutal superstitions. the passionate words of the poor old dying mother, full of a deathless love for her boy who was hung, go straight as an arrow to its mark, through all the conventions of society and all the teachings of the church. election, election and reprobation--it's all very well, but i go to-night to my boy, and i shall not find him in hell. and if he be lost--but to save my soul, that is all your desire; do you think that i care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire? tennyson gives the very essence of the moral revolt against hell. human nature has so developed in sympathy that the sufferings of others, though out of sight, afflict our imaginations. we loathe the spectacle of abraham and lazarus gazing complacently on the torture of dives. once it was not so. those who were "saved" had little or no care for the "damned." but the best men and women of to-day do not want to be saved alone. they want a common salvation or none. and the mother's heart, which the creeds have trampled upon, hates the thought of any happiness in heaven while son or daughter is agonising in hell. it is perfectly clear that tennyson was far from an orthodox christian. quite as certainly he was not a bibliolator. he read the bible, of course; and so did shelley. there are fine things in it, amidst its falsehoods and barbarities; and the english version is a monument of our literature. we regard as apocryphal, however, the story of tennyson's telling a boy, "read the bible and shakespeare; the one will teach you how to speak to god, and the other how to speak to your fellow-men." anyhow, when the poet came to die, he did not ask for the bible and he did ask for shakespeare. the copy he habitually used was handed to him; he opened it at "cymbeline," one of the most pagan of shakespeare's plays; he read a little, and then held the book until death came with the fall of "tired eyelids upon tired eyes." it was a poetic death, and a pagan death. there lay the aged, world-weary poet; artificial light was withdrawn, and the moonlight streamed through the window upon his noble figure. wife and son, doctors and nurses, were silent around him. and as death put the last cold touch on the once passionate heart, it found him still clasping the book of the mighty magician. * let it be also noted that no christian priest was at his bedside. he needed not the mum-lings of a smaller soul to aid him in his last extremity. hope he may have had, but no fear. his life ended like a long summer day, slowly dying into night. * the present lord tennyson wrote as follows to sir arthur hodgson, chairman of the shakespeare's birthplace trustees: "i beg to convey from my mother and myself our grateful acknowledgment to the executive committee of shakespeare's birthplace for their most kind expression of sympathy and for their beautiful wreath. my father was reading 'king lear,' 'troilus and cressida,' and 'cymbeline' through the last days of his life. on wednesday he asked for shakespeare. i gave him the book, but said, 'you must not try to read.' he answered, 'i have opened the book.' i looked at the book at midnight when i was sitting by him, lying dead on the thursday, and found he had opened on one of the passages which he had called the tenderest in shakespeare. we could not part with this volume, but buried a shakespeare with him. we had the book enclosed in a metal box and laid by his side. --yours faithfully, hallam tennyson." christ's old coat. the little town of trier (treves) will soon wear a festive appearance. pilgrims will be flocking to it from all parts of germany, and god knows from where besides. its handful of inhabitants have obtained licenses to open hotels and restaurants; every inch of available space has been let, so that whirligigs, panoramas, and menageries have to be refused the sites they apply for; every room in the town is to be let, more or less furnished; and not only is the tram company doubling its line, but the railway company is constructing special stations for special trains. all this excitement springs from a superstitious source. after an interval of several years the church will once more exhibit an old rag, which it calls the holy coat, and which it pretends is the very garment we read of in the gospels. such a precious relic is, of course, endowed with supernatural qualities. it will heal the sick, cure cripples, and, let us hope, put brains into idiotic heads. hence the contemplated rush to trier, where more people will congregate to see christ's coat than ever assembled to hear him preach or see him crucified. the pilgrims will not be allowed to examine the holy coat. few of them, perhaps, would be inclined to do so. thev have the faith which removes mountains, and swallowing a coat is but a trifle. nor would the church allow a close inspection of this curious relic, any more than it would allow a chemist to examine the bottle in which the blood of st. januarius annually liquefies. the holy coat will be held up by priests at a discreet and convenient distance; the multitude of fools will fall before it in ecstatic adoration; and the result will be the usual one in such cases, a lightening of the devotees' pockets to the profit of holy mother church. according to the gospels, the prophet of nazareth had a seamless overcoat. perhaps it was presented to him by one of the rich women who ministered unto him of their substance. perhaps it was a birthday gift from joseph of arimathaea. anyhow he had it, unless the gospels lie; and, with the rest of his clothes, it became the property of his executioners. those gentlemen raffled for it. which of them won it we are not informed. nor are we told what he did with it. it would be a useless garment to a roman soldier, and perhaps the warrior who won the raffle sold it to a second-hand clothes-dealer. this, however, is merely a conjecture. nothing is known with certainty. the seamless overcoat disappeared from view as decisively as the person who wore it. for many hundreds of years it was supposed to have gone the way of other coats. no one thought it would ever be preserved in a church museum. but somehow it turned up again, and the church got possession of it, though the church could not tell now and when it was found, or where it had been while it was lost. one coat disappeared; hundreds of years afterwards another coat was found; and it suited the church to declare them the same. at that time the church was "discovering" relics with extraordinary success and rapidity. almost everything christ ever used (or didn't use) came to light. his baby linen, samples of his hair and teeth, and the milk he drew from mary's breast, the shoes he wore into jerusalem, fragments of the twelve baskets' full of food after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the dish from which he ate the last supper, the thorns that crowned his brow, the sponge put to his lips on the cross, pieces of the cross itself--these and a host of other relics were treasured at varions churches in europe, and exhibited with unblushing effrontery. even the prepuce of jesus, amputated at his circumcision, was kept at rome. several churches boasted the same articles. john the baptist's body was in dozens of different places, and the finger with which he pointed to jesus as his successor was shown, in a fine state of preservation, at besancon, toulouse, lyons, bourges, macon, and many other towns. john calvin pointed out, in his grim _treatise on relics_, that the holy coat of christ was kept in several churches. in our own time, a book on this subject has been written by h. von sybel, who proves that the trier coat is only one of twenty that were exhibited. all were authentic, and all were guaranteed by the same authority. holy mother church lied and cheated without a twinge of compunction. nineteen holy coats have gone. the twentieth is the last of the tribe. while it _pays_ it will be exhibited. when it ceases to pay, the church will quietly drop it. by and bye the church will swear it never kept such an article in stock. superstition dies hard, and it always dies viciously. the ruling passion is strong in death. a journalist has just been sent to prison for casting a doubt on the authenticity of this holy coat. give the catholic church its old power again, and all who laughed at its wretched humbug would be choked with blood. protestants, as well as freethinkers, laugh at catholic relics. were we to quote from some of the old english "reformers," who carried on a vigorous polemic against catholic "idolatry," we should be reproached for soiling our pages unnecessarily. john calvin himself, the genevan pope, declared that so many samples of the virgin mary's milk were exhibited in europe that "one might suppose she was a wet nurse or a cow." freethinkers, however, laugh at the miracles of protestantism, as well as those of the catholic church. they are all of a piece, in the ultimate analysis. it is just as credible that christ's coat would work miracles, as that elisha's bones restored a corpse to life, or that paul's handkerchiefs cured the sick and diseased. all such things belong to the same realm of pious imagination. thus, while the protestant laughs at the catholic, the freethinker laughs at both. christ's coat, number two. jesus christ is urgently required on earth again, to settle the pious dispute between treves and argenteuil as to which possesses the real seamless coat that was taken from him at the crucifixion and raffled for by the roman soldiers. no one but the second person of the trinity, unless it be the first or third person of that three-headed monstrosity, is adequate to the settlement of this distracting quarrel. even the papacy, which represents the holy trinity on earth, is at variance with itself. pope leo favors treves, and the wicked pilgrims who visit that little old town are to obtain absolution, if they do not forget to "pray for the extirpation of erroneous doctrines." pope pius, his predecessor, however, favored argenteuil. a portion of the holy coat treasured in the church there was sent to him, and in return for the precious gift he forwarded a well-blessed and marvellously-decorated wax taper, which is still on show in a fine state of preservation. when popes differ, ordinary people, like pious christians, and even the editors of freethought journals, may be excused if they hesitate to commit themselves. one of these coats _may_ be the true one, though the evidence is all against it, being in fact of such a shaky nature that it would hardly suffice to substantiate a claim to a bunch of radishes. but _both_ of them _cannot_ be authentic, and the problem is, which is the very coat that jesus wore? now it is obvious that no one--barring his two colleagues aforesaid--can possibly determine this question but himself. his re-appearance on earth is therefore most desirable; nay, it is absolutely necessary, unless a lot of people who would fain bow before the cast-off clothes of their redeemer are either to stay at home in a state of dubiety or to incur the risk of kneeling before a mouldy old rag that perchance belonged to a moorish slave or a syrian water-carrier--in any case, to a dog of an infidel who spat at the very name of christ, for such raiment was never worn by the worshippers of the nazarene. if christ is coming to decide this great and grave problem, he will have to make haste, for argenteuil is already on the war-path. its holy coat is being exhibited before that of treves, and thousands of pilgrims are giving number two the preference. presently the treves relic will attract its thousands, and the spectacle will be positively scandalous. two richmonds in the field were nothing to two christ's coats, each pretending to be the real article, and each blessed by a pope. for the sake of decency as well as truth, christ should peremptorily interfere. it is difficult to see how he can refrain. the second advent may therefore be expected before the date assigned by prophet baxter, and we shall probably soon hear the faithful singing "lo he comes in clouds descending." why should he not come? we may ask the catholics. his mother has often appeared, if we may believe the solemn affidavits of priests and bishops, backed up by the holy see. why should he not come? we may also ask the protestants. his second coming is an article of their faith; it is plainly taught in the new testament, and was recently propounded by mr. spurgeon as part of the irreducible minimum of the christian faith. that he will come, then, may be taken for granted; and what better opportunity could be desired than the present? surely the faithful, all over europe--ay, and in america, to say nothing of asia, africa, and australia--will cry like one man, "come lord jesus, quickly come! tell us, oh tell us, which of these mouldy old rags did once grace thy holy shoulders? save us, oh save us, from the pain, the ignominy of adoring a dirty relic of some unknown sinner, who perhaps blasphemed thy holy name. lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, o lord!" meanwhile we may point out that, if christ does not come and adjudicate between treves and argenteuil, a multitude of christians will certainly go on a fool's errand. our private opinion is that all will do so who visit either or these places. nevertheless they will no doubt congratulate themselves, if they go to treves, on winning absolution. the holy father at rome, who has a supernatural dispensing power, promises to wipe out the record of their sins. liars, cheats, seducers, adulterers, and undetected assassins, may take a trip, perform genuflexions before something in a glass case, and return home with a clean record. who can conceive an easier method of avoiding the consequences of wickedness? as for the prayer which the pilgrims are to offer up for "the extirpation of erroneous doctrines," it will cost them very little effort, for sinners who are washed clean with such delightful celerity are not likely to be in love with "erroneous doctrines" that declare the pope's dispensing power a sham, and sternly tell men that the consequences of action, whether good or bad, are inevitable. we very much doubt, however, if "erroneous doctrines" will disappear through the prayers of the pilgrims or the curses of the pope. scepticism will probably gain by the spectacle of two rival coats of christ, both exhibited at the same time, both attracting crowds of devotees, and both enjoying the papal blessing. it will bring superstition into still further contempt, and promote the rejection of a creed which has ever traded on ignorance and credulity. scotched, not slain. those who have read the foregoing articles on the holy coat exhibitions at treves and argenteuil may think that enough space has been devoted to such a ridiculous subject. it is possible, however, that the present article will induce them to alter that opinion. hitherto we have treated this outburst of christian superstition with jocosity, but there is a serious aspect of it which must not be neglected. christianity has often made freethinkers laugh, but not unfrequently it has made them weep tears of blood. absurdity is not always a laughing matter. there was a comic side to the orthodox persecution of charles bradlaugh--but it killed him. bigotry and superstition are fit subjects for jest and ridicule; when they gain power, however, they are apt to substitute agony for laughter. celsus ridiculed christianity in the second century; in the fourth his writings were absolutely destroyed, and those who shared his opinions, and dared to express them, were on the high road to the prison and the stake. more recent events teach the same lesson. thomas paine treated christianity not only with trenchant argument, but also with brilliant derision. for this he suffered ostracism and calumny, and for publishing the _age of reason_ richard carlile, his wife, his sister, and his shopmen rotted in english gaols. the _freethinker_ derided christian absurdities, and its conductors were sent to herd with criminals in a christian prison. nearly everyone thought, as sir james stephen declared in a legal text-book, that the blasphemy laws were obsolete; but it was proved by the inexorable logic of fact that laws are never obsolete until they are repealed. while the blasphemy laws exist they are always liable to enforcement. they are the standing menace of an absurd creed to those who smile at it too ostentatiously. let us extend the same line of reflection to this holy coat business. contemptible as it is to the eye of reason, it excites the piety of millions of persons who never reasoned on religion in the whole course of their lives. hundreds of thousands of men and women will visit these sham relics of a savior whose own existence is open to dispute. superstition will be stirred to its depths. the bestial instinct of spiritual slavery inherited from ancient semi-human progenitors will be intensely stimulated. the sacred function of priests will be heightened and intensified. nor must it be forgotten that the pecuniary offerings of the pilgrims will fill the coffers of holy mother church, who promises heaven to her dupes and seizes wealth and power for herself on earth. superstition is scotched, but not slain. it has life enough to be a peril to civilisation. the faith which wrecked "the grandeur that was greece and the glory that was rome"--the faith which buried the science, art, philosophy and literature of antiquity under a monstrous heap of brutal rubbish, out of which they were slowly and painfully excavated after the lapse of a thousand years--this same faith is still a danger to the highest welfare of mankind; to its reason, its conscience, its sense of dignity, and its spirit of brotherhood; above all, to freedom of thought, which is the sole guarantee of real and durable progress. if we turn to russia, we see at a single glance the fruits of superstition and its twin-sister tyranny. the czar is the head of the church and the head of the state; not like queen victoria, whose sacred function is only indicated in latin on our coinage, but in literal, prosaic fact. by means of a swarm of ignorant, and often drunken and immoral priests, the masses of the people are kept in wretched subjection--hewers of wood and drawers of water, toilers for the huge army of officials, aristocrats, and princes--and conscripts for the army; while the best and noblest, in whom there still throbs the pulse of freedom, blacken the highways to the mines of siberia, where hell is more than realised on earth, and the dreams of sour-blooded theologians are outdone in misery and horror. * over the rest of europe, even in france, the secular state is often as insecure as the footsteps of travellers over thin crusts of volcanic soil. bismarck, the titan, whose great work, with all its defects and failings, may appeal from the clamorous passing hour to the quiet verdict of history, only kept the catholic church and its jesuits in check for a generation. he could not impair its vitality nor diminish its latent power. it is in germany that the coat of christ is being exhibited, with priests and professors joining hands at the brazen ceremony of imposture; in germany that myriads of pilgrims are wending their way to the shrine of an idolatry as ignominious as anything that christianity ever supplanted. even in france the one great danger to the republic is christian superstition. it is the church, her priests and her devotees, that furnish the real strength of every reactionary movement. that consummate charlatan, general boulanger, took to going to church and cultivating orthodoxy when at the height of his aspiration for power. happily he was defeated by the men of light and leading. happily, too, the ablest and most trusted leaders of public life in france are on the side of freethought. it is this, more than anything else, that makes the country of voltaire the beacon of civilisation as well as the "martyr of democracy." charles bradlaugh, on a very solemn occasion, warned the freethought party that even in england their great fight would ultimately be with the catholic church. he knew that superstition was scotched, but he also knew it was far from slain. while freethinkers are laughing at this exhibition of old rags, called the coat of christ, they should pause for a moment to consider the serious meaning of such a grotesque display of superstition in the land of goethe and heine, and in the age of darwin. let us jest round our camp-fires, but let us grip our sword-hilts as we hear the cries, the jingle of weapons, and the tramp of men in the camp of our enemy. god-making. "man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by dozens." so wrote honest montaigne, the first great sceptic in modern history, who was so far in advance of his age that he surprised the world by venturing to doubt whether it was after all a just and sensible thing to burn a man alive for differing from his neighbors. the history of that mental aberration which is called religion, and a survey of the present state of the world, from the fetish worshipper of central africa to the super-subtle theist of educated europe, furnish us with countless illustrations of the truth of montaigne's exclamation. god-making has always been a prevalent pastime, although it has less attraction for the modern than for the ancient mind. it was a recreation in which everyone could indulge, whether learned or illiterate, young or old, rich or poor. all the material needed to fashion gods of was ignorance, and there was always an unlimited stock of that article. the artificer was imagination, a glorious faculty, which is the highest dower of the creative artist and the scientific discoverer, and in their service is fruitful in usefulness and beauty, but which in the service of theology is a frightful curse, filling the mental world with fantastic monsters who waylay and devour. common people, however, who did the work of the world, were not able to do much god-making. their leisure and ability were both limited. but they had a large capacity for admiring the productions of others, and their deficiencies were supplied by a special class of men, called priests, who were set apart for the manufacture of deities, and who devoted their time and their powers to the holy trade. this pious division of labor, this specialisation of function, still continues. carpenters and tailors, grocers and butchers, who are immersed all the week in labor or business, have no opportunity for long excursions in the field of divinity; and therefore they take their religion at second hand from the priest on sunday. it was not the multitude, but the sacred specialists, who built up the gigantic and elaborate edifice of theology, which is a purely arbitrary construction, deriving all its design and coherence from the instinctive logic of the human mind, that operates alike in a fairy tale and in a syllogism. primitive man used conveniently-shaped flints before he fashioned flint instruments; discovery always preceding invention. in like manner he found gods before he made them. a charm resides in some natural object, such as a fish's tooth, a queer-shaped pebble, or a jewel, and it is worn as an amulet to favor and protect. this is fetishism. by-and-bve counterfeits are made of animals and men, or amalgams of both, and the fetishistic sentiment is transferred to these. this is the beginning of polytheism. and how far it extends even into civilised periods, let the superstitions of europe attest. the nun who tells her beads, and the lady who wears an ornamental crucifix, are to some extent fetishists; while the catholic worship of saints is only polytheism in disguise. reading the bible with clear eyes, we see that the ancient jews worshipped gods of their own making, which were handed down as family relics. when jacob made tracks after sucking his uncle dry, rachel carried off the poor old fellow's teraphim, and left him without even a god to worship. jahveh himself, who has since developed into god the father, was originally nothing but an image in an ark. micah, in the book of judges, makes himself a houseful of gods, and hires a levite as his domestic chaplain. how long the practice persisted we may judge from the royal scorn which isaiah pours on the image-mongers, who hewed down cedars and cypresses, oaks and ashes, some for fuel and some for idols. let us hear the great prophet: "he burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, aha, i am warm, i have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, deliver me, for thou art my god." twenty-six centuries have elapsed since isaiah wrote that biting satire, yet image-worship still prevails over three-fourths of the world; and even in christian countries, to use browning's phrase, we "see god made and eaten every day." a wave of the hand and a muttered spell, change bread or wafer and port-wine into the body and blood of christ, which are joyously consumed by his cannibal worshippers. not even the higher divinities of the greater faiths are exempt from the universal law. they are not creatures of man's hand, yet they are creatures of his brain. what are they but his own fancies, brooded on till they become facts of memory, and seem to possess an objective existence? the process is natural and easy. a figment of the imagination may become intensely real. have we not a clearer idea of hamlet and othello than of half our closest acquaintances? feuerbach went straight to the mark when he aimed to prove "that the powers before which man crouches are the creatures of his own limited, ignorant, uncultured and timorous mind, and that in especial the being whom man sets over against himself as a separate supernatural existence in his own being." yes, all theology is anthropomorphism--the making of gods in man's image. what is the god of our own theology, as matthew arnold puts it, but a magnified man? we cannot transcend our own natures, even in imagination; we can only interpret the universe in the terms of our own consciousness, nor can we endow our gods with any other attributes than we possess ourselves. when we seek to penetrate the "mystery of the infinite," we see nothing but our own shadow and hear nothing but the echo of our own voice. as we are so are our gods, and what man worships is what he himself would be. the placid egyptian nature smiles on the face of the sphinx. the gods of india reflect the terror of its heat and its beasts and serpents, the fertility of its soil, and the exuberance of its people's imagination. the glorious pantheon of greece-- praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles fill the hashed air with everlasting love-- embodies the wise and graceful fancies of the noblest race that ever adorned the earth, compared with whose mythology the christian system is a hideous nightmare. the roman gods wear a sterner look, befitting their practical and imperial worshippers, and jove himself is the ideal genius of the eternal city. the deities of the old scandinavians, whose blood tinges our english veins, were fierce and warlike as themselves, with strong hands, supple wrists, mighty thews, lofty stature, grey-blue eyes and tawny hair. thus has it ever been. so man created god in his own image, in the image of man created he him; male and female created he them. god and the weather. with characteristic inconsistency the christian will exclaim "here is another blasphemous title. what has god to do with the weather?" everything, sir. not a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowledge, and do you think he fails to regulate the clouds? the hairs of your head are numbered, and do you think he cannot count the rain-drops? besides, your clergy pray for a change in the weather when they find it necessary; and to whom do they pray but god? true, they are getting chary of such requests, but the theory is not disavowed, nor can it be unless the bible is 'discarded as waste-paper; and the forms of supplication for rain and fine weather still remain in the prayer book, although many parsons must feel like the parish clerk who asked "what's the use of praying for rain with the wind in that quarter?" we might also observe that as god is omnipotent he does everything, or at least everything which is not left (as parsons would say) to man's freewill, and clearly the weather is not included in that list. god is also omniscient, and what he foresees and does not alter is virtually his own work. even if a tile drops on a man's head in a gale of wind, it falls, like the sparrow, by a divine rule; and it is really the lord who batters the poor fellow's skull. an action for assault would undoubtedly lie, if there were any court in which the case could be pleaded. what a frightful total of damages would be run up against the defendant if every plaintiff got a proper verdict! for, besides all the injuries inflicted on mankind by "accident," which only means the lord's malice or neglect, it is a solemn fact (on the theist's hypothesis) that god has killed every man, woman, and child that ever died since the human race began. we are born here without being consulted, and hurried away without the least regard to our convenience. but let us keep to the weather. a gentleman who was feeding the fish at sea heard a sailor singing "britannia rules the waves." "does she?" he groaned, "then i wish she'd rule them straighter." most of us might as fervently wish that the lord ruled the weather better. some parts of the world are parched and others flooded. in some places the crops are spoiled with too much sun, and in others with too little. some people sigh for the sight of a cloud, and others people see nothing else. occasionally a famine occurs in india which might have been averted by half our superfluity of water. even at home the weather is always more or less of a plague. its variation is so great that it is always a safe topic of conversation. you may go out in the morning with a light heart, tempted by the sunshine to leave your overcoat and umbrella at home; and in the evening you may return wet through, with a sensation in the nose that prognosticates a doctor's bill. you may enter a theatre, or a hall, with dry feet, and walk home through a deluge. in the morning a south wind breathes like zephyr on your cheeks, and in the evening your face is pinched with a vile and freezing northeaster. "oh," say the pious, "it would be hard to please everybody, and foolish to try it. remember the old man and his ass." perhaps so, but the lord should have thought of that before he made us; and if he cannot give us all we want, he might show us a little consideration now and then. but instead of occasionally accommodating the weather to us, he invariably makes us accommodate ourselves to the weather. that is, if we can. but we cannot, at any rate in a climate like this. men cannot be walking almanacks, nor carry about a wardrobe to suit all contingencies. in the long run the weather gets the better of the wisest and toughest, and when the doctors have done with us we head our own funeral procession. the doctor's certificate says asthma, bronchitis, pulmonary consumption, or something of that sort. but the document ought to read "died of the weather." poets have sung the glory of snowy landscapes, and there is no prettier sight than the earth covered with a virgin mantle, on which the trees gleam like silver jewels. but what an abomination snow is in cities. the slush seems all the blacker for its whiteness, and the pure flakes turn into the vilest mud. men and horses are in a purgatory. gloom sits on every face. pedestrians trudge along, glaring at each other with murderous eyes; and the amount of swearing done is enough to prove the whole thing a beastly mistake. it seems perfectly clear that when the lord designed the weather, two or three hundred million years ago, he forgot that men would build cities. he continues to treat us as agriculturalists, even in a manufacturing and commercial country like this. "why should people get drenched in fleet-street while the buckinghamshire farmers want rain? the arrangement is obviously stupid. god almighty ought to drop the rain and snow in the country, and only turn on enough water in the cities to flush the sewers. he ought also to let the rain fall in the night. during the daytime we want the world for our business and pleasure, and the rain department should operate when we are snug in bed. this is a reforming age. gods, as well as men, must move on. it is really ridiculous for the clerk of the weather to be acting on the old lines when everybody down below can see they are behind the time. if he does not improve we shall have to agitate on the subject home rule is the order of the day. we need home for the globe, and we cannot afford to let the weather be included in the imperial functions. it is a domestic affair. and as the lord has considerably mismanaged it, he had better hand it over to us, with full power to arrange it as we please." miracles. what is a miracle? some people would reply, an act of god. but this definition is far too wide. in the theistic sense, it would include everything that happens; and in the sense of our archaic bills of lading, it would include fire and shipwreck. others would reply, a miracle is a wonder. but this definition would include every new, or at least every surprising new fact. a black swan would have been a wonder before australia was discovered, but it would have been no miracle. railways, telegraphs, telephones, electric light, and even gas light, would be wonders to savages, yet neither are they miracles. one of the mahdi's followers was astonished by an english officer, who pulled out his false eye, tossed it in the air, caught it, and replaced it; after which he asked the flabbergasted arab whether his miraculous mahdi could do that. it was a greater wonder than the mahdi could perform; still it was not a miracle. ice was so great a wonder to the king of siam that he refused to credit its existence. yet it was not miraculous, but a natural product, existing in practically unlimited quantities in the polar regions. we might multiply these illustrations _ad infinitum_, but what we have given will suffice. if not, let the reader spend an evening at maskelyne and cooke's, where he will see plenty of startling wonders and not a miracle amongst them. hume's definition of a miracle as a violation of a law of nature, is the best ever given, and it really is as perfect as such a definition can be. it has been carped at by christian scribblers, and criticised by superior theologians like mozley. but, to use mr. gladstone's phrase, it keeps the field. even the criticisms of mill and huxley leave its merit unimpaired. the ground taken by these is, that to say a miracle is a violation of a law of nature is to prejudge the question, and to rule out all future facts in the interest of a prepossession. mill, however, allows that a miracle is a violation of a valid induction, and as a law of nature means nothing more it is difficult to understand why he takes any exception to hume's statement of the case. it is perfectly obvious that hume's argument is not metaphysical, but practical. he does not discuss the _possibility_ but the _probability_ of miracles. he reduces the dispute to a single point, namely, whether the person who relates a miracle (for to the world at large the question is necessarily one of testimony) is deceived or deceiving, or whether the otherwise universal experience of mankind is to be disbelieved; in other words, whether he or the rest of the world is mistaken. one man may, of course, be right, and all the human race opposed to him wrong, but time will settle the difference between them. that _time_, however, simply means general experience through long ages; and that is precisely the tribunal which hume s argument appeals to. quarrelling with hume's definition is really giving up miracles altogether, for, except as supernatural evidence, they are no more important than shooting stars. the very nature of a miracle, in whatever formula it may be expressed, is superhuman, and having a purpose, it is also supernatural; in other words, it is a special manifestation of divine power for a particular object. whether, being so, it is a violation, a contravention, or a suspension of the laws of nature, is a mere question about words. we may say that a miracle has three elements. it is first a fact, unaccountable by science; secondly, it requires a conscious agent; and thirdly, it results from the exercise of a power which that agent does not naturally possess. let us descend to illustration. huxley takes the following case. suppose the greatest physiologist in europe alleged that he had seen a centaur, a fabulous animal, half man and half horse. the presumption would be that he was laboring under hallucination; but if he persisted in the statement he would have to submit to the most rigorous criticism by his scientific colleagues before it could be believed; and everybody would feel sure beforehand that he would never pass through the ordeal successfully. the common experience, and therefore the common sense, of society would be dead against him, and probably he would be refused the honor of examination even by the most fervid believers in ancient miracles. but after all the centaur, even if it existed, would not be a miracle, but a monstrosity. it does not contain the three elements we have indicated. real miracles would be of a different character. plenty may be found in the bible, and we may make a selection to illustrate our argument. jesus christ was once at a marriage feast, when the wine ran short, which was perhaps no uncommon occurrence. being of a benevolent turn of mind, and anxious that the guests should remember the occasion, he turned a large quantity of cold water into fermented juice of the grape. now water contains oxygen and hydrogen in definite proportions, and nothing else, while wine contains in addition to these, carbon and other elements, being in fact a very complex liquid. jesus christ must, therefore, in turning water into wine, have created something, and that transcends human power. here, then, we have a complete miracle, according to hume's definition and our own theory. we do not say the miracle never occurred, although we no more believe in it than we believe the moon is made of green cheese. we are willing to regard it as susceptible of proof. but does the proof exist? to answer this we must inquire what kind of proof is necessary. an extraordinary story should be supported by extraordinary evidence. it requires the concurrent and overwhelming testimony of eye-witnesses. we must be persuaded that there is no collusion between them, that none of them has anything to gain by deception, that they had no previous tendency to expect such a thing, and that it was practically impossible that they could be deluded. now let any man or any christian seriously ask himself whether the evidence for jesus christ's miracle is of this character. four evangelists write his life, and only one mentions the occurrence. even he was certainly not an eye-witness, nor does he pretend to be, and the weight of evidence is against his gospel having been written till long after the first disciples of jesus were dead. but even if the writer distinctly declared himself an eye-witness, and if it were undeniable that he lived on the spot at the time, his single unsupported testimony would be absurdly inadequate to establish the truth of the miracle. every reader will at once see that the established rules of evidence are not conformed to, and whoever accepts the miracle must eke out reason with faith. so much for the evidence of miracles. their intellectual or moral value is simply nil. the greatest miracle could not really convince a man of what his reason condemned; and if a prophet could turn water into wine, it would not necessarily follow that all he said was true. in fact, truth does not require the support of miracles; it flourishes better without their assistance. universal history shows that miracles have always been employed to support falsehood and fraud, to promote superstition, and to enhance the profit and power of priests. a real miracle. * * may, . it is a common belief among protestants, though not among catholics, that the age of miracles is past. for a long time it has been very difficult to find a real case of special providence. there are stories afloat of wonderful faith-cures, and the followers of john wesley, as well as the followers of william booth, often shake their heads mysteriously, and affect to trace the hand of god in certain episodes of their experience. but such cases are too personal, and too subjective, to challenge criticism or inquiry. investigating them is like exploring a cloud. there is nothing tangible for the mind to seize, nothing to stand by as the basis of discussion. what is wanted is a real objective miracle, a positive _fact_. happily such a miracle has come to the aid of a distressed christianity; it is worth tons of learned apologetics, and will give "the dying creed" a fresh lease of life. unfortunately the world at large is in gross ignorance of this astonishing event. like the earthquake, the eclipse, and the wholesale resurrection of saints at the crucifixion of christ, it has excited very little public attention. but this dense apathy, or satanic conspiracy of silence, must not be allowed to hide a precious truth. we therefore do our best to give it publicity, although in doing so we are blasting our own foundations; for we belong to a party which boasts that it seeks for truth, and we are ready to exclaim, "let truth prevail though the heavens fall." most of our readers will remember the late accident on the brighton line at norwood. a bridge collapsed, and only the driver's presence of mind averted a great loss of life. of course the driver did his obvious duty, and presence of mind is not uncommon enough to be miraculous. but that does not exhaust the matter. the driver (hargraves) is perfectly sure he received divine assistance. he is a man of pious habits. he never leaves his house without kneeling down with his wife and imploring god's protection. he never steps on the engine without breathing another prayer. on the morning of the accident his piety was in a state of unusual excitation. he begged his wife to "pray all that day"--which we presume she did, with intervals for refreshment; and he knelt down himself in the passage before opening his front door. when the accident happened he put the brake on and cried "lord, save us," and according to the _christian world_ "it has since been stated by expert engineers that no train was ever before pulled up in such a short distance." a carping critic might presume to ask the names and addresses of these "expert engineers." he might also have the temerity to inquire the precise distance in which the train was pulled up, the shortest distance in which other trains have been pulled up, and the weight and velocity of the train in each case. he might also meanly suggest that putting on the brake left as little as possible to providence. for our part, however, we will not pursue such hyper-criticism. it is applying to a miracle a test which it is not fitted to stand. something must be left to faith, something must be reserved from reason, or the stoutest miracle would soon fall into a galloping consumption. the man in whom a pious disposition counteracts the restless play of thought, will not demand absolute proof; he will only require an encouraging amount of evidence; and he will dutifully lift his face and hands to heaven, exclaiming, "lord i believe, help thou mine unbelief." the line we shall follow is a different one. without questioning the miracle, we venture to ask why it was not more complete. lives were saved, but several persons were injured. was this due to the fact that hargraves' prayer was not sufficiently above proof? did the lord answer the prayer according to its insensity? was there a sceptic in the train who partially neutralised its effect? or did the lord proceed on the method favored by priests, preventing the miracle from being too obvious, but giving the incident a slightly supernatural appearance, in order to confirm the faith of believers without convincing the callous sceptics, whose deep sin of incredulity places them beyond "the means of grace and the hope of glory?" nor are these questions exhaustive. very much remains to be said. it appears that the norwood bridge collapsed through a secret flaw in the ironwork. could not the lord, therefore, in answer to hargraves' prayers--which surely extended to the interests of his employers--have inspired one of the company's engineers with the notion of some unsoundness in the structure? this would have saved a good deal of property, and many passengers from suffering a shock whose effects may haunt them for years, and perhaps send them to untimely graves? might not the lord have cleared the roadway below, knocked down the bridge in the night, and brought some one to see the collapse who could have carried the tidings to the signalmen? certainly there seems a remarkable want of subtlety in the ways of providence. it looks as though the deity heard a prayer now and then, and jerked out a bit of miracle in a more or less promiscuous manner. what has happened to providence since the bible days? miracles then were clear, convincing, and artistically rounded. you could not possibly mistake them for anything else. baalam's ass, for instance, was not a performing "moke"; it does not appear to have known a single trick; and when it opened its mouth and talked in good moabitish, the miracle was certain and triumphant. in the same way, the norwood miracle might have been unadultterated with the usual operations of nature. the bridge might have collapsed as the train approached, driver hargraves might have said his prayer, the train might have leapt across the chasm, picked up the connection on the other side, and pursued its way to brighton as if nothing had happened. but as the case stands, providence and the safety-brake act together, and it is difficult to decide their shares in the enterprise. further, the miracle is sadly mixed. any human being would have planned it better, and made it stand out clearly and firmly. this norwood miracle, however, seems the best obtainable in these days. it is a minute return for all the prayers of the clergy, to say nothing of pious engine-drivers; a miserable dividend on the gigantic investment in supernaturalism. we pity the poor shareholders, though we must congratulate the directors on the large salaries they draw from the business. we also pity poor old providence, who seems almost played out. once upon a time he was in fine form; miracles were as common as blackberries; nature seldom got an innings, and jehovah was all over the field. but nowadays nature seems to have got the better of him. she scarcely leaves him a corner for his operations, and what little he does (if he does anything) has to be done in obscurity. poor old providence, we fancy, has had his day. his vigor is gone, his lively fancy has degenerated into moping ineptitude, the shouts of millions of worshippers cannot stimulate his sluggishness into any more effective display than this norwood miracle. most sincerely we offer him our condolence as the sleeping partner in the business of religion. by and bye we may offer our condolence to the active partners, the priests of all denominations, who still flourish on a prospectus which, if once true, is now clearly fraudulent. when their business dwindles, in consequence of a failing supply of good supernatural articles, they will only live on the price of actual deliveries, and a norwood miracle will hardly afford six of them a mouthful apiece. jesus on women. "for religions," says michelet, "woman is mother, tender guardian, and faithful nurse. the gods are like men; they are reared, and they die, upon her bosom." truer words were never uttered. michelet showed in _la sorcière_, from which this extract is taken, as well as in many other writings, that he fully understood the fulcrum of priestcraft and the secret of superstition. women are everywhere the chief, and in some places the only, supporters of religion. even in paris, where freethinkers abound, the women go to church and favor the priest. naturally, they impress their own views on the children, for while the father's influence is fitful through his absence from home, the mother's is constant and therefore permanent. again and again the clergy have restored their broken power by the hold upon that sex which men pretend to think the weaker, although they are obviously the sovereigns of every generation. men may resolve to go where they please, but if they cannot take the women with them they will never make the journey. women do not resist progress, they simply stand still, and by their real, though disguised, rule over the family, they keep the world with them. freethinkers should look this fact in the face. blinking it is futile. whoever does that imitates the hunted ostrich, who does not escape his doom by hiding his head. the whole question lies in a nutshell. where one sex is, the other will be; and there is a terrible, yet withal a beautiful, truth in the upshot of mill's argument, that if men do not lift women up, women will drag men down. in the education and elevation of women, then, lies the great hope of the future. leading freethinkers have always seen this. shelley's great cry, "can man be free if woman be a slave?" is one witness, and mill's great essay on _the subjection of women_ is another. go where you will, you find the priests courting the women. they act thus, not because they despise men, or fear them, but because they (often unconsciously) feel that when they have captured the "weaker" sex, the other becomes a speedy prey. perhaps a dim perception of this truth hovered in the minds of those who composed the story of the fall. the serpent does not bother about adam. he just makes sure of eve, and she settles her "stronger" half. milton makes adam reluct and wrangle, but it is easy to see he will succumb to his wife's persuasions. he swears he won't eat, but eve draws him all the time with a silken string, mightier than the biggest cable. when the christian monks were proselytising at rome, they were hated, says jortin, "as beggarly impostors and hungry greeks who seduced ladies of fortune and quality." hated, yes; but what did the hatred avail? the women were won, and the game was over. men growled, but they had to yield. the same holds good to-day. watch the congregations streaming out of church, count ten bonnets to one hat, and you might fancy christianity played out because the men stay at home and neglect its ministrations. nothing of the sort. men may desert the churches as they like, but while the women go the clergy are safe. examine the church and chapel organisations closely, and you will see how nine-tenths of everything is designed for women and children. yes, the bonnet is the priest's talisman. like constantine's legendary cross, it bears the sign _by this conquer_. on the other hand, the clergy never fail to remind women that religion is their best friend. without our doctrines and our holy church, they say, there would be social chaos; the wild passions of men would spurn control, marriage would be despised, wives would become mistresses, homes would disappear, and children would be treated as encumbrances. there is not a grain of truth in this, for religion has fomented, countenanced, or cloaked, more sensuality and selfishness than it has ever repressed. but it is a powerful appeal to woman's healthy domestic sentiment. she feels, if she does not know, that marriage is her sheet-anchor, and the home an ark on a weltering flood. when the priest tells her that religion is the surety of both, he plucks at her heart, which vibrates to its depths, and she regards him as her savior. historically, the christian religion, at least, has never been woman's real friend. it claims credit for everything; but what has it achieved? monogamy was practised by the rude teutons before christianity "converted" them by fraud and force, and it was the law in pagan greece and rome before the christian era. yet in the bible there is not a word against polygamy. god's favorites had as many wives as they could manage, and solomon had enough to manage _him_. in the new testament there is only one man who is told to be "the husband of one wife," and that is a bishop. even in _his_ case, a facetious sceptic hints, and the mormons argue, that the command only means that he must have _one wife at least_. there are two supreme figures in the new testament, paul and jesus. what paul says about women i will deal with presently. for the moment i confine myself to jesus. let the reader remember that christianity cannot transcend the bible, any more than a stream can rise above its source. like most revivalists and popular preachers, jesus had a number of women dangling at his heels, but his teaching on the subject in hand is barren, or worse. as a child, he gave his mother the slip at jerusalem, and caused her much anxiety. during his ministry, when his mother and his brethren wished to speak with him, he forgot the natural ties of blood, and coolly remarked that his family were those who believed his gospel. on another occasion he roughly said to mary, "woman, what have i to do with thee?" these examples are not very edifying. if christ is our great exemplar, the fashion he set of treating his nearest relatives is "more honored in the breach than in the observance." jesus appears to have despised the union of the sexes, therefore marriage, and therefore the home. he taught that in heaven, where all are perfect, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage; the saints being like angels, probably of the neuter gender. in matthew xix. he appears to recommend emasculation, praising those who make themselves "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." this doctrine is too high for flesh and blood, but origen and other early christians practised it literally. we may be sure that those who trample on manhood have no real respect for womanhood. hence the romish church has always praised up virginity, which is simply an abnegation of sex. cruden shrinks from the literal sense of christ's words, and says that the "eunuchs" he refers to are those who "upon some religious motive do abstain from marriage and the use of all carnal pleasures; that they may be less encumbered with the cares of the world, and may devote themselves more closely to the service of god." moonshine! origen was a better judge than cruden. if jesus did not mean what he said, why did he take the trouble to speak? his doctrine is that of the anchorite. it led naturally to the filthy wretches, called monks, who dreaded the sight of a woman, and hoped to please god by stultifying nature. it also led to the church law forbidding women to touch the sacrament with their naked hands, lest they should pollute it. only women who relish that infamous law can feel any respect for the teaching of jesus. paul on women. christianity, as the centuries have revealed its practical character, owes more to paul than to jesus. its dogmas are mostly derived from the epistles of the great apostle. many a true believer thinks he is obeying the carpenter's son, when all the time he is obeying the tarsus tent-maker. the christian road to heaven was laid out and paved, not by jesus himself, but by the gentleman he (or a sunstroke) converted outside damascus. paul was in some respects a better teacher than jesus. he was more practical, and with all his misty metaphysics he had a firmer hold on the realities of life. but with respect to women, he follows dutifully in his savior's wake, and elaborates, rather than supplements, the sexual injunctions we have already dealt with. like his master, he looks down upon marriage, and is evidently of opinion that if men should not make themselves eunuchs they should live as such, the american shakers are only carrying out his policy in this respect. if all the world imitated them the human race would soon expire. it would then be impossible to adopt the children of outsiders, families would be gradually extinguished, and the second coming of christ would be prematurely hastened. paul was a bachelor, and a crusty one. according to tradition or calumny, he was jilted by a jewish woman, and this may account for his peevish attitude towards the sex. in the seventh chapter of the first of corinthians he gives vent to a great deal of nasty nonsense. "it is good," he says, "for a man not to touch a woman," if he had meant by this that men were not to thrash their wives we should have thoroughly agreed with him. but what he means is that there should be no sexual intercourse. he was especially severe on young widows who contemplated a second marriage. no doubt if he had seen a young widow whose weeds, as is generally the case, were arranged coquettishly, he would have muttered "anathema maranatha." as his own constitution was liable to occasional weaknesses, he might have added, "get thee behind me, satan." a few verses later he expresses himself with greater clearness than jesus christ ever attained to: "i say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as i. but if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." paul wished the same end as jesus. he desired to see every person celibate, but having a little more common sense than jesus, he saw that such preaching would never be extensively practised (especially by young widows) and he was obliged to make a concession to human frailty. the very fact, however, shows that his view of the question was radically wrong. marriage is not an excusable weakness, but the normal condition of mankind. physiologically, mentally, and morally this truth holds good. even the highest virtues have never sprung from monasteries and convents, but from the rude rough world of toiling and suffering men and women outside. according to paul, although marriage was lawful, virginity was a higher state; that is, to be perfect, a woman must stultify her nature and trample upon her maternal instincts. it also implies that she is essentially impure, and that she can only please god by abnegating her sex. this is the deepest disrespect of womanhood, as every healthy wife and mother would admit if such stuff were taught by another than paul. the great apostle troubled his poor head about the heads of women. if he lived now when the ladies affect short hair he would go raving mad. it was a subject on which he felt profoundly. to his mind a woman losing her long hair, was like an angel falling from glory. he warns the whole sex against meddling with their tresses. men, however, are recommended to crop close, long hair being "shameful." we have a shrewd suspicion that paul was bald. perhaps if hair restorer had been then invented a successful trial might have considerably changed his views upon this subject. man was not created for woman, says paul, but woman for man. he is of course alluding to the old rib story. but a similar observation would have been as sensible about the two halves of a pair of scissors. when they meet what does it matter which was made for the other? consistently with this view he says, "wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the lord... as the church is subject unto christ so let the wives be to their husbands in everything." some men have tried this with no great success, and many a man thinks he is having his own way "in everything" when he is sweetly and beautifully led by the nose. obedience is a hateful word in marriage. its introduction makes the wife a legalised concubine. besides, if there _must_ be obedience, paul's rule is ridiculously sweeping, for some women have more sense and judgment than their husbands. every afflicted woman who applies to the magistrate for relief from the sot who curses her home is flying in the face of paul. "my dear woman," the magistrate _should_ say, "your request is very reasonable, but it is very unorthodox. go home and read the fifth chapter of ephesians, where you will see that wives must obey their husbands in _everything_." paul ( cor. xiv. , ; tim. ii. , ) warns women to keep silence in church, for "it is not permitted unto them to speak." having written this line, paul must have got up and strutted round the room like a ruffled cock. "let the woman," he says, "learn in silence with all subjection. i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." hear, hear! from the males in the body of the synagogue. evidently paul could bray on occasion as lustily as balaam's ass. if the women "will learn anything," which he clearly thought problematical, "let them ask their husbands at home." fancy some women with no other sources of information! the reason paul gives for woman's inferiority is that mrs. eve was first tempted by the serpent. and a capital thing too! if mrs. eve had not eaten that apple the human race would still number two, or else, if none of them died, they would be thicker than barrelled herrings. our church of england marriage service follows the teaching of paul. while the husband promises to-love the wife, the wife promises to love, honor and obey the husband. many ladies say these words at the altar with a mental reservation. when they are obliged to do this they tacitly admit that paul and the church are wrong. but if so the bible is wrong. the fact is that the "blessed book," instead of being woman's best friend, is her worst enemy. the tenth commandment makes her domestic property, and paul winds up by telling her that her sole duty is to play second fiddle in a minor key. mother's religion. religion is the feminine element in human nature. science is the masculine. one accepts, the other inquires; one believes, the other proves; one loves the old, the other the new; one submits, the other dares; one is conservative, and the other progressive. i say this with no disrespect to women. evolution has made them what they are, and evolution will remake them. nor do i slight the noble band of advanced women, the vanguard of their sex, who have shed a lustre on our century. i merely take a convenient metaphor, which crystallises a profound truth, though fully conscious of its shortcomings and exclusions. woman is still the citadel of religion. thither the priest flies from the attacks of scepticism. there he finds an inviolable refuge. the mother, the wife, the sister, shield him and his creed; and their white arms and soft eyes are a better guard than all the weapons in the armory of his faith. his are the coward's tactics, but all creatures--even priests--plead the necessity of living, and have the artful instinct of self-preservation. religious by inheritance and training, woman rears her children for the church. spiritual as well as bodily perils shake her prophetic soul as she peers into the future through the eyes of the child upon her knee. she whispers of god with accents of awe, that fall solemnly on the little one's mind. she trains the knee to bend, the hands to meet in prayer, and the eyes to look upward. she wields the mighty spell of love, and peoples the air of life with phantoms. infantile logic knows those dear lips cannot lie, and all is truth for all is love. alas! the lesson has to come that the logic is faulty, that goodness may be leagued with lies, that a twisted brain may top the sweetest heart. but long ere the lesson is learnt--if it _is_ learnt--the mischief has been wrought. the child has been moulded for the priest, and is duly burnished with catechisms and stamped with dogmas. and how often, when the strong mind grows and bursts its bonds, when the mental eyes wax strong and see the falsehood, the mother's hand, through the child's training, plucks the life back from the fulfilment of its promise. how often, also, when the vigorous manhood has swept aside all illusions, there comes at length the hour of lassitude, and as the mother's voice steals through the caverns of memory the spectres of faith are startled from their repose. priests are always warning men against deserting the creed of their mothers. and even a _savant_, like professor gazzia, who writes on giordano bruno, knows the trick of touching this facile cord of the human heart. speaking of bruno's philosophy, he says: "i call it plainly the negation of god, of that god, i mean, of whom i first heard _at my mother's knee_." but freethinking mothers--and happily there are such--will use their power more wisely; and, above all, will not shrink from their duty. they have the fashioning of the young life--a transcendent privilege, with an awful responsibility. they will see that love nurtures the affections without suborning the intellect; that the young mind is encouraged to think, instead of being stuffed with conclusions; and they will some day find their exceeding rich reward. their children, trained in the school of self-respect and toleration, will be wiser than the pupils of faith; and the bonds of love will be all the tenderer and stronger for the perception that the free individuality of the child's life was never sacrificed to the parent's authority. arrows of freethought. by g. w. foote editor of "the freethinker." london: h. a. kemp, stonecutter street, farringdon street, e.c. . contents: preface religion and progress. a defence of thomas paine. the gospel of freethought. freethought in current literature. dean stanley's latest. god and the queen. cardinal newman on infidelity. sunday tyranny. who are the blasphemers? the birth of christ. the reign of christ. the primate on modern infidelity. baiting a bishop. professor flint on atheism. a hidden god. general joshua. going to hell. christmas eve in heaven. professor blackie on atheism. salvationism. a pious showman. preface i republish in this little volume a few of my numerous articles that have appeared in the _secularist_, the _liberal_, the _national reformer_, and the _freethinker_, during the last five or six years. i have included nothing (i hope) of merely ephemeral interest. every article in this collection was at least written carefully, and with an eye to more than the exigencies of the moment. in disentombing them from the cemeteries of periodical literature, where so many of their companions lie buried, i trust i have not allowed parental love to outrun discretion. i have not thought it necessary to indicate, in each case, the journal in which the reprinted articles were first published. should anyone object to the freedom of my style, or the asperity of my criticism, i would ask him to remember that christianity still persecutes to the full extent of its power, and that a creed which answers argument with prosecution cannot expect tender treatment in return; and i would also ask him, in the words of ruskin, "to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness than by untimely fear." london, november th, . religion and progress. (november, .) the archbishop of york is peculiarly qualified to speak on religion and progress. his form of thanksgiving to the god of battles for our "victory" in egypt marks him as a man of extraordinary intellect and character, such as common people may admire without hoping to emulate; while his position, in archbishop tait's necessitated absence from the scene, makes him the active head of the english church. let us listen to the great man. archbishop thomson recently addressed "a working-men's meeting" in the drill hall, sheffield. it was densely crowded by six or seven thousand people, and this fact was cited by the archbishop as a proof that the working classes of england have not yet lost interest in the christian faith. but we should very much like to know how it was ascertained that all, or even the major portion, of the vast audience were working-men. it is easy enough to give any meeting a name. we often hear of a conservative working-men's banquet, with tickets at something like a guinea each, a duke at the top of the table and a row' of lords down each side. and our experience leads us to believe that nearly all religious meetings of "working-men" are attended chiefly by the lower middle classes who go regularly to church or chapel every sunday of their lives. even, however, if the whole six or seven thousand were working-men, the fact would prove little; for sheffield contains a population of three hundred thousand, and it was not difficult for the clergy who thronged the platform to get up a big "ticket" meeting, at which a popular archbishop was the principal speaker, and the eloquence was all to be had for nothing. the archbishop's lecture, or sermon, or whatever it was, contained nothing new, nor was any old idea presented in a new light. it was simply a summary of the vulgar declamations against the "carnal mind" with which we are all so familiar. progress, said his grace, was of two kinds, intellectual and moral. of the former sort we had plenty, but of the latter not so much. he repudiated the notion that moral progress would naturally keep pace with intellectual progress, and he denied that righteousness could ever prevail without "some sanction from above." this was the sum and substance of his discourse, and we have no doubt that our readers have heard the same thing, in various forms of language, some hundreds of times. like the rest of his tribe, archbishop thomson went abroad for all his frightful warnings, and especially to france. he severely condemned the french "pride in progress," which led to the revolution. his grace has certainly a most original conception of history. ordinary historians tell us that the revolution was caused by hunger, bad government, and the rigidity of old institutions that could not accommodate themselves to new ideas. but whatever were the causes, look at the results. compare the state of france before the revolution with its condition now. the despotic monarchy is gone; the luxurious and privileged aristocracy has disappeared; and the incredibly wealthy and tyrannous church is reduced to humbleness and poverty. but the starving masses have become the most prosperous on the face of the earth; the ignorant multitudes are well educated; the platform and the press are free; a career is open to every citizen; science, art, and literature have made immense strides; and although paris, like every great capital, may still, as mr. arnold says, lack morality, there is no such flagrant vileness within her walls as the corruptions of the _ancien régime_; no such impudent affronting of the decencies of life as made the _parc aux cerfs_ for ever infamous, and his christian majesty, louis the fifteenth, a worthy compeer of tiberius; no such shameless wickedness as made the orgies of the duke of orleans and the abbé dubois match the worst saturnalia of nero. his grace felt obliged to advert also to the paris commune, about which his information seems to be equal to his knowledge of the revolution. he has the ignorance or audacity to declare that the commune "destroyed a city and ravaged the land;" when, as a matter of fact, the struggle was absolutely confined to paris, and the few buildings injured were in the line of fire. this worthy prelate thinks destruction of buildings a crime on the part of communalists, but a virtue on the part of a christian power; and while denouncing the partial wreck of paris, he blesses the wholesale ruin of alexandria. his grace ventures also to call the leading men of the commune "drunken dissolute villains." the beaten party is always wicked, and perhaps dr. thomson will remember that jesus christ himself was accused of consorting with publicans and sinners. drunken dissolute villains do not risk their lives for an idea. the men of the commune may have been mistaken, but their motives were lofty; and millière, falling dead on the church steps before the versailles bullets, with the cry of _vive l'humanité_ on his lips, was as noble a hero as any crucified galilean who questioned why his god had forsaken him. that intellectual and moral progress naturally go together, the archbishop calls "an absurd and insane doctrine," and he couples with these epithets the honored names of buckle and spencer. now it will be well to have a clear understanding on this point. are intellectual causes dominant or subordinate? even so intensely religious a man as lamennais unhesitatingly answers that they are dominant. he affirms, in his _du passé et de l'avenir du, peuple_, that "intellectual development has produced all other developments," and he adds:-- "it is represented that evil, as it appears in history, springs entirely from the passions. this is quite false. the passions disturb the existing order, whatever it may be, but they do not constitute it. they have not that power. it is the necessary result of the received ideas and beliefs. thus the passions show themselves the same in all epochs, and yet, in different epochs, the established order changes, and sometimes fundamentally." the truth is that the great moral conceptions are securely established, and the only possible improvement in them must come from the increased fineness and subtlety of our mental powers. civilisation and progress are, according to archbishop thomson, nothing but "cobwebs and terms." he besought the working men of sheffield not to go for information to a big book written in some garret in london. his grace, who lives in a palace at other people's expense, has a very natural dislike of any man of genius who may live in a garret at his own. what has the place in which a book is written to do with its value? "don quixote" and the "pilgrim's progress" were written in gaol; and for all archbishop thomson knows to the contrary every gospel and epistle of the new testament may have been written in an attic or a cellar. the archbishop seems to hate the very idea of progress. what has it done, he asks, to abolish drunkenness and gambling? to which we reply by asking what christianity has done. those vices are unmistakably here, and on the face of it any objection they may furnish against progress must equally apply to christianity. nay more; for christianity has had an unlimited opportunity to reform the world, while progress has been hindered at every turn by the insolent usurpation of its rival. dr. thomson admits that he cannot find a text in the bible against gambling, and assuredly he cannot find one in favor of teetotalism. on the contrary he will find plenty of texts which recommend the "wine that cheereth the heart of god and man;" and he knows that his master, jesus christ, once played the part of an amateur publican at a marriage feast, and turned a large quantity of water into wine in order to keep the spree going when it had once begun. we repeat that all the archbishop's objections to progress, based on the moral defects of men, apply with tenfold force against religion, which has practically had the whole field to itself. and we assert that he is grievously mistaken if he imagines that supernatural beliefs can ennoble knaves or give wisdom to fools. when he talks about "christ's blood shed to purchase our souls," and specifies the first message of his creed as "come and be forgiven," he is appealing to our basest motives, and turning the temple into a huckster's shop. let him and all his tribe listen to these words of ruskin's:-- "your honesty is _not_ to be based either on religion or policy. both your religion and policy must be based on _it_. your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night if you ask why you are to be honest--you are, in the question itself, dishonored 'because you are a man,' is the only answer; and therefore i said in a former letter that to make your children _capable of honesty_ is the beginning of education. make them men first and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.--_time and tide_, p. ." these are the words of a real spiritual teacher. archbishop thomson will never get within a million miles of their meaning; nor will anybody be deceived, by the unctuous "oh that" with which he concludes his discourse, like a mental rolling of the whites of his eyes. as we approach the end of his address, we begin to understand his grace's hatred of progress. he complains that "intellectual progress never makes a man conceive eternal hopes, never makes a man conceive that he has an eternal friend in heaven, even the son of god." quite true. intellectual progress tends to bound our desires within the scope of their realisation, and to dissipate the fictions of theology. it is therefore inimical to all professional soul-savers, who chatter about another world with no understanding of this; and especially to the lofty teachers of religion who luxuriate in palaces, and fling jibes and sneers at the toiling soldiers of progress who face hunger, thirst and death. these rich disciples of the poor nazarene are horrified when the scorn is retorted on them and their creed; and archbishop thomson expresses his "disgust" at our ridiculing his bible and endeavoring to bring his "convictions" into "contempt." it is, he says, "an offence against the first principles of mutual sympathy and consideration." yet this angry complainant describes other people's convictions as "absurd and insane." all the sympathy and consideration is to be on one side! the less said about either the better. there can be no treaty or truce in a war of principles, and the soldiers of progress will neither take quarter nor give it. christianity must defend itself. it may try to kill us with the poisoned arrows of persecution; but what defence can it make against the rifleshot of common-sense, or how stand against the shattering artillery of science? every such battle is decided in its commencement, for every religion begins to succumb the very moment it is attacked. a defence of thomas paine. (february, .) fling mud enough and some of it will stick. this noble maxim has been the favorite of traducers in all ages and climes. they know that the object of their malignity cannot always be on the alert to cleanse himself from the filth they fling, especially if cast behind his back; they know that lies, and especially slanderous lies, are hard to overtake, and when caught harder to strangle; and therefore they feel confident as to the ultimate fate of their victim if they can only persevere long enough in their vile policy of defamation. for human nature being more prone to believe evil than good of others, it generally happens that the original traducers are at length joined by a host of kindred spirits almost as eager and venomous as themselves, "the long-neck'd geese of the world, who are ever hissing dispraise because their natures are little;" while a multitude of others, not so much malignant as foolish and given to scandal, lend their cowardly assistance, and help to vilify characters far beyond the reach of their emulation. and should such characters be those of men who champion unpopular causes, there is no lie too black for belief concerning them, no accusation of secret theft or hateful meanness or loathsome lust, that will not readily gain credence. mr. tennyson speaks of-- that fierce light which beats upon a throne, and blackens every blot but what is that to the far fiercer and keener light which beats upon the lives of the great heroes of progress? with all due deference to the poet laureate, we conceive that kings and their kind have usually extended to them a charity which covers a multitude of their sins. the late king of italy, for instance, was said to have had "the language of a guardroom, the manners of a trooper, and the morals of a he-goat," yet at his death how tenderly his faults were dealt with by the loyal press, and how strongly were all his merits brought into relief. our own royal sardanapalus, george the fourth, although leigh hunt had the courage to describe him aright and went to the gaol for so doing, was styled by society "the first gentleman in europe." yet mazzini, vittor emmanuel's great contemporary, whose aims were high and noble as his life was pure, got little else than abuse from this same loyal press; and the society which adored george the fourth charged shelley himself with unspeakable vices equalled only by the native turpitude of his soul. perhaps no man has suffered more from calumny than thomas paine. during his lifetime, indeed, his traducers scarcely ever dared to vent their malice in public, doubtless through fear of receiving a castigation from his vigorous and trenchant pen. but after his death they rioted in safety, and gave free play to the ingenuity of their malevolence. gradually their libels became current; thousands of people who knew almost nothing of his life and less of his writings were persuaded that thomas paine, "the infidel," was a monster of iniquity, in comparison with whom judas appeared a saint, and the devil himself nearly white; and this estimate finally became a tradition, which the editors of illustrated religious papers and the writers of fraudulent "death-bed scenes" did their best to perpetuate. in such hands the labor of posthumous vilification might have remained without greatly troubling those who feel an interest in thomas paine's honor through gratitude for his work. the lowest scavengers of literature, who purvey religious offal to the dregs of orthodoxy, were better employed thus than in a reverse way, since their praise is so very much more dishonorable and appalling than their blame. but when other literary workmen of loftier repute descend to the level of these, and help them in their villainous task, it becomes advisable that some one who honors the memory of the man thus aspersed should interpose, and attempt that vindication which he can no longer make for himself. in reviewing mr. edward smith's "life of cobbett," our principal literary paper, the athenæum, in its number for january th, went out of its way to defame paine's character. this is what it said:-- "a more despicable man than tom paine cannot easily be found among the ready writers of the eighteenth century. he sold himself to the highest bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. he wrote well; sometimes he wrote as pointedly as junius or cobbett. neither excelled him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in popularity-hunting. he had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of giving happy titles to his productions. when he denounced the british government in the name of 'common sense' he found willing readers in the rebellious american colonists, and a rich reward from their grateful representatives. when he wrote on behalf of the 'rights of man,' and in furtherance of the 'age of reason,' he convinced thousands by his title-pages who were incapable of perceiving the inconclusiveness of his arguments. his speculations have long since gone the way of all shams; and his charlatanism as a writer was not redeemed by his character as a man. nothing could be worse than his private life; he was addicted to the most degrading of vices. he was no hypocrite, however, and he cannot be charged with showing that regard for appearances which constitutes the homage paid by vice to virtue. such a man was well qualified for earning notoriety by insulting washington. only a thorough-paced rascal could have had the assurance to charge washington with being unprincipled and unpatriotic. certainly mr. smith has either much to learn, or else he has forgotten much, otherwise he could not venture to suggest the erection of a monument 'recording the wisdom and political virtues of thomas paine.'" now we have in this tirade all the old charges, with a new one which the critic has either furnished himself or derived from an obscure source--namely, that paine "sold himself to the highest bidder." let us examine the last charge first. the critic curiously contradicts himself. paine, he admits, could "sometimes write as pointedly as junius or cobbett," whose works sold enormously, and he had the art of devising happy titles for his productions; yet, although he sold himself to the highest bidder, he could be bought at a very low price! the fact is, paine was never bought at all. his was not a hireling pen. whatever he wrote he put his name to, and he never parted with the copyright of any of his works, lest the government or some friend of despotism should procure their suppression. he also published his writings at a ridiculously low price, so low indeed that he lost by them instead of gaining. of his "common sense," that fine pamphlet which stirred the american colonists to battle against their oppressors, not less than a hundred thousand copies were sold; yet he found himself finally indebted to his printer £ s. d. fifteen years later the english government tried through the publisher to get the copyright of the "rights of man;" but though a large sum was offered, paine refused on principle to let it pass out of his own hands. the first part of this work was published at a price which precluded any chance of profit; the publication of the second part caused him to be tried and condemned for treason, the penalty of the law being escaped only by flight. all publication of his works, whether political or religious, was afterwards illegal. thousands of copies were circulated surreptitiously, or openly by men like richard carlile, who spent nine years in prison for his sale of prohibited books. but clearly paine could derive no profit from this traffic in his works, for he never set foot in england again. thomas paine wrote in order to spread his political and religious views, and for no other purpose. he was not a professional author, nor a professional critic, and never needed payment for his literary work. and assuredly he got none. let the _athenæum_ critic inform the world to whom paine sold himself, or who ever paid him a penny for his writings. until he does so we shall believe that the author of "common sense," the "rights of man," and the "age of reason," was honest in saying: "in a great affair, where the good of mankind is at stake, i love to work for nothing; and so fully am i under the influence of this principle, that i should lose the spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, were i conscious that i looked for reward." popularity-hunting, to use the critic's graceless phrase, was paine's next fault; but as, according to the same authority, he was guilty in this respect only in the same sense as junius was, the burden of his iniquity cannot be very great. addiction to the most degrading of vices, is a charge difficult to confute until we know specifically what vice is meant. paine has been accused of drunkenness; but by whom? not by his intimate acquaintances, who would have detected his guilt, but by his enemies who were never in his society, and therefore could know nothing of his habits. cheetham, who first disseminated this accusation, was a notorious libeller, and was more than once compelled to make a public apology for his lies; but he was a shameless creature, and actually in his "life" of paine resuscitated and amplified falsehoods for which he had tendered abject apologies while his victim was alive. even, however, if paine had yielded to the seductions of strong drink, he should be judged by the custom of his own age, and not that of ours. mr. leslie stephen does not rail against boswell for his drinking powers; burns is not outlawed for his devotion to john barlycorn; byron and sheridan are not beyond pardon because they often went drunk to bed; and some of the greatest statesmen of last century and this, including pitt and fox, are not considered the basest of men because they exercised that right which major o'gorman claims for all irishmen--"to drink as much as they can carry." but no such plea is necessary, for paine was not addicted to drink, but remarkably abstemious. mr. fellows, with whom he lived for more than six months, said that he never saw him the worse for drink. dr. manley said, "while i attended him he never was inebriated." colonel burr said, "he was decidedly temperate." and even mr. jarvis, whom cheetham cited as his authority for charging paine with drunkenness, authorised mr. vale, of new york, editor of the _beacon_, to say that _cheetham lied_. amongst the public men who knew paine personally were burke, home tooke, priestley, lord edward fitzgerald, dr. moore, jefferson, washington, volney and condorcet: but none of these ever hinted at his love of drink. the charge of drunkeness is a posthumous libel, circulated by a man who had publicly quarrelled with paine, who had been obliged to apologise for former aspersions, and who after paine's death was prosecuted and _condemned_ for libelling a lady whom he had accused of undue familiarity with the principal object of his malice. finding the charge of drunkenness unequivocally rebutted, paine's traducers advance that of licentiousness. but this is equally unsuccessful. the authority relied on is still cheetham, who in turn borrowed from a no less disreputable source. a man named carver had quarrelled with paine over money matters; in fact, he had been obliged with a loan which he forgot to pay, and like all base natures he showed his gratitude to his benefactor, when no more favors could be expected, by hating and maligning him. a scurrilous letter written by this fellow fell into the hands of cheetham, who elaborated it in his "life." it broadly hinted that madame bonneville, the by no means youthful wife of a paris bookseller who had sheltered paine when he was threatened with danger in that city, was his paramour; for no other reason than that he had in turn sheltered her when she repaired with her children to america, after her home had been broken up by buonaparte's persecution of her husband. this lady prosecuted cheetham for libel, and a jury of american citizens gave her a verdict and damages. here the matter might rest, but we are inclined to urge another consideration. no one of his many enemies ever accused paine of licentiousness in his virile manhood; and can we believe that he began a career of licentiousness in his old age, when, besides the infirmities natural to his time of life, he suffered dreadful tortures from an internal abscess brought on by his confinement in the reeking dungeons of the luxembourg, which made life a terror and death a boon? only lunatics or worse would credit such a preposterous story. the _athenoum_ critic alleges that paine insulted washington, and was therefore a "thorough-paced rascal." but he did nothing of the kind. he very properly remonstrated with washington for coolly allowing him to rot in a french dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner, when a word from the president of the united states, of which he was a citizen, would have effected his release. washington was aware of paine's miserable plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship; and notwithstanding frequent letters from munro, the american ambassador at paris, he supinely suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to languish in wretchedness, filth, and disease. george washington did much for american independence, but thomas paine did perhaps more, for his writings animated the oppressed colonists with an enthusiasm for liberty without which the respectable generalship of washington might have been exerted in vain. the first president of the united states was, as carlyle grimly says, "no immeasurable man," and we conceive that paine had earned the right to criticise even him and his policy. every person is of course free to hold what opinion he pleases of paine's writings. the _athenoum_ critic thinks they have "gone the way of all shams." he is wrong in fact, for they circulate very extensively still. and he may also be wrong in his literary judgment. william hazlitt, whose opinion on any subject connected with literature is at least as valuable as an _athenoum_ critic's, ranked paine very high as a political writer, and affirmed of his "rights of man" that it was "a powerful and explicit reply to burke." but hazlitt had read paine, which we suspect many glib critics of to-day have not; for we well remember how puzzled some of them were to explain whence shelley took the motto "we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird" prefixed to his address to the people on the death of the princess charlotte. it was taken, as they should have known, from one of the finest passages of the "rights of man." critics, it is well known, sometimes write as artemus ward proposed to lecture on science, "with an imagination untrammeled by the least knowledge of the subject." let us close this vindication of paine by citing the estimate of him formed by walt whitman, an authority not to be sneered at now even by _athenoum_ critics. in the liberal league of philadelphia celebrated the th birthday of thomas paine, and a large audience was gathered by the announcement that whitman would speak. the great poet, according to the _index_ report, after telling how he had become intimate with some of paine's friends thirty-five years before, went on to say:-- "i dare not say how much of what our union is owning and enjoying to-day, its independence, its ardent belief in, and substantial practice of, radical human rights, and the severance of its government from all ecclesiastical and superstitious dominion--i dare not say how much of all this is owing to thomas paine; but i am inclined to think a good portion of it decidedly is. of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that, as he lived a good life after its kind, he died calmly, philosophically, as became him. he served the embryo union with the most precious service, a service that every man, woman, and child in the thirty-eight states is to some extent receiving the benefit of to-day, and i for one here cheerfully and reverently throw one pebble on the cairn of his memory." we are content to let the reader decide between whitman and the _athenoum_ critic in their respective estimates of him who wrote, and as we think acted up to it--"all the world is my country, and to do good my religion." the gospel of freethought. (august, .) christians are perpetually crying that we destroy and never build up. nothing could be more false, for all negation has a positive side, and we cannot deny error without affirming truth. but even if it were true, it would not lessen the value of our work. you must clear the ground before you can build, and plough before you sow. splendor gives no strength to an edifice whose foundations are treacherous, nor can a harvest be reaped from fields unprepared for the seed. freethought is, in this respect, like a skilful physician, whose function it is to expel disease and leave the patient sound and well. no sick man claims that the doctor shall supply him with something in place of his malady. it is enough that the enemy of his health is driven out. he is then in a position to act for himself. he has legs to walk with, a brain to devise, and hands to execute his will. what more does he need? what more can he ask without declaring himself a weakling or a fool? so it is with superstition, the deadliest disease of the mind. free-thought casts it out, with its blindness and its terrors, and leaves the mind clear and free. all nature is then before us to study and enjoy. truth shines on us with celestial light, goodness smiles on our best endeavors, and beauty thrills our senses and kindles our imagination with the subtle magic of her charms. what a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in quest of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of the chase and the gladness of capture! what a noble privilege to pour treasures of knowledge into the crucible of the brain, and separate gold from the dross! the freethinker takes nothing on trust, if he can help it; he dissects, analyses, and proves everything. does this make him a barren sceptic? not so. what he discards he knows to be worthless, and he also knows the value of what he prizes. if one sweet vision turns out a mirage, how does it lessen our enjoyment at the true oasis, or shake our certitude of water and shade under the palm trees by the well? the masses of men do not think freely. they scarcely think at all out of their round of business. they are trained not to think. from the cradle to the grave orthodoxy has them in its clutches. their religion is settled by priests, and their political and social institutions by custom. they look askance at the man who dares to question what is established; not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ages ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed in nakedness, war-paint, and feathers. the mental stultification which begins in youth reaches ossification as men grow older. lack of thought ends in incapacity to think. real freethought is impossible without education. the mind cannot operate without means or construct without materials. theology opposes education: freethought supports it. the poor as well as the rich should share in its blessings. education is a social capital which should be supplied to all. it enriches and expands. it not only furnishes the mind, but strengthens its faculties. knowledge is power. a race of giants could not level the alps; but ordinary men, equipped with science, bore through their base, and made easy channels for the intercourse of divided nations. growth comes with use, and power with exercise. education makes both possible. it puts the means of salvation at the service of all, and, prevents the faculties from moving about _in vacuo_, and finally standing still from sheer hopelessness. the educated man has a whole magazine of appliances at his command, and his intellect is trained in using them, while the uneducated man has nothing but his strength, and his training is limited to its use. freethought demands education for all. it claims a mental inheritance for every child born into the world. superstition demands ignorance, stupidity, and degradation. wherever the schoolmaster is busy, freethought prospers; where he is not found, superstition reigns supreme and levels the people in the dust. free speech and freethought go together. if one is hampered the other languishes. what is the use of thinking if i may not express my thought? we claim equal liberty for all. the priest shall say what he believes and so shall the sceptic. no law shall protect the one and disfranchise the other. if any man disapproves what i say, he need not hear me a second time. what more does he require? let him listen to what he likes, and leave others to do the same. let us have justice and fair play all round. freethought is not only useful but laudable. it involves labor and trouble. ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of faith. the freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he spreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. what though tempests beat and billows roar? he is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of danger to the sluggard and the slave. he will not pay their price for ease and safety. away he sails with vigilance at the prow and wisdom at the helm. he not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped coasts and ventures on uncharted seas. he gathers spoils in every zone, and returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. some day or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lost. perhaps. all things end somehow. but if he goes down he will die like a man and not like a coward, and have for his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the anthem of the waves. doubt is the beginning of wisdom. it means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. faith means negligence, serfdom, insincerity and deception. the man who never doubts never thinks. he is like a straw in the wind or a waif on the sea. he is one of the helpless, docile, unquestioning millions, who keep the world in a state of stagnation, and serve as a fulcrum for the lever of despotism. the stupidity of the people, says whitman, is always inviting the insolence of power. buckle has well said that scepticism is "the necessary antecedent of all progress." without it we should still be groping in the night of the dark ages. the very foundations of modern science and philosophy were laid on ground which was wrested from the church, and every stone was cemented with the blood of martyrs. as the edifice arose the sharpshooters of faith attacked the builders at every point, and they still continue their old practice, although their missiles can hardly reach the towering heights where their enemies are now at work. astronomy was opposed by the church because it unsettled old notions of the earth being the centre of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars mere lights stuck in the solid firmament, and worked to and fro like sliding panels. did not the bible say that general joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and how could this have happened unless it moved round the earth? and was not the earth certainly flat, as millions of flats believed it to be? the catholic inquisition forced galileo to recant, and protestant luther called copernicus "an old fool." chemistry was opposed as an impious prying into the secrets of god. it was put in the same class with sorcery and witchcraft, and punished in the same way. the early chemists were considered as agents of the devil, and their successors are still regarded as "uncanny" in the more ignorant parts of christendom. roger bacon was persecuted by his brother monks; his testing fire was thought to have come from the pit, and the explosion of his gunpowder was the devil vanishing in smoke and smell. even at the end of last century, the clergy-led mob of birmingham who wrecked priestley's house and destroyed his apparatus, no doubt felt that there was a close connexion between chemistry and infidelity. physiology and medicine were opposed on similar grounds. we were all fearfully and wonderfully made, and the less the mystery was looked into the better. disease was sent by god for his own wise ends, and to resist it was as bad as blasphemy. every discovery and every reform was decried as impious. men now living can remember how the champions of faith denounced the use of anaesthetics in painful labor as an interference with god's curse on the daughters of eve. geology was opposed because it discredited moses, as though that famous old jew had watched the deposit of every stratum of the earth's crust. it was even said that fossils had been put underground by god to puzzle the wiseacres, and that the devil had carried shells to the hilltops for the purpose of deluding men to infidelity and perdition. geologists were anathematised from the pulpits and railed at by tub-thumpers. they were obliged to feel their way and go slowly. sir charles lyell had to keep back his strongest conclusions for at least a quarter of a century, and could not say all he thought until his head was whitened by old age and he looked into the face of death. biology was opposed tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. it exposed genesis and put moses out of court. it destroyed all special creation, showed man's kinship with other forms of life, reduced adam and eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the fall. darwin was for years treated as antichrist, and huxley as the great beast. all that is being changed, thanks to the sceptical spirit. darwin's corpse is buried in westminster abbey, but his ideas are undermining all the churches and crumbling them into dust. the gospel of freethought brands persecution as the worst crime against humanity. it stifles the spirit of progress and strangles its pioneers. it eliminates the brave, the adventurous and the aspiring, and leaves only the timid, the sluggish and the grovelling. it removes the lofty and spares the low. it levels all the hills of thought and makes an intellectual flatness. it drenches all the paths of freedom with blood and tears, and makes earth the vestibule of hell. persecution is the right arm of priestcraft. the black militia of theology are the sworn foes of freethought. they represent it as the sin against the holy ghost, for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the next. when they speak of the holy ghost they mean themselves. freethought is a crime against _them_. it strips off the mystery that invests their craft, and shows them as they really are, a horde of bandits who levy black mail on honest industry, and preach a despot in heaven in order to main-tain their own tyranny on earth. the gospel of freethought would destroy all priesthoods. every man should be his own priest. if a professional soul-doctor gives you wrong advice and leads you to ruin, he will not be damned for you he will see you so first. we must take all responsibility, and we should also take the power. instead of putting our thinking out, as we put our washing, let us do it at home. no man can do another's thinking for him. what is thought in the originator is only acquiescence in the man who takes it at secondhand. if we do our own thinking in religion we shall do it in everything else. we reject authority and act for ourselves. spiritual and temporal power are brought under the same rule. they must justify themselves or go. the freethinker is thus a politician and a social reformer. what a christian _may_ be he _must_ be. freethinkers are naturally radicals. they are almost to a man on the side of justice freedom and progress. the tories know this, and hence they seek to suppress us by the violence of unjust law. they see that we are a growing danger to every kind of privilege, a menace to all the idle classes who live in luxury on the sweat and labor of others--the devouring drones who live on the working bees. the gospel of freethought teaches us to distinguish between the knowable and the unknowable. we cannot fathom the infinite "mystery of the universe" with our finite plummet, nor see aught behind the veil of death. here is our appointed province: "this world which is the world of all of us, and where in the end we find our happiness or not at all." let us make the best of this world and take our chance of any other. if there is a heaven, we dare say it will hold all honest men. if it will not, those who go elsewhere will at least be in good company. our salvation is here and now. it is certain and not contingent. we need not die before we realise it. ours is a gospel, and the only gospel, for this side of the grave. the promises of theology cannot be made good till after death; ours are all redeemable in this life. we ask men to acknowledge realities and dismiss fictions. when you have sifted all the learned sermons ever preached, you will find very little good grain. theology deals with dreams and phantasies, and gives no guidance to practical men. the whole truth of life may be summed up in a few words. happiness is the only good, suffering the only evil, and selfishness the only sin. and the whole duty of man may be expressed in one sentence, slightly altered from voltaire--learn what is true in order to do what is right. if a man can tell you anything about these matters, listen to him; if not, turn a deaf ear, and let him preach to the wind. the only noble things in this world are great hearts and great brains, there is no virtue in a starveling piety which turns all beauty into ugliness and shrivels up every natural affection. let the heart beat high with courage and enterprise, and throb with warm passion. let the brain be an active engine of thought, imagination and will. the gospel of sorrow has had its day, and the time has come for the gospel of gladness. let us live out our lives to the full, radiating joy on all in our own circle, and diffusing happiness through the grander circle of humanity, until at last we retire from the banquet of life, as others have done before us, and sink in eternal repose. freethought in current literature. [a paper read at the annual conference of the national secular society, in the co-operative hall, bury, june th, .] when i was invited to read a paper at this conference, i thought that, as editor of the freethinker, i ought to say something about freethonght. and as the deliberations of this conference are mostly on practical matters, it occurred to me that i had better select a subject of less immediate though not of insignificant interest. so i resolved to address you on freethonght in current literature. i have said that this subject, if not practical and urgent, is assuredly not unimportant. the power of literature over men's minds cannot be estimated too highly. science is a tremendous force, but its greatest influence is exercised over the human mind when it quits the merely practical task of ministering to our material desires, and seeks to mould our moral and spiritual conceptions of our position and destiny in the universe. to do this it must address us through the medium of literature. art also is a great force, more especially in countries which have not been subjected, like ours, to the bondage of puritanism. but art has hitherto appealed to a restricted circle, although that circle is rapidly widening in our own age. the greatest, most permanent, and most universal force is literature. raphael and michael angelo have not influenced the world so profoundly as shakespeare and dante; while so many artistic achievements of antiquity are lost or half decayed, its literary masterpieces still survive with undiminished freshness and charm; and while the most eminent works even of contemporary artists are seen only occasionally by a few, the most eminent writings of the world's master minds may and do become a household possession to thousands who move in the humblest spheres of life. in these cosmopolitan days the freethinker and humanitarian naturally looks beyond his own country into the great world, which is at present divided by national and other barriers, but which will in time become the home of one all-embracing family. and i confess that i was strongly tempted to trace the workings of the spirit of freethought as far as i could in the general literature of europe. but i soon recognised the necessity of limiting myself to the manifestations of that subtle and pervasive spirit in the current literature of our english tongue. when the present century commenced europe was stirred to the utter depths by that great french revolution which marked a new epoch in the world's history. the revolutionary wave surged across the western world, and passed over england as well as other countries. some thought the huge eclipse of social order which accompanied it the herald of approaching night, and others thought it the dawn of a new day; but none were indifferent. there was an intense excitement of radical passions and desires, a quickening of all the springs of life. this produced a blossoming of our literature such as had not been witnessed since the great elizabethan age, and then, as before, free-thought mixed with the vital sap. of the long array of post-revolutionary names i select three--thomas paine, who represented the keen and restless common-sense of freethought; william godwin, who represented its calmer philosophy; and shelley, who represented its lofty hopes and soaring aspirations. godwin has almost faded into a name; paine's great work is nearly done, for a deeper and more scientific scepticism has possessed itself of the field in which he labored; but shelley has a message for generations yet unborn. he emerges as the supreme figure destined to immortality of fame. all great and noble and beautiful qualities cohere in him, the "poet of poets and purest of men." and he is ours. byron, with all his splendid energy and terrible scorn, quailed before the supreme problems of life; but shelley faced them with a courage all the greater because it was unconscious, and casting aside all superstitious dreams and illusory hopes, yearned prophetically towards the future, when freedom, truth and love shall supersede all other trinities, and realise here on earth that paradise which theologians have only promised in a world to come. a shelley cultus has grown up during recent years, and many of our most gifted writers reverently bow themselves before him. i have only to mention such names as browning, swinburne, and rossetti to show the intellectual rank of his worshippers. their number increases every year, and it is touching to witness the avidity with which they seize on all new facts relating to him, whether the record of some episode in his life, a reported conversation, or a scrap of writing from his hand. from the shelley and byron period to the fresh revolutionary outburst of there was a lull in england as well as elsewhere. several great political reforms were achieved in the interval. a reform bill was carried. catholics and jews were emancipated, and freedom and cheapness of the press were won by the untameable courage of men like carlile, hetherington, lovett, and watson. but quietude reigned in the higher spheres of literature. the age was eminently respectable, and it acclaimed the highly respectable wordsworth as, the prophet divinely inspired to teach men how to rest and be thankful. but during that interval of apathy and respectability, science was slowly gathering strength and making conquests, in preparation for the time when she might plant her feet firmly on the solid ground she had won, and challenge theology to mortal combat. geology and biology, in especial, were getting themselves ready to overthrow the fables of genesis and destroy its doctrines of special creation. and one is glad to admit that they have completely succeeded at last. professor huxley declares that he is not acquainted with any man of science or properly instructed person who believes that adam and eve were the first parents of mankind, or that we have all descended from the eight persons who superintended that wonderful floating menagerie which survived a universal deluge less than five thousand years ago. and all the clergy can say in reply is that professor huxley is not endowed with that theological faculty which enables them to perceive in the language of scripture a meaning which is quite undiscernible to the eyes of common sense. another influence was at work during that interval. mainly through carlyle, the treasures of german literature were opened up to english readers. the greatest german writers, from leasing, göethe, and schiller to fichte, richter, and heine, were outrageous freethinkers compared with our own respectable and orthodox writers, and their influence soon made itself evident in the tolerance and courage with which english authors began to treat the great problems of morality and religion. german scholarship, too, slowly crept among us. its biblical criticism showed us the utter inadequacy of evidential works like paley's, and made us see that the christian scriptures would have to be viewed in a very different light and studied in a very different spirit. to estimate the extent of this change, we have only to place paley's "evidences of christianity" beside such a work as "supernatural religion." the gulf between these works is enormous; and it is notable that the more scientific and rigorous is the criticism of the new testament books, the more heterodox are the conclusions reached. even scotland has been invaded by this german influence, and it now affords us the laughable spectacle of a number of grave ministers pursuing as a damnable heretic a man like dr. robertson smith, whose only crime is having stated about the bible nothing new, but what every scholar in europe knows to be admitted and indisputable. these solemn ministers of the old creed are determined to keep the deluge of what they call "german infidelity" from flooding the valleys and mounting the hillsides of scotland; but their heresy-hunts are just as efficacious against what they so piously dread as mrs. partington's mop against the mighty onrush of atlantic rollers. with the revolutionary movement of ' came a fresh impulse from france. the great evangel of ' had not perished; it was only in abeyance; and again it burst upon europe with its words of fire. we all know how the republic which was then established was soon suppressed in blood by the gang of adventurers presided over by napoleon the little. but the day of retribution came, and the empire went the way of all tyrannies. on its ruins the republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in its service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest characters in france; while the masses of the people, taught by the bitter lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of ordered liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway. now french progress has always been a question of ideas no less than of material advantage. the great democratic leaders in france have nearly all been avowed freethinkers. they have separated themselves alike from "the blood on the hands of the king and the lie at the lips of the priest," being perfectly assured that outward freedom in politics is in the long run impossible without inward freedom of thought. the chief statesman in france, m. gambetta, has publicly declared himself a disciple of voltaire, and neither at the marriages nor at the funerals of his friends does he ever enter the doors of a church. he stays outside and quietly allows those who desire it to go in and listen to the mumbling of the priest. my purpose, however, being literary and not political, i must recur to my remark that a fresh impulse came to us from france after the revolution of ' . lamartine at first exercised considerable influence here, but gradually victor hugo's star ascended, and from the moment it reached the zenith until now, he has been accounted the supreme poet of france, and the greatest contemporary evangelist of the ideas of ' . he is a freethinker as well as a republican; and it was inevitable that the younger school of writers in england, who acknowledge him as a lofty master, should drink from his inexhaustible spring the living waters of democracy and freethought. french influence on our very recent literature is evident in such works as mr. john morley's studies on voltaire, rousseau, diderot, and condorcet; mr. christie's monumental life of etienne dolet, the freethought martyr; and mr. parton's new life of voltaire; all of which demand and will amply requite our attention. such are the influences which have conspired to shape the literary activities of the generation in which we live. now freethought, like a subtle essence, penetrates everywhere. every book betrays its presence, and even the periodical literature of our age is affected by it. the archbishop of canterbury laments that christian men cannot introduce the most respectable magazines into their homes without the risk of poisoning the minds of their families with heretical ideas. one of the signs that freethought had begun to leaven the educated classes was the publication of the famous "essays and reviews." the heresy of that book was exceedingly small, but it roused a great storm in the religious world and led to more than one clerical prosecution. another sign was the publication of colenso's learned work on the pentateuch. this hard-working colonial bishop was denounced as a heretic by the idler home bishops, and ruskin has said that they would have liked to burn colenso alive, and make ludgate hill easier for the omnibuses with the cinders of him. an antagonist very different from the bishops was mr. matthew arnold, who severely censured colenso's whole method of criticism, as a handling of religious questions in an irreligious spirit. mr. w. r. greg admirably defended the bishop, and the controversy ended in a drawn battle. but what has happened since? the same matthew arnold who censured colenso has himself published two remarkable works on "literature and dogma" and "god and the bible," written it is true on a different plan from colenso's, but containing a hundred times more heresy than the bishop crammed into all his big volumes. for mr. arnold deprecates the idea of a personal god, likens the christian trinity to three lord shaftesburys, and says that the bible miracles must all be given up without reservation. all the positive religion he leaves us is the belief in "an eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness," which is about as nebulous a creed as ever was preached. now mr. arnold is not an insignificant person. he is recognised as a past-master of english letters, a ripe scholar, a fine poet, and an exquisite critic. when such a man carries destructive criticism to its utmost limits, we may well congratulate ourselves on a signal triumph of freethought. and we may also find comfort in the fact that nobody thinks of flinging a stone at mr. arnold for his heresy. by-and-by the censors of religion in the press will cease to throw stones at the freethought teachers among the masses of the people, who only put into homlier english and publish in a cheaper form the sentiments and ideas which mr. arnold expresses for the educated classes at a higher price and in a loftier style. during the winter a gap was made in the front rank of english literature by the deaths of carlyle and george eliot. neither of these great writers was orthodox. carlyle was a freethinker to the extent of discarding christian supernaturalism. very early in his life he told edward irving that he did not, nor was it likely he ever would, regard christianity as he did. we all remember, too, his scornful references to hebrew old clothes, and his fierce diatribes against the clergy who, he said, went about with strange gear on their heads, and underneath it such a theory of the universe as he, for one, was thankful to have no concern with. in the "latter-day pamphlets" he likened christianity to a great tree, sprung from the seed of nazareth, and since fed by the opulences of fifty generations; which now is perishing at the root, and sways to and fro ever farther and farther from the perpendicular; and which in the end must come down, and leave to those who found shelter beneath it and thought it infinite, a wholesome view of the upper eternal lights. and his contempt for controversial or dogmatic theology may be gauged by his reply to one who asked him whether he was a pantheist. "no," said carlyle, "never was; nor a pot-theist either." george eliot was notoriously a freethinker. early in her literary career she translated strauss and feuerback into english, and through all her novels there runs a profound secular spirit. among her friends she was well known to be a positivist; and though her creed held forth no promise of personal life beyond the grave, she found inspiration and comfort in the thought that humanity would advance after she was gone, that though she died the race was practically immortal. her mind was thoroughly imbued with the scientific spirit, and her writings give some conception of the way in which the evolution theory affected a mind, fortified by culture and abundant common sense against the crudities of enthusiasm. the doctrine of evolution did not fill her with despair; on the contrary, it justified and strengthened her ardent hopes for the future of mankind. many other novelists betray a strong spirit of freethought. it pervades all george meredith's later writings, and is still more conspicuous in mrs. lynn linton's "true history of joshua davidson" and her powerful "under which lord?" the hero-husband of that story being an agnostic gentleman who founds a workmen's institute and delivers freethought lectures in it. almost all the young school of poets are freethinkers. browning, our greatest, and tennyson, our most popular, belong to a generation that is past. mr. swinburne is at the head of the new school, and he is a notorious heretic. he never sings more loftily, or with stronger passion, or with finer thought, than when he arraigns and denounces priestcraft and its superstitions before the bar of humanity and truth. the reception of mr. thomsons poems and essays affords another sign of the progress of freethought. this gentleman for many years contributed to secular journals under the initials of "b. v." he is a pronounced atheist, and makes no concealment of it in his poems. yet, while a few critics have expressed horror at his heresy, the majority have treated it as extremely natural in an educated thoughtful man, and confined themselves to the task of estimating the genius he has put into his work. i must now draw to a close. freethought, i hold, is an omnipresent active force in the english literature of to-day. it appears alike in the greatest works of scholarship, in the writings of men of science, in the songs of poets, in the productions of novelists, in the most respectable magazines, and in the multitudinous daily press. it is urgent and aggressive, and tolerates no restraint. it indicates the progress we have made towards that time when the mind of man shall play freely on every subject, when no question shall be thought too sacred to be investigated, when reason shall be the sovereign arbiter of all disputes, when priestly authority shall have perished, when every man's thought shall decide his own belief, and his conscience determine the way in which he shall walk. dean stanley's latest. (august, .) at one of charles lamb's delightful wednesday evenings coleridge had, as usual, consumed more than his fair share of time in talking of some "regenerated" orthodoxy. leigh hunt, who was one of the listeners, manifested his surprise at the prodigality and intensity of the poet's religious expressions, and especially at his always speaking of jesus as "our savior." whereupon lamb, slightly exhilarated by a glass of gooseberry cordial, stammered out, "ne--ne--never mind what coleridge says; he's full of fun." this jocular and irreverent criticism is perhaps, after all, the most pertinent that can be passed on the utterances of this school of "regenerated orthodoxy." coleridge, who had unbounded genius, and was intellectually capable of transforming british philosophy, went on year after year maundering about his "sumject" and "omject," mysteriously alluding to his great projected work on the logos, and assuring everybody that he knew a way of bringing all ascertained truth within the dogmas of the church of england. his pupil, maurice, wasted a noble intellect (as mill says, few of his contemporaries had so much intellect to waste) in the endeavor to demonstrate that the thirty-nine articles really anticipated all the extremest conclusions of modern thought; afflicting himself perpetually, as has been well said, with those "forty stripes save one." and now we have dean stanley, certainly a much smaller man than maurice, and infinitely smaller than coleridge, continuing the traditions of the school, of which let us hope he will be the last teacher. what his theology precisely is no mortal can determine. he subscribes the doctrines of the church of england, but then he interprets them in an esoteric sense; that is, of course, in a stanleyan sense; for when the letter of doctrine is left for its occult meaning every man "runs" a private interpretation of his own. the _nineteenth century_ for august contains a characteristic specimen of his exegesis. it is entitled "the creed of the early christians," but is really a sermon on the trinity, which doubtless has been preached at westminster. we shall examine its peculiarities and try to reach its meaning; a task by no means easy, and one which we could pardon anyone for putting aside with lamb's remark, "it's only his fun." dean stanley has a new theory of the trinity, partly deduced from other mystics, and partly constructed on the plan of the negro who explained that his wooden doll was made "all by myself, out of my own head." god the father, in this as in other theories, comes first: not that he is older or greater than the other persons, for they are all three coequal and coëternal; but because you must have a first for the sake of enumeration, or else the most blessed trinity would be like the irishman's little pig who ran about so that there was no counting him. there is also another reason. god the father corresponds to _natural_ religion, which of course has priority in the religious development of mankind; coming before _revealed_ religion, to which god the son corresponds, and still more before _spiritual_ religion to which corresponds the holy ghost. "we look round the physical world; we see indications of order, design, and good will towards the living creatures which animate it. _often, it is true, we cannot trace any such design_; but, whenever we can, the impression upon us is the sense of a single, wise, beneficent mind, the same now that it was ages before the appearance of man--the same in other parts of the universe as it is in our own. and in our own hearts and consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this--a voice, a faculty, that seems to refer us to a higher power than ourselves, and to point to some invisible sovereign will, like to that which we see impressed on the natural world. and further, the more we think of the supreme, the more we try to imagine what his feelings are towards us, the more our idea of him becomes fixed as in the one simple, all-embracing word that he is _our father_." the words we have italicised say that design cannot _always_ be traced in nature. we should like to know where it can _ever_ be. evolution shows that the design argument puts the cart before the horse. natural selection, as dr. schmidt appositely remarks, accounts for adaptation as a _result_ without requiring the supposition of design as a _cause_. and if you cannot deduce god from the animate world, you are not likely to deduce him from the inanimate. dean stanley himself quotes some remarkable words from dr. newman's _apologia_--"the being of a god is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence. yet when i look out of myself into the world of men, i see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. _the world of men seems simply to give the lie to that great truth_ of which my whole being is so full. if i looked into a mirror and did not see my face, i should experience the same sort of difficulty that actually comes upon me when _i look into this living busy world and see no reflection of its creator._" how, asks the dean, is this difficulty to be met? oh, he replies, | we must turn to god the son in the person of jesus christ, and his utterances will supplement and correct the uncertain sounds of nature; and then there is the holy ghost to finally supply all omissions, and clear up all difficulties. now to our mind this is simply intellectual thimble-rigging. or rather does it not suggest the three-card trick? one card is useless, two cards are unsafe, but with three cards to shuffle you are almost sure to win. dr. newman gets his god through intuition; he maintains that the existence of god is a primary fact of consciousness, and entirely declines the impossible task of proving it from the phænomena of nature. dean stanley should do the same. it is not honest to employ an argument and then shirk all the difficulties it raises by resorting to the theological three-card trick, which confounds instead of satisfying the spectator, while emptying his mental pockets of the good cash of common sense. the dean's treatment of god the son is amusing. he writes of jesus christ as though he were a principle instead of a person. "the mahometan," he says, "_rightly_ objects to the introduction of the paternal and filial relations into the idea of god, when they are interpreted in the _gross and literal sense_. but in the moral spiritual sense it is true that the kindness, tenderness and wisdom we find in jesus christ is the reflection of the same kindness, tenderness and wisdom which we recognise in the governance of the universe." this may be called mysticism, but we think it moonshine. gross and literal sense, forsooth! why, was not jesus christ a man, a most literal fact, "gross as a mountain, open, palpable?" dean stanley approves the mahometan's objection, and yet he knows full well that it contravenes a fundamental dogma of the christian church, and is accounted a most damnable heresy. why this paltering with us in a double sense? to our mind downright blatant orthodoxy, which is at least honest if not subtle, is preferable to this hybrid theology which attempts to reconcile contradictions in order to show respect to truth while sticking to the flesh-pots of error, and evades all difficulties by a patent and patently dishonest method of "interpretation." quoting goethe's "wilhelm meister," dean stanley tells us that one great benefit traceable to god the son is the recognition of "humility and poverty, mockery and despising, wretchedness and suffering, as divine." well, if these things are divine, the sooner we all become devilish the better. nobody thinks them divine when they happen to himself; on the contrary, he cries out lustily against them. but it is a different matter when they happen to others. then the good christian considers them divine. how easily, says a french wit, we bear other people's troubles! undistracted by personal care, pious souls contemplate with serene resignation the suffering of their neighbors, and acknowledge in them the chastening hand of a divine father. god the holy ghost represents _spiritual_ religion: the father represents god in nature, the son represents god in history, and "the holy ghost represents to us god in our own hearts and spirits and consciences." here be truths! an illustration is given. theodore parker, when a boy, took up a stone to throw at a tortoise in a pond, but felt himself restrained by something within him; and that something, as his mother told him, was the voice of god, or in other words the holy ghost. now if the holy ghost is required to account for every kind impulse of boys and men, there is required also an unholy ghost to account for all our unkind impulses. that is, a place in theology must be found for the devil. the equilateral triangle of theology must be turned into a square, with old nick for the fourth side. but dean stanley does not like the devil; he deems him not quite respectable enough for polite society. let him, then, give up the holy ghost too, for the one is the correlative of the other. "it may be," says the dean, after interpreting the trinity, "that the biblical words in some respects fall short of this high signification." what, god's own language inferior to that of the dean of westminster? surely this is strange arrogance, unless after all "it's only his fun." perhaps that is how we should take it. referring to some sacred pictures in the old churches of the east on mount athos, intended to represent the doctrine of the trinity, the dean says that standing on one side the spectator sees only christ on the cross, standing on the other he sees only the holy dove, while standing in front he sees only the eternal father. very admirable, no doubt. but there is a more admirable picture described by mr. herbert spencer in his "study of sociology," which graphically represents the doctrine of the trinity in the guise of three persons trying to stand in one pair of boots! goethe is cited as a christian, a believer in the trinity. doubtless the dean forgets his bitter epigram to the effect that he found four things too hard to put up with, and as hateful as poison and serpents; namely, tobacco, garlic, bugs, and the _cross_. heine also is pressed into service, and an excellent prose translation of one of his poems is given, wherein he celebrates the holy ghost, the spirit of god. but dean stanley has read his heine to little purpose if he imagines that this radiant and splendid soldier of progress meant by the spirit of god the third person of the christian trinity. heine was no christian, and the very opposite of a theologian. we might translate passages of scathing irony on the ascetic creed of the cross from the _de l'allemagne_, but space does not admit. a few of heine's last words must do instead. to adolph stahr he said: "for the man in good health christianity is an unserviceable religion, with its resignation and one-sided precepts. for the sick man, however, i assure you it is a very good religion." to alfred meissner: "when health is used up, money used up, _and sound human sense used up_, christianity begins." once, while lying on his mattress-grave, he said with a sigh: "if i could even get out on crutches, do you know whither i would go? straight to church." and when his hearer looked incredulous, he added: "most decidedly to church. _where else should one go with crutches?_" such exquisite and mordant irony is strange indeed in a defender of the holy and blessed trinity. dean stanley's peroration runs thus:--"wherever we are taught to know and understand the real nature of the world in which our lot is cast, there is a testimony, however humble, to the name of the father; wherever we are taught to know and admire the highest and best of human excellence, there is a testimony to the name of the son: wherever there is implanted in us a presence of freedom, purity and love, there is a testimony to the name of the holy ghost." very fine, no doubt; also very soporific. one is inclined to mutter a sleepy amen. if this passage means anything at all it implies that all who know truth, admire excellence, and have any share in freedom and virtue, are testators to the names of father, son and holy ghost; so that many atheists are trinitarians without knowing it. "in christianity," says the dean, "no thing is of real concern except that which makes us wiser and better." that is precisely what the sceptic says, yet for that coroners reject his service on juries, and rowdy christians try to keep him out of parliament when he has a legal right to enter. but the dean adds: "everything which does make us wiser and better is the very thing which christianity intends." that is, christianity means just what you like to find in it. how can a man of dean stanley's eminence and ability write such dishonest trash? must we charitably, though with a touch of sarcasm, repeat lamb's words of coleridge--"never mind; it's only his fun?" god and the queen. (march, .) the queen is now safely lodged at mentone. although-the political outlook is not very bright, there is pretty sure to be a good solid majority to vote a dowry for prince leopold's bride; and so long as royalty is safe it does not much matter what becomes of the people. that dreadful bradlaugh is gagged; _he_ cannot open his mouth in the house of commons against perpetual pensions or royal grants. the interests of monarchy are in no immediate peril, and so the queen is off to mentone. now she is gone, and the loyal hubbub has subsided, it is just the time to consider her late "providential escape" from the bullet which was never fired at her. what is the meaning of _providential?_ god does all or nothing. there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow, as well as in the fall of empires. in that case _everything_ is providential. but this is not the ordinary view. when a railway accident occurs those who do not come to grief ascribe their preservation to providence. who then is responsible for the fate of those who perish? centuries ago christians would have answered, "the devil." now they give no answer at all, but treat the question as frivolous or profane. thomas cooper, in his _autobiography_, says that the perfecting touch was given to his conversion by an interposition of god. during a collision, the carriage in which he sat was lifted clean on to another line of rails, and thus escaped the fate of the other carriages, which were broken to pieces. pious thomas recognised at once the finger of god, and he there and then fell on his knees and offered up a thanksgiving. he was too vain to carry his argument out to its logical end. why did the lord protect him, and not his fellow-travellers? was he of more importance than any of the others? and why, if it was right to thank god for saving thomas cooper, would it be wrong to curse him for smashing all the rest? this superstition of providence is dying out. common people are gradually being left to the laws of nature. if a workhouse were to catch on fire, no one would speak of those who escaped the flames as providentially saved. god does not look after the welfare of paupers; nor is it likely that he would pluck a charwoman's brat out of the fire if it tumbled in during her absence. such interpositions are absurd. but with kings, queens, princes, princesses, and big nobs in general, the case is different. god looks after the quality. he stretches forth his hand to save them from danger, from the pestilence that walketh by day and the terror that walketh by night. and his worshippers take just the same view of the "swells." when the queen came to london, a few weeks ago, one of her mounted attendants was thrown and badly hurt; and the next day one of the loyal tory papers reported that her majesty had completely recovered from the accident to her outrider! but if the lord overlooks the great ones of the earth, why is he not impartial? he did not turn aside guiteau's bullet, nor did he answer the prayers of a whole nation on its knees. president garfield was allowed to die after a long agony. poor mrs. garfield believed up to the very last minute that god would interpose and save her husband. but he never did. why was he so indifferent in this case? was it because garfield was a president instead of a king, the elected leader of free men instead of the hereditary ruler of political slaves? informer newdegate would say so. in his opinion god almighty hates republicans. yet the bible clearly shows that the lord is opposed to monarchy. he gave his chosen people a king as a punishment, after plainly telling them what an evil they had sought; and there is perhaps a covert irony in the story of saul, the son of kish, who went to seek his father's asses and found instead a nation of subjects--two-legged asses, who begged him to mount them and ride. take another case. why did god permit the nihilists to assassinate the late czar of russia? all their previous plots had failed. why was the last plot allowed to succeed? there is only one answer. god had nothing to do with any of them, and the last succeeded because it was better devised and more carefully executed. if god protected the czar against their former attempts, they were too many for him in the end; that is, they defeated omnipotence--an absurdity too flagrant for any sane man to believe. why should god care for princes more than for peasants, for queens more than for washerwomen? there is no difference in their compositions; they are all made of the same flesh and blood. the very book these loyal gushers call the word of god declares that he is no respecter of persons. what are the distinctions of rank and wealth? mere nothings. look down from an altitude of a thousand feet, and an emperor and his subjects shall appear equally small; and what are even a thousand feet in the infinite universe? nay, strip them of all their fictions of dress; reduce them to the same condition of featherless bipeds; and you shall find the forms of strength or beauty, and the power of brain, impartially distributed by nature, who is the truest democrat, who raises her shakespeares from the lowest strata of society, and laughs to scorn the pride of palaces and thrones. providence is an absurdity, a superstitious relic of the ignorant past. sensible men disbelieve it, and scientists laugh it to scorn. our very moral sense revolts against it. why should god help a few of his children and neglect all the others? explosions happen in mines, and scores of honest industrious men, doing the rough work of the world and winning bread for wife and child, are blown to atoms or hurled into shapeless death. god does not help them, and tears moisten the dry bread of half-starved widows and orphans. sailors on the mighty deep go down with uplifted hands, or slowly gaze their life away on the merciless heavens. the mother bends over her dying child, the first flower of her wedded love, the sweetest hope of her life. she is rigid with despair, and in her hot tearless eyes there dwells a dumb misery that would touch a heart of stone. but god does not help, the death-curtain falls, and darkness reigns where all was light. who has the audacity to say that the god who will not aid a mother in the death-chamber shelters the queen upon her throne? it is an insult to reason and a ghastly mockery of justice. the impartiality of nature is better than the mercy of such a god. cardinal newman on infidelity. (april, .) cardinal newman is perhaps the only catholic in england worth listening to. he has immured his intellect in the catacombs of the romish church, but he has not been able to quench it, and even there it radiates a splendor through the gloom. his saintly character is as indubitable as the subtlety of his mind, and no vicissitude has impaired the charm of his style, which is pure and perfect as an exquisite and flawless diamond; serene and chaste in its usual mood, but scintillating gloriously in the light of his imagination. on sunday last cardinal newman preached a sermon at the oratory in birmingham on "modern infidelity." unfortunately we have not a full report, from which we might be able to extract some notable passages, but only a newspaper summary. even this, however, shows some points of interest. cardinal newman told his hearers that "a great storm of infidelity and irreligion was at hand," and that "some dreadful spiritual catastrophe was coming upon them." we quite agree with the great preacher; but every storm is not an evil, and every catastrophe is not a disaster. the revolutionary storm in france cleared the air of much pestilence. it dissipated as by enchantment the horrible cloud of tyranny, persecution and want, which had for centuries hovered over the land. and certainly, to go back a stage farther in history, the reformation was not a misfortune, although it looked like a "spiritual catastrophe" to a great many amiable people. the truth is, revolutions must occur in this world, both in thought and in action. they may happen slowly, so that we may accommodate ourselves to them; or rapidly, and so disturb and injure whole generations. but come they must, and no power can hinder them; not even that once mighty church which has always striven to bind humanity to the past with adamantine chains of dogma. in cardinal newman's own words, from perhaps his greatest and most characteristic book,--"here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." we cannot say that cardinal newman indicates how humanity will suffer from the "coming storm of infidelity and irreligion." he does, indeed, refer to the awful state of a people forsaken by god, but in our humble opinion this is somewhat ludicrous. we can hardly understand how god can forsake his own creatures. why all this pother if he really exists? in that case our scepticism cannot affect him, any more than a man's blindness obscures the sun. and surely, if omnipotence desired us all to believe the truth, the means are ready to hand. the god who said, let there be light, and there was light, could as easily say, let all men be christians, and they would be christians. if god had spoken the universe would be convinced; and the fact that it is not convinced proves, either that he does not exist, or that he purposely keeps silent, and desires that we should mind our own business. the only tangible evil cardinal newman ventures to indicate is the "indignity which at this moment has come over the holy father at rome." he declares, as to the pope, that "there hardly seems a place in the whole of europe where he could put his foot." the catholics are carrying this pretence of a captive pope a trifle too far. his holiness must have a tremendous foot if he cannot put it fairly down on the floor of the vatican. he and his cardinals really wail over their loss of temporal power. it would be wiser and nobler to reconcile themselves to the inevitable, and to end the nefarious diplomacy by which they are continually striving to recover what is for ever lost. the whole world is aware of the scandalous misrule and the flagrant immorality which, under the government of the papacy, made the eternal city a byword and a reproach. under the secular government, rome has made wonderful progress. it has better streets, cleaner inhabitants, less fever and filth, and a much smaller army of priests, beggars, and prostitutes. catholics may rest assured that the bad old times will never return. they may, of course, promise a reformation of manners if the holy father's dominion is restored, but the world will not believe them. reforming the papacy, as carlyle grimly said, is like tinkering a rusty old kettle. if you stop up the holes of it with temporary putty, it may hang together for awhile; but "begin to hammer at it, solder it, to what you call mend and rectify it,--it will fall to shreds, as sure as rust is rust; go all into nameless dissolution,--and the fat in the fire will be a thing worth looking at, poor pope!" as a sincere christian (a very rare thing, by the way, in these days), cardinal newman is bound to lament the spread of infidelity. he is a keen observer, and his word may be taken for the fact. a stormy time is undoubtedly coming. old creeds and institutions will have to give an account of themselves, and nothing that cannot stand the test will live. but truth will not suffer. criticise the multiplication table as much as you please, and twice two will still be four. in the storm and stress of controversy what is true and solid will survive; only the hollow shams of authority and superstition will collapse. humanity has nothing to fear, however the churches may groan. sunday tyranny. (may, .) last sunday the myriads of paris turned out to the chantilly races. the sun shone brilliantly, and all went merry as a marriage bell. yet there was no drunkenness or disorder; on the contrary, the multitude behaved with such decorum, that one english correspondent said it would not have appeared strange if a bishop had stepped forward in full canonicals to give them his benediction. why cannot englishmen enjoy their sunday's leisure like the french? because we are still under the bondage of puritanism; because our religious dress is nothing but hebrew old clothes; because we follow moses instead of jesus; because we believe that man was made for the sabbath, instead of the sabbath for man; because, in short, there are in england a lot of sour christians who play the dog in the manger, and will neither enjoy themselves on sunday nor let anyone else. they often prate about liberty, but they understand it as the yankee did, who defined it as the right to do as he pleased and the right to make everybody else do so too. let us all be unhappy on sunday, is the burden of their song. now, we have no objection to their being miserable, if they desire it, on that or any other day. this is supposed to be a free country; you decide to be wretched and you select your own time for the treat. but you have no right to interfere with your neighbors. this, however, is what the christians, with their customary "cheek," will insist on doing. they like going to the church and the public-house on sunday, and those establishments are permitted to open; they have no wish to go elsewhere, and so they keep all other establishments closed. this is mere impudence. let them go where they choose, and allow the same freedom to other people. those who advocate a free sunday ask for no favor; they demand justice. they do not propose to compel any christian to enter a museum, a library, or an art gallery; they simply claim the right to go in themselves. the denial of that right is a violation of liberty, which every free man is bound to resent. this country is said to be civilised. to a certain extent it is, but all our civilisation has been won against christianity and its brutal laws. our toiling masses, in factory, mine, shop, and counting-house, have one day of leisure in the week. rightly considered it is of infinite value. it is a splendid breathing-time. we cast off the storm and stress of life, fling aside the fierce passion of gain, and let the spirit of humanity throb in our pulses and stream from our eyes. our fellow man is no longer a rival, but a brother. his gain is not our loss. we enrich each other by the noble give-and-take of fellowship, and feel what it really is to _live_. yet our christian legislature tries its utmost to spoil the boon. it cannot prevent us from visiting each other, or walking as far as our legs will carry us; but almost everything else is tabooed. go to church, it says. millions answer, we are sick of going; we have heard the same old story until it is unspeakably stale, and many of the sermons have been so frequently repeated that we suspect they were bought by the dozen. then it says, go to the public-house. but a huge multitude answer, we don't want to go there either, except for a minute to quench our thirst; we have no wish for spirituous any more than spiritual intoxication; we desire some other alternative than gospel or gin. then our christian legislature answers, you are discontented fools. it crushes down their better aspirations, and condemns them to a wearisome inactivity. go through london, the metropolis of the world, as we call it, on a sunday. how utterly dreary it is! the shutters are all up before the gay shop-windows. you pace mile after mile of streets, with sombre houses on either hand as though tenanted by the dead. you stand in front of the british museum, and it looks as if it had been closed since the date of the mummies inside. you yearn to walk through its galleries, to gaze on the relics of antiquity, to inspect the memorials of the dead, to feel the subtle links that bind together the past and the present and make one great family of countless generations of men. but you must wander away disappointed and dejected. you repair to the national gallery. you long to behold the masterpieces of art, to have your imagination quickened and thrilled by the glories of form and color, to look once more on some favorite picture which touches your nature to its finest issues. but again you are foiled. you desire to visit a library, full of books you cannot buy, and there commune with the great minds who have left their thoughts to posterity. but you are frustrated again. you are cheated out of your natural right, and treated less like a man than a dog. this christian legislature has much to answer for. drunkenness is our great national vice. and how is it to be overcome? preaching will not do it. give englishmen a chance, furnish them with counter attractions, and they will abjure intoxication like their continental neighbors. elevate their tastes, and they will feel superior to the vulgar temptation of drink. every other method has been tried and has failed; this is the only method that promises success. fortunately the sunday question is growing. christian tyranny is evidently doomed. mr. howard's motion for the opening of public museums and art galleries, although defeated, received the support of eighty-five members of parliament. that minority will increase again next year, and in time it will become a majority. mr. broadhurst, for some peculiar reason, voted against it, but we imagine he will some day repent of his action. the working-classes are fools if they listen to the idle talk about sunday labor, with which the tories and bigots try to bamboozle them. the opening of public institutions on sunday would not necessitate a hundredth part of the labor already employed in keeping open places of worship, and driving rich people to and fro. all the nonsense about the thin end of the wedge is simply dust thrown into their eyes. the very people who vote against sunday freedom under a pretence of opposing sunday labor, keep their own servants at work and visit the "zoo" in the afternoon, where they doubtless chuckle over the credulity of the lower orders. christian tyranny unites with tory oppression to debase and enslave the people. it is time that both were imperiously stopped. the upper classes wish to keep us ignorant, and parsons naturally want everybody else's shutters up when they open shop. we ought to see through the swindle. let us check their impudence, laugh at their hypocrisy, and rescue our sunday from their hands. who are the blasphemers? (june, .) atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit. god is to them merely a word, expressing all sorts of ideas, and not a person. it is, properly speaking, a general term, which includes all that there is in common among the various deities of the world. the idea of the supernatural embodies itself in a thousand ways. truth is always simple and the same, but error is infinitely diverse. jupiter, jehovah and mumbo-jumbo are alike creations of human fancy, the products of ignorance and wonder. which is _the_ god is not yet settled. when the sects have decided this point, the question may take a fresh turn; but until then _god_ must be considered as a generic term, like _tree or horse or men_; with just this difference, however, that while the words tree, horse and man express the general qualities of visible objects, the word god expresses only the imagined qualities of something that nobody has ever seen. when the atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. he is incapable of insulting god, for he does not admit the existence of any such being. ideas of god may be good or bad, beautiful or ugly; and according as he finds them the atheist treats them. if we lived in turkey we should deal with the god of the koran, but as we live in england we deal with the god of the bible. we speak of that god as a being, just for convenience sake, and not from conviction. at bottom, we admit nothing but the mass of contradictory notions between genesis and revelation. we attack not a person but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy. lord brougham long ago pointed out, in his "life of voltaire," that the great french heretic was not guilty of blasphemy, as his enemies alleged; since he had no belief in the actual existence of the god he dissected, analysed and laughed at. mr. ruskin very eloquently defends byron from the same charge. in "cain," and elsewhere, the great poet does not impeach god; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. we may sum up the whole matter briefly. no man satirises the god he believes in, and no man believes in the god he satirises. we shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of "blasphemy," which is exactly what the jewish priests shouted against jesus christ. if there is a god, he cannot be half so stupid and malignant as the bible declares. in destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. and as it is better, in the words of plutarch, to have no notion of the gods than to have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the lord (if he exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in his name. the real blasphemers are those who believe in god and blacken his character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart of a savage and the brain of a fool. these are the blasphemers. when the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of god on his lips, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he resists education and science, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he opposes freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he opposes the equal rights of all, he blasphemes. when, in the name of god, he preaches content to the poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. and when he takes the bible in his hand, and says it was written by the inspiration of god, he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness. who are the blasphemers? not we who preach freedom and progress for all men; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, and to burden it, in god's name, with all the foul superstitions of its ignorant past. the birth of christ. (december, .) "the time draws near, the birth of christ," as tennyson sings in "in memoriam," and the pious followers of the nazarene will celebrate it with wonted orgies of pleasure. the incarnation will be pondered to the accompaniment of roast beef, and the atonement will play lambently around the solid richness of plum-pudding. and thus will be illustrated the biological truth that the stomach is the basis of everything, including religion. but while christians comport themselves thus in presence of the subtlest mysteries of faith, the sceptic cannot be without his peculiar reflections. he, of course, knows that the festal observance of this season is far more ancient than christianity; but he naturally wonders how people, who imagine it to be a unique feature of their sublimely spiritual creed, remain contented with its extremely sensual character. they profess to believe that the fate of the whole human race was decided by the advent of the man of sorrows; yet they commemorate that event by an unhealthy consumption of the meat which perisheth, and a wild indulgence in the frivolous pleasures of that carnal mind which is at enmity with god. astonished at such conduct, the sceptic muses on the inconsistency of mankind. he may also once more consider the circumstances of the birth of christ and its relation to the history of the modern world. jesus, called the christ, is popularly supposed to have been of the seed of david, from which it was promised that the messiah should come. it is, however, perfectly clear that he was in no-wise related to the man after god's own heart his putative father, joseph, admittedly had no share in bringing him into the world; for he disdained the assistance of a father, although he was unable to dispense with that of a mother. but joseph, and not mary, according to the genealogies of matthew and luke, was the distant blood relation of david; and therefore jesus was not of the seed of the royal house, but a bastard slip grafted on the ancient family-tree by the holy ghost. it is a great pity that newspaper correspondents did not exist in those days. had joseph been skilfully "interviewed," it is highly probable that the world would have been initiated into his domestic secrets, and enlightened as to the paternity of mary's eldest son. the holy ghost is rather too shadowy a personage to be the father of a lusty boy, and no young lady would be credited in this age if she ascribed to him the authorship of a child born out of wedlock. most assuredly no magistrate would make an order against him for its maintenance. even a father of the spiritualist persuasion, who believed in what is grandly called "the materialisation of spirit forms," would probably be more than dubious if his daughter were to present him with a grandson whose father lived on the other side of death and resided in a mansion not made with hands. it is, we repeat, to be for ever regretted that poor joseph has not left his version of the affair. the immaculate conception might perhaps have been cleared up, and theology relieved of a half-obscene mystery, which has unfortunately perverted not a few minds. the birth of jesus was announced to "wise men from the east" by the appearance of a singular star. is not this a relic of astrology? well does byron sing-- "ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven, if in your bright beams we would read the fate of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven, that in our aspirations to be great our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, and claim a kindred with you; for ye are a beauty and a mystery, and create in us such love and reverence from afar that fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star." but this star was the most wonderful on record. it "went before" the wise men, and "_stood over_ where the young child was." such an absurdity could be related and credited only by people who conceived of the sky as a solid vault, not far distant, wherein all the heavenly bodies were stuck. the present writer once asked an exceedingly ignorant and simple man where he thought he would alight if he dropped from the comet then in the sky. "oh," said he, naming the open space nearest his own residence, "somewhere about finsbury circus." that man's astronomical notions were very imperfect, but they were quite as good as those of the person who seriously wrote, and of the persons who seriously believe, this fairy tale of the star which heralded the birth of christ. luke's version of the episode differs widely from matthew's. he makes no reference to "wise men from the east," but simply says that certain "shepherds" of the same country, who kept watch over their flock by night, were visited by "the angel of the lord," and told that they would find the savior, christ the lord, just born at bethlehem, the city of david, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." luke does not, as is generally supposed, represent mary as confined in a stable because joseph was too poor to pay for decent accommodation, but because "there was no room for them in the inn." it is perfectly consistent with all the gospel references to joseph's status to assume that he carried on a flourishing business, and jesus himself in later years might doubtless have earned a good living in the concern if he had not deliberately preferred to lead the life of a mendicant preacher. this, however, is by the way. our point is that luke says nothing about the "star" or the "wise men from the east," who had an important interview with herod himself; while matthew says nothing about the "manger" or the shepherds and their angelic visitors. surely these discrepancies on points so important, and as to which there could be little mistake, are enough to throw discredit on the whole story. it is further noticeable that luke is absolutely silent about herod's massacre of the innocents. what can we think of his reticence on such a subject? had the massacre occurred, it would have been widely known, and the memory of so horrible a deed would have been vivid for generations. matthew, or whoever wrote the gospel which bears his name, is open to suspicion. his mind was distorted by an intense belief in prophecy, a subject which, as old bishop south said, either finds a man cracked or leaves him so. after narrating the story of herod's massacre, he adds: "then was fulfilled that which was spoken by jeremy, the prophet, saying," etc. now, he makes similar reference to prophecy no less than five times in the first two chapters, and in each case we find that the "prophetical" utterance referred to has not the faintest connexion with the incident related. besides, a man who writes history with one eye on his own period, and the other on a period centuries anterior is not likely to be veracious, however earnestly he may intend to. there is an early tradition, which is as strong as any statement about the history of the primitive church, that matthew's gospel was originally written in hebrew; and it has been supposed that the writer gratuitously threw in these references to jeremy and others, in order to please the jews, who were extremely fond of prophecy. but this supposition is equally fatal to his credibility as an historian. in any case, the evangelists differ so widely on matters of such interest and importance that we are constrained to discredit their story. it is evidently, as scholarship reveals, a fairy tale, which slowly gathered round the memory of jesus after his death. some of its elements were creations of his disciples' fancy, but others were borrowed from the mythology of more ancient creeds. yet this fairy tale is accepted by hundreds of millions of men as veritable history. it is incorporated into the foundation of christianity, and every year at this season its incidents are joyously commemorated. how slowly the world of intelligence moves! but let us not despair. science and scholarship have already done much to sap belief in this supernatural religion, and we may trust them to do still more. they will ultimately destroy its authority by refuting its pretensions, and compel it to take its place among the general multitude of historic faiths. if jesus was the christ, the messiah, the deliverer, why is the world still so full of sin and misery? the redeemer has come, say the christians. yes, we reply, but when will come the redemption? apostrophising jesus in his lines "before a crucifix," mr. swinburne reminds him that "the nineteenth wave of the ages rolls now usward since thy birth began," and then inquires:-- "hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls, or are there less oppressions done in this wide world under the sun?" only a negative answer can be given. christ has in no wise redeemed the world. he was no god of power, but a weak fallible man like ourselves; and his cry of despair on the cross might now be repeated with tenfold force. the older myth of prometheus is truer and more inspiring than the myth of christ. if there be gods, they have never yielded man aught of their grace. all his possessions have been cunningly, patiently, and valorously extorted from the powers that be, even as prometheus filched the fire from heaven. in that realm of mythology, whereto all religions will eventually be consigned, jesus will dwindle beneath prometheus. one is feminine, and typifies resigned submission to a supernatural will; the other is masculine, and typifies that insurgent audacity of heart and head, which has wrested a kingdom of science from the vast empire of nescience, and strewed the world with the wrecks of theological power. the reign of christ. (january, .) christmas and easter are fruitful in panegyrics on jesus and the religion which fraudulently bears his name. on these occasions, not only the religious but even the secular newspapers give the rein to their rhetoric and imagination, and indulge in much fervid eloquence on the birth or the crucifixion of the nazarene. time-honored platitudes are brought out from their resting-places and dexterously moved to a well-known tune; and fallacies which have been refuted _ad nauseam_ are paraded afresh as though their logical purity were still beyond suspicion. papers that differ on all other occasions and on all other subjects concur then, and "when they do agree their unanimity is wonderful." while the more sober and orthodox discourse in tones befitting their dignity and repute, the more profane riotously join in the chorus; and not to be behind the rest, the notoriously misbelieving greatest circulator orders from the profanest member of its staff "a rousing article on the crucifixion," or on the birth of jesus, as the case may be. all this, however, is of small account, except as an indication of the slavery of our "independent" journals to bumble and his prejudices, before whom they are obliged to masquerade when he ordains a celebration of his social or religious rites. but here and there a more serious voice is heard through the din, with an accent of earnest veracity, and not that of an actor playing a part. such a voice may be worth listening to, and certainly no other can be. let us hear the rev. j. baldwin brown on "the reign of christ." he is, i believe, honorably distinguished among dissenters; his sermons often bear marks of originality; and the goodness of his heart, whatever may be thought of the strength of his head, is sufficiently attested by his emphatic revolt against the doctrine of eternal torture in hell. before criticising mr. brown's sermon in detail i cannot help remarking that it is far too rhetorical and far too empty of argument. sentimentality is the bane of religion in our day; subservience to popularity degrades the pulpit as it degrades the press. if we desire to find the language of reason in theology, we must seek it in the writings of such men as newman, who contemplate the ignorant and passionate multitude with mingled pity and disdain. the "advanced" school of theologians, from dean stanley to the humblest reconciler of reason and faith, are sentimentalists almost to a man; the reason being, i take it, that although their emotional tendencies are very admirable, they lack the intellectual consistency and rigor which impel others to stand on definite first principles, as a sure basis of operation and an impregnable citadel against attack. mr. brown belongs to this "advanced" school, and has a liberal share of its failings. he is full of eloquent passages that lead to nothing, and he excites expectations which are seldom if ever satisfied. he faces stupendous obstacles raised by reason against his creed, and just as we look to see him valiantly surmount them, we find that he veils them from base to summit with a dense cloud of words, out of which his voice is heard asking us to believe him on the other side. yet of all men professional students of the bible should be freest from such a fault, seeing what a magnificent masterpiece it is of terse and vigorous simplicity. mr. brown and his "advanced" friends would do well to ponder that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old bishop andrewes--"_waste words addle questions_." when i first read it i was thrown into convulsions of laughter, and even now it tickles my risibility; but despite its irresistible quaint-ness i cannot but regard it as one of the wisest and pithiest sentences in our literature. dr. newman has splendidly amplified it in a passage of his "university sermons," which i gratuitously present to mr. brown and every reader who can make use of it:--"half the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue, they would be brought to a prompt termination. parties engaged in them would then perceive, either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. this is the great object to be aimed at in the present age, though confessedly a very arduous one. we need not dispute, we need not prove,--we need but define. at all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all; and then see who are left for us to dispute with, and what is left for us to prove." mr. brown's sermon on "the reign of christ" is preached from a verse of st. paul's first epistle to timothy, wherein jesus is styled "the blessed and only potentate." from this "inspired" statement he derives infinite consolation. this, he admits, is far from being the best of all possible worlds, for it is full of strife and cruelty, the wail of anguish and the clamor of frenzy; but as christ is "the blessed and only potentate," moral order will finally be evolved from the chaos and good be triumphant over evil. now the question arises: who made the chaos and who is responsible for the evil? not christ, of course: mr. brown will not allow that. is it the devil then? oh no! to say that would be blasphemy against god. he admits, however, that the notion has largely prevailed, and has even been formulated into religious creeds, "that a malignant spirit, a spirit who loves cursing as god loves blessing, has a large and independent share in the government of the world." but, he adds, "in christendom men dare not say that they believe it, with the throne of the crucified and risen christ revealed in the apocalypse to their gaze." ordinary people will rub their eyes in sheer amazement at this cool assertion. is it not plain that christians in all ages have believed in the power and subtlety of the devil as god's sleepless antagonist? have they not held, and do they not still hold, that he caused the fall of adam and eve, and thus introduced original sin, which was certain to infect the whole human race ever afterwards until the end of time? was not john milton a christian, and did he not in his "paradise lost" develope all the phases of that portentous competition between the celestial and infernal powers for the virtual possession of this world and lordship over the destinies of our race? if we accept mr. brown's statements we shall have to reverse history and belie the evidence of our senses. but who is responsible for the moral chaos and the existence of evil? that is the question. if to say _christ_ is absurd, and to say the _devil_ blasphemy, what alternative is left? the usual answer is: man's freewill. christ as "the blessed and only potentate" leaves us liberty of action, and our own evil passions cause all the misery of our lives. but who gave us our evil passions? to this question no answer is vouchsafed, and so we are left exactly at the point from which we started. yet mr. brown has a very decided opinion as to the part these "evil passions" play in the history cf mankind. he refers to them as "the devil's brood of lust and lies, and wrongs and hates, and murderous passion and insolent power, which through all the ages of earth's sad history have made it liker hell than heaven." no atheist could use stronger language. mr. brown even believes that our "insurgent lusts and passions" are predetermining causes of heresy, so that in respect both to faith and to works they achieve our damnation. how then did we come by them? the evolutionist frankly answers the question without fear of blasphemy on the one hand or of moral despair on the other. mr. brown is bound to give _his_ answer after raising the question so vividly. but he will not. he urges that it "presents points of tremendous difficulty," although "we shall unravel the mystery, we shall solve the problems in god's good time." thus the solution of the problem is to be postponed until we are dead, when it will no longer interest us. however convenient this may be for the teachers of mystery, it is most unsatisfactory to rationalists. mr. brown must also be reminded that the "tremendous difficulties" he alludes to are all of his own creation. there is no difficulty about any fact except in relation to some theory. it is mr. brown's theory of the universe which creates the difficulties. it does not account for all the facts of existence--nay, it is logically contravened by the most conspicuous and persistent of them. instead of modifying or transforming his theory into accordance with the facts, he rushes off with it into the cloud-land of faith. there let him remain as he has a perfect right to. our objection is neither to reason nor to faith, but to a mischievous playing fast and loose with both. mr. brown opines that christ will reign until all his enemies are under his feet. and who are these enemies? not the souls of men, says mr. brown, for christ "loves them with an infinite tenderness." this infinite tenderness is clearly not allied to infinite power or the world's anguish would long since have been appeased and extinguished, or never have been permitted to exist at all. the real enemies of christ are not the souls of men, but "the hates and passions which torment them." oh those hates and passions! they are the dialectical balls with which mr. brown goes through his performance in that circle of _petitio principii_ so hated by all logicians, the middle sphere of intellects too light for the solid earth of fact and too gross for the aerial heaven of imagination. it will be a fitting conclusion to present to mr. brown a very serious matter which he has overlooked. christ, "the blessed and only potentate," came on earth and originated the universal religion nearly two thousand years ago. up to the present time three-fourths of the world's inhabitants are outside its pale, and more than half of them have never heard it preached. amongst the quarter which nominally professes christianity disbelief is spreading more rapidly than the missionaries succeed in converting the heathen; so that the reign of christ is being restricted instead of increased. to ask us, despite this, to believe that he is god, and possessed of infinite power, is to ask us to believe a marvel compared with which the wildest fables are credible, and the most extravagant miracles but as dust in the balance. the primate on modern infidelity. (september, .) a bishop once twitted a curate with preaching indifferent orthodoxy. "well," answered the latter, "i don't see how you can expect me to be as orthodox as yourself. i believe at the rate of a hundred a year, and you at the rate of ten thousand." in the spirit of this anecdote we should expect an archbishop to be as orthodox as the frailty of human nature will allow. a man who faithfully believes at the rate of fifteen thousand a year should be able to swallow most things and stick at very little. and there can be no doubt that the canny scotchman who has climbed or wriggled up to the archbishopric of canterbury is prepared to go any lengths his salary may require. we suspect that he regards the doctrines of the church very much as did that irreverent youth mentioned by sidney smith, who, on being asked to sign the thirty-nine articles, replied "oh yes, forty if you like." the clean linen of his theology is immaculately pure. never has he fallen under a suspicion of entertaining dangerous or questionable opinions, and he has in a remarkable degree that faculty praised by saint paul of being all things to all men, or at least as many men as make a lumping majority. what else could be expected from a scotchman who has mounted to the spiritual primacy of england? his grace has recently been visiting the clergy and churchwardens of his diocese and delivering what are called charges to them. the third of these was on the momentous subject of modern infidelity, which seems to have greatly exercised his mind. this horrid influence is found to be very prevalent, much to the disconcertion of his grace, who felt constrained to begin his charge with expressions of despondency, and only recovered his spirits towards the end, where he confidently relies on the gracious promise of christ never to forsake his darling church. some of the admissions he makes are worth recording-- "i can," he says, "have no doubt that the aspect of christian society in the present day is somewhat troubled, that the church of christ and the faith of christ are passing through a great trial in all regions of the civilised world, and not least among ourselves. there are dark clouds on the horizon already breaking, which may speedily burst into a violent storm.... it is well to note in history how these two evils--superstition and infidelity--act and react in strengthening each other. still, i cannot doubt that the most [? more] formidable of the two for us at present is infidelity.... it is indeed a frightful thought that numbers of our intelligent mechanics seem to be alienated from all religious ordinances, that our secularist halls are well filled, that there is an active propagandism at work for shaking belief in all creeds." these facts are of course patent, but it is something to get an archbishop to acknowledge them, his grace also finds "from above, in the regions of literature and art, efforts to degrade mankind by denying our high original:" the high original being, we presume, a certain simple pair called adam and eve, who damned themselves and nearly the whole of their posterity by eating an apple six thousand years ago. the degradation of a denial of this theory is hardly perceptible to untheological eyes. most candid minds would prefer to believe in darwin rather than in moses even if the latter had, which he has not, a single leg to stand on. for the theory of our simian origin at least involves progression in the past and perhaps salvation in the future of our race, while the "high original" theory involved our retrogression and perdition. his grace wonders how these persons can "confine their hopes and aspirations to a life which is so irresistibly hastening to its speedy conclusion." but surely he is aware that they do so for the very simple reason that they know nothing of any other life to hope about or aspire to. one bird in the hand is worth twenty in the bush when the bush itself remains obstinately invisible, and if properly cooked is worth all the dishes in the world filled only with expectations. his grace likewise refers to the unequal distribution of worldly goods, to the poverty and misery which exist "notwithstanding all attempts to regenerate society by specious schemes of socialistic reorganisation." it is, of course, very natural that an archbishop in the enjoyment of a vast income should stigmatise these "specious schemes" for distributing more equitably the good things of this world; but the words "blessed be ye poor" go ill to the tune of fifteen thousand a year, and there is a grim irony in the fact that palaces are tenanted by men who profess to represent and preach the gospel of him who had not where to lay his head. modern christianity has been called a civilised heathenism; with no less justice it might be called an organised hypocrisy. after a dolorous complaint as to the magazines "lying everywhere for the use of our sons and daughters," in which the doctrines both of natural and of revealed religion are assailed, the archbishop proceeds to deal with the first great form of infidelity, namely agnosticism. with a feeble attempt at wit he remarks that the name itself implies a confession of ignorance, which he marvels to find unaccompanied by "the logical result of a philosophical humility." a fair account of the agnostic position is then given, after which it is severely observed that "the better feelings of man contradict these sophisms." in proof of this, his grace cites the fact that in paris, the "stronghold of atheistical philosophy," the number of burials that take place without religious rites is "a scarcely appreciable percentage." we suspect the accuracy of this statement, but having no statistics on the subject by us, we are not prepared to dispute it. we will assume its truth; but the important question then arises--what kind of persons are those who dispense with the rites of religion? notoriously they are men of the highest intellect and character, whose quality far outweighs the quantity of the other side. they are the leaders of action and thought, and what they think and do to-day will be thought and done by the masses to-morrow. when a man like gambetta, occupying such a high position and wielding such immense influence, invariably declines to enter a church, whether he attends the marriage or the funeral of his friends, we are entitled to say that his example on our side is infinitely more important than the practice of millions who are creatures of habit and for the most part blind followers of tradition. the archbishop's argument tells against his own position, and the fact he cites, when closely examined, proves more for our side than he thought it proved for his own. atheism is disrelished by his grace even more than agnosticism. his favorite epithet for it is "dogmatic." "surely," he cries, "the boasted enlightenment of this century will never tolerate the gross ignorance and arrogant self-conceit which presumes to dogmatise as to things confessedly beyond its ken." quite so; but that is what the theologians are perpetually doing. to use matthew arnold's happy expression, they talk familiarly about god as though he were a man living in the next street. the atheist and the agnostic confess their inability to fathom the universe and profess doubts as to the ability of others. yet they are called dogmatic, arrogant, and self-conceited. on the other hand, the theologians claim the power of seeing _through_ nature up to nature's god. yet they, forsooth, must be accounted modest, humble, and retiring. "o wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!" these abominable atheists are by no means scarce, for, says his grace, "practical atheists we have everywhere, if atheism be the denial of god." just so; that is precisely what we "infidels" have been saying for years. christianity is utterly alien to the life of modern society, and in flagrant contradiction to the spirit of our secular progress. it stands outside all the institutions of our material civilisation. its churches still echo the old strains of music and the old dogmatic tones from the pulpit, but the worshippers themselves feel the anomaly of its doctrines and rites when they return to their secular avocations. the sunday does nothing but break the continuity of their lives, steeping them in sentiments and ideas which have no relation to their experience during the rest of the week. the profession of christendom is one thing, its practice is another. god is simply acknowledged with the lips on sunday, and on every other day profoundly disregarded in all the pursuits of life whether of business or of pleasure. even in our national legislature, although the practice of prayer is still retained, any man would be sneered at as a fool who made the least appeal to the sanctions of theology. an allusion to the sermon on the mount would provoke a smile, and a citation of one of the thirty-nine articles be instantly ruled as irrelevant. nothing from the top to the bottom of our political and social life is done with any reference to those theological doctrines which the nation professes to believe, and to the maintenance of which it devotes annually so many millions of its wealth. in order to pose any member of the two great divisions of "infidelity," the archbishop advises his clergy to ask the following rather comical questions:-- "do you believe nothing which is not capable of being tested by the ordinary rules which govern experience in things natural? how then do you know that you yourself exist? how do you know that the perceptions of your senses are not mere delusions, and that there is anything outside you answering to what your mind conceives? have you a mind? and if you have not, what is it that enables you to think and reason, and fear, and hope? are these conditions of your being the mere results of your material organism, like the headache which springs from indigestion, or the high spirits engendered by too much wine? are you something better than a vegetable highly cultivated, or than your brothers of the lower animals? and, if so, what is it that differentiates your superiority? why do things outside you obey your will? who gave you a will? and, if so, what is it? i think you must allow that intellect is a thing almost divine, if there be anything divine; and i think also you must allow that it is not a thing to be propagated as we propagate well-made and high-bred cattle. whence came alexander the great? whence charlemagne? and whence the first napoleon? was it through a mere process of spontaneous generation that they sprang up to alter by their genius and overwhelming will the destinies of the world? whence came homer, shakespeare, bacon? whence came all the great historians? whence came plato and all the bright lights of divine philosophy, of divinity, of poetry? their influence, after all, you must allow to be quite as wide and enduring as any produced by the masters of those positive material sciences which you worship. do you think that all these great minds--for they are minds, and their work was not the product of a merely highly organised material frame--were the outcome of some system of material generation, which your so-called science can subject to rule, and teach men how to produce by growth, as they grow vegetables?" the archbishop is not a very skilful physician. his prescription shows that he has not diagnosed the disease. these strange questions might strike the infidel "all of a heap," as the expressive vernacular has it, but although they might dumbfounder him, they would assuredly not convince. if the archbishop of canterbury were not so exalted a personage we should venture to remark that to ask a man how he knows that he exists betrays a marvellous depth of ignorance or folly. ultimate facts of consciousness are not subjects of proof or disproof; they are their own warranty and cannot be transcended. there is, besides, something extraordinary in an archbishop of the church to which berkeley belonged supposing that extreme idealism follows only the rejection of deity. whether the senses are after all delusory does not matter to the atheist a straw; they are real enough to him, they make his world in which he lives and moves, and it is of no practical consequence whether they mirror an outer world or not. what differentiates you from the lower animals? asks his grace. the answer is simple--a higher development of nervous structure. who gave you a will? is just as sensible a question as who gave you a nose? we have every reason to believe that both can be accounted for on natural grounds without introducing a supernatural donor. the question whether alexander, napoleon, homer, bacon and shakespeare came through a process of spontaneous generation is excruciatingly ludicrous. that process could only produce the very lowest form of organism, and not a wonderfully complex being like man who is the product of an incalculable evolution. but the archbishop did not perhaps intend this; it may be that in his haste to silence the "infidel" he stumbled over his own meaning. lastly, there is a remarkable naïveté in the aside of the final question--"for they are minds." he should have added "you know," and then the episode would have been delightfully complete. the assumption of the whole point at issue in an innocent parenthesis is perhaps to be expected from a pulpiteer, but it is not likely that the "infidel" will be caught by such a simple stratagem. all these questions are so irrelevant and absurd that we doubt whether his grace would have the courage to put one of them to any sceptic across a table, or indeed from any place in the world except the pulpit, which is beyond all risk of attack, and whence a man may ask any number of questions without the least fear of hearing one of them answered. the invitation given by his grace, to "descend to the harder ground of strictest logical argumentation," is very appropriate. whether the movement be ascending or descending, there is undoubtedly a vast distance between logical argumentation and anything he has yet advanced. but even on the "harder" ground the archbishop treads no more firmly. he demands to know how the original protoplasm became endowed with life, and if that question cannot be answered he calls upon us to admit his theory of divine agency, as though that made the subject more intelligible. supernatural hypotheses are but refuges of ignorance. earl beaconsfield, in his impish way, once remarked that where knowledge ended religion began, and the archbishop of canterbury seems to share that opinion. his grace also avers that "no one has ever yet been able to refute the argument necessitating a great first cause." it is very easy to assert this, but rather difficult to maintain it. one assertion is as good as another, and we shall therefore content ourselves with saying that in our opinion the argument for a great first cause was (to mention only one name) completely demolished by john stuart mill, who showed it to be based on a total misconception of the nature of cause and effect, which apply only to phænomenal changes and not to the apparently unchangeable matter and force of which the universe is composed. but the overwhelming last argument is that "man has something in him which speaks of god, of something above this fleeting world, and rules of right and wrong have their foundation elsewhere than in man's opinion.... that there is an immutable, eternal distinction between right and wrong--that there is a god who is on the side of right." again we must complain of unbounded assertion. every point of this rhetorical flourish is disputed by "infidels" who are not likely to yield to anything short of proof. if god is on the side of right he is singularly incapable of maintaining it; for, in this world at least, according to some penetrating minds, the devil has hitherto had it pretty much his own way, and good men have had to struggle very hard to make things even as equitable as we find them. but after all, says his grace, the supreme defence of the church against the assaults of infidelity is christ himself. weak in argument, the clergy must throw themselves behind his shield and trust in him. before his brightness "the mists which rise from a gross materialistic atheism evaporate, and are scattered like the clouds of night before the dawn." it is useless to oppose reason to such preaching as this. we shall therefore simply retort the archbishop's epithets. gross and materialistic are just the terms to describe a religion which traffics in blood and declares that without the shedding of it there is no remission of sin; whose ascetic doctrines malign our purest affections and defile the sweetest fountains of our spiritual health; whose heaven is nothing but an exaggerated jeweller's shop, and its hell a den of torture in which god punishes his children for the consequences of his own ignorance, incapacity or crime. baiting a bishop. (february, .) bishops should speak as men having authority, and not as the scribes and pharisees. even the smallest of them should be a great man. an archbishop, with fifteen thousand a year, ought to possess a transcendent intellect, almost beyond comprehension; while the worst paid of all the reverend fathers of the church, with less than a fifth of that salary, ought to possess no common powers of mind. the bishop of carlisle is not rich as bishops go, but he enjoys a yearly income of £ , , besides the patronage of forty-nine livings. now this quite equals the salary of the prime minister of the greatest empire in the world, and the bishop of carlisle should therefore be a truly great man. we regret however, to say that he is very much the reverse, if we may judge from a newspaper report which has reached us of his lecture on "man's place in nature," recently delivered before the keswick scientific and literary society. newspaper reports, we know, are often misleading in consequence of their summary character; nevertheless two columns of small type must give some idea of a discourse, however abstruse or profound; here and there, if such occured, a fine thought or a shrewd observation would shine through the densest veil. yet, unless our vision be exceptionally obtuse, nothing of the kind is apparent in this report of the bishop's lecture. being, as his lordship confessed, the development of "a sermon delivered to the men at the royal agricultural society's show last summer," the lecture was perhaps, like the sermon, adapted to the bucolic mind, and thus does meagre justice to the genius of its author. his lordship, however, chose to read it before a society with some pretentions to culture, and therefore such a plea cannot avail. as the case stands, we are constrained to accuse the bishop of having delivered a lecture on a question of supreme importance, which would do little credit to the president of a young men's christian association; and when we reflect that a parson occupied the chair at the meeting, and that the vote of thanks to the episcopal lecturer was moved by a canon, who coupled with it some highly complimentary remarks, we are obliged to think the church more short of brains than even we had previously believed, and that mene, mene, tekel, upharsin has already been written on its temple walls by the finger of doom. very early in his lecture the bishop observed that "the scriptures are built on the hypothesis of the supreme and unique position of man." well, there is nothing novel in this statement. what we want is some proof of the hypothesis. his lordship's way of supplying this need is, to say the least, peculiar. after saying that "he would rather trust the poet as an exponent of man than he would a student of natural history," he proceeds to quote from shakespeare, pope and plato, and ends that part of his argument with a rhetorical flourish, as though he had thus really settled the whole case of darwin _versus_ moses. our reverence of great poets is probably as deep and sincere as the bishop's, but we never thought of treating them as scientific authorities, or as witnesses to events that happened hundreds of thousands of years before their birth. poets deal with subjective facts of consciousness, or with objective facts as related to these. the dry light of the intellect, radiated from the cloudless sun of truth, is not their proper element, but belongs exclusively to the man of science. they move in a softer element suffused with emotion, whose varied clouds are by the sun of imagination touched to all forms of beauty and splendor. the scientific man's description of a lion, for instance, would be very different from a poet's; because the one would describe the lion as it is in itself, and the other as it affects us, a living whole, through our organs of sight and sound. both are true, because each is faithful to its purpose and expresses a fact; yet neither can stand for the other, because they express different facts and are faithful to different purposes. shakespeare poetically speaks of "the ruddy drops that visit this sad heart," but the scientific truth of the circulation of the blood had to await its harvey. in like manner, it was not milton but newton who expounded the cosmos; the great poet, like dante before him, wove pre-existent cosmical ideas into the texture of his sublime epic, while the great scientist wove all the truth of them into the texture of his sublime theory. let each receive his meed of reverent praise, but do not let us appeal to newton on poetry or to milton on physics. and when a bishop of carlisle, or other diocese, complains that "the views advanced by scientific men tend painfully to degrade the views of poets and philosophers," let us reply that in almost every case the great truths of science have been found to transcend infinitely the marvels of theology, and that the magnificence of song persists through all fluctuations of knowledge, because its real cause lies less in the subject than in the native grandeur of the poet's mind. man's place in nature is, indeed, a great question, and it can be settled only by a wide appeal to past and present facts. and those facts, besides being objective realities, must be treated in a purely scientific, and not in a poetic or didactic spirit. let the poet sing the beauty of a consummate flower; and, if such things are required, let the moralist preach its lessons. but neither should arrogate the prerogative of the botanist, whose special function it is to inform us of its genesis and development, and its true relations to other forms of vegetable life. so with man. the poet may celebrate his passions and aspirations, his joys and sorrows, his laughter and tears, and ever body forth anew the shapes of things unseen; the moralist may employ every fact of his life to illustrate its laws or to enforce its duties; but they must leave it to the biologist to explain his position in the animal economy, and the stages by which it has been reached. with regard to that, darwin is authoritative, while moses is not even entitled to a hearing. although the bishop is very ready to quote from the poets, he is not always ready to use them fairly. for instance, he cites the splendid and famous passage in "hamlet:"--"what a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" there his lordship stops, and then exclaims, "shakespeare knew nothing of the evolution of man from inferior forms." but why did he not continue the quotation? hamlet goes on to say, "and yet, what to me is this _quintessence of dust?_" how now, your lordship? we have you on the hip! "quintessence of dust" comes perilously near to evolution. does not your lordship remember, too, hamlet's pursuing the dust of cæsar to the ignominious bunghole? and have you never reflected how the prescient mind of shakespeare created an entirely new and wonderful figure in literature, the half-human, half-bestial caliban, with his god setebos--a truly marvellous resuscitation of primitive man, that in our day has inspired mr. browning's "caliban on setebos," which contains the entire essence of all that tylor and other investigators in the same field have since written on the subject of animism? it seems that the lord bishop of carlisle reads even the poets to small purpose. haughtily waving the biologists aside, his lordship proceeds to remark that "man's superiority is not the same that a dog would claim over a lobster, or an eagle over a worm;" the difference between man and other animals being "not one of degree, but of kind." such a statement, without the least evidence being adduced to support it, places the bishop almost outside the pale of civil discussion. when will these lordly ecclesiastics learn that the time for dogmatic assertion is past, and that the intellectual temper of the present age can be satisfied only by proof? we defy the bishop of carlisle to indicate a single phase of man's nature which has no parallel in the lower animals. man's physical structure is notoriously akin to theirs, and even his brain does not imply a distinction of kind, for every convolution of the brain of man is reproduced in the brain of the higher apes. his lordship draws a distinction between instinct and reason, which is purely fanciful and evinces great ignorance of the subject. that, however, is a question we have at present no room to discuss; nor, indeed, is there any necessity to do so, since his lordship presently admits that the lower animals share our "reason" to some extent, just as to a much larger extent we share their "instinct," and thus evacuates the logical fortress he took such pains to construct. quitting that ground, which proves too slippery for his feet, the bishop goes on to notice the moral and aesthetic difference between man and the lower animals. no animal, says his lordship, shows "anything approaching to a love of art." now we are quite aware that no animal except man ever painted a picture or chiselled a statue, for these things involve a very high development of the artistic faculty. but the appreciation of form and color, which is the foundation of all fine art, is certainly manifested by the lower animals, and by some fathem to an extreme degree. if his lordship doubts this, let him study the ways of animals for himself; or, if he cannot do that, let him read the chapters in mr. darwin's "descent of man" on sexual selection among birds. if he retains any doubt after that, we must conclude that his head is too hard or too soft to be influenced, in either of which cases he is much to be pitied. his lordship thinks that the moral sense is entirely absent in the lower animals. this, however, is absurdly untrue; so much so, indeed, that we shall not trouble to refute it _good_ and _noble_, he avers, are epithets inapplicable to animals, even to the horse or dog. what vain creatures men are to talk thus! does his lordship remember byron's epitaph on his newfoundland dog, and the very uncomplimentary distinction drawn therein between dogs and men? look at that big pet with the lordly yet tender eye! how he submits to the boisterous caresses of children, because he knows their weakness and shares their spirit of play! let their elders do the same, and he will at once show resentment. see him peril his life ungrudgingly for those he loves, or even for comparative strangers! and shall we deny him the epithet of _noble or good?_ whatever theologians may say, the sound heart of common men and women will answer _no!_ lastly, we are told that "the religious sentiment is characteristically and supremely human." but here again we must complain of his lordship's mental confusion. the religious sentiment is not a simple but a highly complex emotion. resolve it into its elemental feelings, and it will be found that all these are possessed in some degree by lower animals. the feeling of a dog who bays the moon is probably very similar to that of the savage who cowers and moans beneath an eclipse; and if the savage has superstitious ideas as well as awesome feelings, it is only because he possesses a higher development of thought and imagination. canon battersby, who moved the vote of thanks to the bishop, ridiculed the biologists, and likened them to topsy who accounted for her existence by saying "specs i growed." just so. that is precisely how we all did come into existence. growth and not making is the law for man as well as for every other form of life. moses stands for manufacture and darwin stands for growth. and if the great biologist finds himself in the company of topsy, he will not mind. perhaps, indeed, as he is said to enjoy a joke and to be able to crack one, might he jocularly observe to "tremendous personages" like the bishop of carlisle, that this is not the first instance of truths being hidden from the "wise" and revealed unto babes. professor flint on atheism. (january, .) professor flint delivered last week the first of the present year's course of baird lectures to a numerous audience in blythswood church, glasgow, taking for his subject "the theories opposed to theism." anti-theism, he said, is more general now than atheism, and includes all systems opposed to theism. atheism he defined as "the system which teaches that there is no god, and that it is impossible for man to know that there is a god." at least this is how professor flint is reported in the newspapers, although we hope he was not guilty of so idiotic a jumble. where are the atheists who say there is no god? what are their names? having mingled much with thoroughgoing sceptics, and read many volumes of heretical literature, we can confidently defy professor flint to produce the names of half a dozen dogmatic atheists, and we will give him the whole world's literature to select from. does he think that the brains of an atheist are addled? if not, why does he make the atheist first affirm that there is _no_ god, and then affirm the impossibility of man's ever knowing whether there is a god or not? how could a man who holds his judgment in suspense, or who thinks the universal mystery insoluble to us, dogmatise upon the question of god's existence? if professor flint will carefully and candidly study sceptical literature, he will find that the dogmatic atheist is as rare a the phoenix, and that those who consider the extant evidences of theism inadequate, do not go on to affirm an universal negative, but content themselves with expressing their ignorance of nature's _why_. for the most part they endorse thomas cooper's words, "i do not say there _is_ no god, but this i say, _i know not_" of course this modesty of affirmation may seem impiously immodest to one who has been trained and steeped in theism so long that the infinite universe has become quite explicable to him; but to the sceptic it seems more wise and modest to confess one's ignorance, than to make false pretensions of knowledge. professor flint "characterised the objections which atheism urges against the existence of god as extremely feeble." against the existence of _what_ god? there be gods many and lords many; which of the long theological list is to be selected as _the_ god? a god, like everything else from the heights to the depths, can be known only by his attributes; and what the atheist does is not to argue against the existence of _any_ god, which would be sheer lunacy, but to take the attributes affirmed by theism as composing its deity and inquire whether they are compatible with each other and with the facts of life. finding that they are not, the atheist simply sets theism aside as not proven, and goes on his way without further afflicting himself with such abstruse questions. the atheist must be a very dreary creature, thinks professor flint. but why? does he know any atheists, and has he found them one half as dreary as scotch calvinists? it may seem hard to the immoderately selfish that some infinite spirit is not looking after their little interests, but it is assuredly a thousandfold harder to think that this infinite spirit has a yawning hell ready to engulph the vast majority of the world's miserable sinners. if the atheist has no heaven, he has also no hell, which is a most merciful relief. far better were universal annihilation than that even the meanest life should writhe for ever in hell, gnawed by the worm which never dieth, and burnt in the fire which is never quenched. even nature, thinks professor flint, cannot be contemplated by the atheist as the theist contemplates it; for while the latter views it as god's vesture wherewith he hides from us his intolerable glory, the latter views it as the mere embodiment of force, senseless, aimless, pitiless, an enormous mechanism grinding on of itself from age to age, but towards no god and for no good. here we must observe that the lecturer trespasses beyond the truth. the atheist does not affirm that nature drives on to no god and no good; he simply says he knows not whither she is driving. and how many theists are there who think of god in the presence of nature, who see god's smile in the sunshine, or hear his wrath in the storm? very few, we opine, in this practical sceptical age. to the atheist as to the theist, indeed to all blessed with vision, nature is an ever new wonder of majesty and beauty! sun, moon, and stars, earth, air, and sky, endure while the generations of men pass and perish; but every new generation is warmed, lighted, nurtured and gladdened by them with most sovereign and perfect impartiality. the loveliness and infinite majesty of nature speak to all men, of all ages, climes and creeds. not in her inanimate beauty do we find fatal objections to the doctrine of a wise and bountiful power which overrules her, but rather in the multiplied horrors, woes, and pangs of sentient life. when all actual and recorded misery is effaced, when no intolerable grief corrodes and no immedicable despair poisons life, when the tears of anguish are assuaged, when crime and vice are unknown and unremembered, and evil lusts are consumed in the fire of holiness; then, and then only, could we admit that a wise and righteous omnipotence rules the universal destinies. until then we cannot recognise the fatherhood of god, but must find shelter and comfort in the more efficacious doctrine of the brotherhood of man. professor flint concluded his lecture, according to the newspaper report, thus:--"history bears witness that the declension of religion has ever been the decline of nations, because it has ever brought the decay of their moral life; and people have achieved noble things only when strongly animated by religious faith." all this is very poor stuff indeed to come from a learned professor. what nation has declined because of a relapse from religious belief? surely not assyria, egypt, greece, or carthage? in the case of rome, the decline of the empire was coincident with the rise of christianity and the decline of paganism; but the roman empire fell abroad mainly from political, and not from religious causes, as every student of history well knows. christianity, that is the religion of the bible, has been dying for nearly three centuries; and during that period, instead of witnessing a general degradation of mankind we have witnessed a marvellous elevation. the civilisation of to-day, compared with that which existed before secular science began her great battle with a tyrannous and obscurantist church, is as a summer morn to a star-lit winter night. again, it is not true that men have achieved noble things only when strongly animated by religious faith; unless by "religious faith" be meant some vital idea or fervent enthusiasm. the three hundred spartans who met certain death at thermopylae died for a religious idea, but not for a theological idea, which is a very different thing. they perished to preserve the integrity of the state to which they belonged. the greatest athenians were certainly not religious in professor flint's sense of the word, and the grand old roman patriots had scarcely a scintillation of such a religious faith as he speaks of. their religion was simply patriotism, but it was quite as operant and effective as christian piety has ever been. was it religious faith or patriotism which banded frenchmen together in defiance of all europe, and made them march to death as a bridegroom hastens to his bride? and in our own history have not our greatest achievers of noble things been very indifferent to theological dogmas? nay, in all ages, have not the noblest laborers for human welfare been impelled by an urgent enthusiasm of humanity rather than by any supernatural faith? professor flint may rest assured that even though all "the old faiths ruin and rend," the human heart will still burn, and virtue and beauty still gladden the earth, although divorced from the creeds which held them in the thraldom of an enforced marriage. a hidden god. (october, .) the _christian world_ is distinguished among religious journals by a certain breadth and vigor. on all social and political subjects it is remarkably advanced and outspoken, and its treatment of theological questions is far more liberal and intelligent than sceptics would expect. of late years it has opened its columns to correspondence on many topics, some of a watery character, like the reality of noah's flood, and others of a burning kind, like the doctrine of eternal punishment, on all of which great freedom of expression has been allowed. the editor himself, who is, we suspect, far more sceptical than most of his readers, has had his say on the question of hell, and it is to be inferred from his somewhat guarded utterance that he has little belief in any such place. this, however, we state with considerable hesitation, for the majority of christians still regard the doctrine of everlasting torture as indubitable and sacred, and we have no desire to lower him in the estimation of the christian world in which he labors, or to cast a doubt on the orthodoxy of his creed. but the editor will not take it amiss if we insist that his paper is liberal in its christianity, and unusually tolerant of unbelief. yet, while entitled to praise on his ground, the _christian world_ deserves something else than praise on another. it has recently published a series of articles for the purpose of stimulating faith and allaying doubt. if undertaken by a competent writer, able and willing to face the mighty difference between christianity and the scientific spirit of our age, such a series of articles might be well worth reading. we might then admire if we could not agree, and derive benefit from friendly contact with an antagonist mind. but the writer selected for the task appears to possess neither of these qualifications. instead of thinking he gushes; instead of reason he supplies us with unlimited sentiment. we expect to tread solid ground, or at least to find it not perilously soft; and lo! the soil is moist, and now and then we find ourselves up to the knees in unctuous mud. how difficult it is nowadays to discover a really argumentative christian! the eminent favorites of orthodoxy write sentimental romances and call them "lives of christ," and preach sermons with no conceivable relation to the human intellect; while the apologists of faith imitate the tactics of the cuttle-fish, and when pursued cast out their opaque fluid of sentimentality to conceal their position. they mostly dabble in the shallows of scepticism, never daring to venture in the deeps; and what they take pride in as flashes of spiritual light resembles neither the royal gleaming of the sun nor the milder radiance of the moon, but rather the phosphorescence of corruption. in the last article of the series referred to, entitled "thou art a god that hidest thyself," there is an abundance of fictitious emotion and spurious rhetoric. from beginning to end there is a painful strain that never relaxes, reminding us of singers who pitch their voices too high and have to render all the upper notes in falsetto. an attempt is made to employ poetical imagery, but it ludicrously fails. the heaven of the book of revelation, with its gold and silver and precious stones, is nothing but a magnified jeweller's shop, and a study of it has influenced the style of later writers. at present christian gushers have descended still lower, dealing not even in gold and jewels, but in brummagem and paste. the word _gem_ is greatly in vogue. talmage uses it about twenty times in every lecture, parker delights in it, and it often figures on the pages of serious books. in the article before us it is made to do frequent service. a promise of redemption is represented as shining gem-like on the brow of revelation, elims _gem_ the dark bosom of the universal desert, and the morning gleams on the _dew-gemmed_ earth. perhaps a good recipe for this kind of composition would be an hour's gloat on the flaming window of a jeweller's shop in the west end. but let us deal with the purport and purpose of the article. it aims at showing that god hides himself, and why he does so. the fact which it is attempted to explain none will deny. moses ascended mount sinai to see god and converse with him, abraham and god walked and talked together, and according to st. paul the almighty is not far from any one of us. but the modern mind is not prone to believe these things. the empire of reason has been enlarged at the expense of faith, whose provinces have one after another been annexed until only a small territory is left her, and that she finds it difficult to keep. coincidently, god has become less and less a reality and more and more a dream. the reign of law is perceived everywhere, and all classes of phenomena may be explained without recourse to supernatural power. when napoleon objected to laplace that divine design was omitted from his mechanical theory of the universe, the french philosopher characteristically replied: "i had no need of that hypothesis." and the same disposition prevails in other departments of science. darwin, for instance, undertakes to explain the origin and development of man, physical, intellectual and moral, without assuming any cause other than those which obtain wherever life exists. god is being slowly but surely driven from the domain of intermediate causes, and transformed into an ultimate cause, a mere figment of the imagination. he is being banished from nature into that poetical region inhabited by the gods of polytheism, to keep company there with jupiter and apollo and neptune and juno and venus, and all the rest of that glorious pantheon. he no longer rules the actual life and struggle of the world, but lives at peace with his old rivals in-- "the lucid interspace of world and world, where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind, nor ever falls the least white star of snow, nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans; nor sound of human sorrow mounts, to mar their sacred everlasting calm." * * tennyson: "lucretius." the essence of all this is admitted by the writer in the _christian world_; he admits the facts, but denies the inference. they show us one of god's ways of hiding himself. order prevails, but it is the expression of god's will, and not a mere result of the working of material forces. he operates by method, not by caprice, and hence the unchanging stability of things. while doing nothing in particular, he does everything in general. and this idea must be extended to human history. god endows man with powers, and allows him freedom to employ them as he will. but, strangely enough, god has a way of "ruling our freedom," and always there is "a restraining and restoring hand." how man's will can be free and yet overruled passes our merely carnal understanding, although it may be intelligible enough to minds steeped in the mysteries of theology. according to this writer, god's government of mankind is a "constitutional kingdom." quite so. it was once arbitrary and despotic; now it is far milder and less exacting, having dwindled into the "constitutional" stage, wherein the king _reigns_ but does not _govern_. will the law of human growth and divine decay stop here? we think not. as the despotism has changed to a constitutional monarchy, so that will change to a republic, and the empty throne be preserved among other curious relics of the past. god also hides himself in history. although unapparent on the surface of events, his spirit is potent within them. "what," the writer asks, "is history--with all its dark passages of horror, its stormy revolutions, its ceaseless conflict, its tears, its groans, its blood--but the chronicle of an ever-widening realm of light, of order, of intelligence, wisdom, truth, and charity?" but if we admit the progress, we need not explain it as the work of god. bunsen wrote a book on "god in history," which a profane wag said should have been called "bunsen in history;" yet his attempt to justify the ways of god to men was not very successful. it is simply a mockery to ask us to believe that the slow progress of humanity must be attributed to omniscient omnipotence. a god who can evolve virtue and happiness only out of infinite evil and misery, and elevate us only through the agency of perpetual blood and tears, is scarcely a being to be loved and worshipped, unless we assume that his power and wisdom are exceedingly limited. are we to suppose that god has woven himself a garment of violence, evil, and deceit, in order that we might not see too clearly his righteousness, goodness, and truth? it must further be observed that christian theists cannot be permitted to ascribe all the good in the world to god, and all the evil to man, or else leave it absolutely unexplained. in the name of humanity we protest against this indignity to our race. let god be responsible for good and evil both, or for neither; and if man is to consider himself chargeable with all the world's wrong, he should at least be allowed credit for all the compensating good. the theory of evolution is being patronised by theists rather too fulsomely. not long ago they treated it with obloquy and contempt, but now they endeavor to use it as an argument for their faith, and in doing so they distort language as only theological controversialists can. changing "survival of the _fittest_" into "survival of the _best_," they transform a physical fact into a moral law; and thus, as they think, take a new north-west passage to the old harbor of "whatever is is right." but while-evolution may be construed as progress, which some would contest, it cannot be construed as the invariable survival of the best; nor, if it were, could the process by which this result is achieved be justified. for evolution works through a universal struggle for existence, in which the life and well-being of some can be secured only through the suffering and final extinction of others; and even in its higher stages, cunning and unscrupulous strength frequently overcomes humane wisdom fettered by weakness. "nature, red in tooth and claw, with ravin shrieks against the creed" of the theist. if god is working through evolution, we must admit that he has marvellously hidden himself, and agree with the poet that he _does_ "move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." the writer in the _christian world_ borrows an image from the puling scepticism of "in memoriam," which describes man as "an infant crying in the night, and with no language but a cry." this image of the infant is put to strange use. the writer says that god is necessarily hidden from us because we can grasp "his inscrutable nature and methods" only as "an infant can grasp the thought and purpose of a man." similes are dangerous things. when it is demanded that they shall run upon all fours, they often turn against their masters. this one does so. the infant grows into a man in due course, and then he can not only grasp the thought and purpose of his father, but also, it may be, comprehend still greater things. will the infant mind of man, when it reaches maturity, be thus related to god's? if not, the analogy is fallacious. man is quite mature enough already, and has been so for thousands of years, to understand something of god's thought and purpose if he had only chosen to reveal them. this, however, if there be a god, he has not condescended to do. an appeal to the various pretended revelations of the world serves to convince us that all are the words of fallible men. their very discord discredits them. as d'holbach said, if god had spoken, the universe would surely be convinced, and the same conviction would fill every breast. the reason given for god's hiding himself is very curious. "if," says the writer, "the way of god were not in large measure hidden, it would mean that we could survey all things from the height and the depth of god." truly an awful contemplation! may it not be that god is hidden from us because there is none to be revealed, that "all the oracles are dumb or cheat because they have no secret to express"? but, says the writer in the _christian world_, there is one revelation of god that can never be gainsaid; "while the cross stands as earth's most sacred symbol, there can be no utter hiding of his love." this, however, we venture to dispute. that cross which was laid upon the back of jesus poor mankind has been compelled to carry ever since, with no simon to ease it of the load. jesus was crucified on calvary, and in his name man has suffered centuries of crucifixion. the immolation of jesus can be no revelation of god's love. if the nazarene was god, his crucifixion involves a complicated arrangement for murder; the jews who demanded his death were divinely instigated, and judas iscariot was pre-ordained to betray his master; in which case his treachery was a necessary element of the drama, entitling him not to vituperation but to gratitude, even perhaps to the monument which benjamin disraeli suggested as his proper reward. looking also at the history of christianity, and seeing how the cross has sheltered oppressors of mind and body, sanctioned immeasurable shedding of blood, and frightened peoples from freedom, while even now it symbolises all that is reactionary and accursed in europe, we are constrained to say that the love _it_ reveals is as noxious as the vilest hate. general joshua. (april, .) mountebank talmage has just preached a funeral sermon on general joshua. it is rather behind date, as the old warrior has been dead above three thousand years. but better late than never. talmage tells us many things about joshua which are not in the bible, and some sceptics will say that his panegyric is a sheer invention. they may, however, be mistaken. the oracle of the brooklyn jabbernacle is known to be inspired. god holds converse with him, and he is thus enabled to supply us with fresh facts about jehovah's fighting-cock from the lost books of jasher and the wars of the lord. joshua, says talmage, was a magnificent fighter. we say, he was a magnificent butcher. jehovah did the fighting. he was the virtual commander of the jewish hosts; he won all their victories; and joshua only did the slaughter. he excelled in that line of business. he delighted in the dying groans of women and children, and loved to dabble his feet and hands in the warm blood of the slain. no "chamber of horrors" contains the effigy of any wretch half so bloodthirsty and cruel. according to talmage, joshua "always fought on the right side." wars of conquest are never right. thieving other people's lands is an abominable crime. the jews had absolutely no claim to the territory they took possession of, and which they manured with the blood of its rightful owners. we know they said that god told them to requisition that fine little landed estate of canaan. half the thieves in history have said the same thing. we don't believe them. god never told any man to rob his neighbor, and whoever says so lies. the thief's statement does not suffice. let him produce better evidence. a rascal who steals and murders cannot be believed on his oath, and 'tis more likely that he is a liar than that god is a scoundrel. talmage celebrates "five great victories" of joshua. he omits two mighty achievements. general joshua circumcised a million and a half jews in a single day. his greatest battle never equalled that wonderful feat. the amputations were done at the rate of over a thousand a minute. samson's jaw-bone was nothing to joshua's knife. this surprising old jew was as great in oratory as in surgery. on one occasion he addressed an audience of three millions, and everyone heard him. his voice must have reached two or three miles. no wonder the walls of jericho fell down when joshua joined in the shout. we dare say the jews wore ear-preservers to guard their tympanums against the dreadful artillery of his speech. joshua's first victory, says tahnage, was conquering the spring freshet of jordan. as a matter of fact, jehovah transacted that little affair. see, says talmage, "one mile ahead go two priests carrying a _glittering box_ four feet long and two feet wide. it is the ark of the covenant." he forgets to add that the jew god was supposed to be inside it. jack in the box is nothing to god in a box. what would have happened if the ark had been buried with jehovah safely fastened in? would his godship have mouldered to dust? in that case he would never have seduced a carpenter's wife, and there would have been no god the son as the fruit of his adultery. talmage credits general joshua with the capture of jericho. the bible says that jehovah overcame it. seven priests went blowing rams' horns round the city for seven days. on the seventh day they went round it seven times. it must have been tiresome work, for jericho was a large city several miles in circumference. but priests are always good "walkers." after the last blowing of horns all the jews shouted "down jericho, down jericho!" this is talmage's inspired account. the bible states nothing of the kind. just as the islamites cry "allah, il allah," it is probable that the jews cried "jahveh, jahveh." but talmage and the bible both agree that when their shout rent the air the walls of jericho fell flat--as flat as the fools who believe it. then, says talmage, "the huzza of the victorious israelites and the groan of the conquered canaanites commingle!" ah, that groan! its sound still curses the bible god. men, women and children, were murdered. the very cattle, sheep and asses, were killed with the sword. only one woman's house was spared, and she was a harlot. it is as if the german army took paris, and killed every inhabitant except cora pearl. this is inspired war, and talmage glories in it. he would consider it an honor to be bottle-washer to such a pious hero as general joshua. when ai was taken, all its people were slaughtered, without any regard to age or sex. talmage grins with delight, and cries "bravo, joshua!" the king of ai was reserved for sport. they hung him on a tree and enjoyed the fun. talmage approves this too. everything joshua did was right. talmage is ready to stake his own poor little soul on that. joshua's victory over the five kings calls forth a burst of supernatural eloquence. talmage pictures the "catapults of the sky pouring a volley of hailstones" on the flying amorites, and words almost fail him to describe the glorious miracle of the lengthening of the day in order that jehovah's prize-fighters might go on killing. one passage is almost sublime. it is only one step off. "what," asks talmage, "is the matter with joshua? has he fallen in an apoplectic fit? no. he is in prayer." our profanity would not have gone to that length. but we take talmage's word for it that prayer and apoplexy are very much alike. the _five_ kings were decapitated. "ah," says talmage, "i want five more kings beheaded to-day, king alcohol, king fraud, king lust, king superstition, and king infidelity." soft, you priestly calumniator! what right have you to associate infidelity with fraud and lust? that freethought, which you call "infidelity," is more faithful to truth and justice than your creed has ever been. and it will not be disposed of so easily as you think. you will never behead us, but we shall strangle you. we are crushing the life out of your wretched faith, and your spasmodic sermons are only the groans of its despair. talmage's boldest step on the line which separates the ludicrous from the sublime occurs in his peroration. he makes general joshua conquer death by lying down and giving up the ghost, and then asks for a headstone and a foot-stone for the holy corpse. "i imagine," he says, "that for the head it shall be the sun that stood still upon gibeon, and for the foot the moon that stood still in the valley of ajalon." this is about the finest piece of yankee buncombe extant. if the sun and moon keep watch over general joshua's grave, what are we to do? when we get to the new jerusalem we shall want neither of these luminaries, for the glory of the lord will shine upon us. but until then we cannot dispense with them, and we decidedly object to their being retained as perpetual mourners over joshua's grave. if, however, one of them must do service, we humbly beg that it may be the moon. let the sun illumine us by day, so that we may see to transact our affairs. and if ever we should long to behold "pale dians beams" again, we might take talmage as our guide to the unknown grave of general joshua, and while they played softly over the miraculous two yards of turf we should see his fitting epitaph--moonshine. going to hell. (june, .) editing a freethought paper is a dreadful business. it brings one into contact with many half-baked people who have little patent recipes for hastening the millennium; with ambitious versifiers who think it a disgrace to journalism that their productions are not instantly inserted; with discontented ladies and gentlemen who fancy that a heterodox paper is the proper vehicle for every species of complaint; and with a multitude of other bores too numerous to mention and too various to classify. but the worst of all are the anonymous bores, who send their insults, advice, or warnings, through the post for the benefit of the queen's revenue. we generally pitch their puerile missives into the waste-paper basket; but occasionally we find one diverting enough to be introduced to our readers. a few days ago we received the following lugubrious epistle, ostensibly from a parson in worcestershire, as the envelope bore the postmark of tything. "the fool hath said in his heart 'there is no god'--i have seen one of your blasphemous papers; and i say solemnly, as a clergyman of the church of england, that i believe you are doing the work of the devil, and are on the road to hell, and will spend eternity with the devil, unless god, in his mercy, lead you, by the holy spirit, to _repentance_. nothing is impossible, with him. a dean in the church of england says, 'be wise, and laugh not through a speck of time, and then wail through an immeasurable eternity.' except you change your views you will most certainly hear christ say, at the judgment day, 'depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' (matt, xxv.)" this is a tolerably warm, though not very elegant effusion, and it is really a pity that so grave a counsellor should conceal his name; for if it should lead to our conversion, we should not know whom to thank for having turned us out of the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire. our mentor assures us that with god nothing is impossible. we are sorry to learn this; for we must conclude that he does not take sufficient trouble with parsons to endow them with the courage of their convictions, or to make them observe the common decencies of epistolary intercourse. this anonymous parson, who acts like an irish "moonlighter," and masks his identity while venting his spleen, presumes to anticipate the day of judgment, and tells exactly what jesus christ will say to us on that occasion. we are obliged to him for the information, but we wonder how he obtained it. the twenty-fifth of matthew, to which he refers us, contains not a word about unbelievers. it simply states that certain persons, who have treated the son of man very shabbily in his distress, shall be sent to keep company with old nick and his imps. now, we have never shown the son of man any incivility, much less any inhumanity, and we therefore repudiate this odious insinuation. whenever jesus christ sends us a message that he is sick, we will pay him a visit; if he is hungry, we will find him a dinner; if he is thirsty, we will stand whatever he likes to drink; if he is naked, we will hunt him up a clean shirt and an old suit; and if he is in prison, we will, according as he is innocent or guilty, try to procure his release, or leave him to serve out his term. we should be much surprised if any parson in the three kingdoms would do any more some of them, we believe, would see him condemned (new version) before they would lift a finger or spend sixpence to-help him. we are charged with doing the work of the devil. this is indeed news. we never knew the devil required any assistance. he was always very active and enterprising, and quite able to manage his own business. and although his rival, jehovah, is so dotingly senile as to yield up everything to his mistress and her son, no one has ever whispered the least hint of the devil's decline into the same abject position. but if his satanic majesty needed our aid we should not be loth to give it, for after carefully reading the bible many times from beginning to end, we have come to the conclusion that he is about the only gentleman in it. we are "on the road to hell." well, if we must _go_ somewhere, that is just the place we should choose. the temperature is high, and it would no doubt at first be incommodious. but, as old sir thomas browne says, afflictions induce callosities, and in time we should get used to anything. when once we grew accustomed to the heat, how thankful we should be at having escaped the dreary insipidity of heaven, with its perpetual psalms, its dolorous trumpets, its gruesome elders, and its elderly beasts! how thankful at having missed an eternity with abraham, isaac, jacob, david, and all the many blackguards and scoundrels of the bible! how thankful at having joined for ever the society of rabelais, bruno, spinoza, voltaire, thomas paine, john stuart mill, and all the great poets, sages and wits, who possess so much of that carnal wisdom which is at enmity with the pious folly of babes and sucklings! on the whole, we think it best to keep on our present course. let the bigots rave and the parsons wail. they are deeply _interested_ in the doctrine of heaven and hell beyond the grave. we believe in heaven and hell on this side of it; a hell of ignorance, crime, and misery; a heaven of wisdom, virtue, and happiness. our duty is to promote the one and combat the other. if there be a just god, the fulfilment of that duty will suffice; if god be unjust, all honest men will be in the same boat, and have the courage to despise and defy him. christmas eve in heaven. (december, .) christmas eve had come and almost gone. it was drawing nigh midnight, and i sat solitary in my room, immersed in memory, dreaming of old days and their buried secrets. the fire, before which i mused, was burning clear without flame, and its intense glow, which alone lighted my apartment, cast a red tint on the furniture and walls. outside the streets were muffled deep with snow, in which no footstep was audible. all was quiet as death, silent as the grave, save for the faint murmur of my own breathing. time and space seemed annihilated beyond those four narrow walls, and i was as a coffined living centre of an else lifeless infinity. my reverie was rudely broken by the staggering step of a fellow-lodger, whose devotion to bacchus was the one symptom of reverence in his nature. he reeled up stair after stair, and as he passed my door he lurched against it so violently that i feared he would come through. but he slowly recovered himself after some profane mutterings, reeled up the next flight of stairs, and finally deposited his well-soaked clay on the bed in his own room immediately over mine. after this interruption my thoughts changed most fancifully. why i know not, but i began to brood on the strange statement of saint paul concerning the man who was lifted up into the seventh heaven, and there beheld things not lawful to reveal. while pondering this story i was presently aware of an astonishing change. the walls of my room slowly expanded, growing ever thinner and thinner, until they became the filmiest transparent veil which at last dissolved utterly away. then (whether in the spirit or the flesh i know not) i was hurried along through space, past galaxy after galaxy of suns and stars, separate systems yet all mysteriously related. swifter than light we travelled, i and my unseen guide, through the infinite ocean of ether, until our flight was arrested by a denser medium, which i recognised as an atmosphere like that of our earth. i had scarcely recovered from this new surprise when (marvel of marvels!) i found myself before a huge gate of wondrous art and dazzling splendor. at a word from my still unseen guide it swung open, and i was urged within. beneath my feet was a solid pavement of gold. gorgeous mansions, interspersed with palaces, rose around me, and above them all towered the airy pinnacles of a matchless temple, whose points quivered in the rich light like tongues of golden fire. the walls glittered with countless rubies, diamonds, pearls, amethysts, emeralds, and other precious stones; and lovely presences, arrayed in shining garments, moved noiselessly from place to place. "where am i?" i ejaculated, half faint with wonder. and my hitherto unseen guide, who now revealed himself, softly answered, "in heaven." thereupon my whole frame was agitated with inward laughter. i in heaven, whose fiery doom had been prophesied so often by the saints on earth! i, the sceptic, the blasphemer, the scoffer at all things sacred, who had laughed at the legends and dogmas of christianism as though they were incredible and effete as the myths of olympus! and i thought to myself, "better i had gone straight to hell, for here in the new jerusalem they will no doubt punish me worse than there." but my angelic guide, who read my thought, smiled benignly and said, "fear not, no harm shall happen to you. i have exacted a promise of safety for you, and here no promise can be broken." "but why," i asked, "have you brought me hither, and how did you obtain my guarantee of safety?" and my guide answered, "it is our privilege each year to demand one favor which may not be refused; i requested that i might bring you here; but i did not mention your name, and if you do nothing outrageous you will not be noticed, for no one here meddles with another's business, and our rulers are too much occupied with foreign affairs to trouble about our domestic concerns." "yet," i rejoined, "i shall surely be detected, for i wear no heavenly robe." then my guide produced one from a little packet, and having donned it, i felt safe from the fate of him who was expelled because he had not on a wedding-garment at the marriage feast. as we moved along, i inquired of my guide why he took such interest in me; and he replied, looking sadly, "i was a sceptic on earth centuries ago, but i stood alone, and at last on my death-bed, weakened by sickness, i again embraced the creed of my youth and died in the christian faith. hence my presence in heaven. but gladly would i renounce paradise even for hell, for those figures so lovely without are not all lovely within, and i would rather consort with the choicer spirits who abide with satan and hold high revel of heart and head in his court. yet wishes are fruitless; as the tree falls it lies, and my lot is cast for ever." whereupon i laid my hand in his, being speechless with grief! we soon approached the magnificent temple, and entering it we mixed with the mighty crowd of angels who were witnessing the rites of worship performed by the elders and beasts before the great white throne. all happened exactly as saint john describes. the angels rent the air with their acclamations, after the inner circle had concluded, and then the throne was deserted by its occupants. my dear guide then led me through some narrow passages until we emerged into a spacious hall, at one end of which hung a curtain. advancing towards this with silent tread, we were able to look through a slight aperture, where the curtain fell away from the pillar, into the room beyond. it was small and cosy, and a fire burned in the grate, before which sat poor dear god the father in a big arm-chair. divested of his godly paraphernalia, he looked old and thin, though an evil fire still gleamed from his cavernous eyes. on a table beside him stood some phials, one of which had seemingly just been used. god the son stood near, looking much younger and fresher, but time was beginning to tell on him also. the ghost flitted about in the form of a dove, now perching on the father's shoulder and now on the head of the son. presently the massive bony frame of the father was convulsed with a fit of coughing; jesus promptly applied a restorative from the phial, and after a terrible struggle the cough was subdued. during this scene the dove fluttered violently from wall to wall. when the patient was thoroughly restored the following conversation ensued:-- jesus.--are you well now, my father? jehovah.--yes, yes, well enough. alack, how my strength wanes! where is the pith that filled these arms when i fought for my chosen people? where the fiery vigor that filled my veins when i courted your mother? (here the dove fluttered and looked queer.) jesus.--ah, sire, do not speak thus. you will regain your old strength. jehovah.--nay, nay, and you know it. you do not even wish me to recover, for in my weakness you exercise sovereign power and rule as you please. jesus.--o sire, sire! jehovah.--come now, none of these demure looks. we know each other too well. practise before the saints if you like, but don't waste your acting on me. jesus.--my dear father, pray curb your temper. that is the very thing the people on earth so much complain of. jehovah.--my dearly beloved son, in whom i am not at all well pleased, desist from this hypocrisy. your temper is as bad as mine. you've shed blood enough in your time, and need not rail at me. jesus.--ah, sire, only the blood of heretics. jehovah.--heretics, forsooth! they were very worthy people for the most part, and their only crime was that they neglected you. but why should we wrangle? we stand or fall together, and i am falling. satan draws most souls from earth to his place, including all the best workers and thinkers, who are needed to sustain our drooping power; and we receive nothing but the refuse; weak, slavish, flabby souls, hardly worth saving or damning; gushing preachers, pious editors, crazy enthusiasts, and half-baked old ladies of both sexes. why didn't you preach a different gospel while you were about it? you had the chance once and let it slip: we shall never have another. jesus.--my dear father, i am reforming my gospel to make it suit the altered taste of the times. jehovah.--stuff and nonsense! it can't be done; thinking people see through it; the divine is immutable. the only remedy is to start afresh. could i beget a new son all might be rectified; but i cannot, i am too old. our dominion is melting away like that of all our predecessors. you cannot outlast me, for i am the fountain of your life; and all the multitude of "immortal" angels who throng our court, live only while i uphold them, and with me they will vanish into eternal limbo. here followed another fit of coughing worse than before. jesus resorted again to the phial, but the cordial seemed powerless against this sharp attack. just then the dove fluttered against the curtain, and my guide hurried me swiftly away. in a corridor of the temple we met michael and raphael. the latter scrutinised me so closely that my blood ran cold; but just when my dread was deepest his countenance cleared, and he turned towards his companion. walking behind the great archangels we were able to hear their conversation. raphael had just returned from a visit to the earth, and he was reporting to michael a most alarming defection from the christian faith. people, he said, were leaving in shoals, and unless fresh miracles were worked he trembled for the prospects of the dynasty. but what most alarmed him was the spread of profanity. while in england he had seen copies of a blasphemous paper which horrified the elect by ridiculing the bible in what a bishop had justly called "a heartless and cruel way." "but, my dear michael," continued raphael, "that is not all, nor even the worst. this scurrilous paper, which would be quickly suppressed if we retained our old influence, actually caricatures our supreme lord and his heavenly host in woodcuts, and thousands of people enjoy this wicked profanity. i dare say our turn will soon come, and we shall be held up to ridicule like the rest." "impossible!" cried michael; "surely there is some mistake. what is the name of this abominable print?" with a grave look, raphael replied: "no, michael, there is no mistake. the name of this imp of blasphemy is--i hesitate to say it--the free----------" * * was it the _freethinker?_ but at this moment my guide again hurried me along. we reached the splendid gate once more, which slowly opened and let us through. again we flew through the billowy ether, sweeping past system after system with intoxicating speed, until at last, dazed and almost unconscious, i regained this earthly shore. then i sank into a stupor. when i awoke the fire had burnt down to the last cinder, all was dark and cold, and i shivered as i tried to stretch my half-cramped limbs. was it all a dream? who can say? whether in the spirit or the flesh i know not, said saint paul, and i am compelled to echo his words. sceptics may shrug their shoulders, smile, or laugh; but "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in _their_ philosophy." professor blackie on atheism. (january, .) professor blackie is a man with whom we cannot be angry, however greatly his utterances are calculated to arouse that feeling. he is so impulsive, frank, and essentially good-natured, that even his most provoking words call forth rather a smile of compassion than a frown of resentment. those who know his character and position will yield him the widest allowance. his fiery nature prompts him to energetic speech on all occasions. but when his temper has been fretted, as it frequently is, by the boisterous whims of his greek students in that most boisterous of universities, it is not surprising if his expressions become splenetic even to rashness. the ingenuous professor is quite impartial in his denunciations. he strikes out right and left against various objects of his dislike. everything he dissents from receives one and the same kind of treatment, so that no opinion he assails has any special reason to complain; and every blow he deals is accompanied with such a jolly smile, sometimes verging into a hearty laugh, that no opponent can well refuse to shake hands with him when all is over. this temper, however, is somewhat inconsistent with the scientific purpose indicated in the title of professor blackie's book. a zoologist who had such a particular and unconquerable aversion to one species of animals that the bare mention of its name made his gorge rise, would naturally give us a very inadequate and unsatisfactory account of it. so, in this case, instead of getting a true natural history of atheism, which would be of immense service to every thinker, we get only an emphatic statement of the authors' hatred of it under different aspects. atheism is styled "a hollow absurdity," "that culmination of all speculative absurdities," "a disease of the speculative faculty," "a monstrous disease of the reasoning faculty," and so on. the chapter on "its specific varieties and general root" is significantly headed with that hackneyed declaration of the psalmist, "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god," as though impertinence were better from a jew than from a christian, or more respectable for being three thousand years old. perhaps professor blackie has never heard of the sceptical critic who exonerated the psalmist on the ground that he was speaking jocosely, and really meant that the man who said _in his heart_ only "there is no god," without saying so _openly_, was the fool. but this interpretation is as profane as the other is impertinent; and in fact does a great injustice to the atheist, who has never been accustomed to say "there is no god," an assertion which involves the arrogance of infinite knowledge, since nothing less than that is requisite to prove an universal negative: but simply "i know not of such an existence," which is a modest statement intellectually and morally, and quite unlike the presumption of certain theologians who, as mr. arnold says, speak familiarly of god as though he were a man living in the next street. for his own sake professor blackie should a little curb his proneness to the use of uncomplimentary epithets. he does himself injustice when he condescends to describe david hume's theory of causation as "wretched cavil." carlyle is more just to this great representative of an antagonistic school of thought. he exempts him from the sweeping condemnation of his contemporaries in scottish prose literature, and admits that he was "too rich a man to borrow" from france or elsewhere. and surely hume was no less honest than rich in thought. jest and captiousness were entirely foreign to his mind. wincing under his inexorable logic, the ontologist may try to console himself with the thought that the great sceptic was playing with arguments like a mere dialectician of wondrous skill; but in reality hume was quite in earnest, and always meant what he said. we may also observe that it is professor blackie and not darwin who suffers from the asking of such questions as these:--"what monkey ever wrote an epic poem, or composed a tragedy or a comedy, or even a sonnet? what monkey professed his belief in any thirty-nine articles, or well-compacted calvinistic confession, or gave in his adhesion to any church, established or disestablished?" if mr. darwin heard these questions he might answer with a good humored smile, "my dear sir, you quite mistake my theories, and your questions travesty them. i would further observe that while the composition of poems would unquestionably be creditable to monkeys, i, who have some regard for them as relatives, however distant, am heartily glad they have never done any of the other things you mention, which i deem a negative proof that their reason, though limited, is fortunately sane." professor blackie's opening chapter on "presumptions" fully justifies its title. the general consent of mankind in favor of theism is assumed to have established its validity, and to have put atheists altogether out of court; and a long list of illustrious theists, from solomon to hegel, is contrasted with a meagre catalogue of atheists, comprising only the names of david hume, jeremy bentham, and john stuart mill. * confucius and buddha are classed apart, as lying "outside of our western european culture altogether," but with a promise that "in so far as they seem to have taught a morality without religion, or a religion without god, we shall say a word or two about them by-and-by." so far as buddha is concerned this promise is kept; but in relation to confucius it is broken. probably the chinese sage was found too tough and embarrassing a subject, and so it was thought expedient to ignore him for the more tractable prophet of india, whose doctrine of transmigration might with a little sophistry be made to resemble the christian doctrine of immortality, and his nirvana the kingdom of heaven. * professor blackie is singularly silent as to james mill, the father of the celebrated utilitarian philosopher, far more robust in intellect and character than his son. he is the dominant figure of mill's "autobiography," and has about him a more august air than his son ever wore. what does the general consent of mankind prove in regard to beliefs like theism? simply nothing. professor blackie himself sees that on some subjects it is worthless, particularly when special knowledge or special faculty is required. but there are questions, he contends, which public opinion rightly decides, even though opposed to the conclusions of subtle thinkers. "perhaps," he says, "we shall hit the mark here if we say broadly that, as nature is always right, the general and normal sentiment of the majority must always be right, in so far as it is rooted in the universal and abiding instincts of humanity; and public opinion, as the opinion of the majority, will be right also in all matters which belong to the general conduct of life among all classes, and with respect to which the mind of the majority has been allowed a perfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise." now, in the first place, we must reiterate our opinion that the general consent of mankind on a subject like theism proves absolutely nothing. it is perfectly valid on questions of ordinary taste and feeling, but loses all logical efficacy in relation to questions which cannot be determined by a direct appeal to experience. and undeniably theism is one of those questions, unless we admit with the transcendentalist what is contrary to evident fact, that men have an intuitive perception of god. in the next place, the minor premise of this argument is assumed. there is no general consent of mankind in favor of theism, but only a very extensive consent. mr. gladstone, not long since, in the _nineteenth century_, went so far as to claim the general consent of mankind in favor of christianity, by simply excluding all heathen nations from a right to be heard. professor blackie does not go to this length, but his logical process is no different. lastly, our author's concluding proviso vitiates his whole case; for if there be one question on which "the mind of the majority" has _not_ been allowed a "perfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise," it is that of the existence of god. we are all prepossessed hi its favor by early training, custom, and authority. our minds have never been permitted to play freely upon it. a century ago atheists stood in danger of death; only recently have penal and invidious statutes against them been cancelled or mitigated; and even now bigotry against honest disbelief in theism is so strong that a man often incurs greater odium in publicly avowing it than in constantly violating all the decalogue save the commandment against murder. murderers and thieves, though punished here, are either forgotten or compassionated after death; but not even the grave effectually shields the atheist from the malignity of pious zeal. fortunately, however, a wise and humane tolerance is growing in the world, and extending towards the most flagrant heresies. perhaps we shall ultimately admit with sage old felltham, that "we fill the world with cruel brawls in the obstinate defence of that whereof we might with more honor confess ourselves to be ignorant," and that "it is no shame for man not to know that which is not in his possibility." the causes of atheism are, according to professor blackie, very numerous. he finds seven or eight distinct ones. the lowest class of atheists are "atheists of imbecility," persons of stunted intellect, incapable of comprehending the idea of god. these, however, he will not waste his time with, nor will we. he then passes to the second class of reprobates, whose atheism springs not from defect of intellect, but from moral disorder, and who delight to conceive the universe as resembling their own chaos. these we shall dismiss, with a passing remark that if moral disorder naturally induces atheism, some very eminent christians have been marvellous hypocrites. lack of reverence is the next cause of atheism, and is indeed its "natural soil." but as professor blackie thinks this may be "congenital, like a lack of taste for music, or an incapacity of understanding a mathematical problem," we are obliged to consider this third class of atheists as hopeless as the first. having admitted that their malady may be congenital, our author inflicts upon these unfortunates a great deal of superfluous abuse, apparently forgetting that they are less to blame than their omnipotent maker. the fourth cause of atheism is pride or self-will. but this seems very erratic in its operations, since the only two instances cited--namely, napoleon the great and napoleon the little, were certainly theists. next comes democracy, between which and irreverence there is a natural connexion, and from which, "as from a hotbed, atheism in its rankest stage naturally shoots up." professor blackie, as may be surmised, tilts madly against this horrible foe. but it will not thus be subdued. democracy is here and daily extending itself, overwhelming slowly but surely all impediments to its supremacy. if theism is incompatible with it, then the days of theism are numbered. professor blackie's peculiar natural history of atheism is more likely to please the opposite ranks than his own, who may naturally cry out, with a sense of being sold, "call you that backing of your friends?" pride of intellect is the next cause of atheism. don juan sells himself to perdition for a liberal share of pleasure, but faust hankers only after forbidden knowledge. this is of various kinds; but "of all kinds, that which has long had the most evil reputation of begetting atheism is physical science." again does the fervid professor set lance in rest, and dash against this new foe to theism, much as don quixote charged the famous windmill. but science, like the windmill, is too big and strong to suffer from such assaults. the "father of this sort of nonsense," in modern times was david hume, who, we are elegantly informed, was "a very clever fellow, a very agreeable, gentlemanly fellow too." his "nonsense about causation" is to be traced to a want of reverence in his character. indeed, it seems that all persons who adhere to a philosophy alien to professor blackie's have something radically wrong with them. let this edinburgh professor rail as he may, david hume's theory of causation will suffer no harm, and his contrast of human architecture, which is mechanism, with natural architecture, which is growth, will still form an insuperable obstacle to that "natural theology" which, as garth wilkinson says with grim humor, seeks to elicit, or rather "construct," "a scientific abstraction answering to the concrete figure of the vulcan of the greeks--that is to say a universal smith"! eventually professor blackie gets so sick of philosophers, that he turns from them to poets, who may more safely be trusted "in matters of healthy human sentiment." but here fresh difficulties arise. although "a poet is naturally a religious animal," we find that the greatest of roman poets lucretius, was an atheist, while even "some of our most brilliant notorieties in the modern world of song are not the most notable for piety." but our versatile professor easily accounts for this by assuming that there "may be an idolatry of the imaginative, as well as of the knowing faculty." never did natural historian so jauntily provide for every fact contravening his theories. professor blackie will never understand atheism, or write profitably upon it, while he pursues this course. let him restrain his discursive propensities, and deal scientifically with this one fact, which explodes his whole theory of atheism. the supreme glory of our modern poetry is shelley, and if ever a man combined splendor of imagination with keen intelligence and saintly character it was he. raphael incarnate he seems, yet he stands outside all the creeds, and to his prophetic vision, in the sunlight of the world's great age begun anew, the-- faiths and empires gleam like wrecks of a dissolving dream. in his treatment of buddhism professor blackie is candid and impartial, until he comes to consider its atheistic character. then his reason seems almost entirely to forsake him. after saying that "what buddha preached was a gospel of pure human ethics, divorced not only from brahma and the brahminic trinity, but even from the existence of god;" and describing buddha himself as "a rare, exceptional, and altogether transcendental incarnation of moral perfection;" he first tries to show that _nirvana_ is the same as the christian _eternal life_, and transmigration of souls a faithful counterpart of the christian doctrine of future reward and punishment. feeling, perhaps, how miserably he has failed in this attempt, he turns with exasperation on buddhism, and affirms that it "can in no wise be looked upon as anything but an abnormal manifestation of the religious life of man." we believe that professor blackie himself must have already perceived the futility and absurdity of this. the last chapter of professor blackie's book is entitled "the atheism of reaction." in it he strikes characteristically at the five points of calvinism, at original guilt, eternal punishment, creation out of nothing, and special providence; which he charges with largely contributing to the spread of atheism. while welcoming these assaults on superstition, we are constrained to observe that the christian dogmas which professor blackie impugns and denounces are not specific causes of atheism. again he is on the wrong scent. the revolt against theism at the present time is indeed mainly moral, but the preparation for it has been an intellectual one. modern science has demonstrated, for all practical purposes, the inexorable reign of law. the god of miracles, answering prayer and intimately related to his children of men, is an idea exploded and henceforth impossible. the only idea of god at all possible, is that of a supreme universal intelligence, governing nature by fixed laws, and apparently quite heedless whether their operation brings us joy or pain. this idea is intellectually permissible, but it is beyond all proof, and can be entertained only as a speculation. now, the development of knowledge which makes this the only permissible idea of god, also changes immortality from a religious certitude to an unverifiable supposition. the rectification of the evils of this life cannot, therefore, be reasonably expected in another; so that man stands alone, fighting a terrible battle, with no aid save from his own strength and skill. to believe that omnipotence is the passive spectator of this fearful strife, is for many minds altogether too hard. they prefer to believe that the woes and pangs of sentient life were not designed; that madness, anguish, and despair, result from the interplay of unconscious forces. they thus set theism aside, and unable to recognise the fatherhood of god, they cling more closely to the brotherhood of man. salvationism. (april, .) there is no new thing under the sun, said the wise king many a surprising novelty is only an old thing in a new dress. and this is especially true in respect to religion. ever since the feast of pentecost, when the apostles all jabbered like madmen, christianity has been marked by periodical fits of insanity. it would occupy too much space to enumerate these outbursts, which have occurred in every part of christendom, but we may mention a few that have happened in our own country. during the commonwealth, some of the numerous sects went to the most ludicrous extremes; preaching rousing sermons, praying through the nose, assuming biblical names, and prophesying the immediate reign of the saints. there was a reaction against the excesses of puritanism after the death of cromwell; and until the time of whitfield and wesley religion continued to be a sober and respectable influence, chiefly useful to the sovereign and the magistrate. but these two powerful preachers rekindled the fire of religious enthusiasm in the hearts of the common people, and methodism was founded among those whom the church had scarcely touched. not many years ago the hallelujah band spread itself far and wide, and then went out like a straw fire. and now we have salvationism, doing just the same kind of work, and employing just the same kind of means. will this new movement die away like so many others? it is difficult to say. salvationism may be only a flash in the pan; but, on the other hand, it may provide the only sort of christianity possible in an age of science and freethought. the educated classes and the intelligent artisans will more and more desert the christian creed, and there will probably be left nothing but the dregs and the scum, for whom salvationism is exactly suited. christianity began among the poor, ignorant, and depraved; and it may possibly end its existence among the very same classes. in all these movements we see a striking illustration of what the biologists call the law of atavism. there is a constant tendency to return to the primitive type. we can form some idea of what early christianity was by reading the acts of the apostles. the true believers went about preaching in season and out of season; they cried and prayed with a loud voice; they caused tumult in the streets, and gave plenty of trouble to the civil authorities. all this is true of salvationism to-day; and we have no doubt that the early church, under the guidance of peter, was just a counterpart of the salvation army under "general" booth--to the jews, or men of the world, a stumbling-block, and to the greeks, or educated thinkers, a folly. early christians were "full of the holy ghost," that is of wild enthusiasm. scoffers said they were drunk, and they acted like madmen. leap across seventeen centuries, and we shall find methodists acting in the same way. wesley states in his journal ( ) of his hearers at wapping, that "some were torn with a kind of convulsive motion in every part of their bodies, and that so violently that often four or five persons could not hold one of them." and lecky tells us, in his "history of the eighteenth century," that "religious madness, which from the nature of its hallucinations, is usually the most miserable of all the forms of insanity, was in this, as in many later revivals, of no unfrequent occurrence." now salvationism produces the very same effects. it drives many people mad; and it is a common thing for men and women at its meetings to shout, dance, jump, and finally fall on the floor in a pious ecstacy. while they are in this condition, the holy ghost is entering them and the devil is being driven out. poor creatures! they take us back in thought to the days of demoniacal possession, and the strange old world that saw the devil-plagued swine of gadara drowned in the sea. the free and easy mingling of the sexes at these pious assemblies, is another noticeable feature. love-feasts were a flagrant scandal in the early church, and women who returned from them virtuous must have been miracles of chastity. methodism was not quite so bad, but it tolerated some very strange pranks. the rev. richard polwhele, in his "anecdotes of methodism" (a very rare book), says that "at st. agnes, the society stay up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age, run about the streets, calling out that they are possessed." he goes on to relate that at probus "the preacher at a late hour of the night, after all but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles to be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees; when he would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if it were bare." salvationism does not at present go to this length, but it has still time enough to imitate all the freaks of its predecessor. there was an all-night meeting in whitechapel a few months ago, which threatened to develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast. the light was rather dim, voices grew low, cheeks came perilously near, and hands met caressingly. of course it was nothing but the love of god that moved them, yet it looked like something else; and the uninitiated spectator of "the mystery of godliness" found it easy to understand how american camp-meetings tend to increase the population, and why a magistrate in the south-west of england observed that one result of revivals in his district was a number of fatherless weans. in one respect salvationism excels all previous revivals. it is unparalleled in its vulgarity. the imbecile coarseness of its language makes one ashamed of human nature. had it existed in swift's time, he might have added a fresh clause to his terrible indictment of mankind. its metaphors are borrowed from the slaughter-house, its songs are frequently coarser than those of the lowest music-hall, and the general style of its preaching is worthy of a congregation of drunken pugilists. the very names assumed by its officers are enough to turn one's stomach. christianity has fallen low indeed when its champions boast such titles as the "hallelujah fishmonger," the "blood-washed miner," the "devil dodger," the "devil walloper," and "gipsy sal." the constitution of the salvation army is a pure despotism. general booth commands it absolutely. there is a council of war, consisting of his own family. all the funds flow into his exchequer, and he spends them as he likes. no questions are allowed, no accounts are rendered, and everything is under his unqualified control. the "general" may be a perfectly honest man, but we are quite sure that none but pious lunatics would trust him with such irresponsible power. we understand that the officials are all paid, and some of them extremely well. they lead a very pleasant life, full of agreeable excitement; they wear uniform, and are dubbed captain, major, or some other title. add to all this, that they suppose themselves (when honest) to be particular favorites of god; and it will be easy to understand how so many of them prefer a career of singing and praying to earning an honest living by hard work, the hallelujah lads and lasses could not, for the most part, get decent wages in any other occupation. all they require for this work is a good stomach and good lungs; and if they can only boast of having been the greatest drunkard in the district, the worst thief, or the most brutal character, they are on the high road to fortune, and may count on living in clover for the rest of their sojourn in this vale of tears. a pious showman. (october, .) we all remember how that clever showman, barnum, managed to fan the jumbo fever. when the enterprising yankee writes his true autobiography we shall doubtless find some extraordinary revelations. yet barnum, after all, makes no pretence of morality or religion. he merely goes in for making a handsome fortune out of the curiosity and credulity of the public. if he were questioned as to his principles, he would probably reply like artemus ward--"princerpuls? i've nare a one. i'm in the show bizniz." general booth is quite as much a showman as barnum, but he is a pious showman. he is a perfect master of the vulgar art of attracting fools. every day brings a fresh change in his "walk up, walk up." tambourine girls, hallelujah lasses, converted clowns and fiddlers, sham italian organ grinders, bands in which every man plays his own tune, officers in uniform, davidic dances, and music-hall tunes, are all served up with a plentiful supply of blood and fire. the "general" evidently means to stick at nothing that will draw; and we quite believe that if a pair of ezekiel's cherubim were available, he would worry god almighty into sending them down for exhibition at the city road show. booth's latest dodge is to say the least peculiar. most fathers would shrink from trafficking in a son's marriage, but booth is above such nice scruples. the worst deeds are sanctified by love of god, and religion condones every indecency. mr. bramwell booth, whom the general has singled out as his apostolic successor, and heir to all the army's property, got married last week; and the pious showman actually exhibited the bridegroom and bride to the public at a shilling a head. about three hundred pounds were taken at the doors, and a big collection was made inside. booth's anxiety for the cash was very strongly illustrated. commissioner bailton, who has had a very eccentric career, was enjoying his long deferred opportunity of making a speech, when many of the crowd began to press towards the door. "stop," cried booth, "don't go yet, there's going to be a collection." but the audience melted faster than ever. whereupon booth jumped up again, stopped poor railton unceremoniously, and shouted "hold on, we'll make the collection now." this little manouvre was quite in keeping with the showman's instruction to his subalterns, to have plenty of good strong collecting boxes and pass them round often. booth's facetious remarks during his son's marriage according to the army forms were well adapted to tickle the ears of his groundlings. the whole thing was a roaring farce, and well sustained the reputation of the show. there was also the usual spice of blasphemy. before bramwell booth marched on to the platform a board was held up bearing the inscription "behold the bridegroom cometh." these mountebanks have no reverence even for what they call sacred. they make everything dance to their tune. they prostitute "god's word," caricature jesus christ, and burlesque all the watchwords and symbols of their creed. one of booth's remarks after the splicing was finished is full of suggestion. he said that his enemies might cavil, but he had found out a road to fortune in this world and the next. well, the lord only knows how he will fare in the next world, but in this world the pious showman has certainly gained a big success. he can neither write nor preach, and as for singing, a half a dozen notes from his brazen throat would empty the place as easily as a cry of "fire." but he is a dexterous manager; he knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in short, he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion just as other showmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat women, and siamese twins. fortune has brought to our hands a copy of a private circular issued by "commissioner" railton, soliciting wedding presents for mr. bramwell booth. with the exception of reuben may's begging letters, it is the finest cadging document we ever saw. booth was evidently ashamed to sign it himself, so it bears the name of railton. but the pious showman cannot disown the responsibility for it. he will not allow the officers of the army to marry without his sanction; he forbids them to accept any private present; he keeps a sharp eye on every detail of the organisation. surely, then, he will not have the face to say that he knew nothing of railton's circular. he has face enough for almost anything, but hardly for this. there is one damning fact which he cannot shirk. bailton asks that all contributions shall be made "payable to william booth, as usual." bailton spreads the butter pretty freely on booth and his family. he says that their devotion to the army has "loaded them with care, and often made them suffer weakness and pain." as to mr. bramwell booth, in particular, we are informed that he has worked so hard behind the scenes, as chief of the staff, that many of his hairs are grey at twenty-seven. poor bramwell! the army should present him with a dozen bottles of hair restorer. perhaps his young wife will renew his raven head by imitating the lady in the fable, and pulling out all the grey hairs. in order to compensate this noble family in some degree for their marvellous devotion to the great cause, bailton proposes that wedding presents _in the shape of cash_ should be made to mr. bramwell booth on the day of his marriage. whatever money is received will go, not to the young gentleman personally, but to reducing the army debt of £ , . but as the army property is all in booth's hands, and mr. bramwell is his _heir_ and successor, it is obvious that any reduction of the debt will be so much clear gain to the firm. the general evidently saw that the case was a delicate one; so bailton sends out a private circular, which he excuses on the ground that "any public appeal would not be at all agreeable to mr. bramwell's own feelings." of course not. but we dare say the wedding presents will be agreeable enough. as this is a strong point with the firm, bailton repeats it later on. "i do not wish," he says, "to make any public announcement of this." the reason of this secrecy is doubtless the same as that which prompts the general to exclude reporters and interlopers from his all-night meetings. only the initiated are allowed in, and they of course may be safely trusted. with the circular bailton sent out envelopes in which the pious dupes were to forward their contributions; and printed slips, headed "wedding presents to mr. bramwell booth," on which they were asked to specify the amount of their gift and the sin from which the salvation army had rescued them. this printed slip contains a list of sins, which would do credit to a jesuit confessor. booth has we think missed his vocation. he might have achieved real distinction in the army of ignatius loyola. the circular is a wonderful mixture of piety and business. nearly every sentence contains a little of both. the cash will not only gladden the hearts of the booths, but "make the devil tremble," and "give earth and hell another shock." this last bit of extravagance is rather puzzling. that hell should receive another shock is very proper, but why is there to be an earthquake at the same time? we have said enough to show the true character of this cadging trick. it throws a strong light on the business methods of this pious showman. booth is playing a very astute game. by reducing the army to military discipline, and constituting himself its general, he retains an absolute command over its resources, and is able to crush out all opposition and silence all criticism. he wields a more than papal despotism. all the higher posts are held by members of his own family. his eldest son is appointed as his successor. the property thus remains in the family, and the booth dynasty is established on a solid foundation. such an impudent imposture would scarcely be credible if it were not patent that there is still amongst us a vast multitude of two-legged sheep, who are ready to follow any plausible shepherd, and to yield up their fleeces to his shears. the ghosts and other lectures. by robert g. ingersoll. new york, n. y. c. p. farrell, publisher, . entered according to act of congress in the year , by robert g. ingersoll eckler, printer, fulton st., n. y. the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. contents: preface. the ghosts. the liberty of man, woman and child liberty of woman. the liberty of children. conclusion. . the declaration of independence. about farming in illinois. speech at cincinnati "the past rises before me like a dream." the grant banquet a tribute to the rev. alexander clark. a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll, preface. these lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself i concluded to publish them. most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. they appeal, not to reason, but to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of scripture. they can conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon of their creed. whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to call "fundamental truths" is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man. to re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power. bigotry in all ages has been the same. christianity simply transferred the brutality of the colosseum to the inquisition. for the murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the _auto de fe_. what has been called religion is, after all, but the organization of the wild beast in man. the perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven. hell is the consummation of revenge. the chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and perdition. they have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and upon the ignorant altars of the past and the dead, they have endeavored to sacrifice the present and the living. nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. i have had some little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until i read the religious papers, i did not know what malicious and slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. the ingenuity with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language, is simply amazing. the average religious editor is intolerant and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives. by this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the nineteenth century needs no, guardian. they should cease to regard themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. by this time they should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal past no longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain. men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. every chain of superstition should be broken. the rights of men and women should be equal and sacred--marriage should be a perfect partnership--children should be governed by kindness,--every family should be a republic--every fireside a democracy. it seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea of intellectual freedom. they seem to think that man is responsible for his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous guide. they cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of thought there must be government--authority and obedience--laws and penalties--rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe there is a penitentiary for the soul. in the republic of mind, _one_ is a majority. there, all are monarchs, and all are equals. the tyranny of a majority even is unknown. each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. upon every brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple. only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's sake, are the only traitors. there, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. the church contemplates this republic with a sneer. from the teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. she is filled with the spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. once she was egotistic; now she is envious. once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be real. they have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. she has the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed. we are told to investigate the bible for ourselves, and at the same time informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired word of god, we will most assuredly be damned. under such circumstances, if we believe this, investigation is impossible. whoever is held responsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial scales. fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of its trembling hand. i oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice--vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of. the free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me. those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate my motives. the sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving children will thank me: this is enough. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c, april , . the ghosts. let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imagination of men. there are three theories by which men account for all phenomena, for everything that happens: first, the supernatural; second, the supernatural and natural; third, the natural. between these theories there has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. in this great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural. the believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while naturalists maintain that nature acts from within; that nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that nature with infinite arms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. you say, "oh, this is materialism!" what is matter? i take in my hand some earth:--in this dust put seeds. let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it. the seeds will grow and a plant will bud and blossom. do you understand this? can you explain it better than you can the production of thought? have you the slightest conception of what it really is? and yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material existence. do you know what force is? can you account for molecular action? are you really familiar with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? is there not something in matter that forever eludes? after all, can you get, beyond, above or below appearances? before you cry "materialism!" had you not better ascertain what matter really is? can you think even of anything without a material basis? is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of an atom? can you have a thought that was not suggested to you by what you call matter? our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by the caprice of gods and devils. for thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad, benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way, produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and failure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and displeased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow, the light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men; that they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that they controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing the brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or sent the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the bodies of men. formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. earth, air, and water were filled with these phantom hosts. in modern times they have greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,--a mingling of the supernatural and natural,--has generally been adopted. the remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to per-form the same offices as the hosts of yore. it has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of men and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and prostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy, by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and children, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers, by putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing things without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating reason, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging investigation, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning candles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the eyes of the soul. all this has been done to appease and flatter these monsters of the air. in the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,--by the worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. and yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. they were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition. from, these ghosts, our fathers received information. they were the schoolmasters of our ancestors. they were the scientists and philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians, metaphysicians and historians of the past. for ages these ghosts were supposed to be the only source of real knowledge. they inspired men to write books, and the books were considered sacred. if facts were found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts, and especially for their discoverers. it was then, and still is, believed that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce the idea of immortality. this i deny. the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow--hope shining upon the tears of grief. from the books written by the ghosts we, have at last ascertained that they knew nothing about the world in which we live. did they know anything about the next! upon every point where contradiction is possible, they have been contradicted. by these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government were administered; all authority to govern came from them. the emperors, kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. man was not considered as the source of any power whatever. to rebel against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant. kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude. the prostrate were the good. those who stood erect were infidels and traitors. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. the many toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness. the many lived in huts, and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. the many covered themselves with rags, that the few might robe themselves in purple and in gold. the many crept, and cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their flesh with iron feet. from the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of every kind. they told us the form of this earth. they informed us that eclipses were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made in six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men, instigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity; that trying to be wise above what they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent spirit. they told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt; that investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor, eternal torment. they not only told us all about this world, but about two others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true as about this, no one can estimate the value of their information. for countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. to accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were exhausted. during these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and faith, called witchcraft. they believed that man was the sport and prey of devils. they really thought that the very air was thick with these enemies of man. with few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief was universal. under these conditions, progress was almost impossible. fear paralyzes the brain. progress is born of courage. fear believes--courage doubts. fear falls upon the earth and prays--courage stands erect and thinks. fear retreats--courage advances. fear is barbarism--courage is civilization. fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. fear is religion--courage is science. the facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over and over again in every court of europe. thousands confessed themselves guilty--admitted that they had sold themselves to the devil. they gave the particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. they confessed this, when they knew that confession was death; knew that their property would be confiscated, and their children left to beg their bread. this is one of the miracles of history--one of the strangest contradictions of the human mind. without doubt, they really believed themselves guilty. in the first place, they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they probably became insane. in their insanity they confessed their guilt. they found themselves abhorred and deserted--charged with a crime that they could not disprove. like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them deeper. caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders of superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of confession. the whole world appeared to be insane. in the time of james the first, a man was executed for causing a storm at sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. how could he disprove it? how could he show that he did not cause the storm? all storms were at that time generally supposed to be caused by the devil--the prince of the power of the air--and by those whom he assisted. i implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things were the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith. a woman was tried and convicted before sir matthew hale, one of the great judges and lawyers of england, for having caused children to vomit crooked pins. she was also charged with having nursed devils. the learned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches; that it was established by all history, and expressly taught by the bible. the woman was hanged and her body burned. sir thomas moore declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the sacred scriptures. in my judgment, he was right. john wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in england. i beg of you to remember that john wesley was the founder of the methodist church. in new england, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having changed herself into a fox. while in that condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs. a committee of three men, by order of the court, examined this woman. they removed her clothing and searched for "witch spots." that is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without giving her pain. they reported to the court that such spots were found. she denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. upon the report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed. this was done by our puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the dangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping god and persecuting their fellow men. in those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy--that is, that persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form of wolves. an instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. he defended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws. the wolf ran away. the man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and carried it home. there he found his wife with one of her hands gone. he took the paw from his pocket. it had changed to a human hand. he charged his wife with being a witch. she was tried. she confessed her guilt, and was burned. people were burned for causing frosts in summer--for destroying crops with hail--for causing storms--for making cows go dry, and even for souring beer. there was no impossibility for which some one was not tried and convicted. the life of no one was secure. to be charged, was to be convicted. every man was at the mercy of every other. this infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to express a doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. whoever denied the existence of witches and devils was denounced as an infidel. they believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. they absolutely tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts. at basle, in , a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an egg. rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,--this everybody knew. the rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was burned in the public square. so a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed and partially eaten a child. the hog was convicted,--but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. as late as , a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a devil. they used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. they used to go through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within a certain number of days. in case they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and penalties. but let us be careful how we laugh at these things. let us not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age. we must not forget that some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. only a little while ago, the governor of minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers, or send them into some other state. about the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement with regard to the existence of witchcraft that pope innocent viii issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of this crime. forms for the trial were regularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "malleus maleficorum" (hammer of witches), which was issued by the roman see. popes alexander, leo, and adrian, issued like bulls. for two hundred and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children. protestants were as active as catholics, and in geneva five hundred witches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. about one thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of como. at least one hundred thousand victims suffered in germany alone: the last execution (in wurtzburg ) taking place as late as . witches were burned in switzerland as late as . in england the same frightful scenes were enacted. statutes were passed from henry vi to james i, defining the crime and its punishment. the last act passed by the british parliament was when lord bacon was a member of the house of commons; and this act was not repealed until . sir william blackstone, in his commentaries on the laws of england, says: "to deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of god in various passages both of the old and new testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits." in brown's dictionary of the bible, published at edinburgh scotland, in , it is said that: "a witch is a woman that has dealings with satan. that such persons are among men is abundantly plain from scripture, and that they ought to be put to death." this work was re-published in albany, new york, in . no wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day. in , mrs. hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. in england it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged and burned. the last victim executed in scotland, perished in . "she was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. she had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet--a circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a pony and getting her shod by the devil." in , nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in salem, massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. it was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the devil, orally and in writing. that they abjured god and jesus christ, and dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. the contracts were confirmed at a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of agreement with their own blood. these contracts were, in some instances, for a few years; in others, for life. general assemblies of the witches were held at least once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants. "to these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks, pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. here they did homage to the prince of hell, and offered him sacrifices of young children, and practiced all sorts of license until the break of day." "as late as , belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was established by the water ordeal." "in , the populace of hela, near dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress; and as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty, and beaten to death." "it was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. it was thought they were like clouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and penetrating into any orifice. the horrible tortures they endured in their place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist warmth in order to allay their pangs. it was for this reason they so frequently entered into men and women." the devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. he could beget children; and martin luther himself had come in contact with one of these children. he recommended the mother to throw the child into the river, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil. it was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he pleased. whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. all the believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the bible. their mouths were filled with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and their power over human beings. by the bible they proved that innumerable evil spirits were ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind; that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the limits of human faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that could befall the world; that their malice was superhuman. that they caused tempests was proved by the action of the devil toward job; by the passage in the book of revelation describing the four angels who held the four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. they believed the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few seconds, through the air. they believed this, because they knew that christ had been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on a pinnacle of the temple. "the prophet habakkuk had been transported by a spirit from judea to babylon; and philip, the evangelist, had been the object of a similar miracle; and in the same way saint paul had been carried in the body into the third heaven." "in those pious days, they believed that _incubi_ and _succubi_ were forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms, the unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often successful, against the virtue of the saints. sometimes the witches kindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. people told, with bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four successive abbots in a german monastery had been wasted away by an unholy flame." an instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when discovered, crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out, and was impudent enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. so perfectly had he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those who knew the bishop best were deceived. one can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during these long centuries of darkness and superstition. to them, these things were awful and frightful realities. hovering above them in the air, in their houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the darkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable hosts of unclean and malignant devils. from the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air, the church pretended to defend mankind. pursued by these phantoms, the frightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of robed hypocrisy and sceptered theft. take from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and it becomes an extinct volcano. take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the church, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what we are pleased to call the superstition of the past. religion has not civilized man--man has civilized religion. god improves as man advances. let me call your attention to what we have received from the followers of the ghosts. let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by these philosophers of the clouds. all diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts, or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. there were, properly speaking, no diseases. the sick were possessed by ghosts. the science of medicine consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises. for thousands of years the diseased were treated with incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs. everything was done to make the visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they generally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the patient did. these ghosts were supposed to be of different rank, power and dignity. now and then a man pretended to have won the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the little ones. such a man became an eminent physician. it was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of an ordinary ghost. with this smoke, the sick room would be filled until the ghost vanished or the patient died. it was also believed that certain words,--the names of the most powerful ghosts,--when properly pronounced, were very effective weapons. it was for a long time thought that latin words were the best,--latin being a dead language, and known by the clergy. others thought that two sticks laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause it instantly to flee in dread away. for thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving these evil spirits out of the bodies of men. in some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts. one case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd of swine. in this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine immediately drowned themselves in the sea. this idea of disease appears to have been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct. the contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the numberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were all seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled with unclean and malignant ghosts. whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes, whoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by the church as an infidel. to explain anything was a crime. it was to the interest of the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the will and power of gods and devils. the moment it is admitted that all phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a priest has disappeared. religion breathes the air of the supernatural. take from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist. for this reason, the church has always despised the man who explained the wonderful. upon this principle, nothing was left undone to stay the science of medicine. as long as plagues and pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. the moment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance. the moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul. long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that god had nothing to do with ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the people. it was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. formerly, during the prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was boundless. he told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that they had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the church, and that god was now taking his revenge. the people for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft. they hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from their minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very dust of humility. the church never wanted disease to be under the control of man. timothy dwight, president of yale college, preached a sermon against vaccination. his idea was, that if god had decreed from all eternity that a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. small-pox being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven, to spike it was the height of presumption. plagues and pestilences were instrumentalities in the hands of god with which to gain the love and worship of mankind. to find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from the church. no one tries to cure the ague with prayer. quinine has been found altogether more reliable. just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. the number of diseases with which god from time to time afflicts mankind, is continually decreasing. in a few years all of them will be under the control of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their priests will excite only a smile. the science of medicine has had but one enemy--religion. man was afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his soul. is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment--a doctrine that makes god a heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave? the ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest absurdities. "tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying no thing." in those days the histories were written by the monks, who, as a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. they wrote as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. they wrote the history of every country of importance. they told all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence that amounted to sublimity, "they traced the order of st. michael, in france, to the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. they said that tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called tartars because tartarus was one of the names of perdition. they declared that scotland was so named after scota, a daughter of pharaoh, who landed in ireland, invaded scotland, and took it by force of arms. this statement was made in a letter addressed to the pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as a well-known fact. the letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries, and by the direction of the king himself." these gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the fact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell. matthew, of paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave the world the following piece of information: "it is well known that mohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in his effort to be elected pope;" and that having drank to excess, he fell by the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. "and for that reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day." another eminent historian informs us that nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. when i read this, i said to myself: some of the croakers of the present day against progress would be the better for such a vomit. the history of charlemagne was written by turpin, of rheims. he was a bishop. he assures us that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer. that there were giants in those days who could take fifty ordinary men under their arms and walk away with them. "with the greatest of these, a direct descendant of goliath, one orlando had a theological discussion, and that in the heat of the debate, when the giant was overwhelmed with the argument, orlando rushed forward and inflicted a fatal stab." the history of britain, written by the arch-. deacons of monmouth and oxford, was wonderfully popular. according to them, brutus conquered england and built the city of london. during his time, it rained pure blood for three days. at another time, a monster came from the sea, and, after having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the king and disappeared. they tell us that king arthur was not born like other mortals, but was the result of a magical contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants; that he killed one in france that had the cheerful habit of eating some thirty men a day. that this giant had clothes woven of the beards of the kings he had devoured. to cap the climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written the only reliable history of his country. in all the histories of those days there is hardly a single truth. facts were considered unworthy of preservation. anything that really happened was not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded. the great religious historian, eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory. the same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by all the historians of that time. they wrote, and the people believed, that the tracks of pharoah's chariots were still visible on the sands of the red sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved from the winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of the great miracle there performed. it is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times is the result of accident or mistake. they accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits. with cause and effect they had nothing to do. facts were in no way related to each other. god, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and disconnected events. from the quiver of his hatred came the arrows of famine, pestilence, and death. the moment that the idea is abandoned that all is natural; that all phenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain of being, the conception of history becomes impossible. with the ghosts, the present is not the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. in the domain of religion all is chance, accident, and caprice. do not forget, i pray you, that our creeds were written by the cotemporaries of these historians. the same idea was applied to law. it was believed by our intelligent ancestors that all law derived its sacredness and its binding force from the fact that it had been communicated to man by the ghosts. of course it was not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they told it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. it was thousands of ages before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and strange as it may appear, most of these laws were vastly superior to the ghost article. through the web and woof of human legislation began to run and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice. during these years of darkness it was believed that rather than see an act of injustice done; rather than see the innocent suffer; rather than see the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere. this belief, as a rule, gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and as the other man was dead, no complaint was heard from him. this doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and chance. they had trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by lot. persons were made to grasp hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established. others, with tied hands and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank, the verdict of guilty was unanimous,--if they did not sink, they were in league with devils. so in england, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned. the corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. if the defendant could swallow this piece he went acquit. godwin, earl of kent, in the time of edward the confessor, appealed to the corsned. he failed to swallow it and was choked to death. the ghosts and their followers always took delight in torture, in cruel and unusual punishments. for the infraction of most of their laws, death was the penalty--death produced by stoning and by fire. sometimes, when man committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city of refuge. murder was a crime against man. but for saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines, or for picking up sticks on certain days, or for worshiping the wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one, or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood, or that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram's horns as artillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to take the place of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor landlord:--death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity of hatred could devise, was the penalty. law is a growth--it is a science. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibited. there are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. all progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts. the idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer. if man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have entered his brain. but for this, the word conscience never would have passed the lips of man. there is one good--happiness. there is but one sin--selfishness. all law should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of the other. under the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed to exist in the nature of things. they were supposed to be simply the irresponsible command of a ghost. these commands were not supposed to rest upon reason, they were the product of arbitrary will. the penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as the laws were senseless and absurd. working on the sabbath and murder were both punished with death. the tendency of such laws is to blot from the human heart the sense of justice. to show you how perfectly every department of knowledge, or ignorance rather, was saturated with superstition, i will for a moment refer to the science of language. it was thought by our fathers, that hebrew was the original language; that it was taught to adam in the garden of eden by the almighty, and that consequently all languages came from, and could be traced to, the hebrew. every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. according to the ghosts, the trouble at the tower of babel accounted for the fact that all people did not speak hebrew. the babel business settled all questions in the science of language. after a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent with the hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages began to compete for the honor of being the original. andre kempe, in , published a work on the language of paradise, in which he maintained that god spoke to adam in swedish; that adam answered in danish; and that the serpent--which appears to me quite probable--spoke to eve in french. erro, in a work published at madrid, took the ground that basque was the language spoken in the garden of eden; but in goropius published his celebrated work at antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by showing, beyond all doubt, that the language spoken in paradise was neither more nor less than plain holland dutch. the real founder of the science of language was liebnitz, a cotemporary of sir isaac newton. he discarded the idea that all languages could be traced to one language. he maintained that language was a natural growth. experience teaches us that this must be so. words are continually dying and continually being born. words are naturally and necessarily produced. words are the garments of thought, the robes of ideas. some are as rude as the skins of wild beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and gold. they have been born of hatred and revenge; of love and self-sacrifice; of hope and fear, of agony and joy. these words are born of the terror and beauty of nature. the stars have fashioned them. in them mingle the darkness and the dawn. from everything they have taken something. words are the crystalizations of human history, of all that man has enjoyed and and suffered--his victories and defeats--all that he has lost and won. words are the shadows of all that has been--the mirrors of all that is. the ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology. according to them the earth was made out of nothing, and a little more nothing having been taken than was used in the construction of this world, the stars were made out of what was left over. cosmos, in the sixth century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either carried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew them after. he also taught that each angel that pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the stars might always remain the same. he also gave his idea as to the form of the world. he stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on the outside was a strip of land, like the frame of a common slate; that then there was a strip of water, and in the middle a great piece of land; that adam and eve lived on the outer strip; that their descendants, with the exception of the noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip; that the ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where we now are. he accounted for night and day by saying that on the outside strip of land there was a high mountain, around which the sun and moon revolved, and that when the sun was on the other side of the mountain, it was night; and when on this side, it was day. he also declared that the earth was flat. this he proved by many passages from the bible. among other reasons for believing the earth to be flat, he brought forward the following: we are told in the new testament that christ shall come again in glory and power, and all the world shall see him. now, if the world is round, how are the people on the other side going to see christ when he comes? that settled the question, and the church not only endorsed the book, but declared that whoever believed less or more than stated by cosmos, was a heretic. in those blessed days, ignorance was a king and science an outcast. they knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry heaven of existence, that their religion would become a childish fable of the past. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their fellow men; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. in the name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed each other; they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the present with despair and the future with horror. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind, polluted the conscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice, crowned robbery, sainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a thousand years the torch of reason. i have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what has happened, and what always will happen when men are governed by superstition and fear; when they desert the sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of others and do not investigate for themselves. even the great men of those days were nearly as weak in this matter as the most ignorant. kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. this great man breathed, so to speak, the atmosphere of his time. he believed in the music of the spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars. tycho brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in such manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them fulfilled. luther believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had discussed points of theology with him. the human mind was in chains. every idea almost was a monster. thought was deformed. facts were looked upon as worthless. only the wonderful was worth preserving. things that actually happened were not considered worth recording;--real occurrences were too common. everybody expected the miraculous. the ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought to be the most industrious things in the universe, and with these imps, every occurrence of an unusual character was in some way connected. there was no order, no serenity, no certainty, in anything. everything depended upon ghosts and phantoms. man was, for the most part, at the mercy of malevolent spirits. he protected himself as best he could with holy water and tapers and wafers and cathedrals. he made noises and rung bells to frighten the ghosts, and he made music to charm them. he used smoke to choke them, and incense to please them. he wore beads and crosses. he said prayers, and hired others to say them. he fasted when he was hungry, and feasted when he was not. he believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to appease the ghosts. he humbled himself. he crawled in the dust. he shut the doors and windows, and excluded every ray of light from the temple of the soul. he debauched and polluted his own mind, and toiled night and day to repair the walls of his own prison. from the garden of his heart he plucked and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity. the priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. concerning the wrath of god, they grew eloquent. they denounced man as totally depraved. they made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. nothing so delighted them as painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. over the worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled them with a kind of holy delight. according to them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell were the perfume and music of heaven. at the risk of being tiresome, i have said what i have to show you the productions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread ignorance--the results of fear. i want to convince you that every form of slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison fangs into the bosoms of men. the first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his own creation--of the ghosts and phantoms of the air. for ages the human race was imprisoned. through the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. against these grates and bars science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. men found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better than what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy. they found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be cured by frightening them away. they found that death was as natural as life. they began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body, and found that all was natural and within the domain of law. the conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon employed. they found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were not mere specks. they found that being born under a particular planet had nothing to do with the fortunes of men. the astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place. they found that the earth had swept through the constellations for millions of ages. they found that good and evil were produced by natural causes, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad enough to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally as grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to believe a certain creed. they found that man, through intelligence, could take advantage of the forces of nature--that he could make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings of heaven do his bidding and minister to his wants. they found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology--of astronomy--of geography;--that they knew nothing of history;--that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons;--that they knew nothing of law and less of justice; that they were without brains, and utterly destitute of hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights of men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty. the condition of the world during the dark ages shows exactly the result of enslaving the bodies and souls of men. in those days there was no freedom. labor was despised, and a laborer was considered but little above a beast. ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world, and superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. the air was filled with angels, with demons and monsters. credulity sat upon the throne of the soul, and reason was an exiled king. a man to be distinguished must be a soldier or a monk. war and theology, that is to say, murder and hypocrisy, were the principal employments of man. industry was a slave, theft was commerce; murder was war, hypocrisy was religion. every christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owners. lord bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. reading and writing were considered dangerous arts. every layman who could read and write was suspected of being a heretic. all thought was discouraged. they forged chains of superstition for the minds, and manacles of iron for the bodies of men. the earth was ruled by the cowl and sword,--by the mitre and scepter,--by the altar and throne,--by fear and force,--by ignorance and faith,--by ghouls and ghosts. in the fifteenth century the following law was in force in england: "that whosoever reads the scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to god, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." during the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies burned. in the sixteenth century men were burned because they failed to kneel to a procession of monks. the slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was punished with death. even the reformers, so called, of those days, had no idea of intellectual liberty--no idea even of toleration. luther, knox, calvin, believed in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. the moment they were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire and sword. castellio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul. he was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he had committed the crime of crimes. bodinus, a lawyer of france, about the same time, wrote a few words in favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. the people were ready, anxious, and willing, with whip, and chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy that he had a right to think. montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most uncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture in france. but what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? it was the cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea. in spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of human beings--fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters--with hopes, loves, and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant faith. they perished in every way by which death can be produced. every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the believers in ghosts. for my part i glory in the fact, that here in the new world,--in the united states,--liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man, and that the constitution of the united states was the first great decree entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing church and state,--the first injunction granted against the interference of the ghosts. this was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race in the direction of progress. you will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred years. and i answer--the inventions and discoveries of the few;--the brave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;--the acquisition of a few facts. besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish itself. it is hard to make a lie stand always. a lie will not fit a fact. it will only fit another lie made for the purpose. the life of a lie is simply a question of time. nothing but truth is immortal. the nobles and kings quarreled;--the priests began to dispute;--the ideas of government began to change. in printing was discovered. at that time the past was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. the ideas of men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them. the lips of the human race had been sealed. printing gave pinions to thought. it preserved ideas. it made it possible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the wealth of his soul. at first, it was used to flood the world with the mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the world with light. when people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they progress. this was another grand step in the direction of progress. the discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with the prince;--that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;--that released a vast number of men from the armies;--that gave pluck and nerve a chance with brute strength. the discovery of america, whose shores were trod by the restless feet of adventure;--that brought people holding every shade of superstition together;--that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and to laugh at the follies of each other. out of this strange mingling of all creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless opinions, came the great republic. every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the clouds. every mechanic art is an educator. every loom, every reaper and mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press, every telegraph, is a missionary of science and an apostle of progress. every mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers, in which something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the comfort and elevation of man, is a church, and every school house is a temple. education is the most radical thing in the world to teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution. to build a school house is to construct a fort. every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of progress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of steel. i thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. i thank columbus and magellan. i thank galileo, and copernicus, and kepler, and des cartes, and newton, and la place. i thank locke, and hume, and bacon, and shakespeare, and kant, and fichte, and liebnitz, and goethe. i thank fulton, and watts, and volta, and galvani, and franklin, and morse, who made lightning the messenger of man. i thank humboldt, the shakespeare of science. i thank crompton and arkwright, from whose brains leaped the looms and spindles that clothe the world. i thank luther for protesting against the abuses of the church, and i denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. i thank calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and i abhor him because he burned servetus. i thank knox for resisting episcopal persecution, and i hate him because he persecuted in his turn. i thank the puritans for saying "resistance to tyrants is obedience to god," and yet i am compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves. i thank thomas paine because he was a believer in liberty, and because he did as much to make my country free as any other human being. i thank voltaire, that great man who, for half a century, was the intellectual emperor of europe, and who, from his throne at the foot of the alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in christendom. i thank darwin, haeckel and buchner, spencer, tyndall and huxley, draper, leckey and buckle. i thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the scientists, the explorers. i thank the honest millions who have toiled. i thank the brave men with brave thoughts. they are the atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization. they are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of superstition. they are the titans who carried olympus by assault, and who will soon stand victors upon sinai's crags. we are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake for the truth--a superstition for a fact--to ascertain the real--is to progress. happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to the happiness of man is right, and is of value. all that tends to develop the bodies and minds of men; all that gives us better houses, better clothes, better food, better pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts; all that renders us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that makes us better husbands and wives, better children, better citizens--all these things combined produce what i call progress. man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of nature, and this can be done only by labor and by thought. labor is the foundation of all. without labor, and without great labor, progress is impossible. the progress of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and reap; upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace fires; upon the delvers in the mines, and the workers in shops; upon those who give to the winter air the ringing music of the axe; upon those who battle with the boisterous billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon the brave thinkers. from the surplus produced by labor, schools and universities are built and fostered. from this surplus the painter is paid for the productions of the pencil; the sculptor for chiseling shapeless rock into forms divinely beautiful, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories, and the aspirations of the world. this surplus has given us the books in which we converse with the dead and living kings of the human race. it has given us all there is of beauty, of elegance, and of refined happiness. i am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to what progress really is; that many denounce the ideas of to-day as destructive of all happiness--of all good. i know that there are many worshipers of the past. they venerate the ancient because it is ancient. they see no beauty in anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise. they say, no masters like the old; no religion, no governments like the ancient; no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. others love the modern simply because it is modern. we should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations we are under to the great and heroic of antiquity, and independence enough not to believe what they said simply because they said it. with the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the truth that labor must be free. the laborer must be a free man. the free man, working for wife and child, gets his head and hands in partnership. to do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time, is the problem of free labor. slavery does the least work in the longest space of time. free labor will give us wealth. free thought will give us truth. slowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these sexless phantoms, of these cruel ghosts. slowly but surely he is rising above the superstitions of the past. he is learning to rely upon himself. he is beginning to find that labor is the only prayer that ought to be answered, and that hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of more importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through the fenceless fields of space. the believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only wise and virtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that there is a difference between them and unbelievers so vast, that they will be infinitely rewarded, and the others infinitely punished. i ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the theologians satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth century? have the churches the confidence of mankind? does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs to a church? does the banker loan money to a man because he is a methodist or baptist? will a certificate of good standing in any church be taken as collateral security for one dollar? will you take the word of a church member, or his note, or his oath, simply because he is a church member? are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous to their families--to their fellow-men--than doctors, lawyers, merchants and farmers? does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily make people honest? when a man loses confidence in moses, must the people lose confidence in him? does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin? why send missionaries to other lands while every penitentiary in ours is filled with criminals?-- is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross? is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destination of nearly all of the children of men? is it worth while to quarrel about original sin--when there is so much copy? does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the trinity, and predestination, and apostolic succession and the infallibility of churches, of popes and of books? does all this do any good? are the theologians welcomers of new truths? are they noted for their candor? do they treat an opponent with common fairness? are they investigators? do they pull forward, or do they hold back? is science indebted to the church for a solitary fact? what church is an asylum for a persecuted truth? what great reform has been inaugurated by the church? did the church abolish slavery? has the church raised its voice against war? i used to think that there was in religion no real restraining force. upon this point my mind has changed. religion will prevent man from committing artificial crimes and offenses. a man committed murder. the evidence was so conclusive that he confessed his guilt. he was asked why he killed his fellow-man. he replied: "for money." "did you get any?" "yes." "how much?" "fifteen cents." "what did you do with this money?" "spent it!" "what for?" "liquor." "what else did you find upon the dead man?" "he had his dinner in a bucket--some meat and bread." "what did you do with that?" "i ate the bread." "what did you do with the meat?" "i threw it away." "why?" "it was friday." just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of ghosts he has advanced. just to the extent that he has freed himself from the tyrants of his own creation he has progressed. just to the extent that he has investigated for himself he has lost confidence in superstition. with knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence--it is no longer degrading. acquiescence in the understood--in the known--is the act of a sovereign, not of a slave. it ennobles, it does not degrade. man has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it himself. he has found that a master is also a slave;--that a tyrant is himself a serf. he has found that governments should be founded and administered by man and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that the powers that be are not ordained by god; that woman is at least the equal of man; that men existed before books; that religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is an impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has the right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that all have a right to think. true religion must be free. without perfect liberty of the mind there can be no true religion. without liberty the brain is a dungeon--the mind a convict. the slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore--he cannot love. true religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart. true religion is a subordination of the passions to the perceptions of the intellect. true religion is not a theory--it is a practice. it is not a creed--it is a life. a theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a place in the human mind. i do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. i do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with the dim heights of thought. i simply plead for freedom. i denounce the cruelties and horrors of slavery. i ask for light and air for the souls of men. i say, take off those chains--break those manacles--free those limbs--release that brain! i plead for the right to think--to reason--to investigate. i ask that the future may be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. i implore every human being to be a soldier in the army of progress. i will not invade the rights of others. you have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought. you have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human race. you have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of ghosts. believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your liberty in your own way but extend to all others the same right. i will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. if they hold thought to be dangerous--if they aver that doubt is a crime, then i attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men. i attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. i attack slavery. i ask for room--room for the human mind. why should we sacrifice a real world that we have, for one we know not of? why should we enslave ourselves? why should we forge fetters for our own hands? why should we be the slaves of phantoms. the darkness of barbarism was the womb of these shadows. in the light of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. they have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. they made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment. they blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. they subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite virtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offenses. they filled the future with heavens and with hells, with the shining peaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame. for ages they kept the world in ignorance and awe, in want and misery, in fear and chains. i plead for light, for air, for opportunity. i plead for individual independence. i plead for the rights of labor and of thought. i plead for a chainless future. let the ghosts go--justice remains. let them disappear--men and women and children are left. let the monsters fade away--the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its seasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color what they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her tapestries of gold and brown. the world remains with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. all these are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope and love and aspiration high. all these remain. let the ghosts go--we will worship them no more. man is greater than these phantoms. humanity is grander than all the creeds, than all the books. humanity is the great sea, and these creeds, and books, and religions, are but the waves of a day. humanity is the sky, and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds changing continually, destined finally to melt away. that which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignorance, cannot endure. in the religion of the future there will be men and women and children, all the aspirations of the soul, and all the tender humanities of the heart. let the ghosts go. we will worship them no more. let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imaginations of men. the liberty of man, woman and child liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter. there is no slavery but ignorance. liberty is the child of intelligence. the history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. he has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. hypocrisy and tyranny--two vultures--have fed upon the liberties of man. from all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape--intellectual development. upon the back of industry has been the whip. upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. in this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes. every science has been an outcast. all the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. the king said that mankind must not work for themselves. the priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. one forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. under this infamous _regime_ the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy. the human race was imprisoned. through some of the prison bars came a few struggling rays of light. against these bars science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. bar after bar was broken away. a few grand men escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellows. only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. men began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him? the man who asked this question was called a traitor. others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? such men were called infidels. the priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit of investigation to stop? they said then and they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. i deny it. out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for every sail. in the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing. the man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men. "every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man." standing in the presence of the unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. all i claim, all i plead for, is liberty thought and expression. that is all. i do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what i think is true. i do not pretend to tell all the truth. i do not claim that i have floated level with the heights of thought, or that i have descended to the very depths of things. i simply claim that what ideas i have, i have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. that is all. take those chains from the human soul. break those fetters. if i have no right to think, why have i a brain? if i have no such right, have three or four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it--have they the right to think? the good men, the good women are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought. they remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. they are free, and they give liberty to others. whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous. in the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make people believe to suit them. our ancestors, in the ages that are gone, really believed that by force you could convince a man. you cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. but i will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. you can make hypocrites by the million. you can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still. our fathers in the good old times--and the best thing i can say about them is, that they have passed away--had an idea that they could force men to think their way. that idea is still prevalent in many parts, even of this country. even in our day some extremely religious people say, "we will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not hire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially ostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our doctrines; he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute to his support." in the old times of which i have spoken, they desired to make all men think exactly alike. all the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh--how are you going to make them think and feel alike? if there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent intellectual development to another? why is it that we have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that all should think and feel alike? i used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. but i never appreciated it. i read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul, i did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until i saw the iron arguments that christians used. i saw the thumbscrew--two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. and when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or maybe said, "i do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. when this was done most men said, "i will recant." probably i should have done the same. probably i would have said: "stop, i will admit anything that you wish; i will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop." but there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. there was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dangling around some dried snake fetich. let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth. heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. the man who would not recant was not forgiven. they screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. this was done in the name of love--in the name of mercy--in the name of the compassionate christ. i saw, too, what they called the collar of torture. imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. this argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured by these points. in a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. this man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "i do not believe that god, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men." i saw another instrument, called the scavenger's daughter. think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. in the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. in this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain. this was done by gentlemen who said: "whosoever smiteth thee upon one cheek turn to him the other also." i saw the rack. this was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. and then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. and they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. what for? to save his life? yes. in mercy? no; simply that they might rack him once again. this was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of the most merciful christ. sometimes, when i read and think about these frightful things, it seems to me that i have suffered all these horrors myself. it seems sometimes, as though i had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though i had been chained in the cell of the inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though i had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though i had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though i had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds, by all the countless hands of hate. and when i so feel, i swear that while i live i will do what little i can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child. it is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual development. if there is a man in the world who is not willing to give to every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than i am. it is a question of honesty. the man who is not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights he claims for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal. it is a question of intellectual development. whoever holds another man responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain. it is a question of intellectual development. a little while ago i saw models of nearly everything that man has made. i saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his head--i saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas--from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york, with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart. i saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. i saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail, that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel. i saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the tom-tom--that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn across it--from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make the common air blossom with melody. i saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great works which now adorn the galleries of the world. i saw also their sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of to-day--to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction. i saw their books--books written upon skins of wild beasts--upon shoulder-blades of sheep--books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. when i speak of libraries, i think of the remark of plato: "a house that has a library in it has a soul." i saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. while looking upon these things i was forced to say that man advanced only as he mingled his thought with his labor,--only as he got into partnership with the forces of nature,--only as he learned to take advantage of his surroundings--only as he freed himself from the bondage of fear,--only as he depended upon himself--only as he lost confidence in the gods. i saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has been found, the neanderthal skull--skulls from central africa, skulls from the bushmen of australia--skulls from the farthest isles of the pacific sea--up to the best skulls of the last generation;--and i noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the _products_ of those skulls, and i said to myself, "after all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." there was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dugout and the man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the krupp gun, between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by verdi. the first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty, and love. it is all a question of brain, of intellectual development. if we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have better heads upon the average, and more brains in them. now, i ask you to be honest with me. it makes no difference to you what i believe, nor what i wish to prove. i simply ask you to be honest. divest your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice. act, for a few moments, as though you were men and women. suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one, at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "that dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment--honor bright--would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and i presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose this king and priest had said: "that tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it--that is how we obtained it; and any man who says that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,"--i ask you, what effect would that have had upon music? if that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of beethoven? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: "that crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the _ne plus ultra_ of all twisted things, and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture? but the people said, and the king and priest said: "we want better weapons with which to kill our fellow christians; we want better plows, better music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons, and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe him in wealth, and crown him with honor." every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things. that is the reason the club has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone finally became a glorified statue. you must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out, the gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and cultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own. that gentlemen in the dugout was orthodox. he was never troubled with doubts. he lived and died settled in his mind. he believed in hell; and he thought he would be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean over and see certain people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his creed, gently but everlastingly broiled and burned. it is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many intellectual descendants. it is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. this fellow in the dug-out believed in a personal devil. his devil had a cloven hoof, a long tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone. this devil was at least the equal of god; not quite so stout but a little shrewder. and do you know there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil for six thousand years. this gentleman in the dug-out believed that god was a tyrant; that he would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest and grandest ideal. he believed that the earth was flat. he believed in a literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. he had also his idea of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. and it will take thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly say, "right makes might." all i ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon his politics as upon his dug-out. that is all. i ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. that is the only crime i have committed. i say, let us think. let each one express his thought. let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. if there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites. honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench. this is my doctrine: give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. keep your mind open to the influences of nature. receive new thoughts with hospitality. let us advance. the religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. he delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. he loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "do not disturb my opinions. do not unsettle my mind; i have it all made up, and i want no infidelity. let me go backward rather than forward." as far as i am concerned i wish to be out on the high seas. i wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. and i had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox harbor whatever. after all, we are improving from age to age. the most orthodox people in this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime of heresy. the ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would have been in the inquisition themselves. where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the church. the religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. the church has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. it has followed the army of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance. if the church had not made great progress i could not express my thoughts. man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he has mingled his thought with his labor. the sailor, without control of the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious currents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. so also is the agriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot control. but the mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. he knows there is a reason. he knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it were, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements,--of the heat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning,--just to the extent that he has gotten control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and intellectually. as man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. as he values his own rights, he begins to value the rights of others. and when all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized. a few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think. before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. all this is slowly but surely changing. we no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. our fathers worshiped the golden calf. the worst you can say of an american now is, he worships the gold of the calf. even the calf is beginning to see this distinction. it no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor. the last napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the french. he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head. he wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head. so he wrote the life of julius caesar, that he might become a member of the french academy. the emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. compare king william with the philosopher haeckel. the king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim--one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. compare this king with haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. compare george eliot with queen victoria. the queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while george eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius. the world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart. we have advanced. we have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. when i think of how much this world has suffered; when i think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, i am amazed. this world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. it was not until the year that great britain abolished the slave trade. up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. it was not until the same year that the united states of america abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the states. it was not until the th day of august, , that great britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the st day of january, , that abraham lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic north, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. abraham lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the united states. upon his monument these words should be written: "here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy." think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. think of it. the pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a hundred years, turned the cross of christ into a whipping post. with every drop of my blood i hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. i hate dictation. i love liberty. what do i mean by liberty? by physical liberty i mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. by intellectual liberty i mean the right to think right and the right to think wrong. thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at truth. if we know the truth already, we need not think. all that can be required is honesty of purpose. you ask my opinion about anything; i examine it honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should i tell you? should i tell you my real thought? what should i do? there is a book put in my hands. i am told this is the koran; it was written by inspiration. i read it, and when i get through, suppose that i think in my heart and in my brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask me, what do you think? now, admitting that i live in turkey, and have no chance to get any office unless i am on the side of the koran, what should i say? should i make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor i do not believe it? what would you think then of my fellow-citizens if they said: "that man is dangerous, he is dishonest." suppose i read the book called the bible, and when i get through i make up my mind that it was written by men. a minister asks me, "did you read the bible?" i answer that i did. "do you think it divinely inspired?" what should i reply? should i say to myself, "if i deny the inspiration of the scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power." what ought i to answer? ought i not to say like a man: "i have read it; i do not believe it." should i not give the real transcript of my mind? or should i turn hypocrite and pretend what i do not feel, and hate myself forever after for being a cringing coward. for my part i would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks. i would rather he would preserve his manhood. i had a thousand times rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. and if there is a judgment day, a time when all will stand before some supreme being, i believe i will stand higher, and stand a better chance of getting my case decided in my favor, than any man sneaking through life pretending to believe what he does not. i have made up my mind to say my say. i i shall do it kindly, distinctly; but i am going to do it. i know there are thousands of men who substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition to express their thoughts. they are poor; they are in business; and they know that should they tell their honest thought, persons will refuse to patronize them--to trade with them; they wish to get bread for their little children; they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. every such person is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he resides: and yet i do not blame these people for not expressing their thought. i say to them: "keep your ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you love; i will do your talking for you. the church can not touch, can not crush, can not starve, cannot stop or stay me; i will express your thoughts." as an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has taught that man is totally depraved. of the truth of that doctrine, the church has furnished the only evidence there is. the truth is, we are both good and bad. the worst are capable of some good deeds, and the best are capable of bad. the lowest can rise, and the highest may fall. that mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints, is an utter falsehood. in times of great disaster, called it may be, by the despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally depraved, rush to death as to a festival. by such men, deeds are done so filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay to them the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. above all creeds,-above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,--humanity; and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. all these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade and to enslave mankind. away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. down with the idea that thought is dangerous! perish the infamous doctrine that man can have property in man. let us resent with indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds. if there is no god, certainly we should not bow and cringe and crawl. if there is a god, there should be no slaves. liberty of woman. women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. let me say right here, that i regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no life worth living. every good government is made up of good families. the unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. i believe in marriage, and i hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage. the grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. that is my idea. there is no success in life without love and marriage. you had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. the man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, i do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success. i say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. the chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. but nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this world by the crime of woman. what a gallant thing that is! and if it is true, i had rather live with the woman i love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men. i read in a book--and i will say now that i cannot give the exact language, as my memory does not retain the words, but i can give the substance--i read in a book that the supreme being concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden. in a little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train. there was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the supreme being made up his mind to make him a companion. having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. so he caused a sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, i do not say this story is true. after the sleep fell upon this man, the supreme being took a rib, or as the french would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and from that he made a woman. and considering the amount of raw material used, i look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. he liked her, and they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do--and of course they did it. i would have done it in fifteen minutes, and i know it. there wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of clubs. and then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back. devilment commenced. the mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. they began to have the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this. nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that! i read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. it was written about four thousand years before the other. all commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last. but i would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. in this other story, brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. he made the world, and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island of ceylon. according to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. such birds, such songs, such flowers and such verdure! and the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand aeolian harps. brahma, when he put them there, said: "let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." when i read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that i said to myself, "if either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, i hope it will be this one." then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. imagine that courtship! no prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "young man, how do you expect to support her?" nothing of that kind. they were married by the supreme brahma, and he said to them: "remain here; you must never leave this island." well, after a little while the man--and his name was adami, and the woman's name was heva--said to heva: "i believe i'll look about a little." he went to the northern extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there, that he went back and told heva: "the country over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." she, like every other woman that ever lived, said: "let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." but he said "no, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. but the moment they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. the mirage had disappeared, and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the supreme brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell. then it was that the man spoke,--and i have liked him ever since for it--"curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine." that's the kind of man to start a world with. the supreme brahma said: "i will save her, but not thee." and then she spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; i do not wish to live without him; i love him." then the supreme brahma said--and i have liked him ever since i read it--"i will spare you both and watch over you and your children forever." honor bright, is not that the better and grander story? and from that same book i want to show you what ideas some of these miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. we send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen here. if we can convert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home? why not convert those we can get at? why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer? but to show you the men we are trying to convert: in this book it says: "man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love. when the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." they are the men we are converting. think of it! i tell you, when i read these things, i say that love is not of any country; nobility does not belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have been a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity. in my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. she has all the rights i have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. that is my doctrine. you are married; try and make the woman you love happy. whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says "i will make her happy," makes no mistake. and so with the woman who says, "i will make him happy." there is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road. if there is any man i detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a family--the man who thinks he is "boss!" the fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions. imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart--imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "now, here, let us settle who is 'boss!'" i tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling--i abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. do you know i dislike this man unspeakably? i hate above all things a cross man. what right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? what right has he to assassinate the joy of life? when you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. a woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this gentleman--the head of the family--the boss! do you know another thing? i despise a stingy man. i do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. how a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. i do not see how he can do it. i should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. do you know that i have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. when i see a man of that kind, i always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable. think of making your wife a beggar! think of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or fifty cents! "what did you do with that dollar i gave you last week?" think of having a wife that is afraid of you! what kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? oh, i tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests! that's the way to spend it! i had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar! if it has got to go, let it go! get the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can yourself. when you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! ah, your eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince. do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! think of it! any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best. some people tell me, "your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." i tell you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich. the meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. that is my doctrine! you cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody. good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. do not tell me that you have got to be rich! we have a false standard of greatness in the united states. we think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. it is all a mistake. it is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. the happy, man is the successful man. happiness is the legal tender of the soul. joy is wealth. a little while ago, i stood by the grave of the old napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. i leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. i saw him walking upon the banks of the seine, contemplating suicide. i saw him at toulon--i saw him putting down the mob in the streets of paris--i saw him at the head of the army of italy--i saw him crossing the bridge of lodi with the tri-color in his hand--i saw him in egypt in the shadows of the pyramids--i saw him conquer the alps and mingle the eagles of france with the eagles of the crags. i saw him at marengo--at ulm and austerlitz. i saw him in russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. i saw him at leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to elba. i saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. i saw him upon the frightful field of waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. and i saw him at st. helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. i thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. and i said i would rather have been a french peasant and worn wooden shoes. i would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. i would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their arms about me--i would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder. it is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection. no matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and with joy. and do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. and a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. i like to think of it in that way; i like to think that love is eternal. and to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age. i believe in the fireside. i believe in the democracy of home. i believe in the republicanism of the family. i believe in liberty, equality and love. the liberty of children. if women have been slaves, what shall i say of children; of the little children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale when they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away when they only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little children--the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children of brutality, wherever they are--flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life--my heart goes out to them, one and all. i tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to treat them as though they were human beings. they should be reared with love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. that is my idea of children. when your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. be honest with him. a tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? a lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. i thank thee, mother nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. when one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. tell him as the man did in maine when his boy left home: "john, honesty is the best policy; i have tried both." be honest with him. suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger than a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "who broke that plate?" there is not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was cracked when you got it. why not be honest with these children? just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for putting false rumors afloat! think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that way! think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! just think of it! when your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely love it. yet some christians, good christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "never do you darken this house again." think of that! and then these same people will get down on their knees and ask god to take care of the child they have driven from home. i will never ask god to take care of my children unless i am doing my level best in that same direction. but i will tell you what i say to my children: "go where you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my heart to you. as long as i live you shall have one sincere friend." do you know that i have seen some people who acted as though they thought that when the saviour said "suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his mantle, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance? i do not believe in the government of the lash. if any one of you ever expects to whip your children again, i want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. have the picture taken. if that little child should die, i cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth--and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat. i tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! make your home happy. be honest with them. divide fairly with them in everything. give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of your house. they will want to stay there. make home pleasant. let them play any game they wish. do not be so foolish as to say: "you may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. you may knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. you may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written on them, but you must not have 'cards.'" think of it! "you may go to a minstrel show where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below them, but you must not go to a theatre and see the characters created by immortal genius put upon the stage." why? well, i can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables, and "theatre" has three. let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there, and do not commence at the cradle and shout "don't!" "don't!" "stop!" that is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "don't!" and the church says "don't?" and the party he belongs to says "don't!" i despise that way of going through this world. let us have liberty--just a little. call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, i intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: "he who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. from his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word." people justify all kinds of tyranny towards children upon the ground that they are totally depraved. at the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. religion contemplates a child as a living crime--heir to an infinite curse--doomed to eternal fire. in the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself. when i was a boy sunday was considered altogether too holy to be happy in. sunday used to commence then when the sun went down on saturday night. we commenced at that time for the purpose of getting a good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on saturday evening, there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times deeper than that of night. nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. that night you could not even crack hickory nuts. if you were caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. it was an exceedingly solemn night. dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. everybody looked sad and mournful. i have noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. if there could be found an absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the church has ever received. on sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. then we went to church. the minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." then he made a few remarks by way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the last chapter in revelations. in those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in the church. it was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking god. the first church that ever had a stove in it in new england, divided on that account. so the first church in which they sang by note, was torn in fragments. after the sermon we had an intermission. then came the catechism with the chief end of man. we went through with that. we sat in a row with our feet coming in about six inches of the floor. the minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered "yes." then we were asked if we would be willing to go hell if it was god's will, and every little liar shouted "yes." then the same sermon was preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back. after that, we started for home, sad and solemn--overpowered with the wisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement. when we got home, if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. it did cheer me. when i looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forget-fulness, it was a great comfort. the reflection came to my mind that the observance of the sabbath could not last always. sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these cheerful lines: "where congregations ne'er break up, and sabbaths never end." these lines, i think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. then we had good books that we read on sundays by way of keeping us happy and contented. there were milners' "history of the waldenses," baxter's "call to the unconverted," yahn's "archaeology of the jews," and jenkyns' "on the atonement." i used to read jenkyns' "on the atonement." i have often thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy. but at last the sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we were free. between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the sun was coming on. sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from pure meanness. but finally it went down. it had to. and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once more. sabbaths used to be prisons. every sunday was a bastile. every christian was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,--a convict. in that dungeon, a smile was a crime. it was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. think of that! a little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and thinking, about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate,--singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies. i have heard them preach, when i sat in the pew and my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. in order to impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the following illustration: "suppose that once in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even be sun up in hell." think of such an infamous doctrine being taught to children! the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. strike with hand of fire, o weird musician, thy harp strung with apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh--the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. o rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. o laughter, rose-lipped daughter of joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. and yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. i denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the infamy of which no language is sufficient to express. where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and children come from? it came from the low and beastly skull of that wretch in the dug-out. where did he get it? it was a souvenir from the animals. the doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering eyes of snakes--snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. it was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. it was born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean baboons. i despise it with every drop of my blood. tell me there is a god in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! more men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! i denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies. when the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, i am willing to go down with the ship. i will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling away in some orthodox canoe. i will go down with the ship, with those who love me, and with those whom i have loved. if there is a god who will damn his children forever, i would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. i make my choice now. i despise that doctrine. it has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. it has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. it has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. it has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. it has wrung the hearts of the tender: it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. this doctrine never should be preached again. what right have you, sir, mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? i do not believe this doctrine: neither do you. if you did, you could not sleep one moment. any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. a man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena. jonathan edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is now in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries of the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: "can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? can the believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell?" and he replies: "i tell you, yea. such will be their sense of justice, that it will increase rather than diminish their bliss." there is no wild beast in the jungles of africa whose reputation would not be tarnished by the expression of such a doctrine. these doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. do not, i pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. let them read for themselves; let them think for themselves. do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. treat them like trees that need light and sun and air. be fair and honest with them; give them a chance. recollect that their rights are equal to yours. do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they must obey. throw away forever the idea of master and slave. in old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not sleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. i say let them go to bed when they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy. but you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor. well, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. give your children freedom; let them preserve their individuality. let your children eat what they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. that is their business and not yours. they know what they wish to eat. if they are given their liberty from the first, they know what they want better than any doctor in the world can prescribe. do you know that all the improvement that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients and not by the doctors? for thousands and thousands of years the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever have a drop of water. water they looked upon as poison. but every now and then some man got reckless and said, "i had rather die than not to slake my thirst." then he would drink two or three quarts of water and get well. and when the doctor was told of what the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still alive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear such a frightful strain. the reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water, and persisted in getting well. and finally the doctors said: "in a fever, water is the very best thing you can take." so, i have more confidence in the voice of nature about such things than i have in the conclusions of the medical schools. let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be driven. and do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened for this world, that people are that way. what would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? they would have all been dead. what would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? they would have all been idiots. it is a splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for himself. i believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. i believe in the democracy of the family. if in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals. you will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their children to "let their victuals stop their mouths." they used to eat as though it were a religious ceremony--a very solemn thing. life should not be treated as a solemn matter. i like to see the children at table, and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard. i like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with their happy voices. i had rather hear it than any opera that was ever put upon the boards. let the children have liberty. be honest and fair with them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy. men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers. the human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but i have some excuse for mankind. this world, after all, is not very well adapted to raising good people. in the first place, nearly all of it is water. it is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of folks. of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil and climate to produce great men and women. you cannot raise men and women of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you can raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the arctic sea. you must have the necessary conditions and surroundings. man is a product; you must have the soil and food. the obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. there is upon this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of talent. in the southern hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. in the far north there is no genius--it is too cold. in the far south there is no genius--it is too warm. there must be winter, and there must be summer. in a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his normal condition. winter is the mother of industry and prudence. above all, it is the mother of the family relation. winter holds in its icy arms the husband and wife and the sweet children. if upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. i never passed such a house without feeling that i had received a benediction. civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow. i do not know that i can better illustrate the great truth that only part of the world is adapted to the production of great men and women than by calling your attention to the difference between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. in the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed--every limb twisted as though in pain--getting a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. you go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. you might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. you must have the proper climate and soil. a few years ago we were talking about the annexation of santo domingo to this country. i was in washington at the time. i was opposed to it. i was told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced everything. but i said: "we do not want it; it is not the right kind of country in which to raise american citizens. such a climate would debauch us. you might go there with five thousand congregational preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in colleges, five thousand of the solid men of boston and their wives; settle them all in santo domingo, and you will see the second generation riding upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on sunday." such is the influence of climate. science, however, is gradually widening the area within which men of genius can be produced. we are conquering the north with houses, clothing, food and fuel. we are in many ways overcoming the heat of the south. if we attend to this world instead of another, we may in time cover the land with men and women of genius. i have still another excuse. i believe that man came up from, the lower animals. i do not say this as a fact. i simply say i believe it to be a fact. upon that question i stand about eight to seven, which, for all practical purposes, is very near a certainty. when i first heard of that doctrine i did not like it. my heart was filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. i thought, how terrible this will be upon the nobility of the old world. think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke orang outang, or to the princess chimpanzee. after thinking it all over, i came to the conclusion that i liked that doctrine. i became convinced in spite of myself. i read about rudimentary bones and muscles. i was told that everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. i asked: "what are they?" i was told: "they are the remains of muscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into bankruptcy. they are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears." i do not now so much wonder that we once had them as that we have outgrown them. after all i had rather belong to a race that started from the skulless vertebrates in the dim laurentian seas, vertebrates wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going, but that in some way began to develop, and began to get a little higher and a little higher in the scale of existence; that came up by degrees through millions of ages through all the animal world, through all that crawls and swims and floats and climbs and walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the dug-out; and then from this man, getting a little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist--for in the history of this world the man who is ahead has always been called a heretic--would rather come from a race that started from that skulless vertebrate, and came up and up and up and finally produced shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace domed and pinnacled; shakespeare, who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there have been only gleaners of straw and chaff--i would rather belong to that race that commenced a skulless vertebrate and produced shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward and onward forever--i had rather belong to such a race, commencing there, producing this, and with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon which the lord has lost money every moment from that day to this. conclusion. i have given you my honest thought. surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. surely reason is a better guide than fear. this world should be controlled by the living, not by the dead. the grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. man should not try to live on ashes. the theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. more than this cannot be said. about this world little is known,--about another world, nothing. our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. the makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. every dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot. our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. they believed in the logic of fire and sword. they hated reason. they despised thought. they abhorred liberty. superstition is the child of slavery. free thought will give us truth. when all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every brain will give to all the best it has. the world will then be filled with intellectual wealth. as long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because they do not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your self-respect, as long as the church has power, as long as mankind worship a book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants, covered with the soiled and faded rags of superstition. as long as woman regards the bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. the bible was not written by a woman. within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. she is regarded as the property of man. she is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. she is as much below her husband, as her husband is below christ. she is not allowed to speak. the gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips. woman should learn in silence. in the bible will be found no description of a civilized home. the free mother, surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the bible. they did not believe in the democracy of home--in the republicanism of the fireside. these inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. they were the advocates of brute force--the disciples of the lash. they knew nothing of human rights. their doctrines have brutalized the homes of millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears. let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of dead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air. there has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. it is not yet time to write a creed. wait until the chains are broken--until dungeons are not regarded as temples. wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom--until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead--until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. wait until teachers take the place of preachers--until followers become investigators. wait until the world is free before you write a creed. in this creed there will be but one word--liberty. oh liberty, float not forever in the far horizon--remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and make thy home among the children of men! i know not what discoveries, what inventions what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. i know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. i cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but i do know, that coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for child. . the declaration of independence. one hundred years ago our fathers retired the gods from politics. the declaration of independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of a people. it is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom. i say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the british navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of america, looking after defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. it was made when thousands of english soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of america were, in the substantial possession of the enemy. and so, i say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man. and if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the physical. they had the courage not only, but they had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are created equal. such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in the olden time, but for the first time in the history of the world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. with one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. they struck down with one immortal blow, that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. with one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed all that had been done by centuries of war--centuries of hypocrisy--centuries of injustice. what more did they do? they then declared that each man has a right to live. and what does that mean? it means that he has the right to make his living. it means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor--the labor of his hand and of his brain. what more? that every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his own way. grander words than these have never been spoken by man. and what more did these men say? they laid down the doctrine that governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. the old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of the state--that is to say, for kings and nobles. the old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest--that their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other. and what more? that the people are the source of political power. that was not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. it changed the ideas of people with regard to the source of political power. for the first time it made human beings men. what was the old idea? the old idea was that no political power came from, nor in any manner belonged to, the people. the old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. that was the old idea. the nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to divide what they stole with god almighty. the source, then, of political power was from above. the people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. the kings were responsible to god; not to the people. the kings were responsible to the clouds; not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered. and our forefathers, in this declaration of independence, reversed this thing, and said: no; the people, they are the source of political power, and their rulers, these presidents, these kings, are but the agents and servants of the great, sublime people. for the first time, really, in the history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the people were royally seated thereon. the people became the sovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people. it is hard for you and me now to imagine even the immense results of that change. it is hard for you and for me, at this day, to understand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man, that the king had some wonderful right over him; that in some strange way the king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, body and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse--to somebody with epaulettes on his shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head. our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first landed on american shores they believed it. they thought they belonged to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief, who could trace his pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber. it took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and hearts. they were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of the old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. the distance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and every mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. besides that, when they came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one side and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the world, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little republics. and the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not. it has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated by nature; that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed; that the great rivers--the wide plains--the splendid lakes--the lonely forests--the sublime mountains--that all these things stole into and became a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in which they lived. they began to hate the narrow, contracted views of europe. they were educated by their surroundings, and every little colony had to be, to a certain extent, a republic. the kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. but there were too many indians. there was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country--who were dissatisfied with england, dissatisfied with france, with germany, with ireland and holland. the kings' favorites stayed at home. men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. and they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. the best blood of the old world came to the new. when they first came over they did not have a great deal of political philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. we might as well tell the truth. when the puritans first came, they were narrow. they did not understand what liberty meant--what religious liberty, what political liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. there was one feeling among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the clouds--they were in favor of universal education. wherever they went they built school houses, introduced books, and ideas of literature. they believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. that is the glory of the puritan fathers. they forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to apply the principle of universal liberty--of toleration. some of the colonies did not forget it, and i want to give credit where credit should be given. the catholics of maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious toleration. let this be remembered to their eternal honor. let it be remembered to the disgrace of the protestant government of england, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. and to the honor and credit of the catholics of maryland let it be remembered, that the moment they got back into power they re-enacted the old law. the baptists of rhode island also, led by roger williams, were in favor of universal religious liberty. no american should fail to honor roger williams. he was the first grand advocate of the liberty of the soul. he was in favor of the eternal divorce of church and state. so far as i know, he was the only man at that time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty. while the catholics of maryland declared in favor of religious _toleration_, they had no idea of religious liberty. they would not allow any one to call in question the doctrine of the trinity, or the inspiration of the scriptures. they stood ready with branding iron and gallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to express his thoughts. so many religions met in our country--so many theories and dogmas came in contact--so many follies, mistakes and stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into disrepute. besides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of all others. the people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the next. the preacher was lost in the patriot. the bible was read to find passages against kings. everybody was discussing the rights of man. farmers and mechanics suddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every question was asked and answered. during these years of political excitement, the interest in religion abated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects and creeds. at last our fathers became tired of being colonists--tired of writing and reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended knees to an idiot king. they began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an old monarchy. they had the idea--the puritans, the catholics, the episcopalians, the baptists, the quakers, and a few free thinkers, all had the idea--that they would like to form a new nation. now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of independence. do not understand that they were all like jefferson; that they were all like adams or lee; that they were all like thomas paine or john hancock. there were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed to american independence. there were thousands and thousands who said: "when you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false." thousands and thousands of them said: "we prefer great britain." but the men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new nation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few. they met in philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by lee of virginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to dissolve their political connection with great britain. they made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. all nations had been, so to speak, the wards of some church. the religious idea as to the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments, and had been the bane and curse of man. happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. there were the puritans who hated the episcopalians, and episcopalians who hated the catholics, and the catholics who hated both, while the quakers held them all in contempt. there they were, of every sort, and color, and kind, and how was it that they came together? they had a common aspiration. they wanted to form a new nation. more than that, most of them cordially hated great britain; and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. they solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of all. our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. recollect that. the first secular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights, and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. in other words, our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence. you might as well have a government united by force with art, or with poetry, or with oratory, as with religion. religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more. religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more. the religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and curse. the religious argument that has to be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. a prayer that must have a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. love need not carry knives and revolvers. so, our fathers said: "we will form a secular government, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship god as he thinks best." they said: "religion is an individual thing between each man and his creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." and why did they do this? the history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. they had read of and seen the thumb-screws, the racks and the dungeons of the inquisition. they knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. they knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. they also knew that if they gave to any church power, it would corrupt the best church in the world. and so they said that power must not reside in a church nor in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is,--in the great body of the people. and the officers and servants of the people must be responsible to them. and so i say again, as i said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man. they turned, as i tell you, everything squarely about. they derived all their authority from the people. they did away forever with the theological idea of government. and what more did they say? they said that whenever the rulers abused this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the people. how did they come to say this? i will tell you. they were pushed into it. how? they felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened. nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ of _habeas corpus_. nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas of justice. and they began to inquire what rights the king of great britain had. they began to search for the charter of his authority. they began to investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they found at the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not thrones, but humanity and the rights of men. and so they said, we are men; we are _men_. they found out they were men. and the next thing they said, was, "we will be free men; we are weary of being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men; and these colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a nation; and that nation ought to drive the last british soldier into the sea." and so they signed that brave declaration of independence. i thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing that sublime declaration. i thank them for their courage--for their patriotism--for their wisdom--for the splendid confidence in themselves and in the human race. i thank them for what they were, and for what we are--for what they did and for what we have received--for what they suffered, and for what we enjoy. what would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? what would we have been to-day? nobodies,--ready to get down on our knees and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed marauder--that royal robber, william the conqueror. they signed that declaration of independence, although they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. they looked forward and saw poverty, deprivation, gloom and death. but they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom. these grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has only been raised by enthusiasts. in every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. the enthusiasts of were the builders and framers of this great and splendid government; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory that will finally cover this world. they knew, they felt, they believed that they would give a new constellation to the political heavens--that they would make the americans a grand people--grand as the continent upon which they lived. the war commenced. there was little money, and less credit. the new nation had but few friends. to a great extent, each soldier of freedom had to clothe and feed himself. he was poor and pure--brave and good, and so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man. what did the soldier leave when he went? he left his wife and children. did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic? no. he left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at that time the ally of the still more savage briton. he left his wife to defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their mother and by nature. the mother made the living; she planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and in the darkness of night, told them about their brave father, and the "sacred cause." she told them that in a little while the war would be over and father would come back covered with honor and glory. think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps of the dead--who waited through the sad and desolate years for the dear ones who never came. the soldiers of did not march away with music and banners. they went in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears. they went to meet, not an equal, but a superior--to fight five times their number--to make a desperate stand--to stop the advance of the enemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of rocks, of rivers and of hills. let me say here: the greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. that army is the bravest that can be whipped the greatest number of times and fight again. over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. now and then they would meet the english with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. and so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and sombre gloom of valley forge. there were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had been spent and shed in vain. but there were some men gifted with that wonderful prophecy that fulfils itself, and with that wonderful magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with. and so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent, brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of yorktown, the old banner won its place in the air, and became glorious forever. seven long years of war--fighting for what? for the principle that all men are created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. no man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. what else were they fighting for? simply that in america every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. it has been denied by kings--they were thieves. it has been denied by statesmen--they were liars. it has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes--they were hypocrites. what else were they fighting for? for the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. the great body of the people make all the money; do all the work. they plow the land, cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer? is it the non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin? those were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they were fighting for. they fought to build up a new, a great nation; to establish an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. they knew the history of this world. they knew the history of human slavery. the history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. in the olden times the family was a monarchy, the farther being the monarch. the mother and children were the veriest slaves. the will of the father was the supreme law. he had the power of life and death. it took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and child even tolerable. a few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant, a strong nation robbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. this was the commencement of human slavery. it is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. it has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible cruelty unperpetrated. it has been practised and defended by all nations in some form. it has been upheld by all religions. it has been defended by nearly every pulpit. from the profits derived from the slave trade churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. slavery has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. it has received the sanction of statesmen, of kings, and of queens. it has been defended by the throne, the pulpit, and the bench. monarchs have shared in the profits. clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, reciting passages of scripture in its defense at the same time, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law. only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. only a few years ago they passed with and belonged to the soil, like coal under it and rocks on it. only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far than we treat our animals at the present day. only a few years ago it was a crime in england for a man to have a bible in his house, a crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterwards burned. only a few years ago fathers could and did sell their children. only a few years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts--that being a crime. only a few years ago to be honest, at least in the expression of your ideas, was a felony. to do right was a capital offense; and in those days chains and whips were the incentives to labor, and the preventives of thought. honesty was a vagrant, justice a fugitive, and liberty in chains. only a few years ago men were denounced because they doubted the inspiration of the bible--because they denied miracles and laughed at the wonders recounted by the ancient jews. only a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the human heart in order to be respectable. only a few years ago, people who thought god too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child were considered infamous. as soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others. with an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon others the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. as soon as white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced. in this infamous traffic nearly every nation of europe embarked. fortunes were quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of europe were excited; all ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf; religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments of europe upheld it in the name of commerce--in the name of civilization and of religion. our fathers knew the history of caste. they knew that in the despotisms of the old world it was a disgrace to be useful. they knew that a mechanic was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below a blooded horse. they knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in contempt--that he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect. the world has changed. the other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron from europe, and they were received in the city of new york as though they had been princes. they had been sent by the great republic of france to examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic of america. they looked a thousand times better to me than the edward alberts and albert edwards--the royal vermin, that live on the body politic. and i would think much more of our government if it would fete and feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal line. our fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of founding a government for the protection of the rights of man. the theological idea as to the source of political power had poisoned the web and woof of every government in the world, and our fathers banished it from this continent forever. what we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. they did not attain to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. we want, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious--the absolute independence of the individual. that is what we want. i want it so that i, one of the children of nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that i can say this is _my_ air, _my_ sunshine, _my_ earth, and i have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual or any nation on the face of the globe. we want every american to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a declaration of individual independence. let each man enjoy his liberty to the utmost--enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense of another. the french convention gave the best definition of liberty i have ever read: "the liberty of one citizen ceases only where the liberty of another citizen commences." i know of no better definition. i ask you to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. and if you are independent, be just. allow everybody else to make his declaration of individual independence. allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your children to make theirs. let everybody be absolutely free and independent, knowing only the sacred obligation of honesty and affection. let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and everything except our own consciences and our own brains. do not belong to any clique. have the clear title deeds in fee simple to yourselves, without any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world. it is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. it is a grand thing to protect the rights of others. it is a sublime thing to be free and just. only a few days ago i stood in independence hall--in that little room where was signed the immortal paper. a little room, like any other; and it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and touching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men. in a few moments i was in the park, where are gathered the accomplishments of a century. our fathers never dreamed of the things i saw. there were hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame--every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious cogs and cranks, and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and steel. and going out from one little building were wires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart. i saw all that had been achieved by this nation, and i wished that the signers of the declaration--the soldiers of the revolution--could see what a century of freedom has produced. i wished they could see the fields we cultivate--the rivers we navigate--the railroads running over the alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest--on over the broad prairies--on over the vast plains--away over the mountains of the west, to the golden gate of the pacific. all this is the result of a hundred years of freedom. are you not more than glad that in was announced the sublime principle that political power resides with the people? that our fathers then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but that they would be free and independent citizens of america? i will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. all should be named, or none. i feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down without even his name being remembered--who was included only in a report of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing even the number that attached to his august corpse--is entitled to as deep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of the host. standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, i ask, will the second century be as grand as the first? i believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane, i believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human sympathy, a greater desire to help one another, in the united states, than in all the world besides. we must progress. we are just at the commencement of invention. the steam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science has been amused. wait; there will be grander things; there will be wider and higher culture--a grander standard of character, of literature, and art. we have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many of us will live until a hundred million stand beneath the flag. we are getting more real solid sense. the school house is the finest building in the village. we are writing and reading more books; we are painting and buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things--trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal sphinx. we are looking in every direction--investigating; in short, we are thinking and working. besides all this, i believe the people are nearer honest than ever before. a few years ago we were willing to live upon the labor of four million slaves. was that honest? at last, we have a national conscience. at last, we have carried out the declaration of independence. our fathers wrote it--we have accomplished it. the black man was a slave--we made him a citizen. we found four million human beings in manacles, and now the hands of a race are held up in the free air without a chain. i have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man--once a slave--sitting in the seat of his former master in the congress of the united states. i have had that pleasure, and when i saw it my eyes were filled with tears. i felt that we had carried out the declaration of independence,--that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. i felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children--standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million. i would protect him more, because the rich white man could protect himself. all who stand beneath our banner are free. ours is the only flag that has in reality written upon it: liberty, fraternity, equality--the three grandest words in all the languages of men. liberty: give to every man the fruit of his own labor--the labor of his hands and of his brain. fraternity: every man in the right is my brother. equality: the rights of all are equal: justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales, in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: no race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. the declaration of independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit. the second century will be grander than the first. fifty millions of people are celebrating this day. to-day, the black man looks upon his child and says: the avenues to distinction are open to you--upon your brow may fall the civic wreath--this day belongs to you. we are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the atlantic, is following the sun to the pacific, across a continent of happy homes. we are a great people. three millions have increased to fifty--thirteen states to thirty-eight. we have better homes, better clothes, better food and more of it, and more of the conveniencies of life, than any other people upon the globe. the farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago--and they have twice as much sense and heart. liberty and labor have given us all. i want every person here to believe in the dignity of labor--to know that the respectable man is the useful man--the man who produces or helps others to produce something of value, whether thought of the brain or work of the hand. i want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of injustice, of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more rights than another because he has better clothes, more land, more money, because he owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position. remember that all men have equal rights. remember that the man who acts best his part--who loves his friends the best--is most willing to help others--truest to the discharge of obligation--who has the best heart--the most feeling--the deepest sympathies--and who fiercely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. i am willing to swear to this. what has made this country? i say again, liberty and labor. what would we be without labor? i want every farmer, when plowing the rustling corn of june--while mowing in the perfumed fields--to feel that he is adding to the wealth and glory of the united states. i want every mechanic--every man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the cars running, the telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the statues and painting the pictures: that he is writing and printing the books; that he is helping to fill the world with honor, with happiness, with love and law. our country is founded upon the dignity of labor--upon the equality of man. ours is the first real republic in the history of the world. beneath our flag the people are free. we have retired the gods from politics. we have found that man is the only source of political power, and that the governed should govern. we have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind. about farming in illinois. to plow is to pray--to plant is to prophecy, and the harvest answers and fulfills. i am not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. i imagine, however, that i know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground. i know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth, prosperity and luxury. i know that in a country where the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. happy is that country where those who cultivate the land own it patriotism is born in the woods and fields--by lakes and streams--by crags and plains. the old way of farming was a great mistake. everything was done the wrong way. it was all work and waste, weariness and want. they used to fence a hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. everything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake. when i was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. they would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake. in those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. cooking was an unknown art. eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. it was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. we had poor houses. the rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. they had no barns. the horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. long before spring the sides would be-eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. food is fuel. when the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation. in those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. there is nothing like sociability. women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. the wood pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. there was nothing to kindle a fire with. pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. everything was done in the hardest way. everything about the farm was disagreeable. nothing was kept in order. nothing was preserved. the wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. there was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. it was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. the crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs. and when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. and when the roads got good, then the prices went down. everything worked together for evil. nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate the soil. the moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. they wanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. nearly every boy acquainted with the three r's--reading, writing, and arithmetic--imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. they made haste to get into some other business. those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away. a few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. they wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. they built railways, established banks and insurance companies. they speculated in stocks in wall street, and gambled in grain at chicago. they became rich. they lived in palaces. they rode in carriages. they pitied their poor brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them. but time has brought its revenge. the farmers have seen the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. they have seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined fraud. the only solvent people, as a class, the only independent people, are the tillers of the soil. farming must be made more attractive. the comforts of the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. the sociability of the city must be rendered possible in the country. farming has been made repulsive. the farmers have been unsociable and their homes have been lonely. they have been wasteful and careless. they have not been proud of their business. in the first place, farming ought to be reasonably profitable. the farmers have not attended to their own interests. they have been robbed and plundered in a hundred ways. no farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. he should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. he should make every profit possible out of what he produces. so long as the farmers of illinois ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor,--just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the east,--just so long will they do the work and others reap the benefit,--just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich,--just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of honest toil. when the farmers of the west ship beef and pork instead of grain,--when we manufacture here,--when we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in the world. another thing--it is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of cattle. scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. if you are not able to buy durhams and alderneys, you can raise the corn breed. by "corn breed" i mean the cattle that have, for several generations, had enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on his farm. all blooded stock has been produced in this way. you can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. if you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, and treat him with kindness. in this way, and in this way only, can good cattle or good people be produced. another thing--you must beautify your homes. when i was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to plant vines. when you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. there is no sense--there is no profit in such a life. it is not living. the farmers ought to beautify their homes. there should be trees and grass and flowers and running vines. everything should be kept in order--gates should be on their hinges, and about all there should be the pleasant air of thrift. in every house there should be a bath-room. the bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier. when you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so refreshing. above all things, keep clean. it is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. in the cool of the evening, after a day in the field, put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman. in no part of the globe will farming pay better than in illinois. you are in the best portion of the earth. from the atlantic to the pacific, there is no such country as yours. the east is hard and stony; the soil is stingy. the far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate as perdition would be with the fires out. it is better to dig wheat and corn from the soil than gold. only a few days ago i was where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. when i saw the mountains, treeless, shrub-less, flowerless, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for that. it affects the land as it does the man. it leaves the heart barren without a flower of kindness--without a blossom of pity. the farmer in illinois has the best soil--the greatest return for the least labor--more leisure--more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. his hard work ceases with autumn. he has the long winters in which to become acquainted with his family--with his neighbors--in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. he has the time and means for self-culture. he has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. if the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man. in many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. in our time we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. in the sub-division of labor we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in only one. we have, say, in a shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not one shoemaker. it takes them all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. each does a particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. the result is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment. out of employment means out of bread--out of bread means famine and horror. the mechanic of to-day has but little independence. his prosperity often depends upon the good will of one man. he is liable to be discharged for a look, for a word. he lays by but little for his declining years. he is, at the best, the slave of capital. it is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a mechanic. it is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to be hired by corporations. every man should endeavor to belong to himself. about seven hundred years ago, kheyam, a persian, said: "why should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water--why should such a man be commanded by another, and why should such a man serve another?" young men should not be satisfied with a salary. do not mortgage the possibilities of your future. have the courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of finding one for another man. how would you feel then? we are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. i had a thousand times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be president of the united states without independence, filled with doubt and trembling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and artifice, enquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my self respect without gaining the respect of others. man needs more manliness, more real independence. we must take care of ourselves. this we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our independence. we should try and choose that business or profession the pursuit of which will give us the most happiness. happiness is wealth. we can be happy without being rich--without holding office--without being famous. i am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with office, or with fame. there is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. a professional man is doomed sometime to feel that his powers are waning. he is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. he looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. he will be last where once he was the first. but the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature--"he lives with trees and flowers--he breathes the sweet air of the fields." there is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. his nights are filled with sleep and rest. he watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. he hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be. our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: what shall be done with these men? what shall these men do? to this there is but one answer: they must cultivate the soil. farming must be rendered more attractive. those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. they must educate their children to cultivate the soil. they must make farming easier, so that their children will not hate it--so that they will not hate it themselves. the boys must not be taught that tilling the ground is a curse and almost a disgrace. they must not suppose that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, or statesmen. it must be understood that education can be used to advantage on a farm. we must get rid of the idea that a little learning unfits one for work. there is no real conflict between latin and labor. there are hundreds of graduates of yale and harvard and other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. they seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work--anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. such an education ought to be called ignorance. it is a thousand times better to have common sense without education, than education without the sense. boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. they should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless. i say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm life pleasant. one great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. people write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. he who lives long alone becomes insane. a hermit is a madman. without friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth living for. the unsocial are the enemies of joy. they are filled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. people who live much alone become narrow and suspicious. they are apt to be the property of one idea. they begin to think there is no use in anything. they look upon the happiness of others as a kind of folly. they hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts, they envy them. in our country, farm-life is too lonely. the farms are large, and neighbors are too far apart. in these days, when the roads are filled with "tramps," the wives and children need protection. when the farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is upon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home. in the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild forest and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. he saw the smoke from his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky. but this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. with the improved machinery which you have--with your generous soil--with your markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live together. it is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. this getting up so early in the morning is a relic of barbarism. it has made hundreds and thousands of young men curse the business. there is no need of getting up at three or four o'clock in the winter morning. the farmer who persists in doing it and persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be visited by a missionary. it is time enough to rise after the sun has set the example. for what purpose do you get up? to feed the cattle? why not feed them more the night before? it is a waste of life. in the old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it now. the man who cannot get a living upon illinois soil without rising before daylight ought to starve. eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. when you rise at four and work till dark what is life worth? of what use are all the improvements in farming? of what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure? what is harvesting now, compared with what it was in the old time? think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and mowing. think of threshing with the flail and winnowing with the wind. and now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. if, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle of the night, go into some other business. you should not rob your families of sleep. sleep is the best medicine in the world. it is the best doctor upon the earth. there is no such thing as health without plenty of sleep. sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. when you work, work; and when you get through take a good, long, and refreshing rest. you should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of social life. you can have a reading-room--you can take the best papers and magazines--you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the benefit of them all. some of the young men and women can cultivate music. you can have social gatherings--you can-learn from each other--you can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can make farming a delightful business. you must keep up with the age. the way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. they must live intelligent and happy lives. they must know something of books and something of what is going on in the world. they must not be satisfied with knowing something of the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about the rest of the earth. the business must be made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure. another thing--i am a believer in fashion. it is the duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can. "handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. every man should look his very best. i am a believer in good clothes. the time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears. i say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. i believe in jewelry. some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. to adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire seems to be everywhere and in everything. i have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. it is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. oh daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn yourselves--if you would be adored, be beautiful! there is another fault common with the farmers of our country--they want too much land. you cannot, at present, when taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not cultivate. sell it and let others make farms and homes. in this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate what they own. renters can hardly be called farmers. there can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. there must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. it elevates a man to own a home. it gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. a man without a home feels like a passenger. there is in such a man a little of the vagrant. homes make patriots. he who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children will defend it. when he hears the word country pronounced, he thinks of his home. few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence of a boarding house. the prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of our people who are the owners of homes. around the fireside cluster the private and the public virtues of our race. raise your sons to be independent through labor--to pursue some business for themselves and upon their own account--to be self-reliant--to act upon their own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. teach them above all things to be good, true and tender husbands--winners of love and builders of homes. a great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers in the world. this is a very foolish thing. farmers cannot get along without the mechanic. you are not independent of the man of genius. your prosperity depends upon the inventor. the world advances by the assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius. the inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. all laboring men should be brothers. you are in partnership with the mechanics who make your reapers, your mowers and your plows; and you should take into your granges all the men who make their living by honest labor. the laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. you can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. all laborers should be brothers. the laborers should have equal rights before the world and before the law. and i want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such thing as prosperity among men. every reaper and mower, every agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows grander with every invention. in the olden time the agriculturist was ignorant; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of superstition. he was always trying to appease some imaginary power by fasting and prayer. he supposed that some being actuated by malice, sent the untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode. to him the seasons were mysteries. the thunder told him of an enraged god--the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. the tiller of the soil lived in perpetual and abject fear. he knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause and effect. he was a superstitious savage. he invented prayers instead of plows, creeds instead of reapers and mowers. he was unable to devote all his time to the gods, and so he hired others to assist him, and for their influence with the gentlemen supposed to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of all he could produce. the farmer has been elevated through science and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. he should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family--that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility. another idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some mysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business--that they are devoured by monopolies, especially by railroads. of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. without them illinois would be almost worthless. a few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad companies. the principal complaint you had was that they charged too much for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the east. you should remember that all freights are paid by the consumer; and that it made little difference to you what the railroad charged for transportation to the east, as that transportation had to be paid by the consumers of the grain. you were really interested in transportation from the east to the west and in local freights. the result is that while you have put down through freights you have not succeeded so well in local freights. the exact opposite should be the policy of illinois. put down local freights; put them down, if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through rates take care of themselves. if all the corn raised in illinois could be transported to new york absolutely free, it would enhance but little the price that you would receive. what we want is the lowest possible local rate. instead of this you have simply succeeded in helping the east at the expense of the west. the railroads are your friends. they are your partners. they can prosper only where the country through which they run prospers. all intelligent railroad men know this. they know that present robbery is future bankruptcy. they know that the interest of the farmer and of the railroad is the same. we must have railroads. what can we do without them? when we had no railroads, we drew, as i said before, our grain two hundred miles to market. in those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. they slept under their wagons--took with them their food--fried their own bacon, made their coffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. those were the days when they received ten cents a bushel for corn--when they sold four bushels of potatoes for a quarter--thirty-three dozen eggs for a dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half. what has made the difference? the railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets of the world. they brought new york and liverpool and london into illinois, and the state has been clothed with prosperity as with a mantle. it is the interest of the farmer to protect every great interest in the state. you should feel proud that illinois has more railroads than any other state in this union. her main tracks and side tracks would furnish iron enough to belt the globe. in illinois there are ten thousand miles of railways. in these iron highways more than three hundred million dollars have been invested--a sum equal to ten times the original cost of all the land in the state. to make war upon the railroads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. they should be treated fairly and should be taxed by the same standard that farms are taxed, and in no other way. if we wish to prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of labor is protected. there has been a long period of depression in all business. the farmers have suffered least of all. your land is just as rich and productive as ever. prices have been reasonable. the towns and cities have suffered. stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. princes have become paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into the oblivion of bankruptcy. the period of depression is slowly passing away, and we are entering upon better times. a great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty. in my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other and in the future. there has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, that the people are afraid to trust anybody. there is plenty of money, but there seems to be a scarcity of business. if you were to go to the owner of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore, should say, "there is a superabundance of ferryboat," he would probably reply, "no, but there is a scarcity of water." so with us there is not a scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. and this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. so many presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the young men's christian association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. slowly, but surely we are coming back to honest methods in business. confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hiding places and every one will be seeking investment. for my part, i do not ask any interference on the part of the government except to undo the wrong it has done. i do not ask that money be made out of nothing. i do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. but i do ask for the remonetization of silver. silver was demonetized by fraud. it was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the united states. it assassinated labor. it was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men. the farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. we should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon canada lumber, when every farmer in illinois is a purchaser of lumber. people who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. we should protect ourselves. we ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. the real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. by laboring men, i do not mean only the farmers. i mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare. they should forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests of the people. let us see if we cannot, in illinois, protect every department of industry. let us see if all property cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or corporations. where industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells. let me tell you something more about illinois: we have fifty-six thousand square miles of land--nearly thirty-six million acres. upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people. beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by that old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. the aggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. think of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! all this came from the sun. what a sunbeam such a column would be! think of the engines and machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! think of all this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world! think of the firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to be! think of the sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames! we have the best country in the world, and illinois is the best state in that country. is there any reason that our farmers should not be prosperous and happy men? they have every advantage, and within their reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life. do not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you. get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. a mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. there is no business under the sun that can pay ten per cent. ainsworth r. spofford gives the following facts about interest: "one dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. at eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. at three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. at ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. at twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. at eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. at twenty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand four hundred and four dollars." one dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. the farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. if he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. you have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough. above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite kindness. give your sons and daughters every advantage within your power. in the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers. they will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy. do not try to rule by force. a blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. i should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children i had whipped. think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck. see to it that your wife has every convenience. make her life worth living. never allow her to become a servant. wives, weary and worn, mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and shame. if you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them yourselves. see that they have the best utensils to work with. women cannot create things by magic. have plenty of wood and coal--good cellars and plenty in them. have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain water for washing.' do not rely on a barrel and a board. when the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel. farmers should live like princes. eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. have good things to cook and good things to cook with. of all people in our country, you should live the best. throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. the beef, not the cook, should be roasted. it is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way. cooking is one of the fine arts. give your wives and daughters things to cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent cooks. good cooking is the basis of civilization. the man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well cooked food, has pluck, courage, endurance and and noble impulses. the inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. the doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia. remember that your wife should have the things to cook with. in the good old days there would be eleven children in the family and only one skillet. everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost. there ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is delicious. fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. you can broil even on a stove. shut the front damper--open the back one--then takeoff a griddle. there will then be a draft downwards through this opening. put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. if you try to broil it with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. for broiling, coal, even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood. there is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year round. there is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt meat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for the rest of the day. every farmer should have an ice house. upon or near every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and the long summer days made delightful. dr. draper, one of the world's greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has done away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. ice has become one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it there is very little comfort. make your homes pleasant. have your houses warm and comfortable for the winter. do not build a story-and-a-half house. the half story is simply an oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left. decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. the cheapest are far better than none. have books--have papers, and read them. you have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. beautify your grounds with plants and flowers and vines. have good gardens. remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. every little morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. do not judge of the value of everything by the market reports. every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. every vine climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy. make your houses comfortable. do not huddle together in a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies; put a piece in the papers commencing with, "whereas, it has pleased divine providence to remove from our midst--." have plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. comfort is health. do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because it is pleasant. that is an old and foolish idea. let your children sleep. do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. in this way you bring farming into hatred and disrepute. treat your children with infinite kindness--treat them as equals. there is no happiness in a home not filled with love. where the husband hates his wife--where the wife hates the husband; where children hate their parents and each other--there is a hell upon earth. there is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. there is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. to look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. to work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. selfishness is ignorance. speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. in the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. the harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. for him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. the same is true of all producers--of all laborers. i can imagine no condition that carries with it it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. he has his cellar filled--he has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm--he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort. when the life of the farmer is such as i have described, the cities and towns will not be filled with want--the streets will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. the fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and vines and flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nestle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain. the idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. nothing can be nobler than to be useful. idleness should not be respectable. if farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability; if they will come together often; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music; if they will have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if their wives can have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an opportunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of the world; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delightful years. remember, i pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor--that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family. for my part, i envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. i can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power--far from the demands of business--out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hollow praise of other fools. surrounded by pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those i have loved, i hope to end my days. and this i hope may be the lot of all who hear my voice. i hope that you, in the country, in houses covered with vines and clothed with flowers, looking from the open window upon rustling fields of corn and wheat, over which will run the sunshine and the shadow, surrounded by those whose lives you have filled with joy, will pass away serenely as the autumn dies. speech at cincinnati nominating james g. blaine for the presidency, june, . massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of benjamin h. bristow; so am i; but if any man nominated by this convention can not carry the state of massachusetts, i am not satisfied with the loyalty of that state. if the nominee of this convention can not carry the grand old commonwealth of massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, i would advise them to sell out faneuil hall as a democratic headquarters. i would advise them to take from bunker hill that old monument of glory. the republicans of the united states demand as their leader in the great contest of a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions. they demand a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as before the election. they demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense--a man of superb moral courage. they demand a man acquainted with public affairs--with the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. they demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this government to the other nations of the earth. they demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and prerogatives of each and every department of this government. they demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the united states; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the united states have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. the republicans of the united states demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil. this money has to be dug out of the earth. you can not make it by passing resolutions in a political convention. the republicans of the united states want a man who knows that this government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. they demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school. they demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a confederate congress. the man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand and gallant leader of the republican party--james g. blaine. our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag--such a man is james g. blaine. for the republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat. this is a grand year--a year filled with the recollections of the revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty--a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in congress what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched the mask of democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, james g. blaine marched down the halls of the american congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor. for the republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle. james g. blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the republican party. i call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free. gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at andersonville and libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, illinois--illinois nominates for the next president of this country, that prince of parliamentarians--that leader of leaders--james g. blaine. "the past rises before me like a dream." extract from a speech delivered at the soldiers' reunion at indianapolis, sept. , . the past rises before me like a dream. again we are in the great struggle for national life. we hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. we see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. we lose sight of them no more. we are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. we see them part with those they love. some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. we hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. some are receiving the blessings of old men. some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. kisses and tears, tears and kisses--divine mingling of agony and love! and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. we see them part. we see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the sunlight sobbing---at the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. he is gone, and forever. we see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching down the streets of the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. we go with them, one and all. we are by their side on all the gory fields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. we stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. we are with them in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. we are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. we see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. we are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured. we are at home when the news comes that they are dead. we see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. we see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. the past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. we see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. cruelty unspeakable! outrage infinite! four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. all the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, trampled beneath the brutal feet or might. and all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. the past rises before us. we hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. the broken fetters fall. these heroes died. we look. instead of slaves we see men and women and children. the wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want, and crime and cruelty, and fear we see the faces of the free. these heroes are dead. they died for liberty they died for us. they are at rest. they sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. they sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless, alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. in the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. i have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead. the grant banquet at the palmer house, chicago, thursday, nov. th, . twelfth toast: the volunteer soldiers of the union, whose valor and patriotism saved the world "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." response by robert g. ingersoll. when the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the question "will the great republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. the north, filled with intelligence and wealth--children of liberty--marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. from civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last demand: "unconditional and immediate surrender." from that moment the end was known. that utterance was the first real declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion. the soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. they were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. they fought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that their children might have peace. they were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time. they finished what the soldiers of the revolution commenced. they re-lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light. they blotted from the statute-books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the constitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their fellow-men. they made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for politicians to be honest. they broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the northern brain. they kept our country on the map of the world, and our flag in heaven. they rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments--nationality and liberty. the soldiers were the saviors of the nation; they were the liberators of men. in writing the proclamation of emancipation, lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied with the pen what grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords. grander than the greek, nobler than the roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for the rights of others, for the nobility of labor, fought that mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring states, but a nation, sovereign, great, and free. blood was water, money was leaves, and life was only common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave. and then was asked the question: "will a free people tax themselves to pay a nation's debt?" the soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved--they went back to the fields, the shops, and mines. they had not been demoralized. they had been ennobled. they were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. they said: "we saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" they-worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the nation gave might be redeemed. and their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship--a girdle of clasped and happy hands--around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold. there is another question still:--will all the wounds of war be healed? i answer, yes. the southern people must submit, not to the dictation of the north, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. they were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes. the soldiers of the union saved the south as well as north. they made us a nation. their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcanoes' lips. and now let us drink to the volunteers--to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left--of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want--to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue--to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives:--to all the living and to all the dead--to sherman, to sheridan, and to grant, the laureled soldiers of the world, and last, to lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war. a tribute to the rev. alexander clark. upon the grave of the reverend alexander clark i wish to place one flower. utterly destitute of cold dogmatic pride that often passes for the love of god; without the arrogance of the "elect"--simple, free, and kind--this earnest man made me his friend by being mine. i forgot that he was a christian, and he seemed to forget that i was not, while each remembered that the other was a man. frank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked with the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. he believed in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the hideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure. giving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never occurred to him that his god hated a brave and honest unbeliever. he remembered that even an infidel has rights that love respects; that hatred has no saving power, and that in order to be a christian it is not necessary to become less than a man. he knew that no one can be maligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are not arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points towards heaven. with the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest liberty of thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a chain is but a curse. for this man i entertained the profoundest respect. in spite of the taunts and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would treat infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to convince them by argument and win them with love. he insisted that the god he worshipped loved the well-being even of an atheist. in this grand position he stood almost alone. tender, just, and loving where others were harsh, vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the respect and admiration of every honest man. a few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and render the pulpit worthy of respect. the heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can never be excelled. he admitted that i had not lost, and could not lose a single right by the expression of my honest thought. neither did he believe that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by persecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive. while this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having treated me with fairness. but, i trust, now that he has left the shore touched by the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the image of a homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who still remain to preach the love of god. his sympathies were not confined within the prison of a creed, but ran out and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted bars with leaf and flower. he could not echo with his heart the fiendish sentence of eternal fire. in spite of book and creed, he read "between the lines" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the world. above, beyond the dogmas of his church--humane even to the verge of heresy--causing some to doubt his love of god because he failed to hate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind, and to his work gave up his life with all his heart. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c, july , a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll, by his brother robert. may , the record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. dear friends: i am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. the loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. he had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. while yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. for whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. and every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. this brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. he was the friend of all heroic souls. he climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day. he loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. he sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. with loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. he was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. a thousand times i have heard him quote these words: "for justice, all place a temple, and all season, summer." he believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. he added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. we strive in vain to look beyond the heights. we cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. from the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. he who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "i am better now." let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. and now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. speech cannot contain our love. there was there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man. bible romances first series by g. w. foote contents: the creation story. noah's flood. eve and the apple. the bible devil. the ten plagues; jonah and the whale. the wandering jews. the tower of babel. balaam's ass. god's thieves in canaan. cain and abel. lot's wife. the creation story. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. the book of genesis is generally thought, as professor huxley says, to contain the beginning and the end of sound science. the mythology of the jews is held to be a divine revelation of the early history of man, and of the cosmic changes preparatory to his creation. the masses of the people in every christian country are taught in their childhood that god created the universe, including this earth with all its flora and fauna, in five days; that he created man, "the bright consummate flower" of his work, on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh. yet every student knows this conception to be utterly false; every man of science rejects it as absurd; and even the clergy themselves mostly disbelieve it why, then, do they not disabuse the popular mind, and preach what they deem true instead of what they know to be false? the answer is very simple. because they feel that the doctrine of the fall is bound up with the genesaic account of creation, and that if the latter be discredited the former will not long be retained. the doctrine of the fall being the foundation of the scheme of atonement, the clergy will never admit the creation story to be mythical until they are forced to do so by external pressure. at any rate they cannot be expected to proclaim its falsity, since by so doing they would destroy the main prop of their power. what the recognised teachers of religion will not do, however, should not be left undone, especially when it is so needful and important. men of science, by teaching positive and indisputable truths, are gradually but surely revolutionising the world of thought, and dethroning the priesthoods of mystery and superstition. yet their influence on the masses is indirect, and they do not often trouble themselves to show the contradiction between their discoveries and what is preached from the pulpit. perhaps they are right. but it is also right that others should appeal to the people in the name not only of science, but also of scholarship and common sense, and show them the incredible absurdity of much that the clergy are handsomely paid to preach as the veritable and infallible word of god. the creation story, with which the book of genesis opens, is incoherent, discrepant, and intrinsically absurd, as we shall attempt to show. it is also discordant with the plainest truths of science. let us examine it, after casting aside all prejudice and predilection. if the universe, including this earth and its principal inhabitant, man, was created in six days, it follows that less than six thousand years ago chaos reigned throughout nature. this, however, is clearly untrue. our earth has revolved round its central sun for numberless millions of years. geology proves also that million years have elapsed since organic existence first appeared on the earth's surface, and this world became the theatre of life and death. darwin speaks of the known history of the world as "of a length quite incomprehensible by us," yet even that he affirms "will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment of time" com-pared with the vast periods which biology will demand. the instructed members of the church have long recognised these-statements as substantially true, and they have tried to reconcile them with scripture by assuming that the word which in the history of creation is rendered _day_ really means a _period_, that is an elastic space of time which may be expanded or contracted to suit all requirements. but there are two fatal objections to this assumption. in the first place, the same word is rendered _day_ in the fourth commandment, and if it means period in genesis it means period in exodus. in that case we are commanded to work six periods and rest on the seventh, and each period must cover a geological epoch. how pleasant for those who happen to be born in the seventh period, how unpleasant for those born in one of the six! the lives of the one class all work, those of the other all play! in the second place, the account of each day's creation concludes with the refrain "and the evening and the morning were the first (or other) day." now evening and morning are terms which mark the luminous gradations between night and day, and these phenomena, like night and day, depend on the earth's revolving on its axis and presenting different portions of its surface to the sun. evening and morning clearly imply a space of twenty-four hours, and the writer of genesis, whoever he was, would probably be surprised at any other interpretation of his words. it is sometimes argued, as for instance by dr. m'caul, that these primeval days were of vast and unknown duration, the evening and the morning not being dependent on their present causes. but this supposition could only apply to the first three days, for the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day, expressly "to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." the fifth and sixth days, at least, must be understood as of normal length, and thus the chronological difficulties remain. all animal life was brought into existence on the last two days, and therefore the bible still allows an antiquity of less than six thousand years for the world's fauna. geology and biology allow millions of years. here then science and the bible are in flagrant and irreconcilable contradiction. the fact that the writer of genesis represents light as existing three days before the creation of the sun, the source of light, has frequently been noticed. one learned commentator supposed that god had infused a certain "luminosity" through the air, which was not exactly the same as the light of the sun. but light is not a _thing_; it is a phenomenon caused by definite laws of astronomy and optics. such explanations are but fanciful refuges of superstition. "god said let there be light and there was light," is not the language of science and history, but the language of poetry. as such it is sublime. we find a similar expression in the vedas of the hindoos: "he thought, i will create worlds, and they were there!" both become ridiculous when presented to us as a scientific statement the physical astronomer knows how worlds are formed, as well as how their movements are determined; he knows also the causes of light; and he knows that none of these processes resembles the accounts given in the creation stories of the hebrews and the hindoos. science knows nothing of six creative epochs, any more than of six creative days; and it is quite certain that the order of creation given in genesis differs widely from the revelations of geology. for instance (and one instance in such a case is as good as a thousand), fish and fowl are said to have been created on the same day. let us, for the sake of argument, assume that day means period. the conclusion still is that fish and fowl were created together. starting from this conclusion, what should we expect to find in our geological researches? why, the fossil remains of fish and of fowl in the same epochs. but we find nothing of the kind. marine animals antedate the carboniferous period, during which all our coal deposits were laid, but no remains of fowl are found until a later period. now the carboniferious period alone, according to sir william thompson, covers many millions of years; so that instead of fish and fowl being contemporaneous, we find them geologically separated by inconceivable spaces of time. here again the bible and science fatally disagree. even if we admit that the fifth day of creation was a _period_, the chronology of the bible is still fatally at variance with fact with respect to the antiquity of the human race, it is precise and unmistakable. it gives us the age of adam at his death, and the ages of the other antediluvian patriarchs. from the flood the genealogies are carefully recorded, until we enter the historic period, after which there is not much room for dispute. from the creation of adam to the birth of christ, the bible allows about four thousand years. the antiquity of the human race, therefore, according to scripture, is less than six thousand years. science, however, proves that this is but a fragment of the vast period during which man has inhabited the earth. there was a civilisation in egypt thousands of years before the alleged creation of adam. the cushite civilisation was even more ancient archaeology shows us traces of man's presence, in a ruder state, long before that. the researches of mr. pengelly in kent's cavern prove that cave-men lived there more than two-hundred thousand years ago; while geological investigations in the valley of the somme have established the fact that primitive men existed there in the tertiary period. professor draper writes:--"so far as investigations have gone, they indisputably-refer the existence of man to a date remote from us by many hundreds of thousands of years. it must be borne in mind that these investigations are quite recent, and confined to a very limited geographical space. no researches have yet been made in those regions which might reasonably be regarded as the primitive habitat of man. we are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand years of patristic chronology. it is difficult to assign a shorter date for the last glaciation of europe than a quarter of a million of years, and _human existence antedates that_. the chronology of the bible is thus altogether obsolete." the idea of a seven-days' creation was not confined to the jews: it was shared by the persians and etruscans. the division of the year into months and weeks is a general, although not a universal practice. the ancient egyptians observed a ten-days' week, but the seven-days' week was well known to them. the naming of the days of the week after the seven planets was noted by dion cassius as originally an egyptian custom, which spread from egypt into the roman empire. the brahmins of india also distinguish the days of the week by the planetary names. this division of time was purely astronomical. the jews kept the feast of the new moon, and other of their ceremonies were determined by lunar and solar phenomena. we may be sure that the myth of a seven-days' creation followed and did not precede the regular observance of that period. there is one feature of the hebrew story of creation which shows how anthropomorphic they were. the persians represent ormuzd as keeping high festival with his angels on the seventh day, after creating all things in six. but the hebrews represent jehovah as _resting_ on the seventh day, as though the arduous labors of creation had completely exhausted his energies. fancy _omnipotence_ requiring rest to recruit its strength! the bible, and especially in its earlier parts, is grossly anthropomorphic. it exhibits god as conversing with men, sharing their repasts, and helping them to slaughter their foes. it represents him as visible to human eyes, and in one instance as giving moses a back view of his person. yet these childish fancies are still thrust upon as divine truths, which if we disbelieve we shall be eternally damned! let us now examine the creation story internally. in the first place we find two distinct records, the one occupying the whole of the first chapter of genesis and the first three verses of the second, at which point the other commences. these two records belong to different periods of jewish history. the older one is the elohistic, so called because the creator is designated by the plural term _elohim_, which in our version is translated _god_. the more modern one is the jehovistic, in which elohim is combined with the singular term _jehovah_, translated in our-version _the lord god_. the elohistic and jehovistic accounts both relate the creation of man, but instead of agreeing they widely differ. the former makes god create man in his own image; the latter does not even allude to this important circumstance. the former represents man as created male and female at the outset; the latter represents the male as created first, and the female for a special reason afterwards. in the former god enjoins the primal pair to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth;" in the latter there is no such injunction, but on the contrary, the bringing forth of children in sorrow is imposed upon the woman as a punishment for her sin, and she does not appear to have borne any offspring until after the expulsion from the garden of eden. lastly, the elohistic record makes no mention of this paradise, in which, according to the jehovistic record, the drama of the fall was enacted, but represents man as immediately commissioned to subdue and populate the world. such discrepancies are enough to stagger the blindest credulity. we now proceed to examine the jehovistic account of creation in detail. we read that the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, the hebrew word for which is _adamah_. the word adam means "be red," and _adamah_ may be referred to the red soil of palestine. kalisch also observes that man may have been originally called adam on account of the red color of his skin. the chinese represent man as kneaded of _yellow_ earth, and the _red_ indians of _red_ clay. the belief that man was formed of earth was not confined to the jews, but has been almost universal, and undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after death return to the earth and resolve into the elements. the lord god placed this forlorn first man in the garden of eden with the command to till it, and permission to eat of the fruit of all its trees except "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." how adam trespassed and fell, and brought a curse upon himself and all his innocent posterity, we shall consider in another pamphlet. the story of the fall is infinitely curious and diverting, and must be treated separately. adam's first exploit, after he had taken a good look round him, was very marvellous. all the cattle and beasts of the field and fowl of the air were brought before him to be named, and "whatsover adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." this first zoological dictionary is unfortunately lost, or we should be able to call every animal by its right name, which would doubtless gratify them as well as ourselves. the fishes and insects were not included in this primitive nomenclature, so the loss of the dictionary does not concern them. the lord made the animals pass before adam seemingly with the expectation that he would choose a partner from amongst them. nothing, however, struck his fancy. if he had fallen in love with a female gorilla or ourang-outang, what a difference it would have made in the world's history! after this wonderful exploit "the lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam," who surely must have been tired enough to fall into a good sound natural sleep, without a heavenly narcotic. while in this state one of his ribs was extracted for a purpose we shall presently refer to, and which he discovered when he awoke. this curious surgical operation involves a dilemma. if adam was upright after it, he must have been lopsided before; if he was upright before it, he must have been lopsided after. in either case the poor man was very scurvily treated. it has been maintained that god provided adam with another rib in place of the one extracted. but this is a mere conjecture. besides, if the lord had a spare rib in stock he might have made a woman of it, without cutting poor adam open and making a _pre mortem_ examination of his inside. the divine operator's purpose was a good one, whatever we may think of his means. he had discovered, what omniscience would have foreknown, that it was not good for man to be alone, and had resolved to make him a help-meet. adam's "spare rib" was the raw material of which his wife was manufactured. the greenlanders believed that the first woman was fashioned out of the man's _thumb_. the woman was brought to adam, who said--"this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." not a word did he say about "soul of my soul." perhaps he suspected she had none, and with some truth, if we go no further than our english version. when the lord god made man, he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," but apparently no such operation was performed on eve. indeed, it is very difficult to prove from the bible that woman has a soul at all. women should reflect on this. they should also reflect on the invidious fact that they were not included in the original scheme of things, but thrown in as a make-weight afterwards. let them ponder this a while, and the churches and chapels in which this story is taught would soon be emptied. the majority of those who occupy seats in such places wear bonnets, and most of those who don't, go there for the sake of those who do. when adam had thus accosted his bride he grew prophetical. "therefore," said he, "shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." in his desire to give the institution of marriage the highest sanction, the writer of this story perpetrated a gross anachronism. adam had no parents, nor any experience of marriage. unless, therefore, we credit him with superhuman prescience, it is absurd to make him talk in this way. eve's name, no less than adam's, betrays the mythological character of the story. it means the "mother of all," and was evidently applied to her by the jewish writers in order to signify her supposed relationship to the human race. while god was engaged in the work of creation, why did he not make two human couples, instead of one? the arrangement he adopted involved the propagation of the human species through incest adam and eve's sons must have had children by their sisters. if two couples had been created, their families might have intermarried, and mankind would not then have sprang from the incestuous intercourse of the very first generation. surely omnipotence might have obviated the necessity of a crime against which civilised consciences revolt with unspeakable disgust. adam and eve were placed by god in the garden of eden. "eden," says kalisch, "comprised that tract of land where the euphrates and tigris separate; from that spot the 'garden in eden' cannot be distant. let it suffice that we know its general position." its exact position can never be ascertained. what a pity it is that noah did not occupy some of his leisure time, during the centuries he lived after his exit from the ark, in writing a typography of the antediluvian world! the greeks placed paradise in the islands of the blessed, beyond the pillars of hercules in the western main. the swede, rudbeck, asserts that paradise was in scandinavia; some russian writers supposed it to have been in siberia; and the german writers, hasse and schulz, on the coast of prussia. eastern traditions place it in ceylon, and regard the mountain of rahoun as the spot where adam was buried. some old christian writers hazarded the theory that paradise was beyond the earth altogether, on the other side of the ocean which they conceived to encircle it, and that noah was conveyed to our planet by the deluge. kalisch gives a long list of ancient and modern authorities on the subject, who differ widely from each other as to the actual position of eden, their only point of agreement being that it was _somewhere_. the creation story of the bible cannot be considered as anything but a hebrew myth. scholars have abundantly shown the absurdity of supposing that moses wrote it. doubtless, as a piece of traditional mythology, it is very ancient, but it cannot be traced back in its present literary form beyond the babylonish captivity. men of science without exception disbelieve it, not only with regard to the world in general, but also with regard to the human race. in his famous article on "the method and results of ethnology," professor huxley made this declaration:--"there are those who represent the most numerous, respectable, and would-be orthodox of the public, and who may be called 'adamites,' pure and simple. they believe that adam was made out of earth somewhere in asia, about six thousand years ago; that eve was modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny of these two having been reduced to the eight persons who landed on the summit of mount ararat after an universal deluge, all the nations of the earth have proceeded from these last, have migrated to their present localities, and have become converted into negroes, australians, mongolians, etc., within that time. five-sixths of the public are taught this adamitic monogenism as if it were an established truth, and believe it. i do not; and i am not acquainted with any man of science, or duly instructed person, who does." the clergy, then, who go on teaching this old creation story as true, are either unduly instructed or dishonest, ignorant or fraudulent, blind guides or base deceivers. it is not for us to determine to which class any priest or preacher belongs: let the conscience of each, as assuredly it will, decide that for himself. but ignorant or dishonest, we affirm, is every one of them who still teaches the creation story as a record of actual facts, or as anything but a hebrew myth. the origin of the human race is far different from that recorded in genesis. man has undoubtedly been developed from a lower form of life. the rude remains of primitive men show that they were vastly inferior to the present civilised inhabitants of the world, and even inferior to the lowest savages with whom we are now acquainted. their physical and mental condition was not far removed from that of the higher apes; and the general opinion of biologists is that they were descended from the old world branch of the great simian family. there is, indeed, no _absolute_ proof of this, nor is it probable that there ever will be, as the fossil links between primitive man and his simian progenitor, if they exist at all, are most likely buried in that sunken continent over which roll the waters of the south pacific ocean. but as the line of natural development can be carried back so far without break, there is no reason why it should not be carried farther. the evolution theory is now almost universally accepted by men of science, and few of them suppose that man can be exempted from the general laws of biology. at any rate, the bible account of creation is thoroughly exploded, and when that is gone there is nothing to hinder our complete acceptance of the only theory of man's origin which is consistent with the facts of his history, and explains the peculiarities of his physical structure. noah's flood. bible romances-- . by g. w. foote. the bible story of the deluge is at once the biggest and the most ridiculous in the whole volume. any person who reads it with the eyes of common sense, and some slight knowledge of science, must admit that it is altogether incredible and absurd, and that the book which contains it cannot be the word of god. about , years after god created adam, and placed him in the garden of eden, the world had become populous and extremely wicked; indeed, every thought and imagination of man's heart was evil continually. what was the cause of all this wickedness we are not informed; but we are told that the sons of god took unto them wives of the daughters of men because they were fair, and we are led to suppose that these matches produced giants and other incurably wicked offspring. no physiological reason is assigned for this strange result, nor perhaps was there any present to the mind of the writer, who probably had witnessed unhappy marriages in his own family, and was anxious to warn his readers, however vaguely, against allowing their daughters to be inveigled into matrimonial bonds with pious sniffling fellows, who professed themselves peculiarly the children of their father in heaven. however, the narrative is clear as to the fact itself: men had all gone irrecoverably astray, and god had repented that he ever made them. in such a case an earthly human father would naturally have attempted to improve his family; but the almighty father either was too indifferent to do so, or was too well aware of the impossibility of reforming his own wretched offspring; and therefore he determined to drown them all at one fell swoop, just as cat-loving old ladies dispose of a too numerous and embarrassing feline progeny. bethinking him, however, god resolved to save alive one family to perpetuate the race: he was willing to give his creatures another chance, and then, if they persisted in going the wrong way, it would still be easy to drown the lot of them again, and that without any reservation. he had also resolved at first to destroy every living thing from off the face of the earth; but he afterwards decided to spare from destruction two of every species of unclean beasts, male and female, and fourteen, male and female, of all clean beasts and of all fowls of the air and of every creeping thing. noah, his wife, his three sons, shem, ham, and japhet, and their wives (eight persons in all), were the only human beings to be preserved from the terrible fate of drowning. noah was commanded by god to build an ark for the reception-of the precious living freight, the dimensions of which were to be, in english measure, _feet long_, _feet wide_, _and feet deep_. into this floating box they all got; the flood then came and covered the earth, and all besides were drowned. now this is a very strange, a very startling story; it seems more like a chapter from the "arabian nights" or the "adventures of baron munchausen" than from the sacred scriptures of any religion. carnal reason prompts us to ask many questions about it. . how did noah contrive to bring these beasts, birds, and insects all together in one spot? the task seems superhuman. some species could be found only in very remote places--the kangaroo only in australia, the sloth only in south america, the polar bear only in the arctic regions. how could noah, in those days of difficult locomotion, have journeyed in search of these across broad rivers, and over continents and oceans? did he bring them singly to his dwelling-place in asia, or did he travel hither and thither with his menagerie, and finish the collection before returning home? there are, according to hugh miller, , known species of mammalia, , of birds, of reptiles, and , of insects; how _could_ one man, or a hundred men, have collected specimens of these in those days, and in such & brief space of time? the beasts, clean and unclean, male and female, might be got together by means of terrible exertion; but surely to assemble the birds and reptiles and insects must transcend human capacity. some of the last class would of course not require much seeking; they visit us whether we desire their company or not; and the difficulty would not be how to get them into the ark, but how on earth to keep them out. others, however, would give infinite trouble. fancy noah occupied in a _wild-goose_ chase, or selecting specimens from a wasps' or hornets' nest, or giving assiduous chase to a vigilant and elusive bluebottle fly! but suppose noah to have succeeded in his arduous enterprise, the question still remains, how did he keep his wonderful zoological collection alive? some of them could live only in certain latitudes; the inhabitants of cold climates would melt away amidst the torrid heat of central asia. then, again, there are some insects that live only a few hours, and some that live a few days at the utmost: what means were adopted for preserving these? some animals, too, do not pair, but run in herds; many species of fish swim in shoals; sometimes males and sometimes females predominate, as in the case of deer, where one male heads and appropriates a whole herd of females, or in the case of bees, where many males are devoted to the queen of the hive. these could not have gone in pairs, or lived in pairs; their instincts pointed to another method of grouping. how did noah provide for _their_ due preservation? when these questions are answered others speedily arise; in fact, there is no end to the difficulties of this marvellous story. . whence and how did noah procure the food for his huge menagerie? that he was obliged to do so, that the animals were not miraculously preserved without food, we are certain; for he was expressly commanded by god to gather food for himself and for them. "take thou unto thee," it was said to him, "of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them." what provision was made for the _carnivorous_ animals, for lions, tigers, vultures, kites, and hawks? some of these would require not simply meat, but _fresh_ meat, which could not be provided for them unless superfluous animals were taken into the ark to be killed, or noah had learned the art of potting flesh. otters would require fish, chameleons flies, woodpeckers grubs, night-hawks moths, and humming-birds the honey of flowers. what vast quantities of water also would be consumed! in fact, the task of collecting food to last all the inmates of the ark, including the eight human beings, for more than a year, must have been greater even than that of bringing them together in the first place from every zone. the labors of hercules were mere trifles compared with those of noah. poor old patriarch! he amply earned _his_ salvation. had he been possessed of one tithe of jacob's cunning and business sagacity, he would have struck a better bargain with god, and have got into the ark on somewhat easier terms. few men would have undertaken so much to gain so little. . how were all the animals, with their food, got into the ark? the dimensions as given in the bible would be insufficient to accommodate a tithe of them; the ark could not have contained them all, if they were packed together like herrings or sardines. even if they were so packed, space would still be required for their food; and for what a vast quantity! an animal even with man's moderate appetite would consume in the course of twelve months solid matter to the extent of four or five times its own weight, and some animals are of course far more voracious. this difficulty as to stowing the animals and their food into the ark is quite insuperable; it is not to be obviated by any employment of miraculous intervention. not even omnipotence can make a clock strike less than one, and god himself must fail to make two things occupy the same space at the same time. . how where the inmates of this floating menagerie, supposing them got in, supplied with fresh air? according to the bible narrative the ark was furnished with but one window of a cubit square, and one door which was shut by god himself, and it may be presumed, quite securely fastened. talk about the black-hole of calcutta, why it was nothing to this! what a scramble there must have been for that solitary window and a mouthful of fresh air! lions, tigers, jackals, hyaenas, boa-constrictors, kangaroos, eagles, owls, bees, wasps, bluebottles, with noah, shem, ham, and japhet, and their wives, all in one fierce melee. but the contention for the precious vital air must, however violent, have soon subsided: fifteen minutes would have settled them all. yet curiously enough the choking animals-suffered no appreciable injury; by some occult means they were all preserved from harm; which furnishes another illustration of the mysterious ways of god. what powerful perfumes, too, must have arisen from all those animals! so powerful indeed that even the rancid flavor of foxes and skunks must have been undistinguishable from the blended scents of all their fellow passengers. those who have visited wombwell's menagerie, or stood in the monkey-house of the zoological gardens, doubtless retain a lively recollection of olfactory disgust, even although in those places the must scrupulous cleanliness is observed; but their experience of such smells would have been totally eclipsed if they could but for a moment have stood within noah's ark amidst all its heterogeneous denizens. however the patriarch and his sons managed to cleanse this worse than augean stable passes all understanding. and then what trampings they must have had up and down those flights of stairs communicating with the three storeys of the ark, in order to cast all the filth out of that one window. no wonder their children afterwards began to build a tower of babel to reach unto heaven; it was quite natural that they should desire plenty of steps, to mount, so as to gratify fully the itch of climbing they had inherited from their parents. . where did all the water come from? according to the bible story the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days, and covered all the high hills and mountains under the whole heaven. now mount ararat itself, on which the ark eventually rested, is seventeen thousand feet high, and the utmost peaks of himalaya are nearly twice as high as that; and to cover the whole earth with water to such a tremendous height would require an immense quantity of water; in fact, about eight times as much as is contained in all the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans of our globe. whence did all this water come? the scripture explanation is sadly insufficient; the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. the writer evidently thought that there were great fountains at the bottom of the sea, capable of supplying water in unlimited quantities from some central reservoir; but science knows nothing whatever about them; nay, science tells us that the internal reservoir, if there be one, must contain not water, but liquid fire. if _this_ great reservoir poured its contents into the sea, the result would be similar to that frightful catastrophe imagined by the yankee who wished to see niagara falls pour into mount vesuvius. the supply from that quarter thus failing, we are forced back upon the rain which descended from the windows of heaven, wherever they may be. it rained forty days and forty nights. forty days and forty nights! why forty million days and nights of rain would not have sufficed. the writer was evidently in total ignorance of the laws of hydrology. the rain which falls from the clouds originally comes from the waters of the earth, being absorbed into the atmosphere by the process of evaporation. the utmost quantity of water that can thus be held in suspense throughout the entire atmosphere is very small; in fact, if precipitated, it would only cover the ground to the depth of about five inches. after the first precipitation of rain, the process of evaporation would have to be repeated; that is, for every additional descent of rain a proportionate quantity of water would have to be extracted from the rivers, lakes, and seas below. now, surely every sane man must perceive that this pretty juggle could not add one single drop to the previously existing amount of water, any more than a man could make himself rich by taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. the fabled man who is reported to have occupied himself with dipping up water from one side of a boat and emptying it over on the other, hoping thereby to bale the ocean dry, must have been the real author of this story of noah and his wonderful ark. some christian writers, such as dr. pye smith, dr. barry, and hugh miller, have contended that the author of the book of genesis is describing not a universal but a partial deluge; not a flood which submerged the whole earth, out one that merely covered some particular part of the great central asian plains. but surely, apart from any consideration pertaining to the very emphatic language of the text, rational men must perceive that the difficulty is not obviated by this explanation, but rather increased. how could the waters ascend in one place to the height of seventeen thousand feet (the height of mount ararat) without overflowing the adjacent districts, and, indeed, the whole earth, in conformity to the law of gravitation? delitzch is bold enough to assert that the flood of water was ejected with such force from the fountains beneath that it assumed quite naturally a conical shape. but then, even supposing that this explication were anything but sheer silliness, which it is not, how would the learned commentator account for the water retaining its conical shape for months after the force of upheaval had expended itself? these explanations are entirely fanciful and groundless. the language of the narrative is sufficiently explicit "and _all_ flesh died that moved upon the earth;" "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life;" "and every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground;" and "noah _only_ remained alive and they that were with him in the ark." such are the precise unmistakeable words of scripture, which no sophistry can explain away. but even if the contention for a partial deluge could be made good, the fundamental difficulties would still remain. as colenso observes, the flood, "whether it be regarded as a _universal_ or a _partial_ deluge, is equally incredible and impossible." geology absolutely contradicts the possibility of any such catastrophe as the deluge within the historic period. according to sir charles lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of Ã�tna during the last twelve thousand years; and the volcanic cones of auvergne, which enclose in their ashes the remains of extinct animals, and present an outline as perfect as that of Ã�tna, are deemed older still. kalisch forcibly presents this aspect of the question: "geology teaches the impossibility of a universal deluge since the last six thousand years, but does not exclude a partial destruction of the earth's surface within that period. the biblical text, on the other hand, demands the supposition of a universal deluge, and absolutely excludes a partial flood." . what became of all the fish? in such a deluge the rivers and seas must have mingled their waters, and this, in conjunction with the terrific outpour from the windows of heaven, must have made the water brackish, too salt for fresh-water fish, and too fresh for salt-water fish; and consequently the aquatic animals must all have perished, unless, indeed, they were miraculously preserved--a contingency which anyone is free to conjecture, out no one is at liberty to assert, seeing that the inspired writer never even hints such a possibility. now there is no evidence whatever that noah took and _fish_ with him into the ark; under natural circumstances they must have perished outside; yet the seas and rivers still teem with life. when did the new creation of fish take place? . what became of all the vegetation? every particle of it must have rotted during such a long submergence. but even if mysteriously preserved from natural decay, it must still have been compressed into a mere pulp by the terrific weight of the super-incumbent water. colenso estimates that the pressure of a column of water , feet high would be tons upon each square foot of surface--a pressure which nothing could have resisted. yet, wonderful to relate, just prior to the resting of the ark on mount ararat, the dove sent out therefrom returned with an olive leaf in her mouth _just pluckt off_. a fitting climax to this wonderful story. finally the story relates how the ark rested on the top of mount ararat, whence its inmates descended to the plains below, which were then quite dry. mount ararat towers aloft three thousand feet above the region of eternal snow. how the poor animals, aye, even the polar bear, must have shivered! and what a curious sight it must have been to witness their descent from such a height often have i speculated on the probable way in which the elephant got down, and after much careful thought i have concluded thus: either he had waxed so fat with being fed so long on miraculous food that he rolled pleasantly down like a ball, with no other injury than a few scratches; or he had become so very, very thin with living simply on expectations, in default of more substantial fare, that he gently floated down by virtue of levity, like a descending feather. and then what journeys some of the poor animals would have to make; the kangaroo back to australia, the sloth to south america, the polar bear to the extreme north. how they lived on the road to their ultimate destinations the lord only knows. there was no food for them; the deluge had destroyed all vegetation for the herbiverous animals, all flesh for the carniverous. not even a nibble was left for the sheep. as for poor noah, the first thing recorded of him after his watery expedition is that he drank heavily of wine and got into a state of beastly inebriation. and who can wonder that he did so? the poor old man had floated about on oceans of water for more than a year, and probably he was heartily sick of his watery prospect. the astonishing thing is that he did not get water on the brain. it was quite natural that he should swill deep potations of some stronger fluid on the first available opportunity. surely he had water enough during that twelve months to last a lifetime; enough to justify his never touching the wretched fluid again. while noah was dead drunk, his second son. ham, saw "the nakedness of his father," and reported the fact to his two brethren, who took a garment and, walking backwards so that they might not see, covered the patriarch's nudity. on recovering from his drunken stupor, noah discovered "what his younger son had done unto him," and proceeded at once to vigorous cursing. ham was the offender, if there was any offence at all, which is not very clear; but punishment in the bible is generally vicarious, and we read that the irate patriarch cursed canaan, the son of ham, for his father's misdemeanor. flagitiously unjust as it is, this proceeding thoroughly accords with jehovah's treatment of adam's posterity after he and eve had committed their first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit. before noah got drunk he had received from god the assurance that the world should never more be destroyed by a flood. as a perpetual sign of this covenant the rainbow was set in the heavens. but the rainbow must have been a common sight for centuries before. this phenomenon of refraction is the result of natural causes which operated before the flood, as well as after. the earth yielded its fruits for human sustenance, and therefore rain must have fallen. if rain fell before the deluge, as we are bound to conclude, the rainbow must have been then as now. the usual practice of commentators is to explain this portion of the narrative by assuming that the rainbow was visible before the covenant with noah, but only after the covenant had a special significance. but, as colenso observes, the writer of the story supposes the rainbow was then first set in the clouds, and is evidently accounting for the _origin_ of this beautiful phenomenon, which might well appear _super_natural to his uninstructed imagination. besides the manifold absurdities of this story there are other aspects of it even more startling. what a picture it presents of fiendish cruelty and atrocious vindictiveness! what an appalling exhibition of divine malignity! god, the omnipotent and omniscient ruler of the universe, is represented as harboring and executing the most diabolical intentions. he ruthlessly exterminates all his children except a favored few, and includes in his vengeance the lower animals also, although they were innocent of offence against his laws. every creature in whose nostrils was the breath of life, with the exception of those persevered in the ark, was drowned, and the earth was turned into a vast slaughter-house. how imagination pictures the terrible scene as the waters rise higher and higher, and the ravening waves speed after their prey! here some wretched being, baffled and hopeless, drops supinely into the raging flood; there a stronger and stouter heart struggles to the last. here selfish ones battling for their own preservation; there husbands and wives, parents and children, lovers and maidens, affording mutual aid, or at last, in utter despair, locked in a final embrace and meeting death together. and when the waters subside, what a sickening scene presents itself! those plains, once decked with verdure, and lovely in the sun and breeze, are covered with the bones of a slaughtered world. how can the christian dare to justify such awful cruelty? the god of the pentateuch is not a beneficent universal father, but an almighty fiend. this story of noah's flood is believed still because people never examine what is taught them as the word of god. every one who analyses the story must pronounce it the most extraordinary amalgam of immorality and absurdity ever palmed off on a credulous world. eve and the apple. bible romances.- . by g. w. foote. christianity is based upon the story of the fall. in adam all sinned, as in christ all must be sayed. saint paul gives to this doctrine the high sanction of his name, and we may disregard the puny whipsters of theology, who, without any claim to inspiration, endeavor to explain the genesaic narrative as an allegory rather than a history. if adam did not really fall he could not have been cursed for falling, and his posterity could not have become partakers either in a sin which was never committed or in a malediction which was never pronounced. nor can original sin be a true dogma if our first parents did not transmit the germs of iniquity to their children. if adam did not fall there was no need for christ to save us; if he did not set god and man at variance there was no need for an atonement; and so the christian scheme of salvation would be a _fiasco_ from beginning to end. this will never do. no garden of eden, no gethsemane! no fall, no redemption! no adam, no christ! mother eve's curiosity was the motive of the first transgression of god's commandments in the history of the world, and the whole human race was brought under the risk of eternal perdition because of her partiality to fruit. millions of souls now writhe in hell because, six thousand years ago, she took a bite of an apple. what a tender and beautiful story! god made her to be adam's helpmeet. she helped him to a slice of apple, and that soon helped them both outside eden. the sour stuff disagreed with him as it did with her. it has disagreed, with all their posterity. in fact it was endowed with the marvellous power of transmitting spiritual stomach-ache through any number of generations. how do we know that it was an _apple_ and not some other fruit? why, on the best authority extant after the holy scriptures themselves, namely, our auxiliary bible, "paradise lost;" in the tenth book whereof satan makes the following boast to his infernal peers after his exploit in eden:-- "him by fraud i have seduced from his creator, and, the more to increase your wonder, with an _apple_." yet another authority is the profane author of "don juan," who, in the first stanza of the tenth canto, says of newton: "and this is the sole mortal who could grapple, since adam, with a fall, or with an _apple_." milton, being very pious, was probably in the counsel of god. how else could he have given us an authentic version of the long colloquies that were carried on in heaven? byron, being very profane, was probably in the counsel of satan. and thus we have the most unimpeachable testimony of two opposite sources to the fact that it was an _apple_, and not a rarer fruit, which overcame the virtue of our first parents, and played the devil with their big family of children. this apple grew on the tree of knowledge, which god planted in the midst of the garden of eden, sternly enjoining adam and eve not to eat of its fruit under pain of death. now the poor woman knew nothing of death and could not understand what a dreadful punishment it was; and there was the fruit dangling before her eyes every hour of the day. is it any wonder that she brooded incessantly on the one thing forbidden, that her woman's curiosity was irresistably piqued by it, and that at last her longing grew so intense that she exclaimed, "dear me! i can't refrain any longer. let the consequences be what they will, i must have a bite." god made the woman; he knew her weakness; and he must have known that the plan he devised to test her obedience was the most certain trap that could be invented. jehovah played with poor eve just as a cat plays with a mouse. she had free-will, say the theologians. yes, and so has the mouse a free run. but the cat knows she can catch it again, and finish it off when she is tired of playing. not only did god allow eve's curiosity to urge her on to sin, he also permitted the serpent, "more subtil than any beast of the field," to supplement its action. this wily creature is popularly supposed to have been animated on the occasion by the devil himself; although, as we shall explain in another _romance_ entitled "the bible devil," the book of genesis makes not even the remotest allusion to such a personage. if, however, the tempter _was_ the devil, what chance had the poor woman against his seductive wiles? and even if he was only a serpent, he was very "subtil" as we are told, and able to talk like a book, and we know that these creatures have fatal powers of fascination. surely mother eve was heavily handicapped. god might have given her fair play, and left her to fight the battle without furnishing auxiliaries to the strong side. the serpent, we have said, could converse in human speech. his conversation and his conduct will be dealt with in the _romance_ just referred to. suffice it here to say that he plainly told the woman that god was a liar. "he," said the tempter, "has said ye shall surely die if ye touch the fruit of this tree. don't believe it. i tell you, ye shall not surely die." what could poor eve think? in addition to her native curiosity here was another incentive to disobedience. which of these two spoke the truth? there was only one way of deciding. she stretched forth her hand, plucked an apple, and began to eat. and immediately, says milton, "earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat, sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe that all was lost." what a rumpus about a trifle! it reminds us of the story of a jew who had a sneaking inclination for a certain meat prohibited by his creed. one day the temptation to partake was too strong; he slipped into a place of refreshment and ordered some sausages. the weather happened to be tempestuous, and just as he raised his knife and fork to attack the savory morsel, a violent clap of thunder nearly frightened him out of his senses. gathering courage, he essayed a second time, but another thunderclap warned him to desist. a third attempt was foiled in the same way. whereupon he threw down his knife and fork and made for the door, exclaiming "what a dreadful fuss about a little bit of pork." eve's transgression, according to the learned lightfoot, occurred "about _high noone_, the time of eating." the same authority informs us that she and adam "did lie comfortlesse, till towards the cool of the day, or _three o'clock afternoon_." however that may be, it is most certain that the first woman speedily got the better of the first man. she told him the apple was nice and he took a bite also. perhaps he had resolved to share her fortunes good or bad, and objected to be left alone with his menagerie. lightfoot describes the wife as "the weaker vessell," but a lady friend of ours says that the devil stormed the citadel first, knowing well that such a poor outpost as adam could easily be carried afterwards. having eaten of the fruit, and thus learned to distinguish between good and evil, adam and eve quickly discovered that they were naked. so they "sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." we are not told who gave them lessons in sewing. perhaps they acquired the art through intuition. but the necessary implements could not have been gained in that way. dr. thomas burnet, whose mind was greatly exercised by the astounding wonders of the bible, very pertinently asked "whence had they a needle, whence a thread, on the first day of their creation?" he, however, could give no answer to the question, nor can we, except we suppose that some of the female angels had attended a "garden party" in eden and carelessly left their needles and thread behind them. any reader who is dissatisfied with this explanation must inquire of the nearest parson, who, as he belongs to a class supposed to know almost everything, and believed to have access to the oracles of god, will doubtless be able to reveal the whole gospel truth on the subject. a little later, god himself, who is everywhere at once, came down from everywhere to the garden of eden, for the purpose of taking a "walk in the cool of the day." he had perhaps just visited the infernal regions to see that everything was ready for the reception of the miserable creatures he meant to damn, or to assure himself that the devil was really not at home; and was anxious to cool himself before returning to his celestial abode, as well as to purify himself from the sulphurous taint which might else have sent a shudder through all the seraphic hosts. apparently he was holding a soliloquy, for adam and eve "heard his voice." colenso, however, renders this portion of the romance differently from our authorised version--"and they heard the sound of jehovah-elohim walking in the garden in the breeze of the day." delitzsch thinks they heard the sound of his footsteps, for god used to visit them in the form of a man! could the force of folly farther go? any devout theist, who candidly thought over this petty fiction, would find its gross anthropomorphism inexpressibly shocking. knowing that god was everywhere, adam and eve nevertheless "hid themselves from the presence of the lord god amongst the trees of the garden." but they were soon dragged forth to the light. adam, who seems to have been a silly fellow, explained that he had hidden himself because he was _naked_, as though the lord had not seen him in that state before. "naked!" said the lord, "who told thee that thou wast naked. hast thou eaten of that tree, eh?" "o, lord, yes," replied adam; "just a little bit; but it wasn't my fault, _she_ made me do it, o lord! o lord!" whereupon god, who although he knows everything, even before it happens, was singularly ill-informed on this occasion, turned fiercely upon the woman, asking her what she had done. "oh, if you please," whimpered poor eve, "it _was_ i who took the first bite; but the serpent beguiled me, and the fault you see is not mine but his. oh dear! oh dear!" then the lord utterly lost his temper. he cursed the serpent, cursed the woman, cursed the man, and even cursed the ground beneath their feet everything about at the time came in for a share of the malison. in fact, it was what the yankees would call a good, all-round, level swear. the curse of the serpent is a subject we must reserve for our pamphlet on "the bible devil," the curse of the woman was that she should bring forth children in pain and sorrow, and that the man should rule over her. with her present physiological condition, woman must always have suffered during conception as she now does; and therefore delitzsch infers that her structure must have undergone a change, although he cannot say in what respect he dwells also on the "subjection" of woman, which "the religion of revelation" has made by degrees more endurable; probably forgetting that the teutonic women of ancient times were regarded with veneration, long before christianity originated. besides, the subordination of the female is not peculiar to the human race, but is the general law throughout the animal world. adam's curse was less severe. he was doomed to till the ground, and to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. most of us would rather take part in the great strenuous battle of life, than loll about under the trees in the garden of eden, chewing the cud like contemplative cows. what men have had to complain of in all ages is, not that they have to earn their living by labour, but that when the sweat of their faces has been plenteously poured forth the "bread" has too often not accrued to them as the reward of their industry. orthodox christianity avers that all the posterity of adam and eve necessarily participate in their curse, and the doctrine of original sin is taught from all its pulpits. only by baptism can the stains of our native guilt be effaced; and thus the unbaptized, even infants, perish everlastingly, and hell, to use the words of a protestant divine, holds many a babe not a span long. a great catholic divine says--"hold thou most firmly, nor do thou in any respect doubt, that infants, whether in their mothers' wombs they begin to live and then die, or when, after their mothers have given birth to them, they pass from this life without the sacrament of holy baptism, will be punished with the everlasting punishment of eternal fire." horror of horrors! these men call sceptics blasphemers, but they are the real blasphemers when they attribute to their god such supreme injustice and cruelty. what should we think of a legislator who proposed that the descendants of all thieves should be imprisoned, and the descendants of all murderers hung? we should think that he was bad or mad. yet this is precisely analogous to the conduct ascribed to god, who should be infinitely wiser than the wisest man and infinitely better than the best. the crime of our first parents was indeed pregnant with the direst consequences. it not only induced the seeds of original sin, but it also brought death into the world. milton sings-- "of man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste _brought death into the world_." and saint paul (romans v., ) writes "as by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin." now this theory implies that before the fall the inhabited portion of the world was the scene of perfect peace. birds lived on seeds and eschewed worms, and the fierce carniverous animals grazed like oxen. the lion laid down with the lamb. "waal," said the yankee, "i don't doubt that, but i rayther guess the lamb was _inside_." the fact is that most of the carnivorous animals could not live on a vegetable drat; and therefore they must either have subsisted on flesh before the fall, which of course involves _death_, or their natures must have undergone a radical change. the first supposition contradicts scripture, and the second contradicts science. geology shows us that in the very earliest times living creatures died from the same causes which kill them now. many were overwhelmed by floods and volcanoes, or engulphed by earthquakes; many died of old age or disease, for their bones are found distorted or carious, and their limbs twisted with pain; while the greater number were devoured, according to the general law of the struggle for existence. death ruled universally before the human race made its appearance on the earth, and has absolutely nothing to do with eve and her apple. adam and eve were warned by god that in the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge they should surely die. the serpent declared this to be rank nonsense, and the event proved his veracity. what age eve attained to the holy bible saith not, for it never considers women of sufficient importance to have their longevities chronicled. but adam lived to the remarkably good old age of nine hundred and thirty years. like our charles the second he took "an unconscionable time a-dying." one of his descendants, the famous methusaleh, lived thirty-nine years longer; while the more famous melchizedek is not even dead yet, if any credence is to be placed in the words of holy saint paul. but all these are mere lambs, infants, or chicken, in comparison with the primeval patriarchs of india. buckle tells us that, according to the hindoos, common men in ancient times lived to the age of , years, some dying a little sooner and some a little later. two of their kings, yudhishther and alarka, reigned respectively , and , years. both these were cut off in their prime; for some of the early poets lived to be about half a million; while one king, the most virtuous as well as the most remarkable of all, was two million years old when he began to reign, and after reigning , , years, he resigned his empire and lingered on for , years more. adam is not in the hunt with that tough old fellow. on the principle that it is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb, faithful christians should swallow him as well as adam. when the throat of their credulity is once distended they may as well take in everything that comes. what followed the curse clearly shows that man was not originally created immortal. adam and eve were expelled from the garden of eden expressly in order that they might not become so. god "drove them forth" lest they should "take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." many orthodox writers, who have to maintain the doctrine of our natural immortality, preserve a discreet silence on this text. our great milton, who has so largely determined the protestant theology of england, goes right in the face of scripture when he makes god say of man, "i at first with two fair gifts created him endowed, with happiness and _immortality_." the fact is, the book of genesis never once alludes to any such thing, nor does it represent man as endowed with any other soul than that "breath of life" given to all animals. it is also certain that the _ancient_ jews were entirely ignorant of the doctrine of a life beyond the grave. the highest promise that moses is said to have made in the decalogue was that their "days should be long in the land." the jews were a business people, and they wanted all promises fulfilled on this side of death. nor is there any real _fall_ implied in this story. god himself says that "the man," having eaten of the forbidden fruit, "is become as one of us." that could scarcely be a fall which brought him nearer to god. bishop south, indeed, in a very eloquent passage of his sermon on "man created in god's image," celebrates the inconceivable perfection of the first man, and concludes by saying that "an aristotle was but the rubbish of an adam, and athens but the rudiments of paradise." but a candid perusal of genesis obliges us to dissent from this view, adam and eve were a very childish pair. whatever intellect they possessed they carefully concealed. not a scintillation of it has reached us. shakespeare and newton are an infinite improvement on adam and eve. one of the gnostic sects, who played such havoc with the early christian church, utterly rejected the idea of a fall. "the ophites," says didron, "considered the god of the jews not only to be a most wicked but an unintelligent being.... according to their account, jalda-baoth, the wicked demi-god adored by the jews under the name of jehovah, was jealous of man, and wished to prevent the progress of knowledge; but the serpent, the agent of superior wisdom, came to teach man what course he ought to pursue, and by what means he might regain the knowledge of good and evil. the ophites consequently adored the serpent, and cursed the true god jehovah." before expelling adam and eve from eden, the lord took pity on their nakedness, and apparently seeing that their skill in needle-work did not go beyond aprons, he "made coats of skins, and clothed them." jehovah was thus the first tailor, and the prototype of that imperishable class of workmen, of whom it was said that it takes nine of them to make a man. he was also the first butcher and the first tanner, for he must have slain the animals and dressed their skins. lest they should return he "placed at the east of the garden of eden _cherubims_, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." as this guard seems never to have been relieved, profane wits have speculated whether the flood drowned them, and quenched the flaming sword with a great hiss. ezekiel describes the cherubims with characteristic magnificence. these creatures with wings and wheels were "full of eyes round about." and "everyone had low faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle." what monsters! no wonder they effectually frightened poor adam and eve from attempting a re-entrance into the garden. perhaps the reader would like to know what became of the tree of knowledge. one legend of the middle ages relates that eve along with the forbidden fruit broke off a branch which she carried with her from paradise. planted outside by her hand, it grew to a great tree, under which abel was killed; at a later time it was used in building the most holy place of solomon's temple; and finally it yielded the beams out of which the cross was made! another legend says that, after the fall, god rooted out the tree of knowledge, and flung it over the wall of paradise. a thousand years after it was found by abraham, none the worse for its long absence from the soil. he planted it in his garden, and while doing so he was informed by a voice from heaven that this was the tree on whose wood the redeemer should be crucified. space does not allow us to dwell at length on the paradise myths of other ancient peoples, which singularly resembled that of the jews. formerly it was alleged that these were all corruptions of the genesaic story. but it is now known that most of them date long anterior to the very existence of the jewish people. as kalisch says, "they belonged to the common traditionary lore of the asiatic nations." the bible story of paradise is derived almost entirely from the persian myth. it was after contact with the reformed religion of zoroaster, during their captivity, that the remnant of the jews who returned to palestine collated their ancient literature, and revised it in accordance with their new ideas. the story of eve and her apple is, as every scholar knows, an oriental myth slightly altered by the jewish scribes to suit the national taste, and has absolutely no claims on our credence. and if this be so, the doctrine of the fall collapses, and down comes the whole christian structure which is erected upon it. the bible devil. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. the christian godhead is usually spoken and written of as a trinity, whereas it is in fact a quaternion, consisting of god the father, god the son, god the holy ghost, and god the devil. the roman catholics add yet another, goddess the virgin mary. god the devil, whom this _romance_ treats of so far as his history is contained in the bible, is popularly supposed to be inferior to the other persons of the godhead. in reality, however, he is vastly their superior both in wisdom and in power. for, whereas they made the world, he has appropriated it almost entirely to himself; and, whereas they who created all its inhabitants, have only been able to lay down a very narrow-gauge railway to the kingdom of heaven, he has contrived to lay down an exceedingly broad-gauge railway to the kingdom of hell. few passengers travel by their route, and its terminus on this side is miserably small; but his route is almost universally patronised, its terminus is magnificent, and there is an extraordinary rush for tickets. according to the christian scheme, the devil tempted adam and eve from their allegiance to god in the form of a serpent. he played the devil with eve, she played the devil with adam, and together they have played the devil with the whole human race ever since. but let any unbiassed person read the genesaic story of the fall, and he will certainly discover no reference to the devil a serpent is spoken of as "more subtle than any beast of the field;" it is throughout represented simply as a serpent; and nowhere is there the faintest indication of its possessing any supernatural endowments. the story of the fall contains clear relics of that tree and serpent worship which in ancient times prevailed so extensively over the east. the serpent was formerly regarded as the symbol of a beneficent god. in hindustan, says maurice, "the veneration of the serpent is evident in every page of their mythologic history, in which every fabulous personage of note is represented as grasping or as environed with a serpent." according to lajard, the word which signifies "life" in the greater part of the semitic languages signifies also "a serpent" and jacob bryant says that the word "ab," which in hebrew means father, has also the same meaning as the egyptian "ob," or "aub," and signifies "a serpent," thus etymologically uniting the two ideas. the tree and the serpent were frequently associated, although they were sometimes worshipped apart. the aryan races of the western world mostly worshipped the tree alone. the scandinavians had their great ash "yggdrasill," whose triple root reaches to the depths of the universe, while its majestic stem overtops the heavens and its branches fill the world. the grecian oracles were delivered from the oak of dodona, and the priests set forth their decrees on its leaves. nutpi or neith, the goddess of divine life, was by the egyptians represented as seated among the branches of the tree of life, in the paradise of osiris. the "hom," the sacred tree of the persians, is spoken of in the zendavesta as the "word of life," and, when consecrated, was partaken of as a sacrament. an oak was the sacred tree of the ancient druids of britain. we inherit their custom of gathering the sacred mistletoe at yule-tide, while in our christmas tree we have a remnant of the old norse tree-worship. during the middle ages the worship of trees was forbidden in france by the ecclesiastical councils, and in england by the laws of canute. a learned antiquary remarks that "the english maypole decked with colored rags and tinsel, and the merry morice-dancers (the gaily decorated may sweeps) with the mysterious and now almost defunct personage, jack-in-the-green, are all but worn-out remnants of the adoration of gods in trees that once were sacred in england." now the serpent and the tree were originally both symbolic of the generative powers of nature, and they were interchangeable. sometimes one was employed, sometimes the other, and sometimes both. but in that great religious reformation which took place in the faiths of the ancient world about years before the time of christ, the serpent was degraded, and made to stand as a symbol of ahriman, the god of evil, who, in the persic religion, waged incessant war against ormuzd, the god of beneficence. the persian myth of the fall is thus rendered from the zendavesta by kalisch:-- "the first couple, the parents of the human race, meshia and meshiane, lived originally in purity and innocence. perpetual happiness was promised them by ormuzd, the creator of every good gift, if they persevered in their virtue. but an evil demon (dev) was sent to them by ahriman, the representative of everything noxious and sinful. he appeared unexpectedly in the form of a serpent, and gave them the fruit of a wonderful tree, hom, which imparted immortality and had the power of restoring the dead to life. thus evil inclinations entered their hearts; all their moral excellence was destroyed. ahriman himself appeared wider the form of the same reptile, and completed the work of seduction. they acknowledged him instead of ormuzd as the creator of everything good; and the consequence was they forfeited for ever the eternal happiness for which they were destined." every reader will at once perceive how similar this is to the hebrew story of the fall. the similarity is intelligible when we remember that all the literature of the ancient jews was put into its present form by the learned scribes who returned with the remnant of the people from the babylonish captivity, and who were full of the ideas that obtained in the persian religion as reformed by the traditional zoroaster. as we have said, the hebrew story of the fall contains clear relics of tree and serpent worship. there is also abundant proof that during the long ages in which the jews oscillated between polytheism and monotheism this worship largely prevailed. even up to the reign of hezekiah, as we find in the second book of kings, the serpent was worshipped in groves, to the great anger of the king, who cast out the idolatry from among his people. having explained the subject thus, let us now assume with orthodox christians that the serpent in eden was animated by the devil, or was indeed the devil himself incarnate. we have already observed that the devil excels his three rivals in wisdom and in power. while they were toiling so strenuously to create the world and all that therein is, he quietly stood or sat by as a spectator. "all right," he might have murmured, "work away as hard as you please. you've more strength than sense. my turn will soon come. when the job is finished we shall see to whom all this belongs." when the work was completed and they had pronounced all things good, in stepped the devil, and in the twinkling of an eye rendered imperfect all that they had so labored to create perfect;'turning everything topsy-turvey, seducing the first pair of human beings, sowing the seeds of original sin, and at one stroke securing the wholesale damnation of our race. what were they about, to let him do all this with such consummate ease? surely they must have slept like logs, and thus left the whole game in his hands. he made himself the "prince of this world," although they created it; and if those may laugh who win, he was entitled to roar out his mirth to the shaking of the spheres. besides being the prince of this world and of the powers of darkness, the devil is described as the father of lies. this, however, is a gross libel on his character. throughout the contest with his rivals he played with perfect fairness. and from genesis to revelation there can be adduced no single instance in which he departs from the strict line of truth. on one occasion when jehovah desired a lying spirit to go forth and prophesy falsely to his people, he found one ready to his hand in heaven and had no need to trouble satan for a messenger. the lord god had told adam, "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thow shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thow shalt surely die." nay, said the devil, when he began business "ye shall not surely die; for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." every word of his speech was true. instead of dying "in the day" that he ate of the fruit adam lived to the fine old age of nine hundred and thirty years. and after the "fall" the lord god said, "behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." the devil's truthfulness is thus amply vindicated. satan's visit to eve was paid in the form of a serpent. she manifested no astonishment at being accosted by such a creature. it may be that the whole menagerie of eden spoke in the human tongue, and that balaam's ass was only what the biologists would call "a case of reversion" to the primitive type. josephus and most of the fathers conceived of the serpent as having had originally a human voice and legs; so that if he could not have walked about with eve arm in arm, he might at least have accompanied her in a dance. milton, however, discredits the legs, and represents the serpent thus: "not with indented wave, prone on the ground, as since, but on his rear, circular base of rising folds, that towered, fold above fold, a surging maze, his head crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; with burnish'd neck of verdant gold, erect amidst his circling spires, that on the grass floated redundant." very splendid! but the doctors differ, and who shall decide? what followed the eating of the forbidden fruit we have dealt with in "eve and the apple." we shall therefore at once come to the curse pronounced upon the serpent "and the lord god said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and i will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." the final portion of this curse is flagrantly mythological among the hindoos, krishna also, as the incarnation of vishnu, is represented now as treading on the bruised head of a conquered serpent, and now as entwined by it, and stung in the heel. in egyptian pictures and sculptures, likewise, the serpent is seen pierced through the head by the spear of the goddess isis. the "enmity" between mankind and the serpent is, however, not universal amongst the zulus the snake is held in great veneration, as their dead ancestors are supposed to reappear in that form; and in ancient times, as we have already observed, serpents were actually worshipped. the middle portion of the curse has not yet been fulfilled. the serpent lives on more nutritious food than dust. in the zoological gardens the inmates of the serpent-house enjoy a more solid diet the fact is, we have here an oriental superstition. kalisch points out that "the great scantiness of food? on which the serpent can subsist, gave rise to the belief, entertained by many eastern nations, that they eat dust." this belief is referred to in micah vii, , isaiah lxv., , and elsewhere in the bible. among the indians the serpent is believed to live on wind. that the serpent "goes" upon its "belly" is, of course, a fact. before the curse it must have moved about in some other way. milton's poetical solution of the difficulty we have already given. during the middle ages those seraphic doctors of theology, who gravely argued how many angels could dance on the point of a needle, speculated also on the serpent's method of locomotion before the "fall." some thought the animal had legs, some that it undulated gracefully on its back, and others that it hopped about on its tail. the ever bold delitzsch decides that "its mode of motion and its form were changed," but closes the controversy by adding, "of the original condition of the serpent it is, certainly, impossible to frame to ourselves a conjecture." all this is mere moonshine. geology, as colenso remarks, shows us that the serpent was the same kind of creature as it is now, in the ages long before man existed on the earth. why the serpent was cursed at all is a question which no christian can answer. the poor animal was seized, mastered, occupied, and employed by the devil, and was therefore absolutely irresponsible for what occurred. it had committed no offence, and consequently the curse upon it, according to christian doctrine, was a most brutal and wanton outrage. having done such a splendid stroke of business in eden, the devil retired, quite satisfied that the direction he had given to the affairs of this world was so strong and certain as to obviate the necessity of his personal supervision. fifteen centuries later the human race had grown so corrupt that god (that is, the three persons in one) resolved to drown them all; preserving, however, eight live specimens to repeople the world. how the devil must have laughed again! he knew that noah and his family possessed the seeds of original sin, which they would assuredly transmit to their children, and thus prolong the corruption through all time. short-sighted as ever, jehovah refrained from completing the devastation, after which he might have started afresh. so sure was the devil's grip on god's creation that, a few centuries after the flood, there were not found ten righteous men in the whole city of sodom, and no doubt other cities were almost as bad. according to the bible, the devil's long spell of rest was broken in the reign of king david, the man after god's own heart, but a very great scoundrel nevertheless. the second book of samuel (xxiv., ) tells us that "again the anger of the lord was kindled against israel, and he moved david against them to say, go, number israel and judah." now the first book of chronicles (xxi, ) in relating the same incident says, "and satan stood up against israel, and provoked david to number israel" who shall reconcile this discrepancy? was it god, was it satan, or was it both? imagine david with the celestial and infernal powers whispering the same counsel into either ear! a scotch minister once told us that this difficulty was only apparent. the devil, said he, exercises only a delegated power, and acts only by the express or tacit permission of god; so that it matters not which is said to have provoked david. yes, but what of the consequences? because the king, despite all protests, took a census of his people, the lord sent a destroying angel, who slew by pestilence seventy thousand of them. where, in the whole history of religion, shall we find a viler sample of divine injustice? besides, if the devil acts in all cases only by god's permission, the latter is responsible for all the former's wrongdoing. the principal, and not the agent, must bear the guilt. and this suggests a curious problem. readers of "robinson crusoe" will remember that when man friday was undergoing a course of theological instruction, he puzzled his master by asking why god did not convert the devil. to his unsophisticated mind it was plain that the conversion of the devil would annihilate sin. robinson crusoe changed the subject to avoid looking foolish, but man friday's question remains in full force. why does not god convert the devil? the great thomas aquinas is reported to have prayed for the devil's conversion through a whole long night. robert burns concludes his "address to the deil" with a wish that he "wad tak a thought an' men'." and sterne, in one of his wonderful strokes of pathos, makes corporal trim say of the devil, "he is damned already, your honor;" whereupon, "i am sorry for it," quoth uncle toby. why, oh why, we repeat, does not god convert the devil, and thus put a stop for ever to the damnation of mankind? why do not the clergy pray without cease for that one object? because they dare not. the devil is their best friend. abolish him, and disestablish hell, and their occupation would be gone. they must stick to their dear devil, as their most precious possession, their stock-in-trade, their talisman of power, without whom they were worse than nothing. the devil's adventures in the book of job are very amusing. one day there was a drawing-room or _levée_ held in heaven. the sons of god attended, and satan came also among them. he seems to have so closely resembled the rest of the company that only god detected the difference. this is not surprising, for the world has seen some very godly sons of god, so very much like the devil, that if he met one of them in a dark lane by night, he might almost suspect it to be his own ghost. god, who knows everything, as usual asked a number of questions. where had satan been, and what had he been doing? satan replied, like a gentleman of independent means, that he had been going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. "well," said the lord, "have you observed my servant job? what a good man! perfect and upright i'm proud of him." oh yes, satan had observed him. he keeps a sharp eye on all men. as old bishop latimer said, whatever parson is out of his parish the devil is always in his. "doth job fear god for nought?" said satan. "he is wealthy, prosperous, happy, and respected; you fence him about from evil; but just let trouble come upon him, and he will curse thee to thy face." this was a new view of the subject; the lord had never seen it in this light before. so he determined to make an experiment. with god's sanction satan went forth to afflict job. he despoiled his substance, slaughtered his children, covered him with sore boils from head to foot, and then set on his wife to "nag" him. but job triumphed; he did not curse god, and thus satan was foiled. subsequently job became richer than ever and more renowned, while a fresh family grew up around his knees. "so," say the christians, "all's well that ends well!" not so, however; for there remains uneffaced the murder of job's children, who were hurriedly despatched out of the world in the very midst of their festivity. when the celestial and infernal powers play at conundrums, it is a great pity that they do not solve them up above or down below, and leave the poor denizens of this world free from the havoc of their contention. in the new testament, as in the old, the devil appears early on the scene. after his baptism in jordan, jesus was "led up of the spirit in the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." when he had fasted forty days and nights he "was afterward hungered." doctor tanner overlooked this. the hunger of jesus only began on the forty-first day. the devil requests jesus to change the stones into bread, but he declines to do so. then he sets him "on a pinnacle of the temple" in jerusalem, and desires him to throw himself down. jesus must have been exceedingly _sharp set_ in that position. meanwhile, where was the devil posted? he could scarcely have craned his neck up so as to hold a confabulation with jesus from the streets, and we must therefore suppose that he was sharp set on another pinnacle. a pretty sight they must have been for the jews down below! that temptation failing, the devil takes jesus "up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him _all_ the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." this is remarkably like seeing round a corner, for however high we go we cannot possibly see the whole surface of a globe at once. "all these things," says satan, "will i give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." what a generous devil! they already belonged to jesus, for doth not scripture say the earth is the lord's and the fulness thereof?--a text which should now read "the earth is the landlords' and the emptiness thereof." this temptation also fails, and the devil retires in disgust. what a pretty farce! our burlesques and pantomimes are nothing to it. satan knew jesus, and jesus knew satan. jesus knew that satan would tempt him, and satan knew that jesus knew it. jesus knew that satan could not succeed, and satan knew so too. yet they kept the farce up night and day, for no one knows how long; and our great milton in his "paradise regained" represents this precious pair arguing all day long, satan retiring after sunset, and jesus lying down hungry, cold and wet, and rising in the morning with damp clothes to renew the discussion. soon after jesus went into the country of the gergesenes, where he met two fierce men possessed with devils whom he determined to exorcise, the devils (for _the_ devil had grown numerous by then), not liking to be turned adrift on the world, without home or shelter, besought jesus to let them enter the bodies of an herd of swine feeding by. this he graciously permitted. the devils left the men and entered the swine; whereupon the poor pigs, experiencing a novel sensation, never having had devils inside them before, "ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." whether the devils were drowned with the pigs this veracious history saith not. but the pigs themselves were not paid for. jesus wrought the miracle at other people's expense. and the inhabitants of that part took precisely this view of the case. for "the whole city came out to meet jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts." no doubt they reflected that if he remained working miracles of that kind, at the end of a week not a single pig would be left alive in the district. entering in genesis, the devil appropriately makes his exit in revelation. the twelfth chapter of that holy nightmare describes him as "a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads; and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." what a tail! the writer's ideas of size were very chaotic. bringing a third part of the stars of heaven to this earth, is much like trying to lodge a few thousand cannon-balls on the surface of a bullet. finally the devil is to be "bound for a thousand years" in hell. let us hope the chain will be strong; for if it should break, the pit has no bottom, and the devil would go right through, coming out on the other side to renew his old tricks. such is the romance of the bible devil. was ever a more ludicrous story palmed off on a credulous world? the very clergy are growing ashamed of it. but there it is, inextricably interwoven with the rest of the "sacred" narrative, so that no skill can remove it without destroying the whole fabric. the devil has been the church's best friend, but he is doomed, and as their fraternal bond cannot be broken, he will drag it down to irretrievable perdition. the ten plagues; or, how moses harried egypt. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. if a man who had never read the bible before wished to amuse himself during a spare hour among its pages, we should recommend him to try the first fourteen chapters of exodus. a more entertaining narrative was never penned. even the fascinating arabian nights affords nothing better, provided we read it with the eyes of common sense, and without that prejudice which so often blinds us to the absurdities of "god's word." at the end of the fourteenth chapter aforesaid, let the book be closed, and then let the reader ask himself whether he ever met with a more comical story. we have no doubt as to his answer; and we feel assured that he will agree with the poet cowper in thinking that god _does_ "move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." two hundred and fifteen years after the arrival of israel in egypt, god's chosen people had fallen into slavery. yet they were exceedingly prolific, so that "the land was filled with them." afraid of their growing numbers, pharaoh "spake to the hebrew midwives" and told them to kill all their male children at birth and leave only the daughters alive. this injunction the midwives very, properly disobeyed, excusing themselves on the ground that "the hebrew women were lively and were delivered ere the midwives came in unto them." had they obeyed pharaoh, the jewish race would have been extinguished, and judaism and christianity been never heard of. but the comical fact as to these midwives is that there were only two of them, shiphrah and puah. what a busy pair they must have been! what patterns of ubiquitous industry! when the jews quitted egypt soon after they mustered six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. now, supposing all these were collected together in one city, its size would equal that of london. how could two midwives possibly attend to all the confinements among such a population? and how much more difficult would their task be if the population were scattered over a wide area, as was undoubtedly the case with the jews! words fail us to praise the miraculous activity of these two ladies. like the peace of god, it passes all understanding. one of the male children born under the iron rule of pharaoh was moses, the son of amram and jochebed. the incidents of his eventful life will be fully recorded in our series of "bible heroes." suffice it here to say that he was adopted and brought up by pharaoh's daughter; that he became skilled in all the learning of the egyptians; that he privily slew an egyptian who-had maltreated a hebrew, and was obliged therefore to flee to the land of midian, where he married zipporah, a daughter of jethro the priest. at this time moses was getting on to his eightieth year. now-a-days a man of that age sees only the grave before him, and has pretty nearly closed his account with the world. but in those days it was different. at the age of eighty moses was just beginning his career. he was indeed a very astonishing old boy. one day moses was keeping his father-in-law's flock near mount horeb, when lo! a strange vision greeted his eyes. the "angel of the lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush," which burned without consuming. by "angel" we are to understand a vision or appearance only, for the being within the bush was god almighty himself; and throughout the rest of the narrative the word "angel" is entirely dropped, only lord or god being used. moses approached this wonderful sight; but the lord called out to him, "draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." thereupon moses hid his face "for he was afraid to look upon god." could anything be more ludicrous! fancy god, the infinite spirit of the universe, secreting himself in a bush and setting it on fire, just to make a little display for the benefit of moses! our wonder, however, is presently lessened; for this god turns out to be only jehovah "the lord god of the hebrews," a mere local deity, who cared only for his own people, and was quite ready to slaughter any number of the inhabitants of adjacent countries, besides being bitterly jealous of their gods. the utmost claimed for him is that he is the biggest god extant, and quite capable of thrashing all the other gods with one hand tied behind his back. he had heard the cries of his people and had determined to rescue them from bondage. he had also resolved to give pharaoh and the egyptians a taste of his quality, so that they might be forced to-admit his superiority to their gods. "i will let them know," said he to moses, "who i am, and you shall be my agent. we'll confound their impudence before we've done with them. but don't let us be in a hurry, for the little drama i have devised requires a good deal of time. you go to egypt and ask pharaoh to let my people go. but don't suppose he will consent. that wouldn't suit my plans at all. i have decided to set you two playing at the little game of 'pull moses, pull pharaoh,' and i shall harden his heart against your demands so that there may be a fierce tussle. but don't be afraid. i am on your side, and just at the end of the game i'll join in and pull pharaoh clean over. and mind you tell him all along that it is my power and not yours which works all the wonders i mean you to perform, for you are only my instrument, and i want all the glory myself. play fair, moses, play fair!" moses was not unwilling to engage in this enterprise, but like a prudent jew he required certain assurances of success. he therefore first raised an objection as to his own insignificance--"who am i, that i should go unto pharaoh?" to which god replied, "certainly i will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that i have sent thee: when thou hast brought forth the people out of egypt, ye shall serve god upon this mountain." moses, however, required a much less remote token than this; so he again objected that nobody would believe him. thereupon the lord bade him cast his rod on the ground, and lo! it became a serpent moses very naturally fled before it, till the lord told him not to run away but to take it by the tail. he did so, and it became again a rod in his hand. then the lord bade him put his hand in his bosom, and on taking it out he found it was "leprous as snow." again he put it in his bosom, and when he plucked it out it was once more sound and well. "there," said the lord, "those signs will do in egypt. when you evince them nobody will doubt you." still hesitant, moses objected that he was very slow of speech. so he frankly desired the lord to send someone else. no wonder the lord grew angry at this persistent reluctance; nevertheless he restrained himself, and informed moses that his brother aaron, who was a good speaker, should accompany him. the prudent prophet seems to have been at length satisfied. at any rate he made no further objection, but after a little further conversation with the lord, who was very talkative, he set forth on his journey to egypt. singular to relate, the lord met moses at an inn on the road, and, instead of wishing him good-speed, sought to kill him. what a strange god, to be sure! why did he want to kill his own messenger? and why, if he wanted to kill him, did he not succeed in doing it? truly the ways of god are past finding out. the only reason discoverable for this queer conduct is that moses' boy was uncircumcised. zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone and performed the rite of circumcision herself, casting the amputated morsel at the feet of the boy's father, with the remark that he was "a bloody husband." the lord's anger was thereby appeased, and the text naively says that he then let moses go. prompted by the lord, aaron went out into the wilderness to meet moses, and they soon appeared together before "all the elders of the children of israel," who readily believed in their mission when they heard aaron's account of the lord's conversation with moses, and saw the wonderful signs. afterwards the two brothers visited pharaoh, but god had hardened his heart; so he denied all knowledge of the lord, and refused to let israel go. on the contrary, he commanded the taskmaskers to be even more rigorous with them, and, instead of giving them straw to make bricks, as theretofore, to make them gather straw for themselves. and when they complained, pharaoh replied that they were an idle lot, and only wanted to go out and sacrifice to the lord in order to avoid work. whereupon they remonstrated with moses for his interference, and he, in turn, remonstrated with god in very plain and disrespectful language. "nonsense!" said the lord, "now you shall see what i will do to pharaoh." again pharaoh was visited by the two brothers, who this time commenced to work the miracle. aaron cast down his rod, and it became a serpent. but the magicians of egypt, who were present by invitation of the king, were in nowise astonished. "oh," said they, "is that all you can do?" saying which, every man of them threw down his rod, and it also became a serpent. that was indeed an age of miracles! the magicians of egypt wrought this wonder without any help from the lord, and solely "with their enchantments." here, then, was a pretty fix! so far, neither side had any advantage. presently, however, aaron's serpent--which thus proved itself a truly jewish one--created a diversion by swallowing all the others up. we must suppose that it afterwards disgorged them, or else that aaron's, rod was exceedingly stout when he got it back. pharaoh's heart remained obdurate, notwithstanding this sign, and he still refused to let the people go. and then the plagues commenced. the first was a plague of blood. aaron stretched forth his rod, and _all_ the waters of egypt, the streams, the rivers, the ponds, and the pools became blood. even the water in vessels of stone and wood was ensanguined. the fish all died, and the river stank; and "there was blood throughout all the land of egypt." this was a good start, but the magicians of egypt beat it hollow; for, after aaron had turned _all_ the water of egypt into blood, they turned the _rest_ into blood. no wonder that pharaoh's heart remained hardened! he quietly walked into his house and let the subject drop. seven days later moses went again to pharaoh and said, "thus saith the lord, let my people go." and pharaoh said, "i won't." "won't you?" answered moses, "we shall see." forthwith aaron stretched forth his rod over the streams, rivers, and ponds, and brought on the second plague in the shape of frogs, which swarmed all over the land. they entered the houses, penetrated to the bedrooms, mounted the beds, slipped into the kneading-troughs, and even got into the ovens, although one would expect frogs to give such hot places a very wide berth. what a squelching of frogs there must have been! the egyptians could not have stood absolutely still, and the land was covered with them. still unfoiled, the magicians, "with their enchantments, followed suit, and brought up frogs too." yet, as the land was already covered with frogs, it is difficult to see how the new comers found room, unless they got on the backs of the others, and went hopping about in couples. pharaoh now relented. he called for moses, and said, "intreat your lord to take away these nasty frogs, and i will let the people go." "that will i," said moses, "and you shall know that there is none like unto the lord our god." the next day the frogs died out of the houses, villages, and fields, and were gathered into heaps, so that again "the land stank." but when pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart again, "as the lord had said." the third act of this tragi-comedy was decisive in one sense, for in it the magicians of egypt were obliged to retire from the competition. aaron stretched forth his rod again and smote the dust of the earth, all of which instantly became _lice_, in man and in beast. before this dirty miracle the magicians of egypt shrank dismayed. they made a feeble and altogether unsuccessful attempt to imitate aaron's performance, and then drew back, declining to continue the contest. the lice settled them. "this," said they, "is the finger of god." but pharaoh still refused to knuckle under. even against the force of this supreme wonder his heart was steeled. so the fourth plague came. a grievous swarm of flies descended on egypt, so that "the land was corrupted by reason of them. but not a single fly crossed over into the land of goshe" where the jews dwelt. thereupon pharaoh called for moses and aaron, and told them he was willing to let their people go and sacrifice to the lord for three days, but not outside egypt. moses reiterated his demand for a three days' journey into the wilderness. whereto pharaoh replied that they might go, but "not too far." moses then undertook to banish the flies. and he was as good as his word; for there was made such a clean sweep of them that "not one remained." this precious narrative always runs to extremes. egypt without a fly in it would be in a very abnormal condition. at ordinary times the land is infested with flies; so much so, indeed, that large numbers of the people suffer from diseased eyes, in consequence of these insects incessantly fastening on the sores caused by the irritating sand which fills the air. it was absurd for this hebrew story-teller to scotch the last fly; he should have left sufficient to maintain the character of the country. again pharaoh's heart was hardened, and when the flies were banished he refused to "let the people go." so the fifth plague came. a "very grievous murrain," which spared the cattle of israel, broke out on the cattle of egypt, and with such virulence that they all died. pharaoh found on inquiry that there was "not one of the cattle of the israelites dead," yet for all that his heart was hardened, and he would not let the people go. so the sixth plague came. aaron took "handfuls of ashes of the furnace," which moses sprinkled towards heaven, and "it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and _upon beast_." even the magicians were afflicted. now the readers will bear in mind that _all_ the cattle of egypt were killed by the fifth, plague. what beasts, then, were these tortured with boils? were they dead carcasses, or were they live cattle miraculously created in the interim? surely this is a thing which "no fellah can understand." from the serpent of eden to jonah's whale, the animals of the bible are a queer lot. pharaoh's heart remaining still hardened, god commanded moses to make a special appeal to him, and to get up early in the morning for that purpose. so moses stood before pharaoh and said, "thus saith the lord god of the hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me. if you refuse i shall plague you and your people worse than ever, and so teach you that there is none like me in all the earth. don't puff yourself up with conceit, for you were made what you are only in order that through you my power might be manifested. you had better cave in at once." but pharaoh would not harken. he tacitly declared that the lord god of the hebrews might go to jericho. so the seventh plague came. a fierce hail, accompanied by fire that ran along the ground, smote all that was in the field, both man and beast. it smote also _every_ herb of the field and brake _every_ tree of the field. only those were saved who "feared the lord" and stayed in doors with their servants and cattle. fortunately the wheat and the rice were spared, as they were not grown up; or there would have been a famine in egypt compared with which the seven years of scarcity in joseph's time had sunk into insignificance. pharaoh now relented and repented. "i have sinned this time," he said, "the lord is righteous, and i and my people are wicked." and moses, seeing that the king had recognised jehovah as the true cock of the theological walk, procured a cessation of the thunder and the hail. but lo! when pharaoh perceived this, he hardened his heart again, and "sinned yet more." the obduracy of this potentate, under the manipulation of god, is really becoming monotonous. so the eighth plague came. after a day and a night of east wind, a prodigious swarm of locusts went up over the land of egypt, covering the face of the whole earth, and darkening the ground. they "did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had spared." but we were told that the hail smote _every_ herb, and brake _every_ tree. what then was left for the locusts to eat? the writer of this narrative had a very short memory, or else a stupendous power of belief. again pharaoh confessed that he had sinned. the locusts were cleared away, and so effectually that "not one remained." but "the lord hardened pharaoh's heart" for the eighth time, and he refused to let the people go. whereupon moses brought darkness over the land of egypt, a thick darkness that might be felt. this thick darkness lasted in egypt for three days, during which time the people "saw not one another, neither rose any from his place." we presume, therefore, that they all starved for that time. poor devils! what had they done to be treated thus? all the children of israel, however, had light in their dwellings. why then did they not avail themselves of such a fine opportunity to escape? it was a splendid chance, yet they let it slip. perhaps moses did not give the word, and they were like a flock of sheep without him. perhaps they wished to stay and see the rest of the fun. for more was coming, although it was anything but fun to the poor egyptians. to them indeed it was an awful tragedy such as we lack words to describe. moses commanded the jews to take a male lamb for each household, to kill it, and to daub its blood over the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of their houses. the flesh they were to eat in the night, roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the inauguration of the passover. the lord meant to pass through the land in the dark, and slay all the firstborn in egypt; and lest he should make some mistakes he required the jews' houses to be marked with blood so that he might distinguish them. we should expect god to dispense with such "aids to memory." what followed must be told in the language of scripture: "at midnight the lord smote all the firstborn in the land of egypt, from the firstborn of pharaoh that sat on the throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. and pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the egyptians; and there was a great cry in egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead." the reader's imagination will picture the horror of this scene. that "great cry in egypt" arose from a people who were the first victims of god's hatred of all who stood in the way of his chosen "set of leprous slaves." and in this case the tragedy was the more awful, and the more inexcusably atrocious, because god deliberately planned it. he could easily have softened pharaoh's heart, but he chose to harden it. he could have brought his people out of egypt in peace, but he preferred that they should start amidst wailings of agony, and leave behind them a track of blood. yet in the tragedy there is a touch of comedy. those beasts that were first killed by the murrian and afterwards plagued by the boil, at last lose their firstborn by the tenth plague. besides, there is a touch of the ludicrous in the statement that _every_ house had one dead. all the firstborn of such a large population could not have been present at that time. some might have left egypt for purposes of trade, and others would certainly have been cut off before by death. the story of the tenth plague, like the other nine, requires to be taken with a very large grain of salt. pharaoh and the egyptians were now anxious to get rid of the jews. so god's people departed in haste. they took good care, however, not to go empty-handed. they "borrowed" of the egyptians, without the remotest intention of ever paying them back, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment. in fact they "spoiled the egyptians." in recent times the modern egyptians have wiped off that old score by spoiling a few jewish moneylenders, and so returned tit for tat. god led his people past instead of through the land of the philistines, lest they should be frightened by war, and wish to return to egypt. he does not seem to have known their character. considering the delight with which they subsequently warred against their enemies, and the joy they took in wholesale massacre, we are inclined to think that they would have just liked to get their hands into the business of fighting by trying conclusions with the philistines. moses carried off the bones of joseph, which must have been rather stale by that time. and god went before the huge host of six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children, and a mixed multitude of followers; by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, until at length they found themselves encamped before the red sea. in the meanwhile god had again hardened pharaoh's heart, for the express purpose of killing some more egyptians and getting more honor to himself. the israelites soon heard that pharaoh was pursuing them with an army, and they remembered his dreadful war chariots. they found themselves literally between the devil and the deep sea. whereupon they murmured against moses for bringing them out into the wilderness to die. but he, disregarding them, stretched forth his miraculous rod over the sea, and lo! the waters parted, forming a wall on either side of a safe passage, through which the jews travelled with dry feet. pharaoh and his host, however, attempting the same feat, were overwhelmed by the down-rushing sea-ramparts, and all drowned. there remained, says _exodus_, not so much as one of them. we have heard a different account of this affair. a negro preacher once explained that the red sea, just at that time, was "a little bit frozen over," and the jews, carrying only what they had borrowed "frum the gyptians," crossed the ice safely; but when pharaoh came with his thundering war-chariots, the ice broke, and "dey all was drown'd." but a nigger in the audience objected that the red sea is "in de quator," and is never frozen over. "war did you larn dat?" asked the preacher. "in de jografy," was the reply. "ah," was the ready retort, "dat's war you made de mistake; dis was a very long time ago, and dere was no jografy and no quator den." that nigger preacher's explanation seems quite as good as the one given by "moses." we leave the jews with their lord god on the safe side of the red sea, where moses heads the men in singing a joyful song of praise, and miriam the prophetess heads the women with timbrel and with dance. jehovah has ended his plaguing of the egyptians, after more than decimating them. he has covered his name with terrible splendour, and proved "that there is none like him" to a world which is very happy to be assured of the fact. two such monsters would make earth a hell. reader! did you ever meet with a more extraordinary story than this of the ten plagues? and can you regard the book which contains it as god's word? jonah and the whale. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. we have often wondered whether shakespeare had the story of jonah in his mind when he wrote that brief dialogue between hamlet and polonius, which immediately precedes the famous closet-scene in the master's greatest play-- hamlet.--do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? polonius.--by the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. hamlet.--methinks it is like a weasel. polonius.--it is backed like a weasel. hamlet.--or like a whale? polonius.--very like a whale. having, however, no means whereby to decide this question, we must content ourselves with broaching it, and leave the reader to form his own conclusion. yet we cannot refrain from expressing our opinion that the story of the strange adventures of the prophet jonah is "very like a whale." in another of shakespeare's plays, namely "the tempest," we find a phrase which exactly applies to the romance of jonah. when trinculo discovers caliban lying on the ground, he proceeds to investigate the monster. "what," quoth he, "have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? a fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell." now that is a most admirable description of the book of jonah. it has "a very ancient and fish-like smell." in fact, it is about the fishiest of all the fishy stories ever told. sailors' "yarns" have become proverbial for their audacious and delicious disregard of truth, and the book of jonah is "briny" from beginning to end. it contains only forty-eight verses, but its brevity is no defect. on the contrary, that is one of its greatest charms. the mind takes in the whole story at once, and enjoys it undiluted; as it were a goblet of the fine generous wine of romance. varying the expression, the book of jonah may be called the perfect cameo of bible fiction. when the book of jonah was written no one precisely knows, nor is it discoverable who wrote it. according to matthew arnold some unknown man of genius gave to christendom the fourth gospel, and with sublime self-abnegation allowed his name to perish. a similar remark must be made concerning the unknown author who gave to the world this racy story of jonah and the whale. we heartily wish his name had been preserved for remembrance and praise. our marginal bibles date the book of jonah b.c. cir. . other authorities give, the more recent date of b.c. as that of the events recorded in it. this chronology will suggest an important reflection later on. the wonderful story of jonah and the whale begins in this wise:--"now the word of the lord came unto jonah, the son of amittai, saying, arise, go to nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me." who amittai was, and whether man or woman, is a problem still unsolved; but it is reasonable to suppose the name was that of jonah's father, as the ancient jews paid no superfluous attentions to women, and generally traced descent from the paternal stem alone. amittai belonged to a place called gathhepher, "the village of the cow's tail," or, as otherwise interpreted, "the heifer's trough." jonah's tomb is said to have been long shown on a rocky hill near the town; but whether the old gentleman was ever buried there no man can say. according to mr. bradlaugh, the word jonah means a dove, and is by some derived from an arabic root, signifying to be weak or gentle. another interpretation, by gesenius, is a feeble, gentle bird. this refractory prophet was singularly ill-named. if his cognomen was bestowed on him by his parents, they must have been greatly deceived as to his character. the proverb says that it is a wise son that knows his own father; and with the history of jonah before us, we may add that it is a wise father who rightly knows his own son. the solicitude of "the lord god of the hebrews" for the welfare of the ninevites is to the sceptical mind an extraordinary phenomenon. it is one of the very few cases in which he shows the slightest concern for any other people than the jews. his ordinary practice was to slaughter them wholesale by pestilence or the sword; and it is therefore very refreshing to meet with such an instance of his merciful care. for once he remembers that the rest of adam's posterity are his children, and possess a claim on his attention. jonah, however, did not share this benign sentiment; and disrelishing the missionary enterprise assigned him, he "rose up to flee unto tarshish from the presence of the lord." jehovah does not seem to have been omnipresent then; that attribute attaches to him only since the beginning of the christian era, when he assumed universal sway. long before the time of jonah, another man, the first ever born in this world, namely cain, also "went out from the presence of the lord, and dwelt in the land of nod;" probably so called because the lord was not quite awake in that locality. no one knows were nod was situated, nor can the most learned archaeologists denote the actual position of tarshish. these two places would be well worth study. a careful examination of them would to some extent reveal what went on in those parts of the world to which god's presence did not extend; and we should be able to compare their geological and other records with those of the rest of the world. no doubt some striking differences would be perceptible. jonah determined to voyage by the joppa and tarshish line. so he went to the former port and embarked in one of the company's ships, after paying his fare like a man. having a perfectly untroubled conscience, and no apprehension of his coming troubles, jonah no doubt felt highly elated at having done the lord so neatly. perhaps it was this elation of spirits which safe-guarded him from sea-sickness. at any rate he went "down into the sides of the ship," and there slept the sleep of the just. so profound was his slumber, that it was "quite unbroken" by the horrible tempest that ensued. the lord had his eye on jonah, for the prophet had not yet reached the safe refuge of tarshish; and he "sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was likely to be broken." the mariners "cast forth the wares that were in the ship" to lighten her, and toiled hard to keep afloat; but their efforts were apparently fruitless, and nothing lay before them but the certain prospect of a watery grave. the reader will be able to imagine the tumult of the scene; the dash of ravening waves, the fierce howling of the wind, the creaking of masts and the straining of cordage, the rolling and pitching of the good ship and the shifting of her cargo, the captain's hoarse shouts of command and the sailors' loud replies, alternated with frenzied appeals to their gods for help. yet amidst all the uproar jonah still slept, as though the vessel were gaily skimming the waters before a pleasant breeze. let us pause here to interpose a question. did the "great wind sent out into the sea" by the lord confine its attentions to the immediate vicinity of jonah's ship, or did it cause a general tempest and perhaps send some other vessels to davy jones's locker? as no restrictions are mentioned, we presume that the tempest was general, and that the lord's wind, like the lord's rain referred to by jesus, fell alike upon the just and the unjust. this circumstance very naturally heightens our previous conception of his righteousness. that the lord, or some other supernatural power, caused the tempest, the mariners of jonah's ship and their captain never once doubted. living as they did, and as we do not, under a miraculous dispensation, they attributed every unusual, and especially every unpleasant, occurrence to the agency of a god. the idea of predicting storms, with which the civilised world is now familiar, they would doubtless have regarded as blasphemous and absurd. it is, therefore, by no means wonderful that every man on board (except jonah, who was fast asleep) "called unto his god." ignorant of what god was afflicting them, they appealed impartially all round, in the hope of hitting the right one. but the circle of their deities did not include the one which sent the wind; so the tempest continued to prevail, despite their prayers. in this extremity a happy thought occurred to the "ship-master." it struck him that the strange passenger down below might know something about the tempest, and that his god might have caused it. forthwith there dawned within him a recollection of words which jonah had uttered on embarking. had he not told them "that he fled from the presence of the lord?" "dear me," the captain probably said to himself, "what a fool i was not to think of this before. that chap down below is the occasion of all these troubles; i'll go and hunt him up, confound him!" thereupon he doubtless slapped his thigh, as is the wont of sailors when they solve a difficulty or hit on a brilliant idea; after which he descended "into the sides of the ship," whither jonah had gone. there he found the prophet slumbering as peacefully as a weanling child, with a smile of satisfaction playing over his hebrew features. we can imagine the captain's profound disgust in presence of this scene. he and his men had been toiling and praying, and, alas! pitching the cargo overboard, in order to save their skins; and all the while the occasion of their trouble had been lying fast asleep! preserving an outward decorum, however, he accosted jonah in very mild terms. "what meanest thou, o sleeper?" said he, "arise, call upon thy god, if so be that god will think upon us, that we perish not." what exquisite simplicity! it reminds us of the childlike and bland sir henry drummond wolff, when he opposed mr. brad-laugh's entry to the house of commons. that honorable champion of almighty god objected to mr. bradlaugh on the ground that he acknowledged no god, and was thus vastly different from the other members of the house, all of whom "believed in some kind of deity or other." you must have a god to be a legislator, it seems, even if that god is, as the americans say, only a little tin jesus. so the captain of this tempest-tost ship desired jonah to call upon his god. he made no inquiry into the character of the god, any more than did sir henry drummond wolff on a later occasion. it was enough to know that jonah had "some kind of deity or other." any god would do. now comes the most remarkable episode in this wonderful story. the captain and the crew were aware that jonah had "fled from the presence of the lord," because he had told them; they had, therefore, every reason to believe that jonah's god had caused the tempest. yet, curiously enough, instead of at once proceeding on this belief, they said, everyone to his fellow, "come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us." this wholly superfluous procedure may, perhaps, be attributed to their exceptional love of justice. they wished to make assurance doubly sure before they "went for" jonah. and with sweet simplicity they had recourse to the casting of lots, in which their wills would be inoperative, and the whole responsibility of deciding be thrown on the gods, who alone possessed the requisite information. the lot of course fell upon jonah. any other result would have spoiled the story. "then," continues our narrative, "said they unto him, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us? what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? and he said unto them, i am an hebrew, and i fear the lord, the god of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, why hast thou done this? for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the lord, because he had told them. then said they unto him, what shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous. and he said unto them, take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for i know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." we are almost dumb with astonishment before this act of self-sacrifice on the part of jonah, for which his previous history left us quite unprepared. who would have thought him capable of such disinterested conduct? his self-abnegation was assuredly heroic, and may even be called sublime. no doubt the captain and crew of the ship were as much astonished as we are, and their opinion of jonah went up several hundred per cent. they resolved to make a last supreme effort before turning him into a fish-bait. but all their gallant endeavors were discovered to be futile and a mere waste of time. so the men, more in sorrow than in anger, finally took jonah up and threw him overboard. they had done their best for him, and now, finding that they could do no more except at too great a risk, they sadly left him to do the rest for himself. immediately, we are told, "the sea ceased from her raging." jonah was oil upon the troubled waters. what an invaluable recipe does this furnish us against the dangers of the deep sea! the surest method of allaying a storm is to throw a prophet overboard. every ship should carry a missionary in case of need. it would, indeed, be well if the law made this compulsory. the cost of maintaining the missionary would be more than covered by the saving effected in insurance. here is a splendid field for christian self-sacrifice! hundreds of gentlemen who are now engaged in very doubtful labor among the heathen, might engage in this new enterprise with the absolute certainty of a beneficent result; for poor ungodly mariners would thus be spared a hasty dispatch from this world without time to repent and obtain forgiveness, and be allowed ample leisure to secure salvation. when the men saw that "the sea ceased from her raging" on jonah's being cast into her depths, "they feared the lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the lord, and made vows." to the sceptical mind it would seem that they had much more reason to "fear" the lord during the continuance of the tempest than after it had subsided. it also seems strange that they should have the means wherewith to offer a sacrifice. perhaps they had a billy-goat on board, and made him do duty, in default of anything better. or failing even a billy-goat, as the lord god of the hebrews could only be propitiated by the shedding of blood, they perhaps caught and immolated a stray rat. the nature of their "vows" is not recorded, but it is not unreasonable to assume that they swore never again to take on board a passenger fleeing "from the presence of the lord." meanwhile, what had become of poor jonah? most men would be effectually settled if thrown overboard in a storm. but there are some people who were not born to be drowned, and jonah was one of them. he was destined to another fate. the lord, it appears, "had prepared a great fish to swallow up jonah," and the feat was of course duly performed. our narrative does not describe the character of this "great fish," but light is cast on the subject by another passage of scripture. in the twelfth chapter of st. matthew, and the fortieth verse, jesus is represented as saying, "for as jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." the great fish was then a whale. jesus said so, and there can be no higher authority. sharks and such ravenous fish have an unpleasant habit of "chawing" their victims pretty considerably before swallowing them; so, on the whole, we prefer to believe that it was a whale. yet the levant is a curious place for a whale to be lurking in. the creature must have been miraculously led there to go through its appointed performance. it must also have been "prepared," to use the language of the bible, in a very remarkable way, for the gullet of a whale is not large enough to allow of the passage of an object exceeding the size of an ordinary herring. swallowing jonah must have been a tough job after the utmost preparation. with a frightfully distended throat, however, the whale did its best, and by dint of hard striving at last got jonah down. having properly taken jonah in out of the wet, the poor whale doubtless surmised that its troubles had ended. but alas they had only just begun! swallowing a prophet is one thing; digesting him is another. for three days and three nights the whale struggled desperately to digest jonah, and for three days and nights jonah obstinately refused to _be_ digested. never in the entire course of its life had it experienced such a difficulty. during the whole of that period, too, jonah carried on a kind of prayer meeting, and the strange rumbling in its belly must have greatly added to the poor animal's discomfort at last it grew heartily sick of jonah, and vomited him up on dry land. we have no doubt that it swam away into deep waters, a sadder but wiser whale; and that ever afterwards, instead of bolting its food, it narrowly scrutinised every morsel before swallowing it, to make sure it wasn't another prophet. according to its experience, prophets were decidedly the most unprofitable articles of consumption. we are of course aware that the narrative states that "the lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited jonah upon the dry land." but this we conceive to be a mere pleasantry on the part of the unknown author. the idea of the lord whispering into a whale's ear is ineffably ludicrous: besides, the whale had a very natural inclination to rid itself of jonah, and needed no divine prompting. jonah's prayer "unto the lord his god out of the fish's belly" is very amusing. there is not a sentence in it which bears any reference to the prophet's circumstances. it is a kind of psalm, after the manner of those ascribed to david. our belief is that the author found it floating about, and thinking it would do for jonah, inserted it in his narrative, without even taking the trouble to furbish it into decent keeping with the situation. the word of the lord came unto jonah a second time, and presuming no more to disobey, he went to nineveh. it is to be supposed, however, that he first well-lined his poor stomach, for both he and the whale had fasted for three days and nights, and must have been sadly in want of victuals. nineveh, according to our author, was a stupendous city of "three days' journey." this means its diameter and not its circumference, for we are told that jonah "entered into the city a day's journey." if we allow twenty miles as a moderate days' walk, nineveh was sixty miles through from wall to wall, or about twenty times as large as london; and if densely populated like our metropolis, it must have contained more than eighty million inhabitants. this is too great a stretch even for a sailor's yarn. our author did not take pains to clear his narrative of discrepancy. in his last verse he informs us that the city contained "more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left." if this number is correct nineveh was a large place, but its dimensions were very much less than those stated in the book of jonah. jonah obeyed the lord this time and began to preach. "yet forty days," cried he, "and nineveh shall be overthrown." how the prophet made himself understood is an open question! either the lord taught him their language, or he miraculously enabled them to understand hebrew. further, they worshipped baal, and jonah preached to them in the name of his foreign god. according to ancient, and to a large extent modern custom, we should expect them in such a case to kill the presumptuous prophet, or at least to shut him up as a madman. yet they did nothing of the kind. on the contrary, "the people of nineveh believed god." even the king was converted. he covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. he also decreed that neither man nor beast in the city should eat or drink anything; but, said he, "let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto god: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way." what an enormous consumption of sackcloth there must have been! the merchants who sold it did a surprising business, and no doubt quotations went up immensely. we wonder, indeed, how they managed to supply such a sudden and universal demand. and what a sight was presented by the whole population of the city! men, women, and children, high and low, rich and poor, were all arrayed in the same dingy garments. even the horses, cows, pigs and sheep, were similarly attired. what a queer figure they must have cut! and what an astonishing chorus of prayer ascended to heaven! according to the text, the beasts had to "cry mightily" as well as the men. since the confusion of tongues at babel, neither history nor tradition records such a frightful hubbub. their supplications prevailed. god "saw their works, that they had turned from their evil way; and god repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." immutable god changes his mind, infallible god repents! god spared nineveh, but only for a brief while, for it was destroyed a few years later by arbaces, the mede. the merciful respite was thus not of long continuance. yet it "displeased jonah exceedingly." he had been suspicious from the first, and he only fulfilled god's mission under constraint. and now his worst suspicions were confirmed. after he had told the ninevites that their city would be overthrown in forty days, god had relented, and utterly ruined jonah's reputation as a prophet. so he made himself a booth outside the city, and sat in its shadow, to watch what would happen, with a deep feeling, which he plainly expressed to the almighty, that now his reputation was gone he might as well die. the lord considerately "prepared a gourd," which grew up over jonah's head to protect him from the heat; at which the sulky prophet was "exceedingly glad," although it would naturally be thought that the booth would afford ample protection. he, however, soon found himself sold; for the lord prepared a worm to destroy the gourd, and when the sun arose he sent "a vehement east wind" which beat upon poor jonah's head, and made him so faint that he once more asked god to despatch him out of his misery. whereupon the lord said coaxingly, "doest thou well to be angry?" and jonah pettishly answered, "yes, i do." then the lord, with a wonderful access of pathos, altogether foreign to his general character, twitted jonah with having pity for the gourd and none for the inhabitants of "that great city." with this the story concludes. we are unable to say whether the poor prophet, so wretchedly sold, ever recovered from his spleen, or whether it shortened his days and brought him to an untimely grave. the book of jonah is as true as gospel, for jesus endorsed it. the bible contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. so without expressing any sceptical sentiments, we will end by repeating byron's words, "truth is strange--stranger than fiction." the wandering jews. bible romances.-vii. by g. w. foote. the middle ages had a legend of the wandering jew. this person was supposed to have been doomed, for the crime of mocking jesus at the crucifixion, to wander over the earth until his second coming. no one believes this now. the true wandering jews were those slaves whom jehovah rescued from egyptian bondage, with a promise that he would lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey, but whom he compelled to roam the deserts instead for forty years, until all of them except two had perished. of all the multitude who escaped from egypt, only joshua and caleb entered the promised land. even moses had to die in sight of it. these poor wandering jews demand our pity. they were guilty of many crimes against humanity, but they scarcely deserved such treatment as they received. their god was worse than they. he was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, revengeful, and dishonest. few of his promises to them were performed. they worshipped a bankrupt deity. the land of promise was a tantalus cup ever held to their lips, and ever mocking them when they essayed to drink. god was their greatest enemy instead of their best friend. their tortuous path across the wilderness was marked by a track of bleaching bones. all the evils which imagination can conceive fell on their devoted heads. bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, cursed with famine and drought, swallowed by earthquake, slain by war, and robbed by priests, they found jehovah a harder despot than pharaoh. death was to them a happy release, and only the grave a shelter from the savagery of god. commentators explain that the jews who left egypt were unfit for the promised land. if so, they were unfit to be the chosen people of god. why were they not allowed to remain in egypt until they grew better, or why was not some other nation selected to inherit canaan? at the end of our number on "the ten plagues" we left the jews on the safe side of the red sea. we must now ask a few questions which we had no space for then. how, in a period of two hundred and fifteen years, did the seventy males of jacob's house multiply into a nation of over two millions? experience does not warrant belief in such a rapid increase. the jewish chroniclers were fond of drawing the long bow. in the book of judges, for instance, we are told that the gileadites, under, jephthah, slew , ephriamites; and that the benjamites slew , israelites, after which the israelites killed , benjamites, all of these being "men of valor" that "drew the sword." the book of samuel says that the philistines had , war chariots, and that they slew , footmen of israel. the second book of chronicles says that pekah, king of israel, slew of judah in one day , "sons of valor," and carried away , captives; that abijah's force consisted of , , and jeroboam's of , , , of whom were killed! at the battle of waterloo the total number of men killed on our side was , . the statistics of slaughter in the bible were clearly developed from the inner consciousness of the jewish scribes; and no doubt the same holds good with respect to the statistics of the flight from egypt. this view is corroborated by a singular statement in the third chapter of numbers. we are there informed that when the census was taken "all the first-born males, from a month old and upwards of those that were numbered, were twenty and two thousand two hundred and three score and thirteen." now as there were about , males altogether, it follows that every jewish mother must have had on an average _forty-two sons_, to say nothing of daughters! such extraordinary fecundity is unknown to the rest of the world, except in the reign of romance. the jews bragged a great deal about jehovah, and they appear to have obtained some compensation by bragging a great deal about themselves. how did the jews manage to quit egypt in one night? there were , men on foot, besides women and children, not to mention "the mixed multitude that went up also with them." the entire population must have numbered more than two millions, and some commentators estimate it at nearly three. they had to come in from all parts of goshen to rameses, bringing with them the sick and infirm, the very old and the very young. among such a large population there could not have been less than two hundred births a day. many of the jewish women, therefore, must have been just confined. how could they and their new-born children have started off in such a summary manner? many more women must have been at the point of confinement how could these have been hurried off at all? yet we are told that not a single person was left behind. how were the flocks and herds driven out in such haste? there were about two million sheep and two hundred thousand oxen. the sheep alone would have required grazing-land as extensive as the whole county of bedford, besides what would have been needed for the oxen. is it credible that all these animals were collected together from such a wide area, and driven out of egypt in one night? yet we are told that not a single hoof was left behind! how did the huge multitude of people march? if they travelled fifty men abreast, as is supposed to have been the practice in the hebrew armies, the able-bodied warriors alone would have filled up the road for about _seven miles_, and the whole multitude would have formed a dense column _twenty-two miles long_. the front rank would have been two days' journey in advance of the rear. how did the sheep and cattle march? how was it possible for them to keep pace with their human fellow-travellers? they would naturally not march in a compact array, and the vast drove must therefore have spread widely and lengthened out for miles. what did the drove live upon during the journey from barneses to succoth, and from succoth to etham, and from etham to the red sea? such grass as there was, even if the sheep and cattle went before the men, women, and children, could not have been of much avail; for what was not eaten by the front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and rendered useless to those that followed. after they "encamped by the red sea," on the third day, there was no vegetation at all. the journey was over a desert, the surface of which was composed of hard gravel intermixed with pebbles. after crossing the red sea, their road lay over a desert region, covered with sand, gravel, and stone, for about nine miles; after which they entered a boundless desert plain, called _el ati_ white and painfully glaring to the eye; and beyond this the ground was broken by sand-hills. how were the two million sheep and two hundred thousand oxen provisioned during this journey? what did the jews themselves live on? the desert afforded them no sustenance until god miraculously sent manna. they must, therefore, have taken a month's provisions for every man, woman, and child. how could they possibly have provided themselves with so much food on so short a notice? and how could they have carried it, seeing that they were already burdened with kneading-troughs and other necessaries for domestic use, besides the treasures they "borrowed" of the egyptians. how did they provide themselves with tents? allowing ten persons for each tent, they must have required two hundred thousand. were these carefully got ready in expectation? in the land of goshen they lived in houses with "lintels" and "side-posts." and how were the tents carried? the jews themselves were already well loaded. of course the oxen remain, but, as colenso observes, they were not trained to carry t goods on their backs, and were sure to prove refractory under such a burden. whence did the jews obtain their arms? according to exodus (xiii, ) "the children of israel went up _harnessed_ out of the land of egypt." the hebrew word which is rendered "harnessed" appears to mean "armed" or "in battle array" in all the other passages where it occurs, and is so translated. some commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering, urge that the true meaning is "by five in a rank." but if , men marched out of egypt "five in a rank," they must have formed a column sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several days to start them all off, whereas they went out altogether "that self-same day." besides, the jews had arms in the desert, and how could they have possessed them there unless they obtained them in egypt? if they went out of egypt "armed," why did they cry out "sore afraid" when pharaoh pursued them? according to herodotus, the egyptian army, which formed a distinct caste, never exceeded , men. why were the jews so appalled by less than a third of their own number? must we suppose, with kalisch, that their bondage in egypt had crushed all valor and manhood out of their breasts? josephus gives a different explanation. he says that the day after pharaoh's host was drowned in the red sea, "moses gathered together the weapons of the egyptians, which were brought to the camp of the hebrews by the current of the sea and the force of the wind assisting it. and he conjectured that this also happened by divine providence, that so they might not be destitute of weapons." but, as colenso observes, though body-armor _might_ have been obtained in this way, swords, spears and shields _could not_ in any number. the bible, too, says nothing about such an occurrence. we must therefore assume that , well-armed jews were such utter cowards that they could not strike a blow for their wives and children and their own liberty against the smaller army of pharaoh, but could only whimper and sigh after their old bondage. yet a month later they fought bravely with the amalekites, and ever afterwards they were as eager for battle as any irishman at donnybrook: fair. how can this difference be accounted for? could a nation of hereditary cowards become stubborn warriors in the short space of a month? let us now follow the wandering jews through the desert, which they should have crossed in a week or two, but which they travelled up and down for forty years. people who want to make an expeditious journey had better do without a divine guide. coming to marah, they found only bitter water to drink, at which they began to murmur. but the lord showed moses a certain tree, which when cast into the water made it sweet. it must have been a wonderful tree to sweeten water for two millions of people. bitter water, also, quenches thirst more readily than sweet, and it stimulates the appetite, which would be highly desirable under a fierce relaxing sun. a month after they left egypt they came to the wilderness of sin. there they began to murmur again. finding themselves without food, they remembered "the flesh pots" of egypt, and reproached moses with having brought them into the desert to die of hunger. both moses and the lord seem to have thought it unreasonable on their part to ask for something to eat. oliver twist was stared at when he asked for more, but the jews surprised god by asking for something to begin with. yet reflecting, perhaps, that they were after all unable to live without food, the lord rained down manna from heaven. after the dew evaporated in the morning, they found this heavenly diet lying on the ground. it was "like a coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey." no doubt the angels subsist on it in paradise. moses preserved a pot of it for the instruction of future generations. the pot has, however, not been discovered up to the present day. some future explorers may light upon it "in the fulness of time," and so-help to prove the historical character of the pentateuch. the manna, as might be expected, had some peculiarities. no matter how much or how little he gathered, every man found on measuring that he had exactly an omer of it. although it fell regularly every week day, none fell on sunday. a double quantity had, therefore, to be gathered on saturday. it melted in the sun, but could nevertheless be baked and seethed. any of it left overnight stank in the morning and bred worms. for forty years "the children of israel did eat manna." but more than once their gorge rose against it. manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner, manna for tea, and manna for supper, was a little more than they could stand, the monotony of their diet became intolerable. accordingly, we read in the twenty-first chapter of _numbers_, that they complained of it and asked for a slight change in the bill of fare. "there is no bread," said they, "neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light food." this small request so incensed the lord that he sent a lot of fiery serpents among them, which bit them so that "much people of israel died." like oliver twist, the jews quickly repented their presumption. they humbled themselves before moses, and he interceded with god for them. the prophet then made a brass serpent and set it on a pole, and on looking at it all who had been bitten recovered. on another occasion, as we read in the eleventh of _numbers_, they were guilty of a similar offence. this time it was the more surprising, as god had just burnt a lot of them up with raging fire for 'complaining.' they remembered "the fish, which we did eat in egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." "now," said they, "there is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eyes-who shall give us flesh to eat?" the egyptian bill of fare was certainly enough to make their mouths water, and it proves that if pharaoh made them work hard he did not starve them, as jehovah very nearly succeeded in doing. they were so affected by their recollection of the luscious victuals they enjoyed in egypt, that they actually cried with sorrow at their loss. moses heard them weeping, "every man in the door of his tent." this put the lord in a very bad temper; and moses, who seems to have been much less irascible than jehovah, "also was displeased." god determined to give them a surfeit. "ye shall," said he, "not eat flesh one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and be loathsome unto you." thereupon the lord sent a wind which brought quails from the sea. they were so plentiful that they fell in heaps two cubits high for about twenty miles around the camp. that worthy commentator, the rev. alexander cruden, says that the miracle of this occurrence consisted, not in the great number of quails, but in their being "brought so seasonably" to the jewish camp. the quantity did not trouble his credulous mind. "some authors," says he, "affirm that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so that in one part of italy within the compass of five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their weight." the good man's easy reliance on 'some authors.' and his ready acceptance of such fables, show what credulity is engendered by belief in the bible. the jews gathered quails for two days and a night, and joyfully carried them home. but "while the flesh was yet between their teeth," the lord smote them with a very great plague, so that multitudes of them died. poor devils! they were always in hot water. how the sheep and cattle were provisioned the bible does not inform us. there was scarcely a nibble of grass to be had in the desert, and as they could not very well have lived on sand and pebbles, they must have been supported miraculously. perhaps the authors of the pentateuch forgot all about this. not only were the jews, like their flocks and herds, miraculously supported; they were also miraculously found in clothes. for forty years their garments and shoes did not wear out. how was this miracle wrought? when matter rubs against matter, particles are lost by abrasion. did the lord stop this process, or did he collect all the particles that were worn off during the day and replace them by night, on the soles of shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons? if the clothes never wore out, it is fair to suppose that they remained absolutely unchanged. imagine a toddling urchin, two years old at the exodus from egypt, wearing the same rig when he grew up to manhood! justin, however, says that the clothes grew with their growth. some jewish rabbis hold that angels acted as tailors in the wilderness, and so the garments were all kept straight. but augustine, chrysostom, and other fathers abide by the literal interpretation that, through the blessing of god, the clothes and shoes never wore out, so that those who grew to manhood were able to hand them over, as good as new, to the rising generation. according to this theory, _everybody_ must have had a poor fit, unless there was a transference of garments every twelve months or so. the history of the wandering jews is full of miracles and wonders. it says that all the congregation of israel, numbering over two millions, assembled at the door of the tabernacle. as the whole width of the tabernacle was eighteen feet, only nine men could have stood in front of it; and therefore the warriors of israel alone, to say nothing of the rest of the population, if we allow eighteen inches between each rank of nine men, would have formed a column nearly _twenty miles_ long! we find also that moses, and joshua after him, addressed not only the whole congregation of israel, including men, women, and children, but the "mixed multitude" of strangers as well. their voices were distinctly heard by a crowded mass of people as large as the entire population of london. they must have had stentorian lungs, or the people must have had a wonderful sense of hearing. when the jews were encamped, according to scott's estimate, they lived in a sort of "moveable city, _twelve miles square_," nearly as large as london. the people had to go outside this vast camp every day to bring in a supply of water and fuel, after cutting the latter down where they could find it! all their rubbish had to be carried out in like manner, for jehovah used sometimes to take a walk among them, and he was highly displeased at seeing dirt. every man, woman, and child, including the old, the sick, and the infirm, had to go outside the camp to attend to the necessities of nature! all the refuse of their multitudinous. sacrifices had to be lugged out of the camp by the three priests, aaron, eleazer, and itharnar. colenso reckons that the sacrifices alone, allowing less than three minutes for each, would have occupied them incessantly during the whole twenty-four hours of every day. the pigeons brought to them daily as sin offer-ings must have numbered about , and as these had to be consumed by the three priests, each of them had to eat pigeons a day, besides heaps of roast beef and other victuals! soon after the first fall of manna, the jews murmured again because they had no water. whereupon moses smote a rock with his magical rod, and water gushed from it. the precious fluid came just in time to refresh them for their fight with the amalekites. these people were very obstinate foes, and it required a miracle to defeat them. moses ascended a hill and held up his hand. while he did so the israelites prevailed, but when he let down his hand the amalekites prevailed. to ensure victory, aaron and hur stood on either side of him, and held up his hands until the sun set. by this means joshua discomfited the amalekites with great slaughter. moses built an altar to celebrate the event, and god swore that he would "have war with amelek from generation to generation." as jehovah's vengeance was so lasting, it is no wonder that his worshipers carried on their wars ever afterwards on the most hellish principles. in the thirty-first chapter of numbers we read that , israelites warred against midian. the brag of the chronicler is evident in this number or in those which follow. this little army polished off all the kings of midian, burnt all their cities and castles, slew , men, and carried off , captives, besides, , sheep, , oxen, and , asses. what prodigious spoil there was in those days! of the captives moses ordered , women and , boys to be massacred in cold blood; while the remaining , "women that had not known man by lying with him" were reserved for another fate. the lord's share of these was thirty-two! they were of course handed over to the priests as his representatives. parsons, who rail against the immorality of scepticism, say that this is all true. these midianites were a tough lot; for although they were _all killed_ on this occasion, and their cities and castles burnt, we find them a powerful nation again in the sixth of _judges_, and able to prevail against the jews for seven years. another people badly punished by the jews were the inhabitants of bashan. all their cities were destroyed to the number of sixty. their king, og, was a gigantic fellow, and slept on an iron bed twelve feet long. the cities of heshbon were destroyed in the same way. all the men, women, and children, were slaughtered. not one was spared. we shall hereafter follow the jews under joshua. for the present we must content ourselves with a last reference to their wanderings under moses. while they were encamped round mount sinai, their leader received an invitation to go up and visit god who had been staying there for six days. they had much to talk about, and the interview lasted forty days and forty nights. at the end of it moses descended, carrying with him the ten commandments, written by the finger of god on two tables of stone. in his absence the wandering jews had given him up as lost, and had induced aaron to make them a god, in the shape of a golden calf, to go before them. this image they were worshipping as moses approached the camp, and his anger waxed so not that he threw down the tables and broke all the ten commandments at once. he then burnt the calf in fire and ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made them drink it. he also sent the levites among them, who put three thousand men to the edge of the sword. god wanted to destroy them altogether, but moses held him back. "let me alone," said the lord. "no, no," said moses, "just think what the egyptians will say; they'll laugh at you after all as a poor sort of a god; and remember, too, that you are bound by an oath to multiply your people and to let them inherit the land of promise." so the lord cooled down, and wrote out the decalogue again on two fresh tables of stone. this decalogue is supposed to be the foundation of morality. but long before the time of moses moral laws were known and observed in egypt, in india, and among all the peoples that ever lived. moral laws are the permanent conditions of social health, and the fundamental ones must be observed wherever any form of society exists. their ground and guarantee are to be found in human nature, and do not depend on a fabulous episode in the history of the wandering jews. the tower of babel. bible romances.--viii. by g. w. foote. the bible, it is frequently asserted, was never meant to teach us science, but to instruct us in religion and morality; and therefore we must not look to it for a faithful account of what happened in the external world, but only for a record of the inner experiences of mankind. astronomy will inform us how the heavenly bodies came into existence, and by what laws their motions are governed; geology will acquaint us with the way in which the earth's crust was formed, and with the length of time occupied by the various stages of the process; and biology will tell us all about the origin and development of living things. god has given us reason, by exercising which we may gather knowledge and establish sciences, so as to explain the past, illustrate the present, and predict the future; and as reason is sufficient for all this, there is no need of a divine revelation in such matters. but as reason is insufficient to teach the will of god and the laws of morality, a divine revelation of these is necessary, and the bible contains it. this plausible contention cannot, however, be maintained. the bible is not silent with respect to astronomy, geology, or biology. it makes frequent and precise statements concerning them, and in nearly every instance it contradicts scientific truth as we have amply proved in previous numbers of this series. the eleventh chapter of genesis gives an explanation of the diversity of languages on the earth. it does this in the truest spirit of romance. philologists like max müller and whitney must regard the story of the tower of babel, and the confusion of tongues, as a capital joke. a great many parsons may still believe it, but they are not expected to know much. one fact alone is enough to put the philology of genesis out of court. the native languages of america are all closely related to each other, but they have no affinity with any language of the old world. it is therefore clear that they could not have been imported into the new world by emigrants from the plains of central asia. the genesaic theory is thus proved to be not of universal application, and consequently invalid. let us come to the bible story. some time after the flood, and before the birth of abraham, "the whole earth was of one language and one speech;" or, as colenso translates the original, "of one lip, and of one language." this primitive tongue must have been hebrew. god spoke it in eden when he conversed with our first parents, and probably it is spoken in heaven to this day. for all we know it may be spoken in hell too. it probably is, for the devil and his angels lived in heaven before they were turned into hell, and we may conclude that they took their native language with them. it was spoken by adam when he named his wife in paradise; by eve, after the expulsion when she gave names to her sons, cain and seth; by lamech, shortly before the flood, when he explained the name of noah; and indeed, as colenso observes, "it is obvious that the names of the whole series of patriarchs from adam to noah, and from noah onwards, are in almost every instance pure hebrew names." delitzsch, however, thinks it comparatively more probable that the syriac or nabataan tongue, preserved after the dispersion at babylon, was the one originally spoken. yet he dismisses the possibility of demonstrating it. he supposes that the names of adam and the other patriarchs have been altered, but not so as to lose any of their original meaning; in other words, that they have been, by god's grace, translated with perfect accuracy from the primeval speech. but colenso very justly remarks that the original documents do not allude to a process of translation, and that we have no right to assume it. he also adds that "if the authority of scripture is sufficient to prove the fact of a primeval language, it must also prove that this language was hebrew." yet the bible is wrong, for hebrew could not have been the primitive speech. it is only a semitic dialect, a branch of the semitic stem. sanscrit is another stem, equally ancient; and according to max müller and bunsen, both are modifications of an earlier and simpler language. neither has the least affinity with chinese, which again, like them, differs radically from the native dialects of america. as hosea biglow sings, "john p. robinson, he says they didn't know everything down in judee." and most certainly they did not know the true origin and development of the various languages spoken by the nations of the earth. the people who dwelt on the earth after the deluge, and all spoke one language, journeyed from the east, found a plain in, the land of shinar, and dwelt there. shinar is another name for babylon. after dwelling there no one knows exactly how long, "they said one to another, go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter." the writer of this story was very fond of short cuts. it took men a long time to learn the art of making bricks; and the idea of their suddenly saying to each other "let us make brick," and at once proceeding to do so, is a wild absurdity. having made a lot of bricks, they naturally wished to do something with them. so "they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." how could making a name, for the information of nobody but themselves, prevent their dispersion? and how could they resolve to build a "city," when they had never seen one, and had no knowledge of what it was like? cities are not built in this manner. "rome wasn't built in a day" is a proverb which applies to all other places as well. london, paris, and rome, are the growth of centuries, and the same must have been true of ancient capitals. the reason assigned by scripture for the work of these primitive builders is plainly inadequate. a more probable reason is that they mistrusted god's promise never again to destroy the earth with a flood, and therefore determined to build a high tower, so that, if another deluge came, they might ascend above the waters, or, if need be step clean into heaven itself. their lack of faith is not surprising. we find the same characteristic on the part of believers in our own day. they believe in god's promises only so far as it suits their interest and convenience. scripture says, "whoso giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the lord." yet there are thousands of rich christians who seem to mistrust the security. how high did these primitive builders think heaven was? according to colenso, they said, "come, let us build for us a city, and a tower _with its head in heaven_." did they really think they would ever succeed in building so high? perhaps they did, for their natural philosophy was extremely limited. they doubtless imagined the blue vault of heaven as a solid thing, in which were stuck the sun, moon, and stars, and no higher than the sailing clouds. their simple ignorance is intelligible, but how can we explain the ignorance of god? their project alarmed him. he actually "came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded." heaven was too distant for him to see from with accuracy, and telescopes were not then invented. a close inspection led him to believe that his ambitious children would succeed in their enterprise. they thought they might build into heaven, and he thought so too. what was to be done? if they once got into heaven, it might be very difficult to turn them out again. it took several days' hard fighting to expel satan and the rebellious angels on a previous occasion, and these newcomers might be still more obstinate. in this dangerous extremity, "the lord said [unto whom is unknown], behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." why did the lord resolve to take all this trouble? had he forgotten the law of gravitation and the principles of architecture? was he, who made the heaven and the earth, ignorant of the distance between them? he had only to let the people go on building, and they would eventually confound themselves; for, after reaching a certain height, the tower would tumble about their ears. gravitation would defeat the cohesion of morter why did not god leave them alone? why did he take so much unnecessary trouble? the answer is that this "lord" was only "jehovah" of the jews, a tribal god, who naturally knew no more about the facts and laws of science than his worshippers who made him. the lord carried out his resolution. he "confounded their language," so that no man could understand his neighbors. probably this judgment was executed in the night; and when they awoke in the morning, instead of using the old familiar tongue, one man spoke chinese, another sanscrit, another coptic, another american, another dutch, another double dutch, and so on to the end of the chapter. according to the bible, this is the true philology. no language on the earth is more than four thousand years old, and every one was miraculously originated at babel. is there a single philologist living who believes this? we do not know one. the result of this confusion of tongues was that the people "left off to build the city," and were "scattered, abroad on the face of all the earth." but why did they disperse? their common weakness should have kept them together. society is founded upon our wants. our necessity, and not our self-sufficience, causes association and mutual helpfulness. had these people kept company for a short time, they would have understood each other again. a few common words would have come into general use, and the building of the tower might have been resumed. how was their language "confounded?" did god destroy their verbal memory? did he paralyse a part of their brain, so that, although they remembered the words, they could not speak them? did he affect the organs of articulation, so that the sounds of the primeval language could not be reproduced? will some theologian kindly explain this mystery? language is not a gift, but a growth. different tribes and nations have had different experiences, different wants, and different surroundings, and the result is a difference in their languages, as well as in their religious ideas, political organisations, and social customs. before we leave this portion of the subject, we beg to introduce milton again. in the last book of "paradise lost" he adds from his fertile imagination to the bible story, and supplies a few deficiencies about which the mind is naturally curious. he makes the archangel michael tell poor adam and eve, as part of his panoramic description of future times, that a mighty hunter shall arise, claiming dominion over his fellows, and gather under him a band of adherents. this is clearly nimrod. milton separates him and his subjects from the rest of mankind, and represents them as the people who settled on "the plain in the land of shinar." according to our great poet, therefore, the confusion of tongues applied only to them, and the other inhabitants of the earth retained the primeval language in all its original purity. this detachment, says michael-- marching from eden towards the west, shall find the plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge, boils out from underground, the mouth of hell: of brick, and of that stuff they cast to build a city and a tower, whose top may reach to heaven; and get themselves a name, lest, far dispersed in foreign lands, their memory be lost, regardless whether good or evil fame. but god, who oft descends to visit men unseen, and through their habitations walks to mark their doings, them beholding soon, comes down to see their city, ere the tower obstruct heav'n-tow'rs, and in derision sets upon their tongue a various spirit to rase quite out their native language, and instead to sow a jangling noise of words unknown. forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud among the builders; each to other calls not understood, till hoarse, and all in rage, as mock'd, they storm: great laughter was in heaven, and looking down, to see the hubbub strange and hear the din; thus was the building left ridiculous, and the work confusion named. if the tower of babel was built over the mouth of hell it would be wise to explore its site and make proper excavations, so as to settle the geography and physical character of the bottomless-pit. the churches are sadly in want of a little information about hell, and here is an opportunity for them to acquire it, we hope the explorers will all be selected for their extreme piety, so that they may be as fire-proof as shadrach, meshach, and abednego, and happily escape cremation. because the lord "did there confound their language" the place was "called babel." the hebrew root, _balal_ to confound, is not, however, that from which the word "babel" is derived, it is a compound of "bel," and may mean the "house of bel," "court of bel," or "gate of bel." some, including professor rawlinson, suppose it be a compound of "el" or "il," in which case "bab-el" means the "gate of god." it is evident that the story of the tower of babal was borrowed by the jehovist author of this part of genesis from the tradition of the famous unfinished temple of belus, one of the wonders of antiquity. "birs nimroud" is thus described by kalisch:-- "the huge heap, in which bricks, stone, marble, and basalt, are irregularly mixed, covers a surface of , feet; while the chief mound is nearly feet high, and from to feet in width, commanding an extensive view over a country of utter desolation. the tower consisted of seven distinct stages or square platforms, built of kiln-burnt bricks, each about twenty feet high, gradually diminishing in diameter. the upper part of the brickwork has a vitrefied appearance; for it is supposed that the babylonians, in order to render their edifices more durable, submitted them to the heat of the furnace; and large fragments of such vitrefied and calcined materials are also intermixed with the rubbish at the base. this circumstance may have given rise to, or at least countenanced, the legend of the destruction of the tower by heavenly fire, still extensively adopted among the arabians. the terraces were devoted to the planets, and were differently colored in accordance with the notions of sabæan astrology--the lowest, saturn's, _black_; the second, jupiter's, _orange_; the third, mars, _red_; the fourth, the sun's, _yellow_; the fifth, venus's, _white_; the sixth, mercury's, _blue_; the seventh, the moon's, _green_. merodach-adan-akhi is stated to have begun it b.c. . it was finished five centuries afterwards by nebuchadnezzar, who left a part of its history on two cylinders, which have lately been excavated on the spot, and thus deciphered by rawlinson. 'the building, named the planisphere, which was the wonder of babylon, i have made and finished. with bricks, enriched with lapis lazuli, i have exalted its head. behold now the building, named "the stages of the seven spheres," which was the wonder of borsippa, had been built by a former king. he had completed forty-two cubits of height: but he did not finish the head. from the lapse of time it became ruined. they had not taken care of the exit of the waters; so the rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork. the casing of burnt brick lay scattered in heaps. then merodach, my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. i did not change its site, nor did i destroy its foundation-platform. but, in a fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, i undertook the building of the raw-brick terrace and the burnt-brick casing of the temple. i strengthened its foundation, and i placed a titular record on the part which i had rebuilt. i set my hand to build it up, and to exalt its summit. as it had been in ancient times, so i built up its structure. as it had been in former days, thus i exalted its head.'" professor rawlinson assigns b.c. as the date of the building of the temple. but as colenso remarks, his reasoning is very loose. his date, however, is _antecedent_ to the supposed time of the building of babel, and according to his own chronology the latter _may_ have been a tradition of the former. add to this that the ruins of _birs nimroud_ are extant, while there is no vestige of the ruins of babel. according to kalisch's chronology, _birs nimroud_ was built long after the supposed time of moses; and if _he_ wrote the pentateuch our position cannot be maintained. but he did not write the pentateuch or any portion of it. the writer of the jehovist portion of genesis, which contains the story of the tower of babel, certainly did not flourish before the time of solomon, about b.c. -- . here, then, is an interval of a century. that is a short period for the growth of a legend. yet, as colenso observes, "as the _tower_ was apparently an observatory, and the fact of its being dedicated to the seven ancient planets shows that astronomical observations had made considerable progress among the chaldeans at the time when it was built, the traditions connected with it may have embodied stories of a much earlier date, to which the new building gave fresh currency." the temple of jupiter belus with its tower was partially destroyed by xerxes b.c. ; upon which, says kalisch, "the fraudulent priests appropriated to themselves the lands and enormous revenues attached to it, and seem, from this reason, to have been averse to its restoration." a part of the edifice still existed more than five centuries later, and was mentioned by pliny. but the other part was, in the time of alexander the great, a vast heap of ruins. he determined to rebuild it, but desisted from the enterprise, when he found that ten thousand workmen could not remove the rubbish in two months. benjamin of tudela described it in the twelfth century, after which, for more than six hundred years, it remained unnoticed and unknown. the ruins were rediscovered by niebuhr in ; subsequent explorers more accurately described them; and they were thoroughly examined, and their monumental records deciphered, about thirty years ago. the myth attaching to it is not unique. as kalisch observes, "most of the ancient nations possessed myths concerning impious giants, who attempted to storm heaven, either to share it with the immortal gods, or to expel them from it." and even the orthodox delitzsch allows that "the mexicans have a legend of a tower-building, as well as of a flood. xelhua, one of the seven giants rescued in the flood, built the great pyramid of cholula, in order to reach heaven, until the gods, angry at his audacity, threw fire upon the building, and broke it down, whereupon every separate family received a language of its own." to lessen the force of this, delitzsch says that the mexican legend has been much colored by its narrators, chiefly dominicans and jesuits; but he is obliged to admit that there is great significance in the fact that the mexican terrace-pyramid closely resembles the construction of the temple of belus. no argument can vitiate the conclusion that as similar myths to that of genesis abounded in ancient times, it is highly illogical to attach particular importance to any one of them. if one is historic, all are historic. we are justified in holding that the jewish story of the tower of babel is only a modification of the older story of the temple of belus. we will conclude this number by mentioning a few facts, not speculations, which are exceedingly curious, and which present grave difficulty to the orthodox believer. according to the bible, in abraham's time, not four centuries after the deluge, the descendants of noah's three sons had multiplied into the four great kingdoms of _shinar_ (babylon), _elam_, _egypt_, and _gerar_, besides a multitude of smaller nations. does any instructed man believe in the possibility of such multiplication? it is altogether incredible. some of these nations had reached a high degree of civilisation. indeed, the temples, tombs, pyramids, manners, customs, and arts of egypt betoken a _full-grown_ nation. the sculptures of the fourth dynasty, the earliest extant, and which must be assigned to the date of about b.c., are almost as perfect as those of her augustan age, two thousand years later. professor rawlinson seeks to obviate this difficulty by appealing to the version of the seventy instead of to the hebrew text, by which he obtains the remote antiquity of b.c., instead of , for the deluge. but this chronology does not reach within four hundred years of the civilisation denoted by the sculptures referred to! and there must have been milleniums of silent progress in egypt before that period. on the ancient monuments of egypt the negro head, face, hair, form, and color, are the same as we observe in our own day. consequently, the orthodox believer must hold that, in a few generations, the human family branched out into strongly marked varieties. history discountenances this assumption, and biology plainly disproves it. archdeacon pratt supposes that shem, ham, and japheth "had in them elements differing as widely as the asiatic, the african, and the european, differ from each other." he forgets that they were brothers, sons of the same father and presumably of the same mother! such extraordinary evolution throws darwinism into the shade. noah lived fifty-eight years after the birth of abraham. shem lived a hundred and ten years after the birth of isaac, and fifty years after the birth of jacob. how was it that neither abraham, isaac, nor jacob knew either of them. they were the most interesting and important men alive at the time. they had seen the world before the flood. one of them had seen people who knew adam. they had lived through the confusion of tongues at babel, and were well acquainted with the whole history of the world. yet they are never once mentioned in scripture during all the centuries they survived their exit from the ark. why is this? noah before his death was the most venerable man existing. he was five hundred years older than any other man. he must have been an object of universal regard. yet we have no record of the second half of his career; no account is given of his burial; no monument was erected to his memory. who will explain this astounding neglect? the bible is a strange book, and they are strange people who believe it. balaam's ass. bible romances.--ix. by g. w. foote. the ass has figured extensively in romance. his long ears and peculiar bray are explained by a story which goes back to the flood. on that occasion, it is said, the male donkey was inadvertently left outside the ark, but being a good swimmer, he nevertheless managed to preserve his life. after many desperate efforts he at last succeeded in calling out the patriarch's name, as nearly as the vocal organs of a jackass would allow. "no-ah, no-ah," cried the forlorn beast. noah's attention was at last aroused, and on looking out of window to see who was calling, he perceived the poor jackass almost spent and faintly battling with the waves. quickly opening the window, he caught neddy by the two ears and hauled him in. this he did with such vigor that neddy's aural appendages were considerably elongated; and ever since donkeys have had long ears, and brayed "no-ah, no-ah" at the approach of wet weather. for the sake of christians who are not well acquainted with god's word, we add that this story is not in the bible. classical scholars and students of modern literature know how the ass has been treated by poets and romancers. the stolid animal has generally been made the subject of comedy. drunken and impotent silenus, in the pagan mythology, joins in the professions of bacchus on a sober ass, and the patient animal staggers beneath the heavy burden of a fat-paunched tipsy god. apulius and lucian transform the hero of their common story into an ass, and in that shape he encounters the most surprising experiences. voltaire makes an ass play a wonderful part in his "pucelle." and in all these cases it is worth noticing how the profane wits remember the ass's relation to priapian mysteries, from his fabled interruption of the garden-god's attempt on the nymph lotis downwards, and assign to him marvellous amatory adventures. erasmus, in his "praise of folly," does not forget the ass, with whom he compares the majority of men for stupidity, obstinacy, and lubricity; nor is the noble animal forgotten by rabelais, who cracks many a joke and points many a witticism at his expense. our own genial humorist, charles lamb, confesses however to a deep tenderness for neddy, and dwells with delight on the protection which his thick hide affords against the cruel usuage of man. he has, says lamb, "a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. the malice of a child or a weak hand can make feeble impressions on him. his back offers no mark to a puny foeman. to a common whip or switch his hide presents an absolute-insensibility. you might as well pretend to scourge a schoolboy with a tough pair of leather breeches on." lamb also quotes the following passage from a tract printed in , entitled "the noblenesse of the asse; a work rare, learned, and excellent": "he refuseth no burden; he goes whither he is sent, without any contradiction. he lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. he doth all-things in good sort, and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. if strokes be given him, he cares not for them." true, the ass is not much given to kicking or biting, but he has an awkward knack of quietly lying down when he is indisposed to work, and of rolling over with equal quietude if a rider happens to be on his back. but the old author is so enchanted with the "asse" that he does not stay to notice this scurvy trick. he even goes on to express his liking for the ass's bray, calling neddy "a rare musitian," and saying that "to heare the musicke of five or six voices changed to so many of asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end." sterne, in his "sentimental journey," has a chapter entitled "the dead ass," wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere of pathos. and lastly, coleridge has some very pious musings on an ass, wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere of religion. now, dear reader, you begin to see the drift of this long exordium, although my purpose was indeed twofold. first, i wished, after the example of my betters in literature, to give you a slight glimpse of the immense extent of my learning. secondly, i wished to lead you through the various stages of literary treatment of the ass, from the comic to the pathetic, and finally to-the religious, in order that you might approach in a proper frame of mind the consideration of balaam's ass, who is the most remarkable of all the four-legged asses mentioned in the bible. there were others. asses were being sought by saul, the son of kish, when he found a kingdom of subjects instead. jesus rode into jerusalem on an ass, and also apparently on a colt, having probably one leg over each. with the jawbone of an ass samson slew a thousand philistines; and if the rest of the animal accorded with that particular bone, he must have been a tough ass indeed. but all these are of little interest or importance beside the wonderful ass of the prophet balaam, whose history is contained, with that of his master, in the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth chapters of the book of numbers. soon after the wandering jews in the desert were plagued by "fiery serpents" for asking moses to give them a slight change in their monotonous bill of fare, they warred against the amorites and pretty nearly exterminated them. whereupon balak the son of zippor, king of moab, grew "sore afraid." he called together the "elders of midian" with those of moab, and said that in his opinion the jews would lick them all up as the ox licked up the grass of the field. against such a ferocious gang as the jews, with a bloody god of battles to help them, human valor promised little success; so balak resolved to solicit supernatural aid. accordingly he sent messengers unto balaam the son of beor, a renowned and potent soothsayer, desiring him to come and curse the people of israel. the king had implicit confidence in balaam. "whom thou blessest," said he, "is blessed, and whom thou cursest is cursed." this great prophet must have wrought prodigious wonders in his time to gain so magnificent a reputation; and if the king's panegyric on him was true, he must have been a dangerous person to those who annoyed him and made him swear. the "elders of moab and the elders of midian," who were balak's messengers, went to pethor, where balaam resided. as the reader might expect, they did not go empty-handed, but took with them "the rewards of divination." what these were we are not told. no doubt they were very handsome. the prophetical business requires large profits to compensate for the absence of quick returns; and in any case it is not to be supposed that a man who can do what no one else can, will begin work without a heavy retaining fee. we conclude that balaam, like nearly every prophet mentioned in history, had a good eye for the main chance, and did not trust very much in the bounty of the gods. he was never hard up for bread and cheese while other people were hard up for divine assistance, and as that was an ignorant and credulous age, we presume that his larder was well-stocked. he must, indeed, have had a fine time, for he was the biggest pot in his own line of business in all that district. balaam knew his business well. it would never do for a prophet, a soothsayer, a wizard, or a diviner, to give prompt answers to his applicants, or even to make his answers plain when he does give them. that would render the profession cheap and rob it of mystery. so balaam, therefore, said to the messengers, "lodge here this night, and i will bring you word again, as the lord shall speak unto me." now this reference to _the lord_ is very surprising. the moabites worshipped baal, and no doubt they had the utmost contempt for jehovah. yet balaam, who was a prophet of their religion, tells them that he will consult the god of israel on the subject of their visit! this is one of the self-contradictions with which the bible abounds. the next incident of the story is no less remarkable. god, the infinite spirit of the universe, paid balaam a visit; and although he knows everything, past, present, and to come, he asked the prophet "what men are these with thee?" balaam gave a straightforward reply, for he doubtless knew that prevarication and subterfuge were useless with god. said he, "balak the son of zippor, king of moab, has sent unto me, saying, behold there is a people come out of egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure i shall be able to overcome them and drive them out." the precision of balaam's language is admirable, and so is its accuracy. he neither desired to keep the lord in suspense, nor to leave him in ignorance of necessary details. god's answer was equally brief and perspicuous: "thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed." this interview between god and balaam, like the following ones, occurred in the night. the lord seems to have been always afraid of daylight, or else to have had a peculiar fondness for the dark. perhaps he thought that during the night there was less chance of the conversation being interrupted, and it is well known that the lord loves privacy and does not like conversing with more than one at a time. he agrees with us that "two's company and three's none." in the morning balaam got out of bed and told balak's messengers to return and say that the lord would not let him come; and they at once set out for the capital. balak, however, was not to be so easily put off. he seems to have regarded the prophet's talk about the lord's prohibition as "all my eye." "perhaps," said he to himself, "my messengers were small fry in the sight of balaam, and he is therefore displeased. my presents also may have been too small i should have recollected that balaam has a very exalted opinion of himself, and is renowned for his avarice. what a stupid i was, to-be sure. however, i'll try again. this time i'll send a deputation of big guns, and promise him great wealth and high position in the state. he can't refuse such a tempting offer." straight-way he "sent yet again princes, more and more honorable" than those who went before, and commanded them to urge balaam to let nothing hinder him from coming. balaam slightly resented this treatment. he told the messengers-that if balak would give him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the word of the lord, to do more or less. yet he apparently deemed it politic to make another trial. he was, of course, quite aware that god is unchangeable, but somehow he thought the lord might alter his mind. so he bade the messengers to tarry there that night while he consulted god afresh. balaam's expectation was realised. the lord did change his mind. he "came unto balaam at night, and said unto him, if the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them; but yet the word which i shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do." so the prophet rose up in the morning, saddled and mounted his wonderful ass, and went off with the princes of moab. poor balaam, however, did not reflect that as the lord had changed his mind once he might change it twice, and the omission very nearly cost him his life. he was unfortunately ignorant of what happened to moses on a similar occasion. after the lord had dispatched the jewish prophet to egypt to rescue his people from bondage, he met him at an inn, where perhaps they both put up for the night, and sought to kill him. the same thing happened now. no sooner had balaam set out on his journey than "god's anger was kindled against him because he went." this jehovah is a queer god and dreadfully hard to please. if you don't obey his orders you run the risk of being damned, and if you do you stand a good chance of being murdered. the only safe course is to get out of his way and have nothing to do with him. the "angel of the lord" stood in balaam's path, with a drawn sword in his hand, ready to kill the prophet whose only crime was having done exactly what he was told. but neither balaam nor his two servants saw him. the ass, however, had better eyesight. being only an ass, and not a man, he had a greater aptitude for seeing angels. not liking the look of this formidable stranger, neddy bolted from the pathway into a field. balaam, who saw no reason for such behavior except sheer perverseness, began to whack his ass and tried to turn him * into the right road. neddy succumbed to this forcible argument and jogged on again. the angel of the lord had apparently, in the meantime, made himself invisible even to a jackass. his intention was ultimately to kill balaam, but he delayed the fatal stroke in order to make the most of the comedy which he foresaw. going a little in front, he "stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that" neddy caught sight of the angel again, and being unable this time to bolt into the field, he lurched against the wall, and gave balaam's foot a good scrunching. still the prophet suspected nothing out of the common, for that was an ordinary trick of refractory asses. poor neddy, therefore, got another thrashing. then the angel of the lord went on further, and "stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left." neddy estimated the certain penalty of refusing to proceed and the probable penalty of going forward. after comparing them he decided to stop where he was, and then quietly laid down. balaam's anger was once more kindled by this stupid obstinacy, and he whacked the ass again with his staff. * balaam's ass was a "she," but the sex is immaterial, and as we commenced with the masculine gender we will continue with it. then the lord intervened, and brought about the most extraordinary incident of this wonderful story. he "opened the mouth of the ass," and lo! instead of braying neddy spoke. without a note of preparation he began to upbraid his master in good moabitish. "what have i done," said he, "that thou hast smitten me these three times." singular to relate, balaam was not in the least astonished at hearing an ass speak. he took it as quite an ordinary occurrence. one is almost inclined to think that the prophet and his donkey had held many a conversation before. in the bible no one ever is astonished at anything, however wonderful. when the serpent accosted eve in the garden of eden, she was not at all surprised, but went on with the colloquy as though talking serpents were common things. if a dumb animal were nowadays to address a man with "how d'ye do?" he would certainly be very much startled; but when the same thing occurred in the old bible days, the man at once replied "very well, thank you, how are you?" balaam promptly answered the ass's question. "because," said he, "thou hast mocked me: i would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would i kill thee." then the ass rejoined, "am not i thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since i was thine unto this day? was i ever wont to do so unto thee?" this was a poser. balaam scratched his head and reflected, but at last he was obliged to say "nay." neddy had so far the best of the argument. but balaam had the practical argument of the stick left, and no doubt he was about to convince the donkey with it. all arguments, practical or otherwise, would however have left the dispute exactly where it stood. neddy saw the angel, and that was enough for him. balaam did not see the angel, but only neddy's obstinate stupidity. in short, they reasoned from different premises, and could not therefore arrive at the same conclusion. they might have argued till doomsday had not the lord again intervened. he "opened balaam's eyes," so that he also "saw the angel of the lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand." then balaam "bowed his head, and fell flat on his face," and there he and neddy laid side by side, two asses together. now, dear reader, you will observe that the ass, being indeed an ass, saw the angel first, and that balaam, who was a wise man, did not see the angel until his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking donkey. does this not bear out great bacon's remark that "in all superstition, wise men follow fools"? and may we not say, that if asses did not see angels first, wise men would never see them after? the angel of the lord said to balaam, while he remained flat on his face, "wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, i went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me: and the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also i had slain thee, and saved her alive." the moral of this is that asses stand the best chance of salvation, and that wise men run a frightful risk of damnation until they lose their wits. balaam recognised the awful mess he was in, and being by this time as limp as a wet rag, he made the most abject apology. "i have sinned," he said, "for i knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me." this strange reasoning shows still more clearly how the poor prophet had taken leave of his senses. he had not sinned at all, for he was strictly obeying god's commands; nor was it his fault that the angel remained so long invisible. when the lord "opened his eyes," and made his vision like unto the vision of an ass, he saw the angel plainly enough; and how could he possibly have done so before? "i'll go back," added balaam, thinking that if he sinned so greatly in going forward, he had better return home. but the angel of the lord, who had intended to kill him for advancing, now told him to "go with the men." and balaam went with them, keeping his weather eye open during the rest of the journey. balak was heartily glad to see balaam. the prophet had been a long time coming, but better late than never. the next day they went "up into the high places of baal," from which they could see the utmost part of the people of israel. "there they are," said balak, "confound them! leprous slaves out of egypt, bent on stealing other people's lands, and sticking to all they can lay hands on; bloodthirsty vagabonds, who fight people with whom they have no quarrel, and kill men, women, and children when they are victorious. now, balaam, do your duty. curse them, and lay it on thick." seven altars were built, and seven oxen and seven rams sacrificed on them. but all this good meat was wasted, for when balaam "went to an high place," god met him, according to agreement, and told him what to say. and lo! when the prophet returned to the king, he blessed the jews instead of cursing them. "hullo, balaam, what's this?" cried the king. "i asked you to curse my enemies and you've gone and blessed them. what d'ye mean?" "true," answered balaam, "but i told you that i could only speak what the lord put into my mouth." balak appears to have been just as sceptical as pharaoh about the god of the jews. he attributed his disappointment to a freak of the prophet, and not being easily baffled he resolved to try again. so he took balaam up another high place, and built seven fresh altars, and sacrificed on them seven more bullocks and rams; after which he repeated his invitation. again balaam went farther to consult the lord, whom he found waiting for him, and received his instructions. and lo! when he returned to balak he again blessed the jews instead of cursing them. balak resolved to try again. he took balaam to another high place, built seven more altars, and sacrificed seven more bullocks and seven more rams. but again the prophet blessed israel, and a third time the king was sold. then he gave it up, and balaam and his ass went home. what became of the ass is unknown. perhaps he went into the prophetical business himself, and eventually retired on a very handsome fortune. perhaps he went about as a preacher of the gospel as it was then understood; in which case, judging from the rule of success in later ages, we have no doubt that he attracted large audiences and delighted all who were fortunate enough to sit under him. and when he died all the two-legged asses in moab probably wept and refused to be comforted. balaam's end was tragic. the thirteenth chapter of _joshua_ informs us that he was eventually slain by the very people he had thrice blessed. after an account of one of the bloody wars of jehovah's bandits we read that "balaam also the son of beor, the sooth-sayer, did the children of israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them." the angel of the lord spared him, but god's butchers cut his throat at last. on the whole he might as well have cursed the jews up and down to balak's satisfaction, and taken the handsome rewards which were offered him on such easy terms. here endeth the story of balaam's ass. i hope my reader still believes it, for if not, he will be reprobate while he lives and damned when he dies. god's thieves in canaan. bible romances.--x. by g. w. foote. some years ago the righteous indignation of england was roused by the daily record of atrocities perpetrated in bulgaria by the turkish bashi-bazouks. men were wantonly massacred, pregnant women ripped up, and maidens outraged by brutal lust. our greatest statesman uttered a clarion-cry which pealed through the whole nation, and the friends of the turk in high places shrank abashed and dismayed before the stern response of the people. many clergymen attended public meetings, and denounced not only the turks, but also their mohammedanism. they alleged that the koran sanctioned, even if it did not command, the horrors which had been wrought in eastern europe, and they declared that there was no hope for a country which derived its maxims of state from such an accursed book. those denunciations did honor to their hearts, but very little to their heads. for every brutal injunction in the koran, twenty might be found in the bible. before the clergy cry out against the scriptures of islam, they should purge their own of those horrid features which are an insult to man and a blasphemy against god. mohammed gave savage counsels to his followers with respect to waging war, but these sink into insignificance beside the counsels given to the jews by moses in the name of god. bible romances are generally comic, but this one is infinitely tragic. the whole range of history affords no worse instances of cold-blooded cruelty than those which god's thieves, the jews, perpetrated in canaan, when they took forcible possession of cities they had not built and fields they had never ploughed. "how that red rain will make the harvest grow!" exclaims byron of the blood shed at waterloo; and surely the first harvests reaped by the jews in canaan must have been luxuriantly rich, for the ground had been drenched with the blood of the slain. before moses died, according to the bible, he delivered an elaborate code of laws to his people in the name of god. the portions referring to war are contained in the twentieth chapter of _deuteronomy_. here they stand in all their naked hideous-ness:-- "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. and it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. but thou shalt utterly destroy them." such were the fiendish commands of jehovah, the bloody maxims of inspired war. let us see how the jews carried them out. during the lifetime of moses they made a good beginning; for in their war against midian they slew , men, , women, and , boys, and took as spoil , virgins. but they did much better under joshua. after god had dispatched moses and secretly buried him, so that nobody should ever discover his sepulchre, joshua was appointed leader in his stead. he was "full of the spirit of wisdom, for moses had laid his hands upon him." then, as now, religious superiors transmitted holiness to their inferiors through the skull. god accepted the nomination of moses and instructed joshua in his duties. he told him to be above all "strong and very courageous," and to fight the enemy according to the law of moses. joshua was not the man to neglect such advice. joshua was soon ordered to cross the river jordan and begin the holy war. but before doing so, he dispatched two spies to reconnoitre jericho, the first place to be attacked. they reached the city by night, and of course required lodgings. instinct led them to the house of rahab, the harlot. she proved a very good friend; for when messengers came from the king in the morning to inquire about them, she said that they had gone, and advised the messengers to go after them, which they did. meanwhile she hid the spies under some flax on the roof of her house, and at night "let them down by a cord through the window, for she dwelt on the town wall." before they left, however, she made a covenant with them. like many other ladies of easy virtue, or no virtue at all, rahab was piously inclined. she had conceived a great respect for jehovah, and was assured that his people would overcome all their enemies. but she had also a great respect for her own skin; so she made the two spies promise on behalf of the jews that when they took jericho they would spare her and all her relatives; and they were to recognise her house by the "line of scarlet thread in the window." they got back safe to joshua and told him it was all right; the people were in a dreadful funk, and all the land would soon be theirs. joshua got up early the next morning and told the jews that the lord was going to do wonders. they wanted to get "on the other side of jordan." and the lord meant to ferry them across in his own style. twelve men were selected, one from each tribe, to follow the priests who bore the ark in front, and all the jewish host came after them. as it was harvest time, the river had overflowed its banks. when the priests' feet "were dipped in the brim of the water," the river parted in twain; on one side the waters "stood and rose up upon an heap," while on the other side they "failed and were cut off." as no miracle was worked further up the river to stop the supplies, the "heap" must have been a pretty big one before the play ended. a clear passage having been made, the jews all crossed on dry ground. they seem to have done this in less than a day, but three millions of people could not march past one spot in less than a week. perhaps the lord gave them a shove behind. the twelve selected jews, one from each tribe, took twelve big stones out of the bed of the river, which were "pitched in gilgal" as "a memorial unto the children of israel for ever." for ever is a long time and is not yet ended. those stones should be there now. why don't the clergy try to discover them? if brought to london and set up on the thames embankment they would throw cleopatra's needle into the shade. when god had ferried the jews across, and picked out the twelve big stones as aids to memory, the "heap" of water tumbled down and overflowed the banks of the river. joshua and his people then encamped near jericho, in readiness for greater wonders to come. three days afterwards the manna ceased. jehovah's fighting cocks wanted a more invigorating diet. this time they did not ask for a change, but the lord vouchsafed it spontaneously. all the males, too, were circumcised by god's orders. this jewish rite had been neglected during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, but it was now resumed. from the text it seems that joshua circumcised all the males himself. as they numbered about a million and a half it must have been a long job. allowing a minute for each amputation, it would in the natural course of things have taken him about three years to do them all; but being divinely aided, he finished his task in a single day. samson's jaw-bone was nothing to joshua's knife. soon after joshua, being near jericho, like balaam's ass saw an angel with a drawn sword in his hand. when he had made obeisance, by falling flat and taking off his shoes, he received from this heavenly messenger precise instructions as to the capture of the doomed city. the lord's way of storming fortresses is unique in military literature. said he to joshua--"ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. thus shalt thou do six days. and seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpet? and it shall come to pass that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him." did ever another general receive such extraordinary instructions from his commander-in-chief? god's soldiers need no cannon, or battering rams, or bombshells; all they require is a few rams' horns and good lungs for shouting. god's orders were obeyed. six days in succession did the jews march round the walls of jericho, no doubt to the great bewilderment of its inhabitants, who probably wondered why they didn't come on, and felt that there was something uncanny in this roundabout siege. on the seventh day they went round the city seven times. how tired they must have been! jericho, being a capital city, could not have been less than several miles in circumference. the priests blew with the trumpets, the people shouted with a great shout, and the walls of jericho fell flat--as flat as the simpletons who believe it. a scene of horror ensued. the jews "utterly destroyed all there was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." only rahab and her relatives were spared. the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, were put into the lord's treasury--that is, handed over to the priests; and then the city was burnt with fire. god commanded this, and his chosen people executed it could jericho have been treated worse if the devil himself had planned the fight, and the vilest fiends from hell had conducted it? rahab the harlot, being saved with all her relatives, who were perhaps as bad as she, dwelt with the jews ever afterwards. whether she continued in her old profession we are unable to say. but it is certain that the jews soon after grew very corrupt, and the lord's anger was kindled against them. the first result of god's displeasure was that the jews became demoralised as warriors. three thousand of them, who went up against ai, were routed, and thirty-six of them were slain. this seems a very small number, but, as we have already observed, the jewish chroniclers were much given to bragging. their losses were always very small, and the enemy's very great. after this rebuff the jews funked; their hearts "melted and became as water." joshua rent his clothes, fell upon his face before the ark, and remained there until the evening. the elders of israel did likewise, and they all put dust on their heads. to conclude the performance joshua expostulated with god, asked him whether he had brought his people over jordan only to betray them to their enemies, and expressed a hearty wish that they had never crossed the river at all. the lord told joshua to get up, as it was no use lying there. israel had sinned, and god had determined not to help them until they had purged themselves. some one, in fact, had stolen a portion of the spoil of jericho, all of which belonged to the lord, that is to the priests, who evidently helped to concoct this pretty story. joshua forthwith proceeded to hunt the sinner out. his method was very singular. he resolved to go through the twelve tribes until the culprit was found. the tribe of judah was examined first, and luckily in the very first family "achan was taken," although we are not told how he was spotted. achan confessed that he had appropriated of the spoil a "goodly babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight," which he had hidden under his tent. his doom was swift and terrible; he was stoned to death, and his body burnt with fire. we may think his punishment severe, but we cannot deny his guilt. he, however, was not the only sufferer. jehovah was not to be satisfied with a small quantity of blood. achans's sons and daughters were stoned with him, and their bodies were burnt like his. his very oxen, asses, and sheep were served in the same manner. a great heap of stones was raised over their cinders, and then "the lord turned from the fierceness of his anger." jehovah acted just like the savage old chieftain of a savage tribe. as irascible tempers do not improve with age, we presume that he is still as peppery as ever. yet we are asked to love, venerate, and worship this brutal being, as the ideal of all that is merciful, just, and pure. immediately after joshua sent thirty thousand men against ai, which they took with great ease. all its inhabitants, from the oldest man to the youngest babe, were massacred. the city itself was burnt into a desolate heap. the king of ai was reserved to furnish the jews with a little extra sport, by way of dessert to the bloody feast. he was hanged on a tree until eventide, when his carcass was taken down and "buried under a heap of stones." joshua "then built an altar unto the lord god of israel in mount ebal," who appears to have been mightily well pleased with the whole business. joshua's next exploit was indeed miraculous. he gathered all the jews together, men, women, children, and even the strangers, and read to them all the laws of moses, without omitting a single word. it must have been a long job, and joshua's throat must have been rather dry at the end. but the greatest wonder is how he made himself heard to three millions of people at once. no other orator ever addressed so big an audience. either their ears were very sharp, or his voice was terribly loud. the people in the front rank must have been nearly stunned with the sound. joshua could outroar bottom the weaver by two or three miles. the people of gibeon, by means of messengers who palmed themselves off on joshua as strangers from a distant country, contrived to obtain a league whereby their lives were spared. when their craft was detected they were sentenced to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the jews; in other words, their slaves. adoni-zedec, king of jerusalem; hoham, king of hebron; piram, king of jamuth; japhia, king of lachish; and debir, king of eglon; banded themselves together to punish gibeon for making peace with the jews. joshua went with all his army to their relief. he fell upon the armies of the five kings, discomfitted them with great slaughter, and chased them along the way to beth-horon. as they fled the lord joined in the hunt. he "cast down great stones from heaven upon them" and killed a huge number, even "more than they whom the children of israel slew with the sword." when we read that pan fought with the greeks against the persians at marathon, we must regard it as a fable; but when we read that jehovah fought with the jews against the five kings at gibeon, we must regard it as historical truth, and if we doubt it we shall be eternally damned. not only did the lord join in the war-hunt, but joshua wrought the greatest miracle on record by causing a stationary body to stand still. he stopped the sun from "going down" and lengthened out the day for about twelve hours, in order that the jews might see to pursue and kill the flying foe. "the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." what joshua really stopped, if he stopped anything, was the earth, for its revolution, and not the motion of the sun, causes the phenomena of day and night. science tells us that the arrest of the earth's motion would generate a frightful quantity of heat, enough to cause a general conflagration. yet nothing of the kind happened. how is it, too, that no other ancient people has preserved any record of this marvellous occurrence? the egyptians, for instance, carefully noted eclipses and such events, but they jotted down no memorandum of joshua's supreme miracle. why is this? how can christians explain it? when jupiter personated amphytrion, and visited his bride alcmena, the amorous god lengthened out the night in order to prolong his enjoyment. why may we not believe this? is it not as credible, and quite as moral, as the bible story of jehovah's lengthening out the day to prolong a massacre? were the greeks any bigger liars than the jews? it has been suggested that joshua was so elated with the victory that he drank more than was good for him, and got in such a state that in the evening he saw two moons instead of one. nobody liked to contradict him, but the elders of israel, to harmonise their leader's vision, declared that it comprised the sun and the moon, instead of two moons, which were clearly absurd. the court poet improved on this explanation, and composed the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the jewish chronicler, who asks "is not this written in the book of jasher?" the waggish laureate jasher is supposed by some profane speculators to have got up the whole miracle himself. the five kings fled with their armies and "hid themselves in a cave at makkedah." joshua ordered the mouth to be closed with big stones until the pursuit was ended. at last they were brought out and treated with great ignominy. their necks were made footstools of by the captains of israel, and they were afterwards hung on trees until the evening, when their carcasses were flung into the cave. after this highly civilised treatment of their captives, the jews took all the capital cities of these five kings and slew all the inhabitants. then they desolated the hills and vales. joshua "left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the lord god of israel commanded." hazor and many other places were also treated in the same way, "there was not any left to breathe." jehovah was not, however, able to execute his intentions completely. the children of judah could not drive the jebusites out of jerusalem; nor could the children of manasseh entirely drive out the canaanites from their cities. after joshua's death, as we read in the book of _judges_, "the lord was with judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." iron chariots were too strong for the almighty! yet he managed to take off the wheels of pharaoh's chariots at the red sea. why could he not do the same on this occasion? were the linch-pins too tight or the wheels too heavy? joshua died at the ripe old age of a hundred and ten. whatever else he may have been, he was certainly one of the gamest fighting cocks that ever lived. jehovah never found a better instrument for his bloody purposes. they buried him at timnath-serah. joseph's old bones, which moses brought out of egypt, were buried at shechem. had they been kept much longer some hebrew "old-clo' man" might have carried them off and made an honest penny by them. after joshua's death, the tribe of judah fought against adoni-bezek. when they caught him they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. he acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and admitted that god had served him just as he had himself served seventy kings, whose great toes he had cut off, and made them eat under his table. kings must have been very plentiful in those days. during joshua's lifetime the jews served god, and they kept pretty straight during the lifetime of the elders who had known him. but directly these died they went astray; "they forsook the lord and worshipped baal and ashtaroth." god punished them by letting their enemies oppress them. "nevertheless," says the story, "the lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. and yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them; and they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the lord; but they did not so..... and it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way." god's selection of the jews as his favorite people does not seem to reflect much credit on his sagacity. all who came out of egypt, except two persons, turned out so badly that they were pronounced unfit to enter the promised land, and doomed to die in the wilderness. the new generation who entered canaan, after being circumcised to make them holy; after seeing the miracles of jordan and the valley of ajalon; after having gained a home by god's assistance in a land flowing with milk and honey; this very generation proved worse than their fathers. the original inhabitants of canaan, whom they dispossessed, could hardly have surpassed them in sin against jehovah; and therefore the ruthless slaughter of their conquest was as unreasonable as it was inhuman. so much for "god's thieves in canaan." cain and abel. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. god completed the immense labors described in the first chapter of genesis by creating man "in his own image," after which he serenely contemplated "everything that he had made, and; behold, it was very good." yet the first woman deceived her husband, the first man was duped, and their first son was a murderer. god could not have looked very far ahead when he pronounced everything "very good." it is clear that the original pair of human beings were very badly made. as the lord was obliged to take a rest on the seventh day, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he was pretty tired on the sixth, and scamped the work. all the sin and suffering in this world is the consequence of man having been the fag-end of creation. if the lord had rested on the sixth day and created man on the seventh, how different things might have been! the devil would probably have done no business in this world, and the population of hell would be no more now than it was six thousand years ago. after leaving the garden of eden, adam and eve, having no fear of malthus in their hearts, began to "multiply and replenish the earth." when their first child was born, eve said, "i have gotten a man from the lord," poor adam's share in the youngster's advent being quietly ignored. she christened him cain, a name which comes from a hebrew root signifying to _acquire_. cain was regarded as an _acquisition_, and his mother was very proud of him. the time came when she wished he had never been born. some time after, but how long is unknown, eve gave birth to a second son, called abel. josephus explains this name as meaning _grief_, but hebrew scholars at present explain it as meaning _nothingness, vanity, frailty_. the etymology of abel's name shows conclusively that the story is a myth. why should eve give her second boy so sinister a name? how could she have so clearly anticipated his sad fate? cain's name has, too, another significance besides that of "acquisition," for, as kalisch points out, it also belongs to the hebrew verb to _strike_, and "signifies either the man of violence and the sire of murderers, or the ancestor of the inventors of iron instruments and of weapons of destruction." cain and abel had to get their own living. being born after the fall, they were of course debarred from the felicities of eden, and were compelled to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, in accordance with god's wide-reaching curse. both, so to speak, were forced to deal in provisions. abel went in for meat, and cain for vegetables. this was an admirable division of labor, and they ought to have got on very well together; one finding beef and mutton for dinner, and the other potatoes and greens. they might even have paid each other handsome compliments across the table. abel might have said "my dear cain, these vegetables are first-rate," and cain might have replied, "my dear abel, i never tasted a better cut." delitzsch, whose criticisms are huge jokes, frowns on this picture of fraternal peace. he opines that cain and abel were vegetarians and never enjoyed a beef-steak or a mutton-chop. abel kept only small domestic cattle, such as sheep and goats, whose woolly skin might be used to cover "their sinful nakedness." the utmost delitzsch allows is that they perhaps drank milk, which, although animal nutriment, is not obtained through the destruction of animal life. but, as colenso observes, animals were slain for sacrifices, and they may have been killed also for eating. besides, even a vegetable diet involves infinite destruction of minute animal life. on the whole we prefer to disregard delitzsch in this matter, and to stand by our pleasant picture of the two first brothers at dinner. their admirable arrangement, however, brought mischief in the end. it was right enough so far as they were concerned, but it worked badly in relation to god. they liked a mixed diet, but the lord was purely carnivorous and liked all meat. he devoured abel's provisions with great relish, but turned up his nose at cain's vegetables. the mealiest potatoes, the tenderest green peas, had no charm for him; and even the leeks, the garlic, the onions, and the cucumbers, which were afterwards so beloved by his jewish favorites, were quite unattractive. in the language of scripture, "cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the lord. and abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. and the lord had respect unto abel and to his offering: but unto cain and to his offering he had no respect" elsewhere in the bible we read "god is no respecter of persons," but scripture is full of contradictions, and such things present no difficulty to the spirit of faith, which, like hope, "believeth all things." why was cain's offering slighted? the bible does not tell us, but many reasons have been advanced by commentators. the talmud supposes that cain did not offer his _best_ produce, but only the inferior kinds, thus giving god what he did not require himself, and treating the holy rite of sacrifice as a means of working off his refuse vegetables. kalisch waives this theory, and thinks it probable that cain's sin was primarily not against god, but against man. "the supposition," he says, "is obvious that envy and jealousy had long filled the heart of cain, when he contrasted his laborious and toilsome life with the pleasant and easy existence of his brother abel. with incessant exertion, tormented by anxiety, and helplessly dependent on the uncertainty of the skies, he forced a scanty subsistence out of the womb of the repugnant soil; whilst his brother enjoyed a life of security and abundance, in the midst of rich valleys, beautiful hills, and charming rural scenes. and while he envied abel's prosperity, he despised his idleness, which was indebted for the necessaries of life to the liberality of nature, rather than to personal exertions. this hatred and jealousy took root in cain's heart. he beheld the happiness of his brother with the feelings-of an enemy. the joy at the success of his own labors was embittered by the aspect of his brother's greater affluence. how could god look with delight upon an offering which the offerer himself did not regard with unalloyed satisfaction? how could he encourage by his applause a man whose heart was poisoned by the mean and miserable passion of envy?" but all this is gratuitous and far-fetched. cain was not afflicted with so laborious an occupation. adam supported himself and eve, and all cain had to do was to provide himself, and perhaps abel, with vegetables. nor could abel's occupation have been light, for flocks and herds require a good deal of attendance, and in those early days they needed vigilant protection against the ravages of wild beasts. abel's task must have been quite as heavy as cain's. our opinion is that the lord showed his usual caprice, hating whom he would and loving whom he would. jehovah acted like the savage hero of mr. browning's "caliban on setebos," who sprawls on the shore watching a line of crabs make for the sea, and squashes the twentieth for mere variety and sport. if jehovah is requested to explain his loves and hates, he answers with shylock, "it is my whim." it was his whim to love jacob and hate esau, and it was no doubt his whim to accept abel's offering and reject cain's. mythologically the acceptance of abel's offering and the rejection of cain's are easily intelligible. the principle of sacrifice was deeply imbedded in judaism. without shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. under the levitical law the duties of the priesthood chiefly consisted in burning the sin offerings of the people. it is, therefore, not difficult to understand how the jewish scribes who wrote or revised the pentateuch after the babylonish captivity should give this coloring to the narrative of genesis; nor is it hard to conceive that for centuries before that date the popular tradition had already, under priestly direction, taken such a color, so as to give the oldest and deepest sanction to the doctrine of animal sacrifice. it must also be noticed that abel, who found favor with god, was "a keeper of sheep," while cain, whose offering was contemned, was "a tiller of the ground." this accords with the strongest traditional instincts of the jews. the persian religion decidedly favors agriculture, which it regards as a kind of divine service. brahminism and buddhism countenance it still more decidedly, and even go to the length of absolutely prohibiting the slaughter of animals. the jews, on the other hand, esteemed the pastoral life as the noblest, and the hebrew historian very naturally represented it as protected and consecrated by the blessing of jehovah, while agriculture was declared to have been imposed on man as a _punishment_. the nomadic origin of the jews accounts for their antipathy to that pursuit, which survived and manifested itself, long after they settled in palestine, devoted themselves to the cultivation of the soil, and enacted agrarian laws. they always esteemed agriculturalists as inferior to shepherds; men of superior attainments in their histories and legends rose from pastoral life; and kings kept their flocks. david, the man after god's own heart, and the national hero of the jews, was a shepherd, and the lord came to him while he was keeping his father's sheep. moses was keeping his father-in-law's sheep when god appeared to him in the burning bush at mount horeb; jacob kept his uncle laban's sheep when he fled from esau; and abraham, the father of the faithful, was rich in flocks and herds. to recur to our story. abel probably enjoyed the conspicuous mark of divine favors conferred on him. cain, however, experienced very different feelings. he "was very wroth, and his countenance fell." whereupon the lord somewhat facetiously asked him what was the matter. "why," said he, "art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." this was all very well, but as a matter of fact cain's offering had already been _rejected_, and according to the bible he had done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. the lord's final words on this occasion read thus in our english bible: "and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." these words are construed as applying to cain's mastery over abel, as the elder brother; but they seem quite unmeaning in that connexion; for abel left no offspring, and the prophecy, if such it were, was never fulfilled. kalisch throws light on this obscure passage. the lord, he says, was referring not to abel but to cain's secret sin, and the passage should read "and to thee is _its_ desire, but thou shalt rule over it." cain then "talked with abel his brother." gesenius supposes that he communicated to him the words of god, and treats this as the first step towards a reconciliation. however that may be, we hear nothing more of it, for the very next words relate the murder of the younger brother by the elder. "and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that cain rose up against abel his brother, and slew him." this abrupt narrative certainly requires explanation. kalisch seems to think that cain went about his work, after the interview with god, in a better frame of mind; but while he toiled hard "in the field" he became incensed at the sight of abel loafing under a fine umbrageous tree and calmly watching his flock. forgetting the divine admonitions, and listening only to the voice of passion, he madly killed his only brother, and made himself the first murderer. the talmud gives several legends about the hatred between the two brothers. one imputes the difference to cain's avarice, another to his ambition, another to his innate sinfulness, and another to his envy and jealousy on account of abel's wife. the last of all seems the truest; namely, that they differed "in their views regarding providence, the moral government of the world, and the efficacy of virtuous deeds for happiness." this idea informs byron's tragedy on the subject. in "cain" the younger, brother's offering is burnt up with supernatural fire, while the elder's altar remains unkindled; whereupon cain inveighs against god's partiality, and denounces the bloody sacrifice which finds greater favor than his own peaceful tribute of fruit and flowers. he then advances to scatter the relics of abel's offering from the altar, but is thwarted by his brother who resists the sacrilege. abel is felled in the struggle, and cain, who had no intention of killing him, finds himself an actual murderer before his brother's corpse. we are bound to conclude that the first quarrel in the world, like nine-tenths of those that have occurred since, was about religion. cain thought god should be worshiped in one way, abel thought he should be worshiped in another; and they settled the question, after the manner of religious disputants in all ages, by the stronger knocking the weaker on the head. in religion there is no certitude on this side of the grave; if we are ever destined to know the truth on that subject, we must die to find it out. we may therefore argue fruitlessly until the day of judgment. the only effectual way of settling a religious problem is to settle your opponents. after the murder the lord paid cain another visit, and asked him where abel was. cain replied that he was not his brother's keeper and didn't know. he does not appear to have thought god a particularly well informed person. then the lord said that abel's blood cried unto him from the ground. "and now," he continued, "art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth. and cain said unto the lord, my punishment is greater than i can bear. behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall i be hid, and i shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me. and the lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. and the lord set a mark on cain, lest any finding him should kill him. and cain went out from the presence of the lord, and dwelt in the land of nod, on the east of eden." now let us examine this story. why was cain so solicitous about his safety? why did he fear that everybody would try to kill him? he had slain his brother, and his father and mother were the only people in the world besides himself and perhaps his sisters (? who knew). kalisch suggests that he apprehended the future vengeance of mankind when the world grew more populous. but how, in that case, could a distinctive mark be any protection? it would publish his identity to all beholders. besides, one would suppose that cain, the first man ever born into the world, would always be well known without carrying about a brand like a special wine or a patent edible. and what was the mark? kalisch thinks it was only a villainous expression. others think it was the mongolian type impressed upon the features of cain, who became the founder of that great division of the human race. a negro preacher started a different theory. when the lord called out in a loud voice "cain, where is thy brother abel," cain, who was a black man, like adam, turned pale with fear, and never regained his original color. all his children were pale too; and that, said the preacher, "accounts for de white trash you see ebery war in dese days." how did cain manage to go "out from the presence of the lord," who is everywhere? satan does the same thing in the book of job, and jonah tries to do it later on. jehovah was clearly a local as well as a visible god, and not the infinite spirit of the universe. where was the land of nod situated? east of eden, says the bible. but nobody knows where eden was. as we pointed out in "the creation story," scores of different positions have been assigned to it. the only point of agreement among the commentators is that it was _somewhere_. all that can safely be affirmed, then, is that nod was east of somewhere. the name itself is very appropriate. no doubt the lord was not quite awake in that locality, and hence we may explain how cain managed to go "out from his presence." in this strange land of nod, cain "knew his wife." who was she? probably his own sister, but the bible does not tell us anything about her. their first son was called enoch. cain then "builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, enoch." but this is directly opposed to the curse "a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." delitzsch notices this, and, as usual, seeks to explain it away. cain, he says, "in this way set himself against the divine curse, in order to feel it inwardly so much the more, as outwardly he seems to have overcome it." to which we reply--first, that there is no evidence that cain felt the curse "more inwardly" after he built the city; and, secondly, the idea of a man successfully setting himself against an omnipotent curse is a trifle too absurd for credence or criticism. now adam and eve, when cain fled after the murder of abel, were left childless, or at least without a son. but it was necessary that they should have another, in order that god's chosen people, the jews, might be derived from a purer stock than cain's. accordingly we read that adam, in his hundred and thirtieth year, "begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name seth." why was not cain begotten in the same way? had he been so, the cradle of the world might not have been defiled with the blood of fratricide. seth being "the image" of adam, and adam "the image" of god, seth and the almighty were of course very much alike. he was pious, and from him were descended the pious patriarchs, including noah, from whom was descended abraham the founder of the jewish race. god's chosen people came of a good stock, although they turned out such a bad lot. from seth to noah there are ten patriarchs before the flood. this is clearly mythological. the hindus believed in _ten_ great saints, the offspring of manu, and in _ten_ different personifications of vishnu. the egyptians had _ten_ mighty heroes, the chaldeans _ten_ kings before the flood, the assyrians _ten_ kings from ham to ninyas, and as many from japhet to aram; and plato enumerates _ten_ sons of neptune, as the rulers of his imaginary island of atlantis, submerged by the deluge. cain's descendants were of course drowned by the flood, but they did a great deal more for the world than the descendants of pious seth, who seems to have done little else than trust in god. the cainites laid the basis of civilisation. one of them jabal, founded _cattle-keeping_; his brother, jubal, invented _musical instruments_; and their half-brother tubal-cain first practised _smithery_. seth's descendants had nothing but piety. even their morals were no better than those of the cainites; for at the flood only eight of them were found worthy of preservations, and they were a poor lot. noah got beastly drunk after the waters subsided, and one of his three sons brought a curse on all his offspring. what then must we think of the rest? tuch excellently explains the mythological significance of the story of cain and abel and seth. "there lies," he says, "in this myth the perfectly correct reminiscence, that in the east _ancient_ nations lived, under whom in very early times culture and civilisation extended, but at the same time the assertion, that these could not prejudice the renown of the western-asiatics, since the prerogatives, which their descent from the first-born would secure to them, were done away through god's curse, which lighted on their ancestor, cain. thus the east is cut off from the following history, and the thread fastened on, which carries us on in genesis, right across through the nations, to the only chosen people of israel." the entire history of the world before the flood is dismissed in five chapters, and that from the flood to abraham in two more. after that the mighty antique civilisations are never noticed except so far as they affect the history of the jews. the ages of the patriarchs also dwindle down from nine centuries in the beginning to almost the normal longevity in the semi-historical period. could anything more conclusively prove the mythical character of the narrative? one of the patriarchs descended from seth, namely enoch, which singularly enough is also the name of cain's eldest son, never died. we read that "he was not, for god took him." it is about time that the lord took the whole lot out of his word, and gave us a little ancient _history_ instead. we want a _revised_ bible in the fullest sense of the word. the old book needs to be completely rewritten. how thankful we should all be if the lord inspired _another_ "moses" to rectify the errors and supplement the deficiencies of the first, and to give us scientific truth instead of fanciful myths about the early history of our race! but the lord never inspires anybody to do a useful piece of work, and our darwins will therefore have to go on with their slow and laborious task of making out a history of mankind from the multitudinous and scattered traces that still survive the decay of time. lot's wife. bible romances.-- . by g. w. foote. lot and his family were a queer lot. their history is one of the strangest in the whole bible. they dwelt amongst a people whose debauchery has become a by-word, and in a city which has given a name to the vilest of unnatural crimes. lot, his wife, and their two unmarried daughters, were the only persons preserved from the terrible fate which jehovah, in one of his periodic fits of anger, inflicted upon the famous cities of the plain. they witnessed a signal instance of his ancient method of dealing with his disobedient children. in the new testament, god promises the wicked and the unbelievers everlasting fire after they are dead; in the old testament, he drowns them or burns them up in this world. lot and his family saw the destruction of sodom and gomorrah by "brimstone and fire from the lord out of heaven"; and they, four persons in all, just half the number that survived the flood a few centuries before, were the only ones that escaped. god specially spared them. yet lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back as she fled from the doomed city, and the old man himself soon after got drunk and committed incest with his daughters. from this crime sprang moab and ammon, the founders of two nations who became for many centuries the most implacable enemies of god's chosen people. why did the lord spare these four persons? why did he not profit by the lesson of the flood? the eight persons rescued from drowning in that great catastrophe were infected with original sin, and the consequence was that the world peopled from their stock was a great deal worse than the ante-diluvian world. it would clearly have been better to destroy all and start absolutely afresh. the eight rescued persons were apparently just as bad as those who were drowned. so with the four persons spared at the destruction of sodom. the people of that city could hardly have been much worse than lot and his children. the lord appears to have been as stupid in his mercy as he was brutal in his wrath. lot was abraham's nephew, and evidently came of a bad stock. the uncle's evil career will be sketched in our series of "bible heroes." for the present we content ourselves with the remark that no good could reasonably be expected from such a family. lot's father was haran, a son of terah, and brother to abraham. he "died before his father terah in the land of his nativity, in ur of the chaldees." a city was called by his name in the land of canaan, and terah and the family dwelt there after they left ur, until the patriarch died and abraham was called out from his kindred to found a new house. the "father of the faithful" took his orphaned nephew with him. lot accompanied his uncle on the journey to egypt, where abraham passed his wife off as his sister, and showed his natural bent by lying right and left. soon afterwards we learn that abraham and lot had grown very rich, the former "in cattle, in silver, and in gold," and the latter in "flocks, and herds, and tents." indeed "their substance was so great that they could not dwell together, and there was strife between the herdmen of abram's cattle and the herd-men of lot's cattle." whereupon abraham said "don't let us quarrel within the family, but let us part. you can go where you like. if you go to the right i'll go to the left, and if you go to the left i'll go to the right" it was necessary to separate lot from the fortunes of abraham, in order that god's dealings with the latter might be uninterrupted and his family kept distinct; and so the hebrew chronicler very naturally separates them here, in a manner which reflects great credit on abraham, and exhibits him in a most amiable light. cunning lot took full advantage of the offer. he "lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the lord." so they parted, and lot "pitched his tent towards sodom," whose inhabitants, says our naive story, "were wicked and sinners before the lord exceedingly." commentators explain that lot's approach to such a detestable sink of iniquity indicated the native corruption of his heart, or at least a sad lack of horror at the sins which made the place stink in the nostrils of god. in the next chapter we find lot living in sodom, although we are not told when he moved there. amraphel king of shinar, arioch king of ellasar, chedorlaorner king of elam, and tidal "king of nations," made war with bera king of sodom, birsha king of gomorrah, shinab king of admah, shemeber king of zeboiim, and the "king of bera, which is zoar." a great battle was fought in the vale of siddim, which is alleged to be now covered by the dead sea. the four kings were victorious over the five. the kings of sodom and gomorrah fled, and the victors spoiled their cities, taking with them many captives, among whom was "lot, abram's brother's son." how abraham went out with a handful of men, defeated the triumphant forces of the allied kings, and rescued his nephew, is a pretty little story which we reserve for our life of that patriarch. all the other captives were rescued also, and lot, returning with his friends, continued to dwell in sodom as before. we hear no more of him for a considerable time. during the interval abraham has a child by hagar. ishmael, with the rest of the patriarch's household, is circumcised. and finally the lord visits abraham again to tell him that, notwithstanding their advanced ages, he and sarah shall yet have a son. what happened during the interview properly belongs to the life of abraham, but we shall here consider so much of it as relates to the fortunes of lot. the lord complained that the sin of sodom and gomorrah was "very grievous," and said that the great cry of it had reached him in heaven. being much concerned about their "goings on," he had resolved to drop down and see for himself if they were realty as bad as he suspected. "if not," said he, "i will know." in the old testament, god, who knows everything, is always seeking information. abraham surmised that the lord meant to play the devil with the sodomites, and he was anxious about lot who dwelt with them. so he began a parley. "now, my lord," said abraham, "you surely don't mean to destroy indiscriminately; you, the judge of all the earth, must act on the square. suppose there are fifty righteous men in sodom, won't you, just for their sake, spare the place?" knowing that there were nothing like fifty righteous men in sodom, the lord promptly acceded to abraham's-request; so promptly indeed that abraham smelt a rat, and determined to drive a closer bargain. so he asked the lord to knock off five. "very well," was the reply, "if i find forty-five righteous men i'll spare the city." abraham was still suspicious. he knew that jehovah loved a bit of destruction, and was not easily moved when he had once made up his mind to indulge himself. so he returned to the charge. "i beg pardon," said he, "for troubling you so, but do you mind knocking off another ten, and making thirty of it?" "not at all," answered the lord, "we'll say thirty." abraham felt there-was something wrong. this amiable readiness to oblige thoroughly perplexed him. if the lord had haggled over the thirty, he would have known that there was about that number of righteous men in the place; but in the actual condition of affairs, he felt that he had considerably overshot the mark. the-game was very dangerous, but he decided to renew it. "my lord," he began, "i'm a dreadful bore, but i'm not quite satisfied with our contract and should like to re-open it. i don't wish to be importunate, but will you knock off another ten?" "with all my heart," replied the lord, "we'll say twenty." still dissatisfied, abraham resolved on a final effort. "my good lord," said he, "this is really the last time of asking. i promise to bother you no more. will you knock off another ten?" "all right," was the reply, "anything to oblige. well say ten altogether. if there are so many righteous men in sodom i'll spare it. good afternoon, abraham, good afternoon." and the lord was off. abraham ruefully watched the retreating figure, perfectly assured that the lord had got the best of the bargain, and that he himself had been duped, worsted, and befooled. god did not go to sodom himself, but sent two angels to inspect it. they reached its gate in the evening, and found lot sitting there. in eastern towns the places before the gate are the appointed localities for meetings; and in ancient times they were used for still more extensive purposes. there the judge pronounced his decisions, and even kings held there occasionally their courts of justice; there buying and selling went on; the people assembled there to see each other and hear the news; and almost all public affairs were transacted there, from religious worship to the smallest details of civil life. it is not surprising, therefore, that lot should be sitting in the gate when the two strangers arrived at the city. some commentators have even conjectured that he went out to meet them; but others object that this is contradictory to the narrative, which does not exhibit lot as recognising the angels, and that it implies "too ideal a notion of its virtue." some have supposed that lot had attained to the dignity of a judge, and that he was sitting to act in that capacity on this occasion; but later circumstances refute this supposition; for, in the quarrel which ensued, the people of sodom reproached him as "a stranger" who set himself up as a judge of their conduct. lot advanced to the strangers, greeted them with a profound bow, addressed them as "my lords," and asked them to stay over night at his house, where he would wash their feet, give them something to eat, and find them a bed. they declined his frank hospitality, and said they meant to pass the night in the streets. kalisch observes, as though he knew all about their motives, that "it was their intention to try his character, and to give him an opportunity of showing whether his generosity was merely a momentary emotion, or had become a settled feature in his character." he also dismisses the idea that they wished to remain in the streets in order to study "the moral state of the sodomites," as they required no such knowledge, for "they were not only the angels of god, but god himself acted in them." but kalisch should bear in mind that god told abraham he was going on purpose to "see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it"; and that, as the angels could not know more than god, it was after all necessary that they should make inquiries. lot, however, "pressed upon them greatly," and at last they entered his house. he then "made them a _feast_" which seems to have consisted of nothing but unleavened bread. perhaps the angels, who had dined heavily with abraham on veal, butter, and milk, were afraid of bad dreams, and only wanted a light supper before going to roost. they were not, however, destined to enjoy a good night's sleep. before they "lay down," the men of sodom "compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter." and they called unto lot, and said unto him, "where are the men which came in unto thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them." we are reluctant to criticise this dirty story, but duty compels us. god's word is full of disgusting narratives, and if we scrupled to examine them we should have to leave the book alone. we have no love of filth, and if the bible were not held up as a divine work we should never condescend to notice its beastly tales of fornication, adultery, sodomy, and incest. why did _all_ the men of sodom, both old and young, flock to lot's house? is it likely that _every_ male in the city, past the age of puberty, should burn with unnatural lust at one and the same time? did they suppose that _all_ of them could abuse the two strangers? the story is as silly as it is nasty. for a parallel to lot's answer to the demand of his neighbors we must go to the nineteenth chapter of _judges_, where the men of gibeah clamor for the levite as the men of sodom clamor for the two angels, and where his host offers them instead his own daughter as well as the levite's concubine. a woman's honor was a very trivial thing to god's chosen people. in itself it counted as next to nothing. the man's right of possession gave it all its importance and worth. lot went out and shut the door after him. then he rebuked his neighbors for desiring to do "so wickedly," and immediately made them an offer which he seems to have thought perfectly fair and square. "behold, now," he said, "i have two daughters which have not known man; let me, i pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." the laws of hospitality are sacred, and lot did well to maintain them; but he had no right to sacrifice to them a still more sacred law. instead of strenuously opposing the committal of one crime, he proposes another as heinous. the sodomites scorned his offer. they had a _penchant_ for a different pleasure. ravishing virgins was not in their line. so they reviled lot for setting himself up as a judge amongst them, called him "fellow," threatened to deal worse with him than with the strangers, and actually pressed so sore upon him that they "came near to break the door." then the strangers manifested their power. they "put forth their hand, and pulled lot into the house to them, and shut too the door. and they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door." however blind they were surely they might have found the door by feeling for it. kalisch makes this episode more reasonable by substituting "blind confusion" for "blindness." the angels continued to act promptly. they informed lot that they intended to destroy the place because of its sin, and told him to gather all his family together and leave at once. lot spoke to his "sons-in-law, which married his daughters," but they appear to have thought him daft. early in the morning "the angels hastened lot" who still lingered. they laid hold of his hand, his wife's, and his two unmarried daughters', led them outside the city, and said, "escape now for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountains lest thou be consumed." lot did not relish this prospect of a hard climb. he therefore asked the angels to let him flee unto the city of zoar, because it was near and "a little one." that is what the servant girl said to her mistress when she produced an illegitimate child, "please 'm its only a very little one." she thought that a small illegitimate baby wasn't as bad as a big illegitimate baby, and lot thought that a little wicked city wasn't as bad as a big wicked city. lot's request was granted, and he was told to look sharp. he made good speed, and reached zoar when "the sun was risen." "then the lord rained upon sodom and upon gomorrah brimstone and fire from the lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." it is a mistake to suppose that brimstone and fire are characteristic of hell, for the lord evidently keeps a large stock of those commodities in heaven. nor must it be supposed that lot was spared because he was righteous. he was spared because the lord "was merciful unto him." his virtues, kalisch remarks, were not sufficient for his salvation, which he owed to "the piety of abraham." abraham may have had "piety" enough to save a lot, but he had scarcely "virtue" enough to save a mouse. kalisch says that "about the situation of zoar there remains little doubt." he identifies it with "the considerable ruins found in wady kerek, on the eastern side of the dead sea." but he has no such assurance as to the situation of sodom. he deprecates de saulcy's assumption, that sodom is traceable in the heap of stones found near the salt mountain, udsum; and adds--"we may hope rather than expect, that authentic ruins of the four destroyed towns will ever be discovered. biblical historians and prophets already speak of them as localities utterly and tracelessly swept away; and the remark of josephus, that 'shadows' of them still existed in his time, is vague and doubtful." in the south of palestine there is an extraordinary lake of mysterious origin. it is about thirty-nine miles long, and from eight to twelve miles broad. it is fed by the river jordan, and drained by the evaporation of a fierce and terrible sun. its water is clear and inodorous, but nauseous like a solution of alum; it causes painful itching and even ulceration on the lips and if brought near a wound, or any diseased part, produces a most excruciating sensation. it contains muriatic and sulphuric acid, and one-fourth of its weight is salt. no fishes live in it; and according to tradition, which however is not true, birds that happen to fly over its surface die. near it is said to grow the apple of sodom, beautiful in appearance, but containing only ashes. this lake is appropriately called the dead sea. the natives say that at low water they glimpse fragments of buildings and pillars rising out of the bottom of the lake. but this is only a fancy. yet beneath the waters of the dead sea are thought to lie the cities of the plain. the northern part of the lake is very deep, the southern part very shallow. the bottom consists of two separate plains, one elevated, the other depressed. the latter is by some held to be the original bottom of the lake, and the former to have been caused by the destruction of sodom and gomorrah. but this also is only a fancy. the bitumen, which is found in such large quantities in and near the lake, is a symptom and remnant of the volcanic nature of the region. several lines of earthquake are traced from it in a north-eastern direction; and it is conjectured that the three lakes, merom, tiberias, and asphaltites, together with the river jordan, are the remaining traces of the huge gulf once filled by the dead sea before the land was lifted by a geological catastrophe. volcanic action has caused all the remarkable phenomena of the district, which were of immemorial antiquity thousands of years ago; and the story of the cities of the plain is only one of the legends which ancient peoples associated with every striking aspect of nature. let us recur to lot. his sons, his married daughters, and their husbands, perished in the deluge of brimstone and fire. he and his two unmarried daughters fled to zoar as fast as their legs could carry them. but his wife was less fortunate. she ran behind lot, and with the natural curiosity of her sex she looked back on the doomed city. for this violation of the angels' orders she was turned into "a pillar of salt." some commentators try to blink this unpleasant fact by artful translations; such as "she fell into a salt-brook," or "she was covered with a salt crust," or she was "_like_ a pillar of salt." josephus pretended to have seen this old woman of salt, but others have been less lucky, although many travellers and pilgrims have searched for it as for a sacred relic. but let us not despair. lot's wife may yet be discovered and exhibited in the british museum. what became of lot and his daughters? fearing to dwell in zoar, they left it and "dwelt in a cave." the damsels, who had heard their father offer them to the promiscuous embrace of a lustful crowd, could not be expected to be very scrupulous in their conduct. they were alone, without husbands to make them mothers, and to be childless was a calamity and a reproach; so they put their heads together and devised a nasty scheme. two nights successively they made their father blind drunk, and got him to commit incest with them. this is very beastly and very absurd. lot was _old_; he was so drunk that he knew nothing of what happened; yet he got two virgins with child! the porter in "macbeth" would have laughed at such a ridiculous story. these improper females were by no means ashamed of their action; on the contrary, they boast of their bastards; and the historian does not utter a word in condemnation of their crime. lot was the father of his own grandchildren; his daughters were the mothers of their own brothers; and his other children were destroyed by heavenly brimstone and fire. were they not, as we said at the outset, a queer lot? but the queerest lot was lot's wife. whatever may be said of the rest of the family, no one can say that she was not worth her salt, for the lord thought she was worth enough to make a pillar. let us hope that the old lady will some day be (un)covered, and that her pillar of salt may yet, to the confusion of sceptics, stand as a veritable pillar in the house of god, and there defy the attacks of all the infidel samsons, world without end. amen. transcribers note: original text in bold is represented by "=", italic text by "_". in paragraph xii, line "myraids" has been replaced by "myriads". "the tyranny of god" by joseph lewis the new and daring book on the philosophy of atheism clarence darrow =eminent lawyer, noted philosopher, and humanitarian, says=: "your book, 'the tyranny of god,' is well done. it is a very clear statement of the question, bold and true beyond dispute. i am glad that you wrote it. it is as plain as the multiplication table, which doesn't mean that everyone will believe it. i thank you for writing it. i wish i were the author." [illustration: joseph lewis] _a special edition of "the tyranny of god," consists of two hundred and fifty copies, printed on utopian paper, bound in limp leather, gilt top, stamped in gold. each copy is autographed and numbered by the author._ second edition, may, third edition, april, fourth edition, january, fifth edition, april, sixth edition, october, seventh edition, november, the tyranny of god the tyranny of god by joseph lewis the freethought press association new york copyrighted, , by freethought press association _all rights reserved_ printed in the united states of america dedicated to fay my dear wife and comrade, whose loyal and devoted companionship has made life livable. foreword go forth, little book, to destroy fear, prejudice and superstition, and help to install reason in the minds of the human race to be its guide in the affairs of life and its living. preface to second edition the most eloquent testimony given this little book is the fact that a second edition is made necessary only a few months after the publication of the first edition. favorable comments and letters of recommendation from men and women eminent in literary and scientific realms, and commendatory reviews in periodicals of high standard are, i think, sufficient cause for the belief that "the tyranny of god" forms a necessary cog in the machinery of intellectual thought and progress. even those who bitterly oppose the book admit that it possesses the power to make its readers think. of the many opposing reviews and adverse criticism of "the tyranny of god," not a single one offers an argument in answer to it. for the most part, their characterization has been that it is "pessimistic." as if by calling it "pessimistic," they refute its claims! if to tell a man the true nature of a disease from which he is suffering, with the hope that he will seek a cure for his malady, is pessimism, then i am a pessimist. is the use of a danger signal at a hazardous crossing, for the purpose of preventing disaster, pessimism? if to literally "hold the mirror up to nature," disclosing nature's utter disregard for the life and feelings of man, as a warning against the extravagant and useless propagating of life, is pessimism, then surely i am a pessimist. if a fervent desire to help man, instead of wasting time in prayer to "god," is pessimism, i am a pessimist. if to think, to investigate, to express one's thoughts courageously in the face of centuries old dogma is pessimism, then i must confess i am a pessimist. if to expose sham, hypocrisy and fraud; if to open the mind and free it from fear; if to stimulate the intellect, and work for the here instead of the "hereafter"--if all these are classified as pessimism, then truly may i be called an arch pessimist. "the tyranny of god" was written to express the truth as i see it--to portray life, not as we would like to have it, but as it actually is. millions are still like frightened children, afraid of their own shadows. fear of the truth is the greatest deterrent to its acceptance. joseph lewis _april , _ preface to the fourth edition i am indeed gratified to send forth the fourth edition of "the tyranny of god." i wish, however, to say to the reader that my book deals with life philosophically and not individually. it was from the viewpoint of life in general and the universe as a whole that the sentiments herein were expressed. to love god is not the duty of man and one of the most important tasks to be accomplished for the human race is to destroy the theistic conception of life and the universe. the sentiments i expressed at a memorial meeting in honor of luther burbank last may best illustrate my convictions. i said: "the religious person loves god so vehemently that he has no love left for man." may "the tyranny of god" do much to accomplish the purpose of its author. joseph lewis _january , _ introduction _where did we come from? what are we doing here? whither are we going?_ these questions have puzzled thinking people since consciousness first dawned in the brain. many have sought to answer them, so why not i?--with the hope that the reading of this book will arouse in the minds of the readers thoughts that will enable them to answer these questions for themselves. were you suddenly to find yourself living on another planet, and you were a thinking being, one anxious for knowledge, you would naturally investigate the conditions under which you found yourself, and seek, if possible, a solution for your existence there. surely it is equally appropriate, situated as we are on this earth, endowed with brains and possessing senses and nerves, to inquire into and investigate the conditions under which we live, and the purpose, if any, of our existence here. the peculiarity of this existence warrants such analysis. it is certain, from our understanding as well as from all visible scientific facts, that we did not make ourselves, and that we never had a former existence; and we are led to conclude, in view of lack of credible evidence to the contrary, from those who have passed on, that the future, so far as our individual life is concerned, is an eternal void. it is also certain, as science has indubitably shown, that we do not make our offspring, that we are not creators, but are instruments merely in producing life. furthermore, we did not make any portion of the globe which we inhabit and of which we are a part, and, so far as we are able to determine, all the natural conditions and "raw materials" of our environment are something separate and distinct from anything which we ourselves possess sufficient power to accomplish. therefore, since among the organs of my body, there is a _thinking_ portion, i am within the bounds of sanity when i investigate and express such thoughts, opinions and findings as my reason and understanding dictate. no one can truthfully say that he possesses sufficient knowledge to account for or to explain the peculiar and mystifying rules, conditions and surroundings which we are _forced_ to accept, abide by and live under. and, therefore, the result of one person's findings is worthy the same consideration as those of another. upon such basis i submit an honest attempt to express logically my convictions upon this vital and puzzling condition of our existence, and shall endeavor to aid those who read this book to see conditions in what i believe to be their true light, and to stimulate the readers to think for themselves. it is only through the exchange of the results of investigations, and of honest opinions, that we have been able to add improvement to improvement, and make easier the routine of our lives. the conditions and elements that compose nature, for the sake of clearness, i will ofttimes call "god." i shall be more easily understood, and at times the term "god" will express more succinctly the thoughts or ideas i wish to express. the tyranny of god i lest i be misunderstood, i will say at the outset that i do not believe in a god. the belief in a god is still generally accepted, not because of the existence of one, but for the reason that it is the easiest way to account for our condition. but in the light of scientific discoveries and demonstrations, such a belief is unfounded and utterly untenable to-day. yet the word "god," and even the word "nature," must often be used to describe that condition which the brain of man has not yet been able to analyze fully and scientifically. one ridiculous conception of god that is believed by a multitude of people, is that of a massive being, sitting in a marble chamber studded with gold and lighted with glistening crystals. do those who believe in such a creature ever consider him taking a bath--and in what? or of eating his breakfast--and of what it consists? if there were a god, and the world were governed with stern justice, tempered to our feeble intelligence, existence might become tolerable, but as it is, with a so-called god "ruling above," the earth is an abominable place and life a long series of terrifying torments. if i were to advocate a belief, or faith, in a god, i would seek the embodiment of those things diametrically opposite to the attributes of the popular god of to-day. such a creature is not worthy the sacrifice of ourselves and our thoughts. let us examine and investigate the system and arrangement of the world--that is, that portion of which we are a part and which so vitally concerns us. the result of our most extensive study and labor shows us that the earth, after an illimitable duration of time, has gradually attained its present peculiar development. in other words, nature has taken millions of years to produce the earth as it is now formed; and if it were made particularly for human beings it is not yet completed, for we still find spots, aye, vast areas, where human life is incapable of subsisting. the climate is either too hot or too cold; there is too much water or too little moisture; the means of cultivation are too meager or utterly unobtainable. in short, after eons of labor, nature has failed to be able to present to every one of us, for our habitation, a parcel of earth commodious and comfortable enough to be perfectly desirable for life and its living. surely, if the earth were made for our benefit, nature has been not only a very poor provider, but a very thoughtless parent. some say that man is nature's best product, that the earth was made for us, that we are particularly selected by god, and that a certain race is his chosen people. but that is not true. the jews are no more god's chosen people than the jay is his chosen bird, or the mosquito his chosen insect. it is not true that nature particularly works for us--facts prove the contrary. facts prove that we are nothing but an undesirable by-product, to make our way and to live our life as best we can within a cruelly turbulent space, imprisoned by invisible, impenetrable walls of limitation. no, it is not true that our life is favored by nature. after we build our homes, make our cities and add improvements, what happens? nature, with her forceful winds, blows them down; her cruel storms and rising floods wash them away as so much refuse, and a tremor of the earth destroys not only our homes but ourselves also, leaving no traces of our efforts, treasures and sacred ties. even as individuals we "curse god" for the shortcomings with which we are afflicted. the exceedingly stout person, one who is "in his own way" curses god for making him so stout. the thin person has a similar grievance. those who are too large and those who are too small are equally dissatisfied. the shape of an eye, the curve of the mouth, a blemish here, an impediment there, is the direct cause of poignant embarrassment. organs or dimensions too unsightly and unsatisfactory are productive of continual worry and torment throughout our lives. the blind, the deaf, the dumb and the crippled have forever a curse for god upon their lips. we inhabit the air, with a density of fifteen pounds to the square inch, a mixture of dirt and water, in the same manner that the fish inhabits the water and the worm the earth. were we beings of a superior type, nature would have made us so versatile that we should be able to accustom ourselves to any condition, and survive in any climate. but despite all our improvements, despite all man's efforts to avoid and escape the conditions of nature, many of us freeze to death in winter and become prostrate from the heat of summer. if it were true that the earth were purposely made and existing for us there would be "no flowers born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air." we, ourselves, scientists tell us, are the result of a long series of evolutionary development. they tell us that nature started with a single cell of protoplasm, a single cell of living organism, and produced the present human species after the life and death of an illimitable number of forms through the stages of countless ages, not exempting those lives from the fear, torture and misery that are still so essential a part of the scheme of life. why impose so cruel and wasteful a condition upon those numberless billions that have lived before us, since nothing but eternal death was gained by their existence? surely, nature is a poor architect and builder, after taking so much material and so much time, to make such an incomplete place for such an outlandish form to rule and occupy. if we were given the same opportunity (that is, you and i), with all the power and resources of nature, to build a habitable place, and mold a living something to inhabit it, our results would be ten thousand times better than that which circles the scope and boundary of our lives, with the incomprehensible physical form with which we breathe and manifest life. truthfully, and without the slightest element of egotism, i should be ashamed of my efforts were i to present as my handiwork nothing better than the level and plane which nature has attained. ii we come into this world a tiny bundle and mass of helpless, feeble flesh, utterly unprepared to meet the requirements and fearful conditions that lie in wait for us. we are in need of immediate, urgent and constant help from those who were responsible for our birth, imperatively so from our mother. the child does not ask to come, and knows absolutely nothing about its welfare. and the mother often does not want to bear it, as she knows absolutely nothing about maternal cares. and yet that mother must go through the "shadow of the valley of death" before she can deliver this tiny bundle and helpless mass of feeble flesh. and how often, aye, only too often, does the mother _enter_ the valley of death when making delivery of this living form, never to see the face of the child that nature imposed upon her to bear! what a despicable arrangement! what an unfair bargain! can you imagine a more outlandish, ridiculous, awkward, complicated, cruel and fearful system of reproduction than that which we are under yoke to pursue? without the elaborate details of the perilous stages of life's development, this is the method of incubation nature imposes upon us. before the birth of a human being, one male and one female--that is, one man and one woman--must have sexual intercourse. whether this intercourse is prompted by all the finer impulses of life or is accomplished by the savageness of rape makes no difference to nature's purpose. to nature the end justifies the means, and she continues to go about her business. the male--that is, the man of this pair--can strut and parade with the utmost freedom from his responsibility for the result of his act that nature has made to be pre-eminent among his desires. but the female--that is, the woman of this pair--_must for nine months_ (just think of it!) carry and develop the germ of this child in the fertile field of her womb, and be subjected to the innumerable terrifying dangers accompanying such a carriage, and then suffer a superhuman torture to make the delivery, through a very meager channel of her body, of this living plant which she has never seen, does not know and quite often does not want, _but must absolutely bear_! provided nature has not made the creature too deformed and mutilated and unable to survive, the mother must, during a period of constant care and _outward carriage_, bear this feeble infant for another period of nine months or more!--suckling at her breast for _food_! so you see that woman is not only a human being, but a fertile ground and pasture. i have not gone into the misery of child bearing and caring, nor of the ingratitude that is so often received. i ask for what reason has nature imposed this terrible penalty upon woman? _why?_ would you, reader, were it in your power, formulate such a method of reproduction? i'll answer for you: no! but that is not all. for years to come, this child that for nine months was carried inwardly and for a much longer period outwardly, by its mother, must now be fed, washed and clothed for an indefinite number of _years_, and guided through a thousand perils and dangers that nature has set before it, with disease as nature's agent, crouching and ready to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed by the limitation of our senses. this is one of nature's unspeakable crimes; one of god's despicable impositions. it is not sufficient that a mother should subject herself to such a dangerous and perilous mission, but she must also withstand the cruel savageness, the cold, callous death piercings, of nature's invisible tyrants and destroyers. life holds but one real attraction, one instance that can be classified above all others. without this attraction it would be a blessing to choke the life breath from us all. with it we are helped to bear the _tyranny of god_. there comes a time to some of us when the heart of the one man beats for the one woman, and there alights and resides in their breasts that spark of devotion that we call "love." when there is born to that union a child, even though in nature's stupid way, then a bond is created more precious than anything else in this world. without this little circle of loving joy, the earth is a prison and life a grave injustice for those who must bear it. but think of the damnable rule of nature that strives and delights in working destruction of the only condition worthy of life's living! oh, if only the life of our offspring were more stable, more secure! if only the bosom of our family were guaranteed to us! just think! the child the parents would not harm, nature tortures and god kills! looking back upon the path we have trodden, with its continual fight against disease, its manifold combats with obstacles of life, and with its inevitable portion of sorrow we all must bear, we should think seriously and consider the result of our act before we deliberately bring another human being into this life. you, yourself, do not consider your life worthy of reliving, so why bring a human being here to go through the same, if not more, suffering and misery than you have borne with no resultant good? iii up to this point i have been speaking of human beings only, living under improved conditions that man has made. what must be the horror, darkness and emptiness of those living substances that are "inferior" to us? do you know and realize the suffering that we endure? then let me, in passing, urge this: be also kind and considerate to our less fortunate inhabitants of this earth, the "dumb" animals. their feelings are quite similar to ours. they have gone through the rougher parts of evolution that gave to us our more useful organs and limbs. they are allied to us in much the same manner as the members of our own species. they have their painful aches and periods, their hardships and tortures, their broken family ties and fearful abhorrence of death; their flesh is tender and their skin is as delicate to them as ours is to us. so let us "think twice," dear readers, before we deliberately harm any of our humbler brothers and sisters that must inhabit this cold and callous earth and live their lives under a great deal more tyranny and injustice than we live ours. we deliberately enslave and brutally treat the gentle horse. we tyrannically imprison birds and fishes as "pets." we keep, breed, kill and eat a variety of animals for our own selfish purposes, and yet some persons still have the audacity to say that we are "chosen people," "god's children," "divine beings." bah! you know what painful inconvenience there is in losing an arm or a leg. well, the winged and footed beings that must bear this life suffer a great deal more than we do when one of their limbs becomes dismembered. man has to a degree remedied or replaced his crippled limbs, but i do not think any other of the higher animals have advanced so far, and as a result these creatures must endure their pain and distressing annoyance to the end. recently i watched a common house fly caught upon "fly paper," and studied intently every visible movement of it. immediately upon alighting upon the sticky substance, its first thought, almost instantaneously, was to make an effort to free itself. at once i thought of the fly's instinct of "self-preservation," and contrasted it with the human's. the fly must have had intelligence, since it knew that its life was in danger. and, since nature does not deal in "fly paper," the fly's reasoning power told it of its peril. with unabated determination it vibrated its wings with lightning-like rapidity, and worked its legs unceasingly, _breaking them in the attempt_, in its efforts to pull itself away to freedom! as i watched this fly in its labor, this thought came to me: is the fly unlike the human being in its desire to live? is it afraid of death and of the mystery of dissolution? has it, too, all the agony of fear of passing to the "great beyond"? has it, too, an imaginary god in the form of a big fly? and is it also afraid of that god's supposed wrath? if the fly's desire to live is so great, what interest does it have in life? does it love? does it derive happiness when it is able to labor to make happy its fly juliet? does it want to live because it is ambitious and is trying to excel other flies? does it really think to better its species and solve the problem of its kind? is there a fly family to mourn its death? while watching that fly and asking myself these questions, i was convinced of the following _truths_: that the force that we call life is the same that animates the fly. that it, too, has control of its muscles and nerves in the same proportion as we have control of ours. that it, too, possesses the five senses and adds to its tiny brain more intelligence through its experiences. within the movements and actions of that fly was wrapped up the secret of "whence did i come, and whither am i going?" as i released my attention from that fly, i muttered to myself: "the more i look at insects, the more i think i am one." for what purpose do _we_ arise in the morning, fill our stomachs with food, till the fields, and perform labor in exchange for nourishment, in the evening fall into a sleep from exertion, arise the next day, and perform the same routine, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, and at the age and in the heyday of physical development seek an outlet in the opposite sex for the strongest impulse that nature has implanted in us? this impulse forces us to commit rape and murder, robbery and assault, and to violate every principle of honor that man has tried to establish for the betterment and advancement of the race. with the dissipation of this mighty sex force, we subside and decline into weakness and decay, only to pass into death and oblivion. what a fearful, wasted effort is this life! iv the system of nourishment that nature has imposed upon the world is not only stupid and malicious, but also of a cannibalistic character. we, as frail human beings, are horrified and shocked to think that our ancestors trafficked in and delighted in eating the flesh of their race, and even to-day we are making a strenuous effort to discourage the barbarous custom of killing animals to eat their flesh, yet it seems a dictate of nature that forces us to uphold that custom. just think of it! nourishment and life-sustaining forces are derived from eating the cooked flesh of a dead animal, the unborn fowl, the bowels of the lamb, and the eggs of the fish! can you imagine the wildness of life in such a jungle of cannibalism? no wonder the savage instinct is so deeply implanted in us. to get a fair idea of the food we eat to sustain life and to please and satisfy our palates, we need but take a casual glance at any of our modern butcher shops. although to-day you will not see human limbs on display and for sale, as they were years ago, you will be impressed with the following morsels put there to tempt your appetite: in our modern butcher shops you will find pigs' feet, calves' brains, ox tongues, breasts and legs of lamb, chicken livers, dogs ground to bits and sold as sausages, live and dead fish of all kinds and varieties and innumerable other portions of animal flesh. fortunately we have got beyond the point where we eat the entrails of these animals, although we use their hoofs to make glue, their bones for powder, and we string our delicate musical instruments with their vitals. the things we consume, in turn consume the living forms that they capture and subdue. the lion, the tiger and the leopard will devour us more quickly, and with less ceremony and with more delight, than we devour other animals. we, being "civilized," boil the animal's flesh and season it with weeds that nature allows to grow, to give it zest and flavor, while our wilder brothers eat us in the raw, natural manner, only removing our civilized clothes. really, if getting nearer to god is getting back to nature, the beasts of the fields have an advantage over us. and we know to-day that even the living things in the vegetable kingdom suffer alike from the fearful tortures and penalties of the world. they follow almost the identical routine of life that we follow. birth, life, reproduction, and death are their lot as well as ours; so that, if man were only to practice the idealism of his cramped and feeble brain he would starve to death! v if the world is the result of an established plan, as some say, it must be the conception of a hideous monster whose three cardinal principles are disease, despair and death. but this much we can say: though god created us a savage, fortunately man is civilizing nature's brute and is making him a man. disease is one of nature's cardinal forces. so, to attain health, we struggle against disease; but health only means the guarding of it through fear. "with all the ills the flesh is heir to," true health is a chimera, an existing state unknown to man. to be "well" is such a precious condition, that nature cautions us against expecting to retain health too long, by instructing us, through experience, to prepare for a siege of illness. thus, disease and illness would seem to be the natural states, and health the artificial condition under which nature permits us to live. no one goes to his grave without suffering the tortures of some disease and paying the penalty of living. no one is exempt from the inflictions nature imposes. the greater portion of our life consists in devising means and medication to relieve us of our states of ill health and disease. sanitation and all the methods we are capable of discovering and inventing are becoming universally applied to kill and to destroy the menacing germs that god causes to inhabit the air, and that breed and multiply in the fertile flesh of our bodies. and finally, we are so utterly ignorant of how even to eat, sleep, walk, breathe, stand or sit, that the slightest infringement of the simplest rules of life can, and does, cause us irreparable harm. if we did not move to help ourselves, nature would have us live in filth and stagnation. we seek, discover, or invent all kinds of methods to build health and to remain perfectly strong throughout our lives, and yet, despite it all, we are puny and sickly beings. in fact, i do not think there is such a thing as perfect health. what we may do to correct, insure or perfect our healthy tissues will have a detrimental effect upon some other part of our body. what we do to build up must also tear down. what we do to produce health will, after a certain point, produce disease. this, it seems, is the law not only of life, but also of the universe. it is regrettable that god did not possess the magnanimity of an ingersoll and make health contagious instead of disease. physical pain and mental suffering are the mysterious sorrows that we must experience and pay to a tyrant god for the existence we bear. it is incontrovertible that no realization is given us by nature of the fearful pains and tortures that we are capable of suffering and still sustain ourselves, only to repeat over and over again the unending torment in exchange for the consciousness of a worthless life. we, with our limited intellects, with our puny strength, with our inability to utilize all the materials in our possession, are still superior to the workmanship and the justice of god. tyrant is no name for such a god, who creates a living organism purposely and maliciously to torment and torture it. a poor creature is a god who makes his suffering playthings more powerful than "he," and compels them to bear their existence under the lash of inexorable laws of sorrow and suffering, pain and penalty. and yet we are satisfied with so little. we ask for a crumb only. we are pleased with the slightest favor. a toy delights us; a little trinket elicits from us warm gratitude; a breath of balmy air is drunken with keen and pleasurable delight; a "fine" day is celebrated with exultation! but what a mockery is life! we writhe in pain and bear the brunt of an arrogant tyranny from whatever force that created and controls us. we must daily bathe our bodies, wash our hair, brush our teeth, change our clothes and perform other necessary physical functions to feel freedom from the filthy conditions that nature imposes upon us and surrounds us with. if nature saw fit to give us eyes, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which, upon the slightest contact with a minute foreign substance, cause unutterable pain and possible loss of sight, in a world where sight is so imperative! if nature saw fit to give us ears, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which are capable of such frightful pain, with the possibility of becoming totally deaf, when it is so necessary to hear! if nature saw fit to give us a nose, she should have given us a perfect one; not one that causes such miserable torture and unbearable suffering from the slightest defect! if nature saw fit to give us a mouth, she should have given us a perfect one; one that would perform all the functions of perfect speech; not one that is so liable to harm and so susceptible to dumbness, when speech is of such paramount importance to life! if nature saw fit to give us teeth, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which ache and pain with such fearful intensity that the mind is almost distracted! if nature saw fit to give us arms, legs, and organs, she should have given us perfect ones; not a body whose tenderness makes it an instrument of such menacing torture; not a body of crippled bones and crippled joints, where suffering results from everything it does! if nature saw fit to give us a brain, she should have given us one strong enough to withstand all the rebuffs of life, and one capable enough to utilize all the forces under command. each person should be a mental hercules capable of solving his own problems and directing all matter to its greatest material uses. instead of the human body being the marvelously constructed instrument we are wont to believe it, we now find it to be nothing but a common machine, imperfectly made, and subject to innumerable changes and radical improvements. every person acquainted with the anatomy of the body can give you a list of imperative improvements that it needs, and without which it will continue to function imperfectly and continue to cause pain and suffering to its possessor. it were a great deal better, after a full summary of life, were we to be created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. we should be manifestly benefited, for the greater part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain, disappointment and worry. a small portion of our life is a matter of indifference. a portion might be termed satisfaction, and a minute balance, an infinitesimal part, termed--if there is such a thing in life--joy. and yet, the joy we may experience to-day will not be present to-morrow to cheer and comfort us, but the pain that we feel to-day will pinch us more strongly to-morrow, and will remain as an ever-poignant memory. joy and pleasure are of a transitory nature only, while pain and sorrow are of a permanent and accumulative character. is _all_ of life worth the sorrow, the agony and fear of death? just think of giving a life so full of grief that those who have it do not want it and quite often destroy it! no wonder that drugs more powerful than our minds, used to numb the pains of life, are so much in demand and so universally used. what a ridiculous assumption it is to think that a soul, separate and distinct from the body, would imprison itself in such a miserable confinement! instead of life's being a privilege, it is a prison, wherein we must suffer fearful pains and still more fearful thoughts. physical pain registers a high degree of intense feverish suffering, but mental torture is fired with the scorch of hell. vi human life is the cheapest thing that god makes! no consideration is given to the feelings, pains and sorrows it must bear and endure. no wonder that ridicule, shame, hatred and other forms of mental suffering cannot be withstood by some frail minds, and cause them to seek relief from their torment. under the red-hot brand of mental torture, the jealous husband sees his wife violate every rule and principle and vow of virtue. he sees her reveling in the arms and embrace of him that he despises, committing trespass upon the one he so loves. the husband suffers more mentally in a few moments of these imaginings, than the actual performance, with his full knowledge, could cause him to suffer. losses, mistakes, discouragements and disappointments scorch with burning blisters the lining of our lives. i once thought it was cowardly to make destruction of oneself, but i must say that more mature thought, supported by actual scenes and experiences, has caused me to alter my view. but before i go farther, let me make my thought clear so as to avoid any misunderstanding. i do not mean that a person should shirk his or her duty in the face of hardship, discouragement or rebuke. on the contrary, the mettle of the man is best tested by such adverse forces, and some of the most inspiring moments of life lie in overcoming these conditions and triumphing over unjust, undue and seemingly impossible odds. what i do mean is, when life no longer holds any attraction, when the ravages of disease have torn and mutilated your body, when pain and torture are raking your mind, and your daily companions are these miseries, with no possible hope of their relief or change, then by all means, by whatever agency you desire to accomplish it, save yourself the terrible agony of living, and defeat one of the tyrant impositions of god. vii the child suffers the sharpest pains, the crudest poignancy that could possibly be inflicted upon its body, through the stupid, frightening and monstrous tales that are continually told to it to make it "good," to make it "obey." to think that a child cannot bear to enter the dark, cannot bear to be alone, cannot bear to be separated from its loving and protecting parents, and yet must suffer in a few moments from a fatal disease--the agony of all this, in the face of death, is the crime of crimes, too damnable and horrible for words. i remember once seeing a little lost child. it cried for its mother. hot tears were streaming down its burning cheeks. its face portrayed the severest form of suffering that life is capable of experiencing. if nature ever made a frail article, it is our tender offspring, so bewildered, so utterly helpless, so agonizingly delusioned, so pitifully searching for some familiar face; something to make it discover its lost self. oh, what power ever made us so tender, so incapable of self-help, as to have us undergo and feel such terrific suffering! it is injustice enough when adults are made to suffer mental and physical ills, without inflicting such a painful decree upon mere infants. at least an adult has some conception of his suffering. he can make provision for some remedy. he can seek others to ask them to render help. he knows, he feels, he understands the situation, and can adjust himself as best he can to obtain some relief. but not so with the child. its mind is not capable of comprehending the condition which makes its suffering so sharp. its little brain is too feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute of help, in a world fashioned upon such an unsatisfactory plan. there is not, nor can there be, a sadder, more distressing sight, than to see a little lost child overcome with fright. if it were in my power to abolish any of nature's cruel laws, i would take from the little child its feeling of pain. let me ask, would man, were it in his power, send a helpless creature, utterly unable to sustain itself, without power of thought, understanding or expression, so dependent upon loving care, kindness, help and comprehension, into a world that is a wilderness, a world reeking with pestilence and populated with shrieking beasts and brutal and savage people? as a passing word regarding the child, let me say this: do not judge your child as an ordinary mechanical instrument, as if he could be wound up to a certain degree and gradually, as if by clockwork, tick away each moment of the day. the child is a combustible force, and, although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. there are numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not let _your_ irritability interfere with the development of that trait preëminent to the child's character. look upon your child, encourage your boy or girl, to be a pioneer and a soldier in the march of progress. instruct it with the knowledge of the miserable conditions of our past history, and bring it forcibly to understand that efforts only are repaid, and that we must work in order to accomplish. prayers are only wasted words on the desert air. the greatest mental crime ever committed is that of teaching a child, "while still upon its mother's knee," its duty and obedience to god. it would appear that for the amount of suffering it must endure, and in the face of its unconsulted coming, we should at least disregard god for his insolence, and impress upon the child the peculiar conditions of life. we should instruct it, that from time immemorial, nature has been laboring through the most awkward process of reproduction, and has finally brought the child into existence, not to enjoy the benefits, or eat of the fruits of the earth, but to bear a life of continual strife and suffering. not of god should we speak to our child, but of the importance of being prepared to do all in its power to help others to escape the torture, misery and hardships it must so painfully overcome. is it any wonder that we grow up to be serfs and slaves? before we are able to know or understand the very rudest fundamentals of life, our entire mental machinery is corrupted by unshakable fears and dedicated to the vilest and most sickening submission. would that we were left alone, and free to follow the thoughts of our own minds, regarding the great problems of life. what a mighty, unhampered power we would possess to find the proper course of action, and possibly the real solution to the mystery of the _tyranny of god_! to love and to reverence our tormentor is repulsive and despicable, and since we refuse to allow man to tyrannize over man, what degradation it is for the human race to cringe and bow down unconditionally to the imagination in the great realm of uncertainty! do not hurt your child. do not strike it. do not cause it any unnecessary pain. before it is able to walk, before it is able to talk, before it is old enough to tell of its pain and suffering, nature makes it endure enough. remember, the only language of the babe is the cry of pain. imagine yourself under the lash of suffering, utterly speechless and incapable of conveying your wants and feelings to an absolutely strange surrounding, and you will have a slight picture of the growing child in your household. did you ever stop to consider that the child, when born, does not know that you are its parent? it does not know that you are its father, or that you are its mother. it does not know what prompted its birth, or why it must live--and above all, what it has done to be sent to such a miserable prison place as the planet upon which we live. we must demonstrate all this as well as we can to the child. this much we can be sure of: kindness, tenderness and love should forever be our guide in our dealings and contact with children. the child is brought into this world from the insuppressible passion of two people, and surely without its consent, and it is absolute tyranny and barbarity to torment its mind or to punish its body, regardless of the result its action may have upon us. to the little children that have suffered the horrible punishment so generally followed in that cruel and false book--the bible--my heart goes out in pity, since words fail me to describe those savage characters that visit inhuman, tormenting and torturous treatment upon their unwelcome offspring. if we were forced to perform the thousand tyrannies that are directed against the child during the day by cruel and thoughtless parents, the lunatic asylum would soon be our place of refuge. such trivial things as a spot on the shoe, a speck of dirt upon the clothes, a mere tip of the hat, a slight turn of the scarf often give rise to such violent reprimand, and very often brutal punishment, that the savageness of barbarians is mild compared to such displays of temper. my heart again goes out to you, little children, when and wherever you are, that must bear the brunt of brutal actions from stupid and thoughtless parents and guardians. these people seem to classify children in the matter of discipline as grown ups, thinking (or, rather, not thinking) that children's undeveloped minds should be as strong as theirs, when they themselves are unable to practice the self-denial that they expect from mere infants. how often does a child receive a slap in the face from a parent for the asking of only a simple question, when the parent is not in the "humor" to "bother" with him? what a painful and terrifying beating does a child often get for disobeying some arbitrary command uttered by the one over him. to the child, "don't do this," "don't go there," "stand up straight," and "say this" are commands that carry with them court martial and its severe and unrelenting punishment. remember this: the child will respond to kindness and love more readily and directly than to force and unwarranted discipline. it is purely a question of whether your feelings are actuated by these impulses. if you have become mentally strong enough to restrain your impulses to strike your child, do not substitute other means to "punish" him. changing the method of brutally inflicting physical pain upon your child to some other means, though less repulsive, is still obnoxious and harmful. if you are unable to convince your child, by persuasion, example or otherwise, that you are right and that the child should follow your instruction, then by all means, let it become the victor in the contest. fear--fear of pain, fear in every form--controls our lives, and shapes the courses of our puny destinies. viii the mind, through fear of death, is capable of suffering, within a few moments, the tortures of an eternity, although to accomplish death, nature may require only a few minutes. the extent of the mind's capability for suffering is beyond compare. nature has been distinctly conspicuous in imbuing us not only with grave doubts and uncertainties, but also with an unshakable fear regarding death. in the deepest moments of despair, when living has absolutely no attraction and life becomes a burden and a menace, we fight desperately, and without abatement, for this narrow, worthless thread of existence. possibly the fear that we have in the face of death is caused by the fact that we must suffer pain before death is accomplished. and a great deal of the theory of "self-preservation" is due merely to our great horror of pain. the indisputable fact that thousands "take their lives" by choosing the least possible painful method demonstrates, with a firm conviction, my thought that it is the avoidance of pain, rather than the retaining of life, that prompts our efforts to live. it is only too true, and heard from the lips of thousands, that if they "could only lie down and never awake, what a blessing it would be." we speak in terms of "having lived too long," "being tired of living," "life not worth living," etc., as if life were a prison sentence, and, often, rather than continue the servitude, we surmount and overcome the deterrent of pain and destroy the life. very often our desire to keep on living is prompted by our baser impulses. we "live" sometimes to "get even" with someone--to spite someone. we "live" sometimes to be able to "show" what we can or cannot do. were it not for these baser impulses, what an unlimited number of people would refuse to continue this monotonous, painful and non-paying life! the foregoing expressions of life, at one time or another, represent the feelings of all humanity. in the united states alone during the year it has been conservatively estimated that more than twelve thousand persons committed suicide. these persons were engaged in all kinds of pursuits and came from all walks of life. they ranged from social outcasts to society leaders; from poverty stricken unfortunates to persons of great wealth; from illiterate men and women to editors and college professors; from laborers and layman to physicians and ministers. the youngest suicide was a mere infant of five years, the oldest, a centenarian of ! among the suicides of last year were two evangelists and twelve clergymen. it would appear that those who had devoted their thoughts and services to god would at least be spared the agony of such suffering as to force them to prefer death and to take their lives. i say with ingersoll, it is a wonder god does not at least protect his friends and defenders. the reluctance we have to die is due in a large degree to the possibility of securing a few more moments of joy from an already too much troubled world, with the hope that a little compensation will be derived from the pain and sorrow we have endured. and yet those things that we may live to enjoy to-day and to-morrow may likewise be present to thrill us at some future date, away and beyond the limitation we are capable of surviving. it is from this desire that we unconsciously "feel" that we would like to "live" always, to get our full measure of return; and since such is neither the lot nor the privilege of our possession, it really makes no difference when we die as far as personal satisfaction is concerned. the fear that possesses us now in the matter of death will likewise and with equal force possess us later, when we actually and without ceremony must submit to the inevitable. the desire that possesses a person to live now will, with equal attraction, obsess him later. our desires and aspirations are never satisfied. what we may cherish to accomplish to-day may be consummated and achieved, yet to-morrow another something will demand our energies to be spent for further desires to be accomplished. when we are babies we desire to walk; when we walk, we desire to talk; when we talk, we desire to grow; after we grow, we want to learn; after we learn, we want to do and to expand--and our performance and expansion are only curtailed by insolent death! ix the only justification there is to live, once conscious of the damnable scheme of life, is the burning desire to do something to help mankind bear the conditions and to make easier the burden of life for those who are here and for those who are to come; for very often the greatest benefactors of the race are so maligned and persecuted in their day that only the future can render a just appreciation of their labor and their value. for without the improvement bestowed on life by the world's benefactors, over the crudity of nature, it were better that we remain in the bosom of our wilder brothers, and hang from the trees by the length and the strength of our tails. aye, back and back and back, down every degree of life until the time before the first cell of protoplasm from an inanimate into an animate state started. why must we be made to suffer such dreadful torment before death, since by eternal decree it is the common lot all must endure? death, puzzling, eternal death, is nature's final stamp upon our fearful struggle through life. and the agony of death is more poignantly mental than physical, since the mind, reviewing the acts of the past, anticipates with anxiety and with picturesque vividness the wrongs, scandals, terrors, fears and injustice of the future. since life is so replete with physical pains, no wonder our picture of death is so horrible. we see upon the lifeless form the cast of its agonizing pain, and augur from that an eternity of sorrow. but fortunately, in reality we can only feel pain as long as we possess "life." in a sense, therefore, death is a blessing. after all, the severest pains of death lie in the brains of the living. the mind is capable of suffering in one moment all that a lifetime can repay with pleasure, and no joy is sufficient in value to compensate you for enduring an irreparable loss. the conditions that existed before our birth are identical with the conditions that will exist at our death. as we knew no life and felt no pain before our birth, we shall know no life and feel no pain after our death. death is no longer the enigma of life. living is its problem. the sting of death has been removed. we know death's destiny, and no longer fear its consequences. the only suffering attached to death now is the injustice of its time of coming, the reluctance of parting with loved ones, and the loss of the opportunity to attain. well might i say with shakespeare, that: "cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once. of all the wonders that i yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come." the most despicable characters of human life are those who prey upon credulous persons when in the face of death and shrouded with the fear of its uncertainty, picturing to those persons horrible and frightening tales of an eternity of torture. what unspeakable misery must those whose religious conviction has so terrified death and its aftermath, especially when it is intensified and horrified through the mouthpiece of ignorant priests, suffer in consequence of death. oh, what a fearful sting must be there! just think what this poor, vast, credulous multitude pay, with the sweat of their brows and the bend of their backs, to enrich these moral beasts in exchange for their ignorant and terrifying mumblings, that rob the deluded ones of every fiber of courage and every thought of perfect peace and rest. it is while living that death possesses its sting and anguish. anyone that seeks tribute from the dying, or from the living for services on behalf of the dead, is a damnable moral scoundrel and a cunning rascal. to those whose minds have been poisoned from childhood with this religious conviction, this most awful of beliefs, i cry: "throw off these tyrants of the mind. emancipate yourselves from this fearful ignorance and mental bondage!" what a burden will be lifted from their lives and what a glorious freedom they will experience! if we are to die, let us die in perfect calmness and in perfect peace. let us become firmly convinced that, once we are dead, no thought, no act, can possibly harm us. we are beyond the pale of nature's pangs. we, the individuals that we were, are free from everything. we are at rest, and forever. x but after this life with all our pains and sorrows, what then? what is there to repay us for living? i answer: _nothing!_ i have no misgivings about the "future." i am firmly convinced that there is no "after life," that when we "breathe our last" we arrive at our eternity. we are "one with yesterday's seven thousand years." we are like the flower which, "once blown, forever dies." i firmly believe that life as now manifested in our bodies is a combustible force identical with that of any other form of life. no less so than the "seed" of the flower is different from the "germ" of the wheat. both are forces! so are we! they may be different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. in fact, the very force that manifests itself in a mechanical instrument made by man is the identical substance that rules the organs, and charges the brain of our being. in the same manner that the force dissipates itself in the mechanical instrument made by man, and no longer gives motion to its parts, so the force that animates our being dissipates itself and is no longer capable of giving motion to our parts and organs. as man's instruments are dependent upon many channels for their complete performance, so the human brain and body have their many dependencies that must fully and properly be nourished to maintain their power. each day science draws another veil from the mystery of life. our eye is but a chemical camera, that we have not only reproduced, but even improved upon. our voice is nothing but a vibration, that we have not only reproduced and improved upon, but whose minutest modulations we have recorded in innumerable duplications. our ear is but a drum, that carries and conveys to the brain the vibrations of our voice, and that function we have reproduced and even improved upon by the instrument we call the telephone. the telegraphic system of the human body that communicates to the brain the conditions that the senses perceive, is no other than that which man has even improved upon by the transmission of an intelligible message to a far-distant land without the use of any apparent conductor. with the marvelous instrument, the telephone, man sends his voice around the world. man's greatest inventions, the phonograph, the camera and the telephone, both wire and wireless, make the work of nature, as manifested in our bodies, a simple, childish affair, fit only for the kindergarten of things. when edison invented the incandescent light and reproduced the human voice in the phonograph he pulled aside the veil of secrecy and penetrated the infinite. _he proved and demonstrated man to be greater than god._ our limbs carry our bodies in the direction our brains dictate, and _that_ function we have reproduced and even improved upon in all the means of locomotion that we daily use and which we now consider as a "matter of fact" among the ordinary things of life. "comparisons are odious" when we compare the awkward motion of nature with the rapid locomotion of man. man progresses far too rapidly for the accommodation of nature, and as a result adapts for his use and benefit vital essentials that nature in her laziness has either failed to utilize, or will not utilize. although we have not yet completely discovered all the material and mechanical elements that compose life, we are sure and certain of their origin. we hear ourselves talk; we decide upon our destination and direct our motion; we eat when we are hungry; sleep when we are tired; cry when we are in pain; and laugh when we are tickled. our whole being from start to finish is mechanical, and the element of something "spiritual," something separate and distinct from a purely material sense, is absolutely illogical and ill-founded in view of the illimitable illustrations that are being demonstrated every day. it is a thing easily understood, if we logically, and intelligently, without blindness, preference or prejudice, analyze the problem. it may sound better and more desirable to say that we possess a "soul"--that this life is but a "stepping stone to a higher plane"--but it is not true. we cannot observe the true, actual facts of life by coloring our subject. if we want to determine the _truth_ we must be mentally prepared to accept the _truth_. a painted face, brightened eyes, blackened eyelids, marcelled hair, and a form draped in all the splendor of the finest silks do not make a woman possess the sweetness and charm that all this "dope" is intended to make us believe. as much as man wants to have the end of this life attain certain benefits and destinations, this desire does not make them real. the implicit confidence in a faithless wife does not make her loyal and virtuous. a wife's confidence in a profligate husband does not make him stanch and true. life calls for a cold analysis. it must be stripped of all its artificial colorings and superfluities. it must be measured and weighed for what it actually is, not for what we would like it to be. it must be determined in the unwavering scales of science. the proper study of mankind is not the man in the white starched collar, with trimmed hair, shaven face and polished shoes, but the man recently from the forest, with coarse, grizzly hair upon his back, brutal and violent passion dominating his body, and savageness and hatred in his startled and terrifying eyes. the sooner we come to the realization of this vital fact, the sooner we become acquainted with the basic origin of life, the sooner we shall understand life, with its achievements, with its aspirations and hopes. xi it is an absolute fact and certainty, impossible of refutation, that when animation ceases in the body and no effort is made to revive it, life ceases and the processes of decay and decomposition set in. yet it is permanently established and has been successfully demonstrated innumerable times, that certain methods of artificial stimulation have revivified and resuscitated the delicate organs that cause the heartbeat and give consciousness to the brain. recently my local newspaper contained the following item: "dead" but saw no spirits _oklahoma city, okla._, february th--neal dillingham doesn't believe in after-death communication with the living. dillingham was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to know. doctors said dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot of blood. his heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe. insertion of a saline solution into his artery just above the heart caused the clot to dissolve, and dillingham came back to life. "i did not return to earth after i left it," said dillingham. "i had no knowledge of anything that took place, but i must have been pretty dead, as i do know i didn't recognize several persons i had known all my life, after i was myself again. if i had any talks with anybody while i was 'dead' i don't remember anything about them." believing that the publicity that this case received would make the party known to the postal authorities, i sat down and wrote him a letter, hoping that, if fortunate enough to have a letter delivered to him, he might be kind enough to write me personally of his experience. after a lapse of several days i received from him a letter substantiating in detail all that was mentioned in the newspaper clipping quoted above. in the instance of this man dillingham, he was "dead," so to speak, and as far as his "soul" was concerned it had "left" the body; yet the injection of a material solution, compounded by man, in conjunction with artificial respiration, caused the beating of the heart and gave back to the brain its power of consciousness. if it is the "soul" that causes the functioning of the body, where is it when such an action takes place? if it is the "soul" that gives us "life," how is it that we can materially and mechanically destroy it? we are born and nourished by material means. we live our life by material means. we reproduce our kind by material means. and we can destroy ourselves by material means. everything that touches and concerns our life is purely material, and it should be incumbent upon those who believe in the "soul" or the "spiritual element" of man to produce the proof of their contention. we are nothing but a continual propagating instrument, without spiritual, moral, lasting or ultimate value. we are here to reproduce our kind and for nothing more. what man secures for himself within the narrow circle of his existence here is all that he gains for the life that nature forces him to live. everything man has, man has made. nothing has been given to him by nature. god has been a miser! if man possessed a "soul" the thousand deformities of the brain would not exist. insanity would be impossible, and all the forms of petty vices that so miserably afflict us would be totally unknown. that which gives us the power of life is a combination of the material forces of nature, and the elements that compose the brain are of a chemical substance. the difference between a "live" person and a "dead" one can be summarized by a great many instances about us, and because of their commonplaceness, we do not observe them. there are many apples falling to the ground, but we are not inspired with the knowledge that the actuating force is gravity. one of the best illustrations, to show the difference between a "live" and a "dead" person, can be had from that excellent invention called the "film" or "plate," and which is so remarkably used in the camera. when that sensitive composition of chemicals that forms the "film" and which produces such a vivid and lasting likeness of ourselves is freshly made, it possesses that vital something we call "life." but allow this film to remain unused for a period of time, and it will no longer be able to perform its remarkable work. it will not possess the "life" to take a picture or to record an impression. if a premature "exposure" of the film is made, it loses its vital quality because of the mixture with other elements, or because of the evaporation of its constituent parts. it is not necessary to analyze all the properties of that film to show the principle whereby it performs its wonderful work. the general principle, showing its marvelous use while intact and its utter uselessness when its composition is no longer the same, should be sufficient to illustrate the comparison. this illustration can with force and conviction be applied to the peculiar quality and nature of our "soul" and brain. as long as the brain is incased within our skull, and fully protected from contact with any other substance to alter or to change its integrity, it will perform all that is warranted of it. in the case of our brain, though, besides the importance of keeping it protected from outside chemical action, the vital element concerned in its continuity of life lies in the importance of keeping it constantly nourished and supplied with the remarkable qualities of the vital substance of blood. the moment the blood supply to the brain is stopped, our brain loses its most important constituent, with the ultimate and inevitable result of inertia, decomposition and decay. when this condition happens we are then "dead" and, like the proverbial egg, "all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put humpty dumpty together again." if we possessed a soul, and it were of a permanent and special quality, it would maintain its impressions and remember its existence. it could pass through innumerable periods and know its many and varied journeys. even memory, so unreliable in our short life, bespeaks the utter impossibility of such a thing as a soul with a permanent and lasting existence. that which we call the "soul" is nothing but a chemical composition, that can and _does_ lose its permanency while we are still alive. we are acquainted with a number of chemical compositions that must remain in a pacific state to maintain their identity, so those chemical forces that compose our "soul" must perforce maintain their equilibrium. if we are stunned, or suffer any of the many conditions that upset chemical compounds and compositions, we, for the time being, suffer either "unconsciousness" or some other form of mental disability. if we are shocked too severely, we become totally and permanently impaired, and suffer violent fits and fearful rages, insanity or imbecility. different shocks, and even forms of disease, result in certain action upon our chemical brain, which causes it to lose only part of its ability. extreme high fever is only one form of illness which causes the brain to lose its stability and run rampant and unbridled. if i were fully cognizant of all forms and degrees of disease, i could recite exactly how they act and in what degree they harm the delicate organism of our brain. in many instances shocks or diseases too powerful for our brain to withstand, cause that portion of our brain that may control our speech, our sight, our hearing, our limbs or other organs to lose its power, with the consequence that we must suffer and be handicapped with what is properly called "a great affliction." science to-day has discovered that great truth, and has not only catalogued the different portions of the brain in their individual departments or capacities, but, by a master stroke of surgery, can correct and remedy those impaired parts, and give back to the human being the use of those valuable organs that the invisible agents of nature had taken away. so, instead of the brain's possessing a "soul," we find it, only in a more delicate degree, a mechanical formation such as we discovered our body to be. but if we possess a soul and it is capable of passing through the many and varied stages that life suffers, what becomes of its impressions? what and where are the benefits of its retention? where is the soul when we are in a state of unconsciousness? surely, if the soul were ever present to guard and maintain life, it would be standing by and using its power when it is most needed. we have no occasion for help when we are not in danger. it is when power can be used and exercised that it should be manifested. even love, the great compelling force of our life, is subject to the variations of our chemical "soul," its attractions and repulsions. if two form the unit of reproduction, and love is the great mating medium of nature, then once it is animated, once it is brought into existence, it should endure permanently, and the possessors should at least enjoy their blissful companionship until the end. but no. nature would entice, and then destroy, this most consuming feeling of life. two persons can start life with the most irresistible attraction and irrepressible love and within a very short time, unless they guard their love with every means and weapon of advanced thought and reason, nature, through her duplicity, will provide searching eyes to alienate their affection, causing a wretchedness unparalleled in the mental miseries of mankind's life. the saddest state of all is when two persons, with the sacred devotion of love, cohabit and the happy result is loving children, and yet while this happy family, free from nature's pitfalls and snares, are living in a peaceful and blissful state, there exists the ever-menacing "devil" who tempts the loving wife and mother to follow the will-o'-the-wisp--and thereby undoes and destroys the greatest kingdom of life. the devoted husband and father, by the flash of an eye, and the charm of a face, can forsake his sacred ties of devotion and become a degenerate and outcast, with death as his only salvation. in either case nature stands by with a sneer upon her lips, and god forgets his obligation to his children. but the final analysis proves beyond doubt that the physical attraction is responsible for this action; and who can deny that it is the chemical attraction of two forces that produced this irresistible desire? xii if the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better life somewhere else, nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a more lofty plane. were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired knowledge would be constantly and forever used. there would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be purposely sent here; neither would there be premature deaths, as no one could leave without "learning his lesson." there would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we would be required to attain. knowledge, or whatever condition nature imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to its acquirement. as it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to escape the acquisition of knowledge. if our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent. but how sadly untrue is this premise! for thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. an instance that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of the contention that we are living on this planet as a lesson in school, lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat. even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it. as desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even contrary to nature herself. the entire scheme of nature seems to be fashioned upon the same principle as our life. the fearful struggle of the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. even the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity, leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. recent astronomical discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas. the belief of an existence after death is so untenable in the face of many scientific discoveries of to-day, and of the irrefutable facts that are constantly staring us in the face, that an instance or two are all that are necessary to prove the fallacy of such a belief. under many circumstances we are unable to recognize our own blood relations after a lapse of a certain length of time. parents fail to know their children; and children their parents. this is equally true in every comparison and degree of relationship. features and characteristics undergo such a decided change and transformation that recognition is ofttimes even impossible. even the law courts are continually called upon to determine the proper identity of persons, to establish the ownership of property by other means than by personal identification. most remarkable of all, under new conditions, we do not recognize ourselves within the interval of only a few seconds! try this if you would seek proof, and convince yourself that recognition of your own personality is momentarily impossible, and that you must resort to other senses than that of sight to identify yourself. put a wig upon your head, blacken your face, "make up" your features, and when you have finished and are completely unaware of your changed appearance, look into the mirror for your reflection and feel the sensation of the startling fact that you know not yourself. we speak of changes so radical in a person's appearance that we often say we could not recognize him "in a thousand years." what a ridiculous presumption it is, then, to maintain that we live after death when _all_ senses are gone and perception is dead! again, how anyone can say that when we die we go to "heaven" is too childish to consider, because when we die, instead of going up and to heaven, we are put deep into the ground to moulder and to rot away. what a far-fetched conclusion it is to assume that we live after death, minus all the physical characteristics and under conditions utterly incomprehensible to our minds! even if, at death, the body turned into invisible gases it would mean and prove absolutely nothing. if we live after death, by what means can one person communicate with another? we cannot feel, because we have no hands. we cannot see, because we have no eyes. we cannot smell, because we have no nose. we cannot hear, because we have no ears. we cannot taste, because we have no mouth, no stomach. but, with it all, these five mediums of sense are dependent upon a _living brain_. the fact that we suffer the loss of our senses even before death, because of the complications in the make-up of our body, should be sufficient proof of the nonexistence of a soul and the utter impossibility of a life after death. unless we retain and maintain our sacred ties after death, another life is valueless and void, useless and unnecessary. it is a fearful sadness to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous ferocity. but, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true that death ends all. death means nothing to the affairs of the world. to be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. the gap is immediately filled, and the level of the water simultaneously adjusted, leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. only the individual suffers. what a mighty burst of heart there would be if we all could feel and suffer at the same time! nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living and the dead. the warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless, unfeeling corpse. the sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts to bear. murder, rape and greed look no different to nature than goodness, virtue and unselfishness. tears were made for the things that god causes, laughter is the result of man's efforts. xiii it is man's labor, man's work, man's achievement, that gives us the little desire that we have to live. how often do we prefer _death_ to living life in our former condition, after our efforts have brought us to a point of vantage and comfort! death is always preferable to the living of a "dog's life!" and yet, with it all, the little improvement we have to-day, with the still remaining cruel conditions of nature left to endure and fight, has not been worth the struggle through the black and bleak past. the price has been entirely too severe for the little that has been gained. god gives man nothing; man gives man everything! what sublime courage it was that made the pathfinders of the past sacrifice their lives, in order that their principles of truth might triumph, so that another link might be made in the chain of progress that is endeavoring to break the spell of a tyrant power. you must be made to know that for whatever desirable condition we have to-day we are indebted to heroic men and women of the past, who, in the days of infant progress, achieved a moral, physical and intellectual triumph. the chair you sit on, the cup you drink from, the fork you eat with, the light you read by, the bed you sleep in, the heat that warms you, the shoes on your feet, the clothes upon your back, the hat upon your head, and every part and particle of improvement that has enriched the world with a little touch of human comfort are the result of the heroic labors of the men and women of the past, who victoriously fought the accursed and chaotic forces of nature, so as to make life and living a little better. but at every step and stage of progress the dogmatists have exerted their influence toward retardation. what these dogmatists were unable to accomplish through fear and suppression, they accomplished through ostracism, and death. human advancement and progress are foreign to the "believing" mind. the dogmatists are concerned only with the "supernatural." they want not the comforts of life here if they can secure those benefits "hereafter." it is the attitude of the religious to belittle anything that is designed for human betterment. their philosophy is, the more you suffer here, the less you will suffer "hereafter." their humility to and fear of this "unseen" power is the most degrading trait in human beings. it is a frame of mind not only despicable and a hindrance in the face of progress, but even antagonistic to and destructive of all things worth while. to them, the insanity of belief is of paramount importance, and is more sacred and holy than human life. aye, human life has been so subordinated to this superstitious belief that it meant death in the past to those who rejected it. rather observe some "holy day" than perform "work" to help some fellow human being in distress. murder, rather than eat meat on a "forbidden day"! this frame of mind is one of the mental mysteries that science has yet to solve. xiv the rotundity of the earth was discussed and its circumference scientifically measured hundreds of years before the supposed birth of christ, and had not the "god believers" been so persistent in forcing their belief upon others, and had not christianity been born, i can see how the discovery of america would have been accomplished about a thousand years before the discovery by columbus; and the incalculable progress which would have been the consequence would have carried mankind beyond the boldest imagination of to-day, and placed us a thousand years nearer civilization. hero, a mathematician, who lived at the time when the greek minds were the marvel of the world, invented a steam engine, which was used in experiments and was rapidly nearing completion and perfection, when, unfortunately, ignorant and destructive religion, that was madly trampling upon everything of value, destroyed the famous alexandrian library wherein was kept a model of this engine. it also swept away the incalculable wealth of knowledge that had required ages to accumulate, and thereby completely annihilated the most priceless possessions that the human race ever owned. but that is not all; it is only a fragment. for history at every stage of life shows the continual strife between the forces of progress and the religious fanatic and god believer. what is that strange form of insanity that prompts people to torture and to destroy those who seek to emancipate them from the _tyranny of god_ and from the deluded belief in a hereafter? the attitude of all, each and every one of us, should ever be the desire and willingness to greet a new idea, to support a new thought, to try a new proposal, to do all in our power to uphold the forces of progress, to lend our help and to devote our energies in any direction that will ultimately lead us from the cruel forces and narrow limitations that are our lot to share. to those who have no thought for these things, who care not what forces and conditions man must face, who take without thought and give only through compulsion, whose self-satisfied condition (made possible only by the heroic work of the martyrs of progress) make of them personal heroes, whose life is wrapped within the flicker of a day, who do not know, do not realize, and do not care about the fearful suffering of the world--i say to them to strut their intoxicated hour and pass away. the sooner they live their lives and the sooner they die, the better for the earth. it needs fertilization. were we as mentally progressive as we are materially advanced, what a wonderful and magnificent improvement over the present living conditions we would be enjoying! every new invention, every new improvement, would be immediately and universally installed, and every old and antiquated instrument and method would be discarded and destroyed. that which now seems only within the command of the households of the immensely wealthy, would be as popularly used and enjoyed as the now commonly used articles in the poorest households. think of existing to-day in a predominant percentage of dwellings for human beings where there is not found the essential bathtub, or the still more essential toilet room! governments are instituted for the people's benefit, and shame upon such a government, in an enlightened age like to-day, that tolerates such a condition, when that government possesses the men, the means, the intellect and the materials to electrify the world! the first and foremost essential in higher development is the comfort and conveniences in a home. these are some of the conditions that the progressive minds of the world are trying to solve and remedy. it is only a question of how much longer the majority of people will pay homage to an imaginary god for imaginary benefits in an imaginary life after death. xv it is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest, that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace with the material progress. better still, the universal application of the material progress has been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement. the automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people, whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox cart and the tallow candle. slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments. oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people they were striving to benefit! this same fate has been met by all the brave and courageous, during the past, who have made any attempt to broaden the life and to ease the pain of the troubled heart of humanity. the unselfish endeavors of man have made it possible to take the dumb matter of earth and mold it so the voices of the present can be heard by the ears of the future; so that several generations may hear and know, with a touch of human affection, the traits, features and characteristics of their ancestors. language gives us their thoughts, the camera gives us their natural, life-like features and the phonograph their actual, living voices! nature never did so much. as far as nature is concerned, bastardy may rule the world! one of the comforts of life is that we live again in actions and scenes, which, although they are apart from our own lives, really belong to the past or future races. but nature sees to it that the births and deaths, the knowledge and acquaintance of each and every generation, are so closely allied that none of us is allowed to escape the suffering of the world and the agony of life and death. no person can avoid the pain and the terrible fear that all must endure. no one person can live, move about and possess the varied improvements of the earth's materials all by himself. he is indebted to others for their accomplishments, and they in turn are indebted to him for the improvements he renders. in short, we are all so closely allied with the actions and lives of one another that there should be a mutual appreciation and a common understanding among all. the farmer may know nothing about manufacturing; the manufacturer may know nothing about farming; the artist, the explorer, the thinker, the inventor and the scientist may know nothing about any field of endeavor other than his own, yet all are inter-dependent. with such a condition existing, and with the uncertainty of life forever staring us in the face, and _no one exempt_ from its terrible enactment, it is a _marvelous_ wonder to me why there exist so tenaciously in the human heart all the petty and aggravating tempers, prejudices and jealousies. what man has done with the forces of nature are inspiring deeds. what progress has been made in opposing the forces of nature is marvelous. what man will accomplish in the future with the arrogant forces of nature stimulates our hearts with the sweet satisfaction of a victory of the first magnitude. but in the final analysis, what does it avail us? geologists tell us that the greater portion of the materials that we have taken from the field of nature consists of the buried bones and bodies of our ancient ancestors, who passed through greater periods of agony, torment, disease and death than we are finally and eventually to meet! what sort of crust in the earth's formation are we to make? what will be the product of the future living forces that will utilize the materials that our bodies will make? what will be the future living forces? it is fearfully sad to contemplate that life must continue and be subject to the miserable laws that now govern it. insect man, with his almost tireless industry, makes clothes to cover his ugly and awkward body; builds houses to shelter him from the winds and the torrents of nature; fashions glittering palaces of amusement to cheer his troubled heart; compounds anæsthetics to ease his pain; carves wood to replace his broken limbs; molds metal to take the place of those things that nature has made inadequate for his use. in short, man has improved upon nature to uphold his frail body, to strengthen his weak bones, and to soothe his tender heart. that man, fighting the forces of nature, has been able to accomplish so much is simply glorious, and this progress is an achievement of such wonderful magnitude that we are thrilled at the thought, and bow in grateful recognition for the benefits derived and the relief enjoyed. but why did not god institute all the benefits for the immediate use of man, so they could be enjoyed upon the first manifestation of his understanding? why was it necessary to go through the fearful period of past history and gain, only after a most gigantic struggle, the few things that we now use for our comfort? that these things could have been done is proved by the fact that man has done them. fundamentally they always existed. man has only discovered and applied them. and these things that we have gained to-day, from the struggles of the past, would have been equally enjoyed by those who lived before us, with the same degree of benefit, just as the future will find, use and enjoy those things that we do not possess, and without which we shall be pinched, and pained, through the helter-skelter of this troublesome life. i brand as brutal tyranny this scheme of life, that forces us to be a link in a long series of lives to produce something for the benefit of the far-distant future, that we, ourselves, imperatively need but shall not possess. i cry and denounce and plead, in behalf of future humanity, to circumvent and to defeat this "sorry scheme of life," that uses us as an instrument to produce something that we cannot use, do not know about and have not the understanding to comprehend. xvi "in god we trust," on coins that represent our labor and our endeavor, is an insult to the intelligence, courage and independence of the people, and a stinging rebuke to those responsible for our progress. a motto that more truthfully represents our material progress and intellectual development would be: "in science we trust;" or, "humanity and justice our aim." the more we eliminate god from us, the more we are _one without him_, the better for us all, the better for humanity, the better for all the world. the less we "know" of god, the less god that is "in us," the more _human_ we become. the greatest, most frightful and destructive wars of all time have been those which were started in "defense" of god, as if "he" cared what man says or does. the most frightful and torturous instruments ever conceived by man are those that were made to force people to "believe in" god. the history of religious persecution and torture is the horror of the world. may i ask, where was god, and what did he do, to stop this frightful nightmare of torture committed in "his" name? and may i answer for you, that he was where moses was when the light went out? remember this: there will never be a solution to any of our fundamental problems, and mankind will never, in the full sense of the word, be free, as long as there exists in the human mind the insanity of religious belief. as long as god occupies a portion of our thoughts, mankind must be content to suffer the hatred and antagonism of man. let us make up our minds now, let us resolve now, to stop fighting one another, and fight god by helping one another. let us stop fighting our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers, and fight god. let us help our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers. let us cleanse our minds of this superstitious poison of an "after life," and work and labor for the good and welfare of here and now. we possess the knowledge and the means and, within the span of only one day, could bring about the much-longed-for "brotherhood of man." we could eliminate hatred from our hearts, and instill justice as our guide. we could eradicate poverty from our midst and bring happiness to sorrowing mankind. we could blot out tyranny among men and exchange it for the priceless legacy of freedom and make the relation between man and man bear some semblance of humanity. but--and i say this with redoubled conviction, and with all the power, force, energy and vehemence that i possess--if we are nature's best endeavor, if man is nature's best product, if the natural world is incapable of any improvement, and life will forever be made to submit to the tyrannical conditions of nature, then it were better ten thousand times over, that life were never called into existence, and that the universe were null and void! the end edison letter to joseph lewis * * * * * _from the laboratory of thomas a. edison, orange, n.j._ august , . mr. joseph lewis, c/o the truth publishing co., broadway, new york city. dear sir:-- i received your book--"the tyranny of god"--and have read it through. i think as you do that death ends all, yet i do not feel certain, because there are many facts that seem to show that the real units of life are not the animal mechanism itself, but groups of millions of small entities living in the visible cells. the animal being their mechanism for navigating the environment, and when the mechanism fails to function, i.e. die, the groups go out into space to go thru another cycle. the entities are each highly organized and perform their allotted task. if there is anything like this we still have a fighting chance. you have doubtless read interviews i have given lately on this subject. they appeared in the scientific monthly for october , and the cosmopolitan for may, . yours very truly, thos a edison famous inventor gives views of death and immortality in correspondence with author of "the tyranny of god." reminiscences of charles bradlaugh by g. w. foote president of the national secular society and editor of "the freethinker" london: progressive publishing company, . introduction. the following pages are reprinted, with some alterations and additions, from the columns of the _freethinker_. they are neither methodical nor exhaustive. i had the privilege of knowing mr. bradlaugh more or less intimately for twenty years. i have worked with him in the freethought movement and stood by his side on many political platforms. it seemed to me, therefore, that if i jotted down, even in a disjointed manner, some of my recollections of his great personality, i should be easing my own mind and conferring a pleasure on many readers. beyond that i was not ambitious. the time for writing mr. brad-laugh's life is not yet, but when it arrives my jottings may furnish a point or two to his biographer. g. w. foote, march , . reminiscences of charles bradlaugh. when i came to london, in january, , i was eighteen years of age. i had plenty of health and very little religion. while in my native town of plymouth i had read and thought for myself, and had gradually passed through various stages of scepticism, until i was dissatisfied even with the advanced unitarianism of a preacher like the rev. j. k. applebee. but i could not find any literature in advance of his position, and there was no one of whom i could inquire. secularism and atheism i had never heard of in any definite way, although i remember, when a little boy, having an atheist pointed out to me in the street, naturally i regarded him as a terrible monster. i did not know what atheism was except in a very vague way; but i inferred from the tones, expressions, and gestures of those who pointed him out to me, that an atheist was a devil in human form. soon after i came to london i found out an old school-fellow, and went to lodge with his family: they were tainted with atheism, and my once pious playmate was as corrupt as the rest of them. they took me one sunday evening to cleveland hall, where i heard mrs. law knock the bible about delightfully. she was not what would be called a woman of culture, but she had what some devotees of "culchaw" do not possess--a great deal of natural ability; and she appeared to know the "blessed book" from cover to cover. her discourse was very different from the unitarian sermons i had heard at plymouth. she spoke in a plain, honest, straightforward manner, and i resolved to visit cleveland hall again. three or four weeks afterwards i heard mr. bradlaugh for the first time. it was a very wet sunday evening, but as 'bus-riding was dearer then than it is now, and my resources were slender, i walked about three miles through the heavy rain, and sat on a backless bench in cleveland hall, for which i think i paid twopence. i was wet through, but i was young, and my health was flawless. nor did i mind the discomfort a bit when mr. bradlaugh began his lecture. fiery natural eloquence of that sort was a novelty in my experience. i kept myself warm with applauding, and at the finish i was pretty nearly as dry outside as inside. from that time i went to hear mr. bradlaugh whenever i had an opportunity. he became the "god" of my young idolatry. i used to think of him charging the hosts of superstition, and wish i could be near him in the fight. but it was rather a dream than any serious expectation of such an honor. when the new hall of science was opened i became a pretty regular attendant. i heard mr. charles watts, who was then as now a capital debater; mr. g. j. holyoake, mr. c. c. cattell, mr. austin holyoake. and perhaps one or two other lecturers whom i have forgotten. mr. austin holyoake frequently took the chair, especially at mr. bradlaugh's lectures, and a capital chairman he was, giving out the notices in a pleasant, graceful manner, and pleading for financial support like a true man. he was working hard for the success of the enterprise himself, and had a right to beg help from others. mr. bradlaugh, however, was the great attraction in my case. perhaps i was more impressionable at that time, but i fancy he was then at his best as an orator. in later life he grew more cautious under a sense of responsibility; he had to think what he should not say as well as what he should. he cultivated the art of persuasion, and he was right in doing so. but at the earlier period i am writing of he gave a full swing to his passionate eloquence. his perorations were marvellously glowing and used to thrill me to the very marrow. gradually i began to make acquaintances at the hall. i got to know mr. austin holyoake and his charming wife, mr. and mrs. bayston, mr. herbert gilham, mr. r. o. smith, and other workers. by and bye i was introduced to mr. bradlaugh and shook hands with him. it was the proudest moment of my young life. i still remember his scrutinising look. it was keen but kindly, and the final expression seemed to say, "we may see more of each other." in i wrote my first article in the _national reformer_. for a year or two i wrote occasionally, and after that with tolerable frequency. i was also engaged in various efforts at the hall; helping to carry on a secular sunday school, a young men's secular association, etc. naturally i was drawn more and more into mr. bradlaugh's acquaintance, and when he found himself unable to continue the logic class he had started at the hall he asked me to carry it on for him. of course i was proud of the invitation. but the class did not live long. it was not logic, but mr. bradlaugh, that had brought the members together. nor do i think they would have learnt much of the art from mr. bradlaugh, except in an empirical way. he had a very logical cast of mind, but as far as i could see he had little acquaintance with formal logic as it is taught by mill and whately, whom i select as typical masters of induction and deduction, without wishing to depreciate the host of other authorities. mr. bradlaugh really gave his class lessons in metaphysics; his talk was of substance, mode, and attribute, rather than of premises and conclusions. mr. bradlaugh and i were brought into closer acquaintance by the republican agitation in england after the proclamation of the present french republic. i attended the republican conference at birmingham in , when i first met my old friend dr. guest of manchester, mr. r. a. cooper of norwich, mr. daniel baker, mr. ferguson the glasgow home ruler, and other veterans of reform. we held our conference on sunday in the old meeting-place of the secular society, which was approached by very abrupt steps, and being situated over stables, was not devoid of flavor. on monday the conference was continued in one of the rooms under the town hall. a long political programme was concocted. i was elected secretary, and had the honor of speaking at the public meeting in the large hall. it was my first appearance in such a perilous position. i was apprehensive, and i said so. but mr. bradlaugh put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to fear. his kind looks and words were an excellent tonic. when i rose to speak i thought next to nothing about the audience. i thought "mr. bradlaugh is listening, i must do my best." and now as i am writing, i recall his encouraging glance as i looked at him, and the applause he led when i made my first point. he was my leader, and he helped me in an elder-brotherly way. nothing could exceed his considerate generosity. other people did not see it, but i remember it, and it was typical of the man. one incident at the conference is worth noting. it occurred in the afternoon, when mr. r. a. cooper (i think) was in the chair. the question of free education was being discussed. mr. bradlaugh did not quite like it, nor did i. he asked me to go with him into an ante-room and consider an amendment. what it was i can hardly remember, although i recollect that mr. cooper was very sarcastic about it. since then my own opinion has changed, as i dare say mr. bradlaugh's had changed; and the incident would not be worth recalling if it did not throw a light upon mr. bradlaugh's philosophy. he was always in favor of self-help and individual responsibility, and he was naturally hostile to everything that might weaken those precious-elements of english life. during the years immediately after the opening of the hall of science, mr. bradlaugh was there a good deal. sometimes he attended the week-night entertainments and gave a reading from shelley or whittier or some other poet. the audience applauded as a matter of course. they always applauded mr. bradlaugh. but he was no reader. he delivered his lines with that straightforward sincerity which characterised his speeches. he cultivated none of the graces or dexterities of the elocutionist. besides, he was too original to be a successful echo of other men. i think he only did justice to shelley's lines "to the men of england." but this is a piece of simple and vigorous declamation; very fine, no doubt but rather rhetoric than poetry. mr. bradlaugh was anything but a cold man. i should say he was electric. but his tastes, so far as i could discover, did not lie in the direction of poetry. certainly i heard him once, in those old days, read a great part, if not the whole of shelley's "sensitive plant." he loved shelley, however, as an atheist and a republican, and i suppose he took shelley's poetry on trust. but i do not think, though i speak under correction, that he cared very much for poetry _as such_. i could never discover from his conversation or writings that he had read a line of shakespeare--the god of colonel ingersoll. his mind was of the practical order, like oliver cromwell's. he had a genius for public affairs. he was not only a born orator, but a born ruler of men. naturally he had, as the french say, the defects of his qualities. and it may be that the terrible stress of his life tended to repress the poetical side of his nature, and less developed his subtlety than his strength. yet his feelings were deep, and his heart was easily touched. when william o'brien delivered that great speech in the house of commons after his imprisonment by mr. balfour, with all its needless indignities, there were two men who could not restrain their tears. one was an irish member. the other was charles bradlaugh. one who witnessed the scene told me it was infinitely pathetic to see that gigantic man, deemed so hard by an ignorant world, wiping away his tears at the tale of a brave man's unmerited suffering. mr. bradlaugh used to attend the social parties pretty often in those old days. he did not dance and he stood about rather awkwardly. it must have been a great affliction, but he bore it with exemplary fortitude. once or twice i saw mrs. bradlaugh there. she had a full-blown matronly figure. miss alice and miss hypatia came frequently. they were not then living in the enervating air of london, and they looked extremely robust. i also remember the boy charles, of whom mr. bradlaugh seemed very proud. he was a remarkably bright lad, and full of promise. but he was carried off by a fever. only a day or two after the lad's death mr. bradlaugh had to lecture at the hall. i was away, and i wondered whether he would fulfil the engagement. he did fulfil it. a friend wrote to me that mr. bradlaugh walked through the hall and mounted the platform with a face as white and rigid as that of a statue. he made no reference or allusion to his loss, but all could see he carried a bleeding heart. his lecturing in such circumstances was characteristic. weaker men would have indulged their grief; he was made of sterner stuff, and would not let it interfere with what he deemed his duty. splendid as was his eloquence at that time, mr. bradlaugh did not draw the large audiences that flocked around him a few years later. the hall of science was at first but half its present size, the platform standing on the right as you entered, with a small gallery on the opposite side. its holding capacity could not have been more than half what it is at present, yet i have seen the place far from full. but the audiences grew larger and larger, and eventually the hall was increased to its present proportions, although for a long time there was not cash enough to put on a proper roof, and the building was defaced by a huge unsightly beam, on each side of which there was an arch of corrugated iron. those were glorious times. difficulties were great, but there was a spirit at the hall that laughed at them. how the foremost men about the place did work! mr. r. o. smith and mr. trevilion, senior, could a tale unfold. whenever freethinkers are at all dejected they should have a chat with one of those gentleman. perhaps it would make them ashamed of their dejection, and fill them with the spirit of the heroic days. friends have told me with what energy mr. bradlaugh fought the battles of the old reform league. i _know_ with what energy he threw himself into the republican agitation that followed the downfall of napoleon iii. he tried to get to paris but failed. jules favre and his friends did not want him. favre himself was an eloquent historion, and no doubt he felt afraid of a man like mr. bradlaugh. but if mr. bradlaugh could not get to paris he fought hard for france in london. meetings at the hall of science did not suffice. there was money from french sources and st. james's hall was taken for a big demonstration. the positivists shared in the proceedings. their chief man was mr. frederic harrison. mr. bradlaugh and he were a tremendous contrast. in fact a london paper (i think the _echo_) remarked that mr. bradlaugh spoke as well as mr. harrison wrote, and mr. harrison spoke as badly as mr. bradlaugh wrote. there was some truth in this, though like most epigrams it was not all true. mr. bradlaugh was a born orator, but not a born writer. yet he often wrote with a forthright power, naked and unadorned, which could dispense with the aid of literary artifices. during this english agitation on behalf of france, held firmly under german feet, mr. bradlaugh came into contact with a french countess, who, i believe, either supplied or was the channel of supplying the necessary funds. as the lady is mentioned in mr headingley's _life of charles bradlaugh_, which was published with mr. bradlaugh's sanction, there is no reason why i should not refer to her. she came several times to the hall of science, and i was introduced to her. she had been a beauty, and although time was beginning to tell on her, she retained a good deal of charm and distinction, which, like a true frenchwoman, she heightened by the art of dressing. then as now, of course, foul tongues wagged in foolish heads, and mr. bradlaugh's enemies were not slow to point to the french countess with prurient grimaces. unable to understand friendship between man and woman, owing to their puritan training or incurable rankness, they invited the orthodox in religion and politics to note this suspicious connection. something of this malicious folly must have reached mr. brad-laugh's ears, but i imagine he was too proud and self-contained to let it disturb him. after the birmingham meeting, and the founding of the republican league, of which mr. bradlaugh became president, and i secretary, he visited spain on private business, taking with him a message from the conference to senor castelar, the leading spirit of the short-lived spanish republic. i remember writing out the message in a clear, bold hand, and addressing the foolscap envelope in the same way. when mr. bradlaugh fell among the carlists he cursed my caligraphy. happily, however, the officer who scrutinised that envelope could not read at all, and mr. bradlaugh escaped the consequences of being known to carry about letters addressed to the devilish castelar. during mr. bradlaugh's first visit to america i was a frequent contributor to his journal, and i corresponded with him privately. i went down to northampton and delivered a lecture at his request, under the auspices of his electoral committee. the old theatre--a dirty, ramshackle place as i recollect it--was crowded, and i had my first taste of the popularity of mr. bradlaugh in the borough. every mention of his name excited the wildest enthusiasm. while mr. bradlaugh was lecturing in the states a general election took place in england. it was impossible for him to return in time, but his friends looked after his interests. a committee was formed at the hall of science to raise the necessary funds, and mr. charles watts and i went down to northampton to conduct the election. we addressed outdoor meetings in the day, and crowded indoor meetings at night. again i saw what a hold mr. bradlaugh had on his northampton followers. they sang "bradlaugh for northampton" in the circus with all the fervor of scotch covenanters on their hillsides "rolling the psalm to wintry skies." mr. watts and i did not win the seat for mr. bradlaugh, nor did he win it himself at the next election, but we managed to increase his vote, and he expressed his pleasure at the result. soon after the election mr. bradlaugh returned to england. mr. watts and i went down with him to northampton. there was a crowded public meeting, i believe in the circus; and i saw mr. bradlaugh, for the first time, in the presence of his future constituents. they were simply intoxicated with excitement. the shouts of "bradlaugh" and "charley" were deafening. hats and handkerchiefs were waved in the air. the multitude rose to its feet and gave its hero a splendid welcome. then we settled down to speech-making, but all that followed was somewhat tame and flat after that first glorious outburst of popular devotion. the next election came quickly. it resulted in the return of a tory majority for benjamin disraeli, and mr. gladstone went off to sulk in his tent. two tories were returned for radical northampton. mr. bradlaugh let them in. he was determined to have one of the northampton seats. to get it he had to make himself inevitable. he had to prove that if northampton wanted two liberal members, one of them must be charles bradlaugh. it took him thirteen years to demonstrate this, but he succeeded, as he succeeded in most things. at last, in , he ran as official liberal candidate with mr. labouchere, and both were returned. i assisted mr. bradlaugh during his second ( ) election. it was then that i first saw mrs. besant. she had not yet taken to the platform, but she was writing for the _national reformer_, and her pen was active during the contest. mr. watts was also there. another figure i remember was mr. george odger, who labored among the trade unionists of northampton in mr. bradlaugh's interest. george odger was one of the ablest of all the working-class leaders i have ever met. he came from my own county, devonshire, being born at horrabridge, on the road between plymouth and tavistock. he was honest to the heart's core, as well as very able, but he was incurably indolent. you never could be sure of him at a public meeting. he had to be looked up beforehand, or he might forget the engagement and spend his time more agreeably. he was passionately fond of the theatre, and could talk by the hour on famous performances of old actors and actresses. during the daytime at northampton i had long chats with him. he objected to fine hotels, and he objected to walking; so i had to sit with him in the garden of a semi-rural public-house, where our conversation was altogether out of proportion to our liquor. odger liked beer; not much of it, but just enough; it suited his palate and his purse; and as i drank next to nothing, the landlord must have thought us unprofitable customers. mr. bradlaugh had rooms at the george hotel. it was the tory house, but he preferred it, and mrs. besant, mr. watts, and the rest of us, fed and slept there during the election. this gave rise to a good deal of silly talk among mr. bradlaugh's enemies.. one evening we were returning from a town hall meeting, and the tories had been holding a small meeting at the "george." as we reached the foot of the stairs, we encountered a knot of tories. one of them was mr. merewether, the tory candidate. he was nearly of the same height as mr. bradlaugh, and well built. his friends were holding him back, but he broke from them, exclaiming, "hang it! i _will_ have a look at him." he stood at the very foot of the staircase and looked hard at mr. bradlaugh ascending. his expression was one of good-tempered insolence. after a long look at mr. bradlaugh, he returned to his friends, shouting, "well, i'm damned if he's as bad-looking as i thought." i left northampton before the close of the poll, mr. bradlaugh was leaving the same night for america, having barely time to catch the boat at liverpool. i drove round with him before leaving, on a visit to some of the polling stations. he had paid me a modest sum for my services, but he found he had hardly enough to take him across the atlantic, and he asked me to lend him what money i had. i fished seven or nine pounds out of my pocket--i forget which--and handed it to him. it was paid back to me by his order a few weeks subsequently; and the incident would not be worth mentioning if it did not throw a light on the libellous nonsense of mr. bradlaugh's enemies that he was rolling in wealth. while at northampton with mr. bradlaugh, and on other occasions, i saw something of his personal tastes and habits. he struck me as an abstemious man. he was far from a great eater, and i never noticed him drink anything at dinner but claret, which is not an intoxicating beverage. on the whole, i should say, it is less injurious to the stomach and brain than tea or coffee. he was rather fond of a cup of tea seventeen years ago, and latterly his fondness for it developed into something like a passion. more than once i found him at st. john's wood drinking a big cup of pretty strong tea, and was seduced by his genial invitation into joining him in that reckless indulgence. he used to smoke too in the old days, but he afterwards gave up the practice for several years. about seven years ago, however, he resumed it. i do not think he ever attained to the dignity of a pipe. he smoked cigars. some time in april, , i spent an hour with him at the house of commons. he got the speaker's leave to take me into the lower smoke-room, and we "discussed" a cigar and some claret while discussing some freethought business. the claret he seemed indifferent to, but he puffed the cigar with an air of enjoyment. during the northampton election times i used to take a good stiff daily walk. all through my youth i had plenty of exercise in the open air, and i still grow desperately fusty without a brisk tramp at least once in the twenty-four hours. mr. bradlaugh generally took a drive, and i remember telling him with youthful audacity that he ought to walk for his health's sake. of course it was difficult for him to walk in the streets. his stature and bulk made him too noticeable, and mobbing was very unpleasant. but he might have driven out of town and trudged a mile or two on the country roads. my opinion is that his neglect of physical exercise helped to shorten his life. occasional bouts of fishing were very well in their way, but _daily_ exercise is the necessary thing. i do not forget the tremendous labor, physical as well as mental, of lecturing on burning questions to large audiences. all that, however, goes on in hot, crowded rooms, full of vitiated air; and it gives no proper exercise to the legs and loins or the lower vital organs. after one of my remonstrances mr. bradlaugh invited me to play a game of billiards. it was the only time i ever played with him. his style with the cue was spacious and splendid; the balls went flying about the board, and i chaffed him on his flukes. he had not the temperament of a billiard-player. still, i have heard that he played a fair game at st. stephen's; but i can hardly believe it without first-hand testimony. i am willing to believe, however, that he was a good chess-player. certainly he had a head for it but chess is a vile game for a brain-worker, whose recreations should never involve a mental strain. when i first knew mr. bradlaugh he was living at tottenham. i never visited him there, but i often called on him at his later lodgings in turner-street, commercial-road. he occupied the ground floor, consisting of two rooms. the back was his bedroom, and the front his library and workshop. it was what the americans call a one-horse affair. shelves all round the room were filled with books. mr. bradlaugh sat at a desk with his back to the fireplace. on his right was the door communicating with his bedroom facing him the door opening on the passage, and on his right (? left) the street window. the room itself could hardly have been more than twelve or thirteen feet square. i once told him he was too near the fireplace, and he said it was sometimes good to have the poker handy. at that i stared, and he told me the following story. one day a gentleman called on him and was invited to take a chair. he sat down facing mr. bradlaugh, and explained that he wanted advice on a very particular matter. god almighty had told him to kill someone, and he had a difficulty in selecting a victim. mr. bradlaugh put his hand behind him and quietly grasped the poker. the inspired gentleman put the problem as a knotty one, and begged the assistance of the clever iconoclast. "well," said mr. bradlaugh, keeping quite cool, "what do you say to the archbishop of canterbury?" "the very man!" exclaimed the inspired gentleman. he got mr. bradlaugh to give him the archbishop's address, and said, "good-day," with a profusion of thanks. mr. bradlaugh went to the door to look for a policeman, but none was visible, and the inspired gentleman was soon out of sight. "so you see," said mr. bradlaugh, "it's good to have the poker handy. i never saw or heard of the man again, and i knew he couldn't get near the archbishop. there are too many flunkeys in the way." those were my struggling days, and mr. bradlaugh was very kind to me. i remember the sunday evening when i told him i thought of taking to the freethought platform. he pointed out the hard and thorny path i should have to tread, but when he saw i was resolved on the attempt, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "there is no young man in the movement i would sooner welcome." in the very same room, on another sunday evening a little later, i first saw james thomson. he came down to the hall of science with mr. bradlaugh, in whose employment he then was, and i gave him the article i had brought for the _national reformer_. he shook hands very cordially, and i was delighted to meet one for whose poetry i had a profound admiration. it was also at the hall of science, about the same time, that i met the eccentric mr. turberville, brother to mr. blackmore, the novelist. he was a man of parts with a bee in his bonnet. he claimed kinship with turberville, a minor poet of the sixteenth century, and he loved to talk of poetry. his knowledge of shakespeare was profound and minute. he admired mr. bradlaugh's perorations immensely, as well as his bold defence of freethought. he made out a will in mr. bradlaugh's favor, but he subsequently made another will, and died in circumstances that necessitated an inquest. by agreement, however, mr. bradlaugh obtained £ , from the estate, and the windfall came opportunely, for his struggles and litigations had involved him in considerable debt. i know he often had to borrow money on heavy interest. one day, at turner-street, he told me that a creditor of this species had coolly invited him to dinner. "hang it," he said, "you can't dine with a man who charges you sixty per cent." another recollection i have of mr. bradlaugh is in connexion with the funeral of mr. austin holyoake. the death of this gentleman was a great loss to the freethought cause. he was highly respected by all who knew him. the geniality of his disposition was such that he had many friends and not a single enemy. for some years he was mr. bradlaugh's printer and publisher, and a frequent contributor to his journal. he was foremost in every good work, but he was one of those modest men who never get the credit of their labors. he died at johnson's-court, fleet-street, in an upstairs room above the printing office, where his devoted wife had for many weeks nursed his flickering life. the funeral was a notable event. those of us who could afford it rode in the undertaker's coaches, and the rest walked in procession to highgate cemetery. i can still see mr. bradlaugh in my mind's eye, bustling about on the ground floor, taking everything as usual on his own shoulders. he sorted us in fours for the coaches, my _vis à vis_ being james thomson. at the graveside, after the reading of austin holyoake's own funeral service by mr. charles watts, mr. bradlaugh delivered a brief address which he had written for the occasion. on the whole it was too much a composition, but one sentence was true "bradlaugh," and it sounds in my ears still:--"twenty years of friendship lie buried in that grave." how such scenes are impressed on one's memory! as i write i see the set face of charles bradlaugh. i behold the sob-shaken back and bowed head of herbert gilham just in front of me. i hear and feel the cool, rustling wind, like a plaintive requiem over the dead. once again, years afterwards, i saw mr. bradlaugh in the same cemetery, supporting the helpless figure of mrs. ernestine rose as she left the open grave of the dear partner of her long life of labor for the cause of human redemption. owing to circumstances, into which i need not enter, i saw little of mr. bradlaugh between and . when he was returned for northampton i rejoiced, and when he was committed to the clock tower i saw my duty sun-clear. it was to participate as i could, and might, in the struggle. my contributions to mr. bradlaugh's journal were resumed, and i spoke at meetings in his behalf. in may, , i started the _freethinker_, my oldest living child. mr. bradlaugh acted with his natural generosity. he advertised my bantling gratuitously in his own journal, and gave it every possible facility. this was not known at the time, but i ought to state it now. throughout that long, terrible struggle with the house of commons i was with mr. bradlaugh on every point. if he made a single mistake i have yet to see it indicated. my article in the first number of the _freethinker_ was entitled "mr. bradlaugh's advisers." its object was to show the absurdity of the plentiful advice offered him, and the absolute justice of the course he was pursuing. three weeks afterwards the bigots convened a ticket meeting at exeter hall. the chief promoters were earl percy, sir bartle frere, and butcher varley. mr. bradlaugh was afraid the meeting would have a pre-judicial effect on public opinion in the provinces. the fact of the _tickets_ would be kept back, and the report would go forth that a vote was unanimously passed against him at a big london demonstration. it was necessary, therefore, that the meeting should be _spoiled_. and it _was_. mr. bradlaugh gave me the task of moving an amendment. we had a chat in his library at st. john's wood, and as we parted he said, "i rely on you, foote." he looked at me steadily, holding my eyes as though to read the depths. we got tickets somehow. but the protestant alliance smelt mischief, and mr. bradlaugh's supporters had to fight their way in. two hundred and fifty police were not enough to keep them all out. i was naturally a marked man, and fighting had to be supplemented by diplomacy. when the noble smithson (earl percy), had drivelled for a few minutes as chairman, and the resolution against mr. bradlaugh had been proposed and seconded by sir john kennaway and canon taylor, i rose to move an amendment. but the amendment was refused. the resolution was put, and the christians stood up and voted, while the organ played "god save the queen." then, at a signal, our people jumped on the forms, and rent the air with cheers for "bradlaugh." at another signal they all trooped out, went off to trafalgar-square with the big crowd outside, and passed resolutions in mr. bradlaugh's favor. the bigots' meeting was completely spoiled. they had to barricade the doors and keep out their own people as well as the enemy; the hall was never half full, and their resolution was passed after refusing an amendment, amidst loud execrations. such a lesson was taught the bigots that they never made another attempt. mr. bradlaugh had trusty lieutenants and stern supporters, and the bigots knew he would spoil every _private_ meeting that professed to be _public_. he acted with wisdom and determination, and the result showed he knew the stake he was playing for when he said, "i rely on you," with that steady napoleonic look. ***** mr. bradlaugh's legal exploits, if properly recorded, would fill a good-sized volume. when his life is adequately written, as it will be some day, this department will have to be entrusted to a skilled lawyer. no other person could do anything like justice to a most important part of the career of one whom the tories used to call "that litigious man," when they were trying to ruin him in the law courts and he was only defending himself against their base attacks. those who had only known mr. bradlaugh as a platform orator had some difficulty in recognising him when they first met him in one of our "halls of justice." his whole manner was changed. he was polite, insinuating, and deferential. his attitude towards the judges was admirably calculated to conciliate their favor. i do not mean that _he_ calculated. he had quite a superstitious veneration for judges. it was perfectly sincere and it never wavered. he would not hear a word against them. when he pleaded before them his personal sentiments ran in a line with his best interests; for although judges are above most temptations, their vanity is often sensitive, and mr. bradlaugh's manner was intensely flattering. had he followed the legal profession, mr. bradlaugh would have easily mounted to the top and earned a tremendous income. i have heard some of the cleverest counsel of our time, but i never heard one to be compared with him in grasp, subtlety and agility. he could examine and cross-examine with consummate dexterity. in arguing points of law he had the tenacity of a bull-dog and the keenness of a sleuth-hound. he always fortified himself with a plethora of "cases." the table in front of him groaned with a weight of law. here as elsewhere he was "thorough." an eminent jurisprudist once remarked to me, "there is little gleaning to be done after bradlaugh." as a pleader before juries, however, i doubt whether he would have achieved a great success. he was too much of a born orator. he began well, but he soon forgot the limited audience of twelve, and spoke to a wider circle. this is not the way to humor juries. they like to feel their own importance, and he succeeds best who plays upon their weakness. "remember," their looks say, "you are talking to _us_; the other gentlemen listen accidentally; _we_ make you or damn you." my first recollection of mr. bradlaugh in the law courts is twenty-two years old. how many survivors are there of the friends who filled that dingy old court at westminster where he argued before a full bench of judges in ? he was prosecuted for note giving sureties in the sum of £ against the appearance of blasphemy or sedition in his paper. the law was resuscitated in his single case to crush him; but he fought, as he said he would, to the bitter end, and the gladstone government was glad to repeal the obsolete enactments. the crown retired from the suit with a _stet processus_, and mr. bradlaugh was left with the laurels--and his costs. i obtained an hour or two's leave from my employment, and heard a portion of mr. bradlaugh's argument it gave me a new conception of his powers. that is the only impression i retain. the details have dropped out of my memory, but there remains as fresh as ever the masterful figure of charles bradlaugh. the best view i ever had of mr. bradlaugh in litigation was in the old court of queen's bench on tuesday and wednesday, july and , , when he cross-examined poor mr. newdegate. for a good deal of the time i sat beside him, and could watch _him_ closely as well as the case. by raising the point whether the writ against him for penalties had been issued before or after he gave his vote in the house, he-was able to put all the parties to the prosecution into-the witness-box and make them give an account of themselves. mr. newdegate was one of the victims, and the poor man made confessions that furnished mr. bradlaugh with ground for a successful action against him under the law of maintenance. mr. newdegate was a hard-mouthed witness, but he-was saddled, bridled, and ridden to the winning-post. his lips opened literally, making his mouth like the slit of a pillar-box. getting evidence from him was like extracting a rotten cork from the neck of a bottle but it all came out bit by bit, and the poor man must have left the witness-box feeling that he had delivered himself into the hands of that uncircumcised philistine. his cross-examination lasted three hours. it was like flaying alive. once or twice i felt qualms of pity for the old man, he was such an abject figure in the hands-of that terrible antagonist. every card he held had to-be displayed. finally he had to produce the bond of indemnity he had given the common informer clarke against all the expenses he might incur in the suit; when this came out mr. bradlaugh bent down to me and said, "i have him." and he _did_ have him. despite the common notion that the old law of maintenance was obsolete, mr. bradlaugh pursued him under it triumphantly, and instead of ruining "bradlaugh," poor newdegate was nearly ruined himself. what a contrast to mr. newdegate was mr. bradlaugh! he was the very picture of suppressed fire, of rampant energies held in leash: the nerves of the face playing like the ripple on water, the whole frame quivering, and the eyes ablaze. it was wonderful how he managed to keep his intellect alert and his judgment steady. six hours of such work as he had in court that day were enough to tax the greatest strength. before it was over i saw bodeful blood-rims under his eyes. it did not surprise me, on meeting him at the cobden workmen's club the next evening, to learn that he had been frightfully ill. "mr. bradlaugh," i wrote at the time, "is a wonderfully strong man, but the tories and the bigots are doing their best to kill him, and if this sort of thing is to continue very much longer they may succeed." alas, they _did_ succeed. that terrible struggle killed him. no man ever lived who could have passed through it unbroken. mr. bradlaugh was clearly right on the point raised, but the jury went against him, apparently out of sheer prejudice. when he went out into westminster hall he was loudly cheered by a crowd of sympathisers, who, as the _times_ sneered, "applauded as lustily as though their champion had won." precisely so. their applause would have greeted him in the worst defeat. he was not a champion on whom they had "put their money." he represented their principles, and the _times_ forgot, if it ever knew, that men are devoted to leaders in proportion to the depth of the interests they espouse. conviction "bears it out even to the edge of doom." now let me mention something that shows mr. bradlaugh's tact and consideration. my work on the _freethinker_ brought me no return. i had just read the proof of an article for mr. bradlaugh's paper. while we were waiting for the jury's verdict he referred to the article, and guessing my need he said, "shall i give you the guinea now?" my answer was an expressive shrug and a motion of the eye-brows. taking the two coins out of his pocket, he wrapt them in a piece of paper _under the table_, and presently slipped the packet into my hand. the whole proceeding touches me deeply as i recall it. he might well have thought only of himself in that time of suspense; but he thought of me too, and the precautions he took against being seen to pay me money were expressive of his inbred delicacy. reader do not say the incident is trivial. these little things reveal the man. little did i dream, as i watched mr. bradlaugh fighting bigotry in the law courts, that the time would come when he and i would be included in a common indictment and stand in a criminal dock together. but as the french say, it is always the unexpected that happens. early in july, , i was served with a summons from the lord mayor of london, ordering me to appear at the mansion house on the following tuesday and take my trial on a charge of blasphemy. two other gentlemen were included in the summons, and all three of us duly appeared. we were all members of the national secular society, and mr. bradlaugh attended to render any possible assistance. the case was adjourned to the following monday, by which time a summons had been served on mr. bradlaugh, who took his place beside us in the dock. after an animated day's proceedings we were committed for trial at the old bailey. the object of this prosecution was, of course, to stab mr. bradlaugh in the back. he had fought all the bigots face to face, and held them all at bay; so they put a stiletto into sir hardinge giffard's hands, and paid him his blood-money to attack the hero from behind. mr. bradlaugh had to play the fox again. he wanted to gain time, and he wanted to be tried, if at all, in the court of queen's bench. he always told me that being tried at the old bailey was going like a lamb to the slaughter, and that a verdict of guilty there would certainly mean twelve months' imprisonment. the obvious resource, therefore, was to obtain a writ of _certiorari_ removing our indictment to the superior court. happily it was in the long vacation, and application had to be made to a judge in chambers. by another piece of good luck, it was mr. justice stephen who sat behind the table on the fatal morning when the writ had to be finally granted or refused. it was obtained on july , . poor mr. maloney, who represented the prosecution, was no match for mr. bradlaugh, who treated him like a child, and only let him say a word now and then as a special favor. roaming the law courts with mr. bradlaugh, i was able to see his intimate knowledge of legal practice. he threaded the labyrinth with consummate ease and dexterity. we went from office to office, where everything seemed designed to baffle suitors conducting their own cases. our case, too, was somewhat peculiar; obsolete technicalities, only half intelligible even to experts, met us at every turn; and when we got out into the open air i felt that the thing was indeed done, but that it would puzzle omniscience to do it in exactly the same way again. seven pounds was spent on stamps, documents, and other items, and securities for costs had to be given to the extent of six hundred pounds. as i walked home i pondered the great truth that england is a free country. i had seen with my own eyes that _there is_ one law for rich and poor. but i could not help reflecting that only the rich could afford it, and that the poor might as well have no law at all. mr. bradlaugh next moved to quash the indictment. he argued that the public prosecutor's fiat was bad, as it did not name the persons who were to be proceeded against, and thus resembled a general warrant, which in the famous wilkes case the judges had held to be invalid. on this point, however, two judges, one of them being sir james stephen, gave judgment against him. the case was argued on mr. bradlaugh's part, the judges said, with "great power and learning." for my part, i think he showed a greater knowledge of "cases" than both the legal luminaries on the bench, who laid their heads close together over many a knotty point of the argument. beaten on the main issue, mr. bradlaugh was successful, however, on the subsidiary one. two counts were struck out of the indictment. the excision made no difference to me, but a great deal of difference to him. two numbers of the _freethinker_ were thus disposed of bearing the imprint of the freethought publishing company--under which name mr. bradlaugh and mrs. beasant traded--and owing to the lapse of time it was impossible to open a fresh indictment. of course i saw what mr. bradlaugh was driving at, and i could not but admire the way in which he made light of this point, arguing it baldly as a formal matter on which, as their lordships would see at a glance, he was absolutely entitled to a judgment. they would see that he was still open to all the other counts of the indictment, and therefore it might make very little difference, but right was right and law was law. under the spell of his persuasive speech, it was amazing to see the judges smoothing their wrinkled fronts. i fancy they gave him his second point the more readily because they were against him on the first; indeed, they seemed to think it a pity, if not a shame, that all his learning and ability should be displayed for _nothing_. our indictment went into the list of crown cases reserved, and did not come on for trial till the following april. meanwhile i was prosecuted again, and failing to get a writ of _certiorari_, owing to the flagrant bigotry of baron huddleston and justice north, i was tried at the old bailey, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment like a common thief--as mr. bradlaugh had predicted. during my trouble mr. bradlaugh lent me every assistance, furnishing me with legal books and advice and visiting me in newgate between the first and second trials, while judge north's underlings were preparing a more pliant jury than the one which had declined to return a verdict of guilty. in holloway gaol i lost sight of mr. bradlaugh and everyone else, except persons i had no desire to see. but one morning, early in april, , the governor informed me that mr. bradlaugh was going to pay me a visit, having the home secretary's order to see me on urgent business. the same afternoon i was marched from my cell into one of the governor's offices, where mr. bradlaugh was wailing. compared with the pale prisoners i saw day by day, he looked the very picture of health. fresh, clean-shaven, neatly dressed, he was a most refreshing sight to eyes accustomed to rough faces and the brown convict's garb. and it was a friend too, and i could take his hand and exchange human speech with him. how vivid is my recollection of him at that moment! he seemed in the prime of life, little the worse for his terrible struggles, only the gray a trifle more decided about the temples, but the eyes full of light, and the mobile mouth full of vitality. and now he is dead! dead! it is hard to realise. but i rang the muffled bell as he lay fighting his last battle, and i followed his corpse to the grave; and i know that the worm is busy about those leonine features, and the rain trickles through with a scent of faded flowers. yes, it is true; he _is_ dead. dead like the king and dead like the clown; yet living truly beyond the dust of death in the lives of others, an inextinguishable light, a vivifying fire, a passionate hope, an ardent aspiration. till the future dares forget the past, his fate and fame shall be an echo and a light unto eternity. on the morning of april , , i put on my own clothes and was driven in a four-wheeler from holloway gaol to the law courts, in company with warder smith, who superintended the wing of the prison in which a grateful country lodged and boarded me at its own expense. it was lovely spring weather, and i felt like a man new-born. inside the court where the great blasphemy case was to be tried i found mr. bradlaugh with his usual load of law books. the court was crowded with friends of the defendants and legal gentlemen anxious to witness the performance. mr. bradlaugh applied for a separate trial, on the ground that as there was no charge of conspiracy it was unjust to prejudice his case by evidence admitted against his co-defendants; and lord coleridge, who obviously meant to see fair play, granted the application. mr. bradlaugh's position was, in one sense, the most perilous he had ever stood in. just as his long litigation with respect to his seat in parliament was drawing to a close, and as he believed to a _successful_ close, he had to defend himself against a charge which, if he were proved guilty, would entail upon him the penalty of imprisonment. of course it would not have been such imprisonment as i was suffering, for queen's bench prisoners are generally sent to the civil side of holloway gaol. but _any_ imprisonment at such a moment gravely imperilled his prospects of success in the mighty struggle with wealth, bigotry, and political prejudice. a sense of this fact weighed heavily upon him, but it did not impair his energy or intellectual alertness; indeed, he was one of those rare men whose faculties are sharpened by danger. i need not dwell upon the evidence of the prosecution. it was most unsatisfactory, and failed to connect mr. bradlaugh with the _freethinker_. sir hardinge giffard, therefore, almost entirely confined himself to playing upon the prejudices of the jury. mr. bradlaugh was perfection itself in examining and cross-examining, and was soon on the windward side of the judge, but his address to the jury was too boisterous. he _felt_ too much. his adversary was not under this disadvantage, and sir hardinge giffard's address to the jury, considered merely as a tactical display, was better than mr. bradlaugh's. on the second day of the trial (it lasted for three days) there occurred a curious episode. just before the adjournment for luncheon mr. bradlaugh intimated that when the court re-assembled he would call his co-defendants as witnesses. lord coleridge replied in a low, suggestive tone, "do you think it necessary?" mr. bradlaugh rose and for the first time i saw him tremble. "my lord," he said, "you put upon me a grave responsibility." "i put no responsibility upon you," said lord coleridge, "it is for you to decide." and the stately judge glided away in his robes of office. if mr. bradlaugh put his co-defendants in the witness-box, one of two things might happen. they might decline to give evidence, as every answer would tend to criminate themselves; or they might exculpate mr. bradlaugh and procure their own damnation. i do not blame lord coleridge for looking at the matter in this way. but i naturally looked at it in a different light mr. bradlaugh was my general, and i was his lieutenant, and it was clearly my duty to sacrifice myself. i could release him from danger with half a dozen words, and why should i hesitate to say them or he to exact them? i was already in prison, and another conviction could add little to my misfortune, whereas he was still free, and his continued freedom was just then absolutely indispensable to our common cause. for my part, i had not a moment's hesitation. but lord coleridge's words sank into mr. bradlaugh's mind, and after luncheon he announced that he would _not_ call his co-defendants. his lordship looked pleased, but how he frowned when sir hardinge giffard complained that _he_ was deprived of an opportunity! lord coleridge did not say, but he _looked_--"have you no sense of decency?" sir hardinge giffard, however, was thick-skinned. he relied on mr. bradlaugh's sense of honor, and made it the basis of an artificial grievance. he even pretended that mr. bradlaugh was _afraid_ to call his co-defendants. but he overreached himself by this hypocrisy, and obliged mr. bradlaugh to put his co-defendants into the witness-box. we were formally tendered as witnesses, mr. bradlaugh going no further, and leaving sir hardinge giffard to do as he would. of course he was obliged to interrogate us, or look foolish after his braggadocio, and in doing so he ruined his own case by giving us the opportunity! of declaring that mr. bradlaugh was never in any way connected with the _freethinker_. mr. bradlaugh, of course, did not in any sense sacrifice me. it would have been contemptible on my part to let him bear any responsibility for my own deliberate action, in which he was not at all implicated, and if i had not been tendered as a witness i should have tried to tender myself. after half an hour's deliberation the jury found mr. bradlaugh not guilty. standing up for the verdict, with pale set face, the grateful little "not" fell upon his ear, and his rigidity relaxed. tears started to _my_ eyes, and i saw the tears in _his_ eyes as i squeezed his hand in speechless congratulation. my own trial followed mr. bradlaugh's, and i was not found guilty. three members of the jury held out against a verdict that would have disgraced a free country; and as the prosecution despaired of obtaining a verdict while lord coleridge presided at the trial, the attorney-general was asked to allow the abandonment of proceedings. this he granted, the case was struck off the list, and i returned to my prison cell at holloway. let me now go back to the crowning incident of that long struggle between charles bradlaugh and the house of commons. on may , , the house passed a resolution authorising the sergeant-at-arms to prevent mr. bradlaugh from entering. on june , the jury gave a verdict in mr. newdegate's favor for the £ penalty and costs. a motion for a new trial failed, and mr. bradlaugh appealed to the country. enthusiastic meetings were held in his behalf, and he prepared a fresh _coup_. it had to be something striking, and it was. on the morning of august palace yard and westminster hall were thronged with his supporters. every one was armed with a petition, which he had a legal right to take to the house of commons. mr. bradlaugh himself drove up in a hansom cab, and entered the precincts of the house by the private door. he made his way to the door of the house itself and tried to enter by a sudden effort, but he was seized by fourteen officials and stalwart policemen, picked for the work, and thrust back through the private passage into palace yard. not expecting such indignity, he contested every inch of the ground. inspector denning said he never thought that one man could have offered such resistance. the small muscles of both his arms were ruptured, and a subsequent attack of erysipelas put his life in jeopardy. when he was finally thrust on to the pavement in palace yard his coat was torn and the rest of his garments were disarranged. his face was livid with the intense exertion when i saw him a minute afterwards. there he stood, a great mass of panting, valiant manhood, his features set like granite, and his eyes fixed upon the doorway before him. he seemed to see nothing but that doorway. i spoke to him, and he seemed not to hear. i believe a mighty struggle was going on within him, perhaps the greatest struggle of his life. he had suffered a frightful indignity, he must have been tempted to avenge it, and he had but to hold up his hand to bring around and behind him the myriads who stood outside the railings. the action would have been impolitic, but what a temptation he crushed down, and what an effort it necessitated. never was his heroic nature more sorely tried. he justified his mastery of others by his mastery of himself. how small in comparison seemed the mob of his enemies! i never admired him more than at that moment. he was superb, sublime. they had wound their meshes about him, and the lion had burst them. one swift, daring stroke had frustrated all their plans. he who was to be quietly suppressed by resolutions of the house had cut the knot of their policy asunder, made himself the hero of the hour, and fixed the nation's eyes on his splendid audacity. reaction set in after that terrible struggle, and he accepted a chair that was brought him. several members passed as he sat there. one of them was the coward, frank hugh o'donnell. he had a lady on his arm, and he passed with her between himself and mr. bradlaugh, so that her dress trailed over the hero's feet. it was a wretched display of insolence and cowardice. but the lady must be exonerated. she looked annoyed, her cheeks reddened, and her eyelids fell. it is so hard for a woman to resist the attraction of courage, and the coward by her side must have suffered in her estimation. there was a crowded meeting that evening at the hall of science, at which i had the honor of speaking, mr. bradlaugh's greeting was tremendous. two days afterwards he was seriously ill. during that great constitutional struggle i was present at many "bradlaugh" meetings, and i never witnessed such enthusiasm as he excited. no man of my time had such a devoted following. the last "bradlaugh" demonstration i attended was on february , , in trafalgar-square. seventy or eighty thousand people were present. there were four speakers, and three of them are dead, joseph arch being the sole survivor. mr. adams, of northampton, lived to see his old friend take his seat and do good work in the house of commons, became himself mayor of northampton, and died universally respected by his fellow-townsmen; william sharman, a brave, true man, is buried at preston; and charles bradlaugh sleeps his long sleep at woking. for another twelve months i attended no public meetings except the silent ones on the exercise ground of holloway gaol, but i saw mr. bradlaugh at several demonstrations on various subjects after my imprisonment, and i could perceive no abatement of his popularity. he had his enemies and detractors, but the spontaneous outburst of feeling at his death proved his hold on the popular heart. i must now leap forward to that dreadful illness which left him a broken man. years before, in , when we were roaming the law courts together, he tapped his chest as he coughed, and seeing my anxious expression he told me that he brought up a good deal of phlegm in the morning, and that strangers who heard him clearing his chest would fancy he was very ill. but he looked so well that i soon dismissed the unpleasant fact, though it returned before his breakdown when i saw he was obliged to cancel engagements. i heard in , though not from himself, that he had some heart trouble. but i was far from prepared for the shattering illness that laid him low in october, . when i called to see him after his partial recovery i was shocked by his appearance. he looked twenty years older, grey, and infirm. i sat down half-dazed. theoretically i knew he was mortal, but i did not realise it as a fact until i saw him thin and pale from the valley of the shadow of death. his mind was clear enough, however; and although everything about him was pathetic he was quite self-collected. one thing he said to me i shall never forget. there had been talk of his wavering in his freethought, and as he referred to this folly he spoke in grave impressive tones. pointing to the humble bed, he said, "when i lay there and all was black the thing that troubled me least was the convictions of my life." words and accents were alike solemn. the cold shadow of death seemed to linger in the room. a moment or two later he said with a broken voice, "the freethought party is a party that i love." the memory of that interview will always be a precious possession. i treasure it with the sacred things of my life. i had seen and touched the naked sincerity of a great soul. when mr. bradlaugh returned from india i called on him, and found him greatly improved by his voyage. i waited for him a few minutes in his library, as he was at lunch, and the doctors attached great importance to regularity in his meals. he came into the room with a most genial smile. his air was fresh and buoyant, and he walked over to me quickly, holding out his hand all the way. i took it heartily, and had a good look at him, which satisfied and yet dissatisfied me. he was certainly better, but i could not help feeling that his constitution was irrecoverably broken. never again could i hope to see the grand bradlaugh of the old fighting days. his mind was as brave and alert as ever, but the body was too obviously disabled. he showed me some of his indian presents, of which he was justly proud, and then we sat down to chat. he was full of his voyage and the kindness he had experienced on every side. his reception in india had exceeded his highest anticipations, and he was looking forward to work in the house of commons on behalf of our great dependency. speaking of his financial prospects, he told me he had received offers of work from several magazine editors. but he added, "one doesn't know how long it will last; 'tis a precarious business." his face clouded for a moment, and i saw he was more troubled than he cared to say. one thing he told me which i had no right to repeat while he lived, but i may repeat it without a breach of confidence now that he is dead. during his brief stay in india he could have had plenty of money if he had been less scrupulous. there was nothing very dishonourable in accepting money from rich hindoos, for he was poor and broken in health, and he was fighting for their best interests. but he was too proud to take it, and when wealthy natives were calling on him, he always took the precaution to have an english friend in the room. "no," he said to me, "i cannot do that. i'll live like the old bradlaugh, or i'll go under." he lived like the old bradlaugh, and he went under. he took to the platform again to earn a livelihood, and it killed him, as his doctors had foreseen. i implored him at the time not to resume the lecturing. he was going to fulfil an old-standing engagement at manchester in the vast st. james's hall, and i begged him to cancel it. he replied that he could not afford to forfeit twenty pounds. "what is that to your life?" i asked. he only smiled grimly. his mind was made up, and he was not to be bent by advice. on sunday morning, february , , mr. bradlaugh resigned his presidency of the national secular society, which he had held for so many years. the hall of science was packed with members, chiefly from the london district, but many of them from the provinces. the scene was infinitely pathetic. one sentiment reigned in every heart. the old guard was taking leave of its general. some of them had fought around him for thirty years, and the farewell was a mutilation of their very lives. tears were streaming down strong faces; and they coursed down the strongest face of all, the face of charles bradlaugh, and plashed on the table before him. for a while he let them fall, and then he controlled his grief and rose to speak. but the words would not come. his frame shook with a great sob, and he sat down again. a second time he rose and failed. but the third time his strong will prevailed, and he began to speak in low, trembling tones. never was i so struck with his oratorical powers as on this occasion. without once lifting his voice above the note of conversation, he swayed the meeting for a full half-hour, as easily and universally as the wind billows a cornfield. in resigning the presidency he thought it his duty to nominate a successor, and his choice was ratified by the meeting. he handed me the president's hammer after a solemn, impressive apostrophe, in which he expressed his hope that he might thank me, after many years, for good, loyal work as leader; and when i had acknowledged the lofty honor he rose to vacate the chair. naturally i declined to let him do anything of the kind, and for a moment the two presidents stood together in friendly altercation. but for once he gave way, and charles bradlaugh filled the chair to the last. resigning the presidency did not mean retirement from the national secular society. at his own suggestion mr. bradlaugh was elected a life-member. he was thus a member of the society up to the last moment of his life. nor was he an inactive one. i frequently had occasion to consult him, and one of his last bits of work was the drawing up of a long document for the society on secular burials. months rolled by, and the evening came for the great debate on the eight flours bill between mr. bradlaugh and mr. hyndman. st. james's hall was packed to suffocation. i sat on the platform near my old leader, and i saw how the effort was telling on him. his opponents in the meeting behaved with incredible brutality. some of them laughed aloud when he said, "believe me, this has tried me more than i had thought." but now the hero they laughed at is dead, and they _know_ that he spoke the truth. the last time i saw mr. bradlaugh in public was on wednesday evening, december , , when he lectured at the hall of science on behalf of the forder testimonial fund. i believe that was the last lecture he delivered there, if not the last lecture he delivered anywhere. he dealt with the evidences of christianity, in reference to archdeacon watkins' lectures on the fourth gospel, and assuredly he was as firmly sceptical as ever. at the close of the lecture he spoke of his theological position, and declared that he could not conceive of any such change of mind as glib gossipers were asserting of him. the weather was extremely foggy, and mr. bradlaugh was ill. he ought not to have been there at all. after struggling painfully through the lecture, he sat down and waited for discussion. a christian opponent rose, and mr. bradlaugh replied; but, being in the chair, i would not allow a second speech, and i was glad to see him well wrapt-up, and once more in the care of his devoted daughter. ***** having concluded my reminiscences of charles bradlaugh in relation to the _events_ of his life, i shall wind up with a little personal talk of a more general character. i have already referred to mr. bradlaugh's extraordinary knowledge of the law. this was strikingly illustrated after the so-called trafalgar-square riots. the tories made a wanton aggression on the right of public meeting in london, and found a ready instrument of tyranny in sir charles warren. no doubt there is much to be said against promiscuous meetings in trafalgar-square at all hours of the day and night, but it was a high-handed act of brutality to prohibit _all_ meetings directly it was known that the london radicals were convening a sunday demonstration on the irish question. while the radicals were chafing under this insult they held several stormy meetings to discuss their best policy, and at last a committee was appointed to find out, if possible, the legal rights, of the people and the crown. i was a member of that committee, and i am able to state that although we waited on several eminent lawyers, it was only from mr. bradlaugh that we obtained any light. the others talked vaguely about the right of public meeting, and the primary and secondary uses of public thoroughfares, but mr. bradlaugh gave us the _facts_ of the case. trafalgar-square was crown property, its control was vested in the commissioner of works, and at any moment it could be absolutely closed to the british public. this had escaped the other lawyers, who did not find it in the statutes at large, from which the trafalgar-square act, probably as being a private one, had been excluded. nor was it known to the government when sir charles warren issued his first proclamation, as chief commissioner of police he had no authority-over the square, and until he obtained the order of its proper guardians, which he did a week later, his proclamation was only a piece of waste paper, mr. bradlaugh saw this, though he said nothing, when the demonstration committee called upon him a few days before bloody sunday. he told them that he had an engagement in the provinces on that day, but if they would postpone the demonstration until the following sunday he would himself lead it to trafalgar-square. his offer was not accepted, however; for the committee resented the condition he stipulated, namely, that he should have absolute control of the arrangements. they thought he was taking too much upon himself. they did not reflect that if he who takes power without responsibility is a despot, he who takes responsibility without power is a fool. it was their action, and not his, that lost the battle. mr. bradlaugh made no public parade of his brave offer. it was not his way. but it is due to his memory that it should be put on record, so that posterity may know the extent of his generous courage. there can be no doubt, i think, that mr. bradlaugh was less popular with the working-classes in london after he took peaceable possession of his seat in parliament. the london masses love a fighter, and while he was battling for his seat he was, in my opinion, the most popular figure in the metropolis. the radical workmen never tired of his demonstrations. he could bring fifty or a hundred thousand of them together at a few days' notice. and the other speakers were, for the most part, only padding to fill up the time. it was "bradlaugh" the multitude came for. they waited to hear him speak, they applauded him to the skies, and when he had done they dispersed. and on such occasions he was magnificent. no one can conceive the power of the man who never saw him at one of these demonstrations. he stood like a pharos, and the light of his face kindled the crests of the living waves around him. but he was out of sympathy with the socialist movement, which began to spread just as he took his seat; and being assiduous in parliament, he was drawn more and more from "the clubs," where his libellers and detractors wagged their tongues to some purpose. his strong individualism, as well as his practical good sense, made him bitterly hostile to the mildest proposals for putting the people's industrial interests into the hands of government departments. and being a man of most positive quality, it was natural that he should excite the hatred of the more fanatical socialists; a sentiment which, i cannot help thinking, he exasperated by his apparent denial of the generosity of their aims. there are men in the socialist camp (and i say it without being a socialist) who are neither "poets" nor "fools"--though it is no disgrace to be the former; men who have studied with severity and sincerity, who have made sacrifices for conviction, and who were sometimes hurt by his antipathy. but, on the other hand, he was bitterly goaded by socialist adversaries, who denied his honesty, and held him up to undeserved scorn as the hireling of "the classes"--a charge which the more sensitive among them must now repent, for his death has revealed his poverty. mr. bradlaugh was naturally irritable, but the irritability was only on the surface. the waves were easily raised, but there was plenty of quiet sea beneath. though giants are often phlegmatic, his big frame embedded highly-strung nerves. when he was put out he could storm, and he was misunderstood by those who took the mood for the man. had they seen him in the melting mood they would have learnt that charles bradlaugh was a more composite personality than they imagined. during the last year or two of his life he underwent a wonderful softening. a beautiful indian-summer light rested upon him. he was like a granite rock, which the sweet grass has overgrown, and from whose crevices peep lovely wild flowers. ***** as president of the national secular society he did a great work. i do not think he had a pronounced faculty for organisation. but he was a firm, sagacious leader, with the personal magnetism to attract devotion. that he was never overbearing i will not affirm. but it is easy to organise sheep. one good dog will do it. mr. bradlaugh had to hold together a different species, with leaping legs, butting horns, and a less gregarious tendency. he was a splendid chairman to push through a mass of business, but he shone less on ordinary occasions. an ideal chairman, when not promoting his own schemes, should be like a midwife; he should aim at a quick delivery and a safe birth. mr. bradlaugh did not always observe this rule. but every man has the defects of his qualities, and even the sun must be taken with its spots. mr. bradlaugh's speeches at the annual conferences of the national secular society are better reading than his political speeches. being less in the world of practice there, and more in the world of principle, he gave play to his ideal nature, his words took color, and metaphors flashed like jewels in the sword of his orations. it was a signal proof of his power, that after a whole day's exhausting work, both to himself and his audience, he never failed to rouse the wildest enthusiasm. now that mr. bradlaugh is dead i do not hesitate to repeat what i said during his lifetime, that his freethought work was the most fecund and important. even his great battle against the house of commons was for religious freedom against bigotry, and his one great legislative achievement was the act dealing with oaths and affirmation. his staunchest political supporters were his freethought followers. his lectures, his personal influence, and his reputation, leavened the public mind more than his orthodox enemies suspected, and he created a vast quantity of raw material to be utilised by his successors in secular organisation. ***** in the foregoing pages i have attempted no complete sketch of charles bradlaugh. i have written, not a monograph, but a number of rough jottings. yet i hope i have conveyed an impression of the man, in some degree faithful, to those who may have been imperfectly acquainted with him; and i trust the features i have presented, however baldly outlined, will be recognised by those who knew and loved him. when all is said and done, i think the final impression one retains of charles bradlaugh is his _heroism_. his was cast in a great mould of mind and character, as well as body. like every hero the world has ever seen, he had his defects and failings, for it is given to no man to be perfect. but positive excellence, with all its drawbacks, is far above negative merit. "thou shalt" is loftier virtue than "thou shalt not," and the hero is superior to the saint. charles bradlaugh was a colossus of manhood. he was one to design, and dare, and do. the beaten path of mediocrity had no attraction for that potent spirit. he belonged to the heroic type which seeks perilous ways and fresh conquests. like the hero of one of browning's poems, he was "ever a fighter." in stormy times he naturally rose to the top. he was one of the select few, not of those who enrich the world with great discoveries, or new principles, or subtle perceptions of beauty--but those who appeal to the heroism of man's nature, without which he is at best but a splendid beast, and who minister to that sense of dignity which is the supreme necessity of our race. the elements so mixed in him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world, "this was a man!" humanity's gain from unbelief by charles bradlaugh [reprinted from the "north american review" of march, .] london freethought publishing company, . humanity's gain from unbelief. as an unbeliever, i ask leave to plead that humanity has been real gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection of christianity--like the rejection of the faiths which preceded it--has in fact added, and will add, to man's happiness and well being. i maintain that in physics science is the outcome of scepticism, and that general progress is impossible without scepticism on matters of religion. i mean by religion every form of belief which accepts or asserts the supernatural. i write as a monist, and use the word "nature" as meaning all phenomena, every phænomenon, all that is necessary for the happening of any and every phænomenon. every religion is constantly changing, and at any given time is the measure of the civilisation attained by what guizot described as the _juste milieu_ of those who profess it. each religion is slowly but certainly modified in its dogma and practice by the gradual development of the peoples amongst whom it is professed. each discovery destroys in whole or part some theretofore cherished belief. no religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually out-grown. none see a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs; the decay is long and--like the glacier march--is only perceptible to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods. a superseded religion may often be traced in the festivals, ceremonies, and dogmas of the religion which has replaced it. traces of obsolete religions may often be found in popular customs, in old wives' stories, and in children's tales. it is necessary, in order that my plea should be understood, that i should explain what i mean by christianity; and in the very attempt at this explanation there will, i think, be found strong illustration of the value of unbelief. christianity in practice may be gathered from its more ancient forms, represented by the roman catholic and the greek churches, or from the various churches which have grown up in the last few centuries. each of these churches calls itself christian. some of them deny the right of the others to use the word christian. some christian churches treat, or have treated, other christian churches as heretics or unbelievers. the roman catholics and the protestants in great britain and ireland have in turn been terribly cruel one to the other; and the ferocious laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enacted by the english protestants against english and irish papists, are a disgrace to civilisation. these penal laws, enduring longest in ireland, still bear fruit in much of the political mischief and agrarian crime of to-day. it is only the tolerant indifference of scepticism that, one after the other, has repealed most of the laws directed by the established christian church against papists and dissenters, and also against jews and heretics. church of england clergymen have in the past gone to great lengths in denouncing nonconformity; and even in the present day an effective sample of such denunciatory bigotry may be found in a sort of orthodox catechism written by the rev. f. a. gace, of great barling, essex, the popularity of which is vouched by the fact that it has gone through ten editions. this catechism for little children teaches that "dissent is a great sin", and that dissenters "worship god according to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, and not according to his revealed will, and therefore their worship is idolatrous". church of england christians and dissenting christians, when fraternising amongst themselves, often publicly draw the line at unitarians, and positively deny that these have any sort of right to call themselves christians. in the first half of the seventeenth century quakers were flogged and imprisoned in england as blasphemers; and the early christian settlers in new england, escaping from the persecution of old world christians, showed scant mercy to the followers of fox and penn. it is customary, in controversy, for those advocating the claims of christianity, to include all good done by men in nominally christian countries as if such good were the result of christianity, while they contend that the evil which exists prevails in spite of christianity. i shall try to make out that the ameliorating march of the last few centuries has been initiated by the heretics of each age, though i quite concede that the men and women denounced and persecuted as infidels by the pious of one century, are frequently claimed as saints by the pious of a later generation. what then is christianity? as a system or scheme of doctrine, christianity may, i submit, not unfairly be gathered from the old and new testaments. it is true that some christians to-day desire to escape from submission to portions, at any rate, of the old testament; but this very tendency seems to me to be part of the result of the beneficial heresy for which i am pleading. man's humanity has revolted against old testament barbarism; and therefore he has attempted to disassociate the old testament from christianity. unless old and new testaments are accepted as god's revelation to man, christianity has no higher claim than any other of the world's many religions, if no such claim can be made out for it apart from the bible. and though it is quite true that some who deem themselves christians put the old testament completely in the background, this is, i allege, because they are out-growing their christianity. without the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of jesus, christianity, as a religion, is naught; but unless the story of adam's fall is accepted, the redemption from the consequences of that fall cannot be believed. both in great britain and in the united states the old and new testaments are forced on the people as part of christianity; for it is blasphemy at common law to deny the scriptures of the old and new testaments to be of divine authority; and such denial is punishable with fine and imprisonment, or even worse. the rejection of christianity intended throughout this paper, is therefore the rejection of the old and new testaments as being of divine revelation. it is the rejection alike of the authorised teachings of the church of rome and of the church of england, as these may be found in the bible, the creeds, the encyclicals, the prayer book, the canons and homilies of either or both of these churches. it is the rejection of the christianity of luther, of calvin, and of wesley. a ground frequently taken by christian theologians is that the progress and civilisation of the world are due to christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been nominal christians, of one or other of the sects. my allegation will be that the special services rendered to human progress by these exceptional men, have not been in consequence of their adhesion to christianity, but in spite of it; and that the specific points of advantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition to precise biblical enactments. a. s. farrar says ( ) that christianity "asserts authority over religious belief in virtue of being a supernatural communication from god, and claims the right to control human thought in virtue of possessing sacred books, which are at once the record and the instrument of the communication, written by men endowed with supernatural inspiration". farrar's "critical history of freethought". unbelievers refuse to submit to the asserted authority, and deny this claim of control over human thought: they allege that every effort at freethinking must provoke sturdier thought. take one clear gain to humanity consequent on unbelief, i.e. in the abolition of slavery in some countries, in the abolition of the slave trade in most civilised countries, and in the tendency to its total abolition. i am unaware of any religion in the world which in the past forbade slavery. the professors of christianity for ages supported it; the old testament repeatedly sanctioned it by special laws; the new testament has no repealing declaration. though we are at the close of the nineteenth century of the christian era, it is only during the past three-quarters of a century that the battle for freedom has been gradually won. it is scarcely a quarter of a century since the famous emancipation amendment was carried to the united states constitution. and it is impossible for any well-informed christian to deny that the abolition movement in north america was most steadily and bitterly opposed by the religious bodies in the various states. henry wilson, in his "rise and fall of the slave power in america"; samuel j. may, in his "recollections of the anti-slavery conflict"; and j. greenleaf whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that the bible and pulpit, the church and its great influence, were used against abolition and in favor of the slaveowner. i know that christians in the present day often declare that christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolition of slavery, and this because men professing christianity were abolitionists. i plead that these so-called christian abolitionists were men and women whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in this in direct conflict with christianity. it is not yet fifty years since the european christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade. what of the effect of christianity on these powers in the centuries which had preceded? the heretic condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedom whilst christian france was still slave-holding. for many centuries christian spain and christian portugal held slaves. porto rico freedom is not of long date; and cuban emancipation is even yet newer. it was a christian king, charles th, and a christian friar, who founded in spanish america the slave trade between the old world and the new. for some years, almost, christians kept slaves, bought slaves, sold slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. pious bristol and godly liverpool less than years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. daring the ninth century week christians sold slaves to the saracens. in the eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in rome, and the profit went to the church. it is said that william wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a christian. but at any rate his christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief. as an abolitionist he did not believe leviticus xxv, - ; he must have rejected exodus xxi, - ; he could not have accepted the many permissions and injunctions by the bible deity to his chosen people to capture and hold slaves. in the house of commons on th february, , wilberforce reminded that christian assembly that infidel and anarchic france had given liberty to the africans, whilst christian and monarchic england was "obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice". wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole influence of the english court, and the great weight of the episcopal bench, against him. george iii, a most christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the christian house of lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. when christian missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to demerara negroes under the rule of christian england, they were treated by christian judges, holding commission from christian england, as criminals for so preaching. a christian commissioned officer, member of the established church of england, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as the year . in the evidence before a christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having tended to make the negroes dissatisfied with their condition as slaves, and with having promoted discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against their lawful masters. for this the christian judges sentenced the demerara abolitionist missionary to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. the judges belonged to the established church; the missionary was a methodist. in this the church of england christians in demerara were no worse than christians of other sects: their roman catholic christian brethren in st. domingo fiercely attacked the jesuits as criminals because they treated negroes as though they were men and women, in encouraging "two slaves to separate their interest and safety from that of the gang", whilst orthodox christians let them couple promiscuously and breed for the benefit of their owners like any other of their plantation cattle. in the _royal gazette_ (christian) of demerara said: "we shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are by law our property, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious and knowing they will continue to be our slaves." when william lloyd garrison, the pure-minded and most earnest abolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery address in boston, massachusetts, the only building he could obtain, in which to speak, was the infidel hall owned by abner kneeland, the "infidel" editor of the _boston investigatory_ who had been sent to gaol for blasphemy. every christian sect had in turn refused mr. lloyd garrison the use of the buildings they severally controlled. lloyd garrison told me himself how honored deacons of a christian church joined in an actual attempt to hang him. when abolition was advocated in the united states in , the representative from south carolina was able to plead that the southern clergy "did not condemn either slavery or the slave trade"; and mr. jackson, the representative from georgia, pleaded that "from genesis to revelation" the current was favorable to slavery. elias hicks, the brave abolitionist quaker, was denounced as an atheist, and less than twenty years ago a hicksite quaker was expelled from one of the southern american legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of these abolitionist "friends". when the fugitive slave law was under discussion in north america, large numbers of clergymen of nearly every denomination were found ready to defend this infamous law. samuel james may, the famous abolitionist, was driven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely because of his attacks on slaveholding. northern clergymen tried to induce "silver tongued" wendell philips to abandon his advocacy of abolition. southern pulpits rang with praises for the murderous attack on charles sumner. the slayers of elijah lovejoy were highly reputed christian men. guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the church exerted its influence to restrain slavery, says ("european civilisation", vol. i., p. ): "it has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modern people is entirely due to christians. that, i think, is saying too much. slavery existed for a long period in the heart of christian society, without its being particularly astonished or irritated. a multitude of causes, and a great development in other ideas and principles of civilisation, were necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities." and my contention is that this "development in other ideas and principles of civilisation" was long retarded by governments in which the christian church was dominant. the men who advocated liberty were imprisoned, racked, and burned, so long as the church was strong enough to be merciless. the rev. francis minton, hector of middlewich, in his recent earnest volume ( ) on the struggles of labor, admits that "a few centuries ago slavery was acknowledged throughout christendom to have the divine sanction.... "capital and wages", p. . neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the decline of the belief in the righteousness of slavery can be defined. it was doubtless due to a combination of causes, one probably being as indirect as the recognition of the greater economy of free labor. with the decline of the belief the abolition of slavery took place." the institution of slavery was actually existent in christian scotland in the th century, where the white coal workers and salt workers of east lothian were chattels, as were their negro brethren in the southern states thirty years since; they "went to those who succeeded to the property of the works, and they could be sold, bartered, or pawned". ( ) "there is", says j. m. robertson, "no trace that the protestant clergy of scotland ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew up before their eyes. and it was not until , after republican and irreligious france had set the example, that it was legally abolished." "perversion of scotland," p. . "capital and wages ", pp. , . take further the gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. apart from the brutality by christians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initiative or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief in magic obtained. the inventions of the past two centuries, and especially those of the th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft and the shocking ferocity exhibited against those suspected of necromancy. after quoting a large number of cases of trial and punishment for witchcraft from official records in scotland, j. m. robertson says: "the people seem to have passed from cruelty to cruelty precisely as they became more and more fanatical, more and more devoted to their church, till after many generations the slow spread of human science began to counteract the ravages of superstition, the clergy resisting reason and humanity to the last". the rev. mr. minton concedes that it is "the advance of knowledge which has rendered the idea of satanic agency through the medium of witchcraft grotesquely ridiculous". he admits that "for more than years the belief in witchcraft was universal in christendom", and that "the public mind was saturated with the idea of satanic agency in the economy of nature". he adds: "if we ask why the world now rejects what was once so unquestioningly believed, we can only reply that advancing knowledge has gradually undermined the belief". in a letter recently sent to the _pall mall gazette_ against modern spiritualism, professor huxley declares, "... that the older form of the same fundamental delusion--the belief in possession and in witchcraft--gave rise in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries to persecutions by christians of innocent men, women, and children, more extensive, more cruel, and more murderous than any to which the christians of the first three centuries were subjected by the authorities of pagan rome." and professor huxley adds: "no one deserves much blame for being deceived in these matters. we are all intellectually handicapped in youth by the incessant repetition of the stories about possession and witchcraft in both the old and the new testaments. the majority of us are taught nothing which will help us to observe accurately and to interpret observations with due caution." the english statute book under elizabeth and under james was disfigured by enactments against witchcraft passed under pressure from the christian churches, which acts have only been repealed in consequence of the disbelief in the christian precept, "thou shaft not suffer a witch to live". the statute james i, c. , condemned to death "all persons invoking any evil spirits, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit", or generally practising any "infernal arts". this was not repealed until the eighteenth century was far advanced. edison's phonograph would years ago have insured martyrdom for its inventor; the utilisation of electric force to transmit messages around the world would have been clearly the practice of an infernal art. at least we may plead that unbelief has healed the bleeding feet of science, and made the road free for her upward march. is it not also fair to urge the gain to humanity which has been apparent in the wiser treatment of the insane, consequent on the unbelief in the christian doctrine that these unfortunates were examples either of demoniacal possession or of special visitation of deity? for centuries under christianity mental disease was most ignorantly treated. exorcism, shackles, and the whip were the penalties rather than the curatives for mental maladies. from the heretical departure of pinel at the close of the last century to the position of maudsley to-day, every step illustrates the march of unbelief. take the gain to humanity in the unbelief not yet complete, but now largely preponderant, in the dogma that sickness, pestilence, and famine were manifestations of divine anger, the results of which could neither be avoided nor prevented. the christian churches have done little or nothing to dispel this superstition. the official and authorised prayers of the principal denominations, even to-day, reaffirm it. modern study of the laws of health, experiments in sanitary improvements, more careful applications of medical knowledge, have proved more efficacious in preventing or diminishing plagues and pestilence than have the intervention of the priest or the practice of prayer. those in england who hold the old faith that prayer will suffice to cure disease are to-day termed "peculiar people", and are occasionally indicted for manslaughter when their sick children die, because the parents have trusted to god instead of appealing to the resources of science. it is certainly a clear gain to astronomical science that the church which tried to compel galileo to unsay the truth has been overborne by the growing unbelief of the age, even though our little children are yet taught that joshua made the sun and moon stand still, and that for hezekiah the sun-dial reversed its record. as buckle, arguing for the morality of scepticism, says ( ): "history of civilisation", vol. i, p. . "as long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger of god, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances. before they could dare to investigate the causes of these mysterious phænomena, it is necessary that they should believe, or at all events that they should suspect, that the phænomena themselves were capable of being explained by the human mind." as in astronomy so in geology, the gain of knowledge to humanity has been almost solely in measure of the rejection of the christian theory. a century since it was almost universally held that the world was created , years ago, or at any rate, that by the sin of the first man, adam, death commenced about that period. ethnology and anthropology have only been possible in so far as, adopting the regretful words of sir w. jones, "intelligent and virtuous persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity of the accounts delivered by moses concerning the primitive world". surely it is clear gain to humanity that unbelief has sprung up against the divine right of kings, that men no longer believe that the monarch is "god's anointed" or that "the powers that be are ordained of god". in the struggles for political freedom the weight of the church was mostly thrown on the side of the tyrant. the homilies of the church of england declare that "even the wicked rulers have their power and authority from god ", and that "such subjects as are disobedient or rebellious against their princes disobey god and procure their own damnation". it can scarcely be necessary to argue to the citizens of the united states of america that the origin of their liberties was in the rejection of faith in the divine right of george iii. will any one, save the most bigoted, contend that it is not certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family? is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them? if it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead as justification for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty for the utterance of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief. at one period in christendom each government acted as though only one religious faith could be true, and as though the holding, or at any rate the making known, any other opinion was a criminal act deserving punishment. under the one word "infidel", even as late as lord coke, were classed together all who were not christians, even though they were mahommedans, brahmins, or jews. all who did not accept the christian faith were sweepingly denounced as infidels and therefore _hors de la loi_. one hundred and forty-five years since, the attorney-general, pleading in our highest court, said ( ): "what is the definition of an infidel? why, one who does not believe in the christian religion. then a jew is an infidel." and english history for several centuries prior to the commonwealth shows how habitually and most atrociously christian kings, christian courts, and christian churches, persecuted and harassed these infidel jews. there was a time in england when jews were such infidels that they were not even allowed to be sworn as witnesses. in a legacy left for establishing an assembly for the reading of the jewish scriptures was held to be void ( ) because it was "for the propagation of the jewish law in contradiction to the christian religion ". it is only in very modern times that municipal rights have been accorded in england to jews. it is barely thirty years since they have been allowed to sit in parliament. in , the late mr. newdegate in debate ( ) objected "that they should have sitting in that house an individual who regarded our redeemer as an impostor". lord chief justice raymond has shown ( ) how it was that christian intolerance was gradually broken down. "a jew may sue at this day, but heretofore he could not; for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce has taught the world more humanity." lord coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no right of any kind, with whom no contract need be kept, to whom no debt was payable. the plea of alien infidel as answer to a claim was actually pleaded in court as late as . ( ) in a solemn judgment, lord coke says ( ): "all infidels are in law _perpetui inimici_; for between them, as with the devils whose subjects they be, and the christian, there is perpetual hostility". twenty years ago the law of england required the writer of any periodical publication or pamphlet under sixpence in price to give sureties for £ against the publication of blasphemy. i was the last person prosecuted in for non-compliance with that law, which was repealed by mr. gladstone in . up till the rd december, , an infidel in scotland was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in court on condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity. if he lied and said he was a christian, he was accepted, despite his lying. if he told the truth and said he was an unbeliever, then he was practically an outlaw, incompetent to give evidence for himself or for any other. fortunately all this was changed by the royal assent to the oaths act on th december. has not humanity clearly gained a little in this struggle through unbelief? omychund v. barker, atkyns . d'costa. d'pays, amb. . hansard cxvi. . lord raymond's reports , wells v. williams. ramkissenseat v. barker, atkyns . coke's reports, calvin's ease. for more than a century and a-half the roman catholic had in practice harsher measure dealt out to him by the english protestant christian, than was even during that period the fate of the jew or the unbeliever. if the roman catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which to a sincere romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the "jury packing" so much complained of to-day in ireland is one of the habit survivals of the old bad time when roman catholics were thus by law excluded from the jury box. the _scotsman_ of january th, , notes that in the rev. dr. robert lee, of greyfriars, gave a course of sunday evening lectures on biblical criticism, in which he showed the absurdity and untenableness of regarding every word in the bible as inspired; and it adds: "we well remember the awful indignation such opinions inspired, and it is refreshing to contrast them with the calmness with which they are now received. not only from the pulpits of the city, but from the press (misnamed religious) were his doctrines denounced. and one eminent u.p. minister went the length of publicly praying for him, and for the students under his care. it speaks volumes for the progress made since then, when we think in all probability dr. charteris, dr. lee's successor in the chair, differs in his teaching from the confession of faith much more widely than dr. lee ever did, and yet he is considered supremely orthodox, whereas the stigma of heresy was attached to the other all his life." and this change and gain to humanity is due to the gradual progress of unbelief, alike inside and outside the churches. take from differing churches two recent illustrations: the late principal dr. lindsay alexander, a strict calvinist, in his important work on "biblical theology", claims that "all the statements of scripture are alike to be deferred to as presenting to us the mind of god ". yet the rev. dr. of divinity also says: "we find in their writings [i.e., in the writings of the sacred authors] statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with what modern research has shown to be the scientific truths--i.e., we find in them statements which modern science proves to be erroneous." at the last southwell diocesan church of england conference at derby, the bishop of the diocese presiding, the rev. j. g. richardson said of the old testament that "it was no longer honest or even safe to deny that this noble literature, rich in all the elements of moral or spiritual grandeur, given--so the church had always taught, and would always teach--under the inspiration of almighty god, was sometimes mistaken in its science, was sometimes inaccurate in its history, and sometimes only relative and accommodatory in its morality. it assumed theories of the physical world which science had abandoned and could never resume; it contained passages of narrative which devout and temperate men pronounced discredited, both by external and internal evidence; it praised, or justified, or approved, or condoned, or tolerated, conduct which the teaching of christ and the conscience of the christian alike condemned." or, as i should urge, the gain to humanity by unbelief is that "the teaching of christ" has been modified, enlarged, widened, and humanised, and that "the conscience of the christian" is in quantity and quality made fitter for human progress by the ever increasing additions of knowledge of these later and more heretical days. men, women, and gods, and other lectures. by helen h. gardener. with an introduction by robert g. ingersoll. twelfth edition. new york: the truth seeker company, lafayette place. copyright, by helen h. gardener, . this little volume is respectfully dedicated with the love of the author, to mrs. eva ingersoll, the brave, happy wife of america's greatest orator, and woman's truest friend. in her beautiful home-life superstition and fear have never entered; human equality and freedom have their highest illustration; and time has deepened youthful love into a diviner worship than angels offer or than gods inspire. contents. introduction. men, women, and gods. accident insurance. chiefly women. why women support it. what it teaches. the fruit of the tree of knowledge. knowledge not a crime. as much inspired as any of it. vicarious atonement. fear. beginning to think. creeds. self-control what we need. vicarious atonement not a christian invention. twin monsters inherited from intellectual pigmies. geographical religion. revelation. evidence of faith. did he talk? what you may think. intellectual gag-law. the vicarious theory the cause of crime. revision. the church's money-box. shall progress stop? historical facts and theological fictions. church fictions. historical facts. civilization. comparative status. women as persons. education. as wives. not woman's friend. morals. introduction. nothing gives me more pleasure, nothing gives greater promise for the future, than the fact that woman is achieving intellectual and physical liberty. it is refreshing to know that here, in our country, there are thousands of women who think and express their own thoughts--who are thoroughly free and thoroughly conscientious--who have neither been narrowed nor corrupted by a heartless creed--who do not worship a being in heaven whom they would shudderingly loathe on earth. women who do not stand before the altar of a cruel faith with downcast eyes of timid acquiescence, and pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtless yes. they are no longer satisfied with being told. they examine for themselves. they have ceased to be the prisoners of society--the satisfied serfs of husbands or the echoes of priests. they demand the rights that naturally belong to intelligent human beings. if wives, they wish to be the equals of husbands--if mothers, they wish to rear their children in the atmosphere of love, liberty and philosophy. they believe that woman can discharge all her duties without the aid of superstition, and preserve all that is true, pure and tender without sacrificing in the temple of absurdity the convictions of the soul. woman is not the intellectual inferior of man. she has lacked--not mind--but opportunity. in the long night of barbarism physical strength, and the cruelty to use it, were the badges of superiority. muscle was more than mind. in the ignorant age of faith the loving nature of woman was abused, her conscience was rendered morbid and diseased. it might almost be said that she was betrayed by her own virtues. at best, she secured, not opportunity, but flattery, the preface to degradation. she was deprived of liberty and without that nothing is worth the having. she was taught to obey without question, and to believe without thought. there were universities for men before the alphabet had been taught to woman. at the intellectual feast there were no places for wives and mothers. even now they sit at the second table and eat the crusts and crumbs. the schools for women, at the present time, are just far enough behind those for men to fall heirs to the discarded. on the same principle, when a doctrine becomes too absurd for the pulpit, it is given to the sunday school. the ages of muscle and miracle--of fists and faith--are passing away. minerva occupies at last a higher niche than hercules. now, a word is stronger than a blow. at last we see women who depend upon themselves--who stand self poised the shocks of this sad world without leaning for support against a church--who do not go to the literature of barbarism for consolation, nor use the falsehoods and mistakes of the past for the foundation of their hope--women brave enough and tender enough to meet and bear the facts and fortunes of this world. the men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do not, and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their declaration. yet, i must admit that there are thousands of wives who still have faith in the saving power of superstition--who still insist on attending church while husbands prefer the shores, the woods, or the fields. in this way families are divided. parents grow apart, and unconsciously the pearl of greatest price is thrown away. the wife ceases to be the intellectual companion of the husband. she reads the "christian register," sermons in the monday papers, and a little gossip about folks and fashions, while he studies the works of darwin, haeckel and humboldt. their sympathies become estranged. they are no longer mental friends. the husband smiles at the follies of the wife and she weeps for the supposed sins of the husband. such wives should read this book. they should not be satisfied to remain forever in the cradle of thought, amused with the toys of superstition. the parasite of woman is the priest. it must also be admitted that there are thousands of men who believe that superstition is good for women and children--who regard falsehood as the fortress of virtue, and feel indebted to ignorance for the purity of daughters and the fidelity of wives. these men think of priests as detectives in disguise, and regard god as a policeman who prevents elopements. their opinions about religion are as correct as their estimate of woman. the church furnishes but little food for the mind. people of intelligence are growing tired of the platitudes of the pulpit--the iterations of the itinerants. the average sermon is "as tedious as a twice-told tale vexing the ears of a drowsy man." one sunday a gentleman who is a great inventor called at my house. only a few words had passed between us, when he arose, saying that he must go as it was time for church. wondering that a man of his mental wealth could enjoy the intellectual poverty of the pulpit, i asked for an explanation, and he gave me the following: "you know that i am an inventor. well, the moment my mind becomes absorbed in some difficult problem, i am afraid that something may happen to distract my attention. now, i know that i can sit in church for an hour without the slightest danger of having the current of my thought disturbed." most women cling to the bible because they have been taught that to give up that book is to give up all hope of another life--of ever meeting again the loved and lost. they have also been taught that the bible is their friend, their defender, and the real civilizer of man. now if they will only read this book--these three lectures, without fear, and then read the bible, they will see that the truth or falsity of the dogma of inspiration has nothing to do with the question of immortality. certainly the old testament does not teach us that there is another life, and upon that question, even the new is obscure and vague. the hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs. there is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. united with the idea of immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. a prophecy that depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy the brain or heart. there are but few who do not long for a dawn beyond the night. and this longing is born of, and nourished by, the heart. love wrapped in shadow--bending with tear-filled eyes above its dead, convulsively clasps the outstretched hand of hope. i had the pleasure of introducing helen h. gardener to her first audience, and in that introduction said a few words that i will repeat, "we do not know, we can not say whether death is a wall or a door, the beginning or end of a day, the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings. the rise or the set of a sun, of an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one. "under the seven-hued arch of hope let the dead sleep." they will also discover, as they read the "sacred volume," that it is not the friend of woman. they will find that the writers of that book, for the most part, speak of woman as a poor beast of burden--a serf, a drudge, a kind of necessary evil--as mere property. surely a book that upholds polygamy is not the friend of wife and mother. even christ did not place woman on an equality with man. he said not one word about the sacredness of home, the duties of the husband to the wife--nothing calculated to lighten the hearts of those who bear the saddest burdens of this life. they will also find that the bible has not civilized mankind. a book that establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to soften the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of god. a book that not only permits, but commands religious persecution, has not in my judgment developed the affectional nature of man. its influence has been bad and bad only. it has filled the world with bitterness, revenge, and crime, and retarded in countless ways the progress of our race. the writer of this little volume has read the bible with open eyes. the mist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision. she has had the courage to tell the result of her investigations. she has been quick to discover contradictions. she appreciates the humorous side of the stupidly solemn. her heart protests against the cruel, and her brain rejects the childish, the unnatural, and absurd. there is no misunderstanding between her head and heart. she says what she thinks, and feels what she says. no human being can answer her arguments. there is no answer. all the priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. there is no explanation. they should remain dumb, unless they can show that the impossible is the probable--that slavery is better than freedom--that polygamy is the friend of woman--that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love and worship. wives who cease to learn--who simply forget and believe, will fill the evening of their lives with barren sighs and bitter tears. the mind should outlast youth. if, when beauty fades, thought, the deft and unseen sculptor, hath not left his subtle lines upon the face, then all is lost. no charm is left. the light is out. there is no flame within to glorify the wrinkled clay. robert g. ingersoll. hoffman house, new york, july , . men, women, and gods. it is thought strange and particularly shocking by some persons for a woman to question the absolute correctness of the bible. she is supposed to be able to go through this world with her eyes shut, and her mouth open wide enough to swallow jonah and the garden of eden without making a wry face. it is usually recounted as one of her most beautiful traits of character that she has faith sufficient to float the ark without inspecting the animals. so it is thought strange that a woman should object to any of the teachings of the patriarchs. i claim, however, that if she honestly thinks there is anything wrong about them, she has a right to say so. i claim that i have a right to offer my objections to the bible from the standpoint of a woman. i think that it is fair, at least, to put the case before you as it looks to me, using the bible itself as my chief witness. that book i think degrades and belittles women, and i claim the right to say why i think so. the opposite opinion has been stated by hundreds of people, hundreds of times, for hundreds of years, so that it is only fair that i be allowed to bring in a minority report. women have for a long time been asking for the right to an education, for the right to live on an equal footing with their brothers, and for the right to earn money honestly; while at the same time they have supported a book and a religion which hold them as the inferiors of their sons and as objects of contempt and degradation with jehovah. they have sustained a so-called "revelation" which holds them as inferior and unclean things. now it has always seemed to me that these women are trying to stand on both sides of the fence at the same time--and that neither foot touches. i think they are making a mistake. i think they are making a mistake to sustain any religion which is based upon faith. even though a religion claim a superhuman origin--and i believe they all claim that--it must be tested by human reason, and if our highest moral sentiments revolt at any of its dictates, its dictates must go. for the only good thing about any religion is its morality, and morality has nothing to do with faith. the one has to do with right actions in this world; the other with unknown quantities in the next. the one is a necessity of time; the other a dream of eternity. morality depends upon universal evolution; faith upon special "revelation;" and no woman can afford to accept any "revelation" that has yet been offered to this world. that moses or confucius, mohammed or paul, abraham or brigham young asserts that his particular dogma came directly from god, and that it was a personal communication to either or all of these favored individuals, is a fact that can have no power over us unless their teachings are in harmony with our highest thought, our noblest purpose, and our purest conception of life. which of them can bear the test? not one "revelation" known to man to-day can look in the face of the nineteenth century and say, "i am parallel with your richest development; i still lead your highest thought; none of my teachings shock your sense of justice." not one. it is faith in "revelation" that makes a mother tear from her arms a tender, helpless child and throw it in the ganges--to appease the gods! it is a religion of faith that teaches the despicable principle of caste--and that religion was invented by those who profited by caste. it was our religion of faith that sustained the institution of slavery--and it had for its originators dealers in human flesh. it is the mormon's religion of faith, his belief in the bible and in the wisdom of solomon and david, that enables the monster of polygamy to flaunt its power and its filth in the face of the morality of the nineteenth century, which has outgrown the jehovah of the jews. every religion must be tried at the bar of human justice, and stand or fall by the verdict there. it has no right to crouch behind the theory of "inspiration" and demand immunity from criticism; and yet that is just what every one of them does. they all claim that we have no right to use our reason on their inventions. but evil cannot be made good by revelation, and good cannot be made evil by persecution. a "revelation" that teaches us to trample on purity, or bids us despise beauty--that gives power to vice or crushes the weak--is an evil. the dogma that leads us to ignore our humanity, that asks us to throw away our pleasures, that tells us to be miserable here in order that we may be happy hereafter, is a doctrine built upon a false philosophy, cruel in its premises and false in its promises. and the religion that teaches us that believing vice is holier than unbelieving virtue is a grievous wrong. credulity is not a substitute for morality. belief is not a question of right or wrong, it is a question of mental organization. man cannot believe what he will, he must believe what he must. if his brain tells him one thing and his catechism tells him another, his brain ought to win. you don't leave your umbrella at home during a storm, simply because the almanac calls for a clear day. a religion that teaches a mother that she can be happy in heaven, with her children in hell--in everlasting torment--strikes at the very roots of family affection. it makes the human heart a stone. love that means no more than that, is not love at all. no heart that has ever loved can see the object of its affection in pain and itself be happy. the thing is impossible. any religion that can make that possible is more to be dreaded than war or famine or pestilence or death. it would eat out all that is great and beautiful and good in this life. it would make life a mockery and love a curse. i once knew a case myself, where an eldest son who was an unbeliever died. he had been a kind son and a good man. he had shielded his widowed mother from every hardship. he had tried to lighten her pain and relieve her loneliness. he had worked early and late to keep her comfortable and happy. when he died she was heartbroken. it seemed to her more than she could bear. as she sat and gazed at his dear face in a transport of grief, the door opened and her preacher came in to bring her the comfort of religion. he talked with her of her loss, and finally he said, "but it would not be so hard for you to bear if he had been a christian. if he had accepted what was freely offered him you would one day see him again. but he chose his path, he denied his lord, and he is lost. and now, dear madam, place your affections on your living son, who is, thank god, saved." that was the comfort he brought her. that was the consolation of his religion. i am telling you of an actual occurrence. this is all a fact. well, a few years later that dear old lady died in her son's house, where she had gone on a visit. he broke her will--this son who was saved--and brought in a bill against her estate for her board and nursing while she was ill! which one of those boys do you think would be the best company for her in the next world? it has always seemed to me that i would rather go to hell with a good son than to heaven with a good christian. i may be wrong, but with my present light that is the way it looks to me; and for the sake of humanity i am glad that it looks that way. accident insurance. a church member said to me some time ago that even though the bible were not "the word of god," even though it were not necessary to believe in the creed in order to go to heaven, it could not do any harm to believe it; and he thought it was "best to be on the safe side, for," said he, "suppose after all it should happen to be true!" so he carries a church-membership as a sort of accident insurance policy. i do not believe we have a right to work upon that basis. it is not honest. i do not believe that any "suppose it should be" gives us the right to teach "i know that it is." i do not believe in the honesty and right of any cause that has to prop up its backbone with faith, and splinter its legs with ignorance. i do not believe in the harmlessness of any teaching that is not based upon reason, justice, and truth. i do not believe that it is harmless to uphold any religion that is not noble and elevating in itself. i do not believe that it is "just as well" to spread any dogma that stultifies reason and ignores common-sense. i do not believe that it is ever well to compromise with dishonesty and pretence. and i cannot admit that it "can do no harm" to teach a belief in the goodness of a god who sends an emerson or a darwin to hell because eve was fond of fruit, and who offers a reserved seat in heaven to christine cox because a mob murdered jesus christ. it does not seem to me good morals, and it is certainly poor logic. and speaking of logic, i heard a funny story the other day about one of those absurdly literal little girls who, when she heard people say they "wanted to be an angel," did not know it was a joke.. she thought it was all honor-bright. she was standing by the window killing flies, and her mother called her and said, "my child, don't you know that is very wicked? don't you know that god made those dear little flies, and that he loves them?" (just imagine an infinite god in love with a blue-bottle fly!) well, the little girl thought that was queer taste, but she was sorry, and said that she would not do it any more. by and by, however, a great lazy fly was too tempting, and her plump little finger began to follow him around slowly on the glass, and she said, "oh you nice big fly, did dod made you? and does dod love you? and does you love dod?" (down came the finger.) "_well, you shall see him_." yet we all know christians who love god better than anything else--"with all their hearts and soul and strength"--who prefer to postpone seeing him till the very last minute. they say it is because they have not "fulfilled their allotted time." why not be honest and say it is because they like to live? they "long to put on immortality;" but their sleep is sounder if they live next door to a good doctor. people say that men are infidels because it is easier--to rid themselves of responsibility. but it seems to me that anyone who advances the doctrine of "morality and works" instead of that of "repentance and faith," on the ground that it is easier, is laboring under a mistake. i don't see how any one could ask for an easier way of getting rid of his sins than the plan that simply unloads them on to another man. i fail to see anything hard about that--except for the man who catches the load; and i am unable to see anything commendable about it either. but it is not always easy for a man to be brave enough to be responsible for his own mistakes or faults. it is not always easy for a man to say "i did it, and i will suffer the penalty." that is not always easy, but it is always just. no one but a coward or a knave needs to shift his personal responsibility on to the shoulders of the dead. honest men and women do not need to put "providence" up between themselves and their own motives. a short time ago the wife of a very devout man apparently died, but her body remained so lifelike and her color so natural that her relatives decided that she could not be dead, and they summoned a physician. the husband, however, refused to have him administer any restoratives. he said that if the lord had permitted her to go into a trance and was anxious to bring her out alive he would do it. meanwhile he did not intend to meddle with providence. his maxim was, "whatever else you do, don't interfere with providence. give providence a good chance and if it doesn't come round all right for betsy, i think i can bear it--and she will have to." if we take care of our motives toward each other, "providence" will take care of itself. did you ever know a pious man do a real mean thing--that succeeded--who did not claim that providence had a finger in it? the smaller the trick, the bigger the finger. he is perfectly honest in his belief too. he is the sort of man that never has a doubt about hell--and that most people go there. thinks they all deserve it. has entire confidence that god is responsible for every word in the bible, and that all other bibles and all other religions are the direct work of the devil. probably prays for people who don't believe that way. he is perfectly honest in it. that is simply his size, and he usually pities anybody who wears a larger hat. chiefly women. but they say this is not a matter of reason. this is outside of reason, it is all a matter of faith. but whenever a superstition claims to be so holy that you must not use your reason about it, there is something wrong some place. truth is not afraid of reason, nor reason of truth. i am going to say something to-night about why i do not believe in a religion of faith. i am going to tell you some of the reasons why i do not believe that the bible is "inspired;" why i, as a woman, don't want to think it is the word of god; why i think that women, above all others, should not believe that it is. and since women are the bulwarks of the churches to-day, it seems to me they have the right, and that it is a part of their duty, to ask themselves why. since about seven-tenths of all church-members are women, surely the churches should not deny them the right to use their reason (or whatever serves them in that capacity) in regard to their own work. i saw some ladies begging the other day for money to pay off the debt of a $ , church, on the corner-stone of which were cut the words, "my kingdom is not of this world;" and i wondered at the time what the property would have been like if the kingdom had been of this world. it seemed to me that a few hundred such untaxed houses would be a pretty fair property almost anywhere. one of our prominent bishops, when speaking recently of church-membership, said, "the church must recruit her ranks hereafter almost entirely with children;" and he added, "the time has passed when she can recruit her ranks with grown men." good! and the new york _evangelist_ (one of the strongest church papers) says, "four-fifths of the earnest young men of this country are sceptics, distrust the clergy, and are disgusted with evangelical christianity." good again. the congregational club of boston has recently been discussing the question how to win young men to christianity. the rev. r. r. meredith said: "the churches to-day do not get the best and sharpest young men. they get the goody-goody ones easily enough; but those who do the thinking are not brought into the church in great numbers. you cannot reach them by the bible. how many did moody touch in this city during his revival days? you can count them on your fingers. the man who wants them cannot get them with the bible under his arm. he must be like them, sharp. they cannot be gathered by sentimentality. if you say to them, 'come to jesus,' very likely they will reply, ''go to thunder.' [in boston!] the thing to be done with such a man is to first get into his heart, and then lead him into salvation before he knows it." i don't know how good this recipe is, but i should infer that it is a double-back-action affair of some sort that could get into a man's heart and lead him into salvation before he knew it, and that if the church can just get a patent on that she is all right; otherwise i suspect that the goody-goody ones are likely to be about all she will get in large numbers. do i need any stronger, plainer evidence than this to show that the thought of the world is against it, and that it is time for women to ask themselves whether a faith that can hold its own only by its grasp upon the ignorance and credulity of children, a faith that has made four-fifths of the earnest men sceptics, a faith that has this deplorable effect upon boston manners, is one that does honor to the intellect and judgment of the women of to-day? we hear women express indignation that the law classes them with idiots and children; but from these orthodox statements it would seem that in the church they voluntarily accept about this classification themselves. if only these church-people go to heaven, what a queer kindergarten it will be, to be sure, with only a few male voices to join in the choruses--and most of those tenor. this religion and the bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. they ask her support and her love, and repay her with contempt and oppression. no wonder that four-fifths of the earnest men are against it, for it is not manly and it is not just; and such men are willing to free women from the ecclesiastical bondage that makes her responsible for all the ills of life, for all the pains of deed and creed, while it allows her no choice in their formation, no property in their fruition. such men are outgrowing the petty jealousies and musty superstitions of narrow-minded dogmatists sufficiently to look upon the question not as one of personal preference, but as one of human justice. they do not ask, "would _i_ like to see woman do thus or thus?" but, "have _i_ a right to dictate the limit of her efforts or her energy?"--not, "am i benefited by her ecclesiastical bondage and credulity? does it give me unlimited power over her?" but, "have i a right to keep in ignorance, have i a right to degrade, any human intellect?" and they have answered with equal dignity and impersonal judgment that it is the birthright of no human being to dominate or enslave another; that it is the just lot of no human being to be born subject to the arbitrary will or dictates of any living soul; and that it is, after all, as great an injustice to a _man_ to make him a tyrant as it is to make him a slave. whenever a man rises high enough to leave his own personality out of the question, he has gone beyond the stage of silly platitudes. his own dignity is too secure, his title to respect too far beyond question, for him to need such little subterfuges to guard his position, either as husband, as household-king, or as public benefactor. his home life is not founded upon compulsory obedience; but is filled with the perfume of perfect trust, the fragrance of loving admiration and respect. it is the domestic tyrant, the egotistic mediocre, and the superstitious church that are afraid for women to think, that fear to lose her as worshipper and serf. you need go only a very little way back in history to learn that the church decided that a woman who learned the alphabet overstepped all bounds of propriety, and that she would be wholly lost to shame who should so far forget her modesty as to become acquainted with the multiplication table. and to-day, if she offers her opinion and her logic for what they are worth, the clergy preach doleful sermons about her losing her beautiful home character, about her innocence being gone, about their idea of her glorious exaltation as wife and mother being destroyed. then they grow florid and exclaim that "man is after all subject to her, that he is born for the rugged path and she for the couch of flowers!"* * "a pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say that husbands indeed are willing to be reasonable, and to make fair concessions to their partners without being compelled to it, but that wives are not; that if allowed any rights of their own, they will acknowledge no rights at all in any one else, and never will yield in anything, unless they can be compelled, by the man's mere authority, to yield in everything. this would have been said by many persons some generations ago, when satires on women were in vogue, and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being what men made them. but it will be said by no one now who is worth replying to. it is not the doctrine of the present day that women are less susceptible of good feeling and consideration for those with whom they are united by the strongest ties, than men are. on the contrary, we are perpetually told that women are better than men by those who are totally opposed to treating them as if they were as good; so that the saying has passed into a piece of tiresome cant, intended to put a complimentary face upon an injury." --john stuart mill. you recognize it all, i see. you seem to have heard it somewhere before. i recall one occasion when i heard it from a country clergyman, who knew so much about heaven and hell that he hardly had time to know enough about this world to enable him to keep out of the fire unless he was tied to a chair. it was in the summer of , and i remember the conversation began by his asking a lady in the room about the centennial display, from which she had just returned. he asked her if she would advise him to take his daughter. she said she thought it would be a very nice thing for the girl, and she added, "it will be good for you. you will see so much that is new and wonderful. it will be of use to you in your work, i am sure." he said, "well, i don't know about that. there won't be anything much that is new to me. i've seen it all. _i was in philadelphia in _." then he gave us quite a talk on "woman's sphere." he could tell you in five minutes just what it was; and the amount of information that man possessed about the next world was simply astonishing. he knew pretty nearly everything. i think he could tell you, within a fraction or two, just how much material it took to make wings for john the baptist, and whether paul sings bass or tenor. his presbytery says he is a most remarkable theologian--and i don't doubt it. according to the law of compensation, however, what he does not know about this world would make a very comprehensive encyclopedia. but seriously, did it ever occur to you to ask any of these divine oracles why, if all these recent compliments are true about the superior beauty and virtue and truth and power resting with women--why it is that they always desire as heirs sons rather than daughters? you would think their whole desire would be for girls, and that, like oliver twist, their chief regret would be that they hadn't "more." but the bible (and the clergy, until quite recently) pronounces it twice as great a crime to be the mother of a girl as to be the mother of a boy. a crime to be the mother of a little child--a double crime if the child should be a girl.* * see appendix k. it is often urged that women are better off under the christian than under any other religion; that our bible is more just to her than other bibles are. for the time we will grant this, and respectfully inquire--what does it prove? if it proves anything it is this--that all "divine revelations" are an indignity to women, and that they had better stick to nature. nature may be exacting, but she is not partial. if it proves anything, it is that all religions have been made by men for men and through men. i do not contend for the superiority of other bibles, i simply protest against the wrong in ours. one wrong cannot excuse another. that murder is worse than arson does not make a hero of the rascal who fires our homes. if allah were more cruel than jehovah, that would be no palliation of the awful crimes of the old testament. that slaves have better clothes than savages cannot make noble traffic in human blood. a choice of evils is often necessary, but it does not make either of them a good. but there is no book which tells of a more infamous monster than the old testament, with its jehovah of murder and cruelty and revenge, unless it be the new testament, which arms its god with hell, and extends his outrages throughout all eternity! why women support it. another argument is that if orthodox christianity were not good for women they would not support and cling to it; if it did not comfort them they would discard it. in reply to that i need only recall to you the fact that it is the same in all religions. women have ever been the stanchest defenders of the faith, the most bitter haters of an infidel, the most certain that their form of faith is the only truth.* yet i do not hear this fact advanced to prove the divinity of the koran or the book of mormon. if it is a valid argument in the one case it is valid in the others. the trouble with it is it proves too much. it takes in the whole field. it does not leave a weed, from the first incantation of the first aborigine to the last shout of the last convert to mormonism, out of its range; and it does, and always has done, just as good service for any one of the other religions as it does for ours. it is a free-for-all, go-as-you-please argument; but it is the sort of chaff they feed theological students on--and they sift it over for women. it is pretty light diet when it gets to them--but it is filling. * see appendix g. recently i heard a clergyman give the following as his reason for opposing medical, or scientific training of any sort, for women: "now her whole energy and force of action (outside of the family) must be expended upon religion. if she were allowed other fields of action or thought, her energy, like that of man, would be withdrawn from and _fatally cripple the church_." to me, however, it seems that any organization that finds it necessary to cripple its adherents in order to keep them has a screw loose somewhere. and it also seems to me that it is time for women to try to find out where the trouble is. they will not want for aid from the men who think--the men who hold self vastly inferior to principle and justice--the rare noblemen of nature, honorable, fair, just, tender, and thoughtful men--men who love to see the weakest share with them the benefits of freedom--men who know that they are not the less men because they are tender, that women are not the less women because they are strong; and no land under the sky holds so many such as ours. what it teaches. it seemed to me that the time had come when women should know for themselves what the bible teaches for them and what the pulpit has upheld; so i have looked it up a little, and although i cannot soil my lips nor your ears with much of it, there is enough, i think, that i may use to make any self-respecting, pure woman blush that she has sustained it by word or act. the bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave,* that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob,** and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man. it teaches that a man may have any number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or change them around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a righteous man, and one of god's most intimate friends; and that is a pretty good position for a beginning. it teaches almost every infamy under the heavens for woman, and it does not recognize her as a self-directing, free human being. it classes her as property, just as it does a sheep: and it forbids her to think, talk, act, or exist, except under conditions and limits defined by some priest. * ex. xxi. . ** judges xix. ; gen. xix. if the bible were strictly followed, women and negroes would still be publicly bought and sold in america. if it were believed in as it once was, if the church had the power she once had, i should never see the light of another day, and your lives would be made a hell for sitting here to-night. the iron grasp of superstition would hold you and your children forever over the bottomless pit of religious persecution, and cover your fair fame with infamous slander, because you dared to sit here and hear me strike a blow at infinite injustice. every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women in a christian country has been "authorized by the bible" and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit. that seems strong language, no doubt; but i shall give you an opportunity to decide as to its truth. i will now bring my witnesses. they are from the "inspired word" itself, and therefore must be all that could be desired. i will read you a short passage from exodus xx. ; xxi. - : and the lord said unto moses, thus thou shalt say unto the children of israel, ye have seen that i talked with you from heaven. ******** _and if a man sell his daughter_ to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. if she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. the lord doesn't object to a man selling his daughter, but if any one thing makes him angrier than another it is to have her go about as the men-servants do after she is sold. on a little point like that he is absolutely fastidious. you may here notice that god took the trouble to come down from heaven to tell the girl what not to do after she was sold. he forgot to suggest to her father that it might be as well not to sell her at all. he forgot that. but in an important conversation one often overlooks little details. the next is joshua xv. - : and caleb said, he that smiteth kirjath-sepher, and taketh it to him will i give achsah my daughter to wife. and othniel the brother of caleb [and consequently the girl's uncle] took it: and he gave him achsah his daughter to wife. please to remember that the said caleb was one of god's intimates--a favorite with the almighty. the girl was not consulted; the father paid off his warriors in female scrip. the next is gen. xix. - : and they called unto lot, and said unto him, where _are_ the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us that we may know them, and lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, and said, i pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. behold now, i have two daughters * * * * * let me, i pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my root these men had come under the shadow of lot's roof for protection, it seems, and lot felt that his honor demanded that he should shield them even at the cost of the purity and safety of his own daughters! do you know i have always had a mild curiosity to know what his daughters were under the shadow of his roof for. it could not have been for protection, i judge, since lot was one of god's best friends. he was on all sorts of intimate terms with the deity--knew things were going to happen before they came--was the only man good enough to save from a doomed city--the only one whose acts pleased god; and this act seems to have been particularly satisfactory. these men were "angels of god" who required this infamy for their protection! if it takes all the honor out of a man when he gets to be an angel, they may use my wings for a feather-duster. now here is a little property law. num. xxvii.: and the lord spake unto moses, saying, and thou shalt speak unto the children of israel, saying, if a man die, _and have no son_, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. and our law works a little that way yet; being the result of ecclesiastical law it naturally would.* * see appendix n. and p. . next we have num. xxxvi.: and every daughter that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of israel, _shall be wife_ unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, _that the children of israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers_. neither shall the inheritance remove from _one_ tribe to another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children of israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance. _even as the lord commanded moses, so did the daughters of zelophehad_. that is all the women were for--articles of conveyance for property. save the land, no matter about the girls. now these silly women actually believed that god told moses whom they had to marry just because moses said so! i tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is not safe to take heavenly communications at second-hand. second-hand articles are likely to be varnished over, and have to be taken at a discount. and it seems to me that, if the lord is at all particular as to whom a girl should marry, she is the one for him to discuss the matter with. moses didn't have to live with the _sons_ of zelophehad, and consequently wasn't the one to talk the matter over with. but, you see, it won't do to question what moses said god told him, because upon his veracity the whole structure is built. he had more personal interviews with the deity than any other man--he and solomon--and hence they are the best authority. i have here the st chapter of numbers, but it is unfit to read. it tells a story of shame and crime unequalled in atrocity. it tells that god commanded moses and eleazar, the priest, to produce vice and perpetrate crime on an unparalleled scale. _it tells us that they obeyed the order, and that , helpless girls were dragged in the mire of infamy and divided amongst the victorious soldiers_. they were made dissolute by force, and by direct command of god! this one chapter stamps as false, forever, the claim of inspiration for the bible. that one chapter would settle it for me. do you believe that god told moses that? do you believe there is a god who is a thief, a murderer, and a defiler of innocent girls? do you believe it? yet this religion is built upon moses' word, and woman's position was established by him. it seems to me time for women to retire moses from active life. coax him to resign on account of his health. return him to his constituency. he has been on the supreme bench long enough. don't let your children believe in such a god. better let them believe in annihilation. better let them think that the sleep of death is the end of all! better, much better, let them believe that the tender kiss at parting is the last of all consciousness for them, and after that eternal rest! don't let their hearts be seared, their lives clouded, their intellects dwarfed by the cruel dread of the god of moses! better, thrice better, let the cold earth close over the loved and loving dust forever, than that it should enter the portals of infinite tyranny. next we will take deut. xx. - : when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. [good scheme!] and it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, _that_ all the people _that_ is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: _and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thy hands_, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, _even_ all the spoil thereof, _shalt thou take unto thyself_; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thy enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. the injunction to proclaim peace unto a city about to be attacked and plundered strikes me as a particularly brilliant idea. when you go to rob and murder a man, just tell him to keep cool and behave like a gentleman and you won't do a thing to him but steal all his property and cut his throat and retire in good order, god always seemed to fight on the side of the man who would murder most of his fellow-men and degrade the greatest number of women. he seemed, in fact, to rather insist on this point if he was particular about nothing else. and, by the way, if you had happened to live in one of those cities, what opinion do you think you would have had of jehovah? would he have impressed you as a loving father? here we have samuel v. , - : and david went on, and grew great, and the lord god of hosts was with him. and david perceived that the lord had established him king over israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people israel's sake. and david took him more concubines and wives out of jerusalem, after he was come from hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to david. the nearer he got to god--the more god was "with him," the more wives he wanted. next we have samuel xx. : and david came to his house at jerusalem, and the king took the ten women, his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them * * * * * so they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood. now what did david do that for? i don't know. it was such a trifling little matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason. perhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were those women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? weren't they his property? didn't those ten women belong to david? hadn't he a perfect right to shut them up and feed them if he wanted to? don't you think it was kind of him to feed them? i wonder if he sang any of his psalms to them through the key-hole. his son absalom had just been killed, and he felt miserable about that. he had just delivered himself of that touching apostrophe we often hear repeated from the pulpit to-day, to awaken sympathy for god's afflicted prophet: "o my son absalom, my son, my son absalom! would god i had died for thee, o absalom, my son, my son!" and i haven't a doubt that there were at least ten women who echoed that wish most heartily. it must have been carried in the family without a dissenting vote. to this god of the bible a woman may not go unless her father or husband consents. she can't even promise to be good without asking permission. this god holds no communication with women unless their male relations approve. he wants to be on the safe side, i suppose. i'll read you about that. it is in one of the chapters that are not commonly cited as evidence that god is no respecter of persons, and that the bible holds woman as man's equal; nevertheless it is as worthy of belief as any of the rest of it, and its "thus saith the lord" and "as the lord commanded moses" are "frequent and painful and free," as mr. bret harte might say. the chapter is numbers xxx.: and moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the children of israel, saying, this is the thing which the lord hath commanded. if a man vow a vow unto the lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. if a woman also vow a vow unto the lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth; and her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath; bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. but if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her. and if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered aught out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul; and her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard _it_; then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand. but if her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard _it_; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul, of none effect: and the lord shall forgive her. but every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced, wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against her. and if she vowed in her husband's house, or bound her soul by a bond with an oath; and her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her, _and_ disallowed her not; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hound her soul shall stand. but if her husband hath utterly made them void on the day he heard _them_; then whatsoever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her soul, shall not stand: her husband hath made them void; and the lord shall forgive her. every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void. but if the husband altogether hold his peace at her from day to day; then he establisheth all her vows, or all her bonds, which are upon her: he confirmeth them, because he held his peace at her in the day that he heard them. but if he shall any ways make them void after that he hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity. these are the statutes, which the lord commanded moses, between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, _being yet_ in her youth in her father's house. between man and his god they tell us there is no one but a redeemer; but between woman and man's god there seems to be all her male relations, which, i should think, would prevent any very close intimacy. and by the time the divine commands to woman were filtered through the entire male population, from moses to the last gentleman who, in the confusion natural to the occasion, misquotes "with all _thy_ worldly goods i _me_ endow," i should think it not impossible that some slight errors may have crept in, and the church should not feel offended if i were to aid her in their detection. here we have two or three passages that are said to be the words of jesus. i hope that is not true. but i, believing him to have been a man, can understand how they might have been the words of even a very good man in that age and with his surroundings; but the words of a perfect being--never! of course i know that we have no positive knowledge of any of the words of jesus, since no one pretends that they were ever written down until long after his death; but i am dealing now with the theological creation upon the theologian's own grounds. my own idea of jesus places him far above the myth that bears his name. and when they wanted wine, the mother of jesus saith unto him, they have no wine. jesus saith unto her, _woman, what have i to do with thee?_ --john ii, - . i hope that christ did not say that--for his manhood i hope so. i would rather believe that this is the mistake of some "uninspired" writer than think that one who in much had so gentle and tender a nature, was unkind and brutal to his mother. no one would attempt, in this age, to apologize for such a reply to so simple a remark made by a mother to her son. but they say "he was divine." they also tell us he was a perfect example; but with this evidence before me, i am glad our men are human. still i cannot pretend to say that this is not divine--never having made any divine acquaintances. i can only say, humanity is better. then again he is reported to have said a most cruel thing to the broken-hearted mother of a dying child, and i would rather believe the bible uninspired and keep my respect for jesus, the man. it will be better for this world to believe in jesus, the brave, earnest man, than in jesus, the cruel god. then jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of tyre and sidon. and behold, a woman of canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, have mercy on me, o lord, thou son of david; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. but he answered her not a word. then came she and worshiped him, saying, lord, help me. but he answered and said, it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. and she said, truth, lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. --matt. xv. do you think that was kind? do you think it was godlike? what would you think of a physician, if a woman came to him distressed and said, "doctor, come to my daughter; she is very ill. she has lost her reason, and she is all i have!" what would you think of the doctor who would not reply at all at first, and then, when she fell at his feet and worshiped him, answered that he did not spend his time doctoring dogs? would you like him as a family physician? do you think that, even if he were to cure the child then, he would have done a noble thing? is it evidence of a perfect character to accompany a service with an insult? do you think a man who could offer such an indignity to a sorrowing mother has a perfect character, is an ideal god? i do not. and i hope that jesus never said it. i prefer to believe that that story is a libel. it won't do. we have either to give up the "inspiration" theory of the bible, and acknowledge that it is the work of men of a crude and brutal age, and like any other book of legend and myth of any other people; or else to give up the claim that god is any better than the rest of us. you can take your choice. whenever a theologian undertakes to explain matters so as to keep the bible and the divine character both intact, i am always reminded of the story of the irishman who was given a bed in the second story of a lodging-house the first night he spent in new york. in the night the fire-engines ran past with their frightful noise. aroused from a deep sleep and utterly terrified, mike's first thought was to get out of the house. he hastily jerked on the most important part of his costume, unfortunately wrong side before, and jumped out of the window. his friend ran to the window and exclaimed, "are ye kilt, mike?" picking himself up and looking himself over by the light of the street lamp, he replied, "no, not kilt, pat, but i fear i am_ fatally twishted_." next we have god's opinion (on bible authority) as to the use of wives. they were to be forcibly changed around _as a punishment to their husbands_ and for offences committed by the latter. thus saith the lord, behold, i will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and i will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them unto thy neighbor. -- sam. xii. the latter part of the verse is omitted as being unfit to read. don't understand that i think any of it is exactly choice literature; but that cover has been used to silence objection long enough. if it is fit to teach as the word and will of god for women, it ought to be fit to read in a theatre--but it is not. what do you think of a religion that upholds such morals and such justice as that just quoted? what do you think of women supporting the bible in the face of that as the will of god? of all human beings a woman should spurn the bible first. she, above all others, should try to destroy its influence; and i mean to do what little i can in that direction. the morals of the nineteenth century have outgrown the bible. jehovah stands condemned before the bar of every noble soul. what moses and david and samuel taught as the word and will of god, we, who are fortunate enough to live in the same age with charles darwin, know to be the expression of a low social condition untempered by the light of science. their "thus saith the lord," read in the light of to-day, is "thus saith ignorance and fear"--no more, no less. if you will read the th chapter of leviticus, which is unfit to read here, you will see that the bible esteems it twice as great a crime to be the mother of a girl as to be the mother of a boy; so highly esteemed was woman by the priesthood; so great a favorite was she of jehovah.* * see appendix k. and do you know there is a law in the bible* which "the lord spake unto moses" that says if a man is jealous of his wife, "whether he have cause or not," he is to take her to a priest, and take a little barley meal (if you ever want to try it, remember it must be barley meal; i don't suppose the priest could tell whether she was guilty or not if you were to take corn meal or hominy grits) and put it in the wife's hands. and the priest is to take some "holy" water and scrape up the dirt off the floor of the tabernacle, and put the dirt in the water and make the wife drink it. now just imagine an infinite god getting up a scheme like that! then the priest curses her and says if she is guilty she shall rot.... "and she shall say amen." that is her defence! then the priest takes the stuff she has in her hands--this barley-meal "jealousy offering"--and "waves it before the lord." (i suppose you all know what that part is done for. if you don't, ask some theological student with a number six hat-band; he'll tell you.) and then he burns a pinch of it (that is probably for luck), and at this point it is time to make the woman drink some more of the filthy water (which he does with great alacrity), and "if she be guilty the water will turn bitter within her,"... "and she shall be accursed among her people." (you doubtless perceive that her defence has been most elaborate throughout.) do you think that water would be bitter to the priest? *see numbers v. - . but if she does not complain that the water is bitter, and if her "amen" is perfectly satisfactory all round, and she be pronounced innocent, what then? is the husband in any way reproved for his brutality? did the lord "reveal" to moses that he should drink the rest of that holy water and dirt? no! that wasn't in moses' line. neither he nor the husband drink the rest of that water--priest doesn't either; they don't even take a pinch of the barley. but after she is subjected to this, and the show is over, "if she be innocent, then shall she go free!" oh, ye gods! what magnificent generosity! i should have thought they would have hanged her then for being innocent. "and then shall the man be guiltless of iniquity, and the woman shall bear her iniquity." _if she is innocent she shall bear her iniquity_. you all see how that is done i suppose. if you don't, ask your little number six theological student, and he will tell you all about it, and he will also prove to you, without being asked, that he and god are capable of regulating the entire universe without the aid of general butler. but i am told that i ought to respect and love the bible; that all women ought to take an active part in teaching it to the heathen, to show them how good jehovah is to his daughters. but if he is, he has been unusually unfortunate in his choice of executors. nor is it only in the old testament that such morals and such justice are taught. the clergy put that part off by saying--"oh, that was a different dispensation, and god, the unchangeable, has changed his mind." that is the sole excuse they give for all the "holy" men, who used to talk personally with god, practicing polygamy and all the other immoralities. they maintain that it was god's best man who upheld polygamy then, and that it is the devil's best man who does it now. odd idea, isn't it? simply a question of time and place; and as col. ingersoll says, you have got to look on a map to see whether you are damned or not. but it does seem to me that a god that did not always know better than that, is not a safe chief magistrate. he might take to those views again, they say history is likely to repeat itself. anyhow, i would rather be on the safe side and just fix the laws so that he couldn't. it would be just as well. but now we have come to "st." paul and his ideas on the woman question. he worked the whole problem by simple proportion and found that man stands in the same relation to woman as god stands to man. that is, man is to woman as god is to man--and only a slight remainder. i'm not going to misrepresent this gifted saint. i shall let him speak for himself. he does it pretty well for a saint, and much more plainly than they usually do. wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, _as unto the lord,_ for the husband is the head of the wife, _even as christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body._ --ephesians v. the husband is the saviour of the wife! pretty slim hold on heaven for most women, isn't it? and then suppose she hasn't any husband? her case is fatal. therefore as the church is subject unto christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. --ephesians v. paul was a modest person in his requirements. in like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. -- timothy ii. it does seem as if anybody would know that braided hair was wicked; and as to "gold and pearls and costly array," all you have to do to prove the infallibility of paul--and what absolute faith christians have in it!--is to go into any fashionable church and observe the absence of all such sinfulness: but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. _let the woman learn in silence with all subjection_. but i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. for adam was first formed, then eve. and _adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived_ was in the transgression. -- timothy ii. according to the reasoning of verse man should be subject to all the lower animals, because they were first formed, and then adam. verse tells us that adam sinned knowingly; eve was deceived, so she deserves punishment. now i like that. if you commit a crime understandingly it is all right. if you are deceived into doing it you ought to be damned. the law says, "the criminality of an act resides in the intent;" but more than likely st. paul was not up in blackstone and did not use coke. this next is st. peter, and i believe this is one of the few topics upon which the infallible peter and the equally infallible paul did not disagree: likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. -- peter iii. i should think that would be a winning card. if the conversation of a wife, coupled with a good deal of fear, would not convert a man, he is a hopeless case. but here is paul again, in all his mathematical glory, and mortally afraid that women won't do themselves honor. but i would have you know, that the head of every man is christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of christ is god. every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. but every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head; for that is even all one as if she were shaven. for if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. for a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of god: but the woman is the glory of the man: for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. -- cor. xi. and that settles it, i suppose. but what on earth was man created for? i should not think it could have been just for fun. let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. -- cor. xiv. that is a principle that should entitle st. paul to the profound admiration of women. and yet, when i come to think of it, i don't know which one gets the worst of that either. whenever you want to know anything, ask your husband, at home! no wonder most husbands don't have time to stay at home much. no wonder they have to see a man so often. it would unseat any man's reason if he lived in constant fear that he might, any minute, be required to explain to a woman of sense, how death could have been brought into this world by eve, when every one knows that long before man could have lived upon this earth animals lived and died. it would make any man remember that he had to "catch a car" if he were asked suddenly to explain the doctrine of the trinity. i would not blame the most sturdy theologian for remembering that it was club night, if his wife were to ask him, unexpectedly, how nebuchadnezzar, with his inexperience, could digest grass with only one stomach, when it takes four for the oxen that are used to it. that may account, however, for his hair turning to feathers. i don't believe st. paul could have realized what a diabolical position he was placing husbands in, when he told wives to ask them every time they wanted to know anything--unless he wanted to make marriage unpopular. there is one thing certain, he was careful not to try it himself, which looks much as if he had some realizing sense of what he had cut out for husbands to do, and felt that there were some men who would rather be drafted--and then send a substitute. but why are his commands not followed to-day? why are not the words, sister, mother, daughter, wife, only names for degradation and dishonor? because men have grown more honorable than their religion, and the strong arm of the law, supported by the stronger arm of public sentiment, demands greater justice than st. paul ever dreamed of. because men are growing grand enough to recognize the fact that right is not masculine only, and that justice knows no sex. and because the church no longer makes the laws. saints have been retired from the legal profession. i can't recall the name of a single one who is practicing law now. have any of you ever met a saint at the bar? women are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position of hopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to jehovah, but to the justice and honor of the men who have defied his commands. that she does not crouch to-day where saint paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are grand and brave enough to ignore st. paul, and rise superior to his god. and remember that i have not read you the worst stories of the bible. the greater number of those which refer to women are wholly unfit to read here. are you willing to think they are the word of god? i am not. believe in a god if you will, but do not degrade him by accepting an interpretation of him that would do injustice to mephistopheles! have a religion if you desire, but demand that it be free from impurity and lies, and that it be just. exercise faith if you must, but temper it wisely with reason. do not allow ministers to tell you stories that are sillier than fairy tales, more brutal than barbaric warfare, and too unclean to be read, and then assure you that they are the word of god. use your reason; and when you are told that god came down and talked to moses behind a bush, and told him to murder several thousand innocent people; when you are told that he created a vast universe and filled it with people upon all of whom he placed a never-ending curse because of a trivial disobedience of one; give him the benefit of a reasonable doubt and save your reputation for slander. now just stop and think about it. don't you think that if a god had come down and talked to moses he would have had something more important to discuss than the arrangement of window curtains and the cooking of a sheep? since moses was the leader of god's people, their lawgiver, the guardian of their morals, don't you think that the few minutes of conversation could have been better spent in calling attention to some of the little moral delinquencies of moses himself? don't you think it would have been more natural for an infinite and just ruler to have mentioned the impropriety of murdering so many men, and degrading so many young girls to a life worse than that of the vilest quarter of any infamous dive, than to have occupied the time in trivial details about a trumpery jewel-box? since god elected such a man as moses to guide and govern his people, does it not seem natural that he would have given more thought to the moral worth and practices of his representative on earth, than to the particular age at which to kill a calf? if he were going to take the trouble to say anything, would it not seem more natural that he should say something important? in his numerous chats with solomon, don't you think he could have added somewhat to that gentleman's phenomenal wisdom by just hinting to him that he had a few more wives than were absolutely necessary? he had a thousand we are told, which leaves brigham young away behind. yet there are christians to-day who teach their children that solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, and that brigham young was very close to the biggest fool. it is not strange that some of these children infer that the trouble with brigham was that he had not wives enough, and that if he had only married the whole state of massachusetts he and solomon would now occupy adjoining seats on the other shore, and use the same jew's-harp? do you believe for one moment that a god ever talked with any man and told him to murder a whole nation of men, to steal their property, to butcher in cold blood the mothers, and to give the young girls to a camp of brutal soldiers--_and that he helped to do it?_ do you believe any god ever told a man to give so many of those girls to one tribe, so many to another, and to burn so many as an offering to himself? do you believe it? i don't. would you worship him if he had? i would not. and yet it is true that he did help in such work, or else the word of moses is not worth a nickel. god did this, or else our religion is founded upon a fraud. he did it, or orthodoxy is a mistake. he did it, or the bible is an imposition. if it is true, no woman should submit to such a fiend for an hour; if it is false, let her unclasp the clutches of the superstition which is built upon her dishonor and nourished by her hand. they say it is a shame for a woman to attack the bible. i say she is the one who should do it. it is she who has everything to gain by its overthrow. it is she who has everything to lose by its support. they tell me it is the word and will of god. i do not, i cannot, believe it! and it does seem to me that nothing but lack of moral perception or mental capacity could enable any human being who was honest (and not scared) to either respect or believe in such a god. as a collection of ingenious stories, as a record of folly and wickedness, as a curious and valuable old literary work, keep the bible in the library. but put it on the top shelf--or just behind it, and don't let the children see it until they are old enough to read it with discrimination. as a mythological work it is no worse than several others. as a divine revelation it is simply monstrous. among your other tales you might tell the children some from it. you might tell them that at one time a man got mad at another man, and caught three hundred foxes, and set fire to their tails (they standing still the while), and then turned them loose into the other man's corn, and burned it all up. if they don't know much about foxes, and have never experimented in burning live hair, they may think it is a pretty good story. but i would not tell them that the man who got up that torch-light procession was a good man. i would not tell them that he was one of god's most intimate friends; because even if they think he had a right to burn his enemy's crops, i don't believe that any right-minded child would think it was fair to the foxes. the fruit of the tree of knowledge. some time ago i went to hear a noted minister, who preached a sermon about the "fruit of the tree of knowledge" to a congregation composed, as most congregations are, chiefly of women. yet his sermon was a monument of insult, bigotry, and dogmatic intolerance that would have done honor to a witch-hunter several centuries ago. that women will subject themselves to such insults week after week, and that there are still men who will condescend to offer them, is a sad commentary upon their self-respect as well as upon the degrading influence of their religion. why will they listen to such nonsense? perhaps woman was made of a rib and so should be held as flesh and blood only, devoid of intellect. but i don't know that she was; i was not there to see, and, in fact, none of my family were; and since they tell us that the only gentleman present upon that interesting occasion was asleep, i don't know who could have told the story in the first place. it is always a surprise to me that women will sit, year after year, and be told that, because of a story as silly and childish as it is unjust, she is responsible for all the ills of life; that because, forsooth, some thousands of years ago a woman was so horribly wicked as to eat an apple, she must and should occupy a humble and penitent position, and remain forever subject to the dictates of ecclesiastical pretenders. it is so silly, so childish, that for people of sense to accept it seems almost incredible. according to the story, she was deceived. according to the story, she believed that she was doing a thing which would give greater knowledge and a broader life, and she had the courage to try for it. according to the story, she first evinced the desire to be more and wiser than a mere brute, and incidentally gave her husband an opportunity to invent the first human lie (a privilege still dear to the heart), a field which up to that time had been exclusively worked by the reptiles. but they never got a chance at it again. from the time that adam entered the lists, competition was too lively for any of the lower animals to stand a ghost of a chance at it, and that may account for the fact that, from that time to this, nobody has ever heard a snake tell a lie or volunteer information to a woman. the church has had a monopoly of these profitable perquisites ever since. the serpent never tried it again. he turned woman over to the clergy, and from that time to this they have been the instructors who have told her which apple to bite, and how big a bite to take. she has never had a chance since to change her diet. from that day to this she has had apple pie, stewed apple, dried apple, baked apple, apple-jack, and cider; and this clergyman that i heard, started out fresh on apple-sauce. he seemed to think--"anything for a change." you would have thought, to hear him, that the very worst thing that ever happened to this world was the birth of the desire for knowledge, and that such desire in woman had been the curse of all mankind. but it seems to me that if in this day of intelligence a minister preaches or acts upon such dogmas, women should scorn him both as a teacher and as a man. if a creed or church upholds such doctrines they should shun it as they would a pest-house. if any system or any book of religion teaches such principles they should exert every effort to utterly destroy its influence. i want to do what i can to show women that the mercury of self-respect must fall several degrees at the church door, and that the light of reason must go out. in this sermon that i speak of, we were warned "not to be wise above that which is written." as if a man should bind his thoughts and knowledge down to what was known, believed, or written in ages past! as though a man should fear and tremble, should hesitate to reach out after, to labor to know, all that his intellect and energy can compass. as though to be good he must accept situations, sentiments, ideas ready-made, and dwarf his intellect and bind his mental ability by the capacity of somebody else. "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear." "he that hath eyes to see, let him see." and he that hath a brain to think, let him think. what is his intellect for? why is his mind one vast interrogation point? why should not eve have grasped with eagerness the fruit of the tree of knowledge? a taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge does drive man from the paradise of ignorance, does send him forth a laborer in the vast fields of speculation and thought, where there is no rest, and no possibility of the cessation of labor so long as his energies and his love of truth remain to impel him to the conquest of the infinite domain that lies unexplored beyond. but would any man sell what is gained in liberty, in strength, in breadth, in conscious superiority, for the delights which every brute has left him in his stagnant paradise of ignorance and rest? what man in this nineteenth century can unblushingly say he would not choose the labor with all its pain, the effort with all its failure, the struggle with all its exhaustion? why try to bind the human mind by the silly theory that a god requires man to crush out or subject the intellect he has given him? whatever religion may have gained by such a course, think what morality and progress have lost by it! what has not woman lost by that silly fable which made her responsible for transgression? honor her for it! honor her the more if it was she who first dared the struggle rather than lose her freedom or crush her reason. _if_ she learned first that the price of ignorance and slavery was too great to pay for the luxury of idleness--honor her for it. the acceptance of such contemptible stories, as told by the clergy _in all ages and in all religions_ as the "word of god," has done more to enslave and injure women's intellects, and to brutalize men, than has been done by any other influence; and our boasted superior civilization is not the result of the christian religion, but has been won step by step in despite of it.* for the church has fought progress with a vindictive bitterness and power found in no other antagonist--from the time, long ago, when it crushed galileo for daring to know more than its "inspired" leaders could ever learn, down to yesterday, when it raised a wild howl against prof. tyndall for making a simple statement, in itself absolutely incontrovertible. * see lecture , "theological fictions." it had to yield to galileo as the people grew beyond its power to blind them to his truth. it is yielding every hour to-day to tyndall from the same dire necessity; while its nimble devotees vie with each other in proclaiming that they thought that way all the time; had neglected to say so (through an oversight); but that it was one of their very strongest holds from the beginning. they have recently told us that modern scientific doctrines (evolution included) are "plainly indicated in the bible," and that science has at last worked up towards the comprehension of scriptural truths. it used to be the fashion to burn the man who got up a new theory or discovered a new law of nature that interfered with the "revelation" theory; but the style now is to go into the mental gymnastic business and "reconcile" the old dogma with the new truth. the only kind of reconciling the church ever thought of in the days of her power, was to become reconciled to the death of the scientist or thinker. to-day she can take evolution and revelation, shake them up in a theological bag, and then bring them forth so marvellously alike in appearance that their own father would not know them apart. and the rest of us can't recognize them at all. to-morrow, when she has to yield her whole field to science, she will hasten to assure us that it was only a few mistaken souls who ever objected to col. ingersoll's style of theology; and that if we would only interpret the bible aright (and understood hebrew) we should at once discover that col. ingersoll was the "biggest card" they had had yet. you may not live until that to-morrow; i may not live until that to-morrow; but it is as sure to come as it is certain that the old tenets have yielded one by one before the irresistible march of an age of intelligence and freedom, in which a priest or a church can no longer be judge, jury, and counsel. not long ago i heard two gentlemen--one a very devout christian--talking about what use the church could make of col. ingersoll's teachings. one said he was such a moral man, and always insisted so strongly upon right action in this world, that it was a pity he did not have more faith. he said, "what a power he would be in the church! what a preacher he would make! he would be a second st. paul--i have been praying for years for his conversion." "well," said the other, "you needn't waste your time any longer; softening of the brain doesn't run in robert's family." knowledge not a crime. let man rid himself of the pernicious idea that knowledge is a crime, and then let only the man who is afraid to enter the world of thought go back to his native paradise of ignorance and rest. let him cling to his old ideas. humanity can do better without such a man, and humanity will be better without him. the time is past when his type is needed, and let us hope that it is nearly past when it can be found. he may have been abreast of the time in , but his grave was dug, his epitaph written, in . science did not wait for him, and the world forgot his name! do you think the world has any farther use for the man who can gravely tell those stories about samson, for instance, as truth--as the word of god? do you think they do honor to the most attenuated intellect? now just stop and think of it. just think of one thousand able-bodied men ( , is a good many men) quietly standing around waiting for sampson to knock them on the head with a bone! and how does the durability of that bone strike you? if prowess with arms were estimated, i should say that was about the most effective piece of generalship on record. if the gentleman who conducted that neat little skirmish were living to-day there would not be a question as to his eligibility for a third term, unit rule or no unit rule. if we could provide our generals with a bone like that, we might reduce the standing army sufficiently to reassure the most timid congressman of the whole lot. it would not take more than four or five generals and a captain to guard the whole frontier. then we might keep a private to keep the peace at the polls, and that would give us sufficient force to readily murder several thousand people any morning before breakfast, and i don't see how you could ask for anything better than that. two live men and one dead mule could raise a siege in a quarter of an hour. now, if there is anybody who wants to start "a brilliant foreign policy," here is his chance. he could at the same time make a record for economy, for it would be an enormous saving to this country in arms and ammunition alone. for durability, cheapness, and certainty not to miss fire there is simply no comparison at all. it may be objected that our soldiers are not so strong as samson; but i am told by those who are intimately acquainted with mules, that they have not deteriorated. they have simply transferred their superior strength and durability from their jaw-bones to their heels--and they engineer them themselves. so if our men can stand his voice and aim him right, they won't have to wear long hair. but seriously, if it is necessary to believe such stories as that in order to go to heaven, don't you think the admission fee is a trifle high? it is entirely beyond my means, and that is not one of the big stories either. the one that comes right after it is just as absurd. it is the second scene of the same performance, and samson only went out between acts for a drink, and then he playfully walked off with a building about the size of the capitol at washington. they say we must believe these tales or be damned; and that a woman has not even a right to say, "i object." but it always did seem to me that anybody who could believe them would not have brains enough to know whether he was damned or not. they say we must not laugh at such very solemn things as that. they also say that even if we don't believe them ourselves we should show respect for those who do. that is a very good theory, but i should like to know how any human being with a sense of humor could sit and look solemn, and feel very respectful, with that sort of chaff rattling down his back. it can't be done unless he is scared. fear will convince a man the quickest of anything on earth. even a shadow is provocative of solemnity if the night is dark enough and the man is sufficiently scared. ignorance and fear made the garden of eden, they created jehovah, gave samson his wonderful strength, and solomon his wisdom; they divided the red sea, and raised lazarus from the dead. it is not strange, therefore, that they have compelled women to cling to the church, and slaves to cling to slavery. there were many black men in the south who voluntarily went back and offered to remain in bondage. and that is one of the strongest arguments against the institution of slavery--that it can so far degrade its victims that they lose even the ambition to be free!* * "it was quite an ordinary fact in greece and rome for slaves to submit to death by torture rather than betray their masters. yet we know how cruelly many romans treated their slaves. but in truth these intense individual feelings nowhere rise to such a luxuriant height as under the most atrocious institutions. it is part of the irony of life, that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems susceptible, are called forth in human beings toward those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power. how great a place in most men this sentiment fills, even in religious devotion, it would be cruel to inquire. we daily see how much their gratitude to heaven appears to be stimulated by the _contemplation of fellow-creatures to whom god has not been so merciful as he has to themselves_." --mill. the time is not far distant when a bondage of the intellect to the church will receive no more respectful consideration than a bondage of the body to a master. this nineteenth century cannot much longer be bound by the ignorance and intolerance of an age when might was the highest law and force the only appeal. we need to recognize that the broadest possible liberty is the greatest possible good; and that the liberty to think is the highest good of all. so don't let people make you afraid to think, or to laugh at nonsense wherever you see it. solomon saying it cannot make a silly thing wise, nor moses doing it a cruel thing kind. david cannot make brutality gentle, nor paul injustice just; and that the bible sustains a wrong can never make it right. don't you know that if the leading men of the old testament were living to-day, they would be known as liars, thieves, and murderers--some indeed as monsters to whom even these terms would be base flattery. despoilers of those who had not injured them; infamous liars in the name of god; murderers of men; butchers of children; debauchers of women; if they were living in the nineteenth century they would be unanimously elected to the gallows--that is if they escaped judge lynch long enough. and yet they are held up to us, who have outgrown their morals, as authorities on the subject of god's will to man, as prophets, saints, mediators! do you want your children taught to believe in the purity and honor of such men? do you want your children taught to worship a god who sanctioned, commanded, and gloried (and usually participated) in their worst crimes? do you want them to believe that at any time, in any age, a god was the director in the most heinous crimes, in the vilest plots, in the most cruel, vulgar, cowardly acts of vice that were ever recorded? either he was or else moses' word is not worth a copper, and theology is the invention of ignorance. he did these hideous things or the bible is mistaken about it. there is to-day that kind of a god somewhere in space waiting around to pounce on anybody who doesn't admire him, or else the church is founded upon the ignorance and fear of its dupes, and teaches them what is not true. they say it is wicked to inquire into the facts. i say it is wrong not to. it seems to me that in a matter like this the most important thing is to be honest all round, and that if the claims of the church are true no inquiry can injure them. they say, "oh, well, drop all the bad part, and only take the good. there is a great deal of good in it too." but if i don't know what is good myself i won't go to moses and that class of men to find out. i'll go to somebody who has got a clean record. i won't go to men who robbed and murdered in the name of god; i won't go to men who bought and sold their fellow-men; i won't go to men who gave their own daughters over to the hate and lust of others, even bargaining for them with sons and brothers. such men cannot tell me what is good. such men cannot make a religion for me to live by, or a god that i can accept. i am sometimes told that intelligent ministers nowadays do not believe in the inspiration of the bible, and do not teach it. yet every minister who, like the rev. r. heber newton, dares to suggest mildly that even the apple story is a fable, is silenced by his bishop or hounded down for "heresy." and still they go right on telling little children that it is the "word of god" and the only guide of life. for truth, better give them aesop's fables or the arabian nights; for purity the decameron or don juan; for examples of justice the story of blue-beard or the life of henry the eighth. i wish you would read the bible carefully _just as you would any other book_, and see what you think of its morals. i am debarred from touching the parts of it that are the greatest insult to purity and the most infamous travesties of justice. i can only say to you, read it, and if you are lovers of purity you will find that it teaches respect for a god who taught the most degrading impurity and defended those who forced it upon others. if you believe in the sacredness of human life, he gave the largest license to murder. it does not matter that moses said he told him _to tell somebody else_ "thou shalt not kill;"* for the same gentleman remarked upon several other occasions that god told him not only to kill, but to steal, to lie, to commit arson, to break pretty much all the other commandments--and to be a professional tramp besides. (i am told that he followed this latter occupation for forty years, which i should think would give him the belt.) so you see we have the same gentleman's word for all of it; and at times, i must confess, it does not seem to me absolutely reliable authority. there is one thing certain, if the returns are correct, and that is that moses did not take his own medicine in the little matter of keeping the commandments. they were for his enemies and his slaves. * see lecture , "theological fictions." if you love liberty remember that the bible teaches slavery in every form, not only the buying of slaves, but the stealing them into bondage. how any man or woman who censured slavery in our southern states can permit their children to be taught that the bible is a book of authority, and think they are consistent, i cannot understand. every slave-whip had for its lash the bible. every slave-holder had its teachings for his guide. every slave-driver found his authority there. when the sword of the north severed the thongs of the black man, it destroyed the absolute control of the bible in america; and gave a fatal blow to jehovah the god of oppression. only in the south is it that the bible still holds its own. freedom has outgrown it; and the young south is reading it, for the first time, with an eraser! if you respect your mother, if you wish your children to respect theirs, you will find that the bible teaches not only disrespect for her, but abject slavery and the most oppressive degradation. if you love your young sister, your beautiful pure daughter, remember that jehovah taught that, whenever men could do so, they were to abuse, ruin, degrade them; and remember, further, that his "prophets"--_the men who made our religion--did these things and gloried in the work_. it is for this reason that i say it is right and peculiarly fitting that women should object to his teaching. after you have read the st ch. of numbers, with its "thus saith the lord," think then if you want to follow such teachings. decide then whether or not the words, the acts, the commands, or the religion of such men is good enough for you. think then whether or not you want your daughters, your sons, to believe that the bible has one grain of authority, or is in any sense a "revelation of the divine will." don't allow ministers to palm off platitudes on you for "revelation;" and don't let them make you believe that anything that moses or david or solomon said was the command of god to women. neither one of those men was fit to speak of a respectable woman. with the superior morals of our time neither one of them would be considered fit to live outside of a brothel. and don't let them tell you what "saint" paul said either. what did he know about women anyway? he was a brilliant but erratic old bachelor who fought on whichever side he happened to find himself on. he could accommodate himself to circumstances and accept the situation almost as gracefully as that other biblical gentleman who quietly went to housekeeping inside of a whale, and held the fort for three days. as much inspired as any of it. did it ever occur to you that those absurd tales have as much claim to be called the "word of god" as any of the rest of it? how can people say they believe such nonsense? and how can they think it is evidence of goodness to believe it? they say it takes a horribly wicked man to doubt one of those yarns; and to come right out and say honestly, "i don't believe it," will elect you, on the first ballot, to a permanent seat in the lower house. mr. talmage says four out of five christians "try to explain away" these tales by giving them another meaning, and he urges them not to do it. he says, stick to the original story in all its literal bearings. the advice is certainly honest, but it would take a brave man to follow it. and four out of five of even professed christians is a pretty heavy balance on the side of intellectual integrity; and even mr. tal-mage's mammoth credulity fails to tip the scale. they simply can't believe these biblical stones, so they try to explain the marvellous part entirely away. it has about come to this, in this day of thought and intelligence, that when a thinking man claims to believe these tales, and says it is an evidence of righteousness to believe them, there are just two things to examine, his intellect and his integrity. if one is all right the other is pretty sure to be out of repair. defective intellect or doubtful integrity is what he suffers from. he has got one of them sure, and he may have both. now i should just like to ask you one honest question. why should any book bind us to sentiments that we would not tolerate if they came from any other source? and why tolerate them coming from it? do you know who compiled the bible? do you know it was settled by vote which manuscripts god did and which he did not write? the ballot is a very good thing to have; but i decline to have it extend its power into eternity, and bind my brain by the capacity of a ballot-box held by caste and saturated with blood. there can be but slow progress while we are weighted down by the superstitions of ages past. the brain of the nineteenth century should not be bound down to the capacity of the third, nor its moral sentiment dwarfed to fit jehovah. but so long as the theories of revelation and vicarious atonement are taught, we shall not need to be surprised that every murderer who is hanged to-day says that he is going, with bloody hands, directly into companionship with the deity of revelation. he has had ample time in prison to re-read in the bible (what he had previously been taught in sunday school), of many worse crimes than his which his spiritual adviser assures him (to the edification and encouragement of all his kind outside) were not only forgiven, but were actually ordered and participated in, by the god he is going to. that is what orthodoxy tells him! just think of it! do you think that is a safe doctrine to teach to the criminal classes? aside from its being dishonest, is it safe? does it not put a premium on crime? i maintain that it is always a dangerous religion where faith in a given dogma, and not continuous uprightness of life, is the standard of excellence. it is a cruel religion where force is king and immorality god. it is an unjust religion which seeks to make women serfs and men tyrants. it is an unreasonable religion where credulity usurps the place of intellect and judgment. it is an immoral religion where vice is deified and virtue strangled. it is a cowardly religion where an innocent man, who was murdered , years ago, is asked to bear the burden of your wrong acts to-day. aside from its impossibility that is cowardly. man should be taught that for every wrong he does, he must himself be responsible--not that some one else stands between him and absolute personal responsibility--not that eve caused him to sin, nor that christ stands between him and full accountability for his every act. and he should be taught that for every noble deed, for every act of justice or mercy, he deserves the credit himself; that christ does not need it; that christ cannot want it; and that christ does not deserve it. and you will not want to "wash your hands in the blood of christ," nor to shed that of any other innocent man, if your motives are pure and your lives clean. ***** vicarious atonement. in an art collection in boston there is a god--a redeemer--the best illustration i have ever seen of the vicarious atonement theory. it is a perfect representation of the agony endured by a helpless and innocent being in order to relieve the guilty of their guilt. this god was captured in central africa before his mission was complete, and there is still suffering-space upon his body unused. it is a wooden image of some frightful beast, and it is represented as suffering the most intense physical agony. nails are driven into its head, body, legs, and feet. each wrongdoer who wanted to relieve himself of his own guilt drove a nail, a tack, a brad, or a spike into the flesh of his god. the god suffered the pain; the man escaped the punishment. he cast his burdens on his god, and went on his way rejoicing. here is vicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. the god is writhing and distorted with pain; the criminal has relieved himself of further responsibility, and his faith has made him whole. his sins are forgiven, and his god will assume his load. it is curious to examine the various illustrations of human nature as represented by the size and shape of the nails. a sensitive man had committed a trifling offence, and he drove a great spike into the head of the god. a thick-skinned criminal inserted a small tack where it would do the least harm--in the hoof. an honest, or an egotistic penitent drove his nail in where it stands out prominently; while the secretive devotee placed his among a mass of others of long standing and inconspicuous location. one day i stood with a friend looking at this god. my friend, who was a devout believer in the vicarious theory of justification and punishment as explained _away_ by the ethical divines of boston, was unable to see anything but the most horrible brutality and willingness to inflict pain on the part of these african devotees, and was equally unable to recognize the same principle when applied to orthodoxy. she said, "is it not horrible, the ignorance and superstition of these poor people? what a vast field of labor our missionaries have." to her the idea of justification by faith in a suffering god meant only superstition and brutality when plainly illustrated in somebody else's religion; but the same idea, the same morality, the same justice, she thought beautiful when applied to christianity. i said, "there is the whole vicarious theory in wood and iron. that is exactly the same as the christian idea; and the same human characteristics are plainly traceable in the size and location of these nails. "a presbyterian or a methodist drives his nail in the most conspicuous spot, where the flesh is tender and the suffering plainly visible. the episcopalian or catholic uses a small tack, and drives it as much out of sight as possible, covering it over with stained glass, and distracting the attention with music; but the bald, cruel, unjust, immoral, degrading, and dishonest principle is there just the same. "faith in blind acts of devotion; the suffering of innocence for guilt; transferring of crime; comfort and safety purchased for self by the infliction of pain and unmerited torture upon another; premiums offered for ignorance and credulity; punishments guaranteed for honest doubt and earnest protest--all these beautiful provisions of the vicarious theory are as essential to our missionary's belief as to that of his african converts; and it seems to me simply a choice between thumbs up and thumbs down." while we were talking my friend's pastor joined us, and she told him what i had said, and asked him what was the difference between the christian and the heathen idea of a suffering god. he said he could explain it in five minutes some morning when he had time. he said that the one was the true and living faith, and the other was blind superstition. he also said that he could easily make us see which was which. then he gracefully withdrew with the air of one who says: "in six days god made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day _he_ and _i_ rested." he has not called since to explain. while he stayed, however, his manner was deeply, solemnly, awfully impressive; and of course i resigned on the spot. the theory of vicarious atonement is the child of cowardice and fear. it arranges for a man to be a criminal and to escape the consequences of his crime. it destroys personal responsibility, the most essential element of moral character. it is contrary to every moral principle. the church never has been and never will be able to explain why a god should be forced to resort to such injustice to rectify a mistake of his own. to earnest questions and honest thoughts it has always replied with threats. it has always silenced inquiry and persecuted thought. past authority is its god, present investigation its devil. with it brains are below par, and ignorance is at a premium. it has never learned that the most valuable capital in this world is the brain of a scholar. fear. every earnest thought, like every earnest thinker, adds something to the wealth of the world. blind belief in the thought of another produces only hopeless mediocrity. individual effort, not mere acceptance, marks the growth of the mind. the most fatal blow to progress is slavery of the intellect. the most sacred right of humanity is the right to think, and next to the right to think is the right to express that thought without fear. fear is the nearest approach to the ball and chain that this age will permit, and it should be the glorious aim of the thinkers of to-day that so refined and cruel a form of tyranny shall not be left for those who come after us. we owe physical freedom to the intellectual giants of the past; let us leave mental freedom to the intellectual children of the future. fear scatters the blossoms of genius to the winds, and superstition buries truth beneath the incrustation of inherited mediocrity. fear puts the fetters of religious stagnation on every child of the brain. it covers the form of purity and truth with the contagion of contumely and distrust. it warps and dwarfs every character that it touches. it is the father, mother, and nurse of hypocrisy. it is the one great disgrace of our day, the one incalculable curse of our time; and its nurse and hot-bed is the church. because i, a woman, have dared to speak publicly against the dictatorship of the church, the church, with its usual force and honor, answers argument with personal abuse. one reply it gives. it is this. if a woman did not find comfort and happiness in the church, she would not cling to it. if it were not good for her, she in her purity and truth would not uphold it in the face of the undeniable fact that the present generation of thinking men have left it utterly. you will find, however, that in every land, under every form of faith, in each phase of credulity, it is the woman who clings closest and longest to the religion she has been taught; yet no christian will maintain that this fact establishes the truth of any other belief.* * "exactly the same thing may be said of the women in the harem of an oriental they do not complain.... they think our women insufferably unfeminine." --mill. they will not argue from this that women know more of and have a clearer insight into the divine will! if she knows more about it, if she understands it all better than men, why does she not occupy the pulpit? why does she not hold the official positions in the churches? why has she not received even recognition in our system of religion? who ever heard of a minister being surprised that god did not reveal any of the forms of belief through a woman? if she knows and does the will of god so much better than man, why did he not reveal himself to her and place his earthly kingdom in her hands? that argument won't do! as long as creed and church held absolute power there was no question but that woman was a curse, that she was an inferior being, an after-thought. no church but the roman catholic has the decency to recognize even the so-called mother of god! the church has never offered women equality or justice. its test of excellence is force. the closer a church or creed clings to its spirit, the more surely does it assume to dictate to and control woman and to degrade her. the more liberal the creed the nearer does it come to offering individual justice and liberty. the testimony of our own missionaries, as well as that of many others, assures us that it is not the turk but his wives who hold fastest to their faith. the women of the harem, whom we pity because of the injustice of their religious training, are the last to relinquish their god, the most bitter opponents of the infidel or sceptic in their church, the most devout and constant believers of the faith, and the most content with its requirements. they are the ones who cling to the form even when the substance has departed--and it is so with us! among the "heathen" it is the women who are most shocked and offended by the attacks made upon their superstitions by the missionaries whom we pay to go to them and blaspheme their gods and destroy their idols. go where you will, read history as you may, and you will find that it is the men who invented religion, and the women who believed in it. they are the last to give it up. _the physically weak dread change_. inexperience fears the unknown. ignorance shuns thought or development. the dependent cannot be brave. we are all prepared to admit, i think, that, with but few marked exceptions here and there, the women of most countries are physically and mentally undeveloped. they have had fear and dependence, the dread enemies of progress and growth, constantly to retard them. fear of physical harm, fear of social ostracism, fear of eternal damnation. with rare exceptions a child with a weak body, or any other dependent, will do as he is told; and women have believed to order. they have done so not only in christianity but in buddhism, mohammedanism, mormonism, and fetichism--in each and all of them. each and all of these religions being matter of faith, religion was the one subject in which every church alike claimed ignorance as a virtue; and the women understood that the men understood it as little as they did. it was a field where credulity and a solemn countenance placed all on an intellectual level--and the altitude of the level was immaterial. women have never been expected to understand anything; hence jargon about the "testimony of the spirit," the "three in one" absurdity, the "horns of the altar," or the widow's oil miracle was not more empty or unmeaning to her than a conversation about bonds and stocks, political economy, or medical science. she swallowed her religion just as she did her pills, because the doctor told her to, and said there was something wrong with her head--and usually there was. beginning to think. the past education of woman gave her an outlook which simply embraced a husband or nothing at all, which was often only a choice between two of a kind. there are a great many women to-day who think that orthodoxy is as great nonsense as i do, but who are afraid to say so. they whisper it to each other. they are afraid of the slander of the church. i want to help make it so that they will dare to speak. i want to do what i can to make it so that a mother won't have to evade the questions of her children about the bible. creeds. i am sometimes asked, "what do you propose to give in place of this comforting faith? it makes people so happy. you take away all this blessing and you give no other in its place. what is your creed?" it has never seemed to me that a creed was the staff of life. man cannot live by creeds alone. i should not object, however, to one that should read something like this: i believe in honesty. i believe that a church has no right to teach what it does not know. i believe that a clean life and a tender heart are worth more to this world than all the faith and all the gods of time. i believe that this world needs all our best efforts and earnest endeavors twenty-four hours every day. i believe that if our labors were needed in another world we should be in another world; so long as we are in this one i believe in making the best and the most of the materials we have on hand. i believe that fear of a god cripples men's intellects more than any other influence. i believe that humanity needs and should have all our time, efforts, love, worship, and tenderness. i believe that one world is all we can deal with at a time. i believe that, if there is a future life, the best possible preparation for it is to do the very best we can here and now. i believe that love for our fellow-men is infinitely nobler, better, and more necessary than love for god. i believe that men, women, and children need our best thoughts, our tenderest consideration, and our earnest sympathy. i believe that god can get on just as well without any of these as with them. if he wants anything he can get it without our assistance. it is people with limitations, not gods without limitations, who need and should have our aid. i believe that it is better to build one happy home here than to invest in a thousand churches which deal with a hereafter. if a life that embraces this line of action does not fit a man for heaven, and if faith in vicarious atonement will, then such a heaven is not worth going to, and its god would be unworthy to make a good man's acquaintance. but suppose that faith in a myth is destroyed and another mysticism be not set up in its place, what then? if a mother takes her child away from the fire, which it finds beautiful, and believes to be a nice toy, is it necessary for her to give it a kerosene lamp in its place? she destroys a pleasant delusion--a faith and a delightful hope and confidence--because she knows its danger and recognizes its false foundation. it is surely not necessary that she should give to the child another delusion equally dangerous and false. she gives it something she knows to be safe; something she understands will not burn; something which, though not so bright and attractive to the child at first, gives pleasure without pain, occupation without disaster. is she cruel or only sensible? if i were to pretend to a knowledge of a divine creed, a superhuman system, i should be guilty of the same dishonesty, the same deception of which i complain in the church. i do not know of any divine commands. i do know of most important human ones. i do not know the needs of a god or of another world. i do not know anything about "a land that is fairer than day." i do know that women make shirts for seventy cents a dozen in this one. i do know that the needs of humanity and this world are infinite, unending, constant, and immediate. they will take all our time, our strength, our love, and our thoughts; and our work here will be only then begun. why not, if you believe in a god at all, give him credit for placing you where he wanted you? why not give him credit for giving you brains and sympathies, as well as the courage to use them. even if eve did eat that apple, why should _we_ insist upon having the colic? self-control what we need. i want to see the time come when mothers won't have to explain to their children that god has changed his mind about goodness and right since he used to incite murder; that eighteen hundred years ago he was a criminal with bloody hands and vile, polluted breath; that less than three hundred years ago his greatest pleasure was derived from witnessing the agony of pure young girls burning alive, whose only crime was beauty of face or honesty of thought.* * see gage, "history of woman suffrage," p. . i want it so that she won't allow her children to hear and believe such a statement as bishop fallows made not long ago. he said, in effect, that sins of omission are as heinous as those of commission: that saul committed two sins in his life, and that one of them was a refusal to commit a coldblooded murder! he spared the life of a conquered enemy! out of a whole nation he saved one life--and that was a crime, a sin! bishop fallows said that god expressly commanded saul to utterly exterminate that whole nation, and not only the nation but its flocks; and that god took saul's kingdom from him because he saved the life of one fallen enemy. that story, i think, is a libel; and i believe that if there is a god he was never such a fiend! and i want it so that no mother will allow her child to hear such an infamous travesty of the character of a deity who is called good, i want it so that all the lessons of the week, all the careful training of a wise father or a good mother, will not be antagonized on sunday by such a statement as the rev. mr. williamson made at a large church convention recently. speaking of prayer, he said: "we should offer to god, by prayer, our virtue, our purity, and our pious aspirations" (so far i do not object, for if it means anything i fail to grasp it), "for by not doing so we claim self-control, which is displeasing to god!" i object! the lesson of self-control is precisely what we need. and when we control ourselves and regulate our lives on principles of right and truth, instead of allowing a church to regulate them through a fear of hell, we shall be a better people, and character will have a chance to grow. then this same gentleman added: "we should also give him our vices, our worry, our temper, and our passions, so that he may dispose of them." dispose of them yourselves! don't try to shift your responsibilities on to somebody else. don't drive your tack into the brain of justice, expecting to save your own soft skull. don't enervate your strength to do light by accepting the fatal doctrine of vicarious atonement. it weakens every character that it touches. vicarious atonement not a christian invention. the doctrine of vicarious atonement is found in some form in most religions, and it is the body and soul of ours. the idea is not a christian invention. it caused the carthaginians to put to death their handsomest prisoners if a battle were won, the most promising children of their own nobility if it were lost. they were offerings to appease the gods. in old times there were peoples who believed that if a chief was guilty of a misdemeanor it was just to punish or enslave any one of his tribe. that was their idea of liberty and justice. if a father committed a crime it could be expiated by the murder of his son. that was the doctrine of vicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. so they adopted that style of justice in our religion, and condemned the whole lot of us to the eternal wrath of god on account of that little indiscretion attributed to eve. it seems a very little thing for anybody to get so angry at us all about and stay angry so long! it doesn't seem to me that if one of you were to eat every apple i had in my orchard, i should want to murder and eternally damn all the folks that live in asia minor. do you think you would? in the th verse of the th chapter of the second book of samuel it is claimed that god said he was going to be revenged for the crimes of some men by a vile punishment of their wives. only a short time ago a man tried that same style of justice in one of our western towns. he claimed that smith had alienated the affections of his wife, so he went over to smith's house and _whipped mrs. smith!_ and do you know that the judge who tried that case (not being a good bible student) actually sent that good, pious man to the house of correction --that man who not only believed in his bible, but lived by it! and just as likely as not that judge will be elected again. truly we have fallen on degenerate times! legal minds outgrew the idea of vicarious punishment long ago. physical liberty came to have a new meaning, and punishment was awarded more nearly where it was due. but the religious mind never outgrows anything. it is born as big as it ever gets. development is its terror. it abhors a change. it forces you to sin by proxy, to be redeemed by proxy; and the only thing it does permit you to receive at first hand is hell. that is the only one thing you can't delegate to somebody else. if you commit no sin, you are responsible for the sins of other people --dead people, too, that you can't look after. if you are good and true and noble--even if you are a christian--you don't get any credit for it. if there is any one thing above another that god detests it is to have a man try to be grand and noble and true, and then get the credit of it. "to christ belongs all the honor, the praise, and the glory--world without end, amen." but when it comes to the punishment, the vicarious notion doesn't seem to work. there is the one point where you are welcome to your own, and no discount allowed to heavy takers. hell is always at par and no bail permitted. even ignorance of the requirements is no excuse. if you did not know any better, somebody else did, and you've got to pay for it. now if the vicarious principle is not big enough to go clear round, i'll leave my share off at the other end. if the church wants to take my hell (vicariously) it is welcome to it. i will let it go cheap. awhile ago a man stayed some time at a hotel in new york, and when the time came for him to pay his bill he hadn't the money. well, the proprietor felt sorry for him and said, "i tell you what i'll do about that bill, i'll throw off half." his guest was overwhelmed by this liberality, and with tears of gratitude said, "i cannot permit you to outdo me in generosity; i'll throw off the other half and we'll call it square." so if the church desires all the credit, it is also welcome to all the blame. i cannot permit it to outdo me in generosity. but i'd rather be responsible for just my own sins, and then i can regulate them better, and i can take care of my own reward when i get it. i shall not want to deposit it with the clergy. a profit and loss system that is chiefly loss will not pay me. the doctrines of vicarious atonement and original or inherited sin are the most infamously unjust dogmas that ever clouded the brain of man. twin monsters inherited from intellectual pigmies. they are twin monsters inherited from intellectual pigmies. let me read you a little prayer based upon this idea of right. i heard it offered as a thanksgiving tribute. "oh, god, we do thank thee that thou didst give thy only son to die for us! _we thank thee that the innocent has suffered for the guilty_, and that through the suffering and death of thy most holy son our sins are blotted out!" monstrous! how would that work in a court of justice? what would you think of a person who coolly thanked a judge who had knowingly allowed the wrong man to be hung? what do you think of a code of morals that offers as one of its beautiful provisions the murder of the innocent instead of the punishment of the guilty? people ask what good i expect to come of an attack on christianity. they ask me if i think christianity does any direct harm. yes! _it makes a man unjust to believe in unjust doctrines_. any man who honestly believes in the righteousness of a system of vicarious rewards and punishments is ripe for any form of tyranny. and the more honestly he believes in it the less will he be a good man from principle. i want men and women to be good and true because it is right towards each other, and not because they are afraid of hell. honor towards people in this world, not fear of a fiend in the next--that is my doctrine. that is the way to make men and women strong and brave and noble. stop telling them they can't be good themselves; teach them that they must do right themselves. make them self-dependent. teach them to stand alone. honor towards others, kindness, and love--these are what make a man a good husband, a noble father--king in his household. fear never made any man a gentleman. fear never made any woman a true wife or a good mother. fear never covered the pitfalls of vice with anything stronger than the gloss of hypocrisy. when reason's torch burned low, faith led her victims by chains of ignorance into the land of hopeless superstition, and built her temple there. geographical religion. a religion of faith is simply a question in geography. keep your locality in mind and you are all right. on the banks of the red sea murder and slavery were a religious duty. on the ganges infanticide is a virtue. in rome you may steal or lie; you may deceive an innocent young girl and blast her life forever; you may stab your friend in the dark, and you are all right: but if you eat a piece of fried pork on friday you are a lost man! china arranges her prayers in a machine, and turns her obligations to deity off with a crank. there is usually more or less intimate relationship between prayer and a crank. our god loved human sacrifice in galilee, and rewarded abraham for it. he abhors it in pocasset, america, and his followers threaten to hang the only consistent follower of jehovah who has come amongst them. if you live in utah, or had lived in jerusalem, your most certain hope of salvation would have been the possession of numerous wives. in england or new york more than one is sure damnation. lose your bearings and you are a lost man! make a mistake in your county and your soul is not worth a copper. a traveler is not safe five minutes, and i doubt if an accident policy would cover his case. god and the devil have been held accountable for about every crime that ever has been committed, and it has been very largely a geographical question which of the two was responsible. if it was longitude ° ' east it was the lord! if you shifted to longitude ° ' west it was the devil. when locality becomes the all-important question, we do not wonder at the old lady who felt relieved when the new survey threw her house just across the state line into ohio, after she had been under the impression that she lived in indiana. "well," said she, "i am glad we don't live in indiana; i always did say it was a very unhealthy state. now, our doctor's bills won't be so high." pocasset, mass., is in the devil's country, and murder is not safe; it is a crime. abraham and saul lived in a healthier climate--in god's congressional district, where murder was above par and decency was out of fashion. take it all in all, and the devil seems to make the best governor. now it seems to me that sunday-schools should teach nothing so much as geography, so that a man may not be in doubt as to who is his secretary of state, and when an order comes from head-quarters he may fairly be expected to know whether it is safe to obey--whether obedience means glorification on earth and a home in heaven, or a sprained neck and a bright fire. it seems now that pocasset is over the line and out of the lord's clearing. revelation. now this god either did or he did not believe in and command murder and rapine in the days when he used to sit around evenings and chat with abraham and moses and the rest of them. his especial plans and desires were "revealed" or they were not. the ideas of justice and right were higher in those days than they are now, or else we are wiser and better than god, or else the bible is not his revealed will. you can take your choice. my choice is to keep my respect for divine justice and honor, and let the bible bear the burden of its own mistakes. if religion is a revelation, then it is not a growth, and it would have been most perfect in design and plan when it was nearest its birth. now accepting the bible theory of jehovah, we find that when the communications of god were immediate and personal there could have been no mistake as to his will. to deal with it as a growth or evolution toward better things is to abandon the whole tenet of a revealed law of god. but to deal with it as a revelation is to make god a being too repulsive and brutal to contemplate for one moment with respect. he either did or did not tell those men those things. which will you accept? he divided men into two classes. of one he made tyrants and butchers; of the other, victims. he made woman weak in order that she might be the more easily overcome by vice; helpless, in order that she might the more easily be made the victim of brutal lust! he made children to be the beasts of burden, the human sacrifices, the defenceless property of criminals and fiends. he did these things, or the prophets romanced about it, or some one else romanced about them. which? if i accept the former alternative. i can have nothing but loathing and contempt for the diety and his followers. if the latter, it clouds the character of no one. it simply places the ignorance of the past on the same plane with the ignorance of the present. it rescues the reputation of the infinite at the trifling expense of a few musty fables. i choose the latter! i prefer to believe either that a few men were themselves deceived, or that they tried to deceive others--it does not much matter which. i prefer to adopt this belief, and so keep the character of even a supposititious god above reproach. if we accept a god at all let us accept an honest one. evidence of faith. we are asked to be as fair toward the evidence of bible witnesses as we are toward other evidence. we are told that we believe a great deal that we have never seen, and that we accept it on the word of others; that we have never seen a man hung, but that we believe that men have been hung; we never saw napoleon's great feats of generalship, but we believe in them because history records them. why not believe in the bible as well as in other history? why not, on the testimony of witnesses, believe that christ turned water into wine, as readily as that a man was hung? why not accept the miracle of the loaves and fishes on evidence, as readily as the victories of napoleon? now that line of argument, although it is the one used by and for theological students, is entirely illogical. it will not work with people who think. the cases are not parallel. we believe the facts of history and the occurrences of to-day not solely on the testimony of others, but because they are in accord with common-sense and experience and judgment; because they fall within the range of possibility, and do not antagonize the laws of nature. we know a man can be hung. we know one general may defeat another. we are asked to believe nothing outside of reasonable bounds. here then the only thing to examine is the credibility of the witnesses. if, however, our witnesses told us that whenever napoleon wanted to know the strength of an enemy he flew up over their camp and counted their men; or that when he found too many he prayed down fire from heaven and burned them up, we should dismiss their testimony at once as unworthy of farther notice. we should know that they were deceived, or that they were trying to deceive us. we should know that napoleon's real means of estimating the strength of his enemy were of a different nature, and that he did not resort to the upper air and flit about at will. we should know that no fire was prayed down, and that although soldiers might be told to put their trust in god, the little addition--"and keep your powder dry"--would be the really important part of the command. so when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into the realm of supreme credulity. such assertions require you to believe not only what you have not seen, but what all experience and reason tell you you never can see. they ask you not only to believe in a past event, but in a past event outside of all reason, beyond all experience, incapable of demonstration, unsupported by nature, opposed to all natural laws--beneath the realm of reason, out of the light of experience, under the shadow of superstition! the great electric light of the intellect is turned off at the church door. on one day out of every seven the human lamps enter in utter darkness a field of superstition. during six days the light is turned full on the world of commerce, science, art, and literature, and these glow and grow and are examined by its rays. when, however, the signal tolls from the steeple on the seventh day, the light is turned off for that day, and for that topic alone; and then there is brought out once more the old tallow candle of ignorance that hides in shadow the cobwebs of undeveloped thought! use your noblest powers of thought freely in the bank; strain and develop your ability to improve and control in the engine-room; train and exert your judgment in literature and art; push and brighten and sharpen your reason in science or political economy. in the practical affairs of life faith will not help you. it is childish and insecure. it will not honor your cheque; it will not prevent the broken engine from hurling its human companion into eternity. it will not prove the rotundity of the earth, nor establish a sound financial basis for a nation. in all such matters it leads to nothing but ignorance and disaster. in theology it is the one element of light. as a test and an aid in this world, it is puerile and trifling; but the depths of the great beyond it fathoms to a nicety. it gives no grasp upon the truths of time; but it is the all-sufficient hold on eternity. it leads to the discovery of no important principle here; but it holds the keys to the secret chambers of divinity! it is an attribute of childish development now. it is to indicate infinite mental superiority hereafter! it is a strange philosophy which asserts that a faculty which is a hindrance to superiority in this world is the one thing needful for the soul of man! give me the brain that dares to think! give me the mind that grasps with herculean power the rocks that crush the treasures of intellectual growth, and tears them from their foundation! give me the mind that dares to step from the fallen stones, that leaps from rock to rock past the dark rift torn in the superstitions of ages past, and that, standing on the farthest crag, waits and watches for the breaking light! he can trust his future whose present scorns stagnation! did he talk? in olden times--in the times of the bible--men believed that animals sometimes used human language, and that beasts were wiser than their masters. i'm not now going to question that belief, but still i don't think that nowadays one-half of us would take the word of a horse on any important subject. you must remember, however, that it took an ass to know an angel at first sight in balaam's time. balaam never suspected that there was an angel in his path until that ass told him! in those days, on a little matter like that, the word of any beast seemed to be taken as good evidence. but let a mule jam his rider's foot against a wall, nowadays, and then lie down under him, and there is not one man in ten who would associate that fact in his mind with the presence of an angel. i suppose, however, there wasn't as much known about mules then as there is now; and most asses were of a more pious turn of mind. i don't suppose there is one intelligent man in this city who believes that story, and yet he is not a good christian if he questions it. show me a locality where actual belief--where old time orthodoxy--is looked upon as a requisite of good citizenship and standing in society, and you will show me a place where intellectual development and rapid progress have died or gone to sleep! the most ignorant and backward parts of this great country, the localities where congress is asking for better and more secular schools to be established as a means of safety to the state, are situated in the very states where orthodoxy holds absolute sway. in those states a man is looked upon as a very dangerous character if he questions the accuracy of that story about those three hot-house plants, shadrach, meshach, and abednego. yes, the people of that pious region would be afraid of a man who was wicked enough to laugh at that yarn; and yet do you believe there is a man in this city who could make you believe it? and you don't look dangerous either; and i don't think that i do. it seems that when they used to run ashore for big scare-stories, they just poked up the fire and went into the blastfurnace business--here and hereafter. but--seeing that a furnace--a real one--heated seven times hotter than it takes to melt iron, did not injure those three tropical innocents--did not even singe their eye-brows--it does look a little as if we should stand a pretty fair show with the spiritual fuel they now promise us hereafter. still i must say i don't believe i should like the climate. speaking of bible arguments, i must tell you of a new one i heard recently. a gentleman acquaintance of mine asked a colored woman, who had applied to him for money to help build a colored people's church, whether she thought god was black or white. she replied that the bible implied that he was black--that it said, "and his wool shall be whiter than snow;" and that _white men don't have wool!_ what you may think. show me a grade of society that buckles its little belt of belief and faith around its members, and you will show me a collection of hopeless mediocres. the thinkers move out or die out. they object to being fossilized. they decline to go down to history as physical members of the nineteenth century, and mental members of the third. i would rather have the right to put on my monument, "she was abreast of her time," than have all the sounding texts and all the feathered tribes chiseled upon it. i would prefer that it be said of me, "she was a good woman because she had a pure heart," than to have this record: "she was a christian. she was afraid of hell. she cast her burdens on the lord, and went to heaven." you have been told, "blessed are they who die in the lord." rather let us say, "blessed are they who live clean lives." but the church does not allow you to regulate your lives by what you believe to be right. it always did and it always will hate a thinker. it proposes to do the mental labor for great minds by means of brains large enough to hold nothing but faith. it says, "i cannot, and you shall not outgrow the past. the measure of my capacity shall be the limit of your attainment." the laws of a nation presume to regulate only what you may do. the church is kind enough to say what you may think. it proposes to control the mental condition of every man and woman for time and eternity, and its first command is that we shall not grow. it seems to me rather a queer admission to make, but the church says that a child or a fool knows quite enough for its purpose--and it does not seem to be my place to question that fact. now that may be all very well for the child and the fool, but it is rather binding on the rest of us. once in a while a minister outgrows the doctrines that were big enough for him in his youth; but that minister, though his life be as pure and his character as sweet as a flower, would be safer to be cast into the sea than that this instrument of torture, this court of injustice, should discover that he had laid aside the outfit of his undeveloped years. his mind may have grown to be a giant in strength, but it must be compressed into the nut-shell of superstition--dwarfed to the capacity of intellectual pigmies. christ was a thinker, a man of progress, an infidel, a man who outgrew the church of his time; and the church of his time crucified him. those who oppose the spirit of religious stagnation to-day meet the same spirit in the church that christ met, and receive the same treatment so far as the law will permit. it is a sentiment as true as it is beautiful that asks us to reverence the great men, the thinkers of the past; but it is no mark of respect to them to rest forever over their graves. we show our respect and our appreciation better by a spirit of research that reaches beyond them, than by a simple admiration which takes their gifts and dies. the lessons they left were not alone lessons of memory and acceptance, but examples of effort and progress. a pupil who stops content with his teacher's last words is no great credit either to himself or to his master. if he has learned only to accept, his lesson is only begun; and until he knows that he must investigate, his education is that of a child, his development that of a clown. it is no compliment to christ, the man of progress years ago, that his followers clip the wings of thought. he struck for freedom from ecclesiastical bondage. he added a new link to the chain of intellectual growth, and his followers have riveted it back to the immovable rock of superstition. he offered a key to open the door of individual liberty. they have wrapped it in the folds of ignorance and laid it in the closet of fear. he said in effect, "when you have outgrown the church, leave it and bless the world." they say, "leave it and be damned." for what is a christian to-day without his hell? the chief objection i hear offered to the last arrangements made for us by the revisers is that they left out some of the hell, and gave the part they kept a poetical name. intellectual gag-law. when the day comes when offences against the intellect are deemed as great crimes as offences against the person, intellectual gag-law will meet with no more respect than lynch-law does to-day, and will be recognized as the expression of an undeveloped moral and social condition. choking an opinion into or out of a man's mind is no more respectable than the same argument applied to his body. any form of faith, any religion, that has the vicarious element in it, is an insult to the intellect. it is based upon the idea of a god of revenge, a ruler infamously unjust. it is a system utterly ineffectual without the wanton sacrifice of helpless innocence under fangs of beastly cruelty--a revenge that has no thought of the redress of wrong by its punishment--a revenge that simply requires a victim--and blood! even with those two elements of the plan it is still impotent until it has appealed to the basest element in every human breast--the willingness to accept happiness that is bought by the agony of another! it is too abjectly selfish and groveling to command the least respect from a noble character or a great, tender soul. it severs the ties of affection without compunction. it destroys all loyalty. it says, "no matter what becomes of my loved ones--those who would die to help me--i must save my soul." without the use of the microscope, however, such a soul would never know whether it was saved or not. what sort of a soul would it be that could have a heaven apart from those it loved? it would not be big enough to save, and its heaven would not be good enough to have. i prefer the philosophy, the dignified loyalty and love for the dead of the old goth, the captive warrior whom the christians persuaded to be baptized. as he stood by the font he asked the bishop, "where are the souls of my heathen ancestors?" the bishop, with great alacrity, replied, "in hell." the brave old warrior, the loyal goth, drew his skins about him and said, "i would prefer, if you do not object, to go to my people;" and he left unbaptized. that was heathen philosophy; but i think i prefer it to the christianity of a devout man, a sunday-school superintendent, whom i know. he is a great light in a christian church today. he worships the beautiful provisions of vicarious atonement. he refused his mother her dying wish, and on the following sunday atoned for the inhuman act by singing with unusual unction, "how gentle god's commands," and reading with devout fervor, "the lord is my shepherd, _i_ shall not want." his mother, who had the same shepherd, had wanted for much. she even wanted for a stone to mark her grave, because the money she had left for that purpose her holy son thought best to use, vicariously, upon himself. that man believes in the bible absolutely. he is a good christian, and he abhors an infidel! he knows he is going to heaven because he has faith in christ, and christ had an extra stab on his account. he is willing to take his heavenly home through the blood of christ, and his earthly one out of the pockets of a dead mother. the blood of the murdered nazarene obliterates the infamy of his acts over her dishonored grave. and this is perfectly consistent! a religion of faith, a religion that gets its good vicariously and shifts its sins and responsibilities on to the past, is a religion that can never elevate character; _it simply makes a man more intensely what he was before_. it is all self, self, self. think of the infinitesimal smallness, the irredeemable worthlessness, the unutterable meanness of a soul that could forsake those it had loved, and be happy believing that they were suffering and eternally lost! yet who does not know men who go tramping about the country, living on the charity of their dupes, and declaring that "the lord is their shepherd, _they_ shall not want," whose families want for almost every comfort of life? and this is true orthodox doctrine. "ye shall forsake father, mother, wife, and children," for what?--to "follow me!" think of the infamy of it! if that is the kind of souls that go to heaven, i shall do all i can to keep mine amongst more respectable spirits. i will go with the goth. i could suffer in hell (if there were such a place) with those i love, and keep my self-respect. if i believed i could be happy in heaven with my loved ones in agony below--if i believed it of myself--there is no vile, slime-covered reptile on earth that i would so loathe! forsake father, mother, husband, children to save my soul! never! i will go with my people! the vicarious theory the cause of crime. this idea of vicarious atonement has encouraged injustice and crime of every kind. out of eighty-four men who have been hanged recently, seventy-one have gone directly to heaven. they asked the assembled spectators to be as good as they conveniently could, and meet them on the other shore. their spiritual advisers administered the holy sacrament, and assured them that they were "lambs of the fold," and that a robe and a harp awaited them at the right hand of god. just imagine a lamb in a robe, playing on a harp! a lamb with wings, a harp, a long white robe, and golden slippers seems to me an object to arouse the sympathy of a demon. poor lamb! he would wish himself a goat every hour of the day. there is an implied crime in the very word vicarious. if it means anything it means the suffering of innocence to atone for guilt. it means that one crime is condoned by the commission of another--a deliberate one. it means that truth must die in order that dishonor may live. it substitutes vengeance for justice. it does not seek to protect society by checking villany; it seeks the safety of the criminal by a shifting of responsibility. if the framers of human laws were no wiser that the revealers of divine law, no nation could live, no family would be secure, no justice possible. [see appendix s.] not long ago the new york _independent_ contained an article against sarah bernhart, calling her "a lewd woman," and against her play because it did not contain good morals. the same paper contained an article against george eliot's works, and said that the mormon congressman is a disgrace to all america because he is a polygamist. all these things by a man who swallows david and lot whole, and has solomon pose as the summit of all wisdom! all this by a man who builds his life on the word of moses, and denies to others the right to object to his code of morals or his version of heavenly wisdom and divine direction! i should like a little consistency. the christian who rails against polygamy, and at the same time poses in morals with a bible in his hand, is a man who saws his own legs from under him, and still expects us to believe that he has legs, which we might possibly do if only our sight were aided by faith. as long as my eyes hold out, i'll stick to unaided vision; after that, spectacles or faith according to circumstances. when goodness and virtue are measured, not by a book, but by our own acts toward each other; when a man's character is judged by the amount of joy he gives to his household; when a happy laugh from his children and a bright smile from his wife greet him as often as he comes home; when these are taken as the evidence of a good man, deacons will go out of fashion. meek, tired, persecuted-looking wives will not listen to a canting husband and believe that he is a holy man, when they know that he is a bad husband and a tyrannical father. there is not any way that i know of to make a home happy vicariously. no confession of faith can take pain out of a mother's heart. no "testimony of the spirit" can make love and beauty in a home where "the heathen" hold the first place, and foreign missions get tangled up in the children's hair. no man accustomed to a high intellectual temperature can keep warm by theological fires. no man whose brain is king can ever again recognize the authority of this mere undisciplined sentiment. revision. as a system christianity has had its day. long ago it may have served a good purpose, but after eighteen hundred years it is worn threadbare and useless. if some of its milder tenets still cling to and fit our vast mediocrity, it is equally certain that the intellectual giants have moulted it as the birds moult their plumage in a dying year, and have taken on the bright new garments of higher thought, the spring plumage of intellectual liberty. when i heard that the bible was going to be revised i felt very glad, because i thought there was a wide field of usefulness open to somebody right there; and i concluded to do all i could to help it along. i understood that they wanted the substance retained as it was, with the language made more as we use language now. so i began my revision in this way: "good morning, moses, i hear that you have some gods in this country. do you know anything about it?" "oh, yes, i'm the head god's head man." "you are?" "yes, i had a talk with the head god--the top one of the three (we are down to three here now), and he told me to tell people what a good god he is, and that they must all praise him up for it." "he did! well is that all he said?" "oh, no, he told me to tell them that he is the only god, and is the kind father of all, and loves all alike, and that they must all just trust in him and he will take good care of them." "i thought you said a while ago that there were three of these gods; now this one says he is the only one. is there trouble in the cabinet?" "no, there are three, but there is one. see?" "well, no, i can't say that i do. but no matter, the rest of that about the father business was pretty good. that was the best i ever heard. but do you know that the very last man i talked with said that this god was partial to some folks and treated some others pretty shabbily." "oh, that is not so; my god is no respecter of persons; that's his very strongest hold. he treats rich and poor just alike, only if anything he leans a little toward the poor." "that is pretty clever. but what else did he tell you in that talk?" "well, he told me to tell the people, 'thou shalt not kill;' and afterwards, at another time, he told me to take a lot of my men, and go over there to that town just across, and kill all the men and boys i could find, and if they fought hard for their homes, and i seemed to be getting the worst of it for a little while, not to be afraid, he'd be with me, and he'd see that i came out all right. oh, he's the gayest old god you ever saw to help in a fight." "well, yes, that was pretty clever to you; but isn't he the god of that village too!" "oh, yes; but you see one of the men that lives over there went and worshipped another god one day, and this one didn't like it." "i see; but if he treats them all that way, don't you think it is rather natural that they should go and hunt up another god to admire?" well, while i was waiting for moses to answer this question, i heard another man say that only a day or two previously this very fellow had burned up their homes, and murdered a good many people who had never injured him; and that he had dashed out the brains of the innocent children, and had actually sold the sweet, pure young girls to his brutal soldiers. since i heard that, my mind has been so occupied with some other little matters that my revision has not gone any farther, and somebody else has got one out; so i don't know that i shall ever finish mine. it does not seem to be very encouraging work any way; and i am afraid that people would find fault with its scholarship if it should be finished. theological scholarship and common-sense always did disagree. a man who is well vaccinated with either will never catch the other. the church's money-box. the church used to keep a box about four feet long and two feet wide which it called the sacred ark of god. it was certain death for any man not a priest to touch that box. it is supposed that they kept in it gold and jewels which they extorted from their dupes, and that for fear of robbery they made superstition their banker. well, they had to move that jewelry-box once for some reason, and it is not said that anything happened to the men who put it on the cart; but as the man who drove the oxen--in one place it says that they were oxen, in another that they were cows with young calves, and you will be damned if you don't believe both--anyhow, as the driver walked along in horrid fear lest something should happen to that ark of god, the oxen shied, and the ark toppled, and instinctively the driver put out his hand to steady the sacred thing. well, you would think that any sane man, any reasonable being, would have commended him for it; but no! jehovah struck him dead for his pains. why? because that box was so supremely sacred. supreme nonsense! suppose he had not touched it and it had fallen? what then? most likely jehovah would then have struck him dead for not touching it. it strikes me that the only reasonable, sensible being connected with that whole story was the driver, the man they abuse, the man the priests murdered, i suspect because he discovered what was in that ark, and threatened to expose the humbug. whenever any man uses judgment and common-sense the church calls him wicked and dangerous. they say he "touches with unholy hands holy things;" and when he dies, whether his death was expedited or otherwise, they say god killed him. now, if god did kill that man for touching the ark to save it from falling, what do you think of him--as a god? i can tell you what you would think of him as a man. you would think he was a ruffian and a murderer--that is what you would think of him as a man. truly gods are made of poor stuff. if i can't have a god that is nobler and better and truer and kinder than the very best man i ever saw, then i don't want any god at all. and candor forbids me to state that i ever saw, heard, or read of any such a god. all the gods i ever read or heard of have fallen infinitely below a few men i know. jehovah, it seems to me, is hardly an average god, even as gods go. he believed in polygamy. he believed in slavery. he was a murderer--killed , people once because somebody looked into that four-by-two box that he thought so much of. human life was not worth a copper in his neighborhood. he was always in a rage about something, and you never knew when he would "get the drop on you" because somebody else had ruffled his temper. "any man was liable," as the irishman said, "to wake up any morning and find himself burned to ashes in his bed," because one of his neighbors had been wicked enough to lend a five-dollar greenback to one of the philistines, or had eaten a gum-drop in the dark of the moon, or committed some other awful crime like-that. shall progress stop? in its day the bible was all very well, no doubt. it was the expression of the best that the jewish people then knew in morals. in his time christ was a great reformer and a brave man. his philosophy was then an onward spring, and he detested the shams of the church. but with the knowledge we have to-day we should call that man a lunatic who tried to bind medical science by the teachings of that age, and maintained that when a man was sick he had a devil, and that if he got worse he had a whole flock of them. yet christ thought that. we should call the man utterly insane who insisted that joshua gave us the last light that is ever to be thrown on astronomy. we should simply look with pity on one who should try to convince us that the legal profession ought to be bound by the laws of moses; and we know that any nation that attempted to act under his guidance would be soon convinced by the unerring voice of foreign cannon that somebody had made a mistake. science has grown. philosophy has developed. international law has sprung up. in religion alone we are asked to accept the standard of morality and honor of ages that are dead--to take as the last word of wisdom the reformer's code of eighteen hundred years ago. we may grow in all else; in this we must stand still. we may use a text-book on nature, medicine, law, or mechanics, until by its aid we pass beyond its knowledge to a higher; but in morals and religion the book that was a light to the ages of ignorance and superstition, and the production of its brain, must still be the sole illuminator of a world made wise and critical and thoughtful by science and deep experience. the fisherman's lantern, although useful in its day, cannot guide us while we stand in the glare of electricity. why stand persistently with our faces westward, and gaze at the declining light, crying out impotently and hopelessly as we see it grow dim and vanish? our wise men have kept steadily onward, guided by the light of the breaking dawn; and with their faces to the east their star has never set. the fishermen's light has sunk below the horizon, leaving behind it the glow of honest labor and earnest effort to keep their memory bright. the scientist's star has risen, and with no claim that it is even yet the highest light--the final promise, it throws its rays of knowledge, its beams of hope, far into the future, and bids us follow, leaving the cold embers of the dead past for the warmth and light of the living future. the hope of the past is the despair of the future. stagnation is death. in movement and thought alone is progress. the wealth of the world is the brain of the scholar. the past is dead; peace to its ashes. the future is ours to form on new models; models deformed by past superstitions, or models though faulty, instinct with true freedom. you are the jury, what is the verdict? ***** historical facts and theological fictions. church fictions. it is one of the glittering fictions of the church that to her civilization is due,* and that it is to her benign influence and direction alone that woman has been advanced to her present position in the social scale; that without the bible and the church the status of woman in christian countries would be lower and her lot harder. * see appendix t, st. to prove this claim she directs attention to the status of woman in several non-christian countries, and compares the degradation and hardship she there endures to the position of woman to-day in america, england, and france. d. the church claims the credit of originating and sustaining the various steps of progress by which woman has been elevated. she claims to have originated and to sustain the idea that woman is man's equal, and to recognize her as such in the church. d. she points with pride to the superior education and intelligence of the women of christian countries, and contrasts this intellectual altitude with that of women elsewhere. she says that women owe their superior opportunities of education and advancement to their religion. th. but above all the clergy attempt to silence those who ask questions, by calling attention to the superior _legal_ status of woman in christian countries, and asserting that the church secured this, _and that it made marriage honorable and home a possibility_. th. the clergy claim that the bible is woman's best friend and staunchest defender, and that it is the originator of morality. historical facts. "the moment there is fixation, petrification and death ensue." "profound sincerity is the only basis of character." --emerson. civilization. we are told that our superior civilization and high moral tone are due to christianity. i think that this is not true. the whole, or at least much the larger and foundation part of the question of civilization--where it shall grow and where only live, where it shall drag and where scarcely exist--seems to me to be decided primarily by environment, the basis of which is climate and soil. where the climate and soil are most favorable to the highest development; where the environment is neither too hard nor too indulgent; where man is neither enervated by heat and the absence of necessity to labor, nor stunted by cold and hardship and the ever-present necessity to search or labor for food and warmth; there will be the highest types and forms of civilization.* * see appendix a* if the buddhist religion had chanced to be the one that in the process of events took root in the climate and soil where the hebrew bible and the christian belief hold sway; and if, on the other hand, the hebrew and christian religions had been the ones developed in india or china, the civilization of the various countries would still, in the main, be what they are to-day. if our superior civilization were the result of our religion, then the most civilized countries would be the most intensely christian countries. we all know that this is not the case. compare the intense christianity of spain or russia, and their backward civilization, with the easy-going religious or irreligious condition of france or america, and their recognition of liberty and humanity, equalled nowhere else on earth. i admit unreservedly that a religion; by its inelasticity, may do much to retard progress, or by its greater elasticity may permit a more rapid development than a more nearly petrified or incoherent system would allow; but what i hold is this, that the primary and controlling causes of the various stages of civilization are climate and soil. there are, of course, many other things which modify the social development or civilization in any country, as its religion, its laws, and what we may call "accidents of international or civil contest," such as the religious or other wars--our own war in which the blacks were freed, arbitration, and immigration. all of these, and many others, are modifying influences; but no one of them can claim the primary place. soil, climate, and location determine the occupation of a nation, as whether it shall be militant, commercial, or agricultural. in turn occupation determines what the character of a people and their laws shall be, whether they shall be warlike or peaceful, inventive or receptive, stationary or roving; and these, in turn, are the matters which determine the civil scale to which a people shall rise. true, the religion of a people will make itself felt strongly; but whenever a nation has found it expedient or desirable to accomplish a feat which was in opposition to its religion, it has invariably modified the religion to fit the case, or waived it in favor of that particular movement.* * "the popular religion in this, as in other cases, was made to bend to the new vice."--lecky's history of european morals, vol. il, page . in keeping with this fact it is found that in those countries where the greatest changes and modifications of government and occupation have occurred, there have the religions undergone the greatest modification _to fit the new order of things_. if it were the religion that determined the matter, civilization and morals would be immovable, and legislation would revolve around, the guidance of the church. according to the very theory of divine revelation a religion would be most perfect at its beginning. it would be without flaw when born. it would be incapable of improvement or growth. in a word it would be immovable. it would possess the fixation of which emerson speaks. it would not have to readjust itself to the changed and improved conditions of man, and its word would be always a higher light on every movement of progress. it would be to the church and not to the state that the great principles of progress, of liberty, and of justice would look for the highest guidance and the last light. how far this is from the real state of things in any country or in any religion all readers of history know.* * see appendix b. it is the state or science which has proposed and made the steps of progress, and the church has (often after the most bitter fight and denunciation) readjusted her creed to the new code, and then claimed that she had that light and knew that principle before, although neither she nor any one else had ever suspected it. this has been the case with almost every important discovery that science has ever made. the church has retarded the acceptance of the new light, and has set her seal of "divine disapproval and damnation" on the brow of the thinkers who strove to bless mankind. it has been the rule in state reforms as well. it was so in the struggle to separate church and state. it is so in the effort to sustain the belief in the "divine right of kings." the church fought individual liberty and representative government, and she still contests the questions of individual conscience and universal equality and independence.* * see reports of the last general conference of the methodist church held in philadelphia, where, during a heated debate, one member said that he was in favor of using common-sense and the principle of justice in deciding questions of right and wrong and of liberty of conscience; whereupon a large majority voted him a dangerous man, and decided that common-sense and justice had nothing to do with religion. one member naively remarked that the whole career and life of a good preacher fully disproved that any such heretical doctrines obtained in the church as that the use of common-sense was admissible; and since the majority voted with him it does not seem to be my place to question that fact. in these matters the church has invariably been on the side that ultimately had to go to the wall, and she has become a party to the progress only after the principle has become an established fact. now it is the efforts of science and law towards the elevation of man and the bettering of his condition in this world--the procuring for him of greater personal advantages, dignity, and liberty--that have marked the progress of civilization. the climate and soil decided man's occupation; his occupation determined what his higher needs should be; and his higher needs and the gained results of his occupations enabled him to strive for the bettering of his condition and surroundings. the man who lived in a climate favorable to mental and physical activity, and in a country with a rich and varied soil, was enabled to accomplish his ends as his less fortunate brother-lacking such support and stimulus and motive--has been unable to do. if such a thing had been possible, thirty years ago, as that all knowledge of our religion had been utterly wiped out of america, and a thorough knowledge of buddhism or mohammedanism instilled into every yankee brain in its stead, the yankee brain would have simply adjusted its religion to its surroundings and not its surroundings to its religion; and america would have gone right on in the front rank of liberty and toleration and progress. there would have been social and political and religious contests over "caste" or "harems" or "tripitaka," instead of over slavery as a divine institution, the right of a mother to her own offspring, or the inspiration of the bible. the wheels of progress would have been blocked some days by devotees who preached damnation for those who believed in the "trinity" instead of for those who did not. hell would have been as freely promised to the man who suggested that newton knew more than mohammed, as it is to-day to any one who makes the same odious comparison between darwin and moses. the timid would have been terrified by sermons to prove the lost condition of a man who touched one of lower rank, in place of the edification our clergy offer in the shape of eternal damnation for unbaptized infants. and there would have been so little difference between the arguments for the divinity of the tripitaka and the bible, and for the miracles of each, that if any devout presbyterian had by accident left his barrel of sermons on the latter subject behind him, his buddhist brother could have utilized them without the change of an argument. but the wheel would turn and the devotee would either go down or change his creed, and it would depend chiefly upon his age and consequent flexibility which course he would adopt. no known religion could transfer the conditions of civilization in china to america or england or france, and no amount of christianizing (if such a thing were possible) could transform china into a like condition with us, so long as her climate, her soil, and her population remain what they are to-day. you may make the arab or the jap digest the whole westminster catechism, but he will, he _must_, be an arab or a jap still--if he lives through it all. if his constitution is good, and he gets over it, his condition and grade of civilization will continue to conform to his environment; and the trifling difference involved between turning-off prayers on a wheel and counting them off on beads will be simply the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum. notwithstanding this as a primary fact, the religion of a country has a modifying influence on the rapidity of its progress, and the more fixed a religion--the more certainly it claims perfection, the greater claim it lays to holding the final word; _and the more fully this claim is accepted by the people_, the greater influence will it have, the greater check will it be to the development of any new thought, discovery, invention, or principle that arises in the process of evolution toward a freer atmosphere and a broader understanding of individual liberty and dignity and life. william kingdon clifford, f. r. s., in his delightful book on the "scientific basis of morals," says: "it is sometimes said that moral questions have been authoritatively settled by other methods; that we ought to accept this decision, and not to question it by any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason should give way to revelation on such matters. "i hope before i have done to show just cause why we should pronounce on such teaching as this no light _sentence of moral condemnation_: first, because it is our duty to form those beliefs which are to guide our actions by the two scientific modes of inference, and by these alone; and, secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical questions by authority is contrary to the very nature of right and wrong. "the worship of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. and still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, _the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases_. "_the first principle of natural ethics is the sole and supreme allegiance of conscience to the community_. "secondly, veracity to the community depends upon faith in man. surely i ought to be talking platitudes when i say that it is not english to tell a man a lie, or to suggest a lie by your silence or your actions, because you are afraid that he is not prepared for the truth, because you don't quite know what he will do when he knows it, because perhaps after all this lie is a better thing _for him_ than the truth would be, this same man being all the time an honest fellow-citizen whom you have every reason to trust. surely i have heard that this craven crookedness is the object of our national detestation. _and yet it is constantly whispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain truths to the masses_. 'i know the whole thing is untrue: but then it is so useful for the people; you don't know what harm you might do by shaking their faith in it.' crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are meant to deceive great masses of people instead of individuals. if a thing is true, let us all believe it, rich and poor, men, women, and children. if a thing is untrue, let us all disbelieve it, rich and poor, men, women, and children. truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to be whispered over rose-water after dinner when the ladies are gone away. "even in those whom i would most reverence, who would shrink with horror from such actual deception as i have just mentioned, i find traces of a want of faith in man. even that noble thinker, to whom we of this generation owe more than i can tell, seemed to say in one of his posthumous essays that in regard to questions of great public importance we might encourage a hope in excess of the evidence (which would infallibly grow into a belief and defy evidence) if we found that life was made easier by it. _as if we should not lose infinitely more by nourishing a tendency to falsehood than we could gain by the delusion of a pleasing fancy_. life must first of all be made straight and true; it may get easier through the help this brings to the commonwealth. and lange, the great historian of materialism, says that the amount of false belief necessary to morality in a given society is a matter of taste. _i cannot believe that any falsehood whatever is necessary to morality_. it cannot be true of my race and yours that to keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels we must needs believe a lie. _the sense of right grew up among healthy men and was fixed by the practice of comradeship. it has never had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never can want any_. by faith in man and piety toward men we have taught each other the right hitherto; with faith in man and piety toward men we shall never more depart from it." if religion decided and produced the civilization of a people, what sort of civilization would exist to-day among the jews? all jews would be bigamists, and murder would be their pastime. no people would be free from their rapine, no woman safe from their lust. but fortunately they have followed their scientific and political leaders instead of their prophets, and the consequence is that they are so far above and superior to their religion and their bible, that only in its trivial and immaterial dictates is it their guide and law to-day. and we, building upon the same foundation, with an added story to our edifice, modify, to suit legislation and a higher public sentiment and a broader conception of justice, both the foundation and the roof whenever a new principle is born or some great soul floods the world with light. and so the world moves on, those nations in advance that possess the climate to stimulate and the soil to support to the best advantage their citizens--philosophers and scientists who grope towards perfection and stumble on the way over real and imaginary obstacles, but still bring each generation nearer the goal, and freer to brush aside the cobwebs of superstition and ignorance, and to look fairly out on the light that breaks in the east. there is another feature of the subject that will bear looking at. christians are the last to give credit to other religions for the development and advance of civilization in the countries possessing them. what christian will admit that it is the religion of the chinese that makes them the most orderly, law-abiding, mob-avoiding people on the globe? will any christian admit that it is the inferior moral tone of christ and his teachings which enables the followers of confucius and buddha to offer this superior showing? is he prepared to say that mohammedanism is superior to christianity because its followers outdo the christians in honesty?* is it owing to the superior blessings of the mormon faith that its followers are more thrifty, and that paupers are few or unknown among them? * travelers tell us that a native can leave an order together with a bag of uncounted gold at the shop of a dealer, and upon the return of the buyer his order will be exactly filled, his gold properly and honestly divided, and all where he had left them, even though the shop be open to the street and unattended and unguarded. is it because their religion is superior to ours that the lapp women are better treated; that their comparative status is higher, and their family life purer than with ourselves?* * "though norway with ladies." by w. mattieu williams. f.r.a.s., f.c.s. the claim that superiority of civilization is due to christianity, and that to it we owe the good things of the nations where it is the prevailing religion, proves too much. _it will work just as well for any other religion as for our own_. its reach is too extended, its conclusion too comprehensive for its purpose. christianity could not be made its sole terminus. it reminds one of the story of the brakeman who was persuaded to go to church. when he came out his friend asked him how he liked the preacher. he said, "very well, on the main line. he had good wheels, his track was straight and level, and he carried a good head of steam, but he seemed to _lack terminal facilities_." horace seaver recently wrote the following: "all owing to the bible. "it is a very common argument with christians, that only those nations which have had the bible were refined, civilized, and learned. a christian paper, now before us, exultingly says: "'take the map of the world, draw a line around those countries that have enjoyed the highest degree of refinement, and you will encircle just those nations that have received the bible as their authority in religion.' "from this language the plain inference is, that those nations have been indebted to the influence of the bible for the positions to which they have attained. let us follow out a little this line of argument and see where it will lead. "the ancient egyptians stood as far in advance of their contemporaries as do the nations of christendom at the present day, as the remains of egyptian cities and temples fully attest. and if the argument is good, they were indebted for that superiority to their worship of cats, crocodiles, and onions! "the ancient greek might have exclaimed, as he beheld the proud position to which greece had attained--'see what we owe to a belief in our glorious mythology; we have reached the highest point of enlightenment the world has ever witnessed; we stand unequalled in power, wealth, the cultivation of the arts, and all that makes a nation refined, polished, and great!'" comparative status. it is a fact that in some christian countries the actual status of woman is higher than it is to-day in any other country; but it is also true that her _comparative_ status is often lower.* * see appendix c, - . if we compare the actual status of woman in russia or spain (the two most intensely christian countries to-day) with that of the chinese or hindoo woman, the showing may be somewhat in favor of the former; but on the other hand, her _comparative_ position (when taken with that of the men of her country) does not gain but loses by the contrast. "how immeasurably would his faith in the elevating tendency of his religion have been increased, could he have looked with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and beheld the enlightened and christianized nations of the nineteenth century adopting the remains of grecian architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music, and literature as their models! "pagan rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress of nations--the home of philosophers and sages--the land in which the title, 'i am a roman citizen,' was the proudest that a mortal could wear--rome, by the above christian argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and glory to her mythology. "the turk and the saracen, likewise, have had their day of power and renown. bagdad was the seat of science and learning at a time when the nations of europe were sunk in darkness and superstition. the turk and saracen should have pointed to the koran as the source of their refinement. "thus we see that the christian argument we are noticing, if it proves anything, proves too much. if the nations of christendom are indebted to the bible for their enlightenment, likewise were the egyptians indebted to their cat and crocodile and onion worship, the greeks and romans to their mythology, and the turks and saracens to their koran." it is a significant fact that of all the christian countries, in those where the church stands highest and has most power women rank lowest and have fewest rights accorded them, whether of personal liberty or proprietary interest. in the countries named above, and in other countries where the church still has a strong grip upon the throat of the state, woman's position is degraded indeed; while in the three so-called christian countries where the church has _least_ power, where law is not wholly or in so large part canonical, woman's position is more free, more independent, and less degraded, when compared with the position of the men of those countries. that tells the whole story. if it were to the church or to her religion that she owed her advancement, it would be in the most strictly christian countries that her elevation and advantages would be greatest. under the canon law her status would be higher than under the common law. on the contrary, however, it is under the least religious, freest, and most purely secular forms of government that she has attained most full recognition and secured the greatest advancement. compare the position of woman in christian spain with her position in infidel france. compare her condition in russia, with the flag of the church and the seal of the cross for her protection, with that of her sister under the stars and stripes of america, with a constitution written by the infidels jefferson and paine. compare them and decide whether it is to the church and the cross, with their wars and persecutions, or to liberty and scepticism that women owe their loyal love and their earnest support. compare them and determine then whether it is to christianity or to science that she should fly for protection, and where it is that she will be most certain of justice. compare them and answer whether it is to the fathers of the church or to the founders of republics that women should be most grateful. compare them, and be thankful, oh women of america, that the church never had her hand on the throat of the constitution of the united states, and that she is losing her grip on the supreme bench! * in our pride of race we forget that it is less than three hundred short years since christianity by both legal and spiritual power enforced the most degrading and vile conditions upon woman, compelling her to live solely by the sale of her virtue.** only within the past three hundred years of growing scepticism and loss of power by the church has either purity or dignity become possible for women; and it is well for us to remember that for over years of christianity, when the church had almost absolute power, it never dreamed of elevating woman, or recognizing her as other than an inferior being created solely to minister to the lowest nature of man, and possessing neither a right to her own person nor a voice in her own defence. i wish that every woman who upholds the church to-day might read the array of facts on this subject so ably presented by matilda joslyn gage in her work on "woman, church, and state," a digest of which is printed in the last chapter of vol. . of the "history of woman suffrage," of which she is one of the editors. it is so ably written, and the facts collected are so damning, that i need add no word of mine to such passages as i can give from it, in the accompanying appendix to this work. *** * on the status of women there is much of interest in mr. herbert spencer's "principles of sociology," vol . mr. spencer deals with the subject, in the main, from a different point of view from the one taken in this article; but that his position (in regard to the causes of woman's advancement being due to the church) is not wholly unlike my own, will, i think, be readily seen. he places more stress on the results of war than i have done (and in this the corroborating evidence furnished by the holy wars would sustain the position of both), i having included this phase of action under the term occupation, since i have dealt almost wholly with nations more advanced and freer from the fortunes of the militant type than mr. spencer has done. ** see appendix d. *** see appendix e. women as persons. blackstone enumerates three "absolute rights of persons." first, "the right of personal _security_, in the legal enjoyment of life, limb, body, health, and reputation." second, "the right of personal liberty--free power of locomotion without legal restraint." third, "the right of private property--the free use and disposal of his own lawful acquisitions." none of these three primary and essential rights of persons were conceded to women, and church law did not rank her as a person deprived of these rights, but held that she was _not a person at all_, but only a function; therefore she possessed no rights of person in this world and no hope of safety in the next. as to the first of these "absolute rights of persons," any one of her male relations, or her husband after she passed from one to the other, had absolute power over her, even to the extent of bodily injury,* bargain and sale of her person, and death. nor did even this limit the number of her masters. by both church and common law the lords temporal (barons and other peers) and the lords spiritual (archbishops, bishops, and abbots) possessed and exercised the right to dispose of her purity, either for a money consideration or as a bribe or present as they saw fit.** * "although england was christianized in the fourth century, it was not until the tenth that a daughter had a right to reject a husband selected for her by her father; and it was not until the same century that a christian wife of a christian husband acquired the right of eating at the table with him. for many hundred years the law bound out to servile labor all unmarried women between the ages of eleven and forty."--m. j. gage. "wives in england were bought from the fifth to the eleventh century" [the dates are significant; let the church respond.]--herbert spencer. "in england, as late as the seventeenth century, husbands of decent station were not ashamed to beat their wives. gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure for the purpose of seeing wretched women whipped at bridewell. it was not until that the public whipping of women was abolished in england."--spencer. ** see appendix e. thus was the forced degradation of woman made a source of revenue to the church, and a means of crushing her self-respect and destroying her sense of personal responsibility as to her own acts in the matter of chastity, the legitimate outcome of which is to be found in the vast army of women who are named only to be reviled. _in them the church can look on her own work_. the fruit is the natural outcome of the training woman received that taught and compelled her _always_ to submit to the dictates of some man, no matter what her own judgment, modesty, or desires might be. she was not supposed to have an opinion or to know right from wrong; and from paul's injunction, "if you want to know anything ask your husband at home," down to the decisions of the last general conference of the methodist church, the teaching that woman must subordinate her own sense of right and her own judgment to the dictates of someone else--_any_ one else of the opposite sex--from first to last has been as ingenious a method as could have been devised to fill the world with libertines and their victims.* it is time for the followers of st. paul to nice the results of their own work. * see appendix f, . under the provisions of the law which held that all "persons" could recover damages for injury--have legal redress for a wrong inflicted upon them--woman again was held as _not a 'person._ if she were assaulted and beaten, or if she were subjected to the greatest indignity that it is possible to inflict upon her, she had no redress. she could not complain. the law gave her no protection whatever. her father or husband could, if he saw fit, bring suit to recover damages for the loss of _her services as a servant and wholly upon the ground that it was an injury to him and to his feelings_. she was no more recognized as a "person" in the matter, nor was she more highly considered than if she were an inmate of a zoological garden to which some mischievous visitor had fed too many bonbons. the owner was damaged because the brute might die or be injured in the sight of the patrons, but aside from that view of the case no harm was done and no account taken of so trivial a matter. no matter what the injury she sustained, whether it crippled her physically or blighted her mentally and made life to her the worst curse that could be inflicted, she had no appeal. the wounded feelings of one of her male relations received due consideration, and he could recover the money-value he might set upon the injury to his lacerated mind. this is still the letter and the practice of the law in many places, even in america. if she had no male relations, the injury did not count, and no "person" being injured everything was lovely, and prayers went right on to the god who, being no respecter of persons (provided they were free, white, adult males), enjoyed the incense from altars whereon burning "witches" writhed in agony and helpless young girls plead for mercy under the loathed and loathsome touch of the "st." augustines* and "st." pelayos,** whose praises are chanted and whose divine goodness is recounted by christendom to-day. * "to augustine, whose early life was spent in company with the most degraded of womankind, is christianity indebted for the full development of the doctrine of original sin." --gage. "all or at least the greater part of the fathers of the greek church before augustine, denied any real original sin."--emerson. "the doctrine had a gradual growth, and was fully developed by augustine." --waite. ** "the abbot elect of st. augustine, at canterbury, in , was found on investigation to have seventeen illegitimate children in a single village. an abbot of st. pelayo in spain, in , was proved to have kept no less than seventy mistresses. henry iii, bishop of liege, was deposed in for having sixty-five illegitimate children." --leeky, "hist, of european morals." "this same bishop boasted, at a public banquet, that in twenty-two months fourteen children had been born to him. a license to the clergy to keep concubines was during several centuries levied by princes."--ibid. "it was openly attested that , women in england alone were made dissolute by the clergy." --draper, "intellectual development of europe." such was the "_elevation" and civilization offered by the church to woman_. these are among her debts to the church, and the men who fought and contended against the incorporation of such infamy into the common law were branded as infidels. it was said they denied their lord. they were pronounced most dangerous, and the clergy held up their hands in holy horror and whispered that such men "as much as denied the bible, blasphemed their god, and sold their souls to the devil." and the women, poor dupes, believed it. one method the church took to benefit woman and show its respect for her was this: any married man was prohibited from being a priest. women were so unholy, so unclean, and so inferior, that to have one as a wife degraded a man to such an extent that he was unfit to be a minister or to touch holy things. the catholic church still prohibits either party who is so unholy as to marry from profaning its pulpit'; but the protestant churches divide up, giving women the disabilities and mon the offices. the unselfishness of such a course is quite touching. it says to women: "you support us and we will damn you; there is nothing mean or niggardly about us." as to blackstone's second count--"the right to personal liberty"--i can perhaps do no better than give a few bald facts. under pagan rule the personal liberty of woman had become very considerable, as well as her proprietary liberty; but christianity began her degradation at once. christianity was introduced into england in the fourth century, and the _sale of women began in the fifth_; and it was not until the eleventh that a girl could refuse to marry any suitor her father chose for her. in a word, she always had a guardian; she had no personal liberty whatever; she could neither buy nor own property as her brothers could; she could not marry when and whom she preferred, live where she wished, eat, drink, or wear what she liked, or refuse any of these provisions when they were offered by her male relatives. if they decided that she had too many back teeth they simply pulled them out, and she had nothing to say on the subject. she could be sold outright by her father, or leased or bound out as he preferred. she never got so old but that her earnings belonged to him, and a mother never arrived at an age sufficiently advanced to be entitled to the earnings of her children. sharswood says, "a father is entitled to the benefits of his children's labor." "an infant [any one not of age] owes reverence and respect to his mother; but she has no right to his services."* * blackstone. sharswood. this is upon the theory, doubtless, that starvation is wholesome for a widowed mother, but that it does not agree with a father's digestion at any time. sir henry maine in his "ancient law." says, that from the pagan laws all this inequality and oppressiveness of guardianship and restriction of the personal liberty of women had disappeared, and he adds: "the consequence was that the situation of the roman female, whether married or unmarried, became one of great personal and proprietary independence. _but christianity tended somewhat from the very first to narrow this remarkable liberty...._ the great jurisconsult himself [gaius] scouts the popular christian apology offered for it in the mental inferiority of the female sex.... led by their theory of natural law, the roman [pagan] jurisconsults had evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their code of equity." of the christians, led by their theory of a revealed divine law which treated women as inferior beings and useful only as prey, lecky says ("european morals," vol. , page ): "but in the whole feudal [christian and chiefly canon] legislation women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the pagan empire. the complete inferiority of the sex was continually maintained by the law; and that generous public opinion which in pagan rome had frequently revolted against the injustice done to girls, in depriving them of the greater part of the inheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared. _wherever the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession sacrificing the merest of daughters and of wives_, and a state of public opinion which has been formed and regulated by these laws; nor was any serious attempt made to abolish them _till the close of the last century_. the french revolutionists, though rejecting the proposal of sieyes and condorcet [both infidels] to accord political emancipation to women, established at least an equal succession of sons and daughters, and thus initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion which sooner or later must traverse the world." how soon or how late this will happen will depend very greatly upon the amount of power retained by the church. pagans, infidels, and scientists have fought for, and the church has fought against, the dignity, honor, and welfare of women for centuries; and because fear, organization, wealth, selfishness, and power have been on the side of the church, and she has kept women too ignorant to understand the situation, she has succeeded for many generations in retarding the progress and shutting out the light that slowly came in despite of her. "_no society which preserves any tincture of christian institutions is ever_ likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle roman law; but the proprietary disabilities of married females stand on quite a different basis from their personal incapacities, and it is by keeping alive and consolidating the former that _the canon law has so deeply injured civilization_. there are many vestiges of a _struggle between the secular and ecclesiastical principles; but the canon law nearly everywhere prevailed._"* * maine's "ancient law," . it has always been uphill work fighting the church. so long as it had sword and fagot at its command, and the will to use them; so long as it pretended to have, and people believed that it had, power to mete out damnation to its opposers; just so long were science, justice, and thought fatally crippled. but when voltaire, diderot, condorcet and the great encyclopedist circle of france got their hands on the throat of the church, and dipped their pens in the fire of eloquence, wit, ridicule, reason, and justice, then, and not till then, began to dawn a day of honor toward women, of humanity and justice and truth. they drew back the curtain, the world saw, the cloud lifted, and life began on a new plane. under pagan rule woman had begun, as we have seen, to receive recognition apart from sex. she was a human being. a general law of "persons" applied to and shielded her. but from the first the christian church refused to consider her apart from her capacity for reproduction; and this one ground of consideration it pronounced a curse, a crime, and a shame to her. her only claim to recognition at all was a curse. she was not a person, she was only a function.* * see lea's "sacerdotal celibacy." man it pronounced a person first, with rights, privileges, and protection as such. incidentally he might also be a husband, a father, or a son. his welfare, duties, and rights as a person, as a human being, were apart from and superior to those that were special and incidental. he received consideration always as a person. he _might_ be dealt with as husband or father. but ignoring all her mental life and denying that she had any, and ignoring all her physical possibilities, ambitions, desires, and capabilities as a person, the church narrowed woman's life and restricted her energies into a compass where its power over her became absolute and her subjection certain. nor has the loss been wholly to woman, for any influence which cripples the mother's capacity of endowment takes cruel revenge on the race.* * "it is not impossible but that a more correct understanding of the laws of life and heredity may establish the fact that because of the subjection of woman, the entire race has been mentally dwarfed and physically weakened." --gamble. from this outlook the debt of civilization to the church is heavy indeed. is it a debt of gratitude? under this head there is space for but one point farther, out of the great store at hand. the clergy were licensed to commit crime. they got up a neat little scheme called "benefit of clergy" by which they were secure from the punishment meted out to other criminals. the relief offered did sometimes reach other men, but as learning was largely confined to the clergy they were the chief beneficiaries, as the name implies and as was the intent of the law. any man who could read was allowed "benefit of clergy;" in other words, his punishment was lightened or entirely omitted. but a woman, though she were a perfect mine of wisdom and could read in any number of languages, could receive no such benefit, _because she could not take holy orders_. they first enacted that she should not take orders, and then they denied to her the relief which only that ability could give. so great a favorite was woman with the church! the ordinary male criminal received the ordinary punishment, the clergy received none; and in order that the requisite gross amount of suffering for crime should be inflicted on somebody, the clergy enacted that woman should receive _their_ share vicariously in addition to her own, and then to this they added such interest as would make the twenty-per-cent-a-month men of wall street ashamed of their stupid financiering. thus the church arrogated to itself the exclusive right to commit crime with impunity, and also claimed and exercised the right to prevent women from learning to read. if she still persisted it could then punish her doubly, _because she had no right to learn_. for offenses for which ordinary men were hanged, women were burned alive, and priests were glorified. for larceny a man was branded in the hand or imprisoned for a few months; while _for a first offence_ of the kind a woman was kindly permitted to be hanged or beheaded _without benefit of clergy_; and the clergy went scot free.* the church did then as it does now, it claimed all the benefits of citizenship and paid none of the penalties and bore none of the burdens.** * blackstone. christian. ** it still claims exemption from taxation, thus throwing its burden on others; and it also claims immunity from the very gambling laws which it so rigidly enforces against other institutions. the church did then just as it does now, in principle, in setting up certain great benefits which _only priests might hope to obtain, and then enacting that certain persons were forever ineligible to the priesthood_; and the same or quite as good reasons were given for denying women such relief from the penalties of the law as was freely extended to men, as are given to-day for refusing her the liberty, emoluments, and benefits that are freely accorded to the most imbecile little theological student who is educated by the needle of a sister and supported by money wrung from the fears of shop or factory girls, to whom he paints the terrors of hell, and freely threatens the same to those who disobey him. salvation comes high, but no preacher ever gets so poor that he cannot distribute hell free of charge to the multitude without the least diminution of his stock-in-trade. i should think that an orthodox pulpit would be about the last place a self-respecting woman would wish to fill; but i am glad, since there are some who do so wish, that the issue has again been forced upon the church, and that in , true to her history, she was again compelled to acknowledge herself a respecter of persons, a degrader of women, and a clog to progress and individual liberty, equality, and conscience. i am glad that women have recently forced the methodist and presbyterian churches to declare their principles of class preference and partial legislation. i am glad that in these churches were compelled to say in effect to women, so that the world could hear: "you are not and you never can be our equals. we are holy. you are unclean. we will hold you back and down to the ancient level we made for you just as long as the life is in us; and if you ever receive recognition as a human being, it must be at the hands of those who defy the church and hate creeds that are not big enough to go all round. our creeds are only large enough to give each sex half. but we won't be stingy, we only want our share. you are entirely welcome to all the degradation here and all the damnation hereafter; and any man who attempts to deprive you of these blessings is a heretic and a sinner. let us pray." education. in dealing with this point the humor of the situation is too plain to require comment, and i need only cite a few facts in order to place the beautiful little fiction where it belongs.* * see appendix t. as to general education it is well known that the church has fought investigation and persecuted science. from the third century to bruno, and from bruno to darwin and tyndall there is an unbroken chain of evidence as to her position in these matters and her opposition to the diffusion of knowledge. when, however, it became impossible for her to resist the demand of the people for education; when she could no longer retard liberty and prevent the recognition of individual rights; then she modestly demanded the right to do the teaching herself and to control its extent and scope.* with a brain stultified by faith** she proposed to regulate investigations in which the habit of faith would necessarily prove fatal to the discovery of truth.*** she proposed to teach nothing but the dead languages and theology, and to confine knowledge to these fields, and she succeeded for many generations in so doing. every time she found a man who had discovered something, or who had a theory he was trying to test by some little scientific investigations, she cried "heretic" and suppressed that man. she stuck to the dead languages, and the only thing she is not afraid of to-day is something dead. any other kind of knowledge is a dangerous acquaintance for her to make. **** if you meet a clergyman to-day who has devoted his time to the dead languages you need not be afraid that he is a heretic; but if he is studying the sciences, arts, literature, and history of the living world in earnest you can get your fagot ready. his orthodoxy is a dead doxy. it is only a question of time and bravery when he will swear off.***** * see appendix g, - . ** see appendix u. *** see clifford's "scientific basis of morals," p. **** see morley's "diderot," p. . ***** see ibid, p. . in the church schools and "universities" to-day it is quite pathetic to hear the professors wrestle with geology and genesis, and cut their astronomy to fit joshua. if in one of these institutions for the petrifaction of the human mind there is a teacher who is either not nimble enough to escape the conclusions of a bright pupil or too honest to try, he is at once found to be "incompetent as an instructor," and is dropped from the faculty. i know one case where it took twenty years to discover that a professor was not able to teach geology--and it took a heresy-hunter with a bible to do it then. but it is the claim of the church in regard to the education of women with which i have to do here. women in greece and rome under pagan rule had become learned and influential to an unparalleled degree.* the early fathers of the church found women thirsty for knowledge and eager for opportunities to learn. they thereupon set about making it disreputable for a woman to know anything,** and in order to clinch their prohibition the church asserted that woman was unable to learn, had not the mental capacity,*** was created without mental power and for purely physical purposes. * see lecky, milman, diderot, morley, christian, and others. ** "in the fourth century we find that holy men in council gravely argued the question, and that too with abundant confidence in their ability and power to decide the whole matter: 'ought women to be called human beings?' a wise and pious father in the church, after deliberating solemnly and long on the vexed question of women, finally concluded: 'the female sex is not a fault in itself, but a fact in nature for which women themselves are not to blame;' but he graciously cherished the opinion that women will be permitted to rise as men, at the resurrection. a few centuries later the masculine mind underwent great agitation over the question: 'would it be consistent with the duties and uses of women for them to learn the alphabet?' and in america, after bridget gaffort had donated the first plot of ground for a public school, girls were still denied the advantages of such schools. the questions--'shall women be allowed to enter colleges?' and 'shall they be admitted into the professions?' have been as hotly contested as has been the question of their humanity." --gamble. *** "there existed at the same time in this celebrated city a class of women, the glory of whose intellectual brilliancy still survives; and when alcibiades drew around him the first philosophers and statesmen of greece, 'it was a virtue to applaud aspasia;' of whom it has been said that she lectured publicly on rhetoric and philosophy with such ability that socrates and alcibiades gathered wisdom from her lips, and so marked was her genius for statesmanship that pericles afterward married her and allowed her to govern athens, then at the height of its glory and power. numerous examples might be cited in which athenian women rendered material aid to the state." --gamble. it was maintained that her "sphere" was clearly defined, and that it was purely and solely an animal one; and worst of all it was stoutly asserted that her greatest crime had always been a desire for wisdom, and that it was this desire which brought the penalty of labor and death into this world.* with such a belief it is hardly strange that the education of girls was looked upon as a crime; and with such a record it is almost incredible effrontery that enables the church to-day to claim credit for the education of women,** if she were to educate every woman living, free of charge, in every branch of known knowledge, she could not repay woman for what she has deprived her of in the past, or efface the indignity she has already offered.*** * see morley's "diderot," p. ; lea's "sacerdotal celibacy;" lecky's "european morals." ** see appendix h, to . *** lecky, "european morals," p. . a prominent clergyman of the church of england, who was recently much honored in this country, lately said, in a sermon to women: "there are those who think a woman can be taught logic. this is a mistake. men are logical, women are not." he was too modest to give his proofs. it seemed to me strange that he did not mention the doctrines of the trinity and vicarious atonement, or a few of the miracles, as the result of logic in the masculine mind. and i could not help thinking at the time that a man whose mental furniture was chiefly composed of the thirty-nine articles and the westminster catechism would naturally be a profound authority on logic. an orthodox preacher talking about logic is a sight to arouse the compassion of a demon. next to the natural sciences, logic can give the church the colic quicker than any other kind of a green apple. and so it is not strange that the clergy should be afraid that it would disagree with the more delicate constitution of a woman. they always did maintain that any diet that was a trifle too heavy for them couldn't be digested by anybody else; and they would be perfectly right in their supposition if intellectual dyspepsia or softening of the brain were contagious. the "sphere" of no other creature is wholly determined and bounded by _one physical_ characteristic or capacity. to every other creature is conceded without question the right to use more than one talent. but the fathers decided in holy and solemn council that it would be "unbecoming" for a woman to learn the alphabet, and that she could have no possible use for such information. they said that she would be a better mother without distracting her dear little brain with the a, b, c's, and that therefore she should not learn them. they also decided that she who was so far lost to modesty as to become acquainted with the multiplication table "was an unfit associate for our wives and mothers." there was something wrong with such a woman. she was either a "witch" or else she was "married to the devil." that is the way the church encouraged education for women. this was done, the holy fathers said, to "protect women from the awful temptations of life to which the lord in his infinite wisdom had subjected man." they had too much respect for their wives and mothers to permit them to come in contact with the wickedness of long division or cube root, and they hoped while life lasted that no man would be so negligent of duty as to allow his sister to soil her pure mind with conic sections. well, in time there were a few women brave enough, and a few men honorable and moral enough, to set aside the letter of this prohibition; but much of its spirit still blossoms in all its splendor in columbia, harvard, yale, and various other institutions of learning, where women are either not permitted to enter at all or are required to learn and accomplish unaided that which it takes a large faculty of instructors and every known or obtainable educational device (together with future business stimulus) to enable the young men to do the same thing! the fathers said, in effect, "it was through woman wanting to know something that sin came into this world; therefore let her hereafter want to know nothing." they taught that a desire for knowledge on the part of woman was the greatest crime ever committed on this earth, and that it so enraged god that he punished it by death and by every curse known to man. when it was pointed out that animals had lived and _died_ on this earth long before man could have lived, they said that god knew adam was going to live and eve was going to sin, so he _made death retroactive_ because adam would represent all animals when he should be created! all this was thought and done and taught in order to agree with the silly story of the "fall of man in the garden of eden," which every one acquainted with the simple rudiments of science or the history of the races knows to be a childish legend of an undeveloped people. instead of a "fall" from perfect beginnings, there has been and is a constant rise in the moral as well as in the mental and physical conditions of man. the type is higher, the race nobler and nearer perfection than it ever was before; and the stories of our bible are the same as those of all other bibles, simply the effort of ignorant or imaginative men to account for the origin and destiny of things of which they had no accurate knowledge.* * one of the simplest and most interesting explanations of this latter point will be found in "the childhood of religions," by edward clodd, f.r.a.s., where the christian reader may be surprised to find that the "ten-commandment" idea (with a number of them which apply to general morals, as "thou shalt not kill," etc.) is not confined to our bible, but is found also in the buddhist bible in the same form; that the "golden rule" was given by confucius years before christ; and that christianity, when taken as it should be with the other great religions and examined in the same way, presents no problem, no claim, and no proofs which are not found in equal strength in one or more of the other forms of faith. in the matters of morality, miracles, and power to attract and "comfort" multitudes of people, it ranks neither first nor last. it is simply one of several, and in no essential matter is it different from them. st. paul said, "if they [women] will learn _anything_, let them ask their husbands at home;" and the colossal ignorance of most women would seem to indicate that they have obeyed the command to the letter. but fortunately for women the civilization of freedom has outgrown st. paul as it has the dictates of the church, and one by one the doors of information, _and hence the doors to honest labor_, have been opened, and the possibility of living with dignity and honor has replaced the forced degradation of the days when the power of the church enabled it to reduce women to the animal existence it so long forced upon her. so long as the church allowed woman but one avenue of support, so long did it force her to use that single means of livelihood. so long as it made her believe that she could bring to this world nothing of value but her capacity to minister to the lower animal wants of man, so long did it force upon her that single alternative--or starvation. so long as it is able to make multitudes of women believe themselves of value for but one purpose, just that long will it continue to insure the degradation of many of those women who are helpless, or weak, or loving, or ignorant of the motives of those in whose power they are. so long as it teaches woman that she can repay her debt to the world in but one way, so long will it promote commerce in vice and revenue in shame. every man is taught that he can repay his debt to this world in many ways. he has open to him many avenues of happiness, many paths to honorable employment. if he fails in one there is still hope. if he misses supreme happiness in marriage he has still left ambition, labor, study, fame; if the one failure overtakes him, no matter how sad, he still can turn aside and find, if not joy, at least occupation and rest. but the church has always taught woman that there is but one "sphere," one hope, one occupation, one life for her. if she fails in that, what wonder that with broken hope comes broken virtue or despair? every woman who has fallen or lost her way has been previously taught by the church that she had and has but one resource; that there is open to her in life but one path; that whether that path be legally crooked or straight, she was created for but one purpose; that _man is to decide for her what that purpose is; and that she must under no circumstances set her own judgment up against his_. the legitimate fruits of such an education are too horribly apparent to need explanation. every fallen woman is a perpetual monument to the infamy of a religion and a social custom that narrow her life to the possibilities of but one function, and provide her no escape--a system that trains her to depend wholly on one physical characteristic of her being, and to neglect all else. that system teaches her that her mind is to be of but slight use to her; that her hands may not learn the cunning of a trade nor her brain the bearings of a profession; that mentally she is nothing; and that physically she is worse than nothing only in so far as she may minister to one appetite. i hold that the most legitimate outcome of such an education is to be found in the class that makes merchandise of all that woman is taught that she possesses that is of worth to herself or to this world. no system could be more perfectly devised to accomplish this purpose.* * see lea's "sacerdotal celibacy." as wives. we are told that women owe honorable marriage to christianity;* that the more beautiful and tender relations of husband and wife find their root there; that christianity protects and elevates the mother as no other law or religion ever has. let us see. * see appendix i, - . on this subject i find in maine's "ancient law" these facts: "although women had been objects of barter and sale, according to barbaric usages, between their male relatives, the later roman [pagan] law having assumed, _on the theory of natural law, the equality of the sexes_, control of the _person_ of women was quite obsolete when christianity was born. her situation had become one of great personal liberty and proprietary independence, even when married, and the arbitrary power over her of her male relations, or her guardian, was reduced to a nullity, while the form of _marriage conferred on the husband no superiority_." thus as a daughter and as a wife had she grown to be honored and recognized as an equal under pagan rule. "_but christianity tended from the first to narrow this remarkable liberty...._ the latest roman [pagan] law, _so far as touched by the constitutions of the christian emperors, bears marks of reaction against these great liberal doctrines._" --maine. and again began the sale of women. christianity held her as unclean and in all respects inferior; and "during the era which begins modern history the women of dominant races are seen everywhere under various forms of archaic guardianship, and _the husband pays a money price to her male relations for her_. the prevalent state of _religious_ sentiment may explain why it is that _modern_ jurisprudence has absorbed among its rudiments _much more than usual of those rules_ [archaic] _concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilization._" --ibid. thus it will be seen that from the first, and extending down to the present, the church did all she could to cast woman back into the night of the race from which in a great measure she had been rescued through the ages when natural law and not "revelation" was the guide of man. the laws which the church found liberal and just toward women it discarded, and it searched back in the ages of night for such as it saw fit to re-enact for her. of this maine says: "the husband now draws to himself the power which formerly belonged to his wife's male relatives, the only difference being that he no longer pays anything for the privilege." as christians grew economical wives came cheaper than formerly, and it became a dogma that wives were not worth much anyhow, and then, too, it enabled persons of limited means to have more of them. of a somewhat later date maine says: "_at this point heavy disabilities begin to be imposed upon wives_." that was to make marriage honorable and attractive, no doubt, and, says maine: "_it was very long before the subordination entailed on women by marriage was sensibly diminished." and what diminution it received came from men who fought against church law_.* *see lecky, maine, lea, milman, christian, blackstone, morley, and others for ample proof of this fact it was only the crumbs of liberty, honor, and justice extorted by men who fought the church on behalf of wives, that lightened their most oppressive burdens. it was true then, and it is true to-day, that women owe what justice and freedom and power they possess to the fact that the best and clearest-headed men are more honorable than our religion, and that they have invited moses and st. paul to take a back seat moses has complied, and st. paul is half-way down the aisle. some of the clergy now explain that although paul may have written certain things inimical to women, he did not _mean_ them, so it is all right. such passages as cor. xi. - ; xiv. - ; and eph. v. - , are now explained to be intended in a purely pickwickian sense; and a rev. mr. boyd, of st. louis, has even gone so far as to produce the doughty apostle before a woman-suffrage society, as on their side of that argument. this second conversion of st. paul impresses one as even more remarkable than his first. it took an "angel of god" to show him the error of his ways in ephesus, but one little baptist preacher did it this time--all by himself. truly st. paul is getting easier to deal with than he used to be. but to resume, maine, in tracing the amalgamation of the later roman (pagan) law with the archaic laws of a lower civilization (the result of which was christian law), shows that the church, while it chose the roman laws, which had arrived at so high a state, for others, _retained for women, and particularly for wives, the least favorable_ of the roman, eked out with the archaic _patria potestas_ and the more degrading provisions of the earlier civilizations. maine reluctantly says that the jurisconsults of the day contended for better laws for wives, but that the church prevailed in most instances, and established the more oppressive ones. with certain of these laws--the worst ones--i cannot deal here for obvious reasons; but a few of them i may be permitted to give without offence to the modesty of any one. blackstone says: "by marriage the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal _existence of the woman is suspended_ during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband. the husband becomes her _baron or lord_--she his _servant_. upon this principle of the union of person in husband and wife depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities they acquire by marriage." that is to say the husband acquires all the rights, and the wife all the disabilities; and the church wishing to be fair has made the latter as many as possible. "and therefore," continues blackstone, "it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, _when single, are voided by the intermarriage_." the working of this principle has been so often illustrated as to render comment unnecessary. a wife retains no rights which her husband is bound to respect, no matter how solemn the compact before marriage, nor what her belief in its strength might have been. fortunately for women, happily for wives, men are more decent than their religion; and the law of custom and public opinion has largely outgrown this enactment of the church, made when she had the power to thus degrade women and brutalize men. "if the wife be injured in _her person or her property she can bring no action for redress_ without her husband's concurrence _and in his name_," and on the basis of loss of _her services_ to him _as a servant. "but in criminal prosecutions, it is true, the wife may be indicted and punished separately_." * * blackstone. in the case of punishment the church was entirely willing to give the devil his due. it had no ambition to deprive women of any indictments and punishments that were to be had. in this case, although the husband and wife were one, she was that one. where privileges or property-rights were to be considered, he was the "one." such grand reversible doctrines were always on tap with the clergy, and their barrel was always full. truly, wives do owe much to the church. some of the provisions of these laws have, of late years, been modified by the efforts of men who were pronounced "infidels, destroyers of the bible, the home, and the dignity of women," aided by women whom the orthodox deride as "strong--minded, ill-balanced, coarse, impious," etc., etc., _ad infinitum, ad nauseam_. a strong mind, whether in man or woman, has always been to the clergy as a red rag to a bull. "a woman may make a will, _with the assent of her husband_, by way of appointment of her _personal_ property. _she cannot even with his consent devise lands_.... although our law in general considers a man and wife as one person, yet there are _some instances where she is considered separately as his inferior_," and for that trip only. as i remarked before when it comes to penalties she is welcome to the whole lot. "she may not make a deed." "a man may administer moderate correction to his wife." "these are the chief legal effects of marriage. even the disabilities of the wife," blackstone naively remarks, "are for the most part _intended for her protection; so great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of england!_" i should think that if this latter point were not quite clear to a woman, "moderate correction" might convince her that she was quite an unreasonable favorite--beyond her most eager desires. where the pagan law recognized her as the equal of her husband, the church discarded that law, and based the canon law upon an archaic invention. where maine speaks of the later growth of pagan law and of christian influence upon it, he says: "but the chapter of law relating to married women was for the most part read by the light, not of roman [or pagan] but of canon [or church] law, _which in no one particular departs so widely from the [improved] spirit of the secular jurisprudence as in the view it takes of the relations created by marriage_. this was in part inevitable, _since no society which possesses any tincture of christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle roman law_." women who support the clergy with one hand, and hold out the other for the ballot; who one day express indignation at the refusal to them of human recognition, and the next day intone the creeds, will have to learn that there is nothing which has so successfully stood, and still so powerfully stands, in the way of the individual liberty, human rights, and dignity of wives, as the church which they support. blackstone says: "in times of popery a great _variety_ of impediments to marriage were made, which impediments might, however, be _bought off with money_." you could, for instance, buy a more distant relationship to your future wife for so much cash down to the church. if your inamorata were your first cousin, you could remove her several degrees with five hundred dollars, and make her no relation at all for a little more. such little sleight-of-hand performances are as nothing to a well-trained clergyman. slip a check into one hand, and a request to marry your aunt into the other, let a clergyman shake them up in the coffers of the church, and when one comes out gold, the other will appear as a blushing bride not even related to her own father, and not more than third cousin to herself. of the claim made by the early christian fathers, that it was because of the mental inferiority and incapacity of women that the more unjust and binding laws were enacted for them, thus doing all they could to create and intensify by law the incapacity which they asserted was imposed by god, maine says: "but the proprietary disabilities of married females _stand on quite a different basis from personal incapacity_, and it is by the tendency of their doctrines to keep alive and consolidate the former, that the expositors of the _canon law have deeply injured civilization_." he adds that there are many evidences of a struggle between _secular principles in favor of justice for wives_, and _ecclesiastical principles against it_, "but the canon law nearly everywhere prevailed. the systems which are _least indulgent_ to married women are invariably those which have followed the _canon law exclusively_.... it enforced the complete legal subjection of wives." lecky says: "fierce invectives against the sex form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the fathers. woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. she should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman.... women were even forbidden, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to receive the eucharist into their naked hands. their essentially subordinate position was continually maintained. this teaching in part determined the principles of legislation concerning the sex.* the pagan laws during the empire had been continually _repealing the old disabilities_ of women, and the legislative movement in their favor continued with unabated force from constantine to justinian, and appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. _but in the whole feudal [christian] legislation women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the pagan empire_." * see appendix j. and he adds that the french revolutionists (the infidel party) established better laws for women, "and initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion, _which sooner or later must traverse the world_." and these reformations, being in christendom, will be calmly claimed in the future, as in the present, as due to the beneficent influence of the church. the church always belongs to the conservative party, but after a good thing is established in despite of her, she says: "just see what i have done! 'see what a good boy am i!"' not many years ago a few great-souled men who were "heretics" got a glimpse of a principle which has electrified the world. they said that individual liberty is a universal right; they maintained that humanity is a unit, with interests and aims indivisible, and that liberty to use to the utmost advantage all natural abilities cannot be denied one-half of the race without crippling both. a few even went so far as to suggest that the assumption of the inferiority of women, and the imposition of disabilities upon them, under the claim of divine authority, is the greatest crime in the great calendar of crime for which the church has yet to render a reckoning to humanity. to one who reads the history of canon law, it is not strange that christian judges still decide that women are "incompetent to practice law," and that they should not be allowed to study it. a woman well versed in the history of ancient and modern law might easily be an uncomfortable advocate for such a judge to face. he would probably feel the need of an umbrella. it is not strange that columbia college, with its corps of clergymen, "fails to see the propriety" of opening its doors to women. the few clergymen who have for some little time past taken the side of fair-play in this and like matters have simply deserted their colors and come over to the side they are worldly-wise enough to see is to be the side of the future. when it comes to diplomacy the church is always on deck in time to gather in the spoils; but she stays safely below during the engagement, and simply holds back and anchors firm until she sees which way it is likely to end. the moment there is an understanding on the part of women of what they owe to church law, that moment will educational clerical monopolists, such as the champion anchor of columbia, be compelled to earn an honest living in some honest business pertaining to this world. it will be a great day for women when they refuse to longer support these pretenders to divine knowledge, who are willing, at so much a head, to tell what they do not know at the expense of the pale, tired needlewoman, who is in want of almost every comfort that money can buy in this world, together with the surplus gold of the fashionable devotees who minister to the vanity of the clergy, and give to the coffers of the church that which would save thousands of young girls from degradation and crime, and put the roses of health on the cheek of innocence. every dollar that is paid to support the church is paid to degrade a woman. every collection that is made to spread "revelation" is used to suppress enlightenment and retard civilization. every dollar that is invested in "another world" is a dollar diverted from useful purposes in this. every hour that is spent mooning about "heaven" is that much time taken from needed labor here. if our energies were wanted in another world we should most likely be in another world. since we are in this one it is a pretty strong hint that we are expected to attend to business right here. we can't do justice to two worlds at the same time; and since we are assured that we shall have the whole of eternity to arrange matters in the next one, it leaves very little time by comparison to devote to our duties in this. there we are to have nothing to do but sing and be happy--twang a harp and smile. here we have pain to alleviate, ignorance to dispel, innocence to protect, disease to master, and crime to restrain and prevent. here we have the helpless to shield and guard and protect. here we have homes to make happy, the hearts of husbands and wives to make glad, the light of love and trust to kindle in the eyes of children. here is old age to cheer and console. here are orphans to educate and protect, widows to comfort, and oppression to uproot. there--nothing to do but look after yourself and manage your harp; nobody to help--all will be perfect; nothing to learn--all will be wise; no hearts to cheer--all will be happy. all that a mother will have to do if she gets a little tired practicing on her lyre and feels gloomy will be to just take a good look over the wall, and photograph on her eyes the picture of her husband and children freshly dipped in oil and put on the griddle, and she will come back to business perfectly satisfied, take up her song where she left off, and praise the lamb for his infinite mercy. all eternity to learn how to fly round in a robe and keep time with the orchestra! why a deaf man could learn to do that in fifty or sixty years, and then have all the rest of the time to spare. we are here such a little while, there is so much to learn, there is so much to do, there is so much to _undo_, that no man can afford to waste his time on an infinite future of time, space, and leisure. men cannot afford to lose your best energies. "god" can get on very well without them. time is short, and needs are pressing; and this thing you know--you can keep busy doing good right here. if there is a hereafter, could there be a better preparation for it than that? not woman's friend. after all that has preceded this page i need hardly do more with this count of the last claim of "theological fiction" than simply say, if the bible is woman's best friend, then the clergy, without authority and in violation of the precepts of their own guide, have been her worst enemy, either through malice or ignorance; in either of which cases they are and have always been unfit to dictate, to lead opinion, or to receive a following as reliable guides for this world or the next. if they have been so ignorant or so malicious for nearly nineteen hundred years as to thus systematically misconstrue their own authority--their own "revelation"--to the constant disadvantage of women (and the consequent enfeeblement of the race), surely they can claim no respect for their opinions and no confidence in their divine calling.* in trying to shield the bible the clergy simply convict themselves.** * see appendix k. ** see appendix l. but i incline to the opinion that in the main this view of the case is unfair to the clergy, and that they have followed, in spirit if not literally, the dictates of the bible as a whole. it is undoubtedly true that the bible throughout holds woman as an inferior in both mental and moral characteristics; and upon this understanding of it the fathers built the church and crystallized the laws. the fathers of the church were as a rule a bad lot themselves. all contemporaneous history and all internal evidence prove this fact: and when we remember that the "prophets" were almost to a man polygamists; that their belief and practices in this regard were of the order and type of mormondom to-day, _and for the same reasons_; that they were slave-holders and slave-stealers; that they believed in a god of infinite cruelty and revenge--of arbitrary will and reasonless barbarity; and that they were licentious and brutal beyond description; it will be easy to understand the position which such men--with these beliefs, practices, mentality, and moral degradation--would accord to women. every bible of every people; every history of every race showing like civilization, will show you like results.* *see appendix m. in the new testament we find an effort to readjust old clothes to a new body, some of whose members had grown better and some worse in dogma and belief. where women are _especially_ dealt with we find them commanded to "be under obedience," and always to subject their wills to the ways and wills of men; while the general tone and treatment are always based upon the assumption that she is an inferior, a secondary creation, and a subject class.* that this is the understanding of the bible always recognized by the church (and to-day questioned by only a very small minority who are shrewd enough to see the necessity of revamping it to fit the new public morality and civilization), all history attests; but the vehemence with which the doctrine has been asserted the foregoing pages can only faintly indicate. ** but certainly, if for thousands of years the clergy have, as a body, misconstrued or misunderstood the spirit of their own book (to which they have always claimed to possess the only key), they should not blame those who to-day take issue with them upon their information, their dictates, their _basis of morality_, or their interpretations of the rights of humanity. if, as they claim to-day, the bible is the friend of women and no respecter of persons, a conclusion which it took them hundreds of years to reach, it has taken them too long to discover the fact for their guidance to be either a desirable or a safe one for humanity; and the millions of women they have degraded and oppressed in the past are certainly not an argument in favor of their infallibility now. *** * see appendix n. ** see appendix o. *** see appendix p. let them give way to men who, claiming no right to divine authority or superhuman wisdom, speak in the interest of all humanity the best they know (always acknowledged to be subject to revision for the better); who are not bound back and retarded by the outgrown toggery of the jewish civilization of david and his time or the christian dictatorship of paul.* acknowledging themselves as false and oppressive interpreters of divine law for centuries past is but a poor recommendation of their ability or integrity for the future. * see appendix q. whichever horn of the dilemma they accept, there is but one honorable course for the clergy to pursue, and that is to resign in favor of those who have all along been on the right track, without a pretence of divine guidance; who in despite of faith and fagot have made progress possible. morals.* * see appendices t and v. after my lecture on men, women, and gods, in chicago, i was asked how it would be possible to train children to be good without a belief in the divinity of the bible; how they could be made to know it is wrong to be and steal and kill. the belief that the bible is the originator of these and like moral ideas, or that christ was their first teacher, is far from the truth; and it is only another evidence of the duplicity or ignorance of the church that such a belief obtains or that such a falsehood is systematically taught. it is too easily forgotten that morals are universal, that christianity is local. practical moral ideas grow up very early, and develop with the development of a race. they are the response to the needs of a people, and when formulated have in several cases taken the shape of "commandments" from some unseen power. these necessary practical laws are by degrees attached to those of imaginary value, and all alike are held in esteem as of equal moral worth. by this means a ficticious standard of right and wrong becomes established, and a weakening of confidence in the valueless part results in damage to that portion which was originally the result of wise and necessary legislation.* when children (of whatever age) do this or that "because god said so," the precepts taught on this basis, even though they are good, will have no hold upon the man who discovers that their origin was purely human. it is a dangerous experiment, and depends wholly upon ignorance for its success. a firm basis of reason in this world is the only solid foundation of moral training. my chicago questioner proceeded upon the hypothesis that what of valuable morals are contained in the bible were a "revelation" to one people, and that their value was dependent upon this origin. for the benefit of those who have been similarly** imposed upon, i will cite a few facts in as short space as possible. * "durable morality had been associated with a transitory religious faith. the faith fell into intellectual discredit, and sexual morality shared its decline for a short season. this must always be the natural consequence of building sound ethics on the shifting sands and rotting foundations of theology. it is one of those enormous drawbacks that people seldom take into account when they are enumerating the blessings of superstition." --morley's "diderot," p. . ** professor max muller says that "the consciousness of sin is a leading feature in the religion of the veda, so is likewise the belief that the gods are able to take away from man the heavy burden of his sins." brahmanism, with its two hundred millions of believers, and its rig-veda (bible) composed two thousand four hundred years before christ, has its rigid code of morals; its theory of creation; its teachings about sin; its revelations; its belief in the ability of the gods to forgive;** its belief that its bible came from god; and its devotees who believe that an infinite god is pleased with the toys of worship, praise, and adulation of man. it has its prayers and hymns, its offerings and sacrifices. corresponding with our "trinity" idea the brahmin has his three great gods; and in place of our "angels" he has his infinite number of little ones.* next, zoroastrianism, certainly twelve hundred years older than christ, has its legends (quite as authentic as our own) of miracles performed by its founder and his followers; its zend-avesta (bible); its "supreme spirit;" its belief in gods and demons who interfere with affairs in this world and who are ever at war with each other; its sacred fires; its lord; its praise; and its pretence to direct communication _in the past_ with spirits and with gods who gave their prophet "commandments."** it lacks none of the paraphernalia of a "divine institution" ready for business, and we are unable to discount it in either loaves or fishes. it also has its heaven and hell;*** its messiah or prophet; its arch fiend or devil; its rites and ceremonies. * see edward clodd, f.r.a.s., "childhood of religions." ** "in the gathas or oldest part of the zend-avesta, which contains the leading doctrines of zoroaster, he asks ormuzd [god] for truth and guidance, and desires to know what he shall do. he is told to be pure in thought, word, and deed; to be temperate, chaste, and truthful; to offer prayer to ormuzd and the powers that fight with him; to destroy all hurtful things; and to do all that will increase the well- being of mankind. men were not to cringe before the powers of darkness as slaves crouch before a tyrant, they were to meet them upstanding, and confound them by unending opposition and the power of a holy life. 'oh men, if you cling to these commandments which mazda has given, which are a torment to the wicked and a blessing to the righteous, then there will be victory through them.'" --max muller. *** "in this old faith there was a belief in two abodes for the departed: heaven, the 'house of the angels' hymns,' and hell, where the wicked were sent. between the two there was a bridge." --ibid. professor max muller remarks: "there were periods in the history of the world when the worship of ormuzd threatened to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of all other gods. if the battles of marathon and salamis had been lost and greece had succumbed to persia, the state religion of the empire of cyrus, which was the worship of ormuzd, might have become the religion of the whole civilized world." in which case my chicago friend would have asked, "if you destroy a belief in ormuzd, and that he gave the only supernatural moral law to zoroaster, how will children ever be taught what is right and what is wrong, and how can they ever know that it is not right to lie and kill and steal?" "their creed is of the simplest kind; it is to fear god, to live a life of pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds, and to die in the hope of a world to come. _it is the creed of those who have lived nearest to god and served him faithfullest in every age_, and wherever they dwell who accept it and practice it, they bear witness to that which makes them children of god and brethren of the prophets, among whom zoroaster was not the least. the jews were carried away as captives to babylon some years before christ, and during the seventy years of their exile there, they came into contact with the persian religion _and derived from it ideas about the immortality of the soul, which their own religion did not contain. they also borrowed from it their belief in a multitude of angels, and in satan as the ruler over evil spirits_." [so you see that even our devil is a borrowed one, and it now seems to be about time to return him with thanks. ] "the ease with which man believes in unearthly powers working for his hurt prepares a people to admit into its creed the doctrine of evil spirits, and although it is certain that the jews had no belief in such spirits before their captivity in babylon, they spoke of satan (which means _an adversary_) as a messenger sent from god to watch the deeds of men and accuse them to him for their wrong-doing. satan thus becoming by degrees an object of dread, upon whom all the evil which befell man was charged, the minds of the jews were ripe for accepting the persian doctrine of ahriman with his legions of devils. ahriman became the jewish satan, _a belief in whom formed part of early christian doctrine, and is now but slowly dying out. what fearful ills it has caused, history has many a page to tell_. the doctrine that satan, once an angel of light, had been cast from heaven for rebellion against god, and had ever since played havoc among mankind, gave rise to the belief that he and his demons could possess the souls of men and animals at pleasure. hence grew the belief in wizards and witches, under which millions of creatures, both young and old, were cruelly tortured and put to death. we turn over the smeared pages of this history in haste, thankful that from such a nightmare the world has wakened." * the world has awakened, but the church still snores on, confident and happy in the belief that she has a devil all her own, and that he is attending strictly to business. next we have buddhism, _which numbers more followers than any other faith_. it is five hundred years older than christianity. it has its prophet or messiah who was exposed to a tempter,** and overcame all evil; its fastings and prayers; its miracles and its visions. of buddha's teachings prof. max muller tells us that he used to say, "nothing on earth is stable, nothing is real. life is as transitory as a spark of fire, or the sound of a lyre. there must be some supreme intelligence where we could find rest. if i attained it i could bring light to men. if i were free myself i could deliver the world." *clodd, f.r.a.s. ** "afterward the tempter sent his three daughters, one a winning girl, one a blooming virgin, and one a middle-aged beauty, to allure him, but they could not. buddha was proof against all the demon's arts, and his only trouble was whether it were well or not to preach his doctrines to men. feeling how hard to gain was that which he had gained, and how enslaved men were by their passions so that they might neither listen to him nor understand him, he had well-nigh resolved to be silent, but, at the last, deep compassion for all beings made him resolve to tell his secret to mankind, that they too might be free, and he thus became the founder of _the most popular religion of ancient or modern times_. the spot where buddha obtained his knowledge became one of the most sacred places in india." --clodd. buddha, like christ, wrote nothing, and the doctrines of the new religion were fixed and written by his disciples after his death. councils were held afterwards to correct errors and send out missionaries. you will see, therefore, that even "revisions" are not a product of christianity, and that "revelations" have always been subject to reform to fit the times.* * "two other councils were afterward held for the correction of errors that had crept into the faith, and for sending missionaries into other lands. the last of these councils is said to have been held years before christ, so that long before christianity was founded we have this great religion with its sacred traditions of buddha's words, its councils and its missions, besides, as we shall presently see, many things strangely like the rites of the roman catholic church."--clodd. i will here give a few of the wise or kind or moral commands of buddha. if the first were followed in christian countries we should be a more moral and a less superstitious people than we are to-day. "buddha said: '_the succoring of mother and father, the cherishing of child and wife, and the following of a lawful calling, this is the greatest blessing._' "'the giving alms, a religious life, aid rendered to relations, blameless acts, this, is the greatest blessing.' "'the abstaining from sins and the avoiding them, the eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, this is the greatest blessing.' "'those who having done these things, become invincible on all sides, attain happiness on all sides. this is the greatest blessing.' "'he who lives a hundred years, vicious and unrestrained, a life of one day is better if a man is virtuous and reflecting.' "'let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, it will not come near unto me. even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled; the fool becomes full of evil if he gathers it little by little.' "'not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind, that is the teaching of the awakened.' (this is one of the most solemn verses among the buddhists). "'let us live happily then, not hating those who hate us! let us dwell free from hatred among men who hate!' "after these doctrines there follow ten commandments, of which the first five apply to all people, and the rest chiefly to such as set themselves apart for a religious life. they are: not to kill; not to steal; not to commit adultery; not to lie; not to get drunk; to abstain from late meals; from public amusements; from expensive dress; from large beds; and to accept neither gold nor silver." * keep in mind that buddha lived more than years _before_ christ. "the success of buddhism was in this: it was a protest against the powers of the priests; _it to a large degree broke down caste by declaring that all men are equal_, and by allowing any one desiring to live a holy life to become a priest. _it abolished sacrifices_; made it the _duty of all men to honor their parents and care for their children_, to be kind to the sick and poor and sorrowing, and to forgive their enemies and return good for evil; it spread a spirit of charity abroad which encompassed the lowest life as well as the highest." ** * clodd. ** ibid. with these before him will a christian suppose that morals are dependent upon our bible? of confucianism, believed by millions to be essential to their salvation, and one of the three state religions of china, clodd says: "on the soil of this great country there is crowded nearly half the human race, the most orderly people on the globe. this man (confucius), who was reviled in life, but whose influence sways the hundreds of millions of china, was born years before christ. his nature was so beautifully simple and sincere that _he would not pretend to knowledge of that which he felt was beyond human reach and thought_." what an earthquake there would be if our clergymen where only to become inoculated with that sort of simple sincerity i his disciples and followers did that for him as has been done in most other cases. "the sacred books of china are called the _kings_, and are five in number, containing _treatises on morals_, books of rites, poems, and history. they are of great age, perhaps as old as the earliest hymns of the rig-veda, _and are free from any impure thoughts_. [which is much more than can be said of our own sacred books, which are not so old.] in the book of poetry are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in that one sentence, '_have no depraved thoughts._' "at the time when confucius lived, china was divided into a number of petty kingdoms whose rulers were ever quarrelling, and although he became engaged in various public situations of trust, the disorder of the state at last caused him to resign them, and he retired to another part of the country. he then continued the life of a public teacher, instructing men in the simple moral truths by which he sought to govern his own life. the purity of that life, and the example of veneration for the old laws which he set, gathered round him many grave and thoughtful men, who worked with him for the common good." confucius said among other wise and moral things: "coarse rice for food, water to drink, the bended arm for a pillow--happiness may be enjoyed even with these; but without virtue, both riches and honor seem to me like the passing cloud.... our passions shut up the door of our souls against god." what we are pleased to call "the golden rule," and to look upon as purely christian, he gave in these words years before christ was born: "tsze-kung said, '_what i do not wish men to do to me, i also wish not to do to men._' the master said, 'you have not attained to that.' "such is the power of words, that those uttered by this intensely earnest man, whose work was ended only by death, have kept alive throughout the vast empire of china a reverence for the past _and a sense of duty to the present which_ have made the chinese the most orderly and moral people in the world." so much for the great religions that are older than our own and _could not have_ borrowed from us. so much for the moral sentiments of the peoples who developed them, and who live and die happy with them to-day. it leaves only a small part of this globe and a comparatively small number of its inhabitants who believe in and are guided by the bible, or by the morality which has grown side-by-side with it. but there is one other great religion which is of interest to us: * * see appendix r. "and the value of islam, the youngest of the great religions, is that we are able to see how its first simple form became overlaid with legend and foolish superstition, and thus learn how, in like manner, myth and fable have grown around more ancient religions [and around our own]. "for example; although mohammed came into the world like other children, wonderful things are said to have taken place at his birth. "he never claimed to be a perfect man; he did not pretend to foretell events or to work miracles. "in spite of all this, his followers said of him, while he was yet living, that he worked wonders, and they believed the golden vision, hinted at in koran, to have been a real event, although mohammed said over and over again that it was but a dream. "this religion is the guide in life and the support in death of _one hundred and fifty millions of our fellow creatures_; like christianity, it has its missionaries scattered over the globe, and offers itself as a faith needed by all men. "the success of islam was great. not one hundred years after the death of the prophet, it had converted half the then known world, and its green flag waved from china to spain. christianity gave way before it, and has never regained some of the ground then lost, while at this day we see islam making marked progress in africa and elsewhere. travelers tell us that the gain is great when a tribe casts away its idols and embraces islam. filth and drunkenness flee away, and the state of the people is bettered in a high degree." "muslims have not treated christ as we have treated mohammed, for the devout among them never utter his name without adding the touching words, 'on whom be peace.'" "mohammed counseled men to live a good life, and to strive after the mercy of god by fasting, charity, and prayer, which he called 'the key of paradise.'" "he abolished the frightful practice of killing female children, and made the family tie more respected." he said: "_a man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this world to his fellow-men_. when he dies, people will ask, what property has he left behind him? but the angels will ask, what good deeds has he sent before him?" [which is a doctrine wholesome and just, so for as it applies to this world, and inculcates the right sort of morals.] "mohammed commanded his followers to make no image of any living thing, to show mercy to the weak and orphaned, and kindness to brutes; to abstain from gambling, and the use of strong drink. "the great truth which he strove to make real to them was that god is one, that, as the koran says, 'they surely are infidels who say that god is the third of three, for there is no god but one god.'" he was the great original unitarian. "i should add that the wars of islam did not leave waste and ruin in their path, but that the arabs, when they came to europe, alone held aloft the light of learning, and in the once famous schools of spain, taught 'philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and the golden art of song.'" we cannot speak so well of the "holy wars" of christianity. in speaking of the men who wrote our bible, clodd says: "nor is it easy to find in what they have said truths which, in one form or another, have not been stated by the writers of some of the sacred books into which we have dipped." i have quoted more fully than had been my intention simply to show the egotistic ignorance of the christian's claim to possess a religion or a bible which differs, in any material regard, from several others which are older, and to indicate that moral ideas, precepts, and practices are the property of no special people, but are the inevitable result of continued life itself, and the evolution of civilizations however different in outward form and expression. they are the necessary results of human companionship and necessities, and not the fruits of any religion or the "revelation" from on high to any people. as william kingdon clifford, f. r. s., in his work on the "scientific basis of morals," very justly says: "there is more than one moral sense, and what i feel to be right another man may feel to be wrong. "in just the same way our question about the best conscience will resolve itself into a question about the purpose or function of the conscience--why we have got it, and what it is good for. "now to my mind the simplest and clearest and most profound philosophy that was ever written upon this subject is to be found in the d and d chapters of mr. darwin's 'descent of man.' in these chapters it appears that just as most physical characteristics of organisms have been evolved and preserved because they were useful to the individual in the struggle for existence against other individuals and other species, so this particular feeling has been evolved and preserved because it is useful to the tribe or community in the struggle for existence against other tribes, and against the environment as a whole. the function of conscience is the preservation of the tribe as a tribe. and we shall rightly train our consciences if we learn to approve these actions which tend to the advantage of the community. "the virtue of purity, for example, attains in this way a fairly exact definition: purity in a man is that course of conduct which makes him to be a good husband and father, in a woman that which makes her to be a good wife and mother, or which helps other people so to prepare and keep themselves. it is easy to see how many false ideas and pernicious precepts are swept away by even so simple a definition as that." in urging the necessity of a more substantial basis of morals than one built upon a theory of arbitrary dictation, he says: "the worship of a deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. and still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of social diseases.... if i let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or i may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. _but i cannot help doing this great wrong toward man, that i make myself credulous_. the danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery. "the harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. habitual want of care about what i believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me. men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when i myself am careless about it, when i believe things because i want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? will he not learn to cry, 'peace,' to me, when there is no peace? by such a course i shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that i must live. it may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to man that i have made my neighbors ready to deceive. the credulous man is father to the liar.... "we all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to; and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. but a greater and wider evil arises when the _credulous character_ is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent.... "the fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true.... "and the question which our conscience is always asking about that which we are tempted to believe is not, 'is it comfortable and pleasant?' but, 'is it true?'" the sooner moral actions and the necessity of clean, helpful, and charitable living are put upon a basis more solid and permanent than theology the better will it be for civilization; and if this chapter shall, by its light style, attract the attention of those who are too busy, or are disinclined for any reason whatsoever, to collect from more profound works the facts here given, i shall be satisfied with the result, because i shall have done something toward the triumph of fact over fiction. we cannot repeat too often nor emphasize too strongly this one simple fact, that we need all our energy and time to make _this_ world fit to live in; to make _homes_ where mothers are happy and children are glad--homes where fathers hasten when their work is done, and are welcomed with a shout of joy. the toilers who wend up the hillside, the toilers below in the mill alike are the victims of priestcraft, they "do but the _master's_ will." the _master's_ will! ah the cunning, the bitterly cruel device, to wring from the lowly and burdened submission at any price! submission to tyrants in russia-- submission to tyrants in rome; the throne and the altar have ever combined to despoil the home, but the home is the heaven to live for, and love is the god sublime who paints in tints of glory, upon the wings of time this legend, grand and simple, and true as eternal right-- "no justice e'er came from jury, whose verdict was based on might!" as high above earth as is heaven; as high as the stars above the church, the chapel, the altar; is the home whose god is love. ***** appendix appendix a. . "for a species increases or decreases in numbers, widens or contracts its habitat, migrates or remains stationary, _continues an old mode of life or falls into a new one_, under the combined influence of its intrinsic nature _and the environing_ actions, inorganic and organic. "beginning with the extrinsic factors, we see that from the outset several kinds of them are variously operative. they need but barely ennumerating. we have climate, hot, cold, or temperate, moist or dry, constant or variable. we have surface, much or little of which is available, and the available part of which is fertile in greater or less degree; and we have configuration of surface, as uniform or multiform.... _on these sets of conditions, inorganic and organic, characterizing the environment, primarily depends the possibility of social evolution_."--spencer, "principles of sociology," vol. , p. . . "these considerations clearly prove that of the _two primary causes of civilization, the fertility of the soil_ is the one which in the ancient world exercised most influence. but in european civilization, _the other great cause_, that is to say, _climate_, has been the most powerful. "owing to circumstances which i shall presently state, the only progress which is really effective depends, not upon the bounty of nature, but upon the _energy of man_. therefore it is, that the civilization of europe, which, in its earliest stage, was governed by _climate_, has shown a capacity of development unknown to those civilizations which were originated by _soil_."--buckle, "history of civilization," vol. , p. -- .* * i wish to state here that i had never read the above from buckle, nor had i seen anywhere a statement so like my own, at the time mine was written. i read this for the first time while reading the proofs of this chapter. so much for what may appear plagiarism.--h. h. q, appendix b. . "napoleon himself was indifferent to christianity, but he saw that the clergy were friends of despotism."--buckle. . "thus it is that a careful survey of history will prove that the reformation made the most progress not in those countries where the people were most enlightened, but in those countries where, from political causes, the clergy were least able to withstand the people."--buckle. . "christian civilization in the twentieth century of its existence, degrades its women to labor fit only for beasts of the field; harnessing them with dogs to do the most menial labors; it drags them below even this, holding their womanhood up to sale, _putting both church and state sanction_ upon their moral death; which, in some places, as in the city of berlin, so far recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest purposes _as part of the christian religion, that license for this life is refused until they have partaken of the sacrament_; and demands of the ' , licensed women of the town' of the city of hamburg, certificates showing that they regularly attend church and also partake of the sacrament."--gage. even a lower depth than this is reached in england, france, italy, switzerland, and germany, and nearly every country of europe, says the same writer, "a system of morality which declares 'the necessity' of woman's degradation, and annually sends tens of thousands down to a death from which society grants no resurrection."--gage. appendix c. . "sappho flourished b. c. , and a little later; and so highly did plato value her intellectual, as well as her imaginative endowments, that he assigned her the honors of sage as well as poet; and familiarly entitled her the 'tenth muse'"--buckle, . "wilkinson says among _no_ ancient people had women such influence and liberty as among the ancient egyptians."--buckle. . "the americans have in the treatment of women fallen below, not only their own democratic principles, but the practice of some parts of the old world."--harriet martineau. . "mr. f. newman denies that christianity has improved the position of women; and he observes that, 'with paul, the _sole_ reason for marriage is, that a man may, without sin, vent his sensual desires. he teaches that, _but_ for this object, it would be better not to marry;' and he takes no notice of the _social_ pleasures of marriage. newman says: 'in short, only in countries where germanic sentiment has taken root do we see marks of any elevation of the female sex superior to that of pagan antiquity.'"--buckle. . "female voices are never heard in the russian churches; their place is supplied by boys; women do not yet stand high enough in the estimation of the churches.... to be permitted to sing the praises of god in the presence of men."--kohl. . "christianity diminished the influence of women."--neander, "hist, of the church." appendix d. within the reign of the present sovereign mrs. gage tells us of a young girl being ordered by the petty sessions bench back to the "service" of a landlord, from whom she had run away because such service meant the sacrifice of her honor. she refused to go _and was put in jail_. appendix e. . "women were taught by the church and state alike, that the feudal lord or seigneur had a right to them, not only against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. the law known as _marchetta_, or marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. they were regarded as the rightful prey of the feudal lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, 'as perchance it was he who begat him.' from this nefarious degradation of woman, the custom of borough-english arose, in which the youngest son became the heir.... france, germany, prussia, england, scotland, _and all christian countries_ where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of marquette. the lord deemed this right as fully his as he did the claim to half the crops of the land, or to half the wool of the sheep. more than one reign of terror arose in france from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the peasantry over europe during the _twelfth century_, and the fierce jacquerie, or peasant wars, of the _fourteenth century_ in france owed their origin, among other causes, to the enforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly-married wife. the edicts of marly transplanted that claim to america when canada was under the control of france. to persons not conversant with the history of feudalism, and of the church for the first fifteen hundred years of its existence, it will seem impossible that such foulness could ever have been part of christian civilization. that the crimes they have been trained to consider the worst forms of heathendom could have existed in christian europe, _upheld by both church and state_ for more than a thousand five hundred years, will strike most people with incredulity. such, however, is the truth; we can but admit well-attested facts of history, how severe a blow soever they strike our preconceived beliefs. "marquette was claimed by the lords spiritual,* as well as by the lords temporal. _the church indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim_. with the power of penance and excommunication in its grasp, this demand could neither have originated nor been sustained unless sanctioned by the church.... these customs of feudalism were the customs of christianity during many centuries. (one of the earls of crawford, known as the 'earl brant,' in the _sixteenth_ century, was probably among the last who openly claimed by right the literal translation of _droit de jambage_.) these infamous outrages upon woman were enforced under christian law by both church and state. * "in days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among _christian nations went beyond anything decreed_ concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound _man's_ heart. the lords spiritual (clergy) had this right no less than the lords temporal. the _parson_, being a lord, _expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell_ his right to the husband. the courts of berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally."-- michelet, "la sorcerie," p. "the degradation of the _husband_ at this infringement of the lord spiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by many writers, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame of the wife. no hope appeared for woman anywhere. the church.... dragged her to the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly customs.... we who talk of the burning of wives upon the funeral pyres of husbands in india, may well turn our eyes to the records of christian countries."--matilda joslyn gage in "woman, church, and state." . from this point mrs. gage calls attention to the various efforts to throw off this degrading custom. the women held meetings at night, and among other things travestied the celebration of mass and other church customs; but the end and aim of these meetings being a protest and rebellion against marquette, the clergy called those who took part in them "witches;"* and then and there began the persecution which the church carried on against women under this disguise (under catholic and protestant rule alike), which extended down to the latter part of the last century, with its list of horrors and indignities extending over all christian countries and blossoming in all their vigor in our own eastern states, upheld by luther, john wesley, and baxter, who unfortunately had not at that time entered into the everlasting rest of the saints. and, true to these noble and wise leaders, the churches which they founded are to-day expressing the same sentiments (in principle) in regard to the honor and dignity and position of woman. the arguments of the rev. dr. craven, the prosecutor in the famous presbyterian trial of , which are given by mrs. gage, together with numerous other similar ones, fully establish the fact that woman is to the church what she always was--_so far as secular law will permit._ and numerous instances (such as the buckley exhibition at the last methodist conference, in which he was sustained by the conference) prove that they have learned nothing since . * "there are few superstitions which have been so universal as a belief in witchcraft. the severe theology of paganism despised the wretched superstition, which has been greedily believed by millions of christians."--buckle. . i wish i might copy here the sermon to women which the rev. knox-little, the well-known high-church clergyman of england, preached when in this country in , in which he said, "there is no crime which a man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him. it is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can commit can justify her lack of obedience." although a little balder in statement than are most utterances of orthodox clergymen in this age, yet in sentiment and in the reason given for it the echo of "amen" comes from every pulpit where a believer in original sin, vicarious atonement, or the inspiration of the bible has a representative and a voice. if self-respect or honor is ever to be the lot of woman, it will not be until her foot is on the neck of orthodoxy, and when the bible ranks where it belongs in the field of literature. appendix f. . "the french government, about the middle of the eighteenth century, seems to have reached the maturity of its wickedness, allowing if not instigating religious persecutions of so infamous a nature that they would not be believed if they were not attested by documents of the courts in which the sentences were passed."--buckle. . of louis xv., the eminently christian king of france, buckle says: "his harem cost more than , , francs, and was composed of _little girls_. he was constantly drunk," and "turned out his own illegitimate children to prostitute themselves." . "it will hardly be believed that, when sulphuric ether was first used to lessen the pains of childbirth, it was objected to as 'a profane attempt to abrogate the primeval curse pronounced upon woman....' the injury which the theological principle has done to the world is immense. it has prevented men from studying the laws of nature."--buckle. appendix g. . "the narrow range of their sympathies [the clergy's], and the intellectual servitude they have accepted, render them _peculiarly unfitted_ for the office of educating the young, which they so persistently claim, and which, _to the great misfortune of the world_, they were long permitted to monopolize.... the almost complete omission from female education of those studies which most discipline and strengthen the intellect, increases the difference, while at the same time it has been usually made a main object to imbue them with a passionate faith in traditional opinions, and to preserve them from all contact with opposing views. but contracted knowledge and imperfect sympathy are not the sole fruits of this education. it has always been the peculiarity of a certain kind of theological teaching, that it -inverts all the normal principles of judgment and absolutely destroys intellectual diffidence. on other subjects we find if not a respect for honest conviction, at least some sense of the amount of knowledge that is requisite to entitle men to express an opinion on grave controversies. a complete ignorance of the subject-matter of a dispute restrains the confidence of dogmatism; and an ignorant person who is aware that, by much reading and thinking in spheres of which he has himself no knowledge, his educated neighbor has modified or rejected opinions which that ignorant person had been taught, will, at least if he is a man of sense or modesty, abstain from compassionating the benighted condition of his more instructed friend. but on theological questions this has never been so. "unfaltering belief being taught as the first of duties, and all doubt being usually stigmatized as criminal or damnable, a state of mind is formed to which we find no parallel in other fields. many men and most women, though completely ignorant of the very rudiments of biblical criticism, historical research, or scientific discoveries, though they have never read a single page, or understood a single proposition of the writings of those whom they condemn, and have absolutely no rational knowledge either of the arguments by which their faith is defended, or of those by which it has been impugned, will nevertheless adjudicate with the utmost confidence upon every polemical question, denounce, hate, pity, or pray for the conversion of all who dissent from what they have been taught, assume, as a matter beyond the faintest possibility of doubt, that the opinions they have received without inquiry must be true, and that the opinions which others have arrived at by inquiry must be false, and make it a main object of their lives to assail what they call heresy in every way in their power, except by examining the grounds on which it rests. it is possible that the great majority of voices that swell the clamor against every book which is regarded as heretical, are the voices of those who would deem it criminal even to open that book, or to enter into any real, searching, and impartial investigation of the subject to which it relates. innumerable pulpits support this tone of thought, and represent, with a fervid rhetoric _well fitted to excite the nerves and imaginations of women_, the deplorable condition of all who deviate from a certain type of opinions or emotions; a blind propagandism or a secret wretchedness penetrates into countless households, poisoning the peace of families, chilling the mental confidence of husband and wife, _adding immeasurably to the difficulties which every searcher into truth has to encounter, and diffusing far and wide intellectual timidity, disingenuousness, and hypocrisy_."--lecky. . "the clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, have in all modern countries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the danger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct, seem always to have perceived."--buckle. . "in the fourth century there arose monachism, and in, the sixth century the christians succeeded in cutting off the last ray of knowledge, and shutting up the schools of greece. then followed a long period of theology, ignorance, and vice."--puckle. . "contempt for human sciences was one of the first features of christianity. it had to avenge itself of the outrages of philosophy; it feared that spirit of investigation and doubt, that confidence of man in his own reason, the pest alike of all religious creeds. the light of the natural sciences was ever odious to it, and was ever regarded with a suspicious eye, as being a _dangerous enemy to the success of miracles_; and there is no religion that does not oblige its sectaries to follow some physical absurdities. _the triumph of christianity was thus the final signal of the entire decline both of the sciences and of philosophy_."--"progress of the human mind," _condorcet_. "accordingly it ought not to astonish us that christianity, _though unable in the sequel to prevent their reappearance in splendor after the invention of printing_, was at this period sufficiently powerful to accomplish their ruin."--ibid. "in the disastrous epoch at which we are now arrived, we shall see the human mind _rapidly descending from the height to which it had raised itself_... everywhere was corruption, cruelty, and perfidy.... theological reveries, superstitions, delusions, are become the sole genius of man, religious _intolerance his only morality_; and europe, crushed between sacerdotal tyranny and military despotism, awaits in blood and in tears the moment when the _revival of light shall restore it to liberty, to humanity, and to virtue_.... the priests held human learning in contempt.... fanatic armies laid waste the provinces. executioners, _under the guidance of legates and priests_, put to death those whom the soldiers had spared. _a tribunal of monks was established, with power of condemning to the stake whoever should be suspected of making use of his reason_.... all sects, all governments, every species of authority, inimical as they were to each other in every point else, seemed to be of accord in granting no quarter to the exercise of reason.... meanwhile education, being everywhere subjected [to the clergy], had corrupted everywhere the general understanding, by _clogging the reason of children with the weight of the religious prejudices of their country_... in the eighth century an ignorant pope had persecuted a deacon for contending that the earth was round, in opposition to the opinion of the rhetorical saint austin. in the fifteenth, the ignorance of another pope, much more inexcusable, delivered galileo into the hands of the inquisition, _accused of having proved the diurnal and annual motion of the earth_. the greatest genius that modern italy has given to the sciences, overwhelmed with age and infirmities, was obliged to purchase his release from punishment and from prison, by asking pardon of god for having taught men better to understand his works."--ibid. appendix h. . fenelon, a celebrated french clergyman and writer of the seventeenth century, discouraged the acquisition of knowledge by women.--see hallam's "lit. of europe." . "perhaps it is to the spirit of puritanism that we owe the little influence of women, and the consequent inferiority of their education."--buckle. . "in england ( ) a distrust and contempt for reason prevails amongst religious circles to a wide extent; many christians think it almost a matter of duty to decry the human faculties as poor, mean, and almost worthless; and thus seek to exalt piety at the expense of intelligence."--morell's "hist. of speculative phil." . "that women are more deductive than men, because they think quicker than men, is a proposition which some people will not relish, and yet it may be proved in a variety of ways. indeed nothing could prevent its being universally admitted except the fact that the remarkable rapidity with which women think is obscured by that miserable, that contemptible, that preposterous system, called their education, in which valuable things are carefully kept from them, and trifling things carefully taught to them, until their fine and nimble minds are too often irretrievably injured."--buckle. appendix i. . "the roman [pagan] religion was essentially domestic, and it was a main object of the legislator to surround marriage with every circumstance of dignity and solemnity. _monogamy was, from the earliest times, strictly enjoined_, and it was one of the great benefits that have resulted from the expansion of roman power, _that it made this type dominant in europe_. in the legends of early rome we have ample evidence both of the high moral estimate of women, and of their prominence in roman life. the tragedies of lucretia and of virginia display a delicacy of honor, a sense of the supreme excellence of unsullied purity, which no christian nation could surpass."--lecky, "european morals," vol. , p. . . "marriage [under christian rule] was viewed in its coarsest and most degraded form. the notion of its impurity took many forms, and exercised _for some centuries_ an extremely wide influence over the church."--ibid., p. . appendix j. . "we are continually told that civilization and christianity have restored to the woman her just rights. meanwhile the wife is the actual bond-servant of her husband; no less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so called. she vows a lifelong obedience to him at the altar, and is held to it all through her life by law. casuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short of participation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything else. she can do no act whatever but by his permission, at least tacit. she can acquire no property but _for him_; the instant it becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes _ipso facto_ his. in this respect the wife's position under the common law of england is worse than that of slaves in the laws of many countries; by the _roman_ law, for example, a slave might have _peculium_, which, to a certain extent, the law guaranteed him for his exclusive use."--mill. . speaking of self-worship which leads to brutality toward others, mill says: "christianity will never practically teach it" (the equality of human beings) "while it sanctions institutions grounded on an arbitrary preference for one human being over another." "the morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearance and protection of the strong. how much longer is one form of society and life to content itself with the morality made for another? we have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice." --ibid. "institutions, books, education, society all go on training human beings for the old, long after the new has come; much more when it is only coming."--ibid. "there have been abundance of people, in all ages of christianity, who tried... to convert us into a sort of christian mussulmans, with the bible for a koran, prohibiting all improvement; and great has been their power, and many have had to sacrifice their lives in resisting them. but they have been resisted, _and the resistance has made us what we are, and will yet make us what we are to be_."--ibid. appendix k "in this tendency [to depreciate extremely the character and position of women] we may detect in part the influence of the earlier jewish writings, in which it is probable that most impartial observers will detect evident traces of the common oriental depreciation of women. the custom of money-purchase to the father of the bride was admitted. polygamy was authorized, and practised by the wisest men on an enormous scale. a woman was regarded as the origin of human ills. a period of purification was appointed after the birth of every child; but, _by a very significant provision, it was twice as long in the case of a female as of a male child_ (levit. xii. - ). _the badness of men_, a jewish writer emphatically declared, _is better than the goodness of women_ (ecclesiasticus xlii. ). the types of female excellence exhibited in the early period of jewish history are in general _of a low order, and certainly far inferior_ to those of roman history or greek poetry; and _the warmest eulogy of a woman in the old testament is probably that which was bestowed upon her who, with circumstances of the most exaggerated treachery, had murdered the sleeping fugitive who had taken refuge under her roof,_"--lecky, "european morals," vol , p. . appendix l. . "mr. f. newman, who looks on toleration as the result of intellectual progress, says: 'nevertheless, not only does the old testament justify bloody persecution, but the new teaches that god will visit men with fiery vengeance _for holding an erroneous creed_."--buckle. . "the first great consequence of the decline of priestly influence was the rise of toleration.... i suspect that the _impolicy_ of persecution was perceived before its wickedness. "--ibid. . "while a multitude of scientific discoveries, critical and historical researches, and educational reforms have brought thinking men face to face with religious problems of extreme importance, _women have been almost absolutely excluded from their influence_."--lechy. . "the domestic unhappiness arising from difference of belief was probably almost or altogether unknown in the world before the introduction of christianity.... _the deep, and widening chasm between the religious opinions of most highly educated men, and of the immense majority of women is painfully apparent_. whenever any strong religious fervor fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a happy union impossible."--ibid. . "the combined influence of the jewish writings [old testament] and of that ascetic feeling which treated woman as the chief source of temptation to man, caused her degradation.... in the writings of the fathers, woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. she should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. she should live in continual penance, _on account of the curse she has brought into the world_. she should be ashamed of her dress, _and especially ashamed of her beauty_."--ibid. appendix m. . "the writers of the middle ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels.... the inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their _mothers or sisters_.... an italian bishop of the tenth century enigmatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the church except the boys."--lecky. . in the middle of the sixteenth century ''the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices.--hallam, "const. hist, of eng." . "the clergy have ruined italy."--brougham, "pol. phil." . "it was a significant prudence of many of the lay catholics, who were accustomed to insist that their priests should take a concubine _for the protection of the families of the parishioners_.... it can hardly be questioned that the extreme frequency of illicit connections among the clergy _tended during many centuries most actively to lower the moral tone of the laity_.... an impure chastity was fostered, which continually looked upon marriage in its coarsest light.... another injurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism, was a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of woman."--lecky. appendix n. . "the great and main duty which a wife, as a wife, ought to learn, and so learn as to practise it, is to be subject to her own husband.... there is not any husband to whom this honor of submission is not due; no personal infirmity, frowardness of nature; no, not even on the point of religion, doth deprive him of it."--fergusson on "the epistles." . "the sum of a wife's duty unto her husband is subjection. "--abernethy. . "we shall be told, perhaps, that religion imposes the duty of obedience [upon wives]; as every established fact _which is too bad to admit of any other defense, is always presented to us as an injunction of religion. the church, it is true, enjoins it in her formularies_."--mill. "the principle of the modern movement in morals and in politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, _merit and not birth is the only rightful claim to power and authority_."--ibid. "taking the care of people's lives out of their own hands, and relieving them from the consequences of their own acts, _saps the very foundation_ of the self-respect and self-control which are the essential conditions both of individual prosperity and of social virtue."--ibid. "inferior classes of men always, at heart, feel disrespect toward those who are subject to their power."--ibid. . "among those causes of human improvement that are of most importance to the general welfare, must be included the total annihilation of the prejudices which have established between the sexes an inequality of right, _fatal even to the party which it favors_. in vain might we seek for motives to justify the principle, in difference of physical organization, of intellect, or of moral sensibility. it had at first no other origin but abuse of strength, _and all the attempts which have since been made to support it_ are idle sophisms."--"progress of the human mind," _condorcet_. . notwithstanding the work of such men as the encyclopedists of france and other liberal thinkers for the proper recognition of women, the church had held her grip so tight that upon the passage of the bill, as late as , giving to married women the right to own their own property, the most doleful prophesies went up as to the just retribution that would fall upon women for their wicked insubordination, and upon the men who had defied divine commands so far as to pass such a law. a recent writer tells us that wm. a. stokes, in talking to a lady whom he blamed for its passage, said: "we hold you responsible for that law, and i tell you now you will live to rue the day when you opened such a pandora's box in your native state, and cast such an apple of discord into every family of the state." and the sermons that were preached against it--the prophecies of deacon and preacher--were so numerous, so denunciatory, and so violent that they form a queer and interesting chapter in the history of the attitude of the church toward women, and illustrate, in our own time, how persistent it has been in its efforts to prevent woman from sharing in the benefits of the higher civilization of the nineteenth century. but fortunately for women, infidels are more numerous than they ever were before, and the power of the church is dying of dry rot, or as col. ingersoll wittily says, of the combined influence of softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. appendix o. "st. gregory the great describes the virtue of a priest, _who through motives of piety had discarded his wife_... their wives, in _immense numbers_, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn... pope urban ii. _gave license_ to the nobles _to reduce to slavery the wives_ of priests who refused to abandon them."--lecky. appendix p. . "hallam denies that respect for women is due to christianity. "--buckle. . "in england, wives are still occasionally led to the market by a halter around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest bidder."--ibid. "the sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal transaction in england. the sale must be made in the cattle market, as if she were a mare, all women being considered as mares by old english law, and indeed _called_ 'mares' in certain counties where genuine old english law is still preserved."--borrow. . "contempt for woman, _the result of clerical teaching_, is shown in myriad forms."--gage. . "the legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, _and is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement_."--john stuart mill. . "i have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine, that what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and i should prefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, _though i were myself_ the person to profit by it."--ibid. it will take a long time for that sort of morality to filter into the skull of the church, and when it does the skull will burst. . "certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes invented, in order to intimidate the masses. hence the church made free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies.... as late as the time of bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was obedience to the temporal power.... all these influences fell with crushing weight on woman."--_matilda joslyn gage_ in "hist. woman suffrage." . "taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she has been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition, and to glory in her own degradation... such was the prejudice against a liberal education for woman, that the first public examination of a girl in geometry ( ) created as bitter a storm of ridicule as has since assailed women who have entered the law, the pulpit, or the medical profession."--ibid. appendix q. . "the five writers to whose genius we owe the first attempt at comprehensive views of history were bolingbroke, montesquieu, voltaire, hume, and gibbon. of these the second was but a cold believer in christianity, if, indeed, he believed in it at all; and the other four were avowed and notorious infidels."--buckle. "here, then, we have the starting-point of progress--_scepticism_.... all, therefore, that men want is _no hindrance_ from their political and religious rulers.... until common minds doubt respecting religion they can never receive any new scientific conclusion at variance with it--as joshua and copernicus."--ibid. . "the immortal work of gibbon, of which the sagacity is, if possible, equal to the learning, did find readers, but the illustrious author was so cruelly reviled by men who called themselves christians, that it seemed doubtful if, after such an example, subsequent writers would hazard their comfort and happiness by attempting to write philosophic history. middleton wrote in .... as long as the theological spirit was alive nothing could be effected."--ibid. . "the questions which presented themselves to the acuter minds of a hundred years ago were present to the acuter minds who lived hundreds of years before that.... but the church had known how to deal with intellectual insurgents, from abelard in the twelfth century down to bruno and vanini in the seventeenth. they were isolated, and for the most part submissive; and _if they were not_, the arm of the church was very long and her grasp mortal.... they [the thinkers] could have taught europe _earlier than the church allowed it to learn_, that the sun does not go round the earth, and that it is the earth which goes round the sun.... after the middle of the last century the insurrection against the pretensions of the church and against the doctrines of christianity was marked in one of its most important phases by a new, and most significant, feature.... it was an advance both in knowledge and in moral motive.... the philosophical movement was represented by "diderot" [leading the encyclopaedist circle.]... broadly stated the great central moral of it was this: that human nature is good, that the world is capable of being made a desirable abiding-place, and that the evil of the world _is the fruit of bad education and bad institutions_. this cheerful doctrine now strikes on the ear as a commonplace and a truism. a hundred years ago in france it was a wonderful gospel, _and the beginning of a new dispensation.... into what fresh and unwelcome sunlight it brought the articles of the old theology... every social improvement since has been the outcome of that new doctrine in one form or another_.... the teaching of the church paints men as fallen and depraved. the deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the new fabric rising was very natural.... the new secular knowledge clashed at a thousand points, alike in letter and spirit, with the old sacred lore.... a hundred years ago this perception was vague and indefinite, but there was an unmistakable apprehension that _the catholic ideal of womanhood_ was no more adequate to the facts of life, than catholic views about science, or popery, or labor, or political order and authority."--morley. and it took the rising infidels to discover the fact. see morley, "diderot," p. . "the greatest fact in the intellectual history of the eighteenth century is the decisive revolution that overtook the sustaining conviction of the church. the central conception, that the universe was called into existence only to further its creator's purpose toward man, became incredible (by the light of the new thought). what seems to careless observers a mere metaphysical dispute was in truth, _and still is, the decisive quarter of the great battle between theology and a philosophy reconcilable with science_."--morley. "the man _who ventured to use his mind_ [diderot] was thrown into the dungeon at vincennes."--ibid. . "those thinkers [voltaire, rousseau, and diderot] taught men to reason; reasoning well leads to acting well; justness in the mind becomes justice in the heart. those toilers for progress labored usefully.... the french revolution was their soul. it was their radiant manifestation. it came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest and superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and the opening of the future.... the new society, the desire for equality and concession, and that beginning of fraternity which called itself tolerance, reciprocal good-will, the just accord of men and rights, reason recognized as the supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and fixed opinions, the serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of pardon, harmony, peace--behold what has come from them!"--victor hugo, "oration on voltaire." appendix r. "he [mohammed] promulgated a mass of fables, which he pretended to have received from heaven.... after enjoying for _twenty years_ a power without bounds, and _of which there exists no other example_, he announced publicly, that, if he had committed any act of injustice, he was ready to make reparation. all were silent.... he died; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to his people will be seen to change the face of three-quarters of the globe.... i shall add that the religion of mohammed is the most simple in its dogmas, the least absurd in its practices, above all others tolerant in its principles."--_condorcet_. appendix s. the claim is so often and so boldly made that infidelity produces crime, and that christianity, or belief, or faith, makes people good, that the following statistics usually produce a rather chilly sensation in the believer when presented in the midst of an argument based upon the above mentioned claim. i have used it with effect. the person upon whom it is used will never offer that argument to you again. the following statistics were taken from the british parliamentary reports, made on the instance of sir john trelawney, in : england and wales. criminals in england and wales in .................... , sectarian and infidel population of the same. church of england............................................... , , dissenters............................................................ , , catholics.............................................................. , , jews.................................................................... , infidels................................................................ , , religious persuasions of criminals of the same. church of england.............................................. , catholics.............................................................. , dissenters............................................................ , jews................................................................... infidels................................................................ criminals to , population. catholics.............................................................. , church of england............................................... , dissenters............................................................ infidels................................................................ these statistics are taken from the report of the british parliament, which, for learning and intelligence, as a deliberative body, has not its superior, if it has its equal, in the world, and it is surely a sufficiently christian body to be accepted as authority in this matter, since a large number of its members are clergymen. these statistics hardly sustain the allegation that "infidelity is coupled with impurity." we are willing to stand upon our record. but, lest it be claimed that this is a british peculiarity, allow me to defer to the patriotic sentiment of my readers by one other little set of tables which, while not complete, is equally as suggestive. "in sixty-six different prisons, jails, reformatories, refuges, penitentiaries, and lock-ups there were, for the years given in reports, , men and boys, women and girls, of the following religious sects: catholics.................................................................. , church of england.................................................... , eighteen other protestant denominations.................... , universalists............................................................. jews, chinese, and mormons..................................... infidels (two so-called, one avowed)............................ "these included the prisons of iowa, michigan, tennessee, new york, pennsylvania, connecticut, indiana, illinois, and canada." present these two tables to those who assure you that crime follows in the wake of infidelity, and you will have time to take a comfortable nap before your christian friend returns to the attack or braces up after the shock sustained by his sentiments and inflicted by these two small but truly suggestive tables. one cold fact like this will inoculate one of the faithful with more modesty than an hour of usual argument based upon the assumptions of the clergy and the ignorance of his hearers. infidels are not perfect. many of them need reconstruction sadly, but the above data seem to indicate that they compare rather favorably with their fellow-men in the matter of good citizenship. "moreover, as goethe has already shown, the celebrated mosaic moral precepts, the so-called ten commandments, were _not_ upon the tables upon which moses wrote the laws of the covenant which god made with his people. "even the extraordinary diversity of the many religions diffused over the surface of the earth suffices to show that they can stand in no necessary connection with morals, as it is well known that wherever tolerably well-ordered political and social conditions exist, the moral precepts in their essential principles are the same, whilst when such conditions are wanting, a wild and irregular confusion, or even an entire deficiency of moral notions is met with.* history also shows incontrovertibly that religion and morality have by no means gone hand in hand in strength and development, but that even contrariwise the most religious times and countries have produced the greatest number of crimes and sins against the laws of morality, and indeed, as daily experience teaches, still produce them. the history of nearly all religions is filled with such horrible abominations, massacres, and boundless wickednesses of every kind that at the mere recollection of them the heart of a philanthropist seems to stand still, and we turn with disgust and horror from a mental aberration which could produce such deeds. if it is urged in vindication of religion that it has advanced and elevated human civilization, even this merit appears very doubtful in presence of the facts of history, and at least as very rarely or isolatedly the case. in general, however, it cannot be denied that most systems of religion have proved rather inimical than friendly to civilization. for religion, as already stated, tolerates no doubt, no discussion, no contradiction, no investigations, those eternal pioneers of the future of science and intellect! even the simple circumstance that our present state of culture has already long since left far behind it all and even the highest intellectual ideals established and elaborated by former religions may show how little intellectual progress is influenced by religion. mankind is perpetually being thrown to and fro between science, and religion, but it advances moro intellectually, morally and physically in proportion as it turns away from religion and to science. * "in china, where people are, as is well-known, very indifferent or tolerant in religious matters, this fine proverb is current: religions are various, but reason is one, and we are all brothers.'" "it is therefore clear that for our present age and for the future a foundation must be sought and found for culture and morality, different from that which can be furnished to us by religion. it is not the fear of god that acts amelioratingly or ennoblingly upon manners, of which the middle ages furnish us with a striking proof; but the ennobling of the conception of the world in general which goes hand in hand with the advance of civilization. let us then give up making a show of the profession of hypocritical words of faith, the only purpose of which seems to be that they may be continually shown to be lies by the actions and deeds of their professors! the man of the future will feel far more happy and contented when he has not to contend at every step of his intellectual forward development with those tormenting contradictions between knowledge and faith which plague his youth, and occupy his mature age unnecessarily with the slow renunciation of the notions which he imbibed in his youth. what we sacrifice to god, we take away from mankind, and absorb a great part of his best intellectual powers in the pursuit of an unattainable goal. at any rate, the least that we can expect in this respect from the state and society of the future is a complete separation between ecclesiastical and worldly affairs, or an absolute emancipation of the state and the school from every ecclesiastical influence. "education must be founded upon _knowledge_, not upon _faith_; and religion itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious history and as an objective or scientific exposition of the different religious systems prevailing among mankind. any one who, after such an education, still experiences the need of a definite law or rule of faith may then attach himself to any religious sect that may seem good to him, but cannot claim that the community should bear the cost of this special fancy! "as regards christianity, or the _paulinism_ which is falsely called christianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such striking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with all the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future tragical fate can only be a question of time. but even its ethical contents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished above those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better known to mankind even _before_ its appearance. not only in this respect, but also in its supposed character as the _world-religion_, it is excelled by the much older and probably most widely diffused religious system in the world, the celebrated _buddhism_, which recognizes neither the idea of a personal god, nor that of a personal duration, and nevertheless teaches an extremely pure, amiable, and even ascetic morality. the doctrine of zoroaster or zarathrustra also, years b. c, taught the principles of humanity and toleration for those of different modes of thinking in a manner and purity which were unknown to the semitic religions and especially to christianity. christianity originated and spread, as is well-known, at a time of general decline of manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its extraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a sort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the spirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under the demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great roman empire. but even at that time those who stood intellectually high and looked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn of mind, and it is very remarkable that the best and most benevolent of the roman emperors, such as marcus aurelius, julian, etc., were the most zealous persecutors of christianity, whilst it was tolerated by the bad ones, such as commodus, heliogabalus, etc. when it had gradually attained the superiority, one of its first sins against intellectual progress consisted in the destruction by christian fanaticism of the celebrated library of alexandria, which contained all the intellectual treasures of antiquity--an incalculable loss to science, which can never be replaced. it is usually asserted in praise of christianity that in the middle ages the christian monasteries were the preservers of science and literature, but even this is correct only in a very limited sense, since boundless ignorance and rudeness generally prevailed in the monasteries, and innumerable ecclesiastics could not even read. valuable literary treasures on parchment contained in the libraries of the monasteries were destroyed, the monks when they wanted money selling the books as parchment, or tearing out the leaves and writing psalms upon them. frequently they entirely effaced the ancient classics, to make room for their foolish legends and homilies; nay, the reading of the classics, such as aristotle for example, was directly forbidden by papal decrees. "in new spain christian fanaticism immediately destroyed whatever of arts and civilization existed among the natives, and that this was not inconsiderable is shown by the numerous monuments now in ruins which place beyond a doubt the former existence of a tolerably high degree of culture. but in the place of this not a trace of christian civilization is now to be observed among the existing indians, and the resident catholic clergy keep the indians purposely in a state of the greatest ignorance and stupidity (see richthofen, die zustande der republic mexico, berlin, ). "thus christianity has always acted consistently in accordance with the principles of one of the fathers of the church, tertullian, who says: '_desire of knowledge is no longer necessary since jesus christ, nor is investigation necessary since the gospel._' if the civilization of the european and especially of christian nations has notwithstanding made such enormous progress in the course of centuries, an unprejudiced consideration of history can only tell us that this has taken place not by means of christianity, but in spite of it. and this is a sufficient indication to what an extent this civilization must still be capable of development when once it shall be completely freed from the narrow bounds of old superstitious and religious embarrassments!" "we must therefore endeavor to form convictions which are not to stand once and for all, as philosophers and theologians usually do, but such as may change and become improved with the advance of knowledge. whoever does not recognize this and gives himself up once for all to a belief which he regards as final truth, whether it be of a theological or philosophical kind, is of course incapable of accepting a conviction supported upon scientific grounds. unfortunately our whole education is founded upon an early systematic curbing and fettering of the intellect in the direction of dogmatic (philosophical or theological) doctrines of faith, and only a comparatively small number of strong minds succeed in after years in freeing themselves by their own powers from these fetters, whilst the majority remain captive in the accustomed bonds and form their judgment in accordance with the celebrated saying of bishop berkeley: 'few men think; but all will have opinions.'"--buchner, "man in the past, present, and future." appendix u. "and here it may be remarked, once for all, that no man who has subscribed to creeds and formulas, whether in theology or philosophy, can be an unbiased investigator of the truth or an unprejudiced judge of the opinions of others. his sworn preconceptions warping his discernment, adherence to his sect or party engenders intolerance to the honest convictions of other inquirer? beliefs we may and must have, but a belief to be changed with new and advancing knowledge impedes no progress, while a creed subscribed to as _ultimate truth, and sworn to be defended_, not only puts a bar to further research, but as a consequence throws the odium of distrust on all that may seem to oppose it. "even when such odium cannot deter, it annoys and irritates; hence the frequent unwillingness of men of science to come prominently forward with the avowal of their beliefs. "it is time this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians plainly told that the skepticism and infidelity--if skepticism and infidelity there be--lies all on their own side. "there is no skepticism so offensive as that which doubts the facts of honest and careful observation; no infidelity so gross as that which disbelieves the deductions of competent and unbiased judgments."--david page, "man," etc., edinburgh, . appendix v. since i have recorded this incident of my lecture in chicago, it is peculiarly fitting and pleasant to be able to give the following extract from the review of the first edition of this book printed in the _chicago times_. no great daily paper would have dared to print such a comment a few years ago. to-day it is stated as a matter quite beyond controversy: "she takes considerable pains to show _what one would think need scarcely be insisted upon in our day_, that the morals of civilization--morals in general, indeed--are not at all based in or dependent upon religion, certainly not on christianity, since the so-called 'golden rule' the highest principle of morality, antedates christianity a thousand years." address to the clergy and others. up to the present time i have tried to reply personally to each one who has favored me with a letter of thanks, criticism, or praise of the little book, "men, women, and gods, and other lectures," just published, but i find that if i continue to do this i shall have but little time for anything else. the very unexpected welcome which the book has received prompts me to take this plan and means of replying to many who have honored me by writing me personal letters. first, permit me to thank those who have written letters of praise and gratitude, and to say that, although i may be unable to reply in a private letter, i am not indifferent to these evidences of your interest, and am greatly helped in my work by your sympathy and encouragement. i have also received most courteous letters from various clergymen who, disagreeing with me, desire to convert me either by mail or personal (private) interviews. it is wholly impossible for me to grant these requests, since my time and strength are demanded in other work, but i wish to say here what i have written to several of my clerical correspondents, and desire to say to them all. although i cannot enter into private correspondence with, nor grant personal interviews to, such a number of your body, i am entirely willing to respond in a public way to any replies to my arguments which come under the following conditions: . on page fourteen of the introduction to my book col. ingersoll says: "no human being can answer her arguments. there is no answer. all the priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. there is no explanation. they should remain dumb unless they can show that the impossible is the probable, that slavery is better than freedom, that polygamy is the friend of woman, that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love and worship." now, whenever any one of these gentlemen who wish to convert me will show that the colonel is wrong in this brief paragraph; whenever they will, in print or in public, refute the arguments to which he refers, and to which they object, i shall not be slow to respond. . it must be argument, not personal abuse, and it must be conducted in a courteous manner and tone. . it must proceed upon the basis that i am as honest, as earnest, and as virtuous in my motives and intentions as they are in theirs. now, surely these gentlemen cannot object to these simple requirements; and since some of them are men whose names are preceded by a title and followed by several capital letters (ranging from d.d. to o.s.f.----which last i, in my ignorance, guess at as meaning order of st. francis, but shall like to be corrected if i am wrong) they must believe that to answer the arguments themselves is both simple and easy. if they do not so believe they surely have no right to occupy the positions which they do occupy. if they do so believe it will do much more good to answer them publicly, since they have been made publicly, and are already in the hands of several thousand people, who could not be reached by any amount of eloquence poured out on ray devoted head in the privacy of my own parlor (or writing-desk). therefore, gentlemen, permit me to say to you all that which i have already written to several of you personally--that col. ingersoll's paragraph, quoted above, expresses my own views and those of a great many other people, and will continue so to do so long as your efforts to show that he is wrong are only whispered to me behind a fan, or in the strict seclusion of a letter marked "private and personal." the arguments i have given against the prevailing christian dogmas and usages, which you uphold, are neither private nor personal, nor shall i allow them to take that phase. life is too short for me to spend hours day after day in sustaining, in private, a public argument which has never been (and, in my opinion, never will be), refuted. and it would do no good to the thousands whom you are pleased to say you fear will be led astray by my position. you have a magnificent opportunity to lead them back again by honest public letters, or lectures, or sermons, not by an afternoon's chat with me. and, while i recognize the courtesy of your pressing requests (made, without exception, in the most gentlemanly terms) to permit you to meet me personally and refute my arguments, i feel compelled to say that, unless you are willing to show the courage of your convictions, _and the quality of your defense_, to the public, i fear they would have no weight with me, and i should have wasted your precious time as well as my own, which i should feel i had no right to do, nor to allow you to do, without this frank statement of the case. now, do not suppose that i have the slightest objection to meeting the clergy personally and socially. upon the contrary, many of my friends are clergymen--even bishops--but candor compels me to state that up to the present time not one of them has (either privately or otherwise) been able to answer either of the first two lectures in that little book, and as to the third one, no one of them, in my opinion, will ever try to answer it. time will show whether i am right in this. in the mean time accept my thanks for your interest, and believe me, sincerely, helen h. gardener. letter to the cleveland congress of freethinkers, october, . i send my greetings to the congress of freethinkers assembled at cleveland, and regret, more than i can express, that i am unable to be there and hear all the good things you will hear, and see all the earnest workers you will see. the freethinkers of america ought to be a very proud and enthusiastic body, when they have in their presidential chair the ablest orator of modern times, and the broadest, bravest, and most comprehensive intellect that has ever been called "mr. president" in this land of bravery and presidents. washington was a patriot of whom we are all justly proud. he was liberal in his religion and progressive in his views of personal rights. and yet he had his limitations. to him liberty and personal rights were modified by the words, "free, white, adult, males." he got no farther. he who fought for freedom upheld slavery! and yet we are all proud and glad to pay honor and respect to the memory of washington. abraham lincoln we place still higher on the roll of honor; for, added to his still more liberal religious views, in his conceptions of freedom and justice he had at least two fewer limitations than had the patriot of . he struck both "free" and "white" from his mental black list, and gave once more an impulse to liberty that thrilled a nation and gave fresh dignity to the human race. but what shall we say of our president--ingersoll? a man who in ten short years has carried mental liberty into every household in america--who is without limitations in religion, and modifies justice by no prefix. a man who, with unequaled oratory, champions freedom--not the "free, white, adult, male" freedom of washington. a man who has breasted a whirlwind of detraction and abuse for justice--not the "male, adult" justice of lincoln, but the freedom and justice, without limitation, for "man, woman, and child." with such a leader, what should not be achieved? with such a champion, what cause could fail? if the people ever place such a man in the white house, the nations of this earth will know, for the first time, the real meaning of a free government under secular administration. "a government of the people, for the people, by the people," will be more than simply a high-sounding phrase, which, read by the light of the past, was only a bitter mockery to a race in chains; and, read by the light of the present, is a choice bit of grim humor to half of a nation in petticoats. but so long as the taste of the voter is such that he prefers to place in the executive chair a type of man so eminently fitted for private life that when you want to find him you have to _shake the chair_ to see if he is in it, just so long will there be no danger that the lightning will strike so as to deprive the freethinkers of one man in america who could fill the national executive chair _full_, and strain the back and sides a little getting in. once more i send greetings to the convention, with the hope that you may have as grand a time as you ought to have, and that free thought will receive a new impulse from the harmony and enthusiasm of this meeting. sincerely, helen h. gardener. flowers of freethought (second series) by g. w. foote london: b. forder, stonecutter street, b.o. contents: preface. luscious piety. the jewish sabbath. professor stokes on immortality. paul bert * bradlaugh's ghost. christ and brotherhood. the sons of god. melchizedek. s'w'elp me god. infidel homes. * are atheists cruel? * are atheists wicked? rain doctors. pious puerilities. "thus saith the lord." believe or be damned. christian charity. religion and money. clotted bosh. lord bacon on atheism. christianity and slavery. * christ up to date. secularism and christianity. altar and throne. * martin luther. the praise of folly. happy in hell. the act of god. keir hardie on christ. blessed be ye poor. converted infidels. mrs. booth's ghost. talmage on the bible. mrs. besant on death and after. the poets and liberal theology. * christianity and labor. * an easter egg for christians. * duelling. * down among the dead men. * smirching a hero. kit marlowe and jesus christ. * jehovah the ripper. * the parsons' living wage. * did bradlaugh backslide? * frederic harrison on atheism. * save the bible! * forgive and forget. * the star of bethlehem. the great ghosts * atheism and the french revolution. * pigottism. * jesus at the derby. * atheist murderers. * a religion for eunuchs. * rose-water religion. * preface. a little more than a year ago i put forth a collection of articles under the title of _flowers of freethought_. the little volume met with a favorable reception, and i now issue a second series. by a "favorable reception" i only mean that the volume found purchasers, and, it is to be presumed, readers; which is, after all, the one thing a writer needs to regard as of any real importance. certainly the volume was not praised, nor recommended, nor even noticed, in the public journals. the time is not yet ripe for the ordinary reviewers to so much as mention a book of that character. not that i charge the said reviewers with being concerned in a deliberate conspiracy of silence against such productions. they have to earn their livings, and often very humbly, despite the autocratic airs they give themselves; they serve under editors, who serve under proprietors, who in turn consult the tastes, the intelligence, and the prejudices of their respective customers. and thus it is, i conceive, that thorough-going freethought--at least if written in a popular style and published at a popular price--is generally treated with a silence, which, in some cases, is far from a symptom of contempt. i am aware that my writing is sometimes objected to on grounds of "taste." but it is a curious thing that this objection has invariably been raised by one of two classes of persons:--either those who are hostile to my opinions, and therefore unlikely to be impartial judges in this respect; or those who, while sharing my opinions, are fond of temporising, and rather anxious to obtain the smiles---not to say the rewards--of orthodoxy. the advice of the one class is suspicious; that of the other is contemptible. as i said in the former preface, i refrain from personalities, which is all that can be demanded of a fair controversialist. there are sentences, and perhaps passages, in this volume, that some people will not like; but they are about things that _i_ do not like. a propagandist should use his pen as a weapon rather than a fencing foil. at any rate, my style is my own; it is copied from no model, or set of models; although i confess to a predilection for the old forthright literature of england, before "fine writing" was invented, or "parliamentary" eloquence came into vogue, or writers were anxious to propitiate an imaginary critic at their elbows--the composite ghost, as it were, of all the ignoramuses, prigs, bigots, fools, and cowards on this planet. it only remains to say that the articles in this volume are of the same general character as those in its predecessor. they were written at different intervals during the past ten or twelve years. i have not attempted to classify them. in several instances i have appended the date of first publication, as it seemed necessary, or at least convenient. g. w. foote june, . luscious piety. lord tennyson's poem, _locksley hall: sixty years after_, is severe on what he evidently regards as the pornographic tendency of our age. "feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer; send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure. set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of zolaism,-- forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm." there is some truth in this, but far more exaggeration. english novels, however they may trifle and sentimentalise with the passion of love, are as a rule exceedingly "proper." for the most part, in fact, they deliberately ignore all the unconventional aspects of that passion, and you might read a thousand of their productions without suspecting, if you did not already know the fact, that it had any connexion with our physical nature. the men and women, youths and maidens, of thackeray, dickens, and george eliot, to say nothing of minor writers, are true enough to nature in other respects, but in all sexual relations they are mere simulacri. george meredith is our only novelist who triumphs in this region. as mr. lowell has noticed, there is a fine natural atmosphere of sex in his books. without the obtrusion of physiology, which is out of place in art, his human beings are clearly divided into males and females, thinking, feeling and acting according to their sexual characteristics. other novelists simply shirk the whole problem of sex, and are satisfied with calling their personages john or mary as the one safe method of indicating to what gender they belong. this is how the english public is pleased to have it; in this manner it feeds the gross hypocrisy which is its constant bane. hence the shock of surprise, and even of disgust, felt by the ordinary englishman when he takes up a novel by a great french master of fiction, who thinks that art, as well as science, should deal frankly and courageously with every great problem of life. "shocking!" cry the english when the veil of mystery is lifted. yet the purism is only on the lips. we are not a whit more virtuous than those plain-spoken foreigners; for, after all, facts exist, however we blink them, and ignorance and innocence are entirely different things. the great french masters of fiction do not write merely for boys and girls. they believe that other literature is required besides that which is fit for bread-and-butter misses. yet they are not therefore vicious. they paint nature as it is, idealising without distorting, leaving the moral to convey itself, as it inevitably will. as james thomson said, "do you dread that the satyr will be preferred to hyperion, when both stand imaged in clear light before us?" zolaism, or rather what lord tennyson means by the word--for _nana_ is a great and terrible book with all its vice--is not the chief danger to the morals of english youth. long before the majority of them learn to read french with ease, there is a book put into the hands of all for indiscriminate reading. it is the bible. in the pages of that book they find the lowest animal functions called by their vulgar names; frequent references, and sometimes very brutal ones, to the generative organs; and stories of lust, adultery, sodomy and incest, that might raise blushes in a brothel; while in the song of solomon they will find the most passionate eroticism, decked out with the most voluptuous imagery. the "zolaism" of the bible is far more pernicious than the "zolaism" of french fiction. the one comes seductively, with an air of piety, and authoritatively, with an air of divinity; while the other shows that selfishness and excess lead to demoralisation and death. there is in fact, and all history attests it, a close connexion between religion and sensuality. no student of human nature need be surprised at louis xv. falling on his knees in prayer after debauching a young virgin in the _parc aux cerfs_. nor is there anything abnormal in count cenci, in shelley's play, soliciting god's aid in the pollution of his own daughter. it is said that american camp-meetings often wound up in a saturnalia. the hallelujah lasses sing with especial fervor "safe in the arms of jesus." how many christian maidens are moved by the promptings of their sexual nature when they adore the figure of their nearly naked savior on a cross! the very nuns, who take vows of perpetual chastity, become spouses of christ; and the hysterical fervor with which they frequently worship their divine bridegroom, shows that when nature is thrust out of the door she comes in at the window. catholic books of devotion for the use of women and young people are also full of thinly-veiled sensuality, and there are indications that this abomination is spreading in the "higher" religious circles in protestant england, where the loathsome confessional is being introduced in other than catholic churches. paul bert, in his _morale des jesuites_, gave a choice specimen of this class of literature, or rather such extracts as he dared publish in a volume bearing his honored name. it is a prayer in rhyme extending to eleven pages, and occurs in a book by father huguet, designed for "the dear daughters of holy mary." as paul bert says, "every mother would fling it away with horror if arthur were substituted for jesus." _vive jesus_ is the constant refrain of this pious song. we give a sample or two in french with a literal english translation. vive jesus, de qui l'amour me va consumant unit et jour. vive jesus, vive sa force, vive son agreable amore. vive jesus, quand il m'enivre d'un douceur qui me fait vivre. vive jesus, lorsque sa bouche d'un baiser amoureux me touche. vive jesus, grand il m'appelle ma soeur, ma colombe, ma belle. vive jesus, quand sa bonte, me reduit dans la nudite; vive jesns, quand ses blandices me comblent de chastes delices. "live jesus, whose love consumes me night and night.--live jesus, live his force, live his agreeable attraction.--live jesus, when he intoxicates me with a sweetness that gives me life.--live jesus, when his mouth touches me with an amorous kiss.--live jesus, when he calls me, my sister, my dove, my lovely one.--live jesus, when his good pleasure reduces me to nudity; live jesus, when his blandishments fill me with chaste delight."--and this erotic stuff is for the use of girls!! the jewish sabbath. dr. edersheim's _life of jesus_ contains some interesting appendices on jewish beliefs and ceremonies. one of these deals with the sabbath laws of the chosen people, and we propose to cull from it a few curious illustrations of jewish superstitions. the mishnic tractate _sabbath_ stands at the head of twelve tractates on festivals. another tractate treats of "commixtures," which are intended to make the sabbath laws more bearable. the jerusalem talmud devotes folio columns, and the babylon talmud double folio pages, to the serious discussion of the most minute and senseless regulations. it would be difficult to understand how any persons but maniacs or idiots could have concocted such elaborate imbecilities, if we did not remember that the priests of every religion have always bestowed their ability and leisure on matters of no earthly interest to anyone but themselves. travelling on the sabbath was strictly forbidden, except for a distance of two thousand cubits ( , yards) from one's residence. yet if a man deposited food for two meals on the friday at the boundary of that "journey," the spot became his dwelling-place, and he might do another two thousand cubits, without incurring 'god's wrath. if a jewish traveller arrived at a place just as the sabbath commenced, he could only remove from his beasts of burden such objects as it was lawful to handle on the lord's day. he might also loosen their gear and let them tumble down of themselves, but stabling them was out of all question. the rabbis exercised their ingenuity on what was the smallest weight that constituted "a burden." this was fixed at "a dried fig," but it was a moot point whether the law was violated if half a fig were carried at two different times on the same sabbath. the standard measure for forbidden food was the size of an olive. if a man swallowed forbidden food of the size of half an olive, and vomited it, and then ate another piece of the same size, he would be guilty because his palate had tasted food to the prohibited degree. throwing up an object, and catching it with the same hand was an undoubted sin; but it was a nice question whether he was guilty if he caught it with, the other hand. rain water might be caught and carried away, but if the rain had run down from a wall the act was sinful. overtaken by the sabbath with fruit in his hand, stretched out from one "place" to another, the orthodox jew would have to drop it, since shifting his full hand from one locality to another was carrying a burden. nothing could be killed on the sabbath, not even insects. speaking of the christian monks, jortin says that "some of them, out of mortification, would not catch or kill the vermin which devoured them; in which they far surpassed the jews, who only spared them upon the sabbath day." this interesting fact is supported by the authority of a kabbi, who is quoted in latin to the effect that cracking a flea and killing a camel are equally guilty. dr. edersheim evidently refers to the same authority in a footnote. on the whole this regulation against the killing of vermin must have been very irksome, and if the fleas were aware of it, they and the jews must have had a lively time on the sabbath. we cannot ascertain whether the prohibition extended to _scratching_. if it did, curses not loud but deep must have ascended to the throne of the eternal; and if, as jesus says, every idle word is written down in the great book of heaven, the recording angel must have had anything but a holiday on the day of rest. no work was allowed on the sabbath. even roasting and baking had to be stopped directly the holy period began, unless a crust was already formed, in which case the cooking might be finished. nothing was to be sent, even by a heathen, unless it would reach its destination before the sabbath. kabbi gamaliel was careful to send his linen to the wash three days before the sabbath, so as to avoid anything that might lead to sabbath labor. the sabbath lamp was supposed to have been ordained on mount sinai. to extinguish it was a breach of the sabbath law, but it might be put out from fear of gentiles, robbers, or evil spirits, or in order that a person dangerously ill might go to sleep. such concessions were obviously made by the rabbis, as a means of accommodating their religious laws to the absolute necessities of secular life. they compensated themselves, however, by hinting that twofold guilt was incurred if, in blowing out one candle, its flame lit another. according to the mosaic law, there was to be no fire on the sabbath. food might be kept warm, however, said the rabbis, by wrapping it in non-conductors. the sin to be avoided was _increasing_ the heat. eggs might not be cooked, even in sand heated by the sun, nor might hot water be poured on cold. it was unlawful to put a vessel to catch the drops of oil that might fall from the lamp, but one might be put there to catch the sparks. another concession to secular necessity! a father might also take his child in his arms, even if the child held a stone, although it was carrying things on the sabbath; but this privilege was not yielded without a great deal of discussion. care should be taken that no article of apparel was taken off and carried. fortunately palestine is not a land of showers and sudden changes of temperature, or the rabbis would have had to discuss the umbrella and overcoat question. women were forbidden to wear necklaces, rings, or pins, on the sabbath. nose-rings are mentioned in the regulations, and the fact throws light on the social condition of the times. women were also forbidden to look in the glass on the sabbath, lest they should spy a white hair, and perform the sinful labor of pulling it out. shoes might not be scraped with a knife, except perhaps with the back, but they might be touched up with oil or water. if a sandal tie broke on the sabbath, the question of what should be done was so serious and profound that the rabbis were never able to settle it. a plaster might be worn to keep a wound from getting worse, but not to make it better. false teeth were absolutely prohibited, for they might fall out, and replacing them involved labor. elderly persons with a full artificial set must have cut a sorry figure on the sabbath, plump-faced mrs. isaacs resolving herself periodically into a toothless hag. plucking a blade of grass was sinful. spitting in a handkerchief was allowed by one rabbi, but the whole tribe were at loggerheads about spitting on the ground. cutting one's hair or nails was a mortal sin. in case of fire on the sabbath, the utensils needed on that day might be saved, and as much clothes as was absolutely necessary. this severe regulation was modified by a fiction. a man might put on a dress, save it, go back and put on another, and so on _ad infinitum_. watering the cattle might be done by the gentile, like lighting a lamp, the fiction being that he did it for himself and not for the jew. assistance might be given to an animal about to have young, or to a woman in childbirth--which are further concessions to property and humanity. all might be done on the sabbath, too, needful for circumcision. on the other hand, bones might not be set, nor emetics given, nor any medical or surgical operation performed. wine, oil, and bread might be borrowed, however, and one's upper garment left in pledge for it. no doubt it was found impossible to keep the jews absolutely from pawnbroking even on the sabbath, another concession was made for the dead. their bodies might be laid out, washed, and anointed. priests of every creed are obliged to give way on such points, or life would become intolerable, and their victims would revolt in sheer despair. nature knew nothing of the jewish laws, and hens had the perversity to lay eggs on the sabbath. such eggs were unlawful eating; yet if the hen had been kept, not for laying but for fattening, the egg might be eaten as a part of her economy that had accidentally fallen off! such were the puerilities of the sabbath law among the jews. the old testament is directly responsible for all of them. it laid down the basic principle, and the rabbis simply developed it, with as much natural logic as a tree grows up from its roots. our sabbatarians of to-day are slaves to the ignorance and follies of the semi-barbarous inhabitants of ancient palestine; men who believed that god had posteriors, and exhibited them; men who kept slaves and harems; men who were notorious for their superstition, their bigotry, and their fanaticism; men who believed that the infinite god rested after six days' work, and ordered all his creatures to regard the day on which he recruited his strength as holy. surely it is time to fling aside their antiquated rubbish, and arrange our periods of rest and recreation according to the dictates of science and common sense. the origin of a periodical day of rest from labor is simple and natural. it has everywhere been placed under the sanction of religion, but it arose from secular necessity. in the nomadic state, when men had little to do at ordinary times except watching their flocks and herds, the days passed in monotonous succession. life was never laborious, and as human energies were not taxed there was no need for a period of recuperation, we may therefore rest assured that no sabbatarian law was ever given by moses to the jews in the wilderness. such a law first appears in a higher stage of civilisation. when nomadic tribes settle down to agriculture and are welded into nations, chiefly by defensive war against predatory barbarians; above all, when slavery is introduced and masses of men are compelled to build and manufacture; the ruling and propertied classes soon perceive that a day of rest is absolutely requisite. without it the laborer wears out too rapidly--like the horse, the ox, or any other beast of burden. the day is therefore decreed for economic reasons. it is only placed under the sanction of religion because, in a certain stage of human development, there is no other sanction available. every change in social organisation has then to be enforced as an edict of the gods. this is carried out by the priests, who have unquestioned authority over the multitude, and who, so long as their own privileges and emoluments are secured, are always ready to guard the interest of the temporal powers. such was the origin of the day of rest in egypt, assyria, and elsewhere. but it was lost sight of in the course of time, even by the ruling classes themselves; and the theological fiction of a divine ordinance became the universally accepted explanation. this fiction is still current in christendom. we are gravely asked to believe that men would work themselves to death, and civilised nations commit economical suicide, if they were not taught that a day of rest was commanded by jehovah amidst the lightnings and thunders of sinai. in the same way, we are asked to believe that theft and murder would be popular pastimes without the restraints of the supernatural decalogue fabled to have been received by moses. as a matter of fact, the law against theft arose because men object to be robbed, and the law against murder because they object to be assassinated. superstition does not invent social laws; it merely throws around them the glamor of a supernatural authority. priests have a manifest interest in maintaining this glamor. accordingly we find that nonconformists as well as churchmen claim the day of rest as the lord's day--although its very name of sunday betrays its pagan origin. it is not merely a day of rest, they tell us; it is also a day of devotion. labor is to be laid aside in order that the people may worship god. the physical benefit of the institution is not denied; on the contrary, now that democracy is decisively triumphing, the people are assured that sunday can only be maintained under a religious sanction. in other words, religion and priests are as indispensable as ever to the welfare of mankind. this theological fiction should be peremptorily dismissed. whatever service it once rendered has been counterbalanced by its mischiefs. the rude laborer of former times--the slave or the serf--only wanted rest from toil. he had no conception of anything higher. but circumstances have changed. the laborer of to-day aspires to share in the highest blessings of civilisation. his hours of daily work are shortened. the rest he requires he can obtain in bed. what he needs on sunday is not _rest_, but _change_; true re-creation of his nature; and this is denied him by the laws that are based upon the very theological fiction which is pretended to be his most faithful friend. the working classes at present are simply humbugged by the churches. the day of rest is secure enough without lies or fictions. what the masses want is an opportunity to make use of it. now this cannot be done if all rest on the same day. a minority must work on sunday, and take their rest on some other day of the week. and really, when the nonsensical solemnity of sunday is gone, any other day would be equally eligible. parsons work on sunday; so do their servants, and all who are engaged about their gospel-shops. why should it be so hard then for a railway servant, a museum attendant, an art-gallery curator, or a librarian to work on sunday? let them rest some other day of the week as the parson does. they would be happy if they could have his "off days" even at the price of "sunday labor." churches and chapels do not attract so many people as they did. there is every reason why priestly protective laws should be broken down. it is a poor alternative to offer a working man--the church or the public-house; and they are now trying to shut the public-house and make it church or nothing. other people should be consulted as well as mystery-men and their followers. let us have freedom. let the dwellers in crowded city streets, who work all day in close factories, be taken at cheap rates to the country or the seaside. let them see the grand sweep of the sky. let them feel the spring of the turf under their feet. let them look out over the sea--the highway between continents---and take something of its power and poetry into their blood and brain. during the winter, or in summer if they feel inclined, let them visit the institutions of culture, behold the beautiful works of dead artists, study the relics of dead generations, feel the links that bind the past to the present, and imagine the links that will bind the present to the future. let their pulses be stirred with noble music. let the sunday be their great day of freedom, culture, and humanity. as "god's day" it is wasted. we must rescue it from the priests and make it "man's day." professor stokes on immortality. the orthodox world makes much of sir g. g. stokes, baronet, m.p., and president of the royal society. it is so grateful to find a scientific man who is naively a christian. many of the species are avowed, or, at any rate, strongly suspected unbelievers; while others, who make a profession of christianity, are careful to explain that they hold it with certain reservations, being christians in general, but not christians in particular. sir g. g. stokes, however, is as orthodox as any conventicle could desire. perhaps it was for this reason that he was selected to deliver one of the courses of gilford lectures. he would be a sort of set-off against the rationalism of max muller and the scepticism of tylor. what other reason, indeed, could have inspired his selection? he has not the slightest reputation as a theologian or philosopher, and one of the leading reviews, in noticing his clifford lectures, expresses a mild but decided wonder at his appearing in such a character. let the gifford lectures, however, pass--for the present. we propose to deal with an earlier effort of sir g. g. stokes. nearly two years ago he delivered a lecture at the finsbury polytechnic on the immortality of the soul. it was reported in the _family churchman_, and reprinted after revision as a twopenny pamphlet, with the first title of "i." this is the only pointed thing about it. the lecture is about "i," or, as sir g. g. stokes, might say, "all my i." sir g. g. stokes begins by promising to confine himself to the question, "what is it that personal identity depends upon and consists in?" but he does not fulfil the promise. after some jejune remarks upon this question he drops into theology and winds up with a little sermon. "i cannot pretend that i am able to answer that question myself," says sir g. g. stokes. why, then, did he not leave it alone? "but i will endeavor," he says, "to place before you some thoughts bearing in that direction which i have found helpful to myself, and which possibly may be of some help to some of you." sir g. g. stokes does not mention david hume, but that great thinker pointed out, with his habitual force and clearness, that personal identity depends upon memory. our scientific lecturer, with the theological twist, says it "involves memory," which implies a certain reservation. yet he abstains from elucidating the point; and as it is the most important one in the discussion, he must be held guilty of short-sightedness or timidity. memory involves thought, says sir g. g. stokes. this is true; in fact, it is a truism. and what, he asks, does thought depend on? "to a certain extent" he allows that it "depends upon the condition of the brain." but during the present life, at any rate, it depends _absolutely_ on the condition of the brain look at the head of an idiot, and then at the head of shakespeare; is not the brain difference the obvious cause of the mental difference? are there not diseases of the brain that affect thought in a definite manner? is not thought excited by stimulants, and deadened or even annihilated by narcotics? is it not entirely suspended in healthy sleep? will not a man of genius become an imbecile if his brain softens? will not a philosopher rave like a drunken fishfag if he suffers from brain inflammation? is not thought most vigorous when the brain is mature? and is it not weakest in the first and second childishness of youth and old age? the dependence of thought on the brain is so obvious, it is so demonstrable by the logical methods of difference and concomitant variations, that whoever disputes it, or only allows it "to a certain extent," is bound to assign another definite cause. a _definite_ cause, we say; not a fanciful or speculative one, which is perfectly hypothetical. sir g. g. stokes does not do this. he tries to make good his reservation by a negative criticism of "the materialistic hypothesis." he takes the case of a man who, while going up a ladder and speaking, was knocked on the head by a falling brickbat. for two days he was unconscious, and "when he came to, he completed the sentence that he had been speaking when he was struck." now, at first sight, this seems a strong confirmation of "the materialistic hypothesis." a shock to the brain stopped its action and suspended consciousness. automatic animal functions went on, but there was no perception, thought, or feeling. when the effects of the shock wore off the brain resumed its action, and began at the very point where it left off. but this last circumstance is seized by sir g. g. stokes as "a difficulty." _some_ change must have gone on, he says, during the two days the man lay unconscious; there must have been _some_ waste of tissues, _some_ change in the brain; yet "there is no trace of this change in the joining together of the thought after the interval of unconsciousness with the thought before." our reply is a simple one. in the first place, sir g. g. stokes is making much of a single fact, which he has not weighed, in despite of a host of other facts, not in the least questionable, and all pointing in one direction. in the second place, he does not tell us _what_ change went on in the man's brain. may it not have been, at least with respect to the cerebrum, quite infinitesimal? in the third place, sir g. g. stokes should be aware that all brain changes do not affect consciousness, even in the normal state. lastly, consciousness depends upon perception; and if all the avenues of sensation were closed, and the alteration of brain tissues were exceedingly slight (as it would be if the brain were not working), it is nothing very extraordinary that the man should resume thought and volition at the point where they ceased. the second "difficulty" raised, rather than discovered, by sir g. g. stokes is this. "i am conscious of a power which i call will," he says, "and when i hold up my hand i can choose whether i shall move it to the right or to the left." "now, according to the materialistic hypothesis, everything about me is determined simply by the ponderable molecules which constitute my body acting simply and solely according to the very same laws according to which matter destitute of life might act. well then, if we follow up this supposition to its full extent, we are obliged to suppose that, whether i move at this particular moment of time-- . , on the th of march--my hand to the right or to the left, was determined by something inevitable, something which could not have been otherwise, and must have come down, in fact, from my ancestors." now sir g. g. stokes "confesses" that this seems to him to "fly completely in the face of common sense." and so it does, if by "determined" he means that _somebody_ settled the whole business, down to the minutest details, a thousand, a million, or a thousand million years ago. but if "determined" simply means that every phenomenon is _caused_, in the philosophical--not the theological or metaphysical--meaning of the word, it does not fly in the face of common sense at all. little as sir g. g. stokes may like it, he _does_--body and brain, thought and feeling, volition and taste--come down from his ancestors. that is the reason why he is an englishman, a whig, a bit of a philistine, an orthodox christian, and a very indifferent reasoner. after all, does not this objection come with an ill grace from a christian theist? has sir g. g. stokes never read st. paul? has he never heard of john calvin and martin luther? has he never read the thirty-nine articles of his own church? all those authorities teach predestination; which, indeed, logically follows the doctrine of an all-wise and all-powerful god. yet here is sir g. g. stokes, a church of england man, objecting to the "materialistic hypothesis" on the ground that it makes things "determined." professor stokes next refers to "something about us" which we call "will." this he proceeds to treat as an independent force like magnetism or electricity. what he says about it shows him to be a perfect tyro in psychology. at the end of the section he exclaims, "so much for that theory"--the materialistic hypothesis; and we are tempted to exclaim, "so much for sir g. g. stokes." next comes the "psychic theory," according to which "man consists of body and soul." here the professor shows a lucid interval. he points out that if the soul is really hampered by the body, it is strange that a blow on a man's head should "retard the action of his thoughts." he also remarks that, according to this theory, the "blow has only got to be somewhat harder till the head is smashed altogether, and the man is killed, and then the thoughts are rendered more active than ever." which, as our old friend euclid observes, is absurd. professor stokes dismisses the "body and soul" theory as "open to very grave objections." he admits that it is held by "many persons belonging to the religious world," nevertheless he does not think it can be "deduced from scripture," to which he goes on to appeal. now we beg our christian friends to notice this. here is the great sir g. gr. stokes they make so much of actually throwing up the sponge. instead of showing _scientifically_ that man has a soul, and thus cheering their drooping spirits, he leaves the platform, mounts the pulpit, and plays the part of a theologian. in fact he can tell them no more than the ordinary parson who sticks his nose between the pages of his bible. with regard to the scripture, it will afford very little comfort to the christians to know that professor stokes does not believe that it teaches the immortality of the soul. he supports this view by citing the authority of the present bishop of durham and "another bishop," who regard the doctrine of an immortal soul as no part of a christian faith. had sir g. g. stokes been better read in the literature of his own church, he might have adduced a number of other divines, including bishop courtenay and archbishop whately, who took the same position. "well, what do we learn from scripture?" inquires professor stokes. and this is his answer. "in scripture," he says, "man is spoken of as consisting of body, soul, and spirit." and in sir g. g. stokes's opinion it is the third article which "lies at the very basis of life." it is _spirit_, "the interaction of which with the material organism produced a living being" in the garden of eden. here we pause to interject a reflection. ordinary christians believe in body and soul; professor stokes believes in body, soul, and spirit. that is, he says man is made up of three instead of two. but in step our theosophic friends, who pile on four more, and tell us that man is sevenfold. now who is right! according to their own account they are _all_ right. but this is impossible. in our opinion they are all _wrong_. their theories are imaginary. all they _know_ anything of is the human body. but to return to professor stokes's excursion in the region of biblical exegesis. never have we met with anything more puerile and absurd. he finds "soul" and "spirit" in the english bible, and he supposes them to be different things. he even builds up a fanciful theory on the fact that the expression "living soul" occurs in the new testament, but he does not remember the expression "living spirit." hence he concludes that _spirit_ is not "living" but "life-making." surely a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and professor stokes is a capital illustration of this truth. we get "soul" and "spirit" in the new testament, as well as in the old, simply because both words are used indifferently by the english translators. this is owing to the composite character of the english language. one word comes from the greek, the other from the latin, and both mean exactly the same thing. the hebrew _ruach_, the (greek _pneuma_), and the latin _spiritus_, all originally meant _the breath_; and as breathing was the most obvious function of life, persisting even in the deepest sleep, it came to signify _life_, when that general conception was reached; and when the idea of soul or spirit was reached, the same word was used to denote it. all this is shown clearly enough by tylor, and is corroborated by the more orthodox max muller; so that professor stokes has fallen into a quagmire, made of the dirt of ignorance and a little water of knowledge, and has made himself a laughing-stock to everyone who possesses a decent acquaintance with the subject. whatever it is that professor stokes thinks a man has apart from his body, he does not believe it to be immortal. the immortality of the soul and a future life, he says, are "two totally different things." the one he thinks "incorrect," the other he regards as guaranteed by scripture; in other words, by paul, who begins his exposition by exclaiming "thou fool!" and ends it by showing his own folly. the apostle's nonsense about the seed that cannot quicken unless it die, was laughed at by the african chief in sir samuel baker's narrative. the unsophisticated negro said that if the seed did die it would never come to anything. and he was right, and paul was wrong. there _is_ a resurrection, however, for paul says so, and his teaching is inspired, though his logic is faulty. men will rise from the dead _somehow_, and with "a body of some kind." not the body we have now. oh dear no! great men have thought so, but it is an "incredible supposition." being a chemist, sir g. g. stokes sees the ineffable absurdity, the physical and logical impossibility, of this orthodox conception, which was taught by mr. spurgeon without the slightest misgiving, and upheld by the teaching of the church of england. but what is it that _will_ rise from the dead, and get joined with some sort of inconceivable body? we have shown that professor stokes's distinction between "soul" and "spirit" is fanciful. it will not do for him, then, to say it is the "spirit" that will rise, for he denies, or does not believe, the renewed life of the "soul." here he leaves us totally in the dark. perhaps what will rise is "a sort of a something" that will get joined to "a sort of a body" and live in "a sort of a somewhere." "what," asks professor stokes, "is man's condition between death and the resurrection?" he admits that the teaching of scripture on this point is "exceedingly meagre." he inclines to think that "the intermediate state is one of unconsciousness," something like when we faint, and thus, as there will be no perceptions in the interval, though it be millions of years, we shall, "when we breathe our last," be brought "immediately face to face with our final account to receive our final destiny." and if our final destiny depends in any way on how we have used our reasoning powers, professor stokes will be consigned to a warm corner in an excessively high-temperatured establishment. after all, professor stokes admits that all he has said, or can say, gives no "evidence" of a future life. what _is_ the evidence then? "well," he says, "the great evidence which we as christians accept is, that there is one who has passed already before us from the one state of being to the other." the resurrection of jesus christ, he tells us, is "an historical event," and is supported by an enormous amount of most weighty evidence. but he does not give us a single ounce of it. the only argument he has for a future state is advanced on the last page, and he retires at the moment he has an opportunity of proving his case. professor stokes says: "i fear i have occupied your time too long. we fear so too." "these are dark subjects," he adds. true, and he has not illuminated them. there is positively no evidence of a future life. the belief is a conjecture, and we must die to prove or disprove it. paul bert * victor hugo and gambetta have their places in the pantheon of history, and death is beginning his harvest among the second rank of the founders of the present french republic, every one of these men was an earnest freethinker as well as a staunch republican. paul bert, who has just died at tonquin at the post of duty, was one of the band of patriots who gathered round gambetta in his titanic organisation of the national defence; a band from which has come most of those who have since been distinguished in the public life of france. after the close of the war, paul bert became a member of the national assembly, in which he has held his seat through all political changes. as a man of science he was eminent and far-shining, being not a mere _doctrinaire_ but a practical experimentalist whose researches were of the highest interest and importance. his _manual of elementary science_, which has been recently translated into english, is in use in nearly every french school, and there is no other volume of the kind that can be compared with it for a moment. as a friend and promoter of general education, paul bert was without a rival. he strove in season and out of season to raise the standard of instruction, to elevate the status of teachers, and to free them from the galling tyranny of priests. it is not too much to say that paul bert was the idol of nine-tenths of the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in the french rural districts, where the evils he helped to remove had been most rampant. * november , . this distinguished frenchman is now dead at the comparatively early age of fifty-three. although his illness was so serious, the french premier telegraphed that it would be impolitic for the resident general to leave tonquin suddenly. thereupon paul bert replied, "you are right; it is better to die at my post than for me to quit tonquin at the present moment." that dispatch was the last he was able to send himself. subsequent dispatches came, from other hands, and at last the news arrived that paul bert was dead. the french premier announced the fact from the tribune in a broken voice and amid profound silence. "the chamber loses in him," said m. de freycinet, "one of its eminent members, science an illustrious representative, france one of her most devoted children." the next day the chamber, by an overwhelming majority, voted a state funeral and a pension of £ a year to mdme. bert, with reversion to her children. the first vote was strenuously opposed by monseigneur freppel, bishop of angers, on the ground that the deceased was an inveterate enemy of religion, but the bishop was ignominiously defeated by votes against . that is probably a fair test of the relative strength of freethought and christianity among educated men in france. monseigneur freppel was right paul bert was an inveterate enemy of religion. he was a militant atheist, who believed that the highest service you can render to mankind is to free them from superstition. no wonder the church hated him. at a famous banquet he proposed the toast, "the eradication of the two phylloxeras--the phylloxera of the vine and the phylloxera of the church." his handbook on the morality of the jesuits was a frightful exposure of the duplicity and rascality of priestcraft. about twelve months before grambetta's death, that great statesman took the chair at one of paul bert's atheistical lectures. it was a bold thing to do, but gambetta was a bold man. the great statesman did a bolder thing still when he took office. he scandalised the christian world by appointing his atheistic friend paul bert as minister of public instruction and public worship. surely this was a piece of irony worthy the assiduous student of rabelais and voltaire. "clericalism is the enemy," said gambetta. paul bert accepted the battle-cry, but he did not content himself with shouting. he labored to place education on a basis which would make it a citadel of freethought. the tory _standard_ allows that he "laid the bases of military education in the schools and _lycees_" that he "first dispensed the pupils in state educational establishments from the obligation of attending any religious service, or belonging to any class in which religious instruction was given," and that he first organised the higher education of girls. paul bert was a typical frenchman and an illustrious atheist. what do the clergy make of this phenomenon? here is a man, trained by his father to hate priests, brought up from his cradle in an atmosphere of freethought, and owing nothing to the church; yet he becomes an eminent scientist, a fervid patriot, an educational reformer, a leading statesman, a tender husband and father, and a warm friend of the best men, of his time; and on his decease the state gives him a public funeral and provides for his widow and children. the man, we repeat, was an open, nay a militant atheist; and again we ask, what do the clergy make of this phenomenon? during his lifetime darwin was the _bete noir_ of the clergy. they hated him with a perfect and very natural hatred, for his scientific doctrines were revolutionary, and if he was right they and their bible were certainly wrong. the black army denounced his impious teachings from thousands of pulpits. with some of them he was the great beast, with others antichrist himself. and they were all the madder because he never took the slightest notice of them, but treated them with the silent contempt which a master of the hounds bestows on the village curs who bark at his horse's heels. yet, strange to say, when darwin died, instead of being buried in some quiet kentish cemetery or churchyard, he was actually sepulchred in westminster abbey. having fought the living darwin tooth and nail, the clergy quietly appropriated the dead darwin. the living, thinking and working man was a damnable heretic, hated of god and his priests, but his corpse was a very good christian, and it was buried in a temple of the very faith he had undermined. darwin, with all his gravity, is said to have loved a joke, and really this was so good a joke that he might almost have grinned at it in his coffin. by and bye, the great naturalist may figure as an ardent devotee of the creed he rejected. the clergy are hypocritical and base enough--as a body we mean--to claim darwin himself now they have secured his corpse. who knows that, in another twenty years, the verger or even the dean of westminster abbey, in showing visitors through the place, may not say before a certain tomb, "here is the last resting-place of that eminent christian, charles darwin. there was a little misunderstanding between him and the clergy while he lived, but it has all passed away like a mist, and he is now accounted one of the chief pillars of the church"? what the clergy have done in the concrete with darwin they have done in the abstract with his predecessors in the great struggle between light and darkness. what are all the lying stories about infidel death-beds but conversions of corpses? great heretics, whose scepticism was unshaken in their lifetime by all the parson-power of the age, were easily converted in their tombs. what the clergy said about them was true, or why didn't they get up and contradict? all the world over silence gives consent, and if the dead man did not enter a _caveat_, who could complain if the men of god declared that he finished up in their faith? recently the clergy have been converting another corpse, but this time it has been able to protest by proxy, and the swindle has been exposed all along the line. paul bert, the great french freethinker, died at tonquin. the nation voted him a state funeral, and his body was shipped to france. the voyage was a long one, and it gave the pious an opportunity of leisurely converting the corpse, especially as paul bert's family were all on board the steamer. accordingly a report, which we printed and commented on at the time, appeared in all the papers that the atheistic resident general had sent for a catholic bishop on his death-bed and taken the sacrament. thousands of christians believed the story at once, the wish being father to the thought. they never stopped to inquire whether the report was true. why indeed should they? they took the whole of their religion on trust, and of course they could easily dispense with proof in so small a matter as an infidel's conversion. some of them were quite hilarious. "ha," they exclaimed, "what do you freethinkers say now?" and with the childish simplicity of their kind, when they were told that the story was in all probability false, they replied, "why, isn't it in print?" now that the fraud is exposed very few of the journals that printed it will publish the contradiction. we may be sure that the story of paul bert's conversion will be devoutly believed by thousands of christians, and will probably be worked up in pious tracts for the spiritual edification of superstitious sheep. give a lie a day's start, said cobbett, and it is half round the world before you can overtake it. give it a week's start, and if it happens to be a lie that suits the popular taste, you may give up all hope of overtaking it at all. first in the way of exposure was a telegram from the papal nuncio at lisbon on december , saying that his name had been improperly used. he was not the author of the telegram that had been fathered on him, and he knew nothing of paul bert's conversion. a day or two later the ship conveying the heretic's corpse arrived at the suez canal. madame bert heard of the preposterous story of her husband's conversion, and she immediately telegraphed that it was absolutely and entirely false. madame bert, who is a highly accomplished woman, is a freethinker herself, and she is too proud of her husband's reputation to lose a moment in contradicting a miserable libel on his courage and sincerity. before dropping the pen, we take the opportunity of saying a few words on madame adam's article on paul bert in the _contemporary review_. she is an able woman, but not a philosopher, and she labors under the craze of thinking that she is a great force in european politics. she confesses that she hated paul bert, and she betrays that her aversion originated in pique and jealousy. we do not wish to be ungallant, but gambetta had good reasons for preferring paul bert to juliette lambert, although the lady is ludicrously wrong in saying that "it was to paul bert that gambetta owed all the formulae of his scientific politics." she forgets that gambetta's speeches before paul bert became his friend are in print. she also ignores the fact that gambetta was a stedfast freethinker from his college days, and was never infected with that sentimental religiosity from which she assumes that paul bert perverted him. certainly he was incapable of being moved by the hackneyed platitudes about science and religion that form the prelude of madame adam's article, and seem borrowed from one of m. oaro's lectures. nor did he need paul bert to tell him, after the terrible struggle of , that clericalism was the enemy. still less, if that were possible, did he require paul bert or any other man to tell him that france imperatively needed education free from priestcraft. madame adam is so anxious to deal paul bert a stab in the dark that she confuses the most obvious facts. gambetta and he fought against clericalism, and labored for secular education, because they were both freethinkers as well as republicans. in venting her spite, and reciting her own witticisms, she fails to see the force of her own admissions. this is what she writes of a very momentous occasion: "i saw gambetta at saint cloud the sunday after the mishap at obaronne. he had just been taking the chair at the chateau d'eau, at an anti-clerical meeting of paul bert's. "he came in a little late to dinner. some dozen of us were already assembled on a flight of steps at the bottom of the garden when he appeared. he spied me at once [a woman speaks!] across the green lawn and a vase of tall fuchsias, and called out in his sonorous voice: "'admirable! superb! extraordinary! never since voltaire has such an irrefutable indictment been brought against the clergy! and what a style! what consummate art!' "'and what bad policy!' said a great banker who was with us, in a low voice, to me [note the me]. "gambetta went on as he approached us: "'and such an immense success--beyond anything that could be imagined! ten thousand enthusiastic cheers!' "'the ten thousand and first would not have come from me,' i said [said i], as we greeted one another. "'you yourself,' cried gambetta, 'you yourself, i tell you, would have been carried away; if not by the ideas, by the genius lavished in propounding them.'" yes, and notwithstanding madame adam's "religion" and the great banker's "policy," gambetta and paul bert were in the right, and miles above their heads. following madame adam's lively nonsense, the _echo_ says that paul bert tried to set up another inquisition. "in france," says this organ of christian radicalism, "they strive to prevent a parent from giving his child a religious education." they do nothing of the kind. they simply insist that the religious education shall not be given in the national school. every french parent is free to give religious instruction to his children at home, and there are still thousands of state priests who can supply his deficiencies in that respect. meanwhile national education progresses in good earnest. the empire left nearly half the population unable to write their names. now the republic educates every boy and girl, and mr. matthew arnold assures us that the french schools are among the best in europe, while the sale of good books is prodigious. gambetta and paul bert worked, fought, and sacrificed for this, and they cannot be robbed of the glory. bradlaugh's ghost. directly after charles bradlaugh's death we expressed a belief that the christians would concoct stories about him as soon as it was safe to do so. it took some time to concoct and circulate the pious narratives of the deathbeds of voltaire and thomas paine, and a proper interval is necessary in the case of the great iconoclast. already, however, the more superstitious and fanatical christians are shaking their heads and muttering that "bradlaugh must have said something when he was dying, only they wouldn't allow believers in his sick room to hear it." by and bye the more cunning and unscrupulous will come to the aid of their weaker brethren, and a circumstantial story will be circulated in sunday-schools and christian meetings. we are well aware that his daughter took every precaution. she has the signed testimony of the nurses, that her father never spoke on the subject of religion during his last illness. but this may not avail, for similar precautions are admitted to have been taken in the cases of voltaire and paine, and, in despite of this, the christian traducers have forged the testimony of imaginary interlopers, whose word cannot be disproved, as they never existed outside the creative fancy of these liars for the glory of god. it is quite a superstition that truth is always a match for falsehood. george eliot remarked that the human mind takes absurdity as asses chew thistles. we add that it swallows falsehood as a cat laps milk. it was humorously said the other day by colonel ingersoll that "the truth is the weakest thing in the world. it always comes into the arena naked, and there it meets a healthy young lie in complete armor, and the result is that the truth gets licked. one good, solid lie will knock out a hundred truths." it has done so with respect to the death of voltaire and paine, and it will do so with respect to the death of charles bradlaugh. meanwhile the spiritualists are having an innings. charles bradlaugh was buried by his friends at woking, but his ghost is said to have turned up at birmingham. it appears from a report in the _medium and daybreak_ that mr. charles gray, of pershore-road, being "sadly sorrow-stricken by the passing away of a son," was "constrained to remain at home" on the evening of may . a seance was arranged "with a few friends," and of course a message was received from the dear departed boy. this was conveyed through mr. russell, junior, whose age is not stated. then mr. reedman "was controlled to write by c. bradlaugh." mr. reedman wrote "in a perfectly unconscious state, and on the departure of the influence was much surprised on being told of the nature of the communication." mr. reedman's surprise may have been great, but it scarcely equals our own. one would imagine that if charles bradlaugh still lived, and were able to communicate with people in this world, he would speak to his beloved daughter, and to the friends who loved him with a deathless affection. why should he go all the way to birmingham instead of doing his first business in london? why should he turn up at the house of mr. gray? why should he control the obscure mr. reedman? this behavior is absolutely foreign to the character of charles bradlaugh. it was not one of his weaknesses to beat about the bush. he went straight to his mark, and found a way or made one, death seems to change a man, if we may believe the spiritualists; but if it has altered charles bradlaugh's character, it has effected a still more startling change in his intellect and expression. here is a "correct copy" of charles bradlaugh's message to mankind, and most of our readers will regard it as a very brummagen communication:-- "as i am not to speak (so says the 'warrior chief'), i am to say in writing, i have found a life beyond the grave that i did not wish for nor believe in; but it is even so. my voice shall yet declare it. i have to undo all, or nearly all, i have done, but i will not complain. my mind is subdued, but i will be a man. it is a most glorious truth that has now more clearly dawned upon my mind, that there is a grand and noble purpose before all men, worth living for! may this be the dawn of a new and glorious era of the spiritual life of your humble friend charles bradlaugh! "there is a god! there is a divine principle. there is more in life than we wot of, but vastly more in death! oh! for a thousand tongues to declare the truths which are now fast dawning upon my bewildered mind! death, the great leveller, need have no more terrors for us, for it has been conquered by the great spirit, in giving us a never-ending life in the glorious spheres of immortal bliss. o my friends! may i be permitted to declare, more fully and fervently, the joys which fill my mind. language fails, no tongue can describe." our own impression is that professor huxley was justified in saying that spiritualism adds a new terror to death. fancy the awful depth of flaccid imbecility into which charles bradlaugh must have fallen, to indulge in "ohs," and gasp out "glorious," "glorious," and talk of his "subdued" and "bewildered" mind, and bid himself be "a man." it was not thus that he spoke in the flesh. his language was manly, firm, and restrained; his attitude was bold and self-reliant. after four months in the "spirit world" he is positively trembling and drivelling! it is enough to make the rugged iconoclast turn in his grave. messrs. gray and reedman may rely upon it that charles bradlaugh is _not_ able to enter no. pershore-road, birmingham; if he were, he would descend in swift wrath upon his silly traducers, who have put their own inanity into his mouth, making the great, virile atheist talk like a little, flabby spiritualist after an orgie of ginger-beer. anyone may see at a glance that the style of this message, from beginning to end, is not charles brad-laugh's. _whose_ style it is we cannot say. we do not pretend to fathom the arcana of spiritualism. it may be mr. reedmam's, it may be another's. if it be mr. reedman's, he must have been guilty of fraud or the victim of deception. three distinct hypotheses are possible. either someone else produced or concocted the message while he was in a foolish trance, or he wrote it himself consciously, or he had been thinking of charles bradlaugh before falling into the foolish trance and the message was due to unconscious cerebration. we forbear to analyse this wretched stuff, though we might show its intrinsic absurdity and self-contradiction. one monstrous piece of folly bestrides the rest like a colossus--"your humble friend charles bradlaugh." shade of uriah heep! charles bradlaugh the "_humble_ friend" of the illustrious gray and reedman! think of it, lord halsbury; think of it, lord randolph churchill. the giant who fought you, and beat you, in the law courts and in parliament; the man whose face was a challenge; the man who had the pride, without the malignity, of lucifer; this very man crawls into a birmingham house, uninvited and unexpected, and announces himself as the "_humble_ friend" of some pudding-headed people, engaged in a fatuous occupation that makes one blush for one's species. surely if charles bradlaugh's ghost is knocking about this planet, having a mission to undo the work of his lifetime in the flesh, it should begin the task in london. it was at the hall of science that charles bradlaugh achieved his greatest triumphs as a public teacher, and it is there that he should first attempt to undo his work, to unteach his teaching, to disabuse the minds of his dupes. of course we shall be told that he must communicate through "mediums," and that the medium must be "controlled" by charles bradlaugh's spirit; but to this we reply that charles bradlaugh controlled men easily while he was "in the flesh," and it is inconceivable that he has lost that old power if he still survives. on the whole, we think the spiritist trick is worse than the malignity of orthodox christians. a lie about a man's death-bed ends there, and consigning him to hell for his infidelity is only a pious wish that cannot affect his fate. but getting hold of a man's ghost ("spirit" they call it) after his death; making it turn up at public and private sittings of obscure fools; setting it jabbering all the flatulent nonsense of its manipulators; and using it in this manner until it has to be dismissed for a newer, more fashionable, and more profitable shadow; all this is so hideous and revolting that the ordinary christian lies about infidels seem almost a compliment in comparison. this gray-reedman story is probably the beginning of a long and wretched business. the philistines are upon thee, charles bradlaugh! they will harness thee in their mill, and make thee grind their grist; and fools that were not worth a moment of thy time while thou livedst will command thee by the hour; and sludge the medium will use thy great name to puff his obscene vanity and swell his obscener gains. this is the worst of all thy trials, for thou canst not defend thyself; and, in thy helplessness, fools and pigmies cut capers over thy grave. christ and brotherhood. clergymen are supposed to be educated; that is, they go to college before taking holy orders, and study what are called "the classics"--the masterpieces of greek and roman literature. theology is not enough to fit them for the pulpit. they must also be steeped in "the humanities," it is felt that they would never find all they require in the bible. they find a great deal of it in pagan writings, and as these are unknown to the people, it is safe for the clergy to work the best "heathen" ideas into their interpretation of the christian scriptures. there was a time, indeed, when christian preachers were fond of references to pagan poets and philosophers. the people were so ignorant, and such implicit believers, that it could be done with security. but now the case is altered. the people are beginning to "smell a rat." it dawns upon them that if so many fine things were said by those old pagans--not to mention the still more ancient teaching of india and egypt--christianity can hardly merit such epithets as "unique" and "wonderful." accordingly it is becoming the fashion in clerical circles to avoid those old pagans, or else to damn them all in a sweeping condemnation. some indeed go to the length of declaring--or at least of insinuating--that all the real truth and goodness there is in the world began with the christian era. this extreme is affected by the evangelical school, and is carried to its highest pitch of exaggeration by such shallow and reckless preachers as the rev. hugh price hughes. soon after the _daily chronicle_ correspondence on "is christianity played out?" this reverend gentleman, and most accomplished "perverter of the truth," screamed from the platform of st. james's hall that women and children were regarded as slaves and nuisances before the time of christ; which is either a deliberate falsehood, or a gross misreading both of history and of human nature. mr. hughes has since been gathering his energies for a bolder effort in the same direction. he now publishes in the _methodist times_ his latest piece of recklessness or fatuity. it is a sermon on "the solidarity of mankind," and is really an exhibition of the solidity of mr. hughes's impudence. it required nothing but "face," as corbett used to call it, to utter such monstrous nonsense in a sermon; it would need a great deal more courage than mr. hughes possesses to utter it on any platform where he could be answered and exposed. mr. hughes believes in our "common humanity," and he traces it from "the grand old gardener" (tennyson). "we are all descended from adam," he says, "and related to one another." now this is not true, even according to the bible; for when cain fled into the land of nod he took a wife there, which clearly implies the existence of other people than the descendants of adam. but this is not the worst. fancy a man at this time of day--a burnin' an' a shinin' light to a' this place--gravely standing up and solemnly telling three thousand people, most of whom we suppose have been to school, that the legendary adam of the book of genesis was really the father of the whole human race! this common humanity is claimed by mr. hughes as "a purely christian conception." yet he foolishly admits that "the positivists in our own day have strongly insisted on this great crowning truth which we christians have neglected." nay, he states that when kossuth appealed in england on behalf of hungary, he spoke in the name of the "solidarity" of the human race. and why _solidarity_? because the word had to be taken from the french. and why from _the french_? "because the french," mr. hughes says, "have risen to a loftier level of human brotherhood than we." indeed! then what becomes of your "purely _christian_ conception," when "infidel france" outshines "christian england"? how is it, too, you have to make the "shameful" confession that "we"--that is, the christians--took "nineteen centuries to find out the negro was a man and therefore a brother"? you did not find it out, in fact, until the eighteenth century--the century of voltaire and thomas paine--the century in which freethought had spread so much, even in england, that bishop butler in the advertisement to his _analogy_, dated may, , could say that "many persons" regarded christianity as proved to be "fictitious" to "all people of discernment," and thought that "nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule." how is it your "christian conceptions" took such a surprising time to be understood? how is it they had to wait for realisation until the advent of an age permeated with the spirit of scepticism and secular humanity? mr. hughes is brave enough--in the absence of a critic--to start with jesus christ as the first cosmopolitan. "he came of the jewish stock," we are told, "and yet he had no trace of the jew in him." of course not--in christian sermons and christian pictures, preached and painted for non-jewish, and indeed jew-hating nations. but there is a very decided "trace of the jew in him" in the new testament. to the canaanite woman he said, "i am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of israel." to the twelve he said, "go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of israel." it was paul who, finding he could not make headway against the apostles who had known jesus personally, exclaimed, "lo, we turn to the gentiles." that exclamation was a turning point. it was the first real step to such universalism as christianity has attained. no wonder, therefore, that comte puts paul instead of jesus into the positivist calendar, as the real founder of christianity. even in the case of st. paul, it is perfectly idle to suppose that his cosmopolitanism extended beyond the roman empire. a little study and reflection would show mr. hughes that the very fact of the roman empire was the secret of the cosmopolitanism. moral conceptions follow in the wake of political expansion. the morality of a tribe is tribal; that of a nation is national; and national morality only developes into international morality with the growth of international interests and international communication. now the roman empire had broken up the old nationalities, and with them their local religions. the human mind broadened with its political and social horizon. and the result was that a cosmopolitan sentiment in morals, and a universal conception in religion, naturally spread throughout the territory which was dominated by the roman eagles. christianity itself was at first a jewish sect, which developed into a cosmopolitan system precisely because the national independence of the jews had been broken up, and all the roads of a great empire were open to the missionaries of a new faith. but let us return to mr. hughes's statements. he tells us that the solidarity of mankind was "revealed to the human race through st. paul"--which is a great slur upon jesus christ, and quite inconsistent with what mr. hughes affirms of the nazarene. it is also inconsistent with the very language of st. paul in that sermon of his to the athenians; for the great apostle, in enforcing his argument that all men are god's children, actually reminds the athenians that "certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring." mr. hughes goes on to say that "our common humanity" is "a perfectly new idea." "max muller," he tells us, "says that there was no trace of it until christ came. it is a purely christian conception." professor max muller, however, is not infallible. he sometimes panders to christian prejudices, and this is a case in point. what he says about "humanity" is an etymological quibble. certainly the greeks knew nothing about it, simply because they did not speak latin. but they had an equivalent word in _philanthropia_, which was in use in the time of plato, four hundred years before the birth of christ.* * mr. hughes talks so much that he must have little time for reading. every educated man, however, is supposed to be acquainted with bacon's _essays_, the thirteenth of which opens as follows:--"i take goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the grecians called philanthropia; and the word humanity (as it is used) is a little too light to express it." bacon not only knew the antiquity of _philanthropia_, but preferred it to the later and less weighty term so ignorantly celebrated by mr. hughes. max muller or no max muller, we tell mr. hughes that he is either reckless or ignorant in declaring that the idea of human brotherhood owes its origin to christ, paul, or christianity. to say nothing of buddha, whose ethics are wider than the ethics of christ, and confining ourselves to greece and rome, with the teaching of whose thinkers christianity comes into more direct comparison--it is easy enough to prove that mr. hughes is in error, or worse. four centuries before christ, when socrates was asked on one occasion as to his country, he replied, "i am a citizen of the world." cicero, the great roman writer, in the century before christ, uses the very word _caritas_, which st. paul borrowed in his fine and famous chapter in the first of corinthians. cicero, and not st. paul, was the first to pronounce "charity" as the tie which unites the human race. and after picturing a soul full of virtue, living in charity with its friends, and taking as such all who are allied by nature, cicero rose to a still loftier level. "moreover," he said, "let it not consider itself hedged in by the walls of a single town, but acknowledge itself a citizen of the whole world, as though one city." in another treatise he speaks of "fellowship with the human race, charity, friendship, justice." we defy mr. hughes to indicate a single cosmopolitan text in the new testament as strong, clear, and pointed as these sayings of socrates and cicero--the one greek, the other roman, and both before christ. let him ransack gospels, epistles, acts, and revelations, and produce the text we call for. from the time of cicero--that is, from the time of julius caesar, and the establishment of the empire--the sentiment of brotherhood, the idea of a common humanity, spread with certainty and rapidity, and is reflected in the writings of the philosophers. the exclamation of the roman poet, "as a man, i regard nothing human as alien to me," which was so heartily applauded by the auditory in the theatre, expressed a growing and almost popular sentiment. the works of seneca abound in fine humanitarian passages, and it must be remembered that if the christians were tortured by nero at rome, it was by the same hand that seneca's life was cut short. "wherever there is a man," said this thinker, "there is an opportunity for a deed of kindness." he believed in the natural equality of all men. slaves were such through political and social causes, and their masters were bidden to refrain from ill-using them, not only because of the cruelty of such conduct, but because of "the natural law common to all men," and because "he is of the same nature as thyself." seneca denounced the gladiatorial shows as human butcheries. so mild, tolerant, humane, and equitable was his teaching that the christians of a later age were anxious to appropriate him. tertullian calls him "our seneca," and the facile scribes of the new faith forged a correspondence between him and their own st. paul. one of seneca's passages is a clear and beautiful statement of rational altruism. "nor can anyone live happily," he says, "who has regard to himself alone, and uses everything for his own interests; thou must live for thy neighbor, if thou wouldest live for thyself." eighteen hundred years afterwards auguste comte sublimated this principle into a motto of his religion of humanity--_vivre pour autrui_, live for others. it is also expressed more didactically by ingersoll--"the way to be happy is to make others so"--making duty and enjoyment go hand in hand. pliny, who corresponded with the emperor trajan, and whose name is familiar to the student of christian evidences, exhorted parents to take a deep interest in the education of their children. he largely endowed an institution in his native town of como, for the assistance of the children of the poor. his humanity was extended to slaves. he treated his own with great kindness, allowing them to dispose of their own earnings, and even to make wills. of masters who had no regard for their slaves, he said, "i do not know if they are great and wise; but one thing i do know, they are not men." dion chrysostom, another stoic, plainly declared that slavery was an infringement of the natural rights of men, who were all born for liberty; a dictum which cannot be paralleled in any part of the new testament. it must be admitted, indeed, that paul, in sending the slave onesimus back to his master philemon, did bespeak humane and even brotherly treatment for the runaway; but he bespoke it for him as a christian, not simply as a man, and uttered no single word in rebuke of the institution of slavery. plutarch's humanity was noble and tender. "the proper end of man," he said, "is to love and to be loved." he regarded his slaves as inferior members of his own family. how strong, yet how dignified, is his condemnation of masters who sold their slaves when disabled by old age. he protests that the fountain of goodness and humanity should never dry up in a man. "for myself," he said, "i should never have the heart to sell the ox which had long labored on my ground, and could no longer work on account of old age, still less could i chase a slave from his country, from the place where he has been nourished for so long, and from the way of life to which he has been so long accustomed." sentiments like these were the natural precursors of the abolition of slavery, as far as it could be abolished by moral considerations. epictetus, the great stoic philosopher, who had himself been a slave, taught the loftiest morality. pascal admits that he was "one of the philosophers of the world who have best understood the duty of man." he disdained slavery from the point of view of the masters, as he abhorred it from the point of view of the slaves. "as a healthy man," he said, "does not wish to be waited upon by the infirm, or desire that those who live with him should be invalids, the freeman should not allow himself to be waited upon by slaves, or leave those who live with him in servitude." it is idle to pretend, as professor schmidt of strasburg does, that the ideas of epictetus are "colored with a reflection of christianity." the philosopher's one reference to the galileans, by whom he is thought to have meant the christians, is somewhat contemptuous. professor schmidt says he "misunderstood" the galileans; but george long, the translator of epictetus, is probably truer in saying that he "knew little about the christians, and only knew some examples of their obstinate adherence to the new faith and the fanatical behavior of some of the converts." it should be remembered that epictetus was almost a contemporary of st. paul, and the accurate students of early christianity will be able to estimate how far it was likely, at that time, to have influenced the philosophers of rome. marcus aurelius was one of the wisest and best of men. emperor of the civilised world, he lived a life of great simplicity, bearing all the burdens of his high office, and drawing philosophy from the depths of his own contemplation. his _meditations_ were only written for his own eyes; they were a kind of philosophical diary; and they have the charm of perfect sincerity. he was born a.d. , he became emperor a.d. , and died a.d. , after nineteen years of a government which illustrated plato's words about the good that would ensue when kings were philosophers and philosophers were kings. cardinal barberini, who translated the emperor's _meditations_ into italian, in , dedicated the translation to his own soul, to make it "redder than his purple at the sight of the virtues of this gentile." marcus aurelius combines reason with beautiful sentiment. his emotion is always accompanied by thought. here, for instance, is a noble passage on the social commonwealth--"for we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. to act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away." in a still loftier passage he says--and let us remember he says it to himself, not to an applauding audience, but quietly, and with absolute truth, and no taint of theatricality--"my nature is rational and social; and my city and country, so far as i am antoninus, is rome; but so far as i am a man, it is the world." in his brief, pregnant way, he states the law of human solidarity--"that which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee." and who could fail to appreciate this sentiment, coming as it did from the ruler of a great empire?--"one thing here is worth a great deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men." here again, it is the fashion in some circles, to pretend that marcus aurelius was influenced by the spread of christian ideas. george long, however, speaks the language of truth and sobriety in saying, "it is quite certain that antoninus did not derive any of his ethical principles from a religion of which he knew nothing." to say as dr. schmidt does that "christian ideas filled the air" is easy enough, but where is the proof? no doubt the christian writers made great pretensions as to the spread of their religion, but they were notoriously sanguine and inaccurate, and we know what value to attach to such pretensions in the second century when we reflect that even in the fourth century, up to the point of constantine's conversion, christianity had only succeeded in drawing into its fold about a twentieth of the inhabitants of the empire. enough has been said in this article to show that the idea of our common humanity is not "a purely christian conception," that it arose in the natural course of human development, and that in this, as in other cases, the apologists of christianity have simply appropriated to their own creed the fruits of the political, social, and moral growth of western civilisation. the sons of god. "the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair." --genesis vi. . according to the first book of the bible, the earth fell into a very wicked condition in the days of the patriarchs. god made everything good, but the devil turned everything bad; and in the end the lord put the whole concern into liquidation. it was a case of universal bankruptcy. all that was saved out of the catastrophe was a consignment of eight human beings and an unknown number of elephants, crocodiles, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, and fleas. among other enormities of the antediluvian world was the fondness shown by the sons of god for the daughters of men. that fondness has continued ever since. the deluge itself could not wash out the amatory feelings with which the pious males regard those fair creatures who were once supposed to be the devil's chief agents on earth. even to this day it is a fact that courtship goes on with remarkable briskness in religious circles. churches and chapels are places of harmless assignation, and how many matches are made in sunday-schools, where alfred and angelina meet to teach the scripture and flirt. as for the clergy, who are peculiarly the sons of god, they are notorious for their partiality to the sex. they purr about the ladies like black tom-cats. some of them are adepts in the art of rolling one eye heavenwards and letting the other languish on the fair faces of the daughters of men. it is also noticeable that the protestant clericals marry early and often, and generally beget a numerous progeny; while the catholic priest who, being strictly celibate, _never_ adds to the population, "mashes" the ladies through the confessional, worming out all their secrets, and making them as pliable as wax in his holy hands. too often the professional son of god is a chartered libertine, whose amors are carried on under a veil of sanctity. what else, indeed, could be expected when a lot of lusty young fellows, in the prime of life, foreswear marriage, take vows of chastity, and undertake to stem the current of their natures by such feeble dams as prayers and hymns? who the original "sons of god" were is a moot point. god only knows, and he has not told us. but jewish and christian divines have advanced many theories. according to some the sons of gods were the offspring of seth, who was born holy in succession to righteous abel, while the daughters of men were the offspring of wicked cain. among the oriental christians it is said that the children of seth tried to regain paradise by living in great austerity on mount hermon, but they soon tired of their laborious days and cheerless nights, and cast sheep's-eyes on the daughters of cain, who beauty was equal to their father's wickedness. marriages followed, and the devil triumphed again. according to the cabbalists, two angels, aza and azael, complained to god at the creation of man. god answered, "you, o angels, if you were in the lower world, you too would sin." they descended on earth, and directly they saw the ladies they forgot heaven. they married and exchanged the hallelujahs of the celestial chorus for the tender tones of loving women and the sweet prattle of little children. having sinned, or, to use the vile language of religion, "polluted themselves with women," they became clothed with flesh. on trying to regain paradise they failed, and were cast back on the mountains, where they continued to beget giants and devils. "there were giants in the earth in those days" says scripture. of course there were. every barbarous people has similar legends of primitive ages. the translators of our revised version are ashamed of these mythical personages as being too suggestive of jack and the beanstalk, so they have substituted anakim for giants. in other words, they have shirked the duty of translators, and left the nonsense veiled under the original word. the mohammedans say that not only giants, but also jins, were born of the sons of god, who married the daughters of men. the jins soon had the world in their power. they ruled everywhere, and built colossal works, including the pyramids. of the giants, the most remarkable was og. he was taller than the last yankee story, for at the deluge he stopped the windows of heaven with his hands, or the water would have risen over his head. the talmud says that he saved himself by swimming close to the ark in company with the rhinoceros. the water there happened to be cold, while all the rest was boiling hot; and thus og was saved while all the other giants perished. according to another story, og climbed on the roof of the ark, and when noah tried to dislodge him, he swore that he would become the patriarch's slave. noah at once clinched the bargain, and food was passed through a hole for the giant every day. when we look into them we find the myths of the bible wonderfully like the myths of other systems. the giants are similar to the titans, and the union of divine males with human females is similar to the amors of jupiter, apollo, neptune, and mars with the women of old. in this matter there is nothing new under the sun. every fresh myth is only the recasting of an ancient fable, born of ignorance and imagination. let it finally be noted that this old genesaic story of the angelic husbands of earthly women gives us a poor idea of the felicity of heaven. in that unknown region, as jesus christ informed his disciples, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage; that is, no males, no females, no courting, no loving, no children, and no homes. men cease to be men and women cease to be women. everybody is of the neuter gender. or else all the angels are gentlemen, without a lady amongst them. perhaps the latter view is preferable, as it harmonises with the bible, in which the angels are always _he's_. in that case heaven would be, to say the least, rather a dull place. no whispering in the moonlight, no clasped hands under the throbbing stars. not even a kiss under the misletoe. oh, what must it be to be there! no wonder the sons of god wandered from their cheerless paradise, visited this lower world, and saw the daughters of men that they were fair. melchizedek. melchizedek is the most extraordinary person of whom we have any record. christ was born and adam was made, but melchizedek never began to be and will never cease to exist. if the bible were not such an intensely serious book without a gleam of humor, except of the unconscious hibernian kind, we might conclude that melchizedek was _nobody_, for the description admirably suits that character. but the bible does not play and must not be played with. all its personages are _bona fide_ realities, from the ancient of days with white woolly hair on the throne of heaven to the prophet jonah who took three days' lodging in the belly of a whale. the name melchizedek means _king_ of justice, being derived from _melec_, a king, and _tzedec_, justice. when the gentleman bearing this name is introduced to us in the fourteenth of genesis, he is king of salem, which means peace. salem was a city on the site of zion. originally it was called jebus, then zadek, then salem, and finally jerusalem. so says rabbi joseph ben-gorion. but other writers, no doubt just as well informed, differ from him; and while the doctors disagree, simple laymen may well hold their judgment in suspense; or, better still, dismiss jebus, zadek, salem, and jerusalem, to the limbo of learned trivialities. counting the spots on a leopard, the quills on a porcupine, or the hairs in a cat's whiskers, is just as amusing and quite as edifying as most of the problems of divines and commentators. when abraham returned from a successful campaign, in which he defeated five kings and their armies with three hundred and eighteen raw recruits, melchizedek came out to meet him with victuals and drink. these two friends joined in the friendly office of _scratching_ each other. they were, in fact, a small mutual admiration society. abraham, although at other times a rank coward, was on this occasion a bold warrior laden with spoil; and melchizedek besides being king of salem, was "the priest of the most high god." "bully for you, abraham," said melchizedek. "bully for you, melchizedek," said abraham. as usual, however, the priest got the best of it, for the patriarch paid him tithes, which were a capital return for his compliments. genesis is a little confused, indeed; and what scripture is not? "and he gave him tithes of all" is not very clear. it reminds one of the west of england yokel, who gave his evidence on a case of homicide in this way: "he had a stick, and he had a stick; and he hit he, and he hit he. and if he'd only hit he as hard as he hit he, he'd a' killed he, and not he he." but we must not be too hard on bibles and yokels. so long as we can get a scintillation of their meaning we must be satisfied. scripture, we may take it, means that the _he_ who paid tithes was abraham, and the _him_ who received them was melchizedek. now the book of genesis is not an early, but a very late portion of the jewish scriptures, dating only a few centuries before christ. and we may depend on it that this little sentence about _tithes_, and perhaps the whole story that leads up to it, was got up by the priests, to give the authority of abraham's name and the sanction of antiquity to an institution which kept them in luxury at the expense of their neighbors. our view of the case is supported by the fact that melchizedek's name does not appear again in the whole of the old testament, except in the hundred and tenth psalm, where somebody or other (the parsons of course say christ) is called "a priest for ever after the order of melchizedek." paul, or whoever wrote the epistle to the hebrews, works up this hint in fine style. it would puzzle a lunatic, or a fortune-teller, or the archbishop of canterbury, or god almighty himself, to say what the seventh of hebrews means. we give it up as an insoluble conundrum, and we observe that every commentator with a grain of sense and honesty does the same. but there is one luminous flash in the jumble of metaphysical darkness. melchizedek is described as "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." it will be easy to recognise a gentleman of that description when you meet him. when we _do_ meet him we shall readily acknowledge him as our king and priest, and pay him an income tax of two shillings in the pound; but until then we warn all kings and priests off our doorsteps. jewish traditions say that melchizedek was the son of shem, and set apart for the purpose of watching and burying adam's carcase when it was unshipped from the ark. some, however, maintain that he was of a celestial race; while other (christian) speculators have held that he was no less than jesus christ himself, who put in an early appearance in abraham's days to keep the jewish pot boiling. st. athanasius tells a long-winded story of melchizedek and abraham, which shows what stuff the early christians believed. according to the talmud, melchizedek composed the hundred and tenth psalm himself; and although he is without end of days, his tomb was shown at jerusalem in the time of gemelli oarrere the traveller. there was an heretical sect called the _melchizedekiana_ in the third century. they held that jesus christ was, according to hebrews, only of the order of melchizedek, and therefore that melchizedek himself was the more venerable. this heresy revived in egypt after its suppression elsewhere, and its adherents claimed that melchizedek was the holy ghost. the last time melchizedek was heard of he was a london coster-monger's donkey, but whether this was a real incarnation of the original melchizedek no one is able to decide, unless the lord should again, as in the case of balaam's companion, "open the mouth of the ass" and inform the world of the things that belong unto its peace. s'w'elp me god. whoever has seen a hebrew money-lender in a county court take up a copy of the old testament, present the greasy cover to his greasy lips, and, like honest moses in the _school for scandal_, "take his oath on that," must have had a lively impression as to the value of swearing as a religious ceremony. and this impression must have been heightened when he has seen an ingenuous christian, on the other side of the suit, present a copy of the new testament to _his_ pious lips, and quietly swear to the very opposite of all that the god-fearing jew had solemnly declared to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. one's appreciation of the oath is still further increased by watching the various litigants and witnesses as they caress the sacred volume: here a gentleman wears an expression of countenance which seems to imply "i guess they'll get a good deal of truth out of me"; and there anothers face seems to promise as great a regard for truth as is consistent with his understanding with the solicitor who subpoenaed him as an independent witness in the interest of justice and a sound client. hard swearing is the order of the day. so conflicting is the evidence on simple matters of fact that it is perfectly obvious that the very atmosphere is charged with duplicity. the thing is taken as a matter of course. judges are used to it, and act accordingly, deciding in most cases by a keen observation of the witnesses and an extensive knowlege of the seamy side of nature. but sometimes the very judges are nonplussed, so brazen are the faces of the gentlemen who "have kissed the book" very often, no doubt, their honors feel inclined to say, like the american judge in directing his jury, "well, gentlemen, if you believe what these witnesses swear, you will give a verdict for the plaintiff; and if you believe what the other witnesses swear, you will give a verdict for the defendant; but if, like me, you don't believe what either side swears, i'm hanged if i know what you will do." the fact is, the oath is absolutely useless if its object is to prevent false witness. should there be any likelihood of a persecution for perjury, a two-faced testament-kisser will be on his guard, and be very careful to tell only such lies as cannot be clearly proved against him. he dreads the prospect of daily exercise on the treadmill, he loathes the idea of picking oakum, and his gorge rises at the thought of brown bread and skilly. but so long as that danger is avoided, there are hosts of witnesses, most of them very good christians, who have been suckled on the gospel in sunday schools, and fed afterwards on the strong meat of the word in churches and chapels, who will swear fast and loose after calling god to witness to their veracity. they ask the almighty to deal with them according as they tell the truth, yet for all that they proceed to tell the most unblushing lies. what is the reason of this strange inconsistency? simply this. hell is a long way off, and many things may happen before the day of judgment. besides, god is merciful; he is always ready to forgive sins; a man has only to repent in time, that is a few minutes before death, and all his sins will be washed out in the cleansing blood of christ. notwithstanding all his lies in earthly courts, the repentant sinner will not lose his right of walking about for ever and ever in the court of heaven, although some poor devil whose liberty or property he swore away may be frizzling for ever and ever in hell. we are strongly of opinion that if the oath were abolished altogether there would be fewer falsehoods told in our public courts. no doubt the law of perjury has some effect, but it is less than is generally imagined, partly because the law is difficult to apply, and partly because there is a wide disinclination to apply it, owing to a sort of freemasonry in false witness, which is apt to be regarded as an essential part of the game of litigation. here and there, too, there may be a person of sincere piety, who fears to tell a lie in what he considers the direct presence of god. but for the most part the fear of punishment, in this world or in the next, will not make men veracious. the fact is proved by universal experience; nay, there are judges, as well as philosophers, who openly declare that the oath has a direct tendency to create perjury. anyone, with a true sense of morality will understand the reason of this. fear is not a moral motive; and when the threatened punishment is very remote or very uncertain, it has next to no deterrent effect. cupidity is matched against fear, and the odds of the game being in its favor, it wins. but if a moral motive is appealed to, the case is different. many a man will tell a lie in the witness-box who would scruple to do so "on his honor"; many a man will lie before god who would scruple to deceive a friend. let a man feel that he is trusted, let his self-respect be appealed to, and he is more likely to be veracious than he would be if he were threatened with imprisonment in this life and hell-fire in the next. why christians should cling to this relic of barbarity it is difficult to conceive. their savior plainly commanded them to "swear not at all," and the early church obeyed this injunction until it rose to power under constantine. it is also a striking fact that the apostle peter, when he disobeyed his master, and took an oath, used it to confirm a palpable lie. when the damsel charged him in court with having been a follower of jesus, he "denied it with an oath." "you were one of them," said the damsel. "i wasn't," said peter. "you _were_ with him," she rejoined. whereupon peter exclaimed "s'w'elp me god, i never knew him." surely if self-interest made peter commit flat perjury in the bodily presence of his savior, it is idle to assert that the oath in any way promotes veracity. infidel homes. * * _the influence of scepticism on character_. being the sixteenth fernley lecture. by the rev. william l. watkinson. london: t. woolmer. john wesley was a man of considerable force of mind and singular strength of character. but he was very unfortunate, to say the least of it, in his relations with women. his marriage was a deplorable misunion, and his latest biographer, who aims at presenting a faithful picture of the founder of wesleyanism, has to dwell very largely on his domestic miseries. wesley held patriarchal views on household matters, the proper subordination of the wife being a prime article of his faith. mrs. wesley, however, entertained different views. she is therefore described as a frightful shrew, and rated for her inordinate jealousy, although her husband's attentions to other ladies certainly gave her many provocations. in face of these facts, it might naturally be thought that wesleyans would say as little as possible about the domestic infelicities of freethinkers. but mr. watkinson is not to be restrained by any such consideration. although a wesleyan (as we understand) he challenges comparisons on this point. he has read the biographies and autobiographies of several "leading freethinkers," and he invites the world to witness how selfish and sensual they were in their domestic relations. he is a pulpit rhetorician, so he goes boldly and recklessly to work. subtlety and discrimination he abhors as pedantic vices, savoring too much of "culture." his judgments are of the robustious order. like jesus christ, he fancies that all men can be divided into sheep and goats. the good are good, and the bad are bad. and naturally the good are christians and bad are freethinkers. the first half of mr. watkinson's book of pages (it must have been a pretty long lecture!) is a preface to the second half, which contains his fling at goethe, mill, george eliot, harriet martineau, carlyle, and other offenders against the watkinsonian code. we think it advisable, therefore, to follow him through his preface first, and through his "charges" afterwards. embedded in a lot of obscure or questionable matter in mr. watkinson's exordium is this sentence--"what we believe with our whole heart is of the highest consequence to us." true, but whether it is of the highest consequence to other people depends on what it is. conviction is a good thing, but it cannot dispense with the criterion of truth. on the other hand, what passes for conviction may often be mere acquiescence. that term, we believe, would accurately describe the creed of ninety-nine out of every hundred, in every part of the world, whose particular faith is merely the result of the geographical accident of their birth. assuredly we do not agree with mr. watkinson that "all reasonable people will acknowledge that the faith of christian believers is to a considerable extent most real; nay, in tens of thousand of cases it is the most real thing in their life." mr. cotter morison laboriously refutes this position in his fine volume on _the service of man_. mill denied and derided it in a famous passage of his great essay _on liberty_. mr. justice stephen denies it in the _nineteenth century_. carlyle also, according to mr. fronde, said that "religion as it existed in england had ceased to operate all over the conduct of men in their ordinary business, it was a hollow appearance, a word without force in it." these men may not be "reasonable" in mr. watkinson's judgment, but with most people their word carries a greater weight than his. mr. watkinson contends--and what will not a preacher contend?--that "the denial of the great truths of the evangelical faith can exert only a baneful influence on character." we quite agree with him. but evangelicalism, and the great truths of evangelicalism, are very different things. it is dangerous to deny any "great truth," but how many does evangelicalism possess? mr. watkinson would say "many." we should say "none." still less, if that were possible, should we assent to his statement that "morals in all spheres and manifestations must suffer deeply by the prevalence of scepticism." mr. morison, asserts and proves that this sceptical age is the most moral the world has seen, and that as we go back into the ages of faith, vice and crime grow denser and darker. if the appeal is to history, of which mr. watkinson's references do not betray a profound knowledge, the verdict will be dead against him. mr. justice stephen thinks morality can look after itself, but he doubts whether "christian charity" will survive "christian theology." this furnishes mr. watkinson with a sufficient theme for an impressive sermon. but his notion of "christian charity" and mr. justice stephen's are very different. the hard-headed judge means the sentimentalism and "pathetic exaggerations" of the sermon on the mount, which he has since distinctly said would destroy society if they were fully practised. "morality," says mr. watkinson, "would suffer on the mystical side." perhaps so. it might be no longer possible for a louis the fifteenth to ask god's blessing when he went to debauch a young girl in the _parc aux cerfs_, or for a grave philosopher like mr. tylor to write in his _anthropology_ that "in europe brigands are notoriously church-goers." yet morality might gain as much on the practical side as it lost on the mystical, and we fancy mankind would profit by the change. now for mr. watkinson's history, which he prints in small capitals, probably to show it is the real, unadulterated article. he tell us that "the experiment of a nation living practically a purely secular life has been tried more than once" with disastrous results. he is, however, very careful not to mention these nations, and we defy him to do so. what he does is this. he rushes off to pompeii, whose inhabitants he thinks were secularists! he also reminds us in a casual way that "they had crucified christ a few years before," which again is news. equally accurate is the statement that pompeii was an "infamous" city, "full" of drunkenness, cruelty, etc. probably mr. watkinson, like most good christians who go to pompeii, visited an establishment, such as we have thousands of in christendom, devoted to the practical worship of venus without neglecting priapus. he has forgotten the immortal letter of pliny, and the dead roman sentinel at the post of duty. he acts like a foreigner who should describe london from his experience at a brothel. philosophy comes next. mr. watkinson puts in a superior way the clap-trap of christian evidence lecturers. if man is purely material, and the law of causation is universal, where, he asks, "is the place for virtue, for praise, for blame?" has mr. watkinson never read the answer to these questions? if he has not, he has much to learn; if he has, he should refute them. merely positing and repositing an old question is a very stale trick in religious controversy. it imposes on some people, but they belong to the "mostly fools." "morality is in as much peril as faith," cries mr. watkinson. well, the clergy have been crying that for two centuries, yet our criminal statistics lessen, society improves, and literature grows cleaner. as for the "nasty nude figures" that offend mr. watkinson's eyes in the french salon, we would remind him that god almighty makes everybody naked, clothes being a human invention. with respect to the shelley society "representing the _cenci_ and other monstrous themes," we conclude that mr. watkinson does not know what he is talking about. there is incest in the _cenci_, but it is treated in a high dramatic spirit as a frightful crime, ending in bloodshed and desolation. there is also incest in the bible, commonplace, vulgar, bestial incest, recorded without a word of disapprobation. surely when a christian minister, who says the bible is god's word, knowing it contains the beastly story of lot and his daughters, cries out against shelley's _cenci_ as "monstrous," he invites inextinguishable rabelaisian laughter. no other reply is fitting for such a "monstrous" absurdity, and we leave our readers to shake their sides at mr. watkinson's expense. mr. watkinson asks whether infidelity has "produced new and higher types of character." naturally he answers the question in the negative. "the lives of infidel teachers," he exclaims, "are in saddest contrast to their pretentious philosophies and bland assumptions." he then passes in review a picked number of these upstarts, dealing with each of them in a watkinsonian manner. his rough-and-ready method is this. carefully leaving out of sight all the good they did, and the high example of honest thought they set to the world, he dilates upon their failings without the least regard to the general moral atmosphere of their age, or the proportion of their defects to the entirety of their natures. mr. smith, the greengrocer, whose horizon is limited to his shop and his chapel, may lead a very exemplary life, according to orthodox standards; but his virtues, as well as his vices, are rather of a negative character, and the world at large is not much the better for his having lived in it. on the other hand a man like mirabeau may be shockingly incontinent, but if in the crisis of a nation's history he places his genius, his eloquence, and his heroic courage at the service of liberty, and helps to mark a new epoch of progress, humanity can afford to pardon his sexual looseness in consideration of his splendid service to the race. judgment, in short, must be pronounced on the sum-total of a man's life, and not on a selected aspect. further, the faults that might be overwhelming in the character of mr. smith, the methodist greengrocer, may sink into comparative insignificance in the character of a great man, whose intellect and emotions are on a mightier scale. this truth is admirably expressed in carlyle's _essay on burns_. "not the few inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured, but the _ratio_ of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. this orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system; or it may be a city hippodrome; nay the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. but the inches of deflection only are measured: and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with them! here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of burnses, swifts, rousseaus, which one never listens to with approval. granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he has not been all-wise and all-powerful: but to know _how_ blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the globe, or only to ramsgate and the isle of dogs." we commend this fine passage to mr. watkinson's attention. it may make him a little more modest when he next applies his orthodox tape and callipers to the character of his betters. goethe is mr. watkinson's first infidel hero, and we are glad to see that he makes this great poet a present to freethought. some christians claim goethe as really one of themselves, but mr. watkinson will have none of him. "the actual life of goethe," he tells us, "was seriously defective." perhaps so, and the same might have been said of hundreds of christian teachers who lived when he did, had they been big enough to have their lives written for posterity. goethe's fault was a too inflammable heart, and with the license of his age, which was on the whole remarkably pious, he courted more than one pretty woman; or, if the truth must be told, he did not repel the pretty women who threw themselves at him. but there were thousands of orthodox men who acted in the same way. the distinctive fact about goethe is that he kept a high artistic ideal always before him, and cultivated his poetic gifts with tireless assiduity. his sensual indulgences were never allowed to interfere with his great aim in life, and surely that is something. the result is that the whole world is the richer for his labors, and only the watkinsons can find any delight in dwelling on the failings he possessed in common with meaner mortals. to say that goethe should be "an object of horror to the whole self-respecting world" is simply to indulge in the twang of the tabernacle. carlyle is the next sinner; but, curiously, the _rock_, while praising mr. watkinson's lecture, says that "carlyle ought not to be classed with the sceptics." we dissent from the _rock_ however; and we venture to think that carlyle's greatest fault was a paltering with himself on religious subjects. his intellect rejected more than his tongue disowned. mr. watkinson passes a very different criticism. taking carlyle as a complete sceptic, he proceeds to libel him by a process which always commends itself to the preachers of the gospel of charity. he picks from mr. froude's four volumes a number of tid-bits, setting forth carlyle's querulousness, arrogance, and domestic storms with mrs. carlyle. behold the man! exclaims mr. watkinson. begging his pardon, it is not the man at all. carlyle was morbidly sensitive by nature, he suffered horribly from dyspepsia, and intense literary labor, still further deranging his nerves, made him terribly irritable. but he had a fine side to his nature, and even a sunny side. friends like professor tyndall, professor norton, sir james stephen, and mrs. gilchrist, saw carlyle in a very different light from mr. froude's. besides, mrs. carlyle made her own choice. she deliberately married a man of genius, whom she recognised as destined to make a heavy mark on his age. she had her man of genius, and he put his life into his books. and what a life! and what books! the sufficient answer to all the watkinson tribe is to point to carlyle's thirty volumes. this is the man. such work implies a certain martyrdom, and those who stood beside him should not have complained so lustily that they were scorched by the fire. carlyle did a giant's work, and he had a right to some failings. freethinkers see them as well as mr. watkinson, but they are aware that no man is perfect, and they do not hold up carlyle, or any other sceptic, as a model for universal imitation. mr. watkinson's remarks on george eliot are simply brutal. she was a "wanton." she "lived in free-love with george henry lewes." she had no excuse for her "license." she was "full of insincerity, cant, and hypocrisy." and so on _ad nauseam_. to call mr. watkinson a liar would be to descend to his level. let us simply look at the facts. george eliot lived with george henry lewes as his wife. she had no vagrant attachments. her connection with lewes only terminated with his death. why then did they not marry? because lewes's wife was still living, and the pious english law would not allow a divorce unless all the household secrets were dragged before a gaping public. george eliot consulted her own heart instead of social conventions. she became a mother to lewes's children, and a true wife to him, though neither a priest nor a registrar blessed their union. she chose between the law of custom and the higher law, facing the world's frown, and relying on her own strength to bear the consequences of her act. to call such a woman a wanton and a kept mistress is to confess one's self devoid of sense and sensibility. nor does it show much insight to assert that "infidelity betrayed and wrecked her life," and to speculate how glorious it might have been if she had "found jesus." it will be time enough to listen to this strain when mr. watkinson can show us a more "glorious" female writer in the christian camp. william godwin is the next freethinker whom mr. watkinson calls up for judgment. all the brave efforts of the author of _political justice_ in behalf of freedom and progress are quietly ignored. mr. watkinson comments, in a true vein of christian charity, on the failings of his old age, censures his theoretical disrespect for the marriage laws, and inconsistently blames him for his inconsistency in marrying mary woolstonecraft. of that remarkable woman he observes that scepticism "destroyed in her all that fine, pure feeling which is the glory of the sex." but the only proof he vouchsafes of this startling statement is a single sentence from one of her letters, which mr. watkinson misunderstands, as he misunderstands so many passages in carlyle's letters, through sheer inability to comprehend the existence of such a thing as humor. he takes every jocular expression as perfectly serious, being one of those uncomfortable persons in whose society, as charles lamb said, you must always speak on oath. mr. watkinson's readers might almost exclaim with hamlet, "how absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us." the next culprit is shelley, who, we are told, "deserted his young wife and children in the most shameful and heartless fashion." it does not matter to mr. watkinson that shelley's relations with harriet are still a perplexing problem, or that when they parted she and the children were well provided for, nor does he condescend to notice the universal consensus of opinion among those who were in a position to be informed on the subject, that harriet's suicide, more than two years afterwards, had nothing to do with shelley's "desertion." instead of referring to proper authorities, mr. watkinson advises his readers to consult "mr. jeafferson's painstaking volumes on the _real shelley_." mr. jeafferson's work is truly painstaking, but it is the work of an advocate who plays the part of counsel for the prosecution. hunt, peacock, hogg, medwin, lady shelley, rossetti, and professor dowden--these are the writers who should be consulted. shelley was but a boy when harriet westbrook proposed to run away with him. had he acted like the golden youth of his age, and kept her for a while as his mistress, there would have been no scandal. his father, in fact, declared that he would hear nothing of marriage, but he would keep as many illegitimate children as shelley chose to get. it was the intense chivalry of shelley's nature that turned a very simple affair into a pathetic tragedy. mr. watkinson's brutal methods of criticism are out of place in such a problem. he lacks insight, subtlety, delicacy of feeling, discrimination, charity, and even an ordinary sense of justice. james mill is another flagrant sinner. mr. watkinson goes to the length of blaming him because "his temper was constitutionally irritable," as though he constructed himself. here, again, mr. watkinson's is a purely debit account. he ignores james mill's early sacrifices for principle, his strenuous labor for what he considered the truth, and his intense devotion to the education of his children. his temper was undoubtedly austere, but it is more than possible that this characteristic was derived from his forefathers, who had been steeped in the hardest calvinism. john stuart mill was infatuated with mrs. taylor, whom he married when she became a widow. but mr. watkinson conceals an important fact. he talks of "selfish pleasure" and "indulgence," but he forgets to tell his readers that mrs. taylor was _a confirmed invalid_. it is perfectly obvious, therefore, that mill was attracted by her mental qualities; and it is easy to believe mill when he disclaims any other relation than that of affectionate friendship. no one but a watkinson could be so foolish as to imagine that men seek sensual gratification in the society of invalid ladies. harriet martineau is "one of the unloveliest female portraits ever traced." mr. watkinson is the opposite of a ladies' man. gallantry was never his foible. he hates female freethinkers with a perfect hatred. he pours out on harriet martineau his whole vocabulary of abuse. but it is, after all, difficult to see what he is in such a passion about. harriet martineau had no sexual sins, no dubious relations, no skeleton in the domestic cupboard. but, says mr. watkinson, she was arrogant and censorious. oh, watkinson, watkinson! have you not one man's share of those qualities yourself? is there not "a sort of a smack, a smell to" of them in your godly constitution? we need not follow mr. watkinson's nonsense about "the domestic shrine of schopenhauer," who was a gay and festive bachelor to the day of his death. as for mr. watkinson's treatment of comte, it is pure christian; in other words, it contains the quintessence of uncharitableness. comte had a taint of insanity, which at one time necessitated his confinement. that he was troublesome to wife and friends is not surprising, but surely a man grievously afflicted with a cerebral malady is not to be judged by ordinary standards. comte's genius has left its mark on the nineteenth century; he was true to _that_ in adversity and poverty. this is the fact posterity will care to remember when the troubles of his life are buried in oblivion. mr. watkinson turns his attention next to the french revolution, which he considers "as much a revolt against morals as it was against despotism." if that is his honest opinion, he must be singularly ignorant. the moral tone of the revolutionists was purity itself compared with the flagrant profligacy of the court, the aristocracy, and the clergy, while freethinkers were imprisoned, and heretics were broken on the wheel. we have really no time to give mr. watkinson lessons in french history, so we leave him to study it at his leisure. it was natural that voltaire should come in for his share of slander. all mr. watkinson can see in him is that he wrote "an unseemly poem," by which we presume he means _la pucelle_. but he ought to know that the grosser parts of that poem were added by later hands, as may be seen at a glance in any variorum edition. in any case, to estimate voltaire's _pucelle_ by the moral standard of a century later is to show an absolute want of judgment. let it be compared with similar works of _his_ age, and it will not appear very heinous. but voltaire did a great deal besides the composition of that poem. he fought despotism like a hero, he stabbed superstition to the heart, he protected the victims of ecclesiastical and political tyranny at the risk of his own life, he sheltered with exquisite generosity a multitude of orphans and widows, he assisted every genius who was trodden down by the age. these things, and the great mass of his brilliant writings, will live in the memory of mankind. voltaire was not perfect; he shared some of the failings of his generation. but he fought the battle of freedom and justice for sixty years. other men indulged in gallantry, other men wrote free verses. but when calas was murdered by the priests, and his family desolated, it was voltaire, and voltaire alone, who faced the tyrants and denounced them in the name of humanity. his superb attitude on that critical occasion inspired the splendid eulogium of carlyle, who was no friendly witness: "the whole man kindled into one divine blaze of righteous indignation, and resolution to bring help against the world." are atheists cruel? * * april , . there seems to be an ineradicable malignancy in the heart of professional christianity. st. paul, indeed in a fine passage of his first epistle to the corinthians, speaks with glowing eloquence of the "charity" which "thinketh no evil." but the hireling advocates and champions of christianity have ever treated the apostle's counsel with contempt in their dealings with sceptics and heretics. public discussion is avoided by these professors of the gospel of love and practisers of the gospel of hatred. they find it "unprofitable." consequently they neglect argument and resort to personalities. they frequently insinuate, and when it is safe they openly allege, that all who do not share their opinions are bad husbands, bad fathers, bad citizens, and bad men. thus they cast libellous dust in the eyes of their dupes, and incapacitate them from seeing the real facts of the case for themselves. a notable illustration of this evil principle may be found in a recent speech by the bishop of chester. dr. jayne presided at a town hall meeting of the local branch of the national society for the prevention of cruelty to children, and took advantage of the occasion to slander a considerable section of his fellow citizens. with a pious arrogance which is peculiar to his boastful faith, he turned what should have been a humanitarian assembly into a receptacle for his discharge of insolent fanaticism. parentage is a natural fact, and the love of offspring is a well-nigh universal law of animal life. it would seem, therefore, that a society for preventing cruelty to children by parents of perverted instincts, might live aloof from sectarian squabbles. but the bishop of chester is of a different opinion. he is a professional advocate of one form of faith, and his eye is strictly bent on business. he appears to be unable to talk anything but "shop." even while pressing the claims of poor, neglected, ill-used children on the sympathy and assistance of a generous public, he could not refrain from insulting all those who have no love for his special line of business. and the insult was not only gratuitous; it was groundless, brutal, and malignant; so much so, indeed, that we cherish a hope that the bishop has overreached himself, and that his repulsive slander will excite a re-action in favor of the objects of his malice. dr. jayne told the meeting that "the persons who were most liable to be guilty of cruelty to their children were those artisans who had taken up secularist opinions, and who looked upon their children as a nuisance, and were glad to get them out of the way." now, on the face of it, the statement is positively grotesque in its absurdity. if secular principles tend to make parents hate their own children, why should their evil influence be confined to artisans? and if secular principles do not produce parental hatred in the wealthier classes, why does dr. jayne hurl this disgraceful accusation at the poorer class of unbelievers? it cannot be simply because they are poorer, for he was delighted to know that "poverty by no means necessarily meant cruelty." what, then, is the explanation? it seems to us very obvious. dr. jayne was bent on libelling sceptics, and, deeming it _safer_ to libel the _poorer_ ones, he tempered his valor with a convenient amount of discretion. he is not even a brave fanatic. his bigotry is crawling, cowardly, abject, and contemptible. dr. jayne relied upon the authority of mr. waugh, who happened to be present at the meeting. this gentleman jumped up in the middle of the bishop's speech, and said "it was the case, that the class most guilty of cruelty to children were those who took materialistic, atheistic, selfish and wicked views of their own existence." surely this is a "fine derangement of epitaphs." it suggests that mr. waugh is less malignant than foolish. what connection does he discover between secularism and selfishness? is it in our principles, in our objects, or in our policy? does he really imagine that the true character of any body of men and women is likely to be written out by a hostile partisan? such a person might be a judge of our _public_ actions, and we are far from denying his right to criticise them; but when he speaks of our _private_ lives, before men of his own faith, and without being under the necessity of adducing a single scrap of evidence, it is plain to the most obtuse intelligence that his utterances are perfectly worthless. we have as much right as mr. waugh to ask the world to accept our view of the private life of secularists. that is, we have no right at all. nevertheless we have a right to state our experience and leave the reader to form his own opinion. having entered the homes of many secularists, we have been struck with their fondness for children the danger lies, if it lies anywhere, in their tendency to "spoil" them. it is a curious fact--and we commend it to the attention of dr. jayne and mr. waugh--that the most sceptical country in europe is the one where children are the best treated, and where there is no need for a society to save them from the clutches of cruelty. there is positively a child-cultus in the great french cities, and especially in freethinking paris. in this bible-and-beer-loving land the workman, like his social "superior," stands or sits drinking in a public-house with male cronies; but the french workman usually sits at the _cafe_ table with his wife, and on sundays with his children, and takes his drink, whatever it may be, under the restraining eyes of those before whom a man is least ready to debase himself. one secular home, at least, is known to us intimately. it is the home of the present writer, who for the moment drops the editorial "we" and speaks in the first person my children are the children of an atheist, yet if they do not love me as heartily as dr. jayne's or mr. waugh's children love their father, "there's witchcraft in it." there is no rod, and no punishment in my home. we work with the law of love. striking a child is to me a loathsome idea. i shrink from it as i would from a physical pollution. strike a child once, be brutal to it once, and there is gone forever that look of perfect trust in the child's eyes, which is a parent's dearest possession, and which i would not forfeit for all the prizes in the world. i know christians who are less kind to their children than i am to mine. they are not my natural inferiors. humanity forbid that i should play the pharisee! but they are degraded below their natural level by the ghastly notion of parental "authority" i do not say there are no rights in a family. there _are_; and there are also duties. but all the rights belong to the children, and all the duties belong to the parents. personally i am not fond of talking about myself. still less am i anxious to make a public exhibition of my home. but if the dr. jaynes and the mr. waughs of the christian world provoke comparisons, i have no fear of standing with my little ones opposite them with theirs, and letting the world judge between us. dropping again into the editorial style, we have a question to ask of the bishop of chester, or rather of mr. waugh. it is this. where are the statistics to justify your assertion? men who are sent to gaol, for whatever reason, have their religions registered. give us, then, the total number of convictions your society has obtained, and the precise proportion of secularists among the offenders. and be careful to give us their names and the date and place of their conviction. we have a further word to all sorts and conditions of libellous christians. where are the evidences of atheistic cruelty? the humanest of the roman emperors were those who were least under the sway of religion. julius caesar himself, the "foremost man of all this world," who was a professed atheist, was also the most magnanimous victor that ever wore the purple. akbar, the freethinker, was the noblest ruler of india. frederick the great was kind and just to his subjects. but, on the other hand, who invented and who applied such instruments of cruelty as racks, wheels, and thumbscrews? who invented separate tortures for every part of the sensitive frame of man? who burnt heretics? who roasted or drowned millions of "witches"? who built dungeons and filled them? who brought forth cries of agony from honest men and women that rang to the tingling stars? who burnt bruno? who spat filth over the graves of paine and voltaire? the answer is one word--christians. yet with all this blood on their hands, and all this crime on their consciences, they turn round and fling the epithet of "cruel" at the perennial victims of their malice. are atheists wicked? one of the most effective arts of priestcraft has been the misrepresentation and slander of heretics. to give the unbeliever a bad name is to prejudice believers against all communication with him. by this means a twofold object is achieved; first, the faithful are protected from the contagion of scepticism; secondly, the notion is propagated that there is something essentially immoral involved in, or attendant upon, unorthodox opinions; and thus the prevalent religious ideas of the age become associated with the very preservation and stability of the moral order of human society. this piece of trickery cannot, of course, be played upon the students of civilisation, who, as mill remarked, are aware that many of the most valuable contributions to human improvement have been the work of men who knew, and rejected, the christian faith. but it easily imposes on the multitude, and it will never be abandoned until it ceases to be profitable. sometimes it takes the form of idle stories about the death-beds of freethinkers, who are represented as deploring their ill-spent life, and bewailing the impossibility of recalling the wicked opinions they have put into circulation. at other times it takes the form of exhibiting their failings, without the slightest reference to their virtues, as the sum and substance of their character. when these methods are not sufficient, recourse is had to insinuation. particular sceptics are spared perhaps, but freethinkers are depicted--like the poor in tennyson's "northern farmer"--as bad in the lump. it is broadly hinted that it is a moral defect which prevents them from embracing the popular creed; that they reject what they do not wish to believe; that they hate the restraints of religion, and therefore reject its principles; that their unbelief, in short, is only a cloak for sensual indulgence or an excuse for evading irksome obligations. we are so accustomed to this monstrous theory of scepticism in religious circles, that it did not astonish us, or give us the least surprise, to read the following paragraph in the _christian commonwealth_-- "free life, and no compulsory virtue, was the title of a placard borne by a pamphlet seller of the public highway a few days ago. what the contents of the pamphlets were we do not know, but the title is a suggestive sign of the times, and a rather more than usually plain statement of what a good deal of modern doubt amounts to. lord tennyson was severely taken to task a few years ago for making the atheist a villain in his 'promise of may,' but he was about right. much of the doubt of the day is only an outcome of the desire to discredit and throw off the restraints of religion and moral law in the name of freedom, wrongly used. free love, free life, free divorce, free sundays, in the majority of cases, are but synonyms for license. those who hold the darwinian doctrine of descent from a kind of ape may yet see it proved by a reversion to the beast, if men succeed in getting all the false and pernicious freedom they want." now, in reply to this paragraph, we have first to observe that our contemporary takes lord tennyson's name in vain. the villain of the "promise of may" is certainly an agnostic, but are not the villains of many other plays christians? lord tennyson does not make the rascal's wickedness the logical result of his principles; indeed, although our contemporary seems ignorant of the fact, he disclaimed any such intention, a press announcement was circulated by his eldest son, on his behalf, that the rascal was meant to be a sentimentalist and ne'er-do-well, who, whatever his opinions, would have come to a bad end. when the _commonwealth_, therefore, talks of lord tennyson as "about right," it shows, in a rather vulgar way, the danger of incomplete information. were we to copy its manners we might use a swifter phrase. that atheists, in the name of freedom, throw off the restraints of moral law, is a statement which we defy the _commonwealth_ to prove, or in the slightest degree to support, and we will even go to the length of suggesting how it might undertake the task. turpitude of character must betray itself. moral corruption can no more be hidden than physical corruption. wickedness "will out," like murder or smallpox. a man's wife discovers it; his children shun him instead of clinging about his knees; his neighbors and acquaintances eye him with suspicion or dislike; his evil nature pulsates through an ever-widening circle of detection, and in time nis bad passions are written upon his features in the infallible lines of mouth and eyes and face. how easy, then, it should be to pick out these atheists. the most evil-looking men should belong to that persuasion. but do they? we invite our contemporary to a trial. let it inquire the religious opinions of a dozen or two, and see if there is an atheist among them. again, a certain amount of evil disposition _must_ produce a certain percentage of criminal conduct. accordingly the gaols should contain a large proportion of atheists. but _do_ they? statistics prove they do _not_. when the present writer was imprisoned for "blasphemy," and was asked his religion, he answered "none," to the wide-eyed astonishment of the official who put the question. atheists were scarce in the establishment. catholics were there, and red tickets were on their cell-doors; protestants were there, and white tickets marked their apartments; jews were there, and provision was made for their special observances; but the atheist was the _rara avis_, the very phoenix of holloway gaol. let us turn to another method of investigation. during the last ten years four members have been expelled from the house of commons. one of them was not expelled in the full sense of the word; he was, however, thrust by brute force from the precincts of the house. his name was charles bradlaugh, and he was an atheist. but what was his crime? simply this: he differed from his fellow members as to his competence to take the parliamentary oath, and the ultimate event proved that he was right and they were wrong. now what were the crimes of the three other members, who were completely and absolutely expelled? captain verney was found guilty of procuration for seduction, mr. hastings was found guilty of embezzlement, and mr. de cobain was pronounced guilty of evading justice, while charged with unnatural offences. mr. jabez spencer balfour might also have been expelled, if he had not accepted the chiltern hundreds. now all these _real_ delinquents were christians, and even ostentatious christians. compare them with charles bradlaugh, the atheist, and say which side has the greatest cause for shame and humiliation. are atheists conspicuous in the divorce court? is it not christian reputations that are smirched in that inquisition? do atheists, or any species of unbelievers, appear frequently before the public as promoters of bubble companies, and systematic robbers of orphans and widows? is it not generally found, in the case of great business collapses, that the responsible persons are christians? is it not a fact that their profession of christianity is usually in proportion to the depth of their rascality? not long since the bishop of chester, backed up by mr. waugh, of the society for the prevention of cruelty to children, publicly declared that the worst ill-users of little ones were artisan secularists. he was challenged to give evidence of the assertion, but he preferred to maintain what is called "a dignified silence." mr. waugh was challenged to produce proofs from the society's archives, and he also declined. it is enough to affirm infamy against freethinkers; proof is unnecessary; or, rather, it is unobtainable. singularly, there have been several striking cases of brutal treatment of children since mr. waugh and bishop jayne committed themselves to this indefensible assertion, and in no instance was the culprit a secularist, though some of them, including mrs. montagu, were devout christians. there are other methods of inquiry into the wickedness of atheists, but we have indicated enough to set the _commonwealth_ at work, and we invite it to begin forthwith. and while it is getting ready we beg to observe that theologians have always described "free-dem" as "license," whereas it is nothing of the kind. freedom is the golden mean between license and slavery. the breaking of arbitrary fetters, forged by ignorance and intolerance, does not mean a fall into loose living. the heretic in religion, while resenting outside control, by his very perception of the vast and far-reaching consequences of human action, is often chained to "the most timid sanctities of life." with respect to "the darwinian theory of descent from a kind of ape," we have a word for our contemporary. the annual meeting of the british association was held at oxford in . darwin's _descent of man_ had recently been published, and the air was full of controversy. bishop wilberforce, in the course of a derisive speech, turned to professor huxley and asked whether it was on the mother's or father's side that his grandfather had been an ape. huxley replied that man had no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for a grandfather. "if there is an ancestor," he continued, "whom i should feel shame in recalling it would be a _man_"--one who meddled with scientific questions he did not understand, only to obscure them by aimless rhetoric, and indulgence in "eloquent digressions and appeals to religious prejudice." this rebuke was administered thirty-three years ago, but it is still worth remembering, and perhaps the _commonwealth_ may find in it something applicable to itself. rain doctors. the prolonged drought has already inflicted serious injury on the farmers. they are, as a rule, a loyal class of men, but their loyalty will probably be shaken when they realise that the lord has spoiled their crops to provide queen's weather for the jubilee. an occasional shower might wet the queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the princes and princelings in her train. occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. the lord was therefore in a fix. though the bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please both sides; so he favored the one he loved best, gave royalty unlimited sunshine, and played the deuce with the agricultural interest. possibly the lord knows better than we do, but we venture to suggest that a slight exercise of intelligence, though we admit it may have been a strain upon his slumbrous brain, would have surmounted the difficulty. the windows of heaven might have been opened from two till four in the morning. that would have been sufficient for a proper supply of rain, and the whole of the day could have been devoted to "blazing" without injuring anyone. or, if the early morning rain would have damaged the decorations, the celestial turnkey might have kept us a week without water giving us an extra supply beforehand. on the whole, if we may hazard so profane an observation, the powers above are singularly behind the age. their affairs are frightfully mixed, and the result is that capital and labor are both in a state of uncertainty. the celestial dynasty will have to improve, or its imperial power will be questioned, and there will be a demand for home rule with regard to the weather. it is a perfect nuisance, with respect to a matter which vitally affects us, not to be able to know what a day will bring forth. meanwhile we turn to the clergy, and inquire why they do not perform their professional duties in this emergency. there is a form of prayer for such cases in the prayer-book. why has it not been used? do the clergy think the lord is growing deaf with old age? have they a secret suspicion that praying for a change of weather is as useful as whistling for the wind? or has the spirit of this sceptical age invaded the clerical ranks so thoroughly as to make them ashamed of their printed doctrines? when a parish clerk was told by the parson one morning that the prayer for rain would be read, he replied, "why, sir, what's the use of praying for rain with the wind in that quarter?" we fancy that parish clerk must have a good many sympathisers in the pulpit. still the clergy should do what they are paid for, or resign the business. they are our rain doctors, and they should procure us the precious fluid. if they cannot, why should we pay them a heavenly water-rate? the rain doctors of savages are kept to their contract. they are expected to bring rain when it is required, and if they do not, the consequences are unpleasant. they are sometimes disgraced, and occasionally killed. but the rain doctors in civilised countries retain all the advantages of their savage prototypes without any of their risks and dangers. modern christians allow the clergy to play on the principle of "heads i win, tails you lose." if the black regiments pray and there is no answer, christians resign themselves to the will of god. if there _is_ an answer, they put it to the credit of the priests, or the priests put it to their own credit, which is much the same thing. we should be sorry to charge such a holy body of men with duplicity, but is there not "a sort of a smack, a smell to?" they are reluctant to pray for rain, on the alleged ground that omnipotence should not be interfered with rashly. but the sincerity of this plea is questionable when we reflect that it obviously favors the clergy. our climate is variable, long spells of particular weather are infrequent, and if when one occurs the clergy hold back till the very last, their supplication for a change cannot long remain unanswered. but perhaps this is only an illustration of the wisdom of the serpent which jesus recommended to his apostles. if the clergy are anxious to exhibit their powers they should pray for rain in the desert of sahara. missionaries might be sent out to establish praying stations, and in the course of time the desert might bloom as a garden, and the wilderness as a rose. we make the suggestion in all sincerity. we are anxious to be convinced, if conviction is possible. praying for rain in a watery climate is one thing, praying for rain where none ever falls is another. if the clergy can bring down a fruitful shower on the african sands, we shall cry, "a miracle," and send them a quarter's pew-rent. seriously--for we can be serious--we ask the clergy to do their level best. the farmers are swearing wholesale, and by taking the name of the lord their god in vain they incur the peril of eternal damnation. the fruit crop is injured, and children suffer unusually from the stomach-ache. worst of all, infidel france is flooding our markets with cherries and other fruits, and we are supporting the accursed sceptical brood because the lord has not nourished our own growths. surely then it is time to act. if the parsons lose this fine opportunity they may rely on it that the anti-tithe agitation will develop into alarming proportions. their livings are at stake, and we ask them to consider the interests of their wives and families. if our generous warning is unheeded the clergy may find the nation carrying out the principle of free trade in religion, and importing some rain doctors from africa. many of these magical blackmen would be glad to exchange their present pickings for a vicarage and five hundred a year. if they thought there was a chance of obtaining a bishopric, with a palace and six or ten thousand a year, they would start for england at once. many of them are of excellent reputation, and would come to us with the best of testimonials. would it not be well to give them a trial? we should find out who was best at the business. he might be constituted our national rain doctor at a liberal salary, and the rest discharged; for surely the lord does not require thirty thousand praying to him at once, unless on the principle that he must be surrounded to prevent the prayer from going into one ear and out at the other. pious puerilities. faith and credulity are the same thing with different names. when a man has plenty of faith he is ready to believe anything. however fantastic it may be, however childish, however infantile, he accepts it with gaping wonder. his imagination is not necessarily strong, but it is easily excited. macaulay held that savages have stronger imaginations than civilised men, and that as the reason developes the imagination decays. but, in our opinion, he was mistaken. the imagination does not wither under the growth of reason; on the contrary, it flourishes more strongly. it is, however, disciplined by reason, and guided by knowledge; and it only appears to be weaker because the relation between it and other faculties has changed. the imagination of the savage seems powerful because his other faculties are weak. in the absence of knowledge it cuts the most astonishing capers, just as a bird would if it were suddenly deprived of sight. now the savage is a mental child, and the ignorant and thoughtless are mental savages. they credit the absurdest stories, and indulge in the most ridiculous speculations. when religion ministers to their weakness, as it always does, they gravely discuss the most astonishing puerilities. indeed, the history of religious thought--that is, of the infantile vagaries of the human mind--is full of puerilites. there is hardly an absurdity which learned divines have not debated as seriously as scientists discuss the nebular hypothesis or the evolution theory. they have argued how many angels could dance on the point of a needle; whether adam had a navel; whether ghosts and demons could cohabit with women; whether animals could sin; and what was to be done with a rat that devoured a holy wafer. we believe the decision of the last weighty problem, after long debate, was that the rat, having the body of christ in its body, was sanctified, and that it had to be eaten by the priest, by which means the second person of the trinity was saved from desecration. but of all the pious puerilities on record, probably the worst are ascribed to the rabbis. the faith of those gentlemen was unbounded, and they were so fond of trivialities, that where they found none they manufactured them. the rabbis belonged to the most credulous race of antiquity. "tell that to the jews," as we see from juvenal, was as common as our saying, "tell that to the marines." the chosen people were infinitely superstitious. they had no head for science, nor have they to this day; but they were past-masters in every magical art, and connoisseurs in amulets and charms. their rabbis were the hierophants of their fanatical folly. they devoted amazing industry, and sometimes remarkable ingenuity, to its development; frequently glossing the very scriptures of their religion with dexterious imbecilities that raise a sinister admiration in the midst of our laughter. this propensity is most noticeable in connection with bible stories. when the chroniclers and prophets record a good solemn wonder, which reads as though it ought to be true if it is not, they allege or suggest little additions that give it an air of ostentatious silliness. hundreds of such instances have come under my eyes in foraging for extra-biblical matter for my _bible heroes_, but i have only room for one or two specimens. king nimrod was jealous of young abraham, as herod was jealous of young jesus. he tried various methods to get rid of the boy, but all in vain. at last he resolved to burn abraham alive. this would have made a striking scene, but the pious puerility of the sequel spoils it all. the king issued a decree, ordering every man in his kingdom to bring wood to heat the kiln. what a laughable picture! behold every adult subject wending his way to the crematorium with a bundle of sticks on his back--"for abraham." the the mussulman tradition (mohammedans and jews are much alike, and both their religions are semitic) informs us that nimrod himself died in the most extraordinary manner. a paltry little gnat, with a game leg and one eye, flew up his nostril, and lodged in his brain, where it tormented him for five hundred years. during the whole of that period, in which the gnat displayed a longevity that casts methuselah's into the shade, the agonising king could only obtain repose by being struck on the head; and relays of men were kept at the palace to pound his royal skull with a blacksmith's hammer. the absurdity of the story is transcendent. one is charitably tempted to believe, for the credit of human nature, that it was the work of a subtle, solemn wag, who thought it a safe way of satirising the proverbial thick-headedness of kings. what reader of the bible does not remember the pathetic picture of esau falling on jacob's neck and weeping, in a paroxysm of brotherly love and forgiveness? but the rabbis daub it over with their pious puerilities. they solemnly inform us that esau was a trickster, as though jacob's qualities were catching? and that he tried to bite his brother's neck, but god turned it into marble, and he only broke his teeth. esau wept for the pain in his grinders. but why did jacob weep? this looks like a poser, yet later rabbis surmounted the difficulty. jacob's neck was not turned into marble, but toughened. it was hard enough to-hurt esau's teeth, and still tender enough to make jacob suffer, so they cried in concert, though for different reasons. satyrs are mentioned in the bible, although they never existed outside the superstitious imagination. the rabbis undertook to explain the peculiar structure of these fabulous creatures, as well as of fauns, who somewhat resemble them. the theory was started, therefore, that god was overtaken by the sabbath, while he was creating them, and was obliged to postpone finishing them till the next day. hence they are misshapen! the rabbis also say that god cut off adam's tail to make eve of. the bible origin of woman is low, but this is lower still. however, if adam exchanged his tail for a wife he made a very good bargain, despite the apple and the devil. captain noah, says the talmud, could not take the rhinoceros into the ark because it was too big. rabbi jannai solemnly asserts that he saw a young rhinoceros, only a day old, as big as mount tabor. its neck was three miles long, its head half a mile, and the river jordan was choked by its excrement. let us pause at this stretcher, which "stands well for high." perhaps the christian will join us in laughing at such pious puerilities. but he should remember that the bible is loaded with absurdities that are little inferior. ravens bring a prophet sandwiches, another prophet besieges a tile, an axe swims on the water, a man slays a thousand men in battle with the jawbone of a donkey, an ass speaks, and a whale swallows and vomits a man. had these pious puerilities occurred in any other book, they would have been laughed to scorn; but being in the bible, they must be credited on pain of eternal damnation. "thus saith the lord." dogmatism, said douglas jerrold, is only puppyism grown to maturity. this sarcastic wit never said a truer thing. we call a young fellow a puppy when he is conceited and impudent, and we call a man dogmatic when he betrays the same qualities in controversy. yet every church prides itself on being dogmatic. rome is dogmatic and canterbury is dogmatic. without dogma there is no theology. and what is dogma? an opinion, or a set of opinions, promulgated by somebody for the blind acceptance of somebody else. arrogance, therefore, is of its very essence. what right has one man to say to another, "this is the truth; i have taken the trouble to decide that point, and all you have to do is to accept what i present you "? and if one man has no such right to impose his belief on another, how can twenty thousand men have such a right to impose their belief on twenty millions? this, however, is precisely what they do without the least shame or compunction. before we are able to judge for ourselves, the priests thrust certain dogmas upon us, and compel us to embrace them. authority takes the place of judgment, dogmatism supplants thought. the young mind is rendered slavish, and as it grows up it goes through life cringeing to the instruments of its own abasement. when a superior mind rises from this subjection and demands reasons for believing, he is knocked down with the bible. a text is quoted to silence him. but who wrote the text? moses, isaiah, ezekiel, matthew, john, peter, or paul. well, and who made them lords over us? have we not as much right to our own thoughts as they had to theirs? when they state an opinion in the pompous language of revelation, are they less fallible than the rest of us? obviously not. yet prophets and evangelists have a trick of writing, which still clings to their modern representatives, as though they could not be mistaken. "i am sir oracle," they seem to say, "and when i ope my lips let no dog bark." no doubt this self-conceit is very natural, but self-conceited people are not usually taken at their own estimate. nowadays we laugh at them and try to take the conceit out of them. but what is absurd to-day is treated as venerable because it happened thousands of years ago, and prophets are regarded as inspired who, if they existed now, would be treated with ridicule and contempt. the style of downright god-almighty-men is very simple. they need not argue, they have only to assert, and they preface every statement with "thus saith the lord." now suppose such a declaration were made today. a man with no greater reputation for sense than his neighbors stands up and shouts "thus saith the lord." should we not look at him with curiosity and amusement? would he not strike us as a silly fanatic? might we not even reflect that he was graduating for a strait-waistcoat? the fellow is simply an ignorant dogmatist. what he believes you must believe. reasons for his belief he has none, and he cannot conceive that you want any either. yet it would never do to exclaim, "i am your lord and master," so the grown-up puppy shouts "thus saith the lord," in order to assure you that in rejecting him you reject god. suppose we heckle this loud-mouthed preacher for a minute. "you tell us, thus saith the lord. did he say so to you, and where and when? and are you quite sure you did not dream the whole business?" probably he answers, "no, the lord did not say it to me, but he said it to the blessed prophets and apostles, and i am only repeating their words." "very well then," a sensible man would reply, "you are in the second-hand business, and i want new goods. you had better send on the original traders--moses, isaiah, paul and co.--and i'll see what i can do with them." if, however, the preacher says, "yes, the lord did say it to me," a sensible man replies, "well, now, i should have thought the lord would have told somebody with more reputation and influence. still, what you assert may be true. i don't deny it, but at the same time your word is no proof. on the whole, i think i'll go my way and let you go yours. the lord has told you something, and you believe it; when he tells me, i'll believe it too. i suppose the lord told you because he wanted you to know, and when he wants me to know i suppose he'll give me a call. what you got from him is first-hand, what i get from you is second-hand; and, with all due respect, i fancy your authority is hardly equal to the almighty's." "thus saith the lord" is no argument. it is simply the dark lanthorn of the spirit which none can see by but those who bear it. nay more, it dispenses with reason, and makes every man's faith depend on somebody else's authority. discussion becomes impertinence, criticism is high treason. hence it is but a step from "thus saith the lord." very impolite language, truly, yet it is the logical sequence of dogmatism, fortunately the time is nearly past for such impudent nonsense. this is an age of debate. and although there are many windy platitudes abroad, and much indulgence in empty mouthing, the very fact of debate being considered necessary to the settlement of all questions makes the public mind less hasty and more cautious. "thus saith the lord" men can only succeed at present among the intellectual riff-raff of the populace. looking over the past, we see what an immense part dogmatism has played in history. "thus saith the lord" cried the jewish prophets, and they not only terrified their contemporaries, but overawed a hundred generations. "thus saith the lord" cried the christian apostles, and they converted thousands of open-mouthed slaves to a "maleficent superstition." "thus saith the lord" cried mohammed, and the scimitars of islam flashed from india to spain. "thus saith the lord" cried joe smith, and mormonism springs up in the practical west, with its buried gold tablets of revelation and its retrogressive polygamy. "thus saith reason" has been a still small voice, sometimes nearly inaudible, though never quite drowned; but now it is swelling into a mighty volume of sound, overwhelming the din of sects and the anathemas of priests. believe or be damned. christian ministers are showing a disposition to fight shy of the second half of the last chapter of mark, where jesus is represented as saying to his apostles, "go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." some of them tell us to look at the revised version, where we shall see in the margin that this portion of the chapter does not exist in the earliest manuscripts; and they innocently expect that freethinkers will therefore quietly drop the offensive passage. oh dear no! before they have any right to claim such indulgence they must put forth a new edition of the whole bible, showing us what they desire excised, and what they wish to retain and are ready to defend as the infallible word of god. we should then discuss whether their selection is justifiable, and after that we should discuss whether the amended bible is any diviner than the original one. but we cannot allow them to keep the bible as it is, to call it god's word, to revile people who doubt it, and to persecute people who oppose it; and yet, at the same time, to evade responsibility for every awkward text. this will never do. the clergy cannot have the authority of inspiration in their pulpits and the ease of eclecticism on the platform and in the press. besides, although the text in mark is the most striking piece of impudent bigotry, there are many passages of holy writ that display the same spirit. the jews were expressly ordered to kill heretics in this world, and the victims only escaped eternal damnation because the chosen people knew nothing at that time of future rewards and punishments. a glance at the first few pages of _crimes of christianity_ will also show that the earliest apostles of christianity were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of persecution. paul smote elymas with blindness for opposing him, and even "the beloved disciple" said "if there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him god speed." paul tells the galatians, "if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." these passages plainly imply that the unbeliever is to be shunned like poison, and that the teacher of unbelief is a devil. what difference is there between this and the passage in mark? as a matter of fact, all the christian churches, from the beginning till now, have taught that faith is necessary to salvation; and this historic consensus of opinion justifies the freethinker in regarding bigotry as of the essence of the bible. now what is belief? it is an automatic act of the mind, over which the will has absolutely no power. the will might, indeed, turn the eyes from regarding evidence in a particular direction, or the entire mind from attending to the subject at all. but given the evidence before you, and your own powers of thought, and your judgment is a logical necessity. you cannot help believing what your intellect certifies as true; you cannot help disbelieving what your intellect certifies as false. if you were threatened with everlasting torment for believing that twice two are four, you could not, by the most tremendous effort of volition, alter your conviction in the slightest degree. you might be induced to _assert_ that twice two are five, but whatever your tongue might utter, your belief would remain unchanged. the effect of threats, therefore, is not to change belief, but to produce hypocrisy. yet this much must be allowed. the threats may succeed _if they are carried out_. fear will make multitudes _profess_ without _investigating,_ and as liars often come to believe their own lies, habitual profession produces a state of mind that has a superficial resemblance to real belief; and, on the other hand, if the threats of future punishment are supplemented by penal laws against heresy, there is a process of artificial selection by which independent minds are eliminated, while the slavish survive. even when penal laws are relaxed, social ostracism will have a similar, though perhaps a weaker effect. prizes offered to one form of opinion, and losses inflicted on others, will necessarily make a difference in their relative success. how slowly christianity advanced during the first three centuries, when it was under a cloud! how swiftly it progressed when constantine gave it wealth and privileges, and used the temporal sword to repress or extinguish its enemies! nothing is truer than that the religious belief of more than ninety-nine hundredths of mankind is determined by the geographical accident of birth. born in spain they are catholics; born in england they are protestants; born in turkey they are mohammedans; born in india they are brahmanists; born in ceylon they are buddhists; born in the shadow of a synagogue they are jews. their own minds have not the smallest share in deciding their faith. they take it at secondhand, as they do their language and their fashion of dressing. to call their "faith" belief is absurd. it is simply a prejudice. belief, in the proper sense of the word, follows evidence and reflection. what evidence has the ordinary christian, and has he ever reflected on his creed for five minutes in the whole course of his life? philosophically speaking, men think as they _can_, and believe as they _must_; and as belief is independent of the will, and cannot be affected by motives, it is not a subject for praise or blame, reward or punishment. religions, therefore, which promise heaven for belief and hell for unbelief, are utterly unphilosophical. they are self-condemned. truth invites free study. falsehood shuns investigation, and denounces that liberty of thought which is fatal to its pretensions. there is a not too refined, but a very true piece of verse, which was first published more than a generation ago in a pungent freethought journal, and we venture to quote its conclusion. after relating the chief "flams" of the bible, it says: and when with this nonsense you're crammed, to make you believe it all true, they say if you don't you'll be damned; but you ought to be damned if you do. christian charity. jesus christ told his disciples that, in bestowing alms, they were not even to let their left hand know what their right hand did. but this self-sacrificing method has not been generally approved, and comparatively few christians "do good by stealth and blush to find it fame." they more often "do good for fame and publish it by stealth." nay more, their "charity" is actually their boast in their controversies with "infidels." look at our hospitals, they say; look at our orphanages, look at our almshouses, look at our soup-kitchens. it is a wonder they do not boast of their asylums, but perhaps they think it would invite the retort that they not only build them but fill them. such boasting, however, is utterly absurd from every point of view. since the world was in any degree civilised it has never lacked some kind of benevolent institutions. it is absolutely certain that hospitals are not of christian origin; and there is hardly a country in the world, with any pretension to rank above barbarians, in which some species of provision is not made by the rich for the necessities of the poor. every mohammedan, for instance, is required by his religion to devote a tenth of his income to charity; whereas the christian system of tithes is entirely for the profit and aggrandisement of the clergy. still more ridiculous, if possible, is the christian cry, "where are your freethought hospitals, almshouses, and orphanages?" freethought is a poor, struggling cause; its adherents are comparatively few and scattered; it has no endowments to lessen the current cost of its propaganda; and it is unable to exact subscriptions by the orthodox method of boycotting, or to acquire them in return for a good advertisement. still, the freethought party does manage to relieve its necessitous members; and the freethinkers' benevolent fund is not only well supported, in excess of all demands, but is probably the _only_ fund which is administered without a single farthing of expense. besides this, freethinkers support ordinary local charities, when deserving, just like other people; although frequently, as in the case of almost every hospital, religion is forced on the recipients of such charity, whether they wish it or not, and religious tests are maintained in the administration. as a rule, however, freethinkers are not inclined to attach so much importance as christians to organised almsgiving. at the best it is but a clumsy way of alleviating the worst effects of social disease. the freethinker attaches more importance to the study of causes. he is like the true health reformer who believes a great deal more in exercise, fresh air, and wholesome diet, than in physic. for this reason freethinkers are generally students of social and political questions. they are radicals in the philosophical sense of the word; that is, they recognise that real, lasting improvement can only be achieved by dealing with the causes of poverty and degradation. many christians, on the other hand, thoroughly believe that the poor will never cease out of the land; and they seem to regard these unfortunates as whetstones, provided by a beneficent providence, on which the wealthy may sharpen their benevolence. christian charity, even in its highest form, is infinitely less merciful than science; a truth which mr. cotter morison enforces in the seventh chapter of his _service of man_. sanitation, medical science, free trade, popular education, co-operation, and such agencies, have done tremendously more than religion to diminish evil and mitigate suffering. on the other hand, it is indisputable that much of our boasted charity is worse than wasted, as it tends to produce the very helplessness and pauperism that furnish it with objects of compassion. charity is very good in its way, but what we really want is justice. let us go in for justice first, and when we have got that we shall see what remains for charity to do. probably it will be found that unjust laws inflict a hundred times more misery than charity could ever alleviate. if that be the case, the most charitable man, after all, is he who devotes some of his time, thought, and energy to political and social reform. good health for the next generation is more valuable than medicine for the diseases of the present generation. charity, also, in its largest sense, is far wider than almsgiving. it is a questionable charity which gives you a shilling if you are hard-up, and persecutes you if you think for yourself. most of us do not require soup-tickets, but we do require civil treatment, respect for our independence, and smiling rather than frowning faces. the man who lifts me up from the road when i stumble, deserves my thanks; but i doubt the sincerity of his kindness if, when he learns that i honestly differ from him on the atonement, he knocks me down again. assisting people who agree with you, and wilfully injuring those who differ, savors less of charity than of zeal. you may be a very good christian, but i venture to say you are a very bad man. when saladin died he ordered charities to be distributed to the poor, without distinction of jew, christian, or mohammedan. yet this brilliant ruler had to repel christian attacks on his dominions, and to witness the most abominable cruelty wrought by the soldiers of the cross. where, in the annals of christendom, shall we find such a noble example of true charity; of charity which overflows the petty barriers of creeds, and loses itself in the great ocean of humanity? religion and money. "every religion is a getting religion; for though i myself get nothing, i am subordinate to those that do. so you may find a lawyer in the temple that gets little for the present; but he is fitting himself to be in time one of those great ones that do get."--selden's table talk. "the divine stands wrapt up in his cloud of mysteries, and the amused laity must pay tithes and veneration to be kept in obscurity, grounding their hope of future knowledge on a competent stock of present ignorance."--george farquhar. religion and priestcraft may not be the same thing in _essence_. that is a point on which we do not intend to dogmatise, and this is not the opportunity to argue it. but _practically_ religion and priestcraft _are_ the same thing. they are inextricably bound up together,. and they will suffer a common fate. in saying this, however, we must be understood to use the word "religion" in its ordinary sense, as synonymous with _theology_. religion as non-supernatural, as the idealism of morality, the sovereign bond of collective society, is a matter with which we are not at present concerned. priestcraft did not _invent_ religion. to believe that it did is the error of an impulsive and uninformed scepticism. but priestcraft developed it, systematised it, enforced it, and perpetuated it. this could not be effected, however, except in alliance with the temporal power; and accordingly, in every country--savage, barbaric, or civilised--the priests and the privileged classes are found in harmony. they have occasional differences, but these are ultimately adjusted. sometimes the priesthood overrules the temporal power, but more frequently the former gives way to the latter; indeed, it is instructive to watch how the course of religion has been so largely determined by political influences. the development of judaism was almost entirely controlled by the political vicissitudes of the hebrews. the political power really decided the great controversy between arianism and athanasianism. politics again, twelve hundred years later, settled the bounds of the reformation, not only for the moment, but for subsequent centuries. where the prince's sword was thrown into the scale, it determined the balance. england, for instance, was non-papal catholic under henry viii., protestant under edward vi., papal-catholic under mary, and protestant again under elizabeth; although every one of these changes, according to the clergy, was dictated by the holy ghost. priests and the privileged classes _must_ settle their differences in some way, otherwise the people would become too knowing, and too independent. the co-operation of impostor and robber is necessary to the bamboozlement and exploitation of the masses. this co-operation, indeed, is the great secret of the permanence of religion; and its policy is twofold--education and the power of money. the value of _education_ may be inferred from the frantic efforts of the clergy to build and maintain schools of their own, and to force their doctrines into the schools built and maintained by the state. in this respect there is nothing to choose between church and dissent. the reading of the bible in board schools is a compromise between themselves, lest a worse thing should befall them both. if one section were strong enough to upset the compromise it would do so; in fact, the church party is now attempting this stroke of policy on the london school board, with the avowed object of giving a church color to-the religious teaching of the children. the very same principle was at work in former days, when none but churchmen were admitted to the universities or public positions. it was a splendid means of maintaining the form of religion which was bound up with the monarchy and the aristocracy. learning and influence were, as far as possible, kept on the side of the established faith, which thus became the master of the masters of the people. this is perfectly obvious to the student of history, and freethinkers should lay its lesson to heart. it is only by driving religion entirely out of education, from the humblest school to the proudest college, that we shall ever succeed in breaking the power of priestcraft and freeing the people from the bondage of superstition. we could write a volume on this theme--the power of education in maintaining religion; but we must be satisfied with the foregoing at present, and turn our attention to the power of _money_. it is a wise adage that money is the sinews of war. fighting is very largely, often wholly, a question of resources. troops may be ever so brave, generals ever so skilful, but they will be beaten unless they have good rifles and artillery, plenty of ammunition, and an ample commissariat. now the same thing obtains in _all_ warfare. it would be foolish, no less than base, to deny the inspiring efficacy of ideas, the electric force of enthusiasm; but, however highly men may be energised, they cannot act without instruments; and money buys them, whether the instruments be rifles and artillery, or schools, or churches, or any kind of organisation. given churches with great wealth, as well as control over public education, and it is easy to see that they will be able to perpetuate themselves. endowments are specially valuable. they are rooted, so to speak, in the past, and hold firm. they bear golden fruit to be plucked by the skilful and adventurous. besides, the very age of an endowed institution gives it a venerable ora; and its freedom from the full necessity of "cadging" lends it a certain "respectability"--like that of a man who lives on his means, instead of earning his living. it is not an extravagant calculation that, in england alone, twenty millions a year are spent on religion. the figures fall glibly from the tongue, but just try to realise them! think first of a thousand, then of a thousand thousand, then of twenty times that. take a single million, and think what its expenditure might do in the shaping of public opinion. a practical friend of ours, a good radical and freethinker, said that he would undertake to create a majority for home rule in england with a million of money; and if he spent it judiciously, we think he might succeed. well then, just imagine, not one million, but twenty millions, spent _every year_ in maintaining and propagating a certain religion. is it not enough, and more than enough, to perpetuate a system which is firmly founded, to begin with, on the education of little children? here lies the strength of christianity. it is not true, it is not useful. its teachings and pretensions are both seen through by tens of thousands, but the wealth supports it. "without money and without price," is the fraudulent language of the pious prospectus. it would never last on those terms. the money keeps it up. withdraw the money, and the black army would disband, leaving the people free to work out their secular salvation, without the fear and trembling of a foolish faith. clotted bosh. "a heterogeneous mass of clotted bosh." --thomas carlyle. the death of tennyson has called forth a vast deal of nonsense. much of it is even insincere. the pulpits have spouted cataracts of sentimentality. some of them have emitted quantities of sheer drivel. a stranger would think we had lost our only poet, and well-nigh our only teacher; whereas, if the truth must be told, we have lost one who was occasionally a great poet, but for the most part a miraculous artist in words. no man in his senses--certainly no man with a spark of judgment--could call tennyson a profound thinker. mainly he gave exquisite expression to ideas that floated around him. nor did he possess a high degree of the creative faculty, such as shakespeare possessed in inexhaustible abundance. surely it is possible to admire our dead poet's genius without telling lies over his grave. among the pulpit utterances on tennyson we note the rev. hugh price hughes's as perhaps the very perfection of slobbery incapacity. he appears to be delivering a course of addresses on the poet. the first of these escaped our attention; the second is before us in the supplement to last week's _methodist times_. we have read it with great attention and without the slightest profit. not a sentence or a phrase in it rises above commonplace. that a crowd of people should listen to such stuff on a sunday afternoon, when they might be taking a walk or enjoying a snooze, is a striking evidence of the degeneration of the human mind, at least in the circles of methodism. mr. hughes praises tennyson for "conscientiousness in the use and choice of words." he should have said "the choice and use of words," for _choice_ must precede _use_ to be of any service. mr. hughes says it is of great importance that we should all be as conscientious as tennyson. he might as well say it is of great importance that we should all be as strong as sandow. let us take a few examples of _mr. hughes's_ "conscientiousness." he talks of "shining features" which "lie upon the very surface" of tennyson's poems. now features seldom shine, they do not lie, and they must be (not _upon_, but) _at_ the surface. six lines further the shining features change into "shining qualities," as though _features_ and _qualities_ were synonyms. mr. hughes speaks, in the style of a penny-a-liner, of tennyson's "amazing and unparalleled popular influence." will he tell us if anything could amaze us _without_ being unparalleled? he remarks that tennyson was "not merely and mainly a poet of the educated classes." he should have said "merely _or_ mainly." he enjoins upon us to "define our terms" and "know the exact meanings of the terms we use"--which is absolute tautology. he says of flirtation--on which he seems an authority--that "i greatly fear, and am morally certain" it is as much perpetrated by men as by women. but if he fears he cannot be certain, and if he is certain he cannot fear. he calls duelling a form of "insanity and barbarism." but while it may be one or the other, it cannot be both at once. the disjunctive, therefore, not the copulative, is the proper conjunction. mr. hughes misspells the name of spenser, translates _mariage de convenance_ as a marriage of convenience, and inserts one of his own inventions in a line of _locksley hall_, which runs thus in the hughes edition of tennyson-- puppet to a father's threat and servile to a mother's shrewish tongue. "mother's" spoils the line. it is not tennyson's. mr. hughes may claim it--"an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own." it does equal credit to his "conscientiousness" and his ears. mr. hughes's style as a critic does not rise to the level of an active contempt. let us look at his matter and see if it shows any superiority. "yet although," mr. hughes says, with characteristic elegance--"yet although he wrote so much, tennyson never wrote a single line that would bring a painful or anxious blush to the cheek of the most innocent or sensitive maiden." what a curious antithesis! why should a man write impurely for writing much? and is _this_ the supreme virtue of a great poet? it might be predicated of martin tupper. milton, on the other hand, must have made many a maiden rosy by his description of eve's naked loveliness--to say nothing of the scene after the fall; while shakespeare must have turned many a maiden cheek scarlet, though we do not believe he ever did the maiden any harm. tennyson was not as free-spoken as some poets--greater poets than himself. but what does mr. hughes mean by his "christ-like purity"? is there a reference here to the twelfth verse of the nineteenth chapter of matthew? purity, if properly understood, is undoubtedly a virtue. mr. hughes forgets, however, that his eulogy on tennyson in this respect is a slur upon the bible. there are things in the old testament--not to mention the new testament--calculated to make "the most innocent or sensitive maiden" vomit; things that might abash a prostitute and make a satyr squeamish. we suggest, therefore, that mr. hughes should cease canting about "purity" while he helps to thrust the bible into the hands of little children. the reward of tennyson's purity, according to mr. hughes, was that "he was able to understand women." "the english race," exclaims the eulogist, "has never contemplated a nobler or more inspiring womanhood than that which glows on every page of tennyson." this is the hectic exaggeration in which mr. hughes habitually indulges. tennyson never drew a live woman. maud is a lay figure, and the heroine of "the princess" is purely fantastic. george meredith beats the late laureate hollow in this respect. he is second only to shakespeare, who here, as elsewhere, maintains his supremacy. mr. hughes's remarks on _locksley hall_ are, to use his own expression, amazing. "how terribly," he says, "does he [tennyson] paint the swift degeneration of the faithless amy." mr. hughes forgets--or _does_ he forget?--that in the sequel to this poem, entitled _sixty years after_, tennyson unsays all the high-pitched dispraise of amy and her squire. _locksley hall_ is a piece of splendid versification, but the hero is a prig, which is a shade worse than a philistine. young fellows mouth the poem rapturously; their elders smile at the disguises of egotism. loveless marriage was reprobated by tennyson, and mr. hughes goes into ecstacies over the tremendous fact. like the psalmist, he is in haste; he cannot point to a poet who ever hinted the dethronement of love. a choice hughesean sentence occurs in this connexion. "i very much regret," the preacher says, "that maud's lover was such a conventional idiot that he should have been guilty of the supreme folly of challenging her brother to a duel." shade of lindley murrey, what a sentence! a boy who wrote thus would deserve whipping. and what right, we ask, has a christian minister to rail at duelling? it was unknown to greek or roman society. indeed, it is merely a form of the ordeal, which was upheld by christianity. the duel was originally a direct and solemn appeal to providence. only a sceptic has the right to call it a folly. enough of mr. hughes as a stylist, a critic, and teacher. what he really shines in is invention. his story of the converted atheist shoemaker displays a faculty which has no scope in a sermon on tennyson. lord bacon on atheism. the pedants will be down upon us for speaking of lord bacon. it is true there never was such a personage. francis bacon was baron of verulam, viscount st. alban, and lord high chancellor of england. but this is a case in which it is impossible to resist the popular usage. after all, we write to be understood. the pedants, the heralds, and all the rest of the tribe of technical fanatics, rejoice to mouth "lord verulam." but the ordinary man of letters, like the common run of readers, will continue to speak of lord bacon; for bacon was his name, and the "lord" was but a pretty feather in his hat. and when his lordship took that splendid pen of his, to jot down some of his profoundest thoughts for posterity, did he not say in his grand style, "i, francis bacon, thought on this wise"? you cannot get the "bacon" out of it, and as the "lord" will slip in, we must let it stand as lord bacon. lord bacon was was a very great man. who does not remember pope's lines?-- if parts allure thee, think how bacon shined, the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. but his hardship was fond of wielding the satiric lash, and that spirit leads to exaggeration. bacon was not the meanest of mankind, pope himself did things that bacon would never have stooped to. nor was bacon the wisest and brightest of mankind. a wiser and brighter spirit was contemporary with him in the person of "a poor player." the dullards who fancy that lord bacon wrote the plays of shakespeare have no discrimination. his lordship's mind might have been cut out of the poet's without leaving an incurable wound. some will dissent from this, but be it as it may, the _styles_ of the two men are vastly different, like their ways of thinking. bacon's essay on love is cynical. the man of the world, the well-bred statesman, looked on love as "the child of folly," a necessary nuisance, a tragi-comical perturbation. shakespeare saw in love the mainspring of life. love speaks "in a perpetual hyperbole," said bacon. shakespeare also said that the lover "sees helen's beauty in a brow of egypt," the poet knew all the philosopher knew, and more. what bacon laughed or sneered at, shakespeare recognised as the magic of the great enchanter, who touches our imaginations and kindles in us the power of the ideal. exaggeration there must be in passion and imagination; it is the defect of their quality; but what are we without them? dead driftwood on the tide; dismantled hulls rotting in harbor; anything that awaits destruction, to give its imprisoned forces a chance of asserting themselves in new forms of being. bacon was not a shakespeare; still, he was a very great man. his writings are a text-book of worldly wisdom. his philosophical force is almost proverbial. nor was he wanting in a certain "dry" poetry. no philosophical writer, not even plato, equals him in the command of illuminative metaphors; and the fine dignity of his style is beyond all praise. the words drop from his pen with exquisite ease and felicity. he is never in a hurry, never ruffled. he writes like a lord chancellor, though with something in him above the office; and if he is now and then familiar, it is only a slight condescension, like the joke of a judge, which does not bring him down to the level of the litigants. the opinions of such a man are worth studying; and as lord bacon is often quoted in condemnation of atheism, we propose to see what he actually says about it, what his judgment on this particular theme is really worth, and what allowance, if any, should be made for the conditions in which he expressed himself. this last point, indeed, is one of considerable importance. lord bacon lived at a time when downright heresy, such as raleigh and other great men of that age were accused of, could only be ventilated in private conversation. in writing it could only be hinted or suggested; and, in this respect, a writer's _silence_ is to be taken into account; that is, we must judge by what he does _not_ say, as well as by what he _does_ say. some writers, like letourneau, the french ethnologist, have gone to the length of arguing that lord bacon was a materialist, and that his theistic utterances were all perfunctory: as it were, the pinch of incense which the philosopher was obliged to burn on the altars of the gods. this much at least is certain--lord bacon rarely speaks of religion except as a philosopher or a statesman. he is apt to sneer at the "high speculations" of "theologues." there is no piety, no unction, in his allusions to theology. he looks upon religion as a social bond, an agency of good government. it is impossible to say that he took a christian view of things when he wrote, "i have often thought upon death, and i find it the least of all evils"; or when he wrote, "men fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other." lord bacon has an essay on atheism, which is significantly followed by another on superstition. the latter is seldom referred to by religious apologists, but we shall deal with it first. "in all superstition," he says, "wise men follow fools." this is a bold, significant utterance. fools are always in the majority, wise men are few, and they are obliged to bow to the power of the multitude. kings respect, and priests organise, the popular folly; and the wise men have to sit aloft and nod to each other across the centuries. there is a freemasonry amongst them, and they have their shibboleths and dark sayings, to protect them against priests and mobs. perhaps the story of balaam is a subtle anticipation of lord bacon's dictum. it was the ass that first saw the angel. baalam only saw it afterwards, when his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking donkey. thus the prophet followed the ass, as wise men follow fools. superstition is worse than atheism, in lord bacon's judgment; the one is unbelief, he says, but the other is contumely; and "it were better to have no opinion of god at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him." he approves the saying of plutarch, that he "had rather a great deal men should say there was no such man as plutarch, than that they should say there was one plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were born"--which, on the part of lord bacon, looks like a thrust at the doctrine of original sin and infant damnation. with his keen eye for "the good of man's estate," lord bacon remarks of superstition, that "as the contumely is greater towards god, so the danger is greater towards men." "atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men; therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no farther, and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of augustus caesar) were civil times; but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ that ravisheth all the spheres of government." by "civil times" lord bacon means settled, quiet, orderly, progressive times--times of civilisation. and it is rather singular that he should pick out the age immediately preceding the advent of christianity. whatever fault is in atheism, it is no danger to human society. this is lord bacon's judgment, and we commend it to the attention of the fanatics of faith, who point to atheism as a horrid monster, fraught with cruelty, bloodshed, and social disruption. coming now to lord bacon's essay on atheism itself, we find him opening it with a very pointed utterance of theism. "i had rather," he says, "believe all the fables in the legend, and the talmud, and the alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." the expression is admirable, but the philosophy is doubtful. when a man says he would _rather_ believe one thing than another, he is merely exhibiting a personal preference. real belief is not a matter of taste; it is determined by evidence--if not absolutely, at least as far as our power of judgment carries us. "a little philosophy," his lordship says, "inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." the reason he assigns is, that when we no longer rest in second causes, but behold "the chain of them confederate, and linked together," we must needs "fly to providence and deity." the necessity, however, is far from obvious. all the laws, as we call them, of all the sciences together, do not contain any new principle in their addition. universal order is as consistent with materialism as with theism. it is easy to say that "god never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it"; but, as a matter of fact, it is the god of miracles in whom the multitude have always believed. a special providence, rather than a study of the universe, has been the secret of their devotion to "the unseen." lord bacon drops below the proper level of his genius in affirming that "none deny there is a god, but those for whom it maketh that there were no god." this is but a milder expression of the incivility of the psalmist. it is finely rebuked by the atheist monk in the play of "sir william crichton," the work of a man of great though little recognised genius--william smith. for ye who deem that one who lacks of faith is therefore conscience-free, ye little know how doubt and sad denial may enthral him to the most timid sanctity of life. lord bacon, indeed, rather doubts the existence of the positive atheist. "it appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the opinion of others: nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas, if they truly think that there is no such thing as god, why should they trouble themselves?" although lord bacon was not the "meanest of mankind," there was certainly a lack of the heroic in his disposition; and this passage emanated from the most prosaic part of his mind and character. "great thoughts," said vauvenargues, "spring from the heart." now the heart of lord bacon was not as high as his intellect; no one could for a moment imagine his facing martyrdom. he had none of the splendid audacity, the undaunted courage, the unshakable fortitude, of his loftier contemporary, giordano bruno. so much truth is there in pope's epigram, that his lordship was capable at times of grovelling; witness his fulsome, though magnificent, dedication of the _advancement of learning_ to king james--the british solomon, as his flatterers called him, to the amusement of the great henry of france, who sneered, "yes, solomon the son of david," in allusion to his mother's familiarity with david rizzio. and in this very passage of the essay on atheism we also see the grovelling side of lord bacon, with a corresponding perversion of intelligence. being incapable of understanding martyrdom, except under the expectation of a reward in heaven, his lordship cannot appreciate the act of an atheist in suffering for his convictions. his concluding words are positively _mean_. surely the atheist might trouble himself about truth, justice, and dignity; all of which are involved in the maintenance and propagation of his principles. but, if the closing observation is mean, the opening observation is fatuous. this is a strong word to use of any sentence of lord bacon's, but in this instance it is justifiable. if an atheist mistrusts his own opinion, because he talks about it, what is to be said of the christians, who pay thousands of ministers to talk about their opinions, and even subscribe for missionary societies to talk about them to the "heathen"? are we to conclude that an atheist's talking shows mistrust, and a christian's talking shows confidence? what real weakness is there in the atheist's seeking for sympathy and concurrence? it is hard for any man to stand alone; certainly it was not in lord bacon's line to do so; and why should not the atheist be "glad to be strengthened by the opinion of others"! novalis said that his opinion gained infinitely when it was shared by another. the participation does not prove the truth of the opinion, but redeems it from the suspicion of being a mere maggot of an individual brain. lord bacon then turns to the barbaric races, who worship particular gods, though they have not the general name; a fact which he did not understand. more than two hundred years later it was explained by david hume. it is simply a proof that monotheism grows out of polytheism; or, if you like, that theism is a development of idolatry. this is a truth that takes all the sting out of lord bacon's observation that "against atheists the very savages take part with the very subtilest philosophers." we may just remark that the philosophers must be very hard pressed when they call up their savage allies. contemplative atheists are rare, says lord bacon--"a diagoras, a bion, a lucian perhaps, and some others." they seem more than they are, for all sorts of heretics are branded as atheists; which leads his lordship to the declaration that "the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterised in the end." this is a pungent observation, and it springs from the better side of his lordship's nature. we also have no respect for hypocrites, and for that very reason we object to them as a present to atheism. religion must consume in its own smoke, and dispose of its own refuse. the causes of atheism next occupy lord bacon's attention. he finds they are four; divisions in religion, the scandal of priests, profane scoffing in holy matters, and "learned times, especially with peace and prosperity." "troubles and adversities," his lordship says, "do more bow men's minds to religion." which is true enough, though it only illustrates the line of the roman poet that religion always has its root in fear. it will be observed that, up to the present, lord bacon has not considered one of the reasons _for_ atheism. what he calls "causes" are only _occasions_. he does not discuss, or even refer to, the objections to theism that are derived from the tentative operations of nature, so different from what might be expected from a settled plan; from ugly, venomous and monstrous things; from the great imperfection of nature's very highest productions; from the ignorance, misery, and degradation of such a vast part of mankind; from the utter absence of anything like a moral government of the universe. only towards the end of his essay does lord bacon begin business with the atheists. "they that deny a god," he says, "destroy a man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to god by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature." this is pointed and vigorous, but after all it is a matter of sentiment. some prefer the fallen angel, others the risen ape. lord bacon, like earl beaconsfield, is on the side of the angels. we are on the other side. a being who has done something, and will do more, however humble his origin, is preferable to one who can only boast of his fine descent. finally, his lordship takes the illustration of the dog, to whom man is "instead of a god." what generosity and courage he will put on, in the "confidence of a better nature than his own." so man gathereth force and faith from divine protection and favor. atheism therefore "depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty." but this is to forget that there may be more than one means to the same end. human nature may be exalted above its frailty without becoming the dog of a superior intelligence. science, self-examination, culture, public opinion, and the growth of humanity, are more than substitutes for devotion to a deity. they are capable of exalting man continuously and indefinitely. they do not appeal to the spaniel element in his nature; they make him free, erect, noble, and self-dependent. on the whole we are bound to say that lord bacon's essay on atheism is unworthy of his genius. if it were the only piece of his writing extant, we should say it was the work of one who had great powers of expression but no remarkable powers of thought. he writes very finely as a strong advocate, putting a case in a way that commands attention, and perhaps admiration for its force and skill. but something more than this is to be expected when a really great man addresses himself to a question of such depth and importance. what then are we to conclude? why this, that lord bacon dared not give the rein to his mind in an essay on atheism. he was bound to be circumspect in a composition level to the intelligence of every educated reader. we prefer to take him where he enjoys greater freedom. under the veil of a story, for instance, he aims a dart at the superstition of a special providence, which is an ineradicable part of the christian faith. bion, the atheist, being shown the votive tablets in the temple of neptune, presented by those who prayed to the god in a storm and were saved, asked where were the tablets of those who were drowned. bacon tells the story with evident gusto, and it is in such things that we seem to get at his real thoughts. in a set essay on atheism, a man of his worldly wisdom, and un-heroic temper, was sure to kneel at the regular altars. the single query "why should they trouble themselves?" explains it all. christianity and slavery. * * christianity and slavery. no. of oxford house papers. by h. henley henson, b.a., head of the oxford house in bethnal green. london: rivingtons. some time ago i delivered a lecture in the london hall of science on "christianity and slavery." among my critics there was one gentleman, and the circumstance was so noteworthy that my friend the chairman expressed a wish, which i cordially echoed, that we might have the pleasure of hearing him again. a few days ago a pamphlet reached me on the subject of that lecture, written by my friendly opponent, who turns out to be the head of the oxford house in bethnal green. mr. henson sends me the pamphlet himself "with his compliments," and i have read it carefully. indeed, i have marked it in dozens of places where his statements strike me as inaccurate and his arguments as fallacious; and, on the whole, i think it best to give him a set answer in this journal. mr. henson's paper is not, in my opinion, a very forcible one on the intellectual side. but perhaps that is, in a certain sense, one of its merits; for the christian case in this dispute is so bad that sentiment does it more service than logic. i must, however, allow that mr. henson is a courteous disputant, and i hope i shall reciprocate his good feeling. when he opposed me at the hall of science, he admits that i treated him "with a courtesy which relieves controversy of its worst aspects." i trust he will be equally satisfied with my rejoinder. whenever i may have occasion to express myself strongly, i shall simply be in earnest about the theme, without the least intention of being discourteous. i mean no offence, and i hope i shall give none. mr. henson says he is dealing in a brief compass with a big subject, but "the outlines are clear, and may be perceived very readily by any honest man of moderate intelligence." well, whether it is that i am not an honest man, or that i possess immoderate intelligence, i certainly do not see the outlines of the subject as mr. henson sees them. the relation of christianity to slavery is an historical question, and mr. henson treats it as though it were one of dialectics. however, i suppose i had better follow him, and show that he is wrong even on his own ground. mr. henson undertakes to prove three things. ( ) that slavery is flatly opposed to the teaching of the new testament. ( ) that the abolition of slavery in europe was mainly owing to christianity. ( ) that at this present time christianity is steadily working against slavery all over the world. before i discuss the first proposition i must ask why the _old_ testament is left out of account. mr. henson relegates it to a footnote, and there he declares "once for all, that the mosaic law has nothing to do with the question." but mr. henson's "once for all" has not the force of a papal decree. it is simply a bit of rhetorical emphasis, like a flourish to a signature. does he mean to say that the author of the mosaic law was not the same god who speaks to us in the new testament? if it was the same god, "the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever," the mosaic law has very much to do with the question; unless--and this is a vital point--jesus distinctly abrogates it in any respect. he _did_ distinctly abrogate the _lex talionis_, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but he left the laws of slavery exactly as he found them, and in this he was followed by peter and paul, and by all the fathers of the church. mr. henson tells us that "the jews were a barbarous race, and slavery was necessary to that stage of development," and that "the law of moses moderated the worst features of slavery." the second statement cannot be discussed, for we do not know what was the condition of slavery among the jews before the so-called mosaic law (centuries after moses) came into vogue. the first statement, however, is perfectly true; the jews _were_ barbarous, and slavery among them was inevitable. but that is speaking _humanly_. what is the use of god's interference if he does not make people wiser and better? why did he lay down slavery laws without hinting that they were provisional? why did he so express himself as to enable christian divines and whole churches to justify slavery from the bible long after it had died out of the internal polity of civilised states? surely god might have given less time to aaron's vestments and the paraphernalia of his own tabernacle, and devoted some of his infinite leisure to teaching the jews that property in human flesh and blood is immoral. instead of that he actually told them, not only how to buy foreigners (leviticus xxv. , ), but how to enslave their own brethren (exodus xxi. - ). when jesus christ came from heaven to give mankind a new revelation he had a fine opportunity to correct the brutalities of the mosaic law. yet mr. henson allows that he "did not actually forbid slavery in express terms," and that he "never said in so many words, slavery is wrong." but why not? it will not do to say the time was not ripe, for mr. henson admits that in rome "the fashionable philosophies, especially that of the stoics, branded slavery as an outrage against the natural equality of men." surely jesus christ might have kept abreast of the stoics. surely, too, as he did not mean to say anything more for at least two thousand years, he might have gone _in advance_ of the best teaching of the age, so as to provide for the progress of future generations. but, says mr. henson, jesus christ "laid down broad principles which took from slavery its bad features, and tended, by an unerring law to its abolition." well, the tendency was a remarkably slow one. men still living can remember when slavery was abolished in the british dominions. i can remember when it was abolished in the united states. eighteen centuries of christian _tendency_ were necessary to kill slavery! surely the natural growth of civilisation might have done as much in that time, though jesus christ had never lived and taught. how civilisation _did_ mitigate the horrors of slavery, and was gradually but surely working towards its abolition, may be seen in gibbon's second chapter. this was under the great pagan emperors, some of whom knew christianity and despised it. "slavery is cruel," says mr. henson, while "christianity teaches men to be kind and to love one another." but _teaching_ men to love one another, even if christianity taught nothing else--which is far from the truth--is a very questionable expenditure of time and energy; for how is love to be _taught_? besides, a master and a slave might be attached to each other--as was often the case--without either seeing that slavery was a violation of the law of love. what was needed was the sentiment of _justice_. that has broken the chains of the slave. the stoics were on the right track after all, while christianity lost itself in idle sentimentalism. "slavery denies the equality of men," says mr. henson, while "christianity asserts it strongly." i regret i cannot agree with him. certain amiable texts which he cites might easily be confronted with others of a very different character. what did christ mean by promising that when he came into his kingdom his disciples should sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of israel? how is this consistent with his saying, "call no man master"? what did paul mean by ordering unlimited obedience to "the powers that be"? what did he and peter mean by telling slaves to obey their owners? is all this consistent with the doctrine of human equality? mr. henson simply reads into certain new testament utterances what was never in the speakers' minds. his abstract argument is indeed perilous in regard to such composite writings as the gospels and the epistles. let it be assumed, for argument's sake, that christianity does somewhere assert the equality of men. then it condemns royalty as well as slavery; yet peter says, "fear god and honor the king." i leave mr. henson to extricate himself from this dilemma. i repeat that all this dialectic is a kind of subterfuge; at least it is an evasion. the great fact remains that jesus christ never breathed a whisper against slavery when he had the opportunity. yet he could denounce what he disapproved in the most vigorous fashion. his objurgation of the scribes and pharisees is almost without a parallel. surely he might have reserved a little of his boisterous abuse for an institution which was infinitely more harmful than the whole crowd of his rivals. those who opposed _him_ were overwhelmed with vituperation, but not once did he censure those who held millions in cruel bondage, turning men into mere beasts of burden, and women, if they happened to be beautiful, into the most wretched victims of lust. let us now turn to paul, the great apostle whose teaching has had more influence on the faith and practice of christendom than that of jesus himself. mr. henson says that "the apostle does not say one word for or against slavery as such." again i regret to differ. paul never said a word _against_ slavery, but he said many words that sanctioned it by implication. he tells slaves (_servants_ in the authorised version) to count their owners worthy of all honor ( tim. vi. ); to be obedient unto them, with fear and trembling, as unto christ (ephesians vi. ); and to please them in all things (titus ii. ). i need not discuss whether servants means _slaves_ and masters _owners_, for mr. henson admits that such is their meaning. here then paul is, if jesus was not, brought face to face with slavery, and he does not even suggest that the institution is wrong. he tells slaves to obey their owners as they obey christ; and, on the other hand, he bids owners to "forbear threatening" their slaves. but so much might have been said by cicero and pliny; the former of whom, as lecky says, wrote many letters to his slave tiro "in terms of sincere and delicate friendship"; while the latter "poured out his deep sorrow for the death of some of his slaves, and endeavored to console himself with the thought that as he had emancipated them before their death, they had at least died free men." paul does indeed say that both bond and free are "all one in christ." but louis the fourteenth would have admitted _that_ kinship between himself and the meanest serf in france, "one in christ" is a spiritual idea, and has relation to a future life, in which earthly distinctions would naturally cease. mr. henson is obliged to face the story of onesimus, the runaway slave, whom paul deliberately sent back to his master, philemon. "the apostle's position," he says, "is practically this"; whereupon he puts into paul's mouth words of his own invention. i do not deny his right to use this literary artifice, but i decline to let it impose on my own understanding. there is a certain pathetic tenderness in paul's letter to philemon if we suppose that he took the institution of slavery for granted, but it vanishes if we suppose that he felt the institution to be wrong. professor newman justly remarks that "onesimus, in the very act of taking to flight, showed that he had been submitting to servitude against his will, and that the house of his owner had previously been a prison to him." nor do i see any escape from the same writer's conclusion that, although paul besought philemon to treat onesimus as a brother, "this very recommendation, full of affection as it is, virtually recognises the moral rights of philemon to the services of his slave." mr. benson apparently feels this himself. "christian tradition," he says, "declares that philemon at once set onesimus free." but "tradition" can hardly be cited as a fact. mr. henson says "it is more than probable," or, in other words, _certain_; yet he cannot expect me to follow him in his illogical leap. nor, indeed, is the "traditional" liberation of onesimus of much importance to the argument. not philemon's but paul's views are in dispute; and if philemon did liberate onesimus--which is a pure assumption--paul certainly did not advise him to do anything of the kind. paul's epistle to philemon does not, from its very-nature, seem intended for publication. why then, in the ease of private correspondence, did he not hint that slavery was only tolerated for the time and would eventually cease? instead of that he sent back onesimus to a servitude from which he had fled. how unlike theodore parker writing his discourse, with a runaway slave in the back room, and a revolver on his desk! how unlike walt whitman watching the slumber of another fugitive, with one hand on his trusty rifle! mr. henson lives after the abolition of slavery, and as he clings to his bible as god's word he reads into it the morality of a later age. let him consult the writings of christian divines on the subject, and he will see that they have almost invariably justified slavery from scripture. ignatius (who is said to have seen jesus), st. cyprian, pope gregory the great, st. basil, tertullian, st. isidore, st. augustine, st. bernard, st. thomas aquinas, and bossuet, all taught that slavery is a divine institution. during all the centuries from ignatius to bossuet, what eminent christian ever denounced slavery as wicked? even the christian jurisprudists of the eighteenth century defended negro slavery, which it was reserved for the sceptical montesquieu and the arch-heretic voltaire to condemn. montesquieu's ironical chapter on the subject is worthy of molliere, and voltaire's is an honor to humanity. he called slavery "the degrada of the species"; and, in answer to puffendorff, who claimed that slavery had been established by the free consent of the opposing parties, he exclaimed, "i will believe puffendorff, when he shows me the original contract." negro slavery was defended in america by direct appeal to the bible. mr. henson seeks to lessen the force of this damning fact by referring to these defenders of slavery as "certain clergymen and other christians," and as "ignorant and unworthy members of the church." _certain_ clergymen! why, the clergy defended slavery almost to a man, and in the northern states they were even more bigoted than in the south. mrs. beecher stowe said that the church was so familiarly quoted as being on the side of slavery, that "statesmen on both sides of the question have laid that down as a settled fact." theodore parker said that if the whole american church had "dropped through the continent and disappeared altogether, the anti-slavery cause would have been further on." he pointed out that no church ever issued a single tract, among all its thousands, against property in human flesh and blood; and that , slaves were owned by presbyterians, , by baptists, and , by methodists. wilberforce himself declared that the american episcopal church "raises no voice against the predominant evil; she palliates it in theory, and in practice she shares in it. the mildest and most conscientious of the bishops of the south are slaveholders themselves." the harmony presbytery of south carolina deliberately resolved that slavery was justified by holy writ. the methodist episcopal church decided in against allowing any "colored persons" to give testimony against "white persons." the college church of the union theological seminary, prince edward county, was endowed with slaves, who were hired out to the highest bidder for the pastor's salary. lastly, professor moses stuart, of andover, who is accounted the greatest american theologian since jonathan edwards, declared that "the precepts of the new testament respecting the demeanor of slaves and their masters beyond all question recognise the existence of slavery." so much for mr. henson's "certain clergymen." mr. henson also argues that the northern states were "the most distinctly christian," and that they were opposed to slavery. history belies this statement harriet martineau, when she visited america and stood on the anti-slavery platform, says she was in danger of her life in the north while scarcely molested in the south. when william lloyd garrison delivered his first anti-slavery lecture in boston, the classic home of american orthodoxy, every catholic and protestant church was closed against him, and he was obliged to accept the use of julian hall from abner kneeland, an infidel who had been prosecuted for blasphemy. it was not "the true spirit of christianity" which abolished slavery in the united states, but "the true spirit of humanity," which inspired some christians and more freethinkers to vindicate the natural rights of men of all colors. even in the end, slavery was not terminated by the vote of the churches; it was abolished by lincoln as a strategic act in the midst of a civil war, precisely as was predicted by thomas paine, who not only hated slavery while his christian defamers lived by it, but was more sagacious in his political forecast than all the orthodox statesmen of his age. "a movement headed by clarkson and wilberforce," says mr. henson, "could be no other than christian," but why? were not the slave-owners also christians? was not the strength of freethinkers, from jeremy bentham downwards, given to the abolition movement? were not the freethinkers all on one side, while the christians were divided? and why did the abolition movement in england wait until new ideas had leavened the public mind? had it been purely christian, would it not have triumphed long before? the fact is there was plenty of christianity during the preceding thousand years, but the sceptical and humanitarian work of the eighteenth century was necessary before there could be any general revolt against injustice and oppression. no perversion of history can alter the fact that, in the words of professor newman, "the first public act against slavery came from republican france, in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm." mr. henson sees this clearly himself, and therefore he pretends that all the best ideas of the french revolution were borrowed from christianity. shades of voltaire and diderot, of mirabeau and danton, listen to this apologist of the faith you despised! voltaire's face is wreathed with ineffable irony, diderot contemplates the speaker as a new species for a psychological monograph, mirabeau flings back his leonine head with a swirl of the black mane and a glare of the great eyes, and danton roars a titanic laugh that shakes the very roof of hades. now let us turn to the old indigenous slavery of europe. mr. henson appeals to "the witness of history," and he shall have it. he undertakes to prove "that among the various causes which tended to assuage the hardship and threaten the permanence of slavery, the most powerful, the most active, and most successful was christianity"; also "that when the barbarian conquests re-established slavery in a new form, the church exerted all her energies on the side of freedom." that christianity "threatened" the permanence of slavery is, of course, purely a matter of opinion. mr. henson takes one view, i have given reasons for another, and the reader must judge between us. that it softened the rigors of slavery is a very questionable statement. when mr. henson says that "roman slavery was, perhaps, the most cruel and revolting kind of slavery," he is guilty of historical confusion. roman slavery lasted for very many centuries. in the early ages it was brutal enough, but under the great emperors, and especially the antonines, it was far more merciful than negro slavery was in christian america. slaves were protected by law; the power of putting them to death was taken from the masters and entrusted to the magistrates; and, as gibbon says, "upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured slave either obtained his deliverance or a less cruel master." compare this with the condition of serfs under the christian feudal system, when, in mr. henson's own language, "the serf was tied to the soil, bought and sold with it, the chattel of his master, who could overwork, beat, and even kill him at will." the phrase "re-established slavery in a new form," seems to imply that christianity had abolished slavery before the barbaric conquests. but it had done nothing of the kind. nay, as a matter of fact, constantine and his successors drew a sharper line than ever between slaves and freemen. constantine (the first christian emperor) actually decreed death against any freewoman who should marry a slave, while the slave himself was to be burnt alive! much of what mr. henson says about the manumission of slaves by some of the mediaeval clergy is unquestionably true. but who doubts that, during a thousand years, a humane and even a noble heart often beat under a priest's cassock? these manumissions, however, were of christian slaves. the pagan slaves--such as the sclavonians, from whom the word _slave_ is derived--were considered to have no claims at all. surely the liberation of fellow christians might spring from proselyte zeal. "mohammedans also," as professor newman says, "have a conscience against enslaving mohammedans, and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he adopts their religion." manumission of slaves was common among humane owners under the roman empire; indeed gibbon observes that the law had to guard against the swamping of free citizens by the sudden inrush of "a mean and promiscuous multitude." clerical manumission of slaves in mediaeval times was therefore no novelty. on the other hand, bishops held slaves like kings and nobles. the abbey of st. germain de pres, for instance, owned , slaves, and the abbey of st. martin de tours , . the monks, who according to mr. henson, did so much to extinguish slavery, owned multitudes of these servile creatures. the acts of a few humane and noble spirits are no test of the effects of a system. the decisions of church councils are a much better criterion. they show the influence of _principles_, when personal equation is eliminated. turning to these councils, then, what do we find? why that from the council of laodicea to the lateran council ( )--that is, for eight hundred years--the church sanctioned slavery again and again. slaves and their owners might be "one in christ," but the church taught them to keep their distance on earth. civilisation, not christianity, gradually extinguished slavery in europe. foreign slavery, such as that in our west indian possessions, is an artificial thing, and may be abolished by the stroke of a pen. but domestic slavery has to die a natural death. the progress of education and refinement, and the growth of the sentiment of justice, help to extinguish it; but behind these there is an economical law which is no less potent. slave labor is only consistent with a low industrial life; and thus, as civilisation expands, slavery fades into serfdom, and serfdom into wage-service, as naturally as the darkness of night melts into the morning twilight, and the twilight into day. mr. henson throws in some not ineloquent remarks about the abolition by christianity of the gladiatorial shows at rome. he himself has stood within the ruined colosseum and re-echoed byron's heroics. mr. henson even outdid byron, for he looked up to the dome of st. peter's, where gleamed the cross of christ, and rejoiced that "he had triumphed at last." "if only mr. foote had been there!" mr. henson exclaims. well, gibbon was there before mr. henson and before byron. what he thought in the colosseum i know not, but i know that the great project of _the decline and fall of the roman empire_ took shape in his mind one eventful evening as he "sat musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of jupiter." yet i suppose gibbon's fifteenth chapter is scarcely to mr. henson's taste. had i "been there" with mr. henson, i too might have had my reflections, and i might have thrown this freethought _douche_ on his christian ardor. "yes, the cross _has_ triumphed. there it gleams over the dome of st. peter's, the mightiest church in the world. below it, until the recent subversion of the pope's temporal power, walked the most ignorant, beggarly and criminal population in europe. what are these to the men who built up the glory of ancient rome? what is their city to the magnificent city of old, among whose ruins they walk like pigmies amid the relics of giants? this time-eaten, weather-beaten colosseum saw many a gladiator 'butchered to make a roman holiday.' but has not christian rome witnessed many a viler spectacle? has it not seen hundreds of noble men burnt alive in the name of christ? when rome was pagan, thought was free. gladiatorial shows satisfied the bestial craving in vulgar breasts, but the philosophers and poets were unfettered, and the intellect of the few was gradually achieving the redemption of the many. when rome was christian, she introduced a new slavery. thought was scourged and chained, while the cruel instincts of the multitude were gratified with exhibitions of suffering, compared with which the bloodiest arena was tame and insipid. your christian rome, in the superb metaphor of hobbes, was but the ghost of pagan rome, sitting throned and crowned on the grave thereof; nay, a ghoul, feeding not on the dead limbs of men, but on their living hearts and brains. look at your cross! before christ appeared it was the symbol of life; since it has been the symbol of misery and humiliation; and in the name of your crucified one the people have been crucified between the spiritual and temporal thieves. but happily your cross has had its day. st. peter's may yet crumble before the colosseum, and the statue of a bruno may outlast the walls of the vatican." christ up to date. this is an age of weak conviction and strong pretence. christianity is perishing of intellectual atrophy. its scriptures and its dogmas are falling into more and more discredit. mr. gladstone may defend the bible with passionate devotion and lofty ignorance, but better informed christians see that the old testament is doomed. they say it must be read in a new light. its science and history must be regarded as merely human; nay, its very morality savors of the barbarism of the jews. only its best ethical teaching, and its upward aspirations, are to be regarded as the workings or god in the jewish mind. nor is this all. there is a revolt against the supernaturalism of the new testament. christians like dr. abbott explain away the resurrection as no physical fact, but a spiritual conception. the creed of christendom is gradually melting away like a northern iceberg floating into southern seas. pinnacle after pinnacle of glittering dogma, loosens, falls, and sinks for ever. only the central block remains intact, and we are assured it will never change. the storms of controversy will never rend it; the rays of the sun of science will never make an impression on its marble firmness. but freethinkers smile at this cheap boast. they know the thaw will continue until the last fragment has melted into the infinite ocean. the central, indissoluble part of christianity is jesus christ. he will never fade, we are told. he is not for an age, but for all time. when all the dogmas of the churches have perished, the divine figure of christ will survive, and flourish in immortal beauty. all the world will yet worship him. "christ" will be the universal passport in the depths of china, in the wilds of africa, on the tartar steppes, and among the haunted ruins of old asia, as well as in the present christendom of europe and america. this prophecy is very pretty, but it lacks precision. the prophets forget to tell us whether the divine figure of christ is to be human or supernatural; the grandest of men or the smallest of gods. if he be indeed a god, they are playing strange tricks with his works and sayings; while, if he be indeed a mere man, they forget to explain how it is likely that the human race will ever look back to a single dead jew as the moral microcosm, the consummate spiritual flower of humanity, the beacon of ideal life to every generation of voyagers on the sea of time. logic, however, must not be expected of christians, at least in an age of dissolving views like the present. they will go on quoting kenan's prize-essay panegyric on christ, without any reference to the rest of his vie de jesus_. they will persist in quoting mill's farfetched eulogy, without referring to other passages in the essay _on liberty. but this is not all, nor even the worst. the sentimentalism of "popular" and "advanced" christianity is turning jesus christ into a hero of romance. he is taking the place of king arthur, of blameless memory; and we shall soon see the apostles take the place of the knights of the round table. rancid orators and flatulent poets are gathering to the festival jesus christ will make a fine speech for the one set, and fine copy for the other. the professional biographers will cut in for a share in the spoil, and the brains of impudence will be ransacked to eke out the stories of matthew, mark, luke, and john. lives of christ are becoming quite fashionable. fleetwood's honest but prosaic book had fallen into-neglect. the very maulers of old bookstalls thrust out their tongues at at. the still older book of jeremy taylor--a work of real genius and golden eloquence--was too stiff reading for an idle generation. just in the nick of time the english translation of kenan appeared. the first edition was less scientific than the thirteenth. kenan had only just broken away from the catholic church; he was also under the influence of his visit to palestine; his _vie de jesus_ was therefore a sentimental parisian romance; the smell of patchouli was on every page. yet here and there the quick reader caught the laugh of voltaire. kenan's book set a new vogue. the severe, critical strauss was laid aside in england, and "the savior's" life was "cultivated on new principles." by and bye the writers and publishers found there was "money in it." jesus christ could be made to pay. dr. farrar made thousands out of his trashy volumes, and his publishers netted a fortune. mr. haweis has done the same trick with four volumes. ward beecher spent his last days on a life of christ. talmage is occupied on the same labor of love--and profit. even the catholic church is not behindhand. pere didon has put forth _his_ life of christ in two fat volumes as an antidote to the poison of kenan. and the end is not yet. nevertheless we see the beginning of the end. it was bound to come. after the prose writers prance the versifiers, and sir edward arnold is first in the motley procession. sir edward arnold's _light of asia_ was a fairly good piece of work. he had caught the trick of tennysonian blank-verse, and he put some of the best features of buddhism before the english public in a manner that commanded attention. standing aloof from buddhism himself, though sympathising with it, he was able to keep an impartial attitude. further, he stuck to the buddhist stories as he found them. all the license he took was that of selection and versification. but his recent _light of the world_ is another matter. he dishes up jesus christ in it, and pontius pilate and mary magdalene and the wise men of the east, as freely as tennyson dishes up arthur and launcelot and guinevere and the rest of that famous company. his style, too, is tennysonian, to a certain degree. it is something like the master's on its general level, but we miss the flashing felicities, the exquisite sentence or image that makes us breathless with sudden pleasure. sir edward's style has always a smack of the _daily telegraph_. he is high-flown in expressing even small ideas, or in describing trivialities. like a true christian and courtier, sir edwin arnold dedicates his book to "the queen's most excellent majesty." those who fear god must also honor the king; and did not jesus himself tell us to render unto caesar the things that be caesar's, as well as unto god the things that be god's? we presume sir edwin's dedication is "with permission." we also presume it will help the sale and promote his chance of the poet-laureateship. after the dedication comes the "proeme" of eight couplets, occupying a separate page, faced and backed with virgin paper. the sovereign voice spake, once more, in mine ear: "write, now, a song unstained by any tear!" "what shall i write?" i said: the voice replied: "write what we tell thee of the crucified!" "how shall i write," i said, "who am not meet one word of that sweet speaking to repeat?" "it shall be given unto thee! do this thing!" answered the voice: "wash thy lips clean, and sing!" this "proeme" is, to say the least of it, peculiar. the "sovereign voice" can hardly be the queen's. it must be god almighty's. sir edwin arnold is therefore inspired. he writes as it is "given unto" him. and before he begins, by divine direction, he washes his lips clean; though he omits to tell us how he did it, whether with a flannel or a pocket-handkerchief. it is well to know that sir edwin is inspired. carnal criticism is thus disarmed and questions become blasphemous. but if sir edwin had _not_ been inspired we should have offered certain remarks and put certain queries. for instance, how does he know that the star of the nativity was "a strange white star"? may it not have been red, yellow, blue, or green--especially green? how did he discover that the magi, or priests of the zoroastrian religion, were really buddhists and came from india? had sir edwin less communication with the "sovereign voice," we should have imagined that the magi were transformed into buddhists for the sake of convenience; sir edwin knowing comparatively little of the persic faith, but a good deal of the indian, and possessing a natural itch to display his own learning. further we should have asked him how he discovered that by three years after the crucifixion the christian faith had spread to athens and rome. according to all previous records the statement is simply preposterous. but the "sovereign voice" has spoken through sir edwin arnold, and thrown quite a fresh light on the earliest history of christianity. then, again, we should have been curious to know why sir edwin accepted the legend of mary magdalene being the tenant of magdal tower, a place that never existed (as we thought) but in the geography of faith. humanly speaking, it seemed probable that the lady's name had relation to head-dressing. but we live and learn, and in the course of time the "sovereign voice" settles all these things. there is no clear record in the gospels of jesus christ's visit to tyre, but sir edwin assures us he spent a few hours there--perhaps on an excursion--and we bow to the "sovereign voice." nor is there a scholar in christendom who regards the pretended letter from publius lentulus to the roman senate as anything but a puerile forgery. yet sir edwin mentions it in a footnote, apparently with respect; indeed, he founds upon it his personal description of jesus. once again, scholarship must bow to the "sovereign voice." by the way, however, the lentulus epistle describes the hair of jesus as "wine-color." this is adopted by sir edwin, who construes is as "hazel," though--barring inspiration and the "sovereign voice"--it might have meant the color which is sometimes politely, if not accurately, called auburn. anyhow, the ancients were acquainted with various colored wines, and it is satisfactory to know the precise hue intended by the gentleman who wrote the epistle of lentulus. sir edwin represents jesus as a nazarite. now, the nazarites eschewed scissors and razors, but sir edwin says they parted their hair in the middle, which is another tip from the "sovereign voice." sir edwin flashes his inspiration on another point. critics are satisfied that the emperor julian, the last of the pagans, did _not_ cry, _vicisti galilae_! mr. swinburne, however, as a merely carnal poet, employed the legend in his splendid "proserpina," using it with superb effect in the young pagan's retort, "thou hast conquered, o pale galilean!--thy dead shall go down to thee dead." but now the "sovereign voice" speaks through sir edwin arnold, and the legend must stand as history. under the guidance of the "sovereign voice" sir edwin is able to enlighten us on the physiology of angels. these creatures are usually painted with wings. but this is a mistake. they are wingless; for where these live there blows no wind, nor aught spreads, gross as air, nor any kind of substance, whereby spirits' march is stopped. sir edwin knows all about them. angels do not need wings, and have none, moving apparently _in vacuo_. but what havoc this truth would make in the picture galleries of europe. raphael himself was mistaken. he took angels to be a species of fowl, whereas they are--well, sir edwin does not tell us. he tells us what they are _not_. what they are is, as usual, left to the fancy of the reader, who pays his money and takes his choice. only he must beware of _wings_. positively the most gratifying thing in sir edwin's book is this. under the influence of the "sovereign voice" he is able to tell us how god almighty likes to be designated. perhaps it is better not to name him at all, but if we _must_ name him--and it seems hard to refrain from some term or other--we should call him _eloi_. that is what jesus called him, and we see no reason why it should not become fashionable. sir edwin arnold's method of dishing up jesus christ is certainly artful. it does credit to his _daily telegraph_ training. everybody knows that one of the chief difficulties of novelists is to make their wonderful heroes act and talk. sir edwin does not jump this difficulty. he shirks it. he takes up the story of jesus after his death, resurrection, and ascension. three years are allowed to elapse, to give the risen nazarene time to get clean away, and then sir edwin begins business. after a preliminary section, in, which the three magi are brought upon the scene, the body of the poem opens with mary magdalene, who does nearly all the talking to the very end. indeed the poem should have been called after her, for it is really "mary magdalene on jesus christ." the lady gives her reminiscences--that is, sir edwin gives them for her. by this method he is able to omit all mention of the cruder features of the gospel story. when jesus played the devil with the pigs, for instance, mary magdalene was absent, and the incident forms no part of her narrative. apparently, too, she was absent, or deaf, or thinking of something else, when he preached hell-fire and "believe or be damned." and as this pretty method of mary-arnold selection is pursued throughout, it will easily be seen that the poem is an arbitrary piece of highly-colored fiction, in which jesus christ is made to serve the author's purposes. in short it is "christ up to date." sir edwin's second piece of strategy is still more transparent. mary magdalene is represented as several ladies rolled into one, and her house is a perfect museum of relics. she is mary magdalene, mary of bethany, the woman who anointed christ's feet, and the mary who helped to embalm him. she keeps the famous alabaster box in her cabinet; she boards and lodges the young woman that jesus raised from the dead; and her brother lazarus is also on show when required. lazarus, too, is many single gentlemen rolled into one. he is the resurrected man, the young man who was told to sell his property and give the proceeds to the poor, and the young man who fled stark naked at the arrest of jesus, leaving his clothes in the hands of his pursuers. this is a very convenient plan. it is history made easy, or the art of poetical bam-boozling. mary magdalene has a long talk with pontius pilate, who is haunted by the memory of the pale galilean. afterwards she has several days' talk with an old indian, who turns out to be the sole survivor of those three wise men from the east, come to find out all about the king of the jews. his two colleagues had died without satisfying their curiosity. he himself did without news for thirty-six years, and only went back to palestine after the king of the jews had ended his career; the visit, of course, being timed to suit sir edwin arnold's convenience. throughout the poem mary magdalene talks. arnoldese. here is a typical passage. "it may be there shall come in after days--when this good spell is spread--some later scribes, some far-off pharisees, will take his law,--written with love's light fingers on the heart, not stamped on stone 'mid glare of lightning-fork--will take, and make its code incorporate; and from its grace write grim phylacteries to deck the head of dressed authority; and from its golden mysteries forge keys to jingle in the belt of pious pride." can anyone imagine the seven-devilled mary magdalene conversing in this way? considered in the light of its title this poem is a mistake and a monstrous failure. it is also labored and full of "fine writing." not only are the gospel story and the teachings of jesus played fast and loose with, but the simplest things are narrated in grandiose language, with a perfect glut of fanciful imagery, fetched in not to illustrate but to adorn. here and there, however, the language of jesus is paraphrased and damnably spoiled. what reader of the gospes does not remember the exquisite english in which our translators have rendered the lament over jerusalem? sir edwin parodies it as follows:-- how oft i would have gathered all thy children in as a hen clucks her chickens to her wings. surely this is perfectly ridiculous. the collecting and sheltering are put into the background by that dreadful "cluck," and the reader is forced to imagine jesus as a clucking hen. on the whole, the gospel writers were better artists than sir edwin arnold. to conclude. the poem contains plenty of "fine writing" and some good lines. but as a whole it is "neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." as a picture of jesus christ it is a laborious absurdity; as a marketable volume it may be successful; and as a sample of sir edwin arnold's powers and accomplishments it will perhaps impose on half-educated sentimentalists. secularism and christianity. a letter to the "_suffolk chronicle_," january , . sir,--a friend has favored me with a copy of your last issue, containing a long report of the rev. w. e. blomfield's sermon at turret green chapel, apparently in reply to my lecture on "secularism superior to christianity." mr. blomfield declines to meet me in set debate, on the ground that i am not "a _reverent_ freethinker," which is indeed true; but i observe that he does not really mind arguing with me, only he prefers to do it where i cannot answer him. mr. blomfield finds the pulpit a safe place for what can hardly be called the courtesies of discussion. he refers to certain remarks of mine (i presume) as "petty jokes and witticisms fit only for the tap-room of a fourth-rate tavern." i will not dispute the description. i defer to mr. blomfield's superior knowledge of taverns and tap-rooms. i notice mr. blomfield's great parade of "reverence." i notice also that he speaks of freethought arguments or objections as "short-sighted folly" and "sheer nonsense." i judge, therefore, that "reverence" is not intended by mr. blomfield to be reciprocal. he claims a monopoly of it for his own opinions. if he would only take the trouble to think about the matter, it might occur to him that "reverence" is not, properly speaking, a preliminary but a result. let us have inquiry and discussion first and "reverence" afterwards. if i find anything to revere i shall not need mr. blomfield's admonitions. i revere truth, goodness, and heroism, though i cannot revere what i regard as false or absurd. "reverence" is often the demand that imposture makes on honesty and superstition on intelligence. long faces are highly valued by the professors of mystery. mr. blomfield did not hear my lecture. had he done so he would have found an answer to many of his questions. it is all very well to bid the ipswich people to "beware of false prophets," but it is better to hear before condemning. how much attention, mr. blomfield asks, am i to give to this world and how much to another? just as much as they deserve. we know a great deal about this world, and may learn more. there are plenty of guesses about another world, but no knowledge. it is easy to ask "is there a future life?" but we must die to find out. meanwhile this life confronts us, with its hard duties and legitimate pleasures. it is our wisdom to make the best of it, on the rational belief that, if there should be a future life--which no one is in a position to affirm or deny--this must be the best preparation for it, whether our future be decided by evolution or divine justice. mr. blomfield's arguments against utility as the test of conduct were answered in my lecture. he says the principle is of difficult application. so are all principles in intricate cases; why else have christian divines written so many tons of casuistry? in any case the utilitarian principle is the only one which is honored in practice. other principles do very well on sunday, but they are cast aside on monday. the only question asked by statesmen, county councillors, school board members, or other public representatives, is "will the proposal tend to benefit the people?" this can be debated and settled. "is it according to the will of god?" is a question to set people by the ears and raise an endless quarrel. mr. blomfield says the fear of god saved poor joseph, yet i dare say potiphar's wife was a religious woman. the will of god sanctions many crimes. it tells the thug to kill travellers; it told the inquisition to torture and burn heretics; it told the catholics and protestants to rack and slaughter witches; it told christians and mohammedans to fight each other on hundreds of bloody battle-fields; it tells christians now to keep up laws against liberty of thought. there never was a time when these things would not have been denounced by secularism as crimes against humanity. motives to morality do not come from religion. they come from our social sympathies. preach to a tiger and he will eat you. differ from a torquemada and he will burn you. when one man wants another to help him, he does not judge by the name of his sect, but by the glance of his eye and the lines of his mouth. some men are born philanthropists, others are born criminals; between these are multitudes in whom good and bad tendencies are variously mixed, and who may be made better or worse by education and environment. the late professor clifford was an atheist, and one of the gentlest, kindest, and tenderest men that ever lived. jay gould was a member of a christian church and sometimes went round with the plate. he left twenty millions of money, and not a penny to any charity or good cause. lick, the freethinker, built and endowed the great observatory which is one of the glories of america. i do not propose to follow mr. blomfield in his excursion into ancient history. i will only remark that if he thinks there was any lack of "religion" in the worst days of the pagan world he is very much mistaken. coming to more modern times, i decline to accept his present of priests and popes who were "atheistic." whatever they were is a domestic question for the christian church. nor need i discuss luther's "fresh vision of god." he was a great man, but a savage controversialist, who called his opponents asses, swine, foxes, geese, and fools; which, i suppose, is worthy of the tap-room of a _first-rate_ tavern. as to the "awful collapse" of "unbelieving france" i do not know when it occurred. it was certainly not france that collapsed in the revolution. the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the church collapsed; but france inaugurated a new epoch of modern history. with respect to prayer, on which mr. blomfield is very hazy, i would like to discriminate between its "objective value" and its "subjective benefits." prayer as a means of inducing patience when you do not get what you ask for, is outside my province. i leave it to the clergy. prayer as a means of obtaining what you require is my concern, and i defy mr. blomfield to prove a single case. yet if prayer is not answered objectively, the secular principle holds the field that science is man's only providence. i am aware that christians employ doctors, insure their houses, and put lightning-conductors over their church steeples. they leave as little to god as possible. mr. blomfield says this is quite right, and i agree with him; but i will give him, if he cannot find them, twenty texts in support of the honest old doctrine of prayer from the new testament. mr. blomfield tells me i do not understand the bible. well, as i am not exactly a fool, the fault may be in the book. why was it not made plainer? why did god write it so that thousands of gentlemen get a fine living by explaining it--in all sorts of different ways? i am reminded that the bible is not a handbook of physical science. but did the church think so when it imprisoned galileo and made him swear that the earth did _not_ go round the sun? mr. blomfield says that "genesis gives an account of the origin of matter, and of life, and, finally, of man, which science has not disproved, on the admission of her most eminent sons." the bible is a handbook of science after all then! but what has science to do with the origin of matter? the origin of life is still an open question. the origin of man is _not_ an open question. genesis gives us a piece of mythology; darwin gave us the truth. among the eminent sons of science who is greater than he? yet he has utterly exploded the adam and eve story. darwin has left it on record that he rejected all revelation, and that for nearly forty years of his life he was a disbeliever in christianity. he did subscribe to a missionary society that was attempting to reform south american savages, but he never subscribed a penny for the propagation of christianity in england. i myself might think christianity good for savages. if i understand mr. blomfield rightly, god was unable to teach the jews any faster than he did, although he is both omnipotent and omniscient. were i to imitate mr. blomfield i should call this "sheer nonsense." in my lecture i stated that the old testament sanctioned slavery, and that there was not a word against it in the new testament. mr. blomfield replies that "the principles of the new testament sapped the foundations of that system." but let us deal with one question at a time. let the reverend gentleman indicate the text which i say does not exist. as for the "generous spirit" of the old testament laws about slavery, am i to find it in the texts allowing the jews to buy and sell the heathen, to enslave their own countrymen, to appropriate their children born in slavery, and to beat them to death providing they did not expire within forty-eight hours? my point is not that the jews held slaves. that was common in ancient times. i merely take objection to the doctrine that god laid down the slavery laws of the old testament. with regard to jesus christ, i am not aware that i have spoken of him as a "trickster." kenan, however, whom mr. blomfield appears to admire, suggests that the raising of lazarus was a performance arranged between him and jesus. this is a line of criticism i have never attempted. i do not regard the new testament miracles as actual occurrences, but as the products of christian imagination. mr. blomfield is angry with me for saying that the books of the bible are mostly anonymous, yet he declares that "their anonymity is little against them." i leave mr. blomfield to settle the point of fact with christian writers like canon driver and professor bruce. with respect to the new testament, i am told that my statement is "palpably incorrect." but what are the facts? with the exception of four of paul's epistles, and perhaps the first of peter, the whole of the new testament books are anonymous, in the sense that they were not written--as we have them--by the men whose names they bear, and that no one knows who _did_ write them. this is practically admitted by christian scholars, and i am ready to maintain it in discussion with mr. blomfield. mr. blomfield talks very freely, in conclusion, about the "fruits" of christianity and secularism. he even condescends to personal comparisons, which i warn him are dangerous. he compares spurgeon with bradlaugh. well, the one swam with the stream, and the other against it; the one lived in the world's smile, the other in the world's frown; the one enjoyed every comfort and many luxuries, the other was poor, worried, and harassed into his grave. spurgeon was no doubt a good man, but bradlaugh was the more heroic figure. jesus christ said some good things. among them was the injunction not to let one hand know the other's charity. mr. blomfield disregards this. he challenges secularists to a comparison. he asks where are our secularist hospitals. we do not believe in such things. sectarianism in charity is a christian vice. on the other hand, our party is comparatively small and poor, and christian laws prevent our holding any trusts for secularism. still, we do attend to our own poor as well as we can. our benevolent fund is sufficient for the relief of those who apply in distress. we cannot build "almshouses," but "atheist widows" are not neglected. on the whole, however, we are not so loud as the christians in praise of "charity," much of it is very degrading. if we had justice in society there would be less for "charity" to do. it is obvious that mr. blomfield picks his fruits of christianity with great discrimination. is it logical to select all you admire in christian countries and attribute it to christianity? the same process would prove the excellence of buddhism, brahminism, and mohammedanism. there are almshouses and hospitals in chrisendom, but there are also workhouses, gin-palaces, brothels, and prisons. drunkenness, prostitution, and gambling, are the special vices of christian nations. it is christian countries that build ironclads and make cannon, gatling guns, deadly rifles, and terrible explosives. it is christians who do most of the fighting on this planet. mr. blomfield may or may not consider these things. i scarcely expect him to reply. he prefers the "humble, obedient heart" to the "curious intellect." at any rate he preaches the preference to the young men of ipswich. for my part, i hope they will reject the counsel. i trust they will read, inquire, and think for themselves. their "intellect" should have enough "curiosity" to be satisfied as to the truth of what they are asked to believe. altar and throne. * * june , . myriads of honest, industrious women in england are laboring excessively for a bare pittance; day after day they go through the same monotonous and exhausting round of toil; and the end of it all is a bit of bread for some who are dear to them, and a squalid, cheerless existence for themselves. sometimes, when work is scarce, and sheer starvation confronts them, they are driven to the last resource of selling their bodies, and enter the unspeakable inferno of prostitution. england has thousands of other women who are lapped in an enervating and degrading luxury--without occupation, with none but frivolous cares--who fancy themselves infinitely superior to their poor, slaving, ill-dressed, and toilworn sisters. these disparities are as great as any that existed in the "infamous" days of pagan rome. the world has had eighteen hundred years of christianity, and its "salvation" is still in the dim and distant future. while the clergy have preached a hell after death, the people have been left simmering in a real hell in this life--the hell of ignorance, poverty, oppression, and misery. christianity is now boasting of what it is _going_ to do. it says it begins to understand jesus christ; it means to follows in its master's footsteps; it will strain every nerve to raise the downtrodden, to better the condition of the poor, and to give true comfort to the afflicted. there are some individual christians who mean this and try to practise it. but for the most part these fine new promises of christianity are nothing but sermon decorations, words for deeds, sawdust for bread, flash notes for good coin of the realm. we have but to look around us at this moment to see the true fruits of christianity. it is the same fruit that _all_ religion bears. under the pretence of being the best friend of the people, christianity (like other religions) has been the real friend of the privileged classes. it has also fostered a public sentiment in this direction. to prove this let us take a case in point. some time ago an english princess lost her lover by death. she was said to be inconsolable. but before long it was whispered that she was to marry her lover's brother. at length it was announced in the papers, only to be contradicted as a false rumor which very much hurt the feelings of all the parties it concerned. those who understood the nature of such contradictions smiled. by and bye the contradicted rumor was announced authoritatively. princess may _was_ to marry the gentleman in question. "now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of york." all england was soon astir with loyal enthusiasm, and people were everywhere set subscribing for presents to the dear princess. soldiers and sailors are sweated. pressure is put upon theatrical people. "you _must_ give _something_," is the cry. the city of london is to spend £ , on a necklace. one lady gives the royal couple a splendid country house with magnificent grounds. committees are formed right and left, and tens of thousands of pounds will be raised, on the ground that "unto him that hath shall be given"--in some cases, also, without neglecting the rest of the text, that "from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." who is the princess may? very likely a pleasant young lady. happily there are myriads of them in england. what has she ever done? she took the trouble to be born. her husband that is to be has an income from "the service." his father has £ , a year, voted by parliament, for the express purpose of providing for his children--in addition to his big income from other sources. all things considered, it does not seem that princess may and the duke of york are in want of anything. but how many other women--to say nothing of men--_are_ in want! is not this lavish generosity to a pair of royal and well-provided lovers an insult to the working people of england? is it not a special insult to the multitude of poor, struggling women, whose earnings are taxed to support the classes who lord it over them? it may, of course, be replied that poor women like the idea of all these presents to the princess. perhaps they do. but that only makes it worse. it shows their training has corrupted them. the last vice of a slave is to admire his oppressor. christianity is satisfied with this state of things. christian ministers will wink at it, when they do not bless it and approve it with a text. the archbishop of canterbury will officiate at the royal wedding, and deliver one of those courtier-like homilies which may be expected from one who takes £ , a year to preach the blessings of poverty and the damnable nature of wealth. this is what comes of eighteen hundred years of the "poor carpenter's" religion. his texts of renunciation are idle verbiage. his name is used to bamboozle the people, to despoil them, and to make them patient asses under their burdens. religion and privilege go together. what does the new testament say? "fear god and honor the king." fearing god means supporting the clergy. honoring the king means keeping one family in foolish luxury, as a symbol of the whole system of privilege which is maintained by the systematic exploitation of the people. we are crucified between two thieves who mock us, but do not share our cross; the spiritual thief, who robs us of our birthright of mental freedom, and the temporal thief, who robs us of the fruit of our labor. _arcades ambo_. some people will think we have written too plainly. we beg to tell them that we have had to practise self-restraint. the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance if we gave free expression to our disgust. the only hope for the future of society lies in the absolute extermination of christianity. that is the superstition which fools and degrades europe, and we must fight it to the death. martin luther. reformation day, as it is called, was celebrated on october throughout the protestant part of germany. three hundred and seventy-five years have rolled by since martin luther broke from the roman catholic church. emperor william went to wittenberg, with a great array of evangelical personages; and, as usual, the emperor made a speech, which for him was excellent. "there is no coercion," he said, "in matters of religion. here only free conviction of the heart is decisive, and the perception of this fact is the blissful fruit of the reformation." this is a fine-sounding declaration, but it has the misfortune to be untrue. liberty of conscience is not the fruit of the reformation, but an indirect and unintended result. nor is liberty of conscience a reality in any part of the german empire. christians are allowed to differ among themselves, but freethinkers are prosecuted for dissenting alike from catholic and protestant. since the present emperor's accession there have been many blasphemy prosecutions, sometimes for what would be regarded in other countries as very mild expressions of disbelief. several men and women have been sentenced to severe penalties for exercising the right of free speech, which, in the land of goethe, heine, strauss, and schopenhauer, is still confined to professed christians. the reformation, in fact, was a superficial movement. except for its moral revolt against the sale of indulgences, it touched no deep and durable principle. it merely substituted an infallible bible for an infallible church. differences of opinion crept into the protestant fold, but that was an accident, arising from the varied and discordant nature of the bible itself. every new protestant sect had to fight as strenuously for its right to exist as ever martin luther fought against the catholic church. protestantism, in short, was one priesthood saying to another priesthood "we are right and you are wrong." the catholic church had an immense advantage in its central organisation; the protestant church could only operate from different points; hence it was unable to bring about the same uniformity. the movement that was not superficial was the scientific and humanist movement, of which the reformation was in a certain sense an episode. italy and france did more for the world than germany. martin luther was a great fighter, but not a more heroic one than giordano bruno. melancthon was not so important a man as galileo. rabelais even, with all his dirt and jesting, was more in the stream of progress than luther, and far more than calvin. in the long run, it is knowledge and idea? that rule the world. luther was not great in knowledge, and certainly not great in ideas. he was a born fighter and a strong character. his proper place is among the heroic figures of history. he was a man of leading, but scarcely a man of light. luther was violently opposed to the scientific movement. he called copernicus an old fool. he would hear nothing against the accepted biblical theory of the universe. genesis was to him, as well as to the pope, the beginning and the end of sound science. nor was he more friendly to philosophy. draper truly asserts that the leaders of the reformation "were determined to banish philosophy from the church." aristotle was villified by luther as "truly a devil, a horrid calumniator, a wicked sycophant, a prince of darkness, a real apollyon, a beast, a most horrid impostor on mankind, a public and professed liar, a goat, a complete epicure, this twice execrable aristotle." such was luther's style in controversy. we commend it to the attention of protestants who rail at the _freethinker_. liberty of conscience is a principle of which luther had no conception. he claimed the right to think against the pope; he denied the right of others to think against himself. his attitude towards the anabaptists was fiendish. during the peasants war he urged the authorities to exterminate the rebels, to "stab, kill, and strangle them without mercy." melancthon taught that heretics "ought to be restrained by the sword." luther likewise declared that whoever denied even one article of the protestant faith should be punished severely. referring to a false teacher, he exclaimed, "drive him away as an apostle of hell; and if he does not flee, deliver him up as a seditious man to the executioner." hallam, buckle, lecky, and all reputable historians, agree that the protestant party held the same principle of persecution as the catholics. it was not disputed that death was the proper punishment of obstinate heresy. the only dispute was--which were the heretics, and who should die? luther's influence was very great in england, as calvin's was in scotland, and the leaders of the reformation in our own country had no doubt as to the justice of killing men for a difference of opinion. cranmer taught that heretics were first to be excommunicated; if that made no impression on them they were to suffer death. it satisfies one sense of the fitness of things that cranmer himself perished at the stake. becon taught that the duty of magistrates with regard to heretics was to punish them--"yea, and also to take them out of this life." this same becon called upon the temporal rulers to "be no longer the pope's hangmen." he preferred their being the hangmen of protestantism. latimer himself said of the anabaptists who were executed, "well, let them go!" bishop jewel, the great apologist of the protestant church of england, in answering harding the jesuit, replies in this way to the charge of being of the brotherhood of servetus, david george, and joan of kent: "we detected their heresies, and not you. we arraigned them; we condemned them. we put them to the execution of the laws. it seemeth very much to call them our brothers, because we burnt them." calvin held the same persecuting doctrine. all who opposed him were dealt with ruthlessly. he was a veritable pope of geneva. his treatment of servetus was infamous. but so universal was the principle on which calvin acted, that even the mild melancthon called the cruel roasting of servetus at a slow fire "a pious and memorable example for all posterity." protestantism boasts of having asserted the right of private judgment. it never did anything of the kind. not a single leader of the reformation ever asserted such a principle. erasmus did, though not in decisive language; but erasmus never belonged to the protestant church, and his humanity, no less than his philosophy, brought upon him the vituperation of luther. the hero of protestantism did not intend the consequences of his revolt against rome. he would have been appalled at the thought of them. he made a breach, for his own purposes, in the great wall of faith. he did not anticipate that others would widen it, or that the forces of reason would march through and occupy post after post. he simply did his own stroke of work, and we do not judge him by later standards. we only object to the extravagance of protestant laudation. the praise of folly. what is the greatest novel in the english language? this is a hard question, which we shall not attempt to answer. we leave every one of our readers to enjoy his own selection. but the question has been answered, in his own way, by a living novelist. mr. walter besant declares that the greatest novel in the english language is charles reade's _the cloister and the hearth_. that it is a _great_ book no one fit to judge will deny, or hesitate to affirm. it is full of adventure and hairbreadth escapes; it exhibits a large variety of life and character; its wit, insight, and pathos show the mind and hand of a master; and a certain vivid actuality is derived from the fact that its pictures and portraits are to a large extent historical. gerard and margaret, the hero and heroine of the story, are the father and mother of the great erasmus; respecting whom charles reade closes his book with a noble and pregnant piece of writing. "first scholar and divine of his epoch, he was also the heaven-born dramatist of his century. some of the best scenes in this new book are from his mediaeval pen, and illumine the pages whence they come; for the words of a genius, so high as his, are not born to die; their immediate work upon mankind fulfilled, they may seem to lie torpid; but, at each fresh shower of intelligence time pours upon their students, they prove their immortal race; they revive, they spring from the dust of great libraries; they bud, they flower, they fruit, they seed, from generation to generation, and from age to age." erasmus was born at rotterdam, probably on october , . he was a "love child." his father, gerard of tergou, being engaged to margaret, daughter of a physician of sevenbergen, anticipated the nuptial rites. gerard's relations drove him from his country by ill usage; when he went to rome, to earn a living by copying ancient authors, they falsely sent him word that his margaret had died; upon which he took holy orders, and became a sworn son of the church. finding his margaret alive on his return, he of course lived apart from her, and she did not marry another. they had a common interest in their boy, whose education they superintended. margaret died of the plague, when erasmus was thirteen; and gerard, inconsolable for her loss, soon followed her to the grave. their boy was left to the guardianship of relatives, who cheated him of his little patrimony, and compelled him to adopt a religious life. erasmus was thus a priest, though a very uncommon one. how curious that so many great wits and humorists should have worn the clerical garb! to mention only four, there were rabelais, erasmus, swift and sterne; each of whom has added to the world's gaiety, and also helped to free it from superstition. christians who prate about the "ridicule" of holy things in which freethinkers indulge, should be reminded that these four priests of the christian religion could easily, between them, carry off the palm for profanity; while for downright plain speech, not always avoiding the nastiest of subjects, there is hardly a professed sceptic who could hold a candle to them. erasmus divorced himself from religious duties as early as possible. he detested the monks, regarding them for the most part as illiterate, bigoted, persecuting, and parasitical vermin. his life was devoted to literature, and in the course of his travels he contracted a friendship with the most eminent and able men of the age, including our own sir thomas more, the author of the famous _utopia_. erasmus died on july , . the money he had accumulated by the exercise of his pen, after deducting some handsome legacies to personal friends, he left to relieve the sick and poor, to marry young women, and to assist young men of good character. this was in keeping with his professed principles. he always regarded _charity_ as the chief part of _useful_ religion, and thought that men should help each other like brothers, instead of fighting like wild beasts over theology. erasmus was a contemporary of luther, and there is an excellent essay by mr. froude on both these great men. he gives the palm to luther on account of his courage, and thinks that erasmus should have joined the reformation party. but the truth is that erasmus had far more _intellect_ than luther; he knew too much to be a fanatic; and while he lashed the vices and follies of the catholic church, he never left her fold, partly because he perceived that luther and the reformers were as much the slaves of exclusive dogmas as the very schoolmen themselves. erasmus believed in freedom of thought, but luther never did. to sum up the difference between them in a sentence: luther was a theologian, and erasmus a humanist. "he was brilliantly gifted," says mr. froude, "his industry never tired, his intellect was true to itself, and no worldly motives ever tempted him into insincerity." the great mass of the writings of erasmus are only of interest to scholars. his two popular books are the _colloquies_ and the _praise of folly_, both written in latin, but translated into most of the european tongues. the _colloquies_ were rendered into fine, nervous english by n. bailey, the old lexicographer. the _praise of folly_, illustrated with holbein's drawings, is also to be read in english, in the translation of sir roger l'estrange; a writer who, if he was sometimes coarse and slangy, had a first-rate command of our language, and was never lacking in racy vigor. erasmus wrote the _praise of folly_ in the house of sir thomas more, with whom he lodged on his arrival in england in . it was completed in a week, and written to divert himself and his friend. a copy being sent to france, it was printed there, and in a few months it went through seven editions. its contents were such, that it is no wonder, in the words of jortin, that "he was never after this looked upon as a true son of the church." in the orthodox sense of the term, it would be difficult to look upon the writer of this book as a true christian. folly is made to speak throughout. she pronounces her own panegyric she represents herself as the mainspring of all the business and pleasure of this world, yes, and also of its worship and devotion. mixed up with capital fooling, there is an abundance of wisdom, and shrewd thrusts are delivered at every species of imposture; nay, religion itself is treated with derision, under the pretence of buffoonery. long before luther began his campaign against the sale of pardons and indulgences, they were satirically denounced by erasmus. he calls them "cheats," for the advantage of the clergy, who promise their dupes in return for their cash a lot of happiness in the next life; though, as to their own share of this happiness, the clergy "care not how long it be deferred." erasmus anticipated luther in another point. speaking of the subtle interpreters of the bible in his day, who proved from it anything and everything, he says that, "they can deal with any text of scripture as with a nose of wax, and knead it into what shape best suits their interest." quite as decisively as luther, though with less passion and scurrility, he condemns the adoration of saints, which he calls a "downright folly." amidst a comical account of the prayers offered up to their saintships, he mentions the tokens of gratitude to them hung upon the walls and ceilings of churches; and adds, very shrewdly, that he could find "no relics presented as a memorandum of any that were ever cured of folly, or had been made one dram the wiser." even the worship of the virgin mary is glanced at--her blind devotees being said "to think it manners now to place the mother before the son." erasmus calls the monks "a sort of brainsick fools," who "seem confident of becoming greater proficients in divine mysteries the less they are poisoned with any human learning." monks, as the name denotes, should live solitary; but they swarm in streets and alleys, and make a profitable trade of beggary, to the detriment of the roadside mendicants. they are full of vice and religious punctilios. some of them will not touch a piece of money, but they "make no scruple of the sin of drunkenness and the lust of the flesh." preachers are satirised likewise. they are little else than stage-players. "good lord! how mimical are their gestures! what heights and falls in their voice! what teeming, what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, making of mouths, apes' faces, and distorting of their countenance; and this art of oratory, as a choice mystery, they convey down by tradition to one another." yes, and the trick of it still lives in our christian pulpits. "good old tun-bellied divines," and others of the species, come in for their share of raillery. they know that ignorance is the mother of devotion. they are great disputants, and all the logic in the world will never drive them into a corner from which they cannot escape by some "easy distinction." they discuss the absurdest and most far-fetched questions, have cats' eyes that see best in the dark, and possess "such a piercing faculty as to see through an inch-board, and spy out what really never had any being." the apostles would not be able to understand their disputes without a special illumination. in a happy phrase, they are said to spend their time in striking "the fire of subtlety out of the flint of obscurity." but woe to the man who meddles with them; for they are generally very hot and passionate. if you differ from them ever so little, they call upon you to recant; it you refuse to do so, they will brand you as a heretic and "thunder out an excommunication." popes fare as badly as preachers, monks, and divines. they "pretend themselves vicars of christ." reference is made to their "grooms, ostlers, serving men, pimps, and somewhat else which for modesty's sake i shall not mention." they fight with a holy zeal to defend their possessions, and issue their bulls and excommunications most frequently against "those who, at the instigation of the devil, and not having the fear of god before their eyes, do feloniously and maliciously attempt to lessen and impair st. peter's patrimony." speaking through the mouth of folly, the biting wit of erasmus does not spare christianity itself. "fools," he says, "for their plainness and sincerity of heart, have always been most acceptable to god almighty." princes have ever been jealous of subjects who were too observant and thoughtful; and jesus christ, in like manner, condemns the wise and crafty. he solemnly thanks his father for hiding the mysteries of salvation from the wise, and revealing them to babes; that is, says erasmus, _to fools_. "woe unto you scribes and pharisees" means "woe unto you wise men." jesus seemed "chiefly delighted with women, children, and illiterate fishermen." the blessed souls that in the day of judgment are to be placed on the savior's right hand "are called sheep, which are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle." "nor would he heal those breaches our sins had made by any other method than by the 'foolishness of the cross,' published by the ignorant and unlearned apostles, to whom he frequently recommends the excellence of folly, cautioning them against the infectiousness of wisdom, by the several examples he proposes them to imitate, such as children, lilies, sparrows, mustard, and such like beings, which are either wholly inanimate, or at least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided by no other conduct than that of instinct, without care, trouble, or contrivance." "the christian religion," erasmus says, "seems to have some relations to folly, and no alliance at all to wisdom." in proof of which we are to observe; _first_, that "children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the performance of the several parts of divine service "; _secondly_, that true christians invite affronts by an easy forgiveness of injuries, suffer themselves like doves to be easily cheated and imposed upon, love their enemies as much as their friends, banish pleasure and court sorrow, and wish themselves out of this world altogether. nay, the very happiness they look forward to hereafter is "no better than a sort of madness or folly." for those who macerate the body, and long to put on immortality, are only in a kind of dream. "they speak many things at an abrupt and incoherent rate, as if they were actuated by some possessing demon; they make an inarticulate noise, without any distinguishable sense or meaning. they sometimes screw and distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks; at one time beyond measure cheerful, then as immoderately sullen; now sobbing, then laughing, and soon after sighing, as if they were perfectly distracted, and out of their senses." but perhaps the worst stroke of all against christianity is the following sly one. folly is said to be acceptable, or at least excusable, to the gods, who "easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, while the miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly obtain a pardon." did space permit we might give several extracts from the _praise of folly_, showing that erasmus could speed the shafts of his satire at the very essentials of religion, such as prayer and providence. were he living now, we may be sure that he would be in the van of the army of liberation. living when he did, he performed a high and useful task. his keen, bright sword played havoc with much superstition and imposture. he made it more difficult for the pious wranglers over what carlyle would call "inconceivable incredibilities" to practise their holy profession. certainly he earned, and more than earned, the praise of pope. at length erasmus, that great injur'd name (the glory of the priesthood and the shame!) stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, and drove those holy vandals off the stage. erasmus was, in fact, the precursor of voltaire. physically, as well as intellectually, these two great men bore a certain resemblance. a glance at the strong, shrewd face of erasmus is enough to show that he was not a man to be easily imposed upon; and the square chin, and firm mouth, bespeak a determination, which, if it did not run to martyrdom, was sufficient to carry its possessor through hardship and difficulty in the advocacy of his ideals. rome, says, the proverb, was not built in a day; and christianity was not built in a century. it took hundreds of years to complete, as it is taking hundreds of years to dissolve. for this reason it is a very complicated structure. there is something in it for all sorts of taste. those who like metaphysics will find it in paul's epistles, and in such dogmas as that of the trinity. those who like a stern creed will find it in the texts that formed the basis of calvinism. and those who like something milder will find it in such texts as "love one another" and "father forgive them, they know not what they do." it must be confessed, however, that the terrible aspects of christianity have been most in evidence. religion had its first roots in ignorance and terror, and it must continue to derive sustenance from them or perish. people were never allured by the simple prospect of heaven; they were frightened by the awful prospect of hell. of course the two things were always more or less mixed. the recipe was brimstone and treacle, but the brimstone predominated, and was the more operative ingredient. present-day sermons tell us chiefly of god's goodness; older sermons tell us chiefly of what is called his justice. puritan discourses, of the seventeenth century, were largely occupied in telling people that most of them _would_ be damned, and explaining to them how just and logical it was that they _should_ be damned. it was a sort of treatment they should really be thankful for; and, instead of protesting against it, they should take it with folded hands and grateful submission. how many preachers have depicted the torments of the damned! how many have described the fate of lost souls! they positively delighted in the task, as corrupted organs of smell will sometimes delight in abominable stenches. even the average christian has regarded damnation--especially the damnation of other people--with remarkable complacency, as a part of the established economy of the universe. but now and then a superior spirit revolted against it instinctively. thus we hear of gregory the great, in an age when it was devoutly believed that the noblest pagans were all in hell, being deeply impressed with the splendid virtues of the emperor trajan, and begging for his release; a prayer which (the legend says) was granted, with a caveat that it should never be repeated. thus, also, we hear of the great aquinas kneeling all night on the stone floor of his cell, passionately beseeching god to save the devil. this revolt against eternal damnation has mightily increased. civilised men and women will not--positively _will_ not--be damned at the old rate. the clergy are obliged to accommodate their preaching to the altered circumstances; hence we hear of "eternal hope," and "ultimate salvation," and similar brands on the new bottles in which they seek to pour the diluted old wine of theology. archdeacon farrar is the type of this new school--at least in the church of england. he is a wealthy pluralist; in addition to which he earns a large income as a writer of sentimental books, that immensely tickle the flabby souls of "respectable" christians. not quite illiterate, yet nowise thoughtful, these people are semi-orthodox and temporising. they take the old creed with a faint dash of heresy. hell, at any rate, they like to see cooled a bit, or at least shortened; and archdeacon farrar satisfies them with a hell which is not everlasting, but only eternal. we believe that dr. farrar expressed a faint hope that charles bradlaugh had not gone to hell. it was just possible that he might get a gallery seat in the place where the archdeacon is booked for a stall. dr. farrar is not sure that all the people who were thought to go to hell really go there. he entertains a mild doubt upon the subject. nor does he believe that hell is simply punitive. he thinks it is purgative. after a billion years or so the ladies and gentlemen in the pit may hope to be promoted to the upper circles. some of them, however, who are desperate and impenitent, and perfectly impervious to the sulphur treatment, will have to remain in hell forever. the door will be closed upon them as incorrigible and irredeemable; and the saints in heaven will go on singing, and harping, and jigging, regardlesss of these obstinate wretches, these ultimate failures, these lost souls, these everlasting inheritors of perdition. humanity is growing day by day. so is common sense. every decently educated person will soon insist on the abolition of hell. the idea of a lost soul will not be tolerated. a theologian of painful genius (in its way) imagined a lost soul in hell. he had been agonising for ages. at last he asked a gaoler "what hour is it?" and the answer came "eternity!" thoughtful, sensitive men and women, in ever increasing number, loathe such teaching, and turn with disgust from those who offer it to their fellows. we are not aware that men have souls, but if they have, why should any soul be _lost_? we are not aware that there is a god, but if there is, why should he _let_ any soul be lost? sending souls to hell at all is only punishing his own failures. if he is omnipotent he could have made them as he pleased, and if they do not please him it is not their fault, but his own. let it be distinctly understood that a creator has no right over his creatures; it is the creatures who have a right to the best assistance of their creator. the contrary doctrine comes down to us from the "good old times" when children had no rights, and parents had absolute power of life and death over them. in the same way, god had absolute power over his creatures; he was the potter and they were the clay; one vessel was made for honor, and one for dishonor; one for heaven, and one for hell. but civilisation has changed our conceptions. we regard the parent as responsible for the child, and god is responsible for the welfare of his creatures. a single "lost soul" would prove the malignity or imbecility of "our father which art in heaven." happy in hell. professor st. george mivart is a very useful man to the jesuits. he plays the jackal to their lion; or, it might be said, the cat to their monkey. some time ago he argued that catholicism and darwinism were in the happiest agreement; that the catholic church was not committed, like the protestant church, to a cast-iron theory of inspiration; and that he was quite prepared to find that all the real word of god in the bible might be printed in a very small book and easily carried in a waistcoat pocket. that article appeared in the _nineteenth century_. in the current number of the same review mr. mivart has another theological article on "happiness in hell." he says he took advice before writing it, so he speaks with permission, if not with authority. such an article, being a kind of feeler, was better as the work of a layman. if it did not answer, the church was not committed; if it did answer, the church's professional penmen could follow it up with something more decisive. professor mivart perceives, like the bishop of chester, that christianity _must_ alter its teaching with respect to hell, or lose its hold on the educated, the thoughtful, and the humane. "not a few persons," he says, "have abandoned christianity on account of this dogma." the "more highly evolved moral perceptions" of to-day are "shocked beyond expression at the doctrine that countless multitudes of mankind will burn for ever in hell fire, out of which there is no possible redemption." father pinamonti's _hell open to christians_ is stigmatised as "repulsive," and its pictures as "revolting." yet it is issued "with authority," and mr. mivart falls short of the truth in admitting it has never "incurred any condemnation." this little fact seems a barrier to his attempt at proving that the catholic church is not committed to the doctrine of a hell of real fire and everlasting agony. "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" wrote dante over his inferno, and mr. mivart allows that "the words truly express what was the almost universal belief of christians for many centuries." that belief flourished under the wing of an infallible church; and now mr. mivart, a member of this same infallible church, comes forward to declare that the belief was a mistake. nevertheless, he argues, the clergy of former times did right to preach hell hot and strong, stuff it with fire, and keep it burning for ever. they had coarse and ignorant people to deal with, and were obliged to use realistic language. besides, it was necessary to exaggerate, in order to bring out the infinite contrast between heaven and hell, the elect and the reprobates, the saved and the damned. mr. mivart maintains, therefore, that the old representation of hell "has not caused the least practical error or misled anyone by one jot or tittle"--which is as bold, or, as some would say, as impudent a statement as could be well conceived. briefly stated, mr. mivart's contention is that the fire of hell is figurative. the pains of damnation, even in the case of the worst of sinners, have not been liberally described by popes and councils. "what is meant by the expression 'hell fire' has never been defined," says mr. mivart. perhaps not. there are some things which, for practical purposes, do not need definition, and _fire_ is one of them. nor is it greatly to the purpose to say that "saint augustine distinctly declares our ignorance about it." saint augustine was not god almighty. ample set-offs to this father may be found in the pages of dr. pusey's _what is of faith as to everlasting punishment?_ besides, if fire does not mean fire, if torment does not mean torment, and everlasting does not mean everlasting, perhaps hell does not mean hell; in which case, it is a waste of time to argue about details, when the whole establishment, to use a shakespearian epithet, is simply "tropical." "some positive suffering," thinks mr. mivart, "will never cease for those who have voluntarily and deliberately cast away from them their supreme beatitude." do you want to know what this positive suffering is? well, wait till you get there. all in good time. whatever it is, the "unbelievers" will get _their_ share of it. the editor of the _freethinker_ may look out for a double dose. professor huxley will not escape. he is an aggressive agnostic; one of those persons who, in the graceful language of mivartian civility, do not "possess even a rudiment of humility or aspiration after goodness." "surely," exclaims our new guide to hell, "surely if there is a sin which, on merely theistic principles, merits the severest pains of hell, it is the authorship of an irreligious book." which leads _us_ in turn to exclaim, "surely, yea thrice surely, will hell never be wholly abolished or deprived of its last torture-chamber, while christians require a painful place for those who boldly differ from them." mr. mivart, it is true, confesses that "those who are disturbed and distressed by difficulties about hell include many among the best of mankind." but they must not write irreligious books on the subject. they must wait, in patience and meekness, until mr. mivart gives them satisfaction. let us now summarise mr. mivart's position. uni-versalism, or the final restitution of all men, he rejects as "utterly irreconcilable with catholic doctrine." those who are saved go to heaven--after various delays in purgatory--and enjoy the beatific vision for ever. those who are lost go to hell and remain there for all eternity. they lose the beatific vision, and that is their chief punishment. but hell is not a really dreadful place--except, of course, for the writers of irreligious books. it may have its equator, and perhaps its poles; but between them are vast regions of temperate clime and grateful soil. the inhabitants are in a kind of harmony with their environment. they are even under a law of evolution, and "the existence of the damned is one of progress and gradual amelioration." we suppose it may be said, in the words of napoleon, that the road is open to talent; and enterprising "damned ones" may cry with truth--"better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." hell must be regarded as a most desirable place. mr. mivart knows all about it, and we have his authority for saying it is "an abode of happiness transcending all our most vivid anticipations, so that man's natural capacity for happiness is there gratified to the very utmost." and this is hell! well, as the old lady said, who would have thought it? verily the brimstone has all turned to treacle. curious! is it not? while the protestants are discussing whether hell-fire is actual fire, and whether sinners are roasted for everlasting, or only for eternity, in steps a catholic and declares that hell is a first-class sanitarium, far superior to the east-end of london, better than bournemouth, and ahead of naples and mentone. "be happy in heaven," he cries, "and if you won't, why, damn you, be happy in hell." but before we leave mr. mivart we have a parting word to say. he admits the comparative novelty of his view of hell. "our age," he says, "has developed not only a great regard for human life, but also for the sufferings of the brute creation." this has led to a moral revolt against the old doctrine of eternal torment, and the church is under the necessity of presenting the idea of hell in a fresh and less revolting fashion. precisely so. it is not theology which purifies humanity, but humanity which purifies theology. man civilises himself first, and his gods afterwards, and the priest walks at the tail of the procession.* * professor mivart is a man to be pitied. first of all, his views on hell were opposed by father clarke, against whom the hell-reformer defended himself. last of all, however, professor mivart's articles on this subject were placed upon the index of prohibited books, which no good catholic is allowed to read, except by special permission. rome had spoken, and the professor submitted himself to holy mother church. in doing so, he destroyed the value of his judgment on any question whatever, since he submits not to argument, but to authority. the act of god. a curious litigation has just been decided at the spalding county court. the great northern railway was sued for damages by a farmer, who had sent a quantity of potatoes to london shortly before christmas, which were not delivered for nearly ten days, and were then found to be spoiled by the frost. the company's defence was that a dense fog prevailed during the christmas week, and disorganised the traffic; that everything was done to facilitate the transit of goods; and that, as the fog was the act of god, there was no liability for damage by delay. after an hour's deliberation, the jury returned a verdict for the defendants, and judgment was given them with costs. we sincerely pity that lincolnshire farmer. it is very hard lines to receive only thirteen and fourpence for four tons of potatoes; and harder still to pay the whole of that sum, and a good deal more, for attempting to obtain compensation. the poor man is absolutely without a remedy. the person who delayed and rotted his potatoes is called god, but no one knows where he resides, and it is impossible to serve a summons upon him, even if a court of justice would grant one. god appears to be the chartered libertine of this planet. he destroys what he pleases, and no one is able to make him pay damages. christians may call this "blasphemous." but calling names is no argument. certainly it will not pay for that farmer's potatoes. we fail to see where the blasphemy comes in. an english judge and jury have accepted the great northern railway company's plea that the fog was the act of god. we simply take our stand upon their verdict and judgment. and we tell the christians that if god sent the fog--as the judge and jury allow--he has a great deal more to answer for than four tons of rotted potatoes. that terrible fog cost london a gas bill amounting to twenty or thirty thousand pounds. it is impossible to estimate the cost to the community of delayed traffic and suspended business. hundreds of people were suffocated or otherwise slaughtered. millions of people were made peevish or brutally ill-tempered, and there was a frightful increase of reckless profanity. many persons, doubtless, will say that god did _not_ send the fog. they will assert that it came in the ordinary course of nature. but does nature act independently of god? is he only responsible for _some_ of the things that happen? and who is responsible for the rest? those who still believe in the devil may conveniently introduce him, it is curious, however, that they never do, except in cases of _moral_ evil. criminal indictments charge prisoners with acting wickedly under the instigation of the devil. but _physical_ evil is ascribed to jehovah. bills of lading exonerate shipowners from liability if anything happens to the cargo through "the act of god or the queen's enemies." old nick does not raise storms, stir up volcanoes, stimulate earthquakes, blight crops, or spread pestilence. all those destructive pastimes are affected by his rival. even cases of sudden death, or death from lightning are brought in by jurors as "died by the visitation of god." which seems to show that a visit from god is a certain calamity. the time will come, of course, when all this nonsense about "the act of god" will disappear. but it will only dissappear because real belief in god is dying. while men are sincere theists they cannot help seeing god in the unexpected and the calamitous. that is how theology began, and that is how it must continue while it has a spark of vitality. but theology declines as knowledge increases. our dread of the unknown diminishes as we gain command over the forces of nature; that is, our dread of the unknown diminishes as we turn it into the _known_. "the act of god" is to be frustrated by science. we cannot prevent storms, but we are growing more able to foresee them. we cannot prevent the angry waves from rising, but we can build ships to defy their fiercest wrath. we cannot prevent mist from ascending in certain conditions of sky and soil, but we can drain low-lying ground, and prevent the mist from being fatally charged with smoke. we cannot abolish the microbes with which our planet swarms, and if we could we should be surrounded with intolerable putrifaction; but we can observe the laws of public and private sanitation, maintain a high state of vitality, and make ourselves practically invulnerable. science is the instrument for achieving the triumph of man. ultimately it will subdue the planet for us, and we shall be able to exclaim with mr. swinburne, "glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things." the paradise the theologians dream of will be realised on earth. we shall not abolish death, but we shall make life strong, rich, and glorious, and when death comes it will bring no terror, but rest and peace in the shadow of its wings. meanwhile "the act of god" will to some extent survive in the mental life of the multitude. all prayer is based upon this superstition. those who pray for relief or exemption from storm, famine, or disease; those who pray to be preserved from "battle, murder, and sudden death"; those who pray to be saved from any evil, are, all praying against "the act of god." it is god who is sending the mischief, and therefore he is begged to take it away or pass it on to other persons. hamburg would be grateful to god even if he transferred the cholera to berlin. thus do ignorance and selfishness go hand in hand; thus does superstition cloud the intellect and degrade the character. keir hardie on christ. for some time the labor leaders have been assiduously courted by the churches. it is reckoned good business to have one on exhibition at congresses and conferences. ben tillett is in frequent request as a preacher. tom mann, who was once heterodox, is now declared by the _christian commonwealth_ to be a member of a christian church. "we are not aware," our contemporary says, "that john burns is opposed to the religion of jesus christ." this appropriation of the labor leaders is an excellent piece of strategy. churches have seldom had the harmlessness of doves, but they have generally had the cunning of serpents. they often stoop, but always to conquer. and this is precisely what they are doing in the present case. a year or two ago a leading socialist, who is also an atheist, remarked to us how the clericals were creeping into the socialist movement. "yes," we observed, "and they will appropriate and stifle it. they will talk about the socialism of jesus christ, bamboozle your followers, and get them out of your control. then the socialism will gradually disappear, and jesus christ will be left in sole possession of the field. the clericals, in fact, will trump your best cards, if you let them take part in the game." we warn the labor leaders, whether they listen to us or not, that they are coquetting with the historic enemy of the people. all religion is a consecration of the past, and every minister is at heart a priest. the social and political object of churches is to keep things as they are; or, if they _must_ be altered, to control the alteration in the interest of wealth and privilege. fine words may be uttered and popular sentiments may be echoed; but history teaches us that when the leaders of religion talk in this way, they are serving their one great purpose as surely as when they curse and damn the rebellious multitude. the course of events will show whether we are right or wrong. meanwhile let us "return to our sheep." not that mr. keir hardie is a sheep. we don't mean that, though he is certainly being attended to by the wolves. mr. keir hardie has been interviewed by the _christian commonwealth_. "his father," we are informed, "is a very vigorous and militant atheist, so that the son was brought up without any religious belief." to some extent we believe this is true. mr. hardie's brother, and another member of the family, attended our last lectures at glasgow. but we do not understand that mr. keir hardie was ever a professed atheist, or a member of any freethought society. the scepticism he was "weaned from" by the evangelical union church could hardly have been of a very robust order. he seems to have imbibed a sentimental form of christianity as easily and comfortably as a cat laps milk. during his last election contest the statement was circulated that mr. keir hardie was an atheist. "whereupon," we are told, "dr. james morison, the venerable founder of the evangelical union, and dr. fergus ferguson, of glasgow, both wrote in the most eulogistic terms to a local clergyman as to mr. hardie's moral character and religious work in scotland." this is extremely affecting. it is good to see parliamentary candidates walking about with certificates of moral character--written out by a local minister. it is also reassuring to find that such a certificate is an absolute answer to the charge of atheism, no doubt mr. keir hardie will print the testimonial as a postscript to his next election address at west ham. mr. keir hardie calls himself a christian. he does not say, however, if he believes in the supernatural part of the gospels. does he accept the new testament miracles? does he embrace the incarnation and resurrection? if he does, he is a christian. if he does not, he has no more right to call himself a christian than we have to be designated a buddhist or a mohammedan. the christianity of the schools, mr. keir hardie says, is dead or dying. by this he means "the old theological sects." but here we should like him to be more explicit. does he think there can be a christianity _without_ "theology"? or does he mean that the "sects" comprise all persons who have more theology than himself? but if the christianity of the schools is dead or dying, the "humanitarian christianity of christ is again coming to the front." now what _is_ this humanitarian christianity of christ? upon this point mr. keir hardie throws but a single ray of light. "the whole of christ's teachings and conduct," he says, "proves that he was intensely interested in the bodily welfare of those with whom he came in contact as a preparative to their spiritual well-being." this is a clear statement; all we now want is the clear proof. mr. keir hardie should give it. we believe he cannot; nay, we defy him to do so. it is idle to cite the so-called "miracles of healing." they were occasional and special; they had as much effect on the "bodily welfare" of the jewish people as tickling has on the gait of an elephant; and as for their being a "preparative to spiritual well-being," we may ask the "humanitarian christians of christ" to tell us, if they can, how much of this quality was afterwards displayed by the ladies and gentlemen who were the lucky subjects (or objects) of christ's miracles. mr. keir hardie might also recollect that the said miracles, if they ever happened, are of no "bodily" importance to the present generation. humanitarians of to-day are unable to work miracles; they have to sow the seed of progress, and await its natural harvest. mr. keir hardie is undoubtedly an earnest social reformer. we wish him all success in his efforts to raise the workers and procure for them a just share of the produce of their industry. some of his methods may be questionable without affecting his sincerity. if we all saw eye to eye there would be no problems to settle. what we object to is the fond imagination that any light upon the labor question, or any actual social problem, can be found in the teachings of christ. jesus of nazareth never taught industry, or forethought, or any of the robuster virtues of civilisation. on one occasion he said that his kingdom was not of this world. he might certainly have said so of his teaching. it is all very well for mr. keir hardie to assert that our "industrial system is foreign to the spirit of christianity." what _is_ the spirit of christianity? twenty different things in as many different minds. _some_ industrial system is a necessity, and whatever it is you will never find its real principles in the gospels. christ's one social panacea was "giving to the poor," and this is the worst of all "reformations." it only disguises social evils. the world could do very well without "charity" if it only had justice and common sense. charles bradlaugh, the atheist, was laughed at for advocating the compulsory cultivation of waste lands. he wanted to see labor and capital employed upon them, even if they yielded no rent to landlords. mr. keir hardie, the christian, also desires to bring the people into "contact with nature and mother earth," though his recipe, of "open spaces laid down in grass" seems ludicrously inadequate. the loss of this contact, he told his interviewer, is "accountable for much of the atheism which is a natural product of city life." this "tender thought" was spoken in a voice "which sank almost to a whisper." very naturally it struck the interviewer as "the finest and most beautiful of mr. hardie's utterances." both the interviewer and mr. keir hardie forgot a fact of christian history. christianity spread in the towns of the roman empire. the pagans were the villagers--_paganus_ meaning a countryman or rustic. possibly some of the pagans said to themselves, "ah, this christianity is a natural product of the towns." the diagnosis is in both cases empirical. in a certain sense, however, mr. keir hardie has touched a truth. progressive ideas must always originate in the keen life of cities. but in another sense mr. keir hardie is mistaken. he seems to regard atheism as a city malady, like rickets and anemia. now this is untrue. it is also absurd. mr. keir hardie would find a good many of these "afflicted" atheists able to make mincemeat of his "humanitarian christianity of christ." he would also find, if he cared to look, a great many of them in the socialist camp. it would be rare sport to see mr. keir hardie defending his "new school" christianity against the young bloods of the fabian society, though it might necessitate the interference of the society for the prevention of cruelty. but we do not wish to part from mr. keir hardie in a spirit of sarcasm. if he is a hopeless sentimentalist there is no more to be said; but, if he is capable of reason in matters of religion, we appeal to him, in all sincerity, not to press the new wine of humanitarianism into the old bottles of christianity. he will only break the bottles and lose the wine. we also implore him to cease talking nonsense about christianity being "a life, and not a doctrine." it never can be the one without the other. finally, we beg him to consider what is the real value of christianity if, after all these centuries, it is necessary to put "humanitarian" in front of it, in order to give it a chance in decent society. blessed be ye poor. a leading london newspaper, the _daily chronicle_, has recently opened it columns to a discussion of the question, "is christianity played out?" mr. robert buchanan thinks that it is, and we are of the same opinion. but in a certain sense christianity is _not_ played out. to use a common expression, "there's money in it." that is incontestable. despite the "poverty" of the "lower clergy," for whom so many appeals are made, the clerical business beats all others, if we compare the amount of investment with the size of the dividend. relatively speaking, the profits are magnificent. there are curates with only a workman's wages, and of course they merit our deepest sympathy. it is quite shocking to think that a disciple of the "_poor_ carpenter of nazareth" has to subsist, and support his ten children, on such a miserable pittance. it is a calamity which calls for tears of blood. but, on the other hand, there are archbishops with princely incomes, bishops with lordly revenues, deans and canons with fine salaries and snug quarters; and between the two extremes of the fat bishop and the lean curate is a long line of gradations, in which, if we strike an average, the result is very far from despicable. it may be added that while the leading nonconformist ministers, at least in england, do not rival the great church dignitaries in the matter of income, they often run up to a thousand a year and sometimes over it. taking the average of their incomes, we have no hesitation in saying it is beyond what they would earn in the ordinary labor market. still, so far as they are not paid by the state, as the church clergy _are_, we have no personal reason for complaint. this is a free country--especially for christians; and if the lay disciples of the poor carpenter like to pay his professional apostles a fancy price for their work, it is no concern of ours from a business point of view. nevertheless, as the said apostles are _public_ men, who set up as other people's _teachers_, we have a right to express an opinion as to the consistency between their preaching and their practice. our gallant colleague, joseph symes, who is nobly upholding the freethought banner in australia, once asked, "who's to be damned if christianity is true?" certainly, he said, the clergy stand a fine chance. they are more likely to go to hades than the congregations they preach to. on on average they are better off. they preach, or _should_ preach, the blessings of poverty, and the curse, nay, the damnableness, of wealth. according to the teaching of jesus, as we read it in the sermon on the mount, and as we find it illustrated in the parable of dives and lazarus, every pauper is pretty sure of a front seat in heaven; and every man of property or good income is equally sure of warm quarters in hell. but you do not meet parsons in workhouses, though some of them get a good deal of outdoor relief. go into a country parish and look for the clergyman's house; you will not find it difficult to discover. the best residence is the squire's, the next best is the parson's. everywhere the clericals appropriate as much as they can of the good things of this world. they find it quite easy to worship god and mammon together. the curate has his eye on a vicarage; the vicar has his on a deanery; the dean has his on a bishopric. the dissenting minister is open to improve his position. sometimes he is invited to another church. he wrestles with the lord, and makes inquiries. if they prove satisfactory, he recognises "a call." other people, in ordinary business, would honestly say they were accepting a better situation; but the man of god is above all that, so he obeys the lord's voice and goes to a position of "greater service," though it would puzzle him to show an extra soul saved by the exchange. yes, the poor carpenter's apostles strive to make the best of this world, and take their chance of the next. they are wise in their generation; they resemble the serpent in the text, however they neglect the dove. and for all these things god shall bring them into account--that is, if the gospel be true; for nothing is more certain, according to the gospel, than that the poor will be saved, and those who are not poor will be damned. benjamin disraeli called the conservative government of sir robert peel "an organised hypocrisy." modern christianity appears to us to merit the same description. the note of modern apologetics is the phrase of "christ-like." in one respect the gentlemen who strike this note _are_ christ-like. they live on the gifts of the faithful, including those of "rich women." but the likeness ends there. in other respects they are dissimilar to their master. he _died_ upon the cross, and they _live_ upon the cross. yes, and many of them get far more on the cross than they would ever get on the square. doubtless we shall be censured in vigorous biblical language for speaking so plainly. but we mean every word we say, and are prepared to make it good in discussion. men should practise what they preach. those who teach that poverty is a blessing should themselves be poor. those who teach that god almighty cried "woe unto you rich!" should avoid the curse of wealth. if they do not, they are hypocrites. it is no use mincing the matter. plain speech is best on such occasions. when the great dr. abernethy told a gouty, dyspeptic, rich patient to "live on sixpence a day and earn it," his advice was more wholesome than the most dexterous rigmarole. nothing could better show than the conduct of the clergy that christianity _is_ played out, if it means the teaching of the sermon on the mount. those who preach it cannot practise it; what is more, they do not mean to. the late archbishop of york, while bishop of peterborough, wrote a magazine article on this sermon on the mount, in which he urged that any society that was based upon it would go to ruin in a week. he was paid at that time £ , a year to-preach this sermon on the mount, and he did so--in the pulpit; then he mounted another rostrum, and cried, "for god's sake don't practise it." "blessed be ye poor" and "woe unto you rich" are texts with which the church has bamboozled the multitude in the interest of the privileged classes. the disinherited sons of earth were promised all sorts of fine compensations in kingdom-come; meanwhile kings, aristocrats, priests, and all the rest of the juggling and appropriating tribe, battened on the fruits of other men's labor. the poor were like the dog crossing the stream, and seeing the big shadow of his piece of meat in the water. "seize the shadow!" the priests cried. the poor did so. but the substance-was not lost. it was snapped up and shared by priestcraft and privilege. the people have been told that the gospel is a cheap thing--without money and without price. that is the prospectus. but the gospel is frightfully dear in reality. religion costs more than education. england spends more in preparing her sons and daughters for the next world than in training them for this world. yet the next world may be nothing but a dream, and certainly we _know_ nothing about it; while this world is a solid and often a solemn fact, with its business as well as its pleasures, its work as well as its enjoyments, its duties as well as its privileges. to keep people out of hell, and guide them to heaven (places that only exist in the map of faith), we spend over twenty millions a year. this is a sum which, if wisely devoted, would remedy the worst evils of human society in a single generation. it would found countless institutions of culture and innocent recreation; and, by means of experiments, it would solve a host of social problems. instead of doing this, we keep up a huge army of black-coats to fight an imaginary devil; yet we call ourselves a _practical_ people. christianity has it roots-deep down in the _wealth_ of england, and this is the secret of its power, allied of course with its usurped authority over the minds of little children. the-churches and chapels are mostly social institutions, sunday resorts of the "respectable" classes. for any purpose connected with the real welfare of the people christianity might just as well be dead and buried--as it will be when the people see the truth. converted infidels. christian logic is a curious thing. there is nothing like it, we should imagine, in the heavens above or the waters under the earth. certainly there is nothing like it on the earth itself, unless we make an exception in the case of christian veracity, which is as much like christian logic as one cherry is like another. it is a long time since christians began arguing--it would be an outrage on the dictionary to call it reasoning. they have been at it for nearly two thousand years. their founder, jesus christ, seldom argued. he uttered himself dogmatically at most times; occasionally he spoke in parables; and whenever he was cornered he escaped on a palpable evasion. his great disciple, paul, however, was particularly fond of arguing. his writings abound in "for" and "whereas." the argument he most affected was the circular one. he could run round a horseshoe, skip over from point to point, and run round again as nimbly as any man on record. in a famous chapter in corinthians, for instance, he first proves the resurrection of the dead by the resurrection of jesus christ, and then proves the resurrection of jesus christ by the resurrection of the dead. it is in the same chapter that he enunciates the botanical truth (a truth of bible botany, observe) that a seed does not bear anything unless it dies. altogether the great apostle is a first-rate type of the christian logician, and there are some who declare him to be a first-rate type of the christian truth-teller. speeding down the stream of time to the present age, we see that christian logic (yes, and christian veracity) has undergone little if any alteration. it is as infantile and as impudent as ever. arguments that would look fallacious in the nursery are used in the pulpit, generation after generation, with an air of solemn profundity, as though they were as wise as the oracles of omniscience. to select from such a plethora is almost impossible; the difficulty is where to begin. but happily we are under no necessity of selection. a case is before us, and we take it as it comes. it is a "converted infidel" case, in the report of a recent sermon--the last of a series on "is christianity played out?"--by the rev. dr. hiles hitchens; the gentleman referred to in one of our last week's paragraphs as wishing for an old three-legged stool or something made by jesus christ. dr. hitchens, alas! cannot find the stool, and has to put up with the creed instead; though, perhaps, he gets as much out of the creed as he would make by selling the stool to the british museum. dr. hitchens preached from the text, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord"--a statement which, after the lapse of so many centuries, has still to be couched in the future tense. the delay has been excessive, but dr. hitchens is hopeful. he believes in the ultimate and speedy fulfilment of the prophecy. one of his grounds for so believing is this (we quote from the _christian commonwealth_), that "out of leading lecturers, authors, editors, and debaters on the side of infidelity have been brought to christ within the last years, have left their infidel associations, openly professed the religion of jesus, and engaged in christian work." the last he named, we are told, was "the case of a national secular lecturer, of whom the sceptics were greatly proud, who has recently been received by, and now lectures for, the christian evidence society." we leave the consideration of these "facts" for a moment, and deal in the first place with dr. hitchens's peculiar logic. it is truly christian. the species is unmistakable. seventeen freethinkers have been converted to christianity! wonderful! but how many christians have been converted to freethought? ay, there's the rub. for every specimen dr. hitchens produces we will produce a thousand. not only were the rank and file of the freethought party very largely brought up as christians, but its leaders are of the same category. charles bradlaugh was brought up as a christian, so was colonel ingersoll. can dr. hitchens produce two names among his "converts" of the same weight, or a half, a quarter, or a tithe of it? every leader of freethought in england, we believe, is a convert from christianity. as to the "leading" men dr. hitchens refers to, we presume they are the persons initialed in the late mr. whitmore's tract, and those among them who were leaders were not converted, and those who were converted were not leaders. the real leaders of the freethought party, those who were long in its service, and were entrusted with power and responsibility, were never converted. and the cases on mr. whitmore's list are old. they have an ancient and fish-like smell. dr. hitchens will perhaps be good enough to tell us the name of any man of real distinction in the freethought party who has been "converted" during the last twenty years. we defy him to do so. if he goes back far enough he will find a few men who were not trusted in our party, and a few weaklings who could not fight an uphill battle, who went over to the enemy. real leaders of our party fought, suffered, and starved, but they never deserted the flag. christianity could not convert a bradlaugh or a holyoake; it could only bribe or allure a sexton or a gordon, or others of the "illustrious obscure" in mr. whitmore's fraudulent catalogue. in short, the "conversions" to christianity so trumpeted are mostly dubious, generally insignificant, and all ancient. if the prophecy which dr. hitchens preached from is to be accomplished, it will have to quicken its rate of fulfilment during the past twenty years. we convert tremendously more christians than you do freethinkers; the balance is terribly to your disadvantage; you can only make out a promising account by setting down your infinitesimal gains and making no entry of your tremendous losses. the only recent case that dr. hitchens refers to is that of "a national secular lecturer, of whom the sceptics were greatly proud." dr. hitchens evidently takes this gentleman at his own estimate. that _he_ thinks the sceptics were greatly proud of him is intelligible; it is quite in keeping with his shallow, vulgar, and egotistical nature. but the truth is "the sceptics," in any general sense, were _not_ proud of him. he was a very young man, with a great deal to learn, who had a very brief career as a secularist in east london. in a thoughtless moment a local secular society gave him office, and that fact is his entire stock-in-trade as a "converted freethinker." he was never one of the national secular society's appointed lecturers; he was neither "author, editor, or debater"; and he was utterly unknown to the party in general. dr. hitchens has, in fact, discovered a mare's nest. we are in a position to speak with some authority, and we defy him to name any freethinker "of whom the sceptics were greatly proud" who has of late years been converted to christianity. it is easy enough to impose on an ignorant congregation, and dr. hitchens is probably aware of the lengths to which a reckless pulpiteer may carry his mendacity. but candid investigators will conclude that "converted infidels" cannot be very plentiful, when the majority of them are so ancient; nor very important, when an obscure youth has to be advertised as "a leader" of whom the sceptics (nine out of ten of them never having heard of him) were "greatly proud." we should imagine that dr. hitchens is rather new to this line of advocacy. in the course of time he will learn--if indeed he has not already learnt, and is concealing the fact--that the "converted infidels" will not stand a minute's scrutiny. the only safe method is to drop questionable cases and resort to sheer invention. even that method, however, is not devoid of peril, as one of its practitioners has recently discovered. the rev. hugh price hughes must by this time be extremely sorry he circulated that false and foolish story of the converted atheist shoemaker. the exposure of it follows him wherever he goes, and illustrates the truth of at least one bible text--"be sure your sin will find you out." mrs. booth's ghost. the booth family have all keen eyes for business. if they shut their eyes you can see it by their noses. it is not surprising, therefore, to find mrs. booth-tucker capping mr. stead's ghost stories with a fine romance about her dead mother. while the "mother of the salvation army" was dying, the booth family made all the capital they could out of her sufferings; and when she expired, her corpse was shunted about in the financial interest of their show. perhaps they would be exhibiting her still if there were no law as to the disposition of corpses. but as that avenue to profit is closed, the only alternative is to make use of mrs. booth's ghost, and this has just been done by one of her daughters. mrs. booth-tucker contributes her ghost story to the easter number of _all the world_. no doubt easter was thought a seasonable time for its publication. christians are just then dreaming about the great jerusalem ghost, and another "creeper" comes in appropriately. mr. stead catches up mrs. booth-tucker's ghost story and prints it in the _review of reviews_. he admits the want of evidence "as to its objectivity," which is a euphemism for "no evidence at all," and then observes most sapiently that if it was only a dream, "the coincidence of its occurrence at the crisis in her illness is remarkable"--which is precisely what it is not. mrs. booth-tucker was very ill on board a steamer when she saw her mother, fresh from "the beautiful land above." "those with me," she says, "thought i was dying, and i thought so too." when a person is in that state, after a wasting illness, the brain is necessarily weak. but this was not all. "i had not slept," the lady says, "for some days, at any rate not for many minutes together." her brain, therefore, was not only weak, but overwrought; and in ingenuously stating this at the outset the lady gives herself away. given a wasted body, weakness "unto death," a brain ill supplied with blood and ravaged with sleeplessness; does it, we ask, require a "rank materialist" to explain the presence of "visions" without the aid of supernaturalism? "suddenly," mrs. booth-tucker says, "i saw her coming to me." but how "coming"? the lady tells us she was lying in "a small sea cabin." this does not leave much room for the "coming" of the ghost. we should also like to know why a lady thought to be dying was _left alone_. it is certainly a very unusual circumstance. mrs. booth's ghost, after as much "coming" as could be accomplished in "a small cabin," at last "sat beside" her sick daughter "on the narrow bunk." no doubt the seat was rather incommodious, but why should a ghost sit at all? it really seems to have been a mixed sort of ghost. apparently it came through the ship's side, or the deck, or the cabin-door, or the key-hole; yet it was solid enough to touch mrs. booth-tucker's hand and kiss her? nay, it was solid enough to carry on a long conversation, which does not seem possible without lungs and larynx. mrs. booth's ghost said a great deal. "_wonderful words_ they were," says mrs. booth-tucker. this whets our curiosity. we are always listening for "wonderful words." but, alas, we are doomed to disappointment. the lady knows her mother's words were "wonderful," but she cannot reproduce them. here memory is defective. "i can remember so few of the actual words," she says. nevertheless, she gives us a few samples, and they do not seem _very_ "wonderful." here are two of the said samples: "live, live, live, remembering that night comes always _quickly_, and all is nothingness that dies with death!" "fight the fight, darling; the sympathy of christ is always with you, and every effort you make is heaping up treasure for you in heaven." we fancy we have heard those "wonderful words" before. for all their wonderfulness, ghosts are seldom original. mrs. booth-tucker reminds us of the gushing lady novelist, who describes her hero as divinely handsome and miraculously clever, but when she opens his mouth, makes him talk like a jackass. "general" booth's daughter does not see that she found words for her mother's ghost. she is not so sharp as dr. johnson, who carried on a discussion with an adversary in a dream, and got the worst of it. for a time he felt humiliated, but he recovered his pride on reflecting that he had provided the other fellow with arguments. when mrs. booth-tucker tells that "the radiance of her face spoke to me," we can easily understand the subjective nature of her "vision," and as readily dispense with a budget of those "wonderful words." nor are we singular in incredulity. mr. stead cannot put his tongue in his cheek at a member of the booth family, but the _christian commonwealth_ says "the story is both improbable and absurd," and adds, "it is just such fanaticism as this that brings religion into contempt with many educated people." our pious contemporary, like any wretched materialist, declares that many persons have seen ghosts "when under the influence of fever or in a low state of health." all this is sensible enough, and in a christian journal very edifying. but if our pious contemporary only applied this criticism backwards, what havoc it would make with the records of early christianity! mrs. booth-tucker is not in all points like mary magdalene, but she resembles her in fervor of disposition. out of mary magdalene we are told that jesus cast "seven devils," which implies, rationalistically, that she was strongly hysterical. she was more likely to be a victim of "fanaticism" than mrs. booth-tucker. yet the ghost story of mrs. booth's daughter is discredited, and even stigmatised as discreditable, while the brain-sick fancies of mary magdalene are treated as accurate history. she was at the bottom of the jerusalem ghost story, and her evidence is regarded as unimpeachable. so much do circumstances alter cases! our pious contemporary regards all modern ghosts as "fever dreams." so do we, and we regard all ancient ghosts in the same light the difference between ancient and modern superstition is only a question of environment. superstition itself is always the same; it no more changes than the leopard's spots or the ethiopian's skin. but the environment changes. from the days when there was no scientific knowledge or rigorous criticism we have advanced to an age when the electric search-light of science sweeps every corner and criticism is remorseless. hence the modern ghosts are served up in christmas "shockers," while the ancient ghosts are worshipped as gods. but this will not last for ever. the rule of "what is, has been," will eventually be applied to the whole of human history, and the greatest ghost of the creeds will "melt into the infinite azure of the past." talmage on the bible. talmage is the spurgeon of america. he has all the english preacher's vogue as well as his orthodoxy. but he resembles spurgeon with a difference. he is distinctly american. no one equals the yankee at "tall talk," and what yankee equals talmage in this species of composition? the oracle of the brooklyn tabernacle licks creation in that line. here is a specimen of his spread-eagle eloquence, taken from the sermon we are about to criticise:--"the black and deep-toned bell of doom hangs over their heads, and i take the hammer of that bell, and i strike it three times with all my might, and it sounds woe! woe! woe!" perhaps it does, but talmage is wrong in his spelling. what the bell of doom, so impudently struck by this mannikin, really sounds is doubtless "woh! woh! woh!" it wants the presumptuous spouter to leave off playing the part of god almighty. over in america, as well as here in england, the bible is meeting with misfortune. christian ministers are showing up its blunders and inconsistencies. its foes are now of its own household. talmage is not frightened, however; he keeps a stiff upper-lip; and it must be admitted, he has a good deal of upper-lip to keep stiff. since he visited the holy land his faith is strong enough to swallow whales. now he knows that what the bible says is true.. he has seen the place where it happened. but faith is a tender plant. talmage says it is easily destroyed. "i can give you a recipe for its obliteration," he cries; and it is this--"read infidel books; have long and frequent conversations with sceptics; attend the lectures of those antagonistic to religion." yes, faith _is_ a tender plant. the believer is a hot-house production. he dies in the open-air. the bible can be read by freethinkers, and it confirms them in their scepticism; but if a christian reads infidel books he is lost. hearing the other side is fatal to his faith. it is talmage who states so, and, as old omar khayyam says, he knows, he knows. somewhat paradoxically--but who expects logic from the pulpit?--the great talmage declares, "i do not believe there is an infidel now alive who has read the bible through." he offers a hundred dollars reward to any infidel "who has read the bible through twice"--which discounts his certainty that no infidel had read it through _once_. a good many infidels might apply for that hundred dollars, but talmage will never hand it over. an infidel's word is not good enough--not for talmage. "i must have the testimony," he exclaims, "of someone who has seen him read it all through twice." a very safe condition! for who has ever _seen_ any man read the bible through? and if the witness happened to be an infidel--as is likely--talmage would want the testimony of someone else who had seen him see the other man reading it; talmage is not very wise, but he is not exactly a fool, and he and _his_ money are _not_ soon parted. there is an "infidel" in america who _has_ read the bible through. his name is robert g. ingersoll. talmage should discuss the bible with him. but he won't. he knows what his fate would be in such an encounter. "and they gathered up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full." there is also an "infidel" in england who has read the bible through. _more_ than one, of course, but we know this one so intimately. he was shut up in holloway gaol for knowing too much about the bible. during the first eight weeks of his sojourn there the "blessed book" was his only companion. it was the bible, the whole bible, and nothing but the bible. that prisoner read it through from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in revelation; read it through as talmage _never_ did, for there were no distractions, no letters to answer, no morning and evening newspapers, no visitors dropping in. it was a continuous, undisturbed reading, and the man who did it would be happy to let the public decide whether he does not know the bible as well as talmage. talmage has a very poor opinion of infidels. he thinks that "bad habits" have much to do with scepticism. his narrow little mind cannot understand how anyone can differ from him without being wicked. still, for decency sake, he makes exceptions. "mind you," he cries, "i do not say that all infidels are immoral." how kind! how generous! no doubt the infidels will shed tears of gratitude. they are not _all_ immoral. some of them may be nearly as good as talmage. certainly some of them are not so avaricious. infidels speakers don't insist on having fifty pounds paid in the ante-room before they mount the platform to deliver a lecture. it appears that talmage once knew a "pronounced infidel." he was the father of one of the presidents of the united states. talmage accepted an invitation to spend a night in his house. "just before retiring at night, he said, in a jocose way: 'i suppose you are accustomed to read the bible before going to bed, and here is my bible from which to read. he then told me what portions he would like to have me read, and he only asked for those portions on which he could easily be facetious." talmage gives himself away in this observation. he contends that god wrote the bible. why, then, did god write it so that you could _easily_ be facetious about it? it is not so _easy_ to be facetious about homer, or plato, or aristotle, or dante, or spinoza, or shakespeare, or bacon. there is no humor in the bible, no wit, and only a little sarcasm. we do not laugh _with_ it, but _at_ it, which is the most fatal form of laughter. it is awfully solemn, but dreadfully absurd. there are things in it to tickle an elephant. surely it is strange that god should write a book that lends itself so easily to ridicule. the spurgeon of yankeeland goes on to speak about the "internal evidence" of the bible. this he says is "paramount," though he takes care to skip off as quickly as possible to outside testimony. he cites a number of persons trained up as christians in favor of the "supernatural" character of the bible. the first is chief justice chase, of the supreme court of the united states--against whom we put a great jurisprudist like bentham, and a great judge like sir james stephen. the second is president adams--against whom we put president lincoln. the third is sir isaac newton--against whom we put charles darwin. the fourth is sir walter scott--against whom we put byron and shelley. the fifth is hugh miller--against whom we put sir charles lyell. the sixth is edmund burke--against whom we put thomas paine, or, if that will not do, lord bolingbroke. the seventh is mr. gladstone--against whom we put john morley. "enough! enough!" says talmage. we say so too. our names quite balance his names collectively. the game of "authorities" can be played on both sides. but is it worth playing at all? is a great name a substitute for argument? is authority as good as evidence? should the jury decide according to the eminence of the pleader's friends, or according to his facts and the force of his reasoning? taking advantage of his congregation's ignorance, or exposing his own, talmage declares that "the discovered monuments of egypt have chiselled on them the story of the sufferings of the israelites in egyptian bondage, as we find it in the bible." now, to put it mildly, this is not true. we are also told that "the sulphurous graves of sodom and gomorrah have been identified." to put it mildly again, _this_ is not true. we are told next that "the remains of the tower of babel have been found." this is not true. assyrian documents are also said to "echo and re-echo the truth of bible history," this is not true, according to professor sayce, who knows more about assyrian history than talmage knows about all things whatsoever. the witness of assyria repeatedly contradicts the bible story, not merely in small matters, but in important features. the fact is, talmage does not know what he is talking about; or, he _does_ know what he is talking about, in which case he is playing a very dirty trick on his hearers' credulity. with respect to the pentateuch, it does not trouble talmage whether it was written by "moses or hilkiah or ezra or samuel or jeremiah, or another group of ancients." he declares that "none of them wrote it," for "god wrote the pentateuch"--that is to say, they "put down only what god dictated; he signed it afterward." but where is the signature? and what a paltry way is this of evading the question at issue! it is all very well to say that the writers of the pentateuch were "jehovah's stenographers or typewriters." what we want to know first of all is, who they were, and when they lived. it is useless to follow talmage any farther. suffice it to say that he winds up by warning young christians against a "voltaire cyclone" on the one side, and a "tom paine cyclone" on the other side. there is something worse than either--a talmage puddle. the young man who sports in that is only fit for--well, exeter hall, or colney hatch. mrs. besant on death and after. when we first criticised mrs. besant's newly-found theosophy, and thereby incurred her severe displeasure, we predicted that her enthusiastic nature would carry her far on the road, which she thought of true philosophy, but which we thought of gross superstition. our prediction has been realised; and, unless for some accident, or some sudden turn in mrs. besant's mind or life, it will be realised still further. in this, as in other matters (as the french say) it is the first step which costs, because it involves all the following steps. mrs. besant placed her feet upon the high road of credulity when she succumbed to the theosophical high priestess, whose life is a highly interesting and instructive chapter in the history of imposture. madame blavatsky had seen much of the world, and was up to most things. she had a surprising power of bamboozling people of some intelligence and culture. the broad-set eyes, and the great tiger-bar between and over them, indicated the species to which she belonged. mrs. besant, with her innocences and enthusiasms, was a baby in the hands of this female cagliostro. she actually gave the blavatsky credit for what she obviously did not possess. her manners, for instance, were not such as might be expected from one who had tasted of spiritual wisdom at its secret sources; while her pretentious ignorance was enough to alarm any student not under the glamor of her audacity. she made the most grotesque mistakes in science, while pompously setting right in their own province such colossal authorities as darwin and haeckel. she had certainly read very widely (or got others to read very widely for her) in "occult" literature; but wherever one's own knowledge enabled one to test, she was a poor smatterer; and the same judgment is delivered upon her by specialists in most of the fields she invaded. it was not her learning or her intellectual power that captivated mrs. besant; it was her strong personality, her masculine dominance, her crafty self-possession. from the first minute of her enchantment, mrs. besant lost all sense of logic in relation to theosophy. for instance, it was asserted, and the assertion was supported by positive, detailed-evidence, that the blavatsky had practised the grossest imposture in india. and how did mrs. besant dispose of these charges? she says she read them, and immediately joined the theosophical society--as though that were any _answer_. it is like saying, "i don't rebut the evidence against the prisoner in the dock, but i shall shake hands with him." what possible effect could that have on the sensible part of the jury? but this sort of logic has been displayed by mrs. besant ever since; indeed, she seems to have a dim perception of her weakness, for she dares not discuss theosophy, or any part of it, with an out-and-out freethinker--one who would subject it to the critical tests with which she herself was familiar when she stood upon the secular platform. there is one aspect of mrs. besant's advocacy of theosophy which we censured at first, and which we now think is something short of honest. mrs. besant used to present secularism in its naked truth, to be embraced or rejected; but she follows a different course in regard to theosophy; she puts its plausible features forward and conceals the rest, so that people who have heard her are positively astonished when they are told of some of her printed teachings. this seems especially the case when she addresses meetings, somewhat too chivalrously organised by freethinkers. now this is not fair, it is not really honest; though it may be in accord with the ethics of those who divide truth into "exoteric" and "esoteric." to our mind, it is rather suggestive of the spider and the fly. "will you walk into my parlor?" "oh yes," says the giddy fly, "it looks so nice, positively inviting?" but what of the other rooms in your house; your garret near the sky, where you do star-gazing, and your basement, where crawl the foul things of savage superstition? many of our readers have heard mrs. besant in the sweet persuasive vein, and felt pleased if rather muddled. for their sakes, and not for our own satisfaction, we shall criticise her little volume on _death--and after?_ just issued as no. iii. of a series of theosophical manuals. when we have done they will know more about theosophy than if they had listened to mrs. besant (especially from freethought platforms) for ten thousand years. first, let us notice mrs. besant's attitude. her devotion to the blavatsky is complete; she mentions the great woman with profound veneration, swears to all she taught, and, in fact, just stews down the blavatsky's voluminous nonsense. mrs. besant is also a patient disciple of the masters--to wit, the mahatmas. these masters of wisdom never appear for inspection. they lurk in the secret fastnesses of tibet, which is a very unexplored part of the world, large enough to hide a good many things, even things that do not exist. they know a lot, but what dribbles out of them is very commonplace when it is not pompously silly. they inhabit higher planes of life than our greatest saints and sages, but somehow they have done nothing for tibet, which is one of the poorest, dirtiest, and most degraded countries on earth. still, they are going to give a tremendous lift to the civilisation of europe; and if we live long enough we shall see what we _do_ see. mahatmas are really the distinctive feature of theosophy; it is absolutely nothing without them; and, in our opinion, they are a most farcical swindle madame blavatsky created _these_ out of her own fertile imagination, she put them where they could not be found, and she said, "if you want to know anything about them come to me; i am the chosen vehicle of their sublime revelations." and if you laughed at her mahatmas, she was capable of indulging in expletives that would strike envy into the soul of a trooper. how curious it is, if these mahatmas are real personages, that they do not communicate with _our_ masters of wisdom. why do they neglect our spencers and huxleys? why do they choose to speak through a woman like madame blavatsky, or a popular lecturess like mrs. besant? why are they so fond of the ladies? cannot they have some dealings with _a man_, a man of great eminence as a philosopher, of high and undisputed character, and of vast influence with the educated and thoughtful classes? why, in short, do the mahatmas confine their attention to smaller persons _with fish to fry?_ relying upon these mahatmas, and upon madame blavatsky, her great guide, philosopher, and friend, mrs. besant has an extremely easy task. she makes no attempt to prove, she simply asserts, and it seems to be a kind of blasphemy to ask for evidence. she dishes everything up in hindu terminology, on the ground that "the english language has as yet no equivalents." but will it ever have them? never, we suspect, by the assistance of theosophists. the oriental lingo is part of the fascination to those who like to look profound on a small stock of learning. besides, it imposes on the open-mouthed; and, if the hindu terminology were translated into vernacular english, they would probably exclaim, "good god! there's nothing in it." it is all very well for mrs. besant to pour out second-hand praise of "technical terms." we all know their value. but how is it we have not got them already? because--and this is the only answer--because we are ignorant of the _things_. western experience does not coincide with oriental dreams. mrs. besant opens her little volume with the famous story of the conversion to christianity of edwin, but she tells it very loosely, and in fact wrongly; which is a proof that the infallibility of the mahatmas has not fallen upon their disciple. she states that while paulinus, the christian missionary, was speaking to-edwin of life, death, and immortality, a bird flew in through a window, circled the hall, and flew out again into the darkness; whereupon the christian priest "bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the-hall the transitory life of man, and claimed for his faith that it showed the soul, in passing from the' hall of life, winging its way, not in the darkness of night, but in the sunlit radiance of a more glorious world." now the bird did not fly into the hall as paulinus was speaking, nor did he preach this sermon upon its movements. it was one of edwin's suite who introduced the bird's flight as a metaphor, reminding the king that sometimes at supper, in the winter, a sparrow would fly in out of the storm, entering at one door and passing out at another, staying but a minute, and after that minute returning to winter as from winter it came. "such is the life of man," said the saxon speaker, "and of what follows it, or what has preceded it, we are altogether ignorant; wherefore, if this new doctrine should bring anything more certain, it well deserves to be followed." this is how the incident is related by bede, though it is probably apocryphal; nevertheless it ought not to be hashed up by fresh cooks; and if the matter is in itself of trifling importance, it is as well to be accurate, especially when you pretend a close acquaintance with the masters of wisdom. many hundred years have elapsed since paulinus talked with edwin, and to-day, says mrs. besant, there are "more people in christendom who question whether a man has a spirit to come anywhence or to go any-whither, than, perhaps, in the world's history could ever before have been found at one time." we are also reminded that man has always been asking whence the soul comes, and whither it goes, and "the answers have varied with the faiths." _this_ is true, at any rate; but it does not suggest to mrs. besant any lesson of modesty or hesitation. despite the discord of so many ages, she is most coolly dogmatic. it does not, apparently, occur to her to ask _why_ the discord has perpetually prevailed. in matters of science, after investigation and discussion, the world comes to an agreement; in matters of theology (or, if you like, theosophy) the world grows more and more at variance. _why_ is this? there must be an explanation. and to our mind the explanation is very simple. in matters of science men deal with _facts_, while in those other matters they deal with _fancies_, and the more freedom you give them the greater will be the variety of their preferences. mrs. besant's new superstition of theosophy is, in our judgment, more foolish and less dignified than christianity. we are therefore moved to say that she does injustice to christianity in representing it as responsible for all the black paraphernalia and lugubrious ceremonies of death. there was, indeed, nothing of all this among the primitive christians. such things belong to the world's common customs and superstitions. black was not merely a sign of sorrow, or at least of depression; it was also thought to be protective against ghosts; so that these trappings and suits of woe belong to the very "spookology" which is an integral part of theosophy. of course i freely admit that the ordinary gloom of death has been deepened by the christian doctrine of hell, though mrs. besant seems to think otherwise. she inclines to the belief that the western fear of death is ethnological, being the antithesis of its vigorous life. but it may be objected that the old romans were comparatively free from this terror. on the other hand, it must be allowed that mrs. besant is right in her observation that "the more mystical dreamy east" has little dread of the "shadow cloaked from head to foot," since it is ever ever seeking to escape from "from the thraldom of the senses," and is apt to look upon "the disembodied state as eminently desirable and as most conducive to unfettered thought." in other words, that "when the brains are out," as macbeth says, man's intellect undergoes a wonderful improvement; an opinion, by the way, which is quite in harmony with theosophical teaching. after giving the theosophical view of the "body," mrs. besant says that when once we _thus_ come to regard it, death loses all its terrors. but this is not the sole achievement of theosophy. what terror had death to charles bradlaugh? what terror had death to mrs. besant while she was an atheist? there are thousands of sceptics who do not want theosophy to redeem them from a terror which they have long cast behind them, with the superstition by which it was bred and cherished. let us pause to remark that mrs. besant quotes from _paradise lost_ its magnificent description of death. she appreciates at least the splendor of the diction, but she does not notice how poor in comparison are the words she quotes from her "masters." how is it that milton beats the mahatmas? what objects they look when the great english poet rises "with his singing robes about him"! how thin their music when he strikes upon his thrilling lyre, or blows his rousing trumpet, or rolls from his mighty organ the floods of entrancing harmony! but to return to the main subject. it is absurd, as mrs. besant points out, to claim for christianity that it "brought life and immortality to light." the belief in a future life was an intense conviction--or, perhaps we should say, a perfect truism--among the people of ancient india and egypt. yet here again, with her taste for dogmatic rhetoric, mrs. besant gratuitously exaggerates. "the whole ancient world," she says, "basked in the full sunshine of belief in the immortality of man, lived in it daily, voiced it in their literature, and went with it in calm serenity through the gate of death." now "calm serenity" is bad tautology, and the general assertion of this passage is equally open to censure. "the whole ancient world," as the americans would say, is a large order. greece and rome (to say nothing of the pre-maccabean jews) were very important parts of "the whole ancient world," and whoever asserts that _their_ citizens "basked in the sunshine of belief in immortality" is simply making a confession of ignorance. greek and roman poets and philosophers in many cases doubted, or even denied, a life beyond the grave. even when the doctrine was entertained it does not appear to have been productive of much "sunshine." does not the poet make the shade of the great achilles say that he would rather be the veriest day-drudge on earth than command all the armies of the ghosts in the cold pale realm of the dead? we do not ignore, on the other hand, the islands of the blest; we are only objecting to mrs. besant's loose and sweeping assertions, which prove very clearly that her new "faith" is not remarkable in the cultivation of accuracy. with regard to man--the _entire_ human being, mortal and immortal--mrs. besant remarks that "un-instructed christians" chop him into two, the body-that perishes at death, and the "something that survives death." she omits to notice that a good many christians chop him into three, to say nothing of others, like the christadelphians, who leave him one and indivisible. mrs. besant, for her part, as a true theo-sophist, goes farther than the sharpest christian dissectors. she chops man into _seven_. when she was a materialist she never suspected that her nature was so composite, and we are still in the same benighted condition. one begins to feel that the injunction, "man, know thyself," is a terrible burden. it is hard enough to get a fair knowledge of our organism, its physical constitution, its intellectual faculties, and its moral tendencies; but the task is absolutely appalling when, we have to get a satisfactory knowledge of our atma, our buddhi, our manas, our kama, our prana, our linga sharira, and our sthula sharira. anyone who can master all that may as well go on unto seventy times seven. the immortal soul consists of the upper three, which are a trinity in everlasting unity. the heavens may wax old as a garment, but they "go on for ever," and flourish in immortal youth. death is the first step in the process of their separation from the lower and perishable four. one after another of these is shed, as the serpent sloughs its skin, or the butterfly its chrysalis; or, to use a more familiar and pungent illustration, which we make a present of to mrs. besant, as you peel an onion, fold after fold, until you get to the tender core. sthula sharira goes first, and the organism becomes a corpse, which is buried, or cremated, or eaten by cannibals. linga sharira, the astral double, had been attached to it by a "delicate cord," which is our old friend "the thread of life"--a convenient metaphor turned into a positive proposition. this delicate cord is snapped, not immediately, "but some hours" (as many as thirty-six occasionally) after "apparent death." it is necessary, therefore, to be very quiet in the death-chamber, while the linga sharira is eloping. one shudders to think of what might happen, of the indecent haste to which number six might be compelled, if a corpse were cremated a few hours after death; the corpse, for instance, of a man who died from cholera or the plague. this "delicate cord" which attaches number seven to number six is perceptible if your eyes are constructed that way; that is, if you are a clairvoyant, one who is able to see beyond the real. mrs. besant does not say she has seen it herself; indeed, she is always relying on someone else. she refers us to andrew jackson davis, the "poughkeepsie seer" (and a spiritist, though she does not say so), who "watched this escape of the ethereal body" and states that "the magnetic cord did not break for some thirty-six hours." "others," says mrs. besant, "have described, in similar terms, how they saw a faint violet mist rise from the dying body, gradually condensing into a figure which was the counterpart of the expiring person, and attached to that person by a glittering thread." thus the attachment is "delicate," "magnetic," and "glittering." in the course of time, we dare say, it will be decorated with a much larger variety of adjectives. meanwhile we may observe that if mrs. besant were to preach this sort of "higher wisdom" to savages she would find an attentive and sympathetic audience. the violet mist, the astral double, and the delicate, magnetic, glittering cord, are things that they are to some extent already familiar with; and if she could only get them to accept her terminology, and talk of sthula sharira and linga sharira, they would be extremely promising candidates for the theosophical kingdom of heaven. mrs. besant tells us that the linga sharira, or astral double, rots away (disintegrates) in time. it is "the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of man," and takes a longer time in dropping into nothingness. "sometimes this double is seen by persons in the house, or in the neighborhood... the double may be seen or heard; when seen it shows the dreamy hazy consciousness alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, and unresponsive.... this astral corpse remains near the physical one, and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these astral wraiths in churchyards, sometimes showing likeness of the dead body, sometimes as violet mists or lights. such an astral corpse has been seen by a friend of my own." at this point we think it well to part company with mrs. besant. who would have imagined, ten years ago, that the colleague of charles bradlaugh would ever descend so far into superstition as to write and talk seriously about churchyard spooks? what she may have to say about theosophy after this can hardly be of interest to any thoroughly sane person. we therefore close with an expression of profound regret that an earnest, eloquent lady who once did such service in the cause of progress, should thus fall a victim to some of the most childish superstitions of the human race. the poets and liberal theology. * * _the development of theology as illustrated in english poetry from to _. by stopf ord a. brooke. london: green, essex-street. unitarianism has had wealth and learning on its side for several generations, it has also enjoyed the services of some men of singular ability, yet it has signally failed to make an impression upon the general public. in all probability it ever _will_ fail. those who like theology at all, for the most part like it hot and strong. to purge it of its "grosser" features is to rob it of its chief attraction. the ignorant and thoughtless multitude want plenty of supernaturalism. those who think for themselves, on the other hand, are apt to grow dissatisfied with theology altogether, and to advance beyond the somewhat arbitrary and fantastic limits of the unitarian faith. for this reason unitarianism was called by erasmus darwin, the grandfather of the great charles darwin, a feather bed to catch a falling christian. others regard it as a halfway house between christianity and atheism, or even as a bathing machine for those who would wade, and fear to plunge, in the waters of freethought. let us not, however, deny the distinction of such advocates of the unitarian faith as dr. martineau and dr. stopf ord brooke. the latter was once a clergyman of the church of england, which he left because he no longer held her tenets, and in this he was more honest and courageous than some others who eat the church's bread and undermine her faith. mr. brooke regards himself as a teacher of positive religion, but in our judgment his service to liberalism is really negative. his writings and sermons are a protest, however decorous, against the orthodox theology; and the protest may be all the more effective, with a certain order of minds, because it does not show them the ultimate consequences of freethinking. when they see the preacher aglow with the ardor of his "purified" faith in god and immortality, they are encouraged to advance as far as he has gone, and thus to leave behind them the worst portions of the creed of their childhood. mr. brooke is well known in the field of literature, and is held to shine as a critic of poetry. hence it was that the british and foreign unitarian association appointed him to deliver the first lecture of a course "dealing with some aspect of the history and development of christianity as viewed from a liberal and progressive standpoint." the special subject selected was the development of theology as illustrated in english poetry, and the lecture is now published in a neat little volume for the general reader. we notice the frequent recurrence of the phrase "liberal theology." naturally we like everybody to be liberal, but we cannot see the appropriateness of the epithet in this instance. it would sound strange to talk of "liberal geology" or "liberal chemistry." why then should we talk of "liberal theology"? if theology is anything but an effort of imagination--as _we_ conceive it--it must be a system of ascertained truth. its propositions are therefore true or false, but they cannot be good or bad, liberal or illiberal. introduce these epithets, and you make it a matter of taste and preference, or of conformity or non-conformity to the spirit of advancing civilisation. this is indeed what mr. brooke appears to mean. he seems to regard theology as liberal or otherwise as it adapts itself to the growth of knowledge and morality. he goes to the length of admitting that secular progress precedes religious progress. "the church," he says, "has always followed society." the change in theology, which has made it "liberal," or produced that variety of it, could not have appeared "in early christian times, nor in the middle ages; not as long, that is, as the imperialistic or feudal theory of humanity and its rulers existed." still more decisively, if possible, he repeats this statement:--"there was no chance then of theology changing until the existing views of human society changed. if theology was to be enlarged, they must first be enlarged." now this is a truth which we have always insisted on, and the reason of it is destructive to "liberal" and all other kinds of theology. we are told that god made man, but the fact is that man made god, and what he made he is able to keep in repair. the growing idea of god's "love" is not forced upon theologians by a study of nature, nor by a study of scripture. it is forced upon them by the advancing spirit of humanity. god was once a being who loved and hated, and all the "liberal" theologians have done is to minimise his hatred and maximise his love. god has not made any fresh disclosures of himself, as mr. brooke teaches; the theologians have simply brought him up to date, and they have done so under the compulsion of secular progress. mr. brooke's conception of the fatherhood of god is creditable to his feelings. the deity he worships is one who will "effectually call to himself and effectually keep, at last, all his children to whose free-will only one thing is impossible--final division from the sovereignty of his love." but how far is this creditable to mr. brooke's intelligence? it is certainly inconsistent with the teaching of christ, and mr. brooke calls himself a christian. it is no less inconsistent with all we know of nature, who is supremely indifferent to the fate of individuals. to talk so consumedly of god's love in this age of darwinism, with its law of natural selection based on a universal struggle for existence, is to fly in the face of common sense. but here, alas, as in so many other cases, the voice of reason is drowned in the chorus of sentimentalism. with respect to democracy, which is a kind of john the baptist to mr. brooke's form of christianity, there can be little doubt, we think, that it has been chiefly indebted to science, which has in three centuries, since the days of copernicus and galileo, done more to advance the brotherhood of man than has been done by religion from the "first syllable of recorded time." mr. brooke does not concern himself with science, however; but he nearly agrees with us in the matter of chronology. a vast alteration in thought, due to whatever causes, had been going on for centuries. it was a change "from exclusiveness to universality," and it "took a literary and philosophical form in the eighteenth century writers in france, and finally emerged a giant in the french revolution." in that mighty upheaval "the whole of the ideas of the old society perished for ever and ever," and what seems to be left of them is "but their ghosts, a host of pale-eyed, weary phantoms." this is true and well expressed, but it should be added that most of the eighteenth century writers in france, particularly those who may be called philosophical, were vehemently opposed to christianity, as were most of the eminent actors in the revolution. several of them were downright atheists, who would have regarded the "liberal theology" of mr. brooke as a sign of mental feebleness. out of the revolution sprang the vivid conception of the brotherhood of man, and it was this, mr. brooke says, that made possible "the conception of god's universal fatherhood." in other words, a change in human ideas rendered necessary a change in theology. still, we have mr. brooke's word for it, the churches and sects were the last to move. "in england," he declares, "the resistance offered to these ideas by the religious bodies has been always steady and often rancorous." it was another class of men who seized upon them. these were the poets, the "most emotional, the most imaginative, the most prophetic, and the most clear-sighted of men." sometimes they kept the name of christians, but more often they were called "heretics or infidels, blasphemers or atheists." occasionally they _were_ atheists, as in the case of shelley, though it could hardly be expected that mr. brooke would emphasise the fact. after some pithy criticism on william blake, who was a forceful protestor against the old theology, mr. brooke passes on to burns and cowper. of the exquisite satire of _holy willie's prayer_, despite its "irreverence and immorality," which are after all but matters of opinion, mr. brooke says that it "weakened the worst doctrines of calvinism far more than ten thousand liberal sermons have done." cowper weakened calvinism too, though he did so unintentionally. the pathos and horror of some of his poems, written under the heavy shadow of this awful creed, did a great deal to discredit it amongst thoughtful and sensitive readers. the poet was asked how he felt when dying. his answer was, "i feel unutterable despair." these terrible words prompt mr. brooke to write as follows:-- "they are words which all the good deeds of the professors of calvinism will never get over. 'he was mad,' they say; but what drove him mad? did jesus teach in order that men might become insane? for cowper is one among millions whom this doctrine of god has ruined morally, intellectually, or physically. but they have perished, unknown, unheard. this man was a poet, and his words have told. his personal acceptance of the horror revealed, as the mockery of burns did not, the idolatrous foulness of this doctrine concerning god." coleridge's one specific contribution as a poet to a wider theology, in the opinion of mr. brooke, was the closing verse of the _ancient mariner_--which, by the way, is not the closing verse, but the antepenultimate. he prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small; for the dear god who loveth us he made and loveth all. mr. brooke holds that wordsworth did a far ampler work by his doctrine of immanence, which is perilously near pantheism. understood, however, in the spirit of "liberal theology," it will not only finally govern, but also "bring about at last the complete reconcilement of science and religion." but we must remind mr. brooke that this is sheer prophecy. it is simple enough to utter the counter prophecy that wordsworth's doctrine will do nothing of the kind. it is in relation to byron and shelley that mr. brooke really comes to the point of his essay. wordsworth and coleridge turned their backs upon the revolution. they were disenchanted. they failed to see that the throes of birth were not the end of the progressive process. one sought refuge in toryism, modified by benevolence; the other in metaphysical moonshine and esoteric theology. byron, on the other hand, while not in the least constructive, or enamored of the more advanced ideas in religion, politics, and sociology, was filled with a bitter hatred and satiric contempt for the old order of things, with its lies, hypocrisies, and oppressions. he embodied what mr. brooke calls "the destroying element of the revolution," which in him was "directed by great mental force and a reckless daring." among other things, he struck at "the ancient, accredited doctrines of theology, and he struck savagely." mr. brooke is of opinion that the poet "brought free inquiry on theology to the surface of society." but we think the critic is mistaken. free inquiry on theology had been going on in england for more than a century, and it culminated, on the popular side, in paine's _age of reason_. how far byron aided the movement is easy of estimation. to tell the truth, he hinted disbelief, and scattered doubt over his pages; but he did no more, he never faced any question manfully; on the problems of religion his mind was chaotic to the very end. it is this phenomena which leads mr. brooke to infer that byron believed in the arbitrary, vengeful god whom he depicted in cain. "he believes," mr. brooke says, "hates what he believes, stamps with fury on his belief, and yet clings to it." such a conclusion, however, is one we cannot accept. byron did _not_ believe; his prose, and his letters, prove that conclusively. but he had not the courage to disbelieve and to proclaim his disbelief boldly like shelley, who had a hundred times more real courage than his attitudinising friend, _manfred_ is terrible posing; mr. meredith calls it "an after dinner's indigest"; and _cain_ is rather skimble-skamble stuff, though mr. brooke calls it "the most powerful, the most human, the most serious thing he ever wrote, and the most effective"--which is surely a most inept criticism. byron rarely succeeded as a serious poet; when he did so it was only in short flights. he found the proper field for his genius in _don juan_. his province was satire, and the _vision of judgment_ is at the top of english achievement in this direction, a creative imagination he did not possess, any more than a profound intellect; and it was the perception of this fact which prompted his impertinent sneers at shakespeare. but he had imagination enough to give wings to his satire, and an inexhaustible wit which played like lightning around the objects of his indignation or contempt. never did he reason like shelley, and it is clear that he was afraid to; he attacked in his own way what he _felt_ to be false and despicable, and the sword he wielded was ravishingly (or terribly) brilliant, though it _never cut deep enough_. one loves to think of him at last, however, laying down his life, as he gave his substance, for the freedom of greece. with all his faults, no pious or cowardly fear of death ever haunted his mighty spirit. how gloriously he would have died on the battle-field, fighting desperately for the cause of the people! the last verses he ever wrote showed the troubled stream of his life running pure at its close. noble and sincere in its language, it was a fitting farewell to the world; and although the poet did not find his "soldier's grave," he died none the less for the cause to which he had pledged his fortune and the remnant of his strength. "shelley did also a work of destruction," says mr. brooke, "though in a very different way from byron." we should think so indeed! the "also" is singularly weak in this instance, for shelley attacked the christian superstition directly, and _queen mab_ had far more readers than _cain_, the cheap, pirated editions being circulated extensively among the working classes. "he began," says mr. brooke, "by being an atheist, he ended by being what we call an agnostic." but is this any more than a verbal distinction? it appears to us that shelley's principles are the same in _prometheus unbound_ as in _queen mab_. the change is in their presentation; the passionate vehemence of youth is succeeded by the restrained power of manhood. it is true that shelley sang the praises of love--"immortal" love if you choose to call it so; but mr. brooke has to admit that he did not "give it a personal life." shelley also "thinks immortality improbable," yet, mr. brooke says, he "glides into words in his poems which continually imply it." but this we deny. allowing for personification and emphasis, without which there can be no poetry, we venture to affirm that there is not a single passage, line, or phrase in shelley's later poems which is not in essential harmony with his belief in the mortality of man and the practical immortality of the race. it is one of the offences of theologians ("liberal" or otherwise) in relation to shelley, that they try to turn metaphors into logical propositions, in order to make the poet give evidence against himself. in one respect, however, we quite agree with mr. brooke. "liberal theology" has _not_ yet "reached the level of shelley's thought," nor can it ever do so until it ceases to be theology and becomes simple humanity. mr. brooke may flatter himself that he has "a higher faith than shelley had," but we think he is mistaken. substitute "blinder" for "higher" and the expression would be more accurate. shelley did believe that love--not alone, but co-operating with knowledge--would achieve the salvation of mankind; but he resolutely refused to talk about man's "destiny in god the father," which seems to afford such comfort to the devotees of "liberal theology." for this he deserves the gratitude of all scientific humanitarians, who should protest with all their might against the attempt to emasculate him into a prophet, or even an advance agent, of some new form of godism. "liberal theology" should beget its own poet, if it can; it should not try to steal the poet of humanity. christianity and labor. * * sept. , . whatever else may be thought about the present coal-strike, or lock-out, as it might be more accurately described, it will be admitted by many persons who do not rail at political economy that the miners are following a sound instinct in demanding that a decent wage shall be a fixed element in price. to dig coal out of the earth is worth a minimum of (say) thirty shillings a week, and if it will not yield that modest remuneration to the worker let it stay where it is, and let the community do without coal altogether. morally speaking, society has no right to demand that an important industry shall be carried on under conditions involving the misery, and still less the degradation, of those employed in it. nor is this a wild, revolutionary doctrine; it is eminently conservative, in the best sense of the word; and it will have to be admitted, and acted upon, in the interest of social order. of course it means an inroad on rent and speculative profit, but that is not an immeasurable calamity. so much, by way of introduction, on the moral and economic aspects of the matter. our special object is rather theological. we desire to notice the part which religion plays in the struggle between capital and labor; or, more properly perhaps, between the "haves" and the "have-nots." everyone with an elementary knowledge of the social and political history of the last hundred years must be aware that the working classes, as such, have had no help whatever from christian churches. here and there an individual clergyman has spoken a word on their behalf, but the great mass of the men of god have been on the side of "the powers that be," and have insulted and derided the advocates and leaders of trade unionism, whom they are still fond of calling "pestilent agitators." yet the gospel, and especially the sermon on the mount, is stuffed with platitudes about the blessings and virtues of poverty, and the curse and wickedness of wealth. logically, therefore, judging by the letter of scripture, the clergy should have been on the side of the poor, the wretched, and the oppressed. but this is a case in which "the letter killeth," and with an eye to their own interests and privileges, to say nothing of their ease and comfort, the clergy found that "the spirit" of the gospel meant the preservation of the existing conditions of society. it would be bad for the rich, and well for the poor, in the next life; but, in this life, they were to keep their relative places, and remain content in the positions which providence had assigned them. it is not surprising, then, that the christian churches--with all their wealth, power, and at least pretended influence--should be idle or unctuously hypocritical spectators of the struggles of labor to obtain a fair share of the blessings of civilisation. they extend just sufficient verbal patronage to labor to save themselves from being howled at, and throw all their real weight in the scale against it. and it is folly to expect any better of them. the religion and the training of the clergy make them what they are, and they can no more alter than the ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots. religion is always the consecration of the past; never the spirit of the future working in the present; and the clergy, who, as sidney smith said, are a third sex--neither male nor female, but effeminate--are instinctively conservative, thoroughly enamored of what is, and obstinately averse to all radical changes. their timidity would be quite phenomenal, if they were _not_ the third sex; and, like all timid people, they can shriek and yell and curse and foam at the mouth when they are well frightened. were it otherwise, were christianity a real agency for social improvement, and the clergy the moral leaders of the people, we should have seen by this time a tremendous alteration in the condition, and the relations, of all classes of society. there might still be differences, but they would be on a higher plane, and less grievous and exasperating. as the case stands, all the best of the clergy can do is to preach harmless platitudes once a week. one bishop has been actually harangueing the miners, and only provoking contemptuous remarks about his salary. the truth is, that christian ministers are, in the main, only fit to preach kingdom-come. that is their proper work, ana they are exactly cut out for it. we are not in love with all the details of the elaborate ecclesiasticism of comte's religion of humanity, but we are bound to say that a philosophical priesthood, such as he planned, would be better fitted than a christian priesthood for the work of moral control and social diplomacy. there is an ethical as well as an economical element in most of these disputes between labor and capital; and a philosophical priesthood, vowed to study and simplicity of life, would be able to intervene with some effect. it would be something, indeed, to have the deliberate judgment of a dispassionate though sympathetic tribunal, even though it had--and could and should have--no authority to enforce its decisions. at present, however, all this is utopian, and perhaps it always will be so. we will return, therefore, to our immediate object, which is to point out the utter uselessness of christianity in the midst of class antagonisms. it cannot control the rich, it cannot assist the poor. its chief idea is to stand between the two, not as an ambassador of justice, but as a dispenser of charity. and _this_ charity, instead of really helping the people, only serves to obscure the problems to be solved, and to perpetuate the evils it affects to relieve. an easter egg for christians. * * april, . christian fellow citizens,-- we are living together in this world, but i do not know whether we shall live together in the next world. you probably consider yourself as booked for heaven, and me as booked for the other establishment. but that is a question i will not discuss at present. i will only remark that you may be mistaken. existence, you know, is full of surprises; and, as the french say, it is always the unexpected that happens. well, my fellow citizens of this world, it is now the time when you celebrate the death and resurrection of your "savior." not being of your faith, i cannot join in the commemoration. i shall, however, regard the season after a more primitive fashion. your church adopted an old pagan festival, the rejoicing at the renewal of the earth in the genial springtide. at the vernal equinox the sun is increasing in power, the world is astir with new life, and begins to reassume its mantle of green. such a time inspired jollity in the human breast. it was commemorated with feast and dance and song. perhaps it will be so again, even in sombre england, when the gloom of your ascetic creed has lifted and disappeared. meanwhile i, as a "heathen man and a sinner," will imitate as far as i may the example of the pagans of old. i will not sing, for i am no adept in that line; and my joints are getting too stiff for dancing. but i will feast, within the bounds of reason; i will leave this million-peopled babylon and put myself in touch with mother nature; i will feel, if only for a brief while, the spring of the turf under my feet; i will breathe air purified by "the moving waters at their priest-like task of pure ablution round earth's human shores"; i will watch the seahorses, with their white crests, in endless rank, charging the shore; i will listen to the sound which homer heard so long before your christ was born--the sound so monotonous, so melancholy, yet so soothing and sustaining, which stirs a pulse of poetry in the very dullest and most prosaic brain. but before i go i send you this easter egg, to show that i do not forget you. keep it, i pray you; study well its inscriptions; and perhaps, after all, you will not pelt me with it at the finish. i have said, my christian fellow citizens, that your church appropriated an ancient pagan festival--the festival of spring. i may be told by scholars amongst you that the time of christ's crucifixion and resurrection was fixed by the jewish passover. i reply that the passover was itself a spring festival, whose original and natural meaning was obscured by priestly arts and legendary stories. that it happened at this time of the year, that it depended on astronomical signs, that its commemoration included the sacrifice of the firstlings of the flock--shows clearly enough that it was a jewish counterpart of the common gentile celebration. has it ever occurred to you that if christ died, he died on a particular day; and that if he rose from the dead, he rose on a particular morning? that day, that morning, should have been observed in the proper fashion of anniversaries. but it never was, and it is not now. good friday--as you curiously, and almost facetiously call the day on which the founder of your faith suffered a painful and ignominious death--and easter sunday, when he left his sepulchre, never fall on the same date in successive years. they are determined by calculations of the position of the sun and the phases of the moon--a planet sacred to lovers and lunatics, and naturally dear therefore to devotion and superstition. you decorate your churches with evergreens and flowers as the pagans decorated their temples and altars. you use easter eggs like the pre-christian religionists. you show, and your creed shows, in everything that easter is really a spring festival. the year springs from the tomb of winter, and christ springs at the same time from the tomb of death. i am disposed to regard your "savior" as a purely mythical personage, like all other saviors and sun-gods of antiquity, who were generally, if not always, born miraculously of virgin mothers, mysteriously impregnated by celestial visitors; and whose careers, like that of your christ, were marked by portents and prodigies, ending in tribulation and defeat, which were followed by vindication and triumph. whether there was a man called jesus, or joshua (the jewish form of the name), who lived and taught in galilee and died at jerusalem, is more than i will undertake to determine, and it seems to me a question of microscopic importance. but i am convinced that the christ of the gospels is the product of religious imagination; an ideal figure, constructed out of materials that were common in the east for hundreds and perhaps for thousands of years. to confine ourselves, however, to the easter aspect of the matter, i think you will find--if you read the gospel story with unprejudiced eyes--that the closing scenes of christ's career are quite imaginary. the story of his trial and crucifixion is utterly at variance with roman law and jewish custom. it also includes astonishing incidents--such as the earthquake which rent the veil of the temple, the three hours' eclipse of the sun, and the wholesale resurrection of dead "saints"--of which the romans and the jews were in a still more astonishing ignorance. what must have startled the whole or the then known world, if it happened, made absolutely no impression on the hebrew and gentile nations, and not a trace of it remains in the pages of their historians. can you believe that the most remarkable occurrences on record escaped the attention of all who were living at the time, with the exception of a handful of men and women, who never took the trouble to write an account of their experiences, but left them to be chronicled by unknown writers long after they themselves were dead? all the documentary evidence we possess is christian. it is the witness of an interested party, uncorroborated by a particle of testimony from independent sources. i do not forget that the literature of your early church includes a letter from pontius pilate to the emperor tiberius, giving a detailed account of the trial, sentence, crucifixion, and resurrection of christ; but this is one of the many forgeries of your early church, and is now universally rejected as such alike by protestant and by catholic scholars. to my mind, indeed, this forgery itself proves the falsehood of the gospel narrative; it shows that the early christians felt the necessity of some corroborative evidence, and they manufactured it to give their own statements an air of greater plausibility. taking the gospels as they stand, i will ask you to read the story in matthew (not that i believe _he_ wrote it) of the watch at christ's sepulchre. the jewish priests come to pilate, and ask him to let the sepulchre be sealed and guarded; for the dead impostor had declared he would rise again on the third day, and his disciples might steal his body and say he had risen. the guard is set, but an angel descends from heaven, terrifies the soldiers, rolls away the stone, and allows jesus to escape. whereupon the jewish priests give the soldiers money to tell pilate that they slept at their posts. how, i ask, did those jewish priests know that jesus had said "after three days i will rise again"? according to john (xx. ), his very disciples were ignorant of this fact--"for as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." could it be unknown to his intimates, who had been with him day and night for three years, in all parts of palestine; yet well known to the priests, who had only seen him occasionally during a few days at jerusalem? there was an "earthquake" before the angels descended. would not this have attracted general attention? and is it conceivable that the soldiers would take money to say they had slept at their posts? the punishment for that offence was death. of what use then was the bribe? do men sell their honor for what they can never enjoy, and count their lives as a mere trifle in the bargain? is it conceivable that the priests were so foolish as the story depicts them? would bribing the soldiers protect them against christ? if he had risen he was lord of life and death. would they not have abandoned their projects against him, and sought his forgiveness? he who had the power to revive himself had the power to destroy them. the appearances of jesus, after his resurrection, are grotesque in their self-contradiction. now he is a pure ghost, suddenly appearing and suddenly vanishing, and entering a room with shut doors. then he appears as solid flesh and blood, to be felt and handled. he even eats broiled fish and honeycomb. such conditions are quite irreconcilable. we may imagine a ghost going through a keyhole, but is it possible to imagine broiled fish and honeycomb going through the same aperture? or is the stomach of a ghost capable of digesting such victuals? has it never struck you as strange, also, that the risen christ never appeared to anyone but his disciples? no outsider, no independent witness, ever caught a glimpse of him. the story is a party report to prove a party position and maintain a party's interests. surely, if christ died for _all men_, if his resurrection is the pledge of ours, and if our inability to believe it involves our perdition, _the fact_ should have been established beyond all cavil. christ should have stood before pilate who sentenced him to be crucified; he should have confronted the sanhedrim who compassed his death; he might even have walked about freely amongst the jews during the forty days (more or less) during which, as the new testament narrates, he flitted about like a hedge-row ghost. he should have made his resurrection as clear as daylight, and he left it as dark as night. to ask what became of the body of jesus if he did not rise, is an idle question. there is not the slightest _contemporary_ evidence that his body was an object of concern. on the other hand, however, the story of the ascension looks like a convenient refuge. to talk of a risen christ was to invite the question "where is he?" the story of the ascension enabled the talkers to answer "he is gone up." it relieved them from the awkward necessity of producing him. space does not allow of my discussing this subject more extensively. i could swell this easter egg into gigantic proportions, but i must leave it as it is it goes to you with my compliments, and a hope that it will do you good. if it leads any of you to "take a thought and mend," if it induces one of you to review the faith of his childhood, if it stirs a rational impulse in a single christian mind, i shall be amply rewarded for my trouble.--christian fellow citizens, adieu!--i remain, yours for reason and humanity. duelling. * * july , . one result of the recent duel between m. floquet and the melodramatic general boulanger is that bishop freppel has moved in the chamber of deputies for the legal abolition of private combats. that a bishop should do this is remarkable. if bishop freppel possessed any sense of humor, he would leave the task to laymen. his church did not establish duelling; on the contrary, she censured it; but it was countenanced by her principles, and her protest was unavailing. the judicial combat was an appeal to god, like the ordeal by fire or water, or the purgation by oath. the church patronised those forms of superstition which brought men to her altars, and ministered to her profit and power, and she opposed those superstitions which were inimical to her interest. when legal proofs failed and suits were undecided; when persons were accused of crimes, of which they could neither be proved guilty nor held guiltless; or when they lay under gross suspicion of wrong, the church proffered the ordeal. she invited the litigants, or the suspected parties, to handle hot iron, plunge their arms into boiling liquid, or be thrown into water deep enough to drown them; and if they underwent such treatment without injury, she held them innocent. another device was the oath. the parties went to the church altar and swore their innocence or the justice of their cause. but all these methods gave room for chicane. kings and knights protested that the oath led to indiscriminate perjury, that if the priests' hands were tickled with money the hot iron was only painted, and that a suitable fee could render the boiling liquid innocuous to the skin of a baby. they therefore drew their swords, exclaiming, "away with this priestly jugglery! these weapons are better than fire or water or oil, and god can decide the right in single combat as in the churchman's ordeal." "is it not true," asked king gundobald of bishop avitus, "that the event of national wars and private combats is directed by the judgment of god; and that his providence awards the victory to the juster cause?" the bishop could not answer "no," for if he did he would have demolished the whole church system of ordeals, so he yielded to the arguments of his sovereign. single combats, under the gothic code, were fought according to judicial forms. they were held, robertson says, "as solemn appeals to the omniscience and justice of the supreme being." shakespeare is careful to to notice this feature. when bolingbroke and norfolk, in _richard ii._, challenge each other as traitors, the king consents to their duel in the following terms: at coventry, upon saint lambert's day: there shall your swords and lances arbitrate the swelling difference of your settled hate. since we cannot atone you, we shall see justice design the victor's chivalry. modern duelling is thus a survival of the old judicial combat. the "point of honor" is the excuse for a practice which has lost its original sanction. the appeal to god is forgotten, and the duellists talk of "satisfaction." illogical no doubt, but this is only one of many customs that survive their original meaning. now the church cannot hold itself guiltless in regard to this folly. she cherished the superstition on which it rested. she taught the policy of appealing to god, and only frowned on the particular method which brought no grist to her mill. her own methods were still more senseless. unless the laws of nature were constantly subverted, her ordeals must have operated at random when they were not regulated by fraud. the hand of guilt might be harder than that of innocence, and more likely to bear a moment's contact with hot iron or boiling oil. besides, as montesquieu observes, the poltroon stood the poorest chance in the judicial combat, and the poltroon was more likely to be guilty than the man of courage. the weak, of course, were at the mercy of the strong; but in one point, at least, the combat had an obvious advantage over the other ordeals. how amusing it must have been to a sceptic, if such then existed, to see the opposition between the nobles and the clergy. the nobles said "fight!" and the clergy cried "that is impious." the clergy said "swear!" and the nobles cried "that is sacrilege and leads to perjury." no less amusing was the turn which combat took in spain in the eleventh century. there was a struggle between the latin and the gothic liturgy. aragon yielded to the papal pressure, but castile thought the contest should be decided by the sword. accordingly, mosheim tells us, two champions were chosen; they fought, and the latin liturgy was defeated. but the romish party was not satisfied. the two liturgies were thrown into a fire, and the result of the ordeal was another triumph for the goths. still the divine decisions are frail when opposed to the interests of the church. queen constantia, who controlled king alphonso, sided with the pontiff of rome, and the priest and the lady carried the day. though incorporated in the judicial system of christendom, the duel is scorned by the turks, and was unknown to the greeks and romans. lord bacon remarks this in one of his admirable law tracts: "all memory doth consent that greece and rome were the most valiant and generous nations of the world; and, that which is more to be noted, they were free estates, and not under a monarchy; whereby a man would think it a great deal the more reason that particular persons should have righted themselves; and yet they had not this practice of duels, nor anything that bare show thereof." (_charge against duels._) bacon observes that the most valorous and generous nations scorn this practice. why then did it obtain so long in christendom? was it because the northern and western nations were cowardly and selfish? nothing of the kind; it was because they were superstitious, and their superstition was cherished by the church. even at the present day the church calls international combat an appeal to god; regimental banners are consecrated by priests, and laid up in temples when dilapidated; and catholic and protestant priests alike implore victory for their respective sides in time of war. and why not? is not the bible god "the lord of hosts" and "a man of war"? did he not teach david's fingers to fight? were not joshua and jehu, the two greatest tigers in history, his chosen generals? why then should he be averse to international butchery in europe? should he not rejoice in the next bloody cockpit of featherless bipeds? and is it not hard to see his infinite appetite for blood reduced to content itself with an occasional duel, in which not enough of the sanguine fluid is shed to make a small black-pudding? bishop freppel is ill-advised. he should not rob his deity of his last consolation. down among the dead men. * * july , . the ramming and sinking of the "victoria" is the great event of the day. it is said to show the uselessness of big ironclads in naval warfare. but as the "camperdown," which sent the "victoria" to the bottom in a few minutes, has herself sustained very little damage, it looks as though "rams" were anything but inefficient. there has never yet been an engagement between two fleets of ironclads, and no one knows how they would behave in an actual battle. our own impression is that both fleets would go to the bottom, and this opinion is shared by a good many practical persons at portsmouth and devonport. however that may be, it is a great pity that "civilised" nations are still so uncivilised as to spend their time and money on these costly engines of destruction. we are well aware that the newspapers go into hysterics over our soldiers and sailors, and no doubt many of them are very gallant fellows. but in this, we venture to think, they do not represent the masses of the people. never have we witnessed such deep and sincere enthusiasm as was displayed by the crowd of spectators at the agricultural hall, while the american, portuguese, and english firemen were going through their evolutions. the business of these fine fellows was to _save_ life. they incurred the deadliest danger for human preservation, and not for human destruction. and how the people cheered them as they rode upon their engines, drawn by galloping horses! with what breathless interest they watched them climbing up ladders, sliding down ropes, and bearing men on their backs out of third-floor windows! it did one good to watch the proceedings, which showed that a new spirit was taking possession of the people, that they were beginning to be more interested in the savers than in the slayers of men. but all this is a digression. let us return to the "victoria." she is now in eighty fathoms of water with her hundreds of dead. poor fellows! theirs was a sad fate; though not more so than the fate of miners blasted or suffocated in explosive pits. we pity their dear ones--mothers, sisters, wives, and children. hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hearts are aching on their account; mourning for the dead who will never be buried under the sweet churchyard grass, though they have the whole ocean for their tomb and the stars for its nightlamps. on sunday, of course, the sky-pilots, all over england, were busy at "improving the occasion." they always make profit out of death and disaster. "prepare to meet thy god!" was the lesson which most of them derived from this catastrophe. of course the preachers are ready _themselves_. who can doubt it? but they are in no hurry to have it tested. they do not want to meet their god until they are obliged to. it is so much better to be a commercial traveller in god's service than to take a situation in the house. some of the preachers dared to talk about "providence"--the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, to keep watch o'er the life of poor jack, and lets him go to the bottom or furnish a dinner for sharks. surely that providence is a rare old fraud. a cripple, a paralytic, a sleeper, a dead man, could have done as much for the "victoria" as providence managed to do. "oh!" it is said, "but the drowned sailors are gone to heaven; providence looked after them in that way." indeed! then why do you lament over them? still more, why do you congratulate the survivors? according to your theory, they have missed a slice of good luck. we have frequently remarked, and we now repeat, that religion is based upon the bed-rock of _selfishness_; and nothing proves the truth of this so clearly, and so convincingly, as the talk that people indulge in about providence. for instance, take this telegram, which is printed in the newspapers as having been sent home to a gentleman in england:--"jack saved. awful affair. thank god!" this telegram was written hastily, but it was sincere; the writer had no time to drop into hypocrisy. "jack saved" was his first thought; that is, jack is still on earth and out of heaven. "awful affair" was his second thought; that is, a lot of other poor devils are gone to heaven--anyhow, they are no longer on earth. "thank god" was his third thought; that is, jack's all right. thus it was two for our jack, and one for all the hundreds who perished! it may be pointed out, too, that "thank god!" comes in the wrong place; where it stands it seems to thank god for the calamity. yes, so it does, if we look at the mere composition; but the order of the ejaculations is all right, if we look at the sentiment, the pious sentiment, of the person who wrote the telegram. he followed the logic of his personal feelings, like everyone else who "thanks god" and talks of providence. season and personal feeling often do not coincide. in this case, for instance, it requires a very slight exercise of the intellect to see that, if providence saved "jack," providence drowned the rest. "no," some will reply, "providence did not drown them, but only let them drown." well, that is exactly the same thing. superficially, it is the same thing; for providence, like men, is responsible for omissions as well as commissions. if you let a blind man walk over a precipice without warning him, you are his murderer, you are guilty of his blood. resolving not to do a thing is as much an act of will as resolving to do it. "thou shalt" is a law as imperative as "thou shalt not," though it does not figure in the decalogue. profoundly also, as well as superficially, providence, if it saved jack, killed those who perished; for, as jack was not visibly fished out of the water by providence, it can only be held that providence saved him on the ground that providence _does everything_, which covers the whole of our contention. "i the lord do all these things." so says the bible, and so you must believe, if you have a god at all. smirching a hero. "he who fights with priests may make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled by the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders."--heine. the great poet and wit, heinrich heine, from whom we select a motto for this article, was not very partial to englishmen, and still less partial to scotchmen. he had no objection to their human nature, but a strong objection to their religion, which so resembles that of the chosen people--being, indeed, chiefly modelled on the old testament pattern--that he was led to describe them as modern jews, who only differed from the ancient ones in eating pork. doubtless a great improvement has taken place since heine penned that pungent description, but scotland is still the home of orthodoxy, and most inaccessible to liberal ideas, unless they wear a political garb. it need not astonish us, therefore, that a bitter attack on a freethought martyr like giordano bruno should emanate from the land of john knox; or that it should appear in the distinctly national magazine which is called the _scottish review_. the writer does not disclose his name, and this is a characteristic circumstance. he indulges his malevolence, and airs his ignorance, under a veil of anonymity. his stabs are delivered like those of a bravo, who hides his face as he deals his treacherous blow. many books and articles have been written on giordano bruno, but this writer seems ignorant of them all, except a recent volume by a romish priest of the society of jesus, which he places at the top of his article, and relies upon throughout as an infallible authority. it does not occur to him that an account of bruno by a jesuit member of the church which murdered him, is hardly likely to be impartial; nor does he scent anything suspicious in the fact that the documents reporting bruno's trial were all written by the inquisition. he would probably sniff at a report of the trial of jesus christ by the scribes and pharisees, yet that is precisely the kind of document on which he relies to blast the memory of bruno. some of those inquisition records he translates, apparently fancying he is making a revelation, though? they have long been before the scholarly public, and were extensively cited in the english _life of bruno_, by i. frith, which saw the light more than twelve months ago. berti reprinted the documents of bruno's trial in venice in , so that the startling revelations of father previti are at least seven years behind the fair. before dealing, however, with the use he would make of those documents, we think it best to track this scotch slanderer throughout his slimy course, and expose his astounding mixture of ignorance, impudence and meanness. let us take two instances of the last "virtue" first. he actually condescends to attempt a feeble point in regard to bruno's name. bruno, he sagely observes--with an air of originality only intelligible on the ground that he is conscious of writing for the veriest ignoramuses--is the same as _brown_; and hence, if we take the baptismal name of filippo bruno, it simply means philip brown. well, what of that? what's in a name? one great english poet rejoiced in the vulgar name of jonson; two other english poets bore the no less vulgar name of thomson; while at least two have descended so low as smith. we might even remind the orthodox libeller that joshua, the jewish formi of jesus, was as common as jack is among ourselves. perhaps the reminder will sound blasphemous in his delicate ears, but fact is fact, and if reputations are to depend on names, we may as well be impartial. now, for our second instance. bruno was betrayed to the venetian inquisition by count mocenigo while he was that nobleman's guest. mocenigo had invited him to venice in order that he might learn what this writer calls "his peculiar system for developing and strengthening the memory," although this "peculiar" system was simply the lullian method. what the nobleman really wanted to learn seems to have been the black art. he complained, and bruno resolved to leave him; whereupon the "nobleman," who had harbored bruno for months, forcibly detained him, and denounced him to the inquisition as a heretic and a blasphemer. a more dastardly action is difficult to conceive, but our scotch libeller is ready to defend it, or at least to give it a coat of whitewash. he allows that mocenigo does not appear to have been animated "with the motive of religious zeal," and that his "conscience" never "troubled him" before the "personal difference." but he discovers a plea for this judas in his "sworn statement" to the inquisition that he did not suspect bruno of being a monk until the very day of their quarrel. what miserable sophistry! would not a man who violated the most sacred laws of friendship and hospitality be quite capable of telling a lie? still more miserable is the remark that bruno was not ultimately tried on mocenigo's denunciations, but on his own published writings. jesus christ was not tried on the denunciations of judas iscariot, but on his own public utterances, yet whoever pleaded that this gave a sweeter savor to the traitor's kiss? so much--though more might be said--for the writer's meanness. now for his other virtues, and especially his ignorance. after dwelling on the battle at rome over the proposal to erect a public monument to bruno, this writer tells us that "a small literature is arising on the subject," and that the name of bruno is "suddenly invested with an importance which it never formerly possessed." apparently he is unaware that, so far from a small literature arising, a large bruno literature has long existed. he has only to turn to the end of frith's book, and he will find an alphabetical list of books, articles, and criticisms on bruno, filling no less than ten pages of small type. he might also enlighten his ridiculous darkness by reading the fine chapter in lewes's _history of philosophy_, mr. swinburne's two noble sonnets, and professor tyndall's glowing eulogy of bruno's scientific prescience in the famous belfast address. perhaps hallam, schwegler, hegel, bunsen and cousin are too recondite for the scotch libeller's perusal; but he might, at any rate, look up lewes, swinburne and tyndall, who are probably accessible in his local free library. what on earth, too, does he mean by bruno's "great obscurity" when he returned to italy and fell into the jaws of the inquisition? every scholar in that age was more or less obscure, for the multitude was illiterate, and sovereigns and soldiers monopolised the public attention. but as notoriety then went, bruno was a famous figure. proof of this will be given presently. meanwhile we may notice the cheap sneer at bruno as "a social and literary failure." shelley was a literary failure in his lifetime, but he is hardly so now; and if bruno was poor and unappreciated, time has adjusted the balance, for after the lapse of three centuries he is loved and hated by the rival parties of progress and reaction. now let us disprove the scotch libeller's statements as to "the extreme obscurity in which giordano bruno lived and died." bruno was so "obscure" that he fled from naples, and doffed his priest's raiment, at the age of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, because his superiors were proceeding against him for heresy, through an act of accusation which comprised no less than one hundred and thirty counts. he was so "obscure" that the rest of his life was a prolonged flight from persecution. he was so "obscure" that the calvinists hunted him out of geneva, whence he narrowly escaped with his life; the documents relating to the proceedings against him being still preserved in the genevan archives. he was so "obscure" that he took a professorship at toulouse, and publicly lectured there to large audiences for more than a year. he was so "obscure" that king henry iii. made him professor extraordinary at paris, and excused him from attending mass. he was so "obscure" that the learned doctors of the sorbonne waxed wroth with him, and made it obvious that his continued stay in paris would be dangerous to his health. he was so "obscure" that he lived for nearly three years as the guest of the french ambassador in london. he was so "obscure" that he was known at the court of elizabeth. he was so "obscure" that he was a friend of sir philip sidney, and an intimate associate of dyer, fulk greville, and the chief wits of his age. he was so "obscure" that he was allowed, as a distinguished foreigner, to lecture at oxford, and to hold a public disputation on the aristotelian philosophy before the chancellor and the university. he was so "obscure" that on his return to paris he held another public disputation under the auspices of the king. he was so "obscure" that his orations were listened to by the senate of the university of wittenberg. he was so "obscure" that he was publicly excommunicated by the zealot boethius. he was so "obscure" that the venetian inquisition broke through its stern rule, and handed him over as a special favor to the inquisition of rome. he was so "obscure" that he was at last "butchered to make a roman holiday," the cardinals having presided at his trial, and his sentence being several pages at length. such was "the obscurity in which giordano bruno lived and died." the scotch libeller hints that bruno was not burnt after all. he forgets, or he is ignorant of the fact, that all doubt on that point is removed by the three papers discovered in the vatican library. he merely repeats the insinuation of m. desduits, which has lost its extremely small measure of plausibility since the discovery of those documents. the martyrdom of bruno is much better attested than the crucifixion. there always was contemporary evidence as well as unbroken tradition, and now we have proofs as complete as can be adduced for any event in history. from the documentary evidence it is clear that bruno fought hard for his life, and he would have been a fool or a suicide to have acted otherwise. he bent all his dialectical skill, and all his subtle intellect, to the task of proving that religion and philosophy were distinct, and that so long as a scholar conformed in practice he should be allowed the fullest liberty of speculation. the inquisition, however, pretends that he abjured all his errors, and the scotch libeller is pleased to say he recanted. but, in that case, why was bruno burnt alive at the stake? according to the laws of the inquisition, all who reconciled themselves to the church after sentence were strangled before they were burnt. and why was bruno allowed a week's grace before his execution, except to give him the opportunity of recanting? despite all this jesuitical special pleading, the fact remains that bruno was sentenced and burnt as an incorrigible heretic; and the fact also remains that when the crucifix was held up for him to kiss as he stood amidst the flames, he rejected it, as scioppus wrote, "with a terrible menacing countenance." not only did he hurl scorn at his judges, telling them that they passed his sentence with more fear than he heard it; but his last words were that "he died a martyr and willingly"--_diceva che moriva martire et volontieri_. bruno is further charged by the scotch libeller with servility, an accusation about as plausible as that jesus christ was a highwayman. a passage is cited from bruno's high-flown panegyric on henry iii. as "a specimen of the language he was prepared to employ towards the great when there was anything to be got from them." either this writer is ineffably ignorant, or his impudence is astounding. in the first place, that was an age of high-flown dedications. look at bacon's fulsome dedication of his _advancement of learning_ to james i. nay, look at the dedication of our english bible to the same monarch, who is put very little below god almighty, and compared to the sun for strength and glory. in the next place, bruno's praise of henry iii. was far from mercenary. he never at any time had more than bread to eat. he was grateful to the king for protection, and his gratitude never abated. when henry was in ill repute, bruno still praised him, and these panegyrics were put into one of the counts against "the heretic" when he was arraigned at venice. the last libel is extorted from bruno's comedy, _il candelajo_. the scotch puritan actually scents something obscene in the very title; to which we can only reply by parodying carlyle--"the nose smells what it brings." as for the comedy itself, it must be judged by the standard of its age. books were then all written for men, and reticence was unknown. yet, free as _il candelajo_ is sometimes in its portrayal of contemporary manners, it does not approach scores of works which are found "in every gentleman's library." it certainly is not freer than shakespeare; it is less free than the song of solomon; it is infinitely less free than ezekiel. nor was the comedy the work of bruno's maturity; it was written in his youth, while he was a priest, before he fell under grave suspicion of heresy, and we may be sure it was relished by his brother priests in the dominican monastery. to draw from this youthful _jeu d'e'sprit_, a theory of bruno's attitude towards women is a grotesque absurdity. we have his fine sonnets written in england, especially the one "inscribed to the most virtuous and delightful ladies," in which he celebrates the beauty, sweetness, and chastity of our english "spouses and daughters of angelic birth." still more striking is the eulogy in his "canticle of the shining ones." bruno, like every poet, was susceptible to love; but he was doomed to wander, and the affection of wife and babes was not for him. so he made philosophy his mistress, and his devotion led him to the stake. surely there was a prescience of his fate in the fine apostrophe of his _heroic rapture_--"o worthy love of the beautiful! o desire for the divine! lend me thy wings; bring me to the dayspring, to the clearness of the young morning; and the outrage of the rabble, the storms of time, the slings and arrows of fortune, shall fall upon this tender body and shall weld it to steel." kit marlowe and jesus christ. * * december, . christopher marlowe, whose "mighty line" was celebrated by ben jonson, is one of the glories of english literature. he was the morning star of our drama, which gives us the highest place in modern poetry. he definitively made our blank verse, which it only remained for shakespeare to improve with his infinite variety; and although his daring, passionate genius was extinguished at the early age of twenty-nine, it has reverent admirers among the best and greatest critics of english literature. many meaner luminaries have had their monuments while marlowe's claims have been neglected; but there is now a project on foot to erect something in honor of his memory, and the committee includes the names of robert browning and algernon swinburne. this project evokes a howl from an anonymous christian in the columns of the _pall mall gazette_. he protests against the "grotesque indecency of such a scheme," and stigmatises marlowe as "a disreputable scamp, who lived a scandalous life and died a disgraceful death." that marlowe was "a scamp" we have on the authority of those who denounced his scepticism and held him up as a frightful warning. his fellow poets, like chapman and drayton, spoke of him with esteem. an anonymous eulogist called him "kynde kit marlowe"; and edward blunt, his friend and publisher, said "the impression of the man hath been dear unto us, living an after-life in our memory." assuredly shakespeare's "dead shepherd" was no scamp. he apparently sowed his wild oats, like hundreds of other young men who were afterwards lauded by the orthodox. he was fond of a glass of wine in an age when tea and coffee were unknown, and english ladies drank beer for breakfast. and if he perished in a sudden brawl, it was at a time when everyone wore arms, and swords and daggers were readily drawn in the commonest quarrels. nor should it be forgotten that he belonged to a "vagabond" class, half-outlawed and denounced by the clergy; that the drama was only then in its infancy; that it was difficult to earn bread by writing even immortal plays; and that irregularity of life was natural in a career whose penury was only diversified by haphazard successes. after all is said, marlowe was no man's enemy but his own; and it is simply preposterous to judge him by the social customs of a more fastidious and, let us add, a more hypocritical age. our christian protestor is shocked at the suggestion that the marlowe memorial should be placed in westminster abbey, "an edifice which i believe was originally built to the honor of jesus christ." "the blasphemies of voltaire," he says, "pale into insignificance when compared with those of marlowe;" he "deliberately accused jesus christ and his personal followers of crimes which are justly considered unmentionable in any civilised community," and "any monument which may be erected in honor of christopher marlowe will be a deliberate insult to christ." now those "blasphemies" are set forth in the accusation of an informer, one richard bame, who was hanged at tyburn the next year for some mortal offence. marlowe's death prevented his arrest, and it is somewhat extravagant--not to give it a harsher epithet--to write as though the accusation had been substantiated in a legal court. one of bame's statements about marlowe's itch for coining is, upon the face of it, absurd, and the whole document is open to the gravest suspicion. it is highly probable however, that marlowe, who was a notorious freethinker, was not very guarded in his private conversation; and we have no doubt that in familiar intercourse, which a mercenary or malicious eavesdropper might overhear, he indulged in what christians regard as "blasphemy." like nine out of ten unbelievers, he very likely gave vent to pleasantries on the subject of christian dogmas. there is nothing incredible in his having said that "moses was but a juggler," that "the new testament is filthily written" (mr. swinburne calls it "canine greek"), or that "all protestants are hypocritical asses." but whether he really did say that the women of samaria were no better than they should be, that jesus's leaning on john's bosom at the last supper was a questionable action, that mary's honor was doubtful and jesus an illegitimate child--cannot be decided before the day of judgment; though, in any case, we fail to see that such things make "the blasphemies of voltaire pale into insignificance." we candidly admit, however, that a memorial to marlowe would be incongruous in westminster abbey if darwin were not buried there; but after admitting the high-priest of evolution it seems paltry to shriek at the admission of other unbelievers. it will not do to blink the fact of marlowe's atheism, as is done by the two gentlemen who took up the cudgels on his behalf in the _pall mall gazette_. setting aside the accusation of that precious informer, there is other evidence of marlowe's heresy. greene reproached him for his scepticism, and every editor has remarked that his plays are heathenish in spirit. lamb not only calls attention to the fact that "marlowe is said to have been tainted with atheistical positions," but remarks that "barabas the jew, and faustus the conjurer, are offsprings of a mind which at least delighted to dally with interdicted subjects. they both talk a language which a believer would have been tender of putting into the mouth of a character though but in fiction." dyce could not "resist the conviction" that marlowe's impiety was "confirmed and daring." his extreme freethought is also noticed by mr. bullen and mr. havelock ellis. there is, indeed, no room for a rational doubt on this point. marlowe was an atheist. but a sincere christian, like robert browning, is nevertheless ready to honor marlowe's genius; quite as ready, in fact, as algernon swinburne, whose impiety is no less "confirmed and daring" than marlowe's own. there is freemasonry among poets; their opinions may differ, but they are all "sealed of the tribe." and surely we may all admire genius as a natural and priceless distinction, apart from all considerations of system and creed. what atheist fails to reverence the greatness of milton? and why should not a christian reverence the greatness of marlowe? if creed stands in the way, the christian may keep his dante and his milton, his cowper and his wordsworth; but he loses shakespeare, byron, and shelley; he loses goethe and victor hugo; nay, he loses homer, aeschylus, sophocles, pindar, lucretius, virgil, horace, and all the splendid poets of persia whose lyres have sounded under the mohammedan crescent. the distinctively christian poets, as the world goes, are in a very decided minority; and it is a piece of grotesque impudence to ban christopher marlowe because he declined to echo the conventional praises of jesus christ. jehovah the ripper. * * november, . the whitechapel monster has once more startled and horrified london, and again he has left absolutely no clue to his identity. he is the mystery of mysteries. he comes and goes like a ghost. murder marks his appearance, but that is all we know of him. the rest is silence. the police, the vigilance societies, and the private detectives are all baffled. they can only stare at each other in blind dismay, as helpless as the poor victims of the fiend's performances. all sorts of theories are started, but they are all in the air--the wild conjectures of irresponsible imaginations. all sorts of stories are afloat, but they contradict each other. as for descriptions of the monster, it is easy enough to say that the police have advertised for nine or ten "wanted" gentlemen, of various heights, dimensions, colors, and costumes, who are all the very same person. we have no desire to dabble in murder, nor do we aspire to turn an honest penny by the minute description of bodily mutilations. but while the whitechapel atrocities are engaging the public attention, we are tempted to contribute our quota of speculation as to the monster's identity. we thought of doing so before, but we reflected that it was perfectly useless while such a pig-headed person as sir charles warren was at the head of the police. now, however, that he is gone, and there is a chance of common-sense suggestions being fairly considered, we venture to propound our theory, in the hope that it will at least be treated on its merits. well now, to the point. our theory is that the whitechapel murderer is------ "whom?" the reader cries. wait awhile. brace up your nerves for the dread intelligence. the east-end fiend, the whitechapel devil, the slaughterer and mutilator of women, is--jehovah! "blasphemous!" is shouted from a million throats. but science is used to such shriekings. we pause till the noise subsides, and then proceed to point out that our theory fulfils the grand condition of fitting in with all the facts. the whitechapel murderer is shrouded in mystery. so is jehovah. the whitechapel murderer comes no one knows whence and goes no one knows whither. so does jehovah. the whitechapel murderer appears in different disguises. so does jehovah. the whitechapel murderer's movements baffle all vigilance. so do jehovah's. the whitechapel murderer comes and goes, appears and disappears, with the celerity and noiselessness of a ghost. so does jehovah, who _is_ a ghost. thus far, then, the similarity is marvellously close, and a _prima facie_ case of identity is established. it will very likely be objected that jehovah is incapable of such atrocities. but this is the misconception of ignorance or the politeness of hypocrisy. jehovah has written his autobiography, and on his own confession his murderous exploits were very similar to those of the whitechapel terror. appealing to that incontrovertible authority, we propose to show that he has every disposition to commit these enormities. according to his own history of himself, jehovah is passionately fond of bloodshed. the sanguine fluid which courses in our veins is the only thing that appeases him. "without shedding of blood," he tells us through the pen of st. paul, "there is no remission" of any debts owing to him. he called on abraham, his friend, to stick a knife into his own son. he slew the first-born of every family in egypt in a single night. he accepted the blood of a young virgin offered him by jephthah. he slew , men at beth-shemesh for looking into his private trunk. he ordered his "chosen" friends, a famous set of banditti, to exterminate, men, women, children, and even animals, and to "leave alive nothing that breatheth." he massacred , citizens of palestine because their king took a census, a social experiment to which he has a rooted antipathy. he had a house especially built for him, and gave orders that it should daily be drenched with blood. according to one of his candid friends, archdeacon farrar, "the floor must literally have swum with blood, and under the blaze of eastern sunlight, the burning of fat and flesh on the large blazing altar must have been carried on amid heaps of sacrificial foulness--offal and skins and thick smoke and steaming putrescence." on one occasion, when in a state of murderous frenzy, he cried out, "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." jehovah's passion for bloodshed is proved out of his own mouth. let us now see his love of mutilation. he generally did this by proxy, and enjoyed the spectacle without undergoing the trouble. some of his friends took a gentleman named adoni-bezek, and "cut off his thumbs and his great toes." wishing to kill a certain eglon, the king of moab, he sent an adventurer called ehud with "a present from jehovah." the present turned out to be an eighteen-inch knife, which ehud thrust into eglon's belly; a part of the body on which the whitechapel murderer is fond of experimenting. jehovah's friend david, a man after his own heart, mutilated no less than four hundred men, and gave their foreskins to his wife as a dowry. incurring jehovah's displeasure and wishing to conciliate him, he attacked certain cities, captured their inhabitants, and cut them in pieces with saws, axes, and harrows. jehovah is particularly savage towards females. he cursed a woman for eating an apple, and instead of killing her on the spot, he determined to torture her every time she became a mother. a friend of his--and we judge people by their friends--cut a woman up into twelve pieces, and sent them to various addresses by parcels' delivery. another of his friends, called menahem, made a raid on a certain territory, and "all the women therein that were with child he _ripped up_." jehovah himself, being angry with the people of samaria, promised to slay them with the sword, dash their infants to pieces, and _rip up_ their pregnant women. no doubt he fulfilled his promise, and he would scarcely have made it if he had not been accustomed to such atrocities. it appears to us, therefore, that he is fully entitled to the name of jehovah the ripper. we have not exhausted our evidence. far more could be adduced, but we hope this will suffice. it may, of course, be objected that jehovah has reformed, that he is too old for midnight adventures, that he has lost his savage cunning, and that his son keeps a sharp eye on the aged assassin. but the ruling passion is never really conquered; it is even, as the proverb says, strong in death. we venture, therefore, to suggest that the whitechapel murderer is jehovah; and although keen eyes may detect a few superficial flaws in our theory--for what theory is perfect till it is demonstrated?--we protest that it marvellously covers the facts of the case, and is infinitely superior to any other theory that has hitherto been broached. the parsons' living wage. * * december, . in our last week's article we criticised the attitude of the churches towards the working classes, with especial reference to the late conference of "representatives of christian churches" in the jerusalem chamber. it will be remembered that the conference was a ridiculous fiasco. the upshot of it was simply and absolutely nothing. the christian gentlemen there assembled could not bring themselves to pass a resolution in favor of "a living wage" for the workers. mr. hugh price hughes, in particular, asserted that no one could define it, and the discussion was therefore a waste of time. but suppose the question had been one of "a living wage" for the sky-pilots; would not a minimum figure have been speedily decided? thirty shillings a week would have been laughed at. two pounds would have been treated as an absurdity. men of god, who have to live while they cultivate the lord's vineyard, want a more substantial share of the good things of this world. nothing satisfies them but the certainty of something very valuable in this life, as well as the promise of the life that is to come. no doubt is entertained in the clerical mind as to the laborer being worthy of his hire. but they give their first attention to the clerical laborer; partly because they know him most intimately, and have a deep concern for his secular welfare; and partly because charity begins at home and looking after one's self is the primary law of christian prudence. a burning and a shining light among the nonconformists of the last generation was the famous mr. binney, a shrewd preacher who published a book on how to make the best of both worlds. we believe he combined precept and practice. at any rate, he expounded a principle which has always had the devotion of the great bulk of christian ministers. these gentry _have_ made the best of both worlds. most of them have been comfortably assured of good positions in kingdom-come, and most of them have been comfortably provided for in this land of pilgrimage, this scene of tribulation, this miserable vale of tears. come rain or shine, they have had little cause for complaint. hard work has rarely brought them to a premature old age. famine has never driven them into untimely graves. even the worst paid has had a hope of better thing-. there were fine plums in the profession, which might drop into watering mouths. what if the curate had little pocket money and a small account at the tailor's, with a large account at the shoemaker's through excessive peregrinations on shanks's mare? there was a vicarage, a deanery, a bishopric in perspective. a fat purse might be dandled some day, and the well-exercised limbs repose gracefully in a carriage and pair. if the worst came to the worst, one might marry a patron's daughter, and get the reversion of the living; or even snap up the ninth daughter of a bishop, and make sure of some preferment. yes, the clericals, taking them altogether, have had a very good "living wage." after all these centuries, it is high time they began to think about the comfort of other classes of the community. and yet, after all, is there not something indecent in their talking about a "living wage" for the workers? are they not parasites upon the said workers? have they not, also, had ever so many centuries of dominance? is it not disgraceful that, at this time of day, there should be any need to discuss a "living wage" for the workers in a _christian_ civilisation? really, the clericals should not, in this reckless way, invite attention to their past sins and present shortcomings. if they stand up for the workers now, it shows that they have not stood up for the workers before. they have been so many hundreds of years thinking about it--or rather _not_ thinking about it. it is _interest_--nothing but _interest_--which informs their new policy. they always find out what _pays_. never did they fight a forlorn hope or die for a lost cause. as the shadow follows the sun, so priests follow the sun of prosperity. they are the friends of power, whoever wields it: of wealth, whoever owns it. when they talk about the rights of the people, it means that they feel the king-times are ending. byron said they _would_ end, nearly a hundred years ago. blood would flow like water, he said, and tears would fall like rain, but the people would triumph in the end. yes, and the end is near; the people _are_ triumphing; and the fact is visible to the very owls and bats of theology. but let us return to the "living wage" business. there were several bishops at the jerusalem chamber meeting, and in view of their incomes their patronage of the working man is simply disgusting. pah! an ounce of civet, good apothecary! the bishops smell to heaven. whatever they say is an insult to the miners--because they say it. the "living wage" of the poorest bishop would keep fifty miners' families; that of the richest would keep two hundred. "nay," the bishops say, "we are poorer than you think." only the other day, the archbishop of canterbury stated that most of the bishops spent more than they received. indeed! then the age of miracles is _not_ past. by what superhuman power do they make up the deficiency? we tell the archbishop that _he lies_. it is not a polite answer, we admit, but it is a true one; and this is a case where good plain saxon is most appropriate. edward white benson forgets that bishops die. their wills are proved like the wills of other mortals, and the probate office keeps the record. of course it is barely possible--that is, it is conceivable--that bishops' executors make false returns, and pay probate duty on fanciful estates; but the probability is that they do nothing of the kind. now some years ago (in ) the rev. mercer davies, formerly chaplain of westminster hospital, issued a pamphlet entitled _the bishops and their wealth_, in which he gave a table of the english and welsh prelates deceased from to , with the amount of personalty proved at their death. of one bishop he could find no particulars. it was samuel hinds, of norwich, who resigned as a disbeliever, and died poor. the thirty-nine others left behind them collectively the sum of £ , , ; this being "exclusive of any real estate they may have possessed, and exclusive also of any sums invested in policies of life assurance, or otherwise settled for the benefit of their families." divide the amount of their _mere personalty_ by thirty-nine, and you have £ , apiece. this is how the bishops spend more than they receive! one of these days we will go to the trouble and expense of bringing the list up to date. meanwhile it may be noted that there is no falling off in the figures towards . no less than five bishops died in that year, and they left the following personalities: --£ , --£ , --£ , --£ , --£ , ; which more than maintain the average. so much for the poor bishops. as for the rest of the clergy, it is enough to say that the church they belong to has a total revenue of about £ , , a year. probably twice that sum is spent on the sky-pilots of all denominations, which is more than is received in wages by all the miners in great britain. it is a fair calculation that the average sky-pilot is six times better paid than the average miner. yet the latter works hard in the bowels of the earth to provide real coals for real consumers, while the former is occupied in open air and daylight in damping down the imaginary fires of an imaginary hell. it is easy to see which is the more useful functionary, just as it is easy to see which is the better paid. let us hope that the miners, and all other workers, will lay these facts to heart, and act accordingly. there are too many drones in england, living on the common produce of labor. the number of them should be diminished, and a beginning should be made with the mystery men. were the great black army disbanded, and turned into the ranks of productive industry, the evils of society would begin to disappear; for those evils are chiefly the result of too much energy and attention being devoted to the problematical next life, and too little to the real interests of our earthly existence. we should also be spared the wretched spectacle of the well-paid drones of theology maundering over the question of a "living wage" for the honest men who do the laborious work of the world. did bradlaugh backslide? * * november , . the _freethinker_ for october contained a bright article by mr. george standring, giving an account of a sunday service which he attended at the famous wesley chapel in the city-road. the preacher on that occasion was the rev. allen rees, and the theme of his discourse was "the death of the _national reformer_" amongst other more or less questionable remarks, there was one made by the reverend gentleman, which the reporter very justly criticised. what was said by mr. rees was recorded as follows by mr. standring:-- "indeed, there was reason to believe that charles bradlaugh had himself materially modified his views before his death, that his atheism became weaker as he grew older. sir isaac holden had told him (mr. bees) that mr. bradlaugh had often spoken to him privately in the house of commons upon religious matters, and had admitted that the conversion of his brother had profoundly impressed him. mr. bradlaugh had often said to sir isaac holden that he often wished he were half as good a man as his brother." to anyone at all acquainted with the relations that existed between mr. bradlaugh and his brother, the last clause of mr. rees's statement is sufficient to stamp the whole of it as false and absurd. without going into details, it is enough to say that mr. bradlaugh simply _could not_ speak of his brother in this manner; it is absolutely beyond the bounds of possibility; and, as sir isaac holden is the authority throughout, the entire passage about mr. bradlaugh would have to be dismissed with contempt. mr. standring sent mr. rees a marked copy of the _freethinker_, and intimated that space would probably be afforded him for a correction or an explanation. mrs. bradlaugh bonner was also communicated with, and she immediately wrote to mr. rees on the subject. the reverend gentleman replied that he had made "no positive statements" as to any change of view on the part of mr. bradlaugh. he had "nothing to add" and "nothing to retract." but to prevent a misunderstanding he enclosed a verbatim copy of the passage in his sermon to which she referred. it ran as follows:-- "as a rule, men who profess atheism do not become stronger in their belief as time goes on. i think i may almost say that this was true of mr. bradlaugh. sir isaac holden has told me that he frequently conversed with mr. bradlaugh on religious subjects. the conversion of his brother deeply affected him, and on one occasion he said to him: 'i wish i were half as good as my brother.' it was the unreality of much of the christianity with which in early life mr. bradlaugh was associated and the worldliness and uncharitableness of religious professors, which made an atheist of mr. bradlaugh, as it has done of many others." this is a precious sample of clerical logic, composition, and veracity. mr. rees must have been very ignorant of mr bradlaugh's writings and intellectual character, or else he was deliberately inventing or trusting to mere hearsay, when he stated that mr. bradlaugh was made an atheist by the bigotry or selfishness of certain christians. "i think i may almost say" is a strange expression. what is it to "almost say" a thing? is it almost said when you have said it? and what a jumble of "hims" in the fourth sentence! it would really disgrace a schoolboy. mrs. bradlaugh bonner replied to mr. rees, hoping that his "sense of honor" would impel him to acknowledge his mistake. she told him that her father's convictions never wavered on his death-bed; that mr. w. r. bradlaugh was never converted, because he was always a professed christian; that sir isaac holden must be laboring under a misapprehension; and that if mr. rees would call upon her she would tell him the facts which made it "utterly impossible" that her father could have spoken of his brother in the way alleged. mrs. bonner also wrote to sir isaac holden, asking him whether he "really did tell this to the rev. allen rees." sir isaac holden did not reply. he is a very old man, years older than mr. gladstone. this may be an excuse for his manners as well as the infirmity of his memory. mr. rees did reply. he said that "of course" he could not tell an untruth, that he had "made no absolute statement," that he "knew he had no positive evidence," and that his remark was "a bare suggestion." having crawled away from his clear responsibility, mr. rees gratuitously committed another offence. "there was," he wrote, "another remark which your father uttered at the hall of science." now this _is_ a "positive statement." and where is the evidence? "i can give you," mr. rees added, "the name of the person who heard him say it." according to mr. rees, therefore, it is only "a bare suggestion" when he gives the authority of sir isaac holden, but an anonymous authority is a good basis for a direct, unqualified assertion. and what is the "remark" which mr. bradlaugh "uttered" (what etymology!)? it is this--"a man twenty-five years old may be an iconoclast, but i cannot understand a man being one who has passed middle age." mrs. bonner took leave to disbelieve (as she well might) that her father had uttered such nonsense. she told mr. rees that her father had lectured and written as "iconoclast" till he was thirty-five, and only dropped the "fighting name" then because his own name was so well known. she repeated her assurance that he had never wavered in his atheism, and begged mr. rees to take her father's own written words in preference to "other people's versions of his conversation." his _doubts in dialogue_, the final paper of which left his hands only three or four days before his last illness, would show what his last views were, and she ventured to send mr. rees a copy for perusal. mr. rees read the volume, and, instead of admitting that he had been mistaken, he had the impertinence to tell mrs. bonner that her father's book was full of "sophism" and the "merest puerilities," and ended by expressing his "simple contempt." it was impertinence on mr. rees's part, in both senses of the word, for the merit of mr. bradlaugh's writing was not the point in consideration. the point was this, did the writing--the _last_ writing--of mr. bradlaugh show the slightest change in his atheism? mr. rees could not see this point, or he would not see it; and either alternative is discreditable to a man who sets himself up as a public teacher. mr. rees did one right thing, however; he sent mrs. bonner a letter he had received from sir isaac holden, containing the following passage:-- "your rendering of the story is a little different to what i spoke--'mr. bradlaugh was affected to tears when i told him that his brother james said to the rev. richard allen that his brother charles was too good a man to die an infidel, and he believed that before his death he would become a christian.' tears started in his (charles's) eyes, and he simply replied: 'my brother james is a _good fellow_,' not 'i wish i were half as good as my brother.' there was evidently a very kind feeling in each of the brothers towards each other." what _is_ clear is this--there is a very bad difference between sir isaac holden and the rev. allen rees. "i wish i were half as good as my brother" is a very definite expression, and not a bit like "my brother james is a good fellow." now if sir isaac holden _did_ convey this expression to the rev. allen rees, the old gentleman has a treacherous memory; if he _did not_, the expression must be ascribed to the reverend gentleman's invention. mrs. bonner replied sharply with "mixed feelings of surprise and indignation." her father had no brother named james. the only brother he had was most distinctly not "a good fellow," which there was "documentary evidence" to prove. there was also documentary evidence to show that the feelings of the brothers towards each other was "the reverse of kindly." mr. rees had chosen to ignore all this, and, in consequence of his attitude, mrs. bonner intended to "give this matter publicity"--which she has done by printing the whole correspondence and sending copies to the press. mr. rees wrote "surprised"--poor man! he thought it was a "private correspondence." he could not understand why he was "personally abused"--in fact, it was "vulgar personal abuse." "i entirely decline," he ended majestically, "to have any further correspondence with you." what a sorry display of clerical temper! but it is the way of the profession when tackled. they are so used to speaking from the "coward's castle," _not_ under correction, that they lose their heads when taken to task. mrs. bonner appends a note to the correspondence, remarking on "the obviously loose reminiscences of sir isaac holden," which mr. rees had "materially altered," and denying the possibility of any such conversation between sir isaac holden and her father. as to the private correspondence, surely the conversation (if it occurred) was "of a private nature," yet mr. rees had no scruple in retailing it from the pulpit. mrs. bonner adds that her demerits are beside the point, which is, "did mr. bradlaugh weaken in his atheism?" to which she answers emphatically "no." she nursed him in his last illness, and her testimony is authoritative. respect for her father's memory justifies her in printing this correspondence, and we are glad that she has done so, for it nails down another wretched fiction to the counter of truth. frederic harrison on atheism. * * january , . mr. frank harris, the editor of the _fortnightly review_, must be a sly humorist. in the current number of his magazine he has published two articles as opposite to each other as balaam's blessing on israel was opposite to the curse besought by the king of moab. mr. frederic harrison pitches into agnosticism with his usual vigor, and holds out positivism as the only system which can satisfy the sceptic and the religionist. mr. w. h. mallock, on the other hand, makes a trenchant attack on positivism; and the readers of both articles will learn how much may be said against anything, or at least anything in the shape of a system. mr. herbert spencer, in the name of the unknowable, proffers his agnosticism, and mr. harrison says "bosh." mr. harrison, in the name of positivism, proffers his religion of humanity, and mr. mallock says "moonshine." mr. spencer is a man of genius, and mr. harrison and mr. mallock are men of remarkable talent. yet, shuffle them how you will, any two of them are ready to damn what the third blesses. what does this show? why, that systems are all arbitrary, and suited to a certain order of minds in a certain stage of development; and that system-mongers are like spiders, who spin their webs out of their own bowels. mr. harrison's definition of agnosticism shows it to be merely atheism in disguise. milton said that new presbyter was but old priest writ large, and we may say that the new agnosticism is but old atheism written larger--and more respectably. agnosticism is the cuckoo of philosophy. it appropriates the nest of another bird, turns it out in the cold, and even adopts its progeny. all the time-honored positions of atheism--man's finity and nature's infinity, the relativity of human knowledge, the reign of law, and so forth--are quietly monopolised by this intruder, who looks upon the object he has despoiled as the christian looked upon the jew after borrowing his god. yet in england, the classic land of mental timidity and compromise, agnosticism is almost fashionable, while poor atheism is treated with persecution or obloquy. elsewhere, especially in france, we find a different condition of things. a french sceptic no more hesitates to call himself an atheist than to call himself a republican. may it not be, therefore, that the difference between agnosticism and atheism is one of temperament? we might illustrate this theory by appealing to examples. darwin was an agnostic, professor clifford an atheist. or, if we turn to pure literature, we may instance matthew arnold and algernon swinburne. arnold, the agnostic, says that "most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry." swinburne, the atheist, exclaims "thou art smitten, thou god, thou art smitten, thy death is upon thee o lord." this brings out the cardinal--we might say the _only_ distinction between atheism and agnosticism. the agnostic is a timid atheist, and the atheist a courageous agnostic. john bull is infuriated by the red cloak of atheism, so the agnostic dons a brown cloak with a red lining. now and then a sudden breeze exposes a bit of the fatal red, but the garment is promptly adjusted, and bull forgets the irritating phenomenon. mr. harrison says "the agnostic is one who protests against any dogma respecting creation at all, and who deliberately takes his stand on ignorance." we cannot help saying that this differences him from the atheist. seeing that we cannot solve infinite problems, that we know nothing, and apparently _can_ know nothing, of god or the supernatural, the atheist has always regarded religious dogmas as blind guesses, which, according to the laws of chance, are in all probability wrong; and as these blind guesses have almost invariably been associated with mental tyranny and moral perversion, he has regarded theology as the foe of liberty and humanity. the agnostic, however, usually adopts a more pleasant attitude. he does not believe in attacking theology; and "after all, you know," he sometimes says, "we can't tell what there may be behind the veil." with his master, comte, mr. harrison "entirely accepts the agnostic position as a matter of logic," but it is only a stepping-stone, and he objects to sitting down upon it. every religion the world has ever seen has been false, but religion itself is imperishable, and positivism has found the true solution of the eternal problem. parsons and agnostics will eventually kiss each other, like righteousness and peace in the text, and the then existing high priest of positivism will say, "humanity bless you, my children." but all this is for the sweet by-and-bye. meanwhile the churches thrust out their tongues at positivism, the great agnostic philosopher calls it the ghost of religion, sir james stephen declares that nobody can worship comte's made-up deity, and mr. mallock says that the love of humanity, taking it in the concrete, is as foolish as titania's affection for bottom the weaver. professed atheists may watch this hubbub with serenity, if not with enjoyment. when all is said and done, atheism remains in possession of the sceptical field. mr. harrison's flouts, at any rate, will do it no damage. his hatred of atheism is born of jealousy, and like all jealous people he is somewhat inconsistent. here he defines atheism as a "protest against the theological doctrine of a creator and a moral providence," there he defines it as "based on the denial of god," and again he defines it as a belief that the universe is "self-existent and purely material." even these do not suffice, for he also adopts comte's "profound aphorism" that "atheism is the most irrational form of metaphysics," and proves this by a fresh definition involved in the charge that "it propounds as the solution of an insoluble enigma the hypothesis which of all others is the least capable of proof, the least simple, the least plausible, and the least useful." _of all others_ is what cobbett would have called a beastly phrase. it shows mr. harrison was in a hurry or a fog. he does not specify this unprovable, complex, unplausible, and useless hypothesis. we forbear to guess his meaning, but we remind him that atheism "propounds _no_ solution of an insoluble enigma." the atheist does not say "there is no god"; he simply says, "i know not," and ventures to think others are equally ignorant. now, this was comte's own position. he wished to "reorganise society, without god or king, by the systematic cultus of humanity," and if warning god off from human affairs is not atheism, we should like to know what is. mr. harrison lustily sings the praises of religion, but he is remarkably silent about comte's opposition to theism, and in this he is throwing dust in the eyes of english readers. in "militant atheism" mr. harrison says that "all who have substantive beliefs of their own find nothing but mischief." but this is only mr. harrison's sweeping style of writing. he is always vivid, and nearly always superlative. we venture to think that his "all" merely includes his own circle. at the same time, however, we admit that militant atheism is still, as of old, an offence to the superfine sceptics who desire to stand well with the great firm of bumble and grundy, as well as to the vast army of priests and preachers who have a professional interest in keeping heresy "dark," and to the ruling and privileged classes, who feel that militant atheism is a great disturber of the peace which is founded on popular superstition and injustice. mr. harrison seems to imagine that atheists have no ideal beyond that of attacking theology, but a moment's calm reflection would show him the absurdity of this fancy. he might as well suppose that the pioneers of civilisation who hew down virgin forests have no conception of the happy homesteads they are making room for. we go farther and assert that all this talk about negative and positive work is _cant_. to call the destroyer of superstition a negationist is as senseless as to call a doctor a negationist. both strive to expel disease, the one bodily and the other mental. both, therefore, are working for health, and no more positive work is conceivable. save the bible! * * march , . thirty-eight clergymen, a year or two ago, gave the bible a fresh certificate of inspiration and infallibility. they signed a "round robin," if we may apply such a vulgar description to their holy document. but somehow the bible is in as bad a position as ever. it seems, indeed, in deadly peril; and if something strong and decisive be not done for its protection, it will soon be doomed. such, at any rate, seems the view of a large number of clergymen, who have signed a petition, prepared by the rev. e. s. ffoulkes, of st. mary's, oxford, and addressed to "the most reverend the archbishop, and the right reverend the bishops, of the church of england, in the house of the convocation of canterbury assembled." the petitioners call upon the archbishops and bishops to use "their sacred office and authority," and either to purge the church of heresy or to "authoritatively and publicly" recommend certain "orthodox and admirable works," which are calculated to "arrest the spread" of "disastrous errors in the midst of our beloved church." in order to show the precise nature of these "disastrous errors," we print the following paragraphs from the petition: "whereas it is generally known that certain clergymen of the church of england, in positions of influence and authority, are deliberately and altogether undermining, by their teachings and public writings, the faith of this church and country in the trustworthiness of the holy scriptures, and are altogether repudiating the common faith of christendom, that the said holy scriptures, as received by this church of england, are the infallible and inspired word of god. "also, that by what is known as the 'new criticism,' these clergymen do attempt entirely to rob the people of god of the holy scriptures and altogether falsify the teachings respecting them of our lord jesus christ and of his holy apostles-declaring some parts to be 'myths,' some 'fables,' some 'the work of dramatists,' etc." ah then, the enemy is within the camp! it is no-longer a question of "infidel" publications. church professors, and doctors of divinity, are sapping the very foundations of "the faith." orthodox clergymen cry out--in the language of this petition--for salvation from "the dangers of rationalism and unbelief _within_ the church." what does all this mean? it means that free-thought is triumphing by the permeation of the churches; that "advanced" ministers are now doing, in a sober, steady, scholarly way, the very work so brilliantly inaugurated by voltaire and thomas paine; that the bible is being subjected to rigorous criticism, in england as well as in france, holland, and germany; that its documents are being shifted like the pieces in a kaleidoscope, and every turn of the instrument makes them differ more and more from the orthodox pattern. at present, it is true, the process is almost confined to the old testament. there, however, it is nearly completed. presently it will extend in earnest to the new testament; and when it is completed _there_, the bible will be something worse than luther's "wax nose," it will be a thing of "shreds and patches." old testament criticism by men like driver, cheyne, ryle, and gore, is indeed--as the petitioners assert--destroying faith in "the holy scriptures" as the "infallible and inspired word o\c god." they still pretend it is _inspired_, but not infallible. "infallible," at this time of day, is a very "large order." professor bruce, himself a christian minister, is obliged to tell his orthodox brethren that "the errorless autograph for which some so zealously contend is a theological figment." "the bible," he reminds them, "was produced piecemeal, and by the time the later portions were produced the earlier had lost their supposed immaculate-ness." and he warns the "infallible" gentlemen that their position is really "perilous" when it is considered "in what state we possess the scriptures now." yes, it is only country curates who can stand up now for an "infallible" word of god; even mr. gladstone is obliged to admit "errors"--that is, errors in general, for he will not confess any in particular. the reference in the petition to "myths," "fables," and "the work of dramatists," seem to be specially aimed at the rev. charles gore, the principal of pusey house, oxford, and editor of _lux mundi_. his essay in that volume on "the holy spirit and inspiration" is horribly distasteful to orthodox parsons. they cannot refute him, but they say "he ought to know better," or "he shouldn't write such things"--in other words, he is guilty of the shocking crime of letting the cat out of the bag. he discards the creation story, just like professor bruce, who calls the fall of adam a "quaint" embodiment of the theological conception of sin. he dismisses all the patriarchs before abraham as "mythical." he admits the late origin of the pentateuch, and only claims for moses the probable authorship of the decalogue. he says the song of solomon is "of the nature of a drama." the book of job is "mainly dramatic." deuteronomy is the publication of the law "put dramatically" into the mouth of moses. jonah and daniel are "dramatic compositions." jesus christ, it is true, cited both as historical; but he only "accommodated" himself to the prevalent belief. he knew better, but he did not choose to say so; or, rather, the moment was inopportune; so he left us to find out the truth in this matter, as he left us to find it out in everything else. canon driver is perhaps glanced at in "fables," and perhaps also canon cheyne. the former has publicly argued against the "reconciliations" of genesis and science. he has likewise written very strongly against the "historical" character of jonah, which he treats as a story with "a moral." canon cheyne regards it as "an allegory." jonah is israel, swallowed up by babylon; but, seeking the lord in exile, the captive is at last disgorged uninjured. these clerical apostles of the "new criticism" are accused of attempting "entirely to rob the people of god of the holy scriptures." poor people of god! how anxious the petitioners are for their welfare! some persons, however, will be apt to regard the solicitude of these gentlemen as _professional_. robbing the people of the holy scriptures, in _their_ mouths, may simply mean rendering the clergyman's trade more difficult, or perhaps altogether impossible; and therefore the bitter cry of these "grievously beset" parsons (to use their own words) may be only a parallel to the famous old shout of "great is diana of the ephesians." why indeed do not the petitioners refute the apostles of the "new criticism," instead of appealing to the _authority_ of convocation? they plainly declare that the "new criticis" rests on "utterly baseless foundations"--which is a curious pleonasm or tautology for a body of "educated" gentlemen. but if the substance of the declaration be true, apart from its logic or grammar, the orthodox parsons may scatter the heretical parsons like chaff before the wind. principles which are "utterly baseless" may surely be refuted. to quote from hamlet, "it is as easy as lying." now that is a practice in which the clergy of all ages have shown great dexterity. we therefore hope the orthodox parsons will _refute_ the "new criticism." let them try to save the bible by argument. if they cannot it is lost, and lost for ever. forgive and forget. * * march , . written after a debate at the hall of science, london, between the writer and the rev. c. fleming williams, on "christian ideas of man and methods of progress." mr. branch, of the london county council, presided, and there was a very large attendance. my recent friendly discussion with the rev. c. fleming williams was most enjoyable. it is so-pleasant to debate points of difference with an opponent whom you fully respect, towards whom you have not an atom of ill feeling, and to whom you disclose your own views in exchange for the confidence of his. the chairman said that he had visited the hall of science many years ago, and frequently heard discussions, but they were generally acrimonious, and seldom profitable. no doubt he spoke what he felt to be the truth; at the same time, however, he probably left out of sight a very important factor, namely, the tone and temper which christian critics are apt to display on a secular platform; the assumed superiority, which is not justified by any apparent gifts of intelligence; the implication in most of their remarks that the freethinker is on a lower moral level than they are, though it would never be suspected by an indifferent observer; the arrogance which is often the undercurrent of their speech, and sometimes bursts forth into sheer, undisguised insolence. christian critics of this species have, perhaps, stung freethought lecturers into hot resentment, when it would have been far preferable to keep cool, and continue using the rapier instead of seizing the bludgeon. it is always a mistake to lose one's temper, but it becomes excusable (although not justifiable) under intense provocation. on the whole, it is safe to say that christians have received more courtesy than they have shown in their controversies with freethinkers. so much for the debate itself. what i want to deal with in this article is the plea of the chairman, and also of mr. williams, for a more charitable understanding. christians have abused, ill-treated, and even butchered freethinkers in the past, but the best christians are ashamed of it now. let us then, it is urged, bury the past; let us forgive and forget. so far as it concerns _men_ only i am not insensible to the appeal. far be it from me to blame mr. williams for the follies and malignancies of his christian predecessors. on a question of character, of merit or demerit, every man stands or falls alone. imputed wickedness is just as irrational as imputed righteousness. i no more wish to make mr. williams responsible for the butcheries of a torquemada or an alva than i wish to be saved by the sufferings of jesus christ. so far as mr. williams is concerned, i have no past to bury. i am not aware that he has ever desired anything but absolute justice for all forms of opinion; and i know that he denounced my imprisonment for the artificial crime of "blasphemy." evidently, then, mr. williams' plea is more than personal. it is really a request that i should judge christianity, as a great, ancient, historic system, not by what it has in the main taught and done, but by what a select body of its professors say and do in the present generation. now this is a plea which i must reject. in the first place, while i admit it is unfair to judge christianity by its _worst_ specimens, i regard it as no less unfair to judge it by its _best_. this is not justice and impartiality. the chief constable of hull* is probably as sincere a christian as mr. williams. i have to meet them both, and i must take them as i find them. the one pays me a compliment, and the other threatens me with a prosecution; one shakes me cordially by the hand, the other tries to prevent me from lecturing. the difference between them is flagrant. but how am i to put mr. williams to the credit of christianity, and captain gurney to the credit of something else? what _is_ the something else? they both speak to me as christians; is it for me to say that the one is a christian and the other is not? is not that a domestic question for the christians to settle among themselves? and am i not just and reasonable in declining to take the decision out of their hands? * this gentleman was trying to prevent me from delivering sunday lectures at hull under the usual condition of a charge for admission. in the next place, since christianity is, as i have said, not only a great, but an ancient and historic system, its past _cannot_ be buried, and should not be if it could. history is philosophy teaching us by example. without it the present is meaningless, and the future an obscurity. now history shows us that christianity has been steady and relentless in the persecution of heresy. we have therefore to inquire the reason. it will not do to say that persecution is natural to human pride in face of opposition; for buddhism, which is older than christianity, has not been guilty of a single act of persecution in the course of twenty-four centuries. another explanation is necessary. and what is it? when we look into the matter we find that persecution has always been justified, nay inculcated, by appealing to christian doctrines and the very language of scripture. unbelief was treason against god, and the rejection of christ was rebellion. they were more than operations of the intellect; they were movements of the will--not mistaken, but satanic. and as faith was essential to salvation, and heresy led straight to hell, the elimination of the heretic was in the interest of the people he might divert from the road to paradise. it was simply an act of social sanitation. i am aware that this conception is not paraded by "advanced" christians, though they seldom renounce it in decisive language. but these "advanced" christians are the children of a later age, full of intellectual and moral influences which are foreign to, or at least independent of, christianity. their attitude is the resultant of several forces. but suppose a time of reaction came, and the influences i have referred to should diminish for a season; is it not probable, nay certain, that the old forces of christian exclusiveness and infallibility, based upon a divine revelation, would once more produce the effects-which cursed and degraded europe for over a thousand years? such, at any rate, is my belief; it is also, i think, the belief of most freethinkers; and this is the reason why we cannot forgive and forget. the serpent is scotched, not slain; and we must beware of its fangs. the star of bethlehem. matthew, or whoever was the author of the first gospel, had a rare eye (or nose) for portents and prodigies. he seems also to have had exclusive sources of information. several of the wonderful things he relates were quite unknown to the other evangelists. they were ignorant of the wholesale resurrection of saints at the crucifixion, and also of the watch at the sepulchre, with all the pretty circumstantial story depending upon it. at the other end of christ's career they never heard of the visit of the wise men of the east to his cradle, or of herod's massacre of the innocents, or of the star which guided those wise men to the birthplace of the little king of the jews. that star is the sole property of matthew, and the other evangelists took care not to infringe his copyright. indeed, it is surprising how well they did with the remnants he left them. matthew was not a jules verne. he had no knowledge of astronomy. consequently he did not make the most of that travelling star. it was seen by wise men "in the east." this is not very exact, but it is precise enough for a fairy tale. those wise men happened to be "in the east" at the same time. they were really "magi"--as may be seen in the revised version; that is, priests of the religion of persia; and it requires a lot of faith to see what concern they could possibly have with the bantling of bethlehem. however, they saw "his star," and they appear to have followed it. they must have slept by day and journeyed by night, when the star was visible. at the end of their expedition this star "stood over" the house where little jesus was lying. truly, it was a very accommodating star. of course it was specially provided for the occasion. real stars, rolling afar in the infinite ether, are too distant to "stand over" a particular spot on this planet this was an ideal star. it travelled through the earth's atmosphere, and moved according to the requirements of the gospel munchausen. what became of it afterwards we are not informed. probably it was born and died in matthew's imagination. he blew it out when he had done with it, and thus it has escaped the attention of sir robert ball. those star-gazing magi went into "the house," which, according to luke, was an inn; jesus christ having been born in the stable, because the "pub" was full, and no gentleman would go outside to oblige a lady: they opened their gladstone bags, and displayed the presents they had brought for the little king of the jews. these were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. no doubt the perfumes were very welcome--in a stable; and very likely joseph took care of the gold till jesus was old enough to spend it on his own account, by which time it appears to have vanished, perhaps owing to the expenses of bringing up the numerous progeny of the virgin mother. then the mahatmas--we beg pardon, the magi--went home. perhaps they are there still. but no matter. we leave that to the christian evidence society, or the theosophists. candid students will see at a glance that the whole of this story is mythological. like other distinguished persons, the prophet of nazareth had to make a fuss, not only in the world, but in the universe; and his biographers (especially matthew) duly provided him with extraordinary incidents. not only was he born, like so many other "saviors," without the assistance of a human father, but his birth was heralded by a celestial marvel. there was a star of his nativity. the wise men from the east called it "his star." this puts him in the category of heroes, and bars the idea of his being a god. it also shows that the christians, amongst whom this story originated, were devotees of astrology. fortune-tellers still decide your "nativity" before they cast your "horoscope." we are aware that many commentators have discussed the star of christ's birth from various points of view. some have thought it a real star; others have had enough astronomy to see that this was impossible, and have argued that it was a big will-o'-the-wisp, created and directed by supernatural power, like the pillar of day-cloud and night-fire that led the jews in the wilderness; while still others have favored the idea of a supernatural illusion, which was confined to the wise men--and thus it was that the "star" was not seen or mentioned by any of their contemporaries. but all this is the usual mixture of bible commentators. there is really no need to waste time in that fashion. the star of bethlehem belongs to the realm of poetry, as much as the star of caesar, to which the mighty julius ascended in his apotheosis. thousands of sermons have been preached on that star of bethlehem, and these also have been works of imagination. we have been told, for instance, that it was the morning star of a new day for humanity. but this is a falsehood, which the clergy palmed off on ignorant congregations. the world was happier under the government of the great pagan emperors than it has ever been under the dominion of christianity. for a thousand years the triumph of the cross was the annihilation of everything that makes life pleasant and dignified. the star of bethlehem shone in a sky of utter blackness. all the constellations of science, art, philosophy, and literature were in disastrous eclipse. cruelty and hypocrisy abounded on earth, toil and misery were the lot of the people, and bloodshed was as common as rain. religions, said schopenhauer, are like glow-worms; they require darkness to shine in. this was quite true of christianity. it was splendid when it had no competitor. to be visible--above all, to be worshipped--it needed the sky to itself. one by one, during the past three hundred years, the stars of civilisation have emerged from their long eclipse, and now the sky of humanity is full of countless hosts of throbbing glories. the star of bethlehem is no longer even a star of the first magnitude. it pales and dwindles every year. in another century it will be a very minor light. meanwhile it is drawn big on the maps of faith. but that little trick is being seen through. once it was the star of bethlehem first, and the rest nowhere; now it takes millions of money, and endless special pleading, to keep its name on the list. christ himself is coming more and more to be regarded as a fanciful figure; not god, not even a man, but a construction of early christian imagination. "why," asked a unitarian of a positivist, "why is not christ in your positivist calendar?" "because," was the reply, "the calendar is for men, not for gods." the great ghosts * * march, . long before there were any kings there were chiefs, even in the early feudal days the king was only the chief of the barons, and many centuries elapsed before the supremacy of the monarch was unquestioned and he became really the _sovereign_. it was a process of natural selection. a mob of chiefs could not rule a mob of people. there was a fierce struggle, with plenty of fighting and intrigue, and the fittest survived. gradually, as the nation became unified, the government was centralised, and out of the chaos of competing nobles emerged the relatively cosmic authority of the crown. similarly in the world of religion. all gods were originally ghosts. but as polytheism declined a supreme god emerged from the crowd of deities, as the king emerged from the crowd of nobles, and ruled from a definite centre. it was zeus in greece, jupiter in rome, brahma in india, thor in scandinavia, and yahveh in israel. "i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god," was an exclamation that sprang from yahveh's lips (through his priests) when his godship was still in the thick of the competitive struggle. the ghosts become gods, and the gods become supreme deities, looked after the interests of their worshippers; gave them long life, good harvests, and prosperity in warfare, if they were true to them, and plagued them like the very devil if they slighted them or nodded to their rivals. according to the old testament, when everything went well with the jews their god was pleased, and when things went wrong with them he was angry. this state of mind survives into our advanced civilisation, where people still talk of "judgments," still pray for good things, and still implore their god for victory when they have a scrimmage with their neighbors. but this infantile conception is dying out of educated minds. prayer is seen to be futile. the laws of nature do not vary. providence is on the side of the big battalions. god helps those who help themselves--and no one else. long ago, in ancient greece and rome, the acutest thinkers had come to the same conclusion. lucretius, for instance, did not deny the existence of the gods; he merely asserted that they no longer concerned themselves with human affairs, which he was heartily glad of, as they were mostly bad characters. he observed "the reign of law" as clearly as our modern scientists, and relegated the deities to their olympian repose, so beautifully versed by tennyson. the gods, who haunt the lucid interspace of world and world, where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, nor ever falls the least white star of snow, nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar their savored everlasting calm. even the savage, in times of prolonged peace and prosperity, begins to speculate on the possibility of his god's having retired from business; for religion is born of fear, not of love, and the savage is reminded of his god by calamity rather than good fortune. this idea has been caught by robert browning in his marvellous _caliban upon setebos_, a poem developed out of a casual germ in shakespeare's _tempest_. hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, that some strange day, will either the quiet catch and conquer setebos, or likelier he decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. but presently poor caliban is frightened out of his speculation by a thunderstorm, which makes him lie low and slaver his god, offering any mortification as the price of his escape. there is a good deal of caliban in our modern multitudes, but the educated are working free from his theology. science and miracle cannot live together, and miracle and providence are the same thing. how far from us is the good old god of the best parts of the bible, who held out one ear for the prayers of his good children, and one hand, well rodded, for the backs of the naughty ones. the seed of the righteous never begged for bread, and the villain always came to a bad end. it was the childish philosophy of the "gods" in a modern theatre. the more critical want something truer and more natural, something more accordant with the stern realities of life. renan has some excellent remarks on this in the preface to his second volume of the _histoire du peuple d' israel_. "the work of the genius of israel was not really affected until the eighteenth century after jesus christ, when it became very doubtful to spirits a little cultivated that the affairs of this world are regulated by a god of justice. the exaggerated idea of a special providence, the basis of judaism and islam, and which christianity has only corrected through the fund of liberalism inherent in our races, has been definitively vanquished by modern philosophy, the fruit not of abstract speculation, but of constant experience. it has never been observed, in effect, that a superior being occupies himself, for a moral or an immoral purpose, with the affairs of nature or the affairs of humanity." kenan has elsewhere said that the negation of the supernatural is a dogma with every cultivated intelligence. god, in short, has faded into a metaphysical abstraction. the little ghosts vanished long ago, and now the great ghost is melting into thin air. thousands of people have lost all belief in his existence. they use his name, and take it in vain; for when questioned, they merely stand up for "a sort of a something." the fear of god, so to speak, has survived his personality; just as madame de stael said she did not believe in ghosts, but she was afraid of them. mrs. browning gives voice to this sentiment in one of her poems: and hearts say, god be pitiful, that ne'er said, god be blest. the fear of the lord is, indeed, the beginning and the end of theology. when the great ghost was a reality--we mean to his worshippers--he was constantly spoken of. his name was invoked in the courts of law, it figured in nearly every oath outside them, and it was to be seen on nearly every page of every book that was published. but all that is changed. to speak or print the name of god is reckoned "bad form." the word is almost tabooed in decent society. you hear it in the streets, however, when the irascible carman calls on god to damn your eyes for getting in his way. there is such a conspiracy of silence about the great ghost, except in churches and chapels, that the mention of his name in polite circles sounds like swearing. eyebrows are lifted, and the speaker is looked upon as vulgar, and perhaps dangerous. thus theology gives way to the pressure of science, and religion to the pressure of civilisation. the more use we make of this life the less we look for another; the loftier man grows the less he bows to ghosts and gods. heaven and hell both disappear, and things are neither so bad nor good as was expected. man finds himself in a universe of necessity. he hears no response to his prayers but the echo of his own voice. he therefore bids the gods adieu, and sets himself to the task of making the best of life for himself and his fellows. without false hopes, or bare fears, he steers his course over the ocean of life, and says with the poet, "i am the captain of my soul." atheism and the french revolution. * * july, . sunday, july , is the hundredth anniversary of the fall of the bastille, and the occasion will be splendidly celebrated at paris. in itself the capture of this prison-fortress by the people was not a wonderful achievement; it was ill-defended, and its governor might, had he chosen, have exploded the powder magazine and blown it sky-high. but the event was the parting of the ways. it showed that the multitude had got the bit between its teeth, and needed a more potent master than the poor king at versailles. and the event itself was a striking one. men are led by imagination, and the bastille was the symbol of centuries of oppression. within its gloomy dungeons hundreds of innocent men had perished in solitary misery, without indictment or trial, consigned to death-in-life by the arbitrary order of irresponsible power. men of the most eminent intellect and character had suffered within its precincts for the crime of teaching new truth or exposing old superstitions. voltaire himself had twice tasted imprisonment there. what wonder, then, that the people fixed their gaze upon it on that ominous fourteenth of july, and attacked it as the very citadel of tyranny? the bastille fell, and the sound re-echoed through europe. it was the signal of a new era and a new hope. the revolution had begun--that mighty movement which, in its meaning and consequences, dwarfs every other cataclysm in history. but revolutions do not happen miraculously. their advent is prepared. they are as much _caused_ as the fall of a ripe apple from the tree, or the regular bursting of the buds in spring. the authors of the revolution were in their graves. its leaders, or its instruments, appeared upon the scene in ' . after life's fitful fever voltaire was sleeping well. rousseau's tortured heart was at rest. diderot's colossal labors were ended; his epitaph was written, and the great encyclopaedia remained as his living monument. d'holbach had just joined his friends in their eternal repose. a host of smaller men, also, but admirable soldiers of progress in their degree, had passed away. the gallant host had done its work. the ground was ploughed, the seed was sown, and the harvest was sure. famished as they were, and well-nigh desperate at times, the men of the revolution nursed the crop as a sacred legacy, shedding their blood like water to fructify the soil in which it grew. superficial readers are ignorant of the mental ferment which went on in france before the revolution. voltaire's policy of sapping the dogmas by which all tyranny was supported had been carried out unflinchingly. not only had christianity been attacked in every conceivable way, with science, scholarship, argument, and wit; but the very foundations of all religion--the belief in soul and god--had not been spared. the heresiarch of ferney lived to see the war with superstition carried farther than he contemplated or desired; but it was impossible for him to say to the tide of freethought, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." the tide poured on over everything sacred. altars, thrones, and coronets met with a common fate. true, they were afterwards fished out of the deluge; but their glory was for ever quenched, their power for ever gone. among the great atheists who prepared the revolution we single out two--diderot and d'holbach. the sagacious mind of comte perceived that diderot was the greatest _thinker_ of the band. the fecundity of his mind was extraordinary, and even more so his scientific prescience. anyone who looks through the twenty volumes of his collected works will be astonished at the way in which, by intuitive insight, he anticipated so many of the best ideas of evolution. his labors on the encyclopaedia would have tired out the energies of twenty smaller men, but he persevered to the end, despite printers, priests, and governments, and a countless host of other obstructions. out of date as the work is now, it was the artillery of the movement of progress then. as mr. morley says, it "rallied all that was best in france round the standard of light and social hope." less original, but nearly as bold and industrious, d'holbach placed his fortune and abilities at the service of freethought. mr. morley calls the _system of nature_ "a thunderous engine of revolt." it was atheistic in religion, and revolutionary in politics. it challenged every enemy of freedom in the name of reason and humanity. here and there its somewhat diffuse rhetoric was lit up with the splendidly concise eloquence of diderot, who touched the work with a master-hand. nor did this powerful book represent a tithe of d'holbach's labors for the "good old cause." his active pen produced a score of other works, under various names and disguises, all addressed to the same object--the destruction of superstition and the emancipation of the human mind. they were extensively circulated, and must have created a powerful impression on the reading public. leaving its authors and precursors, and coming to the revolution itself, we find that its most distinguished figures were atheists. mirabeau, the first titan of the struggle, was a godless statesman. in him the multitude found a master, who ruled it by his genius and eloquence, and his embodiment of its aspirations. the crowned king of france was pottering in his palace, but the real king reigned in the national assembly. the girondists were nearly all atheists, from condorcet and madame roland down to the obscurest victims of the terror who went gaily to their doom with the hymn of freedom upon their proud lips. danton also, the second titan of the revolution, was an atheist. he fell in trying to stop the bloodshed, which robespierre, the deist, continued until it drowned him. with danton there went to the guillotine another atheist, bright, witty camille desmoulins, whose exquisite pen had served the cause well, and whose warm poet's blood was destined to gush out under the fatal knife. other names crowd upon us, too numerous to recite. to give them all would be to write a catalogue of the revolutionary leaders. atheism was the very spirit of the revolution. this has been admitted by christian writers, who have sought revenge by libelling the movement. their slanders are manifold, but we select two which are found most impressive at orthodox meetings. it is stated that the revolutionists organised a worship of the goddess of reason, that they went in procession to notre dame, where a naked woman acted the part of the goddess, while chenier's _ode_ was chanted by the convention. now there is a good deal of smoke in this story and very little flame. the naked female is a pious invention, and that being gone, the calumny is robbed of its sting. demoiselle candeille, an actress, was selected for her beauty; but she was not a "harlot," and she was not undressed. whoever turns to such an accessible account as carlyle's will see that the apologists of christianity have utterly misrepresented the scene. secondly, it is asserted that the revolution was a tornado of murder; cruelty was let loose, and the atheists waded in blood. never was greater nonsense paraded with a serious face. during the terror itself the total number of victims, as proved by the official records, was less than three thousand; not a tenth part of the number who fell in the single massacre of st. bartholomew! but who caused the terror? the christian monarchies that declared war on freethinkers and regicides. theirs was the guilt, and they are responsible for the bloodshed. france trembled for a moment. she aimed at the traitors within her borders, and struck down many a gallant friend in error. but she recovered from the panic. then her sons, half-starved, ragged, shoeless, ill-armed, marched to the frontier, hurled back her enemies, and swept the trained armies of europe into flight. they _would_ be free, and who should say them nay? they were not to be terrified or deluded by "the blood on the hands of the king or the lie at the lips of the priest." and if the struggle developed until the french armies, exchanging defence for conquest, thundered over europe, from the baltic to the mediterranean, from the orange-groves of spain to the frozen snows of russia--the whole blame rests with the pious scoundrels who would not let france establish a republic in peace. pigottism. * * march, . "_is there any thing whereof it may be said, see, this is new? it hath been already of old times, which was before us._"--ecclesiastes i. . everybody is talking about the flight of pigott. the flight into egypt never caused half such a sensation. pigott has gone off into the infinite. he was shadowed, but he has performed the feat of running away from his own shadow. where he will turn up next, or if he will turn up anywhere, god only knows. but wherever he re-appears--in the south pacific as a missionary, in america as a revivalist, or in india as an avatar--it will be the same old pigott, lying, shuffling, forging and blackmailing, with an air of virtue and benevolence. the edifice of calumny on mr. parnell and his closest colleagues rested on the foundation of pigott, and pigott is exploded. he has entirely vanished. not a hair of him is visible. he is gone like last winter's snow or last summer's roses. he is in the big list of things wanted. but advertisements will not bring him back, and considering who is in power, it is very problematical if the officers of justice will be any more successful. we have no wish to be disrespectful to the commission, and it is far from our intention to pronounce judgment on a case which is _sub judice_, though who can help sundry exclamations when the chief witness on one side bolts, leaving no trace but a few more lies and counter lies? our object, indeed, is not political but religious. we desire to make the noble pigott point a moral and adorn a tale. he and his achievements in connection with the _times_ splendidly illustrate the process by which christianity was built up. pigottism was at work for centuries, forging documents, manufacturing evidence, and telling the grossest lies with an air of truth. what is still worse, pigottism was so lucky as to get into the seat of despotic power, and to crush out all criticism of its frauds; so that, at length, everyone believed what no one heard questioned. it was pigottism in excelsis. the liar gave evidence in the witness box, stifled or murdered the counsel for the opposite side, then mounted the bench to give judgment in his own favor, and finally pronounced a decree of death against all who refused to own him the pink of veracity. just look for a moment at these parnell letters. they were printed in facsimile in the _times_, published in _parnellism and crime_, circulated among millions of people, and accepted as genuine by half the population of england. and on what ground? solely on the ground that parnellism was heterodox and the _times_ was a respectable journal. that was enough. the laws of evidence were treated with contempt. investigation was thought unnecessary. thousands of people fatuously said, "oh, the letters are in print." and all this in an age of board schools, printing presses, daily papers, and unlimited discussion; nay, in despite of the solemn declaration of mr. parnell and his colleagues, backed up by a demand for investigation, that the letters were absolute concoctions. now if such things can happen in an age like this, how easily could they happen in ages like those in which christianity produced its scriptures. credulity was boundless, fraud was audacious, and lying for the profit of the church was regarded as a virtue. there was no printing press, no free inquiry, no keen investigation, no vivid conception of the laws of evidence; and the few brilliant critics, like celsus and porphyry, who kept alive in their breasts the nobler spirit of grecian scepticism, were answered by the destruction of their writings, a process which was carried out with the cunning scent of a sleuth-hound and the remorseless cruelty of a tiger. the church produced, quite as mysteriously as the _times_, certain documents which it said were written by matthew, mark, luke, john, peter, paul, and james. others were written by pagans like pilate, and one at least by jesus christ himself. no commission sat to examine and investigate, no sir charles russell cross-examined the witnesses. the pigotts, the houstons, and the macdonalds kept quietly in the background, and were never dragged forth into the light of day. the mr. walters took the full responsibility, which was very trifling; and as englishmen relied on the respectability of the _times_, so the illiterate and fanatical christians relied on the respectability of the mother church. some of those documents, so mysteriously produced, were as mysteriously dropped when they had served their turn. hence the so-called apocryphal new testament, a collection of writings as ancient, and once as accepted, as those found in the canon. hence also the relics, either in name or in fragments, of a host of gospels, epistles, and revelations, which primitive pigottism manufactured for the behoof of christianity, every single scrap no doubt subserved a useful end. but whatever was no longer required was discarded like the scaffolding of a house. the real, permanent work, all the while, was going on inside; and when the church faced the world with its completed edifice, it thought itself provided with something that would stand all winds and weathers. it was found, however, in the course of time, that pigottism was still necessary. hence the apostolic constitutions, the decretals, the apostles' and the athanasian creeds, and all the profitable relics of saints and martyrs. about two hundred years ago an informal commission began to sit on these christian documents. the precious letter of jesus christ to abgarus soon flew off with the veronica handkerchief, and many other products of christian pigottism shared the same fate. the witnesses were examined and cross-examined, and the longer the process lasted the sorrier was the spectacle they presented. paul's epistles have been shockingly handled. the commission has positively declared that all but four of them are forgeries, and is still investigating the claim of the remnant under reprieve. nor is the judgment on the gospels less decisive. the court has decided that they were not written by matthew, mark, luke, and john. who wrote them, when they were written, or where, is left to the day of judgment. unfortunately the press has given little attention to the proceedings in this court of commission. its reports are published in expensive volumes for scholars and gentlemen of means and leisure. some of the results, indeed, are given in a few journals written for the people; but these journals are boycotted as vulgar, unless they go too far, when they are prosecuted for blasphemy. yet the truth is gradually leaking out. people shake their heads ominously, especially when there is anything in them; and parsons are looked upon with a growing suspicion. they look bland, they assume the most virtuous airs, and sometimes they affect a preternatural goodness. but in all this they are excelled by the noble pigott, whose bald head, venerable beard, and benevolent appearance, qualified him to sit for a portrait of god the father. gentlemen, it won't do. you will have to bolt or confess. the documents you have palmed off on the world are the products of unadulterated pigottism. you know it, we know it, and by and bye everyone will know it. jesus at the derby. * * june, . this is the age of advertisement. look at the street-hoardings, look at the newspapers, look at our actor-managers, look at barnum. scream from the housetops or you stand no chance. if you cannot attract attention in any other way, stand on your head. get talked about somehow. the only hell is obscurity, and notoriety is the seventh heaven. if you cannot make a fortune, spend one. run through a quarter of a million in three years, be the fool of every knave, and though you are as commonplace as a wet day in london, you shall find a host of envious admirers. should the worst come to the worst, you can defy obscurity by committing a judiciously villainous murder. perhaps jack the ripper had a passion for publicity, and liked to see his name in the papers; until he grew _blase_ and retired upon his laurels. yes, it is an advertising age, and an advertising age is a sensational age. religion itself--the staid, the demure--shares in the general tendency. she preaches in the style of the auction room, she beats drums and shakes tambourines in the streets, she affects criminals and dotes on vice, she bustles about the reformation of confirmed topers. by-and-bye she will get up a mission to lunatics and idiots. she is now a very "forward" person. forward movements are the rage in all the churches. but methodism bears the palm, though presbyterianism threatens to run it hard in the person of john mcneill. hugh price hughes is a very smart showman. when truth is stale he is ready with a bouncing lie, and has "face" enough to keep it up in five chapters. but the west-end mission is getting rather tame. the dukes and duchesses are not yet converted. money is spent like water and the aristocracy still go to hades. a new move is tried. the "forward" methodists organise a mission to epsom, jesus christ goes to the derby; that is, he goes by proxy, in the person of mr. nix. a van, a tent, and a big stock of pious literature, with mackintoshes and umbrellas, form his equipment. he is accompanied by a band of workers. their rules are to be up for prayer-meeting at seven in the morning, and "never to look at any race, or jockey, or horse." this is a precaution against the old adam. it saves the mission from going over to the enemy on the field of battle. mr. nix gives an account of his performance in the _methodist times_. he converted a lot of people. so has hugh price hughes. "at one time," he says, "there were three church of england clergymen and their wives and some distinguished members of the aristocracy in the tent"--probably out of the wet. of course _they_ were not converted. but what a pity! a "converted clergyman" would have been a glorious catch, worth five thousand pounds at st. james's hall. and fancy bagging a duke! it was enough to make mr. nix's mouth water. he must have felt some of the agony of tantalus. he was up to the neck, so to speak, in lords and parsons, and could not grasp one. dissenting ministers and their wives did not show up. naturally. they would not go to such a naughty place--except in a mission van. mr. nix has a keen eye for the methodist business. he has open and sly digs at the church clergy. one of the tipsters said his father was a clergyman, but "his religion was no good to him." he would give anything for the religion of "the little chap that stood on the stool." that was mr. nix. we suspect the epsom races will outlast mr. nix. there is more boast than performance about missions. christianity is always converting drunkards, profligates, prostitutes, and thieves; but somehow our social evils do not disappear. even the drink bill runs up, despite all the gospel pledges. _nix_ is the practical result of the efforts of gentlemen like mr. nix. they are on the wrong tack. they are sweeping back the tide with mops. the real reformatory agency is the spread of education and refinement. yet the mission will go on. it is a good advertisement. mr. hughes gives it a special leading article. he cries up the epsom mob as the "most representative gathering of englishmen," and "therefore a fair specimen of the mental and moral condition of the english people." this is stuff and nonsense, but it serves its purpose. mr. hughes wants to show that missions are needed. he finds that "the great majority of the people are outside the christian church," that "this is still a heathen country." perhaps so. but what a confession after all these centuries of gospel-grinding and church predominance! there are fifty or sixty thousand churches and chapels, and as many sky-pilots. six million children go to sunday-school. the bible is forced into the public day-schools. copies are circulated by the million. twenty millions a year, at the least, is spent in inculcating christianity. yet england is still "a heathen country." well, if this be the case, what is the use of mr. nix? what is the use of mr. hughes? greater preachers have gone before them and have failed. is it not high time for jesus to run the job himself? "come, lord jesus," as john says. let him descend from the father's right hand and take mr. nix's place at the next derby. he might even convert the "clergymen and their wives" and the "distinguished members of the aristocracy." anyhow he should try. he will not be crucified again. the worst that could happen is a charge of obstruction, and perhaps a fine of forty shillings. but surely he will not lay himself open to such indignities. he should triumphantly assert his deity. a few big miracles would strike englishmen more than the jews, who were sated with the supernatural. he might stop the horses in mid career, fix the jockeys in their saddles, root the epsom mob where they stood, and address them from the top of the grand stand. that would settle them. they would all go to church next sunday. yes, jesus must come himself, or the case is hopeless. missions to the people of this "heathen country" are like fleas on an elephant. what the ministers should pray for is the second coming of christ. but we guess it will be a long time before they sing "lo, he comes, in clouds descending." besides, it would be a bad job for _them_. their occupation would be gone. a wholesale conversion would cut up the retail traders. on the whole, we have no doubt the men of god prefer the good old plan. if jesus came he would take the bread out of their mouths. that would be shabby-after they had devoted themselves to the business. the very publicans demand compensation, and could the sky-pilots do less? but perhaps jesus would send them all _home_. we should like to see them go. it would give the world a chance. atheist murderers. * * january, . an open letter to the bishop of winchester. bishop,--you are a high and well-paid dignitary of the church of england. you are therefore a state official, as much as a soldier or a policeman; and, as such, you are amenable to public criticism. it is possible that you never heard of me before, but i am a member of the english public, and as a citizen i help (very unwillingly) to support the church, and therefore to support _you_. my right to address you is thus indisputable. i make no apology or excuse for doing so; and, as for my reason, it will appear in the course of this letter. i notice in the daily and weekly newspapers a paragraph which concerns you--_and me_. the paragraph is exactly the same in all the papers i have seen; it must therefore have emanated from, and been circulated by, one hand; and that hand i suspect is yours, particularly as it insinuates the necessity of supporting christian missions in england--that is, of subscribing to church agencies over and above the nine or ten millions a year which your establishment spends (or devours) in ministering to what you call "the spiritual needs" of the english people. the paragraph i refer to states that you have converted and confirmed an atheist, and that this atheist has been hung for the crime of murder; and it plainly hints that his crime was the natural result of his irreligious opinions. as you make so much of this case, i presume that this murderer--who was not good enough to live on earth, and whom you have sent to live for ever in heaven--is the only atheist you have ever converted; so that in every way the case is one of exceptional interest. and now, before i go any farther, let me tell you why the case concerns me as well as you. i am an atheist, and a teacher of atheism. i am the president of the national secular society, which is the only open organisation of freethinkers in england. my immediate predecessor in this office was charles bradlaugh, of whom you _must_ have heard. not to know him would argue yourself unknown. my personality is not so famous as his, but my office is the same, and you will now understand why i address you on the subject of your converted murderer. the newspaper paragraph to which i have referred is brief and inadequate, but fuller particulars are given in your _diocesan chronicle_, for a copy of which i am indebted to the kindness of a gentleman who is technically a member of your flock. he is a freethinker, but i do not believe you will convert him, and still less that you will ever "assist" at his execution. the murderer for whom you made the gallows the gateway to heaven was called george mason. he was nineteen years of age. serving in the militia, he was liable to severe discipline. his sergeant had him imprisoned for three days, and in revenge he shot the officer dead while at rifle practice. it is an obvious moral, which i wonder your lordship does not perceive, that it is dangerous to put deadly weapons in the hands of passionate boys. your lordship's interest in the case seems to be entirely _professional_. while this lad was simply a militiaman your lordship would not have regarded him as an object of solicitude. as a convicted murderer, he became profoundly interesting. no less than three clergymen took him in hand: the rev. j. l. ladbrooke, the rev. james baker, and yourself. three to one are long odds, and it is no marvel that you conquered the boy. still, it is unfortunate that we have only _your_ account of the conflict, for your profession is not famous for what i will politely call _accuracy_. herder remarked that "christian veracity" deserved to rank with "punic faith." how many falsehoods has your church circulated about _great_ freethinkers! why should it hesitate, then, to tell untruths about _little_ ones? a wesleyan minister, the rev. hugh price hughes, has published a long circumstantial story of a converted atheist shoemaker, which is proved to be false in all its main features. it is far from certain, therefore, that your lordship's account of the conversion of george mason is true. you and your two clerical colleagues can say what you please; your evidence cannot be tested; and _such_ evidence, especially when given by persons who are confederates in a common cause, is always open to suspicion. nevertheless i need not doubt that george mason made an edifying end. it is the way of murderers. what i venture to doubt is your statement as to his life. you write as follows:-- "his early life was lived in the east of london, his trade being that of a costermonger, and he was brought up by his father, a professed atheist, who was in the habit of reading the bible with this boy and a company of other freethinkers, verse by verse, and deliberately turning it into ridicule, by way of commentary. it is hard to imagine a more deliberate training for the gallows than what his father gave him." later on, you say the boy was "insignificant, almost stunted to look at," and you add that "his only opportunity was to learn how to be a child of the devil." now i wish to observe, in the first place, that you have not said _enough_. you do not say whether george mason's father is still living. i have not been able to hear of him myself. if he be still living, have you taken the trouble to obtain _his_ version of the matter? and if not, do you think it kind or just to speak of him in this manner? nor do you say what religion george mason professed in the militia, whether he attended "divine service," and what was its influence upon him. you were in too great a hurry to capture your atheist, and insult all who do not believe the dogmas of your church. you regard it as "deliberate training for the gallows" to let a boy laugh at the bible. has it ever occurred to you to inquire how it is that the bible is so easy to ridicule? have you ever reflected that what is laughed at is generally ridiculous? are you not aware that the most risible imp could hardly laugh at _all_ the contents of the bible? who laughs at the saying, "blessed are the peacemakers"? who laughs at the horrid massacres of the old testament? but who does _not_ laugh at cock-and-bull stories like that of jonah and the whale? your lordship does not discriminate. very little thought would show you that some parts of the bible _cannot_ be laughed at, that where it _can_ be laughed at it is probably absurd, and that to laugh at an absurdity is certainly no "training for the gallows." your lordship evidently wishes to convey the idea that atheists are very likely to become murderers, or _more_ likely than their christian fellow citizens. this i deny, and i ask for your evidence. all you adduce is the case of this "insignificant" and "stunted" boy. let us suppose for a moment that your statement about him is entirely accurate. what does it prove? simply this, that it is not impossible for an atheist to commit a murder. but who ever said it was? who asserts that atheists are absolutely free from the passions and frailties of human nature? has your lordship never heard of a christian murderer? is it not a fact that jesus christ himself could not select his apostles without including a villain? "twelve of you have i chosen," he said, "and one of you is a murderer." is not one in twelve a large percentage? why, then, is the world to be alarmed, and invited to subscribe to christian missions, because one atheist out of all the thousands in england commits a murder --and that one an "insignificant" and "stunted" boy, apparently bred in poverty and hardship? mind you, i am not admitting that george mason _was_ an atheist, or the _son_ of an atheist. i say that has to be proved. i am taking your lordship's account of the matter as true merely for the sake of argument. let me draw your attention to some _facts_. so many of the clergy in your own church "went wrong" that you were compelled to obtain a special act of parliament to enable you to get rid of them. is it not true, also, that the greatest swindlers of this age have been extremely pious? what do you make of messrs hobbs and wright? what do you think of jabez balfour? are not such scoundrels a thousand times worse than a passionate boy like george mason? were not the "liberator" victims fleeced and ruined by professed christians? what have you to say about mr. hastings, captain verney, and mr. de cobain, who were all convicted of bad crimes and expelled from parliament? have you ever heard of the text, "physician heal thyself"? here is another fact. a few months ago an irish clergyman, the rev. george griffiths, deliberately shot his own mother for the sake of what cash he could find in her desk. he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. would you think me justified in saying that the rev. george griffiths committed a murder because he was a christian? why, then, do you pretend that george mason committed a murder because he or his father was an atheist? lay your hand upon your heart, and answer this question honestly. do you really believe that an atheist has a special proclivity to murder? what is there in atheism to make men hate each other? when a man holds the hand of the woman he loves, or feels about his neck the little arms of his child, do you suppose he is likely to injure either of them because he is unable to accept your dogma about the mystery of this illimitable universe? shall i hate my own boy because i disbelieve that jesus christ was born without a father? shall i keep him without food and clothes because i see no proof of a special providence? will shakespeare's _hamlet_ poison my mind because i think it finer than the gospels? if i treat the creation story and the deluge as legend and mythology, and smile at the feats of samson, shall i therefore commit a burglary? if i think that my neighbor's life in this world is _his all_, that death ends his possibilities, do you really think i shall be the more likely to rob him of what i can never restore? i am at a loss to understand your lordship, and i invite you to explain yourself. at present i can only see in your account of george mason, a very common exhibition of christian logic, and christian temper. your lordship's is not the charity that "thinketh no evil." you ascribe wickedness to those who differ from you in opinion. i conceive it possible for men to differ from you in religion, and yet to equal you in morality. i conceive it even possible that some of them might surpass you without a miracle. a religion for eunuchs. * * june, . this is a strong title, and it requires a justification. we have to plead that nothing else would serve our purpose. but is our purpose a sound one? that will appear in the course of this article. let the reader finish what we have to say before he forms a judgment. we purpose to criticise the view of christianity recently put forth by the greatest writer in russia. count leo tolstoi enjoys an european fame. he is one of the classics of modern fiction. his work in imaginative literature, as well as his work in religion, said the late matthew arnold, is "more than sufficient to signalise him as one of the most marking, interesting, and sympathy-inspiring men of our time." whatever such a man writes deserves the closest attention. not, indeed, that this needs to be bespoken for him. he has the qualities that compel it. there is the stamp of power on all his productions. we pause at them involuntarily, as we turn to look at a physical king of men who passes us in the street. for some years count tolstoi discontinued his work as a novelist. his mind became occupied with social and religious problems. he ceased to be a man of the world and became a christian; and his being a most sincere nature, endowed with a certain large simplicity which is characteristic of the russian mind, he did not rest in ecclesiastical christianity. he embraced the religion of christ, and began working it out to legitimate issues. to him the sermon on the mount is divine teaching, not in a metaphorical sense, but in its literal significance. accordingly he tells the christian world, in such volumes as _my religion_ and _my confession_, that it is all astray from the religion of christ. he points to what its savior said, takes his words in their honest meaning, and brands as un-christian the whole framework of christian society, with its armies, its police, its law courts, its wealth, and its institution of property. the bishop of peterborough and count tolstoi are at one in believing that if the sermon on the mount were carried out the state would go to ruin; only the bishop of peterborough shrinks from this, and jesuitically narrows the scope of christ's teaching, while count tolstoi accepts it loyally and calls on christians to square their practice with their profession. mirabeau said of robespierre, "he is in earnest, he will go far." this is what we felt with respect to count tolstoi. sooner or later he was certain to follow jesus to the bitter end. after property comes the institution of marriage, upon which the teaching of jesus may be found in the gospels. count tolstoi now insists on this teaching being practised. he has written a novel, _the kreutzer sonata_, to show the evils, not only of marriage, but of all sexual relations. since then he has written a sober article to justify the sentiments of the hero, or the protagonist, of that terrible story. it is no longer possible to say that pozdnischeff's ideas are those of a person in a drama. count tolstoi accepts the full responsibility of them, and presses them still further. he is now the un-blenching apostle of real christianity--not the christianity of the churches, but the christianity of christ; and his new evangel will alarm the growing army of "advanced christians," who are always canting, in their sentimental way, the very phrase which he develops in all its terrific meaning. to be a christian, he tells them, is to crucify the body, to kill the animal passions, to live the pure life of the spirit, and, in short, to practise every austerity of asceticism. tolstoi did not jump to this conclusion. writing on his novels, mr. w. e. henley called him "the great optimist." the _kreutzer sonata_ is the work of a profound pessimist. concluding _what to do_, tolstoi wrote a noble passage on the sacredness of motherhood. now all that is changed. motherhood must go too. it will take time, for the old adam is strong in us. but go it must, and when we have all brought our bodies under, no more children will be born. the race will expire, having perfected its imitation of christ, and the animals that remain will hold the world in undisputed possession; unless, indeed, they catch the contagion, and wind up the whole terrestrial business. before we treat tolstoi's evangel in detail we must remark that he does not explain the "primeval command" of jehovah to adam and eve--"be ye fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." this is very inconsistent with the gospel of absolute chastity. jehovah says, "get as many children as you can." christ says, "get none at all." if it was the same god who gave both orders he changed his mind completely, and having changed it once he may change it again. in that case the koran will succeed the new testament, and the _imitation of christ_ give place to the _arabian nights_. _revenons a nos moutons_. the _kreutzer sonata_ is a terrible story, but like all novels with a purpose, it is inartistic. othello kills desdemona without moralising on the sinfulness of marriage, and pozdnischeff stabs his wife from sheer jealousy. all the preaching is by the way. it might be cut out without affecting the work, and that is its condemnation. when the preacher steps forward the artist retires. and as we are dealing with tolstoi the preacher we shall go straight to his article in the _universal review_. tolstoi admits that what he now teaches is incompatible with what he taught before. when writing the _kreutzer sonata_, he says: "i had not the faintest presentiment that the train of thought i had started would lead me whither it did. i was terrified by my own conclusion, and was at first disposed to reject it; but it was impossible not to hearken to the voice of my reason and my conscience." this is the language of earnest sincerity. the conclusion is this--"even to contract marriage is, from a christian point of view, not a progress but a fall. love and all the states that accompany and follow it, however we may try in prose and verse to prove the contrary, never do and never can facilitate the attainment of an aim worthy of men, but always make it more difficult." this is sufficiently dogmatic. chapman thought otherwise. without love all beauties bred in women are in vain, all virtues born in men lie buried; for love informs them as the sun doth colors: and as the sun, reflecting his warm beams against the earth, begets all fruits and flowers, so love, fair shining in the inward man, brings forth in him the honorable fruits of valor, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts, brave resolution and divine discourse. thus the great elizabethan. now for the laureate of the victorian age. for indeed i knew of no more subtle master under heaven than is the maiden passion for a maid, not only to keep down the base in man, but teach high thought, and amiable words and courtliness, and the desire of fame, and love of truth, and all that makes a man. chapman's strain is higher than tennyson's, but they harmonise. tolstoi's is a harsher note. he vilifies the flesh to exalt the spirit, as though the two never mingled. he would abolish the springs of life to purify its stream! he bids us see in our passions "foes to be conquered rather than friends to be encouraged." why not try to establish a just harmony between them? is there no medium? must the passions be kings or slaves, in prison or on the throne? "it is thought an injury to reason," wrote diderot, "to say a word in favor of her rivals; yet it is only the passions, and strong passions, that can lift the soul to great things; without them there is nothing sublime, whether in conduct or in productions--art becomes childish and virtue trivial." but let us hear tolstoi simply as a follower of christ. we cannot do better than reproduce some of his sentences _in extenso_. "christ not only never instituted marriage, but, if we search for formal precept on the subject, we find that he rather disapproved it than otherwise. ('and every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.' matthew xix. , mark z. , , luke xviii. , ). he only impressed upon married and unmarried alike the necessity of striving after perfection, which includes chastity in marriage and out of it." "there is not and cannot be such an institution as christian marriage.... this is what was always taught and believed by true christians of the first and following centuries.... in the eyes of a christian, sexual relations in marriage not only do not constitute a lawful, right, and happy state, as our society and our churches maintain, but, on the contrary, are always a fall, a weakness, a sin." "such a thing as christian marriage never was and never could be. christ did not marry, nor did he establish marriage; neither did his disciples marry." "a christian, i say, cannot view sexual intercourse otherwise than as a deviation from the doctrine of christ--as a sin. this is clearly laid down in matt. v. , and the ceremony called christian marriage does not alter its character one jot. a christian will never, therefore, desire marriage, but will always avoid it." "in the gospel it is laid down so clearly as to make it impossible to explain it away, that he who is already married when he discovers and accepts the truth, must abide with her with whom he has been living, i.e., must not change his wife, and must live more chastely than before (matt. v. , xix. - ), that he who is single should remain unmarried and continue to live chastely (matt. xix. , ), and that both the one and the other, in their yearning and striving after perfect chastity, are guilty of sin if they look on a woman as an object of pleasure (matt. v. , )." pozdnischeff, at the close of the _kreutzer sonata_, clinches all this by saying--"people should understand the true significance of the words of st. matthew as to looking upon a woman with the eye of desire; for the words apply to woman in her sisterly character--not only to another man's wife, but also, and above all, to one's own." if this view of marriage prevailed, and perfect chastity obtained, the human race would come to an end. tolstoi says he cannot help that. carnal love perpetuates the race, and spiritual love will extinguish it. but what if it does? it is a familiar religious dogma that the world will have an end, and science tells us that the sun is losing its heat, the result of which must in time be the extinction of the human race. the great russian does not shrink from the logic of christ's teaching. he follows christ as st paul did; as st. peter did, who forsook his wife; as the fathers did in crying up virginity and running down marriage; as the monks and nuns did who severed themselves from the world and the flesh, though they often fell into the hands of the devil. still there is another step for count tolstoi to take. he has not pressed one important saying of christ, and it is this-- "for there are some eunuchs, which were born so from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. he that is able to receive it, let him receive it" (matt. xix. ). the great origen followed this advice and emasculated himself. nor was he alone in the practice. all the disciples of his contemporary, valens of barathis, made themselves eunuchs. mantegazza considers them the spiritual fathers of the skopskis, a russian sect dating from the eleventh century. they have been persecuted, but they number nearly six thousand, and regard themselves as the real christians, the only true followers of christ. they castrate themselves, and sometimes amputate the genitals entirely; the women even mutilate their breasts as a mark of their sex. will count tolstoi take the final step? it seems logically necessary even without the text on eunuchs, for the only certain way to avoid sexual intercourse is to make it impossible. in any case we are very much obliged to him for holding up the _real_ christianity, as far as he sees it, to the purblind and hypocritical mob of professed christians. it will fortify freethinkers in their scepticism, and warn the healthy manhood and womanhood of europe against this oriental asceticism which pretends to be a divine message to the robust occident. when tolstoi goes the one step farther, and embraces the teaching of jesus in its entirety, he will be the most powerful enemy of christianity in the world. by demonstrating it to be a religion for eunuchs he will array against it the deepest instincts of mankind. rose-water religion. * * april, . most of our readers will recollect the controversy that was carried on, more than twelve months ago, in the columns of the _daily chronicle_. mr. robert buchanan had published his new poem, "the wandering jew," in which jesus christ was depicted as a forlorn vagrant, sick of the evil and infamy wrought in his name, and for which he was historically though not intentionally responsible. this poem was reviewed by mr. richard le gallienne, a younger poet, who is also a professional critic in the _star_, where his weekly _causerie_ on books and their writers is printed over the signature of "logroller." mr. le gallienne took mr. buchanan to task for his hostility to "the christianity of christ," the nature of which was not defined nor even made intelligible. mr. buchanan replied with his usual impetuosity, declining to have anything to do with christianity except in the way of opposition, and laughing at the sentimental dilution which his young friend was attempting to pass off as the original, unadulterated article. mr. le gallienne retorted with youthful self-confidence that mr. buchanan did not understand christianity. other writers then joined in the fray, and the result was the famous "is christianity played out?" discussion in the _chronicle_. it was kept going for a week or two, until parliament met and jesus christ had to make way for william ewart gladstone. mr. le gallienne hinted that he was preparing a kind of manifesto on the subject of christianity. the world was to be informed at length as to the "essential" nature of that religion. divines and freethinkers had alike misunderstood and misrepresented it. after a lapse of nearly two thousand years the "straight tip," if we may so express it, was to come from "logroller." he would soon speak and set the weary world at rest with the triumphant proclamation of the real, imperishable religion of jesus christ. presently it was announced, in judicious puffs, that the manifesto was growing under mr. le gallienne's hands. it would take the form of a book, to be entitled _the religion of a literary man_. the title had little relation to the galilean carpenter or his fishing disciples. nor was it in any sense happy. it smacked too much of the "shop." sir thomas browne, it is true, wrote a "religio medici," and gave a physician's view of religion; but he was a man of rare genius as well as quaintness, and allowance was to be made for his idiosyncrasy. besides, there is a certain speciality in a doctor's way of looking at religion, if he compares his knowledge with his faith. but what is the speciality of a literary man on this particular subject? other trades and professions might as well follow suit, and give us "the religion of a porkbutcher," or "the faith of a farmer," or "the creed of a constable." even the "belief of a barman" is not beyond the scope of a rational probability. mr. le gallienne's long-promised evangel "burst upon the town" a month ago. the "religio scriptoris"--which a puzzler at latin might render as "the religion of a scribbler"--made a dainty appearance. the title-page was in two colors, with a pretty arabesque border. the type throughout was neatly leaded, with a column for summaries in the old fashion, and a wide margin of imitation hand-made paper. the book was pretty, like the writing, and opposite the title-page was a pretty verse:-- 'the old gods pass'--the cry goes round, 'lo! how their temples strew the ground'; nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings, faith, like the phoenix, soars and sings. yes, it is _all_ pretty. there is an air of dilettanteism about the whole production. it will probably be grateful to the sentimentalists who, despite their scepticism, still cling to the name of christian; but we imagine it will rather irritate than satisfy other readers of more strenuous and scrupulous intelligence. the book is dedicated to "a. e. fletcher, esq.," editor of the _daily chronicle_, who may well be proud (not of this dedication, but) of the high position to which he has raised that organ of radical principles. mr. le gallienne refers to the old controversy in the _chronicle_ as "raising an important question--to me the most important of questions--as to whether christianity was really so obsolete to-day as its opponents glibly assume." "i could not stand by," he continues, "and see the sublime figure of christ vulgarised to make an adelphi holiday." for this reason, he modestly says, he "ventured to play david to mr. buchanan's philistine." mr. fletcher allowed him a battlefield and "thence sprung [he means _sprang_] the following pages." thus much for the origin of the work, and now for its character. "i have condensed in its pages," the writer says, "much religious experience, and long and ardent thought on spiritual matters." no doubt he believes this statement, but is it true? is not the writer too young to have had "much experience"? and where are the traces of the "long and ardent thought"? mr. le gallienne might reply that his thought _has_ been long and ardent, whatever the value of the result; but, in that case, he is not cut out for a thinker; and, indeed, he seems aware of the fact, for he often prints "thinker" in inverted commas to show his disdain of the article. his "one cure" for "modern doubt" is to "think less and feel more," and some may be tempted to remark that he has certainly followed the first part of the prescription. mr. le gallienne is a long time in coming to "the sublime figure of christ." he has a considerable ground to cover before he undertakes the cleaning and painting of the old idol. first of all, he has to establish his native superiority over the common herd. he divides the world into "natural spiritualists and materialists." the first have a spiritual sense (capitals, please), while the second have not; and "it is obvious that the large majority of mankind belong to the latter class." mr. le gallienne, of course, belongs to the former. he is a member of nature's (or god's) aristocracy. it is for them that he writes, although on his own supposition the task is superfluous. the common herd of materialists are warned against wasting their time in reading him--which also is somewhat superfluous. the fault of materialists--or rather their misfortune, for they are born that way--is that they are such sticklers for facts, and have "no conception of aught they cannot touch and handle, eat, or see through a microscope." not, indeed, that mr. le gallienne objects to eating, for instance; he speaks of it with wet lips, and looks down upon the vegetarian as a person whose "spiritual insight" is not "mercifully intermittent," especially at meal times. but barring meal times, and other fleshly occasions when the spiritualists join the materialists, the former habitually see facts as "transitory symbols" of "transfiguring mysteries," so that the whole world (and perhaps the moon) is "palpitating with occult significance." for instance. a materialist eats rook-pie, and cares for nothing else but a sound digestion. the spiritualist also eats rook-pie, but after the repast he will sentimentalise over dead rooks, without losing his belief in an all-merciful providence. he will assure you, indeed, and try to convince you, that the shooting of rooks and the pulling off their heads to prevent the rook-pie from tasting bitter, is simply one of the "terrible and beautiful mysteries" which make the world so interesting--especially to gentlemen of comprehensive natures, who combine a taste for rook-pie with a taste for optimistic theology. when we come to test mr. le gallienne's conception of mystery, we find it to be nothing but muddle. the whole mystery of life, he says, may be found in a curve: as thus, why isn't it straight? "color in itself is a mystery, and are there not trance-like moments when suddenly we ask ourselves, why a _colored_ world, why a _blue_ sky, and _green_ grass, why not _vice versa_, or why any color at all?" mr. le gallienne is evidently prepared to stand aghast at the fact that twice two make four. why _always_ four? why not three to-day and seven to-morrow? yea, and echo answers, why? here is another illustration of "mystery"-- "science can tell us that oxygen and hydrogen will unite under certain conditions to produce water, but it cannot tell us why they do so; the mystery of their affinity is as dark as ever." mr. le gallienne has a whole chapter on the relative spirit, yet his "long and ardent thought" does not enable him to see that he is himself a slave of metaphysics. all this "mystery" is nothing but the "meat-roasting power of the meat-jack." he question of _why_ oxygen and hydrogen form water is a prompting of anthropomorphism. intellectually, it is simply childish. it could only be put by one who has _not_ grasped the great doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. man can no more get beyond his own knowledge--which is and ever must be finite--than he can get outside himself, or run away from his own shadow. "the sacred mystery of motherhood," of which mr. le gallienne speaks, is a pretty expression. it may pass in the realm of poetry, with the "everlasting hills" and the "eternal sea," which are but transient phenomena in the infinite existence of the universe. the "mystery" of human motherhood is no greater than the "mystery" of any other form of reproduction, while its "sacredness" depends on circumstances; the term, in short, being a compendium of a great variety of personal and social feelings, which may or may not be present in any particular case. what becomes of the "sacred mystery of motherhood" when a poor servant girl brings her child into the world unaided, and casts it into the thames? what becomes of it when violation takes the place of seduction, and a woman bears a child to a man she loathes and hates? "mystery," like other words we inherit from the theological and metaphysical stages, is only fit for use in poetry; it is out of place in science or philosophy; and we advise mr. le gallienne to get a comprehension of this truth before he takes fresh excursions in the "realm of long and ardent thought." the subjective ideas of poetry cease to be admirable and stimulating when they are projected into the external world, and become our masters instead of our servants. mr. le gallienne follows the beaten track of theology in talking about "mysteries," which are only subterfuges to cover the retreat of a nonplussed debater, or a warren for the fugitive game of the hounds of reason. he also follows the beaten track in arguing--or rather assuming--that the elect spiritualists have a "sense" which is lacking in the reprobate materialists. there is nothing like a good lumping assumption for begging the question at issue. it settles the discussion before it opens, and saves a world of trouble. but even an assumption may be looked in the face; nay, it is best looked in the face when you suspect it of being an imposture. according to mr. le gallienne, the religious sense--or, as he also writes it, the spiritual sense, with capital letters--is not after all a special faculty, but a special compound, or interaction, of common faculties. he does, indeed, treat these common faculties as "tribautaries" of the spiritual sense; but it is very evident that the tributaries make the stream, which is merely a name without them. first, there is the sense of wonder, which is nothing but the positive side of ignorance; second, the sense of beauty, which "is not necessarily a religious sense," but may be pressed into its service; third, the sense of pity, which really originates, as we conceive, in parental affection, and has even been noticed in rats as well as in religionists; fourth, the sense of humor, which is a peculiarly "candid" friend of religion, so that mr. le gallienne is obliged to give its devotees an impressive warning against running into ill-nature and sacrilege; fifth, the sense of gratitude, which in religion, so far as we can see, appears to consist in a lively sense of favors to come, through the medium of prayer, to which thanksgiving is only a judicious preliminary, like the compliments and flatteries that are addressed to an oriental despot by his humble but calculating petitioners. now all these senses are perfectly natural. every one of them is found in the lower animals as well as in man. how then can there be anything supernatural, supersensible, or "spiritual,", in their combination? is it not evident that religion works, like everything else, upon common materials? chiefly, indeed, upon the unchastened imagination of credulous ignorance. we may prove this from mr. le gallienne's own testimony. "are there not impressions borne in upon the soul of man as he stands a spectator of the universe which religion alone attempts to formulate? certain impressions are expressed by the sciences and the arts. 'how wonderful!'--exclaims man, and that is the dawn of science; 'how beautiful!'--and that is the dawn of art. but there is a still higher, a more solemn, impression borne in upon him, and, falling upon his knees, he cries, 'how holy!' that is the dawn of religion." mr. le gallienne does not see that this is all imagination. "the heavens declare the glory of god," exclaims the psalmist. on the other hand, a great french atheist exclaimed, "the heavens declare the glory of copernicus, kepler, and newton." mr. le gallienne does not see, either, that man did not exclaim, "how holy!" when he first fell upon his knees. his feeling was rather, "how terrible!" the sense of holiness is a social product--a high sublimation of morality. man had to possess it himself, and see it highly exemplified in picked specimens of his kind, before he bestowed it upon his gods. deities do not anticipate, they follow, the course of human evolution. mr. le gallienne is an optimist. he is young and prosperous, and, judging from his poetry, happily married. he is therefore satisfied that all is for the best--if properly understood; just as when an alderman has dined, all the world is happy. there are such people, however, as pessimists, and mr. le gallienne hates them. schopenhauer, for instance, he rails at as a "small philosopher." whose ideas were only the "formulation of his own special disease, the expression of his own ineffably petty and uncomfortable disposition." at which one can only stare, as at a mannikin attacking a colossus. spinoza too can be treated jauntily if he does not fall into line with mr. le gallienne. george meredith is treated with abundant respect, but he is wronged by being enrolled as a facile optimist, and "the strongest of the apostles of faith." he is certainly nothing of the kind, in mr. le gallienne's sense of the words. he has faith in reason and humanity, but this is a very different thing from faith in the idols--even the greatest idol--of the pantheon. "there is too much pain in the world," said charles darwin, who knew what he was talking about, and always expressed himself with moderation. in the moral world, pain becomes evil; and the problem of evil has ever been the crux of theism. it cannot be solved on theistic grounds, and accordingly it has to be explained away. pain, we are told, is the great agent in our development; in the ethical sphere, it is the "purifying fire," which purges the gold in us from its dross. all of which sounds very pretty in a lecture, and looks very pretty in a book; but is apt to excite disgust when a man is suffering from incurable cancer, or utter destitution in the midst of plenty; or when a mother stands over the corpse of her child, mangled in some terrible accident, or burnt to a cinder in a fatal fire. certainly, pain subserves a partial purpose. it is sometimes a warning, though the warning is often too late. but its function is immensely overrated by mr. le gallienne and other religionists. it is all very well to talk about the "crucible," but half the people who go into it are reduced to ashes. mr. le gallienne will not accept spinoza's view that "pain is an unmistakable evil; joy the vitalising, fructifying power." but the great mystic, william blake, said the same thing in, "joys impregnate, sorrows bring forth." george meredith has expressed the same view in saying that "adversity tests, it does not nourish us." even the struggle for existence does not add any strength to the survivors. it sometimes cripples them. by eliminating the unfit--that is, the weak--it raises the average capacity. but what a method for infinite wisdom and infinite goodness! there was more sense, and less cruelty, in the ancient method of infanticide. mr. le gallienne seems to feel that his theory of pain is too fantastic, so he falls back on "mystery." "we can form no possible conception," he says, "of the processes of god." why then does he talk about them so consumedly? ignorance is a good reason for silence, but none for garrulity. we must be "humble," says mr. le gallienne, and recognise that we only exist "to the praise and glory of god." we are his servants and soldiers, and the pay is life!--"had he willed it, this glorious gift had never been ours. we might have still slept on unsentient, unorganised, in the trodden dust." very likely; but who could lose what he never possessed? it is a small misfortune that can never be realised. mr. le gallienne leaps the final difficulty by exclaiming that "man has no rights in regard to god." he shakes hands with st. paul, who asserts the potter's power over the clay. yes, but man is not clay. he lives and feels. he has rights, even against god. the parent is responsible for his child, the creator for his creature. the opposite doctrine is fit for cowards and slaves. it comes down to us from the old days, when fathers had the power of life and death over their children; it dies out as we learn that the first claim is the child's, and the first duty the parent's. mr. le gallienne's god is the old celestial despot of theology in a new costume. on the question of a future life, however, we are pleased to find a vein of heterodoxy and common sense. mr. le gallienne asks, with respect to the "hereafter," whether we "really care about it so much as we imagine." we talk about meeting our old friends in heaven, for instance, but do we not "meet them again already on earth--in the new ones"! it is said that if fine, cultivated personalities do not survive death, they are wasted, and have existed in vain. mr. le gallienne's reply to this objection is clear, sufficient, and well expressed:-- "but how so? have they not been in full operation for a lifetime? 'tis a pity truly that the old fiddle should be broken at last; but then for how many years has it not been discoursing most excellent music? we naturally lament when an old piece of china is some sure day dashed to pieces; but then for how long a time has it been delighting and refining those, maybe long dead, who have looked upon it.--if there were no possibility of more such fiddles, more such china, their loss would be an infinitely more serious matter; but on this the sad-glad old persian admonishes us:-- .... fear not lest existence, closing your account and mine, should know the like no more; the eternal saki from the bowl has pour'd millions of bubbles like us, and shall pour. nature ruthlessly tears up her replicas age after age, but she is slow to destroy the plates. her lovely forms are all safely housed in her memory, and beauty and goodness sleep secure in her heart, in spite of all the arrows of death." without saving what they are, or which of them he considers at all convincing, mr. le gallienne observes that the arguments as to a future life are "probably stronger on the side of belief"--which is rather a curious expression. but, whichever theory be true, it "does not really much matter." very likely. but how does this fit in with the teaching of christ? if he and his apostles did not believe in the "hereafter," what _did_ they believe in? "great is your reward in heaven," and similar sentences, lose all meaning without the doctrine of a future life, about which the early christians were intensely enthusiastic. it was not in _this_ world, as gibbon remarks, that they wished to be happy or useful. mr. le gallienne argues that christ taught in parables. he promised heaven, and threatened hell, but he spoke in a pickwickian sense. however he used such phrases, it is "certain" that the evangelists "have distorted their importance out of all proportion to the rest of his teaching." by "certain" we are not to assume that mr. le gallienne has access to occult sources of information. we are only to infer that he deals with the gospels arbitrarily; accepting them, or rejecting them, as they accord or disagree with his preconceptions. indeed, this is what "essential christianity" must always be. what each picker and chooser likes is "essential." what he does not like is unessential, if not a positive misrepresentation. short and easy is mr. le gallienne's criterion for deciding when christ is literal and when parabolical. "it is only christ's moral precepts that are to be taken literally"--"all the rest is parable." what a pity it is that the prophet of nazareth did not give us a clear hint to this effect! the theory is one of admirable simplicity. yet, for all that demure look of his, mr. le gallienne is not so admirably simple as to work it out in practice. accepting the moral precepts of christ literally, a christian should hate his father and mother, take no thought tor the morrow, live in poverty to obtain the kingdom of heaven, and turn his left cheek to everyone who takes the liberty of striking him on the right. mr. le gallienne does not ask us to do these things; he does not say he performs them himself, he would probably say, if pressed, that allowance should be made for oriental ways of speaking. but, in that case, what becomes of the "literal" method of reading the "moral precepts" of christ? mr. le gallienne, who despises "thinkers," is all at sea in his chapter on essential christianity. he does not know his own mind. he declares that christ "combined" in his own person and teaching "the intense spirituality of the hebrew, the impassioned self-annihilation of the hindoo, the joyous naturalism of the greek." yet he also remarks that there is something beautiful in "such presences as pan, aphrodite, and apollo," which we do not find in christianity; though he is careful to add that there is not "actually any strife between them and the sadder figure of the galilean." "all the gods of all the creeds," he says, "supplement or corroborate each other." perhaps so; but what becomes of that "masterful synthesis," in which christ gathered up the "joyous naturalism of the greek," no less than other ancient characteristics? it is well to have a good memory (at least) when you are setting the world to rights. christianity has been historically a failure. mr. le gallienne more than admits the fact; he emphasises it, and tries to explain it. in the first place, he says the priests have been too many for christ; they got hold of christianity, and turned it into the channel of their interests. in the next place, the world was not ready for "essential" christianity; an argument in flat contradiction to the doctrine of "preparation," which has placed so important a part in christian apologetics ever since the time of eusebius. in the third place, "essential" christianity is an idealism, and "a throng of idealists is an impossibility." the horde of earthly-minded people have simply trodden upon the precious pearls of christ's teaching. it is not true that the world has tried the gospel of christ and found it wanting; the world has never tried it at all, and "in this nineteenth century of the so-called christian era, it has yet to begin." supposing all this to be true, what does it prove? on the theory that christ was god, or sent by god, it proves either that providence interfered too soon, or that it is incapable of making any real impression upon the stubborn inhabitants of this planet; either alternative being a reflection on the wisdom or the power of the deity. on the theory that christ was only a man, it proves that he taught an impossible gospel. after all these centuries it is still contested and still to be explained. would it not, after all, be better to put aside this source of confusion and quarreling, and to rely upon reason and the common sentiments of humanity? mr. le gallienne admits that in some respects "such a book as whitman's _leaves of grass_ is more helpful than _the new testament_--for it includes more." why then all this chatter about christ? can we ever be united on a question of personality? is it not absurd, and worse than absurd, to thrust this object of contention into the arena where the forces of light should be fighting, like one man, the strong and disciplined forces of darkness? all this talk about "the sublime figure of christ" is a reminiscence of his faded deity. we do not indulge in heated discussions as to the personality of any other _man_. we speak of other "sublime" figures, but the expression is one of individual reverence. we do not say that those who do not share our opinion of buddha, socrates, mohammed, bruno, cromwell, danton, or even plato or shakespeare, are grovelling materialists and candidates for perdition. no, the chatter about christ is only explicable on the ground that he was, and still is by millions, worshipped as a god. the glamor of the deity lingers round the form of the man. it is impossible for persons of any logical trenchancy to remain in this stage. francis newman gave up orthodox christianity, and also the equivocations of unitarianism, but he clung to "the moral perfection of christ." in the course of time, however, the scales fell from his eyes. he had been blinded by a false sentiment. letting his mind play freely upon the "sublime figure" of the prophet of nazareth, he at length perceived that it had its defects. no mortal is endowed with perfection. such monsters do not exist. indeed, the teaching of christ is as defective as his personality, its perfection and sufficiency can only be maintained by those who never mean to incur the perils of reducing it to practice. who really tries to carry out the christianity of christ? only one man in europe that we know of, and his name is count tolstoi; but he is saved from the worst consequences of his "idealism" by the more practical wisdom of his wife, who will not see him, any more than herself and her children, reduced to godly beggary. mr. le gallienne seems to us to belong to the sentimentalists, though we hope he will grow out of their category. he appears to dread accurate thinking, and to imagine that knowledge destroys the charm of nature. "which," he asks, "comes nearest to the truth about love--poor lombroso's talk about pistil and stamen, or one of shakespeare's sonnets?" the root, he says, is no explanation of the flower. this may be fine, but it is fine nonsense. lombroso and shakespeare are both right. the physician does not contradict the poet. and if the root is no explanation of the flower, what will happen if you are careless about the root and the soil in which it is planted? does a gardener act in that way? is it not the horticulture of fleet-street sentimentalists? mr. le gallienne is great on what he calls the "root" fallacy. wishing to keep the "irreligious instinct" in mystery, or at least obscurity, he objects to anthropological "explanations." he cannot tolerate talk about ancestor-worship, and other such "rude beginnings of religion," although it comes from the lips of his intellectual superiors, such as tylor, lubbock, and spencer. even if they are right, he falls back upon his old exclamation, "what does it matter?" if the flower began as a root, he says, that is no argument against "the reality of the flower." but this is a shifting of ground. the reality of the flower, the reality of the "religious instinct," is not in dispute. the question is, what is its explanation? no one denies that man idealises and reveres. the question is, how did he come to let these faculties play upon ghosts and gods? and the explanation is to be found in his past. it cannot possibly be found in his present, unless we take him as a savage, in which case he is an embodiment of the past of our own ancestors, from whom we derive every vestige of what we call our "religion." man's nature, like his destiny, is involved in his origin. however he may be developed, he will never be more than "the paragon of animals." and it is the recognition of this unchangeable truth which makes all the difference between the evolutionist, who labors for rational progress, and the sentimentalist, who fritters away his energies in cherishing the delusions of faith. comic bible sketches reprinted from "the freethinker" by g. w. foote part i. london: progressive publishing company stonecutter street, e.c. . introduction. english literature has its comic histories, its comic grammars, its comic geographies, and its comic law-books, and carlyle once prophesied that it would some day boast its comic bible. tough as the fine old sage of chelsea was, he predicted this monstrosity with something of the horror a barbarian might feel at the thought of some irreverent fellow deliberately laughing at the tribal fetish. but what shocked our latter-day prophet so greatly in mere anticipation has partially come to pass. "la bible amusante" has had an extensive sale in france, and the infectious irreverence has extended itself to england. notwithstanding that mr. g. r. sims, when he saw the first numbers of that abominable publication, piously turned up the whites of his eyes, and declared his opinion that no english freethinker, however extreme, would think of reproducing or imitating them, there were found persons so utterly abandoned as not to scruple at this unparalleled profanity. several of the french drawings were copied with more or less fidelity in the _freethinker_, a scandalous print, as the christians love to describe it, which has been prosecuted twice for blasphemy, and whose editor, proprietor and publisher, have been punished respectively with twelve, nine and three months' imprisonment like common felons, all for the glory and honor of god, for the satisfaction of his dear son, and for the vindication of the holy spirit. in many cases the french originals could not be reproduced in england, owing to their gallic flavor. a parisian artist, disporting himself among those highly moral histories in the bible which our youths and maidens discover with unerring instinct, was not a spectacle which one could dare to exhibit before the pious and chaste british public; any more than an english poet could follow the lead of evariste parny in his "guerre des dieux" and "les amours de la bible." but many others were free from this objection, and a selection of them served as a basis for the freethinker artist to work on. a few were copied pretty closely; some were elaborated and adapted to our national taste; while others furnished a central suggestion, which was treated in an independent manner. by-and-bye, as the insular diffidence wore off, and the minds of the freethinker staff played freely on the subject, a new departure was taken; novel ideas were worked out, and holy writ was ransacked for fresh comicalities. dullards prophesied a speedy exhaustion of bible topics, but they did not know how inexhaustible it is in absurdities. properly read, it is the most comical book in the world; and one might say of it, as enobarbus says of cleopatra, that age cannot wither it, nor custom stale; it's infinite variety. the following comic bible sketches, which will be succeeded in due course by others, comprise all those worth preserving that appeared in the freethinker before its editor, proprietor and publisher were imprisoned, including the drawings they were prosecuted for by that pious guinea: pig, sir henry tyler, who had his dirty fingers severely rapped by lord coleridge, after spending several hundred pounds of somebody's money in an unsuccessful blasphemy prosecution, in order to patch up his threadbare reputation, and perhaps also with a faint hope of cheating the almighty into reserving him a front-seat ticket for the dress-circle in heaven. the french comic bible prints under each illustration a few crisp lines of satiric narrative. this plan has its advantages; it allows, for instance, the writer's pen to curvet as well as the artist's pencil. but it is after all less effective than the plan we have adopted. we merely give each picture a comprehensive and striking title, and print beneath it the bible text which is illustrated. by this means the satire is greatly heightened. not even the sentences of a voltaire could so illuminate and emphasise the grotesqueness of each topic as this juxtaposition of the solemnly absurd scripture with the gaily absurd illustration. the same spirit has animated us in designing the pictures. our object has been to take the bible text always as our basis, to include no feature which is contradicted by it, and to introduce as many comicalities and anachronisms as possible consistently with this rule. we are therefore able to defy criticism. bibliolators may vituperate us, persecute us, or imprison us, but they cannot refute us.. we can safely challenge them to prove that a single incident happened otherwise than we have depicted it. we can candidly say to them--"the thing must have happened in some way, as to which the divine word is silent; this is our view,--what is yours?" and we humbly submit that our speculations are as valid as our neighbors'. nothing but the insanest bigotry in favor of their own conjectures could lead them to quarrel with us for expounding ours. if they can shame us with explicit disproofs from holy writ, let them do so; but what right have they to set up their carnal imaginings and uninspired theories as the ultimate criteria of truth? those who object to any employment of satire on "sacred" subjects should not go beyond the preface of this book. it is not for them, nor are they for it; and they are warned in the hall of what they must expect in the various chambers. but if they neglect the warning they should take the responsibility. it will be simply indecent if they turn round afterwards and assail us with unmerited abuse. for the sake of those who proceed in a spirit of impartial candor and honest inquiry, we beg to offer a little further explanation. we honestly admit that our purpose is to discredit the bible as the infallible word of god. believing as we do, with voltaire, that despotism can never be abolished without destroying the dogmas on which it rests, and that the bible is the grand source and sanction of them all, we are profoundly anxious to expose its pretentions. the educated classes already see through them, and the upper classes credit them just as little, although they dare not openly profess a scepticism which would imperil their privileges. but the multitude are still left to the manipulation of priests, credulous victims of the black army everywhere arrayed against freedom and progress. it is to liberate these from thraldom that we labor, sacrifice and suffer. without being indifferent to what the world calls success, we acknowledge the sovereignty of loftier aims. compared with the advancement of freethought everything else is to us of trivial moment. it may interest, and perhaps surprise, some to learn that for the famous christmas number of the freethinker which was successfully prosecuted, the editor received absolutely nothing for his work except twelve months' imprisonment, while the then registered proprietor, who suffered nine months of the same fate, actually shared with him a pecuniary loss of five pounds. we are really in deadly earnest, like all the greater soldiers of freedom who preceded us; and we employ our smaller resources of satire, as such giants as lucian, rabelais, erasmus, voltaire and heine used theirs, for ends that reach far forward into the mighty future, and affect the welfare of unimagined generations of mankind. now the masses do not read learned disquisitions; they have no leisure to make themselves adequately acquainted with the history of the bible documents; nor can they study comparative religion, trace out the analogies between christianity and older faiths, and realise how all the elaborate developments of doctrine and ritual in modern creeds have sprung from a few simple beliefs and practices of savage superstition. but they are conversant with one or two cardinal ideas of science, and they know the principles which underlie our daily life. what is called common sense (the logic of common experience) is their philosophy, and whoever seeks to move them must appeal to them through that. strange as it may appear, it is that very common sense which the clergy dread far more than all the disclosures of learning and all the revelations of science; the reason being, that learning and science are the privilege of a few, while common sense is the possession of all, and affects the very foundations of spiritual and political tyranny. ridicule is a most potent form of common-sense logic. what is the _reductio ad absurdum_ but an appeal to admitted truths against plausible falsehoods? reducing a thing to an absurdity is simply showing its inconsistency with what is common to both sides in a dispute; and it frequently means the exposure of a gross contradiction to the principles of sanity. laughter, too, as hobbes pointed out, has always an element of pride or contempt; being invariably accompanied by a feeling of superiority to its object. whoever laughs at an absurdity is above it. he looks down on it from a loftier altitude than argument can reach. the man who laughs is safe. he can never more be in danger, unless he suffers fatty degeneration of the heart or fattier degeneration of the head. priestcraft nourishes hope in the scientific laboratory, and feels only faint misgivings in academic halls; but it pales and withers at the smile of scepticism, and hears in a low laugh the note of the trump of doom. ridicule can never injure truth. what it hurts must be false. laugh at the multiplication-table as much as you please, and twice two will still make four. pictorial ridicule has the immense advantage of visualising absurdities. lazy minds, or those accustomed to regard a subject with the reverence of prejudice, read without realising. but the picture supplies the deficiency of their imagination, translates words into things, and enables them to see what had else been only a vague sound. christians read the bible without realising its wonders, allowing themselves to be cheated with words. mr. herbert spencer has remarked that the image of the almighty hand launching worlds into space is very fine until you try to form a mental picture of it, when it is found to be utterly irrealisable. in the same way, the creation story is passable until you image the lord making a clay man and blowing up his nose; or the story of samson until you picture him slaying file after file of well-armed soldiers with the jaw-bone of a costermonger's pony. let it be observed that these comic bible sketches ridicule nothing but miracles. mr. mathew arnold has said that the bible miracles are only fairy tales (very poor ones, by the way) and their reign is doomed. we only seek to hasten their deposition. whatever the bible contains of truth, goodness and beauty, we prize as well as its blindest devotees. but this valuable deposit of antiquity would be more useful if cleared of the rubbish of superstition. it is not the good, but the evil parts of the bible, that are supported by its supernaturalism. why should civilised englishmen go walking about in hebrew old-clothes? let us heed carlyle's stern monition:--"the jew old-clothes having now grown fairly pestilential, a poisonous incumbrance in the path of of men, burn them up with revolutionary fire." a word in conclusion. the editor of the "manchester examiner," writing over the well-known signature of "verax," recently published a long article, censuring the policy of aggressive freethought, and declaring that to laugh at the absurdities of the bible was to insult the human race. we might as well, he said, laugh at our poor ancestors, the ancient britons, for all their mistakes and follies. well, when the ancient jews are not only dead, but buried like the ancient britons; when their mistakes and follies are no longer palmed off on unsuspecting children, and imposed on grown-up men and women, as divine immortal truths; we will cease ridiculing them, and devote our attention to worthier objects. what, would "verax" say if an ancient briton, dressed in a full suit of war-paint, were to walk through the manchester streets, boasting himself the pink of fashion, and insulting peaceable citizens who refused to patronise his tailor? would he not write a racy article on the absurd phenomenon, and ask why the police tolerated such a nuisance? in like manner we publish our comic bible sketches, and summon the police of thought to remove those ancient jews who still infest our mental thoroughfares. april, . g. w. foote sentence numbers, shown thus ( ), have been added by volunteer. a theologico-political treatise part - chapters vi to x by baruch spinoza table of contents: chapter vi - of miracles. confused ideas of the vulgar on the subject. a miracle in the sense of a contravention of natural laws an absurdity. in the sense of an event, whose cause is unknown, less edifying than an event better understood. god's providence identical with the course of nature. how scripture miracles may be interpreted. chapter vii - of the interpretation of scripture. current systems of interpretation erroneous. only true system to interpret it by itself. reasons why this system cannot now be carried out in its entirety. yet these difficulties do not interfere with our understanding the plainest and most important passages. rival systems examined - that of a supernatural faculty being necessary - refuted. that of maimonides. refuted. traditions of the pharisees and the papists rejected. chapter viii. - of the authorship of the pentateuch, and the other historical books of the old testament. the pentateuch not written by moses. his actual writings distinct. traces of late authorship in the other historical books. all the historical books the work of one man. probably ezra. who compiled first the book of deuteronomy. and then a history, distinguishing the books by the names of their subjects. chapter ix. - other questions about these books. that these books have not been thoroughly revised and made to agree. that there are many doubtful readings. that the existing marginal notes are often such. the other explanations of these notes refuted. the hiatus. chapter x. - an examination of the remaining books of the old testament according to the preceding method. chronicles, psalms, proverbs. isaiah, jeremiah. ezekiel, hosea. other prophets, jonah, job. daniel, ezra, nehemiah, esther. the author declines to undertake a similar detailed examination of the new testament. author's endnotes to the treatise chapter vi. - of miracles. ( ) as men are accustomed to call divine the knowledge which transcends human understanding, so also do they style divine, or the work of god, anything of which the cause is not generally known: for the masses think that the power and providence of god are most clearly displayed by events that are extraordinary and contrary to the conception they have formed of nature, especially if such events bring them any profit or convenience: they think that the clearest possible proof of god's existence is afforded when nature, as they suppose, breaks her accustomed order, and consequently they believe that those who explain or endeavour to understand phenomena or miracles through their natural causes are doing away with god and his providence. ( ) they suppose, forsooth, that god is inactive so long as nature works in her accustomed order, and vice versa, that the power of nature and natural causes are idle so long as god is acting: thus they imagine two powers distinct one from the other, the power of god and the power of nature, though the latter is in a sense determined by god, or (as most people believe now) created by him. ( ) what they mean by either, and what they understand by god and nature they do not know, except that they imagine the power of god to be like that of some royal potentate, and nature's power to consist in force and energy. ( ) the masses then style unusual phenomena, "miracles," and partly from piety, partly for the sake of opposing the students of science, prefer to remain in ignorance of natural causes, and only to hear of those things which they know least, and consequently admire most. ( ) in fact, the common people can only adore god, and refer all things to his power by removing natural causes, and conceiving things happening out of their due course, and only admires the power of god when the power of nature is conceived of as in subjection to it. ( ) this idea seems to have taken its rise among the early jews who saw the gentiles round them worshipping visible gods such as the sun, the moon, the earth, water, air, &c., and in order to inspire the conviction that such divinities were weak and inconstant, or changeable, told how they themselves were under the sway of an invisible god, and narrated their miracles, trying further to show that the god whom they worshipped arranged the whole of nature for their sole benefit: this idea was so pleasing to humanity that men go on to this day imagining miracles, so that they may believe themselves god's favourites, and the final cause for which god created and directs all things. ( ) what pretension will not people in their folly advance! ( ) they have no single sound idea concerning either god or nature, they confound god's decrees with human decrees, they conceive nature as so limited that they believe man to be its chief part! ( ) i have spent enough space in setting forth these common ideas and prejudices concerning nature and miracles, but in order to afford a regular demonstration i will show - ( ) i. that nature cannot be contravened, but that she preserves a fixed and immutable order, and at the same time i will explain what is meant by a miracle. ( ) ii. that god's nature and existence, and consequently his providence cannot be known from miracles, but that they can all be much better perceived from the fixed and immutable order of nature. ( ) iii. that by the decrees and volitions, and consequently the providence of god, scripture (as i will prove by scriptural examples) means nothing but nature's order following necessarily from her eternal laws. ( ) iv. lastly, i will treat of the method of interpreting scriptural miracles, and the chief points to be noted concerning the narratives of them. ( ) such are the principal subjects which will be discussed in this chapter, and which will serve, i think, not a little to further the object of this treatise. ( ) our first point is easily proved from what we showed in chap. iv. about divine law - namely, that all that god wishes or determines involves eternal necessity, and truth, for we demonstrated that god's understanding is identical with his will, and that it is the same thing to say that god wills a thing, as to say, that he understands it; hence, as it follows necessarily, from the divine nature and perfection that god understands a thing as it is, it follows no less necessarily that he wills it as it is. ( ) now, as nothing is necessarily true save only by, divine decree, it is plain that the universal laws of nature are decrees of god following from the necessity and perfection of the divine nature. ( ) hence, any event happening in nature which contravened nature's universal laws, would necessarily also contravene the divine decree, nature, and understanding; or if anyone asserted that god acts in contravention to the laws of nature, he, ipso facto, would be compelled to assert that god acted against his own nature - an evident absurdity. ( ) one might easily show from the same premises that the power and efficiency, of nature are in themselves the divine power and efficiency, and that the divine power is the very essence of god, but this i gladly pass over for the present. ( ) nothing, then, comes to pass in nature (n.b. i do not mean here by "nature," merely matter and its modifications, but infinite other things besides matter.) in contravention to her universal laws, nay, everything agrees with them and follows from them, for whatsoever comes to pass, comes to pass by the will and eternal decree of god; that is, as we have just pointed out, whatever comes to pass, comes to pass according to laws and rules which involve eternal necessity and truth; nature, therefore, always observes laws and rules which involve eternal necessity, and truth, although they may not all be known to us, and therefore she keeps a fixed and mutable order. ( ) nor is there any sound reason for limiting the power and efficacy of nature, and asserting that her laws are fit for certain purposes, but not for all; for as the efficacy, and power of nature, are the very, efficacy and power of god, and as the laws and rules of nature are the decrees of god, it is in every way to be believed that the power of nature is infinite, and that her laws are broad enough to embrace everything conceived by, the divine intellect; the only alternative is to assert that god has created nature so weak, and has ordained for her laws so barren, that he is repeatedly compelled to come afresh to her aid if he wishes that she should be preserved, and that things should happen as he desires: a conclusion, in my opinion, very far removed from reason. ( ) further, as nothing happens in nature which does not follow from her laws, and as her laws embrace everything conceived by the divine intellect, and lastly, as nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it most clearly follows that miracles are only intelligible as in relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurrence, either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of the miracle. ( ) we may, in fact, say that a miracle is an event of which the causes annot be explained by the natural reason through a reference to ascertained workings of nature; but since miracles were wrought according to the understanding of the masses, who are wholly ignorant of the workings of nature, it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain by the method adopted by the unlearned in such cases, namely, an appeal to the memory, a recalling of something similar, which is ordinarily regarded without wonder; for most people think they sufficiently understand a thing when they have ceased to wonder at it. ( ) the ancients, then, and indeed most men up to the present day, had no other criterion for a miracle; hence we cannot doubt that many things are narrated in scripture as miracles of which the causes could easily be explained by reference to ascertained workings of nature. ( ) we have hinted as much in chap. ii., in speaking of the sun standing still in the time of joshua, and to say on the subject when we come to treat of the interpretation of miracles later on in this chapter. ( ) it is now time to pass on to the second point, and show that we cannot gain an understanding of god's essence, existence, or providence by means of miracles, but that these truths are much better perceived through the fixed and immutable order of nature. ( ) i thus proceed with the demonstration. ( ) as god's existence is not self-evident ( ) it must necessarily be inferred from ideas so firmly and incontrovertibly true, that no power can be postulated or conceived sufficient to impugn them. ( ) they ought certainly so to appear to us when we infer from them god's existence, if we wish to place our conclusion beyond the reach of doubt; for if we could conceive that such ideas could be impugned by any power whatsoever, we should doubt of their truth, we should doubt of our conclusion, namely, of god's existence, and should never be able to be certain of anything. ( ) further, we know that nothing either agrees with or is contrary to nature, unless it agrees with or is contrary to these primary ideas; wherefore if we would conceive that anything could be done in nature by any power whatsoever which would be contrary to the laws of nature, it would also be contrary to our primary ideas, and we should have either to reject it as absurd, or else to cast doubt (as just shown) on our primary ideas, and consequently on the existence of god, and on everything howsoever perceived. ( ) therefore miracles, in the sense of events contrary to the laws of nature, so far from demonstrating to us the existence of god, would, on the contrary, lead us to doubt it, where, otherwise, we might have been absolutely certain of it, as knowing that nature follows a fixed and immutable order. ( ) let us take miracle as meaning that which cannot be explained through natural causes. ( ) this may be interpreted in two senses: either as that which has natural causes, but cannot be examined by the human intellect; or as that which has no cause save god and god's will. ( ) but as all things which come to pass through natural causes, come to pass also solely through the will and power of god, it comes to this, that a miracle, whether it has natural causes or not, is a result which cannot be explained by its cause, that is a phenomenon which surpasses human understanding; but from such a phenomenon, and certainly from a result surpassing our understanding, we can gain no knowledge. ( ) for whatsoever we understand clearly and distinctly should be plain to us either in itself or by means of something else clearly and distinctly understood; wherefore from a miracle or a phenomenon which we cannot understand, we can gain no knowledge of god's essence, or existence, or indeed anything about god or nature; whereas when we know that all things are ordained and ratified by god, that the operations of nature follow from the essence of god, and that the laws of nature are eternal decrees and volitions of god, we must perforce conclude that our knowledge of god, and of god's will increases in proportion to our knowledge and clear understanding of nature, as we see how she depends on her primal cause, and how she works according to eternal law. ( ) wherefore so far as our understanding goes, those phenomena which we clearly and distinctly understand have much better right to be called works of god, and to be referred to the will of god than those about which we are entirely ignorant, although they appeal powerfully to the imagination, and compel men's admiration. ( ) it is only phenomena that we clearly and distinctly understand, which heighten our knowledge of god, and most clearly indicate his will and decrees. ( ) plainly, they are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of god; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance. ( ) again, even supposing that some conclusion could be drawn from miracles, we could not possibly infer from them the existence of god: for a miracle being an event under limitations is the expression of a fixed and limited power; therefore we could not possibly infer from an effect of this kind the existence of a cause whose power is infinite, but at the utmost only of a cause whose power is greater than that of the said effect. ( ) i say at the utmost, for a phenomenon may be the result of many concurrent causes, and its power may be less than the power of the sum of such causes, but far greater than that of any one of them taken individually. ( ) on the other hand, the laws of nature, as we have shown, extend over infinity, and are conceived by us as, after a fashion, eternal, and nature works in accordance with them in a fixed and immutable order; therefore, such laws indicate to us in a certain degree the infinity, the eternity, and the immutability of god. ( ) we may conclude, then, that we cannot gain knowledge of the existence and providence of god by means of miracles, but that we can far better infer them from the fixed and immutable order of nature. ( ) by miracle, i here mean an event which surpasses, or is thought to surpass, human comprehension: for in so far as it is supposed to destroy or interrupt the order of nature or her laws, it not only can give us no knowledge of god, but, contrariwise, takes away that which we naturally have, and makes us doubt of god and everything else. ( ) neither do i recognize any difference between an event against the laws of nature and an event beyond the laws of nature (that is, according to some, an event which does not contravene nature, though she is inadequate to produce or effect it) - for a miracle is wrought in, and not beyond nature, though it may be said in itself to be above nature, and, therefore, must necessarily interrupt the order of nature, which otherwise we conceive of as fixed and unchangeable, according to god's decrees. ( ) if, therefore, anything should come to pass in nature which does not follow from her laws, it would also be in contravention to the order which god has established in nature for ever through universal natural laws: it would, therefore, be in contravention to god's nature and laws, and, consequently, belief in it would throw doubt upon everything, and lead to atheism. ( ) i think i have now sufficiently established my second point, so that we can again conclude that a miracle, whether in contravention to, or beyond, nature, is a mere absurdity; and, therefore, that what is meant in scripture by a miracle can only be a work of nature, which surpasses, or is believed to surpass, human comprehension. ( ) before passing on to my third point, i will adduce scriptural authority for my assertion that god cannot be known from miracles. ( ) scripture nowhere states the doctrine openly, but it can readily be inferred from several passages. ( ) firstly, that in which moses commands (deut. xiii.) that a false prophet should be put to death, even though he work miracles: "if there arise a prophet among you, and giveth thee a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass, saying, let us go after other gods . . . thou shalt not hearken unto the voice of that prophet; for the lord your god proveth you, and that prophet shall be put to death." ( ) from this it clearly follows that miracles could be wrought even by false prophets; and that, unless men are honestly endowed with the true knowledge and love of god, they may be as easily led by miracles to follow false gods as to follow the true god; for these words are added: "for the lord your god tempts you, that he may know whether you love him with all your heart and with all your mind." ( ) further, the israelites, from all their miracles, were unable to form a sound conception of god, as their experience testified: for when they had persuaded themselves that moses had departed from among them, they petitioned aaron to give them visible gods; and the idea of god they had formed as the result of all their miracles was - a calf! ( ) asaph, though he had heard of so many miracles, yet doubted of the providence of god, and would have turned himself from the true way, if he had not at last come to understand true blessedness. (see ps. lxxxiii.) ( ) solomon, too, at a time when the jewish nation was at the height of its prosperity, suspects that all things happen by chance. (see eccles. iii: , , ; and chap. ix: , , &c.) ( ) lastly, nearly all the prophets found it very hard to reconcile the order of nature and human affairs with the conception they had formed of god's providence, whereas philosophers who endeavour to understand things by clear conceptions of them, rather than by miracles, have always found the task extremely easy - at least, such of them as place true happiness solely in virtue and peace of mind, and who aim at obeying nature, rather than being obeyed by her. ( ) such persons rest assured that god directs nature according to the requirements of universal laws, not according to the requirements of the particular laws of human nature, and trial, therefore, god's scheme comprehends, not only the human race, but the whole of nature. ( ) it is plain, then, from scripture itself, that miracles can give no knowledge of god, nor clearly teach us the providence of god. ( ) as to the frequent statements in scripture, that god wrought miracles to make himself plain to man - as in exodus x: , where he deceived the egyptians, and gave signs of himself, that the israelites might know that he was god,- it does not, therefore, follow that miracles really taught this truth, but only that the jews held opinions which laid them easily open to conviction by miracles. ( ) we have shown in chap. ii. that the reasons assigned by the prophets, or those which are formed from revelation, are not assigned in accordance with ideas universal and common to all, but in accordance with the accepted doctrines, however absurd, and with the opinions of those to whom the revelation was given, or those whom the holy spirit wished to convince. ( ) this we have illustrated by many scriptural instances, and can further cite paul, who to the greeks was a greek, and to the jews a jew. ( ) but although these miracles could convince the egyptians and jews from their standpoint, they could not give a true idea and knowledge of god, but only cause them to admit that there was a deity more powerful than anything known to them, and that this deity took special care of the jews, who had just then an unexpectedly happy issue of all their affairs. ( ) they could not teach them that god cares equally for all, for this can be taught only by philosophy: the jews, and all who took their knowledge of god's providence from the dissimilarity of human conditions of life and the inequalities of fortune, persuaded themselves that god loved the jews above all men, though they did not surpass their fellows in true human perfection. ( ) i now go on to my third point, and show from scripture that the decrees and mandates of god, and consequently his providence, are merely the order of nature - that is, when scripture describes an event as accomplished by god or god's will, we must understand merely that it was in accordance with the law and order of nature, not, as most people believe, that nature had for a season ceased to act, or that her order was temporarily interrupted. ( ) but scripture does not directly teach matters unconnected with its doctrine, wherefore it has no care to explain things by their natural causes, nor to expound matters merely speculative. ( ) wherefore our conclusion must be gathered by inference from those scriptural narratives which happen to be written more at length and circumstantially than usual. ( ) of these i will cite a few. ( ) in the first book of samuel, ix: , , it is related that god revealed to samuel that he would send saul to him, yet god did not send saul to samuel as people are wont to send one man to another. ( ) his "sending" was merely the ordinary course of nature. ( ) saul was looking for the asses he had lost, and was meditating a return home without them, when, at the suggestion of his servant, he went to the prophet samuel, to learn from him where he might find them. ( ) from no part of the narrative does it appear that saul had any command from god to visit samuel beyond this natural motive. ( ) in psalm cv. it is said that god changed the hearts of the egyptians, so that they hated the israelites. ( ) this was evidently a natural change, as appears from exodus, chap.i., where we find no slight reason for the egyptians reducing the israelites to slavery. ( ) in genesis ix: , god tells noah that he will set his bow in the cloud; this action of god's is but another way of expressing the refraction and reflection which the rays of the sun are subjected to in drops of water. ( ) in psalm cxlvii: , the natural action and warmth of the wind, by which hoar frost and snow are melted, are styled the word of the lord, and in verse wind and cold are called the commandment and word of god. ( ) in psalm civ: , wind and fire are called the angels and ministers of god, and various other passages of the same sort are found in scripture, clearly showing that the decree, commandment, fiat, and word of god are merely expressions for the action and order of nature. ( ) thus it is plain that all the events narrated in scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to god because scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion. ( ) if, therefore, events are found in the bible which we cannot refer to their causes, nay, which seem entirely to contradict the order of nature, we must not come to a stand, but assuredly believe that whatever did really happen happened naturally. ( ) this view is confirmed by the fact that in the case of every miracle there were many attendant circumstances, though these were not always related, especially where the narrative was of a poetic character. ( ) the circumstances of the miracles clearly show, i maintain, that natural causes were needed. ( ) for instance, in order to infect the egyptians with blains, it was necessary that moses should scatter ashes in the air (exod. ix: ); the locusts also came upon the land of egypt by a command of god in accordance with nature, namely, by an east wind blowing for a whole day and night; and they departed by a very strong west wind (exod. x: , ). ( ) by a similar divine mandate the sea opened a way for the jews (exo. xiv: ), namely, by an east wind which blew very strongly all night. ( ) so, too, when elisha would revive the boy who was believed to be dead, he was obliged to bend over him several times until the flesh of the child waxed warm, and at last he opened his eyes ( kings iv: , ). ( ) again, in john's gospel (chap. ix.) certain acts are mentioned as performed by christ preparatory to healing the blind man, and there are numerous other instances showing that something further than the absolute fiat of god is required for working a miracle. ( ) wherefore we may believe that, although the circumstances attending miracles are not related always or in full detail, yet a miracle was never performed without them. ( ) this is confirmed by exodus xiv: , where it is simply stated that "moses stretched forth his hand, and the waters of the sea returned to their strength in the morning," no mention being made of a wind; but in the song of moses (exod. xv: ) we read, "thou didst blow with thy wind (i.e. with a very strong wind), and the sea covered them." ( ) thus the attendant circumstance is omitted in the history, and the miracle is thereby enhanced. ( ) but perhaps someone will insist that we find many things in scripture which seem in nowise explicable by natural causes, as for instance, that the sins of men and their prayers can be the cause of rain and of the earth's fertility, or that faith can heal the blind, and so on. ( ) but i think i have already made sufficient answer: i have shown that scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and the style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion; and therefore it speaks inaccurately of god and of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination. ( ) if the bible were to describe the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the masses would remain unstirred, whereas the contrary is the case when it adopts the method of poetic description, and refers all things immediately to god. ( ) when, therefore, the bible says that the earth is barren because of men's sins, or that the blind were healed by faith, we ought to take no more notice than when it says that god is angry at men's sins, that he is sad, that he repents of the good he has promised and done; or that on seeing a sign he remembers something he had promised, and other similar expressions, which are either thrown out poetically or related according to the opinion and prejudices of the writer. ( ) we may, then, be absolutely certain that every event which is truly described in scripture necessarily happened, like everything else, according to natural laws; and if anything is there set down which can be proved in set terms to contravene the order of nature, or not to be deducible therefrom, we must believe it to have been foisted into the sacred writings by irreligious hands; for whatsoever is contrary to nature is also contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd, and, ipso facto, to be rejected. ( ) there remain some points concerning the interpretation of miracles to be noted, or rather to be recapitulated, for most of them have been already stated. ( ) these i proceed to discuss in the fourth division of my subject, and i am led to do so lest anyone should, by wrongly interpreting a miracle, rashly suspect that he has found something in scripture contrary to human reason. ( ) it is very rare for men to relate an event simply as it happened, without adding any element of their own judgment. ( ) when they see or hear anything new, they are, unless strictly on their guard, so occupied with their own preconceived opinions that they perceive something quite different from the plain facts seen or heard, especially if such facts surpass the comprehension of the beholder or hearer, and, most of all, if he is interested in their happening in a given way. ( ) thus men relate in chronicles and histories their own opinions rather than actual events, so that one and the same event is so differently related by two men of different opinions, that it seems like two separate occurrences; and, further, it is very easy from historical chronicles to gather the personal opinions of the historian. ( ) i could cite many instances in proof of this from the writings both of natural philosophers and historians, but i will content myself with one only from scripture, and leave the reader to judge of the rest. ( ) in the time of joshua the hebrews held the ordinary opinion that the sun moves with a daily motion, and that the earth remains at rest; to this preconceived opinion they adapted the miracle which occurred during their battle with the five kings. ( ) they did not simply relate that that day was longer than usual, but asserted that the sun and moon stood still, or ceased from their motion - a statement which would be of great service to them at that time in convincing and proving by experience to the gentiles, who worshipped the sun, that the sun was under the control of another deity who could compel it to change its daily course. ( ) thus, partly through religious motives, partly through preconceived opinions, they conceived of and related the occurrence as something quite different from what really happened. ( ) thus in order to interpret the scriptural miracles and understand from the narration of them how they really happened, it is necessary to know the opinions of those who first related them, and have recorded them for us in writing, and to distinguish such opinions from the actual impression made upon their senses, otherwise we shall confound opinions and judgments with the actual miracle as it really occurred: nay, further, we shall confound actual events with symbolical and imaginary ones. ( ) for many things are narrated in scripture as real, and were believed to be real, which were in fact only symbolical and imaginary. ( ) as, for instance, that god came down from heaven (exod. xix: , deut. v: ), and that mount sinai smoked because god descended upon it surrounded with fire; or, again that elijah ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire, with horses of fire; all these things were assuredly merely symbols adapted to the opinions of those who have handed them down to us as they were represented to them, namely, as real. ( ) all who have any education know that god has no right hand nor left; that he is not moved nor at rest, nor in a particular place, but that he is absolutely infinite and contains in himself all perfections. ( ) these things, i repeat, are known to whoever judges of things by the perception of pure reason, and not according as his imagination is affected by his outward senses. ( ) following the example of the masses who imagine a bodily deity, holding a royal court with a throne on the convexity of heaven, above the stars, which are believed to be not very, far off from the earth. ( ) to these and similar opinions very many narrations in scripture are adapted, and should not, therefore, be mistaken by philosophers for realities. ( ) lastly, in order to understand, in the case of miracles, what actually took place, we ought to be familiar with jewish phrases and metaphors; anyone who did not make sufficient allowance for these, would be continually seeing miracles in scripture where nothing of the kind is intended by the writer; he would thus miss the knowledge not only of what actually happened, but also of the mind of the writers of the sacred text. ( ) for instance, zechariah speaking of some future war says (chap. xiv: ): "it shall be one day which shall be known to the lord, not day, nor night; but at even time it shall be light." in these words he seems to predict a great miracle, yet he only means that the battle will be doubtful the whole day, that the issue will be known only to god, but that in the evening they will gain the victory: the prophets frequently used to predict victories and defeats of the nations in similar phrases. ( ) thus isaiah, describing the destruction of babylon, says (chap. xiii.): "the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." ( ) now i suppose no one imagines that at the destruction of babylon these phenomena actually occurred any more than that which the prophet adds, "for i will make the heavens to tremble, and remove the earth out of her place." ( ) so, too, isaiah in foretelling to the jews that they would return from babylon to jerusalem in safety, and would not suffer from thirst on their journey, says: "and they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rocks for them; he clave the rocks, and the waters gushed out." ( ) these words merely mean that the jews, like other people, found springs in the desert, at which they quenched their thirst; for when the jews returned to jerusalem with the consent of cyrus, it is admitted that no similar miracles befell them. ( ) in this way many occurrences in the bible are to be regarded merely as jewish expressions. ( ) there is no need for me to go through them in detail; but i will call attention generally to the fact that the jews employed such phrases not only rhetorically, but also, and indeed chiefly, from devotional motives. ( ) such is the reason for the substitution of "bless god" for "curse god" in kings xxi: , and job ii: , and for all things being referred to god, whence it appears that the bible seems to relate nothing but miracles, even when speaking of the most ordinary occurrences, as in the examples given above. ( ) hence we must believe that when the bible says that the lord hardened pharaoh's heart, it only means that pharaoh was obstinate; when it says that god opened the windows of heaven, it only means that it rained very hard, and so on. ( ) when we reflect on these peculiarities, and also on the fact that most things are related very shortly, with very little details and almost in abridgments, we shall see that there is hardly anything in scripture which can be proved contrary to natural reason, while, on the other hand, many things which before seemed obscure, will after a little consideration be understood and easily explained. ( ) i think i have now very clearly explained all that i proposed to explain, but before i finish this chapter i would call attention to the fact that i have adopted a different method in speaking of miracles to that which i employed in treating of prophecy. ( ) of prophecy i have asserted nothing which could not be inferred from promises revealed in scripture, whereas in this chapter i have deduced my conclusions solely from the principles ascertained by the natural light of reason. ( ) i have proceeded in this way advisedly, for prophecy, in that it surpasses human knowledge, is a purely theological question; therefore, i knew that i could not make any assertions about it, nor learn wherein it consists, except through deductions from premises that have been revealed; therefore i was compelled to collate the history of prophecy, and to draw therefrom certain conclusions which would teach me, in so far as such teaching is possible, the nature and properties of the gift. ( ) but in the case of miracles, as our inquiry is a question purely philosophical (namely, whether anything can happen which contravenes or does not follow from the laws of nature), i was not under any such necessity: i therefore thought it wiser to unravel the difficulty through premises ascertained and thoroughly known by could also easily have solved the problem merely from the doctrines and fundamental principles of scripture: in order that everyone may acknowledge this, i will briefly show how it could be done. ( ) scripture makes the general assertion in several passages that nature's course is fixed and unchangeable. ( ) in ps. cxlviii: , for instance, and jer. xxxi: . ( ) the wise man also, in eccles. i: , distinctly teaches that "there is nothing new under the sun," and in verses , , illustrating the same idea, he adds that although something occasionally happens which seems new, it is not really new, but "hath been already of old time, which was before us, whereof there is no remembrance, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that come after." ( ) again in chap. iii: , he says, "god hath made everything beautiful in his time," and immediately afterwards adds, "i know that whatsoever god doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." ( ) now all these texts teach most distinctly that nature preserves a fixed and unchangeable order, and that god in all ages, known and unknown, has been the same; further, that the laws of nature are so perfect, that nothing can be added thereto nor taken therefrom; and, lastly, that miracles only appear as something new because of man's ignorance. ( ) such is the express teaching of scripture: nowhere does scripture assert that anything happens which contradicts, or cannot follow from the laws of nature; and, therefore, we should not attribute to it such a doctrine. ( ) to these considerations we must add, that miracles require causes and attendant circumstances, and that they follow, not from some mysterious royal power which the masses attribute to god, but from the divine rule and decree, that is (as we have shown from scripture itself) from the laws and order of nature; lastly, that miracles can be wrought even by false prophets, as is proved from deut. xiii. and matt. xxiv: . ( ) the conclusion, then, that is most plainly put before us is, that miracles were natural occurrences, and must therefore be so explained as to appear neither new (in the words of solomon) nor contrary to nature, but, as far as possible, in complete agreement with ordinary events. ( ) this can easily be done by anyone, now that i have set forth the rules drawn from scripture. ( ) nevertheless, though i maintain that scripture teaches this doctrine, i do not assert that it teaches it as a truth necessary to salvation, but only that the prophets were in agreement with ourselves on the point; therefore everyone is free to think on the subject as he likes, according as he thinks it best for himself, and most likely to conduce to the worship of god and to singlehearted religion. ( ) this is also the opinion of josephus, for at the conclusion of the second book of his "antiquities," he writes: let no man think this story incredible of the sea's dividing to save these people, for we find it in ancient records that this hath been seen before, whether by god's extraordinary will or by the course of nature it is indifferent. ( ) the same thing happened one time to the macedonians, under the command of alexander, when for want of another passage the pamphylian sea divided to make them way; god's providence making use of alexander at that time as his instrument for destroying the persian empire. ( ) this is attested by all the historians who have pretended to write the life of that prince. ( ) but people are at liberty to think what they please." ( ) such are the words of josephus, and such is his opinion on faith in miracles. chapter vii. - of the interpretation of scripture ( ) when people declare, as all are ready, to do, that the bible is the word of god teaching man true blessedness and the way of salvation, they evidently do not mean what they, say; for the masses take no pains at all to live according to scripture, and we see most people endeavouring to hawk about their own commentaries as the word of god, and giving their best efforts, under the guise of religion, to compelling others to think as they do: we generally see, i say, theologians anxious to learn how to wring their inventions and sayings out of the sacred text, and to fortify, them with divine authority. ( ) such persons never display, less scruple or more zeal than when they, are interpreting scripture or the mind of the holy ghost; if we ever see them perturbed, it is not that they fear to attribute some error to the holy spirit, and to stray from the right path, but that they are afraid to be convicted of error by, others, and thus to overthrow and bring into contempt their own authority. ( ) but if men really believed what they verbally testify of scripture, they would adopt quite a different plan of life: their minds would not be agitated by so many contentions, nor so many hatreds, and they would cease to be excited by such a blind and rash passion for interpreting the sacred writings, and excogitating novelties in religion. ( ) on the contrary, they would not dare to adopt, as the teaching of scripture, anything which they could not plainly deduce therefrom: lastly, those sacrilegious persons who have dared, in several passages, to interpolate the bible, would have shrunk from so great a crime, and would have stayed their sacrilegious hands. ( ) ambition and unscrupulousness have waxed so powerful, that religion is thought to consist, not so much in respecting the writings of the holy ghost, as in defending human commentaries, so that religion is no longer identified with charity, but with spreading discord and propagating insensate hatred disguised under the name of zeal for the lord, and eager ardour. ( ) to these evils we must add superstition, which teaches men to despise reason and nature, and only to admire and venerate that which is repugnant to both: whence it is not wonderful that for the sake of increasing the admiration and veneration felt for scripture, men strive to explain it so as to make it appear to contradict, as far as possible, both one and the other: thus they dream that most profound mysteries lie hid in the bible, and weary themselves out in the investigation of these absurdities, to the neglect of what is useful. ( ) every result of their diseased imagination they attribute to the holy ghost, and strive to defend with the utmost zeal and passion; for it is an observed fact that men employ their reason to defend conclusions arrived at by reason, but conclusions arrived at by the passions are defended by the passions. ( ) if we would separate ourselves from the crowd and escape from theological prejudices, instead of rashly accepting human commentaries for divine documents, we must consider the true method of interpreting scripture and dwell upon it at some length: for if we remain in ignorance of this we cannot know, certainly, what the bible and the holy spirit wish to teach. ( )i may sum up the matter by saying that the method of interpreting scripture does not widely differ from the method of interpreting nature - in fact, it is almost the same. ( ) for as the interpretation of nature consists in the examination of the history of nature, and therefrom deducing definitions of natural phenomena on certain fixed axioms, so scriptural interpretation proceeds by the examination of scripture, and inferring the intention of its authors as a legitimate conclusion from its fundamental principles. ( ) by working in this manner everyone will always advance without danger of error - that is, if they admit no principles for interpreting scripture, and discussing its contents save such as they find in scripture itself - and will be able with equal security to discuss what surpasses our understanding, and what is known by the natural light of reason. ( ) in order to make clear that such a method is not only correct, but is also the only one advisable, and that it agrees with that employed in interpreting nature, i must remark that scripture very often treats of matters which cannot be deduced from principles known to reason: for it is chiefly made up of narratives and revelation: the narratives generally contain miracles - that is, as we have shown in the last chapter, relations of extraordinary natural occurrences adapted to the opinions and judgment of the historians who recorded them: the revelations also were adapted to the opinions of the prophets, as we showed in chap. ii., and in themselves surpassed human comprehension. ( ) therefore the knowledge of all these - that is, of nearly the whole contents of scripture, must be sought from scripture alone, even as the knowledge of nature is sought from nature. ( ) as for the moral doctrines which are also contained in the bible, they may be demonstrated from received axioms, but we cannot prove in the same manner that scripture intended to teach them, this can only be learned from scripture itself. ( ) if we would bear unprejudiced witness to the divine origin of scripture, we must prove solely on its own authority that it teaches true moral doctrines, for by such means alone can its divine origin be demonstrated: we have shown that the certitude of the prophets depended chiefly on their having minds turned towards what is just and good, therefore we ought to have proof of their possessing this quality before we repose faith in them. ( ) from miracles god's divinity cannot be proved, as i have already shown, and need not now repeat, for miracles could be wrought by false prophets. ( ) wherefore the divine origin of scripture must consist solely in its teaching true virtue. ( ) but we must come to our conclusion simply on scriptural grounds, for if we were unable to do so we could not, unless strongly prejudiced accept the bible and bear witness to its divine origin. ( ) our knowledge of scripture must then be looked for in scripture only. ( ) lastly, scripture does not give us definition of things any more than nature does: therefore, such definitions must be sought in the latter case from the diverse workings of nature; in the former case, from the various narratives about the given subject which occur in the bible. ( ) the universal rule, then, in interpreting scripture is to accept nothing as an authoritative scriptural statement which we do not perceive very clearly when we examine it in the light of its history. ( ) what i mean by its history, and what should be the chief points elucidated, i will now explain. ( ) the history of a scriptural statement comprises - ( ) i. the nature and properties of the language in which the books of the bible were written, and in which their authors were, accustomed to speak. ( ) we shall thus be able to investigate every expression by comparison with common conversational usages. ( ) now all the writers both of the old testament and the new were hebrews: therefore, a knowledge of the hebrew language is before all things necessary, not only for the comprehension of the old testament, which was written in that tongue, but also of the new: for although the latter was published in other languages, yet its characteristics are hebrew. ( ) ii. an analysis of each book and arrangement of its contents under heads; so that we may have at hand the various texts which treat of a given subject. ( ) lastly, a note of all the passages which are ambiguous or obscure, or which seem mutually contradictory. ( ) i call passages clear or obscure according as their meaning is inferred easily or with difficulty in relation to the context, not according as their truth is perceived easily or the reverse by reason. ( ) we are at work not on the truth of passages, but solely on their meaning. ( ) we must take especial care, when we are in search of the meaning of a text, not to be led away by our reason in so far as it is founded on principles of natural knowledge (to say nothing of prejudices): in order not to confound the meaning of a passage with its truth, we must examine it solely by means of the signification of the words, or by a reason acknowledging no foundation but scripture. ( ) i will illustrate my meaning by an example. ( ) the words of moses, "god is a fire" and "god is jealous," are perfectly clear so long as we regard merely the signification of the words, and i therefore reckon them among the clear passages, though in relation to reason and truth they are most obscure: still, although the literal meaning is repugnant to the natural light of reason, nevertheless, if it cannot be clearly overruled on grounds and principles derived from its scriptural "history," it, that is, the literal meaning, must be the one retained: and contrariwise if these passages literally interpreted are found to clash with principles derived from scripture, though such literal interpretation were in absolute harmony with reason, they must be interpreted in a different manner, i.e. metaphorically. ( ) if we would know whether moses believed god to be a fire or not, we must on no account decide the question on grounds of the reasonableness or the reverse of such an opinion, but must judge solely by the other opinions of moses which are on record. ( ) in the present instance, as moses says in several other passages that god has no likeness to any visible thing, whether in heaven or in earth, or in the water, either all such passages must be taken metaphorically, or else the one before us must be so explained. ( ) however, as we should depart as little as possible from the literal sense, we must first ask whether this text, god is a fire, admits of any but the literal meaning - that is, whether the word fire ever means anything besides ordinary natural fire. ( ) if no such second meaning can be found, the text must be taken literally, however repugnant to reason it may be: and all the other passages, though in complete accordance with reason, must be brought into harmony with it. ( ) if the verbal expressions would not admit of being thus harmonized, we should have to set them down as irreconcilable, and suspend our judgment concerning them. ( ) however, as we find the name fire applied to anger and jealousy (see job xxxi: ) we can thus easily reconcile the words of moses, and legitimately conclude that the two propositions god is a fire, and god is jealous, are in meaning identical. ( ) further, as moses clearly teaches that god is jealous, and nowhere states that god is without passions or emotions, we must evidently infer that moses held this doctrine himself, or at any rate, that he wished to teach it, nor must we refrain because such a belief seems contrary to reason: for as we have shown, we cannot wrest the meaning of texts to suit the dictates of our reason, or our preconceived opinions. ( ) the whole knowledge of the bible must be sought solely from itself. ( ) iii. lastly, such a history should relate the environment of all the prophetic books extant; that is, the life, the conduct, and the studies of the author of each book, who he was, what was the occasion, and the epoch of his writing, whom did he write for, and in what language. ( ) further, it should inquire into the fate of each book: how it was first received, into whose hands it fell, how many different versions there were of it, by whose advice was it received into the bible, and, lastly, how all the books now universally accepted as sacred, were united into a single whole. ( ) all such information should, as i have said, be contained in the "history" of scripture. ( ) for, in order to know what statements are set forth as laws, and what as moral precepts, it is important to be acquainted with the life, the conduct, and the pursuits of their author: moreover, it becomes easier to explain a man's writings in proportion as we have more intimate knowledge of his genius and temperament. ( ) further, that we may not confound precepts which are eternal with those which served only a temporary purpose, or were only meant for a few, we should know what was the occasion, the time, the age, in which each book was written, and to what nation it was addressed.( ) lastly, we should have knowledge on the other points i have mentioned, in order to be sure, in addition to the authenticity of the work, that it has not been tampered with by sacrilegious hands, or whether errors can have crept in, and, if so, whether they have been corrected by men sufficiently skilled and worthy of credence. ( ) all these things should be known, that we may not be led away by blind impulse to accept whatever is thrust on our notice, instead of only that which is sure and indisputable. ( ) now when we are in possession of this history of scripture, and have finally decided that we assert nothing as prophetic doctrine which does not directly follow from such history, or which is not clearly deducible from it, then, i say, it will be time to gird ourselves for the task of investigating the mind of the prophets and of the holy spirit. ( ) but in this further arguing, also, we shall require a method very like that employed in interpreting nature from her history. ( ) as in the examination of natural phenomena we try first to investigate what is most universal and common to all nature - such, for instance, as motion and rest, and their laws and rules, which nature always observes, and through which she continually works - and then we proceed to what is less universal; so, too, in the history of scripture, we seek first for that which is most universal, and serves for the basis and foundation of all scripture, a doctrine, in fact, that is commended by all the prophets as eternal and most profitable to all men. ( ) for example, that god is one, and that he is omnipotent, that he alone should be worshipped, that he has a care for all men, and that he especially loves those who adore him and love their neighbour as themselves, &c. ( ) these and similar doctrines, i repeat, scripture everywhere so clearly and expressly teaches, that no one was ever in doubt of its meaning concerning them. ( ) the nature of god, his manner of regarding and providing for things, and similar doctrines, scripture nowhere teaches professedly, and as eternal doctrine; on the contrary, we have shown that the prophets themselves did not agree on the subject; therefore, we must not lay down any doctrine as scriptural on such subjects, though it may appear perfectly clear on rational grounds. ( ) from a proper knowledge of this universal doctrine of scripture, we must then proceed to other doctrines less universal, but which, nevertheless, have regard to the general conduct of life, and flow from the universal doctrine like rivulets from a source; such are all particular external manifestations of true virtue, which need a given occasion for their exercise; whatever is obscure or ambiguous on such points in scripture must be explained and defined by its universal doctrine; with regard to contradictory instances, we must observe the occasion and the time in which they were written. ( ) for instance, when christ says, "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" we do not know, from the actual passage, what sort of mourners are meant; as, however, christ afterwards teaches that we should have care for nothing, save only for the kingdom of god and his righteousness, which is commended as the highest good (see matt. vi: ), it follows that by mourners he only meant those who mourn for the kingdom of god and righteousness neglected by man: for this would be the only cause of mourning to those who love nothing but the divine kingdom and justice, and who evidently despise the gifts of fortune. ( ) so, too, when christ says: "but if a man strike you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also," and the words which follow. ( ) if he had given such a command, as a lawgiver, to judges, he would thereby have abrogated the law of moses, but this he expressly says he did not do (matt. v: ). ( ) wherefore we must consider who was the speaker, what was the occasion, and to whom were the words addressed. ( ) now christ said that he did not ordain laws as a legislator, but inculcated precepts as a teacher: inasmuch as he did not aim at correcting outward actions so much as the frame of mind. ( ) further, these words were spoken to men who were oppressed, who lived in a corrupt commonwealth on the brink of ruin, where justice was utterly neglected. ( ) the very doctrine inculcated here by christ just before the destruction of the city was also taught by jeremiah before the first destruction of jerusalem, that is, in similar circumstances, as we see from lamentations iii: - . ( ) now as such teaching was only set forth by the prophets in times of oppression, and was even then never laid down as a law; and as, on the other hand, moses (who did not write in times of oppression, but - mark this - strove to found a well-ordered commonwealth), while condemning envy and hatred of one's neighbour, yet ordained that an eye should be given for an eye, it follows most clearly from these purely scriptural grounds that this precept of christ and jeremiah concerning submission to injuries was only valid in places where justice is neglected, and in a time of oppression, but does not hold good in a well-ordered state. ( ) in a well-ordered state where justice is administered every one is bound, if he would be accounted just, to demand penalties before the judge (see lev: ), not for the sake of vengeance (lev. xix: , ), but in order to defend justice and his country's laws, and to prevent the wicked rejoicing in their wickedness. ( ) all this is plainly in accordance with reason. ( ) i might cite many other examples in the same manner, but i think the foregoing are sufficient to explain my meaning and the utility of this method, and this is all my present purpose. ( ) hitherto we have only shown how to investigate those passages of scripture which treat of practical conduct, and which, therefore, are more easily examined, for on such subjects there was never really any controversy among the writers of the bible. ( ) the purely speculative passages cannot be so easily, traced to their real meaning: the way becomes narrower, for as the prophets differed in matters speculative among themselves, and the narratives are in great measure adapted to the prejudices of each age, we must not, on any, account infer the intention of one prophet from clearer passages in the writings of another; nor must we so explain his meaning, unless it is perfectly plain that the two prophets were at one in the matter. ( ) how we are to arrive at the intention of the prophets in such cases i will briefly explain. ( ) here, too, we must begin from the most universal proposition, inquiring first from the most clear scriptural statements what is the nature of prophecy or revelation, and wherein does it consist; then we must proceed to miracles, and so on to whatever is most general till we come to the opinions of a particular prophet, and, at last, to the meaning of a particular revelation, prophecy, history, or miracle. ( ) we have already pointed out that great caution is necessary not to confound the mind of a prophet or historian with the mind of the holy spirit and the truth of the matter; therefore i need not dwell further on the subject. ( ) i would, however, here remark concerning the meaning of revelation, that the present method only teaches us what the prophets really saw or heard, not what they desired to signify or represent by symbols. ( ) the latter may be guessed at but cannot be inferred with certainty from scriptural premises. ( ) we have thus shown the plan for interpreting scripture, and have, at the same time, demonstrated that it is the one and surest way of investigating its true meaning. ( ) i am willing indeed to admit that those persons (if any such there be) would be more absolutely certainly right, who have received either a trustworthy tradition or an assurance from the prophets themselves, such as is claimed by the pharisees; or who have a pontiff gifted with infallibility in the interpretation of scripture, such as the roman catholics boast. ( ) but as we can never be perfectly sure, either of such a tradition or of the authority of the pontiff, we cannot found any certain conclusion on either: the one is denied by the oldest sect of christians, the other by the oldest sect of jews. ( ) indeed, if we consider the series of years (to mention no other point) accepted by the pharisees from their rabbis, during which time they say they have handed down the tradition from moses, we shall find that it is not correct, as i show elsewhere. ( ) therefore such a tradition should be received with extreme suspicion; and although, according to our method, we are bound to consider as uncorrupted the tradition of the jews, namely, the meaning of the hebrew words which we received from them, we may accept the latter while retaining our doubts about the former. ( ) no one has ever been able to change the meaning of a word in ordinary use, though many have changed the meaning of a particular sentence. ( ) such a proceeding would be most difficult; for whoever attempted to change the meaning of a word, would be compelled, at the same time, to explain all the authors who employed it, each according to his temperament and intention, or else, with consummate cunning, to falsify them. ( ) further, the masses and the learned alike preserve language, but it is only the learned who preserve the meaning of particular sentences and books: thus, we may easily imagine that the learned having a very rare book in their power, might change or corrupt the meaning of a sentence in it, but they could not alter the signification of the words; moreover, if anyone wanted to change the meaning of a common word he would not be able to keep up the change among posterity, or in common parlance or writing. ( ) for these and such-like reasons we may readily conclude that it would never enter into the mind of anyone to corrupt a language, though the intention of a writer may often have been falsified by changing his phrases or interpreting them amiss. ( ) as then our method (based on the principle that the knowledge of scripture must be sought from itself alone) is the sole true one, we must evidently renounce any knowledge which it cannot furnish for the complete understanding of scripture. ( ) i will now point out its difficulties and shortcomings, which prevent our gaining a complete and assured knowledge of the sacred text. ( ) its first great difficulty consists in its requiring a thorough knowledge of the hebrew language. ( ) where is such knowledge to be obtained? ( ) the men of old who employed the hebrew tongue have left none of the principles and bases of their language to posterity; we have from them absolutely nothing in the way of dictionary, grammar, or rhetoric. ( ) now the hebrew nation has lost all its grace and beauty (as one would expect after the defeats and persecutions it has gone through), and has only retained certain fragments of its language and of a few books. ( ) nearly all the names of fruits, birds, and fishes, and many other words have perished in the wear and tear of time. ( ) further, the meaning of many nouns and verbs which occur in the bible are either utterly lost, or are subjects of dispute. ( ) and not only are these gone, but we are lacking in a knowledge of hebrew phraseology. ( ) the devouring tooth of time has destroyed turns of expression peculiar to the hebrews, so that we know them no more. ( ) therefore we cannot investigate as we would all the meanings of a sentence by the uses of the language; and there are many phrases of which the meaning is most obscure or altogether inexplicable, though the component words are perfectly plain. ( ) to this impossibility of tracing the history of the hebrew language must be added its particular nature and composition: these give rise to so many ambiguities that it is impossible to find a method which would enable us to gain a certain knowledge of all the statements in scripture, [endnote ]. ( ) in addition to the sources of ambiguities common to all languages, there are many peculiar to hebrew. ( ) these, i think, it worth while to mention. ( ) firstly, an ambiguity often arises in the bible from our mistaking one letter for another similar one. ( ) the hebrews divide the letters of the alphabet into five classes, according to the five organs of the month employed in pronouncing them, namely, the lips, the tongue, the teeth, the palate, and the throat. ( ) for instance, alpha, ghet, hgain, he, are called gutturals, and are barely distinguishable, by any sign that we know, one from the other. ( ) el, which signifies to, is often taken for hgal, which signifies above, and vice versa. ( ) hence sentences are often rendered rather ambiguous or meaningless. ( ) a second difficulty arises from the multiplied meaning of conjunctions and adverbs. ( ) for instance, vau serves promiscuously for a particle of union or of separation, meaning, and, but, because, however, then: ki, has seven or eight meanings, namely, wherefore, although, if, when, inasmuch as, because, a burning, &c., and so on with almost all particles. ( ) the third very fertile source of doubt is the fact that hebrew verbs in the indicative mood lack the present, the past imperfect, the pluperfect, the future perfect, and other tenses most frequently employed in other languages; in the imperative and infinitive moods they are wanting in all except the present, and a subjunctive mood does not exist. ( ) now, although all these defects in moods and tenses may be supplied by certain fundamental rules of the language with ease and even elegance, the ancient writers evidently neglected such rules altogether, and employed indifferently future for present and past, and vice versa past for future, and also indicative for imperative and subjunctive, with the result of considerable confusion. ( ) besides these sources of ambiguity there are two others, one very important. ( ) firstly, there are in hebrew no vowels; secondly, the sentences are not separated by any marks elucidating the meaning or separating the clauses. ( ) though the want of these two has generally been supplied by points and accents, such substitutes cannot be accepted by us, inasmuch as they were invented and designed by men of an after age whose authority should carry no weight. ( ) the ancients wrote without points (that is, without vowels and accents), as is abundantly testified; their descendants added what was lacking, according to their own ideas of scriptural interpretation; wherefore the existing accents and points are simply current interpretations, and are no more authoritative than any other commentaries. ( ) those who are ignorant of this fact cannot justify the author of the epistle to the hebrews for interpreting (chap. xi: ) genesis (xlvii: ) very differently from the version given in our hebrew text as at present pointed, as though the apostle had been obliged to learn the meaning of scripture from those who added the points. ( ) in my opinion the latter are clearly wrong. ( ) in order that everyone may judge for himself, and also see how the discrepancy arose simply from the want of vowels, i will give both interpretations. ( )those who pointed our version read, "and israel bent himself over, or (changing hqain into aleph, a similar letter) towards, the head of the bed." ( ) the author of the epistle reads, "and israel bent himself over the head of his staff," substituting mate for mita, from which it only differs in respect of vowels. ( ) now as in this narrative it is jacob's age only that is in question, and not his illness, which is not touched on till the next chapter, it seems more likely that the historian intended to say that jacob bent over the head of his staff (a thing commonly used by men of advanced age for their support) than that he bowed himself at the head of his bed, especially as for the former reading no substitution of letters is required. ( ) in this example i have desired not only to reconcile the passage in the epistle with the passage in genesis, but also and chiefly to illustrate how little trust should be placed in the points and accents which are found in our present bible, and so to prove that he who would be without bias in interpreting scripture should hesitate about accepting them, and inquire afresh for himself. ( ) such being the nature and structure of the hebrew language, one may easily understand that many difficulties are likely to arise, and that no possible method could solve all of them. ( ) it is useless to hope for a way out of our difficulties in the comparison of various parallel passages (we have shown that the only method of discovering the true sense of a passage out of many alternative ones is to see what are the usages of the language), for this comparison of parallel passages can only accidentally throw light on a difficult point, seeing that the prophets never wrote with the express object of explaining their own phrases or those of other people, and also because we cannot infer the meaning of one prophet or apostle by the meaning of another, unless on a purely practical question, not when the matter is speculative, or if a miracle, or history is being narrated. ( ) i might illustrate my point with instances, for there are many inexplicable phrases in scripture, but i would rather pass on to consider the difficulties and imperfections of the method under discussion. ( ) a further difficulty attends the method, from the fact that it requires the history of all that has happened to every book in the bible; such a history we are often quite unable to furnish. ( ) of the authors, or (if the expression be preferred), the writers of many of the books, we are either in complete ignorance, or at any rate in doubt, as i will point out at length. ( ) further, we do not know either the occasions or the epochs when these books of unknown authorship were written; we cannot say into what hands they fell, nor how the numerous varying versions originated; nor, lastly, whether there were not other versions, now lost. ( ) i have briefly shown that such knowledge is necessary, but i passed over certain considerations which i will now draw attention to. ( ) if we read a book which contains incredible or impossible narratives, or is written in a very obscure style, and if we know nothing of its author, nor of the time or occasion of its being written, we shall vainly endeavour to gain any certain knowledge of its true meaning. ( ) for being in ignorance on these points we cannot possibly know the aim or intended aim of the author; if we are fully informed, we so order our thoughts as not to be in any way prejudiced either in ascribing to the author or him for whom the author wrote either more or less than his meaning, and we only take into consideration what the author may have had in his mind, or what the time and occasion demanded. ( ) i think this must be tolerably evident to all. ( ) it often happens that in different books we read histories in themselves similar, but which we judge very differently, according to the opinions we have formed of the authors. ( ) i remember once to have read in some book that a man named orlando furioso used to drive a kind of winged monster through the air, fly over any countries he liked, kill unaided vast numbers of men and giants, and such like fancies, which from the point of view of reason are obviously absurd. ( ) a very similar story i read in ovid of perseus, and also in the books of judges and kings of samson, who alone and unarmed killed thousands of men, and of elijah, who flew through the air, said at last went up to heaven in a chariot of fire, with horses of fire. ( ) all these stories are obviously alike, but we judge them very differently. ( ) the first only sought to amuse, the second had a political object, the third a religious object.( ) we gather this simply from the opinions we had previously formed of the authors. ( ) thus it is evidently necessary to know something of the authors of writings which are obscure or unintelligible, if we would interpret their meaning; and for the same reason, in order to choose the proper reading from among a great variety, we ought to have information as to the versions in which the differences are found, and as to the possibility of other readings having been discovered by persons of greater authority. ( ) a further difficulty attends this method in the case of some of the books of scripture, namely, that they are no longer extant in their original language. ( ) the gospel according to matthew, and certainly the epistle to the hebrews, were written, it is thought, in hebrew, though they no longer exist in that form. ( ) aben ezra affirms in his commentaries that the book of job was translated into hebrew out of another language, and that its obscurity arises from this fact. ( ) i say nothing of the apocryphal books, for their authority stands on very inferior ground. ( ) the foregoing difficulties in this method of interpreting scripture from its own history, i conceive to be so great that i do not hesitate to say that the true meaning of scripture is in many places inexplicable, or at best mere subject for guesswork; but i must again point out, on the other hand, that such difficulties only arise when we endeavour to follow the meaning of a prophet in matters which cannot be perceived, but only imagined, not in things, whereof the understanding can give a clear idea, and which are conceivable through themselves:, [endnote ], matters which by their nature are easily perceived cannot be expressed so obscurely as to be unintelligible; as the proverb says, "a word is enough to the wise." ( ) euclid, who only wrote of matters very simple and easily understood, can easily be comprehended by anyone in any language; we can follow his intention perfectly, and be certain of his true meaning, without having a thorough knowledge of the language in which he wrote; in fact, a quite rudimentary acquaintance is sufficient. ( ) we need make no researches concerning the life, the pursuits, or the habits of the author; nor need we inquire in what language, nor when he wrote, nor the vicissitudes of his book, nor its various readings, nor how, nor by whose advice it has been received. ( ) what we here say of euclid might equally be said of any book which treats of things by their nature perceptible: thus we conclude that we can easily follow the intention of scripture in moral questions, from the history we possess of it, and we can be sure of its true meaning. ( ) the precepts of true piety are expressed in very ordinary language, and are equally simple and easily understood. ( ) further, as true salvation and blessedness consist in a true assent of the soul - and we truly assent only to what we clearly understand - it is most plain that we can follow with certainty the intention of scripture in matters relating to salvation and necessary to blessedness; therefore, we need not be much troubled about what remains: such matters, inasmuch as we generally cannot grasp them with our reason and understanding, are more curious than profitable. ( ) i think i have now set forth the true method of scriptural interpretation, and have sufficiently explained my own opinion thereon. ( ) besides, i do not doubt that everyone will see that such a method only requires the aid of natural reason. ( ) the nature and efficacy of the natural reason consists in deducing and proving the unknown from the known, or in carrying premises to their legitimate conclusions; and these are the very processes which our method desiderates. ( ) though we must admit that it does not suffice to explain everything in the bible, such imperfection does not spring from its own nature, but from the fact that the path which it teaches us, as the true one, has never been tended or trodden by men, and has thus, by the lapse of time, become very difficult, and almost impassable, as, indeed, i have shown in the difficulties i draw attention to. ( ) there only remains to examine the opinions of those who differ from me. ( ) the first which comes under our notice is, that the light of nature has no power to interpret scripture, but that a supernatural faculty is required for the task. ( ) what is meant by this supernatural faculty i will leave to its propounders to explain. ( ) personally, i can only suppose that they have adopted a very obscure way of stating their complete uncertainty about the true meaning of scripture. ( ) if we look at their interpretations, they contain nothing supernatural, at least nothing but the merest conjectures. ( ) let them be placed side by side with the interpretations of those who frankly confess that they have no faculty beyond their natural ones; we shall see that the two are just alike - both human, both long pondered over, both laboriously invented. ( ) to say that the natural reason is insufficient for such results is plainly untrue, firstly, for the reasons above stated, namely, that the difficulty of interpreting scripture arises from no defect in human reason, but simply from the carelessness (not to say malice) of men who neglected the history of the bible while there were still materials for inquiry; secondly, from the fact (admitted, i think, by all) that the supernatural faculty is a divine gift granted only to the faithful. ( ) but the prophets and apostles did not preach to the faithful only, but chiefly to the unfaithful and wicked. ( ) such persons, therefore, were able to understand the intention of the prophets and apostles, otherwise the prophets and apostles would have seemed to be preaching to little boys and infants, not to men endowed with reason. ( ) moses, too, would have given his laws in vain, if they could only be comprehended by the faithful, who need no law. ( ) indeed, those who demand supernatural faculties for comprehending the meaning of the prophets and apostles seem truly lacking in natural faculties, so that we should hardly suppose such persons the possessors of a divine supernatural gift. ( ) the opinion of maimonides was widely different. ( ) he asserted that each passage in scripture admits of various, nay, contrary, meanings; but that we could never be certain of any particular one till we knew that the passage, as we interpreted it, contained nothing contrary or repugnant to reason. ( ) if the literal meaning clashes with reason, though the passage seems in itself perfectly clear, it must be interpreted in some metaphorical sense. ( ) this doctrine he lays down very plainly in chap. xxv. part ii. of his book, "more nebuchim," for he says: "know that we shrink not from affirming that the world hath existed from eternity, because of what scripture saith concerning the world's creation. ( ) for the texts which teach that the world was created are not more in number than those which teach that god hath a body; neither are the approaches in this matter of the world's creation closed, or even made hard to us: so that we should not be able to explain what is written, as we did when we showed that god hath no body, nay, peradventure, we could explain and make fast the doctrine of the world's eternity more easily than we did away with the doctrines that god hath a beatified body. ( ) yet two things hinder me from doing as i have said, and believing that the world is eternal. ( ) as it hath been clearly shown that god hath not a body, we must perforce explain all those passages whereof the literal sense agreeth not with the demonstration, for sure it is that they can be so explained. ( ) but the eternity of the world hath not been so demonstrated, therefore it is not necessary to do violence to scripture in support of some common opinion, whereof we might, at the bidding of reason, embrace the contrary." ( ) such are the words of maimonides, and they are evidently sufficient to establish our point: for if he had been convinced by reason that the world is eternal, he would not have hesitated to twist and explain away the words of scripture till he made them appear to teach this doctrine. ( ) he would have felt quite sure that scripture, though everywhere plainly denying the eternity of the world, really intends to teach it. ( ) so that, however clear the meaning of scripture may be, he would not feel certain of having grasped it, so long as he remained doubtful of the truth of what, was written. ( ) for we are in doubt whether a thing is in conformity with reason, or contrary thereto, so long as we are uncertain of its truth, and, consequently, we cannot be sure whether the literal meaning of a passage be true or false. ( ) if such a theory as this were sound, i would certainly grant that some faculty beyond the natural reason is required for interpreting scripture. ( ) for nearly all things that we find in scripture cannot be inferred from known principles of the natural reason, and, therefore, we should be unable to come to any conclusion about their truth, or about the real meaning and intention of scripture, but should stand in need of some further assistance. ( ) further, the truth of this theory would involve that the masses, having generally no comprehension of, nor leisure for, detailed proofs, would be reduced to receiving all their knowledge of scripture on the authority and testimony of philosophers, and, consequently, would be compelled to suppose that the interpretations given by philosophers were infallible. ( ) truly this would be a new form of ecclesiastical authority, and a new sort of priests or pontiffs, more likely to excite men's ridicule than their veneration. ( ) certainly our method demands a knowledge of hebrew for which the masses have no leisure; but no such objection as the foregoing can be brought against us. ( ) for the ordinary jews or gentiles, to whom the prophets and apostles preached and wrote, understood the language, and, consequently, the intention of the prophet or apostle addressing them; but they did not grasp the intrinsic reason of what was preached, which, according to maimonides, would be necessary for an understanding of it. ( ) there is nothing, then, in our method which renders it necessary that the masses should follow the testimony of commentators, for i point to a set of unlearned people who understood the language of the prophets and apostles; whereas maimonides could not point to any such who could arrive at the prophetic or apostolic meaning through their knowledge of the causes of things. ( ) as to the multitude of our own time, we have shown that whatsoever is necessary to salvation, though its reasons may be unknown, can easily be understood in any language, because it is thoroughly ordinary and usual; it is in such understanding as this that the masses acquiesce, not in the testimony of commentators; with regard to other questions, the ignorant and the learned fare alike. ( ) but let us return to the opinion of maimonides, and examine it more closely. in the first place, he supposes that the prophets were in entire agreement one with another, and that they were consummate philosophers and theologians; for he would have them to have based their conclusions on the absolute truth. ( ) further, he supposes that the sense of scripture cannot be made plain from scripture itself, for the truth of things is not made plain therein (in that it does not prove any thing, nor teach the matters of which it speaks through their definitions and first causes), therefore, according to maimonides, the true sense of scripture cannot be made plain from itself, and must not be there sought. ( ) the falsity of such a doctrine is shown in this very chapter, for we have shown both by reason and examples that the meaning of scripture is only made plain through scripture itself, and even in questions deducible from ordinary knowledge should be looked for from no other source. ( ) lastly, such a theory supposes that we may explain the words of scripture according to our preconceived opinions, twisting them about, and reversing or completely changing the literal sense, however plain it may be. ( ) such licence is utterly opposed to the teaching of this and the preceding chapters, and, moreover, will be evident to everyone as rash and excessive. ( ) but if we grant all this licence, what can it effect after all? absolutely nothing. ( ) those things which cannot be demonstrated, and which make up the greater part of scripture, cannot be examined by reason, and cannot therefore be explained or interpreted by this rule; whereas, on the contrary, by following our own method, we can explain many questions of this nature, and discuss them on a sure basis, as we have already shown, by reason and example. ( ) those matters which are by their nature comprehensible we can easily explain, as has been pointed out, simply by means of the context. ( ) therefore, the method of maimonides is clearly useless: to which we may add, that it does away with all the certainty which the masses acquire by candid reading, or which is gained by any other persons in any other way. ( ) in conclusion, then, we dismiss maimonides' theory as harmful, useless, and absurd. ( ) as to the tradition of the pharisees, we have already shown that it is not consistent, while the authority of the popes of rome stands in need of more credible evidence; the latter, indeed, i reject simply on this ground, for if the popes could point out to us the meaning of scripture as surely as did the high priests of the jews, i should not be deterred by the fact that there have been heretic and impious roman pontiffs; for among the hebrew high-priests of old there were also heretics and impious men who gained the high- priesthood by improper means, but who, nevertheless, had scriptural sanction for their supreme power of interpreting the law. (see deut. xvii: , , and xxxiii: , also malachi ii: .) ( ) however, as the popes can show no such sanction, their authority remains open to very grave doubt, nor should anyone be deceived by the example of the jewish high-priests and think that the catholic religion also stands in need of a pontiff; he should bear in mind that the laws of moses being also the ordinary laws of the country, necessarily required some public authority to insure their observance; for, if everyone were free to interpret the laws of his country as he pleased, no state could stand, but would for that very reason be dissolved at once, and public rights would become private rights. ( ) with religion the case is widely different. inasmuch as it consists not so much in outward actions as in simplicity and truth of character, it stands outside the sphere of law and public authority. ( ) simplicity and truth of character are not produced by the constraint of laws, nor by the authority of the state, no one the whole world over can be forced or legislated into a state of blessedness; the means required for such a consummation are faithful and brotherly admonition, sound education, and, above all, free use of the individual judgment. ( ) therefore, as the supreme right of free thinking, even on religion, is in every man's power, and as it is inconceivable that such power could be alienated, it is also in every man's power to wield the supreme right and authority of free judgment in this behalf, and to explain and interpret religion for himself. ( ) the only reason for vesting the supreme authority in the interpretation of law, and judgment on public affairs in the hands of the magistrates, is that it concerns questions of public right. ( ) similarly the supreme authority in explaining religion, and in passing judgment thereon, is lodged with the individual because it concerns questions of individual right. ( ) so far, then, from the authority of the hebrew high-priests telling in confirmation of the authority of the roman pontiffs to interpret religion, it would rather tend to establish individual freedom of judgment. ( ) thus in this way also, we have shown that our method of interpreting scripture is the best. ( ) for as the highest power of scriptural interpretation belongs to every man, the rule for such interpretation should be nothing but the natural light of reason which is common to all - not any supernatural light nor any external authority; moreover, such a rule ought not to be so difficult that it can only be applied by very skilful philosophers, but should be adapted to the natural and ordinary faculties and capacity of mankind. ( ) and such i have shown our method to be, for such difficulties as it has arise from men's carelessness, and are no part of its nature. chapter viii. - of the authorship of the pentateuch and the other historical books of the old testament ( ) in the former chapter we treated of the foundations and principles of scriptural knowledge, and showed that it consists solely in a trustworthy history of the sacred writings; such a history, in spite of its indispensability, the ancients neglected, or at any rate, whatever they may have written or handed down has perished in the lapse of time, consequently the groundwork for such an investigation is to a great extent, cut from under us. ( ) this might be put up with if succeeding generations had confined themselves within the limits of truth, and had handed down conscientiously what few particulars they had received or discovered without any additions from their own brains: as it is, the history of the bible is not so much imperfect as untrustworthy: the foundations are not only too scanty for building upon, but are also unsound. ( ) it is part of my purpose to remedy these defects, and to remove common theological prejudices. ( ) but i fear that i am attempting my task too late, for men have arrived at the pitch of not suffering contradiction, but defending obstinately whatever they have adopted under the name of religion. ( ) so widely have these prejudices taken possession of men's minds, that very few, comparatively speaking, will listen to reason. ( ) however, i will make the attempt, and spare no efforts, for there is no positive reason for despairing of success. ( ) in order to treat the subject methodically, i will begin with the received opinions concerning the true authors of the sacred books, and in the first place, speak of the author of the pentateuch, who is almost universally supposed to have been moses. ( ) the pharisees are so firmly convinced of his identity, that they account as a heretic anyone who differs from them on the subject. ( ) wherefore, aben ezra, a man of enlightened intelligence, and no small learning, who was the first, so far as i know, to treat of this opinion, dared not express his meaning openly, but confined himself to dark hints which i shall not scruple to elucidate, thus throwing, full light on the subject. ( ) the words of aben ezra which occur in his commentary on deuteronomy are as follows: "beyond jordan, &c . . . if so be that thou understandest the mystery of the twelve . . . moreover moses wrote the law . . . the canaanite was then in the land . . . . it shall be revealed on the mount of god . . . . then also behold his bed, his iron bed, then shalt thou know the truth." ( ) in these few words he hints, and also shows that it was not moses who wrote the pentateuch, but someone who lived long after him, and further, that the book which moses wrote was something different from any now extant. ( ) to prove this, i say, he draws attention to the facts: ( ) . that the preface to deuteronomy could not have been written by moses, inasmuch as he ad never crossed the jordan. ( ) ii. that the whole book of moses was written at full length on the circumference of a single altar (deut. xxvii, and josh. viii: ), which altar, according to the rabbis, consisted of only twelve stones: therefore the book of moses must have been of far less extent than the pentateuch. ( ) this is what our author means, i think, by the mystery of the twelve, unless he is referring to the twelve curses contained in the chapter of deuteronomy above cited, which he thought could not have been contained in the law, because moses bade the levites read them after the recital of the law, and so bind the people to its observance. ( ) or again, he may have had in his mind the last chapter of deuteronomy which treats of the death of moses, and which contains twelve verses. ( ) but there is no need to dwell further on these and similar conjectures. ( ) iii. that in deut. xxxi: , the expression occurs, "and moses wrote the law:" words that cannot be ascribed to moses, but must be those of some other writer narrating the deeds and writings of moses. ( ) iv. that in genesis xii: , the historian, after narrating that abraham journeyed through the and of canaan, adds, "and the canaanite was then in the land," thus clearly excluding the time at which he wrote. ( ) so that this passage must have been written after the death of moses, when the canaanites had been driven out, and no longer possessed the land. ( ) aben ezra, in his commentary on the passage, alludes to the difficulty as follows:- "and the canaanite was then in the land: it appears that canaan, the grandson of noah, took from another the land which bears his name; if this be not the true meaning, there lurks some mystery in the passage, and let him who understands it keep silence." ( ) that is, if canaan invaded those regions, the sense will be, the canaanite was then in the land, in contradistinction to the time when it had been held by another: but if, as follows from gen. chap. x. canaan was the first to inhabit the land, the text must mean to exclude the time present, that is the time at which it was written; therefore it cannot be the work of moses, in whose time the canaanites still possessed those territories: this is the mystery concerning which silence is recommended. ( ) v. that in genesis xxii: mount moriah is called the mount of god, [endnote ], a name which it did not acquire till after the building of the temple; the choice of the mountain was not made in the time of moses, for moses does not point out any spot as chosen by god; on the contrary, he foretells that god will at some future time choose a spot to which this name will be given. ( ) vi. lastly, that in deut. chap. iii., in the passage relating to og, king of bashan, these words are inserted: "for only og king of bashan remained of the remnant of giants: behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron: is it not in rabbath of the children of ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." ( ) this parenthesis most plainly shows that its writer lived long after moses; for this mode of speaking is only employed by one treating of things long past, and pointing to relics for the sake of gaining credence: moreover, this bed was almost certainly first discovered by david, who conquered the city of rabbath ( sam. xii: .) ( ) again, the historian a little further on inserts after the words of moses, "jair, the son of manasseh, took all the country of argob unto the coasts of geshuri and maachathi; and called them after his own name, bashan-havoth-jair, unto this day." ( ) this passage, i say, is inserted to explain the words of moses which precede it. ( ) "and the rest of gilead, and all bashan, being the kingdom of og, gave i unto the half tribe of manasseh; all the region of argob, with all bashan, which is called the land of the giants." ( ) the hebrews in the time of the writer indisputably knew what territories belonged to the tribe of judah, but did not know them under the name of the jurisdiction of argob, or the land of the giants. ( ) therefore the writer is compelled to explain what these places were which were anciently so styled, and at the same time to point out why they were at the time of his writing known by the name of jair, who was of the tribe of manasseh, not of judah. ( ) we have thus made clear the meaning of aben ezra and also the passages of the pentateuch which he cites in proof of his contention. ( ) however, aben ezra does not call attention to every instance, or even the chief ones; there remain many of greater importance, which may be cited. ( ) namely (i.), that the writer of the books in question not only speaks of moses in the third person, but also bears witness to many details concerning him; for instance, "moses talked with god;" "the lord spoke with moses face to face;" "moses was the meekest of men" (numb. xii: ); "moses was wrath with the captains of the host; "moses, the man of god, "moses, the servant of the lord, died;" "there was never a prophet in israel like unto moses," &c. ( ) on the other hand, in deuteronomy, where the law which moses had expounded to the people and written is set forth, moses speaks and declares what he has done in the first person: "god spake with me" (deut. ii: , , &c.), "i prayed to the lord," &c. ( ) except at the end of the book, when the historian, after relating the words of moses, begins again to speak in the third person, and to tell how moses handed over the law which he had expounded to the people in writing, again admonishing them, and further, how moses ended his life. ( ) all these details, the manner of narration, the testimony, and the context of the whole story lead to the plain conclusion that these books were written by another, and not by moses in person. ( ) iii. we must also remark that the history relates not only the manner of moses' death and burial, and the thirty days' mourning of the hebrews, but further compares him with all the prophets who came after him, and states that he surpassed them all. ( ) "there was never a prophet in israel like unto moses, whom the lord knew face to face." ( ) such testimony cannot have been given of moses by, himself, nor by any who immediately succeeded him, but it must come from someone who lived centuries afterwards, especially, as the historian speaks of past times. ( ) "there was never a prophet," &c. ( ) and of the place of burial, "no one knows it to this day." ( ) iii. we must note that some places are not styled by the names they bore during moses' lifetime, but by others which they obtained subsequently. ( ) for instance, abraham is said to have pursued his enemies even unto dan, a name not bestowed on the city till long after the death of joshua (gen. xiv: , judges xviii: ). ( ) iv. the narrative is prolonged after the death of moses, for in exodus xvi: we read that "the children of israel did eat manna forty years until they came to a land inhabited, until they came unto the borders of the land of canaan." ( ) in other words, until the time alluded to in joshua vi: . ( ) so, too, in genesis xxxvi: it is stated, "these are the kings that reigned in edom before there reigned any king over the children of israel." ( ) the historian, doubtless, here relates the kings of idumaea before that territory was conquered by david [endnote ] and garrisoned, as we read in sam. viii: . ( ) from what has been said, it is thus clearer than the sun at noonday that the pentateuch was not written by moses, but by someone who lived long after moses. ( ) let us now turn our attention to the books which moses actually did write, and which are cited in the pentateuch; thus, also, shall we see that they were different from the pentateuch. ( ) firstly, it appears from exodus xvii: that moses, by the command of god, wrote an account of the war against amalek. ( ) the book in which he did so is not named in the chapter just quoted, but in numb. xxi: a book is referred to under the title of the wars of god, and doubtless this war against amalek and the castrametations said in numb. xxxiii: to have been written by moses are therein described. ( ) we hear also in exod. xxiv: of another book called the book of the covenant, which moses read before the israelites when they first made a covenant with god. ( ) but this book or this writing contained very little, namely, the laws or commandments of god which we find in exodus xx: to the end of chap. xxiv., and this no one will deny who reads the aforesaid chapter rationally and impartially. ( ) it is there stated that as soon as moses had learnt the feeling of the people on the subject of making a covenant with god, he immediately wrote down god's laws and utterances, and in the morning, after some ceremonies had been performed, read out the conditions of the covenant to an assembly of the whole people. ( ) when these had been gone through, and doubtless understood by all, the whole people gave their assent. ( ) now from the shortness of the time taken in its perusal and also from its nature as a compact, this document evidently contained nothing more than that which we have just described. ( ) further, it is clear that moses explained all the laws which he had received in the fortieth year after the exodus from egypt; also that he bound over the people a second time to observe them, and that finally he committed them to writing (deut. i: ; xxix: ; xxxi: ), in a book which contained these laws explained, and the new covenant, and this book was therefore called the book of the law of god: the same which was afterwards added to by joshua when he set forth the fresh covenant with which he bound over the people and which he entered into with god (josh. xxiv: , ). ( ) now, as we have extent no book containing this covenant of moses and also the covenant of joshua, we must perforce conclude that it has perished, unless, indeed, we adopt the wild conjecture of the chaldean paraphrast jonathan, and twist about the words of scripture to our heart's content. ( ) this commentator, in the face of our present difficulty, preferred corrupting the sacred text to confessing his own ignorance. ( ) the passage in the book of joshua which runs, "and joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of god," he changes into "and joshua wrote these words and kept them with the book of the law of god." ( ) what is to be done with persons who will only see what pleases them? ( ) what is such a proceeding if it is not denying scripture, and inventing another bible out of our own heads? ( ) we may therefore conclude that the book of the law of god which moses wrote was not the pentateuch, but something quite different, which the author of the pentateuch duly inserted into his book. ( ) so much is abundantly plain both from what i have said and from what i am about to add. ( ) for in the passage of deuteronomy above quoted, where it is related that moses wrote the book of the law, the historian adds that he handed it over to the priests and bade them read it out at a stated time to the whole people. ( ) this shows that the work was of much less length than the pentateuch, inasmuch as it could be read through at one sitting so as to be understood by all; further, we must not omit to notice that out of all the books which moses wrote, this one book of the second covenant and the song (which latter he wrote afterwards so that all the people might learn it), was the only one which he caused to be religiously guarded and preserved. ( ) in the first covenant he had only bound over those who were present, but in the second covenant he bound over all their descendants also (dent. xxix: ), and therefore ordered this covenant with future ages to be religiously preserved, together with the song, which was especially addressed to posterity: as, then, we have no proof that moses wrote any book save this of the covenant, and as he committed no other to the care of posterity; and, lastly, as there are many passages in the pentateuch which moses could not have written, it follows that the belief that moses was the author of the pentateuch is ungrounded and even irrational. ( ) someone will perhaps ask whether moses did not also write down other laws when they were first revealed to him - in other words, whether, during the course of forty years, he did not write down any of the laws which he promulgated, save only those few which i have stated to be contained in the book of the first covenant. ( ) to this i would answer, that although it seems reasonable to suppose that moses wrote down the laws at the time when he wished to communicate them to the people, yet we are not warranted to take it as proved, for i have shown above that we must make no assertions in such matters which we do not gather from scripture, or which do not flow as legitimate consequences from its fundamental principles. ( ) we must not accept whatever is reasonably probable. ( ) however even reason in this case would not force such a conclusion upon us: for it may be that the assembly of elders wrote down the decrees of moses and communicated them to the people, and the historian collected them, and duly set them forth in his narrative of the life of moses. ( ) so much for the five books of moses: it is now time for us to turn to the other sacred writings. ( ) the book of joshua may be proved not to be an autograph by reasons similar to those we have just employed: for it must be some other than joshua who testifies that the fame of joshua was spread over the whole world; that he omitted nothing of what moses had taught (josh. vi: ; viii. last verse; xi: ); that he grew old and summoned an assembly of the whole people, and finally that he departed this life. ( ) furthermore, events are related which took place after joshua's death. ( ) for instance, that the israelites worshipped god, after his death, so long as there were any old men alive who remembered him; and in chap. xvi: , we read that "ephraim and manasseh did not drive out the canaanites which dwelt in gezer, but the canaanite dwelt in the land of ephraim unto this day, and was tributary to him." ( ) this is the same statement as that in judges, chap. i., and the phrase "unto this day" shows that the writer was speaking of ancient times. ( ) with these texts we may compare the last verse of chap. xv., concerning the sons of judah, and also the history of caleb in the same chap. v: . ( ) further, the building of an altar beyond jordan by the two tribes and a half, chap. xxii: , sqq., seems to have taken place after the death of joshua, for in the whole narrative his name is never mentioned, but the people alone held council as to waging war, sent out legates, waited for their return, and finally approved of their answer. ( ) lastly, from chap. x: , it is clear that the book was written many generations after the death of joshua, for it bears witness, there was never any, day like unto, that day, either before or after, that the lord hearkened to the voice of a man," &c. ( ) if, therefore, joshua wrote any book at all, it was that which is quoted in the work now before us, chap. x: . ( ) with regard to the book of judges, i suppose no rational person persuades himself that it was written by the actual judges. ( ) for the conclusion of the whole history contained in chap. ii. clearly shows that it is all the work - of a single historian. ( ) further, inasmuch as the writer frequently tells us that there was then no king in israel, it is evident that the book was written after the establishment of the monarchy. ( ) the books of samuel need not detain us long, inasmuch as the narrative in them is continued long after samuel's death; but i should like to draw attention to the fact that it was written many generations after samuel's death. ( ) for in book i. chap. ix: , the historian remarks in a, parenthesis, "beforetime, in israel, when a man went to inquire of god, thus he spake: come, and let us go to the seer; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer." ( ) lastly, the books of kings, as we gather from internal evidence, were compiled from the books of king solomon (i kings xi: ), from the chronicles of the kings of judah ( kings xiv: , ), and the chronicles of the kings of israel. ( ) we may, therefore, conclude that all the books we have considered hitherto are compilations, and that the events therein are recorded as having happened in old time. ( ) now, if we turn our attention to the connection and argument of all these books, we shall easily see that they were all written by a single historian, who wished to relate the antiquities of the jews from their first beginning down to the first destruction of the city. ( ) the way in which the several books are connected one with the other is alone enough to show us that they form the narrative of one and the same writer. ( ) for as soon as he has related the life of moses, the historian thus passes on to the story of joshua: "and it came to pass after that moses the servant of the lord was dead, that god spake unto joshua," &c., so in the same way, after the death of joshua was concluded, he passes with identically the same transition and connection to the history of the judges: "and it came to pass after that joshua was dead, that the children of israel sought from god," &c. ( ) to the book of judges he adds the story of ruth, as a sort of appendix, in these words: "now it came to pass in the days that the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land." ( ) the first book of samuel is introduced with a similar phrase; and so is the second book of samuel. ( ) then, before the history of david is concluded, the historian passes in the same way to the first book of kings, and, after david's death, to the second book of kings. ( ) the putting together, and the order of the narratives, show that they are all the work of one man, writing with a create aim; for the historian begins with relating the first origin of the hebrew nation, and then sets forth in order the times and the occasions in which moses put forth his laws, and made his predictions. ( ) he then proceeds to relate how the israelites invaded the promised land in accordance with moses' prophecy (deut. vii.); and how, when the land was subdued, they turned their backs on their laws, and thereby incurred many misfortunes (deut. xxxi: , ). ( ) he tells how they wished to elect rulers, and how, according as these rulers observed the law, the people flourished or suffered (deut. xxviii: ); finally, how destruction came upon the nation, even as moses had foretold. ( ) in regard to other matters, which do not serve to confirm the law, the writer either passes over them in silence, or refers the reader to other books for information. ( ) all that is set down in the books we have conduces to the sole object of setting forth the words and laws of moses, and proving them by subsequent events.( ) when we put together these three considerations, namely, the unity of the subject of all the books, the connection between them, and the fact that they are compilations made many generations after the events they relate had taken place, we come to the conclusion, as i have just stated, that they are all the work of a single historian. ( ) who this historian was, it is not so easy to show; but i suspect that he was ezra, and there are several strong reasons for adopting this hypothesis. ( ) the historian whom we already know to be but one individual brings his history down to the liberation of jehoiakim, and adds that he himself sat at the king's table all his life - that is, at the table either of jehoiakim, or of the son of nebuchadnezzar, for the sense of the passage is ambiguous: hence it follows that he did not live before the time of ezra. ( ) but scripture does not testify of any except of ezra (ezra vii: ), that he "prepared his heart to seek the law of the lord, and to set it forth, and further that he was a ready scribe in the law of moses." ( ) therefore, i can not find anyone, save ezra, to whom to attribute the sacred books. ( ) further, from this testimony concerning ezra, we see that he prepared his heart, not only to seek the law of the lord, but also to set it forth; and, in nehemiah viii: , we read that "they read in the book of the law of god distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." ( ) as, then, in deuteronomy, we find not only the book of the law of moses, or the greater part of it, but also many things inserted for its better explanation, i conjecture that this deuteronomy is the book of the law of god, written, set forth, and explained by ezra, which is referred to in the text above quoted. ( ) two examples of the way matters were inserted parenthetically in the text of deuteronomy, with a view to its fuller explanation, we have already given, in speaking of aben ezra's opinion. ( ) many others are found in the course of the work: for instance, in chap. ii: : "the horims dwelt also in seir beforetime; but the children of esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as israel did unto the land of his possession, which the lord gave unto them." ( ) this explains verses and of the same chapter, where it is stated that mount seir, which had come to the children of esau for a possession, did not fall into their hands uninhabited; but that they invaded it, and turned out and destroyed the horims, who formerly dwelt therein, even as the children of israel had done unto the canaanites after the death of moses. ( ) so, also, verses , , , , of the tenth chapter are inserted parenthetically among the words of moses. everyone must see that verse , which begins, "at that time the lord separated the tribe of levi," necessarily refers to verse , and not to the death of aaron, which is only mentioned here by ezra because moses, in telling of the golden calf worshipped by the people, stated that he had prayed for aaron. ( ) he then explains that at the time at which moses spoke, god had chosen for himself the tribe of levi in order that he may point out the reason for their election, and for the fact of their not sharing in the inheritance; after this digression, he resumes the thread of moses' speech. ( ) to these parentheses we must add the preface to the book, and all the passages in which moses is spoken of in the third person, besides many which we cannot now distinguish, though, doubtless, they would have been plainly recognized by the writer's contemporaries. ( ) if, i say, we were in possession of the book of the law as moses wrote it, i do not doubt that we should find a great difference in the words of the precepts, the order in which they are given, and the reasons by which they are supported. ( ) a comparison of the decalogue in deuteronomy with the decalogue in exodus, where its history is explicitly set forth, will be sufficient to show us a wide discrepancy in all these three particulars, for the fourth commandment is given not only in a different form, but at much greater length, while the reason for its observance differs wholly from that stated in exodus. ( ) again, the order in which the tenth commandment is explained differs in the two versions. ( ) i think that the differences here as elsewhere are the work of ezra, who explained the law of god to his contemporaries, and who wrote this book of the law of god, before anything else; this i gather from the fact that it contains the laws of the country, of which the people stood in most need, and also because it is not joined to the book which precedes it by any connecting phrase, but begins with the independent statement, "these are the words of moses." ( ) after this task was completed, i think ezra set himself to give a complete account of the history of the hebrew nation from the creation of the world to the entire destruction of the city, and in this account he inserted the book of deuteronomy, and, possibly, he called the first five books by the name of moses, because his life is chiefly contained therein, and forms their principal subject; for the same reason he called the sixth joshua, the seventh judges, the eighth ruth, the ninth, and perhaps the tenth, samuel, and, lastly, the eleventh and twelfth kings. ( ) whether ezra put the finishing touches to this work and finished it as he intended, we will discuss in the next chapter. chapter ix - other questions concerning the same books: namely, whether they were completely finished by ezra, and, further, whether the marginal notes which are found in the hebrew texts were various readings. ( ) how greatly the inquiry we have just made concerning the real writer of the twelve books aids us in attaining a complete understanding of them, may be easily gathered solely from the passages which we have adduced in confirmation of our opinion, and which would be most obscure without it. ( ) but besides the question of the writer, there are other points to notice which common superstition forbids the multitude to apprehend. ( ) of these the chief is, that ezra (whom i will take to be the author of the aforesaid books until some more likely person be suggested) did not put the finishing touches to the narrative contained therein, but merely collected the histories from various writers, and sometimes simply set them down, leaving their examination and arrangement to posterity. ( ) the cause (if it were not untimely death) which prevented him from completing his work in all its portions, i cannot conjecture, but the fact remains most clear, although we have lost the writings of the ancient hebrew historians, and can only judge from the few fragments which are still extant. ( ) for the history of hezekiah ( kings xviii: ), as written in the vision of isaiah, is related as it is found in the chronicles of the kings of judah. ( ) we read the same story, told with few exceptions, [endnote ], in the same words, in the book of isaiah which was contained in the chronicles of the kings of judah ( chron. xxxii: ). ( ) from this we must conclude that there were various versions of this narrative of isaiah's, unless, indeed, anyone would dream that in this, too, there lurks a mystery. ( ) further, the last chapter of kings - is repeated in the last chapter of jeremiah, v. - . ( ) again, we find sam. vii. repeated in i chron. xvii., but the expressions in the two passages are so curiously varied [endnote ], that we can very easily see that these two chapters were taken from two different versions of the history of nathan. ( ) lastly, the genealogy of the kings of idumaea contained in genesis xxxvi: , is repeated in the same words in chron. i., though we know that the author of the latter work took his materials from other historians, not from the twelve books we have ascribed to ezra. ( ) we may therefore be sure that if we still possessed the writings of the historians, the matter would be made clear; however, as we have lost them, we can only examine the writings still extant, and from their order and connection, their various repetitions, and, lastly, the contradictions in dates which they contain, judge of the rest. ( ) these, then, or the chief of them, we will now go through. ( ) first, in the story of judah and tamar (gen. xxxviii.) the historian thus begins: "and it came to pass at that time that judah went down from his brethren." ( ) this time cannot refer to what immediately precedes [endnote ], but must necessarily refer to something else, for from the time when joseph was sold into egypt to the time when the patriarch jacob, with all his family, set out thither, cannot be reckoned as more than twenty-two years, for joseph, when he was sold by his brethren, was seventeen years old, and when he was summoned by pharaoh from prison was thirty; if to this we add the seven years of plenty and two of famine, the total amounts to twenty-two years. ( ) now, in so short a period, no one can suppose that so many things happened as are described; that judah had three children, one after the other, from one wife, whom he married at the beginning of the period; that the eldest of these, when he was old enough, married tamar, and that after he died his next brother succeeded to her; that, after all this, judah, without knowing it, had intercourse with his daughter-in-law, and that she bore him twins, and, finally, that the eldest of these twins became a father within the aforesaid period. ( ) as all these events cannot have taken place within the period mentioned in genesis, the reference must necessarily be to something treated of in another book: and ezra in this instance simply related the story, and inserted it without examination among his other writings. ( ) however, not only this chapter but the whole narrative of joseph and jacob is collected and set forth from various histories, inasmuch as it is quite inconsistent with itself. ( ) for in gen. xlvii. we are told that jacob, when he came at joseph's bidding to salute pharaoh, was years old. ( ) if from this we deduct the twenty-two years which he passed sorrowing for the absence of joseph and the seventeen years forming joseph's age when he was sold, and, lastly, the seven years for which jacob served for rachel, we find that he was very advanced in life, namely, eighty four, when he took leah to wife, whereas dinah was scarcely seven years old when she was violated by shechem, [endnote ]. ( ) simeon and levi were aged respectively eleven and twelve when they spoiled the city and slew all the males therein with the sword. ( ) there is no need that i should go through the whole pentateuch. ( ) if anyone pays attention to the way in which all the histories and precepts in these five books are set down promiscuously and without order, with no regard for dates; and further, how the same story is often repeated, sometimes in a different version, he will easily, i say, discern that all the materials were promiscuously collected and heaped together, in order that they might at some subsequent time be more readily examined and reduced to order. ( ) not only these five books, but also the narratives contained in the remaining seven, going down to the destruction of the city, are compiled in the same way. ( ) for who does not see that in judges ii: a new historian is being quoted, who had also written of the deeds of joshua, and that his words are simply copied? ( ) for after our historian has stated in the last chapter of the book of joshua that joshua died and was buried, and has promised, in the first chapter of judges, to relate what happened after his death, in what way, if he wished to continue the thread of his history, could he connect the statement here made about joshua with what had gone before? ( ) so, too, sam. , , are taken from another historian, who assigns a cause for david's first frequenting saul's court very different from that given in chap. xvi. of the same book. ( ) for he did not think that david came to saul in consequence of the advice of saul's servants, as is narrated in chap. xvi., but that being sent by chance to the camp by his father on a message to his brothers, he was for the first time remarked by saul on the occasion of his victory, over goliath the philistine, and was retained at his court. ( ) i suspect the same thing has taken place in chap. xxvi. of the same book, for the historian there seems to repeat the narrative given in chap. xxiv. according to another man's version. ( ) but i pass over this, and go on to the computation of dates. ( ) in i kings, chap. vi., it is said that solomon built the temple in the four hundred and eightieth year after the exodus from egypt; but from the historians themselves we get a much longer period, for: years. moses governed the people in the desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . joshua, who lived years, did not, according to josephus and others' opinion rule more than . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cusban rishathaim held the people in subjection . . . . . . . . . . . othniel, son of kenag, was judge for . . . . . . . . . [endnote ] eglon, king of moab, governed the people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ehud and shamgar were judges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jachin, king of canaan, held the people in subjection . . . . . . . . the people was at peace subsequently for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it was under subjection to median . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it obtained freedom under gideon for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it fell under the rule of abimelech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tola, son of puah, was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jair was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the people was in subjection to the philistines and ammonites . . . . jephthah was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ibzan, the bethlehemite, was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . elon, the zabulonite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . abclon, the pirathonite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the people was again subject to the philistines . . . . . . . . . . . samson was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [endnote ] eli was judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the people again fell into subjection to the philistines, till they were delivered by samuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . david reigned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . solomon reigned before he built the temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( ) all these periods added together make a total of years. ( ) but to these must be added the years during which the hebrew republic flourished after the death of joshua, until it was conquered by cushan rishathaim, which i take to be very numerous, for i cannot bring myself to believe that immediately after the death of joshua all those who had witnessed his miracles died simultaneously, nor that their successors at one stroke bid farewell to their laws, and plunged from the highest virtue into the depth of wickedness and obstinacy. ( ) nor, lastly, that cushan rishathaim subdued them on the instant; each one of these circumstances requires almost a generation, and there is no doubt that judges ii: , , , comprehends a great many years which it passes over in silence. ( ) we must also add the years during which samuel was judge, the number of which is not stated in scripture, and also the years during which saul reigned, which are not clearly shown from his history. ( ) it is, indeed, stated in sam. xiii: , that he reigned two years, but the text in that passage is mutilated, and the records of his reign lead us to suppose a longer period. ( ) that the text is mutilated i suppose no one will doubt who has ever advanced so far as the threshold of the hebrew language, for it runs as follows: "saul was in his -- year, when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over israel." ( ) who, i say, does not see that the number of the years of saul's age when he began to reign has been omitted? ( ) that the record of the reign presupposes a greater number of years is equally beyond doubt, for in the same book, chap. xxvii: , it is stated that david sojourned among the philistines, to whom he had fled on account of saul, a year and four months; thus the rest of the reign must have been comprised in a space of eight months, which i think no one will credit. ( ) josephus, at the end of the sixth book of his antiquities, thus corrects the text: saul reigned eighteen years while samuel was alive, and two years after his death. ( ) however, all the narrative in chap. xiii. is in complete disagreement with what goes before. ( ) at the end of chap. vii. it is narrated that the philistines were so crushed by the hebrews that they did not venture, during samuel's life, to invade the borders of israel; but in chap. xiii. we are told that the hebrews were invaded during the life of samuel by the philistines, and reduced by them to such a state of wretchedness and poverty that they were deprived not only of weapons with which to defend themselves, but also of the means of making more. ( ) i should be at pains enough if i were to try and harmonize all the narratives contained in this first book of samuel so that they should seem to be all written and arranged by a single historian. ( ) but i return to my object. ( ) the years, then, during which saul reigned must be added to the above computation; and, lastly, i have not counted the years of the hebrew anarchy, for i cannot from scripture gather their number. ( ) i cannot, i say, be certain as to the period occupied by the events related in judges chap. xvii. on till the end of the book. ( ) it is thus abundantly evident that we cannot arrive at a true computation of years from the histories, and, further, that the histories are inconsistent themselves on the subject. ( ) we are compelled to confess that these histories were compiled from various writers without previous arrangement and examination. ( ) not less discrepancy is found between the dates given in the chronicles of the kings of judah, and those in the chronicles of the kings of israel; in the latter, it is stated that jehoram, the son of ahab, began to reign in the second year of the reign of jehoram, the son of jehoshaphat ( kings i: ), but in the former we read that jehoram, the son of jehoshaphat, began to reign in the fifth year of jehoram, the son of ahab ( kings viii: ). ( ) anyone who compares the narratives in chronicles with the narratives in the books of kings, will find many similar discrepancies. ( ) these there is no need for me to examine here, and still less am i called upon to treat of the commentaries of those who endeavour to harmonize them. ( ) the rabbis evidently let their fancy run wild. ( ) such commentators as i have, read, dream, invent, and as a last resort, play fast and loose with the language. ( ) for instance, when it is said in chronicles, that ahab was forty-two years old when he began to reign, they pretend that these years are computed from the reign of omri, not from the birth of ahab. ( ) if this can be shown to be the real meaning of the writer of the book of chronicles, all i can say is, that he did not know how to state a fact. ( ) the commentators make many other assertions of this kind, which if true, would prove that the ancient hebrews were ignorant both of their own language, and of the way to relate a plain narrative. ( ) i should in such case recognize no rule or reason in interpreting scripture, but it would be permissible to hypothesize to one's heart's content. ( ) if anyone thinks that i am speaking too generally, and without sufficient warrant, i would ask him to set himself to showing us some fixed plan in these histories which might be followed without blame by other writers of chronicles, and in his efforts at harmonizing and interpretation, so strictly to observe and explain the phrases and expressions, the order and the connections, that we may be able to imitate these also in our writings ( ). ( ) if he succeeds, i will at once give him my hand, and he shall be to me as great apollo; for i confess that after long endeavours i have been unable to discover anything of the kind. ( ) i may add that i set down nothing here which i have not long reflected upon, and that, though i was imbued from my boyhood up with the ordinary opinions about the scriptures, i have been unable to withstand the force of what i have urged. ( ) however, there is no need to detain the reader with this question, and drive him to attempt an impossible task; i merely mentioned the fact in order to throw light on my intention. ( ) i now pass on to other points concerning the treatment of these books. ( ) for we must remark, in addition to what has been shown, that these books were not guarded by posterity with such care that no faults crept in. ( ) the ancient scribes draw attention to many doubtful readings, and some mutilated passages, but not to all that exist: whether the faults are of sufficient importance to greatly embarrass the reader i will not now discuss. ( ) i am inclined to think that they are of minor moment to those, at any rate, who read the scriptures with enlightenment: and i can positively, affirm that i have not noticed any fault or various reading in doctrinal passages sufficient to render them obscure or doubtful. ( ) there are some people, however, who will not admit that there is any corruption, even in other passages, but maintain that by some unique exercise of providence god has preserved from corruption every word in the bible: they say that the various readings are the symbols of profoundest mysteries, and that mighty secrets lie hid in the twenty-eight hiatus which occur, nay, even in the very form of the letters. ( ) whether they are actuated by folly and anile devotion, or whether by arrogance and malice so that they alone may be held to possess the secrets of god, i know not: this much i do know, that i find in their writings nothing which has the air of a divine secret, but only childish lucubrations. ( ) i have read and known certain kabbalistic triflers, whose insanity provokes my unceasing as astonishment. ( ) that faults have crept in will, i think, be denied by no sensible person who reads the passage about saul, above quoted ( sam. xiii: ) and also sam. vi: : "and david arose and went with all the people that were with him from judah, to bring up from thence the ark of god." ( ) no one can fail to remark that the name of their destination, viz., kirjath-jearim [endnote ], has been omitted: nor can we deny that sam. xiii: , has been tampered with and mutilated. "and absalom fled, and went to talmai, the son of ammihud, king of geshur. ( ) and he mourned for his son every day. so absalom fled, and went to geshur, and was there three years." ( ) i know that i have remarked other passages of the same kind, but i cannot recall them at the moment. ( ) that the marginal notes which are found continually in the hebrew codices are doubtful readings will, i think, be evident to everyone who has noticed that they often arise from the great similarity, of some of the hebrew letters, such for instance, as the similarity between kaph and beth, jod and van, daleth and reth, &c. ( ) for example, the text in sam. v: , runs "in the time when thou hearest," and similarly in judges xxi: , "and it shall be when their fathers or their brothers come unto us often," the marginal version is "come unto us to complain." ( ) so also many various readings have arisen from the use of the letters named mutes, which are generally not sounded in pronunciation, and are taken promiscuously, one for the other. ( ) for example, in levit. xxv: , it is written, "the house shall be established which is not in the walled city," but the margin has it, "which is in a walled city." ( ) though these matters are self-evident, [endnore ], it is necessary, to answer the reasonings of certain pharisees, by which they endeavour to convince us that the marginal notes serve to indicate some mystery, and were added or pointed out by the writers of the sacred books. ( ) the first of these reasons, which, in my opinion, carries little weight, is taken from the practice of reading the scriptures aloud. ( ) if, it is urged, these notes were added to show various readings which could not be decided upon by posterity, why has custom prevailed that the marginal readings should always be retained? ( ) why has the meaning which is preferred been set down in the margin when it ought to have been incorporated in the text, and not relegated to a side note? ( ) the second reason is more specious, and is taken from the nature of the case. ( ) it is admitted that faults have crept into the sacred writings by chance and not by design; but they say that in the five books the word for a girl is, with one exception, written without the letter "he," contrary to all grammatical rules, whereas in the margin it is written correctly according to the universal rule of grammar. ( ) can this have happened by mistake? is it possible to imagine a clerical error to have been committed every, time the word occurs? ( ) moreover, it would have been easy, to supply the emendation. ( ) hence, when these readings are not accidental or corrections of manifest mistakes, it is supposed that they must have been set down on purpose by the original writers, and have a meaning. ( ) however, it is easy to answer such arguments; as to the question of custom having prevailed in the reading of the marginal versions, i will not spare much time for its consideration: i know not the promptings of superstition, and perhaps the practice may have arisen from the idea that both readings were deemed equally good or tolerable, and therefore, lest either should be neglected, one was appointed to be written, and the other to be read. ( ) they feared to pronounce judgment in so weighty a matter lest they should mistake the false for the true, and therefore they would give preference to neither, as they must necessarily have done if they had commanded one only to be both read and written. ( ) this would be especially the case where the marginal readings were not written down in the sacred books: or the custom may have originated because some things though rightly written down were desired to be read otherwise according to the marginal version, and therefore the general rule was made that the marginal version should be followed in reading the scriptures. ( ) the cause which induced the scribes to expressly prescribe certain passages to be read in the marginal version, i will now touch on, for not all the marginal notes are various readings, but some mark expressions which have passed out of common use, obsolete words and terms which current decency did not allow to be read in a public assembly. ( ) the ancient writers, without any evil intention, employed no courtly paraphrase, but called things by their plain names. ( ) afterwards, through the spread of evil thoughts and luxury, words which could be used by the ancients without offence, came to be considered obscene. ( ) there was no need for this cause to change the text of scripture. ( ) still, as a concession to the popular weakness, it became the custom to substitute more decent terms for words denoting sexual intercourse, exereta, &c., and to read them as they were given in the margin. ( ) at any rate, whatever may have been the origin of the practice of reading scripture according to the marginal version, it was not that the true interpretation is contained therein. ( ) for besides that, the rabbins in the talmud often differ from the massoretes, and give other readings which they approve of, as i will shortly show, certain things are found in the margin which appear less warranted by the uses of the hebrew language. ( ) for example, in samuel xiv: , we read, "in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant," a construction plainly regular, and agreeing with that in chap. xvi. ( ) but the margin has it "of thy servant," which does not agree with the person of the verb. ( ) so, too, chap. xvi: of the same book, we find, "as if one had inquired at the oracle of god," the margin adding "someone" to stand as a nominative to the verb. ( ) but the correction is not apparently warranted, for it is a common practice, well known to grammarians in the hebrew language, to use the third person singular of the active verb impersonally. ( ) the second argument advanced by the pharisees is easily answered from what has just been said, namely, that the scribes besides the various readings called attention to obsolete words. ( ) for there is no doubt that in hebrew as in other languages, changes of use made many words obsolete and antiquated, and such were found by the later scribes in the sacred books and noted by them with a view to the books being publicly read according to custom. ( ) for this reason the word nahgar is always found marked because its gender was originally common, and it had the same meaning as the latin juvenis (a young person). ( ) so also the hebrew capital was anciently called jerusalem, not jerusalaim. ( ) as to the pronouns himself and herself, i think that the later scribes changed vau into jod (a very frequent change in hebrew) when they wished to express the feminine gender, but that the ancients only distinguished the two genders by a change of vowels. ( ) i may also remark that the irregular tenses of certain verbs differ in the ancient and modern forms, it being formerly considered a mark of elegance to employ certain letters agreeable to the ear. ( ) in a word, i could easily multiply proofs of this kind if i were not afraid of abusing the patience of the reader. ( ) perhaps i shall be asked how i became acquainted with the fact that all these expressions are obsolete. ( ) i reply that i have found them in the most ancient hebrew writers in the bible itself, and that they have not been imitated by subsequent authors, and thus they are recognized as antiquated, though the language in which they occur is dead. ( ) but perhaps someone may press the question why, if it be true, as i say, that the marginal notes of the bible generally mark various readings, there are never more than two readings of a passage, that in the text and that in the margin, instead of three or more; and further, how the scribes can have hesitated between two readings, one of which is evidently contrary to grammar, and the other a plain correction. ( ) the answer to these questions also is easy: i will premise that it is almost certain that there once were more various readings than those now recorded. ( ) for instance, one finds many in the talmud which the massoretes have neglected, and are so different one from the other that even the superstitious editor of the bomberg bible confesses that he cannot harmonize them. ( ) "we cannot say anything," he writes, "except what we have said above, namely, that the talmud is generally in contradiction to the massorete." ( ) so that we are nor bound to hold that there never were more than two readings of any passage, yet i am willing to admit, and indeed i believe that more than two readings are never found: and for the following reasons:-( ) (i.) the cause of the differences of reading only admits of two, being generally the similarity of certain letters, so that the question resolved itself into which should be written beth, or kaf, jod or vau, daleth or reth: cases which are constantly occurring, and frequently yielding a fairly good meaning whichever alternative be adopted. ( ) sometimes, too, it is a question whether a syllable be long or short, quantity being determined by the letters called mutes. ( ) moreover, we never asserted that all the marginal versions, without exception, marked various readings; on the contrary, we have stated that many were due to motives of decency or a desire to explain obsolete words. ( ) (ii.) i am inclined to attribute the fact that more than two readings are never found to the paucity of exemplars, perhaps not more than two or three, found by the scribes. ( ) in the treatise of the scribes, chap. vi., mention is made of three only, pretended to have been found in the time of ezra, in order that the marginal versions might be attributed to him. ( ) however that may be, if the scribes only had three codices we may easily imagine that in a given passage two of them would be in accord, for it would be extraordinary if each one of the three gave a different reading of the same text. ( ) the dearth of copies after the time of ezra will surprise no one who has read the st chapter of maccabees, or josephus's "antiquities," bk. , chap. . ( ) nay, it appears wonderful considering the fierce and daily persecution, that even these few should have been preserved. ( ) this will, i think, be plain to even a cursory reader of the history of those times. ( ) we have thus discovered the reasons why there are never more than two readings of a passage in the bible, but this is a long way from supposing that we may therefore conclude that the bible was purposely written incorrectly in such passages in order to signify some mystery. ( ) as to the second argument, that some passages are so faultily written that they are at plain variance with all grammar, and should have been corrected in the text and not in the margin, i attach little weight to it, for i am not concerned to say what religious motive the scribes may have had for acting as they did: possibly they did so from candour, wishing to transmit the few exemplars of the bible which they had found exactly in their original state, marking the differences they discovered in the margin, not as doubtful readings, but as simple variants. ( ) i have myself called them doubtful readings, because it would be generally impossible to say which of the two versions is preferable. ( ) lastly, besides these doubtful readings the scribes have (by leaving a hiatus in the middle of a paragraph) marked several passages as mutilated. ( ) the massoretes have counted up such instances, and they amount to eight-and-twenty. ( ) i do not know whether any mystery is thought to lurk in the number, at any rate the pharisees religiously preserve a certain amount of empty space. ( ) one of such hiatus occurs (to give an instance) in gen. iv: , where it is written, "and cain said to his brother . . . . and it came to pass while they were in the field, &c.," a space being left in which we should expect to hear what it was that cain said. ( ) similarly there are (besides those points we have noticed) eight-and-twenty hiatus left by the scribes. ( ) many of these would not be recognized as mutilated if it were not for the empty space left. but i have said enough on this subject. chapter x. - an examination of the remaining books of the old testament according to the preceding method. ( ) i now pass on to the remaining books of the old testament. ( ) concerning the two books of chronicles i have nothing particular or important to remark, except that they were certainly written after the time of ezra, and possibly after the restoration of the temple by judas maccabaeus [endnote ]. ( ) for in chap. ix. of the first book we find a reckoning of the families who were the first to live in jerusalem, and in verse the names of the porters, of which two recur in nehemiah. ( ) this shows that the books were certainly compiled after the rebuilding of the city. ( ) as to their actual writer, their authority, utility, and doctrine, i come to no conclusion. ( ) i have always been astonished that they have been included in the bible by men who shut out from the canon the books of wisdom, tobit, and the others styled apocryphal. ( ) i do not aim at disparaging their authority, but as they are universally received i will leave them as they are. ( ) the psalms were collected and divided into five books in the time of the second temple, for ps. lxxxviii. was published, according to philo-judaeus, while king jehoiachin was still a prisoner in babylon; and ps. lxxxix. when the same king obtained his liberty: i do not think philo would have made the statement unless either it had been the received opinion in his time, or else had been told him by trustworthy persons. ( ) the proverbs of solomon were, i believe, collected at the same time, or at least in the time of king josiah; for in chap. xxv: , it is written, "these are also proverbs of solomon which the men of hezekiah, king of judah, copied out." ( ) i cannot here pass over in silence the audacity of the rabbis who wished to exclude from the sacred canon both the proverbs and ecclesiastes, and to put them both in the apocrypha. ( ) in fact, they would actually have done so, if they had not lighted on certain passages in which the law of moses is extolled. ( ) it is, indeed, grievous to think that the settling of the sacred canon lay in the hands of such men; however, i congratulate them, in this instance, on their suffering us to see these books in question, though i cannot refrain from doubting whether they have transmitted them in absolute good faith; but i will not now linger on this point. ( ) i pass on, then, to the prophetic books. ( ) an examination of these assures me that the prophecies therein contained have been compiled from other books, and are not always set down in the exact order in which they were spoken or written by the prophets, but are only such as were collected here and there, so that they are but fragmentary. ( ) isaiah began to prophecy in the reign of uzziah, as the writer himself testifies in the first verse. ( ) he not only prophesied at that time, but furthermore wrote the history of that king (see chron. xxvi: ) in a volume now lost. ( ) that which we possess, we have shown to have been taken from the chronicles of the kings of judah and israel. ( ) we may add that the rabbis assert that this prophet prophesied in the reign of manasseh, by whom he was eventually put to death, and, although this seems to be a myth, it yet shows that they did not think that all isaiah's prophecies are extant. ( ) the prophecies of jeremiah, which are related historically are also taken from various chronicles; for not only are they heaped together confusedly, without any account being taken of dates, but also the same story is told in them differently in different passages. ( ) for instance, in chap. xxi. we are told that the cause of jeremiah's arrest was that he had prophesied the destruction of the city to zedekiah who consulted him. ( ) this narrative suddenly passes, in chap xxii., to the prophet's remonstrances to jehoiakim (zedekiah's predecessor), and the prediction he made of that king's captivity; then, in chap. xxv., come the revelations granted to the prophet previously, that is in the fourth year of jehoiakim, and, further on still, the revelations received in the first year of the same reign. ( ) the continuator of jeremiah goes on heaping prophecy upon prophecy without any regard to dates, until at last, in chap. xxxviii. (as if the intervening chapters had been a parenthesis), he takes up the thread dropped in chap. xxi. ( ) in fact, the conjunction with which chap. xxxviii. begins, refers to the th, th, and th verses of chap. xxi. jeremiah's last arrest is then very differently described, and a totally separate cause is given for his daily retention in the court of the prison. ( ) we may thus clearly see that these portions of the book have been compiled from various sources, and are only from this point of view comprehensible. ( ) the prophecies contained in the remaining chapters, where jeremiah speaks in the first person, seem to be taken from a book written by baruch, at jeremiah's dictation. ( ) these, however, only comprise (as appears from chap. xxxvi: ) the prophecies revealed to the prophet from the time of josiah to the fourth year of jehoiakim, at which period the book begins. ( ) the contents of chap. xlv: , on to chap. li: , seem taken from the same volume. ( ) that the book of ezekiel is only a fragment, is clearly indicated by the first verse. ( ) for anyone may see that the conjunction with which it begins, refers to something already said, and connects what follows therewith. ( ) however, not only this conjunction, but the whole text of the discourse implies other writings. ( ) the fact of the present work beginning the thirtieth year shows that the prophet is continuing, not commencing a discourse; and this is confirmed by the writer, who parenthetically states in verse , "the word of the lord came often unto ezekiel the priest, the son of buzi, in the land of the chaldeans," as if to say that the prophecies which he is about to relate are the sequel to revelations formerly received by ezekiel from god. ( ) furthermore, josephus, antiq." x: , says that ezekiel prophesied that zedekiah should not see babylon, whereas the book we now have not only contains no such statement, but contrariwise asserts in chap. xvii. that he should be taken to babylon as a captive, [endnote ]. ( ) of hosea i cannot positively state that he wrote more than is now extant in the book bearing his name, but i am astonished at the smallness of the quantity, we possess, for the sacred writer asserts that the prophet prophesied for more than eighty years. ( ) we may assert, speaking generally, that the compiler of the prophetic books neither collected all the prophets, nor all the writings of those we have; for of the prophets who are said to have prophesied in the reign of manasseh and of whom general mention is made in chron. xxxiii: , , we have, evidently, no prophecies extant; neither have we all the prophecies of the twelve who give their names to books. ( ) of jonah we have only, the prophecy concerning the ninevites, though he also prophesied to the children of israel, as we learn in kings xiv: . ( ) the book and the personality of job have caused much controversy. ( ) some think that the book is the work of moses, and the whole narrative merely allegorical. ( ) such is the opinion of the rabbins recorded in the talmud, and they are supported by, maimonides in his "more nebuchim." ( ) others believe it to be a true history, and some suppose that job lived in the time of jacob, and was married to his daughter dinah. ( ) aben ezra, however, as i have already stated, affirms, in his commentaries, that the work is a translation into hebrew from some other language: i could wish that he could advance more cogent arguments than he does, for we might then conclude that the gentiles also had sacred books. ( ) i myself leave the matter undecided, but i conjecture job to have been a gentile, and a man of very stable character, who at first prospered, then was assailed with terrible calamities, and finally, was restored to great happiness. ( ) (he is thus named, among others, by ezekiel, xiv: .) ( ) i take it that the constancy of his mind amid the vicissitudes of his fortune occasioned many men to dispute about god's providence, or at least caused the writer of the book in question to compose his dialogues; for the contents, and also the style, seem to emanate far less from a man wretchedly ill and lying among ashes, than from one reflecting at ease in his study. ( ) i should also be inclined to agree with aben ezra that the book is a translation, for its poetry seems akin to that of the gentiles; thus the father of gods summons a council, and momus, here called satan, criticizes the divine decrees with the utmost freedom. ( ) but these are mere conjectures without any solid foundation. ( ) i pass on to the book of daniel, which, from chap. viii. onwards, undoubtedly contains the writing of daniel himself. ( ) whence the first seven chapters are derived i cannot say; we may, however, conjecture that, as they were first written in chaldean, they are taken from chaldean chronicles. ( ) if this could be proved, it would form a very striking proof of the fact that the sacredness of scripture depends on our understanding of the doctrines therein signified, and not on the words, the language, and the phrases in which these doctrines are conveyed to us; and it would further show us that books which teach and speak of whatever is highest and best are equally sacred, whatever be the tongue in which they are written, or the nation to which they belong. ( ) we can, however, in this case only remark that the chapters in question were written in chaldee, and yet are as sacred as the rest of the bible. ( ) the first book of ezra is so intimately connected with the book of daniel that both are plainly recognizable as the work of the same author, writing of jewish history from the time of the first captivity onwards. ( ) i have no hesitation in joining to this the book of esther, for the conjunction with which it begins can refer to nothing else. ( ) it cannot be the same work as that written by mordecai, for, in chap. ix: - , another person relates that mordecai wrote letters, and tells us their contents; further, that queen esther confirmed the days of purim in their times appointed, and that the decree was written in the book that is (by a hebraism), in a book known to all then living, which, as aben ezra and the rest confess, has now perished. ( ) lastly, for the rest of the acts of mordecai, the historian refers us to the chronicles of the kings of persia. ( ) thus there is no doubt that this book was written by the same person as he who recounted the history of daniel and ezra, and who wrote nehemiah, [endnote ], sometimes called the second book of ezra. ( ) we may, then, affirm that all these books are from one hand; but we have no clue whatever to the personality of the author. ( ) however, in order to determine whence he, whoever he was, had gained a knowledge of the histories which he had, perchance, in great measure himself written, we may remark that the governors or chiefs of the jews, after the restoration of the temple, kept scribes or historiographers, who wrote annals or chronicles of them. ( ) the chronicles of the kings are often quoted in the books of kings, but the chronicles of the chiefs and priests are quoted for the first time in nehemiah xii: , and again in macc. xvi: . ( ) this is undoubtedly the book referred to as containing the decree of esther and the acts of mordecai; and which, as we said with aben ezra, is now lost. ( ) from it were taken the whole contents of these four books, for no other authority is quoted by their writer, or is known to us. ( ) that these books were not written by either ezra or nehemiah is plain from nehemiah xii: , where the descendants of the high priest, joshua are traced down to jaddua, the sixth high priest, who went to meet alexander the great, when the persian empire was almost subdued (josephus, "ant." ii. ), or who, according to philo-judaeus, was the sixth and last high priest under the persians. ( ) in the same chapter of nehemiah, verse , this point is clearly brought out: "the levites in the days of eliashib, joiada, and johanan, and jaddua, were recorded chief of the fathers: also the priests, to the reign of darius the persian" - that is to say, in the chronicles; and, i suppose, no one thinks, [endnote ], that the lives of nehemiah and ezra were so prolonged that they outlived fourteen kings of persia. ( ) cyrus was the first who granted the jews permission to rebuild their temple: the period between his time and darius, fourteenth and last king of persia, extends over years. ( ) i have, therefore, no doubt that these books were written after judas maccabaeus had restored the worship in the temple, for at that time false books of daniel, ezra, and esther were published by evil-disposed persons, who were almost certainly sadducees, for the writings were never recognized by the pharisees, so far as i am aware; and, although certain myths in the fourth book of ezra are repeated in the talmud, they must not be set down to the pharisees, for all but the most ignorant admit that they have been added by some trifler: in fact, i think, someone must have made such additions with a view to casting ridicule on all the traditions of the sect. ( ) perhaps these four books were written out and published at the time i have mentioned with a view to showing the people that the prophecies of daniel had been fulfilled, and thus kindling their piety, and awakening a hope of future deliverance in the midst of their misfortunes. ( ) in spite of their recent origin, the books before us contain many errors, due, i suppose, to the haste with which they were written. ( ) marginal readings, such as i have mentioned in the last chapter, are found here as elsewhere, and in even greater abundance; there are, moreover, certain passages which can only be accounted for by supposing some such cause as hurry. ( ) however, before calling attention to the marginal readings, i will remark that, if the pharisees are right in supposing them to have been ancient, and the work of the original scribes, we must perforce admit that these scribes (if there were more than one) set them down because they found that the text from which they were copying was inaccurate, and did yet not venture to alter what was written by their predecessors and superiors. ( ) i need not again go into the subject at length, and will, therefore, proceed to mention some discrepancies not noticed in the margin. ( ) i. some error has crept into the text of the second chapter of ezra, for in verse we are told that the total of all those mentioned in the rest of the chapter amounts to , ; but, when we come to add up the several items we get as result only , . ( ) there must, therefore, be an error, either in the total, or in the details. ( ) the total is probably correct, for it would most likely be well known to all as a noteworthy thing; but with the details, the case would be different. ( ) if, then, any error had crept into the total, it would at once have been remarked, and easily corrected. ( ) this view is confirmed by nehemiah vii., where this chapter of ezra is mentioned, and a total is given in plain correspondence thereto; but the details are altogether different - some are larger, and some less, than those in ezra, and altogether they amount to , . ( ) we may, therefore, conclude that both in ezra and in nehemiah the details are erroneously given. ( ) the commentators who attempt to harmonize these evident contradictions draw on their imagination, each to the best of his ability; and while professing adoration for each letter and word of scripture, only succeed in holding up the sacred writers to ridicule, as though they knew not how to write or relate a plain narrative. ( ) such persons effect nothing but to render the clearness of scripture obscure. ( ) if the bible could everywhere be interpreted after their fashion, there would be no such thing as a rational statement of which the meaning could be relied on. ( ) however, there is no need to dwell on the subject; only i am convinced that if any historian were to attempt to imitate the proceedings freely attributed to the writers of the bible, the commentators would cover him with contempt. ( ) if it be blasphemy to assert that there are any errors in scripture, what name shall we apply to those who foist into it their own fancies, who degrade the sacred writers till they seem to write confused nonsense, and who deny the plainest and most evident meanings? ( ) what in the whole bible can be plainer than the fact that ezra and his companions, in the second chapter of the book attributed to him, have given in detail the reckoning of all the hebrews who set out with them for jerusalem? ( ) this is proved by the reckoning being given, not only of those who told their lineage, but also of those who were unable to do so. ( ) is it not equally clear from nehemiah vii: , that the writer merely there copies the list given in ezra? ( ) those, therefore, who explain these pas sages otherwise, deny the plain meaning of scripture - nay, they deny scripture itself. ( ) they think it pious to reconcile one passage of scripture with another - a pretty piety, forsooth, which accommodates the clear passages to the obscure, the correct to the faulty, the sound to the corrupt. ( ) far be it from me to call such commentators blasphemers, if their motives be pure: for to err is human. but i return to my subject. ( ) besides these errors in numerical details, there are others in the genealogies, in the history, and, i fear also in the prophecies. ( ) the prophecy of jeremiah (chap. xxii.), concerning jechoniah, evidently does not agree with his history, as given in i chronicles iii: - , and especially with the last words of the chapter, nor do i see how the prophecy, "thou shalt die in peace," can be applied to zedekiah, whose eyes were dug out after his sons had been slain before him. ( ) if prophecies are to be interpreted by their issue, we must make a change of name, and read jechoniah for zedekiah, and vice versa ( ) this, however, would be too paradoxical a proceeding; so i prefer to leave the matter unexplained, especially as the error, if error there be, must be set down to the historian, and not to any fault in the authorities. ( ) other difficulties i will not touch upon, as i should only weary the reader, and, moreover, be repeating the remarks of other writers. ( ) for r. selomo, in face of the manifest contradiction in the above-mentioned genealogies, is compelled to break forth into these words (see his commentary on chron. viii.): "ezra (whom he supposes to be the author of the book of chronicles) gives different names and a different genealogy to the sons of benjamin from those which we find in genesis, and describes most of the levites differently from joshua, because he found original discrepancies." ( ) and, again, a little later: "the genealogy of gibeon and others is described twice in different ways, from different tables of each genealogy, and in writing them down ezra adopted the version given in the majority of the texts, and when the authority was equal he gave both." ( ) thus granting that these books were compiled from sources originally incorrect and uncertain. ( ) in fact the commentators, in seeking to harmonize difficulties, generally do no more than indicate their causes: for i suppose no sane person supposes that the sacred historians deliberately wrote with the object of appearing to contradict themselves freely. ( ) perhaps i shall be told that i am overthrowing the authority of scripture, for that, according to me, anyone may suspect it of error in any passage; but, on the contrary, i have shown that my object has been to prevent the clear and uncorrupted passages being accommodated to and corrupted by the faulty ones; neither does the fact that some passages are corrupt warrant us in suspecting all. ( ) no book ever was completely free from faults, yet i would ask, who suspects all books to be everywhere faulty? ( ) surely no one, especially when the phraseology is clear and the intention of the author plain. ( ) i have now finished the task i set myself with respect to the books of the old testament. ( ) we may easily conclude from what has been said, that before the time of the maccabees there was no canon of sacred books, [endnote ], but that those which we now possess were selected from a multitude of others at the period of the restoration of the temple by the pharisees (who also instituted the set form of prayers), who are alone responsible for their acceptance. ( ) those, therefore, who would demonstrate the authority of holy scripture, are bound to show the authority of each separate book; it is not enough to prove the divine origin of a single book in order to infer the divine origin of the rest. ( ) in that case we should have to assume that the council of pharisees was, in its choice of books, infallible, and this could never be proved. ( ) i am led to assert that the pharisees alone selected the books of the old testament, and inserted them in the canon, from the fact that in daniel ii. is proclaimed the doctrine of the resurrection, which the sadducees denied; and, furthermore, the pharisees plainly assert in the talmud that they so selected them. ( ) for in the treatise of sabbathus, chapter ii., folio , page , it is written: r. jehuda, surnamed rabbi, reports that the experts wished to conceal the book of ecclesiastes because they found therein words opposed to the law (that is, to the book of the law of moses). ( ) why did they not hide it? ( ) "because it begins in accordance with the law, and ends according to the law;" and a little further on we read: "they sought also to conceal the book of proverbs." ( ) and in the first chapter of the same treatise, fol. , page : "verily, name one man for good, even he who was called neghunja, the son of hezekiah: for, save for him, the book of ezekiel would been concealed, because it agreed not with the words of the law." ( ) it is thus abundantly clear that men expert in the law summoned a council to decide which books should be received into the canon, and which excluded. ( ) if any man, therefore, wishes to be certified as to the authority of all the books, let him call a fresh council, and ask every member his reasons. ( ) the time has now come for examining in the same manner the books in the new testament; but as i learn that the task has been already performed by men highly skilled in science and languages, and as i do not myself possess a knowledge of greek sufficiently exact for the task; lastly, as we have lost the originals of those books which were written in hebrew, i prefer to decline the undertaking. ( ) however, i will touch on those points which have most bearing on my subject in the following chapter. end of part . author's endnotes to the theologico-political treatise part - chapters vi to x chapter vi. endnote . ( ) we doubt of the existence of god, and consequently of all else, so long as we have no clear and distinct idea of god, but only a confused one. ( ) for as he who knows not rightly the nature of a triangle, knows not that its three angles are equal to two right angles, so he who conceives the divine nature confusedly, does not see that it pertains to the nature of god to exist. ( ) now, to conceive the nature of god clearly and distinctly, it is necessary to pay attention to a certain number of very simple notions, called general notions, and by their help to associate the conceptions which we form of the attributes of the divine nature. ( ) it then, for the first time, becomes clear to us, that god exists necessarily, that he is omnipresent, and that all our conceptions involve in themselves the nature of god and are conceived through it. ( ) lastly, we see that all our adequate ideas are true. ( ) compare on this point the prolegomena to book, "principles of descartes's philosophy set forth geometrically." chapter vii. endnote . ( ) "it is impossible to find a method which would enable us to gain a certain knowledge of all the statements in scripture." ( ) i mean impossible for us who have not the habitual use of the language, and have lost the precise meaning of its phraseology. endnote . ( ) "not in things whereof the understanding can gain a clear and distinct idea, and which are conceivable through themselves." ( ) by things conceivable i mean not only those which are rigidly proved, but also those whereof we are morally certain, and are wont to hear without wonder, though they are incapable of proof. ( ) everyone can see the truth of euclid's propositions before they are proved. ( ) so also the histories of things both future and past which do not surpass human credence, laws, institutions, manners, i call conceivable and clear, though they cannot be proved mathematically. ( ) but hieroglyphics and histories which seem to pass the bounds of belief i call inconceivable; yet even among these last there are many which our method enables us to investigate, and to discover the meaning of their narrator. chapter viii. endnote . ( ) "mount moriah is called the mount of god." ( ) that is by the historian, not by abraham, for he says that the place now called "in the mount of the lord it shall be revealed," was called by abraham, "the lord shall provide." endnote . ( ) "before that territory [idumoea] was conquered by david." ( ) from this time to the reign of jehoram when they again separated from the jewish kingdom ( kings viii: ), the idumaeans had no king, princes appointed by the jews supplied the place of kings ( kings xxii: ), in fact the prince of idumaea is called a king ( kings iii: ). ( ) it may be doubted whether the last of the idumaean kings had begun to reign before the accession of saul, or whether scripture in this chapter of genesis wished to enumerate only such kings as were independent. ( ) it is evidently mere trifling to wish to enrol among hebrew kings the name of moses, who set up a dominion entirely different from a monarchy. chapter ix. endnote . ( ) "with few exceptions." ( ) one of these exceptions is found in kings xviii: , where we read, "thou sayest (but they are but vain words)," the second person being used. ( ) in isaiah xxxvi: , we read "i say (but they are but vain words) i have counsel and strength for war," and in the twenty-second verse of the chapter in kings it is written, "but if ye say," the plural number being used, whereas isaiah gives the singular. ( ) the text in isaiah does not contain the words found in kings xxxii: . ( ) thus there are several cases of various readings where it is impossible to distinguish the best. endnote . ( ) "the expressions in the two passages are so varied." ( ) for instance we read in sam. vii: , "but i have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle." ( ) whereas in chron. xvii: , "but have gone from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another." ( ) in sam. vii: , we read, "to afflict them," whereas in chron. vii: , we find a different expression. ( ) i could point out other differences still greater, but a single reading of the chapters in question will suffice to make them manifest to all who are neither blind nor devoid of sense. endnote . ( ) "this time cannot refer to what immediately precedes." ( ) it is plain from the context that this passage must allude to the time when joseph was sold by his brethren. ( ) but this is not all. ( ) we may draw the same conclusion from the age of judah, who was than twenty-two years old at most, taking as basis of calculation his own history just narrated. ( ) it follows, indeed, from the last verse of gen. xxx., that judah was born in the tenth of the years of jacob's servitude to laban, and joseph in the fourteenth. ( ) now, as we know that joseph was seventeen years old when sold by his brethren, judah was then not more than twenty-one. ( ) hence, those writers who assert that judah's long absence from his father's house took place before joseph was sold, only seek to delude themselves and to call in question the scriptural authority which they are anxious to protect. endnote . ( ) "dinah was scarcely seven years old when she was violated by schechem." ( ) the opinion held by some that jacob wandered about eight or ten years between mesopotamia and bethel, savours of the ridiculous; if respect for aben ezra, allows me to say so. ( ) for it is clear that jacob had two reasons for haste: first, the desire to see his old parents; secondly, and chiefly to perform, the vow made when he fled from his brother (gen. xxviii: and xxxi: , and xxxv: ). ( ) we read (gen. xxxi: ), that god had commanded him to fulfill his vow, and promised him help for returning to his country. ( ) if these considerations seem conjectures rather than reasons, i will waive the point and admit that jacob, more unfortunate than ulysses, spent eight or ten years or even longer, in this short journey. ( ) at any rate it cannot be denied that benjamin was born in the last year of this wandering, that is by the reckoning of the objectors, when joseph was sixteen or seventeen years old, for jacob left laban seven years after joseph's birth. ( ) now from the seventeenth year of joseph's age till the patriarch went into egypt, not more than twenty-two years elapsed, as we have shown in this chapter. ( ) consequently benjamin, at the time of the journey to egypt, was twenty-three or twenty- four at the most. ( ) he would therefore have been a grandfather in the flower of his age (gen. xlvi: , cf. numb. xxvi: , , and chron. viii: ), for it is certain that bela, benjamin's eldest son, had at that time, two sons, addai and naa-man. ( ) this is just as absurd as the statement that dinah was violated at the age of seven, not to mention other impossibilities which would result from the truth of the narrative. ( ) thus we see that unskillful endeavours to solve difficulties, only raise fresh ones, and make confusion worse confounded. endnote . ( ) "othniel, son of kenag, was judge for forty years." ( ) rabbi levi ben gerson and others believe that these forty years which the bible says were passed in freedom, should be counted from the death of joshua, and consequently include the eight years during which the people were subject to kushan rishathaim, while the following eighteen years must be added on to the eighty years of ehud's and shamgar's judgeships. ( ) in this case it would be necessary to reckon the other years of subjection among those said by the bible to have been passed in freedom. ( ) but the bible expressly notes the number of years of subjection, and the number of years of freedom, and further declares (judges ii: ) that the hebrew state was prosperous during the whole time of the judges. ( ) therefore it is evident that levi ben gerson (certainly a very learned man), and those who follow him, correct rather than interpret the scriptures. ( ) the same fault is committed by those who assert, that scripture, by this general calculation of years, only intended to mark the period of the regular administration of the hebrew state, leaving out the years of anarchy and subjection as periods of misfortune and interregnum. ( ) scripture certainly passes over in silence periods of anarchy, but does not, as they dream, refuse to reckon them or wipe them out of the country's annals. ( ) it is clear that ezra, in kings vi., wished to reckon absolutely all the years since the flight from egypt. ( ) this is so plain, that no one versed in the scriptures can doubt it. ( ) for, without going back to the precise words of the text, we may see that the genealogy of david given at the end of the book of ruth, and i chron. ii., scarcely accounts for so great a number of years. ( ) for nahshon, who was prince of the tribe of judah (numb. vii: ), two years after the exodus, died in the desert, and his son salmon passed the jordan with joshua. ( ) now this salmon, according to the genealogy, was david's great-grandfather. ( ) deducting, then, from the total of years, four years for solomon's reign, seventy for david's life, and forty for the time passed in the desert, we find that david was born years after the passage of the jordan. ( ) hence we must believe that david's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather begat children when they were ninety years old. endnote . ( ) "samson was judge for twenty years." ( ) samson was born after the hebrews had fallen under the dominion of the philistines. endnote . ( ) otherwise, they rather correct than explain scripture. endnote . ( ) "kirjath-jearim." kirjath-jearim is also called baale of judah. ( ) hence kimchi and others think that the words baale judah, which i have translated "the people of judah," are the name of a town. ( ) but this is not so, for the word baale is in the plural. ( ) moreover, comparing this text in samuel with i chron. xiii: , we find that david did not rise up and go forth out of baale, but that he went thither. ( ) if the author of the book of samuel had meant to name the place whence david took the ark, he would, if he spoke hebrew correctly, have said, "david rose up, and set forth from baale judah, and took the ark from thence." chapter x. endnote . ( ) "after the restoration of the temple by judas maccaboeus." ( ) this conjecture, if such it be, is founded on the genealogy of king jeconiah, given in chron. iii., which finishes at the sons of elioenai, the thirteenth in direct descent from him: whereon we must observe that jeconiah, before his captivity, had no children; but it is probable that he had two while he was in prison, if we may draw any inference from the names he gave them. ( ) as to his grandchildren, it is evident that they were born after his deliverance, if the names be any guide, for his grandson, pedaiah (a name meaning god hath delivered me), who, according to this chapter, was the father of zerubbabel, was born in the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth year of jeconiah's life, that is thirty-three years before the restoration of liberty to the jews by cyrus. ( ) therefore zerubbabel, to whom cyrus gave the principality of judaea, was thirteen or fourteen years old. ( ) but we need not carry the inquiry so far: we need only read attentively the chapter of chron., already quoted, where (v. , sqq.) mention is made of all the posterity of jeconiah, and compare it with the septuagint version to see clearly that these books were not published, till after maccabaeus had restored the temple, the sceptre no longer belonging to the house of jeconiah. endnote . ( ) "zedekiah should be taken to babylon." ( ) no one could then have suspected that the prophecy of ezekiel contradicted that of jeremiah, but the suspicion occurs to everyone who reads the narrative of josephus. ( ) the event proved that both prophets were in the right. endnote . ( ) "and who wrote nehemiah." ( ) that the greater part of the book of nehemiah was taken from the work composed by the prophet nehemiah himself, follows from the testimony of its author. (see chap. i.). ( ) but it is obvious that the whole of the passage contained between chap. viii. and chap. xii. verse , together with the two last verses of chap. xii., which form a sort of parenthesis to nehemiah's words, were added by the historian himself, who outlived nehemiah. endnote . ( ) "i suppose no one thinks" that ezra was the uncle of the first high priest, named joshua (see ezra vii., and chron. vi: ), and went to jerusalem from babylon with zerubbabel (see nehemiah xii: ). ( ) but it appears that when he saw, that the jews were in a state of anarchy, he returned to babylon, as also did others (nehem. i: ), and remained there till the reign of artaxerxes, when his requests were granted and he went a second time to jerusalem. ( ) nehemiah also went to jerusalem with zerubbabel in the time of cyrus (ezra ii: and , cf. x: , and nehemiah x: ). ( ) the version given of the hebrew word, translated "ambassador," is not supported by any authority, while it is certain that fresh names were given to those jews who frequented the court. ( ) thus daniel was named balteshazzar, and zerubbabel sheshbazzar (dan. i: ). ( ) nehemiah was called atirsata, while in virtue of his office he was styled governor, or president. (nehem. v. , xii: .) endnote . ( ) "before the time of the maccabees there was no canon of sacred books." ( ) the synagogue styled "the great" did not begin before the subjugation of asia by the macedonians. ( ) the contention of maimonides, rabbi abraham, ben-david, and others, that the presidents of this synagogue were ezra, daniel, nehemiah, haggai, zechariah, &c., is a pure fiction, resting only on rabbinical tradition. ( ) indeed they assert that the dominion of the persians only lasted thirty-four years, and this is their chief reason for maintaining that the decrees of the "great synagogue," or synod (rejected by the sadducees, but accepted by the pharisees) were ratified by the prophets, who received them from former prophets, and so in direct succession from moses, who received them from god himself. ( ) such is the doctrine which the pharisees maintain with their wonted obstinacy. ( ) enlightened persons, however, who know the reasons for the convoking of councils, or synods, and are no strangers to the differences between pharisees and sadducees, can easily divine the causes which led to the assembling of this great synagogue. ( ) it is very certain that no prophet was there present, and that the decrees of the pharisees, which they style their traditions, derive all their authority from it. end of endnotes to part ii. - chapters vi to x. the mistakes of jesus by william floyd _author of "social progress," "people vs. wall street," "our gods on trial," "war resistance."_ _new york_ the freethought press association. copyright by the freethought press assn., inc. to devotees of truth transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. archaic spellings have been retained. paragraph spacing has been normalised. a table of contents, though not present in the original publication, has been provided below: foreword face the facts. the true jesus. scriptures unauthentic. faith in jesus. documentary evidence. retain the good. christianity must go. antiquated theology the virgin birth. the jewish messiah. eternal damnation. the atonement. angels and devils. false impressions jonah and the whale. end of the world. miracles. eternal life. raising lazarus. god's protection. belief in prayer. obscure teachings witnesses and judge. cannibalism. religion only for children. difficult or easy? charity. the scriptures upheld. illogical. parables deceptive. deficient instructions labor. usury. economics. punishment for debts. healing. peace. marriage. celibacy. adultery. divorce. faulty judgment. unconvincing. prohibition. lack of experience. an inferior prototype cursing nature. forgiveness. vituperation. destruction of property. egotism. lack of courtesy. unethical advice. sermon on the mount. inconsistency. fear. failure. conclusion jesus a myth. judged by his works. ethical evolution. gains, not losses. code of living foreword the tradition regarding jesus is so glamorous that it is difficult to review his life and character with an unbiased mind. while fundamentalists and modernists differ regarding the divinity of christ, all christians and many non-christians still cling to preconceived notions of the perfection of jesus. he alone among men is revered as all-loving, omniscient, faultless--an unparalleled model for mankind. this convention of the impeccability of jesus is so firmly established that any insinuation of error on his part is deemed a blasphemy. doubting jesus is more impious than mocking god almighty. jehovah may be exposed to some extent with impunity; a god who destroyed , of his chosen people because their king took a census[ ] is too illogical for any but theologians to worship. but the son of god, or son of man, is sacrosanct. jesus is reverenced as the one man who has lived unspotted by the world, free from human foibles, able to redeem mankind by his example. respect for the principles of jesus is so inbred in american people of all faiths that an attempt to disparage his worth is denounced as bad taste. the detractor is suspected of being an immoral person, no matter how convincing may be the proof which he presents. a conspiracy of silence is directed against any system of ethics advanced as superior to the sermon on the mount. in popular opinion jesus never made a mistake; all his teachings were infallible; no other view is tolerated. _face the facts_ this unwillingness to acknowledge the shortcomings of jesus is partially due to fear of sustaining a great loss. the familiar answer to heretical arguments is that faith should not be destroyed unless something can be put in its place--ignoring the fact that something always may be substituted for beliefs destroyed. that substitute is faith in the world as it really is. and our modern world, with all its shortcomings, is infinitely preferable to the earth, or even the heaven, of the first century. we now know that man can do more to eradicate sorrow than jesus ever thought of. we can have greater confidence in the world as revealed today than in the doubtful traditions of biblical times. but suppose there were nothing to substitute for the myth destroyed, should that deter the truthseeker from continuing his investigation? scientists do not hesitate in their research because the result of a new discovery may be disastrous. they seek the facts regardless of consequences; they want to know the truth about the physical world. ethicists should have a similar desire concerning the metaphysical world. they should have confidence that the supreme intelligence (as edison called it) will lead on to better things. _the true jesus_ if jesus was what his followers believe, no arguments will destroy their faith in him; but if jesus was not perfect, according to modern standards, it is important that his status as god, or man, should be revised. loss of confidence in an erring idol is not loss of a true ideal. when an iconoclast asserts that jesus lacked supreme intelligence, the natural question is, "how do you know that you are right in your appraisal, 'lest haply ye be found even to fight against god'?" the answer is that we do not claim omniscience, but merely request everyone to use his or her own judgment, with intellectual honesty, examining each act or saying of jesus without regard to presupposed ideas or tradition. _scriptures unauthentic_ the consensus of scholarship has rejected the creation of the universe in six days in b.c., science having proved the existence of the world for millions of years. higher critics refuse to credit the book of genesis, according to the first chapter of which the trees, beasts and fowls were created before man, but according to the second chapter after man. it is not assuming too much for the humblest writer to say that moses was mistaken concerning many things he described in the pentateuch. it follows that if one important portion of the bible is untrustworthy, other parts of that same book may not be the infallible word of god. the new testament, as well as the old, may be examined critically, and if the gospels contain numerous contradictions, the statements of the authors on any point, including the life of jesus, are open to question. a conscientious person should reach conclusions based upon the best knowledge obtainable from all sources. if anyone is convinced that jesus made mistakes, he is not necessarily compelled to become an atheist. all other gods that have been worshipped by men have been found imperfect. the oft exposed errors of jehovah do not prevent christians and jews from professing belief in god. those who require support from outside themselves cling to the symbol of deity though not thoroughly crediting any personality ever described in any sacred scriptures. except jesus. an evolutionist passes beyond the negative denial of god to the construction of a new philosophy in which truth is his guide, truth being the nearest approximation to reality obtainable with our present knowledge. belief in the world as it is now, and as it is going to be, is a sufficient creed. _faith in jesus_ with jesus entrenched in popular opinion, there is small probability that faith in him will be shaken unless there is a preponderance of evidence against his divinity. no one need abandon faith in jesus until convinced that something better has been found. no one should even expose himself to heretical arguments unless he is a devotee of truth. then only can he rejoice at a revelation of error in confidence that the more nearly the universe is understood the better can man adjust himself to his surroundings. a worshipper of truth fears no destruction of false gods, nor any facts that may cause him to throw over treasured superstitions. he is willing to prove all things and hold fast to that which is true. he rejoices when his idol is shattered, knowing that he is approaching nearer to the true way of living, a way that jesus did not adequately explain. any attempt to censure the character of jesus will meet with the ridicule it deserves unless substantiated by documentary evidence. the mere improbability of events contrary to natural laws does not destroy the ethical value of the teachings of the nazarene. anything might have happened in the eerie days of old; the critic must do more than deny the historicity of jesus and the inspiration of the bible. to be convincing he must derive from the scriptures in which christians believe whatever proof can be deduced to unveil the superstition of a redeeming savior. _documentary evidence_ the documents most generally accepted by christians are those collected in the king james version of the bible. the apocrypha and other early manuscripts are unreliable. none of the thirty or more writers who described events around jerusalem in jesus' time gives any account of his teachings. the only life of jesus is found in the four gospels; the numerous biographers of christ have had no other reliable source of information. it is deceptive for the publishers of revised editions of the bible to claim that "original manuscripts" have been consulted. not one of the original manuscripts is in existence, the earliest extant dating from the fourth century a.d., while the most ancient portion of the new testament in any museum was transcribed in the sixth century. accepting, therefore, the king james version of the new testament as the most reliable source of information, the question arises as to what portion of the chapters therein may be considered authentic. scholars have rejected the entire gospel of john as less reliable than the synoptic gospels; and the sixteenth chapter of mark as an addition after the original papyrus had broken off. modernists, being confronted, in spite of these deletions, with inconsistencies in the gospels of matthew, mark and luke, have assumed the further privilege of rejecting any verses which appear at variance with their beliefs. liberals of this class contend that the supernatural side of jesus may be disregarded and yet that jesus will remain our lord. they reject certain evangelistic passages that conflict with modern thought, but accept other statements by the same authors as authoritative. as the christian churches have not accepted any abbreviation of the bible as a substitute for the king james version, it seems proper for the critic to have recourse to that translation as the most authentic description of the life and teachings of jesus. he is justified, moreover, in considering every word in the supposedly inspired gospels as equally reliable. his only concern should be to interpret each verse as nearly as possible as the original writers intended their words to be understood, allowing for eastern hyperbole and the custom of the times. _retain the good_ in preparing a critical analysis of the character of jesus, it is freely admitted that many of the thoughts attributed to the son of mary are superlatively fine. they will live forever whether the personality of jesus be rejected as a divinity or not. that these beautiful preachments are ignored here is not due to any desire to belittle admirable sentiments or to disparage right living. the loving side of jesus has been emphasized again and again and will be borne in mind by the reader when other less admirable traits are criticized. the intent of this criticism is not to destroy idealism but to assist the spirit of true progress. _christianity must go_ the significance of this investigation lies in the changes that would have to be made in religious thought if it should be found that jesus was not perfect. if jesus was in error concerning conditions of his own time and exhibited no knowledge of our modern problems, his authority will be lessened. searchers after the true way of life will not continue to worship a person whose conception of the physical and spiritual world was erroneous. if jesus made mistakes, he is neither the son of god nor an infallible man. so long as people feel compelled to worship what has been proved imperfect, or to evade important doctrines of their creeds for fear of losing faith in old traditions, their minds will not be receptive to changes in social conditions that require abandonment of established customs. christians are imbued with a psychology derived from a completed revelation. the firmer their belief in jesus, the greater their resistance to new ideas. catholics are more reluctant to join progressive movements than modernists and modernists than evolutionists. religious people are apt to be afraid of the new world; they doubt the possibility of eliminating war, poverty and injustice--customs as deeply rooted in the social world as belief in jesus is in the religious world. if the chief reactionary bulwark of the past is abandoned, there will be greater possibility of accepting new revelations. what would happen if christians should discover that their leader was not an incomparable guide? absolutely nothing at first. those accustomed to lead a moral life would continue to do so. members of christian churches are the very people who most wish to do what is right. they will not lose their character because jesus has lost his fictitious divinity. on the contrary, they will search for the most elevating principles to substitute for the personality that has been found deficient. it is difficult for people to be superior to their gods. these same church-going individuals, when freed from the fetters of antiquated supernaturalism, will gradually learn to serve mankind with the same devotion they now render to a misunderstood god. they will no longer be limited by the defects of their paragon in their efforts to make the most of life. they will seek to solve modern problems in a rational way instead of deciding such matters as birth control, divorce, war and prohibition by reference to the scriptures, as they do now. for the first time they will make their decisions according to the best knowledge obtainable today. jesus was in advance of his time. he declared that such revengeful theories as an eye for an eye must be supplanted by forgiveness. but as the world has evolved, jesus has stood still. his teachings, superior as they were to those of the ancient israelites, are now found to be inferior to the best ethics culled from the wisdom of the ages, brought down to date. it is heartening to feel that we can appropriate the superlative principles of all time instead of worshipping a deified personality who was limited to the best that men of his own generation could conceive. this examination of the life and character of jesus will be based upon the accounts in the new testament. each passage will be construed as appears to the writer to have been originally intended. the reader may substitute his own interpretation, but should in no instance pass lightly over a situation as immaterial. every word or action of jesus is an important link in the chain of his divinity, or of his exalted position as a moral guide. each argument should be met by acceptance or rejection, never with indifference. no reader of the following pages should ever say, "what difference does it make?" everything concerning jesus is of vast consequence in determining whether he is or is not a divine savior, or a perfect guide. footnotes: [ ] chron. xxi. antiquated theology the first event in the life of jesus, the gospel story of his birth, is now considered unauthentic by many scholars and some theologians. the birth of a virgin, the visitation of an angel, the star in the east are phenomena contrary to natural laws and rest on insufficient authority for acceptance as credible. the probabilities are against exceptions in the laws of the universe. _the virgin birth_ the original evidence for the virgin birth is found only in the gospels of matthew and luke, two unknown historians, and both these evangelists implicitly deny their own tale when they trace the descent of jesus from david through joseph.[ ] the slaughter of the children by herod, in fear of jesus as a rival, probably never took place. mark, luke and john do not mention it; josephus, who dwelt on the crimes of herod, knew nothing of this massacre. according to luke, mary and joseph took jesus to jerusalem openly soon after the supposed decree.[ ] there is dispute as to whether jesus was born in bethlehem or nazareth, and the date of his birth has been placed anywhere from b.c. to a.d. matthew says that jesus was born "in the days of herod", while luke says it was "when cyrenius was governor of syria." herod died in b.c., while cyrenius did not become governor of syria until a.d. the romantic story of the christ-child is not corroborated by the historians of the time and is in opposition to the theory of evolution by natural processes. and yet it is still one of the main sources of jesus' fame, being repeated at christmas-tide in the churches, thus connecting jesus with god in a superhuman manner. the consensus of scholarship is in practical agreement that the theory of the virgin birth as a link between jesus and god is a mistake; but whose mistake was it? jesus never referred to his miraculous birth. if he was merely a man and never heard of the rumor about his conception, he was not to blame for the spread of this misleading story throughout christendom. while jesus did not refer to his divine paternity in a physical sense, he did endeavor to convince his hearers that he was more directly connected with god than other men. "i and my father are one."[ ] "no man knoweth the son but the father; neither knoweth any man the father, save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him."[ ] jesus thus proclaimed himself identical with the lord god of the old testament who called himself jehovah. this is entirely in keeping with the whole christian theory, for the _raison d'être_ of jesus derived from the act of god soon after the creation. adam and eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which god had commanded them not to touch, and for this disobedience, this fall of man from grace, god cursed mankind. jesus came to earth to save man from the wrath of almighty god. but this claim of jesus to oneness with god renders him liable to censure for the acts of jehovah which represented a standard of ethics inferior to that preached by the son of god. according to the scriptures, which anyone may freely search, god advised or countenanced deception[ ]; stealing[ ], selfishness[ ], conquest by force[ ], indiscriminate slaughter[ ], murder[ ], cannibalism[ ], killing of witches[ ], slavery[ ], capital punishment for rebellious sons or for seeking false gods[ ], sacrifices of animals[ ] and other acts representing the concepts of primitive men.[ ] while jesus could read[ ] and was familiar with the scriptures, it is possible that he was not acquainted with the system of dictatorship formerly employed by his father. occasionally jesus denounced the ethics of "them of old time", but he always referred to his father as perfect. the dilemma is that jesus must be condemned either for claiming identity with jehovah (to whom he was really superior), or for accepting with only slight improvements the tyranny of god as described in the bible, the word of god. of course if the bible is not the word of god, the whole system of christian theology falls to the ground. _the jewish messiah_ jesus claimed to be the messiah expected by the jews. "and the high priest answered and said unto him, i adjure thee by the living god, that thou tell us whether thou be the christ, the son of god. jesus saith unto him, thou hast said."[ ] "again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, art thou the christ, the son of the blessed? and jesus said, i am."[ ] "then said they all, art thou then the son of god? and he said unto them, ye say that i am."[ ] "the woman saith unto him, i know that messias cometh, which is called christ: when he is come he will tell us all things. jesus saith unto her, i that speak unto thee am he."[ ] these acknowledgments by jesus that he was the messiah are important, for if he claimed divinity when he was merely mortal, either under false pretences or being self-deceived, he made a mistake of the most serious character. his claim was not recognized by his own people, and many of his followers today deny that he was the jewish messiah. jesus said that he came from god to save the jews. either he was truly the predicted messiah or he made an inexcusable error. in this as in other instances to be cited, fundamentalists will not admit any mistake, for they believe in the supernatural events connected with the son of god. but modernists, who reject the anointed christ while clinging to the human jesus, may be at a loss to reconcile jesus' claim to messiahship with their rejection of his divinity. jesus stressed his mission to save the world, saying "for god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."[ ] _eternal damnation_ whether jesus was mistaken or not in his estimate of his close relationship with god is for each person to decide; but his theory of the disasters that would follow unbelief in his divinity leads to serious difficulties if accepted literally. for not only was jesus in error when he insisted that salvation depended upon belief, he was also reconciled to eternal suffering for unbelievers. note some of his expressions: "if ye believe not that i am he, ye shall die in your sins."[ ] "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ... and these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."[ ] "whosoever shall blaspheme against the holy ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."[ ] "except ye repent ye shall perish."[ ] "if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched."[ ] "how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"[ ] "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned."[ ] it is evident from these quotations that jesus not only preached belief in his divinity as essential to salvation, but endeavored to terrify people into belief by threats of eternal torment. jesus was responsible for the theological conception of a fiery hell. if he was mistaken, if there never was a place of torment for the wicked after death, is it not an act of constructive criticism to expose the person most responsible for the false doctrine that has caused so much fear and mental suffering? must we not deplore this mistake of jesus and recast our entire opinion of him as a religious teacher? are we not justified in stating positively that jesus made a mistake when he taught a physical hell and condemned people to spend eternity in torment for the doubtful sin of disbelief? _the atonement_ the doctrine of the atonement was taught by jesus. "for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."[ ] whether this sacrifice of the innocent jesus to save sinful man was ordered by god or was voluntary on the part of jesus, it represents a theory of reprieve from punishment long since abandoned as unethical. if sin must be punished, there is no justice in relieving the sinner and placing the burden upon the righteous. moreover, the atonement appears to have been ineffective, for in spite of the sacrifice that jesus made, few were to be saved under his scheme of salvation. "many are called but few are chosen."[ ] "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."[ ] "strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, i say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."[ ] if the theory of atonement for sin by the sacrifice of the innocent was not ethical and if jesus taught that doctrine, he was in error, was he not? the sacrifice of jesus was not so great as often made by men. jesus was sustained with the thought that he was saving the world; his physical suffering was not long continued; on the night of his crucifixion he was in paradise.[ ] he endured a few hours of pain compared to weeks of suffering by wounded soldiers, or years spent in prison by the proponents of an ideal. jesus not only claimed the power to remit sins but also said to his disciples: "whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained."[ ] is that true? surely it is proper to ask that blunt question. here is a definite statement concerning the power of certain men to remit sins. if those men did not have the power deputed to them, must we not doubt the accuracy of jesus? jesus made a distinction between himself and the comforter: "it is expedient for you that i go away: for if i go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if i depart i will send him unto you ... and i will pray the father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever."[ ] it must surprise some christians that the comforter could not be present at the same time with jesus. _angels and devils_ jesus believed in angels and devils, often referring to these imaginary supernatural beings as if they existed. "thinkest thou that i cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?"[ ] "so shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth."[ ] the devils were among the first to recognize christ's divinity: "what have we to do with thee, jesus, thou son of god?"[ ] "let us alone, thou jesus of nazareth; art thou come to destroy us? i know thee, who thou art, the holy one of god."[ ] "and unclean spirits when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, thou art the son of god."[ ] jesus believed in demoniacal possession, casting out devils on several occasions. jesus frequently referred to heaven as a place above the earth: "and then shall they see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory."[ ] "and ye shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."[ ] "verily, verily, i say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man."[ ] when jesus was transfigured and talked with moses and elias, he charged his disciples, saying, "tell the vision to no man, until the son of man be risen again from the dead."[ ] according to the creeds based upon the bible, jesus rose from the dead, descended into hell, and ascended bodily into heaven. according to the gospels he stilled the storm, walked on the water and told peter to do so and to find money in a fish's mouth and catch a large draught of fishes. these and other miracles connected jesus with god and were part of his theology. every fair-minded person should re-read the gospels and refresh his memory regarding the theology of jesus. then a decision must be reached as to the correctness of the views expressed. either conditions on earth were different in the first century from those of the twentieth, or jesus was mistaken in his conception of god, heaven, hell, angels, devils and himself. footnotes: [ ] matt. i; luke iii. [ ] luke ii, . [ ] john x, . [ ] matt. xi, . [ ] ezek. xiv, ; num. xiv, - . [ ] ex. iii, - . [ ] deut. xiv, . [ ] num. xxxi et al. [ ] ex. xxxii, . [ ] deut. vii, et al. [ ] jer. xix, et al. [ ] ex. xxii, . [ ] lev. xxv, - . [ ] deut. xxi, - ; xiii, - . [ ] lev. i, - . [ ] see the old testament. [ ] luke iv, . [ ] matt. xxvi, - . [ ] mark xv, - . [ ] luke xxii, . [ ] john iv, - . [ ] john iii, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] matt. xxv, - . [ ] mark iii, . [ ] luke xiii, . [ ] mark ix, . [ ] matt. xxiii, . [ ] mark xvi, . [ ] matt. xxvi, . [ ] matt. xxii, . [ ] matt. vii, . [ ] luke xiii, . [ ] luke xxiii, . [ ] john xx, . [ ] john xiv, . [ ] matt. xxvi, . [ ] matt. xiii, . [ ] matt. viii, . [ ] luke iv, . [ ] mark iii, . [ ] mark xiii, . [ ] mark xiv, . [ ] john i, . [ ] matt. xvii, . false impressions jesus not only held mistaken ideas about theology, as anyone but a fundamentalist must admit, but he often gave impressions about earthly affairs that were unreliable to say the least. occasionally his statements were actual misrepresentations of fact. _jonah and the whale_ "for as jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."[ ] evidently jesus believed the story of jonah and the whale, as well as the tale of noah's ark[ ] both of which are now generally discredited. moreover, his prophecy regarding his entombment was inaccurate, for he was only two nights and one day in the heart of the earth, from friday night to sunday morning. _end of the world_ jesus was decidedly mistaken in his theory of the approaching end of the world. "repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[ ] "ye shall not have gone over the cities of israel, till the son of man be come."[ ] "there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom."[ ] "and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come ... verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."[ ] "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of god is at hand."[ ] "so ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. verily i say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done."[ ] "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."[ ] jesus was confident that the day of judgment was coming in the first century, but it has not come yet, nineteen hundred years later. this erroneous belief in the imminent end of the world had an important bearing upon his entire philosophy; for if the end of the world was so near it was far more important to prepare for life hereafter than to be concerned over mundane affairs. may we not view with doubt any of jesus' teachings that depended upon his mistaken conception of the duration of the world? _miracles_ jesus is reported to have fed , people with five loaves and two fishes, and again , with seven loaves and a few small fishes. he walked on the water, calmed the seas, raised three persons from the dead and performed other miracles contrary to natural laws. these wondrous acts were depended upon by him to convince the people that he was the expected messiah: "go and shew john again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."[ ] jesus assured his disciples that they too would be able to perform miracles: "and these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."[ ] "he that believeth on me, the works that i do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do."[ ] jesus set great store by these marvels that only magicians attempt nowadays. ministers of the apostolic succession cannot cast out devils or take up serpents, and they are affected by deadly drinks the same as others. jesus had a primitive idea of the value of such magic. either he sought to deceive the gullible, or, as is more likely, was himself overcredulous. it is important to remember that jesus stressed the value of enchantment and advised his successors to conjure in his name. if the miraculous had not been connected with the name of jesus, it is probable that he never would have been heard of. his ethical teachings alone would not have won for him the exalted position that has come from the stories of his miraculous birth, life and ascension. in other words, his fame rests upon the supernatural side of his life that is now discredited by many of his followers. _eternal life_ the remarks of jesus on the subject of death were not accurate. "if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."[ ] "whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."[ ] apparently jesus referred to natural death, in which case he was utterly mistaken; but if he meant that believers in him should live forever in heaven, even so he gave a false impression; for there is no evidence that life after death is assured to christians more than to others. unbelievers were also to have eternal life, though in torment. _raising lazarus_ jesus took advantage of opportunities, even of death, to create dramatic effects. the eleventh chapter of john shows that when lazarus was reported ill, jesus said, "this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of god, that the son of god might be glorified thereby." so jesus let lazarus, one of the believers whom he loved, die[ ] in order that he might have the triumph of raising him from the dead. "then said jesus unto them plainly, lazarus is dead. and i am glad for your sakes that i was not there, to the intent ye may believe." the confusion between earthly death and loss of eternal life was shown in the remark of jesus to martha: "i am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." this might be construed to mean that believers should have eternal life hereafter, but jesus evidently had reference to life on earth for he proceeded to raise lazarus from the dead and cause him to live again on earth with his sisters. when martha reminded jesus that lazarus had been dead four days, jesus replied, "said i not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of god?" but jesus himself had doubts of his ability to bring back lazarus to life, as shown by his spontaneous prayer of thanks: "father, i thank thee that thou hast heard me." then he revealed again his desire to dramatize the occasion, saying, "and i knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by i said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." "then many of the jews which came to mary, and had seen the things which jesus did, believed on him." do the followers of jesus, who claim that he made no mistakes, believe on him? if so, they must believe that he raised lazarus from the dead as he claimed to have done. do they believe that they can also raise people from the dead? jesus so assured them when he promised that believers could do greater works than he performed. no, jesus gave a false impression of his power. _god's protection_ jesus continued his deception of the world by promising protection that has never been accorded. "are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows."[ ] these sayings may properly be taken as symbolical or allegorical; but the evident intention was to assure his followers that god would protect them in their daily life. safety was promised for believers, a safety that has been lacking for everyone. there is no evidence that god does protect believers any more than unbelievers. when the titanic went down, those who perished were not solely the wicked persons; there was no distinction in the terrible disaster between believers and unbelievers. jesus created in the minds of his hearers and his followers the idea that god was watching each individual to save him from danger, but this, unfortunately, is not a fact. it sounds comforting; it makes people feel nearer to god; but experience proves that no such close relationship exists. jesus gave a false impression of god's loving care for men. _belief in prayer_ modern religious people may still consistently believe in prayer as a form of inward aspiration, but it is difficult to take literally the assurance given by jesus of practical accomplishments by means of prayer in his name. jesus did not confine himself to promising spiritual results from prayer, but distinctly gave it to be understood that the physical world would respond to petitions to jehovah. "again i say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven."[ ] "if ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."[ ] "what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."[ ] "if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto you."[ ] these promises have not been fulfilled. bishops, priests and deacons with strong faith have been unable to obtain, by means of the most sincere prayer, results similar to those indicated. they have followed jesus in vain. no man living dare put his faith to the test by a public demonstration of prayer for physical changes. christian prayers for rain are conventional, not being offered with confidence that rain will follow. jesus has misled us. footnotes: [ ] matt. xii, . [ ] luke xvii, ; matt. xxv, . [ ] matt. iv, . [ ] matt. x, . [ ] matt. xvi, ; mark ix, . [ ] matt. xxiv, - ; luke xxi, . [ ] mark i, . [ ] mark xiii, - . [ ] john v, - . [ ] matt. xi, - . [ ] mark xvi, - . [ ] john xiv, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john xi, . [ ] john xi, . [ ] matt. x, - . [ ] matt. xviii, . [ ] matt. xxi, - . [ ] mark xi, . [ ] matt. xvii, . obscure teachings many of the sayings of jesus lacked clarity. various interpretations have been put upon them by scholars of distinction. no one is sure what was meant. according to the gospels, jesus was descended from david, but jesus mystified his hearers on this descent, saying: "if david then call him lord, how is he his son?"[ ] _witnesses and judge_ on the subject of witnesses there is great confusion. "if i bear witness of myself, my witness is not true."[ ] "though i bear record of myself, yet my record is true."[ ] "it is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. i am one that bear witness of myself, and the father that sent me beareth witness of me."[ ] "i and my father are one."[ ] "my father is greater than i."[ ] this and the following instruction regarding judicial procedure are far from clear. jesus acknowledged the principle of law requiring more than one witness but said that in his case the only other witness necessary was his father, although he and his father were one. jesus is supposed to be the judge of the world, but his statement of the case leaves the issue ambiguous. "for the father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the son."[ ] "i judge no man. and yet if i judge, my judgment is true."[ ] "and if any man hear my words, and believe not, i judge him not: for i came not to judge the world, but to save the world."[ ] "for judgment i am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind."[ ] the quality of reasoning employed in these instances has naturally led to theological quibbling. if jesus can argue in that fashion, so can his followers, at the expense of intellectual honesty. _cannibalism_ the jews could not understand what jesus meant when he said: "except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life."[ ] _religion only for children_ nor are these sayings clear: "i thank thee, o father, lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."[ ] "whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of god as a little child, he shall not enter therein."[ ] this train of thought implies that education is of no importance where belief is concerned. _difficult or easy?_ after enumerating the many hardships that must be endured by his followers, jesus contradicted himself by saying, "for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."[ ] _charity_ there are apparent contradictions in his instructions regarding charity: "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven."[ ] "take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven."[ ] _the scriptures upheld_ jesus reverenced the hebrew old testament. "think not that i am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: i am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. for verily i say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."[ ] and yet jesus was the reformer, overthrowing ancient customs, renouncing the old principle of a tooth for a tooth, improving upon the mosaic law. he was inconsistent. _illogical_ the logic of jesus is often difficult to follow. "and when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because i go to my father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."[ ] jesus admitted his obscurity: "these things have i spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when i shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but i shall shew you plainly of the father."[ ] that time has never come. _parables deceptive_ jesus explained his obscurity in this way: "unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of god: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand."[ ] "but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."[ ] in other words, jesus, who said he came to save the world, concealed his meaning for fear some of his hearers should be converted and their sins be forgiven--which is exactly what he sought to bring about. obscurity in a teacher is a great defect, especially when he glories in his ambiguity. if any christians wish that jesus had been more clear, then jesus does not appear perfect to them, and they should admit his imperfections. footnotes: [ ] matt. xxii, - . [ ] john v, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john viii, - . [ ] john x, . [ ] john xiv, . [ ] john v, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john xii, . [ ] john x, . [ ] john vi, - . [ ] matt. xi, . [ ] mark x, . [ ] matt. xi, . [ ] matt. v, . [ ] matt. vi, . [ ] matt. v, - . [ ] john xvi, - . [ ] john xvi, . [ ] luke viii, . [ ] mark iv, - . deficient instructions in a number of instances the teachings of jesus are so incomplete, or so inappropriate, as to render no assistance in meeting similar situations in modern life. either his meaning is not clear, or his instructions are too primitive to be applicable to our civilization. _labor_ the relation between employer and employee is one that requires practical guidance. let us see what information jesus gave on this important subject. the parable of the laborers[ ] relates that an employer hired men to work in his vineyard for twelve hours for a penny, and that he paid the same wage to other workers who toiled only nine, six, three and one hour. when those who had worked longest resented this treatment, as modern strikers would, the employer answered, apparently with jesus' approval: "friend, i do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? take that thine is, and go thy way: i will give unto this last, even as unto thee. is it not lawful for me to do what i will with mine own? is thine eye evil, because i am good? so the last shall be first, and the first last." this parable may be a comfort to autocratic employers, sustaining them in their determination to dominate labor, but the principles enunciated are lacking in social vision. equal pay for unequal work is approved, and the employer is vindicated in regulating wages and hours as he sees fit without regard for justice or the needs of the workers. in the manner of modern employers, the "goodman" calls his worker "friend" but treats him with contempt. jesus taught that the workers were wrong in demanding justice, that the employer was justified in acting erratically, as the money paid was his. he presented the issues between capital and labor and sided with capital. he stated the fact that the first shall be last, but said nothing to remedy that unfortunate situation. he did not explain how workers could obtain proper compensation for their labor. jesus assumed a fair attitude when he said, "the labourer is worthy of his hire", and, "it is enough for the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as his lord", but he continued with doubtful logic: "if they have called the master of the house beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household", implying that if an employer is worldly-minded his servants will be even worse. little respect is shown for employees in the remark, "the hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."[ ] probably in those days as now many an employee stuck to his post nobly to do his duty. the meaning is obscure in his other comment upon an employer who told his tired servant to serve his master first, ending with the enigma, "we are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do."[ ] _usury_ in the parable of the talents the servant who did not put his money out at usury to make profits was condemned: "and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."[ ] punishment was to be severe in jesus' program; the disobedient servant "shall be beaten with many stripes." jesus did not advise leniency in such instances except that "he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."[ ] in his estimation the servant was a slave to be punished corporeally by his master, even if ignorant of his wrong-doing. a dr. taylor, former yale college theologian, is reported to have said: "i have no doubt that if jesus christ were now on earth he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder." a southern divine in could well maintain that slavery was approved in both old and new testaments, but no christian would now impute slaveholding to jesus. the standard of human relationships has improved since slaveholding days in america. the modern attitude toward servants, though by no means perfect, is superior to the relationships between master and servants accepted by jesus. slavery was the custom of the times and jesus did not rise above it. in the parable of the unmerciful servant[ ] jesus taught the duty of forgiveness. he rightly rebuked the servant who oppressed his subordinates after being well treated by his lord. but the punishment suggested by jesus for the abominable conduct was extremely harsh: "and his lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." torture for criminals was thus taught by jesus. jesus, apprenticed to his father in his youth, never did any practical work so far as we know. he lived on the charity of others, setting an example that would bring trouble to anyone who followed in his train. if anything, he was an agitator, a peripatetic propagandist, teaching what he believed right but not working to support himself and therefore not being a good example for the workaday world today. _economics_ nothing in the teachings of jesus was more definite than his denunciation of riches. "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth ... a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven ... it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god ... the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments ... woe unto you that are rich." these strictures upon the rich appear somewhat severe, and jesus went much farther, condemning even ordinary thrift and precaution.[ ] according to acts ii, - and iv, , "all that believed were together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need ... neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." it is to be presumed that the disciples practiced this communism at the instruction of jesus. if jesus approved of communism was he right or wrong? "blessed be ye poor."[ ] poverty is not a blessing but a curse. jesus taught the theory that the poor would be rich hereafter while the rich would be in hell. _punishment for debts_ we have seen that jesus expected an unjust servant to be tormented until he paid in full. there are also other evidences that he approved of imprisonment for debt. "agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. verily i say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."[ ] a legislator who patterned his life after jesus would be justified in enacting laws imprisoning for debt and scourging for misdemeanors. some may say that the sentiments expressed by jesus were not mistakes but merely presented the customs of his day. possibly he did not intend to advise all that he seemed to approve; but if jesus was a practical and prophetic guide he should have made it clear that he did not sanction the actions he apparently commended. in the parable of the pounds the nobleman, seemingly with the approval of jesus, denounced the servant as wicked who did not put his lord's money in the bank to draw interest.[ ] and in the parable of the talents the lord rewarded those who had made per cent profit through speculation.[ ] another contradiction of his theory of the blessedness of poverty was his promise that those who followed him "shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."[ ] finally, jesus stated the unfortunate truth, "whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that he hath."[ ] if jesus did not approve of that worldly method of distribution, he could have denounced its injustice instead of leaving the comment as if it expressed his own policy. _healing_ many christians value jesus most for his healing powers, but jesus looked upon disease almost as he did upon demoniacal possession, as something evil that could be cast out. "but that ye may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house."[ ] there was confusion in his mind between sin and sickness. jesus healed leprosy and palsy by touching the sick person; he healed the servant of the centurion by absent treatment, and restored sight by spitting on the eyes[ ] or anointing them with clay made with spittle[ ], or by requiring faith.[ ] he healed a withered hand, cured impediments in speech and deafness, all without medical applications, even replacing an ear severed by a sword.[ ] christian scientists practice the same methods with confidence in success, but medical and surgical treatment are the most reliable means of effecting cures, disappointing as they are. if jesus could cure disease, it was remiss of him not to instruct men definitely in his methods so that the suffering from illness that has afflicted the world could have been averted. jesus did not isolate the germ of leprosy, or establish any practicable method of preventing disease. he has been of less value to the world as a healer than pasteur, lister, koch, or walter reed. some christians will say that jesus did not tell us how to avoid illness because man needs to be chastened by pain. if that is correct, if pain and disease are sent by god and are consciously permitted by jesus, sick people should be allowed to suffer instead of trying to heal them. _peace_ jesus has been called the prince of peace, but the weight of his testimony is not on the side of absolute pacifism. with his view of rendering unto caesar the things that are caesar's, it is possible that he would have advised young men to obey the state and enlist, or accept the draft, whenever their country called. on november , , rev. dr. t. andrew caraker said at a banquet of the american legion in baltimore that if jesus christ had lived in he would have been the first to volunteer in the american army, the first to wear a gas mask, shoulder a rifle and enter the trenches. other ministers derive from the same gospels the belief that jesus would not have stabbed germans with a bayonet. nor would jesus have advised others to fight if he had been unwilling to fight himself. most of the sayings of jesus regarding violence or non-resistance were intended to apply chiefly to personal relationships; he said little of international strife. what he did say showed placid acceptance of the war system: "and ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[ ] "and when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[ ] "but when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. then said he unto them, nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[ ] these verses have a more direct bearing on war as we now know it than any of his other sayings. they show his belief in the inevitability of war. apparently he did not feel himself competent to counteract general mass militarism. he offered no program for arbitration of international disputes, no substitute for war between nations, no policy of war resistance. when jesus advised non-resistance, saying to his follower, "put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,"[ ] he was merely stating the danger of using violence, not the immorality of employing force. in fact, he commanded his disciples to take the very sword which he later told them to sheathe: "he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one ... and they said, lord, behold, here are two swords. and he said unto them, it is enough."[ ] thus jesus, the supposed non-resistant, prepared his followers with swords. these swords were for defense, and when the time came he repudiated even that use of the weapons, but, nevertheless, he armed his disciples instead of adhering to his principle of non-resistance. he did not set a positive example of disarmament. jesus said: "blessed are the peacemakers ... love your enemies ... have peace one with another ... on earth peace, good will toward men ... peace i leave with you, my peace i give unto you ... these things have i spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace ... resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." other remarks of jesus favored violence: "think not that i am come to send peace on earth: i came not to send peace, but a sword."[ ] "suppose ye that i am come to give peace on earth? i tell you, nay; but rather division."[ ] "but those mine enemies, which would not that i should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."[ ] "my kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that i should not be delivered to the jews."[ ] "when a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."[ ] "and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple."[ ] in determining whether or not jesus was a promoter of peace it is only reasonable to review everything that he said or did relating to the use of violence, giving equal weight to every verse. we cannot accept one statement and reject the others. the conclusion reached must be that jesus was inconsistent in advocating both non-resistance and the use of force. he took diametrically opposed positions, the use of swords and scourges and non-resistance being mutually exclusive. jesus preached non-resistance and at the same time armed his retainers with two swords. he advocated turning the other cheek but did not criticize war. therefore, pacifists and militarists, with their opposite philosophies, should both admit that at times jesus was mistaken. _marriage_ jesus occasionally eulogized marriage: "for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh ... what therefore god hath joined together, let not man put asunder."[ ] _celibacy_ on other occasions he made remarks which indicated his preference for celibacy as the higher state, the one he adopted for himself. "in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of god in heaven."[ ] "the children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage."[ ] "i say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."[ ] "there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. he that is able to receive it, let him receive it."[ ] "there is no man that hath left ... wife, or children for the kingdom of god's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."[ ] jesus referred to the absence of marriage in heaven, the ideal realm. paul's testimony adds to the evidence that jesus considered celibacy preferable to any form of sex expression, even marriage. _adultery_ on the other hand, jesus was tolerant of sex offenses. he chatted in a friendly manner with the woman of samaria, saying: "thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband."[ ] and about the woman taken in adultery he said: "he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her ... neither do i condemn thee: go and sin no more."[ ] "the harlots go into the kingdom of god before you."[ ] _divorce_ jesus sanctioned divorce. his followers are so annoyed at this fact that they frequently quote the verse on the subject with the offensive clause omitted. the text reads: "it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but i say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."[ ] again in matthew xix, , he makes the same exception. it is evident, therefore, that jesus permitted divorce for one cause. if the wife was unfaithful the husband could divorce her, but otherwise no matter how unhappy the couple might be, they must remain married. the admirable leniency of jesus toward sex offenders, and his permission to divorce, must seem like mistakes to churchmen who consider extramarital sex relations the unforgivable sin. and everyone must see the danger of having our judges adopt as a principle of justice the dismissal of offenders on the ground that the prosecutors have also sinned. a christian girl of today would not be encouraged by the most zealous religious parents to marry a man exactly like jesus. _faulty judgment_ jesus selected judas to be the treasurer of the apostles' joint funds, but later admitted his error, saying: "have i not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? he spake of judas iscariot the son of simon: for it was he that should betray him, being one of the twelve."[ ] jesus erroneously supposed that "salvation is of the jews."[ ] "go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of israel."[ ] a nationalistic and partial spirit is expressed in these sentences, a spirit that has been followed to the extent that jesus would not be permitted to enter america if he applied for a visa. _unconvincing_ jesus failed in his mission to save the world. he made the supreme sacrifice in vain. his method of proving his divinity did not convince his hearers: "but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him."[ ] "for neither did his brethren believe in him."[ ] after he had healed many, cast out unclean spirits and appointed his twelve apostles to do likewise, his friends "went out to lay hold on him: for they said, he is beside himself."[ ] jesus admitted his impotence as a human being when he said, "i can of mine own self do nothing."[ ] even with the assistance of his father he did not accomplish what he set out to do. _prohibition_ the miracle of turning water into wine, providing one hundred gallons of wine after the people at the party had "well drunk", must appear to prohibitionists like a mistake on the part of jesus. many methodists and baptists would have preferred to have him turn the wine into water; yet they will not admit that jesus made a mistake. _lack of experience_ so far as the gospels relate, jesus never had any experience with three of the chief difficulties of human life--sex, earning a living and illness. he was therefore less able to explain those relationships than one who has struggled through in the customary manner of mankind. to take the inexperienced jesus as our guide in practical living would be like a traveller who was planning a trip over perilous mountains and engaged as a guide a man who had never crossed the mountains. as jesus believed that the end of the world was approaching, and as he revealed no information about the future, his teachings should be taken as applying solely to his own time. a divinity living now would preach far differently from the inadequate doctrines of jesus. * * * * * the abandonment of reliance upon a jesus who has not changed in nineteen hundred years, in favor of an evolutionary philosophy that requires constant change, leads to a new conception of the world and its possibilities for man. a person who has thought himself out of antiquated theology may be expected to have an open mind towards the betterment of human customs. every improvement in human relationships originates secularly and is adopted by the church only after a bitter struggle. faith in jesus is a reactionary force. the christian opposes change in the creations of god; the evolutionist seeks to alter every unsatisfactory condition. the evolutionist is more responsive than the orthodox christian to proposals for promoting the happiness of the human race. many liberals have abandoned conservatism because they saw the hypocrisy in christianity. footnotes: [ ] matt. xx, - . [ ] john x, . [ ] luke xvii, . [ ] matt. xxv, . [ ] luke xii, - . [ ] matt. xviii, - . [ ] matt. vi, - , discussed under the sermon on the mount. [ ] luke vi, . [ ] matt. v, - . [ ] luke xix, . [ ] matt. xxv, . [ ] mark x, . [ ] matt. xiii, . [ ] matt. ix, . [ ] mark viii, . [ ] john ix, . [ ] mark x, . [ ] luke xxii, . [ ] matt. xxiv, - . [ ] mark xiii, - . [ ] luke xxi, - . [ ] matt. xxvi, . [ ] luke xxii, - . [ ] matt. x, . [ ] luke xii, . [ ] luke xix, . [ ] john xviii, . [ ] luke xi, - . [ ] john ii, . [ ] matt. xix, - . [ ] matt. xxii, . [ ] luke xx, - . [ ] matt. v, . [ ] matt. xix, . [ ] luke xviii, - . [ ] john iv, . [ ] john viii, - . [ ] matt. xxi, . [ ] matt. v, - . [ ] john vi, - . [ ] john iv, . [ ] matt. x, - . [ ] john xii, . [ ] john vii, . [ ] mark iii, . [ ] john v, . an inferior prototype orthodox christians accept both old and new testaments as authority for their actions, whereas modernists are not much concerned with the commands of jehovah but maintain that jesus is the pattern for their lives. religious liberals feel that the troubles of the world come largely from failure to follow the teachings of the nazarene. they look upon him as the perfect example of what a man should be. in their opinion, if everyone would act as jesus did all would be well. on december , , dr. henry van dyke preached at the brick presbyterian church, new york city, that the way to end the financial depression was to act as jesus would: "we can judge only by what he did and said in the first century, an age not so different from our own, an age of unsettlement, violence, drunkenness and license. christ would tell us not to yield to panic.... christ would not tell us to join any political party or social group...." such a sermon sounds encouraging but, as a matter of fact, jesus has not shown any of his ministers how to end the depression. to trust him for guidance in our modern world is to pin faith on an incompetent instructor. we can learn how to end the depression by examining the records of our own time and by correcting the errors that have been made. it is not safe to rely upon a person who had no knowledge of america's practical needs and whose acts and advice regarding worldly affairs in jerusalem fell short of the best ethical values. in this treatise it has been shown that jesus made mistakes. every instance cited may not appeal to all readers as worthy of criticism, but there can be no doubt in the mind of any honest thinker that several at least of jesus' ideas were erroneous. his theology was filled with superstitions, his cosmology was that of the pre-scientific era, he expected the end of the world within a generation, his conception of sin was theological rather than ethical, he failed to convince his hearers by his oratory, he exaggerated the results from prayer and he related parables that gave a false sense of values. now we shall turn to his personal character and teachings to see if he was always the meek, gentle soul portrayed by the conventional christ. _cursing nature_ the act in jesus' life that has been most difficult for theologians to explain was the cursing of the fig tree. the tree was created to bear fruit in the summer, but when jesus found it without fruit in the spring, he cursed it so that it withered away. "now in the morning, as he returned into the city, and when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever. and presently the fig tree withered away."[ ] "for the time of figs was not yet."[ ] this episode involves several mistakes--ignorance of the seasons; destruction of a profitable food-producing tree; exhibition of temper when thwarted, and giving false information regarding man's power to effect physical changes by a curse.[ ] if jesus acted unwisely in this one instance and was right in all others, he is neither an infallible god nor a perfect pattern for mankind. _forgiveness_ the conventional jesus is emblematic of supreme kindness and forgiveness, but in reality he was far from lenient in many instances, nor did he advocate forgiveness for certain offenses. "moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee ... tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican."[ ] in the parable of dives and lazarus, abraham was represented as justified in not forgiving the rich man tortured in hell, or even in saving the rich man's brothers as requested by the victim of jesus' policy of punishment. again jesus said: "whosoever shall deny me before men, him will i also deny before my father."[ ] "whosoever shall blaspheme against the holy ghost hath never forgiveness."[ ] all the wicked were condemned by jesus to eternal punishment with no chance of forgiveness. _vituperation_ jesus was often vehement in his language to an extent hardly compatible with gentleness of character. "o generation of vipers! how can ye, being evil, speak good things?"[ ] "woe unto you, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves."[ ] "ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"[ ] "if i should say i know him not, i shall be a liar like unto you."[ ] "all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers."[ ] "ye fools and blind."[ ] this language may have been necessary, in jesus' opinion, to convince his hearers of their sins, but such vituperation does not become a modern ethical teacher. _destruction of property_ two acts of jesus, consistent with his disregard of worldly goods, were destructive in character. "and there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding. so the devils besought him, saying, if thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. and he said unto them, go. and when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters."[ ] jesus did what the devils requested, cruelly killing two thousand inoffensive valuable animals that belonged to other people. "jesus went up to jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables." jesus has been defended for other acts on the ground that he was living in less civilized times than our own, but here he is seen offending both ancient and modern sensibilities. the destruction of the swine and the routing of the merchants were sensational and erratic exhibitions. if reformers today should destroy herds of animals, except to protect public health by due process of law, or overthrow banks, they would be liable to arrest in any city of christendom. therefore the consensus of opinion denies exoneration to jesus for his spasmodic resort to direct action. _egotism_ if jesus was not god, but merely the ideal man, his estimate of himself was excessive. in addition to his remarks already quoted there are many other instances of an exaggerated ego. "if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."[ ] "whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."[ ] "if ye believe not that i am he, ye shall die in your sins."[ ] "i am the light of the world."[ ] "i am the son of god."[ ] "i am the resurrection and the life."[ ] if jesus was correct in claiming that he was the messiah, if he could control the elements and send people to heaven or hell, he was justified in any extreme remarks; but not if he were merely a man. every person is entitled to have as good an opinion of himself as his character and ability warrant, but expressions of his own worth are unseemly even if true, and are inexcusable if exaggerated. as jesus himself said (though this authority is only for believers) testimony about oneself is unreliable. jesus not only claimed to be more than a man, he threatened his hearers with death if they did not agree with him. all of which might be permissible if he were god, but was an egotistical illusion if he was merely human. _lack of courtesy_ jesus did not always exhibit the courtesy one would expect of a gentleman, or even of a nature's nobleman. the first instance of lack of consideration was when he slipped away from his parents, causing them unnecessary anxiety: "son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold thy father and i have sought thee sorrowing."[ ] he had remained behind to study hebrew theology and did not tell his parents, presumably because he thought they would not have permitted the venture. another instance was found in his daily life: "a certain pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. and when the pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. and the lord said unto him, now do ye pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. ye fools ..."[ ] jesus had not only failed to wash as was expected of a guest, but defended his uncleanliness and abused his host. at another time jesus was discourteous to his mother: "and when they wanted wine, the mother of jesus saith unto him, they have no wine. jesus saith unto her, woman, what have i to do with thee?"[ ] jesus was apparently annoyed at his mother's interference, though he followed her suggestion. he did not set a good example for children in addressing their mothers. when the syrophenician woman asked him to help her daughter, "jesus saith unto her, let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. and she answered and said unto him, yes, lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. and he said unto her, for this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter."[ ] jesus practically admitted that he had made a mistake in speaking unkindly to a gentile. her clever answer induced him to change his decision. a physician who called a stranger's child a dog would now be considered brutal even in a free hospital. "and another of his disciples said unto him, lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. but jesus said unto him, follow me; and let the dead bury their dead."[ ] jesus could have allowed the man to attend his father's funeral and follow him later. would not that have set a better precedent? when peter intervened to protect jesus, the latter "turned, and said unto peter, get thee behind me, satan: thou art an offence unto me."[ ] even though jesus was determined to go on with the sacrifice, he could have been more appreciative of his best friend's suggestion. _unethical advice_ when the unjust steward cheated his employer, jesus gave the following remarkable advice: "and the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. and i say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations."[ ] this passage should be read again before deciding whether jesus advised opportunism rather than morality. the words must be taken as they are; no interpretation can be based upon the assumption that jesus was always right and therefore meant something different from what he said. _sermon on the mount_ many christians say that they care nothing for theology; that the sermon on the mount contains all that is necessary for a religious life, being a perfect system of ethics. the sermon on the mount does contain many admirable principles, but also some that are inferior to present standards. few of the people who praise this sermon would think it proper to abide by all the teachings therein. christian parents do not wish their children to follow either the letter or the spirit of this famous preachment. it begins in the fifth chapter of matthew. "blessed are the poor in spirit." is it better to be poor in spirit than rich and eager in spirit? being poor in spirit is to be faint of heart. this is bad advice, is it not? "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." this means that those who mourn on earth will be comforted in heaven; but now that life on earth has assumed greater importance, so far as our daily conduct is concerned, than life in heaven, the philosophy of gloom is unfortunate. jesus preached acceptance of unhappiness as the common lot of man; he should not therefore be credited with providing happiness on earth. his urge to rejoice was usually in anticipation of good things to come in the next world. he preached sorrow for all here rather than the greater happiness for the greater number. "there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. all these are the beginning of sorrows. then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake ... and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."[ ] "blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh."[ ] the beatitude, "blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" is of doubtful accuracy or value. the commands to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand may not have been intended literally, although it does appear as if jesus referred to the physical body, and men have often so interpreted these doubtful instructions. jesus said that "whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery", which is no longer true. those who permit remarriage after divorce should admit an error on jesus' part. "but i say unto you, that ye resist not evil." this instruction should be reversed, should it not? evil should be resisted in every possible way that does not involve evil in itself. what modern ethical teacher will say that evil should not be resisted, or that this advice of jesus was perfection? if his instruction was intended to refer to physical resistance, then no righteous person should fight in any war, no police should be delegated to arrest criminals. if the phrase has merely a spiritual meaning, it is certainly unsound advice, for evil should be overcome by good. a fanatical attitude towards the law was recommended when jesus said: "if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." extreme generosity and non-resistance are taught, but the illustration was not well thought out, for if the man had already won his suit and taken the coat, it is evident that the owner of the coat had put up a legal fight instead of giving away his coat and cloak as jesus implies he should. yielding more than a legal opponent wins in court is not compatible with defending the suit, nor is it a principle that would meet the approval of most of jesus' followers today. "be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect." if jesus referred to jehovah as his father in heaven, the standard of perfection advocated was very low, for jehovah was, as thomas jefferson put it, "cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." the lord's prayer is not the simple, clear, devotional petition that is usually supposed. take it literally, as was undoubtedly intended, and its irrelevance to actual life is at once apparent. "our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come. thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." this is a proper invocation only if there is a heaven in which god's will is done. none such has been discovered. "give us this day our daily bread" indicates that god would not give our daily sustenance without being asked, whereas there is no apparent distinction in actual living between those who pray for bread and those who do not. "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" intimates that divine forgiveness is not to be superior to that of men. "and lead us not into temptation"--as if god were anxious to lead us there and would be deterred by our prayer. it may seem like petty cavil to criticize the prayer that has been acclaimed for many centuries as ideal, but, seriously, what valuable principle for guidance through life does the lord's prayer contain? do its requests represent the best modern conception of prayer as an inward aspiration rather than as petitionary? is it not vain repetition to recite it again and again? the general idea of offering prayer in order to obtain various needs presents the difficulty of reconciling the conception of an omnipotent, all-foreseeing god with the contradictory theory of a father who requires prayer before caring for his children, an almighty god who will be turned from his course by human petitions. man can do wonders in the way of conquering nature, but he has not been able to alter natural laws, nor is there any evidence that such laws have been changed at any time in answer to prayer. if the lord's prayer is not essential for man's welfare in the world, we may conclude that jesus over-emphasized its importance. one of the most important portions of the sermon on the mount is the advice regarding worldly possessions. nothing in the teaching of jesus is more definite than his instructions regarding wealth. he strikes an admirable note when he says, "what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? ... a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." this general principle is sadly needed in the modern money-seeking world, but the teachings of jesus on economics go much further, far beyond anything the best people of today are willing to follow. "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on ... take therefore no thought for the morrow."[ ] these commands, taken literally as jesus intended, would lead to infinite trouble. men are obliged to take thought for the morrow; if they do not they will fail to survive. in jesus' plan provision for the earthly future was of no importance because of the imminence of eternal life, but now it is considered one's duty to provide for old age. this mistake of jesus cannot be explained away by saying that jesus was right and that man falls short of the counsel of perfection given by the master. no, there are few indeed who will say that it would be right to shape their financial life as jesus advised. if they do not believe it right to follow his instructions, definite as they are on this subject, they must admit that he was wrong. either thrift is now unrighteous, or jesus is not a dependable guide for modern life. the following instructions have little meaning now except for roman catholics. "but thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret: and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." another portion of the sermon holds out false hopes that cannot be substantiated: "for everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth." is there any virtue in thus deceiving the people regarding the possibilities of prayer? "therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." this is the famous golden rule that has been heralded as one of the most original portions of jesus' teachings. but jesus admitted that he did not first state this rule when he said, "for this is the law and the prophets."[ ] confucius, born in b.c., several times announced the rule, "what you do not like when done to yourself, do not to others." this negative statement is less effective than the jewish rule, but both are admirable regardless of who first formulated them. the golden rule is as valuable coming from the hebrew fathers as if jesus had originated it. the golden rule, however, is not perfect. it is one of the best rules of the ancients, showing the desirability of reciprocity, but it does not demand that our desires be always just, nor does it insure that what we want done to ourselves will always be what others most need. it would be consistent with the golden rule for a convivial man to entertain his prohibition friends at a speakeasy, or for a catholic to take his atheist guests to daily mass. possibly an even better rule than judging others by ourselves would be to do unto others what best pleases them. _inconsistency_ "the son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born."[ ] apparently the arrangement between jehovah and jesus was that jesus should not give himself up as a sacrifice voluntarily but should be betrayed by someone else; and yet, although the betrayal was desired, the man who assisted was to be condemned. the sacrificial plan for salvation was continued to the end in order that "the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled."[ ] the scriptures were jewish, so this is additional proof that jesus, rejected by the jews, considered himself the predicted jewish messiah. while the jews expected a messiah, there is no clear prediction of jesus in the old testament. _fear_ jesus said, "be not afraid of them that kill the body"; but when threatened with bodily injury himself, he was afraid. "then took they up stones to cast at him: but jesus hid himself."[ ] "then the pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. but when jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence."[ ] this avoidance of physical injury may have been due to a desire to postpone his end until the proper time, as indicated by "mine hour is not yet come", but when the time did come, jesus did not bear his approaching death bravely, as socrates did when about to drink the cup of hemlock. jesus was much afraid, "and prayed, saying, father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."[ ] he was resolved to go through with the painful experience at any cost but was much more frightened than many a mortal man, though he had a greater cause to sustain him than martyrs who have suffered uncomplainingly; for he believed that his sacrifice would save the world: "and there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."[ ] after saying, "the hour is come, that the son of man should be glorified ... he that loveth his life shall lose it", he again showed terror: "now is my soul troubled; and what shall i say? father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came i unto this hour."[ ] it is to be noted that god did not answer the prayer of jesus, though jesus had said that god would always answer prayers in his name. jesus recognized his failure to obtain the answer, saying on the cross, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?"[ ] _failure_ many a good man is a failure from a worldly point of view, but failure is not what one would wish to copy. jesus sought to save the world. surely no one looking at the world today can say that he succeeded. his plan of salvation was a failure; it did not work out as jehovah and jesus intended. an ideal teacher is needed now almost as much as two thousand years ago. if the world is gradually improving, as seems probable, it is in spite of the superstitions of the past, not because of them. at one time jesus denied his own perfection, saying: "why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, god."[ ] christian parents who hold jesus up to their children as a paragon would not wish their sons to grow up to be just like jesus. he is not an acceptable prototype. jesus did not provide the knowledge so much needed by man to enable him to shape his course through life. no one knows how to live correctly, how best to meet each situation, what action is suited to the occasion. jesus did not tell us what to do. his sayings are interpreted in many different ways. he failed to predict the needs of the future. jesus did not explain relations between man and wife, nor between employer and employee, nor how to educate children, nor how to preserve health, nor how to make a living, nor how to prevent war, poverty and suffering. jesus gave little practical information, and his spiritual advice was not clearly enough expressed to enable man to apply it to modern conditions. jesus neglected to instruct people how to live. his knowledge of the world was less than that of the average american citizen. footnotes: [ ] matt. xxi, - . [ ] mark xi, . [ ] mark xi, - . [ ] matt. xviii, - . [ ] matt. x, . [ ] mark iii, . [ ] matt. xii, . [ ] matt. xxiii, . [ ] matt. xxiii, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john x, . [ ] matt. xxiii, . [ ] matt. viii, - ; mark v, ; luke viii, - . [ ] luke xiv, . [ ] john xi, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] john x, . [ ] john xi, . [ ] luke ii, . [ ] luke xi, - . [ ] john ii, . [ ] mark vii, - . [ ] matt. viii, - . [ ] matt. xvi, . [ ] luke xvi, - . [ ] matt. xxiv, - . [ ] luke vi, . [ ] matt. vi, - . [ ] matt. vii, . [ ] matt. xxvi, . [ ] matt. xxvi, . [ ] john viii, . [ ] matt. xii, - . [ ] luke xxii, . [ ] luke xxii, . [ ] john xii, - . [ ] mark xv, . [ ] matt. xix, . conclusion the historicity of jesus has been discussed in many books and pamphlets. whether jesus lived or not depends upon what is meant by that phrase. if one is satisfied that there was a peripatetic philosopher named jesus who was the son of a woman named mary and who lived and taught around jerusalem, uttering some, but not all, of the words attributed to him, then jesus may be said to have lived. there can be no serious objection to the acceptance of that jesus as an actual personage even though he was ignored by secular historians and though the time and place of his birth and death are in doubt. on the other hand, if there never was such a person as the jesus described in the new testament--a man born of a virgin, superior to natural laws, able to walk on the water, and change the course of nature, performing miracles, casting out devils, a man who never erred, who was crucified, rose from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven where he now sits to judge the world--if there was no such man-god as the jesus of the gospels, some may hesitate to say that jesus ever lived. _jesus a myth_ sincere evolutionists who discredit miracles, must needs consider the gospel jesus as a myth. this does not mean that jesus had no reality, but that the original facts have been so enlarged upon that the principal features of his life are more fanciful than real. if you eliminate from the life of jesus as unhistorical his birth, his miracles, his theological teachings, his resurrection, ascension and messianic mission, the christ no longer exists. jesus would have attracted no attention were it not for the very circumstances which modernists admit were mythical. _judged by his works_ whether jesus was god, or man, or myth, he can be judged by his works, as he himself recommended. if he is found to be perfect in word and deed, it makes little difference whether he lived or not. as a symbol he can be revered and copied. but if jesus is now seen to be the product of his times, representing the virtues and defects of his biographers, with no vision beyond their ken, his authority is gone. not only will the divinity of jesus be discredited if he was found to have been occasionally in error, but his value as a guide to life will be impaired. what will be the result of this radical change? none of the beautiful ideals or sound ethical principles attributed to jesus will be lost. not one saying or counsel of valuable advice need go. not one evil thought need take the place of that which was good. in fact, the finest qualities of existence will be more vital in our lives when their realization becomes of primary importance instead of being subordinate to worship of the supernatural. principles are superior to persons. a dead personality remains unchanged; live ethical principles can be developed by more complete knowledge of evolutionary processes. _ethical evolution_ evolution has been progressing along ethical as well as physical lines. to the teachings of jesus, once considered perfection, have been added many newly discovered principles of value, for knowledge is cumulative. all the best thoughts of the ages are ours forever, no matter who first originated or expressed them. whatever the plan of the universe may be, it is more nearly comprehended now than in jesus' time. twentieth century events are more dependable in forming our philosophy of life than those of the first century. the failure to grasp this fact is the death knell of orthodox religion. every existing religious sect has founded its spirituality upon events supposed to have occurred in the past. christianity depends upon the direct creation, fall of man and life of an atoning savior, all physical in character. our new metaphysics will be based upon conditions existing today and that will be revealed by science in the future. the geologists, embryologists, biologists and astronomers of have more information about nature than jesus had. on that knowledge can be founded a system of living superior to the sermon on the mount. our own time is the most dependable era of revelation. we can safely accept whatever stands accredited after thorough examination, including all teachings of jesus that are admirable. a modern person with religious zeal has confidence that the world is ordered along consistent lines and will respond favorably to man's best efforts to solve the true way of living. the scientific mind and the religious spirit are complementary. religion, instead of being a system of handed-down sanctity, may become an inspired revelation to each individual--a religion of the spirit of the modern world. as the spirit derived from truth is superior to that based upon credulity, the new doctrines that supplant the old may be expected to excel any that have preceded them. anyone may be as spiritual as the proved facts permit. if the world has been improving physically and ethically, we can have confidence that whatever knowledge is necessary for our salvation is available to each of us now. no living god has died; no great principle has been lost. instead of depending upon jesus in an unthinking manner, we must seek the truth wherever it is found and follow wherever it may lead regardless of consequences. this requires more courage than professing jesus, whose teachings can be construed to mean whatever the reader desires. while the majority regard jesus as an ascetic, a reformer, opposed to business and joviality, bruce barton has convinced thousands that jesus was the great business man, rotarian and advertiser. _gains, not losses_ among the compensations that may supplant the loss of jesus as an ideal are the thrill at being a pioneer in striving for the welfare of the human race rather than for individual salvation; the satisfaction at having a consistent creed that can be maintained against all criticism without hypocrisy or evasion; emancipation from inhibitions required by a supposedly divine teacher. every pleasure is not a sin, but rejection of theology does not imply indifference to evil. science warns against excess as strongly as any ancient command. the fear of natural or man-decreed punishment in this world is as potent as the dread of eternal torment threatened by jesus. if jesus really was the sort of personage described in the bible; if he really was born of a virgin, controlled the elements and had power to condemn unbelievers to eternal damnation, all people should obey his every word. he should be followed literally; we should sell all our possessions and take no thought for the morrow. but if jesus was not that sort of a person; if he was neither a supernatural god nor an infallible man, he should not be worshipped as a redeeming savior nor be followed as a true guide for human conduct. our faith shifts with careful examination of the scriptures from belief in jesus to confidence that the world is a far pleasanter abode than jesus imagined. without reliance upon the authority of jesus we can adopt a code which will prove comparatively effective in leading towards a wholesome life. code of living . keep the body strong that the most efficient work may be done, the greatest happiness obtained during life and a wholesome inheritance passed on to future generations. . cultivate the mind, learning as many important facts as possible, striving to become expert in some particular field of endeavor. . develop a scientific spirit, the essential characteristic of which is a search for truth in the light of evidence and reason. do not deceive yourself or others. . base your spiritual concepts on the latest developments of evolution. be prepared to change your philosophy to conform to the consensus of scientific opinion. . conduct all human relationships in a spirit of tolerance and love, having proper consideration for others, not presuming to control their lives. . treat the opposite sex honorably, respecting their complementary qualities, with due regard for succeeding generations. . endeavor to embody in the laws of the community the spirit of equity and progress. . strive for an economic system under which each individual shall be rewarded according to his or her value to society. . avoid the use of physical force for personal revenge or national aggrandizement, having learned from experience that reason triumphs while brutality degrades. . hold yourself in readiness to accept new revelations. * * * * * luther burbank wrote concerning the above code on november , : "_i am greatly pleased with your code of living ... the false ancient theology has past or is rapidly passing with intelligent people at the present time. it is not applicable to our conditions and is of no more value than a worn-out suit of clothes._" sentence numbers, shown thus ( ), have been added by volunteer. a theologico-political treatise part iv of iv - chapters xvi to xx by baruch spinoza table of contents: search strings are shown thus [ :x]. search forward and back with the same string. [ : ] chapter xvi - of the foundations of a state; of the natural and civil rights of individuals; and of the rights of the sovereign power. [ : ] in nature right co-extensive with power. [ : ] this principle applies to mankind in the state of nature. [ : ] how a transition from this state to a civil state is possible. [ : ] subjects not slaves. [ : ] definition of private civil right - and wrong. [ : ] of alliance. [ : ] of treason. [ : ] in what sense sovereigns are bound by divine law. [ : ] civil government not inconsistent with religion. [ : ] chapter xvii.- it is shown, that no one can or need transfer all his rights to the sovereign power. of the hebrew republic, as it was during the lifetime of moses, and after his death till the foundation of the monarchy; and of its excellence. lastly, of the causes why the theocratic republic fell, and why it could hardly have continued without dissension. [ : ] the absolute theory, of sovereignty ideal - no one can in fact transfer all his rights to the sovereign power. evidence of this. [ : ] the greatest danger in all states from within, not without. [ : ] original independence of the jews after the exodus. [ : ] changed first to a pure democratic theocracy. [ : ] then to subjection to moses. [ : ] then to a theocracy with the power divided between the high priest and the captains. [ : ] the tribes confederate states. [ : ] restraints on the civil power. [ : ] restraints on the people. [ :a] causes of decay involved in the constitution of the levitical priesthood. [ : ] chapter xviii.- from the commonwealth of the hebrews and their history certain lessons are deduced. [ : ] the hebrew constitution no longer possible or desirable, yet lessons may be derived from its history. [ : ] as the danger of entrusting any authority in politics to ecclesiastics - the danger of identifying religion with dogma. [ : ] the necessity of keeping all judicial power with the sovereign - the danger of changes in the form of a state. [ : ] this last danger illustrated from the history of england - of rome. [ : ] and of holland. [ : ] chapter xix - it is shown that the right over matters spiritual lies wholly with the sovereign, and that the outward forms of religion should be in accordance with public peace, if we would worship god aright. [ : ] difference between external and inward religion. [ : ] positive law established only by agreement. [ : ] piety furthered by peace and obedience. [ : ] position of the apostles exceptional. [ : ] why christian states, unlike the hebrew, suffer from disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers. [ : ] absolute power in things spiritual of modern rulers. [ : ] chapter xx - that in a free state every man may think what he likes, and say what he thinks. [ : ] the mind not subject to state authority. [ : ] therefore in general language should not be. [ : ] a man who disapproving of a law, submits his adverse opinion to the judgment of the authorities, while acting in accordance with the law, deserves well of the state. [ : ] that liberty of opinion is beneficial, shown from the history of amsterdam. [ : ] danger to the state of withholding it. - submission of the author to the judgment of his country's rulers. [author's endnotes] to the treatise. [ : ] chapter xvi - of the foundations of a state; of the natural and civil rights of individuals; and of the rights of the sovereign power. ( ) hitherto our care has been to separate philosophy from theology, and to show the freedom of thought which such separation insures to both. ( ) it is now time to determine the limits to which such freedom of thought and discussion may extend itself in the ideal state. ( ) for the due consideration of this question we must examine the foundations of a state, first turning our attention to the natural rights of individuals, and afterwards to religion and the state as a whole. ( : ) by the right and ordinance of nature, i merely mean those natural laws wherewith we conceive every individual to be conditioned by nature, so as to live and act in a given way. ( ) for instance, fishes are naturally conditioned for swimming, and the greater for devouring the less; therefore fishes enjoy the water, and the greater devour the less by sovereign natural right. [ : ] ( ) for it is certain that nature, taken in the abstract, has sovereign right to do anything, she can; in other words, her right is co-extensive with her power. ( ) the power of nature is the power of god, which has sovereign right over all things; and, inasmuch as the power of nature is simply the aggregate of the powers of all her individual components, it follows that every individual has sovereign right to do all that he can; in other words, the rights of an individual extend to the utmost limits of his power as it has been conditioned. ( ) now it is the sovereign law and right of nature that each individual should endeavour to preserve itself as it is, without regard to anything but itself; therefore this sovereign law and right belongs to every individual, namely, to exist and act according to its natural conditions. ( ) we do not here acknowledge any difference between mankind and other individual natural entities, nor between men endowed with reason and those to whom reason is unknown; nor between fools, madmen, and sane men. ( ) whatsoever an individual does by the laws of its nature it has a sovereign right to do, inasmuch as it acts as it was conditioned by nature, and cannot act otherwise. [ : ] ( ) wherefore among men, so long as they are considered as living under the sway of nature, he who does not yet know reason, or who has not yet acquired the habit of virtue, acts solely according to the laws of his desire with as sovereign a right as he who orders his life entirely by the laws of reason. ( : ) that is, as the wise man has sovereign right to do all that reason dictates, or to live according to the laws of reason, so also the ignorant and foolish man has sovereign right to do all that desire dictates, or to live according to the laws of desire. ( ) this is identical with the teaching of paul, who acknowledges that previous to the law - that is, so long as men are considered of as living under the sway of nature, there is no sin. ( : ) the natural right of the individual man is thus determined, not by sound reason, but by desire and power. ( ) all are not naturally conditioned so as to act according to the laws and rules of reason; nay, on the contrary, all men are born ignorant, and before they can learn the right way of life and acquire the habit of virtue, the greater part of their life, even if they have been well brought up, has passed away. ( ) nevertheless, they are in the meanwhile bound to live and preserve themselves as far as they can by the unaided impulses of desire. ( ) nature has given them no other guide, and has denied them the present power of living according to sound reason; so that they are no more bound to live by the dictates of an enlightened mind, than a cat is bound to live by the laws of the nature of a lion. ( : ) whatsoever, therefore, an individual (considered as under the sway of nature) thinks useful for himself, whether led by sound reason or impelled by the passions, that he has a sovereign right to seek and to take for himself as he best can, whether by force, cunning, entreaty, or any other means; consequently he may regard as an enemy anyone who hinders the accomplishment of his purpose. ( : ) it follows from what we have said that the right and ordinance of nature, under which all men are born, and under which they mostly live, only prohibits such things as no one desires, and no one can attain: it does not forbid strife, nor hatred, nor anger, nor deceit, nor, indeed, any of the means suggested by desire. ( : ) this we need not wonder at, for nature is not bounded by the laws of human reason, which aims only at man's true benefit and preservation; her limits are infinitely wider, and have reference to the eternal order of nature, wherein man is but a speck; it is by the necessity of this alone that all individuals are conditioned for living and acting in a particular way. ( ) if anything, therefore, in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, it is because we only know in part, and are almost entirely ignorant of the order and interdependence of nature as a whole, and also because we want everything to be arranged according to the dictates of our human reason; in reality that which reason considers evil, is not evil in respect to the order and laws of nature as a whole, but only in respect to the laws of our reason. ( : ) nevertheless, no one can doubt that it is much better for us to live according to the laws and assured dictates of reason, for, as we said, they have men's true good for their object. ( ) moreover, everyone wishes to live as far as possible securely beyond the reach of fear, and this would be quite impossible so long as everyone did everything he liked, and reason's claim was lowered to a par with those of hatred and anger; there is no one who is not ill at ease in the midst of enmity, hatred, anger, and deceit, and who does not seek to avoid them as much as he can. [ : ] ( ) when we reflect that men without mutual help, or the aid of reason, must needs live most miserably, as we clearly proved in chap. v., we shall plainly see that men must necessarily come to an agreement to live together as securely and well as possible if they are to enjoy as a whole the rights which naturally belong to them as individuals, and their life should be no more conditioned by the force and desire of individuals, but by the power and will of the whole body. ( ) this end they will be unable to attain if desire be their only guide (for by the laws of desire each man is drawn in a different direction); they must, therefore, most firmly decree and establish that they will be guided in everything by reason (which nobody will dare openly to repudiate lest he should be taken for a madman), and will restrain any desire which is injurious to a man's fellows, that they will do to all as they would be done by, and that they will defend their neighbour's rights as their own. ( : ) how such a compact as this should be entered into, how ratified and established, we will now inquire. ( ) now it is a universal law of human nature that no one ever neglects anything which he judges to be good, except with the hope of gaining a greater good, or from the fear of a greater evil; nor does anyone endure an evil except for the sake of avoiding a greater evil, or gaining a greater good. ( ) that is, everyone will, of two goods, choose that which he thinks the greatest; and, of two evils, that which he thinks the least. ( ) i say advisedly that which he thinks the greatest or the least, for it does not necessarily follow that he judges right. ( ) this law is so deeply implanted in the human mind that it ought to be counted among eternal truths and axioms. ( : ) as a necessary consequence of the principle just enunciated, no one can honestly promise to forego the right which he has over all things [endnote ], and in general no one will abide by his promises, unless under the fear of a greater evil, or the hope of a greater good. ( ) an example will make the matter clearer. ( ) suppose that a robber forces me to promise that i will give him my goods at his will and pleasure. ( ) it is plain (inasmuch as my natural right is, as i have shown, co-extensive with my power) that if i can free myself from this robber by stratagem, by assenting to his demands, i have the natural right to do so, and to pretend to accept his conditions. ( ) or again, suppose i have genuinely promised someone that for the space of twenty days i will not taste food or any nourishment; and suppose i afterwards find that was foolish, and cannot be kept without very great injury to myself; as i am bound by natural law and right to choose the least of two evils, i have complete right to break my compact, and act as if my promise had never been uttered. ( ) i say that i should have perfect natural right to do so, whether i was actuated by true and evident reason, or whether i was actuated by mere opinion in thinking i had promised rashly; whether my reasons were true or false, i should be in fear of a greater evil, which, by the ordinance of nature, i should strive to avoid by every means in my power. ( : ) we may, therefore, conclude that a compact is only made valid by its utility, without which it becomes null and void. ( ) it is, therefore, foolish to ask a man to keep his faith with us for ever, unless we also endeavour that the violation of the compact we enter into shall involve for the violator more harm than good. ( ) this consideration should have very great weight in forming a state. ( ) however, if all men could be easily led by reason alone, and could recognize what is best and most useful for a state, there would be no one who would not forswear deceit, for everyone would keep most religiously to their compact in their desire for the chief good, namely, the shield and buckler of the commonwealth. ( ) however, it is far from being the case that all men can always be easily led by reason alone; everyone is drawn away by his pleasure, while avarice, ambition, envy, hatred, and the like so engross the mind that, reason has no place therein. ( ) hence, though men make - promises with all the appearances of good faith, and agree that they will keep to their engagement, no one can absolutely rely on another man's promise unless there is something behind it. ( ) everyone has by nature a right to act deceitfully, and to break his compacts, unless he be restrained by the hope of some greater good, or the fear of some greater evil. ( : ) however, as we have shown that the natural right of the individual is only limited by his power, it is clear that by transferring, either willingly or under compulsion, this power into the hands of another, he in so doing necessarily cedes also a part of his right; and further, that the sovereign right over all men belongs to him who has sovereign power, wherewith he can compel men by force, or restrain them by threats of the universally feared punishment of death; such sovereign right he will retain only so long as he can maintain his power of enforcing his will; otherwise he will totter on his throne, and no one who is stronger than he will be bound unwillingly to obey him. ( : ) in this manner a society can be formed without any violation of natural right, and the covenant can always be strictly kept - that is, if each individual hands over the whole of his power to the body politic, the latter will then possess sovereign natural right over all things; that is, it will have sole and unquestioned dominion, and everyone will be bound to obey, under pain of the severest punishment. ( ) a body politic of this kind is called a democracy, which may be defined as a society which wields all its power as a whole. ( ) the sovereign power is not restrained by any laws, but everyone is bound to obey it in all things; such is the state of things implied when men either tacitly or expressly handed over to it all their power of self-defence, or in other words, all their right. ( ) for if they had wished to retain any right for themselves, they ought to have taken precautions for its defence and preservation; as they have not done so, and indeed could not have done so without dividing and consequently ruining the state, they placed themselves absolutely at the mercy of the sovereign power; and, therefore, having acted (as we have shown) as reason and necessity demanded, they are obliged to fulfil the commands of the sovereign power, however absurd these may be, else they will be public enemies, and will act against reason, which urges the preservation of the state as a primary duty. ( ) for reason bids us choose the least of two evils. ( : ) furthermore, this danger of submitting absolutely to the dominion and will of another, is one which may be incurred with a light heart: for we have shown that sovereigns only possess this right of imposing their will, so long as they have the full power to enforce it: if such power be lost their right to command is lost also, or lapses to those who have assumed it and can keep it. ( ) thus it is very rare for sovereigns to impose thoroughly irrational commands, for they are bound to consult their own interests, and retain their power by consulting the public good and acting according to the dictates of reason, as seneca says, "violenta imperia nemo continuit diu." ( ) no one can long retain a tyrant's sway. ( : ) in a democracy, irrational commands are still less to be feared: for it is almost impossible that the majority of a people, especially if it be a large one, should agree in an irrational design: and, moreover, the basis and aim of a democracy is to avoid the desires as irrational, and to bring men as far as possible under the control of reason, so that they may live in peace and harmony: if this basis be removed the whole fabric falls to ruin. ( : ) such being the ends in view for the sovereign power, the duty of subjects is, as i have said, to obey its commands, and to recognize no right save that which it sanctions. [ : ] ( ) it will, perhaps, be thought that we are turning subjects into slaves: for slaves obey commands and free men live as they like; but this idea is based on a misconception, for the true slave is he who is led away by his pleasures and can neither see what is good for him nor act accordingly: he alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason. ( : ) action in obedience to orders does take away freedom in a certain sense, but it does not, therefore, make a man a slave, all depends on the object of the action. ( ) if the object of the action be the good of the state, and not the good of the agent, the latter is a slave and does himself no good: but in a state or kingdom where the weal of the whole people, and not that of the ruler, is the supreme law, obedience to the sovereign power does not make a man a slave, of no use to himself, but a subject. ( ) therefore, that state is the freest whose laws are founded on sound reason, so that every member of it may, if he will, be free [endnote ]; that is, live with full consent under the entire guidance of reason. ( : ) children, though they are bound to obey all the commands of their parents, are yet not slaves: for the commands of parents look generally to the children's benefit. ( ) we must, therefore, acknowledge a great difference between a slave, a son, and a subject; their positions may be thus defined. ( ) a slave is one who is bound to obey his master's orders, though they are given solely in the master's interest: a son is one who obeys his father's orders, given in his own interest; a subject obeys the orders of the sovereign power, given for the common interest, wherein he is included. ( : ) i think i have now shown sufficiently clearly the basis of a democracy: i have especially desired to do so, for i believe it to be of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual liberty. ( ) in it no one transfers his natural right so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. thus all men remain as they were in the state of nature, equals. ( : ) this is the only form of government which i have treated of at length, for it is the one most akin to my purpose of showing the benefits of freedom in a state. ( ) i may pass over the fundamental principles of other forms of government, for we may gather from what has been said whence their right arises without going into its origin. ( ) the possessor of sovereign power, whether he be one, or many, or the whole body politic, has the sovereign right of imposing any commands he pleases: and he who has either voluntarily, or under compulsion, transferred the right to defend him to another, has, in so doing, renounced his natural right and is therefore bound to obey, in all things, the commands of the sovereign power; and will be bound so to do so long as the king, or nobles, or the people preserve the sovereign power which formed the basis of the original transfer. ( ) i need add no more. [ : ] ( ) the bases and rights of dominion being thus displayed, we shall readily be able to define private civil right, wrong, justice, and injustice, with their relations to the state; and also to determine what constitutes an ally, or an enemy, or the crime of treason. ( : ) by private civil right we can only mean the liberty every man possesses to preserve his existence, a liberty limited by the edicts of the sovereign power, and preserved only by its authority: for when a man has transferred to another his right of living as he likes, which was only limited by his power, that is, has transferred his liberty and power of self-defence, he is bound to live as that other dictates, and to trust to him entirely for his defence. ( ) wrong takes place when a citizen, or subject, is forced by another to undergo some loss or pain in contradiction to the authority of the law, or the edict of the sovereign power. ( : ) wrong is conceivable only in an organized community: nor can it ever accrue to subjects from any act of the sovereign, who has the right to do what he likes. ( ) it can only arise, therefore, between private persons, who are bound by law and right not to injure one another. ( ) justice consists in the habitual rendering to every man his lawful due: injustice consists in depriving a man, under the pretence of legality, of what the laws, rightly interpreted, would allow him. ( ) these last are also called equity and iniquity, because those who administer the laws are bound to show no respect of persons, but to account all men equal, and to defend every man's right equally, neither envying the rich nor despising the poor. [ : ]( ) the men of two states become allies, when for the sake of avoiding war, or for some other advantage, they covenant to do each other no hurt, but on the contrary, to assist each other if necessity arises, each retaining his independence. ( ) such a covenant is valid so long as its basis of danger or advantage is in force: no one enters into an engagement, or is bound to stand by his compacts unless there be a hope of some accruing good, or the fear of some evil: if this basis be removed the compact thereby becomes void: this has been abundantly shown by experience. ( ) for although different states make treaties not to harm one another, they always take every possible precaution against such treaties being broken by the stronger party, and do not rely on the compact, unless there is a sufficiently obvious object and advantage to both parties in observing it. ( ) otherwise they would fear a breach of faith, nor would there be any wrong done thereby: for who in his proper senses, and aware of the right of the sovereign power, would trust in the promises of one who has the will and the power to do what he likes, and who aims solely at the safety and advantage of his dominion? ( ) moreover, if we consult loyalty and religion, we shall see that no one in possession of power ought to abide by his promises to the injury of his dominion; for he cannot keep such promises without breaking the engagement he made with his subjects, by which both he and they are most solemnly bound. ( ) an enemy is one who lives apart from the state, and does not recognize its authority either as a subject or as an ally. it is not hatred which makes a man an enemy, but the rights of the state. ( ) the rights of the state are the same in regard to him who does not recognize by any compact the state authority, as they are against him who has done the state an injury: it has the right to force him as best it can, either to submit, or to contract an alliance. [ : ] ( ) lastly, treason can only be committed by subjects, who by compact, either tacit or expressed, have transferred all their rights to the state: a subject is said to have committed this crime when he has attempted, for whatever reason, to seize the sovereign power, or to place it in different hands. ( ) i say, has attempted, for if punishment were not to overtake him till he had succeeded, it would often come too late, the sovereign rights would have been acquired or transferred already. ( : ) i also say, has attempted, for whatever reason, to seize the sovereign power, and i recognize no difference whether such an attempt should be followed by public loss or public gain. ( ) whatever be his reason for acting, the crime is treason, and he is rightly condemned: in war, everyone would admit the justice of his sentence. ( ) if a man does not keep to his post, but approaches the enemy without the knowledge of his commander, whatever may be his motive, so long as he acts on his own motion, even if he advances with the design of defeating the enemy, he is rightly put to death, because he has violated his oath, and infringed the rights of his commander. ( ) that all citizens are equally bound by these rights in time of peace, is not so generally recognized, but the reasons for obedience are in both cases identical. ( ) the state must be preserved and directed by the sole authority of the sovereign, and such authority and right have been accorded by universal consent to him alone: if, therefore, anyone else attempts, without his consent, to execute any public enterprise, even though the state might (as we said) reap benefit therefrom, such person has none the less infringed the sovereigns right, and would be rightly punished for treason. ( : ) in order that every scruple may be removed, we may now answer the inquiry, whether our former assertion that everyone who has not the practice of reason, may, in the state of nature, live by sovereign natural right, according to the laws of his desires, is not in direct opposition to the law and right of god as revealed. ( ) for as all men absolutely (whether they be less endowed with reason or more) are equally bound by the divine command to love their neighbour as themselves, it may be said that they cannot, without wrong, do injury to anyone, or live according to their desires. ( : ) this objection, so far as the state of nature is concerned, can be easily answered, for the state of nature is, both in nature and in time, prior to religion. ( ) no one knows by nature that he owes any obedience to god [endnote ], nor can he attain thereto by any exercise of his reason, but solely by revelation confirmed by signs. ( ) therefore, previous to revelation, no one is bound by a divine law and right of which he is necessarily in ignorance. ( ) the state of nature must by no means be confounded with a state of religion, but must be conceived as without either religion or law, and consequently without sin or wrong: this is how we have described it, and we are confirmed by the authority of paul. ( ) it is not only in respect of ignorance that we conceive the state of nature as prior to, and lacking the divine revealed law and right; but in respect of freedom also, wherewith all men are born endowed. ( : ) if men were naturally bound by the divine law and right, or if the divine law and right were a natural necessity, there would have been no need for god to make a covenant with mankind, and to bind them thereto with an oath and agreement. ( : ) we must, then, fully grant that the divine law and right originated at the time when men by express covenant agreed to obey god in all things, and ceded, as it were, their natural freedom, transferring their rights to god in the manner described in speaking of the formation of a state. ( ) however, i will treat of these matters more at length presently. [ : ] ( ) it may be insisted that sovereigns are as much bound by the divine law as subjects: whereas we have asserted that they retain their natural rights, and may do whatever they like. ( : ) in order to clear up the whole difficulty, which arises rather concerning the natural right than the natural state, i maintain that everyone is bound, in the state of nature, to live according to divine law, in the same way as he is bound to live according to the dictates of sound reason; namely, inasmuch as it is to his advantage, and necessary for his salvation; but, if he will not so live, he may do otherwise at his own risk. ( ) he is thus bound to live according to his own laws, not according to anyone else's, and to recognize no man as a judge, or as a superior in religion. ( ) such, in my opinion, is the position of a sovereign, for he may take advice from his fellow-men, but he is not bound to recognize any as a judge, nor anyone besides himself as an arbitrator on any question of right, unless it be a prophet sent expressly by god and attesting his mission by indisputable signs. ( ) even then he does not recognize a man, but god himself as his judge. [ : ] ( ) if a sovereign refuses to obey god as revealed in his law, he does so at his own risk and loss, but without violating any civil or natural right. ( ) for the civil right is dependent on his own decree; and natural right is dependent on the laws of nature, which latter are not adapted to religion, whose sole aim is the good of humanity, but to the order of nature - that is, to god's eternal decree unknown to us. ( : ) this truth seems to be adumbrated in a somewhat obscurer form by those who maintain that men can sin against god's revelation, but not against the eternal decree by which he has ordained all things. ( ) we may be asked, what should we do if the sovereign commands anything contrary to religion, and the obedience which we have expressly vowed to god? should we obey the divine law or the human law? ( ) i shall treat of this question at length hereafter, and will therefore merely say now, that god should be obeyed before all else, when we have a certain and indisputable revelation of his will: but men are very prone to error on religious subjects, and, according to the diversity of their dispositions, are wont with considerable stir to put forward their own inventions, as experience more than sufficiently attests, so that if no one were bound to obey the state in matters which, in his own opinion concern religion, the rights of the state would be dependent on every man's judgment and passions. ( ) no one would consider himself bound to obey laws framed against his faith or superstition; and on this pretext he might assume unbounded license. ( ) in this way, the rights of the civil authorities would be utterly set at nought, so that we must conclude that the sovereign power, which alone is bound both by divine and natural right to preserve and guard the laws of the state, should have supreme authority for making any laws about religion which it thinks fit; all are bound to obey its behests on the subject in accordance with their promise which god bids them to keep. ( : ) however, if the sovereign power be heathen, we should either enter into no engagements therewith, and yield up our lives sooner than transfer to it any of our rights; or, if the engagement be made, and our rights transferred, we should (inasmuch as we should have ourselves transferred the right of defending ourselves and our religion) be bound to obey them, and to keep our word: we might even rightly be bound so to do, except in those cases where god, by indisputable revelation, has promised his special aid against tyranny, or given us special exemption from obedience. ( ) thus we see that, of all the jews in babylon, there were only three youths who were certain of the help of god, and, therefore, refused to obey nebuchadnezzar. ( ) all the rest, with the sole exception of daniel, who was beloved by the king, were doubtless compelled by right to obey, perhaps thinking that they had been delivered up by god into the hands of the king, and that the king had obtained and preserved his dominion by god's design. ( ) on the other hand, eleazar, before his country had utterly fallen, wished to give a proof of his constancy to his compatriots, in order that they might follow in his footsteps, and go to any lengths, rather than allow their right and power to be transferred to the greeks, or brave any torture rather than swear allegiance to the heathen. ( ) instances are occurring every day in confirmation of what i here advance. ( ) the rulers of christian kingdoms do not hesitate, with a view to strengthening their dominion, to make treaties with turks and heathen, and to give orders to their subjects who settle among such peoples not to assume more freedom, either in things secular or religious, than is set down in the treaty, or allowed by the foreign government. ( ) we may see this exemplified in the dutch treaty with the japanese, which i have already mentioned. [ : ] chapter xvii - it is shown that no one can, or need, transfer all his rights to the sovereign power. of the hebrew republic, as it was during the lifetime of moses, and after his death, till the foundation of the monarchy; and of its excellence. lastly, of the causes why the theocratic republic fell, and why it could hardly have continued without dissension. [ : ] ( ) the theory put forward in the last chapter, of the universal rights of the sovereign power, and of the natural rights of the individual transferred thereto, though it corresponds in many respects with actual practice, and though practice may be so arranged as to conform to it more and more, must nevertheless always remain in many respects purely ideal. ( ) no one can ever so utterly transfer to another his power and, consequently, his rights, as to cease to be a man; nor can there ever be a power so sovereign that it can carry out every possible wish. ( ) it will always be vain to order a subject to hate what he believes brings him advantage, or to love what brings him loss, or not to be offended at insults, or not to wish to be free from fear, or a hundred other things of the sort, which necessarily follow from the laws of human nature. ( ) so much, i think, is abundantly shown by experience: for men have never so far ceded their power as to cease to be an object of fear to the rulers who received such power and right; and dominions have always been in as much danger from their own subjects as from external enemies. ( ) if it were really the case, that men could be deprived of their natural rights so utterly as never to have any further influence on affairs [endnote ], except with the permission of the holders of sovereign right, it would then be possible to maintain with impunity the most violent tyranny, which, i suppose, no one would for an instant admit. ( : ) we must, therefore, grant that every man retains some part of his right, in dependence on his own decision, and no one else's. ( ) however, in order correctly to understand the extent of the sovereign's right and power, we must take notice that it does not cover only those actions to which it can compel men by fear, but absolutely every action which it can induce men to perform: for it is the fact of obedience, not the motive for obedience, which makes a man a subject. ( : ) whatever be the cause which leads a man to obey the commands of the sovereign, whether it be fear or hope, or love of his country, or any other emotion - the fact remains that the man takes counsel with himself, and nevertheless acts as his sovereign orders. ( ) we must not, therefore, assert that all actions resulting from a man's deliberation with himself are done in obedience to the rights of the individual rather than the sovereign: as a matter of fact, all actions spring from a man's deliberation with himself, whether the determining motive be love or fear of punishment; therefore, either dominion does not exist, and has no rights over its subjects, or else it extends over every instance in which it can prevail on men to decide to obey it. ( ) consequently, every action which a subject performs in accordance with the commands of the sovereign, whether such action springs from love, or fear, or (as is more frequently the case) from hope and fear together, or from reverence, compounded of fear and admiration, or, indeed, any motive whatever, is performed in virtue of his submission to the sovereign, and not in virtue of his own authority. ( : ) this point is made still more clear by the fact that obedience does not consist so much in the outward act as in the mental state of the person obeying; so that he is most under the dominion of another who with his whole heart determines to obey another's commands; and consequently the firmest dominion belongs to the sovereign who has most influence over the minds of his subjects; if those who are most feared possessed the firmest dominion, the firmest dominion would belong to the subjects of a tyrant, for they are always greatly feared by their ruler. ( ) furthermore, though it is impossible to govern the mind as completely as the tongue, nevertheless minds are, to a certain extent, under the control of the sovereign, for he can in many ways bring about that the greatest part of his subjects should follow his wishes in their beliefs, their loves, and their hates. ( ) though such emotions do not arise at the express command of the sovereign they often result (as experience shows) from the authority of his power, and from his direction; in other words, in virtue of his right; we may, therefore, without doing violence to our understanding, conceive men who follow the instigation of their sovereign in their beliefs, their loves, their hates, their contempt, and all other emotions whatsoever. ( : ) though the powers of government, as thus conceived, are sufficiently ample, they can never become large enough to execute every possible wish of their possessors. ( ) this, i think, i have already shown clearly enough. ( ) the method of forming a dominion which should prove lasting i do not, as i have said, intend to discuss, but in order to arrive at the object i have in view, i will touch on the teaching of divine revelation to moses in this respect, and we will consider the history and the success of the jews, gathering therefrom what should be the chief concessions made by sovereigns to their subjects with a view to the security and increase of their dominion. [ : ] ( ) that the preservation of a state chiefly depends on the subjects' fidelity and constancy in carrying out the orders they receive, is most clearly taught both by reason and experience; how subjects ought to be guided so as best to preserve their fidelity and virtue is not so obvious. ( ) all, both rulers and ruled, are men, and prone to follow after their lusts. ( ) the fickle disposition of the multitude almost reduces those who have experience of it to despair, for it is governed solely by emotions, not by reason: it rushes headlong into every enterprise, and is easily corrupted either by avarice or luxury: everyone thinks himself omniscient and wishes to fashion all things to his liking, judging a thing to be just or unjust, lawful or unlawful, according as he thinks it will bring him profit or loss: vanity leads him to despise his equals, and refuse their guidance: envy of superior fame or fortune (for such gifts are never equally distributed) leads him to desire and rejoice in his neighbour's downfall. ( ) i need not go through the whole list, everyone knows already how much crime. results from disgust at the present - desire for change, headlong anger, and contempt for poverty - and how men's minds are engrossed and kept in turmoil thereby. ( : ) to guard against all these evils, and form a dominion where no room is left for deceit; to frame our institutions so that every man, whatever his disposition, may prefer public right to private advantage, this is the task and this the toil. ( ) necessity is often the mother of invention, but she has never yet succeeded in framing a dominion that was in less danger from its own citizens than from open enemies, or whose rulers did not fear the latter less than the former. ( ) witness the state of rome, invincible by her enemies, but many times conquered and sorely oppressed by her own citizens, especially in the war between vespasian and vitellius. ( ) (see tacitus, hist. bk. iv. for a description of the pitiable state of the city.) ( : ) alexander thought prestige abroad more easy to acquire than prestige at home, and believed that his greatness could be destroyed by his own followers. ( ) fearing such a disaster, he thus addressed his friends: "keep me safe from internal treachery and domestic plots, and i will front without fear the dangers of battle and of war. ( ) philip was more secure in the battle array than in the theatre: he often escaped from the hands of the enemy, he could not escape from his own subjects. ( ) if you think over the deaths of kings, you will count up more who have died by the assassin than by the open foe." (q. curtius, chap. vi.) ( : ) for the sake of making themselves secure, kings who seized the throne in ancient times used to try to spread the idea that they were descended from the immortal gods, thinking that if their subjects and the rest of mankind did not look on them as equals, but believed them to be gods, they would willingly submit to their rule, and obey their commands. ( ) thus augustus persuaded the romans that he was descended from aeneas, who was the son of venus, and numbered among the gods. ( ) "he wished himself to be worshipped in temples, like the gods, with flamens and priests." (tacitus, ann. i. .) ( : ) alexander wished to be saluted as the son of jupiter, not from motives of pride but of policy, as he showed by his answer to the invective of hermolaus: "it is almost laughable," said he, that hermolaus asked me to contradict jupiter, by whose oracle i am recognized. ( ) am i responsible for the answers of the gods? ( ) it offered me the name of son; acquiescence was by no means foreign to my present designs. ( ) would that the indians also would believe me to be a god! ( ) wars are carried through by prestige, falsehoods that are believed often gain the force of truth." (curtius, viii,. para. .) ( ) in these few words he cleverly contrives to palm off a fiction on the ignorant, and at the same time hints at the motive for the deception. ( : ) cleon, in his speech persuading the macedonians to obey their king, adopted a similar device: for after going through the praises of alexander with admiration, and recalling his merits, he proceeds, "the persians are not only pious, but prudent in worshipping their kings as gods: for kingship is the shield of public safety," and he ends thus, "i, myself, when the king enters a banquet hall, should prostrate my body on the ground; other men should do the like, especially those who are wise" (curtius, viii. para. ). ( ) however, the macedonians were more prudent - indeed, it is only complete barbarians who can be so openly cajoled, and can suffer themselves to be turned from subjects into slaves without interests of their own. ( ) others, notwithstanding, have been able more easily to spread the belief that kingship is sacred, and plays the part of god on the earth, that it has been instituted by god, not by the suffrage and consent of men; and that it is preserved and guarded by divine special providence and aid. ( ) similar fictions have been promulgated by monarchs, with the object of strengthening their dominion, but these i will pass over, and in order to arrive at my main purpose, will merely recall and discuss the teaching on the subject of divine revelation to moses in ancient times. [ : ] ( ) we have said in chap. v. that after the hebrews came up out of egypt they were not bound by the law and right of any other nation, but were at liberty to institute any new rites at their pleasure, and to occupy whatever territory they chose. ( ) after their liberation from the intolerable bondage of the egyptians, they were bound by no covenant to any man; and, therefore, every man entered into his natural right, and was free to retain it or to give it up, and transfer it to another. ( ) being, then, in the state of nature, they followed the advice of moses, in whom they chiefly trusted, and decided to transfer their right to no human being, but only to god; without further delay they all, with one voice, promised to obey all the commands of the deity, and to acknowledge no right that he did not proclaim as such by prophetic revelation. ( ) this promise, or transference of right to god, was effected in the same manner as we have conceived it to have been in ordinary societies, when men agree to divest themselves of their natural rights. ( ) it is, in fact, in virtue of a set covenant, and an oath (see exod. xxxiv: ), that the jews freely, and not under compulsion or threats, surrendered their rights and transferred them to god. ( ) moreover, in order that this covenant might be ratified and settled, and might be free from all suspicion of deceit, god did not enter into it till the jews had had experience of his wonderful power by which alone they had been, or could be, preserved in a state of prosperity (exod. xix: , ). ( ) it is because they believed that nothing but god's power could preserve them that they surrendered to god the natural power of self-preservation, which they formerly, perhaps, thought they possessed, and consequently they surrendered at the same time all their natural right. [ : ] ( ) god alone, therefore, held dominion over the hebrews, whose state was in virtue of the covenant called god's kingdom, and god was said to be their king; consequently the enemies of the jews were said to be the enemies of god, and the citizens who tried to seize the dominion were guilty of treason against god; and, lastly, the laws of the state were called the laws and commandments of god. ( ) thus in the hebrew state the civil and religious authority, each consisting solely of obedience to god, were one and the same. ( ) the dogmas of religion were not precepts, but laws and ordinances; piety was regarded as the same as loyalty, impiety as the same as disaffection. ( ) everyone who fell away from religion ceased to be a citizen, and was, on that ground alone, accounted an enemy: those who died for the sake of religion, were held to have died for their country; in fact, between civil and religious law and right there was no distinction whatever. {in biblical hebrew, there was no word for what we call religion." modern hebrew has selected a word whose root is "knowledge."} ( ) for this reason the government could be called a theocracy, inasmuch as the citizens were not bound by anything save the revelations of god. ( : ) however, this state of things existed rather in theory than in practice, for it will appear from what we are about to say, that the hebrews, as a matter of fact, retained absolutely in their own hands the right of sovereignty: this is shown by the method and plan by which the government was carried on, as i will now explain. ( : ) inasmuch as the hebrews did not transfer their rights to any other person but, as in a democracy, all surrendered their rights equally, and cried out with one voice, "whatsoever god shall speak (no mediator or mouthpiece being named) that will we do," it follows that all were equally bound by the covenant, and that all had an equal right to consult the deity, to accept and to interpret his laws, so that all had an exactly equal share in the government. [ : ] ( ) thus at first they all approached god together, so that they might learn his commands, but in this first salutation, they were so thoroughly terrified and so astounded to hear god speaking, that they thought their last hour was at hand: full of fear, therefore, they went afresh to moses, and said, "lo, we have heard god speaking in the fire, and there is no cause why we should wish to die: surely this great fire will consume us: if we hear again the voice of god, we shall surely die. ( ) thou, therefore, go near, and hear all the words of our god, and thou (not god) shalt speak with us: all that god shall tell us, that will we hearken to and perform." ( : ) they thus clearly abrogated their former covenant, and absolutely transferred to moses their right to consult god and interpret his commands: for they do not here promise obedience to all that god shall tell them, but to all that god shall tell moses (see deut. v: after the decalogue, and chap. xviii: , ). ( ) moses, therefore, remained the sole promulgator and interpreter of the divine laws, and consequently also the sovereign judge, who could not be arraigned himself, and who acted among the hebrews the part, of god; in other words, held the sovereign kingship: he alone had the right to consult god, to give the divine answers to the people, and to see that they were carried out. ( ) i say he alone, for if anyone during the life of moses was desirous of preaching anything in the name of the lord, he was, even if a true prophet, considered guilty and a usurper of the sovereign right (numb. xi: ) [endnote ]. ( ) we may here notice, that though the people had elected moses, they could not rightfully elect moses's successor; for having transferred to moses their right of consulting god, and absolutely promised to regard him as a divine oracle, they had plainly forfeited the whole of their right, and were bound to accept as chosen by god anyone proclaimed by moses as his successor. ( ) if moses had so chosen his successor, who like him should wield the sole right of government, possessing the sole right of consulting god, and consequently of making and abrogating laws, of deciding on peace or war, of sending ambassadors, appointing judges - in fact, discharging all the functions of a sovereign, the state would have become simply a monarchy, only differing from other monarchies in the fact, that the latter are, or should be, carried on in accordance with god's decree, unknown even to the monarch, whereas the hebrew monarch would have been the only person to whom the decree was revealed. ( ) a difference which increases, rather than diminishes the monarch's authority. ( ) as far as the people in both cases are concerned, each would be equally subject, and equally ignorant of the divine decree, for each would be dependent on the monarch's words, and would learn from him alone, what was lawful or unlawful: nor would the fact that the people believed that the monarch was only issuing commands in accordance with god's decree revealed to him, make it less in subjection, but rather more. [ : ] ( ) however, moses elected no such successor, but left the dominion to those who came after him in a condition which could not be called a popular government, nor an aristocracy, nor a monarchy, but a theocracy. ( ) for the right of interpreting laws was vested in one man, while the right and power of administering the state according to the laws thus interpreted, was vested in another man (see numb. xxvii: ) [endnote ]. ( : ) in order that the question may be thoroughly understood, i will duly set forth the administration of the whole state. ( ) first, the people were commanded to build a tabernacle, which should be, as it were, the dwelling of god - that is, of the sovereign authority of the state. ( ) this tabernacle was to be erected at the cost of the whole people, not of one man, in order that the place where god was consulted might be public property. ( ) the levites were chosen as courtiers and administrators of this royal abode; while aaron, the brother of moses, was chosen to be their chief and second, as it were, to god their king, being succeeded in the office by his legitimate sons. ( : ) he, as the nearest to god, was the sovereign interpreter of the divine laws; he communicated the answers of the divine oracle to the people, and entreated god's favour for them. ( ) if, in addition to these privileges, he had possessed the right of ruling, he would have been neither more nor less than an absolute monarch; but, in respect to government, he was only a private citizen: the whole tribe of levi was so completely divested of governing rights that it did not even take its share with the others in the partition of territory. ( ) moses provided for its support by inspiring the common people with great reverence for it, as the only tribe dedicated to god. ( : ) further, the army, formed from the remaining twelve tribes, was commanded to invade the land of canaan, to divide it into twelve portions, and to distribute it among the tribes by lot. ( ) for this task twelve captains were chosen, one from every tribe, and were, together with joshua and eleazar, the high priest, empowered to divide the land into twelve equal parts, and distribute it by lot. ( ) joshua was chosen for the chief command of the army, inasmuch as none but he had the right to consult god in emergencies, not like moses, alone in his tent, or in the tabernacle, but through the high priest, to whom only the answers of god were revealed. ( ) furthermore, he was empowered to execute, and cause the people to obey god's commands, transmitted through the high priests; to find, and to make use of, means for carrying them out; to choose as many, army captains as he liked; to make whatever choice he thought best; to send ambassadors in his own name; and, in short, to have the entire control of the war. ( ) to his office there was no rightful successor - indeed, the post was only filled by the direct order of the deity, on occasions of public emergency. ( ) in ordinary times, all the management of peace and war was vested in the captains of the tribes, as i will shortly point out. ( ) lastly, all men between the ages of twenty and sixty were ordered to bear arms, and form a citizen army, owing allegiance, not to its general-in-chief, nor to the high priest, but to religion and to god. ( ) the army, or the hosts, were called the army of god, or the hosts of god. ( ) for this reason god was called by the hebrews the god of armies; and the ark of the covenant was borne in the midst of the army in important battles, when the safety or destruction of the whole people hung upon the issue, so that the people might, as it were, see their king among them, and put forth all their strength. ( : ) from these directions, left by moses to his successors, we plainly see that he chose administrators, rather than despots, to come after him; for he invested no one with the power of consulting god, where he liked and alone, consequently, no one had the power possessed by himself of ordaining and abrogating laws, of deciding on war or peace, of choosing men to fill offices both religious and secular: all these are the prerogatives of a sovereign. ( ) the high priest, indeed, had the right of interpreting laws, and communicating the answers of god, but he could not do so when he liked, as moses could, but only when he was asked by the general-in-chief of the army, the council, or some similar authority. ( ) the general-in-chief and the council could consult god when they liked, but could only receive his answers through the high priest; so that the utterances of god, as reported by the high priest, were not decrees, as they were when reported by moses, but only answers; they were accepted by joshua and the council, and only then had the force of commands and decrees {like the separation of powers in the united states of america.} ( : ) the high priest, both in the case of aaron and of his son eleazar, was chosen by moses; nor had anyone, after moses' death, a right to elect to the office, which became hereditary. ( ) the general-in-chief of the army was also chosen by moses, and assumed his functions in virtue of the commands, not of the high priest, but of moses: indeed, after the death of joshua, the high priest did not appoint anyone in his place, and the captains did not consult god afresh about a general-in-chief, but each retained joshua's power in respect to the contingent of his own tribe, and all retained it collectively, in respect to the whole army. ( ) there seems to have been no need of a general-in-chief, except when they were obliged to unite their forces against a common enemy. ( ) this occurred most frequently during the time of joshua, when they had no fixed dwelling. place, and possessed all things in common. [ : ] ( ) after all the tribes had gained their territories by right of conquest, and had divided their allotted gains, they, became separated, having no longer their possessions in common, so that the need for a single commander ceased, for the different tribes should be considered rather in the light of confederated states than of bodies of fellow-citizens. ( ) in respect to their god and their religion, they, were fellow-citizens; but, in respect to the rights which one possessed with regard to another, they were only confederated: they, were, in fact, in much the same position (if one excepts the temple common to all) as the united states of the netherlands {or united states of america}. ( ) the division of property, held in common is only another phrase for the possession of his share by each of the owners singly, and the surrender by the others of their rights over such share. ( ) this is why moses elected captains of the tribes - namely, that when the dominion was divided, each might take care of his own part; consulting god through the high priest on the affairs of his tribe, ruling over his army, building and fortifying cities, appointing judges, attacking the enemies of his own dominion, and having complete control over all civil and military affairs. ( ) he was not bound to acknowledge any superior judge save god [endnote ], or a prophet whom god should expressly send. ( ) if he departed from the worship of god, the rest of the tribes did not arraign him as a subject, but attacked him as an enemy. ( ) of this we have examples in scripture. ( ) when joshua was dead, the children of israel (not a fresh general-in-chief) consulted god; it being decided that the tribe of judah should be the first to attack its enemies, the tribe in question contracted a single alliance with the tribe of simeon, for uniting their forces, and attacking their common enemy, the rest of the tribes not being included in the alliance (judges i: , , ). ( ) each tribe separately made war against its own enemies, and, according to its pleasure, received them as subjects or allies, though it had been commanded not to spare them on any conditions, but to destroy them utterly. ( ) such disobedience met with reproof from the rest of the tribes, but did not cause the offending tribe to be arraigned: it was not considered a sufficient reason for proclaiming a civil war, or interfering in one another's affairs. ( ) but when the tribe of benjamin offended against the others, and so loosened the bonds of peace that none of the confederated tribes could find refuge within its borders, they attacked it as an enemy, and gaining the victory over it after three battles, put to death both guilty and innocent, according to the laws of war: an act which they subsequently bewailed with tardy repentance. ( : ) these examples plainly confirm what we have said concerning the rights of each tribe. ( ) perhaps we shall be asked who elected the successors to the captains of each tribe; on this point i can gather no positive information in scripture, but i conjecture that as the tribes were divided into families, each headed by its senior member, the senior of all these heads of families succeeded by right to the office of captain, for moses chose from among these seniors his seventy coadjutors, who formed with himself the supreme council. ( ) those who administered the government after the death of joshua were called elders, and elder is a very common hebrew expression in the sense of judge, as i suppose everyone knows; however, it is not very important for us to make up our minds on this point. ( ) it is enough to have shown that after the death of moses no one man wielded all the power of a sovereign; as affairs were not all managed by one man, nor by a single council, nor by the popular vote, but partly by one tribe, partly by the rest in equal shares, it is most evident that the government, after the death of moses, was neither monarchic, nor aristocratic, nor popular, but, as we have said, theocratic. ( ) the reasons for applying this name are: ( : ) i. because the royal seat of government was the temple, and in respect to it alone, as we have shown, all the tribes were fellow-citizens. ( ) ii. because all the people owed allegiance to god, their supreme judge, to whom only they had promised implicit obedience in all things. ( : ) iii. because the general-in-chief or dictator, when there was need of such, was elected by none save god alone. ( ) this was expressly commanded by moses in the name of god (deut. xix: ), and witnessed by the actual choice of gideon, of samson, and of samuel; wherefrom we may conclude that the other faithful leaders were chosen in the same manner, though it is not expressly told us. ( : ) these preliminaries being stated, it is now time to inquire the effects of forming a dominion on this plan, and to see whether it so effectually kept within bounds both rulers and ruled, that the former were never tyrannical and the latter never rebellious. ( : ) those who administer or possess governing power, always try to surround their high-handed actions with a cloak of legality, and to persuade the people that they act from good motives; this they are easily able to effect when they are the sole interpreters of the law; for it is evident that they are thus able to assume a far greater freedom to carry out their wishes and desires than if the interpretation if the law is vested in someone else, or if the laws were so self-evident that no one could be in doubt as to their meaning. [ : ] ( ) we thus see that the power of evil-doing was greatly curtailed for the hebrew captains by the fact that the whole interpretation of the law was vested in the levites (deut. xxi: ), who, on their part, had no share in the government, and depended for all their support and consideration on a correct interpretation of the laws entrusted to them. ( ) moreover, the whole people was commanded to come together at a certain place every seven years and be instructed in the law by the high-priest; further, each individual was bidden to read the book of the law through and through continually with scrupulous care. (deut. xxxi: , , and vi: .) ( ) the captains were thus for their own sakes bound to take great care to administer everything according to the laws laid down, and well known to all, if they, wished to be held in high honour by, the people, who would regard them as the administrators of god's dominion, and as god's vicegerents; otherwise they could not have escaped all the virulence of theological hatred. ( ) there was another very important check on the unbridled license of the captains, in the fact, that the army was formed from the whole body, of the citizens, between the ages of twenty and sixty, without exception, and that the captains were not able to hire any foreign soldiery. ( ) this i say was very, important, for it is well known that princes can oppress their peoples with the single aid of the soldiery in their pay; while there is nothing more formidable to them than the freedom of citizen soldiers, who have established the freedom and glory of their country, by their valour, their toil, and their blood. ( ) thus alexander, when he was about to make wax on darius, a second time, after hearing the advice of parmenio, did not chide him who gave the advice, but polysperchon, who was standing by. ( ) for, as curtius says (iv. para. ), he did not venture to reproach parmenio again after having shortly, before reproved him too sharply. ( ) this freedom of the macedonians, which he so dreaded, he was not able to subdue till after the number of captives enlisted in the army, surpassed that of his own people: then, but not till then, he gave rein to his anger so long checked by, the independence of his chief fellow-countrymen. ( : ) if this independence of citizen soldiers can restrain the princes of ordinary states who are wont to usurp the whole glory of victories, it must have been still more effectual against the hebrew captains, whose soldiers were fighting, not for the glory of a prince, but for the glory of god, and who did not go forth to battle till the divine assent had been given. ( : ) we must also remember that the hebrew captains were associated only by the bonds of religion: therefore, if any one of them had transgressed, and begun to violate the divine right, he might have been treated by the rest as an enemy and lawfully subdued. ( : ) an additional check may be found in the fear of a new prophet arising, for if a man of unblemished life could show by certain signs that he was really a prophet, he ipso facto obtained the sovereign right to rule, which was given to him, as to moses formerly, in the name of god, as revealed to himself alone; not merely through the high priest, as in the case of the captains. ( ) there is no doubt that such an one would easily be able to enlist an oppressed people in his cause, and by trifling signs persuade them of anything he wished: on the other hand, if affairs were well ordered, the captain would be able to make provision in time; that the prophet should be submitted to his approval, and be examined whether he were really of unblemished life, and possessed indisputable signs of his mission: also, whether the teaching he proposed to set forth in the name of the lord agreed with received doctrines, and the general laws of the country; if his credentials were insufficient, or his doctrines new, he could lawfully be put to death, or else received on the captain's sole responsibility and authority. ( : ) again, the captains were not superior to the others in nobility or birth, but only administered the government in virtue of their age and personal qualities. ( ) lastly, neither captains nor army had any reason for preferring war to peace. ( ) the army, as we have stated, consisted entirely of citizens, so that affairs were managed by the same persons both in peace and war. ( ) the man who was a soldier in the camp was a citizen in the market-place, he who was a leader in the camp was a judge in the law courts, he who was a general in the camp was a ruler in the state. ( ) thus no one could desire war for its own sake, but only for the sake of preserving peace and liberty; possibly the captains avoided change as far as possible, so as not to be obliged to consult the high priest and submit to the indignity of standing in his presence. ( : ) so much for the precautions for keeping the captains within bounds. [ : ] ( ) we must now look for the restraints upon the people: these, however, are very clearly indicated in the very groundwork of the social fabric. ( : ) anyone who gives the subject the slightest attention, will see that the state was so ordered as to inspire the most ardent patriotism in the hearts of the citizens, so that the latter would be very hard to persuade to betray their country, and be ready to endure anything rather than submit to a foreign yoke. ( ) after they had transferred their right to god, they thought that their kingdom belonged to god, and that they themselves were god's children. ( ) other nations they looked upon as god's enemies, and regarded with intense hatred (which they took to be piety, see psalm cxxxix: , ): nothing would have been more abhorrent to them than swearing allegiance to a foreigner, and promising him obedience: nor could they conceive any greater or more execrable crime than the betrayal of their country, the kingdom of the god whom they adored. ( : ) it was considered wicked for anyone to settle outside of the country, inasmuch as the worship of god by which they were bound could not be carried on elsewhere: their own land alone was considered holy, the rest of the earth unclean and profane. ( : ) david, who was forced to live in exile, complained before saul as follows: "but if they be the children of men who have stirred thee up against me, cursed be they before the lord; for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the lord, saying, go, serve other gods." (i sam. xxvi: .) ( ) for the same reason no citizen, as we should especially remark, was ever sent into exile: he who sinned was liable to punishment, but not to disgrace. ( : ) thus the love of the hebrews for their country was not only patriotism, but also piety, and was cherished and nurtured by daily rites till, like their hatred of other nations, it must have passed into their nature. ( ) their daily worship was not only different from that of other nations (as it might well be, considering that they were a peculiar people and entirely apart from the rest), it was absolutely contrary. ( ) such daily reprobation naturally gave rise to a lasting hatred, deeply implanted in the heart: for of all hatreds none is more deep and tenacious than that which springs from extreme devoutness or piety, and is itself cherished as pious. ( ) nor was a general cause lacking for inflaming such hatred more and more, inasmuch as it was reciprocated; the surrounding nations regarding the jews with a hatred just as intense. ( : ) how great was the effect of all these causes, namely, freedom from man's dominion; devotion to their country; absolute rights over all other men; a hatred not only permitted but pious; a contempt for their fellow-men; the singularity of their customs and religious rites; the effect, i repeat, of all these causes in strengthening the hearts of the jews to bear all things for their country, with extraordinary constancy and valour, will at once be discerned by reason and attested by experience. ( ) never, so long as the city was standing, could they endure to remain under foreign dominion; and therefore they called jerusalem "a rebellious city" (ezra iv: ). ( ) their state after its reestablishment (which was a mere shadow of the first, for the high priests had usurped the rights of the tribal captains) was, with great difficulty, destroyed by the romans, as tacitus bears witness (hist. ii: ):- "vespasian had closed the war against the jews, abandoning the siege of jerusalem as an enterprise difficult and arduous rather from the character of the people and the obstinacy of their superstition, than from the strength left to the besieged for meeting their necessities." ( ) but besides these characteristics, which are merely ascribed by an individual opinion, there was one feature peculiar to this state and of great importance in retaining the affections of the citizens, and checking all thoughts of desertion, or abandonment of the country: namely, self-interest, the strength and life of all human action. ( ) this was peculiarly engaged in the hebrew state, for nowhere else did citizens possess their goods so securely, as did the subjects of this community, for the latter possessed as large a share in the land and the fields as did their chiefs, and were owners of their plots of ground in perpetuity; for if any man was compelled by poverty to sell his farm or his pasture, he received it back again intact at the year of jubilee: there were other similar enactments against the possibility of alienating real property. ( : ) again, poverty w as nowhere more endurable than in a country where duty towards one's neighbour, that is, one's fellow-citizen, was practised with the utmost piety, as a means of gaining the favour of god the king. ( ) thus the hebrew citizens would nowhere be so well off as in their own country; outside its limits they met with nothing but loss and disgrace. ( : ) the following considerations were of weight, not only in keeping them at home, but also in preventing civil war and removing causes of strife; no one was bound to serve his equal, but only to serve god, while charity and love towards fellow-citizens was accounted the highest piety; this last feeling was not a little fostered by the general hatred with which they regarded foreign nations and were regarded by them. ( ) furthermore, the strict discipline of obedience in which they were brought up, was a very important factor; for they were bound to carry on all their actions according to the set rules of the law: a man might not plough when he liked, but only at certain times, in certain years, and with one sort of beast at a time; so, too, he might only sow and reap in a certain method and season - in fact, his whole life was one long school of obedience (see chap. v. on the use of ceremonies); such a habit was thus engendered, that conformity seemed freedom instead of servitude, and men desired what was commanded rather than what was forbidden. ( ) this result was not a little aided by the fact that the people were bound, at certain seasons of the year, to give themselves up to rest and rejoicing, not for their own pleasure, but in order that they might worship god cheerfully. ( : ) three times in the year they feasted before the lord; on the seventh day of every week they were bidden to abstain from all work and to rest; besides these, there were other occasions when innocent rejoicing and feasting were not only allowed but enjoined. ( ) i do not think any better means of influencing men's minds could be devised; for there is no more powerful attraction than joy springing from devotion, a mixture of admiration and love. ( ) it was not easy to be wearied by constant repetition, for the rites on the various festivals were varied and recurred seldom. ( ) we may add the deep reverence for the temple which all most religiously fostered, on account of the peculiar rites and duties that they were obliged to perform before approaching thither. ( ) even now, jews cannot read without horror of the crime of manasseh, who dared to place an idol in the temple. ( ) the laws, scrupulously preserved in the inmost sanctuary, were objects of equal reverence to the people. ( ) popular reports and misconceptions were, therefore, very little to be feared in this quarter, for no one dared decide on sacred matters, but all felt bound to obey, without consulting their reason, all the commands given by the answers of god received in the temple, and all the laws which god had ordained. ( : ) i think i have now explained clearly, though briefly, the main features of the hebrew commonwealth. ( ) i must now inquire into the causes which led the people so often to fall away from the law, which brought about their frequent subjection, and, finally, the complete destruction of their dominion. ( ) perhaps i shall be told that it sprang from their hardness of heart; but this is childish, for why should this people be more hard of heart than others; was it by nature? [ :a] ( ) but nature forms individuals, not peoples; the latter are only distinguishable by the difference of their language, their customs, and their laws; while from the two last - i.e., customs and laws, - it may arise that they have a peculiar disposition, a peculiar manner of life, and peculiar prejudices. ( ) if, then, the hebrews were harder of heart than other nations, the fault lay with their laws or customs. ( : ) this is certainly true, in the sense that, if god had wished their dominion to be more lasting, he would have given them other rites and laws, and would have instituted a different form of government. ( ) we can, therefore, only say that their god was angry with them, not only, as jeremiah says, from the building of the city, but even from the founding of their laws. ( : ) this is borne witness to by ezekiel xx: : "wherefore i gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and i polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb; that i might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that i am the lord." ( : ) in order that we may understand these words, and the destruction of the hebrew commonwealth, we must bear in mind that it had at first been intended to entrust the whole duties of the priesthood to the firstborn, and not to the levites (see numb. viii: ). ( ) it was only when all the tribes, except the levites, worshipped the golden calf, that the firstborn were rejected and defiled, and the levites chosen in their stead (deut. x: ). ( ) when i reflect on this change, i feel disposed to break forth with the words of tacitus. ( ) god's object at that time was not the safety of the jews, but vengeance. ( ) i am greatly astonished that the celestial mind was so inflamed with anger that it ordained laws, which always are supposed to promote the honour, well-being, and security of a people, with the purpose of vengeance, for the sake of punishment; so that the laws do not seem so much laws - that is, the safeguard of the people - as pains and penalties. ( : ) the gifts which the people were obliged to bestow on the levites and priests - the redemption of the firstborn, the poll-tax due to the levites, the privilege possessed by the latter of the sole performance of sacred rites - all these, i say, were a continual reproach to the people, a continual reminder of their defilement and rejection. ( ) moreover, we may be sure that the levites were for ever heaping reproaches upon them: for among so many thousands there must have been many importunate dabblers in theology. ( ) hence the people got into the way of watching the acts of the levites, who were but human; of accusing the whole body of the faults of one member, and continually murmuring. ( : ) besides this, there was the obligation to keep in idleness men hateful to them, and connected by no ties of blood. ( ) especially would this seem grievous when provisions were dear. what wonder, then, if in times of peace, when striking miracles had ceased, and no men of paramount authority were forthcoming, the irritable and greedy temper of the people began to wax cold, and at length to fall away from a worship, which, though divine, was also humiliating, and even hostile, and to seek after something fresh; or can we be surprised that the captains, who always adopt the popular course, in order to gain the sovereign power for themselves by enlisting the sympathies of the people, and alienating the high priest, should have yielded to their demands, and introduced a new worship? ( ) if the state had been formed according to the original intention, the rights and honour of all the tribes would have been equal, and everything would have rested on a firm basis. ( ) who is there who would willingly violate the religious rights of his kindred? ( ) what could a man desire more than to support his own brothers and parents, thus fulfilling the duties of religion? ( ) who would not rejoice in being taught by them the interpretation of the laws, and receiving through them the answers of god? ( : ) the tribes would thus have been united by a far closer bond, if all alike had possessed the right to the priesthood. ( ) all danger would have been obviated, if the choice of the levites had not been dictated by anger and revenge. ( ) but, as we have said, the hebrews had offended their god, who, as ezekiel says, polluted them in their own gifts by rejecting all that openeth the womb, so that he might destroy them. ( : ) this passage is also confirmed by their history. as soon as the people in the wilderness began to live in ease and plenty, certain men of no mean birth began to rebel against the choice of the levites, and to make it a cause for believing that moses had not acted by the commands of god, but for his own good pleasure, inasmuch as he had chosen his own tribe before all the rest, and had bestowed the high priesthood in perpetuity on his own brother. ( ) they, therefore, stirred up a tumult, and came to him, crying out that all men were equally sacred, and that he had exalted himself above his fellows wrongfully. ( ) moses was not able to pacify them with reasons; but by the intervention of a miracle in proof of the faith, they all perished. ( ) a fresh sedition then arose among the whole people, who believed that their champions had not been put to death by the judgment of god, but by the device of moses. ( ) after a great slaughter, or pestilence, the rising subsided from inanition, but in such a manner that all preferred death to life under such conditions. ( : ) we should rather say that sedition ceased than that harmony was re-established. ( ) this is witnessed by scripture (deut. xxxi: ), where god, after predicting to moses that the people after his death will fall away from the divine worship, speaks thus: "for i know their imagination which they go about, even now before i have brought them into the land which i sware;" and, a little while after (xxxi: ), moses says: for i know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck: behold while i am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death!" ( : ) indeed, it happened according to his words, as we all know. ( ) great changes, extreme license, luxury, and hardness of heart grew up; things went from bad to worse, till at last the people, after being frequently conquered, came to an open rupture with the divine right, and wished for a mortal king, so that the seat of government might be the court, instead of the temple, and that the tribes might remain fellow-citizens in respect to their king, instead of in respect to divine right and the high priesthood. ( : ) a vast material for new seditions was thus produced, eventually resulting in the ruin of the entire state. kings are above all things jealous of a precarious rule, and can in nowise brook a dominion within their own. ( ) the first monarchs, being chosen from the ranks of private citizens, were content with the amount of dignity to which they had risen; but their sons, who obtained the throne by right of inheritance, began gradually to introduce changes, so as to get all the sovereign rights into their own hands. ( ) this they were generally unable to accomplish, so long as the right of legislation did not rest with them, but with the high priest, who kept the laws in the sanctuary, and interpreted them to the people. ( ) the kings were thus bound to obey the laws as much as were the subjects, and were unable to abrogate them, or to ordain new laws of equal authority; moreover, they were prevented by the levites from administering the affairs of religion, king and subject being alike unclean. ( ) lastly, the whole safety of their dominion depended on the will of one man, if that man appeared to be a prophet; and of this they had seen an example, namely, how completely samuel had been able to command saul, and how easily, because of a single disobedience, he had been able to transfer the right of sovereignty to david. ( ) thus the kings found a dominion within their own, and wielded a precarious sovereignty. ( : ) in order to surmount these difficulties, they allowed other temples to be dedicated to the gods, so that there might be no further need of consulting the levites; they also sought out many who prophesied in the name of god, so that they might have creatures of their own to oppose to the true prophets. ( ) however, in spite of all their attempts, they never attained their end. ( ) for the prophets, prepared against every emergency, waited for a favourable opportunity, such as the beginning of a new reign, which is always precarious, while the memory of the previous reign remains green. ( ) at these times they could easily pronounce by divine authority that the king was tyrannical, and could produce a champion of distinguished virtue to vindicate the divine right, and lawfully to claim dominion, or a share in it. ( ) still, not even so could the prophets effect much. ( ) they could, indeed, remove a tyrant; but there were reasons which prevented them from doing more than setting up, at great cost of civil bloodshed, another tyrant in his stead. ( ) of discords and civil wars there was no end, for the causes for the violation of divine right remained always the same, and could only be removed by a complete remodelling of the state. ( : ) we have now seen how religion was introduced into the hebrew commonwealth, and how the dominion might have lasted for ever, if the just wrath of the lawgiver had allowed it. ( ) as this was impossible, it was bound in time to perish. ( ) i am now speaking only of the first commonwealth, for the second was a mere shadow of the first, inasmuch as the people were bound by the rights of the persians to whom they were subject. ( ) after the restoration of freedom, the high priests usurped the rights of the secular chiefs, and thus obtained absolute dominion. ( ) the priests were inflamed with an intense desire to wield the powers of the sovereignty and the high priesthood at the same time. ( ) i have, therefore, no need to speak further of the second commonwealth. ( ) whether the first, in so far as we deem it to have been durable, is capable of imitation, and whether it would be pious to copy it as far as possible, will appear from what fellows. ( ) i wish only to draw attention, as a crowning conclusion, to the principle indicated already - namely, that it is evident, from what we have stated in this chapter, that the divine right, or the right of religion, originates in a compact: without such compact, none but natural rights exist. ( ) the hebrews were not bound by their religion to evince any pious care for other nations not included in the compact, but only for their own fellow-citizens. [ : ] chapter xviii - from the commonwealth of the hebrews, and their history, certain political doctrines are deduced. [ : ] ( ) although the commonwealth of the hebrews, as we have conceived it, might have lasted for ever, it would be impossible to imitate it at the present day, nor would it be advisable so to do. ( ) if a people wished to transfer their rights to god it would be necessary to make an express covenant with him, and for this would be needed not only the consent of those transferring their rights, but also the consent of god. ( ) god, however, has revealed through his apostles that the covenant of god is no longer written in ink, or on tables of stone, but with the spirit of god in the fleshy tables of the heart. ( : ) furthermore, such a form of government would only be available for those who desire to have no foreign relations, but to shut themselves up within their own frontiers, and to live apart from the rest of the world; it would be useless to men who must have dealings with other nations; so that the cases where it could be adopted are very few indeed. ( : ) nevertheless, though it could not be copied in its entirety, it possessed many excellent features which might be brought to our notice, and perhaps imitated with advantage. ( ) my intention, however, is not to write a treatise on forms of government, so i will pass over most of such points in silence, and will only touch on those which bear upon my purpose. ( : ) god's kingdom is not infringed upon by the choice of an earthly ruler endowed with sovereign rights; for after the hebrews had transferred their rights to god, they conferred the sovereign right of ruling on moses, investing him with the sole power of instituting and abrogating laws in the name of god, of choosing priests, of judging, of teaching, of punishing - in fact, all the prerogatives of an absolute monarch. ( : ) again, though the priests were the interpreters of the laws, they had no power to judge the citizens, or to excommunicate anyone: this could only be done by the judges and chiefs chosen from among the people. ( ) a consideration of the successes and the histories of the hebrews will bring to light other considerations worthy of note. to wit: ( : ) i. that there were no religious sects, till after the high priests, in the second commonwealth, possessed the authority to make decrees, and transact the business of government. ( ) in order that such authority might last for ever, the high priests usurped the rights of secular rulers, and at last wished to be styled kings. ( ) the reason for this is ready to hand; in the first commonwealth no decrees could bear the name of the high priest, for he had no right to ordain laws, but only to give the answers of god to questions asked by the captains or the councils: he had, therefore, no motive for making changes in the law, but took care, on the contrary, to administer and guard what had already been received and accepted. ( ) his only means of preserving his freedom in safety against the will of the captains lay in cherishing the law intact. ( ) after the high priests had assumed the power of carrying on the government, and added the rights of secular rulers to those they already possessed, each one began both in things religious and in things secular, to seek for the glorification of his own name, settling everything by sacerdotal authority, and issuing every day, concerning ceremonies, faith, and all else, new decrees which he sought to make as sacred and authoritative as the laws of moses. ( ) religion thus sank into a degrading superstition, while the true meaning and interpretation of the laws became corrupted. ( ) furthermore, while the high priests were paving their way to the secular rule just after the restoration, they attempted to gain popular favour by assenting to every demand; approving whatever the people did, however impious, and accommodating scripture to the very depraved current morals. ( ) malachi bears witness to this in no measured terms: he chides the priests of his time as despisers of the name of god, and then goes on with his invective as follows (mal ii: , ): "for the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the lord of hosts. ( ) but ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law, ye have corrupted the covenant of levi, saith the lord of hosts." ( ) he further accuses them of interpreting the laws according to their own pleasure, and paying no respect to god but only to persons. ( ) it is certain that the high priests were never so cautious in their conduct as to escape the remark of the more shrewd among the people, for the latter were at length emboldened to assert that no laws ought to be kept save those that were written, and that the decrees which the pharisees (consisting, as josephus says in his "antiquities," chiefly, of the common people), were deceived into calling the traditions of the fathers, should not be observed at all. ( ) however this may be, we can in nowise doubt that flattery of the high priest, the corruption of religion and the laws, and the enormous increase of the extent of the last-named, gave very great and frequent occasion for disputes and altercations impossible to allay. ( ) when men begin to quarrel with all the ardour of superstition, and the magistracy to back up one side or the other, they can never come to a compromise, but are bound to split into sects. ( : ) ii. it is worthy of remark that the prophets, who were in a private station of life, rather irritated than reformed mankind by their freedom of warning, rebuke, and censure; whereas the kings, by their reproofs and punishments, could always produce an effect. ( ) the prophets were often intolerable even to pious kings, on account of the authority they assumed for judging whether an action was right or wrong, or for reproving the kings themselves if they dared to transact any business, whether public or private, without prophetic sanction. ( ) king asa who, according to the testimony of scripture, reigned piously, put the prophet hanani into a prison-house because he had ventured freely to chide and reprove him for entering into a covenant with the king of armenia. ( : ) other examples might be cited, tending to prove that religion gained more harm than good by such freedom, not to speak of the further consequence, that if the prophets had retained their rights, great civil wars would have resulted. ( ) iii. it is remarkable that during all the period, during which the people held the reins of power, there was only one civil war, and that one was completely extinguished, the conquerors taking such pity on the conquered, that they endeavoured in every way to reinstate them in their former dignity and power. ( ) but after that the people, little accustomed to kings, changed its first form of government into a monarchy, civil war raged almost continuously; and battles were so fierce as to exceed all others recorded; in one engagement (taxing our faith to the utmost) five hundred thousand israelites were slaughtered by the men of judah, and in another the israelites slew great numbers of the men of judah (the figures are not given in scripture), almost razed to the ground the walls of jerusalem, and sacked the temple in their unbridled fury. ( ) at length, laden with the spoils of their brethren, satiated with blood, they took hostages, and leaving the king in his well-nigh devastated kingdom, laid down their arms, relying on the weakness rather than the good faith of their foes. ( ) a few years after, the men of judah, with recruited strength, again took the field, but were a second time beaten by the israelites, and slain to the number of a hundred and twenty thousand, two hundred thousand of their wives and children were led into captivity, and a great booty again seized. ( ) worn out with these and similar battles set forth at length in their histories, the jews at length fell a prey to their enemies. ( : ) furthermore, if we reckon up the times during which peace prevailed under each form of government, we shall find a great discrepancy. ( ) before the monarchy forty years and more often passed, and once eighty years (an almost unparalleled period), without any war, foreign or civil. ( ) after the kings acquired sovereign power, the fighting was no longer for peace and liberty, but for glory; accordingly we find that they all, with the exception of solomon (whose virtue and wisdom would be better displayed in peace than in war) waged war, and finally a fatal desire for power gained ground, which, in many cases, made the path to the throne a bloody one. ( : ) lastly, the laws, during the rule of the people, remained uncorrupted and were studiously observed. ( ) before the monarchy there were very, few prophets to admonish the people, but after the establishment of kings there were a great number at the same time. ( ) obadiah saved a hundred from death and hid them away, lest they should be slain with the rest. ( ) the people, so far as we can see, were never deceived by false prophets till after the power had been vested in kings, whose creatures many of the prophets were. ( ) again, the people, whose heart was generally proud or humble according to its circumstances, easily corrected it-self under misfortune, turned again to god, restored his laws, and so freed itself from all peril; but the kings, whose hearts were always equally puffed up, and who could not be corrected without humiliation, clung pertinaciously to their vices, even till the last overthrow of the city. [ : ] ( ) we may now clearly see from what i have said:- ( ) i. how hurtful to religion and the state is the concession to ministers of religion of any power of issuing decrees or transacting the business of government: how, on the contrary, far greater stability is afforded, if the said ministers are only allowed to give answers to questions duly put to them, and are, as a rule, obliged to preach and practise the received and accepted doctrines. ( : ) ii how dangerous it is to refer to divine right matters merely speculative and subject or liable to dispute. ( ) the most tyrannical governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right over his thoughts - nay, such a state of things leads to the rule of popular passion. ( : ) pontius pilate made concession to the passion of the pharisees in consenting to the crucifixion of christ, whom he knew to be innocent. ( ) again, the pharisees, in order to shake the position of men richer than themselves, began to set on foot questions of religion, and accused the sadducees of impiety, and, following their example, the vilest - hypocrites, stirred, as they pretended, by the same holy wrath which they called zeal for the lord, persecuted men whose unblemished character and distinguished virtue had excited the popular hatred, publicly denounced their opinions, and inflamed the fierce passions of the people against them. ( : ) this wanton licence being cloaked with the specious garb of religion could not easily be repressed, especially when the sovereign authorities introduced a sect of which they, were not the head; they were then regarded not as interpreters of divine right, but as sectarians - that is, as persons recognizing the right of divine interpretation assumed by the leaders of the sect. ( ) the authority of the magistrates thus became of little account in such matters in comparison with the authority of sectarian leaders before whose interpretations kings were obliged to bow. ( : ) to avoid such evils in a state, there is no safer way, than to make piety and religion to consist in acts only - that is, in the practice of justice and charity, leaving everyone's judgment in other respects free. ( ) but i will speak of this more at length presently. [ : ] ( ) iii. we see how necessary it is, both in the interests of the state and in the interests of religion, to confer on the sovereign power the right of deciding what is lawful or the reverse. ( ) if this right of judging actions could not be given to the very prophets of god without great injury, to the state and religion, how much less should it be entrusted to those who can neither foretell the future nor work miracles! ( ) but this again i will treat of more fully hereafter. ( : ) iv. lastly, we see how disastrous it is for a people unaccustomed to kings, and possessing a complete code of laws, to set up a monarchy. ( ) neither can the subjects brook such a sway, nor the royal authority submit to laws and popular rights set up by anyone inferior to itself. ( ) still less can a king be expected to defend such laws, for they were not framed to support his dominion, but the dominion of the people, or some council which formerly ruled, so that in guarding the popular rights the king would seem to be a slave rather than a master. ( ) the representative of a new monarchy will employ all his zeal in attempting to frame new laws, so as to wrest the rights of dominion to his own use, and to reduce the people till they find it easier to increase than to curtail the royal prerogative. ( ) i must not, however, omit to state that it is no less dangerous to remove a monarch, though he is on all hands admitted to be a tyrant. ( ) for his people are accustomed to royal authority and will obey no other, despising and mocking at any less august control. ( : ) it is therefore necessary, as the prophets discovered of old, if one king be removed, that he should be replaced by another, who will be a tyrant from necessity rather than choice. ( ) for how will he be able to endure the sight of the hands of the citizens reeking with royal blood, and to rejoice in their regicide as a glorious exploit? ( ) was not the deed perpetrated as an example and warning for himself? ( : ) if he really wishes to be king, and not to acknowledge the people as the judge of kings and the master of himself, or to wield a precarious sway, he must avenge the death of his predecessor, making an example for his own sake, lest the people should venture to repeat a similar crime. ( ) he will not, however, be able easily to avenge the death of the tyrant by the slaughter of citizens unless he defends the cause of tyranny and approves the deeds of his predecessor, thus following in his footsteps. ( : ) hence it comes to pass that peoples have often changed their tyrants, but never removed them or changed the monarchical form of government into any other. [ : ] ( ) the english people furnish us with a terrible example of this fact. ( ) they sought how to depose their monarch under the forms of law, but when he had been removed, they were utterly unable to change the form of government, and after much bloodshed only brought it about, that a new monarch should be hailed under a different name (as though it had been a mere question of names); this new monarch could only consolidate his power by completely destroying the royal stock, putting to death the king's friends, real or supposed, and disturbing with war the peace which might encourage discontent, in order that the populace might be engrossed with novelties and divert its mind from brooding over the slaughter of the king. ( ) at last, however, the people reflected that it had accomplished nothing for the good of the country beyond violating the rights of the lawful king and changing everything for the worse. ( ) it therefore decided to retrace its steps as soon as possible, and never rested till it had seen a complete restoration of the original state of affairs. ( : ) it may perhaps be objected that the roman people was easily able to remove its tyrants, but i gather from its history a strong confirmation of my contention. ( ) though the roman people was much more than ordinarily capable of removing their tyrants and changing their form of government, inasmuch as it held in its own hands the power of electing its king and his successor, said being composed of rebels and criminals had not long been used to the royal yoke (out of its six kings it had put to death three), nevertheless it could accomplish nothing beyond electing several tyrants in place of one, who kept it groaning under a continual state of war, both foreign and civil, till at last it changed its government again to a form differing from monarchy, as in england, only in name. [ : ] ( ) as for the united states of the netherlands, they have never, as we know, had a king, but only counts, who never attained the full rights of dominion. ( ) the states of the netherlands evidently acted as principals in the settlement made by them at the time of the earl of leicester's mission: they always reserved for themselves the authority to keep the counts up to their duties, and the power to preserve this authority and the liberty of the citizens. ( ) they had ample means of vindicating their rights if their rulers should prove tyrannical, and could impose such restraints that nothing could be done without their consent and approval. ( : ) thus the rights of sovereign power have always been vested in the states, though the last count endeavoured to usurp them. ( ) it is therefore little likely that the states should give them up, especially as they have just restored their original dominion, lately almost lost. ( : ) these examples, then, confirm us in our belief, that every dominion should retain its original form, and, indeed, cannot change it without danger of the utter ruin of the whole state. ( ) such are the points i have here thought worthy of remark. [ : ] chapter xix - it is shown that the right over matters spiritual lies wholly with the sovereign, and that the outward forms of religion should be in accordance with public peace, if we would obey god aright. ( ) when i said that the possessors of sovereign power have rights over everything, and that all rights are dependent on their decree, i did not merely mean temporal rights, but also spiritual rights; of the latter, no less than the former, they ought to be the interpreters and the champions. ( ) i wish to draw special attention to this point, and to discuss it fully in this chapter, because many persons deny that the right of deciding religious questions belongs to the sovereign power, and refuse to acknowledge it as the interpreter of divine right. ( ) they accordingly assume full licence to accuse and arraign it, nay, even to excommunicate it from the church, as ambrosius treated the emperor theodosius in old time. ( ) however, i will show later on in this chapter that they take this means of dividing the government, and paving the way to their own ascendancy. ( ) i wish, however, first to point out that religion acquires its force as law solely from the decrees of the sovereign. ( ) god has no special kingdom among men except in so far as he reigns through temporal rulers. [ : ] ( ) moreover, the rites of religion and the outward observances of piety should be in accordance with the public peace and well-being, and should therefore be determined by the sovereign power alone. ( ) i speak here only of the outward observances of piety and the external rites of religion, not of piety, itself, nor of the inward worship of god, nor the means by which the mind is inwardly led to do homage to god in singleness of heart. ( : ) inward worship of god and piety in itself are within the sphere of everyone's private rights, and cannot be alienated (as i showed at the end of chapter vii.). ( ) what i here mean by the kingdom of god is, i think, sufficiently clear from what has been said in chapter xiv. ( ) i there showed that a man best fulfils gods law who worships him, according to his command, through acts of justice and charity; it follows, therefore, that wherever justice and charity have the force of law and ordinance, there is god's kingdom. ( : ) i recognize no difference between the cases where god teaches and commands the practice of justice and charity through our natural faculties, and those where he makes special revelations; nor is the form of the revelation of importance so long as such practice is revealed and becomes a sovereign and supreme law to men. ( ) if, therefore, i show that justice and charity can only acquire the force of right and law through the rights of rulers, i shall be able readily to arrive at the conclusion (seeing that the rights of rulers are in the possession of the sovereign), that religion can only acquire the force of right by means of those who have the right to command, and that god only rules among men through the instrumentality of earthly potentates. ( ) it follows from what has been said, that the practice of justice and charity only acquires the force of law through the rights of the sovereign authority; for we showed in chapter xvi. that in the state of nature reason has no more rights than desire, but that men living either by the laws of the former or the laws of the latter, possess rights co-extensive with their powers. ( : ) for this reason we could not conceive sin to exist in the state of nature, nor imagine god as a judge punishing man's transgressions; but we supposed all things to happen according to the general laws of universal nature, there being no difference between pious and impious, between him that was pure (as solomon says) and him that was impure, because there was no possibility either of justice or charity. [ : ] ( ) in order that the true doctrines of reason, that is (as we showed in chapter iv.), the true divine doctrines might obtain absolutely the force of law and right, it was necessary that each individual should cede his natural right, and transfer it either to society as a whole, or to a certain body of men, or to one man. ( ) then, and not till then, does it first dawn upon us what is justice and what is injustice, what is equity and what is iniquity. ( : ) justice, therefore, and absolutely all the precepts of reason, including love towards one's neighbour, receive the force of laws and ordinances solely through the rights of dominion, that is (as we showed in the same chapter) solely on the decree of those who possess the right to rule. ( ) inasmuch as the kingdom of god consists entirely in rights applied to justice and charity or to true religion, it follows that (as we asserted) the kingdom of god can only exist among men through the means of the sovereign powers; nor does it make any difference whether religion be apprehended by our natural faculties or by revelation: the argument is sound in both cases, inasmuch as religion is one and the same, and is equally revealed by god, whatever be the manner in which it becomes known to men. ( : ) thus, in order that the religion revealed by the prophets might have the force of law among the jews, it was necessary that every man of them should yield up his natural right, and that all should, with one accord, agree that they would only obey such commands as god should reveal to them through the prophets. ( ) just as we have shown to take place in a democracy, where men with one consent agree to live according to the dictates of reason. ( ) although the hebrews furthermore transferred their right to god, they were able to do so rather in theory than in practice, for, as a matter of fact (as we pointed out above) they absolutely retained the right of dominion till they transferred it to moses, who in his turn became absolute king, so that it was only through him that god reigned over the hebrews. ( ) for this reason (namely, that religion only acquires the force of law by means of the sovereign power) moses was not able to punish those who, before the covenant, and consequently while still in possession of their rights, violated the sabbath (exod. xvi: ), but was able to do so after the covenant (numb. xv: ), because everyone had then yielded up his natural rights, and the ordinance of the sabbath had received the force of law. ( : ) lastly, for the same reason, after the destruction of the hebrew dominion, revealed religion ceased to have the force of law; for we cannot doubt that as soon as the jews transferred their right to the king of babylon, the kingdom of god and the divine right forthwith ceased. ( ) for the covenant wherewith they promised to obey all the utterances of god was abrogated; god's kingdom, which was based thereupon, also ceased. ( ) the hebrews could no longer abide thereby, inasmuch as their rights no longer belonged to them but to the king of babylon, whom (as we showed in chapter xvi.) they were bound to obey in all things. ( ) jeremiah (chap. xxix: ) expressly admonishes them of this fact: "and seek the peace of the city, whither i have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." ( ) now, they could not seek the peace of the city as having a share in its government, but only as slaves, being, as they were, captives; by obedience in all things, with a view to avoiding seditions, and by observing all the laws of the country, however different from their own. ( ) it is thus abundantly evident that religion among the hebrews only acquired the form of law through the right of the sovereign rule; when that rule was destroyed, it could no longer be received as the law of a particular kingdom, but only as the universal precept of reason. ( ) i say of reason, for the universal religion had not yet become known by revelation. ( ) we may therefore draw the general conclusion that religion, whether revealed through our natural faculties or through prophets, receives the force of a command solely through the decrees of the holders of sovereign power; and, further, that god has no special kingdom among men, except in so far as he reigns through earthly potentates. ( : ) we may now see in a clearer light what was stated in chapter iv., namely, that all the decrees of god involve eternal truth and necessity, so that we cannot conceive god as a prince or legislator giving laws to mankind. ( ) for this reason the divine precepts, whether revealed through our natural faculties, or through prophets, do not receive immediately from god the force of a command, but only from those, or through the mediation of those, who possess the right of ruling and legislating. ( ) it is only through these latter means that god rules among men, and directs human affairs with justice and equity. ( : ) this conclusion is supported by experience, for we find traces of divine justice only in places where just men bear sway; elsewhere the same lot (to repeat, again solomon's words) befalls the just and the unjust, the pure and the impure: a state of things which causes divine providence to be doubted by many who think that god immediately reigns among men, and directs all nature for their benefit. [ : ] ( ) as, then, both reason and experience tell us that the divine right is entirely dependent on the decrees of secular rulers, it follows that secular rulers are its proper interpreters. ( ) how this is so we shall now see, for it is time to show that the outward observances of religion, and all the external practices of piety should be brought into accordance with the public peace and well-being if we would obey god rightly. ( ) when this has been shown we shall easily understand how the sovereign rulers are the proper interpreters of religion and piety. ( : ) it is certain that duties towards one's country are the highest that man can fulfil; for, if government be taken away, no good thing can last, all falls into dispute, anger and anarchy reign unchecked amid universal fear. ( ) consequently there can be no duty towards our neighbour which would not become an offence if it involved injury to the whole state, nor can there be any offence against our duty towards our neighbour, or anything but loyalty in what we do for the sake of preserving the state. ( ) for instance: it is in the abstract my duty when my neighbour quarrels with me and wishes to take my cloak, to give him my coat also; but if it be thought that such conduct is hurtful to the maintenance of the state, i ought to bring him to trial, even at the risk of his being condemned to death. ( : ) for this reason manlius torquatus is held up to honour, inasmuch as the public welfare outweighed with him his duty towards his children. ( ) this being so, it follows that the public welfare is the sovereign law to which all others, divine and human, should be made to conform. ( ) now, it is the function of the sovereign only to decide what is necessary for the public welfare and the safety of the state, and to give orders accordingly; therefore it is also the function of the sovereign only to decide the limits of our duty towards our neighbour - in other words, to determine how we should obey god. ( ) we can now clearly understand how the sovereign is the interpreter of religion, and further, that no one can obey god rightly, if the practices of his piety do not conform to the public welfare; or, consequently, if he does not implicitly obey all the commands of the sovereign. ( ) for as by god's command we are bound to do our duty to all men without exception, and to do no man an injury, we are also bound not to help one man at another's loss, still less at a loss to the whole state. ( ) now, no private citizen can know what is good for the state, except he learn it through the sovereign power, who alone has the right to transact public business: therefore no one can rightly practise piety or obedience to god, unless he obey the sovereign power's commands in all things. ( ) this proposition is confirmed by the facts of experience. ( ) for if the sovereign adjudge a man to be worthy of death or an enemy, whether he be a citizen or a foreigner, a private individual or a separate ruler, no subject is allowed to give him assistance. ( ) so also though the jews were bidden to love their fellow-citizens as themselves (levit. xix: , ), they were nevertheless bound, if a man offended against the law, to point him out to the judge (levit. v: , and deut. xiii: , ), and, if he should be condemned to death, to slay him (deut. xvii: ). ( : ) further, in order that the hebrews might preserve the liberty they had gained, and might retain absolute sway over the territory they had conquered, it was necessary, as we showed in chapter xvii., that their religion should be adapted to their particular government, and that they should separate themselves from the rest of the nations: wherefore it was commanded to them, "love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy" (matt. v: ), but after they had lost their dominion and had gone into captivity in babylon, jeremiah bid them take thought for the safety of the state into which they had been led captive; and christ when he saw that they would be spread over the whole world, told them to do their duty by all men without exception; all of which instances show that religion has always been made to conform to the public welfare. [ : ] ( ) perhaps someone will ask: by what right, then, did the disciples of christ, being private citizens, preach a new religion? ( ) i answer that they did so by the right of the power which they had received from christ against unclean spirits (see matt. x: ). ( ) i have already stated in chapter xvi. that all are bound to obey a tyrant, unless they have received from god through undoubted revelation a promise of aid against him; so let no one take example from the apostles unless he too has the power of working miracles. ( ) the point is brought out more clearly by christ's command to his disciples, "fear not those who kill the body" (matt. x: ). ( ) if this command were imposed on everyone, governments would be founded in vain, and solomon's words (prov. xxiv: ), "my son, fear god and the king," would be impious, which they certainly are not; we must therefore admit that the authority which christ gave to his disciples was given to them only, and must not be taken as an example for others. ( : ) i do not pause to consider the arguments of those who wish to separate secular rights from spiritual rights, placing the former under the control of the sovereign, and the latter under the control of the universal church; such pretensions are too frivolous to merit refutation. ( ) i cannot however, pass over in silence the fact that such persons are woefully deceived when they seek to support their seditious opinions (i ask pardon for the somewhat harsh epithet) by the example of the jewish high priest, who, in ancient times, had the right of administering the sacred offices. ( ) did not the high priests receive their right by the decree of moses (who, as i have shown, retained the sole right to rule), and could they not by the same means be deprived of it? ( ) moses himself chose not only aaron, but also his son eleazar, and his grandson phineas, and bestowed on them the right of administering the office of high priest. ( ) this right was retained by the high priests afterwards, but none the less were they delegates of moses - that is, of the sovereign power. ( ) moses, as we have shown, left no successor to his dominion, but so distributed his prerogatives, that those who came after him seemed, as it were, regents who administer the government when a king is absent but not dead. ( : ) in the second commonwealth the high priests held their right absolutely, after they had obtained the rights of principality in addition. ( ) wherefore the rights of the high priesthood always depended on the edict of the sovereign, and the high priests did not possess them till they became sovereigns also. ( ) rights in matters spiritual always remained under the control of the kings absolutely (as i will show at the end of this chapter), except in the single particular that they were not allowed to administer in person the sacred duties in the temple, inasmuch as they were not of the family of aaron, and were therefore considered unclean, a reservation which would have no force in a christian community. ( : ) we cannot, therefore, doubt that the daily sacred rites (whose performance does not require a particular genealogy but only a special mode of life, and from which the holders of sovereign power are not excluded as unclean) are under the sole control of the sovereign power; no one, save by the authority or concession of such sovereign, has the right or power of administering them, of choosing others to administer them, of defining or strengthening the foundations of the church and her doctrines; of judging on questions of morality or acts of piety; of receiving anyone into the church or excommunicating him therefrom, or, lastly, of providing for the poor. ( : ) these doctrines are proved to be not only true (as we have already pointed out), but also of primary necessity for the preservation of religion and the state. ( ) we all know what weight spiritual right and authority carries in the popular mind: how everyone hangs on the lips, as it were, of those who possess it. ( ) we may even say that those who wield such authority have the most complete sway over the popular mind. ( : ) whosoever, therefore, wishes to take this right away from the sovereign power, is desirous of dividing the dominion; from such division, contentions, and strife will necessarily spring up, as they did of old between the jewish kings and high priests, and will defy all attempts to allay them. ( ) nay, further, he who strives to deprive the sovereign power of such authority, is aiming (as we have said), at gaining dominion for himself. ( ) what is left for the sovereign power to decide on, if this right be denied him? ( ) certainly nothing concerning either war or peace, if he has to ask another man's opinion as to whether what he believes to be beneficial would be pious or impious. ( ) everything would depend on the verdict of him who had the right of deciding and judging what was pious or impious, right or wrong. ( : ) when such a right was bestowed on the pope of rome absolutely, he gradually acquired complete control over the kings, till at last he himself mounted to the summits of dominion; however much monarchs, and especially the german emperors, strove to curtail his authority, were it only by a hairsbreadth, they effected nothing, but on the contrary by their very endeavours largely increased it. ( ) that which no monarch could accomplish with fire and sword, ecclesiastics could bring about with a stroke of the pen; whereby we may easily see the force and power at the command of the church, and also how necessary it is for sovereigns to reserve such prerogatives for themselves. ( : ) if we reflect on what was said in the last chapter we shall see that such reservation conduced not a little to the increase of religion and piety; for we observed that the prophets themselves, though gifted with divine efficacy, being merely private citizens, rather irritated than reformed the people by their freedom of warning, reproof, and denunciation, whereas the kings by warnings and punishments easily bent men to their will. ( ) furthermore, the kings themselves, not possessing the right in question absolutely, very often fell away from religion and took with them nearly the whole people. ( ) the same thing has often happened from the same cause in christian states. ( : ) perhaps i shall be asked, "but if the holders of sovereign power choose to be wicked, who will be the rightful champion of piety? ( ) should the sovereigns still be its interpreters? "i meet them with the counter-question, "but if ecclesiastics (who are also human, and private citizens, and who ought to mind only their own affairs), or if others whom it is proposed to entrust with spiritual authority, choose to be wicked, should they still be considered as piety's rightful interpreters?" ( ) it is quite certain that when sovereigns wish to follow their own pleasure, whether they have control over spiritual matters or not, the whole state, spiritual and secular, will go to ruin, and it will go much faster if private citizens seditiously assume the championship of the divine rights. ( : ) thus we see that not only is nothing gained by denying such rights to sovereigns, but on the contrary, great evil ensues. ( ) for (as happened with the jewish kings who did not possess such rights absolutely) rulers are thus driven into wickedness, and the injury and loss to the state become certain and inevitable, instead of uncertain and possible. ( ) whether we look to the abstract truth, or the security of states, or the increase of piety, we are compelled to maintain that the divine right, or the right of control over spiritual matters, depends absolutely on the decree of the sovereign, who is its legitimate interpreter and champion. ( ) therefore the true ministers of god's word are those who teach piety to the people in obedience to the authority of the sovereign rulers by whose decree it has been brought into conformity with the public welfare. [ : ] ( ) there remains for me to point out the cause for the frequent disputes on the subject of these spiritual rights in christian states; whereas the hebrews, so far as i know, never, had any doubts about the matter. ( ) it seems monstrous that a question so plain and vitally important should thus have remained undecided, and that the secular rulers could never obtain the prerogative without controversy, nay, nor without great danger of sedition and injury to religion. ( ) if no cause for this state of things were forthcoming, i could easily persuade myself that all i have said in this chapter is mere theorizing, or a kind of speculative reasoning which can never be of any practical use. ( ) however, when we reflect on the beginnings of christianity the cause at once becomes manifest. ( ) the christian religion was not taught at first by kings, but by private persons, who, against the wishes of those in power, whose subjects they, were, were for a long time accustomed to hold meetings in secret churches, to institute and perform sacred rites, and on their own authority to settle and decide on their affairs without regard to the state, ( ) when, after the lapse of many years, the religion was taken up by the authorities, the ecclesiastics were obliged to teach it to the emperors themselves as they had defined it: wherefore they easily gained recognition as its teachers and interpreters, and the church pastors were looked upon as vicars of god. ( ) the ecclesiastics took good care that the christian kings should not assume their authority, by prohibiting marriage to the chief ministers of religion and to its highest interpreter. ( ) they furthermore elected their purpose by multiplying the dogmas of religion to such an extent and so blending them with philosophy that their chief interpreter was bound to be a skilled philosopher and theologian, and to have leisure for a host of idle speculations: conditions which could only be fulfilled by a private individual with much time on his hands. ( : ) among the hebrews things were very differently arranged: for their church began at the same time as their dominion, and moses, their absolute ruler, taught religion to the people, arranged their sacred rites, and chose their spiritual ministers. ( ) thus the royal authority carried very great weight with the people, and the kings kept a firm hold on their spiritual prerogatives. ( : ) although, after the death of moses, no one held absolute sway, yet the power of deciding both in matters spiritual and matters temporal was in the hands of the secular chief, as i have already pointed out. ( ) further, in order that it might be taught religion and piety, the people was bound to consult the supreme judge no less than the high priest (deut. xvii: , ). ( ) lastly, though the kings had not as much power as moses, nearly the whole arrangement and choice of the sacred ministry depended on their decision. ( ) thus david arranged the whole service of the temple (see chron. xxviii: , , &c.); from all the levites he chose twenty-four thousand for the sacred psalms; six thousand of these formed the body from which were chosen the judges and proctors, four thousand were porters, and four thousand to play on instruments (see chron. xxiii: , ). ( ) he further divided them into companies (of whom he chose the chiefs), so that each in rotation, at the allotted time, might perform the sacred rites. ( ) the priests he also divided into as many companies; i will not go through the whole catalogue, but refer the reader to chron. viii: , where it is stated, "then solomon offered burnt offerings to the lord . . . . . after a certain rate every day, offering according to the commandments of moses;" and in verse , "and he appointed, according to the order of david his father, the courses of the priests to their service . . . . . . for so had david the man of god commanded." ( ) lastly, the historian bears witness in verse : "and they departed not from the commandment of the king unto the priests and levites concerning any matter, or concerning the treasuries." [ : ] ( ) from these and other histories of the kings it is abundantly evident, that the whole practice of religion and the sacred ministry depended entirely on the commands of the king. ( : ) when i said above that the kings had not the same right as moses to elect the high priest, to consult god without intermediaries, and to condemn the prophets who prophesied during their reign; i said so simply because the prophets could, in virtue of their mission, choose a new king and give absolution for regicide, not because they could call a king who offended against the law to judgment, or could rightly act against him [endnote ]. ( : ) wherefore if there had been no prophets who, in virtue of a special revelation, could give absolution for regicide, the kings would have possessed absolute rights over all matters both spiritual and temporal. ( ) consequently the rulers of modern times, who have no prophets and would not rightly be bound in any case to receive them (for they are not subject to jewish law), have absolute possession of the spiritual prerogative, although they are not celibates, and they will always retain it, if they will refuse to allow religious dogmas to be unduly multiplied or confounded with philosophy. [ : ] chapter xx - that in a free state every man may think what he likes, and say what he thinks. [ : ] ( ) if men's minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease; for every subject would shape his life according to the intentions of his rulers, and would esteem a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates. ( ) however, we have shown already (chapter xvii.) that no man's mind can possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so to do. ( ) for this reason government which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects, to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of god. ( ) all these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his own consent. ( : ) i admit that the judgment can be biassed in many ways, and to an almost incredible degree, so that while exempt from direct external control it may be so dependent on another man's words, that it may fitly be said to be ruled by him; but although this influence is carried to great lengths, it has never gone so far as to invalidate the statement, that every man's understanding is his own, and that brains are as diverse as palates. ( : ) moses, not by fraud, but by divine virtue, gained such a hold over the popular judgment that he was accounted superhuman, and believed to speak and act through the inspiration of the deity; nevertheless, even he could not escape murmurs and evil interpretations. ( ) how much less then can other monarchs avoid them! ( ) yet such unlimited power, if it exists at all, must belong to a monarch, and least of all to a democracy, where the whole or a great part of the people wield authority collectively. ( ) this is a fact which i think everyone can explain for himself. ( : ) however unlimited, therefore, the power of a sovereign may be, however implicitly it is trusted as the exponent of law and religion, it can never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect, or being influenced by any given emotion. ( ) it is true that it has the right to treat as enemies all men whose opinions do not, on all subjects, entirely coincide with its own; but we are not discussing its strict rights, but its proper course of action. ( ) i grant that it has the right to rule in the most violent manner, and to put citizens to death for very trivial causes, but no one supposes it can do this with the approval of sound judgment. ( ) nay, inasmuch as such things cannot be done without extreme peril to itself, we may even deny that it has the absolute power to do them, or, consequently, the absolute right; for the rights of the sovereign are limited by his power. [ : ] ( ) since, therefore, no one can abdicate his freedom of judgment and feeling; since every man is by indefeasible natural right the master of his own thoughts, it follows that men thinking in diverse and contradictory fashions, cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power. ( ) not even the most experienced, to say nothing of the multitude, know how to keep silence. ( ) men's common failing is to confide their plans to others, though there be need for secrecy, so that a government would be most harsh which deprived the individual of his freedom of saying and teaching what he thought; and would be moderate if such freedom were granted. ( ) still we cannot deny that authority may be as much injured by words as by actions; hence, although the freedom we are discussing cannot be entirely denied to subjects, its unlimited concession would be most baneful; we must, therefore, now inquire, how far such freedom can and ought to be conceded without danger to the peace of the state, or the power of the rulers; and this, as i said at the beginning of chapter xvi., is my principal object. ( ) it follows, plainly, from the explanation given above, of the foundations of a state, that the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work - without injury to himself or others. ( : ) no, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. ( ) in fact, the true aim of government is liberty. ( : ) now we have seen that in forming a state the power of making laws must either be vested in the body of the citizens, or in a portion of them, or in one man. ( ) for, although mens free judgments are very diverse, each one thinking that he alone knows everything, and although complete unanimity of feeling and speech is out of the question, it is impossible to preserve peace, unless individuals abdicate their right of acting entirely on their own judgment. [ : ] ( ) therefore, the individual justly cedes the right of free action, though not of free reason and judgment; no one can act against the authorities without danger to the state, though his feelings and judgment may be at variance therewith; he may even speak against them, provided that he does so from rational conviction, not from fraud, anger, or hatred, and provided that he does not attempt to introduce any change on his private authority. ( : ) for instance, supposing a man shows that a law is repugnant to sound reason, and should therefore be repealed; if he submits his opinion to the judgment of the authorities (who, alone, have the right of making and repealing laws), and meanwhile acts in nowise contrary to that law, he has deserved well of the state, and has behaved as a good citizen should; but if he accuses the authorities of injustice, and stirs up the people against them, or if he seditiously strives to abrogate the law without their consent, he is a mere agitator and rebel. ( : ) thus we see how an individual may declare and teach what he believes, without injury to the authority of his rulers, or to the public peace; namely, by leaving in their hands the entire power of legislation as it affects action, and by doing nothing against their laws, though he be compelled often to act in contradiction to what he believes, and openly feels, to be best. ( : ) such a course can be taken without detriment to justice and dutifulness, nay, it is the one which a just and dutiful man would adopt. ( ) we have shown that justice is dependent on the laws of the authorities, so that no one who contravenes their accepted decrees can be just, while the highest regard for duty, as we have pointed out in the preceding chapter, is exercised in maintaining public peace and tranquillity; these could not be preserved if every man were to live as he pleased; therefore it is no less than undutiful for a man to act contrary to his country's laws, for if the practice became universal the ruin of states would necessarily follow. ( : ) hence, so long as a man acts in obedience to the laws of his rulers, he in nowise contravenes his reason, for in obedience to reason he transferred the right of controlling his actions from his own hands to theirs. ( ) this doctrine we can confirm from actual custom, for in a conference of great and small powers, schemes are seldom carried unanimously, yet all unite in carrying out what is decided on, whether they voted for or against. ( ) but i return to my proposition. ( : ) from the fundamental notions of a state, we have discovered how a man may exercise free judgment without detriment to the supreme power: from the same premises we can no less easily determine what opinions would be seditious. ( ) evidently those which by their very nature nullify the compact by which the right of free action was ceded. ( ) for instance, a man who holds that the supreme power has no rights over him, or that promises ought not to be kept, or that everyone should live as he pleases, or other doctrines of this nature in direct opposition to the above-mentioned contract, is seditious, not so much from his actual opinions and judgment, as from the deeds which they involve; for he who maintains such theories abrogates the contract which tacitly, or openly, he made with his rulers. ( ) other opinions which do not involve acts violating the contract, such as revenge, anger, and t he like, are not seditious, unless it be in some corrupt state, where superstitious and ambitious persons, unable to endure men of learning, are so popular with the multitude that their word is more valued than the law. ( : ) however, i do not deny that there are some doctrines which, while they are apparently only concerned with abstract truths and falsehoods, are yet propounded and published with unworthy motives. ( ) this question we have discussed in chapter xv., and shown that reason should nevertheless remain unshackled. ( ) if we hold to the principle that a man's loyalty to the state should be judged, like his loyalty to god, from his actions only - namely, from his charity towards his neighbours; we cannot doubt that the best government will allow freedom of philosophical speculation no less than of religious belief. ( ) i confess that from such freedom inconveniences may sometimes arise, but what question was ever settled so wisely that no abuses could possibly spring therefrom? ( ) he who seeks to regulate everything by law, is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. ( ) it is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. ( ) how many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness, and the like, yet these are tolerated - vices as they are - because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments. ( ) how much more then should free thought be granted, seeing that it is in itself a virtue and that it cannot be crushed! ( ) besides, the evil results can easily be checked, as i will show, by the secular authorities, not to mention that such freedom is absolutely necessary for progress in science and the liberal arts: for no man follows such pursuits to advantage unless his judgment be entirely free and unhampered. ( : ) but let it be granted that freedom may be crushed, and men be so bound down, that they do not dare to utter a whisper, save at the bidding of their rulers; nevertheless this can never be carried to the pitch of making them think according to authority, so that the necessary consequences would be that men would daily be thinking one thing and saying another, to the corruption of good faith, that mainstay of government, and to the fostering of hateful flattery and perfidy, whence spring stratagems, and the corruption of every good art. ( : ) it is far from possible to impose uniformity of speech, for the more rulers strive to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately are they resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, the flatterers, and other numskulls, who think supreme salvation consists in filling their stomachs and gloating over their money-bags, but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free. ( ) men, as generally constituted, are most prone to resent the branding as criminal of opinions which they believe to be true, and the proscription as wicked of that which inspires them with piety towards god and man; hence they are ready to forswear the laws and conspire against the authorities, thinking it not shameful but honourable to stir up seditions and perpetuate any sort of crime with this end in view. ( ) such being the constitution of human nature, we see that laws directed against opinions affect the generous minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright; so that they cannot be maintained without great peril to the state. ( : ) moreover, such laws are almost always useless, for those who hold that the opinions proscribed are sound, cannot possibly obey the law; whereas those who already reject them as false, accept the law as a kind of privilege, and make such boast of it, that authority is powerless to repeal it, even if such a course be subsequently desired. ( : ) to these considerations may be added what we said in chapter xviii. in treating of the history of the hebrews. ( ) and, lastly, how many schisms have arisen in the church from the attempt of the authorities to decide by law the intricacies of theological controversy! ( ) if men were not allured by the hope of getting the law and the authorities on their side, of triumphing over their adversaries in the sight of an applauding multitude, and of acquiring honourable distinctions, they would not strive so maliciously, nor would such fury sway their minds. ( ) this is taught not only by reason but by daily examples, for laws of this kind prescribing what every man shall believe and forbidding anyone to speak or write to the contrary, have often been passed, as sops or concessions to the anger of those who cannot tolerate men of enlightenment, and who, by such harsh and crooked enactments, can easily turn the devotion of the masses into fury and direct it against whom they will. ( ) how much better would it be to restrain popular anger and fury, instead of passing useless laws, which can only be broken by those who love virtue and the liberal arts, thus paring down the state till it is too small to harbour men of talent. ( ) what greater misfortune for a state can be conceived then that honourable men should be sent like criminals into exile, because they hold diverse opinions which they cannot disguise? ( ) what, i say, can be more hurtful than that men who have committed no crime or wickedness should, simply because they are enlightened, be treated as enemies and put to death, and that the scaffold, the terror of evil-doers, should become the arena where the highest examples of tolerance and virtue are displayed to the people with all the marks of ignominy that authority can devise? ( : ) he that knows himself to be upright does not fear the death of a criminal, and shrinks from no punishment; his mind is not wrung with remorse for any disgraceful deed: he holds that death in a good cause is no punishment, but an honour, and that death for freedom is glory. ( : ) what purpose then is served by the death of such men, what example in proclaimed? the cause for which they die is unknown to the idle and the foolish, hateful to the turbulent, loved by the upright. ( ) the only lesson we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to imitate the victim. ( : ) if formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction, and if governments are to retain a firm hold of authority and not be compelled to yield to agitators, it is imperative that freedom of judgment should be granted, so that men may live together in harmony, however diverse, or even openly contradictory their opinions may be. ( ) we cannot doubt that such is the best system of government and open to the fewest objections, since it is the one most in harmony with human nature. ( ) in a democracy (the most natural form of government, as we have shown in chapter xvi.) everyone submits to the control of authority over his actions, but not over his judgment and reason; that is, seeing that all cannot think alike, the voice of the majority has the force of law, subject to repeal if circumstances bring about a change of opinion. ( ) in proportion as the power of free judgment is withheld we depart from the natural condition of mankind, and consequently the government becomes more tyrannical. [ : ] ( ) in order to prove that from such freedom no inconvenience arises, which cannot easily be checked by the exercise of the sovereign power, and that men's actions can easily be kept in bounds, though their opinions be at open variance, it will be well to cite an example. ( ) such an one is not very, far to seek. ( ) the city of amsterdam reaps the fruit of this freedom in its own great prosperity and in the admiration of all other people. ( ) for in this most flourishing state, and most splendid city, men of every nation and religion live together in the greatest harmony, and ask no questions before trusting their goods to a fellow-citizen, save whether he be rich or poor, and whether he generally acts honestly, or the reverse. ( ) his religion and sect is considered of no importance: for it has no effect before the judges in gaining or losing a cause, and there is no sect so despised that its followers, provided that they harm no one, pay every man his due, and live uprightly, are deprived of the protection of the magisterial authority. ( : ) on the other hand, when the religious controversy between remonstrants and counter-remonstrants began to be taken up by politicians and the states, it grew into a schism, and abundantly showed that laws dealing with religion and seeking to settle its controversies are much more calculated to irritate than to reform, and that they give rise to extreme licence: further, it was seen that schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy, ( ) from all these considerations it is clearer than the sun at noonday, that the true schismatics are those who condemn other men's writings, and seditiously stir up the quarrelsome masses against their authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason. ( ) in fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over. ( : ) i have thus shown:- ( ) i. that it is impossible to deprive men of the liberty of saying what they think. ( ) ii. that such liberty can be conceded to every man without injury to the rights and authority of the sovereign power, and that every man may retain it without injury to such rights, provided that he does not presume upon it to the extent of introducing any new rights into the state, or acting in any way contrary, to the existing laws. ( : ) iii. that every man may enjoy this liberty without detriment to the public peace, and that no inconveniences arise therefrom which cannot easily be checked. ( ) iv. that every man may enjoy it without injury to his allegiance. ( ) v. that laws dealing with speculative problems are entirely useless. ( ) vi. lastly, that not only may such liberty be granted without prejudice to the public peace, to loyalty, and to the rights of rulers, but that it is even necessary, for their preservation. ( ) for when people try to take it away, and bring to trial, not only the acts which alone are capable of offending, but also the opinions of mankind, they only succeed in surrounding their victims with an appearance of martyrdom, and raise feelings of pity and revenge rather than of terror. ( ) uprightness and good faith are thus corrupted, flatterers and traitors are encouraged, and sectarians triumph, inasmuch as concessions have been made to their animosity, and they have gained the state sanction for the doctrines of which they are the interpreters. ( ) hence they arrogate to themselves the state authority and rights, and do not scruple to assert that they have been directly chosen by god, and that their laws are divine, whereas the laws of the state are human, and should therefore yield obedience to the laws of god - in other words, to their own laws. ( ) everyone must see that this is not a state of affairs conducive to public welfare. ( ) wherefore, as we have shown in chapter xviii., the safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks. ( : ) i have thus fulfilled the task i set myself in this treatise. [ : ] ( ) it remains only to call attention to the fact that i have written nothing which i do not most willingly submit to the examination and approval of my country's rulers; and that i am willing to retract anything which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws, or prejudicial to the public good. ( ) i know that i am a man, and as a man liable to error, but against error i have taken scrupulous care, and have striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, with loyalty, and with morality. end of part of . author's endnotes to the theologico-political treatise chapter xvi. [endnote ]. ( ) "no one can honestly promise to forego the right which he has over all things." ( ) in the state of social life, where general right determines what is good or evil, stratagem is rightly distinguished as of two kinds, good and evil. ( ) but in the state of nature, where every man is his own judge, possessing the absolute right to lay down laws for himself, to interpret them as he pleases, or to abrogate them if he thinks it convenient, it is not conceivable that stratagem should be evil. [endnote ]. ( ) "every member of it may, if he will, be free." ( ) whatever be the social state a man finds; himself in, he may be free. ( ) for certainly a man is free, in so far as he is led by reason. ( ) now reason (though hobbes thinks otherwise) is always on the side of peace, which cannot be attained unless the general laws of the state be respected. ( ) therefore the more he is free, the more constantly will he respect the laws of his country, and obey the commands of the sovereign power to which he is subject. [endnote ]. ( ) "no one knows by nature that he owes any obedience to god." ( ) when paul says that men have in themselves no refuge, he speaks as a man: for in the ninth chapter of the same epistle he expressly teaches that god has mercy on whom he will, and that men are without excuse, only because they are in god's power like clay in the hands of a potter, who out of the same lump makes vessels, some for honour and some for dishonour, not because they have been forewarned. ( ) as regards the divine natural law whereof the chief commandment is, as we have said, to love god, i have called it a law in the same sense, as philosophers style laws those general rules of nature, according to which everything happens. ( ) for the love of god is not a state of obedience: it is a virtue which necessarily exists in a man who knows god rightly. ( ) obedience has regard to the will of a ruler, not to necessity and truth. ( ) now as we are ignorant of the nature of god's will, and on the other hand know that everything happens solely by god's power, we cannot, except through revelation, know whether god wishes in any way to be honoured as a sovereign. ( ) again; we have shown that the divine rights appear to us in the light of rights or commands, only so long as we are ignorant of their cause: as soon as their cause is known, they cease to be rights, and we embrace them no longer as rights but as eternal truths; in other words, obedience passes into love of god, which emanates from true knowledge as necessarily as light emanates from the sun. ( ) reason then leads us to love god, but cannot lead us to obey him; for we cannot embrace the commands of god as divine, while we are in ignorance of their cause, neither can we rationally conceive god as a sovereign laying down laws as a sovereign. chapter xvii. [endnote ]. ( ) "if men could lose their natural rights so as to be absolutely unable for the future to oppose the will of the sovereign" ( ) two common soldiers undertook to change the roman dominion, and did change it. (tacitus, hist. i: .) [endnote ]. ( ) see numbers xi. . in this passage it is written that two men prophesied in the camp, and that joshua wished to punish them. ( ) this he would not have done, if it had been lawful for anyone to deliver the divine oracles to the people without the consent of moses. ( ) but moses thought good to pardon the two men, and rebuked joshua for exhorting him to use his royal prerogative, at a time when he was so weary of reigning, that he preferred death to holding undivided sway (numb. xi: ). ( ) for he made answer to joshua, "enviest thou for my sake? ( ) would god that all the lord's people were prophets, and that the lord would put his spirit upon them." ( ) that is to say, would god that the right of taking counsel of god were general, and the power were in the hands of the people. ( ) thus joshua was not mistaken as to the right, but only as to the time for using it, for which he was rebuked by moses, in the same way as abishai was rebuked by david for counselling that shimei, who had undoubtedly been guilty of treason, should be put to death. ( ) see sam. xix: , . [endnote ]. ( ) see numbers xxvii: . ( ) the translators of the bible have rendered incorrectly verses and of this chapter. ( ) the passage does not mean that moses gave precepts or advice to joshua, but that he made or established him chief of the hebrews. ( ) the phrase is very frequent in scripture (see exodus, xviii: ; sam. xiii: ; joshua i: ; sam. xxv: ). [endnote ] ( ) "there was no judge over each of the captains save god." ( ) the rabbis and some christians equally foolish pretend that the sanhedrin, called "the great" was instituted by moses. ( ) as a matter of fact, moses chose seventy colleagues to assist him in governing, because he was not able to bear alone the burden of the whole people; but he never passed any law for forming a college of seventy members; on the contrary he ordered every tribe to appoint for itself, in the cities which god had given it, judges to settle disputes according to the laws which he himself had laid down. ( ) in cases where the opinions of the judges differed as to the interpretation of these laws, moses bade them take counsel of the high priest (who was the chief interpreter of the law), or of the chief judge, to whom they were then subordinate (who had the right of consulting the high priest), and to decide the dispute in accordance with the answer obtained. ( ) if any subordinate judge should assert, that he was not bound by the decision of the high priest, received either directly or through the chief of his state, such an one was to be put to death (deut. xvii: ) by the chief judge, whoever he might be, to whom he was a subordinate. ( ) this chief judge would either be joshua, the supreme captain of the whole people, or one of the tribal chiefs who had been entrusted, after the division of the tribes, with the right of consulting the high priest concerning the affairs of his tribe, of deciding on peace or war, of fortifying towns, of appointing inferior judges, &c. ( ) or, again, it might be the king, in whom all or some of the tribes had vested their rights.( ) i could cite many instances in confirmation of what i here advance. ( ) i will confine myself to one, which appears to me the most important of all. ( ) when the shilomitish prophet anointed jeroboam king, he, in so doing, gave him the right of consulting the high priest, of appointing judges, &c. ( ) in fact he endowed him with all the rights over the ten tribes, which rehoboam retained over the two tribes. ( ) consequently jeroboam could set up a supreme council in his court with as much right as jehoshaphat could at jerusalem ( chron. xix: ). ( ) for it is plain that neither jeroboam, who was king by god's command, nor jeroboam's subjects, were bound by the law of moses to accept the judgments of rehoboam, who was not their king. ( ) still less were they under the jurisdiction of the judge, whom rehoboam had set up in jerusalem as subordinate to himself. ( ) according, therefore, as the hebrew dominion was divided, so was a supreme council setup in each division. ( ) those who neglect the variations in the constitution of the hebrew states, and confuse them all together in one, fall into numerous difficulties. chapter xix. [endnote ]. ( ) i must here bespeak special attention for what was said in chap. xvi. concerning rights. end of part iv endnotes. transcriber's note: footnotes that describe the subject or circumstances of the interview are placed immediately after its title, or where they occur in the narrative. other footnotes are at the end of the interview. the digraph "ae" has been spelled out for clarity. "employe", used throughout with no accent, has been replaced by "employee". "buechner" appeared with the umlaut in the original. typographical and grammatical errors and misspellings have been corrected, but th-century variants have been retained. question marks have been added where required. loc call number: bl .a [frontispiece: v .jpg] "_with daughters' babes upon his knees, the white hair mingling with the gold_." eva ingersoll-brown robert g. ingersoll brown. dresden edition the works of _robert g. ingersoll_ "happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest." in twelve volumes volume viii. interviews new york the dresden publishing co., c. p. farrell mcmxv copyright, by c. p. farrell copyright, by the dresden publishing co. contents of volume viii. interviews. the bible and a future life, washington post mrs. van cott, the revivalist, buffalo express european trip and greenback question, washington post the pre-millennial conference, buffalo express the solid south and resumption, cincinnati commercial sunday laws of pittsburg, pittsburg leader political and religious, chicago times politics and gen. grant, indianapolis journal politics, religion and thomas paine, chicago times reply to chicago critics, chicago tribune the republican victory, new york herald ingersoll and beecher, new york herald political, washington post religion in politics, new york evening express miracles and immortality, pittsburg dispatch the political outlook, cincinnati commercial mr. beecher, moses and the negro, brooklyn eagle hades, delaware and freethought, brooklyn eagle a reply to the rev. mr. lansing, new haven sunday union beaconsfield, lent and revivals, brooklyn eagle answering the new york ministers, chicago times guiteau and his crime, washington sunday gazette district suffrage, washington capital funeral of john g. mills and immortality, washington post star route and politics, new york herald the interviewer, new york morning journal politics and prohibition, chicago times the republican defeat in ohio, dayton democrat the civil rights bill, washington national republican justice harlan and the civil rights bill, chicago inter-ocean politics and theology, denver tribune morality and immortality, detroit news politics, mormonism and mr. beecher, denver news free trade and christianity, denver republican the oath question, london secular review wendell phillips, fitz john porter and bismarck, chicago times general subjects, kansas city times reply to kansas city clergy, kansas city journal swearing and affirming, buffalo courier reply to a buffalo critic, buffalo times blasphemy, philadelphia press politics and british columbia, san francisco evening post ingersoll catechised, san francisco san franciscan blaine's defeat, topeka commonwealth blaine's defeat, louisville commercial plagiarism and politics, cleveland plain dealer religious prejudice, new york mail and express cleveland and his cabinet, new york mail and express religion, prohibition and gen. grant, iowa state register hell or sheol and other subjects, boston evening record interviewing, politics and spiritualism, cleveland plain dealer my belief, philadelphia times some live topics, new york truth seeker the president and the senate, chicago inter-ocean atheism and citizenship, new york herald the labor question, cincinnati enquirer railroads and politics, cincinnati times star prohibition, boston evening traveler henry george and labor, new york herald labor question and socialism, new york world henry george and socialism, chicago times reply to the rev. b. f. morse, new york herald ingersoll on mcglynn, brooklyn citizen trial of the chicago anarchists, new york mail and express the stage and the pulpit, new york truth seeker roscoe conkling, new york herald the church and the state, new york dramatic mirror protection--free trade, new york press labor and tariff reform, new york press cleveland and thurman, new york press the republican platform of , new york press james g. blaine and politics, new york press the mills bill, new york press society and its criminals, new york world woman's right to divorce, new york world secularism, toronto secular thought summer recreation--mr. gladstone, unpublished prohibition, new york world robert elsmere, new york world working girls, new york world protection for american actors, new york star liberals and liberalism, toronto secular thought pope leo xiii., new york herald the sacredness of the sabbath, new york journal the west and south, indianapolis journal the westminster creed and other subjects, rochester post-express shakespeare and bacon, minneapolis tribune growing old gracefully, and presbyterianism, toledo blade creeds, new york morning advertiser the tendency of modern thought, chicago tribune woman suffrage, horse racing, and money, chicago inter-ocean missionaries, cleveland press my belief and unbelief, toledo blade must religion go? new york evening advertiser word painting and college education, indianapolis news personal magnetism and the sunday question, cincinnati commercial gazette authors, kansas city star inebriety, unpublished miracles, theosophy and spiritualism, unpublished tolstoy and literature, buffalo evening express woman in politics, new york advertiser spiritualism, st. louis globe-democrat plays and players, new york dramatic mirror woman, a fragment strikes, expansion and other subjects, new york, may , sunday a day of pleasure, new york times the parliament of religions, new york herald cleveland's hawaiian policy, chicago inter-ocean orators and oratory, london sketch catholicism and protestantism.--the pope.--the a. p. a., agnosticism and the church, new york herald woman and her domain, grand rapids democrat professor swing, chicago inter-ocean senator sherman and his book, st. louis globe-democrat reply to the christian endeavorers, new york journal spiritualism, new york journal a little of everything, rochester herald is life worth living?--christian science and politics, chicago inter-ocean vivisection, new york evening telegram divorce, new york herald music, newspapers, lynching and arbitration, chicago inter-ocean a visit to shaw's garden, st. louis republic the venezuela boundary discussion and the whipping post, new york journal colonel shepard's stage horses, new york morning advertiser a reply to the rev. l. a. banks, cleveland plain dealer cuba--zola and theosophy, louisville courier-journal how to become an orator, new york sun john russell young and expansion, philadelphia press psychical research and the bible, new york mind this century's glories, new york sun capital punishment and the whipping post, chicago tribune expansion and trusts, philadelphia north american interviews the bible and a future life _question_. colonel, are your views of religion based upon the bible? _answer_. i regard the bible, especially the old testament, the same as i do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth, a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good sense. _question_. have you found any other work, sacred or profane, which you regard as more reliable? _answer_. i know of no book less so, in my judgment. _question_. you have studied the bible attentively, have you not? _answer_. i have read the bible. i have heard it talked about a good deal, and am sufficiently well acquainted with it to justify my own mind in utterly rejecting all claims made for its divine origin. _question_. what do you base your views upon? _answer_. on reason, observation, experience, upon the discoveries in science, upon observed facts and the analogies properly growing out of such facts. i have no confidence in anything pretending to be outside, or independent of, or in any manner above nature. _question_. according to your views, what disposition is made of man after death? _answer_. upon that subject i know nothing. it is no more wonderful that man should live again than he now lives; upon that question i know of no evidence. the doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. we love, therefore we wish to live. _question_. then you would not undertake to say what becomes of man after death? _answer_. if i told or pretended to know what becomes of man after death, i would be as dogmatic as are theologians upon this question. the difference between them and me is, i am honest. i admit that i do not know. _question_. judging by your criticism of mankind, colonel, in your recent lecture, you have not found his condition very satisfactory? _answer_. nature, outside of man, so far as i know, is neither cruel nor merciful. i am not satisfied with the present condition of the human race, nor with the condition of man during any period of which we have any knowledge. i believe, however, the condition of man is improved, and this improvement is due to his own exertions. i do not make nature a being. i do not ascribe to nature intentions. _question_. is your theory, colonel, the result of investigation of the subject? _answer_. no one can control his own opinion or his own belief. my belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. i am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me. i believe in this world. i have no confidence in any religion promising joys in another world at the expense of liberty and happiness in this. at the same time, i wish to give others all the rights i claim for myself. _question_. if i asked for proofs for your theory, what would you furnish? _answer_. the experience of every man who is honest with himself, every fact that has been discovered in nature. in addition to these, the utter and total failure of all religionists in all countries to produce one particle of evidence showing the existence of any supernatural power whatever, and the further fact that the people are not satisfied with their religion. they are continually asking for evidence. they are asking it in every imaginable way. the sects are continually dividing. there is no real religious serenity in the world. all religions are opponents of intellectual liberty. i believe in absolute mental freedom. real religion with me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not a creed, but a life. _question_. what punishment, then, is inflicted upon man for his crimes and wrongs committed in this life? _answer_. there is no such thing as intellectual crime. no man can commit a mental crime. to become a crime it must go beyond thought. _question_. what punishment is there for physical crime? _answer_. such punishment as is necessary to protect society and for the reformation of the criminal. _question_. if there is only punishment in this world, will not some escape punishment? _answer_. i admit that all do not seem to be punished as they deserve. i also admit that all do not seem to be rewarded as they deserve; and there is in this world, apparently, as great failures in matter of reward as in matter of punishment. if there is another life, a man will be happier there for acting according to his highest ideal in this. but i do not discern in nature any effort to do justice. --_the post_, washington, d. c., . mrs. van cott, the revivalist _question_. i see, colonel, that in an interview published this morning, mrs. van cott (the revivalist), calls you "a poor barking dog." do you know her personally? _answer_. i have never met or seen her. _question_. do you know the reason she applied the epithet? _answer_. i suppose it to be the natural result of what is called vital piety; that is to say, universal love breeds individual hatred. _question_. do you intend making any reply to what she says? _answer_. i have written her a note of which this is a copy: _buffalo, feb. th, ._ mrs. van cott; my dear madam:--were you constrained by the love of christ to call a man who has never injured you "a poor barking dog?" did you make this remark as a christian, or as a lady? did you say these words to illustrate in some faint degree the refining influence upon women of the religion you preach? what would you think of me if i should retort, using your language, changing only the sex of the last word? i have the honor to remain, yours truly, r. g. ingersoll _question_. well, what do you think of the religious revival system generally? _answer_. the fire that has to be blown all the time is a poor thing to get warm by. i regard these revivals as essentially barbaric. i think they do no good, but much harm, they make innocent people think they are guilty, and very mean people think they are good. _question_. what is your opinion concerning women as conductors of these revivals? _answer_. i suppose those engaged in them think they are doing good. they are probably honest. i think, however, that neither men nor women should be engaged in frightening people into heaven. that is all i wish to say on the subject, as i do not think it worth talking about. --_the express_, buffalo, new york, feb., . european trip and greenback question _question_. what did you do on your european trip, colonel? _answer_. i went with my family from new york to southampton, england, thence to london, and from london to edinburgh. in scotland i visited every place where burns had lived, from the cottage where he was born to the room where he died. i followed him from the cradle to the coffin. i went to stratford-upon-avon for the purpose of seeing all that i could in any way connected with shakespeare; next to london, where we visited again all the places of interest, and thence to paris, where we spent a couple of weeks in the exposition. _question_. and what did you think of it? _answer_. so far as machinery--so far as the practical is concerned, it is not equal to ours in philadelphia; in art it is incomparably beyond it. i was very much gratified to find so much evidence in favor of my theory that the golden age in art is in front of us; that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. the modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. i think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. nothing pleased me more than the painting from holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. they paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. they are not much on ariadnes and venuses, but they paint good women. _question_. what did you think of the american display? _answer_. our part of the exposition is good, but nothing to what is should and might have been, but we bring home nearly as many medals as we took things. we lead the world in machinery and in ingenious inventions, and some of our paintings were excellent. _question_. colonel, crossing the atlantic back to america, what do you think of the greenback movement? _answer_. in regard to the greenback party, in the first place, i am not a believer in miracles. i do not believe that something can be made out of nothing. the government, in my judgment, cannot create money; the government can give its note, like an individual, and the prospect of its being paid determines its value. we have already substantially resumed. every piece of property that has been shrinking has simply been resuming. we expended during the war--not for the useful, but for the useless, not to build up, but to destroy--at least one thousand million dollars. the government was an enormous purchaser; when the war ceased the industries of the country lost their greatest customer. as a consequence there was a surplus of production, and consequently a surplus of labor. at last we have gotten back, and the country since the war has produced over and above the cost of production, something near the amount that was lost during the war. our exports are about two hundred million dollars more than our imports, and this is a healthy sign. there are, however, five or six hundred thousand men, probably, out of employment; as prosperity increases this number will decrease. i am in favor of the government doing something to ameliorate the condition of these men. i would like to see constructed the northern and southern pacific railroads; this would give employment at once to many thousands, and homes after awhile to millions. all the signs of the times to me are good. the wretched bankrupt law, at last, is wiped from the statute books, and honest people in a short time can get plenty of credit. this law should have been repealed years before it was. it would have been far better to have had all who have gone into bankruptcy during these frightful years to have done so at once. _question_. what will be the political effect of the greenback movement? _answer_. the effect in maine has been to defeat the republican party. i do not believe any party can permanently succeed in the united states that does not believe in and advocate actual money. i want to see the greenback equal with gold the world round. a money below par keeps the people below par. no man can possibly be proud of a country that is not willing to pay its debts. several of the states this fall may be carried by the greenback party, but if i have a correct understanding of their views, that party cannot hold any state for any great length of time. but all the men of wealth should remember that everybody in the community has got, in some way, to be supported. i want to see them so that they can support themselves by their own labor. in my judgment real prosperity will begin with actual resumption, because confidence will then return. if the workingmen of the united states cannot make their living, cannot have the opportunity to labor, they have got to be supported in some way, and in any event, i want to see a liberal policy inaugurated by the government. i believe in improving rivers and harbors. i do not believe the trans-continental commerce of this country should depend on one railroad. i want new territories opened. i want to see american steamships running to all the great ports of the world. i want to see our flag flying on all the seas and in all the harbors. we have the best country, and, in my judgment, the best people in the world, and we ought to be the most prosperous nation on the earth. _question_. then you only consider the greenback movement a temporary thing? _answer_. yes; i do not believe that there is anything permanent in anything that is not sound, that has not a perfectly sound foundation, and i mean sound, sound in every sense of that word. it must be wise and honest. we have plenty of money; the trouble is to get it. if the greenbackers will pass a law furnishing all of us with collaterals, there certainly would be no trouble about getting the money. nothing can demonstrate more fully the plentifulness of money than the fact that millions of four per cent. bonds have been taken in the united states. the trouble is, business is scarce. _question_. but do you not think the greenback movement will help the democracy to success in ? _answer_. i think the greenback movement will injure the republican party much more than the democratic party. whether that injury will reach as far as depends simply upon one thing. if resumption--in spite of all the resolutions to the contrary-- inaugurates an era of prosperity, as i believe and hope it will, then it seems to me that the republican party will be as strong in the north as in its palmiest days. of course i regard most of the old issues as settled, and i make this statement simply because i regard the financial issue as the only living one. of course, i have no idea who will be the democratic candidate, but i suppose the south will be solid for the democratic nominee, unless the financial question divides that section of the country. _question_. with a solid south do you not think the democratic nominee will stand a good chance? _answer_. certainly, he will stand the best chance if the democracy is right on the financial question; if it will cling to its old idea of hard money, he will. if the democrats will recognize that the issues of the war are settled, then i think that party has the best chance. _question_. but if it clings to soft money? _answer_. then i think it will be beaten, if by soft money it means the payment of one promise with another. _question_. you consider greenbackers inflationists, do you not? _answer_. i suppose the greenbackers to be the party of inflation. i am in favor of inflation produced by industry. i am in favor of the country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses, books, pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody. i am in favor of being inflated with gold and silver, but i do not believe in the inflation of promise, expectation and speculation. i sympathize with every man who is willing to work and cannot get it, and i sympathize to that degree that i would like to see the fortunate and prosperous taxed to support his unfortunate brother until labor could be found. the greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold. while the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it is ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the credit takes wings. the bill of a perfectly solvent bank may circulate for years. now, because nobody demands the gold on that bill it doesn't follow that the bill would be just as good without any gold behind it. the idea that you can have the gold whenever you present the bill gives it its value. to illustrate: a poor man buys soup tickets. he is not hungry at the time of purchase, and will not be for some hours. during those hours the greenback gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand with which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further argue that if they can be good for a few hours without soup, why not forever? and they would be, only the holder gets hungry. until he is hungry, of course, he does not care whether any soup is on hand or not, but when he presents his ticket he wants his soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he does present the ticket gives it its value. and so i regard bank notes, without gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup. --_the post_, washington, d. c., . the pre-millennial conference. _question_. what do you think of the pre-millennial conference that was held in new york city recently? _answer_. well, i think that all who attended it were believers in the bible, and any one who believes in prophecies and looks to their fulfillment will go insane. a man that tries from daniel's ram with three horns and five tails and his deformed goats to ascertain the date of the second immigration of christ to this world is already insane. it all shows that the moment we leave the realm of fact and law we are adrift on the wide and shoreless sea of theological speculation. _question_. do you think there will be a second coming? _answer_. no, not as long as the church is in power. christ will never again visit this earth until the freethinkers have control. he will certainly never allow another church to get hold of him. the very persons who met in new york to fix the date of his coming would despise him and the feeling would probably be mutual. in his day christ was an infidel, and made himself unpopular by denouncing the church as it then existed. he called them liars, hypocrites, thieves, vipers, whited sepulchres and fools. from the description given of the church in that day, i am afraid that should he come again, he would be provoked into using similar language. of course, i admit there are many good people in the church, just as there were some good pharisees who were opposed to the crucifixion. --_the express_, buffalo, new york, nov. th, . the solid south and resumption. _question_. colonel, to start with, what do you think of the solid south? _answer_. i think the south is naturally opposed to the republican party; more, i imagine, to the name, than to the personnel of the organization. but the south has just as good friends in the republican party as in the democratic party. i do not think there are any republicans who would not rejoice to see the south prosperous and happy. i know of none, at least. they will have to get over the prejudices born of isolation. we lack direct and constant communication. i do not recollect having seen a newspaper from the gulf states for a long time. they, down there, may imagine that the feeling in the north is the same as during the war. but it certainly is not. the northern people are anxious to be friendly; and if they can be, without a violation of their principles, they will be. whether it be true or not, however, most of the republicans of the north believe that no republican in the south is heartily welcome in that section, whether he goes there from the north, or is a southern man. personally, i do not care anything about partisan politics. i want to see every man in the united states guaranteed the right to express his choice at the ballot-box, and i do not want social ostracism to follow a man, no matter how he may vote. a solid south means a solid north. a hundred thousand democratic majority in south carolina means fifty thousand republican majority in new york in . i hope the sections will never divide, simply as sections. but if the republican party is not allowed to live in the south, the democratic party certainly will not be allowed to succeed in the north. i want to treat the people of the south precisely as though the rebellion had never occurred. i want all that wiped from the slate of memory, and all i ask of the southern people is to give the same rights to the republicans that we are willing to give to them and have given to them. _question_. how do you account for the results of the recent elections? _answer_. the republican party won the recent election simply because it was for honest money, and it was in favor of resumption. and if on the first of january next, we resume all right, and maintain resumption, i see no reason why the republican party should not succeed in . the republican party came into power at the commencement of the rebellion, and necessarily retained power until its close; and in my judgment, it will retain power so long as in the horizon of credit there is a cloud of repudiation as large as a man's hand. _question_. do you think resumption will work out all right? _answer_. i do. i think that on the first of january the greenback will shake hands with gold on an equality, and in a few days thereafter will be worth just a little bit more. everything has resumed, except the government. all the property has resumed, all the lands, bonds and mortgages and stocks. all these things resumed long ago--that is to say, they have touched the bottom. now, there is no doubt that the party that insists on the government paying all its debts will hold control, and no one will get his hand on the wheel who advocates repudiation in any form. there is one thing we must do, though. we have got to put more silver in our dollars. i do not think you can blame the new york banks--any bank --for refusing to take eighty-eight cents for a dollar. neither can you blame any depositor who puts gold in the bank for demanding gold in return. yes, we must have in the silver dollar a dollar's worth of silver. --_the commercial_, cincinnati, ohio, november, . the sunday laws of pittsburg.* _question_. colonel, what do you think of the course the mayor has pursued toward you in attempting to stop your lecture? _answer_. i know very little except what i have seen in the morning paper. as a general rule, laws should be enforced or repealed; and so far as i am personally concerned, i shall not so much complain of the enforcing of the law against sabbath breaking as of the fact that such a law exists. we have fallen heir to these laws. they were passed by superstition, and the enlightened people of to-day should repeal them. ministers should not expect to fill their churches by shutting up other places. they can only increase their congregations by improving their sermons. they will have more hearers when they say more worth hearing. i have no idea that the mayor has any prejudice against me personally and if he only enforces the law, i shall have none against him. if my lectures were free the ministers might have the right to object, but as i charge one dollar admission and they nothing, they ought certainly be able to compete with me. _question_. don't you think it is the duty of the mayor, as chief executive of the city laws, to enforce the ordinances and pay no attention to what the statutes say? _answer_. i suppose it to be the duty of the mayor to enforce the ordinance of the city and if the ordinance of the city covers the same ground as the law of the state, a conviction under the ordinance would be a bar to prosecution under the state law. _question_. if the ordinance exempts scientific, literary and historical lectures, as it is said it does, will not that exempt you? _answer_. yes, all my lectures are historical; that is, i speak of many things that have happened. they are scientific because they are filled with facts, and they are literary of course. i can conceive of no address that is neither historical nor scientific, except sermons. they fail to be historical because they treat of things that never happened and they are certainly not scientific, as they contain no facts. _question_. suppose they arrest you what will you do? _answer_. i will examine the law and if convicted will pay the fine, unless i think i can reverse the case by appeal. of course i would like to see all these foolish laws wiped from the statute books. i want the law so that everybody can do just as he pleases on sunday, provided he does not interfere with the rights of others. i want the christian, the jew, the deist and the atheist to be exactly equal before the law. i would fight for the right of the christian to worship god in his own way just as quick as i would for the atheist to enjoy music, flowers and fields. i hope to see the time when even the poor people can hear the music of the finest operas on sunday. one grand opera with all its thrilling tones, will do more good in touching and elevating the world than ten thousand sermons on the agonies of hell. _question_. have you ever been interfered with before in delivering sunday lectures? _answer_. no, i postponed a lecture in baltimore at the request of the owners of a theatre because they were afraid some action might be taken. that is the only case. i have delivered lectures on sunday in the principal cities of the united states, in new york, boston, buffalo, chicago, san francisco, cincinnati and many other places. i lectured here last winter; it was on sunday and i heard nothing of its being contrary to law. i always supposed my lectures were good enough to be delivered on the most sacred days. --_the leader_, pittsburg, pa., october , . [* the manager of the theatre, where col. ingersoll lectured, was fined fifty dollars which col. ingersoll paid.] political and religious. _question_. what do you think about the recent election, and what will be its effect upon political matters and the issues and candidates of ? _answer_. i think the republicans have met with this almost universal success on account, first, of the position taken by the democracy on the currency question; that is to say, that party was divided, and was willing to go in partnership with anybody, whatever their doctrines might be, for the sake of success in that particular locality. the republican party felt it of paramount importance not only to pay the debt, but to pay it in that which the world regards as money. the next reason for the victory is the position assumed by the democracy in congress during the called session. the threats they then made of what they would do in the event that the executive did not comply with their demands, showed that the spirit of the party had not been chastened to any considerable extent by the late war. the people of this country will not, in my judgment, allow the south to take charge of this country until they show their ability to protect the rights of citizens in their respective states. _question_. then, as you regard the victories, they are largely due to a firm adherence to principle, and the failure of the democratic party is due to their abandonment of principle, and their desire to unite with anybody and everything, at the sacrifice of principle, to attain success? _answer_. yes. the democratic party is a general desire for office without organization. most people are democrats because they hate something, most people are republicans because they love something. _question_. do you think the election has brought about any particular change in the issues that will be involved in the campaign of ? _answer_. i think the only issue is who shall rule the country. _question_. do you think, then, the question of state rights, hard or soft money and other questions that have been prominent in the campaign are practically settled, and so regarded by the people? _answer_. i think the money question is, absolutely. i think the question of state rights is dead, except that it can still be used to defeat the democracy. it is what might be called a convenient political corpse. _question_. now, to leave the political field and go to the religious at one jump--since your last visit here much has been said and written and published to the effect that a great change, or a considerable change at least, had taken place in your religious, or irreligious views. i would like to know if that is so? _answer_. the only change that has occurred in my religious views is the result of finding more and more arguments in favor of my position, and, as a consequence, if there is any difference, i am stronger in my convictions than ever before. _question_. i would like to know something of the history of your religious views? _answer_. i may say right here that the christian idea that any god can make me his friend by killing mine is about a great mistake as could be made. they seem to have the idea that just as soon as god kills all the people that a person loves, he will then begin to love the lord. what drew my attention first to these questions was the doctrine of eternal punishment. this was so abhorrent to my mind that i began to hate the book in which it was taught. then, in reading law, going back to find the origin of laws, i found one had to go but a little way before the legislator and priest united. this led me to a study of a good many of the religions of the world. at first i was greatly astonished to find most of them better than ours. i then studied our own system to the best of my ability, and found that people were palming off upon children and upon one another as the inspired word of god a book that upheld slavery, polygamy and almost every other crime. whether i am right or wrong, i became convinced that the bible is not an inspired book; and then the only question for me to settle was as to whether i should say what i believed or not. this really was not the question in my mind, because, before even thinking of such a question, i expressed my belief, and i simply claim that right and expect to exercise it as long as i live. i may be damned for it in the next world, but it is a great source of pleasure to me in this. _question_. it is reported that you are the son of a presbyterian minister? _answer_. yes, i am the son of a new school presbyterian minister. _question_. about what age were you when you began this investigation which led to your present convictions? _answer_. i cannot remember when i believed the bible doctrine of eternal punishment. i have a dim recollection of hating jehovah when i was exceedingly small. _question_. then your present convictions began to form themselves while you were listening to the teachings of religion as taught by your father? _answer_. yes, they did. _question_. did you discuss the matter with him? _answer_. i did for many years, and before he died he utterly gave up the idea that this life is a period of probation. he utterly gave up the idea of eternal punishment, and before he died he had the happiness of believing that god was almost as good and generous as he was himself. _question_. i suppose this gossip about a change in your religious views arose or was created by the expression used at your brother's funeral, "in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing"? _answer_. i never willingly will destroy a solitary human hope. i have always said that i did not know whether man was or was not immortal, but years before my brother died, in a lecture entitled "the ghosts," which has since been published, i used the following words: "the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow--hope, shining upon the tears of grief." _question_. the great objection to your teaching urged by your enemies is that you constantly tear down, and never build up? _answer_. i have just published a little book entitled, "some mistakes of moses," in which i have endeavored to give most of the arguments i have urged against the pentateuch in a lecture i delivered under that title. the motto on the title page is, "a destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not." i cannot for my life see why one should be charged with tearing down and not rebuilding simply because he exposes a sham, or detects a lie. i do not feel under any obligation to build something in the place of a detected falsehood. all i think i am under obligation to put in the place of a detected lie is the detection. most religionists talk as if mistakes were valuable things and they did not wish to part with them without a consideration. just how much they regard lies worth a dozen i do not know. if the price is reasonable i am perfectly willing to give it, rather than to see them live and give their lives to the defence of delusions. i am firmly convinced that to be happy here will not in the least detract from our happiness in another world should we be so fortunate as to reach another world; and i cannot see the value of any philosophy that reaches beyond the intelligent happiness of the present. there may be a god who will make us happy in another world. if he does, it will be more than he has accomplished in this. i suppose that he will never have more than infinite power and never have less than infinite wisdom, and why people should expect that he should do better in another world than he has in this is something that i have never been able to explain. a being who has the power to prevent it and yet who allows thousands and millions of his children to starve; who devours them with earthquakes; who allows whole nations to be enslaved, cannot in my judgment be implicitly be depended upon to do justice in another world. _question_. how do the clergy generally treat you? _answer_. well, of course there are the same distinctions among clergymen as among other people. some of them are quite respectable gentlemen, especially those with whom i am not acquainted. i think that since the loss of my brother nothing could exceed the heartlessness of the remarks made by the average clergyman. there have been some noble exceptions, to whom i feel not only thankful but grateful; but a very large majority have taken this occasion to say most unfeeling and brutal things. i do not ask the clergy to forgive me, but i do request that they will so act that i will not have to forgive them. i have always insisted that those who love their enemies should at least tell the truth about their friends, but i suppose, after all, that religion must be supported by the same means as those by which it was founded. of course, there are thousands of good ministers, men who are endeavoring to make the world better, and whose failure is no particular fault of their own. i have always been in doubt as to whether the clergy were a necessary or an unnecessary evil. _question_. i would like to have a positive expression of your views as to a future state? _answer_. somebody asked confucius about another world, and his reply was: "how should i know anything about another world when i know so little of this?" for my part, i know nothing of any other state of existence, either before or after this, and i have never become personally acquainted with anybody that did. there may be another life, and if there is, the best way to prepare for it is by making somebody happy in this. god certainly cannot afford to put a man in hell who has made a little heaven in this world. i propose simply to take my chances with the rest of the folks, and prepare to go where the people i am best acquainted with will probably settle. i cannot afford to leave the great ship and sneak off to shore in some orthodox canoe. i hope there is another life, for i would like to see how things come out in the world when i am dead. there are some people i would like to see again, and hope there are some who would not object to seeing me; but if there is no other life i shall never know it. i do not remember a time when i did not exist; and if, when i die, that is the end, i shall not know it, because the last thing i shall know is that i am alive, and if nothing is left, nothing will be left to know that i am dead; so that so far as i am concerned i am immortal; that is to say, i cannot recollect when i did not exist, and there never will be a time when i shall remember that i do not exist. i would like to have several millions of dollars, and i may say that i have a lively hope that some day i may be rich, but to tell you the truth i have very little evidence of it. our hope of immortality does not come from any religion, but nearly all religions come from that hope. the old testament, instead of telling us that we are immortal, tells us how we lost immortality. you will recollect that if adam and eve could have gotten to the tree of life, they would have eaten of its fruit and would have lived forever; but for the purpose of preventing immortality god turned them out of the garden of eden, and put certain angels with swords or sabres at the gate to keep them from getting back. the old testament proves, if it proves anything--which i do not think it does--that there is no life after this; and the new testament is not very specific on the subject. there were a great many opportunities for the saviour and his apostles to tell us about another world, but they did not improve them to any great extent; and the only evidence, so far as i know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had. that is about my position. _question_. according to your observation of men, and your reading in relation to the men and women of the world and of the church, if there is another world divided according to orthodox principles between the orthodox and heterodox, which of the two that are known as heaven and hell would contain, in your judgment, the most good society? _answer_. since hanging has got to be a means of grace, i would prefer hell. i had a thousand times rather associate with the pagan philosophers than with the inquisitors of the middle ages. i certainly should prefer the worst man in greek or roman history to john calvin; and i can imagine no man in the world that i would not rather sit on the same bench with than the puritan fathers and the founders of orthodox churches. i would trade off my harp any minute for a seat in the other country. all the poets will be in perdition, and the greatest thinkers, and, i should think, most of the women whose society would tend to increase the happiness of man; nearly all the painters, nearly all the sculptors, nearly all the writers of plays, nearly all the great actors, most of the best musicians, and nearly all the good fellows--the persons who know stories, who can sing songs, or who will loan a friend a dollar. they will mostly all be in that country, and if i did not live there permanently, i certainly would want it so i could spend my winter months there. but, after all, what i really want to do is to destroy the idea of eternal punishment. that doctrine subverts all ideas of justice. that doctrine fills hell with honest men, and heaven with intellectual and moral paupers. that doctrine allows people to sin on credit. that doctrine allows the basest to be eternally happy and the most honorable to suffer eternal pain. i think of all doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous, and would disgrace the lowest savage; and any man who believes it, and has imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a serpent and the conscience of a hyena. _question_. your objective point is to destroy the doctrine of hell, is it? _answer_. yes, because the destruction of that doctrine will do away with all cant and all pretence. it will do away with all religious bigotry and persecution. it will allow every man to think and to express his thought. it will do away with bigotry in all its slimy and offensive forms. --_chicago tribune_, november , . politics and gen. grant _question_. some people have made comparisons between the late senators o. p. morton and zach. chandler. what did you think of them, colonel? _answer_. i think morton had the best intellectual grasp of a question of any man i ever saw. there was an infinite difference between the two men. morton's strength lay in proving a thing; chandler's in asserting it. but chandler was a strong man and no hypocrite. _question_. have you any objection to being interviewed as to your ideas of grant, and his position before the people? _answer_. i have no reason for withholding my views on that or any other subject that is under public discussion. my idea is that grant can afford to regard the presidency as a broken toy. it would add nothing to his fame if he were again elected, and would add nothing to the debt of gratitude which the people feel they owe him. i do not think he will be a candidate. i do not think he wants it. there are men who are pushing him on their own account. grant was a great soldier. he won the respect of the civilized world. he commanded the largest army that ever fought for freedom, and to make him president would not add a solitary leaf to the wreath of fame already on his brow; and should he be elected, the only thing he could do would be to keep the old wreath from fading. i do not think his reputation can ever be as great in any direction as in the direction of war. he has made his reputation and has lived his great life. i regard him, confessedly, as the best soldier the anglo-saxon blood has produced. i do not know that it necessarily follows because he is a great soldier he is great in other directions. probably some of the greatest statesmen in the world would have been the worst soldiers. _question_. do you regard him as more popular now than ever before? _answer_. i think that his reputation is certainly greater and higher than when he left the presidency, and mainly because he has represented this country with so much discretion and with such quiet, poised dignity all around the world. he has measured himself with kings, and was able to look over the heads of every one of them. they were not quite as tall as he was, even adding the crown to their original height. i think he represented us abroad with wonderful success. one thing that touched me very much was, that at a reception given him by the workingmen of birmingham, after he had been received by royalty, he had the courage to say that that reception gave him more pleasure than any other. he has been throughout perfectly true to the genius of our institutions, and has not upon any occasion exhibited the slightest toadyism. grant is a man who is not greatly affected by either flattery or abuse. _question_. what do you believe to be his position in regard to the presidency? _answer_. my own judgment is that he does not care. i do not think he has any enemies to punish, and i think that while he was president he certainly rewarded most of his friends. _question_. what are your views as to a third term? _answer_. i have no objection to a third term on principle, but so many men want the presidency that it seems almost cruel to give a third term to anyone. _question_. then, if there is no objection to a third term, what about a fourth? _answer_. i do not know that that could be objected to, either. we have to admit, after all, that the american people, or at least a majority of them, have a right to elect one man as often as they please. personally, i think it should not be done unless in the case of a man who is prominent above the rest of his fellow-citizens, and whose election appears absolutely necessary. but i frankly confess i cannot conceive of any political situation where one man is a necessity. i do not believe in the one-man-on-horseback idea, because i believe in all the people being on horseback. _question_. what will be the effect of the enthusiastic receptions that are being given to general grant? _answer_. i think these ovations show that the people are resolved not to lose the results of the great victories of the war, and that they make known this determination by their attention to general grant. i think that if he goes through the principal cities of this country the old spirit will be revived everywhere, and whether it makes him president or not the result will be to make the election go republican. the revival of the memories of the war will bring the people of the north together as closely as at any time since that great conflict closed, not in the spirit of hatred, or malice or envy, but in generous emulation to preserve that which was fairly won. i do not think there is any hatred about it, but we are beginning to see that we must save the south ourselves, and that that is the only way we can save the nation. _question_. but suppose they give the same receptions in the south? _answer_. so much the better. _question_. is there any split in the solid south? _answer_. some of the very best people in the south are apparently disgusted with following the democracy any longer, and would hail with delight any opportunity they could reasonably take advantage of to leave the organization, if they could do so without making it appear that they were going back on southern interests, and this opportunity will come when the south becomes enlightened, and sees that it has no interests except in common with the whole country. that i think they are beginning to see. _question_. how do you like the administration of president hayes? _answer_. i think its attitude has greatly improved of late. there are certain games of cards--pedro, for instance, where you can not only fail to make something, but be set back. i think that hayes's veto messages very nearly got him back to the commencement of the game--that he is now almost ready to commence counting, and make some points. his position before the country has greatly improved, but he will not develop into a dark horse. my preference is, of course, still for blaine. _question_. where do you think it is necessary the republican candidate should come from to insure success? _answer_. somewhere out of ohio. i think it will go to maine, and for this reason: first of all, blaine is certainly a competent man of affairs, a man who knows what to do at the time; and then he has acted in such a chivalric way ever since the convention at cincinnati, that those who opposed him most bitterly, now have for him nothing but admiration. i think john sherman is a man of decided ability, but i do not believe the american people would make one brother president, while the other is general of the army. it would be giving too much power to one family. _question_. what are your conclusions as to the future of the democratic party? _answer_. i think the democratic party ought to disband. i think they would be a great deal stronger disbanded, because they would get rid of their reputation without decreasing. _question_. but if they will not disband? _answer_. then the next campaign depends undoubtedly upon new york and indiana. i do not see how they can very well help nominating a man from indiana, and by that i mean hendricks. you see the south has one hundred and thirty-eight votes, all supposed to be democratic; with the thirty-five from new york and fifteen from indiana they would have just three to spare. now, i take it, that the fifteen from indiana are just about as essential as the thirty- five from new york. to lack fifteen votes is nearly as bad as being thirty-five short, and so far as drawing salary is concerned it is quite as bad. mr. hendricks ought to know that he holds the key to indiana, and that there cannot be any possibility of carrying this state for democracy without him. he has tried running for the vice-presidency, which is not much of a place anyhow--i would about as soon be vice-mother-in-law--and my judgment is that he knows exactly the value of his geographical position. new york is divided to that degree that it would be unsafe to take a candidate from that state; and besides, new york has become famous for furnishing defeated candidates for the democracy. i think the man must come from indiana. _question_. would the democracy of new york unite on seymour? _answer_. you recollect what lincoln said about the powder that had been shot off once. i do not remember any man who has once made a race for the presidency and been defeated ever being again nominated. _question_. what about bayard and hancock as candidates? _answer_. i do not see how bayard could possibly carry indiana, while his own state is too small and too solidly democratic. my idea of bayard is that he has not been good enough to be popular, and not bad enough to be famous. the american people will never elect a president from a state with a whipping-post. as to general hancock, you may set it down as certain that the south will never lend their aid to elect a man who helped to put down the rebellion. it would be just the same as the effort to elect greeley. it cannot be done. i see, by the way, that i am reported as having said that david davis, as the democratic candidate, could carry illinois. i did say that in , he could have carried it against hayes; but whether he could carry illinois in would depend altogether upon who runs against him. the condition of things has changed greatly in our favor since . --_the journal_, indianapolis, ind., november, . politics, religion and thomas paine. _question_. you have traveled about this state more or less, lately, and have, of course, observed political affairs here. do you think that senator logan will be able to deliver this state to the grant movement according to the understood plan? _answer_. if the state is really for grant, he will, and if it is not, he will not. illinois is as little "owned" as any state in this union. illinois would naturally be for grant, other things being equal, because he is regarded as a citizen of this state, and it is very hard for a state to give up the patronage naturally growing out of the fact that the president comes from that state. _question_. will the instructions given to delegates be final? _answer_. i do not think they will be considered final at all; neither do i think they will be considered of any force. it was decided at the last convention, in cincinnati, that the delegates had a right to vote as they pleased; that each delegate represented the district of the state that sent him. the idea that a state convention can instruct them as against the wishes of their constituents smacks a little too much of state sovereignty. the president should be nominated by the districts of the whole country, and not by massing the votes by a little chicanery at a state convention, and every delegate ought to vote what he really believes to be the sentiment of his constituents, irrespective of what the state convention may order him to do. he is not responsible to the state convention, and it is none of the state convention's business. this does not apply, it may be, to the delegates at large, but to all the others it certainly must apply. it was so decided at the cincinnati convention, and decided on a question arising about this same pennsylvania delegation. _question_. can you guess as to what the platform in going to contain? _answer_. i suppose it will be a substantial copy of the old one. i am satisfied with the old one with one addition. i want a plank to the effect that no man shall be deprived of any civil or political right on account of his religious or irreligious opinions. the republican party having been foremost in freeing the body ought to do just a little something now for the mind. after having wasted rivers of blood and treasure uncounted, and almost uncountable, to free the cage, i propose that something ought to be done for the bird. every decent man in the united states would support that plank. people should have a right to testify in courts, whatever their opinions may be, on any subject. justice should not shut any door leading to truth, and as long as just views neither affect a man's eyesight or his memory, he should be allowed to tell his story. and there are two sides to this question, too. the man is not only deprived of his testimony, but the commonwealth is deprived of it. there should be no religious test in this country for office; and if jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a state legislature, i think he ought to give it up. _question_. is there anything new about religion since you were last here? _answer_. since i was here i have spoken in a great many cities, and to-morrow i am going to do some missionary work at milwaukee. many who have come to scoff have remained to pray, and i think that my labors are being greatly blessed, and all attacks on me so far have been overruled for good. i happened to come in contact with a revival of religion, and i believe what they call an "outpouring" at detroit, under the leadership of a gentleman by the name of pentecost. he denounced me as god's greatest enemy. i had always supposed that the devil occupied that exalted position, but it seems that i have, in some way, fallen heir to his shoes. mr. pentecost also denounced all business men who would allow any advertisements or lithographs of mine to hang in their places of business, and several of these gentlemen thus appealed to took the advertisements away. the result of all this was that i had the largest house that ever attended a lecture in detroit. feeling that ingratitude is a crime, i publicly returned thanks to the clergy for the pains they had taken to give me an audience. and i may say, in this connection, that if the ministers do god as little good as they do me harm, they had better let both of us alone. i regard them as very good, but exceedingly mistaken men. they do not come much in contact with the world, and get most of their views by talking with the women and children of their congregations. they are not permitted to mingle freely with society. they cannot attend plays nor hear operas. i believe some of them have ventured to minstrel shows and menageries, where they confine themselves strictly to the animal part of the entertainment. but, as a rule, they have very few opportunities of ascertaining what the real public opinion is. they read religious papers, edited by gentlemen who know as little about the world as themselves, and the result of all this is that they are rather behind the times. they are good men, and would like to do right if they only knew it, but they are a little behind the times. there is an old story told of a fellow who had a post-office in a small town in north carolina, and he being the only man in the town who could read, a few people used to gather in the post-office on sunday, and he would read to them a weekly paper that was published in washington. he commenced always at the top of the first column and read right straight through, articles, advertisements, and all, and whenever they got a little tired of reading he would make a mark of red ochre and commence at that place the next sunday. the result was that the papers came a great deal faster than he read them, and it was about when they struck the war of . the moment they got to that, every one of them jumped up and offered to volunteer. all of which shows that they were patriotic people, but a little show, and somewhat behind the times. _question_. how were you pleased with the paine meeting here, and its results? _answer_. i was gratified to see so many people willing at last to do justice to a great and a maligned man. of course i do not claim that paine was perfect. all i claim is that he was a patriot and a political philosopher; that he was a revolutionist and an agitator; that he was infinitely full of suggestive thought, and that he did more than any man to convince the people of american not only that they ought to separate from great britain, but that they ought to found a representative government. he has been despised simply because he did not believe the bible. i wish to do what i can to rescue his name from theological defamation. i think the day has come when thomas paine will be remembered with washington, franklin and jefferson, and that the american people will wonder that their fathers could have been guilty of such base ingratitude. --_chicago times_, february , . reply to chicago critics. _question_. have you read the replies of the clergy to your recent lecture in this city on "what must we do to be saved?" and if so what do you think of them? _answer_. i think they dodge the point. the real point is this: if salvation by faith is the real doctrine of christianity, i asked on sunday before last, and i still ask, why didn't matthew tell it? i still insist that mark should have remembered it, and i shall always believe that luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. i was endeavoring to show that modern christianity has for its basis an interpolation. i think i showed it. the only gospel on the orthodox side is that of john, and that was certainly not written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the others were written. i know very well that the catholic church claimed during the dark ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the gospels by persons living in the first, second, and third centuries; but i believe such manuscripts were manufactured by the catholic church. for many years in europe there was not one person in twenty thousand who could read and write. during that time the church had in its keeping the literature of our world. they interpolated as they pleased. they created. they destroyed. in other words, they did whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith. the gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and i again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depends upon belief on the lord jesus christ, matthew didn't mention it. some one has said that christ didn't make known this doctrine of salvation by belief or faith until after his resurrection. certainly none of the gospels were written until after his resurrection; and if he made that doctrine known after his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should have been in matthew, mark, and luke, as well as in john. the replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the new testament. in other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological bias. there is one thing i wish to correct here. in an editorial in the _tribune_ it was stated that i had admitted that christ was beyond and above buddha, zoroaster, confucius, and others. i did not say so. another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good one. in my lecture i asked why it was that the disciples of christ wrote in greek, whereas, if fact, they understood only hebrew. it is now claimed that greek was the language of jerusalem at that time; that hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one understood it except the literati and the highly educated. if i fell into an error upon this point it was because i relied upon the new testament. i find in the twenty-first chapter of the acts an account of paul having been mobbed in the city of jerusalem; that he was protected by a chief captain and some soldiers; that, while upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the captain to speak unto the people. in the fortieth verse of that chapter i find the following: "and when he had given him license, paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people. and when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the hebrew tongue, saying," and then follows the speech of paul, wherein he gives an account of his conversion. it seems a little curious to me that paul, for the purpose of quieting a mob, would speak to that mob in an unknown language. if i were mobbed in the city of chicago, and wished to defend myself with an explanation, i certainly would not make that explanation in choctaw, even if i understood that tongue. my present opinion is that i would speak in english; and the reason i would speak in english is because that language is generally understood in this city, and so i conclude from the account in the twenty-first chapter of the acts that hebrew was the language of jerusalem at that time, or paul would not have addressed the mob in that tongue. _question_. did you read mr. courtney's answer? _answer_. i read what mr. courtney read from others, and think some of his quotations very good; and have no doubt that the authors will feel complimented by being quoted. there certainly is no need of my answering dr. courtney; sometime i may answer the french gentlemen from whom he quoted. _question_. but what about there being "belief" in matthew? _answer_. mr. courtney says that certain people were cured of diseases on account of faith. admitting that mumps, measles, and whooping-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a suggestion that salvation depended upon a like faith. i think he can hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the new testament to prove his doctrine. there is one instance in which a miracle was performed by christ without his knowledge; and i hardly think that even mr. courtney would insist that any faith could have been great enough for that. the fact is, i believe that all these miracles were ascribed to christ long after his death, and that christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any supernatural power whatever. neither do i believe that he claimed any supernatural origin. he claimed simply to be a man; no less, no more. i do not believe mr. courtney is satisfied with his own reply. _question_. and now as to prof. swing? _answer_. mr. swing has been out of the orthodox church so long that he seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it. i do not believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of chicago who will agree with mr. swing that salvation by faith is no longer preached. prof. swing seems to think it of no importance who wrote the gospel of matthew. in this i agree with him. judging from what he said there is hardly difference enough of opinion between us to justify a reply on his part. he, however, makes one mistake. i did not in the lecture say one word about tearing down churches. i have no objection to people building all the churches they wish. while i admit it is a pretty sight to see children on a morning in june going through the fields to the country church, i still insist that the beauty of that sight does not answer the question how it is that matthew forgot to say anything about salvation through christ. prof. swing is a man of poetic temperament, but this is not a poetic question. _question_. how did the card of dr. thomas strike you? _answer_. i think the reply of dr. thomas is in the best possible spirit. i regard him to-day as the best intellect in the methodist denomination. he seems to have what is generally understood as a christian spirit. he has always treated me with perfect fairness, and i should have said long ago many grateful things, had i not feared i might hurt him with his own people. he seems to be by nature a perfectly fair man; and i know of no man in the united states for whom i have a profounder respect. of course, i don't agree with dr. thomas. i think in many things he is mistaken. but i believe him to be perfectly sincere. there is one trouble about him--he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great trouble to many of his brethren. certain methodist hazel-brush feel a little uneasy in the shadow of this oak. to see the difference between him and some others, all that is necessary is to read his reply, and then read the remarks made at the methodist ministers' meeting on the monday following. compared with dr. thomas, they are as puddles by the sea. there is the same difference that there is between sewers and rivers, cesspools and springs. _question_. what have you to say to the remarks of the rev. dr. jewett before the methodist ministers' meeting? _answer_. i think dr. jewett is extremely foolish. i did not say that i would commence suit against a minister for libel. i can hardly conceive of a proceeding that would be less liable to produce a dividend. the fact about it is, that the rev. mr. jewett seems to think anything true that he hears against me. mr. jewett is probably ashamed of what he said by this time. he must have known it to be entirely false. it seems to me by this time even the most bigoted should lose their confidence in falsehood. of course there are times when a falsehood well told bridges over quite a difficulty, but in the long run you had better tell the truth, even if you swim the creek. i am astonished that these ministers were willing to exhibit their wounds to the world. i supposed of course i would hit some, but i had no idea of wounding so many. _question_. mr. crafts stated that you were in the habit of swearing in company and before your family? _answer_. i often swear. in other words, i take the name of god in vain; that is to say, i take it without any practical thing resulting from it, and in that sense i think most ministers are guilty of the same thing. i heard an old story of a clergyman who rebuked a neighbor for swearing, to whom the neighbor replied, "you pray and i swear, but as a matter of fact neither of us means anything by it." as to the charge that i am in the habit of using indecent language in my family, no reply is needed. i am willing to leave that question to the people who know us both. mr. crafts says he was told this by a lady. this cannot by any possibility be true, for no lady will tell a falsehood. besides, if this woman of whom he speaks was a lady, how did she happen to stay where obscene language was being used? no lady ever told mr. crafts any such thing. it may be that a lady did tell him that i used profane language. i admit that i have not always spoken of the devil in a respectful way; that i have sometimes referred to his residence when it was not a necessary part of the conversation, and that a divers times i have used a good deal of the terminology of the theologian when the exact words of the scientist might have done as well. but if by swearing is meant the use of god's name in vain, there are very few preachers who do not swear more than i do, if by "in vain" is meant without any practical result. i leave mr. crafts to cultivate the acquaintance of the unknown lady, knowing as i do, that after they have talked this matter over again they will find that both have been mistaken. i sincerely regret that clergymen who really believe that an infinite god is on their side think it necessary to resort to such things to defeat one man. according to their idea, god is against me, and they ought to have confidence in this infinite wisdom and strength to suppose that he could dispose of one man, even if they failed to say a word against me. had you not asked me i should have said nothing to you on these topics. such charges cannot hurt me. i do not believe it possible for such men to injure me. no one believes what they say, and the testimony of such clergymen against an infidel is no longer considered of value. i believe it was goethe who said, "i always know that i am traveling when i hear the dogs bark." _question_. are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons? _answer_. not unless something better is done than has been. of course, i don't know what another sabbath may bring forth. i am waiting. but of one thing i feel perfectly assured; that no man in the united states, or in the world, can account for the fact, if we are to be saved only by faith in christ, that matthew forgot it, that luke said nothing about it, and that mark never mentioned it except in two passages written by _another_ person. until that is answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "hamlet," i shall say, "ay, tell me that and unyoke." in the meantime i wish to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned. i cannot see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise. --_chicago tribune_, september , . the republican victory. _question_. do you really think, colonel, that the country has just passed through a crisis? _answer_. yes; there was a crisis and a great one. the question was whether a northern or southern idea of the powers and duties of the federal government was to prevail. the great victory of yesterday means that the rebellion was not put down on the field of war alone, but that we have conquered in the realm of thought. the bayonet has been justified by argument. no party can ever succeed in this country that even whispers "state sovereignty." that doctrine has become odious. the sovereignty of the state means a government without power, and citizens without protection. _question_. can you see any further significance in the present republican victory other than that the people do not wish to change the general policy of the present administration? _answer_. yes; the people have concluded that the lips of america shall be free. there never was free speech at the south, and there never will be until the people of that section admit that the nation is superior to the state, and that all citizens have equal rights. i know of hundreds who voted the republican ticket because they regarded the south as hostile to free speech. the people were satisfied with the financial policy of the republicans, and they feared a change. the north wants honest money--gold and silver. the people are in favor of honest votes, and they feared the practices of the democratic party. the tissue ballot and shotgun policy made them hesitate to put power in the hands of the south. besides, the tariff question made thousands and thousands of votes. as long as europe has slave labor, and wherever kings and priests rule, the laborer will be substantially a slave. we must protect ourselves. if the world were free, trade would be free, and the seas would be the free highways of the world. the great objects of the republican party are to preserve all the liberty we have, protect american labor, and to make it the undisputed duty of the government to protect every citizen at home and abroad. _question_. what do you think was the main cause of the republican sweep? _answer_. the wisdom of the republicans and the mistakes of the democrats. the democratic party has for twenty years underrated the intelligence, the patriotism and the honesty of the american people. that party has always looked upon politics as a trade, and success as the last act of a cunning trick. it has had no principles, fixed or otherwise. it has always been willing to abandon everything but its prejudices. it generally commences where it left off and then goes backward. in this campaign english was a mistake, hancock was another. nothing could have been more incongruous than yoking a federal soldier with a peace-at-any-price democrat. neither could praise the other without slandering himself, and the blindest partisan could not like them both. but, after all, i regard the military record of english as fully equal to the views of general hancock on the tariff. the greatest mistake that the democratic party made was to suppose that a campaign could be fought and won by slander. the american people like fair play and they abhor ignorant and absurd vituperation. the continent knew that general garfield was an honest man; that he was in the grandest sense a gentleman; that he was patriotic, profound and learned; that his private life was pure; that his home life was good and kind and true, and all the charges made and howled and screeched and printed and sworn to harmed only those who did the making and the howling, the screeching and the swearing. i never knew a man in whose perfect integrity i had more perfect confidence, and in less than one year even the men who have slandered him will agree with me. _question_. how about that "personal and confidential letter"? (the morey letter.) _answer_. it was as stupid, as devilish, as basely born as godfathered. it is an exploded forgery, and the explosion leaves dead and torn upon the field the author and his witnesses. _question_. is there anything in the charge that the republican party seeks to change our form of government by gradual centralization? _answer_. nothing whatever. we want power enough in the government to protect, not to destroy, the liberties of the people. the history of the world shows that burglars have always opposed an increase of the police. --_new york herald_, november , . ingersoll and beecher.* [* the sensation created by the speech of the rev. henry ward beecher at the academy of music, in brooklyn, when he uttered a brilliant eulogy of col. robert ingersoll and publicly shook hands with him has not yet subsided. a portion of the religious world is thoroughly stirred up at what it considers a gross breach of orthodox propriety. this feeling is especially strong among the class of positivists who believe that "an atheist's laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended." many believe that mr. beecher is at heart in full sympathy and accord with ingersoll's teachings, but has not courage enough to say so at the sacrifice of his pastoral position. the fact that these two men are the very head and front of their respective schools of thought makes the matter an important one. the denouncement of the doctrine of eternal punishment, followed by the scene at the academy, has about it an aroma of suggestiveness that might work much harm without an explanation. since colonel ingersoll's recent attack upon the _personnel_ of the clergy through the "shorter catechism" the pulpit has been remarkably silent regarding the great atheist. "is the keen logic and broad humanity of ingersoll converting the brain and heart of christendom?" was recently asked. did the hand that was stretched out to him on the stage of the academy reach across the chasm which separates orthodoxy from infidelity? desiring to answer the last question if possible, a _herald_ reporter visited mr. beecher and colonel ingersoll to learn their opinion of each other. neither of the gentlemen was aware that the other was being interviewed.] _question_. what is your opinion of mr. beecher? _answer_. i regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit of the world. he treated me with a generosity that nothing can exceed. he rose grandly above the prejudices supposed to belong to his class, and acted as only a man could act without a chain upon his brain and only kindness in his heart. i told him that night that i congratulated the world that it had a minister with an intellectual horizon broad enough and a mental sky studded with stars of genius enough to hold all creeds in scorn that shocked the heart of man. i think that mr. beecher has liberalized the english-speaking people of the world. i do not think he agrees with me. he holds to many things that i most passionately deny. but in common, we believe in the liberty of thought. my principal objections to orthodox religion are two--slavery here and hell hereafter. i do not believe that mr. beecher on these points can disagree with me. the real difference between us is-- he says god, i say nature. the real agreement between us is--we both say--liberty. _question_. what is his forte? _answer_. he is of a wonderfully poetic temperament. in pursuing any course of thought his mind is like a stream flowing through the scenery of fairyland. the stream murmurs and laughs while the banks grow green and the vines blossom. his brain is controlled by his heart. he thinks in pictures. with him logic means mental melody. the discordant is the absurd. for years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon of orthodoxy with the ivy of imagination. now and then he pulls for a moment the leafy curtain aside and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes, basilisks and abnormal monsters of the orthodox age, and then he utters a great cry, the protest of a loving, throbbing heart. he is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, in my judgment, greater and grander than any creed of any church. besides all this, he treated me like a king. manhood is his forte, and i expect to live and die his friend. beecher on ingersoll. _question_. what is your opinion of colonel ingersoll? _answer_. i do not think there should be any misconception as to my motive for indorsing mr. ingersoll. i never saw him before that night, when i clasped his hand in the presence of an assemblage of citizens. yet i regard him as one of the greatest men of this age. _question_. is his influence upon the world good or otherwise? _answer_. i am an ordained clergyman and believe in revealed religion. i am, therefore, bound to regard all persons who do not believe in revealed religion as in error. but on the broad platform of human liberty and progress i was bound to give him the right hand of fellowship. i would do it a thousand times over. i do not know colonel ingersoll's religious views precisely, but i have a general knowledge of them. he has the same right to free thought and free speech that i have. i am not that kind of a coward who has to kick a man before he shakes hands with him. if i did so i would have to kick the methodists, roman catholics and all other creeds. i will not pitch into any man's religion as an excuse for giving him my hand. i admire ingersoll because he is not afraid to speak what he honestly thinks, and i am only sorry that he does not think as i do. i never heard so much brilliancy and pith put into a two hour speech as i did on that night. i wish my whole congregation had been there to hear it. i regret that there are not more men like ingersoll interested in the affairs of the nation. i do not wish to be understood as indorsing skepticism in any form. --_new york herald_, november , . political. _question_. is it true, as rumored, that you intend to leave washington and reside in new york? _answer_. no, i expect to remain here for years to come, so far as i can now see. my present intention is certainly to stay here during the coming winter. _question_. is this because you regard washington as the pleasantest and most advantageous city for a residence? _answer_. well, in the first place, i dislike to move. in the next place, the climate is good. in the third place, the political atmosphere has been growing better of late, and when you consider that i avoid one dislike and reap the benefits of two likes, you can see why i remain. _question_. do you think that the moral atmosphere will improve with the political atmosphere? _answer_. i would hate to say that this city is capable of any improvement in the way of morality. we have a great many churches, a great many ministers, and, i believe, some retired chaplains, so i take it that the moral tone of the place could hardly be bettered. one majority in the senate might help it. seriously, however, i think that washington has as high a standard of morality as any city in the union. and it is one of the best towns in which to loan money without collateral in the world. _question_. do you know this from experience? _answer_. this i have been told [was the solemn answer.] _question_. do you think that the political features of the incoming administration will differ from the present? _answer_. of course, i have no right to speak for general garfield. i believe his administration will be republican, at the same time perfectly kind, manly, and generous. he is a man to harbor no resentment. he knows that it is the duty of statesmanship to remove causes of irritation rather then punish the irritated. _question_. do i understand you to imply that there will be a neutral policy, as it were, towards the south? _answer_. no, i think that there will be nothing neutral about it. i think that the next administration will be one-sided--that is, it will be on the right side. i know of no better definition for a compromise than to say it is a proceeding in which hypocrites deceive each other. i do not believe that the incoming administration will be neutral in anything. the american people do not like neutrality. they would rather a man were on the wrong side than on neither. and, in my judgment, there is no paper so utterly unfair, malicious and devilish, as one that claims to be neutral. no politician is as bitter as a neutral politician. neutrality is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. sometimes it hides what it is--nothing. it always stands for hollowness of head or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both. my idea is--and that is the only reason i have the right to express it--that general garfield believes in the platform adopted by the republican party. he believes in free speech, in honest money, in divorce of church and state, and he believes in the protection of american citizens by the federal government wherever the flag flies. he believes that the federal government is as much bound to protect the citizen at home as abroad. i believe he will do the very best he can to carry these great ideas into execution and make them living realities in the united states. personally, i have no hatred toward the southern people. i have no hatred toward any class. i hate tyranny, no matter whether it is south or north; i hate hypocrisy, and i hate above all things, the spirit of caste. if the southern people could only see that they gained as great a victory in the rebellion as the north did, and some day they will see it, the whole question would be settled. the south has reaped a far greater benefit from being defeated than the north has from being successful, and i believe some day the south will be great enough to appreciate that fact. i have always insisted that to be beaten by the right is to be a victor. the southern people must get over the idea that they are insulted simply because they are out-voted, and they ought by this time to know that the republicans of the north, not only do not wish them harm, but really wish them the utmost success. _question_. but has the republican party all the good and the democratic all the bad? _answer_. no, i do not think that the republican party has all the good, nor do i pretend that the democratic party has all the bad; though i may say that each party comes pretty near it. i admit that there are thousands of really good fellows in the democratic party, and there are some pretty bad people in the republican party. but i honestly believe that within the latter are most of the progressive men of this country. that party has in it the elements of growth. it is full of hope. it anticipates. the democratic party remembers. it is always talking about the past. it is the possessor of a vast amount of political rubbish, and i really believe it has outlived its usefulness. i firmly believe that your editor, mr. hutchings, could start a better organization, if he would only turn his attention to it. just think for a moment of the number you could get rid of by starting a new party. a hundred names will probably suggest themselves to any intelligent democrat, the loss of which would almost insure success. some one has said that a tailor in boston made a fortune by advertising that he did not cut the breeches of webster's statue. a new party by advertising that certain men would not belong to it, would have an advantage in the next race. _question_. what, in your opinion, were the causes which led to the democratic defeat? _answer_. i think the nomination of english was exceedingly unfortunate. indiana, being an october state, the best man in that state should have been nominated either for president or vice- president. personally, i know nothing of mr. english, but i have the right to say that he was exceedingly unpopular. that was mistake number one. mistake number two was putting a plank in the platform insisting upon a tariff for revenue only. that little word "only" was one of the most frightful mistakes ever made by a political party. that little word "only" was a millstone around the neck of the entire campaign. the third mistake was hancock's definition of the tariff. it was exceedingly unfortunate, exceedingly laughable, and came just in the nick of time. the fourth mistake was the speech of wade hampton, i mean the speech that the republican papers claim he made. of course i do not know, personally, whether it was made or not. if made, it was a great mistake. mistake number five was made in alabama, where they refused to allow a greenbacker to express his opinion. that lost the democrats enough greenbackers to turn the scale in maine, and enough in indiana to change that election. mistake number six was in the charges made against general garfield. they were insisted upon, magnified and multiplied until at last the whole thing assumed the proportions of a malicious libel. this was a great mistake, for the reason that a number of democrats in the united states had most heartily and cordially indorsed general garfield as a man of integrity and great ability. such indorsements had been made by the leading democrats of the north and south, among them governor hendricks and many others i might name. jere black had also certified to the integrity and intellectual grandeur of general garfield, and when afterward he certified to the exact contrary, the people believed that it was a persecution. the next mistake, number seven, was the chinese letter. while it lost garfield california, nevada, and probably new jersey, it did him good in new york. this letter was the greatest mistake made, because a crime is greater than a mistake. these, in my judgment, are the principal mistakes made by the democratic party in the campaign. had mcdonald been on the ticket the result might have been different, or had the party united on some man in new york, satisfactory to the factions, it might have succeeded. the truth, however, is that the north to-day is republican, and it may be that had the democratic party made no mistakes whatever the result would have been the same. but that mistakes were made is now perfectly evident to the blindest partisan. if the ticket originally suggested, seymour and mcdonald, had been nominated on an unobjectionable platform, the result might have been different. one of the happiest days in my life was the day on which the cincinnati convention did not nominate seymour and did nominate english. i regard general hancock as a good soldier, but not particularly qualified to act as president. he has neither the intellectual training nor the experience to qualify him for that place. _question_. you have doubtless heard of a new party, colonel. what is your idea in regard to it? _answer_. i have heard two or three speak of a new party to be called the national party, or national union party, but whether there is anything in such a movement i have no means of knowing. any party in opposition to the republican, no matter what it may be called, must win on a new issue, and that new issue will determine the new party. parties cannot be made to order. they must grow. they are the natural offspring of national events. they must embody certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify, the feelings of a vast number of people. no man can make a party, and if a new party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many. it has seemed to me for years that the democratic party carried too great a load in the shape of record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it all the time, and that if it could die just long enough to assume another form at the resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave stone to mark the end of its history, to get a cemetery back of it, that it might hope for something like success. in other words, that there must be a funeral before there can be victory. most of its leaders are worn out. they have become so accustomed to defeat that they take it as a matter of course; they expect it in the beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it. there must be some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as such has been gathered to its fathers. i do not think that the advice of senator hill will be followed. he is willing to kill the democratic party in the south if we will kill the republican party in the north. this puts me in mind of what the rooster said to the horse: "let us agree not to step on each other's feet." _question_. your views of the country's future and prospects must naturally be rose colored? _answer_. of course, i look at things through republican eyes and may be prejudiced without knowing it. but it really seems to me that the future is full of great promise. the south, after all, is growing more prosperous. it is producing more and more every year, until in time it will become wealthy. the west is growing almost beyond the imagination of a speculator, and the eastern and middle states are much more than holding their own. we have now fifty millions of people and in a few years will have a hundred. that we are a nation i think is now settled. our growth will be unparalleled. i myself expect to live to see as many ships on the pacific as on the atlantic. in a few years there will probably be ten millions of people living along the rocky and sierra mountains. it will not be long until illinois will find her market west of her. in fifty years this will be the greatest nation on the earth, and the most populous in the civilized world. china is slowly awakening from the lethargy of centuries. it will soon have the wants of europe, and america will supply those wants. this is a nation of inventors and there is more mechanical ingenuity in the united states than on the rest of the globe. in my judgment this country will in a short time add to its customers hundreds of millions of the people of the celestial empire. so you see, to me, the future is exceedingly bright. and besides all this, i must not forget the thing that is always nearest my heart. there is more intellectual liberty in the united states to-day than ever before. the people are beginning to see that every citizen ought to have the right to express himself freely upon every possible subject. in a little while, all the barbarous laws that now disgrace the statute books of the states by discriminating against a man simply because he is honest, will be repealed, and there will be one country where all citizens will have and enjoy not only equal rights, but all rights. nothing gratifies me so much as the growth of intellectual liberty. after all, the true civilization is where every man gives to every other, every right that he claims for himself. --_the post_, washington, d. c., november , . religion in politics. _question_. how do you regard the present political situation? _answer_. my opinion is that the ideas the north fought for upon the field have at last triumphed at the ballot-box. for several years after the rebellion was put down the southern ideas traveled north. we lost west virginia, new jersey, connecticut, new york and a great many congressional districts in other states. we lost both houses of congress and every southern state. the southern ideas reached their climax in . in my judgment the tide has turned, and hereafter the northern idea is going south. the young men are on the republican side. the old democrats are dying. the cradle is beating the coffin. it is a case of life and death, and life is ahead. the heirs outnumber the administrators. _question_. what kind of a president will garfield make? _answer_. my opinion is that he will make as good a president as this nation ever had. he is fully equipped. he is a trained statesman. he has discussed all the great questions that have arisen for the last eighteen years, and with great ability. he is a thorough scholar, a conscientious student, and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions. he is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to make a great president. he has no prejudices. prejudice is the child and flatterer of ignorance. he is firm, but not obstinate. the obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right. andrew johnson was obstinate--lincoln was firm. _question_. how do you think he will treat the south? _answer_. just the same as the north. he will be the president of the whole country. he will not execute the laws by the compass, but according to the constitution. i do not speak for general garfield, nor by any authority from his friends. no one wishes to injure the south. the republican party feels in honor bound to protect all citizens, white and black. it must do this in order to keep its self-respect. it must throw the shield of the nation over the weakest, the humblest and the blackest citizen. any other course is suicide. no thoughtful southern man can object to this, and a northern democrat knows that it is right. _question_. is there a probability that mr. sherman will be retained in the cabinet? _answer_. i have no knowledge upon that question, and consequently have nothing to say. my opinion about the cabinet is, that general garfield is well enough acquainted with public men to choose a cabinet that will suit him and the country. i have never regarded it as the proper thing to try and force a cabinet upon a president. he has the right to be surrounded by his friends, by men in whose judgment and in whose friendship he has the utmost confidence, and i would no more think of trying to put some man in the cabinet that i would think of signing a petition that a man should marry a certain woman. general garfield will, i believe, select his own constitutional advisers, and he will take the best he knows. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the condition of the democratic party at present? _answer_. it must get a new set of principles, and throw away its prejudices. it must demonstrate its capacity to govern the country by governing the states where it is in power. in the presence of rebellion it gave up the ship. the south must become republican before the north will willingly give it power; that is, the great ideas of nationality are greater than parties, and if our flag is not large enough to protect every citizen, we must add a few more stars and stripes. personally i have no hatreds in this matter. the present is not only the child of the past, but the necessary child. a statesman must deal with things as they are. he must not be like gladstone, who divides his time between foreign wars and amendments to the english book of common prayer. _question_. how do you regard the religious question in politics? _answer_. religion is a personal matter--a matter that each individual soul should be allowed to settle for itself. no man shod in the brogans of impudence should walk into the temple of another man's soul. while every man should be governed by the highest possible considerations of the public weal, no one has the right to ask for legal assistance in the support of his particular sect. if catholics oppose the public schools i would not oppose them because they are catholics, but because i am in favor of the schools. i regard the public school as the intellectual bread of life. personally i have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children. i suspect all creeds that rely implicitly on mothers and nurses. that religion is the best that commends itself the strongest to men and women of education and genius. after all, the prejudices of infancy and the ignorance of the aged are a poor foundation for any system of morals or faith. i respect every honest man, and i think more of a liberal catholic than of an illiberal infidel. the religious question should be left out of politics. you might as well decide questions of art and music by a ward caucus as to govern the longings and dreams of the soul by law. i believe in letting the sun shine whether the weeds grow or not. i can never side with protestants if they try to put catholics down by law, and i expect to oppose both of these until religious intolerance is regarded as a crime. _question_. is the religious movement of which you are the chief exponent spreading? _answer_. there are ten times as many freethinkers this year as there were last. civilization is the child of free thought. the new world has drifted away from the rotting wharf of superstition. the politics of this country are being settled by the new ideas of individual liberty; and parties and churches that cannot accept the new truths must perish. i want it perfectly understood that i am not a politician. i believe in liberty and i want to see the time when every man, woman and child will enjoy every human right. the election is over, the passions aroused by the campaign will soon subside, the sober judgment of the people will, in my opinion, indorse the result, and time will indorse the indorsement. --_the evening express_, new york city, november , . miracles and immortality. _question_. you have seen some accounts of the recent sermon of dr. tyng on "miracles," i presume, and if so, what is your opinion of the sermon, and also what is your opinion of miracles? _answer_. from an orthodox standpoint, i think the rev. dr. tyng is right. if miracles were necessary eighteen hundred years ago, before scientific facts enough were known to overthrow hundreds and thousands of passages in the bible, certainly they are necessary now. dr. tyng sees clearly that the old miracles are nearly worn out, and that some new ones are absolutely essential. he takes for granted that, if god would do a miracle to found his gospel, he certainly would do some more to preserve it, and that it is in need of preservation about now is evident. i am amazed that the religious world should laugh at him for believing in miracles. it seems to me just as reasonable that the deaf, dumb, blind and lame, should be cured at lourdes as at palestine. it certainly is no more wonderful that the law of nature should be broken now than that it was broken several thousand years ago. dr. tyng also has this advantage. the witnesses by whom he proves these miracles are alive. an unbeliever can have the opportunity of cross- examination. whereas, the miracles in the new testament are substantiated only by the dead. it is just as reasonable to me that blind people receive their sight in france as that devils were made to vacate human bodies in the holy land. for one i am exceedingly glad that dr. tyng has taken this position. it shows that he is a believer in a personal god, in a god who is attending a little to the affairs of this world, and in a god who did not exhaust his supplies in the apostolic age. it is refreshing to me to find in this scientific age a gentleman who still believes in miracles. my opinion is that all thorough religionists will have to take the ground and admit that a supernatural religion must be supernaturally preserved. i have been asking for a miracle for several years, and have in a very mild, gentle and loving way, taunted the church for not producing a little one. i have had the impudence to ask any number of them to join in a prayer asking anything they desire for the purpose of testing the efficiency of what is known as supplication. they answer me by calling my attention to the miracles recorded in the new testament. i insist, however, on a new miracle, and, personally, i would like to see one now. certainly, the infinite has not lost his power, and certainly the infinite knows that thousands and hundreds of thousands, if the bible is true, are now pouring over the precipice of unbelief into the gulf of hell. one little miracle would save thousands. one little miracle in pittsburg, well authenticated, would do more good than all the preaching ever heard in this sooty town. the rev. dr. tyng clearly sees this, and he has been driven to the conclusion, first, that god can do miracles; second, that he ought to, third, that he has. in this he is perfectly logical. after a man believes the bible, after he believes in the flood and in the story of jonah, certainly he ought not to hesitate at a miracle of to-day. when i say i want a miracle, i mean by that, i want a good one. all the miracles recorded in the new testament could have been simulated. a fellow could have pretended to be dead, or blind, or dumb, or deaf. i want to see a good miracle. i want to see a man with one leg, and then i want to see the other leg grow out. i would like to see a miracle like that performed in north carolina. two men were disputing about the relative merits of the salve they had for sale. one of the men, in order to demonstrate that his salve was better than any other, cut off a dog's tail and applied a little of the salve to the stump, and, in the presence of the spectators, a new tail grew out. but the other man, who also had salve for sale, took up the piece of tail that had been cast away, put a little salve at the end of that, and a new dog grew out, and the last heard of those parties they were quarrelling as to who owned the second dog. something like that is what i call a miracle. _question_. what do you believe about the immortality of the soul? do you believe that the spirit lives as an individual after the body is dead? _answer_. i have said a great many times that it is no more wonderful that we should live again than that we do live. sometimes i have thought it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we have a start. but upon that subject i have not the slightest information. whether man lives again or not i cannot pretend to say. there may be another world and there may not be. if there is another world we ought to make the best of it after arriving there. if there is not another world, or if there is another world, we ought to make the best of this. and since nobody knows, all should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that nobody knows. if we take the old testament for authority, man is not immortal. the old testament shows man how he lost immortality. according to genesis, god prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating of the tree of life. it is there stated, had he succeeded, man would have lived forever. god drove him from the garden, preventing him eating of this tree, and in consequence man became mortal; so that if we go by the old testament we are compelled to give up immortality. the new testament has but little on the subject. in one place we are told to seek for immortality. if we are already immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it. in another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in marriage. from this one would infer there would be some unworthy to be raised from the dead. upon the question of immortality, the old testament throws but little satisfactory light. i do not deny immortality, nor would i endeavor to shake the belief of anybody in another life. what i am endeavoring to do is to put out the fires of hell. if we cannot have heaven without hell, i am in favor of abolishing heaven. i do not want to go to heaven if one soul is doomed to agony. i would rather be annihilated. my opinion of immortality is this: first.--i live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful. second.--there was a time when i was not, and after i was not, i was. third.--now that i am, i may be again; and it is no more wonderful that i may be again, if i have been, than that i am, having once been nothing. if the churches advocated immortality, if they advocated eternal justice, if they said that man would be rewarded and punished according to deeds; if they admitted that some time in eternity there would be an opportunity given to lift up souls, and that throughout all the ages the angels of progress and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that some time, and no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the children of men would be reasonably happy, i never would say a solitary word against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long i shall oppose them; that is to say, as long as i live. _question_. do you believe in a god; and, if so, what kind of a god? _answer_. let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an answer. first.--man gets all food for thought through the medium of the senses. the effect of nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon the brain, must be natural. all food for thought, then, is natural. as a consequence of this, there can be no supernatural idea in the human brain. whatever idea there is must have been a natural product. if, then, there is no supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain an idea of the supernatural. if we can have no idea of the supernatural, and if the god of whom you spoke is admitted to be supernatural, then, of course, i can have no idea of him, and i certainly can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which i have no idea. there may be a god for all i know. there may be thousands of them. but the idea of an infinite being outside and independent of nature is inconceivable. i do not know of any word that would explain my doctrine or my views upon the subject. i suppose pantheism is as near as i could go. i believe in the eternity of matter and in the eternity of intelligence, but i do not believe in any being outside of nature. i do not believe in any personal deity. i do not believe in any aristocracy of the air. i know nothing about origin or destiny. between these two horizons i live, whether i wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what i find between these two horizons. i have never heard any god described that i believe in. i have never heard any religion explained that i accept. to make something out of nothing cannot be more absurd than that an infinite intelligence made this world, and proceeded to fill it with crime and want and agony, and then, not satisfied with the evil he had wrought, made a hell in which to consummate the great mistake. _question_. do you believe that the world, and all that is in it came by chance? _answer_. i do not believe anything comes by chance. i regard the present as the necessary child of a necessary past. i believe matter is eternal; that it has eternally existed and eternally will exist. i believe that in all matter, in some way, there is what we call force; that one of the forms of force is intelligence. i believe that whatever is in the universe has existed from eternity and will forever exist. secondly.--i exclude from my philosophy all ideas of chance. matter changes eternally its form, never its essence. you cannot conceive of anything being created. no one can conceive of anything existing without a cause or with a cause. let me explain; a thing is not a cause until an effect has been produced; so that, after all, cause and effect are twins coming into life at precisely the same instant, born of the womb of an unknown mother. the universe in the only fact, and everything that ever has happened, is happening, or will happen, are but the different aspects of the one eternal fact. --_the dispatch_, pittsburg, pa., december , . the political outlook. _question_. what phases will the southern question assume in the next four years? _answer_. the next congress should promptly unseat every member of congress in whose district there was not a fair and honest election. that is the first hard work to be done. let notice, in this way, be given to the whole country, that fraud cannot succeed. no man should be allowed to hold a seat by force or fraud. just as soon as it is understood that fraud is useless it will be abandoned. in that way the honest voters of the whole country can be protected. an honest vote settles the southern question, and congress has the power to compel an honest vote, or to leave the dishonest districts without representation. i want this policy adopted, not only in the south, but in the north. no man touched or stained with fraud should be allowed to hold his seat. send such men home, and let them stay there until sent back by honest votes. the southern question is a northern question, and the republican party must settle it for all time. we must have honest elections, or the republic must fall. illegal voting must be considered and punished as a crime. taking one hundred and seventy thousand as the basis of representation, the south, through her astounding increase of colored population, gains three electoral votes, while the north and east lose three. garfield was elected by the thirty thousand colored votes cast in new york. _question_. will the negro continue to be the balance of power, and if so, will it inure to his benefit? _answer_. the more political power the colored man has the better he will be treated, and if he ever holds the balance of power he will be treated as well as the balance of our citizens. my idea is that the colored man should stand on an equality with the white before the law; that he should honestly be protected in all his rights; that he should be allowed to vote, and that his vote should be counted. it is a simple question of honesty. the colored people are doing well; they are industrious; they are trying to get an education, and, on the whole, i think they are behaving fully as well as the whites. they are the most forgiving people in the world, and about the only real christians in our country. they have suffered enough, and for one i am on their side. i think more of honest black people than of dishonest whites, to say the least of it. _question_. do you apprehend any trouble from the southern leaders in this closing session of congress, in attempts to force pernicious legislation? _answer_. i do not. the southern leaders know that the doctrine of state sovereignty is dead. they know that they cannot depend upon the northern democrat, and they know that the best interests of the south can only be preserved by admitting that the war settled the questions and ideas fought for and against. they know that this country is a nation, and that no party can possibly succeed that advocates anything contrary to that. my own opinion is that most of the southern leaders are heartily ashamed of the course pursued by their northern friends, and will take the first opportunity to say so. _question_. in what light do you regard the chinaman? _answer_. i am opposed to compulsory immigration, or cooley or slave immigration. if chinamen are sent to this country by corporations or companies under contracts that amount to slavery or anything like it or near it, then i am opposed to it. but i am not prepared to say that i would be opposed to voluntary immigration. i see by the papers that a new treaty has been agreed upon that will probably be ratified and be satisfactory to all parties. we ought to treat china with the utmost fairness. if our treaty is wrong, amend it, but do so according to the recognized usage of nations. after what has been said and done in this country i think there is very little danger of any chinaman voluntarily coming here. by this time china must have an exceedingly exalted opinion of our religion, and of the justice and hospitality born of our most holy faith. _question_. what is your opinion of making ex-presidents senators for life? _answer_. i am opposed to it. i am against any man holding office for life. and i see no more reason for making ex-presidents senators, than for making ex-senators presidents. to me the idea is preposterous. why should ex-presidents be taken care of? in this country labor is not disgraceful, and after a man has been president he has still the right to be useful. i am personally acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration of being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office during their natural lives. the people of this country should never allow a great man to suffer. the hand, not of charity, but of justice and generosity, should be forever open to those who have performed great public service. but the ex-presidents of the future may not all be great and good men, and bad ex-presidents will not make good senators. if the nation does anything, let it give a reasonable pension to ex- presidents. no man feels like giving pension, power, or place to general grant simply because he was once president, but because he was a great soldier, and led the armies of the nation to victory. make him a general, and retire him with the highest military title. let him grandly wear the laurels he so nobly won, and should the sky at any time be darkened with a cloud of foreign war, this country will again hand him the sword. such a course honors the nation and the man. _question_. are we not entering upon the era of our greatest prosperity? _answer_. we are just beginning to be prosperous. the northern pacific railroad is to be completed. forty millions of dollars have just been raised by that company, and new states will soon be born in the great northwest. the texas pacific will be pushed to san diego, and in a few years we will ride in a pullman car from chicago to the city of mexico. the gold and silver mines are yielding more and more, and within the last ten years more than forty million acres of land have been changed from wilderness to farms. this country is beginning to grow. we have just fairly entered upon what i believe will be the grandest period of national development and prosperity. with the republican party in power; with good money; with unlimited credit; with the best land in the world; with ninety thousand miles of railway; with mountains of gold and silver; with hundreds of thousands of square miles of coal fields; with iron enough for the whole world; with the best system of common schools; with telegraph wires reaching every city and town, so that no two citizens are an hour apart; with the telephone, that makes everybody in the city live next door, and with the best folks in the world, how can we help prospering until the continent is covered with happy homes? _question_. what do you think of civil service reform? _answer_. i am in favor of it. i want such civil service reform that all the offices will be filled with good and competent republicans. the majority should rule, and the men who are in favor of the views of the majority should hold the offices. i am utterly opposed to the idea that a party should show its liberality at the expense of its principles. men holding office can afford to take their chances with the rest of us. if they are democrats, they should not expect to succeed when their party is defeated. i believe that there are enough good and honest republicans in this country to fill all the offices, and i am opposed to taking any democrats until the republican supply is exhausted. men should not join the republican party to get office. such men are contemptible to the last degree. neither should a republican administration compel a man to leave the party to get a federal appointment. after a great battle has been fought i do not believe that the victorious general should reward the officers of the conquered army. my doctrine is, rewards for friends. --_the commercial_, cincinnati, ohio, december , . mr. beecher, moses and the negro. _question_. mr. beecher is here. have you seen him? _answer_. no, i did not meet mr. beecher. neither did i hear him lecture. the fact is, that long ago i made up my mind that under no circumstances would i attend any lecture or other entertainment given at lincoln hall. first, because the hall has been denied me, and secondly, because i regard it as extremely unsafe. the hall is up several stories from the ground, and in case of the slightest panic, in my judgment, many lives would be lost. had it not been for this, and for the fact that the persons owning it imagined that because they had control, the brick and mortar had some kind of holy and sacred quality, and that this holiness is of such a wonderful character that it would not be proper for a man in that hall to tell his honest thoughts, i would have heard him. _question_. then i assume that you and mr. beecher have made up? _answer_. there is nothing to be made up for so far as i know. mr. beecher has treated me very well, and, i believe, a little too well for his own peace of mind. i have been informed that some members of plymouth church felt exceedingly hurt that their pastor should so far forget himself as to extend the right hand of fellowship to one who differs from him upon what they consider very essential points in theology. you see i have denied with all my might, a great many times, the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. i have also had the temerity to suggest that i did not believe that a being of infinite justice and mercy was the author of all that i find in the old testament. as, for instance, i have insisted that god never commanded anybody to butcher women or to cut the throats of prattling babes. these orthodox gentlemen have rushed to the rescue of jehovah by insisting that he did all these horrible things. i have also maintained that god never sanctioned or upheld human slavery; that he never would make one child to own and beat another. i have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same god ever established the institution of polygamy. i have insisted that the institution is simply infamous; that it destroys the idea of home; that it turns to ashes the most sacred words in our language, and leaves the world a kind of den in which crawl the serpents of selfishness and lust. i have been informed that after mr. beecher had treated me kindly a few members of his congregation objected, and really felt ashamed that he had so forgotten himself. after that, mr. beecher saw fit to give his ideas of the position i had taken. in this he was not exceedingly kind, nor was his justice very conspicuous. but i cared nothing about that, not the least. as i have said before, whenever mr. beecher says a good thing i give him credit. whenever he does an unfair or unjust thing i charge it to the account of his religion. i have insisted, and i still insist, that mr. beecher is far better than his creed. i do not believe that he believes in the doctrine of eternal punishment. neither do i believe that he believes in the literal truth of the scriptures. and, after all, if the bible is not true, it is hardly worth while to insist upon its inspiration. an inspired lie is not better than an uninspired one. if the bible is true it does not need to be inspired. if it is not true, inspiration does not help it. so that after all it is simply a question of fact. is it true? i believe mr. beecher stated that one of my grievous faults was that i picked out the bad things in the bible. how an infinitely good and wise god came to put bad things in his book mr. beecher does not explain. i have insisted that the bible is not inspired, and, in order to prove that, have pointed out such passages as i deemed unworthy to have been written even by a civilized man or a savage. i certainly would not endeavor to prove that the bible is uninspired by picking out its best passages. i admit that there are many good things in the bible. the fact that there are good things in it does not prove its inspiration, because there are thousands of other books containing good things, and yet no one claims they are inspired. shakespeare's works contain a thousand times more good things than the bible, but no one claims he was an inspired man. it is also true that there are many bad things in shakespeare--many passages which i wish he had never written. but i can excuse shakespeare, because he did not rise absolutely above his time. that is to say, he was a man; that is to say, he was imperfect. if anybody claimed now that shakespeare was actually inspired, that claim would be answered by pointing to certain weak or bad or vulgar passages in his works. but every christian will say that it is a certain kind of blasphemy to impute vulgarity or weakness to god, as they are all obliged to defend the weak, the bad and the vulgar, so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the bible. now, i pursued the same course with the bible that mr. beecher has pursued with me. why did he want to pick out my bad things? is it possible that he is a kind of vulture that sees only the carrion of another? after all, has he not pursued the same method with me that he blames me for pursuing in regard to the bible? of course he must pursue that method. he could not object to me and then point out passages that were not objectionable. if he found fault he had to find faults in order to sustain his ground. that is exactly what i have done with scriptures--nothing more and nothing less. the reason i have thrown away the bible is that in many places it is harsh, cruel, unjust, coarse, vulgar, atrocious, infamous. at the same time, i admit that it contains many passages of an excellent and splendid character --many good things, wise sayings, and many excellent and just laws. but i would like to ask this: suppose there were no passages in the bible except those upholding slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination; would anybody then claim that it was the word of god? i would like to ask if there is a christian in the world who would not be overjoyed to find that every one of these passages was an interpolation? i would also like to ask mr. beecher if he would not be greatly gratified to find that after god had written the bible the devil had got hold of it, and interpolated all these passages about slavery, polygamy, the slaughter of women and babes and the doctrine of eternal punishment? suppose, as a matter of fact, the devil did get hold of it; what part of the bible would mr. beecher pick out as having been written by the devil? and if he picks out these passages could not the devil answer him by saying, "you, mr. beecher, are like a vulture, a kind of buzzard, flying through the tainted air of inspiration, and pouncing down upon the carrion. why do you not fly like a dove, and why do you not have the innocent ignorance of the dove, so that you could light upon a carcass and imagine that you were surrounded by the perfume of violets?" the fact is that good things in a book do not prove that it is inspired, but the presence of bad things does prove that it is not. _question_. what was the real difficulty between you and moses, colonel, a man who has been dead for thousands of years? _answer_. we never had any difficulty. i have always taken pains to say that moses had nothing to do with the pentateuch. those books, in my judgment, were written several centuries after moses had become dust in his unknown sepulchre. no doubt moses was quite a man in his day, if he ever existed at all. some people say that moses is exactly the same as "law-giver;" that is to say, as legislature, that is to say as congress. imagine somebody in the future as regarding the congress of the united states as one person! and then imagine that somebody endeavoring to prove that congress was always consistent. but, whether moses lived or not makes but little difference to me. i presume he filled the place and did the work that he was compelled to do, and although according to the account god had much to say to him with regard to the making of altars, tongs, snuffers and candlesticks, there is much left for nature still to tell. thinking of moses as a man, admitting that he was above his fellows, that he was in his day and generation a leader, and, in a certain narrow sense, a patriot, that he was the founder of the jewish people; that he found them barbarians and endeavored to control them by thunder and lightning, and found it necessary to pretend that he was in partnership with the power governing the universe; that he took advantage of their ignorance and fear, just as politicians do now, and as theologians always will, still, i see no evidence that the man moses was any nearer to god than his descendants, who are still warring against the philistines in every civilized part of the globe. moses was a believer in slavery, in polygamy, in wars of extermination, in religious persecution and intolerance and in almost everything that is now regarded with loathing, contempt and scorn. the jehovah of whom he speaks violated, or commands the violation of at least nine of the ten commandments he gave. there is one thing, however, that can be said of moses that cannot be said of any person who now insists that he was inspired, and that is, he was in advance of his time. _question_. what do you think of the buckner bill for the colonization of the negroes in mexico? _answer_. where does mr. buckner propose to colonize the white people, and what right has he to propose the colonization of six millions of people? should we not have other bills to colonize the germans, the swedes, the irish, and then, may be, another bill to drive the chinese into the sea? where do we get the right to say that the negroes must emigrate? all such schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile. perhaps the history of the world does not give an instance of the emigration of six millions of people. notwithstanding the treatment that ireland has received from england, which may be designated as a crime of three hundred years, the irish still love ireland. all the despotism in the world will never crush out of the irish heart the love of home--the adoration of the old sod. the negroes of the south have certainly suffered enough to drive them into other countries; but after all, they prefer to stay where they were born. they prefer to live where their ancestors were slaves, where fathers and mothers were sold and whipped; and i don't believe it will be possible to induce a majority of them to leave that land. of course, thousands may leave, and in process of time millions may go, but i don't believe emigration will ever equal their natural increase. as the whites of the south become civilized the reason for going will be less and less. i see no reason why the white and black men cannot live together in the same land, under the same flag. the beauty of liberty is you cannot have it unless you give it away, and the more you give away the more you have. i know that my liberty is secure only because others are free. i am perfectly willing to live in a country with such men as frederick douglass and senator bruce. i have always preferred a good, clever black man to a mean white man, and i am of the opinion that i shall continue in that preference. now, if we could only have a colonization bill that would get rid of all the rowdies, all the rascals and hypocrites, i would like to see it carried out, thought some people might insist that it would amount to a repudiation of the national debt and that hardly enough would be left to pay the interest. no, talk as we will, the colored people helped to save this nation. they have been at all times and in all places the friends of our flag; a flag that never really protected them. and for my part, i am willing that they should stand forever beneath that flag, the equal in rights of all other people. politically, if any black men are to be sent away, i want it understood that each one is to be accompanied by a democrat, so that the balance of power, especially in new york, will not be disturbed. _question_. i notice that leading republican newspapers are advising general garfield to cut loose from the machine in politics; what do you regard as the machine? _answer_. all defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is some wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine. some of the recent reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages of a political campaign--who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable american citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. certain men will take the lead, and the weaker men will in a short time, unless they get all the loaves and fishes, denounce the whole thing as a machine, and, to show how thoroughly and honestly they detest the machine in politics, will endeavor to organize a little machine themselves. general garfield has been in politics for many years. he knows the principal men in both parties. he knows the men who have not only done something, but who are capable of doing something, and such men will not, in my opinion, be neglected. i do not believe that general garfield will do any act calculated to divide the republican party. no thoroughly great man carries personal prejudice into the administration of public affairs. of course, thousands of people will be prophesying that this man is to be snubbed and another to be paid; but, in my judgment, after the th of march most people will say that general garfield has used his power wisely and that he has neither sought nor shunned men simply because he wished to pay debts--either of love or hatred. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, january , . hades, delaware and freethought. _question_. now that a lull has come in politics, i thought i would come and see what is going on in the religious world? _answer_. well, from what little i learn, there has not been much going on during the last year. there are five hundred and twenty- six congregational churches in massachusetts, and two hundred of these churches have not received a new member for an entire year, and the others have scarcely held their own. in illinois there are four hundred and eighty-three presbyterian churches, and they have now fewer members than they had in , and of the four hundred and eighty-three, one hundred and eighty-three have not received a single new member for twelve months. a report has been made, under the auspices of the pan-presbyterian council, to the effect that there are in the whole world about three millions of presbyterians. this is about one-fifth of one per cent. of the inhabitants of the world. the probability is that of the three million nominal presbyterians, not more than two or three hundred thousand actually believe the doctrine, and of the two or three hundred thousand, not more than five or six hundred have any true conception of what the doctrine is. as the presbyterian church has only been able to induce one-fifth of one per cent. of the people to even call themselves presbyterians, about how long will it take, at this rate, to convert mankind? the fact is, there seems to be a general lull along the entire line, and just at present very little is being done by the orthodox people to keep their fellow-citizens out of hell. _question_. do you really think that the orthodox people now believe in the old doctrine of eternal punishment, and that they really think there is a kind of hell that our ancestors so carefully described? _answer_. i am afraid that the old idea is dying out, and that many christians are slowly giving up the consolations naturally springing from the old belief. another terrible blow to the old infamy is the fact that in the revised new testament the word hades has been substituted. as nobody knows exactly what hades means, it will not be quite so easy to frighten people at revivals by threatening them with something that they don't clearly understand. after this, when the impassioned orator cries out that all the unconverted will be sent to hades, the poor sinners, instead of getting frightened, will begin to ask each other what and where that is. it will take many years of preaching to clothe that word in all the terrors and horrors, pains, and penalties and pangs of hell. hades is a compromise. it is a concession to the philosophy of our day. it is a graceful acknowledgment to the growing spirit of investigation, that hell, after all, is a barbaric mistake. hades is the death of revivals. it cannot be used in song. it won't rhyme with anything with the same force that hell does. it is altogether more shadowy than hot. it is not associated with brimstone and flame. it sounds somewhat indistinct, somewhat lonesome, a little desolate, but not altogether uncomfortable. for revival purposes, hades is simply useless, and few conversions will be made in the old way under the revised testament. _question_. do you really think that the church is losing ground? _answer_. i am not, as you probably know, connected with any orthodox organization, and consequently have to rely upon them for my information. if they can be believed, the church is certainly in an extremely bad condition. i find that the rev. dr. cuyler, only a few days ago, speaking of the religious condition of brooklyn --and brooklyn, you know, has been called the city of churches-- states that the great mass of that christian city was out of christ, and that more professing christians went to the theatre than to the prayer meeting. this, certainly, from their standpoint, is a most terrible declaration. brooklyn, you know, is one of the great religious centres of the world--a city in which nearly all the people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a city filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of prayer and praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the theatres, with the free list entirely suspended, catch more christians than the churches; and this happens while all the pulpits thunder against the stage, and the stage remains silent as to the pulpit. at the same meeting in which the rev. dr. cuyler made his astounding statements the rev. mr. pentecost was the bearer of the happy news that four out of five persons living in the city of brooklyn were going down to hell with no god and with no hope. if he had read the revised testament he would have said "hades," and the effect of the statement would have been entirely lost. if four-fifths of the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly we cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world. at the meeting of the brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether they should depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting and prayer for the purpose of converting the city. in my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means to keep a good many people from fasting in brooklyn. if they had more meat, they could get along with less meeting. if fasting would save a city, there are always plenty of hungry folks even in that christian town. the real trouble with the church of to-day is, that it is behind the intelligence of the people. its doctrines no longer satisfy the brains of the nineteenth century; and if the church proposes to hold its power, it must lose its superstitions. the day of revivals is gone. only the ignorant and unthinking can hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed. fear has in it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery will become. the tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty, toward personal investigation. authority is no longer taken for truth. people are beginning to find that all the great and good are not dead--that some good people are alive, and that the demonstrations of to-day are fully equal to the mistaken theories of the past. _question_. how are you getting along with delaware? _answer_. first rate. you know i have been wondering where comegys came from, and at last i have made the discovery. i was told the other day by a gentleman from delaware that many years ago colonel hazelitt died; that colonel hazelitt was an old revolutionary officer, and that when they were digging his grave they dug up comegys. back of that no one knows anything of his history. the only thing they know about him certainly, is, that he has never changed one of his views since he was found, and that he never will. i am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community congenial to him. for instance, i saw in a paper the other day that within a radius of thirty miles around georgetown, delaware, there are about two hundred orphan and friendless children. these children, it seems, were indentured to delaware farmers by the managers of orphan asylums and other public institutions in and about philadelphia. it is stated in the paper, that: "many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails to perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly treated, half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad. if he does the work, his life is not likely to be much happier, for as a rule he will receive more kicks than candy. the result in either case is almost certain to be wrecked constitutions, dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs crippled or rendered useless by frost or rheumatism. the principal diet of these boys is corn pone. a few days ago, constable w. h. johnston went to the house of reuben taylor, and on entering the sitting room his attention was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little colored boy, who was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace. the boy's head was covered with ashes from the fire, and he did not pay the slightest attention to the visitor, until johnston asked what made him cry. then the little fellow sat up and drawing on old rag off his foot said, 'look there.' the sight that met johnston's eye was horrible beyond description. the poor boy's feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off the toes until the bones protruded. the flesh on the sides, bottoms, and tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many places, and the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes. the frost-bitten flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which were terribly inflamed. the right one had already begun suppurating. this poor little black boy, covered with nothing but a cotton shirt, drilling pants, a pair of nearly worn out brogans and a battered old hat, on the morning of december th, the coldest day of the season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees below zero, in the face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from home to protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of marauding cows and crows. he remained standing around in the snow until four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece of cold corn pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove wood till dark. having no bed, he slept that night in front of the fireplace, with his frozen feet buried in the ashes. dr. c. h. richards found it necessary to cut off the boy's feet as far back as the ankle and the instep." this was but one case in several. personally, i have no doubt that mr. reuben taylor entirely agrees with chief justice comegys on the great question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so gratify mr. reuben taylor as to see some man in a delaware jail for the crime of having expressed an honest thought. no wonder that in the state of delaware the christ of intellectual liberty has been crucified between the pillory and the whipping-post. of course i know that there are thousands of most excellent people in that state--people who believe in intellectual liberty, and who only need a little help--and i am doing what i can in that direction --to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute book of that little commonwealth. i have seen many people from that state lately who really wish that colonel hazelitt had never died. _question_. what has the press generally said with regard to the action of judge comegys? do they, so far as you know, justify his charge? _answer_. a great many papers having articles upon the subject have been sent to me. a few of the religious papers seem to think that the judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper called the _evening news_, published at chester, pa., that thinks "that the rebuke from so high a source of authority will have a most excellent effect, and will check religious blasphemers from parading their immoral creeds before the people." the editor of this paper should at once emigrate to the state of delaware, where he properly belongs. he is either a native of delaware, or most of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that he is a lineal descendant of some hessian, who deserted during the revolutionary war. most of the newspapers in the united states are advocates of mental freedom. probably nothing on earth has been so potent for good as an untrammeled, fearless press. among the papers of importance there is not a solitary exception. no leading journal in the united states can be found upon the side of intellectual slavery. of course, a few rural sheets edited by gentlemen, as mr. greeley would say, "whom god in his inscrutable wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other side, and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers. these editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same influence upon the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers --that is to say, they get little and give less. _question_. do you not think after all, the people who are in favor of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance with the real spirit of the old and new testaments? _answer_. of course, they act in exact accordance with many of the commands in the old testament, and in accordance with several passages in the new. at the same time, it may be said that they violate passages in both. if the old testament is true, and if it is the inspired word of god, of course, an infidel ought not be allowed to live; and if the new testament is true, an unbeliever should not be permitted to speak. there are many passages, though, in the new testament, that should protect even an infidel. among them is this: "do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." but that is a passage that has probably had as little effect upon the church as any other in the bible. so far as i am concerned, i am willing to adopt that passage, and i am willing to extend to every other human being every right that i claim for myself. if the churches would act upon this principle, if they would say--every soul, every mind, may think and investigate for itself; and around all, and over all, shall be thrown the sacred shield of liberty, i should be on their side. _question_. how do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their opinion of you and of your views? _answer_. most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my success; think that i ought to starve; that the people should not hear me; say that i do what i do for money, for popularity; that i am actuated by hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in human nature; think that i wish to tear down the churches, destroy all morality and goodness, and usher in the reign of crime and chaos. they know that shepherds are unnecessary in the absence of wolves, and it is to their interest to convince their sheep that they, the sheep, need protection. this they are willing to give them for half the wool. no doubt, most of these minsters are honest, and are doing what they consider their duty. be this as it may, they feel the power slipping from their hands. they know that the idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely necessary for the protection of society. they know that the intellectual world cares little for what they say, and that the great tide of human progress flows on careless of their help or hindrance. so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the bible, they are compelled to take the ground that slavery was once a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties that would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment. they poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute the imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of endless misery. even the laws of delaware shock the enlightened public of to-day. in that state they simply fine and imprison a man for expressing his honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches are right, god will damn a man forever for the same offence. the brain and heart of our time cannot be satisfied with the ancient creeds. the bible must be revised again. most of the creeds must be blotted out. humanity must take the place of theology. intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit. there must be freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right to express its honest thought. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, march , . a reply to the rev. mr. lansing.* [* rev. isaac j. lansing of meriden, conn., recently denounced col. robert g. ingersoll from the pulpit of the meriden methodist church, and had the opera house closed against him. this led a _union_ reporter to show colonel ingersoll what mr. lansing had said and to interrogate him with the following result.] _question_. did you favor the sending of obscene matter through the mails as alleged by the rev. mr. lansing? _answer_. of course not, and no honest man ever thought that i did. this charge is too malicious and silly to be answered. mr. lansing knows better. he has made this charge many times and he will make it again. _question_. is it a fact that there are thousands of clergymen in the country whom you would fear to meet in fair debate? _answer_. no; the fact is i would like to meet them all in one. the pulpit is not burdened with genius. there a few great men engaged in preaching, but they are not orthodox. i cannot conceive that a freethinker has anything to fear from the pulpit, except misrepresentation. of course, there are thousands of ministers too small to discuss with--ministers who stand for nothing in the church--and with such clergymen i cannot afford to discuss anything. if the presbyterians, or the congregationalists, or the methodists would select some man, and endorse him as their champion, i would like to meet him in debate. such a man i will pay to discuss with me. i will give him most excellent wages, and pay all the expenses at the discussion besides. there is but one safe course for the ministers--they must assert. they must declare. they must swear to it and stick to it, but they must not try to reason. _question_. you have never seen rev. mr. lansing. to the people of meriden and thereabouts he is well-known. judging from what has been told you of his utterances and actions, what kind of a man would you take him to be? _answer_. i would take him to be a christian. he talks like one, and he acts like one. if christianity is right, lansing is right. if salvation depends upon belief, and if unbelievers are to be eternally damned, then an infidel has no right to speak. he should not be allowed to murder the souls of his fellow-men. lansing does the best he knows how. he thinks that god hates an unbeliever, and he tries to act like god. lansing knows that he must have the right to slander a man whom god is to eternally damn. _question_. mr. lansing speaks of you as a wolf coming with fangs sharpened by three hundred dollars a night to tear the lambs of his flock. what do you say to that? _answer_. all i have to say is, that i often get three times that amount, and sometimes much more. i guess his lambs can take care of themselves. i am not very fond of mutton anyway. such talk mr. lansing ought to be ashamed of. the idea that he is a shepherd --that he is on guard--is simply preposterous. he has few sheep in his congregation that know as little on the wolf question as he does. he ought to know that his sheep support him--his sheep protect him; and without the sheep poor lansing would be devoured by the wolves himself. _question_. shall you sue the opera house management for breach of contract? _answer_. i guess not; but i may pay lansing something for advertising my lecture. i suppose mr. wilcox (who controls the opera house) did what he thought was right. i hear he is a good man. he probably got a little frightened and began to think about the day of judgment. he could not help it, and i cannot help laughing at him. _question_. those in meriden who most strongly oppose you are radical republicans. is it not a fact that you possess the confidence and friendship of some of the most respected leaders of that party? _answer_. i think that all the respectable ones are friends of mine. i am a republican because i believe in the liberty of the body, and i am an infidel because i believe in the liberty of the mind. there is no need of freeing cages. let us free the birds. if mr. lansing knew me, he would be a great friend. he would probably annoy me by the frequency and length of his visits. _question_. during the recent presidential campaign did any clergymen denounce you for your teachings, that you are aware of? _answer_. some did, but they would not if they had been running for office on the republican ticket. _question_. what is most needed in our public men? _answer_. hearts and brains. _question_. would people be any more moral solely because of a disbelief in orthodox teaching and in the bible as an inspired book, in your opinion? _answer_. yes; if a man really believes that god once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. it always has been bad. this belief built the dungeons of the inquisition. this belief made the puritan murder the quaker, and this belief has raised the devil with mr. lansing. _question_. do you believe there will ever be a millennium, and if so how will it come about? _answer_. it will probably start in meriden, as i have been informed that lansing is going to leave. _question_. is there anything else bearing upon the question at issue or that would make good reading, that i have forgotten, that you would like to say? _answer_. yes. good-bye. --_the sunday union_, new haven, conn., april , . beaconsfield, lent and revivals. _question_. what have you to say about the attack of dr. buckley on you, and your lecture? _answer_. i never heard of dr. buckley until after i had lectured in brooklyn. he seems to think that it was extremely ill bred in me to deliver a lecture on the "liberty of man, woman and child," during lent. lent is just as good as any other part of the year, and no part can be too good to do good. it was not a part of my object to hurt the feelings of the episcopalians and catholics. if they think that there is some subtle relation between hunger and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is strengthened by famine, or that veal, during lent, is the enemy of virtue, or that beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith--of course, all this is nothing to me. they have a right to say that vice depends upon victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and chastity on cheese, but they have no right to say that a lecture on liberty is an insult to them because they are hungry. i suppose that lent was instituted in memory of the savior's fast. at one time it was supposed that only a divine being could live forty days without food. this supposition has been overthrown. it has been demonstrated by dr. tanner to be utterly without foundation. what possible good did it do the world for christ to go without food for forty days? why should we follow such an example? as a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate, peevish and unpleasant. a good dinner puts a man at peace with all the world--makes him generous, good natured and happy. he feels like kissing his wife and children. the future looks bright. he wants to help the needy. the good in him predominates, and he wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. your good cook is a civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual progress is simply impossible. most of the orthodox creeds were born of bad cooking. bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia produced calvinism, and calvinism is the cancer of christianity. oatmeal is responsible for the worst features of scotch presbyterianism. half cooked beans account for the religion of the puritans. fried bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie the doctrine of state rights. lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and bad cooking is a crime. _question_. it is stated that you went to brooklyn while beecher and talmage were holding revivals, and that you did so for the purpose of breaking them up. how is this? _answer_. i had not the slightest idea of interfering with the revivals. they amounted to nothing. they were not alive enough to be killed. surely one lecture could not destroy two revivals. still, i think that if all the persons engaged in the revivals had spent the same length of time in cleaning the streets, the good result would have been more apparent. the truth is, that the old way of converting people will have to be abandoned. the americans are getting hard to scare, and a revival without the "scare" is scarcely worth holding. such maniacs as hammond and the "boy preacher" fill asylums and terrify children. after saying what he has about hell, mr. beecher ought to know that he is not the man to conduct a revival. a revival sermon with hell left out--with the brimstone gone--with the worm that never dies, dead, and the devil absent--is the broadest farce. mr. talmage believes in the ancient way. with him hell is a burning reality. he can hear the shrieks and groans. he is of that order of mind that rejoices in these things. if he could only convince others, he would be a great revivalist. he cannot terrify, he astonishes. he is the clown of the horrible--one of jehovah's jesters. i am not responsible for the revival failure in brooklyn. i wish i were. i would have the happiness of knowing that i had been instrumental in preserving the sanity of my fellow-men. _question_. how do you account for these attacks? _answer_. it was not so much what i said that excited the wrath of the reverend gentlemen as the fact that i had a great house. they contrasted their failure with my success. the fact is, the people are getting tired of the old ideas. they are beginning to think for themselves. eternal punishment seems to them like eternal revenge. they see that christ could not atone for the sins of others; that belief ought not to be rewarded and honest doubt punished forever; that good deeds are better than bad creeds, and that liberty is the rightful heritage of every soul. _question_. were you an admirer of lord beaconsfield? _answer_. in some respects. he was on our side during the war, and gave it as his opinion that the union would be preserved. mr. gladstone congratulated jefferson davis on having founded a new nation. i shall never forget beaconsfield for his kindness, nor gladstone for his malice. beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast, a political athlete, one of the most adroit men in the world. he had the persistence of his race. in spite of the prejudices of eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can be occupied by a citizen. during his administration england again became a continental power and played her game of european chess. i have never regarded beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle, or by his heart. he was strictly a politician. he always acted as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. he knew all the arts belonging to his trade. he would have succeeded anywhere, if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power. but after all, such men are splendid failures. they give themselves and others a great deal of trouble--they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and then fade from public view. they astonish the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. he had the imagination of the east united with the ambition of an englishman. with him, to succeed was to have done right. _question_. what do you think of him as an author? _answer_. most of his characters are like himself--puppets moved by the string of self-interest. the men are adroit, the women mostly heartless. they catch each other with false bait. they have great worldly wisdom. their virtue and vice are mechanical. they have hearts like clocks--filled with wheels and springs. the author winds them up. in his novels disraeli allows us to enter the greenroom of his heart. we see the ropes, the pulleys and the old masks. in all things, in politics and in literature, he was cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful. his books will, in a little while, follow their author to their grave. after all, the good will live longest. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, april , . answering the new york ministers.* [* ever since colonel ingersoll began the delivery of his lecture called _the great infidels_, the ministers of the country have made him the subject of special attack. one week ago last sunday the majority of the leading ministers in new york made replies to ingersoll's latest lecture. what he has to say to these replies will be found in a report of an interview with colonel ingersoll. no man is harder to pin down for a long talk than the colonel. he is so beset with visitors and eager office seekers anxious for help, that he can hardly find five minutes unoccupied during an entire day. through the shelter of a private room and the guardianship of a stout colored servant, the colonel was able to escape the crowd of seekers after his personal charity long enough to give some time to answer some of the ministerial arguments advanced against him in new york.] _question_. have you seen the attacks made upon you by certain ministers of new york, published in the _herald_ last sunday? _answer_. yes, i read, or heard read, what was in monday's _herald_. i do not know that you could hardly call them attacks. they are substantially a repetition of what the pulpit has been saying for a great many hundred years, and what the pulpit will say just so long as men are paid for suppressing truth and for defending superstition. one of these gentlemen tells the lambs of his flock that three thousand men and a few women--probably with quite an emphasis on the word "few"--gave one dollar each to hear their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed. probably nothing is so hard for the average preacher to bear as the fact that people are not only willing to hear the other side, but absolutely anxious to pay for it. the dollar that these people paid hurt their feelings vastly more than what was said after they were in. of course, it is a frightful commentary on the average intellect of the pulpit that a minister cannot get so large an audience when he preaches for nothing, as an infidel can draw at a dollar a head. if i depended upon a contribution box, or upon passing a saucer that would come back to the stage enriched with a few five cent pieces, eight or ten dimes, and a lonesome quarter, these gentlemen would, in all probability, imagine infidelity was not to be feared. the churches were all open on that sunday, and all could go who desired. yet they were not full, and the pews were nearly as empty of people as the pulpit of ideas. the truth is, the story is growing old, the ideas somewhat moss-covered, and everything has a wrinkled and withered appearance. this gentleman says that these people went to hear their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed. is it possible that in a city where so many steeples pierce the air, and hundreds of sermons are preached every sunday, there are three thousand men, and a few women, so anxious to hear "their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed" that they are willing to pay a dollar each? the gentleman knew that nobody cursed anybody's maker. he knew that the statement was utterly false and without the slightest foundation. he also knew that nobody had ridiculed the savior of anybody, but, on the contrary, that i had paid a greater tribute to the character of jesus christ than any minister in new york has the capacity to do. certainly it is not cursing the maker of anybody to say that the god described in the old testament is not the real god. certainly it is not cursing god to declare that the real god never sanctioned slavery or polygamy, or commanded wars of extermination, or told a husband to separate from his wife if she differed with him in religion. the people who say these things of god--if there is any god at all--do what little there is in their power, unwittingly of course, to destroy his reputation. but i have done something to rescue the reputation of the deity from the slanders of the pulpit. if there is any god, i expect to find myself credited on the heavenly books for my defence of him. i did say that our civilization is due not to piety, but to infidelity. i did say that every great reformer had been denounced as an infidel in his day and generation. i did say that christ was an infidel, and that he was treated in his day very much as the orthodox preachers treat an honest man now. i did say that he was tried for blasphemy and crucified by bigots. i did say that he hated and despised the church of his time, and that he denounced the most pious people of jerusalem as thieves and vipers. and i suggested that should he come again he might have occasion to repeat the remarks that he then made. at the same time i admitted that there are thousands and thousands of christians who are exceedingly good people. i never did pretend that the fact that a man was a christian even tended to show that he was a bad man. neither have i ever insisted that the fact that a man is an infidel even tends to show what, in other respects, his character is. but i always have said, and i always expect to say, that a christian who does not believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a curse to mankind, and that an infidel who does believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a blessing to this world. we cannot expect all infidels to be good, nor all christians to be bad, and we might make some mistakes even if we selected these people ourselves. it is admitted by the christians that christ made a great mistake when he selected judas. this was a mistake of over eight per cent. chaplain newman takes pains to compare some great christians with some great infidels. he compares washington with julian, and insists, i suppose, that washington was a great christian. certainly he is not very familiar with the history of washington, or he never would claim that he was particularly distinguished in his day for what is generally known as vital piety. that he went through the ordinary forms of christianity nobody disputes. that he listened to sermons without paying any particular attention to them, no one will deny. julian, of course, was somewhat prejudiced against christianity, but that he was one of the greatest men of antiquity no one acquainted with the history of rome can honestly dispute. when he was made emperor he found at the palace hundreds of gentlemen who acted as barbers, hair-combers, and brushers for the emperor. he dismissed them all, remarking that he was able to wash himself. these dismissed office-holders started the story that he was dirty in his habits, and a minister of the nineteenth century was found silly enough to believe the story. another thing that probably got him into disrepute in that day, he had no private chaplains. as a matter of fact, julian was forced to pretend that he was a christian in order to save his life. the christians of that day were of such a loving nature that any man who differed with them was forced to either fall a victim to their ferocity or seek safety in subterfuge. the real crime that julian committed, and the only one that has burned itself into the very heart and conscience of the christian world, is, that he transferred the revenues of the christian churches to heathen priests. whoever stands between a priest and his salary will find that he has committed the unpardonable sin commonly known as the sin against the holy ghost. this gentleman also compares luther with voltaire. if he will read the life of luther by lord brougham, he will find that in his ordinary conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that no respectable english publisher could be found who would soil paper with the translation. if he will take the pains to read an essay by macaulay, he will find that twenty years after the death of luther there were more catholics than when he was born. and that twenty years after the death of voltaire there were millions less than when he was born. if he will take just a few moments to think, he will find that the last victory of protestantism was in holland; that there has never been one since, and will never be another. if he would really like to think, and enjoy for a few moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little while over the instructive fact that languages having their root in the latin have generally been spoken in catholic countries, and that those languages having their root in the ancient german are now mostly spoken by people of protestant proclivities. it may occur to him, after thinking of this a while, that there is something deeper in the question than he has as yet perceived. luther's last victory, as i said before, was in holland; but the victory of voltaire goes on from day to day. protestantism is not holding its own with catholicism, even in the united states. i saw the other day the statistics, i believe, of the city of chicago, showing that, while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent., protestantism had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent. i am willing for one, to have the whole question depend upon a comparison of the worth and work of voltaire and luther. it may be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us that luther himself gave consent to a person high in office to have two wives, but prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still as possible. luther was, also, a believer in a personal devil. he thought that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit. on one occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had better drown her child; that he had no doubt that the devil was its father. this same luther made this observation: "universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell." from this you will see that he was an exceedingly good man, but mistaken upon many questions. so, too, he laughed at the copernican system, and wanted to know if those fool astronomers could undo the work of god. he probably knew as little about science as the reverend gentleman does about history. _question_. does he compare any other infidels with christians? _answer_. oh, yes; he compares lord bacon with diderot. i have never claimed that diderot was a saint. i have simply insisted that he was a great man; that he was grand enough to say that "incredulity is the beginning of philosophy;" that he had sense enough to know that the god described by the catholics and protestants of his day was simply an impossible monster; and that he also had the brain to see that the little selfish heaven occupied by a few monks and nuns and idiots they had fleeced, was hardly worth going to; in other words, that he was a man of common sense, greatly in advance of his time, and that he did what he could to increase the sum of human enjoyment to the end that there might be more happiness in this world. the gentleman compares him with lord bacon, and yet, if he will read the trials of that day--i think in the year --he will find that the christian lord bacon, the pious lord bacon, was charged with receiving pay for his opinions, and, in some instances, pay from both sides; that the christian lord bacon, at first upon his honor as a christian lord, denied the whole business; that afterward the christian lord bacon, upon his honor as a christian lord, admitted the truth of the whole business, and that, therefore, the christian lord bacon was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and rendered infamous and incapable of holding any office. now, understand me, i do not think bacon took bribes because he was a christian, because there have been many christian judges perfectly honest; but, if the statement of the reverend gentlemen of new york is true, his being a christian did not prevent his taking bribes. and right here allow me to thank the gentleman with all my heart for having spoken of lord bacon in this connection. i have always admired the genius of bacon, and have always thought of his fall with an aching heart, and would not now have spoken of his crime had not his character been flung in my face by a gentleman who asks his god to kill me for having expressed my honest thought. the same gentleman compares newton with spinoza. in the first place, there is no ground of parallel. newton was a very great man and a very justly celebrated mathematician. as a matter of fact, he is not celebrated for having discovered the law of gravitation. that was known for thousands of years before he was born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a little more he would find that newton's discovery was not that there is such a law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and inversely to the squares of their distances." i do not think he made the discoveries on account of his christianity. laplace was certainly in many respects as great a mathematician and astronomer, but he was not a christian. descartes was certainly not much inferior to newton as a mathematician, and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a christian. euclid, if i remember right, was not a christian, and yet he had quite a turn for mathematics. as a matter of fact, christianity got its idea of algebra from the mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been impossible. christianity did not even invent figures. we got those from the arabs. the very word "algebra" is arabic. the decimal system, i believe, however, was due to a german, but whether he was a christian or not, i do not know. we find that the chinese calculated eclipses long before christ was born; and, exactness being the rule at that time, there is an account of two astronomers having been beheaded for failing to tell the coming of an eclipse to the minute; yet they were not christians. there is another fact connected with newton, and that is that he wrote a commentary on the book of revelation. the probability is that a sillier commentary was never written. it was so perfectly absurd and laughable that some one--i believe it was voltaire--said that while newton had excited the envy of the intellectual world by his mathematical accomplishments, it had gotten even with him the moment his commentaries were published. spinoza was not a mathematician, particularly. he was a metaphysician, an honest thinker, whose influence is felt, and will be felt so long as these great questions have the slightest interest for the human brain. he also compares chalmers with hume. chalmers gained his notoriety from preaching what are known as the astronomical sermons, and, i suppose, was quite a preacher in his day. but hume was a thinker, and his works will live for ages after mr. chalmers' sermons will have been forgotten. mr. chalmers has never been prominent enough to have been well known by many people. he may have been an exceedingly good man, and derived, during his life, great consolation from a belief in the damnation of infants. mr. newman also compares wesley with thomas paine. when thomas paine was in favor of human liberty, wesley was against it. thomas paine wrote a pamphlet called "common sense," urging the colonies to separate themselves from great britain. wesley wrote a treatise on the other side. he was the enemy of human liberty; and if his advice could have been followed we would have been the colonies of great britain still. we never would have had a president in need of a private chaplain. mr. wesley had not a scientific mind. he preached a sermon once on the cause and cure of earthquakes, taking the ground that earthquakes were caused by sins, and that the only way to stop them was to believe on the lord jesus christ. he also laid down some excellent rules for rearing children, that is, from a methodist standpoint. his rules amounted to about this: _first_. never give them what they want. _second_. never give them what you intend to give them, at the time they want it. _third_. break their wills at the earliest possible moment. mr. wesley made every family an inquisition, every father and mother inquisitors, and all the children helpless victims. one of his homes would give an exceedingly vivid idea of hell. at the same time, mr. wesley was a believer in witches and wizards, and knew all about the devil. at his request god performed many miracles. on several occasions he cured his horse of lameness. on others, dissipated mr. wesley's headaches. now and then he put off rain on account of a camp meeting, and at other times stopped the wind blowing at the special request of mr. wesley. i have no doubt that mr. wesley was honest in all this,--just as honest as he was mistaken. and i also admit that he was the founder of a church that does extremely well in new countries, and that thousands of methodists have been exceedingly good men. but i deny that he ever did anything for human liberty. while mr. wesley was fighting the devil and giving his experience with witches and wizards, thomas paine helped to found a free nation, helped to enrich the air with another flag. wesley was right on one thing, though. he was opposed to slavery, and, i believe, called it the sum of all villainies. i have always been obliged to him for that. i do not think he said it because he was a methodist; but methodism, as he understood it, did not prevent his saying it, and methodism as others understood it, did not prevent men from being slaveholders, did not prevent them from selling babes from mothers, and in the name of god beating the naked back of toil. i think, on the whole, paine did more for the world than mr. wesley. the difference between an average methodist and an average episcopalian is not worth quarreling about. but the difference between a man who believes in despotism and one who believes in liberty is almost infinite. wesley changed episcopalians into methodists; paine turned lickspittles into men. let it be understood, once for all, that i have never claimed that paine was perfect. i was very glad that the reverend gentleman admitted that he was a patriot and the foe of tyrants; that he sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless; that he favored religious toleration, and that he weakened the power of the catholic church. i am glad that he made these admissions. whenever it can be truthfully said of a man that he loved his country, hated tyranny, sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless, nothing more is necessary. if god can afford to damn such a man, such a man can afford to be damned. while paine was the foe of tyrants, christians were the tyrants. when he sympathized with the oppressed, the oppressed were the victims of christians. when he befriended the helpless, the helpless were the victims of christians. paine never founded an inquisition; never tortured a human being; never hoped that anybody's tongue would be paralyzed, and was always opposed to private chaplains. it might be well for the reverend gentleman to continue his comparisons, and find eminent christians to put, for instance, along with humboldt, the shakespeare of science; somebody by the side of darwin, as a naturalist; some gentleman in england to stand with tyndall, or huxley; some christian german to stand with haeckel and helmholtz. may be he knows some christian statesman that he would compare with gambetta. i would advise him to continue his parallels. _question_. what have you to say of the rev. dr. fulton? _answer_. the rev. dr. fulton is a great friend of mine. i am extremely sorry to find that he still believes in a personal devil, and i greatly regret that he imagines that this devil has so much power that he can take possession of a human being and deprive god of their services. it is in sorrow and not in anger, that i find that he still believes in this ancient superstition. i also regret that he imagines that i am leading young men to eternal ruin. it occurs to me that if there is an infinite god, he ought not to allow anybody to lead young men to eternal ruin. if anything i have said, or am going to say, has a tendency to lead young men to eternal ruin, i hope that if there is a god with the power to prevent me, that he will use it. dr. fulton admits that in politics i am on the right side. i presume he makes this concession because he is a republican. i am in favor of universal education, of absolute intellectual liberty. i am in favor, also, of equal rights to all. as i have said before we have spent millions and millions of dollars and rivers of blood to free the bodies of men; in other words, we have been freeing the cages. my proposition now is to give a little liberty to the birds. i am not willing to stop where a man can simply reap the fruit of his hand. i wish him, also, to enjoy the liberty of his brain. i am not against any truth in the new testament. i did say that i objected to religion because it made enemies and not friends. the rev. dr. says that is one reason why he likes religion. dr. fulton tells me that the bible is the gift of god to man. he also tells me that the bible is true, and that god is its author. if the bible is true and god is its author, then god was in favor of slavery four thousand years ago. he was also in favor of polygamy and religious intolerance. in other words, four thousand years ago he occupied the exact position the devil is supposed to occupy now. if the bible teaches anything it teaches man to enslave his brother, that is to say, if his brother is a heathen. the god of the bible always hated heathens. dr. fulton also says that the bible is the basis of all law. yet, if the legislature of new york would re-enact next winter the mosaic code, the members might consider themselves lucky if they were not hung upon their return home. probably dr. fulton thinks that had it not been for the ten commandments, nobody would ever have thought that stealing was wrong. i have always had an idea that men objected to stealing because the industrious did not wish to support the idle; and i have a notion that there has always been a law against murder, because a large majority of people have always objected to being murdered. if he will read his old testament with care, he will find that god violated most of his own commandments--all except that "thou shalt worship no other god before me," and, may be, the commandment against work on the sabbath day. with these two exceptions i am satisfied that god himself violated all the rest. he told his chosen people to rob the gentiles; that violated the commandment against stealing. he said himself that he had sent out lying spirits; that certainly was a violation of another commandment. he ordered soldiers to kill men, women and babes; that was a violation of another. he also told them to divide the maidens among the soldiers; that was a substantial violation of another. one of the commandments was that you should not covet your neighbor's property. in that commandment you will find that a man's wife is put on an equality with his ox. yet his chosen people were allowed not only to covet the property of the gentiles, but to take it. if dr. fulton will read a little more, he will find that all the good laws in the decalogue had been in force in egypt a century before moses was born. he will find that like laws and many better ones were in force in india and china, long before moses knew what a bulrush was. if he will think a little while, he will find that one of the ten commandments, the one on the subject of graven images, was bad. the result of that was that palestine never produced a painter, or a sculptor, and that no jew became famous in art until long after the destruction of jerusalem. a commandment that robs a people of painting and statuary is not a good one. the idea of the bible being the basis of law is almost too silly to be seriously refuted. i admit that i did say that shakespeare was the greatest man who ever lived; and dr. fulton says in regard to this statement, "what foolishness!" he then proceeds to insult his audience by telling them that while many of them have copies of shakespeare's works in their houses, they have not read twenty pages of them. this fact may account for their attending his church and being satisfied with that sermon. i do not believe to-day that shakespeare is more influential than the bible, but what influence shakespeare has, is for good. no man can read it without having his intellectual wealth increased. when you read it, it is not necessary to throw away your reason. neither will you be damned if you do not understand it. it is a book that appeals to everything in the human brain. in that book can be found the wisdom of all ages. long after the bible has passed out of existence, the name of shakespeare will lead the intellectual roster of the world. dr. fulton says there is not one work in the bible that teaches that slavery or polygamy is right. he also states that i know it. if language has meaning--if words have sense, or the power to convey thought,--what did god mean when he told the israelites to buy of the heathen round about, and that the heathen should be their bondmen and bondmaids forever? what did god mean when he said, if a man strike his servant so he dies, he should not be punished, because his servant was his money? passages like these can be quoted beyond the space that any paper is willing to give. yet the rev. dr. fulton denies that the old testament upholds slavery. i would like to ask him if the old testament is in favor of religious toleration? if god wrote the old testament and afterward came upon the earth as jesus christ, and taught a new religion, and the jews crucified him, was this not in accordance with his own law, and was he not, after all, the victim of himself? _question_. what about the other ministers? _answer_. well, i see in the _herald_ that some ten have said that they would reply to me. i have selected the two, simply because they came first. i think they are about as poor as any; and you know it is natural to attack those who are the easiest answered. all these ministers are now acting as my agents, and are doing me all the good they can by saying all the bad things about me they can think of. they imagine that their congregations have not grown, and they talk to them as though they were living in the seventeenth instead of the nineteenth century. the truth is, the pews are beyond the pulpit, and the modern sheep are now protecting the shepherds. _question_. have you noticed a great change in public sentiment in the last three or four years? _answer_. yes, i think there are ten times as many infidels to- day as there were ten years ago. i am amazed at the great change that has taken place in public opinion. the churches are not getting along well. there are hundreds and hundreds who have not had a new member in a year. the young men are not satisfied with the old ideas. they find that the church, after all, is opposed to learning; that it is the enemy of progress; that it says to every young man, "go slow. don't allow your knowledge to puff you up. recollect that reason is a dangerous thing. you had better be a little ignorant here for the sake of being an angel hereafter, than quite a smart young man and get damned at last." the church warns them against humboldt and darwin, and tells them how much nobler it is to come from mud than from monkeys; that they were made from mud. every college professor is afraid to tell what he thinks, and every student detects the cowardice. the result is that the young men have lost confidence in the creeds of the day and propose to do a little thinking for themselves. they still have a kind of tender pity for the old folks, and pretend to believe some things they do not, rather than hurt grandmother's feelings. in the presence of the preachers they talk about the weather or other harmless subjects, for fear of bruising the spirit of their pastor. every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd leading the lambs through the green pastures and defending them at night from infidel wolves. all this he does for a certain share of the wool. others regard the church as a kind of social organization, as a good way to get into society. they wish to attend sociables, drink tea, and contribute for the conversion of the heathen. it is always so pleasant to think that there is somebody worse than you are, whose reformation you can help pay for. i find, too, that the young women are getting tired of the old doctrines, and that everywhere, all over this country, the power of the pulpit wanes and weakens. i find in my lectures that the applause is just in proportion to the radicalism of the thought expressed. our war was a great educator, when the whole people of the north rose up grandly in favor of human liberty. for many years the great question of human rights was discussed from every stump. every paper was filled with splendid sentiments. an application of those doctrines--doctrines born in war--will forever do away with the bondage of superstition. when man has been free in body for a little time, he will become free in mind, and the man who says, "i have a equal right with other men to work and reap the reward of my labor," will say, "i have, also, an equal right to think and reap the reward of my thought." in old times there was a great difference between a clergyman and a layman. the clergyman was educated; the peasant was ignorant. the tables have been turned. the thought of the world is with the laymen. they are the intellectual pioneers, the mental leaders, and the ministers are following on behind, predicting failure and disaster, sighing for the good old times when their word ended discussion. there is another good thing, and that is the revision of the bible. hundreds of passages have been found to be interpolations, and future revisers will find hundreds more. the foundation crumbles. that book, called the basis of all law and civilization, has to be civilized itself. we have outgrown it. our laws are better; our institutions grander; our objects and aims nobler and higher. _question_. do many people write to you upon this subject; and what spirit do they manifest? _answer_. yes, i get a great many anonymous letters--some letters in which god is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly malicious, and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good spirit, winding up with the information that i must certainly be damned. others express wonder that god allowed me to live at all, and that, having made the mistake, he does not instantly correct it by killing me. others prophesy that i will yet be a minister of the gospel; but, as there has never been any softening of the brain in our family, i imagine that the prophecy will never by fulfilled. lately, on opening a letter and seeing that it is upon this subject, and without a signature, i throw it aside without reading. i have so often found them to be so grossly ignorant, insulting and malicious, that as a rule i read them no more. _question_. of the hundreds of people who call upon you nearly every day to ask your help, do any of them ever discriminate against you on account of your infidelity? _answer_. no one who has asked a favor of me objects to my religion, or, rather, to my lack of it. a great many people do come to me for assistance of one kind or another. but i have never yet asked a man or woman whether they were religious or not, to what church they belonged, or any questions upon the subject. i think i have done favors for persons of most denominations. it never occurs to me whether they are christians or infidels. i do not care. of course, i do not expect that christians will treat me the same as though i belonged to their church. i have never expected it. in some instances i have been disappointed. i have some excellent friends who disagree with me entirely upon the subject of religion. my real opinion is that secretly they like me because i am not a christian, and those who do not like me envy the liberty i enjoy. --new york correspondent, _chicago times_, may , . guiteau and his crime.* [* our "royal bob" was found by _the gazette_, in the gloaming of a delicious evening, during the past week, within the open portals of his friendly residence, dedicated by the gracious presence within to a simple and cordial hospitality, to the charms of friendship and the freedom of an abounding comradeship. with intellectual and untrammeled life, a generous, wise and genial host, whoever enters finds a welcome, seasoned with kindly wit and attic humor, a poetic insight and a delicious frankness which renders an evening there a veritable symposium. the wayfarer who passes is charmed, and he who comes frequently, goes always away with delighted memories. what matters it that we differ? such as he and his make our common life the sweeter. an hour or two spent in the attractive parlors of the ingersoll homestead, amid that rare group, lends a newer meaning to the idea of home and a more secure beauty to the fact of family life. during the past exciting three weeks colonel ingersoll has been a busy man. he holds no office. no position could lend him an additional crown and even recognition is no longer necessary. but it has been well that amid the first fierce fury of anger and excitement, and the subsequent more bitter if not as noble outpouring of faction's suspicions and innuendoes, that so manly a man, so sagacious a counsellor, has been enabled to hold so positive a balance. cabinet officers, legal functionaries, detectives, citizens--all have felt the wise, humane instincts, and the capacious brain of this marked man affecting and influencing for this fair equipoise and calmer judgment. conversing freely on the evening of this visit, colonel ingersoll, in the abundance of his pleasure at the white house news, submitted to be interviewed, and with the following result.] _question_. by-the-way, colonel, you knew guiteau slightly, we believe. are you aware that it has been attempted to show that some money loaned or given him by yourself was really what he purchased the pistol with? _answer_. i knew guiteau slightly; i saw him for the first time a few days after the inauguration. he wanted a consulate, and asked me to give him a letter to secretary blaine. i refused, on the ground that i didn't know him. afterwards he wanted me to lend him twenty-five dollars, and i declined. i never loaned him a dollar in the world. if i had, i should not feel that i was guilty of trying to kill the president. on the principle that one would hold the man guilty who had innocently loaned the money with which he bought the pistol, you might convict the tailor who made his clothes. if he had had no clothes he would not have gone to the depot naked, and the crime would not have been committed. it is hard enough for the man who did lend him the money to lose that, without losing his reputation besides. nothing can exceed the utter absurdity of what has been said upon this subject. _question_. how did guiteau impress you and what have you remembered, colonel, of his efforts to reply to your lectures? _answer_. i do not know that guiteau impressed me in any way. he appeared like most other folks in search of a place or employment. i suppose he was in need. he talked about the same as other people, and claimed that i ought to help him because he was from chicago. the second time he came to see me he said that he hoped i had no prejudice against him on account of what he had said about me. i told him that i never knew he had said anything against me. i suppose now that he referred to what he had said in his lectures. he went about the country replying to me. i have seen one or two of his lectures. he used about the same arguments that mr. black uses in his reply to my article in the _north american review_, and denounced me in about the same terms. he is undoubtedly a man who firmly believes in the old testament, and has no doubt concerning the new. i understand that he puts in most of his time now reading the bible and rebuking people who use profane language in his presence. _question_. you most certainly do not see any foundation for the accusations of preachers like sunderland, newman and power, _et al_, that the teaching of a secular liberalism has had anything to do with the shaping of guiteau's character or the actions of his vagabond life or the inciting to his murderous deeds? _answer_. i do not think that the sermon of mr. power was in good taste. it is utterly foolish to charge the "stalwarts" with committing or inciting the crime against the life of the president. ministers, though, as a rule, know but little of public affairs, and they always account for the actions of people they do not like or agree with, by attributing to them the lowest and basest motives. this is the fault of the pulpit--always has been, and probably always will be. the rev. dr. newman of new york, tells us that the crime of guiteau shows three things: first, that ignorant men should not be allowed to vote; second, that foreigners should not be allowed to vote; and third, that there should not be so much religious liberty. it turns out, first, the guiteau is not an ignorant man; second, that he is not a foreigner; and third, that he is a christian. now, because an intelligent american christian tries to murder the president, this person says we ought to do something with ignorant foreigners and infidels. this is about the average pulpit logic. of course, all the ministers hate to admit the guiteau was a christian; that he belonged to the young men's christian association, or at least was generally found in their rooms; that he was a follower of moody and sankey, and probably instrumental in the salvation of a great many souls. i do not blame them for wishing to get rid of this record. what i blame them for is that they are impudent enough to charge the crime of guiteau upon infidelity. infidels and atheists have often killed tyrants. they have often committed crimes to increase the liberty of mankind; but the history of the world will not show an instance where an infidel or an atheist has assassinated any man in the interest of human slavery. of course, i am exceedingly glad that guiteau is not an infidel. i am glad that he believes the bible, glad that he has delivered lectures against what he calls infidelity, and glad that he has been working for years with the missionaries and evangelists of the united states. he is a man of small brain, badly balanced. he believes the bible to be the word of god. he believes in the reality of heaven and hell. he believes in the miraculous. he is surrounded by the supernatural, and when a man throws away his reason, of course no one can tell what he will do. he is liable to become a devotee or an assassin, a saint or a murderer; he may die in a monastery or in a penitentiary. _question_. according to your view, then, the species of fanaticism taught in sectarian christianity, by which guiteau was led to assert that garfield dead would be better off then living--being in paradise --is more responsible than office seeking or political factionalism for his deed? _answer_. guiteau seemed to think that the killing of the president would only open the gates of paradise to him, and that, after all, under such circumstances, murder was hardly a crime. this same kind of reasoning is resorted to in the pulpit to account for death. if guiteau had succeeded in killing the president, hundreds of ministers would have said, "after all, it may be that the president has lost nothing; it may be that our loss is his eternal gain; and although it seems cruel that providence should allow a man like him to be murdered, still, it may have been the very kindest thing that could have been done for him." guiteau reasoned in this way, and probably convinced himself, judging from his own life, that this world was, after all, of very little worth. we are apt to measure others by ourselves. of course, i do not think christianity is responsible for this crime. superstition may have been, in part --probably was. but no man believes in christianity because he thinks it sanctions murder. at the same time, an absolute belief in the bible sometimes produces the worst form of murder. take that of mr. freeman, of poeasset, who stabbed his little daughter to the heart in accordance with what he believed to be the command of god. this poor man imitated abraham; and, for that matter, jehovah himself. there have been in the history of christianity thousands and thousands of such instances, and there will probably be many thousands more that have been and will be produced by throwing away our own reason and taking the word of some one else --often a word that we do not understand. _question_. what is your opinion as to the effect of praying for the recovery of the president, and have you any confidence that prayers are answered? _answer_. my opinion as to the value of prayer is well known. i take it that every one who prays for the president shows at least his sympathy and good will. personally, i have no objection to anybody's praying. those who think their prayers are answered should pray. for all who honestly believe this, and who honestly implore their deity to watch over, protect, and save the life of the president, i have only the kindliest feelings. it may be that a few will pray to be seen of men; but i suppose that most people on a subject like this are honest. personally, i have not the slightest idea of the existence of the supernatural. prayer may affect the person who prays. it may put him in such a frame of mind that he can better bear disappointment than if he had not prayed; but i cannot believe that there is any being who hears and answers prayer. when we remember the earthquakes that have devoured, the pestilences that have covered the earth with corpses, and all the crimes and agonies that have been inflicted upon the good and weak by the bad and strong, it does not seem possible that anything can be accomplished by prayer. i do not wish to hurt the feelings of anyone, but i imagine that i have a right to my own opinion. if the president gets well it will be because the bullet did not strike an absolutely vital part; it will be because he has been well cared for; because he has had about him intelligent and skillful physicians, men who understood their profession. no doubt he has received great support from the universal expression of sympathy and kindness. the knowledge that fifty millions of people are his friends has given him nerve and hope. some of the ministers, i see, think that god was actually present and deflected the ball. another minister tells us that the president would have been assassinated in a church, but that god determined not to allow so frightful a crime to be committed in so sacred an edifice. all this sounds to me like perfect absurdity--simple noise. yet, i presume that those who talk in this way are good people and believe what they say. of course, they can give no reason why god did not deflect the ball when lincoln was assassinated. the truth is, the pulpit first endeavors to find out the facts, and then to make a theory to fit them. whoever believes in a special providence must, of necessity, by illogical and absurd; because it is impossible to make any theological theory that some facts will not contradict. _question_. won't you give us, then, colonel, your analysis of this act, and the motives leading to it? _answer_. i think guiteau wanted an office and was refused. he became importunate. he was, substantially, put out of the white house. he became malicious. he made up his mind to be revenged. this, in my judgment, is the diagnosis of his case. since he has been in jail he has never said one word about having been put out of the white house; he is lawyer enough to know he must not furnish any ground for malice. he is a miserable, malicious and worthless wretch, infinitely egotistical, imagines that he did a great deal toward the election of garfield, and upon being refused the house a serpent of malice coiled in his heart, and he determined to be revenged. that is all! _question_. do you, in any way, see any reason or foundation for the severe and bitter criticisms made against the stalwart leaders in connection with this crime? as you are well known to be a friend of the administration, while not unfriendly to mr. conkling and those acting with him, would you mind giving the public your opinion on this point? _answer_. of course, i do not hold arthur, conkling and platt responsible for guiteau's action. in the first excitement a thousand unreasonable things were said; and when passion has possession of the brain, suspicion is a welcome visitor. i do not think that any friend of the administration really believes conkling, platt and arthur responsible in the slightest degree. conkling wished to prevent the appointment of robertson. the president stood by his friend. one thing brought on another, mr. conkling petulantly resigned, and made the mistake of his life. there was a good deal of feeling, but, of course, no one dreamed that the wretch, guiteau, was lying in wait for the president's life. in the first place, guiteau was on the president's side, and was bitterly opposed to conkling. guiteau did what he did from malice and personal spite. i think the sermon preached last sunday in the campbellite church was unwise, ill advised, and calculated to make enemies instead of friends. mr. conkling has been beaten. he has paid for the mistake he made. if he can stand it, i can; and why should there be any malice on the subject? exceedingly good men have made mistakes, and afterward corrected them. _question_. is it not true, colonel ingersoll, that the lesson of this deed is to point the real and overwhelming need of re-knitting and harmonizing the factions? _answer_. there is hardly enough faction left for "knitting." the party is in harmony now. all that is necessary is to stop talking. the people of this country care very little as to who holds any particular office. they wish to have the government administered in accordance with certain great principles, and they leave the fields, the shops, and the stores once in four years, for the purpose of attending to that business. in the meantime, politicians quarrel about offices. the people go on. they plow fields, they build homes, they open mines, they enrich the world, they cover our country with prosperity, and enjoy the aforesaid quarrels. but when the time comes, these gentlemen are forgotten. principles take the place of politicians, and the people settle these questions for themselves. --_sunday gazette_, washington, d. c., july , . district suffrage. _question_. you have heretofore incidentally expressed yourself on the matter of local suffrage in the district of columbia. have you any objections to giving your present views of the question? _answer_. i am still in favor of suffrage in the district. the real trouble is, that before any substantial relief can be reached, there must be a change in the constitution of the united states. the mere right to elect aldermen and mayors and policemen is of no great importance. it is a mistake to take all political power from the citizens of the district. americans want to help rule the country. the district ought to have at least one representative in congress, and should elect one presidential elector. the people here should have a voice. they should feel that they are a part of this country. they should have the right to sue in all federal courts, precisely as though they were citizens of a state. this city ought to have half a million of inhabitants. thousands would come here every year from every part of the union, were it not for the fact that they do not wish to become political nothings. they think that citizenship is worth something, and they preserve it by staying away from washington. this city is a "flag of truce" where wounded and dead politicians congregate; the mecca of failures, the perdition of claimants, the purgatory of seekers after place, and the heaven only of those who neither want nor do anything. nothing is manufactured, no solid business is done in this city, and there never will be until energetic, thrifty people wish to make it their home, and they will not wish that until the people of the district have something like the rights and political prospects of other citizens. it is hard to see why the right to representation should be taken from citizens living in the capital of the nation. the believers in free government should believe in a free capital. _question_. are there any valid reasons why the constitutional limitations to the elective franchise in the district of columbia should not be removed by an amendment to that instrument? _answer_. i cannot imagine one. if our government is founded upon a correct principle there can be no objection urged against suffrage in the district that cannot, with equal force, be urged against every part of the country. if freedom is dangerous here, it is safe nowhere. if a man cannot be trusted in the district, he is dangerous in the state. we do not trust the place where the man happens to be; we trust the man. the people of this district cannot remain in their present condition without becoming dishonored. the idea of allowing themselves to be governed by commissioners, in whose selection they have no part, is monstrous. the people here beg, implore, request, ask, pray, beseech, intercede, crave, urge, entreat, supplicate, memorialize and most humbly petition, but they neither vote nor demand. they are not allowed to enter the temple of liberty; they stay in the lobby or sit on the steps. _question_. they say paris is france, because her electors or citizens control that municipality. do you foresee any danger of centralization in the full enfranchisement of the citizens of washington? _answer_. there was a time when the intelligence of france was in paris. the country was besotted, ignorant, catholic; paris was alive, educated, infidel, full of new theories, of passion and heroism. for two hundred years paris was an athlete chained to a corpse. the corpse was the rest of france. it is different now, and the whole country is at last filling with light. besides, paris has two millions of people. it is filled with factories. it is not only the intellectual center, but the center of money and business as well. let the _corps legislatif_ meet anywhere, and paris will continue to be in a certain splendid sense--france. nothing like that can ever happen here unless you expect washington to outstrip new york, philadelphia and chicago. if allowing the people of the district of columbia to vote was the only danger to the republic, i should be politically the happiest of men. i think it somewhat dangerous to deprive even one american citizen of the right to govern himself. _question_. would you have government clerks and officials appointed to office here given the franchise in the district? and should this, if given, include the women clerks? _answer_. citizenship should be determined here as in the states. clerks should not be allowed to vote unless their intention is to make the district their home. when i make a government i shall give one vote to each family. the unmarried should not be represented except by parents. let the family be the unit of representation. give each hearthstone a vote. _question_. how do you regard the opposition of the local clergy and of the bourbon democracy to enfranchising the citizens of the district? _answer_. i did not know that the clergy did oppose it. if, as you say, they do oppose it because they fear it will extend the liquor traffic, i think their reason exceedingly stupid. you cannot make men temperate by shutting up a few of the saloons and leaving others wide open. intemperance must be met with other weapons. the church ought not to appeal to force. what would the clergy of washington think should the miracle of cana be repeated in their day? had they been in that country, with their present ideas, what would they have said? after all there is a great deal of philosophy in the following: "better have the whole world voluntarily drunk then sober on compulsion." of course the bourbons object. objecting is the business of a bourbon. he always objects. if he does not understand the question he objects because he does not, and if he does understand he objects because he does. with him the reason for objecting is the fact that he does. _question_. what effect, if any, would the complete franchise to our citizens have upon real estate and business in washington? _answer_. if the people here had representation according to numbers--if the avenues to political preferment were open--if men here could take part in the real government of the country, if they could bring with them all their rights, this would be a great and splendid capital. we ought to have here a university, the best in the world, a library second to none, and here should be gathered the treasures of american art. the federal government has been infinitely economical in the direction of information. i hope the time will come when our government will give as much to educate two men as to kill one. --_the capital_, washington, d. c., december , . funeral of john g. mills and immortality.* [* robert g. ingersoll rarely takes the trouble to answer critics. his recent address over the dead body of his friend john g. mills has called forth a storm of denunciation from nearly every pulpit in the country. the writer called at the colonel's office in new york avenue yesterday and asked him to reply to some of the points made against him. reluctantly he assented.] _question_. have you seen the recent clerical strictures upon your doctrines? _answer_. there are always people kind enough to send me anything they have the slightest reason to think i do not care to read. they seem to be animated by a missionary spirit, and apparently want to be in a position when they see me in hell to exclaim: "you can't blame me. i sent you all the impudent articles i saw, and if you died unconverted it was no fault of mine." _question_. did you notice that a washington clergyman said that the very fact that you were allowed to speak at the funeral was in itself a sacrilege, and that you ought to have been stopped? _answer_. yes, i saw some such story. of course, the clergy regard marriages and funerals as the perquisites of the pulpit, and they resent any interference on the part of the pews. they look at these matters from a business point of view. they made the same cry against civil marriages. they denied that marriage was a contract, and insisted that it was a sacrament, and that it was hardly binding unless a priest had blessed it. they used to bury in consecrated ground, and had marks upon the graves, so that gabriel might know the ones to waken. the clergy wish to make themselves essential. they must christen the babe--this gives them possession of the cradle. they must perform the ceremony of marriage --this gives them possession of the family. they must pronounce the funeral discourse--this gives them possession of the dead. formerly they denied baptism to the children of the unbeliever, marriage to him who denied the dogmas of the church, and burial to honest men. the church wishes to control the world, and wishes to sacrifice this world for the next. of course i am in favor of the utmost liberty upon all these questions. when a presbyterian dies, let a follower of john calvin console the living by setting forth the "five points." when a catholic becomes clay, let a priest perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let him picture the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living. and when one dies who does not believe in any religion, having expressed a wish that somebody say a few words above his remains, i see no reason why such a proceeding should be stopped, and, for my part, i see no sacrilege in it. why should the reputations of the dead, and the feelings of those who live, be placed at the mercy of the ministers? a man dies not having been a christian, and who, according to the christian doctrine, is doomed to eternal fire. how would an honest christian minister console the widow and the fatherless children? how would he dare to tell what he claims to be truth in the presence of the living? the truth is, the christian minister in the presence of death abandons his christianity. he dare not say above the coffin, "the soul that once inhabited this body is now in hell." he would be denounced as a brutal savage. now and then a minister at a funeral has been brave enough and unmannerly enough to express his doctrine in all its hideousness of hate. i was told that in chicago, many years ago, a young man, member of a volunteer fire company, was killed by the falling of a wall, and at the very moment the wall struck him he was uttering a curse. he was a brave and splendid man. an orthodox minister said above his coffin, in the presence of his mother and mourning friends, that he saw no hope for the soul of that young man. the mother, who was also orthodox, refused to have her boy buried with such a sermon--stopped the funeral, took the corpse home, engaged a universalist preacher, and, on the next day having heard this man say that there was no place in the wide universe of god without hope, and that her son would finally stand among the redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his grave, and was satisfied. _question_. what have you to say to the charge that you are preaching the doctrine of despair and hopelessness, when they have the comforting assurances of the christian religion to offer? _answer_. all i have to say is this: if the christian religion is true, as commonly preached--and when i speak of christianity, i speak of the orthodox christianity of the day--if that be true, those whom i have loved the best are now in torment. those to whom i am most deeply indebted are now suffering the vengeance of god. if this religion be true, the future is of no value to me. i care nothing about heaven, unless the ones i love and have loved are there. i know nothing about the angels. i might not like them, and they might not like me. i would rather meet there the ones who have loved me here--the ones who would have died for me, and for whom i would have died; and if we are to be eternally divided --not because we differed in our views of justice, not because we differed about friendship or love or candor, or the nobility of human action, but because we differed in belief about the atonement or baptism or the inspiration of the scriptures--and if some of us are to be in heaven, and some in hell, then, for my part, i prefer eternal sleep. to me the doctrine of annihilation is infinitely more consoling, than the probable separation preached by the orthodox clergy of our time. of course, even if there be a god, i like persons that i know, better than i can like him--we have more in common--i know more about them; and how is it possible for me to love the infinite and unknown better than the ones i know? why not have the courage to say that if there be a god, all i know about him i know by knowing myself and my friends--by knowing others? and, after all, is not a noble man, is not a pure woman, the finest revelation we have of god--if there be one? of what use is it to be false to ourselves? what moral quality is there in theological pretence? why should a man say that he loves god better than he does his wife or his children or his brother or his sister or his warm, true friend? several ministers have objected to what i said about my friend mr. mills, on the ground that it was not calculated to console the living. mr. mills was not a christian. he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. he believed that restitution was the best repentance, and that, after all, sin is a mistake. he was not a believer in total depravity, or in the atonement. he denied these things. he was an unbeliever. now, let me ask, what consolation could a christian minister have given to his family? he could have said to the widow and the orphans, to the brother and sister: "your husband, your father, your brother, is now in hell; dry your tears; weep not for him, but try and save yourselves. he has been damned as a warning to you, care no more for him, why should you weep over the grave of a man whom god thinks fit only to be eternally tormented? why should you love the memory of one whom god hates?" the minister could have said: "he had an opportunity--he did not take it. the life-boat was lowered--he would not get in--he has been drowned, and the waves of god's wrath will sweep over him forever." this is the consolation of christianity and the only honest consolation that christianity can have for the widow and orphans of an unbeliever. suppose, however, that the christian minister has too tender a heart to tell what he believes to be the truth--then he can say to the sorrowing friends: "perhaps the man repented before he died; perhaps he is not in hell, perhaps you may meet him in heaven;" and this "perhaps" is a consolation not growing out of christianity, but out of the politeness of the preacher--out of paganism. _question_. do you not think that the bible has consolation for those who have lost their friends? _answer_. there is about the old testament this strange fact--i find in it no burial service. there is in it, i believe, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in malachi, not one word said over the dead as to their place and state. when abraham died, nobody said: "he is still alive--he is in another world." when the prophets passed away, not one word was said as to the heaven to which they had gone. in the old testament, saul inquired of the witch, and samuel rose. samuel did not pretend that he had been living, or that he was alive, but asked: "why hast thou disquieted me?" he did not pretend to have come from another world. and when david speaks of his son, saying that he could not come back to him, but that he, david, could go to his son, that is but saying that he, too, must die. there is not in the old testament one hope of immortality. it is expressly asserted that there is no difference between the man and beast--that as the one dieth so dieth the other. there is one little passage in job which commentators have endeavored to twist into a hope of immortality. here is a book of hundreds and hundreds of pages, and hundreds and hundreds of chapters--a revelation from god--and in it one little passage, which, by a mistranslation, is tortured into saying something about another life. and this is the old testament. i have sometimes thought that the jews, when slaves in egypt, were mostly occupied in building tombs for mummies, and that they became so utterly disgusted with that kind of work, that the moment they founded a nation for themselves they went out of the tomb business. the egyptians were believers in immortality, and spent almost their entire substance upon the dead. the living were impoverished to enrich the dead. the grave absorbed the wealth of egypt. the industry of a nation was buried. certainly the old testament has nothing clearly in favor of immortality. in the new testament we are told about the "kingdom of heaven,"--that it is at hand--and about who shall be worthy, but it is hard to tell what is meant by the kingdom of heaven. the kingdom of heaven was apparently to be in this world, and it was about to commence. the devil was to be chained for a thousand years, the wicked were to be burned up, and christ and his followers were to enjoy the earth. this certainly was the doctrine of paul when he says: "behold, i show you a mystery; we shall not all _sleep_, but we shall all be _changed_. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the _dead_ shall be _raised_ incorruptible, and _we_ shall be _changed_. for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." according to this doctrine, those who were alive were to be changed, and those who had died were to be raised from the dead. paul certainly did not refer to any other world beyond this. all these things were to happen here. the new testament is made up of the fragments of many religions. it is utterly inconsistent with itself; and there is not a particle of evidence of the resurrection and ascension of christ--neither in the nature of things could there be. it is a thousand times more probable that people were mistaken than that such things occurred. if christ really rose from the dead, he should have shown himself, not simply to his disciples, but to the very men who crucified him--to herod, to the high priest, to pilate. he should have made a triumphal entry into jerusalem after his resurrection, instead of before. he should have shown himself to the sadducees,--to those who denied the existence of spirit. take from the new testament its doctrine of eternal pain--the idea that we can please god by acts of self-denial that can do no good to others--take away all its miracles, and i have no objection to all the good things in it--no objection to the hope of a future life, if such a hope is expressed--not the slightest. and i would not for the world say anything to take from any mind a hope in which dwells the least comfort, but a doctrine that dooms a large majority of mankind to eternal flames ought not to be called a consolation. what i say is, that the writers of the new testament knew no more about the future state than i do, and no less. the horizon of life has never been pierced. the veil between time and what is called eternity, has never been raised, so far as i know; and i say of the dead what all others must say if they say only what they know. there is no particular consolation in a guess. not knowing what the future has in store for the human race, it is far better to prophesy good than evil. it is better to hope that the night has a dawn, that the sky has a star, than to build a heaven for the few, and a hell for the many. it is better to leave your dead in doubt than in fire--better that they should sleep in shadow than in the lurid flames of perdition. and so i say, and always have said, let us hope for the best. the minister asks: "what right have you to hope? it is sacrilegious in you!" but, whether the clergy like it or not, i shall always express my real opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: "there is in death, as i believe, nothing worse than sleep. hope for as much better as you can. under the seven-hued arch let the dead rest." throw away the bible, and you throw away the fear of hell, but the hope of another life remains, because the hope does not depend upon a book--it depends upon the heart--upon human affection. the fear, so far as this generation is concerned, is born of the book, and that part of the book was born of savagery. whatever of hope is in the book is born, as i said before, of human affection, and the higher our civilization the greater the affection. i had rather rest my hope of something beyond the grave upon the human heart, than upon what they call the scriptures, because there i find mingled with the hope of something good the threat of infinite evil. among the thistles, thorns and briers of the bible is one pale and sickly flower of hope. among all its wild beasts and fowls, only one bird flies heavenward. i prefer the hope without the thorns, without the briers, thistles, hyenas, and serpents. _question_. do you not know that it is claimed that immortality was brought to light in the new testament, that that, in fact, was the principal mission of christ? _answer_. i know that christians claim that the doctrine of immortality was first taught in the new testament. they also claim that the highest morality was found there. both these claims are utterly without foundation. thousands of years before christ was born--thousands of years before moses saw the light--the doctrine of immortality was preached by the priests of osiris and isis. funeral discourses were pronounced over the dead, ages before abraham existed. when a man died in egypt, before he was taken across the sacred lake, he had a trial. witnesses appeared, and if he had done anything wrong, for which he had not done restitution, he was not taken across the lake. the living friends, in disgrace, carried the body back, and it was buried outside of what might be called consecrated ground, while the ghost was supposed to wander for a hundred years. often the children of the dead would endeavor to redeem the poor ghost by acts of love and kindness. when he came to the spirit world there was the god anubis, who weighed his heart in the scales of eternal justice, and if the good deed preponderated he entered the gates of paradise; if the evil, he had to go back to the world, and be born in the bodies of animals for the purpose of final purification. at last, the good deeds would outweigh the evil, and, according to the religion of egypt, the latch-string of heaven would never be drawn in until the last wanderer got home. immortality was also taught in india, and, in fact, in all the countries of antiquity. wherever men have loved, wherever they have dreamed, wherever hope has spread its wings, the idea of immortality has existed. but nothing could be worse than the immortality promised in the new testament--admitting that it is so promised--eternal joy side by side with eternal pain. think of living forever, knowing that countless millions are suffering eternal pain! how much better it would be for god to commit suicide and let all life and motion cease! christianity has no consolation except for the christian, and if a christian minister endeavors to console the widow of an unbeliever he must resort, not to his religion, but to his sympathy--to the natural promptings of the heart. he is compelled to say: "after all, may be god is not so bad as we think," or, "may be your husband was better than he appeared; perhaps somehow, in some way, the dear man has squeezed in; he was a good husband, he was a kind father, and even if he is in hell, may be he is in the temperate zone, where they have occasional showers, and where, if the days are hot, the nights are reasonably cool." all i ask of christian ministers is to tell what they believe to be the truth--not to borrow ideas from the pagans--not to preach the mercy born of unregenerate sympathy. let them tell their real doctrines. if they will do that, they will not have much influence. if orthodox christianity is true, a large majority of the man who have made this world fit to live in are now in perdition. a majority of the revolutionary soldiers have been damned. a majority of the man who fought for the integrity of this union--a majority who were starved at libby and andersonville are now in hell. _question_. do you deny the immortality of the soul? _answer_. i have never denied the immortality of the soul. i have simply been honest. i have said: "i do not know." long ago, in my lecture on "the ghosts," i used the following language: "the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow hope, shining upon the tears of grief." --_the post_, washington, d. c., april , . star route and politics.* [* col. ingersoll entertains very pronounced ideas concerning president arthur, attorney-general brewster and divers other people, which will be found presented herewith in characteristically piquant style. with his family, the eloquent advocate has a cottage here, and finds brain and body rest and refreshment in the tumbling waves. this noon, in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, i bumped against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the providential coincidence. the water was warm, our clothes were in the bathing houses, and comfort was more certain where we were than anywhere else. the colonel is an expert swimmer and as a floater he cannot be beaten. he was floating when we bumped. spouting a pint of salt water from his mouth, he nearly choked with laughter as in answer to my question he said: ] no, i do not believe there will be any more star route trials. there is so much talk about the last one, there will not be time for another. _question_. did you anticipate a verdict? _answer_. i did anticipate a verdict, and one of acquittal. i knew that the defendants were entitled to such a verdict. i knew that the government had signally failed to prove a case. there was nothing but suspicion, from which malice was inferred. the direct proof was utterly unworthy of belief. the direct witness was caught with letters he had forged. this one fact was enough to cover the prosecution with confusion. the fact that rerdell sat with the other defendants and reported to the government from day to day satisfied the jury as to the value of his testimony, and the animus of the department of justice. besides, rerdell had offered to challenge such jurors as the government might select. he handed counsel for defendants a list of four names that he wanted challenged. at that time it was supposed that each defendant would be allowed to challenge four jurors. afterward the court decided that all the defendants must be considered as one party and had the right to challenge four and no more. of the four names on rerdell's list the government challenged three and rerdell tried to challenge the other. this was what is called a coincidence. another thing had great influence with the jury--the evidence of the defendants was upon all material points so candid and so natural, so devoid of all coloring, that the jury could not help believing. if the people knew the evidence they would agree with the jury. when we remember that there were over ten thousand star routes, it is not to be wondered at that some mistakes were made--that in some instances too much was paid and in others too little. _question_. what has been the attitude of president arthur? _answer_. we asked nothing from the president. we wanted no help from him. we expected that he would take no part--that he would simply allow the matter to be settled by the court in the usual way. i think that he made one very serious mistake. he removed officers on false charges without giving them a hearing. he deposed marshal henry because somebody said that he was the friend of the defendants. henry was a good officer and an honest man. the president removed ainger for the same reason. this was a mistake. ainger should have been heard. there is always time to do justice. no day is too short for justice, and eternity is not long enough to commit a wrong. it was thought that the community could be terrorized:-- _first_. the president dismissed henry and ainger. _second_. the attorney-general wrote a letter denouncing the defendants as thieves and robbers. _third_. other letters from bliss and macveagh were published. _fourth_. dixon, the foreman of the first jury, was indicted. _fifth_. members of the first jury voting "guilty" were in various ways rewarded. _sixth_. bargains were made with boone and rerdell. the cases against boone were to be dismissed and rerdell was promised immunity. under these circumstances the second trial commenced. but of all the people in this country the citizens of washington care least for presidents and members of the cabinets. they know what these officers are made of. they know that they are simply folks--that they do not hold office forever--that the jupiters of to-day are often the pygmies of to-morrow. they have seen too many people come in with trumpets and flags and go out with hisses and rags to be overawed by the deities of a day. they have seen lincoln and they are not to be frightened by his successors. arthur took part to the extent of turning out men suspected of being friendly to the defence. arthur was in a difficult place. he was understood to be the friend of dorsey and, of course, had to do something. nothing is more dangerous than a friend in power. he is obliged to show that he is impartial, and it always takes a good deal of injustice to establish a reputation for fairness. _question_. was there any ground to expect aid or any different action on arthur's part? _answer_. all we expected was that arthur would do as the soldier wanted the lord to do at new orleans--"just take neither side." _question_. why did not brewster speak? _answer_. the court would not allow two closings. the attorney- general did not care to speak in the "middle." he wished to close, and as he could not do that without putting mr. merrick out, he concluded to remain silent. the defendants had no objection to his speaking, but they objected to two closing arguments for the government, and the court decided they were right. of course, i understand nothing about the way in which the attorneys for the prosecution arranged their difficulties. that was nothing to me; neither do i care what money they received--all that is for the next congress. it is not for me to speak of those questions. _question_. will there be other trials? _answer_. i think not. it does not seem likely that other attorneys will want to try, and the old ones have. my opinion is that we have had the last of the star route trials. it was claimed that the one tried was the strongest. if this is so the rest had better be dismissed. i think the people are tired of the whole business. it now seems probable that all the time for the next few years will be taken up in telling about the case that was tried. i see that cook is telling about macveagh and james and brewster and bliss; walsh is giving his opinion of kellogg and foster; bliss is saying a few words about cook and gibson; brewster is telling what bliss told him; gibson will have his say about garfield and macveagh, and it now seems probable that we shall get the bottom facts about the other jury--the actions of messrs. hoover, bowen, brewster cameron and others. personally i have no interest in the business. _question_. how does the next campaign look? _answer_. the republicans are making all the mistakes they can, and the only question now is, can the democrats make more? the tariff will be one of the great questions, and may be the only one except success. the democrats are on both sides of the question. they hate to give up the word "only." only for that word they might have succeeded in . if they can let "only" alone, and say they want "a tariff for revenue" they will do better. the fact is the people are not in favor of free trade, neither do they want a tariff high enough to crush a class, but they do want a tariff to raise a revenue and to protect our industries. i am for protection because it diversifies industries and develops brain--allows us to utilize all the muscle and brain we have. a party attacking the manufacturing interests of this country will fail. there are too many millions of dollars invested and too many millions of people interested. the country is becoming alike interested in this question. we are no longer divided, as in slavery times, into manufacturing and agricultural districts or sections. georgia, alabama, tennessee, louisiana and texas have manufacturing interests. and the western states believe in the protection of their industries. the american people have a genius for manufacturing, a genius for invention. we are not the greatest painters or sculptors or scientists, but we are without doubt the greatest inventors. if we were all engaged in one business we would become stupid. agricultural countries produce great wealth, but are never rich. to get rich it is necessary to mix thought with labor. to raise the raw material is a question of strength; to manufacture, to put it in useful and beautiful forms, is a question of mind. there is a vast difference between the value of, say, a milestone and a statue, and yet the labor expended in getting the raw material is about the same. the point, after all, is this: first, we must have revenue; second, shall we get this by direct taxation or shall we tax imports and at the same time protect american labor? the party that advocates reasonable protection will succeed.* [* at this point, with far away peals of thunder, the storm ceased, the sun reappeared and a vault of heavenly blue swung overhead. "let us get out," said colonel ingersoll. suiting the action to the word, the colonel struck out lustily for the beach, on which, hard as a rock and firm as flint, he soon planted his sturdy form. and as he lumbered across the sand to the side door of his comfortable cottage, some three hundred feet from the surf, the necessarily suggested contrast between ingersoll in court and ingersoll in soaked flannels was illustrated with forcible comicality. half an hour later he was found in the cozy library puffing a high flavored havana, and listening to home-made music of delicious quality. ingersoll at home is pleasant to contemplate. his sense of personal freedom is there aptly pictured. loving wife and affectionate daughters form, with happy-faced and genial-hearted father, a model circle into which friends deem it a privilege to enter and a pleasure to remain. continuing the conversation, ] _question_. in view of all this, where do you think the presidential candidate will come from? _answer_. from the west. _question_. why so? _answer_. the south and east must compromise. both can trust the west. the west represents the whole country. there is no provincialism in the west. the west is not old enough to have the prejudice of section; it is too prosperous to have hatred, too great to feel envy. _question_. you do not seem to think that arthur has a chance? _answer_. no vice-president was ever made president by the people. it is natural to resent the accident that gave the vice-president the place. they regard the vice-president as children do a stepmother. he is looked upon as temporary--a device to save the election--a something to stop a gap--a lighter--a political raft. he holds the horse until another rider is found. people do not wish death to suggest nominees for the presidency. i do not believe it will be possible for mr. arthur, no matter how well he acts, to overcome this feeling. the people like a new man. there is some excitement in the campaign, and besides they can have the luxury of believing that the new man is a great man. _question_. do you not think arthur has grown and is a greater man than when he was elected? _answer_. arthur was placed in very trying circumstances, and, i think, behaved with great discretion. but he was vice-president, and that is a vice that people will not pardon. _question_. how do you regard the situation in ohio? _answer_. i hear that the republicans are attacking hoadly, saying that he is an infidel. i know nothing about mr. hoadly's theological sentiments, but he certainly has the right to have and express his own views. if the republicans of ohio have made up their minds to disfranchise the liberals, the sooner they are beaten the better. why should the republican party be so particular about religious belief? was lincoln an orthodox christian? were the founders of the party--the men who gave it heart and brain--conspicuous for piety? were the abolitionists all believers in the inspiration of the bible? is judge hoadly to be attacked because he exercises the liberty that he gives to others? has not the republican party trouble enough with the spirituous to let the spiritual alone? if the religious issue is made, i hope that the party making it will be defeated. i know nothing about the effect of the recent decision of the supreme court of ohio. it is a very curious decision and seems to avoid the constitution with neatness and despatch. the decision seems to rest on the difference between the words tax and license--_i. e._, between allowing a man to sell whiskey for a tax of one hundred dollars or giving him a license to sell whiskey and charging him one hundred dollars. in this, the difference is in the law instead of the money. so far all the prohibitory legislation on the liquor question has been a failure. beer is victorious, and gambrinus now has olympus all to himself. on his side is the "bail"-- _question_. but who will win? _answer_. the present indications are favorable to judge hoadly. it is an off year. the ohio leaders on one side are not in perfect harmony. the germans are afraid, and they generally vote the democratic ticket when in doubt. the effort to enforce the sunday law, to close the gardens, to make one day in the week desolate and doleful, will give the republicans a great deal of hard work. _question_. how about illinois? _answer_. republican always. the supreme court of illinois has just made a good decision. that court decided that a contract made on sunday can be enforced. in other words, that sunday is not holy enough to sanctify fraud. you can rely on a state with a court like that. there is very little rivalry in illinois. i think that general oglesby will be the next governor. he is one of the best men in that state or any other. _question_. what about indiana? _answer_. in that state i think general gresham is the coming man. he was a brave soldier, an able, honest judge, and he will fill with honor any position he may be placed in. he is an excellent lawyer, and has as much will as was ever put in one man. mcdonald is the most available man for the democrats. he is safe and in every respect reliable. he is without doubt the most popular man in his party. _question_. well, colonel, what are you up to? _answer_. nothing. i am surrounded by sand, sea and sky. i listen to music, bathe in the surf and enjoy myself. i am wondering why people take interest in politics; why anybody cares about anything; why everybody is not contented; why people want to climb the greased pole of office and then dodge the brickbats of enemies and rivals; why any man wishes to be president, or a member of congress, or in the cabinet, or do anything except to live with the ones he loves, and enjoy twenty-four hours every day. i wonder why all new york does not come to long beach and hear schreiner's band play the music of wagner, the greatest of all composers. finally, in the language of walt whitman, "i loaf and invite my soul." --_the herald_, new york, july , . the interviewer. _question_. what do you think of newspaper interviewing? _answer_. i believe that james redpath claims to have invented the "interview." this system opens all doors, does away with political pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and official importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels everybody to show his hand. the interviewer seems to be omnipresent. he is the next man after the accident. if a man should be blown up he would likely fall on an interviewer. he is the universal interrogation point. he asks questions for a living. if the interviewer is fair and honest he is useful, if the other way, he is still interesting. on the whole, i regard the interviewer as an exceedingly important person. but whether he is good or bad, he has come to stay. he will interview us until we die, and then ask the "friends" a few questions just to round the subject off. _question_. what do you think of the tendency of newspapers is at present? _answer_. the papers of the future, i think, will be "news" papers. the editorial is getting shorter and shorter. the paragraphist is taking the place of the heavy man. people rather form their own opinions from the facts. of course good articles will always find readers, but the dreary, doleful, philosophical dissertation has had its day. the magazines will fall heir to such articles; then religious weeklies will take them up, and then they will cease altogether. _question_. do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do the newspapers lead them? _answer_. the papers lead and are led. most papers have for sale what people want to buy. as a rule the people who buy determine the character of the thing sold. the reading public grow more discriminating every year, and, as a result, are less and less "led." violent papers--those that most freely attack private character--are becoming less hurtful, because they are losing their own reputations. evil tends to correct itself. people do not believe all they read, and there is a growing tendency to wait and hear from the other side. _question_. do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as they did twenty-five years ago? _answer_. more, by the facts published, and less, by editorials. as we become more civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles--less by faith and more by fact. the best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves. _question_. what would you define public opinion to be? _answer_. first, in the widest sense, the opinion of the majority, including all kinds of people. second, in a narrower sense, the opinion of the majority of the intellectual. third, in actual practice, the opinion of those who make the most noise. fourth, public opinion is generally a mistake, which history records and posterity repeats. _question_. what do you regard as the result of your lectures? _answer_. in the last fifteen years i have delivered several hundred lectures. the world is growing more and more liberal every day. the man who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would have been denounced as an infidel. people are thinking more and believing less. the pulpit is losing influence. in the light of modern discovery the creeds are growing laughable. a theologian is an intellectual mummy, and excites attention only as a curiosity. supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness. the miracles and wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent. jonah and jack the giant killer, joshua and red riding hood, noah and neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous mother hubbard. --_the morning journal_, new york, july , . politics and prohibition. _question_. what do you think of the result in ohio? _answer_. in ohio prohibition did more harm to the republican chances than anything else. the germans hold the republicans responsible. the german people believe in personal liberty. they came to america to get it, and they regard any interference in the manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of personal rights. they claim they are not questions to be regulated by law, and i agree with them. i believe that people will finally learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it liable to break out at any moment. you can prevent a man from stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each other. it kills hospitality. again, the republican party in ohio is endeavoring to have sunday sanctified by the legislature. the working people want freedom on sunday. they wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common people. i feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated. i regard those two things as the principal causes of the republican party's defeat in ohio. _question_. do you believe that the democratic success was due to the possession of reverse principles? _answer_. i do not think that the democratic party is in favor of liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle, but rather from policy. finding the course pursued by the republicans unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a proof of the truth of what i contend. one great trouble in the republican party is bigotry. the pulpit is always trying to take charge. the same thing exists in the democratic party to a less degree. the great trouble here is that its worst element--catholicism --is endeavoring to get control. _question_. what causes operated for the republican success in iowa? _answer_. iowa is a prohibition state and almost any law on earth as against anything to drink, can be carried there. there are no large cities in the state and it is much easier to govern, but even there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. it will breed deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad. _question_. will these two considerations cut any figure in the presidential campaign of ? _answer_. the party, as a party, will have nothing to do with these questions. these matters are local. whether the republicans are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. if things should be generally in pretty good shape in , the people will allow the party to remain in power. changes of administration depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. if crops are bad and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether it is responsible or not. if a ship going down the river strikes a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain. it may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same, and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. so it is in politics. if nothing interferes between this and , the republican party will continue. otherwise it will be otherwise. but the principle of prosperity as applied to administrative change is strong. if the panic of had occurred in there would have been no occasion for a commission to sit on tilden. if it had struck us in , hancock would have been elected. neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the democratic party, but in the belief that the republican party was in some vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change. the republican party is not as strong as it used to be. the old leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places. blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. conkling dropped out and is now practicing law, and so i might go on enumerating leaders who have severed their connection with the party and are no longer identified with it. _question_. what is your opinion regarding the republican nomination for president? _answer_. my belief is that the republicans will have to nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all can unite. as a consequence he must be a new man. the democrats must do the same. they must nominate a new man. the old ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. my own judgment is that for the democrats, mcdonald is as strong a man as they can get. he is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. tilden? he is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. with no magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him. _question_. what are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff? _answer_. there are a great many democrats for protection and a great many for so-called free trade. i think the large majority of american people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting our manufactures. i do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for revenue and protection. the democrats would have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental protection. _question_. are they rectifying the error now? _answer_. i believe they are, already. they will do it next fall. if they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in their speeches. i do not regard the tariff as a local, but a national issue, notwithstanding hancock inclined to the belief that it was the former. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, october , . the republican defeat in ohio. _question_. what is your explanation of the republican disaster last tuesday? _answer_. too much praying and not enough paying, is my explanation of the republican defeat. _first_. i think the attempt to pass the prohibition amendment lost thousands of votes. the people of this country, no matter how much they may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet willing to set on foot a system of spying into each other's affairs. they know that prohibition would need thousands of officers--that it would breed informers and spies and peekers and skulkers by the hundred in every county. they know that laws do not of themselves make good people. good people make good laws. americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. the spirit that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that made and keeps this a free country. all this crusade and prayer-meeting business will not do in politics. we must depend upon the countless influences of civilization, upon science, art, music--upon the softening influences of kindness and argument. as life becomes valuable people will take care of it. temperance upon compulsion destroys something more valuable than itself--liberty. i am for the largest liberty in all things. _second_. the prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with democrats. the democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition could not carry, and that they could safely trade. the prohibitionists were insane enough to vote for their worst enemies, just for the sake of polling a large vote for prohibition, and were fooled as usual. _thirdly_. certain personal hatreds of certain republican politicians. these were the causes which led to republican defeat in ohio. _question_. will it necessitate the nomination of an ohio republican next year? _answer_. i do not think so. defeat is apt to breed dissension, and on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man from some other state. one politician will say to another, "you did it," and another will reply, "you are the man who ruined the party." i think we have given ohio her share; certainly she has given us ours. _question_. will this reverse seriously affect republican chances next year? _answer_. if the country is prosperous next year, if the crops are good, if prices are fair, if pittsburg is covered with smoke, if the song of the spindle is heard in lowell, if stocks are healthy, the republicans will again succeed. if the reverse as to crops and forges and spindles, then the democrats will win. it is a question of "chich-bugs," and floods and drouths. _question_. who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man the republicans could put up? _answer_. last year i thought general sherman, but he has gone to missouri, and now i am looking around. the first day i find out i will telegraph you. --_the democrat_, dayton, ohio, october , . the civil rights bill. _question_. what do you think of the recent opinion of the supreme court touching the rights of the colored man? _answer_. i think it is all wrong. the intention of the framers of the amendment, by virtue of which the law was passed, was that no distinction should be made in inns, in hotels, cars, or in theatres; in short, in public places, on account of color, race, or previous condition. the object of the men who framed that amendment to the constitution was perfectly clear, perfectly well known, perfectly understood. they intended to secure, by an amendment to the fundamental law, what had been fought for by hundreds of thousands of men. they knew that the institution of slavery had cost rebellion; the also knew that the spirit of caste was only slavery in another form. they intended to kill that spirit. their object was that the law, like the sun, should shine upon all, and that no man keeping a hotel, no corporation running cars, no person managing a theatre should make any distinction on account of race or color. this amendment is above all praise. it was the result of a moral exaltation, such as the world never before had seen. there were years during the war, and after, when the american people were simply sublime; when their generosity was boundless; when they were willing to endure any hardship to make this an absolutely free country. this decision of the supreme court puts the best people of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest portion of the white race. it allows a contemptible white man to trample upon a good colored man. i believe in drawing a line between good and bad, between clean and unclean, but i do not believe in drawing a color line which is as cruel as the lash of slavery. i am willing to be on an equality in all hotels, in all cars, in all theatres, with colored people. i make no distinction of race. those make the distinction who cannot afford not to. if nature has made no distinction between me and some others, i do not ask the aid of the legislature. i am willing to associate with all good, clean persons, irrespective of complexion. this decision virtually gives away one of the great principles for which the war was fought. it carries the doctrine of "state rights" to the democratic extreme, and renders necessary either another amendment or a new court. i agree with justice harlan. he has taken a noble and patriotic stand. kentucky rebukes massachusetts! i am waiting with some impatience--impatient because i anticipate a pleasure--for his dissenting opinion. only a little while ago justice harlan took a very noble stand on the virginia coupon cases, in which was involved the right of a state to repudiate its debts. now he has taken a stand in favor of the civil rights of the colored man; and in both instances i think he is right. this decision may, after all, help the republican party. a decision of the supreme court aroused the indignation of the entire north, and i hope the present decision will have a like effect. the good people of this country will not be satisfied until every man beneath the flag, without the slightest respect to his complexion, stands on a perfect equality before the law with every other. any government that makes a distinction on account of color, is a disgrace to the age in which we live. the idea that a man like frederick douglass can be denied entrance to a car, that the doors of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from entering a theatre; the idea that there shall be some ignominious corner into which such a man can be thrown simply by a decision of the supreme court! this idea is simply absurd. _question_. what remains to be done now, and who is going to do it? _answer_. for a good while people have been saying that the republican party has outlived its usefulness; that there is very little difference now between the parties; that there is hardly enough left to talk about. this decision opens the whole question. this decision says to the republican party, "your mission is not yet ended. this is not a free country. our flag does not protect the rights of a human being." this decision is the tap of a drum. the old veterans will fall into line. this decision gives the issue for the next campaign, and it may be that the supreme court has builded wiser than it knew. this is a greater question than the tariff or free trade. it is a question of freedom, of human rights, of the sacredness of humanity. the real americans, the real believers in liberty, will give three cheers for judge harlan. one word more. the government is bound to protect its citizens, not only when they are away from home, but when they are under the flag. in time of war the government has a right to draft any citizen; to put that citizen in the line of battle, and compel him to fight for the nation. if the government when imperiled has the right to compel a citizen, whether white or black, to defend with his blood the flag, that citizen, when imperiled, has the right to demand protection from the nation. the nation cannot then say, "you must appeal to your state." if the citizen must appeal to the state for redress, then the citizen should defend the state and not the general government, and the doctrine of state rights then becomes complete. --_the national republican_, washington, d. c., october , . justice harlan and the civil rights bill. _question_. what do you think of justice harlan's dissenting opinion in the civil rights case? _answer_. i have just read it and think it admirable in every respect. it is unanswerable. he has given to words their natural meaning. he has recognized the intention of the framers of the recent amendments. there is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or artificial. it is frank and manly. it is solid masonry, without crack or flaw. he does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or veneer. he states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. he has drawn an instructive parallel between the decisions of the olden time, upholding the power of congress to deal with individuals in the interests of slavery, and the power conferred on congress by the recent amendments. he has shown by the old decisions, that when a duty is enjoined upon congress, ability to perform it is given; that when a certain end is required, all necessary means are granted. he also shows that the fugitive slave acts of and of , rested entirely upon the implied power of congress to enforce a master's rights; and that power was once implied in favor of slavery against human rights, and implied from language shadowy, feeble and uncertain when compared with the language of the recent amendments. he has shown, too, that congress exercised the utmost ingenuity in devising laws to enforce the master's claim. implication was held ample to deprive a human being of his liberty, but to secure freedom, the doctrine of implication is abandoned. as a foundation for wrong, implication was their rock. as a foundation for right, it is now sand. implied power then was sufficient to enslave, while power expressly given is now impotent to protect. _question_. what do you think of the use he has made of the dred scott decision? _answer_. well, i think he has shown conclusively that the present decision, under the present circumstances, is far worse than the dred scott decision was under the then circumstances. the dred scott decision was a libel upon the best men of the revolutionary period. that decision asserted broadly that our forefathers regarded the negroes as having no rights which white men were bound to respect; that the negroes were merely merchandise, and that that opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, and that no one thought of disputing it. yet franklin contended that slavery might be abolished under the preamble of the constitution. thomas jefferson said that if the slave should rise to cut the throat of his master, god had no attribute that would side against the slave. thomas paine attacked the institution with all the intensity and passion of his nature. john adams regarded the institution with horror. so did every civilized man, south and north. justice harlan shows conclusively that the thirteenth amendment was adopted in the light of the dred scott decision; that it overturned and destroyed, not simply the decision, but the reasoning upon which it was based; that it proceeded upon the ground that the colored people had rights that white men were bound to respect, not only, but that the nation was bound to protect. he takes the ground that the amendment was suggested by the condition of that race, which had been declared by the supreme court of the united states to have no rights which white men were bound to respect; that it was made to protect people whose rights had been invaded, and whose strong arms had assisted in the overthrow of the rebellion; that it was made for the purpose of putting these men upon a legal authority with white citizens. justice harland also shows that while legislation of congress to enforce a master's right was upheld by implication, the rights of the negro do not depend upon that doctrine; that the thirteenth amendment does not rest upon implication, or upon inference; that by its terms it places the power in congress beyond the possibility of a doubt--conferring the power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation in express terms; and he also shows that the supreme court has admitted that legislation for that purpose may be direct and primary. had not the power been given in express terms, justice harlan contends that the sweeping declaration that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist would by implication confer the power. he also shows conclusively that, under the thirteenth amendment, congress has the right by appropriate legislation to protect the colored people against the deprivation of any right on account of their race, and that congress is not necessarily restricted, under the thirteenth amendment, to legislation against slavery as an institution, but that power may be exerted to the extent of protecting the race from discrimination in respect to such rights as belong to freemen, where such discrimination is based on race or color. if justice harlan is wrong the amendments are left without force and congress without power. no purpose can be assigned for their adoption. no object can be guessed that was to be accomplished. they become words, so arranged that they sound like sense, but when examined fall meaninglessly apart. under the decision of the supreme court they are quaker cannon--cloud forts--"property" for political stage scenery--coats of mail made of bronzed paper-- shields of gilded pasteboard--swords of lath. _question_. do you wish to say anything as to the reasoning of justice harlan on the rights of colored people on railways, in inns and theatres? _answer_. yes, i do. that part of the opinion is especially strong. he shows conclusively that a common carrier is in the exercise of a sort of public office and has public duties to perform, and that he cannot exonerate himself from the performance of these duties without the consent of the parties concerned. he also shows that railroads are public highways, and that the railway company is the agent of the state, and that a railway, although built by private capital, is just as public in its nature as though constructed by the state itself. he shows that the railway is devoted to public use, and subject to be controlled by the state for the public benefit, and that for these reasons the colored man has the same rights upon the railway that he has upon the public highway. justice harlan shows that the same law is applicable to inns that is applicable to railways; that an inn-keeper is bound to take all travelers if he can accommodate them; that he is not to select his guests; that he has not right to say to one "you may come in," and to another "you shall not;" that every one who conducts himself in a proper manner has a right to be received. he shows conclusively that an inn-keeper is a sort of public servant; that he is in the exercise of a _quasi_ public employment, that he is given special privileges, and charged with duties of a public character. as to theatres, i think his argument most happy. it is this: theatres are licensed by law. the authority to maintain them comes from the public. the colored race being a part of the public, representing the power granting the license, why should the colored people license a manager to open his doors to the white man and shut them in the face of the black man? why should they be compelled to license that which they are not permitted to enjoy? justice harlan shows that congress has the power to prevent discrimination on account of race or color on railways, at inns, and in places of public amusements, and has this power under the thirteenth amendment. in discussing the fourteenth amendment, justice harlan points out that a prohibition upon a state is not a power in congress or the national government, but is simply a denial of power to the state; that such was the constitution before the fourteenth amendment. he shows, however, that the fourteenth amendment presents the first instance in our history of the investiture of congress with affirmative power by legislation to enforce an express prohibition upon the states. this is an important point. it is stated with great clearness, and defended with great force. he shows that the first clause of the first section of the fourteenth amendment is of a distinctly affirmative character, and that congress would have had the power to legislate directly as to that section simply by implication, but that as to that as well as the express prohibitions upon the states, express power to legislate was given. there is one other point made by justice harlan which transfixes as with a spear the decision of the court. it is this: as soon as the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments were adopted the colored citizen was entitled to the protection of section two, article four, namely: "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states." now, suppose a colored citizen of mississippi moves to tennessee. then, under the section last quoted, he would immediately become invested with all the privileges and immunities of a white citizen of tennessee. although denied these privileges and immunities in the state from which he emigrated, in the state to which he immigrates he could not be discriminated against on account of his color under the second section of the fourth article. now, is it possible that he gets additional rights by immigration? is it possible that the general government is under a greater obligation to protect him in a state of which he is not a citizen than in a state of which he is a citizen? must he leave home for protection, and after he has lived long enough in the state to which he immigrates to become a citizen there, must he again move in order to protect his rights? must one adopt the doctrine of peripatetic protection--the doctrine that the constitution is good only _in transitu_, and that when the citizen stops, the constitution goes on and leaves him without protection? justice harlan shows that congress had the right to legislate directly while that power was only implied, but that the moment this power was conferred in express terms, then according to the supreme court, it was lost. there is another splendid definition given by justice harlan--a line drawn as broad as the mississippi. it is the distinction between the rights conferred by a state and rights conferred by the nation. admitting that many rights conferred by a state cannot be enforced directly by congress, justice harlan shows that rights granted by the nation to an individual may be protected by direct legislation. this is a distinction that should not be forgotten, and it is a definition clear and perfect. justice harlan has shown that the supreme court failed to take into consideration the intention of the framers of the amendment; failed to see that the powers of congress were given by express terms and did not rest upon implication; failed to see that the thirteenth amendment was broad enough to cover the civil rights act; failed to see that under the three amendments rights and privileges were conferred by the nation on citizens of the several states, and that these rights are under the perpetual protection of the general government, and that for their enforcement congress has the right to legislate directly; failed to see that all implications are now in favor of liberty instead of slavery; failed to comprehend that we have a new nation with a new foundation, with different objects, ends, and aims, for the attainment of which we use different means and have been clothed with greater powers; failed to see that the republic changed front; failed to appreciate the real reasons for the adoption of the amendments, and failed to understand that the civil rights act was passed in order that a citizen of the united states might appeal from local prejudice to national justice. justice harlan shows that it was the object to accomplish for the black man what had been accomplished for the white man--that is, to protect all their rights as free men and citizens; and that the one underlying purpose of the amendments and of the congressional legislation has been to clothe the black race with all the rights of citizenship, and to compel a recognition of their rights by citizens and states--that the object was to do away with class tyranny, the meanest and basest form of oppression. if justice harlan was wrong in his position, then, it may truthfully be said of the three amendments that: "the law hath bubbles as the water has, and these are of them." the decision of the supreme court denies the protection of the nation to the citizens of the nation. that decision has already borne fruit--the massacre at danville. the protection of the nation having been withdrawn, the colored man was left to the mercy of local prejudices and hatreds. he is without appeal, without redress. the supreme court tells him that he must depend upon his enemies for justice. _question_. you seem to agree with all that justice harlan has said, and to have the greatest admiration for his opinion? _answer_. yes, a man rises from reading this dissenting opinion refreshed, invigorated, and strengthened. it is a mental and moral tonic. it was produced after a clear head had held conference with a good heart. it will furnish a perfectly clear plank, without knot or wind-shake, for the next republican platform. it is written in good plain english, and ornamented with good sound sense. the average man can and will understand its every word. there is no subterfuge in it. each position is taken in the open field. there is no resort to quibbles or technicalities--no hiding. nothing is secreted in the sleeve--no searching for blind paths--no stooping and looking for ancient tracks, grass-grown and dim. each argument travels the highway--"the big road." it is logical. the facts and conclusions agree, and fall naturally into line of battle. it is sincere and candid--unpretentious and unanswerable. it is a grand defence of human rights--a brave and manly plea for universal justice. it leaves the decision of the supreme court without argument, without reason, and without excuse. such an exhibition of independence, courage and ability has won for justice harlan the respect and admiration of "both sides," and places him in the front rank of constitutional lawyers. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, november , . politics and theology. _question_. what is your opinion of brewster's administration? _answer_. i hardly think i ought to say much about the administration of mr. brewster. of course many things have been done that i thought, and still think, extremely bad; but whether mr. brewster was responsible for the things done, or not, i do not pretend to say. when he was appointed to his present position, there was great excitement in the country about the star route cases, and mr. brewster was expected to prosecute everybody and everything to the extent of the law; in fact, i believe he was appointed by reason of having made such a promise. at that time there were hundreds of people interested in exaggerating all the facts connected with the star route cases, and when there were no facts to be exaggerated, they made some, and exaggerated them afterward. it may be that the attorney-general was misled, and he really supposed that all he heard was true. my objection to the administration of the department of justice is, that a resort was had to spies and detectives. the battle was not fought in the open field. influences were brought to bear. nearly all departments of the government were enlisted. everything was done to create a public opinion in favor of the prosecution. everything was done that the cases might be decided on prejudice instead of upon facts. everything was done to demoralize, frighten and overawe judges, witnesses and jurors. i do not pretend to say who was responsible, possibly i am not an impartial judge. i was deeply interested at the time, and felt all of these things, rather than reasoned about them. possibly i cannot give a perfectly unbiased opinion. personally, i have no feeling now upon the subject. the department of justice, in spite of its methods, did not succeed. that was enough for me. i think, however, when the country knows the facts, that the people will not approve of what was done. i do not believe in trying cases in the newspapers before they are submitted to jurors. that is a little too early. neither do i believe in trying them in the newspapers after the verdicts have been rendered. that is a little too late. _question_. what are mr. blaine's chances for the presidency? _answer_. my understanding is that mr. blaine is not a candidate for the nomination; that he does not wish his name to be used in that connection. he ought to have been nominated in , and if he were a candidate, he would probably have the largest following; but my understanding is, that he does not, in any event, wish to be a candidate. he is a man perfectly familiar with the politics of this country, knows its history by heart, and is in every respect probably as well qualified to act as its chief magistrate as any man in the nation. he is a man of ideas, of action, and has positive qualities. he would not wait for something to turn up, and things would not have to wait long for him to turn them up. _question_. who do you think will be nominated at chicago? _answer_. of course i have not the slightest idea who will be nominated. i may have an opinion as to who ought to be nominated, and yet i may be greatly mistaken in that opinion. there are hundreds of men in the republican party, any one of whom, if elected, would make a good, substantial president, and there are many thousands of men about whom i know nothing, any one of whom would in all probability make a good president. we do not want any man to govern this country. this country governs itself. we want a president who will honestly and faithfully execute the laws, who will appoint postmasters and do the requisite amount of handshaking on public occasions, and we have thousands of men who can discharge the duties of that position. washington is probably the worst place to find out anything definite upon the subject of presidential booms. i have thought for a long time that one of the most valuable men in the country was general sherman. everybody knows who and what he is. he has one great advantage--he is a frank and outspoken man. he has opinions and he never hesitates about letting them be known. there is considerable talk about judge harlan. his dissenting opinion in the civil rights case has made every colored man his friend, and i think it will take considerable public patronage to prevent a good many delegates from the southern states voting for him. _question_. what are your present views on theology? _answer_. well, i think my views have not undergone any change that i know of. i still insist that observation, reason and experience are the things to be depended upon in this world. i still deny the existence of the supernatural. i still insist that nobody can be good for you, or bad for you; that you cannot be punished for the crimes of others, nor rewarded for their virtues. i still insist that the consequences of good actions are always good, and those of bad actions always bad. i insist that nobody can plant thistles and gather figs; neither can they plant figs and gather thistles. i still deny that a finite being can commit an infinite sin; but i continue to insist that a god who would punish a man forever is an infinite tyrant. my views have undergone no change, except that the evidence of that truth constantly increases, and the dogmas of the church look, if possible, a little absurder every day. theology, you know, is not a science. it stops at the grave; and faith is the end of theology. ministers have not even the advantage of the doctors; the doctors sometimes can tell by a post-mortem examination whether they killed the man or not; but by cutting a man open after he is dead, the wisest theologians cannot tell what has become of his soul, and whether it was injured or helped by a belief in the inspiration of the scriptures. theology depends on assertion for evidence, and on faith for disciples. --_the tribune_, denver, colorado, january , . morality and immortality. _question_. i see that the clergy are still making all kinds of charges against you and your doctrines. _answer_. yes. some of the charges are true and some of them are not. i suppose that they intend to get in the vicinity of veracity, and are probably stating my belief as it is honestly misunderstood by them. i admit that i have said and that i still think that christianity is a blunder. but the question arises, what is christianity? i do not mean, when i say that christianity is a blunder, that the morality taught by christians is a mistake. morality is not distinctively christian, any more than it is mohammedan. morality is human, it belongs to no ism, and does not depend for a foundation upon the supernatural, or upon any book, or upon any creed. morality is itself a foundation. when i say that christianity is a blunder, i mean all those things distinctively christian are blunders. it is a blunder to say that an infinite being lived in palestine, learned the carpenter's trade, raised the dead, cured the blind, and cast out devils, and that this god was finally assassinated by the jews. this is absurd. all these statements are blunders, if not worse. i do not believe that christ ever claimed that he was of supernatural origin, or that he wrought miracles, or that he would rise from the dead. if he did, he was mistaken--honestly mistaken, perhaps, but still mistaken. the morality inculcated by mohammed is good. the immorality inculcated by mohammed is bad. if mohammed was a prophet of god, it does not make the morality he taught any better, neither does it make the immorality any better or any worse. by this time the whole world ought to know that morality does not need to go into partnership with miracles. morality is based upon the experience of mankind. it does not have to learn of inspired writers, or of gods, or of divine persons. it is a lesson that the whole human race has been learning and learning from experience. he who upholds, or believes in, or teaches, the miraculous, commits a blunder. now, what is morality? morality is the best thing to do under the circumstances. anything that tends to the happiness of mankind is moral. anything that tends to unhappiness is immoral. we apply to the moral world rules and regulations as we do in the physical world. the man who does justice, or tries to do so--who is honest and kind and gives to others what he claims for himself, is a moral man. all actions must be judged by their consequences. where the consequences are good, the actions are good. where the consequences are bad, the actions are bad; and all consequences are learned from experience. after we have had a certain amount of experience, we then reason from analogy. we apply our logic and say that a certain course will bring destruction, another course will bring happiness. there is nothing inspired about morality--nothing supernatural. it is simply good, common sense, going hand in hand with kindness. morality is capable of being demonstrated. you do not have to take the word of anybody; you can observe and examine for yourself. larceny is the enemy of industry, and industry is good; therefore larceny is immoral. the family is the unit of good government; anything that tends to destroy the family is immoral. honesty is the mother of confidence; it united, combines and solidifies society. dishonesty is disintegration; it destroys confidence; it brings social chaos; it is therefore immoral. i also admit that i regard the mosaic account of the creation as an absurdity--as a series of blunders. probably moses did the best he could. he had never talked with humboldt or laplace. he knew nothing of geology or astronomy. he had not the slightest suspicion of kepler's three laws. he never saw a copy of newton's principia. taking all these things into consideration, i think moses did the best he could. the religious people say now that "days" did not mean days. of these "six days" they make a kind of telescope, which you can push in or draw out at pleasure. if the geologists find that more time was necessary they will stretch them out. should it turn out that the world is not quite as old as some think, they will push them up. the "six days" can now be made to suit any period of time. nothing can be more childish, frivolous or contradictory. only a few years ago the mosaic account was considered true, and moses was regarded as a scientific authority. geology and astronomy were measured by the mosaic standard. the opposite is now true. the church has changed; and instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false, because they do not agree with moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that the account by moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and geology. in other words, the standard has changed; the ancient is measured by the modern, and where the literal statement in the bible does not agree with modern discoveries, they do not change the discoveries, but give new meanings to the old account. we are not now endeavoring to reconcile science with the bible, but to reconcile the bible with science. nothing shows the extent of modern doubt more than the eagerness with which christians search for some new testimony. luther answered copernicus with a passage of scripture, and he answered him to the satisfaction of orthodox ignorance. the truth is that the jews adopted the stories of creation, the garden of eden, forbidden fruit, and the fall of man. they were told by older barbarians than they, and the jews gave them to us. i never said that the bible is all bad. i have always admitted that there are many good and splendid things in the jewish scriptures, and many bad things. what i insist is that we should have the courage and the common sense to accept the good, and throw away the bad. evil is not good because found in good company, and truth is still truth, even when surrounded by falsehood. _question_. i see that you are frequently charged with disrespect toward your parents--with lack of reverence for the opinions of your father? _answer_. i think my father and mother upon several religious questions were mistaken. in fact, i have no doubt that they were; but i never felt under the slightest obligation to defend my father's mistakes. no one can defend what he thinks is a mistake, without being dishonest. that is a poor way to show respect for parents. every protestant clergyman asks men and women who had catholic parents to desert the church in which they were raised. they have no hesitation in saying to these people that their fathers and mothers were mistaken, and that they were deceived by priests and popes. the probability is that we are all mistaken about almost everything; but it is impossible for a man to be respectable enough to make a mistake respectable. there is nothing remarkably holy in a blunder, or praiseworthy in stubbing the toe of the mind against a mistake. is it possible that logic stands paralyzed in the presence of paternal absurdity? suppose a man has a bad father; is he bound by the bad father's opinion, when he is satisfied that the opinion is wrong? how good does a father have to be, in order to put his son under obligation to defend his blunders? suppose the father thinks one way, and the mother the other; what are the children to do? suppose the father changes his opinion; what then? suppose the father thinks one way and the mother the other, and they both die when the boy is young; and the boy is bound out; whose mistakes is he then bound to follow? our missionaries tell the barbarian boy that his parents are mistaken, that they know nothing, and that the wooden god is nothing but a senseless idol. they do not hesitate to tell this boy that his mother believed lies, and hugged, it may be to her dying heart, a miserable delusion. why should a barbarian boy cast reproach upon his parents? i believe it was christ who commanded his disciples to leave father and mother; not only to leave them, but to desert them; and not only to desert father and mother, but to desert wives and children. it is also told of christ that he said that he came to set fathers against children and children against fathers. strange that a follower of his should object to a man differing in opinion from his parents! the truth is, logic knows nothing of consanguinity; facts have no relatives but other facts; and these facts do not depend upon the character of the person who states them, or upon the position of the discoverer. and this leads me to another branch of the same subject. the ministers are continually saying that certain great men--kings, presidents, statesmen, millionaires--have believed in the inspiration of the bible. only the other day, i read a sermon in which carlyle was quoted as having said that "the bible is a noble book." that all may be and yet the book not be inspired. but what is the simple assertion of thomas carlyle worth? if the assertion is based upon a reason, then it is worth simply the value of the reason, and the reason is worth just as much without the assertion, but without the reason the assertion is worthless. thomas carlyle thought, and solemnly put the thought in print, that his father was a greater man than robert burns. his opinion did burns no harm, and his father no good. since reading his "reminiscences," i have no great opinion of his opinion. in some respects he was undoubtedly a great man, in others a small one. no man should give the opinion of another as authority and in place of fact and reason, unless he is willing to take all the opinions of that man. an opinion is worth the warp and woof of fact and logic in it and no more. a man cannot add to the truthfulness of truth. in the ordinary business of life, we give certain weight to the opinion of specialists--to the opinion of doctors, lawyers, scientists, and historians. within the domain of the natural, we take the opinions of our fellow-men; but we do not feel that we are absolutely bound by these opinions. we have the right to re- examine them, and if we find they are wrong we feel at liberty to say so. a doctor is supposed to have studied medicine; to have examined and explored the questions entering into his profession; but we know that doctors are often mistaken. we also know that there are many schools of medicine; that these schools disagree with one another, and that the doctors of each school disagree with one another. we also know that many patients die, and so far as we know, these patients have not come back to tell us whether the doctors killed them or not. the grave generally prevents a demonstration. it is exactly the same with the clergy. they have many schools of theology, all despising each other. probably no two members of the same church exactly agree. they cannot demonstrate their propositions, because between the premise and the logical conclusion or demonstration, stands the tomb. a gravestone marks the end of theology. in some cases, the physician can, by a post- mortem examination, find what killed the patient, but there is no theological post-mortem. it is impossible, by cutting a body open, to find where the soul has gone; or whether baptism, or the lack of it, had the slightest effect upon final destiny. the church, knowing that there are no facts beyond the coffin, relies upon opinions, assertions and theories. for this reason it is always asking alms of distinguished people. some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the bible as "the corner- stone of american liberty." this sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the scriptures. the man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob. when we blindly follow authority we are serfs. when our reason is convinced we are freemen. it is rare to find a fully rounded and complete man. a man may be a great doctor and a poor mechanic, a successful politician and a poor metaphysician, a poor painter and a good poet. the rarest thing in the world is a logician--that is to say, a man who knows the value of a fact. it is hard to find mental proportion. theories may be established by names, but facts cannot be demonstrated in that way. very small people are sometimes right, and very great people are sometimes wrong. ministers are sometimes right. in all the philosophies of the world there are undoubtedly contradictions and absurdities. the mind of man is imperfect and perfect results are impossible. a mirror, in order to reflect a perfect picture, a perfect copy, must itself be perfect. the mind is a little piece of intellectual glass the surface of which is not true, not perfect. in consequence of this, every image is more or less distorted. the less we know, the more we imagine that we can know; but the more we know, the smaller seems the sum of knowledge. the less we know, the more we expect, the more we hope for, and the more seems within the range of probability. the less we have, the more we want. there never was a banquet magnificent enough to gratify the imagination of a beggar. the moment people begin to reason about what they call the supernatural, they seem to lose their minds. people seem to have lost their reason in religious matters, very much as the dodo is said to have lost its wings; they have been restricted to a little inspired island, and by disuse their reason has been lost. in the jewish scriptures you will find simply the literature of the jews. you will find there the tears and anguish of captivity, patriotic fervor, national aspiration, proverbs for the conduct of daily life, laws, regulations, customs, legends, philosophy and folly. these books, of course, were not written by one man, but by many authors. they do not agree, having been written in different centuries, under different circumstances. i see that mr. beecher has at last concluded that the old testament does not teach the doctrine of immortality. he admits that from mount sinai came no hope for the dead. it is very curious that we find in the old testament no funeral service. no one stands by the dead and predicts another life. in the old testament there is no promise of another world. i have sometimes thought that while the jews were slaves in egypt, the doctrine of immortality became hateful. they built so many tombs; they carried so many burdens to commemorate the dead; the saw a nation waste its wealth to adorn its graves, and leave the living naked to embalm the dead, that they concluded the doctrine was a curse and never should be taught. _question_. if the jews did not believe in immortality, how do you account for the allusions made to witches and wizards and things of that nature? _answer_. when saul visited the witch of endor, and she, by some magic spell, called up samuel, the prophet said: "why hast thou disquieted me, to call me up?" he did not say: why have you called me from another world? the idea expressed is: i was asleep, why did you disturb that repose which should be eternal? the ancient jews believed in witches and wizards and familiar spirits; but they did not seem to think that these spirits had once been men and women. they spoke to them as belonging to another world, a world to which man would never find his way. at that time it was supposed that jehovah and his angels lived in the sky, but that region was not spoken of as the destined home of man. jacob saw angels going up and down the ladder, but not the spirits of those he had known. there are two cases where it seems that men were good enough to be adopted into the family of heaven. enoch was translated, and elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire. as it is exceedingly cold at the height of a few miles, it is easy to see why the chariot was of fire, and the same fact explains another circumstance--the dropping of the mantle. the jews probably believed in the existence of other beings--that is to say, in angels and gods and evil spirits --and that they lived in other worlds--but there is no passage showing that they believed in what we call the immortality of the soul. _question_. do you believe, or disbelieve, in the immortality of the soul? _answer_. i neither assert nor deny; i simply admit that i do not know. upon that subject i am absolutely without evidence. this is the only world that i was ever in. there may be spirits, but i have never met them, and do not know that i would recognize a spirit. i can form no conception of what is called spiritual life. it may be that i am deficient in imagination, and that ministers have no difficulty in conceiving of angels and disembodied souls. i have not the slightest idea how a soul looks, what shape it is, how it goes from one place to another, whether it walks or flies. i cannot conceive of the immaterial having form; neither can i conceive of anything existing without form, and yet the fact that i cannot conceive of a thing does not prove that the thing does not exist, but it does prove that i know nothing about it, and that being so, i ought to admit my ignorance. i am satisfied of a good many things that i do not know. i am satisfied that there is no place of eternal torment. i am satisfied that that doctrine has done more harm than all the religious ideas, other than that, have done good. i do not want to take any hope from any human heart. i have no objection to people believing in any good thing--no objection to their expecting a crown of infinite joy for every human being. many people imagine that immortality must be an infinite good; but, after all, there is something terrible in the idea of endless life. think of a river that never reaches the sea; of a bird that never folds its wings; of a journey that never ends. most people find great pleasure in thinking about and in believing in another world. there the prisoner expects to be free; the slave to find liberty; the poor man expects wealth; the rich man happiness; the peasant dreams of power, and the king of contentment. they expect to find there what they lack here. i do not wish to destroy these dreams. i am endeavoring to put out the everlasting fires. a good, cool grave is infinitely better than the fiery furnace of jehovah's wrath. eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. for my part i would rather be annihilated than to be an angel, with all the privileges of heaven, and yet have within my breast a heart that could be happy while those who had loved me in this world were in perdition. i most sincerely hope that the future life will fulfill all splendid dreams; but in the religion of the present day there is no joy. nothing is so devoid of comfort, when bending above our dead, as the assertions of theology unsupported by a single fact. the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. from words spoken eighteen centuries ago, the echoes are so weak, and the sounds of the clods on the coffin are so loud. above the grave what can the honest minister say? if the dead were not a christian, what then? what comfort can the orthodox clergyman give to the widow of an honest unbeliever? if christianity is true, the other world will be worse than this. there the many will be miserable, only the few happy; there the miserable cannot better their condition; the future has no star of hope, and in the east of eternity there can never be a dawn. _question_. if you take away the idea of eternal punishment, how do you propose to restrain men; in what way will you influence conduct for good? _answer_. well, the trouble with religion is that it postpones punishment and reward to another world. wrong is wrong, because it breeds unhappiness. right is right, because it tends to the happiness of man. these facts are the basis of what i call the religion of this world. when a man does wrong, the consequences follow, and between the cause and effect, a redeemer cannot step. forgiveness cannot form a breastwork between act and consequence. there should be a religion of the body--a religion that will prevent deformity, that will refuse to multiply insanity, that will not propagate disease--a religion that is judged by its consequences in this world. orthodox christianity has taught, and still teaches, that in this world the difference between the good and the bad is that the bad enjoy themselves, while the good carry the cross of virtue with bleeding brows bound and pierced with the thorns of honesty and kindness. all this, in my judgment, is immoral. the man who does wrong carries a cross. there is no world, no star, in which the result of wrong is real happiness. there is no world, no star, in which the result of doing right is unhappiness. virtue and vice must be the same everywhere. vice must be vice everywhere, because its consequences are evil; and virtue must be virtue everywhere, because its consequences are good. there can be no such thing as forgiveness. these facts are the only restraining influences possible--the innocent man cannot suffer for the guilty and satisfy the law. _question_. how do you answer the argument, or the fact, that the church is constantly increasing, and that there are now four hundred millions of christians? _answer_. that is what i call the argument of numbers. if that argument is good now, it was always good. if christians were at any time in the minority, then, according to this argument, christianity was wrong. every religion that has succeeded has appealed to the argument of numbers. there was a time when buddhism was in a majority. buddha not only had, but has more followers then christ. success is not a demonstration. mohammed was a success, and a success from the commencement. upon a thousand fields he was victor. of the scattered tribes of the desert, he made a nation, and this nation took the fairest part of europe from the followers of the cross. in the history of the world, the success of mohammed is unparalleled, but this success does not establish that he was the prophet of god. now, it is claimed that there are some four hundred millions of christians. to make that total i am counted as a christian; i am one of the fifty or sixty millions of christians in the united states--excluding indians, not taxed. by this census report, we are all going to heaven--we are all orthodox. at the last great day we can refer with confidence to the ponderous volumes containing the statistics of the united states. as a matter of fact, how many christians are there in the united states--how many believers in the inspiration of the scriptures--how many real followers of christ? i will not pretend to give the number, but i will venture to say that there are not fifty millions. how many in england? where are the four hundred millions found? to make this immense number, they have counted all the heretics, all the catholics, all the jews, spiritualists, universalists and unitarians, all the babes, all the idiotic and insane, all the infidels, all the scientists, all the unbelievers. as a matter of fact, they have no right to count any except the orthodox members of the orthodox churches. there may be more "members" now than formerly, and this increase of members is due to a decrease of religion. thousands of members are only nominal christians, wearing the old uniform simply because they do not wish to be charged with desertion. the church, too, is a kind of social institution, a club with a creed instead of by-laws, and the creed is never defended unless attacked by an outsider. no objection is made to the minister because he is liberal, if he says nothing about it in his pulpit. a man like mr. beecher draws a congregation, not because he is a christian, but because he is a genius; not because he is orthodox, but because he has something to say. he is an intellectual athlete. he is full of pathos and poetry. he has more description than divinity; more charity than creed, and altogether more common sense than theology. for these reasons thousands of people love to hear him. on the other hand, there are many people who have a morbid desire for the abnormal--for intellectual deformities--for thoughts that have two heads. this accounts for the success of some of mr. beecher's rivals. christians claim that success is a test of truth. has any church succeeded as well as the catholic? was the tragedy of the garden of eden a success? who succeeded there? the last best thought is not a success, if you mean that only that is a success which has succeeded, and if you mean by succeeding, that it has won the assent of the majority. besides there is no time fixed for the test. is that true which succeeds to-day, or next year, or in the next century? once the copernican system was not a success. there is no time fixed. the result is that we have to wait. a thing to exist at all has to be, to a certain extent, a success. a thing cannot even die without having been a success. it certainly succeeded enough to have life. presbyterians should remember, while arguing the majority argument, and the success argument, that there are far more catholics than protestants, and that the catholics can give a longer list of distinguished names. my answer to all this, however, is that the history of the world shows that ignorance has always been in the majority. there is one right road; numberless paths that are wrong. truth is one; error is many. when a great truth has been discovered, one man has pitted himself against the world. a few think; the many believe. the few lead; the many follow. the light of the new day, as it looks over the window sill of the east, falls at first on only one forehead. there is another thing. a great many people pass for christians who are not. only a little while ago a couple of ladies were returning from church in a carriage. they had listened to a good orthodox sermon. one said to the other: "i am going to tell you something--i am going to shock you--i do not believe in the bible." and the other replied: "neither do i." --_the news_, detroit, michigan, january , . politics, mormonism and mr. beecher _question_. what will be the main issues in the next presidential campaign? _answer_. i think that the principal issues will be civil rights and protection for american industries. the democratic party is not a unit on the tariff question--neither is the republican; but i think that a majority of the democrats are in favor of free trade and a majority of republicans in favor of a protective tariff. the democratic congressmen will talk just enough about free trade to frighten the manufacturing interests of the country, and probably not quite enough to satisfy the free traders. the result will be that the democrats will talk about reforming the tariff, but will do nothing but talk. i think the tariff ought to be reformed in many particulars; but as long as we need to raise a great revenue my idea is that it ought to be so arranged as to protect to the utmost, without producing monopoly in american manufacturers. i am in favor of protection because it multiplies industries; and i am in favor of a great number of industries because they develop the brain, because they give employment to all and allow us to utilize all the muscle and all the sense we have. if we were all farmers we would grow stupid. if we all worked at one kind of mechanic art we would grow dull. but with a variety of industries, with a constant premium upon ingenuity, with the promise of wealth as the reward of success in any direction, the people become intelligent, and while we are protecting our industries we develop our brains. so i am in favor of the protection of civil rights by the federal government, and that, in my judgment, will be one of the great issues in the next campaign. _question_. i see that you say that one of the great issues in the coming campaign will be civil rights; what do you mean by that? _answer_. well, i mean this. the supreme court has recently decided that a colored man whose rights are trampled upon, in a state, cannot appeal to the federal government for protection. the decision amounts to this: that congress has no right until a state has acted, and has acted contrary to the constitution. now, if a state refuses to do anything upon the subject, what is the citizen to do? my opinion is that the government is bound to protect its citizens, and as a consideration for this protection, the citizen is bound to stand by the government. when the nation calls for troops, the citizen of each state is bound to respond, no matter what his state may think. this doctrine must be maintained, or the united states ceases to be a nation. if a man looks to his state for protection, then he must go with his state. my doctrine is, that there should be patriotism upon the one hand, and protection upon the other. if a state endeavors to secede from the union, a citizen of that state should be in a position to defy the state and appeal to the nation for protection. the doctrine now is, that the general government turns the citizen over to the state for protection, and if the state does not protect him, that is his misfortune; and the consequence of this doctrine will be to build up the old heresy of state sovereignty--a doctrine that was never appealed to except in the interest of thieving or robbery. that doctrine was first appealed to when the constitution was formed, because they were afraid the national government would interfere with the slave trade. it was next appealed to, to uphold the fugitive slave law. it was next appealed to, to give the territories of the united states to slavery. then it was appealed to, to support rebellion, and now out of this doctrine they attempt to build a breastwork, behind which they can trample upon the rights of free colored men. i believe in the sovereignty of the nation. a nation that cannot protect its citizens ought to stop playing nation. in the old times the supreme court found no difficulty in supporting slavery by "inference," by "intendment," but now that liberty has become national, the court is driven to less than a literal interpretation. if the constitution does not support liberty, it is of no use. to maintain liberty is the only legitimate object of human government. i hope the time will come when the judges of the supreme court will be elected, say for a period of ten years. i do not believe in the legal monk system. i believe in judges still maintaining an interest in human affairs. _question_. what do you think of the mormon question? _answer_. i do not believe in the bayonet plan. mormonism must be done away with by the thousand influences of civilization, by education, by the elevation of the people. of course, a gentleman would rather have one noble woman than a hundred females. i hate the system of polygamy. nothing is more infamous. i admit that the old testament upholds it. i admit that the patriarchs were mostly polygamists. i admit that solomon was mistaken on that subject. but notwithstanding the fact that polygamy is upheld by the jewish scriptures, i believe it to be a great wrong. at the same time if you undertake to get the idea out of the mormons by force you will not succeed. i think a good way to do away with that institution would be for all the churches to unite, bear the expense, and send missionaries to utah; let these ministers call the people together and read to them the lives of david, solomon, abraham and other patriarchs. let all the missionaries be called home from foreign fields and teach these people that they should not imitate the only men with whom god ever condescended to hold intercourse. let these frightful examples be held up to these people, and if it is done earnestly, it seems to me that the result would be good. polygamy exists. all laws upon the subject should take that fact into consideration, and punishment should be provided for offences thereafter committed. the children of mormons should be legitimized. in other words, in attempting to settle this question, we should accomplish all the good possible, with the least possible harm. i agree mostly with mr. beecher, and i utterly disagree with the rev. mr. newman. mr. newman wants to kill and slay. he does not rely upon christianity, but upon brute force. he has lost his confidence in example, and appeals to the bayonet. mr. newman had a discussion with one of the mormon elders, and was put to ignominious flight; no wonder that he appeals to force. having failed in argument, he calls for artillery; having been worsted in the appeal to scripture, he asks for the sword. he says, failing to convert, let us kill; and he takes this position in the name of the religion of kindness and forgiveness. strange that a minister now should throw away the bible and yell for a bayonet; that he should desert the scriptures and call for soldiers; that he should lose confidence in the power of the spirit and trust in a sword. i recommend that mormonism be done away with by distributing the old testament throughout utah. _question_. what do you think of the investigation of the department of justice now going on? _answer_. the result, in my judgment, will depend on its thoroughness. if mr. springer succeeds in proving exactly what the department of justice did, the methods pursued, if he finds out what their spies and detectives and agents were instructed to do, then i think the result will be as disastrous to the department as beneficial to the country. the people seem to have forgotten that a little while after the first star route trial three of the agents of the department of justice were indicted for endeavoring to bribe the jury. they forget that mr. bowen, an agent of the department of justice, is a fugitive, because he endeavored to bribe the foreman of the jury. they seem to forget that the department of justice, in order to cover its own tracks, had the foreman of the jury indicted because one of its agents endeavored to bribe him. probably this investigation will nudge the ribs of the public enough to make people remember these things. personally, i have no feelings on the subject. it was enough for me that we succeeded in thwarting its methods, in spite of the detectives, spies, and informers. the department is already beginning to dissolve. brewster cameron has left it, and as a reward has been exiled to arizona. mr. brewster will probably be the next to pack his official valise. a few men endeavored to win popularity by pursuing a few others, and thus far they have been conspicuous failures. macveagh and james are to-day enjoying the oblivion earned by misdirected energy, and mr. brewster will soon keep them company. the history of the world does not furnish an instance of more flagrant abuse of power. there never was a trial as shamelessly conducted by a government. but, as i said before, i have no feeling now except that of pity. _question_. i see that mr. beecher is coming round to your views on theology? _answer_. i would not have the egotism to say that he was coming round to my views, but evidently mr. beecher has been growing. his head has been instructed by his heart; and if a man will allow even the poor plant of pity to grow in his heart he will hold in infinite execration all orthodox religion. the moment he will allow himself to think that eternal consequences depend upon human life; that the few short years we live in the world determine for an eternity the question of infinite joy or infinite pain; the moment he thinks of that he will see that it is an infinite absurdity. for instance, a man is born in arkansas and lives there to be seventeen or eighteen years of age, is it possible that he can be truthfully told at the day of judgment that he had a fair chance? just imagine a man being held eternally responsible for his conduct in delaware! mr. beecher is a man of great genius--full of poetry and pathos. every now and then he is driven back by the orthodox members of his congregation toward the old religion, and for the benefit of those weak disciples he will preach what is called "a doctrinal sermon;" but before he gets through with it, seeing that it is infinitely cruel, he utters a cry of horror, and protests with all the strength of his nature against the cruelty of the creed. i imagine that he has always thought that he was under great obligation to plymouth church, but the truth is that the church depends upon him; that church gets its character from mr. beecher. he has done a vast deal to ameliorate the condition of the average orthodox mind. he excites the envy of the mediocre minister, and he excites the hatred of the really orthodox, but he receives the approbation of good and generous men everywhere. for my part, i have no quarrel with any religion that does not threaten eternal punishment to very good people, and that does not promise eternal reward to very bad people. if orthodox christianity is true, some of the best people i know are going to hell, and some of the meanest i have ever known are either in heaven or on the road. of course, i admit that there are thousands and millions of good christians--honest and noble people, but in my judgment, mr. beecher is the greatest man in the world who now occupies a pulpit. * * * * * speaking of a man's living in delaware, a young man, some time ago, came up to me on the street, in an eastern city and asked for money. "what is your business," i asked. "i am a waiter by profession." "where do you come from?" "delaware." "well, what was the matter --did you drink, or cheat your employer, or were you idle?" "no." "what was the trouble?" "well, the truth is, the state is so small they don't need any waiters; they all reach for what they want." _question_. do you not think there are some dangerous tendencies in liberalism? _answer_. i will first state this proposition: the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance. the cash system in morals, as well as in business, breeds economy. we will suppose a community in which everybody is bound to sell on credit, and in which every creditor can take the benefit of the bankrupt law every saturday night, and the constable pays the costs. in my judgment that community would be extravagant as long as the merchants lasted. we will take another community in which everybody has to pay cash, and in my judgment that community will be a very economical one. now, then, let us apply this to morals. christianity allows everybody to sin on a credit, and allows a man who has lived, we will say sixty-nine years, what christians are pleased to call a worldly life, an immoral life. they allow him on his death-bed, between the last dose of medicine and the last breath, to be converted, and that man who has done nothing except evil, becomes an angel. here is another man who has lived the same length of time, doing all the good he possibly could do, but not meeting with what they are pleased to call "a change of heart;" he goes to a world of pain. now, my doctrine is that everybody must reap exactly what he sows, other things being equal. if he acts badly he will not be very happy; if he acts well he will not be very sad. i believe in the doctrine of consequences, and that every man must stand the consequences of his own acts. it seems to me that that fact will have a greater restraining influence than the idea that you can, just before you leave this world, shift your burden on to somebody else. i am a believer in the restraining influences of liberty, because responsibility goes hand in hand with freedom. i do not believe that the gallows is the last step between earth and heaven. i do not believe in the conversion and salvation of murderers while their innocent victims are in hell. the church has taught so long that he who acts virtuously carries a cross, and that only sinners enjoy themselves, that it may be that for a little while after men leave the church they may go to extremes until they demonstrate for themselves that the path of vice is the path of thorns, and that only along the wayside of virtue grow the flowers of joy. the church has depicted virtue as a sour, wrinkled termagant; an old woman with nothing but skin and bones, and a temper beyond description; and at the same time vice has been painted in all the voluptuous outlines of a greek statue. the truth is exactly the other way. a thing is right because it pays; a thing is wrong because it does not; and when i use the word "pays," i mean in the highest and noblest sense. --_the daily news_, denver, colorado, january , . free trade and christianity. _question_. who will be the republican nominee for president? _answer_. the correct answer to this question would make so many men unhappy that i have concluded not to give it. _question_. has not the democracy injured itself irretrievably by permitting the free trade element to rule it? _answer_. i do not think that the democratic party weakened itself by electing carlisle, speaker. i think him an excellent man, an exceedingly candid man, and one who will do what he believes ought to be done. i have a very high opinion of mr. carlisle. i do not suppose any party in this country is really for free trade. i find that all writers upon the subject, no matter which side they are on, are on that side with certain exceptions. adam smith was in favor of free trade, with a few exceptions, and those exceptions were in matters where he thought it was for england's interest not to have free trade. the same may be said of all writers. so far as i can see, the free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists all the facts. the free trade theories are splendid, but they will not work; the results are disastrous. we find by actual experiment that it is better to protect home industries. it was once said that protection created nothing but monopoly; the argument was that way, but the facts are not. take, for instance, steel rails; when we bought them of england we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton. i believe there was a tariff of twenty-eight or twenty-nine dollars a ton, and yet in spite of all the arguments going to show that protection would simply increase prices in america, would simply enrich the capitalists and impoverish the consumer, steel rails are now produced, i believe, right here in colorado for forty-two dollars a ton. after all, it is a question of labor; a question of prices that shall be paid the laboring man; a question of what the laboring man shall eat; whether he shall eat meat or soup made from the bones. very few people take into consideration the value of raw material and the value of labor. take, for instance, your ton of steel rails worth forty-two dollars. the iron in the earth is not worth twenty-five cents. the coal in the earth and the lime in the ledge together are not worth twenty-five cents. now, then, of the forty-two dollars, forty-one and a half is labor. there is not two dollars' worth of raw material in a locomotive worth fifteen thousand dollars. by raw material i mean the material in the earth. there is not in the works of a watch which will sell for fifteen dollars, raw material of the value of one-half cent. all the rest is labor. a ship, a man-of-war that costs one million dollars-- the raw material in the earth is not worth, in my judgment, one thousand dollars. all the rest is labor. if there is any way to protect american labor, i am in favor of it. if the present tariff does not do it, then i am in favor of changing to one that will. if the democratic party takes a stand for free trade or anything like it, they will need protection; they will need protection at the polls; that is to say, they will meet only with defeat and disaster. _question_. what should be done with the surplus revenue? _answer_. my answer to that is, reduce internal revenue taxation until the present surplus is exhausted, and then endeavor so to arrange your tariff that you will not produce more than you need. i think the easiest question to grapple with on this earth is a surplus of money. i do not believe in distributing it among the states. i do not think there could be a better certificate of the prosperity of our country than the fact that we are troubled with a surplus revenue; that we have the machinery for collecting taxes in such perfect order, so ingeniously contrived, that it cannot be stopped; that it goes right on collecting money, whether we want it or not; and the wonderful thing about it is that nobody complains. if nothing else can be done with the surplus revenue, probably we had better pay some of our debts. i would suggest, as a last resort, to pay a few honest claims. _question_. are you getting nearer to or farther away from god, christianity and the bible? _answer_. in the first place, as mr. locke so often remarked, we will define our terms. if by the word "god" is meant a person, a being, who existed before the creation of the universe, and who controls all that is, except himself, i do not believe in such a being; but if by the word god is meant all that is, that is to say, the universe, including every atom and every star, then i am a believer. i suppose the word that would nearest describe me is "pantheist." i cannot believe that a being existed from eternity, and who finally created this universe after having wasted an eternity in idleness; but upon this subject i know just as little as anybody ever did or ever will, and, in my judgment, just as much. my intellectual horizon is somewhat limited, and, to tell you the truth, this is the only world that i was ever in. i am what might be called a representative of a rural district, and, as a matter of fact, i know very little about the district. i believe it was confucius who said: "how should i know anything about another world when i know so little of this?" the greatest intellects of the world have endeavored to find words to express their conception of god, of the first cause, or of the science of being, but they have never succeeded. i find in the old confession of faith, in the old catechism, for instance, this description: that god is a being without body, parts or passions. i think it would trouble anybody to find a better definition of nothing. that describes a vacuum, that is to say, that describes the absence of everything. i find that theology is a subject that only the most ignorant are certain about, and that the more a man thinks, the less he knows. from the bible god, i do not know that i am going farther and farther away. i have been about as far as a man could get for many years. i do not believe in the god of the old testament. now, as to the next branch of your question, christianity. the question arises, what is christianity? i have no objection to the morality taught as a part of christianity, no objection to its charity, its forgiveness, its kindness; no objection to its hope for this world and another, not the slightest, but all these things do not make christianity. mohammed taught certain doctrines that are good, but the good in the teachings of mohammed is not mohammedism. when i speak of christianity i speak of that which is distinctly christian. for instance, the idea that the infinite god was born in palestine, learned the carpenter's trade, disputed with the parsons of his time, excited the wrath of the theological bigots, and was finally crucified; that afterward he was raised from the dead, and that if anybody believes this he will be saved and if he fails to believe it, he will be lost; in other words, that which is distinctly christian in the christian system, is its supernaturalism, its miracles, its absurdity. truth does not need to go into partnership with the supernatural. what christ said is worth the reason it contains. if a man raises the dead and then says twice two are five, that changes no rule in mathematics. if a multiplication table was divinely inspired, that does no good. the question is, is it correct? so i think that in the world of morals, we must prove that a thing is right or wrong by experience, by analogy, not by miracles. there is no fact in physical science that can be supernaturally demonstrated. neither is there any fact in the moral world that could be substantiated by miracles. now, then, keeping in mind that by christianity i mean the supernatural in that system, of course i am just as far away from it as i can get. for the man christ i have respect. he was an infidel in his day, and the ministers of his day cried out blasphemy, as they have been crying ever since, against every person who has suggested a new thought or shown the worthlessness of an old one. now, as to the third part of the question, the bible. people say that the bible is inspired. well, what does inspiration mean? did god write it? no; but the men who did write it were guided by the holy spirit. very well. did they write exactly what the holy spirit wanted them to write? well, religious people say, yes. at the same time they admit that the gentlemen who were collecting, or taking down in shorthand what was said, had to use their own words. now, we all know that the same words do not have the same meaning to all people. it is impossible to convey the same thoughts to all minds by the same language, and it is for that reason that the bible has produced so many sects, not only disagreeing with each other, but disagreeing among themselves. we find, then, that it is utterly impossible for god (admitting that there is one) to convey the same thoughts in human language to all people. no two persons understand the same language alike. a man's understanding depends upon his experience, upon his capacity, upon the particular bent of his mind--in fact, upon the countless influences that have made him what he is. everything in nature tells everyone who sees it a story, but that story depends upon the capacity of the one to whom it is told. the sea says one thing to the ordinary man, and another thing to shakespeare. the stars have not the same language for all people. the consequence is that no book can tell the same story to any two persons. the jewish scriptures are like other books, written by different men in different ages of the world, hundreds of years apart, filled with contradictions. they embody, i presume, fairly enough, the wisdom and ignorance, the reason and prejudice, of the times in which they were written. they are worth the good that is in them, and the question is whether we will take the good and throw the bad away. there are good laws and bad laws. there are wise and foolish sayings. there are gentle and cruel passages, and you can find a text to suit almost any frame of mind; whether you wish to do an act of charity or murder a neighbor's babe, you will find a passage that will exactly fit the case. so that i can say that i am still for the reasonable, for the natural; and am still opposed to the absurd and supernatural. _question_. is there any better or more ennobling belief than christianity; if so, what is it? _answer_. there are many good things, of course, in every religion, or they would not have existed; plenty of good precepts in christianity, but the thing that i object to more than all others is the doctrine of eternal punishment, the idea of hell for many and heaven for the few. take from christianity the doctrine of eternal punishment and i have no particular objection to what is generally preached. if you will take that away, and all the supernatural connected with it, i have no objection; but that doctrine of eternal punishment tends to harden the human heart. it has produced more misery than all the other doctrines in the world. it has shed more blood; it has made more martyrs. it has lighted the fires of persecution and kept the sword of cruelty wet with heroic blood for at least a thousand years. there is no crime that that doctrine has not produced. i think it would be impossible for the imagination to conceive of a worse religion than orthodox christianity--utterly impossible; a doctrine that divides this world, a doctrine that divides families, a doctrine that teaches the son that he can be happy, with his mother in perdition; the husband that he can be happy in heaven while his wife suffers the agonies of hell. this doctrine is infinite injustice, and tends to subvert all ideas of justice in the human heart. i think it would be impossible to conceive of a doctrine better calculated to make wild beasts of men than that; in fact, that doctrine was born of all the wild beast there is in man. it was born of infinite revenge. think of preaching that you must believe that a certain being was the son of god, no matter whether your reason is convinced or not. suppose one should meet, we will say on london bridge, a man clad in rags, and he should stop us and say, "my friend, i wish to talk with you a moment. i am the rightful king of great britain," and you should say to him, "well, my dinner is waiting; i have no time to bother about who the king of england is," and then he should meet another and insist on his stopping while the pulled out some papers to show that he was the rightful king of england, and the other man should say, "i have got business here, my friend; i am selling goods, and i have no time to bother my head about who the king of england is. no doubt you are the king of england, but you don't look like him." and then suppose he stops another man, and makes the same statement to him, and the other man should laugh at him and say, "i don't want to hear anything on this subject; you are crazy; you ought to go to some insane asylum, or put something on your head to keep you cool." and suppose, after all, it should turn out that the man was king of england, and should afterward make his claim good and be crowned in westminster. what would we think of that king if he should hunt up the gentlemen that he met on london bridge, and have their heads cut off because they had no faith that he was the rightful heir? and what would we think of a god now who would damn a man eighteen hundred years after the event, because he did not believe that he was god at the time he was living in jerusalem; not only damn the fellows that he met and who did not believe him, but gentlemen who lived eighteen hundred years afterward, and who certainly could have known nothing of the facts except from hearsay? the best religion, after all, is common sense; a religion for this world, one world at a time, a religion for to-day. we want a religion that will deal in questions in which we are interested. how are we to do away with crime? how are we to do away with pauperism? how are we to do away with want and misery in every civilized country? england is a christian nation, and yet about one in six in the city of london dies in almshouses, asylums, prisons, hospitals and jails. we, i suppose, are a civilized nation, and yet all the penitentiaries are crammed; there is want on every hand, and my opinion is that we had better turn our attention to this world. christianity is charitable; christianity spends a great deal of money; but i am somewhat doubtful as to the good that is accomplished. there ought to be some way to prevent crime; not simply to punish it. there ought to be some way to prevent pauperism, not simply to relieve temporarily a pauper, and if the ministers and good people belonging to the churches would spend their time investigating the affairs of this world and let the new jerusalem take care of itself, i think it would be far better. the church is guilty of one great contradiction. the ministers are always talking about worldly people, and yet, were it not for worldly people, who would pay the salary? how could the church live a minute unless somebody attended to the affairs of this world? the best religion, in my judgment, is common sense going along hand in hand with kindness, and not troubling ourselves about another world until we get there. i am willing for one, to wait and see what kind of a country it will be. _question_. does the question of the inspiration of scriptures affect the beauty and benefits of christianity here and hereafter? _answer_. a belief in the inspiration of the scriptures has done, in my judgment, great harm. the bible has been the breastwork for nearly everything wrong. the defenders of slavery relied on the bible. the bible was the real auction block on which every negro stood when he was sold. i never knew a minister to preach in favor of slavery that did not take his text from the bible. the bible teaches persecution for opinion's sake. the bible--that is the old testament--upholds polygamy, and just to the extent that men, through the bible, have believed that slavery, religious persecution, wars of extermination and polygamy were taught by god, just to that extent the bible has done great harm. the idea of inspiration enslaves the human mind and debauches the human heart. _question_. is not christianity and the belief in god a check upon mankind in general and thus a good thing in itself? _answer_. this, again, brings up the question of what you mean by christianity, but taking it for granted that you mean by christianity the church, then i answer, when the church had almost absolute authority, then the world was the worst. now, as to the other part of the question, "is not a belief in god a check upon mankind in general?" that is owing to what kind of god the man believes in. when mankind believed in the god of the old testament, i think that belief was a bad thing; the tendency was bad. i think that john calvin patterned after jehovah as nearly as his health and strength would permit. man makes god in his own image, and bad men are not apt to have a very good god if they make him. i believe it is far better to have a real belief in goodness, in kindness, in honesty and in mankind than in any supernatural being whatever. i do not suppose it would do any harm for a man to believe in a real good god, a god without revenge, a god that was not very particular in having a man believe a doctrine whether he could understand it or not. i do not believe that a belief of that kind would do any particular harm. there is a vast difference between the god of john calvin and the god of henry ward beecher, and a great difference between the god of cardinal pedro gonzales de mendoza and the god of theodore parker. _question_. well, colonel, is the world growing better or worse? _answer_. i think better in some respects and worse in others; but on the whole, better. i think that while events, like the pendulum of a clock, go backward and forward, man, like the hands, goes forward. i think there is more reason and less religion, more charity and less creed. i think the church is improving. ministers are ashamed to preach the old doctrines with the old fervor. there was a time when the pulpit controlled the pews. it is so no longer. the pews know what they want, and if the minister does not furnish it they discharge him and employ another. he is no longer an autocrat; he must bring to the market what his customers are willing to buy. _question_. what are you going to do to be saved? _answer_. well, i think i am safe, anyway. i suppose i have a right to rely on what matthew says, that if i will forgive others god will forgive me. i suppose if there is another world i shall be treated very much as i treat others. i never expect to find perfect bliss anywhere; maybe i should tire of it if i should. what i have endeavored to do has been to put out the fires of an ignorant and cruel hell; to do what i could to destroy that dogma; to destroy the doctrine that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin. --_the denver republican_, denver, colorado, january , . the oath question. _question_. i suppose that your attention has been called to the excitement in england over the oath question, and you have probably wondered that so much should have been made of so little? _answer_. yes; i have read a few articles upon the subject, including one by cardinal newman. it is wonderful that so many people imagine that there is something miraculous in the oath. they seem to regard it as a kind of verbal fetich, a charm, an "open sesame" to be pronounced at the door of truth, a spell, a kind of moral thumbscrew, by means of which falsehood itself is compelled to turn informer. the oath has outlived its brother, "the wager of battle." both were born of the idea that god would interfere for the right and for the truth. trial by fire and by water had the same origin. it was once believed that the man in the wrong could not kill the man in the right; but, experience having shown that he usually did, the belief gradually fell into disrepute. so it was once thought that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread; but, the fear that made the swallowing difficult having passed away, the appeal to the corsned was abolished. it was found that a brazen or a desperate man could eat himself out of the greatest difficulty with perfect ease, satisfying the law and his own hunger at the same time. the oath is a relic of barbarous theology, of the belief that a personal god interferes in the affairs of men; that some god protects innocence and guards the right. the experience of the world has sadly demonstrated the folly of that belief. the testimony of a witness ought to be believed, not because it is given under the solemnities of an oath, but because it is reasonable. if unreasonable it ought to be thrown aside. the question ought not to be, "has this been sworn to?" but, "is this true?" the moment evidence is tested by the standard of reason, the oath becomes a useless ceremony. let the man who gives false evidence be punished as the lawmaking power may prescribe. he should be punished because he commits a crime against society, and he should be punished in this world. all honest men will tell the truth if they can; therefore, oaths will have no effect upon them. dishonest men will not tell the truth unless the truth happens to suit their purpose; therefore, oaths will have no effect upon them. we punish them, not for swearing to a lie, but for telling it, and we can make the punishment for telling the falsehood just as severe as we wish. if they are to be punished in another world, the probability is that the punishment there will be for having told the falsehood here. after all, a lie is made no worse by an oath, and the truth is made no better. _question_. you object then to the oath. is your objection based on any religious grounds, or on any prejudice against the ceremony because of its religious origin; or what is your objection? _answer_. i care nothing about the origin of the ceremony. the objection to the oath is this: it furnishes a falsehood with a letter of credit. it supplies the wolf with sheep's clothing and covers the hands of jacob with hair. it blows out the light, and in the darkness leah is taken for rachel. it puts upon each witness a kind of theological gown. this gown hides the moral rags of the depraved wretch as well as the virtues of the honest man. the oath is a mask that falsehood puts on, and for a moment is mistaken for truth. it gives to dishonesty the advantage of solemnity. the tendency of the oath is to put all testimony on an equality. the obscure rascal and the man of sterling character both "swear," and jurors who attribute a miraculous quality to the oath, forget the real difference in the men, and give about the same weight to the evidence of each, because both were "sworn." a scoundrel is delighted with the opportunity of going through a ceremony that gives importance and dignity to his story, that clothes him for the moment with respectability, loans him the appearance of conscience, and gives the ring of true coin to the base metal. to him the oath is a shield. he is in partnership, for a moment, with god, and people who have no confidence in the witness credit the firm. _question_. of course you know the religionists insist that people are more likely to tell the truth when "sworn," and that to take away the oath is to destroy the foundation of testimony? _answer_. if the use of the oath is defended on the ground that religious people need a stimulus to tell the truth, then i am compelled to say that religious people have been so badly educated that they mistake the nature of the crime. they should be taught that to defeat justice by falsehood is the real offence. besides, fear is not the natural foundation of virtue. even with religious people fear cannot always last. ananias and sapphira have been dead so long, and since their time so many people have sworn falsely without affecting their health that the fear of sudden divine vengeance no longer pales the cheek of the perjurer. if the vengeance is not sudden, then, according to the church, the criminal will have plenty of time to repent; so that the oath no longer affects even the fearful. would it not be better for the church to teach that telling the falsehood is the real crime, and that taking the oath neither adds to nor takes from its enormity? would it not be better to teach that he who does wrong must suffer the consequences, whether god forgives him or not? he who tries to injure another may or may not succeed, but he cannot by any possibility fail to injure himself. men should be taught that there is no difference between truth-telling and truth-swearing. nothing is more vicious than the idea that any ceremony or form of words--hand-lifting or book-kissing--can add, even in the slightest degree, to the perpetual obligation every human being is under to speak the truth. the truth, plainly told, naturally commends itself to the intelligent. every fact is a genuine link in the infinite chain, and will agree perfectly with every other fact. a fact asks to be inspected, asks to be understood. it needs no oath, no ceremony, no supernatural aid. it is independent of all the gods. a falsehood goes in partnership with theology, and depends on the partner for success. to show how little influence for good has been attributed to the oath, it is only necessary to say that for centuries, in the christian world, no person was allowed to testify who had the slightest pecuniary interest in the result of a suit. the expectation of a farthing in this world was supposed to outweigh the fear of god's wrath in the next. all the pangs, pains, and penalties of perdition were considered as nothing when compared with pounds, shillings and pence in this world. _question_. you know that in nearly all deliberative bodies--in parliaments and congresses--an oath or an affirmation is required to support what is called the constitution; and that all officers are required to swear or affirm that they will discharge their duties; do these oaths and affirmations, in your judgment, do any good? _answer_. men have sought to make nations and institutions immortal by oaths. subjects have sworn to obey kings, and kings have sworn to protect subjects, and yet the subjects have sometimes beheaded a king; and the king has often plundered the subjects. the oaths enabled them to deceive each other. every absurdity in religion, and all tyrannical institutions, have been patched, buttressed, and reinforced by oaths; and yet the history of the world shows the utter futility of putting in the coffin of an oath the political and religious aspirations of the race. revolutions and reformations care little for "so help me god." oaths have riveted shackles and sanctified abuses. people swear to support a constitution, and they will keep the oath as long as the constitution supports them. in the colonists cared nothing for the fact that they had sworn to support the british crown. all the oaths to defend the constitution of the united states did not prevent the civil war. we have at last learned that states may be kept together for a little time, by force; permanently only by mutual interests. we have found that the delilah of superstition cannot bind with oaths the secular samson. why should a member of parliament or of congress swear to maintain the constitution? if he is a dishonest man, the oath will have no effect; if he is an honest patriot, it will have no effect. in both cases it is equally useless. if a member fails to support the constitution the probability is that his constituents will treat him as he does the constitution. in this country, after all the members of congress have sworn or affirmed to defend the constitution, each political party charges the other with a deliberate endeavor to destroy that "sacred instrument." possibly the political oath was invented to prevent the free and natural development of a nation. kings and nobles and priests wished to retain the property they had filched and clutched, and for that purpose they compelled the real owners to swear that they would support and defend the law under color of which the theft and robbery had been accomplished. so, in the church, creeds have been protected by oaths. priests and laymen solemnly swore that they would, under no circumstances, resort to reason; that they would overcome facts by faith, and strike down demonstrations with the "sword of the spirit." professors of the theological seminary at andover, massachusetts, swear to defend certain dogmas and to attack others. they swear sacredly to keep and guard the ignorance they have. with them, philosophy leads to perjury, and reason is the road to crime. while theological professors are not likely to make an intellectual discovery, still it is unwise, by taking an oath, to render that certain which is only improbable. if all witnesses sworn to tell the truth, did so, if all members of parliament and of congress, in taking the oath, became intelligent, patriotic, and honest, i should be in favor of retaining the ceremony; but we find that men who have taken the same oath advocate opposite ideas, and entertain different opinions, as to the meaning of constitutions and laws. the oath adds nothing to their intelligence; does not even tend to increase their patriotism, and certainly does not make the dishonest honest. _question_. are not persons allowed to testify in the united states whether they believe in future rewards and punishments or not? _answer_. in this country, in most of the states, witnesses are allowed to testify whether they believe in perdition and paradise or not. in some states they are allowed to testify even if they deny the existence of god. we have found that religious belief does not compel people to tell the truth, and than an utter denial of every christian creed does not even tend to make them dishonest. you see, a religious belief does not affect the senses. justice should not shut any door that leads to truth. no one will pretend that, because you do not believe in hell, your sight is impaired, or your hearing dulled, or your memory rendered less retentive. a witness in a court is called upon to tell what he has seen, what he has heard, what he remembers, not what he believes about gods and devils and hells and heavens. a witness substantiates not a faith, but a fact. in order to ascertain whether a witness will tell the truth, you might with equal propriety examine him as to his ideas about music, painting or architecture, as theology. a man may have no ear for music, and yet remember what he hears. he may care nothing about painting, and yet is able to tell what he sees. so he may deny every creed, and yet be able to tell the facts as he remembers them. thomas jefferson was wise enough so to frame the constitution of virginia that no person could be deprived of any civil right on account of his religious or irreligious belief. through the influence of men like paine, franklin and jefferson, it was provided in the federal constitution that officers elected under its authority could swear or affirm. this was the natural result of the separation of church and state. _question_. i see that your presidents and governors issue their proclamations calling on the people to assemble in their churches and offer thanks to god. how does this happen in a government where church and state are not united? _answer_. jefferson, when president, refused to issue what is known as the "thanksgiving proclamation," on the ground that the federal government had no right to interfere in religious matters; that the people owed no religious duties to the government; that the government derived its powers, not from priests or gods, but from the people, and was responsible alone to the source of its power. the truth is, the framers of our constitution intended that the government should be secular in the broadest and best sense; and yet there are thousands and thousands of religious people in this country who are greatly scandalized because there is no recognition of god in the federal constitution; and for several years a great many ministers have been endeavoring to have the constitution amended so as to recognize the existence of god and the divinity of christ. a man by the name of pollock was once superintendent of the mint of philadelphia. he was almost insane about having god in the constitution. failing in that, he got the inscription on our money, "in god we trust." as our silver dollar is now, in fact, worth only eighty-five cents, it is claimed that the inscription means that we trust in god for the other fifteen cents. there is a constant effort on the part of many christians to have their religion in some way recognized by law. proclamations are now issued calling upon the people to give thanks, and directing attention to the fact that, while god has scourged or neglected other nations, he has been remarkably attentive to the wants and wishes of the united states. governors of states issue these documents written in a tone of pious insincerity. the year may or may not have been prosperous, yet the degree of thankfulness called for is always precisely the same. a few years ago the governor of iowa issued an exceedingly rhetorical proclamation, in which the people were requested to thank god for the unparalleled blessings he had showered upon them. a private citizen, fearing that the lord might be misled by official correspondence, issued his proclamation, in which he recounted with great particularity the hardships of the preceding year. he insisted that the weather had been of the poorest quality; that the spring came late, and the frost early; that the people were in debt; that the farms were mortgaged; that the merchants were bankrupt; and that everything was in the worst possible condition. he concluded by sincerely hoping that the lord would pay no attention to the proclamation of the governor, but would, if he had any doubt on the subject, come down and examine the state for himself. these proclamations have always appeared to me absurdly egotistical. why should god treat us any better than he does the rest of his children? why should he send pestilence and famine to china, and health and plenty to us? why give us corn, and egypt cholera? all these proclamations grow out of egotism and selfishness, of ignorance and superstition, and are based upon the idea that god is a capricious monster; that he loves flattery; that he can be coaxed and cajoled. the conclusion of the whole matter with me is this: for truth in courts we must depend upon the trained intelligence of judges, the right of cross-examination, the honesty and common sense of jurors, and upon an enlightened public opinion. as for members of congress, we will trust to the wisdom and patriotism, not only of the members, but of their constituents. in religion we will give to all the luxury of absolute liberty. the alchemist did not succeed in finding any stone the touch of which transmuted baser things to gold; and priests have not invented yet an oath with power to force from falsehood's desperate lips the pearl of truth. --_secular review_, london, england, . wendell phillips, fitz john porter and bismarck. _question_. are you seeking to quit public lecturing on religious questions? _answer_. as long as i live i expect now and then to say my say against the religious bigotry and cruelty of the world. as long as the smallest coal is red in hell i am going to keep on. i never had the slightest idea of retiring. i expect the church to do the retiring. _question_. what do you think of wendell phillips as an orator? _answer_. he was a very great orator--one of the greatest that the world has produced. he rendered immense service in the cause of freedom. he was in the old days the thunderbolt that pierced the shield of the constitution. one of the bravest soldiers that ever fought for human rights was wendell phillips. _question_. what do you think of the action of congress on fitz john porter? _answer_. i think congress did right. i think they should have taken this action long before. there was a question of his guilt, and he should have been given the benefit of a doubt. they say he could have defeated longstreet. there are some people, you know, who would have it that an army could be whipped by a good general with six mules and a blunderbuss. but we do not regard those people. they know no more about it than a lady who talked to me about porter's case. she argued the question of porter's guilt for half an hour. i showed her where she was all wrong. when she found she was beaten she took refuge with "oh, well, anyhow he had no genius." well, if every man is to be shot who has no genius, i want to go into the coffin business. _question_. what, in your judgment, is necessary to be done to insure republican success this fall? _answer_. it is only necessary for the republican party to stand by its principles. we must be in favor of protecting american labor not only, but of protecting american capital, and we must be in favor of civil rights, and must advocate the doctrine that the federal government must protect all citizens. i am in favor of a tariff, not simply to raise a revenue--that i regard as incidental. the democrats regard protection as incidental. the two principles should be, protection to american industry and protection to american citizens. so that, after all, there is but one issue--protection. as a matter of fact, that is all a government is for--to protect. the republican party is stronger to-day than it was four years ago. the republican party stands for the progressive ideas of the american people. it has been said that the administration will control the southern delegates. i do not believe it. this administration has not been friendly to the southern republicans, and my opinion is there will be as much division in the southern as in the northern states. i believe blaine will be a candidate, and i do not believe the prohibitionists will put a ticket in the field, because they have no hope of success. _question_. what do you think generally of the revival of the bloody shirt? do you think the investigations of the republicans of the danville and copiah massacres will benefit them? _answer_. well, i am in favor of the revival of that question just as often as a citizen of the republic is murdered on account of his politics. if the south is sick of that question, let it stop persecuting men because they are republicans. i do not believe, however, in simply investigating the question and then stopping after the guilty ones are found. i believe in indicting them, trying them, and convicting them. if the government can do nothing except investigate, we might as well stop, and admit that we have no government. thousands of people think that it is almost vulgar to take the part of the poor colored people in the south. what part should you take if not that of the weak? the strong do not need you. and i can tell the southern people now, that as long as they persecute for opinion's sake they will never touch the reins of political power in this country. _question_. how do you regard the action of bismarck in returning the lasker resolutions? was it the result of his hatred of the jews? _answer_. bismarck opposed a bill to do away with the disabilities of the jews on the ground that prussia is a christian nation, founded for the purpose of spreading the gospel of jesus christ. i presume that it was his hatred of the jews that caused him to return the resolutions. bismarck should have lived several centuries ago. he belongs to the dark ages. he is a believer in the sword and the bayonet--in brute force. he was loved by germany simply because he humiliated france. germany gave her liberty for revenge. it is only necessary to compare bismarck with gambetta to see what a failure he really is. germany was victorious and took from france the earnings of centuries; and yet germany is to-day the least prosperous nation in europe. france was prostrate, trampled into the earth, robbed, and yet, guided by gambetta, is to-day the most prosperous nation in europe. this shows the difference between brute force and brain. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, february , . general subjects. _question_. do you enjoy lecturing? _answer_. of course i enjoy lecturing. it is a great pleasure to drive the fiend of fear out of the hearts of men women and children. it is a positive joy to put out the fires of hell. _question_. where do you meet with the bitterest opposition? _answer_. i meet with the bitterest opposition where the people are the most ignorant, where there is the least thought, where there are the fewest books. the old theology is becoming laughable. very few ministers have the impudence to preach in the old way. they give new meanings to old words. they subscribe to the same creed, but preach exactly the other way. the clergy are ashamed to admit that they are orthodox, and they ought to be. _question_. do liberal books, such as the works of paine and infidel scientists sell well? _answer_. yes, they are about the only books on serious subjects that do sell well. the works of darwin, buckle, draper, haeckel, tyndall, humboldt and hundreds of others, are read by intelligent people the world over. works of a religious character die on the shelves. the people want facts. they want to know about the world, about all forms of life. they want the mysteries of every day solved. they want honest thoughts about sensible questions. they are tired of the follies of faith and the falsehoods of superstition. they want a heaven here. in a few years the old theological books will be sold to make paper on which to print the discoveries of science. _question_. in what section of the country do you find the most liberality? _answer_. i find great freedom of thought in boston, new york, chicago, san francisco, in fact, all over what we call the north. the west of course is liberal. the truth is that all the intelligent part of the country is liberal. the railroad, the telegraph, the daily paper, electric light, the telephone, and freedom of thought belong together. _question_. is it true that you were once threatened with a criminal prosecution for libel on religion? _answer_. yes, in delaware. chief justice comegys instructed the grand jury to indict me for blasphemy. i have taken by revenge on the state by leaving it in ignorance. delaware is several centuries behind the times. it is as bigoted as it is small. compare kansas city with wilmington and you will see the difference between liberalism and orthodoxy. _question_. this is washington's birthday. what do you think of general washington? _answer_. i suppose that washington was what was called religious. he was not very strict in his conduct. he tried to have church and state united in virginia and was defeated by jefferson. it should make no difference with us whether washington was religious or not. jefferson was by far the greater man. in intellect there was no comparison between washington and franklin. i do not prove the correctness of my ideas by names of dead people. i depend upon reason instead of gravestones. one fact is worth a cemetery full of distinguished corpses. we ask not for the belief of somebody, but for evidence, for facts. the church is a beggar at the door of respectability. the moment a man becomes famous, the church asks him for a certificate that the bible is true. it passes its hat before generals and presidents, and kings while they are alive. it says nothing about thinkers and real philosophers while they live, except to slander them, but the moment they are dead it seeks among their words for a crumb of comfort. _question_. will liberalism ever organize in america? _answer_. i hope not. organization means creed, and creed means petrifaction and tyranny. i believe in individuality. i will not join any society except an anti-society society. _question_. do you consider the religion of bhagavat purana of the east as good as the christian? _answer_. it is far more poetic. it has greater variety and shows vastly more thought. like the hebrew, it is poisoned with superstition, but it has more beauty. nothing can be more barren than the theology of the jews and christians. one lonely god, a heaven filled with thoughtless angels, a hell with unfortunate souls. nothing can be more desolate. the greek mythology is infinitely better. _question_. do you think that the marriage institution is held in less respect by infidels than by christians? _answer_. no; there was never a time when marriage was more believed in than now. never were wives treated better and loved more; never were children happier than now. it is the ambition of the average american to have a good and happy home. the fireside was never more popular than now. _question_. what do you think of beecher? _answer_. he is a great man, but the habit of his mind and the bent of his early education oppose his heart. he is growing and has been growing every day for many years. he has given up the idea of eternal punishment, and that of necessity destroys it all. the christian religion is founded upon hell. when the foundation crumbles the fabric falls. beecher was to have answered my article in the _north american review_, but when it appeared and he saw it, he agreed with so much of it that he concluded that an answer would be useless. --_the times_, kansas city, missouri, february , . reply to kansas city clergy. _question_. will you take any notice of mr. magrath's challenge? _answer_. i do not think it worth while to discuss with mr. magrath. i do not say this in disparagement of his ability, as i do not know the gentleman. he may be one of the greatest of men. i think, however, that mr. magrath might better answer what i have already said. if he succeeds in that, then i will meet him in public discussion. of course he is an eminent theologian or he would not think of discussing these questions with anybody. i have never heard of him, but for all that he may be the most intelligent of men. _question_. how have the recently expressed opinions of our local clergy impressed you? _answer_. i suppose you refer to the preachers who have given their opinion of me. in the first place i am obliged to them for acting as my agents. i think mr. hogan has been imposed upon. tacitus is a poor witness--about like josephus. i say again that we have not a word about christ written by any human being who lived in the time of christ--not a solitary word, and mr. hogan ought to know it. the rev. mr. matthews is mistaken. if the bible proves anything, it proves that the world was made in six days and that adam and eve were built on saturday. the bible gives the age of adam when he died, and then gives the ages of others down to the flood, and then from that time at least to the return from the captivity. if the genealogy of the bible is true it is about six thousand years since adam was made, and the world is only five days older than adam. it is nonsense to say that the days were long periods of time. if that is so, away goes the idea of sunday. the only reason for keeping sunday given in the bible is that god made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. mr. mathews is not candid. he knows that he cannot answer the arguments i have urged against the bible. he knows that the ancient jews were barbarians, and that the old testament is a barbarous book. he knows that it upholds slavery and polygamy, and he probably feels ashamed of what he is compelled to preach. mr. jardine takes a very cheerful view of the subject. he expects the light to dawn on the unbelievers. he speaks as though he were the superior of all infidels. he claims to be a student of the evidences of christianity. there are no evidences, consequently mr. jardine is a student of nothing. it is amazing how dignified some people can get on a small capital. mr. haley has sense enough to tell the ministers not to attempt to answer me. that is good advice. the ministers had better keep still. it is the safer way. if they try to answer what i say, the "sheep" will see how foolish the "shepherds" are. the best way is for them to say, "that has been answered." mr. wells agrees with mr. haley. he, too, thinks that silence is the best weapon. i agree with him. let the clergy keep still; that is the best way. it is better to say nothing than to talk absurdity. i am delighted to think that at last the ministers have concluded that they had better not answer infidels. mr. woods is fearful only for the young. he is afraid that i will hurt the children. he thinks that the mother ought to stoop over the cradle and in the ears of the babe shout, hell! so he thinks in all probability that the same word ought to be repeated at the grave as a consolation to mourners. i am glad that mr. mann thinks that i am doing neither good nor harm. this gives me great hope. if i do no harm, certainly i ought not to be eternally damned. it is very consoling to have an orthodox minister solemnly assert that i am doing no harm. i wish i could say as much for him. the truth is, all these ministers have kept back their real thoughts. they do not tell their doubts--they know that orthodoxy is doomed --they know that the old doctrine excites laughter and scorn. they know that the fires of hell are dying out; that the bible is ceasing to be an authority; and that the pulpit is growing feebler and feebler every day. poor parsons! _question_. would the catholicism of general sherman's family affect his chances for the presidency? _answer_. i do not think the religion of the family should have any weight one way or the other. it would make no difference with me; although i hate catholicism with all my heart, i do not hate catholics. some people might be so prejudiced that they would not vote for a man whose wife belongs to the catholic church; but such people are too narrow to be consulted. general sherman says that he wants no office. in that he shows his good sense. he is a great man and a great soldier. he has won laurels enough for one brow. he has the respect and admiration of the nation, and does not need the presidency to finish his career. he wishes to enjoy the honors he has won and the rest he deserves. _question_. what is your opinion of matthew arnold? _answer_. he is a man of talent, well educated, a little fussy, somewhat sentimental, but he is not a genius. he is not creative. he is a critic--not an originator. he will not compare with emerson. --_the journal_, kansas city, missouri, february , . swearing and affirming. _question_. what is the difference in the parliamentary oath of this country which saves us from such a squabble as they have had in england over the bradlaugh case? _answer_. our constitution provides that a member of congress may swear or affirm. the consequence is that we can have no such controversy as they have had in england. the framers of our constitution wished forever to divorce church and state. they knew that it made no possible difference whether a man swore or affirmed, or whether he swore and affirmed to support the constitution. all the federal officers who went into the rebellion had sworn or affirmed to support the constitution. all that did no good. the entire oath business is a mistake. i think it would be a thousand times better to abolish all oaths in courts of justice. the oath allows a rascal to put on the garments of solemnity, the mask of piety, while he tells a lie. in other words, the oath allows the villain to give falsehood the appearance of truth. i think it would be far better to let each witness tell his story and leave his evidence to the intelligence of the jury and judge. the trouble about an oath is that its tendency is to put all witnesses on an equality; the jury says, "why, he swore to it." now, if the oath were abolished, the jury would judge all testimony according to the witness, and then the evidence of one man of good reputation would outweigh the lies of thousands of nobodies. it was at one time believed that there was something miraculous in the oath, that it was a kind of thumbscrew that would torture the truth out of a rascal, and at one time they believed that if a man swore falsely he might be struck by lightning or paralyzed. but so many people have sworn to lies without having their health impaired that the old superstition has very little weight with the average witness. i think it would be far better to let every man tell his story; let him be cross-examined, let the jury find out as much as they can of his character, of his standing among his neighbors--then weigh his testimony in the scale of reason. the oath is born of superstition, and everything born of superstition is bad. the oath gives the lie currency; it gives it for the moment the ring of true metal, and the ordinary average juror is imposed upon and justice in many instances defeated. nothing can be more absurd than the swearing of a man to support the constitution. let him do what he likes. if he does not support the constitution, the probability is that his constituents will refuse to support him. every man who swears to support the constitution swears to support it as he understands it, and no two understand it exactly alike. now, if the oath brightened a man's intellect or added to his information or increased his patriotism or gave him a little more honesty, it would be a good thing--but it doesn't. and as a consequence it is a very useless and absurd proceeding. nothing amuses me more in a court than to see one calf kissing the tanned skin of another. --_the courier_, buffalo, new york, may , . reply to a buffalo critic. _question_. what have you to say in reply to the letter in to- day's _times_ signed r. h. s.? _answer_. i find that i am accused of "four flagrant wrongs," and while i am not as yet suffering from the qualms of conscience, nor do i feel called upon to confess and be forgiven, yet i have something to say in self-defence. as to the first objection made by your correspondent, namely, that my doctrine deprives people of the hope that after this life is ended they will meet their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, long since passed away, in the land beyond the grave, and there enjoy their company forever, i have this to say: if christianity is true we are not quite certain of meeting our relatives and friends where we can enjoy their company forever. if christianity is true most of our friends will be in hell. the ones i love best and whose memory i cherish will certainly be among the lost. the trouble about christianity is that it is infinitely selfish. each man thinks that if he can save his own little, shriveled, microscopic soul, that is enough. no matter what becomes of the rest. christianity has no consolation for a generous man. i do not wish to go to heaven if the ones who have given me joy are to be lost. i would much rather go with them. the only thing that makes life endurable in this world is human love, and yet, according to christianity, that is the very thing we are not to have in the other world. we are to be so taken up with jesus and the angels, that we shall care nothing about our brothers and sisters that have been damned. we shall be so carried away with the music of the harp that we shall not even hear the wail of father or mother. such a religion is a disgrace to human nature. as to the second objection,--that society cannot be held together in peace and good order without hell and a belief in eternal torment, i would ask why an infinitely wise and good god should make people of so poor and mean a character that society cannot be held together without scaring them. is it possible that god has so made the world that the threat of eternal punishment is necessary for the preservation of society? the writer of the letter also says that it is necessary to believe that if a man commits murder here he is destined to be punished in hell for the offence. this is christianity. yet nearly every murderer goes directly from the gallows to god. nearly every murderer takes it upon himself to lecture the assembled multitude who have gathered to see him hanged, and invite them to meet him in heaven. when the rope is about his neck he feels the wings growing. that is the trouble with the christian doctrine. every murderer is told he may repent and go to heaven, and have the happiness of seeing his victim in hell. should heaven at any time become dull, the vein of pleasure can be re-thrilled by the sight of his victim wriggling on the gridiron of god's justice. really, christianity leads men to sin on credit. it sells rascality on time and tells all the devils they can have the benefit of the gospel bankrupt act. the next point in the letter is that i do not preach for the benefit of mankind, but for the money which is the price of blood. of course it makes no difference whether i preach for money or not. that is to say, it makes no difference to the preached. the arguments i advance are either good or bad. if they are bad they can easily be answered by argument. if they are not they cannot be answered by personalities or by ascribing to me selfish motives. it is not a personal matter. it is a matter of logic, of sense-- not a matter of slander, vituperation or hatred. the writer of the letter, r. h. s., may be an exceedingly good person, yet that will add no weight to his or her argument. he or she may be a very bad person, but that would not weaken the logic of the letter, if it had any logic to begin with. it is not for me to say what my motives are in what i do or say; it must be left to the judgment of mankind. i presume i am about as bad as most folks, and as good as some, but my goodness or badness has nothing to do with the question. i may have committed every crime in the world, yet that does not make the story of the flood reasonable, nor does it even tend to show that the three gentlemen in the furnace were not scorched. i may be the best man in the world, yet that does not go to prove that jonah was swallowed by the whale. let me say right here that if there is another world i believe that every soul who finds the way to that shore will have an everlasting opportunity to do right--of reforming. my objection to christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and i might add infinitely absurd. i deprive no one of any hope unless you call the expectation of eternal pain a hope. _question_. have you read the rev. father lambert's "notes on ingersoll," and if so, what have you to say of them or in reply to them? _answer_. i have read a few pages or paragraphs of that pamphlet, and do not feel called upon to say anything. mr. lambert has the same right to publish his ideas that i have, and the readers must judge. people who believe his way will probably think that he has succeeded in answering me. after all, he must leave the public to decide. i have no anxiety about the decision. day by day the people are advancing, and in a little while the sacred superstitions of to-day will be cast aside with the foolish myths and fables of the pagan world. as a matter of fact there can be no argument in favor of the supernatural. suppose you should ask if i had read the work of that gentleman who says that twice two are five. i should answer you that no gentleman can prove that twice two are five; and yet this is exactly as easy as to prove the existence of the supernatural. there are no arguments in favor of the supernatural. there are theories and fears and mistakes and prejudices and guesses, but no arguments--plenty of faith, but no facts; plenty of divine revelation, but no demonstration. the supernatural, in my judgment, is a mistake. i believe in the natural. --_the times_, buffalo, new york, may , . blasphemy.* [* "if robert g. ingersoll indulges in blasphemy to-night in his lecture, as he has in other places and in this city before, he will be arrested before he leaves the city." so spoke rev. irwin h. torrence, general secretary of the pennsylvania bible society, yesterday afternoon to a _press_ reporter. "we have consulted counsel; the law is with us, and ingersoll has but to do what he has done before, to find himself in a cell. here is the act of march , : "'if any person shall willfully, premeditatedly and despitefully blaspheme or speak loosely and profanely of almighty god, christ jesus, the holy spirit, or the scriptures of truth, such person, on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, and undergo an imprisonment not exceeding three months, or either, at the discretion of the court.'" last evening colonel ingersoll sat in the dining room at guy's hotel, just in from new york city. when told of the plans of mr. torrence and his friends, he laughed and said: ] i did not suppose that anybody was idiotic enough to want me arrested for blasphemy. it seems to me that an infinite being can take care of himself without the aid of any agent of a bible society. perhaps it is wrong for me to be here while the methodist conference is in session. of course no one who differs from the methodist ministers should ever visit philadelphia while they are here. i most humbly hope to be forgiven. _question_. what do you think of the law of ? _answer_. it is exceedingly foolish. surely, there is no need for the legislature of pennsylvania to protect an infinite god, and why should the bible be protected by law? the most ignorant priest can hold darwin up to orthodox scorn. this talk of the rev. mr. torrence shows that my lectures are needed; that religious people do not know what real liberty is. i presume that the law of is an old one re-enacted. it is a survival of ancient ignorance and bigotry, and no one in the legislature thought it worth while to fight it. it is the same as the law against swearing, both are dead letters and amount to nothing. they are not enforced and should not be. public opinion will regulate such matters. if all who take the name of god in vain were imprisoned there would not be room in the jails to hold the ministers. they speak of god in the most flippant and snap-your-fingers way that can be conceived of. they speak to him as though he were an intimate chum, and metaphorically slap him on the back in the most familiar way possible. _question_. have you ever had any similar experiences before? _answer_. oh, yes--threats have been made, but i never was arrested. when mr. torrence gets cool he will see that he has made a mistake. people in philadelphia have been in the habit of calling the citizens of boston bigots--but there is more real freedom of thought and expression in boston than in almost any other city of the world. i think that as i am to suffer in hell forever, mr. torrence ought to be satisfied and let me have a good time here. he can amuse himself through all eternity by seeing me in hell, and that ought to be enough to satisfy, not only an agent, but the whole bible society. i never expected any trouble in this state, and most sincerely hope that mr. torrence will not trouble me and make the city a laughing stock. philadelphia has no time to waste in such foolish things. let the bible take its chances with other books. let everybody feel that he has the right freely to express his opinions, provided he is decent and kind about it. certainly the christians now ought to treat infidels as well as penn did indians. nothing could be more perfectly idiotic than in this day and generation to prosecute any man for giving his conclusions upon any religious subject. mr. torrence would have had huxley and haeckel and tyndall arrested; would have had humboldt and john stuart mill and harriet martineau and george eliot locked up in the city jail. mr. torrence is a fossil from the old red sandstone of a mistake. let him rest. to hear these people talk you would suppose that god is some petty king, some liliputian prince, who was about to be dethroned, and who was nearly wild for recruits. _question_. but what would you do if they should make an attempt to arrest you? _answer_. nothing, except to defend myself in court. --_philadelphia press_, may , . politics and british columbia. _question_. i understand that there was some trouble in connection with your lecture in victoria, b. c. what are the facts? _answer_. the published accounts, as circulated by the associated press, were greatly exaggerated. the affair was simply this: the authorities endeavored to prevent the lecture. they refused the license, on the ground that the theatre was unsafe, although it was on the ground floor, had many exits and entrances, not counting the windows. the theatre was changed to meet the objections of the fire commissioner, and the authorities expressed their satisfaction and issued the license. afterward further objection was raised, and on the night of the lecture, when the building was about two- thirds full, the police appeared and said that the lecture would not be allowed to be delivered, because the house was unsafe. after a good deal of talk, the policeman in authority said that there should be another door, whereupon my friends, in a few minutes, made another door with an ax and a saw, the crowd was admitted and the lecture was delivered. the audience was well-behaved, intelligent and appreciative. beyond some talking in the hall, and the natural indignation of those who had purchased tickets and were refused admittance, there was no disturbance. i understand that those who opposed the lecture are now heartily ashamed of the course pursued. _question_. are you going to take any part in the campaign? _answer_. it is not my intention to make any political speeches. i have made a good many in the past, and, in my judgment, have done my part. i have no other interest in politics than every citizen should have. i want that party to triumph which, in my judgment, represents the best interests of the country. i have no doubt about the issue of the election. i believe that mr. blaine will be the next president. but there are plenty of talkers, and i really think that i have earned a vacation. _question_. what do you think cleveland's chances are in new york? _answer_. at this distance it is hard to say. the recent action of tammany complicates matters somewhat. but my opinion is that blaine will carry the state. i had a letter yesterday from that state, giving the opinion of a gentleman well informed, that blaine would carry new york by no less than fifty thousand majority. _question_. what figure will butler cut in the campaign? _answer_. i hardly think that butler will have many followers on the th of november. his forces will gradually go to one side or the other. it is only when some great principle is at stake that thousands of men are willing to vote with a known minority. _question_. but what about the prohibitionists? _answer_. they have a very large following. they are fighting for something they believe to be of almost infinite consequence, and i can readily understand how a prohibitionist is willing to be in the minority. it may be well enough for me to say here, that my course politically is not determined by my likes or dislikes of individuals. i want to be governed by principles, not persons. if i really thought that in this campaign a real principle was at stake, i should take part. the only great question now is protection, and i am satisfied that it is in no possible danger. _question_. not even in the case of a democratic victory? _answer_. not even in the event of a democratic victory. no state in the union is for free trade. every free trader has an exception. these exceptions combined, control the tariff legislation of this country, and if the democrats were in power to-day, with the control of the house and senate and executive, the exceptions would combine and protect protection. as long as the federal government collects taxes or revenue on imports, just so long these revenues will be arranged to protect home manufactures. _question_. you said that if there were a great principle at stake, you would take part in the campaign. you think, then, that there is no great principle involved? _answer_. if it were a matter of personal liberty, i should take part. if the republican party had stood by the civil rights bill, i should have taken part in the present campaign. _question_. still, i suppose we can count on you as a republican? _answer_. certainly, i am a republican. --_evening post_, san francisco, california, september , . ingersoll catechised. _question_. does christianity advance or retard civilization? _answer_. if by christianity you mean the orthodox church, then i unhesitatingly answer that it does retard civilization, always has retarded it, and always will. i can imagine no man who can be benefitted by being made a catholic or a presbyterian or a baptist or a methodist--or, in other words, by being made an orthodox christian. but by christianity i do not mean morality, kindness, forgiveness, justice. those virtues are not distinctively christian. they are claimed by mohammedans and buddhists, by infidels and atheists--and practiced by some of all classes. christianity consists of the miraculous, the marvelous, and the impossible. the one thing that i most seriously object to in christianity is the doctrine of eternal punishment. that doctrine subverts every idea of justice. it teaches the infinite absurdity that a finite offence can be justly visited by eternal punishment. another serious objection i have is, that christianity endeavors to destroy intellectual liberty. nothing is better calculated to retard civilization than to subvert the idea of justice. nothing is better calculated to retain barbarism than to deny to every human being the right to think. justice and liberty are the two wings that bear man forward. the church, for a thousand years, did all within its power to prevent the expression of honest thought; and when the church had power, there was in this world no civilization. we have advanced just in the proportion that christianity has lost power. those nations in which the church is still powerful are still almost savage--portugal, spain, and many others i might name. probably no country is more completely under the control of the religious idea than russia. the czar is the direct representative of god. he is the head of the church, as well as of the state. in russia every mouth is a bastille and every tongue a convict. this russian pope, this representative of god, has on earth his hell (siberia), and he imitates the orthodox god to the extent of his health and strength. everywhere man advances as the church loses power. in my judgment, ireland can never succeed until it ceases to be catholic; and there can be no successful uprising while the confessional exists. at one time in new england the church had complete power. there was then no religious liberty. and so we might make a tour of the world, and find that superstition always has been, is, and forever will be, inconsistent with human advancement. _question_. do not the evidences of design in the universe prove a creator? _answer_. if there were any evidences of design in the universe, certainly they would tend to prove a designer, but they would not prove a creator. design does not prove creation. a man makes a machine. that does not prove that he made the material out of which the machine is constructed. you find the planets arranged in accordance with what you call a plan. that does not prove that they were created. it may prove that they are governed, but it certainly does not prove that they were created. is it consistent to say that a design cannot exist without a designer, but that a designer can? does not a designer need a design as much as a design needs a designer? does not a creator need a creator as much as the thing we think has been created? in other words, is not this simply a circle of human ignorance? why not say that the universe has existed from eternity, as well as to say that a creator has existed from eternity? and do you not thus avoid at least one absurdity by saying that the universe has existed from eternity, instead of saying that it was created by a creator who existed from eternity? because if your creator existed from eternity, and created the universe, there was a time when he commenced; and back of that, according to shelley, is "an eternity of idleness." some people say that god existed from eternity, and has created eternity. it is impossible to conceive of an act co-equal with eternity. if you say that god has existed forever, and has always acted, then you make the universe eternal, and you make the universe as old as god; and if the universe be as old as god, he certainly did not create it. these questions of origin and destiny--of infinite gods--are beyond the powers of the human mind. they cannot be solved. we might as well try to travel fast enough to get beyond the horizon. it is like a man trying to run away from his girdle. consequently, i believe in turning our attention to things of importance--to questions that may by some possibility be solved. it is of no importance to me whether god exists or not. i exist, and it is important to me to be happy while i exist. therefore i had better turn my attention to finding out the secret of happiness, instead of trying to ascertain the secret of the universe. i say with regard to god, i do not know; and therefore i am accused of being arrogant and egotistic. religious papers say that i do know, because webster told me. they use webster as a witness to prove the divinity of christ. they say that webster was on the god side, and therefore i ought to be. i can hardly afford to take webster's ideas of another world, when his ideas about this were so bad. when bloodhounds were pursuing a woman through the tangled swamps of the south--she hungry for liberty--webster took the side of the bloodhounds. such a man is no authority for me. bacon denied the copernican system of astronomy; he is an unsafe guide. wesley believed in witches; i cannot follow him. no man should quote a name instead of an argument; no man should bring forward a person instead of a principle, unless he is willing to accept all the ideas of that person. _question_. is not a pleasant illusion preferable to a dreary truth--a future life being in question? _answer_. i think it is. i think that a pleasing illusion is better then a terrible truth, so far as its immediate results are concerned. i would rather think the one i love living, than to think her dead. i would rather think that i had a large balance in bank than that my account was overdrawn. i would rather think i was healthy than to know that i had a cancer. but if we have an illusion, let us have it pleasing. the orthodox illusion is the worst that can possibly be conceived. take hell out of that illusion, take eternal pain away from that dream, and say that the whole world is to be happy forever--then you might have an excuse for calling it a pleasant illusion; but it is, in fact, a nightmare --a perpetual horror--a cross, on which the happiness of man has been crucified. _question_. are not religion and morals inseparable? _answer_. religion and morality have nothing in common, and yet there is no religion except the practice of morality. but what you call religion is simply superstition. religion as it is now taught teaches our duties toward god--our obligations to the infinite, and the results of a failure to discharge those obligations. i believe that we are under no obligations to the infinite; that we cannot be. all our obligations are to each other, and to sentient beings. "believe in the lord jesus christ, and thou shalt be saved," has nothing to do with morality. "do unto other as ye would that others should do unto you" has nothing to do with believing in the lord jesus christ. baptism has nothing to do with morality. "pay your honest debts." that has nothing to do with baptism. what is called religion is simple superstition, with which morality has nothing to do. the churches do not prevent people from committing natural offences, but restrain them from committing artificial ones. as for instance, the catholic church can prevent one of its members from eating meat on friday, but not from whipping his wife. the episcopal church can prevent dancing, it may be, in lent, but not slander. the presbyterian can keep a man from working on sunday, but not from practicing deceit on monday. and so i might go through the churches. they lay the greater stress upon the artificial offences. those countries that are the most religious are the most immoral. when the world was under the control of the catholic church, it reached the very pit of immorality, and nations have advanced in morals just in proportion that they have lost christianity. _question_. it is frequently asserted that there is nothing new in your objections against christianity. what is your reply to such assertions? _answer_. of course, the editors of religious papers will say this; christians will say this. in my opinion, an argument is new until it has been answered. an argument is absolutely fresh, and has upon its leaves the dew of morning, until it has been refuted. all men have experienced, it may be, in some degree, what we call love. millions of men have written about it. the subject is of course old. it is only the presentation that can be new. thousands of men have attacked superstition. the subject is old, but the manner in which the facts are handled, the arguments grouped--these may be forever new. millions of men have preached christianity. certainly there is nothing new in the original ideas. nothing can be new except the presentation, the grouping. the ideas may be old, but they may be clothed in new garments of passion; they may be given additional human interest. a man takes a fact, or an old subject, as a sculptor takes a rock; the rock is not new. of this rock he makes a statue; the statue is new. and yet some orthodox man might say there is nothing new about that statue: "i know the man that dug the rock; i know the owner of the quarry." substance is eternal; forms are new. so in the human mind certain ideas, or in the human heart certain passions, are forever old; but genius forever gives them new forms, new meanings; and this is the perpetual originality of genius. _question_. do you consider that churches are injurious to the community? _answer_. in the exact proportion that churches teach falsehood; in the exact proportion that they destroy liberty of thought, the free action of the human mind; in the exact proportion that they teach the doctrine of eternal pain, and convince people of its truth--they are injurious. in the proportion that they teach morality and justice, and practice kindness and charity--in that proportion they are a benefit. every church, therefore, is a mixed problem--part good and part bad. in one direction it leads toward and sheds light; in the other direction its influence is entirely bad. now, i would like to civilize the churches, so that they will be able to do good deeds without building bad creeds. in other words, take out the superstitious and the miraculous, and leave the human and the moral. _question_. why do you not respond to the occasional clergyman who replies to your lectures? _answer_. in the first place, no clergyman has ever replied to my lectures. in the second place, no clergyman ever will reply to my lectures. he does not answer my arguments--he attacks me; and the replies that i have seen are not worth answering. they are far below the dignity of the question under discussion. most of them are ill-mannered, as abusive as illogical, and as malicious as weak. i cannot reply without feeling humiliated. i cannot use their weapons, and my weapons they do not understand. i attack christianity because it is cruel, and they account for all my actions by putting behind them base motives. they make it at once a personal question. they imagine that epithets are good enough arguments with which to answer an infidel. a few years ago they would have imprisoned me. a few years before that they would have burned me. we have advanced. now they only slander; and i congratulate myself on the fact that even that is not believed. ministers do not believe each other about each other. the truth has never yet been ascertained in any trial by a church. the longer the trial lasts, the obscurer is the truth. they will not believe each other, even on oath; and one of the most celebrated ministers of this country has publicly announced that there is no use in answering a lie started by his own church; that if he does answer it--if he does kill it--forty more lies will come to the funeral. in this connection we must remember that the priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. is this because priests instinctively know priests? now, when a christian tells a buddhist some of the miracles of the testament, the buddhist smiles. when a buddhist tells a christian the miracles performed by buddha, the christian laughs. this reminds me of an incident. a man told a most wonderful story. everybody present expressed surprise and astonishment, except one man. he said nothing; he did not even change countenance. one who noticed that the story had no effect on this man, said to him: "you do not seem to be astonished in the least at this marvelous tale." the man replied, "no; i am a liar myself." you see, i am not trying to answer individual ministers. i am attacking the whole body of superstition. i am trying to kill the entire dog, and i do not feel like wasting any time killing fleas on that dog. when the dog dies, the fleas will be out of provisions, and in that way we shall answer them all at once. so, i do not bother myself answering religious newspapers. in the first place, they are not worth answering; and in the second place, to answer would only produce a new crop of falsehoods. you know, the editor of a religious newspaper, as a rule, is one who has failed in the pulpit; and you can imagine the brains necessary to edit a religious weekly from this fact. i have known some good religious editors. by some i mean one. i do not say that there are not others, but i do say i do not know them. i might add, here, that the one i did know is dead. since i have been in this city there have been some "replies" to me. they have been almost idiotic. a catholic priest asked me how i had the impudence to differ with newton. newton, he says, believed in a god; and i ask this catholic priest how he has the impudence to differ with newton. newton was a protestant. this simply shows the absurdity of using men's names for arguments. this same priest proves the existence of god by a pagan orator. is it possible that god's last witness died with cicero? if it is necessary to believe in a god now, the witnesses ought to be on hand now. another man, pretending to answer me, quotes le conte, a geologist; and according to this geologist we are "getting very near to the splendors of the great white throne." where is the great white throne? can any one, by studying geology, find the locality of the great white throne? to what stratum does it belong? in what geologic period was the great white throne formed? what on earth has geology to do with the throne of god? the truth is, there can be no reply to the argument that man should be governed by his reason; that he should depend upon observation and experience; that he should use the faculties he has for his own benefit, and the benefit of his fellow-man. there is no answer. it is not within the power of man to substantiate the supernatural. it is beyond the power of evidence. _question_. why do the theological seminaries find it difficult to get students? _answer_. i was told last spring, at new haven, that the "theologs," as they call the young men there being fitted for the ministry, were not regarded as intellectual by all the other students. the orthodox pulpit has no rewards for genius. it has rewards only for stupidity, for belief--not for investigation, not for thought; and the consequence is that young men of talent avoid the pulpit. i think i heard the other day that of all the students at harvard only nine are preparing for the ministry. the truth is, the ministry is not regarded as an intellectual occupation. the average church now consists of women and children. men go to please their wives, or stay at home and subscribe to please their wives; and the wives are beginning to think, and many of them are staying at home. many of them now prefer the theatre or the opera or the park or the seashore or the forest or the companionship of their husbands and children at home. _question_. how does the religious state of california compare with the rest of the union? _answer_. i find that sensible people everywhere are about the same, and the proportion of freethinkers depends on the proportion of sensible folks. i think that california has her full share of sensible people. i find everywhere the best people and the brightest people--the people with the most heart and the best brain--all tending toward free thought. of course, a man of brain cannot believe the miracles of the old and new testaments. a man of heart cannot believe in the doctrine of eternal pain. we have found that other religions are like ours, with precisely the same basis, the same idiotic miracles, the same christ or saviour. it will hardly do to say that all others like ours are false, and ours the only true one, when others substantially like it are thousands of years older. we have at last found that a religion is simply an effort on the part of man to account for what he sees, what he experiences, what he feels, what he fears, and what he hopes. every savage has his philosophy. that is his religion and his science. the religions of to-day are the sciences of the past; and it may be that the sciences of to-day will be the religions of the future, and that other sciences will be as far beyond them as the science of to-day is beyond the religion of to-day. as a rule, religion is a sanctified mistake, and heresy a slandered fact. in other words, the human mind grows--and as it grows it abandons the old, and the old gets its revenge by maligning the new. --_the san franciscan_, san francisco, october , . blaine's defeat. _question_. colonel, the fact that you took no part in the late campaign, is a subject for general comment, and knowing your former enthusiastic advocacy and support of blaine, the people are somewhat surprised, and would like to know why? _answer_. in the first place, it was generally supposed that blaine needed no help. his friends were perfectly confident. they counted on a very large catholic support. the irish were supposed to be spoiling to vote for blaine and logan. all the protestant ministers were also said to be solid for the ticket. under these circumstances it was hardly prudent for me to say much. i was for blaine in . in i was for garfield, and in i was for gresham or harlan. i believed then and i believe now that either one of these men could have been elected. blaine is an exceedingly able man, but he made some mistakes and some very unfortunate utterances. i took no part in the campaign; first, because there was no very important issue, no great principle at stake, and second, i thought that i had done enough, and, third, because i wanted to do something else. _question_. what, in your opinion, were the causes for blaine's defeat? _answer_. first, because of dissension in the party. second, because party ties have grown weak. third, the prohibition vote. fourth, the delmonico dinner--too many rich men. fifth, the rev. dr. burchard with his rum, romanism and rebellion. sixth, giving too much attention to ohio and not enough to new york. seventh, the unfortunate remark of mr. blaine, that "the state cannot get along without the church." eighth, the weakness of the present administration. ninth, the abandonment by the party of the colored people of the south. tenth, the feeling against monopolies, and not least, a general desire for a change. _question_. what, in your opinion, will be the result of cleveland's election and administration upon the general political and business interests of the country? _answer_. the business interests will take care of themselves. a dollar has the instinct of self-preservation largely developed. the tariff will take care of itself. no state is absolutely for free trade. in each state there is an exception. the exceptions will combine, as they always have. michigan will help pennsylvania take care of iron, if pennsylvania will help michigan take care of salt and lumber. louisiana will help pennsylvania and michigan if they help her take care of sugar. colorado, california and ohio will help the other states if they will help them about wool--and so i might make a tour of the states, ending with vermont and maple sugar. i do not expect that cleveland will do any great harm. the democrats want to stay in power, and that desire will give security for good behavior. _question_. will he listen to or grant any demands made of him by the alleged independent republicans of new york, either in his appointments or policies? _answer_. of this i know nothing. the independents--from what i know of them--will be too modest to claim credit or to ask office. they were actuated by pure principle. they did what they did to purify the party, so that they could stay in it. now that it has been purified they will remain, and hate the democratic party as badly as ever. i hardly think that cleveland would insult their motives by offering loaves and fishes. all they desire is the approval of their own consciences. --_the commonwealth_, topeka, kansas, november , . blaine's defeat. _question_. how do you account for the defeat of mr. blaine? _answer_. how do i account for the defeat of mr. blaine? i will answer: st. john, the independents, burchard, butler and cleveland did it. the truth is that during the war a majority of the people, counting those in the south, were opposed to putting down the rebellion by force. it is also true that when the proclamation of emancipation was issued a majority of the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it, and it is also true that when the colored people were made citizens a majority of the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it. now, while, in my judgment, an overwhelming majority of the whole people have honestly acquiesced in the result of the war, and are now perfectly loyal to the union, and have also acquiesced in the abolition of slavery, i doubt very much whether they are really in favor of giving the colored man the right to vote. of course they have not the power now to take that right away, but they feel anything but kindly toward the party that gave the colored man that right. that is the only result of the war that is not fully accepted by the south and by many democrats of the north. another thing, the republican party was divided--divided too by personal hatreds. the party was greatly injured by the decision of the supreme court in which the civil rights bill was held void. now, a great many men who kept with the republican party, did so because they believed that that party would protect the colored man in the south, but as soon as the court decided that all the laws passed were unconstitutional, these men felt free to vote for the other side, feeling that it would make no difference. they reasoned this way: if the republican party cannot defend the colored people, why make a pretence that excites hatred on one side and disarms the other? if the colored people have to depend upon the state for protection, and the federal government cannot interfere, why say any more about it? i think that these men made a mistake and our party made a mistake in accepting without protest a decision that was far worse than the one delivered in the case of dred scott. by accepting this decision the most important issue was abandoned. the republican party must take the old ground that it is the duty of the federal government to protect the citizens, and that it cannot simply leave that duty to the state. it must see to it that the state performs that duty. _question_. have you seen the published report that dorsey claims to have paid you one hundred thousand dollars for your services in the star route cases? _answer_. i have seen the report, but dorsey never said anything like that. _question_. is there no truth in the statement, then? _answer_. well, dorsey never said anything of the kind. _question_. then you do not deny that you received such an enormous fee? _answer_. all i say is that dorsey did not say i did.* --_the commercial_, louisville, kentucky, october , . [* col. ingersoll has been so criticised and maligned for defending mr. dorsey in the star route cases, and so frequently charged with having received an enormous fee, that i think it but simple justice to his memory to say that he received no such fee, and that the ridiculously small sums he did receive were much more than offset by the amount he had to pay as indorser of mr. dorsey's paper. --c. f. farrell.] plagiarism and politics. _question_. what have you to say about the charges published in this morning's _herald_ to the effect that you copied your lecture about "mistakes of moses" from a chapter bearing the same title in a book called hittell's "evidences against christianity"? _answer_. all i have to say is that the charge is utterly false. i will give a thousand dollars reward to any one who will furnish a book published before my lecture, in which that lecture can be found. it is wonderful how malicious the people are who love their enemies. this charge is wholly false, as all others of like nature are. i do not have to copy the writings of others. the christians do not seem to see that they are constantly complimenting me by saying that what i write is so good that i must have stolen it. poor old orthodoxy! _question_. what is your opinion of the incoming administration, and how will it affect the country? _answer_. i feel disposed to give cleveland a chance. if he does the fair thing, then it is the duty of all good citizens to say so. i do not expect to see the whole country go to destruction because the democratic party is in power. neither do i believe that business is going to suffer on that account. the times are hard, and i fear will be much harder, but they would have been substantially the same if blaine had been elected. i wanted the republican party to succeed and fully expected to see mr. blaine president, but i believe in making the best of what has happened. i want no office, i want good government--wise legislation. i believe in protection, but i want the present tariff reformed and i hope the democrats will be wise enough to do so. _question_. how will the democratic victory affect the colored people in the south? _answer_. certainly their condition will not be worse than it has been. the supreme court decided that the civil rights bill was unconstitutional and that the federal government cannot interfere. that was a bad decision and our party made a mistake in not protesting against it. i believe it to be the duty of the federal government to protect all its citizens, at home as well as abroad. my hope is that there will be a division in the democratic party. that party has something now to divide. at last it has a bone, and probably the fighting will commence. i hope that some new issue will take color out of politics, something about which both white and colored may divide. of course nothing would please me better than to see the democratic party become great and grand enough to give the colored people their rights. _question_. why did you not take part in the campaign? _answer_. well, i was afraid of frightening the preachers away. i might have done good by scaring one, but i did not know burchard until it was too late. seriously, i did not think that i was needed. i supposed that blaine had a walkover, that he was certain to carry new york. i had business of my own to attend to and did not want to interfere with the campaign. _question_. what do you think of the policy of nominating blaine in , as has been proposed? _answer_. i think it too early to say what will be done in . parties do not exist for one man. parties have certain ends in view and they choose men as instruments to accomplish these ends. parties belong to principles, not persons. no party can afford to follow anybody. if in mr. blaine should appear to be the best man for the party then he will be nominated, otherwise not. i know nothing about any intention to nominate him again and have no idea whether he has that ambition. the whig party was intensely loyal to henry clay and forgot the needs of the country, and allowed the democrats to succeed with almost unknown men. parties should not belong to persons, but persons should belong to parties. let us not be too previous--let us wait. _question_. what do you think of the course pursued by the rev. drs. ball and burchard? _answer_. in politics the preacher is somewhat dangerous. he has a standard of his own; he has queer ideas of evidence, great reliance on hearsay; he is apt to believe things against candidates, just because he wants to. the preacher thinks that all who differ with him are instigated by the devil--that their intentions are evil, and that when they behave themselves they are simply covering the poison with sugar. it would have been far better for the country if mr. ball had kept still. i do not pretend to say that his intentions were not good. he likely thought it his duty to lift a warning voice, to bawl aloud and to spare not, but i think he made a mistake, and he now probably thinks so himself. mr. burchard was bound to say a smart thing. it sounded well, and he allowed his ears to run away with his judgment. as a matter of fact, there is no connection between rum and romanism. catholic countries do not use as much alcohol as protestant. england has far more drunkards than spain. scotland can discount italy or portugal in good, square drinking. so there is no connection between romanism and rebellion. ten times as many methodists and twenty times as many baptists went into the rebellion as catholics. thousands of catholics fought as bravely as protestants for the preservation of the union. no doubt mr. burchard intended well. he thought he was giving blaine a battle-cry that would send consternation into the hearts of the opposition. my opinion is that in the next campaign the preachers will not be called to the front. of course they have the same right to express their views that other people have, but other people have the right to avoid the responsibility of appearing to agree with them. i think though that it is about time to let up on burchard. he has already unloaded on the lord. _question_. do you think cleveland will put any southern men in his cabinet? _answer_. i do. nothing could be in worse taste than to ignore the section that gave him three-fourths of his vote. the people have put the democratic party in power. they intended to do what they did, and why should the south not be recognized? garland would make a good attorney-general; lamar has the ability to fill any position in the cabinet. i could name several others well qualified, and i suppose that two or three southern men will be in the cabinet. if they are good enough to elect a president they are good enough to be selected by a president. _question_. what do you think of mr. conkling's course? _answer_. mr. conkling certainly had the right to keep still. he was under no obligation to the party. the republican papers have not tried to secure his services. he has been very generally and liberally denounced ever since his quarrel with mr. garfield, and it is only natural to resent what a man feels to be an injustice. i suppose he has done what he honestly thought was, under the circumstances, his duty. i believe him to be a man of stainless integrity, and he certainly has as much independence of character as one man can carry. it is time to put the party whip away. people can be driven from, but not to, the republican party. if we expect to win in we must welcome recruits. --_the plain dealer_, cleveland, ohio, dec. , . religious prejudice. _question_. will a time ever come when political campaigns will be conducted independently of religious prejudice? _answer_. as long as men are prejudiced, they will probably be religious, and certainly as long as they are religious they will be prejudiced, and every religionist who imagines the next world infinitely more important than this, and who imagines that he gets his orders from god instead of from his own reason, or from his fellow-citizens, and who thinks that he should do something for the glory of god instead of for the benefit of his fellow-citizens --just as long as they believe these things, just so long their prejudices will control their votes. every good, ignorant, orthodox christian places his bible above laws and constitutions. every good, sincere and ignorant catholic puts pope above king and president, as well as above the legally expressed will of a majority of his countrymen. every christian believes god to be the source of all authority. i believe that the authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed. man is the source of power, and to protect and increase human happiness should be the object of government. i think that religious prejudices are growing weaker because religious belief is growing weaker. and these prejudices --should men ever become really civilized--will finally fade away. i think that a presbyterian, to-day, has no more prejudice against an atheist than he has against a catholic. a catholic does not dislike an infidel any more than he does a presbyterian, and i believe, to-day, that most of the presbyterians would rather see and atheist president than a pronounced catholic. _question_. is agnosticism gaining ground in the united states? _answer_. of course, there are thousands and thousands of men who have now advanced intellectually to the point of perceiving the limit of human knowledge. in other words, at last they are beginning to know enough to know what can and cannot be known. sensible men know that nobody knows whether an infinite god exists or not. sensible men know that an infinite personality cannot, by human testimony, be established. sensible men are giving up trying to answer the questions of origin and destiny, and are paying more attention to what happens between these questions--that is to say, to this world. infidelity increases as knowledge increases, as fear dies, and as the brain develops. after all, it is a question of intelligence. only cunning performs a miracle, only ignorance believes it. _question_. do you think that evolution and revealed religion are compatible--that is to say, can a man be an evolutionist and a christian? _answer_. evolution and christianity may be compatible, provided you take the ground that christianity is only one of the links in the chain, one of the phases of civilization. but if you mean by christianity what is generally understood, of course that and evolution are absolutely incompatible. christianity pretends to be not only the truth, but, so far as religion is concerned, the whole truth. christianity pretends to give a history of religion and a prophecy of destiny. as a philosophy, it is an absolute failure. as a history, it is false. there is no possible way by which darwin and moses can be harmonized. there is an inexpressible conflict between christianity and science, and both cannot long inhabit the same brain. you cannot harmonize evolution and the atonement. the survival of the fittest does away with original sin. _question_. from your knowledge of the religious tendency in the united states, how long will orthodox religion be popular? _answer_. i do not think that orthodox religion is popular to-day. the ministers dare not preach the creed in all its naked deformity and horror. they are endeavoring with the vines of sentiment to cover up the caves and dens in which crawl the serpents of their creed. very few ministers care now to speak of eternal pain. they leave out the lake of fire and brimstone. they are not fond of putting in the lips of christ the loving words, "depart from me, ye cursed." the miracles are avoided. in short, what is known as orthodoxy is already unpopular. most ministers are endeavoring to harmonize what they are pleased to call science and christianity, and nothing is now so welcome to the average christian as some work tending to show that, after all, joshua was an astronomer. _question_. what section of the united states, east, west, north, or south, is the most advanced in liberal religious ideas? _answer_. that section of the country in which there is the most intelligence is the most liberal. that section of the country where there is the most ignorance is the most prejudiced. the least brain is the most orthodox. there possibly is no more progressive city in the world, no more liberal, than boston. chicago is full of liberal people. so is san francisco. the brain of new york is liberal. every town, every city, is liberal in the precise proportion that it is intelligent. _question_. will the religion of humanity be the religion of the future? _answer_. yes; it is the only religion now. all other is superstition. what they call religion rests upon a supposed relation between man and god. in what they call religion man is asked to do something for god. as god wants nothing, and can by no possibility accept anything, such a religion is simply superstition. humanity is the only possible religion. whoever imagines that he can do anything for god is mistaken. whoever imagines that he can add to his happiness in the next world by being useless in this, is also mistaken. and whoever thinks that any god cares how he cuts his hair or his clothes, or what he eats, or whether he fasts, or rings a bell, or puts holy water on his breast, or counts beads, or shuts his eyes and says words to the clouds, is laboring under a great mistake. _question_. a man in the swaim court martial case was excluded as a witness because he was an atheist. do you think the law in the next decade will permit the affirmative oath? _answer_. if belief affected your eyes, your ears, any of your senses, or your memory, then, of course, no man ought to be a witness who had not the proper belief. but unless it can be shown that atheism interferes with the sight, the hearing, or the memory, why should justice shut the door to truth? in most of the states of this union i could not give testimony. should a man be murdered before my eyes i could not tell a jury who did it. christianity endeavors to make an honest man an outlaw. christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in god. no lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed. _question_. do you think that bigotry would persecute now for religious opinion's sake, if it were not for the law and the press? _answer_. i think that the church would persecute to-day if it had the power, just as it persecuted in the past. we are indebted for nearly all our religious liberty to the hypocrisy of the church. the church does not believe. some in the church do, and if they had the power, they would torture and burn as of yore. give the presbyterian church the power, and it would not allow an infidel to live. give the methodist church the power and the result would be the same. give the catholic church the power--just the same. no church in the united states would be willing that any other church should have the power. the only men who are to be angels in the next world are the ones who cannot be trusted with human liberty in this; and the man who are destined to live forever in hell are the only gentlemen with whom human liberty is safe. why should christians refuse to persecute in this world, when their god is going to in the next? --_mail and express_, new york, january , . cleveland and his cabinet. _question_. what do you think of mr. cleveland's cabinet? _answer_. it is a very good cabinet. some objections have been made to mr. lamar, but i think he is one of the very best. he is a man of ability, of unquestioned integrity, and is well informed on national affairs. ever since he delivered his eulogy on the life and services of sumner, i have had great respect for mr. lamar. he is far beyond most of his constituents, and has done much to destroy the provincial prejudices of mississippi. he will without doubt make an excellent secretary of the interior. the south has no better representative man, and i believe his appointment will, in a little while, be satisfactory to the whole country. bayard stands high in his party, and will certainly do as well as his immediate predecessor. nothing could be better than the change in the department of justice. garland is an able lawyer, has been an influential senator and will, in my judgment, make an excellent attorney-general. the rest of the cabinet i know little about, but from what i hear i believe they are men of ability and that they will discharge their duties well. mr. vilas has a great reputation in wisconsin, and is one of the best and most forcible speakers in the country. _question_. will mr. cleveland, in your opinion, carry out the civil service reform he professes to favor? _answer_. i have no reason to suspect even that he will not. he has promised to execute the law, and the promise is in words that do not admit of two interpretations. of course he is sincere. he knows that this course will save him a world of trouble, and he knows that it makes no difference about the politics of a copyist. all the offices of importance will in all probability be filled by democrats. the president will not put himself in the power of his opponents. if he is to be held responsible for the administration he must be permitted to choose his own assistants. this is too plain to talk about. let us give mr. cleveland a fair show--and let us expect success instead of failure. i admit that many presidents have violated their promises. there seems to be something in the atmosphere of washington that breeds promise and prevents performance. i suppose it is some kind of political malarial microbe. i hope that some political pasteur will, one of these days, discover the real disease so that candidates can be vaccinated during the campaign. until them, presidential promises will be liable to a discount. _question_. is the republican party dead? _answer_. my belief is that the next president will be a republican, and that both houses will be republican in . mr. blaine was defeated by an accident--by the slip of another man's tongue. but it matters little what party is in power if the government is administered upon correct principles, and if the democracy adopt the views of the republicans and carry out republican measures, it may be that they can keep in power--otherwise--otherwise. if the democrats carry out real democratic measures, then their defeat is certain. _question_. do you think that the era of good feeling between the north and the south has set in with the appointment of ex-rebels to the cabinet? _answer_. the war is over. the south failed. the nation succeeded. we should stop talking about south and north. we are one people, and whether we agree or disagree one destiny awaits us. we cannot divide. we must live together. we must trust each other. confidence begets confidence. the whole country was responsible for slavery. slavery was rebellion. slavery is dead--so is rebellion. liberty has united the country and there is more real union, national sentiment to-day, north and south, than ever before. _question_. it is hinted that mr. tilden is really the power behind the throne. do you think so? _answer_. i guess nobody has taken the hint. of course mr. tilden has retired from politics. the probability is that many democrats ask his advice, and some rely on his judgment. he is regarded as a piece of ancient wisdom--a phenomenal persistence of the jeffersonian type--the connecting link with the framers, founders and fathers. the power behind the throne is the power that the present occupant supposes will determine who the next occupant shall be. _question_. with the introduction of the democracy into power, what radical changes will take place in the government, and what will be the result? _answer_. if the president carries out his inaugural promises there will be no radical changes, and if he does not there will be a very radical change at the next presidential election. the inaugural is a very good republican document. there is nothing in it calculated to excite alarm. there is no dangerous policy suggested--no conceited vagaries--nothing but a plain statement of the situation and the duty of the chief magistrate as understood by the president. i think that the inaugural surprised the democrats and the republicans both, and if the president carries out the program he has laid down he will surprise and pacify a large majority of the american people. --_mail and express_, new york, march , . religion, prohibition, and gen. grant. _question_. what do you think of prohibition, and what do you think of its success in this state? _answer_. few people understand the restraining influence of liberty. moderation walks hand in hand with freedom. i do not mean the freedom springing from the sudden rupture of restraint. that kind of freedom usually rushes to extremes. people must be educated to take care of themselves, and this education must commence in infancy. self-restraint is the only kind that can always be depended upon. of course intemperance is a great evil. it causes immense suffering--clothes wives and children in rags, and is accountable for many crimes, particularly those of violence. laws to be of value must be honestly enforced. laws that sleep had better be dead. laws to be enforced must be honestly approved of and believed in by a large majority of the people. unpopular laws make hypocrites, perjurers and official shirkers of duty. and if to the violation of such laws severe penalties attach, they are rarely enforced. laws that create artificial crimes are the hardest to carry into effect. you can never convince a majority of people that it is as bad to import goods without paying the legal duty as to commit larceny. neither can you convince a majority of people that it is a crime or sin, or even a mistake, to drink a glass of wine or beer. thousands and thousands of people in this state honestly believe that prohibition is an interference with their natural rights, and they feel justified in resorting to almost any means to defeat the law. in this way people become somewhat demoralized. it is unfortunate to pass laws that remain unenforced on account of their unpopularity. people who would on most subjects swear to the truth do not hesitate to testify falsely on a prohibition trial. in addition to this, every known device is resorted to, to sell in spite of the law, and when some want to sell and a great many want to buy, considerable business will be done, while there are fewer saloons and less liquor sold in them. the liquor is poorer and the price is higher. the consumer has to pay for the extra risk. more liquor finds its way to homes, more men buy by the bottle and gallon. in old times nearly everybody kept a little rum or whiskey on the sideboard. the great washingtonian temperance movement drove liquor out of the home and increased the taverns and saloons. now we are driving liquor back to the homes. in my opinion there is a vast difference between distilled spirits and the lighter drinks, such as wine and beer. wine is a fireside and whiskey a conflagration. these lighter drinks are not unhealthful and do not, as i believe, create a craving for stronger beverages. you will, i think, find it almost impossible to enforce the present law against wine and beer. i was told yesterday that there are some sixty places in cedar rapids where whiskey is sold. it takes about as much ceremony to get a drink as it does to join the masons, but they seem to like the ceremony. people seem to take delight in outwitting the state when it does not involve the commission of any natural offence, and when about to be caught, may not hesitate to swear falsely to the extent of "don't remember," or "can't say positively," or "can't swear whether it was whiskey or not." one great trouble in iowa is that the politicians, or many of them who openly advocate prohibition, are really opposed to it. they want to keep the german vote, and they do not want to lose native republicans. they feel a "divided duty" to ride both horses. this causes the contrast between their conversation and their speeches. a few years ago i took dinner with a gentleman who had been elected governor of one of our states on the prohibition ticket. we had four kinds of wine during the meal, and a pony of brandy at the end. prohibition will never be a success until it prohibits the prohibitionists. and yet i most sincerely hope and believe that the time will come when drunkenness shall have perished from the earth. let us cultivate the love of home. let husbands and wives and children be companions. let them seek amusements together. if it is a good place for father to go, it is a good place for mother and the children. i believe that a home can be made more attractive than a saloon. let the boys and girls amuse themselves at home--play games, study music, read interesting books, and let the parents be their playfellows. the best temperance lecture, in the fewest words, you will find in victor hugo's great novel "les miserables." the grave digger is asked to take a drink. he refuses and gives this reason: "the hunger of my family is the enemy of my thirst." _question_. many people wonder why you are out of politics. will you give your reasons? _answer_. a few years ago great questions had to be settled. the life of the nation was at stake. later the liberty of millions of slaves depended upon the action of the government. afterward reconstruction and the rights of citizens pressed themselves upon the people for solution. and last, the preservation of national honor and credit. these questions did not enter into the last campaign. they had all been settled, and properly settled, with the one exception of the duty of the nation to protect the colored citizens. the supreme court settled that, at least for a time, and settled it wrong. but the republican party submitted to the civil rights decision, and so, as between the great parties, that question did not arise. this left only two questions--protection and office. but as a matter of fact, all republicans were not for our present system of protection, and all democrats were not against it. on that question each party was and is divided. on the other question--office--both parties were and are in perfect harmony. nothing remains now for the democrats to do except to give a "working" definition of "offensive partisanship." _question_. do you think that the american people are seeking after truth, or do they want to be amused? _answer_. we have all kinds. thousands are earnestly seeking for the truth. they are looking over the old creeds, they are studying the bible for themselves, they have the candor born of courage, they are depending upon themselves instead of on the clergy. they have found out that the clergy do not know; that their sources of information are not reliable; that, like the politicians, many ministers preach one way and talk another. the doctrine of eternal pain has driven millions from the church. people with good hearts cannot get consolation out of that cruel lie. the ministers themselves are getting ashamed to call that doctrine "the tidings of great joy." the american people are a serious people. they want to know the truth. they fell that whatever the truth may be they have the courage to hear it. the american people also have a sense of humor. they like to see old absurdities punctured and solemn stupidity held up to laughter. they are, on the average, the most intelligent people on the earth. they can see the point. their wit is sharp, quick and logical. nothing amuses them more that to see the mask pulled from the face of sham. the average american is generous, intelligent, level-headed, manly, and good- natured. _question_. what, in your judgment, is the source of the greatest trouble among men? _answer_. superstition. that has caused more agony, more tears, persecution and real misery than all other causes combined. the other name for superstition is ignorance. when men learn that all sin is a mistake, that all dishonesty is a blunder, that even intelligent selfishness will protect the rights of others, there will be vastly more happiness in this world. shakespeare says that "there is no darkness but ignorance." sometime man will learn that when he steals from another, he robs himself--that the way to be happy is to make others so, and that it is far better to assist his fellow-man than to fast, say prayers, count beads or build temples to the unknown. some people tell us that selfishness is the only sin, but selfishness grows in the soil of ignorance. after all, education is the great lever, and the only one capable of raising mankind. people ignorant of their own rights are ignorant of the rights of others. every tyrant is the slave of ignorance. _question_. how soon do you think we would have the millennium if every person attended strictly to his own business? _answer_. now, if every person were intelligent enough to know his own business--to know just where his rights ended and the rights of others commenced, and then had the wisdom and honesty to act accordingly, we should have a very happy world. most people like to control the conduct of others. they love to write rules, and pass laws for the benefit of their neighbors, and the neighbors are pretty busy at the same business. people, as a rule, think that they know the business of other people better than they do their own. a man watching others play checkers or chess always thinks he sees better moves than the players make. when all people attend to their own business they will know that a part of their own business is to increase the happiness of others. _question_. what is causing the development of this country? _answer_. education, the free exchange of ideas, inventions by which the forces of nature become our servants, intellectual hospitality, a willingness to hear the other side, the richness of our soil, the extent of our territory, the diversity of climate and production, our system of government, the free discussion of political questions, our social freedom, and above all, the fact that labor is honorable. _question_. what is your opinion of the religious tendency of the people of this country? _answer_. using the word religion in its highest and best sense, the people are becoming more religious. we are far more religious --using the word in its best sense--than when we believed in human slavery, but we are not as orthodox as we were then. we have more principle and less piety. we care more for the right and less for the creed. the old orthodox dogmas are mouldy. you will find moss on their backs. they are only brought out when a new candidate for the ministry is to be examined. only a little while ago in new york a candidate for the presbyterian pulpit was examined and the following is a part of the examination: _question_. "do you believe in eternal punishment, as set forth in the confession of faith?" _answer_. (with some hesitation) "yes, i do." _question_. "have you preached on that subject lately?" _answer_. "no. i prepared a sermon on hell, in which i took the ground that the punishment of the wicked will be endless, and have it with me." _question_. "did you deliver it?" _answer_. "no. i thought that my congregation would not care to hear it. the doctrine is rather unpopular where i have been preaching, and i was afraid i might do harm, so i have not delivered it yet." _question_. "but you believe in eternal damnation, do you not?" _answer_. "o yes, with all my heart." he was admitted, and the admission proves the dishonesty of the examiners and the examined. the new version of the old and new testaments has done much to weaken confidence in the doctrine of inspiration. it has occurred to a good many that if god took the pains to inspire men to write the bible, he ought to have inspired others to translate it correctly. the general tendency today is toward science, toward naturalism, toward what is called infidelity, but is in fact fidelity. men are in a transition state, and the people, on the average, have more real good, sound sense to-day than ever before. the church is losing its power for evil. the old chains are wearing out, and new ones are not being made. the tendency is toward intellectual freedom, and that means the final destruction of the orthodox bastille. _question_. what is your opinion of general grant as he stands before the people to-day? _answer_. i have always regarded general grant as the greatest soldier this continent has produced. he is to-day the most distinguished son of the republic. the people have the greatest confidence in his ability, his patriotism and his integrity. the financial disaster impoverished general grant, but he did not stain the reputation of the grand soldier who led to many victories the greatest army that ever fought for the liberties of man. --_iowa state register_, may , . hell or sheol and other subjects. _question_. colonel, have you read the revised testament? _answer_. yes, but i don't believe the work has been fairly done. the clergy are not going to scrape the butter off their own bread. the clergy are offensive partisans, and those of each denomination will interpret the scriptures their way. no baptist minister would countenance a "revision" that favored sprinkling, and no catholic priest would admit that any version would be correct that destroyed the dogma of the "real presence." so i might go through all the denominations. _question_. why was the word sheol introduced in place of hell, and how do you like the substitute? _answer_. the civilized world has outgrown the vulgar and brutal hell of their fathers and founders of the churches. the clergy are ashamed to preach about sulphurous flames and undying worms. the imagination of the world has been developed, the heart has grown tender, and the old dogma of eternal pain shocks all civilized people. it is becoming disgraceful either to preach or believe in such a beastly lie. the clergy are beginning to think that it is hardly manly to frighten children with a detected falsehood. sheol is a great relief. it is not so hot as the old place. the nights are comfortable, and the society is quite refined. the worms are dead, and the air reasonably free from noxious vapors. it is a much worse word to hold a revival with, but much better for every day use. it will hardly take the place of the old word when people step on tacks, put up stoves, or sit on pins; but for use at church fairs and mite societies it will do about as well. we do not need revision; excision is what we want. the barbarism should be taken out of the bible. passages upholding polygamy, wars of extermination, slavery, and religious persecution should not be attributed to a perfect god. the good that is in the bible will be saved for man, and man will be saved from the evil that is in that book. why should we worship in god what we detest in man? _question_. do you think the use of the word sheol will make any difference to the preachers? _answer_. of course it will make no difference with talmage. he will make sheol just as hot and smoky and uncomfortable as hell, but the congregations will laugh instead of tremble. the old shudder has gone. beecher had demolished hell before sheol was adopted. according to his doctrine of evolution hell has been slowly growing cool. the cindered souls do not even perspire. sheol is nothing to mr. beecher but a new name for an old mistake. as for the effect it will have on heber newton, i cannot tell, neither can he, until he asks his bishop. there are people who believe in witches and madstones and fiat money, and centuries hence it may be that people will exist who will believe as firmly in hell as dr. shedd does now. _question_. what about beecher's sermons on "evolution"? _answer_. beecher's sermons on "evolution" will do good. millions of people believe that mr. beecher knows at least as much as the other preachers, and if he regards the atonement as a dogma with a mistake for a foundation, they may conclude that the whole system is a mistake. but whether mr. beecher is mistaken or not, people know that honesty is a good thing, that gratitude is a virtue, that industry supports the world, and that whatever they believe about religion they are bound by every conceivable obligation to be just and generous. mr. beecher can no more succeed in reconciling science and religion, than he could in convincing the world that triangles and circles are exactly the same. there is the same relation between science and religion that there is between astronomy and astrology, between alchemy and chemistry, between orthodoxy and common sense. _question_. have you read miss cleveland's book? she condemns george eliot's poetry on the ground that it has no faith in it, nothing beyond. do you imagine she would condemn burns or shelley for that reason? _answer_. i have not read miss cleveland's book; but, if the author condemns the poetry of george eliot, she has made a mistake. there is no poem in our language more beautiful than "the lovers," and none loftier or purer than "the choir invisible." there is no poetry in the "beyond." the poetry is here--here in this world, where love is in the heart. the poetry of the beyond is too far away, a little too general. shelley's "skylark" was in our sky, the daisy of burns grew on our ground, and between that lark and that daisy is room for all the real poetry of the earth. --_evening record_, boston, mass., . interviewing, politics and spiritualism. _question_. what is your opinion of the peculiar institution of american journalism known as interviewing? _answer_. if the interviewers are fair, if they know how to ask questions of a public nature, if they remember what is said, or write it at the time, and if the interviewed knows enough to answer questions in a way to amuse or instruct the public, then interviewing is a blessing. but if the representative of the press asks questions, either impudent or unimportant, and the answers are like the questions, then the institution is a failure. when the journalist fails to see the man he wishes to interview, or when the man refuses to be interviewed, and thereupon the aforesaid journalist writes up an interview, doing the talking for both sides, the institution is a success. such interviews are always interesting, and, as a rule, the questions are to the point and the answers perfectly responsive. there is probably a little too much interviewing, and to many persons are asked questions upon subjects about which they know nothing. mr. smith makes some money in stocks or pork, visits london, and remains in that city for several weeks. on his return he is interviewd as to the institutions, laws and customs of the british empire. of course such an interview is exceedingly instructive. lord affanaff lands at the dock in north river, is driven to a hotel in a closed carriage, is interviewed a few minutes after by a representative of the _herald_ as to his view of the great republic based upon what he has seen. such an interview is also instructive. interviews with candidates as to their chances of election is another favorite way of finding out their honest opinion, but people who rely on those interviews generally lose their bets. the most interesting interviews are generally denied. i have been expecting to see an interview with the rev. dr. leonard on the medicinal properties of champagne and toast, or the relation between old ale and modern theology, and as to whether prohibition prohibits the prohibitionists. _question_. have you ever been misrepresented in interviews? _answer_. several times. as a general rule, the clergy have selected these misrepresentations when answering me. i never blamed them, because it is much easier to answer something i did not say. most reporters try to give my real words, but it is difficult to remember. they try to give the substance, and in that way change or destroy the sense. you remember the frenchman who translated shakespeare's great line in macbeth--"out, brief candle!"--into "short candle, go out!." another man, trying to give the last words of webster--"i still live"--said "i aint dead yit." so that when they try to do their best they often make mistakes. now and then interviews appear not one word of which i ever said, and sometimes when i really had an interview, another one has appeared. but generally the reporters treat me well, and most of them succeed in telling about what i said. personally i have no cause for complaint. _question_. what do you think of the administration of president cleveland? _answer_. i know but very little about it. i suppose that he is doing the best he can. he appears to be carrying out in good faith the principles laid down in the platform on which he was elected. he is having a hard road to travel. to satisfy an old democrat and a new mugwump is a difficult job. cleveland appears to be the owner of himself--appears to be a man of great firmness and force of character. the best thing that i have heard about him is that he went fishing on sunday. we have had so much mock morality, dude deportment and hypocritical respectability in public office, that a man with courage enough to enjoy himself on sunday is a refreshing and healthy example. all things considered i do not see but that cleveland is doing well enough. the attitude of the administration toward the colored people is manly and fair so far as i can see. _question_. are you still a republican in political belief? _answer_. i believe that this is a nation. i believe in the equality of all men before the law, irrespective of race, religion or color. i believe that there should be a dollar's worth of silver in a silver dollar. i believe in a free ballot and a fair count. i believe in protecting those industries, and those only, that need protection. i believe in unrestricted coinage of gold and silver. i believe in the rights of the state, the rights of the citizen, and the sovereignty of the nation. i believe in good times, good health, good crops, good prices, good wages, good food, good clothes and in the absolute and unqualified liberty of thought. if such belief makes a republican, than that is what i am. _question_. do you approve of john sherman's policy in the present campaign with reference to the bloody shirt, which reports of his speeches show that he is waving? _answer_. i have not read senator sherman's speech. it seems to me that there is a better feeling between the north and south than ever before--better than at any time since the revolutionary war. i believe in cultivating that feeling, and in doing and saying what we can to contribute to its growth. we have hated long enough and fought enough. the colored people never have been well treated but they are being better treated now than ever before. it takes a long time to do away with prejudices that were based upon religion and rascality--that is to say, inspiration and interest. we must remember that slavery was the crime of the whole country. now, if senator sherman has made a speech calculated to excite the hatreds and prejudices of the north and south, i think that he has made a mistake. i do not say that he has made such a speech, because i have not read it. the war is over--it ended at appomattox. let us hope that the bitterness born of the conflict died out forever at riverside. the people are tired almost to death of the old speeches. they have been worn out and patched, and even the patches are threadbare. the supreme court decided the civil rights bill to be unconstitutional, and the republican party submitted. i regarded the decision as monstrous, but the republican party when in power said nothing and did nothing. i most sincerely hope that the democratic party will protect the colored people at least as well as we did when we were in power. but i am out of politics and intend to keep politics out of me. _question_. we have been having the periodical revival of interest in spiritualism. what do you think of "spiritualism," as it is popularly termed? _answer_. i do not believe in the supernatural. one who does not believe in gods would hardly believe in ghosts. i am not a believer in any of the "wonders" and "miracles" whether ancient or modern. there may be spirits, but i do not believe there are. they may communicate with some people, but thus far they have been successful in avoiding me. of course, i know nothing for certain on the subject. i know a great many excellent people who are thoroughly convinced of the truth of spiritualism. christians laugh at the "miracles" to-day, attested by folks they know, but believe the miracles of long ago, attested by folks that they did not know. this is one of the contradictions in human nature. most people are willing to believe that wonderful things happened long ago and will happen again in the far future; with them the present is the only time in which nature behaves herself with becoming sobriety. in old times nature did all kinds of juggling tricks, and after a long while will do some more, but now she is attending strictly to business, depending upon cause and effect. _question_. who, in your opinion, is the greatest leader of the "opposition" yclept the christian religion? _answer_. i suppose that mr. beecher is the greatest man in the pulpit, but he thinks more of darwin than he does of david and has an idea that the old testament is just a little too old. he has put evolution in the place of the atonement--has thrown away the garden of eden, snake, apples and all, and is endeavoring to save enough of the orthodox wreck to make a raft. i know of no other genius in the pulpit. there are plenty of theological doctors and bishops and all kinds of titled humility in the sacred profession, but men of genius are scarce. all the ministers, except messrs. moody and jones, are busy explaining away the contradiction between inspiration and demonstration. _question_. what books would you recommend for the perusal of a young man of limited time and culture with reference to helping him in the development of intellect and good character? _answer_. the works of darwin, ernst haeckel, draper's "intellectual development of europe," buckle's "history of civilization in england," lecky's "history of european morals," voltaire's "philosophical dictionary," buechner's "force and matter," "the history of the christian religion" by waite; paine's "age of reason," d'holbach's "system of nature," and, above all, shakespeare. do not forget burns, shelley, dickens and hugo. _question_. will you lecture the coming winter? _answer_. yes, about the same as usual. woe is me if i preach not my gospel. _question_. have you been invited to lecture in europe? if so do you intend to accept the "call"? _answer_. yes, often. the probability is that i shall go to england and australia. i have not only had invitations but most excellent offers from both countries. there is, however, plenty to do here. this is the best country in the world and our people are eager to hear the other side. the old kind of preaching is getting superannuated. it lags superfluous in the pulpit. our people are outgrowing the cruelties and absurdities of the ancient jews. the idea of hell has become shocking and vulgar. eternal punishment is eternal injustice. it is infinitely infamous. most ministers are ashamed to preach the doctrine, and the congregations are ashamed to hear it preached. it is the essence of savagery. --_plain dealer_, cincinnati, ohio, september , . my belief. _question_. it is said that in the past four or five years you have changed or modified your views upon the subject of religion; is this so? _answer_. it is not so. the only change, if that can be called a change, is, that i am more perfectly satisfied that i am right-- satisfied that what is called orthodox religion is a simple fabrication of mistaken men; satisfied that there is no such thing as an inspired book and never will be; satisfied that a miracle never was and never will be performed; satisfied that no human being knows whether there is a god or not, whether there is another life or not; satisfied that the scheme of atonement is a mistake, that the innocent cannot, by suffering for the guilty, atone for the guilt; satisfied that the doctrine that salvation depends on belief, is cruel and absurd; satisfied that the doctrine of eternal punishment is infamously false; satisfied that superstition is of no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and real religion. no, i have not modified my views. i detect new absurdities every day in the popular belief. every day the whole thing becomes more and more absurd. of course there are hundreds and thousands of most excellent people who believe in orthodox religion; people for whose good qualities i have the greatest respect; people who have good ideas on most other subjects; good citizens, good fathers, husbands, wives and children--good in spite of their religion. i do not attack people. i attack the mistakes of people. orthodoxy is getting weaker every day. _question_. do you believe in the existence of a supreme being? _answer_. i do not believe in any supreme personality or in any supreme being who made the universe and governs nature. i do not say that there is no such being--all i say is that i do not believe that such a being exists. i know nothing on the subject, except that i know that i do not know and that nobody else knows. but if there is such a being, he certainly never wrote the old testament. you will understand my position. i do not say that a supreme being does not exist, but i do say that i do not believe such a being exists. the universe--embracing all that is--all atoms, all stars, each grain of sand and all the constellations, each thought and dream of animal and man, all matter and all force, all doubt and all belief, all virtue and all crime, all joy and all pain, all growth and all decay--is all there is. it does not act because it is moved from without. it acts from within. it is actor and subject, means and end. it is infinite; the infinite could not have been created. it is indestructible and that which cannot be destroyed was not created. i am a pantheist. _question_. don't you think the belief of the agnostic is more satisfactory to the believer than that of the atheist? _answer_. there is no difference. the agnostic is an atheist. the atheist is an agnostic. the agnostic says: "i do not know, but i do not believe there is any god." the atheist says the same. the orthodox christian says he knows there is a god; but we know that he does not know. he simply believes. he cannot know. the atheist cannot know that god does not exist. _question_. haven't you just the faintest glimmer of a hope that in some future state you will meet and be reunited to those who are dear to you in this? _answer_. i have no particular desire to be destroyed. i am willing to go to heaven if there be such a place, and enjoy myself for ever and ever. it would give me infinite satisfaction to know that all mankind are to be happy forever. infidels love their wives and children as well as christians do theirs. i have never said a word against heaven--never said a word against the idea of immortality. on the contrary, i have said all i could truthfully say in favor of the idea that we shall live again. i most sincerely hope that there is another world, better than this, where all the broken ties of love will be united. it is the other place i have been fighting. better that all of us should sleep the sleep of death forever than that some should suffer pain forever. if in order to have a heaven there must be a hell, then i say away with them both. my doctrine puts the bow of hope over every grave; my doctrine takes from every mother's heart the fear of hell. no good man would enjoy himself in heaven with his friends in hell. no good god could enjoy himself in heaven with millions of his poor, helpless mistakes in hell. the orthodox idea of heaven--with god an eternal inquisitor, a few heartless angels and some redeemed orthodox, all enjoying themselves, while the vast multitude will weep in the rayless gloom of god's eternal dungeon--is not calculated to make man good or happy. i am doing what i can to civilize the churches, humanize the preachers and get the fear of hell out of the human heart. in this business i am meeting with great success. --_philadelphia times_, september , . some live topics. _question_. shall you attend the albany freethought convention? _answer_. i have agreed to be present not only, but to address the convention, on sunday, the th of september. i am greatly gratified to know that the interest in the question of intellectual liberty is growing from year to year. everywhere i go it seems to be the topic of conversation. no matter upon what subject people begin to talk, in a little while the discussion takes a religious turn, and people who a few moments before had not the slightest thought of saying a word about the churches, or about the bible, are giving their opinions in full. i hear discussions of this kind in all the public conveyances, at the hotels, on the piazzas at the seaside--and they are not discussions in which i take any part, because i rarely say anything upon these questions except in public, unless i am directly addressed. there is a general feeling that the church has ruled the world long enough. people are beginning to see that no amount of eloquence, or faith, or erudition, or authority, can make the records of barbarism satisfactory to the heart and brain of this century. they have also found that a falsehood in hebrew in no more credible than in plain english. people at last are beginning to be satisfied that cruel laws were never good laws, no matter whether inspired or uninspired. the christian religion, like every other religion depending upon inspired writings, is wrecked upon the facts of nature. so long as inspired writers confined themselves to the supernatural world; so long as they talked about angels and gods and heavens and hells; so long as they described only things that man has never seen, and never will see, they were safe, not from contradiction, but from demonstration. but these writings had to have a foundation, even for their falsehoods, and that foundation was in nature. the foundation had to be something about which somebody knew something, or supposed they knew something. they told something about this world that agreed with the then general opinion. had these inspired writers told the truth about nature-- had they said that the world revolved on its axis, and made a circuit about the sun--they could have gained no credence for their statements about other worlds. they were forced to agree with their contemporaries about this world, and there is where they made the fundamental mistake. having grown in knowledge, the world has discovered that these inspired men knew nothing about this earth; that the inspired books are filled with mistakes--not only mistakes that we can contradict, but mistakes that we can demonstrate to be mistakes. had they told the truth in their day, about this earth, they would not have been believed about other worlds, because their contemporaries would have used their own knowledge about this world to test the knowledge of these inspired men. we pursue the same course; and what we know about this world we use as the standard, and by that standard we have found that the inspired men knew nothing about nature as it is. finding that they were mistaken about this world, we have no confidence in what they have said about another. every religion has had its philosophy about this world, and every one has been mistaken. as education becomes general, as scientific modes are adopted, this will become clearer and clearer, until "ignorant as inspiration" will be a comparison. _question_. have you seen the memorial to the new york legislature, to be presented this winter, asking for the repeal of such laws as practically unite church and state? _answer_. i have seen a memorial asking that church property be taxed like other property; that no more money should be appropriated from the public treasury for the support of institutions managed by and in the interest of sectarian denominations; for the repeal of all laws compelling the observance of sunday as a religious day. such memorials ought to be addressed to the legislatures of all the states. the money of the public should only be used for the benefit of the public. public money should not be used for what a few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public. personally, i think it would be for the benefit of the public to have infidel or scientific--which is the same thing--lectures delivered in every town, in every state, on every sunday; but knowing that a great many men disagree with me on this point, i do not claim that such lectures ought to be paid for with public money. the methodist church ought not to be sustained by taxation, nor the catholic, nor any other church. to relieve their property from taxation is to appropriate money, to the extent of that tax, for the support of that church. whenever a burden is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed over the rest of the property of the state, and to release one kind of property is to increase the tax on all other kinds. there was a time when people really supposed the churches were saving souls from the eternal wrath of a god of infinite love. being engaged in such a philanthropic work, and at the time nobody having the courage to deny it--the church being all-powerful--all other property was taxed to support the church; but now the more civilized part of the community, being satisfied that a god of infinite love will not be eternally unjust, feel as though the church should support herself. to exempt the church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest's salary. the catholic now objects to being taxed to support a school in which his religion is not taught. he is not satisfied with the school that says nothing on the subject of religion. he insists that it is an outrage to tax him to support a school where the teacher simply teaches what he knows. and yet this same catholic wants his church exempted from taxation, and the tax of an atheist or of a jew increased, when he teaches in his untaxed church that the atheist and jew will both be eternally damned! is it possible for impudence to go further? i insist that no religion should be taught in any school supported by public money; and by religion i mean superstition. only that should be taught in a school that somebody can learn and that somebody can know. in my judgment, every church should be taxed precisely the same as other property. the church may claim that it is one of the instruments of civilization and therefore should be exempt. if you exempt that which is useful, you exempt every trade and every profession. in my judgment, theatres have done more to civilize mankind than churches; that is to say, theatres have done something to civilize mankind--churches nothing. the effect of all superstition has been to render men barbarous. i do not believe in the civilizing effects of falsehood. there was a time when ministers were supposed to be in the employ of god, and it was thought that god selected them with great care --that their profession had something sacred about it. these ideas are no longer entertained by sensible people. ministers should be paid like other professional men, and those who like their preaching should pay for the preach. they should depend, as actors do, upon their popularity, upon the amount of sense, or nonsense, that they have for sale. they should depend upon the market like other people, and if people do not want to hear sermons badly enough to build churches and pay for them, and pay the taxes on them, and hire the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other use. the pulpit should no longer be a pauper. i do not believe in carrying on any business with the contribution box. all the sectarian institutions ought to support themselves. these should be no methodist or catholic or presbyterian hospitals or orphan asylums. all these should be supported by the state. there is no such thing as catholic charity, or methodist charity. charity belongs to humanity, not to any particular form of faith or religion. you will find as charitable people who never heard of religion, as you can find in the church. the state should provide for those who ought to be provided for. a few methodists beg of everybody they meet--send women with subscription papers, asking money from all classes of people, and nearly everybody gives something from politeness, or to keep from being annoyed; and when the institution is finished, it is pointed at as the result of methodism. probably a majority of the people in this country suppose that there was no charity in the world until the christian religion was founded. great men have repeated this falsehood, until ignorance and thoughtlessness believe it. there were orphan asylums in china, in india, and in egypt thousands of years before christ was born; and there certainly never was a time in the history of the whole world when there was less charity in europe than during the centuries when the church of christ had absolute power. there were hundreds of mohammedan asylums before christianity had built ten in the entire world. all institutions for the care of unfortunate people should be secular--should be supported by the state. the money for the purpose should be raised by taxation, to the end that the burden may be borne by those able to bear it. as it is now, most of the money is paid, not by the rich, but by the generous, and those most able to help their needy fellow citizens are the very ones who do nothing. if the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, and these institutions will no longer be supported by the generous and emotional, and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity. now, as to the sunday laws, we know that they are only spasmodically enforced. now and then a few people are arrested for selling papers or cigars. some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman because he has been caught shaving a christian, sunday morning. now and then some poor fellow with a hack, trying to make a dollar or two to feed his horses, or to take care of his wife and children, is arrested as though he were a murderer. but in a few days the public are inconvenienced to that degree that the arrests stop and business goes on in its accustomed channels, sunday and all. now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken. the ministers have done their best to prevent all recreation on the sabbath. they would like to stop all the boats on the hudson, and on the sea-- stop all the excursion trains. they would like to compel every human being that lives in the city of new york to remain within its limits twenty-four hours every sunday. they hate the parks; they hate music; they hate anything that keeps a man away from church. most of the churches are empty during the summer, and now most of the ministers leave themselves, and give over the entire city to the devil and his emissaries. and yet if the ministers had their way, there would be no form of human enjoyment except prayer, signing subscription papers, putting money in contribution boxes, listening to sermons, reading the cheerful histories of the old testament, imagining the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. the church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of prejudice against croquet. _question_. do you think that the orthodox church gets its ideas of the sabbath from the teachings of christ? _answer_. i do not hold christ responsible for these idiotic ideas concerning the sabbath. he regarded the sabbath as something made for man--which was a very sensible view. the holiest day is the happiest day. the most sacred day is the one in which have been done the most good deeds. there are two reasons given in the bible for keeping the sabbath. one is that god made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. now that all the ministers admit that he did not make the world in six days, but that he made it in six "periods," this reason is no longer applicable. the other reason is that he brought the jews out of egypt with a "mighty hand." this may be a very good reason still for the observance of the sabbath by the jews, but the real sabbath, that is to say, the day to be commemorated, is our saturday, and why should we commemorate the wrong day? that disposes of the second reason. nothing can be more inconsistent than the theories and practice of the churches about the sabbath. the cars run sundays, and out of the profits hundreds of ministers are supported. the great iron and steel works fill with smoke and fire the sabbath air, and the proprietors divide the profits with the churches. the printers of the city are busy sunday afternoons and evenings, and the presses during the nights, so that the sermons of sunday can reach the heathen on monday. the servants of the rich are denied the privileges of the sanctuary. the coachman sits on the box out-doors, while his employer kneels in church preparing himself for the heavenly chariot. the iceman goes about on the holy day, keeping believers cool, they knowing at the same time that he is making it hot for himself in the world to come. christians cross the atlantic, knowing that the ship will pursue its way on the sabbath. they write letters to their friends knowing that they will be carried in violation of jehovah's law, by wicked men. yet they hate to see a pale-faced sewing girl enjoying a few hours by the sea; a poor mechanic walking in the fields; or a tired mother watching her children playing on the grass. nothing ever was, nothing ever will be, more utterly absurd and disgusting than a puritan sunday. nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict observance of the sabbath. it fills the house with hypocrisy and the meanest kind of petty tyranny. the parents look sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. they are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only because they are so stupid. _question_. what have you to say about the growth of catholicism, the activity of the salvation army, and the success of revivalists like the rev. samuel jones? is christianity really gaining a strong hold on the masses? _answer_. catholicism is growing in this country, and it is the only country on earth in which it is growing. its growth here depends entirely upon immigration, not upon intellectual conquest. catholic emigrants who leave their homes in the old world because they have never had any liberty, and who are catholics for the same reason, add to the number of catholics here, but their children's children will not be catholics. their children will not be very good catholics, and even these immigrants themselves, in a few years, will not grovel quite so low in the presence of a priest. the catholic church is gaining no ground in catholic countries. the salvation army is the result of two things--the general belief in what are known as the fundamentals of christianity, and the heartlessness of the church. the church in england--that is to say, the church of england--having succeeded--that is to say, being supported by general taxation--that is to say, being a successful, well-fed parasite--naturally neglected those who did not in any way contribute to its support. it became aristocratic. splendid churches were built; younger sons with good voices were put in the pulpits; the pulpit became the asylum for aristocratic mediocrity, and in this way the church of england lost interest in the masses and the masses lost interest in the church of england. the neglected poor, who really had some belief in religion, and who had not been absolutely petrified by form and patronage, were ready for the salvation army. they were not at home in the church. they could not pay. they preferred the freedom of the street. they preferred to attend a church where rags were no objection. had the church loved and labored with the poor the salvation army never would have existed. these people are simply giving their idea of christianity, and in their way endeavoring to do what they consider good. i don't suppose the salvation army will accomplish much. to improve mankind you must change conditions. it is not enough to work simply upon the emotional nature. the surroundings must be such as naturally produce virtuous actions. if we are to believe recent reports from london, the church of england, even with the assistance of the salvation army, has accomplished but little. it would be hard to find any country with less morality. you would search long in the jungles of africa to find greater depravity. i account for revivalists like the rev. samuel jones in the same way. there is in every community an ignorant class--what you might call a literal class--who believe in the real blood atonement; who believe in heaven and hell, and harps and gridirons; who have never had their faith weakened by reading commentators or books harmonizing science and religion. they love to hear the good old doctrine; they want hell described; they want it described so that they can hear the moans and shrieks; they want heaven described; they want to see god on a throne, and they want to feel that they are finally to have the pleasure of looking over the battlements of heaven and seeing all their enemies among the damned. the rev. mr. munger has suddenly become a revivalist. according to the papers he is sought for in every direction. his popularity seems to rest upon the fact that he brutally beat a girl twelve years old because she did not say her prayers to suit him. muscular christianity is what the ignorant people want. i regard all these efforts--including those made by mr. moody and mr. hammond--as evidence that christianity, as an intellectual factor, has almost spent its force. it no longer governs the intellectual world. _question_. are not the catholics the least progressive? and are they not, in spite of their professions to the contrary, enemies to republican liberty? _answer_. every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous. a church that puts a book above the laws and constitution of its country, that puts a book above the welfare of mankind, is dangerous to human liberty. every church that puts itself above the legally expressed will of the people is dangerous. every church that holds itself under greater obligation to a pope than to a people is dangerous to human liberty. every church that puts religion above humanity--above the well-being of man in this world--is dangerous. the catholic church may be more dangerous, not because its doctrines are more dangerous, but because, on the average, its members more sincerely believe its doctrines, and because that church can be hurled as a solid body in any given direction. for these reasons it is more dangerous than other churches; but the doctrines are no more dangerous than those of the protestant churches. the man who would sacrifice the well- being of man to please an imaginary phantom that he calls god, is also dangerous. the only safe standard is the well-being of man in this world. whenever this world is sacrificed for the sake of another, a mistake has been made. the only god that man can know is the aggregate of all beings capable of suffering and of joy within the reach of his influence. to increase the happiness of such beings is to worship the only god that man can know. _question_. what have you to say to the assertion of dr. deems that there were never so many christians as now? _answer_. i suppose that the population of the earth is greater now than at any other time within the historic period. this being so, there may be more christians, so-called, in this world than there were a hundred years ago. of course, the reverend doctor, in making up his aggregate of christians, counts all kinds and sects--unitarians, universalists, and all the other "ans" and "ists" and "ics" and "ites" and "ers." but dr. deems must admit that only a few years ago most of the persons he now calls christians would have been burnt as heretics and infidels. let us compare the average new york christian with the christian of two hundred years ago. it is probably safe to say that there is not now in the city of new york a genuine presbyterian outside of an insane asylum. probably no one could be found who will to-day admit that he believes absolutely in the presbyterian confession of faith. there is probably not an episcopalian who believes in the thirty-nine articles. probably there is not an intelligent minister in the city of new york, outside of the catholic church, who believes that everything in the bible is true. probably no clergyman, of any standing, would be willing to take the ground that everything in the old testament--leaving out the question of inspiration--is actually true. very few ministers now preach the doctrine of eternal punishment. most of them would be ashamed to utter that brutal falsehood. a large majority of gentlemen who attend church take the liberty of disagreeing with the preacher. they would have been very poor christians two hundred years ago. a majority of the ministers take the liberty of disagreeing, in many things, with their presbyteries and synods. they would have been very poor preachers two hundred years ago. dr. deems forgets that most christians are only nominally so. very few believe their creeds. very few even try to live in accordance with what they call christian doctrines. nobody loves his enemies. no christian when smitten on one cheek turns the other. most christians do take a little thought for the morrow. they do not depend entirely upon the providence of god. most christians now have greater confidence in the average life-insurance company than in god--feel easier when dying to know that they have a policy, through which they expect the widow will receive ten thousand dollars, than when thinking of all the scripture promises. even church-members do not trust in god to protect their own property. they insult heaven by putting lightning rods on their temples. they insure the churches against the act of god. the experience of man has shown the wisdom of relying on something that we know something about, instead of upon the shadowy supernatural. the poor wretches to-day in spain, depending upon their priests, die like poisoned flies; die with prayers between their pallid lips; die in their filth and faith. _question_. what have you to say on the mormon question? _answer_. the institution of polygamy is infamous and disgusting beyond expression. it destroys what we call, and all civilized people call, "the family." it pollutes the fireside, and, above all, as burns would say, "petrifies the feeling." it is, however, one of the institutions of jehovah. it is protected by the bible. it has inspiration on its side. sinai, with its barren, granite peaks, is a perpetual witness in its favor. the beloved of god practiced it, and, according to the sacred word, the wisest man had, i believe, about seven hundred wives. this man received his wisdom directly from god. it is hard for the average bible worshiper to attack this institution without casting a certain stain upon his own book. only a few years ago slavery was upheld by the same bible. slavery having been abolished, the passages in the inspired volume upholding it have been mostly forgotten, but polygamy lives, and the polygamists, with great volubility, repeat the passages in their favor. we send our missionaries to utah, with their bibles, to convert the mormons. the mormons show, by these very bibles, that god is on their side. nothing remain now for the missionaries except to get back their bibles and come home. the preachers do not appeal to the bible for the purpose of putting down mormonism. they say: "send the army." if the people of this country could only be honest; if they would only admit that the old testament is but the record of a barbarous people; if the samson of the nineteenth century would not allow its limbs to be bound by the delilah of superstition, it could with one blow destroy this monster. what shall we say of the moral force of christianity, when it utterly fails in the presence of mormonism? what shall we say of a bible that we dare not read to a mormon as an argument against legalized lust, or as an argument against illegal lust? i am opposed to polygamy. i want it exterminated by law; but i hate to see the exterminators insist that god, only a few thousand years ago, was as bad as the mormons are to-day. in my judgment, such a god ought to be exterminated. _question_. what do you think of men like the rev. henry ward beecher and the rev. r. heber newton? do they deserve any credit for the course they have taken? _answer_. mr. beecher is evidently endeavoring to shore up the walls of the falling temple. he sees the cracks; he knows that the building is out of plumb; he feels that the foundation is insecure. lies can take the place of stones only so long as they are thoroughly believed. mr. beecher is trying to do something to harmonize superstition and science. he is reading between the lines. he has discovered that darwin is only a later saint paul, or that saint paul was the original darwin. he is endeavoring to make the new testament a scientific text-book. of course he will fail. but his intentions are good. thousands of people will read the new testament with more freedom than heretofore. they will look for new meanings; and he who looks for new meanings will not be satisfied with the old ones. mr. beecher, instead of strengthening the walls, will make them weaker. there is no harmony between religion and science. when science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "let us be friends." it reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: "let us agree not to step on each other's feet." mr. beecher, having done away with hell, substitutes annihilation. his doctrine at present is that only a fortunate few are immortal, and that the great mass return to dreamless dust. this, of course, is far better than hell, and is a great improvement on the orthodox view. mr. beecher cannot believe that god would make such a mistake as to make men doomed to suffer eternal pain. why, i ask, should god give life to men whom he knows are unworthy of life? why should he annihilate his mistakes? why should he make mistakes that need annihilation? it can hardly be said that mr. beecher's idea is a new one. it was taught, with an addition, thousands of years ago, in india, and the addition almost answers my objection. the old doctrine was that only the soul that bears fruit, only the soul that bursts into blossom, will at the death of the body rejoin the infinite, and that all other souls--souls not having blossomed--will go back into low forms and make the journey up to man once more, and should they then blossom and bear fruit, will be held worthy to join the infinite, but should they again fail, they again go back; and this process is repeated until they do blossom, and in this way all souls at last become perfect. i suggest that mr. beecher make at least this addition to his doctrine. but allow me to say that, in my judgment, mr. beecher is doing great good. he may not convince many people that he is right, but he will certainly convince a great many people that christianity is wrong. _question_. in what estimation do you hold charles watts and samuel putnam, and what do you think of their labors in the cause of freethought? _answer_. mr. watts is an extremely logical man, with a direct and straightforward manner and mind. he has paid great attention to what is called "secularism." he thoroughly understands organization, and he is undoubtedly one of the strongest debaters in the field. he has had great experience. he has demolished more divines than any man of my acquaintance. i have read several of his debates. in discussion he is quick, pertinent, logical, and, above all, good natured. there is not in all he says a touch of malice. he can afford to be generous to his antagonists, because he is always the victor, and is always sure of the victory. last winter wherever i went, i heard the most favorable accounts of mr. watts. all who heard him were delighted. mr. putnam is one of the most thorough believers in intellectual liberty in the world. he believes with all his heart, is full of enthusiasm, ready to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship. had he lived a few years ago, he would have been a martyr. he has written some of the most stirring appeals to the liberals of this country that i have ever read. he believes that freethought has a future; that the time is coming when the superstitions of the world will either be forgotten, or remembered--some of them with smiles--most of them with tears. mr. putnam, although endowed with a poetic nature, with poetic insight, clings to the known, builds upon the experience of man, and believes in fancies only when they are used as the wings of a fact. i have never met a man who appeared to be more thoroughly devoted to the great cause of mental freedom. i have read his books with great interest, and find in them many pages filled with philosophy and pathos. i have met him often and i never heard him utter a harsh word about any human being. his good nature is as unfailing as the air. his abilities are of the highest order. it is a positive pleasure to meet him. he is so enthusiastic, so unselfish, so natural, so appreciative of others, so thoughtful for the cause, and so careless of himself, that he compels the admiration of every one who really loves the just and true. --_the truth seeker_, new york, september , . the president and senate. _question_. what have you to say with reference to the respective attitudes of the president and senate? _answer_. i don't think there is any doubt as to the right of the senate to call on the president for information. of course that means for what information he has. when a duty devolves upon two persons, one of them has no right to withhold any facts calculated to throw any light on the question that both are to decide. the president cannot appoint any officer who has to be confirmed by the senate; he can simply nominate. the senate cannot even suggest a name; it can only pass upon the person nominated. if it is called upon for counsel and advice, how can it give advice without knowing the facts and circumstances? the president must have a reason for wishing to make a change. he should give that reason to the senate without waiting to be asked. he has assured the country that he is a civil service reformer; that no man is to be turned out because he is a republican, and no man appointed because he is a democrat. now, the senate has given the president an opportunity to prove that he has acted as he has talked. if the president feels that he is bound to carry out the civil-service law, ought not the senate to feel in the same way? is it not the duty of the senate to see to it that the president does not, with its advice and consent, violate the civil service law? is the consent of the senate a mere matter of form? in these appointments the president is not independent of or above the senate; they are equal, and each has the right to be "honor bright" with the other, at least. as long as this foolish law is unrepealed it must be carried out. neither party is in favor of civil service reform, and never was. the republican party did not carry it out, and did not intend to. the president has the right to nominate. under the law as it is now, when the president wants to appoint a clerk, or when one of his secretaries wants one, four names are sent, and from these four names a choice has to be made. this is clearly an invasion of the rights of the executive. if they have the right to compel the president to choose from four, why not from three, or two? why not name the one, and have done with it? the law is worse than unconstitutional--it is absurd. but in this contest the senate, in my judgment, is right. in my opinion, by the time cleveland goes out most of the offices will be filled with democrats. if the republicans succeed next time, i know, and everybody knows, that they will never rest easy until they get the democrats out. they will shout "offensive partisanship." the truth is, the theory is wrong. every citizen should take an interest in politics. a good man should not agree to keep silent just for the sake of an office. a man owes his best thoughts to his country. if he ought to defend his country in time of war, and under certain circumstances give his life for it, can we say that in time of peace he is under no obligation to discharge what he believes to be a duty, if he happens to hold an office? must he sell his birthright for the sake of being a doorkeeper? the whole doctrine is absurd and never will be carried out. _question_. what do you think as to the presidential race? _answer_. that is a good way off. i think the people can hardly be roused to enthusiasm by the old names. our party must take another step forward. we cannot live on what we have done; we must seek power for the sake, not of power, but for the accomplishment of a purpose. we must reform the tariff. we must settle the question of silver. we must have sense enough to know what the country needs, and courage enough to tell it. by reforming the tariff, i mean protect that and that only that needs protection-- laws for the country and not for the few. we want honest money; we want a dollar's worth of gold in a silver dollar, and a dollar's worth of silver in a gold dollar. we want to make them of equal value. bi-metallism does not mean that eighty cents' worth of silver is worth one hundred in gold. the republican party must get back its conscience and be guided by it in deciding the questions that arise. great questions are pressing for solution. thousands of working people are in want. business is depressed. the future is filled with clouds. what does the republican party propose? must we wait for mobs to inaugurate reform? must we depend on police or statesmen? should we wait and crush by brute force or should we prevent? the toilers demand that eight hours should constitute a day's work. upon this question what does our party say? labor saving machines ought to lighten the burdens of the laborers. it will not do to say "over production" and keep on inventing machines and refuse to shorten the hours. what does our party say? the rich can take care of themselves if the mob will let them alone, and there will be no mob if there is no widespread want. hunger is a communist. the next candidate of the republican party must be big enough and courageous enough to answer these questions. if we find that kind of a candidate we shall succeed--if we do not, we ought not. --_chicago inter-ocean_, february, . atheism and citizenship. _question_. have you noticed the decision of mr. nathaniel jarvis, jr., clerk of the naturalization bureau of the court of common pleas, that an atheist cannot become a citizen? _answer_. yes, but i do not think it necessary for a man to be a theist in order to become or to remain a citizen of this country. the various laws, from up to , provided that the person wishing to be naturalized might make oath or affirmation. the first exception you will find in the revised statutes of the united states passed in - , section , , as follows:--"an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the united states in the following manner, and not otherwise:--first, he shall declare on oath, before a circuit or district court of the united states, etc." i suppose mr. jarvis felt it to be his duty to comply with this section. in this section there is nothing about affirmation --only the word "oath" is used--and mr. jarvis came to the conclusion that an atheist could not take an oath, and, therefore, could not declare his intention legally to become a citizen of the united states. undoubtedly mr. jarvis felt it his duty to stand by the law and to see to it that nobody should become a citizen of this country who had not a well defined belief in the existence of a being that he could not define and that no man has ever been able to define. in other words, that he should be perfectly convinced that there is a being "without body, parts or passions," who presides over the destinies of this world, and more especially those of new york in and about that part known as city hall park. _question_. was not mr. jarvis right in standing by the law? _answer_. if mr. jarvis is right, neither humboldt nor darwin could have become a citizen of the united states. wagner, the greatest of musicians, not being able to take an oath, would have been left an alien. under this ruling haeckel, spencer and tyndall would be denied citizenship--that is to say, the six greatest men produced by the human race in the nineteenth century, were and are unfit to be citizens of the united states. those who have placed the human race in debt cannot be citizens of the republic. on the other hand, the ignorant wife beater, the criminal, the pauper raised in the workhouse, could take the necessary oath and would be welcomed by new york "with arms outstretched as she would fly." _question_. you have quoted one statute. is there no other applicable to this case? _answer_. i am coming to that. if mr. jarvis will take the pains to read not only the law of naturalization in section , of the revised statutes of the united states, but the very first chapter in the book, "title i.," he will find in the very first section this sentence: "the requirements of any 'oath' shall be deemed complied with by making affirmation in official form." this applies to section , . of course an atheist can affirm, and the statute provides that wherever an oath is required affirmation may be made. _question_. did you read the recent action of judge o'gorman, of the superior court, in refusing naturalization papers to an applicant because he had not read the constitution of the united states? _answer_. i did. the united states constitution is a very important document, a good, sound document, but it is talked about a great deal more than it is read. i'll venture that you may commence at the battery to interview merchants and other business men about the constitution and you will talk with a hundred before you will find one who has ever read it. --_new york herald_, august , . the labor question. _question_. what is your remedy, colonel, for the labor troubles of the day? _answer_. one remedy is this: i should like to see the laboring men succeed. i should like to see them have a majority in congress and with a president of their own. i should like to see this so that they could satisfy themselves how little, after all, can be accomplished by legislation. the moment responsibility should touch their shoulders they would become conservative. they would find that making a living in this world is an individual affair, and that each man must look out for himself. they would soon find that the government cannot take care of the people. the people must support the government. everything cannot be regulated by law. the factors entering into this problem are substantially infinite and beyond the intellectual grasp of any human being. perhaps nothing in the world will convince the laboring man how little can be accomplished by law until there is opportunity of trying. to discuss the question will do good, so i am in favor of its discussion. to give the workingmen a trial will do good, so i am in favor of giving them a trial. _question_. but you have not answered my question: i asked you what could be done, and you have told me what could not be done. now, is there not some better organization of society that will help in this trouble? _answer_. undoubtedly. unless humanity is a failure, society will improve from year to year and from age to age. there will be, as the years go by, less want, less injustice, and the gifts of nature will be more equally divided, but there will never come a time when the weak can do as much as the strong, or when the mentally weak can accomplish as much as the intellectually strong. there will forever be inequality in society; but, in my judgment, the time will come when an honest, industrious person need not want. in my judgment, that will come, not through governmental control, not through governmental slavery, not through what is called socialism, but through liberty and through individuality. i can conceive of no greater slavery than to have everything done by the government. i want free scope given to individual effort. in time some things that governments have done will be removed. the creation of a nobility, the giving of vast rights to corporations, and the bestowment of privileges on the few will be done away with. in other words, governmental interference will cease and man will be left more to himself. the future will not do away with want by charity, which generally creates more want than it alleviates, but by justice and intelligence. shakespeare says, "there is no darkness but ignorance," and it might be added that ignorance is the mother of most suffering. --_the enquirer_, cincinnati, ohio, september , . railroads and politics. _question_. you are intimately acquainted with the great railroad managers and the great railroad systems, and what do you think is the great need of the railways to-day? _answer_. the great need of the railroads to-day is more business, more cars, better equipments, better pay for the men and less gambling in wall street. _question_. is it your experience that public men usually ride on passes? _answer_. yes, whenever they can get them. passes are for the rich. only those are expected to pay who can scarcely afford it. nothing shortens a journey, nothing makes the road as smooth, nothing keeps down the dust and keeps out the smoke like a pass. _question_. don't you think that the pass system is an injustice --that is, that ordinary travelers are taxed for the man who rides on a pass? _answer_. certainly, those who pay, pay for those who do not. this is one of the misfortunes of the obscure. it is so with everything. the big fish live on the little ones. _question_. are not parallel railroads an evil? _answer_. no, unless they are too near together. competition does some good and some harm, but it must exist. all these things must be left to take care of themselves. if the government interferes it is at the expense of the manhood and liberty of the people. _question_. but wouldn't it be better for the people if the railroads were managed by the government as is the post-office? _answer_. no, everything that individual can do should be left to them. if the government takes charge of the people they become weak and helpless. the people should take charge of the government. give the folks a chance. _question_. in the next presidential contest what will be the main issue? _answer_. the maine issue! _question_. would you again refuse to take the stump for mr. blaine if he should be renominated, and if so, why? _answer_. i do not expect to take the stump for anybody. mr. blaine is probably a candidate, and if he is nominated there will be plenty of people on the stump--or fence--or up a tree or somewhere in the woods. _question_. what are the most glaring mistakes of cleveland's administration? _answer_. first, accepting the nomination. second, taking the oath of office. third, not resigning. --_times star_, cincinnati, september , . prohibition. _question_. how much importance do you attach to the present prohibition movement? _answer_. no particular importance. i am opposed to prohibition and always have been, and hope always to be. i do not want the legislature to interfere in these matters. i do not believe that the people can be made temperate by law. men and women are not made great and good by the law. there is no good in the world that cannot be abused. prohibition fills the world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the law. where a majority are against it, juries will violate their oath, and witnesses will get around the truth, and the result is demoralization. take wine and malt liquors out of the world and we shall lose a vast deal of good fellowship; the world would lose more than it would gain. there is a certain sociability about wine that i should hate to have taken from the earth. strong liquors the folks had better let alone. if prohibition succeeds, and wines and malt liquors go, the next thing will be to take tobacco away, and the next thing all other pleasures, until prayer meetings will be the only places of enjoyment. _question_. do you care to say who your choice is for republican nominee for president in ? _answer_. i now promise that i will answer this question either in may or june, . at present my choice is not fixed, and is liable to change at any moment, and i need to leave it free, so that it can change from time to time as the circumstances change. i will, however, tell you privately that i think it will probably be a new man, somebody on whom the republicans can unite. i have made a good many inquiries myself to find out who this man is to be, but in every instance the answer has been determined by the location in which the gentleman lived who gave the answer. let us wait. _question_. do you think the republican party should take a decided stand on the temperance issue? _answer_. i do; and that decided stand should be that temperance is an individual question, something with which the state and nation have nothing to do. temperance is a thing that the law cannot control. you might as well try to control music, painting, sculpture, or metaphysics, as the question of temperance. as life becomes more valuable, people will learn to take better care of it. there is something more to be desired even than temperance, and that is liberty. i do not believe in putting out the sun because weeds grow. i should rather have some weeds than go without wheat and corn. the republican party should represent liberty and individuality; it should keep abreast of the real spirit of the age; the republican party ought to be intelligent enough to know that progress has been marked not by the enactment of new laws, but by the repeal of old ones. --_evening traveler_, boston, october, . henry george and labor. _question_. it is said, colonel ingersoll, that you are for henry george? _answer_. of course; i think it the duty of the republicans to defeat the democracy--a solemn duty--and i believe that they have a chance to elect george; that is to say, an opportunity to take new york from their old enemy. if the republicans stand by george he will succeed. all the democratic factions are going to unite to beat the workingmen. what a picture! now is the time for the republicans to show that all their sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires. they were on the side of the slave--they gave liberty to millions. let them take another step and extend their hands to the sons of toil. my heart beats with those who bear the burdens of this poor world. _question_. do you not think that capital is entitled to protection? _answer_. i am in favor of accomplishing all reforms in a legal and orderly way, and i want the laboring people of this country to appeal to the ballot. all classes and all interests must be content to abide the result. i want the laboring people to show that they are intelligent enough to stand by each other. henry george is their natural leader. let them be true to themselves by being true to him. the great questions between capital and labor must be settled peaceably. there is no excuse for violence, and no excuse for contempt and scorn. no country can be prosperous while the workers want and the idlers waste. those who do the most should have the most. there is no civilized country, so far as i know, but i believe there will be, and i want to hasten they day when the map of the world will give the boundaries of that blessed land. _question_. do you agree with george's principles? do you believe in socialism? _answer_. i do not understand that george is a socialist. he is on the side of those that work--so am i. he wants to help those that need help--so do i. the rich can take care of themselves. i shed no tears over the miseries of capital. i think of the men in mines and factories, in huts, hovels and cellars; of the poor sewing women; of the poor, the hungry and the despairing. the world must be made better through intelligence. i do not go with the destroyers, with those that hate the successful, that hate the generous, simply because they are rich. wealth is the surplus produced by labor, and the wealth of the world should keep the world from want. --_new york herald_, october , . labor question and socialism. _question_. what do you think of henry george for mayor? _answer_. several objections have been urged, not to what mr. george has done, but to what mr. george has thought, and he is the only candidate up to this time against whom a charge of this character could be made. among other things, he seems to have entertained an idea to the effect that a few men should not own the entire earth; that a child coming into the world has a right to standing room, and that before he walks, his mother has a right to standing room while she holds him. he insists that if it were possible to bottle the air, and sell it as we do mineral water, it would be hardly fair for the capitalists of the world to embark in such a speculation, especially where millions were allowed to die simply because they were not able to buy breath at "pool prices." mr. george seems to think that the time will come when capital will be intelligent enough and civilized enough to take care of itself. he has a dream that poverty and crime and all the evils that go hand in hand with partial famine, with lack of labor, and all the diseases born of living in huts and cellars, born of poor food and poor clothing and of bad habits, will disappear, and that the world will be really fit to live in. he goes so far as to insist that men ought to have more than twenty-three or twenty-four dollars a month for digging coal, and that they ought not to be compelled to spend that money in the store or saloon of the proprietor of the mine. he has also stated on several occasions that a man ought not to drive a street car for sixteen or eighteen hours a day--that even a street-car driver ought to have the privilege now and then of seeing his wife, or at least one of the children, awake. and he has gone so far as to say that a letter-carrier ought not to work longer in each day for the united states than he would for a civilized individual. to people that imagine that this world is already perfection; that the condition of no one should be bettered except their own, these ideas seem dangerous. a man who has already amassed a million, and who has no fear for the future, and who says: "i will employ the cheapest labor and make men work as long as they can possibly endure the toil," will regard mr. george as an impractical man. it is very probable that all of us will be dead before all the theories of mr. george are put in practice. some of them, however, may at some time benefit mankind; and so far as i am concerned, i am willing to help hasten the day, although it may not come while i live. i do not know that i agree with many of the theories of mr. george. i know that i do not agree with some of them. but there is one thing in which i do agree with him, and that is, in his effort to benefit the human race, in his effort to do away with some of the evils that now afflict mankind. i sympathize with him in his endeavor to shorten the hours of labor, to increase the well- being of laboring men, to give them better houses, better food, and in every way to lighten the burdens that now bear upon their bowed backs. it may be that very little can be done by law, except to see that they are not absolutely abused; to see that the mines in which they work are supplied with air and with means of escape in time of danger; to prevent the deforming of children by forcing upon them the labor of men; to shorten the hours of toil, and to give all laborers certain liens, above all other claims, for their work. it is easy to see that in this direction something may be done by law. _question_. colonel ingersoll, are you a socialist? _answer_. i am an individualist instead of a socialist. i am a believer in individuality and in each individual taking care of himself, and i want the government to do just as little as it can consistently with the safety of the nation, and i want as little law as possible--only as much as will protect life, reputation and property by punishing criminals and by enforcing honest contracts. but if a government gives privileges to a few, the few must not oppress the many. the government has no right to bestow any privilege upon any man or upon any corporation, except for the public good. that which is a special privilege to the few, should be a special benefit to the many. and whenever the privileged few abuse the privilege so that it becomes a curse to the many, the privilege, whatever it is, should be withdrawn. i do not pretend to know enough to suggest a remedy for all the evils of society. i doubt if one human mind could take into consideration the almost infinite number of factors entering into such a problem. and this fact that no one knows, is the excuse for trying. while i may not believe that a certain theory will work, still, if i feel sure it will do no harm, i am willing to see it tried. _question_. do you think that mr. george would make a good mayor? _answer_. i presume he would. he is a thoughtful, prudent man. his reputation for honesty has never, so far as i know, been called in question. it certainly does not take a genius to be mayor of new york. if so, there have been some years when there was hardly a mayor. i take it that a clear-headed, honest man, whose only object is to do his duty, and with courage enough to stand by his conscience, would make a good mayor of new york or of any other city. _question_. are you in sympathy with the workingmen and their objects? _answer_. i am in sympathy with laboring men of all kinds, whether they labor with hand or brain. the knights of labor, i believe, do not allow a lawyer to become a member. i am somewhat wider in my sympathies. no men in the world struggle more heroically; no men in the world have suffered more, or carried a heavier cross, or worn a sharper crown of thorns, than those that have produced what we call the literature of our race. so my sympathies extend all the way from hod-carriers to sculptors; from well-diggers to astronomers. if the objects of the laboring men are to improve their condition without injuring others; to have homes and firesides, and wives and children; plenty to eat, good clothes to wear; to develop their minds, to educate their children--in short, to become prosperous and civilized, i sympathize with them, and hope they will succeed. i have not the slightest sympathy with those that wish to accomplish all these objects through brute force. a nihilist may be forgiven in russia--may even be praised in russia; a socialist may be forgiven in germany; and certainly a home-ruler can be pardoned in ireland, but in the united states there is no place for anarchist, socialist or dynamiter. in this country the political power has been fairly divided. poverty has just as many votes as wealth. no man can be so poor as not to have a ballot; no man is rich enough to have two; and no man can buy another vote, unless somebody is mean enough and contemptible enough to sell; and if he does sell his vote, he never should complain about the laws or their administration. so the foolish and the wise are on an equality, and the political power of this country is divided so that each man is a sovereign. now, the laboring people are largely in the majority in this country. if there are any laws oppressing them, they should have them repealed. i want the laboring people--and by the word "laboring" now, i include only the men that they include by that word--to unite; i want them to show that they have the intelligence to act together, and sense enough to vote for a friend. i want them to convince both the other great parties that they cannot be purchased. this will be an immense step in the right direction. i have sometimes thought that i should like to see the laboring men in power, so that they would realize how little, after all, can be done by law. all that any man should ask, so far as the government is concerned, is a fair chance to compete with his neighbors. personally, i am for the abolition of all special privileges that are not for the general good. my principal hope of the future is the civilization of my race; the development not only of the brain, but of the heart. i believe the time will come when we shall stop raising failures, when we shall know something of the laws governing human beings. i believe the time will come when we shall not produce deformed persons, natural criminals. in other words, i think the world is going to grow better and better. this may not happen to this nation or to what we call our race, but it may happen to some other race, and all that we do in the right direction hastens that day and that race. _question_. do you think that the old parties are about to die? _answer_. it is very hard to say. the country is not old enough for tables of mortality to have been calculated upon parties. i suppose a party, like anything else, has a period of youth, of manhood and decay. the democratic party is not dead. some men grow physically strong as they grow mentally weak. the democratic party lived out of office, and in disgrace, for twenty-five years, and lived to elect a president. if the democratic party could live on disgrace for twenty-five years it now looks as though the republican party, on the memory of its glory and of its wonderful and unparalleled achievements, might manage to creep along for a few years more. --_new york world_, october , . henry george and socialism. _question_. what is your opinion of the result of the election? _answer_. i find many dead on the field whose faces i recognize. i see that morrison has taken a "horizontal" position. free trade seems to have received an exceedingly black eye. carlisle, in my judgment, one of the very best men in congress, has been defeated simply because he is a free trader, and i suppose you can account for hurd's defeat in the same way. the people believe in protection although they generally admit that the tariff ought to be reformed. i believe in protecting "infant industries," but i do not believe in rocking the cradle when the infant is seven feet high and wears number twelve boots. _question_. do you sympathize with the socialists, or do you think that the success of george would promote socialism? _answer_. i have said frequently that if i lived in russia i should in all probability be a nihilist. i can conceive of no government that would not be as good as that of russia, and i would consider _no_ government far preferable to that government. any possible state of anarchy is better than organized crime, because in the chaos of anarchy justice may be done by accident, but in a government organized for the perpetuation of slavery, and for the purpose of crushing out of the human brain every noble thought, justice does not live. in germany i would probably be a socialist--to this extent, that i would want the political power honestly divided among the people. i can conceive of no circumstance in which i could support bismarck. i regard bismarck as a projection of the middle ages, as a shadow that has been thrown across the sunlight of modern civilization, and in that shadow grow all the bloodless crimes. now, in ireland, of course, i believe in home rule. in this country i am an individualist. the political power here is equally divided. poverty and wealth have the same power at the ballot-box. intelligence and ignorance are on an equality here, simply because all men have a certain interest in the government where they live. i hate above all other things the tyranny of a government. i do not want a government to send a policeman along with me to keep me from buying eleven eggs for a dozen. i will take care of myself. i want the people to do everything they can do, and the government to keep its hands off, because if the government attends to all these matters the people lose manhood, and in a little while become serfs, and there will arise some strong mind and some powerful hand that will reduce them to actual slavery. so i am in favor or personal liberty to the largest extent. whenever the government grants privileges to the few, these privileges should be for the benefit of the many, and when they cease to be for the benefit of the many, they should be taken from the few and used by the government itself for the benefit of the whole people. and i want to see in this country the government so administered that justice will be done to all as nearly as human institutions can produce such a result. now, i understand that in any state of society there will be failures. we have failures among the working people. we have had some failures in congress. i will not mention the names, because your space is limited. there have been failures in the pulpit, at the bar; in fact, in every pursuit of life you will presume we shall have failures with us for a great while; at least until the establishment of the religion of the body, when we shall cease to produce failures; and i have faith enough in the human race to believe that that time will come, but i do not expect it during my life. _question_. what do you think of the income tax as a step toward the accomplishment of what you desire? _answer_. there are some objections to an income tax. first, the espionage that it produces on the part of the government. second, the amount of perjury that it annually produces. men hate to have their business inquired into if they are not doing well. they often pay a very large tax to make their creditors think they are prosperous. others by covering up, avoid the tax. but i will say this with regard to taxation: the great desideratum is stability. if we tax only the land, and that were the only tax, in a little while every other thing, and the value of every other thing, would adjust itself in relation to that tax, and perfect justice would be the result. that is to say, if it were stable long enough the burden would finally fall upon the right backs in every department. the trouble with taxation is that it is continually changing--not waiting for the adjustment that will naturally follow provided it is stable. i think the end, so far as land is concerned, could be reached by cumulative taxation--that is to say, a man with a certain amount of land paying a very small per cent., with more land, and increased per cent., and let that per cent. increase rapidly enough so that no man could afford to hold land that he did not have a use for. so i believe in cumulative taxation in regard to any kind of wealth. let a man worth ten million dollars pay a greater per cent. than one worth one hundred thousand, because he is able to pay it. the other day a man was talking to me about having the dead pay the expenses of the government; that whenever a man died worth say five million dollars, one million should go to the government; that if he died worth ten million dollars, three millions should go to the government; if he died worth twenty million dollars, eight million should go to the government, and so on. he said that in this way the expenses of the government could be borne by the dead. i should be in favor of cumulative taxation upon legacies-- the greater the legacy, the greater the per cent. of taxation. but, of course, i am not foolish enough to suppose that i understand these questions. i am giving you a few guesses. my only desire is to guess right. i want to see the people of this world live for this world, and i hope the time will come when a civilized man will understand that he cannot be perfectly happy while anybody else is miserable; that a perfectly civilized man could not enjoy a dinner knowing that others were starving; that he could not enjoy the richest robes if he knew that some of his fellow-men in rags and tatters were shivering in the blast. in other words, i want to carry out the idea there that i have so frequently uttered with regard to the other world; that is, that no gentleman angel could be perfectly happy knowing that somebody else was in hell. _question_. what are the chances for the republican party in ? _answer_. if it will sympathize with the toilers, as it did with the slaves; if it will side with the needy; if it will only take the right side it will elect the next president. the poor should not resort to violence; the rich should appeal to the intelligence of the working people. these questions cannot be settled by envy and scorn. the motto of both parties should be: "come, let us reason together." the republican party was the grandest organization that ever existed. it was brave, intelligent and just. it sincerely loved the right. a certificate of membership was a patent of nobility. if it will only stand by the right again, its victorious banner will float over all the intelligent sons of toil. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, november , . reply to the rev. b. f. morse.* [* at the usual weekly meeting of the baptist ministers at the publication rooms yesterday, the rev. dr. b. f. morse read an essay on "christianity vs. materialism." his contention was that all nature showed that design, not evolution, was its origin. in his concluding remarks dr. morse said that he knew from unquestionable authority, that robert g. ingersoll did not believe what he uttered in his lectures, and that to get out of a financial embarrassment he looked around for a money making scheme that could be put into immediate execution. to lecture against christianity was the most rapid way of giving him the needed cash and, what was quite as acceptable to him, at the same time, notoriety.] this aquatic or web-footed theologian who expects to go to heaven by diving is not worth answering. nothing can be more idiotic than to answer an argument by saying he who makes it does not believe it. belief has nothing to do with the cogency or worth of an argument. there is another thing. this man, or rather this minister, says that i attacked christianity simply to make money. is it possible that, after preachers have had the field for eighteen hundred years, the way to make money is to attack the clergy? is this intended as a slander against me or the ministers? the trouble is that my arguments cannot be answered. all the preachers in the world cannot prove that slavery is better than liberty. they cannot show that all have not an equal right to think. they cannot show that all have not an equal right to express their thoughts. they cannot show that a decent god will punish a decent man for making the best guess he can. this is all there is about it. --_the herald_, new york, december , . ingersoll on mcglynn. the attitude of the roman catholic church in dr. mcglynn's case is consistent with the history and constitution of the catholic church --perfectly consistent with its ends, its objects, and its means-- and just as perfectly inconsistent with intellectual liberty and the real civilization of the human race. when a man becomes a catholic priest, he has been convinced that he ought not to think for himself upon religious questions. he has become convinced that the church is the only teacher--that he has a right to think only to enforce its teachings. from that moment he is a moral machine. the chief engineer resides at rome, and he gives his orders through certain assistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the machine has nothing to do one way or the other. this machine is paid for giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up theirs. while somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure of turning a crank belonging to somebody below him. of course, the catholic church is supposed to be the only perfect institution on earth. all others are not only imperfect, but unnecessary. all others have been made either by man, or by the devil, or by a partnership, and consequently cannot be depended upon for the civilization of man. the catholic church gets its power directly from god, and is the only institution now in the world founded by god. there was never any other, so far as i know, except polygamy and slavery and a crude kind of monarchy, and they have been, for the most part, abolished. the catholic church must be true to itself. it must claim everything, and get what it can. it alone is infallible. it alone has all the wisdom of this world. it alone has the right to exist. all other interests are secondary. to be a catholic is of the first importance. human liberty is nothing. wealth, position, food, clothing, reputation, happiness--all these are less than worthless compared with what the catholic church promises to the man who will throw all these away. a priest must preach what his bishop tells him. a bishop must preach what his archbishop tells him. the pope must preach what he says god tells him. dr. mcglynn cannot make a compromise with the catholic church. it never compromises when it is in the majority. i do not mean by this that the catholic church is worse than any other. all are alike in this regard. every sect, no matter how insignificant; every church, no matter how powerful, asks precisely the same thing from every member--that is to say, a surrender of intellectual freedom. the catholic church wants the same as the baptist, the presbyterian, and the methodist--it wants the whole earth. it is ambitious to be the one supreme power. it hopes to see the world upon its knees, with all its tongues thrust out for wafers. it has the arrogance of humility and the ferocity of universal forgiveness. in this respect it resembles every other sect. every religion is a system of slavery. of course, the religionists say that they do not believe in persecution; that they do not believe in burning and hanging and whipping or loading with chains a man simply because he is an infidel. they are willing to leave all this with god, knowing that a being of infinite goodness will inflict all these horrors and tortures upon an honest man who differs with the church. in case dr. mcglynn is deprived of his priestly functions, it is hard to say what effect it will have upon his church and the labor party in the country. so long as a man believes that a church has eternal joy in store for him, so long as he believes that a church holds within its hand the keys of heaven and hell, it will be hard to make him trade off the hope of everlasting happiness for a few good clothes and a little good food and higher wages here. he finally thinks that, after all, he had better work for less and go a little hungry, and be an angel forever. i hope, however, that a good many people who have been supporting the catholic church by giving tithes of the wages of weariness will see, and clearly see, that catholicism is not their friend; that the church cannot and will not support them; that, on the contrary, they must support the church. i hope they will see that all the prayers have to be paid for, although not one has ever been answered. i hope they will perceive that the church is on the side of wealth and power, that the mitre is the friend of the crown, that the altar is the sworn brother of the throne. i hope they will finally know that the church cares infinitely more for the money of the millionaire than for the souls of the poor. of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. i am speaking of the church as an institution, as a corporation--and when i say the church, i include all churches. it is said of corporations in general, that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that it has less than any other. it lives on alms. it gives nothing for what it gets. it has no sympathy. beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other beggars. nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the catholic church on the side of human freedom; nothing more pleasure than to see the catholics of the world--those who work and weep and toil-- sensible enough to know that all the money paid for superstition is worse than lost. i wish they could see that the counting of beads, and the saying of prayers and celebrating of masses, and all the kneelings and censer-swingings and fastings and bell-ringing, amount to less than nothing--that all these things tend only to the degradation of mankind. it is hard, i know, to find an antidote for a poison that was mingled with a mother's milk. the laboring masses, so far as the catholics are concerned, are filled with awe and wonder and fear about the church. this fear began to grow while they were being rocked in their cradles, and they still imagine that the church has some mysterious power; that it is in direct communication with some infinite personality that could, if it desired, strike then dead, or damn their souls forever. persons who have no such belief, who care nothing for popes or priests or churches or heavens or hells or devils or gods, have very little idea of the power of fear. the old dogmas filled the brain with strange monsters. the soul of the orthodox christian gropes and wanders and crawls in a kind of dungeon, where the strained eyes see fearful shapes, and the frightened flesh shrinks from the touch of serpents. the good part of christianity--that is to say, kindness, morality --will never go down. the cruel part ought to go down. and by the cruel part i mean the doctrine of eternal punishment--of allowing the good to suffer for the bad--allowing innocence to pay the debt of guilt. so the foolish part of christianity--that is to say, the miraculous--will go down. the absurd part must perish. but there will be no war about it as there was in france. nobody believes enough in the foolish part of christianity now to fight for it. nobody believes with intensity enough in miracles to shoulder a musket. there is probably not a christian in new york willing to fight for any story, no matter if the story is so old that it is covered with moss. no mentally brave and intelligent man believes in miracles, and no intelligent man cares whether there was a miracle or not, for the reason that every intelligent man knows that the miraculous has no possible connection with the moral. "thou shalt not steal," is just as good a commandment if it should turn out that the flood was a drouth. "thou shalt not murder," is a good and just and righteous law, and whether any particular miracle was ever performed or not has nothing to do with the case. there is no possible relation between these things. i am on the side not only of the physically oppressed, but of the mentally oppressed. i hate those who put lashes on the body, and i despise those who put the soul in chains. in other words, i am in favor of liberty. i do not wish that any man should be the slave of his fellow-men, or that the human race should be the slaves of any god, real or imaginary. man has the right to think for himself, to work for himself, to take care of himself, to get bread for himself, to get a home for himself. he has a right to his own opinion about god, and heaven and hell; the right to learn any art or mystery or trade; the right to work for whom he will, for what he will, and when he will. the world belongs to the human race. there is to be no war in this country on religious opinions, except a war of words--a conflict of thoughts, of facts; and in that conflict the hosts of superstition will go down. they may not be defeated to-day, or to-morrow, or next year, or during this century, but they are growing weaker day by day. this priest, mcglynn, has the courage to stand up against the propaganda. what would have been his fate a few years ago? what would have happened to him in spain, in portugal, in italy--in any other country that was catholic--only a few years ago? yet he stands here in new york, he refuses to obey god's vicegerent; he freely gives his mind to an archbishop; he holds the holy inquisition in contempt. he has done a great thing. he is undoubtedly an honest man. he never should have been a catholic. he has no business in that church. he has ideas of his own--theories, and seems to be governed by principles. the catholic church is not his place. if he remains, he must submit, he must kneel in the humility of abjectness; he must receive on the back of his independence the lashes of the church. if he remains, he must ask the forgiveness of slaves for having been a man. if he refuses to submit, the church will not have him. he will be driven to take his choice-- to remain a member, humiliated, shunned, or go out into the great, free world a citizen of the republic, with the rights, responsibilities, and duties of an american citizen. i believe that dr. mcglynn is an honest man, and that he really believes in the land theories of mr. george. i have no confidence in his theories, but i have confidence that he is actuated by the best and noblest motives. _question_. are you to go on the lecture platform again? _answer_. i expect to after a while. i am now waiting for the church to catch up. i got so far ahead that i began almost to sympathize with the clergy. they looked so helpless and talked in such a weak, wandering, and wobbling kind of way that i felt as though i had been cruel. from the papers i see that they are busy trying to find out who the wife of cain was. i see that the rev. dr. robinson, of new york, is now wrestling with that problem. he begins to be in doubt whether adam was the first man, whether eve was the first woman; suspects that there were other races, and that cain did not marry his sister, but somebody else's sister, and that the somebody else was not cain's brother. one can hardly over- estimate the importance of these questions, they have such a direct bearing on the progress of the world. if it should turn out that adam was the first man, or that he was not the first man, something might happen--i am not prepared to say what, but it might. it is a curious kind of a spectacle to see a few hundred people paying a few thousand dollars a year for the purpose of hearing these great problems discussed: "was adam the first man?" "who was cain's wife?" "has anyone seen a map of the land of nod?" "where are the four rivers that ran murmuring through the groves of paradise?" "who was the snake? how did he walk? what language did he speak?" this turns a church into a kind of nursery, makes a cradle of each pew, and gives to each member a rattle with which he can amuse what he calls his mind. the great theologians of andover--the gentlemen who wear the brass collars furnished by the dead founder--have been disputing among themselves as to what is to become of the heathen who fortunately died before meeting any missionary from that institution. one can almost afford to be damned hereafter for the sake of avoiding the dogmas of andover here. nothing more absurd and childish has ever happened--not in the intellectual, but in the theological world. there is no need of the freethinkers saying anything at present. the work is being done by the church members themselves. they are beginning to ask questions of the clergy. they are getting tired of the old ideas--tired of the consolations of eternal pain--tired of hearing about hell--tired of hearing the bible quoted or talked about--tired of the scheme of redemption--tired of the trinity, of the plenary inspiration of the barbarous records of a barbarous people--tired of the patriarchs and prophets--tired of daniel and the goats with three horns, and the image with the clay feet, and the little stone that rolled down the hill--tired of the mud man and the rib woman--tired of the flood of noah, of the astronomy of joshua, the geology of moses--tired of kings and chronicles and lamentations--tired of the lachrymose jeremiah--tired of the monstrous, the malicious, and the miraculous. in short, they are beginning to think. they have bowed their necks to the yoke of ignorance and fear and impudence and superstition, until they are weary. they long to be free. they are tired of the services-- tired of the meaningless prayers--tired of hearing each other say, "hear us, good lord"--tired of the texts, tired of the sermons, tired of the lies about spontaneous combustion as a punishment for blasphemy, tired of the bells, and they long to hear the doxology of superstition. they long to have common sense lift its hands in benediction and dismiss the congregation. --_brooklyn citizen_, april, . trial of the chicago anarchists. _question_. what do you think of the trial of the chicago anarchists and their chances for a new trial? _answer_. i have paid some attention to the evidence and to the rulings of the court, and i have read the opinion of the supreme court of illinois, in which the conviction is affirmed. of course these men were tried during a period of great excitement--tried when the press demanded their conviction--when it was asserted that society was on the edge of destruction unless these men were hanged. under such circumstances, it is not easy to have a fair and impartial trial. a judge should either sit beyond the reach of prejudice, in some calm that storms cannot invade, or he should be a kind of oak that before any blast he would stand erect. it is hard to find such a place as i have suggested and not easy to find such a man. we are all influenced more or less by our surroundings, by the demands and opinions and feelings and prejudices of our fellow- citizens. there is a personality made up of many individuals known as society. this personality has prejudices like an individual. it often becomes enraged, acts without the slightest sense, and repents at its leisure. it is hard to reason with a mob whether organized or disorganized, whether acting in the name of the law or of simple brute force. but in any case, where people refuse to be governed by reason, they become a mob. _question_. do you not think that these men had a fair trial? _answer_. i have no doubt that the court endeavored to be fair-- no doubt that judge gary is a perfectly honest, upright man, but i think his instructions were wrong. he instructed the jury to the effect that where men have talked in a certain way, and where the jury believed that the result of such talk might be the commission of a crime, that such men are responsible for that crime. of course, there is neither law nor sense in an instruction like this. i hold that it must have been the intention of the man making the remark, or publishing the article, or doing the thing--it must have been his intention that the crime should be committed. men differ as to the effect of words, and a man may say a thing with the best intentions the result of which is a crime, and he may say a thing with the worst of intentions and the result may not be a crime. the supreme court of illinois seemed to have admitted that the instructions were wrong, but took the ground that it made no difference with the verdict. this is a dangerous course for the court of last resort to pursue; neither is it very complimentary to the judge who tried the case, that his instructions had no effect upon the jury. under the instructions of the court below, any man who had been arrested with the seven anarchists and of whom it could be proved that he had ever said a word in favor of any change in government, or of other peculiar ideas, no matter whether he knew of the meeting at the haymarket or not, would have been convicted. i am satisfied that the defendant fielden never intended to harm a human being. as a matter of fact, the evidence shows that he was making a speech in favor of peace at the time of the occurrence. the evidence also shows that he was an exceedingly honest, industrious, and a very poor and philanthropic man. _question_. do you uphold the anarchists? _answer_. certainly not. there is no place in this country for the anarchist. the source of power here is the people, and to attack the political power is to attack the people. if the laws are oppressive, it is the fault of the oppressed. if the laws touch the poor and leave them without redress, it is the fault of the poor. they are in a majority. the men who work for their living are the very men who have the power to make every law that is made in the united states. there is no excuse for any resort to violence in this country. the boycotting by trades unions and by labor organizations is all wrong. let them resort to legal methods and to no other. i have not the slightest sympathy with the methods that have been pursued by anarchists, or by socialists, or by any other class that has resorted to force or intimidation. the ballot-box is the place to assemble. the will of the people can be made known in that way, and their will can be executed. at the same time, i think i understand what has produced the anarchist, the socialist, and the agitator. in the old country, a laboring man, poorly clad, without quite enough to eat, with a wife in rags, with a few children asking for bread--this laboring man sees the idle enjoying every luxury of this life; he sees on the breast of "my lady" a bonfire of diamonds; he sees "my lord" riding in his park; he sees thousands of people who from the cradle to the grave do no useful act; add nothing to the intellectual or the physical wealth of the world; he sees labor living in the tenement house, in the hut; idleness and nobility in the mansion and the palace; the poor man a trespasser everywhere except upon the street, where he is told to "move on," and in the dusty highways of the country. that man naturally hates the government--the government of the few, the government that lives on the unpaid labor of the many, the government that takes the child from the parents, and puts him in the army to fight the child of another poor man and woman in some other country. these anarchists, these socialists, these agitators, have been naturally produced. all the things of which i have spoken sow in the breast of poverty the seeds of hatred and revolution. these poor men, hunted by the officers of the law, cornered, captured, imprisoned, excite the sympathy of other poor men, and if some are dragged to the gallows and hanged, or beheaded by the guillotine, they become saints and martyrs, and those who sympathize with them feel that they have the power, and only the power of hatred--the power of riot, of destruction--the power of the torch, of revolution, that is to say, of chaos and anarchy. the injustice of the higher classes makes the lower criminal. then there is another thing. the misery of the poor excites in many noble breasts sympathy, and the men who thus sympathize wish to better the condition of their fellows. at first they depend upon reason, upon calling the attention of the educated and powerful to the miseries of the poor. nothing happens, no result follows. the juggernaut of society moves on, and the wretches are still crushed beneath the great wheels. these men who are really good at first, filled with sympathy, now become indignant--they are malicious, then destructive and criminal. i do not sympathize with these methods, but i do sympathize with the general object that all good and generous people seek to accomplish--namely, to better the condition of the human race. only the other day, in boston, i said that we ought to take into consideration the circumstances under which the anarchists were reared; that we ought to know that every man is necessarily produced; that man is what he is, not by accident, but necessity; that society raises its own criminals--that it plows the soil and cultivates and harvests the crop. and it was telegraphed that i had defended anarchy. nothing was ever further from my mind. there is no place, as i said before, for anarchy in the united states. in russia it is another question; in germany another question. every country that is governed by the one man, or governed by the few, is the victim of anarchy. that _is_ anarchy. that is the worst possible form of socialism. the definition of socialism given by its bitterest enemy is, that idlers wish to live on the labor and on the money of others. is not this definition--a definition given in hatred--a perfect definition of every monarchy and of nearly every government in the world? that is to say: the idle few live on the labor and the money of others. _question_. will the supreme court take cognizance of this case and prevent the execution of the judgment? _answer_. of course it is impossible for me to say. at the same time, judging from the action of justice miller in the case of _the people vs. maxwell_, it seems probable that the supreme court may interfere, but i have not examined the question sufficiently to form an opinion. my feeling about the whole matter is this: that it will not tend to answer the ideas advanced by these men, to hang them. their execution will excite sympathy among thousands and thousands of people who have never examined and knew nothing of the theories advanced by the anarchists, or the socialists, or other agitators. in my judgment, supposing the men to be guilty, it is far better to imprison them. less harm will be done the cause of free government. we are not on the edge of any revolution. no other government is as firmly fixed as ours. no other government has such a broad and splendid foundation. we have nothing to fear. courage and safety can afford to be generous--can afford to act without haste and without the feeling of revenge. so, for my part, i hope that the sentence may be commuted, and that these men, if found guilty at last, may be imprisoned. this course is, in my judgment, the safest to pursue. it may be that i am led to this conclusion, because of my belief that every man does as he must. this belief makes me charitable toward all the world. this belief makes me doubt the wisdom of revenge. this belief, so far as i am concerned, blots from our language the word "punishment." society has a right to protect itself, and it is the duty of society to reform, in so far as it may be possible, any member who has committed what is called a crime. where the criminal cannot be reformed, and the safety of society can be secured by his imprisonment, there is no possible excuse for destroying his life. after these six or seven men have been, in accordance with the forms of law, strangled to death, there will be a few pieces of clay, and about them will gather a few friends, a few admirers--and these pieces will be buried, and over the grave will be erected a monument, and those who were executed as criminals will be regarded by thousands as saints. it is far better for society to have a little mercy. the effect upon the community will be good. if these men are imprisoned, people will examine their teachings without prejudice. if they are executed, seen through the tears of pity, their virtues, their sufferings, their heroism, will be exaggerated; others may emulate their deeds, and the gulf between the rich and the poor will be widened--a gulf that may not close until it has devoured the noblest and the best. --_the mail and express_, new york, november , . the stage and the pulpit. _question_. what do you think of the methodist minister at nashville, tenn., who, from his pulpit, denounced the theatrical profession, without exception, as vicious, and of the congregation which passed resolutions condemning miss emma abbott for rising in church and contradicting him, and of the methodist bishop who likened her to a "painted courtesan," and invoked the aid of the law "for the protection of public worship" against "strolling players"? _answer_. the methodist minister of whom you speak, without doubt uttered his real sentiments. the church has always regarded the stage as a rival, and all its utterances have been as malicious as untrue. it has always felt that the money given to the stage was in some way taken from the pulpit. it is on this principle that the pulpit wishes everything, except the church, shut up on sunday. it knows that it cannot stand free and open competition. all well-educated ministers know that the bible suffers by a comparison with shakespeare. they know that there is nothing within the lids of what they call "the sacred book" that can for one moment stand side by side with "lear" or "hamlet" or "julius caesar" or "antony and cleopatra" or with any other play written by the immortal man. they know what a poor figure the davids and the abrahams and the jeremiahs and the lots, the jonahs, the jobs and the noahs cut when on the stage with the great characters of shakespeare. for these reasons, among others, the pulpit is malicious and hateful when it thinks of the glories of the stage. what minister is there now living who could command the prices commanded by edwin booth or joseph jefferson; and what two clergymen, by making a combination, could contend successfully with robson and crane? how many clergymen would it take to command, at regular prices, the audiences that attend the presentation of wagner's operas? it is very easy to see why the pulpit attacks the stage. nothing could have been in more wretched taste than for the minister to condemn miss emma abbott for rising in church and defending not only herself, but other good women who are doing honest work for an honest living. of course, no minister wishes to be answered; no minister wishes to have anyone in the congregation call for the proof. a few questions would break up all the theology in the world. ministers can succeed only when congregations keep silent. when superstition succeeds, doubt must be dumb. the methodist bishop who attacked miss abbott simply repeated the language of several centuries ago. in the laws of england actors were described as "sturdy vagrants," and this bishop calls them "strolling players." if we only had some strolling preachers like garrick, like edwin forrest, or booth or barrett, or some crusade sisters like mrs. siddons, madam ristori, charlotte cushman, or madam modjeska, how fortunate the church would be! _question_. what is your opinion of the relative merits of the pulpit and the stage, preachers and actors? _answer_. we must remember that the stage presents an ideal life. it is a world controlled by the imagination--a world in which the justice delayed in real life may be done, and in which that may happen which, according to the highest ideal, should happen. it is a world, for the most part, in which evil does not succeed, in which the vicious are foiled, in which the right, the honest, the sincere, and the good prevail. it cultivates the imagination, and in this respect is far better than the pulpit. the mission of the pulpit is to narrow and shrivel the human mind. the pulpit denounces the freedom of thought and of expression; but on the stage the mind is free, and for thousands of years the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, have been permitted to witness plays wherein the slave was freed, wherein the oppressed became the victor, and where the downtrodden rose supreme. and there is another thing. the stage has always laughed at the spirit of caste. the low-born lass has loved the prince. all human distinctions in this ideal world have for the moment vanished, while honesty and love have triumphed. the stage lightens the cares of life. the pulpit increases the tears and groans of man. there is this difference: the pretence of honesty and the honesty of pretence. _question_. how do you view the episcopalian scheme of building a six-million-dollar untaxed cathedral in this city for the purpose of "uniting the sects," and, when that is accomplished, "unifying the world in the love of christ," and thereby abolishing misery? _answer_. i regard the building of an episcopal cathedral simply as a piece of religious folly. the world will never be converted by christian palaces and temples. every dollar used in its construction will be wasted. it will have no tendency to unite the various sects; on the contrary, it will excite the envy and jealousy of every other sect. it will widen the gulf between the episcopalian and the methodist, between the episcopalian and the presbyterian, and this hatred will continue until the other sects build a cathedral just a little larger, and then the envy and the hatred will be on the other side. religion will never unify the world, and never will give peace to mankind. there has been more war in the last eighteen hundred years than during any similar period within historic times. war will be abolished, if it ever is abolished, not by religion, but by intelligence. it will be abolished when the poor people of germany, of france, of spain, of england, and other countries find that they have no interest in war. when those who pay, and those who do the fighting, find that they are simply destroying their own interests, wars will cease. there ought to be a national court to decide national difficulties. we consider a community civilized when the individuals of that community submit their differences to a legal tribunal; but there being no national court, nations now sustain, as to each other, the relation of savages--that is to say, each one must defend its rights by brute force. the establishment of a national court civilizes nations, and tends to do away with war. christianity caused so much war, so much bloodshed, that christians were forced to interpolate a passage to account for their history, and the interpolated passage is, "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." suppose that all the money wasted in cathedrals in the middle ages had been used for the construction of schoolhouses, academies, and universities, how much better the world would have been! suppose that instead of supporting hundreds of thousands of idle priests, the money had been given to men of science, for the purpose of finding out something of benefit to the human race here in this world. _question_. what is your opinion of "christian charity" and the "fatherhood of god" as an economic polity for abolishing poverty and misery? _answer_. of course, the world is not to be civilized and clothed and fed through charity. ordinary charity creates more want than it alleviates. the greatest possible charity is the greatest possible justice. when proper wages are paid, when every one is as willing to give what a thing is worth as he is now willing to get it for less, the world will be fed and clothed. i believe in helping people to help themselves. i believe that corporations, and successful men, and superior men intellectually, should do all within their power to keep from robbing their fellow- men. the superior man should protect the inferior. the powerful should be the shield of the weak. to-day it is, for the most part, exactly the other way. the failures among men become the food of success. the world is to grow better and better through intelligence, through a development of the brain, through taking advantage of the forces of nature, through science, through chemistry, and through the arts. religion can do nothing except to sow the seeds of discord between men and nations. commerce, manufactures, and the arts tend to peace and the well-being of the world. what is known as religion --that is to say, a system by which this world is wasted in preparation for another--a system in which the duties of men are greater to god than to his fellow-men--a system that denies the liberty of thought and expression--tends only to discord and retrogression. of course, i know that religious people cling to the bible on account of the good that is in it, and in spite of the bad, and i know that freethinkers throw away the bible on account of the bad that is in it, in spite of the good. i hope the time will come when that book will be treated like other books, and will be judged upon its merits, apart from the fiction of inspiration. the church has no right to speak of charity, because it is an object of charity itself. it gives nothing; all it can do is to receive. at best, it is only a respectable beggar. i never care to hear one who receives alms pay a tribute to charity. the one who gives alms should pay this tribute. the amount of money expended upon churches and priests and all the paraphernalia of superstition, is more than enough to drive the wolves from the doors of the world. _question_. have you noticed the progress catholics are making in the northwest, discontinuing public schools, and forcing people to send their children to the parochial schools; also, at pittsburg, pa., a roman catholic priest has been elected principal of a public school, and he has appointed nuns as assistant teachers? _answer_. sectarian schools ought not to be supported by public taxation. it is the very essence of religious tyranny to compel a methodist to support a catholic school, or to compel a catholic to support a baptist academy. nothing should be taught in the public schools that the teachers do not know. nothing should be taught about any religion, and nothing should be taught that can, in any way, be called sectarian. the sciences are not religion. there is no such thing as methodist mathematics, or baptist botany. in other words, no religion has anything to do with facts. the facts are all secular; the sciences are all of this world. if catholics wish to establish their own schools for the purpose of preserving their ignorance, they have the right to do so; so has any other denomination. but in this country the state has no right to teach any form of religion whatever. persons of all religions have the right to advocate and defend any religion in which they believe, or they have the right to denounce all religions. if the catholics establish parochial schools, let them support such schools; and if they do, they will simply lessen or shorten the longevity of that particular superstition. it has often been said that nothing will repeal a bad law as quickly as its enforcement. so, in my judgment, nothing will destroy any church as certainly, and as rapidly, as for the members of that church to live squarely up to the creed. the church is indebted to its hypocrisy to-day for its life. no orthodox church in the united states dare meet for the purpose of revising the creed. they know that the whole thing would fall to pieces. nothing could be more absurd than for a roman catholic priest to teach a public school, assisted by nuns. the catholic church is the enemy of human progress; it teaches every man to throw away his reason, to deny his observation and experience. _question_. your opinions have frequently been quoted with regard to the anarchists--with regard to their trial and execution. have you any objection to stating your real opinion in regard to the matter? _answer_. not in the least. i am perfectly willing that all civilized people should know my opinions on any question in which others than myself can have any interest. i was anxious, in the first place, that the defendants should have a fair and impartial trial. the worst form of anarchy is when a judge violates his conscience and bows to a popular demand. a court should care nothing for public opinion. an honest judge decides the law, not as it ought to be, but as it is, and the state of the public mind throws no light upon the question of what the law then is. i thought that some of the rulings on the trial of the anarchists were contrary to law. i think so still. i have read the opinion of the supreme court of illinois, and while the conclusion reached by that tribunal is the law of that case, i was not satisfied with the reasons given, and do not regard the opinion as good law. there is no place for an anarchist in the united states. there is no excuse for any resort to force; and it is impossible to use language too harsh or too bitter in denouncing the spirit of anarchy in this country. but, no matter how bad a man is, he has the right to be fairly tried; and if he cannot be fairly tried, then there is anarchy on the bench. so i was opposed to the execution of these men. i thought it would have been far better to commute the punishment to imprisonment, and i said so; and i not only said so, but i wrote a letter to governor oglesby, in which i urged the commutation of the death sentence. in my judgment, a great mistake was made. i am on the side of mercy, and if i ever make mistakes, i hope they will all be made on that side. i have not the slightest sympathy with the feeling of revenge. neither have i ever admitted, and i never shall, that every citizen has not the right to give his opinion on all that may be done by any servant of the people, by any judge, or by any court, by any officer--however small or however great. each man in the united states is a sovereign, and a king can freely speak his mind. words were put in my mouth that i never uttered with regard to the anarchists. i never said that they were saints, or that they would be martyrs. what i said was that they would be regarded as saints and martyrs by many people if they were executed, and that has happened which i said would happen. i am, so far as i know, on the side of the right. i wish, above all things, for the preservation of human liberty. this government is the best, and we should not lose confidence in liberty. property is of very little value in comparison with freedom. a civilization that rests on slavery is utterly worthless. i do not believe in sacrificing all there is of value in the human heart, or in the human brain, for the preservation of what is called property, or rather, on account of the fear that what is called "property" may perish. property is in no danger while man is free. it is the freedom of man that gives value to property. it is the happiness of the human race that creates what we call value. if we preserve liberty, the spirit of progress, the conditions of development, property will take care of itself. _question_. the christian press during the past few months has been very solicitous as to your health, and has reported you weak and feeble physically, and not only so, but asserts that there is a growing disposition on your part to lay down your arms, and even to join the church. _answer_. i do not think the christian press has been very solicitous about my _health_. neither do i think that my health will ever add to theirs. the fact is, i am exceedingly well, and my throat is better than it has been for many years. any one who imagines that i am disposed to lay down my arms can read by reply to dr. field in the november number of the _north american review_. i see no particular difference in myself, except this; that my hatred of superstition becomes a little more and more intense; on the other hand, i see more clearly, that all the superstitions were naturally produced, and i am now satisfied that every man does as he must, including priests and editors of religious papers. this gives me hope for the future. we find that certain soil, with a certain amount of moisture and heat, produces good corn, and we find when the soil is poor, or when the ground is too wet, or too dry, that no amount of care can, by any possibility, produce good corn. in other words, we find that the fruit, that is to say, the result, whatever it may be, depends absolutely upon the conditions. this being so, we will in time find out the conditions that produce good, intelligent, honest men. this is the hope for the future. we shall know better than to rely on what is called reformation, or regeneration, or a resolution born of ignorant excitement. we shall rely, then, on the eternal foundation--the fact in nature-- that like causes produce like results, and that good conditions will produce good people. _question_. every now and then some one challenges you to a discussion, and nearly every one who delivers lectures, or speeches, attacking you, or your views, says that you are afraid publicly to debate these questions. why do you not meet these men, and why do you not answer these attacks? _answer_. in the first place, it would be a physical impossibility to reply to all the attacks that have been made--to all the "answers." i receive these attacks, and these answers, and these lectures almost every day. hundreds of them are delivered every year. a great many are put in pamphlet form, and, of course, copies are received by me. some of them i read, at least i look them over, and i have never yet received one worthy of the slightest notice, never one in which the writer showed the slightest appreciation of the questions under discussion. all these pamphlets are about the same, and they could, for the matter, have all been produced by one person. they are impudent, shallow, abusive, illogical, and in most respects, ignorant. so far as the lecturers are concerned, i know of no one who has yet said anything that challenges a reply. i do not think a single paragraph has been produced by any of the gentlemen who have replied to me in public, that is now remembered by reason of its logic or beauty. i do not feel called upon to answer any argument that does not at least appear to be of value. whenever any article appears worthy of an answer, written in a kind and candid spirit, it gives me pleasure to reply. i should like to meet some one who speaks by authority, some one who really understands his creed, but i cannot afford to waste time on little priests or obscure parsons or ignorant laymen. --_the truth seeker_, new york, january , . roscoe conkling. _question_. what is mr. conkling's place in the political history of the united states? _answer_. upon the great questions mr. conkling has been right. during the war he was always strong and clear, unwavering and decided. his position was always known. he was right on reconstruction, on civil rights, on the currency, and, so far as i know, on all important questions. he will be remembered as an honest, fearless man. he was admired for his known integrity. he was never even suspected of being swayed by an improper consideration. he was immeasurably above purchase. his popularity rested upon his absolute integrity. he was not adapted for a leader, because he would yield nothing. he had no compromise in his nature. he went his own road and he would not turn aside for the sake of company. his individuality was too marked and his will too imperious to become a leader in a republic. there is a great deal of individuality in this country, and a leader must not appear to govern and must not demand obedience. in the senate he was a leader. he settled with no one. _question_. what essentially american idea does he stand for? _answer_. it is a favorite saying in this country that the people are sovereigns. mr. conkling felt this to be true, and he exercised what he believed to be his rights. he insisted upon the utmost freedom for himself. he settled with no one but himself. he stands for individuality--for the freedom of the citizen, the independence of the man. no lord, no duke, no king was ever prouder of his title or his place than mr. conkling was of his position and his power. he was thoroughly american in every drop of his blood. _question_. what have you to say about his having died with sealed lips? _answer_. mr. conkling was too proud to show wounds. he did not tell his sorrows to the public. it seemed sufficient to him to know the facts himself. he seemed to have great confidence in time, and he had the patience to wait. of course he could have told many things that would have shed light on many important events, but for my part i think he acted in the noblest way. he was a striking and original figure in our politics. he stood alone. i know of no one like him. he will be remembered as a fearless and incorruptible statesman, a great lawyer, a magnificent speaker, and an honest man. --_the herald_, new york, april , . the church and the stage. _question_. i have come to talk with you a little about the drama. have you any decided opinions on that subject? _answer_. nothing is more natural than imitation. the little child with her doll, telling it stories, putting words in its mouth, attributing to it the feelings of happiness and misery, is the simple tendency toward the drama. little children always have plays, they imitate their parents, they put on the clothes of their elders, they have imaginary parties, carry on conversation with imaginary persons, have little dishes filled with imaginary food, pour tea and coffee out of invisible pots, receive callers, and repeat what they have heard their mothers say. this is simply the natural drama, an exercise of the imagination which always has been and which, probably, always will be, a source of great pleasure. in the early days of the world nothing was more natural than for the people to re-enact the history of their country--to represent the great heroes, the great battles, and the most exciting scenes the history of which has been preserved by legend. i believe this tendency to re-enact, to bring before the eyes the great, the curious, and pathetic events of history, has been universal. all civilized nations have delighted in the theatre, and the greatest minds in many countries have been devoted to the drama, and, without doubt, the greatest man about whom we know anything devoted his life to the production of plays. _question_. i would like to ask you why, in your opinion as a student of history, has the protestant church always been so bitterly opposed to the theatre? _answer_. i believe the early christians expected the destruction of the world. they had no idea of remaining here, in the then condition of things, but for a few days. they expected that christ would come again, that the world would be purified by fire, that all the unbelievers would be burned up and that the earth would become a fit habitation for the followers of the saviour. protestantism became as ascetic as the early christians. it is hard to conceive of anybody believing in the "five points" of john calvin going to any place of amusement. the creed of protestantism made life infinitely sad and made man infinitely responsible. according to this creed every man was liable at any moment to be summoned to eternal pain; the most devout christian was not absolutely sure of salvation. this life was a probationary one. everybody was considered as waiting on the dock of time, sitting on his trunk, expecting the ship that was to bear him to an eternity of good or evil--probably evil. they were in no state of mind to enjoy burlesque or comedy, and, so far as tragedy was concerned, their own lives and their own creeds were tragic beyond anything that could by any possibility happen in this world. a broken heart was nothing to be compared with a damned soul; the afflictions of a few years, with the flames of eternity. this, to say the least of it, accounts, in part, for the hatred that protestantism always bore toward the stage. of course, the churches have always regarded the theatre as a rival and have begrudged the money used to support the stage. you know that macaulay said the puritans objected to bear-baiting, not because they pitied the bears, but because they hated to see the people enjoy themselves. there is in this at least a little truth. orthodox religion has always been and always will be the enemy of happiness. this world is not the place for enjoyment. this is the place to suffer. this is the place to practice self-denial, to wear crowns of thorns; the other world is the place for joy, provided you are fortunate enough to travel the narrow, grass-grown path. of course, wicked people can be happy here. people who care nothing for the good of others, who live selfish and horrible lives, are supposed by christians to enjoy themselves; consequently, they will be punished in another world. but whoever carried the cross of decency, and whoever denied himself to that degree that he neither stole nor forged nor murdered, will be paid for this self-denial in another world. and whoever said that he preferred a prayer-meeting with five or six queer old men and two or three very aged women, with one or two candles, and who solemnly affirmed that he enjoyed that far more than he could a play of shakespeare, was expected with much reason, i think, to be rewarded in another world. _question_. do you think that church people were justified in their opposition to the drama in the days when congreve, wycherley and ben jonson were the popular favorites? _answer_. in that time there was a great deal of vulgarity in many of the plays. many things were said on the stage that the people of this age would not care to hear, and there was not very often enough wit in the saying to redeem it. my principal objection to congreve, wycherley and most of their contemporaries is that the plays were exceedingly poor and had not much in them of real, sterling value. the puritans, however, did not object on account of the vulgarity; that was not the honest objection. no play was ever put upon the english stage more vulgar then the "table talk" of martin luther, and many sermons preached in that day were almost unrivaled for vulgarity. the worst passages in the old testament were quoted with a kind of unction that showed a love for the vulgar. and, in my judgment, the worst plays were as good as the sermons, and the theatre of that time was better adapted to civilize mankind, to soften the human heart, and to make better men and better women, than the pulpit of that day. the actors, in my judgment, were better people than the preachers. they had in them more humanity, more real goodness and more appreciation of beauty, of tenderness, of generosity and of heroism. probably no religion was ever more thoroughly hateful than puritanism. but all religionists who believe in an eternity of pain would naturally be opposed to everything that makes this life better; and, as a matter of fact, orthodox churches have been the enemies of painting, of sculpture, of music and the drama. _question_. what, in your estimation, is the value of the drama as a factor in our social life at the present time? _answer_. i believe that the plays of shakespeare are the most valuable things in the possession of the human race. no man can read and understand shakespeare without being an intellectually developed man. if shakespeare could be as widely circulated as the bible--if all the bible societies would break the plates they now have and print shakespeare, and put shakespeare in all the languages of the world, nothing would so raise the intellectual standard of mankind. think of the different influence on men between reading deuteronomy and "hamlet" and "king lear"; between studying numbers and the "midsummer night's dream"; between pondering over the murderous crimes and assassinations in judges, and studying "the tempest" or "as you like it." man advances as he develops intellectually. the church teaches obedience. the man who reads shakespeare has his intellectual horizon enlarged. he begins to think for himself, and he enjoys living in a new world. the characters of shakespeare become his acquaintances. he admires the heroes, the philosophers; he laughs with the clowns, and he almost adores the beautiful women, the pure, loving, and heroic women born of shakespeare's heart and brain. the stage has amused and instructed the world. it had added to the happiness of mankind. it has kept alive all arts. it is in partnership with all there is of beauty, of poetry, and expression. it goes hand in hand with music, with painting, with sculpture, with oratory, with philosophy, and history. the stage has humor. it abhors stupidity. it despises hypocrisy. it holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. it thrusts the spear of ridicule through the shield of pretence. it laughs at the lugubrious and it has ever taught and will, in all probability, forever teach, that man is more than a title, and that human love laughs at all barriers, at all the prejudices of society and caste that tend to keep apart two loving hearts. _question_. what is your opinion of the progress of the drama in educating the artistic sense of the community as compared with the progress of the church as an educator of the moral sentiment? _answer_. of course, the stage is not all good, nor is--and i say this with becoming modesty--the pulpit all bad. there have been bad actors and there have been good preachers. there has been no improvement in plays since shakespeare wrote. there has been great improvement in theatres, and the tendency seems to me be toward higher artistic excellence in the presentation of plays. as we become slowly civilized we will constantly demand more artistic excellence. there will always be a class satisfied with the lowest form of dramatic presentation, with coarse wit, with stupid but apparent jokes, and there will always be a class satisfied with almost anything; but the class demanding the highest, the best, will constantly increase in numbers, and the other classes will, in all probability, correspondingly decrease. the church has ceased to be an educator. in an artistic direction it never did anything except in architecture, and that ceased long ago. the followers of to-day are poor copyists. the church has been compelled to be a friend of, or rather to call in the assistance of, music. as a moral teacher, the church always has been and always will be a failure. the pulpit, to use the language of frederick douglass, has always "echoed the cry of the street." take our own history. the church was the friend of slavery. that institution was defended in nearly every pulpit. the bible was the auction-block on which the slave-mother stood while her child was sold from her arms. the church, for hundreds of years, was the friend and defender of the slave-trade. i know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or another. the church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless. the church preaches the doctrine of forgiveness. this doctrine sells crime on credit. the idea that there is a god who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. happiness ought to be the result of good actions. happiness ought to spring from the seed a man sows himself. it ought not to be a reward, it ought to be a consequence, and there ought to be no idea that there is any being who can step between action and consequence. to preach that a man can abuse his wife and children, rob his neighbors, slander his fellow-citizens, and yet, a moment or two before he dies, by repentance become a glorified angel is, in my judgment, immoral. and to preach that a man can be a good man, kind to his wife and children, an honest man, paying his debts, and yet, for the lack of a certain belief, the moment after he is dead, be sent to an eternal prison, is also immoral. so that, according to my opinion, while the church teaches men many good things, it also teaches doctrines subversive of morality. if there were not in the whole world a church, the morality of man, in my judgment, would be the gainer. _question_. what do you think of the treatment of the actor by society in his social relations? _answer_. for a good many years the basis of society has been the dollar. only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public. if any man produced a book he had to find a patron--some titled donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. if you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the dedication written by lord bacon to james i., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead--beyond caesar and marcus aurelius. in those days the literary man was a servant, a hack. he lived in grub street. he was only one degree above the sturdy vagrant and the escaped convict. why was this? he had no money and he lived in an age when money was the fountain of respectability. let me give you another instance: mozart, whose brain was a fountain of melody, was forced to eat at table with coachmen, with footmen and scullions. he was simply a servant who was commanded to make music for a pudding-headed bishop. the same was true of the great painters, and of almost all other men who rendered the world beautiful by art, and who enriched the languages of mankind. the basis of respectability was the dollar. now that the literary man has an intelligent public he cares nothing for the ignorant patron. the literary man makes money. the world is becoming civilized and the literary man stands high. in england, however, if charles darwin had been invited to dinner, and there had been present some sprig of nobility, some titled vessel holding the germs of hereditary disease, darwin would have been compelled to occupy a place beneath him. but i have hopes even for england. the same is true of the artist. the man who can now paint a picture by which he receives from five thousand to fifty thousand dollars, is necessarily respectable. the actor who may realize from one to two thousand dollars a night, or even more, is welcomed in the stupidest and richest society. so with the singers and with all others who instruct and amuse mankind. many people imagine that he who amuses them must be lower than they. this, however, is hardly possible. i believe in the aristocracy of the brain and heart; in the aristocracy of intelligence and goodness, and not only appreciate but admire the great actor, the great painter, the great sculptor, the marvelous singer. in other words, i admire all people who tend to make this life richer, who give an additional thought to this poor world. _question_. do you think this liberal movement, favoring the better class of plays, inaugurated by the rev. dr. abbott, will tend to soften the sentiment of the orthodox churches against the stage? _answer_. i have not read what dr. abbott has written on this subject. from your statement of his position, i think he entertains quite a sensible view, and, when we take into consideration that he is a minister, a miraculously sensible view. it is not the business of the dramatist, the actor, the painter or the sculptor to teach what the church calls morality. the dramatist and the actor ought to be truthful, ought to be natural--that is to say, truthfully and naturally artistic. he should present pictures of life properly chosen, artistically constructed; an exhibition of emotions truthfully done, artistically done. if vice is presented naturally, no one will fall in love with vice. if the better qualities of the human heart are presented naturally, no one can fail to fall in love with them. but they need not be presented for that purpose. the object of the artist is to present truthfully and artistically. he is not a sunday school teacher. he is not to have the moral effect eternally in his mind. it is enough for him to be truly artistic. because, as i have said, a great many times, the greatest good is done by indirection. for instance, a man lives a good, noble, honest and lofty life. the value of that life would be destroyed if he kept calling attention to it--if he said to all who met him, "look at me!" he would become intolerable. the truly artistic speaks of perfection; that is to say, of harmony, not only of conduct, but of harmony and proportion in everything. the pulpit is always afraid of the passions, and really imagines that it has some influence on men and women, keeping them in the path of virtue. no greater mistake was ever made. eternally talking and harping on that one subject, in my judgment, does harm. forever keeping it in the mind by reading passages from the bible, by talking about the "corruption of the human heart," of the "power of temptation," of the scarcity of virtue, of the plentifulness of vice--all these platitudes tend to produce exactly what they are directed against. _question_. i fear, colonel, that i have surprised you into agreeing with a clergyman. the following are the points made by the rev. dr. abbott in his editorial on the theatre, and it seems to me that you and he think very much alike--on that subject. the points are these: . it is not the function of the drama to teach moral lessons. . a moral lesson neither makes nor mars either a drama or a novel. . the moral quality of a play does not depend upon the result. . the real function of the drama is like that of the novel--not to amuse, not to excite; but to portray life, and so minister to it. and as virtue and vice, goodness and evil, are the great fundamental facts of life, they must, in either serious story or serious play, be portrayed. if they are so portrayed that the vice is alluring and the virtue repugnant, the play or story is immoral; if so portrayed that the vice is repellant and the virtue alluring, they play or story is moral. . the church has no occasion to ask the theatre to preach; though if it does preach we have a right to demand that its ethical doctrines be pure and high. but we have a right to demand that in its pictures of life it so portrays vice as to make it abhorrent, and so portrays virtue as to make it attractive. _answer_. i agree in most of what you have read, though i must confess that to find a minister agreeing with me, or to find myself agreeing with a minister, makes me a little uncertain. all art, in my judgment, is for the sake of expression--equally true of the drama as of painting and sculpture. no poem touches the human heart unless it touches the universal. it must, at some point, move in unison with the great ebb and flow of things. the same is true of the play, of a piece of music or a statue. i think that all real artists, in all departments, touch the universal and when they do the result is good; but the result need not have been a consideration. there is an old story that at first there was a temple erected upon the earth by god himself; that afterward this temple was shivered into countless pieces and distributed over the whole earth, and that all the rubies and diamonds and precious stones since found are parts of that temple. now, if we could conceive of a building, or of anything involving all art, and that it had been scattered abroad, then i would say that whoever find and portrays truthfully a thought, an emotion, a truth, has found and restored one of the jewels. --_dramatic mirror_, new york, april , . protection and free trade. _question_. do you take much interest in politics, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. i take as much interest in politics as a republican ought who expects nothing and who wants nothing for himself. i want to see this country again controlled by the republican party. the present administration has not, in my judgment, the training and the political intelligence to decide upon the great economic and financial questions. there are a great many politicians and but few statesmen. here, where men have to be elected every two or six years, there is hardly time for the officials to study statesmanship--they are busy laying pipes and fixing fences for the next election. each one feels much like a monkey at a fair, on the top of a greased pole, and puts in the most of his time dodging stones and keeping from falling. i want to see the party in power best qualified, best equipped, to administer the government. _question_. what do you think will be the particular issue of the coming campaign? _answer_. that question has already been answered. the great question will be the tariff. mr. cleveland imagines that the surplus can be gotten rid of by a reduction of the tariff. if the reduction is so great as to increase the demand for foreign articles, the probability is that the surplus will be increased. the surplus can surely be done away with by either of two methods; first make the tariff prohibitory; second, have no tariff. but if the tariff is just at that point where the foreign goods could pay it and yet undersell the american so as to stop home manufactures, then the surplus would increase. as a rule we can depend on american competition to keep prices at a reasonable rate. when that fails we have at all times the governing power in our hands--that is to say, we can reduce the tariff. in other words, the tariff is not for the benefit of the manufacturer--the protection is not for the mechanic or the capitalist --it is for the whole country. i do not believe in protecting silk simply to help the town of paterson, but i am for the protection of the manufacture, because, in my judgment, it helps the entire country, and because i know that it has given us a far better article of silk at a far lower price than we obtained before the establishment of those factories. i believe in the protection of every industry that needs it, to the end that we may make use of every kind of brain and find use for all human capacities. in this way we will produce greater and better people. a nation of agriculturalists or a nation of mechanics would become narrow and small, but where everything is done, then the brain is cultivated on every side, from artisan to artist. that is to say, we become thinkers as well as workers; muscle and mind form a partnership. i don't believe that england is particularly interested in the welfare of the united states. it never seemed probable to me that men like godwin smith sat up nights fearing that we in some way might injure ourselves. to use a phrase that will be understood by theologians at least, we ought to "copper" all english advice. the free traders say that there ought to be no obstructions placed by governments between buyers and sellers. if we want to make the trade, of course there should be no obstruction, but if we prefer that americans should trade with americans--that americans should make what americans want--then, so far as trading with foreigners is concerned, there ought to be an obstruction. i am satisfied that the united states could get along if the rest of the world should be submerged, and i want to see this country in such a condition that it can be independent of the rest of mankind. there is more mechanical genius in the united states than in the rest of the world, and this genius has been fostered and developed by protection. the democracy wish to throw all this away--to make useless this skill, this ingenuity, born of generations of application and thought. these deft and marvelous hands that create the countless things of use and beauty to be worth no more than the common hands of ignorant delvers and shovelers. to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, labor becomes honorable and its burden lighter. thousands of millions of dollars have been invested on the faith of this policy--millions and millions of people are this day earning their bread by reason of protection, and they are better housed and better fed and better clothed than any other workmen on the globe. the intelligent people of this country will not be satisfied with president cleveland's platform--with his free trade primer. they believe in good wages for good work, and they know that this is the richest nation in the world. the republic is worth at least sixty billion dollars. this vast sum is the result of labor, and this labor has been protected either directly or indirectly. this vast sum has been made by the farmer, the mechanic, the laborer, the miner, the inventor. protection has given work and wages to the mechanic and a market to the farmer. the interests of all laborers in america--all men who work--are identical. if the farmer pays more for his plow he gets more for his plowing. in old times, when the south manufactured nothing and raised only raw material--for the reason that its labor was enslaved and could not be trusted with education enough to become skillful--it was in favor of free trade; it wanted to sell the raw material to england and buy the manufactured article where it could buy the cheapest. even under those circumstances it was a short-sighted and unpatriotic policy. now everything is changing in the south. they are beginning to see that he who simply raises raw material is destined to be forever poor. for instance, the farmer who sells corn will never get rich; the farmer should sell pork and beef and horses. so a nation, a state, that parts with its raw material, loses nearly all the profits, for the reason that the profit rises with the skill requisite to produce. it requires only brute strength to raise cotton; it requires something more to spin it, to weave it, and the more beautiful the fabric the greater the skill, and consequently the higher the wages and the greater the profit. in other words, the more thought is mingled with labor the more valuable is the result. besides all this, protection is the mother of economy; the cheapest at last, no matter whether the amount paid is less or more. it is far better for us to make glass than to sell sand to other countries; the profit on sand will be exceedingly small. the interests of this country are united; they depend upon each other. you destroy one and the effect upon all the rest may be disastrous. suppose we had free trade to-day, what would become of the manufacturing interests to-morrow? the value of property would fall thousands of millions of dollars in an instant. the fires would die out in thousands and thousands of furnaces, innumerable engines would stop, thousands and thousands would stop digging coal and iron and steel. what would the city that had been built up by the factories be worth? what would be the effect on farms in that neighborhood? what would be the effect on railroads, on freights, on business--what upon the towns through which they passed? stop making iron in pennsylvania, and the state would be bankrupt in an hour. give us free trade, and new jersey, connecticut and many other states would not be worth one dollar an acre. if a man will think of the connection between all industries--of the dependence and inter-dependence of each on all; of the subtle relations between all human pursuits--he will see that to destroy some of the grand interest makes financial ruin and desolation. i am not talking now about a tariff that is too high, because that tariff does not produce a surplus--neither am i asking to have that protected which needs no protection--i am only insisting that all the industries that have been fostered and that need protection should be protected, and that we should turn our attention to the interests of our own country, letting other nations take care of themselves. if every american would use only articles produced by americans--if they would wear only american cloth, only american silk--if we would absolutely stand by each other, the prosperity of this nation would be the marvel of human history. we can live at home, and we have now the ingenuity, the intelligence, the industry to raise from nature everything that a nation needs. _question_. what have you to say about the claim that mr. cleveland does not propose free trade? _answer_. i suppose that he means what he said. his argument was all for free trade, and he endeavored to show to the farmer that he lost altogether more money by protection, because he paid a higher price for manufactured articles and received no more for what he had to sell. this certainly was an argument in favor of free trade. and there is no way to decrease the surplus except to prohibit the importation of foreign articles, which certainly mr. cleveland is not in favor of doing, or to reduce the tariff to a point so low that no matter how much may be imported the surplus will be reduced. if the message means anything it means free trade, and if there is any argument in it it is an argument in favor of absolutely free trade. the party, not willing to say "free trade" uses the word "reform." this is simply a mask and a pretence. the party knows that the president made a mistake. the party, however, is so situated that it cannot get rid of cleveland, and consequently must take him with his mistake--they must take him with his message, and then show that all he intended by "free trade" was "reform." _question_. who do you think ought to be nominated at chicago? _answer_. personally, i am for general gresham. i am saying nothing against the other prominent candidates. they have their friends, and many of them are men of character and capacity, and would make good presidents. but i know of no man who has a better record than gresham, and of no man who, in my judgment, would receive a larger number of votes. i know of no republican who would not support judge gresham. i have never heard one say that he had anything against him or know of any reason why he should not be voted for. he is a man of great natural capacity. he is candid and unselfish. he has for many years been engaged in the examination and decision of important questions, of good principles, and consequently he has a trained mind. he knows how to take hold of a question, to get at a fact, to discover in a multitude of complications the real principle--the heart of the case. he has always been a man of affairs. he is not simply a judge--that is to say, a legal pair of scales--he knows the effect of his decision on the welfare of communities--he is not governed entirely by precedents--he has opinions of his own. in the next place, he is a man of integrity in all the relations of life. he is not a seeker after place, and, so far as i know, he has done nothing for the purpose of inducing any human being to favor his nomination. i have never spoken to him on the subject. in the west he has developed great strength, in fact, his popularity has astonished even his best friends. the great mass of people want a perfectly reliable man--one who will be governed by his best judgment and by a desire to do the fair and honorable thing. it has been stated that the great corporations might not support him with much warmth for the reason that he has failed to decide certain cases in their favor. i believe that he has decided the law as he believed it to be, and that he has never been influenced in the slightest degree, by the character, position, or the wealth of the parties before him. it may be that some of the great financiers, the manipulators, the creators of bonds and stocks, the blowers of financial bubbles, will not support him and will not contribute any money for the payment of election expenses, because they are perfectly satisfied that they could not make any arrangements with him to get the money back, together with interest thereon, but the people of this country are intelligent enough to know what that means, and they will be patriotic enough to see to it that no man needs to bow or bend or cringe to the rich to attain the highest place. the possibility is that mr. blaine could have been nominated had he not withdrawn, but having withdrawn, of course the party is released. others were induced to become candidates, and under these circumstances mr. blaine has hardly the right to change his mind, and certainly other persons ought not to change it for him. _question_. do you think that the friends of gresham would support blaine if he should be nominated? _answer_. undoubtedly they would. if they go into convention they must abide the decision. it would be dishonorable to do that which you would denounce in others. whoever is nominated ought to receive the support of all good republicans. no party can exist that will not be bound by its own decision. when the platform is made, then is the time to approve or reject. the conscience of the individual cannot be bound by the action of party, church or state. but when you ask a convention to nominate your candidate, you really agree to stand by the choice of the convention. principles are of more importance than candidates. as a rule, men who refuse to support the nominee, while pretending to believe in the platform, are giving an excuse for going over to the enemy. it is a pretence to cover desertion. i hope that whoever may be nominated at chicago will receive the cordial support of the entire party, of every man who believes in republican principles, who believes in good wages for good work, and has confidence in the old firms of "mind and muscle," of "head and hand." --_new york press_, may , . labor, and tariff reform. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the condition of labor in this country as compared with that abroad? _answer_. in the first place, it is self-evident that if labor received more in other lands than in this the tide of emigration would be changed. the workingmen would leave our shores. people who believe in free trade are always telling us that the laboring man is paid much better in germany than in the united states, and yet nearly every ship that comes from germany is crammed with germans, who, for some unaccountable reason, prefer to leave a place where they are doing well and come to one where they must do worse. the same thing can be said of denmark and sweden, of england, scotland, ireland and of italy. the truth is, that in all those lands the laboring man can earn just enough to-day to do the work of to-morrow; everything he earns is required to get food enough in his body and rags enough on his back to work from day to day, to toil from week to week. there are only three luxuries within his reach--air, light, and water; probably a fourth might be added --death. in those countries the few own the land, the few have the capital, the few make the laws, and the laboring man is not a power. his opinion in neither asked nor heeded. the employers pay as little as they can. when the world becomes civilized everybody will want to pay what things are worth, but now capital is perfectly willing that labor shall remain at the starvation line. competition on every hand tends to put down wages. the time will come when the whole community will see that justice is economical. if you starve laboring men you increase crime; you multiply, as they do in england, workhouses, hospitals and all kinds of asylums, and these public institutions are for the purpose of taking care of the wrecks that have been produced by greed and stinginess and meanness--that is to say, by the ignorance of capital. _question_. what effect has the protective tariff on the condition of labor in this country? _answer_. to the extent that the tariff keeps out the foreign article it is a direct protection to american labor. everything in this country is on a larger scale than in any other. there is far more generosity among the manufacturers and merchants and millionaires and capitalists of the united states than among those of any other country, although they are bad enough and mean enough here. but the great thing for the laboring man in the united states is that he is regarded as a man. he is a unit of political power. his vote counts just as much as that of the richest and most powerful. the laboring man has to be consulted. the candidate has either to be his friend or to pretend to be his friend, before he can succeed. a man running for the presidency could not say the slightest word against the laboring man, or calculated to put a stain upon industry, without destroying every possible chance of success. generally, every candidate tries to show that he is a laboring man, or that he was a laboring man, or that his father was before him. there is in this country very little of the spirit of caste--the most infamous spirit that ever infested the heartless breast of the brainless head of a human being. _question_. what will be the effect on labor of a departure in american policy in the direction of free trade? _answer_. if free trade could be adopted to-morrow there would be an instant shrinkage of values in this country. probably the immediate loss would equal twenty billion dollars--that is to say, one-third of the value of the country. no one can tell its extent. all thing are so interwoven that to destroy one industry cripples another, and the influence keeps on until it touches the circumference of human interests. i believe that labor is a blessing. it never was and never will be a curse. it is a blessed thing to labor for your wife and children, for your father and mother, and for the ones you love. it is a blessed thing to have an object in life--something to do-- something to call into play your best thoughts, to develop your faculties and to make you a man. how beautiful, how charming, are the dreams of the young mechanic, the artist, the musician, the actor and the student. how perfectly stupid must be the life of a young man with nothing to do, no ambition, no enthusiasm--that is to say, nothing of the divine in him; the young man with an object in life, of whose brain a great thought, a great dream has taken possession, and in whose heart there is a great, throbbing hope. he looks forward to success--to wife, children, home--all the blessings and sacred joys of human life. he thinks of wealth and fame and honor, and of a long, genial, golden, happy autumn. work gives the feeling of independence, of self-respect. a man who does something necessarily puts a value on himself. he feels that he is a part of the world's force. the idler--no matter what he says, no matter how scornfully he may look at the laborer--in his very heart knows exactly what he is; he knows that he is a counterfeit, a poor worthless imitation of a man. but there is a vast difference between work and what i call "toil." what must be the life of a man who can earn only one dollar or two dollars a day? if this man has a wife and a couple of children how can the family live? what must they eat? what must they wear? from the cradle to the coffin they are ignorant of any luxury of life. if the man is sick, if one of the children dies, how can doctors and medicines be paid for? how can the coffin or the grave be purchased? these people live on what might be called "the snow line"--just at that point where trees end and the mosses begin. what are such lives worth? the wages of months would hardly pay for the ordinary dinner of the family of a rich man. the savings of a whole life would not purchase one fashionable dress, or the lace on it. such a man could not save enough during his whole life to pay for the flowers of a fashionable funeral. and yet how often hundreds of thousands of persons, who spend thousands of dollars every year on luxuries, really wonder why the laboring people should complain. they are astonished when a car driver objects to working fourteen hours a day. men give millions of dollars to carry the gospel to the heathen, and leave their own neighbors without bread; and these same people insist on closing libraries and museums of art on sunday, and yet sunday is the only day that these institutions can be visited by the poor. they even want to stop the street cars so that these workers, these men and women, cannot go to the parks or the fields on sunday. they want stages stopped on fashionable avenues so that the rich may not be disturbed in their prayers and devotions. the condition of the workingman, even in america, is bad enough. if free trade will not reduce wages what will? if manufactured articles become cheaper the skilled laborers of america must work cheaper or stop producing the articles. every one knows that most of the value of a manufactured article comes from labor. think of the difference between the value of a pound of cotton and a pound of the finest cotton cloth; between a pound of flax and enough point lace to weigh a pound; between a few ounces of paint, two or three yards of canvas and a great picture; between a block of stone and a statue! labor is the principal factor in price; when the price falls wages must go down. i do not claim that protection is for the benefit of any particular class, but that it is for the benefit not only of that particular class, but of the entire country. in england the common laborer expects to spend his old age in some workhouse. he is cheered through all his days of toil, through all his years of weariness, by the prospect of dying a respectable pauper. the women work as hard as the men. they toil in the iron mills. they make nails, they dig coal, they toil in the fields. in europe they carry the hod, they work like beasts and with beasts, until they lose almost the semblance of human beings--until they look inferior to the animals they drive. on the labor of these deformed mothers, of these bent and wrinkled girls, of little boys with the faces of old age, the heartless nobility live in splendor and extravagant idleness. i am not now speaking of the french people, as france is the most prosperous country in europe. let us protect our mothers, our wives and our children from the deformity of toil, from the depths of poverty. _question_. is not the ballot an assurance to the laboring man that he can get fair treatment from his employer? _answer_. the laboring man in this country has the political power, provided he has the intelligence to know it and the intelligence to use it. in so far as laws can assist labor, the workingman has it in his power to pass such laws; but in most foreign lands the laboring man has really no voice. it is enough for him to work and wait and suffer and emigrate. he can take refuge in the grave or go to america. in the old country, where people have been taught that all blessing come from the king, it is very natural for the poor to believe the other side of that proposition--that is to say, all evils come from the king, from the government. they are rocked in the cradle of this falsehood. so when they come to this country, if they are unfortunate, it is natural for them to blame the government. the discussion of these questions, however, has already done great good. the workingman is becoming more and more intelligent. he is getting a better idea every day of the functions and powers and limitations of government, and if the problem is ever worked out-- and by "problem" i mean the just and due relations that should exist between labor and capital--it will be worked out here in america. _question_. what assurance has the american laborer that he will not be ultimately swamped by foreign immigration? _answer_. most of the immigrants that come to american come because they want a home. nearly every one of them is what you may call "land hungry." in his country, to own a piece of land was to be respectable, almost a nobleman. the owner of a little land was regarded as the founder of a family--what you might call a "village dynasty." when they leave their native shores for america, their dream is to become a land owner--to have fields, to own trees, and to listen to the music of their own brooks. the moment they arrive the mass of them seek the west, where land can be obtained. the great northwest now is being filled with scandinavian farmers, with persons from every part of germany--in fact from all foreign countries--and every year they are adding millions of acres to the plowed fields of the republic. this land hunger, this desire to own a home, to have a field, to have flocks and herds, to sit under your own vine and fig tree, will prevent foreign immigration from interfering to any hurtful degree with the skilled workmen of america. these land owners, these farmers, become consumers of manufactured articles. they keep the wheels and spindles turning and the fires in the forges burning. _question_. what do you think of cleveland's message? _answer_. only the other day i read a speech made by the hon. william d. kelley, of pennsylvania, upon this subject, in which he says in answer to what he calls "the puerile absurdity of president cleveland's assumption" that the duty is always added to the cost, not only of imported commodities, but to the price of like commodities produced in this country, "that the duties imposed by our government on sugar reduced to _ad valorem_ were never so high as now, and the price of sugar was never in this country so low as it is now." he also showed that this tax on sugar has made it possible for us to produce sugar from other plants and he gives the facts in relation to corn sugar. we are now using annually nineteen million bushels of corn for the purpose of making glucose or corn sugar. he shows that in this industry alone there has been a capital invested of eleven million dollars; that seven hundred and thirty-two thousand acres of land are required to furnish the supply, and that this one industry now gives employment to about twenty-two thousand farmers, about five thousand laborers in factories, and that the annual value of this product of corn sugar is over seventeen million dollars. he also shows what we may expect from the cultivation of the beet. i advise every one to read that speech, so that they may have some idea of the capabilities of this country, of the vast wealth asking for development, of the countless avenues opened for ingenuity, energy and intelligence. _question_. does the protective tariff cheapen the prices of commodities to the laboring man? _answer_. in this there are involved two questions. if the tariff is so low that the foreign article is imported, of course this tariff is added to the cost and must be paid by the consumer; but if the protective tariff is so high that the importer cannot pay it, and as a consequence the article is produced in america, then it depends largely upon competition whether the full amount of the tariff will be added to the article. as a rule, competition will settle that question in america, and the article will be sold as cheaply as the producers can afford. for instance: if there is a tariff, we will say of fifty cents on a pair of shoes, and this tariff is so low that the foreign article can afford to pay it, then that tariff, of course, must be paid by the consumer. but suppose the tariff was five dollars on a pair of shoes--that is to say, absolutely prohibitory--does any man in his senses say that five dollars would be added to each pair of american shoes? of course, the statement is the answer. i think it is the duty of the laboring man in this country, first, thoroughly to post himself upon these great questions, to endeavor to understand his own interest as well as the interest of his country, and if he does, i believe he will arrive at the conclusion that it is far better to have the country filled with manufacturers than to be employed simply in the raising of raw material. i think he will come to the conclusion that we had better have skilled labor here, and that it is better to pay for it than not to have it. i think he will find that it is better for america to be substantially independent of the rest of the world. i think he will conclude that nothing is more desirable than the development of american brain, and that nothing better can be raised than great and splendid men and women. i think he will conclude that the cloud coming from the factories, from the great stacks and chimneys, is the cloud on which will be seen, and always seen, the bow of american promise. _question_. what have you to say about tariff reform? _answer_. i have this to say: that the tariff is for the most part the result of compromises--that is, one state wishing to have something protected agrees to protect something else in some other state, so that, as a matter of fact, many things are protected that need no protection, and many things are unprotected that ought to be cared for by the government. i am in favor of a sensible reform of the tariff--that is to say, i do not wish to put it in the power of the few to practice extortion upon the many. congress should always be wide awake, and whenever there is any abuse it should be corrected. at the same time, next to having the tariff just--next in importance is to have it stable. it does us great injury to have every dollar invested in manufactures frightened every time congress meets. capital should feel secure. insecurity calls for a higher interest, wants to make up for the additional risk, whereas, when a dollar feels absolutely certain that it is well invested, that it is not to be disturbed, it is satisfied with a very low rate of interest. the present agitation--the message of president cleveland upon these questions--will cost the country many hundred millions of dollars. _question_. i see that some one has been charging that judge gresham is an infidel? _answer_. i have known judge gresham for many years, and of course have heard him talk upon many subjects, but i do not remember ever discussing with him a religious topic. i only know that he believes in allowing every man to express his opinions, and that he does not hate a man because he differs with him. i believe that he believes in intellectual hospitality, and that he would give all churches equal rights, and would treat them all with the utmost fairness. i regard him as a fair-minded, intelligent and honest man, and that is enough for me. i am satisfied with the way he acts, and care nothing about his particular creed. i like a manly man, whether he agrees with me or not. i believe that president garfield was a minister of the church of the disciples--that made no difference to me. mr. blaine is a member of some church in augusta--i care nothing for that. whether judge gresham belongs to any church, i do not know. i never asked him, but i know he does not agree with me by a large majority. in this country, where a divorce has been granted between church and state, the religious opinions of candidates should be let alone. to make the inquiry is a piece of impertinence--a piece of impudence. i have voted for men of all persuasions and expect to keep right on, and if they are not civilized enough to give me the liberty they ask for themselves, why i shall simply set them an example of decency. _question_. what do you think of the political outlook? _answer_. the people of this country have a great deal of intelligence. tariff and free trade and protection and home manufactures and american industries--all these things will be discussed in every schoolhouse of the country, and in thousands and thousands of political meetings, and when next november comes you will see the democratic party overthrown and swept out of power by a cyclone. all other questions will be lost sight of. even the prohibitionists would rather drink beer in a prosperous country than burst with cold water and hard times. the preservation of what we have will be the great question. this is the richest country and the most prosperous country, and i believe that the people have sense enough to continue the policy that has given them those results. i never want to see the civilization of the old world, or rather the barbarism of the old world, gain a footing on this continent. i am an american. i believe in american ideas--that is to say, in equal rights, and in the education and civilization of all the people. --_new york press_, june , . cleveland and thurman. _question_. what do you think of the democratic nominations? _answer_. in the first place, i hope that this campaign is to be fought on the issues involved, and not on the private characters of the candidates. all that they have done as politicians--all measures that they have favored or opposed--these are the proper subjects of criticism; in all other respects i think it better to let the candidates alone. i care but little about the private character of mr. cleveland or of mr. thurman. the real question is, what do they stand for? what policy do they advocate? what are the reasons for and against the adoption of the policy they propose? i do not regard cleveland as personally popular. he has done nothing, so far as i know, calculated to endear him to the popular heart. he certainly is not a man of enthusiasm. he has said nothing of a striking or forcible character. his messages are exceedingly commonplace. he is not a man of education, of wide reading, of refined tastes, or of general cultivation. he has some firmness and a good deal of obstinacy, and he was exceedingly fortunate in his marriage. four years ago he was distinctly opposed to a second term. he was then satisfied that no man should be elected president more than once. he was then fearful that a president might use his office, his appointing power, to further his own ends instead of for the good of the people. he started, undoubtedly, with that idea in his mind. he was going to carry out the civil service doctrine to the utmost. but when he had been president a few months he was exceedingly unpopular with his party. the democrats who elected him had been out of office for twenty-five years. during all those years they had watched the republicans sitting at the national banquet. their appetites had grown keener and keener, and they expected when the th of march, , came that the republicans would be sent from the table and that they would be allowed to tuck the napkins under their chins. the moment cleveland got at the head of the table he told his hungry followers that there was nothing for them, and he allowed the republicans to go on as usual. in a little while he began to hope for a second term, and gradually the civil service notion faded from his mind. he stuck to it long enough to get the principal mugwump papers committed to him and to his policy; long enough to draw their fire and to put them in a place where they could not honorably retreat without making themselves liable to the charge of having fought only for the loaves and fishes. as a matter of fact, no men were hungrier for office than the gentlemen who had done so much for civil service reform. they were so earnest in the advocacy of that principle that they insisted that only their followers should have place; but the real rank and file, the men who had been democrats through all the disastrous years, and who had prayed and fasted, became utterly disgusted with mr. cleveland's administration and they were not slow to express their feelings. mr. cleveland saw that he was in danger of being left with no supporters, except a few who thought themselves too respectable really to join the democratic party. so for the last two years, and especially the last year, he turned his attention to pacifying the real democrats. he is not the choice of the democratic party. although unanimously nominated, i doubt if he was the unanimous choice of a single delegate. another very great mistake, i think, has been made by mr. cleveland. he seems to have taken the greatest delight in vetoing pension bills, and they seem to be about the only bills he has examined, and he has examined them as a lawyer would examine the declaration, brief or plea of his opponent. he has sought for technicalities, to the end that he might veto these bills. by this course he has lost the soldier vote, and there is no way by which he can regain it. upon this point i regard the president as exceedingly weak. he has shown about the same feeling toward the soldier now that he did during the war. he was not with them then either in mind or body. he is not with them now. his sympathies are on the other side. he has taken occasion to show his contempt for the democratic party again and again. this certainly will not add to his strength. he has treated the old leaders with great arrogance. he has cared nothing for their advice, for their opinions, or for their feelings. the principal vestige of monarchy or despotism in our constitution is the veto power, and this has been more liberally used by mr. cleveland than by any other president. this shows the nature of the man and how narrow he is, and through what a small intellectual aperture he views the world. nothing is farther from true democracy than this perpetual application of the veto power. as a matter of fact, it should be abolished, and the utmost that a president should be allowed to do, would be to return a bill with his objections, and the bill should then become a law upon being passed by both houses by a simple majority. this would give the executive the opportunity of calling attention to the supposed defects, and getting the judgment of congress a second time. i am perfectly satisfied that mr. cleveland is not popular with his party. the noise and confusion of the convention, the cheers and cries, were all produced and manufactured for effect and for the purpose of starting the campaign. now, as to senator thurman. during the war he occupied substantially the same position occupied by mr. cleveland. he was opposed to putting down the rebellion by force, and as i remember it, he rather justified the people of the south for going with their states. ohio was in favor of putting down the rebellion, yet mr. thurman, by some peculiar logic of his own, while he justified southern people for going into rebellion because they followed their states, justified himself for not following his state. his state was for the union. his state was in favor of putting down rebellion. his state was in favor of destroying slavery. certainly, if a man is bound to follow his state, he is equally bound when the state is right. it is hardly reasonable to say that a man is only bound to follow his state when his state is wrong; yet this was really the position of senator thurman. i saw the other day that some gentlemen in this city had given as a reason for thinking that thurman would strengthen the ticket, that he had always been right on the financial question. now, as a matter of fact, he was always wrong. when it was necessary for the government to issue greenbacks, he was a hard money man--he believed in the mint drops--and if that policy had been carried out, the rebellion could not have been suppressed. after the suppression of the rebellion, and when hundreds and hundreds of millions of greenbacks were afloat, and the republican party proposed to redeem them in gold, and to go back--as it always intended to do--to hard money--to a gold and silver basis--then senator thurman, holding aloft the red bandanna, repudiated hard money, opposed resumption, and came out for rag currency as being the best. let him change his ideas--put those first that he had last--and you might say that he was right on the currency question; but when the country needed the greenback he was opposed to it, and when the country was able to redeem the greenback, he was opposed to it. it gives me pleasure to say that i regard senator thurman as a man of ability, and i have no doubt that he was coaxed into his last financial position by the democratic party, by the necessities of ohio, and by the force and direction of the political wind. no matter how much respectability he adds to the ticket, i do not believe that he will give any great strength. in the first place, he is an old man. he has substantially finished his career. young men cannot attach themselves to him, because he has no future. his following is not an army of the young and ambitious--it is rather a funeral procession. yet, notwithstanding this fact, he will furnish most of the enthusiasm for this campaign--and that will be done with his handkerchief. the democratic banner is thurman's red bandanna. i do not believe that it will be possible for the democracy to carry ohio by reason of thurman's nomination, and i think the failure to nominate gray or some good man from that state, will lose indiana. so, while i have nothing to say against senator thurman, nothing against his integrity or his ability, still, under the circumstances, i do not think his nomination a strong one. _question_. do you think that the nominations have been well received throughout the united states? _answer_. not as well as in england. i see that all the tory papers regard the nominations as excellent--especially that of cleveland. every englishman who wants ireland turned into a penitentiary, and every irishman to be treated as a convict, is delighted with the action of the st. louis convention. england knows what she wants. her market is growing small. a few years ago she furnished manufactured articles to a vast portion of the world. millions of her customers have become ingenious enough to manufacture many things that they need, so the next thing england did was to sell them the machinery. now they are beginning to make their own machinery. consequently, english trade is falling off. she must have new customers. nothing would so gratify her as to have sixty millions of americans buy her wares. if she could see our factories still and dead; if she could put out the fires of our furnaces and forges; there would come to her the greatest prosperity she has ever known. she would fatten on our misfortunes --grow rich and powerful and arrogant upon our poverty. we would become her servants. we would raise the raw material with ignorant labor and allow her children to reap all the profit of its manufacture, and in the meantime to become intelligent and cultured while we grew poor and ignorant. the greatest blow that can be inflicted upon england is to keep her manufactured articles out of the united states. sixty millions of americans buy and use more than five hundred millions of asiatics --buy and use more than all of china, all of india and all of africa. one civilized man has a thousand times the wants of a savage or of a semi-barbarian. most of the customers of england want a few yards of calico, some cheap jewelry, a little powder, a few knives and a few gallons of orthodox rum. to-day the united states is the greatest market in the world. the commerce between the states is almost inconceivable in its immensity. in order that you may have some idea of the commerce of this country, it is only necessary to remember one fact. we have railroads enough engaged in this commerce to make six lines around the globe. the addition of a million americans to our population gives us a better market than a monopoly of ten millions of asiatics. england, with her workhouses, with her labor that barely exists, wishes this market, and wishes to destroy the manufactures of america, and she expects irish-americans to assist her in this patriotic business. now, as to the enthusiasm in this country. i fail to see it. the nominations have fallen flat. it has been known for a long time that cleveland was to be nominated. that has all been discounted, and the nomination of judge thurman has been received in a quite matter-of-fact way. it may be that his enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by what might be called the appearance above the horizon of the morning star of this campaign--oregon. what a star to rise over the work of the st. louis convention! what a prophecy for democrats to commence business with! oregon, with the free trade issue, seven thousand to eight thousand republican majority--the largest ever given by that state--oregon speaks for the pacific coast. _question_. what do you think of the democratic platform? _answer_. mr. watterson was kind enough to say that before they took the roof off of the house they were going to give the occupants a chance to get out. by the "house" i suppose he means the great workshop of america. by the "roof" he means protection; and by the "occupants" the mechanics. he is not going to turn them out at once, or take the roof off in an instant, but this is to be done gradually. in other words, they will remove it shingle by shingle or tile by tile, until it becomes so leaky or so unsafe that the occupants-- that is to say, the mechanics, will leave the building. the first thing in the platform is a reaffirmation of the platform of , and an unqualified endorsement of president cleveland's message on the tariff. and if president cleveland's message has any meaning whatever, it means free trade--not instantly, it may be--but that is the object and the end to be attained. all his reasoning, if reasoning it can be called, is in favor of absolute free trade. the issue is fairly made--shall american labor be protected, or must the american laborer take his chances with the labor market of the world? must he stand upon an exact par with the laborers of belgium and england and germany, not only, but with the slaves and serfs of other countries? must he be reduced to the diet of the old country? is he to have meat on holidays and a reasonably good dinner on christmas, and live the rest of the year on crusts, crumbs, scraps, skimmed milk, potatoes, turnips, and a few greens that he can steal from the corners of fences? is he to rely for meat, on poaching, and then is he to be transported to some far colony for the crime of catching a rabbit? are our workingmen to wear wooden shoes? now, understand me, i do not believe that the democrats think that free trade would result in disaster. their minds are so constituted that they really believe that free trade would be a great blessing. i am not calling in question their honesty. i am simply disputing the correctness of their theory. it makes no difference, as a matter of fact, whether they are honest or dishonest. free trade established by honest people would be just as injurious as if established by dishonest people. so there is no necessity of raising the question of intention. consequently, i admit that they are doing the best they know now. this is not admitting much, but it is something, as it tends to take from the discussion all ill feeling. we all know that the tariff protects special interests in particular states. louisiana is not for free trade. it may be for free trade in everything except sugar. it is willing that the rest of the country should pay an additional cent or two a pound on sugar for its benefit, and while receiving the benefit it does not wish to bear its part of the burden. if the other states protect the sugar interests in louisiana, certainly that state ought to be willing to protect the wool interest in ohio, the lead and hemp interest in missouri, the lead and wool interest in colorado, the lumber interest in minnesota, the salt and lumber interest in michigan, the iron interest in pennsylvania, and so i might go on with a list of the states--because each one has something that it wishes to have protected. it sounds a little strange to hear a democratic convention cry out that the party "is in favor of the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and indestructible states." only a little while ago the democratic party regarded it as the height of tyranny to coerce a free state. can it be said that a state is "free" that is absolutely governed by the nation? is a state free that can make no treaty with any other state or country--that is not permitted to coin money or to declare war? why should such a state be called free? the truth is that the states are not free in that sense. the republican party believes that this is a nation and that the national power is the highest, and that every citizen owes the highest allegiance to the general government and not to his state. in other words, we are not virginians or mississippians or delawareans --we are americans. the great republic is a free nation, and the states are but parts of that nation. the doctrine of state sovereignty was born of the institution of slavery. in the history of our country, whenever anything wrong was to be done, this doctrine of state sovereignty was appealed to. it protected the slave-trade until the year . it passed the fugitive slave law. it made every citizen in the north a catcher of his fellow-man--made it the duty of free people to enslave others. this doctrine of state rights was appealed to for the purpose of polluting the territories with the institution of slavery. to deprive a man of his liberty, to put him back into slavery, state lines were instantly obliterated; but whenever the government wanted to protect one of its citizens from outrage, then the state lines became impassable barriers, and the sword of justice fell in twain across the line of a state. people forget that the national government is the creature of the people. the real sovereign is the people themselves. presidents and congressmen and judges are the creatures of the people. if we had a governing class--if men were presidents or senators by virtue of birth--then we might talk about the danger of centralization; but if the people are sufficiently intelligent to govern themselves, they will never create a government for the destruction of their liberties, and they are just as able to protect their rights in the general government as they are in the states. if you say that the sovereignty of the state protects labor, you might as well say that the sovereignty of the county protects labor in the state and that the sovereignty of the town protects labor in the county. of all subjects in the world the democratic party should avoid speaking of "a critical period of our financial affairs, resulting from over taxation." how did taxation become necessary? who created the vast debt that american labor must pay? who made this taxation of thousands of millions necessary? why were the greenbacks issued? why were the bonds sold? who brought about "a critical period of our financial affairs"? how has the democratic party "averted disaster"? how could there be a disaster with a vast surplus in the treasury? can you find in the graveyard of nations this epitaph: "died of a surplus"? has any nation ever been known to perish because it had too much gold and too much silver, and because its credit was better than that of any other nation on the earth? the democrats seem to think--and it is greatly to their credit--that they have prevented the destruction of the government when the treasury was full--when the vaults were overflowing. what would they have done had the vaults been empty? let them wrestle with the question of poverty; let them then see how the democratic party would succeed. when it is necessary to create credit, to inspire confidence, not only in our own people, but in the nations of the world--which of the parties is best adapted for the task? the democratic party congratulates itself that it has not been ruined by a republican surplus! what good boys we are! we have not been able to throw away our legacy! is it not a little curious that the convention plumed itself on having paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers and sailors of the republic than was ever paid before during an equal period? it goes wild in its pretended enthusiasm for the president who has vetoed more pension bills than all the other presidents put together. the platform informs us that "the democratic party has adopted and consistently pursued and affirmed a prudent foreign policy, preserving peace with all nations." does it point with pride to the mexican fiasco, or does it rely entirely upon the great fishery triumph? what has the administration done--what has it accomplished in the field of diplomacy? when we come to civil service, about how many federal officials were at the st. louis convention? about how many have taken part in the recent nominations? in other words, who has been idle? we have recently been told that the wages of workingmen are just as high in the old country as in this, when you take into consideration the cost of living. we have always been told by all the free trade papers and orators, that the tariff has no bearing whatever upon wages, and yet, the democrats have not succeeded in convincing themselves. i find in their platform this language: "a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between the wages of american and foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and enterprises by giving them the assurance of an extended market and steady and continuous operations." it would seem from this that the democratic party admits that wages are higher here than in foreign countries. certainly they do not mean to say that they are lower. if they are higher here than in foreign countries, the question arises, why are they higher? if you took off the tariff, the presumption is that they would be as low here as anywhere else, because this very democratic convention says: "a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between wages." in other words, they would keep tariff enough on to protect our workingmen from the low wages of the foreigner--consequently, we have the admission of the democratic party that in order to keep wages in this country higher than they are in belgium, in italy, in england and in germany, we must protect home labor. then follows the _non sequitur_, which is a democratic earmark. they tell us that by keeping a tariff, "making due allowance for the difference between wages, all the industries and enterprises would be encouraged and promoted by giving them the assurance of an extended market." what does the word "extended" mean? if it means anything, it means a market in other countries. in other words, we will put the tariff so low that the wages of american workingmen will be so low that he can compete with the laborers of other countries; otherwise his market could not be "extended." what does this mean? there is evidently a lack of thought here. the two things cannot be accomplished in that way. if the tariff raises american wages, the american cannot compete in foreign markets with the men who work for half the price. what may be the final result is another question. american industry properly protected, american genius properly fostered, may invent ways and means--such wonderful machinery, such quick, inexpensive processes, that in time american genius may produce at a less rate than any other country, for the reason that the laborers of other countries will not be as intelligent, will not be as independent, will not have the same ambition. fine phrases will not deceive the people of this country. the american mechanic already has a market of sixty millions of people, and, as i said before, the best market in the world. this country is now so rich, so prosperous, that it is the greatest market of the earth, even for luxuries. it is the best market for pictures, for works of art. it is the best market for music and song. it is the best market for dramatic genius, and it is the best market for skilled labor, the best market for common labor, and in this country the poor man to-day has the best chance--he can look forward to becoming the proprietor of a home, of some land, to independence, to respectability, and to an old age without want and without disgrace. the platform, except upon this question of free trade, means very little. there are other features in it which i have not at present time to examine, but shall do so hereafter. i want to take it up point by point and find really what it means, what its scope is, and what the intentions were of the gentlemen who made it. but it may be proper to say here, that in my judgment it is a very weak and flimsy document, as victor hugo would say, "badly cut and badly sewed." of course, i know that the country will exist whatever party may be in power. i know that all our blessings do not come from laws, or from the carrying into effect of certain policies, and probably i could pay no greater compliment to any country than to say that even eight years of democratic rule cannot materially affect her destiny. --_new york press_, june , . the republican platform of . _question_. what do you think of the signs of the times so far as the campaign has progressed? _answer_. the party is now going through a period of misrepresentation. every absurd meaning that can be given to any combination of words will be given to every plank of the platform. in the heat of partisan hatred every plank will look warped and cracked. a great effort is being made to show that the republican party is in favor of intemperance,--that the great object now is to lessen the price of all intoxicants and increase the cost of all the necessaries of life. the papers that are for nothing but reform of everything and everybody except themselves, are doing their utmost to show that the republican party is the enemy of honesty and temperance. the other day, at a republican ratification meeting, i stated among other things, that we could not make great men and great women simply by keeping them out of temptation--that nobody would think of tying the hands of a person behind them and then praise him for not picking pockets; that great people were great enough to withstand temptation, and in that connection i made this statement: "temperance goes hand in hand with liberty"--the idea being that when a chain is taken from the body an additional obligation is perceived by the mind. these good papers--the papers that believe in honest politics--stated that i said: "temperance goes hand in hand with liquor." this was not only in the reports of the meeting, but this passage was made the subject of several editorials. it hardly seems possible that any person really thought that such a statement had been expressed. the republican party does not want free whiskey --it wants free men; and a great many people in the republican party are great enough to know that temperance does go hand in hand with liberty; they are great enough to know that all legislation as to what we shall eat, as to what we shall drink, and as to wherewithal we shall be clothed, partakes of the nature of petty, irritating and annoying tyranny. they also know that the natural result is to fill a country with spies, hypocrites and pretenders, and that when a law is not in accordance with an enlightened public sentiment, it becomes either a dead letter, or, when a few fanatics endeavor to enforce it, a demoralizer of courts, of juries and of people. the attack upon the platform by temperance people is doing no harm, for the reason that long before november comes these people will see the mistake they have made. it seems somewhat curious that the democrats should attack the platform if they really believe that it means free whiskey. the tax was levied during the war. it was a war measure. the government was _in extremis_, and for that reason was obliged to obtain a revenue from every possible article of value. the war is over; the necessity has disappeared; consequently the government should return to the methods of peace. we have too many government officials. let us get rid of collectors and gaugers and inspectors. let us do away with all this machinery, and leave the question to be settled by the state. if the temperance people themselves would take a second thought, they would see that when the government collects eighty or ninety million dollars from a tax on whiskey, the traffic becomes entrenched, it becomes one of the pillars of the state, one of the great sources of revenue. let the states attend to this question, and it will be a matter far easier to deal with. the prohibitionists are undoubtedly honest, and their object is to destroy the traffic, to prevent the manufacture of whiskey. can they do this as long as the government collects ninety million dollars per annum from that one source? if there is anything whatever in this argument, is it not that the traffic pays a bribe of ninety million dollars a year for its life? will not the farmers say to the temperance men: "the distilleries pay the taxes, the distilleries raise the price of corn; is it not better for the general government to look to another direction for its revenues and leave the states to deal as they may see proper with this question?" with me, it makes no difference what is done with the liquor-- whether it is used in the arts or not--it is a question of policy. there is no moral principle involved on our side of the question, to say the least of it. if it is a crime to make and sell intoxicating liquors, the government, by licensing persons to make and sell, becomes a party to the crime. if one man poisons another, no matter how much the poison costs, the crime is the same; and if the person from whom the poison was purchased knew how it was to be used, he is also a murderer. there have been many reformers in this world, and they have seemed to imagine that people will do as they say. they think that you can use people as you do bricks or stones; that you can lay them up in walls and they will remain where they are placed; but the truth is, you cannot do this. the bricks are not satisfied with each other--they go away in the night--in the morning there is no wall. most of these reformers go up what you might call the mount sinai of their own egotism, and there, surrounded by the clouds of their own ignorance, they meditate upon the follies and the frailties of their fellow-men and then come down with ten commandments for their neighbors. all this talk about the republican platform being in favor of intemperance, so far as the democratic party is concerned, is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy--nothing more, nothing less. so far as the prohibitionists are concerned, they may be perfectly honest, but, if they will think a moment, they will see how perfectly illogical they are. no one can help sympathizing with any effort honestly made to do away with the evil of intemperance. i know that many believe that these evils can be done away with by legislation. while i sympathize with the objects that these people wish to attain, i do not believe in the means they suggest. as life becomes valuable, people will become temperate, because they will take care of themselves. temperance is born of the countless influences of civilization. character cannot be forced upon anybody; it is a growth, the seeds of which are within. men cannot be forced into real temperance any more than they can be frightened into real morality. you may frighten a man to that degree that he will not do a certain thing, but you cannot scare him badly enough to prevent his wanting to do that thing. reformation begins on the inside, and the man refrains because he perceives that he ought to refrain, not because his neighbors say that he ought to refrain. no one would think of praising convicts in jail for being regular at their meals, or for not staying out nights; and it seems to me that when the prohibitionists--when the people who are really in favor of temperance--look the ground all over they will see that it is far better to support the republican party than to throw their votes away; and the republicans will see that it is simply a proposition to go back to the original methods of collecting revenue for the government--that it is simply abandoning the measures made necessary by war, and that it is giving to the people the largest liberty consistent with the needs of the government, and that it is only leaving these questions where in time of peace they properly belong --to the states themselves. _question_. do you think that the knights of labor will cut any material figure in this election? _answer_. the knights of labor will probably occupy substantially the same position as other laborers and other mechanics. if they clearly see that the policy advocated by the republican party is to their interest, that it will give them better wages than the policy advocated by the democrats, then they will undoubtedly support our ticket. there is more or less irritation between employers and employed. all men engaged in manufacturing and neither good nor generous. many of them get work for as little as possible, and sell its product for all they can get. it is impossible to adopt a policy that will not by such people be abused. many of them would like to see the working man toil for twelve hours or fourteen or sixteen in each day. many of them wonder why they need sleep or food, and are perfectly astonished when they ask for pay. in some instances, undoubtedly, the working men will vote against their own interests simply to get even with such employers. some laboring men have been so robbed, so tyrannized over, that they would be perfectly willing to feel for the pillars and take a certain delight in a destruction that brought ruin even to themselves. such manufacturers, however, i believe to be in a minority, and the laboring men, under the policy of free trade, would be far more in their power. when wages fall below a certain point, then comes degradation, loss of manhood, serfdom and slavery. if any man has the right to vote for his own interests, certainly the man who labors is that man, and every working man having in his will a part of the sovereignty of this nation, having within him a part of the lawmaking power, should have the intelligence and courage to vote for his own interests; he should vote for good wages; he should vote for a policy that would enable him to lay something by for the winter of his life, that would enable him to earn enough to educate his children, enough to give him a home and a fireside. he need not do this in anger or for revenge, but because it is just, because it is right, and because the working people are in a majority. they ought to control the world, because they have made the world what it is. they have given everything there is of value. labor plows every field, builds every house, fashions everything of use, and when that labor is guided by intelligence the world is prosperous. he who thinks good thoughts is a laborer--one of the greatest. the man who invented the reaper will be harvesting the fields for thousands of years to come. if labor is abused in this country the laborers have it within their power to defend themselves. all my sympathies are with the men who toil. i shed very few tears over bankers and millionaires and corporations--they can take care of themselves. my sympathies are with the man who has nothing to sell but his strength; nothing to sell but his muscle and his intelligence; who has no capital except that which his mother gave him--a capital he must sell every day; my sympathies are with him; and i want him to have a good market; and i want it so that he can sell the work for more than enough to take care of him to-morrow. i believe that no corporation should be allowed to exist except for the benefit of the whole people. the government should always act for the benefit of all, and when the government gives a part of its power to an aggregation of individuals, the accomplishment of some public good should justify the giving of that power; and whenever a corporation becomes subversive of the very end for which it was created, the government should put an end to its life. so i believe that after these matters, these issues have been discussed--when something is understood about the effect of a tariff, the effect of protection, the laboring people of this country will be on the side of the republican party. the republican party is always trying to do something--trying to take a step in advance. persons who care for nothing except themselves--who wish to make no effort except for themselves--are its natural enemies. _question_. what do you think of mr. mills' fourth of july speech on his bill? _answer_. certain allowances should always be made for the fourth of july. what mr. mills says with regard to free trade depends, i imagine, largely on where he happens to be. you remember the old story about the _moniteur_. when napoleon escaped from elba that paper said: "the ogre has escaped." and from that moment the epithets grew a little less objectionable as napoleon advanced, and at last the _moniteur_ cried out: "the emperor has reached paris." i hardly believe that mr. mills would call his bill in texas a war tariff measure. he might commence in new york with that description, but as he went south that language, in my judgment, would change, and when he struck the brazos i think the bill would be described as the nearest possible approach to free trade. mr. mills takes the ground that if raw material comes here free of duty, then we can manufacture that raw material and compete with other countries in the markets of the world--that is to say, under his bill. now, other countries can certainly get the raw material as cheaply as we can, especially those countries in which the raw material is raised; and if wages are less in other countries than in ours, the raw material being the same, the product must cost more with us than with them. consequently we cannot compete with foreign countries simply by getting the raw material at the same price; we must be able to manufacture it as cheaply as they, and we can do that only by cutting down the wages of the american workingmen. because, to have raw material at the same price as other nations, is only a part of the problem. the other part is how cheaply can we manufacture it? and that depends upon wages. if wages are twenty-five cents a day, then we can compete with those nations where wages are twenty-five cents a day; but if our wages are five or six times as high, then the twenty-five cent labor will supply the market. there is no possible way of putting ourselves on an equality with other countries in the markets of the world, except by putting american labor on an equality with the other labor of the world. consequently, we cannot obtain a foreign market without lessening our wages. no proposition can be plainer than this. it cannot be said too often that the real prosperity of a country depends upon the well-being of those who labor. that country is not prosperous where a few are wealthy and have all the luxuries that the imagination can suggest, and where the millions are in want, clothed in rags, and housed in tenements not fit for wild beasts. the value of our property depends on the civilization of our people. if the people are happy and contented, if the workingman receives good wages, then our houses and our farms are valuable. if the people are discontented, if the workingmen are in want, then our property depreciates from day to day, and national bankruptcy will only be a question of time. if mr. mills has given a true statement with regard to the measure proposed by him, what relation does that measure bear to the president's message? what has it to do with the democratic platform? if mr. mills has made no mistake, the president wrote a message substantially in favor of free trade. the democratic party ratified and indorsed that message, and at the same time ratified and indorsed the mills bill. now, the message was for free trade, and the mills bill, according to mr. mills, is for the purpose of sustaining the war tariff. they have either got the wrong child or the wrong parents. _question_. i see that some people are objecting to your taking any part in politics, on account of your religious opinion? _answer_. the democratic party has always been pious. if it is noted for anything it is for its extreme devotion. you have no idea how many democrats wear out the toes of their shoes praying. i suppose that in this country there ought to be an absolute divorce between church and state and without any alimony being allowed to the church; and i have always supposed that the republican party was perfectly willing that anybody should vote its ticket who believed in its principles. the party was not established, as i understand it, in the interest of any particular denomination; it was established to promote and preserve the freedom of the american citizen everywhere. its first object was to prevent the spread of human slavery; its second object was to put down the rebellion and preserve the union; its third object was the utter destruction of human slavery everywhere, and its fourth object is to preserve not only the fruit of all that it has won, but to protect american industry to the end that the republic may not only be free, but prosperous and happy. in this great work all are invited to join, no matter whether catholics or presbyterians or methodists or infidels--believers or unbelievers. the object is to have a majority of the people of the united states in favor of human liberty, in favor of justice and in favor of an intelligent american policy. i am not what is called strictly orthodox, and yet i am liberal enough to vote for a presbyterian, and if a presbyterian is not liberal enough to stand by a republican, no matter what his religious opinions may be, then the presbyterian is not as liberal as the republican party, and he is not as liberal as an unbeliever; in other words, he is not a manly man. i object to no man who is running for office on the ticket of my party on account of his religious convictions. i care nothing about the church of which he is a member. that is his business. that is an individual matter--something with which the state has no right to interfere--something with which no party can rightfully have anything to do. these great questions are left open to discussion. every church must take its chance in the open field of debate. no belief has the right to draw the sword--no dogma the right to resort to force. the moment a church asks for the help of the state, it confesses its weakness, it confesses its inability to answer the arguments against it. i believe in the absolute equality before the law, of all religions and all metaphysical theories; and i would no more control those things by law than i would endeavor to control the arts and the sciences by legislation. man admires the beautiful, and what is beautiful to one may not be to another, and this inequality or this difference cannot be regulated by law. the same is true of what is called religious belief. i am willing to give all others every right that i claim for myself, and if they are not willing to give me the rights they claim for themselves, they are not civilized. no man acknowledges the truth of my opinions because he votes the same ticket that i do, and i certainly do not acknowledge the correctness of the opinions of others because i vote the republican ticket. we are republicans together. upon certain political questions we agree, upon other questions we disagree--and that is all. only religious people, who have made up their minds to vote the democratic ticket, will raise an objection of this kind, and they will raise the objection simply as a pretence, simply for the purpose of muddying the water while they escape. of course there may be some exceptions. there are a great many insane people out of asylums. if the republican party does not stand for absolute intellectual liberty, it had better disband. and why should we take so much pains to free the body, and then enslave the mind? i believe in giving liberty to both. give every man the right to labor, and give him the right to reap the harvest of his toil. give every man the right to think, and to reap the harvest of his brain--that is to say, give him the right to express his thoughts. --_new york press_, july , . james g. blaine and politics. _question_. i see that there has lately been published a long account of the relations between mr. blaine and yourself, and the reason given for your failure to support him for the nomination in and ? _answer_. every little while some donkey writes a long article pretending to tell all that happened between mr. blaine and myself. i have never seen any article on the subject that contained any truth. they are always the invention of the writer or of somebody who told him. the last account is more than usually idiotic. an unpleasant word has never passed between mr. blaine and myself. we have never had any falling out. i never asked mr. blaine's influence for myself. i never asked president hayes or garfield or arthur for any position whatever, and i have never asked mr. cleveland for any appointment under the civil service. with regard to the german mission, about which so much has been said, all that i ever did in regard to that was to call on secretary evarts and inform him that there was no place in the gift of the administration that i would accept. i could not afford to throw away a good many thousand dollars a year for the sake of an office. so i say again that i never asked, or dreamed of asking, any such favor of mr. blaine. the favors have been exactly the other way-- from me, and not from him. so there is not the slightest truth in the charge that there was some difference between our families. i have great respect for mrs. blaine, have always considered her an extremely good and sensible woman; our relations have been of the friendliest character, and such relations have always existed between all the members of both families, so far as i know. nothing could be more absurd that the charge that there was some feeling growing out of our social relations. we do not depend upon others to help us socially; we need no help, and if we did we would not accept it. the whole story about there having been any lack of politeness or kindness is without the slightest foundation. in i did not think that mr. blaine could be elected. i thought the same at the chicago convention this year. i know that he has a great number of ardent admirers and of exceedingly self-denying and unselfish friends. i believe that he has more friends than any other man in the republican party; but he also has very bitter enemies--enemies with influence. taking this into consideration, and believing that the success of the party was more important than the success of any individual, i was in favor of nominating some man who would poll the entire republican vote. this feeling did not grow out of any hostility to any man, but simply out of a desire for republican success. in other words, i endeavored to take an unprejudiced view of the situation. under no circumstances would i underrate the ability and influence of mr. blaine, nor would i endeavor to deprecate the services he has rendered to the republican party and to the country. but by this time it ought to be understood that i belong to no man, that i am the proprietor of myself. there are two kinds of people that i have no use for--leaders and followers. the leader should be principle; the leader should be a great object to be accomplished. the follower should be the man dedicated to the accomplishment of a noble end. he who simply follows persons gains no honor and is incapable of giving honor even to the one he follows. there are certain things to be accomplished and these things are the leaders. we want in this country an american system; we wish to carry into operation, into practical effect, ideas, policies, theories in harmony with our surroundings. this is a great country filled with intelligent, industrious, restless, ambitious people. millions came here because they were dissatisfied with the laws, the institutions, the tyrannies, the absurdities, the poverty, the wretchedness and the infamous spirit of caste found in the old world. millions of these people are thinking for themselves, and only the people who can teach, who can give new facts, who can illuminate, should be regarded as political benefactors. this country is, in my judgment, in all that constitutes true greatness, the nearest civilized of any country. only yesterday the german empire robbed a woman of her child; this was done as a political necessity. nothing is taken into consideration except some move on the political chess-board. the feelings of a mother are utterly disregarded; they are left out of the question; they are not even passed upon. they are naturally ignored, because in these governments only the unnatural is natural. in our political life we have substantially outgrown the duel. there are some small, insignificant people who still think it important to defend a worthless reputation on the field of "honor," but for respectable members of the senate, of the house, of the cabinet, to settle a political argument with pistols would render them utterly contemptible in this country; that is to say, the opinion that governs, that dominates in this country, holds the duel in abhorrence and in contempt. what could be more idiotic, absurd, childish, than the duel between boulanger and floquet? what was settled? it needed no duel to convince the world that floquet is a man of courage. the same may be said of boulanger. he has faced death upon many fields. why, then, resort to the duel? if boulanger's wound proves fatal, that certainly does not tend to prove that floquet told the truth, and if boulanger recovers, it does not tend to prove that he did not tell the truth. nothing is settled. two men controlled by vanity, that individual vanity born of national vanity, try to kill each other; the public ready to reward the victor; the cause of the quarrel utterly ignored; the hands of the public ready to applaud the successful swordsman --and yet france is called a civilized nation. no matter how serious the political situation may be, no matter if everything depends upon one man, that man is at the mercy of anyone in opposition who may see fit to challenge him. the greatest general at the head of their armies may be forced to fight a duel with a nobody. such ideas, such a system, keeps a nation in peril and makes every cause, to a greater or less extent, depend upon the sword or the bullet of a criminal. --_the press_, new york, july , . the mills bill. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the significance of the vote on the mills bill recently passed in the house? in this i find there were one hundred and sixty-two for it, and one hundred and forty-nine against it; of these, two republicans voted for, and five democrats against. _answer_. in the first place, i think it somewhat doubtful whether the bill could have been passed if mr. randall had been well. his sickness had much to do with this vote. had he been present to have taken care of his side, to have kept his forces in hand, he, in my judgment, taking into consideration his wonderful knowledge of parliamentary tactics, would have defeated this bill. it is somewhat hard to get the average democrat, in the absence of his leader, to throw away the prospect of patronage. most members of congress have to pay tolerably strict attention to their political fences. the president, although clinging with great tenacity to the phrase "civil service," has in all probability pulled every string he could reach for the purpose of compelling the democratic members not only to stand in line, but to answer promptly to their names. every democrat who has shown independence has been stepped on just to the extent he could be reached; but many members, had the leader been on the floor--and a leader like randall--would have followed him. there are very few congressional districts in the united states not intensely democratic where the people want nothing protected. there are a few districts where nothing grows except ancient politics, where they cultivate only the memory of what never ought to have been, where the subject of protection has not yet reached. the impudence requisite to pass the mills bill is something phenomenal. think of the representatives from louisiana saying to the ranchmen of the west and to the farmers of ohio that wool must be on the free list, but that for the sake of preserving the sugar interest of louisiana and a little portion of texas, all the rest of the united states must pay tribute. everybody admits that louisiana is not very well adapted by nature for raising sugar, for the reason that the cane has to be planted every year, and every third year the frost puts in an appearance just a little before the sugar. now, while i think personally that the tariff on sugar has stimulated the inventive genius of the country to find other ways of producing that which is universally needed; and while i believe that it will not be long until we shall produce every pound of sugar that we consume, and produce it cheaper than we buy it now, i am satisfied that in time and at no distant day sugar will be made in this country extremely cheap, not only from beets, but from sorghum and corn, and it may be from other products. at the same time this is no excuse for louisiana, neither is it any excuse for south carolina asking for a tariff on rice, and at the same time wishing to leave some other industry in the united states, in which many more millions have been invested, absolutely without protection. understand, i am not opposed to a reasonable tariff on rice, provided it is shown that we can raise rice in this country cheaply and at a profit to such an extent as finally to become substantially independent of the rest of the world. what i object to is the impudence of the gentleman who is raising the rice objecting to the protection of some other industry of far greater importance than his. after all, the whole thing must be a compromise. we must act together for the common good. if we wish to make something at the expense of another state we must allow that state to make something at our expense, or at least we must be able to show that while it is for our benefit it is also for the benefit of the country at large. everybody is entitled to have his own way up to the point that his way interferes with somebody else. states are like individuals--their rights are relative--they are subordinated to the good of the whole country. for many years it has been the american policy to do all that reasonably could be done to foster american industry, to give scope to american ingenuity and a field for american enterprise--in other words, a future for the united states. the southern states were always in favor of something like free trade. they wanted to raise cotton for great britain--raw material for other countries. at that time their labor was slave labor, and they could not hope ever to have skilled labor, because skilled labor cannot be enslaved. the southern people knew at that time that if a man was taught enough of mathematics to understand machinery, to run locomotives, to weave cloth; it he was taught enough of chemistry even to color calico, it would be impossible to keep him a slave. education always was and always will be an abolitionist. the south advocated a system of harmony with slavery, in harmony with ignorance--that is to say, a system of free trade, under which it might raise its raw material. it could not hope to manufacture, because by making its labor intelligent enough to manufacture it would lose it. in the north, men are working for themselves, and as i have often said, they were getting their hands and heads in partnership. every little stream that went singing to the sea was made to turn a thousand wheels; the water became a spinner and a weaver; the water became a blacksmith and ran a trip hammer; the water was doing the work of millions of men. in other words, the free people of the north were doing what free people have always done, going into partnership with the forces of nature. free people want good tools, shapely, well made--tools with which the most work can be done with the least strain. suppose the south had been in favor of protection; suppose that all over the southern country there had been workshops, factories, machines of every kind; suppose that her people had been as ingenious as the people of the north; suppose that her hands had been as deft as those that had been accustomed to skilled labor; then one of two things would have happened; either the south would have been too intelligent to withdraw from the union, or, having withdrawn, it would have had the power to maintain its position. my opinion is that is would have been too intelligent to withdraw. when the south seceded it had no factories. the people of the south had ability, but it was not trained in the direction then necessary. they could not arm and equip their men; they could not make their clothes; they could not provide them with guns, with cannon, with ammunition, and with the countless implements of destruction. they had not the ingenuity; they had not the means; they could not make cars to carry their troops, or locomotives to draw them; they had not in their armies the men to build bridges or to supply the needed transportation. they had nothing but cotton --that is to say, raw material. so that you might say that the rebellion has settled the question as to whether a country is better off and more prosperous, and more powerful, and more ready for war, that is filled with industries, or one that depends simply upon the production of raw material. there is another thing in this connection that should never be forgotten--at least, not until after the election in november, and then if forgotten, should be remembered at every subsequent election --and that is, that the southern confederacy had in its constitution the doctrine of free trade. among other things it was fighting for free trade. as a matter of fact, john c. calhoun was fighting for free trade; the nullification business was in the interest of free trade. the southern people are endeavoring simply to accomplish, with the aid of new york, what they failed to accomplish on the field. the south is as "solid" to-day as in . it is now for free trade, and it purposes to carry the day by the aid of one or two northern states. history is repeating itself. it was the same for many years, up to the election of abraham lincoln. understand me, i do not blame the south for acting in accordance with its convictions, but the north ought not to be misled. the north ought to understand what the issue is. the south has a different idea of government--it is afraid of what it calls "centralization"--it is extremely sensitive about what are called "state rights" or the sovereignty of the state. but the north believes in a union that is united. the north does not expect to have any interest antagonistic to the union. the north has no mental reservation. the north believes in the government and in the federal system, and the north believes that when a state is admitted into the union it becomes a part--an integral part--of the nation; that there was a welding, that the state, so far as sovereignty is concerned, is lost in the union, and that the people of that state become citizens of the whole country. _question_. i see that by the vote two of the five democrats who voted for protection, and one of the two republicans who voted for free trade, were new yorkers. what do you think is the significance of this fact in relation to the question as to whether new york will join the south in the opposition to the industries of the country? _answer_. in the city of new york there are a vast number of men --importers, dealers in foreign articles, representatives of foreign houses, of foreign interests, of foreign ideas. of course most of these people are in favor of free trade. they regard new york as a good market; beyond that they have not the slightest interest in the united states. they are in favor of anything that will give them a large profit, or that will allow them to do the same business with less capital, or that will do them any good without the slightest regard as to what the effect may be on this country as a nation. they come from all countries, and they expect to remain here until their fortunes are made or lost and all their ideas are moulded by their own interests. then, there are a great many natives who are merchants in new york and who deal in foreign goods, and they probably think--some of them--that it would be to their interest to have free trade, and they will probably vote according to the ledger. with them it is a question of bookkeeping. their greed is too great to appreciate the fact that to impoverish customers destroys trade. at the same time, new york, being one of the greatest manufacturing states of the world, will be for protection, and the democrats of new york who voted for protection did so, not only because the believed in it themselves, but because their constituents believe in it, and the republicans who voted the other way must have represented some district where the foreign influence controls. the people of this state will protect their own industries. _question_. what will be the fate of the mills bill in the senate? _answer_. i think that unless the senate has a bill prepared embodying republican ideals, a committee should be appointed, not simply to examine the mills bill, but to get the opinions and the ideas of the most intelligent manufacturers and mechanics in this country. let the questions be thoroughly discussed, and let the information thus obtained be given to the people; let it be published from day to day; let the laboring man have his say, let the manufacturer give his opinion; let the representatives of the principal industries be heard, so that we may vote intelligently, so that the people may know what they are doing. a great many industries have been attacked. let them defend themselves. public property should not be taken for democratic use without due process of law. certainly it is not the business of a republican senate to pull the donkey of the democrats out of the pit; the dug the pit, and we have lost no donkey. i do not think the senate called upon to fix up this mills bill, to rectify its most glaring mistakes, and then for the sake of saving a little, give up a great deal. what we have got is safe until the democrats have the power to pass a bill. we can protect our rights by not passing their bills. in other words, we do not wish to practice any great self-denial simply for the purpose of insuring democratic success. if the bill is sent back to the house, no matter in what form, if it still has the name "mills bill" i think the democrats will vote for it simply to get out of their trouble. they will have the president's message left. but i do hope that the senate will investigate this business. it is hardly fair to ask the senate to take decided and final action upon this bill in the last days of the session. there is no time to consider it unless it is instantly defeated. this would probably be a safe course, and yet, by accident, there may be some good things in this bill that ought to be preserved, and certainly the democratic party ought to regard it as a compliment to keep it long enough to read it. the interests involved are great--there are the commercial and industrial interests of sixty millions of people. these questions touch the prosperity of the republic. every person under the flag has a direct interest in the solution of these questions. the end that is now arrived at, the policy now adopted, may and probably will last for many years. one can hardly overestimate the immensity of the interests at stake. a man dealing with his own affairs should take time to consider; he should give himself the benefit of his best judgment. when acting for others he should do no less. the senators represent, or should represent, not only their own views, but above these things they represent the material interests of their constituents, of their states, and to this trust they must be true, and in order to be true, they must understand the material interests of their states, and in order to be faithful, they must understand how the proposed changes in the tariff will affect these interests. this cannot be done in a moment. in my judgment, the best way is for the senate, through the proper committee, to hear testimony, to hear the views of intelligent men, of interested men, of prejudiced men--that is to say, they should look at the question from all sides. _question_. the senate is almost tied; do you think that any republicans are likely to vote in the interest of the president's policy at this session? _answer_. of course i cannot pretend to answer that question from any special knowledge, or on any information that others are not in possession of. my idea is simply this: that a majority of the senators are opposed to the president's policy. a majority of the senate will, in my judgment, sustain the republican policy; that is to say, they will stand by the american system. a majority of the senate, i think, know that it will be impossible for us to compete in the markets of the world with those nations in which labor is far cheaper than it is in the united states, and that when you make the raw material just the same, you have not overcome the difference in labor, and until this is overcome we cannot successfully compete in the markets of the world with those countries where labor is cheaper. and there are only two ways to overcome this difficulty--either the price of labor must go up in the other countries or must go down in this. i do not believe that a majority of the senate can be induced to vote for a policy that will decrease the wages of american workingmen. there is this curious thing: the president started out blowing the trumpet of free trade. it gave, as the democrats used to say, "no uncertain sound." he blew with all his might. messrs. morrison, carlisle, mills and many others joined the band. when the mills bill was introduced it was heralded as the legitimate offspring of the president's message. when the democratic convention at st. louis met, the declaration was made that the president's message, the mills bill, the democratic platform of and the democratic platform of , were all the same--all segments of one circle; in fact, they were like modern locomotives--"all the parts interchangeable." as soon as the republican convention met, made its platform and named its candidates, it is not free trade, but freer trade; and now mr. mills, in the last speech that he was permitted to make in favor of his bill, endeavored to show that it was a high protective tariff measure. this is what lawyers call "a departure in pleading." that is to say, it is a case that ought to be beaten on demurrer. --_new york press_, july , . society and its criminals* [* col. robert g. ingersoll was greatly interested in securing for chiara cignarale a commutation of the death sentence to imprisonment for life. in view of the fact that the great agnostic has made a close study of capital punishment, a reporter for the _world_ called upon him a day or two ago for an interview touching modern reformatory measures and the punishment of criminals. speaking generally on the subject colonel ingersoll said: ] i suppose that society--that is to say, a state or a nation--has the right of self-defence. it is impossible to maintain society-- that is to say, to protect the rights of individuals in life, in property, in reputation, and in the various pursuits known as trades and professions, without in some way taking care of those who violate these rights. the principal object of all government should be to protect those in the right from those in the wrong. there are a vast number of people who need to be protected who are unable, by reason of the defects in their minds and by the countless circumstances that enter into the question of making a living, to protect themselves. among the barbarians there was, comparatively speaking, but little difference. a living was made by fishing and hunting. these arts were simple and easily learned. the principal difference in barbarians consisted in physical strength and courage. as a consequence, there were comparatively few failures. most men were on an equality. now that we are somewhat civilized, life has become wonderfully complex. there are hundreds of arts, trades, and professions, and in every one of these there is great competition. besides all this, something is needed every moment. civilized man has less credit than the barbarian. there is something by which everything can be paid for, including the smallest services. everybody demands payment, and he who fails to pay is a failure. owing to the competition, owing to the complexity of modern life, owing to the thousand things that must be known in order to succeed in any direction, on either side of the great highway that is called progress, are innumerable wrecks. as a rule, failure in some honest direction, or at least in some useful employment, is the dawn of crime. people who are prosperous, people who by reasonable labor can make a reasonable living, who, having a little leisure can lay in a little for the winter that comes to all, are honest. as a rule, reasonable prosperity is virtuous. i don't say great prosperity, because it is very hard for the average man to withstand extremes. when people fail under this law, or rather this fact, of the survival of the fittest, they endeavor to do by some illegal way that which they failed to do in accordance with law. persons driven from the highway take to the fields, and endeavor to reach their end or object in some shorter way, by some quicker path, regardless of its being right or wrong. i have said this much to show that i regard criminals as unfortunates. most people regard those who violate the law with hatred. they do not take into consideration the circumstances. they do not believe that man is perpetually acted upon. they throw out of consideration the effect of poverty, of necessity, and above all, of opportunity. for these reasons they regard criminals with feelings of revenge. they wish to see them punished. they want them imprisoned or hanged. they do not think the law has been vindicated unless somebody has been outraged. i look at these things from an entirely different point of view. i regard these people who are in the clutches of the law not only as unfortunates, but, for the most part, as victims. you may call them victims of nature, or of nations, or of governments; it makes no difference, they are victims. under the same circumstances the very persons who punish them would be punished. but whether the criminal is a victim or not, the honest man, the industrious man, has the right to defend the product of his labor. he who sows and plows should be allowed to reap, and he who endeavors to take from him his harvest is what we call a criminal; and it is the business of society to protect the honest from the dishonest. without taking into account whether the man is or is not responsible, still society has the right of self-defence. whether that right of self-defence goes to the extent of taking life, depends, i imagine, upon the circumstances in which society finds itself placed. a thousand men on a ship form a society. if a few men should enter into a plot for the destruction of the ship, or for turning it over to pirates, or for poisoning and plundering the most of the passengers--if the passengers found this out certainly they would have the right of self-defence. they might not have the means to confine the conspirators with safety. under such circumstances it might be perfectly proper for them to destroy their lives and to throw their worthless bodies into the sea. but what society has the right to do depends upon the circumstances. now, in my judgment, society has the right to do two things--to protect itself and to do what it can to reform the individual. society has no right to take revenge; no right to torture a convict; no right to do wrong because some individual has done wrong. i am opposed to all corporal punishment in penitentiaries. i am opposed to anything that degrades a criminal or leaves upon him an unnecessary stain, or puts upon him any stain that he did not put upon himself. most people defend capital punishment on the ground that the man ought to be killed because he has killed another. the only real ground for killing him, even if that be good, is not that he has killed, but that he may kill. what he has done simply gives evidence of what he may do, and to prevent what he may do, instead of to revenge what he has done, should be the reason given. now, there is another view. to what extent does it harden the community for the government to take life? don't people reason in this way: that man ought to be killed; the government, under the same circumstances, would kill him, therefore i will kill him? does not the government feed the mob spirit--the lynch spirit? does not the mob follow the example set by the government? the government certainly cannot say that it hangs a man for the purpose of reforming him. its feelings toward that man are only feelings of revenge and hatred. these are the same feelings that animate the lowest and basest mob. let me give you an example. in the city of bloomington, in the state of illinois, a man confined in the jail, in his efforts to escape, shot and, i believe, killed the jailer. he was pursued, recaptured, brought back and hanged by a mob. the man who put the rope around his neck was then under indictment for an assault to kill and was out on bail, and after the poor wretch was hanged another man climbed the tree and, in a kind of derision, put a piece of cigar between the lips of the dead man. the man who did this had also been indicted for a penitentiary offence and was then out on bail. i mention this simply to show the kind of people you find in mobs. now, if the government had a greater and nobler thought; if the government said: "we will reform; we will not destroy; but if the man is beyond reformation we will simply put him where he can do no more harm," then, in my judgment, the effect would be far better. my own opinion is, that the effect of an execution is bad upon the community--degrading and debasing. the effect is to cheapen human life; and, although a man is hanged because he has taken human life, the very fact that his life is taken by the government tends to do away with the idea that human life is sacred. let me give you an illustration. a man in the city of washington went to alexandria, va., for the purpose of seeing a man hanged who had murdered an old man and a woman for the purpose of getting their money. on his return from that execution he came through what is called the smithsonian grounds. this was on the same day, late in the evening. there he met a peddler, whom he proceeded to murder for his money. he was arrested in a few hours, in a little while was tried and convicted, and in a little while was hanged. and another man, present at this second execution, went home on that same day, and, in passing by a butcher-shop near his house, went in, took from the shop a cleaver, went into his house and chopped his wife's head off. this, i say, throws a little light upon the effect of public executions. in the cignarale case, of course the sentence should have been commuted. i think, however, that she ought not to be imprisoned for life. from what i read of the testimony i think she should have been pardoned. it is hard, i suppose, for a man fully to understand and enter into the feelings of a wife who has been trampled upon, abused, bruised, and blackened by the man she loved--by the man who made to her the vows of eternal affection. the woman, as a rule, is so weak, so helpless. of course, it does not all happen in a moment. it comes on as the night comes. she notices that he does not act quite as affectionately as he formerly did. day after day, month after month, she feels that she is entering a twilight. but she hopes that she is mistaken, and that the light will come again. the gloom deepens, and at last she is in midnight--a midnight without a star. and this man, whom she once worshiped, is now her enemy-- one who delights to trample upon every sentiment she has--who delights in humiliating her, and who is guilty of a thousand nameless tyrannies. under these circumstances, it is hardly right to hold that woman accountable for what she does. it has always seemed to me strange that a woman so circumstanced--in such fear that she dare not even tell her trouble--in such fear that she dare not even run away--dare not tell a father or a mother, for fear that she will be killed--i say, that in view of all this, it has always seemed strange to me that so few husbands have been poisoned. the probability is that society raises its own criminals. it plows the land, sows the seed, and harvests the crop. i believe that the shadow of the gibbet will not always fall upon the earth. i believe the time will come when we shall know too much to raise criminals--know too much to crowd those that labor into the dens and dungeons that we call tenements, while the idle live in palaces. the time will come when men will know that real progress means the enfranchisement of the whole human race, and that our interests are so united, so interwoven, that the few cannot be happy while the many suffer; so that the many cannot be happy while the few suffer; so that none can be happy while one suffers. in other words, it will be found that the human race is interested in each individual. when that time comes we will stop producing criminals; we will stop producing failures; we will not leave the next generation to chance; we will not regard the gutter as a proper nursery for posterity. people imagine that if the thieves are sent to the penitentiary, that is the last of the thieves; that if those who kill others are hanged, society is on a safe and enduring basis. but the trouble is here: a man comes to your front door and you drive him away. you have an idea that that man's case is settled. you are mistaken. he goes to the back door. he is again driven away. but the case is not settled. the next thing you know he enters at night. he is a burglar. he is caught; he is convicted; he is sent to the penitentiary, and you imagine that the case is settled. but it is not. you must remember that you have to keep all the agencies alive for the purpose of taking care of these people. you have to build and maintain your penitentiaries, your courts of justice; you have to pay your judges, your district attorneys, your juries, you witnesses, your detectives, your police--all these people must be paid. so that, after all, it is a very expensive way of settling this question. you could have done it far more cheaply had you found this burglar when he was a child; had you taken his father and mother from the tenement house, or had you compelled the owners to keep the tenement clean; or if you had widened the streets, if you had planted a few trees, if you had had plenty of baths, if you had had a school in the neighborhood. if you had taken some interest in this family--some interest in this child--instead of breaking into houses, he might have been a builder of houses. there is, and it cannot be said too often, no reforming influence in punishment; no reforming power in revenge. only the best of men should be in charge of penitentiaries; only the noblest minds and the tenderest hearts should have the care of criminals. criminals should see from the first moment that they enter a penitentiary that it is filled with the air of kindness, full of the light of hope. the object should be to convince every criminal that he has made a mistake; that he has taken the wrong way; that the right way is the easy way, and that the path of crime never did and never can lead to happiness; that that idea is a mistake, and that the government wishes to convince him that he has made a mistake; wishes to open his intellectual eyes; wishes so to educate him, so to elevate him, that he will look back upon what he has done, only with horror. this is reformation. punishment is not. when the convict is taken to sing sing or to auburn, and when a striped suit of clothes is put upon him--that is to say, when he is made to feel the degradation of his position--no step has been taken toward reformation. you have simply filled his heart with hatred. then, when he has been abused for several years, treated like a wild beast, and finally turned out again in the community, he has no thought, in a majority of cases, except to "get even" with those who have persecuted him. he feels that it is a persecution. _question_. do you think that men are naturally criminals and naturally virtuous? _answer_. i think that man does all that he does naturally--that is to say, a certain man does a certain act under certain circumstances, and he does this naturally. for instance, a man sees a five dollar bill, and he knows that he can take it without being seen. five dollars is no temptation to him. under the circumstances it is not natural that he should take it. the same man sees five million dollars, and feels that he can get possession of it without detection. if he takes it, then under the circumstances, that was natural to him. and yet i believe there are men above all price, and that no amount of temptation or glory or fame could mislead them. still, whatever man does, is or was natural to him. another view of the subject is this: i have read that out of fifty criminals who had been executed it was found, i believe, in nearly all the cases, that the shape of the skull was abnormal. whether this is true or not, i don't know; but that some men have a tendency toward what we call crime, i believe. where this has been ascertained, then, it seems to me, such men should be placed where they cannot multiply their kind. women who have a criminal tendency should be placed where they cannot increase their kind. for hardened criminals --that is to say, for the people who make crime a business--it would probably be better to separate the sexes; to send the men to one island, the women to another. let them be kept apart, to the end that people with criminal tendencies may fade from the earth. this is not prompted by revenge. this would not be done for the purpose of punishing these people, but for the protection of society --for the peace and happiness of the future. my own belief is that the system in vogue now in regard to the treatment of criminals in many states produces more crime than it prevents. take, for instance, the southern states. there is hardly a chapter in the history of the world the reading of which could produce greater indignation than the history of the convict system in many of the southern states. these convicts are hired out for the purpose of building railways, or plowing fields, or digging coal, and in some instances the death-rate has been over twelve per cent. a month. the evidence shows that no respect was paid to the sexes--men and women were chained together indiscriminately. the evidence also shows that for the slightest offences they were shot down like beasts. they were pursued by hounds, and their flesh was torn from their bones. so in some of the northern prisons they have what they call the weighing machine--an infamous thing, and he who uses it commits as great a crime as the convict he punishes could have committed. all these things are degrading, debasing, and demoralizing. there is no need of any such punishment in any penitentiary. let the punishment be of such kind that the convict is responsible himself. for instance, if the convict refuses to obey a reasonable rule he can be put into a cell. he can be fed when he obeys the rule. if he goes hungry it is his own fault. it depends upon himself to say when he shall eat. or he may be placed in such a position that if he does not work--if he does not pump--the water will rise and drown him. if the water does rise it is his fault. nobody pours it upon him. he takes his choice. these are suggested as desperate cases, but i can imagine no case where what is called corporal punishment should be inflicted, and the reason i am against it is this: i am opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. i am opposed to any punishment the infliction of which tends to harden and debase the man who inflicts it. i am for no laws that have to be carried out by human curs. take, for instance, the whipping-post. nothing can be more degrading. the man who applies the lash is necessarily a cruel and vulgar man, and the oftener he applies it the more and more debased he will become. the whole thing can be stated in the one sentence: i am opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman, and by "gentleman" i mean a self-respecting, honest, generous man. _question_. what do you think of the efficacy or the propriety of punishing criminals by solitary confinement? _answer_. solitary confinement is a species of torture. i am opposed to all torture. i think the criminal should not be punished. he should be reformed, if he is capable of reformation. but, whatever is done, it should not be done as a punishment. society should be too noble, too generous, to harbor a thought of revenge. society should not punish, it should protect itself only. it should endeavor to reform the individual. now, solitary confinement does not, i imagine, tend to the reformation of the individual. neither can the person in that position do good to any human being. the prisoner will be altogether happier when his mind is engaged, when his hands are busy, when he has something to do. this keeps alive what we call cheerfulness. and let me say a word on this point. i don't believe that the state ought to steal the labor of a convict. here is a man who has a family. he is sent to the penitentiary. he works from morning till night. now, in my judgment, he ought to be paid for the labor over and above what it costs to keep him. that money should be sent to his family. that money should be subject, at least, to his direction. if he is a single man, when he comes out of the penitentiary he should be given his earnings, and all his earnings, so that he would not have the feeling that he had been robbed. a statement should be given to him to show what it had cost to keep him and how much his labor had brought and the balance remaining in his favor. with this little balance he could go out into the world with something like independence. this little balance would be a foundation for his honesty--a foundation for a resolution on his part to be a man. but now each one goes out with the feeling that he has not only been punished for the crime which he committed, but that he has been robbed of the results of his labor while there. the idea is simply preposterous that the people sent to the penitentiary should live in idleness. they should have the benefit of their labor, and if you give them the benefit of their labor they will turn out as good work as if they were out of the penitentiary. they will have the same reason to do their best. consequently, poor articles, poorly constructed things, would not come into competition with good articles made by free people outside of the walls. now many mechanics are complaining because work done in the penitentiaries is brought into competition with their work. but the only reason that convict work is cheaper is because the poor wretch who does it is robbed. the only reason that the work is poor is because the man who does it has no interest in its being good. if he had the profit of his own labor he would do the best that was in him, and the consequence would be that the wares manufactured in the prisons would be as good as those manufactured elsewhere. for instance, we will say here are three or four men working together. they are all free men. one commits a crime and he is sent to the penitentiary. is it possible that his companions would object to his being paid for honest work in the penitentiary? and let me say right here, all labor is honest. whoever makes a useful thing, the labor is honest, no matter whether the work is done in a penitentiary or in a palace; in a hovel or the open field. wherever work is done for the good of others, it is honest work. if the laboring men would stop and think, they would know that they support everybody. labor pays all the taxes. labor supports all the penitentiaries. labor pays the warden. labor pays everything, and if the convicts are allowed to live in idleness labor must pay their board. every cent of tax is borne by the back of labor. no matter whether your tariff is put on champagne and diamonds, it has to be paid by the men and women who work--those who plow in the fields, who wash and iron, who stand by the forge, who run the cars and work in the mines, and by those who battle with the waves of the sea. labor pays every bill. there is one little thing to which i wish to call the attention of all who happen to read this interview, and that is this: undoubtedly you think of all criminals with horror and when you hear about them you are, in all probability, filled with virtuous indignation. but, first of all, i want you to think of what you have in fact done. secondly, i want you to think of what you have wanted to do. thirdly, i want you to reflect whether you were prevented from doing what you wanted to do by fear or by lack of opportunity. then perhaps you will have more charity. _question_. what do you think of the new legislation in the state changing the death penalty to death by electricity? _answer_. if death by electricity is less painful than hanging, then the law, so far as that goes, is good. there is not the slightest propriety in inflicting upon the person executed one single unnecessary pang, because that partakes of the nature of revenge--that is to say, of hatred--and, as a consequence, the state shows the same spirit that the criminal was animated by when he took the life of his neighbor. if the death penalty is to be inflicted, let it be done in the most humane way. for my part, i should like to see the criminal removed, if he must be removed, with the same care and with the same mercy that you would perform a surgical operation. why inflict pain? who wants it inflicted? what good can it, by any possibility, do? to inflict unnecessary pain hardens him who inflicts it, hardens each among those who witness it, and tends to demoralize the community. _question_. is it not the fact that punishments have grown less and less severe for many years past? _answer_. in the old times punishment was the only means of reformation. if anybody did wrong, punish him. if people still continued to commit the same offence, increase the punishment; and that went on until in what they call "civilized countries" they hanged people, provided they stole the value of one shilling. but larceny kept right on. there was no diminution. so, for treason, barbarous punishments were inflicted. those guilty of that offence were torn asunder by horses; their entrails were cut out of them while they were yet living and thrown into their faces; their bodies were quartered and their heads were set on pikes above the gates of the city. yet there was a hundred times more treason then than now. every time a man was executed and mutilated and tortured in this way the seeds of other treason were sown. so in the church there was the same idea. no reformation but by punishment. of course in this world the punishment stopped when the poor wretch was dead. it was found that that punishment did not reform, so the church said: "after death it will go right on, getting worse and worse, forever and forever." finally it was found that this did not tend to the reformation of mankind. slowly the fires of hell have been dying out. the climate has been changing from year to year. men have lost confidence in the power of the thumbscrew, the fagot, and the rack here, and they are losing confidence in the flames of perdition hereafter. in other words, it is simply a question of civilization. when men become civilized in matters of thought, they will know that every human being has the right to think for himself, and the right to express his honest thought. then the world of thought will be free. at that time they will be intelligent enough to know that men have different thoughts, that their ways are not alike, because they have lived under different circumstances, and in that time they will also know that men act as they are acted upon. and it is my belief that the time will come when men will no more think of punishing a man because he has committed the crime of larceny than they will think of punishing a man because he has the consumption. in the first case they will endeavor to reform him, and in the second case they will endeavor to cure him. the intelligent people of the world, many of them, are endeavoring to find out the great facts in nature that control the dispositions of men. so other intelligent people are endeavoring to ascertain the facts and conditions that govern what we call health, and what we call disease, and the object of these people is finally to produce a race without disease of flesh and without disease of mind. these people look forward to the time when there need to be neither hospitals nor penitentiaries. --_new york world_, august , . woman's right to divorce. _question_. col. robert g. ingersoll, the great agnostic, has always been an ardent defender of the sanctity of the home and of the marriage relation. apropos of the horrible account of a man's tearing out the eyes of his wife at far rockaway last week, colonel ingersoll was asked what recourse a woman had under such circumstances? _answer_. i read the account, and i don't remember of ever having read anything more perfectly horrible and cruel. it is impossible for me to imagine such a monster, or to account for such an inhuman human being. how a man could deprive a human being of sight, except where some religious question is involved, is beyond my comprehension. we know that for many centuries frightful punishments were inflicted, and inflicted by the pious, by the theologians, by the spiritual minded, and by those who "loved their neighbors as themselves." we read the accounts of how the lids of men's eyes were cut off and then the poor victims tied where the sum would shine upon their lifeless orbs; of others who were buried alive; of others staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned by the rising tide; of others put in sacks filled with snakes. yet these things appeared far away, and we flattered ourselves that, to a great degree, the world had outgrown these atrocities; and now, here, near the close of the nineteenth century, we find a man--a husband--cruel enough to put out the eyes of the woman he swore to love, protect and cherish. this man has probably been taught that there is forgiveness for every crime, and now imagines that when he repents there will be more joy in heaven over him than over ninety and nine good and loving husbands who have treated their wives in the best possible manner, and who, instead of tearing out their eyes, have filled their lives with content and covered their faces with kisses. _question_. you told me, last week, in a general way, what society should do with the husband in such a case as that. i would like to ask you to-day, what you think society ought to do with the wife in such a case, or what ought the wife to be permitted to do for herself? _answer_. when we take into consideration the crime of the man who blinded his wife, it is impossible not to think of the right of divorce. many people insist that marriage is an indissoluble tie; that nothing can break it, and that nothing can release either party from the bond. now, take this case at far rockaway. one year ago the husband tore out one of his wife's eyes. had she then good cause for divorce? is it possible that an infinitely wise and good god would insist on this poor, helpless woman remaining with the wild beast, her husband? can anyone imagine that such a course would add to the joy of paradise, or even tend to keep one harp in tune? can the good of society require the woman to remain? she did remain, and the result is that the other eye has been torn from its socket by the hands of the husband. is she entitled to a divorce now? and if she is granted one, is virtue in danger, and shall we lose the high ideal of home life? can anything be more infamous than to endeavor to make a woman, under such circumstances, remain with such a man? it may be said that she should leave him--that they should live separate and apart. that is to say, that this woman should be deprived of a home; that she should not be entitled to the love of man; that she should remain, for the rest of her days, worse than a widow. that is to say, a wife, hiding, keeping out of the way, secreting herself from the hyena to whom she was married. nothing, in my judgment, can exceed the heartlessness of a law or of a creed that would compel this woman to remain the wife of this monster. and it is not only cruel, but it is immoral, low, vulgar. the ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriages were dissoluble. is it necessary to lose your freedom in order to retain your character, in order to be womanly or manly? must a woman in order to retain her womanhood become a slave, a serf, with a wild beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master? has not the married woman the right of self-defence? is it not the duty of society to protect her from her husband? if she owes no duty to her husband; if it is impossible for her to feel toward him any thrill of affection, what is there of marriage left? what part of the contract remains in force? she is not to live with him, because she abhors him. she is not to remain in the same house with him, for fear he may kill her. what, then, are their relations? do they sustain any relation except that of hunter and hunted--that is, of tyrant and victim? and is it desirable that this relation should be rendered sacred by a church? is it desirable to have families raised under such circumstances? are we really in need of the children born of such parents? if the woman is not in fault, does society insist that her life should be wrecked? can the virtue of others be preserved only by the destruction of her happiness, and by what might be called her perpetual imprisonment? i hope the clergy who believe in the sacredness of marriage--in the indissolubility of the marriage tie--will give their opinions on this case. i believe that marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. i always believe that a man will keep his contract; that a woman, in the highest sense, will keep hers, but suppose the man does not. is the woman still bound? is there no mutuality? what is a contract? it is where one party promises to do something in consideration that the other party will do something. that is to say, there is a consideration on both sides, moving from one to the other. a contract without consideration is null and void; and a contract duly entered into, where the consideration of one party is withheld, is voidable, and can be voided by the party who has kept, or who is willing to keep, the contract. a marriage without love is bad enough. but what can we say of a marriage where the parties hate each other? is there any morality in this--any virtue? will any decent person say that a woman, true, good and loving, should be compelled to live with a man she detests, compelled to be the mother of his children? is there a woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself? and is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear what she would shudderingly avoid? let us bring these questions home. in other words, let us have some sense, some feeling, some heart--and just a little brain. marriages are made by men and women. they are not made by the state, and they are not made by the gods. by this time people should learn that human happiness is the foundation of virtue--the foundation of morality. nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings. nothing is virtuous the result of which is not a human good. the world has always been living for phantoms, for ghosts, for monsters begotten by ignorance and fear. the world should learn to live for itself. man should, by this time, be convinced that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons for doing wrong, are right here in this world--all within the horizon of this life. and besides, we should have imagination to put ourselves in the place of another. let a man suppose himself a helpless wife, beaten by a brute who believes in the indissolubility of marriage. would he want a divorce? i suppose that very few people have any adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children; of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a returning husband; of the number of children who hide when they hear the voice of a father. very few people know the number of blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day. few know the nights of terror passed by mothers holding young children at their breasts. compared with this, the hardships of poverty, borne by those who love each other, are nothing. men and women, truly married, bear the sufferings of poverty. they console each other; their affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine. but think of the others! i have said a thousand times that the home is the unit of good government. when we have kind fathers and loving mothers, then we shall have civilized nations, and not until then. civilization commences at the hearthstone. when intelligence rocks the cradle--when the house is filled with philosophy and kindness--you will see a world a peace. justice will sit in the courts, wisdom in the legislative halls, and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the spirit of liberty! _question_. what is your idea with regard to divorce? _answer_. my idea is this: as i said before, marriage is the most sacred contract--the most important contract--that human beings can make. as a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth--with all she has. from this contract the husband should never be released unless the wife has broken a condition; that is to say, has failed to fulfill the contract of marriage. on the other hand, the woman should be allowed a divorce for the asking. this should be granted in public, precisely as the marriage should be in public. every marriage should be known. there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered into should be understood; and as all marriage records should be kept, so the divorce should be open, public and known. the property should be divided by a court of equity, under certain regulations of law. if there are children, they should be provided for through the property and the parents. people should understand that men and women are not virtuous by law. they should comprehend the fact that law does not create virtue--that law is not the foundation, the fountain, of love. they should understand that love is in the human heart, and that real love is virtuous. people who love each other will be true to each other. the death of love is the commencement of vice. besides this, there is a public opinion that has great weight. when that public opinion is right, it does a vast amount of good, and when wrong, a great amount of harm. people marry, or should marry, because it increases the happiness of each and all. but where the marriage turns out to have been a mistake, and where the result is misery, and not happiness, the quicker they are divorced the better, not only for themselves, but for the community at large. these arguments are generally answered by some donkey braying about free love, and by "free love" he means a condition of society in which there is no love. the persons who make this cry are, in all probability, incapable of the sentiment, of the feeling, known as love. they judge others by themselves, and they imagine that without law there would be no restraint. what do they say of natural modesty? do they forget that people have a choice? do they not understand something of the human heart, and that true love has always been as pure as the morning star? do they believe that by forcing people to remain together who despise each other they are adding to the purity of the marriage relation? do they not know that all marriage is an outward act, testifying to that which has happened in the heart? still, i always believe that words are wasted on such people. it is useless to talk to anybody about music who is unable to distinguish one tune from another. it is useless to argue with a man who regards his wife as his property, and it is hardly worth while to suggest anything to a gentleman who imagines that society is so constructed that it really requires, for the protection of itself, that the lives of good and noble women should be wrecked, i am a believer in the virtue of women, in the honesty of man. the average woman is virtuous; the average man is honest, and the history of the world shows it. if it were not so, society would be impossible. i don't mean by this that most men are perfect, but what i mean is this: that there is far more good than evil in the average human being, and that the natural tendency of most people is toward the good and toward the right. and i most passionately deny that the good of society demands that any good person should suffer. i do not regard government as a juggernaut, the wheels of which must, of necessity, roll over and crush the virtuous, the self-denying and the good. my doctrine is the exact opposite of what is known as free love. i believe in the marriage of true minds and of true hearts. but i believe that thousands of people are married who do not love each other. that is the misfortune of our century. other things are taken into consideration--position, wealth, title and the thousand things that have nothing to do with real affection. where men and women truly love each other, that love, in my judgment, lasts as long as life. the greatest line that i know of in the poetry of the world is in the th sonnet of shakespeare: "love is not love which alters when it alteration finds." _question_. why do you make such a distinction between the rights of man and the rights of women? _answer_. the woman has, as her capital, her youth, her beauty. we will say that she is married at twenty or twenty-five. in a few years she has lost her beauty. during these years the man, so far as capacity to make money is concerned--to do something--has grown better and better. that is to say, his chances have improved; hers have diminished. she has dowered him with the spring of her life, and as her life advances her chances decrease. consequently, i would give her the advantage, and i would not compel her to remain with him against her will. it seems to me far worse to be a wife upon compulsion than to be a husband upon compulsion. besides this, i have a feeling of infinite tenderness toward mothers. the woman that bears children certainly should not be compelled to live with a man whom she despises. the suffering is enough when the father of the child is to her the one man of all the world. many people who have a mechanical apparatus in their breasts that assists in the circulation of what they call blood, regard these views as sentimental. but when you take sentiment out of the world nothing is left worth living for, and when you get sentiment out of the heart it is nothing more or less than a pump, an old piece of rubber that has acquired the habit of contracting and dilating. but i have this consolation: the people that do not agree with me are those that do not understand me. --_new york world_, . secularism. _question_. colonel, what is your opinion of secularism? do you regard it as a religion? _answer_. i understand that the word secularism embraces everything that is of any real interest or value to the human race. i take it for granted that everybody will admit that well-being is the only good; that is to say, that it is impossible to conceive of anything of real value that does not tend either to preserve or to increase the happiness of some sentient being. secularism, therefore, covers the entire territory. it fills the circumference of human knowledge and of human effort. it is, you may say, the religion of this world; but if there is another world, it is necessarily the religion of that, as well. man finds himself in this world naked and hungry. he needs food, raiment, shelter. he finds himself filled with almost innumerable wants. to gratify these wants is the principal business of life. to gratify them without interfering with other people is the course pursued by all honest men. secularism teaches us to be good here and now. i know nothing better than goodness. secularism teaches us to be just here and now. it is impossible to be juster than just. man can be as just in this world as in any other, and justice must be the same in all worlds. secularism teaches a man to be generous, and generosity is certainly as good here as it can be anywhere else. secularism teaches a man to be charitable, and certainly charity is as beautiful in this world and in this short life as it could be were man immortal. but orthodox people insist that there is something higher than secularism; but, as a matter of fact, the mind of man can conceive of nothing better, nothing higher, nothing more spiritual, than goodness, justice, generosity, charity. neither has the mind of men been capable of finding a nobler incentive to action than human love. secularism has to do with every possible relation. it says to the young man and to the young woman: "don't marry unless you can take care of yourselves and your children." it says to the parents: "live for your children; put forth every effort to the end that your children may know more than you--that they may be better and grander than you." it says: "you have no right to bring children into the world that you are not able to educate and feed and clothe." it says to those who have diseases that can be transmitted to children: "do not marry; do not become parents; do not perpetuate suffering, deformity, agony, imbecility, insanity, poverty, wretchedness." secularism tells all children to do the best they can for their parents--to discharge every duty and every obligation. it defines the relation that should exist between husband and wife; between parent and child; between the citizen and the nation. and not only that, but between nations. secularism is a religion that is to be used everywhere, and at all times--that is to be taught everywhere and practiced at all times. it is not a religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of the schools; it is not a religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of politics. it belongs in the schools; it belongs at the polls. it is the business of secularism to teach every child; to teach every voter. it is its business to discuss all political problems, and to decide all questions that affect the rights or the happiness of a human being. orthodox religion is a firebrand; it must be kept out of the schools; it must be kept out of politics. all the churches unite in saying that orthodox religion is not for every day use. the catholics object to any protestant religion being taught to children. protestants object to any catholic religion being taught to children. but the secularist wants his religion taught to all; and his religion can produce no feeling, for the reason that it consists of facts--of truths. and all of it is important; important for the child, important for the parent, important for the politician --for the president--for all in power; important to every legislator, to every professional man, to every laborer and every farmer--that is to say, to every human being. the great benefit of secularism is that is appeals to the reason of every man. it asks every man to think for himself. it does not threaten punishment if a man thinks, but it offers a reward, for fear that he will not think. it does not say, "you will be damned in another world if you think." but it says, "you will be damned in this world if you do not think." secularism preserves the manhood and the womanhood of all. it says to each human being: "stand upon your own feet. count one! examine for yourself. investigate, observe, think. express your opinion. stand by your judgment, unless you are convinced you are wrong, and when you are convinced, you can maintain and preserve your manhood or womanhood only by admitting that you were wrong." it is impossible that the whole world should agree on one creed. it may be impossible that any two human beings can agree exactly in religious belief. secularism teaches that each one must take care of himself, that the first duty of man is to himself, to the end that he may be not only useful to himself, but to others. he who fails to take care of himself becomes a burden; the first duty of man is not to be a burden. every secularist can give a reason for his creed. first of all, he believes in work--taking care of himself. he believes in the cultivation of the intellect, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature--to the end that he may be clothed and fed and sheltered. he also believes in giving to every other human being every right that he claims for himself. he does not depend on prayer. he has no confidence in ghosts or phantoms. he knows nothing of another world, and knows just as little of a first cause. but what little he does know, he endeavors to use, and to use for the benefit of himself and others. he knows that he sustains certain relations to other sentient beings, and he endeavors to add to the aggregate of human joy. he is his own church, his own priest, his own clergyman and his own pope. he decides for himself; in other words, he is a free man. he also has a bible, and this bible embraces all the good and true things that have been written, no matter by whom, or in what language, or in what time. he accepts everything that he believes to be true, and rejects all that he thinks is false. he knows that nothing is added to the probability of an event, because there has been an account of it written and printed. all that has been said that is true is part of his bible. every splendid and noble thought, every good word, every kind action-- all these you will find in his bible. and, in addition to these, all that is absolutely known--that has been demonstrated--belongs to the secularist. all the inventions, machines--everything that has been of assistance to the human race--belongs to his religion. the secularist is in possession of everything that man has. he is deprived only of that which man never had. the orthodox world believes in ghosts and phantoms, in dreams and prayers, in miracles and monstrosities; that is to say, in modern theology. but these things do not exist, or if they do exist, it is impossible for a human being to ascertain the fact. secularism has no "castles in spain." it has no glorified fog. it depends upon realities, upon demonstrations; and its end and aim is to make this world better every day--to do away with poverty and crime, and to cover the world with happy and contended homes. let me say, right here, that a few years ago the secular hall at leicester, england, was opened by a speech from george jacob holyoake, entitled, "secularism as a religion." i have never read anything better on the subject of secularism than this address. it is so clear and so manly that i do not see how any human being can read it without becoming convinced, and almost enraptured. let me quote a few lies from this address:-- "the mind of man would die if it were not for thought, and were thought suppressed, god would rule over a world of idiots. "nature feeds thought, day and night, with a million hands. "to think is a duty, because it is a man's duty not to be a fool. "if man does not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living upon the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution himself in return. he has no ideas but such as he obtains by 'out- door relief,' and he goes about the world with a charity mind. "the more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is in the world. "progress can only walk in the footsteps of conviction. "coercion in thought is not progress, it reduces to ignominious pulp the backbone of the mind. "by religion i mean the simple creed of deed and duty, by which a man seeks his own welfare in his own way, with an honest and fair regard to the welfare and ways of others. "in these thinking and practical days, men demand a religion of daily life, which stands on a business footing." i think nothing could be much better than the following, which shows the exact relation that orthodox religion sustains to the actual wants of human beings: "the churches administer a system of foreign affairs. "secularism dwells in a land of its own. it dwells in a land of certitude. "in the kingdom of thought there is no conquest over man, but over foolishness only." i will not quote more, but hope all who read this will read the address of mr. holyoake, who has, in my judgment, defined secularism with the greatest possible clearness. _question_. what, in your opinion, are the best possible means to spread this gospel or religion of secularism? _answer_. this can only be done by the cultivation of the mind-- only through intelligence--because we are fighting only the monsters of the mind. the phantoms whom we are endeavoring to destroy do not exist; they are all imaginary. they live in that undeveloped or unexplored part of the mind that belongs to barbarism. i have sometimes thought that a certain portion of the mind is cultivated so that it rises above the surrounding faculties and is like some peak that has lifted itself above the clouds, while all the valleys below are dark or dim with mist and cloud. it is in this valley-region, amid these mists, beneath these clouds, that these monsters and phantoms are born. and there they will remain until the mind sheds light--until the brain is developed. one exceedingly important thing is to teach man that his mind has limitations; that there are walls that he cannot scale--that he cannot pierce, that he cannot dig under. when a man finds the limitations of his own mind, he knows that other people's minds have limitations. he, instead of believing what the priest says, he asks the priest questions. in a few moments he finds that the priest has been drawing on his imagination for what is beyond the wall. consequently he finds that the priest knows no more than he, and it is impossible that he should know more than he. an ignorant man has not the slightest suspicion of what a superior man may do. consequently, he is liable to become the victim of the intelligent and cunning. a man wholly unacquainted with chemistry, after having been shown a few wonders, is ready to believe anything. but a chemist who knows something of the limitations of that science--who knows what chemists have done and who knows the nature of things--cannot be imposed upon. when no one can be imposed upon, orthodox religion cannot exist. it is an imposture, and there must be impostors and there must be victims, or the religion cannot be a success. secularism cannot be a success, universally, as long as there is an impostor or a victim. this is the difference: the foundation of orthodox religion is imposture. the foundation of secularism is demonstration. just to the extent that a man knows, he becomes a secularist. _question_. what do you think of the action of the knights of labor in indiana in turning out one of their members because he was an atheist, and because he objected to the reading of the bible at lodge meetings? _answer_. in my judgment, the knights of labor have made a great mistake. they want liberty for themselves--they feel that, to a certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. if they want liberty, they should be willing to give liberty to others. certainly one of their members has the same right to his opinion with regard to the existence of a god, that the other members have to theirs. i do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a supreme being, provided he understands the history of liberty. when a man takes into consideration the fact that for many thousands of years labor was unpaid, nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that millions and hundreds of millions of human beings were bought and sold the same as cattle, and that during all that time the religions of the world upheld the practice, and the priests of the countless unknown gods insisted that the institution of slavery was divine-- i do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion that, perhaps, after all, there is no supreme being--at least none who pays any particular attention to the affairs of this world. if one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he will at least wonder why "a god of infinite goodness and wisdom" did not interfere just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny that he was in favor of the trade. here, in our own country, millions of men were enslaved, and hundreds and thousands of ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their bibles in front of them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the only institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. and they proved it by reading passages from this very bible that the knights of labor in indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings. for their benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages, and suggest that, hereafter, they read those passages at every meeting, for the purpose of convincing all the knights that the lord is on the side of those who work for a living:-- "both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen and bondmaids. "moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. "and ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you to inherit them for a possession. they shall be your bondsmen forever." nothing seems more natural to me than that a man who believes that labor should be free, and that he who works should be free, should come to the conclusion that the passages above quoted are not entirely on his side. i don't see why people should be in favor of free bodies who are not also in favor of free minds. if the mind is to remain in imprisonment, it is hardly worth while to free the body. if the man has the right to labor, he certainly has the right to use his mind, because without mind he can do no labor. as a rule, the more mind he has, the more valuable his labor is, and the freer his mind is the more valuable he is. if the knights of labor expect to accomplish anything in this world, they must do it by thinking. they must have reason on their side, and the only way they can do anything by thinking is to allow each other to think. let all the men who do not believe in the inspiration of the bible, leave the knights of labor and i do not know how many would be left. but i am perfectly certain that those left will accomplish very little, simply from their lack of sense. intelligent clergymen have abandoned the idea of plenary inspiration. the best ministers in the country admit that the bible is full of mistakes, and while many of them are forced to say that slavery is upheld by the old testament they also insist that slavery was and is, and forever will be wrong. what had the knights of labor to do with a question of religion? what business is it of theirs who believes or disbelieves in the religion of the day? nobody can defend the rights of labor without defending the right to think. i hope that in time these knights will become intelligent enough to read in their meetings something of importance; something that applies to this century; something that will throw a little light on questions under discussion at the present time. the idea of men engaged in a kind of revolution reading from leviticus, deuteronomy and haggai, for the purpose of determining the rights of workingmen in the nineteenth century! no wonder such men have been swallowed by the whale of monopoly. and no wonder that, while that are in the belly of this fish, they insist on casting out a man with sense enough to understand the situation! the knights of labor have made a mistake and the sooner they reverse their action the better for all concerned. nothing should be taught in this world that somebody does not know. --_secular thought_, toronto, canada, august , . summer recreation--mr. gladstone. _question_. what is the best philosophy of summer recreation? _answer_. as a matter of fact, no one should be overworked. recreation becomes necessary only when a man has abused himself or has been abused. holidays grew out of slavery. an intelligent man ought not to work so hard to-day that he is compelled to rest to-morrow. each day should have its labor and its rest. but in our civilization, if it can be called civilization, every man is expected to devote himself entirely to business for the most of the year and by that means to get into such a state of body and mind that he requires, for the purpose of recreation, the inconveniences, the poor diet, the horrible beds, the little towels, the warm water, the stale eggs and the tough beef of the average "resort." for the purpose of getting his mental and physical machinery in fine working order, he should live in a room for two or three months that is about eleven by thirteen; that is to say, he should live in a trunk, fight mosquitoes, quarrel with strangers, dispute bills, and generally enjoy himself; and this is supposed to be the philosophy of summer recreation. he can do this, or he can go to some extremely fashionable resort where his time is taken up in making himself and family presentable. seriously, there are few better summer resorts than new york city. if there were no city here it would be the greatest resort for the summer on the continent; with its rivers, its bay, with its wonderful scenery, with the winds from the sea, no better could be found. but we cannot in this age of the world live in accordance with philosophy. no particular theory can be carried out. we must live as we must; we must earn our bread and we must earn it as others do, and, as a rule, we must work when others work. consequently, if we are to take any recreation we must follow the example of others; go when they go and come when they come. in other words, man is a social being, and if one endeavors to carry individuality to an extreme he must suffer the consequences. so i have made up my mind to work as little as i can and to rest as much as i can. _question_. what is your opinion of mr. gladstone as a controversialist? _answer_. undoubtedly mr. gladstone is a man of great talent, of vast and varied information, and undoubtedly he is, politically speaking, at least, one of the greatest men in england--possibly the greatest. as a controversialist, and i suppose by that you mean on religious questions, he is certainly as good as his cause. few men can better defend the indefensible than mr. gladstone. few men can bring forward more probabilities in favor of the impossible, then mr. gladstone. he is, in my judgment, controlled in the realm of religion by sentiment; he was taught long ago certain things as absolute truths and he has never questioned them. he has had all he can do to defend them. it is of but little use to attack sentiment with argument, or to attack argument with sentiment. a question of sentiment can hardly be discussed; it is like a question of taste. a man is enraptured with a landscape by corot; you cannot argue him out of his rapture; the sharper the criticism the greater his admiration, because he feels that it is incumbent upon him to defend the painter who has given him so much real pleasure. some people imagine that what they think ought to exist must exist, and that what they really desire to be true is true. we must remember that mr. gladstone has been what is called a deeply religions man all his life. there was a time when he really believed it to be the duty of the government to see to it that the citizens were religious; when he really believed that no man should hold any office or any position under the government who was not a believer in the established religion; who was not a defender of the parliamentary faith. i do not know whether he has ever changed his opinions upon these subjects or not. there is not the slightest doubt as to his honesty, as to his candor. he says what he believes, and for his belief he gives the reasons that are satisfactory to him. to me it seems impossible that miracles can be defended. i do not see how it is possible to bring forward any evidence that any miracle was ever performed; and unless miracles have been performed, christianity has no basis as a system. mr. hume took the ground that it was impossible to substantiate a miracle, for the reason that it is more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, or are dishonest, than that a fact in nature should be violated. for instance: a man says that a certain time, in a certain locality, the attraction of gravitation was suspended; that there were several moments during which a cannon ball weighed nothing, during which when dropped from the hand, or rather when released from the hand, it refused to fall and remained in the air. it is safe to say that no amount of evidence, no number of witnesses, could convince an intelligent man to-day that such a thing occurred. we believe too thoroughly in the constancy of nature. while men will not believe witnesses who testify to the happening of miracles now, they seem to have perfect confidence in men whom they never saw, who have been dead for two thousand years. of course it is known that mr. gladstone has published a few remarks concerning my religious views and that i have answered him the best i could. i have no opinion to give as to that controversy; neither would it be proper for me to say what i think of the arguments advanced by mr. gladstone in addition to what i have already published. i am willing to leave the controversy where it is, or i am ready to answer any further objections that mr. gladstone may be pleased to urge. in my judgment, the "age of faith" is passing away. we are living in a time of demonstration. [note: from an unfinished interview found among colonel ingersoll's papers.] prohibition. it has been decided in many courts in various states that the traffic in liquor can be regulated--that it is a police question. it has been decided by the courts in iowa that its manufacture and sale can be prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or a brewery may be declared a nuisance and may legally be abated, and these decisions have been upheld by the supreme court of the united states. consequently, it has been settled by the highest tribunal that states have the power either to regulate or to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only so, but that states have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries without making any compensation to owners. so it has always been considered within the power of the state to license the selling of intoxicating liquors. in other words, this question is one that the states can decide for themselves. it is not, and it should not be, in my judgment, a federal question. it is something with which the united states has nothing to do. it belongs to the states; and where a majority of the people are in favor of prohibition and pass laws to that effect, there is nothing in the constitution of the united states that interferes with such action. the remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a question of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another: can prohibitory laws be enforced? there are to-day in kansas,--a prohibition state--more saloons, that is to say, more places in which liquor is sold, than there are in georgia, a state without prohibition legislation. there are more in nebraska, according to the population, more in iowa, according to the population, than in many of the states in which there is the old license system. you will find that the united states has granted more licenses to wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition states,--according to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has not been adopted. these facts tend to show that it is not enough for the legislature to say: "be it enacted." behind every law there must be an intelligent and powerful public opinion. a law, to be enforced, must be the expression of such powerful and intelligent opinion; otherwise it becomes a dead letter; it is avoided; judges continue the cases, juries refuse to convict, and witnesses are not particular about telling the truth. such laws demoralize the community, or, to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass such laws. _question_. what do you think of the prohibitory movement on general principles? _answer_. the trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending to reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are compelled to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. for the purpose of preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch. eyes and ears must become acquainted with keyholes. every neighbor suspects every other. a man with a bottle or demijohn is followed. those who drink get behind doors, in cellars and garrets. hypocrisy becomes substantially universal. hundreds of people become suddenly afflicted with a variety of diseases, for the cure of which alcohol in some form is supposed to be indispensable. malaria becomes general, and it is perfectly astonishing how long a few pieces of peruvian bark will last, and how often the liquor can be renewed without absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. the state becomes a paradise for patent medicine--the medicine being poor whiskey with a scientific name. physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind figures in their prescriptions. then in the towns clubs are formed, the principal object being to establish a saloon, and in many instances the drug store becomes a favorite resort, especially on sundays. there is, however, another side to this question. it is this: nothing in the world is more important than personal liberty. many people are in favor of blotting out the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. this is the mistake of all prohibitory fanaticism. _question_. what is true temperance, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. men have used stimulants for many thousand years, and as much is used to-day in various forms as in any other period of the world's history. they are used with more prudence now than ever before, for the reason that the average man is more intelligent now than ever before. intelligence has much to do with temperance. the barbarian rushes to the extreme, for the reason that but little, comparatively, depends upon his personal conduct or personal habits. now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. the business men of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone. men of wealth, men of intelligence, do not wish to employ intemperate physicians. they are not willing to trust their health or their lives with a physician who is under the influence of liquor. the same is true of business men in regard to their legal interests. they insist upon having sober attorneys; they want the counsel of a sober man. so in every department. on the railways it is absolutely essential that the engineer, that the conductor, the train dispatcher and every other employee, in whose hands are the lives of men, should be temperate. the consequence is that under the law of the survival of the fittest, the intemperate are slowly but surely going to the wall; they are slowly but surely being driven out of employments of trust and importance. as we rise in the scale of civilization we continually demand better and better service. we are continually insisting upon better habits, upon a higher standard of integrity, of fidelity. these are the causes, in my judgment, that are working together in the direction of true temperance. _question_. do you believe the people can be made to do without a stimulant? _answer_. the history of the world shows that all men who have advanced one step beyond utter barbarism have used some kind of stimulant. man has sought for it in every direction. every savage loves it. everything has been tried. opium has been used by many hundreds of millions. hasheesh has filled countless brains with chaotic dreams, and everywhere that civilization has gone the blood of the grape has been used. nothing is easier now to obtain than liquor. in one bushel of corn there are at least five gallons-- four can easily be extracted. all starch, all sugars, can be changed almost instantly into alcohol. every grain that grows has in it the intoxicating principle, and, as a matter of fact, nearly all of the corn, wheat, sugar and starch that man eats is changed into alcohol in his stomach. whether man can be compelled to do without a stimulant is a question that i am unable to answer. of one thing i am certain: he has never yet been compelled to do without one. the tendency, i think, of modern times is toward a milder stimulant than distilled liquors. whisky and brandies are too strong; wine and beer occupy the middle ground. wine is a fireside, whisky a conflagration. it seems to me that it would be far better if the prohibitionists would turn their attention toward distilled spirits. if they were willing to compromise, the probability is that they would have public opinion on their side. if they would say: "you may have all the beer and all the wine and cider you wish, and you can drink them when and where you desire, but the sale of distilled spirits shall be prohibited," it is possible that this could be carried out in good faith in many if not in most of the states--possibly in all. we all know the effect of wine, even when taken in excess, is nothing near as disastrous as the effect of distilled spirits. why not take the middle ground? the wine drinkers of the old country are not drunkards. they have been drinking wine for generations. it is drunk by men, women and children. it adds to the sociability of the family. it does not separate the husband from the rest, it keeps them all together, and in that view is rather a benefit than an injury. good wine can be raised as cheaply here as in any part of the world. in nearly every part of our country the grape grows and good wine can be made. if our people had a taste for wine they would lose the taste for stronger drink, and they would be disgusted with the surroundings of the stronger drink. the same may be said in favor of beer. as long as the prohibitionists make no distinction between wine and whisky, between beer and brandy, just so long they will be regarded by most people as fanatics. the prohibitionists cannot expect to make this question a federal one. the united states has no jurisdiction of this subject. congress can pass no laws affecting this question that could have any force except in such parts of our country as are not within the jurisdiction of states. it is a question for the states and not for the federal government. the prohibitionists are simply throwing away their votes. let us suppose that we had a prohibition congress and a prohibition president--what steps could be taken to do away with drinking in the city of new york? what steps could be taken in any state of this union? what could by any possibility be done? a few years ago the prohibitionists demanded above all things that the tax be taken from distilled spirits, claiming at that time that such a tax made the government a partner in vice. now when the republican party proposes under certain circumstances to remove that tax, the prohibitionists denounce the movement as one in favor of intemperance. we have also been told that the tax on whisky should be kept for the reason that it increases the price, and that an increased price tends to make a temperate people; that if the tax is taken off, the price will fall and the whole country start on the downward road to destruction. is it possible that human nature stands on such slippery ground? it is possible that our civilization to-day rests upon the price of alcohol, and that, should the price be reduced, we would all go down together? for one, i cannot entertain such a humiliating and disgraceful view of human nature. i believe that man is destined to grow greater, grander and nobler. i believe that no matter what the cost of alcohol may be, life will grow too valuable to be thrown away. men hold life according to its value. men, as a rule, only throw away their lives when they are not worth keeping. when life becomes worth living it will be carefully preserved and will be hoarded to the last grain of sand that falls through the glass of time. _question_. what is the reason for so much intemperance? _answer_. when many people are failures, when they are distanced in the race, when they fall behind, when they give up, when they lose ambition, when they finally become convinced that they are worthless, precisely as they are in danger of becoming dishonest. in other words, having failed in the race of life on the highway, they endeavor to reach to goal by going across lots, by crawling through the grass. disguise this matter as we may, all people are not successes, all people have not the brain or the muscle or the moral stamina necessary to succeed. some fall in one way, some in another; some in the net of strong drink, some in the web of circumstances and others in a thousand ways, and the world itself cannot grow better unless the unworthy fail. the law is the survival of the fittest, that is to say, the destruction of the unfit. there is no scheme of morals, no scheme of government, no scheme of charity, that can reverse this law. if it could be reversed, then the result would be the survival of the unfittest, the speedy end of which would be the extinction of the human race. temperance men say that it is wise, in so far as possible, to remove temptation from our fellow-men. let us look at this in regard to other matters. how do we do away with larceny? we cannot remove property. we cannot destroy the money of the world to keep people from stealing some of it. in other words, we cannot afford to make the world valueless to prevent larceny. all strength by which temptation is resisted must come from the inside. virtue does not depend upon the obstacles to be overcome; virtue depends upon what is inside of the man. a man is not honest because the safe of the bank is perfectly secure. upon the honest man the condition of the safe has no effect. we will never succeed in raising great and splendid people by keeping them out of temptation. great people withstand temptation. great people have what may be called moral muscle, moral force. they are poised within themselves. they understand their relations to the world. the best possible foundation for honesty is the intellectual perception that dishonesty can, under no circumstances, be a good investment--that larceny is not only wicked, but foolish--not only criminal, but stupid--that crimes are committed only by fools. on every hand there is what is called temptation. every man has the opportunity of doing wrong. every man, in this country, has the opportunity of drinking too much, has the opportunity of acquiring the opium habit, has the opportunity of taking morphine every day--in other words, has the opportunity of destroying himself. how are they to be prevented? most of them are prevented--at least in a reasonable degree--and they are prevented by their intelligence, by their surroundings, by their education, by their objects and aims in life, by the people they love, by the people who love them. no one will deny the evils of intemperance, and it is hardly to be wondered at that people who regard only one side--who think of the impoverished and wretched, of wives and children in want, of desolate homes--become the advocates of absolute prohibition. at the same time, there is a philosophic side, and the question is whether more good cannot be done by moral influence, by example, by education, by the gradual civilization of our fellow-men, than in any other possible way. the greatest things are accomplished by indirection. in this way the idea of force, of slavery, is avoided. the person influenced does not feel that he has been trampled upon, does not regard himself as a victim--he feels rather as a pupil, as one who receives a benefit, whose mind has been enlarged, whose life has been enriched--whereas the direct way of "thou shalt not" produces an antagonism--in other words, produces the natural result of "i will." by removing one temptation you add strength to others. by depriving a man of one stimulant, as a rule, you drive him to another, and the other may be far worse than the one from which he has been driven. we have hundreds of laws making certain things misdemeanors, which are naturally right. thousands of people, honest in most directions, delight in outwitting the government--derive absolute pleasure from getting in a few clothes and gloves and shawls without the payment of duty. thousands of people buy things in europe for which they pay more than they would for the same things in america, and then exercise their ingenuity in slipping them through the custom-house. a law to have real force must spring from the nature of things, and the justice of this law must be generally perceived, otherwise it will be evaded. the temperance people themselves are playing into the hands of the very party that would refuse to count their votes. allow the democrats to remain in power, allow the democrats to be controlled by the south, and a large majority might be in favor of temperance legislation, and yet the votes would remain uncounted. the party of reform has a great interest in honest elections, and honest elections must first be obtained as the foundation of reform. the prohibitionists can take their choice between these parties. would it not be far better for the prohibitionists to say: "we will vote for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the nearest in favor of what we deem to be the right"? they should also take into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that others disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in it, and that other people cannot leave their principles to vote for prohibition; and they must remember, that these other people are in the majority. mr. fisk knows that he cannot be elected president--knows that it is impossible for him to carry any state in the union. he also knows that in nearly every state in the union--probably in all--a majority of the people believe in stimulants. why not work with the great and enlightened majority? why rush to the extreme for the purpose not only of making yourself useless but hurtful? no man in the world is more opposed to intemperance than i am. no man in the world feels more keenly the evils and the agony produced by the crime of drunkenness. and yet i would not be willing to sacrifice liberty, individuality, and the glory and greatness of individual freedom, to do away with all the evils of intemperance. in other words, i believe that slavery, oppression and suppression would crowd humanity into a thousand deformities, the result of which would be a thousand times more disastrous to the well-being of man. i do not believe in the slave virtues, in the monotony of tyranny, in the respectability produced by force. i admire the men who have grown in the atmosphere of liberty, who have the pose of independence, the virtues of strength, of heroism, and in whose hearts is the magnanimity, the tenderness, and the courage born of victory. --_new york world_, october , . robert elsmere. why do people read a book like "robert elsmere," and why do they take any interest in it? simply because they are not satisfied with the religion of our day. the civilized world has outgrown the greater part of the christian creed. civilized people have lost their belief in the reforming power of punishment. they find that whips and imprisonment have but little influence for good. the truth has dawned upon their minds that eternal punishment is infinite cruelty--that it can serve no good purpose and that the eternity of hell makes heaven impossible. that there can be in this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a perfectly miserable place--that no infinite being can be good who knowingly and, as one may say, willfully created myriads of human beings, knowing that they would be eternally miserable. in other words, the civilized man is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just than the old idea of god. the ideal of a few thousand years ago is far below the real of to-day. no good man now would do what jehovah is said to have done four thousand years ago, and no civilized human being would now do what, according to the christian religion, christ threatens to do at the day of judgment. _question_. has the christian religion changed in theory of late years, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. a few years ago the deists denied the inspiration of the bible on account of its cruelty. at the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the god of nature. now we are convinced that nature is as cruel as the bible; so that, if the god of nature did not write the bible, this god at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this god has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. so that now we have arrived at the question--not as to whether the bible is inspired and not as to whether jehovah is the real god, but whether there is a god or not. the intelligence of christendom to-day does not believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. if there be an infinite god, inspiration in some particular regard would be a patch--it would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect --in other words, it would show that the general plan was defective. _question_. do you consider any religion adequate? _answer_. a good man, living in england, drawing a certain salary for reading certain prayers on stated occasions, for making a few remarks on the subject of religion, putting on clothes of a certain cut, wearing a gown with certain frills and flounces starched in an orthodox manner, and then looking about him at the suffering and agony of the world, would not feel satisfied that he was doing anything of value for the human race. in the first place, he would deplore his own weakness, his own poverty, his inability to help his fellow-men. he would long every moment for wealth, that he might feed the hungry and clothe the naked--for knowledge, for miraculous power, that he might heal the sick and the lame and that he might give to the deformed the beauty of proportion. he would begin to wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite power could allow his children to die, to suffer, to be deformed by necessity, by poverty, to be tempted beyond resistance; how he could allow the few to live in luxury, and the many in poverty and want, and the more he wondered the more useless and ironical would seem to himself his sermons and his prayers. such a man is driven to the conclusion that religion accomplishes but little--that it creates as much want as it alleviates, and that it burdens the world with parasites. such a man would be forced to think of the millions wasted in superstition. in other words, the inadequacy, the uselessness of religion would be forced upon his mind. he would ask himself the question: "is it possible that this is a divine institution? is this all that man can do with the assistance of god? is this the best?" _question_. that is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. the moment a man reaches the point where he asks himself this question he has ceased to be an orthodox christian. it will not do to say that in some other world justice will be done. if god allows injustice to triumph here, why not there? robert elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy. there is hardly light enough for him to see clearly; but there is so much light that the stars in the night of superstition are obscured. _question_. you do not deny that a religious belief is a comfort? _answer_. there is one thing that it is impossible for me to comprehend. why should any one, when convinced that christianity is a superstition, have or feel a sense of loss? certainly a man acquainted with england, with london, having at the same time something like a heart, must feel overwhelmed by the failure of what is known as christianity. hundreds of thousands exist there without decent food, dwelling in tenements, clothed with rags, familiar with every form of vulgar vice, where the honest poor eat the crust that the vicious throw away. when this man of intelligence, of heart, visits the courts; when he finds human liberty a thing treated as of no value, and when he hears the judge sentencing girls and boys to the penitentiary--knowing that a stain is being put upon them that all the tears of all the coming years can never wash away--knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without the slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as a mere matter of form, and that the judge puts this brand of infamy upon the forehead of the convict just as cheerfully as a mexican brands his cattle; and when this man of intelligence and heart knows that these poor people are simply the victims of society, the unfortunates who stumble and over whose bodies rolls the juggernaut--he knows that there is, or at least appears to be, no power above or below working for righteousness--that from the heavens is stretched no protecting hand. and when a man of intelligence and heart in england visits the workhouse, the last resting place of honest labor; when he thinks that the young man, without any great intelligence, but with a good constitution, starts in the morning of his life for the workhouse, and that it is impossible for the laboring man, one who simply has his muscle, to save anything; that health is not able to lay anything by for the days of disease--when the man of intelligence and heart sees all this, he is compelled to say that the civilization of to-day, the religion of to-day, the charity of to-day--no matter how much of good there may be behind them or in them, are failures. a few years ago people were satisfied when the minister said: "all this will be made even in another world; a crust-eater here will sit at the head of the banquet there, and the king here will beg for the crumbs that fall from the table there." when this was said, the poor man hoped and the king laughed. a few years ago the church said to the slave: "you will be free in another world, and your freedom will be made glorious by the perpetual spectacle of your master in hell." but the people--that is, many of the people--are no longer deceived by what once were considered fine phrases. they have suffered so much that they no longer wish to see others suffer and no longer think of the suffering of others as a source of joy to themselves. the poor see that the eternal starvation of kings and queens in another world will be no compensation for what they have suffered there. the old religions appear vulgar and the ideas of rewards and punishments are only such as would satisfy a cannibal chief or one of his favorites. _question_. do you think the christian religion has made the world better? _answer_. for many centuries there has been preached and taught in an almost infinite number of ways a supernatural religion. during all this time the world has been in the care of the infinite, and yet every imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang has been suffered, and every injustice has been done. during all these years the priests have enslaved the minds, and the kings the bodies, of men. the priests did what they did in the name of god, and the kings appeal to the same source of authority. man suffered as long as he could. revolution, reformation, was simply a re- action, a cry from the poor wretch that was between the upper and the nether millstone. the liberty of man has increased just in the proportion that the authority of the gods has decreased. in other words, the wants of man, instead of the wishes of god, have inaugurated what we call progress, and there is this difference: theology is based upon the narrowest and intensest form of selfishness. of course, the theologian knows, the christian knows, that he can do nothing for god; consequently all that he does must be and is for himself, his object being to win the approbation of this god, to the end that he may become a favorite. on the other side, men touched not only by their own misfortunes, but by the misfortunes of others, are moved not simply by selfishness, but by a splendid sympathy with their fellow-men. _question_. christianity certainly fosters charity? _answer_. nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing more heartless than a charitable institution. for instance, in england, think for a moment of the manner in which charities are distributed, the way in which the crust is flung at lazarus. if that parable could be now retold, the dogs would bite him. the same is true in this country. the institution has nothing but contempt for the one it relieves. the people in charge regard the pauper as one who has wrecked himself. they feel very much as a man would feel rescuing from the water some hare-brained wretch who had endeavored to swim the rapids of niagara--the moment they reach him they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. this course makes charity a hypocrite, with every pauper for its enemy. mrs. ward compelled robert elsmere to perceive, in some slight degree, the failure of christianity to do away with vice and suffering, with poverty and crime. we know that the rich care but little for the poor. no matter how religious the rich may be, the sufferings of their fellows have but little effect upon them. we are also beginning to see that what is called charity will never redeem this world. the poor man willing to work, eager to maintain his independence, knows that there is something higher than charity--that is to say, justice. he finds that many years before he was born his country was divided out between certain successful robbers, flatterers, cringers and crawlers, and that in consequence of such division not only he himself, but a large majority of his fellow-men are tenants, renters, occupying the surface of the earth only at the pleasure of others. he finds, too, that these people who have done nothing and who do nothing, have everything, and that those who do everything have but little. he finds that idleness has the money and that the toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. he finds also that the young men of genius are bribed by social distinctions --unconsciously it may be--but still bribed in a thousand ways. he finds that the church is a kind of waste-basket into which are thrown the younger sons of titled idleness. _question_. do you consider that society in general has been made better by religious influences? _answer_. society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles, are in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters. christianity is not an enemy of this system--it is in harmony with it. christianity reveals to us a universe presided over by an infinite autocrat--a universe without republicanism, without democracy--a universe where all power comes from one and the same source, and where everyone using authority is accountable, not to the people, but to this supposed source of authority. kings reign by divine right. priests are ordained in a divinely appointed way--they do not get their office from man. man is their servant, not their master. in the story of robert elsmere all there is of christianity is left except the miraculous. theism remains, and the idea of a protecting providence is left, together with a belief in the immeasurable superiority of jesus christ. that is to say, the miracles are discarded for lack of evidence, and only for lack of evidence; not on the ground that they are impossible, not on the ground that they impeach and deny the integrity of cause and effect, not on the ground that they contradict the self-evident proposition that an effect must have an efficient cause, but like the scotch verdict, "not proven." it is an effort to save and keep in repair the dungeons of the inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the vines that have overrun them. many people imagine that falsehoods may become respectable on account of age, that a certain reverence goes with antiquity, and that if a mistake is covered with the moss of sentiment it is altogether more credible than a parvenu fact. they endeavor to introduce the idea of aristocracy into the world of thought, believing, and honestly believing, that a falsehood long believed is far superior to a truth that is generally denied. _question_. if robert elsmere's views were commonly adopted what would be the effect? _answer_. the new religion of elsmere is, after all, only a system of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up a larger per cent. for the relief of its victims. the abolition of the system is not dreamed of. a civilized minority could not by any possibility be happy while a majority of the world were miserable. a civilized majority could not be happy while a minority were miserable. as a matter of fact, a civilized world could not be happy while one man was really miserable. at the foundation of civilization is justice--that is to say, the giving of an equal opportunity to all the children of men. secondly, there can be no civilization in the highest sense until sympathy becomes universal. we must have a new definition for success. we must have new ideals. the man who succeeds in amassing wealth, who gathers money for himself, is not a success. it is an exceedingly low ambition to be rich to excite the envy of others, or for the sake of the vulgar power it gives to triumph over others. such men are failures. so the man who wins fame, position, power, and wins these for the sake of himself, and wields this power not for the elevation of his fellow-men, but simply to control, is a miserable failure. he may dispense thousands of millions in charity, and his charity may be prompted by the meanest part of his nature--using it simply as a bait to catch more fish and to prevent the rising tide of indignation that might overwhelm him. men who steal millions and then give a small percentage to the lord to gain the praise of the clergy and to bring the salvation of their souls within the possibilities of imagination, are all failures. robert elsmere gains our affection and our applause to the extent that he gives up what are known as orthodox views, and his wife catherine retains our respect in the proportion that she lives the doctrine that elsmere preaches. by doing what she believes to be right, she gains our forgiveness for her creed. one is astonished that she can be as good as she is, believing as she does. the utmost stretch of our intellectual charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the old bottle--she really believes that the bottle is the important thing--that the wine is but a secondary consideration. she misses the label, and not having perfect confidence in her own taste, she does not feel quite sure that the wine is genuine. _question_. what, on the whole, is your judgment of the book? _answer_. i think the book conservative. it is an effort to save something--a few shreds and patches and ravelings--from the wreck. theism is difficult to maintain. why should we expect an infinite being to do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this? if he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there? if he allows rascality to succeed in this world, why not in the next? to believe in god and to deny his personality is an exceedingly vague foundation for a consolation. if you insist on his personality and power, then it is impossible to account for what happens. why should an infinite god allow some of his children to enslave others? why should he allow a child of his to burn another child of his, under the impression that such a sacrifice was pleasing to him? unitarianism lacks the motive power. orthodox people who insist that nearly everybody is going to hell, and that it is their duty to do what little they can to save their souls, have what you might call a spur to action. we can imagine a philanthropic man engaged in the business of throwing ropes to persons about to go over the falls of niagara, but we can hardly think of his carrying on the business after being convinced that there are no falls, or that people go over them in perfect safety. in this country the question has come up whether all the heathen are bound to be damned unless they believe in the gospel. many admit that the heathen will be saved if they are good people, and that they will not be damned for not believing something that they never heard. the really orthodox people--that is to say, the missionaries--instantly see that this doctrine destroys their business. they take the ground that there is but one way to be saved--you must believe on the lord jesus christ--and they are willing to admit, and cheerfully to admit, that the heathen for many generations have gone in an unbroken column down to eternal wrath. and they not only admit this, but insist upon it, to the end that subscriptions may not cease. with them salary and salvation are convertible terms. the tone of this book is not of the highest. too much stress is laid upon social advantages--too much respect for fashionable folly and for ancient absurdity. it is hard for me to appreciate the feelings of one who thinks it difficult to give up the consolations of the gospel. what are the consolations of the church of england? it is a religion imposed upon the people by authority. it is the gospel at the mouth of a cannon, at the point of a bayonet, enforced by all authority, from the beadle to the queen. it is a parasite living upon tithes--these tithes being collected by the army and navy. it produces nothing--is simply a beggar--or rather an aggregation of beggars. it teaches nothing of importance. it discovers nothing. it is under obligation not to investigate. it has agreed to remain stationary not only, but to resist all innovation. according to the creed of this church, a very large proportion of the human race is destined to suffer eternal pain. this does not interfere with the quiet, with the serenity and repose of the average clergyman. they put on their gowns, they read the service, they repeat the creed and feel that their duty has been done. how any one can feel that he is giving up something of value when he finds that the episcopal creed is untrue is beyond my imagination. i should think that every good man and woman would overflow with joy, that every heart would burst into countless blossoms the moment the falsity of the episcopal creed was established. christianity is the most heartless of all religions--the most unforgiving, the most revengeful. according to the episcopalian belief, god becomes the eternal prosecutor of his own children. i know of no creed believed by any tribe, not excepting the tribes where cannibalism is practiced, that is more heartless, more inhuman than this. to find that the creed is false is like being roused from a frightful dream, in which hundreds of serpents are coiled about you, in which their eyes, gleaming with hatred, are fixed on you, and finding the world bathed in sunshine and the songs of birds in your ears and those you love about you. --_new york world_, november , . working girls. _question_. what is your opinion of the work undertaken by the _world_ in behalf of the city slave girl? _answer_. i know of nothing better for a great journal to do. the average girl is so helpless, and the greed of the employer is such, that unless some newspaper or some person of great influence comes to her assistance, she is liable not simply to be imposed upon, but to be made a slave. girls, as a rule, are so anxious to please, so willing to work, that they bear almost every hardship without complaint. nothing is more terrible than to see the rich living on the work of the poor. one can hardly imagine the utter heartlessness of a man who stands between the wholesale manufacturer and the wretched women who make their living--or rather retard their death--by the needle. how a human being can consent to live on this profit, stolen from poverty, is beyond my imagination. these men, when known, will be regarded as hyenas and jackals. they are like the wild beasts which follow herds of cattle for the purpose of devouring those that are injured or those that have fallen by the wayside from weakness. _question_. what effect has unlimited immigration on the wages of women? _answer_. if our country were overpopulated, the effect of immigration would be to lessen wages, for the reason that the working people of europe are used to lower wages, and have been in the habit of practicing an economy unknown to us. but this country is not overpopulated. there is plenty of room for several hundred millions more. wages, however, are too low in the united states. the general tendency is to leave the question of labor to what is called the law of supply and demand. my hope is that in time we shall become civilized enough to know that there is a higher law, or rather a higher meaning in the law of supply and demand, than is now perceived. year after year what are called the necessaries of life increase. many things now regarded as necessaries were formerly looked upon as luxuries. so, as man becomes civilized, he increases what may be called the necessities of his life. when perfectly civilized, one of the necessities of his life will be that the lives of others shall be of some value to them. a good man is not happy so long as he knows that other good men and women suffer for raiment and for food, and have no roof but the sky, no home but the highway. consequently what is called the law of supply and demand will then have a much larger meaning. in nature everything lives upon something else. life feeds upon life. something is lying in wait for something else, and even the victim is weaving a web or crouching for some other victim, and the other victim is in the same business--watching for something else. the same is true in the human world--people are living on each other; the cunning obtain the property of the simple; wealth picks the pockets of poverty; success is a highwayman leaping from the hedge. the rich combine, the poor are unorganized, without the means to act in concert, and for that reason become the prey of combinations and trusts. the great questions are: will man ever be sufficiently civilized to be honest? will the time ever come when it can truthfully be said that right is might? the lives of millions of people are not worth living, because of their ignorance and poverty, and the lives of millions of others are not worth living, on account of their wealth and selfishness. the palace without justice, without charity, is as terrible as the hovel without food. _question_. what effect has the woman's suffrage movement had on the breadwinners of the country? _answer_. i think the women who have been engaged in the struggle for equal rights have done good for women in the direction of obtaining equal wages for equal work. there has also been for many years a tendency among women in our country to become independent --a desire to make their own living--to win their own bread. so many husbands are utterly useless, or worse, that many women hardly feel justified in depending entirely on a husband for the future. they feel somewhat safer to know how to do something and earn a little money themselves. if men were what they ought to be, few women would be allowed to labor--that is to say, to toil. it should be the ambition of every healthy and intelligent man to take care of, to support, to make happy, some woman. as long as women bear the burdens of the world, the human race can never attain anything like a splendid civilization. there will be no great generation of men until there has been a great generation of women. for my part, i am glad to hear this question discussed--glad to know that thousands of women take some interest in the fortunes and in the misfortunes of their sisters. the question of wages for women is a thousand times more important than sending missionaries to china or to india. there is plenty for missionaries to do here. and by missionaries i do not mean gentlemen and ladies who distribute tracts or quote scripture to people out of work. if we are to better the condition of men and women we must change their surroundings. the tenement house breeds a moral pestilence. there can be in these houses no home, no fireside, no family, for the reason that there is no privacy, no walls between them and the rest of the world. there is no sacredness, no feeling, "this is ours." _question_. might not the rich do much? _answer_. it would be hard to overestimate the good that might be done by the millionaires if they would turn their attention to sending thousands and thousands into the country or to building them homes miles from the city, where they could have something like privacy, where the family relations could be kept with some sacredness. think of the "homes" in which thousands and thousands of young girls are reared in our large cities. think of what they see and what they hear; of what they come in contact with. how is it possible for the virtues to grow in the damp and darkened basements? can we expect that love and chastity and all that is sweet and gentle will be produced in these surroundings, in cellars and garrets, in poverty and dirt? the surroundings must be changed. _question_. are the fathers and brothers blameless who allow young girls to make coats, cloaks and vests in an atmosphere poisoned by the ignorant and low-bred? _answer_. the same causes now brutalizing girls brutalize their fathers and brothers, and the same causes brutalize the ignorant and low-lived that poison the air in which these girls are made to work. it is hard to pick out one man and say that he is to blame, or one woman and say that the fault is hers. we must go back of all this. in my opinion, society raises its own failures, its own criminals, its own wretches of every sort and kind. great pains are taken to raise these crops. the seeds, it may be, were sown thousands of years ago, but they were sown, and the present is the necessary child of all the past. if the future is to differ from the present, the seeds must now be sown. it is not simply a question of charity, or a question of good nature, or a question of what we call justice--it is a question of intelligence. in the first place, i suppose that it is the duty of every human being to support himself--first, that he may not become a burden upon others, and second, that he may help others. i think all people should be taught never, under any circumstances, if by any possibility they can avoid it, to become a burden. every one should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. as long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity. _question_. has the public school system anything to do with the army of pupils who, after six years of study, willingly accept the injustice and hardship imposed by capital? _answer_. the great trouble with the public school is that many things are taught that are of no immediate use. i believe in manual training schools. i believe in the kindergarten system. every person ought to be taught how to do something--ought to be taught the use of their hands. they should endeavor to put in palpable form the ideas that they gain. such an education gives them a confidence in themselves, a confidence in the future--gives them a spirit and feeling of independence that they do not now have. men go through college studying for many years, and when graduated have not the slightest conception of how to make a living in any department of human effort. thousands of them are to-day doing manual labor and doing it very poorly, whereas, if they had been taught the use of tools, the use of their hands, they would derive a certain pleasure from their work. it is splendid to do anything well. one can be just as poetic working with iron and wood as working with words and colors. _question_. what ought to be done, or what is to be the end? _answer_. the great thing is for the people to know the facts. there are thousands and millions of splendid and sympathetic people who would willingly help, if they only knew; but they go through the world in such a way that they know but little of it. they go to their place of business; they stay in their offices for a few hours; they go home; they spend the evening there or at a club; they come in contact with the well-to-do, with the successful, with the satisfied, and they know nothing of the thousands and millions on every side. they have not the least idea how the world lives, how it works, how it suffers. they read, of course, now and then, some paragraph in which the misfortune of some wretch is set forth, but the wretch is a kind of steel engraving, an unreal shadow, a something utterly unlike themselves. the real facts should be brought home, the sympathies of men awakened, and awakened to such a degree that they will go and see how these people live, see how they work, see how they suffer. _question_. does exposure do any good? _answer_. i hope that _the world_ will keep on. i hope that it will express every horror that it can, connected with the robbery of poor and helpless girls, and i hope that it will publish the names of all the robbers it can find, and the wretches who oppress the poor and who live upon the misfortunes of women. the crosses of this world are mostly born by wives, by mothers and by daughters. their brows are pierced by thorns. they shed the bitterest tears. they live and suffer and die for others. it is almost enough to make one insane to think of what woman, in the years of savagery and civilization, has suffered. think of the anxiety and agony of motherhood. maternity is the most pathetic fact in the universe. think how helpless girls are. think of the thorns in the paths they walk--of the trials, the temptations, the want, the misfortune, the dangers and anxieties that fill their days and nights. every true man will sympathize with woman, and will do all in his power to lighten her burdens and increase the sunshine of her life. _question_. is there any remedy? _answer_. i have always wondered that the great corporations have made no provisions for their old and worn out employees. it seems to me that not only great railway companies, but great manufacturing corporations, ought to provide for their workmen. many of them are worn out, unable longer to work, and they are thrown aside like old clothes. they find their way to the poorhouses or die in tenements by the roadside. this seems almost infinitely heartless. men of great wealth, engaged in manufacturing, instead of giving five hundred thousand dollars for a library, or a million dollars for a college, ought to put this money aside, invest it in bonds of the government, and the interest ought to be used in taking care of the old, of the helpless, of those who meet with accidents in their work. under our laws, if an employee is caught in a wheel or in a band, and his arm or leg is torn off, he is left to the charity of the community, whereas the profits of the business ought to support him in his old age. if employees had this feeling--that they were not simply working for that day, not simply working while they have health and strength, but laying aside a little sunshine for the winter of age--if they only felt that they, by their labor, were creating a fireside in front of which their age and helplessness could sit, the feeling between employed and employers would be a thousand times better. on the great railways very few people know the number of the injured, of those who lose their hands or feet, of those who contract diseases riding on the tops of freight trains in snow and sleet and storm; and yet, when these men become old and helpless through accident, they are left to shift for themselves. the company is immortal, but the employees become helpless. now, it seems to me that a certain per cent. should be laid aside, so that every brakeman and conductor could feel that he was providing for himself, as well as for his fellow-workmen, so that when the dark days came there would be a little light. the men of wealth, the men who control these great corporations-- these great mills--give millions away in ostentatious charity. they send missionaries to foreign lands. they endow schools and universities and allow the men who earned the surplus to die in want. i believe in no charity that is founded on robbery. i have no admiration for generous highwaymen or extravagant pirates. at the foundation of charity should be justice. let these men whom others have made wealthy give something to their workmen--something to those who created their fortunes. this would be one step in the right direction. do not let it be regarded as charity--let it be regarded as justice. --_new york world_, december , . protection for american actors. _question_. it is reported that you have been retained as counsel for the actors' order of friendship--the edwin forrest lodge of new york, and the shakespeare lodge of philadelphia--for the purpose of securing the necessary legislation to protect american actors-- is that so? _answer_. yes, i have been retained for that purpose, and the object is simply that american actors may be put upon an equal footing with americans engaged in other employments. there is a law now which prevents contractors going abroad and employing mechanics or skilled workmen, and bringing them to this country to take the places of our citizens. no one objects to the english, german and french mechanics coming with their wives and children to this country and making their homes here. our ports are open, and have been since the foundation of this government. wages are somewhat higher in this country than in any other, and the man who really settles here, who becomes, or intends to become an american citizen, will demand american wages. but if a manufacturer goes to europe, he can make a contract there and bring hundreds and thousands of mechanics to this country who will work for less wages than the american, and a law was passed to prevent the american manufacturer, who was protected by a tariff, from burning the laborer's candle at both ends. that is to say, we do not wish to give him the american price, by means of a tariff, and then allow him to go to europe and import his labor at the european price. in the law, actors were excepted, and we now find the managers are bringing entire companies from the old county, making contracts with them there, and getting them at much lower prices than they would have had to pay for american actors. no one objects to a foreign actor coming here for employment, but we do not want an american manager to go there, and employ him to act here. no one objects to the importation of a star. we wish to see and hear the best actors in the world. but the rest of the company--the support--should be engaged in the united states, if the star speaks english. i see that it is contended over in england, that english actors are monopolizing the american stage because they speak english, while the average american actor does not. the real reason is that the english actor works for less money--he is the cheaper article. certainly no one will accuse the average english actor of speaking english. the hemming and hawing, the aristocratic stutter, the dropping of h's and picking them up at the wrong time, have never been popular in the united states, except by way of caricature. nothing is more absurd than to take the ground that the english actors are superior to the american. i know of no english actor who can for a moment be compared with joseph jefferson, or with edwin booth, or with lawrence barrett, or with denman thompson, and i could easily name others. if english actors are so much better than american, how is it that an american star is supported by the english? mary anderson is certainly an american actress, and she is supported by english actors. is it possible that the superior support the inferior? i do not believe that england has her equal as an actress. her hermione is wonderful, and the appeal to apollo sublime. in perdita she "takes the winds of march with beauty." where is an actress on the english stage the superior of julia marlowe in genius, in originality, in naturalness? is there any better mrs. malaprop than mrs. drew, and better sir anthony than john gilbert? no one denies that the english actors and actresses are great. no one will deny that the plays of shakespeare are the greatest that have been produced, and no one wishes in any way to belittle the genius of the english people. in this country the average person speaks fairly good english, and you will find substantially the same english spoken in most of the country; whereas in england there is a different dialect in almost every county, and most of the english people speak the language as if was not their native tongue. i think it will be admitted that the english write a good deal better than they speak, and that their pronunciation is not altogether perfect. these things, however, are not worth speaking of. there is no absolute standard. they speak in the way that is natural to them, and we in the way that is natural to us. this difference furnishes no foundation for a claim of general superiority. the english actors are not brought here on account of their excellence, but on account of their cheapness. it requires no great ability to play the minor parts, or the leading roles in some plays, for that matter. and yet acting is a business, a profession, a means of getting bread. we protect our mechanics and makers of locomotives and of all other articles. why should we not protect, by the same means, the actor? you may say that we can get along without actors. so we can get along without painters, without sculptors and without poets. but a nation that gets along without these people of genius amounts to but little. we can do without music, without players and without composers; but when we take art and poetry and music and the theatre out of the world, it becomes an exceedingly dull place. actors are protected and cared for in proportion that people are civilized. if the people are intelligent, educated, and have imaginations, they enjoy the world of the stage, the creations of poets, and they are thrilled by great music, and, as a consequence, respect the dramatist, the actor and the musician. _question_. it is claimed that an amendment to the law, such as is desired, will interfere with the growth of art? _answer_. no one is endeavoring to keep stars from this country. if they have american support, and the stars really know anything, the american actors will get the benefit. if they bring their support with them, the american actor is not particularly benefitted, and the star, when the season is over, takes his art and his money with him. managers who insist on employing foreign support are not sacrificing anything for art. their object is to make money. they care nothing for the american actor--nothing for the american drama. they look for the receipts. it is the sheerest cant to pretend that they are endeavoring to protect art. on the th of february, , a law was passed making it unlawful "for any person, company, partnership or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or emigration of any alien or aliens into the united states, under contract or agreement, parol or special, previous to the importation or emigration of such aliens to perform labor or services of any kind the united states." by this act it was provided that its provisions should not apply to professional actors, artists, lecturers or singers, in regard to persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants. the object now in view is so to amend the law that its provision shall apply to all actors except stars. _question_. in this connection there has been so much said about the art of acting--what is your idea as to that art? _answer_. above all things in acting, there must be proportion. there are no miracles in art or nature. all that is done--every inflection and gesture--must be in perfect harmony with the circumstances. sensationalism is based on deformity, and bears the same relation to proportion that caricature does to likeness. the stream that flows even with its banks, making the meadows green, delights us ever; the one that overflows surprises for a moment. but we do not want a succession of floods. in acting there must be natural growth, not sudden climax. the atmosphere of the situation, the relation sustained to others, should produce the emotions. nothing should be strained. beneath domes there should be buildings, and buildings should have foundations. there must be growth. there should be the bud, the leaf, the flower, in natural sequence. there must be no leap from naked branches to the perfect fruit. most actors depend on climax--they save themselves for the supreme explosion. the scene opens with a slow match and ends when the spark reaches the dynamite. so, most authors fill the first act with contradictions and the last with explanations. plots and counter-plots, violence and vehemence, perfect saints and perfect villains--that is to say, monsters, impelled by improbable motives, meet upon the stage, where they are pushed and pulled for the sake of the situation, and where everything is so managed that the fire reaches the powder and the explosion is the climax. there is neither time, nor climate, nor soil, in which the emotions and intentions may grow. no land is plowed, no seed is sowed, no rain falls, no light glows--the events are all orphans. no one would enjoy a sudden sunset--we want the clouds of gold that float in the azure sea. no one would enjoy a sudden sunrise--we are in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. in other words, we want sequence, proportion, logic, beauty. there are several actors in this country who are in perfect accord with nature--who appear to make no effort--whose acting seems to give them joy and rest. we do well what we do easily. it is a great mistake to exhaust yourself, instead of the subject. all great actors "fill the stage" because they hold the situation. you see them and nothing else. _question_. speaking of american actors, colonel, i believe you are greatly interested in the playing of miss marlowe, and have given your opinion of her as parthenia; what do you think of her julia and viola? _answer_. a little while ago i saw miss marlowe as julia, in "the hunchback." we must remember the limitations of the play. nothing can excel the simplicity, the joyous content of the first scene. nothing could be more natural than the excitement produced by the idea of leaving what you feel to be simple and yet good, for what you think is magnificent, brilliant and intoxicating. it is only in youth that we are willing to make this exchange. one does not see so clearly in the morning of life when the sun shines in his eyes. in the afternoon, when the sun is behind him, he sees better --he is no longer dazzled. in old age we are not only willing, but anxious, to exchange wealth and fame and glory and magnificence, for simplicity. all the palaces are nothing compared with our little cabin, and all the flowers of the world are naught to the wild rose that climbs and blossoms by the lowly window of content. happiness dwells in the valleys with the shadows. the moment julia is brought in contact with wealth, she longs for the simple--for the true love of one true man. wealth and station are mockeries. these feelings, these emotions, miss marlowe rendered not only with look and voice and gesture, but with every pose of her body; and when assured that her nuptials with the earl could be avoided, the only question in her mind was as to the absolute preservation of her honor--not simply in fact, but in appearance, so that even hatred could not see a speck upon the shining shield of her perfect truth. in this scene she was perfect--everything was forgotten except the desire to be absolutely true. so in the scene with master walter, when he upbraids her for forgetting that she is about to meet her father, when excusing her forgetfulness on the ground that he has been to her a father. nothing could exceed the delicacy and tenderness of this passage. every attitude expressed love, gentleness, and a devotion even unto death. one felt that there could be no love left for the father she expected to meet--master walter had it all. a greater julia was never on the stage--one in whom so much passion mingled with so much purity. miss marlowe never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature." she maintains proportion. the river of her art flows even with the banks. in viola, we must remember the character--a girl just rescued from the sea--disguised as a boy--employed by the duke, whom she instantly loves--sent as his messenger to woo another for him--olivia enamored of the messenger--forced to a duel--mistaken for her brother by the captain, and her brother taken for herself by olivia--and yet, in the midst of these complications and disguises, she remains a pure and perfect girl--these circumstances having no more real effect upon her passionate and subtle self than clouds on stars. when malvolio follows and returns the ring the whole truth flashes upon her. she is in love with orsino--this she knows. olivia, she believes, is in love with her. the edge of the situation, the dawn of this entanglement, excites her mirth. in this scene she becomes charming--an impersonation of spring. her laughter is as natural and musical as the song of a brook. so, in the scene with olivia in which she cries, "make me a willow cabin at your gate!" she is the embodiment of grace, and her voice is as musical as the words, and as rich in tone as they are in thought. in the duel with sir andrew she shows the difference between the delicacy of woman and the cowardice of man. she does the little that she can, not for her own sake, but for the sake of her disguise --she feels that she owes something to her clothes. but i have said enough about this actress to give you an idea of one who is destined to stand first in her profession. we will now come back to the real question. i am in favor of protecting the american actor. i regard the theatre as the civilizer of man. all the arts united upon the stage, and the genius of the race has been lavished on this mimic world. --_new york star_, december , . liberals and liberalism. _question_. what do you think of the prospects of liberalism in this country? _answer_. the prospects of liberalism are precisely the same as the prospects of civilization--that is to say, of progress. as the people become educated, they become liberal. bigotry is the provincialism of the mind. men are bigoted who are not acquainted with the thoughts of others. they have been taught one thing, and have been made to believe that their little mental horizon is the circumference of all knowledge. the bigot lives in an ignorant village, surrounded by ignorant neighbors. this is the honest bigot. the dishonest bigot may know better, but he remains a bigot because his salary depends upon it. a bigot is like a country that has had no commerce with any other. he imagines that in his little head there is everything of value. when a man becomes an intellectual explorer, an intellectual traveler, he begins to widen, to grow liberal. he finds that the ideas of others are as good as and often better than his own. the habits and customs of other people throw light on his own, and by this light he is enabled to discover at least some of his own mistakes. now the world has become acquainted. a few years ago, a man knew something of the doctrines of his own church. now he knows the creeds of others, and not only so, but he has examined to some extent the religions of other nations. he finds in other creeds all the excellencies that are in his own, and most of the mistakes. in this way he learns that all creeds have been produced by men, and that their differences have been accounted for by race, climate, heredity--that is to say, by a difference in circumstances. so we now know that the cause of liberalism is the cause of civilization. unless the race is to be a failure, the cause of liberalism must succeed. consequently, i have the same faith in that cause that i have in the human race. _question_. where are the most liberals, and in what section of the country is the best work for liberalism being done? _answer_. the most liberals are in the most intelligent section of the united states. where people think the most, there you will find the most liberals; where people think the least, you will find the most bigots. bigotry is produced by feeling--liberalism by thinking--that is to say, the one is a prejudice, the other a principle. every geologist, every astronomer, every scientist, is doing a noble work for liberalism. every man who finds a fact, and demonstrates it, is doing work for the cause. all the literature of our time that is worth reading is on the liberal side. all the fiction that really interests the human mind is with us. no one cares to read the old theological works. essays written by professors of theological colleges are regarded, even by christians, with a kind of charitable contempt. when any demonstration of science is attacked by a creed, or a passage of scripture, all the intelligent smile. for these reasons i think that the best work for liberalism is being done where the best work for science is being done--where the best work for man is being accomplished. every legislator that assists in the repeal of theological laws is doing a great work for liberalism. _question_. in your opinion, what relation do liberalism and prohibition bear to each other? _answer_. i do not think they have anything to do with each other. they have nothing in common except this: the prohibitionists, i presume, are endeavoring to do what they can for temperance; so all intelligent liberals are doing what they can for the cause of temperance. the prohibitionist endeavors to accomplish his object by legislation--the liberalist by education, by civilization, by example, by persuasion. the method of the liberalist is good, that of the prohibitionist chimerical and fanatical. _question_. do you think that liberals should undertake a reform in the marriage and divorce laws and relations? _answer_. i think that liberals should do all in their power to induce people to regard marriage and divorce in a sensible light, and without the slightest reference to any theological ideas. they should use their influence to the end that marriage shall be considered as a contract--the highest and holiest that men and women can make. and they should also use their influence to have the laws of divorce based on this fundamental idea,--that marriage is a contract. all should be done that can be done by law to uphold the sacredness of this relation. all should be done that can be done to impress upon the minds of all men and all women their duty to discharge all the obligations of the marriage contract faithfully and cheerfully. i do not believe that it is to the interest of the state or of the nation, that people should be compelled to live together who hate each other, or that a woman should be bound to a man who has been false and who refuses to fulfill the contract of marriage. i do not believe that any man should call upon the police, or upon the creeds, or upon the church, to compel his wife to remain under his roof, or to compel a woman against her will to become the mother of his children. in other words, liberals should endeavor to civilize mankind, and when men and women are civilized, the marriage question, and the divorce question, will be settled. _question_. should liberals vote on liberal issues? _answer_. i think that, other things being anywhere near equal, liberals should vote for men who believe in liberty, men who believe in giving to others the rights they claim for themselves--that is to say, for civilized men, for men of some breadth of mind. liberals should do what they can to do away with all the theological absurdities. _question_. can, or ought, the liberals and spiritualists to unite? _answer_. all people should unite where they have objects in common. they can vote together, and act together, without believing the same on all points. a liberal is not necessarily a spiritualist, and a spiritualist is not necessarily a liberal. if spiritualists wish to liberalize the government, certainly liberals would be glad of their assistance, and if spiritualists take any step in the direction of freedom, the liberals should stand by them to that extent. _question_. which is the more dangerous to american institutions --the national reform association (god-in-the-constitution party) or the roman catholic church? _answer_. the association and the catholic church are dangerous according to their power. the catholic church has far more power than the reform association, and is consequently far more dangerous. the god-in-the-constitution association is weak, fanatical, stupid, and absurd. what god are we to have in the constitution? whose god? if we should agree to-morrow to put god in the constitution, the question would then be: which god? on that question, the religious world would fall out. in that direction there is no danger. but the roman catholic church is the enemy of intellectual liberty. it is the enemy of investigation. it is the enemy of free schools. that church always has been, always will be, the enemy of freedom. it works in the dark. when in a minority it is humility itself--when in power it is the impersonation of arrogance. in weakness it crawls--in power it stands erect, and compels its victims to fall upon their faces. the most dangerous institution in this world, so far as the intellectual liberty of man is concerned, is the roman catholic church. next to that is the protestant church. _question_. what is your opinion of the christian religion and the christian church? _answer_. my opinion upon this subject is certainly well known. the christian church is founded upon miracles--that is to say, upon impossibilities. of course, there is a great deal that is good in the creeds of the churches, and in the sermons delivered by its ministers; but mixed with this good is much that is evil. my principal objection to orthodox religion is the dogma of eternal pain. nothing can be more infamously absurd. all civilized men should denounce it--all women should regard it with a kind of shuddering abhorrence. --_secular thought_, toronto, canada, . pope leo xiii. _question_. do you agree with the views of pope leo xiii. as expressed in _the herald_ of last week? _answer_. i am not personally acquainted with leo xiii., but i have not the slightest idea that he loves americans or their country. i regard him as an enemy of intellectual liberty. he tells us that where the church is free it will increase, and i say to him that where others are free it will not. the catholic church has increased in this country by immigration and in no other way. possibly the pope is willing to use his power for the good of the whole people, protestants and catholics, and to increase their prosperity and happiness, because by this he means that he will use his power to make catholics out of protestants. it is impossible for the catholic church to be in favor of mental freedom. that church represents absolute authority. its members have no right to reason--no right to ask questions--they are called upon simply to believe and to pay their subscriptions. _question_. do you agree with the pope when he says that the result of efforts which have been made to throw aside christianity and live without it can be seen in the present condition of society-- discontent, disorder, hatred and profound unhappiness? _answer_. undoubtedly the people of europe who wish to be free are discontented. undoubtedly these efforts to have something like justice done will bring disorder. those in power will hate those who are endeavoring to drive them from their thrones. if the people now, as formerly, would bear all burdens cheerfully placed upon their shoulders by church and state--that is to say, if they were so enslaved mentally that they would not even have sense enough to complain, then there would be what the pope might call "peace and happiness"--that is to say, the peace of ignorance, and the happiness of those who are expecting pay in another world for their agonies endured in this. of course, the revolutionaries of europe are not satisfied with the catholic religion; neither are they satisfied with the protestant. both of these religions rest upon authority. both discourage reason. both say "let him that hath ears to hear, hear," but neither say let him that hath brains to think, think. christianity has been thoroughly tried, and it is a failure. nearly every church has upheld slavery, not only of the body, but of the mind. when christian missionaries invade what they call a heathen country, they are followed in a little while by merchants and traders, and in a few days afterward by the army. the first real work is to kill the heathen or steal their lands, or else reduce them to something like slavery. i have no confidence in the reformation of this world by churches. churches for the most part exist, not for this world, but for another. they are founded upon the supernatural, and they say: "take no thought for the morrow; put your trust in your heavenly father and he will take care of you." on the other hand, science says: "you must take care of yourself, live for the world in which you happen to be--if there is another, live for that when you get there." _question_. what do you think of the plan to better the condition of the workingmen, by committees headed by bishops of the catholic church, in discussing their duties? _answer_. if the bishops wish to discuss with anybody about duties they had better discuss with the employers, instead of the employed. this discussion had better take place between the clergy and the capitalist. there is no need of discussing this question with the poor wretches who cannot earn more than enough to keep their souls in their bodies. if the catholic church has so much power, and if it represents god on earth, let it turn its attention to softening the hearts of capitalists, and no longer waste its time in preaching patience to the poor slaves who are now bearing the burdens of the world. _question_. do you agree with the pope that: "sound rules of life must be founded on religion"? _answer_. i do not. sound rules of life must be founded on the experience of mankind. in other words, we must live for this world. why should men throw away hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars in building cathedrals and churches, and paying the salaries of bishops and priests, and cardinals and popes, and get no possible return for all this money except a few guesses about another world --those guesses being stated as facts--when every pope and priest and bishop knows that no one knows the slightest thing on the subject. superstition is the greatest burden borne by the industry of the world. the nations of europe to-day all pretend to be christian, yet millions of men are drilled and armed for the purpose of killing other christians. each christian nation is fortified to prevent other christians from devastating their fields. there is already a debt of about twenty-five thousand millions of dollars which has been incurred by christian nations, because each one is afraid of every other, and yet all say: "it is our duty to love our enemies." this world, in my judgment, is to be reformed through intelligence --through development of the mind--not by credulity, but by investigation; not by faith in the supernatural, but by faith in the natural. the church has passed the zenith of her power. the clergy must stand aside. scientists must take their places. _question_. do you agree with the pope in attacking the present governments of europe and the memories of mazzini and saffi? _answer_. i do not. i think mazzini was of more use to italy than all the popes that ever occupied the chair of st. peter--which, by the way, was not his chair. i have a thousand times more regard for mazzini, for garibaldi, for cavour, than i have for any gentleman who pretends to be the representative of god. there is another objection i have to the pope, and that is that he was so scandalized when a monument was reared in rome to the memory of giordano bruno. bruno was murdered about two hundred and sixty years ago by the catholic church, and such has been the development of the human brain and heart that on the very spot where he was murdered a monument rises to his memory. but the vicar of god has remained stationary, and he regards this mark of honor to one of the greatest and noblest of the human race as an act of blasphemy. the poor old man acts as if america had never been discovered--as if the world were still flat--and as if the stars had been made out of little pieces left over from the creation of the world and stuck in the sky simply to beautify the night. but, after all, i do not blame this pope. he is the victim of his surroundings. he was never married. his heart was never softened by wife or children. he was born that way, and, to tell you the truth, he has my sincere sympathy. let him talk about america and stay in italy. --_the herald_, new york, april , . the sacredness of the sabbath. _question_. what do you think of the sacredness of the sabbath? _answer_. i think all days, all times and all seasons are alike sacred. i think the best day in a man's life is the day that he is truly the happiest. every day in which good is done to humanity is a holy day. if i were to make a calendar of sacred days, i would put down the days in which the greatest inventions came to the mind of genius; the days when scattered tribes became nations; the days when good laws were passed; the days when bad ones were repealed; the days when kings were dethroned, and the people given their own; in other words, every day in which good has been done; in which men and women have truly fallen in love, days in which babes were born destined to change the civilization of the world. these are all sacred days; days in which men have fought for the right, suffered for the right, died for the right; all days in which there were heroic actions for good. the day when slavery was abolished in the united states is holier than any sabbath by reason of "divine consecration." of course, i care nothing about the sacredness of the sabbath because it was hallowed in the old testament, or because of that day jehovah is said to have rested from his labors. a space of time cannot be sacred, any more than a vacuum can be sacred, and it is rendered sacred by deeds done in it, and not in and of itself. if we should finally invent some means of traveling by which we could go a thousand miles a day, a man could escape sunday all his life by traveling west. he could start monday, and stay monday all the time. or, if he should some time get near the north pole, he could walk faster than the earth turns and thus beat sunday all the while. _question_. should not the museums and art galleries be thrown open to the workingmen free on sunday? _answer_. undoubtedly. in all civilized countries this is done, and i believe it would be done in new york, only it is said that money has been given on condition that the museums should be kept closed on sundays. i have always heard it said that large sums will be withheld by certain old people who have the prospect of dying in the near future if the museums are open on sunday. this, however, seems to me a very poor and shallow excuse. money should not be received under such conditions. one of the curses of our country has been the giving of gifts to colleges on certain conditions. as, for instance, the money given to andover by the original founder on the condition that a certain creed be taught, and other large amounts have been given on a like condition. now, the result of this is that the theological professor must teach what these donors have indicated, or go out of the institution; or --and this last "or" is generally the trouble--teach what he does not believe, endeavoring to get around it by giving new meaning to old words. i think the cause of intellectual progress has been much delayed by these conditions put in the wills of supposed benefactors, so that after they are dead they can rule people who have the habit of being alive. in my opinion, a corpse is a poor ruler, and after a man is dead he should keep quiet. of course all that he did will live, and should be allowed to have its natural effect. if he was a great inventor or discoverer, or if he uttered great truths, these became the property of the world; but he should not endeavor, after he is dead, to rule the living by conditions attached to his gifts. all the museums and libraries should be opened, not only to workingmen, but to all others. if to see great paintings, great statues, wonderful works of art; if to read the thoughts of the greatest men--if these things tend to the civilization of the race, then they should be put as nearly as possible within the reach of all. the man who works eight or ten or twelve hours a day has not time during the six days of labor to visit libraries or museums. sunday is his day of leisure, his day of recreation, and on that day he should have the privilege, and he himself should deem it a right to visit all the public libraries and museums, parks and gardens. in other words, i think the laboring man should have the same rights on sundays, to say the least of it, that wealthy people have on other days. the man of wealth has leisure. he can attend these places on any day he may desire; but necessity being the master of the poor man, sunday is his one day for such a purpose. for men of wealth to close the museums and libraries on that day, shows that they have either a mistaken idea as to the well-being of their fellow-men, or that they care nothing about the rights of any except the wealthy. personally, i have no sort of patience with the theological snivel and drivel about the sacredness of the sabbath. i do not understand why they do not accept the words of their own christ, namely, that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." the hypocrites of judea were great sticklers for the sabbath, and the orthodox christians of new york are exactly the same. my own opinion is that a man who has been at work all the week, in the dust and heat, can hardly afford to waste his sunday in hearing an orthodox sermon--a sermon that gives him the cheerful intelligence that his chances for being damned are largely in the majority. i think it is far better for the workingman to go out with his family in the park, into the woods, to some german garden, where he can hear the music of wagner, or even the waltzes of strauss, or to take a boat and go down to the shore of the sea. i think than in summer a few waves of the ocean are far more refreshing then all the orthodox sermons of the world. as a matter of fact, i believe the preachers leave the city in the summer and let the devil do his worst. whether it is believed that the devil has less power in warm weather, i do not know. but i do know that, as the mercury rises, the anxiety about souls decreases, and the hotter new york becomes, the cooler hell seems to be. i want the workingman, no matter what he works at--whether at doctoring people, or trying law suits, or running for office--to have a real good time on sunday. he, of course, must be careful not to interfere with the rights of others. he ought not to play draw-poker on the steps of a church; neither should he stone a chinese funeral, nor go to any excesses; but all the week long he should have it in his mind: next sunday i am going to have a good time. my wife and i and the children are going to have a happy time. i am going out with the girl i like; or my young man is going to take me to the picnic. and this thought, and this hope, of having a good time on sunday--of seeing some great pictures at the metropolitan art gallery--together with a good many bad ones-- will make work easy and lighten the burden on the shoulders of toil. i take a great interest, too, in the working women--particularly in the working woman. i think that every workingman should see to it that every working woman has a good time on sunday. i am no preacher. all i want is that everybody should enjoy himself in a way that he will not and does not interfere with the enjoyment of others. it will not do to say that we cannot trust the people. our government is based upon the idea that the people can be trusted, and those who say that the workingmen cannot be trusted, do not believe in republican or democratic institutions. for one, i am perfectly willing to trust the working people of the country. i do, every day. i trust the engineers on the cars and steamers. i trust the builders of houses. i trust all laboring men every day of my life, and if the laboring people of the country were not trustworthy--if they were malicious or dishonest--life would not be worth living. --_the journal_, new york, june , . the west and south. _question_. do you think the south will ever equal or surpass the west in point of prosperity? _answer_. i do not. the west has better soil and more of the elements of wealth. it is not liable to yellow fever; its rivers have better banks; the people have more thrift, more enterprise, more political hospitality; education is more general; the people are more inventive; better traders, and besides all this, there is no race problem. the southern people are what their surroundings made them, and the influence of slavery has not yet died out. in my judgment the climate of the west is superior to that of the south. the west has good, cold winters, and they make people a little more frugal, prudent and industrious. winters make good homes, cheerful firesides, and, after all, civilization commences at the hearthstone. the south is growing, and will continue to grow, but it will never equal the west. the west is destined to dominate the republic. _question_. do you consider the new ballot-law adapted to the needs of our system of elections? if not, in what particulars does it require amendment? _answer_. personally i like the brave and open way. the secret ballot lacks courage. i want people to know just how i vote. the old _viva voce_ way was manly and looked well. every american should be taught that he votes as a sovereign--an emperor--and he should exercise the right in a kingly way. but if we must have the secret ballot, then let it be secret indeed, and let the crowd stand back while the king votes. _question_. what do you think of the service pension movement? _answer_. i see that there is a great deal of talk here in indiana about this service pension movement. it has always seemed to me that the pension fund has been frittered away. of what use is it to give a man two or three dollars a month? if a man is rich why should he have any pension? i think it would be better to give pensions only to the needy, and then give them enough to support them. if the man was in the army a day or a month, and was uninjured, and can make his own living, or has enough, why should he have a pension? i believe in giving to the wounded and disabled and poor, with a liberal hand, but not to the rich. i know that the nation could not pay the men who fought and suffered. there is not money enough in the world to pay the heroes for what they did and endured --but there is money enough to keep every wounded and diseased soldier from want. there is money enough to fill the lives of those who gave limbs or health for the sake of the republic, with comfort and happiness. i would also like to see the poor soldier taken care of whether he was wounded or not, but i see no propriety in giving to those who do not need. --_the journal_, indianapolis, indiana, june , . the westminster creed and other subjects. _question_. what do you think of the revision of the westminster creed? _answer_. i think that the intelligence and morality of the age demand the revision. the westminster creed is infamous. it makes god an infinite monster, and men the most miserable of beings. that creed has made millions insane. it has furrowed countless cheeks with tears. under its influence the sentiments and sympathies of the heart have withered. this creed was written by the worst of men. the civilized presbyterians do not believe it. the intelligent clergyman will not preach it, and all good men who understand it, hold it in abhorrence. but the fact is that it is just as good as the creed of any orthodox church. all these creeds must be revised. young america will not be consoled by the doctrine of eternal pain. yes, the creeds must be revised or the churches will be closed. _question_. what do you think of the influence of the press on religion? _answer_. if you mean on orthodox religion, then i say the press is helping to destroy it. just to the extent that the press is intelligent and fearless, it is and must be the enemy of superstition. every fact in the universe is the enemy of every falsehood. the press furnishes food for, and excites thought. this tends to the destruction of the miraculous and absurd. i regard the press as the friend of progress and consequently the foe of orthodox religion. the old dogmas do not make the people happy. what is called religion is full of fear and grief. the clergy are always talking about dying, about the grave and eternal pain. they do not add to the sunshine of life. if they could have their way all the birds would stop singing, the flowers would lose their color and perfume, and all the owls would sit on dead trees and hoot, "broad is the road that leads to death." _question_. if you should write your last sentence on religious topics what would be your closing? _answer_. i now in the presence of death affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that i have said against the superstitions of the world. i would say at least that much on the subject with my last breath. _question_. what, in your opinion, will be browning's position in the literature of the future? _answer_. lower than at present. mrs. browning was far greater than her husband. he never wrote anything comparable to "mother and poet." browning lacked form, and that is as great a lack in poetry as it is in sculpture. he was the author of some great lines, some great thoughts, but he was obscure, uneven and was always mixing the poetic with the commonplace. to me he cannot be compared with shelley or keats, or with our own walt whitman. of course poetry cannot be very well discussed. each man knows what he likes, what touches his heart and what words burst into blossom, but he cannot judge for others. after one has read shakespeare, burns and byron, and shelley and keats; after he has read the "sonnets" and the "daisy" and the "prisoner of chillon" and the "skylark" and the "ode to the grecian urn"--the "flight of the duchess" seems a little weak. --_the post-express_, rochester, new york, june , . shakespeare and bacon. _question_. what is your opinion of ignatius donnelly as a literary man irrespective of his baconian theory? _answer_. i know that mr. donnelly enjoys the reputation of being a man of decided ability and that he is regarded by many as a great orator. he is known to me through his baconian theory, and in that of course i have no confidence. it is nearly as ingenious as absurd. he has spent great time, and has devoted much curious learning to the subject, and has at last succeeded in convincing himself that shakespeare claimed that which he did not write, and that bacon wrote that which he did not claim. but to me the theory is without the slightest foundation. _question_. mr. donnelly asks: "can you imagine the author of such grand productions retiring to that mud house in stratford to live without a single copy of the quarto that has made his name famous?" what do you say? _answer_. yes; i can. shakespeare died in , and the quarto was published in , seven years after he was dead. under these circumstances i think shakespeare ought to be excused, even by those who attack him with the greatest bitterness, for not having a copy of the book. there is, however, another side to his. bacon did not die until long after the quarto was published. did he have a copy? did he mention the copy in his will? did he ever mention the quarto in any letter, essay, or in any way? he left a library, was there a copy of the plays in it? has there ever been found a line from any play or sonnet in his handwriting? bacon left his writings, his papers, all in perfect order, but no plays, no sonnets, said nothing about plays--claimed nothing on their behalf. this is the other side. now, there is still another thing. the edition of was published by shakespeare's friends, heminge and condell. they knew him--had been with him for years, and they collected most of his plays and put them in book form. ben jonson wrote a preface, in which he placed shakespeare above all the other poets--declared that he was for all time. the edition of was gotten up by actors, by the friends and associates of shakespeare, vouched for by dramatic writers--by those who knew him. this is enough. _question_. how do you explain the figure: "his soul, like mazeppa, was lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate"? mr. donnelly does not understand you. _answer_. it hardly seems necessary to explain a thing as simple and plain as that. men are carried away by some fierce passion-- carried away in spite of themselves as mazeppa was carried by the wild horse to which he was lashed. whether the comparison is good or bad it is at least plain. nothing could tempt me to call mr. donnelly's veracity in question. he says that he does not understand the sentence and i most cheerfully admit that he tells the exact truth. _question_. mr. donnelly says that you said: "where there is genius, education seems almost unnecessary," and he denounces your doctrine as the most abominable doctrine ever taught. what have you to say to that? _answer_. in the first place, i never made the remark. in the next place, it may be well enough to ask what education is. much is taught in colleges that is of no earthly use; much is taught that is hurtful. there are thousands of educated men who never graduated from any college or university. every observant, thoughtful man is educating himself as long as he lives. men are better then books. observation is a great teacher. a man of talent learns slowly. he does not readily see the necessary relation that one fact bears to another. a man of genius, learning one fact, instantly sees hundreds of others. it is not necessary for such a man to attend college. the world is his university. every man he meets is a book--every woman a volume every fact a torch--and so without the aid of the so-called schools he rises to the very top. shakespeare was such a man. _question_. mr. donnelly says that: "the biggest myth ever on earth was shakespeare, and that if francis bacon had said to the people, i, francis bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking in secret my share of the coppers and shillings taken at the door of those low playhouses, he would have been ruined. if he had put the plays forth simply as poetry it would have ruined his legal reputation." what do you think of this? _answer_. i hardly think that shakespeare was a myth. he was certainly born, married, lived in london, belonged to a company of actors; went back to stratford, where he had a family, and died. all these things do not as a rule happen to myths. in addition to this, those who knew him believed him to be the author of the plays. bacon's friends never suspected him. i do not think it would have hurt bacon to have admitted that he wrote "lear" and "othello," and that he was getting "coppers and shillings" to which he was justly entitled. certainly not as much as for him to have written this, which if fact, though not in exact form, he did write: "i, francis bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking coppers and shillings to which i was not entitled--but which i received as bribes while sitting as a judge." he has been excused for two reasons. first, because his salary was small, and, second, because it was the custom for judges to receive presents. bacon was a lawyer. he was charged with corruption--with having taken bribes, with having sold his decisions. he knew what the custom was and knew how small his salary was. but he did not plead the custom in his defense. he did not mention the smallness of the salary. he confessed that he was guilty--as charged. his confession was deemed too general and he was called upon by the lords to make a specific confession. this he did. he specified the cases in which he had received the money and told how much, and begged for mercy. he did not make his confession, as mr. donnelly is reported to have said, to get his fine remitted. the confession was made before the fine was imposed. neither do i think that the theatre in which the plays of shakespeare were represented could or should be called a "low play house." the fact that "othello," "lear," "hamlet," "julius caesar," and the other great dramas were first played in that playhouse made it the greatest building in the world. the gods themselves should have occupied seats in that theatre, where for the first time the greatest productions of the human mind were put upon the stage. --_the tribune_, minneapolis, minn., may , . growing old gracefully, and presbyterianism. _question_. how have you acquired the art of growing old gracefully? _answer_. it is very hard to live a great while without getting old, and it is hardly worth while to die just to keep young. it is claimed that people with certain incomes live longer than those who have to earn their bread. but the income people have a stupid kind of life, and though they may hang on a good many years, they can hardly be said to do much real living. the best you can say is, not that they lived so many years, but that it took them so many years to die. some people imagine that regular habits prolong life, but that depends somewhat on the habits. only the other day i read an article written by a physician, in which regular habits --good ones, were declared to be quite dangerous. where life is perfectly regular, all the wear and tear comes on the same nerves--every blow falls on the same place. variety, even in a bad direction, is a great relief. but living long has nothing to do with getting old gracefully. good nature is a great enemy of wrinkles, and cheerfulness helps the complexion. if we could only keep from being annoyed at little things, it would add to the luxury of living. great sorrows are few, and after all do not affect us as much as the many irritating, almost nothings that attack from every side. the traveler is bothered more with dust than mountains. it is a great thing to have an object in life-- something to work for and think for. if a man thinks only about himself, his own comfort, his own importance, he will not grow old gracefully. more and more his spirit, small and mean, will leave its impress on his face, and especially in his eyes. you look at him and feel that there is no jewel in the casket; that a shriveled soul is living in a tumble-down house. the body gets its grace from the mind. i suppose that we are all more or less responsible for our looks. perhaps the thinker of great thoughts, the doer of noble deeds, moulds his features in harmony with his life. probably the best medicine, the greatest beautifier in the world, is to make somebody else happy. i have noticed that good mothers have faces as serene as a cloudless day in june, and the older the serener. it is a great thing to know the relative importance of things, and those who do, get the most out of life. those who take an interest in what they see, and keep their minds busy are always young. the other day i met a blacksmith who has given much attention to geology and fossil remains. he told me how happy he was in his excursions. he was nearly seventy years old, and yet he had the enthusiasm of a boy. he said he had some very fine specimens, "but," said he, "nearly every night i dream of finding perfect ones." that man will keep young as long as he lives. as long as a man lives he should study. death alone has the right to dismiss the school. no man can get too much knowledge. in that, he can have all the avarice he wants, but he can get too much property. if the business men would stop when they got enough, they might have a chance to grow old gracefully. but the most of them go on and on, until, like the old stage horse, stiff and lame, they drop dead in the road. the intelligent, the kind, the reasonably contented, the courageous, the self-poised, grow old gracefully. _question_. are not the restraints to free religious thought being worn away, as the world grows older, and will not the recent attacks of the religious press and pulpit upon the unorthodoxy of dr. briggs, rev. r. heber newton and the prospective episcopal bishop of massachusetts, dr. phillips brooks, and others, have a tendency still further to extend this freedom? _answer_. of course the world is growing somewhat wiser--getting more sense day by day. it is amazing to me that any human being or beings ever wrote the presbyterian creed. nothing can be more absurd--more barbaric than that creed. it makes man the sport of an infinite monster, and yet good people, men and women of ability, who have gained eminence in almost every department of human effort, stand by this creed as if it were filled with wisdom and goodness. they really think that a good god damns his poor ignorant children just for his own glory, and that he sends people to perdition, not for any evil in them, but to the praise of his glorious justice. dr. briggs has been wicked enough to doubt this phase of god's goodness, and dr. bridgman was heartless enough to drop a tear in hell. of course they have no idea of what justice really is. the presbyterian general assembly that has just adjourned stood by calvinism. the "five points" are as sharp as ever. the members of that assembly--most of them--find all their happiness in the "creed." they need no other amusement. if they feel blue they read about total depravity--and cheer up. in moments of great sorrow they think of the tale of non-elect infants, and their hearts overflow with a kind of joy. they cannot imagine why people wish to attend the theatre when they can read the "confession of faith," or why they should feel like dancing after they do read it. it is very sad to think of the young men and women who have been eternally ruined by witnessing the plays of shakespeare, and it is also sad to think of the young people, foolish enough to be happy, keeping time to the pulse of music, waltzing to hell in loving pairs--all for the glory of god, and to the praise of his glorious justice. i think, too, of the thousands of men and women who, while listening to the music of wagner, have absolutely forgotten the presbyterian creed, and who for a little while have been as happy as if the creed had never been written. tear down the theatres, burn the opera houses, break all musical instruments, and then let us go to church. i am not at all surprised that the general assembly took up this progressive euchre matter. the word "progressive" is always obnoxious to the ministers. euchre under another name might go. of course, progressive euchre is a kind of gambling. i knew a young man, or rather heard of him, who won at progressive euchre a silver spoon. at first this looks like nothing, almost innocent, and yet that spoon, gotten for nothing, sowed the seed of gambling in that young man's brain. he became infatuated with euchre, then with cards in general, then with draw-poker in particular,--then into wall street. he is now a total wreck, and has the impudence to say that is was all "pre-ordained." think of the thousands and millions that are being demoralized by games of chance, by marbles --when they play for keeps--by billiards and croquet, by fox and geese, authors, halma, tiddledywinks and pigs in clover. in all these miserable games, is the infamous element of chance--the raw material of gambling. probably none of these games could be played exclusively for the glory of god. i agree with the presbyterian general assembly, if the creed is true, why should anyone try to amuse himself? if there is a hell, and all of us are going there, there should never be another smile on the human face. we should spend our days in sighs, our nights in tears. the world should go insane. we find strange combinations--good men with bad creeds, and bad men with good ones--and so the great world stumbles along. --_the blade_, toledo, ohio, june , . creeds. there is a natural desire on the part of every intelligent human being to harmonize his information--to make his theories agree--in other words, to make what he knows, or thinks he knows, in one department, agree and harmonize with what he knows, or thinks he knows, in every other department of human knowledge. the human race has not advanced in line, neither has it advanced in all departments with the same rapidity. it is with the race as it is with an individual. a man may turn his entire attention to some one subject--as, for instance, to geology--and neglect other sciences. he may be a good geologist, but an exceedingly poor astronomer; or he may know nothing of politics or of political economy. so he may be a successful statesman and know nothing of theology. but if a man, successful in one direction, takes up some other question, he is bound to use the knowledge he has on one subject as a kind of standard to measure what he is told on some other subject. if he is a chemist, it will be natural for him, when studying some other question, to use what he knows in chemistry; that is to say, he will expect to find cause and effect everywhere --succession and resemblance. he will say: it must be in all other sciences as in chemistry--there must be no chance. the elements have no caprice. iron is always the same. gold does not change. prussic acid is always poison--it has no freaks. so he will reason as to all facts in nature. he will be a believer in the atomic integrity of all matter, in the persistence of gravitation. being so trained, and so convinced, his tendency will be to weigh what is called new information in the same scales that he has been using. now, for the application of this. progress in religion is the slowest, because man is kept back by sentimentality, by the efforts of parents, by old associations. a thousand unseen tendrils are twining about him that he must necessarily break if he advances. in other departments of knowledge inducements are held out and rewards are promised to the one who does succeed--to the one who really does advance--to the one who discovers new facts. but in religion, instead of rewards being promised, threats are made. the man is told that he must not advance; that if he takes a step forward, it is at the peril of his soul; that if he thinks and investigates, he is in danger of exciting the wrath of god. consequently religion has been of the slowest growth. now, in most departments of knowledge, man has advanced; and coming back to the original statement--a desire to harmonize all that we know--there is a growing desire on the part of intelligent men to have a religion fit to keep company with the other sciences. our creeds were made in times of ignorance. they suited very well a flat world, and a god who lived in the sky just above us and who used the lightning to destroy his enemies. this god was regarded much as a savage regarded the head of his tribe--as one having the right to reward and punish. and this god, being much greater than a chief of the tribe, could give greater rewards and inflict greater punishments. they knew that the ordinary chief, or the ordinary king, punished the slightest offence with death. they also knew that these chiefs and kings tortured their victims as long as the victims could bear the torture. so when they described their god, they gave this god power to keep the tortured victim alive forever --because they knew that the earthly chief, or the earthly king, would prolong the life of the tortured for the sake of increasing the agonies of the victim. in those savage days they regarded punishment as the only means of protecting society. in consequence of this they built heaven and hell on an earthly plan, and they put god--that is to say the chief, that is to say the king--on a throne like an earthly king. of course, these views were all ignorant and barbaric; but in that blessed day their geology and astronomy were on a par with their theology. there was a harmony in all departments of knowledge, or rather of ignorance. since that time there has been a great advance made in the idea of government--the old idea being that the right to govern came from god to the king, and from the king to his people. now intelligent people believe that the source of authority has been changed, and that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. so there has been a great advance in the philosophy of punishment--in the treatment of criminals. so, too, in all the sciences. the earth is no longer flat; heaven is not immediately above us; the universe has been infinitely enlarged, and we have at last found that our earth is but a grain of sand, a speck on the great shore of the infinite. consequently there is a discrepancy, a discord, a contradiction between our theology and the other sciences. men of intelligence feel this. dr. briggs concluded that a perfectly good and intelligent god could not have created billions of sentient beings, knowing that they were to be eternally miserable. no man could do such a thing, had he the power, without being infinitely malicious. dr. briggs began to have a little hope for the human race--began to think that maybe god is better than the creed describes him. and right here it may be well enough to remark that no one has ever been declared a heretic for thinking god bad. heresy has consisted in thinking god better than the church said he was. the man who said god will damn nearly everybody, was orthodox. the man who said god will save everybody, was denounced as a blaspheming wretch, as one who assailed and maligned the character of god. i can remember when the universalists were denounced as vehemently and maliciously as the atheists are to-day. now, dr. briggs is undoubtedly an intelligent man. he knows that nobody on earth knows who wrote the five books of moses. he knows that they were not written until hundreds of years after moses was dead. he knows that two or more persons were the authors of isaiah. he knows that david did not write to exceed three or four of the psalms. he knows that the book of job is not a jewish book. he knows that the songs of solomon were not written by solomon. he knows that the book of ecclesiastes was written by a freethinker. he also knows that there is not in existence to-day--so far as anybody knows--any of the manuscripts of the old or new testaments. so about the new testament, dr. briggs knows that nobody lives who has ever seen an original manuscript, or who ever saw anybody that did see one, or that claims to have seen one. he knows that nobody knows who wrote matthew or mark or luke or john. he knows that john did not write john, and that that gospel was not written until long after john was dead. he knows that no one knows who wrote the hebrews. he also knows that the book of revelation is an insane production. dr. briggs also knows the way in which these books came to be canonical, and he knows that the way was no more binding than a resolution passed by a political convention. he also knows that many books were left out that had for centuries equal authority with those that were put in. he also knows that many passages-- and the very passages upon which many churches are founded--are interpolations. he knows that the last chapter of mark, beginning with the sixteenth verse to the end, is an interpolation; and he also knows that neither matthew nor mark nor luke ever said one word about the necessity of believing on the lord jesus christ, or of believing anything--not one word about believing the bible or joining the church, or doing any particular thing in the way of ceremony to insure salvation. he knows that according to matthew, god agreed to forgive us when we would forgive others. consequently he knows that there is not one particle of what is called modern theology in matthew, mark, or luke. he knows that the trouble commenced in john, and that john was not written until probably one hundred and fifty years--possibly two hundred years--after christ was dead. so he also knows that the sin against the holy ghost is an interpolation; that "i came not to bring peace but a sword," if not an interpolation, is an absolute contradiction. so, too, he knows that the promise to forgive in heaven what the disciples should forgive on earth, is an interpolation; and that if its not an interpolation, it is without the slightest sense in fact. knowing these things, and knowing, in addition to what i have stated, that there are thirty thousand or forty thousand mistakes in the old testament, that there are a great many contradictions and absurdities, than many of the laws are cruel and infamous, and could have been made only by a barbarous people, dr. briggs has concluded that, after all, the torch that sheds the serenest and divinest light is the human reason, and that we must investigate the bible as we do other books. at least, i suppose he has reached some such conclusion. he may imagine that the pure gold of inspiration still runs through the quartz and porphyry of ignorance and mistake, and that all we have to do is to extract the shining metal by some process that may be called theological smelting; and if so i have no fault to find. dr. briggs has taken a step in advance--that is to say, the tree is growing, and when the tree grows, the bark splits; when the new leaves come the old leaves are rotting on the ground. the presbyterian creed is a very bad creed. it has been the stumbling-block, not only of the head, but of the heart for many generations. i do not know that it is, in fact, worse than any other orthodox creed; but the bad features are stated with an explicitness and emphasized with a candor that render the creed absolutely appalling. it is amazing to me that any man ever wrote it, or that any set of men ever produced it. it is more amazing to me that any human being ever believed in it. it is still more amazing that any human being ever thought it wicked not to believe it. it is more amazing still, than all the others combined, that any human being ever wanted it to be true. this creed is a relic of the middle ages. it has in it the malice, the malicious logic, the total depravity, the utter heartlessness of john calvin, and it gives me great pleasure to say that no presbyterian was ever as bad as his creed. and here let me say, as i have said many times, that i do not hate presbyterians--because among them i count some of my best friends--but i hate presbyterianism. and i cannot illustrate this any better than by saying, i do not hate a man because he has the rheumatism, but i hate the rheumatism because it has a man. the presbyterian church is growing, and is growing because, as i said at first, there is a universal tendency in the mind of man to harmonize all that he knows or thinks he knows. this growth may be delayed. the buds of heresy may be kept back by the north wind of princeton and by the early frost called patton. in spite of these souvenirs of the dark ages, the church must continue to grow. the theologians who regard theology as something higher than a trade, tend toward liberalism. those who regard preaching as a business, and the inculcation of sentiment as a trade, will stand by the lowest possible views. they will cling to the letter and throw away the spirit. they prefer the dead limb to a new bud or to a new leaf. they want no more sap. they delight in the dead tree, in its unbending nature, and they mistake the stiffness of death for the vigor and resistance of life. now, as with dr. briggs, so with dr. bridgman, although it seems to me that he has simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire; and why he should prefer the episcopal creed to the baptist, is more than i can imagine. the episcopal creed is, in fact, just as bad as the presbyterian. it calmly and with unruffled brow, utters the sentence of eternal punishment on the majority of the human race, and the episcopalian expects to be happy in heaven, with his son or daughter or his mother or wife in hell. dr. bridgman will find himself exactly in the position of the rev. mr. newton, provided he expresses his thought. but i account for the bridgmans and for the newtons by the fact that there is still sympathy in the human heart, and that there is still intelligence in the human brain. for my part, i am glad to see this growth in the orthodox churches, and the quicker they revise their creeds the better. i oppose nothing that is good in any creed--i attack only that which is ignorant, cruel and absurd, and i make the attack in the interest of human liberty, and for the sake of human happiness. _question_. what do you think of the action of the presbyterian general assembly at detroit, and what effect do you think it will have on religious growth? _answer_. that general assembly was controlled by the orthodox within the church, by the strict constructionists and by the calvinists; by gentlemen who not only believe the creed, not only believe that a vast majority of people are going to hell, but are really glad of it; by gentlemen who, when they feel a little blue, read about total depravity to cheer up, and when they think of the mercy of god as exhibited in their salvation, and the justice of god as illustrated by the damnation of others, their hearts burst into a kind of efflorescence of joy. these gentlemen are opposed to all kinds of amusements except reading the bible, the confession of faith, and the creed, and listening to presbyterian sermons and prayers. all these things they regard as the food of cheerfulness. they warn the elect against theatres and operas, dancing and games of chance. well, if their doctrine is true, there ought to be no theatres, except exhibitions of hell; there ought to be no operas, except where the music is a succession of wails for the misfortunes of man. if their doctrine is true, i do not see how any human being could ever smile again--i do not see how a mother could welcome her babe; everything in nature would become hateful; flowers and sunshine would simply tell us of our fate. my doctrine is exactly the opposite of this. let us enjoy ourselves every moment that we can. the love of the dramatic is universal. the stage has not simply amused, but it has elevated mankind. the greatest genius of our world poured the treasures of his soul into the drama. i do not believe that any girl can be corrupted, or that any man can be injured, by becoming acquainted with isabella or miranda or juliet or imogen, or any of the great heroines of shakespeare. so i regard the opera as one of the great civilizers. no one can listen to the symphonies of beethoven, or the music of schubert, without receiving a benefit. and no one can hear the operas of wagner without feeling that he has been ennobled and refined. why is it the presbyterians are so opposed to music in the world, and yet expect to have so much in heaven? is not music just as demoralizing in the sky as on the earth, and does anybody believe that abraham or isaac or jacob, ever played any music comparable to wagner? why should we postpone our joy to another world? thousands of people take great pleasure in dancing, and i say let them dance. dancing is better than weeping and wailing over a theology born of ignorance and superstition. and so with games of chance. there is a certain pleasure in playing games, and the pleasure is of the most innocent character. let all these games be played at home and children will not prefer the saloon to the society of their parents. i believe in cards and billiards, and would believe in progressive euchre, were it more of a game--the great objection to it is its lack of complexity. my idea is to get what little happiness you can out of this life, and to enjoy all sunshine that breaks through the clouds of misfortune. life is poor enough at best. no one should fail to pick up every jewel of joy that can be found in his path. every one should be as happy as he can, provided he is not happy at the expense of another, and no person rightly constituted can be happy at the expense of another. so let us get all we can of good between the cradle and the grave; all that we can of the truly dramatic; all that we can of music; all that we can of art; all that we can of enjoyment; and if, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life; and if there be another life, let us make the best of that. i am doing what little i can to hasten the coming of the day when the human race will enjoy liberty--not simply of body, but liberty of mind. and by liberty of mind i mean freedom from superstition, and added to that, the intelligence to find out the conditions of happiness; and added to that, the wisdom to live in accordance with those conditions. --_the morning advertiser_, new york, june , . the tendency of modern thought. _question_. do you regard the briggs trial as any evidence of the growth of liberalism in the church itself? _answer_. when men get together, and make what they call a creed, the supposition is that they then say as nearly as possible what they mean and what they believe. a written creed, of necessity, remains substantially the same. in a few years this creed ceases to give exactly the new shade of thought. then begin two processes, one of destruction and the other of preservation. in every church, as in every party, and as you may say in every corporation, there are two wings--one progressive, the other conservative. in the church there will be a few, and they will represent the real intelligence of the church, who become dissatisfied with the creed, and who at first satisfy themselves by giving new meanings to old words. on the other hand, the conservative party appeals to emotions, to memories, and to the experiences of their fellow- members, for the purpose of upholding the old dogmas and the old ideas; so that each creed is like a crumbling castle. the conservatives plant ivy and other vines, hoping that their leaves will hide the cracks and erosions of time; but the thoughtful see beyond these leaves and are satisfied that the structure itself is in the process of decay, and that no amount of ivy can restore the crumbling stones. the old presbyterian creed, when it was first formulated, satisfied a certain religious intellect. at that time people were not very merciful. they had no clear conceptions of justice. their lives were for the most part hard; most of them suffered the pains and pangs of poverty; nearly all lived in tyrannical governments and were the sport of nobles and kings. their idea of god was born of their surroundings. god, to them, was an infinite king who delighted in exhibitions of power. at any rate, their minds were so constructed that they conceived of an infinite being who, billions of years before the world was, made up his mind as to whom he would save and whom he would damn. he not only made up his mind as to the number he would save, and the number that should be lost, but he saved and damned without the slightest reference to the character of the individual. they believed then, and some pretend to believe still, that god damns a man not because he is bad, and that he saves a man not because he is good, but simply for the purpose of self-glorification as an exhibition of his eternal justice. it would be impossible to conceive of any creed more horrible than that of the presbyterians. although i admit--and i not only admit but i assert--that the creeds of all orthodox christians are substantially the same, the presbyterian creed says plainly what it means. there is no hesitation, no evasion. the horrible truth, so-called, is stated in the clearest possible language. one would think after reading this creed, that the men who wrote it not only believed it, but were really glad it was true. ideas of justice, of the use of power, of the use of mercy, have greatly changed in the last century. we are beginning dimly to see that each man is the result of an infinite number of conditions, of an infinite number of facts, most of which existed before he was born. we are beginning dimly to see that while reason is a pilot, each soul navigates the mysterious sea filled with tides and unknown currents set in motion by ancestors long since dust. we are beginning to see that defects of mind are transmitted precisely the same as defects of body, and in my judgment the time is coming when we shall not more think of punishing a man for larceny than for having the consumption. we shall know that the thief is a necessary and natural result of conditions, preparing, you may say, the field of the world for the growth of man. we shall no longer depend upon accident and ignorance and providence. we shall depend upon intelligence and science. the presbyterian creed is no longer in harmony with the average sense of man. it shocks the average mind. it seems too monstrous to be true; too horrible to find a lodgment in the mind of the civilized man. the presbyterian minister who thinks, is giving new meanings to the old words. the presbyterian minister who feels, also gives new meanings to the old words. only those who neither think nor feel remain orthodox. for many years the christian world has been engaged in examining the religions of other peoples, and the christian scholars have had but little trouble in demonstrating the origin of mohammedanism and buddhism and all other isms except ours. after having examined other religions in the light of science, it occurred to some of our theologians to examine their own doctrine in the same way, and the result has been exactly the same in both cases. dr. briggs, as i believe, is a man of education. he is undoubtedly familiar with other religions, and has, to some extent at least, made himself familiar with the sacred books of other people. dr. briggs knows that no human being knows who wrote a line of the old testament. he knows as well as he can know anything, for instance, that moses never wrote one word of the books attributed to him. he knows that the book of genesis was made by putting two or three stories together. he also knows that it is not the oldest story, but was borrowed. he knows that in this book of genesis there is not one word adapted to make a human being better, or to shed the slightest light on human conduct. he knows, if he knows anything, that the mosaic code, so-called, was, and is, exceedingly barbarous and not adapted to do justice between man and man, or between nation and nation. he knows that the jewish people pursued a course adapted to destroy themselves; that they refused to make friends with their neighbors; that they had not the slightest idea of the rights of other people; that they really supposed that the earth was theirs, and that their god was the greatest god in the heavens. he also knows that there are many thousands of mistakes in the old testament as translated. he knows that the book of isaiah is made up of several books. he knows the same thing in regard to the new testament. he also knows that there were many other books that were once considered sacred that have been thrown away, and that nobody knows who wrote a solitary line of the new testament. besides all this, dr. briggs knows that the old and new testaments are filled with interpolations, and he knows that the passages of scripture which have been taken as the foundation stones for creeds, were written hundreds of years after the death of christ. he knows well enough that christ never said: "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." he knows that the same being never said: "thou art peter, and on this rock will i build my church." he knows, too, that christ never said: "whosoever believes shall be saved, and whosoever believes not shall be damned." he knows that these were interpolations. he knows that the sin against the holy ghost is another interpolation. he knows, if he knows anything, that the gospel according to john was written long after the rest, and that nearly all of the poison and superstition of orthodoxy is in that book. he knows also, if he knows anything, that st. paul never read one of the four gospels. knowing all these things, dr. briggs has had the honesty to say that there was some trouble about taking the bible as absolutely inspired in word and punctuation. i do not think, however, that he can maintain his own position and still remain a presbyterian or anything like a presbyterian. he takes the ground, i believe, that there are three sources of knowledge: first, the bible; second, the church; third, reason. it seems to me that reason should come first, because if you say the bible is a source of authority, why do you say it? do you say this because your reason is convinced that it is? if so, then reason is the foundation of that belief. if, again, you say the church is a source of authority, why do you say so? it must be because its history convinces your reason that it is. consequently, the foundation of that idea is reason. at the bottom of this pyramid must be reason, and no man is under any obligation to believe that which is unreasonable to him. he may believe things that he cannot prove, but he does not believe them because they are unreasonable. he believes them because he thinks they are not unreasonable, not impossible, not improbable. but, after all, reason is the crucible in which every fact must be placed, and the result fixes the belief of the intelligent man. it seems to me that the whole presbyterian creed must come down together. it is a scheme based upon certain facts, so-called. there is in it the fall of man. there is in it the scheme of the atonement, and there is the idea of hell, eternal punishment, and the idea of heaven, eternal reward; and yet, according to their creed, hell is not a punishment and heaven is not a reward. now, if we do away with the fall of man we do away with the atonement; then we do away with all supernatural religion. then we come back to human reason. personally, i hope that the presbyterian church will be advanced enough and splendid enough to be honest, and if it is honest, all the gentlemen who amount to anything, who assist in the trial of dr. briggs, will in all probability agree with him, and he will be acquitted. but if they throw aside their reason, and remain blindly orthodox, then he will be convicted. to me it is simply miraculous that any man should imagine that the bible is the source of truth. there was a time when all scientific facts were measured by the bible. that time is past, and now the believers in the bible are doing their best to convince us that it is in harmony with science. in other words, i have lived to see a change of standards. when i was a boy, science was measured by the bible. now the bible is measured by science. this is an immense step. so it is impossible for me to conceive what kind of a mind a man has, who finds in the history of the church the fact that it has been a source of truth. how can any one come to the conclusion that the catholic church has been a source of truth, a source of intellectual light? how can anyone believe that the church of john calvin has been a source of truth? if its creed is not true, if its doctrines are mistakes, if its dogmas are monstrous delusions, how can it be said to have been a source of truth? my opinion is that dr. briggs will not be satisfied with the step he has taken. he has turned his face a little toward the light. the farther he walks the harder it will be for him to turn back. the probability is that the orthodox will turn him out, and the process of driving out men of thought and men of genius will go on until the remnant will be as orthodox as they are stupid. _question_. do you think mankind is drifting away from the supernatural? _answer_. my belief is that the supernatural has had its day. the church must either change or abdicate. that is to say, it must keep step with the progress of the world or be trampled under foot. the church as a power has ceased to exist. to-day it is a matter of infinite indifference what the pulpit thinks unless there comes the voice of heresy from the sacred place. every orthodox minister in the united states is listened to just in proportion that he preaches heresy. the real, simon-pure, orthodox clergyman delivers his homilies to empty benches, and to a few ancient people who know nothing of the tides and currents of modern thought. the orthodox pulpit to-day has no thought, and the pews are substantially in the same condition. there was a time when the curse of the church whitened the face of a race, but now its anathema is the food of laughter. _question_. what, in your judgment, is to be the outcome of the present agitation in religious circles? _answer_. my idea is that people more and more are declining the postponement of happiness to another world. the general tendency is to enjoy the present. all religions have taught men that the pleasures of this world are of no account; that they are nothing but husks and rags and chaff and disappointment; that whoever expects to be happy in this world makes a mistake; that there is nothing on the earth worth striving for; that the principal business of mankind should be to get ready to be happy in another world; that the great occupation is to save your soul, and when you get it saved, when you are satisfied that you are one of the elect, then pack up all your worldly things in a very small trunk, take it to the dock of time that runs out into the ocean of eternity, sit down on it, and wait for the ship of death. and of course each church is the only one that sells a through ticket which can be depended on. in all religions, as far as i know, is an admixture of asceticism, and the greater the quantity, the more beautiful the religion has been considered, the tendency of the world to- day is to enjoy life while you have it; it is to get something out of the present moment; and we have found that there are things worth living for even in this world. we have found that a man can enjoy himself with wife and children; that he can be happy in the acquisition of knowledge; that he can be very happy in assisting others; in helping those he loves; that there is some joy in poetry, in science and in the enlargement and development of the mind; that there is some delight in music and in the drama and in the arts. we are finding, poor as the world is, that it beats a promise the fulfillment of which is not to take place until after death. the world is also finding out another thing, and that is that the gentlemen who preach these various religions, and promise these rewards, and threaten the punishments, know nothing whatever of the subject; that they are as blindly ignorant as the people they pretend to teach, and the people are as blindly ignorant as the animals below them. we have finally concluded that no human being has the slightest conception of origin or of destiny, and that this life, not only in its commencement but in its end, is just as mysterious to-day as it was to the first man whose eyes greeted the rising sun. we are no nearer the solution of the problem than those who lived thousands of years before us, and we are just as near it as those who will live millions of years after we are dead. so many people having arrived at the conclusion that nobody knows and that nobody can know, like sensible folks they have made up their minds to enjoy life. i have often said, and i say again, that i feel as if i were on a ship not knowing the port from which it sailed, not knowing the harbor to which it was going, not having a speaking acquaintance with any of the officers, and i have made up my mind to have as good a time with the other passengers as possible under the circumstances. if this ship goes down in mid- sea i have at least made something, and if it reaches a harbor of perpetual delight i have lost nothing, and i have had a happy voyage. and i think millions and millions are agreeing with me. now, understand, i am not finding fault with any of these religions or with any of these ministers. these religions and these ministers are the necessary and natural products of sufficient causes. mankind has traveled from barbarism to what we now call civilization, by many paths, all of which under the circumstances, were absolutely necessary; and while i think the individual does as he must, i think the same of the church, of the corporation, and of the nation, and not only of the nation, but of the whole human race. consequently i have no malice and no prejudices. i have likes and dislikes. i do not blame a gourd for not being a cantaloupe, but i like cantaloupes. so i do not blame the old hard-shell presbyterian for not being a philosopher, but i like philosophers. so to wind it all up with regard to the tendency of modern thought, or as to the outcome of what you call religion, my own belief is that what is known as religion will disappear from the human mind. and by "religion" i mean the supernatural. by "religion" i mean living in this world for another, or living in this world to gratify some supposed being, whom we never saw and about whom we know nothing, and of whose existence we know nothing. in other words, religion consists of the duties we are supposed to owe to the first great cause, and of certain things necessary for us to do here to insure happiness hereafter. these ideas, in my judgment, are destined to perish, and men will become convinced that all their duties are within their reach, and that obligations can exist only between them and other sentient beings. another idea, i think, will force itself upon the mind, which is this: that he who lives the best for this world lives the best for another if there be one. in other words, humanity will take the place of what is called "religion." science will displace superstition, and to do justice will be the ambition of man. my creed is this: happiness is the only good. the place to be happy is here. the time to be happy is now. the way to be happy is to make others so. _question_. what is going to take the place of the pulpit? _answer_. i have for a long time wondered why somebody didn't start a church on a sensible basis. my idea is this: there are, of course, in every community, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and people of all trades and professions who have not the time during the week to pay any particular attention to history, poetry, art, or song. now, it seems to me that it would be a good thing to have a church and for these men to employ a man of ability, of talent, to preach to them sundays, and let this man say to his congregation: "now, i am going to preach to you for the first few sundays--eight or ten or twenty, we will say--on the art, poetry, and intellectual achievements of the greeks." let this man study all the week and tell his congregation sunday what he has ascertained. let him give to his people the history of such men as plato, as socrates, what they did; of aristotle, of his philosophy; of the great greeks, their statesmen, their poets, actors, and sculptors, and let him show the debt that modern civilization owes to these people. let him, too, give their religions, their mythology--a mythology that has sown the seed of beauty in every land. then let him take up rome. let him show what a wonderful and practical people they were; let him give an idea of their statesmen, orators, poets, lawyers--because probably the romans were the greatest lawyers. and so let him go through with nation after nation, biography after biography, and at the same time let there be a sunday school connected with this church where the children shall be taught something of importance. for instance, teach them botany, and when a sunday is fair, clear, and beautiful, let them go into the fields and woods with their teachers, and in a little while they will become acquainted with all kinds of tress and shrubs and flowering plants. they could also be taught entomology, so that every bug would be interesting, for they would see the facts in science-- something of use to them. i believe that such a church and such a sunday school would at the end of a few years be the most intelligent collection of people in the united states. to teach the children all of these things and to teach their parents, too, the outlines of every science, so that every listener would know something of geology, something of astronomy, so that every member could tell the manner in which they find the distance of a star-- how much better that would be than the old talk about abraham, isaac, and jacob, and quotations from haggai and zephaniah, and all this eternal talk about the fall of man and the garden of eden, and the flood, and the atonement, and the wonders of revelation! even if the religious scheme be true, it can be told and understood as well in one day as in a hundred years. the church says, "he that hath ears to hear let him hear." i say: "he that hath brains to think, let him think." so, too, the pulpit is being displaced by what we call places of amusement, which are really places where men go because they find there is something which satisfies in a greater or less degree the hunger of the brain. never before was the theatre as popular as it is now. never before was so much money lavished upon the stage as now. very few men having their choice would go to hear a sermon, especially of the orthodox kind, when they had a chance to see a great actor. the man must be a curious combination who would prefer an orthodox sermon, we will say, to a concert given by theodore thomas. and i may say in passing that i have great respect for theodore thomas, because it was he who first of all opened to the american people the golden gates of music. he made the american people acquainted with the great masters, and especially with wagner, and it is a debt that we shall always owe him. in this day the opera--that is to say, music in every form--is tending to displace the pulpit. the pulpits have to go in partnership with music now. hundreds of people have excused themselves to me for going to church, saying they have splendid music. long ago the catholic church was forced to go into partnership not only with music, but with painting and with architecture. the protestant church for a long time thought it could do without these beggarly elements, and the protestant church was simply a dry-goods box with a small steeple on top of it, its walls as bleak and bare and unpromising as the creed. but even protestants have been forced to hire a choir of ungodly people who happen to have beautiful voices, and they, too, have appealed to the organ. music is taking the place of creed, and there is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered. music, of all other things, gives wings to thought and allows the soul to rise above all the pains and troubles of this life, and to feel for a moment as if it were absolutely free, above all clouds, destined to enjoy forever. so, too, science is beckoning with countless hands. men of genius are everywhere beckoning men to discoveries, promising them fortunes compared with which aladdin's lamp was weak and poor. all these things take men from the church; take men from the pulpit. in other words, prosperity is the enemy of the pulpit. when men enjoy life, when they are prosperous here, they are in love with the arts, with the sciences, with everything that gives joy, with everything that promises plenty, and they care nothing about the prophecies of evil that fall from the solemn faces of the parsons. they look in other directions. they are not thinking about the end of the world. they hate the lugubrious, and they enjoy the sunshine of to-day. and this, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: first, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose to-morrow; third, enjoy to- day. astrology was displaced by astronomy. alchemy and the black art gave way to chemistry. science is destined to take the place of superstition. in my judgment, the religion of the future will be reason. --_the tribune_, chicago, illinois, november, . woman suffrage, horse racing, and money. _question_. what are your opinions on the woman's suffrage question? _answer_. i claim no right that i am not willing to give to my wife and daughters, and to the wives and daughters of other men. we shall never have a generation of great men until we have a generation of great women. i do not regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue, or uselessness as one of the requisites of a lady. i am a believer in equal rights. those who are amenable to the laws should have a voice in making the laws. in every department where woman has had an equal opportunity with man, she has shown that she has equal capacity. george sand was a great writer, george eliot one of the greatest, mrs. browning a marvelous poet--and the lyric beauty of her "mother and poet" is greater than anything her husband ever wrote--harriet martineau a wonderful woman, and ouida is probably the greatest living novelist, man or woman. give the women a chance. [the colonel's recent election as a life member of the manhattan athletic club, due strangely enough to a speech of his denouncing certain forms of sport, was referred to, and this led him to express his contempt for prize-fighting, and then he said on the subject of horse-racing: ] the only objection i have to horse racing is its cruelty. the whip and spur should be banished from the track. as long as these are used, the race track will breed a very low and heartless set of men. i hate to see a brute whip and spur a noble animal. the good people object to racing, because of the betting, but bad people, like myself, object to the cruelty. men are not forced to bet. that is their own business, but the poor horse, straining every nerve, does not ask for the lash and iron. abolish torture on the track and let the best horse win. _question_. what do you think of the chilian insult to the united states flag? _answer_. in the first place, i think that our government was wrong in taking the part of balmaceda. in the next place, we made a mistake in seizing the itata. america should always side with the right. we should care nothing for the pretender in power, and balmaceda was a cruel, tyrannical scoundrel. we should be with the people everywhere. i do not blame chili for feeling a little revengeful. we ought to remember that chili is weak, and nations, like individuals, are sensitive in proportion that they are weak. let us trust chili just as we would england. we are too strong to be unjust. _question_. how do you stand on the money question? _answer_. i am with the republican party on the question of money. i am for the use of gold and silver both, but i want a dollar's worth of silver in a silver dollar. i do not believe in light money, or in cheap money, or in poor money. these are all contradictions in terms. congress cannot fix the value of money. the most it can do is to fix its debt paying power. it is beyond the power of any congress to fix the purchasing value of what it may be pleased to call money. nobody knows, so far as i know, why people want gold. i do not know why people want silver. i do not know how gold came to be money; neither do i understand the universal desire, but it exists, and we take things as we find them. gold and silver make up, you may say, the money of the world, and i believe in using the two metals. i do not believe in depreciating any american product; but as value cannot be absolutely fixed by law, so far as the purchasing power is concerned, and as the values of gold and silver vary, neither being stable any more than the value of wheat or corn is stable, i believe that legislation should keep pace within a reasonable distance at least, of the varying values, and that the money should be kept as nearly equal as possible. of course, there is one trouble with money to-day, and that is the use of the word "dollar." it has lost its meaning. so many governments have adulterated their own coin, and as many have changed weights, that the word "dollar" has not to-day an absolute, definite, specific meaning. like individuals, nations have been dishonest. the only time the papal power had the right to coin money--i believe it was under pius ix., when antonelli was his minister--the coin of the papacy was so debased that even orthodox catholics refused to take it, and it had to be called in and minted by the french empire, before even the italians recognized it as money. my own opinion is, that either the dollar must be absolutely defined--it must be the world over so many grains of pure gold, or so many grains of pure silver--or we must have other denominations for our money, as for instance, ounces, or parts of ounces, and the time will come, in my judgment, when there will be a money of the world, the same everywhere; because each coin will contain upon its face the certificate of a government that it contains such a weight--so many grains or so many ounces--of a certain metal. i, for one, want the money of the united states to be as good as that of any other country. i want its gold and silver exactly what they purport to be; and i want the paper issued by the government to be the same as gold. i want its credit so perfectly established that it will be taken in every part of the habitable globe. i am with the republican party on the question of money, also on the question of protection, and all i hope is that the people of this country will have sense enough to defend their own interests. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, october , . missionaries. _question_. what is your opinion of foreign missions? _answer_. in the first place, there seems to be a pretty good opening in this country for missionary work. we have a good many indians who are not methodists. i have never known one to be converted. a good many have been killed by christians, but their souls have not been saved. maybe the methodists had better turn their attention to the heathen of our own country. then we have a good many mormons who rely on the truth of the old testament and follow the example of abraham, isaac and jacob. it seems to me that the methodists better convert the mormons before attacking the tribes of central africa. there is plenty of work to be done right here. a few good bishops might be employed for a time in converting dr. briggs and professor swing, to say nothing of other heretical presbyterians. there is no need of going to china to convert the chinese. there are thousands of them here. in china our missionaries will tell the followers of confucius about the love and forgiveness of christians, and when the chinese come here they are robbed, assaulted, and often murdered. would it not be a good thing for the methodists to civilize our own christians to such a degree that they would not murder a man simply because he belongs to another race and worships other gods? so, too, i think it would be a good thing for the methodists to go south and persuade their brethren in that country to treat the colored people with kindness. a few efforts might be made to convert the "white-caps" in ohio, indiana and some other states. my advice to the methodists is to do what little good they can right here and now. it seems cruel to preach to the heathen a gospel that is dying out even here, and fill their poor minds with the absurd dogmas and cruel creeds that intelligent men have outgrown and thrown away. honest commerce will do a thousand times more good than all the missionaries on earth. i do not believe that an intelligent chinaman or an intelligent hindoo has ever been or ever will be converted into a methodist. if methodism is good we need it here, and if it is not good, do not fool the heathen with it. --_the press_, cleveland, ohio, november , . my belief and unbelief.* [* col. robert g. ingersoll was in toledo for a few hours yesterday afternoon on railroad business. whatever mr. ingersoll says is always read with interest, for besides the independence of his averments, his ideas are worded in a way that in itself is attractive. while in the court room talking with some of the officials and others, he was saying that in this world there is rather an unequal distribution of comforts, rewards, and punishments. for himself, he had fared pretty well. he stated that during the thirty years he has been married there have been fifteen to twenty of his relatives under the same roof, but never had there been in his family a death or a night's loss of sleep on account of sickness. "the lord has been pretty good to you," suggested marshall wade. "well, i've been pretty good to him," he answered.] _question_. i have heard people in discussing yourself and your views, express the belief that way down in the depths of your mind you are not altogether a "disbeliever." are they in any sense correct? _answer_. i am an unbeliever, and i am a believer. i do not believe in the miraculous, the supernatural, or the impossible. i do not believe in the "mosaic" account of the creation, or in the flood, or the tower of babel, or that general joshua turned back the sun or stopped the earth. i do not believe in the jonah story, or that god and the devil troubled poor job. neither do i believe in the mt. sinai business, and i have my doubts about the broiled quails furnished in the wilderness. neither do i believe that man is wholly depraved. i have not the least faith in the eden, snake and apple story. neither do i believe that god is an eternal jailer; that he is going to be the warden of an everlasting penitentiary in which the most of men are to be eternally tormented. i do not believe that any man can be justly punished or rewarded on account of his belief. but i do believe in the nobility of human nature. i believe in love and home, and kindness and humanity. i believe in good fellowship and cheerfulness, in making wife and children happy. i believe in good nature, in giving to others all the rights that you claim for yourself. i believe in free thought, in reason, observation and experience. i believe in self-reliance and in expressing your honest thought. i have hope for the whole human race. what will happen to one, will, i hope, happen to all, and that, i hope, will be good. above all, i believe in liberty. --_the blade_, toledo, ohio, january , . must religion go? _question_. what is your idea as to the difference between honest belief, as held by honest religious thinkers, and heterodoxy? _answer_. of course, i believe that there are thousands of men and women who honestly believe not only in the improbable, not only in the absurd, but in the impossible. heterodoxy, so-called, occupies the half-way station between superstition and reason. a heretic is one who is still dominated by religion, but in the east of whose mind there is a dawn. he is one who has seen the morning star; he has not entire confidence in the day, and imagines in some way that even the light he sees was born of the night. in the mind of the heretic, darkness and light are mingled, the ties of intellectual kindred bind him to the night, and yet he has enough of the spirit of adventure to look toward the east. of course, i admit that christians and heretics are both honest; a real christian must be honest and a real heretic must be the same. all men must be honest in what they think; but all men are not honest in what they say. in the invisible world of the mind every man is honest. the judgment never was bribed. speech may be false, but conviction is always honest. so that the difference between honest belief, as shared by honest religious thinkers and heretics, is a difference of intelligence. it is the difference between a ship lashed to the dock, and on making a voyage; it is the difference between twilight and dawn--that is to say, the coming of the sight and the coming of the morning. _question_. are women becoming freed from the bonds of sectarianism? _answer_. women are less calculating than men. as a rule they do not occupy the territory of compromise. they are natural extremists. the woman who is not dominated by superstition is apt to be absolutely free, and when a woman has broken the shackles of superstition, she has no apprehension, no fears. she feels that she is on the open sea, and she cares neither for wind nor wave. an emancipated woman never can be re-enslaved. her heart goes with her opinions, and goes first. _question_. do you consider that the influence of religion is better than the influence of liberalism upon society, that is to say, is society less or more moral, is vice more or less conspicuous? _answer_. whenever a chain is broken an obligation takes its place. there is and there can be no responsibility without liberty. the freer a man is, the more responsible, the more accountable he feels; consequently the more liberty there is, the more morality there is. believers in religion teach us that god will reward men for good actions, but men who are intellectually free, know that the reward of a good action cannot be given by any power, but that it is the natural result of the good action. the free man, guided by intelligence, knows that his reward is in the nature of things, and not in the caprice even of the infinite. he is not a good and faithful servant, he is an intelligent free man. the vicious are ignorant; real morality is the child of intelligence; the free and intelligent man knows that every action must be judged by its consequences; he knows that if he does good he reaps a good harvest; he knows that if he does evil he bears a burden, and he knows that these good and evil consequences are not determined by an infinite master, but that they live in and are produced by the actions themselves. --_evening advertiser_, new york, february , . word painting and college education. _question_. what is the history of the speech delivered here in ? was it extemporaneous? _answer_. it was not born entirely of the occasion. it took me several years to put the thoughts in form--to paint the pictures with words. no man can do his best on the instant. iron to be beaten into perfect form has to be heated several times and turned upon the anvil many more, and hammered long and often. you might as well try to paint a picture with one sweep of the brush, or chisel a statue with one stroke, as to paint many pictures with words, without great thought and care. now and then, while a man is talking, heated with his subject, a great thought, sudden as a flash of lightning, illumines the intellectual sky, and a great sentence clothed in words of purple, falls, or rather rushes, from his lips--but a continuous flight is born, not only of enthusiasm, but of long and careful thought. a perfect picture requires more details, more lights and shadows, than the mind can grasp at once, or on the instant. thoughts are not born of chance. they grow and bud and blossom, and bear the fruit of perfect form. genius is the soil and climate, but the soil must be cultivated, and the harvest is not instantly after the planting. it takes time and labor to raise and harvest a crop from that field called the brain. _question_. do you think young men need a college education to get along? _answer_. probably many useless things are taught in colleges. i think, as a rule, too much time is wasted learning the names of the cards without learning to play a game. i think a young man should be taught something that he can use--something he can sell. after coming from college he should be better equipped to battle with the world--to do something of use. a man may have his brain stuffed with greek and latin without being able to fill his stomach with anything of importance. still, i am in favor of the highest education. i would like to see splendid schools in every state, and then a university, and all scholars passing a certain examination sent to the state university free, and then a united states university, the best in the world, and all graduates of the state universities passing a certain examination sent to the united states university free. we ought to have in this country the best library, the best university, the best school of design in the world; and so i say, more money for the mind. _question_. was the peculiar conduct of the rev. dr. parkhurst, of new york, justifiable, and do you think that it had a tendency to help morality? _answer_. if christ had written a decoy letter to the woman to whom he said: "go and sin no more," and if he had disguised himself and visited her house and had then lodged a complaint against her before the police and testified against her, taking one of his disciples with him, i do not think he would have added to his reputation. --_the news_, indianapolis, indiana, february , . personal magnetism and the sunday question. [colonel ingersoll was a picturesque figure as he sat in his room at the gibson house yesterday, while the balmy may breeze blew through the open windows, fluttered the lace curtains and tossed the great infidel's snowy hair to and fro. the colonel had come in from new york during the morning and the keen white sunlight of a lovely may day filled his heart with gladness. after breakfast, the man who preaches the doctrine of the golden rule and the gospel of humanity and the while chaffs the gentlemen of the clerical profession, was in a fine humor. he was busy with cards and callers, but not too busy to admire the vase full of freshly-picked spring flowers that stood on the mantel, and wrestled with clouds of cigar smoke, to see which fragrance should dominate the atmosphere. to a reporter of _the commercial gazette_, the colonel spoke freely and interestingly upon a variety of subjects, from personal magnetism in politics to mob rule in tennessee. he had been interested in colonel weir's statement about the lack of gas in exposition hall, at the convention, and when asked if he believed there was any truth in the stories that the gas supply had been manipulated so as to prevent the taking of a ballot after he had placed james g. blaine in nomination, he replied: ] all i can say is, that i heard such a story the day after the convention, but i do not know whether or not it is true. i have always believed, that if a vote had been taken that evening, blaine would have been nominated, possibly not as the effect of my speech, but the night gave time for trafficking, and that is always dangerous in a convention. i believed then that blaine ought to have been nominated, and that it would have been a very wise thing for the party to have done. that he was not the candidate was due partly to accident and partly to political traffic, but that is one of the bygones, and i believe there is an old saying to the effect that even the gods have no mastery over the past. _question_. do you think that eloquence is potent in a convention to set aside the practical work of politics and politicians? _answer_. i think that all the eloquence in the world cannot affect a trade if the parties to the contract stand firm, and when people have made a political trade they are not the kind of people to be affected by eloquence. the practical work of the world has very little to do with eloquence. there are a great many thousand stone masons to one sculptor, and houses and walls are not constructed by sculptors, but by masons. the daily wants of the world are supplied by the practical workers, by men of talent, not by men of genius, although in the world of invention, genius has done more, it may be, than the workers themselves. i fancy the machinery now in the world does the work of many hundreds of millions; that there is machinery enough now to do several times the work that could be done by all the men, women and children of the earth. the genius who invented the reaper did more work and will do more work in the harvest field than thousands of millions of men, and the same may be said of the great engines that drive the locomotives and the ships. all these marvelous machines were made by men of genius, but they are not the men who in fact do the work. [this led the colonel to pay a brilliant tribute to the great orators of ancient and modern times, the peer of all of them being cicero. he dissected and defined oratory and eloquence, and explained with picturesque figures, wherein the difference between them lay. as he mentioned the magnetism of public speakers, he was asked as to his opinion of the value of personal magnetism in political life.] it may be difficult to define what personal magnetism is, but i think it may be defined in this way: you don't always feel like asking a man whom you meet on the street what direction you should take to reach a certain point. you often allow three or four to pass, before you meet one who seems to invite the question. so, too, there are men by whose side you may sit for hours in the cars without venturing a remark as to the weather, and there are others to whom you will commence talking the moment you sit down. there are some men who look as if they would grant a favor, men toward whom you are unconsciously drawn, men who have a real human look, men with whom you seem to be acquainted almost before you speak, and that you really like before you know anything about them. it may be that we are all electric batteries; that we have our positive and our negative poles; it may be that we need some influence that certain others impart, and it may be that certain others have that which we do not need and which we do not want, and the moment you think that, you feel annoyed and hesitate, and uncomfortable, and possibly hateful. i suppose there is a physical basis for everything. possibly the best test of real affection between man and woman, or of real friendship between man and woman, is that they can sit side by side, for hours maybe, without speaking, and yet be having a really social time, each feeling that the other knows exactly what they are thinking about. now, the man you meet and whom you would not hesitate a moment to ask a favor of, is what i call a magnetic man. this magnetism, or whatever it may be, assists in making friends, and of course is a great help to any one who deals with the public. men like a magnetic man even without knowing him, perhaps simply having seen him. there are other men, whom the moment you shake hands with them, you feel you want no more; you have had enough. a sudden chill runs up the arm the moment your hand touches theirs, and finally reaches the heart; you feel, if you had held that hand a moment longer, an icicle would have formed in the brain. such people lack personal magnetism. these people now and then thaw out when you get thoroughly acquainted with them, and you find that the ice is all on the outside, and then you come to like them very well, but as a rule first impressions are lasting. magnetism is what you might call the climate of a man. some men, and some women, look like a perfect june day, and there are others who, while the look quite smiling, yet you feel that the sky is becoming overcast, and the signs all point to an early storm. there are people who are autumnal--that is to say, generous. they have had their harvest, and have plenty to spare. others look like the end of an exceedingly hard winter--between the hay and grass, the hay mostly gone and the grass not yet come up. so you will see that i think a great deal of this thing that is called magnetism. as i said, there are good people who are not magnetic, but i do not care to make an arctic expedition for the purpose of discovering the north pole of their character. i would rather stay with those who make me feel comfortable at the first. [from personal magnetism to the lynching saturday morning down at nashville, tennessee, was a far cry, but when colonel ingersoll was asked what he thought of mob law, whether there was any extenuation, any propriety and moral effect resultant from it, he quickly answered: ] i do not believe in mob law at any time, among any people. i believe in justice being meted out in accordance with the forms of law. if a community violates that law, why should not the individual? the example is bad. besides all that, no punishment inflicted by a mob tends to prevent the commission of crime. horrible punishment hardens the community, and that in itself produces more crime. there seems to be a sort of fascination in frightful punishments, but, to say the least of it, all these things demoralize the community. in some countries, you know, they whip people for petty offences. the whipping, however, does no good, and on the other hand it does harm; it hardens those who administer the punishment and those who witness it, and it degrades those who receive it. there will be but little charity in the world, and but little progress until men see clearly that there is no chance in the world of conduct any more than in the physical world. back of every act and dream and thought and desire and virtue and crime is the efficient cause. if you wish to change mankind, you must change the conditions. there should be no such thing as punishment. we should endeavor to reform men, and those who cannot be reformed should be placed where they cannot injure their fellows. the state should never take revenge any more than the community should form itself into a mob and take revenge. this does harm, not good. the time will come when the world will no more think of sending men to the penitentiary for stealing, as a punishment, that it will for sending a man to the penitentiary because he has consumption. when that time comes, the object will be to reform men; to prevent crime instead of punishing it, and the object then will be to make the conditions such that honest people will be the result, but as long as hundreds of thousands of human beings live in tenements, as long as babes are raised in gutters, as long as competition is so sharp that hundreds of thousands must of necessity be failures, just so long as society gets down on its knees before the great and successful thieves, before the millionaire thieves, just so long will it have to fill the jails and prisons with the little thieves. when the "good time" comes, men will not be judged by the money they have accumulated, but by the uses they make of it. so men will be judged, not according to their intelligence, but by what they are endeavoring to accomplish with their intelligence. in other words, the time will come when character will rise above all. there is a great line in shakespeare that i have often quoted, and that cannot be quoted too often: "there is no darkness but ignorance." let the world set itself to work to dissipate this darkness; let us flood the world with intellectual light. this cannot be accomplished by mobs or lynchers. it must be done by the noblest, by the greatest, and by the best. [the conversation shifting around to the sunday question; the opening of the world's fair on sunday, the attacks of the pulpit upon the sunday newspapers, the opening of parks and museums and libraries on sunday, colonel ingersoll waxed eloquent, and in answer to many questions uttered these paragraphs: ] of course, people will think that i have some prejudice against the parsons, but really i think the newspaper press is of far more importance in the world than the pulpit. if i should admit in a kind of burst of generosity, and simply for the sake of making a point, that the pulpit can do some good, how much can it do without the aid of the press? here is a parson preaching to a few ladies and enough men, it may be, to pass the contribution box, and all he says dies within the four walls of that church. how many ministers would it take to reform the world, provided i again admit in a burst of generosity, that there is any reforming power in what they preach, working along that line? the sunday newspaper, i think, is the best of any day in the week. that paper keeps hundreds and thousands at home. you can find in it information about almost everything in the world. one of the great sunday papers will keep a family busy reading almost all day. now, i do not wonder that the ministers are so opposed to the sunday newspaper, and so they are opposed to anything calculated to decrease the attendance at church. why, they want all the parks, all the museums, all the libraries closed on sunday, and they want the world's fair closed on sunday. now, i am in favor of sunday; in fact, i am perfectly willing to have two of them a week, but i want sunday as a day of recreation and pleasure. the fact is we ought not to work hard enough during the week to require a day of rest. every day ought to be so arranged that there would be time for rest from the labor of that day. sunday is a good day to get business out of your mind, to forget the ledger and the docket and the ticker, to forget profits and losses, and enjoy yourself. it is a good day to go to the art museums, to look at pictures and statues and beautiful things, so that you may feel that there is something in this world besides money and mud. it is a good day, is sunday, to go to the libraries and spend a little time with the great and splendid dead, and to go to the cemetery and think of those who are sleeping there, and to give a little thought to the time when you, too, like them, will fall asleep. i think it is a good day for almost anything except going to church. there is no need of that; everybody knows the story, and if a man has worked hard all the week, you can hardly call it recreation if he goes to church sunday and hears that his chances are ninety-nine in a hundred in favor of being eternally damned. so it is i am in favor of having the world's fair open on sunday. it will be a good day to look at the best the world has produced; a good day to leave the saloons and commune for a little while with the mighty spirits that have glorified this world. sunday is a good day to leave the churches, where they teach that man has become totally depraved, and look at the glorious things that have been wrought by these depraved beings. besides all this, it is the day of days for the working man and working woman, for those who have to work all the week. in new york an attempt was made to open the metropolitan museum of art on sunday, and the pious people opposed it. they thought it would interfere with the joy of heaven if people were seen in the park enjoying themselves on sunday, and they also held that nobody would visit the museum if it were opened on sunday; that the "common people" had no love for pictures and statues and cared nothing about art. the doors were opened, and it was demonstrated that the poor people, the toilers and workers, did want to see such things on sunday, and now more people visit the museum on sunday than on all the other days of the week put together. the same is true of the public libraries. there is something to me infinitely pharisaical, hypocritical and farcical in this sunday nonsense. the rich people who favor keeping sunday "holy," have their coachman drive them to church and wait outside until the services end. what do they care about the coachman's soul? while they are at church their cooks are busy at home getting dinner ready. what do they care for the souls of cooks? the whole thing is pretence, and nothing but pretence. it is the instinct of business. it is the competition of the gospel shop with other shops and places of resort. the ministers, of course, are opposed to all shows except their own, for they know that very few will come to see or hear them and the choice must be the church or nothing. i do not believe that one day can be more holy than another unless more joyous than another. the holiest day is the happiest day-- the day on which wives and children and men are happiest. in that sense a day can be holy. our idea of the sabbath is from the puritans, and they imagined that a man has to be miserable in order to excite the love of god. we have outgrown the old new england sabbath--the old scotch horror. the germans have helped us and have set a splendid example. i do not see how a poor workingman can go to church for recreation--i mean an orthodox church. a man who has hell here cannot be benefitted by being assured that he is likely to have hell hereafter. the whole business i hold in perfect abhorrence. they tell us that god will not prosper us unless we observe the sabbath. the jews kept the sabbath and yet jehovah deserted them, and they are a people without a nation. the scotch kept sunday; they are not independent. the french never kept sunday, and yet they are the most prosperous nation in europe. --_commercial gazette_, cincinnati, ohio, may , . authors. _question_. who, in your opinion, is the greatest novelist who has written in the english language? _answer_. the greatest novelist, in my opinion, who has ever written in the english language, was charles dickens. he was the greatest observer since shakespeare. he had the eyes that see, the ears that really hear. i place him above thackeray. dickens wrote for the home, for the great public. thackeray wrote for the clubs. the greatest novel in our language--and it may be in any other--is, according to my ideas, "a tale of two cities." in that, are philosophy, pathos, self-sacrifice, wit, humor, the grotesque and the tragic. i think it is the most artistic novel that i have read. the creations of dickens' brain have become the citizens of the world. _question_. what is your opinion of american writers? _answer_. i think emerson was a fine writer, and he did this world a great deal of good, but i do not class him with the first. some of his poetry is wonderfully good and in it are some of the deepest and most beautiful lines. i think he was a poet rather than a philosopher. his doctrine of compensation would be delightful if it had the facts to support it. of course, hawthorne was a great writer. his style is a little monotonous, but the matter is good. "the marble faun" is by far his best effort. i shall always regret that hawthorne wrote the life of franklin pierce. walt whitman will hold a high place among american writers. his poem on the death of lincoln, entitled "when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," is the greatest ever written on this continent. he was a natural poet and wrote lines worthy of america. he was the poet of democracy and individuality, and of liberty. he was worthy of the great republic. _question_. what about henry george's books? _answer_. henry george wrote a wonderful book and one that arrested the attention of the world--one of the greatest books of the century. while i do not believe in his destructive theories, i gladly pay a tribute to his sincerity and his genius. _question_. what do you think of bellamy? _answer_. i do not think what is called nationalism of the bellamy kind is making any particular progress in this country. we are believers in individual independence, and will be, i hope, forever. boston was at one time the literary center of the country, but the best writers are not living here now. the best novelists of our country are not far from boston. edgar fawcett lives in new york. howells was born, i believe, in ohio, and julian hawthorne lives in new jersey or in long island. among the poets, james whitcomb riley is a native of indiana, and he has written some of the daintiest and sweetest things in american literature. edgar fawcett is a great poet. his "magic flower" is as beautiful as anything tennyson has ever written. eugene field of chicago, has written some charming things, natural and touching. westward the star of literature takes its course. --_the star_, kansas city, mo., may , . inebriety.* [* published from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers, evidently written soon after the discovery of the "keeley cure."] _question_. do you consider inebriety a disease, or the result of diseased conditions? _answer_. i believe that by a long and continuous use of stimulants, the system gets in such a condition that it imperatively demands not only the usual, but an increased stimulant. after a time, every nerve becomes hungry, and there is in the body of the man a cry, coming from every nerve, for nourishment. there is a kind of famine, and unless the want is supplied, insanity is the result. this hunger of the nerves drowns the voice of reason--cares nothing for argument--nothing for experience--nothing for the sufferings of others--nothing for anything, except for the food it requires. words are wasted, advice is of no possible use, argument is like reasoning with the dead. the man has lost the control of his will --it has been won over to the side of the nerves. he imagines that if the nerves are once satisfied he can then resume the control of himself. of course, this is a mistake, and the more the nerves are satisfied, the more imperative is their demand. arguments are not of the slightest force. the knowledge--the conviction--that the course pursued is wrong, has no effect. the man is in the grasp of appetite. he is like a ship at the mercy of wind and wave and tide. the fact that the needle of the compass points to the north has no effect--the compass is not a force--it cannot battle with the wind and tide--and so, in spite of the fact that the needle points to the north, the ship is stranded on the rocks. so the fact that the man knows that he should not drink has not the slightest effect upon him. the sophistry of passion outweighs all that reason can urge. in other words, the man is the victim of disease, and until the disease is arrested, his will is not his own. he may wish to reform, but wish is not will. he knows all of the arguments in favor of temperance--he knows all about the distress of wife and child--all about the loss of reputation and character--all about the chasm toward which he is drifting--and yet, not being the master of himself, he goes with the tide. for thousands of years society has sought to do away with inebriety by argument, by example, by law; and yet millions and millions have been carried away and countless thousands have become victims of alcohol. in this contest words have always been worthless, for the reason that no argument can benefit a man who has lost control of himself. _question_. as a lawyer, will you express an opinion as to the moral and legal responsibility of a victim of alcoholism? _answer_. personally, i regard the moral and legal responsibility of all persons as being exactly the same. all persons do as they must. if you wish to change the conduct of an individual you must change his conditions--otherwise his actions will remain the same. we are beginning to find that there is no effect without a cause, and that the conduct of individuals is not an exception to this law. every hope, every fear, every dream, every virtue, every crime, has behind it an efficient cause. men do neither right nor wrong by chance. in the world of fact and in the world of conduct, as well as in the world of imagination, there is no room, no place, for chance. _question_. in the case of an inebriate who has committed a crime, what do you think of the common judicial opinion that such a criminal is as deserving of punishment as a person not inebriated? _answer_. i see no difference. believing as i do that all persons act as they must, it makes not the slightest difference whether the person so acting is what we call inebriated, or sane, or insane --he acts as he must. there should be no such thing as punishment. society should protect itself by such means as intelligence and humanity may suggest, but the idea of punishment is barbarous. no man ever was, no man ever will be, made better by punishment. society should have two objects in view: first, the defence of itself, and second, the reformation of the so-called criminal. the world has gone on fining, imprisoning, torturing and killing the victims of condition and circumstance, and condition and circumstance have gone on producing the same kind of men and women year after year and century after century--and all this is so completely within the control of cause and effect, within the scope and jurisdiction of universal law, that we can prophesy the number of criminals for the next year--the thieves and robbers and murderers --with almost absolute certainty. there are just so many mistakes committed every year--so many crimes --so many heartless and foolish things done--and it does not seem to be--at least by the present methods--possible to increase or decrease the number. we have thousands and thousands of pulpits, and thousands of moralists, and countless talkers and advisers, but all these sermons, and all the advice, and all the talk, seem utterly powerless in the presence of cause and effect. mothers may pray, wives may weep, children may starve, but the great procession moves on. for thousands of years the world endeavored to save itself from disease by ceremonies, by genuflections, by prayers, by an appeal to the charity and mercy of heaven--but the diseases flourished and the graveyards became populous, and all the ceremonies and all the prayers were without the slightest effect. we must at last recognize the fact, that not only life, but conduct, has a physical basis. we must at last recognize the fact that virtue and vice, genius and stupidity, are born of certain conditions. _question_. in which way do you think the reformation or reconstruction of the inebriate is to be effected--by punishment, by moral suasion, by seclusion, or by medical treatment? _answer_. in the first place, punishment simply increases the disease. the victim, without being able to give the reasons, feels that punishment is unjust, and thus feeling, the effect of the punishment cannot be good. you might as well punish a man for having the consumption which he inherited from his parents, or for having a contagious disease which was given to him without his fault, as to punish him for drunkenness. no one wishes to be unhappy--no one wishes to destroy his own well-being. all persons prefer happiness to unhappiness, and success to failure, consequently, you might as well punish a man for being unhappy, and thus increase his unhappiness, as to punish him for drunkenness. in neither case is he responsible for what he suffers. neither can you cure this man by what is called moral suasion. moral suasion, if it amounts to anything, is the force of argument --that is to say, the result of presenting the facts to the victim. now, of all persons in the world, the victim knows the facts. he knows not only the effect upon those who love him, but the effect upon himself. there are no words that can add to his vivid appreciation of the situation. there is no language so eloquent as the sufferings of his wife and children. all these things the drunkard knows, and knows perfectly, and knows as well as any other human being can know. at the same time, he feels that the tide and current of passion are beyond his power. he feels that he cannot row against the stream. there is but one way, and that is, to treat the drunkard as the victim of a disease--treat him precisely as you would a man with a fever, as a man suffering from smallpox, or with some form of indigestion. it is impossible to talk a man out of consumption, or to reason him out of typhoid fever. you may tell him that he ought not to die, that he ought to take into consideration the condition in which he would leave his wife. you may talk to him about his children--the necessity of their being fed and educated --but all this will have nothing to do with the progress of the disease. the man does not wish to die--he wishes to live--and yet, there will come a time in his disease when even that wish to live loses its power to will, and the man drifts away on the tide, careless of life or death. so it is with drink. every nerve asks for a stimulant. every drop of blood cries out for assistance, and in spite of all argument, in spite of all knowledge, in this famine of the nerves, a man loses the power of will. reason abdicates the throne, and hunger takes its place. _question_. will you state your reasons for your belief? _answer_. in the first place, i will give a reason for my unbelief in what is called moral suasion and in legislation. as i said before, for thousands and thousands of years, fathers and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers have been endeavoring to prevent the ones they love from drink, and yet, in spite of everything, millions have gone on and filled at last a drunkard's grave. so, societies have been formed all over the world. but the consumption of ardent spirits has steadily increased. laws have been passed in nearly all the nations of the world upon the subject, and these laws, so far as i can see, have done but little, if any, good. and the same old question is upon us now: what shall be done with the victims of drink? there have been probably many instances in which men have signed the pledge and have reformed. i do not say that it is not possible to reform many men, in certain stages, by moral suasion. possibly, many men can be reformed in certain stages, by law; but the per cent. is so small that, in spite of that per cent., the average increases. for these reasons, i have lost confidence in legislation and in moral suasion. i do not say what legislation may do by way of prevention, or what moral suasion may do in the same direction, but i do say that after man have become the victims of alcohol, advice and law seem to have lost their force. i believe that science is to become the savior of mankind. in other words, every appetite, every excess, has a physical basis, and if we only knew enough of the human system--of the tides and currents of thought and will and wish--enough of the storms of passion--if we only knew how the brain acts and operates--if we only knew the relation between blood and thought, between thought and act--if we only knew the conditions of conduct, then we could, through science, control the passions of the human race. when i first heard of the cure of inebriety through scientific means, i felt that the morning star had risen in the east--i felt that at last we were finding solid ground. i did not accept--being of a skeptical turn of mind--all that i heard as true. i preferred to hope, and wait. i have waited, until i have seen men, the victims of alcohol, in the very gutter of disgrace and despair, lifted from the mire, rescued from the famine of desire, from the grasp of appetite. i have seen them suddenly become men--masters and monarchs of themselves. miracles, theosophy and spiritualism. _question_. do you believe that there is such a thing as a miracle, or that there has ever been? _answer_. mr. locke was in the habit of saying: "define your terms." so the first question is, what is a miracle? if it is something wonderful, unusual, inexplicable, then there have been many miracles. if you mean simply that which is inexplicable, then the world is filled with miracles; but if you mean by a miracle, something contrary to the facts in nature, then it seems to me that the miracle must be admitted to be an impossibility. it is like twice two are eleven in mathematics. if, again, we take the ground of some of the more advanced clergy, that a miracle is in accordance with the facts in nature, but with facts unknown to man, then we are compelled to say that a miracle is performed by a divine sleight-of-hand; as, for instance, that our senses are deceived; or, that it is perfectly simple to this higher intelligence, while inexplicable to us. if we give this explanation, then man has been imposed upon by a superior intelligence. it is as though one acquainted with the sciences--with the action of electricity--should excite the wonder of savages by sending messages to his partner. the savage would say, "a miracle;" but the one who sent the message would say, "there is no miracle; it is in accordance with facts in nature unknown to you." so that, after all, the word miracle grows in the soil of ignorance. the question arises whether a superior intelligence ought to impose upon the inferior. i believe there was a french saint who had his head cut off by robbers, and this saint, after the robbers went away, got up, took his head under his arm and went on his way until he found friends to set it on right. a thing like this, if it really happened, was a miracle. so it may be said that nothing is much more miraculous than the fact that intelligent men believe in miracles. if we read in the annals of china that several thousand years ago five thousand people were fed on one sandwich, and that several sandwiches were left over after the feast, there are few intelligent men--except, it may be, the editors of religious weeklies--who would credit the statement. but many intelligent people, reading a like story in the hebrew, or in the greek, or in a mistranslation from either of these languages, accept the story without a doubt. so if we should find in the records of the indians that a celebrated medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy people and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would believe the story. i believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had the slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion. my own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as another; that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as anything that ever happened; that nothing is more wonderful than that we live--that we think--that we convey our thoughts by speech, by gestures, by pictures. nothing is more wonderful than the growth of grass--the production of seed--the bud, the blossom and the fruit. in other words, we are surrounded by the inexplicable. all that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural; and that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with what we know, we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to have happened contrary to what we know, we call the miraculous. i think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural way; that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that this wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and never will be, broken. in other words, there is nothing superior to the universe--nothing that can interfere with this procession of causes and effects. i believe in no miracles in the theological sense. my opinion is that the universe is, forever has been, and forever will be, perfectly natural. whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant people, the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential --as an evidence that he is in partnership with some higher power. the credulity of savagery made this easy. but at last we have discovered that there is no necessary relation between the miraculous and the moral. whenever a man's reason is developed to that point that he sees the reasonableness of a thing, he needs no miracle to convince him. it is only ignorance or cunning that appeals to the miraculous. there is another thing, and that is this: truth relies upon itself --that is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and all other truths. if you tell the facts, you need not appeal to a miracle. it is only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be propped and buttressed by wonders and miracles. _question_. what is your explanation of the miracles referred to in the old and new testaments? _answer_. in the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. if it is a real miracle, there is no explanation. if it can be explained, then the miracle disappears, and the thing was done in accordance with the facts and forces of nature. in a time when not one it may be in thousands could read or write, when language was rude, and when the signs by which thoughts were conveyed were few and inadequate, it was very easy to make mistakes, and nothing is more natural than for a mistake to grow into a miracle. in an ignorant age, history for the most part depended upon memory. it was handed down from the old in their dotage, to the young without judgment. the old always thought that the early days were wonderful--that the world was wearing out because they were. the past looked at through the haze of memory, became exaggerated, gigantic. their fathers were stronger than they, and their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on until they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years. in my judgment, everything in the old testament contrary to the experience of the civilized world, is false. i do not say that those who told the stories knew that they were false, or that those who wrote them suspected that they were not true. thousands and thousands of lies are told by honest stupidity and believed by innocent credulity. then again, cunning takes advantage of ignorance, and so far as i know, though all the history of the world a good many people have endeavored to make a living without work. i am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature--that the elements are eternally the same--that the chemical affinities and hatreds know no shadow of turning--that just so many atoms of one kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative numbers have never changed and never will change. i am satisfied that the attraction of gravitation is a permanent institution; that the laws of motion have been the same that they forever will be. there is no chance, there is no caprice. behind every effect is a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause, and only that is produced which a cause of necessity produces. _question_. what do you think of madame blavatsky and her school of theosophists? do you believe madame blavatsky does or has done the wonderful things related of her? have you seen or known of any theosophical or esoteric marvels? _answer_. i think wonders are about the same in this country that they are in india, and nothing appears more likely to me simply because it is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. in my judgment, madame blavatsky has never done any wonderful things--that is to say, anything not in perfect accordance with the facts of nature. i know nothing of esoteric marvels. in one sense, everything that exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the history of one grain of sand we would know the history of the universe. i regard the universe as a unit. everything that happens is only a different aspect of that unit. there is no room for the marvelous--there is no space in which it can operate--there is no fulcrum for its lever. the universe is already occupied with the natural. the ground is all taken. it may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine that they have had wonderful experiences. i know but little of the theosophists--but little of the spiritualists. it has always seemed to me that the messages received by spiritualists are remarkably unimportant--that they tell us but little about the other world, and just as little about this--that if all the messages supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual lips, were destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but little. some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and whenever they say any good thing, i imagine that it was produced in their brain, and that it came from no other world. i have no right to pass upon their honesty. most of them may be sincere. it may be that all the founders of religions have really supposed themselves to be inspired--believed that they held conversations with angels and gods. it seems to be easy for some people to get in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become realities, their dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable. personally, i have no sort of confidence in these messages from the other world. there may be mesmeric forces--there may be an odic force. it may be that some people can tell of what another is thinking. i have seen no such people--at least i am not acquainted with them--and my own opinion is that no such persons exist. _question_. do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to earth? _answer_. i do not. i do not say that the spirits do not come back. i simply say that i know nothing on the subject. i do not believe in such spirits, simply for the reason that i have no evidence upon which to base such a belief. i do not say there are no such spirits, for the reason that my knowledge is limited, and i know of no way of demonstrating the non-existence of spirits. it may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call life ends with what we call death. i have had no experience beyond the grave, and very little back of birth. consequently, i cannot say that i have a belief on this subject. i can simply say that i have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature that i would use as the corner-stone of a belief. _question_. do you believe in the resurrection of the body? _answer_. my answer to that is about the same as to the other question. i do not believe in the resurrection of the body. it seems to me an exceedingly absurd belief--and yet i do not know. i am told, and i suppose i believe, that the atoms that are in me have been in many other people, and in many other forms of life, and i suppose at death the atoms forming my body go back to the earth and are used in countless forms. these facts, or what i suppose to be facts, render a belief in the resurrection of the body impossible to me. we get atoms to support our body from what we eat. now, if a cannibal should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to the missionary should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the cannibal should then die while the atoms of the missionary formed part of his flesh, to whom would these atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection? then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance between animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and all animals have been trees, and all trees have been animals; so that the probability is that the atoms that are now in us have been, as i said in the first place, in millions of other people. now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms enough in the morning of the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given to the first men, that belonged to the first men when they died, there will certainly be no atoms for the last men. consequently, i am compelled to say that i do not believe in the resurrection of the body.* [* from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers.] tolstoy and literature. _question_. what is your opinion of count leo tolstoy? _answer_. i have read tolstoy. he is a curious mixture of simplicity and philosophy. he seems to have been carried away by his conception of religion. he is a non-resistant to such a degree that he asserts that he would not, if attacked, use violence to preserve his own life or the life of a child. upon this question he is undoubtedly insane. so he is trying to live the life of a peasant and doing without the comforts of life! this is not progress. civilization should not endeavor to bring about equality by making the rich poor or the comfortable miserable. this will not add to the pleasures of the rich, neither will it feed the hungry, not clothe the naked. the civilized wealthy should endeavor to help the needy, and help them in a sensible way, not through charity, but through industry; through giving them opportunities to take care of themselves. i do not believe in the equality that is to be reached by pulling the successful down, but i do believe in civilization that tends to raise the fallen and assists those in need. should we all follow tolstoy's example and live according to his philosophy the world would go back to barbarism; art would be lost; that which elevates and refines would be destroyed; the voice of music would become silent, and man would be satisfied with a rag, a hut, a crust. we do not want the equality of savages. no, in civilization there must be differences, because there is a constant movement forward. the human race cannot advance in line. there will be pioneers, there will be the great army, and there will be countless stragglers. it is not necessary for the whole army to go back to the stragglers, it is better that the army should march forward toward the pioneers. it may be that the sale of tolstoy's works is on the increase in america, but certainly the principles of tolstoy are gaining no foothold here. we are not a nation of non-resistants. we believe in defending our homes. nothing can exceed the insanity of non- resistance. this doctrine leaves virtue naked and clothes vice in armor; it gives every weapon to the wrong and takes every shield from the right. i believe that goodness has the right of self- defence. as a matter of fact, vice should be left naked and virtue should have all the weapons. the good should not be a flock of sheep at the mercy of every wolf. so, i do not accept tolstoy's theory of equality as a sensible solution of the labor problem. the hope of this world is that men will become civilized to that degree that they cannot be happy while they know that thousands of their fellow-men are miserable. the time will come when the man who dwells in a palace will not be happy if want sits upon the steps at his door. no matter how well he is clothed himself he will not enjoy his robes if he sees others in rags, and the time will come when the intellect of this world will be directed by the heart of this world, and when men of genius and power will do what they can for the benefit of their fellow- men. all this is to come through civilization, through experience. men, after a time, will find the worthlessness of great wealth; they will find it is not splendid to excite envy in others. so, too, they will find that the happiness of the human race is so interdependent and so interwoven, that finally the interest of humanity will be the interest of the individual. i know that at present the lives of many millions are practically without value, but in my judgment, the world is growing a little better every day. on the average, men have more comforts, better clothes, better food, more books and more of the luxuries of life than ever before. _question_. it is said that properly to appreciate rousseau, voltaire, hugo and other french classics, a thorough knowledge of the french language is necessary. what is your opinion? _answer_. no; to say that a knowledge of french is necessary in order to appreciate voltaire or hugo is nonsensical. for a student anxious to study the works of these masters, to set to work to learn the language of the writers would be like my building a flight of stairs to go down to supper. the stairs are already there. some other person built them for me and others who choose to use them. men have spent their lives in the study of the french and english, and have given us voltaire, hugo and all other works of french classics, perfect in sentiment and construction as the originals are. macaulay was a great linguist, but he wrote no better than shakespeare, and burns wrote perfect english, though virtually uneducated. good writing is a matter of genius and heart; reading is application and judgment. i am of the opinion that wilbur's english translation of "les miserables" is better than hugo's original, as a literary masterpiece. what a grand novel it is! what characters, jean valjean and javert! _question_. which in your opinion is the greatest english novel? _answer_. i think the greatest novel ever written in english is "a tale of two cities," by dickens. it is full of philosophy; its incidents are dramatically grouped. sidney carton, the hero, is a marvelous creation and a marvelous character. lucie manette is as delicate as the perfume of wild violets, and cell , north tower, and scenes enacted there, almost touch the region occupied by "lear." there, too, mme. defarge is the impersonation of the french revolution, and the nobleman of the chateau with his fine features changed to stone, and the messenger at tellson's bank gnawing the rust from his nails; all there are the creations of genius, and these children of fiction will live as long as imagination spreads her many-colored wings in the mind of man. _question_. what do you think of pope? _answer_. pope! alexander pope, the word-carpenter, a mechanical poet, or stay--rather a "digital poet;" that fits him best--one of those fellows who counts his fingers to see that his verse is in perfect rhythm. his "essay on man" strikes me as being particularly defective. for instance: "all discord, harmony not understood, all partial evil, universal good," from the first epistle of his "essay on man." anything that is evil cannot by any means be good, and anything partial cannot be universal. we see in libraries ponderous tomes labeled "burke's speeches." no person ever seems to read them, but he is now regarded as being in his day a great speaker, because now no one has pluck enough to read his speeches. why, for thirty years burke was known in parliament as the "dinner bell"--whenever he rose to speak, everybody went to dinner. --_the evening express_, buffalo, new york, october , . woman in politics. _question_. what do you think of the influence of women in politics? _answer_. i think the influence of women is always good in politics, as in everything else. i think it the duty of every woman to ascertain what she can in regard to her country, including its history, laws and customs. woman above all others is a teacher. she, above all others, determines the character of children; that is to say, of men and women. there is not the slightest danger of women becoming too intellectual or knowing too much. neither is there any danger of men knowing too much. at least, i know of no men who are in immediate peril from that source. i am a firm believer in the equal rights of human beings, and no matter what i think as to what woman should or should not do, she has the same right to decide for herself that i have to decide for myself. if women wish to vote, if they wish to take part in political matters, if they wish to run for office, i shall do nothing to interfere with their rights. i most cheerfully admit that my political rights are only equal to theirs. there was a time when physical force or brute strength gave pre- eminence. the savage chief occupied his position by virtue of his muscle, of his courage, on account of the facility with which he wielded a club. as long as nations depend simply upon brute force, the man, in time of war, is, of necessity, of more importance to the nation than woman, and as the dispute is to be settled by strength, by force, those who have the strength and force naturally settle it. as the world becomes civilized, intelligence slowly takes the place of force, conscience restrains muscle, reason enters the arena, and the gladiator retires. a little while ago the literature of the world was produced by men, and men were not only the writers, but the readers. at that time the novels were coarse and vulgar. now the readers of fiction are women, and they demand that which they can read, and the result is that women have become great writers. the women have changed our literature, and the change has been good. in every field where woman has become a competitor of man she has either become, or given evidence that she is to become, his equal. my own opinion is that woman is naturally the equal of man and that in time, that is to say, when she has had the opportunity and the training, she will produce in the world of art as great pictures, as great statues, and in the world of literature as great books, dramas and poems as man has produced or will produce. there is nothing very hard to understand in the politics of a country. the general principles are for the most part simple. it is only in the application that the complexity arises, and woman, i think, by nature, is as well fitted to understand these things as man. in short, i have no prejudice on this subject. at first, women will be more conservative than men; and this is natural. women have, through many generations, acquired the habit of submission, of acquiescence. they have practiced what may be called the slave virtues--obedience, humility--so that some time will be required for them to become accustomed to the new order of things, to the exercise of greater freedom, acting in accordance with perceived obligation, independently of authority. so i say equal rights, equal education, equal advantages. i hope that woman will not continue to be the serf of superstition; that she will not be the support of the church and priest; that she will not stand for the conservation of superstition, but that in the east of her mind the sun of progress will rise. _question_. in your lecture on voltaire you made a remark about the government of ministers, and you stated that if the ministers of the city of new york had to power to make the laws most people would prefer to live in a well regulated penitentiary. what do you mean by this? _answer_. well, as a rule, ministers are quite severe. they have little patience with human failures. they are taught, and they believe and they teach, that man is absolutely master of his own fate. besides, they are believers in the inspiration of the scriptures, and the laws of the old testament are exceedingly severe. nearly every offence was punished by death. every offence was regarded as treason against jehovah. in the pentateuch there is no pity. if a man committed some offence justice was not satisfied with his punishment, but proceeded to destroy his wife and children. jehovah seemed to think that crime was in the blood; that it was not sufficient to kill the criminal, but to prevent future crimes you should kill his wife and babes. the reading of the old testament is calculated to harden the heart, to drive the angel of pity from the breast, and to make man a religious savage. the clergy, as a rule, do not take a broad and liberal view of things. they judge every offence by what they consider would be the result if everybody committed the same offence. they do not understand that even vice creates obstructions for itself, and that there is something in the nature of crime the tendency of which is to defeat crime, and i might add in this place that the same seems to be true of excessive virtue. as a rule, the clergy clamor with great zeal for the execution of cruel laws. let me give an instance in point: in the time of george iii., in england, there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punishable with death. from time to time this cruel code was changed by act of parliament, yet no bishop sitting in the house of lords ever voted in favor of any one of these measures. the bishops always voted for death, for blood, against mercy and against the repeal of capital punishment. during all these years there were some twenty thousand or more of the established clergy, and yet, according to john bright, no voice was ever raised in any english pulpit against the infamous criminal code. another thing: the orthodox clergy teach that man is totally depraved; that his inclination is evil; that his tendency is toward the devil. starting from this as a foundation, of course every clergyman believes every bad thing said of everybody else. so, when some man is charged with a crime, the clergyman taking into consideration the fact that the man is totally depraved, takes it for granted that he must be guilty. i am not saying this for the purpose of exciting prejudice against the clergy. i am simply showing what is the natural result of a certain creed, of a belief in universal depravity, or a belief in the power and influence of a personal devil. if the clergy could have their own way they would endeavor to reform the world by law. they would re-enact the old statutes of the puritans. joy would be a crime. love would be an offence. every man with a smile on his face would be suspected, and a dimple in the cheek would be a demonstration of depravity. in the trial of a cause it is natural for a clergyman to start with the proposition, "the defendant is guilty;" and then he says to himself, "let him prove himself innocent." the man who has not been poisoned with the creed starts out with the proposition, "the defendant is innocent; let the state prove that he is guilty." consequently, i say that if i were defending a man whom i knew to be innocent, i would not have a clergyman on the jury if i could help it. --_new york advertiser_, december , . spiritualism. _question_. have you investigated spiritualism, and what has been your experience? _answer_. a few years ago i paid some attention to what is called spiritualism, and was present when quite mysterious things were supposed to have happened. the most notable seance that i attended was given by slade, at which slate-writing was done. two slates were fastened together, with a pencil between them, and on opening the slates certain writing was found. when the writing was done it was impossible to tell. so, i have been present when it was claimed that certain dead people had again clothed themselves in flesh and were again talking in the old way. in one instance, i think, george washington claimed to be present. on the same evening shakespeare put in an appearance. it was hard to recognize shakespeare from what the spirit said, still i was assured by the medium that there was no mistake as to the identity. _question_. can you offer any explanation of the extraordinary phenomena such as henry j. newton has had produced at his own house under his own supervision? _answer_. in the first place, i don't believe that anything such as you describe has ever happened. i do not believe that a medium ever passed into and out of a triple-locked iron cage. neither do i believe that any spirits were able to throw shoes and wraps out of the cage; neither do i believe that any apparitions ever rose from the floor, or that anything you relate has ever happened. the best explanation i can give of these wonderful occurrences is the following: a little boy and girl were standing in a doorway holding hands. a gentleman passing, stopped for a moment and said to the little girl: "what relation is the little boy to you?" and she replied, "we had the same father and we had the same mother, but i am not his sister and he is not my brother." this at first seemed to be quite a puzzle, but it was exceedingly plain when the answer was known: the little girl lied. _question_. have you had any experience with spirit photography, spirit physicians, or spirit lawyers? _answer_. i was shown at one time several pictures said to be the photographs of living persons surrounded by the photographs of spirits. i examined them very closely, and i found evidence in the photographs themselves that they were spurious. i took it for granted that light is the same everywhere, and that it obeys the angle of incidence in all worlds and at all times. in looking at the spirit photographs i found, for instance, that in the photograph of the living person the shadows fell to the right, and that in the photographs of the ghosts, or spirits, supposed to have been surrounding the living person at the time the picture was taken, the shadows did not fall in the same direction, sometimes in the opposite direction, never at the same angle even when the general direction was the same. this demonstrated that the photographs of the spirits and of the living persons were not taken at the same time. so much for photographs. i have had no experience with spirit physicians. i was once told by a lawyer who came to employ me in a will case, that a certain person had made a will giving a large amount of money for the purpose of spreading the gospel of spiritualism, but that the will had been lost and than an effort was then being made to find it, and they wished me to take certain action pending the search, and wanted my assistance. i said to him: "if spiritualism be true, why not ask the man who made the will what it was and also what has become of it. if you can find that out from the departed, i will gladly take a retainer in the case; otherwise, i must decline." i have had no other experience with the lawyers. _question_. if you were to witness phenomena that seemed inexplicable by natural laws, would you be inclined to favor spiritualism? _answer_. i would not. if i should witness phenomena that i could not explain, i would leave the phenomena unexplained. i would not explain them because i did not understand them, and say they were or are produced by spirits. that is no explanation, and, after admitting that we do not know and that we cannot explain, why should we proceed to explain? i have seen mr. kellar do things for which i cannot account. why should i say that he has the assistance of spirits? all i have a right to say is that i know nothing about how he does them. so i am compelled to say with regard to many spiritualistic feats, that i am ignorant of the ways and means. at the same time, i do not believe that there is anything supernatural in the universe. _question_. what is your opinion of spiritualism and spiritualists? _answer_. i think the spiritualism of the present day is certainly in advance of the spiritualism of several centuries ago. persons who now deny spiritualism and hold it in utter contempt insist that some eighteen or nineteen centuries ago it had possession of the world; that miracles were of daily occurrence; that demons, devils, fiends, took possession of human beings, lived in their bodies, dominated their minds. they believe, too, that devils took possession of the bodies of animals. they also insist that a wish could multiply fish. and, curiously enough, the spiritualists of our time have but little confidence in the phenomena of eighteen hundred years ago; and, curiously enough, those who believe in the spiritualism of eighteen hundred years ago deny the spiritualism of to-day. i think the spiritualists of to-day have far more evidence of their phenomena than those who believe in the wonderful things of eighteen centuries ago. the spiritualists of to-day have living witnesses, which is something. i know a great many spiritualists that are exceedingly good people, and are doing what they can to make the world better. but i think they are mistaken. _question_. do you believe in spirit entities, whether manifestible or not? _answer_. i believe there is such a thing as matter. i believe there is a something called force. the difference between force and matter i do not know. so there is something called consciousness. whether we call consciousness an entity or not makes no difference as to what it really is. there is something that hears, sees and feels, a something that takes cognizance of what happens in what we call the outward world. no matter whether we call this something matter or spirit, it is something that we do not know, to say the least of it, all about. we cannot understand what matter is. it defies us, and defies definitions. so, with what we call spirit, we are in utter ignorance of what it is. we have some little conception of what we mean by it, and of what others mean, but as to what it really is no one knows. it makes no difference whether we call ourselves materialists or spiritualists, we believe in all there is, no matter what you call it. if we call it all matter, then we believe that matter can think and hope and dream. if we call it all spirit, then we believe that spirit has force, that it offers a resistance; in other words, that it is, in one of its aspects, what we call matter. i cannot believe that everything can be accounted for by motion or by what we call force, because there is something that recognizes force. there is something that compares, that thinks, that remembers; there is something that suffers and enjoys; there is something that each one calls himself or herself, that is inexplicable to himself or herself, and it makes no difference whether we call this something mind or soul, effect or entity, it still eludes us, and all the words we have coined for the purpose of expressing our knowledge of this something, after all, express only our desire to know, and our efforts to ascertain. it may be that if we would ask some minister, some one who has studied theology, he would give us a perfect definition. the scientists know nothing about it, and i know of no one who does, unless it be a theologian. --_the globe-democrat_, st. louis, mo., . [illustration] _chatham street theater, new york city, n. y., where robert g. ingersoll was baptized in by his father, the rev. john ingersoll, who temporarily preached at the theatre, his church having been destroyed by fire_. plays and players. _question_. what place does the theatre hold among the arts? _answer_. nearly all the arts unite in the theatre, and it is the result of the best, the highest, the most artistic, that man can do. in the first place, there must be the dramatic poet. dramatic poetry is the subtlest, profoundest, the most intellectual, the most passionate and artistic of all. then the stage must be prepared, and there is work for the architect, the painter and sculptor. then the actors appear, and they must be gifted with imagination, with a high order of intelligence; they must have sympathies quick and deep, natures capable of the greatest emotion, dominated by passion. they must have impressive presence, and all that is manly should meet and unite in the actor; all that is womanly, tender, intense and admirable should be lavishly bestowed on the actress. in addition to all this, actors should have the art of being natural. let me explain what i mean by being natural. when i say that an actor is natural, i mean that he appears to act in accordance with his ideal, in accordance with his nature, and that he is not an imitator or a copyist--that he is not made up of shreds and patches taken from others, but that all he does flows from interior fountains and is consistent with his own nature, all having in a marked degree the highest characteristics of the man. that is what i mean by being natural. the great actor must be acquainted with the heart, must know the motives, ends, objects and desires that control the thoughts and acts of men. he must be familiar with many people, including the lowest and the highest, so that he may give to others, clothed with flesh and blood, the characters born of the poet's brain. the great actor must know the relations that exist between passion and voice, gesture and emphasis, expression and pose. he must speak not only with his voice, but with his body. the great actor must be master of many arts. then comes the musician. the theatre has always been the home of music, and this music must be appropriate; must, or should, express or supplement what happens on the stage; should furnish rest and balm for minds overwrought with tragic deeds. to produce a great play, and put it worthily upon the stage, involves most arts, many sciences and nearly all that is artistic, poetic and dramatic in the mind of man. _question_. should the drama teach lessons and discuss social problems, or should it give simply intellectual pleasure and furnish amusement? _answer_. every great play teaches many lessons and touches nearly all social problems. but the great play does this by indirection. every beautiful thought is a teacher; every noble line speaks to the brain and heart. beauty, proportion, melody suggest moral beauty, proportion in conduct and melody in life. in a great play the relations of the various characters, their objects, the means adopted for their accomplishment, must suggest, and in a certain sense solve or throw light on many social problems, so that the drama teaches lessons, discusses social problems and gives intellectual pleasure. the stage should not be dogmatic; neither should its object be directly to enforce a moral. the great thing for the drama to do, and the great thing it has done, and is doing, is to cultivate the imagination. this is of the utmost importance. the civilization of man depends upon the development, not only of the intellect, but of the imagination. most crimes of violence are committed by people who are destitute of imagination. people without imagination make most of the cruel and infamous creeds. they were the persecutors and destroyers of their fellow-men. by cultivating the imagination, the stage becomes one of the greatest teachers. it produces the climate in which the better feelings grow; it is the home of the ideal. all beautiful things tend to the civilization of man. the great statues plead for proportion in life, the great symphonies suggest the melody of conduct, and the great plays cultivate the heart and brain. _question_. what do you think of the french drama as compared with the english, morally and artistically considered? _answer_. the modern french drama, so far as i am acquainted with it, is a disease. it deals with the abnormal. it is fashioned after balzac. it exhibits moral tumors, mental cancers and all kinds of abnormal fungi,--excrescences. everything is stood on its head; virtue lives in the brothel; the good are the really bad and the worst are, after all, the best. it portrays the exceptional, and mistakes the scum-covered bayou for the great river. the french dramatists seem to think that the ceremony of marriage sows the seed of vice. they are always conveying the idea that the virtuous are uninteresting, rather stupid, without sense and spirit enough to take advantage of their privilege. between the greatest french plays and the greatest english plays of course there is no comparison. if a frenchman had written the plays of shakespeare, desdemona would have been guilty, isabella would have ransomed her brother at the duke's price, juliet would have married the county paris, run away from him, and joined romeo in mantua, and miranda would have listened coquettishly to the words of caliban. the french are exceedingly artistic. they understand stage effects, love the climax, delight in surprises, especially in the improbable; but their dramatists lack sympathy and breadth of treatment. they are provincial. with them france is the world. they know little of other countries. their plays do not touch the universal. _question_. what are your feelings in reference to idealism on the stage? _answer_. the stage ought to be the home of the ideal; in a word, the imagination should have full sway. the great dramatist is a creator; he is the sovereign, and governs his own world. the realist is only a copyist. he does not need genius. all he wants is industry and the trick of imitation. on the stage, the real should be idealized, the ordinary should be transfigured; that is, the deeper meaning of things should be given. as we make music of common air, and statues of stone, so the great dramatist should make life burst into blossom on the stage. a lot of words, facts, odds and ends divided into acts and scenes do not make a play. these things are like old pieces of broken iron that need the heat of the furnace so that they may be moulded into shape. genius is that furnace, and in its heat and glow and flame these pieces, these fragments, become molten and are cast into noble and heroic forms. realism degrades and impoverishes the stage. _question_. what attributes should an actor have to be really great? _answer_. intelligence, imagination, presence; a mobile and impressive face; a body that lends itself to every mood in appropriate pose, one that is oak or willow, at will; self-possession; absolute ease; a voice capable of giving every shade of meaning and feeling, an intuitive knowledge or perception of proportion, and above all, the actor should be so sincere that he loses himself in the character he portrays. such an actor will grow intellectually and morally. the great actor should strive to satisfy himself--to reach his own ideal. _question_. do you enjoy shakespeare more in the library than shakespeare interpreted by actors now on the boards? _answer_. i enjoy shakespeare everywhere. i think it would give me pleasure to hear those wonderful lines spoken even by phonographs. but shakespeare is greatest and best when grandly put upon the stage. there you know the connection, the relation, the circumstances, and these bring out the appropriateness and the perfect meaning of the text. nobody in this country now thinks of hamlet without thinking of booth. for this generation at least, booth is hamlet. it is impossible for me to read the words of sir toby without seeing the face of w. f. owen. brutus is davenport, cassius is lawrence barrett, and lear will be associated always in my mind with edwin forrest. lady macbeth is to me adelaide ristori, the greatest actress i ever saw. if i understood music perfectly, i would much rather hear seidl's orchestra play "tristan," or hear remenyi's matchless rendition of schubert's "ave maria," than to read the notes. most people love the theatre. everything about it from stage to gallery attracts and fascinates. the mysterious realm, behind the scenes, from which emerge kings and clowns, villains and fools, heroes and lovers, and in which they disappear, is still a fairyland. as long as man is man he will enjoy the love and laughter, the tears and rapture of the mimic world. _question_. is it because we lack men of genius or because our life is too material that no truly great american plays have been written? _answer_. no great play has been written since shakespeare; that is, no play has been written equal to his. but there is the same reason for that in all other countries, including england, that there is in this country, and that reason is that shakespeare has had no equal. america has not failed because life in the republic is too material. germany and france, and, in fact, all other nations, have failed in the same way. in the sense in which i am speaking, germany has produced no great play. in the dramatic world shakespeare stands alone. compared with him, even the classic is childish. there is plenty of material for plays. the republic has lived a great play--a great poem--a most marvelous drama. here, on our soil, have happened some of the greatest events in the history of the world. all human passions have been and are in full play here, and here as elsewhere, can be found the tragic, the comic, the beautiful, the poetic, the tears, the smiles, the lamentations and the laughter that are the necessary warp and woof with which to weave the living tapestries that we call plays. we are beginning. we have found that american plays must be american in spirit. we are tired of imitations and adaptations. we want plays worthy of the great republic. some good work has recently been done, giving great hope for the future. of course the realistic comes first; afterward the ideal. but here in america, as in all other lands, love is the eternal passion that will forever hold the stage. around that everything else will move. it is the sun. all other passions are secondary. their orbits are determined by the central force from which they receive their light and meaning. love, however, must be kept pure. the great dramatist is, of necessity, a believer in virtue, in honesty, in courage and in the nobility of human nature. he must know that there are men and women that even a god could not corrupt; such knowledge, such feeling, is the foundation, and the only foundation, that can support the splendid structure, the many pillared stories and the swelling dome of the great drama. --_the new york dramatic mirror_, december , . woman. it takes a hundred men to make an encampment, but one woman can make a home. i not only admire woman as the most beautiful object ever created, but i reverence her as the redeeming glory of humanity, the sanctuary of all the virtues, the pledge of all perfect qualities of heart and head. it is not just or right to lay the sins of men at the feet of women. it is because women are so much better than men that their faults are considered greater. the one thing in this world that is constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the one window in which the light forever burns, the one star that darkness cannot quench, is woman's love. it rises to the greatest heights, it sinks to the lowest depths, it forgives the most cruel injuries. it is perennial of life, and grows in every climate. neither coldness nor neglect, harshness nor cruelty, can extinguish it. a woman's love is the perfume of the heart. this is the real love that subdues the earth; the love that has wrought all the miracles of art, that gives us music all the way from the cradle song to the grand closing symphony that bears the soul away on wings of fire. a love that is greater than power, sweeter than life and stronger than death. strikes, expansion and other subjects. _question_. what have you to say in regard to the decision of judge billings in new orleans, that strikes which interfere with interstate commerce, are illegal? _answer_. as a rule, men have a right to quit work at any time unless there is some provision to the contrary in their contracts. they have not the right to prevent other men from taking their places. of course i do not mean by this that strikers may not use persuasion and argument to prevent other men from filling their places. all blacklisting and refusing to work with other men is illegal and punishable. of course men may conspire to quit work, but how is it to be proved? one man can quit, or five hundred men can quit together, and nothing can prevent them. the decisions of judge ricks and judge billings are an acknowledgment, at least, of the principle of public control or regulation of railroads and of commerce generally. the railroads, which run for private profit, are public carriers, and the public has a vested interest in them as such. the same principle applies to the commerce of the country and can be dealt with by the courts in the same way. it is unlikely, however, that judge billings' decision will have any lasting effect upon organized labor. law cannot be enforced against such vast numbers of people, especially when they have the general sympathy. nearly all strikes have been illegal, but the numbers involved have made the courts powerless. _question_. are you in favor of the annexation of canada? _answer_. yes, if canada is. we do not want that country unless that country wants us. i do not believe it to the interests of canada to remain a province. canada should either be an independent nation, or a part of a nation. now canada is only a province--with no career--with nothing to stimulate either patriotism or great effort. yes, i hope that canada will be annexed. by all means annex the sandwich islands, too. i believe in territorial expansion. a prosperous farmer wants the land next him, and a prosperous nation ought to grow. i believe that we ought to hold the key to the pacific and its commerce. we want to be prepared at all points to defend our interests from the greed and power of england. we are going to have a navy, and we want that navy to be of use in protecting our interests the world over. and we want interests to protect. it is a splendid feeling--this feeling of growth. by the annexation of these islands we open new avenues to american adventure, and the tendency is to make our country greater and stronger. the west indian islands ought to be ours, and some day our flag will float there. this country must not stop growing. _question_. is the spirit of patriotism declining in america? _answer_. there has been no decline in the spirit of american patriotism; in fact, it has increased rather then otherwise as the nation has grown older, stronger, more prosperous, more glorious. if there were occasion to demonstrate the truth of this statement it would be quickly demonstrated. let an attack be made upon the american flag, and you will very quickly find out how genuine is the patriotic spirit of americans. i do not think either that there has been a decline in the celebration of the fourth of july. the day is probably not celebrated with as much burning of gunpowder and shooting of fire crackers in the large cities as formerly, but it is celebrated with as much enthusiasm as ever all through the west, and the feeling of rejoicing over the anniversary of the day is as great and strong as ever. the people are tired of celebrating with a great noise and i am glad of it. _question_. what do you think of the congress of religions, to be held in chicago during the world's fair? _answer_. it will do good, if they will honestly compare their creeds so that each one can see just how foolish all the rest are. they ought to compare their sacred books, and their miracles, and their mythologies, and if they do so they will probably see that ignorance is the mother of them all. let them have a congress, by all means, and let them show how priests live on the labor of those they deceive. it will do good. _question_. do you think that cleveland's course as to appointments has strengthened him with the people? _answer_. patronage is a two-edged sword with very little handle. it takes an exceedingly clever president to strengthen himself by its exercise. when a man is running for president the twenty men in every town who expect to be made postmaster are for him heart and soul. only one can get the office, and the nineteen who do not, feel outraged, and the lucky one is mad on account of the delay. so twenty friends are lost with one place. _question_. is the age of chivalry dead? _answer_. the "age of chivalry" never existed except in the imagination. the age of chivalry was the age of cowardice and crime. there is more chivalry to-day than ever. men have a better, a clearer idea of justice, and pay their debts better, and treat their wives and children better than ever before. the higher and better qualities of the soul have more to do with the average life. to-day men have greater admiration and respect for women, greater regard for the social and domestic obligations than their fathers had. _question_. what led you to begin lecturing on your present subject, and what was your first lecture? _answer_. my first lecture was entitled "progress." i began lecturing because i thought the creeds of the orthodox church false and horrible, and because i thought the bible cruel and absurd, and because i like intellectual liberty. --new york, may , . sunday a day of pleasure. _question_. what do you think of the religious spirit that seeks to regulate by legislation the manner in which the people of this country shall spend their sundays? _answer_. the church is not willing to stand alone, not willing to base its influence on reason and on the character of its members. it seeks the aid of the state. the cross is in partnership with the sword. people should spend sundays as they do other days; that is to say, as they please. no one has the right to do anything on monday that interferes with the rights of his neighbors, and everyone has the right to do anything he pleases on sunday that does not interfere with the rights of his neighbors. sunday is a day of rest, not of religion. we are under obligation to do right on all days. nothing can be more absurd than the idea that any particular space of time is sacred. everything in nature goes on the same on sunday as on other days, and if beyond nature there be a god, then god works on sunday as he does on all other days. there is no rest in nature. there is perpetual activity in every possible direction. the old idea that god made the world and then rested, is idiotic. there were two reasons given to the hebrews for keeping the sabbath --one because jehovah rested on that day, the other because the hebrews were brought out of egypt. the first reason, we know, is false, and the second reason is good only for the hebrews. according to the bible, sunday, or rather the sabbath, was not for the world, but for the hebrews, and the hebrews alone. our sunday is pagan and is the day of the sun, as monday is the day of the moon. all our day names are pagan. i am opposed to all sunday legislation. _question_. why should sunday be observed otherwise than as a day of recreation? _answer_. sunday is a day of recreation, or should be; a day for the laboring man to rest, a day to visit museums and libraries, a day to look at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day for poetry and art, a day on which to read old letters and to meet friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of life, a day for those who live in tenements to feel the soft grass beneath their feet. in short, sunday should be a day of joy. the church endeavors to fill it with gloom and sadness, with stupid sermons and dyspeptic theology. nothing could be more cowardly than the effort to compel the observance of the sabbath by law. we of america have outgrown the childishness of the last century; we laugh at the superstitions of our fathers. we have made up our minds to be as happy as we can be, knowing that the way to be happy is to make others so, that the time to be happy is now, whether that now is sunday or any other day in the week. _question_. under a federal constitution guaranteeing civil and religious liberty, are the so-called "blue laws" constitutional? _answer_. no, they are not. but the probability is that the supreme courts of most of the states would decide the other way. and yet all these laws are clearly contrary to the spirit of the federal constitution and the constitutions of most of the states. i hope to live until all these foolish laws are repealed and until we are in the highest and noblest sense a free people. and by free i mean each having the right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights or with the happiness of another. i want to see the time when we live for this world and when all shall endeavor to increase, by education, by reason, and by persuasion, the sum of human happiness. --_new york times_, july , . the parliament of religions. _question_. the parliament of religions was called with a view to discussing the great religions of the world on the broad platform of tolerance. supposing this to have been accomplished, what effect is it likely to have on the future of creeds? _answer_. it was a good thing to get the representatives of all creeds to meet and tell their beliefs. the tendency, i think, is to do away with prejudice, with provincialism, with egotism. we know that the difference between the great religions, so far as belief is concerned, amounts to but little. their gods have different names, but in other respects they differ but little. they are all cruel and ignorant. _question_. do you think likely that the time is coming when all the religions of the world will be treated with the liberality that is now characterizing the attitude of one sect toward another in christendom? _answer_. yes, because i think that all religions will be found to be of equal authority, and because i believe that the supernatural will be discarded and that man will give up his vain and useless efforts to get back of nature--to answer the questions of whence and whither? as a matter of fact, the various sects do not love one another. the keenest hatred is religious hatred. the most malicious malice is found in the hearts of those who love their enemies. _question_. bishop newman, in replying to a learned buddhist at the parliament of religions, said that buddhism had given to the world no helpful literature, no social system, and no heroic virtues. is this true? _answer_. bishop newman is a very prejudiced man. probably he got his information from the missionaries. buddha was undoubtedly a great teacher. long before christ lived buddha taught the brotherhood of man. he said that intelligence was the only lever capable of raising mankind. his followers, to say the least of them, are as good as the followers of christ. bishop newman is a methodist--a follower of john wesley--and he has the prejudices of the sect to which he belongs. we must remember that all prejudices are honest. _question_. is christian society, or rather society in christian countries, cursed with fewer robbers, assassins, and thieves, proportionately, then countries where "heathen" religions predominate? _answer_. i think not. i do not believe that there are more lynchings, more mob murders in india or turkey or persia than in some christian states of the great republic. neither will you find more train robbers, more forgers, more thieves in heathen lands than in christian countries. here the jails are full, the penitentiaries are crowded, and the hangman is busy. all over christendom, as many assert, crime is on the increase, going hand in hand with poverty. the truth is, that some of the wisest and best men are filled with apprehension for the future, but i believe in the race and have confidence in man. _question_. how can society be so reconstructed that all this horrible suffering, resultant from poverty and its natural associate, crime, may be abolished, or at least reduced to a minimum? _answer_. in the first place we should stop supporting the useless. the burden of superstition should be taken from the shoulders of industry. in the next place men should stop bowing to wealth instead of worth. men should be judged by what they do, by what they are, instead of by the property they have. only those able to raise and educate children should have them. children should be better born--better educated. the process of regeneration will be slow, but it will be sure. the religion of our day is supported by the worst, by the most dangerous people in society. i do not allude to murderers or burglars, or even to the little thieves. i mean those who debauch courts and legislatures and elections-- those who make millions by legal fraud. _question_. what do you think of the theosophists? are they sincere--have they any real basis for their psychological theories? _answer_. the theosophists may be sincere. i do not know. but i am perfectly satisfied that their theories are without any foundation in fact--that their doctrines are as unreal as their "astral bodies," and as absurd as a contradiction in mathematics. we have had vagaries and theories enough. we need the religion of the real, the faith that rests on fact. let us turn our attention to this world--the world in which we live. --_new york herald_, september, . cleveland's hawaiian policy. _question_. colonel, what do you think about mr. cleveland's hawaiian policy? _answer_. i think it exceedingly laughable and a little dishonest --with the further fault that it is wholly unconstitutional. this is not a one-man government, and while liliuokalani may be queen, cleveland is certainly not a king. the worst thing about the whole matter, as it appears to me, is the bad faith that was shown by mr. cleveland--the double-dealing. he sent mr. willis as minister to the provisional government and by that act admitted the existence, and the rightful existence, of the provisional government of the sandwich islands. when mr. willis started he gave him two letters. one was addressed to dole, president of the provisional government, in which he addressed dole as "great and good friend," and at the close, being a devout christian, he asked "god to take care of dole." this was the first letter. the letter of one president to another; of one friend to another. the second letter was addressed to mr. willis, in which mr. willis was told to upset dole at the first opportunity and put the deposed queen back on her throne. this may be diplomacy, but it is no kin to honesty. in my judgment, it is the worst thing connected with the hawaiian affair. what must "the great and good" dole think of our great and good president? what must other nations think when they read the two letters and mentally exclaim, "look upon this and then upon that?" i think mr. cleveland has acted arrogantly, foolishly, and unfairly. i am in favor of obtaining the sandwich islands--of course by fair means. i favor this policy because i want my country to become a power in the pacific. all my life i have wanted this country to own the west indies, the bermudas, the bahamas and barbadoes. they are our islands. they belong to this continent, and for any other nation to take them or claim them was, and is, a piece of impertinence and impudence. so i would like to see the sandwich islands annexed to the united states. they are a good way from san francisco and our western shore, but they are nearer to us than they are to any other nation. i think they would be of great importance. they would tend to increase the asiatic trade, and they certainly would be important in case of war. we should have fortifications on those islands that no naval power could take. some objection has been made on the ground that under our system the people of those islands would have to be represented in congress. i say yes, represented by a delegate until the islands become a real part of the country, and by that time, there would be several hundred thousand americans living there, capable of sending over respectable members of congress. now, i think that mr. cleveland has made a very great mistake. first, i think he was mistaken as to the facts in the sandwich islands; second, as to the constitution of the united states, and thirdly, as to the powers of the president of the united states. _question_. in your experience as a lawyer what was the most unique case in which you were ever engaged? _answer_. the star route trial. every paper in the country, but one, was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet owned by one of the defendants. i received a note from a man living in a little town in ohio criticizing me for defending the accused. in reply i wrote that i supposed he was a sensible man and that he, of course, knew what he was talking about when he said the accused were guilty; that the government needed just such men as he, and that he should come to the trial at once and testify. the man wrote back: "dear colonel: i am a ---- fool." _question_. will the church and the stage ever work together for the betterment of the world, and what is the province of each? _answer_. the church and stage will never work together. the pulpit pretends that fiction is fact. the stage pretends that fiction is fact. the pulpit pretence is dishonest--that of the stage is sincere. the actor is true to art, and honestly pretends to be what he is not. the actor is natural, if he is great, and in this naturalness is his truth and his sincerity. the pulpit is unnatural, and for that reason untrue. the pulpit is for another world, the stage for this. the stage is good because it is natural, because it portrays real and actual life; because "it holds the mirror up to nature." the pulpit is weak because it too often belittles and demeans this life; because it slanders and calumniates the natural and is the enemy of joy. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, february , . orators and oratory.* [* it was at his own law office in new york city that i had my talk with that very notable american, col. robert g. ingersoll. "bob" ingersoll, americans call him affectionately; in a company of friends it is "the colonel." a more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and those who know even a little of him will tell you that a bigger-hearted man probably does not live. suppose a well-knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine, strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep, uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve. introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still, some notion of "bob" ingersoll. colonel ingersoll stands at the front of american orators. the natural thing, therefore, was that i should ask him--a master in the art--about oratory. what he said i shall give in his own words precisely as i took them down from his lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old english tongue that is of some importance. but the wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of ingersoll can only be adequately understood when you also have the finishing touch of his facile voice.] _question_. i should be glad if you would tell me what you think the differences are between english and american oratory? _answer_. there is no difference between the real english and the real american orator. oratory is the same the world over. the man who thinks on his feet, who has the pose of passion, the face that thought illumines, a voice in harmony with the ideals expressed, who has logic like a column and poetry like a vine, who transfigures the common, dresses the ideals of the people in purple and fine linen, who has the art of finding the best and noblest in his hearers, and who in a thousand ways creates the climate in which the best grows and flourishes and bursts into blossom--that man is an orator, no matter of what time, of what country. _question_. if you were to compare individual english and american orators--recent or living orators in particular--what would you say? _answer_. i have never heard any of the great english speakers, and consequently can pass no judgment as to their merits, except such as depends on reading. i think, however, the finest paragraph ever uttered in great britain was by curran in his defence of rowan. i have never read one of mr. gladstone's speeches, only fragments. i think he lacks logic. bright was a great speaker, but he lacked imagination and the creative faculty. disraeli spoke for the clubs, and his speeches were artificial. we have had several fine speakers in america. i think that thomas corwin stands at the top of the natural orators. sergeant s. prentiss, the lawyer, was a very great talker; henry ward beecher was the greatest orator that the pulpit has produced. theodore parker was a great orator. in this country, however, probably daniel webster occupies the highest place in general esteem. _question_. which would you say are the better orators, speaking generally, the american people or the english people? _answer_. i think americans are, on the average, better talkers than the english. i think england has produced the greatest literature of the world; but i do not think england has produced the greatest orators of the world. i know of no english orator equal to webster or corwin or beecher. _question_. would you mind telling me how it was you came to be a public speaker, a lecturer, an orator? _answer_. we call this america of ours free, and yet i found it was very far from free. our writers and our speakers declared that here in america church and state were divorced. i found this to be untrue. i found that the church was supported by the state in many ways, that people who failed to believe certain portions of the creeds were not allowed to testify in courts or to hold office. it occurred to me that some one ought to do something toward making this country intellectually free, and after a while i thought that i might as well endeavor to do this as wait for another. this is the way in which i came to make speeches; it was an action in favor of liberty. i have said things because i wanted to say them, and because i thought they ought to be said. _question_. perhaps you will tell me your methods as a speaker, for i'm sure it would be interesting to know them? _answer_. sometimes, and frequently, i deliver a lecture several times before it is written. i have it taken by a shorthand writer, and afterward written out. at other times i have dictated a lecture, and delivered it from manuscript. the course pursued depends on how i happen to feel at the time. sometimes i read a lecture, and sometimes i deliver lectures without any notes--this, again, depending much on how i happen to feel. so far as methods are concerned, everything should depend on feeling. attitude, gestures, voice, emphasis, should all be in accord with and spring from feeling, from the inside. _question_. is there any possibility of your coming to england, and, i need hardly add, of your coming to speak? _answer_. i have thought of going over to england, and i may do so. there is an england in england for which i have the highest possible admiration, the england of culture, of art, of principle. --_the sketch_, london, eng., march , . catholicism and protestantism. the pope, the a. p. a., agnosticism and the church. _question_. which do you regard as the better, catholicism or protestantism? _answer_. protestantism is better than catholicism because there is less of it. protestantism does not teach that a monk is better than a husband and father, that a nun is holier than a mother. protestants do not believe in the confessional. neither do they pretend that priests can forgive sins. protestantism has fewer ceremonies and less opera bouffe, clothes, caps, tiaras, mitres, crooks and holy toys. catholics have an infallible man--an old italian. protestants have an infallible book, written by hebrews before they were civilized. the infallible man is generally wrong, and the infallible book is filled with mistakes and contradictions. catholics and protestants are both enemies of intellectual freedom --of real education, but both are opposed to education enough to make free men and women. between the catholics and protestants there has been about as much difference as there is between crocodiles and alligators. both have done the worst they could, both are as bad as they can be, and the world is getting tired of both. the world is not going to choose either--both are to be rejected. _question_. are you willing to give your opinion of the pope? _answer_. it may be that the pope thinks he is infallible, but i doubt it. he may think that he is the agent of god, but i guess not. he may know more than other people, but if he does he has kept it to himself. he does not seem satisfied with standing in the place and stead of god in spiritual matters, but desires temporal power. he wishes to be pope and king. he imagines that he has the right to control the belief of all the world; that he is the shepherd of all "sheep" and that the fleeces belong to him. he thinks that in his keeping is the conscience of mankind. so he imagines that his blessing is a great benefit to the faithful and that his prayers can change the course of natural events. he is a strange mixture of the serious and comical. he claims to represent god, and admits that he is almost a prisoner. there is something pathetic in the condition of this pontiff. when i think of him, i think of lear on the heath, old, broken, touched with insanity, and yet, in his own opinion, "every inch a king." the pope is a fragment, a remnant, a shred, a patch of ancient power and glory. he is a survival of the unfittest, a souvenir of theocracy, a relic of the supernatural. of course he will have a few successors, and they will become more and more comical, more and more helpless and impotent as the world grows wise and free. i am not blaming the pope. he was poisoned at the breast of his mother. superstition was mingled with her milk. he was poisoned at school--taught to distrust his reason and to live by faith. and so it may be that his mind was so twisted and tortured out of shape that he now really believes that he is the infallible agent of an infinite god. _question_. are you in favor of the a. p. a.? _answer_. in this country i see no need of secret political societies. i think it better to fight in the open field. i am a believer in religious liberty, in allowing all sects to preach their doctrines and to make as many converts as they can. as long as we have free speech and a free press i think there is no danger of the country being ruled by any church. the catholics are much better than their creed, and the same can be said of nearly all members of orthodox churches. a majority of american catholics think a great deal more of this country than they do of their church. when they are in good health they are on our side. it is only when they are very sick that they turn their eyes toward rome. if they were in the majority, of course, they would destroy all other churches and imprison, torture and kill all infidels. but they will never be in the majority. they increase now only because catholics come in from other countries. in a few years that supply will cease, and then the catholic church will grow weaker every day. the free secular school is the enemy of priestcraft and superstition, and the people of this country will never consent to the destruction of that institution. i want no man persecuted on account of his religion. _question_. if there is no beatitude, or heaven, how do you account for the continual struggle in every natural heart for its own betterment? _answer_. man has many wants, and all his efforts are the children of wants. if he wanted nothing he would do nothing. we civilize the savage by increasing his wants, by cultivating his fancy, his appetites, his desires. he is then willing to work to satisfy these new wants. man always tries to do things in the easiest way. his constant effort is to accomplish more with less work. he invents a machine; then he improves it, his idea being to make it perfect. he wishes to produce the best. so in every department of effort and knowledge he seeks the highest success, and he seeks it because it is for his own good here in this world. so he finds that there is a relation between happiness and conduct, and he tries to find out what he must do to produce the greatest enjoyment. this is the basis of morality, of law and ethics. we are so constituted that we love proportion, color, harmony. this is the artistic man. morality is the harmony and proportion of conduct-- the music of life. man continually seeks to better his condition --not because he is immortal--but because he is capable of grief and pain, because he seeks for happiness. man wishes to respect himself and to gain the respect of others. the brain wants light, the heart wants love. growth is natural. the struggle to overcome temptation, to be good and noble, brave and sincere, to reach, if possible, the perfect, is no evidence of the immortality of the soul or of the existence of other worlds. men live to excel, to become distinguished, to enjoy, and so they strive, each in his own way, to gain the ends desired. _question_. do you believe that the race is growing moral or immoral? _answer_. the world is growing better. there is more real liberty, more thought, more intelligence than ever before. the world was never so charitable or generous as now. we do not put honest debtors in prison, we no longer believe in torture. punishments are less severe. we place a higher value on human life. we are far kinder to animals. to this, however, there is one terrible exception. the vivisectors, those who cut, torture, and mutilate in the name of science, disgrace our age. they excite the horror and indignation of all good people. leave out the actions of those wretches, and animals are better treated than ever before. so there is less beating of wives and whipping of children. the whip in no longer found in the civilized home. intelligent parents now govern by kindness, love and reason. the standard of honor is higher than ever. contracts are more sacred, and men do nearer as they agree. man has more confidence in his fellow-man, and in the goodness of human nature. yes, the world is getting better, nobler and grander every day. we are moving along the highway of progress on our way to the eden of the future. _question_. are the doctrines of agnosticism gaining ground, and what, in your opinion, will be the future of the church? _answer_. the agnostic is intellectually honest. he knows the limitations of his mind. he is convinced that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered by man. he knows that he cannot answer these questions, and he is candid enough to say so. the agnostic has good mental manners. he does not call belief or hope or wish, a demonstration. he knows the difference between hope and belief--between belief and knowledge--and he keeps these distinctions in his mind. he does not say that a certain theory is true because he wishes it to be true. he tries to go according to evidence, in harmony with facts, without regard to his own desires or the wish of the public. he has the courage of his convictions and the modesty of his ignorance. the theologian is his opposite. he is certain and sure of the existence of things and beings and worlds of which there is, and can be, no evidence. he relies on assertion, and in all debate attacks the motive of his opponent instead of answering his arguments. all savages know the origin and destiny of man. about other things they know but little. the theologian is much the same. the agnostic has given up the hope of ascertaining the nature of the "first cause"--the hope of ascertaining whether or not there was a "first cause." he admits that he does not know whether or not there is an infinite being. he admits that these questions cannot be answered, and so he refuses to answer. he refuses also to pretend. he knows that the theologian does not know, and he has the courage to say so. he knows that the religious creeds rest on assumption, supposition, assertion--on myth and legend, on ignorance and superstition, and that there is no evidence of their truth. the agnostic bends his energies in the opposite direction. he occupies himself with this world, with things that can be ascertained and understood. he turns his attention to the sciences, to the solution of questions that touch the well-being of man. he wishes to prevent and cure diseases; to lengthen life; to provide homes and raiment and food for man; to supply the wants of the body. he also cultivates the arts. he believes in painting and sculpture, in music and the drama--the needs of the soul. the agnostic believes in developing the brain, in cultivating the affections, the tastes, the conscience, the judgment, to the end that man may be happy in this world. he seeks to find the relation of things, the condition of happiness. he wishes to enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may perform the work of the world. back of all progress are the real thinkers; the finders of facts, those who turn their attention to the world in which we live. the theologian has never been a help, always a hindrance. he has always kept his back to the sunrise. with him all wisdom was in the past. he appealed to the dead. he was and is the enemy of reason, of investigation, of thought and progress. the church has never given "sanctuary" to a persecuted truth. there can be no doubt that the ideas of the agnostic are gaining ground. the scientific spirit has taken possession of the intellectual world. theological methods are unpopular to-day, even in theological schools. the attention of men everywhere is being directed to the affairs of this world, this life. the gods are growing indistinct, and, like the shapes of clouds, they are changing as they fade. the idea of special providence has been substantially abandoned. people are losing, and intelligent people have lost, confidence in prayer. to-day no intelligent person believes in miracles--a violation of the facts in nature. they may believe that there used to be miracles a good while ago, but not now. the "supernatural" is losing its power, its influence, and the church is growing weaker every day. the church is supported by the people, and in order to gain the support of the people it must reflect their ideas, their hopes and fears. as the people advance, the creeds will be changed, either by changing the words or giving new meanings to the old words. the church, in order to live, must agree substantially with those who support it, and consequently it will change to any extent that may be necessary. if the church remains true to the old standards then it will lose the support of progressive people, and if the people generally advance the church will die. but my opinion is that it will slowly change, that the minister will preach what the members want to hear, and that the creed will be controlled by the contribution box. one of these days the preachers may become teachers, and when that happens the church will be of use. _question_. what do you regard as the greatest of all themes in poetry and song? _answer_. love and death. the same is true of the greatest music. in "tristan and isolde" is the greatest music of love and death. in shakespeare the greatest themes are love and death. in all real poetry, in all real music, the dominant, the triumphant tone, is love, and the minor, the sad refrain, the shadow, the background, the mystery, is death. _question_. what would be your advice to an intelligent young man just starting out in life? _answer_. i would say to him: "be true to your ideal. cultivate your heart and brain. follow the light of your reason. get all the happiness out of life that you possibly can. do not care for power, but strive to be useful. first of all, support yourself so that you may not be a burden to others. if you are successful, if you gain a surplus, use it for the good of others. own yourself and live and die a free man. make your home a heaven, love your wife and govern your children by kindness. be good natured, cheerful, forgiving and generous. find out the conditions of happiness, and then be wise enough to live in accordance with them. cultivate intellectual hospitality, express your honest thoughts, love your friends, and be just to your enemies." --_new york herald_, september , . woman and her domain. _question_. what is your opinion of the effect of the multiplicity of women's clubs as regards the intellectual, moral and domestic status of their members? _answer_. i think that women should have clubs and societies, that they should get together and exchange ideas. women, as a rule, are provincial and conservative. they keep alive all the sentimental mistakes and superstitions. now, if they can only get away from these, and get abreast with the tide of the times, and think as well as feel, it will be better for them and their children. you know st. paul tells women that if they want to know anything they must ask their husbands. for many centuries they have followed this orthodox advice, and of course they have not learned a great deal, because their husbands could not answer their questions. husbands, as a rule, do not know a great deal, and it will not do for every wife to depend on the ignorance of her worst half. the women of to-day are the great readers, and no book is a great success unless it pleases the women. as a result of this, all the literature of the world has changed, so that now in all departments the thoughts of women are taken into consideration, and women have thoughts, because they are the intellectual equals of men. there are no statesmen in this country the equals of harriet martineau; probably no novelists the equals of george eliot or george sand, and i think ouida the greatest living novelist. i think her "ariadne" is one of the greatest novels in the english language. there are few novels better than "consuelo," few poems better than "mother and poet." so in all departments women are advancing; some of them have taken the highest honors at medical colleges; others are prominent in the sciences, some are great artists, and there are several very fine sculptors, &c., &c. so you can readily see what my opinion is on that point. i am in favor of giving woman all the domain she conquers, and as the world becomes civilized the domain that she can conquer will steadily increase. _question_. but, colonel, is there no danger of greatly interfering with a woman's duties as wife and mother? _answer_. i do not think that it is dangerous to think, or that thought interferes with love or the duties of wife or mother. i think the contrary is the truth; the greater the brain the greater the power to love, the greater the power to discharge all duties and obligations, so i have no fear for the future. about women voting i don't care; whatever they want to do they have my consent. --_the democrat_, grand rapids, michigan, . professor swing. _question_. since you were last in this city, colonel, a distinguished man has passed away in the person of professor swing. the public will be interested to have your opinion of him. _answer_. i think professor swing did a great amount of good. he helped to civilize the church and to humanize the people. his influence was in the right direction--toward the light. in his youth he was acquainted with toil, poverty, and hardship; his road was filled with thorns, and yet he lived and scattered flowers in the paths of many people. at first his soul was in the dungeon of a savage creed, where the windows were very small and closely grated, and though which struggled only a few rays of light. he longed for more light and for more liberty, and at last his fellow- prisoners drove him forth, and from that time until his death he did what he could to give light and liberty to the souls of men. he was a lover of nature, poetic in his temperament, charitable and merciful. as an orator he may have lacked presence, pose and voice, but he did not lack force of statement or beauty of expression. he was a man of wide learning, of great admiration of the heroic and tender. he did what he could to raise the standard of character, to make his fellow-men just and noble. he lost the provincialism of his youth and became in a very noble sense a citizen of the world. he understood that all the good is not in our race or in our religion--that in every land there are good and noble men, self- denying and lovely women, and that in most respects other religions are as good as ours, and in many respects better. this gave him breadth of intellectual horizon and enlarged his sympathy for the failures of the world. i regard his death as a great loss, and his life as a lesson and inspiration. --_inter-ocean_, chicago, october , . senator sherman and his book.* [* no one is better qualified than robert g. ingersoll to talk about senator sherman's book and the questions it raises in political history. mr. ingersoll was for years a resident of washington and a next-door neighbor to mr. sherman; he was for an even longer period the intimate personal friend of james g. blaine; he knew garfield from almost daily contact, and of the republican national conventions concerning which senator sherman has raised points of controversy mr. ingersoll can say, as the north carolinian said of the confederacy: "part of whom i am which." he placed blaine's name before the convention at cincinnati in . he made the first of the three great nominating speeches in convention history, conkling and garfield making the others in . the figure of the plumed knight which mr. ingersoll created to characterize mr. blaine is part of the latter's memory. at chicago, four years later, when garfield, dazed by the irresistible doubt of the convention, was on the point of refusing that in the acceptance of which he had no voluntary part, ingersoll was the adviser who showed him that duty to sherman required no such action.] _question_. what do you think of senator sherman's book--especially the part about garfield? _answer_. of course, i have only read a few extracts from mr. sherman's reminiscences, but i am perfectly satisfied that the senator is mistaken about garfield's course. the truth is that garfield captured the convention by his course from day to day, and especially by the speech he made for sherman. after that speech, and it was a good one, the best garfield ever made, the convention said, "speak for yourself, john." it was perfectly apparent that if the blaine and sherman forces should try to unite, grant would be nominated. it had to be grant or a new man, and that man was garfield. it all came about without garfield's help, except in the way i have said. garfield even went so far as to declare that under no circumstances could he accept, because he was for sherman, and honestly for him. he told me that he would not allow his name to go before the convention. just before he was nominated i wrote him a note in which i said he was about to be nominated, and that he must not decline. i am perfectly satisfied that he acted with perfect honor, and that he did his best for sherman. _question_. mr. sherman expresses the opinion that if he had had the "moral strength" of the ohio delegation in his support he would have been nominated? _answer_. we all know that while senator sherman had many friends, and that while many thought he would make an excellent president, still there was but little enthusiasm among his followers. sherman had the respect of the party, but hardly the love. _question_. in his book the senator expresses the opinion that he was quite close to the nomination in , when mr. quay was for him. do you think that is so, mr. ingersoll? _answer_. i think mr. sherman had a much better chance in than in , but as a matter of fact, he never came within hailing distance of success at any time. he is not of the nature to sway great bodies of men. he lacks the power to impress himself upon others to such an extent as to make friends of enemies and devotees of friends. mr. sherman has had a remarkable career, and i think that he ought to be satisfied with what he has achieved. _question_. mr. ingersoll, what do you think defeated blaine for the nomination in ? _answer_. on the first day of the convention at cincinnati it was known that blaine was the leading candidate. all of the enthusiasm was for him. it was soon known that conkling, bristow or morton could not be nominated, and that in all probability blaine would succeed. the fact that blaine had been attacked by vertigo, or had suffered from a stroke of apoplexy, gave an argument to those who opposed him, and this was used with great effect. after blaine was put in nomination, and before any vote was taken, the convention adjourned, and during the night a great deal of work was done. the michigan delegation was turned inside out and the blaine forces raided in several states. hayes, the dark horse, suddenly developed speed, and the scattered forces rallied to his support. i have always thought that if a ballot could have been taken on the day blaine was put in nomination he would have succeeded, and yet he might have been defeated for the nomination anyway. blaine had the warmest friends and the bitterest enemies of any man in the party. people either loved or hated him. he had no milk-and-water friends and no milk-and-water enemies. _question_. if blaine had been nominated at cincinnati in would he have made a stronger candidate than hayes did? _answer_. if he had been nominated then, i believe that he would have been triumphantly elected. mr. blaine's worst enemies would not have supported tilden, and thousands of moderate democrats would have given their votes to blaine. _question_. mr. ingersoll, do you think that mr. blaine wanted the nomination in , when he got it? _answer_. in , mr. blaine told me that he did not want the nomination. i said to him: "is that honest?" he replied that he did not want it, that he was tired of the whole business. i said: "if you do not want it; if you have really reached that conclusion, then i think you will get it." he laughed, and again said: "i do not want it." i believe that he spoke exactly as he then felt. _question_. what do you think defeated mr. blaine at the polls in ? _answer_. blaine was a splendid manager for another man, a great natural organizer, and when acting for others made no mistake; but he did not manage his own campaign with ability. he made a succession of mistakes. his suit against the indianapolis editor; his letter about the ownership of certain stocks; his reply to burchard and the preachers, in which he said that history showed the church could get along without the state, but the state could not get along without the church, and this in reply to the "rum, romanism and rebellion" nonsense; and last, but not least, his speech to the millionaires in new york--all of these things weakened him. as a matter of fact many catholics were going to support blaine, but when they saw him fooling with the protestant clergy, and accepting the speech of burchard, they instantly turned against him. if he had never met burchard, i think he would have been elected. his career was something like that of mr. clay; he was the most popular man of his party and yet---- _question_. how do you account for mr. blaine's action in allowing his name to go before the convention at minneapolis in ? _answer_. in , mr. blaine was a sick man, almost worn out; he was not his former self, and he was influenced by others. he seemed to have lost his intuition; he was misled, yet in spite of all defeats, no name will create among republicans greater enthusiasm than that of james g. blaine. millions are still his devoted, unselfish and enthusiastic friends and defenders. --_the globe-democrat_, st. louis, october , . reply to the christian endeavorers. _question_. how were you affected by the announcement that the united prayers of the salvationists and christian endeavorers were to be offered for your conversion? _answer_. the announcement did not affect me to any great extent. i take it for granted that the people praying for me are sincere and that they have a real interest in my welfare. of course, i thank them one and all. at the same time i can hardly account for what they did. certainly they would not ask god to convert me unless they thought the prayer could be answered. and if their god can convert me of course he can convert everybody. then the question arises why he does not do it. why does he let millions go to hell when he can convert them all. why did he not convert them all before the flood and take them all to heaven instead of drowning them and sending them all to hell. of course these questions can be answered by saying that god's ways are not our ways. i am greatly obliged to these people. still, i feel about the same, so that it would be impossible to get up a striking picture of "before and after." it was good-natured on their part to pray for me, and that act alone leads me to believe that there is still hope for them. the trouble with the christian endeavorers is that they don't give my arguments consideration. if they did they would agree with me. it seemed curious that they would advise divine wisdom what to do, or that they would ask infinite mercy to treat me with kindness. if there be a god, of course he knows what ought to be done, and will do it without any hints from ignorant human beings. still, the endeavorers and the salvation people may know more about god than i do. for all i know, this god may need a little urging. he may be powerful but a little slow; intelligent but sometimes a little drowsy, and it may do good now and then to call his attention to the facts. the prayers did not, so far as i know, do me the least injury or the least good. i was glad to see that the christians are getting civilized. a few years ago they would have burned me. now they pray for me. suppose god should answer the prayers and convert me, how would he bring the conversion about? in the first place, he would have to change my brain and give me more credulity--that is, he would be obliged to lessen my reasoning power. then i would believe not only without evidence, but in spite of evidence. all the miracles would appear perfectly natural. it would then seem as easy to raise the dead as to waken the sleeping. in addition to this, god would so change my mind that i would hold all reason in contempt and put entire confidence in faith. i would then regard science as the enemy of human happiness, and ignorance as the soil in which virtues grow. then i would throw away darwin and humboldt, and rely on the sermons of orthodox preachers. in other words, i would become a little child and amuse myself with a religious rattle and a gabriel horn. then i would rely on a man who has been dead for nearly two thousand years to secure me a seat in paradise. after conversion, it is not pretended that i will be any better so far as my actions are concerned; no more charitable, no more honest, no more generous. the great difference will be that i will believe more and think less. after all, the converted people do not seem to be better than the sinners. i never heard of a poor wretch clad in rags, limping into a town and asking for the house of a christian. i think that i had better remain as i am. i had better follow the light of my reason, be true to myself, express my honest thoughts, and do the little i can for the destruction of superstition, the little i can for the development of the brain, for the increase of intellectual hospitality and the happiness of my fellow-beings. one world at a time. --_new york journal_, december , . spiritualism. there are several good things about spiritualism. first, they are not bigoted; second, they do not believe in salvation by faith; third, they don't expect to be happy in another world because christ was good in this; fourth, they do not preach the consolation of hell; fifth, they do not believe in god as an infinite monster; sixth, the spiritualists believe in intellectual hospitality. in these respects they differ from our christian brethren, and in these respects they are far superior to the saints. i think that the spiritualists have done good. they believe in enjoying themselves--in having a little pleasure in this world. they are social, cheerful and good-natured. they are not the slaves of a book. their hands and feet are not tied with passages of scripture. they are not troubling themselves about getting forgiveness and settling their heavenly debts for a cent on the dollar. their belief does not make then mean or miserable. they do not persecute their neighbors. they ask no one to have faith or to believe without evidence. they ask all to investigate, and then to make up their minds from the evidence. hundreds and thousands of well-educated, intelligent people are satisfied with the evidence and firmly believe in the existence of spirits. for all i know, they may be right--but---- _question_. the spiritualists have indirectly claimed, that you were in many respects almost one of them. have you given them reason to believe so? _answer_. i am not a spiritualist, and have never pretended to be. the spiritualists believe in free thought, in freedom of speech, and they are willing to hear the other side--willing to hear me. the best thing about the spiritualists is that they believe in intellectual hospitality. _question_. is spiritualism a religion or a truth? _answer_. i think that spiritualism may properly be called a religion. it deals with two worlds--teaches the duty of man to his fellows--the relation that this life bears to the next. it claims to be founded on facts. it insists that the "dead" converse with the living, and that information is received from those who once lived in this world. of the truth of these claims i have no sufficient evidence. _question_. are all mediums impostors? _answer_. i will not say that all mediums are impostors, because i do not know. i do not believe that these mediums get any information or help from "spirits." i know that for thousands of years people have believed in mediums--in spiritualism. a spirit in the form of a man appeared to samson's mother, and afterward to his father. spirits, or angels, called on abraham. the witch of endor raised the ghost of samuel. an angel appeared with three men in the furnace. the handwriting on the wall was done by a spirit. a spirit appeared to joseph in a dream, to the wise men and to joseph again. so a spirit, an angel or a god, spoke to saul, and the same happened to mary magdalene. the religious literature of the world is filled with such things. take spiritualism from christianity and the whole edifice crumbles. all religions, so far as i know, are based on spiritualism--on communications received from angels, from spirits. i do not say that all the mediums, ancient and modern, were, and are, impostors--but i do think that all the honest ones were, and are, mistaken. i do not believe that man has ever received any communication from angels, spirits or gods. no whisper, as i believe, has ever come from any other world. the lips of the dead are always closed. from the grave there has come no voice. for thousands of years people have been questioning the dead. they have tried to catch the whisper of a vanished voice. many say that they have succeeded. i do not know. _question_. what is the explanation of the startling knowledge displayed by some so-called "mediums" of the history and personal affairs of people who consult them? is there any such thing as mind-reading or thought-transference? _answer_. in a very general way, i suppose that one person may read the thought of another--not definitely, but by the expression of the face, by the attitude of the body, some idea may be obtained as to what a person thinks, what he intends. so thought may be transferred by look or language, but not simply by will. everything that is, is natural. our ignorance is the soil in which mystery grows. i do not believe that thoughts are things that can been seen or touched. each mind lives in a world of its own, a world that no other mind can enter. minds, like ships at sea, give signs and signals to each other, but they do not exchange captains. _question_. is there any such thing as telepathy? what is the explanation of the stories of mental impressions received at long distances? _answer_. there are curious coincidences. people sometimes happen to think of something that is taking place at a great distance. the stories about these happenings are not very well authenticated, and seem never to have been of the least use to anyone. _question_. can these phenomena be considered aside from any connection with, or form of, superstition? _answer_. i think that mistake, emotion, nervousness, hysteria, dreams, love of the wonderful, dishonesty, ignorance, grief and the longing for immortality--the desire to meet the loved and lost, the horror of endless death--account for these phenomena. people often mistake their dreams for realities--often think their thoughts have "happened." they live in a mental mist, a mirage. the boundary between the actual and the imagined becomes faint, wavering and obscure. they mistake clouds for mountains. the real and the unreal mix and mingle until the impossible becomes common, and the natural absurd. _question_. do you believe that any sane man ever had a vision? _answer_. of course, the sane and insane have visions, dreams. i do not believe that any man, sane or insane, was ever visited by an angel or spirit, or ever received any information from the dead. _question_. setting aside from consideration the so-called physical manifestations of the mediums, has spiritualism offered any proof of the immortality of the soul? _answer_. of course spiritualism offers what it calls proof of immortality. that is its principal business. thousands and thousands of good, honest, intelligent people think the proof sufficient. they receive what they believe to be messages from the departed, and now and then the spirits assume their old forms --including garments--and pass through walls and doors as light passes through glass. do these things really happen? if the spirits of the dead do return, then the fact of another life is established. it all depends on the evidence. our senses are easily deceived, and some people have more confidence in their reason than in their senses. _question_. do you not believe that such a man as robert dale owen was sincere? what was the real state of mind of the author of "footfalls on the boundaries of another world"? _answer_. without the slightest doubt, robert dale owen was sincere. he was one of the best of men. his father labored all his life for the good of others. robert owen, the father, had a debate, in cincinnati, with the rev. alexander campbell, the founder of the campbellite church. campbell was no match for owen, and yet the audience was almost unanimously against owen. robert dale owen was an intelligent, thoughtful, honest man. he was deceived by several mediums, but remained a believer. he wanted spiritualism to be true. he hungered and thirsted for another life. he explained everything that was mysterious or curious by assuming the interference of spirits. he was a good man, but a poor investigator. he thought that people were all honest. _question_. what do you understand the spiritualist means when he claims that the soul goes to the "summer land," and there continues to work and evolute to higher planes? _answer_. no one pretends to know where "heaven" is. the celestial realm is the blessed somewhere in the unknown nowhere. so far as i know, the "summer land" has no metes and bounds, and no one pretends to know exactly or inexactly where it is. after all, the "summer land" is a hope--a wish. spiritualists believe that a soul leaving this world passes into another, or into another state, and continues to grow in intelligence and virtue, if it so desires. spiritualists claim to prove that there is another life. christians believe this, but their witnesses have been dead for many centuries. they take the "hearsay" of legend and ancient gossip; but spiritualists claim to have living witnesses; witnesses that can talk, make music; that can take to themselves bodies and shake hands with the people they knew before they passed to the "other shore." _question_. has spiritualism, through its mediums, ever told the world anything useful, or added to the store of the world's knowledge, or relieved its burdens? _answer_. i do not know that any medium has added to the useful knowledge of the world, unless mediums have given evidence of another life. mediums have told us nothing about astronomy, geology or history, have made no discoveries, no inventions, and have enriched no art. the same may be said of every religion. all the orthodox churches believe in spiritualism. every now and then the virgin appears to some peasant, and in the old days the darkness was filled with evil spirits. christ was a spiritualist, and his principal business was the casting out of devils. all of his disciples, all of the church fathers, all of the saints were believers in spiritualism of the lowest and most ignorant type. during the middle ages people changed themselves, with the aid of spirits, into animals. they became wolves, dogs, cats and donkeys. in those day all the witches and wizards were mediums. so animals were sometimes taken possession of by spirits, the same as balaam's donkey and christ's swine. nothing was too absurd for the christians. _question_. has not spiritualism added to the world's stock of hope? and in what way has not spiritualism done good? _answer_. the mother holding in her arms her dead child, believing that the babe has simply passed to another life, does not weep as bitterly as though she thought that death was the eternal end. a belief in spiritualism must be a consolation. you see, the spiritualists do not believe in eternal pain, and consequently a belief in immortality does not fill their hearts with fear. christianity makes eternal life an infinite horror, and casts the glare of hell on almost every grave. the spiritualists appear to be happy in their belief. i have never known a happy orthodox christian. it is natural to shun death, natural to desire eternal life. with all my heart i hope for everlasting life and joy--a life without failures, without crimes and tears. if immortality could be established, the river of life would overflow with happiness. the faces of prisoners, of slaves, of the deserted, of the diseased and starving would be radiant with smiles, and the dull eyes of despair would glow with light. if it could be established. let us hope. --_the journal_, new york, july , . a little of everything. _question_. what is your opinion of the position taken by the united states in the venezuelan dispute? how should the dispute be settled? _answer_. i do not think that we have any interest in the dispute between venezuela and england. it was and is none of our business. the monroe doctrine was not and is not in any way involved. mr. cleveland made a mistake and so did congress. _question_. what should be the attitude of the church toward the stage? _answer_. it should be, what it always has been, against it. if the orthodox churches are right, then the stage is wrong. the stage makes people forget hell; and this puts their souls in peril. there will be forever a conflict between shakespeare and the bible. _question_. what do you think of the new woman? _answer_. i like her. _question_. where rests the responsibility for the armenian atrocities? _answer_. religion is the cause of the hatred and bloodshed. _question_. what do you think of international marriages, as between titled foreigners and american heiresses? _answer_. my opinion is the same as is entertained by the american girl after the marriages. it is a great mistake. _question_. what do you think of england's poet laureate, alfred austin? _answer_. i have only read a few of his lines and they were not poetic. the office of poet laureate should be abolished. men cannot write poems to order as they could deliver cabbages or beer. by poems i do not mean jingles of words. i mean great thoughts clothed in splendor. _question_. what is your estimate of susan b. anthony? _answer_. miss anthony is one of the most remarkable women in the world. she has the enthusiasm of youth and spring, the courage and sincerity of a martyr. she is as reliable as the attraction of gravitation. she is absolutely true to her conviction, intellectually honest, logical, candid and infinitely persistent. no human being has done more for women than miss anthony. she has won the respect and admiration of the best people on the earth. and so i say: good luck and long life to susan b. anthony. _question_. which did more for his country, george washington or abraham lincoln? _answer_. in my judgment, lincoln was the greatest man ever president. i put him above washington and jefferson. he had the genius of goodness; and he was one of the wisest and shrewdest of men. lincoln towers above them all. _question_. what gave rise to the report that you had been converted --did you go to church somewhere? _answer_. i visited the "people's church" in kalamazoo, michigan. this church has no creed. the object is to make people happy in this world. miss bartlett is the pastor. she is a remarkable woman and is devoting her life to good work. i liked her church and said so. this is all. _question_. are there not some human natures so morally weak or diseased that they cannot keep from sin without the aid of some sort of religion? _answer_. i do not believe that the orthodox religion helps anybody to be just, generous or honest. superstition is not the soil in which goodness grows. falsehood is poor medicine. _question_. would you consent to live in any but a christian community? if you would, please name one. _answer_. i would not live in a community where all were orthodox christians. i would rather dwell in central africa. if i could have my choice i would rather live among people who were free, who sought for truth and lived according to reason. sometime there will be such a community. _question_. is the noun "united states" singular or plural, as you use english? _answer_. i use it in the singular. _question_. have you read nordau's "degeneracy"? if so, what do you think of it? _answer_. i think it is substantially insane. _question_. what do you think of bishop doane's advocacy of free rum as a solution of the liquor problem? _answer_. i am a believer in liberty. all the temperance legislation, all the temperance societies, all the agitation, all these things have done no good. _question_. do you agree with mr. carnegie that a college education is of little or no practical value to a man? _answer_. a man must have education. it makes no difference where or how he gets it. to study the dead languages is time wasted so far as success in business is concerned. most of the colleges in this country are poor because controlled by theologians. _question_. what suggestion would you make for the improvement of the newspapers of this country? _answer_. every article in a newspaper should be signed by the writer. and all writers should do their best to tell the exact facts. _question_. what do you think of niagara falls? _answer_. it is a dangerous place. those great rushing waters-- there is nothing attractive to me in them. there is so much noise; so much tumult. it is simply a mighty force of nature--one of those tremendous powers that is to be feared for its danger. what i like in nature is a cultivated field, where men can work in the free open air, where there is quiet and repose--no turmoil, no strife, no tumult, no fearful roar or struggle for mastery. i do not like the crowded, stuffy workshop, where life is slavery and drudgery. give me the calm, cultivated land of waving grain, of flowers, of happiness. _question_. what is worse than death? _answer_. oh, a great many things. to be dishonored. to be worthless. to feel that you are a failure. to be insane. to be constantly afraid of the future. to lose the ones you love. --_the herald_, rochester, new york, february , . is life worth living--christian science and politics. _question_. with all your experiences, the trials, the responsibilities, the disappointments, the heartburnings, colonel, is life worth living? _answer_. well, i can only answer for myself. i like to be alive, to breathe the air, to look at the landscape, the clouds and stars, to repeat old poems, to look at pictures and statues, to hear music, the voices of the ones i love. i like to talk with my wife, my girls, my grandchildren. i like to sleep and to dream. yes, you can say that life, to me, is worth living. _question_. colonel, did you ever kill any game? _answer_. when i was a boy i killed two ducks, and it hurt me as much as anything i ever did. no, i would not kill any living creature. i am sometimes tempted to kill a mosquito on my hand, but i stop and think what a wonderful construction it has, and shoo it away. _question_. what do you think of political parties, colonel? _answer_. in a country where the sovereignty is divided among the people, that is to say, among the men, in order to accomplish anything, many must unite, and i believe in joining the party that is going the nearest your way. i do not believe in being the slave or serf or servant of a party. go with it if it is going your road, and when the road forks, take the one that leads to the place you wish to visit, no matter whether the party goes that way or not. i do not believe in belonging to a party or being the property of any organization. i do not believe in giving a mortgage on yourself or a deed of trust for any purpose whatever. it is better to be free and vote wrong than to be a slave and vote right. i believe in taking the chances. at the same time, as long as a party is going my way, i believe in placing that party above particular persons, and if that party nominates a man that i despise, i will vote for him if he is going my way. i would rather have a bad man belonging to my party in place, than a good man belonging to the other, provided my man believes in my principles, and to that extent i believe in party loyalty. neither do i join in the general hue and cry against bosses. there has always got to be a leader, even in a flock of wild geese. if anything is to be accomplished, no matter what, somebody takes the lead and the others allow him to go on. in that way political bosses are made, and when you hear a man howling against bosses at the top of his lungs, distending his cheeks to the bursting point, you may know that he has ambition to become a boss. i do not belong to the republican party, but i have been going with it, and when it goes wrong i shall quit, unless the other is worse. there is no office, no place, that i want, and as it does not cost anything to be right, i think it better to be that way. _question_. what is your idea of christian science? _answer_. i think it is superstition, pure and unadulterated. i think that soda will cure a sour stomach better than thinking. in my judgment, quinine is a better tonic than meditation. of course cheerfulness is good and depression bad, but if you can absolutely control the body and all its functions by thought, what is the use of buying coal? let the mercury go down and keep yourself hot by thinking. what is the use of wasting money for food? fill your stomach with think. according to these christian science people all that really exists is an illusion, and the only realities are the things that do not exist. they are like the old fellow in india who said that all things were illusions. one day he was speaking to a crowd on his favorite hobby. just as he said "all is illusion" a fellow on an elephant rode toward him. the elephant raised his trunk as though to strike, thereupon the speaker ran away. then the crowd laughed. in a few moments the speaker returned. the people shouted: "if all is illusion, what made you run away?" the speaker replied: "my poor friends, i said all is illusion. i say so still. there was no elephant. i did not run away. you did not laugh, and i am not explaining now. all is illusion." that man must have been a christian scientist. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, november, . vivisection. _question_. why are you so utterly opposed to vivisection? _answer_. because, as it is generally practiced, it is an unspeakable cruelty. because it hardens the hearts and demoralizes those who inflict useless and terrible pains on the bound and helpless. if these vivisectionists would give chloroform or ether to the animals they dissect; if they would render them insensible to pain, and if, by cutting up these animals, they could learn anything worth knowing, no one would seriously object. the trouble is that these doctors, these students, these professors, these amateurs, do not give anesthetics. they insist that to render the animal insensible does away with the value of the experiment. they care nothing for the pain they inflict. they are so eager to find some fact that will be of benefit to the human race, that they are utterly careless of the agony endured. now, what i say is that no decent man, no gentleman, no civilized person, would vivisect an animal without first having rendered that animal insensible to pain. the doctor, the scientist, who puts his knives, forceps, chisels and saws into the flesh, bones and nerves of an animal without having used an anesthetic, is a savage, a pitiless, heartless monster. when he says he does this for the good of man, because he wishes to do good, he says what is not true. no such man wants to do good; he commits the crime for his own benefit and because he wishes to gratify an insane cruelty or to gain a reputation among like savages. these scientists now insist that they have done some good. they do not tell exactly what they have done. the claim is general in its character--not specific. if they have done good, could they not have done just as much if they had used anesthetics? good is not the child of cruelty. _question_. do you think that the vivisectionists do their work without anesthetics? do they not, as a rule, give something to deaden pain? _answer_. here is what the trouble is. now and then one uses chloroform, but the great majority do not. they claim that it interferes with the value of the experiment, and, as i said before, they object to the expense. why should they care for what the animals suffer? they inflict the most horrible and useless pain, and they try the silliest experiments--experiments of no possible use or advantage. for instance: they flay a dog to see how long he can live without his skin. is this trifling experiment of any importance? suppose the dog can live a week or a month or a year, what then? what must the real character of the scientific wretch be who would try an experiment like this? is such a man seeking the good of his fellow- men? so, these scientists starve animals until they slowly die; watch them from day to day as life recedes from the extremities, and watch them until the final surrender, to see how long the heart will flutter without food; without water. they keep a diary of their sufferings, of their whinings and moanings, of their insanity. and this diary is published and read with joy and eagerness by other scientists in like experiments. of what possible use is it to know how long a dog or horse can live without food? so, they take animals, dogs and horses, cut through the flesh with the knife, remove some of the back bone with the chisel, then divide the spinal marrow, then touch it with red hot wires for the purpose of finding, as they say, the connection of nerves; and the animal, thus vivisected, is left to die. a good man will not voluntarily inflict pain. he will see that his horse has food, if he can procure it, and if he cannot procure the food, he will end the sufferings of the animal in the best and easiest way. so, the good man would rather remain in ignorance as to how pain is transmitted than to cut open the body of a living animal, divide the marrow and torture the nerves with red hot iron. of what use can it be to take a dog, tie him down and cut out one of his kidneys to see if he can live with the other? these horrors are perpetrated only by the cruel and the heartless --so cruel and so heartless that they are utterly unfit to be trusted with a human life. they innoculate animals with a virus of disease; they put poison in their eyes until rottenness destroys the sight; until the poor brutes become insane. they given them a disease that resembles hydrophobia, that is accompanied by the most frightful convulsions and spasms. they put them in ovens to see what degree of heat it is that kills. they also try the effect of cold; they slowly drown them; they poison them with the venom of snakes; they force foreign substances into their blood, and, by inoculation, into their eyes; and then watch and record their agonies; their sufferings. _question_. don't you think that some good has been accomplished, some valuable information obtained, by vivisection? _answer_. i don't think any valuable information has been obtained by the vivisection of animals without chloroform that could not have been obtained with chloroform. and to answer the question broadly as to whether any good has been accomplished by vivisection, i say no. according to the best information that i can obtain, the vivisectors have hindered instead of helped. lawson tait, who stands at the head of his profession in england, the best surgeon in great britain, says that all this cutting and roasting and freezing and torturing of animals has done harm instead of good. he says publicly that the vivisectors have hindered the progress of surgery. he declares that they have not only done no good, but asserts that they have done only harm. the same views according to doctor tait, are entertained by bell, syme and fergusson. many have spoken of darwin as though he were a vivisector. this is not true. all that has been accomplished by these torturers of dumb and helpless animals amounts to nothing. we have obtained from these gentlemen koch's cure for consumption, pasteur's factory of hydrophobia and brown-sequard's elixir of life. these three failures, gigantic, absurd, ludicrous, are the great accomplishment of vivisection. surgery has advanced, not by the heartless tormentors of animals, but by the use of anesthetics--that is to say, chloroform, ether and cocaine. the cruel wretches, the scientific assassins, have accomplished nothing. hundreds of thousands of animals have suffered every pain that nerves can feel, and all for nothing--nothing except to harden the heart and to make criminals of men. they have not given anesthetics to these animals, but they have been guilty of the last step in cruelty. they have given curare, a drug that attacks the centers of motion, that makes it impossible for the animal to move, so that when under its influence, no matter what the pain may be, the animal lies still. this curare not only destroys the power of motion, but increases the sensitiveness of the nerves. to give this drug and then to dissect the living animal is the extreme of cruelty. beyond this, heartlessness cannot go. _question_. do you know that you have been greatly criticized for what you have said on this subject? _answer_. yes; i have read many criticisms; but what of that. it is impossible for the ingenuity of man to say anything in defence of cruelty--of heartlessness. so, it is impossible for the defenders of vivisection to show any good that has been accomplished without the use of anesthetics. the chemist ought to be able to determine what is and what is not poison. there is no need of torturing the animals. so, this giving to animals diseases is of no importance to man--not the slightest; and nothing has been discovered in bacteriology so far that has been of use or that is of benefit. personally, i admit that all have the right to criticise; and my answer to the critics is, that they do not know the facts; or, knowing them, they are interested in preventing a knowledge of these facts coming to the public. vivisection should be controlled by law. no animal should be allowed to be tortured. and to cut up a living animal not under the influence of chloroform or ether, should be a penitentiary offence. a perfect reply to all the critics who insist that great good has been done is to repeat the three names--koch, pasteur and brown- sequard. the foundation of civilization is not cruelty; it is justice, generosity, mercy. --_evening telegram_, new york, september , . divorce. _question_. the _herald_ would like to have you give your ideas on divorce. on last sunday in your lecture you said a few words on the subject, but only a few. do you think the laws governing divorce ought to be changed? _answer_. we obtained our ideas about divorce from the hebrews-- from the new testament and the church. in the old testament woman is not considered of much importance. the wife was the property of the husband. "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox or his wife." in this commandment the wife is put on an equality with other property, so under certain conditions the husband could put away his wife, but the wife could not put away her husband. in the new testament there is little in favor of marriage, and really nothing as to the rights of wives. christ said nothing in favor of marriage, and never married. so far as i know, none of the apostles had families. st. paul was opposed to marriage, and allowed it only as a choice of evils. in those days it was imagined by the christians that the world was about to be purified by fire, and that they would be changed into angels. the early christians were opposed to marriage, and the "fathers" looked upon woman as the source of all evil. they did not believe in divorces. they thought that if people loved each other better than they did god, and got married, they ought to be held to the bargain, no matter what happened. these "fathers" were, for the most part, ignorant and hateful savages, and had no more idea of right and wrong than wild beasts. the church insisted that marriage was a sacrament, and that god, in some mysterious way, joined husband and wife in marriage--that he was one of the parties to the contract, and that only death could end it. of course, this supernatural view of marriage is perfectly absurd. if there be a god, there certainly have been marriages he did not approve, and certain it is that god can have no interest in keeping husbands and wives together who never should have married. some of the preachers insist that god instituted marriage in the garden of eden. we now know that there was no garden of eden, and that woman was not made from the first man's rib. nobody with any real sense believes this now. the institution of marriage was not established by jehovah. neither was it established by christ, not any of his apostles. in considering the question of divorce, the supernatural should be discarded. we should take into consideration only the effect upon human beings. the gods should be allowed to take care of themselves. is it to the interest of a husband and wife to live together after love has perished and when they hate each other? will this add to their happiness? should a woman be compelled to remain the wife of a man who hates and abuses her, and whom she loathes? has society any interest in forcing women to live with men they hate? there is no real marriage without love, and in the marriage state there is no morality without love. a woman who remains the wife of a man whom she despises, or does not love, corrupts her soul. she becomes degraded, polluted, and feels that her flesh has been soiled. under such circumstances a good woman suffers the agonies of moral death. it may be said that the woman can leave her husband; that she is not compelled to live in the same house or to occupy the same room. if she has the right to leave, has she the right to get a new house? should a woman be punished for having married? women do not marry the wrong men on purpose. thousands of mistakes are made--are these mistakes sacred? must they be preserved to please god? what good can it do god to keep people married who hate each other? what good can it do the community to keep such people together? _question_. do you consider marriage a contract or a sacrament? _answer_. marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. no matter whether it is called a contract or a sacrament, it remains the same. a true marriage is a natural concord or agreement of souls--a harmony in which discord is not even imagined. it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist. all other considerations are lost. the present seems eternal. in this supreme moment there is no shadow, or the shadow is as luminous as light. when two beings thus love, thus united, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. the idea of contract is lost. duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one. this is real marriage. now, if the man turns out to be a wild beast, if he destroys the happiness of the wife, why should she remain his victim? if she wants a divorce, she should have it. the divorce will not hurt god or the community. as a matter of fact, it will save a life. no man not poisoned by superstition will object to the release of an abused wife. in such a case only savages can object to divorce. the man who wants courts and legislatures to force a woman to live with him is a monster. _question_. do you believe that the divorced should be allowed to marry again? _answer_. certainly. has the woman whose rights have been outraged no right to build another home? must this woman, full of kindness, affection and health, be chained until death releases her? is there no future for her? must she be an outcast forever? can she never sit by her own hearth, with the arms of her children about her neck, and by her side a husband who loves and protects her? there are no two sides to this question. all human beings should be allowed to correct their mistakes. if the wife has flagrantly violated the contract of marriage, the husband should be given a divorce. if the wife wants a divorce, if she loathes her husband, if she no longer loves him, then the divorce should be granted. it is immoral for a woman to live as the wife of a man whom she abhors. the home should be pure. children should be well-born. their parents should love one another. marriages are made by men and women, not by society, not by the state, not by the church, not by the gods. nothing is moral, that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings. the good home is the unit of good government. the hearthstone is the corner-stone of civilization. society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes. it is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. most of the laws about divorce are absurd or cruel, and ought to be repealed. --_the herald_, new york, february, . music, newspapers, lynching and arbitration. _question_. how do you enjoy staying in chicago? _answer_. well, i am about as happy as a man can be when he is away from home. i was at the opera last night. i am always happy when i hear the music of wagner interpreted by such a genius as seidl. i do not believe there is a man in the world who has in his brain and heart more of the real spirit of wagner than anton seidl. he knows how to lead, how to phrase and shade, how to rush and how to linger, and to express every passion and every mood. so i was happy last night to hear him. then i heard edouard de reszke, the best of bass singers, with tones of a great organ, and others soft and liquid, and jean de reszke, a great tenor, who sings the "swan song" as though inspired; and i liked bispham, but hated his part. he is a great singer; so is mme. litvinne. so, i can say that i am enjoying chicago. in fact, i always did. i was here when the town was small, not much more than huts and hogs, lumber and mud; and now it is one of the greatest of cities. it makes me happy just to think of the difference. i was born the year chicago was incorporated. in my time matches were invented. steam navigation became really useful. the telegraph was invented. gas was discovered and applied to practical uses, and electricity was made known in its practical workings to mankind. thus, it is seen the world is progressing; men are becoming civilized. but the process of civilization even now is slow. in one or two thousand years we may hope to see a vast improvement in man's condition. we may expect to have the employer so far civilized that he will not try to make money for money's sake, but in order that he may apply it to good uses, to the amelioration of his fellow-man's condition. we may also expect the see the workingman, the employee, so far civilized that he will know it is impossible and undesirable for him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his employer. we may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. altruism is nonsense, craziness. _question_. is chicago as liberal, intellectually, as new york? _answer_. i think so. of course you will find thousands of free, thoughtful people in new york--people who think and want others to do the same. so, there are thousands of respectable people who are centuries behind the age. in other words, you will find all kinds. i presume the same is true of chicago. i find many liberal people here, and some not quite so liberal. some of the papers here seem to be edited by real pious men. on last tuesday the _times-herald_ asked pardon of its readers for having given a report of my lecture. that editor must be pious. in the same paper, columns were given to the prospective prize- fight at carson city. all the news about the good corbett and the orthodox fitzsimmons--about the training of the gentlemen who are going to attack each others' jugulars and noses; who are expected to break jaws, blacken eyes, and peel foreheads in a few days, to settle the question of which can bear the most pounding. in this great contest and in all its vulgar details, the readers of the _times-herald_ are believed by the editor of that religious daily to take great interest. the editor did not ask the pardon of his readers for giving so much space to the nose-smashing sport. no! he knew that would fill their souls with delight, and, so knowing, he reached the correct conclusion that such people would not enjoy anything i had said. the editor did a wise thing and catered to a large majority of his readers. i do not think that we have as religious a daily paper in new york as the _times-herald_. so the editor of the _times- herald_ took the ground that men with little learning, in youth, might be agnostic, but as they grew sensible they would become orthodox. when he wrote that he was probably thinking of humboldt and darwin, of huxley and haeckel. may be herbert spencer was in his mind, but i think that he must have been thinking of a few boys in his native village. _question_. what do you think about prize-fighting anyway? _answer_. well, i think that prize-fighting is worse, if possible, than revival meetings. next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old roman days, i think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and degrading of exhibitions. all fights, whether cock- fights, bull-fights or pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. no matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are simply savages. under no possible circumstances would i witness a prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. the marquis of queensbury was once at my house, and i found his opinions were the same as mine. everyone thinks that he had something to do with the sport of prize-fighting, but he did not, except to make some rules once for a college boxing contest. he told me that he never saw but one prize-fight in his life, and that it made him sick. _question_. how are you on the arbitration treaty? _answer_. i am for it with all my heart. i have read it, and read it with care, and to me it seems absolutely fair. england and america should set an example to the world. the english-speaking people have reason enough and sense enough, i hope, to settle their differences by argument--by reason. let us get the wild beast out of us. two great nations like england and america appealing to force, arguing with shot and shell! what is education worth? is what we call civilization a sham? yes, i believe in peace, in arbitration, in settling disputes like reasonable, human beings. all that war can do is to determine who is the stronger. it throws no light on any question, addresses no argument. there is a point to a bayonet, but no logic. after the war is over the victory does not tell which nation was right. civilized men take their differences to courts or arbitrators. civilized nations should do the same. there ought to be an international court. let every man do all he can to prevent war--to prevent the waste, the cruelties, the horrors that follow every flag on every field of battle. it is time that man was human--time that the beast was out of his heart. _question_. what do you think of mckinley's inaugural? _answer_. it is good, honest, clear, patriotic and sensible. there is one thing in it that touched me; i agree with him that lynching has to be stopped. you see that now we are citizens of the united states, not simply of the state in which we happen to live. i take the ground that it is the business of the united states to protect its citizens, not only when they are in some other country, but when they are at home. the united states cannot discharge this obligation by allowing the states to do as they please. where citizens are being lynched the government should interfere. if the governor of some barbarian state says that he cannot protect the lives of citizens, then the united states should, if it took the entire army and navy. _question_. what is your opinion of charity organizations? _answer_. i think that the people who support them are good and generous--splendid--but i have a poor opinion of the people in charge. as a rule, i think they are cold, impudent and heartless. there is too much circumlocution, or too many details and too little humanity. the jews are exceedingly charitable. i think that in new york the men who are doing the most for their fellow-men are jews. nathan strauss is trying to feed the hungry, warm the cold, and clothe the naked. for the most part, organized charities are, i think, failures. a real charity has to be in the control of a good man, a real sympathetic, a sensible man, one who helps others to help themselves. let a hungry man go to an organized society and it requires several days to satisfy the officers that the man is hungry. meanwhile he will probably starve to death. _question_. do you believe in free text-books in the public schools? _answer_. i do not care about the text-book question. but i am in favor of the public school. nothing should be taught that somebody does not know. no superstitions--nothing but science. _question_. there has been a good deal said lately about your suicide theology, colonel. do you still believe that suicide is justifiable? _answer_. certainly. when a man is useless to himself and to others he has a right to determine what he will do about living. the only thing to be considered is a man's obligation to his fellow- beings and to himself. i don't take into consideration any supernatural nonsense. if god wants a man to stay here he ought to make it more comfortable for him. _question_. since you expounded your justification of suicide, colonel, i believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at your door? _answer_. oh, yes. every suicide that has happened since that time has been charged to me. i don't know how the people account for the suicides before my time. i have not yet heard of my being charged with the death of cato, but that may yet come to pass. i was reading the other day that the rate of suicide in germany is increasing. i suppose my article has been translated into german. _question_. how about lying, colonel? is it ever right to lie? _answer_. of course, sometimes. in war when a man is captured by the enemy he ought to lie to them to mislead them. what we call strategy is nothing more than lies. for the accomplishment of a good end, for instance, the saving of a woman's reputation, it is many times perfectly right to lie. as a rule, people ought to tell the truth. if it is right to kill a man to save your own life it certainly ought to be right to fool him for the same purpose. i would rather be deceived than killed, wouldn't you? --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, march, . a visit to shaw's garden. _question_. i was told that you came to st. louis on your wedding trip some thirty years ago and went to shaw's garden? _answer_. yes; we were married on the th of february, . we were here in st. louis, and we did visit shaw's garden, and we thought it perfectly beautiful. afterward we visited the kew gardens in london, but our remembrance of shaw's left kew in the shade. of course, i have been in st. louis many times, my first visit being, i think, in . i have always liked the town. i was acquainted at one time with a great many of your old citizens. most of them have died, and i know but few of the present generation. i used to stop at the old planter's house, and i was there quite often during the war. in those days i saw hackett as falstaff, the best falstaff that ever lived. ben de bar was here then, and the maddern sisters, and now the daughter of one of the sisters, minnie maddern fiske, is one of the greatest actresses in the world. she has made a wonderful hit in new york this season. and so the ebb and flow of life goes on--the old pass and the young arrive. "death and progress!" it may be that death is, after all, a great blessing. maybe it gives zest and flavor to life, ardor and flame to love. at the same time i say, "long life" to all my friends. i want to live--i get great happiness out of life. i enjoy the company of my friends. i enjoy seeing the faces of the ones i love. i enjoy art and music. i love shakespeare and burns; love to hear the music of wagner; love to see a good play. i take pleasure in eating and sleeping. the fact is, i like to breathe. i want to get all the happiness out of life that i can. i want to suck the orange dry, so that when death comes nothing but the peelings will be left, and so i say: "long life!" --_the republic_, st. louis, april , . the venezuelan boundary discussion and the whipping-post. _question_. what is your opinion as to the action of the president on the venezuelan matter? _answer_. in my judgment, the president acted in haste and without thought. it may be said that it would have been well enough for him to have laid the correspondence before congress and asked for an appropriation for a commission to ascertain the facts, to the end that our government might intelligently act. there was no propriety in going further than that. to almost declare war before the facts were known was a blunder--almost a crime. for my part, i do not think the monroe doctrine has anything to do with the case. mr. olney reasons badly, and it is only by a perversion of facts, and an exaggeration of facts, and by calling in question the motives of england that it is possible to conclude that the monroe doctrine has or can have anything to do with the controversy. the president went out of his way to find a cause of quarrel. nobody doubts the courage of the american people, and we for that reason can afford to be sensible and prudent. valor and discretion should go together. nobody doubts the courage of england. america and england are the leading nations, and in their keeping, to a great extent, is the glory of the future. they should be at peace. should a difference arise it should be settled without recourse to war. fighting settles nothing but the relative strength. no light is thrown on the cause of the conflict--on the question or fact that caused the war. _question_. do you think that there is any danger of war? _answer_. if the members of congress really represent the people, then there is danger. but i do not believe the people will really want to fight about a few square miles of malarial territory in venezuela--something in which they have no earthly or heavenly interest. the people do not wish to fight for fight's sake. when they understand the question they will regard the administration as almost insane. the message has already cost us more than the war of or the mexican war, or both. stocks and bonds have decreased in value several hundred millions, and the end is not yet. it may be that it will, on account of the panic, be impossible for the government to maintain the gold standard--the reserve. then gold would command a premium, the government would be unable to redeem the greenbacks, and the result would be financial chaos, and all this the result of mr. cleveland's curiosity about a boundary line between two countries, in neither of which we have any interest, and this curiosity has already cost us more than both countries, including the boundary line, are worth. the president made a great mistake. so did the house and senate, and the poor people have paid a part of the cost. _question_. what is your opinion of the gerry whipping post bill? _answer_. i see that it has passed the senate, and yet i think it is a disgrace to the state. how the senators can go back to torture, to the dark ages, to the custom of savagery, is beyond belief. i hope that the house is nearer civilized, and that the infamous bill will be defeated. if, however, the bill should pass, then i hope governor morton will veto it. nothing is more disgusting, more degrading, than the whipping-post. it degrades the whipped and the whipper. it degrades all who witness the flogging. what kind of a person will do the whipping? men who would apply the lash to the naked backs of criminals would have to be as low as the criminals, and probably a little lower. the shadow of the whipping-post does not fall on any civilized country, and never will. the next thing we know mr. gerry will probably introduce some bill to brand criminals on the forehead or cut off their ears and slit their noses. this is in the same line, and is born of the same hellish spirit. there is no reforming power in torture, in bruising and mangling the flesh. if the bill becomes a law, i hope it will provide that the lash shall be applied by mr. gerry and his successors in office. let these pretended enemies of cruelty enjoy themselves. if the bill passes, i presume mr. gerry could get a supply of knouts from russia, as that country has just abolished the whipping-post. --_the journal_, new york, december , . colonel shepard's stage horses.* [* one of colonel shepard's equine wrecks was picked up on fifth avenue yesterday by the prevention of cruelty society, and was laid up for repairs. the horse was about twenty-eight years old, badly foundered, and its leg was cut and bleeding. it was the leader of three that had been hauling a fifth avenue stage, and, according to the society's agents, was in about as bad a condition as a horse could be and keep on his feet. the other two horses were little better, neither of them being fit to drive. colonel shepard's scrawny nags have long been an eyesore to colonel robert g. ingersoll, who is compelled to see them from his windows at number fifth avenue. he said last night: ] it might not be in good taste for me to say anything about colonel shepard's horses. he might think me prejudiced. but i am satisfied horses cannot live on faith or on the substance of things hoped for. it is far better for the horse, to feed him without praying, than to pray without feeding him. it is better to be kind even to animals, than to quote scripture in small capitals. now, i am not saying anything against colonel shepard. i do not know how he feeds his horses. if he is as good and kind as he is pious, then i have nothing to say. maybe he does not allow the horses to break the sabbath by eating. they are so slow that they make one think of a fast. they put me in mind of the garden of eden--the rib story. when i watch them on the avenue i, too, fall to quoting scripture, and say, "can these dry bones live?" still, i have a delicacy on this subject; i hate to think about it, and i think the horses feel the same way. --_morning advertiser_, new york, january , . a reply to the rev. l. a. banks. _question_. have you read the remarks made about you by the rev. mr. banks, and what do you think of what he said? _answer_. the reverend gentleman pays me a great compliment by comparing me to a circus. everybody enjoys the circus. they love to see the acrobats, the walkers on the tight rope, the beautiful girls on the horses, and they laugh at the wit of the clowns. they are delighted with the jugglers, with the music of the band. they drink the lemonade, eat the colored popcorn and laugh until they nearly roll off their seats. now the circus has a few animals so that christians can have an excuse for going. think of the joy the circus gives to the boys and girls. they look at the show bills, see the men and women flying through the air, bursting through paper hoops, the elephants standing on their heads, and the clowns, in curious clothes, with hands on their knees and open mouths, supposed to be filled with laughter. all the boys and girls for many miles around know the blessed day. they save their money, obey their parents, and when the circus comes they are on hand. they see the procession and then they see the show. they are all happy. no sermon ever pleased them as much, and in comparison even the sunday school is tame and dull. to feel that i have given as much joy as the circus fills me with pleasure. what chance would the rev. dr. banks stand against a circus? the reverend gentleman has done me a great honor, and i tender him my sincere thanks. _question_. dr. banks says that you write only one lecture a year, while preachers write a brand new one every week--that if you did that people would tire of you. what have you to say to that? _answer_. it may be that great artists paint only one picture a year, and it may be that sign painters can do several jobs a day. still, i would not say that the sign painters were superior to the artists. there is quite a difference between a sculptor and a stone-cutter. there are thousands of preachers and thousands and thousands of sermons preached every year. has any orthodox minister in the year given just one paragraph to literature? has any orthodox preacher uttered one great thought, clothed in perfect english that thrilled the hearers like music--one great strophe that became one of the treasures of memory? i will make the question a little clearer. has any orthodox preacher, or any preacher in an orthodox pulpit uttered a paragraph of what may be called sculptured speech since henry ward beecher died? i do not wonder that the sermons are poor. their doctrines have been discussed for centuries. there is little chance for originality; they not only thresh old straw, but the thresh straw that has been threshed a million times--straw in which there has not been a grain of wheat for hundreds of years. no wonder that they have nervous prostration. no wonder that they need vacations, and no wonder that their congregations enjoy the vacations as keenly as the ministers themselves. better deliver a real good address fifty-two times than fifty-two poor ones--just for the sake of variety. _question_. dr. banks says that the tendency at present is not toward agnosticism, but toward christianity. what is your opinion? _answer_. when i was a boy "infidels" were very rare. a man who denied the inspiration of the bible was regarded as a monster. now there are in this country millions who regard the bible as the work of ignorant and superstitious men. a few years ago the bible was the standard. all scientific theories were tested by the bible. now science is the standard and the bible is tested by that. dr. banks did not mention the names of the great scientists who are or were christians, but he probably thought of laplace, humboldt, haeckel, huxley, spencer, tyndall, darwin, helmholtz and draper. when he spoke of christian statesmen he likely thought of jefferson, franklin, washington, paine and lincoln--or he may have thought of pierce, fillmore and buchanan. but, after all, there is no argument in names. a man is not necessarily great because he holds office or wears a crown or talks in a pulpit. facts, reasons, are better than names. but it seems to me that nothing can be plainer than that the church is losing ground--that the people are discarding the creeds and that superstition has passed the zenith of its power. _question_. dr. banks says that christ did not mention the western hemisphere because god does nothing for men that they can do for themselves. what have you to say? _answer_. christ said nothing about the western hemisphere because he did not know that it existed. he did not know the shape of the earth. he was not a scientist--never even hinted at any science-- never told anybody to investigate--to think. his idea was that this life should be spent in preparing for the next. for all the evils of this life, and the next, faith was his remedy. i see from the report in the paper that dr. banks, after making the remarks about me preached a sermon on "herod the villain in the drama of christ." who made herod? dr. banks will answer that god made him. did god know what herod would do? yes. did he know that he would cause the children to be slaughtered in his vain efforts to kill the infant christ? yes. dr. banks will say that god is not responsible for herod because he gave herod freedom. did god know how herod would use his freedom? did he know that he would become the villain in the drama of christ? yes. who, then, is really responsible for the acts of herod? if i could change a stone into a human being, and if i could give this being freedom of will, and if i knew that if i made him he would murder a man, and if with that knowledge i made him, and he did commit a murder, who would be the real murderer? will dr. banks in his fifty-two sermons of next year show that his god is not responsible for the crimes of herod? no doubt dr. banks is a good man, and no doubt he thinks that liberty of thought leads to hell, and honestly believes that all doubt comes from the devil. i do not blame him. he thinks as he must. he is a product of conditions. he ought to be my friend because i am doing the best i can to civilize his congregation. --_the plain dealer_, cleveland, ohio, . cuba--zola and theosophy. _question_. what do you think, colonel, of the cuban question? _answer_. what i know about this question is known by all. i suppose that the president has information that i know nothing about. of course, all my sympathies are with the cubans. they are making a desperate--an heroic struggle for their freedom. for many years they have been robbed and trampled under foot. spain is, and always has been, a terrible master--heartless and infamous. there is no language with which to tell what cuba has suffered. in my judgment, this country should assist the cubans. we ought to acknowledge the independence of that island, and we ought to feed the starving victims of spain. for years we have been helping spain. cleveland did all he could to prevent the cubans from getting arms and men. this was a criminal mistake--a mistake that even spain did not appreciate. all this should instantly be reversed, and we should give aid to cuba. the war that spain is waging shocks every civilized man. spain has always been the same. in holland, in peru, in mexico, she was infinitely cruel, and she is the same to-day. she loves to torture, to imprison, to degrade, to kill. her idea of perfect happiness is to shed blood. spain is a legacy of the dark ages. she belongs to the den, the cave period. she has no business to exist. she is a blot, a stain on the map of the world. of course there are some good spaniards, but they are not in control. i want cuba to be free. i want spain driven from the western world. she has already starved five hundred thousand cubans--poor, helpless non-combatants. among the helpless she is like a hyena--a tiger among lambs. this country ought to stop this gigantic crime. we should do this in the name of humanity--for the sake of the starving, the dying. _question_. do you think we are going to have war with spain? _answer_. i do not think there will be war. unless spain is insane, she will not attack the united states. she is bankrupt. no nation will assist her. a civilized nation would be ashamed to take her hand, to be her friend. she has not the power to put down the rebellion in cuba. how then can she hope to conquer this country? she is full of brag and bluster. of course she will play her hand for all it is worth, so far as talk goes. she will double her fists and make motions. she will assume the attitude of war, but she will never fight. should she commence hostilities, the war would be short. she would lose her navy. the little commerce she has would be driven from the sea. she would drink to the dregs the cup of humiliation and disgrace. i do not believe that spain is insane enough to fire upon our flag. i know that there is nothing too mean, too cruel for her to do, but still she must have sense enough to try and save her own life. no, i think there will be no war, but i believe that cuba will be free. my opinion is that the maine was blown up from the outside--blown up by spanish officers, and i think the report of the board will be to that effect. such a crime ought to redden even the cheeks of spain. as soon as this fact is known, other nations will regard spain with hatred and horror. if the maine was destroyed by spain we will ask for indemnity. the people insist that the account be settled and at once. possibly we may attack spain. there is the only danger of war. we must avenge that crime. the destruction of two hundred and fifty-nine americans must be avenged. free cuba must be their monument. i hope for the sake of human nature that the spanish did not destroy the maine. i hope it was the result of an accident. i hope there is to be no war, but spain must be driven from the new world. _question_. what about zola's trial and conviction? _answer_. it was one of the most infamous trials in the history of the world. zola is a great man, a genius, the best man in france. his trial was a travesty on justice. the judge acted like a bandit. the proceedings were a disgrace to human nature. the jurors must have been ignorant beasts. the french have disgraced themselves. long live zola. _question_. having expressed yourself less upon the subject of theosophy than upon other religious beliefs, and as theosophy denies the existence of a god as worshiped by christianity, what is your idea of the creed? _answer_. insanity. i think it is a mild form of delusion and illusion; vague, misty, obscure, half dream, mixed with other mistakes and fragments of facts--a little philosophy, absurdity-- a few impossibilities--some improbabilities--some accounts of events that never happened--some prophecies that will not come to pass-- a structure without foundation. but the theosophists are good people; kind and honest. theosophy is based on the supernatural and is just as absurd as the orthodox creeds. --_the courier-journal_, louisville, ky., february, . how to become an orator. _question_. what advice would you give to a young man who was ambitious to become a successful public speaker or orator? _answer_. in the first place, i would advise him to have something to say--something worth saying--something that people would be glad to hear. this is the important thing. back of the art of speaking must be the power to think. without thoughts words are empty purses. most people imagine that almost any words uttered in a loud voice and accompanied by appropriate gestures, constitute an oration. i would advise the young man to study his subject, to find what others had thought, to look at it from all sides. then i would tell him to write out his thoughts or to arrange them in his mind, so that he would know exactly what he was going to say. waste no time on the how until you are satisfied with the what. after you know what you are to say, then you can think of how it should be said. then you can think about tone, emphasis, and gesture; but if you really understand what you say, emphasis, tone, and gesture will take care of themselves. all these should come from the inside. they should be in perfect harmony with the feelings. voice and gesture should be governed by the emotions. they should unconsciously be in perfect agreement with the sentiments. the orator should be true to his subject, should avoid any reference to himself. the great column of his argument should be unbroken. he can adorn it with vines and flowers, but they should not be in such profusion as to hide the column. he should give variety of episode by illustrations, but they should be used only for the purpose of adding strength to the argument. the man who wishes to become an orator should study language. he should know the deeper meaning of words. he should understand the vigor and velocity of verbs and the color of adjectives. he should know how to sketch a scene, to paint a picture, to give life and action. he should be a poet and a dramatist, a painter and an actor. he should cultivate his imagination. he should become familiar with the great poetry and fiction, with splendid and heroic deeds. he should be a student of shakespeare. he should read and devour the great plays. from shakespeare he could learn the art of expression, of compression, and all the secrets of the head and heart. the great orator is full of variety--of surprises. like a juggler, he keeps the colored balls in the air. he expresses himself in pictures. his speech is a panorama. by continued change he holds the attention. the interest does not flag. he does not allow himself to be anticipated. a picture is shown but once. so, an orator should avoid the commonplace. there should be no stuffing, no filling. he should put no cotton with his silk, no common metals with his gold. he should remember that "gilded dust is not as good as dusted gold." the great orator is honest, sincere. he does not pretend. his brain and heart go together. every drop of his blood is convinced. nothing is forced. he knows exactly what he wishes to do--knows when he has finished it, and stops. only a great orator knows when and how to close. most speakers go on after they are through. they are satisfied only with a "lame and impotent conclusion." most speakers lack variety. they travel a straight and dusty road. the great orator is full of episode. he convinces and charms by indirection. he leaves the road, visits the fields, wanders in the woods, listens to the murmurs of springs, the songs of birds. he gathers flowers, scales the crags and comes back to the highway refreshed, invigorated. he does not move in a straight line. he wanders and winds like a stream. of course, no one can tell a man what to do to become an orator. the great orator has that wonderful thing called presence. he has that strange something known as magnetism. he must have a flexible, musical voice, capable of expressing the pathetic, the humorous, the heroic. his body must move in unison with his thought. he must be a reasoner, a logician. he must have a keen sense of humor --of the laughable. he must have wit, sharp and quick. he must have sympathy. his smiles should be the neighbors of his tears. he must have imagination. he should give eagles to the air, and painted moths should flutter in the sunlight. while i cannot tell a man what to do to become an orator, i can tell him a few things not to do. there should be no introduction to an oration. the orator should commence with his subject. there should be no prelude, no flourish, no apology, no explanation. he should say nothing about himself. like a sculptor, he stands by his block of stone. every stroke is for a purpose. as he works the form begins to appear. when the statue is finished the workman stops. nothing is more difficult than a perfect close. few poems, few pieces of music, few novels end well. a good story, a great speech, a perfect poem should end just at the proper point. the bud, the blossom, the fruit. no delay. a great speech is a crystallization in its logic, an efflorescence in its poetry. i have not heard many speeches. most of the great speakers in our country were before my time. i heard beecher, and he was an orator. he had imagination, humor and intensity. his brain was as fertile as the valleys of the tropics. he was too broad, too philosophic, too poetic for the pulpit. now and then, he broke the fetters of his creed, escaped from his orthodox prison, and became sublime. theodore parker was an orator. he preached great sermons. his sermons on "old age" and "webster," and his address on "liberty" were filled with great thoughts, marvelously expressed. when he dealt with human events, with realities, with things he knew, he was superb. when he spoke of freedom, of duty, of living to the ideal, of mental integrity, he seemed inspired. webster i never heard. he had great qualities; force, dignity, clearness, grandeur; but, after all, he worshiped the past. he kept his back to the sunrise. there was no dawn in his brain. he was not creative. he had no spirit of prophecy. he lighted no torch. he was not true to his ideal. he talked sometimes as though his head was among the stars, but he stood in the gutter. in the name of religion he tried to break the will of stephen girard--to destroy the greatest charity in all the world; and in the name of the same religion he defended the fugitive slave law. his purpose was the same in both cases. he wanted office. yet he uttered a few very great paragraphs, rich with thought, perfectly expressed. clay i never heard, but he must have had a commanding presence, a chivalric bearing, an heroic voice. he cared little for the past. he was a natural leader, a wonderful talker--forcible, persuasive, convincing. he was not a poet, not a master of metaphor, but he was practical. he kept in view the end to be accomplished. he was the opposite of webster. clay was the morning, webster the evening. clay had large views, a wide horizon. he was ample, vigorous, and a little tyrannical. benton was thoroughly commonplace. he never uttered an inspired word. he was an intense egoist. no subject was great enough to make him forget himself. calhoun was a political calvinist--narrow, logical, dogmatic. he was not an orator. he delivered essays, not orations. i think it was in that kossuth visited this country. he was an orator. there was no man, at that time, under our flag, who could speak english as well as he. in the first speech i read of kossuth's was this line: "russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks." in this you see the poet, the painter, the orator. s. s. prentiss was an orator, but, with the recklessness of a gamester, he threw his life away. he said profound and beautiful things, but he lacked application. he was uneven, disproportioned, saying ordinary things on great occasions, and now and then, without the slightest provocation, uttering the sublimest and most beautiful thoughts. in my judgment, corwin was the greatest orator of them all. he had more arrows in his quiver. he had genius. he was full of humor, pathos, wit, and logic. he was an actor. his body talked. his meaning was in his eyes and lips. gov. o. p. morton of indiana had the greatest power of statement of any man i ever heard. all the argument was in his statement. the facts were perfectly grouped. the conclusion was a necessity. the best political speech i ever heard was made by gov. richard j. oglesby of illinois. it had every element of greatness--reason, humor, wit, pathos, imagination, and perfect naturalness. that was in the grand years, long ago. lincoln had reason, wonderful humor, and wit, but his presence was not good. his voice was poor, his gestures awkward--but his thoughts were profound. his speech at gettysburg is one of the masterpieces of the world. the word "here" is used four or five times too often. leave the "heres" out, and the speech is perfect. of course, i have heard a great many talkers, but orators are few and far between. they are produced by victorious nations--born in the midst of great events, of marvelous achievements. they utter the thoughts, the aspirations of their age. they clothe the children of the people in the gorgeous robes of giants. the interpret the dreams. with the poets, they prophesy. they fill the future with heroic forms, with lofty deeds. they keep their faces toward the dawn--toward the ever-coming day. --_new york sun_, april, . john russell young and expansion. _question_. you knew john russell young, colonel? _answer_. yes, i knew him well and we were friends for many years. he was a wonderfully intelligent man--knew something about everything, had read most books worth reading. he was one of the truest friends. he had a genius for friendship. he never failed to do a favor when he could, and he never forgot a favor. he had the genius of gratitude. his mind was keen, smooth, clear, and he really loved to think. i had the greatest admiration for his character and i was shocked when i read of his death. i did not know that he had been ill. all my heart goes out to his wife--a lovely woman, now left alone with her boy. after all, life is a fearful thing at best. the brighter the sunshine the deeper the shadow. _question_. are you in favor of expansion? _answer_. yes, i have always wanted more--i love to see the republic grow. i wanted the sandwich islands, wanted porto rico, and i want cuba if the cubans want us. i want the philippines if the filipinos want us--i do not want to conquer and enslave those people. the war on the filipinos is a great mistake--a blunder--almost a crime. if the president had declared his policy, then, if his policy was right, there was no need of war. the president should have told the filipinos just exactly what he wanted. it is a small business, after dewey covered manila bay with glory, to murder a lot of half- armed savages. we had no right to buy, because spain had no right to sell the philippines. we acquired no rights on those islands by whipping spain. _question_. do you think the president should have stated his policy in boston the other day? _answer_. yes, i think it would be better if he would unpack his little budget--i like mckinley, but i liked him just as well before he was president. he is a good man, not because he is president, but because he is a man--you know that real honor must be earned-- people cannot give honor--honor is not alms--it is wages. so, when a man is elected president the best thing he can do is to remain a natural man. yes, i wish mckinley would brush all his advisers to one side and say his say; i believe his say would be right. now, don't change this interview and make me say something mean about mckinley, because i like him. the other day, in chicago, i had an interview and i wrote it out. in that "interview" i said a few things about the position of senator hoar. i tried to show that he was wrong--but i took pains to express by admiration for senator hoar. when the interview was published i was made to say that senator hoar was a mud-head. i never said or thought anything of the kind. don't treat me as that chicago reporter did. _question_. what do you think of atkinson's speech? _answer_. well, some of it is good--but i never want to see the soldiers of the republic whipped. i am always on our side. --_the press_, philadelphia, february , . psychical research and the bible.* [* as an incident in the life of any one favored with the privilege, a visit to the home of col. robert g. ingersoll is certain to be recalled as a most pleasant and profitable experience. although not a sympathizer with the great agnostic's religious views, yet i have long admired his ability, his humor, his intellectual honesty and courage. and it was with gratification that i accepted the good offices of a common friend who recently offered to introduce me to the ingersoll domestic circle in gramercy park. here i found the genial colonel, surrounded by his children, his grandchildren, and his amiable wife, whose smiling greeting dispelled formality and breathed "welcome" in every syllable. the family relationship seemed absolutely ideal--the very walls emitting an atmosphere of art and music, of contentment and companionship, of mutual trust, happiness and generosity. but my chief desire was to elicit colonel ingersoll's personal views on questions related to the new thought and its attitude on matters on which he is known to have very decided opinions. my request for a private chat was cordially granted. during the conversation that ensued--(the substance of which is presented to the readers of _mind_ in the following paragraphs, with the colonel's consent)--i was impressed most deeply, not by the force of his arguments, but by the sincerity of his convictions. among some of his more violent opponents, who presumably lack other opportunities of becoming known, it is the fashion to accuse ingersoll of having really no belief in his own opinions. but, if he convinced me of little else, he certainly, without effort, satisfied my mind that this accusation is a slander. utterly mistaken in his views he may be; but if so, his errors are more honest than many of those he points out in the king james version of the bible. if his pulpit enemies could talk with this man by his own fireside, they would pay less attention to ingersoll himself and more to what he says. they would consider his _meaning_, rather than his motive. as the colonel is the most conspicuous denunciator of intolerance and bigotry in america, he has been inevitably the greatest victim of these obstacles to mental freedom. "to answer ingersoll" is the pet ambition of many a young clergyman--the older ones have either acquired prudence or are broad enough to concede the utility of even agnostics in the economy of evolution. it was with the very subject that we began our talk--the uncharitableness of men, otherwise good, in their treatment of those whose religious views differ from their own.] _question_. what is your conception of true intellectual hospitality? as truth can brook no compromises, has it not the same limitations that surround social and domestic hospitality? _answer_. in the republic of mind we are all equals. each one is sceptered and crowned. each one is the monarch of his own realm. by "intellectual hospitality" i mean the right of every one to think and to express his thought. it makes no difference whether his thought is right or wrong. if you are intellectually hospitable you will admit the right of every human being to see for himself; to hear with his own ears, see with his own eyes, and think with his own brain. you will not try to change his thought by force, by persecution, or by slander. you will not threaten him with punishment--here or hereafter. you will give him your thought, your reasons, your facts; and there you will stop. this is intellectual hospitality. you do not give up what you believe to be the truth; you do not compromise. you simply give him the liberty you claim for yourself. the truth is not affected by your opinion or by his. both may be wrong. for many years the church has claimed to have the "truth," and has also insisted that it is the duty of every man to believe it, whether it is reasonable to him or not. this is bigotry in its basest form. every man should be guided by his reason; should be true to himself; should preserve the veracity of his soul. each human being should judge for himself. the man that believes that all men have this right is intellectually hospitable. _question_. in the sharp distinction between theology and religion that is now recognized by many theologians, and in the liberalizing of the church that has marked the last two decades, are not most of your contentions already granted? is not the "lake of fire and brimstone" an obsolete issue? _answer_. there has been in the last few years a great advance. the orthodox creeds have been growing vulgar and cruel. civilized people are shocked at the dogma of eternal pain, and the belief in hell has mostly faded away. the churches have not changed their creeds. they still pretend to believe as they always have--but they have changed their tone. god is now a father--a friend. he is no longer the monster, the savage, described in the bible. he has become somewhat civilized. he no longer claims the right to damn us because he made us. but in spite of all the errors and contradictions, in spite of the cruelties and absurdities found in the scriptures, the churches still insist that the bible is _inspired_. the educated ministers admit that the pentateuch was not written by moses; that the psalms were not written by david; that isaiah was the work of at least three; that daniel was not written until after the prophecies mentioned in that book had been fulfilled; that ecclesiastes was not written until the second century after christ; that solomon's song was not written by solomon; that the book of esther is of no importance; and that no one knows, or pretends to know, who were the authors of kings, samuel, chronicles, or job. and yet these same gentlemen still cling to the dogma of inspiration! it is no longer claimed that the bible is true--but _inspired_. _question_. yet the sacred volume, no matter who wrote it, is a mine of wealth to the student and the philosopher, is it not? would you have us discard it altogether? _answer_. inspiration must be abandoned, and the bible must take its place among the books of the world. it contains some good passages, a little poetry, some good sense, and some kindness; but its philosophy is frightful. in fact, if the book had never existed i think it would have been far better for mankind. it is not enough to give up the bible; that is only the beginning. the _supernatural_ must be given up. it must be admitted that nature has no master; that there never has been any interference from without; that man has received no help from heaven; and that all the prayers that have ever been uttered have died unanswered in the heedless air. the religion of the supernatural has been a curse. we want the religion of usefulness. _question_. but have you no use whatever for prayer--even in the sense of aspiration--or for faith, in the sense of confidence in the ultimate triumph of the right? _answer_. there is a difference between wishing, hoping, believing, and--knowing. we can wish without evidence or probability, and we can wish for the impossible--for what we believe can never be. we cannot hope unless there is in the mind a possibility that the thing hoped for can happen. we can believe only in accordance with evidence, and we know only that which has been demonstrated. i have no use for prayer; but i do a good deal of wishing and hoping. i hope that some time the right will triumph--that truth will gain the victory; but i have no faith in gaining the assistance of any god, or of any supernatural power. i never pray. _question_. however fully materialism, as a philosophy, may accord with the merely human _reason_, is it not wholly antagonistic to the instinctive faculties of the mind? _answer_. human reason is the final arbiter. any system that does not commend itself to the reason must fall. i do not know exactly what you mean by _materialism_. i do not know what matter is. i am satisfied, however, that without matter there can be no force, no life, no thought, no reason. it seems to me that mind is a form of force, and force cannot exist apart from matter. if it is said that god created the universe, then there must have been a time when he commenced to create. if at that time there was nothing in existence but himself, how could he have exerted any force? force cannot be exerted except in opposition to force. if god was the only existence, force could not have been exerted. _question_. but don't you think, colonel, that the materialistic philosophy, even in the light of your own interpretation, is essentially pessimistic? _answer_. i do not consider it so. i believe that the pessimists and the optimists are both right. this is the worst possible world, and this is the best possible world--because it is as it must be. the present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past. _question_. what have you to say concerning the operations of the society for psychical research? do not its facts and conclusions prove, if not immortality, at least the continuity of life beyond the grave? are the millions of spiritualists deluded? _answer_. of course i have heard and read a great deal about the doings of the society; so, i have some knowledge as to what is claimed by spiritualists, by theosophists, and by all other believers in what are called "spiritual manifestations." thousands of wonderful tings have been established by what is called "evidence" --the testimony of good men and women. i have seen things done that i could not explain, both by mediums and magicians. i also know that it is easy to deceive the senses, and that the old saying "that seeing is believing" is subject to many exceptions. i am perfectly satisfied that there is, and can be, no force without matter; that everything that is--all phenomena--all actions and thoughts, all exhibitions of force, have a material basis--that nothing exists,--ever did, or ever will exist, apart from matter. so i am satisfied that no matter ever existed, or ever will, apart from force. we think with the same force with which we walk. for every action and for every thought, we draw upon the store of force that we have gained from air and food. we create no force; we borrow it all. as force cannot exist apart from matter, it must be used _with_ matter. it travels only on material roads. it is impossible to convey a thought to another without the assistance of matter. no one can conceive of the use of one of our senses without substance. no one can conceive of a thought in the absence of the senses. with these conclusions in my mind--in my brain--i have not the slightest confidence in "spiritual manifestations," and do not believe that any message has ever been received from the dead. the testimony that i have heard--that i have read--coming even from men of science--has not the slightest weight with me. i do not pretend to see beyond the grave. i do not say that man is, or is not, immortal. all i say is that there is no evidence that we live again, and no demonstration that we do not. it is better ignorantly to hope than dishonestly to affirm. _question_. and what do you think of the modern development of metaphysics--as expressed outside of the emotional and semi- ecclesiastical schools? i refer especially to the power of mind in the curing of disease--as demonstrated by scores of drugless healers. _answer_. i have no doubt that the condition of the mind has some effect upon the health. the blood, the heart, the lungs answer-- respond to--emotion. there is no mind without body, and the body is affected by thought--by passion, by cheerfulness, by depression. still, i have not the slightest confidence in what is called "mind cure." i do not believe that thought, or any set of ideas, can cure a cancer, or prevent the hair from falling out, or remove a tumor, or even freckles. at the same time, i admit that cheerfulness is good and depression bad. but i have no confidence in what you call "drugless healers." if the stomach is sour, soda is better than thinking. if one is in great pain, opium will beat meditation. i am a believer in what you call "drugs," and when i am sick i send for a physician. i have no confidence in the supernatural. magic is not medicine. _question_. one great object of this movement, is to make religion scientific--an aid to intellectual as well as spiritual progress. is it not thus to be encouraged, and destined to succeed--even though it prove the reality and supremacy of the spirit and the secondary importance of the flesh? _answer_. when religion becomes scientific, it ceases to be religion and becomes science. religion is not intellectual--it is emotional. it does not appeal to the reason. the founder of a religion has always said: "let him that hath ears to hear, hear!" no founder has said: "let him that hath brains to think, think!" besides, we need not trouble ourselves about "spirit" and "flesh." we know that we know of no spirit--without flesh. we have no evidence that spirit ever did or ever will exist apart from flesh. such existence is absolutely inconceivable. if we are going to construct what you call a "religion," it must be founded on observed and known facts. theories, to be of value, must be in accord with all the facts that are known; otherwise they are worthless. we need not try to get back of facts or behind the truth. the _why_ will forever elude us. you cannot move your hand quickly enough to grasp your image back of the mirror. --_mind_, new york, march, . this century's glories. the laurel of the nineteenth century is on darwin's brow. this century has been the greatest of all. the inventions, the discoveries, the victories on the fields of thought, the advances in nearly every direction of human effort are without parallel in human history. in only two directions have the achievements of this century been excelled. the marbles of greece have not been equalled. they still occupy the niches dedicated to perfection. they sculptors of our century stand before the miracles of the greeks in impotent wonder. they cannot even copy. they cannot give the breath of life to stone and make the marble feel and think. the plays of shakespeare have never been approached. he reached the summit, filled the horizon. in the direction of the dramatic, the poetic, the human mind, in my judgment, in shakespeare's plays reached its limit. the field was harvested, all the secrets of the heart were told. the buds of all hopes blossomed, all seas were crossed and all the shores were touched. with these two exceptions, the grecian marbles and the shakespeare plays, the nineteenth century has produced more for the benefit of man than all the centuries of the past. in this century, in one direction, i think the mind has reached the limit. i do not believe the music of wagner will ever be excelled. he changed all passions, longing, memories and aspirations into tones, and with subtle harmonies wove tapestries of sound, whereon were pictured the past and future, the history and prophecy of the human heart. of course copernicus, galileo, newton and kepler laid the foundations of astronomy. it may be that the three laws of kepler mark the highest point in that direction that the mind has reached. in the other centuries there is now and then a peak, but through ours there runs a mountain range with alp on alp--the steamship that has conquered all the seas; the railway, with its steeds of steel with breath of flame, covers the land; the cables and telegraphs, along which lightning is the carrier of thought, have made the nations neighbors and brought the world to every home; the making of paper from wood, the printing presses that made it possible to give the history of the human race each day; the reapers, mowers and threshers that superseded the cradles, scythes and flails; the lighting of streets and houses with gas and incandescent lamps, changing night into day; the invention of matches that made fire the companion of man; the process of making steel, invented by bessemer, saving for the world hundreds of millions a year; the discovery of anesthetics, changing pain to happy dreams and making surgery a science; the spectrum analysis, that told us the secrets of the suns; the telephone, that transports speech, uniting lips and ears; the phonograph, that holds in dots and marks the echoes of our words; the marvelous machines that spin and weave, that manufacture the countless things of use, the marvelous machines, whose wheels and levers seem to think; the discoveries in chemistry, the wave theory of light, the indestructibility of matter and force; the discovery of microbes and bacilli, so that now the plague can be stayed without the assistance of priests. the art of photography became known, the sun became an artist, gave us the faces of our friends, copies of the great paintings and statues, pictures of the world's wonders, and enriched the eyes of poverty with the spoil of travel, the wealth of art. the cell theory was advanced, embryology was studied and science entered the secret house of life. the biologists, guided by fossil forms, followed the paths of life from protoplasm up to man. then came darwin with the "origin of species," "natural selection," and the "survival of the fittest." from his brain there came a flood of light. the old theories grew foolish and absurd. the temple of every science was rebuilt. that which had been called philosophy became childish superstition. the prison doors were opened and millions of convicts, of unconscious slaves, roved with joy over the fenceless fields of freedom. darwin and haeckel and huxley and their fellow-workers filled the night of ignorance with the glittering stars of truth. this is darwin's victory. he gained the greatest victory, the grandest triumph. the laurel of the nineteenth century is on his brow. _question_. how does the literature of to-day compare with that of the first half of the century, in your opinion? _answer_. there is now no poet of laughter and tears, of comedy and pathos, the equal of hood. there is none with the subtle delicacy, the aerial footstep, the flame-like motion of shelley; none with the amplitude, sweep and passion, with the strength and beauty, the courage and royal recklessness of byron. the novelists of our day are not the equals of dickens. in my judgment, dickens wrote the greatest of all novels. "the tale of two cities" is the supreme work of fiction. its philosophy is perfect. the characters stand out like living statues. in its pages you find the blood and flame, the ferocity and self-sacrifice of the french revolution. in the bosom of the vengeance is the heart of the horror. in , north tower, sits one whom sorrow drove beyond the verge, rescued from death by insanity, and we see the spirit of dr. manette tremblingly cross the great gulf that lies between the night of dreams and the blessed day, where things are as they seem, as a tress of golden hair, while on his hands and cheeks fall lucie's blessed tears. the story is filled with lights and shadows, with the tragic and grotesque. while the woman knits, while the heads fall, jerry cruncher gnaws his rusty nails and his poor wife "flops" against his business, and prim miss pross, who in the desperation and terror of love held mme. defarge in her arms and who in the flash and crash found that her burden was dead, is drawn by the hand of a master. and what shall i say of sidney carton? of his last walk? of his last ride, holding the poor girl by the hand? is there a more wonderful character in all the realm of fiction? sidney carton, the perfect lover, going to his death for the love of one who loves another. to me the three greatest novels are "the tale of two cities," by dickens, "les miserables," by hugo, and "ariadne," by ouida. "les miserables" is full of faults and perfections. the tragic is sometimes pushed to the grotesque, but from the depths it brings the pearls of truth. a convict becomes holier than the saint, a prostitute purer than the nun. this book fills the gutter with the glory of heaven, while the waters of the sewer reflect the stars. in "ariadne" you find the aroma of all art. it is a classic dream. and there, too, you find the hot blood of full and ample life. ouida is the greatest living writer of fiction. some of her books i do not like. if you wish to know what ouida really is, read "wanda," "the dog of flanders," "the leaf in a storm." in these you will hear the beating of her heart. most of the novelists of our time write good stories. they are ingenious, the characters are well drawn, but they lack life, energy. they do not appear to act for themselves, impelled by inner force. they seem to be pushed and pulled. the same may be said of the poets. tennyson belongs to the latter half of our century. he was undoubtedly a great writer. he had no flame or storm, no tidal wave, nothing volcanic. he never overflowed the banks. he wrote nothing as intense, as noble and pathetic as the "prisoner of chillon;" nothing as purely poetic as "the skylark;" nothing as perfect as the "grecian urn," and yet he was one of the greatest of poets. viewed from all sides he was far greater than shelley, far nobler than keats. in a few poems shelley reached almost the perfect, but many are weak, feeble, fragmentary, almost meaningless. so keats in three poems reached a great height--in "st. agnes' eve," "the grecian urn," and "the nightingale"--but most of his poetry is insipid, without thought, beauty or sincerity. we have had some poets ourselves. emerson wrote many poetic and philosophic lines. he never violated any rule. he kept his passions under control and generally "kept off the grass." but he uttered some great and splendid truths and sowed countless seeds of suggestion. when we remember that he came of a line of new england preachers we are amazed at the breadth, the depth and the freedom of his thought. walt whitman wrote a few great poems, elemental, natural--poems that seem to be a part of nature, ample as the sky, having the rhythm of the tides, the swing of a planet. whitcomb riley has written poems of hearth and home, of love and labor worthy of robert burns. he is the sweetest, strongest singer in our country and i do not know his equal in any land. but when we compare the literature of the first half of this century with that of the last, we are compelled to say that the last, taken as a whole, is best. think of the volumes that science has given to the world. in the first half of this century, sermons, orthodox sermons, were published and read. now reading sermons is one of the lost habits. taken as a whole, the literature of the latter half of our century is better than the first. i like the essays of prof. clifford. they are so clear, so logical that they are poetic. herbert spencer is not simply instructive, he is charming. he is full of true imagination. he is not the slave of imagination. imagination is his servant. huxley wrote like a trained swordsman. his thrusts were never parried. he had superb courage. he never apologized for having an opinion. there was never on his soul the stain of evasion. he was as candid as the truth. haeckel is a great writer because he reveres a fact, and would not for his life deny or misinterpret one. he tells what he knows with the candor of a child and defends his conclusions like a scientist, a philosopher. he stands next to darwin. coming back to fiction and poetry, i have great admiration for edgar fawcett. there is in his poetry thought, beauty and philosophy. he has the courage of his thought. he knows our language, the energy of verbs, the color of adjectives. he is in the highest sense an artist. _question_. what do you think of hall caine's recent efforts to bring about a closer union between the stage and pulpit? _answer_. of course, i am not certain as to the intentions of mr. caine. i saw "the christian," and it did not seem to me that the author was trying to catch the clergy. there is certainly nothing in the play calculated to please the pulpit. there is a clergyman who is pious and heartless. john storm is the only christian, and he is crazy. when glory accepts him at last, you not only feel, but you know she has acted the fool. the lord in the piece is a dog, and the real gentleman is the chap that runs the music hall. how the play can please the pulpit i do not see. storm's whole career is a failure. his followers turn on him like wild beasts. his religion is a divine and diabolical dream. with him murder is one of the means of salvation. mr. caine has struck christianity a stinging blow between the eyes. he has put two preachers on the stage, one a heartless hypocrite and the other a madman. certainly i am not prejudiced in favor of christianity, and yet i enjoyed the play. if mr. caine says he is trying to bring the stage and the pulpit together, then he is a humorist, with the humor of rabelais. _question_. what do recent exhibitions in this city, of scenes from the life of christ, indicate with regard to the tendencies of modern art? _answer_. nothing. some artists love the sombre, the melancholy, the hopeless. they enjoy painting the bowed form, the tear-filled eyes. to them grief is a festival. there are people who find pleasure in funerals. they love to watch the mourners. the falling clods make music. they love the silence, the heavy odors, the sorrowful hymns and the preacher's remarks. the feelings of such people do not indicate the general trend of the human mind. even a poor artist may hope for success if he represents something in which many millions are deeply interested, around which their emotions cling like vines. a man need not be an orator to make a patriotic speech, a speech that flatters his audience. so, an artist need not be great in order to satisfy, if his subject appeals to the prejudice of those who look at his pictures. i have never seen a good painting of christ. all the christs that i have seen lack strength and character. they look weak and despairing. they are all unhealthy. they have the attitude of apology, the sickly smile of non-resistance. i have never seen an heroic, serene and triumphant christ. to tell the truth, i never saw a great religious picture. they lack sincerity. all the angels look almost idiotic. in their eyes is no thought, only the innocence of ignorance. i think that art is leaving the celestial, the angelic, and is getting in love with the natural, the human. troyon put more genius in the representation of cattle than angelo and raphael did in angels. no picture has been painted of heaven that is as beautiful as a landscape by corot. the aim of art is to represent the realities, the highest and noblest, the most beautiful. the greeks did not try to make men like gods, but they made gods like men. so that great artists of our day go to nature. _question_. is it not strange that, with one exception, the most notable operas written since wagner are by italian composers instead of german? _answer_. for many years german musicians insisted that wagner was not a composer. they declared that he produced only a succession of discordant noises. i account for this by the fact that the music of wagner was not german. his countrymen could not understand it. they had to be educated. there was no orchestra in germany that could really play "tristan and isolde." its eloquence, its pathos, its shoreless passion was beyond them. there is no reason to suppose that germany is to produce another wagner. is england expected to give us another shakespeare? --_the sun_, new york, march , . capital punishment and the whipping-post. _question_. what do you think of governor roosevelt's decision in the case of mrs. place? _answer_. i think the refusal of governor roosevelt to commute the sentence of mrs. place is a disgrace to the state. what a spectacle of man killing a woman--taking a poor, pallid, frightened woman, strapping her to a chair and then arranging the apparatus so she can be shocked to death. many call this a christian country. a good many people who believe in hell would naturally feel it their duty to kill a wretched, insane woman. society has a right to protect itself, but this can be done by imprisonment, and it is more humane to put a criminal in a cell than in a grave. capital punishment degrades and hardens a community and it is a work of savagery. it is savagery. capital punishment does not prevent murder, but sets an example--an example by the state--that is followed by its citizens. the state murders its enemies and the citizen murders his. any punishment that degrades the punished, must necessarily degrade the one inflicting the punishment. no punishment should be inflicted by a human being that could not be inflicted by a gentleman. for instance, take the whipping-post. some people are in favor of flogging because they say that some offences are of such a frightful nature that flogging is the only punishment. they forget that the punishment must be inflicted by somebody, and that somebody is a low and contemptible cur. i understand that john g. shortall, president of the humane society of illinois, has had a bill introduced into the legislature of the state for the establishment of the whipping-post. the shadow of that post would disgrace and darken the whole state. nothing could be more infamous, and yet this man is president of the humane society. now, the question arises, what is humane about this society? certainly not its president. undoubtedly he is sincere. certainly no man would take that position unless he was sincere. nobody deliberately pretends to be bad, but the idea of his being president of the humane society is simply preposterous. with his idea about the whipping-post he might join a society of hyenas for the cultivation of ferocity, for certainly nothing short of that would do justice to his bill. i have too much confidence in the legislators of that state, and maybe my confidence rests in the fact that i do not know them, to think that the passage of such a bill is possible. if it were passed i think i would be justified in using the language of the old marylander, who said, "i have lived in maryland fifty years, but i have never counted them, and my hope is, that god won't." _question_. what did you think of the late joseph medill? _answer_. i was not very well acquainted with mr. medill. i had a good many conversations with him, and i was quite familiar with his work. i regard him as the greatest editor of the northwestern states and i am not sure that there was a greater one in the country. he was one of the builders of the republican party. he was on the right side of the great question of liberty. he was a man of strong likes and i may say dislikes. he never surrendered his personality. the atom called joseph medill was never lost in the aggregation known as the republican party. he was true to that party when it was true to him. as a rule he traveled a road of his own and he never seemed to have any doubt about where the road led. i think that he was an exceedingly useful man. i think the only true religion is usefulness. he was a very strong writer, and when touched by friendship for a man, or a cause, he occasionally wrote very great paragraphs, and paragraphs full of force and most admirably expressed. --_the tribune_, chicago, march , . expansion and trusts.* [* this was colonel ingersoll's last interview.] i am an expansionist. the country has the land hunger and expansion is popular. i want all we can honestly get. but i do not want the philippines unless the filipinos want us, and i feel exactly the same about the cubans. we paid twenty millions of dollars to spain for the philippine islands, and we knew that spain had no title to them. the question with me is not one of trade or convenience; it is a question of right or wrong. i think the best patriot is the man who wants his country to do right. the philippines would be a very valuable possession to us, in view of their proximity to china. but, however desirable they may be, that cuts no figure. we must do right. we must act nobly toward the filipinos, whether we get the islands or not. i would like to see peace between us and the filipinos; peace honorable to both; peace based on reason instead of force. if control had been given to dewey, if miles had been sent to manila, i do not believe that a shot would have been fired at the filipinos, and that they would have welcomed the american flag. _question_. although you are not in favor of taking the philippines by force, how do you regard the administration in its conduct of the war? _answer_. they have made many mistakes at washington, and they are still making many. if it has been decided to conquer the filipinos, then conquer them at once. let the struggle not be drawn out and the drops of blood multiplied. the republican party is being weakened by inaction at the capital. if the war is not ended shortly, the party in power will feel the evil effects at the presidential election. _question_. in what light do you regard the philippines as an addition to the territory of the united states? _answer_. probably in the future, and possibly in the near future, the value of the islands to this country could hardly be calculated. the division of china which is bound to come, will open a market of four hundred millions of people. naturally a possession close to the open doors of the east would be of an almost incalculable value to this country. it might perhaps take a long time to teach the chinese that they need our products. but suppose that the chinese came to look upon wheat in the same light that other people look upon wheat and its product, bread? what an immense amount of grain it would take to feed four hundred million hungry chinamen! the same would be the case with the rest of our products. so you will perhaps agree with me in my view of the immense value of the islands if they could but be obtained by honorable means. _question_. if the democratic party makes anti-imperialism the prominent plank in its platform, what effect will it have on the party's chance for success? _answer_. anti-imperialism, as the democratic battle-cry, would greatly weaken a party already very weak. it is the most unpopular issue of the day. the people want expansion. the country is infected with patriotic enthusiasm. the party that tries to resist the tidal wave will be swept away. anybody who looks can see. let a band at any of the summer resorts or at the suburban breathing spots play a patriotic air. the listeners are electrified, and they rise and off go their hats when "the star-spangled banner" is struck up. imperialism cannot be fought with success. _question_. will the democratic party have a strong issue in its anti-trust cry? _answer_. in my opinion, both parties will nail anti-trust planks in their platforms. but this talk is all bosh with both parties. neither one is honest in its cry against trusts. the one making the more noise in this direction may get the votes of some unthinking persons, but every one who is capable of reading and digesting what he reads, knows full well that the leaders of neither party are sincere and honest in their demonstrations against the trusts. why should the democratic party lay claim to any anti-trust glory? is it not a republican administration that is at present investigating the alleged evils of trusts? --_the north american_, philadelphia, june , . sentence numbers, shown thus ( ), have been added by volunteer. a theologico-political treatise part - chapters i to v baruch spinoza a theologico-political treatise part - chapters i to v table of contents: preface. origin and consequences of superstition. causes that have led the author to write. course of his investigation. for what readers the treatise is designed. submission of author to the rulers of his country. chapter i - of prophecy. definition of prophecy. distinction between revelation to moses and to the other prophets. between christ and other recipients of revelation. ambiguity of the word "spirit." the different senses in which things may be referred to god. different senses of "spirit of god." prophets perceived revelation by imagination. chapter ii - of prophets. a mistake to suppose that prophecy can give knowledge of phenomena certainty of prophecy based on: ( ) vividness of imagination, ( ) a sign, ( ) goodness of the prophet. variation of prophecy with the temperament and opinions of the individual. chapter iii - of the vocation of the hebrews, and whether the gift of prophecy was peculiar to them. happiness of hebrews did not consist in the inferiority of the gentile. nor in philosophic knowledge or virtue. but in their conduct of affairs of state and escape from political dangers. even this distinction did not exist in the time of abraham. testimony from the old testament itself to the share of the gentiles in the law and favour of god. explanation of apparent discrepancy of the epistle to the romans. answer to the arguments for the eternal election of the jews. chapter iv - of the divine law. laws either depend on natural necessity or on human decree. the existence of the latter not inconsistent with the former class of laws. divine law a kind of law founded on human decree: called divine from its object. divine law: ( ) universal; ( ) independent of the truth of any historical narrative; ( ) independent of rites and ceremonies; ( ) its own reward. reason does not present god as a law-giver for men. such a conception a proof of ignorance - in adam - in the israelites - in christians. testimony of the scriptures in favour of reason and the rational view of the divine. chapter v - of the ceremonial law. ceremonial law of the old testament no part of the divine universal law, but partial and temporary. testimony of the prophets themselves to this testimony of the new testament. how the ceremonial law tended to preserve the hebrew kingdom. christian rites on a similar footing. what part of the scripture narratives is one bound to believe? authors endnotes to the treatise. a theologico-political treatise part - chapters i to v preface. ( )men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity. ( ) the human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over - confident, and vain. ( ) this as a general fact i suppose everyone knows, though few, i believe, know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without observing that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-brimming with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by. ( ) no plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair - if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. ( ) anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the supreme being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. ( ) signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might think nature as mad as themselves, they interpret her so fantastically. ( ) thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are wont with prayers and womanish tears to implore help from god: upbraiding reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles of heaven. ( ) as though god had turned away from the wise, and written his decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind! ( ) superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. if anyone desire an example, let him take alexander, who only began superstitiously to seek guidance from seers, when he first learnt to fear fortune in the passes of sysis (curtius, v. ); whereas after he had conquered darius he consulted prophets no more, till a second time frightened by reverses. ( ) when the scythians were provoking a battle, the bactrians had deserted, and he himself was lying sick of his wounds, "he once more turned to superstition, the mockery of human wisdom, and bade aristander, to whom he confided his credulity, inquire the issue of affairs with sacrificed victims." ( ) very numerous examples of a like nature might be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly, that prophets have most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers, precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. ( ) i think this is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the subject. ( ) the origin of superstition above given affords us a clear reason for the fact, that it comes to all men naturally, though some refer its rise to a dim notion of god, universal to mankind, and also tends to show, that it is no less inconsistent and variable than other mental hallucinations and emotional impulses, and further that it can only be maintained by hope, hatred, anger, and deceit; since it springs, not from reason, but solely from the more powerful phases of emotion. ( ) furthermore, we may readily understand how difficult it is, to maintain in the same course men prone to every form of credulity. ( ) for, as the mass of mankind remains always at about the same pitch of misery, it never assents long to any one remedy, but is always best pleased by a novelty which has not yet proved illusive. ( ) this element of inconsistency has been the cause of many terrible wars and revolutions; for, as curtius well says (lib. iv. chap. ): "the mob has no ruler more potent than superstition," and is easily led, on the plea of religion, at one moment to adore its kings as gods, and anon to execrate and abjure them as humanity's common bane. ( ) immense pains have therefore been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion, whether true or false, with such pomp and ceremony, that it may rise superior to every shock, and be always observed with studious reverence by the whole people--a system which has been brought to great perfection by the turks, for they consider even controversy impious, and so clog men's minds with dogmatic formulas, that they leave no room for sound reason, not even enough to doubt with. ( ) but if, in despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them clown, with the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honour to risk their blood and their lives for the vainglory of a tyrant; yet in a free state no more mischievous expedient could be planned or attempted. ( ) wholly repugnant to the general freedom are such devices as enthralling men's minds with prejudices, forcing their judgment, or employing any of the weapons of quasi-religious sedition; indeed, such seditions only spring up, when law enters the domain of speculative thought, and opinions are put on trial and condemned on the same footing as crimes, while those who defend and follow them are sacrificed, not to public safety, but to their opponents' hatred and cruelty. ( ) if deeds only could be made the grounds of criminal charges, and words were always allowed to pass free, such seditions would be divested of every semblance of justification, and would be separated from mere controversies by a hard and fast line. ( ) now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a republic, where everyone's judgment is free and unshackled, where each may worship god as his conscience dictates, and where freedom is esteemed before all things dear and precious, i have believed that i should be undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that not only can such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also, that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be secure. ( ) such is the chief conclusion i seek to establish in this treatise; but, in order to reach it, i must first point out the misconceptions which, like scars of our former bondage, still disfigure our notion of religion, and must expose the false views about the civil authority which many have most impudently advocated, endeavouring to turn the mind of the people, still prone to heathen superstition, away from its legitimate rulers, and so bring us again into slavery. ( ) as to the order of my treatise i will speak presently, but first i will recount the causes which led me to write. ( ) i have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith. ( ) matters have long since come to such a pass, that one can only pronounce a man christian, turk, jew, or heathen, by his general appearance and attire, by his frequenting this or that place of worship, or employing the phraseology of a particular sect - as for manner of life, it is in all cases the same. ( ) inquiry into the cause of this anomaly leads me unhesitatingly to ascribe it to the fact, that the ministries of the church are regarded by the masses merely as dignities, her offices as posts of emolument - in short, popular religion may be summed up as respect for ecclesiastics. ( ) the spread of this misconception inflamed every worthless fellow with an intense desire to enter holy orders, and thus the love of diffusing god's religion degenerated into sordid avarice and ambition. ( ) every church became a theatre, where orators, instead of church teachers, harangued, caring not to instruct the people, but striving to attract admiration, to bring opponents to public scorn, and to preach only novelties and paradoxes, such as would tickle the ears of their congregation. ( ) this state of things necessarily stirred up an amount of controversy, envy, and hatred, which no lapse of time could appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that of the old religion nothing survives but its outward forms (even these, in the mouth of the multitude, seem rather adulation than adoration of the deity), and that faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! ( ) piety, great god! and religion are become a tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason, who reject and turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt, these, i say, these of all men, are thought, lie most horrible! to possess light from on high. ( ) verily, if they had but one spark of light from on high, they would not insolently rave, but would learn to worship god more wisely, and would be as marked among their fellows for mercy as they now are for malice; if they were concerned for their opponents' souls, instead of for their own reputations, they would no longer fiercely persecute, but rather be filled with pity and compassion. ( ) furthermore, if any divine light were in them, it would appear from their doctrine. ( ) i grant that they are never tired of professing their wonder at the profound mysteries of holy writ; still i cannot discover that they teach anything but speculations of platonists and aristotelians, to which (in order to save their credit for christianity) they have made holy writ conform; not content to rave with the greeks themselves, they want to make the prophets rave also; showing conclusively, that never even in sleep have they caught a glimpse of scripture's divine nature. ( ) the very vehemence of their admiration for the mysteries plainly attests, that their belief in the bible is a formal assent rather than a living faith: and the fact is made still more apparent by their laying down beforehand, as a foundation for the study and true interpretation of scripture, the principle that it is in every passage true and divine. ( ) such a doctrine should be reached only after strict scrutiny and thorough comprehension of the sacred books (which would teach it much better, for they stand in need no human factions), and not be set up on the threshold, as it were, of inquiry. ( ) as i pondered over the facts that the light of reason is not only despised, but by many even execrated as a source of impiety, that human commentaries are accepted as divine records, and that credulity is extolled as faith; as i marked the fierce controversies of philosophers raging in church and state, the source of bitter hatred and dissension, the ready instruments of sedition and other ills innumerable, i determined to examine the bible afresh in a careful, impartial, and unfettered spirit, making no assumptions concerning it, and attributing to it no doctrines, which i do not find clearly therein set down. ( ) with these precautions i constructed a method of scriptural interpretation, and thus equipped proceeded to inquire - what is prophecy? ( ) in what sense did god reveal himself to the prophets, and why were these particular men - chosen by him? ( ) was it on account of the sublimity of their thoughts about the deity and nature, or was it solely on account of their piety? ( ) these questions being answered, i was easily able to conclude, that the authority of the prophets has weight only in matters of morality, and that their speculative doctrines affect us little. ( ) next i inquired, why the hebrews were called god's chosen people, and discovering that it was only because god had chosen for them a certain strip of territory, where they might live peaceably and at ease, i learnt that the law revealed by god to moses was merely the law of the individual hebrew state, therefore that it was binding on none but hebrews, and not even on hebrews after the downfall of their nation. ( ) further, in order to ascertain, whether it could be concluded from scripture, that the human understanding standing is naturally corrupt, i inquired whether the universal religion, the divine law revealed through the prophets and apostles to the whole human race, differs from that which is taught by the light of natural reason, whether miracles can take place in violation of the laws of nature, and if so, whether they imply the existence of god more surely and clearly than events, which we understand plainly and distinctly through their immediate natural causes. ( ) now, as in the whole course of my investigation i found nothing taught expressly by scripture, which does not agree with our understanding, or which is repugnant thereto, and as i saw that the prophets taught nothing, which is not very simple and easily to be grasped by all, and further, that they clothed their leaching in the style, and confirmed it with the reasons, which would most deeply move the mind of the masses to devotion towards god, i became thoroughly convinced, that the bible leaves reason absolutely free, that it has nothing in common with philosophy, in fact, that revelation and philosophy stand on different footings. in order to set this forth categorically and exhaust the whole question, i point out the way in which the bible should be interpreted, and show that all of spiritual questions should be sought from it alone, and not from the objects of ordinary knowledge. ( ) thence i pass on to indicate the false notions, which have from the fact that the multitude - ever prone to superstition, and caring more for the shreds of antiquity for eternal truths - pays homage to the books of the bible, rather than to the word of god. ( ) i show that the word of god has not been revealed as a certain number of books, was displayed to the prophets as a simple idea of the mind, namely, obedience to god in singleness of heart, and in the practice of justice and charity; and i further point out, that this doctrine is set forth in scripture in accordance with the opinions and understandings of those, among whom the apostles and prophets preached, to the end that men might receive it willingly, and with their whole heart. ( ) having thus laid bare the bases of belief, i draw the conclusion that revelation has obedience for its sole object, therefore, in purpose no less than in foundation and method, stands entirely aloof from ordinary knowledge; each has its separate province, neither can be called the handmaid of the other. ( ) furthermore, as men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another only to scoff, i conclude, in accordance with what has gone before, that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey god freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity. ( ) having thus drawn attention to the liberty conceded to everyone by the revealed law of god, i pass on to another part of my subject, and prove that this same liberty can and should be accorded with safety to the state and the magisterial authority - in fact, that it cannot be withheld without great danger to peace and detriment to the community. ( ) in order to establish my point, i start from the natural rights of the individual, which are co-extensive with his desires and power, and from the fact that no one is bound to live as another pleases, but is the guardian of his own liberty. ( ) i show that these rights can only be transferred to those whom we depute to defend us, who acquire with the duties of defence the power of ordering our lives, and i thence infer that rulers possess rights only limited by their power, that they are the sole guardians of justice and liberty, and that their subjects should act in all things as they dictate: nevertheless, since no one can so utterly abdicate his own power of self-defence as to cease to be a man, i conclude that no one can be deprived of his natural rights absolutely, but that subjects, either by tacit agreement, or by social contract, retain a certain number, which cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state. ( ) from these considerations i pass on to the hebrew state, which i describe at some length, in order to trace the manner in which religion acquired the force of law, and to touch on other noteworthy points. ( ) i then prove, that the holders of sovereign power are the depositories and interpreters of religious no less than of civil ordinances, and that they alone have the right to decide what is just or unjust, pious or impious; lastly, i conclude by showing, that they best retain this right and secure safety to their state by allowing every man to think what he likes, and say what he thinks. ( ) such, philosophical reader, are the questions i submit to your notice, counting on your approval, for the subject matter of the whole book and of the several chapters is important and profitable. ( ) i would say more, but i do not want my preface to extend to a volume, especially as i know that its leading propositions are to philosophers but common places. ( ) to the rest of mankind i care not to commend my treatise, for i cannot expect that it contains anything to please them: i know how deeply rooted are the prejudices embraced under the name of religion; i am aware that in the mind of the masses superstition is no less deeply rooted than fear; i recognize that their constancy is mere obstinacy, and that they are led to praise or blame by impulse rather than reason. ( ) therefore the multitude, and those of like passions with the multitude, i ask not to read my book; nay, i would rather that they should utterly neglect it, than that they should misinterpret it after their wont. ( ) they would gain no good themselves, and might prove a stumbling-block to others, whose philosophy is hampered by the belief that reason is a mere handmaid to theology, and whom i seek in this work especially to benefit. ( ) but as there will be many who have neither the leisure, nor, perhaps, the inclination to read through all i have written, i feel bound here, as at the end of my treatise, to declare that i have written nothing, which i do not most willingly submit to the examination and judgment of my country's rulers, and that i am ready to retract anything, which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws or prejudicial to the public good. ( ) i know that i am a man and, as a man, liable to error, but against error i have taken scrupulous care, and striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, with loyalty, and with morality. chapter i. - of prophecy ( ) prophecy, or revelation is sure knowledge revealed by god to man. ( ) a prophet is one who interprets the revelations of god {insights} to those who are unable to attain to sure knowledge of the matters revealed, and therefore can only apprehend them by simple faith. ( ) the hebrew word for prophet is "naw-vee'", strong: , [endnote ] i.e. speaker or interpreter, but in scripture its meaning is restricted to interpreter of god, as we may learn from exodus vii: , where god says to moses, "see, i have made thee a god to pharaoh, and aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet;" implying that, since in interpreting moses' words to pharaoh, aaron acted the part of a prophet, moses would be to pharaoh as a god, or in the attitude of a god. ( ) prophets i will treat of in the next chapter, and at present consider prophecy. ( ) now it is evident, from the definition above given, that prophecy really includes ordinary knowledge; for the knowledge which we acquire by our natural faculties depends on knowledge of god and his eternal laws; but ordinary knowledge is common to all men as men, and rests on foundations which all share, whereas the multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. ( ) nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called divine, for god's nature, in so far as we share therein, and god's laws, dictate it to us; nor does it suffer from that to which we give the preeminence, except in so far as the latter transcends its limits and cannot be accounted for by natural laws taken in themselves. ( ) in respect to the certainty it involves, and the source from which it is derived, i.e. god, ordinary, knowledge is no whit inferior to prophetic, unless indeed we believe, or rather dream, that the prophets had human bodies but superhuman minds, and therefore that their sensations and consciousness were entirely different from our own. ( ) but, although ordinary knowledge is divine, its professors cannot be called prophets [endnote ], for they teach what the rest of mankind could perceive and apprehend, not merely by simple faith, but as surely and honourably as themselves. ( ) seeing then that our mind subjectively contains in itself and partakes of the nature of god, and solely from this cause is enabled to form notions explaining natural phenomena and inculcating morality, it follows that we may rightly assert the nature of the human mind (in so far as it is thus conceived) to be a primary cause of divine revelation. ( ) all that we clearly and distinctly understand is dictated to us, as i have just pointed out, by the idea and nature of god; not indeed through words, but in a way far more excellent and agreeing perfectly with the nature of the mind, as all who have enjoyed intellectual certainty will doubtless attest. ( ) here, however, my chief purpose is to speak of matters having reference to scripture, so these few words on the light of reason will suffice. ( ) i will now pass on to, and treat more fully, the other ways and means by which god makes revelations to mankind, both of that which transcends ordinary knowledge, and of that within its scope; for there is no reason why god should not employ other means to communicate what we know already by the power of reason. ( ) our conclusions on the subject must be drawn solely from scripture; for what can we affirm about matters transcending our knowledge except what is told us by the words or writings of prophets? ( ) and since there are, so far as i know, no prophets now alive, we have no alternative but to read the books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves distinctly state. ( ) i must further premise that the jews never make any mention or account of secondary, or particular causes, but in a spirit of religion, piety, and what is commonly called godliness, refer all things directly to the deity. ( ) for instance if they make money by a transaction, they say god gave it to them; if they desire anything, they say god has disposed their hearts towards it; if they think anything, they say god told them. ( ) hence we must not suppose that everything is prophecy or revelation which is described in scripture as told by god to anyone, but only such things as are expressly announced as prophecy or revelation, or are plainly pointed to as such by the context. ( ) a perusal of the sacred books will show us that all god's revelations to the prophets were made through words or appearances, or a combination of the two. ( ) these words and appearances were of two kinds; .- real when external to the mind of the prophet who heard or saw them, .- imaginary when the imagination of the prophet was in a state which led him distinctly to suppose that he heard or saw them. ( ) with a real voice god revealed to moses the laws which he wished to be transmitted to the hebrews, as we may see from exodus xxv: , where god says, "and there i will meet with thee and i will commune with thee from the mercy seat which is between the cherubim." ( ) some sort of real voice must necessarily have been employed, for moses found god ready to commune with him at any time. this, as i shall shortly show, is the only instance of a real voice. ( ) we might, perhaps, suppose that the voice with which god called samuel was real, for in sam. iii: , we read, "and the lord appeared again in shiloh, for the lord revealed himself to samuel in shiloh by the word of the lord;" implying that the appearance of the lord consisted in his making himself known to samuel through a voice; in other words, that samuel heard the lord speaking. ( ) but we are compelled to distinguish between the prophecies of moses and those of other prophets, and therefore must decide that this voice was imaginary, a conclusion further supported by the voice's resemblance to the voice of eli, which samuel was in the habit of hearing, and therefore might easily imagine; when thrice called by the lord, samuel supposed it to have been eli. ( ) the voice which abimelech heard was imaginary, for it is written, gen. xx: , "and god said unto him in a dream." ( ) so that the will of god was manifest to him, not in waking, but only, in sleep, that is, when the imagination is most active and uncontrolled. ( ) some of the jews believe that the actual words of the decalogue were not spoken by god, but that the israelites heard a noise only, without any distinct words, and during its continuance apprehended the ten commandments by pure intuition; to this opinion i myself once inclined, seeing that the words of the decalogue in exodus are different from the words of the decalogue in deuteronomy, for the discrepancy seemed to imply (since god only spoke once) that the ten commandments were not intended to convey the actual words of the lord, but only his meaning. ( ) however, unless we would do violence to scripture, we must certainly admit that the israelites heard a real voice, for scripture expressly says, deut. v: , "god spake with you face to face," i.e. as two men ordinarily interchange ideas through the instrumentality of their two bodies; and therefore it seems more consonant with holy writ to suppose that god really did create a voice of some kind with which the decalogue was revealed. ( ) the discrepancy of the two versions is treated of in chap. viii. ( ) yet not even thus is all difficulty removed, for it seems scarcely reasonable to affirm that a created thing, depending on god in the same manner as other created things, would be able to express or explain the nature of god either verbally or really by means of its individual organism: for instance, by declaring in the first person, "i am the lord your god." ( ) certainly when anyone says with his mouth, "i understand," we do not attribute the understanding to the mouth, but to the mind of the speaker; yet this is because the mouth is the natural organ of a man speaking, and the hearer, knowing what understanding is, easily comprehends, by a comparison with himself, that the speaker's mind is meant; but if we knew nothing of god beyond the mere name and wished to commune with him, and be assured of his existence, i fail to see how our wish would be satisfied by the declaration of a created thing (depending on god neither more nor less than ourselves), "i am the lord." ( ) if god contorted the lips of moses, or, i will not say moses, but some beast, till they pronounced the words, "i am the lord," should we apprehend the lord's existence therefrom? ( ) scripture seems clearly to point to the belief that god spoke himself, having descended from heaven to mount sinai for the purpose - and not only that the israelites heard him speaking, but that their chief men beheld him (ex:xxiv.) ( ) further the law of moses, which might neither be added to nor curtailed, and which was set up as a national standard of right, nowhere prescribed the belief that god is without body, or even without form or figure, but only ordained that the jews should believe in his existence and worship him alone: it forbade them to invent or fashion any likeness of the deity, but this was to insure purity of service; because, never having seen god, they could not by means of images recall the likeness of god, but only the likeness of some created thing which might thus gradually take the place of god as the object of their adoration. ( ) nevertheless, the bible clearly implies that god has a form, and that moses when he heard god speaking was permitted to behold it, or at least its hinder parts. ( ) doubtless some mystery lurks in this question which we will discuss more fully below. ( ) for the present i will call attention to the passages in scripture indicating the means by which god has revealed his laws to man. ( ) revelation may be through figures only, as in i chron:xxii., where god displays his anger to david by means of an angel bearing a sword, and also in the story of balaam. ( ) maimonides and others do indeed maintain that these and every other instance of angelic apparitions (e.g. to manoah and to abraham offering up isaac) occurred during sleep, for that no one with his eyes open ever could see an angel, but this is mere nonsense. ( ) the sole object of such commentators seems to be to extort from scripture confirmations of aristotelian quibbles and their own inventions, a proceeding which i regard as the acme of absurdity. ( ) in figures, not real but existing only in the prophet's imagination, god revealed to joseph his future lordship, and in words and figures he revealed to joshua that he would fight for the hebrews, causing to appear an angel, as it were the captain of the lord's host, bearing a sword, and by this means communicating verbally. ( ) the forsaking of israel by providence was portrayed to isaiah by a vision of the lord, the thrice holy, sitting on a very lofty throne, and the hebrews, stained with the mire of their sins, sunk as it were in uncleanness, and thus as far as possible distant from god. ( ) the wretchedness of the people at the time was thus revealed, while future calamities were foretold in words. i could cite from holy writ many similar examples, but i think they are sufficiently well known already. ( ) however, we get a still more clear confirmation of our position in num xii: , , as follows: "if there be any prophet among you, i the lord will make myself known unto him in a vision" (i.e. by appearances and signs, for god says of the prophecy of moses that it was a vision without signs), "and will speak unto him in a dream" (i.e. not with actual words and an actual voice). ( ) "my servant moses is not so; with him will i speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the lord he shall behold," i.e. looking on me as a friend and not afraid, he speaks with me (cf. ex xxxiii: ). ( ) this makes it indisputable that the other prophets did not hear a real voice, and we gather as much from deut. xxiv: : "and there arose not a prophet since in israel like unto moses whom the lord knew face to face," which must mean that the lord spoke with none other; for not even moses saw the lord's face. ( ) these are the only media of communication between god and man which i find mentioned in scripture, and therefore the only ones which may be supposed or invented. ( ) we may be able quite to comprehend that god can communicate immediately with man, for without the intervention of bodily means he communicates to our minds his essence; still, a man who can by pure intuition comprehend ideas which are neither contained in nor deducible from the foundations of our natural knowledge, must necessarily possess a mind far superior to those of his fellow men, nor do i believe that any have been so endowed save christ. ( ) to him the ordinances of god leading men to salvation were revealed directly without words or visions, so that god manifested himself to the apostles through the mind of christ as he formerly did to moses through the supernatural voice. ( ) in this sense the voice of christ, like the voice which moses heard, may be called the voice of god, and it may be said that the wisdom of god (i.e. wisdom more than human) took upon itself in christ human nature, and that christ was the way of salvation. ( ) i must at this juncture declare that those doctrines which certain churches put forward concerning christ, i neither affirm nor deny, for i freely confess that i do not understand them. ( ) what i have just stated i gather from scripture, where i never read that god appeared to christ, or spoke to christ, but that god was revealed to the apostles through christ; that christ was the way of life, and that the old law was given through an angel, and not immediately by god; whence it follows that if moses spoke with god face to face as a man speaks with his friend (i.e. by means of their two bodies) christ communed with god mind to mind. ( ) thus we may conclude that no one except christ received the revelations of god without the aid of imagination, whether in words or vision. ( ) therefore the power of prophecy implies not a peculiarly perfect mind, but a peculiarly vivid imagination, as i will show more clearly in the next chapter. ( ) we will now inquire what is meant in the bible by the spirit of god breathed into the prophets, or by the prophets speaking with the spirit of god; to that end we must determine the exact signification of the hebrew word roo'-akh, strong: , commonly translated spirit. ( ) the word roo'-akh, strong: , literally means a wind, e..q. the south wind, but it is frequently employed in other derivative significations. it is used as equivalent to, ( ) ( .) breath: "neither is there any spirit in his mouth," ps. cxxxv: . ( ) ( .) life, or breathing: "and his spirit returned to him" sam. xxx: ; i.e. he breathed again. ( ) ( .) courage and strength: "neither did there remain any more spirit in any man," josh. ii: ; "and the spirit entered into me, and made me stand on my feet," ezek. ii: . ( ) ( .) virtue and fitness: "days should speak, and multitudes of years should teach wisdom; but there is a spirit in man," job xxxii: ; i.e. wisdom is not always found among old men for i now discover that it depends on individual virtue and capacity. so, "a man in whom is the spirit," numbers xxvii: . ( ) ( .) habit of mind: "because he had another spirit with him," numbers xiv: ; i.e. another habit of mind. "behold i will pour out my spirit unto you," prov. i: . ( ) ( .) will, purpose, desire, impulse: "whither the spirit was to go, they went," ezek. : ; "that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit," is. xxx: ; "for the lord hath poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep," is. xxix: ; "then was their spirit softened," judges viii: ; "he that ruleth his spirit, is better than he that taketh a city," prov. xvi: ; "he that hath no ru over his own spirit," prov. xxv: ; "your spirit as fire shall devour you," isaiah xxxiii: . from the meaning of disposition we get - ( ) ( .) passions and faculties. a lofty spirit means pride, a lowly spirit humility, an evil spirit hatred and melancholy. so, too, the expressions spirits of jealousy, fornication, wisdom, counsel, bravery, stand for a jealous, lascivious, wise, prudent, or brave mind (for we hebrews use substantives in preference to adjectives), or these various qualities. ( ) ( .) the mind itself, or the life: "yea, they have all one spirit," eccles. iii: "the spirit shall return to god who gave it." ( ) ( .) the quarters of the world (from the winds which blow thence), or even the side of anything turned towards a particular quarter - ezek. xxxvii: ; xlii: , , , , &c. ( ) i have already alluded to the way in which things are referred to god, and said to be of god. ( ) ( .) as belonging to his nature, and being, as it were, part of him; e.g. the power of god, the eyes of god. ( ) ( .) as under his dominion, and depending on his pleasure; thus the heavens are called the heavens of the lord, as being his chariot and habitation. so nebuchadnezzar is called the servant of god, assyria the scourge of god, &c. ( ) ( .) as dedicated to him, e.g. the temple of god, a nazarene of god, the bread of god. ( ) ( .) as revealed through the prophets and not through our natural faculties. in this sense the mosaic law is called the law of god. ( ) ( .) as being in the superlative degree. very high mountains are styled the mountains of god, a very deep sleep, the sleep of god, &c. in this sense we must explain amos iv: : "i have overthrown you as the overthrow of the lord came upon sodom and gomorrah," i.e. that memorable overthrow, for since god himself is the speaker, the passage cannot well be taken otherwise. the wisdom of solomon is called the wisdom of god, or extraordinary. the size of the cedars of lebanon is alluded to in the psalmist's expression, "the cedars of the lord." ( ) similarly, if the jews were at a loss to understand any phenomenon, or were ignorant of its cause, they referred it to god. ( ) thus a storm was termed the chiding of god, thunder and lightning the arrows of god, for it was thought that god kept the winds confined in caves, his treasuries; thus differing merely in name from the greek wind-god eolus. ( ) in like manner miracles were called works of god, as being especially marvellous; though in reality, of course, all natural events are the works of god, and take place solely by his power. ( ) the psalmist calls the miracles in egypt the works of god, because the hebrews found in them a way of safety which they had not looked for, and therefore especially marvelled at. ( ) as, then, unusual natural phenomena are called works of god, and trees of unusual size are called trees of god, we cannot wonder that very strong and tall men, though impious robbers and whoremongers, are in genesis called sons of god. ( ) this reference of things wonderful to god was not peculiar to the jews. ( ) pharaoh, on hearing the interpretation of his dream, exclaimed that the mind of the gods was in joseph. ( ) nebuchadnezzar told daniel that he possessed the mind of the holy gods; so also in latin anything well made is often said to be wrought with divine hands, which is equivalent to the hebrew phrase, wrought with the hand of god. ( ) we can now very easily understand and explain those passages of scripture which speak of the spirit of god. ( ) in some places the expression merely means a very strong, dry, and deadly wind, as in isaiah xl: , "the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the lord bloweth upon it." ( ) similarly in gen. i: : "the spirit of the lord moved over the face of the waters." ( ) at other times it is used as equivalent to a high courage, thus the spirit of gideon and of samson is called the spirit of the lord, as being very bold, and prepared for any emergency. ( ) any unusual virtue or power is called the spirit or virtue of the lord, ex. xxxi: : "i will fill him (bezaleel) with the spirit of the lord," i.e., as the bible itself explains, with talent above man's usual endowment. ( ) so isa. xi: : "and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him," is explained afterwards in the text to mean the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might. ( ) the melancholy of saul is called the melancholy of the lord, or a very deep melancholy, the persons who applied the term showing that they understood by it nothing supernatural, in that they sent for a musician to assuage it by harp-playing. ( ) again, the "spirit of the lord" is used as equivalent to the mind of man, for instance, job xxvii: : "and the spirit of the lord in my nostrils," the allusion being to gen. ii: : "and god breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life." ( ) ezekiel also, prophesying to the dead, says (xxvii: ), "and i will give to you my spirit, and ye shall live;" i.e. i will restore you to life. ( ) in job xxxiv: , we read: "if he gather unto himself his spirit and breath;" in gen. vi: : "my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh," i.e. since man acts on the dictates of his body, and not the spirit which i gave him to discern the good, i will let him alone. ( ) so, too, ps. li: : "create in me a clean heart, god, and renew a right spirit within me; cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me." ( ) it was supposed that sin originated only from the body, and that good impulses come from the mind; therefore the psalmist invokes the aid of god against the bodily appetites, but prays that the spirit which the lord, the holy one, had given him might be renewed. ( ) again, inasmuch as the bible, in concession to popular ignorance, describes god as having a mind, a heart, emotions - nay, even a body and breath - the expression spirit of the lord is used for god's mind, disposition, emotion, strength, or breath. ( ) thus, isa. xl: : "who hath disposed the spirit of the lord?" i.e. who, save himself, hath caused the mind of the lord to will anything,? and isa. lxiii: : "but they rebelled, and vexed the holy spirit." ( ) the phrase comes to be used of the law of moses, which in a sense expounds god's will, is. lxiii. , "where is he that put his holy spirit within him?" meaning, as we clearly gather from the context, the law of moses. ( ) nehemiah, speaking of the giving of the law, says, i: , "thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them." ( ) this is referred to in deut. iv: , "this is your wisdom and understanding," and in ps. cxliii: , "thy good spirit will lead me into the land of uprightness." ( ) the spirit of the lord may mean the breath of the lord, for breath, no less than a mind, a heart, and a body are attributed to god in scripture, as in ps. xxxiii: . ( ) hence it gets to mean the power, strength, or faculty of god, as in job xxxiii: , "the spirit of the lord made me," i.e. the power, or, if you prefer, the decree of the lord. ( ) so the psalmist in poetic language declares, xxxiii: , "by the word of the lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth," i.e. by a mandate issued, as it were, in one breath. ( ) also ps. cxxxix: , "wither shall i go from thy spirit, or whither shall i flee from thy presence?" i.e. whither shall i go so as to be beyond thy power and thy presence? ( ) lastly, the spirit of the lord is used in scripture to express the emotions of god, e.g. his kindness and mercy, micah ii: , "is the spirit [i.e. the mercy] of the lord straitened? ( ) are these cruelties his doings?" ( ) zech. iv: , "not by might or by power, but my spirit [i.e. mercy], saith the lord of hosts." ( ) the twelfth verse of the seventh chapter of the same prophet must, i think, be interpreted in like manner: "yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit [i.e. in his mercy] by the former prophets." ( ) so also haggai ii: : "so my spirit remaineth among you: fear not." ( ) the passage in isaiah xlviii: , "and now the lord and his spirit hath sent me," may be taken to refer to god's mercy or his revealed law; for the prophet says, "from the beginning" (i.e. from the time when i first came to you, to preach god's anger and his sentence forth against you) "i spoke not in secret; from the time that it was, there am i," and now i am sent by the mercy of god as a joyful messenger to preach your restoration. ( ) or we may understand him to mean by the revealed law that he had before come to warn them by the command of the law (levit. xix: ) in the same manner under the same conditions as moses had warned them, that now, like moses, he ends by preaching their restoration. ( ) but the first explanation seems to me the best. ( ) returning, then, to the main object of our discussion, we find that the scriptural phrases, "the spirit of the lord was upon a prophet," "the lord breathed his spirit into men," "men were filled with the spirit of god, with the holy spirit," &c., are quite clear to us, and mean that prophets were endowed with a peculiar and extraordinary power, and devoted themselves to piety with especial constancy( ); that thus they perceived the mind or the thought of god, for we have shown that god's spirit signifies in hebrew god's mind or thought, and that the law which shows his mind and thought is called his spirit; hence that the imagination of the prophets, inasmuch as through it were revealed the decrees of god, may equally be called the mind of god, and the prophets be said to have possessed the mind of god. ( ) on our minds also the mind of god and his eternal thoughts are impressed; but this being the same for all men is less taken into account, especially by the hebrews, who claimed a pre-eminence, and despised other men and other men's knowledge. ( ) lastly, the prophets were said to possess the spirit of god because men knew not the cause of prophetic knowledge, and in their wonder referred it with other marvels directly to the deity, styling it divine knowledge. ( ) we need no longer scruple to affirm that the prophets only perceived god's revelation by the aid of imagination, that is, by words and figures either real or imaginary. ( ) we find no other means mentioned in scripture, and therefore must not invent any. ( ) as to the particular law of nature by which the communications took place, i confess my ignorance. ( ) i might, indeed, say as others do, that they took place by the power of god; but this would be mere trifling, and no better than explaining some unique specimen by a transcendental term. ( ) everything takes place by the power of god. ( ) nature herself is the power of god under another name, and our ignorance of the power of god is co-extensive with our ignorance of nature. ( ) it is absolute folly, therefore, to ascribe an event to the power of god when we know not its natural cause, which is the power of god. ( ) however, we are not now inquiring into the causes of prophetic knowledge. ( ) we are only attempting, as i have said, to examine the scriptural documents, and to draw our conclusions from them as from ultimate natural facts; the causes of the documents do not concern us. ( ) as the prophets perceived the revelations of god by the aid of imagination, they could indisputably perceive much that is beyond the boundary of the intellect, for many more ideas can be constructed from words and figures than from the principles and notions on which the whole fabric of reasoned knowledge is reared. ( ) thus we have a clue to the fact that the prophets perceived nearly everything in parables and allegories, and clothed spiritual truths in bodily forms, for such is the usual method of imagination. ( ) we need no longer wonder that scripture and the prophets speak so strangely and obscurely of god's spirit or mind (cf. numbers xi: , kings xxii: , &c.), that the lord was seen by micah as sitting, by daniel as an old man clothed in white, by ezekiel as a fire, that the holy spirit appeared to those with christ as a descending dove, to the apostles as fiery tongues, to paul on his conversion as a great light. ( ) all these expressions are plainly in harmony with the current ideas of god and spirits. ( ) inasmuch as imagination is fleeting and inconstant, we find that the power of prophecy did not remain with a prophet for long, nor manifest itself frequently, but was very rare; manifesting itself only in a few men, and in them not often. ( ) we must necessarily inquire how the prophets became assured of the truth of what they perceived by imagination, and not by sure mental laws; but our investigation must be confined to scripture, for the subject is one on which we cannot acquire certain knowledge, and which we cannot explain by the immediate causes. ( ) scripture teaching about the assurance of prophets i will treat of in the next chapter. chapter ii. - of prophets. ( ) it follows from the last chapter that, as i have said, the prophets were endowed with unusually vivid imaginations, and not with unusually, perfect minds. ( ) this conclusion is amply sustained by scripture, for we are told that solomon was the wisest of men, but had no special faculty of prophecy. ( ) heman, calcol, and dara, though men of great talent, were not prophets, whereas uneducated countrymen, nay, even women, such as hagar, abraham's handmaid, were thus gifted. ( ) nor is this contrary to ordinary experience and reason. ( ) men of great imaginative power are less fitted for abstract reasoning, whereas those who excel in intellect and its use keep their imagination more restrained and controlled, holding it in subjection, so to speak, lest it should usurp the place of reason. ( ) thus to suppose that knowledge of natural and spiritual phenomena can be gained from the prophetic books, is an utter mistake, which i shall endeavour to expose, as i think philosophy, the age, and the question itself demand. ( ) i care not for the girdings of superstition, for superstition is the bitter enemy, of all true knowledge and true morality. ( ) yes; it has come to this! ( ) men who openly confess that they can form no idea of god, and only know him through created things, of which they know not the causes, can unblushingly, accuse philosophers of atheism. ( ) treating the question methodically, i will show that prophecies varied, not only according to the imagination and physical temperament of the prophet, but also according to his particular opinions; and further that prophecy never rendered the prophet wiser than he was before. ( ) but i will first discuss the assurance of truth which the prophets received, for this is akin to the subject-matter of the chapter, and will serve to elucidate somewhat our present point. ( ) imagination does not, in its own nature, involve any certainty of truth, such as is implied in every clear and distinct idea, but requires some extrinsic reason to assure us of its objective reality: hence prophecy cannot afford certainty, and the prophets were assured of god's revelation by some sign, and not by the fact of revelation, as we may see from abraham, who, when he had heard the promise of god, demanded a sign, not because he did not believe in god, but because he wished to be sure that it was god who made the promise. ( ) the fact is still more evident in the case of gideon: "show me," he says to god, "show me a sign, that i may know that it is thou that talkest with me." ( ) god also says to moses: "and let this be a sign that i have sent thee." ( ) hezekiah, though he had long known isaiah to be a prophet, none the less demanded a sign of the cure which he predicted. ( ) it is thus quite evident that the prophets always received some sign to certify them of their prophetic imaginings; and for this reason moses bids the jews (deut. xviii.) ask of the prophets a sign, namely, the prediction of some coming event. ( ) in this respect, prophetic knowledge is inferior to natural knowledge, which needs no sign, and in itself implies certitude. ( ) moreover, scripture warrants the statement that the certitude of the prophets was not mathematical, but moral. ( ) moses lays down the punishment of death for the prophet who preaches new gods, even though he confirm his doctrine by signs and wonders (deut. xiii.); "for," he says, "the lord also worketh signs and wonders to try his people." ( ) and jesus christ warns his disciples of the same thing (matt. xxiv: ). ( ) furthermore, ezekiel (xiv: ) plainly states that god sometimes deceives men with false revelations; and micaiah bears like witness in the case of the prophets of ahab. ( ) although these instances go to prove that revelation is open to doubt, it nevertheless contains, as we have said, a considerable element of certainty, for god never deceives the good, nor his chosen, but (according to the ancient proverb, and as appears in the history of abigail and her speech), god uses the good as instruments of goodness, and the wicked as means to execute his wrath. ( ) this may be seen from the case of micaiah above quoted; for although god had determined to deceive ahab, through prophets, he made use of lying prophets; to the good prophet he revealed the truth, and did not forbid his proclaiming it. ( ) still the certitude of prophecy, remains, as i have said, merely, moral; for no one can justify himself before god, nor boast that he is an instrument for god's goodness. ( ) scripture itself teaches and shows that god led away david to number the people, though it bears ample witness to david's piety. ( ) the whole question of the certitude of prophecy, was based on these three considerations: . that the things revealed were imagined very vividly, affecting the prophets in the same way as things seen when awake; . the presence of a sign; . lastly, and chiefly, that the mind of the prophet was given wholly, to what was right and good. ( ) although scripture does not always make mention of a sign, we must nevertheless suppose that a sign was always vouchsafed; for scripture does not always relate every condition and circumstance (as many, have remarked), but rather takes them for granted. ( ) we may, however, admit that no sign was needed when the prophecy declared nothing that was not already contained in the law of moses, because it was confirmed by that law. ( ) for instance, jeremiah's prophecy, of the destruction of jerusalem was confirmed by the prophecies of other prophets, and by the threats in the law, and, therefore, it needed no sign; whereas hananiah, who, contrary to all the prophets, foretold the speedy restoration of the state, stood in need of a sign, or he would have been in doubt as to the truth of his prophecy, until it was confirmed by facts. ( ) "the prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the lord hath truly sent him." ( ) as, then, the certitude afforded to the prophet by signs was not mathematical (i.e. did not necessarily follow from the perception of the thing perceived or seen), but only moral, and as the signs were only given to convince the prophet, it follows that such signs were given according to the opinions and capacity of each prophet, so that a sign which convince one prophet would fall far short of convincing another who was imbued with different opinions. ( ) therefore the signs varied according to the individual prophet. ( ) so also did the revelation vary, as we have stated, according to individual disposition and temperament, and according to the opinions previously held. ( ) it varied according to disposition, in this way: if a prophet was cheerful, victories, peace, and events which make men glad, were revealed to him; in that he was naturally more likely to imagine such things. ( ) if, on the contrary, he was melancholy, wars, massacres, and calamities were revealed; and so, according as a prophet was merciful, gentle, quick to anger, or severe, he was more fitted for one kind of revelation than another. ( ) it varied according to the temper of imagination in this way: if a prophet was cultivated he perceived the mind of god in a cultivated way, if he was confused he perceived it confusedly. ( ) and so with revelations perceived through visions. ( ) if a prophet was a countryman he saw visions of oxen, cows, and the like; if he was a soldier, he saw generals and armies; if a courtier, a royal throne, and so on. ( ) lastly, prophecy varied according to the opinions held by the prophets; for instance, to the magi, who believed in the follies of astrology, the birth of christ was revealed through the vision of a star in the east. ( ) to the augurs of nebuchadnezzar the destruction of jerusalem was revealed through entrails, whereas the king himself inferred it from oracles and the direction of arrows which he shot into the air. ( ) to prophets who believed that man acts from free choice and by his own power, god was revealed as standing apart from and ignorant of future human actions. ( ) all of which we will illustrate from scripture. ( ) the first point is proved from the case of elisha, who, in order to prophecy to jehoram, asked for a harp, and was unable to perceive the divine purpose till he had been recreated by its music; then, indeed, he prophesied to jehoram and to his allies glad tidings, which previously he had been unable to attain to because he was angry with the king, and these who are angry with anyone can imagine evil of him, but not good. ( ) the theory that god does not reveal himself to the angry or the sad, is a mere dream: for god revealed to moses while angry, the terrible slaughter of the firstborn, and did so without the intervention of a harp. ( ) to cain in his rage, god was revealed, and to ezekiel, impatient with anger, was revealed the contumacy and wretchedness of the jews. ( ) jeremiah, miserable and weary of life, prophesied the disasters of the hebrews, so that josiah would not consult him, but inquired of a woman, inasmuch as it was more in accordance with womanly nature that god should reveal his mercy thereto. ( ) so, micaiah never prophesied good to ahab, though other true prophets had done so, but invariably evil. ( ) thus we see that individual prophets were by temperament more fitted for one sort of revelation than another. ( ) the style of the prophecy also varied according to the eloquence of the individual prophet. ( ) the prophecies of ezekiel and amos are not written in a cultivated style like those of isaiah and nahum, but more rudely. ( ) any hebrew scholar who wishes to inquire into this point more closely, and compares chapters of the different prophets treating of the same subject, will find great dissimilarity of style. ( ) compare, for instance, chap. i. of the courtly isaiah, verse to verse , with chap. v. of the countryman amos, verses - . ( ) compare also the order and reasoning of the prophecies of jeremiah, written in idumaea (chap. xlix.), with the order and reasoning of obadiah. ( ) compare, lastly, isa. xl: , , and xliv: , with hosea viii: , and xiii: . and so on. ( ) a due consideration of these passage will clearly show us that god has no particular style in speaking, but, according to the learning and capacity of the prophet, is cultivated, compressed, severe, untutored, prolix, or obscure. ( ) there was, moreover, a certain variation in the visions vouchsafed to the prophets, and in the symbols by which they expressed them, for isaiah saw the glory of the lord departing from the temple in a different form from that presented to ezekiel. ( ) the rabbis, indeed, maintain that both visions were really the same, but that ezekiel, being a countryman, was above measure impressed by it, and therefore set it forth in full detail; but unless there is a trustworthy tradition on the subject, which i do not for a moment believe, this theory is plainly an invention. isaiah saw seraphim with six wings, ezekiel beasts with four wings; isaiah saw god clothed and sitting on a royal throne, ezekiel saw him in the likeness of a fire; each doubtless saw god under the form in which he usually imagined him. ( ) further, the visions varied in clearness as well as in details; for the revelations of zechariah were too obscure to be understood by the prophet without explanation, as appears from his narration of them; the visions of daniel could not be understood by him even after they had been explained, and this obscurity did not arise from the difficulty of the matter revealed (for being merely human affairs, these only transcended human capacity in being future), but solely in the fact that daniel's imagination was not so capable for prophecy while he was awake as while he was asleep; and this is further evident from the fact that at the very beginning of the vision he was so terrified that he almost despaired of his strength. ( ) thus, on account of the inadequacy of his imagination and his strength, the things revealed were so obscure to him that he could not understand them even after they had been explained. ( ) here we may note that the words heard by daniel, were, as we have shown above, simply imaginary, so that it is hardly wonderful that in his frightened state he imagined them so confusedly and obscurely that afterwards he could make nothing of them. ( ) those who say that god did not wish to make a clear revelation, do not seem to have read the words of the angel, who expressly says that he came to make the prophet understand what should befall his people in the latter days (dan. x: ). ( ) the revelation remained obscure because no one was found, at that time, with imagination sufficiently strong to conceive it more clearly. ( ) lastly, the prophets, to whom it was revealed that god would take away elijah, wished to persuade elisha that he had been taken somewhere where they would find him; showing sufficiently clearly that they had not understood god's revelation aright. ( ) there is no need to set this out more amply, for nothing is more plain in the bible than that god endowed some prophets with far greater gifts of prophecy than others. ( ) but i will show in greater detail and length, for i consider the point more important, that the prophecies varied according to the opinions previously embraced by the prophets, and that the prophets held diverse and even contrary opinions and prejudices. ( ) (i speak, be it understood, solely of matters speculative, for in regard to uprightness and morality the case is widely different.) ( ) from thence i shall conclude that prophecy never rendered the prophets more learned, but left them with their former opinions, and that we are, therefore, not at all bound to trust them in matters of intellect. ( ) everyone has been strangely hasty in affirming that the prophets knew everything within the scope of human intellect; and, although certain passages of scripture plainly affirm that the prophets were in certain respects ignorant, such persons would rather say that they do not understand the passages than admit that there was anything which the prophets did not know; or else they try to wrest the scriptural words away from their evident meaning. ( ) if either of these proceedings is allowable we may as well shut our bibles, for vainly shall we attempt to prove anything from them if their plainest passages may be classed among obscure and impenetrable mysteries, or if we may put any interpretation on them which we fancy. ( ) for instance, nothing is more clear in the bible than that joshua, and perhaps also the author who wrote his history, thought that the sun revolves round the earth, and that the earth is fixed, and further that the sun for a certain period remained still. ( ) many, who will not admit any movement in the heavenly bodies, explain away the passage till it seems to mean something quite different; others, who have learned to philosophize more correctly, and understand that the earth moves while the sun is still, or at any rate does not revolve round the earth, try with all their might to wrest this meaning from scripture, though plainly nothing of the sort is intended. ( ) such quibblers excite my wonder! ( ) are we, forsooth, bound to believe that joshua the soldier was a learned astronomer? or that a miracle could not be revealed to him, or that the light of the sun could not remain longer than usual above the horizon, without his knowing the cause? ( ) to me both alternatives appear ridiculous, and therefore i would rather say, that joshua was ignorant of the true cause of the lengthened day, and that he and the whole host with him thought that the sun moved round the earth every day, and that on that particular occasion it stood still for a time, thus causing the light to remain longer; and i would say, that they did not conjecture that, from the amount of snow in the air (see josh. x: ), the refraction may have been greater than usual, or that there may have been some other cause which we will not now inquire into. ( ) so also the sign of the shadow going back was revealed to isaiah according to his understanding; that is, as proceeding from a going backwards of the sun; for he, too, thought that the sun moves and that the earth is still; of parhelia he perhaps never even dreamed. ( ) we may arrive at this conclusion without any, scruple, for the sign could really have come to pass, and have been predicted by isaiah to the king, without the prophet being aware of the real cause. ( ) with regard to the building of the temple by solomon, if it was really dictate by god we must maintain the same doctrine: namely, that all the measurements were revealed according to the opinions and understanding of the king; for as we are not bound to believe that solomon was a mathematician, we may affirm that he was ignorant of the true ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle, and that, like the generality of workmen, he thought that it was as three to one. ( ) but if it is allowable to declare that we do not understand the passage, in good sooth i know nothing in the bible that we can understand; for the process of building is there narrated simply and as a mere matter of history. ( ) if, again, it is permitted to pretend that the passage has another meaning, and was written as it is from some reason unknown to us, this is no less than a complete subversal of the bible; for every absurd and evil invention of human perversity could thus, without detriment to scriptural authority, be defended and fostered. ( ) our conclusion is in no wise impious, for though solomon, isaiah, joshua, &c. were prophets, they were none the less men, and as such not exempt from human shortcomings. ( ) according to the understanding of noah it was revealed to him that god as about to destroy the whole human race, for noah thought that beyond the limits of palestine the world was not inhabited. ( ) not only in matters of this kind, but in others more important, the about the divine attributes, but held quite ordinary notions about god, and to these notions their revelations were adapted, as i will demonstrate by ample scriptural testimony; from all which one may easily see that they were praised and commended, not so much for the sublimity and eminence of their intellect as for their piety and faithfulness. ( ) adam, the first man to whom god was revealed, did not know that he is omnipotent and omniscient; for he hid himself from him, and attempted to make excuses for his fault before god, as though he had had to do with a man; therefore to him also was god revealed according to his understanding - that is, as being unaware of his situation or his sin, for adam heard, or seemed to hear, the lord walling, in the garden, calling him and asking him where he was; and then, on seeing his shamefacedness, asking him whether he had eaten of the forbidden fruit. ( ) adam evidently only knew the deity as the creator of all things. ( ) to cain also god was revealed, according to his understanding, as ignorant of human affairs, nor was a higher conception of the deity required for repentance of his sin. ( ) to laban the lord revealed himself as the god of abraham, because laban believed that each nation had its own special divinity (see gen. xxxi: ). ( ) abraham also knew not that god is omnipresent, and has foreknowledge of all things; for when he heard the sentence against the inhabitants of sodom, he prayed that the lord should not execute it till he had ascertained whether they all merited such punishment; for he said (see gen. xviii: ), "peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city," and in accordance with this belief god was revealed to him; as abraham imagined, he spake thus: "i will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and, if not, i will know." ( ) further, the divine testimony concerning abraham asserts nothing but that he was obedient, and that he "commanded his household after him that they should keep the way of the lord" (gen. xviii: ); it does not state that he held sublime conceptions of the deity. ( ) moses, also, was not sufficiently aware that god is omniscient, and directs human actions by his sole decree, for although god himself says that the israelites should hearken to him, moses still considered the matter doubtful and repeated, "but if they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice." ( ) to him in like manner god was revealed as taking no part in, and as being ignorant of, future human actions: the lord gave him two signs and said, "and it shall come to pass that if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign; but if not, thou shalt take of the water of the river," &c. ( ) indeed, if any one considers without prejudice the recorded opinions of moses, he will plainly see that moses conceived the deity as a being who has always existed, does exist, and always will exist, and for this cause he calls him by the name jehovah, which in hebrew signifies these three phases of existence: as to his nature, moses only taught that he is merciful, gracious, and exceeding jealous, as appears from many passages in the pentateuch. ( ) lastly, he believed and taught that this being was so different from all other beings, that he could not be expressed by the image of any visible thing; also, that he could not be looked upon, and that not so much from inherent impossibility as from human infirmity; further, that by reason of his power he was without equal and unique. ( ) moses admitted, indeed, that there were beings (doubtless by the plan and command of the lord) who acted as god's vicegerents - that is, beings to whom god had given the right, authority, and power to direct nations, and to provide and care for them; but he taught that this being whom they were bound to obey was the highest and supreme god, or (to use the hebrew phrase) god of gods, and thus in the song (exod. xv: ) he exclaims, "who is like unto thee, lord, among the gods?" and jethro says (exod. xviii: ), "now i know that the lord is greater than all gods." ( ) that is to say, "i am at length compelled to admit to moses that jehovah is greater than all gods, and that his power is unrivalled." ( ) we must remain in doubt whether moses thought that these beings who acted as god's vicegerents were created by him, for he has stated nothing, so far as we know, about their creation and origin. ( ) he further taught that this being had brought the visible world into order from chaos, and had given nature her germs, and therefore that he possesses supreme right and power over all things; further, that by reason of this supreme right and power he had chosen for himself alone the hebrew nation and a certain strip of territory, and had handed over to the care of other gods substituted by himself the rest of the nations and territories, and that therefore he was called the god of israel and the god of jerusalem, whereas the other gods were called the gods of the gentiles. ( ) for this reason the jews believed that the strip of territory which god had chosen for himself, demanded a divine worship quite apart and different from the worship which obtained elsewhere, and that the lord would not suffer the worship of other gods adapted to other countries. ( ) thus they thought that the people whom the king of assyria had brought into judaea were torn in pieces by lions because they knew not the worship of the national divinity ( kings xvii: ). ( ) jacob, according to aben ezra's opinion, therefore admonished his sons when he wished them to seek out a new country, that they should prepare themselves for a new worship, and lay aside the worship of strange, gods - that is, of the gods of the land where they were (gen. xxxv: , ). ( ) david, in telling saul that he was compelled by the king's persecution to live away from his country, said that he was driven out from the heritage of the lord, and sent to worship other gods ( sam. xxvi: ). ( ) lastly, he believed that this being or deity had his habitation in the heavens (deut. xxxiii: ), an opinion very common among the gentiles. ( ) if we now examine the revelations to moses, we shall find that they were accommodated to these opinions; as he believed that the divine nature was subject to the conditions of mercy, graciousness, &c., so god was revealed to him in accordance with his idea and under these attributes (see exodus xxxiv: , , and the second commandment). ( ) further it is related (ex. xxxiii: ) that moses asked of god that he might behold him, but as moses (as we have said) had formed no mental image of god, and god (as i have shown) only revealed himself to the prophets in accordance with the disposition of their imagination, he did not reveal himself in any form. ( ) this, i repeat, was because the imagination of moses was unsuitable, for other prophets bear witness that they saw the lord; for instance, isaiah, ezekiel, daniel, &c. ( ) for this reason god answered moses, "thou canst not see my face;" and inasmuch as moses believed that god can be looked upon - that is, that no contradiction of the divine nature is therein involved (for otherwise he would never have preferred his request) - it is added, "for no one shall look on me and live," thus giving a reason in accordance with moses' idea, for it is not stated that a contradiction of the divine nature would be involved, as was really the case, but that the thing would not come to pass because of human infirmity. ( ) when god would reveal to moses that the israelites, because they worshipped the calf, were to be placed in the same category as other nations, he said (ch. xxxiii: , ), that he would send an angel (that is, a being who should have charge of the israelites, instead of the supreme being), and that he himself would no longer remain among them; thus leaving moses no ground for supposing that the israelites were more beloved by god than the other nations whose guardianship he had entrusted to other beings or angels (vide verse ). ( ) lastly, as moses believed that god dwelt in the heavens, god was revealed to him as coming down from heaven on to a mountain, and in order to talk with the lord moses went up the mountain, which he certainly need not have done if he could have conceived of god as omnipresent. ( ) the israelites knew scarcely anything of god, although he was revealed to them; and this is abundantly evident from their transferring, a few days afterwards, the honour and worship due to him to a calf, which they believed to be the god who had brought them out of egypt. ( ) in truth, it is hardly likely that men accustomed to the superstitions of egypt, uncultivated and sunk in most abject slavery, should have held any sound notions about the deity, or that moses should have taught them anything beyond a rule of right living; inculcating it not like a philosopher, as the result of freedom, but like a lawgiver compelling them to be moral by legal authority. ( ) thus the rule of right living, the worship and love of god, was to them rather a bondage than the true liberty, the gift and grace of the deity. ( ) moses bid them love god and keep his law, because they had in the past received benefits from him (such as the deliverance from slavery in egypt), and further terrified them with threats if they transgressed his commands, holding out many promises of good if they should observe them; thus treating them as parents treat irrational children. it is, therefore, certain that they knew not the excellence of virtue and the true happiness. ( ) jonah thought that he was fleeing from the sight of god, which seems to show that he too held that god had entrusted the care of the nations outside judaea to other substituted powers. ( ) no one in the whole of the old testament speaks more rationally of god than solomon, who in fact surpassed all the men of his time in natural ability. ( ) yet he considered himself above the law (esteeming it only to have been given for men without reasonable and intellectual grounds for their actions), and made small account of the laws concerning kings, which are mainly three: nay, he openly violated them (in this he did wrong, and acted in a manner unworthy of a philosopher, by indulging in sensual pleasure), and taught that all fortune's favours to mankind are vanity, that humanity has no nobler gift than wisdom, and no greater punishment than folly. ( ) see proverbs xvi: , . ( ) but let us return to the prophets whose conflicting opinions we have undertaken to note. ( ) the expressed ideas of ezekiel seemed so diverse from those of moses to the rabbis who have left us the extant prophetic books (as is told in the treatise of sabbathus, i: , ), that they had serious thoughts of omitting his prophecy from the canon, and would doubtless have thus excluded it if a certain hananiah had not undertaken to explain it; a task which (as is there narrated) he with great zeal and labour accomplished. ( ) how he did so does not sufficiently appear, whether it was by writing a commentary which has now perished, or by altering ezekiel's words and audaciously - striking out phrases according to his fancy. ( ) however this may be, chapter xviii. certainly does not seem to agree with exodus xxxiv: , jeremiah xxxii: , &c. ( ) samuel believed that the lord never repented of anything he had decreed ( sam. xv: ), for when saul was sorry for his sin, and wished to worship god and ask for forgiveness, samuel said that the lord would not go back from his decree. ( ) to jeremiah, on the other hand, it was revealed that, "if that nation against whom i (the lord) have pronounced, turn from their evil, i will repent of the evil that i thought to do unto them. ( ) if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then i will repent of the good wherewith i said i would benefit them" (jer. xviii: - ). ( ) joel (ii: ) taught that the lord repented him only of evil. ( ) lastly, it is clear from gen iv: that a man can overcome the temptations of sin, and act righteously; for this doctrine is told to cain, though, as we learn from josephus and the scriptures, he never did so overcome them. ( ) and this agrees with the chapter of jeremiah just cited, for it is there said that the lord repents of the good or the evil pronounced, if the men in question change their ways and manner of life. ( ) but, on the other hand, paul (rom.ix: ) teaches as plainly as possible that men have no control over the temptations of the flesh save by the special vocation and grace of god. ( ) and when (rom. iii: and vi: ) he attributes righteousness to man, he corrects himself as speaking merely humanly and through the infirmity of the flesh. ( ) we have now more than sufficiently proved our point, that god adapted revelations to the understanding and opinions of the prophets, and that in matters of theory without bearing on charity or morality the prophets could be, and, in fact, were, ignorant, and held conflicting opinions. ( ) it therefore follows that we must by no means go to the prophets for knowledge, either of natural or of spiritual phenomena. ( ) we have determined, then, that we are only bound to believe in the prophetic writings, the object and substance of the revelation; with regard to the details, every one may believe or not, as he likes. ( ) for instance, the revelation to cain only teaches us that god admonished him to lead the true life, for such alone is the object and substance of the revelation, not doctrines concerning free will and philosophy. ( ) hence, though the freedom of the will is clearly implied in the words of the admonition, we are at liberty to hold a contrary opinion, since the words and reasons were adapted to the understanding of cain. ( ) so, too, the revelation to micaiah would only teach that god revealed to him the true issue of the battle between ahab and aram; and this is all we are bound to believe. ( ) whatever else is contained in the revelation concerning the true and the false spirit of god, the army of heaven standing on the right hand and on the left, and all the other details, does not affect us at all. ( ) everyone may believe as much of it as his reason allows. ( ) the reasonings by which the lord displayed his power to job (if they really were a revelation, and the author of the history is narrating, and not merely, as some suppose, rhetorically adorning his own conceptions), would come under the same category - that is, they were adapted to job's understanding, for the purpose of convincing him, and are not universal, or for the convincing of all men. ( ) we can come to no different conclusion with respect to the reasonings of christ, by which he convicted the pharisees of pride and ignorance, and exhorted his disciples to lead the true life. ( ) he adapted them to each man's opinions and principles. ( ) for instance, when he said to the pharisees (matt. xii: ), "and if satan cast out devils, his house is divided against itself, how then shall his kingdom stand? ( ) "he only wished to convince the pharisees according, to their own principles, not to teach that there are devils, or any kingdom of devils. ( ) so, too, when he said to his disciples (matt. viii: ), "see that ye despise not one of these little ones, for i say unto you that their angels," &c., he merely desired to warn them against pride and despising any of their fellows, not to insist on the actual reason given, which was simply adopted in order to persuade them more easily. ( ) lastly, we should say, exactly the same of the apostolic signs and reasonings, but there is no need to go further into the subject. ( ) if i were to enumerate all the passages of scripture addressed only to individuals, or to a particular man's understanding, and which cannot, without great danger to philosophy, be defended as divine doctrines, i should go far beyond the brevity at which i aim. ( ) let it suffice, then, to have indicated a few instances of general application, and let the curious reader consider others by himself. ( ) although the points we have just raised concerning prophets and prophecy are the only ones which have any direct bearing on the end in view, namely, the separation of philosophy from theology, still, as i have touched on the general question, i may here inquire whether the gift of prophecy was peculiar to the hebrews, or whether it was common to all nations. ( ) i must then come to a conclusion about the vocation of the hebrews, all of which i shall do in the ensuing chapter. chapter iii. of the vocation of the hebrews, and whether the gift of prophecy was peculiar to them. ( ) every man's true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. ( ) he who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is more blessed or more fortunate than his fellows, is ignorant of true happiness and blessedness, and the joy which he feels is either childish or envious and malicious. ( ) for instance, a man's true happiness consists only in wisdom, and the knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact that he is wiser than others, or that others lack such knowledge: such considerations do not increase his wisdom or true happiness. ( ) whoever, therefore, rejoices for such reasons, rejoices in another's misfortune, and is, so far, malicious and bad, knowing neither true happiness nor the peace of the true life. ( ) when scripture, therefore, in exhorting the hebrews to obey the law, says that the lord has chosen them for himself before other nations (deut. x: ); that he is near them, but not near others (deut. iv: ); that to them alone he has given just laws (deut. iv: ); and, lastly, that he has marked them out before others (deut. iv: ); it speaks only according to the understanding of its hearers, who, as we have shown in the last chapter, and as moses also testifies (deut. ix: , ), knew not true blessedness. ( ) for in good sooth they would have been no less blessed if god had called all men equally to salvation, nor would god have been less present to them for being equally present to others; their laws, would have been no less just if they had been ordained for all, and they themselves would have been no less wise. ( ) the miracles would have shown god's power no less by being wrought for other nations also; lastly, the hebrews would have been just as much bound to worship god if he had bestowed all these gifts equally on all men. ( ) when god tells solomon ( kings iii: ) that no one shall be as wise as he in time to come, it seems to be only a manner of expressing surpassing wisdom; it is little to be believed that god would have promised solomon, for his greater happiness, that he would never endow anyone with so much wisdom in time to come; this would in no wise have increased solomon's intellect, and the wise king would have given equal thanks to the lord if everyone had been gifted with the same faculties. ( ) still, though we assert that moses, in the passages of the pentateuch just cited, spoke only according to the understanding of the hebrews, we have no wish to deny that god ordained the mosaic law for them alone, nor that he spoke to them alone, nor that they witnessed marvels beyond those which happened to any other nation; but we wish to emphasize that moses desired to admonish the hebrews in such a manner, and with such reasonings as would appeal most forcibly to their childish understanding, and constrain them to worship the deity. ( ) further, we wished to show that the hebrews did not surpass other nations in knowledge, or in piety, but evidently in some attribute different from these; or (to speak like the scriptures, according to their understanding), that the hebrews were not chosen by god before others for the sake of the true life and sublime ideas, though they were often thereto admonished, but with some other object. ( ) what that object was, i will duly show. ( ) but before i begin, i wish in a few words to explain what i mean by the guidance of god, by the help of god, external and inward, and, lastly, what i understand by fortune. ( ) by the help of god, i mean the fixed and unchangeable order of nature or the chain of natural events: for i have said before and shown elsewhere that the universal laws of nature, according to which all things exist and are determined, are only another name for the eternal decrees of god, which always involve eternal truth and necessity. ( ) so that to say that everything happens according to natural laws, and to say that everything is ordained by the decree and ordinance of god, is the same thing. ( ) now since the power in nature is identical with the power of god, by which alone all things happen and are determined, it follows that whatsoever man, as a part of nature, provides himself with to aid and preserve his existence, or whatsoever nature affords him without his help, is given to him solely by the divine power, acting either through human nature or through external circumstance. ( ) so whatever human nature can furnish itself with by its own efforts to preserve its existence, may be fitly called the inward aid of god, whereas whatever else accrues to man's profit from outward causes may be called the external aid of god. ( ) we can now easily understand what is meant by the election of god. ( ) for since no one can do anything save by the predetermined order of nature, that is by god's eternal ordinance and decree, it follows that no one can choose a plan of life for himself, or accomplish any work save by god's vocation choosing him for the work or the plan of life in question, rather than any other. ( ) lastly, by fortune, i mean the ordinance of god in so far as it directs human life through external and unexpected means. ( ) with these preliminaries i return to my purpose of discovering the reason why the hebrews were said to be elected by god before other nations, and with the demonstration i thus proceed. ( ) all objects of legitimate desire fall, generally speaking, under one of these three categories: . the knowledge of things through their primary causes. . the government of the passions, or the acquirement of the habit of virtue. . secure and healthy life. ( ) the means which most directly conduce towards the first two of these ends, and which may be considered their proximate and efficient causes are contained in human nature itself, so that their acquisition hinges only on our own power, and on the laws of human nature. ( ) it may be concluded that these gifts are not peculiar to any nation, but have always been shared by the whole human race, unless, indeed, we would indulge the dream that nature formerly created men of different kinds. ( ) but the means which conduce to security and health are chiefly in external circumstance, and are called the gifts of fortune because they depend chiefly on objective causes of which we are ignorant; for a fool may be almost as liable to happiness or unhappiness as a wise man. ( ) nevertheless, human management and watchfulness can greatly assist towards living in security and warding off the injuries of our fellow-men, and even of beasts. ( ) reason and experience show no more certain means of attaining this object than the formation of a society with fixed laws, the occupation of a strip of territory and the concentration of all forces, as it were, into one body, that is the social body. ( ) now for forming and preserving a society, no ordinary ability and care is required: that society will be most secure, most stable, and least liable to reverses, which is founded and directed by far-seeing and careful men; while, on the other hand, a society constituted by men without trained skill, depends in a great measure on fortune, and is less constant. ( ) if, in spite of all, such a society lasts a long time, it is owing to some other directing influence than its own; if it overcomes great perils and its affairs prosper, it will perforce marvel at and adore the guiding spirit of god (in so far, that is, as god works through hidden means, and not through the nature and mind of man), for everything happens to it unexpectedly and contrary to anticipation, it may even be said and thought to be by miracle. ( ) nations, then, are distinguished from one another in respect to the social organization and the laws under which they live and are governed; the hebrew nation was not chosen by god in respect to its wisdom nor its tranquillity of mind, but in respect to its social organization and the good fortune with which it obtained supremacy and kept it so many years. ( ) this is abundantly clear from scripture. even a cursory perusal will show us that the only respects in which the hebrews surpassed other nations, are in their successful conduct of matters relating to government, and in their surmounting great perils solely by god's external aid; in other ways they were on a par with their fellows, and god was equally gracious to all. ( ) for in respect to intellect (as we have shown in the last chapter) they held very ordinary ideas about god and nature, so that they cannot have been god's chosen in this respect; nor were they so chosen in respect of virtue and the true life, for here again they, with the exception of a very few elect, were on an equality with other nations: therefore their choice and vocation consisted only in the temporal happiness and advantages of independent rule. ( ) in fact, we do not see that god promised anything beyond this to the patriarchs [endnote ] or their successors; in the law no other reward is offered for obedience than the continual happiness of an independent commonwealth and other goods of this life; while, on the other hand, against contumacy and the breaking of the covenant is threatened the downfall of the commonwealth and great hardships. ( ) nor is this to be wondered at; for the ends of every social organization and commonwealth are (as appears from what we have said, and as we will explain more at length hereafter) security and comfort; a commonwealth can only exist by the laws being binding on all. ( ) if all the members of a state wish to disregard the law, by that very fact they dissolve the state and destroy the commonwealth. ( ) thus, the only reward which could be promised to the hebrews for continued obedience to the law was security [endnote ] and its attendant advantages, while no surer punishment could be threatened for disobedience, than the ruin of the state and the evils which generally follow therefrom, in addition to such further consequences as might accrue to the jews in particular from the ruin of their especial state. ( ) but there is no need here to go into this point at more length. ( ) i will only add that the laws of the old testament were revealed and ordained to the jews only, for as god chose them in respect to the special constitution of their society and government, they must, of course, have had special laws. ( ) whether god ordained special laws for other nations also, and revealed himself to their lawgivers prophetically, that is, under the attributes by which the latter were accustomed to imagine him, i cannot sufficiently determine. ( ) it is evident from scripture itself that other nations acquired supremacy and particular laws by the external aid of god; witness only the two following passages: ( ) in genesis xiv: , , , it is related that melchisedek was king of jerusalem and priest of the most high god, that in exercise of his priestly functions he blessed abraham, and that abraham the beloved of the lord gave to this priest of god a tithe of all his spoils. ( ) this sufficiently shows that before he founded the israelitish nation god constituted kings and priests in jerusalem, and ordained for them rites and laws. ( ) whether he did so prophetically is, as i have said, not sufficiently clear; but i am sure of this, that abraham, whilst he sojourned in the city, lived scrupulously according to these laws, for abraham had received no special rites from god; and yet it is stated (gen. xxvi: ), that he observed the worship, the precepts, the statutes, and the laws of god, which must be interpreted to mean the worship, the statutes, the precepts, and the laws of king melchisedek. ( ) malachi chides the jews as follows (i: - .): "who is there among you that will shut the doors? [of the temple]; neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. ( ) i have no pleasure in you, saith the lord of hosts. ( ) for from the rising of the sun, even until the going down of the same my name shall be great among the gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered in my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the heathen, saith the lord of hosts." ( ) these words, which, unless we do violence to them, could only refer to the current period, abundantly testify that the jews of that time were not more beloved by god than other nations, that god then favoured other nations with more miracles than he vouchsafed to the jews, who had then partly recovered their empire without miraculous aid; and, lastly, that the gentiles possessed rites and ceremonies acceptable to god. ( ) but i pass over these points lightly: it is enough for my purpose to have shown that the election of the jews had regard to nothing but temporal physical happiness and freedom, in other words, autonomous government, and to the manner and means by which they obtained it; consequently to the laws in so far as they were necessary to the preservation of that special government; and, lastly, to the manner in which they were revealed. in regard to other matters, wherein man's true happiness consists, they were on a par with the rest of the nations. ( ) when, therefore, it is said in scripture (deut. iv: ) that the lord is not so nigh to any other nation as he is to the jews, reference is only made to their government, and to the period when so many miracles happened to them, for in respect of intellect and virtue - that is, in respect of blessedness - god was, as we have said already, and are now demonstrating, equally gracious to all. ( ) scripture itself bears testimony to this fact, for the psalmist says (cxlv: ), "the lord is near unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." ( ) so in the same psalm, verse , "the lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." in ps. xxxiii: , it is clearly stated that god has granted to all men the same intellect, in these words, he fashioneth their hearts alike." the heart was considered by the hebrews, as i suppose everyone knows, to be the seat of the soul and the intellect. ( ) lastly, from job xxxviii: , it is plain that god had ordained for the whole human race the law to reverence god, to keep from evil doing, or to do well, and that job, although a gentile, was of all men most acceptable to god, because he exceeded all in piety and religion. ( ) lastly, from jonah iv: , it is very evident that, not only to the jews but to all men, god was gracious, merciful, long- suffering, and of great goodness, and repented him of the evil, for jonah says: "therefore i determined to flee before unto tarshish, for i know that thou art a gracious god, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness," &c., and that, therefore, god would pardon the ninevites. ( ) we conclude, therefore (inasmuch as god is to all men equally gracious, and the hebrews were only, chosen by him in respect to their social organization and government), that the individual jew, taken apart from his social organization and government, possessed no gift of god above other men, and that there was no difference between jew and gentile. ( ) as it is a fact that god is equally gracious, merciful, and the rest, to all men; and as the function of the prophet was to teach men not so much the laws of their country, as true virtue, and to exhort them thereto, it is not to be doubted that all nations possessed prophets, and that the prophetic gift was not peculiar to the jews. ( ) indeed, history, both profane and sacred, bears witness to the fact. ( ) although, from the sacred histories of the old testament, it is not evident that the other nations had as many prophets as the hebrews, or that any gentile prophet was expressly sent by god to the nations, this does not affect the question, for the hebrews were careful to record their own affairs, not those of other nations. ( ) it suffices, then, that we find in the old testament gentiles, and uncircumcised, as noah, enoch, abimelech, balaam, &c., exercising prophetic gifts; further, that hebrew prophets were sent by god, not only to their own nation but to many others also. ( ) ezekiel prophesied to all the nations then known; obadiah to none, that we are aware of, save the idumeans; and jonah was chiefly the prophet to the ninevites. ( ) isaiah bewails and predicts the calamities, and hails the restoration not only of the jews but also of other nations, for he says (chap. xvi: ), "therefore i will bewail jazer with weeping;" and in chap. xix. he foretells first the calamities and then the restoration of the egyptians (see verses , , , ), saying that god shall send them a saviour to free them, that the lord shall be known in egypt, and, further, that the egyptians shall worship god with sacrifice and oblation; and, at last, he calls that nation the blessed egyptian people of god; all of which particulars are specially noteworthy. ( ) jeremiah is called, not the prophet of the hebrew nation, but simply the prophet of the nations (see jer:i. ). ( ) he also mournfully foretells the calamities of the nations, and predicts their restoration, for he says (xlviii: ) of the moabites, "therefore will i howl for moab, and i will cry out for all moab" (verse ), "and therefore mine heart shall sound for moab like pipes;" in the end he prophesies their restoration, as also the restoration of the egyptians, ammonites, and elamites. ( ) wherefore it is beyond doubt that other nations also, like the jews, had their prophets, who prophesied to them. ( ) although scripture only, makes mention of one man, balaam, to whom the future of the jews and the other nations was revealed, we must not suppose that balaam prophesied only once, for from the narrative itself it is abundantly clear that he had long previously been famous for prophesy and other divine gifts. ( ) for when balak bade him to come to him, he said (num. xxii: ), "for i know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed." ( ) thus we see that he possessed the gift which god had bestowed on abraham. further, as accustomed to prophesy, balaam bade the messengers wait for him till the will of the lord was revealed to him. ( ) when he prophesied, that is, when he interpreted the true mind of god, he was wont to say this of himself: "he hath said, which heard the words of god and knew the knowledge of the most high, which saw the vision of the almighty falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." ( ) further, after he had blessed the hebrews by the command of god, he began (as was his custom) to prophesy to other nations, and to predict their future; all of which abundantly shows that he had always been a prophet, or had often prophesied, and (as we may also remark here) possessed that which afforded the chief certainty to prophets of the truth of their prophecy, namely, a mind turned wholly to what is right and good, for he did not bless those whom he wished to bless, nor curse those whom he wished to curse, as balak supposed, but only those whom god wished to be blessed or cursed. ( ) thus he answered balak: "if balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, i cannot go beyond the commandment of the lord to do either good or bad of my own mind; but what the lord saith, that will i speak." ( ) as for god being angry with him in the way, the same happened to moses when he set out to egypt by the command of the lord; and as to his receiving money for prophesying, samuel did the same ( sam. ix: , ); if in anyway he sinned, "there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not," eccles. vii: . (vide epist. peter ii: , , and jude : .) ( ) his speeches must certainly have had much weight with god, and his power for cursing must assuredly have been very great from the number of times that we find stated in scripture, in proof of god's great mercy to the jews, that god would not hear balaam, and that he changed the cursing to blessing (see deut. xxiii: , josh. xxiv: , neh. xiii: ). ( ) wherefore he was without doubt most acceptable to god, for the speeches and cursings of the wicked move god not at all. ( ) as then he was a true prophet, and nevertheless joshua calls him a soothsayer or augur, it is certain that this title had an honourable signification, and that those whom the gentiles called augurs and soothsayers were true prophets, while those whom scripture often accuses and condemns were false soothsayers, who deceived the gentiles as false prophets deceived the jews; indeed, this is made evident from other passages in the bible, whence we conclude that the gift of prophecy was not peculiar to the jews, but common to all nations. ( ) the pharisees, however, vehemently contend that this divine gift was peculiar to their nation, and that the other nations foretold the future (what will superstition invent next?) by some unexplained diabolical faculty. ( ) the principal passage of scripture which they cite, by way of confirming their theory with its authority, is exodus xxxiii: , where moses says to god, "for wherein shall it be known here that i and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, i and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth." ( ) from this they would infer that moses asked of god that he should be present to the jews, and should reveal himself to them prophetically; further, that he should grant this favour to no other nation. ( ) it is surely absurd that moses should have been jealous of god's presence among the gentiles, or that he should have dared to ask any such thing. ( ) the act is, as moses knew that the disposition and spirit of his nation was rebellious, he clearly saw that they could not carry out what they had begun without very great miracles and special external aid from god; nay, that without such aid they must necessarily perish: as it was evident that god wished them to be preserved, he asked for this special external aid. ( ) thus he says (ex. xxxiv: ), "if now i have found grace in thy sight, lord, let my lord, i pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people." ( ) the reason, therefore, for his seeking special external aid from god was the stiffneckedness of the people, and it is made still more plain, that he asked for nothing beyond this special external aid by god's answer - for god answered at once (verse of the same chapter) - "behold, i make a covenant: before all thy people i will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation." ( ) therefore moses had in view nothing beyond the special election of the jews, as i have explained it, and made no other request to god. ( ) i confess that in paul's epistle to the romans, i find another text which carries more weight, namely, where paul seems to teach a different doctrine from that here set down, for he there says (rom. iii: ): "what advantage then hath the jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? ( ) much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of god." ( ) but if we look to the doctrine which paul especially desired to teach, we shall find nothing repugnant to our present contention; on the contrary, his doctrine is the same as ours, for he says (rom. iii: ) "that god is the god of the jews and of the gentiles, and" (ch. ii: , ) "but, if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. ( ) therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?" ( ) further, in chap. iv:verse , he says that all alike, jew and gentile, were under sin, and that without commandment and law there is no sin. ( ) wherefore it is most evident that to all men absolutely was revealed the law under which all lived - namely, the law which has regard only to true virtue, not the law established in respect to, and in the formation of a particular state and adapted to the disposition of a particular people. ( ) lastly, paul concludes that since god is the god of all nations, that is, is equally gracious to all, and since all men equally live under the law and under sin, so also to all nations did god send his christ, to free all men equally from the bondage of the law, that they should no more do right by the command of the law, but by the constant determination of their hearts. ( ) so that paul teaches exactly the same as ourselves. ( ) when, therefore, he says "to the jews only were entrusted the oracles of god," we must either understand that to them only were the laws entrusted in writing, while they were given to other nations merely in revelation and conception, or else (as none but jews would object to the doctrine he desired to advance) that paul was answering only in accordance with the understanding and current ideas of the jews, for in respect to teaching things which he had partly seen, partly heard, he was to the greeks a greek, and to the jews a jew. ( ) it now only remains to us to answer the arguments of those who would persuade themselves that the election of the jews was not temporal, and merely in respect of their commonwealth, but eternal; for, they say, we see the jews after the loss of their commonwealth, and after being scattered so many years and separated from all other nations, still surviving, which is without parallel among other peoples, and further the scriptures seem to teach that god has chosen for himself the jews for ever, so that though they have lost their commonwealth, they still nevertheless remain god's elect. ( ) the passages which they think teach most clearly this eternal election, are chiefly: ( .) jer. xxxi: , where the prophet testifies that the seed of israel shall for ever remain the nation of god, comparing them with the stability of the heavens and nature; ( .) ezek. xx: , where the prophet seems to intend that though the jews wanted after the help afforded them to turn their backs on the worship of the lord, that god would nevertheless gather them together again from all the lands in which they were dispersed, and lead them to the wilderness of the peoples - as he had led their fathers to the wilderness of the land of egypt - and would at length, after purging out from among them the rebels and transgressors, bring them thence to his holy mountain, where the whole house of israel should worship him. other passages are also cited, especially by the pharisees, but i think i shall satisfy everyone if i answer these two, and this i shall easily accomplish after showing from scripture itself that god chose not the hebrews for ever, but only on the condition under which he had formerly chosen the canaanites, for these last, as we have shown, had priests who religiously worshipped god, and whom god at length rejected because of their luxury, pride, and corrupt worship. ( ) moses (lev. xviii: ) warned the israelites that they be not polluted with whoredoms, lest the land spue them out as it had spued out the nations who had dwelt there before, and in deut. viii: , , in the plainest terms he threatens their total ruin, for he says, "i testify against you that ye shall surely perish. ( ) as the nations which the lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish." in like manner many other passages are found in the law which expressly show that god chose the hebrews neither absolutely nor for ever. ( ) if, then, the prophets foretold for them a new covenant of the knowledge of god, love, and grace, such a promise is easily proved to be only made to the elect, for ezekiel in the chapter which we have just quoted expressly says that god will separate from them the rebellious and transgressors, and zephaniah (iii: , ), says that "god will take away the proud from the midst of them, and leave the poor." ( ) now, inasmuch as their election has regard to true virtue, it is not to be thought that it was promised to the jews alone to the exclusion of others, but we must evidently believe that the true gentile prophets (and every nation, as we have shown, possessed such) promised the same to the faithful of their own people, who were thereby comforted. ( ) wherefore this eternal covenant of the knowledge of god and love is universal, as is clear, moreover, from zeph. iii: , : no difference in this respect can be admitted between jew and gentile, nor did the former enjoy any special election beyond that which we have pointed out. ( ) when the prophets, in speaking of this election which regards only true virtue, mixed up much concerning sacrifices and ceremonies, and the rebuilding of the temple and city, they wished by such figurative expressions, after the manner and nature of prophecy, to expound matters spiritual, so as at the same time to show to the jews, whose prophets they were, the true restoration of the state and of the temple to be expected about the time of cyrus. ( ) at the present time, therefore, there is absolutely nothing which the jews can arrogate to themselves beyond other people. ( ) as to their continuance so long after dispersion and the loss of empire, there is nothing marvellous in it, for they so separated themselves from every other nation as to draw down upon themselves universal hate, not only by their outward rites, rites conflicting with those of other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision which they most scrupulously observe. ( ) that they have been preserved in great measure by gentile hatred, experience demonstrates. ( ) when the king of spain formerly compelled the jews to embrace the state religion or to go into exile, a large number of jews accepted catholicism. ( ) now, as these renegades were admitted to all the native privileges of spaniards, and deemed worthy of filling all honourable offices, it came to pass that they straightway became so intermingled with the spaniards as to leave of themselves no relic or remembrance. ( ) but exactly the opposite happened to those whom the king of portugal compelled to become christians, for they always, though converted, lived apart, inasmuch as they were considered unworthy of any civic honours. ( ) the sign of circumcision is, as i think, so important, that i could persuade myself that it alone would preserve the nation for ever. ( ) nay, i would go so far as to believe that if the foundations of their religion have not emasculated their minds they may even, if occasion offers, so changeable are human affairs, raise up their empire afresh, and that god may a second time elect them. ( ) of such a possibility we have a very famous example in the chinese. ( ) they, too, have some distinctive mark on their heads which they most scrupulously observe, and by which they keep themselves apart from everyone else, and have thus kept themselves during so many thousand years that they far surpass all other nations in antiquity. ( ) they have not always retained empire, but they have recovered it when lost, and doubtless will do so again after the spirit of the tartars becomes relaxed through the luxury of riches and pride. ( ) lastly, if any one wishes to maintain that the jews, from this or from any other cause, have been chosen by god for ever, i will not gainsay him if he will admit that this choice, whether temporary or eternal, has no regard, in so far as it is peculiar to the jews, to aught but dominion and physical advantages (for by such alone can one nation be distinguished from another), whereas in regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and god has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another. chapter iv. - of the divine law. ( ) the word law, taken in the abstract, means that by which an individual, or all things, or as many things as belong to a particular species, act in one and the same fixed and definite manner, which manner depends either on natural necessity or on human decree. ( ) a law which depends on natural necessity is one which necessarily follows from the nature, or from the definition of the thing in question; a law which depends on human decree, and which is more correctly called an ordinance, is one which men have laid down for themselves and others in order to live more safely or conveniently, or from some similar reason. ( ) for example, the law that all bodies impinging on lesser bodies, lose as much of their own motion as they communicate to the latter is a universal law of all bodies, and depends on natural necessity. ( ) so, too, the law that a man in remembering one thing, straightway remembers another either like it, or which he had perceived simultaneously with it, is a law which necessarily follows from the nature of man. ( ) but the law that men must yield, or be compelled to yield, somewhat of their natural right, and that they bind themselves to live in a certain way, depends on human decree. ( ) now, though i freely admit that all things are predetermined by universal natural laws to exist and operate in a given, fixed, and definite manner, i still assert that the laws i have just mentioned depend on human decree. ( .) ( ) because man, in so far as he is a part of nature, constitutes a part of the power of nature. ( ) whatever, therefore, follows necessarily from the necessity of human nature (that is, from nature herself, in so far as we conceive of her as acting through man) follows, even though it be necessarily, from human power. ( ) hence the sanction of such laws may very well be said to depend on man's decree, for it principally depends on the power of the human mind; so that the human mind in respect to its perception of things as true and false, can readily be conceived as without such laws, but not without necessary law as we have just defined it. ( .) ( ) i have stated that these laws depend on human decree because it is well to define and explain things by their proximate causes. ( ) the general consideration of fate and the concatenation of causes would aid us very little in forming and arranging our ideas concerning particular questions. ( ) let us add that as to the actual coordination and concatenation of things, that is how things are ordained and linked together, we are obviously ignorant; therefore, it is more profitable for right living, nay, it is necessary for us to consider things as contingent. ( ) so much about law in the abstract. ( ) now the word law seems to be only applied to natural phenomena by analogy, and is commonly taken to signify a command which men can either obey or neglect, inasmuch as it restrains human nature within certain originally exceeded limits, and therefore lays down no rule beyond human strength. ( ) thus it is expedient to define law more particularly as a plan of life laid down by man for himself or others with a certain object. ( ) however, as the true object of legislation is only perceived by a few, and most men are almost incapable of grasping it, though they live under its conditions, legislators, with a view to exacting general obedience, have wisely put forward another object, very different from that which necessarily follows from the nature of law: they promise to the observers of the law that which the masses chiefly desire, and threaten its violators with that which they chiefly fear: thus endeavouring to restrain the masses, as far as may be, like a horse with a curb; whence it follows that the word law is chiefly applied to the modes of life enjoined on men by the sway of others; hence those who obey the law are said to live under it and to be under compulsion. ( ) in truth, a man who renders everyone their due because he fears the gallows, acts under the sway and compulsion of others, and cannot be called just. ( ) but a man who does the same from a knowledge of the true reason for laws and their necessity, acts from a firm purpose and of his own accord, and is therefore properly called just. ( ) this, i take it, is paul's meaning when he says, that those who live under the law cannot be justified through the law, for justice, as commonly defined, is the constant and perpetual will to render every man his due. ( ) thus solomon says (prov. xxi: ), "it is a joy to the just to do judgment," but the wicked fear. ( ) law, then, being a plan of living which men have for a certain object laid down for themselves or others, may, as it seems, be divided into human law and divine law. {but both are opposite sides of the same coin} ( ) by human law i mean a plan of living which serves only to render life and the state secure. ( ) by divine law i mean that which only regards the highest good, in other words, the true knowledge of god and love. ( ) i call this law divine because of the nature of the highest good, which i will here shortly explain as clearly as i can. ( ) inasmuch as the intellect is the best part of our being, it is evident that we should make every effort to perfect it as far as possible if we desire to search for what is really profitable to us. ( ) for in intellectual perfection the highest good should consist. ( ) now, since all our knowledge, and the certainty which removes every doubt, depend solely on the knowledge of god;- firstly, because without god nothing can exist or be conceived; secondly, because so long as we have no clear and distinct idea of god we may remain in universal doubt - it follows that our highest good and perfection also depend solely on the knowledge of god. ( ) further, since without god nothing can exist or be conceived, it is evident that all natural phenomena involve and express the conception of god as far as their essence and perfection extend, so that we have greater and more perfect knowledge of god in proportion to our knowledge of natural phenomena: conversely (since the knowledge of an effect through its cause is the same thing as the knowledge of a particular property of a cause) the greater our knowledge of natural phenomena, the more perfect is our knowledge of the essence of god (which is the cause of all things). ( ) so, then, our highest good not only depends on the knowledge of god, but wholly consists therein; and it further follows that man is perfect or the reverse in proportion to the nature and perfection of the object of his special desire; hence the most perfect and the chief sharer in the highest blessedness is he who prizes above all else, and takes especial delight in, the intellectual knowledge of god, the most perfect being. ( ) hither, then, our highest good and our highest blessedness aim - namely, to the knowledge and love of god; therefore the means demanded by this aim of all human actions, that is, by god in so far as the idea of him is in us, may be called the commands of god, because they proceed, as it were, from god himself, inasmuch as he exists in our minds, and the plan of life which has regard to this aim may be fitly called the law of god. ( ) the nature of the means, and the plan of life which this aim demands, how the foundations of the best states follow its lines, and how men's life is conducted, are questions pertaining to general ethics. ( ) here i only proceed to treat of the divine law in a particular application. ( ) as the love of god is man's highest happiness and blessedness, and the ultimate end and aim of all human actions, it follows that he alone lives by the divine law who loves god not from fear of punishment, or from love of any other object, such as sensual pleasure, fame, or the like; but solely because he has knowledge of god, or is convinced that the knowledge and love of god is the highest good. ( ) the sum and chief precept, then, of the divine law is to love god as the highest good, namely, as we have said, not from fear of any pains and penalties, or from the love of any other object in which we desire to take pleasure. ( ) the idea of god lays down the rule that god is our highest good - in other words, that the knowledge and love of god is the ultimate aim to which all our actions should be directed. ( ) the worldling cannot understand these things, they appear foolishness to him, because he has too meager a knowledge of god, and also because in this highest good he can discover nothing which he can handle or eat, or which affects the fleshly appetites wherein he chiefly delights, for it consists solely in thought and the pure reason. ( ) they, on the other hand, who know that they possess no greater gift than intellect and sound reason, will doubtless accept what i have said without question. ( ) we have now explained that wherein the divine law chiefly consists, and what are human laws, namely, all those which have a different aim unless they have been ratified by revelation, for in this respect also things are referred to god (as we have shown above) and in this sense the law of moses, although it was not universal, but entirely adapted to the disposition and particular preservation of a single people, may yet be called a law of god or divine law, inasmuch as we believe that it was ratified by prophetic insight. ( ) if we consider the nature of natural divine law as we have just explained it, we shall see: ( ) i.- that it is universal or common to all men, for we have deduced it from universal human nature. ( ) ii. that it does not depend on the truth of any historical narrative whatsoever, for inasmuch as this natural divine law is comprehended solely by the consideration of human nature, it is plain that we can conceive it as existing as well in adam as in any other man, as well in a man living among his fellows, as in a man who lives by himself. ( ) the truth of a historical narrative, however assured, cannot give us the knowledge nor consequently the love of god, for love of god springs from knowledge of him, and knowledge of him should be derived from general ideas, in themselves certain and known, so that the truth of a historical narrative is very far from being a necessary requisite for our attaining our highest good. ( ) still, though the truth of histories cannot give us the knowledge and love of god, i do not deny that reading them is very useful with a view to life in the world, for the more we have observed and known of men's customs and circumstances, which are best revealed by their actions, the more warily we shall be able to order our lives among them, and so far as reason dictates to adapt our actions to their dispositions. ( ) iii. we see that this natural divine law does not demand the performance of ceremonies - that is, actions in themselves indifferent, which are called good from the fact of their institution, or actions symbolizing something profitable for salvation, or (if one prefers this definition) actions of which the meaning surpasses human understanding. ( ) the natural light of reason does not demand anything which it is itself unable to supply, but only such as it can very clearly show to be good, or a means to our blessedness. ( ) such things as are good simply because they have been commanded or instituted, or as being symbols of something good, are mere shadows which cannot be reckoned among actions that are the offsprings as it were, or fruit of a sound mind and of intellect. ( ) there is no need for me to go into this now in more detail. ( ) iv. lastly, we see that the highest reward of the divine law is the law itself, namely, to know god and to love him of our free choice, and with an undivided and fruitful spirit; while its penalty is the absence of these things, and being in bondage to the flesh - that is, having an inconstant and wavering spirit. ( ) these points being noted, i must now inquire: ( ) i. whether by the natural light of reason we can conceive of god as a law-giver or potentate ordaining laws for men? ( ) ii. what is the teaching of holy writ concerning this natural light of reason and natural law? ( ) iii. with what objects were ceremonies formerly instituted? ( ) iv. lastly, what is the good gained by knowing the sacred histories and believing them? ( ) of the first two i will treat in this chapter, of the remaining two in the following one. ( ) our conclusion about the first is easily deduced from the nature of god's will, which is only distinguished from his understanding in relation to our intellect - that is, the will and the understanding of god are in reality one and the same, and are only distinguished in relation to our thoughts which we form concerning god's understanding. ( ) for instance, if we are only looking to the fact that the nature of a triangle is from eternity contained in the divine nature as an eternal verity, we say that god possesses the idea of a triangle, or that he understands the nature of a triangle; but if afterwards we look to the fact that the nature of a triangle is thus contained in the divine nature, solely by the necessity of the divine nature, and not by the necessity of the nature and essence of a triangle - in fact, that the necessity of a triangle's essence and nature, in so far as they are conceived of as eternal verities, depends solely on the necessity of the divine nature and intellect, we then style god's will or decree, that which before we styled his intellect. ( ) wherefore we make one and the same affirmation concerning god when we say that he has from eternity decreed that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, as when we say that he has understood it. ( ) hence the affirmations and the negations of god always involve necessity or truth; so that, for example, if god said to adam that he did not wish him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it would have involved a contradiction that adam should have been able to eat of it, and would therefore have been impossible that he should have so eaten, for the divine command would have involved an eternal necessity and truth. ( ) but since scripture nevertheless narrates that god did give this command to adam, and yet that none the less adam ate of the tree, we must perforce say that god revealed to adam the evil which would surely follow if he should eat of the tree, but did not disclose that such evil would of necessity come to pass. ( ) thus it was that adam took the revelation to be not an eternal and necessary truth, but a law - that is, an ordinance followed by gain or loss, not depending necessarily on the nature of the act performed, but solely on the will and absolute power of some potentate, so that the revelation in question was solely in relation to adam, and solely through his lack of knowledge a law, and god was, as it were, a lawgiver and potentate. ( ) from the same cause, namely, from lack of knowledge, the decalogue in relation to the hebrews was a law, for since they knew not the existence of god as an eternal truth, they must have taken as a law that which was revealed to them in the decalogue, namely, that god exists, and that god only should be worshipped. ( ) but if god had spoken to them without the intervention of any bodily means, immediately they would have perceived it not as a law, but as an eternal truth. ( ) what we have said about the israelites and adam, applies also to all the prophets who wrote laws in god's name - they did not adequately conceive god's decrees as eternal truths. ( ) for instance, we must say of moses that from revelation, from the basis of what was revealed to him, he perceived the method by which the israelitish nation could best be united in a particular territory, and could form a body politic or state, and further that he perceived the method by which that nation could best be constrained to obedience; but he did not perceive, nor was it revealed to him, that this method was absolutely the best, nor that the obedience of the people in a certain strip of territory would necessarily imply the end he had in view. ( ) wherefore he perceived these things not as eternal truths, but as precepts and ordinances, and he ordained them as laws of god, and thus it came to be that he conceived god as a ruler, a legislator, a king, as merciful, just, &c., whereas such qualities are simply attributes of human nature, and utterly alien from the nature of the deity. ( )thus much we may affirm of the prophets who wrote laws in the name of god; but we must not affirm it of christ, for christ, although he too seems to have written laws in the name of god, must be taken to have had a clear and adequate perception, for christ was not so much a prophet as the mouthpiece of god. ( ) for god made revelations to mankind through christ as he had before done through angels - that is, a created voice, visions, &c. ( ) it would be as unreasonable to say that god had accommodated his revelations to the opinions of christ as that he had before accommodated them to the opinions of angels (that is, of a created voice or visions) as matters to be revealed to the prophets, a wholly absurd hypothesis. ( ) moreover, christ was sent to teach not only the jews but the whole human race, and therefore it was not enough that his mind should be accommodated to the opinions the jews alone, but also to the opinion and fundamental teaching common to the whole human race - in other words, to ideas universal and true. ( ) inasmuch as god revealed himself to christ, or to christ's mind immediately, and not as to the prophets through words and symbols, we must needs suppose that christ perceived truly what was revealed, in other words, he understood it, for a matter is understood when it is perceived simply by the mind without words or symbols. ( ) christ, then, perceived (truly and adequately) what was revealed, and if he ever proclaimed such revelations as laws, he did so because of the ignorance and obstinacy of the people, acting in this respect the part of god; inasmuch as he accommodated himself to the comprehension of the people, and though he spoke somewhat more clearly than the other prophets, yet he taught what was revealed obscurely, and generally through parables, especially when he was speaking to those to whom it was not yet given to understand the kingdom of heaven. (see matt. xiii: , &c.) ( ) to those to whom it was given to understand the mysteries of heaven, he doubtless taught his doctrines as eternal truths, and did not lay them down as laws, thus freeing the minds of his hearers from the bondage of that law which he further confirmed and established. ( ) paul apparently points to this more than once (e.g. rom. vii: , and iii: ), though he never himself seems to wish to speak openly, but, to quote his own words (rom. iii: , and vi: ), "merely humanly." ( ) this he expressly states when he calls god just, and it was doubtless in concession to human weakness that he attributes mercy, grace, anger, and similar qualities to god, adapting his language to the popular mind, or, as he puts it ( cor. iii: , ), to carnal men. ( ) in rom. ix: , he teaches undisguisedly that god's auger and mercy depend not on the actions of men, but on god's own nature or will; further, that no one is justified by the works of the law, but only by faith, which he seems to identify with the full assent of the soul; lastly, that no one is blessed unless he have in him the mind of christ (rom. viii: ), whereby he perceives the laws of god as eternal truths. ( ) we conclude, therefore, that god is described as a lawgiver or prince, and styled just, merciful, &c., merely in concession to popular understanding, and the imperfection of popular knowledge; that in reality god acts and directs all things simply by the necessity of his nature and perfection, and that his decrees and volitions are eternal truths, and always involve necessity. ( ) so much for the first point which i wished to explain and demonstrate. ( ) passing on to the second point, let us search the sacred pages for their teaching concerning the light of nature and this divine law. ( ) the first doctrine we find in the history of the first man, where it is narrated that god commanded adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; this seems to mean that god commanded adam to do and to seek after righteousness because it was good, not because the contrary was evil: that is, to seek the good for its own sake, not from fear of evil. ( ) we have seen that he who acts rightly from the true knowledge and love of right, acts with freedom and constancy, whereas he who acts from fear of evil, is under the constraint of evil, and acts in bondage under external control. ( ) so that this commandment of god to adam comprehends the whole divine natural law, and absolutely agrees with the dictates of the light of nature; nay, it would be easy to explain on this basis the whole history or allegory of the first man. ( ) but i prefer to pass over the subject in silence, because, in the first place, i cannot be absolutely certain that my explanation would be in accordance with the intention of the sacred writer; and, secondly, because many do not admit that this history is an allegory, maintaining it to be a simple narrative of facts. ( ) it will be better, therefore, to adduce other passages of scripture, especially such as were written by him, who speaks with all the strength of his natural understanding, in which he surpassed all his contemporaries, and whose sayings are accepted by the people as of equal weight with those of the prophets. ( ) i mean solomon, whose prudence and wisdom are commended in scripture rather than his piety and gift of prophecy. ( ) life being taken to mean the true life (as is evident from deut. xxx: ), the fruit of the understanding consists only in the true life, and its absence constitutes punishment. ( ) all this absolutely agrees with what was set out in our fourth point concerning natural law. ( ) moreover our position that it is the well-spring of life, and that the intellect alone lays down laws for the wise, is plainly taught by, the sage, for he says (prov. xiii: ): "the law of the wise is a fountain of life" - that is, as we gather from the preceding text, the understanding. ( ) in chap. iii: , he expressly teaches that the understanding renders man blessed and happy, and gives him true peace of mind. "happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding," for "wisdom gives length of days, and riches and honour; her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace" (xiiii: , ). ( ) according to solomon, therefore, it is only, the wise who live in peace and equanimity, not like the wicked whose minds drift hither and thither, and (as isaiah says, chap. lvii: ) "are like the troubled sea, for them there is no peace." ( ) lastly, we should especially note the passage in chap. ii. of solomon's proverbs which most clearly confirms our contention: "if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding . . . then shalt thou understand the fear of the lord, and find the knowledge of god; for the lord giveth wisdom; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." ( ) these words clearly enunciate ( ), that wisdom or intellect alone teaches us to fear god wisely - that is, to worship him truly; ( ), that wisdom and knowledge flow from god's mouth, and that god bestows on us this gift; this we have already shown in proving that our understanding and our knowledge depend on, spring from, and are perfected by the idea or knowledge of god, and nothing else. ( ) solomon goes on to say in so many words that this knowledge contains and involves the true principles of ethics and politics: "when wisdom entereth into thy heart, and knowledge is pleasant to thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee, then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity, yea every good path." ( ) all of which is in obvious agreement with natural knowledge: for after we have come to the understanding of things, and have tasted the excellence of knowledge, she teaches us ethics and true virtue. ( ) thus the happiness and the peace of him who cultivates his natural understanding lies, according to solomon also, not so much under the dominion of fortune (or god's external aid) as in inward personal virtue (or god's internal aid), for the latter can to a great extent be preserved by vigilance, right action, and thought. ( ) lastly, we must by no means pass over the passage in paul's epistle to the romans, i: , in which he says: "for the invisible things of god from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse, because, when they knew god, they glorified him not as god, neither were they thankful." ( ) these words clearly show that everyone can by the light of nature clearly understand the goodness and the eternal divinity of god, and can thence know and deduce what they should seek for and what avoid; wherefore the apostle says that they are without excuse and cannot plead ignorance, as they certainly might if it were a question of supernatural light and the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of christ. ( ) "wherefore," he goes on to say (ib. ), "god gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts;" and so on, through the rest of the chapter, he describes the vices of ignorance, and sets them forth as the punishment of ignorance. ( ) this obviously agrees with the verse of solomon, already quoted, "the instruction of fools is folly," so that it is easy to understand why paul says that the wicked are without excuse. ( ) as every man sows so shall he reap: out of evil, evils necessarily spring, unless they be wisely counteracted. ( ) thus we see that scripture literally approves of the light of natural reason and the natural divine law, and i have fulfilled the promises made at the beginning of this chapter. chapter v. - of the ceremonial law. ( ) in the foregoing chapter we have shown that the divine law, which renders men truly blessed, and teaches them the true life, is universal to all men; nay, we have so intimately deduced it from human nature that it must be esteemed innate, and, as it were, ingrained in the human mind. ( ) but with regard to the ceremonial observances which were ordained in the old testament for the hebrews only, and were so adapted to their state that they could for the most part only be observed by the society as a whole and not by each individual, it is evident that they formed no part of the divine law, and had nothing to do with blessedness and virtue, but had reference only to the election of the hebrews, that is (as i have shown in chap. ii.), to their temporal bodily happiness and the tranquillity of their kingdom, and that therefore they were only valid while that kingdom lasted. ( ) if in the old testament they are spoken of as the law of god, it is only because they were founded on revelation, or a basis of revelation. ( ) still as reason, however sound, has little weight with ordinary theologians, i will adduce the authority of scripture for what i here assert, and will further show, for the sake of greater clearness, why and how these ceremonials served to establish and preserve the jewish kingdom. ( ) isaiah teaches most plainly that the divine law in its strict sense signifies that universal law which consists in a true manner of life, and does not signify ceremonial observances. ( ) in chapter i: , the prophet calls on his countrymen to hearken to the divine law as he delivers it, and first excluding all kinds of sacrifices and all feasts, he at length sums up the law in these few words, "cease to do evil, learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed." ( ) not less striking testimony is given in psalm xl: - , where the psalmist addresses god: "sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened; burnt offering and sin-offering hast thou not required; i delight to do thy will, my god; yea, thy law is within my heart." ( ) here the psalmist reckons as the law of god only that which is inscribed in his heart, and excludes ceremonies therefrom, for the latter are good and inscribed on the heart only from the fact of their institution, and not because of their intrinsic value. ( ) other passages of scripture testify to the same truth, but these two will suffice. ( ) we may also learn from the bible that ceremonies are no aid to blessedness, but only have reference to the temporal prosperity of the kingdom; for the rewards promised for their observance are merely temporal advantages and delights, blessedness being reserved for the universal divine law. ( ) in all the five books commonly attributed to moses nothing is promised, as i have said, beyond temporal benefits, such as honours, fame, victories, riches, enjoyments, and health. ( ) though many moral precepts besides ceremonies are contained in these five books, they appear not as moral doctrines universal to all men, but as commands especially adapted to the understanding and character of the hebrew people, and as having reference only to the welfare of the kingdom. ( ) for instance, moses does not teach the jews as a prophet not to kill or to steal, but gives these commandments solely as a lawgiver and judge; he does not reason out the doctrine, but affixes for its non-observance a penalty which may and very properly does vary in different nations. ( ) so, too, the command not to commit adultery is given merely with reference to the welfare of the state; for if the moral doctrine had been intended, with reference not only to the welfare of the state, but also to the tranquillity and blessedness of the individual, moses would have condemned not merely the outward act, but also the mental acquiescence, as is done by christ, who taught only universal moral precepts, and for this cause promises a spiritual instead of a temporal reward. ( ) christ, as i have said, was sent into the world, not to preserve the state nor to lay down laws, but solely to teach the universal moral law, so we can easily understand that he wished in nowise to do away with the law of moses, inasmuch as he introduced no new laws of his own - his sole care was to teach moral doctrines, and distinguish them from the laws of the state; for the pharisees, in their ignorance, thought that the observance of the state law and the mosaic law was the sum total of morality; whereas such laws merely had reference to the public welfare, and aimed not so much at instructing the jews as at keeping them under constraint. ( ) but let us return to our subject, and cite other passages of scripture which set forth temporal benefits as rewards for observing the ceremonial law, and blessedness as reward for the universal law. ( ) none of the prophets puts the point more clearly than isaiah. ( .) after condemning hypocrisy he commends liberty and charity towards one's self and one's neighbours, and promises as a reward: "then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily, thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the lord shall be thy reward" (chap. lviii: ). ( ) shortly afterwards he commends the sabbath, and for a due observance of it, promises: "then shalt thou delight thyself in the lord, and i will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of jacob thy father: for the mouth of the lord has spoken it." ( ) thus the prophet for liberty bestowed, and charitable works, promises a healthy mind in a healthy body, and the glory of the lord even after death; whereas, for ceremonial exactitude, he only promises security of rule, prosperity, and temporal happiness. ( ) in psalms xv. and xxiv. no mention is made of ceremonies, but only of moral doctrines, inasmuch as there is no question of anything but blessedness, and blessedness is symbolically promised: it is quite certain that the expressions, "the hill of god," and "his tents and the dwellers therein," refer to blessedness and security of soul, not to the actual mount of jerusalem and the tabernacle of moses, for these latter were not dwelt in by anyone, and only the sons of levi ministered there. ( ) further, all those sentences of solomon to which i referred in the last chapter, for the cultivation of the intellect and wisdom, promise true blessedness, for by wisdom is the fear of god at length understood, and the knowledge of god found. ( ) that the jews themselves were not bound to practise their ceremonial observances after the destruction of their kingdom is evident from jeremiah. ( ) for when the prophet saw and foretold that the desolation of the city was at hand, he said that god only delights in those who know and understand that he exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, and that such persons only are worthy of praise. (jer. ix: .) ( ) as though god had said that, after the desolation of the city, he would require nothing special from the jews beyond the natural law by which all men are bound. ( ) the new testament also confirms this view, for only moral doctrines are therein taught, and the kingdom of heaven is promised as a reward, whereas ceremonial observances are not touched on by the apostles, after they began to preach the gospel to the gentiles. ( ) the pharisees certainly continued to practise these rites after the destruction of the kingdom, but more with a view of opposing the christians than of pleasing god: for after the first destruction of the city, when they were led captive to babylon, not being then, so far as i am aware, split up into sects, they straightway neglected their rites, bid farewell to the mosaic law, buried their national customs in oblivion as being plainly superfluous, and began to mingle with other nations, as we may abundantly learn from ezra and nehemiah. ( ) we cannot, therefore, doubt that they were no more bound by the law of moses, after the destruction of their kingdom, than they had been before it had been begun, while they were still living among other peoples before the exodus from egypt, and were subject to no special law beyond the natural law, and also, doubtless, the law of the state in which they were living, in so far as it was consonant with the divine natural law. ( ) as to the fact that the patriarchs offered sacrifices, i think they did so for the purpose of stimulating their piety, for their minds had been accustomed from childhood to the idea of sacrifice, which we know had been universal from the time of enoch; and thus they found in sacrifice their most powerful incentive. ( ) the patriarchs, then, did not sacrifice to god at the bidding of a divine right, or as taught by the basis of the divine law, but simply in accordance with the custom of the time; and, if in so doing they followed any ordinance, it was simply the ordinance of the country they were living in, by which (as we have seen before in the case of melchisedek) they were bound. ( ) i think that i have now given scriptural authority for my view: it remains to show why and how the ceremonial observances tended to preserve and confirm the hebrew kingdom; and this i can very briefly do on grounds universally accepted. ( ) the formation of society serves not only for defensive purposes, but is also very useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labour. ( ) if men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. ( ) strength and time, i repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plough, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch, and perform the other numerous functions required to keep life going; to say nothing of the arts and sciences which are also entirely necessary to the perfection and blessedness of human nature. ( ) we see that peoples living, in uncivilized barbarism lead a wretched and almost animal life, and even they would not be able to acquire their few rude necessaries without assisting one another to a certain extent. ( ) now if men were so constituted by nature that they desired nothing but what is designated by true reason, society would obviously have no need of laws: it would be sufficient to inculcate true moral doctrines; and men would freely, without hesitation, act in accordance with their true interests. ( ) but human nature is framed in a different fashion: every one, indeed, seeks his own interest, but does not do so in accordance with the dictates of sound reason, for most men's ideas of desirability and usefulness are guided by their fleshly instincts and emotions, which take no thought beyond the present and the immediate object. ( ) therefore, no society can exist without government, and force, and laws to restrain and repress men's desires and immoderate impulses. ( ) still human nature will not submit to absolute repression. ( ) violent governments, as seneca says, never last long; the moderate governments endure. ( ) so long as men act simply from fear they act contrary to their inclinations, taking no thought for the advantages or necessity of their actions, but simply endeavouring to escape punishment or loss of life. ( ) they must needs rejoice in any evil which befalls their ruler, even if it should involve themselves; and must long for and bring about such evil by every means in their power. ( ) again, men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by their equals. ( ) lastly, it is exceedingly difficult to revoke liberties once granted. ( ) from these considerations it follows, firstly, that authority should either be vested in the hands of the whole state in common, so that everyone should be bound to serve, and yet not be in subjection to his equals; or else, if power be in the hands of a few, or one man, that one man should be something above average humanity, or should strive to get himself accepted as such. ( ) secondly, laws should in every government be so arranged that people should be kept in bounds by the hope of some greatly desired good, rather than by fear, for then everyone will do his duty willingly. ( ) lastly, as obedience consists in acting at the bidding of external authority, it would have no place in a state where the government is vested in the whole people, and where laws are made by common consent. ( ) in such a society the people would remain free, whether the laws were added to or diminished, inasmuch as it would not be done on external authority, but their own free consent. ( ) the reverse happens when the sovereign power is vested in one man, for all act at his bidding; and, therefore, unless they had been trained from the first to depend on the words of their ruler, the latter would find it difficult, in case of need, to abrogate liberties once conceded, and impose new laws. ( ) from these universal considerations, let us pass on to the kingdom of the jews. ( ) the jews when they first came out of egypt were not bound by any national laws, and were therefore free to ratify any laws they liked, or to make new ones, and were at liberty to set up a government and occupy a territory wherever they chose. ( ) however, they, were entirely unfit to frame a wise code of laws and to keep the sovereign power vested in the community; they were all uncultivated and sunk in a wretched slavery, therefore the sovereignty was bound to remain vested in the hands of one man who would rule the rest and keep them under constraint, make laws and interpret them. ( ) this sovereignty was easily retained by moses, because he surpassed the rest in virtue and persuaded the people of the fact, proving it by many testimonies (see exod. chap. xiv., last verse, and chap. xix: ). ( ) he then, by the divine virtue he possessed, made laws and ordained them for the people, taking the greatest care that they should be obeyed willingly and not through fear, being specially induced to adopt this course by the obstinate nature of the jews, who would not have submitted to be ruled solely by constraint; and also by the imminence of war, for it is always better to inspire soldiers with a thirst for glory than to terrify them with threats; each man will then strive to distinguish himself by valour and courage, instead of merely trying to escape punishment. ( ) moses, therefore, by his virtue and the divine command, introduced a religion, so that the people might do their duty from devotion rather than fear. ( ) further, he bound them over by benefits, and prophesied many advantages in the future; nor were his laws very severe, as anyone may see for himself, especially if he remarks the number of circumstances necessary in order to procure the conviction of an accused person. ( ) lastly, in order that the people which could not govern itself should be entirely dependent on its ruler, he left nothing to the free choice of individuals (who had hitherto been slaves); the people could do nothing but remember the law, and follow the ordinances laid down at the good pleasure of their ruler; they were not allowed to plough, to sow, to reap, nor even to eat; to clothe themselves, to shave, to rejoice, or in fact to do anything whatever as they liked, but were bound to follow the directions given in the law; and not only this, but they were obliged to have marks on their door-posts, on their hands, and between their eyes to admonish them to perpetual obedience. ( ) this, then, was the object of the ceremonial law, that men should do nothing of their own free will, but should always act under external authority, and should continually confess by their actions and thoughts that they were not their own masters, but were entirely under the control of others. ( ) from all these considerations it is clearer than day that ceremonies have nothing to do with a state of blessedness, and that those mentioned in the old testament, i.e. the whole mosaic law, had reference merely to the government of the jews, and merely temporal advantages. ( ) as for the christian rites, such as baptism, the lord's supper, festivals, public prayers, and any other observances which are, and always have been, common to all christendom, if they were instituted by christ or his apostles (which is open to doubt), they were instituted as external signs of the universal church, and not as having anything to do with blessedness, or possessing any sanctity in themselves. ( ) therefore, though such ceremonies were not ordained for the sake of upholding a government, they were ordained for the preservation of a society, and accordingly he who lives alone is not bound by them: nay, those who live in a country where the christian religion is forbidden, are bound to abstain from such rites, and can none the less live in a state of blessedness. ( ) we have an example of this in japan, where the christian religion is forbidden, and the dutch who live there are enjoined by their east india company not to practise any outward rites of religion. ( ) i need not cite other examples, though it would be easy to prove my point from the fundamental principles of the new testament, and to adduce many confirmatory instances; but i pass on the more willingly, as i am anxious to proceed to my next proposition. ( ) i will now, therefore, pass on to what i proposed to treat of in the second part of this chapter, namely, what persons are bound to believe in the narratives contained in scripture, and how far they are so bound. ( ) examining this question by the aid of natural reason, i will proceed as follows. ( ) if anyone wishes to persuade his fellows for or against anything which is not self-evident, he must deduce his contention from their admissions, and convince them either by experience or by ratiocination; either by appealing to facts of natural experience, or to self-evident intellectual axioms. ( ) now unless the experience be of such a kind as to be clearly and distinctly understood, though it may convince a man, it will not have the same effect on his mind and disperse the clouds of his doubt so completely as when the doctrine taught is deduced entirely from intellectual axioms - that is, by the mere power of the understanding and logical order, and this is especially the case in spiritual matters which have nothing to do with the senses. ( ) but the deduction of conclusions from general truths a priori, usually requires a long chain of arguments, and, moreover, very great caution, acuteness, and self-restraint - qualities which are not often met with; therefore people prefer to be taught by experience rather than deduce their conclusion from a few axioms, and set them out in logical order. ( ) whence it follows, that if anyone wishes to teach a doctrine to a whole nation (not to speak of the whole human race), and to be understood by all men in every particular, he will seek to support his teaching with experience, and will endeavour to suit his reasonings and the definitions of his doctrines as far as possible to the understanding of the common people, who form the majority of mankind, and he will not set them forth in logical sequence nor adduce the definitions which serve to establish them. ( ) otherwise he writes only for the learned - that is, he will be understood by only a small proportion of the human race. ( ) all scripture was written primarily for an entire people, and secondarily for the whole human race; therefore its contents must necessarily be adapted as far as possible to the understanding of the masses, and proved only by examples drawn from experience. ( ) we will explain ourselves more clearly. ( ) the chief speculative doctrines taught in scripture are the existence of god, or a being who made all things, and who directs and sustains the world with consummate wisdom; furthermore, that god takes the greatest thought for men, or such of them as live piously and honourably, while he punishes, with various penalties, those who do evil, separating them from the good. ( ) all this is proved in scripture entirely through experience-that is, through the narratives there related. ( ) no definitions of doctrine are given, but all the sayings and reasonings are adapted to the understanding of the masses. ( ) although experience can give no clear knowledge of these things, nor explain the nature of god, nor how he directs and sustains all things, it can nevertheless teach and enlighten men sufficiently to impress obedience and devotion on their minds. ( ) it is now, i think, sufficiently clear what persons are bound to believe in the scripture narratives, and in what degree they are so bound, for it evidently follows from what has been said that the knowledge of and belief in them is particularly necessary to the masses whose intellect is not capable of perceiving things clearly and distinctly. ( ) further, he who denies them because he does not believe that god exists or takes thought for men and the world, may be accounted impious; but a man who is ignorant of them, and nevertheless knows by natural reason that god exists, as we have said, and has a true plan of life, is altogether blessed - yes, more blessed than the common herd of believers, because besides true opinions he possesses also a true and distinct conception. ( ) lastly, he who is ignorant of the scriptures and knows nothing by the light of reason, though he may not be impious or rebellious, is yet less than human and almost brutal, having none of god's gifts. ( ) we must here remark that when we say that the knowledge of the sacred narrative is particularly necessary to the masses, we do not mean the knowledge of absolutely all the narratives in the bible, but only of the principal ones, those which, taken by themselves, plainly display the doctrine we have just stated, and have most effect over men's minds. ( ) if all the narratives in scripture were necessary for the proof of this doctrine, and if no conclusion could be drawn without the general consideration of every one of the histories contained in the sacred writings, truly the conclusion and demonstration of such doctrine would overtask the understanding and strength not only of the masses, but of humanity; who is there who could give attention to all the narratives at once, and to all the circumstances, and all the scraps of doctrine to be elicited from such a host of diverse histories? ( ) i cannot believe that the men who have left us the bible as we have it were so abounding in talent that they attempted setting about such a method of demonstration, still less can i suppose that we cannot understand scriptural doctrine till we have given heed to the quarrels of isaac, the advice of achitophel to absalom, the civil war between jews and israelites, and other similar chronicles; nor can i think that it was more difficult to teach such doctrine by means of history to the jews of early times, the contemporaries of moses, than it was to the contemporaries of esdras. ( ) but more will be said on this point hereafter, we may now only note that the masses are only bound to know those histories which can most powerfully dispose their mind to obedience and devotion. ( ) however, the masses are not sufficiently skilled to draw conclusions from what they read, they take more delight in the actual stories, and in the strange and unlooked-for issues of events than in the doctrines implied; therefore, besides reading these narratives, they are always in need of pastors or church ministers to explain them to their feeble intelligence. ( ) but not to wander from our point, let us conclude with what has been our principal object - namely, that the truth of narratives, be they what they may, has nothing to do with the divine law, and serves for nothing except in respect of doctrine, the sole element which makes one history better than another. ( ) the narratives in the old and new testaments surpass profane history, and differ among themselves in merit simply by reason of the salutary doctrines which they inculcate. ( ) therefore, if a man were to read the scripture narratives believing the whole of them, but were to give no heed to the doctrines they contain, and make no amendment in his life, he might employ himself just as profitably in reading the koran or the poetic drama, or ordinary chronicles, with the attention usually given to such writings; on the other hand, if a man is absolutely ignorant of the scriptures, and none the less has right opinions and a true plan of life, he is absolutely blessed and truly possesses in himself the spirit of christ. ( ) the jews are of a directly contrary way of thinking, for they hold that true opinions and a true plan of life are of no service in attaining blessedness, if their possessors have arrived at them by the light of reason only, and not like the documents prophetically revealed to moses. ( ) maimonides ventures openly to make this assertion: "every man who takes to heart the seven precepts and diligently follows them, is counted with the pious among the nation, and an heir of the world to come; that is to say, if he takes to heart and follows them because god ordained them in the law, and revealed them to us by moses, because they were of aforetime precepts to the sons of noah: but he who follows them as led thereto by reason, is not counted as a dweller among the pious or among the wise of the nations." ( ) such are the words of maimonides, to which r. joseph, the son of shem job, adds in his book which he calls "kebod elohim, or god's glory," that although aristotle (whom he considers to have written the best ethics and to be above everyone else) has not omitted anything that concerns true ethics, and which he has adopted in his own book, carefully following the lines laid down, yet this was not able to suffice for his salvation, inasmuch as he embraced his doctrines in accordance with the dictates of reason and not as divine documents prophetically revealed. ( ) however, that these are mere figments, and are not supported by scriptural authority will, i think, be sufficiently evident to the attentive reader, so that an examination of the theory will be sufficient for its refutation. ( ) it is not my purpose here to refute the assertions of those who assert that the natural light of reason can teach nothing, of any value concerning the true way of salvation. ( ) people who lay no claims to reason for themselves, are not able to prove by reason this their assertion; and if they hawk about something superior to reason, it is a mere figment, and far below reason, as their general method of life sufficiently shows. ( ) but there is no need to dwell upon such persons. ( ) i will merely add that we can only judge of a man by his works. ( ) if a man abounds in the fruits of the spirit, charity, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, chastity, against which, as paul says (gal. v: ), there is no law, such an one, whether he be taught by reason only or by the scripture only, has been in very truth taught by god, and is altogether blessed. ( ) thus have i said all that i undertook to say concerning divine law. end of part author's endnotes to the theologico-political treatise chapters i to v chapter i endnote . ( ) the word naw-vee', strong: , is rightly interpreted by rabbi salomon jarchi, but the sense is hardly caught by aben ezra, who was not so good a hebraist. ( ) we must also remark that this hebrew word for prophecy has a universal meaning and embraces all kinds of prophecy. ( ) other terms are more special, and denote this or that sort of prophecy, as i believe is well known to the learned. endnote . ( ) "although, ordinary knowledge is divine, its professors cannot be called prophets." that is, interpreters of god. ( ) for he alone is an interpreter of god, who interprets the decrees which god has revealed to him, to others who have not received such revelation, and whose belief, therefore, rests merely on the prophet's authority and the confidence reposed in him. ( ) if it were otherwise, and all who listen to prophets became prophets themselves, as all who listen to philosophers become philosophers, a prophet would no longer be the interpreter of divine decrees, inasmuch as his hearers would know the truth, not on the authority of the prophet, but by means of actual divine revelation and inward testimony. ( ) thus the sovereign powers are the interpreters of their own rights of sway, because these are defended only by their authority and supported by their testimony. endnote . ( ) "prophets were endowed with a peculiar and extraordinary power." ( ) though some men enjoy gifts which nature has not bestowed on their fellows, they are not said to surpass the bounds of human nature, unless their special qualities are such as cannot be said to be deducible from the definition of human nature. ( ) for instance, a giant is a rarity, but still human. ( ) the gift of composing poetry extempore is given to very few, yet it is human. ( ) the same may, therefore, be said of the faculty possessed by some of imagining things as vividly as though they saw them before them, and this not while asleep, but while awake. ( ) but if anyone could be found who possessed other means and other foundations for knowledge, he might be said to transcend the limits of human nature. chapter iii. endnote . ( ) in gen. xv. it is written that god promised abraham to protect him, and to grant him ample rewards. ( ) abraham answered that he could expect nothing which could be of any value to him, as he was childless and well stricken in years. endnote . ( ) that a keeping of the commandments of the old testament is not sufficient for eternal life, appears from mark x: . end of endnotes to part i sentence numbers, shown thus ( ), have been added by volunteer. a theologico-political treatise part iii - chapters xi to xv by baruch spinoza table of contents: chapter xi - an inquiry whether the apostles wrote their epistles as apostles and prophets, or merely as teachers, and an explanation of what is meant by apostle. the epistles not in the prophetic style. the apostles not commanded to write or preach in particular places. different methods of teaching adopted by the apostles. chapter xii - of the true original of the divine law, and wherefore scripture is called sacred, and the word of god. how that, in so far as it contains the word of god, it has come down to us uncorrupted. chapter xiii - it is shown, that scripture teaches only very simple doctrines, such as suffice for right conduct. error in speculative doctrine not impious - nor knowledge pious. piety consists in obedience. chapter xiv - definitions of faith, the true faith, and the foundations of faith, which is once for all separated from philosophy. danger resulting from the vulgar idea of faith. the only test of faith obedience and good works. as different men are disposed to obedience by different opinions, universal faith can contain only the simplest doctrines. fundamental distinction between faith and philosophy - the key-stone of the present treatise. chapter xv - theology is shown not to be subservient to reason, nor reason to theology: a definition of the reason which enables us to accept the authority of the bible. theory that scripture must be accommodated to reason - maintained by maimonides - already refuted in chapter vii. theory that reason must be accommodated to scripture - maintained by alpakhar - examined. and refuted. scripture and reason independent of one another. certainty, of fundamental faith not mathematical but moral. great utility of revelation. author's endnotes to the treatise. chapter xi - an inquiry whether the apostles wrote their epistles as apostles and prophets, or merely as teachers; and an explanation of what is meant by an apostle. ( ) no reader of the new testament can doubt that the apostles were prophets; but as a prophet does not always speak by revelation, but only, at rare intervals, as we showed at the end of chap. i., we may fairly inquire whether the apostles wrote their epistles as prophets, by revelation and express mandate, as moses, jeremiah, and others did, or whether only as private individuals or teachers, especially as paul, in corinthians xiv: , mentions two sorts of preaching. ( ) if we examine the style of the epistles, we shall find it totally different from that employed by the prophets. ( ) the prophets are continually asserting that they speak by the command of god: "thus saith the lord," "the lord of hosts saith," "the command of the lord," &c.; and this was their habit not only in assemblies of the prophets, but also in their epistles containing revelations, as appears from the epistle of elijah to jehoram, chron. xxi: , which begins, "thus saith the lord." ( ) in the apostolic epistles we find nothing of the sort. ( ) contrariwise, in i cor. vii: paul speaks according to his own opinion and in many passages we come across doubtful and perplexed phrase; such as, "we think, therefore," rom. iii: ; "now i think," [endnote ], rom. viii: , and so on. ( ) besides these, other expressions are met with very different from those used by the prophets. ( ) for instance, cor. vii: , "but i speak this by permission, not by commandment;" "i give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the lord to be faithful" ( cor. vii: ), and so on in many other passages. ( ) we must also remark that in the aforesaid chapter the apostle says that when he states that he has or has not the precept or commandment of god, he does not mean the precept or commandment of god revealed to himself, but only the words uttered by christ in his sermon on the mount. ( ) furthermore, if we examine the manner in which the apostles give out evangelical doctrine, we shall see that it differs materially from the method adopted by the prophets. ( ) the apostles everywhere reason as if they were arguing rather than prophesying; the prophecies, on the other hand, contain only dogmas and commands. ( ) god is therein introduced not as speaking to reason, but as issuing decrees by his absolute fiat. ( ) the authority of the prophets does not submit to discussion, for whosoever wishes to find rational ground for his arguments, by that very wish submits them to everyone's private judgment. ( ) this paul, inasmuch as he uses reason, appears to have done, for he says in cor. x: , "i speak as to wise men, judge ye what i say." ( ) the prophets, as we showed at the end of chapter i., did not perceive what was revealed by virtue of their natural reason, and though there are certain passages in the pentateuch which seem to be appeals to induction, they turn out, on nearer examination, to be nothing but peremptory commands. ( ) for instance, when moses says, deut. xxxi: , "behold, while i am yet alive with you, this day ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death," we must by no means conclude that moses wished to convince the israelites by reason that they would necessarily fall away from the worship of the lord after his death; for the argument would have been false, as scripture itself shows: the israelites continued faithful during the lives of joshua and the elders, and afterwards during the time of samuel, david, and solomon. ( ) therefore the words of moses are merely a moral injunction, in which he predicts rhetorically the future backsliding of the people so as to impress it vividly on their imagination. ( ) i say that moses spoke of himself in order to lend likelihood to his prediction, and not as a prophet by revelation, because in verse of the same chapter we are told that god revealed the same thing to moses in different words, and there was no need to make moses certain by argument of god's prediction and decree; it was only necessary that it should be vividly impressed on his imagination, and this could not be better accomplished than by imagining the existing contumacy of the people, of which he had had frequent experience, as likely to extend into the future. ( ) all the arguments employed by moses in the five books are to be understood in a similar manner; they are not drawn from the armoury of reason, but are merely, modes of expression calculated to instil with efficacy, and present vividly to the imagination the commands of god. ( ) however, i do not wish absolutely to deny that the prophets ever argued from revelation; i only maintain that the prophets made more legitimate use of argument in proportion as their knowledge approached more nearly to ordinary knowledge, and by this we know that they possessed a knowledge above the ordinary, inasmuch as they proclaimed absolute dogmas, decrees, or judgments. ( ) thus moses, the chief of the prophets, never used legitimate argument, and, on the other hand, the long deductions and arguments of paul, such as we find in the epistle to the romans, are in nowise written from supernatural revelation. ( ) the modes of expression and discourse adopted by the apostles in the epistles, show very clearly that the latter were not written by revelation and divine command, but merely by the natural powers and judgment of the authors. ( ) they consist in brotherly admonitions and courteous expressions such as would never be employed in prophecy, as for instance, paul's excuse in romans xv: , "i have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, my brethren." ( ) we may arrive at the same conclusion from observing that we never read that the apostles were commanded to write, but only that they went everywhere preaching, and confirmed their words with signs. ( ) their personal presence and signs were absolutely necessary for the conversion and establishment in religion of the gentiles; as paul himself expressly states in rom. i: , "but i long to see you, that i may impart to you some spiritual gift, to the end that ye may be established." ( ) it may be objected that we might prove in similar fashion that the apostles did not preach as prophets, for they did not go to particular places, as the prophets did, by the command of god. ( ) we read in the old testament that jonah went to nineveh to preach, and at the same time that he was expressly sent there, and told that he most preach. ( ) so also it is related, at great length, of moses that he went to egypt as the messenger of god, and was told at the same time what he should say to the children of israel and to king pharaoh, and what wonders he should work before them to give credit to his words. ( ) isaiah, jeremiah, and ezekiel were expressly commanded to preach to the israelites. lastly, the prophets only preached what we are assured by scripture they had received from god, whereas this is hardly ever said of the apostles in the new testament, when they went about to preach. ( ) on the contrary, we find passages expressly implying that the apostles chose the places where they should preach on their own responsibility, for there was a difference amounting to a quarrel between paul and barnabas on the subject (acts xv: , ). ( ) often they wished to go to a place, but were prevented, as paul writes, rom. i: , "oftentimes i purposed to come to you, but was let hitherto;" and in i cor. xvi: , "as touching our brother apollos, i greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren, but his will was not at all to come at this time: but he will come when he shall have convenient time." ( ) from these expressions and differences of opinion among the apostles, and also from the fact that scripture nowhere testifies of them, as of the ancient prophets, that they went by the command of god, one might conclude that they preached as well as wrote in their capacity of teachers, and not as prophets: but the question is easily solved if we observe the difference between the mission of an apostle and that of an old testament prophet. ( ) the latter were not called to preach and prophesy to all nations, but to certain specified ones, and therefore an express and peculiar mandate was required for each of them; the apostles, on the other hand, were called to preach to all men absolutely, and to turn all men to religion. ( ) therefore, whithersoever they went, they were fulfilling christ's commandment; there was no need to reveal to them beforehand what they should preach, for they were the disciples of christ to whom their master himself said (matt. x: , ): "but, when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak." ( ) we therefore conclude that the apostles were only indebted to special revelation in what they orally preached and confirmed by signs (see the beginning of chap. .); that which they taught in speaking or writing without any confirmatory signs and wonders they taught from their natural knowledge. (see i cor. xiv: .) ( ) we need not be deterred by the fact that all the epistles begin by citing the imprimatur of the apostleship, for the apostles, as i will shortly show, were granted, not only the faculty of prophecy, but also the authority to teach. ( ) we may therefore admit that they wrote their epistles as apostles, and for this cause every one of them began by citing the apostolic imprimatur, possibly with a view to the attention of the reader by asserting that they were the persons who had made such mark among the faithful by their preaching, and had shown by many marvelous works that they were teaching true religion and the way of salvation. ( ) i observe that what is said in the epistles with regard to the apostolic vocation and the holy spirit of god which inspired them, has reference to their former preaching, except in those passages where the expressions of the spirit of god and the holy spirit are used to signify a mind pure, upright, and devoted to god. ( ) for instance, in cor. vii: , paul says: but she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment, and i think also that i have the spirit of god." ( ) by the spirit of god the apostle here refers to his mind, as we may see from the context: his meaning is as follows: "i account blessed a widow who does not wish to marry a second husband; such is my opinion, for i have settled to live unmarried, and i think that i am blessed." ( ) there are other similar passages which i need not now quote. ( ) as we have seen that the apostles wrote their epistles solely by the light of natural reason, we must inquire how they were enabled to teach by natural knowledge matters outside its scope. ( ) however, if we bear in mind what we said in chap. vii. of this treatise our difficulty will vanish: for although the contents of the bible entirely surpass our understanding, we may safely discourse of them, provided we assume nothing not told us in scripture: by the same method the apostles, from what they saw and heard, and from what was revealed to them, were enabled to form and elicit many conclusions which they would have been able to teach to men had it been permissible. ( ) further, although religion, as preached by the apostles, does not come within the sphere of reason, in so far as it consists in the narration of the life of christ, yet its essence, which is chiefly moral, like the whole of christ's doctrine, can readily, be apprehended by the natural faculties of all. ( ) lastly, the apostles had no lack of supernatural illumination for the purpose of adapting the religion they had attested by signs to the understanding of everyone so that it might be readily received; nor for exhortations on the subject: in fact, the object of the epistles is to teach and exhort men to lead that manner of life which each of the apostles judged best for confirming them in religion. ( ) we may here repeat our former remark, that the apostles had received not only the faculty of preaching the history, of christ as prophets, and confirming it with signs, but also authority for teaching and exhorting according as each thought best. ( ) paul ( tim. i: ), "whereunto i am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the gentiles;" and again (i tim. ii: ), "whereunto i am ordained a preacher and an apostle (i speak the truth in christ and lie not), a teacher of the gentiles in faith and verity." ( ) these passages, i say, show clearly the stamp both of the apostleship and the teachership: the authority for admonishing whomsoever and wheresoever he pleased is asserted by paul in the epistle to philemon, v: : "wherefore, though i might be much bold in christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet," &c., where we may remark that if paul had received from god as a prophet what he wished to enjoin philemon, and had been bound to speak in his prophetic capacity, he would not have been able to change the command of god into entreaties. ( ) we must therefore understand him to refer to the permission to admonish which he had received as a teacher, and not as a prophet. ( ) we have not yet made it quite clear that the apostles might each choose his own way of teaching, but only that by virtue of their apostleship they were teachers as well as prophets; however, if we call reason to our aid we shall clearly see that an authority to teach implies authority to choose the method. ( ) it will nevertheless be, perhaps, more satisfactory to draw all our proofs from scripture; we are there plainly told that each apostle chose his particular method (rom. xv: ): "yea, so have i strived to preach the gospel, not where christ was named, lest i should build upon another man's foundation." ( ) if all the apostles had adopted the same method of teaching, and had all built up the christian religion on the same foundation, paul would have had no reason to call the work of a fellow-apostle "another man's foundation," inasmuch as it would have been identical with his own: his calling it another man's proved that each apostle built up his religious instruction on different foundations, thus resembling other teachers who have each their own method, and prefer instructing quite ignorant people who have never learnt under another master, whether the subject be science, languages, or even the indisputable truths of mathematics. ( ) furthermore, if we go through the epistles at all attentively, we shall see that the apostles, while agreeing about religion itself, are at variance as to the foundations it rests on. ( ) paul, in order to strengthen men's religion, and show them that salvation depends solely on the grace of god, teaches that no one can boast of works, but only of faith, and that no one can be justified by works (rom. iii: , ); in fact, he preaches the complete doctrine of predestination. ( ) james, on the other hand, states that man is justified by works, and not by faith only (see his epistle, ii: ), and omitting all the disputations of paul, confines religion to a very few elements. ( ) lastly, it is indisputable that from these different ground; for religion selected by the apostles, many quarrels and schisms distracted the church, even in the earliest times, and doubtless they will continue so to distract it for ever, or at least till religion is separated from philosophical speculations, and reduced to the few simple doctrines taught by christ to his disciples; such a task was impossible for the apostles, because the gospel was then unknown to mankind, and lest its novelty should offend men's ears it had to be adapted to the disposition of contemporaries ( cor. ix: , ), and built up on the groundwork most familiar and accepted at the time. ( ) thus none of the apostles philosophized more than did paul, who was called to preach to the gentiles; other apostles preaching to the jews, who despised philosophy, similarly, adapted themselves to the temper of their hearers (see gal. ii. ), and preached a religion free from all philosophical speculations. ( ) how blest would our age be if it could witness a religion freed also from all the trammels of superstition! chapter xii - of the true original of the divine law, and wherefore scripture is called sacred, and the word of god. how that, in so far as it contains the word of god, it has come down to us uncorrupted. ( ) those who look upon the bible as a message sent down by god from heaven to men, will doubtless cry out that i have committed the sin against the holy ghost because i have asserted that the word of god is faulty, mutilated, tampered with, and inconsistent; that we possess it only in fragments, and that the original of the covenant which god made with the jews has been lost. ( ) however, i have no doubt that a little reflection will cause them to desist from their uproar: for not only reason but the expressed opinions of prophets and apostles openly proclaim that god's eternal word and covenant, no less than true religion, is divinely inscribed in human hearts, that is, in the human mind, and that this is the true original of god's covenant, stamped with his own seal, namely, the idea of himself, as it were, with the image of his godhood. ( ) religion was imparted to the early hebrews as a law written down, because they were at that time in the condition of children, but afterwards moses (deut. xxx: ) and jeremiah (xxxi: ) predicted a time coming when the lord should write his law in their hearts. ( ) thus only the jews, and amongst them chiefly the sadducees, struggled for the law written on tablets; least of all need those who bear it inscribed on their hearts join in the contest. ( ) those, therefore, who reflect, will find nothing in what i have written repugnant either to the word of god or to true religion and faith, or calculated to weaken either one or the other: contrariwise, they will see that i have strengthened religion, as i showed at the end of chapter x.; indeed, had it not been so, i should certainly have decided to hold my peace, nay, i would even have asserted as a way out of all difficulties that the bible contains the most profound hidden mysteries; however, as this doctrine has given rise to gross superstition and other pernicious results spoken of at the beginning of chapter v., i have thought such a course unnecessary, especially as religion stands in no need of superstitious adornments, but is, on the contrary, deprived by such trappings of some of her splendour. ( ) still, it will be said, though the law of god is written in the heart, the bible is none the less the word of god, and it is no more lawful to say of scripture than of god's word that it is mutilated and corrupted. ( ) i fear that such objectors are too anxious to be pious, and that they are in danger of turning religion into superstition, and worshipping paper and ink in place of god's word. ( ) i am certified of thus much: i have said nothing unworthy of scripture or god's word, and i have made no assertions which i could not prove by most plain argument to be true. ( ) i can, therefore, rest assured that i have advanced nothing which is impious or even savours of impiety. ( ) from what i have said, assume a licence to sin, and without any reason, at i confess that some profane men, to whom religion is a burden, may, the simple dictates of their lusts conclude that scripture is everywhere faulty and falsified, and that therefore its authority is null; but such men are beyond the reach of help, for nothing, as the pro verb has it, can be said so rightly that it cannot be twisted into wrong. ( ) those who wish to give rein to their lusts are at no loss for an excuse, nor were those men of old who possessed the original scriptures, the ark of the covenant, nay, the prophets and apostles in person among them, any better than the people of to-day. ( ) human nature, jew as well as gentile, has always been the same, and in every age virtue has been exceedingly rare. ( ) nevertheless, to remove every scruple, i will here show in what sense the bible or any inanimate thing should be called sacred and divine; also wherein the law of god consists, and how it cannot be contained in a certain number of books; and, lastly, i will show that scripture, in so far as it teaches what is necessary for obedience and salvation, cannot have been corrupted. ( ) from these considerations everyone will be able to judge that i have neither said anything against the word of god nor given any foothold to impiety. ( ) a thing is called sacred and divine when it is designed for promoting piety, and continues sacred so long as it is religiously used: if the users cease to be pious, the thing ceases to be sacred: if it be turned to base uses, that which was formerly sacred becomes unclean and profane. ( ) for instance, a certain spot was named by the patriarch jacob the house of god, because he worshipped god there revealed to him: by the prophets the same spot was called the house of iniquity (see amos v: , and hosea x: ), because the israelites were wont, at the instigation of jeroboam, to sacrifice there to idols. ( ) another example puts the matter in the plainest light. ( ) words gain their meaning solely from their usage, and if they are arranged according to their accepted signification so as to move those who read them to devotion, they will become sacred, and the book so written will be sacred also. ( ) but if their usage afterwards dies out so that the words have no meaning, or the book becomes utterly neglected, whether from unworthy motives, or because it is no longer needed, then the words and the book will lose both their use and their sanctity: lastly, if these same words be otherwise arranged, or if their customary meaning becomes perverted into its opposite, then both the words and the book containing them become, instead of sacred, impure and profane. ( ) from this it follows that nothing is in itself absolutely sacred, or profane, and unclean, apart from the mind, but only relatively thereto. ( ) thus much is clear from many passages in the bible. ( ) jeremiah (to select one case out of many) says (chap. vii: ), that the jews of his time were wrong in calling solomon's temple, the temple of god, for, as he goes on to say in the same chapter, god's name would only be given to the temple so long as it was frequented by men who worshipped him, and defended justice, but that, if it became the resort of murderers, thieves, idolaters, and other wicked persons, it would be turned into a den of malefactors. ( ) scripture, curiously enough, nowhere tells us what became of the ark of the covenant, though there is no doubt that it was destroyed, or burnt together with the temple; yet there was nothing which the hebrews considered more sacred, or held in greater reverence. ( ) thus scripture is sacred, and its words divine so long as it stirs mankind to devotion towards god: but if it be utterly neglected, as it formerly was by the jews, it becomes nothing but paper and ink, and is left to be desecrated or corrupted: still, though scripture be thus corrupted or destroyed, we must not say that the word of god has suffered in like manner, else we shall be like the jews, who said that the temple which would then be the temple of god had perished in the flames. ( ) jeremiah tells us this in respect to the law, for he thus chides the ungodly of his time, "wherefore, say you we are masters, and the law of the lord is with us? ( ) surely it has been given in vain, it is in vain that the pen of the scribes" (has been made) - that is, you say falsely that the scripture is in your power, and that you possess the law of god; for ye have made it of none effect. ( ) so also, when moses broke the first tables of the law, he did not by any means cast the word of god from his hands in anger and shatter it - such an action would be inconceivable, either of moses or of god's word - he only broke the tables of stone, which, though they had before been holy from containing the covenant wherewith the jews had bound themselves in obedience to god, had entirely lost their sanctity when the covenant had been violated by the worship of the calf, and were, therefore, as liable to perish as the ark of the covenant. ( ) it is thus scarcely to be wondered at, that the original documents of moses are no longer extant, nor that the books we possess met with the fate we have described, when we consider that the true original of the divine covenant, the most sacred object of all, has totally perished. ( ) let them cease, therefore, who accuse us of impiety, inasmuch as we have said nothing against the word of god, neither have we corrupted it, but let them keep their anger, if they would wreak it justly, for the ancients whose malice desecrated the ark, the temple, and the law of god, and all that was held sacred, subjecting them to corruption. ( ) furthermore, if, according to the saying of the apostle in cor. iii: , they possessed "the epistle of christ, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living god, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart," let them cease to worship the letter, and be so anxious concerning it. ( ) i think i have now sufficiently shown in what respect scripture should be accounted sacred and divine; we may now see what should rightly be understood by the expression, the word of the lord; debar (the hebrew original) signifies word, speech, command, and thing. ( ) the causes for which a thing is in hebrew said to be of god, or is referred to him, have been already detailed in chap. i., and we can therefrom easily gather what meaning scripture attaches to the phrases, the word, the speech, the command, or the thing of god. ( ) i need not, therefore, repeat what i there said, nor what was shown under the third head in the chapter on miracles. ( ) it is enough to mention the repetition for the better understanding of what i am about to say - viz., that the word of the lord when it has reference to anyone but god himself, signifies that divine law treated of in chap. iv.; in other words, religion, universal and catholic to the whole human race, as isaiah describes it (chap. i: ), teaching that the true way of life consists, not in ceremonies, but in charity, and a true heart, and calling it indifferently god's law and god's word. ( ) the expression is also used metaphorically for the order of nature and destiny (which, indeed, actually depend and follow from the eternal mandate of the divine nature), and especially for such parts of such order as were foreseen by the prophets, for the prophets did not perceive future events as the result of natural causes, but as the fiats and decrees of god. ( ) lastly, it is employed for the command of any prophet, in so far as he had perceived it by his peculiar faculty or prophetic gift, and not by the natural light of reason; this use springs chiefly from the usual prophetic conception of god as a legislator, which we remarked in chap. iv. ( ) there are, then, three causes for the bible's being called the word of god: because it teaches true religion, of which god is the eternal founder; because it narrates predictions of future events as though they were decrees of god; because its actual authors generally perceived things not by their ordinary natural faculties, but by a power peculiar to themselves, and introduced these things perceived, as told them by god. ( ) although scripture contains much that is merely historical and can be perceived by natural reason, yet its name is acquired from its chief subject matter. ( ) we can thus easily see how god can be said to be the author of the bible: it is because of the true religion therein contained, and not because he wished to communicate to men a certain number of books. ( ) we can also learn from hence the reason for the division into old and new testament. ( ) it was made because the prophets who preached religion before christ, preached it as a national law in virtue of the covenant entered into under moses; while the apostles who came after christ, preached it to all men as a universal religion solely in virtue of christ's passion: the cause for the division is not that the two parts are different in doctrine, nor that they were written as originals of the covenant, nor, lastly, that the catholic religion (which is in entire harmony with our nature) was new except in relation to those who had not known it: "it was in the world," as john the evangelist says, "and the world knew it not." ( ) thus, even if we had fewer books of the old and new testament than we have, we should still not be deprived of the word of god (which, as we have said, is identical with true religion), even as we do not now hold ourselves to be deprived of it, though we lack many cardinal writings such as the book of the law, which was religiously guarded in the temple as the original of the covenant, also the book of wars, the book of chronicles, and many others, from whence the extant old testament was taken and compiled. ( ) the above conclusion may be supported by many reasons. ( ) i. because the books of both testaments were not written by express command at one place for all ages, but are a fortuitous collection of the works of men, writing each as his period and disposition dictated. ( ) so much is clearly shown by the call of the prophets who were bade to admonish the ungodly of their time, and also by the apostolic epistles. ( ) ii. because it is one thing to understand the meaning of scripture and the prophets, and quite another thing to understand the meaning of god, or the actual truth. ( ) this follows from what we said in chap. ii. ( ) we showed, in chap. vi., that it applied to historic narratives, and to miracles: but it by no means applies to questions concerning true religion and virtue. ( ) iii. because the books of the old testament were selected from many, and were collected and sanctioned by a council of the pharisees, as we showed in chap. x. ( ) the books of the new testament were also chosen from many by councils which rejected as spurious other books held sacred by many. ( ) but these councils, both pharisee and christian, were not composed of prophets, but only of learned men and teachers. ( ) still, we must grant that they were guided in their choice by a regard for the word of god; and they must, therefore, have known what the law of god was. ( ) iv. because the apostles wrote not as prophets, but as teachers (see last chapter), and chose whatever method they thought best adapted for those whom they addressed: and consequently, there are many things in the epistles (as we showed at the end of the last chapter) which are not necessary to salvation. ( ) v. lastly, because there are four evangelists in the new testament, and it is scarcely credible that god can have designed to narrate the life of christ four times over, and to communicate it thus to mankind. ( ) for though there are some details related in one gospel which are not in another, and one often helps us to understand another, we cannot thence conclude that all that is set down is of vital importance to us, and that god chose the four evangelists in order that the life of christ might be better understood; for each one preached his gospel in a separate locality, each wrote it down as he preached it, in simple language, in order that the history of christ might be clearly told, not with any view of explaining his fellow-evangelists. ( ) if there are some passages which can be better, and more easily understood by comparing the various versions, they are the result of chance, and are not numerous: their continuance in obscurity would have impaired neither the clearness of the narrative nor the blessedness of mankind. ( ) we have now shown that scripture can only be called the word of god in so far as it affects religion, or the divine law; we must now point out that, in respect to these questions, it is neither faulty, tampered with, nor corrupt. ( ) by faulty, tampered with, and corrupt, i here mean written so incorrectly, that the meaning cannot be arrived at by a study of the language, nor from the authority of scripture. ( ) i will not go to such lengths as to say that the bible, in so far as it contains the divine law, has always preserved the same vowel-points, the same letters, or the same words (i leave this to be proved by, the massoretes and other worshippers of the letter), i only, maintain that the meaning by, which alone an utterance is entitled to be called divine, has come down to us uncorrupted, even though the original wording may have been more often changed than we suppose. ( ) such alterations, as i have said above, detract nothing from the divinity of the bible, for the bible would have been no less divine had it been written in different words or a different language. ( ) that the divine law has in this sense come down to us uncorrupted, is an assertion which admits of no dispute. ( ) for from the bible itself we learn, without the smallest difficulty or ambiguity, that its cardinal precept is: to love god above all things, and one's neighbour as one's self. ( ) this cannot be a spurious passage, nor due to a hasty and mistaken scribe, for if the bible had ever put forth a different doctrine it would have had to change the whole of its teaching, for this is the corner-stone of religion, without which the whole fabric would fall headlong to the ground. ( ) the bible would not be the work we have been examining, but something quite different. ( ) we remain, then, unshaken in our belief that this has always been the doctrine of scripture, and, consequently, that no error sufficient to vitiate it can have crept in without being instantly, observed by all; nor can anyone have succeeded in tampering with it and escaped the discovery of his malice. ( ) as this corner-stone is intact, we must perforce admit the same of whatever other passages are indisputably dependent on it, and are also fundamental, as, for instance, that a god exists, that he foresees all things, that he is almighty, that by his decree the good prosper and the wicked come to naught, and, finally, that our salvation depends solely on his grace. ( ) these are doctrines which scripture plainly teaches throughout, and which it is bound to teach, else all the rest would be empty and baseless; nor can we be less positive about other moral doctrines, which plainly are built upon this universal foundation - for instance, to uphold justice, to aid the weak, to do no murder, to covet no man's goods, &c. ( ) precepts, i repeat, such as these, human malice and the lapse of ages are alike powerless to destroy, for if any part of them perished, its loss would immediately be supplied from the fundamental principle, especially the doctrine of charity, which is everywhere in both testaments extolled above all others. ( ) moreover, though it be true that there is no conceivable crime so heinous that it has never been committed, still there is no one who would attempt in excuse for his crimes to destroy, the law, or introduce an impious doctrine in the place of what is eternal and salutary; men's nature is so constituted that everyone (be he king or subject) who has committed a base action, tries to deck out his conduct with spurious excuses, till he seems to have done nothing but what is just and right. ( ) we may conclude, therefore, that the whole divine law, as taught by scripture, has come down to us uncorrupted. ( ) besides this there are certain facts which we may be sure have been transmitted in good faith. ( ) for instance, the main facts of hebrew history, which were perfectly well known to everyone. ( ) the jewish people were accustomed in former times to chant the ancient history of their nation in psalms. ( ) the main facts, also, of christ's life and passion were immediately spread abroad through the whole roman empire. ( ) it is therefore scarcely credible, unless nearly everybody, consented thereto, which we cannot suppose, that successive generations have handed down the broad outline of the gospel narrative otherwise than as they received it. ( ) whatsoever, therefore, is spurious or faulty can only have reference to details - some circumstances in one or the other history or prophecy designed to stir the people to greater devotion; or in some miracle, with a view of confounding philosophers; or, lastly, in speculative matters after they had become mixed up with religion, so that some individual might prop up his own inventions with a pretext of divine authority. ( ) but such matters have little to do with salvation, whether they be corrupted little or much, as i will show in detail in the next chapter, though i think the question sufficiently plain from what i have said already, especially in chapter ii. chapter xiii - it is shown that scripture teaches only very simple doctrines, such as suffice for right conduct. ( ) in the second chapter of this treatise we pointed out that the prophets were gifted with extraordinary powers of imagination, but not of understanding; also that god only revealed to them such things as are very simple - not philosophic mysteries, - and that he adapted his communications to their previous opinions. ( ) we further showed in chap. v. that scripture only transmits and teaches truths which can readily be comprehended by all; not deducing and concatenating its conclusions from definitions and axioms, but narrating quite simply, and confirming its statements, with a view to inspiring belief, by an appeal to experience as exemplified in miracles and history, and setting forth its truths in the style and phraseology which would most appeal to the popular mind (cf. chap. vi., third division). ( ) lastly, we demonstrated in chap. viii. that the difficulty of understanding scripture lies in the language only, and not in the abstruseness of the argument. ( ) to these considerations we may add that the prophets did not preach only to the learned, but to all jews, without exception, while the apostles were wont to teach the gospel doctrine in churches where there were public meetings; whence it follows that scriptural doctrine contains no lofty speculations nor philosophic reasoning, but only very simple matters, such as could be understood by the slowest intelligence. ( ) i am consequently lost in wonder at the ingenuity of those whom i have already mentioned, who detect in the bible mysteries so profound that they cannot be explained in human language, and who have introduced so many philosophic speculations into religion that the church seems like an academy, and religion like a science, or rather a dispute. ( ) it is not to be wondered at that men, who boast of possessing supernatural intelligence, should be unwilling to yield the palm of knowledge to philosophers who have only their ordinary, faculties; still i should be surprised if i found them teaching any new speculative doctrine, which was not a commonplace to those gentile philosophers whom, in spite of all, they stigmatize as blind; for, if one inquires what these mysteries lurking in scripture may be, one is confronted with nothing but the reflections of plato or aristotle, or the like, which it would often be easier for an ignorant man to dream than for the most accomplished scholar to wrest out of the bible. ( ) however, i do not wish to affirm absolutely that scripture contains no doctrines in the sphere of philosophy, for in the last chapter i pointed out some of the kind, as fundamental principles; but i go so far as to say that such doctrines are very few and very simple. ( ) their precise nature and definition i will now set forth. ( ) the task will be easy, for we know that scripture does not aim at imparting scientific knowledge, and, therefore, it demands from men nothing but obedience, and censures obstinacy, but not ignorance. ( ) furthermore, as obedience to god consists solely in love to our neighbour - for whosoever loveth his neighbour, as a means of obeying god, hath, as st. paul says (rom. xiii: ), fulfilled the law, - it follows that no knowledge is commended in the bible save that which is necessary for enabling all men to obey god in the manner stated, and without which they would become rebellious, or without the discipline of obedience. ( ) other speculative questions, which have no direct bearing on this object, or are concerned with the knowledge of natural events, do not affect scripture, and should be entirely separated from religion. ( ) now, though everyone, as we have said, is now quite able to see this truth for himself, i should nevertheless wish, considering that the whole of religion depends thereon, to explain the entire question more accurately and clearly. ( ) to this end i must first prove that the intellectual or accurate knowledge of god is not a gift, bestowed upon all good men like obedience; and, further, that the knowledge of god, required by him through his prophets from everyone without exception, as needful to be known, is simply a knowledge of his divine justice and charity. ( ) both these points are easily proved from scripture. ( ) the first plainly follows from exodus vi: , where god, in order to show the singular grace bestowed upon moses, says to him: "and i appeared unto abraham, unto isaac, and unto jacob by the name of el sadai (a. v. god almighty); but by my name jehovah was i not known to them" - for the better understanding of which passage i may remark that el sadai, in hebrew, signifies the god who suffices, in that he gives to every man that which suffices for him; and, although sadai is often used by itself, to signify god, we cannot doubt that the word el (god, {power, might}) is everywhere understood. ( ) furthermore, we must note that jehovah is the only word found in scripture with the meaning of the absolute essence of god, without reference to created things. ( ) the jews maintain, for this reason, that this is, strictly speaking, the only name of god; that the rest of the words used are merely titles; and, in truth, the other names of god, whether they be substantives or adjectives, are merely attributive, and belong to him, in so far as he is conceived of in relation to created things, or manifested through them. ( ) thus el, or eloah, signifies powerful, as is well known, and only applies to god in respect to his supremacy, as when we call paul an apostle; the faculties of his power are set forth in an accompanying adjective, as el, great, awful, just, merciful, &c., or else all are understood at once by the use of el in the plural number, with a singular signification, an expression frequently adopted in scripture. ( ) now, as god tells moses that he was not known to the patriarchs by the name of jehovah, it follows that they were not cognizant of any attribute of god which expresses his absolute essence, but only of his deeds and promises that is, of his power, as manifested in visible things. ( ) god does not thus speak to moses in order to accuse the patriarchs of infidelity, but, on the contrary, as a means of extolling their belief and faith, inasmuch as, though they possessed no extraordinary knowledge of god (such as moses had), they yet accepted his promises as fixed and certain; whereas moses, though his thoughts about god were more exalted, nevertheless doubted about the divine promises, and complained to god that, instead of the promised deliverance, the prospects of the israelites had darkened. ( ) as the patriarchs did not know the distinctive name of god, and as god mentions the fact to moses, in praise of their faith and single-heartedness, and in contrast to the extraordinary grace granted to moses, it follows, as we stated at first, that men are not bound by, decree to have knowledge of the attributes of god, such knowledge being only granted to a few of the faithful: it is hardly worth while to quote further examples from scripture, for everyone must recognize that knowledge of god is not equal among all good men. ( ) moreover, a man cannot be ordered to be wise any more than he can be ordered to live and exist. ( ) men, women, and children are all alike able to obey by, commandment, but not to be wise. if any tell us that it is not necessary to understand the divine attributes, but that we must believe them simply, without proof, he is plainly, trifling. ( ) for what is invisible and can only, be perceived by the mind, cannot be apprehended by any, other means than proofs; if these are absent the object remains ungrasped; the repetition of what has been heard on such subjects no more indicates or attains to their meaning than the words of a parrot or a puppet speaking without sense or signification. ( ) before i proceed i ought to explain how it comes that we are often told in genesis that the patriarchs preached in the name of jehovah, this being in plain contradiction to the text above quoted. ( ) a reference to what was said in chap. viii. will readily explain the difficulty. ( ) it was there shown that the writer of the pentateuch did not always speak of things and places by the names they bore in the times of which he was writing, but by the names best known to his contemporaries. ( ) god is thus said in the pentateuch to have been preached by the patriarchs under the name of jehovah, not because such was the name by which the patriarchs knew him, but because this name was the one most reverenced by the jews. ( ) this point, i say, must necessarily be noticed, for in exodus it is expressly stated that god was not known to the patriarchs by this name; and in chap. iii: , it is said that moses desired to know the name of god. ( ) now, if this name had been already known it would have been known to moses. ( ) we must therefore draw the conclusion indicated, namely, that the faithful patriarchs did not know this name of god, and that the knowledge of god is bestowed and not commanded by the deity. ( ) it is now time to pass on to our second point, and show that god through his prophets required from men no other knowledge of himself than is contained in a knowledge of his justice and charity - that is, of attributes which a certain manner of life will enable men to imitate. ( ) jeremiah states this in so many words (xxii: , ): "did not thy father eat, and drink, and do judgment and justice? and then it was well with him. ( ) he judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the lord." ( ) the words in chap. ix: of the same book are equally, clear. ( ) "but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that i am the lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things i delight, saith the lord." ( ) the same doctrine maybe gathered from exod. xxxiv: , where god revealed to moses only, those of his attributes which display the divine justice and charity. ( ) lastly, we may call attention to a passage in john which we shall discuss at more length hereafter; the apostle explains the nature of god (inasmuch as no one has beheld him) through charity only, and concludes that he who possesses charity possesses, and in very, truth knows god. ( ) we have thus seen that moses, jeremiah, and john sum up in a very short compass the knowledge of god needful for all, and that they state it to consist in exactly what we said, namely, that god is supremely just, and supremely merciful - in other words, the one perfect pattern of the true life. ( ) we may add that scripture nowhere gives an express definition of god, and does not point out any other of his attributes which should be apprehended save these, nor does it in set terms praise any others. ( ) wherefore we may draw the general conclusion that an intellectual knowledge of god, which takes cognizance of his nature in so far as it actually is, and which cannot by any manner of living be imitated by mankind or followed as an example, has no bearing whatever on true rules of conduct, on faith, or on revealed religion; consequently that men may be in complete error on the subject without incurring the charge of sinfulness. ( ) we need now no longer wonder that god adapted himself to the existing opinions and imaginations of the prophets, or that the faithful held different ideas of god, as we showed in chap. ii.; or, again, that the sacred books speak very inaccurately of god, attributing to him hands, feet, eyes, ears, a mind, and motion from one place to another; or that they ascribe to him emotions, such as jealousy, mercy, &c., or, lastly, that they describe him as a judge in heaven sitting on a royal throne with christ on his right hand. ( ) such expressions are adapted to the understanding of the multitude, it being the object of the bible to make men not learned but obedient. ( ) in spite of this the general run of theologians, when they come upon any of these phrases which they cannot rationally harmonize with the divine nature, maintain that they should be interpreted metaphorically, passages they cannot understand they say should be interpreted literally. ( ) but if every expression of this kind in the bible is necessarily to be interpreted and understood metaphorically, scripture must have been written, not for the people and the unlearned masses, but chiefly for accomplished experts and philosophers. ( ) if it were indeed a sin to hold piously and simply the ideas about god we have just quoted, the prophets ought to have been strictly on their guard against the use of such expressions, seeing the weak-mindedness of the people, and ought, on the other hand, to have set forth first of all, duly and clearly, those attributes of god which are needful to be understood. ( ) this they have nowhere done; we cannot, therefore, think that opinions taken in themselves without respect to actions are either pious or impious, but must maintain that a man is pious or impious in his beliefs only in so far as he is thereby incited to obedience, or derives from them license to sin and rebel. ( ) if a man, by believing what is true, becomes rebellious, his creed is impious; if by believing what is false he becomes obedient, his creed is pious; for the true knowledge of god comes not by commandment, but by divine gift. ( ) god has required nothing from man but a knowledge of his divine justice and charity, and that not as necessary to scientific accuracy, but to obedience. chapter xiv - definitions of faith, the faith, and the foundations of faith, which is once for all separated from philosophy. ( ) for a true knowledge of faith it is above all things necessary to understand that the bible was adapted to the intelligence, not only of the prophets, but also of the diverse and fickle jewish multitude. ( ) this will be recognized by all who give any thought to the subject, for they will see that a person who accepted promiscuously everything in scripture as being the universal and absolute teaching of god, without accurately defining what was adapted to the popular intelligence, would find it impossible to escape confounding the opinions of the masses with the divine doctrines, praising the judgments and comments of man as the teaching of god, and making a wrong use of scriptural authority. ( ) who, i say, does not perceive that this is the chief reason why so many sectaries teach contradictory opinions as divine documents, and support their contentions with numerous scriptural texts, till it has passed in belgium into a proverb, geen ketter sonder letter - no heretic without a text? ( ) the sacred books were not written by one man, nor for the people of a single period, but by many authors of different temperaments, at times extending from first to last over nearly two thousand years, and perhaps much longer. ( ) we will not, however, accuse the sectaries of impiety because they have adapted the words of scripture to their own opinions; it is thus that these words were adapted to the understanding of the masses originally, and everyone is at liberty so to treat them if he sees that he can thus obey god in matters relating to justice and charity with a more full consent: but we do accuse those who will not grant this freedom to their fellows, but who persecute all who differ from them, as god's enemies, however honourable and virtuous be their lives; while, on the other hand, they cherish those who agree with them, however foolish they may be, as god's elect. ( ) such conduct is as wicked and dangerous to the state as any that can be conceived. ( ) in order, therefore, to establish the limits to which individual freedom should extend, and to decide what persons, in spite of the diversity of their opinions, are to be looked upon as the faithful, we must define faith and its essentials. ( ) this task i hope to accomplish in the present chapter, and also to separate faith from philosophy, which is the chief aim of the whole treatise. ( ) in order to proceed duly to the demonstration let us recapitulate the chief aim and object of scripture; this will indicate a standard by which we may define faith. ( ) we have said in a former chapter that the aim and object of scripture is only to teach obedience. ( ) thus much, i think, no one can question. ( ) who does not see that both testaments are nothing else but schools for this object, and have neither of them any aim beyond inspiring mankind with a voluntary obedience? ( ) for (not to repeat what i said in the last chapter) i will remark that moses did not seek to convince the jews by reason, but bound them by a covenant, by oaths, and by conferring benefits; further, he threatened the people with punishment if they should infringe the law, and promised rewards if they should obey it. ( ) all these are not means for teaching knowledge, but for inspiring obedience. ( ) the doctrine of the gospels enjoins nothing but simple faith, namely, to believe in god and to honour him, which is the same thing as to obey him. ( ) there is no occasion for me to throw further light on a question so plain by citing scriptural texts commending obedience, such as may be found in great numbers in both testaments. ( ) moreover, the bible teaches very clearly in a great many passages what everyone ought to do in order to obey god; the whole duty is summed up in love to one's neighbour. ( ) it cannot, therefore, be denied that he who by god's command loves his neighbour as himself is truly obedient and blessed according to the law, whereas he who hates his neighbour or neglects him is rebellious and obstinate. ( ) lastly, it is plain to everyone that the bible was not written and disseminated only, for the learned, but for men of every age and race; wherefore we may, rest assured that we are not bound by scriptural command to believe anything beyond what is absolutely necessary, for fulfilling its main precept. ( ) this precept, then, is the only standard of the whole catholic faith, and by it alone all the dogmas needful to be believed should be determined. ( ) so much being abundantly manifest, as is also the fact that all other doctrines of the faith can be legitimately deduced therefrom by reason alone, i leave it to every man to decide for himself how it comes to pass that so many divisions have arisen in the church: can it be from any other cause than those suggested at the beginning of chap. viii.? ( ) it is these same causes which compel me to explain the method of determining the dogmas of the faith from the foundation we have discovered, for if i neglected to do so, and put the question on a regular basis, i might justly be said to have promised too lavishly, for that anyone might, by my showing, introduce any doctrine he liked into religion, under the pretext that it was a necessary means to obedience: especially would this be the case in questions respecting the divine attributes. ( ) in order, therefore, to set forth the whole matter methodically, i will begin with a definition of faith, which on the principle above given, should be as follows:- ( ) faith consists in a knowledge of god, without which obedience to him would be impossible, and which the mere fact of obedience to him implies. ( ) this definition is so clear, and follows so plainly from what we have already proved, that it needs no explanation. ( ) the consequences involved therein i will now briefly show. ( ) (i.) faith is not salutary in itself, but only in respect to the obedience it implies, or as james puts it in his epistle, ii: , "faith without works is dead" (see the whole of the chapter quoted). ( ) (ii.) he who is truly obedient necessarily possesses true and saving faith; for if obedience be granted, faith must be granted also, as the same apostle expressly says in these words (ii: ), "show me thy faith without thy works, and i will show thee my faith by my works." ( ) so also john, i ep. iv: : "everyone that loveth is born of god, and knoweth god: he that loveth not, knoweth not god; for god is love." ( ) from these texts, i repeat, it follows that we can only judge a man faithful or unfaithful by his works. ( ) if his works be good, he is faithful, however much his doctrines may differ from those of the rest of the faithful: if his works be evil, though he may verbally conform, he is unfaithful. ( ) for obedience implies faith, and faith without works is dead. ( ) john, in the th verse of the chapter above quoted, expressly teaches the same doctrine: "hereby," he says, "know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit," i.e. love. ( ) he had said before that god is love, and therefore he concludes (on his own received principles), that whoso possesses love possesses truly the spirit of god. ( ) as no one has beheld god he infers that no one has knowledge or consciousness of god, except from love towards his neighbour, and also that no one can have knowledge of any of god's attributes, except this of love, in so far as we participate therein. ( ) if these arguments are not conclusive, they, at any rate, show the apostle's meaning, but the words in chap. ii: , , of the same epistle are much clearer, for they state in so many words our precise contention: "and hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. ( ) he that saith, i know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." ( ) from all this, i repeat, it follows that they are the true enemies of christ who persecute honourable and justice-loving men because they differ from them, and do not uphold the same religious dogmas as themselves: for whosoever loves justice and charity we know, by that very fact, to be faithful: whosoever persecutes the faithful, is an enemy to christ. ( ) lastly, it follows that faith does not demand that dogmas should be true as that they should be pious - that is, such as will stir up the heart to obey; though there be many such which contain not a shadow of truth, so long as they be held in good faith, otherwise their adherents are disobedient, for how can anyone, desirous of loving justice and obeying god, adore as divine what he knows to be alien from the divine nature? ( ) however, men may err from simplicity of mind, and scripture, as we have seen, does not condemn ignorance, but obstinacy. ( ) this is the necessary result of our definition of faith, and all its branches should spring from the universal rule above given, and from the evident aim and object of the bible, unless we choose to mix our own inventions therewith. ( ) thus it is not true doctrines which are expressly required by the bible, so much as doctrines necessary for obedience, and to confirm in our hearts the love of our neighbour, wherein (to adopt the words of john) we are in god, and god in us. ( ) as, then, each man's faith must be judged pious or impious only in respect of its producing obedience or obstinacy, and not in respect of its truth; and as no one will dispute that men's dispositions are exceedingly varied, that all do not acquiesce in the same things, but are ruled some by one opinion some by another, so that what moves one to devotion moves another to laughter and contempt, it follows that there can be no doctrines in the catholic, or universal, religion, which can give rise to controversy among good men. ( ) such doctrines might be pious to some and impious to others, whereas they should be judged solely by their fruits. ( ) to the universal religion, then, belong only such dogmas as are absolutely required in order to attain obedience to god, and without which such obedience would be impossible; as for the rest, each man - seeing that he is the best judge of his own character should adopt whatever he thinks best adapted to strengthen his love of justice. ( ) if this were so, i think there would be no further occasion for controversies in the church. ( ) i have now no further fear in enumerating the dogmas of universal faith or the fundamental dogmas of the whole of scripture, inasmuch as they all tend (as may be seen from what has been said) to this one doctrine, namely, that there exists a god, that is, a supreme being, who loves justice and charity, and who must be obeyed by whosoever would be saved; that the worship of this being consists in the practice of justice and love towards one's neighbour, and that they contain nothing beyond the following doctrines:- ( ) i. that god or a supreme being exists, sovereignly just and merciful, the exemplar of the true life; that whosoever is ignorant of or disbelieves in his existence cannot obey him or know him as a judge. ( ) ii. that he is one. ( ) nobody will dispute that this doctrine is absolutely necessary for entire devotion, admiration, and love towards god. ( ) for devotion, admiration, and love spring from the superiority of one over all else. ( ) iii. that he is omnipresent, or that all things are open to him, for if anything could be supposed to be concealed from him, or to be unnoticed by, him, we might doubt or be ignorant of the equity of his judgment as directing all things. ( ) iv. that he has supreme right and dominion over all things, and that he does nothing under compulsion, but by his absolute fiat and grace. ( ) all things are bound to obey him, he is not bound to obey any. ( ) v. that the worship of god consists only in justice and charity, or love towards one's neighbour. ( ) vi. that all those, and those only, who obey god by their manner of life are saved; the rest of mankind, who live under the sway of their pleasures, are lost. ( ) if we did not believe this, there would be no reason for obeying god rather than pleasure. ( ) vii. lastly, that god forgives the sins of those who repent. ( ) no one is free from sin, so that without this belief all would despair of salvation, and there would be no reason for believing in the mercy of god. ( ) he who firmly believes that god, out of the mercy and grace with which he directs all things, forgives the sins of men, and who feels his love of god kindled thereby, he, i say, does really, know christ according to the spirit, and christ is in him. ( ) no one can deny that all these doctrines are before all things necessary, to be believed, in order that every man, without exception, may be able to obey god according to the bidding of the law above explained, for if one of these precepts be disregarded obedience is destroyed. ( ) but as to what god, or the exemplar of the true life, may be, whether fire, or spirit, or light, or thought, or what not, this, i say, has nothing to do with faith any more than has the question how he comes to be the exemplar of the true life, whether it be because he has a just and merciful mind, or because all things exist and act through him, and consequently that we understand through him, and through him see what is truly just and good. ( ) everyone may think on such questions as he likes. ( ) furthermore, faith is not affected, whether we hold that god is omnipresent essentially or potentially; that he directs all things by absolute fiat, or by the necessity of his nature; that he dictates laws like a prince, or that he sets them forth as eternal truths; that man obeys him by virtue of free will, or by virtue of the necessity of the divine decree; lastly, that the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked is natural or supernatural: these and such like questions have no bearing on faith, except in so far as they are used as means to give us license to sin more, or to obey god less. ( ) i will go further, and maintain that every man is bound to adapt these dogmas to his own way of thinking, and to interpret them according as he feels that he can give them his fullest and most unhesitating assent, so that he may the more easily obey god with his whole heart. ( ) such was the manner, as we have already pointed out, in which the faith was in old time revealed and written, in accordance with the understanding and opinions of the prophets and people of the period; so, in like fashion, every man is bound to adapt it to his own opinions, so that he may accept it without any hesitation or mental repugnance. ( ) we have shown that faith does not so much re quire truth as piety, and that it is only quickening and pious through obedience, consequently no one is faithful save by obedience alone. ( ) the best faith is not necessarily possessed by him who displays the best reasons, but by him who displays the best fruits of justice and charity. ( ) how salutary and necessary this doctrine is for a state, in order that men may dwell together in peace and concord; and how many and how great causes of disturbance and crime are thereby cut off, i leave everyone to judge for himself! ( ) before we go further, i may remark that we can, by means of what we have just proved, easily answer the objections raised in chap. i., when we were discussing god's speaking with the israelites on mount sinai. ( ) for, though the voice heard by the israelites could not give those men any philosophical or mathematical certitude of god's existence, it was yet sufficient to thrill them with admiration for god, as they already knew him, and to stir them up to obedience: and such was the object of the display. ( ) god did not wish to teach the israelites the absolute attributes of his essence (none of which he then revealed), but to break down their hardness of heart, and to draw them to obedience: therefore he did not appeal to them with reasons, but with the sound of trumpets, thunder, and lightnings. ( ) it remains for me to show that between faith or theology, and philosophy, there is no connection, nor affinity. ( ) i think no one will dispute the fact who has knowledge of the aim and foundations of the two subjects, for they are as wide apart as the poles. ( ) philosophy has no end in view save truth: faith, as we have abundantly proved, looks for nothing but obedience and piety. ( ) again, philosophy is based on axioms which must be sought from nature alone: faith is based on history and language, and must be sought for only in scripture and revelation, as we showed in chap. vii. ( ) faith, therefore, allows the greatest latitude in philosophic speculation, allowing us without blame to think what we like about anything, and only condemning, as heretics and schismatics, those who teach opinions which tend to produce obstinacy, hatred, strife, and anger; while, on the other hand, only considering as faithful those who persuade us, as far as their reason and faculties will permit, to follow justice and charity. ( ) lastly, as what we are now setting forth are the most important subjects of my treatise, i would most urgently beg the reader, before i proceed, to read these two chapters with especial attention, and to take the trouble to weigh them well in his mind: let him take for granted that i have not written with a view to introducing novelties, but in order to do away with abuses, such as i hope i may, at some future time, at last see reformed. chapter xv - theology is shown not to be subservient to reason, nor reason to theology: a definition of the reason which enables us to accept the authority of the bible. ( ) those who know not that philosophy and reason are distinct, dispute whether scripture should be made subservient to reason, or reason to scripture: that is, whether the meaning of scripture should be made to agreed with reason; or whether reason should be made to agree with scripture: the latter position is assumed by the sceptics who deny the certitude of reason, the former by the dogmatists. ( ) both parties are, as i have shown, utterly in the wrong, for either doctrine would require us to tamper with reason or with scripture. ( ) we have shown that scripture does not teach philosophy, but merely obedience, and that all it contains has been adapted to the understanding and established opinions of the multitude. ( ) those, therefore, who wish to adapt it to philosophy, must needs ascribe to the prophets many ideas which they never even dreamed of, and give an extremely forced interpretation to their words: those on the other hand, who would make reason and philosophy subservient to theology, will be forced to accept as divine utterances the prejudices of the ancient jews, and to fill and confuse their mind therewith. ( ) in short, one party will run wild with the aid of reason, and the other will run wild without the aid of reason. ( ) the first among the pharisees who openly maintained that scripture should be made to agree with reason, was maimonides, whose opinion we reviewed, and abundantly refuted in chap. viii.: now, although this writer had much authority among his contemporaries, he was deserted on this question by almost all, and the majority went straight over to the opinion of a certain r. jehuda alpakhar, who, in his anxiety to avoid the error of maimonides, fell into another, which was its exact contrary. ( ) he held that reason should be made subservient, and entirely give way to scripture. ( ) he thought that a passage should not be interpreted metaphorically, simply because it was repugnant to reason, but only in the cases when it is inconsistent with scripture itself - that is, with its clear doctrines. ( ) therefore he laid down the universal rule, that whatsoever scripture teaches dogmatically, and affirms expressly, must on its own sole authority be admitted as absolutely true: that there is no doctrine in the bible which directly contradicts the general tenour of the whole: but only some which appear to involve a difference, for the phrases of scripture often seem to imply something contrary to what has been expressly taught. ( ) such phrases, and such phrases only, we may interpret metaphorically. ( ) for instance, scripture clearly teaches the unity of god (see deut. vi: ), nor is there any text distinctly asserting a plurality of gods; but in several passages god speaks of himself, and the prophets speak of him, in the plural number; such phrases are simply a manner of speaking, and do not mean that there actually are several gods: they are to be explained metaphorically, not because a plurality of gods is repugnant to reason, but because scripture distinctly asserts that there is only one. ( ) so, again, as scripture asserts (as alpakhar thinks) in deut. iv: , that god is incorporeal, we are bound, solely by the authority of this text, and not by reason, to believe that god has no body: consequently we must explain metaphorically, on the sole authority of scripture, all those passages which attribute to god hands, feet, &c., and take them merely as figures of speech. ( ) such is the opinion of alpakhar. in so far as he seeks to explain scripture by scripture, i praise him, but i marvel that a man gifted with reason should wish to debase that faculty. ( ) it is true that scripture should be explained by scripture, so long as we are in difficulties about the meaning and intention of the prophets, but when we have elicited the true meaning, we must of necessity make use of our judgment and reason in order to assent thereto. ( ) if reason, however, much as she rebels, is to be entirely subjected to scripture, i ask, are we to effect her submission by her own aid, or without her, and blindly? ( ) if the latter, we shall surely act foolishly and injudiciously; if the former, we assent to scripture under the dominion of reason, and should not assent to it without her. ( ) moreover, i may ask now, is a man to assent to anything against his reason? ( ) what is denial if it be not reason's refusal to assent? ( ) in short, i am astonished that anyone should wish to subject reason, the greatest of gifts and a light from on high, to the dead letter which may have been corrupted by human malice; that it should be thought no crime to speak with contempt of mind, the true handwriting of god's word, calling it corrupt, blind, and lost, while it is considered the greatest of crimes to say the same of the letter, which is merely the reflection and image of god's word. ( ) men think it pious to trust nothing to reason and their own judgment, and impious to doubt the faith of those who have transmitted to us the sacred books. ( ) such conduct is not piety, but mere folly. and, after all, why are they so anxious? what are they afraid of? ( ) do they think that faith and religion cannot be upheld unless - men purposely keep themselves in ignorance, and turn their backs on reason? ( ) if this be so, they have but a timid trust in scripture. ( ) however, be it far from me to say that religion should seek to enslave reason, or reason religion, or that both should not be able to keep their sovereignity in perfect harmony. ( ) i will revert to this question presently, for i wish now to discuss alpakhar's rule. ( ) he requires, as we have stated, that we should accept as true, or reject as false, everything asserted or denied by scripture, and he further states that scripture never expressly asserts or denies anything which contradicts its assertions or negations elsewhere. ( ) the rashness of such a requirement and statement can escape no one. ( ) for (passing over the fact that he does not notice that scripture consists of different books, written at different times, for different people, by different authors: and also that his requirement is made on his own authority without any corroboration from reason or scripture) he would be bound to show that all passages which are indirectly contradictory of the rest, can be satisfactorily explained metaphorically through the nature of the language and the context: further, that scripture has come down to us untampered with. ( ) however, we will go into the matter at length. ( ) firstly, i ask what shall we do if reason prove recalcitrant? ( ) shall we still be bound to affirm whatever scripture affirms, and to deny whatever scripture denies? ( ) perhaps it will be answered that scripture contains nothing repugnant to reason. ( ) but i insist that it expressly affirms and teaches that god is jealous (namely, in the decalogue itself, and in exod. xxxiv: , and in deut. iv: , and in many other places), and i assert that such a doctrine is repugnant to reason. ( ) it must, i suppose, in spite of all, be accepted as true. if there are any passages in scripture which imply that god is not jealous, they must be taken metaphorically as meaning nothing of the kind. ( ) so, also, scripture expressly states (exod. xix: , &c.) that god came down to mount sinai, and it attributes to him other movements from place to place, nowhere directly stating that god does not so move. ( ) wherefore, we must take the passage literally, and solomon's words (i kings viii: ), "but will god dwell on the earth? ( ) behold the heavens and earth cannot contain thee," inasmuch as they do not expressly state that god does not move from place to place, but only imply it, must be explained away till they have no further semblance of denying locomotion to the deity. ( ) so also we must believe that the sky is the habitation and throne of god, for scripture expressly says so; and similarly many passages expressing the opinions of the prophets or the multitude, which reason and philosophy, but not scripture, tell us to be false, must be taken as true if we are to follow the guidance of our author, for according to him, reason has nothing to do with the matter. ( ) further, it is untrue that scripture never contradicts itself directly, but only by implication. ( ) for moses says, in so many words (deut. iv: ), "the lord thy god is a consuming fire," and elsewhere expressly denies that god has any likeness to visible things. (deut. iv. .) ( ) if it be decided that the latter passage only contradicts the former by implication, and must be adapted thereto, lest it seem to negative it, let us grant that god is a fire; or rather, lest we should seem to have taken leave of our senses, let us pass the matter over and take another example. ( ) samuel expressly denies that god ever repents, "for he is not a man that he should repent" (i sam. xv: ). ( ) jeremiah, on the other hand, asserts that god does repent, both of the evil and of the good which he had intended to do (jer. xviii: - ). ( ) what? ( ) are not these two texts directly contradictory? ( ) which of the two, then, would our author want to explain metaphorically? ( ) both statements are general, and each is the opposite of the other - what one flatly affirms, the other flatly, denies. ( ) so, by his own rule, he would be obliged at once to reject them as false, and to accept them as true. ( ) again, what is the point of one passage, not being contradicted by another directly, but only by implication, if the implication is clear, and the nature and context of the passage preclude metaphorical interpretation? ( ) there are many such instances in the bible, as we saw in chap. ii. (where we pointed out that the prophets held different and contradictory opinions), and also in chaps. ix. and x., where we drew attention to the contradictions in the historical narratives. ( ) there is no need for me to go through them all again, for what i have said sufficiently exposes the absurdities which would follow from an opinion and rule such as we are discussing, and shows the hastiness of its propounder. ( ) we may, therefore, put this theory, as well as that of maimonides, entirely out of court; and we may, take it for indisputable that theology is not bound to serve reason, nor reason theology, but that each has her own domain. ( ) the sphere of reason is, as we have said, truth and wisdom; the sphere of theology, is piety and obedience. ( ) the power of reason does not extend so far as to determine for us that men may be blessed through simple obedience, without understanding. ( ) theology, tells us nothing else, enjoins on us no command save obedience, and has neither the will nor the power to oppose reason: she defines the dogmas of faith (as we pointed out in the last chapter) only in so far as they may be necessary, for obedience, and leaves reason to determine their precise truth: for reason is the light of the mind, and without her all things are dreams and phantoms. ( ) by theology, i here mean, strictly speaking, revelation, in so far as it indicates the object aimed at by scripture namely, the scheme and manner of obedience, or the true dogmas of piety and faith. ( ) this may truly be called the word of god, which does not consist in a certain number of books (see chap. xii.). ( ) theology thus understood, if we regard its precepts or rules of life, will be found in accordance with reason; and, if we look to its aim and object, will be seen to be in nowise repugnant thereto, wherefore it is universal to all men. ( ) as for its bearing on scripture, we have shown in chap. vii. that the meaning of scripture should be gathered from its own history, and not from the history of nature in general, which is the basis of philosophy. ( ) we ought not to be hindered if we find that our investigation of the meaning of scripture thus conducted shows us that it is here and there repugnant to reason; for whatever we may find of this sort in the bible, which men may be in ignorance of, without injury to their charity, has, we may be sure, no bearing on theology or the word of god, and may, therefore, without blame, be viewed by every one as he pleases. ( ) to sum up, we may draw the absolute conclusion that the bible must not be accommodated to reason, nor reason to the bible. ( ) now, inasmuch as the basis of theology - the doctrine that man may be saved by obedience alone - cannot be proved by reason whether it be true or false, we may be asked, why, then, should we believe it? ( ) if we do so without the aid of reason, we accept it blindly, and act foolishly and injudiciously; if, on the other hand, we settle that it can be proved by reason, theology becomes a part of philosophy, and inseparable therefrom. ( ) but i make answer that i have absolutely established that this basis of theology cannot be investigated by the natural light of reason, or, at any rate, that no one ever has proved it by such means, and, therefore, revelation was necessary. ( ) we should, however, make use of our reason, in order to grasp with moral certainty what is revealed - i say, with moral certainty, for we cannot hope to attain greater certainty, than the prophets: yet their certainty was only, moral, as i showed in chap. ii. ( ) those, therefore, who attempt to set forth the authority of scripture with mathematical demonstrations are wholly in error: for the authority, of the bible is dependent on the authority of the prophets, and can be supported by no stronger arguments than those employed in old time by the prophets for convincing the people of their own authority. ( ) our certainty on the same subject can be founded on no other basis than that which served as foundation for the certainty of the prophets. ( ) now the certainty of the prophets consisted (as we pointed out) in these elements:- ( ) (i.) a distinct and vivid imagination. ( ) (ii.) a sign. ( ) (iii.) lastly, and chiefly, a mind turned to what is just and good. it was based on no other reasons than these, and consequently they cannot prove their authority by any other reasons, either to the multitude whom they addressed orally, nor to us whom they address in writing. ( ) the first of these reasons, namely, the vivid imagination, could be valid only for the prophets; therefore, our certainty concerning revelation must, and ought to be, based on the remaining two - namely, the sign and the teaching. ( ) such is the express doctrine of moses, for (in deut. xviii.) he bids the people obey the prophet who should give a true sign in the name of the lord, but if he should predict falsely, even though it were in the name of the lord, he should be put to death, as should also he who strives to lead away the people from the true religion, though he confirm his authority with signs and portents. ( ) we may compare with the above deut. xiii. ( ) whence it follows that a true prophet could be distinguished from a false one, both by his doctrine and by the miracles he wrought, for moses declares such an one to be a true prophet, and bids the people trust him without fear of deceit. ( ) he condemns as false, and worthy, of death, those who predict anything falsely even in the name of the lord, or who preach false gods, even though their miracles be real. ( ) the only reason, then, which we have for belief in scripture or the writings of the prophets, is the doctrine we find therein, and the signs by which it is confirmed. ( ) for as we see that the prophets extol charity and justice above all things, and have no other object, we conclude that they did not write from unworthy motives, but because they really thought that men might become blessed through obedience and faith: further, as we see that they confirmed their teaching with signs and wonders, we become persuaded that they did not speak at random, nor run riot in their prophecies. ( ) we are further strengthened in our conclusion by the fact that the morality they teach is in evident agreement with reason, for it is no accidental coincidence that the word of god which we find in the prophets coincides with the word of god written in our hearts. ( ) we may, i say, conclude this from the sacred books as certainly as did the jews of old from the living voice of the prophets: for we showed in chap. xii. that scripture has come down to us intact in respect to its doctrine and main narratives. ( ) therefore this whole basis of theology and scripture, though it does not admit of mathematical proof, may yet be accepted with the approval of our judgment. ( ) it would be folly to refuse to accept what is confirmed by such ample prophetic testimony, and what has proved such a comfort to those whose reason is comparatively weak, and such a benefit to the state; a doctrine, moreover, which we may believe in without the slightest peril or hurt, and should reject simply because it cannot be mathematically proved: it is as though we should admit nothing as true, or as a wise rule of life, which could ever, in any possible way, be called in question; or as though most of our actions were not full of uncertainty and hazards. ( ) i admit that those who believe that theology and philosophy are mutually contradictory, and that therefore either one or the other must be thrust from its throne - i admit, i say, that such persons are not unreasonable in attempting to put theology on a firm basis, and to demonstrate its truth mathematically. ( ) who, unless he were desperate or mad, would wish to bid an incontinent farewell to reason, or to despise the arts and sciences, or to deny reason's certitude? ( ) but, in the meanwhile, we cannot wholly absolve them from blame, inasmuch as they invoke the aid of reason for her own defeat, and attempt infallibly to prove her fallible. ( ) while they are trying to prove mathematically the authority and truth of theology, and to take away the authority of natural reason, they are in reality only bringing theology under reason's dominion, and proving that her authority has no weight unless natural reason be at the back of it. ( ) if they boast that they themselves assent because of the inward testimony of the holy spirit, and that they only invoke the aid of reason because of unbelievers, in order to convince them, not even so can this meet with our approval, for we can easily show that they have spoken either from emotion or vain-glory. ( ) it most clearly follows from the last chapter that the holy spirit only gives its testimony in favour of works, called by paul (in gal. v: ) the fruits of the spirit, and is in itself really nothing but the mental acquiescence which follows a good action in our souls. ( ) no spirit gives testimony concerning the certitude of matters within the sphere of speculation, save only reason, who is mistress, as we have shown, of the whole realm of truth. ( ) if then they assert that they possess this spirit which makes them certain of truth, they speak falsely, and according to the prejudices of the emotions, or else they are in great dread lest they should be vanquished by philosophers and exposed to public ridicule, and therefore they flee, as it were, to the altar; but their refuge is vain, for what altar will shelter a man who has outraged reason? ( ) however, i pass such persons over, for i think i have fulfilled my purpose, and shown how philosophy should be separated from theology, and wherein each consists; that neither should be subservient to the other, but that each should keep her unopposed dominion. ( ) lastly, as occasion offered, i have pointed out the absurdities, the inconveniences, and the evils following from the extraordinary confusion which has hitherto prevailed between the two subjects, owing to their not being properly distinguished and separated. ( ) before i go further i would expressly state (though i have said it before) that i consider the utility and the need for holy scripture or revelation to be very great. ( ) for as we cannot perceive by the natural light of reason that simple obedience is the path of salvation [endnote ], and are taught by revelation only that it is so by the special grace of god, which our reason cannot attain, it follows that the bible has brought a very great consolation to mankind. ( ) all are able to obey, whereas there are but very few, compared with the aggregate of humanity, who can acquire the habit of virtue under the unaided guidance of reason. ( ) thus if we had not the testimony of scripture, we should doubt of the salvation of nearly all men. end of part - chapters xi to xv. author's endnotes to the theologico-political treatise chapter xi. endnote . ( ) "now i think." ( ) the translators render the {greek} word "i infer", and assert that paul uses it as synonymous with {a greek word}. ( ) but the former word has, in greek, the same meaning as the hebrew word rendered to think, to esteem, to judge. ( ) and this signification would be in entire agreement with the syriac translation. ( ) this syriac translation (if it be a translation, which is very doubtful, for we know neither the time of its appearance, nor the translators and syriac was the vernacular of the apostles) renders the text before us in a way well explained by tremellius as "we think, therefore." chapter xv. endnote . ( ) "that simple obedience is the path of salvation." ( ) in other words, it is enough for salvation or blessedness, that we should embrace the divine decrees as laws or commands; there is no need to conceive them as eternal truths. ( ) this can be taught us by revelation, not reason, as appears from the demonstrations given in chapter iv. end of part iii - chapters xi to xv. version by al haines. on the improvement of the understanding (treatise on the emendation of the intellect) by baruch spinoza [benedict de spinoza] translated by r. h. m. elwes table of contents: on the improvement of the understanding of the ordinary objects of men's desires of the true and final good certain rules of life of the four modes of perception of the best mode of perception of the instruments of the intellect, or true ideas answers to objections first part of method: distinction of true ideas from fictitious ideas and from false ideas of doubt of memory and forgetfulness mental hindrances from words--and from the popular confusion of ready imagination with distinct understanding. second part of method: its object, the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas its means, good definitions conditions of definition how to define understanding ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [notice to the reader.] (this notice to the reader was written by the editors of the opera postuma in . taken from curley, note , at end) *this treatise on the emendation of the intellect etc., which we give you here, kind reader, in its unfinished [that is, defective] state, was written by the author many years ago now. he always intended to finish it. but hindered by other occupations, and finally snatched away by death, he was unable to bring it to the desired conclusion. but since it contains many excellent and useful things, which--we have no doubt--will be of great benefit to anyone sincerely seeking the truth, we did not wish to deprive you of them. and so that you would be aware of, and find less difficult to excuse, the many things that are still obscure, rough, and unpolished, we wished to warn you of them. farewell.* [ ] ( ) after experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, i finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. [ ] ( ) i say "i finally resolved," for at first sight it seemed unwise willingly to lose hold on what was sure for the sake of something then uncertain. ( ) i could see the benefits which are acquired through fame and riches, and that i should be obliged to abandon the quest of such objects, if i seriously devoted myself to the search for something different and new. ( ) i perceived that if true happiness chanced to be placed in the former i should necessarily miss it; while if, on the other hand, it were not so placed, and i gave them my whole attention, i should equally fail. [ ] ( ) i therefore debated whether it would not be possible to arrive at the new principle, or at any rate at a certainty concerning its existence, without changing the conduct and usual plan of my life; with this end in view i made many efforts, in vain. ( ) for the ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads--riches, fame, and the pleasures of sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good. [ ] ( ) by sensual pleasure the mind is enthralled to the extent of quiescence, as if the supreme good were actually attained, so that it is quite incapable of thinking of any other object; when such pleasure has been gratified it is followed by extreme melancholy, whereby the mind, though not enthralled, is disturbed and dulled. ( ) the pursuit of honors and riches is likewise very absorbing, especially if such objects be sought simply for their own sake, [a] inasmuch as they are then supposed to constitute the highest good. [ ] ( ) in the case of fame the mind is still more absorbed, for fame is conceived as always good for its own sake, and as the ultimate end to which all actions are directed. ( ) further, the attainment of riches and fame is not followed as in the case of sensual pleasures by repentance, but, the more we acquire, the greater is our delight, and, consequently, the more are we incited to increase both the one and the other; on the other hand, if our hopes happen to be frustrated we are plunged into the deepest sadness. ( ) fame has the further drawback that it compels its votaries to order their lives according to the opinions of their fellow-men, shunning what they usually shun, and seeking what they usually seek. [ ] ( ) when i saw that all these ordinary objects of desire would be obstacles in the way of a search for something different and new--nay, that they were so opposed thereto, that either they or it would have to be abandoned, i was forced to inquire which would prove the most useful to me: for, as i say, i seemed to be willingly losing hold on a sure good for the sake of something uncertain. ( : ) however, after i had reflected on the matter, i came in the first place to the conclusion that by abandoning the ordinary objects of pursuit, and betaking myself to a new quest, i should be leaving a good, uncertain by reason of its own nature, as may be gathered from what has been said, for the sake of a good not uncertain in its nature (for i sought for a fixed good), but only in the possibility of its attainment. [ ] ( ) further reflection convinced me that if i could really get to the root of the matter i should be leaving certain evils for a certain good. ( ) i thus perceived that i was in a state of great peril, and i compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy, however uncertain it might be; as a sick man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death will surely be upon him unless a remedy be found, is compelled to seek a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch as his whole hope lies therein. ( : ) all the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, [b] and always of those who are possessed by them. [ ] ( ) there are many examples of men who have suffered persecution even to death for the sake of their riches, and of men who in pursuit of wealth have exposed themselves to so many dangers, that they have paid away their life as a penalty for their folly. ( ) examples are no less numerous of men, who have endured the utmost wretchedness for the sake of gaining or preserving their reputation. ( ) lastly, are innumerable cases of men, who have hastened their death through over-indulgence in sensual pleasure. [ ] ( ) all these evils seem to have arisen from the fact, that happiness or unhappiness is made wholly dependent on the quality of the object which we love. ( ) when a thing is not loved, no quarrels will arise concerning it--no sadness will be felt if it perishes--no envy if it is possessed by another--no fear, no hatred, in short no disturbances of the mind. ( ) all these arise from the love of what is perishable, such as the objects already mentioned. [ ] ( ) but love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength. ( ) yet it was not at random that i used the words, "if i could go to the root of the matter," for, though what i have urged was perfectly clear to my mind, i could not forthwith lay aside all love of riches, sensual enjoyment, and fame. [ ] ( ) one thing was evident, namely, that while my mind was employed with these thoughts it turned away from its former objects of desire, and seriously considered the search for a new principle; this state of things was a great comfort to me, for i perceived that the evils were not such as to resist all remedies. ( : ) although these intervals were at first rare, and of very short duration, yet afterwards, as the true good became more and more discernible to me, they became more frequent and more lasting; especially after i had recognized that the acquisition of wealth, sensual pleasure, or fame, is only a hindrance, so long as they are sought as ends not as means; if they be sought as means, they will be under restraint, and, far from being hindrances, will further not a little the end for which they are sought, as i will show in due time. [ ] ( ) i will here only briefly state what i mean by true good, and also what is the nature of the highest good. ( ) in order that this may be rightly understood, we must bear in mind that the terms good and evil are only applied relatively, so that the same thing may be called both good and bad according to the relations in view, in the same way as it may be called perfect or imperfect. ( ) nothing regarded in its own nature can be called perfect or imperfect; especially when we are aware that all things which come to pass, come to pass according to the eternal order and fixed laws of nature. [ ] ( ) however, human weakness cannot attain to this order in its own thoughts, but meanwhile man conceives a human character much more stable than his own, and sees that there is no reason why he should not himself acquire such a character. ( ) thus he is led to seek for means which will bring him to this pitch of perfection, and calls everything which will serve as such means a true good. ( : ) the chief good is that he should arrive, together with other individuals if possible, at the possession of the aforesaid character. ( ) what that character is we shall show in due time, namely, that it is the knowledge of the union existing being the mind and the whole of nature. [c] [ ] ( ) this, then, is the end for which i strive, to attain to such a character myself, and to endeavor that many should attain to it with me. ( ) in other words, it is part of my happiness to lend a helping hand, that many others may understand even as i do, so that their understanding and desire may entirely agree with my own. ( ) in order to bring this about, it is necessary to understand as much of nature as will enable us to attain to the aforesaid character, and also to form a social order such as is most conducive to the attainment of this character by the greatest number with the least difficulty and danger. [ ] ( ) we must seek the assistance of moral philosophy [d] and the theory of education; further, as health is no insignificant means for attaining our end, we must also include the whole science of medicine, and, as many difficult things are by contrivance rendered easy, and we can in this way gain much time and convenience, the science of mechanics must in no way be despised. [ ] ( ) but before all things, a means must be devised for improving the understanding and purifying it, as far as may be at the outset, so that it may apprehend things without error, and in the best possible way. ( ) thus it is apparent to everyone that i wish to direct all science to one end [e] and aim, so that we may attain to the supreme human perfection which we have named; and, therefore, whatsoever in the sciences does not serve to promote our object will have to be rejected as useless. ( ) to sum up the matter in a word, all our actions and thoughts must be directed to this one end. [ ] ( ) yet, as it is necessary that while we are endeavoring to attain our purpose, and bring the understanding into the right path we should carry on our life, we are compelled first of all to lay down certain rules of life as provisionally good, to wit the following:-- i. ( ) to speak in a manner intelligible to the multitude, and to comply with every general custom that does not hinder the attainment of our purpose. ( ) for we can gain from the multitude no small advantages, provided that we strive to accommodate ourselves to its understanding as far as possible: moreover, we shall in this way gain a friendly audience for the reception of the truth. ii. ( : ) to indulge ourselves with pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for preserving health. iii. ( ) lastly, to endeavor to obtain only sufficient money or other commodities to enable us to preserve our life and health, and to follow such general customs as are consistent with our purpose. [ ] ( ) having laid down these preliminary rules, i will betake myself to the first and most important task, namely, the amendment of the understanding, and the rendering it capable of understanding things in the manner necessary for attaining our end. ( ) in order to bring this about, the natural order demands that i should here recapitulate all the modes of perception, which i have hitherto employed for affirming or denying anything with certainty, so that i may choose the best, and at the same time begin to know my own powers and the nature which i wish to perfect. [ ] ( ) reflection shows that all modes of perception or knowledge may be reduced to four:-- i. ( ) perception arising from hearsay or from some sign which everyone may name as he please. ii. ( ) perception arising from mere experience--that is, form experience not yet classified by the intellect, and only so called because the given event has happened to take place, and we have no contradictory fact to set against it, so that it therefore remains unassailed in our minds. iii. ( : ) perception arising when the essence of one thing is inferred from another thing, but not adequately; this comes when [f] from some effect we gather its cause, or when it is inferred from some general proposition that some property is always present. iv. ( ) lastly, there is the perception arising when a thing is perceived solely through its essence, or through the knowledge of its proximate cause. [ ] ( ) all these kinds of perception i will illustrate by examples. ( ) by hearsay i know the day of my birth, my parentage, and other matters about which i have never felt any doubt. ( ) by mere experience i know that i shall die, for this i can affirm from having seen that others like myself have died, though all did not live for the same period, or die by the same disease. ( ) i know by mere experience that oil has the property of feeding fire, and water of extinguishing it. ( ) in the same way i know that a dog is a barking animal, man a rational animal, and in fact nearly all the practical knowledge of life. [ ] ( ) we deduce one thing from another as follows: when we clearly perceive that we feel a certain body and no other, we thence clearly infer that the mind is united [g] to the body, and that their union is the cause of the given sensation; but we cannot thence absolutely understand [h] the nature of the sensation and the union. ( ) or, after i have become acquainted with the nature of vision, and know that it has the property of making one and the same thing appear smaller when far off than when near, i can infer that the sun is larger than it appears, and can draw other conclusions of the same kind. [ ] ( ) lastly, a thing may be perceived solely through its essence; when, from the fact of knowing something, i know what it is to know that thing, or when, from knowing the essence of the mind, i know that it is united to the body. ( ) by the same kind of knowledge we know that two and three make five, or that two lines each parallel to a third, are parallel to one another, &c. ( ) the things which i have been able to know by this kind of knowledge are as yet very few. [ ] ( ) in order that the whole matter may be put in a clearer light, i will make use of a single illustration as follows. ( ) three numbers are given--it is required to find a fourth, which shall be to the third as the second is to the first. ( : ) tradesmen will at once tell us that they know what is required to find the fourth number, for they have not yet forgotten the rule which was given to them arbitrarily without proof by their masters; others construct a universal axiom from their experience with simple numbers, where the fourth number is self-evident, as in the case of , , , ; here it is evident that if the second number be multiplied by the third, and the product divided by the first, the quotient is ; when they see that by this process the number is produced which they knew beforehand to be the proportional, they infer that the process always holds good for finding a fourth number proportional. [ ] ( ) mathematicians, however, know by the proof of the nineteenth proposition of the seventh book of euclid, what numbers are proportionals, namely, from the nature and property of proportion it follows that the product of the first and fourth will be equal to the product of the second and third: still they do not see the adequate proportionality of the given numbers, or, if they do see it, they see it not by virtue of euclid's proposition, but intuitively, without going through any process. [ ] ( ) in order that from these modes of perception the best may be selected, it is well that we should briefly enumerate the means necessary for attaining our end. i. ( ) to have an exact knowledge of our nature which we desire to perfect, and to know as much as is needful of nature in general. ii. to collect in this way the differences, the agreements, and the oppositions of things. iii. to learn thus exactly how far they can or cannot be modified. iv. to compare this result with the nature and power of man. ( ) we shall thus discern the highest degree of perfection to which man is capable of attaining. [ ] ( ) we shall then be in a position to see which mode of perception we ought to choose. ( ) as to the first mode, it is evident that from hearsay our knowledge must always be uncertain, and, moreover, can give us no insight into the essence of a thing, as is manifest in our illustration; now one can only arrive at knowledge of a thing through knowledge of its essence, as will hereafter appear. ( ) we may, therefore clearly conclude that the certainty arising from hearsay cannot be scientific in its character. ( ) for simple hearsay cannot affect anyone whose understanding does not, so to speak, meet it half way. [ ] ( ) the second mode of perception [i] cannot be said to give us the idea of the proportion of which we are in search. ( ) moreover its results are very uncertain and indefinite, for we shall never discover anything in natural phenomena by its means, except accidental properties, which are never clearly understood, unless the essence of the things in question be known first. ( ) wherefore this mode also must be rejected. [ ] ( ) of the third mode of perception we may say in a manner that it gives us the idea of the thing sought, and that it us to draw conclusions without risk of error; yet it is not by itself sufficient to put us in possession of the perfection we aim at. [ ] ( ) the fourth mode alone apprehends the adequate essence of a thing without danger of error. ( ) this mode, therefore, must be the one which we chiefly employ. ( ) how, then, should we avail ourselves of it so as to gain the fourth kind of knowledge with the least delay concerning things previously unknown? ( ) i will proceed to explain. [ ] ( ) now that we know what kind of knowledge is necessary for us, we must indicate the way and the method whereby we may gain the said knowledge concerning the things needful to be known. ( ) in order to accomplish this, we must first take care not to commit ourselves to a search, going back to infinity--that is, in order to discover the best method of finding truth, there is no need of another method to discover such method; nor of a third method for discovering the second, and so on to infinity. ( ) by such proceedings, we should never arrive at the knowledge of the truth, or, indeed, at any knowledge at all. ( : ) the matter stands on the same footing as the making of material tools, which might be argued about in a similar way. ( ) for, in order to work iron, a hammer is needed, and the hammer cannot be forthcoming unless it has been made; but, in order to make it, there was need of another hammer and other tools, and so on to infinity. ( ) we might thus vainly endeavor to prove that men have no power of working iron. [ ] ( ) but as men at first made use of the instruments supplied by nature to accomplish very easy pieces of workmanship, laboriously and imperfectly, and then, when these were finished, wrought other things more difficult with less labour and greater perfection; and so gradually mounted from the simplest operations to the making of tools, and from the making of tools to the making of more complex tools, and fresh feats of workmanship, till they arrived at making, complicated mechanisms which they now possess. ( : ) so, in like manner, the intellect, by its native strength, [k], makes for itself intellectual instruments, whereby it acquires strength for performing other intellectual operations, [l], and from these operations again fresh instruments, or the power of pushing its investigations further, and thus gradually proceeds till it reaches the summit of wisdom. [ ] ( ) that this is the path pursued by the understanding may be readily seen, when we understand the nature of the method for finding out the truth, and of the natural instruments so necessary complex instruments, and for the progress of investigation. i thus proceed with my demonstration. [ ] ( ) a true idea, [m], (for we possess a true idea) is something different from its correlate (ideatum); thus a circle is different from the idea of a circle. ( ) the idea of a circle is not something having a circumference and a center, as a circle has; nor is the idea of a body that body itself. ( ) now, as it is something different from its correlate, it is capable of being understood through itself; in other words, the idea, in so far as its actual essence (essentia formalis) is concerned, may be the subject of another subjective essence (essentia objectiva). [ note ] ( ) and, again, this second subjective essence will, regarded in itself, be something real, capable of being understood; and so on, indefinitely. [ ] ( ) for instance, the man peter is something real; the true idea of peter is the reality of peter represented subjectively, and is in itself something real, and quite distinct from the actual peter. ( ) now, as this true idea of peter is in itself something real, and has its own individual existence, it will also be capable of being understood--that is, of being the subject of another idea, which will contain by representation (objective) all that the idea of peter contains actually (formaliter). ( ) and, again, this idea of the idea of peter has its own individuality, which may become the subject of yet another idea; and so on, indefinitely. ( ) this everyone may make trial of for himself, by reflecting that he knows what peter is, and also knows that he knows, and further knows that he knows that he knows, &c. ( : ) hence it is plain that, in order to understand the actual peter, it is not necessary first to understand the idea of peter, and still less the idea of the idea of peter. ( ) this is the same as saying that, in order to know, there is no need to know that we know, much less to know that we know that we know. ( ) this is no more necessary than to know the nature of a circle before knowing the nature of a triangle. [n]. ( ) but, with these ideas, the contrary is the case: for, in order to know that i know, i must first know. [ ] ( ) hence it is clear that certainty is nothing else than the subjective essence of a thing: in other words, the mode in which we perceive an actual reality is certainty. ( ) further, it is also evident that, for the certitude of truth, no further sign is necessary beyond the possession of a true idea: for, as i have shown, it is not necessary to know that we know that we know. ( ) hence, again, it is clear that no one can know the nature of the highest certainty, unless he possesses an adequate idea, or the subjective essence of a thing: certainty is identical with such subjective essence. [ ] ( ) thus, as the truth needs no sign--it being to possess the subjective essence of things, or, in other words, the ideas of them, in order that all doubts may be removed--it follows that the true method does not consist in seeking for the signs of truth after the acquisition of the idea, but that the true method teaches us the order in which we should seek for truth itself, [o] or the subjective essences of things, or ideas, for all these expressions are synonymous. [ ] ( ) again, method must necessarily be concerned with reasoning or understanding--i mean, method is not identical with reasoning in the search for causes, still less is it the comprehension of the causes of things: it is the discernment of a true idea, by distinguishing it from other perceptions, and by investigating its nature, in order that we may so train our mind that it may, by a given standard, comprehend whatsoever is intelligible, by laying down certain rules as aids, and by avoiding useless mental exertion. [ ] ( ) whence we may gather that method is nothing else than reflective knowledge, or the idea of an idea; and that as there can be no idea of an idea--unless an idea exists previously,--there can be no method without a pre-existent idea. ( ) therefore, that will be a good method which shows us how the mind should be directed, according to the standard of the given true idea. ( : ) again, seeing that the ratio existing between two ideas the same as the ratio between the actual realities corresponding to those ideas, it follows that the reflective knowledge which has for its object the most perfect being is more excellent than reflective knowledge concerning other objects--in other words, that method will be most perfect which affords the standard of the given idea of the most perfect being whereby we may direct our mind. [ ] ( ) we thus easily understand how, in proportion as it acquires new ideas, the mind simultaneously acquires fresh instruments for pursuing its inquiries further. ( ) for we may gather from what has been said, that a true idea must necessarily first of all exist in us as a natural instrument; and that when this idea is apprehended by the mind, it enables us to understand the difference existing between itself and all other perceptions. ( ) in this, one part of the method consists. ( : ) now it is clear that the mind apprehends itself better in proportion as it understands a greater number of natural objects; it follows, therefore, that this portion of the method will be more perfect in proportion as the mind attains to the comprehension of a greater number of objects, and that it will be absolutely perfect when the mind gains a knowledge of the absolutely perfect being, or becomes conscious thereof. [ ] ( ) again, the more things the mind knows, the better does it understand its own strength and the order of nature; by increased self-knowledge, it can direct itself more easily, and lay down rules for its own guidance; and, by increased knowledge of nature, it can more easily avoid what is useless. ( ) and this is the sum total of method, as we have already stated. [ ] ( ) we may add that the idea in the world of thought is in the same case as its correlate in the world of reality. ( ) if, therefore, there be anything in nature which is without connection with any other thing, and if we assign to it a subjective essence, which would in every way correspond to the objective reality, the subjective essence would have no connection, [p] with any other ideas--in other words, we could not draw any conclusions with regard to it. ( : ) on the other hand, those things which are connected with others--as all things that exist in nature--will be understood by the mind, and their subjective essences will maintain the same mutual relations as their objective realities--that is to say, we shall infer from these ideas other ideas, which will in turn be connected with others, and thus our instruments for proceeding with our investigation will increase. ( ) this is what we were endeavoring to prove. [ ] ( ) further, from what has just been said--namely, that an idea must, in all respects, correspond to its correlate in the world of reality,--it is evident that, in order to reproduce in every respect the faithful image of nature, our mind must deduce all its ideas from the idea which represents the origin and source of the whole of nature, so that it may itself become the source of other ideas. [ ] ( ) it may, perhaps, provoke astonishment that, after having said that the good method is that which teaches us to direct our mind according to the standard of the given true idea, we should prove our point by reasoning, which would seem to indicate that it is not self-evident. ( ) we may, therefore, be questioned as to the validity of our reasoning. ( ) if our reasoning be sound, we must take as a starting-point a true idea. ( ) now, to be certain that our starting-point is really a true idea, we need proof. ( ) this first course of reasoning must be supported by a second, the second by a third, and so on to infinity. [ ] ( ) to this i make answer that, if by some happy chance anyone had adopted this method in his investigations of nature--that is, if he had acquired new ideas in the proper order, according to the standard of the original true idea, he would never have doubted [q] of the truth of his knowledge, inasmuch as truth, as we have shown, makes itself manifest, and all things would flow, as it were, spontaneously towards him. ( : ) but as this never, or rarely, happens, i have been forced so to arrange my proceedings, that we may acquire by reflection and forethought what we cannot acquire by chance, and that it may at the same time appear that, for proving the truth, and for valid reasoning, we need no other means than the truth and valid reasoning themselves: for by valid reasoning i have established valid reasoning, and, in like measure, i seek still to establish it. [ ] ( ) moreover, this is the order of thinking adopted by men in their inward meditations. ( ) the reasons for its rare employment in investigations of nature are to be found in current misconceptions, whereof we shall examine the causes hereafter in our philosophy. ( ) moreover, it demands, as we shall show, a keen and accurate discernment. ( ) lastly, it is hindered by the conditions of human life, which are, as we have already pointed out, extremely changeable. ( ) there are also other obstacles, which we will not here inquire into. [ ] ( ) if anyone asks why i have not at the starting-point set forth all the truths of nature in their due order, inasmuch as truth is self-evident, i reply by warning him not to reject as false any paradoxes he may find here, but to take the trouble to reflect on the chain of reasoning by which they are supported; he will then be no longer in doubt that we have attained to the truth. ( ) this is why i have as above. [ ] ( ) if there yet remains some sceptic, who doubts of our primary truth, and of all deductions we make, taking such truth as our standard, he must either be arguing in bad faith, or we must confess that there are men in complete mental blindness either innate or due to misconceptions--that is, to some external influence. ( ) such persons are not conscious of themselves. ( ) if they affirm or doubt anything, they know not that they affirm or doubt: they say that they know nothing, and they say that they are ignorant of the very fact of their knowing nothing. ( ) even this they do not affirm absolutely, they are afraid of confessing that they exist, so long as they know nothing; in fact, they ought to remain dumb, for fear of haply supposing which should smack of truth. [ ] ( ) lastly, with such persons, one should not speak of sciences: for, in what relates to life and conduct, they are compelled by necessity to suppose that they exist, and seek their own advantage, and often affirm and deny, even with an oath. ( ) if they deny, grant, or gainsay, they know not that they deny, grant, or gainsay, so that they ought to be regarded as automata, utterly devoid of intelligence. [ ] ( ) let us now return to our proposition. ( ) up to the present, we have, first, defined the end to which we desire to direct all our thoughts; secondly, we have determined the mode of perception best adapted to aid us in attaining our perfection; thirdly, we have discovered the way which our mind should take, in order to make a good beginning--namely, that it should use every true idea as a standard in pursuing its inquiries according to fixed rules. ( : ) now, in order that it may thus proceed, our method must furnish us, first, with a means of distinguishing a true idea from all other perceptions, and enabling the mind to avoid the latter; secondly, with rules for perceiving unknown things according to the standard of the true idea; thirdly, with an order which enables us to avoid useless labor. ( : ) when we became acquainted with this method, we saw that, fourthly, it would be perfect when we had attained to the idea of the absolutely perfect being. ( ) this is an observation which should be made at the outset, in order that we may arrive at the knowledge of such a being more quickly. [ ] ( ) let us then make a beginning with the first part of the method, which is, as we have said, to distinguish and separate the true idea from other perceptions, and to keep the mind from confusing with true ideas those which are false, fictitious, and doubtful. ( ) i intend to dwell on this point at length, partly to keep a distinction so necessary before the reader's mind, and also because there are some who doubt of true ideas, through not having attended to the distinction between a true perception and all others. ( ) such persons are like men who, while they are awake, doubt not that they are awake, but afterwards in a dream, as often happens, thinking that they are surely awake, and then finding that they were in error, become doubtful even of being awake. ( ) this state of mind arises through neglect of the distinction between sleeping and waking. [ ] ( ) meanwhile, i give warning that i shall not here give essence of every perception, and explain it through its proximate cause. ( ) such work lies in the province of philosophy. ( ) i shall confine myself to what concerns method--that is, to the character of fictitious, false and doubtful perceptions, and the means of freeing ourselves therefrom. ( ) let us then first inquire into the nature of a fictitious idea. [ ] ( ) every perception has for its object either a thing considered as existing, or solely the essence of a thing. ( ) now "fiction" is chiefly occupied with things considered as existing. ( ) i will, therefore, consider these first--i mean cases where only the existence of an object is feigned, and the thing thus feigned is understood, or assumed to be understood. ( ) for instance, i feign that peter, whom i know to have gone home, is gone to see me, [r] or something of that kind. ( ) with what is such an idea concerned? ( ) it is concerned with things possible, and not with things necessary or impossible. [ ] ( ) i call a thing impossible when its existence would imply a contradiction; necessary, when its non-existence would imply a contradiction; possible, when neither its existence nor its non-existence imply a contradiction, but when the necessity or impossibility of its nature depends on causes unknown to us, while we feign that it exists. ( ) if the necessity or impossibility of its existence depending on external causes were known to us, we could not form any fictitious hypotheses about it; [ ] ( ) whence it follows that if there be a god, or omniscient being, such an one cannot form fictitious hypotheses. ( ) for, as regards ourselves, when i know that i exist, [s] i cannot hypothesize that i exist or do not exist, any more than i can hypothesize an elephant that can go through the eye of a needle; nor when i know the nature of god, can i hypothesize that he or does not exist. [t] ( : ) the same thing must be said of the chimaera, whereof the nature implies a contradiction. ( ) from these considerations, it is plain, as i have already stated, that fiction cannot be concerned with eternal truths. [u] [ ] ( ) but before proceeding further, i must remark, in passing, that the difference between the essence of one thing and the essence of another thing is the same as that which exists between the reality or existence of one thing and the reality or existence of another; therefore, if we wished to conceive the existence, for example, of adam, simply by means of existence in general, it would be the same as if, in order to conceive his existence, we went back to the nature of being, so as to define adam as a being. ( ) thus, the more existence is conceived generally, the more is it conceived confusedly and the more easily can it be ascribed to a given object. ( : ) contrariwise, the more it is conceived particularly, the more is it understood clearly, and the less liable is it to be ascribed, through negligence of nature's order, to anything save its proper object. ( ) this is worthy of remark. [ ] ( ) we now proceed to consider those cases which are commonly called fictions, though we clearly understood that the thing is not as we imagine it. ( ) for instance, i know that the earth is round, but nothing prevents my telling people that it is a hemisphere, and that it is like a half apple carved in relief on a dish; or, that the sun moves round the earth, and so on. ( : ) however, examination will show us that there is nothing here inconsistent with what has been said, provided we first admit that we may have made mistakes, and be now conscious of them; and, further, that we can hypothesize, or at least suppose, that others are under the same mistake as ourselves, or can, like us, fall under it. ( ) we can, i repeat, thus hypothesize so long as we see no impossibility. ( : ) thus, when i tell anyone that the earth is not round, &c., i merely recall the error which i perhaps made myself, or which i might have fallen into, and afterwards i hypothesize that the person to whom i tell it, is still, or may still fall under the same mistake. ( ) this i say, i can feign so long as i do not perceive any impossibility or necessity; if i truly understood either one or the other i should not be able to feign, and i should be reduced to saying that i had made the attempt. [ ] ( ) it remains for us to consider hypotheses made in problems, which sometimes involve impossibilities. ( ) for instance, when we say--let us assume that this burning candle is not burning, or, let us assume that it burns in some imaginary space, or where there are no physical objects. ( ) such assumptions are freely made, though the last is clearly seen to be impossible. ( ) but, though this be so, there is no fiction in the case. ( : ) for, in the first case, i have merely recalled to memory, [x] another candle not burning, or conceived the candle before me as without a flame, and then i understand as applying to the latter, leaving its flame out of the question, all that i think of the former. ( ) in the second case, i have merely to abstract my thoughts from the objects surrounding the candle, for the mind to devote itself to the contemplation of the candle singly looked at in itself only; i can then draw the conclusion that the candle contains in itself no causes for its own destruction, so that if there were no physical objects the candle, and even the flame, would remain unchangeable, and so on. ( ) thus there is here no fiction, but, [y] true and bare assertions. [ ] ( ) let us now pass on to the fictions concerned with essences only, or with some reality or existence simultaneously. ( ) of these we must specially observe that in proportion as the mind's understanding is smaller, and its experience multiplex, so will its power of coining fictions be larger, whereas as its understanding increases, its capacity for entertaining fictitious ideas becomes less. ( : ) for instance, in the same way as we are unable, while we are thinking, to feign that we are thinking or not thinking, so, also, when we know the nature of body we cannot imagine an infinite fly; or, when we know the nature of the soul, [z] we cannot imagine it as square, though anything may be expressed verbally. ( ) but, as we said above, the less men know of nature the more easily can they coin fictitious ideas, such as trees speaking, men instantly changed into stones, or into fountains, ghosts appearing in mirrors, something issuing from nothing, even gods changed into beasts and men and infinite other absurdities of the same kind. [ ] ( ) some persons think, perhaps, that fiction is limited by fiction, and not by understanding; in other words, after i have formed some fictitious idea, and have affirmed of my own free will that it exists under a certain form in nature, i am thereby precluded from thinking of it under any other form. ( ) for instance, when i have feigned (to repeat their argument) that the nature of body is of a certain kind, and have of my own free will desired to convince myself that it actually exists under this form, i am no longer able to hypothesize that a fly, for example, is infinite; so, when i have hypothesized the essence of the soul, i am not able to think of it as square, &c. [ ] ( ) but these arguments demand further inquiry. ( ) first, their upholders must either grant or deny that we can understand anything. if they grant it, then necessarily the same must be said of understanding, as is said of fiction. ( ) if they deny it, let us, who know that we do know something, see what they mean. ( ) they assert that the soul can be conscious of, and perceive in a variety of ways, not itself nor things which exist, but only things which are neither in itself nor anywhere else, in other words, that the soul can, by its unaided power, create sensations or ideas unconnected with things. ( ) in fact, they regard the soul as a sort of god. ( : ) further, they assert that we or our soul have such freedom that we can constrain ourselves, or our soul, or even our soul's freedom. ( ) for, after it has formed a fictitious idea, and has given its assent thereto, it cannot think or feign it in any other manner, but is constrained by the first fictitious idea to keep all its other thoughts in harmony therewith. ( ) our opponents are thus driven to admit, in support of their fiction, the absurdities which i have just enumerated; and which are not worthy of rational refutation. [ ] ( ) while leaving such persons in their error, we will take care to derive from our argument with them a truth serviceable for our purpose, namely, [ a] that the mind, in paying attention to a thing hypothetical or false, so as to meditate upon it and understand it, and derive the proper conclusions in due order therefrom, will readily discover its falsity; and if the thing hypothetical be in its nature true, and the mind pays attention to it, so as to understand it, and deduce the truths which are derivable from it, the mind will proceed with an uninterrupted series of apt conclusions; in the same way as it would at once discover (as we showed just now) the absurdity of a false hypothesis, and of the conclusions drawn from it. [ ] ( ) we need, therefore, be in no fear of forming hypotheses, so long as we have a clear and distinct perception of what is involved. ( ) for, if we were to assert, haply, that men are suddenly turned into beasts, the statement would be extremely general, so general that there would be no conception, that is, no idea or connection of subject and predicate, in our mind. ( ) if there were such a conception we should at the same time be aware of the means and the causes whereby the event took place. ( ) moreover, we pay no attention to the nature of the subject and the predicate. [ ] ( ) now, if the first idea be not fictitious, and if all the other ideas be deduced therefrom, our hurry to form fictitious ideas will gradually subside. ( ) further, as a fictitious idea cannot be clear and distinct, but is necessarily confused, and as all confusion arises from the fact that the mind has only partial knowledge of a thing either simple or complex, and does not distinguish between the known and the unknown, and, again, that it directs its attention promiscuously to all parts of an object at once without making distinctions, it follows, first, that if the idea be of something very simple, it must necessarily be clear and distinct. ( ) for a very simple object cannot be known in part, it must either be known altogether or not at all. [ ] ( ) secondly, it follows that if a complex object be divided by thought into a number of simple component parts, and if each be regarded separately, all confusion will disappear. ( ) thirdly, it follows that fiction cannot be simple, but is made up of the blending of several confused ideas of diverse objects or actions existent in nature, or rather is composed of attention directed to all such ideas at once, [ b] and unaccompanied by any mental assent. ( : ) now a fiction that was simple would be clear and distinct, and therefore true, also a fiction composed only of distinct ideas would be clear and distinct, and therefore true. ( ) for instance, when we know the nature of the circle and the square, it is impossible for us to blend together these two figures, and to hypothesize a square circle, any more than a square soul, or things of that kind. [ ] ( ) let us shortly come to our conclusion, and again repeat that we need have no fear of confusing with true ideas that which is only a fiction. ( ) as for the first sort of fiction of which we have already spoken, when a thing is clearly conceived, we saw that if the existence of a that thing is in itself an eternal truth fiction can have no part in it; but if the existence of the conceived be not an eternal truth, we have only to be careful such existence be compared to the thing's essence, and to consider the order of nature. ( : ) as for the second sort of fiction, which we stated to be the result of simultaneously directing the attention, without the assent of the intellect, to different confused ideas representing different things and actions existing in nature, we have seen that an absolutely simple thing cannot be feigned, but must be understood, and that a complex thing is in the same case if we regard separately the simple parts whereof it is composed; we shall not even be able to hypothesize any untrue action concerning such objects, for we shall be obliged to consider at the same time the causes and manner of such action. [ ] ( ) these matters being thus understood, let us pass on to consider the false idea, observing the objects with which it is concerned, and the means of guarding ourselves from falling into false perceptions. ( ) neither of these tasks will present much difficulty, after our inquiry concerning fictitious ideas. ( ) the false idea only differs from the fictitious idea in the fact of implying a mental assent--that is, as we have already remarked, while the representations are occurring, there are no causes present to us, wherefrom, as in fiction, we can conclude that such representations do not arise from external objects: in fact, it is much the same as dreaming with our eyes open, or while awake. ( : ) thus, a false idea is concerned with, or (to speak more correctly) is attributable to, the existence of a thing whereof the essence is known, or the essence itself, in the same way as a fictitious idea. [ ] ( ) if attributable to the existence of the thing, it is corrected in the same way as a fictitious idea under similar circumstances. ( ) if attributable to the essence, it is likewise corrected in the same way as a fictitious idea. ( : ) for if the nature of the thing known implies necessary existence, we cannot possible be in error with regard to its existence; but if the nature of the thing be not an eternal truth, like its essence, but contrariwise the necessity or impossibility of its existence depends on external causes, then we must follow the same course as we adopted in the of fiction, for it is corrected in the same manner. [ ] ( ) as for false ideas concerned with essences, or even with actions, such perceptions are necessarily always confused, being compounded of different confused perceptions of things existing in nature, as, for instance, when men are persuaded that deities are present in woods, in statues, in brute beasts, and the like; that there are bodies which, by their composition alone, give rise to intellect; that corpses reason, walk about, and speak; that god is deceived, and so on. ( : ) but ideas which are clear and distinct can never be false: for ideas of things clearly and distinctly conceived are either very simple themselves, or are compounded from very simple ideas, that is, are deduced therefrom. ( ) the impossibility of a very simple idea being false is evident to everyone who understands the nature of truth or understanding and of falsehood. [ ] ( ) as regards that which constitutes the reality of truth, it is certain that a true idea is distinguished from a false one, not so much by its extrinsic object as by its intrinsic nature. ( ) if an architect conceives a building properly constructed, though such a building may never have existed, and amy never exist, nevertheless the idea is true; and the idea remains the same, whether it be put into execution or not. ( : ) on the other hand, if anyone asserts, for instance, that peter exists, without knowing whether peter really exists or not, the assertion, as far as its asserter is concerned, is false, or not true, even though peter actually does exist. ( ) the assertion that peter exists is true only with regard to him who knows for certain that peter does exist. [ ] ( ) whence it follows that there is in ideas something real, whereby the true are distinguished from the false. ( ) this reality must be inquired into, if we are to find the best standard of truth (we have said that we ought to determine our thoughts by the given standard of a true idea, and that method is reflective knowledge), and to know the properties of our understanding. ( : ) neither must we say that the difference between true and false arises from the fact, that true knowledge consists in knowing things through their primary causes, wherein it is totally different from false knowledge, as i have just explained it: for thought is said to be true, if it involves subjectively the essence of any principle which has no cause, and is known through itself and in itself. [ ] ( ) wherefore the reality (forma) of true thought must exist in the thought itself, without reference to other thoughts; it does not acknowledge the object as its cause, but must depend on the actual power and nature of the understanding. ( ) for, if we suppose that the understanding has perceived some new entity which has never existed, as some conceive the understanding of god before he created thing (a perception which certainly could not arise any object), and has legitimately deduced other thoughts from said perception, all such thoughts would be true, without being determined by any external object; they would depend solely on the power and nature of the understanding. ( : ) thus, that which constitutes the reality of a true thought must be sought in the thought itself, and deduced from the nature of the understanding. [ ] ( ) in order to pursue our investigation, let us confront ourselves with some true idea, whose object we know for certain to be dependent on our power of thinking, and to have nothing corresponding to it in nature. ( ) with an idea of this kind before us, we shall, as appears from what has just been said, be more easily able to carry on the research we have in view. ( : ) for instance, in order to form the conception of a sphere, i invent a cause at my pleasure--namely, a semicircle revolving round its center, and thus producing a sphere. ( ) this is indisputably a true idea; and, although we know that no sphere in nature has ever actually been so formed, the perception remains true, and is the easiest manner of conceiving a sphere. ( : ) we must observe that this perception asserts the rotation of a semicircle--which assertion would be false, if it were not associated with the conception of a sphere, or of a cause determining a motion of the kind, or absolutely, if the assertion were isolated. ( ) the mind would then only tend to the affirmation of the sole motion of a semicircle, which is not contained in the conception of a semicircle, and does not arise from the conception of any cause capable of producing such motion. ( : ) thus falsity consists only in this, that something is affirmed of a thing, which is not contained in the conception we have formed of that thing, as motion or rest of a semicircle. ( ) whence it follows that simple ideas cannot be other than true--e.g., the simple idea of a semicircle, of motion, of rest, of quantity, &c. ( : ) whatsoever affirmation such ideas contain is equal to the concept formed, and does not extend further. ( ) wherefore we form as many simple ideas as we please, without any fear of error. [ ] ( ) it only remains for us to inquire by what power our mind can form true ideas, and how far such power extends. ( ) it is certain that such power cannot extend itself infinitely. ( ) for when we affirm somewhat of a thing, which is not contained in the concept we have formed of that thing, such an affirmation shows a defect of our perception, or that we have formed fragmentary or mutilated ideas. ( ) thus we have seen that the notion of a semicircle is false when it is isolated in the mind, but true when it is associated with the concept of a sphere, or of some cause determining such a motion. ( : ) but if it be the nature of a thinking being, as seems, prima facie, to be the case, to form true or adequate thoughts, it is plain that inadequate ideas arise in us only because we are parts of a thinking being, whose thoughts--some in their entirety, others in fragments only--constitute our mind. [ ] ( ) but there is another point to be considered, which was not worth raising in the case of fiction, but which give rise to complete deception--namely, that certain things presented to the imagination also exist in the understanding--in other words, are conceived clearly and distinctly. ( ) hence, so long as we do not separate that which is distinct from that which is confused, certainty, or the true idea, becomes mixed with indistinct ideas. ( ) for instance, certain stoics heard, perhaps, the term "soul," and also that the soul is immortal, yet imagined it only confusedly; they imaged, also, and understood that very subtle bodies penetrate all others, and are penetrated by none. ( : ) by combining these ideas, and being at the same time certain of the truth of the axiom, they forthwith became convinced that the mind consists of very subtle bodies; that these very subtle bodies cannot be divided &c. [ ] ( ) but we are freed from mistakes of this kind, so long as we endeavor to examine all our perceptions by the standard of the given true idea. ( ) we must take care, as has been said, to separate such perceptions from all those which arise from hearsay or unclassified experience. ( ) moreover, such mistakes arise from things being conceived too much in the abstract; for it is sufficiently self-evident that what i conceive as in its true object i cannot apply to anything else. ( : ) lastly, they arise from a want of understanding of the primary elements of nature as a whole; whence we proceed without due order, and confound nature with abstract rules, which, although they be true enough in their sphere, yet, when misapplied, confound themselves, and pervert the order of nature. ( ) however, if we proceed with as little abstraction as possible, and begin from primary elements--that is, from the source and origin of nature, as far back as we can reach,--we need not fear any deceptions of this kind. [ ] ( ) as far as the knowledge of the origin of nature is concerned, there is no danger of our confounding it with abstractions. ( ) for when a thing is conceived in the abstract, as are all universal notions, the said universal notions are always more extensive in the mind than the number of individuals forming their contents really existing in nature. ( ) again, there are many things in nature, the difference between which is so slight as to be hardly perceptible to the understanding; so that it may readily happen that such things are confounded together, if they be conceived abstractedly. ( ) but since the first principle of nature cannot (as we shall see hereafter) be conceived abstractedly or universally, and cannot extend further in the understanding than it does in reality, and has no likeness to mutable things, no confusion need be feared in respect to the idea of it, provided (as before shown) that we possess a standard of truth. ( ) this is, in fact, a being single and infinite [ z]; in other words, it is the sum total of being, beyond which there is no being found. [ a] [ ] ( ) thus far we have treated of the false idea. we have now to investigate the doubtful idea--that is, to inquire what can cause us to doubt, and how doubt may be removed. ( ) i speak of real doubt existing in the mind, not of such doubt as we see exemplified when a man says that he doubts, though his mind does not really hesitate. ( : ) the cure of the latter does not fall within the province of method, it belongs rather to inquiries concerning obstinacy and its cure. [ ] ( ) real doubt is never produced in the mind by the thing doubted of. ( ) in other words, if there were only one idea in the mind, whether that idea were true or false, there would be no doubt or certainty present, only a certain sensation. ( ) for an idea is in itself nothing else than a certain sensation. ( ) but doubt will arise through another idea, not clear and distinct enough for us to be able to draw any certain conclusions with regard to the matter under consideration; that is, the idea which causes us to doubt is not clear and distinct. ( ) to take an example. ( : ) supposing that a man has never reflected, taught by experience or by any other means, that our senses sometimes deceive us, he will never doubt whether the sun be greater or less than it appears. ( ) thus rustics are generally astonished when they hear that the sun is much larger than the earth. ( ) but from reflection on the deceitfulness of the senses [ a] doubt arises, and if, after doubting, we acquire a true knowledge of the senses, and how things at a distance are represented through their instrumentality, doubt is again removed. [ ] ( ) hence we cannot cast doubt on true ideas by the supposition that there is a deceitful deity, who leads us astray even in what is most certain. ( ) we can only hold such an hypothesis so long as we have no clear and distinct idea--in other words, until we reflect the knowledge which we have of the first principle of all things, and find that which teaches us that god is not a deceiver, and until we know this with the same certainty as we know from reflecting on the are equal to two right angles. ( ) but if we have a knowledge of god equal to that which we have of a triangle, all doubt is removed. ( : ) in the same way as we can arrive at the said knowledge of a triangle, though not absolutely sure that there is not some arch-deceiver leading us astray, so can we come to a like knowledge of god under the like condition, and when we have attained to it, it is sufficient, as i said before, to remove every doubt which we can possess concerning clear and distinct ideas. [ ] ( ) thus, if a man proceeded with our investigations in due order, inquiring first into those things which should first be inquired into, never passing over a link in the chain of association, and with knowledge how to define his questions before seeking to answer them, he will never have any ideas save such as are very certain, or, in other words, clear and distinct; for doubt is only a suspension of the spirit concerning some affirmation or negation which it would pronounce upon unhesitatingly if it were not in ignorance of something, without which the knowledge of the matter in hand must needs be imperfect. ( ) we may, therefore, conclude that doubt always proceeds from want of due order in investigation. [ ] ( ) these are the points i promised to discuss in the first part of my treatise on method. ( ) however, in order not to omit anything which can conduce to the knowledge of the understanding and its faculties, i will add a few words on the subject of memory and forgetfulness. ( : ) the point most worthy of attention is, that memory is strengthened both with and without the aid of the understanding. ( ) for the more intelligible a thing is, the more easily is it remembered, and the less intelligible it is, the more easily do we forget it. ( ) for instance, a number of unconnected words is much more difficult to remember than the same number in the form of a narration. [ ] ( ) the memory is also strengthened without the aid of the understanding by means of the power wherewith the imagination or the sense called common, is affected by some particular physical object. ( ) i say particular, for the imagination is only affected by particular objects. ( ) if we read, for instance, a single romantic comedy, we shall remember it very well, so long as we do not read many others of the same kind, for it will reign alone in the memory ( ) if, however, we read several others of the same kind, we shall think of them altogether, and easily confuse one with another. ( : ) i say also, physical. ( ) for the imagination is only affected by physical objects. ( ) as, then, the memory is strengthened both with and without the aid of the understanding, we may conclude that it is different from the understanding, and that in the latter considered in itself there is neither memory nor forgetfulness. [ ] ( ) what, then, is memory? ( ) it is nothing else than the actual sensation of impressions on the brain, accompanied with the thought of a definite duration, [ d] of the sensation. ( ) this is also shown by reminiscence. ( ) for then we think of the sensation, but without the notion of continuous duration; thus the idea of that sensation is not the actual duration of the sensation or actual memory. ( : ) whether ideas are or are not subject to corruption will be seen in philosophy. ( ) if this seems too absurd to anyone, it will be sufficient for our purpose, if he reflect on the fact that a thing is more easily remembered in proportion to its singularity, as appears from the example of the comedy just cited. ( : ) further, a thing is remembered more easily in proportion to its intelligibility; therefore we cannot help remember that which is extremely singular and sufficiently intelligible. [ ] ( ) thus, then, we have distinguished between a true idea and other perceptions, and shown that ideas fictitious, false, and the rest, originate in the imagination--that is, in certain sensations fortuitous (so to speak) and disconnected, arising not from the power of the mind, but from external causes, according as the body, sleeping or waking, receives various motions. ( ) but one may take any view one likes of the imagination so long as one acknowledges that it is different from the understanding, and that the soul is passive with regard to it. ( ) the view taken is immaterial, if we know that the imagination is something indefinite, with regard to which the soul is passive, and that we can by some means or other free ourselves therefrom with the help of the understanding. ( ) let no one then be astonished that before proving the existence of body, and other necessary things, i speak of imagination of body, and of its composition. ( ) the view taken is, i repeat, immaterial, so long as we know that imagination is something indefinite, &c. [ ] ( ) as regards as a true idea, we have shown that it is simple or compounded of simple ideas; that it shows how and why something is or has been made; and that its subjective effects in the soul correspond to the actual reality of its object. ( ) this conclusion is identical with the saying of the ancients, that true proceeds from cause to effect; though the ancients, so far as i know, never formed the conception put forward here that the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton. [ ] ( ) hence, as far as is possible at the outset, we have acquired a knowledge of our understanding, and such a standard of a true idea that we need no longer fear confounding truth with falsehood and fiction. ( ) neither shall we wonder why we understand some things which in nowise fall within the scope of the imagination, while other things are in the imagination but wholly opposed to the understanding, or others, again, which agree therewith. ( ) we now know that the operations, whereby the effects of imagination are produced, take place under other laws quite different from the laws of the understanding, and that the mind is entirely passive with regard to them. [ ] ( ) whence we may also see how easily men may fall into grave errors through not distinguishing accurately between the imagination and the understanding; such as believing that extension must be localized, that it must be finite, that its parts are really distinct one from the other, that it is the primary and single foundation of all things, that it occupies more space at one time than at another and other similar doctrines, all entirely opposed to truth, as we shall duly show. [ ] ( ) again, since words are a part of the imagination--that is, since we form many conceptions in accordance with confused arrangements of words in the memory, dependent on particular bodily conditions,--there is no doubt that words may, equally with the imagination, be the cause of many and great errors, unless we strictly on our guard. [ ] ( ) moreover, words are formed according to popular fancy and intelligence, and are, therefore, signs of things as existing in the imagination, not as existing in the understanding. ( ) this is evident from the fact that to all such things as exist only in the understanding, not in the imagination, negative names are often given, such as incorporeal, infinite, &c. ( ) so, also, many conceptions really affirmative are expressed negatively, and vice versa, such as uncreate, independent, infinite, immortal, &c., inasmuch as their contraries are much more easily imagined, and, therefore, occurred first to men, and usurped positive names. ( : ) many things we affirm and deny, because the nature of words allows us to do so, though the nature of things does not. ( ) while we remain unaware of this fact, we may easily mistake falsehood for truth. [ ] ( ) let us also beware of another great cause of confusion, which prevents the understanding from reflecting on itself. ( ) sometimes, while making no distinction between the imagination and the intellect, we think that what we more readily imagine is clearer to us; and also we think that what we imagine we understand. ( ) thus, we put first that which should be last: the true order of progression is reversed, and no legitimate conclusion is drawn. [ ] [ e] ( ) now, in order at length to pass on to the second part of this method, i shall first set forth the object aimed at, and next the means for its attainment. ( ) the object aimed at is the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas, such as are produced by the pure intellect, and not by chance physical motions. ( ) in order that all ideas may be reduced to unity, we shall endeavor so to associate and arrange them that our mind may, as far as possible, reflect subjectively the reality of nature, both as a whole and as parts. [ ] ( ) as for the first point, it is necessary (as we have said) for our purpose that everything should be conceived, either solely through its essence, or through its proximate cause. ( ) if the thing be self-existent, or, as is commonly said, the cause of itself, it must be understood through its essence only; if it be not self-existent, but requires a cause for its existence, it must be understood through its proximate cause. ( ) for, in reality, the knowledge, [ f] of an effect is nothing else than the acquisition of more perfect knowledge of its cause. [ ] ( ) therefore, we may never, while we are concerned with inquiries into actual things, draw any conclusion from abstractions; we shall be extremely careful not to confound that which is only in the understanding with that which is in the thing itself. ( ) the best basis for drawing a conclusion will be either some particular affirmative essence, or a true and legitimate definition. ( : ) for the understanding cannot descend from universal axioms by themselves to particular things, since axioms are of infinite extent, and do not determine the understanding to contemplate one particular thing more than another. [ ] ( ) thus the true method of discovery is to form thoughts from some given definition. ( ) this process will be the more fruitful and easy in proportion as the thing given be better defined. ( ) wherefore, the cardinal point of all this second part of method consists in the knowledge of the conditions of good definition, and the means of finding them. ( ) i will first treat of the conditions of definition. [ ] ( ) a definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of a thing, and must take care not to substitute for this any of its properties. ( ) in order to illustrate my meaning, without taking an example which would seem to show a desire to expose other people's errors, i will choose the case of something abstract, the definition of which is of little moment. ( : ) such is a circle. ( ) if a circle be defined as a figure, such that all straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal, every one can see that such a definition does not in the least explain the essence of a circle, but solely one of its properties. ( ) though, as i have said, this is of no importance in the case of figures and other abstractions, it is of great importance in the case of physical beings and realities: for the properties of things are not understood so long as their essences are unknown. ( ) if the latter be passed over, there is necessarily a perversion of the succession of ideas which should reflect the succession of nature, and we go far astray from our object. [ ] in order to be free from this fault, the following rules should be observed in definition:-- i. ( ) if the thing in question be created, the definition must (as we have said) comprehend the proximate cause. ( ) for instance, a circle should, according to this rule, be defined as follows: the figure described by any line whereof one end is fixed and the other free. ( ) this definition clearly comprehends the proximate cause. ii. ( ) a conception or definition of a thing should be such that all the properties of that thing, in so far as it is considered by itself, and not in conjunction with other things, can be deduced from it, as may be seen in the definition given of a circle: for from that it clearly follows that all straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. ( ) that this is a necessary characteristic of a definition is so clear to anyone, who reflects on the matter, that there is no need to spend time in proving it, or in showing that, owing to this second condition, every definition should be affirmative. ( ) i speak of intellectual affirmation, giving little thought to verbal affirmations which, owing to the poverty of language, must sometimes, perhaps, be expressed negatively, though the idea contained is affirmative. [ ] the rules for the definition of an uncreated thing are as follows:-- i. the exclusion of all idea of cause--that is, the thing must not need explanation by anything outside itself. ii. when the definition of the thing has been given, there must be no room for doubt as to whether the thing exists or not. iii. it must contain, as far as the mind is concerned, no substantives which could be put into an adjectival form; in other words, the object defined must not be explained through abstractions. iv. lastly, though this is not absolutely necessary, it should be possible to deduce from the definition all the properties of the thing defined. all these rules become obvious to anyone giving strict attention to the matter. [ ] ( ) i have also stated that the best basis for drawing a conclusion is a particular affirmative essence. ( ) the more specialized the idea is, the more it is distinct, and therefore clear. ( ) wherefore a knowledge of particular things should be sought for as diligently as possible. [ ] ( ) as regards the order of our perceptions, and the manner in which they should be arranged and united, it is necessary that, as soon as is possible and rational, we should inquire whether there be any being (and, if so, what being), that is the cause of all things, so that its essence, represented in thought, may be the cause of all our ideas, and then our mind will to the utmost possible extent reflect nature. ( ) for it will possess, subjectively, nature's essence, order, and union. ( ) thus we can see that it is before all things necessary for us to deduce all our ideas from physical things--that is, from real entities, proceeding, as far as may be, according to the series of causes, from one real entity to another real entity, never passing to universals and abstractions, either for the purpose of deducing some real entity from them, or deducing them from some real entity. ( ) either of these processes interrupts the true progress of the understanding. [ ] ( ) but it must be observed that, by the series of causes and real entities, i do not here mean the series of particular and mutable things, but only the series of fixed and eternal things. ( ) it would be impossible for human infirmity to follow up the series of particular mutable things, both on account their multitude, surpassing all calculation, and on account of the infinitely diverse circumstances surrounding one and the same thing, any one of which may be the cause of its existence or non-existence. ( ) indeed, their existence has no connection with their essence, or (as we have said already) is not an eternal truth. [ ] ( ) neither is there any need that we should understand their series, for the essences of particular mutable things are not to be gathered from their series or order of existence, which would furnish us with nothing beyond their extrinsic denominations, their relations, or, at most, their circumstances, all of which are very different from their inmost essence. ( : ) this inmost essence must be sought solely from fixed and eternal things, and from the laws, inscribed (so to speak) in those things as in their true codes, according to which all particular things take place and are arranged; nay, these mutable particular things depend so intimately and essentially (so to phrase it) upon the fixed things, that they cannot either be conceived without them. [ ] ( ) but, though this be so, there seems to be no small difficulty in arriving at the knowledge of these particular things, for to conceive them all at once would far surpass the powers of the human understanding. ( ) the arrangement whereby one thing is understood, before another, as we have stated, should not be sought from their series of existence, nor from eternal things. ( ) for the latter are all by nature simultaneous. ( ) other aids are therefore needed besides those employed for understanding eternal things and their laws. ( ) however, this is not the place to recount such aids, nor is there any need to do so, until we have acquired a sufficient knowledge of eternal things and their infallible laws, and until the nature of our senses has become plain to us. [ ] ( ) before betaking ourselves to seek knowledge of particular things, it will be seasonable to speak of such aids, as all tend to teach us the mode of employing our senses, and to make certain experiments under fixed rules and arrangements which may suffice to determine the object of our inquiry, so that we may therefrom infer what laws of eternal things it has been produced under, and may gain an insight into its inmost nature, as i will duly show. ( ) here, to return to my purpose, i will only endeavor to set forth what seems necessary for enabling us to attain to knowledge of eternal things, and to define them under the conditions laid down above. [ ] ( ) with this end, we must bear in mind what has already been stated, namely, that when the mind devotes itself to any thought, so as to examine it, and to deduce therefrom in due order all the legitimate conclusions possible, any falsehood which may lurk in the thought will be detected; but if the thought be true, the mind will readily proceed without interruption to deduce truths from it. ( : ) this, i say, is necessary for our purpose, for our thoughts may be brought to a close by the absence of a foundation. [ ] ( ) if, therefore, we wish to investigate the first thing of all, it will be necessary to supply some foundation which may direct our thoughts thither. ( ) further, since method is reflective knowledge, the foundation which must direct our thoughts can be nothing else than the knowledge of that which constitutes the reality of truth, and the knowledge of the understanding, its properties, and powers. ( ) when this has been acquired we shall possess a foundation wherefrom we can deduce our thoughts, and a path whereby the intellect, according to its capacity, may attain the knowledge of eternal things, allowance being made for the extent of the intellectual powers. [ ] ( ) if, as i stated in the first part, it belongs to the nature of thought to form true ideas, we must here inquire what is meant by the faculties and power of the understanding. ( ) the chief part of our method is to understand as well as possible the powers of the intellect, and its nature; we are, therefore, compelled (by the considerations advanced in the second part of the method) necessarily to draw these conclusions from the definition itself of thought and understanding. [ ] ( ) but, so far as we have not got any rules for finding definitions, and, as we cannot set forth such rules without a previous knowledge of nature, that is without a definition of the understanding and its power, it follows either that the definition of the understanding must be clear in itself, or that we can understand nothing. ( ) nevertheless this definition is not absolutely clear in itself; however, since its properties, like all things that we possess through the understanding, cannot be known clearly and distinctly, unless its nature be known previously, understanding makes itself manifest, if we pay attention to its properties, which we know clearly and distinctly. ( ) let us, then, enumerate here the properties of the understanding, let us examine them, and begin by discussing the instruments for research which we find innate in us. see [ ] [ ] ( ) the properties of the understanding which i have chiefly remarked, and which i clearly understand, are the following:-- i. ( ) it involves certainty--in other words, it knows that a thing exists in reality as it is reflected subjectively. ii. ( : ) that it perceives certain things, or forms some ideas absolutely, some ideas from others. ( ) thus it forms the idea of quantity absolutely, without reference to any other thoughts; but ideas of motion it only forms after taking into consideration the idea of quantity. iii. ( : ) those ideas which the understanding forms absolutely express infinity; determinate ideas are derived from other ideas. ( ) thus in the idea of quantity, perceived by means of a cause, the quantity is determined, as when a body is perceived to be formed by the motion of a plane, a plane by the motion of a line, or, again, a line by the motion of a point. ( ) all these are perceptions which do not serve towards understanding quantity, but only towards determining it. ( : ) this is proved by the fact that we conceive them as formed as it were by motion, yet this motion is not perceived unless the quantity be perceived also; we can even prolong the motion to form an infinite line, which we certainly could not do unless we had an idea of infinite quantity. iv. ( ) the understanding forms positive ideas before forming negative ideas. v. ( : ) it perceives things not so much under the condition of duration as under a certain form of eternity, and in an infinite number; or rather in perceiving things it does not consider either their number or duration, whereas, in imagining them, it perceives them in a determinate number, duration, and quantity. vi. ( : ) the ideas which we form as clear and distinct, seem to follow from the sole necessity of our nature, that they appear to depend absolutely on our sole power; with confused ideas the contrary is the case. ( ) they are often formed against our will. vii. ( : ) the mind can determine in many ways the ideas of things, which the understanding forms from other ideas: thus, for instance, in order to define the plane of an ellipse, it supposes a point adhering to a cord to be moved around two centers, or, again, it conceives an infinity of points, always in the same fixed relation to a given straight line, angle of the vertex of the cone, or in an infinity of other ways. viii. ( : ) the more ideas express perfection of any object, the more perfect are they themselves; for we do not admire the architect who has planned a chapel so much as the architect who has planned a splendid temple. [ ] ( ) i do not stop to consider the rest of what is referred to thought, such as love, joy, &c. ( ) they are nothing to our present purpose, and cannot even be conceived unless the understanding be perceived previously. ( ) when perception is removed, all these go with it. [ ] ( ) false and fictitious ideas have nothing positive about them (as we have abundantly shown), which causes them to be called false or fictitious; they are only considered as such through the defectiveness of knowledge. ( ) therefore, false and fictitious ideas as such can teach us nothing concerning the essence of thought; this must be sought from the positive properties just enumerated; in other words, we must lay down some common basis from which these properties necessarily follow, so that when this is given, the properties are necessarily given also, and when it is removed, they too vanish with it. the rest of the treatise is wanting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- spinoza's endnotes: marks as per curley, see note above. [a] ( ) this might be explained more at large and more clearly: i mean by distinguishing riches according as they are pursued for their own sake, in or furtherance of fame, or sensual pleasure, or the advancement of science and art. ( ) but this subject is reserved to its own place, for it is not here proper to investigate the matter more accurately. [b] these considerations should be set forth more precisely. [c] these matters are explained more at length elsewhere. [d] n.b. i do no more here than enumerate the sciences necessary for our purpose; i lay no stress on their order. [e] there is for the sciences but one end, to which they should all be directed. [f] ( ) in this case we do not understand anything of the cause from the consideration of it in the effect. ( ) this is sufficiently evident from the fact that the cause is only spoken of in very general terms, such as--there exists then something; there exists then some power, &c.; or from the that we only express it in a negative manner--it is not or that, &c. ( ) in the second case something is ascribed to the cause because of the effect, as we shall show in an example, but only a property, never an essence. [g] ( ) from this example may be clearly seen what i have just drawn attention to. ( ) for through this union we understand nothing beyond the sensation, the effect, to wit, from which we inferred the cause of which we understand nothing. [h] ( ) a conclusion of this sort, though it be certain, is yet not to be relied on without great caution; for unless we are exceedingly careful we shall forthwith fall into error. ( ) when things are conceived thus abstractedly, and not through their true essence, they are apt to be confused by the imagination. ( ) for that which is in itself one, men imagine to be multiplex. ( ) to those things which are conceived abstractedly, apart, and confusedly, terms are applied which are apt to become wrested from their strict meaning, and bestowed on things more familiar; whence it results that these latter are imagined in the same way as the former to which the terms were originally given. [i] i shall here treat a little more in detail of experience, and shall examine the method adopted by the empirics, and by recent philosophers. [k] by native strength, i mean that not bestowed on us by external causes, as i shall afterwards explain in my philosophy. [l] here i term them operations: i shall explain their nature in my philosophy. [m] i shall take care not only to demonstrate what i have just advanced, but also that we have hitherto proceeded rightly, and other things needful to be known. [ note ] ( ) in modern language, "the idea may become the subject of another presentation." ( ) objectivus generally corresponds to the modern "subjective," formalis to the modern "objective." [trans.- note ] [n] ( ) observe that we are not here inquiring how the first subjective essence is innate in us. ( ) this belongs to an investigation into nature, where all these matters are amply explained, and it is shown that without ideas neither affirmation, nor negation, nor volition are possible. [o] the nature of mental search is explained in my philosophy. [p] to be connected with other things is to be produced by them, or to produce them. [q] in the same way as we have here no doubt of the truth of our knowledge. [r] see below the note on hypotheses, whereof we have a clear understanding; the fiction consists in saying that such hypotheses exist in heavenly bodies. [s] ( ) as a thing, when once it is understood, manifests itself, we have need only of an example without further proof. ( ) in the same way the contrary has only to be presented to our minds to be recognized as false, as will forthwith appear when we come to discuss fiction concerning essences. [t] observe, that although many assert that they doubt whether god exists, they have nought but his name in their minds, or else some fiction which they call god: this fiction is not in harmony with god's real nature, as we will duly show. [u] ( ) i shall presently show that no fiction can concern eternal truths. by an eternal truth, i mean that which being positive could never become negative. ( ) thus it is a primary and eternal truth that god exists, but it is not an eternal truth that adam thinks. ( ) that the chimaera does not exist is an eternal truth, that adam does not think is not so. [x] ( ) afterwards, when we come to speak of fiction that is concerned with essences, it will be evident that fiction never creates or furnishes the mind with anything new; only such things as are already in the brain or imagination are recalled to the memory, when the attention is directed to them confusedly and all at once. ( ) for instance, we have remembrance of spoken words and of a tree; when the mind directs itself to them confusedly, it forms the notion of a tree speaking. ( ) the same may be said of existence, especially when it is conceived quite generally as an entity; it is then readily applied to all things together in the memory. ( ) this is specially worthy of remark. [y] we must understand as much in the case of hypotheses put forward to explain certain movements accompanying celestial phenomena; but from these, when applied to the celestial motions, we any draw conclusions as to the nature of the heavens, whereas this last may be quite different, especially as many other causes are conceivable which would account for such motions. [z] ( ) it often happens that a man recalls to mind this word soul, and forms at the same time some corporeal image: as the two representations are simultaneous, he easily thinks that he imagines and feigns a corporeal soul: thus confusing the name with the thing itself. ( ) i here beg that my readers will not be in a hurry to refute this proposition; they will, i hope, have no mind to do so, if they pay close attention to the examples given and to what follows. [ a] ( ) though i seem to deduce this from experience, some may deny its cogency because i have given no formal proof. ( ) i therefore append the following for those who may desire it. ( ) as there can be nothing in nature contrary to nature's laws, since all things come to pass by fixed laws, so that each thing must irrefragably produce its own proper effect, it follows that the soul, as soon as it possesses the true conception of a thing, proceeds to reproduce in thought that thing's effects. ( ) see below, where i speak of the false idea. [ b] ( ) observe that fiction regarded in itself, only differs from dreams in that in the latter we do not perceive the external causes which we perceive through the senses while awake. ( ) it has hence been inferred that representations occurring in sleep have no connection with objects external to us. ( ) we shall presently see that error is the dreaming of a waking man: if it reaches a certain pitch it becomes delirium. [ z] these are not attributes of god displaying his essence, as i will show in my philosophy. [ a] ( ) this has been shown already. ( ) for if such a being did not exist it would never be produced; therefore the mind would be able to understand more than nature could furnish; and this has been shown above to be false. [ a] ( ) that is, it is known that the senses sometimes deceive us. ( ) but it is only known confusedly, for it is not known how they deceive us. [ d] ( ) if the duration be indefinite, the recollection is imperfect; this everyone seems to have learnt from nature. ( ) for we often ask, to strengthen our belief in something we hear of, when and where it happened; though ideas themselves have their own duration in the mind, yet, as we are wont to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion which, again, takes place by aid of imagination, we preserve no memory connected with pure intellect. [ e] the chief rule of this part is, as appears from the first part, to review all the ideas coming to us through pure intellect, so as to distinguish them from such as we imagine: the distinction will be shown through the properties of each, namely, of the imagination and of the understanding. [ f] observe that it is thereby manifest that we cannot understand anything of nature without at the same time increasing our knowledge of the first cause, or god. end of "on the improvement of the understanding." notes by volunteer. . used, in part, with kind permission from: http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/spinoza/tie/ . the text is that of the translation of the tractatus de intellectus emendatione by r. h. m. elwes, as printed by dover publications (ny): ), isbn - - -x. this text is "an unabridged and unaltered republication of the bohn library edition originally published by george bell and sons in ." . paragraph numbers, shown thus [ ], are from edwin curley's translation in his "the collected works of spinoza", volume , , princeton university press; isbn - - - . . sentence numbers, shown thus ( ), have been added by volunteer. . spinoza's endnotes are shown thus [a]. the letter is taken from curley, see note . . search strings are enclosed in square brackets; include brackets. . html versions of "on the improvement of the understanding" are published in the books on-line web pages; ttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html and they include: http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/spinoza/tie/ http://www.erols.com/jyselman/teielwes.htm lectures of col. r. g. ingersoll--latest contents thomas paine liberty of man, woman and child orthodoxy blasphemy some reasons why intellectual development human rights talmagian theology (second lecture) talmagian theology (third lecture) religious intolerance hereafter review of his reviewers how the gods grow the religion of our day heretics and heresies the bible voltaire myth and miracle ingersoll's letter, on the chinese god ingersoll's letter, is suicide a sin? ingersoll's letter, the right to one's life ingersoll's lecture on thomas paine--delivered in central music hall, chicago, january , (from the chicago times, verbatim report) ladies and gentlemen:--it so happened that the first speech--the very first public speech i ever made--took occasion to defend the memory of thomas paine. i did it because i had read a little something of the history of my country. i did it because i felt indebted to him for the liberty i then enjoyed--and whatever religion may be true, ingratitude is the blackest of crimes. and whether there is any god or not, in every star that shines, gratitude is a virtue. the man who will tell the truth about the dead is a good man, and for one, about this man, i intend to tell just as near the truth as i can. most history consists in giving the details of things that never happened--most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked. whoever attacks a superstition will find that superstition defended by all the meanness of ingenuity. whoever attacks a superstition will find that there is still one weapon left in the arsenal of jehovah--slander. i was reading, yesterday, a poem called the "light of asia," and i read in that how a boodh seeing a tigress perishing of thirst, with her mouth upon the dry stone of a stream, with her two cubs sucking at her dry and empty dugs, this boodh took pity upon this wild and famishing beast, and, throwing from himself the yellowrobe of his order, and stepping naked before this tigress, said: "here is meat for you and your cubs." in one moment the crooked daggers of her claws ran riot in his flesh, and in another he was devoured. such, during nearly all the history of this world, has been the history of every man who has stood in front of superstition. thomas paine, as has been so eloquently said by the gentleman who introduced me, was a friend of man, and whoever is a friend of man is also a friend of god--if there is one. but god has had many friends who were the enemies of their fellow-men. there is but one test by which to measure any man who has lived. did he leave this world better than he found it? did he leave in this world more liberty? did he leave in this world more goodness, more humanity, than when he was born? that is the test. and whatever may have been the faults of thomas paine, no american who appreciates liberty, no american who believes in true democracy and pure republicanism, should ever breathe one word against his name. every american, with the divine mantle of charity, should cover all his faults, and with a never-tiring tongue should recount his virtues. he was a common man. he did not belong to the aristocracy. upon the head of his father god had never poured the divine petroleum of authority. he had not the misfortune to belong to the upper classes. he had the fortune to be born among the poor and to feel against his great heart the throb of the toiling and suffering masses. neither was it his misfortune to have been educated at oxford. what little sense he had was not squeezed out at westminster. he got his education from books. he got his education from contact with fellow-men, and he thought, and a man is worth just what nature impresses upon him. a man standing by the sea, or in a forest, or looking at a flower, or hearing a poem, or looking in the eyes of the woman he loves, receives all that he is capable of receiving--and if he is a great man the impression is great, and he uses it for the purpose of benefiting his fellow-man. thomas paine was not rich, he was poor, and his father before him was poor, and he was raised a sailmaker, a very lowly profession, and yet that man became one of the mainstays of liberty in this world. at one time he was an excise man, like burns. burns was once--speak it softly--a gauger--and yet he wrote poems that will wet the cheek of humanity with tears as long as the world travels in its orb around the sun. poverty was his brother, necessity his master. he had more brains than books; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. he had no veneration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient lies. he loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's sake. he saw oppression on every hand, injustice everywhere, hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, of the enslaved many against the titled few. in england he was nothing. he belonged to the lower classes--that is, the useful people. england depended for her prosperity upon her mechanics and her thinkers, her sailors and her workers, and they are the only men in europe who are not gentlemen. the only obstacles in the way of progress in europe were the nobility and the priests, and they are the only gentlemen. this, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital, and he needed no more. he found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, george iii., by the grace of god, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. they were not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. they were perfectly willing to make brick if pharaoh would furnish the straw. the colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation. they did not dream of independence. paine gave to the world his "common sense." it was the first argument for separation; the first assault upon the british form of government; the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's blast. he was the first to perceive the destiny of the new world. no other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. it was filled with arguments, reasons, persuasions, and unanswerable logic. it opened a new world. it filled the present with hope and the future with honor. everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the continental congress declared the colonies free and independent states. a new nation was born. it is simple justice to say that paine did more to cause the declaration of independence than any other man. neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon great britain were also attacks upon monarchy, and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best that can be instituted among men. in my judgment thomas paine was the best political writer that ever lived. "what he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power had no effect upon him. he examined into the why and wherefore of things. he was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. his enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. during all the dark scenes of the revolution never for a moment did he despair. year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "common sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of freedom. paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. he was with the army. he shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. when the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the "crisis." it was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. he shouted to them "these are the times that try men's souls." the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. to those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice, he said: "every generous parent should say: 'if there must be war, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace'." to the cry that americans were rebels, he replied: "he that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defense of reason rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'defender of the faith' than george iii." some said it was to the interest of the colonies to be free. paine answered this by saying: "to know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: 'is it the interest of man to be a boy all his life?"' he found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said: "that to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." this sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church. there is a world of political wisdom in this: "england lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles;" and there is real discrimination in saying: "the greeks and romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind." in his letter to the british people, in which he tried to convince them that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful of common sense: "war never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. but to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop door." the writings of paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical statements that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudicial. he had the happiest possible way of putting the case, in asking questions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided. day and night he labored for america. month after month, year after year, he gave himself to the great cause, until there was "a government of the people and for the people," and until the banner of the stars floated over a continent redeemed and consecrated to the happiness of mankind. at the close of the revolution no one stood higher in america than thomas paine. the best, the wisest, the most patriotic were his friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in comfort and in ease. he could have been what the world is pleased to call "respectable." he would have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors, and statesmen, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument covered with lies. he choose rather to benefit mankind. at that time the seeds sown by the great infidels were beginning to bear fruit in france. the eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress. on every hand science was bearing testimony against the church. voltaire had filled europe with light. d'holbach was giving to the elite of paris the principles contained in his "system of nature." the encyclopaedists had attacked superstition with information for the masses. the foundation of things began to be examined. a few had the courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. miracles began to get scarce. everywhere the people began to inquire. america had set an example to the world. the word liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe the dust from their superstitious knees. the dawn of a new day had appeared. thomas paine went to france. into the new movement he threw all his energies. his fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the human race and as a champion of free government. he had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his countrymen the defects, absurdities, and abuse of the english government. for this purpose; he composed and published his greatest political work. "the rights of man." this work should be read by every man and woman. it is concise, accurate, rational, convincing, and unanswerable. it shows great thought, an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government, deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. the most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. the venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question--answered with a word. for forcible illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled. the fears of the administration were aroused, and paine was prosecuted for libel, and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. it is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor not only to thomas paine, but to nature itself. it could have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the goodness to say: "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." there is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer sentiment. there is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment. it should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed upon every human heart: "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." in , paine was elected by the department of calais as their representative in the national assembly. so great was his popularity in france, that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments. upon taking his place in the assembly, he was appointed as one of a committee to draft a constitution for france. had the french people taken the advice of thomas paine, there would have been no "reign of terror." the streets of paris would not have been filled with blood in that reign of terror. there were killed in the city of paris not less, i think, than seventeen thousand people--and on one night, in the massacre of st. bartholomew, there were killed, by assassination, over sixty thousand souls--men, women, and children. the revolution would have been the grandest success of the world. the truth is that paine was too conservative to suit the leaders of the french revolution. they, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred and a desire to destroy. they had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory. besides all this, the french people had been so robbed by the government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material with which to construct a republic. many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for revenge. paine was filled with a real love for mankind. his philanthropy was boundless. he wished to destroy monarchy--not the monarch. he voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the tyrant. he wished to establish a government on a new basis--one that would forget the past; one that would give privileges to none, and protection to all. in the assembly, where all were demanding the execution of the king,--where to differ with the majority was to be suspected, and where to be suspected was almost certain death--thomas paine had the courage, the goodness, and the justice to vote against death. to vote against the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. this was the sublimity of devotion to principle. for this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. there is not a theologian who has ever maligned thomas paine that has the courage to do this thing. when louis capet was on trial for his life before the french convention, thomas paine had the courage to speak and vote against the sentence of death. in his speech i find the following splendid sentiments: "my contempt and hatred for monarchical governments are sufficiently well known, and my compassion for the unfortunate, friends or enemies, is equally profound. i have voted to put louis capet upon trial, because it was necessary to prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror of the monarchical system. to follow the trade of a king destroys all morality, just as the trade of a jailer deadens all sensibility. make a man a king today and tomorrow he will be a brigand. had louis capet been a farmer, he might have been held in esteem by his neighbors, and his wickedness results from his position rather than from his nature. let the french nation purge its territory of kings without soiling itself with their impure blood. let the united states be the asylum of louis capet, where, in spite of the overshadowing miseries and crimes of a royal life, he will learn by the continual contemplation of the general prosperity that the true system of government is not that of kings, but of the people. i am an enemy of kings, but i can not forget that they belong to the human race. it is always delightful to pursue that course where policy and humanity are united. as france has been the first of all the nations of europe to destroy royalty, let it be the first to abolish the penalty of death. as a true republican, i consider kings as more the objects of contempt than of vengeance." search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts than that of thomas paine voting against the king's death. he, the hater of despotism, the abhorer of monarchy, the champion of the rights of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed tyrant--of a throneless king! this was the last grand act of his political life--the sublime conclusion of his political career. all his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. he had labored not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. he had aspired to no office. he had no recognition of his services, but had ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of progress, confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field of action. filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save. had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the christian world. and let me tell you how neat they came getting him to the block. he was in prison, there was a door to his cell--it had two doors, a door that opened in and an iron door that opened out. it was a dark passage, and whenever they concluded to cut a man's head off the next day, an agent went along and made a chalk mark upon the door where the poor prisoner was bound. mr. barlow, the american minister, happened to be with him and the outer door was shut, that is, open against the wall, and the inner door was shut, and when the man came along whose business it was to mark the door for death, he marked this door where thomas paine was, but he marked the door that was against the wall, so when it was shut the mark was inside, and the messenger of death passed by on the next day. if that had happened in favor of some methodist preacher, they would have clearly seen, not simply the hand of god, but both hands. in this country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest names. on the anniversary of the declaration, his name would have been upon the lips of all orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the people. thomas paine had not finished his career. he had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and now turned his attention to the priests. he knew that every abuse had been embalmed in scripture--that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text. he knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and both behind a pretended revelation of god. by this time he had found that it was of little use to free the body and leave the mind in chains. he had explored the foundations of despotism, and had found them infinitely rotten. he had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he would take a look behind the altar. the result of this investigation was given to the world in the "age of reason." from the moment of its publication he became infamous. he was calumniated beyond measure. to slander him was to secure the thanks of the church. all his services were instantly forgotten, disparaged, or denied. he was shunned as though he had been a pestilence. most of his old friends forsook him. he was regarded as a moral plague, and at the bare mention of his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in horror. he was denounced as the most despicable of men. not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed: gloried in the fact that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death. it is wonderful that all his services are thus forgotten. it is amazing that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one did not accord to him, at least--honesty. strange that in the general denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. he had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of progress. he had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his name left out. he was one of the creators of light, one of the heralds of the dawn. he hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of god, with every drop of his noble blood. he believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. under these divine banners he fought the battle of his life. in both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. in the wilderness of america, in the french assembly, in the sombre cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. and for this he has been hated; for this the church has violated even his grave. this is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for men to devour their benefactors. the people in all ages have crucified and glorified. whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his commission, or question the authority of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man and god. in all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. nothing has been considered so pleasing to the deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. self-reliance has been thought deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. by some unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered of immense importance. all religions have been based upon the idea that god will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. belief is regarded as the one essential thing. to practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough; you must believe in some incomprehensible creed. you must say: "once one is three, and three times one is one." the man who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever, nothing so horrible as a charitable atheist. when paine was born the world was religious, the pulpit was the real throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the brain the idea that it had the right to think. he again made up his mind to sacrifice himself. he commenced with the assertion "that any system of religion that had anything in it that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system." what a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! no wonder the church began to hate him. he believed in one god, and no more. after his life he hoped for happiness. he believed that true religion consisted in doing justice, loving mercy; in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in offering to god the fruit of the heart. he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. this was his crime. he contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a revelation that comes to us at secondhand, either verbally or in writing. he asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication, and that after that it is only an account of something which another person says was a revelation to him. we have only his word for it, as it was never made to us. this argument never had been, and probably never will be answered. he denied the divine origin of christ and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the old testament lead no reference to him whatever. and yet he believed that christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality he taught and practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and that it had not been exceeded by any. upon this point he entertained the same sentiments now held by the unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened christians. in his time the church believed and taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true. since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology and geology, false in its history, so far as the old testament is concerned, false in almost everything. there are but few, if any, scientific men, who apprehend that the bible is literally true. who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the bible? the old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. the church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of thomas paine. the best minds of the orthodox world, today, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal deity. all other questions occupy a minor place. you are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in god and pay your pew-rent. there is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that sampson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. these follies have passed away, and the only reason that the religious world can now have for disliking paine, is that they have been forced to adopt so many of his opinions. paine thought the barbarities of the old testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of god. he believed the murder, massacre, and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the deity. he regarded much of the bible as childish, unimportant and foolish. the scientific world entertains the same opinion. paine attacked the bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of the kings. he used the same weapons. all the pomp in the world could not make him cower. his reason knew no "holy of holies," except the abode of truth. the sciences were then in their infancy. the attention of the really learned had not been directed to an impartial examination of our pretended revelation. it was accepted by most as a matter of course. the church was all-powerful, and no one else, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental doctrines of christianity. the infamous doctrine that salvation depends upon belief, upon a mere intellectual conviction, was then believed and preached. to doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul. this absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of thomas paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. this doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as senseless. for the overthrow of this infamous tenet, paine exerted all his strength. he left few arguments to be used by those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted. the combined wisdom and genius of all mankind can not possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought. neither can they show why anyone should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox world. can it be possible that we have been endowed with reason simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may be led by its false and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? is it possible that we have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its deductions and avoid its conclusions? ought the sailor to throw away his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? if reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in respect to our duties to the deity, why should it be relied upon in matters respecting the rights of our fellows? why should we throw away the law given to moses by god himself, and have the audacity to make some of our own? how dare we drown the thunders of sinai by calling the ayes and naes in a petty legislature? if reason can determine what is merciful, what is just, the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or eternity? down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant altar its sacrifice of the goddess reason; that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes her the bond-woman of senseless faith. if a man should tell you he had the most beautiful painting in the world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your eyes shut, you would likely suspect either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiful daub. should he tell you that he was a most excellent performer on the violin, and yet refused to play unless your ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. but would this conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your reason? the first gentleman says: "keep your eyes shut; my picture will bear everything but being seen. keep your ears stopped; my music objects to nothing but being heard." the last says: "away with your reason; my religion dreads nothing but being understood." so far as i am concerned, i most cheerfully admit that most christians are honest and most ministers sincere. we do not attack them; we attack their creed. we accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. we believe that their doctrines are hurtful, and i am going to do what i can against them. we believe that the frightful text, "he that believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. you might as well say that all that have red hair shall be damned. it has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty, and murder. it has caused the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. it has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave infidels, it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star. the maligners of paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine, because he was unacquainted with the dead languages, and, for this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence to investigate the scriptures. is it necessary to understand hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? is it really essential to conjugate the greek verbs before you can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their graves? must one be versed in latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as to the genuiness of a pretended revelation from god? common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. logic is not confirmed to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. paine attacked the bible as it is translated. if the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct it. the christianity of paine's day is not the christianity of our time. there has been a great improvement since then. it is better now because there is less of it. one hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of our time--that gentleman who preaches in this magnificent hall--would have perished at the stake. lord, lord, how john calvin would have liked to have roasted this man, and the perfume of his burning flesh would have filled heaven with joy. a universalist would have been torn to pieces in england, scotland, and america. unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in maryland: "be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord proprietor, by and with the advice and consent of his lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses of the assembly, and the authority of the same: that if any person shall hereafter, within this province, willingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse god, or deny our savior, jesus christ, to be the son of god, or shall deny the holy trinity, the father, son, and the holy ghost, or the god-head of any of the three persons, or the unity of the god-head, or shall utter any profane words concerning the holy trinity, or the persons thereof and shall therefore be convicted by verdict, shall, for the first offense, be bored through the tongue, and fined l , to be levied on his body. as for the second offense, the offender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead the letter b, and fined l . and that for the third offense, the offender shall suffer death without the benefit of clergy." the strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and was in force in the district of columbia up to . laws like this were in force in most of the colonies and in all countries where the church had power. in the old testament the death penalty was attached hundreds of offenses. it has been the same in all christian countries. today, in civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. what a commentary upon the divine systems of the world! in the days of thomas paine the church was ignorant, bloody, and relentless. in scotland the "kirk" was at the summit of its power. it was a full sister of the spanish inquisition. it waged war upon human nature. it was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of liberty. it taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. if the mother held opinions of which the infamous "kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or write them a word. it would not allow ship-wrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on sunday. oh, you have no idea what a muss it kicks up in heaven to have anybody swim on sunday. it fills all the wheeling worlds with sadness to see a boy in a boat, and the attention of the recording secretary is called to it. in a voice of thunder they say, "upset him!" it sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends. one of the most famous scotch divines said: "the kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." and this same scotch kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral grandeur to say, "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." and this same kirk abhorred the man who said, "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system." at that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless torment, and listening to the weak wailing of damned infants struggling in the slimy coils and poison folds of the worm that never dies. about the beginning of the nineteenth century a boy by the name of thomas aikenhead was indicted and tried at edinburgh for having denied the inspiration of the scriptures, and for having, on several occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. his body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with stones, and though his mother came with her face covered with tears, begging for the corpse, she was denied and driven away in the name of charity. that is religion, and in the velvet of their politeness there lurks the claws of the tiger. just give them the power and see how quick i would leave this part of the country. they know i am going to be burned forever; they know i am going to hell, but that don't satisfy them. they want to give me a little foretaste here. prosecutions and executions like these were common in every christian country, and all of them based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime. no wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "age of reason." england was filled with puritan gloom and episcopal ceremony. the ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. milton had clothed christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods--had added to the story of christ the fables of mythology. he gave to the protestant church the most outrageously material ideas of the deity. he turned all the angels into soldiers--made heaven a battle-field, put christ in uniform, and described god as a militia-general. his works were considered by the protestants nearly as sacred as the bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind milton. heaven and hell were realities--the judgment-day was expected--books of accounts would be opened. every man would hear the charges against him read. god was supposed to sit upon a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. the goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and ever. so all the priests were willing to save the sheep for half the wool. the nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned. in europe liberty was lying chained up in the inquisition, her white bosom stained with blood. in the new world the puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of god, and selling white quaker children into slavery in the name of christ, who said, "suffer little children to come unto me." under such conditions progress was impossible. some one had to lead the way. the church is and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. religion always looks back. the church has already reduced spain to a guitar, italy to a hand-organ, and ireland to exile. some one, not connected with the church, had to attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the world. some one had to sacrifice himself for the good of all. the people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry, and power. progress is born of doubt and inquiry. the church never doubts--never inquires. to doubt is heresy--to inquire is to admit that you do not know--the church does neither. more than a century ago catholicism, wrapped in robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, tramping beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud movement of almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger of voltaire. from that blow the church can never recover. livid with hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant protestants have echoed the curse of rome. in our country the church was all-powerful, and, although divided into many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe. paine did for protestantism what voltaire did for catholicism. paine struck the first blow. the "age of reason" did more to undermine the power of the protestant church than all other books then known. it furnished an immense amount of food for thought. it was written for the average mind, and is a straightforward, honest investigation of the bible, and of the christian system. paine did not falter from the first page to the last. he gives you his candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable. the "age of reason" has liberalized us all. it put arguments in the mouths of the people; it put the church on the defensive, it enabled somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser and the church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it among the pews. just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost its power. there is no exception to this rule. no nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders. no nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church without losing its power, its honor, and existence. every church pretends to have found the exact truth. this is the end of progress. why pursue that which you have? why investigate when you know. every creed is a rock in running water; humanity sweeps by it. every creed cries to the universe, "halt!" a creed is the ignorant past bullying the enlightened present. the ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. they demand completeness. a sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. they demand the complete circle--the entire structure. in music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods. in religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of creation and destiny. the alpha and omega of all things must be in the alphabet of their superstition. a religion that can not answer every question, and guess every conundrum, is in their estimation, worse than worthless. they desire a kind of theological dictionary--a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns. they mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. the beginning and the end are what they demand. the grand flight of the eagle is nothing to them. they want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the dry limb upon which he roosts. anything that can be learned is hardly worth knowing. the present is considered of no value in itself. happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be attained by self-denial and faith; not self-denial for the good of others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self. paine denied the authority of bibles and creeds; this was his crime, and for this the world shut the door in his face and emptied its slops upon him from the windows. i challenge the world to show that thomas paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny--in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty, and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell. his memory had been execrated as though he had murdered some uriah for his wife; driven some hagar into the desert to starve with his child upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, or had persecuted christians even unto strange cities. the church has pursued paine to deter others. the church used painting, music, and architecture simply to degrade mankind. but there are men that nothing can awe. there have been at all times brave spirits that dared even the gods. some proud head has always been above the waves. old diogenes, with his mantle upon him, stiff and trembling with age, caught a small animal bred upon people, went into the pantheon, the temple of the gods, and took the animal upon his thumb nail, and, pressing it with the other, "he sacrificed diogenes to all the gods." just as good as anything! in every age some diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. true genius never cowers, and there is always some samson feeling for the pillars of authority. cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants, temples frescoed and grained and carved, and gilded with gold, altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe, censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and alb, organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest, maniple, anice and stole, crosses and crosiers, tiaras, and crowns, mitres and missals and masses, rosaries, relics and robes, martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of christ, never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the infidel. he knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with liberty, that priceless jewel of the soul. in looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. the music of the organ was not loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. he could not forget that the taper had lighted the fagot. he knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned. he knew that across the open bible lay the sword of war, and so where others worshiped he looked with scorn and wept. and so it has been through all the ages gone. the doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been the saviors of liberty. the truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly intellectual are honoring the brave thinker of the past. but the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any infidel should be wicked enough to attempt to destroy her power. i will tell the church why i hate it. you have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake, roasted us before slow fires, torn our flesh with irons; you have covered us with chains, treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. in the name of your religion you have robbed us of every right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your god to finish the holy work in hell. can you wonder that we hate your doctrines; that we despise your creeds; that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power; that we are free in spite of you; that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is gradually rising into the blessed light? can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all? can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been disciples of reason and soldiers of freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood? i deny that religion is the end or object of this life. when it is so considered it becomes destructive of happiness. the real end of life is, happiness. it becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. it devours their substance, builds palaces for god (who dwells not in temples made with hands), and allows his children to die in huts and hovels. it fills the earth with mourning, heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with fear and despair. virtue is a subordination of the passion of the intellect. it is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. it does not consist in believing, but in doing. this is the sublime truth that the infidels in all ages have uttered. they have handed the torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. upon the altar of reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed the divine flame. infidelity is liberty; all superstition is slavery. in every creed man is the slave of god, woman is the slave of man, and the sweet children are the slaves of all. we do not want creeds; we want some knowledge. we want happiness. and yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again. is it nothing to free the mind? is it nothing to civilize mankind? is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect. is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice? is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word liberty? is it a small thing to quench the thirst of hell with the holy tears of piety, break all the chains, put out the fires of civil war, stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the church from the white throat of progress? is it a small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice, and power, the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear? it does seem as though the most zealous christians must at times entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. for eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. for more than a thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? are the christian nations patterns of charity and forbearance? on the contrary, their principal business is to destroy each other. more than five millions of christians are trained and educated and drilled to murder their fellow-christians. every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war against other christians, or defending itself from christian assault. the world is covered with forts to protect christians from christians, and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow christian brains into eternal froth. millions upon millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of christian murder. there must be some other way to reform this world. we have tried creed and dogma, and fable, and they have failed--and they have failed in all the nations dead. nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. we must find out the laws of nature and conform to them. we need free bodies and free minds, free labor and free thought, chainless hands and fetterless brains. free labor will give us wealth. free thought will give us truth. we need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. we need have no fear of being too radical. the future will verify all grand and brave predictions. paine was splendidly in advance of his time, but he was orthodox compared to the infidels of today. science, the great iconoclast, has been very busy since , and by the highway of progress are the broken images of the past. on every hand the people advance. the vicar of god has been pushed from the throne of the caesars, and upon the roofs of the eternal city falls once more the shadow of the eagle. all has been accomplished by the heroic few. the men of science have explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished the facts. the brave thinkers have aided them. the gloomy caverns of superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the angels of today. science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it explored the starry depths of heaven. science wrested from the gods their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark freighted with thought and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arm the countless wheels of toil. thomas paine was one of the intellectual heroes, one of the men to whom we are indebted. his name is associated forever with the great republic. he lived a long, laborious, and useful life. the world is better for his having lived. for the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for his portion. he ate the bitter bread of neglect and sorrow. his friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself and true to them. he lost the respect of what is called society, but kept his own. his life is what the world calls failure, and what history calls success. if to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, thomas paine was good. if to be in advance of your time, to be a pioneer in the direction of right, is greatness, thomas paine was great. if to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is heroic, thomas paine was a hero. at the age of , death touched his tired heart. he died in the land his genius defended, under the flag he gave to the skies. slander can not touch him now; hatred can not reach him more. he sleeps in the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars. a few more years, a few more brave men, a few more rays of light, and mankind will venerate the memory of him who said: "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system. the world is my country, and to do good my religion." the next question is: did thomas paine recant? mr. paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last moments. he believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of death. when the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, messrs. milledollar and cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. mr. cunningham had the politeness to say: "you have now a full view of death; you can not live long; whoever does not believe in the lord jesus christ, will assuredly be damned." mr. paine replied: "let me have none of your popish stuff. get away with you. good morning." on another occasion a methodist minister obtruded himself. mr. willet hicks was present. the minister declared to mr. paine that "unless he repented of his unbelief he would be damned." paine, although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave the room. on another occasion, two brothers by the name of pigott sought to convert him. he was displeased, and requested their departure. afterward, thomas nixon and capt. daniel pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he had, in any manner, changed his religious opinions. they were assured, by the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed in his writings. afterward, these gentlemen, hearing that william cobbet was about to write a life of paine, sent him the following note: i must tell you now that it is of great importance to find out whether paine recanted. if he recanted, then the bible is true--you can rest assured that a spring of water gushed out of a dead dry bone. if paine recanted, there is not the slightest doubt about that donkey making that speech to mr. baalam--not the slightest--and if paine did not recant, then the whole thing is a mistake. i want to show that thomas paine died as he has lived, a friend of man and without superstition, and if you will stay here i will do it. "new york, april , .--sir: having been informed that you have a design to write a history of the life and writings of thomas paine, if you have been furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions, or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his death, all you have heard of his recanting is false. being aware that such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who infested his house at the time it was expected he would die, we, the subscribers, intimate acquaintances of thomas paine since the year , went to his house. he was sitting up in a chair, and apparently in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. we interrogated him upon his religious opinions, and if he had changed his mind, or repented of anything he had said or wrote on that subject. he answered, "not at all," and appeared rather offended at our supposition that any change should take place in his mind. we took down in writing the questions put to him and his answers thereto, before a number of persons then in his room, among whom were his doctor, mrs. bonneville, etc. this paper is mislaid and can not be found at present, but the above is the substance, which can be attested by many living witnesses.--thomas nixon, daniel pelton" mr. jarvis, the artist, saw mr. paine one or two days before his death. to mr. jarvis he expressed his belief in his written opinions upon the subject of religion. b.f. haskin, an attorney of the city of new york, also visited him, and inquired as to his religious opinions. paine was then upon the threshold of death, but he did not tremble, he was not a coward. he expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the religious ideas he had given to the world. dr. manly was with him when he spoke his last words. dr. manly asked the dying man, and dr. manly was a christian, if he did not wish to believe that jesus was the son of god, and the dying philosopher answered: "i have no wish to believe on that subject." amasa woodsworth sat up with thomas paine the night before his death. in gilbert vale, hearing that woodsworth was living in or near boston, visited him for the purpose of getting his statement, and the statement was published in the beacon of june , , and here it is: "we have just returned from boston. one object of our visit to that city was to see mr. amasa woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a handsome cottage and garden at east cambridge, boston. this gentleman owned the house occupied by paine at his death, while he lived next door. as an act of kindness, mr. woodsworth visited mr. paine every day for six weeks before his death. he frequently sat up with him and did so on the last two nights of his life. he was always there with dr. manly, the physician, and assisted in removing mr. paine while his bed was prepared. he was present when dr. manly asked mr. paine if he wished to believe that jesus christ was the son of god. he said that lying on his back he used some action and with much emphasis replied: 'i have no wish to believe on that subject.' he lived some time after this, but was not known to speak, for he died tranquilly. he accounts for the insinuating style of dr. manly's letter by stating that that gentleman, just after its publication, joined a church. he informs us that he has openly proved the doctor for the falsity contained in the spirit of that letter, boldly declaring before dr. manly, who is still living, that nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. mr. woodsworth assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything to justify the belief of any mental change in the opinions of mr. paine previous to his death; but that being very ill and in pain, chiefly arising from the skin being removed in some parts by long lying, he was generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation on abstract subjects. this, then, is the best evidence that can be procured on this subject, and we publish it while the contravening parties are yet alive, and with the authority of mr. woodsworth.--gilbert vale" a few weeks ago i received the following letter, which confirms the statement of mr. vale: "near stockton, cal., greenwood cottage, july . .--col. ingersoll: in i talked with a gentleman in boston. i have forgotten his name; but he was then an engineer of the charleston navy yard. i am thus particular so that you can find his name on the books. he told me that he nursed thomas paine in his last illness and closed his eyes when dead. i asked him if he recanted and called upon god to save him. he replied: no; he died as he had taught. he had a sore upon his side, and when we turned him it was very painful, and he would cry out, 'o god!' or something like that. 'but,' said the narrator, 'that was nothing, for he believed in a god.' i told him that i had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that mr. paine had recanted in his last moment. the gentleman said that it was not true, and he appeared to be an intelligent, truthful man. with respect, i remain, etc., philip graves, m.d." the next witness is willet hicks, a quaker preacher. he says that during the last illness of mr. paine he visited him almost daily, and that paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the religious opinions that he had given to his fellow-men. it was to this same willet hicks that paine applied for permission to be buried in the cemetery of the quakers. permission was refused. this refusal settles the question of recantation. if he had recanted, of course there would have been no objection to his body being buried by the side of the best hypocrites in the earth. if paine recanted, why should he denied "a little earth for charity?" had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast and splendid triumph for the gospel. it would, with much noise and pomp and ostentation, have been heralded about the world. here is another letter: "peoria, ill., oct. , .--robert g. ingersoll--esteemed friend: my parents were friends (quakers). my father died when i was very young. the elderly and middle-aged friends visited at my mother's house. we lived in the city of new york. among the number i distinctly remember elias hicks, willet hicks, and a mr. -- day, who was a bookseller in pearl st. there were many others whose names i do not now remember. the subject of the recantation of thomas paine of his views about the bible in his last illness, or any other time, was discussed by them in my presence at different times. i learned from them that some of them had attended upon thomas paine in his last sickness, and ministered to his wants up to the time of his death. and upon the question of whether he did recant there was but one expression. they all said that he did not recant in any manner. i often heard them say they wished he had recanted. in fact, according to them, the nearer he approached death the more positive he appeared to be in his convictions. these conversations were from to . i was at that time from ten to twelve years old, but these conversations impressed themselves upon me because many thoughtless people then blamed the society of friends for their kindness to that "arch-infidel," thomas paine. truly yours, a.c. hankenson" a few days ago i received the following: "albany, n.y., sept. , .--dear sir: it is over twenty years ago that, professionally, i made the acquaintance of john hogeboom, a justice of the peace of the county rensselaer, new york. he was then over seventy years of age, and had the reputation of being a man of candor and integrity. he was a great admirer of paine. he told me he was personally acquainted with him, and used to see him frequently during the last years of his life in the city of new york, where hogeboom then resided. i asked him if there was any truth in the charge that paine was in the habit of getting drunk. he said that it was utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing during the lifetime of mr. paine, and did not believe anyone else did. i asked him about the recantation of his religious opinions on his deathbed, and the revolting deathbed scenes that the world heard so much about. he said there was no truth in them; that he had received his information from persons who attended paine in his last illness, and that he passed peacefully, as we may say, in the sunshine of a great soul. yours truly, w.j. hilton" the witnesses by whom i substantiate the fact that thomas paine did not recant, and that he died holding the religious opinions he had published are: . thomas nixon, capt. daniel pelton, b.f. haskin. these gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had, in any respect, changed his views upon religion. he told them that he had not. . james cheetham. this man was the most malicious enemy mr. paine had, and yet he admits that "thomas paine died placidly, and almost without a struggle."--life of thomas paine, by james cheetham. . the ministers, milledollar and cunningham. these gentleman told mr. paine that if he died without believing in the lord jesus christ, he would be damned, and paine replied: "let me have none of your popish stuff. good morning."--sherwin's life of paine, page . . mrs. hedden. she told these same preachers, when they attempted to obtrude themselves upon mr. paine again, that the attempt to convert mr. paine was useless; "that if god did not change his mind, no human power could." . andrew a. dean. this man lived upon paine's farm, at new rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious subjects.--paine's theological works, page . . mr. jarvis, the artist with whom paine lived. he gives an account of an old lady coming to paine, and telling him that god almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented and believed in the blessed savior he would be damned. paine replied that god would not send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message.--clio rickman's life of paine. . william carver, with whom paine boarded. mr. carver said again and again that paine did not recant. he knew him well, and had every opportunity of knowing.--life of paine, by vale. . dr. manly, who attended him in his last sickness, and to whom paine spoke his last words. dr. manly asked him if he did not wish to believe in jesus christ. and he replied: "i have no wish to believe on that subject." . willet hicks and elias hicks, who were with him frequently during his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. according to their testimony mr. paine died as he lived--a believer in god and a friend to man. willet hicks was offered money to say something false against paine. he was even offered money to remain silent, and allow others to slander the dead. mr. hicks, speaking of thomas paine, said: "he was a good man. thomas paine was an honest man." . amasa woodsworth, who was with him every day for some six weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the last two nights of his life. this man declares that paine did not recant, and that he died tranquilly. the evidence of mr. woodsworth is conclusive. . thomas paine himself. the will of mr. paine, written by himself, commences as follows: "the last will and testament of me, the subscriber, thomas paine, reposing confidence in my creator, god, and in no other being, for i know of no other, nor believe in any other," and closes with these words: "i have lived an honest and useful life to mankind. my time has been spent in doing good, and i die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my creator, god." . if thomas paine recanted, why do you pursue him? if he recanted he died in your belief. for what reason, then, do you denounce his death as cowardly? if upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he had published, the business of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by christians. i ask christians if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honorable men, and take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? when thomas paine was dying he was infested by fanatics, by the snaky spies of bigotry. in the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey waiting to tear, with beak and claw, the corpse of him who wrote the "rights of man," and there lurking and crouching in the darkness, were the jackals and hyenas of superstition, ready to violate his grave. these birds of prey--these unclean beasts--are the witnesses produced and relied upon to malign the memory of thomas paine. one by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one weapon--slander. against the witnesses that i have produced there can be brought just two--mary roscoe and mary hinsdale. the first is referred to in the memoir of stephen grellet. she had once been a servant in his house. grellet tells what happened between this girl and paine. according to this account, paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer. let us examine this falsehood. why would paine expect a correct answer about his writings from one who read very little of them? does not such a statement devour itself? this young lady further said that the "age of reason" was put in her hands, and that the more she read in it, the more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the fire. whereupon mr. paine remarked: "i wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in my writing that book." the next is mary hinsdale. she was a servant in the family of willet hicks. the church is always proving something by a nurse. she, like mary roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to mr. paine. to this young lady paine, according to his account, said precisely the same that he did to mary roscoe, and she said the same thing to mr. paine. my own opinion is that mary roscoe and mary hinsdale are one and the same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths of both. it is not possible that the identical conversation should have taken place between paine and mary roscoe and between him and mary hinsdale. mary hinsdale lived with willet hicks, and he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication. another thing about this witness. a woman by the name of mary lockwood, a hicksite quaker, died. mary hinsdale met her brother about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to say so at her funeral. this turned out to be a lie. it has been claimed that mary hinsdale made her statement to charles collins. long after the alleged occurrence gilbert vale, one of the biographers of paine, had a conversation with collins concerning mary hinsdale. vale asked him what he thought of her. he replied that some of the friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did not give credit to her statements. he also said that he believed what the friends said, but thought that when a young roman she might have told the truth. in william cobbett came to new york. he began collecting material for a life of thomas paine. in this way he became acquainted with mary hinsdale and charles collins. mr. cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to the norwich mercury in . from this account it seems that charles collins told cobbett that paine had recanted. cobbett called for the testimony, and told mr. collins that he must give time, place, and circumstances. he finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by mary hinsdale. armed with this document, cobbett, in october of that year, called upon the said mary hinsdale, at no. anthony street, new york, and showed her the statement. upon being questioned by mr. cobbett she said that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter; that she would not say that any part of the paper was true; that she had never seen the paper, and that she had never given charles collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name. and so in the month of october, in the year of grace , in the mist of fog and forgetfulness, disappeared forever one mary hinsdale, the last and only witness against the intellectual honesty of thomas paine. a letter was written to the editor of the new york world by the rev. a.w. cornell, in which he says: "sir: i see by your paper that bob ingersoll discredits mary hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death bed of thomas paine. no one who knew that good old lady would for one moment doubt her veracity, or question her testimony. both she and her husband were quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants of new york city. "ingersoll is right in his conjecture that mary roscoe and mary hinsdale were the same person. her maiden name was roscoe and she married henry hinsdale. my mother was a roscoe, a niece of mary roscoe, and lived with her for some time.--rev. a.w. cornell, harpersville, n.y." the editor of the new york observer took up the challenge that i had thrown down. i offered $ in gold to any minister who would prove, or to any person who would prove that thomas paine recanted in his last hours. the new york observer accepted the wager, and then told a falsehood about it. but i kept after the gentlemen until i forced them, in their paper, published on the st of november, ; to print these words: "we have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that paine actually renounced his infidelity. the accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel." this, i hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the churches yet to be. the next charge they make is that thomas paine died in destitution and want. that, of course, would show that he was wrong. they boast that the founder of their religion had not whereon to lay his head, but when they found a man who stood for the rights of man, when they say that he did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a lie. won't do! did thomas paine die in destitution and want? the charge has been made over and over again that thomas paine died in want and destitution; that he was an abandoned pauper--an outcast, without friends and without money. this charge is just as false as the rest. upon his return to this country, in , he was worth $ , , according to his own statement, made at that time in the following letter, and addressed to clio rickman: "my dear friend, mr. monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to france, takes charge of this, to be delivered to mr. este, banker, in paris, to be forwarded to you. "i arrived in baltimore, th of october, and you can have no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. from new hampshire to georgia (an extent of , miles), every newspaper was filled with applause or abuse. "my property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which, put in the funds, will bring about l sterling a year. "remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family, and in the circle of your friends.--thomas paine" a man in those days worth $ , was not a pauper. that amount would bring an income of at least $ , . two thousand dollars then would be fully equal to $ , now. on the th of july, , the year in which he died, mr. paine made his will. from this instrument we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of new york. he was also owner of thirty shares in the new york phoenix insurance company, worth upward of $ , . besides this, some personal property and ready money. by his will he gave to walter morton and thomas addis emmet, a brother of robert emmet, $ each, and $ to the widow of elihu palmer. is it possible that this will was made by a pauper, by a destitute outcast, by a man who suffered for the ordinary necessities of life? but suppose, for the sake of argument, that he was poor, and that he died a beggar, does that tend to show that the bible is an inspired book, and that calvin did not burn servetus? do you really regard poverty as a crime? if paine had died a millionaire, would christians have accepted his religious opinions? if paine had drank nothing but cold water, would christians have repudiated the five cardinal points of calvinism? does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary condition of the person making it? as a matter of fact, most reformers--most men and women of genius--have been acquainted with poverty. beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the tenderest and bravest hearts. owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen hundred years, truth telling has not been a very lucrative business. as a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the rags. that day is passing away. you can not now answer a man by pointing at the holes in his coat. thomas paine attacked the church when it was powerful; when it had what is called honors to bestow; when it was the keeper of the public conscience; when it was strong and cruel. the church waited till he was dead, and then attacked his reputation and his clothes. once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. the lion was dead. you just don't know how happy i am tonight that justice so long delayed at last is going to be done, and to see so many splendid looking people come here out of deference to the memory of thomas paine. i am glad to be here. the next thing is: did thomas paine live the life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death? well, we will see. upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous charges. the christians have, i suppose, produced the best evidence in their possession, and that evidence i will now proceed to examine. their first witness is grant thorburn. he made three charges against thomas paine: . that his wife obtained a divorce from him in england for cruelty and neglect. . that he was a defaulter and fled from england to america. . that he was a drunkard. these three charges stand upon the same evidence--the word of grant thorburn. if they are not all true, mr. thorburn stands impeached. the charge that mrs. paine obtained a divorce on account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. there is no such record in the world, and never was. paine and his wife separated by mutual consent. each respected the other. they remained friends. this charge is without any foundation. in fact, i challenge the christian world to produce the record of this decree of divorce. according to mr. thorburn, it was granted in england. in that country public records are kept of all such decrees. i will give $ , if they will produce a decree, showing that it was given on account of cruelty, or admit that mr. thorburn was mistaken. thomas paine was a just man. although separated from his wife, he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and frequently lent her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. was this the conduct of a drunken beast? the next is that he was a defaulter, and fled from england to america. as i told you in the first place, he was an exciseman; if he was a defaulter, that fact is upon the records of great britain. i will give $ , in gold to any man who will show, by the records of england, that he was a defaulter of a single, solitary cent. let us bring these gentlemen to limerick. and they charge that he was a drunkard. that is another falsehood. he drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. it was no unusual thing for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of hot rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help the preacher home. you have no idea how they loved the sacrament in those days. they had communion pretty much all the time. thorburn says that in paine was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep." can anyone believe this to be a true account of the personal appearance of mr. paine in ? he had just returned from france. he had been welcomed home by thomas jefferson, who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every american. in mr. paine was honored with a public dinner in the city of new york. he was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such men as de witt clinton. in mr. paine wrote a letter to andrew a. dean upon the subject of religion. read that letter and then say that the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep. search the files of christian papers, from the first issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter. in mr. paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great force to his friend samuel adams. such letters are not written by drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. it was about the same time that he wrote his "remarks on robert hall's sermons." these "remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by a clear-headed and thoughtful man. in he published an essay on the invasion of england and a treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. in short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. he sympathized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. he looked upon monarchy as a species of physical slavery. he had the goodness to attack that form of government. he regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery. he had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. his reasons filled the churches with hatred. instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened his character. there is too much religious cant in the statement of mr. thorburn. he exhibits too much anxiety to tell what grant thorburn said to thomas paine. he names thomas jefferson as one of the disreputable men who welcomed paine with open arms. the testimony of a man who regarded thomas jefferson as a disreputable person, as to the character of anybody, is utterly without value. now, grant thorburn--this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high, and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"--says that he used to sit nights at carver's, in new york, with thomas paine. mrs. ferguson, the daughter of william carver, says that she knew thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's house. the denial of mrs. ferguson enraged thorburn, and he at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. thereupon a suit was commenced by mrs. ferguson and her husband against thorburn, the writer, and fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. thorburn ran away to connecticut. fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written. thorburn replied that what he had written about mrs. ferguson could not be proved. fanshaw then settled with the fergusons, paying them the amount demanded. in the fergusons lived at duane street, new york. in the commercial advertiser of new york, in , appeared the written acknowledgement of this same little grant thorburn that he did, on the d of august, , at half-past in the morning, take four bottles of cider from the cellar of mr. comstock. mr. comstock says that thorburn was arrested, and that when brought before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (comstock's) mercy. the philadelphia tract society gave thorburn $ to write his recollections of thomas paine. let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. in october, , i received the following letter from james parton: "newburyport, mass., oct , .--my dear sir: touching grant thorburn, i personally knew him to have been a liar. at the age of he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of the rome journal as his own. it was i who received it and detected the deliberate forgery..... james parton" so much for grant thorburn. in my judgment, the testimony of mr. thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief. the next witness is the rev. j.d. wickham, d.d., who tells what an elder in his church said. this elder said that paine passed his last days on his farm at new rochelle, with a solitary female attendant. this is not true. he did not pass his last days at new rochelle, consequently, this pious elder did not see him during his last days at that place. upon this elder we prove an alibi. mr. paine passed his last days in the city of new york, in a house upon columbia street. the story of the rev. j.d. wickham, d.d., is simply false. the next competent false witness was the rev. charles hawley, d.d., who proceeds to state that the story of the rev. j.d. wickham, d. d., is corroborated by older citizens of new rochelle. the names of these ancient residents are withheld. according to these unknown witnesses, the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct. but as the particulars of mr. paine's conduct "were too loathsome to be described in print," we are left entirely in the dark as to what he really did. while at new rochelle, mr. paine lived with mr. purdy, mr. dean, with capt. pelton, and with mr. staple. it is worthy of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements of "older residents" and ancient citizens spoken of by the rev. charles hawley, d.d., and leave him with the "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own mind. the next gentleman brought upon the stand is w.h. ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of stephen grellett. this gentleman also has the misfortune to be dead. according to his account, mr. paige made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of mary roscoe. mr. paine uttered the wish that all who read his book had burned it. i believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. her name was probably mary hinsdale, as it was once claimed that paine made the same remark to her. these are the witnesses of the church, and the only ones you bring forward to support your charge that thomas paine lived a drunken and beastly life, and died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death. all these calumnies are found in a life of paine by james cheetham, the convicted libeler already referred to. mr. cheetham was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write. in order to show you the estimation in which this libeler was held by mr. paine, i will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point: "oct. , .--mr. cheethan: unless you make a public apology for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of tuesday, oct. , respecting me, i will prosecute you for lying.--thomas paine" in another letter, speaking of this same man, mr. paine says: "if an unprincipled bully can not be reformed, he can be punished." cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth is to him like a foreign language. mr. cheetham wrote the life of mr. paine to gratify his malice and to support religion. he was prosecuted for libel--was convicted and fined. yet the life of paine, written by this liar, is referred to by the christian world as the highest authority. as to the personal habits of mr. paine, we have the testimony of william carver; with whom he lived; of mr. jarvis, the artist, with whom he lived; of mr. purdy, who was a tenant of paine's; of mr. buyer, with whom he was intimate; of thomas nixon and capt. daniel pelton, both of whom knew him well; of amasa woodsworth, who was with him when he died; of john fellows, who boarded at the same house; of james wilburn, with whom he boarded; of b.f. haskins, a lawyer, who was well acquainted with him, and called upon him during h is last illness; of walter morton, president of the phoenix insurance company; of clio rickman, who had known him for many years; of willet and elias hicks, quakers, who knew him intimately and well; of judge hertell, h. margary, elihu palmer and many others. all these testified to the fact that mr. paige was a temperate man. in those days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. paine was not an exception, but he did not drink to excess. mr. lovett, who kept the city hotel, where paine stopped, in a note to caleb bingham declared that paine drank less than any boarder he had. against all this evidence christians produce the story of grant thorburn, the story of the rev. j.d. wickham, that an elder in his church told him that paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the rev. charles hawley, and an extract from lossing's history to the same effect. the evidence is overwhelmingly against them. will you have the fairness to admit it? their witnesses are merely the repeaters of the falsehoods of james cheetham, the convicted libeler. after all, drinking is not as bad as lying. an honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the dead. "a remnant of old mortality drunk, bloated, and half-asleep," is better than a perfectly sober defender of human slavery. to become drunk is a virtue compared with stealing a babe from the breast of its mother. drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. do you think that paine was a drunken beast when he wrote "common sense," a pamphlet that aroused three millions of people, as people were never aroused by words before? was he a drunken beast when he wrote the "crisis?" was it to a drunken beast that the following letter was addressed: "rocky hill, september , .--i have learned, since i have been at this place, that you are at bordentown. whether for the sake of retirement or economy, i know not. be it for either, or both, or whatever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me, i shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. your presence may remind congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes himself your sincere friend.--george washington" do you think that paine was a drunken beast when the following letters were received by him: "you express a wish in your letter to return to america in a national ship. mr. dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the captain of the maryland to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. you will, in general, find us returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. that you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. accept the assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.--thomas jefferson" "it has been very generally propagated through the continent that i wrote the pamphlet "common sense." i could not have written anything in so manly and striking a style.--john adams" "a few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at falmouth and norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet "common sense," will not leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation.--george washington" "it is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen--i speak of the great mass of the people--are interested in your welfare. they have not forgotten the history of their own revolution, and the difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. the crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and i trust never will stain, our national character. you are considered by them as not only having rendered important services in our revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale the friend of human right and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty. to the welfare of thomas paine, the americans are not, nor can they be, indifferent.--james monroe" "no writer has exceeded paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.--thomas jefferson" was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the legislature of pennsylvania presented thomas paine with l sterling? did the state of new york feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer upon thomas paine an estate of several hundred acres? did the congress of the united states thank him for his services because he had lived a drunken and beastly life? was he elected a member of the french convention because he was a drunken beast? was it the act of a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of the king? was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the "reign of terror "--that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood, and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies? do the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast: "i believe in the equality of man, and i believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. "my own mind is my own church. "it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system. "the work of god is the creation which we behold. "the age of ignorance commenced with the christian system. "it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action--it begets a calamitous necessity of going on. "to read the bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of man. "the man does not exist who can say i have persecuted him, or that i have, in any case, returned evil for evil. "of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. "the belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man. "my own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter. "the intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man and his maker, and in which no third party has any right to interfere. the practical part consists in our doing good to each other. "no man ought to make a living by religion. one person can not act religion for another--every person must act for himself. "one good school-master is of more use than a hundred priests. let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition. "god is the power, or first cause; nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon. "i believe in one god and no more, and i hope for happiness beyond this life. "the key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by any. "my religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the deity, and universal philanthropy. "i have yet, i believe, some years in store, for i have a good state of health and a happy mind. i take care of both, by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. "he lives immured within the bastille of a word." how perfectly that sentence describes the orthodox. the bastille in which they are immured is the word "calvinism." "man has no property in man." "the world is my country, to do good my religion." i ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast? "man has no property in man." what a splendid motto that would make for the religious newspapers of this country thirty years ago. i ask, again, whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast? only a little while ago--two or three days--i read a report of an address made by bishop doane, an episcopal bishop in apostolic succession--regular line from jesus christ down to bishop doane. the bishop was making a speech to young preachers--the sprouts, the theological buds. he took it upon him to advise them all against early marriages. let us look at it. do you believe there is any duty that man owes to god that will prevent a man marrying the woman he loves? is there some duty that i owe to the clouds that will prevent me from marrying some good, sweet woman? now, just think of that! i tell you, young man, you marry as soon as you can find her and support her. i had rather have one woman that i know than any amount of gods that i am not acquainted with. if there is any revelation from god to man, a good woman is the best revelation he has ever made; and i will admit that that revelation was inspired. now, on the subject of marriage, let me offset the speech of bishop doane by a word from this "wretched infidel:" "though i appear a sorry wanderer, the marriage state has not a sincerer friend than i. it is the harbor of human life, and is, with respect to the things of this world, what the next world is to this. it is home, and that one word conveys more than any other word can express. for a few years we may glide along the tide of a single life, but it is a tide that flows but once, and, what is still worse, it ebbs faster than it flows, and leaves many a hapless voyager aground. i am one, you see, that has experienced the fall i am describing. i have lost my tide; it passed by while every throb of my heart was on the wing for the salvation of america, and i have now, as contentedly as i can, made myself a little tower of walls on that shore that has the solitary resemblance of home." i just want you to know what this dreadful infidel thought of home. i just wanted you to know what thomas paine thought of home. then here is another letter that thomas paine wrote to congress on the st day of january, , and i wanted you to know those two. it is only a short one: "to the honorable senate of the united states: the purport of this address is to state a claim i feel myself entitled to make on the united states, leaving it to their representatives in congress to decide on its worth and its merits. the case is as follows: "toward the latter end of the year the continental money had become depreciated--the paper dollar being then not more than a cent--that it seemed next to impossible to continue the war. as the united states was then in alliance with france it became necessary to make france acquainted with our real situation. i therefore drew up a letter to the count de vergennes, stating undisguisedly the whole case, and concluding with a request whether france could not, either as a subsidy of a loan, supply the united states with a million pounds sterling, and continue that supply, annually, during the war. "i showed this letter to mr. morbois, secretary of the french minister. his remark upon it was that a million sent out of the nation exhausted it more than ten millions spent in it. i then showed it to mr. ralph izard, member of congress from south carolina. he borrowed the letter of me and said: 'we will endeavor to do something about it in congress.' accordingly, congress then appointed john a. laurens to go to france and make representation for the purpose of obtaining assistance. col. laurens wished to decline the mission, and asked that congress would appoint col. hamilton, who did not choose to do it. col. laurens then came and stated the case to me, and said that he was well enough acquainted with the military difficulties of the army, but he was not acquainted with political affairs, or with the resources of the country, to undertake such a mission. said he, 'if you will go with me i will accept the mission.' this i agreed to do, and did do. we sailed from boston in the alliance frigate february, , and arrived in france in the beginning of march. the aid obtained from france was six millions of livres, as at present, and ten millions as a loan, borrowed in holland on the security of france. we sailed from brest in the french frigate resolue the st of june, and arrived at boston on the th of august, bringing with us two millions and a half in silver, and conveying a chip and a brig laden with clothing and military stores. "the money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the national bank at philadelphia, which enabled our army to move to yorktown to attack in conjunction with the french army under rochambeau, the british army under cornwallis. "as i never had a single cent for these services, i felt myself entitled, as the country is now in a state of prosperity, to state the case to congress. "as to my political works, beginning with the pamphlet 'common sense,' published the beginning of january , which awakened america to a declaration of independence as the president and vice-president both know, as they were works done from principle i can not dishonor that principle by ever asking any reward for them. the country has been benefited by them, and i make myself happy in the knowledge of that benefit. it is, however, proper for me to add that the mere independence of america, were it to have been followed by a system of government modeled after the corrupt system of the english government, would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. it was to bring forward and establish a representative system of government. as the work itself will show, that was the leading principle with me in writing that work, and all my other works during the progress of the revolution, and i followed the same principle in writing in english the 'rights of man.' "after the failure of the percent duty recommended by congress to pay the interest of the loan to be borrowed in holland, i wrote to chancellor livingston, then minister for foreign affairs, and robert morris, minister of finance, and proposed a method for getting over the difficulty at once, which was by adding a continental legislature which should be empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of recommending them. so the method proposed met with their future probation. i held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a direct occasion occurred. "in a conversation afterward with gov. clinton, of new york, now vice-president, it was judged that for the purpose of my going fully into the subject, and to prevent any misconstruction of my motive or object, it would be best that i received nothing from congress, but to leave it to the states individually to make the what acknowledgement they pleased. the state of new york presented me with a farm which since my return to america, i have found it necessary to sell, and the state of pennsylvania voted me l of their currency, but none of the states to the east of new york, or the south of pennsylvania, have made me the least acknowledgment. they had received benefits from me which they accepted, and there the matter ended. this story will not tell well in history. all the civilized world knows i have been of great service to the united states, and have generously given away that which would easily have made me a fortune. i much question if an instance is to be found in ancient or modern times of a man who had no personal interest in the case to take up that of the establishment of a representative government and who sought neither place nor office after it was established; that pursued the same undeviating principles that i had for more than thirty years, and that in spite of dangers, difficulties, and inconveniences of which i have had my share.--thomas paine" an old man in pennsylvania told me once that his father hired a old revolutionary soldier by the name of thomas martin to work for him. martin was then quite an old man; and there was an old presbyterian preacher used to come there, by the name of crawford, and he sat down by the fire and he got to talking one night, among other things about thomas paine--what a wretched, infamous dog he was; and while he was in the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from the fireplace, and he walked over to the preacher, and he said to him "did you ever see thomas paine?" "no." "well," he says, "i have; i saw him at valley forge. i heard read at the head of every regiment and company the letters of thomas paine. i heard them read the 'crisis,' and i saw thomas paine writing on the head of a drum, sitting at the bivouac fire, those simple words that inspired every patriot's bosom, and i want to tell you mr. preacher, that thomas paine did more for liberty than any priest that ever lived in this world." "and yet they say he was afraid to die! afraid of what? is there any god in heaven that hates a patriot? if there is thomas paine ought to be afraid to die. is there any god that would damn a man for helping to free three millions of people? if thomas paine was in hell tonight, and could get god's attention long enough to point him to the old banner of the stars floating over america, god would have to let him out. what would he be afraid of? had he ever burned anybody? no. had he ever put anybody in the inquisition? no. ever put the thumb-screw on anybody? no. ever put anybody in prison so that some poor wife and mother would come and hold her little babe up at the grated window that the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse of his blue-eyed babe? did he ever do that?" "did he ever light a fagot? did he ever tear human flesh? why, what had he to be afraid of? he had helped to make the world free. he had helped create the only republic then on the earth. what was he afraid of? was god a tory? it won't do." one would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have charged for the last seventy years that thomas paine recanted, that there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. even with my ideas of the average honor of the believers in superstition, the average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, i did not believe that all those infamies rested solely upon poorly-attested falsehoods. i had charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done by thomas paine capable of being tortured into a foundation of all these calumnies. what crime had thomas paine committed that he should have feared to die? the only answer you can give is that he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. if that is crime, the civilized world is filled with criminals. the pioneers of human thought, the intellectual leaders of this world, the foremost men in every science, the kings of literature and art, those who stand in the front of investigation, the men who are civilizing and elevating and refining mankind, are all unbelievers in the ignorant dogma of inspiration. why should we think thomas paine was afraid to die? and why should the american people malign the memory of that great man? he was the first to advocate the separation from the mother country. he was the first to write these words: "the united states of america." think of maligning that man! he was the first to lift his voice against human slavery, and while hundreds and thousands of ministers all over the united states not only believed in slavery, but bought and sold women and babes in the name of jesus christ, this infidel, this wretch who is now burning in the flames of hell, lifted his voice against human slavery and said: "it is robbery, and a slaveholder is a thief; the whipper of women is a barbarian; the seller of a child is a savage." no wonder that the thieving hypocrite of his day hated him! i have no love for any man who ever pretended to own a human being. i have no love for a man that would sell a babe from the mother's throbbing, heaving, agonized breast. i have no respect for a man who considered a lash on the naked back as a legal tender for labor performed. so write it down, thomas paine was the first great abolitionist of america. now let me tell you another thing. he was the first man to raise his voice for the abolition of the death penalty in the french convention. what more did he do? he was the first to suggest a federal constitution for the united states. he saw that the old articles of confederation were nothing; that they were ropes of water and chains of mist, and he said, "we want a federal constitution so that when you pass a law raising percent you can make the states pay it." let us give him his due. what were all these preachers doing at that time? he hated superstition; he loved the truth. he hated tyranny; he loved liberty. he was the friend of the human race. he lived a brave and thoughtful life. he was a good and true and generous man, and "he died as he lived." like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless ocean of eternal peace. i love him; i love every man who gave me, or helped to give me the liberty i enjoy tonight; i love every man who helped me put our flag in heaven. i love every man who has lifted his voice in any age for liberty, for a chainless body and a fetterless brain. i love everyman who has given to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. i love every man who has thought more of principle than he has of position. i love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for mankind, and for that reason i love thomas paine. i thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, every one--every one, for the attention you have given me this evening. ingersoll's lecture on liberty of man, woman and child ladies and gentlemen: in my judgment slavery is the child of ignorance. liberty is born of intelligence. only a few years ago there was a great awakening in the human mind. men began to inquire, by what right does a crowned robber make me work for him? the man who asked this question was called a traitor. others said, by what right does a robed priest rob me? that man was called an infidel. and whenever he asked a question of that kind, the clergy protested. when they found that the earth was round, the clergy protested; when they found that the stars were not made out of the scraps that were left over on the sixth day of creation, but were really great, shining, wheeling worlds, the clergy protested and said: "when is this spirit of investigation to stop?" they said then, and they say now, that it is dangerous for the mind of man to be free. i deny it. out on the intellectual sea there is room for every sail. in the intellectual air, there is space enough for every wing. and the man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and does not do his duty to his fellow men. for one, i expect to do my own thinking. and i will take my own oath this minute that i will express what thoughts i have, honestly and sincerely. i am the slave of no man and of no organization. i stand under the blue sky and the stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every human being. standing as i do in the presence of the unknown, i have the same right to guess as though i had been through five theological seminary. i have as much interest in the great absorbing questions of origin and destiny as though i had d.d., l. l. d. at the end of my name. all i claim, all i plead is simple liberty of thought. that is all. i do not pretend to tell what is true and all the truth. i do not claim that i have floated level with the heights of thought, or that i have descended to the depths of things; i simply claim that what idea i have i have a right to express, and any man that denies it to me is an intellectual thief and robber. that is all. i say, take those chains off from the human soul; i say, break these orthodox fetters, and if there are wings to the spirit let them be spread. that is all i say. and i ask you if i have not the same right to think that any other human has? if i have no right to think, why have i such a thing as a thinker. why have i a brain? and if i have no right to think, who has? if i have lost my right, mr. smith, where did you find yours? if i have no right, have three or four men or or , who get together and sign a card and build a house and put a steeple on it with a bell in it--have they any more right to think than they had before? that is the question. and i am sick of the whip and lash in the region of mind and intellect. and i say to these men, "let us alone. do your own thinking; express your own thoughts." and i want to say tonight that i claim no right that i am not willing to give to every other human being beneath the stars--none whatever. and i will fight tonight for the right of those who disagree with me to express their thoughts just as soon as i will fight for my own right to express mine. in the good old times, our fathers had an idea that they could make people believe to suit them. our ancestors in the ages that are gone really believed that by force you could convince a man. you cannot change the conclusion of the brain by force, but i will tell you what you can do by force, and what you have done by force. you can make hypocrites by the million. you can make a man say that he has changed his mind, but he remains of the same opinion still. put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; lash him to the stock; burn him if you please, but his ashes are of the same opinion still. i say our fathers, in the good old times--and the best thing i can say about them is, they are dead--they had an idea they could force men to think their way, and do you know that idea is still prevalent even in this country? do you know they think they can make a man think their way if they say, "we will not trade with that man; we won't vote for that man; we won't hire him, if he is a lawyer; we will die before we take his medicine, if he is a doctor, we won't invite him; we will socially ostracize him; he must come to our church; he must think our way or he is not a gentleman." there is much of that even in this blessed country--not excepting the city of albany itself. now in the old times of which i have spoken, they said, "we can make all men think alike." all the mechanical ingenuity of this earth cannot make two clocks run alike, and how are you going to make millions of people of different quantities and qualities and amount of brain, clad in this living robe of passionate flesh--how are you going to make millions of them think alike? if the infinite god, if there is one, who made us, wished us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one man, and a bushel to another? why is it that we have all degrees of humanity, from the idiot to the genius, if it was intended that all should think alike? i say our fathers concluded they would do this by force, and i used to read in books how they persecuted mankind, and do you know i never appreciated it; i did not. i read it, but it did not burn itself, as it were, into my very soul what infamies had been committed in the name of religion, and i never fully appreciated it until a little while ago i saw the iron arguments our fathers used to use. i tell you the reason we are through that, is because we have better brains than our fathers had. since that day we have become intellectually developed, and there is more real brain and real good sense in the world today than in any other period of its history, and that is the reason we have more liberty, that is the reason we have more kindness. but i say i saw these iron arguments our fathers used to use. i saw here the thumb-screw--two little innocent looking pieces of iron, armed on the inner surface with protuberances to prevent their slipping--and when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or maybe said, "i do not believe that the whale ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put these pieces of iron upon his thumb, and there was a screw at each end, and then, in the name of love and forgiveness, they began screwing these pieces of iron together. a great many men, when they commenced, would say, "i recant." i expect i would have been one of them. i would have said, "now you just stop that; i will admit anything on earth that you want. i will admit there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves, but stop that." but i want to say, the thumbscrew having got out of the way, i am going to have my say. there was now and then some man who wouldn't turn judas iscariot to his own soul; there was now and then a man willing to die for his conviction, and if it were not for such men we would be savages tonight. had it not been for a few brave and heroic souls in every age, we would have been naked savages this moment, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our naked breasts, dancing around a dried snake fetish; and i tonight thank every good and noble man who stood up in the face of opposition, and hatred, and death for what he believed to be right. and then they screwed this thumbscrew down as far as they could and threw him into some dungeon, where, in throbbing misery and the darkness of night, he dreams of the damned; but that was done in the name of universal love. i saw there at the same time what they called the "collar of torture." imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside of that more than a hundred points as sharp as needles. this being fastened upon the throat, the sufferer could not sit down, he could not walk, he could not stir without being punctured by those needles, and in a little while the throat would begin to swell, and finally suffocation would end the agonies of that man, when may be the only crime he had committed was to say, with tears upon his sublime cheeks, "i do not believe that god, the father of us all, will damn to eternal punishment any of the children of men." think of it! and i saw there at the same time another instrument, called "the scavenger's daughter," which resembles a pair of shears, with handles where handles ought to be, but at the points as well. and just above the pivot that fastens the blades, a circle of iron through which the hands would be placed, into the lower circles the feet, and into the center circle the head would be pushed, and in that position he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and kept there until the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity and death would end his pain. and that was done in the name of "whosoever smiteth thee upon one cheek, turn him the other also." think of it! and i saw also the rack, with the windlass and chains, upon which the sufferer was laid. about his ankles were fastened chains, and about his wrists also, and then priests began turning this windlass, and they kept turning until the ankles, the shoulders and the wrists were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. and they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. what for? to save his life? yes. what for? in mercy? no. simply that they might preserve his life, that they might rack him once again. and this was done--recollect it--it was done in the name of civilization, it was done in the name of law and order, it was done in the name of morality, it was done in the name of religion, it was done in the name of god. sometimes when i get to reading about it, and when i get to thinking about it, it seems to me that i have suffered all these horrors myself, as though i had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with a tear-filled eye toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into my throat the sharp needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though i had been chained in the cells of the inquisition, and had watched and waited in the interminable darkness to hear the words of release; as though i had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, and taken to the public square, chained, and fagots had been piled around me; as though the flames had played around my limbs, and scorched the sight from my eyes; as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds by the hands of hatred; as though i had stood upon the scaffold and felt the glittering ax fall upon me. and while i feel and see all this, i swear that while i live i will do what little i can to augment the liberty of man, woman and child. my friends, it is all a question of sense; it is all a question of honesty. if there is a man in this house who is not willing to give to everybody else what he claims for himself he is just so much nearer to the barbarian than i am. it is a simple question of honesty; and the man who is not willing to give to every other human being the same intellectual rights he claims himself is a rascal, and you know it. it is a simple question, i say, of intellectual development and of honesty. and i want to say it now, so you will see it. you show me the narrow, contracted man; you show me the man who claims everything for himself and leaves nothing for others, and that man has got a distorted and deformed brain. that is the matter with him. he has no sense; not a bit. let me show you. a little while ago i saw models of everything man has made for his use and for his convenience. i saw all the models of all the watercraft, from the dug-out, in which floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth two inches long, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his head; i saw the watercraft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york through , miles of billows, with a compass like a conscience, that does not miss throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to the other. i saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a rude club, such as was grasped by that savage when he crawled from his den, from his hole in the ground, and hunted a snake for his dinner--from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to the cannon cast by krupp, capable of hurling a ball of , pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. i saw, too, the armor from the turtle-shell that our ancestor lashed upon his skin when he went out to fight for his country, to the skin of the porcupine, with the quills all bristling, which he pulled over his orthodox head to defend himself from his enemies--i mean, of course, the orthodox head of that day--up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, capable of resisting the edge of the sword and the point of the spear; up to the iron-clad, to the monitor completely clad in steel, capable only a few years ago of defying the navies of the globe. i saw at the same time the musical instruments, from the tomtom, which is a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from that tomtom up to the instruments we have today, which make the common air blossom with melody. i saw, too, the paintings, from the daub of yellow mud up to the pieces which adorn the galleries of the world. and the sculpture, from the rude gods, with six legs and a half dozen arms, and the rows of ears, up to the sculpture of now, wherein the marble is clad with such loveliness that it seems almost a sacrilege to touch it; and in addition i saw there ideas of books--books written upon skins of wild beasts, books written upon shoulder-blades of sheep; books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that adorn the libraries of our time. when i think of libraries, i think of the remark of plato, "the house that has a library in it has a soul." i saw there all these things, and also the implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick up to the plow which makes it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. i saw at the same time a row of skulls, from the lowest skull that has ever been found; skulls from the central portion of africa, skulls from the bushmen of australia, up to the best skulls of the last generation. and i notice that there was the same difference between those skulls that there is between the products of those skulls. and i said to myself: "it is all a question of intellectual development. it is a question of brain and sinew." i noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between that dug-out, and that man-of-war and that steamship. that skull was low. it had not a forehead a quarter of an inch high. but shortly after, the skulls became doming and crowning, and getting higher and grander. that skull was a den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and this skull was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty and love. so said i: "this is all a question of brain, and anything that tends to develop, intellectually, mankind, is the gospel we want." now i want to be honest with you. honor bright! nothing like it in the world! no matter what i believe. now, let us be honest. suppose a king, if there was a king at the time this gentleman floated in the dugout and charmed his ears with the music of the tomtom; suppose the king at that time, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one, had said: "that dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built. the pattern of that came from on high, and any man who says he can improve it, by putting a log or a stick in the bottom of it, with a rag on the end, is an infidel." honor bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? that is the question. suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and i presume there was, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose they had said: "that tomtom is the most miraculous instrument of music that any man can conceive of; that is the kind of music they have in heaven. an angel, sitting upon the golden edge of a fleecy cloud, playing upon that tomtom became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that she dropped it, and that is how we got it--and any man that says that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings and a bridge on it, and getting some horsehair and resin, is no better than one of the weak and unregenerate." i ask you what effect would that have had upon music? i ask you, honor bright, if that course had been pursued, would the human ears ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of beethoven? that is the question. and suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest had said: "that crooked stick is the best plow we can ever have invented. the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things; and any man who says he can make an improvement, we will twist him." honor bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the agricultural world? now, you see, the people said, "we want better weapons with which to kill our enemies;" so the people said, "we want better plows;" the people said, "we want better music;" the people said, "we want better paintings;" and they said, "whoever will give us better plows, and better arms, and better paintings, and better music, we will give him honor; we will crown him with glory; we will robe him in the garments of wealth;" and every incentive has been held out to every human being to improve something in every direction. and that is the reason the club is a cannon; that the reason the dugout is a steamship; that the reason the daub is a painting, and that is the reason that that piece of stone has finally become a glorified statue. now, then, this fellow in the dug-out had a religion. that fellow was orthodox. he had no doubt; he was settled in his mind. he did not wish to be insulted. he wanted the bark of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy, and rot in the sun. he wanted to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the mast of old creeds. he wanted to see the joints in the sides open and gape, as though thirsty for water, and he said: "now don't disturb my opinions; you'll get my mind unsettled; i have got it all made up, and i don't want to hear any infidelity, either." as far as i am concerned, i want to be out on the high sea; i want to take my chance with wind and wave and star; and i had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot at any orthodox wharf. of course i mean by orthodoxy all that don't agree with my doxy. do you understand? now this man had a religion. that fellow believed in hell. yes, sir; and he thought he would be happier in heaven if he could just lean over and see certain people that he disliked, broiled. that fellow has had a great many intellectual descendents. it is an unhappy fact in nature that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. this fellow believed in the devil, and his devil had a cloven hoof. (many people think i have the same kind of footing.) he had a long tail, armed with a fiery dart, and he breathed brimstone. and do you know there has not been a patentable improvement made on that devil for , years? that fellow believed that god was a tyrant. that fellow believed that the earth was flat. that fellow believed, as i told you, in a literal burning, seething lake of fire and brimstone. that is what he believed in. that fellow, too, had his idea of politics, and his idea was, "might makes right." and it will take thousands of years before the world will believingly say, "right makes might." now all i ask is the same privilege of improving on that gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon his politics as upon his dug-out. that is all. i ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. and that is all. that is the only crime that i have committed. that is all. i say, let us have a chance. let us think, and let each one express his thoughts. let us become investigators, not followers; not cringers and crawlers. if there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites. honest unbelief will be a perfume in heaven when hypocrisy, no matter however religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench. that is my doctrine. that is all there is to it; give every other human being all the chance you claim for yourself. to keep your mind open to the voices of nature, to new ideas, to new thoughts, and to improve upon your doctrine whenever you can; that is my doctrine. do you know we are improving all the time? do you know that the most orthodox people in this town today, three hundred years ago would have been burned for heresy? do you know some ministers who denounce me would have been in the inquisition themselves two hundred years ago? do you know where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, the altars of the church glow today? do you know that the church today occupies about the same ground that unbelievers did one hundred years ago? do you know that while they have followed this army of progress, protesting and denouncing, they have had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance, but they have followed it? they have been the men, let me say, in the valley; the men in swamps, shouting to and cursing the pioneers on the hills; the men upon whose forehead was the light of the coming dawn, the coming day--but they have advanced. in spite of themselves, they have advanced! if they had not, i would not speak here to night. if they had not, not a solitary one of you could have expressed your real and honest thought. but we are advancing, and we are beginning to hold all kinds of slavery in utter contempt; do you know that? and we are beginning to question wealth and power; we are questioning all creeds and all dogmas; and we are not bowing down, as we used to, to a man simply because he is in the robe of a clergyman, and we are not bowing down to a man now simply because he is a king. no! we are not bowing down simply because he is rich. we used to worship the golden calves, but we do not now. the worst you can say of an american, is, he worships the gold of the calf, not the calf; and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction. it no longer fills the ambition of a man to be emperor or king. the last napoleon was not satisfied with being emperor of the french; he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head; he wanted some evidence that he had something within his head, so he wrote the life of julius caesar, that he might become a member of the french academy. compare, for instance, in the german empire, king william and bismarck. king william is the one anointed of the most high, as they claim--the one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. compare him with bismarck, who towers, an intellectual colossus, above this man. go into england and compare george eliot with queen victoria--queen victoria, clothed in the garments given to her by blind fortune and by chance. george elliot, robed in garments of glory, woven in the loom of her own genius. which does the world pay respect to? i tell you we are advancing! the pulpit does not do all the thinking; the pews do it; nearly all of it. the world is advancing, and we question the authority of those men who simply say "it is so." down upon your knees and admit it! when i think of how much this world has suffered, i am amazed. when i think of how long our fathers were slaves, i am amazed. why, just think of it! this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty years. no, it has not. it was not until the year that great britain abolished the slave trade. up to that time her judge, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice; her priests, occupying the pulpit in the name of universal love, owned stock in slave ships and luxuriated in the profits of piracy and murder. it was not until the year that the united states abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but preserved it as between the states. it was not until the th day of august, , that great britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the st day of january, , that abraham lincoln wiped from our flag the stigma of disgrace. abraham lincoln--in my judgment, the grandest man ever president of the united states, and upon whose monument these words could truthfully be written: "here lies the only man in the history of the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it except on the side of mercy." think, i say, how long we clung to the institution of human slavery; how long lashes upon the naked back were the legal tender for labor performed! think of it! when the pulpit of this country deliberately and willfully changed the cross of christ into the whipping-post. think of it! and tell me then if i am right when i say this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty years. i hate with every drop of my blood every form of tyranny. i hate every form of slavery. i hate dictation--i want something like liberty; and what do i mean by that? the right to do anything that does not interfere with the happiness of another, physically. liberty of thought includes the right to think right and the right to think wrong. why? because that is the means by which we arrive at truth; for if we knew the truth before, we needn't think. those men who mistake their ignorance for facts, never do think. you may say to me, "how far is it across this room?" i say feet. suppose it is ; have i committed any crime? i made the best guess i could. you ask me about any thing; i examine it honestly, and when i get through, what should i tell you--what i think or what you think? what should i do? there is a book put in my hands. they say "that is the koran; that was written by inspiration; read it." i read it. chapter vii, entitled "the cow," chapter ix, entitled "the bee," and so on. i read it. when i get through with it, suppose i think in my heart and in my brain, "i don't believe a word of it;" and you ask me, "what do you think of it?" now, admitting that i live in turkey, and have a chance to get an office, what should i say? now, honor bright, should i just make a clean breast of it and say "upon my honor, i don't believe it?" then is it right for you to say "that fellow will steal--that fellow is a dangerous man--he is a robber?" now, suppose i read the book called the bible (and i read it, honor bright), and when i get through with it i make up my mind that book was written by men; and along comes the preacher of my church, and he says "did you read that book?" "i did." "do you think it is divinely inspired?" i say to myself, "now if i say it is not, they will never send me to congress from this district on earth." now, honor bright, what ought i to do? ought i to say, "i have read it. i have been honest about it; don't believe it?" now, ought i to say that, if that is a real transcript of my mind, or ought i to commence hemming and hawing and pretend that i do believe it, and go away with the respect of that man, hating myself for a cringing coward? now which? for my part i would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks, and he will preserve his manhood. i had rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. i think i will stand higher at the judgment day, if there is one, and stand with as good a chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man who sneaks through life pretending he believes what he does not. i tell you one thing; there is going to be one free fellow in this world. i am going to say my say, i tell you. i am going to do it kindly, i am going to do it distinctly, but i am going to do it. now, if men have been slaves, what about women? women have been the slaves of slaves; and that's a pretty hard position to occupy for life. they have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for women to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. let me say right here, tonight, i regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation, there is no life worth living. every good government is made up of good families. the unit of government is family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. i believe in marriage, and i hold in utter contempt the opinions of long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage. let me say right here--and i have thought a good deal about it--let me say right here, the grandest ambition that any man can possibly have is to so live and so improve himself in heart and brain as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. that is my idea, and there is no success in life without it. if you are the grand emperor of the world, you had better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the grand empress of yours. the man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, i do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success. i say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. ladies, the ornaments you bear upon your person tonight are but the souvenirs of your mothers' bondage. the chains around your necks and the bracelets clasped upon your wrists by the thrilling hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. but nearly every religion has accounted for the devilment in this world by the crime of woman. what a gallant thing that is! and if it is true, i had rather live with the woman i love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men. i say that nearly every religion has accounted for all the trouble in this world by the crime of woman. i read in a book--and i will say now that i cannot give the exact language; my memory does not retain the words--but i can give the substance. i read in a book that the supreme being concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden: but he noticed that he got lonesome; he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train; there was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. well, he would wander about this garden in this condition until finally the supreme being made up his mind to make him a companion; and having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with, and so he caused a deep sleep to fall upon this man--now, understand me. i didn't say this story is true. after the sleep fell upon this man, he took a rib, or, as the french would call it, a cutlet out of this man, and from that he made a woman; and considering the raw material, i look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. he liked her, and they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do, and one thing they could not do--and of course they did it. i would have done it in fifteen minutes, and i know it. there wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs could have been full of clubs. and then they were turned out of the park, and an extra force was put on to keep them from getting back. then devilment commenced. the mumps, and the measles, and the whooping cough and the scarlet fever started in their race for man, and they began to have the toothache, the roses began to have thorns, and snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics; and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this. now, nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that. i read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. it was written about , years before the other; but all commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last; but i would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. in this other story the supreme brahma made up his mind to make the world and man and woman; and he made the world, and he made the man and he made the woman, and he put them on the island of ceylon; and according to the account, it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. such birds, such songs, such flowers and such verdure! and the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand aeolian harps. the supreme brahma when he put them there said, "let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." when i read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that i said to myself, "if either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, i hope it will be this one." then they had their courtship, with the nightingales singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. imagine the courtship! no prospective fathers or mothers in law; no prying and gossiping neighbors, nobody to say, "young man, how do you expect to support her?" nothing of that kind. they were married by the supreme brahma, and he said to them: "remain here; you must never leave this island." well, after a little while the man--and his name was amend, and the woman's name was heva--and the man said to heva: "i believe i'll look about a little;" and he went to the northern extremity of the island, where there was a little, narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland; and the devil, who is always playing pranks with us, got up a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and dells, vales and dales; such mountains, crowned with silver; such cataracts, clad in robes of beauty, did he see there, that he went back and told heva: "the country over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." she, like every other woman that ever lived, said: "let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." but he said, "no, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land he took her on his back like a gentleman and carried her over. but the moment they got over they heard a crash, and, looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea, with the exception of now and then a rock, and the mirage had disappeared and there was naught but rocks and sand; and then a voice called out, cursing them. then it was that the man spoke up--and i have liked him ever since for it--"curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine." that's the kind of man to start a world with. the supreme brahma said, "i will save her but not thee." she spoke up out of her feelings of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all of her daughters rich in holy affection, and said, "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; i do not wish to live without him; i love him." then the supreme brahma said--and i have liked him first-rate ever since i read it--"i will spare you both and watch over you." honor bright, isn't that the better story? and from that same book i want to show you what ideas some of these miserable heathen had--the heathen we are trying to convert. we send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen there. if we can convert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home? why not convert those we can get at? why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer? but to show you the men we are trying to convert--in this book it says: "man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love. when the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." they are the men we are converting. think of it! i tell you when i read these things i begin to say, "love is not of any country; nobility does not belong exclusively here;" and through all the ages there have been a few great and tender souls lifted far above their fellows. now, my friends, it seems to me that the woman is the equal of the man. she has all the rights i have, and one more, and that is the right to be protected. that's my doctrine. you are married; try and make the woman you love happy; try and make the man you love happy. whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says "i will make her happy," makes no mistake; and so with the woman who says "i will make him happy." there is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you can't be happy cross-lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road. if there is any man i detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of the family--the man who thinks he is "boss". that fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions--that he was "boss". imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart--imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying "now here, let's settle who's boss!" i tell you it is an infamous word, and an infamous feeling--a man who is "boss," who is going to govern his family, and when he speaks let all the rest of them be still--some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. do you know i dislike this man unspeakably; and a cross man i hate above all things. what right has he to murder the sunshine of the day? what right has he to assassinate the joy of life? where you go home you ought to feel the light there is in the house; if it is in the night it will burst out of doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. it is just as well to go home a ray of sunshine as an old sour, cross curmudgeon, who thinks he is the head of the family. wise men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at cents, or , and want to sell it for . think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon a man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. a woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them may be sick; has been nursing them and singing to them, and taking care of them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two--she, of course, is fresh and fine, and ready to wait upon this great gentleman--the head of the family i don't like him a bit! do you know another thing? i despise a stingy man. i don't see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty millions of dollars, or ten millions of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. how a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty millions of dollars, is past my comprehension. i do not see how he can do it. i should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. i should not think he could do it. do you know i have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor, but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. when i see a man of that kind i always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable. think of making your wife a beggar! think of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars, or for fifty cents! "what did you do with that dollar i gave you last week?" think of having a wife that was afraid of you! what kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? oh, i tell you, if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests! that's the way to spend it! i had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. if it's got to go, let it go. get the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can yourself. when you used to go courting, how nice you looked! ah, your eye was bright, your step was light, and you just put on the very best look you could. do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose that a woman is going to love you always looking as bad as you can? think of it! any woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best. some people tell me, "your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." i tell you tonight there is on the average more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich; and the meanest but with love in it is fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. that's my doctrine! you can't be so poor but that you can help somebody. good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay percent to borrower and lender both. don't tell me that you have got to be rich! we have all a false standard of greatness in the united states. we think here that a man to be great, must be notorious; must be extremely wealthy, or his name must be between the lips of rumor. it is all nonsense! it is not necessary to be rich to be great, or to be powerful to be happy; and the happy man is the successful man. happiness is the legal tender of the soul. joy is wealth. a little while ago i stood by the grave of the old napoleon, a magnificent tomb, fit for a dead deity almost, and gazed into the great circle at the bottom of it. in the sarcophagus, of black egyptian marble, at last rest the ashes of that restless man. i looked over the balustrade, and i thought about the career of napoleon. i could see him walking upon the banks of the seine contemplating suicide. i saw him at toulon. i saw him putting down the mob in the streets of paris. i saw him at the head of the army of italy. i saw him crossing the bridge at lodi. i saw him in egypt, fighting the battle of the pyramids. i saw him cross the alps, and mingle the eagles of france with the eagles of the crags. i saw him at austerlitz. i saw him with his army scattered and dispersed before the blast. i saw him at leipsic when his army was defeated and he was taken captive. i saw him escape. i saw him land again upon french soil, and retake an empire by the force of his own genius. i saw him captured once more, and again at st. helena, with his arms behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea; and i thought of the orphans and widows he had made. i thought of the tears that had been shed for his glory. i thought of the only woman who ever loved him, who had been pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition; and as i looked at the sarcophagus, i said, "i would rather have been a french peasant and worn wooden shoes; i would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; i would rather have been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my children upon my knees, twining their arms of affection about me; i would rather have been that poor french peasant, and gone down at last to the eternal promiscuity of the dust, followed by those who loved me; i would a thousand times rather have been that french peasant than that imperial personative of force and murder." and so i would, ten thousand times. it is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous, and to have a heart filled with divine affection. no matter whether you are rich or poor, use your wife as though she were a splendid creation, and she will fill your life with perfume and joy. and do you know, it is a splendid thing for me to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you? through the wrinkles of time, through the music of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. and a woman who really loves a man, does not see that he grows older; he is not decrepit; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. i like to think of it in that way. i like to think of all passions; love is eternal, and, as shakespeare says, "although time, with his sickle, can rob ruby lips and sparkling eyes, let him reach as far as he can, he cannot quite touch love; that reaches even to the end of the tomb." and to love in that way, and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren--the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of age. i believe in the fireside. i believe in the democracy of home. i believe in the republicanism of the family. i believe in liberty and equality with those we love. if women have been slaves, what shall i say of children; of the little children in the alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale when they hear their father's footsteps; little children who run away when they only hear their names called by the lips of another; little children--the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children of brutality wherever you are--flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life, my heart goes out to you, one and all. i tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to treat them as though they were human beings; and they should be reared by love, by kindness, by tenderness, and not by brutality. that is my idea of children. when your little child tells a lie, don't rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. be honest with him. a tyrant father will have liars for children; do you know that? a lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. i thank mother nature that she has put ingenuity enough in the breast of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. when one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him you have told hundreds of them yourself. tell him it is not the best way; you have tried it. tell him, as the man did in maine when his boy left home: "john, honesty is the best policy; i have tried both." just be honest with him. imagine now; you are about to whip a child five years of age. what is the child to do? suppose a man, as much larger than you are larger than a child five years old, should come at you with liberty-pole in hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "who broke the plate?" there is not a solitary one of you who wouldn't swear you never saw it, or that it was cracked when you found it. why not be honest with these children? just imagine a man who deals in stocks putting false rumors afloat! think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the truth, when he makes half of his own living that way! think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! just think of it! when your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely love it. yet some christians, good christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door, and say, "never do you darken this house again." think of that! and then these same people will get down on their knees and ask god to take care of the child they have driven from home. i will never ask god to take care of my children unless i am doing my level best in that same direction. but i will tell you what i say to my children: "go where you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, my heart to you; as long as i live you shall have no more sincere friend." do you know, i have seen some people who acted as though they thought when the savior said, "suffer little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven," that he had a rawhide under his mantle and made that remark to get the children within striking distance. i don't believe in the government of the lash. if any one of you ever expect to whip your children again after you hear me, i want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger; and then the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden, cold wind. have the picture taken. if that little child should die, i cannot find a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in bright colors, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth--than to go out to the cemetery and sit down upon the grave and look at this photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. i tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! make your home happy. be honest with them, divide fairly with them in everything. give them a little liberty, and you cannot drive them out of the house. they will want to stay there. make home pleasant. let them play any game they want to. don't be so foolish as to say: "you may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on green cloth. you may knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. you may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written on them, but you must not have 'keerds.'" think of it! "you may go to a minstrel show, where people blacken themselves up and degrade themselves, and imitate humanity below themselves, but you must not go to the theater and see the characters of immortal genius put upon the stage." why? well, i can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables and theater has three. let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there, and don't commence at the cradle and yell, "don't!" "don't!" "stop!" that is nearly all that is said to a young one from the cradle until he is twenty one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "don't!" and the church says "don't!" and the party that he belongs to says "don't!" i despise that way of going through this world. let us have a little liberty--just a little bit. there is another thing. in old times, you know, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself in. when i was a boy sunday was considered altogether too good to be happy in; and sunday used to commence then when the sun went down saturday night. that was to get good ready--a kind of running jump; and when the sun went down, a darkness ten thousand times deeper than that of night fell on that house. nobody said a word then; nobody laughed; and the child that looked the sickest was regarded the most pious. you couldn't crack hickory nuts; you couldn't chew gum; and if you laughed, it was only another evidence of the total depravity of man. that was a solemn night; and the next morning everybody looked sad, mournful, dyspeptic--and thousands of people think they have religion when they have only got dyspepsia--thousands! but there is nothing in this world that would break up the old orthodox churches as quick as some specific for dyspepsia--some sure cure. then we went to church, and the minister was up in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board over him, and he commenced with firstly and went on to about twenty-thirdly, and then around by way of application, and then divided it off again once or twice, and after having put in about two hours, he got to revelations. we were not allowed to have any fire, even if it was in the winter. it was thought to be outrageous to be comfortable while you are thanking the lord, and the first church that ever had a stove put in it in new england was broken up on that account. then we went a-nooning, and then came the catechism, the chief end of man. we went through that; and then this same sermon was preached, commencing at the other end, and going back. after that was over we started for home, solemn and sad--"not a soldier discharged his farewell shot;" not a word was said--and when we got home, if we had been good boys, they would take us up to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. it did cheer me! when i looked at those tombs the comforting reflection came to my mind that this kind of thing couldn't last always. then we had some certain books that we read just by way of cheerfulness. there was milner's "history of the wilderness," baxter's "call to the unconverted," and jenkins' "on the atonement." i used to read jenkins' "on the atonement;" and i have often thought the atonement would have to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy to read. well, you know, the sunday had to go at last; and the moment the sun went down sunday night we were free. about or o'clock we would go to see how the sun was coming out. sometimes it seemed to me that it was just stopping from pure cussedness; but finally it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, out would come our traps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once more. in those times it was thought wrong for a child to laugh on sunday. think of that! a little child--a little boy--could go out in the garden, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms, and this little fellow would lean up against the tree, and there would be a bird singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate--singing and swinging, and the music coming rippling out of its throat, and the flowers blossoming and the air full of perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky; and that little boy would lean up against that trunk, and think of hell. that's true! i have heard them preach when i sat in the pew, and my feet didn't come within eighteen inches of the floor, about that hell. and they said, "suppose that once in a million years a bird would come from some far distant planet, and carry in its bill a grain of sand, the time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away;" and the old preacher said, in order to impress upon the boys the length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't be sun-up in hell yet." think of that to preach to children! i tell you, my friends, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still--no day! and yet, at that time, the minds of children were polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment; and i denounce it today as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of language to express. where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for the children of men come from? it came from that wretch in the dug-out. where did he get it? it was a souvenir from the animals, and the doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when they hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. it was a doctrine born of the howling and barking and growling of wild beasts; it was born in the grin of the hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and i despise it with every drop of my blood. tell me there is a god in the serene heaven that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! there have been more men who died in their sins, according to your orthodox religion, than there are leaves on all the forests of this world ten thousand times over. tell me they are in hell! tell me they are to be punished for ever and ever! i denounce it as an infamous lie! and when the great ship containing the hope and aspiration of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death and disaster, i will go down with the ship. i don't want to paddle off in any orthodox canoe. i will go down with the ship; and if there is a god who will damn his children forever i had rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous deity. i make my choice now. i despise that doctrine, and i'll tell you why. it has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. it has polluted the heart of children. it has been a pain and terror to every man that ever believed it. it has filled the good with horror and fear, but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. i tell you it is a bad doctrine. i read in the papers today what henry ward beecher, whom i regard as the most intellectual preacher in the pulpit of the united states--i will read from the paper what he said yesterday, and you will see an abstract of it in the new york times of today. he has had the courage, and he has had the magnificent manhood, to say: "i say to you, and i swear to you, by the wounds in the hands of christ--i swear to you by the wounds in the body and feet of christ, that this doctrine of eternal hell is a most infamous nightmare of theology! it never should be preached again." what right have you, sir; you, minister, as you are, to stand at the portal of eternity, or the portal of the tomb, and fill the future with horror and with fear? you have no right to do it. i don't believe it, and neither do you. you would not sleep one night. any man who believes it, who has got a decent heart in his bosom, will go insane. yes, sir, a man that really believes that doctrine and does not go insane, has got the conscience of a snake and the intellect of a hyena. o! i thank my stars that you do not believe it. you cannot believe it, and you never will believe it. old jonathan edwards, the dear old soul, he is in heaven i suppose, said: "can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? can the believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell? i tell you yea. such will be their sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish their happiness." think of these infamous doctrines that have been taught in the name of religion! do not stuff these things into the minds of your children. give them a chance. let them read. let them think. do not treat your children like posts, to be set in the orthodox road, but like trees, that need light and sun and air. be honest with them. be fair with them. in old times they used to make all children go to bed when they were not sleepy, and all of them got up when they were sleepy. i say let them go to bed--when they are sleepy and get up when they are not. but they say that will do for the rich, but not for the poor. well, if the poor have to wake their children early in the morning, it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a club. i believe in letting children commence at which end of the dinner they want to. let them eat what they want. it is their business. they know what they want to eat. and if they have had their liberty from the first, they can beat any doctor in the world. all the improvement that has ever been made in medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients. yes, sir. thousands and thousands of years the doctors wouldn't let a man have water in fever. every now and then some fellow got reckless and said: "i will die, i am so thirsty," and drank two or three quarts of water and got well. and they kept that up until finally the doctors said, "that is the best thing for a fever you can do." i have more confidence to agree with nature about these things than any of the conclusions of the schools. just let your children have freedom, and they will fall right into your ways and do just as you do. but you try to make them, and there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that will not be driven. and do you know it is the luckiest thing for this world that ever happened that people are so. what would we have been if the people in any age of the world had done just as the doctors told them? they would have been all dead. what would we have done if, at any age of the world, we had followed implicitly the direction of the church? we would have been all idiots, every one. it is a splendid thing that there is always some fellow who won't mind, and will think for himself. and i believe in letting children think for themselves. i believe in having a family like a democracy. if there is anything splendid in this world it is a home of that kind. they used to tell us, "let your victuals close your mouth." we used to eat as though it was a religious performance. i like to see the children about, and every one telling what he has seen and heard. i like to hear the clatter of the knives and spoons mingling with the laughter of their voices. i had rather hear it than any opera that has ever been put upon the boards. let them have liberty; let them have freedom, and i tell you your children will love you to death. now, i have some excuses to offer for the race to which i belong. i have two. my first excuse is that this is not a very good world to raise folks in anyway. it is not very well adapted to raising magnificent people. there's only a quarter of it land to start with. it is three times better fitted for raising fish than folks, and in that one quarter of land there is not a tenth part fit to raise people on. you can't raise people without a good climate. you have got to have the right kind of climate, and you have got to have certain elements in the soil, or you can't raise good people. do you know that there is only a little zig-zag strip around the world within which have been produced all men of genius? the southern hemisphere has never produced a man of genius, never; and never will until civilization, fighting the heat that way and the cold this, widens this portion of the earth until it is capable of producing great men and great women. it is the same with men that it is with vegetation; you go into a garden, and find there flowers growing. and as you go up the mountain, the birch and the hemlock and the spruce are to be found. and as you go toward the top, you find little, stunted trees getting a miserable subsistence out of the crevices of the rocks, and you go on up and up and up, until finally you find at the top little moss-like freckles. you might as well try to raise flowers where those freckles grow as to raise great men and women where you haven't got the soil. i don't believe man ever came to any high station without woman. there has got to be some restraint, something to make you prudent, something to make you industrious. and in a country where you don't need any bed quilt but a cloud, revolution is the normal condition of the people. you have got to have the fireside; you have got to have the home, and there by the fireside will grow and bloom the fruits of the human race. i recollect a while ago i was in washington when they were trying to annex santo domingo. they said: "we want to take in santo domingo." said i: "we don't want it." "why," said they, "it is the best climate the earth can produce. there is everything you want." "yes," said i, "but it won't produce men. we don't want it. we have got soil enough now. take , ministers from new england, , presidents of colleges, and , solid business men, and their families, and take them to santo domingo; and then you will see the effect of climate. the second generation, you will see barefooted boys riding bareback on a mule, with their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock-fight on sunday." you have got to have the soil; you have got to have the climate, and you have got to have another thing--you have got to have the fireside. that is one excuse i have for us. the next excuse is that i think we came up from the lower animals. else how can you account for all this snake and hyena and jackal in man? now, when i first heard that doctrine, i didn't like it. i felt sorry for people who had nothing but ancestors to be proud of. it touched my heart to think that they would have to go back to the duke orangutan or the duchess chimpanzee. i was sorry, and i hated to believe it. i don't know that it is the truth now. i am not satisfied upon that question; i stand about eight to seven. i thought it over. i read about it. i read about these rudimentary bones and muscles. i didn't like that. i read that everybody had rudimentary muscles coming from the ear right down here (indicating); that the most intellectual people in the world have got them. i say, "what are they?" "rudimentary muscles." "what kind of muscles?" "muscles that your ancestors used to have fully developed." "what for?" "to flap their ears with." well, whether we ever had them or not, i know of lots of men who ought to have them yet. and finally i said, "well, i guess we came up from the lower animals." i thought it all over; the best i could, and i said, "i guess we did." and after a while i began to like it, and i like it better now than i did before. do you know that i would rather belong to a race that started with skull-less vertebrae in the dim laurentian seas, wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going; but kept developing and getting a little further up and a little further up, all through the animal world, and finally striking this chap in the dug-out. a getting a little bigger, and this fellow calling that fellow a heretic, and that fellow calling the other an infidel, and so on. for in the history of the world, the man who has been ahead has always been called a heretic. recollect this! i would rather come from a race that started from that skull-less vertebrae, and came up and up and up, and finally produced shakespeare, who found the human intellect wallowing in a hut, and touched it with a wand of his genius, and it became a palace--dome and pinnacle. i would rather belong to a race that commenced then, and produced shakespeare, with the eternal hope of an infinite future for the children of progress leading from the far horizon, beckoning men forward--forward and onward forever. i had rather belong to this race, and commence there, with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair on which the lord has lost money every day since. these are the excuses i have for my race. now, my friends, let me say another thing. i do not pretend to have floated even with the heights of thought; i do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss. all i pretend is to give simply my honest thought. every creed that we have today has upon it the mark of whip and chain and fagot. i do not want it. free labor will give us wealth, and has given us wealth, and why? because a free brain goes into partnership with a free hand. that is why. and when a man works for his wife and children, the problem of liberty is, how to do the most work in the shortest space of time; but the problem of slavery is, how to do the least work in the longest space of time. slavery is poverty; liberty is wealth. it is the same in thought. free thought will give us truth; and the man who is not in favor of free thought occupies the same relation to those he can govern that the slaveholder occupied to his slaves, exactly. free thought will give us wealth. there has not been a generation of free thought yet. it will be time to write a creed when there have been a few generations of free-brained men and splendid women in this world. i don't know what the future may bring forth; i don't know what inventions are in the brain of the future; i don't know what garments may be woven, with the years to come; but i do know, coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a greater blessing, a grander glory, than liberty for man, woman and child. oh, liberty! float not forever in the far horizon! remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast and the poet and the philanthropist! but come and take up thine abode with the children of men forever! ingersoll's lecture on "orthodoxy" ladies and gentlemen: it is utterly inconceivable that any man believing in the truth of the christian religion could publicly deny it, because he who believes in that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he would peril the eternal salvation of his soul. it is conceivable, and without any great effort of the mind, that millions who don't believe in the christian religion should openly say that they did. in a country where religion is supposed to be in power--where it has rewards for pretense, where it pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it at least is willing to purchase silence--it is easily conceivable that millions pretend to believe what they do not. and yet i believe it has been charged against myself, not only that i was insincere, but that i took the side i am on for the sake of popularity; and the audience tonight goes far toward justifying the accusation. it gives me immense pleasure to say to this immense audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civilized world. it is a sick man. it has been attacked with two diseases--softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. it is a religion that no longer satisfies the intelligence of this county; a religion that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. it is a religion that gives hope only to a few; a religion that puts a shadow upon the cradle; a religion that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. it is a religion that i am going to do what little i can while i live to destroy; and in its place i want humanity, i want good-fellowship, i want a brain without a chain, i want a religion that every good heart will cheerfully applaud. we must remember that this is a world of progress, a world of change. there is perpetual death and there is perpetual birth. by the grave of the old forever stands youth and joy; and, when an old religion dies, a better one is born. when we find out that an assertion is a falsehood, a shining truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. the more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true. there was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the stars the fate of men and nations. the astrologer has faded from the world, but the astronomer has taken his place. there was a time when the poor alchemist, bent and wrinkled and old, over his crucible, endeavored to find some secret by which he could change the baser metals into purest gold. the alchemist is gone; the chemist took his place; and, although he finds nothing to change metals into gold, he finds something that covers the earth with wealth. there was a time when the soothsayer and auger flourished, and after them came the parson and the priest; and the parson and priest must go. the preacher must go, and in his place must come the teacher--that real interpreter of nature. we are done with the supernatural. we are through with the miraculous and the wonderful. there was once a prophet who pretended to read in the book of the future. his place was taken by the philosopher, who reasons from cause to effect--a man who finds the facts by which he is surrounded and endeavors to reason from these premises, and to tell what in all probability will happen in the future. the prophet is gone, the philosopher is here. there was a time when man sought aid entirely from heaven--when he prayed to the deaf sky. there was a time when the world depended upon the supernaturalist. that time in christendom has passed. we now depend upon the naturalist--not upon the disciple of faith, but upon the discoverer of facts--upon the demonstrator of truth. at last we are beginning to build upon a solid foundation, and just as we progress the supernatural must die. religion of the supernatural kind will fade from this world, and in its place we will have reason. in the place of the worship of something we know not of, will be the religion of mutual love and assistance--the great religion of reciprocity. superstition must go. science will remain. the church, however, dies a little hard. the brain of the world is not yet developed. there are intellectual diseases the same as diseases of the body. intellectual mumps and measles still afflict mankind. whenever the new comes, the old protests, and the old fights for its place as long as it has a particle of power. and we are now having the same warfare between superstition and science that there was between the stagecoach and the locomotive. but the stage-coach had to go. it had its day of glory and power, but it is gone. it went west. in a little while it will be driven into the pacific, with the last indian aboard. so we find that there is the same conflict between the different sects and the different schools, not only of philosophy, but of medicine. recollect that everything except the demonstrated truth is liable to die. that is the order of nature. words die. every language has a cemetery. every now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected, and across it is written the word "obsolete." new words are continually being born. there is a cradle in which a word is rocked. a thought is molded to a sound, and the child-word is born. and then comes a time when the word gets old, and wrinkled, and expressionless, and is carried mournfully to the grave, and that is the end of it. so in the schools of medicine. you can remember, so can i, when the old alopathists reigned supreme. if there was anything the matter with a man, they let out his blood. called to the bedside, they took him to the edge of eternity with medicine, and then practiced all their art to bring him back to life. one can hardly imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of a doctor. and long after it was found to be a mistake, hundreds and thousands of the old physicians clung to it, carried around with them, in one pocket, a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty lancet, sorry that they couldn't find some patient idiotic enough to allow the experiment to be made again. so these schools, and these theories, and these religions die hard. what else can they do? like the paintings of the old masters, they are kept alive because so much money has been invested in them. think of the amount of money that has been invested in superstition! think of the schools that have been founded for the more general diffusion of useless knowledge! think of the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous to think, and that they must never use their brains except in an act of faith! think of the millions and billions of dollars that have been expended in churches, in temples and in cathedrals! think of the thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the ignorance of mankind! think of those who grow rich on credulity and who fatten on faith! do you suppose they are going to die without a struggle? they will die if they don't struggle. what are they to do? from the bottom of my heart i sympathize with the poor clergyman that has had all his common sense educated out of him, and is now to be thrown out upon the cold and uncharitable world. his prayers are not answered; he gets no help from on high, and the pews are beginning to criticize the pulpit. what is the man to do? if he suddenly change, he is gone. if he preaches what he really believes, he will get notice to quit. and yet if he and the congregation would come together and be perfectly honest, they would all admit they didn't believe anything of it. only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding together from a revival in a carriage late at night, and one said to the other; as they rode along: "i am going to say something that will shock you, and i beg of you never to tell it to anybody else. i am going to tell it to you." "well, what is it?" says she: "i don't believe in the bible." the other replied: "neither do i." i have often thought how splendid it would be if the ministers could but come together and say: "now let us be honest. let us tell each other, honor bright--like dr. currie did in the meeting here the other day--let us tell just what we believe." they tell a story that in the old time a lot of people, about twenty, were in texas in a little hotel, and one fellow got up before the fire, put his hands behind him, and says he: "boys, let us all tell our real names." if the ministers and the congregations would only tell their real thoughts they would find that they are nearly as bad as i am, and that they believe just about as little. now, i have been talking a great deal about the orthodox religion; and, after having delivered a lecture, i would meet some good, religious person, and he would say to me: "you don't tell it as we believe it." "well, but i tell it as you have it written in your creed." "oh, well," he says, "we don't mind that any more." "well, why don't you change it?" "oh, well," he says, "we understand it." possibly the creed is in the best possible condition for them now. there is a tacit understanding that they don't believe it. there is a tacit understanding that they have got some way to get around it, that they read between the lines; and if they should meet now to form a creed, they might fail to agree; and the creed is now so that they can say as they please, except in public. whenever they do so in public, the church, in self-defense, must try them; and i believe in trying every minister that doesn't preach the doctrine as he agrees to. i have not the slightest sympathy with a presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach infidelity from his pulpit and receive presbyterian money. when he changes his views, he should step down and out like a man, and say: "i don't believe your doctrine, and i will not preach it. you must hire some bigger fool than i am." but i find that i get the creed very nearly right. today there was put into my hands the new congregational creed. i have just read it, and i thought i would call your attention to it tonight, to find whether the church has made any advance; to find whether it has been affected by the light of science; to find whether the sun of knowledge has risen in the heavens in vain; whether they are still the children of intellectual darkness; whether they still consider it necessary for you to believe something that you by no possibility, can understand, in order to be a winged angel forever. now, let us see what their creed is. i will read a little of it. they commence by saying that they "believe in one god, the father almighty, maker of heaven, and of earth, and of all things visible and invisible." i am perfectly willing that he should make the invisible, if they want him to. they say, now, that there is this one personal god; that he is the maker of the universe, and its ruler. i again ask the old question: of what did he make it? if matter has not existed through eternity, then this god made it. of what did he make it? what did he use for the purpose? there was nothing in the universe except this god. what had the god been doing for the eternity he had been living? he had made nothing--called nothing into existence; never had had an idea, because it is impossible to have an idea unless there is something to excite an idea. what had he been doing? why doesn't the congregational church tell us? how do they know about this infinite being? and if he is infinite, how can they comprehend him? what good is it to believe something that you don't understand--that you never can understand? in the old creeds they described this god as a being without body and parts or passions. think of that! something without body and parts or passions. i defy any man in the world to write a letter descriptive of nothing. you can not conceive of a finer word-painting of a vacuum than a something without body and parts or passions. and yet this god, without passions, is angry at the wicked every day; this god, without passions, is a jealous god, whose anger burneth to the lowest hell. this god, without passions, loves the whole human race, and this god, without passions, damns a large majority of the same. so, too, he is the ruler of the world, and i find here that we find his providence in the government of the nations. what nations? what evidence can you find, if you are absolutely honest and not frightened, in the history of nations, that this universe is presided over by an infinitely wise and good god? how do you account for russia? how do you account for siberia? how do you account for the fact that whole races of men toiled beneath the master's lash for ages without recompense and without reward? how do you account for the fact that babes were sold from the arms of mothers--arms that had been reached toward god in supplication? how do you account for it? how do you account for the existence of martyrs? how do you account for the fact that this god allows people to be burned simply for loving him? how do you account for the fact that justice doesn't always triumph? how do you account for the fact that innocence is not a perfect shield? how do you account for the fact that the world has been filled with pain, and grief, and tears? how do you account for the fact that people have been swallowed by volcanoes, swept from the earth by storms, dying by famine, if there is above us a ruler who is infinitely good and infinitely powerful? i don't say there is none. i don't know. as i have said before, this is the only planet i was ever on. i live in one of the rural districts of the universe. i know not about these things as much as the clergy. and if they know no more about the other world than they do about this, it is not worth mentioning. how do they answer all this? they say that god "permits it." what would you say to me if i stood by and saw a ruffian beat out the brains of a child, when i had full and perfect power to prevent it? you would say truthfully that i was as bad as the murderer. that is what you would say. is it possible for this god to prevent it? then, if he doesn't, he is a fiend; he is not good. but they say he "permits it." what for? so we may have freedom of choice. what for? so that god may find, i suppose, who are good and who are bad. didn't he know that when he made us? did he not know exactly just what he was making? why should he make those whom he knew would be criminals? if i should make a machine that would walk your streets and commit murder, you would hang me. why not? and if god made a man whom he knew would commit murder, then god is guilty of that murder. if god made a man, knowing he would beat his wife, that he would starve his children, that he would strew on either side of his path of life the wrecks of ruined homes, then, i say, the being who called that wretch into existence is directly responsible. and yet we are to find the providence of god in the history of nations. what little i have read shows me that when man has been helped, man had to do it; when the chains of slavery have been broken, they have been broken by man; when something bad has been done in the government of mankind, it is easy to trace it to man, and to fix the responsibility upon human beings. you will not look to the sky; you need throw neither praise nor blame; you can find the efficient causes nearer home--right here. what is the next thing i find in this creed? "we believe that man was made in the image of god, that he might know, love and obey god, and enjoy him for ever." i don't believe that anybody ever did love god, because nobody ever knew anything about him. we love each other. we love something that we know. we love something that our experience tells us is good and great, and good and beautiful. we cannot by any possibility love the unknown. we can love truth, because truth adds to human happiness. we can love justice, because it preserves human joy. we can love charity. we can love every form of goodness that we know, or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love the infinitely unknown. and how can we be made in the image of something that has neither body and parts nor passions? "that our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation of god, and that all men are so alienated from god that there is no salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through god's redeeming power." is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the garden of eden story? if there is, strike here (tapping his forehead) and you will hear an echo. something is for rent. does any human being now believe that god made man of dust and a woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the middle of it? wasn't there room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he didn't want people to eat his apple? if i didn't want a man to eat my fruit i would not put him in my orchard. does anybody now believe in the snake story? i pity any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. why did they disobey? why, they were tempted. who by? the devil. who made the devil? what did he make him for? why didn't he tell adam and eve about this fellow? why didn't he watch the devil instead of watching adam and eve? instead of turning them out, why didn't he keep him from getting in? why didn't he have his flood first and drown the devil, before he made man and woman? and yet people who call themselves intelligent--professors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions--teach children, and young men who ought to be children, that the garden of eden story is an absolute, historical fact! well, i guess it will not be long until that will fade from the imagination of men. i defy any man to think of a more childish thing. this god waiting around there, knowing all the while what would happen, made them on purpose so it would happen; and then what does he do? holds all of us responsible; and we were not there. here is a representative before the constituency had been born. before i am bound by a representative, i want a chance to vote for or against him; and if i had been there, and known all the circumstances, i should have voted against him. and yet, i am held responsible. what did adam do? i cannot see that it amounted to much anyway. a god that can create something out of nothing ought not to have complained of the loss of an apple. i can hardly have the patience to speak upon such a subject. now, that absurdity gave birth to another--that, while we could be rightfully charged with the rascality of somebody else, we could also be credited with the virtues of somebody else; and the atonement is the absurdity which offsets the other absurdity of the fall of man. let us leave them both out; it reads a great deal better with both of them out; it makes better sense. now, in consequence of that, everybody is alienated from god. how? why? oh, we are all depraved, you know; we all want to do wrong. well, why? is that because we are depraved? no. why do we make so many mistakes? because there is only one right way, and there is an almost infinite number of wrong ones; and as long as we are not perfect in our intellects we must make mistakes. there is no darkness but ignorance; and alienation, as they call it, from god, is simply a lack of intellect upon our part. why were we not given better brains? that may account for the alienation. but the church teaches that every soul that finds its way to the shore of this world is against god--naturally hates god; that the little dimpled child in the cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. everybody against god! it is a libel upon the human race; it is a libel upon all the men who have worked for wife and child; it is a libel upon all the wives who have suffered and labored, wept and worked for children; it is a libel upon all the men who have died for their country; it is a libel upon all who have fought for human liberty; it is a libel upon the human race. leave out the history of the church, and there is nothing in this world to prove the depravity of man left. everybody that comes is against god. every soul, they think, is like the wrecked irishman. he was wrecked in the sea and drifted to an unknown island, and as he climbed up the shore he saw a man, and said to him, "have you a government here?" the man said, "we have." "well," said he, "i am agin it!" the church teaches us that that is the attitude of every soul in the universe of god. ought a god to take any credit to himself for making depraved people? a god that cannot make a soul that is not totally depraved, i respectfully suggest, should retire from the business. and if a god has made us, knowing that we would be totally depraved, why should we go to the same being for repairs? what is the next? "that all men are so alienated from god that there is no salvation from the guilt and power of his sin except through god's redeeming grace." reformation is not enough. if the man who steals becomes perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man who hates his fellow-man changes and loves his fellowman, that is not enough; he must go through the mysterious thing called the second birth; he must be born again. that is not enough unless he has faith; he must believe something that he does not understand. reformation is not enough; there must be what they call conversion. i deny it. according to the church, nothing so excites the wrath of god--nothing so corrugates the brows of jehovah with revenge--as a man relying on his own good works. he must admit that he ought to be damned, and that of the two he prefers it, before god will consent to save him. i saw a man the other day, and he said to me, "i am a unitarian universalist; that is what i am." said i, "what do you mean by that?" "well," said he, "here is what i mean: the unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned, and the universalist thinks god is too good to damn him, and i believe them both." what is the next thing in this great creed? "we believe that the scriptures of the old and new testaments are the records of god's revelation of himself in the work of redemption; that they are written by men, under the special guidance of the holy spirit, and that they constitute an authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged." this is the creed of the congregational church; that is, it is the result of the high-joint commission appointed to draw up a creed for churches; and there we have the statement that the bible was written "by men, under the special guidance of the holy spirit." what part of the bible? all of it; all of it; and yet what is this old testament that was written by an infinitely good god? the being who wrote it did not know the shape of the world he had made. the being who wrote it knew nothing of human nature; he commands men to love him, as if one could love upon command. the same god upheld the institution of human slavery; and the church says the bible that upholds that institution was written by men under the guidance of the holy spirit. then i disagree with the holy ghost upon that institution. the church tells us that men, under the guidance of the holy ghost, upheld the institution of polygamy--i deny it; that under the guidance of the holy ghost these men upheld wars of extermination and conquest--i deny it; that under the guidance of the holy ghost these men wrote that it was right for a man to destroy the life of his wife if she happened to differ with him on the subject of religion--i deny it. and yet that is the book now upheld in this creed of the congregational church. if the devil had written upon the subject of slavery, which side would he have taken? let every minister answer, honor bright. if you knew the devil had written a little work on human slavery, in your judgment would he uphold slavery or denounce it? would you regard it as any evidence that he ever wrote it if he upheld slavery? and yet, here you have a work upholding slavery, and you say that it was written by an infinitely good, wise and beneficent god! if the devil upheld polygamy would you be surprised? if the devil wanted to kill somebody for differing with him would you be surprised? if the devil told a man to kill his wife, would you be astonished? and yet, you say, that is exactly what the god of us all did. if there be a god, then that creed is blasphemy. that creed is a libel upon him who sits upon heaven's throne. i want--if there be a god--i want him to write in the book of his eternal remembrance that i denied these lies for him. i do not believe in a slave-holding god; i do not worship a polygamous holy ghost; i do not get upon my knees before any being who commands a husband to slay his wife because she expresses her honest thought. did it ever occur to you that if god wrote the old testament, and told the jews to crucify or kill anybody that disagreed with them on religion, and that god afterward took upon himself flesh and came to jerusalem, and taught a different religion, and the jews killed him--did it ever occur to you that he reaped exactly what he had sown? did it ever occur to you that he fell a victim to his own tyranny, and was destroyed by his own law! of course i do not believe that any god ever was the author of the bible, or that any god was ever crucified, or that any god was ever killed or ever will be, but i want to ask you that question. take this old testament, then, with all its stories of murder and massacre; with all its foolish and cruel fables; with all its infamous doctrines; with its spirit of caste; with its spirit of hatred, and tell me whether it was written by a good god. why, if you will read the maledictions and curses of that book, you would think that god, like lear, had divided heaven among his daughters, and then, in the insanity of despair, had launched his curses upon the human race. and yet, i must say--i must admit--that the old testament is better than the new. in the old testament, when god got a man dead, he let him alone. when he saw him quietly in his grave he was satisfied. the muscles relaxed, and a smile broke over the divine face. but in the new testament the trouble commences just at death. in the new testament god is to wreak his revenge forever and ever. it was reserved for one who said, "love your enemies," to tear asunder the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of men upon the gulfs of eternal fire. the new testament is just as much worse than the old, as hell is worse than sleep; just as much worse as infinite cruelty is worse than annihilation; and yet, the new testament is pointed to as a gospel of love and peace. but "more of that hereafter," as the ministers say. "we believe that jesus christ came to establish among men the kingdom of god, the reign of truth and love, of righteousness and peace." well, that may have been the object of jesus christ. i do not deny it. but what was the result? the christian world has caused more war than all the rest of the world besides; all the cunning instruments of death have been devised by christians; all the wonderful machinery by which the brains are blown out of a man, by which nations are conquered and subdued--all these machines have been born in christian brains. and yet he came to bring peace, they say. but the testament says otherwise: "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." and the sword was brought. what are the christian nations doing today in europe? is there a solitary christian nation that will trust any other? how many millions of christians are in the uniform of everlasting forgiveness, loving their enemies? there was an old spaniard upon the bed of death, and he sent for a priest, and the priest told him that he would have to forgive his enemies before he died. he says, "i have not any." "what! no enemies?" "not one," said the dying man, "i killed the last one three weeks ago." how many millions of christians are now armed and equipped to destroy their fellow-christians? who are the men in europe crying out against war? who wishes to have the nations disarmed? is it the church? no; it is the men who do not believe in what they call this religion of peace. when there is a war, and when they make a few thousand widows and orphans, when they strew the plain with dead patriots, then christians assemble in their churches and sing "te deum laudamus" to god. why? because he has enabled a few of his children to kill some others of his children. this is the religion of peace--the religion that invented the krupp gun, that will hurl a bullet weighing , pounds through twenty-four inches of solid steel. this is the religion of peace, that covers the sea with men-of-war, clad in mail, all in the name of universal forgiveness. what effect had this religion upon the nations of the earth? what have the nations been fighting about? what was the thirty years' war in europe for? what was the war in holland for? why was it that england persecuted scotland? why is it that england persecutes ireland even unto this day? at the bottom of every one of these conflicts you will find a religious question. the religion of jesus christ, as preached by his church, causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? because they say a certain belief is necessary to salvation. they do not say, if you behave yourself pretty well you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love your wife, and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. oh, yes, no matter how bad you are, you can instantly be forgiven then; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe that, the moment you get to the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you forever, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah!" what do they teach today? every murderer goes to heaven; there is only one step from the gallows to god; only one jerk between the halter and heaven. that is taught by this same church. i believe there ought to be a law to prevent the slightest religious consolation being given to any man who has been guilty of murder. let a catholic understand that if he imbrues his hands in his brother's blood, he can have no extreme unction; let it be understood that he can have no forgiveness through the church; and let the protestant understand that when he has committed that crime, the community will not pray him into heaven. let him go with his victim. the victim, you know, dying in his sins, goes to hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. and if heaven grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim. i am opposed to that kind of forgiveness. and yet that is the religion of universal peace to everybody. now, what is the next thing that i wish to call your attention to? "we believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of christ over all the earth." what makes you? do you judge from the manner in which you are getting along now? how many people are being born a year? about fifty millions. how many are you converting a year; really, truthfully? five or six thousand. i think i have overestimated the number. is orthodox christianity on the increase? no. there are a hundred times as many unbelievers in orthodox christianity as there were ten years ago. what are you doing in the missionary world? how long is it since you converted a chinaman? a fine missionary religion, to send missionaries, with their bibles and tracts, to china, but if a chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show him the difference between the practical and theoretical workings of the christian religion. how long since you have had a convert in india? in my judgment, never; there never has been an intelligent hindoo converted from the time the first missionary put his foot upon that soil; and never, in my judgment, has an intelligent chinaman been converted since the first missionary touched that shore. where are they? we hear nothing of them, except in the reports. they get money from poor old ladies, trembling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them stories how hungry the average chinaman is for a copy of the new testament, and paint the sad condition of a gentleman in the interior of africa, without the work of dr. mccosh, longing for a copy of the princeton review. in my judgment, it is a book that would suit a savage. thus money is scared from the dying and frightened from the old and feeble. about how long is it before this kingdom is to be established? what is the next thing here? they all also believe in the resurrection of the dead, and in their confession of faith hereto attached i find they also believe in the resurrection of the body. does anybody believe that, that has ever thought? here is a man, for instance, that weighs pounds, and gets sick and dies weighing ; how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrection? here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and we know that the atoms that you eat go into your body and become a part of you. after the cannibal has eaten the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then he dies, who will the atoms belong to in the morning of the resurrection in an action of replevin brought by the missionary against the cannibal? it has been demonstrated again and again that there is no creation in nature, and no destruction in nature. it has been demonstrated again and again that the atoms that are in us have been in millions of other beings; grown in the forest, in the grass, blossomed in the flowers, been in the metals; in other words, there are atoms in each one of us that have been in millions of others, and when we die these atoms return to the earth, and again spring in vegetation, taken up in the leaves of the trees, turned into wood. and yet we have a church, in the nineteenth century, getting up this doctrine, presided over by professors, by presidents of colleges, and by theologians, who tell us that they believe in the resurrection of the body. they know better. there is not one so ignorant but what knows better. and what is the next thing? "and in a final judgment." it will be a set day. all of us will be there, and the thousands, and millions, and billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there. it will be the day of judgment, and the books will be opened and our case will be called. does anybody believe in that now that has got the slightest sense?--one who knows enough to chew gum without a string?" "the issues of which are everlasting punishment for the wicked and everlasting life for the redeemed. "that is the doctrine today of the congregational church, and that is the doctrine that i oppose. that is the doctrine that i defy and deny. but i must hasten on. now this comes to us after all the discussion that has been, and we are told that this religion is finally to conquer this world. this is the same religion that failed to successfully meet the hordes of mohammed. mohammed wrested from the disciples of the cross the fairest part of europe. it was known that he was an impostor. they knew he was because the people of mecca said so, and they knew that christ was not because the people of jerusalem said he was. this impostor wrested from the disciples of christ the fairest part of europe, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust and infidelity in the minds of the christian world. and the next was an effort to rescue from the infidels the empty sepulchre of christ. that commenced in the eleventh century and ended in . europe was almost depopulated. for every man owed a debt, the debt was discharged if he put a cross upon his breast and joined the crusades. no matter what crime he had committed the doors of the prison were open for him to join the crusades. and what was the result? they believed that god would give them victory over the infidel, and they carried in front of the first crusade a goat and a goose, believing that both those animals had been blessed by the indwelling of the holy ghost. and i may say that those same animals are in the lead today in the orthodox world. until they endeavored to get that sepulchre, until finally the hosts of christ were driven back, baffled, beaten, and demoralized--a poor, miserable religious rabble. they were driven back, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust in christendom. you know at that time the world believed in trial by battle--that god would take the side of right--and there had been a trial by battle between the cross and mohammed, and mohammed had been victorious. well, what was the next? you know when christianity came into power it destroyed every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. it defaced and obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it destroyed the manuscripts, both greek and latin; it destroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and burned every library that it could reach with its torch. and the result was the night of the middle ages fell upon the human race. but by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts escaped the fury of religious zeal; a few statues had been buried; and the result was, that these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization of today. a few forms of beauty were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the civilized world is filled with art, with painting, and with statuary, in spite of the rage of the early church. what is the next blow that that this church received? the discovery of america. that is the next. the holy ghost, who inspired a man to write the bible, did not know of the existence of this continent, never dreamed of it; the result was that his bible never spoke of it. he did not dream that the earth is round. he believed it was flat, although he made it himself, and at that time heaven was just up there beyond the clouds. there was where the gods lived, there was where the angels were, and it was against that heaven that jacob's ladder was that the angels ascended and descended. it was to that heaven that christ ascended after his resurrection. it was up there where the new jerusalem was, with its streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition; there was where the devils lived; there was where a pit was dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains, and i say that for this reason: that just in proportion that you have brains, just in that proportion your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this religion. and just in proportion that you lack brains, your chances are increased. they believe, under there that they discovered america. they found that the earth is round. it was circumnavigated by magellan. in that brave man set sail. the church told him: "the earth is flat, my friend; don't go off. you will go off the edge." magellan said: "i have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and i have more confidence in the shadow even than i have in the church." the ship went round. the earth was circumnavigated. science passed its hand above it and beneath it, and where was the heaven, and where was the hell? vanished forever! and they dwell now only in the religion of superstition. we found there was no place for jacob's ladder to lean against; no place there for the gods and angels to live; no place there to empty the waters of the deluge; no place there to which christ could have ascended; and the foundations of the new jerusalem crumbled, and the towers and domes fell and became simply space--space sown with an infinite number of stars; not with new jerusalems, but with constellations. then man began to grow great, and with that you know came astronomy. now just see what they did in that. in copernicus was born. in his great work. in the system of copernicus was condemned by the pope, by the infallible catholic church, and the church is about as near right upon that subject as upon any other. the system of copernicus was denounced. and how long do you suppose the church fought that? let me tell you. it was revoked by pius vii. in the year of grace . for years after the death of copernicus the church insisted that that system was false, and that the old idea was true. astronomy is the first help that we ever received from heaven. then came kepler in , and you may almost date the birth of science from the night that kepler discovered his first law. that was the dawn of the day of intelligence--his first law, that the planets do not move in circles; his second law, that they described equal spaces in equal times; his third law, that there was a direct relation between weight and velocity. that man gave us a key to heaven. that man opened its infinite book, and we now read it, and he did more good than all the theologians that ever lived. i have not time to speak of the others--of galileo, of leonardo da vinci, and of hundreds of others that i could mention. the next thing that gave this church a blow was statistics. away went special providence. we found by taking statistics that we could tell the average length of human life; that this human life did not depend upon infinite caprice; that it depended upon conditions, circumstances, laws and facts, and that those conditions, circumstances, and facts were ever active. and now you will see the man who depends entirely upon special providence gets his life insured. he has more confidence even in one of these companies than he has in the whole trinity. we found by statistics that there were just so many crimes on an average committed; just so many crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so many suicides, so many deaths by drowning; just so many accidents on an average; just so many men marrying women, for instance, older than themselves; just so many murders of a particular kind; just the same number of accidents; and i say tonight statistics utterly demolish the idea of special providence. only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. he knew it. he had been the subject of it. yes, sir! a few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he was detained; he didn't go, and the ship was lost and all on board. yes! i said, "do you think the fellows that were drowned believed in special providence?" think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with passengers, and they go down to the bottom of the sea--fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands, and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. here is one poor little wretch that didn't happen to go! and he thinks that god, the infinite being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. that is special providence! you know we have a custom every year of issuing a proclamation of thanksgiving. we say to god, "although you have afflicted all the other countries, although you have sent war, and desolation, and famine on everybody else, we have been such good children that you have been kind to us, and we hope you will keep on." it don't make a bit of difference whether we have good times or not--not a bit; the thanksgiving is always exactly the same. i remember a few years ago a governor of iowa got out a proclamation of that kind. he went on to tell how thankful the people were, how prosperous the state had been; and there was a young fellow in the state who got out another proclamation, saying: "fearing that the lord might be misled by official correspondence," he went on to say that the governor's proclamation was entirely false; that the state was not prosperous; that the crops had been an almost entire failure; that nearly every farm in the state was mortgaged; that if the lord did not believe him, all he asked was he would send some angel in whom he had confidence to look the matter over for himself. of course i have not time to recount the enemies of the church. every fact is an enemy of superstition. every fact is a heretic. every demonstration is an infidel. everything that ever happened testified against the supernatural. i have only spoken of a few of the blows that shattered the shield and shivered the lance of superstition. here is another one--the doctrine of charles darwin. this century will be called darwin's century, one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. he has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. write the name of charles darwin there (on the one hand) and the name of every theologian that ever lived there (on the other hand), and from that name has come more light to the world than from all those. his doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox christianity. he has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the bible is a book written by ignorance--by the instigation of fear! think of the man who replied to him. only a few years ago there was no parson too ignorant to successfully answer charles darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. he was held up to the ridicule, the scorn, and the contempt of the christian world, and yet when he died england was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. charles darwin conquered the intellectual world, and the doctrine of evolution is now an accepted fact. his light has broken in on some of the early clergy, and the greatest man who today occupies the pulpit is a believer in the evolution theory of charles darwin--and that is henry ward beecher--a man of more brains than the entire clergy of that entire church put together. and yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion is about to conquer the world. it will be driven to the wilds of africa. it must go to some savage country; it has lost its hold upon civilization, and i tell you it is unfortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a nation. it is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good and noble heart protests. let us have a good one or none. o! my pity has been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the passages of scripture to fit some demonstration in science. these pious evasions! these solemn pretenses! when they are caught in one way they give a different meaning to the words and say the world was not made in seven days. they say "good whiles"--epochs. and in this same confession here of faith and creeds they believe the lord's day is holy--every seventh day. suppose you lived near the north pole, where the day is three months long. then which day will you keep? suppose you could get to the north pole, you could prevent sunday from ever overtaking you. you could walk around the other way faster than the world could revolve. how would you keep sunday then? suppose we ever invent any thing that can go , miles an hour? we can just chase sunday clear around the globe. is there anything that can be more perfectly absurd than that a space of time can be holy! you might as well talk about a pious vacuum. these pious evasions. i heard the other night of an old man. he was not very well educated, you know, and he got into the notion that he must have reading of the bible and have family worship; and there was a bad boy in the family--a pretty smart boy--and they were reading the bible by course, and in the fifteenth chapter of corinthians is this passage: "behold, brethren, i show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be changed." and this boy rubbed out the "c" in the "changed." so next night the old man got on his specs and got down his bible and said: "behold, brethren, i show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be hanged." the old lady said, "father, i don't think it reads that way." he says, "who is reading this?" "yes, mother, it says be hanged, and, more than that, i see the sense of it. pride is the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging." i keep going back to this book; i keep going back to the miracles, to the prophecies, to the fables, and people ask me, if i take away the bible, what are we going to do? how can we get along without the revelation that no one understands? what are we going to do if we have no bible to quarrel about? what are we to do without hell? what are we going to do with our enemies? what are we going to do with the people we love but don't like? they tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had not been for this bible. um! the jews had a bible; the romans had not. which had the greater and the grander government? let us be honest. which of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? rome had no bible. god cared nothing for the roman empire. he let the men come up by chance. his time was taken up by the jewish people. and yet rome conquered the world, and even conquered god's chosen people. the people that had the bible were defeated by the people who had not. how was it possible for lucretius to get along without the bible? how did the great and glorious of that empire? and what shall we say of greece? no bible. compare athens with jerusalem. from athens comes the beauty and intellectual grace of the world. compare the mythology of greece with the mythology of judea. one covering the earth with beauty, and the other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. the hindoos had no bible; they had been forsaken by the creator, and yet they became the greatest metaphysicians of the world. egypt had no bible. compare even egypt with judea. what are we to do without the bible? what became of the jews who had no bible; their temple was destroyed and their city was taken; and, as i said before, they never found real prosperity until their god deserted them. do without the bible? now i come again to the new testament. there are a few things in there, i give you my word, i cannot believe. i cannot--i cannot believe in the miraculous origin of jesus christ. i believe he was the son of joseph and mary; that joseph and mary had been duly and legally married; that he was the legitimate offspring of that marriage, and nobody ever believed the contrary until he had been dead years. neither matthew, mark nor luke ever dreamed that he was of divine origin. he did not say to either matthew, mark or luke, or to any one in their hearing, that he was the son of god, or that he was miraculously conceived. he did not say it. the angel gabriel, who, they say, brought the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. his mother never wrote a word upon the subject. his father never wrote a word upon the subject. we are lacking in the matter of witnesses. i would not believe it now! i cannot believe it then. i would not believe people i know, much less would i believe people i don't know. i say that at that time matthew, mark and luke believed that he was the son of joseph and mary. and why? they say he descended from the blood of david, and in order to show that he was of the blood of david they gave the genealogy of joseph. and if joseph was not his father, why not give the genealogy of pontius pilate or herod? could they, by giving the genealogy of joseph, show that he was of the blood of david if joseph was in no way related to david; and yet that is the position into which the christian world is now driven. it says the son of joseph, and then interpolated the words "as was supposed." why, then, do they give a supposed genealogy. it will not do. and that is a thing that cannot in any way, by any human testimony, be established; and if it is important for us to know that he was the son of god, i say then that it devolves upon god to give us evidence. let him write it across the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. if it is necessary for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf next year. no man should be damned for not believing unless the evidence is overwhelming. and he ought not to be made to depend upon say-so. he should have it directly for himself. a man says god told him so and so, and he tells me, and i haven't anyone's word but that fellow's. he may have been deceived. if god has a message for me he ought to tell it to me, and not somebody that has been dead , or , years, and in another language; god may have changed his mind on many things; he has on slavery at least, and polygamy; and yet his church now wants to go out here and destroy polygamy in utah with a sword. why don't they send missionaries there with copies of the old testament? by reading the lives of abraham, and isaac, and lot, and a few other fellows that ought to have been in the penitentiary, they can soften their hearts. now, there is another miracle i do not believe. i want to speak about it as we would about any ordinary transaction in the world. in the first place, i do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there was, you can't prove it. why? because it is altogether more reasonable that the people lied about it than that it happened. and why? because, according to human experience, we know that people will not always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle, and we have got to be governed by our experience, and if we go by our experience, it is in favor that the thing never happened; that the man is mistaken. now, i want you to remember it. here is a man that comes into jerusalem, and the first thing he does he cures the blind. he lets the light of day visit the darkness of blindness. the eyes are opened and the whole world is again pictured upon the brain. another man is clothed with leprosy. he touches him, and the disease falls from him, and he stands pure, and clean, and whole. another man is deformed, wrinkled, bent. he touches him and throws upon him again the garment of youth. a man is in his grave, and he says, "come forth!" and he again walks in life, feeling his heart throb and beat, and his blood going joyously through his veins. they say that happened. i don't know. there is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised--we don't hear of them any more. what became of them? why, if there was a man in this town that had been raised from the dead, i would go to see him tonight. i would say, "where were you when you got the notice to come back? what kind of country is it? what kind of opening there for a young man? how did you like it?" but nobody ever paid the slightest attention to them there. they didn't even excite interest when they died the second time. nobody said, "why, that man isn't afraid. he has been there." not a word. they pass away quietly. you see i don't believe it. there is something wrong somewhere about that business. and then there is another trouble in my mind. now, you know i may suffer eternal punishment for all this. here is a man that does all these things, and thereupon they crucify him. now, then, let us be honest. suppose a man came into chicago and he should meet a funeral procession, and he should say, "who is dead?" and they should say, "the son of a widow; her only support," and he should say to the procession, "halt!" and to the undertaker, "take out that coffin, unscrew that lid." "young man, i say unto thee, arise!" and the latter should step from the coffin, and in one moment after hold his mother in his arms. suppose he should go to your cemetery and should find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, "who lies buried here?" and she should reply, "my husband," and he should say, "i say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead," and the husband should rise and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little children with their arms around his neck. suppose that it is so. do you think that the people of chicago would kill him? do you think any one would wish to crucify him? do you not rather believe that every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him and implore him to give back their dead? do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death? let me tell you tonight if there shall ever appear on this earth the master, the monarch of death, all human knees will touch the earth; he will not be crucified, he will not be touched. all the living who fear death; all the living who have lost a loved one will stand and cling to him. and yet we are told that this worker of miracles, this worker of wonders, this man who could clothe the dead in the throbbing flesh of life, was crucified by the jewish people. it was never dreamed that he did a miracle until years after he was dead. there is another miracle i do not believe, i cannot believe it, and that is the resurrection. and why? if it was the fact, if the dead got out of the grave, why did he not show himself to his enemies? why did he not again visit pontius pilate? why did he not call upon caiaphas, the high priest? why did he not make another triumphal entry into jerusalem? why did he not again enter the temple and dispute with the doctors? why didn't he say to the multitude: "here are the wounds in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. i am the one you endeavored to kill, but death is my slave." why didn't he? simply because the thing never happened. i cannot believe it. but recollect, it makes no difference with its teachings. they are exactly as good whether he wrought miracles or not. twice two are four; that needs no miracle. twice two are five--a miracle would not help that. christ's teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. it makes no difference about miracle or about wonder, but you must remember in that day every one believed in miracles. nobody had any standing as a teacher, a philosopher, a governor, or a king, about whom there was not a something miraculous. the earth was then covered with the sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses. that was believed in greece, in rome, in egypt, in hindustan; everybody, nearly, believed in such things. then there is another miracle that i cannot believe in, and that is the ascension--the bodily ascension of jesus christ. where was he going? since the telescope has been pointed at the stars, where was he going? the new jerusalem is not there. the abode of the gods is not there. where was he going? which way did he go? that depends upon the time of day that he left. if he left in the night he went exactly the opposite way from what he would in the day. who saw this miracle? they say the disciples. let us see what they say about it. matthew did not think it was worth mentioning. he doesn't speak of it at all. on the contrary, he says that the last words of christ were: "lo, i am with you always, even unto the end of the world." that is what he says. mark, he saw it. "so, then, after the lord had spoken unto them he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of god." that is all he has to say about the most wonderful thing that ever blessed human vision--about a miracle great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet we have one poor, little meagre verse. so, then, after he had quit speaking, he was caught up and sat on the right hand of god. how does he know he was on the right hand? did he see him after he had sat down? luke says: "and it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and was carried up into heaven." but john does not mention it. he gives as his last words this address to peter: "follow thou me." of course he did not say that as he ascended. in the acts we have another account. a conversation is given not spoken of in any of the others, and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who said: "men of galilee, why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? this same jesus that was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven." matthew didn't see that; mark forgot it; luke didn't think it was worth mentioning, and john didn't believe it; and yet upon that evidence we are led to believe that the most miraculous of all miracles actually occurred. i cannot believe it. i may be mistaken; but the church is now trying to parry, and when they come to the little miracles of the new testament all they say is: "christ didn't cast out devils; these men had fits." he cured fits. then i read in another place about the fits talking. christ held a dialogue with the fits, and the fits told him his name, and the fits at that time were in a crazy man. and the fits made a contract that they would go out of the man provided they would be permitted to go into swine. how can fits that attack a man take up a residence in swine? the church must not give up the devil. he is the right bower. no devil, no hell; no hell, no preacher; no fire, no insurance. i read another miracle--that this devil took christ and put him on the pinnacle of a temple. was that fits, too? why is not the theological world honest? why do they not come up and admit what they know the book means? they have not the courage. now, their next doctrine is the absolute necessity of belief. that depends upon this: can a man believe as he wants to? can you? can anybody? does belief depend at all upon the evidence? i think it does somewhat in some cases. how is it that when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence--hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, and upon their oaths, are equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the defendant? it is because evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. why? our brains are not alike--not the same shape; we have not the same intelligence or the same experience, the same sense. and yet i am held accountable for my belief. i must believe in the trinity--three times one is one, once one is three--and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. and that is the poison part of christianity--that salvation depends upon belief--that is the poison part, and until that dogma is discarded religion will be nothing but superstition. no man can control his belief. if i hear certain evidence i will believe a certain thing. if i fail to hear it i may never believe it. if it is adapted to my mind i may accept it; if it is not, i reject it. and what am i to go by? my brain. that is the only light i have from nature, and if there be a god, it is the only torch that this god has given me by which to find my way through the darkness and the night called life. i do not depend upon hearsay for that. i do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. here, in the temple of the mind, i go and consult the god--that is to say, my reason--and the oracle speaks to me, and i obey the oracle. what should i obey? another man's oracle? shall i take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what god said to him? i would not know a god if i should see one. i have said before, and i say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and i am not responsible for my thought. no more can i control the beating of my heart, the expansion and contraction of my lungs for a moment; no more can i stop the blood that flows through the rivers of the veins. and yet i am held responsible for my belief. then why does not the god give me the evidence? they say he has. in what? in an inspired book. but i do not understand it as they do. must i be false to my understanding? they say: "when you come to die you will be sorry you did not." will i be sorry when i come to die that i did not live a hypocrite? will i be sorry i did not say i was a christian when i was not? will the fact that i was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? god cannot forgive me for that. they say when he was in jerusalem, he forgave his murderers. now he won't forgive an honest man for differing with him on the subject of the trinity. they say that god says to me, "forgive your enemies." i say, "all right, i do;" but he says, "i will damn mine." god should be consistent. if he wants me to forgive my enemies, he should forgive his. i am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. god is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. he certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. and i want no god to forgive me unless i do forgive others. all i ask, if that be true, is that this god should live according to his own doctrine. if i am to forgive my enemies i ask him to forgive his. that is justice, that is right. here are these millions today who say: "we are to be saved by belief, by faith; but what are we to believe?" in st. louis last sunday i read an interview with a christian minister--one who is now holding a revival. they call him the boy preacher--a name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. the question was whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy seats with white people, and that revivalist, preaching the unsearchable richness of christ, said he would not allow the colored people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the church. the same people go and sit right next to them in heaven, swap harps with them, and yet this man, believing as he says he does, that if he did not believe in the lord jesus christ he would eternally perish, was not willing that the colored man should sit by a white man while he heard the gospel of everlasting peace. he was not willing that the colored man should get into the lifeboat of christ, although those white men might be totally depraved, and if they had justice done them, according to his doctrine. would be eternally damned--and yet he has the impudence to put on airs, although he ought to be eternally damned, and go and sit by the colored man. his doctrine of religion, the color line, has not my respect. i believe in the religion of humanity, and it is far better to love our fellow-men than to love god, because we can help them, and we cannot help him. you had better do what you can than to be always pretending to do what you cannot. now i come to the last part of the bible--this creed--and that is, eternal punishment, and i have concluded; and i have said i will never deliver a lecture that i do not give the full benefit of its name. that part of the congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that crouches and crawls in the jungles of africa. the man who now, in the nineteenth century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of eternal hell, has lived in vain. think of that doctrine! the eternity of punishment! why, i find in that same creed that christ is finally going to triumph in this world and establish his kingdom; but if their doctrine is true, he will never triumph in the other world. he will have billions in hell forever. in this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the earth. as long as there is a penitentiary, behind the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a civilized people. we will never be perfectly civilized until we do away with crime and criminals. and yet, according to this christian religion, god is to have an eternal penitentiary; he is to be an everlasting jailor, an everlasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and he is going to keep prisoners there, not for the purpose of reforming them--because they are never going to get any better, only getting worse--just for the purpose of punishing them. and what for? for something they did in this world; born in ignorance, educated it may be in poverty, and yet responsible through the countless ages of eternity. no man can think of a greater horror; no man can think of a greater absurdity. for the growth of that doctrine, ignorance was soil and fear was rain. that doctrine came from the fanged mouths of wild beasts, and yet it is the "glad tidings of great joy." "god so loved the world" he is going to damn most everybody, and, if this christian religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived upon this earth, are suffering its torments tonight. it don't appear to make much difference, however, with this church. they go right on enjoying themselves as well as ever. if their doctrine is true, benjamin franklin, one of the wisest, and best of men, who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of god tonight, while he endeavored to establish freedom among men. if the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearts, "benjamin franklin is in hell, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate benjamin franklin. thomas jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many years." that is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. talk as you believe. stand by your creed or change it. i want to impress it upon your mind, because the thing i wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell i want to keep at it just as long as there is one little coal red in the bottomless pit. as long as the ashes are warm, i shall denounce this infamous doctrine. i want you to know that the men who founded this great and glorious government are there. the most of the men who fought in the revolutionary war and wrested from the clutch of great britain this continent; have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of god. the old revolutionary soldiers are in hell by the thousands. let the preachers have the courage to say so. the men who fought in , and gave to the united states the freedom of the seas, nearly all of them have been damned since --all that were killed. the greatest of heroes, they are there. the greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the world beautiful and grand, they are all, i tell you, among the damned, if this creed is true. humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind, goethe, and schiller, and lessing, who almost created the german language--all gone! all suffering the wrath of god tonight, and every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra twang. la place, who read the heaven like an open book--he is there. robert burns, the poet of human love--he is there because he wrote the "prayer of holy willie;" because he fastened upon the cross the presbyterian creed, and made a lingering crucifixion. and yet that man added to the tenderness of human heart. dickens, who put a shield of pity before the flesh of childhood god is getting even with him. our own ralph waldo emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace, and the holy ghost is delighted that he is in hell tonight. longfellow refined hundreds and thousands of homes, but he did not believe in the miraculous origin of the savior. no, sir; he doubted the report of gabriel. he loved his fellow-men; he did what he could to free the slaves; he did what he could to make mankind happy; but god was just waiting for him. he had his constable right there. thomas paine, the author of the "rights of man," offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race, and one of the founders of the republic--it has often seemed to me that if we could get god's attention long enough to point him to the american flag, he would let him out. compte, the author of the "positive philosophy," who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he made of humanity a god, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered with tears--they are getting their revenge on him now. voltaire, who abolished torture in france; who did more for human liberty than any other man, living or dead; who was the assassin of superstition, and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of catholicism--all the priests who have been translated have their happiness increased by looking at voltaire. glorious country where the principal occupation is watching the miseries of the lost. geordani bruno, benedict spinoza, diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a small compass so that he could put the peasant on an equality with the prince intellectually; the man who wished to sow all over the world the seeds of knowledge; who loved to labor for mankind. while the priests wanted to burn, he did all he could to put out the fire--he has been lost long, long ago. his cry for water has, become so common that his voice is now recognized through all the realms of hell, and they say to one another, "that is diderot." david hume, the philosopher, he is there with the rest. beethoven, the shakespeare of music, he has been lost, and wagner, the master of melody, and who has made the air of this world rich forever, he is there, and they have better music in hell than in heaven. shelley, whose soul, like his own skylark, was a winged joy--he has been damned for many, many years; and shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who has done more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived and died--he is there; and all the founders of inquisitions, the builders of dungeons, the makers of chains, the inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes and sellers of husbands, and wives, and children, the drawers of the swords, of persecution, and they who kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thousand years--they are in heaven tonight. well, i wish heaven joy of such company. and that is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of children. that is the doctrine that puts a fiend by their dying bed and a prophesy of hell over every cradle. that is "glad tidings of great joy." only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon the ohio, sent by him who is ruling in the world and paying particular attention to the affairs of nations, just in the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down, and on its top a human being; and a few men went out to the rescue in a little boat, and they found there a mother, a woman, and they wanted to rescue her, and she said: "no, i am going to stay where i am. i have three dead babes in this house." think of a love so limitless, stronger and deeper than despair and death, and yet the christian religion says that if that woman did not happen to believe in their creed, god would send that mother's soul to eternal fire. if there is another world, and if in heaven they wear hats, when such a woman climbs up the opposite bank of the jordan, christ should lift his to her. that is the trouble i had with this christian religion--its infinite heartlessness; and i cannot tell them too often that during our last war christians who knew that if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly willing the men should go to hell, provided they could stay at home. you see they are not honest in it; they do not believe it, or, as the people say, "they don't sense it;" they have not religion enough to conceive what it is they believe and what a terrific falsehood they assert. and i beg of every one who hears me tonight, i beg, i implore, i beseech you never give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven anyway if you let them alone; what is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them. let them alone. the idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he won't believe it. don't tell him, and as quick as he gets to the other world and finds it necessary to believe, he will say "yes." give him a chance. my objection to the christian religion is that it destroys human love, and tells you and me that the love of your dear-ones is not necessary in this world to make a heaven in the next. no matter about your wife, your children, your brother, your sister--no matter about all the affections of the human heart--when you get there you will be alone with the angels. i don't know whether i would like the angels. i don't know whether the angels would like me. i would rather stand by the folks who have loved me and whom i know; and i can conceive of no heaven without the love of this earth. that is the trouble with the christian religion; leave your father, leave your mother, leave your wife, leave your children, leave everything and follow jesus christ. i will not. i will stay with the folks. i will not sacrifice on the altar of a selfish fear all the grandest and noblest promptings of my heart. you do away with human love, and what are we without it? what would we be in another world, and what would we be here without it? can any one conceive of music without human love? human love builds every home--human love is the author of all the beauty in this world. love paints every picture, and chisels every statue; love, i tell you, builds every fireside. what would heaven be without love? and yet that is what we are promised--a heaven with your wife lost, your mother lost, some of your children gone. and you expect to be made happy by falling in with some angel. such a religion is demoralizing; and how are you to get there? on the efforts of another. you are to be perpetually a heavenly pauper, and you will have to admit through all eternity that you never would have got here if you hadn't got frightened. "i am here," you will say, "i have these wings, i have this musical instrument, because i was scared." what a glorious world; and then think of it! no reformation in the next world--not the slightest. if you die in arkansas that is the end of you. at the end you will be told that being born in arkansas you had a fair chance. think of telling a boy in the next world, who lived and died in delaware, that he had a fair show! can anything be more infamous? all on an equality--the rich and the poor, those with parents loving them, those with every opportunity for education, on an equality with the poor, the abject, and the ignorant--and the little ray called life, this little moment with a shadow and a tear, this little space between your mother's arms and the grave, that balances an entire eternity. and god can do nothing for you when you get there. a little methodist preacher can do no more for the soul here than its creator can when you get there. the soul goes to heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples; and they are all there, father, son and holy ghost, and yet they can do nothing for that poor unfortunate except to damn him. is there any sense in that? why should this be a period of probation? it says in the bible, i believe, "now is the accepted time." when does that mean? that means whenever the passage is pronounced. now is the accepted time. it will be the same tomorrow, won't it? and just as appropriate then as today, and if appropriate at any time, appropriate through all eternity. what i say is this: there is no world--there can be no world--in which every human being will not have an opportunity of doing right. that is my objection to this christian religion, and if the love of earth is not the love of heaven, if those who love us here are to be separated there, then i want eternal sleep. give me a good cold grave rather than the furnace of jehovah's wrath. gabriel, don't blow! let me alone! if, when the grave bursts, i am not to meet faces that have been my sunshine in this life, let me sleep on. rather than that the doctrine of endless punishment should be tried, i would like to see the fabric of our civilization crumble and fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and where even memory forgets. i would rather a samson of some unprisoned force, released by chance, should so wreck and strain the mighty world that man in stress and strain of want and fear should shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. i would rather that every planet would in its orbit wheel a barren star rather than that the christian religion should be true. i think it is better to love your children than to love god, a thousand times better, because you can help them, and i am inclined to think that god can get along without you. i believe in the religion of the family. i believe that the roof-tree is sacred from the smallest fibre held in the soft, moist clasp of the earth to the little blossom on the topmost bough that gives its fragrance to the happy air. the family where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all this world. and i tell you god cannot afford to damn a man in the next world who has made a happy family in this. god cannot afford to cast over the battlements of heaven the man who has built a happy home here. god cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable of pity. god cannot clothe with fire the man who has clothed the naked here; and god cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. if he can, i had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep the company of such a god. they tell me the next terrible thing i do is to take away the hope of immortality. i do not, i would not, i could not. immortality was first dreamed of by human love, and yet the church is going to take human love out of immortality. we love it; therefore we wish to love. a loved ones dies, and we wish to meet again, and from the affection of the human heart grew the great oak of the hope of immortality. and around that oak has climbed the poisonous vine, superstition. theologians, pretenders, soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken all that hope, and they have had the impudence to stand by the grave and prophesy a future of pain. they have erected their toll-gates on the highway to the other world, and have collected money from the poor people on the way, and they have collected it from their fear. the church did not give us the idea of immortality; the bible did not give us the idea of immortality. let me tell you now that the old testament tells you how you lost immortality; it does not say another word about another world from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in malachi. there is not in the old testament one burial service. no man in the old testament stands by the bed and says, "i will meet them again"--not one word. from the top of sinai came no hope of another world. and when we get to the new testament, what do we find there? have thy heart counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead. as though some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrection of the dead. and, in another place: "seek for honor, glory, immortality." if you have got it, why seek for it? and in another place: "god, who alone hath immortality;" and yet they tell us that we get our ideas of immortality from the bible. i deny it. if christ was in fact god, why didn't he plainly say there was another life? why didn't he tell us something about it? why didn't he turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life? why did he go dumbly to his death, and leave the world in darkness and in doubt? why? because he was a man and didn't know. i would not destroy the smallest star of human hope, but i deny that we got our idea of immortality from the bible. it existed long before moses existed. we find it symbolized through all egypt, through all india. wherever man has lived, his religion has made another world in which to meet the lost. it is not born of the bible. the idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the rocks and sands of fate and time. it was not born of the bible. it was born of the human heart, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. we do not know. we do not prophesy a life of pain. we leave the dead with nature, the mother of us all, under a seven-hued bow of hope. under the seven-hued arch let the dead sleep. "ah, but you take the consolation of religion." what consolation has religion for the widow of the unbeliever, the widow of a good, brave, kind man who lies dead? what can the orthodox ministers say to relieve the bursting heart of that woman? what can the orthodox ministers say to relieve the aching hearts of the little orphans as they kneel by the grave of that father, if that father didn't happen to be an orthodox christian? what consolation have they? i find that when a christian loses a friend the tears spring from his eyes as quickly as from the eyes of others. their tears are as bitter as ours. why? the echo of the promises spoken eighteen hundred years ago is so low, and the sound of the clods upon the coffin so loud, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. that is the reason. and they find no consolation there. i say honestly we do not know; we cannot say. we cannot say whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions too soar or the folding forever of wings; whether it is the rising or the setting of sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one--we do not know; we can not say. there is an old fable of orpheus and eurydice: eurydice had been captured and taken to the infernal regions, and orpheus went after her, taking with him his harp and playing as he went; and when he came to the infernal regions he began to play, and sysiphus sat down upon the stone that he had been heaving up the side of the mountain so many years, and which continually rolled back upon him. ixion paused upon his wheel of fire; tantalus ceased in his vain efforts for water; the daughters of the danaidae left off trying to fill their sieves with water; pluto smiled, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the furies were wet with tears; monsters relented and they said, "eurydice may go with you, but you must not look back." so he again threaded the caverns, playing as he went, and as he again reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps of eurydice, and he looked back and in a moment she was gone. this old fable gives to us the idea of the perpetual effort to rescue truth from the churches of monsters. some time orpheus will not look back. some day eurydice will reach the blessed light, and at some time there will fade from the memory of men the superstition of religion. ingersoll's lecture on "blasphemy" ladies and gentlemen: there is an old story of a missionary trying to convert an indian. the indian made a little circle in the sand and said, "that is what the indian knows." then he made another circle a little larger and said, "that is what missionary knows; but outside there the indian knows just as much as missionary." i am going to talk mostly outside that circle tonight. first, what is the origin of the crime known as blasphemy? it is the belief in a god who is cruel, revengeful, quick tempered and capricious; a god who punishes the innocent for the guilty; a god who listens with delight to the shrieks of the tortured and gazes enraptured on their spurting blood. you must hold this belief before you can believe in the doctrine of blasphemy. you must believe that this god loves ceremonies, that this god knows certain men to whom he has told all his will. it then follows that, if this god loves ceremonies and has certain men to teach his will and perform these ceremonies, these men must have a place to live in. this place was called a temple, and it was sacred. and the pots and pans and kettles and all in it were sacred too. no one but the priests must touch them. then the god wrote a book in which he told his covenants to men, and gave this book to priests to interpret. while it was sacrilege to touch with the hands the pots and pans of the temple, it was blasphemy to doubt or question anything in the book. and then the right to think was gone, and the right to use the brain that god had given was taken away, and religion was entrenched behind that citadel called blasphemy. god was a kind of juggler. he did not wish man to be impudent or curious about how he did things. you must sit in audience and watch the tricks and ask no questions. in front of every fact he has hung the impenetrable curtain of blasphemy. now, then, all the little reason that poor man had is useless. to say anything against the priest was blasphemy and to say anything against god was blasphemy--to ask a question was blasphemy. finally we sank to the level of fetishism. we began to worship inanimate things. if you will read your bible you will find that the jews had a sacred box. in it were the rod of aaron and a piece of manna and the tables of stone. to touch this box was a crime. you remember that one time when a careless jew thought the box was going to tip he held it. god killed him. what a warning to baggage smashers of the present day. we find also that god concocted a hair oil and threatened death to any one who imitated it. and we see that he also made a certain perfume and it was death to make anything that smelt like it. it seems to me this is carrying protection too far. it always has been blasphemy to say "i do not know whether god exists or not." in all catholic countries it is blasphemy to doubt the bible, to doubt the sacredness of the relics. it always has been blasphemy to laugh at a priest, to ask questions, to investigate the trinity. in a world of superstition, reason is blasphemy. in a world of ignorance, facts are blasphemy. in a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy. who are the real blasphemers? webster offers the definition; blasphemy is an insult offered to god by attributing to him a nature and qualities differing from his real nature and qualities, and dishonoring him. a very good definition, if you only know what his nature and qualities are. but that is not revealed; for, studying him through the medium of the bible, we find him illimitably contradictory. he commands us not to work on the sabbath day, because it is holy. yet god works himself on the sabbath day. the sun, moon and stars swing round in their orbits, and all the creation attributed to this god goes on as on other days. he says: "honor thy father and mother," and yet this god, in the person of christ, offered honors, and glory, and happiness a hundred fold to any who would desert their father and mother for him. thou shalt not kill, yet god killed the first-born of egypt, and he commanded joshua to kill all his enemies, not sparing old or young, man, woman or child, even an unborn child. "thou shalt not commit adultery," he says, and yet this god gave the wives of defeated enemies to his soldiers of joshua's army. then again he says, "thou shalt not steal." by this command he protected the inanimate property and the cattle of one man against the hand of another, and yet this god who said "thou shalt not steal," established human slavery. the products of industry were not to be interfered with, but the producer might be stolen as often as possible. "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." and yet the god who said this said also, "i have sent lying spirits unto ahab." the only commandment he really kept was, "thou shalt have none other gods but me." is it blasphemous to describe this god as malicious? you know that laughter is a good index of the character of a man. you like and rejoice with the man whose laugh is free and joyous and full of good will. you fear and dislike him of the sneering laugh. how does god laugh? he says, "i will laugh at their calamity and mock at their misfortune," speaking of some who have sinned. think of the malice and malignity of that in an infinite god when speaking of the sufferings he is going to impose upon his children. you know that it is said of a roman emperor that he wrote laws very finely, and posted them so high on the walls that no one could read them, and then he punished the people who disobeyed the laws. that is the acme of tyranny: to provide a punishment for breach of laws the existence of which were unknown. now we all know that there is sin against the holy ghost which will not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come. hundreds of thousands of people have been driven to the lunatic asylum by the thought that they had committed this unpardonable sin. every educated minister knows that that part of the bible is an interpolation, but they all preach it. what that sin against the holy ghost is, is not specified. i say, "oh, but my good god, tell me what this sin is." and he answers, "maybe now asking is the crime. keep quiet." so i keep quiet and go about tortured with the fear that i have committed that sin. is it blasphemy to describe god as needing assistance from the legislature? calling for the aid of a mob to enforce his will here, compare that god with a man, even with henry bergh. see what mr. bergh has done to awaken pity in our people and call sympathy to the rescue of suffering animals. and yet our god was a torturer of dumb brutes. it is blasphemy to say that our god sent the famine and dried the mother's breast from her infant's withered lips? is it blasphemy to say that he is the author of the pestilence; that he ordered some of his children to consume others with fire and sword? is it blasphemy to believe what we read in the th psalm? if these things are not blasphemy, then there is no blasphemy. if there be a god i desire him to write in the book of judgment opposite my name that i denied these lies for him. let us take another step; let us examine the presbyterian confession of faith. if it be possible to commit blasphemy, then i contend that the presbyterian creed is most blasphemous, for, according to that, god is a cruel, unrelenting, revengeful, malignant and utterly unreasonable tyrant. i propose now to pay a little attention to the creed. first, it confesses that there is such a thing as a light of nature. it is sufficient to make man inexcusable, but not sufficient for salvation; just light enough to lead man to hell. now imagine a man who will put a false light on a hilltop to lure a ship to destruction. what would we say of that man? what can we say of a god who gives this false light of nature which, if its lessons are followed, results in hell? that is the presbyterian god. i don't like him. now it occurred to god that the light of nature was somewhat weak, and he thought he'd light another burner. therefore he made his book and gave it to his servants, the priests, that they might give it to men. it was to be accepted, not on the authority of moses, or any other writer, but because it was the word of god. how do you know it's the word of god? you're not to take the word of moses, or david, or jeremiah, or isaiah, or any other man, because the authenticity of their work has nothing to do with the matter; this creed expressly lets them out. how are you to know that it is god's word? because it is god's word. why is it god's word? what proof have we that it is god's word? because it is god's word. now, then, i find that the next thing in this wonderful confession of faith of the presbyterians is the decree of predestination. [reads the decree.] i am pleased to assure you that it is not necessary to understand this. you have only to believe it. you see that by the decree of god some men and angels are predestinated to heaven and others to eternal hell, and you observe that their number is so certain and definite that it can neither be changed nor altered. you are asked to believe that billions of years ago this god knew the names of all the men and women whom he was going to save. had 'em in his book, that being the only thing except himself that then existed. he had chosen the names by the aid of the secret council. the reason they called it secret was because they knew all about it. in making his choice, god was not at all bigoted. he did not choose john smith because he foresaw that smith was to be a presbyterian, and was to possess a loving nature, was to be honest and true and noble in all his ways, doing good himself and encouraging others in the same. oh, no! he was quite as likely to pick brown, in spite of the fact that he knew long before that brown would be a wicked wretch. you see he was just as apt to send smith to the devil and take brown to heaven--and all for "his glory." this god also blinds and hardens--ah! he's a peculiar god. if sinners persevere, he will blind and harden and give them over at last to their own wickedness instead of trying to reclaim and save them. now we come to the comforting doctrine of the total depravity of man, and this leads us to consider how he came that way. can any person read the first chapters of genesis and believe them unless his logic was assassinated in the cradle? we read that our first parents were placed in a pleasant garden; that they were given the full run of the place and only forbidden to meddle with the orchard; that they were tempted as god knew they were to be tempted; that they fell as god knew they would fall, and that for this fall, which he knew would happen before he made them, he fixed the curse of original sin upon them, to be continued to all their children. why didn't he stop right there? why didn't he kill adam and eve and make another pair who didn't like apples? then when he brought his flood why did he rescue eight people if their descendants were to be so totally depraved and wicked? why didn't he have his flood first, and then drown the devil? that would have solved the problem, and he could then have tried experiments unmolested. the presbyterian confession says this corruption was in all men. it was born with them, it lived through their life, and after death survived in the children. well, can't man help himself? no, i'll show you, god's got him. listen to this. [reads extracts.] so that a natural man is not only dead in sin and unable to accomplish salvation, but he is also incapable of preparing himself therefore. absolutely incapable of taking a trick. he is saved, if at all, completely by the mercy of god. if that's the case, then why doesn't he convert us all? oh, he doesn't. he wishes to send the most of us to hell--to show his justice. elect infants dying in infancy are regenerate. so also are all persons incapable of unbelief. that includes insane persons and idiots, because an idiot is incapable of unbelief. idiots are the only fellows who've got the dead wood on god. then according to this, the man who has lived according to the light of nature, doing the best he knew how to make this earth happy, will be damned by god because he never heard of his son. whose fault is it that an infinite god does not advertise? something wrong about that. i am inclined to think that the presbyterian church is wrong. i find here how utterly unpardonable sin is. there is no sin so small but it is punished with hell, and away you go straight to the deepest burning pit unless your heart has been purified by this confession of faith--unless this snake has crawled in there and made itself a nest. why should we help religion? i would like people to ask themselves that question. an infinite god, by practicing a reasonable economy, can get along without assistance. loudly this confession proclaims that salvation comes from christ alone. what, then, becomes of the savage who, having never known the name of christ, has lived according to the light of nature, kind and heroic and generous, and possessed of and cultivating all the natural virtues? he goes to hell. god, you see, loves us. if he had not loved us what would he have done? the light of nature then shows that god is good and therefore to be feared--on account of his goodness, to be served and honored without ceasing. and yet this creed says that on the last day god will damn anyone who has walked according to this light. it's blasphemy to walk by the light of nature. the next great doctrine is on the preservation of the saints. now, there are peculiarities about saints. they are saints without their own knowledge or free will; they may even be down on saints, but its no good. god has got a rolling hitch on them, and they have to come into the kingdom sooner or later. it all depends on whether they have been elected or not. god could have made me a saint just as easy as not, but he passed me by. now you know the presbyterians say i trample on holy things. they believe in hell and i come and say there is no hell. i hurt their hearts, they say, and they add that i am going to hell myself. i thank them for that; but now let's see what these tender presbyterians say of other churches. here it is: this confession of faith calls the pope of rome anti-christ and a son of perdition. now there are forty roman catholics to one presbyterian on this earth. do not the presbyterians rather trample on the things that are holy to the roman catholics, and do they respect their feelings? but the presbyterians have a pope themselves, composed of the presbyters and preachers. this confession attributes to them the keys of heaven and hell and the power to forgive sins. [here extracts are read.] therefore these men must be infallible, for god would never be so foolish as to entrust fallible men with the keys of heaven and hell. i care nothing for their keys, nor for any world these keys would open or lock; i prefer the country. we are told by this faith that at the last day all the men and women and children who have ever lived on the earth will appear in the self same bodies they have had when on earth. everyone who knows anything knows the constant exchange which is going on between the vegetable and animal kingdom. the millions of atoms which compose one of our bodies have all come from animals and vegetables, and they in their turn drew them from animals and vegetables which preceded them. the same atoms which are now in our bodies have previously been in the bodies of our ancestors. the negro from central africa has many times been mahogany and the mahogany has many times been negro. a missionary goes to the cannibal islands and a cannibal eats him and dies. the atoms which composed the missionary's body now compose in great part the cannibal's body. to whom will these atoms belong on the morning of the resurrection? how did the devil, who had always lived in heaven among the best society, ever happen to become bad? if a man surrounded by angels could become bad, why cannot a man surrounded by devils become good? here is the last presbyterian joy: at the day of judgment the righteous shall be caught up to heaven and shall stand at the right hand of christ and share with him in judging the wicked. then the presbyterian husband may have the ineffable pleasure of judging his wife and condemning her to eternal hell, and the boy will say to his mother, echoing the command of god: "depart, thou accursed, into everlasting torment!" here will come a man who has not believed in god. he was a soldier who took up arms to free the slaves and who rotted to death in andersonville prison rather than accept the offer of his captors to fight against freedom. he loved his wife and his children and his home and his native country and all mankind, and did all the good he knew. god will say to the presbyterians, "what shall we do to this man?"; and they will answer, "throw him into hell." last night there was a fire in philadelphia, and at a window fifty feet above the ground mr. king stood amid flame and smoke and pressed his children to his breast one after the other, kissed them, and threw them to the rescuers with a prayer. that was man. at the last day god takes his children with a curse and hurls them into eternal fire. that's your god as the presbyterians describe him. do you believe that god--if there is one--will ever damn me for thinking him better than he is? if this creed be true, god is the insane keeper of a mad house. we have in this city a clergyman who contends that this creed gives a correct picture of god, and furthermore says that god has the right to do with us what he pleases--because he made us. if i could change this lamp into a human being, that would not give me the right to torture him, and if i did torture him and he cried out, "why torturest thou me?" and i replied, "because i made you," he would be right in replying, "you made me, therefore you are responsible for my happiness." no god has a right to add to the sum of human misery. and yet this minister believes an honest thought blasphemy. no doubt he is perfectly honest. otherwise he would have too much intellectual pride to take the position he does. he says that the bible offers the only restraint to the savage passions of man. in lands where there has been no bible there have been mild and beneficent philosophers, like buddha and confucius. is it possible that the bible is the only restraint, and yet the nations among whom these men lived have been as moral as we? in brooklyn and new york you have the bible, yet do you find that the restraint is a great success? is there a city on the globe which lacks more in certain directions than some in christendom, or even the united states? what are the natural virtues of man? honesty, hospitality, mercy in the hour of victory, generosity--do we not find these virtues among some savages? do we find them among all christians? i am also told by these gentlemen that the time will come when the infidel will be silenced by society. why that time came long ago. society gave the hemlock to socrates, society in jerusalem cried out for barabbas and crucified jesus. in every christian country society has endeavored to crush the infidel. blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put on the lips of all honest men. at one time christianity succeeded in silencing the infidel, and then came the dark ages, when all rule was ecclesiastical, when the air was filled with devils and spooks, when birth was a misfortune, life a prolonged misery of fear and torment, and death a horrible nightmare. they crushed the infidels, galileo, kepler, copernicus, wherever a ray of light appeared in the ecclesiastical darkness. but i want to tell this minister tonight, and all others like him, that that day is passed. all the churches in the united states can not even crush me. the day for that has gone, never to return. if they think they can crush free thought in this country, let them try it. what must this minister think of you and the citizens of this republic when he says, "take the fear of hell out of men's hearts and a majority of them will become ungovernably wicked." oh, think of an angel in heaven having to allow that he was scared there. this minister calls for my arrest. he thinks his god needs help, and would like to see the police crush the infidel. i would advise mr. talmage (hisses) to furnish his god with a rattle, so that when he is in danger again he can summon the police immediately. i'll tell you what is blasphemy. it is blasphemy to live on the fruits of other men's labor, to prevent the growth of the human mind, to persecute for opinion's sake, to abuse your wife and children, to increase in any manner the sum of human misery. i'll tell you what is sacred. our bodies are sacred, our rights are sacred, justice and liberty are sacred. i'll tell you what is the true bible. it is the sum of all actual knowledge of man, and every man who discovers a new fact adds a new verse to this bible. it is different from the other bible, because that is the sum of all that its writers and readers do not know. ingersoll's lecture entitled "some reasons why" ladies and gentlemen: the history of the world shows that religion has made enemies instead of friends. that one word "religion" paints the horizon of the past with every form of agony and torture, and when one pronounces the name of "religion" we think of , years of persecution, of , years of hatred, slander and vituperation. strange, but true, that those who have loved god most have loved men least; strange that in countries where there has been the most religion there has been the most agony; and that is one reason why i am opposed to what is known as religion. by religion i mean the duties that men are supposed to owe to god; by religion i mean, not what man owes to man, but what we owe to some invisible, infinite and supreme being. the question arises, can any relation exist between finite man and infinite being? an infinite being is absolutely conditional. an infinite being can not walk, cannot receive, and a finite being cannot give to the infinite. can i increase his happiness or decrease his misery? does he need my strength or my life? what can i do for him? i say, nothing. for one, i do not believe there is any god who gives rain or sunshine for praying. for one, i do not believe there is any being who helps man simply because he kneels. i may be mistaken, but that is my doctrine--that the finite cannot by any possibility help the infinite, or the infinite be indebted to the finite; that the finite cannot by any possibility assist a being who is all in all. what can we do? we can help man; we can help clothe the naked, feed the hungry; we can help break the chains of the slave; we can help weave a garment of joy that will finally cover this world. that is all that man can do. wherever he has endeavored to do more he has simply increased the misery of his fellows. i can find out nothing of these things myself by my unaided reasoning. if there is an infinite god and i have not reason enough to comprehend his universe, whose fault is it? i am told that we have the inspired will of god. i do not know exactly what they mean by inspired. not two sects agree on that word. some tell me that every great work is inspired; that shakespeare is inspired. i would be less apt to dispute that than a similar remark about any other book on this earth. if jehovah had wanted to have a book written, the inspiration of which should not be disputed, he should have waited until shakespeare lived. whatever they mean by inspiration, they at least mean that it is true. if it is true, it does not need to be inspired. the truth will take care of itself. nothing except a falsehood needs inspiration. what is inspiration? a man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. another man looks at the same sea, and the sea tells another story to him. the sea cannot tell the same story to any two human beings. there is not a thing in nature, from a pebble to a constellation, that tells the same story to any two human beings. it depends upon the man's experience, his intellectual development, and what chord of memory it touches. one looks upon the sea and is filled with grief; another looks upon it and laughs. last year, riding in the cars from boston to portsmouth, sat opposite me a lady and gentleman. as we reached the latter place the woman, for the first time in her life, caught a burst of the sea, and she looked and said to her husband "isn't that beautiful!" and he looked and said: "i'll bet you can dig clams right there." another illustration: a little while ago a gentleman was walking with another in south carolina, at charleston--one who had been upon the other side. said the northerner to the southerner, "did you ever see such a night as this; did you ever in your life see such a moon?" "oh, my god," said he, "you ought to have seen that moon before the war!" i simply say these things to convince you that everything in nature has a different story to tell every human being. so the bible tells a different story to every man that reads it. history proves what i say. why so many sects? why so much persecution? simply because two people couldn't understand it exactly alike. you may reply that god intended it should be so understood, and that is the real revelation that god intended. for instance, i write a letter to smith. i want to convey to him certain thoughts. if i am honest i will use the words which will convey to him my thoughts, but not being infinite, i don't know exactly how smith will understand my words; but if i were infinite i would be bound to use the words that i know smith would get my exact idea from. if god intended to make a revelation to me he has to make it to me through my brain and my reasoning. he cannot make a revelation to another man for me. that other man will have god's word for it but i will only have that man's word for it. as that man has been dead for several thousand years, and as i don't know what his reputation was for truth and veracity in the neighborhood in which he lived, i will wait for the lord to speak again. suppose when i read it, the revelation to me, through the bible, is that it is not true, and god knew that i would know that when i did read it, and knew, if i did not say it, i would be dishonest. is it possible that he would damn me for being honest, and give me wings if i would play the hypocrite? the inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it. yet they tell me this book was written by the creator of every shining star. now let us see. i want to be honest and candid. i have just as much at stake in the way of soul as any doctor of divinity that ever lived, and more than some i have met. according to this book, the first attempt at peopling this world was a failure. god had to destroy all but eight. he saved some of the same kind to start again, which i think was a mistake. after that, the people still getting worse, he selected from the wide world a few of the tribe of abraham. he had no time to waste with everybody. he had no time to throw away on egypt. it had at that time a vast and splendid civilization, in which there were free schools; in which the one man married the one wife; where there were courts of law; where there were codes of laws. neither could he give attention to india, that had at that time a literature as splendid almost as ours, a language as perfect; that had produced poets, philosophers, statesmen. he had no time to waste with them, but took a few of the tribe of abraham, and he did his best to civilize these people. he was their governor, their executive, their supreme court. he established a despotism, and from mount sinai he proclaimed his laws. they didn't pay much attention to them. he wrought thousands of miracles to convince them that he was god. isn't it perfectly wonderful that the priest of one religion never believes the miracles told by the priest of another? is it possible that they know each other? i heard a story the other day. a gentleman was telling a very remarkable circumstance that happened to himself, and all the listeners except one said, "is it possible; did you ever hear such a wonderful thing in all your life?" they noticed that this one man didn't appear to take a vivid interest in the story, so one said to him, "you don't express much astonishment at the story?" "no," says he, "i am a liar myself." i find by reading this book that a worse government was never established than that established by jehovah; that the jews were the most unfortunate people who lived upon the globe. let us compare this book. in all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but passionately asserted, that slavery is an infamous crime; that a war of extermination is murder; that polygamy enslaves woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men and helpless women, and of prattling babes; that the captured maiden should not be given to her captors; that wives should not be stoned to death for differing in religion from their husbands. we know there was a time in the history of most nations when all these crimes were regarded as divine institutions. nations entertaining these views today are called savage, and with the exception of the feejee islanders, some tribes in central africa, and a few citizens of delaware, no human being can be found degraded enough to agree upon those subjects with jehovah. today, the fact that a nation has abolished and abandoned those things is the only evidence that it can offer to show that it is not still barbarous; but a believer in the inspiration of the bible is compelled to say there was a time when slavery was right, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, and when the creator of the whole world commanded the soldier to sheathe the dagger of murder in the dimpled breast of infancy. the believer of inspiration of the bible is compelled to say there was a time when it was right for a husband to murder his wife because they differed upon subjects of religion. i deny that such a time ever was. if i knew the real god said it, i would still deny it. four thousand years ago, if the bible is true, god was in favor of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination and religious persecution. now we are told the devil is in favor of all those things, and god is opposed to them; in other words, the devil stands now where god stood , years ago; yet they tell me god is just as good now as he was then, and the devil just as bad now as god was then. other nations believed in slavery, polygamy, and war and persecution without ever having received one ray of light from heaven. that shows that a special revelation is not necessary to teach a man to do wrong. other nations did no worse without the bible than the jews did with it. suppose the devil had inspired a book. in what respect would he have differed from god on the subject of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution? suppose we knew that after god had finished his book the devil had gotten possession of it, and written a few passages to suit himself. which passages, o christian, would you pick out now as having probably been written by the devil? which of these two, "love thy neighbor as thyself," or "kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every man, but all the women and girls keep alive for yourselves"--which of those two passages would they select as having been written by the devil? if god wrote the last, there is no need of a devil. is there a christian in the wide world who does not wish that god, from the thunder and lightning of sinai, had said: "you shall not enslave your fellow-man!" i am opposed to any man who is in favor of slavery. if revolution is needed at all it is to prevent man enslaving his fellow-man. but they say god did the best he could; that the jews were so bad that he had to come up kind of slow. if he had told them suddenly they must not murder and steal, they would not have paid any respect to the ten commandments. suppose you go to the cannibal islands to prevent the gentlemen there from eating missionaries, and you found they ate them raw. the first move is to induce them to cook them. after you get them to eat cooked missionaries, you will then, without their knowing it, occasionally slip in a little mutton. we will go on gradually decreasing missionaries and increasing mutton until finally the last will be so cultivated that they will prefer the sheep to the priest, i think the missionaries would object to that mode, of course. i know this was written by the jews themselves. if they were to write it now, it would be different. today they are a civilized people. i do not wish it understood that a word i say tonight touches the slightest prejudice in any man's mind against the jewish people. they are as good a people as live today. i will say right here, they never had any luck until jehovah abandoned them. now we come to the new testament. they tell me that is better than the old, i say it is worse. the great objection to the old testament is that it is cruel; but in the old testament the revenge of god stopped with the portals of the tomb. he never threatened punishment after death. he never threatened one thing beyond the grave. it was reserved for the new testament to make known the doctrine of eternal punishment. is the new testament inspired? i have not time to give many reasons, but i will give some. in the first place, they tell me the very fact that the witnesses disagree in minor matters shows that they have not conspired to tell the same story. good. and i say in every lawsuit where four or five witnesses testify, or endeavor to testify, to the same transaction, it is natural that they should differ on minor points. why? because no two occupy exactly the same position; no two see exactly alike; no two remember precisely the same, and their disagreement is due to and accounted for by the imperfection of human nature, and the fact that they did not all have an equal opportunity to know. but if you admit or say that the four witnesses were inspired by an infinite being who did see it all, then they should remember all the same, because inspiration does not depend on memory. that brings me to another point. why were there four gospels? what is the use of more than one correct account of anything? if you want to spread it, send copies. no human being has got the ingenuity to tell me why there were four gospels, when one correct gospel would have been enough. why should there have been four original multiplication tables? one is enough, and if anybody has got any use for it he can copy that one. the very fact that we have got four gospels shows that it is not an inspired book. the next point is that, according to the new testament, the salvation of the world depended upon the atonement. only one of the books in the new testament says anything about that, and that is john. the church followed john, and they ought to follow john, because the church wrote that book called john. according to that, the whole world was to be damned on account of the sins of one man; and that absurdity was the father and mother of another absurdity--that the whole world could be saved on account of the virtue of another man. i deny both propositions. no man can sin for me; no man can be virtuous for me; i must reap what i sow. but they say the law must be satisfied. what kind of a law is it that would demand punishment of the innocent? just think of it. here is a man about to be hanged, and another comes up and says: "that man has got a family, and i have not; that man is in good health and i am not well, and i will be hung in his place." and the governor says: "all right; a murder has been committed, and we have got to have a hanging--we don't care who." under the mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. if a man committed a murder he brought a pair of doves or a sheep to the priest, and the priest laid his hands on the animal, and the sins of the man were transferred to the animal. you see how that could be done easy enough. then they killed the animal, and sprinkled its blood on the altar. that let the man off. and why did god demand the sacrifice of a sheep? i will tell you; because priests love mutton. to make the innocent suffer is the greatest crime. i don't wish to go to heaven on the virtues of somebody else. if i can't settle by the books and go, i don't wish to go. i don't want to feel as if i was there on sufferance--that i was in the poorhouse of the universe, supported by the town. they tell us judas betrayed christ. well, if christ had not been betrayed, no atonement would have been made, and then every human soul would have been damned, and heaven would have been for rent. supposing that judas knew the christian system, then perhaps he thought that by betraying christ he could get forgiven, not only for the sins that he had already committed but for the sin of betrayal, and if, on the way to calvary, and later, some brave, heroic soul had rescued christ from the mob, he would have made his own damnation sure. it won't do. there is no logic in that. they say god tried to civilize the jews. if he had succeeded, according to the christian system, we all would have been damned, because if the jews had been civilized they would not have crucified christ. they would have believed in the freedom of speech, and as a result the world would have been lost for two thousand years. the christian world has been trying to explain the atonement, and they have always ended by failing to explain it. now i come to the second objection, which is that certain belief is necessary to salvation. i will believe according to the evidence. in my mind are certain scales, which weigh everything, and my integrity stands there and knows which side goes up and which side goes down. if i am an honest man i will report the weights like an honest man. they say i must believe a certain thing or i will be eternally damned. they tell me that to believe is the safer way. i deny it. the safest thing you can do is to be honest. no man, when the shadows of the last hours were gathering around him, ever wished that he had lived the life of a hypocrite. if i find at the day of judgment that i have been mistaken, i will say so, like a man. if god tells me then that he is the author of the old testament i will admit that he is worse than i thought he was, and when he comes to pronounce sentence upon me, i will say to him: "do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." i have a right to think; i cannot control my belief; my brain is my castle, and if i don't defend it, my soul becomes a slave and a serf. if you throw away your reason, your soul is not worth saving. salvation depends, not upon belief but upon deed--upon kindness, upon justice, upon mercy. your own deeds are your savior, and you can be saved in no other way. i am told in this testament to love my enemies. i cannot; i will not. i don't hate enemies; i don't wish to injure enemies, but i don't care about seeing them. i don't like them. i love my friends, and the man who loves enemies and friends loves me. the doctrine of non-resistance is born of weakness. the man that first said it, said it because it was the best he could do under the circumstances. while the church said, "love your enemies," in her sacred vestments gleamed the daggers of assassination. with her cunning hand, she wore the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. for more than one thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, and hypocrisy wore the mitre, and the tiara of christ was in fact god. he knew of the future. he knew what crimes and horrors would be committed in his name. he knew the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs; that brave men and women would languish in dungeons and darkness; that the church would use instruments of torture; that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. if christ was god, why did he not tell his disciples, and through them, the world, "man shall not persecute his fellow-man?" why didn't he say, "i am god?" why didn't he explain the doctrine of the trinity? why didn't he tell what manner of baptism was pleasing to him? why didn't he say the old testament is true? why didn't he write his testament himself? why did he leave his words to accident, to ignorance, to malice, and to chance? why didn't he say something positive, definite, satisfactory, about another world? why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of immortality to the glad knowledge of another life? why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? because he was a man. [colonel ingersoll read several extracts from the bible, which he said originated with zoroaster, buddha, cicero, epictetus, pythagoras and other ancient writers, and he read extracts from various pagan writers, which he claimed compared favorably with the best things in the bible. he continued:] no god has a right to create a man who is to be eternally damned. infinite wisdom has no right to make a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. infinite wisdom has no right to make an instrument that will not finally pay a dividend. no god has a right to add to the agony of this universe, and yet around the angels of immortality christianity has coiled this serpent of eternal pain. upon love's breast the church has placed that asp, and yet people talk to me about the consolations of religion. a few days ago the bark tiger was found upon the wide sea days from liverpool. for nine days not a mouthful of food or a drop of water was to be had. there was on board the captain, mate, and eleven men. when they had been out days they killed the captain's dog. nine days more--no food, no water, and captain kruger stood upon the deck in the presence of his starving crew. with a revolver in his hand, put it upon his temple, and said, "boys, this can't last much longer; i am willing to die to save the rest of you." the mate grasped the revolver from his hand, and said, "wait;" and the next day upon the horizon of despair was the smoke of the ship which rescued them. do you tell me tonight if captain kruger was not a christian and he had sent that ball crashing through his generous brain that there was an almighty waiting to clutch his naked soul that he might damn him forever? it won't do. ah, but they tell me "you have no right to pick the bad things out of the bible." i say, an infinite god has no right to put bad things into his bible. does anybody believe if god was going to write a book now he would uphold slavery; that he would favor polygamy; that he would say kill the heathen, stab the women, dash out the brains of the children? we have civilized him. we make our own god, and we make him better day by day. some honest people really believe that in some wonderful way we are indebted to moses for geology, to joshua for astronomy and military tactics, to samson for weapons of war, to daniel for holy curses, to solomon for the art of cross-examination, to jonah for the science of navigation, to saint paul for steamships and locomotives, to the four gospels for telegraphs and sewing-machines, to the apocalypse; for looms, saw-mills, and telephones; and that to the sermon on the mount we are indebted for mortars and krupp guns. we are told that no nation has ever been civilized without a bible. the jews had one, and yet they crucified a perfectly innocent man. they couldn't have done much worse without a bible. god must have known , years ago that it was impossible to civilize people without a bible just as well as they know it now. why did he ever allow a nation to be without a bible? why didn't he give a few leaves to adam and eve in the garden of eden? take from the bible the miracles, and i admit that the good passages are true. if they are true they don't need to be inspired. miracles are the children of mendacity. nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, sublime, and eternal march of cause and effect. reason must be the final arbiter. an inspired book cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. is a man to be rewarded eternally for believing without evidence or against evidence? do you tell me that the less brain a man has the better chance he has for heaven? think of a heaven filled with men who never thought. better that all that is should cease to be; better that god had never been; better that all the springs and seeds of things should fall and wither in great nature's realm; better that causes and effects should lose relation; better that every life should change to breathless death and voiceless blank, and every star to blind oblivion and moveless naught, than that this religion should be true. the religion of the future is humanity. the religion of the future will say to every man, "you have the right to think and investigate for yourself." liberty is my religion--everything that is true, every good thought, every beautiful thing, every self-denying action--all these make my bible. every bubble, every star, are passages in my bible. a constellation is a chapter. every shining world is a part of it. you cannot interpolate it; you cannot change it. it is the same forever. my bible is all that speaks to man. every violet, every blade of grass, every tree, every mountain crowned with snow, every star that shines, every throb of love, every honest act, all that is good and true combined, make my bible; and upon that book i stand. ingersoll's lecture on intellectual development ladies and gentlemen: in the first place i want to admit that there are a great many good people, quite pious people, who don't agree with me and all that proves in the world is, that i don't agree with them. i am not endeavoring to force my ideas or notions upon other people, but i am saying what little i can to induce everybody in the world to grant to every other person every right he claims for himself. i claim, standing under the flag of nature, under the blue and the stars, that i am the peer of any other man, and have the right to think and express my thoughts. i claim that in the presence of the unknown, and upon a subject that nobody knows anything about, and never did, i have as good a right to guess as anybody else. the gentlemen who hold views against mine, if they had any evidence, would have no fears--not the slightest. if a man has a diamond that has been examined by the lapidaries of the world, and some ignorant stonecutter tells him that it is nothing but an ordinary rock, he laughs at him; but if it has not been examined by lapidaries, and he is a little suspicious himself that it is not genuine, it makes him mad. any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man. any man who is afraid to have his doctrine investigated is not only a coward but a hypocrite. now, all i ask is simply an opportunity to say my say. i will give that right to everybody else in the world. i understand that owing to my success in the lecture field several clergymen have taken it into their heads to lecture--some of them, i believe, this evening. i say all that i claim is the right i give to others, and any man who will not give that right is a dishonest man, no matter what church he may belong to or not belong to--if he does not freely accord to all others the right to think, he is not an honest man. i said some time ago that if there was any being who would eternally damn one of his children for the expression of an honest opinion that he was not a god, but that he was a demon; and from that they have said first, that i did not believe in any god, and, secondly, that i called him a demon. if i did not believe in him how could i call him anything? these things hardly hang together. but that makes no difference; i expect to be maligned; i expect to be slandered; i expect to have my reputation blackened by gentlemen who are not fit to blacken my shoes. but letting that pass--i simply believe in liberty; that is my religion; that is the altar where i worship; that is my shrine--that every human being shall have every right that i have--that is my religion. i am going to live up to it and going to say what little i can to make the american people brave enough and generous enough and kind enough to give everybody else the rights they have themselves. can there ever be any progress in this world to amount to anything until we have liberty? the thoughts of a man who is not free are not worth much. a man who thinks with the club of a creed above his head--a man who thinks casting his eye askance at the flames of hell, is not apt to have very good thoughts. and for my part, i would not care to have any status or social position even in heaven if i had to admit that i never would have been there only i got scared. when we are frightened we do not think very well. if you want to get at the honest thoughts of a man he must be free. if he is not free you will not get his honest thought. you won't trade with a merchant, if he is free; you won't employ him if he is a lawyer, if he is free; you won't call him if he is a doctor, if he is free; and what are you going to get out of him but hypocrisy. force will not make thinkers, but hypocrites. a minister told me awhile ago, "ingersoll," he says, "if you do not believe the bible you ought not to say so." says i, "do you believe the bible?" he says, "i do." i says, "i don't know whether you do or not; maybe you are following the advice you gave me; how shall i know whether you believe it or not?" now, i shall die without knowing whether that man believed the bible or not. there is no way that i can possibly find out, because he said that even if he did not believe it he would not say so. now, i read, for instance, a book. now, let us be honest. suppose that a clergyman and i were on an island--nobody but us two--and i were to read a book, and i honestly believed it untrue, and he asked me about it--what ought i to say? ought i to say i believed it, and be lying, or ought i to say i did not?--that is the question; and the church can take its choice between honest men, who differ, and hypocrites, who differ, but say they do not--you can have your choice, all of you.* [* "these black-coats are the only persons of my acquaintance who resemble the chameleon, in being able to keep one eye directed upwards to heaven, and the other downwards to the good things of this world."--alex. von humboldt] if you give to us liberty, you will have in this country a splendid diversity of individuality; but if on the contrary you say men shall think so and so, you will have the sameness of stupid nonsense. in my judgment, it is the duty of every man to think and express his thoughts; but at the same time do not make martyrs of yourselves. those people that are not willing you should be honest, are not worth dying for; they are not worth being a martyr for; and if you are afraid you cannot support your wife and children in this town and express your honest thought, why keep it to yourself, but if there is such a man here he is a living certificate of the meanness of the community in which he lives. go right along, if you are afraid it will take food from the mouths of your dear babes--if you are afraid you cannot clothe your wife and children, go along with them to church, say amen in as near the right place as you can, if you happen to be awake, and i will do your talking for you. i will say my say, and the time will come when every man in the country will be astonished that there ever was a time that everybody had not the right to speak his honest thoughts. if there is a man here or in this town, preacher or otherwise, who is not willing that i should think and speak, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than i am. civilization is liberty, slavery is barbarism; civilization is intelligence, slavery is ignorance; and if we are any nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have got better heads and more brains in them--that is the reason. every man who has invented anything for the use and convenience of man has helped raise his fellow-man, and all we have found out of the laws and forces of nature so that we are finally enabled to bring these forces of nature into subjection, to give us better houses, better food, better clothes--these are the real civilizers of our race; and the men who stand up as prophets and predict hell to their fellow-man, they are not the civilizers of our race; the men who cut each other's throats because they fell out about baptism--they are not the civilizers of my race; the men who built the inquisitions and put into dungeons all the grand and honest men they could find--they are not the civilizers of my race. the men who have corrupted the imaginations and hearts of men by their infamous dogma of hell--they are not the civilizers of my race. the men who have been predicting good for mankind, the men who have found some way to get us better homes and better houses and better education, the men who have allowed us to make slaves of the blind forces of nature--they have made this world fit to live in. i want to prove to you if i can that this is all a question of intellectual development, a question of sense, and the more a man knows the more liberal he is; the less a man knows the more bigoted he is. the less a man knows the more certain he is that he knows it, and the more a man knows the better satisfied he is that he is entirely ignorant. great knowledge is philosophic, and little, narrow, contemptible knowledge is bigoted and hateful. i want to prove it to you. i saw a little while ago models of nearly everything man has made for his use--nearly everything. i saw models of all the watercraft; from the rude dug-out, in which paddled the naked savage, with his forehead about half as high as his teeth were long--all the water craft from that dug-out up to a man of war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas; from that rude dug-out to a steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york, with three thousand miles of foaming billows before it, not missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to the other. i saw their ideas of weapons, from the rude club, such as was seized by that same barbarian as he emerged from his den in the morning, hunting a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the dagger, to the sword, to the blunderbuss, to the old flintlock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, to the cannon invented by krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. i saw their ideas of defensive armor, from the turtle shell which one of these gentlemen lashed upon his breast preparatory to going to war, or the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, that he pulled on his orthodox head before he sallied forth. by "orthodox" i mean man who has quit growing; not simply in religion, but it everything; whenever a man is done, he is orthodox whenever he thinks he has found out all, he is orthodox whenever he becomes a drag on the swift car of progress, he is orthodox. i saw their defensive armor, from the turtle-shell and the porcupine skin to the shirts of mail of the middle ages, that defied the edge of the sword and the point of the spear. i saw their ideas of agricultural implements, from the crooked stick that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of today, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. when they had none of these agricultural implements--when they depended upon one crop--they were superstitious, for if the frosts struck one crop they thought the gods were angry with them. now, with the implements, machinery and knowledge of mechanics of today, people have found out that no man can be good enough nor bad enough to cause a frost. after having found out these things are contrary to the laws of nature, they began to raise more than one kind of crop. if the frost strikes one they have the other; if it happens to strike all in that locality there is a surplus somewhere else, and that surplus is distributed by railways and steamers and by the thousand ways that we have to distribute these things; and as a consequence the agriculturist begins to think and reason, and now for the first time in the history of the world the agriculturist begins to stand upon a level with the mechanic and with the man who has confidence in the laws and facts of nature. i saw there their musical instruments, from the tomtom (that is a hoop with two strings of rawhide drawn across it) to the instruments we have that make the common air blossom with melody. i saw their ideas on ornaments, from a string of the claws of a wild beast that once ornamented the dusky bosom of some savage belle, to the rubies and sapphires and diamonds with which civilization today is familiar. i saw the books, written upon the shoulder-blades of sheep, upon the bark of trees, down to the illustrated volumes that are now in the libraries of the world. i saw their ideas of paintings, from the rude daubs of yellow mud, to the grand pictures we see in the art galleries of today. i saw their ideas of sculpture, from a monster god with several legs, a good many noses, a great many eyes, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, to the sculpture that we have, where the marble is clothed with such personality that it seems almost impudence to touch it without an introduction. i saw all these things, and how men had gradually improved through the generations that are dead. and i saw at the same time a row of men's skulls--skulls from the bushmen of australia, skulls from the center of africa, skulls from the farthest islands of the pacific, skulls from this country--from the aborigines of america, skulls of the aztecs, up to the best skulls, or many of the best of the last generation; and i noticed there was the same difference between the skulls as between the products of the skulls, the same between that skull and that, as between the dugout and the man-of-war, as between the dugout and the steamship, as between the tomtom and an opera of verdi, as between those ancient agricultural implements and ours, as between that yellow daub and that landscape, as between that stone god and a statue of today; and i said to myself, "this is a question of intellectual development; this is a question of brain." the man has advanced just in proportion as he has mingled his thoughts with his labor, and just in proportion that his brain has gotten into partnership with his hand. man has advanced just as he has developed intellectually, and no other way. that skull was a low den in which crawled and groped the meaner and baser instincts of mankind, and this was a temple in which dwelt love, liberty and joy. why is it that we have advanced in the arts? it is because every incentive has been held out to the world; because we want better clubs or better cannons with which to kill our fellow christians; we want better music, we want better houses, and any man who will invent them, and any man who will give them to us we will clothe him in gold and glory; we will crown him with honor. that gentleman in his dugout not only had his ideas of mechanics, but he was a politician. his idea of politics was, "might makes right;" and it will take thousands of years before the world will be willing to say that, "right makes might." that was his idea of politics, and he had another idea--that all power came from the clouds, and that every armed thief that lived upon the honest labor of mankind had had poured out upon his head the divine oil of authority. he didn't believe the power to govern came from the people; he did not believe that the great mass of people had any right whatever, or that the great mass of people could be allowed the liberty of thought--and we have thousands of such today. they say thought is dangerous--don't investigate;* don't inquire; just believe; shut your eyes, and then you are safe. you trust not hear this man or that man or some other man, or our dear doctrines will be overturned, and we have nobody on our side except a large majority; we have nobody on our side except the wealth and respectability of the world; we have nobody on our side except the infinite god, and we are afraid that one man, in one or two hours, will beat the whole party. [* there is no method of reasoning more common, or more blamable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality."--david hume] this man in the dugout also had his ideas of religion--that fellow was orthodox, and any man who differed with him he called an infidel, an atheist, an outcast, and warned everybody against him. he had his religion--he believed in hell; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't like people that he would have the pleasure of looking over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron. when any man said he didn't believe there was a hell this gentleman got up in his pulpit and called him a hyena. that fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was a devil factory--he believed in him. he believed he had a long tail adorned with a fiery dart; he believed he had wings like a bat, and had a pleasant habit of breathing sulphur; and he believed he had a cloven foot--such as most of your clergymen think i am blessed with myself. they are shepherds of the sheep. the people are the sheep--that is all they are, they have to be watched and guarded by these shepherds and protected from the wolf who wants to reason with them. that is the doctrine. now, all i claim is the same right to improve on that gentleman's politics, as on the dug-out, and the same right to improve upon his religion as upon his plough, or the musical instrument known as the tomtom--that is all. now, suppose the king and priest, if there was one, and there probably was one, as the farther you go back the more ignorant you find mankind and the thicker you find these gentlemen--suppose the king and priest had said: "that boat is the best boat that ever can be built; we got the model of that from neptune, the god of the seas, and i guess the god of the water knows how to build a boat, and any man that says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle with a rag on the end of it, and has any talk about the wind blowing this way, and that, he is a heretic--he is a blasphemer." honor bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? i think we would have been on the other side yet. suppose the king and priests had said: "that plow is the best that ever can be invented; the model of that was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can out-twist it, we will twist him." suppose the king and priests had said: "that tomtom is the finest instrument of music in the world--that is the kind of music found in heaven. an angel sat upon the edge of a glorified cloud playing upon that tomtom and became so entranced with the music that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it and that is how we got it, and any man who talks about putting any improvement on that, he is not fit to live." let me ask you--do you believe if that had been done that the human ears ever would have been enriched with the divine symphonies of beethoven? all i claim is the same right to improve upon this barbarian's ideas of politics and religion as upon everything else, and whether it is an improvement or not, i have a right to suggest it--that is my doctrine. they say to me, "god will punish you forever, if you do these things." very well. i will settle with him. i had rather settle with him than any one of his agents. i do not like them very well. in theology i am a granger--i do not believe in middle-men, what little business i have with heaven i will attend to thyself. our fathers thought, just as many now think, that you could force men to think your way and if they failed to do it by reason, they tried it another way. i used to read about it when i was a boy--it did not seem to me that these things were true; it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless bigotry in the heart of man, but there was and is tonight. i used to read about it--i did not appreciate it. i never appreciated it until i saw the arguments of those gentlemen. they used to use just such arguments as that man in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of him. this low, miserable skull--this next man was a little higher, and this fellow behind called him a heretic, and the next was still a little higher, and he was called an infidel. and, so it went on through the whole row--always calling the man who was ahead an infidel and a heretic. no man was ever called so who was behind the army of progress. it has always been the man ahead that has been called the heretic. heresy is the last and best thought always. heresy extends the hospitality of the brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting says to the growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to the man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the darkness cries out to the grand man upon whose forehead is shining the dawn of a grander day; that is what the coffin says to the cradle. orthodoxy is a kind of shroud, and heresy is a banner--orthodoxy is a frog and heresy a star shining forever above the cradle of truth. i do not mean simply in religion, i mean in everything, and the idea i wish to impress upon you is that you should keep your minds open to all the influences of nature; you should keep your minds open to reason. hear what a man has to say, and do not let the turtle-shell of bigotry grow above your brain. give everybody a chance and an opportunity; that is all. i saw the arguments that those gentlemen have used on each other through all the ages. i saw a little bit of thumbscrew not more than so long (illustrating), and attached to each end was a screw, and the inner surface vas trimmed with little protuberances to prevent their slipping; and when some man doubted--when a man had an idea--then those that did not have an idea put the thumbscrew upon him who did. he had doubted something. for instance, they told him, "christ says you must love your enemies;" he says, "i do not know about that;" then they said, "we will show you!" "do unto others as you would be done by," they said is the doctrine. he doubted. "we will show you that it is!" so they put this screw on; and in the name of universal love and universal forgiveness--"pray for those who despitefully use you"--they began screwing these pieces of iron into him--always done in the name of religion--always. it never was done in the name of reason, never was done in the name of science--never. no man was ever persecuted in defense of a truth--never. no man was ever persecuted except in defense of a lie--never. this man had fallen out with them about something; he did not understand it as they did. for instance he said, "i do not believe there ever was a man whose strength was in his hair." they said: "you don't? we'll show you!" "i do not believe," he says, "that a fish ever swallowed a man to save his life." "you don't? well, we'll show you!" and so they put this on, and generally the man would recant and say, "well, i'll take it back." well i think i should. such men are not worth dying for. the idea of dying for a man that would tear the flesh of another on account of an honest difference of opinion--such a man is not worth dying for; he is not worth living for, and if i was in a position that i could not send a bullet through his brain, i would recant. i would say: "you write it down and i will sign it--i will admit that there is one god, or a million--suit yourself; one hell or a billion; you just write it--only stop this screw. you are not worth suffering for, you are not worth dying for and i am never going to take the part of any lord that won't take my part--you just write it down and i'll sign it." but there was now and then a man who would not do that. he said, "no, i believe i am right, and i will die for it," and i suppose we owe what little progress we have made to a few men in all ages of the world who really stood by their convictions. the men who stood by the truth and the men who stood by a fact, they are the men that have helped raise this world, and in every age there has been some sublime and tender soul who was true to his convictions, and who really lived to make men better. in every age some men carried the torch of progress and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such men we would have been naked and uncivilized tonight, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish. when a man would not recant, these men, in the name of the love of the lord, screwed them down to the last thread of agony and threw them into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence of darkness, they suffered the pangs of the fabled damned; and this was done in the name of civilization, love and order, and in the name of the most merciful christ. there are no thumbscrews now; they are rusting away; but every man in this town who is not willing that another shall do his own thinking and will try to prevent it, has in him the same hellish spirit that made and used that very instrument of torture, and the only reason he does not use it today is because he cannot. the reason that i speak here tonight is because they cannot help it. i saw at the same time a beautiful little instrument for the propagation of kindness, called "the scavenger's daughter." (the lecturer here described and illustrated construction of the instrument.) the victim would be thrown upon that instrument and the strain upon the muscles was such that insanity would sometimes come to his relief. see what we owe to the civilizing influence of the gentlemen who have made a certain idea in metaphysics necessary to salvation--see what we owe to them. i saw a collar of torture which they put about the neck of their victim, and inside of that there were a hundred points; so that the victim could not stir without the skin being punctured with these points, and after a little while the throat would swell and suffocation would end the agony, and they would have that done in the presence of his wife and weeping children. that was all done so that finally everybody would love everybody else as his brother. i saw a rack. imagine a wagon with a windlass on each end, and each windlass armed with leather bands, and a ratchet that prevented slipping. the victim was placed upon this. maybe he had denied something that some idiot said was true; may be he had a discussion--a division of opinion with a man, like john calvin. john calvin said christ was the eternal son of god and michael servetus said that christ was the son of the eternal god. that was the only difference of opinion. think of it! what an important thing it was! how it would have affected the price of food! "christ is the eternal son of god," said one; "no," said the other, "christ is the son of eternal god"--that was all, and for that difference of opinion michael servetus was burned at a slow fire of green wood, and the wind happening to blow the flames from him instead of towards him; he was in the most terrible agony, writhing for minutes and minutes, and hours and hours, and finally he begged and implored those wretches to move him so that the wind would blow the flames against him and destroy him without such hellish agony, but they were so filled with the doctrine of "love your enemies" that they would not do it. i never will, for my part, depend upon any religion that has ever shed a drop of human blood.* [* speaking of the inquisition, prof. draper says: "with such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion, that between and it had punished , persons, and of these nearly , had been burnt!"--conflict between religion and science] upon this rack i have described, this victim was placed, and those chains were attached to his ankles and then to his waist, and clergymen--good men! pious men! men that were shocked at the immorality of their day! they talked about playing cards and the horrible crime of dancing! oh, how such things shocked them; men going to theaters and seeing a play written by the grandest genius the world ever has produced. how it shocked their sublime and tender souls! but then commenced turning this machine, and they kept on turning until the ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave his veins. did they wish to save his life? yes. in mercy? no! simply that they might have the pleasure of racking him once again. that is the spirit, and it is a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne of the universe a being who will eternally damn his children, and they said: "if god is going to have the supreme happiness of burning them forever, certainly he ought not to begrudge to us the joy of burning them for an hour or two." that was their doctrine, and when i read these things it seems to me that i have suffered them myself. when i look upon those instruments i look upon them as though i had suffered all these tortures myself. it seems to me as though i had stood upon the shore an exile and looking with tear-filled eyes toward home and native land. it seems as though my nails had been plucked out and into bleeding flesh needles had been thrust; as though my eyelids had been torn away and i had been set out in the ardent rays of the sun; as though i had been set out upon the sands of the sea and drowned by the inexorable tide; as though i had been in the dungeon waiting for the coming footsteps of relief; as though i had been upon the scaffold arid seen the glittering axe falling upon me; and seen bending above me the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though i had been taken from my wife and children to the public square, where faggots had been piled around me and the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness; as though my ashes had been scattered by all the hands of hatred; and i feel like saying, that while i live i will do what little i can to preserve and augment the rights of men, women arid children; while i live i will do a little something so that they who come after me shall have the right to think and express that thought. the trouble is those who oppose us pretend they are better than we are. they are more mortal, they are kinder, they are more generous. i deny it. they are not. and if they are the ones that are to be saved in another world, and if those who simply think they are honest, and express that honest thought, are to be damned, there will be but little originality, to say the least of it, in heaven. they say they are better than we are--and to show you how much better they are i have got at home copies of some letters that passed between gentlemen high in the church several hundred years ago, and the question was this: "ought we to cut out the tongues of blasphemers before we burn them?" and they finally decided that they ought to do so, and i will tell you the reason they gave: they said if they were not cut out that while they were being burned, they might, by their heresies, scandalize the gentleman who would bring the wood; they were too good to hear these things and they might be injured; and the same idea appears to prevail in this world now that they are too good and they must not be shocked. they say to us: "you must not shock us, and when you say there is no hell we are shocked. you must not say that." when i go to church and they tell me there is a hell i must not get shocked; and if they tell me that there is not only a hell, but that i am going to it, i must not be shocked. even if they take the next step and act as though they would be glad to see me there, still i must not be shocked. i will agree to keep from being shocked as long as anybody in the world--they can say what they please; i will not get shocked, but let me say it. you send missionaries to turkey and tell them that the koran is a lie. you shock them. you tell them that mahomet was not a prophet. you shock them. it is too bad to shock them. you go to india and you tell them that vishnu was nothing, puranas was nothing, that buddha was nobody, and your brahma, he is nothing. why do you shock these people? you should not do that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. i tell you no man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression of an honest opinion when it is kindly done, and i don't believe there is any god in the universe who has put a curtain over the fact and made it a crime for the honest hand of investigation to endeavor to draw that curtain. this world has not been fit to live in fifty years. there is no liberty in it--very little. why, it is only a few years ago that all the christian nations were engaged in the slave trade. it was not until , that england abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her priests in her churches, and her judges on her benches, owned stock in slave ships, and luxuriated on the profits of piracy and murder; and when a man stood up and denounced it, they mobbed him as though he had been a common burglar or a horse thief. think of it! it was not until the th day of august, , that england abolished slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the first day of january, , that abraham lincoln, by direction of the entire north, wiped that infamy out of this country; and i never speak of abraham lincoln but i want to say that he was, in my judgment, in many respects the grandest man ever president of the united states. i say that upon his tomb there ought to be this line--and i know of no other man deserving it so well as he: "here lies one who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it except on the side of mercy." just think of it! our churches and best people, as they call themselves, defending the institution of slavery. when i was a little boy i used to see steamers go down the mississippi river with hundreds of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! i used to hear them preach to these slaves in the south and the only text they ever took was "servants, be obedient unto your masters." that was the salutation of the most merciful god to a man whose back was bleeding, that was the salutation of the most merciful god to the slave mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child had been stolen--"servants, be obedient unto you masters." that was what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the baying of bloodhounds, and when he listened for them the voice came from heaven: "servants, be obedient unto your masters." that is civilization. think what slaves we have been! think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! how they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich--there are so many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear. we used to worship the golden calf, and the worst you can say of us now, is, we worship the gold of the calf, and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction. we used to go down on our knees to every man that held office; now he must fill it if he wishes any respect. we care nothing for the rich, except what will they do with their money? do they benefit mankind? that is the question. you say this man holds an office. how does he fill it?--that is the question. and there is rapidly growing up in the world an aristocracy of heart and brain--the only aristocracy that has a right to exist. we are getting free. we are thinking in every direction. we are investigating with the microscope and the telescope. we are digging into the earth and finding souvenirs of all the ages. we are finding out something about the laws of health and disease. we are adding years to the span of human life and we are making the world fit to live in. that is what we are doing, and every man that has an honest thought and expresses it, helps, and every man that tries to keep honest thought from being expressed is an obstruction and a hindrance. now if men have been slaves what shall we say of women? they have been the slaves of slaves. the meaner a man is, the better he thinks he is than a woman. as a rule, you take an ignorant, brutal man--don't talk to him about a woman governing him, he don't believe it--not he; and nearly every religion of this world has been gallant enough to account for all the trouble and misfortune we have had by the crime of woman. even if it is true, i do not care; i had rather live in a world full of trouble with the woman i love than in heaven with nobody but men. nearly every religion accounts for all the trouble we have ever had by the crime of woman. i recollect one book where i read an account of what is called the creation--i am not giving the exact words, i will give the substance of it. the supreme being thought best to make a world and one man--never thought about making a woman at that time; making a woman was a second thought, and i am free to admit that second thoughts as a rule are best. he made this world and one man, and put this man in a park, or garden, or public square, or whatever you might call it, to dress and keep it. the man had nothing to do. he moped around there as though he was waiting for a train. and the supreme being noticed that he got lonesome--i am glad he did! it occurred to him that he would make a companion, and having made the world and one man out of nothing, and having used up all the nothing, he had to take a part of the man to start the woman with--i am not giving the exact language, neither do i say this story is true. i do not know. i would not want to deceive anybody. so sleep fell upon this man, and they took from his side a rib--the french would call it a cutlet. and out of that they made a woman, and taking into consideration the amount and quality of the raw material used, i look upon it as the most successful job ever accomplished in this world. i am giving just a rough outline of this story. after he got the woman done she was brought to the man--not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. he liked her and they went to keeping house. before she was made there was really nothing to do; there was no news, no politics, no religion, not even civil service reform. and as the devil had not yet put in an appearance, there was no chance to conciliate him. they started in the housekeeping business, and they were told they could do anything they liked except eat an apple. of course they ate it. i would have done it myself i know. i am satisfied i would have had an apple off that tree, if i had been there, in fifteen minutes. they were caught at it, and they were turned out, and there was an extra police force put on to keep them from coming in again. and then measles, and whooping-cough, mumps, etc., started in the race of man, roses began to have thorns and snakes began to have teeth, and people began to fight about religion and politics, and they have been fighting and scratching each other's eyes out from that day to this. i read in another book an account of the same transaction. they tell us the supreme brahma made up his mind to make a man, a woman, and a world; and that he put this man and woman in the island of ceylon. according to the description, it was the most beautiful isle that ever existed; it beggared the description of a chicago land agent completely. it was delightful; the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them they seemed like a thousand aeolian harps, and the man was named adami, and the woman's name was heva. this book was written about three or four thousand years before the other one, and all the commentators in this country agree that the story that was written first was copied from the one that was written last. i hope you will not let a matter of three or four thousand years interfere with your ideas on the subject. the supreme brahma said: "let them have a period of courtship, because it is my desire that true love always should precede marriage"--and that was so much better than lugging her up to him and saying, "do you like her?" that upon my word i said when i read it, "if either one of these stories turn out to be true, i hope it will be this one." they had a courtship in the starlight and moonlight, and perfume-laden air, with the nightingale singing his song of joy, and they got in love. there was nobody to bother them, no prospective fathers or mothers-in-law, no gossiping neighbors, nobody to say "young man, how do you propose to support her"--they got in love and they were married, and they started keeping house, and the supreme brahma said to them: "you must not leave this island." after awhile the man got uneasy--wanted to go west. he went to the western extremity of the island, and there the devil got up, and when he looked over on the mainland he saw such hills and valleys and torrents, and such mountains crowned with snow; such cataracts, robed in glory, that he went right back to heva. says he: "come over here; it is a thousand times better;" says he: "let us emigrate." she said, like another woman: "no, let well enough alone; we have no rent to pay, and no taxes; we are doing very well now, let us stay where we are." but he insisted, and so she went with him, and when he got to this western extremity, where there was a little neck of land leading to this better land, he took her on his back and walked over, and the moment he got over he heard a crash, and he looked back and this narrow neck of land had sunk into the sea, leaving here and there a rock (and those rocks are called even unto this day the footsteps of adami), and when he looked back this beautiful mirage had disappeared. instead of verdure and flowers there was naught but rocks and sand, and then he heard the voice of the supreme brahma crying out cursing them both to the lowest hell, and then it was that adami said: "curse me, if you choose, but not her; it was not her fault, it was mine; curse me." that is the kind of a man to start a world with. and the supreme brahma said "i will spare her, but i will not spare you." then she spoke, out of a breast so full of affection that she has left a legacy of love to all her daughters: "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me, because i love him." then the supreme brahma said--and i have liked him ever since--"i will spare both, and watch over you and your children forever." now, really this story appears to me better than the other one. it is loftier; there is more in it than i can admire. in order to show you that humanity does not belong to any particular nation, and that there are great and tender souls everywhere, let me tell you a little more that is in this book. "blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." think of that kind of character! another: "man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love; and where the one man loves the one woman the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." i think that is nearly equal to this: "if you do not want your wife, give her a writing of divorcement," and make the mother of your children a houseless wanderer and a vagrant--nearly as good as that. i believe that marriage should be a perfect partnership; that woman should have all the rights that man has, and one more--the right to be protected. i believe in marriage. it took hundreds and thousands of years for woman to get from a state of abject slavery up to the height even of marriage. i have not the slightest respect for the ideas of those short-haired women and long-haired men who denounce the institution of the family, who denounce the institution of marriage; but i hold in greater contempt the husband who would enslave his wife. i hold in greater contempt the man who is anything in his family except love and tenderness, and kindness. i say it took hundreds of years for woman to come from a state of slavery to marriage; and ladies, the chains that are upon your necks and the bracelets that are put upon your arms were iron, and they have been changed by the touch of the wand of civilization to shining, glittering gold. woman came from a condition of abject slavery and thousands and thousands of them are in that condition now. i believe marriage should be a perfect and equal partnership. i do not like a man who thinks he is boss. that fellow in the dug-out was always talking about being boss. i do not like a man who thinks he is the head of the family. i do not like a man who thinks he has got authority and that the woman belongs to him--that wants for his wife a slave. i would not have a slave for my wife. i would not want the love of a woman that is not great enough, grand enough, and splendid enough to be free. i will never give to any woman my heart upon whom i afterwards would put chains. do you know sometimes i think generosity is about the only virtue there is. how i do hate a man that has to be begged and importuned every minute for a few cents by his wife. "give me a dollar?" "what did you do with that fifty cents i gave you last christmas?" if you make your wife a perpetual beggar, what kind of children do you expect to raise with a beggar for their mother? if you want great children, if you want to people this world with great and grand men and women they must be born of love and liberty. i have known men that would trust a woman with their heart--if you call that thing which pushes their blood around a heart; and with their honor--if you call that fear, of getting into the penitentiary, honor; i have known men that would trust that heart and that honor with a woman, but not their pocket-book--not a dollar bill. when i see a man of that kind, i think they know better than i do which of these three articles is the most valuable. i believe if you have got a dollar in the world and you have got to spend it, spend it like a man; spend it like a king, like a prince. if you have to spend it, spend it as though it was a dried leaf, and you were the owner of unbounded forests. i had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. what is it worth compared with the love of a splendid woman? people tell me that is very good doctrine for rich folks, but it won't do for poor folks. i tell you that there is more love in the huts and homes of the poor, than in the mansions of the rich, and the meanest but with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without that, is a den only fit for wild beasts. the man who has the love of one splendid woman is a rich man. joy is wealth, and love is the legal tender of the soul! love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to borrower and lender both; and if some men were as ashamed of appearing cross in public as they are of appearing tender at home, this world would be infinitely better. i think you can make your home a heaven if you want to--you can make up your minds to that. when a man comes home let him come home like a ray of light in the night bursting through the doors and illuminating the darkness. what right has a man to assassinate joy, and murder happiness in the sanctuary of love--to be a cross man, a peevish man--is that the way he courted? was there always something ailing him? was he too nervous to hear her speak? when i see a man of that kind i am always sorry that doctors know so much about preserving life as they do. it is not necessary to be rich, nor powerful, nor great to be a success; and neither is it necessary to have your name between the putrid lips of rumor to be great. we have had a false standard of success. in the years when i was a little boy we read in our books that no fellow was a success that did not make a fortune or get a big office, and he generally was a man that slept about three hours a night. they never put down in the books the names of those gentlemen that succeeded in life that slept all they wanted to; and we all thought that we could not sleep to exceed three or four hours if we ever expected to be anything in this world. we have had a wrong standard. the happy man is the successful man; and the man who makes somebody else happy, is a happy man. the man that has gained the love of one good, splendid, pure woman, his life has been a success, no matter if he dies in the ditch; and if he gets to be a crowned monarch of the world, and never had the love of one splendid heart, his life has been an ashen vapor. a little while ago i stood by the tomb of the first napoleon, a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity, and here was a great circle, and in the bottom there, in a sarcophagus, rested at last the ashes of that restless man. i looked at that tomb, and i thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. as i looked, in imagination i could see him walking up and down the banks of the seine contemplating suicide. i could see him at toulon; i could see him at paris, putting down the mob; i could see him at the head of the army of italy; i could see him crossing the bridge of lodi, with the tri-color in his hand; i saw him in egypt, fighting battles under the shadow of the pyramids; i saw him returning; i saw him conquer the alps, and mingle the eagles of france with the eagles of italy; i saw him at marengo, i saw him at austerlitz; i saw him in russia, where the infantry of the snow and the blast smote his legions, when death rode the icy winds of winter. i saw him at leipsic; hurled back upon paris, banished; and i saw him escape from elba and retake an empire by the force of his genius. i saw him at the field of waterloo, where fate and chance combined to wreck the fortune of their former king. i saw him at st. helena, with his hands behind his back, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea, and i thought of all the widows he had made, of all the orphans, of all the tears that had been shed for his glory; and i thought of the woman, the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition and i said to myself, as i gazed, "i would rather have been a french peasant and worn wooden shoes, and lived in a little hut but with a vine running over the door and the purple grapes growing red in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun--i would rather have been that poor french peasant, to sit in my door, with my wife knitting by my side and my children upon my knees with their arms around my neck--i would rather have lived and died unnoticed and unknown except by those who loved me, and gone down to the voiceless silence of the dreamless dust--i would rather have been that french peasant than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder who covered europe with blood and tears." i tell you i had rather make somebody happy, i would rather have the love of somebody; i would rather go to the forest, far away, and build me a little cabin--build it myself and daub it with mud, and live there with my wife and children; i had rather go there and live by myself--our little family--and have a little path that led down to the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night like a little poem from the heart of the earth; a little hut with some hollyhocks at the corner, with their bannered bosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in the air, like a song of joy in the morning; i would rather live there and have some lattice work across the window, so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the cradle; i would rather live there and have my soul erect and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the crown of imperial power and know that my soul was slimy with hypocrisy. it is not necessary to be rich and great and powerful in order to be happy. if you will treat your wife like a splendid flower, she will fill your life with a perfume and with joy. i believe in the democracy of the fireside, i believe in the republicism of home, in the equality of man and woman, in the equality of husband and wife, and for this i am denounced by the sentinels upon the walls of zion. they say there must be a head to the family. i say no--equal rights for man and wife, and where there is really love there is liberty, and where the idea of authority comes in you will find that love has spread its pinions and flown forever. it is a splendid thing for me to think that when a woman really loves a man he never grows old in her eyes; she always sees the gallant gentleman that won her hand and heart; and when a man really and truly loves a woman she does not grow old to him; through the wrinkles of years he sees the face he loved and won. that is all there is in this world--all the rest amounts to nothing--it is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing. you take from the family love, and nothing is left. there must be equality; there must be no master; there must be no servant. there must be equality and kindness. the man should be infinitely tender towards the woman--and why?--because she cannot go at hard work, she cannot make her own living. she has squandered her wealth of beauty and youth upon him. now, if women have been slaves, what do you say about children? children have been the slaves of the slaves. i know children that turn pale with fright when they hear their mother's voice; children of property; children of crime, children of sub-cellars; children of the narrow streets, the flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, rude sea of life--my heart goes out to them one and all; i say they have all the rights we have and one more--the right to be protected. i believe in governing children by kindness, by love, by tenderness. if a child commits a fault take it in your arms, let your heart beat against its heart; don't go and talk to it about hell and the bankruptcy of the universe. if your child tells a lie--what of it? be honest with the child, tell him you have told hundreds of them yourself. then your child will not be afraid to tell you when it commits a fault; it will not regard you as old perfection, until it gets a few years older, and finds you are an old hypocrite--and you cannot put a thick enough veil upon you but what the eyes of childhood will peep through it; they will see; they will find out; and when your child tells a lie, examine yourself, and in all probability you will find you have been a tyrant. a tyrant father will have liars for his children. a liar is born of tyranny on the one hand and fear on the other. truth comes from the lips of courage. it is born in confidence and honor. if you want a child to tell you the truth you want to be a faithful man yourself. you go at your little child, five or six years old, with a stick in your hand--what is he to do? tell the truth? then he will get whipped. what is he to do? i thank mother nature for putting ingenuity in the mind of a little child so that when it is attacked by a brutal parent it throws up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. that being done by nations it is called strategy, and many a general wears his honors for having practiced it; and will you deny it to little children to protect themselves from brutal parents. supposing a man as much larger than we are, larger than child would come at us with a liberty-pole in his hand and would shout in tones of thunder, "who broke that plate?" every one of us--including myself--would just stand right up and swear either that we never saw that plate, or that it was cracked when we got it. give a child a chance; there is no other way to have children tell the truth--tell the truth to them--keep your contracts with your children the same as you would to your banker. i was up at grand rapids, michigan, the other day. there was a gentleman there, and his wife, who had promised to take their little boy for a ride every night for ten days, or every day for ten days, but they did not do it. they slipped out to the barn and they went without him. the day before i was there they played the same game on him again. he is a nice little boy, an american boy, a boy with brains, one of those boys that don't take the hatchet-story as a fact; he had his own ideas. they fooled him again, and they came around the corner as big as life, man and wife. the little fellow was standing on the door step with his nurse, and he looked at them, and he made this remark: "there go the two damndest liars in grand rapids." i merely tell you this story to show you that children have level heads; they understand this business. teach your children to tell you the truth--tell them the truth. if there is one here that ever intends to whip his child i have a favor to ask. have your photograph taken when you are in the act, with your red and vulgar face, your brow corrugated, pretending you would rather be whipped yourself. have the child's photograph taken too, with his eyes streaming with tears, and his chin dimpled with fear, as a little sheet of water struck by a sudden cold wind; and if your child should die i cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an afternoon than to go to the graveyard in the autumn, when the maples are clad in pink and gold, when the little scarlet runners come like poems out of the breast of the earth--go there and sit down and look at that photograph and think of the flesh, now dust, and how you caned it to writhe in pain and agony. i will tell you what i am doing; i am doing what little i can to save the flesh of children. you have no right to whip them. it is not the way; and yet some christians drive their children from their doors if they do wrong, especially if it is a sweet, tender girl--i believe there is no instance on record of any veal being given for the return of a girl--some christians drive them from their doors and then go down upon their knees and ask god to take care of their children! i will never ask god to take care of my children unless i am doing my level best in that same direction. some christians act as though they thought when the lord said, "suffer little children to come unto me" that he had a raw-hide under his mantle--they act as if they thought so. that is all wrong. i tell yon my children this: go where you may, commit what crime you may, fall to what depths of degradation you may, i can never shut my arms, my heart or my door to you. as long as i live you shall have one sincere friend; do not be afraid to tell anything wrong you have done; ten to one if i have not done the same thing. i am not perfection, and if it is necessary to sin in order to have sympathy, i am glad i have committed sin enough to have sympathy. the sternness of perfection i do not want. i am going to live so that my children can come to my grave and truthfully say, "he who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." whether you call that religion or infidelity, suit yourselves; that is the way i intend to do it. when i was a little fellow most everybody thought that some days were too sacred for the young ones to enjoy themselves in. that was the general idea. sunday used to commence saturday night at sundown, under the old text, "the evening and the morning were the first day." they commenced then, i think, to get a good ready. when the sun went down saturday night, darkness ten thousand times deeper than ordinary night fell upon the house. the boy that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. you could not crack hickory nuts that night, and if you were caught chewing gum it was another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. it was a very solemn evening. we would sometimes sing "another day has passed." everybody looked as though they had the dyspepsia--you know lots of people think they are pious, just because they are bilious, as mr. hood says. it was a solemn night, and the next morning the solemnity had increased. then we went to church, and the minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high. if it was in the winter there was no fire; it was not thought proper to be comfortable while you were thanking the lord. the minister commenced at firstly and ran up to about twenty-fourthly, and then he divided it up again; and then he made some concluding remarks, and then he said lastly, and when he said lastly he was about half through. then we had what we called the catechism--the chief end of man. i think that has a tendency to make a boy kind of bubble up cheerfully. we sat along on a bench with our feet about eight inches from the floor. the minister said, "boys, do you know what becomes of the wicked?" we all answered as cheerfully as grasshoppers sing in minnesota, "yes, sir." "do you know, boys, that you all ought to go to hell?" "yes, sir." as a final test: "boys, would you be willing to go to hell if it was god's will?" and every little liar said, "yes, sir." the dear old minister used to try to impress upon our minds about how long we would stay there after we got there, and he used to say in an awful tone of voice--do you know i think that is what gives them the bronchitis--that tone--you never heard of an auctioneer having it--"suppose that once in a billion of years a bird were to come from some far, distant clime and carry off in its bill a grain of sand, when the time came when the last animal matter of which this mundane sphere is composed would be carried away," said he, "boys, by that time in hell it would not be sun up." we had this sermon in the morning and the same one in the afternoon, only he commenced at the other end. then we started home full of doctrine--we went sadly and sole solemnly back. if it was in the summer and the weather was good and we had been good boys, they used to take us down to the graveyard, and to cheer us up we had a little conversation about coffins, and shrouds, and worms, and bones, and dust, and i must admit that it did cheer me up when i looked at those sunken graves those stones, those names half effaced with the decay of years. i felt cheered, for i said, "this thing can't last always." then we had to read a good deal. we were not allowed to read joke books or anything of that kind. we read baxter's "call to the unconverted;" fox's "book of martyrs;" milton's "history of the waldenses," and "jenkins on the atonement." i generally read jenkins; and i have often thought that the atonement ought to be pretty broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would write a book like that for a boy. then we used to go and see how the sun was getting on--when the sun was down the thing was over. i would sit three or four hours reading jenkins, and then go out and the sun would not have gone down perceptibly. i used to think it stuck there out of simple, pure cussedness. but it went down at last, it had to; that was a part of the plan, and as the last rim of light would sink below the horizon, off would go our hats and we would give three cheers for liberty once again. i do not believe in making sunday hateful for children. i believe in allowing them to be happy, and no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make it holier still. there is no god in the heavens that is pleased at the sadness of childhood. you cannot make me believe that. you fill their poor, little, sweet hearts with the fearful doctrine of hell. a little child goes out into the garden; there is a tree covered with a glory of blossoms and the child leans against it, and there is a little bird on the bough singing and swinging, and the waves of melody run out of its tiny throat, thinking about four little speckled eggs in the nest, warmed by the breast of its mate, and the air is filled with perfume, and that little child leans against that tree and thinks about hell and the worm that never dies; think of filling the mind of a child with that infamous dogma! where was that doctrine of hell born? where did it come from? it came from that gentleman in the dug-out; it was a souvenir from the lower animal. i honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. i believe it was born in the yelping and howling and growling and snarling of wild beasts, i believe it was born in the grin of hyenas and in the malicious chatter of depraved apes, i despise it, i defy it and hate it; and when the great ship freighted with the world goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, i will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of pushing from my breast my wife and children and padding off in some orthodox canoe. i will go down with those i love and with those who love me. i will go down with the ship and with my race. i will go where there is sympathy. i will go with those i love. nothing can make me believe that there is any being that is going to burn and torment and damn his children forever. no, sir! you will never make me believe you can divide the world up into saints and sinners, and that the saints are all going to heaven and the others to hell. i don't believe that you can draw the line. you are sometimes in the presence of a great disaster; there is a fire; at the fourth story window you see the white face of a woman with a child in her arms, and humanity calls out for somebody to go to the rescue through that smoke and flame, maybe death. they don't call for a baptist, nor a presbyterian, nor a methodist, but humanity calls for a man. and all at once, out steps somebody that nobody ever did think was much, not a very good man, and yet he springs up the ladder and is lost in the smoke, and a moment afterward he emerges, and the cruel serpents of fire climb and hiss around his brave form, but he goes on and you see that woman and child in his arms, and you see them come down and they are handed to the bystanders, and he has fainted, maybe, and the crowd stand hushed, as they always do, in the presence of a grand action, and a moment after the air is rent with a cheer. tell me that that man is going to hell, who is willing to lose his life merely to keep a woman and child from the torment of a moment's flame--tell me that he is going to hell; i tell you that it is a falsehood, and if anybody says so he is mistaken. i have seen upon the battlefield a boy sixteen years of age struck by the fragment of a shell and life oozing slowly from the ragged lips of his death-wound, and i have heard him and seen him die with a curse upon his lips, and he had the face of his mother in his heart. do you tell me that that boy left that field where he died that the flag of his country might wave forever in the air--do you tell me that he went from that field, where he lost his life in defense of the liberties of men, to an eternal hell? i tell you it is infamous!--and such a doctrine as that would tarnish the reputation of a hyena and smirch the fair fame of an anaconda. let us see whether we are to believe it or not. we had a war a little while ago and there was a draft made, and there was many a good christian hired another fellow to take his place, hired one that was wicked, hired a sinner to go to hell in his place for five hundred dollars! while if he was killed he would go to heaven. think of that. think of a man willing to do that for five hundred dollars! i tell you when you come right down to it they have got too much heart to believe it; they say they do, but they do not appreciate it. they do not believe it. they would go crazy if they did. they would go insane. if a woman believed it, looking upon her little dimpled darling in the cradle, and said, "nineteen chances in twenty i am raising fuel for hell," she would go crazy. they don't believe it, and can't believe it. the old doctrine was that the angels in heaven would become happier as they looked upon those in hell. that is not the doctrine now; we have civilized it. that is not the doctrine. what is the doctrine now? the doctrine is that those in heaven can look upon the agonies of those in hell, whether it is a fire or whatever it is, without having the happiness of those in heaven decreased--that is the doctrine. that is preached today in every orthodox pulpit in harrisburg. let me put one case and i will be through with this branch of the subject. a husband and wife love each other. the husband is a good fellow and the wife a splendid woman. they live and love each other and all at once he is taken sick, and they watch day after day and night after night around his bedside until their property is wasted and finally she has to go to work, and she works through eyes blinded with tears, and the sentinel of love watches at the bedside of her prince, and at the least breath or the least motion she is awake; and she attends him night after night and day after day for years, and finally he dies, and she has him in her arms and covers his wasted face with the tears of agony and love. he is a believer and she is not. he dies, and she buries him and puts flowers above his grave, and she goes there in the twilight of evening and she takes her children, and tells her little boys and girls through her tears how brave and how true and how tender their father was, and finally she dies and she goes to hell, because she was not a believer; and he goes to the battlements of heaven and looks over and sees the woman who loved him with all the wealth of her love, and whose tears made his dead face holy and sacred, and he looks upon her in the agonies of hell without having his happiness diminished in the least. with all due respect to everybody, i say, damn any such doctrine as that. it is infamous! it never ought to be preached; it never ought to be believed. we ought to be true to our hearts, and the best revelation of the infinite is the human heart. now, i come back to where i started from. they used to think that a certain day was too good for a child to be happy in, so they filled the imagination of this child with these horrors of hell. i said, and i say again, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. strike with hand of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills; but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh, the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy; oh, rippling river of life, thou art the blessed boundary-line between the beasts and man, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fiend of care; oh, laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples enough in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. i am opposed to any religion that makes them melancholy, that makes children sad, and that fills the human heart with shadow. give a child a chance. when i was a boy we always went to bed when we were not sleepy, and we always got up when we were sleepy. let a child commence at which end of the day they please, that is their business; they know more about it than all the doctors in the world. the voice of nature when a man is free, is the voice of right, but when his passions have been damned up by custom, the moment that is withdrawn, he rushes to some excess. let him be free from the first. let your children grow in the free air and they will fill your house with perfume. do not create a child to be a post set in an orthodox row; raise investigators and thinkers, not disciples and followers; cultivate reason, not faith; cultivate investigation, not superstition; and if you have any doubt yourself about a thing being so, tell them about it; don't tell them the world was made in six days--if you think six days means six good whiles, tell them six good whiles. if you have any doubts about anybody being in a furnace and not being burnt, or even getting uncomfortably warm, tell them so--be honest about it. if you look upon the jaw-bone of a donkey as not a good weapon, say so. give a child a chance. if you think a man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so, it won't make them any worse. be honest--that is all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years and years to unlearn; tell them facts--it is just as easy. it is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history--it is as easy to find out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about,* and where a child knows what the name of a flower is when it sees it, the name of a bird and all those things, the world becomes interesting everywhere, and they do not pass by the flowers--they are not deaf to all the songs of birds, simply because they are walking along thinking about hell. [* "we know of no difference between matter and spirit, because we know nothing with certainty about either. why trouble ourselves about matters of which, however important they may be we do know nothing and can know nothing?"--huxley] i tell you, this is a pretty good world if we only love somebody in it, if we only make somebody happy, if we are only honor-bright in it, if we have no fear. that is my doctrine. i like to hear children at the table telling what big things they have seen during the day; i like to hear their merry voices mingling with the clatter of knives and forks. i had rather hear that than any opera that was ever put on the stage. i hate this idea of authority. i hate dignity. i never saw a dignified man that was not after all an old idiot. dignity is a mask; a dignified man is afraid that you will know he does not know everything. a man of sense and argument is always willing to admit what he don't know--why?--because there is so much that he does know; and that is the first step towards learning anything--willingness to admit what you don't know and when you don't understand a thing, ask--no matter how small and silly it may look to other people--ask, and after that you know. a man never is in a state of mind that he can learn until he gets that dignified nonsense out of him, and so, i say let us treat our children with perfect kindness and tenderness. now, then, i believe in absolute intellectual liberty; that a man has a right to think, and think wrong, provided he does the best he can to think right--that is all. i have no right to say that mr. smith shall not think; mr. smith has no right to say i shall not think; i have no right to go and pull a clergyman out of his pulpit and say: "you shall not preach that doctrine," but i have just as much right as he has to say my say. i have no right to lie about a clergyman, and with great modesty i claim--and with some timidity--that he has no right to slander me--that is all. i claim that every man and wife are equal, except that she has a right to be protected; that there is nothing like the democracy of the home and the republicism of the fire-side, and that a man should study to make his wife's life one perpetual poem of joy; that there should be nothing but kindness and goodness; and then i say that children should be governed by love, by kindness, by tenderness, and by the sympathy of love, kindness and tenderness. that is the religion i have got, and it is good enough for me whether it suits anybody else in the world or not. i think it is altogether more important to believe in my wife than it is to believe in the master; i think it is altogether more important to love my children than the twelve apostles--that is my doctrine. i may be wrong, but that is it. i think more of the living than i do of the dead. this world is for the living. the grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. the living have a right to control this world. i think a good deal more of today than i do of yesterday, and i think more of tomorrow than i do of this day; because it is nearly gone--that is the way i feel, and this my creed. the time to be happy is now; the way to be happy is to make somebody else happy; and the place to be happy is here. i never will consent to drink skim milk here with the promise of cream somewhere else. now, my friends, i have some excuses to offer for the race to which i belong. in the first place, this world is not very well adapted to raising good people; there is but one-quarter of it land to start with; it is three times as well adapted to fish-culture as it is to man, and of that one-quarter there is but a small belt where they raise men of genius. there is one strip from which all the men and women of genius come. when you go too far north yon find no brain; when you go too far south you find no genius, and there never has been a high degree of civilization except where there is winter. i say that winter is the father and mother of the fireside, the family of nations; and around that fireside blossom the fruits of our race. in a country where they don't need any bed-clothes except the clouds, revolution is the normal condition not much civilization there. when in the winter i go by a house where the curtain is a little bit drawn, and i look in there and see children poking the fire and wishing they had as many dollars or knives or something else as there are sparks; when i see the old man smoking and the smoke curling above his head like incense from the altar of domestic peace, the other children reading or doing something, and the old lady with her needle and shears--i never pass such a scene that i do not feel a little ache of joy in my heart. awhile ago they were talking about annexing san domingo. they said it was the finest soil in the world, and so on. says i, "it don't raise the right kind of folks; you take five thousand of the best people in the world and let them settle there and you will see the second generation barefooted, with the hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros; you will see them riding barebacked, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cockfight on sunday." that is one excuse i have. another is, i think we came from the lower animals, i am not dead sure of it. on that question i stand about eight to seven. if there is nothing of the snake, or hyena, or jackal in man, why would he cut his brother's throat for a difference of belief? why would he build dungeons and burn the flesh of his brother man with red hot irons? i think we came from the lower animals. when i first heard that doctrine i did not like it. i felt sorry for our english friends, who would have to trace their pedigree back to the duke of orangutan, or the earl of chimpanzee. but i have read so much about rudimentary bones and rudimentary muscles that i began to doubt about it. says i: "what do you mean by rudimentary muscles?" they say: "a muscle that has gone into bankruptcy--" "was it a large muscle?" "yes." "what did our forefathers use it for?" they say: "to flap their ears with." after i found that out i was astonished to find that they had become rudimentary; i know so many people for whom it would be handy today, so many people where that would have been on an exact level with their intellectual development. so after while i began to like it, and says i to myself: "you have got to come to it." i thought after all i had rather belong to a race of people that came from skull-less vertebrae in the dim laurentian period, that wiggled without knowing they were wiggling, that began to develop and came up by a gradual development until they struck this gentleman in the dug-out; coming up slowly--up-up-up--until, for instance, they produced such a man as shakespeare--he who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and after whom all others have been only gleaners of straw, he who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace--producing him and hundreds of others i might mention--with the angels of progress leaning over the far horizon beckoning this race of work and thought--i had rather belong to a race commencing at the skull-less vertebrae producing the gentleman in the dug-out and so on up, than to have descended from a perfect pair upon which the lord has lost money from that day to this. i had rather belong to a race that is going up than to one that is going down. i would rather belong to one that commenced at the skull-less vertebrae and started for perfection, than to belong to one, that started from perfection and started for the skull-less vertebrae. these are the excuses i have for my race, and taking everything into consideration, i think we have done extremely well. let us have more liberty and free thought. free thought will give us truth. it is too early in the history of the world to write a creed. our fathers were intellectual slaves; our fathers were intellectual serfs. there never has been a free generation on the globe. every creed you have got bears the mark of whip, and chain, and fagot. there has been no creed written by a free brain. wait until we have had two or three generations of liberty and it will then be time enough to seize the swift horse of progress by the bridle and say--thus far and no farther; and in the meantime let us be kind to each other; let us be decent towards each other. we are all travelers on the great plain we call life and there is nobody quite sure, what road to take--not just dead sure, you known. there are lots of guide-boards on the plain and you find thousands of people swearing today that their guide-board is the only board that shows the right direction. i go and talk to them and they say: "you go that way, or you will be damned." i go to another and they say: "you go this way, or you will be damned." i find them all fighting and quarreling and beating each other, and then i say: "let us cut down all these guide-boards." "what," they say, "leave us without any guide-boards?" i say: "yes. let every man take the road he thinks is right; and let everybody else wish him a happy journey; let us part friends." i say to you tonight, my friends, that i have no malice upon this subject--not a particle; i simply wish to express my thoughts. the world has grown better just in proportion as it is happier; the world has grown better just in proportion as it has lost superstition; the world has grown better just in the proportion that the sacerdotal class has lost influence--just exactly; the world has grown better just in proportion that secular ideas have taken possession of the world. the world has grown better just in proportion that it has ceased talking about the visions of the clouds, and talked about the realities of the earth. the world has grown better just in the proportion that it has grown free, and i want to do what little i can in my feeble way to add another flame to the torch of progress. i do not know, of course, what will come, but if i have said anything tonight that will make a husband love his wife better, i am satisfied; if i have said anything, that will make a wife love her husband better, i am satisfied; if i have said anything that will add one more ray of joy to life, i am satisfied; if i have said anything that will save the tender flesh of a child from a blow, i am satisfied; if i have said anything that will make us more willing to extend to others the right we claim for ourselves, i am satisfied. i do not know what inventions are in the brain of the future; i do not know what garments of glory may be woven for the world in the loom of the years to be; we are just on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. i do not know what is to be discovered; i do not know what science will do for us. i do know that science did just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; i know that science took the thunderbolts from the hands of jupiter, and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under waves of the sea. i know that science stole a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arms the countless wheels of toil; i know that science broke the chains from human limbs and gave us instead the forces of nature for our slaves; i know that we have made the attraction of gravitation work for us; we have made the lightnings our messengers; we have taken advantage of fire and flames and wind and sea; these slaves have no backs to be whipped; they have no hearts to be lacerated; they have no children to be stolen, no cradles to be violated. i know that science has given us better houses; i know it has given us better pictures and better books; i know it has given us better wives and better husbands, and more beautiful children. i know it has enriched a thousand-fold our lives; and for that reason i am in favor of intellectual liberty. i know not, i say, what discoveries may lead the world to glory; but i do know that from the infinite sea of the future never a greater or grander blessing will strike this bank and shoal of time than liberty for man, woman and child. ladies and gentlemen, i have delivered this lecture a great many times; clergymen have attended, and editors of religious newspapers, and they have gone away and written in their papers and declared in their pulpits that in this lecture i advocated universal adultery; they have gone away and said it was obscene and disgusting. between me and my clerical maligners, between me and my religious slanderers, i leave you, ladies and gentlemen, to judge. ingersoll's lecture on human rights ladies and gentlemen: i suppose that man, from the most grotesque savage up to heckle, has had a philosophy by which he endeavored to account for all the phenomena of nature he may have observed. from that mankind may have got their ideas of right and wrong. now, where there are no rights there can be no duties. let us always remember that only as a man becomes free can he by any possibility become good or great. as i said, every savage has had his philosophy, and by it accounted for everything he observed. he had an idea of rain and rainbow, and he had an idea of a controlling power. one said there is a being who presides over our world, and who will destroy us unless we do right. others had many of these beings, but they were invariably like themselves. the most fruitful imagination cannot make more than a man, though it may make infinite powers and attributes out of the powers and attributes of man. you can't build a god unless you start with a human being. the savage said, when there was a storm, "somebody is angry." when lightning leaped from the lurid cloud, he thought, "what have i been doing?" and when he couldn't think of any wrong he had been doing, he tried to think of some wrong his neighbor had been doing. i may as well state here that i believe man has come up from the lowest orders of creation, and may have not come up very far; still, i believe we are doing very well, considering. but, speaking of man's early philosophy, his morality was founded first on self-defense. when gathered together in tribes, he held that this infinite being would hold the tribe responsible for the actions of any individual who had angered him. they imagined this being got angry. just imagine the serenity of an infinite being being disturbed, and a god breaking into a passion because some poor wretch had neglected to bring two turtle doves to a priest! then they sought out this poor offending individual, to punish him and appease the wroth of this being. and here commenced religious persecution. now, i do not say there is no god, but what i do say is that i do not know. the only difference between me and the theologian is that i am honest. there may or there may not be an infinite being, but i do not know it, and until i do i cannot conceive of any obedience i owe to any unknown being. as soon as men began to imagine they would be held responsible for the act of any other person, came the necessity for some one to teach them how to keep from offending the being. some called him medicine man, some called him priest; now, we call him theologian. these men set out to teach men how to keep from offending this being, and they laid down certain laws to regulate the conduct of men. first of all it was necessary to believe in this power. to disbelieve in him was the worst offense of all. to have some human being, dressed in the skin of a wild beast, deny the existence of this infinite being, was more than the infinite being could stand. the first thing, therefore, was to believe in this power, the next to support this gentleman standing between you and the supreme wrath. these gentlemen were the lobbyists with the power, and sometimes succeeded in getting the veto used in favor of their clients. for ages, as mankind slowly came through the savage state, the world was filled with infinite fear. they accounted for everything bad that happened as the wrath of this supreme being. but they went from savagery to barbarism--a step in improvement--and then began to build temples to, and make images of, this being. then man began to believe he could influence this being by prayer, by getting on his knees to the image he had made. nothing, i suppose astonishes a missionary more than to see a savage in central africa on his knees before a stone praying for luck in hunting or in fighting. and yet it strikes me--we have our army chaplains before a battle praying for the success of our side. they don't pray for assistance if our cause is just, but they pray, "lord help us!" i can't see the difference between the two. but there is this said in favor of prayer that, whether successful or not, it is a sort of intellectual exercise. like a man trying to lift himself, he may not succeed, but he gets a good deal of exercise. but as man proceeds, he begins to help himself and to take advantage of mechanical powers to assist him, and he begins to see he can help himself a little, and exactly in the proportion he helps himself he comes to rely less on the power of priest or prayer to help him. just to the extent we are helpless, to that extent do we rely upon the unknown. as religion developed itself, keeping pace with the belief in theology, came the belief in demonology. they gave one being all the credit of doing all the good things, and must give some one credit for the bad things, and so they created a devil. at one time it was as disreputable to deny the existence of a devil as to deny the existence of a god; to deny the existence of a hell, with its fire and brimstone, as to deny the existence of a heaven with its harp and love. with the development of religion came the idea that no man should be allowed to bring the wrath of god on a nation by his transgressions, and this idea permeates the christian world today. now what does this prove? simply that our religion is founded on fear, and when you are afraid you cannot think. fear drops on its knees and believes. it is only courage that can think. it was the idea that man's actions could do something, outside of any effect his mechanical works might have, to change the order of nature; that he might commit some offense to bring on an earthquake, but he can't do it. you can't be bad enough to cause an earthquake; neither can you be good enough to stop one. out of that wretched doctrine and infamous mistake that man's belief could have any effect upon nature grew all these inquisitions, racks and collars of torture, and all the blood that was ever shed by religious persecution. in europe the country was divided between kings and priests. the king held that he got the power from the unknown; so did the priests. they could not say that they got it from the people; the people would deny it; the unknown could not deny it. and thus the altar and throne stand side by side. and republicanism was a thing unknown. it has been said that the pilgrim fathers came to this country to establish religious liberty. they did no such thing. they were not in favor of it. they came with the testament in their hands, and with it they could have no idea of religious liberty. when they had established thirteen colonies here, and had struggled for and obtained their independence, they established federal government, but did they seek after religious liberty? no! when they formed a federal government each church and each colony was jealous of the other. they said to the general government, "you can't have any religion in the constitution," but each state could make its own religion, and they made them. here the speaker read copious extracts from the statutes of the different states in reference to the qualifications for the exercise of citizenship--the religious belief necessary; and, on concluding, asked, "had they (the members who drew up these state constitutions) any idea of religious liberty." continuing, he said: "now, my friends, there's a party started in this country with the object of giving every man, woman and child the rights they are entitled to. now every one of us has the same rights. i have the right to labor and to have the products of my labor. i have the right to think, and furthermore, to express my thoughts, because expression is the reward of my intellectual labor. and yet in the united states there are states where men of my ideas would not be allowed to testify in a court of justice. is that right? there are states in this country where, if the law had been enforced, i would have been sent to the penitentiary for lecturing. all such laws are enacted by barbarians, and our country will not be free until they are wiped from the statute books of every state. does an infinite being need to be protected by a state legislature? if the bible is inspired, does the author of it need the support of the law to command respect? we don't need any law to make mankind respect shakespeare. we come to the altar of that great man and cover it with our gratitude without a statute. think of a law to govern tastes! think of a law to govern mind, or any question whatever! think of the way in which they have supported the bible! they've terrorized the old with laws, and captured the dear, little innocent children and poisoned their minds with their false stories until, when they have reached the age of manhood, they have been afraid to think for themselves. let us see what the laws are now, by which they guard their bible and their god. [here the speaker read extracts from the statutes of several states in reference to blasphemy and profanation of the sabbath, commenting on each as he ran them through:] pursuing the thread of his discourse, he said: every american should see to it that all these laws are done away with once and forever. there has been a reaction of late years. this country has begun to be prosperous. we don't think much of religion; 'tis only when hard times come we turn our attention toward it. there are people in this country who say we are getting too irreligious, too scientific. now, is it not a fact that we are happier today than at any period in our history? you live in a great country, though perhaps you do not know it. but live in any other country for a while, and you'll find it out. see, then, what we've got by looking a little to the affairs of the world! the bible can't stand today without the support of the civil power. no religion ever flourished except by the support of the sword, and no religion like this could have been established except by brute force. at one time we thought a great deal of clergymen, but now we have got to thinking they ain't of as much importance as a man that has invented something. the church seeing this has made up its mind that it is necessary to do something, and so got up a plan to be acknowledged by law. here's what they wish to do: [here the speaker read some extracts from the constitution of the national reform association.] continuing he said: our fathers, in , building better than they knew, retired the gods from politics. i do not believe jesus christ is the ruler of nations. if he is the ruler of one he is the ruler of all. why does he not then rule one as well as another? if you give him credit for the good things of one you must denounce him for the tyranny and despotism of others. the revealed word of god is not the standing of civil justice in this country! the bible is not the standard of right and wrong or of decency in this country. you can't put god in the constitution, because if you do there would be no room for the folks. whatever you put in the constitution you must enforce by the sword, and you can't go to war with any man for not believing in your god. god has no business there, and any man that is in favor of putting him there is an enemy to the interests of american institutions. now for the purpose of preventing the name of god being put in the constitution, there's another little party has been started and these are its doctrines: we want an absolute divorce between church and state. we demand that church property should not be exempt from taxation. if you are going to exempt anything, exempt the homesteads of the poor. don't exempt a rich corporation, and make men pay taxes to support a religion in which they do not believe. but they say churches do good. i don't know whether they do or not. do you see such a wonderful difference between a member of a church and the man who does not believe in it? do church members pay their debts any better than any others? do they treat their families any better? did you ever hear of any man coming into a town broke and inquire where the deacon of a presbyterian church lived? has not the church opposed every science from the first ray of light until now? didn't they damn into eternal flames the man who discovered the world was round? didn't they damn into eternal flames the man who discovered the movement of the earth in its orbit? didn't they persecute the astronomers? didn't they even try to put down life insurance by saying it was sinful to bet on the time god has given you to live? science built the academy, superstition the inquisition. science constructed the telescope, religion the rack; science made us happy here, and says if there's another life we'll all stand an equal chance there; religion made us miserable here, and says a large majority will be eternally miserable there. should we, therefore, exempt it from taxation for any good it has done? the next thing we ask is a perfect divorce between church and school. we say that every school should be secular, because its just to everybody. if i was an israelite i wouldn't want to be taxed to have my children taught that his ancestors had murdered a supreme being. let us teach, not the doctrines of the past, but the discoveries of the present; not the five points of calvinism, but geology and geography. education is the lever to raise mankind, and superstition is the enemy of intelligence. we demand, next, that woman shall be put upon an equality with man. why not? why shouldn't men be decent enough in the management of the politics of the country for women to mingle with them? it is an outrage that anyone should live in this country for sixty or seventy years and be forced to obey the laws without having any voice in making them. let us give woman the opportunity to care for herself, since men are not decent enough to seek to care for her. the time will come when we'll treat a woman that works and takes care of two or three children as well as a woman dressed in diamonds who does nothing. the time will come when we'll not tell our domestic we expect to meet her in heaven, and yet not be willing to have her speak to us in the drawing room. ignorance is a poor pedestal to set virtue upon and mock-modesty should not have the right to prevent people from knowing themselves. every child has a right to be well-born, and ignorance has no right to people the world with scrofula and consumption. when we come to the conclusion that god is not taking care of us and that we have to take care of ourselves, then we'll begin to have something in the world worth living for. i would wish there was seated upon the throne of the universe one who would see to it that justice did always prevail. i do not propose to give up the little world i live in for the unknown. i would wish that the friends who bid us "good night" in this world might meet us with "good morning" there. just as long as we love one another we'll hope for another world; just as long as love kisses the lips of death will we believe and hope for a future reunion. i would not take one hope away from the human heart or one joy from the human soul, but i hold in contempt the gentlemen who keep heaven on sale; i look with contempt on him who keeps it on draught; i look with pitying contempt on him who endeavors to prohibit honest thought by promising a reward in another world. if there is another world we'll find when we come there that no one has done enough good to be eternally rewarded, no one has done enough harm to meet with an unending, eternal pain and agony. we'll find that there is no being that ever hindered a man from exercising his reason. now, while we are here, no matter what happens to us hereafter, let us cultivate strength of heart and brain to stand the inevitable. no creed can help you there. when the heart is touched with agony nothing but time can heal it. i want, if i can, to do a little to increase the rights of men, to put every human being on an equality, to sweep away the clouds of superstition, to make people think more of what happens today than what somebody said happened , years ago. this is all i want: to do what little i can to clutch one-seventh of our time from superstition, to give our sundays to rest and recreation. i want a day of enjoyment, a day to read old books, to meet old friends, and get acquainted with one's wife and children. i want a day to gather strength to meet the toils of the next. i want to get that day away from the church, away from superstition and the contemplation of hell, to be the best and sweetest and brightest of all the days in the week. the best way to make a day sacred is to fill it up with useful labor. that day is best on which most good is done for the human race. i hope to see the time when we'll have a day for the opera, the play--good plays--for they do good. you never saw the villain foiled in a play where the audience did not applaud. you never saw them applaud when the rascal was successful in his villainy. if you could go to a theater and see put upon the stage the scenes of the old testament, with its butcheries and rapes and deeds of violence, you would detest it all the days of your life. i'd like to have every horror of the old testament set on this stage, to have somebody represent the being as he is represented there, giving his brutal orders, and let the orthodox see their god as he really is. i want to have us all do what little we can to secularize this government--take it from the control of savagery and give it to science, take it from the government of the past and give it to the enlightened present, and in this government let us uphold every man and woman in their rights, that everyone, after he or she comes to the age of discretion, may have a choice in the affairs of the nation. do this, and we'll grow in grandeur and splendor every day, and the time will come when every man and every woman shall have the same rights as every other man and every other woman has. i believe, we are growing better. i don't believe the wail of want shall be heard forever; that the prison and gallows will always curse the ground. the time will come when liberty and law and love, like the rings of saturn, will surround the world; when the world will cease making these mistakes; when every man will be judged according to his worth and intelligence. i want to do all i can to hasten that day. ingersoll's lecture on talmagian theology (second lecture) col. ingersoll began, "only a few years ago the pulpit was almost supreme. the palace was almost in the shadow of the cathedral, and the power behind every throne was a priest. man was held in physical slavery by kings, and in a mental prison by the church. he was allowed to hold no opinions as to where he came from, nor as to where he was going. it was sufficient for him to do the labor and believe the kings would do the governing and the priests the thinking--and, my god, what thinking! if the world had obeyed the priests we would all be idiots tonight. the eagle of intellect would have given way to the blind bat of faith. they were the rack, the faggot, the thumbscrew in this world, and hell in the next. only a few years ago no man could express an honest thought unless he agreed with the church. the church has been a perpetual beggar. it has never plowed, it never sowed, it never spun, yet solomon in all his glory was not so arrayed. thanks to modern thought, the brain of the nineteenth century, to voltaire, paine, hume, to all the free men, that beggar--the church--is no longer upon horseback; and it fills me with joy to state that even its walking is not now good. only a little while ago a priest was thought more than human. nobody dared contradict the minister. now there are other learned professions. there are doctors, lawyers, writers, books, newspapers, and the priest has hundreds of rivals. the priest grew jealous, hateful; he was always thankful for an epidemic or pestilence, so that people would turn to him in despair. in our country all the men of intellect were in the pulpit once. now there are so many avenues to distinction the men of brain, heart and red blood have left the pulpit and gone to useful things. i do not say all. there are still some men of mind in the pulpit, but they are nearer infidels than any others. where do we get our ministers? a young man, without constitution enough to be wicked, without health enough to enjoy the things of this world, naturally, fixes his gaze on high. he is educated, sent to a university where he is taught that it is criminal to think. stuffed with a creed, he comes out a shepherd. most of them are intellectual shreds and patches, mental ravelings, selvage. every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a convict; every member of the church stands over him with a club, called a creed. he is an intellectual slave, and dare not preach his honest thought. there are thousands of good men in the pulpit, honest men. i am simply describing the average shepherd; they tell me "they've been called," that almighty god selected them. he looked all over the world and said: "now, there's a man i want!" and what selections! shakespeare was not called. yet he has done more for this world than all the ministers who have ever lived in it. beethoven! he was not called. raphael was not called. he was all an accident. all the inventors, discoverers, poets--god never called one of them; he turned his attention to popes, cardinals, priests, exhorters; and what selections he has made! it's astonishing. in the united states a great many ministers have been good enough to take me for a text. among others the rev. mr. talmage, of brooklyn. i have nothing to say about his reputation. it has nothing to do with the question. some ministers think he has more gesticulation than grace. some call him a pious pantaloon, a christian clown; but such remarks, i think, are born of envy. he is the only presbyterian minister in the united states who can draw an audience. he stands at the head of the denomination, and i answer him. he's a strange man. i believe he's orthodox, or intellectual pride would prevent his saying these things. he believes in a literal resurrection of the dead; that we shall see countless bones flying through the air. he has some charges against me, and he has denied some of my statements. he has produced what he calls arguments, and i am going to answer some of the charges. next sunday afternoon, at o'clock; in this place, i shall have a matinee, and answer his arguments. he says i am the champion blasphemer. what is blasphemy? to contradict a priest? to have a mind of your own? whoever takes a step in advance is a blasphemer. blasphemy is what a last year's leaf says to a this year's bud. to deny that mohammed is the prophet of god is not blasphemy in new york. it is in constantinople. it is a question, then, largely of geography. it depends on where you are. the missionary who laughs at a modern god is a blasphemer. in a catholic country whoever says mary is not the mother of god is a blasphemer. in a protestant country to say she is the mother of god is blasphemy. everything has been blasphemy. my doctrine is this: he is a blasphemer who refuses to tell his honest thought; who is not true to himself; who enslaves his fellow man; who charges that god was once in favor of slavery. if there is any god, that man is a blasphemer. they're afraid we'll injure god. how? is infinite goodness and mercy to become livid with wrath because a finite being expresses an opinion? i cannot help the infinite. that man only is the good man who helps his fellow man. i know then who would do anything for god, who doesn't need it, but nothing for men, who do need it. why should god be so particular about my believing his book? it's no more his work than the stars of gravitation. yet i may declare that the earth is flat, and he'll not damn me for that. but if i make a mistake about that book i'm gone. i can blaspheme the multiplication table and deify the power of the wedge--in fact, the less i know the better my chance will be. i say that book is not inspired, and there is no infinitely good god who will damn one human soul. at the judgment, if i am mistaken i own up--i am here, i do not know where i came from, nor where i am going--i'll be honest about it. i am on a ship and not on speaking terms with the captain, but i propose to have a happy voyage, and the best way is to do what you can to make your fellow passengers happy. if we run into a good port, i'll be as happy an angel as you'll meet that day. blasphemy is the cry of a defeated priest--the black flag of theology--it shows where argument stops and slander and persecution begin. i am told by mr. talmage that whoever contradicts this word is a fool, a howling wolf, one of the assassins of god. i presume the gentleman is honest. take mr. talmage, now, he is a good man. mr. humboldt, he was another good man. what humboldt knew and what talmage didn't know would make a library. the next charge is that i have said the universe was made of nothing, according to the bible. false in one thing, false in all, he says. think of that rule. let us apply that to man. if the world was created, what was it make of? and who made that? if the lord created it, what did he make it of? nothing. that's all he had. no sides, no top, nothing. yet god had lived there forever. what did he think about? what did he do? nothing. nothing had ever happened. all at once he made something. what did he make it of? mr. talmage explains. he says if i knew anything i would know that god made this world out of his omnipotence. he might just as well made it out of his memory. what is omnipotence? is it a raw material? the weakest man in the world can lift as much nothing as god. yet he made this world out of his omnipotence. it is so stated by a doctor of divinity, and i should think such divinity would need a doctor! i don't believe this. i believe this universe has existed throughout all eternity--everything. all that is, is god. i do not give to that universe a personality that wants man to get his knees into dust and his fingers in holy water; that wants some body to ring a bell or eat a wafer. i am a part of this universe, and i believe all there is, is all the god there is. i may be mistaken; i don't know. i just give my best opinion. if there's any heaven, i'll give it there. but there'll be no discussion in heaven. hell is the only place where mental improvement will be possible. i have said, it is charged, that the bible says the world was made in six days. he says i don't understand hebrew. the bible says the world was made in six days. god didn't work nights--evening and morning were the first day. god rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it. that, they say, didn't mean days; it meant good whiles. he made the world in six good whiles. adam was made, i think along about saturday. if the account is correct, it's only , years since man made his appearance. we know that to be false. a few years ago a gentleman who was going to california in the cars met a minister. they came to the place called the sink of the humboldt, the most desolate place in the world. just imagine perdition with the fire out. the traveler asked the minister whether god made the earth in six days, and the minister said he did. then don't you think, said he, he could have put in another day's work to great advantage right here? i am charged, too, with saying that the sun was not made till the fourth day, whereas, according to the bible, vegetation began on the third day, before there was any light. but mr. talmage says there was light without the sun. they got light, he says, from the crystallization of rocks. a nice thing to raise a crop of corn by. there may have been volcanoes, he says. how'd you like to farm it, and depend on volcanic glare to raise a crop? that's what they call religious science. god won't damn a man for things like that. what else? the aurora borealis! a great cucumber country! it's strange he never thought of glow worms! imagine it! a presbyterian divine gravely saying vegetation could grow by the light of the crystallization of rocks--by the light of volcanoes in other worlds, probably now extinct. he says of me, too in his pulpit, that i was in favor of the circulation of immoral literature. let me tell you the truth. several gentlemen, so-called, were trying to exclude from the mails, books called infidel. i said the law should be modified. it is impossible for anybody to reach the depth of one who will print or circulate obscene books. one of my objections to the bible is that it contains obscene stories. any book, couched in decent language, should have the liberty of the united states mails. where books are immoral and obscene, i say, burn them, and have always said it. mr. talmage said what he knew to be untrue. he said it out of hatred, and because he cannot answer the arguments i have urged. i believe in pure books and pure literature. but when a god writes there is no excuse for him. in shakespeare we say obscene things are impure--we do not say they are inspired. that i have falsified the records of the bible showing the period of jewish slavery, is another of the charges against me. that slavery extended over a period of years; and he proceeded to substantiate this statement by being through a long and somewhat complicated genealogical table. if i made any misstatement i was misled by the new testament. mr. talmage may settle with st. paul. if you can depend on what my friend paul says, the jews, in years, increased from seventy persons till they had , men of war. i know it isn't so, and so does any man who knows anything. for such an increase as this each woman must have borne somewhat over fifty-seven children, and every child lived. the next charge is that i have laughed at holy things. holy things! the priest always says: "now don't laugh; look solemn; this is no laughing matter." there's nothing a priest hates like mirthfulness. he despises a smile. i read in the bible that god gave a recipe to aaron for making hair-oil and said if anybody made any like it, kill him. well, i don't believe it. the penalty for infringing on that patent was death. do you believe an infinite god gave a recipe for hair-oil? is it possible for absurdity to go beyond that? that's what they call a holy thing. and water for baptism! do you believe god will look for this water-mark on the soul? the next charge is that i misquote the scriptures. that's because i don't know hebrew. why didn't he write to me in english? if he wishes to hold a gentleman responsible, why doesn't he address him in his native tongue? why write his word in such a way that hundreds of thousands make their living explaining it? if i'd only understood hebrew i would have known god didn't make eve out of a rib. he made her out of adam's side. how did he get it out? well, i suppose he cut it out with a kind of a splinter of his omnipotence! then our mother was made from a rib. when you consider the material used it was the most successful job ever done. there's even a serpent in the bible that knows a language. it won't do. sin, how did it come into the world? where did the serpent come from? he was wicked. adam's sin did not make him bad. then there was sin in the world before adam. there's no sense in it--not a particle. then talmage touches me upon the flood. his flood didn't come to america, because america was not discovered then. he says it was a partial flood. then why did they have to take any birds in the ark? how did noah get the animals in the ark? talmage says it was through the instinct to get out of the rain. according to the bible they went in before the rain began. dr. scott says the angels helped carry them in. imagine an angel with an animal under each wing. it must have rained feet a day for forty days. why does talmage try to explain a miracle? the beauty of a miracle is it cannot be explained. the moment the church begins to explain the church is gone. all it's got to do is swear it is so. the ark landed on ararat, which is , feet high. there was only one window, twenty-two inches square. talmage says the window ran clear around the ark. the bible doesn't say so. that's brooklyn; that's no bible. if the bible account is true the ark must have struck bottom on the top of a mountain. would any but a god of mercy and kindness people a world, and then drown them all? a god cruel enough to drown his own children ought not to have the impudence to tell me how to bring up mine. why did he save eight of the same kind of people to take a fresh start? why didn't he make a fresh lot, kill his snake, and give his children a fair show? it won't do. talmage says the bible does not favor polygamy and slavery. there was room enough on the table of stone for saying man should only have one wife and no slaves. if not, god might have written it on the other side. david and solomon were pursued of god, but they had a pretty good time of it. most anybody would be willing to be pursued that way. there is not a word in the old testament against slavery or polygamy. frederick douglas, a slave in maryland, is the greatest man that state ever produced. he was enslaved by christians. why did god pay so much attention to blasphemers, and so little to slaveholders and robbers? i am opposed to any god that was ever in favor of slavery. the bible upholds polygamy, and that's the reason i don't uphold the bible. the most glorious temple ever erected is the home--that's my church. i've misquoted the story of jonah, talmage says. when somebody had been guilty of blasphemy the winds rose; they tried to get jonah ashore, but couldn't do it. the sea waxed. he was swallowed by a whale. the people of minerva wrapped all their cattle up in sack-cloth, and if anything would have pleased god i should think that would. jonah sat under a gourd, and god made a worm out of some omnipotence he had left over, and set it work on the ground. talmage doesn't think jonah was in the whale's belly--he said in his mouth. well, judging from the doctor's photograph, that explanation would be quite natural to him. he says he might have been in the whale's stomach, and avoided the action of the gastric juice by walking up and down. imagine jonah, sitting on a back tooth, leaning against the upper jaw, longingly looking through the open mouth for signs of land! but that's scripture and you've got to believe it or be damned. let me say his brother preachers will not thank talmage for his explanations. i don't believe it, and if i am to be damned for it, i'll accept it cheerfully. they say i was defeated for governor of illinois because i was an infidel, and that i am an infidel because i was defeated. that's logic. now i'll tell you. they asked me whether i was an infidel, and i said i was! i was defeated. i preserved my manhood and lost an office. if everybody were as frank as i was, some men now in office would be private citizens. i would rather be what i am than hold any office in the world and be a slimy hypocrite. next they say i slandered my parents because i do not believe what they believed. my father at one time believed the bible to be the inspired word of god. he was an honorable man, and told me to read the bible for myself and be honest. he lived long enough to believe that the old testament was not the word of god. he had not in his life as much happiness as i have in one year. i hope my children will dishonor me by being nearer right than i am. if i have made a mistake, i want my children to correct it. my mother died when i was years old. were she living tonight, or if she does live, she would say, be absolutely true to yourself and preserve your manhood. if talmage had been born in constantinople he would have been a dervish. he is what he is because he can't help it. his head is just that shape. i am taking away the hope and consolation of the world, he says. his consolation is that ninety-nine out of every hundred are going to hell. his church was founded by john calvin, a murderer. better have no heaven than a hell. i would rather god would commit suicide this minute than that a single soul should go to hell. i want no presbyterian consolation, i want no fore-ordination, no consolation, no damnation. [col. ingersoll concluded with a few remarks about the bible women, saying that women today are as true to the gallows as mary magdalene was to the cross.] wherever there are women there are heroines. shakespeare's women are vastly superior to the bible women. i am accused of putting out the light-houses on the shores of the other world. the christians are trimming invisible wicks and pouring in allegorical oil. the christian is willing wife, children and parents shall burn if only he can sing and have a harp. mr. talmage can see countless millions burn in hell without decreasing the length of his orthodox smile. ingersoll's lecture on talmagian theology (third lecture) we must judge people somewhat by their creeds. mr. talmage is a calvinist, and he therefore regards every human being who has been born only once as totally depraved. he thinks that god never made a single creature that didn't deserve to be damned the minute he finished him. so every one who opposes mr. talmage is infamous. the generosity of an agnostic is meanness, his honesty is larceny and his love is hate. talmage is a consistent follower of calvin and knox, and a consistent worshiper of the jehovah of the ancient jews. i oppose not him, but his creed, because it tends to crush out the natural tendencies in men to joyousness and goodness. there is something good in every human being, and there is something bad. there are no perfect saints and no totally bad persons. there is the seed of goodness in every human heart and the capacity for improvement in every human soul. isn't it possible for a man who acts like christ to be saved, whatever be his belief? cannot a soul be infinitely generous? and can any god damn such a soul? if mr. talmage's creed be true, nearly all the great and glorious men of the past are burning today. if it be true, the greatest man england has produced in years is in hell. the world is poorer since i spoke here last, for darwin has passed away. he was a true child of nature--one who knew more about his mother than any other child she had. yet he was not a calvinist. he did not get his inspiration from any book, but from every star in the heavens, from the insect in the sunbeam, from the flowers in the meadows, and from the everlasting rocks. if the doctrine of the calvinists is true, what right had any one to ask an unbeliever to fight for his country in the civil war? what right has a believer to buy an unbelieving substitute, when some day he will look over the edge of heaven, and pointing downward, would say to a friend, "that is my substitute blistering there"? mr. talmage says that my mind is poisoned, and that the reason why all infidels' minds are poisoned is that they don't believe the jew bible. let us see whether it is worth believing. i deny that an infinitely merciful god would protect slavery or would uphold polygamy, which pollutes the sweetest words in language. i will not believe that god told men to exterminate their fellow-men, to plunge the sword into women's breasts and into the hearts of tender babes. i am opposed to the jew bible because it is bad. i don't deny that there are many good passages in it, nor that among all the thorns there are some roses. i admit that many christians are doing all they can to idealize the frightful things in the old testament. it is the protest of human nature. now, they tell me that this book is inspired. let us see what inspired means. if it means anything, it is that the thoughts of god, through the instrumentality of men, constitute this jew bible, and that these thoughts were written. now just suppose that some voice whispered in your ear, how would you know it was god's? how did these gentlemen of old know it was god who was talking to them? if anyone now told you that god whispered in his ear, you wouldn't believe him. why? because you know him. why are we asked to believe those ancient gentlemen? because we don't know them. another reason, according to mr. talmage, why the jew bible is inspired, is that prophecies in it have been fulfilled. how do we know that the prophecies were not fulfilled before they were written? they are so vague that you can't tell what was prophesied. if you will read the jew bible carefully, you will see that there was not a line, not a word, prophesying the coming of christ. catholics were right in saying that if the jew bible was to be kept in awe it must be kept from the people. protestants are wrong in letting the people read it. another argument of mr. talmage for the inspiration of the bible is that the jews have been kept as a wandering, persecuted race to fulfill the prophecies of the old testament. i don't believe an infinitely merciful god would persecute a race for thousands of years to use them as witnesses. christian hate has not allowed the jews to earn a [living?] or at least to practice a profession, and now, by a kind of poetic justice, the jews control the money of the world. emperors go to their bankers with hats in hand and beg them to discount their notes. this is because god has cursed the jews. only a little while ago christians have robbed hebrews, stripped them naked, turned them into the streets, and pointed to them as a fulfillment of divine prophecy. if you want to know the difference between some jews and some christians compare the address of felix adler with the sermon of the rev. dr. talmage. mr. talmage thinks that the light of every burning jewish home in russia throws light upon the gospel. every wound in a jewish breast is to him a mouth to proclaim the divine inspiration of the bible. every jewish maiden violated is another fulfillment of god's holy word. what do these horrid persecutions prove, except the barbarity of christians? next it is said that martyrs prove the truth of the bible. mr. talmage affirms that no man ever died cheerfully for a lie. why, men have gone cheerfully to their death for believing that a wafer was god's flesh. thousands have died for their belief in mohammed. men have died because they believed in immersion. either mr. talmage is a catholic, a mohammedan, a baptist, or else he believes that these thousands died for lies. every religion has had its martyrs, and every religion cannot be true. then it is said that miracles prove the inspiration of the bible. but it is impossible by the human senses to establish a violation of nature's laws. when the hebrews threw down sticks before pharaoh, and they became snakes, did he believe? no; because he was there. after the jews had been lead through the desert and had been fed with bread rained from heaven, had been clothed in indestructible pantaloons, and had quenched their thirst with water that followed them over mountains and through sands; when they saw jehovah wrapped in the smoke of sinai they still had more faith in a calf that they could make than anything jehovah could give them. it was so with the miracles of christ. not twenty people were converted by one of them. in fact, human testimony cannot substantiate a miracle. take the miracle about the bears which ate the children who laughed at the bald-headed old prophet. what do you suppose mr. talmage would say that meant? why, first, that children ought to respect preachers, and second, that god is kind to animals. nearly every miracle in the old testament is wrought in the interest of slavery, polygamy, creed or lust. i wish by denying them to rescue the reputation of jehovah from the assaults of the bible. who are the witnesses to the truth of the narratives of the jews' bible? eusebius was one. he lived in the reign of constantine, and said that the tracks of pharaoh's chariots could be seen--perfectly preserved in the sands of the red sea. he was the man who forged the passage in josephus which speaks about the coming of christ. good witness, isn't he. another one was polycarp. we don't know much about him. he suffered martyrdom in the reign of marcus aurelius, and when the fire wouldn't burn and he looked like gold through it, a heathen was so mad about it that he ran his sword through polycarp. the blood gushed out and quenched the fire, while the martyr's soul flew up to heaven in the form of a dove. and that's all we know about polycarp. to know how much reliance should be placed upon the judgment of such trustworthy witnesses, we should look at what some of their beliefs were. they thought that the world was flat; that the phoenix story was true; that the stars had souls and sinned; and one said there were four gospels because there were four winds and four corners of the earth. he might have added that it was also because a donkey has four legs. so far as the argument drawn from the sufferings of the martyrs is concerned, the speaker said that thousands upon thousands of men had died as cheerfully in defense of the koran as christians had died in defense of the bible. their heroic suffering simply proved that they were sinners in their beliefs, not that those beliefs were true. this argument, as advanced by mr. talmage, proves too much. every religion on the face of the globe has had its martyrs, but all religions cannot be true. men do die cheerfully for falsehoods when they believe them to be true. [the question of miracles was discussed at some length, and col. ingersoll declared it was impossible to establish by any human evidence that a miracle had ever been performed.] pharaoh was not convinced by the alleged miracle performed by aaron, of turning a stick into a serpent. why? because he was there, and no such miracle was ever done. no twenty people were convinced by the reported miracles of christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are supposed to have seen them refuse to credit. it won't do. the laws of nature never have been interrupted, and they never will be. all the books in the universe will never convince a thinking man that miracles have been performed. [the lecture was sprinkled throughout with the satirical wit for which col. ingersoll is famous, and concluded by the enumeration of a long list of "unscientific" facts and events recorded in the bible.] ingersoll's lecture on religious intolerance "how anybody ever came to the conclusion that there was any god who demanded that you should feel sorrowful and miserable and bleak one-seventh of the time is beyond my comprehension. neither can i conceive how they can say that one-seventh of time is holy. that day is the most sacred day on which the most good has been done for mankind. now, there was a time among the jews, when, if a man violated the sabbath, they would kill him. they said god told them to do it. i think they were mistaken. if not, if any god did tell them to kill him, then i think he was mistaken. i hope the time will come when every man can spend the sabbath just as he pleases, provided he does not interfere with the happiness of others. i would fight just as earnestly that the christian may go to church as that the infidel may have the right to spend the sabbath as he wishes. are the people who go to church the only good people? are there not a great many bad people who go to church? not a bank in pittsburgh will lend a dollar to the man who belongs to the church, without security, quicker than to the man who don't go to church. now, i believe that all laws upon the statute-book should be enforced. i do not blame anybody in this town. i am perfectly willing that every preacher in this town should preach. they are employed to preach, and to preach a certain doctrine, and if they don't preach that doctrine they will be turned out. i have no objection to that. but i want the same privilege to express my views, and what is the difference whether the man pays the day he goes in, or pays for it the week before by subscription. what would the church people think if the theatrical people should attempt to suppress the churches? what harm would it do to have an opera here tonight? it would elevate us more than to hear ten thousand sermons on the world that never dies. there is more practical wisdom in one of the plays of shakespeare than in all the sacred books ever written. what wrong would there be to see one of those grand plays on sunday? there was a time when the church would not allow you to cook on sunday. you had to eat your victuals cold. there was a time they thought the more miserable you feel the better god feels. there are sixty odd thousand preachers in the united states. some people regard them as a necessary evil; some as an unnecessary evil. there are sixty odd thousand churches in the united states; and it does seem to me that with all the wealth on their side; with all the good people on their side; with providence on their side; with all these advantages they ought to let us at least have the right to speak our thoughts. the history of the world shows me that the right has not always prevailed. when you see innocent men chained to the stake and the flames licking their flesh, it is natural to ask, why does god permit this? if you see a man in prison with the chains eating into his flesh simply for loving god, you've got to ask why does not a just god interfere? you've got to meet this; it won't do to say that it will all come out for the best. that may do very well for god, but it's awful hard on the man. where was the god that permitted slavery for two hundred years in these united states? the history of the world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was done, man did it. but there was a time when there was a drought, and this tribe of savages with their false notions of religion says somebody has been wicked. somebody has been lecturing on sunday. then the tribe hunted out the wicked man. they said you've got to stop. we cannot allow you to continue your wickedness, which brings punishment upon the whole of us. what is the reason they allow me to speak tonight. because the christians are not as firm in their belief now as they were a thousand years ago. the luke warmness and hypocrisy of christians now permit me to speak tonight. if they felt as they did a thousand years ago they would kill me. so religious persecution was born of the instinct of self-defense. is there any duty we owe to god? can we help him, can we add to his glory or happiness? they tell me this god is infinitely wise, i cannot add to his wisdom; infinitely happy--i cannot add to his happiness. what can i do? maybe he wants me to make prayers that won't be answered. i cannot see any relation that can exist between the finite and the infinite. i acknowledge that i am under obligations to my fellow man. we owe duties to our fellow man. and what? simply to make them happy. the only good, is happiness; and the only evil, is misery, or unhappiness. only those things are right that tend to increase the happiness of man; only those things are wrong which tend to increase the misery of man. that is the basis of right and wrong. there never would have been the idea of wrong except that man can inflict sufferings upon others. utility, then, is the basis of the idea of right and wrong. the church tells us that this world is a school to prepare us for another, that it is a place to build up character. well, if that is the only way character can be developed it is bad for children who die before they get any character. what would you think of a school-master who would kill half his pupils the first day? now, i read the bible, and i find that god so loved this world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. i have read this book, and what shall i say of it? i believe it is generally better to be honest. now, i don't believe the bible. had i not better say so? they say that if you do you will regret it when you come to die. if that be true, i know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it--they don't tell their honest convictions about the bible. there are two great arguments of the church--the great man argument and the death-bed. they say the religion of your fathers is good enough. why should your father object to your inventing a better plow than he had. they say to one, do you know more than all the theologians dead? being a perfectly modest man i say i think i do. now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. would god give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? any god that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. when i read a book and don't believe it, i ought to say so. i will do so and take the consequence like a man. and so i object to paying for the support of another man's belief. i am in favor of the taxation of all church property. if that property belongs to god, he is able to pay the tax. if we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan. [a voice here interrupted the speaker. col. ingersoll--what did the gentleman say? a voice--o, he's drunk. col. ingersoll--i didn't think any christian ought to get drunk and come here to disturb us. the speaker resumed:] the church has today $ , , or $ , , of property in this country. it must cost $ , , a week, that is to say $ a minute, to run these churches. you give me this money and if i don't do more good with it than four times as many churches i'll resign. let them make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. they will have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. the time will come when the preacher will become a teacher. admitting that the bible is the book of god, is that his only good job? will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the bible? will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as for denying the scheme of salvation? when the bible was first written it was not believed. had they known as much about science as we know now that bible would not have been written. col. ingersoll next gave his views of the puritans, declared they left holland to escape persecution and came came here to persecute others. he referred to the persecutions heaped upon those of other religious belief by the puritans, paid the catholics the compliment to say that maryland, which they ruled, was the first colony to enact a law tolerating religious views not held by themselves, and went on to explain that god was never mentioned in the constitution of the united states because each colony had a different religious belief, and each sect preferred to have god not mentioned at all than to having another religious belief than their own recognized. "in ," said the speaker, "our forefathers retired god from politics. they said all power comes from the people. they kept god out of the constitution and allowed each state to settle the question for itself." the present laws of different states were neatly reviewed, so far as they relate to the prevention of infidels giving testimony and to religious intolerance in any way, and these features were all branded and discussed as a gigantic evil. the lecture was attentively listened to by the immense audience from beginning to the end, and the speaker's most blasphemous fights were the most loudly applauded. ingersoll's lecture on hereafter my friends: i tell you tonight, as i have probably told many of you dozens of times, that the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment in the hereafter is an infamous one! i have no respect for the man who preaches it, or pretends to you he believes it. neither have i any respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of innocent childhood with that infamous lie! and i have no respect for the man who will deliberately add to the sorrows of this world with this terrible dogma; no respect for the man who endeavors to put that infinite cloud and shadow over the heart of humanity. i will be frank with you and say, i hate the doctrine; i despise it, i defy it; i loathe it--and what man of sense does not. the idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side, and arrant cowardice on the other. in my judgment the american people are too brave, too generous, too magnanimous, too humane to believe in that outrageous doctrine of eternal damnation. for a great many years the learned intellects of christendom have been examining into the religions of other countries and other ages, in the world--the religions of the myriads who have passed away. they examined into the religions of egypt, the religion of greece, that of rome and the scandinavian countries. in the presence of the ruins of those religions, the learned men of christendom insisted that those religions were baseless, false and fraudulent. but they have all passed away. now, while this examination was being made, the christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned men got through with the religion of other countries, they turned their attention to our religion, and by the same methods, by the same mode of reasoning and the same arrangements that they used with the old religions they were overturning the religion of our day. how is that? because every religion in this world is the work of man. every book that was ever written was written by man. man existed before books. if otherwise, we might reasonably admit that there was such a thing as a sacred bible. i wish to call your attention to another thing. man never had an original idea, and he never will have one, except it be supplied to him by his surroundings. nature gave man every idea that he ever had in the world; and nature will continue to give man his ideas so long as he exists. no man can conceive of anything, the hint of which he has not received from the surroundings. and there is nothing on this earth, coming from any other sphere whatever. as i have before said, man has produced every religion in the world. why is this? because each generation sends forth the knowledge and belief of the people at the time it was made, and in no book is there any knowledge formed, except just at the time it was written. barbarians have produced barbarian religions, and always will produce them. they have produced, and always will produce, ideas and belief in harmony with their surroundings, and all the religions of the past were produced by barbarians. we are making religions every day; that is to say, we are constantly changing them, adapting them to our purposes, and the religion of today is not the religion of a few months or a year ago. well, what changes these religions? science does it, education does it; the growing heart of man does it. some men have nothing else to do but produce religions; science is constantly changing them. if we are cursed with such barbarian religions today--for our religions are really barbarous--what will they be an hundred or a thousand years hence? but, friends, we are making inroads upon orthodoxy that orthodox christians are painfully aware of, and what think you will be left of their fearful doctrines fifty or a hundred years from tonight? what will become of their endless hell--their doctrine of the future anguish of the soul; their doctrine of the eternal burning and never-ending gnashing of teeth. man will discard the idea of such a future--because there is now a growing belief in the justice of a supreme being. do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? yes, we all know it. that is the time all religions tell the truth--each of the other. now, do you want to know why this is: suppose mr. johnson should tell mr. jones that he saw a corpse rise from the grave, and that when he first saw it, it was covered with loathsome worms, and that while he was looking at it, it suddenly was re-clothed in healthy, beautiful flesh. and then, suppose jones should say to johnson, "well, now, i saw that same thing myself. i was in a graveyard once, and i saw a dead man rise and walk away as if nothing had ever happened to him!" johnson opens wide his eyes and says to jones, "jones, you are a confounded liar!" and jones says to johnson, "you are an unmitigated liar!" "no, i'm not; you lie yourself." "no! i say you lie!" each knew the other lied, because each man knew he lied himself. thus when a man says: "i was upon mount sinai for the benefit of my health, and there i met god, who said to me, "stand aside, you, and let me drown these people;" and the other man says to him, "i was upon a mountain, and there i met the supreme brahma." and moses steps in and says, "that is not true!" and contends that the other man never did see brahma, and the other man swears that moses never saw god; and each man utters a deliberate falsehood, and immediately after speaks truth. therefore, each religion has charged every other religion with having been an unmitigated fraud. still, if any man had ever seen a miracle himself, he would be prepared to believe that another man had seen the same or a similar thing. whenever a man claims to have been cognizant of, or to have seen a miracle, he either utters a falsehood, or he is an idiot. truth relies upon the unerring course of the laws of nature, and upon reason. observe, we have a religion--that is, many people have. i make no pretensions to having a religion myself--possibly you do not. i believe in living for this beautiful world--in living for the present, today; living for this very hour, and while i do live to make everybody happy that i can. i cannot afford to squander my short life--and what little talent i am blessed with in studying up and projecting schemes to avoid that seething lake of fire and brimstone. let the future take care of itself, and when i am required to pass over "on the other side," i am ready and willing to stand my chances with you howling christians. we have in this country a religion which men have preached for about eighteen hundred years, and men have grown wicked just in proportion as their belief in that religion has grown strong; and just in proportion as they have ceased to believe in it, men have become just, humane and charitable. and if they believed in it tonight as they believed, for instance, at the time of the immaculate puritan fathers, i would not be permitted to talk here in the city of new york. it is from the coldness and infidelity of the churches that i get my right to preach; and i thank them for it, and i say it to their credit. as i have said, we have a religion. what is it? in the first place, they say this vast universe was created by a god. i don't know, and you don't know, whether it was or not. also, if it had not been for the first sin of adam, they say there would never have been any devil, in this world, and if there had been no devil, there would have been no sin, and if no sin, no death. as for myself i am glad there is death in the world, for that gives me a chance. somebody has to die to give me room, and when my turn comes i am willing to let some one else take my place. but if there is a being who gave me this life, i thank him from the bottom of my heart--because this life has been a joy and a pleasure to me. further, because of this first sin of adam, they say, all men are consigned to eternal perdition! but, in order to save man from that frightful hell of the hereafter, christ came to this world and took upon himself flesh, and in order that we might know the road to eternal salvation. he gave us a book called the bible, and wherever that bible has been read men have immediately commenced throttling each other; and wherever that bible has been circulated they have invented inquisitions and instruments of torture, and commenced hating each other with all their hearts. then we are told that this bible is the foundation of civilization, but i say it is the foundation of hell and damnation!, and we never shall get rid of that dogma until we get rid of the idea that the book is inspired. now, what does the bible teach? i am not going to ask this preacher or that preacher what the bible teaches; but the question is, "ought a man be sent to an eternal hell for not believing this bible to be the work of a merciful god?" a very few people read it now; perhaps they should read it, and perhaps not; if i wanted to believe it, i should never read a word of it--never look upon its pages, i would let it lie on its shelf, until it rotted! still, perhaps, we ought to read it in order to see what is read in schools that our children might become charitable and good; to be read to our children that they may get ideas of mercy, charity humanity and justice! oh, yes! now read: "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh."--deut. xxxii, . very good for a merciful god! "that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of the dogs in the same."--psalms lxviii, . merciful being! i will quote several more choice bits from this inspired book, although i have several times made use of them. "but the lord thy god shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. "and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them."--deut. vii, , . "and joshua did unto them as the lord bade him; he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. and joshua at that time turned back, and took hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword; for hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. "and all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as moses, the servant of the lord, commanded. "and they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there was not any left to breathe; and he burnt hazor with fire." (do not forget that these things were done by the command of god!) "but as for the cities that stood still in their strength, israel burnt none of them, save hazor only, that did joshua burn. "and all the spoil of those cities and the cattle, the children of israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe." (as the moral and just god had commanded them.) "as the lord commanded moses his servant, so did moses command joshua, and so did joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the lord had commanded joshua. "so joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of goshen, and the valley, and the plain and mountain of israel, and the valley of the same; "even from the mount halak, that goeth up to seir, even unto baalgad in the valley of lebanon under mount hermon; and all their kings he took, and smote theme and slew them. "joshua made war a long time on all those kings. there was not a city that made peace with the children of israel, save the hivites, the inhabitants of gibeon; all the others they took in battle. "so joshua took the whole land, according to all that the lord said unto moses; and joshua gave it for an inheritance unto israel, according to their divisions by their tribes. and the land rested from war."--josh. xi, - . "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. "and it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. "and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. "and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. "but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shaft thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. "thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of those nations. "but of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shaft save alive nothing that breatheth. "but thou shalt utterly destroy them." (neither the old man nor the woman, nor the beautiful maiden, nor the sweet dimpled babe, smiling upon the lap of its mother.) "and he said unto them, thus saith the lord god of israel (a merciful god, indeed), put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his neighbor."--es. xxxii, . (now recollect, these instructions were given to an army of invasion, and the people who were slayed were guilty of the crime of fighting for their homes and their firesides. oh, most merciful god! the old testament is full of curses, vengeance, jealousy and hatred, and of barbarity and brutality. now, do you for one moment believe that these words were written by the most merciful god? don't pluck from the heart the sweet flower of piety and crush it by superstition. do not believe that god ever ordered the murder of innocent women and helpless babes. do not let this superstition turn our heart into stone. when anything is said to have been written by the most merciful god, and the thing is not merciful, that i deny it, and say he never wrote it. i will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then i will go to hell with my reason, rather than to heaven without it.) now, does this bible teach political freedom; or does it teach political tyranny? does it teach a man to resist oppression? does it teach a man to tear from the throne of tyranny the crowned thing and robber called king. let us see. "let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but god: the powers that be are ordained of god."--rom. xiii, i. "therefore to must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake."--rom. viii, , . (i deny this wretched doctrine. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, i am a rebel. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give men liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, i am on the side of that rebellion.) does the bible give woman her rights? does it treat woman as she ought to be treated, or is it barbarian? we will see: "let woman learn in silence with all subjection."--i tim. ii, (if a woman should know anything let her ask her husband. imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only that source of information.) "but suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. for adam was first formed, then eve. (indeed!) "and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." (poor woman!) here is something from the old testament: "when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captives; "and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to be thy wife; "then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails."--deut. xxi, , , . (that is self-defense, i suppose!) i need not go further in bible quotations to show that woman, throughout the old testament, is a degraded being, having no rights which her husband, father, brother, or uncle is bound to respect. still, that is bible doctrine, and that bible is the word of a just and omniscient god! does the bible teach the existence of devils? of course it does. yes, it teaches not only the existence of a good being, but a bad being. this good being has to have a home; that home was heaven. this bad being had to have a home; and that home was hell. this hell is supposed to be nearer to earth than i would care to have it, and to be peopled with spirits, spooks, hobgoblins, and all the fiery shapes with which the imagination of ignorance and fear could people that horrible place; and the bible teaches the existence of hell and this big devil and all these little devils. the bible teaches the doctrine of witchcraft and makes us believe that there are sorcerers and witches, and that the dead could be raised by the power of sorcery. does anybody believe it now? "then said saul unto his servants, seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that i may go to her and inquire of her. and his servants said to him, behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at endor." in another place he declares that witchcraft is an abomination unto the lord. he wants no rivals in this business. now what does the new testament teach: "then was jesus lead up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. "and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward a-hungered. "and when the tempter came to him, he said if thou be the son of god, command these stones to be made bread. "but he answered and said it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god. "then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple; "and saith unto him. if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. "jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord, thy god, and him only shalt thou serve."--matt. iv, - . (is it possible that anyone can believe that the devil absolutely took god almighty, and put him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to persuade him to jump down? is it possible?) "again, the devil taketh him into an exceedingly high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; "and saith unto him, all these things will i give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. "then saith jesus unto him, get thee hence, satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the lord thy god, and him only shalt thou serve."--matthew iv, - . (now only the devil must have known at that time that he was god, and god at that time must have known that the other was the devil, who had the impudence to promise god a world in which he did not have a tax-title to an inch of land.) now, what of the sabbath--the lord's day? why is sunday the lord's day? if sunday alone is the lord's day, whose day is monday, tuesday, friday, etc.? no matter! the idea, that god hates to hear your children laugh on sunday! on sunday let your children play games. i see a poor man who hasn't money enough to go to a big church, and he has too much independence to go to the little church which the big church built for charity. if he enters the portals of the big church with poor clothes on, the usher approaches him with a severe face, and "brother, i'm sorry, but only high-toned servants of the living god congregate in this church for worship, and with that seedy suit on they cannot admit you. all the seats in this magnificent edifice are owned and represented by 'solid' men, by men of capital. we pay our pastor $ , a year--the annual eight weeks vacation thrown in--and it would not be profitable for us to seriously encourage the attendance of so insignificant a person as yourself. just around the corner there is a little cheap church with a little cheap pastor, where they can dish up hell to you in an approved style--in a style more suitable to your needs and condition; and the dish will not be as expensive to you, either!" if i had chanced to be that poor man in the seedy garments, and had been endeavoring to serve my maker for even half a century, i would have felt like muttering audibly, "you go to hell!" (i am not much given to profanity, but when i am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit, i declare to you that it is such a relief to me, such a solace to my troubled soul, and gives me such heavenly peace, to now and then allow a word or phrase to escape my lips which can serve the no other earthly purpose, seemingly, than to render emphatic my otherwise mildly expressed ideas. i make this confession parenthetically, and in a whisper, my friends, trusting you will not allow it to go further.) now, i tell you, if you don't want to go to church, go to the woods and take your wife and children and a lunch with you, and sit down upon the old log and let the children gather flowers, and hear the leaves whispering poems like memories of long ago! and when the sun is about going down, kissing the summits of the distant hills, go home with your hearts filled with throbs of joy and gladness, and the cheeks of your little ones covered with the rose-blushes of health! there is more recreation and solid enjoyment in that than putting on your sunday clothes and going to a canal-boat with a steeple on top of it and listening to a man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to one for being eternally damned! oh, strike with a hand of fire, weird musician, thy harp, strung with apollo's golden hair! fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ's keys! blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering mid the vine-clad hills!--but know your sweetest strains are but discord compared with childhood's happy laugh--the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! o, rippling river of laughter; thou art the blessed boundary line between beasts and men, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. o, laughter, rose-lipped daughter of joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheek to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief! do not make slaves of your children on sunday. don't place them in long, straight rows, like fence-posts, and "sh! children, it's sunday!" when by chance you hear a sound or rustle. let winsome johnny have light and air, and let him grow beautiful; let him laugh until his little sides ache, if he feels like it; let him pinch the cat's tail until the house is in an uproar with his yells--let him do anything that will make him happy. when i was a little boy, children went to bed when they were not sleepy, and always got up when they were? i would like to see that changed--we may see it some day. it is really easier to wake a child with a kiss than a blow; with kind words than with harshness and a curse. another thing: let the children eat what they want to. let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they please. they know what they want much better than you do. nature knows perfectly well what she is about, and if you go a-fooling with her you may get into trouble. the crime charged to me is this: i insist that the bible is not the word of god; that we should not whip our children; that we should treat our wives as loving equals; that god never upheld polygamy and slavery; deny that god ever commanded his generals to slaughter innocent babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war; that god ever turned lot's wife into a pillar of salt (although she might have deserved that fate); that god ever made a woman out of a man's, or any other animal's rib! and i emphatically deny that god ever signed or sealed a commission appointing his satanic majesty governor-general over an extensive territory popularly styled hell, with absolute power to torture, burn, maim, boil, or roast at his pleasure the victims of his master's displeasure! i deny these things, and for that i am assailed by the clergy throughout the united states. now, you have read the bible romance of the fall of adam? yes, well, you know that nearly or quite all the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that! adam, the miserable coward, informed god that his wife was at the bottom of the whole business! "she did tempt me and i did eat!" and then commenced a row, and we have been engaged in it ever since! you know what happened to adam and his wife for her transgressions? in another account of what is said to have been the same transaction--which is the most sensible account of the two--the supreme brahma concluded, as he had a little leisure, that he would make a world, and a man and woman. he made the world, the man, and then the woman, and then placed the pair on the island of ceylon. (bear in mind, there were no ribs used in this affair.) this island is said to be the most beautiful that the mind of man can conceive of. such birds you never saw, such songs you never heard! and then such flowers, such verdure! the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the winds swept through, there floated out from every tree melodious strains of music from a thousand! aeolian harps! after brahma put them there, he said: "let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." and with the nightingale singing, and the stars twinkling, and the little brooklets murmuring, and the flowers blooming, and the gentle breezes fanning their brows, they courted, and loved! what a sweet courtship. then brahma married the happy pair, and remarked: "remain here; you can be happy on this island, and it is my will that you never leave it." well, after a little while the man became uneasy, and said to the wife of his youth, "i believe i'll look about a little." he determined to seek greener pastures. he proceeded to the western extremity of the island, and discovered a little narrow neck of land connecting the island with the mainland, and the devil--they had a genuine devil in those days, too, it seems, who is always "playing the devil" with us--produced a mirage, and over on the mainland were such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such lofty mountains crowned with perpetual snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory, that he rushed breathlessly back to his wife, exclaiming:--"o, heva! the country over there is a thousand times better and lovelier than this; let us migrate." she, woman-like, said "adami, we must let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." but he said: "no, we will go." she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her upon his back and carried her across. but at the instant he put her down there was a crash, and looking back they discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. the mirage had disappeared, and there was nothing but rocks and sand, and the supreme brahma cursed them to the lowest hell. then adami spoke--and it showed him to be every inch a man--"curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine." (our adam says, with a pusillanimous whine,--curse her, for it is her fault: she tempted me and i did eat!" the world, today, is teeming with just such cowards!) then said brahma, "i will save her, but not thee." and then spoke his wife, out of the fullness of the love of a heart in which there was enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; i do not wish to live without him. i love him." then magnanimously said the supreme brahma, "i will spare you both, and watch over you and your children forever!" now, tell me truly, which is the grander story? the book containing this story is full of good things; and yet christians style as heathens those who have adopted this book as their guide, and spend thousands of dollars annually in sending missionaries to convert them! it has been too often conceded that because the new testament contains, in many passages, a lofty and terse expression of love as the highest duty of man, christianity must have a tendency to ennoble his nature. but christianity is like sweetened whisky and water--it perverts and destroys that which it should nourish and strengthen. christianity makes an often fatal attack on a man's morality--if he happens to be blessed with any--by substituting for the sentiments of love and duty to our neighbors, a sense of obligation of blind obedience to an infinite, mysterious, revengeful, tyrannical god! the real principle of christian morality, is servile obedience to a dangerous power! dispute the assertions of even your priest as to the requirements, dislikes, desires and wishes of the almighty, and you might as well count yourself as lost, sulphurically lost! if you are one of god's chosen, or in other words, have been saved, and are even so fortunate as to attain to the glories and joys of the gold-paved streets of heaven, you are expected, in looking over the banisters of heaven down into the abyss of eternal torture, to view with complacency the agonized features of your mother, sister, brother, or infant child--who are writhing in hell--and laugh at their calamity! you are not allowed to carry them a drop of water to cool their parched tongue! and if you are a christian, you at this moment believe you will enjoy the situation! if a man in a quarrel cuts down his neighbor in his sins, the poor, miserable victim goes directly to hell! the murderer may reasonably count on a lease of a few weeks of life, interviews his pastor, confesses the crime, repents, accepts the grace of god, is forgiven, and then smoothly and gently slides from the rudely-constructed scaffold into a haven of joy and bliss, there to sing the praises of the lamb of god forever and forever! poor, unfortunate victim! happy murderer! ah, what a beautiful religion humanitarianism and charity* might become! [* the following incident, showing col. ingersoll's disposition to practice what he preaches whenever the opportunity presents itself, we have never before seen in print. one day, during the winter of - , when the colonel had a law office in peoria. ill.--and before the close of the late war of the rebellion--a thinly clad, middle-aged, lady-like woman came into his office and asked assistance, "my good woman, why do you ask it?" "sir, my husband is a private in the --th illinois infantry, and stationed somewhere in virginia, but i do not know where as i have not heard from him for nearly six months, although previous to that time i seldom failed to get a letter from him as often as once a week, and whenever he received his pay the most of his money came to me. to tell the truth, i do not know whether he is living or not. but one thing i do know, i do not hear from him. i have seven children to provide for, but no money in the house, not a particle of bread in the pantry, nor a lump of coal in the shed, and the landlord threatening to turn us out in the storm. this city pledged itself to give wives a certain sum monthly, providing they consented to their husband's responding to the call of the president for troops, but, disregarding these pledges, we and our children are left to starve and freeze, and to be turned out of our houses and homes by relentless landlords. now, sir, can you tell me what i am to do? the colonel drew his bandanna from his great coat pocket, lightly touched his eyes with it, and rising to his feet, pointed to a chair--"sit down, madame, and remain till i return. i will be back in a few minutes." he picked up a half-sheet of legal-cap and a pencil, and departed for the law and other offices of the building--of which there were several. entering the first that appeared, "good morning, smith, give me half-a-dollar." "well, now, colonel, you are--" "never mind if i am--i must have it!" it came. he entered another. "hello! colonel, what's new?" "i want a half-dollar from you!" "what for?" "none of your business--i want the money." he got it. he entered a third. "hello, bob! anything new on eter--" "never mind, i must have fifty cents!" "but--" "but nothing, jones, give me what i ask for." of course he got what he asked for. so on through fourteen offices, from which he obtained $ . returning to his office, he put his hand in his own pocket and drew forth a $ note, and handed the woman $ . "take this, my good woman, and make it go as far as you can. if you obtain relief from no other source, call on me again and i will do the best i can for you!" and still col. ingersoll is styled by hell-fire advocates an infidel, atheist, dog!] to do so sweet a thing as to love our neighbors as we love ourselves; to strive to attain to as perfect a spirit as a golden rule would bring us into; to make virtue lovely by living it, grandly and nobly and patiently the outgrowth of a brotherhood not possible in this world where men are living away from themselves, and trampling justice and mercy and forgiveness under their feet! speaking of the different religions, of course they are represented by the different churches; and the best hold of the churches, and the surest way of giving totally depraved humanity a realizing sense of their utterly lost condition, is to talk and preach hell with all its horrible, terrible concomitants. true, the different priests advocate the doctrine, only when they see that it is the only thing to rouse the sinners from their lethargy; for where is the man who will not accept the grace of jesus christ, if he becomes convinced that his state in the hereafter is a terrible one! the ministers of the different churches know full well which side of their bread is buttered. a priest is a divinity among his people--a man around whom his parishioners throw a glamour of sanctity, and one who can do no wrong; albeit, his chief and growing characteristics are tyranny, arrogancy, self-conceit, deception, bigotry and superstition! tyrannical do i call them? most assuredly! suppose, for example, the methodist, or presbyterian church had the power to decide whether you, or i, or any other man, should be a methodist or presbyterian, and we should decline to follow the path pointed out to us, or either of us, what i solemnly and candidly ask you, would be the result? our fate would be more terrible than their endless hell! the inquisition would rise again in all its horrid blackness! instruments of torture would darken our vision on every hand! but, thank god--not that terrible being whom christians would have us believe is our maker--this is a free land--free as the air we breathe; and you and i can partake of the orthodox waters of life freely, or we can let them alone! when i see a man perched upon a pedestal called a "pulpit" a man who is one of nature's noblemen, physically, and fully able to breast the storms of life and earn his honest living--telling his hearers with perspiring brow and all his might and main of the terrors of the seething cauldron of hell, and how certain it is that they are to be unceremoniously dumped therein to be boiled through all ages, yet never boiled done--unless they seek salvation--when i look upon that man, honor bright, i pity him, for i cannot help comparing him with the lower animals! then there is a reaction, and i feel an utter contempt for him, for he may know, when he declares hell is a reality, that he is lying! now, of the deception of the preacher. at the close of a sermon in an orthodox church, rev. mr. solemnface steps to the side of bro. everbright, who has been absent from the brimstone-mill for several months: "ah, bro. everbright, how do you do? long time since i have seen you; how's your family? quite well? is it well with thee today? rather lukewarm, eh? sorry, sorry. well, brother, can you do something for us financially, today? our people think my pulpit is too common, and say a couple hundred will put it in good shape, and make it desirable and attractive. can you contribute a few dollars to the fund?" "well, bro. solemnface, for four long months i have been ill; not a day's work have i done, and not a cent of money have i that i can call my own. next year i trust i can do something for the cause of my maker." "ah-h-h-h-h-h!" and bro. s.'s face assumes a terrible look of disappointment, and he is gone in a moment. out upon such a fraud! the pulpits of the land are full of them. the world is cursed with them! they possess all the elements of vagabonds, dead-beats, falsifiers, beggars, vultures, hyenas and jackals! in past ages the cross has been in partnership with the sword, and the religion of christ was established by murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. i want you to know that the church carried the black flag, and i ask you what must have been the civilizing influence of such a religion? of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind, saying: "if i can only get my little soul in!" i have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. here is what we are taught by the church of today. we are taught by them that fathers and mothers can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband could be happy there, with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life, in hell. but they say, "hell, we don't believe in fire. i don't think you understand me. what we believe in now is remorse." what will you have remorse for? for the mean things you have done when you are in hell? will you have any remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven? or will you be so good then that you won't care how you used to be? i tell you today, that no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending the summer; if you meet another man whom you have wronged, you will drop a little behind in the tune. and, no matter in what part of hell you are, you will meet some one who has suffered, whose nakedness you have clothed, and the fire will cool up a little. according to this christian doctrine, you won't care how mean you were once. is it a compliment to an infinite god to say that every being he ever made deserved to be damned the minute he had got him done, and that he will damn everybody he has not had a chance to make over? is it possible that somebody else can be good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul? we sit by the fireside and see the flames and sparks fly up the chimney--everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet beating on the window, and out on the doorstep a mother with a child on her breast freezing. how happy it makes a fire, that beautiful contrast. and we say god is good, and there we sit, and there she sits and moans, not one night, but forever. or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted, and famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust; how that would increase the appetite! and that is the christian heaven. don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? and i would have every one who hears me swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build another church, in which is taught such infamous lies. let every man try to make every day a joy, and god cannot afford to damn such a man. consequently humanity is the only real religion. "man's inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn." ingersoll's lecture on the review of his reviewers ladies and gentlemen: "what have i said?" "what has been my offense? i have been spoken of as if i were a wolf endeavoring to devour the entire fold of sheep in the absence of the shepherd." i believe in the trinity of observation, reason and science; the trinity of man, woman and child; the trinity of love, joy and hope; and thought that every man has a right to think for himself, and no other man has the right to debar him of this privilege by torture, by social ostracism, or any of the numerous other expedients resorted to by the enemies of advancement. i ask: "does god wish the lip-worship of a slave? a sneak? of the man that dares not reason? if i were the infinite god, i would rather have the worship of one good man of brains than a world of such men. i am told that i am in danger of everlasting fire, and that i shall burn forever in hell: i tell you, my friends, if i were going to hell tonight i would take an overcoat with me. do not tell me that the eternal future of a man may depend upon his belief, i deny it. that a man should be punished for having come to an honest conclusion, the honest production of his brain; that an honest conclusion should be deemed a crime and so declared, it is an infamous, monstrous assertion, and i would rather go to hell than to keep the company of a god who would damn his child for an honest belief. "next, i 'preached' that a woman was the equal of man, entitled to everything that he is entitled to, to be his partner, and to be cherished and respected because she is the weaker, to be treated as a splendid flower. i said that man should not be cross to her, but fill the house that she is in with such joy that it would burst out at the window. i have said that matrimony is the holiest of sacraments, and i have said that the bible took woman up thousands of years ago and handed her down to man as a slave, and i have said that the bible is a barbarous book for teaching that she is a slave, and i repeat it, and will prove later what i have said. i have pleaded for the right of man, of wife, and of the little child; i have said we can govern children by love and affection; i have asked for tender treatment for the child of crime; i have asked mothers to cease beating their children and take them to their hearts; and for this i am denounced by the religious press and men in the pulpits as a demon and a monster of heresy, who should be driven out from among you as an unclean thing. "but i should not complain. only a few years ago i should have been compelled to look at my denouncers through flame and smoke; but they dare not treat me so now or they would. one hundred years ago i should have been burned for claiming the right of reason; fifty years ago i should have been imprisoned and my wife and children would have been torn away from me, and twenty-five years ago i could not have made a living in the united states in my profession--the law. but i live now and can see through it all, and all is light. i delivered another lecture, on "ghosts," in which i sought to show that man had been controlled in the past by phantoms created by his own imagination; in which the pencil of fear had drawn pictures for him on the canvass of superstition, and that men had groveled in they dirt before their own superstitious creations. i endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts but hatred, blood, ignorance and unhappiness, and that they had filled our world with woe and tears. this is what i endeavored to show--no more. now, every one has as much right to differ with me as i with them, but it does not make the slightest difference for the purpose of argument whether i am a good man or a bad, whether i am ugly or handsome--although i would not object to resting my case on that issue; the only thing to be considered and discussed is, is what i have said true, or is it untrue? "now, i said that the bible came from the ghosts, and that they gave us the doctrine of immortality of the soul, which i deny. now, the immortality of the soul, if there is such a thing, is a fact, and therefore no book could make it. if i am immortal, i am; if not, no book can make me so. the doctrine of immortality is based in the hope of the human heart, and is not derived from any book or creed. it has its origin in the ebb and flow of the human affections, and will continue as long as affection, and is the rainbow in the sky of hope. it does not depend on a book, on ghosts, superstition of any kind; it is a flower of the human heart. i did say that these ghosts, or the book, taught that human slavery was right, that most monstrous of all crimes, that makes miserable the victim and debases the master, for a slave can have all the virtues while the master can not. i did say that it riveted the chains upon the oppressed, and that it counseled the robbing of that most precious of all boons--liberty. i add that the book upheld all this, that it sustained and sanctified the institution of human slavery. i did also assert that this same book, which my critics claim was inspired by god, inculcated the doctrine of witchcraft, for which people, through its teaching were hanged and burned for bringing disease upon the regal persons of kings, and for souring beer. i did say that this book upheld that most of all infamies, polygamy, and that it did not teach political liberty or religious toleration, but political slavery and the most wretched intolerance. i did try to prove that these ghosts knew less than nothing about medicine, politics, legislation, astronomy, geology and astrology, but i am also aware that in saving these things i have done what my censors think i ought not to have done. but the victor ought not to feel malice, and i shall have none. as soon as i had said all these things, some gentlemen felt called upon to answer them, which they had a right to do. now, i like fairness, am enamored with it, probably because i get so little of it. i can say a great many mean things, for i have read all the religious papers, and i ought to be able to account for every motive in a mean manner after. "the first gentleman whom i shall call your attention to is the rev. dr. woodbridge. it seems that when i delivered my lectures the conclusion had come to "that man does not believe in anything but matter and force--that man does not believe in spirit." why not? if by spirit you mean that which thinks, i am one of them myself. if you mean by spirit that which hopes and reasons and loves and aspires, why, then, i am a believer in spirits; but whatever spirit there is in this universe i will take my oath is a natural product and not superimposed upon this world. all i will say is that whatever is, is natural, and there is as much goodness in my judgment, as much spirit here in this world as in any other, and you are just as near the heart of the universe here as you ever can be. but, they say, "there is matter and force, and there is force and there is spirit." well, what of it? there is no matter without force. what would keep it together unless there was force? can you imagine matter without force? honor bright, can you conceive of force without matter? and what is spirit? they say spirit is the first thing that ever was. it seems to me sometimes as though spirit was the blossom and fruit of all, and not the commencement. but they say spirit was first. what would that spirit do? no force--no matter--a spirit living in an infinite vacuum without side, edge or bottom. this spirit created the world; and if this spirit did, there must have been a time when it commenced to create, and back of that an eternity spent in absolute idleness. can a spirit exist without matter or without force? i honestly say i do not know what matter is, what force is, what spirit is; but if you mean by matter anything that i can touch, or by force anything that we can overcome then i believe in them. if you mean by spirit anything that can think and love, i believe in spirits. "the next critic who assailed me was the rev. mr. kalloch. i am not going to show you what i can withstand. i am not going to say a word about the reputation of this man, although he took some liberties with mine. this gentleman says negation is a poor thing to die by. i would just as lief die by that as the opposite. he spoke of the last hours of paine and voltaire and the terrors of their death-beds; but the question arises, is there a word of truth in all he said? i have observed that the murderer dies with courage and firmness in many instances, but that does not make me think that it sanctified his crime; in fact, it makes no impression upon me one way or the other. when a man through old age or infirmity approaches death the intellectual faculties are dimmed, his senses become less and less, and as he loses these he goes back to his old superstition. old age brings back the memories of childhood. and the great bard gave in the corrupt and besotted falstaff--who prattled of babbling brooks and green fields--an instance of the retracing steps taken by the memory at the last gasp. it has been said that the bible was sanctified by our mothers. every superstition in the world, from the beginning of all time, has had such a sanctification. the turk dying on the russian battlefield, pressing the koran to his bosom, breathes his last thinking of the loving adjuration of his mother to guard it. every superstition has been rendered sacred by the love of a mother. i know what it has cost the noble and the brave to throw to the winds these superstitions. since the death of voltaire, who was innocent of all else than a desire to shake off the superstitions of the past, the curse of rome has pursued him, and ignorant protestants have echoed that curse. i like voltaire. whenever i think of him it is as a plumed knight coming from the fray with victory shining upon his brow. he was once in the bastille, and while there he changed his name from francis marie aloysius to voltaire; and when the bastille was torn down "voltaire" was the battle cry of those who did it. he did more to bring about religious toleration than any man in the galaxy of those who strove for the privilege of free thought. he was always on the side of justice. he was full of faults and had many virtues. his doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country. he died as serenely as anyone could. speaking to his servant, he said, "farewell my faithful friend." could he have done a more noble act than to recognize him who had served him faithfully as a man? what more could he wished? and now let me say here, i will give a $ , in gold to any clergyman who can substantiate that the death of voltaire was not as peaceful as the dawn. and of thomas paine, whom they assert died in fear and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils, in fact, frightened to death by god--i will give $ , likewise to anyone who can substantiate this absurd story--a story without a word of truth in it. and let me ask, who dies in the most fear, the man who, like the saint, exclaims: "my god, my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" or voltaire, who peacefully and quietly bade his servant farewell? the question is not who died right, but who lived right. i look upon death as the most unimportant moment of life, and believe that not half the responsibility is attached to dying that is to living properly. this rev. mr. kalloch is a baptist. he has a right to be a baptist. the first baptist, though was a heretic; but it is among the wonders that when a heretic gets fifteen or twenty to join him he suddenly begins to be orthodox. roger williams was a baptist, but how he, or anyone not destitute of good sense, could be one, passes my comprehension. let me illustrate: suppose it was the day of judgment tonight and we were all assembled, as the ghosts say we will be, to be judged, and god should ask a man: "have you been a good man?" "yes." "have you loved your wife and children?" "yes." "have you taken good care of them and made them happy?" "yes." "have you tried to do right by your neighbors?" "yes." "paid all your debts?" "yes." and then cap the climax by asking: "were you ever baptized?" could a solitary being hear that question without laughing? i think not. i once happened to be in the company of six or seven baptist elders (i never have been able to understand since how i got into such bad company), and they wanted to know what i thought of baptism. i answered that i had not given the matter any attention, in fact i had no special opinion upon the subject. but they pressed me and finally i told them that i thought, with soap baptism was a good thing. the rev. mr. guard has attacked me, and has described me, among other things, as a dog barking at a train. of course he was the train. he said, first, the bible is not an immoral book, because i swore upon it when i joined the free and accepted masons. that settles the question. secondly, he says that solomon had softening of the brain and fatty degeneration of the heart; thirdly, that the hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants of canaan according to the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. he says that the destruction of these canaanites, the ripping open by the bloody sword of women with child was an act of sublime mercy. think of that! he says that the canaanites should have been driven from their homes, and not only driven, but that the men who simply were guilty of the crime of fighting for their native land--the old men with gray hairs; the old mothers, the young mothers, the little dimpled, prattling child--that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into old and young. if that is mercy, let us have injustice. if there is that kind of a god i am sorry that i exist. fourthly, mr. guard said god has the right to do as he pleases with the beings he has created; and, fifthly, that god, by choosing the jews and governing them personally, spoiled them to that degree that they crucified him the first opportunity they had. that shows what a good administration will do. sixthly, he says polygamy is not a bad thing when compared with the picture of anthony and cleopatra, now on exhibition in this city. i will just say one word about art. i think this is one of the most beautiful words in our language, and do you know, it never seemed to me necessary for art to go into partnership with a rag? i like the paintings of angelo, of raphael--i like those splendid souls that are put upon canvas--all there is of human beauty. there are brave souls in every land who worship nature grand and nude, and who, with swift, indignant hand, tear off the fig leaves of the prude. seventhly, it may be said that the bible sanctions slavery, but that it is not an immoral book if it does. mr. guard playfully says that he is a puppy nine days old; that he was only eight days old when i came here. i'm inclined to think he has over stated his age. i account for his argument precisely as he did for the sin of solomon, softening of the brain, or fatty degeneration of the heart. it does seem to me that if i were a good christian and knew that another man was going down to the bottomless pit to be miserable and in agony forever, i would try to stop him, and instead of filling my mouth with epithet and invective, and drawing the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, my eyes would be filled with tears, and i would do what i could to reclaim him and take him up in the arms of my affection. the next gentleman is the rev. mr. robinson, who delivered a sermon entitled 'ghost against god, or ingersoll against honesty.' of course he was honest. he apologized for attending an infidel lecture upon the ground that he hated to contribute to the support of a materialistic showman. i am willing to trade fagots for epithets, and the rack for anything that may be said in his sermon. i am willing to trade the instrument of torture with which they could pull the nails from my fingers for anything which the ingenuity of orthodoxy can invent. when i saw that report--although i do not know that i ought to tell it--i felt bad. i knew that man's conscience must be rankling like a snake in his bosom, that he had contributed a dollar to the support of a man as bad as i. i wrote him a letter, in which i said: "the rev. samuel robinson, my dear sir. in order to relieve your conscience of the stigma of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, i herewith enclose the dollar you paid to attend my lecture." i then gave him a little good advice to be charitable, and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to me for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that other men had the same right to think that he had. the speaker went on to answer the argument of mr. robinson with regard to persecution, contending that protestants had been guilty of it no less than catholics; and showing that the first people to pass an act of toleration in the new world were the catholics in maryland. the reverend gentleman has stated also that infidelity has done nothing for the world in the development of art and science. has he ever heard of darwin, of tyndall, of huxley, of john w. draper, of auguste comte, of descartes, laplace, spinoza, or any man who has taken a step in advance of his time? orthodoxy never advances, when it does advance, it ceases to be orthodoxy. a reply to certain strictures in the occident led the lecturer up to another ministerial critic, namely, the rev. w.e. ijams. i want to say that, so far as i can see, in his argument this gentleman has treated me in a kind and considerate spirit. he makes two or three mistakes, but i suppose they are the fault of the report from which he quoted. i am made to say in his sermon that there is no sacred place in the universe. what i did say was: there is no sacred place in all the universe of thought; there is nothing too holy to be investigated, nothing too sacred to be understood, and i said that the fields of thought were fenceless, that they should be without a wall. i say so tonight. he further said that i said that a man had not only the right to do right, but to do wrong. what i did say, was: "liberty is the right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to think wrong," not the right to do wrong. that is all i have to say in regard to that gentleman, except that, so far as i could see, he was perfectly fair, and treated me as though i was a human being as well as he. the speaker sarcastically referred to the slurs thrown upon him by his reviewers, who have claimed that his theories have no foundation, his arguments no reason, and that his utterances are vapid, blasphemous, and unworthy a reply. he said that their statements and their actions were sadly at variance, for, while declaring him a senseless idiot, they spent hours in striving to prove themselves not idiots; in other words, in one breath they declare that his views were absolutely without point, and needed no explaining away; while in direct rebuttal of this declaration, they devoted time and labor in attempts to disprove the very things they called self-evident absurdities. turning from this subject, mr. ingersoll read numerous extracts from the bible, with interpolated comments. he claimed that the bible authorized slavery, and that many devoted believers in that book had turned the cross of christ into a whipping post. he did not wish it understood that he could find no good in believers in creeds; far from it, for some of his dearest friends were most orthodox in their religious ideas, and there had been hundreds of thousands of good men among both clergy and laymen. history has shown no people more nobly self-sacrificing than the jesuit fathers who first visited this country to proselyte among the indians. but these men and their like were better than their creeds; better than the book in which their faith was centered. the bible tells us distinctly that the world was made in six days--not periods, but actual, bona fide days--a statement which it iterates and reiterates. it also tells us that god lengthened the day for the benefit of a gentleman named joshua, in other words, that he stopped the rotary motion of the earth. motion is changed into heat by stoppage, and the world turns with such velocity that its sudden stoppage would create a heat of intensity beyond the wildest flight of our imagination, and yet this impossible feat was performed that joshua might have longer time to expend in slaying a handful of amorites. the bible also upholds the doctrines of witchcraft and spiritualism, for saul visited the witch of endor, and she, after preparing the cabinet, trotted out the spirit of samuel, said spirit kindly joining in conversation with saul, without requiring the aid of a trance medium. the speaker then quoted at length from leviticus concerning wizards and evil spirits, described the temptation of christ by satan, and the driving of devils from man into swine. he sneered at the rights of children as biblically described, citing the law which sentenced them to be stoned to death for disobedience to parents, the almost sacrifice of isaac by his father, and the actual murder of jephthah's daughter, asking if a god who could demand such worship was worthy the love of man. he next referred to the conversation between god and satan concerning the man job, and of the reward given to the latter for his long continued patience. his three daughters and his seven sons had been taken from him merely to test his patience, and the merciful god gave him in exchange three other daughters and seven sons, but they were not the children whom he had loved and lost. the bible represents woman as vastly inferior to man, while he believed, with robbie burns, that god made man with a prentice-hand, and woman after he had learned the trade. polygamy, also, was a doctrine supported by this pure and pious work; a doctrine so foul that language is not strong enough to express its infamy. the bible taught, as a religious creed, that if your wife, your sister, your brother, your dearest friend, tempted you to change from the religion of your fathers, your duty to god demanded that you should at once strike a blow at the life of your tempter. let us suppose, then, that in truth god went to palestine and selected the scanty tribes of israel as his chosen people, and supposing that he afterward came to jerusalem in the shape of a man and taught a different doctrine from the one prescribed by their book and their clergy, and that the chosen people, in obedience to the education he had prepared for them, struck at the life of him who tempted them. were they to be cursed by god and man because the former had reaped the harvest of his own sowing? ingersoll's lecture on "how the gods grow" ladies and gentlemen: priests have invented a crime called blasphemy. that crime is the breastwork behind which ignorance, superstition and hypocrisy have crouched for thousands of years, and shot their poisoned arrows at the pioneers of human thought. priests tell us that there is a god somewhere in heaven who objects to a human being, thinking and expressing his thought. priests tell us that there is a god somewhere who takes care of the people of this world; a god somewhere who watches over the widow and the orphan; a god somewhere who releases the slave; a god somewhere who visits the innocent man in prison; the same god that has allowed men for thousands of years to burn to ashes human beings simply for loving that god. we have been taught that it is dangerous to reason upon these subjects--extremely dangerous--and that of all crimes in the world, the greatest is to deny the existence of that god. redden your hands in innocent blood; steal the bread of the orphan, deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who has loved and trusted you, and for all this you may be forgiven; for all this you can have the clear writ of that bankrupt court of the gospel. but deny the existence of one of these gods, and the tearful face of mercy becomes lurid with eternal hate; the gates of heaven are shut against you, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, commence your wanderings as an immortal vagrant, as a deathless convict, as an eternal outcast. and we have been taught that the infinite has become enraged at the finite simply when the finite said: "i don't know!" why, imagine it. suppose mr. smith should hear a couple of small bugs in his front yard discussing the question as to the existence of smith; and suppose one little red bug swore on the honor of a bug that, in his judgment, no such man as smith lived. what would you think of mr. smith if he fell into a rage, and brought his heel down on this little atheist bug and said: "i will teach you that smith is a diabolical fact!" and yet if there is an infinite god, there is infinitely a greater difference between that god and a human being than between shakespeare and the smallest bug that ever crawled. it cannot be; there is something wrong in this thing somewhere. i am told, also, that this being watches over us, takes care of us. and the other day i read a sermon (you will hardly believe it, but i did); i had nothing else to. i had read everything in that paper, including the advertisements; so i read the sermon. it was a sermon by rev. mr. moody on prayer, in which he took the ground that our prayer should be "thy will be done;" and he seemed to believe that if we prayed that prayer often enough we could induce god to have his own way. he gives an instance of a woman in illinois who had a sick child, and she prayed that god would not take from her arms that babe. she did not pray "thy will be done," but she prayed, according to mr. moody, almost a prayer of rebellion, and said: "i cannot give up my babe." god heard her prayer, and the child got well; and mr. moody says it was an idiot when it got well. for fifteen years that woman watched over and took care of that idiotic child; and mr. moody says how much better would it have been if she had allowed god to have had his own way. think of a god who would punish a mother for speaking to him from an agonizing heart and saying, "i cannot give up my babe," and making the child an idiot. what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? that is the god we are expected to worship. i range myself with the opposition. the next day i read another sermon preached by the rev. de witt talmage, a man of not much fancy, but of great judgment. he preached a sermon on dreams, and went on to say that god often visited us in dreams, and that he often convinces men of his existence in that way. so far as i am concerned i had rather see something in the light. and, according to that sermon, there was a poor woman in england, a pauper who had the rheumatism, and there was another pauper who had not the rheumatism; and the pauper who had not the rheumatism used to take food to the pauper that had. after a while the pauper without rheumatism died, and then the pauper with the rheumatism began to think in her own mind, who will bring me food? that night god appeared to her in a dream. he did not cure her rheumatism though. he appeared to her in a dream, and he took her out of the house and pointed on the right hand to an immense mountain of bread, and on the left hand to an immense mountain of butter. and when i read that i said to myself, my lord, what a place that would be to start a political party. and he said to her: "these belong to your father; do you think that he will allow one of his children to starve? what a place would ireland be with that mountain of bread and butter! until i read these two sermons i hardly believed that in this day and generation anybody believed that god would make a child an idiot simply because the mother had prayed for its sweet dear life, or that god's visits are only in dreams. but so it is. orthodoxy has not advanced upon the religion of the fiji islander. it is the same yesterday, today and forever. now we are told that there is a god; and nearly every nation has had a god; generally a good many of them. you see the raw material was so cheap, and gods were manufactured so easily, that heaven has always been crammed with the phantoms of these monsters. but they say there is a god, and every savage tribe believes in a god. it is an argument made to me every day. i concede to you that fact; i concede to you that all savages agree with you. i admit it takes a certain amount of civilization, a certain amount of thought, to rise above the idea that some personal being, for his own ends, for his own glory, made and governs this universe. i admit that it takes some thought to see the universe is good and all that is good, and every star that shines is a part of god, and i am something, no matter how little, and that the infinite cannot exist without me, and that therefore i am a part of the infinite. i admit that it takes a little civilization to get to that point. now every nation has made a god, and every man that has made a god has used himself for a pattern; and men have put into the mouth of their god all their mistakes in astronomy, in geography, in philosophy, in morality, and the god is never wiser or better than his creators. if they believe in slavery, so did he; if they believe in eating human flesh, he wanted his share; if they were polygamous, so was he; if they were cruel, so was he. and just to the extent that man has become civilized, he has civilized his god. you can hardly imagine the progress that our god has made in four thousand years. four thousand years ago he was a barbarian; tonight he is quite an educated gentleman. four thousand years ago he believed in killing and butchering little babes at the breasts of their mothers; he has reformed. four thousand years ago he did not believe in taking prisoners of war. he said, kill the old men; mingle their blood with the white hair. kill the women. but what shall we do, o god, with the maidens? give them to satisfy the lust of the soldiers and of the priests! if there is anywhere in the serene heaven a real god. i want him to write in the book of his eternal remembrance, opposite my name, that i deny that lie for him. four thousand years ago our god was in favor of slavery; four thousand years ago our god would have a man beaten to death with rugged rocks for expressing his honest thought; four thousand years ago our god told the husband to kill his wife if she disagreed with him upon the important subject of religion; four thousand years ago our god was a monster; and if he is any better now, it is simply because we have made him so. i am talking about the god of the christian world. there may be, for aught i know, upon the shore of the eternal vast, some being whose very thought is the constellation of those numberless stars. i do not know; but if there is he has never written a bible; he has never been in favor of slavery; he has never advocated polygamy, and he never told the murderer to sheathe his dagger in the dimpled breast of a babe. but they say to me, our god has written a book. i am glad he did, and it is by that book that i propose to judge them. i find in that book that it was a crime to eat of the tree of knowledge. i find that the church has always been the enemy of education, and i find that the church still carries the flaming sword of ignorance and bigotry over the tree of knowledge. and if that story is true, ought we not after all to thank the devil? he was the first school master; he was the first to whisper liberty in our ears; he was the author of modesty. he was the author of ambition and progress. and as for me, give me the storm and tempest of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. punish me when and how you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. and there is one peculiar thing i might as well speak of here. while the world has made gods, it has also made devils; and as a rule the devils have been better friends to man than the gods. it was not a devil that drowned the world; it was not a devil that covered with the multitudinous waves of an infinite sea the corpses of men, women and children. that was the good god. the devil never sent pestilence and famine; the devil never starved women and children; that was the good god. the meanest thing recorded of the devil is what happened concerning my servant job. according to that book god met the devil and said: "where have you been?" "oh, been walking up and down." "have you noticed my man job; nobody like him!" "well, who wouldn't be; you have given him everything; but take away what he has, and he will curse you to your face." and so the devil went to work and tried it. it was a mean thing. and that was all done to decide what you might call a wager on a difference of opinion between the serene highnesses. he took away his property, but job didn't sin; and when god met the devil, he said: "well, what did i tell you, smarty?" "ah," he said, "that is all very well, but you touch his flesh and he will curse you; and he did, but job didn't curse him. and then what did god do to help him! he gave him some other children better looking than the first ones. what kind of an idea is that for a god to kill our children and then give us better looking ones! if you have loved a child, i don't care if it is deformed, if you have held it in your arms and covered its face with kisses, you want that child back and no other. i find in this bible that there was an old gentleman a little short of the article of hair. and as he was going through the town a number of little children cried out to him "go up, thou bald head!" and this man of god turned and cursed them. a real good-humored old fellow! and two bears came out of the woods and tore in pieces forty-two children! how did the bears get there? elisha could not control the bears. nobody but god could control the bears in that way. now just think of an infinite god making a shining star, having his attention attracted by hearing some children saying to an old gentlemen, "go up, thou bald head!" and then speaking to his secretary or somebody else, "bring in a couple of bears now!" what a magnificent god! what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? and yet that is the god they want to put into the constitution in order to make our children gentle and kind and loving. you hate a god like that. i do; i despise him. and yet little children in the sabbath-school are taught that infamous lie. why, i have very little respect for an old man that will get mad about such a thing, anyway. what would the christian world say of me if i should have a few children torn to pieces if they should make that remark in my face? what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? i tell you, i cannot worship a god who is no better than the devil! i cannot do it. and if you will just read the old testament with the bandage off your eyes and the cloud of fear from your heart, you will come to the conclusion that it was written not only by men, but by barbarians, by savages, and that it is totally unworthy of a civilized age. i believe in no god who believes in slavery. i will worship no god who ever said that one of his children should own another of his children. but they say to me, there must be a god somewhere! well, i say i don't know. there may be. i hope there is more than one--one is so lonesome. just think of an old bachelor, always alone! i want more than one. and they say, somebody must have made this! well, i say i don't know. but it strikes me that the indestructible cannot be created. what would you make it of? "oh, nothing!" well, it strikes me that nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. for my part, i cannot conceive of force apart from matter, and i cannot conceive of matter apart from force. i cannot conceive of force somewhere without acting upon something; because force must be active, or it is not force; and if it has no matter to act upon, it ceases to be force. i cannot conceive of the smallest atom of matter staying together without force. beside, if some god made all this, there must have been some morning when he commenced! and if he has existed always, there is an eternity back of that when he never did anything; when he lived in an infinite hole, without side, top or bottom! he did not think, for there was nothing to think about. certainly he did not remember, for nothing had ever happened. now i cannot conceive of this! i do not say it is not so. i may be damned for my smartness, yet--i simply say i cannot conceive of it, that is all. but men tell me, you cannot conceive of eternity! that is just what i can conceive of. i cannot conceive of its stopping. they say i cannot conceive of infinite space! that is just what i can conceive of; because, let me imagine all i can, my imagination will stand upon the verge and see infinite space beyond. infinite space is a necessity of the mind, because i cannot think of enough matter to fill it. eternity is a necessity of the mind, because i cannot dream of the cessation of time. but they say there is a design in the world, consequently there must be a designer. well, i don't know. paley says that the more wonderful a thing is, the greater the necessity for creation; that a watch is a wonderful thing, and that it must have had a creator; that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch, therefore he must have had a creator. then we come to god; he is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker, therefore he had no creator. there is a link out somewhere; i don't pretend to understand it. and so i say, that had the world been any other way, you would have seen the same evidence of design, precisely. we grow up with our conditions, and you cannot imagine of a first cause. why? every cause has an effect. strike your hands together; they feel warm. the effect becomes a cause instantly, and that cause produces another effect, and the effect another cause; and there could not have been a cause until there was an effect. because until there was an effect, nothing had been caused; until something had been caused, i am positive there was no cause. now you cannot conceive of a lost effect, because the lost effect of which you can think, will in turn become a cause and that cause produce another effect. and as you cannot think of a lost effect, you cannot think of a first cause; it is not thinkable by the human mind. they say god governs this world. why does he not govern russia as well as he does massachusetts? why does he allow the czar to send beautiful girls of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, simply for saying a word in favor of human liberty, to mines in siberia, where they draw carts with knees bruised and bleeding, with hands scarred and swollen? what is that god worth that allows such things in the world he governs? did he govern this country when it had four millions of slaves?--when it turned the cross of christ into a whipping-post--when the holy bible was an auction-block on which the mother stood while her babe was sold from her breast?--when bloodhounds were considered apostles? was god governing the world when the prisoners were confined in the bastille? it seems to me, if there is a god, and someone would repeat the word "bastille." it would cover almost his face with the blood of shame. but they say heaven will balance all the ills of life. let us see: a large majority of us are sinners--at least a large majority with whom i am acquainted; and a majority of the christians with whom i am acquainted are worse than sinners. and if their doctrine is true, you will be astonished at the gentlemen you will see in hell that day. you will know by the cast of their countenance that they used to preach here. they say that it may be that the sinners here have a very good time, and that the christians don't have a very good time; that it is awful hard work to serve the lord, and that you carry a cross when you deny yourself the delights of murder and forgery, and all manner of rascality that fills life with delight. but they say that while the rascals are having a good time, they will catch it in the other world. but, according to their account, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be damned, and i think it will be a close call for the hundredth. like that dear old scotch woman, when she was talking about the presbyterian faith, some one said to her: "my dear woman, if your doctrine is true, nobody but you and your husband will be saved." "ah," said she, "i'm na' sae sure about john." about one in a hundred will be saved, and the other ninety-nine will be in misery. so that on the average there will not be half as much happiness in the next world as in this. so, instead of god's plan getting better, it gets worse; and throughout all the ages of eternity there will be less happiness than in this world. this world is a school; this world is where we develop moral muscle. it may be that we are here simply because men cannot advance only through agony and pain. if it is necessary to have pain and agony to advance morally, then nobody can advance in heaven. hell will be the only place offering opportunities to any gentleman who wishes to increase his moral muscle. a gentleman once asked me if i could suggest any improvement on the present order of things, if i had the power. well, said i, in the first place, i would make good health catching instead of disease. there will be no humanity until we get the orthodox god out of our religion. i want to do what little i can to put another one in god's name, so that we will worship a supreme human god, so that we will worship mercy, justice, love and truth, and not have the idea that we must sacrifice our brother upon the altar of fear to please some imaginary phantom. see what christianity has done for the world! it has reduced spain to a guitar, italy to a hand organ and ireland to exile. that is what religion has done. take every country in the whole world, and the country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, and the country that has got the most religion is in the worst condition. in the vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men and there, too, are nearly all their gods. the sacred temples of india were ruins long ago. over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; kali, the goddess; draupadi, the white-armed, and chrishna, the christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. along the banks of the sacred nile, iris no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead osiris. the shadow of typhon's scowl falls no more upon the waves. the sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of memnon, but memnon is as voiceless as the sphinx. the sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead odin, the author of life and soul, vili and ve, and the mighty giant ymir, strode long ago from the ice halls of the north; and thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more. broken are the circles and the cromlechs of the ancient druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss are the sacred cairns. the divine fires of persia and of the aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. the harp of orpheus is still; the drained cup of bacchus has been thrown aside; venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. the streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. the gods have flown from high olympus. not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and danae lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. hushed forever are the thunders of sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the lard once flowing with milk and honey is but a desert waste. one by one the myths have faded from the clouds; one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and, one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. the supernatural has almost gone, but man is the natural remains. the gods have fled, but man is here. nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. religions are the same. the same inexorable destiny awaits them all. the gods created with the nations must perish with their creators. they were created by men, and, like men, they must pass away. the deities of one age are the by-words of the next. the religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than others have been. when india was supreme, brahma sat upon the world's throne. when the sceptre passed to egypt, isis and osiris received the homage of mankind. greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and zeus put on the purple of authority. the earth trembled with the tread of rome's intrepid sons, and jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. rome fell, and christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now jehovah sits upon the old throne. who will be his successor? ingersoll's lecture on the religion of our day ladies and gentlemen:--i am glad that i have lived long enough to see one gentleman in the pulpit brave enough to say that god would not be offended at one who speaks according to the dictates of his conscience; who does not believe that god will give wings to a bird, and then damn the bird for flying. i thank the pastor and i thank the church for allowing its pastor to be so brave. i admit that thousands and thousands of church people, with their pastors and the deacons, are today advocating religious principles that they deem right and good. i honor these men, but i do not believe that their method is a good one. i do not want these people to forgive me for the views i entertain, but i want them so to act that i will not have to forgive them. i am the friend of every one who preaches the gospel of absolute intellectual liberty, and that man is my friend. is there a god who says that if man does so and so he will damn him? can there be such a fiend? i am not responsible to man unless i injure him; nor to god unless i injure him, but one cannot injure god, for "he is infinite." when i was young i was told that the bible was inspired, written by god, that even the lids of the book were inspired. they say he is a personal god; if so, he has not revealed himself to me. there may be many gods. as i look around i see that justice does not prevail, that innocence is not always effectual and a perfect shield. if there be a god these things could not be. if god made us all, why did he not make us all equally well. he had the power of an infinite god. why did god people the earth with so many idiots? i admit that orthodoxy could not exist without them, but why did god make them? if we believe the bible then he should have made us all idiots, for the orthodox christian says the idiots will not be damned, simply transplanted, while the sensible man, who believeth not, will be sent to eternal damnation? if there is any god that made us, what right had he to make idiots? is a man with a head like a pin under any obligation to thank god? is the black man, born in slavery, under any obligation to thank god for his badge of servitude? what kind of a god is it that will allow men and women to be put in dungeons and chains simply because they loved him and prayed to him? and what kind of a god is it that will allow such men and women to be burned at the stake? if god won't love such men and women, then under what circumstances will he love? famine stalks over the land and millions die, not only the bad but the good, and there in the heavens above sits an infinite god who can do anything, can change the rocks and the stones, and yet these millions die. i do not say there is no god, but i do ask, what is god doing? look at the agony, and wretchedness and woe all over the land. is there goodness, is there mercy in this? i do not say there is not, but i want to know, and i want to know if a man is to be damned for asking the question? (he eloquently recited the agonies that clustered around the french bastille, where great men and heroic women suffered and died for loving liberty, and said: if there is a god, i think that one word, bastille, would bring the blush of shame to his face.) i find that the men who have received revelation are the worst; and that where the bible goes there go the sword and the fagot. if an infinite god makes a revelation to me he knows how i will understand it. if god wrote the bible he knew that no two people would understand it alike. when i read the bible i found that god in his infinite wisdom couldn't control the people he had created and that he had to drown them. if i had infinite power and couldn't make a people that i could control and had to drown them, why i'd resign. then i read in the bible such cruel things, and i do not believe that god can be cruel. such cruelty may make one afraid, but cannot inspire love. i can't love a god that will inflict pain and sorrow, and i won't. the preachers say all unbelievers will go to hell--tidings of great joy. when i confront them they--say i'm taking away their consolation. the old bible does not mention hell or heaven. now god should have notified adam and cain of hell, but he didn't. when he came to drown all those people he didn't tell a single one that he would drown him. he talked all about water--nothing about fire. when he came down on mount sinai, and told moses how to cut out clothes for a priest, he never said one word on the subject. when god gave moses the ten commandments, engraved on stone, there he said not one word about hell. there was plenty of room on the stone; why did he not add: "if you don't keep these commandments you will be damned." through all these ages, when god was talking all the time, and when every howling prophet had his ear, not one word did he utter of hell or heaven. for , years god got along without mentioning those places or even hinting of them. it seems to me that we ought to have been notified by him. (here the orator recalled many stories from the old bible and subjected them to keen irony and ridicule. reciting the story wherein the she bears came out of the woods and tore to pieces the forty children who mocked the prophet, he asked: if god did that, what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? why; he said, did not god give a sure cure for leprosy, unless he wanted to have his chosen people to have that frightful disease?) do you believe that god ever told a widow if her brother-in-law refused to marry her to spit in his face? do you believe any such nonsense from a god? i call that courting under difficulties. (then colonel ingersoll dwelt pathetically on the sweet, innocent babes eaten up by the lions in the den, after daniel was rescued from their jaws, and asked the question, what kind of a god was it that allowed such horrible deeds?) they say that i pick out all the bad things in the bible. well, god ought not to have put bad things in the book. if you only read the bible you will not believe it. why, it is such a bad book that it has to be supported by legislation. in maine and elsewhere they will send you to jail for two years if you deny the bible or the judgment day. no, we are told we must not only believe in the god we have been talking about, but must also believe in another one. let us look at the church today. the orthodox church--that is, all but the universalist. he is trying to be orthodox, but he can't get in. the god of the universalists, to say the least, is a gentleman. now, what is this religion? to believe certain things that we may be saved, that we won't be damned. what are they? first, that the old and new testament are inspired. no matter how kind, how just a man may be, unless he believes in the inspiration, he will be damned. second, he must believe in the trinity. that there are three in one. that father and son are precisely of the same age, the son, possibly, a little mite older; that three times one is one, and that once one is three. it is a mercy you don't know how to understand it, but you must believe it or be damned. therein you see the mercy of the lord. this trinity doctrine was announced several hundred years after christ was born: do you believe such a doctrine will make a man good or honest? will it make him more just? is the man that believes any better than the man who does not believe? how is it with nations? look at spain, the last slave-holder in the civilized world; she's christian, she believes in the trinity! and italy, the beggar of the world. under the rule of priestcraft money streamed in from every land and yet she did not advance. today she is reduced to a hand-organ. take poor ireland, groaning under the heel of british oppression; could she cast off her priests she would soon be one with america in freedom. protestantism is better than catholicism, because there is less of it. both dread education. they say they brought the arts and sciences out of the dark ages; why, they made the dark ages and what did they preserve? nothing of value, only an account of events that never happened. what did they teach the world! slavery! the best country the sun ever shown upon is the northern part of the united states, and there you will find less religion than anywhere else on the face of the earth. you will find here more people that don't believe the bible, and you will find better husbands, better wives, happier homes, where the women are most respected and where the children get less blows and more huggings and kissings. we have improved just as we lost this religion and this superstition. great britain is the religious nation par excellence, and there you will find the most cant and most hypocrisy. they are always thanking god that they have killed somebody. look at the opium war with china. they forced the chinese to open their ports and receive the deadly drug, and then had the impudence to send a lot of driveling idiots of missionaries into china. go around the world, and where you find the least superstition, there you will find the best men, the best women, the best children. two powerful levers are at work; love and intelligence. the true test of a man is generosity, that covers a multitude of sins. they have got so now they damn a man on a technicality. you must be baptized by immersion, sprinkling or pouring. if you come to the day of judgment and can't show the watermark, you're damned! what more: that a fellow named adam, whom you don't know and never voted for, is your representative. you are charged with his sins. equally abused is the doctrine of atonement, that you are created with the sacrifice of another. if christ had more virtue than adam had meanness, then you are ahead. atonement is the corner-stone of the christian religion. but there is one great objection. it saves the wrong man, and it is not honest. (in holding up the atonement to ridicule the orator said: "if judas had failed to betray christ, the mother of christ would be in hell today." then he ridiculed the miracles recorded in the new testament, pronounced them absurdities. he said that the four apostolic writers were very contradictory in their statements, and did not even agree as to the last word of this great man.) the ascension was the most striking, the grandest of the miracles, if true, yet the ascension is only recorded by two of these writers. if he was god, i know he will forgive somebody for not believing the miracles, unless convinced. another contradiction in the book: in one gospel the condition of salvation is "whosoever believeth shall not be damned," and in another we are promised that if we forgive our enemies god will forgive us--and there's sense in this last promise. the first i believe a lie--it was never spoken by god. christ said: love your enemies. nobody can do that. the doctrine of confucius is sound--to love one's friends and to do justice to one's enemies without any mixture of revenge. if christ was god, did he not know on his cross what crimes would be done in his name? why didn't he settle all disputes about the trinity and about baptism? why didn't he post his disciples? because he could no more see into the future than i can. only in this way can you acquit him of the crimes committed in his name. the way to save our own souls is to save another soul. god can't turn into hell a man who makes on this earth a little heaven for himself, wife and babes. any minister who preaches the doctrine of hell ought to be ashamed. i want, if i can while i live, to put an end to all belief in this infamous doctrine. that doctrine has done incalculable harm, wrought incalculable injury. i despise it, and i defy it. the orthodox church says that religion does good; that it restrains crime. it restrains a man from artificial, not from natural crimes. a man can be made so religious that he will not eat meat on friday, yet he will steal. did you ever hear of a tramp coming to town and inquiring where the deacon of the presbyterian church lived. the bible says consider the lilies. what good would it do a naked man standing out in the bitter blasts of this night to consider the lilies. what is the social position of a man in heaven who through all eternity remembers that if he had had a grain of courage he would never have been there. the realization of our day does not satisfy the intelligence of the people--the people have outgrown it. it shocks us and we have got to have another religion. we must have a religion of charity; one that will do away with poverty, close the prisons and cover this world with homes. ingersoll's lecture on heretics and heresies "liberty, a word without which--all other words are vain." whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. heresy is what the minority believe; it is a name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. this word was born of the hatred, arrogance, and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. this word was born of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought. it was an epithet used in the place of argument. from the commencement of the christian era, every art has been exhausted, and every conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. this effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the soul. christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. god is supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed, at this moment, to be suffering the agonies of the damned. the church persecutes the living, and her god burns the dead. it is claimed that god wrote a book called the bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. as long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. a few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. protestants and catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. for ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. they infested every country, every city, town, hamlet, and family. they appealed to the worst passions of the human heart. they sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in every land. brother denounced brother, wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains, the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful god, his children were exterminated with famine, sword and fire. over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of jesus christ. for sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. the ingenuity of christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever. give any orthodox church the power, and today they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. as long as a church deemed a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. why should the church pity a man whom her god hates? why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her god will burn in eternal fire? why should a christian be better than his god? it is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been perpetrated by the church. let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. every nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the church. toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. from augustine until now the spirit of the christian has remained the same. there has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with the ignorant creed. every church pretends that it has a revelation from god, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation--not from god--but from the church. had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. it might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think, or investigate, in order to forget. without heresy there could have been no progress. the highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget. neither does he learn. he neither advances nor recedes. he is a living fossil, imbedded in that rock called faith. he makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. the supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object, he denounces all kinds of free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. when he had the power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. it meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death. in those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. across the open bible lay the sword and fagot. not content with burning such heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might rob their wives and children. the property of all heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being heretical--indicted, as it were, their dust--to the end that the church might clutch the bread of orphans. learned divines discussed propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned, and the general opinion was that this ought to be done, so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the christians who were burning them. with a mixture of ferocity and christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire, giving as a reason, that more time was given them for repentance. no wonder that jesus christ said, "i came not to bring peace but a sword!" every priest regarded himself as the agent of god. he answered all questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult offered to god. no one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey. in the inquisition was established. seven years afterward; the fourth council of the lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. the sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. acting as they believed, or pretended to believe under the command of god, stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bastille blood--savage beyond description--merciless beyond conception--these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. they crushed their bones in iron boots, tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pinchers, cut off their lips and eyelids, pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles, tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, stretched them upon racks, flayed them alive, crucified them with their head downward, exposed them to wild beasts, burned them at the stake, mocked their cries and groans, ravished their wives, robbed their children, and then prayed god to finish the holy work in hell. millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. the catholic burned the lutheran, the lutheran burned the catholic; the episcopalian tortured the presbyterian, the presbyterian tortured the episcopalian. every denomination killed all it could of every other; and each christian felt it duty bound to exterminate every other christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed. in the reign of henry the viii., that pious and moral founder of the apostolic episcopal church, there was passed by the parliament of england an act entitled, "an act for abolishing of diversity of opinion." and in this act was set forth what a good christian was obliged to believe. first, that in the sacrament was the real body and blood of jesus christ. second, that the body and blood of jesus christ was in the bread, and the blood and body of jesus christ was in the wine. third, that priests should not marry. fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation. fifth, that private masses ought to be continued. and sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be maintained. this creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to believe by simply reading the statute. the church hated to see the people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. it was thought far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. the punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. for the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second offense--death. your attention is called to these six articles, established during the reign of henry viii, and by the church of england, simply because not one of these articles is believed by that church today. if the law then made by the church could be enforced now, every episcopalian would be burned at the stake. similar laws were passed in most christian countries, as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven. according to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to hell. it was claimed that god had founded the church, and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to god, and consequently an ally of the devil. to torture and destroy one of the soldiers of satan was a duty no good christian cared to neglect. nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of god by killing your own enemies. such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary christian never resists. according to the theologians, god, the father of us all wrote a letter to his children. the children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. in consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. in every land, where this letter from god has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. they have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. in the name of god every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of jesus christ. for more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. her vengeance has been measured only by her power. during all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. with the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured, pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent. such is the history of the church of god. i do not say, and i do not believe, that christians are as bad as their creeds. in spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. they have been true to their convictions, and with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned danger and death. and yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. they knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. they believed that religion was of god, and all heresy of the devil. they killed heretics in defense of their own souls and the souls of their children. they killed them, because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of god, and because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven. nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the ganges. nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. these crimes have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. these religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny, and hypocrisy. under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these crimes. men and women have been burned for thinking that there was but one god; that there was none; that the holy ghost is younger than god; that god was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man, without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be barred eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of god as though he had a nose; for denying that christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that god is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination, and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for god, and in place of god, for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking that the virgin mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good sized woman; for denying that god used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not set to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend, for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a catholic, and for being a protestant, for being an episcopalian, a presbyterian, a baptist, and for being a quaker. in short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. the church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy, and all this she did because it was commanded by a book--a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. they had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book, to examine it, even, was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next. the bible was the real persecutor. the bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. how long, o how long will mankind worship a book? how long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? how long, o how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century a man by the name of gerard chauvin was married to jeanne lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a son, called john chauvin, who afterward became famous as john calvin, the founder of the presbyterian church. this man forged five fetters for the brain. these fetters he called points. that is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. about the neck of each follower he put a collar, bristling with these five iron points. the presence of all these points on the collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. this man, when in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in geneva. he at once, in union with farel, drew up a condensed statement of the presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of geneva, on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they, believed this statement. of this proceeding calvin very innocently remarked, that it produced great satisfaction. a man by the name of caroli had the audacity to dispute with calvin. for this outrage he was banished. to show you what great subjects occupied the attention of calvin, it is only necessary to state, that he furiously discussed the question, as to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. he drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribed their diet, and all whose garments were not in the calvin fashion were refused the sacrament. at last, the people becoming tired of this petty, theological tyranny, banished calvin. in a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. after this, he was supreme, and the will of calvin became the law of geneva. under the benign administration of calvin, james gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. the slightest word against calvin or his absurd doctrine was punished as a crime. in , a man was tried at vienne by the catholic church for heresy. he was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. it was his good fortune to escape. pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to geneva for protection. a dove flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. this fugitive from the cruelty of rome asked shelter from john calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious toleration. servetus had forgotten that this book was written by calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. he did not know that calvin had caused his arrest at vienne, in france, and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous to the archbishop. he did not then know that the protestant, calvin, was acting as one of the detectives of the catholic church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very calvin. the maker of the presbyterian creed caused the fugitive servetus to be arrested for blasphemy. he was tried; calvin was his accuser. he was convicted and condemned to death by fire. on the morning of the fatal day, calvin saw him; and servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of calvin, the murderer, for anything he might have said that had wounded his feelings. servetus was bound to the stake, the fagots were lighted. the wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. vainly he implored a speedy death. at last the flame climbed around his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white, heroic face. and there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass. liberty was banished from geneva, and nothing but presbyterianism was left; honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled; but the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained instead. calvin founded a little theocracy in geneva, modeled after the old testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied. against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. the name of this man should never be forgotten. it was castellio. this brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest error. he was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble ground. i wish i had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say, castellio was in all things the opposite of calvin. to plead for the right of individual judgment was considered as a crime, and castellio was driven from geneva by john calvin. by him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death. upon the name of castellio, calvin heaved every epithet, until his malice was satisfied and his imagination exhausted. it is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is good, just and generous. calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. he was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. in other words, he was as near like the god of the old testament as his health permitted. the best thing, however, about the presbyterians of geneva was, that they denied the power of the pope, and the best thing about the pope was, that he was not a presbyterian. the doctrines of calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent. but scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of presbyterianism. the scotch rivaled the adherents of calvin, and succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that flourished in geneva. the clergy took possession and control of everybody and everything. it is impossible to exaggerate the slavery, the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of scotland during the reign of presbyterianism. heretics were hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. the gloomy insanity of presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. they regarded their ministers as the jews did moses and aaron. they believed that they were the especial agents of god, and that whatsoever they bound in scotland would be bound in heaven. there was not one particle of intellectual freedom. no one was allowed to differ from the church, or to even contradict a priest. had presbyterianism maintained its ascendancy, scotland would have been peopled by savages today. the revengeful spirit of calvin took possession of the puritans and caused them to redden the soil of the new world with the brave blood of honest men. clinging to the five points of calvin, they, too, established governments in accordance with the teachings of the old testament. they, too, attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought. they, too, believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was absurd. they believed with luther that universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell. toleration was denounced as a crime. fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect upon the presbyterian church. to the ennobling influence of the arts and science the savage spirit of calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. true, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past. the cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured now and then to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. the fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous to the people. the fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. the preachers told the old stories while the congregation slept. some of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. the five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. the outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while the church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old presbyterian ark rested on the ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age. lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of science, longing to feel the throw and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were compelled by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the splendid ideas of today. these utterances have upon several occasions so nearly awakened some of the members, that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical? these ministers found that just in proportion as their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations increased. those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article, found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than they had points. stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. one of these ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by the presbytery of illinois. he has been charged: first. with speaking in an ambiguous language in relation to that dear old doctrine of the fall of man. with having neglected to preach that most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul. surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope! who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? think of the lives it has blighted--of the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. this doctrine renders god the basest and most cruel being in the universe. compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. there is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. lower than this the soul can never sink. if the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men. second. with having spoken a few kind words of robert collyer and john stuart mill. i have the honor of a slight acquaintance with robert collyer. i have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. he has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet, and the sincere heart of a child. is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and candid adversary? is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who devoted his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believed to be right? can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and heroic life? is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of john stuart mill? is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? must the true presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his god to curse the silent dust? is presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its founder? is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that consumed servetus? does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling, before its ignorant confession of faith? had such men as robert collyer and john stuart mill been present at the burning of servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. had the presbytery of chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat-tails and warmed themselves. third. with having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of predestination. if there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is that doctrine. surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing to one who is laboring, struggling and suffering in this weary world, to think that before he existed, before the earth was, before a star had glittered in the heavens, before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain! fourth. with having failed to preach the efficacy of vicarious sacrifice. suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged--the governor acting as the executioner. and suppose just as the doomed man was to suffer death, some one in the crowd should step forward and say, "i am willing to die in the place of that murderer. he has a family, and i have none." and suppose further that the governor should reply, "come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. a murder has been committed, and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the murderer." what would you then think of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice?" this doctrine is the consummation of two outrages--forgiving one crime and committing another. fifth. with having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known as "evolution" or "development." the church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine. according to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. to teach that there is that in nature which impels to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy of course. the deity will damn spencer and his "evolution," darwin and his "origin of species," bastin and his "spontaneous generation," huxley and his "protoplasm," tyndall and his "prayer guage," and will save those, and those only who declare that the universe has been cursed from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that everything tends to evil, and to that only; and that the only perfect thing in nature is the presbyterian confession of faith. sixth. with having intimated that the reception of socrates and penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial than that of catherine ii. penelope waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and un-weaving the shroud of laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of greece. socrates, whose life was above reproach, and whose death was beyond all praise, stands today, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of christ. catharine ii assassinated her husband. stepping upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. she was the murderess of prince ivan, the grand-nephew of peter the great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who, during all that time, saw the sky but once. taken all in all, catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown. catharine, however, was the head of the greek church, socrates was a heretic, and penelope lived and died without having once heard of "particular redemption," or "irresistible grace." seventh. with repudiating the idea of a "call" to ministry, and pretending that men were "called," to preach as they were to the other avocations of life. if this doctrine is true, god, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. it is more than a century since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. every minister is heretical just to the extent that his intellect is above the average. the lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not. an old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry, and turn his attention to something else. the preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had a "call" to the ministry. to which the deacon replied, "that may be so, but it's mighty unfortunate for you that when god called you to preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you." there is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense, set apart to the service of the lord; that they have been chosen and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. they teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that god allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the motts and coopers--the mansfields and marshalls--the wilberforces and sumners--the angelos and raphaels--were never honored by a "call." these chose their professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the lord. all these men were left free to follow their own inclinations while god was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters. eighth. with having doubted that god was the author of the th psalm. the portion of that psalm which carries with it the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation to the presbyterian church, is as follows: "set thou a wicked man over him; and let satan stand at his right hand. "when he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin. "let his days be few; and let another take his office. "let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. "let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. "let the extortioner catch all that he hated; and let the strangers spoil his labor. "let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be none to favor his fatherless children. "let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. "but do thou for me, o god the lord, for thy name's sake; because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.... i will greatly praise the lord with my mouth." think of a god wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. think of one infamous enough to answer it. had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments. no wonder that the author of this inspired psalm coldly received socrates and penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for catharine the second! ninth. with having said that the battles in which the israelites engaged with the approval and command of jehovah surpassed in cruelty those of julius caesar. was it julius caesar who said, "and the lord our god delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. and we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain?" did julius caesar send the following report to the roman senate? "and we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score city, all the region of argob, the kingdom of og, in bashan. all these cities were fenced with high walls, gates and bars; besides unwalled towns a great many. and we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto sihon, king of heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city." did caesar take the city of jericho "and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old?" did he smite "all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the lord god had commanded?" search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the bible's god commanded and approved. for such a god i have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. away with such a god! give me jupiter rather, with io and europa, or even siva with his skulls and snakes, or give me none. tenth. with having repudiated the doctrines of total depravity. what a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! how sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of god, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offense to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of god; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime. surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of the hell! take from the christian the history of his own church; leave that entirely out of the question, and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man. a minister once asked an old lady, a member of his church, what she thought of the doctrine of total depravity, and the dear old soul replied that she thought it a mighty good doctrine if the lord would only give the people grace enough to live up to it? eleventh. with having doubted the "perseverance of the saints." i suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is that presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell. the real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of god, and not upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that god has the weakness to send presbyterians to paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire. it is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous. it is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will--that they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that god forces them to persevere; while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of god, who does all things for his own glory. compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd. as to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, i wish with all my heart that it may prove to be a fact, i really hope that every saint, no matter how badly he may break on the first quarter, nor how many shoes he may cast at the half-mile pole, will foot it bravely down the long home-stretch, and win eternal heaven by at least a neck. twelfth. with having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons. of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. the whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. we have nearly exterminated the indians; but we have converted none. from the days of john eliot to the execution of the last modoc, not one indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. the few red men who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of calvin. they are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the thirty-nine articles, the saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the evangelical alliance. no indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. this of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect. why should we convert the heathen of china and kill our own? why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? why should we send bibles to the east and muskets to the west? if it is impossible to convert indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the holy ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and bibles and prophets and christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? can we hope, with the story of daniel in the lion's den, to rival the stupendous miracles of india? is there anything in our bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the buddhist? compare your "confession of faith" with the following: "never will i seek nor receive private individual salvation--never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will i live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. until all are delivered, never will i leave the world of sin, sorrow and struggle, but will remain where i am." think of sending an average presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous and incomparable prayer! think of reading the th psalm to a heathen who has a bible of his own, in which is found this passage: "blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid!" why should you read even the new testament to a hindoo, when his own chrishna has said: "if a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?" why send a presbyterian to a sufi, who says: "better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship?" "whosoever would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from god; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him god bursts all bounds above, below." why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "o god, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous?" compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the old testament--with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom the are taught to worship as a god, and with the following tender product of presbyterianism: "it may seem absurd to human wisdom that god should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that god would never be a whit less good, even though he should destroy all men." of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, presbyterianism is the most hideous. but what shall i say more? for the time would fail me to tell of sabellianism, of a "model trinity" and the "eternal procession of the holy ghost." upon these charges a minister is to be tried, here in chicago; in this city of pluck and progress--this marvel of energy, and this miracle of nerve. the cry of "heresy" here, sounds like a wail from the dark ages--a shriek from the inquisition, or a groan from the grave of calvin. another effort is being made to enslave a man. it is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. with scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. what an intellectual feast the confession of faith must be! it reminds one of the dinner described by sidney smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar. every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say--stationary. growth is heresy. orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been molted by the eagle of progress. they are the dead leaves under the majestic palm; while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top. imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. the end that grows is heresy; the end that rots is orthodox. the dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. no thought, no progress, no heresy there. slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. there is only this difference--the dead do not persecute. and what does a trial for heresy mean? it means that the church says to a heretic, "believe as i do, or i will withdraw my support; i will not employ you; i will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. i will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my god will do the rest. i will not imprison you. i will not burn you. the law prevents my doing that. i helped make the law, not, however, to protect you, nor deprive me of the right to exterminate you, but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me." a trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth; that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. it means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. it means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. it means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed, that it would bring again the whips, and chains, and dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past. but let me tell the church it lacks the power. there has been, and still are, too many men who own themselves--too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. the church must abdicate. for the eglon of superstition, science has a message from truth. the heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light. not in vain did voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the alps, the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science. the church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. heresy can not be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. it laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ecumenical councils and the impotent thunders of sinai. heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. heresy is the last and best thought. it is the perpetual new world; the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. it is the eternal horizon of progress. heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to new thoughts. heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin. why should a man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? is it possible that an infinite deity is unwilling that man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? what glory, what honor and renown a god must win in such a field! the ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a firefly! go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! thrust the heretics out of the church. that is to say, throw away your brains--put out your eyes. the infidels will thank you. they are willing to adopt your exiles. every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the th psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank god for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius. be true to your history. turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. with a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. we want them all. keep the ignorant, the superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications. keep them, and keep them all. repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. you are too weak to excite anger. we forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud--as the air forgives the breath you waste. how long, o how long will man listen to the threats of god, and shut his ears to the splendid promises of nature? how long, o how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed. by this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written; but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march or ceases to exist. the real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of christ. every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. it is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or by signs. it makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity of fear. it has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. it appears to men in the name of demonstration. it has nothing to conceal. it has no fear of being read, of being investigated and understood. it does not pretend to be holy or sacred; it simply claims to be true. it challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. it is incapable of being blasphemed. this book appeals to all the surroundings of man. each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. the earth with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf, and bud, and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth. ingersoll's lecture on the bible the true bible appeals to man in the name of demonstration. it has nothing to conceal. it has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. it does not pretend to be holy or sacred, it simply claims to be true. it challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. it is incapable of being blasphemed. this book appeals to all the surroundings of man. each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. the earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the external witnesses of its truth. i will tell you what i mean by inspiration. i go and look at the sea, and the sea says something to me; it makes an impression upon my mind. that impression depends, first, upon my experience; secondly, upon my intellectual capacity. another looks upon the same sea. he has a different brain, he has had a different experience, he has different memories and different hopes. the sea may speak to him of joy and to me of grief and sorrow. the sea cannot tell the same thing to two beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. so, when i look upon a flower, or a star, or a painting, or a statue, the more i know about sculpture the more that statue speaks to me. the more i have had of human experience, the more i have read, the greater brain i have, the more the star says to me. in other words, nature says to me all that i am capable of understanding. think of a god wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer in the th psalm! think of one infamous enough to answer it! had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments. now, i read the bible, and i find that god so loved this world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. i have read this book and what shall i say of it? i believe it is generally better to be honest. now, i don't believe the bible. had i not better say so? they say that if you do you will regret it when you come to die. if that be true, i know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it--they don't tell their honest convictions about the bible. the bible was the real persecutor. the bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. how long, o how long, will mankind worship a book? how long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? how long, o how long, will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? the believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of god. these stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. they never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. for one, i cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the scriptures i leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. until these passages are expunged from the old testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. it contains pages that no minister in the united states would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. there are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. there are chapters that no father would read to his child. there are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired. but as long as the bible is considered as the work of god, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. the literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god. in the days of thomas paine the church believed and taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true. since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the old testament is concerned, false in almost everything. there are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the bible is literally true. who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the bible? the old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. the church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of thomas paine! i love any man who gave me, or helped to give me, the liberty i enjoy tonight. i love every man who helped put our flag in heaven. i love every man who has lifted his voice in all the ages for liberty, for a chainless body, and a fetterless brain. i love every man who has given to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. i love every man who thought more of principle than he did of position. i love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for mankind. the best minds of the orthodox world, today, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal deity. all other questions occupy a minor place. you are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in god, and pay your pew-rent. there is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. these follies have passed away. for my part, i would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation than to be inspired as moses was. supposing the bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for free-thinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? why should we be damned for laughing at samson and his foxes, while others, holding the nebular hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? now when i come to a book, for instance, i read the writings of shakespeare--shakespeare, the greatest human being who ever existed upon this globe. what do i get out of him? all that i have sense enough to understand. i get my little cup full. let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, who knows nothing of the impersonation of passion; what does he get from him? very little. in other words, every man gets from a book, a flower, a star, or the sea, what he is able to get from his intellectual development and experience. do you then believe that the bible is a different book to every human being that receives it? i do. can god, then, through the bible, make the same revelation to two men? he cannot. why? because the man who reads is the man who inspires. inspiration is in the man and not in the book. the real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the bible. that book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. that book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. that book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. that book unmans the politician and degrades the people. that book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that repository of the impossible, called the bible. to me it is a matter of amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human being. is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its time?" if there are mistakes in the bible, certainly they were made by man. if there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. if there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind. it strikes me that god might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. in fact, i think it would be safe to say that a real god could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. the man who now regards the old testament as, in any sense, a sacred or inspired book is, in my judgment, an intellectual and moral deformity. there is in it so much that is cruel, ignorant and ferocious that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was ever thought to be the work of a most merciful deity. admitting that the bible is the book of god, is that his only good job? will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the bible? will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as for denying the scheme of salvation? when the bible was first written it was not believed. had they known as much about science as we know now, that bible would not have been written. every sect is a certificate that god has not plainly revealed his will to man. to each reader the bible conveys a different meaning. about the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war and centuries of sword and flame. if written by an infinite god, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all. paine thought the barbarities of the old testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of god. he believed that murder, massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the deity. he regarded much of the bible as childish, unimportant and foolish. the scientific world entertains the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. he used the same weapons. all the pomp in the world could not make him cower. his reason knew no "holy of holies," except the abode of truth. nothing can be clearer than that moses received from the egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people. according to the theologians, god, the father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. the children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. in consequence of these honest difficulties, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. in every land, where this letter from god has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. they have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. in the name of god every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of jesus christ. the church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. and all this, because it was commanded by a book--a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. they had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book--to examine it, even--was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next. all that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention--of barbarian invention--is to read it. read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of you brain the cowled form of superstition--then read the holy bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and such atrocity. whether the bible is false or true, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. salvation through slavery is worthless. salvation from slavery is inestimable. as long as man believes the bible to be infallible, that book is his master. the civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief--the result of free thought. what man who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease god? and yet our entire system of religion is based on that belief. the jews pacified jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the christian system, the blood of jesus softened the heart of god a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. it is hard to conceive how any sane man can read the bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. the bible was originally written in the hebrew language, and the hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing. it was written entirely with consonants, and without being divided into chapters and verses, and there was no system of punctuation whatever. after you go home to-night write an english sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. the real bible is not the result of inspired men, nor prophets, nor evangelists, nor christs. the real bible has not been written, but is being written. every man who finds a fact adds a word to this great book. the bad passages in the bible are not inspired. no god ever ordered a soldier to sheathe his sword in the breast of a mother. no god ever ordered a warrior to butcher a smiling, prattling babe. no god ever upheld tyranny. no god ever said, be subject to the powers that be. no god endeavored to make man a slave and woman a beast of burden. there are thousands of good passages in the bible. many of them are true. there are in it wise laws, good customs, some lofty and splendid things. and i do not care whether they are inspired or not, so they are true. but what i do insist upon is that the bad is not inspired. there is no hope for you. it is just as bad to deny hell as it is to deny heaven. prof. swing says the bible is a poem. dr. ryder says it is a picture. the garden of eden is pictorial; a pictorial snake and a pictorial woman, i suppose, and a pictorial man, and may be it was a pictorial sin. and only a pictorial atonement! man must learn to rely on himself. reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fire and clothing will. to prevent famine one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world. ingersoll's lecture on voltaire ladies and gentlemen: the infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next. the destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. as time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes of old. there is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy. the history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels. political rights have been preserved by traitors; the liberty of mind by heretics. to attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy. for many years the sword and cross were allies. together they attacked the rights of man. they defended each other. the throne and altar were twins--two vultures from the same egg. james i said: "no bishop; no king." he might have added: no cross, no crown. the king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. one lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear--both robbers, both beggars. these robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. the king made laws, the priest made creeds. both obtained their authority from god, both were the agents of the infinite. with bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the dogmas of the other. if the people aspired to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a herod, who slaughtered the children of the brain. the king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both. the king said to the people: "god made you peasants, and he made me king; he made you to labor, and me to enjoy; he made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. he made you to obey and me to command. such is the justice of god," and the priest said: "god made you ignorant and vile; he made me holy and wise; you are the sheep, i am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. if you do not obey me here, god will punish you now and torment you forever in another world. such is the mercy of god." "you must not reason. reason is a rebel. you must not contradict--contradiction is born of egotism; you must believe. he that has ears to hear let him hear. heaven is a question of ears." fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius, who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men. it may be well enough here to ask the question: "what is greatness?" a great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the bastille of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. a great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. a great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. if the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now. a great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy. greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness. the place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. greatness is from within. the great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of many millions with love and song. they are the artists who have covered the bare walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius. they are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones. they are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of the useful who have civilized this world. at the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands voltaire, whose memory we are honoring tonight. voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war. pronounce that name, and from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a niagara of vituperation and calumny. and yet voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more for the human race than ally other of the sons of men. on sunday, the st of november, , a babe was born; a babe exceedingly frail, whose breath hesitated about remaining. this babe became the greatest man of the eighteenth century. when voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been christianized--not civilized--for about fourteen hundred years. for a thousand years the religion of peace and good will had been supreme. the laws had been given by christian kings, sanctioned by "wise and holy men." under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumbscrew and rack. such had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an outcast. to speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these were crimes, and the "holy mother church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame. the believers in a god of love--an infinite father--punished hundreds of offenses with torture and death. suspected persons were tortured to make them confess. convicted persons were tortured to make them give the names of their accomplices. under the leadership of the church cruelty had become the only reforming power. in this blessed year all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. the most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or executed. the little time that hangmen could snatch from professional duties was occupied in burning books. the courts of justice were traps in which the innocent were caught. the judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops or saints. there was no trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay. the witnesses, being liable to torture, generally told what the judges wished to hear. when voltaire was born the church ruled and owned france. it was a period of almost universal corruption. the priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal. the royal palace was a house of prostitution. the nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. the common people were treated as beasts. it took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things. the seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest. they were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. there was a faint longing for blood. workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want; looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them. in those days the witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels, and devils were as common as lies. voltaire was of the people. in the language of that day, he had no ancestors. his real name was francois marie arouet. his mother was marguerite d'aumard. this mother died when he was seven years of age. he had an elder brother, armand, who was a devotee, very religious and exceedingly disagreeable. this brother used to present offerings to the church, hoping to make amends for the unbelief of his brother. so far as we know none of his ancestors were literary people. the arouets had never written a line. the abbe le chaulieu was his godfather, and, although an abbe, was a deist who cared nothing about his religion except in connection with his salary. voltaire's father wanted to make a lawyer of him, but he had no taste for law. at the age of he entered the college of louis le grand. this was a jesuit school, and here he remained for seven years, leaving at , and never attending any other school. according to voltaire he learned nothing at this school but a little greek, a good deal of latin, and a vast amount of nonsense. in this college of louis le grand they did not teach geography, history, mathematics, or any science. this was a catholic institution, controlled by the jesuits. in that day the religion was defended, was protected, or supported by the state. behind the entire creed were the bayonet, the ax, the wheel, the fagot, and the torture chamber. while voltaire was attending the college of louis le grand the soldiers of the king were hunting protestants in the mountains of cevennes for magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the wheel or to burn at the stake. there is but one use for law, but one excuse for government--the preservation of liberty--to give to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his thoughts. liberty is the breath of progress. in france the people were the sport of a king's caprice. everywhere was the shadow of the bastille. it fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home. with the king walked the headsman; back of the throne was the chamber of torture. the church appealed to the rack, and faith relied on the fagot. science was an outcast, and philosophy, so-called, was the pander of superstition. nobles and priests were sacred. peasants were vermin. idleness sat at the banquet and industry gathered the crumbs and crusts. at voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. the father said, speaking of his two sons, armand and francois: "i have a pair of fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose." in voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. he went to the hague attached to the french minister, and there he fell in love. the girl's mother objected. voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she might visit him. everything was discovered and he was dismissed. to this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the keynote of voltaire: "do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. you know what she is capable of. you have experienced it too well. dissemble; it is your only chance. tell her that you have forgotten me, that you hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more." on account of this episode voltaire was formally disinherited by his father. the father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the choice of going to prison or beyond the seas. he finally consented to become a lawyer, and says: "i have already been a week at work in the office of a solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger." about this time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's generosity in building the new choir in the cathedral notre dame. he did not win it. after being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the law, he began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. great questions were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of light upon that epoch. louis xiv having died, the regent took possession; and then the prisons were opened. the regent called for a list of all persons then in the prisons sent there at the will of the king. he found that, as to many prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. they had been forgotten. many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and could not guess why they had been arrested. one italian had been in the bastille thirty-three years without ever knowing why. on his arrival to paris thirty-three years before he was arrested and sent to prison. he had grown old. he had survived his family and friends. when the rest were liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived there the rest of his life. the old prisoners were pardoned; but in a little while their places were taken by new ones. at this time voltaire was not interested in the great world--knew very little of religion or of government. he was busy writing poetry, busy thinking of comedies and tragedies. he was full of life. all his fancies were winged, like moths. he was charged with having written some cutting epigrams. he was exiled to tulle, three hundred miles away. from this place he wrote in the true vein: "i am at a chateau, a place that would be the most agreeable in the world if i had not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting for my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. it would be delicious to remain if i only were allowed to go." at last the exile was allowed to return. again he was arrested; this time sent to the bastille, where he remained for nearly a year. while in prison he changed his name from francois marie arouet to voltaire, and by that name he has since been known. voltaire began to think, to doubt, to inquire. he studied the history of the church of the creed. he found that the religion of his time rested on the usurpation of the scriptures--the infallibility of the church--the dreams of insane hermits--the absurdities of the fathers--the mistakes and falsehoods of saints--the hysteria of nuns--the cunning of priests and the stupidity of the people. he found that the emperor constantine, who lifted christianity into power, murdered his wife fansta and his eldest son crispus the same year that he convened the council of nice to decide whether christ was a man or the son of god. the council decided, in the year , that christ was consubstantial with the father. he found that the church was indebted to a husband who assassinated his wife--a father who murdered his son--for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the savior. he found that theodosius called a council at constantinople in by which it was decided that the holy ghost proceeded from the father--that theodosius, the younger, assembled a council at ephesus in that declared the virgin mary to be the mother of god--that the emperor martian called another council at chalcedon in that decided that christ had two wills--that pognatius called another in that declared that christ had two natures to go with his two wills--and that in , at the council of lyons, the important fact was found that the holy ghost "proceeded" not only from the father, but also from the son at the same time. so voltaire has been called a mocker! what did he mock? he mocked kings that were unjust; kings who cared nothing for the sufferings of their subjects. he mocked the titled fools of his day. he mocked the corruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny, and the brutality of judges. he mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous customs. he mocked popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, and all the hypocrites on the earth. he mocked historians who filled their books with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition. he mocked the haters of liberty, the persecutors of their fellow-men. he mocked the arrogance, the cruelty, the impudence and the unspeakable baseness of his time. he has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule. hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always will. absurdity detests humor and stupidity despises wit. voltaire was the master of ridicule. he ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. he ridiculed the mythologies and the miracles, the stupid lives and lies of the saints. he found pretense and mendacity crowned by credulity. he found the ignorant many controlled by the cunning and cruel few. he found the historian, saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with the details of the impossible, and he found the scientists satisfied with "they say." voltaire had the instinct of the probable. he knew the law of average; the sea level; he had the idea of proportion; and so he ridiculed the mental monstrosities and deformities--the non sequiturs--of his day. aristotle said women had more teeth than men. this was repeated again and again by the catholic scientists of the eighteenth century. voltaire counted the teeth. the rest were satisfied with "they say." we may, however, get an idea of the condition of france from the fact that voltaire regarded england as the land of liberty. while he was in england he saw the body of sir isaac newton deposited in westminster abbey. he read the works of this great man and afterward gave to france the philosophy of the great englishman. voltaire was the apostle of common sense. he knew that there could have been no primitive or first language from which all other languages had been formed. he knew that every language had been influenced by the surroundings of the people. he knew that the language of snow and ice was not the language of palm and flower. he knew also that there had been no miracle in language. he knew it was impossible that the story of the tower of babel should be true. that everything in the whole world had been natural. he was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language, but in science. one passage from him is enough to show his philosophy in this regard. he says: "to transmute iron into gold two things are necessary. first, the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of gold." voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. he despised with all his heart the philosophy of calvin, the creed of the somber, of the severe, of the unnatural. he pitied those who needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. he had the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear what the future might bring. and yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the christian world has fought this man and has maligned his memory. in every christian pulpit his name has been pronounced with scorn, and every pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. he is one man of whom no orthodox minister has ever told the truth. he has been denounced equally by catholics and protestants. priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding elders and popes have filled the world with slanders, with calm calumnies about voltaire. i am amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the truth about an enemy of the church. as a matter of fact, for more than , years almost every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders were coined. for many years this restless man filled europe with the product of his brain. essays, epigrams, epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems, novels, representing every phase and every faculty of the human mind. at the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation, making money like a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with the scandals of priests. at the same time alive to all the discoveries of science and the theories of philosophers, and in this babel never forgetting for a moment to assail the monster of superstition. sleeping and waking he hated the church. with the eyes of argus he watched, and with the arms of briarieius he struck. for sixty years he waged continuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes striking from the hedges of opportunity, taking care during all this time to remain independent of all men. he was in the highest sense successful. he lived like a prince, became one of the powers of europe, and in him, for the first time, literature was crowned. voltaire, in spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost universal tyranny and oppression, was a believer in god and in what he was pleased to call the religion of nature. he attacked the creed of his time because it was dishonorable to his god. he thought of the deity as a father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and the creed of the catholic church made him a monster of cruelty and stupidity. he attacked the bible with all the weapons at his command. he assailed its geology, its astronomy, its idea of justice, its laws and customs, its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel threats, and its extravagant promises. at the same time he praised the god of nature, the god who gives us rain and light, and food and flowers, and health and happiness--he who fills the world with youth and beauty. in came the earthquake at lisbon. this frightful disaster became an immense interrogation. the optimist was compelled to ask, "what was my god doing? why did the universal father crush to shapelessness thousands of his poor children, even at the moment when they were upon their knees returning thanks to him?" what could be done with this horror? if earthquake there must be, why did it not occur in some uninhabited desert on some wide waste of sea? this frightful fact changed the theology of voltaire. he became convinced that this is not the best possible of all worlds. he became convinced that evil is evil here, now and forever. who can establish the existence of an infinite being? it is beyond the conception--the reason--the imagination of man--probably or possibly--where the zenith and nadir meet this god can be found. voltaire, attacked on every side, fought with every weapon that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos and indignation could sharpen, form, devise or use. he often apologized, and the apology was an insult. he often recanted, and the recantation was a thousand times worse than the thing recanted. he took it back by giving more. in the name of eulogy he flayed his victim. in his praise there was poison. he often advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction. he did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or suffer. upon this very point of recanting, he wrote: "they say i must retract. very willingly. i will declare the pascal is always right. that if st. luke and st. mark contradict one another it is only another proof of the truth of religion to those who know how to understand such things; and that another lovely proof of religion is that it is unintelligible. i will even avow that all priests are gentle and disinterested; that jesuits are honest people; that monks are neither proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the holy inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance. in a word, i will say all that may be desired of me, provided they leave me in repose, and will not prosecute a man who has done harm to none." he gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor the oppressed, to shield the defenseless, to reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the innocent, to reform the laws of france, to do away with torture, to soften the hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings, to civilize the people, and to banish from the heart of man the love and lust of war. voltaire was not a saint. he was educated by the jesuits. he was never troubled about the salvation of his soul. all the theological disputes excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his contempt. he was much better than a saint. most of the christians in his day kept their religion not for everyday use but for disaster, as ships carry lifeboats to be used only in the stress of storm. voltaire believed in the religion of humanity--of good and generous deeds. for many centuries the church had painted virtue so ugly, sour and cold that vice was regarded as beautiful. voltaire taught the beauty of the useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition. he was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the greatest man of his time, the greatest friend of freedom, and the deadliest foe of superstition. he wrote the best french plays--but they were not wonderful. he wrote verses polished and perfect in their way. he filled the air with painted moths--but not with shakespearean eagles. you may think that i have said too much; that i have placed this man too high. let me tell you what goethe, the great german, said of this man: "if you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, cleanness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gayety, pathos, sublimity, and universality perfection, indeed, behold voltaire." even carlyle, the old scotch terrier, with the growl of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as i have sometime thought, because he hated rivals, was forced to admit that voltaire gave the death stab to modern superstition. it was the hand of voltaire that sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of franklin, of jefferson, and of thomas paine. toulouse was a favored town. it was rich in relics. the people were as ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the dried bodies of seven apostles--the bones of many of the infants slain by herod--part of a dress of the virgin mary, and lots of skulls and skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints. in this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy events: the expulsion of the huguenots and the blessed massacre of st. bartholomew. the citizens of toulouse had been educated and civilized by the church. a few protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals and tigers. one of these protestants was jean calas--a small dealer in dry goods. for forty years he had been in this business, and his character was without a stain. he was honest, kind and agreeable. he had a wife and six children, four sons and two daughters. one of the sons became a catholic. the eldest son, marc antoine, disliked his father's business and studied law. he could not be allowed to practice unless he became a catholic. he tried to get his license by concealing that he was a protestant. he was discovered--grew morose. finally he became discouraged and committed suicide by hanging himself one evening in his father's store. the bigots of toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him to prevent his becoming a catholic. on this frightful charge the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at their house were arrested. the dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of the body. this happened in . there was what was called a trial. there was no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. all the facts were in favor of the accused. the united strength of the defendants could not have done the deed. jean calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. this was on the th of march, , and the sentence was to be carried out the next day. on the morning of the th the father was taken to the torture room. the executioner and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the torture according to the judgment of the court. they bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet from the ground and his feet to another ring in the floor. then they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and legs were dislocated. then he was questioned. he declared that he was innocent. then the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body; but he remained firm. this was called the question ordinaire. again the magistrate exhorted the victim to confess, and again he refused, saying that there was nothing to confess. then came the question extraordinaire. into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three pints of water. in this way thirty pints of water were forced into the body of the sufferer. the pain was beyond description, and yet jean calas remained firm. he was then carried to a scaffold in a tumbril. he was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the scaffold. the executioner then took a bar of iron, broke each leg and arm in two places, striking eleven blows in all. he was then left to die if he could. he lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. he was slow to die and so the executioner strangled him. then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake and burned. all this was a spectacle--a festival for the savages of toulouse. what would they have done if their hearts had not been softened by the glad tidings of great joy, peace on earth and good will to men? but this was not all. the property of the family was confiscated; the son was released on condition that he become a catholic; the servant if she would enter a convent. the two daughters were consigned to a convent and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she would. voltaire heard of this case. in a moment his soul was on fire. he took one of the sons under his roof. he wrote a history of the case. he corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. if money was needed he advanced it. for years he filled europe with the echoes of the groans of jean calas. he succeeded. the horrible judgment was annulled--the poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to support the mother and family. this was the work of voltaire. sirven, a protestant, lived in languedoc with his wife and three daughters. the housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the daughters a catholic. the law allowed the bishop to take the child of protestants from its parents for the sake of its soul. the little girl was so taken and placed in a convent. she ran away and came back to her parents. her poor little body was covered with the marks of the convent whip. "suffer little children to come unto me." the child was out of her mind; suddenly she disappeared; and three days after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home. the cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming a catholic. this happened only a little way from the christian city of toulouse while jean calas was in prison. the sirvens knew that a trial would end in conviction. they fled. in their absence they were convicted, their property confiscated. the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother and then to be exiled. the family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of the alps; the mother died, and at last the father, reaching switzerland, found himself without the means of support. they went to voltaire. he espoused their cause. he took care of them, gave them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. he appealed to kings for money, to catherine ii of russia, and to hundreds of others. he was successful. he said of this case:--the sirvens were tried and condemned in two hours in january, , and now in january, , after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights." this was the work of voltaire. why should the worshipers of god hate the lovers of men? espenasse was a protestant, of good estate. in he received into his house a protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging. in a country where priests repeated the parable of the "good samaritan" this was a crime. for this crime espenasse was tried, convicted and sentenced to the galleys for life. when he had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came to the knowledge of voltaire, and he was, through the efforts of voltaire, released and restored to his family. this was the work of voltaire. there is not time to tell of the case of gen. lally, of the english gen. byng, of the niece of corneille, of the jesuit adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time. but i will tell another case: in at the town of abbeville an old wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated--whittled with a knife--a terrible crime. sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh and blood. two young men were suspected--the chevalier de la barre and d'ettalonde. d'ettallonde fled to prussia and enlisted as a common soldier. la barre remained and stood his trial. he was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and d'ettallonde were both sentenced: first, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary; second, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron; third, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church; and fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire. "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames. the case was appealed to paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges learned in law, and the judgment was confirmed. the sentence was carried out on the st day of july, . voltaire had fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. he was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy. for pure crystallized wit he had no equal. the art of flattery was carried by him to the height of an exact science. he knew and practiced every subterfuge. he fought the army of hypocrisy and pretense, the army of faith and falsehood. voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to gain the favors of priests, the patronage of nobles. sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed by these scorpions; sometimes he attacked them. and, but for these attacks, long ago they would have been forgotten. in the amber of his genius voltaire preserved these insects, these tarantulas, these scorpions. it is fashionable to say that he was not profound. this is because he was not stupid. in the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. he thought god would not damn even a priest forever. this was regarded as blasphemy. he endeavored to prevent christians from murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples of christ. had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love of the christian world. had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, and had he mumbled latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured now and then the flesh of god, and carried fagots to the feet of philosophy in the name of christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned. if he had only adopted the creed of his time--if he had asserted that a god of infinite power and mercy had created millions and billions of human beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his glorious justice--that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning and cruel italian pope, authorizing him to save the soul of his mistress and send honest wives to hell--if he had given to the nostrils of this god the odor of burning flesh--the incense of the fagot--if he had filled his ears with the shrieks of the tortured--the music of the rack, he would now be known as st. voltaire. instead of doing these things he willfully closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and defended the oppressed. he demonstrated that the origin of all religions is the same, the same mysteries--the same miracles--the same impostures--the same temples and ceremonies--the same kind of founders, apostles and dupes--the same promises and threats--the same pretense of goodness and forgiveness and the practice of the same persecution and murder. he proved that religion made enemies--philosophy, friends--and that above the rites of gods were the rights of man. these were his crimes. such a man god would not suffer to die in peace. if allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto da fe. it would not do for so great, so successful an enemy of the church to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered with blood and foam. for many centuries the theologians have taught that an unbeliever--an infidel--one who spoke or wrote against their creed, could not meet death with composure; that in his last moments god would fill his conscience with the serpents of remorse. for a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this theory--this infamous conception of the duty of man and the justice of god. the theologians have insisted that crimes against men were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes against god. that, while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, god would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real god leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore the wretched soul. there is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent child being shielded by god. thousands of crimes are being committed ever day--men are at this moment lying in wait for their human prey--wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death--little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers--sweet girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but god has no time to prevent these things--no time to defend the good and protect the pure. he is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. he listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology of moses and the astronomy of joshua. he does not particularly object to stealing, if you don't swear. a great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking god's name in vain, but millions of men, women and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of god. all kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. as a rule there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. the murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. the man who has succeeded in making his home a hell meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of christ or the eternal "procession" of the holy ghost. now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has appeared. such men have denounced the superstition of their day. they have pitied the multitude. to see priests devour the substance of the people--priests who made begging one of the learned professions--filled them with loathing and contempt. these men were honest enough to tell their thoughts, brave enough to speak the truth. then they were denounced, tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. but some escaped the fury of the fiends who loved their enemies and died naturally in their beds. it would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. that would show that religion was essential at the last moment. superstition gets its power from the terror of death. it would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the bible, refuse to kiss the cross; contend that humanity was greater than christ, and then die as sweetly as torquemada did after pouring molten lead into the ears of an honest man, or as calmly as calvin after he had burned servetus, or as peacefully as king david after advising with his last breath one son to assassinate another. the church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels (that christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. it was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. every good christian was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. they have been told and retold in every pulpit of the world. protestant ministers have repeated the lies invented by catholic priests, and catholics, by a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the protestants. upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same falsehood can be used by both. upon the death-bed subject the clergy grew eloquent. when describing the shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever their eyes glitter with delight. it is a festival. they are no longer men. they become hyenas. they dig open graves. they devour the dead. it is a banquet. unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. they gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. they see them in flames--in oceans of fire--in gulfs of pain--in abysses of despair. they shout with joy. they applaud. it is an auto da fe, presided over by god. but let us come back to voltaire--to the dying philosopher. he was an old man of . he had been surrounded with the comforts, the luxuries of life. he was a man of great wealth, the richest writer that the world had known. among the literary men of the earth he stood first. he was an intellectual monarch--one who had built his own throne and had woven the purple of his own power. he was a man of genius. the catholic god had allowed him the appearance of success. his last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery--of almost worship. he stood at the summit of his age. the priests became anxious. they began to fear that god would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of voltaire. toward the last of may, , it was whispered in paris that voltaire was dying. upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey. two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the cure of saint surplice and the abbe gautier, and brought them to his uncle's sick chamber, who, being informed that they were there, said: "ah, well, give them my compliments and my thanks." the abbe spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. the cure of saint surplice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our lord jesus christ. the sick man pushed one of his hands against the cure's coif, shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side: "let me die in peace." the cure seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of a philosopher. he made the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the abbe gautier. he expired, says wagnierre, on the th of may, , at about a quarter past at night, with the most perfect tranquility. a few moments before his last breath he took the hand of morand, his valet de chambee, who was watching by him, pressed it, and said: "adieu, my dear morand, i am gone." these were his last words. like a peaceful river, with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless sea, where life is rest. from this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and tender; so natural and peaceful; from these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances have been drawn and made. from these materials, and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the shameless lies about the death of this great and wonderful man. a man, compared with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but dust and vermin. let us be honest. did all the priests of rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as bruno? did all the priests of france do as great a work for the civilization of the world as voltaire or diderot? did all the ministers of scotland add as much to the such of human knowledge as david hume? have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as thomas paine? what would the world be if infidels had never been? the infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be. in those days the philosophers--that is to say, the thinkers--were not buried in holy ground. it was feared that their principles might contaminate the ashes of the just. and they also feared that on the morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip into heaven. some were burned and their ashes scattered; and the bodies of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy earth. voltaire knew the history of adrienne le couvreur, a beautiful actress, denied burial. after all, we do feel an interest in what is to become of our bodies. there is a modesty that belongs to death. upon this subject voltaire was infinitely sensitive. it was that he might be buried that he went through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last sacrament. the priests knew that he was not in earnest, and voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of paris. his death was kept a secret. the abbe mignot made arrangements for the burial at romilli-on-the-seine, more than miles from paris. sunday evening, on the last day of may, , the body of voltaire, clad in a dressing gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was placed in a carriage; at its side a servant, whose business it was to keep it in position. to this carriage were attached six horses, so that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. another carriage followed in which were a grand-nephew and two cousins of voltaire. all night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at the courtyard of the abbey. the necessary papers were shown, the mass was performed in the presence of the body, and voltaire found burial. a few moments afterward the prior who "for charity had given a little earth" received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial of voltaire. it was too late. he could not then be removed, and he was allowed to remain in peace until . voltaire was dead. the foundations of state and throne had been sapped. the people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and with the actual priests. unknown men born in misery and want, men whose fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising towards the light and their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness. labor and thought became friends. that is, the gutter and the attic fraternized. the monsters of the night and the angels of dawn--the first thinking of revenge and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity. for years the bastille had been the outward symbol of oppression. within its walls the noblest had perished. it was a perpetual threat. it was the last and often the first argument of king and priest. its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of god. in , on the th of july, the people, the multitude, frenzied by suffering, stormed and captured the bastille. the battlecry was, "vive le voltaire!" in permission was given to place in the pantheon the ashes of voltaire. he had been buried miles from paris. buried by stealth he was to be removed by a nation. a funeral procession of a hundred miles; every village with its flags and arches in his honor; all the people anxious to honor the philosopher of france--the savior of calas--the destroyer of superstition! on reaching paris the great procession moved along the rue st. antoine. here it paused, and for one night upon the ruins of the bastille rested the body of voltaire--rested in triumph, in glory--rested on fallen wall and broken arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain, and bar and useless bolt--above the dungeons dark and deep, where light had faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts. the conqueror resting upon the conquered. throned upon the bastille, the fallen fortress of night, the body of voltaire, from whose brain had issued the dawn. for a moment his ashes must have felt the promethean fire, and the old smile must have illumined once more the face of the dead. while the vast multitude were trembling with love and awe, a priest was heard to cry, "god shall be avenged!" the grave of voltaire was violated. the cry of the priest, "god shall be avenged!" had borne its fruit. priests, skulking in the shadows, with faces sinister as night-ghouls--in the name of the gospel, desecrated the gave. they carried away the body of voltaire. the tomb was empty. god was avenged! the tomb was empty, but the world is filled with voltaire's fame. man has conquered! what cardinal, what bishop, what priest raised his voice for the rights of men? what ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the oppressed--of the peasant? who denounced the frightful criminal code the torture of suspected persons? what priest pleaded for the liberty of the citizen? what bishop pitied the victim of the rack? is there the grave of a priest in france on which a lover of liberty would now drop a flower or a tear? is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint from which emerges one ray of light? if there be another life, a day of judgment, no god can afford to torture in another world a man who abolished torture in his. if god be the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison there those who broke the chain of slavery here. he cannot afford to make eternal convicts of franklin, of jefferson, of paine, of voltaire. voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. a perfect master of the french language, knowing all its moods, tenses, and declinations, in fact and in feeling, playing upon it as skillfully, as paganini on his violin, finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing on the most serious subjects with the gayety of a harlequin, plucking jests from the mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows, dealing in double meanings--that covered the asp with flowers and flattery, master of satire and compliment, mingling them often in the same line, always interested himself, therefore interesting others, handling thoughts, questions, subjects, as a juggler does balls, keeping them in the air with perfect ease, dressing old words in new meanings, charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit with wisdom, and sometimes wickedness, logic, and laughter. with a woman's instinct knowing the sensitive nerves--just where to touch--hating arrogance of place, the stupidity of the solemn, snatching masks from priest and king, knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends, perfectly familiar with the great world, the intimate of kings and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving liberty with all his heart. such was voltaire, writing "edipus" at seventeen, "irene" at eighty-three, and crowding between these two tragedies, the accomplishment of a thousand lives. ingersoll's lecture on myth and miracles ladies and gentlemen: what, after all, is the object of life? what is the highest possible aim? the highest aim is to accomplish the only good. happiness is the only good of which man by any possibility can conceive. the object of life is to increase human joy, and that means intellectual and physical development. the question, then, is: shall we rely upon superstition or upon growth? is intellectual development the highway of progress or must we depend on the pit of credulity? must we rely on belief or credulity, or upon manly virtues, courageous investigation, thought, and intellectual development? for thousands of years men have been talking about religious freedom. i am now contending for the freedom of religion, not religious freedom--for the freedom which is the only real religion. only a few years ago our poor ancestors tried to account for what they saw. noticing the running river, the shining star, or the painted flower, they put a spirit in the river, a spirit in the star, and another in the flower. something makes this river run, something makes this star shine, something paints the blossom of that flower. they were all spirits. that was the first religion of mankind--fetichism--and in everything that lived, everything that produced an effect upon them, they said: "this is a spirit that lives within." that is called the lowest phase of religious thought, and yet it is quite the highest phase of religious thought. one by one these little spirits died. one by one nonentities took their places, and last of all we have one infinite fetich that takes the place of all others. now, what makes the river run? we say the attraction of gravitation, and we know no more about that than we do about this fetich. what makes the tree grow? the principle of life--vital forces. these are simply phrases, simply names of ignorance. nobody knows what makes the river run, what makes the trees grow, why the flowers burst and bloom--nobody knows why the stars shine, and probably nobody ever will know. there are two horizons that have never been passed by man--origin and destiny. all human knowledge is confined to the diameter of that circle. all religions rest on supposed facts beyond the circumference of the absolutely known. what next? the next thing that came in the world--the next man--was the mythmaker. he gave to these little spirits human passions; he clothed ghosts in flesh; he warmed that flesh with blood, and in that blood he put desire--motive. and the myths were born, and were only produced through the fact of the impressions that nature makes upon the brain of man. they were every one a natural production, and let me say here, tonight, that what men call monstrosities are only natural productions. every religion has grown just as naturally as the grass; every one, as i said before, and it cannot be said too often, has been naturally produced. all the christs, all the gods and goddesses, all the furies and fairies, all the mingling of the beastly and human, were all produced by the impressions of nature upon the brain of man--by the rise of the sun, the silver dawn, the golden sunset, the birth and death of day, the change of seasons, the lightning, the storm, the beautiful bow--all these produced within the brain of man all myths, and they are all natural productions. there have been certain myths universal among men. gardens of eden have been absolutely universal--the golden age, which is absolutely the same thing. and what was the golden age born of? any old man in boston will tell you that fifty years ago all people were honest. fifty years ago all people were sociable--there was no stuck-up aristocracy then. neighbors were neighbors. merchants gave full weight. everything was full length; everything was a yard wide and all wool. now everybody swindles everybody else, and calls it business. go back fifty years and you will find an old man who will tell you that there was a time when all were honest. go back another fifty years and you will find another sage who will tell you the same story. every man looks back to his youth, to the golden age, and what is true of the individual is true of the whole human race. it has its infancy, its manhood, and, finally, will have an old age. the garden of eden is not back of us. there are more honest men, good women, and obedient children in the world today than ever before. the myth of the elysian fields--universally born of sunsets. when the golden clouds in the west turned to amethyst, sapphire, and purple, the poor savage thought it a vision of another land--a land without care or grief--a world of perpetual joy. this myth was born of the setting of the sun. a universal myth, all nations have believed in floods. savages found everywhere evidences of the sea having been above the earth, and saw in the shells souvenirs of the ocean's visit. it had left its cards on the tops of mountains. the savage knew nothing of the slow rise and sinking of the crust of the earth. he did not dream of it. we now know that where the mountains lift their granite foreheads to the sun, the billows once held sway, and that where the waves dash into white caps of joy, the mountains will stand once more. everywhere the land is, the ocean will be; and where the ocean is the land will be. the hindoos believed in the flood myth. their hero, who lived almost entirely on water, went to the ganges to perform his ablutions, and, taking up a little water in his hand, he saw a small fish that prayed him to save it from the monster of the river, and it would save him in turn from his enemies. he did so, and put it into different receptacles until it grew so large that he let it loose in the sea; then it was large enough to take care of itself. the fish told him that there was going to be an immense flood, and told him to gather all kinds of seed and take two of each kind of animals of use to man, and he would come along with an ark and take them all in. he told him to pick out seven saints. and the fish towed the ark along tied to its horns, and took them in and carried them to the top of a mountain, where he hitched the ark to a tree. when the waters receded, they came out and followed them down until they reached the plain. there were the same number--eight--in this ark as there were with noah. i find that the myth of the virgin mother is universal. the virgin mother is the earth. i find also in countries the idea of a trinity. in egypt i find isis, osiris, and horus. this idea prevailed in central america among the aztecs. we find the myth of the judgment almost universal. i imagine men have seen so much injustice here that they naturally expect that there must be some day of final judgment somewhere. nearly every theist is driven to the necessity of having another world in which his god may correct the mistakes he has made in this. we find on the walls of egyptian temples pictures of the judgment; the righteous all go on the right hand, and those unworthy on the left. the myth of the sun god was universal. agni was the sun god of the hindoos. he was called the most generous of all gods, yet he ate his own father and mother. baldur was another sun god; he was a sun myth. hercules was a sun god, and so was samson. jonah, too, was a sun god, and was swallowed by a fish. so was hercules, and a wonderful thing is that they were swallowed in about the same place, near joppa. where did the big fish go? when the sun went down under the earth, it was thought to be followed by the fish, which was said to swallow it, and carry it safely through the under world. the sun thus came to be represented as the body of a woman with the tail of a fish, and so the mermaid was born. another strange thing is that all the sun gods were born near christmas. the myth of red riding hood, was known among the aztecs. the myth of eucharist came from the story of ceres and bacchus. when the cakes made by the product of the field were eaten, it was the body of ceres, and when the wine was drank it was the blood of bacchus. from this idea the eucharist was born. there is nothing original in christianity. holy water! another myth. the hindoos imagined that the water had its source in the throne of god. the egyptians thought the nile sacred. greece was settled by egyptian colonies, and they carried with them the water of the nile, and when any one died the water was sprinkled on him. finally rome conquered greece physically, but greece conquered rome intellectually. this is the myth of holy water, and with it grew up the idea of baptism, and i presume that that is as old as water and dirt. the cross is another universal symbol. there was once an ancient people in italy before the romans, before the etruscans. they faded from the world, and history does not even know the name of that nation. we find where they buried the ashes of their dead, and we find chiseled, hundreds of years before christ, the cross, a symbol of a hope of another life. we find the cross in egypt, in the cylinders from babylon, and, more than that, we find them in central america. on the temples of the aztecs we find the cross, and on it a bleeding, dying god. our cross was built in the middle ages. when adam was very sick he sent seth, his son, to the garden of eden. he told him he would have no trouble in finding it; all he had to do was to follow the tracks made by his mother and father when they left it. he wanted a little balsam from the tree of life that he might not die. seth found there a cherub, with flaming sword, who would not let him pass the door. he moved his wings so that he could see in, and he saw the tree of life, with its roots running down to hell, and among them cain, the murderer. the angel gave seth three seeds, and told him to put them in his father's mouth when he was buried and to watch the effect. the result was that these trees grew up--one pine, one cedar, and on cypress. solomon cut down one of these trees to put in the temple, but it grew through the roof and he threw it into the pool of bethesda. when the soldiers went for a beam on which to crucify christ they took this tree and made a cross of it. helen, the mother of constantine, went to jerusalem to find this cross. she found the two crosses, also, that the thieves were crucified on. they could not tell which was which, so they called a sick woman who touched them, and when she touched the right one she was immediately made whole. such is myth and fable. the history of one religion is substantially the history of all religions. in embryo man lives all lives. the man of genius knows within himself the history of the human race; he knows the history of all religions. the man of imagination, genius, having seen a leaf and a drop of water, can construct the forests, the rivers, and the seas. in his presence all the cataracts fall and foam, the mists rise, and the clouds form and float. to really know one fact is known its kindred and its neighbors. shakespeare, looking at a coat of mail, instantly imagined the society, the conditions that produced it, and what it, in its turn, produced. he saw the castle, the moat, the drawbridge, the lady in the tower, and the knightly lover spurring over the plain. he saw the bold baron and the rude retainer, the trampled serfs, and all the glory and the grief of feudal life. the man of imagination has lived the life of all people, of all races. he has been a citizen of athens in the days of pericles; listened to the eager eloquence of the great orator, and has sat upon the cliff, and with the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of the sea." he has seen socrates thrust the spear of question through the shield and heart of falsehood--was present when the great man drank hemlock and met the night of death tranquil as a star meets morning. he has followed the peripatetic philosophers, and has been puzzled by the sophists. he has watched phidias, as he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and awe. he has lived by the slow nile, amid the vast and monstrous. he knows the very thought that wrought the form and features of the sphinx. he has heard great memnon's morning song, has laid him down with the embalmed dead, and felt within their dust the expectation of another life, mingled with cold and suffocating doubts--the children born of long delay. he has walked the ways of mighty rome, has seen the great caesar with his legions in the field, has stood with vast and motley throngs and watched the triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned kings, the captured hosts and all the spoils of ruthless war. he has heard the shout that shook the coliseum's roofless walls when from the reeling gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the stream of wasted life. he has lived the life of savage men--has trod the forest's silent depths, and in the desperate name of life or death has matched his thought against the instinct of the beast. he has sat beneath the bo tree's contemplative shade, rapt in buddha's mighty thought, and he has dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, hath wrought from dust and dew and stored within the slumbrous poppy's subtle blood. he has knelt with awe and dread at every prayer; has felt the consolation and the shuddering fear; has seen all the devils; has mocked and worshiped all the gods; enjoyed all heavens, and felt the pangs of every hell. he has lived all lives, and through his blood and brain have crept the shadow and the chill of every death, and his soul, mazeppa-like, has been lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate. the imagination hath a stage within the brain, whereon he sets all scenes that lie between the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and where his players body forth the false and true, the joys and griefs, the careless shadows, and the tragic deeps of human life. through with the myth-makers, we now come to the wonder-worker. there is this difference between the miracle and the myth--a myth is an idealism of a fact, and a miracle is a counterfeit of a fact. there is some difference between a myth and a miracle. there is the difference that there is between fiction and falsehood and poetry and perjury. miracles are probably only in the far past or the very remote future. the present is the property of the natural. you say to a man: "the dead were raised , years ago." he says, "well, that's reasonable." you say to him, "in , , years we shall all be raised." he says, "that is what i believe." say to him, "a man was raised from the dead this morning," and he will say, "what are you giving us?" miracles never convince at the time they were said to have been performed. john the baptist was the forerunner of christ. he was cast into prison. when christ heard of it he "departed from that country." afterward he returned and heard that john had been beheaded, and he again departed from that country. there is no possible relation between the miraculous and the moral. the miracles of the middle ages are the children of superstition. in the middle ages men told everything but the truth, and believed everything but the facts. the middle ages--a trinity of ignorance, mendacity and insanity. there is one thing about humanity. you see the faults of others, but not your own. a catholic in india sees a hindoo bowing before an idol and thinks it absurd. why does he not get him a plaster of paris virgin and some beads and holy water? why does the protestant shut his eyes when he prays? the idea is a souvenir of sun worship. it is the most natural worship in the world. religious dogmas have become absurd. the doctrine of eternal torment today has become absurd, low, groveling, ignorant, barbaric, savage, devilish and no gentleman would preach it. science, thou art the great magician! thou alone performest the true miracles. thou alone workest the real wonders. fire is thy servant, lightning thy messenger. the waves obey thee, and thou knowest the circuits of the wind. thou art the great philanthropist. thou hast freed the slave and civilized the master. thou hast taught man to chain, not his fellow-man, but the forces of nature--forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat--forces that never know fatigue, that shed no tears--forces that have no hearts to break. thou gavest man the plow, the reaper and the loom--thou hast fed and clothed the world. thou art the great physician. thy touch hath given sight. thou hast made the lame to leap, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid cheek thy hand hath set the rose of health. "thou hast given thy beloved sleep"--a sleep that wraps in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. thou art the perpetual providence of man--preserver of life and love. thou art the teacher of every virtue, and the enemy of every vice. thou has discovered the true basis of morals--the origin and office of conscience--and hast revealed the nature and measure of obligation. thou hast taught that love is justice in its highest form, and that even self-love, guided by wisdom, embraces with loving arms the human race. thou hast slain the monsters of the past. thou hast discovered the one inspired book. thou hast read the records of the rocks, written by wind and wave, by frost and flame--records that even priestcraft cannot change--and in thy wondrous scales thou hast weighed the atoms and the stars. thou art the founder of the only true religion. thou art the very christ, the only savior of mankind! theology has always been in the way of the advance of the human race. there is this difference between science and theology--science is modest and merciful, while theology is arrogant and cruel. the hope of science is the perfection of the human race. the hope of theology is the salvation of a few and the damnation of almost everybody. as i told you in the first place, i believe in the religion of freedom. o liberty! thou art the god of my idolatry. thou art the only deity that hates the bended knee. in thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect. they do not bow or cringe or crawl or bend their foreheads to the earth. thy dust hast never borne the impress of lips, upon thy sacred altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights. thou askest naught from man except the things that good men hate, the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. thou hast no kings, no popes, no priests to stand between their fellow-men and thee. thou hast no monks, no nuns, who, in the name of duty, murder joy. thou carest not for forms nor mumbled prayers. at thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, fear does not crouch, virtue does not tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but reason holds aloft her inextinguishable torch, while on the ever-broadening brow of science falls the ever coming morning of the ever better day. ingersoll on the chinese god messrs. wright, dickey, o'conner and murch, of the select committee on the causes of the present depression of labor, presented the majority special report upon chinese immigration. these gentlemen are in great fear for the future of our most holy and perfectly authenticated religion, and have, like faithful watchmen from the walls and towers of zion, hastened to give the alarm. they have informed congress that "joss has his temple of worship in the chinese quarters, in san francisco. within the walls of a dilapidated structure is exposed to the view of the faithful the god of the chinaman, and here are his altars of worship. here he tears up his pieces of paper; here he offers up his prayers; here he receives his religious consolations, and here is his road to the celestial land." that "joss is located in a long, narrow room, in a building in a back alley, upon a kind of altar;" that "he is a wooden image, looking as much like an alligator as like a human being;" that the chinese "think there is such a place as heaven;" that "all classes of chinamen worship idols;" that "the temple is open every day at all hours;" that "the chinese have no sunday;" that this heathen god has "huge jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a half-dozen arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. about him are placed offerings of meat, and other eatables--a sacrificial offering." no wonder that these members of the committee were shocked at such a god, knowing as they did that the only true god was correctly described by the inspired lunatic of patmos in the following words: "and there sat in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. and he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength." certainly, a large mouth, filled with white teeth, is preferable to one used as the scabbard of a sharp, two-edged sword. why should these gentlemen object to a god with big fiery eyeballs, when their own deity has eyes like a flame of fire? is it not a little late in the day to object to people because they sacrifice meat and other eatables to their god? we all know that for thousands of years the "real" god was exceedingly fond of roasted meat; that he loved the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the perfume of fresh, warm blood. the following account of the manner in which the "living god" desired that his people should sacrifice tends to show the degradation and religious blindness of the chinese--: "aaron therefore went unto the altar and slew the calf of the sin-offering which was for himself. and the sons of aaron brought the blood unto him. and he dipped his fingers in the blood and put it upon the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar; but the fat and the kidneys and the caul above the liver of the sin-offering he burnt upon the altar, as the lord commanded moses, and the flesh and the hide he burnt with fire without the camp. and he slew the burnt offering. and aaron's sons presented unto him the blood which he sprinkled round about the altar.... and he brought the meat offering and took a handful thereof and burnt upon the altar..... he slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering, which was for the people. and aaron's sons presented unto him the blood which he sprinkled upon the altar, round about, and the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump and that which covereth the inwards, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, and they put the fat upon the breasts and he burnt the fat upon the altar. and the breasts and the right shoulder aaron waved for a wave-offering before the lord, as moses had commanded." if the chinese only did something like this, we would know that they worshiped the "living" god. the idea that the supreme head of the "american system of religion" can be placated with a little meat and "ordinary eatables," is simply preposterous. he has always asked for blood, and has always asserted that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. the world is also informed by these gentlemen that "the idolatry of the chinese produces a demoralizing effect upon our american youth by bringing sacred things into disrespect, and making religion a theme of disgust and contempt." in san francisco there are some three hundred thousand people. is it possible that a few chinese can bring "our holy religion" into disgust and contempt? in that city there are fifty times as many churches as joss-houses. scores of sermons are uttered every week; religious books and papers are plentiful as leaves in autumn, and somewhat dryer; thousands of bibles are with in the reach of all. and there, too, is the example of a christian city. why should we send missionaries to china if we cannot convert the heathen when they come here? when missionaries go to a foreign land, the poor, benighted people have to take their word for the blessings showered upon a christian people; but when the heathen come here, they can see for themselves. what was simply a story becomes a demonstrated fact. they come in contact with people who love their enemies. they see that in a christian land men tell the truth; that they will not take advantage of strangers; that they are just and patient; kind and tender; and have no prejudice on account of color, race, or religion; that they look upon mankind as brethren; that they speak of god as a universal father, and are willing to work, and even to suffer, for the good, not only of their own countrymen, but of the heathen as well. all this the chinese see and know, and why they still cling to the religion of their country is to me a matter of amazement. we all know that the disciples of jesus do unto others as they would that others should do unto them, and that those of confucius do not unto others anything that they would not that others should do unto them. surely, such peoples ought to live together in perfect peace. rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind of holy indignation, these christian representatives of a christian people most solemnly declare that anyone who is really endowed with a correct knowledge of our religious system which acknowledges the existence of a living god and an accountability to him, and a future state of reward and punishment, who feels that he has an apology for this abominable pagan worship, is not a fit person to be ranked as a good citizen of the american union. it is absurd to make any apology for its toleration. it must be abolished, and the sooner the decree goes forth by the power of this government, the better it will be for the interests of this land. i take this the earliest opportunity to inform these gentlemen composing a majority of the committee that we have in the united states no "religious system;" that this is a secular government. that it has no religious creed; that it does not believe nor disbelieve in a future state of reward and punishment; that it neither affirms nor denies the existence of a "living god;" and that the only god, so far as this government is concerned; is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. under our flag the chinese have the same right to worship a wooden god that you have to worship any other. the constitution protects equally the church of jehovah and the house of joss. whatever their relative positions may be in heaven, they stand upon a perfect equality in the united states. this government is an infidel government. we have a constitution with man put in and god left out; and it is the glory of this country that we have such a constitution. it may be surprising to you that i have an apology for pagan worship, yet i have. and it is the same one that i have for the writers of this report. i account for both by the word superstition. why should we object to their worshiping god as they please? if the worship is improper, the protestation should come not from a committee of congress, but from god himself. if he is satisfied, that is sufficient. our religion can only be brought into contempt by the actions of those who profess to be governed by its teachings. this report will do more in that direction than millions of chinese could do by burning pieces of paper before a wooden image. if you wish to impress the chinese with the value of your religion, of what you are pleased to call "the american system," show them that christians are better than heathens. prove to them that what you are pleased to call the "living god" teaches higher and holier things, a grander and purer code of morals, than can be found upon pagan pages. excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality, and above all by advocating the absolute liberty of human thought. do not trample upon these people because they have different conception of things about which even this committee knows nothing. give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a god after their own fashion, and let them describe him as they will. would you be willing to have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had pretended to have seen god, and had written of him as follows: "there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth; coals were kindled by it.... and he rode upon a cherub and did fly?" why should you object to these people on account of their religion? your objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. of that spirit the inquisition was born. that spirit lighted the fagot, made the thumbscrew, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men. the same spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human beings; sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery. congress has nothing to do with the religion of the people. its members are not responsible to god for the opinions of their constituents, and it may tend to the happiness of the constituents for me to state that they are in no way responsible for the religion of the members. religion is an individual not a national matter, and where the nation interferes with the right of conscience, the liberties of the people are devoured by the monster, superstition. if you wish to drive out the chinese, do not make a pretext of religion. do not pretend that you are trying to do god a favor. injustice in his name is doubly detestable. the assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men, under the pretense of pleasing god, has cursed this world. a portion of this most remarkable report is intensely religious. there is in it almost the odor of sanctity; and when reading it, one is impressed with the living piety of its authors. but on the twenty-fifth page, there are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true believers. leaving their religious views, the members immediately betake themselves to philosophy and prediction. listen: "the chinese race and the american citizen, whether native-born or who is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in a state of antagonism. they cannot, nor will not, ever meet upon common ground and occupy together the same so-called level. this is impossible. the pagan and the christian travel different paths. this one believes in a living god; that one in the type of monsters and worship of wood and stone. thus in the religion of the two races of men, they are as wide apart as the poles of the two hemispheres. they cannot now, nor never [sic] will, approach the same religious altar. the christian will not recede to barbarism, nor will the chinese advance to the enlightened belt [wherever it is] of civilization.... he cannot be converted to those modern ideas of religious worship which have been accepted by europe, and which crown the american system." christians used to believe that through their religion all the nations of the earth were finally to be blest. in accordance with that belief missionaries have been sent to every land, and untold wealth has been expended for what has been called the spread of the gospel. i am almost sure that i have read somewhere that "christ died for all men," and that "god is no respecter persons." it was once taught that it was the duty of christians to tell to all people the "tidings of great joy." i have never believed these things myself, but have always contended that an honest merchant was the best missionary. commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed. for myself, i have but little confidence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders. but i am astonished that four christian statesmen, four members of congress in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, who seriously object to people on account of their religious convictions, should still assert that the very religion in which they believe--and the only religion established by the living god--head of the american system--is not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-third of the human race. it is amazing that these four gentlemen have, in the defense of the christian religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly inadequate for the civilization of mankind that the light of the cross can never penetrate the darkness of china; "that all the labors of the missionary, the example of the good, the exalted character of our civilization, make no impression upon the pagan life of the chinese;" and that even the report of this committee will not tend to elevate, refine and christianize the yellow heathen of the pacific coast. in the name of religion these gentlemen have denied its power and mocked at the enthusiasm of its founder. worse than this, they have predicted for the chinese a future of ignorance and idolatry in this world, and, if the "american system"--of religion us true, hellfire in the next. for the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets, i will give a few extracts from the writings of confucius that will in my judgment, compare favorably with the best passages of their report: "my doctrine is that man must be true to the principles of his nature, and the benevolent exercises of them toward others. "with coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and with my bended arm for a pillow, i still have joy. "riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me but floating clouds. "the man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who, in view of danger, forgets life, and who remembers an old agreement, however far back it extends, such a man may be reckoned a complete man. "recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness." there is one word which may serve as rule of practice for all one's life. reciprocity is that word. when the ancestors of the four christian congressmen were barbarians, when they lived in caves, gnawed bones, and worshiped dried snakes, the infamous chinese were reading these sublime sentences of confucius. when the forefathers of these christian statesmen were hunting toads to get the jewels out of their heads to be used as charms, the wretched chinese were calculating eclipses and measuring the circumference of the earth. when the progenitors of these representatives of the "american system of religion" were burning women charged with nursing devils, these people, "incapable of being influenced by the exalted character of our civilization," were building asylums for the insane. neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of years, the chinese have honestly practiced the great principle known as civil service reform--a something that even the administration of mr. hayes has reached only through the proxy of promise. if we wish to prevent the immigration of the chinese, let us reform our treaties with the vast empire from whence they came. for thousands of years the chinese secluded themselves from the rest of the world. they did not deem the christian nations fit to associate with. we forced ourselves upon them. we called, not with cards, but with cannon. the english battered down the door in the names of opium and christ. this infamy was regarded as another triumph for the gospel. at last, in self-defense, the chinese allowed christians to touch their shores. their wise men, their philosophers protested, and prophesied that time would show that christians could not be trusted. this report proves that the wise men were not only philosophers, but prophets. treat china as you would england. keep a treaty while it is in force. change it if you will, according to the laws of nations, but on no account excuse a breach of national faith by pretending that we are dishonest for god's sake. ingersoll's letter, is suicide a sin? (colonel ingersoll's first letter) i do not know whether self-killing is on the increase or not. if it is, then there must be, on the average, more trouble, more sorrow, more failure, and, consequently, more people are driven to despair. in civilized life there is a great struggle, great competition, and many fall. to fail in a great city is like being wrecked at sea. in the country a man has friends. he can get a little credit, a little help, but in the city it is different. the man is lost in the multitude. in the roar of the streets his cry is not heard. death becomes his only friend. death promises release from want, from hunger and pain, and so the poor wretch lays down his burden, dashes it from his shoulders and falls asleep. to me all this seems very natural. the wonder is that so many endure and suffer to the natural end, that so many nurse the spark of life in huts and prisons, keep it and guard it through years of misery and want; support it by beggary; by eating the crust found in the gutter, and to whom it only gives days of weariness and nights of fear and dread. why should the man, sitting amid the wreck of all he had, the loved ones dead, friends lost, seek to lengthen, to preserve his life? what can the future have for him? under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself. when life is of no value to him, when he can be of no real assistance to others, why should a man continue? when he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to those he loves, why should he remain? the old idea was that "god" made us and placed us here for a purpose, and that it was our duty to remain until he called us. the world is outgrowing this absurdity. what pleasure can it give "god" to see a man devoured by a cancer? to see the quivering flesh slowly eaten? to see the nerves throbbing with pain? is this a festival for "god"? why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? a little morphine would give him sleep--the agony would be forgotten and he would pass unconsciously from happy dreams to painless death. if "god" determines all births and deaths, of what use is medicine, and why should doctors defy, with pills and powders, the decrees of "god"? no one, except a few insane, act now according to this childish superstition. why should a man, surrounded by flames, in the midst of a burning building, from which there is no escape, hesitate to put a bullet through his brain or a dagger in his heart? would it give "god" pleasure to see him burn? when did the man lose the right of self-defense? so, when a man has committed some awful crime, why should he stay and ruin his family and friends? why should he add to the injury? why should he live, filling his days and nights, and the days and nights of others, with grief and pain, with agony and tears? why should a man sentenced to imprisonment for life hesitate to still his heart? the grave is better than the cell. sleep is sweeter than the ache of toil. the dead have no masters. so the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of home closed against her, the faces of friends averted, no hand that will help, no eye that will soften with pity, the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of dread and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like clouds broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by the serpents of remorse, flying from horrors too great to bear, rushes with joy through the welcome door of death. undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable suicide--cases in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes almost a crime. as to the necessity of death, each must decide for himself. and if a man honestly decides that death is best--best for him and others--and acts upon the decision, why should he be blamed? certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical coward. he may have lacked moral courage, but not physical. it may be said that some men fight duels because they are afraid to decline. they are between two fires--the chance of death and the certainty of dishonor, and they take the chance of death. so the christian martyrs were, according to their belief, between two fires--the flames of the fagot that could burn but for a few moments and the fires of god, that were eternal. and they chose the flames of the fagot. men who fear death to that degree that they will bear all the pains and pangs that nerves can feel rather than die, cannot afford to call the suicide a coward. it does not seem to me that brutus was a coward or that seneca was. surely anthony had nothing left to live for. cato was not a craven. he acted on his judgment. so with hundreds of others who felt that they had reached the end--that the journey was done, the voyage was over, and, so feeling, stopped. it seems certain that the man who commits suicide, who "does the thing that stops all other deeds, that shackles accident and bolts up change," is not lacking in physical courage. if men had the courage they would not linger in prisons, in almshouses, in hospitals, they would not bear the pangs of incurable disease, the stains of dishonor, they would not live in filth and want, in poverty and hunger, neither would they wear the chain of slavery. all this can be accounted for only by the fear of death or "of something after." seneca, knowing that nero intended to take his life, had no fear. he knew that he could defeat the emperor. he knew that "at the bottom of every river, in the coil of every rope, on the point of every dagger, liberty sat and smiled." he knew that it was his own fault if he allowed himself to be tortured to death by his enemy. he said, "there is this blessing, that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as i choose the house in which i live, the ship in which i will sail, so will i choose the time and manner of my death." to me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble. under the roman law persons found guilty, of certain offenses were not only destroyed, but their blood was polluted, and their children became outcasts. if, however, they died before conviction, their children were saved. many committed suicide to save their babes. certainly they were not cowards. although guilty of great crimes, they had enough of honor, of manhood, left to save their innocent children. this was not cowardice. without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity. men lose their property. the fear of the future over powers them. things lose proportion, they lose poise and balance, and in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill their selves. the disappointed in love, broken in heart--the light fading from their lives--seek the refuge of death. those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways--who mangle their throats with broken glass, dash themselves from towers and roofs, take poisons that torture like the rack--such persons must be insane. but those who take the facts into account, who weigh the arguments for and against, and who decide that death is best--the only good--and then resort to reasonable means, may be, so far as i can see, in full possession of their minds. life is not the same to all--to some a blessing, to some a curse, to some not much in any way. some leave it with unspeakable regret, some with the keenest joy, and some with indifference. religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing upon the number of suicides. the fear of "god," of judgment, of eternal pain will stay the hand, and people so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural death. a belief in the eternal agony beyond the grave will cause such believers to suffer the pangs of this life. when there is no fear of the future, when death is believed to be a dreamless sleep, men have less hesitation about ending their lives. on the other hand, orthodox religion has driven millions to insanity. it has caused parents to murder their children and many thousands to destroy themselves and others. it seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox believers who kill themselves must be insane, and to such a degree that their belief is forgotten, "god" and hell are out of their minds. i am satisfied that many who commit suicide are insane, many are in the twilight or dusk of insanity, and many are perfectly sane. the law we have in this state making it a crime to attempt suicide is cruel and absurd and calculated to increase the number of successful suicides. when a man has suffered so much, when he has been so persecuted and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and sleep of death, why should the state add to the sufferings of that man? a man seeking death, knowing that he will be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and precautions to make death certain. this law was born of superstition, passed by thoughtlessness and enforced by ignorance and cruelty. when the house of life becomes a prison, when the horizon has shrunk and narrowed to a cell, and when the convict longs for the liberty of death, why should the effort to escape be regarded as a crime? of course, i regard life from a natural point of view. i do not take gods, heavens or hells into account. my horizon is the known, and my estimate of life is based upon what i know of life here in this world. people should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or for other worlds or the hopes and fears of some future state. our joys, our sufferings and our duties are here. the law of new york about the attempt to commit suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal. both are idiotic. law cannot prevent suicide. those who have lost all fear of death, care nothing for law and its penalties. death is liberty, absolute and eternal. we should remember that nothing happens but the natural. back of every suicide and every attempt to commit suicide is the natural and efficient cause. nothing happens by chance. in this world the facts touch each other. there is no space between--no room for chance. given a certain heart and brain, certain conditions, and suicide is the necessary result. if we wish to prevent suicide we must change conditions. we must, by education, by invention, by art, by civilization, add to the value of the average life. we must cultivate the brain and heart--do away with false pride and false modesty. we must become generous enough to help our fellows without degrading them. we must make industry useful work of all kinds--honorable. we must mingle a little affection with our charity--a little fellowship. we should allow those who have sinned to really reform. we should not think only of what the wicked have done, but we should think of what we have wanted to do. people do not hate the sick. why should they despise the mentally weak--the diseased in brain? our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances--of conditions--and we do as we must. this great truth should till the heart with pity for the failures of our race. sometimes i have wondered that christians denounce the suicide; that in old times they buried him where the roads crossed, and drove a stake through his body. they took his property from his children and gave it to the state. if christians would only think, they would see the orthodox religion rests upon suicide--that man was redeemed by suicide, and that without suicide the whole world would have been lost. if christ were god, then he had the power to protect himself from the jews without hurting them. but instead of using his power he allowed them to take his life. if a strong man should allow a few little children to hack him to death with knives when he could easily have brushed them aside, would we not say that he committed suicide? there is no escape. if christ were, in fact, god and allowed the jews to kill him, then he consented to his own death--refused, though perfectly able, to defend and protect himself, and was, in fact, a suicide. we cannot reform the world by law or by superstition. as long as there shall be pain and failure, want and sorrow, agony and crime, men and women will untie life's knot and seeks the peace of death. to the hopelessly imprisoned--to the dishonored and despised--to those who have failed, who have no future, no hope--to the abandoned, the broken-hearted, to those who are only remnants and fragments of men and women--how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death! and even to the most fortunate death at last is a welcome deliverer. death is as natural and as merciful as life. when we have journeyed long--when we are weary--when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for the cool kisses of the night--when the senses are dull--when the pulse is faint and low--when the mists gather on the mirror of memory--when the past is almost forgotten, the present hardly perceived--when the future has but empty hands--death is as welcome as a strain of music. after all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. next to eternal happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the cool earth, disturbed by no dream, by no thought, by no pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and forever. the wonder is that so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they limp and stagger and crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. the wonder is that so few of the miserable are brave enough to die--that so many are terrified by the "something after death"--by the specters and phantoms of superstition. most people are in love with life. how they cling to it in the arctic snows--how they struggle in the waves and currents of the sea--how they linger in famine--how they fight disaster and despair! on the crumbling edge of death they keep the flag flying and go down at last full of hope and courage. but many have not such natures. they cannot bear defeat. they are disheartened by disaster. they lie down on the field of conflict and give the earth their blood. they are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. we should not curse or blame--we should pity. on their pallid faces our tears should fall. one of the best men i ever knew, with an affectionate wife, a charming and loving daughter, committed suicide. he was a man of generous impulses. his heart was loving and tender. he was conscientious, and so sensitive that he blamed himself for having done what at the time he thought wise and best. he was the victim of his virtues. let us be merciful in our judgments. all we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving and the malignant, the conscientious and the vicious, the educated and the ignorant, actuated by many motives, urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions sometimes in the calm of judgment, sometimes in passion's storm and stress, sometimes in whirl and tempest of insanity--raise their hands against themselves and desperately put out the light of life. those who attempt suicide should not be punished. if they are insane they should, if possible be restored to reason; if sane, they should be reasoned with, calmed and assisted. ingersoll's letter, the right to one's life colonel ingersoll's eloquent reply to his critics in the article written by me about suicide the ground was taken that "under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself." this has been attacked with great fury by clergymen, editors and the writers of letters. these people contend that the right of self-destruction does not and can not exist. they insist that life is the gift of god, and that he only has the right to end the days of men; that it is our duty to beat the sorrows that he sends with grateful patience. some have denounced suicide as the worst of crimes--worse than the murder of another. the first question, then, is: has a man under any circumstances the right to kill himself? a man is being slowly devoured by a cancer--his agony is intense--his suffering all that nerves can feel. his life is slowly being taken. is this the work of the good god? did the compassionate god create the cancer so that it might feed on the quivering flesh of this victim? this man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination to conceive, is of no use to himself. his life is but a succession of pangs. he is of no use to his wife, his children, his friends or society. day after day he is rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the brain to sleep. has he the right to render himself unconscious? is it proper for him to take refuge in sleep? if there be a good god i cannot believe that he takes pleasure in the sufferings of men--that he gloats over the agonies of his children. if there be a good god, he will, to the extent of his power, lessen the evils of life. so i insist that the man being eaten by the cancer--a burden to himself and others, useless in every way--has the right to end his pain and pass through happy sleep to dreamless rest. but those who have answered me would say to this man: "it is your duty to be devoured. the good god wishes you to suffer. your life is the gift of god. you hold it in trust, and you have no right to end it. the cancer is the creation of god and it is your duty to furnish it with food." take another case: a man is on a burning ship; the crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped--gone in the lifeboats--and he is left alone. in the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of help. he cannot swim. if he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship he burns. in any event he can live but a few moments. those who have answered me, those who insist that under no circumstances a man has the right to take his life, would say to this man on the deck, "remain where you are. it is the desire of your loving, heavenly father that you be clothed in flame--that you slowly roast--that your eyes be scorched to blindness and that you die insane with pain. your life is not your own, only the agony is yours." i would say to this man: "do as you wish. if you prefer drowning to burning, leap into the sea. between inevitable evils you have the right of choice. you can help no one, not even god, by allowing yourself to be burned, and you can injure no one, not even god, by choosing the easier death." let us suppose another case. a man has been captured by savages in central africa. he is about to be tortured to death. his captors are going to thrust splinters of pure into his flesh and then set them on fire. he watches them as they make the preparations. he knows what they are about to do and what he is about to suffer. there is no hope of rescue, of help. he has a vial of poison. he knows that he can take it and in one moment pass beyond their power, leaving to them only the dead body. is this man under obligation to keep his life because god gave it until the savages by torture take it? are the savages the agents of the good god? are they the servants of the infinite? is it the duty of this man to allow them to wrap his body in a garment of flame? has he no right to defend himself? is it the will of god that he die by torture? what would any man of ordinary intelligence do in a case like this? is there room for discussion? if the man took the poison, shortened his life a few moments, escaped the tortures of the savages, is it possible that he would in another world be tortured forever by an infinite savage? suppose another case. in the good old days, when the inquisition flourished, when men loved their enemies and murdered their friends, many frightful and ingenious ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain. those who loved god, who had been "born twice," would take a fellow-man who had been convicted of heresy, "lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure his arms and legs with chains, fasten trim to the earth so that he could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his body. then these worshipers of god would wait until the rats, seeking food and liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim. now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture had within his hand a dagger, would it excite the wrath of the "good god," if with one quick stroke he found the protection of death? to this question there can be but one answer. in the cases i have supposed it seems to me that each person would have the right to destroy himself. it does not seem possible that the man was under obligation to be devoured by a cancer; to remain upon the ship and perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tortured to death by savages; to drop the dagger and endure the "mercies" of the church. if, in the cases i have supposed, men would have the right to take their lives, then i was right when i said that "under many circumstances a man has a right to kill himself." second, i denied that persons who killed themselves were physical cowards. they may lack moral courage; they may exaggerate their misfortunes, lose the sense of proportion, but the man who plunges the dagger in his heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps from some roof and dashes himself against the stones beneath, is not and cannot be a physical coward. the basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear of death, and when that fear is not only gone, but in its place is the desire to die, no matter by what means, it is impossible that cowardice should exist. the suicide wants the very thing that a coward fears. he seeks the very thing that cowardice endeavors to escape. so the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the less is not a coward, but a reasonable man. it must be admitted that the suicide is honest with himself. he is to bear the injury, if it be one. certainly there is no hypocrisy, and just as certainly there is no physical cowardice. is the man who takes morphine rather than be eaten to death by a cancer a coward? is the man who leaps into the sea rather than be burned a coward? is the man that takes poison rather than be tortured to death by savages or "christians" a coward? third, i also took the position that some suicides were sane; that they acted on their best judgment, and that they were in full possession of their minds. now, if, under some circumstances, a man has the right to take his life, and if, under such circumstances, he does take his life, then it cannot be said that he was insane. most of the persons who have tried to answer me have taken the ground that suicide is not only a crime, but some of them have said that it is the greatest of crimes. now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been sane. so all persons who denounce the suicide as a criminal admit that he was sane. under the law, an insane person is incapable of committing a crime. all the clergymen who have answered me, and who have passionately asserted that suicide is a crime, have by that assertion admitted that those who killed themselves were sane. they agree with me, and not only admit, but assert that "some who have committed suicide were sane and in the full possession of their minds." it seems to me that these three propositions have been demonstrated to be true: first, that under some circumstances a man has the right to take his life; second, that the man who commits suicide is not a physical coward; and, third, that some who have committed suicide were at the time sane and in full possession of their minds. fourth, i insisted, and still insist, that suicide was and is the foundation of the christian religion. i still insist that if christ were god he had the power to protect himself without injuring his assailants--that having that power it was his duty to use it, and that failing to use it he consented to his own death and was guilty of suicide. to this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for the redemption of man, that he made an atonement for the sins of believers. these ideas about redemption and atonement are born of a belief in the "fall of man," on account of the sins of our "first parents," and of the declaration that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." the foundation has crumbled. no intelligent person now believes in the "fall of man"--that our first parents were perfect, and that their descendants grew worse and worse, at least until the coming of christ. intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before the dawn of history man was a poor, naked, cruel, ignorant and degraded savage, whose language consisted of a few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all the virtues of the beasts; that the journey from the den to the home, the palace, has been long and painful, through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and war; through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice and thought. redemption and atonement are left without a fact on which to rest. the idea that an infinite god, creator of all worlds, came to this grain of sand, learned the trade of a carpenter, discussed with pharisees and scribes, and allowed a few infuriated hebrews to put him to death that he might atone for the sins of men and redeem a few believers from the consequences of his own wrath, can find no lodgment in a good and natural brain. in no mythology can anything more monstrously unbelievable be found. but if christ were a man and attacked the religion of his times because it was cruel and absurd; if he endeavored to found a religion of kindness, of good deeds, to take the place of heartlessness and ceremony, and if, rather than to deny what he believed to be right and true; he suffered death, then he was a noble man--a benefactor of his race. but if he were god there was no need of this. the jews did not wish to kill god. if he had only made himself known, all knees would have touched the ground. if he were god it required no heroism to die. he knew that what we call death is but the opening of the gates of eternal life. if he were god, there was no self-sacrifice. he had no need to suffer pain. he could have changed the crucifixion to a joy. even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is no escape from these conclusions--from these arguments--and so, instead of attacking the arguments, they attack the man who makes them. fifth, i denounced the law of new york that makes an attempt to commit suicide a crime. it seems to me that one who has suffered so much that he passionately longs for death should be pitied, instead of punished--helped rather than imprisoned. a despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave to toil, a woman without home, without friends, without bread, with clasped hands, with tear-filled eyes, with broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night leaps from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of death. she is rescued by a kind, courageous man, handed over to the authorities, indicted, tried, convicted, clothed in a convict's garb and locked in a felon's cell. to me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law that only savages would enforce. sixth, in this discussion a curious thing has happened. for several centuries the clergy have declared that while infidelity is a very good thing to live by, it is a bad support, a wretched consolation, in the hour of death. they have, in spite of the truth, declared that all the great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking god for mercy, surrounded by fiends, in the torments of despair. think of the thousands and thousands of clergymen who have described the last agonies of voltaire, who died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes from play to slumber; the final anguish of hume, who fell into his last sleep as serenely as a river, running between green and shaded banks, reaches the sea; the despair of thomas paine, one of the bravest, one of the noblest men, who met the night of death untroubled as a star that meets the morning. at the same time these ministers admitted that the average murderer could meet death on the scaffold with perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask the people who had gathered to see him killed meet him in heaven. but the honest man who had expressed his honest thoughts against the creed of the church in power could not die in peace. god would see to it that his last moments should be filled with the insanity of fear--that with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse, the cry for pardon. this has all changed, and now the clergy, in their sermons answering me, declare that the atheists, the free-thinkers, have no fear of death--that to avoid some little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly and cheerfully put out the light of life. it is now said that infidels believe that death is the end--that it is a dreamless sleep--that it is without pain--that therefore they have no fear, care nothing for gods or heavens or hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing for the day of judgment, and that when life becomes a burden they carelessly throw it down. the infidels are so afraid of death that they commit suicide. this certainly is a great change, and i congratulate myself on having forced the clergy to contradict themselves. seventh, the clergy take the position that the atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality--that he can have no real conception of right and wrong. they are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some being far above himself. in this connection we might ask how god can be moral or good unless he believes in some being superior to himself. what is morality? it is the best thing to do under the circumstances. what is the best thing to do under the circumstances? that which will increase the sum of human happiness--or lessen it the least. happiness, in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral--that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral. it is not hard for an atheist--for an unbeliever--to keep his hands out of the fire. he knows that burning his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames. so it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence--so far as what he considers his own good is concerned. sometimes he is swayed by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance, but when he is really intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him. if he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is good for others--for all the world. it is impossible for me to see why any belief in the supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. every man who has the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all morality. the idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of mankind. morality is not of supernatural origin. it did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life. subjects who are governed by the threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. they are not governed by the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. they are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards, by alms. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the ten commandments. eighth, many of the clergy, some editors and some writers of letters who have answered me have said that suicide is the worst of crimes, that a man had better murder somebody else than himself. one clergyman gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide dies in an act of sin, and therefore he had better kill another person. probably he would commit a less crime if he would murder his wife or mother. i do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in sin. to say that it is not as wicked to murder another as yourself seems absurd. the man about to kill himself wishes to die. why is it better for him to kill another man, who wishes to live? to my mind it seems clear that you had better injure yourself than another. better be a spendthrift than thief. better throw away your own money than steal the money of another. better kill yourself if you wish to die than murder one whose life is full of joy. the clergy tell us that god is everywhere, and that it is one of the greatest possible crimes to rush into his presence. it is wonderful how much they know about god and how little about their fellow-men. wonderful the amount of their information about other worlds and how limited their knowledge is of this. there may or may not be an infinite being. i neither affirm nor deny. i am honest enough to say that i do not know. i am candid enough to admit that the question is beyond the limitations of my mind. yet i think i know as much on that subject as any human being knows or ever knew, and that is--nothing. i do not say that there is not another world, another life; neither do i say that there is. i say that i do not know. it seems to me that every sane and honest man must say the same. but if there is an infinitely good god and another world, then the infinitely good god will be just as good to us in that world as he is in this. if this infinitely good god loves his children in this world, he will love them in another. if he loves a man when he is alive, he will not hate him the instant he is dead. if we are the children of an infinitely wise and powerful god, he knew exactly what we would do--the temptations that we could and could not withstand--knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon us, knew under what circumstances we would take our lives--and produced such circumstances himself. it is perfectly apparent that there are many people incapable by nature of bearing the burdens of life, incapable or preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of disaster, disease and loss, and who by failure, by misfortune and want, are driven to despair and insanity, in whose darkened minds there comes like a flash of lightning in the night, the thought of death, a thought so strong, so vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all duties, all obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught remains except a fierce and wild desire to die. thousands and thousands become moody, melancholy, brood upon loss of money, of position, of friends, until reason abdicates, and frenzy takes possession of the soul. if there be an infinitely wise and powerful god, all this was known to him from the beginning, and he so created things, established relations, put in operation causes and effects that all that has happened was the necessary result of his own acts. ninth, nearly all who have tried to answer what i said have been exceeding careful to misquote me, and then answer something that i never uttered. they have declared that i have advised people who were in trouble, somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that i have told men who have lost their money, who had failed in business, who were not good in health, to kill themselves at once, without taking into consideration any duty that they owed to wives, children, friends, or society. no man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle alone if he is able to help. no man has a right to desert his children if he can possibly be of use. as long as he can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he can stand between wife and misery, between child and want, as long as he can be of use, it is his duty to remain. i believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny side of things, in bearing with fortitude the evils of life, in struggling against adversity, in finding the fuel of laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in tomorrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints and shards, and in changing by the alchemy of patience even evil things to good. i believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, of courage and good-nature. of the future i have no fear. my fate is the fate of the world, of all that live. my anxieties are about this life, this world. about the phantoms called gods and their impossible hells, i have no care, no fear. the existence of god i neither affirm nor deny. i wait. the immortality of the soul i neither affirm nor deny. i hope, hope for all of the children of men. i have never denied the existence of another world, nor the immortality of the soul. for many years i have said that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. what i deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity of torture. after all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong. people do not kill themselves on the advice of friends or enemies. all wish to be happy, to enjoy life; all wish for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as long as life gives joy the idea of self-destruction never enters the human mind. the oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the rights of others, the robbers of the poor, those who put wages below the living point, the ministers who make people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain; these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering and the helpless down to death. it will not do to say that "god" has appointed a time for each to die. of this there is, and there can be, no evidence. there is no evidence that any god takes any interest in the affairs of men--that any sides with the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues the oppressed. even the clergy admit that their god, through all ages, has allowed his friends, his worshipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered by his enemies. such is the protection of god. billions of prayers have been uttered; has one been answered? who sends plague, pestilence and famine? who bids the earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm? tenth, again i say that it is wonderful to me that so many men, so many women endure and carry their burdens to the natural end; that so many, in spite of "age, ache and penury," guard with trembling hands the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to the last; that the helpless wretches in poor-houses and asylums cling to life; that the exiles in siberia, loaded with chains, scarred with the knout, live on; that the incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom the future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch and clasp of death. it is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the grave; a short journey. the suicide hastens, shortens the path, loses the afternoon, the twilight, the dusk of life's day; loses what he does not want, what he cannot bear. in the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of madness or in the calm of thought and choice the beleaguered soul finds the serenity of death. let us leave the dead where nature leaves them. we know nothing of any realm that lies beyond the horizon of the known, beyond the end of life. let us be honest with ourselves and others. let us pity the suffering, the despairing, the men and women hunted and pursued by grief and shame, by misery and want, by chance and fate until their only friend is death. note: numbers enclosed in square brackets are page numbers. home university library of modern knowledge no. editors: herbert fisher, m.a., f.b.a. prof. gilbert murray, litt.d., ll.d., f.b.a. prof. j. arthur thomson, m.a. prof. william t. brewster, m.a. a history of freedom of thought by j. b. bury, m.a., f.b.a hon. d.litt. of oxford, durham, and dublin, and hon. ll.d. of edinburgh, glasgow, and aberdeen universities; regius professor of modern history, cambridge university author of �history of the latter roman empire,� �history of greece,� �history of the eastern roman empire,� etc. [iv] , [v] contents chap. i introductory ii reason free (greece and rome) iii reason in prison (the middle ages) iv prospect of deliverance (the renaissance and the reformation) v religious toleration vi the growth of rationalism (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) vii the progress of rationalism (nineteenth century) viii the justification of liberty of thought bibliography index [ ] a history of freedom of thought chapter i freedom of thought and the forces against it (introductory) it is a common saying that thought is free. a man can never be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. the working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his imagination. but this natural liberty of private thinking is of little value. it is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours. moreover it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind. if a man�s thinking leads him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him, to reject beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of life than those they follow, it is almost [ ] impossible for him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share their opinions. some have preferred, like socrates, some would prefer to-day, to face death rather than conceal their thoughts. thus freedom of thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech. at present, in the most civilized countries, freedom of speech is taken as a matter of course and seems a perfectly simple thing. we are so accustomed to it that we look on it as a natural right. but this right has been acquired only in quite recent times, and the way to its attainment has lain through lakes of blood. it has taken centuries to persuade the most enlightened peoples that liberty to publish one�s opinions and to discuss all questions is a good and not a bad thing. human societies (there are some brilliant exceptions) have been generally opposed to freedom of thought, or, in other words, to new ideas, and it is easy to see why. the average brain is naturally lazy and tends to take the line of least resistance. the mental world of the ordinary man consists of beliefs which he has accepted without questioning and to which he is firmly attached; he is instinctively hostile to anything which [ ] would upset the established order of this familiar world. a new idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process is laborious, requiring a painful expenditure of brain-energy. to him and his fellows, who form the vast majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt on established beliefs and institutions, seem evil because they are disagreeable. the repugnance due to mere mental laziness is increased by a positive feeling of fear. the conservative instinct hardens into the conservative doctrine that the foundations of society are endangered by any alterations in the structure. it is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged. wherever that belief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as annoying, and any one who asks inconvenient questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is considered a pestilent person. the conservative instinct, and the conservative doctrine which is its consequence, are strengthened by superstition. if the social structure, including the whole body of customs and opinions, is associated intimately [ ] with religious belief and is supposed to be under divine patronage, criticism of the social order savours of impiety, while criticism of the religious belief is a direct challenge to the wrath of supernatural powers. the psychological motives which produce a conservative spirit hostile to new ideas are reinforced by the active opposition of certain powerful sections of the community, such as a class, a caste, or a priesthood, whose interests are bound up with the maintenance of the established order and the ideas on which it rests. let us suppose, for instance, that a people believes that solar eclipses are signs employed by their deity for the special purpose of communicating useful information to them, and that a clever man discovers the true cause of eclipses. his compatriots in the first place dislike his discovery because they find it very difficult to reconcile with their other ideas; in the second place, it disturbs them, because it upsets an arrangement which they consider highly advantageous to their community; finally, it frightens them, as an offence to their divinity. the priests, one of whose functions is to interpret the divine signs, are alarmed and enraged at a doctrine which menaces their power. in prehistoric days, these motives, operating [ ] strongly, must have made change slow in communities which progressed, and hindered some communities from progressing at all. but they have continued to operate more or less throughout history, obstructing knowledge and progress. we can observe them at work to-day even in the most advanced societies, where they have no longer the power to arrest development or repress the publication of revolutionary opinions. we still meet people who consider a new idea an annoyance and probably a danger. of those to whom socialism is repugnant, how many are there who have never examined the arguments for and against it, but turn away in disgust simply because the notion disturbs their mental universe and implies a drastic criticism on the order of things to which they are accustomed? and how many are there who would refuse to consider any proposals for altering our imperfect matrimonial institutions, because such an idea offends a mass of prejudice associated with religious sanctions? they may be right or not, but if they are, it is not their fault. they are actuated by the same motives which were a bar to progress in primitive societies. the existence of people of this mentality, reared in an atmosphere of freedom, side by side with others who are always looking out for new ideas and [ ] regretting that there are not more about, enables us to realize how, when public opinion was formed by the views of such men, thought was fettered and the impediments to knowledge enormous. although the liberty to publish one�s opinions on any subject without regard to authority or the prejudices of one�s neighbours is now a well- established principle, i imagine that only the minority of those who would be ready to fight to the death rather than surrender it could defend it on rational grounds. we are apt to take for granted that freedom of speech is a natural and inalienable birthright of man, and perhaps to think that this is a sufficient answer to all that can be said on the other side. but it is difficult to see how such a right can be established. if a man has any �natural rights,� the right to preserve his life and the right to reproduce his kind are certainly such. yet human societies impose upon their members restrictions in the exercise of both these rights. a starving man is prohibited from taking food which belongs to somebody else. promiscuous reproduction is restricted by various laws or customs. it is admitted that society is justified in restricting these elementary rights, because without such restrictions an ordered society could not exist. if then we [ ] concede that the expression of opinion is a right of the same kind, it is impossible to contend that on this ground it can claim immunity from interference or that society acts unjustly in regulating it. but the concession is too large. for whereas in the other cases the limitations affect the conduct of every one, restrictions on freedom of opinion affect only the comparatively small number who have any opinions, revolutionary or unconventional, to express. the truth is that no valid argument can be founded on the conception of natural rights, because it involves an untenable theory of the relations between society and its members. on the other hand, those who have the responsibility of governing a society can argue that it is as incumbent on them to prohibit the circulation of pernicious opinions as to prohibit any anti-social actions. they can argue that a man may do far more harm by propagating anti-social doctrines than by stealing his neighbour�s horse or making love to his neighbour�s wife. they are responsible for the welfare of the state, and if they are convinced that an opinion is dangerous, by menacing the political, religious, or moral assumptions on which the society is based, it is their duty to protect society against it, as against any other danger. [ ] the true answer to this argument for limiting freedom of thought will appear in due course. it was far from obvious. a long time was needed to arrive at the conclusion that coercion of opinion is a mistake, and only a part of the world is yet convinced. that conclusion, so far as i can judge, is the most important ever reached by men. it was the issue of a continuous struggle between authority and reason�the subject of this volume. the word authority requires some comment. if you ask somebody how he knows something, he may say, �i have it on good authority,� or, �i read it in a book,� or, �it is a matter of common knowledge,� or, �i learned it at school.� any of these replies means that he has accepted information from others, trusting in their knowledge, without verifying their statements or thinking the matter out for himself. and the greater part of most men�s knowledge and beliefs is of this kind, taken without verification from their parents, teachers, acquaintances, books, newspapers. when an english boy learns french, he takes the conjugations and the meanings of the words on the authority of his teacher or his grammar. the fact that in a certain place, marked on the map, there is a populous city called calcutta, is for most [ ] people a fact accepted on authority. so is the existence of napoleon or julius caesar. familiar astronomical facts are known only in the same way, except by those who have studied astronomy. it is obvious that every one�s knowledge would be very limited indeed, if we were not justified in accepting facts on the authority of others. but we are justified only under one condition. the facts which we can safely accept must be capable of demonstration or verification. the examples i have given belong to this class. the boy can verify when he goes to france or is able to read a french book that the facts which he took on authority are true. i am confronted every day with evidence which proves to me that, if i took the trouble, i could verify the existence of calcutta for myself. i cannot convince myself in this way of the existence of napoleon, but if i have doubts about it, a simple process of reasoning shows me that there are hosts of facts which are incompatible with his non-existence. i have no doubt that the earth is some millions of miles distant from the sun, because all astronomers agree that it has been demonstrated, and their agreement is only explicable on the supposition that this has been demonstrated and that, if i took the trouble to work out the calculation, i should reach the same result. [ ] but all our mental furniture is not of this kind. the thoughts of the average man consist not only of facts open to verification, but also of many beliefs and opinions which he has accepted on authority and cannot verify or prove. belief in the trinity depends on the authority of the church and is clearly of a different order from belief in the existence of calcutta. we cannot go behind the authority and verify or prove it. if we accept it, we do so because we have such implicit faith in the authority that we credit its assertions though incapable of proof. the distinction may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth making. but it is important to be quite clear about it. the primitive man who had learned from his elders that there were bears in the hills and likewise evil spirits, soon verified the former statement by seeing a bear, but if he did not happen to meet an evil spirit, it did not occur to him, unless he was a prodigy, that there was a distinction between the two statements; he would rather have argued, if he argued at all, that as his tribesmen were right about the bears they were sure to be right also about the spirits. in the middle ages a man who believed on authority that there is a city called constantinople and that comets are portents signifying divine wrath, would not [ ] distinguish the nature of the evidence in the two cases. you may still sometimes hear arguments amounting to this: since i believe in calcutta on authority, am i not entitled to believe in the devil on authority? now people at all times have been commanded or expected or invited to accept on authority alone�the authority, for instance, of public opinion, or a church, or a sacred book�doctrines which are not proved or are not capable of proof. most beliefs about nature and man, which were not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the inconvenient habit of using their reason. nobody minds if his neighbour disbelieves a demonstrable fact. if a sceptic denies that napoleon existed, or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, he causes amusement or ridicule. but if he denies doctrines which cannot be demonstrated, such as the existence of a personal god or the immortality of the soul, he incurs serious disapprobation and at one time he might have been put to death. our mediaeval friend would have only been called a fool if he doubted the existence of constantinople, but if he had questioned the significance of comets he [ ] might have got into trouble. it is possible that if he had been so mad as to deny the existence of jerusalem he would not have escaped with ridicule, for jerusalem is mentioned in the bible. in the middle ages a large field was covered by beliefs which authority claimed to impose as true, and reason was warned off the ground. but reason cannot recognize arbitrary prohibitions or barriers, without being untrue to herself. the universe of experience is her province, and as its parts are all linked together and interdependent, it is impossible for her to recognize any territory on which she may not tread, or to surrender any of her rights to an authority whose credentials she has not examined and approved. the uncompromising assertion by reason of her absolute rights throughout the whole domain of thought is termed rationalism, and the slight stigma which is still attached to the word reflects the bitterness of the struggle between reason and the forces arrayed against her. the term is limited to the field of theology, because it was in that field that the self-assertion of reason was most violently and pertinaciously opposed. in the same way free thought, the refusal of thought to be controlled by any authority but its own, has a definitely theological reference. throughout [ ] the conflict, authority has had great advantages. at any time the people who really care about reason have been a small minority, and probably will be so for a long time to come. reason�s only weapon has been argument. authority has employed physical and moral violence, legal coercion and social displeasure. sometimes she has attempted to use the sword of her adversary, thereby wounding herself. indeed the weakest point in the strategical position of authority was that her champions, being human, could not help making use of reasoning processes and the result was that they were divided among themselves. this gave reason her chance. operating, as it were, in the enemy�s camp and professedly in the enemy�s cause, she was preparing her own victory. it may be objected that there is a legitimate domain for authority, consisting of doctrines which lie outside human experience and therefore cannot be proved or verified, but at the same time cannot be disproved. of course, any number of propositions can be invented which cannot be disproved, and it is open to any one who possesses exuberant faith to believe them; but no one will maintain that they all deserve credence so long as their falsehood is not demonstrated. and if only some deserve credence, who, except reason, [ ] is to decide which? if the reply is, authority, we are confronted by the difficulty that many beliefs backed by authority have been finally disproved and are universally abandoned. yet some people speak as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless we can prove it false. but the burden of proof does not lie upon the rejecter. i remember a conversation in which, when some disrespectful remark was made about hell, a loyal friend of that establishment said triumphantly, �but, absurd as it may seem, you cannot disprove it.� if you were told that in a certain planet revolving round sirius there is a race of donkeys who talk the english language and spend their time in discussing eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it, on that account, have any claim to be believed? some minds would be prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the potent force of suggestion. this force, exercised largely by emphatic repetition (the theoretical basis, as has been observed, of the modern practice of advertising), has played a great part in establishing authoritative opinions and propagating religious creeds. reason fortunately is able to avail herself of the same help. the following sketch is confined to western [ ] civilization. it begins with greece and attempts to indicate the chief phases. it is the merest introduction to a vast and intricate subject, which, treated adequately, would involve not only the history of religion, of the churches, of heresies, of persecution, but also the history of philosophy, of the natural sciences and of political theories. from the sixteenth century to the french revolution nearly all important historical events bore in some way on the struggle for freedom of thought. it would require a lifetime to calculate, and many books to describe, all the directions and interactions of the intellectual and social forces which, since the fall of ancient civilization, have hindered and helped the emancipation of reason. all one can do, all one could do even in a much bigger volume than this, is to indicate the general course of the struggle and dwell on some particular aspects which the writer may happen to have specially studied. [ ] chapter ii reason free (greece and rome) when we are asked to specify the debt which civilization owes to the greeks, their [ ] achievements in literature and art naturally occur to us first of all. but a truer answer may be that our deepest gratitude is due to them as the originators of liberty of thought and discussion. for this freedom of spirit was not only the condition of their speculations in philosophy, their progress in science, their experiments in political institutions; it was also a condition of their literary and artistic excellence. their literature, for instance, could not have been what it is if they had been debarred from free criticism of life. but apart from what they actually accomplished, even if they had not achieved the wonderful things they did in most of the realms of human activity, their assertion of the principle of liberty would place them in the highest rank among the benefactors of the race; for it was one of the greatest steps in human progress. we do not know enough about the earliest history of the greeks to explain how it was that they attained their free outlook upon the world and came to possess the will and courage to set no bounds to the range of their criticism and curiosity. we have to take this character as a fact. but it must be remembered that the greeks consisted of a large number of separate peoples, who varied largely in temper, customs and traditions, [ ] though they had important features common to all. some were conservative, or backward, or unintellectual compared with others. in this chapter �the greeks� does not mean all the greeks, but only those who count most in the history of civilization, especially the ionians and athenians. ionia in asia minor was the cradle of free speculation. the history of european science and european philosophy begins in ionia. here (in the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.) the early philosophers by using their reason sought to penetrate into the origin and structure of the world. they could not of course free their minds entirely from received notions, but they began the work of destroying orthodox views and religious faiths. xenophanes may specially be named among these pioneers of thought (though he was not the most important or the ablest), because the toleration of his teaching illustrates the freedom of the atmosphere in which these men lived. he went about from city to city, calling in question on moral grounds the popular beliefs about the gods and goddesses, and ridiculing the anthropomorphic conceptions which the greeks had formed of their divinities. �if oxen had hands and the capacities of men, they would make gods in the shape of oxen.� this attack on received [ ] theology was an attack on the veracity of the old poets, especially homer, who was considered the highest authority on mythology. xenophanes criticized him severely for ascribing to the gods acts which, committed by men, would be considered highly disgraceful. we do not hear that any attempt was made to restrain him from thus assailing traditional beliefs and branding homer as immoral. we must remember that the homeric poems were never supposed to be the word of god. it has been said that homer was the bible of the greeks. the remark exactly misses the truth. the greeks fortunately had no bible, and this fact was both an expression and an important condition of their freedom. homer�s poems were secular, not religious, and it may be noted that they are freer from immorality and savagery than sacred books that one could mention. their authority was immense; but it was not binding like the authority of a sacred book, and so homeric criticism was never hampered like biblical criticism. in this connexion, notice may be taken of another expression and condition of freedom, the absence of sacerdotalism. the priests of the temples never became powerful castes, tyrannizing over the community in their own interests and able to silence voices raised against religious beliefs. the civil authorities [ ] kept the general control of public worship in their own hands, and, if some priestly families might have considerable influence, yet as a rule the priests were virtually state servants whose voice carried no weight except concerning the technical details of ritual. to return to the early philosophers, who were mostly materialists, the record of their speculations is an interesting chapter in the history of rationalism. two great names may be selected, heraclitus and democritus, because they did more perhaps than any of the others, by sheer hard thinking, to train reason to look upon the universe in new ways and to shock the unreasoned conceptions of common sense. it was startling to be taught, for the first time, by heraclitus, that the appearance of stability and permanence which material things present to our senses is a false appearance, and that the world and everything in it are changing every instant. democritus performed the amazing feat of working out an atomic theory of the universe, which was revived in the seventeenth century and is connected, in the history of speculation, with the most modern physical and chemical theories of matter. no fantastic tales of creation, imposed by sacred authority, hampered these powerful brains. all this philosophical speculation prepared [ ] the way for the educationalists who were known as the sophists. they begin to appear after the middle of the fifth century. they worked here and there throughout greece, constantly travelling, training young men for public life, and teaching them to use their reason. as educators they had practical ends in view. they turned away from the problems of the physical universe to the problems of human life�morality and polities. here they were confronted with the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and error, and the ablest of them investigated the nature of knowledge, the method of reason�logic� and the instrument of reason�speech. whatever their particular theories might be, their general spirit was that of free inquiry and discussion. they sought to test everything by reason. the second half of the fifth century might be called the age of illumination. it may be remarked that the knowledge of foreign countries which the greeks had acquired had a considerable effect in promoting a sceptical attitude towards authority. when a man is acquainted only with the habits of his own country, they seem so much a matter of course that he ascribes them to nature, but when he travels abroad and finds totally different habits and standards of conduct prevailing, he begins to understand [ ] the power of custom; and learns that morality and religion are matters of latitude. this discovery tends to weaken authority, and to raise disquieting reflections, as in the case of one who, brought up as a christian, comes to realize that, if he had been born on the ganges or the euphrates, he would have firmly believed in entirely different dogmas. of course these movements of intellectual freedom were, as in all ages, confined to the minority. everywhere the masses were exceedingly superstitious. they believed that the safety of their cities depended on the good-will of their gods. if this superstitious spirit were alarmed, there was always a danger that philosophical speculations might be persecuted. and this occurred in athens. about the middle of the fifth century athens had not only become the most powerful state in greece, but was also taking the highest place in literature and art. she was a full-fledged democracy. political discussion was perfectly free. at this time she was guided by the statesman pericles, who was personally a freethinker, or at least was in touch with all the subversive speculations of the day. he was especially intimate with the philosopher anaxagoras who had come from ionia to teach at athens. in regard to the popular gods anaxagoras was a thorough-going [ ] unbeliever. the political enemies of pericles struck at him by attacking his friend. they introduced and carried a blasphemy law, to the effect that unbelievers and those who taught theories about the celestial world might be impeached. it was easy to prove that anaxagoras was a blasphemer who taught that the gods were abstractions and that the sun, to which the ordinary athenian said prayers morning and evening, was a mass of flaming matter. the influence of pericles saved him from death; he was heavily fined and left athens for lampsacus, where he was treated with consideration and honour. other cases are recorded which show that anti-religious thought was liable to be persecuted. protagoras, one of the greatest of the sophists, published a book on the gods, the object of which seems to have been to prove that one cannot know the gods by reason. the first words ran: �concerning the gods, i cannot say that they exist nor yet that they do not exist. there are more reasons than one why we cannot know. there is the obscurity of the subject and there is the brevity of human life.� a charge of blasphemy was lodged against him and he fled from athens. but there was no systematic policy of suppressing free thought. copies of the work of protagoras were collected and [ ] burned, but the book of anaxagoras setting forth the views for which he had been condemned was for sale on the athenian book-stalls at a popular price. rationalistic ideas moreover were venturing to appear on the stage, though the dramatic performances, at the feasts of the god dionysus, were religious solemnities. the poet euripides was saturated with modern speculation, and, while different opinions may be held as to the tendencies of some of his tragedies, he often allows his characters to express highly unorthodox views. he was prosecuted for impiety by a popular politician. we may suspect that during the last thirty years of the fifth century unorthodoxy spread considerably among the educated classes. there was a large enough section of influential rationalists to render impossible any organized repression of liberty, and the chief evil of the blasphemy law was that it could be used for personal or party reasons. some of the prosecutions, about which we know, were certainly due to such motives, others may have been prompted by genuine bigotry and by the fear lest sceptical thought should extend beyond the highly educated and leisured class. it was a generally accepted principle among the greeks, and afterwards among the romans, that religion was a good and necessary thing [ ] for the common people. men who did not believe in its truth believed in its usefulness as a political institution, and as a rule philosophers did not seek to diffuse disturbing �truth� among the masses. it was the custom, much more than at the present day, for those who did not believe in the established cults to conform to them externally. popular higher education was not an article in the programme of greek statesmen or thinkers. and perhaps it may be argued that in the circumstances of the ancient world it would have been hardly practicable. there was, however, one illustrious athenian, who thought differently�socrates, the philosopher. socrates was the greatest of the educationalists, but unlike the others he taught gratuitously, though he was a poor man. his teaching always took the form of discussion; the discussion often ended in no positive result, but had the effect of showing that some received opinion was untenable and that truth is difficult to ascertain. he had indeed certain definite views about knowledge and virtue, which are of the highest importance in the history of philosophy, but for our present purpose his significance lies in his enthusiasm for discussion and criticism. he taught those with whom he conversed�and he conversed indiscriminately [ ] with all who would listen to him�to bring all popular beliefs before the bar of reason, to approach every inquiry with an open mind, and not to judge by the opinion of majorities or the dictate of authority; in short to seek for other tests of the truth of an opinion than the fact that it is held by a great many people. among his disciples were all the young men who were to become the leading philosophers of the next generation and some who played prominent parts in athenian history. if the athenians had had a daily press, socrates would have been denounced by the journalists as a dangerous person. they had a comic drama, which constantly held up to ridicule philosophers and sophists and their vain doctrines. we possess one play (the clouds of aristophanes) in which socrates is pilloried as a typical representative of impious and destructive speculations. apart from annoyances of this kind, socrates reached old age, pursuing the task of instructing his fellow-citizens, without any evil befalling him. then, at the age of seventy, he was prosecuted as an atheist and corrupter of youth and was put to death ( b.c.). it is strange that if the athenians really thought him dangerous they should have suffered him so long. there can, i think, be [ ] little doubt that the motives of the accusation were political. [ ] socrates, looking at things as he did, could not be sympathetic with unlimited democracy, or approve of the principle that the will of the ignorant majority was a good guide. he was probably known to sympathize with those who wished to limit the franchise. when, after a struggle in which the constitution had been more than once overthrown, democracy emerged triumphant ( b.c.), there was a bitter feeling against those who had not been its friends, and of these disloyal persons socrates was chosen as a victim. if he had wished, he could easily have escaped. if he had given an undertaking to teach no more, he would almost certainly have been acquitted. as it was, of the ordinary athenians who were his judges, a very large minority voted for his acquittal. even then, if he had adopted a different tone, he would not have been condemned to death. he rose to the great occasion and vindicated freedom of discussion in a wonderful unconventional speech. the apology of socrates, which was composed by his most brilliant pupil, plato the philosopher, reproduces [ ] the general tenor of his defence. it is clear that he was not able to meet satisfactorily the charge that he did not acknowledge the gods worshipped by the city, and his explanations on this point are the weak part of his speech. but he met the accusation that he corrupted the minds of the young by a splendid plea for free discussion. this is the most valuable section of the apology; it is as impressive to-day as ever. i think the two principal points which he makes are these� ( ) he maintains that the individual should at any cost refuse to be coerced by any human authority or tribunal into a course which his own mind condemns as wrong. that is, he asserts the supremacy of the individual conscience, as we should say, over human law. he represents his own life-work as a sort of religious quest; he feels convinced that in devoting himself to philosophical discussion he has done the bidding of a super-human guide; and he goes to death rather than be untrue to this personal conviction. �if you propose to acquit me,� he says, �on condition that i abandon my search for truth, i will say: i thank you, o athenians, but i will obey god, who, as i believe, set me this task, rather than you, and so long as i have breath and strength i will never [ ] cease from my occupation with philosophy. i will continue the practice of accosting whomever i meet and saying to him, �are you not ashamed of setting your heart on wealth and honours while you have no care for wisdom and truth and making your soul better?� i know not what death is�it may be a good thing, and i am not afraid of it. but i do know that it is a bad thing to desert one�s post and i prefer what may be good to what i know to be bad.� ( ) he insists on the public value of free discussion. �in me you have a stimulating critic, persistently urging you with persuasion and reproaches, persistently testing your opinions and trying to show you that you are really ignorant of what you suppose you know. daily discussion of the matters about which you hear me conversing is the highest good for man. life that is not tested by such discussion is not worth living.� thus in what we may call the earliest justification of liberty of thought we have two significant claims affirmed: the indefeasible right of the conscience of the individual �a claim on which later struggles for liberty were to turn; and the social importance of discussion and criticism. the former claim is not based on argument but on intuition; it rests in fact on the assumption [ ] of some sort of superhuman moral principle, and to those who, not having the same personal experience as socrates, reject this assumption, his pleading does not carry weight. the second claim, after the experience of more than , years, can be formulated more comprehensively now with bearings of which he did not dream. the circumstances of the trial of socrates illustrate both the tolerance and the intolerance which prevailed at athens. his long immunity, the fact that he was at last indicted from political motives and perhaps personal also, the large minority in his favour, all show that thought was normally free, and that the mass of intolerance which existed was only fitfully invoked, and perhaps most often to serve other purposes. i may mention the case of the philosopher aristotle, who some seventy years later left athens because he was menaced by a prosecution for blasphemy, the charge being a pretext for attacking one who belonged to a certain political party. the persecution of opinion was never organized. it may seem curious that to find the persecuting spirit in greece we have to turn to the philosophers. plato, the most brilliant disciple of socrates, constructed in his later years an ideal state. in this state he instituted [ ] a religion considerably different from the current religion, and proposed to compel all the citizens to believe in his gods on pain of death or imprisonment. all freedom of discussion was excluded under the cast-iron system which he conceived. but the point of interest in his attitude is that he did not care much whether a religion was true, but only whether it was morally useful; he was prepared to promote morality by edifying fables; and he condemned the popular mythology not because it was false, but because it did not make for righteousness. the outcome of the large freedom permitted at athens was a series of philosophies which had a common source in the conversations of socrates. plato, aristotle, the stoics, the epicureans, the sceptics�it may be maintained that the efforts of thought represented by these names have had a deeper influence on the progress of man than any other continuous intellectual movement, at least until the rise of modern science in a new epoch of liberty. the doctrines of the epicureans, stoics, and sceptics all aimed at securing peace and guidance for the individual soul. they were widely propagated throughout the greek world from the third century b.c., and we may say that from this time onward most [ ] well-educated greeks were more or less rationalists. the teaching of epicurus had a distinct anti-religious tendency. he considered fear to be the fundamental motive of religion, and to free men�s minds from this fear was a principal object of his teaching. he was a materialist, explaining the world by the atomic theory of democritus and denying any divine government of the universe. [ ] he did indeed hold the existence of gods, but, so far as men are concerned, his gods are as if they were not�living in some remote abode and enjoying a �sacred and everlasting calm.� they just served as an example of the realization of the ideal epicurean life. there was something in this philosophy which had the power to inspire a poet of singular genius to expound it in verse. the roman lucretius (first century b.c.) regarded epicurus as the great deliverer of the human race and determined to proclaim the glad tidings of his philosophy in a poem on the nature of the world. [ ] with all the fervour [ ] of a religious enthusiast he denounces religion, sounding every note of defiance, loathing, and contempt, and branding in burning words the crimes to which it had urged man on. he rides forth as a leader of the hosts of atheism against the walls of heaven. he explains the scientific arguments as if they were the radiant revelation of a new world; and the rapture of his enthusiasm is a strange accompaniment of a doctrine which aimed at perfect calm. although the greek thinkers had done all the work and the latin poem is a hymn of triumph over prostrate deities, yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold an eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious, defiant spirit. in the history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded in the midst of an orthodox community. but the educated romans in the days of lucretius were sceptical in religious matters, some of them were epicureans, and we may suspect that not many of those who read it were shocked or influenced by the audacities of the champion of irreligion. the stoic philosophy made notable contributions to the cause of liberty and could hardly have flourished in an atmosphere where discussion was not free. it asserted the rights of individuals against public [ ] authority. socrates had seen that laws may be unjust and that peoples may go wrong, but he had found no principle for the guidance of society. the stoics discovered it in the law of nature, prior and superior to all the customs and written laws of peoples, and this doctrine, spreading outside stoic circles, caught hold of the roman world and affected roman legislation. these philosophies have carried us from greece to rome. in the later roman republic and the early empire, no restrictions were imposed on opinion, and these philosophies, which made the individual the first consideration, spread widely. most of the leading men were unbelievers in the official religion of the state, but they considered it valuable for the purpose of keeping the uneducated populace in order. a greek historian expresses high approval of the roman policy of cultivating superstition for the benefit of the masses. this was the attitude of cicero, and the view that a false religion is indispensable as a social machine was general among ancient unbelievers. it is common, in one form or another, to-day; at least, religions are constantly defended on the ground not of truth but of utility. this defence belongs to the statecraft of machiavelli, who taught that religion is necessary for government, [ ] and that it may be the duty of a ruler to support a religion which he believes to be false. a word must be said of lucian (second century a.d.), the last greek man of letters whose writings appeal to everybody. he attacked the popular mythology with open ridicule. it is impossible to say whether his satires had any effect at the time beyond affording enjoyment to educated infidels who read them. zeus in a tragedy part is one of the most effective. the situation which lucian imagined here would be paralleled if a modern writer were blasphemously to represent the persons of the trinity with some eminent angels and saints discussing in a celestial smoke-room the alarming growth of unbelief in england and then by means of a telephonic apparatus overhearing a dispute between a freethinker and a parson on a public platform in london. the absurdities of anthropomorphism have never been the subject of more brilliant jesting than in lucian�s satires. the general rule of roman policy was to tolerate throughout the empire all religions and all opinions. blasphemy was not punished. the principle was expressed in the maxim of the emperor tiberius: �if the gods are insulted, let them see to it themselves.� an exception to the rule of tolerance [ ] was made in the case of the christian sect, and the treatment of this oriental religion may be said to have inaugurated religious persecution in europe. it is a matter of interest to understand why emperors who were able, humane, and not in the least fanatical, adopted this exceptional policy. for a long time the christians were only known to those romans who happened to hear of them, as a sect of the jews. the jewish was the one religion which, on account of its exclusiveness and intolerance, was regarded by the tolerant pagans with disfavour and suspicion. but though it sometimes came into collision with the roman authorities and some ill-advised attacks upon it were made, it was the constant policy of the emperors to let it alone and to protect the jews against the hatred which their own fanaticism aroused. but while the jewish religion was endured so long as it was confined to those who were born into it, the prospect of its dissemination raised a new question. grave misgivings might arise in the mind of a ruler at seeing a creed spreading which was aggressively hostile to all the other creeds of the world�creeds which lived together in amity�and had earned for its adherents the reputation of being the enemies of the human race. might not its expansion [ ] beyond the israelites involve ultimately a danger to the empire? for its spirit was incompatible with the traditions and basis of roman society. the emperor domitian seems to have seen the question in this light, and he took severe measures to hinder the proselytizing of roman citizens. some of those whom he struck may have been christians, but if he was aware of the distinction, there was from his point of view no difference. christianity resembled judaism, from which it sprang, in intolerance and in hostility towards roman society, but it differed by the fact that it made many proselytes while judaism made few. under trajan we find that the principle has been laid down that to be a christian is an offence punishable by death. henceforward christianity remained an illegal religion. but in practice the law was not applied rigorously or logically. the emperors desired, if possible, to extirpate christianity without shedding blood. trajan laid down that christians were not to be sought out, that no anonymous charges were to be noticed, and that an informer who failed to make good his charge should be liable to be punished under the laws against calumny. christians themselves recognized that this edict practically protected them. there were [ ] some executions in the second century�not many that are well attested�and christians courted the pain and glory of martyrdom. there is evidence to show that when they were arrested their escape was often connived at. in general, the persecution of the christians was rather provoked by the populace than desired by the authorities. the populace felt a horror of this mysterious oriental sect which openly hated all the gods and prayed for the destruction of the world. when floods, famines, and especially fires occurred they were apt to be attributed to the black magic of the christians. when any one was accused of christianity, he was required, as a means of testing the truth of the charge, to offer incense to the gods or to the statues of deified emperors. his compliance at once exonerated him. the objection of the christians�they and the jews were the only objectors�to the worship of the emperors was, in the eyes of the romans, one of the most sinister signs that their religion was dangerous. the purpose of this worship was to symbolize the unity and solidarity of an empire which embraced so many peoples of different beliefs and different gods; its intention was political, to promote union and loyalty; and it is not surprising that those who denounced it should [ ] be suspected of a disloyal spirit. but it must be noted that there was no necessity for any citizen to take part in this worship. no conformity was required from any inhabitants of the empire who were not serving the state as soldiers or civil functionaries. thus the effect was to debar christians from military and official careers. the apologies for christianity which appeared at this period (second century) might have helped, if the emperors (to whom some of them were addressed) had read them, to confirm the view that it was a political danger. it would have been easy to read between the lines that, if the christians ever got the upper hand, they would not spare the cults of the state. the contemporary work of tatian (a discourse to the greeks) reveals what the apologists more or less sought to disguise, invincible hatred towards the civilization in which they lived. any reader of the christian literature of the time could not fail to see that in a state where christians had the power there would be no tolerance of other religious practices. [ ] if the emperors made an exception to their tolerant policy in the case of christianity, their purpose was to safeguard tolerance. [ ] in the third century the religion, though still forbidden, was quite openly tolerated; the church organized itself without concealment; ecclesiastical councils assembled without interference. there were some brief and local attempts at repression, there was only one grave persecution (begun by decius, a.d. , and continued by valerian). in fact, throughout this century, there were not many victims, though afterwards the christians invented a whole mythology of martyrdoms. many cruelties were imputed to emperors under whom we know that the church enjoyed perfect peace. a long period of civil confusion, in which the empire seemed to be tottering to its fall, had been terminated by the emperor diocletian, who, by his radical administrative reforms, helped to preserve the roman power in its integrity for another century. he desired to support his work of political consolidation by reviving the roman spirit, and he attempted to infuse new life into the official religion. to this end he determined to suppress the growing influence of the christians, who, though a minority, were very numerous, and he organized a persecution. it was long, cruel and bloody; it was the most whole-hearted, general and systematic effort to crush the forbidden faith. it was a [ ] failure, the christians were now too numerous to be crushed. after the abdication of diocletian, the emperors who reigned in different parts of the realm did not agree as to the expediency of his policy, and the persecution ended by edicts of toleration (a.d. and ). these documents have an interest for the history of religious liberty. the first, issued in the eastern provinces, ran as follows:� �we were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature the deluded christians, who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers and, presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our empire. the edicts which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of the christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death and many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. we permit them, therefore, freely to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles [ ] without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws and government.� [ ] the second, of which constantine was the author, known as the edict of milan, was to a similar effect, and based toleration on the emperor�s care for the peace and happiness of his subjects and on the hope of appeasing the deity whose seat is in heaven. the relations between the roman government and the christians raised the general question of persecution and freedom of conscience. a state, with an official religion, but perfectly tolerant of all creeds and cults, finds that a society had arisen in its midst which is uncompromisingly hostile to all creeds but its own and which, if it had the power, would suppress all but its own. the government, in self-defence, decides to check the dissemination of these subversive ideas and makes the profession of that creed a crime, not on account of its particular tenets, but on account of the social consequences of those tenets. the members of the society cannot without violating their consciences and incurring damnation abandon their exclusive doctrine. the principle of freedom of conscience is asserted as superior to all obligations to the state, and the state, confronted [ ] by this new claim, is unable to admit it. persecution is the result. even from the standpoint of an orthodox and loyal pagan the persecution of the christians is indefensible, because blood was shed uselessly. in other words, it was a great mistake because it was unsuccessful. for persecution is a choice between two evils. the alternatives are violence (which no reasonable defender of persecution would deny to be an evil in itself) and the spread of dangerous opinions. the first is chosen simply to avoid the second, on the ground that the second is the greater evil. but if the persecution is not so devised and carried out as to accomplish its end, then you have two evils instead of one, and nothing can justify this. from their point of view, the emperors had good reasons for regarding christianity as dangerous and anti-social, but they should either have let it alone or taken systematic measures to destroy it. if at an early stage they had established a drastic and systematic inquisition, they might possibly have exterminated it. this at least would have been statesmanlike. but they had no conception of extreme measures, and they did not understand �they had no experience to guide them �the sort of problem they had to deal with. they hoped to succeed by intimidation. [ ] their attempts at suppression were vacillating, fitful, and ridiculously ineffectual. the later persecutions (of a.d. and ) had no prospect of success. it is particularly to be observed that no effort was made to suppress christian literature. the higher problem whether persecution, even if it attains the desired end, is justifiable, was not considered. the struggle hinged on antagonism between the conscience of the individual and the authority and supposed interests of the state. it was the question which had been raised by socrates, raised now on a wider platform in a more pressing and formidable shape: what is to happen when obedience to the law is inconsistent with obedience to an invisible master? is it incumbent on the state to respect the conscience of the individual at all costs, or within what limits? the christians did not attempt a solution, the general problem did not interest them. they claimed the right of freedom exclusively for themselves from a non-christian government; and it is hardly going too far to suspect that they would have applauded the government if it had suppressed the gnostic sects whom they hated and calumniated. in any case, when a christian state was established, they would completely forget the principle which they [ ] had invoked. the martyrs died for conscience, but not for liberty. to-day the greatest of the churches demands freedom of conscience in the modern states which she does not control, but refuses to admit that, where she had the power, it would be incumbent on her to concede it. if we review the history of classical antiquity as a whole, we may almost say that freedom of thought was like the air men breathed. it was taken for granted and nobody thought about it. if seven or eight thinkers at athens were penalized for heterodoxy, in some and perhaps in most of these cases heterodoxy was only a pretext. they do not invalidate the general facts that the advance of knowledge was not impeded by prejudice, or science retarded by the weight of unscientific authority. the educated greeks were tolerant because they were friends of reason and did not set up any authority to overrule reason. opinions were not imposed except by argument; you were not expected to receive some �kingdom of heaven� like a little child, or to prostrate your intellect before an authority claiming to be infallible. but this liberty was not the result of a conscious policy or deliberate conviction, and therefore it was precarious. the problems [ ] of freedom of thought, religious liberty, toleration, had not been forced upon society and were never seriously considered. when christianity confronted the roman government, no one saw that in the treatment of a small, obscure, and, to pagan thinkers, uninteresting or repugnant sect, a principle of the deepest social importance was involved. a long experience of the theory and practice of persecution was required to base securely the theory of freedom of thought. the lurid policy of coercion which the christian church adopted, and its consequences, would at last compel reason to wrestle with the problem and discover the justification of intellectual liberty. the spirit of the greeks and romans, alive in their works, would, after a long period of obscuration, again enlighten the world and aid in re-establishing the reign of reason, which they had carelessly enjoyed without assuring its foundations. [ ] this has been shown very clearly by professor jackson in the article on �socrates� in the encyclopoedia britannica, last edition. [ ] he stated the theological difficulty as to the origin of evil in this form: god either wishes to abolish evil and cannot, or can and will not, or neither can nor will, or both can and will. the first three are unthinkable, if he is a god worthy of the name; therefore the last alternative must be true. why then does evil exist? the inference is that there is no god, in the sense of a governor of the world. [ ] an admirable appreciation of the poem will be found in r. v. tyrrell�s lectures on latin poetry. [ ] for the evidence of the apologists see a. bouché-leclercq, religious intolerance and politics (french, ) �a valuable review of the whole subject. [ ] this is gibbon�s translation. chapter iii reason in prison (the middle ages) about ten years after the edict of toleration, constantine the great adopted christianity. this momentous decision inaugurated [ ] a millennium in which reason was enchained, thought was enslaved, and knowledge made no progress. during the two centuries in which they had been a forbidden sect the christians had claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not a thing which can be enforced. when their faith became the predominant creed and had the power of the state behind it, they abandoned this view. they embarked on the hopeful enterprise of bringing about a complete uniformity in men�s opinions on the mysteries of the universe, and began a more or less definite policy of coercing thought. this policy was adopted by emperors and governments partly on political grounds; religious divisions, bitter as they were, seemed dangerous to the unity of the state. but the fundamental principle lay in the doctrine that salvation is to be found exclusively in the christian church. the profound conviction that those who did not believe in its doctrines would be damned eternally, and that god punishes theological error as if it were the most heinous of crimes, led naturally to persecution. it was a duty to impose on men the only true doctrine, seeing that their own eternal interests were at stake, and to hinder errors from spreading. heretics were more [ ] than ordinary criminals and the pains that man could inflict on them were as nothing to the tortures awaiting them in hell. to rid the earth of men who, however virtuous, were, through their religious errors, enemies of the almighty, was a plain duty. their virtues were no excuse. we must remember that, according to the humane doctrine of the christians, pagan, that is, merely human, virtues were vices, and infants who died unbaptized passed the rest of time in creeping on the floor of hell. the intolerance arising from such views could not but differ in kind and intensity from anything that the world had yet witnessed. besides the logic of its doctrines, the character of its sacred book must also be held partly accountable for the intolerant principles of the christian church. it was unfortunate that the early christians had included in their scripture the jewish writings which reflect the ideas of a low stage of civilization and are full of savagery. it would be difficult to say how much harm has been done, in corrupting the morals of men, by the precepts and examples of inhumanity, violence, and bigotry which the reverent reader of the old testament, implicitly believing in its inspiration, is bound to approve. it furnished an armoury for the theory of [ ] persecution. the truth is that sacred books are an obstacle to moral and intellectual progress, because they consecrate the ideas of a given epoch, and its customs, as divinely appointed. christianity, by adopting books of a long past age, placed in the path of human development a particularly nasty stumbling-block. it may occur to one to wonder how history might have been altered �altered it surely would have been�if the christians had cut jehovah out of their programme and, content with the new testament, had rejected the inspiration of the old. under constantine the great and his successors, edict after edict fulminated against the worship of the old pagan gods and against heretical christian sects. julian the apostate, who in his brief reign (a.d. � ) sought to revive the old order of things, proclaimed universal toleration, but he placed christians at a disadvantage by forbidding them to teach in schools. this was only a momentary check. paganism was finally shattered by the severe laws of theodosius i (end of fourth century). it lingered on here and there for more than another century, especially at rome and athens, but had little importance. the christians were more concerned in striving among themselves than in [ ] crushing the prostrate spirit of antiquity. the execution of the heretic priscillian in spain (fourth century) inaugurated the punishment of heresy by death. it is interesting to see a non-christian of this age teaching the christian sects that they should suffer one another. themistius in an address to the emperor valens urged him to repeal his edicts against the christians with whom he did not agree, and expounded a theory of toleration. �the religious beliefs of individuals are a field in which the authority of a government cannot be effective; compliance can only lead to hypocritical professions. every faith should be allowed; the civil government should govern orthodox and heterodox to the common good. god himself plainly shows that he wishes various forms of worship; there are many roads by which one can reach him.� no father of the church has been more esteemed or enjoyed higher authority than st. augustine (died a.d. ). he formulated the principle of persecution for the guidance of future generations, basing it on the firm foundation of scripture�on words used by jesus christ in one of his parables, �compel them to come in.� till the end of the twelfth century the church worked hard to suppress heterodoxies. there was much [ ] persecution, but it was not systematic. there is reason to think that in the pursuit of heresy the church was mainly guided by considerations of its temporal interest, and was roused to severe action only when the spread of false doctrine threatened to reduce its revenues or seemed a menace to society. at the end of the twelfth century innocent iii became pope and under him the church of western europe reached the height of its power. he and his immediate successors are responsible for imagining and beginning an organized movement to sweep heretics out of christendom. languedoc in southwestern france was largely populated by heretics, whose opinions were considered particularly offensive, known as the albigeois. they were the subjects of the count of toulouse, and were an industrious and respectable people. but the church got far too little money out of this anti- clerical population, and innocent called upon the count to extirpate heresy from his dominion. as he would not obey, the pope announced a crusade against the albigeois, and offered to all who would bear a hand the usual rewards granted to crusaders, including absolution from all their sins. a series of sanguinary wars followed in which the englishman, simon de montfort, took part. there were [ ] wholesale burnings and hangings of men, women and children. the resistance of the people was broken down, though the heresy was not eradicated, and the struggle ended in with the complete humiliation of the count of toulouse. the important point of the episode is this: the church introduced into the public law of europe the new principle that a sovran held his crown on the condition that he should extirpate heresy. if he hesitated to persecute at the command of the pope, he must be coerced; his lands were forfeited; and his dominions were thrown open to be seized by any one whom the church could induce to attack him. the popes thus established a theocratic system in which all other interests were to be subordinated to the grand duty of maintaining the purity of the faith. but in order to root out heresy it was necessary to discover it in its most secret retreats. the albigeois had been crushed, but the poison of their doctrine was not yet destroyed. the organized system of searching out heretics known as the inquisition was founded by pope gregory ix about a.d. , and fully established by a bull of innocent iv (a.d. ) which regulated the machinery of persecution �as an integral part of the social edifice in every city and every [ ] state.� this powerful engine for the suppression of the freedom of men�s religious opinions is unique in history. the bishops were not equal to the new talk undertaken by the church, and in every ecclesiastical province suitable monks were selected and to them was delegated the authority of the pope for discovering heretics. these inquisitors had unlimited authority, they were subject to no supervision and responsible to no man. it would not have been easy to establish this system but for the fact that contemporary secular rulers had inaugurated independently a merciless legislation against heresy. the emperor frederick ii, who was himself undoubtedly a freethinker, made laws for his extensive dominions in italy and germany (between and ), enacting that all heretics should be outlawed, that those who did not recant should be burned, those who recanted should be imprisoned, but if they relapsed should be executed; that their property should be confiscated, their houses destroyed, and their children, to the second generation, ineligible to positions of emolument unless they had betrayed their father or some other heretic. frederick�s legislation consecrated the stake as the proper punishment for heresy. this [ ] cruel form of death for that crime seems to have been first inflicted on heretics by a french king ( ). we must remember that in the middle ages, and much later, crimes of all kinds were punished with the utmost cruelty. in england in the reign of henry viii there is a case of prisoners being boiled to death. heresy was the foulest of all crimes; and to prevail against it was to prevail against the legions of hell. the cruel enactments against heretics were strongly supported by the public opinion of the masses. when the inquisition was fully developed it covered western christendom with a net from the meshes of which it was difficult for a heretic to escape. the inquisitors in the various kingdoms co-operated, and communicated information; there was �a chain of tribunals throughout continental europe.� england stood outside the system, but from the age of henry iv and henry v the government repressed heresy by the stake under a special statute (a.d. ; repealed ; revived under mary; finally repealed in ). in its task of imposing unity of belief the inquisition was most successful in spain. here towards the end of the fifteenth century a system was instituted which had peculiarities of its own and was very jealous of [ ] roman interference. one of the achievements of the spanish inquisition (which was not abolished till the nineteenth century) was to expel the moriscos or converted moors, who retained many of their old mohammedan opinions and customs. it is also said to have eradicated judaism and to have preserved the country from the zeal of protestant missionaries. but it cannot be proved that it deserves the credit of having protected spain against protestantism, for it is quite possible that if the seeds of protestant opinion had been sown they would, in any case, have fallen dead on an uncongenial soil. freedom of thought however was entirely suppressed. one of the most efficacious means for hunting down heresy was the �edict of faith,� which enlisted the people in the service of the inquisition and required every man to be an informer. from time to time a certain district was visited and an edict issued commanding those who knew anything of any heresy to come forward and reveal it, under fearful penalties temporal and spiritual. in consequence, no one was free from the suspicion of his neighbours or even of his own family. �no more ingenious device has been invented to subjugate a whole population, to paralyze its intellect, and to reduce it [ ] to blind obedience. it elevated delation to the rank of high religious duty.� the process employed in the trials of those accused of heresy in spain rejected every reasonable means for the ascertainment of truth. the prisoner was assumed to be guilty, the burden of proving his innocence rested on him; his judge was virtually his prosecutor. all witnesses against him, however infamous, were admitted. the rules for allowing witnesses for the prosecution were lax; those for rejecting witnesses for the defence were rigid. jews, moriscos, and servants could give evidence against the prisoner but not for him, and the same rule applied to kinsmen to the fourth degree. the principle on which the inquisition proceeded was that better a hundred innocent should suffer than one guilty person escape. indulgences were granted to any one who contributed wood to the pile. but the tribunal of the inquisition did not itself condemn to the stake, for the church must not be guilty of the shedding of blood. the ecclesiastical judge pronounced the prisoner to be a heretic of whose conversion there was no hope, and handed him over (�relaxed� him was the official term) to the secular authority, asking and charging the magistrate �to treat him benignantly and mercifully.� but this [ ] formal plea for mercy could not be entertained by the civil power; it had no choice but to inflict death; if it did otherwise, it was a promoter of heresy. all princes and officials, according to the canon law, must punish duly and promptly heretics handed over to them by the inquisition, under pain of excommunication. it is to be noted that the number of deaths at the stake has been much over-estimated by popular imagination; but the sum of suffering caused by the methods of the system and the punishments that fell short of death can hardly be exaggerated. the legal processes employed by the church in these persecutions exercised a corrupting influence on the criminal jurisprudence of the continent. lea, the historian of the inquisition, observes: �of all the curses which the inquisition brought in its train, this perhaps was the greatest�that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of europe, the inquisitorial process, as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of dealing with all who were under any accusation.� the inquisitors who, as gibbon says, �defended nonsense by cruelties,� are often regarded as monsters. it may be said for them and for the kings who did their will that [ ] they were not a bit worse than the priests and monarchs of primitive ages who sacrificed human beings to their deities. the greek king, agamemnon, who immolated his daughter iphigenia to obtain favourable winds from the gods, was perhaps a most affectionate father, and the seer who advised him to do so may have been a man of high integrity. they acted according to their beliefs. and so in the middle ages and afterwards men of kindly temper and the purest zeal for morality were absolutely devoid of mercy where heresy was suspected. hatred of heresy was a sort of infectious germ, generated by the doctrine of exclusive salvation. it has been observed that this dogma also injured the sense of truth. as man�s eternal fate was at stake, it seemed plainly legitimate or rather imperative to use any means to enforce the true belief�even falsehood and imposture. there was no scruple about the invention of miracles or any fictions that were edifying. a disinterested appreciation of truth will not begin to prevail till the seventeenth century. while this principle, with the associated doctrines of sin, hell, and the last judgment, led to such consequences, there were other doctrines and implications in christianity which, forming a solid rampart against the [ ] advance of knowledge, blocked the paths of science in the middle ages, and obstructed its progress till the latter half of the nineteenth century. in every important field of scientific research, the ground was occupied by false views which the church declared to be true on the infallible authority of the bible. the jewish account of creation and the fall of man, inextricably bound up with the christian theory of redemption, excluded from free inquiry geology, zoology, and anthropology. the literal interpretation of the bible involved the truth that the sun revolves round the earth. the church condemned the theory of the antipodes. one of the charges against servetus (who was burned in the sixteenth century; see below, p. ) was that he believed the statement of a greek geographer that judea is a wretched barren country in spite of the fact that the bible describes it as a land flowing with milk and honey. the greek physician hippocrates had based the study of medicine and disease on experience and methodical research. in the middle ages men relapsed to the primitive notions of a barbarous age. bodily ailments were ascribed to occult agencies�the malice of the devil or the wrath of god. st. augustine said that the diseases of christians were caused by demons, [ ] and luther in the same way attributed them to satan. it was only logical that supernatural remedies should be sought to counteract the effects of supernatural causes. there was an immense traffic in relics with miraculous virtues, and this had the advantage of bringing in a large revenue to the church. physicians were often exposed to suspicions of sorcery and unbelief. anatomy was forbidden, partly perhaps on account of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. the opposition of ecclesiastics to inoculation in the eighteenth century was a survival of the mediaeval view of disease. chemistry (alchemy) was considered a diabolical art and in was condemned by the pope. the long imprisonment of roger bacon (thirteenth century) who, while he professed zeal for orthodoxy, had an inconvenient instinct for scientific research, illustrates the mediaeval distrust of science. it is possible that the knowledge of nature would have progressed little, even if this distrust of science on theological grounds had not prevailed. for greek science had ceased to advance five hundred years before christianity became powerful. after about b.c. no important discoveries were made. the explanation of this decay is not easy, but we may be sure that it is to be sought in the [ ] social conditions of the greek and roman world. and we may suspect that the social conditions of the middle ages would have proved unfavourable to the scientific spirit� the disinterested quest of facts�even if the controlling beliefs had not been hostile. we may suspect that the rebirth of science would in any case have been postponed till new social conditions, which began to appear in the thirteenth century (see next chapter), had reached a certain maturity. theological prejudice may have injured knowledge principally by its survival after the middle ages had passed away. in other words, the harm done by christian doctrines, in this respect, may lie less in the obscurantism of the dark interval between ancient and modern civilization, than in the obstructions which they offered when science had revived in spite of them and could no longer be crushed. the firm belief in witchcraft, magic, and demons was inherited by the middle ages from antiquity, but it became far more lurid and made the world terrible. men believed that they were surrounded by fiends watching for every opportunity to harm them, that pestilences, storms, eclipses, and famines were the work of the devil; but they believed as firmly that ecclesiastical rites were capable of coping with these enemies. some of the [ ] early christian emperors legislated against magic, but till the fourteenth century there was no systematic attempt to root out witchcraft. the fearful epidemic, known as the black death, which devastated europe in that century, seems to have aggravated the haunting terror of the invisible world of demons. trials for witchcraft multiplied, and for three hundred years the discovery of witchcraft and the destruction of those who were accused of practising it, chiefly women, was a standing feature of european civilization. both the theory and the persecution were supported by holy scripture. �thou shalt not suffer a witch to live� was the clear injunction of the highest authority. pope innocent viii issued a bull on the matter ( ) in which he asserted that plagues and storms are the work of witches, and the ablest minds believed in the reality of their devilish powers. no story is more painful than the persecution of witches, and nowhere was it more atrocious than in england and scotland. i mention it because it was the direct result of theological doctrines, and because, as we shall see, it was rationalism which brought the long chapter of horrors to an end. in the period, then, in which the church exercised its greatest influence, reason was [ ] enchained in the prison which christianity had built around the human mind. it was not indeed inactive, but its activity took the form of heresy; or, to pursue the metaphor, those who broke chains were unable for the most part to scale the walls of the prison; their freedom extended only so far as to arrive at beliefs, which, like orthodoxy itself, were based on christian mythology. there were some exceptions to the rule. at the end of the twelfth century a stimulus from another world began to make itself felt. the philosophy of aristotle became known to learned men in western christendom; their teachers were jews and mohammedans. among the mohammedans there was a certain amount of free thought, provoked by their knowledge of ancient greek speculation. the works of the freethinker averroes (twelfth century) which were based on aristotle�s philosophy, propagated a small wave of rationalism in christian countries. averroes held the eternity of matter and denied the immortality of the soul; his general view may be described as pantheism. but he sought to avoid difficulties with the orthodox authorities of islam by laying down the doctrine of double truth, that is the coexistence of two independent and contradictory truths, the one philosophical, and the other religious. this [ ] did not save him from being banished from the court of the spanish caliph. in the university of paris his teaching produced a school of freethinkers who held that the creation, the resurrection of the body, and other essential dogmas, might be true from the standpoint of religion but are false from the standpoint of reason. to a plain mind this seems much as if one said that the doctrine of immortality is true on sundays but not on week-days, or that the apostles� creed is false in the drawing-room and true in the kitchen. this dangerous movement was crushed, and the saving principle of double truth condemned, by pope john xxi. the spread of averroistic and similar speculations called forth the theology of thomas, of aquino in south italy (died ), a most subtle thinker, whose mind had a natural turn for scepticism. he enlisted aristotle, hitherto the guide of infidelity, on the side of orthodoxy, and constructed an ingenious christian philosophy which is still authoritative in the roman church. but aristotle and reason are dangerous allies for faith, and the treatise of thomas is perhaps more calculated to unsettle a believing mind by the doubts which it powerfully states than to quiet the scruples of a doubter by its solutions. there must always have been some private [ ] and underground unbelief here and there, which did not lead to any serious consequences. the blasphemous statement that the world had been deceived by three impostors, moses, jesus, and mohammed, was current in the thirteenth century. it was attributed to the freethinking emperor frederick ii (died ), who has been described as �the first modern man.� the same idea, in a milder form, was expressed in the story of the three rings, which is at least as old. a mohammedan ruler, desiring to extort money from a rich jew, summoned him to his court and laid a snare for him. �my friend,� he said, �i have often heard it reported that thou art a very wise man. tell me therefore which of the three religions, that of the jews, that of the mohammedans, and that of the christians, thou believest to be the truest.� the jew saw that a trap was laid for him and answered as follows: �my lord, there was once a rich man who among his treasures had a ring of such great value that he wished to leave it as a perpetual heirloom to his successors. so he made a will that whichever of his sons should be found in possession of this ring after his death should be considered his heir. the son to whom he gave the ring acted in the same way as his father, and so the ring passed from hand to [ ] hand. at last it came into the possession of a man who had three sons whom he loved equally. unable to make up his mind to which of them he should leave the ring, he promised it to each of them privately, and then in order to satisfy them all caused a goldsmith to make two other rings so closely resembling the true ring that he was unable to distinguish them himself. on his death-bed he gave each of them a ring, and each claimed to be his heir, but no one could prove his title because the rings were indistinguishable, and the suit at law lasts till this day. it is even so, my lord, with the three religions, given by god to the three peoples. they each think they have the true religion, but which of them really has it, is a question, like that of the rings, still undecided.� this sceptical story became famous in the eighteenth century, when the german poet, lessing, built upon it his drama nathan the sage, which was intended to show the unreasonableness of intolerance. chapter iv prospect of deliverance (the renaissance and the reformation) the intellectual and social movement which was to dispel the darkness of the [ ] middle ages and prepare the way for those who would ultimately deliver reason from her prison, began in italy in the thirteenth century. the misty veil woven of credulity and infantile naïveté which had hung over men�s souls and protected them from understanding either themselves or their relation to the world began to lift. the individual began to feel his separate individuality, to be conscious of his own value as a person apart from his race or country (as in the later ages of greece and rome); and the world around him began to emerge from the mists of mediaeval dreams. the change was due to the political and social conditions of the little italian states, of which some were republics and others governed by tyrants. to the human world, thus unveiling itself, the individual who sought to make it serve his purposes required a guide; and the guide was found in the ancient literature of greece and rome. hence the whole transformation, which presently extended from italy to northern europe, is known as the renaissance, or rebirth of classical antiquity. but the awakened interest in classical literature while it coloured the character and stimulated the growth of the movement, supplying new ideals and suggesting new points of view, was only the form in which the change of spirit [ ] began to express itself in the fourteenth century. the change might conceivably have taken some other shape. its true name is humanism. at the time men hardly felt that they were passing into a new age of civilization, nor did the culture of the renaissance immediately produce any open or general intellectual rebellion against orthodox beliefs. the world was gradually assuming an aspect decidedly unfriendly to the teaching of mediaeval orthodoxy; but there was no explosion of hostility; it was not till the seventeenth century that war between religion and authority was systematically waged. the humanists were not hostile to theological authority or to the claims of religious dogma; but they had discovered a purely human curiosity about this world and it absorbed their interest. they idolized pagan literature which abounded in poisonous germs; the secular side of education became all-important; religion and theology were kept in a separate compartment. some speculative minds, which were sensitive to the contradiction, might seek to reconcile the old religion with new ideas; but the general tendency of thinkers in the renaissance period was to keep the two worlds distinct, and to practise outward conformity to the creed without any real intellectual submission. [ ] i may illustrate this double-facedness of the renaissance by montaigne (second half of sixteenth century). his essays make for rationalism, but contain frequent professions of orthodox catholicism, in which he was perfectly sincere. there is no attempt to reconcile the two points of view; in fact, he takes the sceptical position that there is no bridge between reason and religion. the human intellect is incapable in the domain of theology, and religion must be placed aloft, out of reach and beyond the interference of reason; to be humbly accepted. but while he humbly accepted it, on sceptical grounds which would have induced him to accept mohammadanism if he had been born in cairo, his soul was not in its dominion. it was the philosophers and wise men of antiquity, cicero, and seneca, and plutarch, who moulded and possessed his mind. it is to them, and not to the consolations of christianity, that he turns when he discusses the problem of death. the religious wars in france which he witnessed and the massacre of st. bartholomew�s day ( ) were calculated to confirm him in his scepticism. his attitude to persecution is expressed in the remark that �it is setting a high value on one�s opinions to roast men on account of them.� the logical results of montaigne�s scepticism [ ] were made visible by his friend charron, who published a book on wisdom in . here it is taught that true morality is not founded on religion, and the author surveys the history of christianity to show the evils which it had produced. he says of immortality that it is the most generally received doctrine, the most usefully believed, and the most weakly established by human reasons; but he modified this and some other passages in a second edition. a contemporary jesuit placed charron in the catalogue of the most dangerous and wicked atheists. he was really a deist; but in those days, and long after, no one scrupled to call a non- christian deist an atheist. his book would doubtless have been suppressed and he would have suffered but for the support of king henry iv. it has a particular interest because it transports us directly from the atmosphere of the renaissance, represented by montaigne, into the new age of more or less aggressive rationalism. what humanism did in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, at first in italy, then in other countries, was to create an intellectual atmosphere in which the emancipation of reason could begin and knowledge could resume its progress. the period saw the invention of printing and [ ] the discovery of new parts of the globe, and these things were to aid powerfully in the future defeat of authority. but the triumph of freedom depended on other causes also; it was not to be brought about by the intellect alone. the chief political facts of the period were the decline of the power of the pope in europe, the decay of the holy roman empire, and the growth of strong monarchies, in which worldly interests determined and dictated ecclesiastical policy, and from which the modern state was to develop. the success of the reformation was made possible by these conditions. its victory in north germany was due to the secular interest of the princes, who profited by the confiscation of church lands. in england there was no popular movement; the change was carried through by the government for its own purposes. the principal cause of the reformation was the general corruption of the church and the flagrancy of its oppression. for a long time the papacy had had no higher aim than to be a secular power exploiting its spiritual authority for the purpose of promoting its worldly interests, by which it was exclusively governed. all the european states based their diplomacy on this assumption. since the fourteenth century every one acknowledged [ ] the need of reforming the church, and reform had been promised, but things went from bad to worse, and there was no resource but rebellion. the rebellion led by luther was the result not of a revolt of reason against dogmas, but of widely spread anti-clerical feeling due to the ecclesiastical methods of extorting money, particularly by the sale of indulgences, the most glaring abuse of the time. it was his study of the theory of papal indulgences that led luther on to his theological heresies. it is an elementary error, but one which is still shared by many people who have read history superficially, that the reformation established religious liberty and the right of private judgment. what it did was to bring about a new set of political and social conditions, under which religious liberty could ultimately be secured, and, by virtue of its inherent inconsistencies, to lead to results at which its leaders would have shuddered. but nothing was further from the minds of the leading reformers than the toleration of doctrines differing from their own. they replaced one authority by another. they set up the authority of the bible instead of that of the church, but it was the bible according to luther or the bible according to calvin. so far as the spirit of intolerance went, there [ ] was nothing to choose between the new and the old churches. the religious wars were not for the cause of freedom, but for particular sets of doctrines; and in france, if the protestants had been victorious, it is certain that they would not have given more liberal terms to the catholics than the catholics gave to them. luther was quite opposed to liberty of conscience and worship, a doctrine which was inconsistent with scripture as he read it. he might protest against coercion and condemn the burning of heretics, when he was in fear that he and his party might be victims, but when he was safe and in power, he asserted his real view that it was the duty of the state to impose the true doctrine and exterminate heresy, which was an abomination, that unlimited obedience to their prince in religious as in other matters was the duty of subjects, and that the end of the state was to defend the faith. he held that anabaptists should be put to the sword. with protestants and catholics alike the dogma of exclusive salvation led to the same place. calvin�s fame for intolerance is blackest. he did not, like luther, advocate the absolute power of the civil ruler; he stood for the control of the state by the church�a form of government which is commonly called theocracy; [ ] and he established a theocracy at geneva. here liberty was completely crushed; false doctrines were put down by imprisonment, exile, and death. the punishment of servetus is the most famous exploit of calvin�s warfare against heresy. the spaniard servetus, who had written against the dogma of the trinity, was imprisoned at lyons (partly through the machinations of calvin) and having escaped came rashly to geneva. he was tried for heresy and committed to the flames ( ), though geneva had no jurisdiction over him. melanchthon, who formulated the principles of persecution, praised this act as a memorable example to posterity. posterity however was one day to be ashamed of that example. in the calvinists of geneva felt impelled to erect an expiatory monument, in which calvin �our great reformer� is excused as guilty of an error �which was that of his century.� thus the reformers, like the church from which they parted, cared nothing for freedom, they only cared for �truth.� if the mediaeval ideal was to purge the world of heretics, the object of the protestant was to exclude all dissidents from his own land. the people at large were to be driven into a fold, to accept their faith at the command of their sovran. this was the principle laid down in the [ ] religious peace which ( ) composed the struggle between the catholic emperor and the protestant german princes. it was recognized by catherine de� medici when she massacred the french protestants and signified to queen elizabeth that she might do likewise with english catholics. nor did the protestant creeds represent enlightenment. the reformation on the continent was as hostile to enlightenment as it was to liberty; and science, if it seemed to contradict the bible, has as little chance with luther as with the pope. the bible, interpreted by the protestants or the roman church, was equally fatal to witches. in germany the development of learning received a long set-back. yet the reformation involuntarily helped the cause of liberty. the result was contrary to the intentions of its leaders, was indirect, and long delayed. in the first place, the great rent in western christianity, substituting a number of theological authorities instead of one�several gods, we may say, instead of one god�produced a weakening of ecclesiastical authority in general. the religious tradition was broken. in the second place, in the protestant states, the supreme ecclesiastical power was vested in the sovran; the sovran had other interests besides those of [ ] the church to consider; and political reasons would compel him sooner or later to modify the principle of ecclesiastical intolerance. catholic states in the same way were forced to depart from the duty of not suffering heretics. the religious wars in france ended in a limited toleration of protestants. the policy of cardinal richelieu, who supported the protestant cause in germany, illustrates how secular interests obstructed the cause of faith. again, the intellectual justification of the protestant rebellion against the church had been the right of private judgment, that is, the principle of religious liberty. but the reformers had asserted it only for themselves, and as soon as they had framed their own articles of faith, they had practically repudiated it. this was the most glaring inconsistency in the protestant position; and the claim which they had thrust aside could not be permanently suppressed. once more, the protestant doctrines rested on an insecure foundation which no logic could defend, and inevitably led from one untenable position to another. if we are to believe on authority, why should we prefer the upstart dictation of the lutheran confession of augsburg or the english thirty- nine articles to the venerable authority of the church of rome? if we decide against rome, we must do so by means [ ] of reason; but once we exercise reason in the matter, why should we stop where luther or calvin or any of the other rebels stopped, unless we assume that one of them was inspired? if we reject superstitions which they rejected, there is nothing except their authority to prevent us from rejecting all or some of the superstitions which they retained. moreover, their bible-worship promoted results which they did not foresee. [ ] the inspired record on which the creeds depend became an open book. public attention was directed to it as never before, though it cannot be said to have been universally read before the nineteenth century. study led to criticism, the difficulties of the dogma of inspiration were appreciated, and the bible was ultimately to be submitted to a remorseless dissection which has altered at least the quality of its authority in the eyes of intelligent believers. this process of biblical criticism has been conducted mainly in a protestant atmosphere and the new position in which the bible was placed by the reformation must be held partly accountable. in these ways, protestantism was adapted to be a stepping-stone to rationalism, and thus served the cause of freedom. [ ] that cause however was powerfully and directly promoted by one sect of reformers, who in the eyes of all the others were blasphemers and of whom most people never think when they talk of the reformation. i mean the socinians. of their far-reaching influence something will be said in the next chapter. another result of the reformation has still to be mentioned, its renovating effect on the roman church, which had now to fight for its existence. a new series of popes who were in earnest about religion began with paul iii ( ) and reorganized the papacy and its resources for a struggle of centuries. [ ] the institution of the jesuit order, the establishment of the inquisition at rome, the council of trent, the censorship of the press (index of forbidden books) were the expression of the new spirit and the means to cope with the new situation. the reformed papacy was good fortune for believing children of the church, but what here concerns us is that one of its chief objects was to repress freedom more effectually. savonarola who preached right living at florence had been executed ( ) under pope alexander vi who was a notorious profligate. if savonarola had lived [ ] in the new era he might have been canonized, but giordano bruno was burned. giordano bruno had constructed a religious philosophy, based partly upon epicurus, from whom he took the theory of the infinity of the universe. but epicurean materialism was transformed into a pantheistic mysticism by the doctrine that god is the soul of matter. accepting the recent discovery of copernicus, which catholics and protestants alike rejected, that the earth revolves round the sun, bruno took the further step of regarding the fixed stars as suns, each with its invisible satellites. he sought to come to an understanding with the bible, which (he held) being intended for the vulgar had to accommodate itself to their prejudices. leaving italy, because he was suspected of heresy, he lived successively in switzerland, france, england, and germany, and in , induced by a false friend to return to venice he was seized by order of the inquisition. finally condemned in rome, he was burned ( ) in the campo de� fiori, where a monument now stands in his honour, erected some years ago, to the great chagrin of the roman church. much is made of the fate of bruno because he is one of the world�s famous men. no country has so illustrious a victim of that era to commemorate as italy, but in other lands [ ] blood just as innocent was shed for heterodox opinions. in france there was rather more freedom than elsewhere under the relatively tolerant government of henry iv and of the cardinals richelieu and mazarin, till about . but at toulouse ( ) lucilio vanini, a learned italian who like bruno wandered about europe, was convicted as an atheist and blasphemer; his tongue was torn out and he was burned. protestant england, under elizabeth and james i, did not lag behind the roman inquisition, but on account of the obscurity of the victims her zeal for faith has been unduly forgotten. yet, but for an accident, she might have covered herself with the glory of having done to death a heretic not less famous than giordano bruno. the poet marlowe was accused of atheism, but while the prosecution was hanging over him he was killed in a sordid quarrel in a tavern ( ). another dramatist (kyd) who was implicated in the charge was put to the torture. at the same time sir walter raleigh was prosecuted for unbelief but not convicted. others were not so fortunate. three or four persons were burned at norwich in the reign of elizabeth for unchristian doctrines, among them francis kett who had been a fellow of corpus christi, cambridge. under james i, who [ ] interested himself personally in such matters, bartholomew legate was charged with holding various pestilent opinions. the king summoned him to his presence and asked him whether he did not pray daily to jesus christ. legate replied he had prayed to christ in the days of his ignorance, but not for the last seven years. �away, base fellow,� said james, spurning him with his foot, �it shall never be said that one stayeth in my palace that hath never prayed to our saviour for seven years together.� legate, having been imprisoned for some time in newgate, was declared an incorrigible heretic and burned at smithfield ( ). just a month later, one wightman was burned at lichfield, by the bishop of coventry, for heterodox doctrines. it is possible that public opinion was shocked by these two burnings. they were the last cases in england of death for unbelief. puritan intolerance, indeed, passed an ordinance in , by which all who denied the trinity, christ�s divinity, the inspiration of scripture, or a future state, were liable to death, and persons guilty of other heresies, to imprisonment. but this did not lead to any executions. the renaissance age saw the first signs of the beginning of modern science, but the mediaeval prejudices against the investigation [ ] of nature were not dissipated till the seventeenth century, and in italy they continued to a much later period. the history of modern astronomy begins in , with the publication of the work of copernicus revealing the truth about the motions of the earth. the appearance of this work is important in the history of free thought, because it raised a clear and definite issue between science and scripture; and osiander, who edited it (copernicus was dying), forseeing the outcry it would raise, stated untruly in the preface that the earth�s motion was put forward only as a hypothesis. the theory was denounced by catholics and reformers, and it did not convince some men (e.g. bacon) who were not influenced by theological prejudice. the observations of the italian astronomer galileo de� galilei demonstrated the copernican theory beyond question. his telescope discovered the moons of jupiter, and his observation of the spots in the sun confirmed the earth�s rotation. in the pulpits of florence, where he lived under the protection of the grand duke, his sensational discoveries were condemned. �men of galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?� he was then denounced to the holy office of the inquisition by two dominican monks. learning that his investigations were being considered [ ] at rome, galileo went thither, confident that he would be able to convince the ecclesiastical authorities of the manifest truth of copernicanism. he did not realize what theology was capable of. in february the holy office decided that the copernican system was in itself absurd, and, in respect of scripture, heretical. cardinal bellarmin, by the pope�s direction, summoned galileo and officially admonished him to abandon his opinion and cease to teach it, otherwise the inquisition would proceed against him. galileo promised to obey. the book of copernicus was placed on the index. it has been remarked that galileo�s book on solar spots contains no mention of scripture, and thus the holy office, in its decree which related to that book, passed judgment on a scientific, not a theological, question. galileo was silenced for a while, but it was impossible for him to be mute for ever. under a new pope (urban viii) he looked for greater liberty, and there were many in the papal circle who were well disposed to him. he hoped to avoid difficulties by the device of placing the arguments for the old and the new theories side by side, and pretending not to judge between them. he wrote a treatise on the two systems (the ptolemaic and the copernican) in the form [ ] of dialogues, of which the preface declares that the purpose is to explain the pros and cons of the two views. but the spirit of the work is copernican. he received permission, quite definite as he thought, from father riccardi (master of the sacred palace) to print it, and it appeared in . the pope however disapproved of it, the book was examined by a commission, and galileo was summoned before the inquisition. he was old and ill, and the humiliations which he had to endure are a painful story. he would probably have been more severely treated, if one of the members of the tribunal had not been a man of scientific training (macolano, a dominican), who was able to appreciate his ability. under examination, galileo denied that he had upheld the motion of the earth in the dialogues, and asserted that he had shown the reasons of copernicus to be inconclusive. this defence was in accordance with the statement in his preface, but contradicted his deepest conviction. in struggling with such a tribunal, it was the only line which a man who was not a hero could take. at a later session, he forced himself ignominiously to confess that some of the arguments on the copernican side had been put too strongly and to declare himself ready to confute the [ ] theory. in the final examination, he was threatened with torture. he said that before the decree of he had held the truth of the copernican system to be arguable, but since then he had held the ptolemaic to be true. next day, he publicly abjured the scientific truth which he had demonstrated. he was allowed to retire to the country, on condition that he saw no one. in the last months of his life he wrote to a friend to this effect: �the falsity of the copernican system cannot be doubted, especially by us catholics. it is refuted by the irrefragable authority of scripture. the conjectures of copernicus and his disciples were all disposed of by the one solid argument: god�s omnipotence can operate in infinitely various ways. if something appears to our observation to happen in one particular way, we must not curtail god�s arm, and sustain a thing in which we may be deceived.� the irony is evident. rome did not permit the truth about the solar system to be taught till after the middle of the eighteenth century, and galileo�s books remained on the index till . the prohibition was fatal to the study of natural science in italy. the roman index reminds us of the significance of the invention of printing in the struggle for freedom of thought, by making [ ] it easy to propagate new ideas far and wide. authority speedily realized the danger, and took measures to place its yoke on the new contrivance, which promised to be such a powerful ally of reason. pope alexander vi inaugurated censorship of the press by his bull against unlicensed printing ( ). in france king henry ii made printing without official permission punishable by death. in germany, censorship was introduced in . in england, under elizabeth, books could not be printed without a license, and printing presses were not allowed except in london, oxford, and cambridge; the regulation of the press was under the authority of the star chamber. nowhere did the press become really free till the nineteenth century. while the reformation and the renovated roman church meant a reaction against the renaissance, the vital changes which the renaissance signified�individualism, a new intellectual attitude to the world, the cultivation of secular knowledge�were permanent and destined to lead, amid the competing intolerances of catholic and protestant powers, to the goal of liberty. we shall see how reason and the growth of knowledge undermined the bases of theological authority. at each step in this process, in which philosophical speculation, historical [ ] criticism, natural science have all taken part, the opposition between reason and faith deepened; doubt, clear or vague, increased; and secularism, derived from the humanists, and always implying scepticism, whether latent or conscious, substituted an interest in the fortunes of the human race upon earth for the interest in a future world. and along with this steady intellectual advance, toleration gained ground and freedom won more champions. in the meantime the force of political circumstances was compelling governments to mitigate their maintenance of one religious creed by measures of relief to other christian sects, and the principle of exclusiveness was broken down for reasons of worldly expediency. religious liberty was an important step towards complete freedom of opinion. [ ] the danger, however, was felt in germany, and in the seventeenth century the study of scripture was not encouraged at german universities. [ ] see barry, papacy and modern times (in this series), seq. chapter v religious toleration in the third century b.c. the indian king asoka, a man of religious zeal but of tolerant spirit, confronted by the struggle between two hostile religions (brahmanism and buddhism), decided that both should be equally privileged and honoured in his dominions. his ordinances on the matter are memorable [ ] as the earliest existing edicts of toleration. in europe, as we saw, the principle of toleration was for the first time definitely expressed in the roman imperial edicts which terminated the persecution of the christians. the religious strife of the sixteenth century raised the question in its modern form, and for many generations it was one of the chief problems of statesmen and the subject of endless controversial pamphlets. toleration means incomplete religious liberty, and there are many degrees of it. it might be granted to certain christian sects; it might be granted to christian sects, but these alone; it might be granted to all religions, but not to freethinkers; or to deists, but not to atheists. it might mean the concession of some civil rights, but not of others; it might mean the exclusion of those who are tolerated from public offices or from certain professions. the religious liberty now enjoyed in western lands has been gained through various stages of toleration. we owe the modern principle of toleration to the italian group of reformers, who rejected the doctrine of the trinity and were the fathers of unitarianism. the reformation movement had spread to italy, but rome was successful in suppressing it, and many heretics fled to switzerland. the anti-trinitarian [ ] group were forced by the intolerance of calvin to flee to transylvania and poland where they propagated their doctrines. the unitarian creed was moulded by fausto sozzini, generally known as socinus, and in the catechism of his sect ( ) persecution is condemned. this repudiation of the use of force in the interest of religion is a consequence of the socinian doctrines. for, unlike luther and calvin, the socinians conceded such a wide room to individual judgment in the interpretation of scripture that to impose socinianism would have been inconsistent with its principles. in other words, there was a strong rationalistic element which was lacking in the trinitarian creeds. it was under the influence of the socinian spirit that castellion of savoy sounded the trumpet of toleration in a pamphlet denouncing the burning of servetus, whereby he earned the malignant hatred of calvin. he maintained the innocence of error and ridiculed the importance which the churches laid on obscure questions such as predestination and the trinity. �to discuss the difference between the law and the gospel, gratuitous remission of sins or imputed righteousness, is as if a man were to discuss whether a prince was to come on horseback, [ ] or in a chariot, or dressed in white or in red.� [ ] religion is a curse if persecution is a necessary part of it. for a long time the socinians and those who came under their influence when, driven from poland, they passed into germany and holland, were the only sects which advocated toleration. it was adopted from them by the anabaptists and by the arminian section of the reformed church of holland. and in holland, the founder of the english congregationalists, who (under the name of independents) played such an important part in the history of the civil war and the commonwealth, learned the principle of liberty of conscience. socinus thought that this principle could be realized without abolishing the state church. he contemplated a close union between the state and the prevailing church, combined with complete toleration for other sects. it is under this system (which has been called jurisdictional) that religious liberty has been realized in european states. but there is another and simpler method, that of separating church from state and placing all religions on an equality. this was the solution which the anabaptists would have preferred. they detested the state; and the doctrine of religious liberty was not [ ] precious to them. their ideal system would have been an anabaptist theocracy; separation was the second best. in europe, public opinion was not ripe for separation, inasmuch as the most powerful religious bodies were alike in regarding toleration as wicked indifference. but it was introduced in a small corner of the new world beyond the atlantic in the seventeenth century. the puritans who fled from the intolerance of the english church and state and founded colonies in new england, were themselves equally intolerant, not only to anglicans and catholics, but to baptists and quakers. they set up theocratical governments from which all who did not belong to their own sect were excluded. roger williams had imbibed from the dutch arminians the idea of separation of church from state. on account of this heresy he was driven from massachusetts, and he founded providence to be a refuge for those whom the puritan colonists persecuted. here he set up a democratic constitution in which the magistrates had power only in civil matters and could not interfere with religion. other towns were presently founded in rhode island, and a charter of charles ii ( ) confirmed the constitution, which secured to all citizens professing christianity, of whatever [ ] form, the full enjoyment of political rights. non-christians were tolerated, but were not admitted to the political rights of christians. so far, the new state fell short of perfect liberty. but the fact that jews were soon admitted, notwithstanding, to full citizenship shows how free the atmosphere was. to roger williams belongs the glory of having founded the first modern state which was really tolerant and was based on the principle of taking the control of religious matters entirely out of the hands of the civil government. toleration was also established in the roman catholic colony of maryland, but in a different way. through the influence of lord baltimore an act of toleration was passed in , notable as the first decree, voted by a legal assembly, granting complete freedom to all christians. no one professing faith in christ was to be molested in regard to his religion. but the law was heavy on all outside this pale. any one who blasphemed god or attacked the trinity or any member of the trinity was threatened by the penalty of death. the tolerance of maryland attracted so many protestant settlers from virginia that the protestants became a majority, and as soon as they won political preponderance, they introduced an act ( ) [ ] excluding papists and prelatists from toleration. the rule of the baltimores was restored after , and the old religious freedom was revived, but with the accession of william iii the protestants again came into power and the toleration which the catholics had instituted in maryland came to an end. it will be observed that in both these cases freedom was incomplete; but it was much larger and more fundamental in rhode island, where it had been ultimately derived from the doctrine of socinus. [ ] when the colonies became independent of england the federal constitution which they set up was absolutely secular, but it was left to each member of the union to adopt separation or not ( ). if separation has become the rule in the american states, it may be largely due to the fact that on any other system the governments would have found it difficult to impose mutual tolerance on the sects. it must be added that in maryland and a few southern states atheists still suffer from some political disabilities. in england, the experiment of separation would have been tried under the commonwealth, if the independents had had their way. this policy was overruled by cromwell. [ ] the new national church included presbyterians, independents, and baptists, but liberty of worship was granted to all christian sects, except roman catholics and anglicans. if the parliament had had the power, this toleration would have been a mere name. the presbyterians regarded toleration as a work of the devil, and would have persecuted the independents if they could. but under cromwell�s autocratic rule even the anglicans lived in peace, and toleration was extended to the jews. in these days, voices were raised from various quarters advocating toleration on general grounds. [ ] the most illustrious advocate was milton, the poet, who was in favour of the severance of church from state. in milton�s areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing ( ), the freedom of the press is eloquently sustained by arguments which are valid for freedom of thought in general. it is shown that the censorship will conduce �to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made, both in religious [ ] and civil wisdom.� for knowledge is advanced through the utterance of new opinions, and truth is discovered by free discussion. if the waters of truth �flow not in a perpetual progression they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.� books which are authorized by the licensers are apt to be, as bacon said, �but the language of the times,� and do not contribute to progress. the examples of the countries where the censorship is severe do not suggest that it is useful for morals: �look into italy and spain, whether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books.� spain indeed could reply, �we are, what is more important, more orthodox.� it is interesting to notice that milton places freedom of thought above civil liberty: �give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties.� with the restoration of the monarchy and the anglican church, religious liberty was extinguished by a series of laws against dissenters. to the revolution we owe the act of toleration ( ) from which the religious freedom which england enjoys at present is derived. it granted freedom of worship to presbyterians, congregationalists, [ ] baptists and quakers, but only to these; catholics and unitarians were expressly excepted and the repressive legislation of charles ii remained in force against them. it was a characteristically english measure, logically inconsistent and absurd, a mixture of tolerance and intolerance, but suitable to the circumstances and the state of public opinion at the time. in the same year john locke�s famous (first) letter concerning toleration appeared in latin. three subsequent letters developed and illustrated his thesis. the main argument is based on the principle that the business of civil government is quite distinct from that of religion, that the state is a society constituted only for preserving and promoting the civil interests of its members �civil interests meaning life, liberty, health, and the possession of property. the care of souls is not committed to magistrates more than to other men. for the magistrate can only use outward force; but true religion means the inward persuasion of the mind, and the mind is so made that force cannot compel it to believe. so too it is absurd for a state to make laws to enforce a religion, for laws are useless without penalties, and penalties are impertinent because they cannot convince. moreover, even if penalties could change [ ] men�s beliefs, this would not conduce to the salvation of souls. would more men be saved if all blindly resigned themselves to the will of their rulers and accepted the religion of their country? for as the princes of the world are divided in religion, one country alone would be in the right, and all the rest of the world would have to follow their princes to destruction; �and that which heightens the absurdity, and very ill suits the notion of a deity, men would owe their eternal happiness or their eternal misery to the places of their nativity.� this is a principle on which locke repeatedly insists. if a state is justified in imposing a creed, it follows that in all the lands, except the one or few in which the true faith prevails, it is the duty of the subjects to embrace a false religion. if protestantism is promoted in england, popery by the same rule will be promoted in france. �what is true and good in england will be true and good at rome too, in china, or geneva.� toleration is the principle which gives to the true faith the best chance of prevailing. locke would concede full liberty to idolaters, by whom he means the indians of north america, and he makes some scathing remarks on the ecclesiastical zeal which forced these �innocent pagans� to forsake [ ] their ancient religion. but his toleration, though it extends beyond the christian pale, is not complete. he excepts in the first place roman catholics, not on account of their theological dogmas but because they �teach that faith is not to be kept with heretics,� that �kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms,� and because they deliver themselves up to the protection and service of a foreign prince�the pope. in other words, they are politically dangerous. his other exception is atheists. �those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of god. promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. the taking away of god, though but even in thought, dissolves all. besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion to challenge the privilege of a toleration.� thus locke is not free from the prejudices of his time. these exceptions contradict his own principle that �it is absurd that things should be enjoined by laws which are not in men�s power to perform. and to believe this or that to be true does not depend upon our will.� this applies to roman catholics as to protestants, to atheists as to deists. locke, however, perhaps thought [ ] that the speculative opinion of atheism, which was uncommon in his day, does depend on the will. he would have excluded from his state his great contemporary spinoza. but in spite of its limitations locke�s toleration is a work of the highest value, and its argument takes us further than its author went. it asserts unrestrictedly the secular principle, and its logical issue is disestablishment. a church is merely �a free and voluntary society.� i may notice the remark that if infidels were to be converted by force, it was easier for god to do it �with armies of heavenly legions than for any son of the church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons.� this is a polite way of stating a maxim analogous to that of the emperor tiberius (above, p. ). if false beliefs are an offence to god, it is, really, his affair. the toleration of nonconformists was far from pleasing extreme anglicans, and the influence of this party at the beginning of the eighteenth century menaced the liberty of dissenters. the situation provoked defoe, who was a zealous nonconformist, to write his pamphlet, the shortest way with the dissenters ( ), an ironical attack upon the principle of toleration. it pretends to show that the dissenters are at heart incorrigible rebels, that a gentle policy is useless, and suggests [ ] that all preachers at conventicles should be hanged and all persons found attending such meetings should be banished. this exceedingly amusing but terribly earnest caricature of the sentiments of the high anglican party at first deceived and alarmed the dissenters themselves. but the high churchmen were furious. defoe was fined, exposed in the pillory three times, and sent to newgate prison. but the tory reaction was only temporary. during the eighteenth century a relatively tolerant spirit prevailed among the christian sects and new sects were founded. the official church became less fanatical; many of its leading divines were influenced by rationalistic thought. if it had not been for the opposition of king george iii, the catholics might have been freed from their disabilities before the end of the century. this measure, eloquently advocated by burke and desired by pitt, was not carried till , and then under the threat of a revolution in ireland. in the meantime legal toleration had been extended to the unitarians in , but they were not relieved from all disabilities till the forties. jews were not admitted to the full rights of citizenship till . the achievement of religious liberty in england in the nineteenth century has been mainly the work of liberals. the liberal [ ] party has been moving towards the ultimate goal of complete secularization and the separation of the church from the state� the logical results of locke�s theory of civil government. the disestablishment of the church in ireland in partly realized this ideal, and now more than forty years later the liberal party is seeking to apply the principle to wales. it is highly characteristic of english politics and english psychology that the change should be carried out in this piecemeal fashion. in the other countries of the british empire the system of separation prevails; there is no connection between the state and any sect; no church is anything more than a voluntary society. but secularization has advanced under the state church system. it is enough to mention the education act of and the abolition of religious tests at universities ( ). other gains for freedom will be noticed when i come to speak in another chapter of the progress of rationalism. if we compare the religious situation in france in the seventeenth with that in the eighteenth century, it seems to be sharply contrasted with the development in england. in england there was a great advance towards religious liberty, in france there was a falling away. until the french protestants [ ] (huguenots) were tolerated; for the next hundred years they were outlaws. but the toleration, which their charter (the edict of nantes, ) secured them, was of a limited kind. they were excluded, for instance, from the army; they were excluded from paris and other cities and districts. and the liberty which they enjoyed was confined to them; it was not granted to any other sect. the charter was faithfully maintained by the two great cardinals (richelieu and mazarin) who governed france under louis xiii and louis xiv, but when the latter assumed the active power in he began a series of laws against the protestants which culminated in the revoking of the charter ( ) and the beginning of a protestant persecution. the french clergy justified this policy by the notorious text �compel them to come in,� and appealed to st. augustine. their arguments evoked a defence of toleration by bayle, a french protestant who had taken refuge in holland. it was entitled a philosophical commentary on the text �compel them to come in� ( ) and in importance stands beside locke�s work which was being composed at the same time. many of the arguments urged by the two writers are identical. they agreed, and for the same reasons, in excluding roman catholics. the [ ] most characteristic thing in bayle�s treatise is his sceptical argument that, even if it were a right principle to suppress error by force, no truth is certain enough to justify us in applying the theory. we shall see (next chapter) this eminent scholar�s contribution to rationalism. though there was an immense exodus of protestants from france, louis did not succeed in his design of extirpating heresy from his lands. in the eighteenth century, under louis xv, the presence of protestants was tolerated though they were outlaws; their marriages were not recognized as legal, and they were liable at any moment to persecution. about the middle of the century a literary agitation began, conducted mainly by rationalists, but finally supported by enlightened catholics, to relieve the affliction of the oppressed sect. it resulted at last in an edict of toleration ( ), which made the position of the protestants endurable, though it excluded them from certain careers. the most energetic and forceful leader in the campaign against intolerance was voltaire (see next chapter), and his exposure of some glaring cases of unjust persecution did more than general arguments to achieve the object. the most infamous case was that of jean calas, a protestant merchant of toulouse, whose son committed suicide. a report [ ] was set abroad that the young man had decided to join the catholic church, and that his father, mother, and brother, filled with protestant bigotry, killed him, with the help of a friend. they were all put in irons, tried, and condemned, though there were no arguments for their guilt, except the conjecture of bigotry. jean calas was broken on the wheel, his son and daughter cast into convents, his wife left to starve. through the activity of voltaire, then living near geneva, the widow was induced to go to paris, where she was kindly received, and assisted by eminent lawyers; a judicial inquiry was made; the toulouse sentence was reversed and the king granted pensions to those who had suffered. this scandal could only have happened in the provinces, according to voltaire: �at paris,� he says, �fanaticism, powerful though it may be, is always controlled by reason.� the case of sirven, though it did not end tragically, was similar, and the government of toulouse was again responsible. he was accused of having drowned his daughter in a well to hinder her from becoming a catholic, and was, with his wife, sentenced to death. fortunately he and his family had escaped to switzerland, where they persuaded voltaire of their innocence. to get the sentence reversed was the work of nine years, and this [ ] time it was reversed at toulouse. when voltaire visited paris in he was acclaimed by crowds as the �defender of calas and the sirvens.� his disinterested practical activity against persecution was of far more value than the treatise on toleration which he wrote in connexion with the calas episode. it is a poor work compared with those of locke and bayle. the tolerance which he advocates is of a limited kind; he would confine public offices and dignities to those who belong to the state religion. but if voltaire�s system of toleration is limited, it is wide compared with the religious establishment advocated by his contemporary, rousseau. though of swiss birth, rousseau belongs to the literature and history of france; but it was not for nothing that he was brought up in the traditions of calvinistic geneva. his ideal state would, in its way, have been little better than any theocracy. he proposed to establish a �civil religion� which was to be a sort of undogmatic christianity. but certain dogmas, which he considered essential, were to be imposed on all citizens on pain of banishment. such were the existence of a deity, the future bliss of the good and punishment of the bad, the duty of tolerance towards all those who accepted the fundamental [ ] articles of faith. it may be said that a state founded on this basis would be fairly inclusive�that all christian sects and many deists could find a place in it. but by imposing indispensable beliefs, it denies the principle of toleration. the importance of rousseau�s idea lies in the fact that it inspired one of the experiments in religious policy which were made during the french revolution. the revolution established religious liberty in france. most of the leaders were unorthodox. their rationalism was naturally of the eighteenth-century type, and in the preamble to the declaration of rights ( ) deism was asserted by the words �in the presence and under the auspices of the supreme being� (against which only one voice protested). the declaration laid down that no one was to be vexed on account of his religious opinions provided he did not thereby trouble public order. catholicism was retained as the �dominant� religion; protestants (but not jews) were admitted to public office. mirabeau, the greatest statesman of the day, protested strongly against the use of words like �tolerance� and �dominant.� he said: �the most unlimited liberty of religion is in my eyes a right so sacred that to express it by the word �toleration� seems to me itself a sort of tyranny, [ ] since the authority which tolerates might also not tolerate.� the same protest was made in thomas paine�s rights of man which appeared two years later: �toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. both are despotisms. the one assumes itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it.� paine was an ardent deist, and he added: �were a bill brought into any parliament, entitled �an act to tolerate or grant liberty to the almighty to receive the worship of a jew or a turk,� or �to prohibit the almighty from receiving it,� all men would startle and call it blasphemy. there would be an uproar. the presumption of toleration in religious matters would then present itself unmasked.� the revolution began well, but the spirit of mirabeau was not in the ascendant throughout its course. the vicissitudes in religious policy from to have a particular interest, because they show that the principle of liberty of conscience was far from possessing the minds of the men who were proud of abolishing the intolerance of the government which they had overthrown. the state church was reorganized by the civil constitution of the clergy ( ), by which french citizens were forbidden to acknowledge the authority of the pope and [ ] the appointment of bishops was transferred to the electors of the departments, so that the commanding influence passed from the crown to the nation. doctrine and worship were not touched. under the democratic republic which succeeded the fall of the monarchy ( � ) this constitution was maintained, but a movement to dechristianize france was inaugurated, and the commune of paris ordered the churches of all religions to be closed. the worship of reason, with rites modelled on the catholic, was organized in paris and the provinces. the government, violently anti-catholic, did not care to use force against the prevalent faith; direct persecution would have weakened the national defence and scandalized europe. they naïvely hoped that the superstition would disappear by degrees. robespierre declared against the policy of unchristianizing france, and when he had the power (april, ), he established as a state religion the worship of the supreme being. �the french people recognizes the existence of the supreme being and the immortality of the soul�; the liberty of other cults was maintained. thus, for a few months, rousseau�s idea was more or less realized. it meant intolerance. atheism was regarded as a vice, and �all were atheists who did not think like robespierre.� [ ] the democratic was succeeded by the middle-class republic ( � ), and the policy of its government was to hinder the preponderance of any one religious group; to hold the balance among all the creeds, but with a certain partiality against the strongest, the catholic, which threatened, as was thought, to destroy the others or even the republic. the plan was to favour the growth of new rationalistic cults, and to undermine revealed religion by a secular system of education. accordingly the church was separated from the state by the constitution of , which affirmed the liberty of all worship and withdrew from the catholic clergy the salaries which the state had hitherto paid. the elementary schools were laicized. the declaration of rights, the articles of the constitution, and republican morality were taught instead of religion. an enthusiast declared that �the religion of socrates, marcus aurelius, and cicero would soon be the religion of the world.� a new rationalistic religion was introduced under the name of theophilanthropy. it was the �natural religion� of the philosophers and poets of the century, of voltaire and the english deists�not the purified christianity of rousseau, but anterior and superior to christianity. its doctrines, briefly formulated, [ ] were: god, immortality, fraternity, humanity; no attacks on other religions, but respect and honour towards all; gatherings in a family, or in a temple, to encourage one another to practise morality. protected by the government sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, it had a certain success among the cultivated classes. the idea of the lay state was popularized under this rule, and by the end of the century there was virtually religious peace in france. under the consulate (from ) the same system continued, but napoleon ceased to protect theophilanthropy. in , though there seems to have been little discontent with the existing arrangement, napoleon decided to upset it and bring the pope upon the scene. the catholic religion, as that of the majority, was again taken under the special protection of the state, the salaries of the clergy again paid by the nation, and the papal authority over the church again recognized within well-defined limits; while full toleration of other religions was maintained. this was the effect of the concordat between the french republic and the pope. it is the judgment of a high authority that the nation, if it had been consulted, would have pronounced against the change. it may be doubted whether this is true. but napoleon�s policy [ ] seems to have been prompted by the calculation that, using the pope as an instrument, he could control the consciences of men, and more easily carry out his plans of empire. apart from its ecclesiastical policies and its experiments in new creeds based on the principles of rationalistic thinkers, the french revolution itself has an interest, in connexion with our subject, as an example of the coercion of reason by an intolerant faith. the leaders believed that, by applying certain principles, they could regenerate france and show the world how the lasting happiness of mankind can be secured. they acted in the name of reason, but their principles were articles of faith, which were accepted just as blindly and irrationally as the dogmas of any supernatural creed. one of these dogmas was the false doctrine of rousseau that man is a being who is naturally good and loves justice and order. another was the illusion that all men are equal by nature. the puerile conviction prevailed that legislation could completely blot out the past and radically transform the character of a society. �liberty, equality, and fraternity� was as much a creed as the creed of the apostles; it hypnotized men�s minds like a revelation from on high; and reason had as little part in its propagation as in the spread [ ] of christianity or of protestantism. it meant anything but equality, fraternity, or liberty, especially liberty, when it was translated into action by the fanatical apostles of �reason,� who were blind to the facts of human nature and defied the facts of econnomics. terror, the usual instrument in propagating religions, was never more mercilessly applied. any one who questioned the doctrines was a heretic and deserved a heretic�s fate. and, as in most religious movements, the milder and less unreasonable spirits succumbed to the fanatics. never was the name of reason more grievously abused than by those who believed they were inaugurating her reign. religious liberty, however, among other good things, did emerge from the revolution, at first in the form of separation, and then under the concordat. the concordat lasted for more than a century, under monarchies and republics, till it was abolished in december, , when the system of separation was introduced again. in the german states the history of religious liberty differs in many ways, but it resembles the development in france in so far as toleration in a limited form was at first brought about by war. the thirty years� war, which divided germany in the first half [ ] of the seventeenth century, and in which, as in the english civil war, religion and politics were mixed, was terminated by the peace of westphalia ( ). by this act, three religions, the catholic, the lutheran, and the reformed [ ] were legally recognized by the holy roman empire, and placed on an equality; all other religious were excluded. but it was left to each of the german states, of which the empire consisted, to tolerate or not any religion it pleased. that is, every prince could impose on his subjects whichever of the three religions he chose, and refuse to tolerate the others in his territory. but he might also admit one or both of the others, and he might allow the followers of other creeds to reside in his dominion, and practise their religion within the precincts of their own houses. thus toleration varied, from state to state, according to the policy of each particular prince. as elsewhere, so in germany, considerations of political expediency promoted the growth of toleration, especially in prussia; and as elsewhere, theoretical advocates exercised great influence on public opinion. but the case for toleration was based by its german defenders chiefly on legal, not, as in [ ] england and france, on moral and intellectual grounds. they regarded it as a question of law, and discussed it from the point of view of the legal relations between state and church. it had been considered long ago from this standpoint by an original italian thinker, marsilius of padua (thirteenth century), who had maintained that the church had no power to employ physical coercion, and that if the lay authority punished heretics, the punishment was inflicted for the violation not of divine ordinances but of the law of the state, which excluded heretics from its territory. christian thomasius may be taken as a leading exponent of the theory that religious liberty logically follows from a right conception of law. he laid down in a series of pamphlets ( � ) that the prince, who alone has the power of coercion, has no right to interfere in spiritual matters, while the clergy step beyond their province if they interfere in secular matters or defend their faith by any other means than teaching. but the secular power has no legal right to coerce heretics unless heresy is a crime. and heresy is not a crime, but an error; for it is not a matter of will. thomasius, moreover, urges the view that the public welfare has nothing to gain from unity of faith, that it makes no [ ] difference what faith a man professes so long as he is loyal to the state. his toleration indeed is not complete. he was much influenced by the writings of his contemporary locke, and he excepts from the benefit of toleration the same classes which locke excepted. besides the influence of the jurists, we may note that the pietistic movement�a reaction of religious enthusiasm against the formal theology of the lutheran divines�was animated by a spirit favourable to toleration; and that the cause was promoted by the leading men of letters, especially by lessing, in the second half of the eighteenth century. but perhaps the most important fact of all in hastening the realization of religious liberty in germany was the accession of a rationalist to the throne of prussia, in the person of frederick the great. a few months after his accession ( ) he wrote in the margin of a state paper, in which a question of religious policy occurred, that every one should be allowed to get to heaven in his own way. his view that morality was independent of religion and therefore compatible with all religions, and that thus a man could be a good citizen�the only thing which the state was entitled to demand�whatever faith he might profess, led to the logical consequence of complete religious liberty. catholics [ ] were placed on an equality with protestants, and the treaty of westphalia was violated by the extension of full toleration to all the forbidden sects. frederick even conceived the idea of introducing mohammedan settlers into some parts of his realm. contrast england under george iii, france under louis xv, italy under the shadow of the popes. it is an important fact in history, which has hardly been duly emphasized, that full religious liberty was for the first time, in any country in modern europe, realized under a free-thinking ruler, the friend of the great �blasphemer� voltaire. the policy and principles of frederick were formulated in the prussian territorial code of , by which unrestricted liberty of conscience was guaranteed, and the three chief religions, the lutheran, the reformed, and the catholic, were placed on the same footing and enjoyed the same privileges. the system is �jurisdictional�; only, three churches here occupy the position which the anglican church alone occupies in england. the rest of germany did not begin to move in the direction pointed out by prussia until, by one of the last acts of the holy roman empire ( ), the westphalian settlement had been modified. before the foundation of the new empire ( ), freedom was established throughout germany. [ ] in austria, the emperor joseph ii issued an edict of toleration in , which may be considered a broad measure for a catholic state at that time. joseph was a sincere catholic, but he was not impervious to the enlightened ideas of his age; he was an admirer of frederick, and his edict was prompted by a genuinely tolerant spirit, such as had not inspired the english act of . it extended only to the lutheran and reformed sects and the communities of the greek church which had entered into union with rome, and it was of a limited kind. religious liberty was not established till . the measure of joseph applied to the austrian states in italy, and helped to prepare that country for the idea of religious freedom. it is notable that in italy in the eighteenth century toleration found its advocate, not in a rationalist or a philosopher, but in a catholic ecclesiastic, tamburinni, who (under the name of his friend trautmansdorf) published a work on ecclesiastical and civil toleration ( ). a sharp line is drawn between the provinces of the church and the state, persecution and the inquisition are condemned, coercion of conscience is declared inconsistent with the christian spirit, and the principle is laid down that the sovran should only exercise coercion where [ ] the interests of public safety are concerned. like locke, the author thinks that atheism is a legitimate case for such coercion. the new states which napoleon set up in italy exhibited toleration in various degrees, but real liberty was first introduced in piedmont by cavour ( ), a measure which prepared the way for the full liberty which was one of the first-fruits of the foundation of the italian kingdom in . the union of italy, with all that it meant, is the most signal and dramatic act in the triumph of the ideas of the modern state over the traditional principles of the christian church. rome, which preserved those principles most faithfully, has offered a steadfast, we may say a heroic, resistance to the liberal ideas which swept europe in the nineteenth century. the guides of her policy grasped thoroughly the danger which liberal thought meant for an institution which, founded in a remote past, claimed to be unchangeable and never out of date. gregory xvi issued a solemn protest maintaining authority against freedom, the mediaeval against the modern ideal, in an encyclical letter ( ), which was intended as a rebuke to some young french catholics (lamennais and his friends) who had conceived the promising idea of transforming the church by the liberal spirit [ ] of the day. the pope denounces �the absurd and erroneous maxim, or rather insanity, that liberty of conscience should be procured and guaranteed to every one. the path to this pernicious error is prepared by that full and unlimited liberty of thought which is spread abroad to the misfortune of church and state and which certain persons, with excessive impudence, venture to represent as an advantage for religion. hence comes the corruption of youth, contempt for religion and for the most venerable laws, and a general mental change in the world�in short the most deadly scourge of society; since the experience of history has shown that the states which have shone by their wealth and power and glory have perished just by this evil� immoderate freedom of opinion, licence of conversation, and love of novelties. with this is connected the liberty of publishing any writing of any kind. this is a deadly and execrable liberty for which we cannot feel sufficient horror, though some men dare to acclaim it noisily and enthusiastically.� a generation later pius ix was to astonish the world by a similar manifesto�his syllabus of modern errors ( ). yet, notwithstanding the fundamental antagonism between the principles of the church and the drift of modern civilization, the papacy survives, [ ] powerful and respected, in a world where the ideas which it condemned have become the commonplace conditions of life. the progress of western nations from the system of unity which prevailed in the fifteenth, to the system of liberty which was the rule in the nineteenth century, was slow and painful, illogical and wavering, generally dictated by political necessities, seldom inspired by deliberate conviction. we have seen how religious liberty has been realized, so far as the law is concerned, under two distinct systems, �jurisdiction� and �separation.� but legal toleration may coexist with much practical intolerance, and liberty before the law is compatible with serious disabilities of which the law cannot take account. for instance, the expression of unorthodox opinions may exclude a man from obtaining a secular post or hinder his advancement. the question has been asked, which of the two systems is more favourable to the creation of a tolerant social atmosphere? ruffini (of whose excellent work on religious liberty i have made much use in this chapter) decides in favour of jurisdiction. he points out that while socinus, a true friend of liberty of thought, contemplated this system, the anabaptists, whose spirit was intolerant, sought separation. more important [ ] is the observation that in germany, england, and italy, where the most powerful church or churches are under the control of the state, there is more freedom, more tolerance of opinion, than in many of the american states where separation prevails. a hundred years ago the americans showed appalling ingratitude to thomas paine, who had done them eminent service in the war of independence, simply because he published a very unorthodox book. it is notorious that free thought is still a serious hindrance and handicap to an american, even in most of the universities. this proves that separation is not an infallible receipt for producing tolerance. but i see no reason to suppose that public opinion in america would be different, if either the federal republic or the particular states had adopted jurisdiction. given legal liberty under either system, i should say that the tolerance of public opinion depends on social conditions and especially on the degree of culture among the educated classes. from this sketch it will be seen that toleration was the outcome of new political circumstances and necessities, brought about by the disunion of the church through the reformation. but it meant that in those states which granted toleration the opinion of [ ] a sufficiently influential group of the governing class was ripe for the change, and this new mental attitude was in a great measure due to the scepticism and rationalism which were diffused by the renaissance movement, and which subtly and unconsciously had affected the minds of many who were sincerely devoted to rigidly orthodox beliefs; so effective is the force of suggestion. in the next two chapters the advance of reason at the expense of faith will be traced through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. [ ] translated by lecky. [ ] complete toleration was established by penn in the quaker colony of pennsylvania in . [ ] especially chillingworth�s religion of protestants ( ), and jeremy taylor�s liberty of prophesying ( ). [ ] the reformed church consists of the followers of calvin and zwingli. chapter vi the growth of rationalism (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) during the last three hundred years reason has been slowly but steadily destroying christian mythology and exposing the pretensions of supernatural revelation. the progress of rationalism falls naturally into two periods. ( ) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those thinkers who rejected christian theology and the book on which it relies were mainly influenced by the inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities which they discovered in the evidence, and by the moral [ ] difficulties of the creed. some scientific facts were known which seemed to reflect on the accuracy of revelation, but arguments based on science were subsidiary. ( ) in the nineteenth century the discoveries of science in many fields bore with full force upon fabrics which had been constructed in a naïve and ignorant age; and historical criticism undermined methodically the authority of the sacred documents which had hitherto been exposed chiefly to the acute but unmethodical criticisms of common sense. a disinterested love of facts, without any regard to the bearing which those facts may have on one�s hopes or fears or destiny, is a rare quality in all ages, and it had been very rare indeed since the ancient days of greece and rome. it means the scientific spirit. now in the seventeenth century we may say (without disrespect to a few precursors) that the modern study of natural science began, and in the same period we have a series of famous thinkers who were guided by a disinterested love of truth. of the most acute minds some reached the conclusion that the christian scheme of the world is irrational, and according to their temperament some rejected it, whilst others, like the great frenchman pascal, fell back upon an unreasoning act of faith. bacon, who professed [ ] orthodoxy, was perhaps at heart a deist, but in any case the whole spirit of his writings was to exclude authority from the domain of scientific investigation which he did so much to stimulate. descartes, illustrious not only as the founder of modern metaphysics but also by his original contributions to science, might seek to conciliate the ecclesiastical authorities�his temper was timid� but his philosophical method was a powerful incentive to rationalistic thought. the general tendency of superior intellects was to exalt reason at the expense of authority; and in england this principle was established so firmly by locke, that throughout the theological warfare of the eighteenth century both parties relied on reason, and no theologian of repute assumed faith to be a higher faculty. a striking illustration of the gradual encroachments of reason is the change which was silently wrought in public opinion on the subject of witchcraft. the famous efforts of james i to carry out the biblical command, �thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,� were outdone by the zeal of the puritans under the commonwealth to suppress the wicked old women who had commerce with satan. after the restoration, the belief in witchcraft declined among educated people�though [ ] some able writers maintained it�and there were few executions. the last trial of a witch was in , when some clergymen in hertfordshire prosecuted jane wenham. the jury found her guilty, but the judge, who had summed up in her favour, was able to procure the remission of her sentence; and the laws against witchcraft were repealed in . john wesley said with perfect truth that to disbelieve in witchcraft is to disbelieve in the bible. in france and in holland the decline of belief and interest in this particular form of satan�s activity was simultaneous. in scotland, where theology was very powerful, a woman was burnt in . it can be no mere coincidence that the general decline of this superstition belongs to the age which saw the rise of modern science and modern philosophy. hobbes, who was perhaps the most brilliant english thinker of the seventeenth century, was a freethinker and materialist. he had come under the influence of his friend the french philosopher gassendi, who had revived materialism in its epicurean shape. yet he was a champion not of freedom of conscience but of coercion in its most uncompromising form. in the political theory which he expounded in leviathan, the sovran has autocratic power in the domain of doctrine, [ ] as in everything else, and it is the duty of subjects to conform to the religion which the sovran imposes. religious persecution is thus defended, but no independent power is left to the church. but the principles on which hobbes built up his theory were rationalistic. he separated morality from religion and identified �the true moral philosophy� with the �true doctrine of the laws of nature.� what he really thought of religion could be inferred from his remark that the fanciful fear of things invisible (due to ignorance) is the natural seed of that feeling which, in himself, a man calls religion, but, in those who fear or worship the invisible power differently, superstition. in the reign of charles ii hobbes was silenced and his books were burned. spinoza, the jewish philosopher of holland, owed a great deal to descartes and (in political speculation) to hobbes, but his philosophy meant a far wider and more open breach with orthodox opinion than either of his masters had ventured on. he conceived ultimate reality, which he called god, as an absolutely perfect, impersonal being, a substance whose nature is constituted by two �attributes�� thought and spatial extension. when spinoza speaks of love of god, in which he considered happiness to consist, he means knowledge [ ] and contemplation of the order of nature, including human nature, which is subject to fixed, invariable laws. he rejects free-will and the �superstition,� as he calls it, of final causes in nature. if we want to label his philosophy, we may say that it is a form of pantheism. it has often been described as atheism. if atheism means, as i suppose in ordinary use it is generally taken to mean, rejection of a personal god, spinoza was an atheist. it should be observed that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries atheist was used in the wildest way as a term of abuse for freethinkers, and when we read of atheists (except in careful writers) we may generally assume that the persons so stigmatized were really deists, that is, they believed in a personal god but not in revelation. [ ] spinoza�s daring philosophy was not in harmony with the general trend of speculation at the time, and did not exert any profound influence on thought till a much later period. the thinker whose writings appealed most to the men of his age and were most opportune and effective was john locke, who professed more or less orthodox anglicanism. his great contribution to philosophy is equivalent to a very powerful defence [ ] of reason against the usurpations of authority. the object of his essay on the human understanding ( ) is to show that all knowledge is derived from experience. he subordinated faith completely to reason. while he accepted the christian revelation, he held that revelation if it contradicted the higher tribunal of reason must be rejected, and that revelation cannot give us knowledge as certain as the knowledge which reason gives. �he that takes away reason to make room for revelation puts out the light of both; and does much what the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.� he wrote a book to show that the christian revelation is not contrary to reason, and its title, the reasonableness of christianity, sounds the note of all religious controversy in england during the next hundred years. both the orthodox and their opponents warmly agreed that reasonableness was the only test of the claims of revealed religion. it was under the direct influence of locke that toland, an irishman who had been converted from roman catholicism, composed a sensational book, christianity not mysterious ( ). he assumes that christianity is true and argues that there can be no mysteries in it, because mysteries, that [ ] is, unintelligible dogmas, cannot be accepted by reason. and if a reasonable deity gave a revelation, its purpose must be to enlighten, not to puzzle. the assumption of the truth of christianity was a mere pretence, as an intelligent reader could not fail to see. the work was important because it drew the logical inference from locke�s philosophy, and it had a wide circulation. lady mary wortley montagu met a turkish effendi at belgrade who asked her for news of mr. toland. it is characteristic of this stage of the struggle between reason and authority that (excepting the leading french thinkers in the eighteenth century) the rationalists, who attacked theology, generally feigned to acknowledge the truth of the ideas which they were assailing. they pretended that their speculations did not affect religion; they could separate the domains of reason and of faith; they could show that revelation was superfluous without questioning it; they could do homage to orthodoxy and lay down views with which orthodoxy was irreconcilable. the errors which they exposed in the sphere of reason were ironically allowed to be truths in the sphere of theology. the mediaeval principle of double truth and other shifts were resorted to, in self-protection [ ] against the tyranny of orthodoxy�though they did not always avail; and in reading much of the rationalistic literature of this period we have to read between the lines. bayle is an interesting instance. if locke�s philosophy, by setting authority in its place and deriving all knowledge from experience, was a powerful aid to rationalism, his contemporary bayle worked in the same direction by the investigation of history. driven from france (see above, p. ), he lived at amsterdam, where he published his philosophical dictionary. he was really a freethinker, but he never dropped the disguise of orthodoxy, and this lends a particular piquancy to his work. he takes a delight in marshalling all the objections which heretics had made to essential christian dogmas. he exposed without mercy the crimes and brutalities of david, and showed that this favourite of the almighty was a person with whom one would refuse to shake hands. there was a great outcry at this unedifying candour. bayle, in replying, adopted the attitude of montaigne and pascal, and opposed faith to reason. the theological virtue of faith, he said, consists in believing revealed truths simply and solely on god�s authority. if you believe in the immortality of the soul for [ ] philosophical reasons, you are orthodox, but you have no part in faith. the merit of faith becomes greater, in proportion as the revealed truth surpasses all the powers of our mind; the more incomprehensible the truth and the more repugnant to reason, the greater is the sacrifice we make in accepting it, the deeper our submission to god. therefore a merciless inventory of the objections which reason has to urge against fundamental doctrines serves to exalt the merits of faith. the dictionary was also criticized for the justice done to the moral excellencies of persons who denied the existence of god. bayle replies that if he had been able to find any atheistical thinkers who lived bad lives, he would have been delighted to dwell on their vices, but he knew of none such. as for the criminals you meet in history, whose abominable actions make you tremble, their impieties and blasphemies prove they believed in a divinity. this is a natural consequence of the theological doctrine that the devil, who is incapable of atheism, is the instigator of all the sins of men. for man�s wickedness must clearly resemble that of the devil and must therefore be joined to a belief in god�s existence, since the devil is not an atheist. and is it not a proof of the infinite wisdom of god that the worst criminals [ ] are not atheists, and that most of the atheists whose names are recorded have been honest men? by this arrangement providence sets bounds to the corruption of man; for if atheism and moral wickedness were united in the same persons, the societies of earth would be exposed to a fatal inundation of sin. there was much more in the same vein; and the upshot was, under the thin veil of serving faith, to show that the christian dogmas were essentially unreasonable. bayle�s work, marked by scholarship and extraordinary learning, had a great influence in england as well as in france. it supplied weapons to assailants of christianity in both countries. at first the assault was carried on with most vigour and ability by the english deists, who, though their writings are little read now, did memorable work by their polemic against the authority of revealed religion. the controversy between the deists and their orthodox opponents turned on the question whether the deity of natural religion �the god whose existence, as was thought, could be proved by reason�can be identified with the author of the christian revelation. to the deists this seemed impossible. the nature of the alleged revelation seemed inconsistent with the character [ ] of the god to whom reason pointed. the defenders of revelation, at least all the most competent, agreed with the deists in making reason supreme, and through this reliance on reason some of them fell into heresies. clarke, for instance, one of the ablest, was very unsound on the dogma of the trinity. it is also to be noticed that with both sections the interest of morality was the principal motive. the orthodox held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is necessary for morality; the deists, that morality depends on reason alone, and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to moral ideals. throughout the eighteenth century morality was the guiding consideration with anglican churchmen, and religious emotion, finding no satisfaction within the church, was driven, as it were, outside, and sought an outlet in the methodism of wesley and whitefield. spinoza had laid down the principle that scripture must be interpreted like any other book ( ), [ ] and with the deists this principle was fundamental. in order to avoid persecution they generally veiled their conclusions [ ] under sufficiently thin disguises. hitherto the press licensing act ( ) had very effectually prevented the publication of heterodox works, and it is from orthodox works denouncing infidel opinions that we know how rationalism was spreading. but in , the press law was allowed to drop, and immediately deistic literature began to appear. there was, however, the danger of prosecution under the blasphemy laws. there were three legal weapons for coercing those who attacked christianity: ( ) the ecclesiastical courts had and have the power of imprisoning for a maximum term of six months, for atheism, blasphemy, heresy, and damnable opinions. ( ) the common law as interpreted by lord chief justice hale in , when a certain taylor was charged with having said that religion was a cheat and blasphemed against christ. the accused was condemned to a fine and the pillory by the judge, who ruled that the court of king�s bench has jurisdiction in such a case, inasmuch as blasphemous words of the kind are an offence against the laws and the state, and to speak against christianity is to speak in subversion of the law, since christianity is �parcel of the laws of england.� ( ) the statute of enacts that if any person educated in the christian religion �shall by [ ] writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking deny any one of the persons in the holy trinity to be god, or shall assert or maintain there are more gods than one, or shall deny the christian religion to be true, or shall deny the holy scriptures of the old and new testament to be of divine authority,� is convicted, he shall for the first offence be adjudged incapable to hold any public offices or employments, and on the second shall lose his civil rights and be imprisoned for three years. this statute expressly states as its motive the fact that �many persons have of late years openly avowed and published many blasphemous and impious opinions contrary to the doctrine and principles of the christian religion.� as a matter of fact, most trials for blasphemy during the past two hundred years fall under the second head. but the new statute of was very intimidating, and we can easily understand how it drove heterodox writers to ambiguous disguises. one of these disguises was allegorical interpretation of scripture. they showed that literal interpretation led to absurdities or to inconsistencies with the wisdom and justice of god, and pretended to infer that allegorical interpretation must be substituted. but they meant the reader to reject their pretended [ ] solution and draw a conclusion damaging to revelation. among the arguments used in favour of the truth of revelation the fulfilment of prophecies and the miracles of the new testament were conspicuous. anthony collins, a country gentleman who was a disciple of locke, published in his discourse on the grounds and reasons of the christian religion, in which he drastically exposed the weakness of the evidence for fulfilment of prophecy, depending as it does on forced and unnatural figurative interpretations. twenty years before he had written a discourse of free-thinking (in which bayle�s influence is evident) pleading for free discussion and the reference of all religious questions to reason. he complained of the general intolerance which prevailed; but the same facts which testify to intolerance testify also to the spread of unbelief. collins escaped with comparative impunity, but thomas woolston, a fellow of sidney sussex college, cambridge, who wrote six aggressive discourses on the miracles of our saviour ( � ) paid the penalty for his audacity. deprived of his fellowship, he was prosecuted for libel, and sentenced to a fine of £ and a year�s imprisonment. unable to pay, he died in prison. he does [ ] not adopt the line of arguing that miracles are incredible or impossible. he examines the chief miracles related in the gospels, and shows with great ability and shrewd common sense that they are absurd or unworthy of the performer. he pointed out, as huxley was to point out in a controversy with gladstone, that the miraculous driving of devils into a herd of swine was an unwarrantable injury to somebody�s property. on the story of the divine blasting of the fig tree, he remarks: �what if a yeoman of kent should go to look for pippins in his orchard at easter (the supposed time that jesus sought for these figs) and because of a disappointment cut down his trees? what then would his neighbours make of him? nothing less than a laughing-stock; and if the story got into our publick news, he would be the jest and ridicule of mankind.� or take his comment on the miracle of the pool of bethesda, where an angel used to trouble the waters and the man who first entered the pool was cured of his infirmity. �an odd and a merry way of conferring a divine mercy. and one would think that the angels of god did this for their own diversion more than to do good to mankind. just as some throw a bone among a kennel of hounds for the pleasure of seeing them [ ] quarrel for it, or as others cast a piece of money among a company of boys for the sport of seeing them scramble for it, so was the pastime of the angels here.� in dealing with the healing of the woman who suffered from a bloody flux, he asks: �what if we had been told of the pope�s curing an haemorrhage like this before us, what would protestants have said to it? why, �that a foolish, credulous, and superstitious woman had fancied herself cured of some slight indisposition, and the crafty pope and his adherents, aspiring after popular applause, magnified the presumed cure into a miracle.� the application of such a supposed story of a miracle wrought by the pope is easy; and if infidels, jews, and mahometans, who have no better opinion of jesus than we have of the pope, should make it, there�s no help for it.� woolston professed no doubts of the inspiration of scripture. while he argued that it was out of the question to suppose the miracles literally true, he pretended to believe in the fantastic theory that they were intended allegorically as figures of christ�s mysterious operations in the soul of man. origen, a not very orthodox christian father, had employed the allegorical method, and woolston quotes him in his favour. his [ ] vigorous criticisms vary in value, but many of them hit the nail on the head, and the fashion of some modern critics to pass over woolston�s productions as unimportant because they are �ribald� or coarse, is perfectly unjust. the pamphlets had an enormous sale, and woolston�s notoriety is illustrated by the anecdote of the �jolly young woman� who met him walking abroad and accosted him with �you old rogue, are you not hanged yet?� mr. woolston answered, �good woman, i know you not; pray what have i done to offend you?� �you have writ against my saviour,� she said; �what would become of my poor sinful soul if it was not for my dear saviour?� about the same time, matthew tindal (a fellow of all souls) attacked revelation from a more general point of view. in his christianity as old as the creation ( ) he undertook to show that the bible as a revelation is superfluous, for it adds nothing to natural religion, which god revealed to man from the very first by the sole light of reason. he argues that those who defend revealed religion by its agreement with natural religion, and thus set up a double government of reason and authority, fall between the two. �it �s an odd jumble,� he observes, �to prove the truth of a book by the truth [ ] of the doctrines it contains, and at the same time conclude those doctrines to be true because contained in that book.� he goes on to criticize the bible in detail. in order to maintain its infallibility, without doing violence to reason, you have, when you find irrational statements, to torture them and depart from the literal sense. would you think that a mohammedan was governed by his koran, who on all occasions departed from the literal sense? �nay, would you not tell him that his inspired book fell infinitely short of cicero�s uninspired writings, where there is no such occasion to recede from the letter?� as to chronological and physical errors, which seemed to endanger the infallibility of the scriptures, a bishop had met the argument by saying, reasonably enough, that in the bible god speaks according to the conceptions of those to whom he speaks, and that it is not the business of revelation to rectify their opinions in such matters. tindal made this rejoinder:� �is there no difference between god�s not rectifying men�s sentiments in those matters and using himself such sentiments as needs be rectified; or between god�s not mending men�s logic and rhetoric where �t is defective and using such himself; or between god�s [ ] not contradicting vulgar notions and confirming them by speaking according to them? can infinite wisdom despair of gaining or keeping people�s affections without having recourse to such mean acts?� he exposes with considerable effect the monstrosity of the doctrine of exclusive salvation. must we not consider, he asks, whether one can be said to be sent as a saviour of mankind, if he comes to shut heaven�s gate against those to whom, before he came, it was open provided they followed the dictates of their reason? he criticizes the inconsistency of the impartial and universal goodness of god, known to us by the light of nature, with acts committed by jehovah or his prophets. take the cases in which the order of nature is violated to punish men for crimes of which they were not guilty, such as elijah�s hindering rain from falling for three years and a half. if god could break in upon the ordinary rules of his providence to punish the innocent for the guilty, we have no guarantee that if he deals thus with us in this life, he will not act in the same way in the life to come, �since if the eternal rules of justice are once broken how can we imagine any stop?� but the ideals of holiness and justice in the old testament are strange indeed. the holier men [ ] are represented to be, the more cruel they seem and the more addicted to cursing. how surprising to find the holy prophet elisha cursing in the name of the lord little children for calling him bald- pate! and, what is still more surprising, two she-bears immediately devoured forty-two little children. i have remarked that theologians at this time generally took the line of basing christianity on reason and not on faith. an interesting little book, christianity not founded on argument, couched in the form of a letter to a young gentleman at oxford, by henry dodwell (junior), appeared in , and pointed out the dangers of such confidence in reason. it is an ironical development of the principle of bayle, working out the thesis that christianity is essentially unreasonable, and that if you want to believe, reasoning is fatal. the cultivation of faith and reasoning produce contrary effects; the philosopher is disqualified for divine influences by his very progress in carnal wisdom; the gospel must be received with all the obsequious submission of a babe who has no other disposition but to learn his lesson. christ did not propose his doctrines to investigation; he did not lay the arguments for his mission before his disciples and give them time to consider [ ] calmly of their force, and liberty to determine as their reason should direct them; the apostles had no qualifications for the task, being the most artless and illiterate persons living. dodwell exposes the absurdity of the protestant position. to give all men liberty to judge for themselves and to expect at the same time that they shall be of the preacher�s mind is such a scheme for unanimity as one would scarcely imagine any one could be weak enough to devise in speculation and much less that any could ever be found hardy enough to avow and propose it to practice. the men of rome �shall rise up in the judgment (of all considering persons) against this generation and shall condemn it; for they invented but the one absurdity of infallibility, and behold a greater absurdity than infallibility is here.� i have still to speak of the (third) earl of shaftesbury, whose style has rescued his writings from entire neglect. his special interest was ethics. while the valuable work of most of the heterodox writers of this period lay in their destructive criticism of supernatural religion, they clung, as we have seen, to what was called natural religion� the belief in a kind and wise personal god, who created the world, governs it by natural laws, and desires our happiness. the idea [ ] was derived from ancient philosophers and had been revived by lord herbert of cherbury in his latin treatise on truth (in the reign of james i). the deists contended that this was a sufficient basis for morality and that the christian inducements to good behaviour were unnecessary. shaftesbury in his inquiry concerning virtue ( ) debated the question and argued that the scheme of heaven and hell, with the selfish hopes and fears which they inspire, corrupts morality and that the only worthy motive for conduct is the beauty of virtue in itself. he does not even consider deism a necessary assumption for a moral code; he admits that the opinion of atheists does not undermine ethics. but he thinks that the belief in a good governor of the universe is a powerful support to the practice of virtue. he is a thorough optimist, and is perfectly satisfied with the admirable adaptation of means to ends, whereby it is the function of one animal to be food for another. he makes no attempt to reconcile the red claws and teeth of nature with the beneficence of its powerful artist. �in the main all things are kindly and well disposed.� the atheist might have said that he preferred to be at the mercy of blind chance than in the hands of an autocrat who, if he pleased lord shaftesbury�s sense [ ] of order, had created flies to be devoured by spiders. but this was an aspect of the universe which did not much trouble thinkers in the eighteenth century. on the other hand, the character of the god of the old testament roused shaftesbury�s aversion. he attacks scripture not directly, but by allusion or with irony. he hints that if there is a god, he would be less displeased with atheists than with those who accepted him in the guise of jehovah. as plutarch said, �i had rather men should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a one as plutarch, than they should say �there was a plutarch, an unsteady, changeable, easily provokable and revengeful man.� � shaftesbury�s significance is that he built up a positive theory of morals, and although it had no philosophical depth, his influence on french and german thinkers of the eighteenth century was immense. in some ways perhaps the ablest of the deists, and certainly the most scholarly, was rev. conyers middleton, who remained within the church. he supported christianity on grounds of utility. even if it is an imposture, he said, it would be wrong to destroy it. for it is established by law and it has a long tradition behind it. some traditional religion is necessary and it would [ ] be hopeless to supplant christianity by reason. but his writings contain effective arguments which go to undermine revelation. the most important was his free inquiry into christian miracles ( ), which put in a new and dangerous light an old question: at what time did the church cease to have the power of performing miracles? we shall see presently how gibbon applied middleton�s method. the leading adversaries of the deists appealed, like them, to reason, and, in appealing to reason, did much to undermine authority. the ablest defence of the faith, bishop butler�s analogy ( ), is suspected of having raised more doubts than it appeased. this was the experience of william pitt the younger, and the analogy made james mill (the utilitarian) an unbeliever. the deists, argued that the unjust and cruel god of revelation could not be the god of nature; butler pointed to nature and said, there you behold cruelty and injustice. the argument was perfectly good against the optimism of shaftesbury, but it plainly admitted of the conclusion�opposite to that which butler wished to establish�that a just and beneficent god does not exist. butler is driven to fall back on the sceptical argument that we are extremely ignorant; that all things [ ] are possible, even eternal hell fire; and that therefore the safe and prudent course is to accept the christian doctrine. it may be remarked that this reasoning, with a few modifications, could be used in favour of other religions, at mecca or at timbuctoo. he has, in effect, revived the argument used by pascal that if there is one chance in any very large number that christianity is true, it is a man�s interest to be a christian; for, if it prove false, it will do him no harm to have believed it; if it prove true, he will be infinitely the gainer. butler seeks indeed to show that the chances in favour amount to a probability, but his argument is essentially of the same intellectual and moral value as pascal�s. it has been pointed out that it leads by an easy logical step from the anglican to the roman church. catholics and protestants (as king henry iv of france argued) agree that a catholic may be saved; the catholics assert that a protestant will be damned; therefore the safe course is to embrace catholicism. [ ] i have dwelt at some length upon some of the english deists, because, while they occupy an important place in the history of [ ] rationalism in england, they also supplied, along with bayle, a great deal of the thought which, manipulated by brilliant writers on the other side of the channel, captured the educated classes in france. we are now in the age of voltaire. he was a convinced deist. he considered that the nature of the universe proved that it was made by a conscious architect, he held that god was required in the interests of conduct, and he ardently combated atheism. his great achievements were his efficacious labour in the cause of toleration, and his systematic warfare against superstitions. he was profoundly influenced by english thinkers, especially locke and bolingbroke. this statesman had concealed his infidelity during his lifetime except from his intimates; he had lived long as an exile in france; and his rationalistic essays were published ( ) after his death. voltaire, whose literary genius converted the work of the english thinkers into a world-force, did not begin his campaign against christianity till after the middle of the century, when superstitious practices and religious persecutions were becoming a scandal in his country. he assailed the catholic church in every field with ridicule and satire. in a little work called the tomb of fanaticism (written , [ ] published ), he begins by observing that a man who accepts his religion (as most people do) without examining it is like an ox which allows itself to be harnessed, and proceeds to review the difficulties in the bible, the rise of christianity, and the course of church history; from which he concludes that every sensible man should hold the christian sect in horror. �men are blind to prefer an absurd and sanguinary creed, supported by executioners and surrounded by fiery faggots, a creed which can only be approved by those to whom it gives power and riches, a particular creed only accepted in a small part of the world�to a simple and universal religion.� in the sermon of the fifty and the questions of zapata we can see what he owed to bayle and english critics, but his touch is lighter and his irony more telling. his comment on geographical mistakes in the old testament is: �god was evidently not strong in geography.� having called attention to the �horrible crime� of lot�s wife in looking backward, and her conversion into a pillar of salt, he hopes that the stories of scripture will make us better, if they do not make us more enlightened. one of his favourite methods is to approach christian doctrines as a person who had just heard of the existence of christians or jews for the first time in his life. [ ] his drama, saul ( ), which the police tried to suppress, presents the career of david, the man after god�s own heart, in all its naked horror. the scene in which samuel reproves saul for not having slain agag will give an idea of the spirit of the piece. samuel: god commands me to tell you that he repents of having made you king. saul: god repents! only they who commit errors repent. his eternal wisdom cannot be unwise. god cannot commit errors. samuel: he can repent of having set on the throne those who do. saul: well, who does not? tell me, what is my fault? samuel: you have pardoned a king. agag: what! is the fairest of virtues considered a crime in judea? samuel (to agag): silence! do not blaspheme. (to saul). saul, formerly king of the jews, did not god command you by my mouth to destroy all the amalekites, without sparing women, or maidens, or children at the breast? agag: your god�gave such a command! you are mistaken, you meant to say, your devil. samuel: saul, did you obey god? saul: i did not suppose such a command [ ] was positive. i thought that goodness was the first attribute of the supreme being, and that a compassionate heart could not displease him. samuel: you are mistaken, unbeliever. god reproves you, your sceptre will pass into other hands. perhaps no writer has ever roused more hatred in christendom than voltaire. he was looked on as a sort of anti-christ. that was natural; his attacks were so tremendously effective at the time. but he has been sometimes decried on the ground that he only demolished and made no effort to build up where he had pulled down. this is a narrow complaint. it might be replied that when a sewer is spreading plague in a town, we cannot wait to remove it till we have a new system of drains, and it may fairly be said that religion as practised in contemporary france was a poisonous sewer. but the true answer is that knowledge, and therefore civilization, are advanced by criticism and negation, as well as by construction and positive discovery. when a man has the talent to attack with effect falsehood, prejudice, and imposture, it is his duty, if there are any social duties, to use it. for constructive thinking we must go to the other great leader of french thought, [ ] rousseau, who contributed to the growth of freedom in a different way. he was a deist, but his deism, unlike that of voltaire, was religious and emotional. he regarded christianity with a sort of reverent scepticism. but his thought was revolutionary and repugnant to orthodoxy; it made against authority in every sphere; and it had an enormous influence. the clergy perhaps dreaded his theories more than the scoffs and negations of voltaire. for some years he was a fugitive on the face of the earth. Émile, his brilliant contribution to the theory of education, appeared in . it contains some remarkable pages on religion, �the profession of faith of a savoyard vicar,� in which the author�s deistic faith is strongly affirmed and revelation and theology rejected. the book was publicly burned in paris and an order issued for rousseau�s arrest. forced by his friends to flee, he was debarred from returning to geneva, for the government of that canton followed the example of paris. he sought refuge in the canton of bern and was ordered to quit. he then fled to the principality of neufchâtel which belonged to prussia. frederick the great, the one really tolerant ruler of the age, gave him protection, but he was persecuted and calumniated by the local clergy, who but for frederick would [ ] have expelled him, and he went to england for a few months ( ), then returning to france, where he was left unmolested till his death. the religious views of rousseau are only a minor point in his heretical speculations. it was by his daring social and political theories that he set the world on fire. his social contract in which these theories were set forth was burned at geneva. though his principles will not stand criticism for a moment, and though his doctrine worked mischief by its extraordinary power of turning men into fanatics, yet it contributed to progress, by helping to discredit privilege and to establish the view that the object of a state is to secure the wellbeing of all its members. deism�whether in the semi-christian form of rousseau or the anti- christian form of voltaire�was a house built on the sand, and thinkers arose in france, england, and germany to shatter its foundations. in france, it proved to be only a half-way inn to atheism. in , french readers were startled by the appearance of baron d�holbach�s system of nature, in which god�s existence and the immortality of the soul were denied and the world declared to be matter spontaneously moving. holbach was a friend of diderot, who had also come to reject deism. all the leading [ ] ideas in the revolt against the church had a place in diderot�s great work, the encyclopedia, in which a number of leading thinkers collaborated with him. it was not merely a scientific book of reference. it was representative of the whole movement of the enemies of faith. it was intended to lead men from christianity with its original sin to a new conception of the world as a place which can be made agreeable and in which the actual evils are due not to radical faults of human nature but to perverse institutions and perverse education. to divert interest from the dogmas of religion to the improvement of society, to persuade the world that man�s felicity depends not on revelation but on social transformation�this was what diderot and rousseau in their different ways did so much to effect. and their work influenced those who did not abandon orthodoxy; it affected the spirit of the church itself. contrast the catholic church in france in the eighteenth and in the nineteenth century. without the work of voltaire, rousseau, diderot, and their fellow-combatants, would it have been reformed? �the christian churches� (i quote lord morley) �are assimilating as rapidly as their formulae will permit, the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the higher spirituality of [ ] teachers who have abandoned all churches and who are systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men.� in england the prevalent deistic thought did not lead to the same intellectual consequences as in france; yet hume, the greatest english philosopher of the century, showed that the arguments commonly adduced for a personal god were untenable. i may first speak of his discussion on miracles in his essay on miracles and in his philosophical inquiry concerning human understanding ( ). hitherto the credibility of miracles had not been submitted to a general examination independent of theological assumptions. hume, pointing out that there must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event (otherwise it would not merit the name of miracle), and that it will require stronger testimony to establish a miracle than an event which is not contrary to experience, lays down the general maxim that �no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.� but, as a matter of fact, no testimony exists of which the falsehood would be a prodigy. we cannot find in history any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestionable good [ ] sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood, and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a public manner as to render detection unavoidable �all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men. in the dialogues on natural religion which were not published till after his death ( ), hume made an attack on the �argument from design,� on which deists and christians alike relied to prove the existence of a deity. the argument is that the world presents clear marks of design, endless adaptation of means to ends, which can only be explained as due to the deliberate plan of a powerful intelligence. hume disputes the inference on the ground that a mere intelligent being is not a sufficient cause to explain the effect. for the argument must be that the system of the material world demands as a cause a corresponding system of interconnected ideas; but such a mental system would demand an explanation of its existence just as much as the material world; and thus we find ourselves [ ] committed to an endless series of causes. but in any case, even if the argument held, it would prove only the existence of a deity whose powers, though superior to man�s, might be very limited and whose workmanship might be very imperfect. for this world may be very faulty, compared to a superior standard. it may be the first rude experiment �of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance�; or the work of some inferior deity at which his superior would scoff; or the production of some old superannuated deity which since his death has pursued an adventurous career from the first impulse which he gave it. an argument which leaves such deities in the running is worse than useless for the purposes of deism or of christianity. the sceptical philosophy of hume had less influence on the general public than gibbon�s decline and fall of the roman empire. of the numerous freethinking books that appeared in england in the eighteenth century, this is the only one which is still a widely read classic. in what a lady friend of dr. johnson called �the two offensive chapters� (xv and xvi) the causes of the rise and success of christianity are for the first time critically investigated as a simple historical phenomenon. like most freethinkers of the [ ] time gibbon thought it well to protect himself and his work against the possibility of prosecution by paying ironical lip-homage to the orthodox creed. but even if there had been no such danger, he could not have chosen a more incisive weapon for his merciless criticism of orthodox opinion than the irony which he wielded with superb ease. having pointed out that the victory of christianity is obviously and satisfactorily explained by the convincing evidence of the doctrine and by the ruling providence of its great author, he proceeds �with becoming submission� to inquire into the secondary causes. he traces the history of the faith up to the time of constantine in such a way as clearly to suggest that the hypothesis of divine interposition is superfluous and that we have to do with a purely human development. he marshals, with ironical protests, the obvious objections to the alleged evidence for supernatural control. he does not himself criticize moses and the prophets, but he reproduces the objections which were made against their authority by �the vain science of the gnostics.� he notes that the doctrine of immortality is omitted in the law of moses, but this doubtless was a mysterious dispensation of providence. we cannot entirely remove �the imputation of ignorance and [ ] obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first proselytes of christianity,� but we must �convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of edification� and remember that �the lower we depress the temporal condition of the first christians, the more reason we shall find to admire their merit and success.� gibbon�s treatment of miracles from the purely historical point of view (he owed a great deal to middleton, see above, p. ) was particularly disconcerting. in the early age of christianity �the laws of nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. but the sages of greece and rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. under the reign of tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the roman empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three hours. even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. it happened during the lifetime of seneca and the elder pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. each of these [ ] philosophers in a laborious work has recorded all the great phenomena of nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.� how �shall we excuse the supine inattention of the pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses?� again, if every believer is convinced of the reality of miracles, every reasonable man is convinced of their cessation. yet every age bears testimony to miracles, and the testimony seems no less respectable than that of the preceding generation. when did they cease? how was it that the generation which saw the last genuine miracles performed could not distinguish them from the impostures which followed? had men so soon forgotten �the style of the divine artist�? the inference is that genuine and spurious miracles are indistinguishable. but the credulity or �softness of temper� among early believers was beneficial to the cause of truth and religion. �in modern times, a latent and even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious dispositions. their [ ] admission of supernatural truths is much less an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence. accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable order of nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the deity.� gibbon had not the advantage of the minute critical labours which in the following century were expended on his sources of information, but his masterly exposure of the conventional history of the early church remains in many of its most important points perfectly valid to-day. i suspect that his artillery has produced more effect on intelligent minds in subsequent generations than the archery of voltaire. for his book became indispensable as the great history of the middle ages; the most orthodox could not do without it; and the poison must have often worked. we have seen how theological controversy in the first half of the eighteenth century had turned on the question whether the revealed religion was consistent and compatible with natural religion. the deistic attacks, on this line, were almost exhausted by the middle of the century, and the orthodox thought that they had been satisfactorily answered. but it was not enough to show that the revelation [ ] is reasonable; it was necessary to prove that it is real and rests on a solid historical basis. this was the question raised in an acute form by the criticisms of hume and middleton ( ) on miracles. the ablest answer was given by paley in his evidences of christianity ( ), the only one of the apologies of that age which is still read, though it has ceased to have any value. paley�s theology illustrates how orthodox opinions are coloured, unconsciously, by the spirit of the time. he proved (in his natural theology) the existence of god by the argument from design �without taking any account of the criticisms of hume on that argument. just as a watchmaker is inferred from a watch, so a divine workman is inferred from contrivances in nature. paley takes his instances of such contrivance largely from the organs and constitution of the human body. his idea of god is that of an ingenious contriver dealing with rather obstinate material. paley�s �god� (mr. leslie stephen remarked) �has been civilized like man; he has become scientific and ingenious; he is superior to watt or priestley in devising mechanical and chemical contrivances, and is therefore made in the image of that generation of which watt and priestley were conspicuous lights.� when a god of this kind [ ] is established there is no difficulty about miracles, and it is on miracles that paley bases the case for christianity�all other arguments are subsidiary. and his proof of the new testament miracles is that the apostles who were eye-witnesses believed in them, for otherwise they would not have acted and suffered in the cause of their new religion. paley�s defence is the performance of an able legal adviser to the almighty. the list of the english deistic writers of the eighteenth century closes with one whose name is more familiar than any of his predecessors, thomas paine. a norfolk man, he migrated to america and played a leading part in the revolution. then he returned to england and in published his rights of man in two parts. i have been considering, almost exclusively, freedom of thought in religion, because it may be taken as the thermometer for freedom of thought in general. at this period it was as dangerous to publish revolutionary opinions in politics as in theology. paine was an enthusiastic admirer of the american constitution and a supporter of the french revolution (in which also he was to play a part). his rights of man is an indictment of the monarchical form of government, and a plea for representative democracy. it had an enormous [ ] sale, a cheap edition was issued, and the government, finding that it was accessible to the poorer classes, decided to prosecute. paine escaped to france, and received a brilliant ovation at calais, which returned him as deputy to the national convention. his trial for high treason came on at the end of . among the passages in his book, on which the charge was founded, were these: �all hereditary government is in its nature tyranny.� �the time is not very distant when england will laugh at itself for sending to holland, hanover, zell, or brunswick for men� [meaning king william iii and king george i] �at the expense of a million a year who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her interest, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish constable. if government could be trusted to such hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed, and materials fit for all the purposes may be found in every town and village in england.� erskine was paine�s counsel, and he made a fine oration in defence of freedom of speech. �constraint,� he said, �is the natural parent of resistance, and a pregnant proof that reason is not on the side of those who use it. you must all remember, gentlemen, lucian�s pleasant story: jupiter and a countryman [ ] were walking together, conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth. the countryman listened with attention and acquiescence while jupiter strove only to convince him; but happening to hint a doubt, jupiter turned hastily around and threatened him with his thunder. �ah, ha!� says the countryman, �now, jupiter, i know that you are wrong; you are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder.� this is the case with me. i can reason with the people of england, but i cannot fight against the thunder of authority.� paine was found guilty and outlawed. he soon committed a new offence by the publication of an anti-christian work, the age of reason ( and ), which he began to write in the paris prison into which he had been thrown by robespierre. this book is remarkable as the first important english publication in which the christian scheme of salvation and the bible are assailed in plain language without any disguise or reserve. in the second place it was written in such a way as to reach the masses. and, thirdly, while the criticisms on the bible are in the same vein as those of the earlier deists, paine is the first to present with force the incongruity of the christian scheme with the conception of the universe attained by astronomical science. [ ] �though it is not a direct article of the christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the inhabitable globe, yet it is so worked up therewith�from what is called the mosaic account of the creation, the story of eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death of the son of god�that to believe otherwise (that is, to believe that god created a plurality of worlds at least as numerous as what we call stars) renders the christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. the two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either.� as an ardent deist, who regarded nature as god�s revelation, paine was able to press this argument with particular force. referring to some of the tales in the old testament, he says: �when we contemplate the immensity of that being who directs and governs the incomprehensible whole, of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the word of god.� the book drew a reply from bishop watson, one of those admirable eighteenth-century divines, who admitted the right of private judgment and thought that argument [ ] should be met by argument and not by force. his reply had the rather significant title, an apology for the bible. george iii remarked that he was not aware that any apology was needed for that book. it is a weak defence, but is remarkable for the concessions which it makes to several of paine�s criticisms of scripture�admissions which were calculated to damage the doctrine of the infallibility of the bible. it was doubtless in consequence of the enormous circulation of the age of reason that a society for the suppression of vice decided to prosecute the publisher. unbelief was common among the ruling class, but the view was firmly held that religion was necessary for the populace and that any attempt to disseminate unbelief among the lower classes must be suppressed. religion was regarded as a valuable instrument to keep the poor in order. it is notable that of the earlier rationalists (apart from the case of woolston) the only one who was punished was peter annet, a schoolmaster, who tried to popularize freethought and was sentenced for diffusing �diabolical� opinions to the pillory and hard labour ( ). paine held that the people at large had the right of access to all new ideas, and he wrote so as to reach the people. hence his book must be suppressed. [ ] at the trial ( ) the judge placed every obstacle in the way of the defence. the publisher was sentenced to a year�s imprisonment. this was not the end of paine prosecutions. in a third part of the age of reason appeared, and eaton the publisher was condemned to eighteen months� imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month. the judge, lord ellenborough, said in his charge, that �to deny the truths of the book which is the foundation of our faith has never been permitted.� the poet shelley addressed to lord ellenborough a scathing letter. �do you think to convert mr. eaton to your religion by embittering his existence? you might force him by torture to profess your tenets, but he could not believe them except you should make them credible, which perhaps exceeds your power. do you think to please the god you worship by this exhibition of your zeal? if so, the demon to whom some nations offer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the deity of civilized society!� in richard carlisle was prosecuted for publishing the age of reason and sentenced to a large fine and three years� imprisonment. unable to pay the fine he was kept in prison for three years. his wife and sister, who carried on the business [ ] and continued to sell the book, were fined and imprisoned soon afterwards and a whole host of shop assistants. if his publishers suffered in england, the author himself suffered in america where bigotry did all it could to make the last years of his life bitter. the age of enlightenment began in germany in the middle of the eighteenth century. in most of the german states, thought was considerably less free than in england. under frederick the great�s father, the philosopher wolff was banished from prussia for according to the moral teachings of the chinese sage confucius a praise which, it was thought, ought to be reserved for christianity. he returned after the accession of frederick, under whose tolerant rule prussia was an asylum for those writers who suffered for their opinions in neighbouring states. frederick, indeed, held the view which was held by so many english rationalists of the time, and is still held widely enough, that freethought is not desirable for the multitude, because they are incapable of understanding philosophy. germany felt the influence of the english deists, of the french freethinkers, and of spinoza; but in the german rationalistic propaganda of this period there is nothing very original or interesting. [ ] the names of edelmann and bahrdt may be mentioned. the works of edelmann, who attacked the inspiration of the bible, were burned in various cities, and he was forced to seek frederick�s protection at berlin. bahrdt was more aggressive than any other writer of the time. originally a preacher, it was by slow degrees that he moved away from the orthodox faith. his translation of the new testament cut short his ecclesiastical career. his last years were spent as an inn-keeper. his writings, for instance his popular letters on the bible, must have had a considerable effect, if we may judge by the hatred which he excited among theologians. it was not, however, in direct rationalistic propaganda, but in literature and philosophy, that the german enlightenment of this century expressed itself. the most illustrious men of letters, goethe (who was profoundly influenced by spinoza) and schiller, stood outside the churches, and the effect of their writings and of the whole literary movement of the time made for the freest treatment of human experience. one german thinker shook the world�the philosopher kant. his critic of pure reason demonstrated that when we attempt to prove by the fight of the intellect the existence of [ ] god and the immortality of the soul, we fall helplessly into contradictions. his destructive criticism of the argument from design and all natural theology was more complete than that of hume; and his philosophy, different though his system was, issued in the same practical result as that of locke, to confine knowledge to experience. it is true that afterwards, in the interest of ethics, he tried to smuggle in by a back-door the deity whom he had turned out by the front gate, but the attempt was not a success. his philosophy�while it led to new speculative systems in which the name of god was used to mean something very different from the deistic conception�was a significant step further in the deliverance of reason from the yoke of authority. [ ] for the sake of simplicity i use �deist� in this sense throughout, though �theist� is now the usual term. [ ] spinoza�s theological political treatise, which deals with the interpretation of scripture, was translated into english in . [ ] see benn, rationalism in the nineteenth century, vol. i, p. seq., for a good exposure of the fallacies and sophistries of butler. chapter vii the progress of rationalism (nineteenth century) modern science, heralded by the researches of copernicus, was founded in the seventeenth century, which saw the demonstration of the copernican theory, the discovery of gravitation, the discovery of the circulation of the blood, and the foundation [ ] of modern chemistry and physics. the true nature of comets was ascertained, and they ceased to be regarded as signs of heavenly wrath. but several generations were to pass before science became, in protestant countries, an involuntary arch-enemy of theology. till the nineteenth century, it was only in minor points, such as the movement of the earth, that proved scientific facts seemed to conflict with scripture, and it was easy enough to explain away these inconsistencies by a new interpretation of the sacred texts. yet remarkable facts were accumulating which, though not explained by science, seemed to menace the credibility of biblical history. if the story of noah�s ark and the flood is true, how was it that beasts unable to swim or fly inhabit america and the islands of the ocean? and what about the new species which were constantly being found in the new world and did not exist in the old? where did the kangaroos of australia drop from? the only explanation compatible with received theology seemed to be the hypothesis of innumerable new acts of creation, later than the flood. it was in the field of natural history that scientific men of the eighteenth century suffered most from the coercion of authority. linnaeus felt it in sweden, buffon [ ] in france. buffon was compelled to retract hypotheses which he put forward about the formation of the earth in his natural history ( ), and to state that he believed implicitly in the bible account of creation. at the beginning of the nineteenth century laplace worked out the mechanics of the universe, on the nebular hypothesis. his results dispensed, as he said to napoleon, with the hypothesis of god, and were duly denounced. his theory involved a long physical process before the earth and solar system came to be formed; but this was not fatal, for a little ingenuity might preserve the credit of the first chapter of genesis. geology was to prove a more formidable enemy to the biblical story of the creation and the deluge. the theory of a french naturalist (cuvier) that the earth had repeatedly experienced catastrophes, each of which necessitated a new creative act, helped for a time to save the belief in divine intervention, and lyell, in his principles of geology ( ), while he undermined the assumption of catastrophes, by showing that the earth�s history could be explained by the ordinary processes which we still see in operation, yet held fast to successive acts of creation. it was not till that he presented fully, in his antiquity of man, the [ ] evidence which showed that the human race had inhabited the earth for a far longer period than could be reconciled with the record of scripture. that record might be adapted to the results of science in regard not only to the earth itself but also to the plants and lower animals, by explaining the word �day� in the jewish story of creation to signify some long period of time. but this way out was impossible in the case of the creation of man, for the sacred chronology is quite definite. an english divine of the seventeenth century ingeniously calculated that man was created by the trinity on october , b.c. , at o�clock in the morning, and no reckoning of the bible dates could put the event much further back. other evidence reinforced the conclusions from geology, but geology alone was sufficient to damage irretrievably the historical truth of the jewish legend of creation. the only means of rescuing it was to suppose that god had created misleading evidence for the express purpose of deceiving man. geology shook the infallibility of the bible, but left the creation of some prehistoric adam and eve a still admissible hypothesis. here however zoology stepped in, and pronounced upon the origin of man. it was an old conjecture that the higher forms of life, including [ ] man, had developed out of lower forms, and advanced thinkers had been reaching the conclusion that the universe, as we find it, is the result of a continuous process, unbroken by supernatural interference, and explicable by uniform natural laws. but while the reign of law in the world of non-living matter seemed to be established, the world of life could be considered a field in which the theory of divine intervention is perfectly valid, so long as science failed to assign satisfactory causes for the origination of the various kinds of animals and plants. the publication of darwin�s origin of species in is, therefore, a landmark not only in science but in the war between science and theology. when this book appeared, bishop wilberforce truly said that �the principle of natural selection is incompatible with the word of god,� and theologians in germany and france as well as in england cried aloud against the threatened dethronement of the deity. the appearance of the descent of man ( ), in which the evidence for the pedigree of the human race from lower animals was marshalled with masterly force, renewed the outcry. the bible said that god created man in his own image, darwin said that man descended from an ape. the feelings of the orthodox world may be [ ] expressed in the words of mr. gladstone: �upon the grounds of what is called evolution god is relieved of the labour of creation, and in the name of unchangeable laws is discharged from governing the world.� it was a discharge which, as spencer observed, had begun with newton�s discovery of gravitation. if darwin did not, as is now recognized, supply a complete explanation of the origin of species, his researches shattered the supernatural theory and confirmed the view to which many able thinkers had been led that development is continuous in the living as in the non-living world. another nail was driven into the coffin of creation and the fall of adam, and the doctrine of redemption could only be rescued by making it independent of the jewish fable on which it was founded. darwinism, as it is called, has had the larger effect of discrediting the theory of the adaptation of means to ends in nature by an external and infinitely powerful intelligence. the inadequacy of the argument from design, as a proof of god�s existence, had been shown by the logic of hume and kant; but the observation of the life-processes of nature shows that the very analogy between nature and art, on which the argument depends, breaks down. the impropriety of the analogy has been [ ] pointed out, in a telling way, by a german writer (lange). if a man wants to shoot a hare which is in a certain field, he does not procure thousands of guns, surround the field, and cause them all to be fired off; or if he wants a house to live in, he does not build a whole town and abandon to weather and decay all the houses but one. if he did either of these things we should say he was mad or amazingly unintelligent; his actions certainly would not be held to indicate a powerful mind, expert in adapting means to ends. but these are the sort of things that nature does. her wastefulness in the propagation of life is reckless. for the production of one life she sacrifices innumerable germs. the �end� is achieved in one case out of thousands; the rule is destruction and failure. if intelligence had anything to do with this bungling process, it would be an intelligence infinitely low. and the finished product, if regarded as a work of design, points to incompetence in the designer. take the human eye. an illustrious man of science (helmholtz) said, �if an optician sent it to me as an instrument, i should send it back with reproaches for the carelessness of his work and demand the return of my money. darwin showed how the phenomena might be explained as events not brought about [ ] intentionally, but due to exceptional concurrences of circumstances. the phenomena of nature are a system of things which co-exist and follow each other according to invariable laws. this deadly proposition was asserted early in the nineteenth century to be an axiom of science. it was formulated by mill (in his system of logic, ) as the foundation on which scientific induction rests. it means that at any moment the state of the whole universe is the effect of its state at the preceding moment; the casual sequence between two successive states is not broken by any arbitrary interference suppressing or altering the relation between cause and effect. some ancient greek philosophers were convinced of this principle; the work done by modern science in every field seems to be a verification of it. but it need not be stated in such an absolute form. recently, scientific men have been inclined to express the axiom with more reserve and less dogmatically. they are prepared to recognize that it is simply a postulate without which the scientific comprehension of the universe would be impossible, and they are inclined to state it not as a law of causation�for the idea of causation leads into metaphysics�but rather as uniformity of experience. but they are not [ ] readier to admit exceptions to this uniformity than their predecessors were to admit exceptions to the law of causation. the idea of development has been applied not only to nature, but to the mind of man and to the history of civilization, including thought and religion. the first who attempted to apply this idea methodically to the whole universe was not a student of natural science, but a metaphysician, hegel. his extremely difficult philosophy had such a wide influence on thought that a few words must be said about its tendency. he conceived the whole of existence as what he called the absolute idea, which is not in space or time and is compelled by the laws of its being to manifest itself in the process of the world, first externalizing itself in nature, and then becoming conscious of itself as spirit in individual minds. his system is hence called absolute idealism. the attraction which it exercised has probably been in great measure due to the fact that it was in harmony with nineteenth-century thought, in so far as it conceived the process of the world, both in nature and spirit, as a necessary development from lower to higher stages. in this respect indeed hegel�s vision was limited. he treats the process as if it were practically complete already, and does not take into account [ ] the probability of further development in the future, to which other thinkers of his own time were turning their attention. but what concerns us here is that, while hegel�s system is �idealistic,� finding the explanation of the universe in thought and not in matter, it tended as powerfully as any materialistic system to subvert orthodox beliefs. it is true that some have claimed it as supporting christianity. a certain colour is lent to this by hegel�s view that the christian creed, as the highest religion, contains doctrines which express imperfectly some of the ideas of the highest philosophy�his own; along with the fact that he sometimes speaks of the absolute idea as if it were a person, though personality would be a limitation inconsistent with his conception of it. but it is sufficient to observe that, whatever value be assigned to christianity, he regarded it from the superior standpoint of a purely intellectual philosophy, not as a special revelation of truth, but as a certain approximation to the truth which philosophy alone can reach; and it may be said with some confidence that any one who comes under hegel�s spell feels that he is in possession of a theory of the universe which relieves him from the need or desire of any revealed religion. his influence in germany, russia, and elsewhere has entirely made for highly unorthodox thought. [ ] hegel was not aggressive, he was superior. his french contemporary, comte, who also thought out a comprehensive system, aggressively and explicitly rejected theology as an obsolete way of explaining the universe. he rejected metaphysics likewise, and all that hegel stood for, as equally useless, on the ground that metaphysicians explain nothing, but merely describe phenomena in abstract terms, and that questions about the origin of the world and why it exists are quite beyond the reach of reason. both theology and metaphysics are superseded by science�the investigation of causes and effects and coexistences; and the future progress of society will be guided by the scientific view of the world which confines itself to the positive data of experience. comte was convinced that religion is a social necessity, and, to supply the place of the theological religions which he pronounced to be doomed, he invented a new religion�the religion of humanity. it differs from the great religions of the world in having no supernatural or non-rational articles of belief, and on that account he had few adherents. but the �positive philosophy� of comte has exercised great influence, not least in england, where its principles have been promulgated especially by mr. frederic harrison, who in the latter [ ] half of the nineteenth century has been one of the most indefatigable workers in the cause of reason against authority. another comprehensive system was worked out by an englishman, herbert spencer. like comte�s, it was based on science, and attempts to show how, starting with a nebular universe, the whole knowable world, psychical and social as well as physical, can be deduced. his synthetic philosophy perhaps did more than anything else to make the idea of evolution familiar in england. i must mention one other modern explanation of the world, that of haeckel, the zoologist, professor at jena, who may be called the prophet of evolution. his creation of man ( ) covered the same ground as darwin�s descent, had an enormous circulation, and was translated, i believe, into fourteen languages. his world-riddles ( ) enjoys the same popularity. he has taught, like spencer, that the principle of evolution applies not only to the history of nature, but also to human civilization and human thought. he differs from spencer and comte in not assuming any unknowable reality behind natural phenomena. his adversaries commonly stigmatize his theory as materialism, but this is a mistake. like spinoza he recognizes matter and mind, body and thought, as [ ] two inseparable sides of ultimate reality, which he calls god; in fact, he identifies his philosophy with that of spinoza. and he logically proceeds to conceive material atoms as thinking. his idea of the physical world is based on the old mechanical conception of matter, which in recent years has been discredited. but haeckel�s monism, [ ] as he called his doctrine, has lately been reshaped and in its new form promises to exercise wide influence on thoughtful people in germany. i will return later to this monistic movement. it had been a fundamental principle of comte that human actions and human history are as strictly subject as nature is, to the law of causation. two psychological works appeared in england in (bain�s senses and intellect and spencer�s principles of psychology), which taught that our volitions are completely determined, being the inevitable consequences of chains of causes and effects. but a far deeper impression was produced two years later by the first volume of buckle�s history of civilization in england (a work of much less permanent value), which attempted to apply this principle to history. men act in consequence of motives; their motives are the results of preceding facts; so that �if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents [ ] and with all the laws of their movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.� thus history is an unbroken chain of causes and effects. chance is excluded; it is a mere name for the defects of our knowledge. mysterious and providential interference is excluded. buckle maintained god�s existence, but eliminated him from history; and his book dealt a resounding blow at the theory that human actions are not submitted to the law of universal causation. the science of anthropology has in recent years aroused wide interest. inquiries into the condition of early man have shown (independently of darwinism) that there is nothing to be said for the view that he fell from a higher to a lower state; the evidence points to a slow rise from mere animality. the origin of religious beliefs has been investigated, with results disquieting for orthodoxy. the researches of students of anthropology and comparative religion�such as tylor, robertson smith, and frazer�have gone to show that mysterious ideas and dogma and rites which were held to be peculiar to the christian revelation are derived from the crude ideas of primitive religions. that the mystery of the eucharist comes from the common savage rite of eating a dead god, [ ] that the death and resurrection of a god in human form, which form the central fact of christianity, and the miraculous birth of a saviour are features which it has in common with pagan religions�such conclusions are supremely unedifying. it may be said that in themselves they are not fatal to the claims of the current theology. it may be held, for instance, that, as part of christian revelation, such ideas acquired a new significance and that god wisely availed himself of familiar beliefs�which, though false and leading to cruel practices, he himself had inspired and permitted�in order to construct a scheme of redemption which should appeal to the prejudices of man. some minds may find satisfaction in this sort of explanation, but it may be suspected that most of the few who study modern researches into the origin of religious beliefs will feel the lines which were supposed to mark off the christian from all other faiths dissolving before their eyes. the general result of the advance of science, including anthropology, has been to create a coherent view of the world, in which the christian scheme, based on the notions of an unscientific age and on the arrogant assumption that the universe was made for man, has no suitable or reasonable place. if paine felt this a hundred years ago, it is far [ ] more apparent now. all minds however are not equally impressed with this incongruity. there are many who will admit the proofs furnished by science that the biblical record as to the antiquity of man is false, but are not affected by the incongruity between the scientific and theological conceptions of the world. for such minds science has only succeeded in carrying some entrenchments, which may be abandoned without much harm. it has made the old orthodox view of the infallibility of the bible untenable, and upset the doctrine of the creation and fall. but it would still be possible for christianity to maintain the supernatural claim, by modifying its theory of the authority of the bible and revising its theory of redemption, if the evidence of natural science were the only group of facts with which it collided. it might be argued that the law of universal causation is a hypothesis inferred from experience, but that experience includes the testimonies of history and must therefore take account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the new testament (evidence which is valid, even if that book was not inspired). thus, a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on the firm ground of historical fact. that solid ground, however, has given [ ] way, undermined by historical criticism, which has been more deadly than the common-sense criticism of the eighteenth century. the methodical examination of the records contained in the bible, dealing with them as if they were purely human documents, is the work of the nineteenth century. something, indeed, had already been done. spinoza, for instance (above, p. ), and simon, a frenchman whose books were burnt, were pioneers; and the modern criticism of the old testament was begun by astruc (professor of medicine at paris), who discovered an important clue for distinguishing different documents used by the compiler of the book of genesis ( ). his german contemporary, reimarus, a student of the new testament, anticipated the modern conclusion that jesus had no intention of founding a new religion, and saw that the gospel of st. john presents a different figure from the jesus of the other evangelists. but in the nineteenth century the methods of criticism, applied by german scholars to homer and to the records of early roman history, were extended to the investigation of the bible. the work has been done principally in germany. the old tradition that the pentateuch was written by moses has been completely discredited. it is now [ ] agreed unanimously by all who have studied the facts that the pentateuch was put together from a number of different documents of different ages, the earliest dating from the ninth, the last from the fifth, century b.c.; and there are later minor additions. an important, though undesigned, contribution was made to this exposure by an englishman, colenso, bishop of natal. it had been held that the oldest of the documents which had been distinguished was a narrative which begins in genesis, chapter i, but there was the difficulty that this narrative seemed to be closely associated with the legislation of leviticus which could be proved to belong to the fifth century. in colenso published the first part of his pentateuch and the book of joshua critically examined. his doubts of the truth of old testament history had been awakened by a converted zulu who asked the intelligent question whether he could really believe in the story of the flood, �that all the beasts and birds and creeping things upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and entered into the ark with noah? and did noah gather food for them all, for the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest?� the bishop then proceeded to test the accuracy of the inspired books by examining [ ] the numerical statements which they contain. the results were fatal to them as historical records. quite apart from miracles (the possibility of which he did not question), he showed that the whole story of the sojourn of the israelites in egypt and the wilderness was full of absurdities and impossibilities. colenso�s book raised a storm of indignation in england�he was known as �the wicked bishop�; but on the continent its reception was very different. the portions of the pentateuch and joshua, which he proved to be unhistorical, belonged precisely to the narrative which had caused perplexity; and critics were led by his results to conclude that, like the levitical laws with which it was connected, it was as late as the fifth century. one of the most striking results of the researches on the old testament has been that the jews themselves handled their traditions freely. each of the successive documents, which were afterwards woven together, was written by men who adopted a perfectly free attitude towards the older traditions, and having no suspicion that they were of divine origin did not bow down before their authority. it was reserved for the christians to invest with infallible authority the whole indiscriminate lump of these jewish documents, inconsistent not [ ] only in their tendencies (since they reflect the spirit of different ages), but also in some respects in substance. the examination of most of the other old testament books has led to conclusions likewise adverse to the orthodox view of their origin and character. new knowledge on many points has been derived from the babylonian literature which has been recovered during the last half century. one of the earliest ( ) and most sensational discoveries was that the jews got their story of the flood from babylonian mythology. modern criticism of the new testament began with the stimulating works of baur and of strauss, whose life of jesus ( ), in which the supernatural was entirely rejected, had an immense success and caused furious controversy. both these rationalists were influenced by hegel. at the same time a classical scholar, lachmann, laid the foundations of the criticism of the greek text of the new testament, by issuing the first scientific edition. since then seventy years of work have led to some certain results which are generally accepted. in the first place, no intelligent person who has studied modern criticism holds the old view that each of the four biographies of jesus is an independent work and an independent [ ] testimony to the facts which are related. it is acknowledged that those portions which are common to more than one and are written in identical language have the same origin and represent only one testimony. in the second place, it is allowed that the first gospel is not the oldest and that the apostle matthew was not its author. there is also a pretty general agreement that mark�s book is the oldest. the authorship of the fourth gospel, which like the first was supposed to have been written by an eye-witness, is still contested, but even those who adhere to the tradition admit that it represents a theory about jesus which is widely different from the view of the three other biographers. the result is that it can no longer be said that for the life of jesus there is the evidence of eye-witnesses. the oldest account (mark) was composed at the earliest some thirty years after the crucifixion. if such evidence is considered good enough to establish the supernatural events described in that document, there are few alleged supernatural occurrences which we shall not be equally entitled to believe. as a matter of fact, an interval of thirty years makes little difference, for we know that legends require little time to grow. in the east, you will hear of miracles which happened the day before [ ] yesterday. the birth of religions is always enveloped in legend, and the miraculous thing would be, as m. salomon reinach has observed, if the story of the birth of christianity were pure history. another disturbing result of unprejudiced examination of the first three gospels is that, if you take the recorded words of jesus to be genuine tradition, he had no idea of founding a new religion. and he was fully persuaded that the end of the world was at hand. at present, the chief problem of advanced criticism seems to be whether his entire teaching was not determined by this delusive conviction. it may be said that the advance of knowledge has thrown no light on one of the most important beliefs that we are asked to accept on authority, the doctrine of immortality. physiology and psychology have indeed emphasized the difficulties of conceiving a thinking mind without a nervous system. some are sanguine enough to think that, by scientific examination of psychical phenomena, we may possibly come to know whether the �spirits� of dead people exist. if the existence of such a world of spirits were ever established, it would possibly be the greatest blow ever sustained by christianity. for the great appeal of this and of some other religions [ ] lies in the promise of a future life of which otherwise we should have no knowledge. if existence after death were proved and became a scientific fact like the law of gravitation, a revealed religion might lose its power. for the whole point of a revealed religion is that it is not based on scientific facts. so far as i know, those who are convinced, by spiritualistic experiments, that they have actual converse with spirits of the dead, and for whom this converse, however delusive the evidence may be, is a fact proved by experience, cease to feel any interest in religion. they possess knowledge and can dispense with faith. the havoc which science and historical criticism have wrought among orthodox beliefs during the last hundred years was not tamely submitted to, and controversy was not the only weapon employed. strauss was deprived of his professorship at tübingen, and his career was ruined. renan, whose sensational life of jesus also rejected the supernatural, lost his chair in the collège de france. büchner was driven from tübingen ( ) for his book on force and matter, which, appealing to the general public, set forth the futility of supernatural explanations of the universe. an attempt was made to chase haeckel from jena. in recent years, [ ] a french catholic, the abbé loisy, has made notable contributions to the study of the new testament and he was rewarded by major excommunication in . loisy is the most prominent figure in a growing movement within the catholic church known as modernism�a movement which some think is the gravest crisis in the history of the church since the thirteenth century. the modernists do not form an organized party; they have no programme. they are devoted to the church, to its traditions and associations, but they look on christianity as a religion which has developed, and whose vitality depends upon its continuing to develop. they are bent on reinterpreting the dogmas in the light of modern science and criticism. the idea of development had already been applied by cardinal newman to catholic theology. he taught that it was a natural, and therefore legitimate, development of the primitive creed. but he did not draw the conclusion which the modernists draw that if catholicism is not to lose its power of growth and die, it must assimilate some of the results of modern thought. this is what they are attempting to do for it. pope pius x has made every effort to suppress the modernists. in (july) he [ ] issued a decree denouncing various results of modern biblical criticism which are defended in loisy�s works. the two fundamental propositions that �the organic constitution of the church is not immutable, but that christian society is subject, like every human society, to a perpetual evolution,� and that �the dogmas which the church regards as revealed are not fallen from heaven but are an interpretation of religious facts at which the human mind laboriously arrived��both of which might be deduced from newman�s writings�are condemned. three months later the pope issued a long encyclical letter, containing an elaborate study of modernist opinions, and ordaining various measures for stamping out the evil. no modernist would admit that this document represents his views fairly. yet some of the remarks seem very much to the point. take one of their books: �one page might be signed by a catholic; turn over and you think you are reading the work of a rationalist. in writing history, they make no mention of christ�s divinity; in the pulpit, they proclaim it loudly.� a plain man may be puzzled by these attempts to retain the letter of old dogmas emptied of their old meaning, and may think it natural enough that the head of the catholic [ ] church should take a clear and definite stand against the new learning which, seems fatal to its fundamental doctrines. for many years past, liberal divines in the protestant churches have been doing what the modernists are doing. the phrase �divinity of christ� is used, but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous birth. the resurrection is preached, but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous bodily resurrection. the bible is said to be an inspired book, but inspiration is used in a vague sense, much as when one says that plato was inspired; and the vagueness of this new idea of inspiration is even put forward as a merit. between the extreme views which discard the miraculous altogether, and the old orthodoxy, there are many gradations of belief. in the church of england to-day it would be difficult to say what is the minimum belief required either from its members or from its clergy. probably every leading ecclesiastic would give a different answer. the rise of rationalism within the english church is interesting and illustrates the relations between church and state. the pietistic movement known as evangelicalism, which wilberforce�s practical view of christianity ( ) did much to make popular, introduced the spirit of methodism [ ] within the anglican church, and soon put an end to the delightful type of eighteenth-century divine, who, as gibbon says, �subscribed with a sigh or a smile� the articles of faith. the rigorous taboo of the sabbath was revived, the theatre was denounced, the corruption of human nature became the dominant theme, and the bible more a fetish than ever. the success of this religious �reaction,� as it is called, was aided, though not caused, by the common belief that the french revolution had been mainly due to infidelity; the revolution was taken for an object lesson showing the value of religion for keeping the people in order. there was also a religious �reaction� in france itself. but in both cases this means not that free thought was less prevalent, but that the beliefs of the majority were more aggressive and had powerful spokesmen, while the eighteenth-century form of rationalism fell out of fashion. a new form of rationalism, which sought to interpret orthodoxy in such a liberal way as to reconcile it with philosophy, was represented by coleridge, who was influenced by german philosophers. coleridge was a supporter of the church, and he contributed to the foundation of a school of liberal theology which was to make itself felt after the middle of the century. [ ] newman, the most eminent of the new high church party, said that he indulged in a liberty of speculation which no christian could tolerate. the high church movement which marked the second quarter of the century was as hostile as evangelicalism to the freedom of religious thought. the change came after the middle of the century, when the effects of the philosophies of hegel and comte, and of foreign biblical criticism, began to make themselves felt within the english church. two remarkable freethinking books appeared at this period which were widely read, f. w. newman�s phases of faith and w. r. greg�s creed of christendom (both in ). newman (brother of cardinal newman) entirely broke with christianity, and in his book he describes the mental process by which he came to abandon the beliefs he had once held. perhaps the most interesting point he makes is the deficiency of the new testament teaching as a system of morals. greg was a unitarian. he rejected dogma and inspiration, but he regarded himself as a christian. sir j. f. stephen wittily described his position as that of a disciple �who had heard the sermon on the mount, whose attention had not been called to the miracles, and who died before the resurrection.� [ ] there were a few english clergymen (chiefly oxford men) who were interested in german criticism and leaned to broad views, which to the evangelicals and high churchmen seemed indistinguishable from infidelity. we may call them the broad church�though the name did not come in till later. in jowett (afterwards master of balliol) published an edition of some of st. paul�s epistles, in which he showed the cloven hoof. it contained an annihilating criticism of the doctrine of the atonement, an explicit rejection of original sin, and a rationalistic discussion of the question of god�s existence. but this and some other unorthodox works of liberal theologians attracted little public attention, though their authors had to endure petty persecution. five years later, jowett and some other members of the small liberal group decided to defy the �abominable system of terrorism which prevents the statement of the plainest fact,� and issued a volume of essays and reviews ( ) by seven writers of whom six were clergymen. the views advocated in these essays seem mild enough to-day, and many of them would be accepted by most well-educated clergymen, but at the time they produced a very painful impression. the authors were called the �seven against christ.� it was [ ] laid down that the bible is to be interpreted like any other book. �it is not a useful lesson for the young student to apply to scripture principles which he would hesitate to apply to other books; to make formal reconcilements of discrepancies which he would not think of reconciling in ordinary history; to divide simple words into double meanings; to adopt the fancies or conjectures of fathers and commentators as real knowledge.� it is suggested that the hebrew prophecies do not contain the element of prediction. contradictory accounts, or accounts which can only be reconciled by conjecture, cannot possibly have been dictated by god. the discrepancies between the genealogies of jesus in matthew and luke, or between the accounts of the resurrection, can be attributed �neither to any defect in our capacities nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narrators.� the orthodox arguments which lay stress on the assertion of witnesses as the supreme evidence of fact, in support of miraculous occurrences, are set aside on the ground that testimony is a blind guide and can avail nothing against reason and the strong grounds we have for believing in permanent order. it is argued that, under the thirty-nine [ ] articles, it is permissible to accept as �parable or poetry or legend� such stories as that of an ass speaking with a man�s voice, of waters standing in a solid heap, of witches and a variety of apparitions, and to judge for ourselves of such questions as the personality of satan or the primeval institution of the sabbath. the whole spirit of this volume is perhaps expressed in the observation that if any one perceives �to how great an extent the origin itself of christianity rests upon probable evidence, his principle will relieve him from many difficulties which might otherwise be very disturbing. for relations which may repose on doubtful grounds as matters of history, and, as history, be incapable of being ascertained or verified, may yet be equally suggestive of true ideas with facts absolutely certain��that is, they may have a spiritual significance although they are historically false. the most daring essay was the rev. baden powell�s study of the evidences of christianity. he was a believer in evolution, who accepted darwinism, and considered miracles impossible. the volume was denounced by the bishops, and in two of the contributors, who were beneficed clergymen and thus open to a legal attack, were prosecuted and tried in the ecclesiastical court. condemned on [ ] certain points, acquitted on others, they were sentenced to be suspended for a year, and they appealed to the privy council. lord westbury (lord chancellor) pronounced the judgment of the judicial committee of the council, which reversed the decision of the ecclesiastical court. the committee held, among other things, that it is not essential for a clergyman to believe in eternal punishment. this prompted the following epitaph on lord westbury: �towards the close of his earthly career he dismissed hell with costs and took away from orthodox members of the church of england their last hope of everlasting damnation.� this was a great triumph for the broad church party, and it is an interesting event in the history of the english state-church. laymen decided (overruling the opinion of the archbishops of canterbury and york) what theological doctrines are and are not binding on a clergyman, and granted within the church a liberty of opinion which the majority of the church�s representatives regarded as pernicious. this liberty was formally established in by an act of parliament, which altered the form in which clergymen were required to subscribe the thirty-nine articles. the episode of essays and reviews is a landmark in the history of religious thought in england. [ ] the liberal views of the broad churchmen and their attitude to the bible gradually produced some effect upon those who differed most from them; and nowadays there is probably no one who would not admit, at least, that such a passage as genesis, chapter xix, might have been composed without the direct inspiration of the deity. during the next few years orthodox public opinion was shocked or disturbed by the appearance of several remarkable books which criticized, ignored, or defied authority�lyell�s antiquity of man, seeley�s ecce homo (which the pious lord shaftesbury said was �vomited from the jaws of hell�), lecky�s history of rationalism. and a new poet of liberty arose who did not fear to sound the loudest notes of defiance against all that authority held sacred. all the great poets of the nineteenth century were more or less unorthodox; wordsworth in the years of his highest inspiration was a pantheist; and the greatest of all, shelley, was a declared atheist. in fearless utterance, in unfaltering zeal against the tyranny of gods and governments, swinburne was like shelley. his drama atalanta in calydon ( ), even though a poet is strictly not answerable for what the persons in his drama say, yet with its denunciation of �the supreme evil, god,� heralded the coming [ ] of a new champion who would defy the fortresses of authority. and in the following year his poems and ballads expressed the spirit of a pagan who flouted all the prejudices and sanctities of the christian world. but the most intense and exciting period of literary warfare against orthodoxy in england began about , and lasted for about a dozen years, during which enemies of dogma, of all complexions, were less reticent and more aggressive than at any other time in the century. lord morley has observed that �the force of speculative literature always hangs on practical opportuneness,� and this remark is illustrated by the rationalistic literature of the seventies. it was a time of hope and fear, of progress and danger. secularists and rationalists were encouraged by the disestablishment of the church in ireland ( ), by the act which allowed atheists to give evidence in a court of justice ( ), by the abolition of religious tests at all the universities (a measure frequently attempted in vain) in . on the other hand, the education act of , progressive though it was, disappointed the advocates of secular education, and was an unwelcome sign of the strength of ecclesiastical influence. then there was the general alarm felt in europe by all outside the roman church, [ ] and by some within it, at the decree of the infallibility of the pope (by the vatican council � ), and an englishman (cardinal manning) was one of the most active spirits in bringing about this decree. it would perhaps have caused less alarm if the pope�s denunciation of modern errors had not been fresh in men�s memories. at the end of he startled the world by issuing a syllabus �embracing the principal errors of our age.� among these were the propositions, that every man is free to adopt and profess the religion he considers true, according to the light of reason; that the church has no right to employ force; that metaphysics can and ought to be pursued without reference to divine and ecclesiastical authority; that catholic states are right to allow foreign immigrants to exercise their own religion in public; that the pope ought to make terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. the document was taken as a declaration of war against enlightenment, and the vatican council as the first strategic move of the hosts of darkness. it seemed that the powers of obscurantism were lifting up their heads with a new menace, and there was an instinctive feeling that all the forces of reason should be brought into the field. the history of the last forty years shows that the theory of [ ] infallibility, since it has become a dogma, is not more harmful than it was before. but the efforts of the catholic church in the years following the council to overthrow the french republic and to rupture the new german empire were sufficiently disquieting. against this was to be set the destruction of the temporal power of the popes and the complete freedom of italy. this event was the sunrise of swinburne�s songs before sunrise (which appeared in ), a seedplot of atheism and revolution, sown with implacable hatred of creeds and tyrants. the most wonderful poem in the volume, the hymn of man, was written while the vatican council was sitting. it is a song of triumph over the god of the priests, stricken by the doom of the pope�s temporal power. the concluding verses will show the spirit. �by thy name that in hellfire was written, and burned at the point of thy sword, thou art smitten, thou god, thou art smitten; thy death is upon thee, o lord. and the lovesong of earth as thou diest resounds through the wind of her wings� glory to man in the highest! for man is the master of things.� [ ] the fact that such a volume could appear with impunity vividly illustrates the english policy of enforcing the laws for blasphemy only in the case of publications addressed to the masses. political circumstances thus invited and stimulated rationalists to come forward boldly, but we must not leave out of account the influence of the broad church movement and of darwinism. the descent of man appeared precisely in . a new, undogmatic christianity was being preached in pulpits. mr. leslie stephen remarked ( ) that �it may be said, with little exaggeration, that there is not only no article in the creeds which may not be contradicted with impunity, but that there is none which may not be contradicted in a sermon calculated to win the reputation of orthodoxy and be regarded as a judicious bid for a bishopric. the popular state of mind seems to be typified in the well- known anecdote of the cautious churchwarden, who, whilst commending the general tendency of his incumbent�s sermon, felt bound to hazard a protest upon one point. �you see, sir,� as he apologetically explained, �i think there be a god.� he thought it an error of taste or perhaps of judgment, to hint a doubt as to the first article of the creed.� the influence exerted among the cultivated [ ] classes by the aesthetic movement (ruskin, morris, the pre- raphaelite painters; then pater�s lectures on the renaissance, ) was also a sign of the times. for the attitude of these critics, artists, and poets was essentially pagan. the saving truths of theology were for them as if they did not exist. the ideal of happiness was found in a region in which heaven was ignored. the time then seemed opportune for speaking out. of the unorthodox books and essays, [ ] which influenced the young and alarmed believers, in these exciting years, most were the works of men who may be most fairly described by the comprehensive term agnostics�a name which had been recently invented by professor huxley. the agnostic holds that there are limits to human reason, and that theology lies outside those limits. within those limits lies the world with which science (including psychology) deals. science deals entirely with phenomena, and has nothing to say to the nature of the ultimate reality which may lie behind phenomena. there are four possible [ ] attitudes to this ultimate reality. there is the attitude of the metaphysician and theologian, who are convinced not only that it exists but that it can be at least partly known. there is the attitude of the man who denies that it exists; but he must be also a metaphysician, for its existence can only be disproved by metaphysical arguments. then there are those who assert that it exists but deny that we can know anything about it. and finally there are those who say that we cannot know whether it exists or not. these last are �agnostics� in the strict sense of the term, men who profess not to know. the third class go beyond phenomena in so far as they assert that there is an ultimate though unknowable reality beneath phenomena. but agnostic is commonly used in a wide sense so as to include the third as well as the fourth class�those who assume an unknowable, as well as those who do not know whether there is an unknowable or not. comte and spencer, for instance, who believed in an unknowable, are counted as agnostics. the difference between an agnostic and an atheist is that the atheist positively denies the existence of a personal god, the agnostic does not believe in it. the writer of this period who held agnosticism [ ] in its purest form, and who turned the dry light of reason on to theological opinions with the most merciless logic, was mr. leslie stephen. his best-known essay, �an agnostic�s apology� (fortnightly review, ), raises the question, have the dogmas of orthodox theologians any meaning? do they offer, for this is what we want, an intelligible reconciliation of the discords in the universe? it is shown in detail that the various theological explanations of the dealings of god with man, when logically pressed, issue in a confession of ignorance. and what is this but agnosticism? you may call your doubt a mystery, but mystery is only the theological phrase for agnosticism. �why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? we are a company of ignorant beings, dimly discerning light enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that we don�t know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infinitesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, [ ] and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness.� the characteristic of leslie stephen�s essays is that they are less directed to showing that orthodox theology is untrue as that there is no reality about it, and that its solutions of difficulties are sham solutions. if it solved any part of the mystery, it would be welcome, but it does not, it only adds new difficulties. it is �a mere edifice of moonshine.� the writer makes no attempt to prove by logic that ultimate reality lies outside the limits of human reason. he bases this conclusion on the fact that all philosophers hopelessly contradict one another; if the subject-matter of philosophy were, like physical science, within the reach of the intelligence, some agreement must have been reached. the broad church movement, the attempts to liberalize christianity, to pour its old wine into new bottles, to make it unsectarian and undogmatic, to find compromises between theology and science, found no favour in leslie stephen�s eyes, and he criticized all this with a certain contempt. there was a controversy about the efficacy of prayer. is it reasonable, for instance, to pray for rain? here science and theology were at issue on a practical [ ] point which comes within the domain of science. some theologians adopted the compromise that to pray against an eclipse would be foolish, but to pray for rain might be sensible. �one phenomenon,� stephen wrote, �is just as much the result of fixed causes as the other; but it is easier for the imagination to suppose the interference of a divine agent to be hidden away somewhere amidst the infinitely complex play of forces, which elude our calculations in meteorological phenomena, than to believe in it where the forces are simple enough to admit of prediction. the distinction is of course invalid in a scientific sense. almighty power can interfere as easily with the events which are, as with those which are not, in the nautical almanac. one cannot suppose that god retreats as science advances, and that he spoke in thunder and lightning till franklin unravelled the laws of their phenomena.� again, when a controversy about hell engaged public attention, and some otherwise orthodox theologians bethought themselves that eternal punishment was a horrible doctrine and then found that the evidence for it was not quite conclusive and were bold enough to say so, leslie stephen stepped in to point out that, if so, historical [ ] christianity deserves all that its most virulent enemies have said about it in this respect. when the christian creed really ruled men�s consciences, nobody could utter a word against the truth of the dogma of hell. if that dogma had not an intimate organic connection with the creed, if it had been a mere unimportant accident, it could not have been so vigorous and persistent wherever christianity was strongest. the attempt to eliminate it or soften it down is a sign of decline. �now, at last, your creed is decaying. people have discovered that you know nothing about it; that heaven and hell belong to dreamland; that the impertinent young curate who tells me that i shall be burnt everlastingly for not sharing his superstition is just as ignorant as i am myself, and that i know as much as my dog. and then you calmly say again, �it is all a mistake. only believe in a something �and we will make it as easy for you as possible. hell shall have no more than a fine equable temperature, really good for the constitution; there shall be nobody in it except judas iscariot and one or two others; and even the poor devil shall have a chance if he will resolve to mend his ways.� � mr. matthew arnold may, i suppose, be numbered among the agnostics, but he was [ ] of a very different type. he introduced a new kind of criticism of the bible�literary criticism. deeply concerned for morality and religion, a supporter of the established church, he took the bible under his special protection, and in three works, st. paul and protestantism, , literature and dogma, , and god and the bible, , he endeavoured to rescue that book from its orthodox exponents, whom he regarded as the corrupters of christianity. it would be just, he says, �but hardly perhaps christian,� to fling back the word infidel at the orthodox theologians for their bad literary and scientific criticisms of the bible and to speak of �the torrent of infidelity which pours every sunday from our pulpits!� the corruption of christianity has been due to theology �with its insane licence of affirmation about god, its insane licence of affirmation about immortality�; to the hypothesis of �a magnified and non-natural man at the head of mankind�s and the world�s affairs�; and the fancy account of god �made up by putting scattered expressions of the bible together and taking them literally.� he chastises with urbane persiflage the knowledge which the orthodox think they possess about the proceedings and plans of god. �to think they know what passed in the council of the [ ] trinity is not hard to them; they could easily think they even knew what were the hangings of the trinity�s council-chamber.� yet �the very expression, the trinity, jars with the whole idea and character of bible-religion; but, lest the socinian should be unduly elated at hearing this, let us hasten to add that so too, and just as much, does the expression, a great personal first cause.� he uses god as the least inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law, and the heart feels after as a benefit; and defines it as �the stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their being.� he defined it further as a power that makes for righteousness, and thus went considerably beyond the agnostic position. he was impatient of the minute criticism which analyzes the biblical documents and discovers inconsistencies and absurdities, and he did not appreciate the importance of the comparative study of religions. but when we read of a dignitary in a recent church congress laying down that the narratives in the books of jonah and daniel must be accepted because jesus quoted them, we may wish that arnold were here to reproach the orthodox for �want of intellectual seriousness.� these years also saw the appearance of [ ] mr. john morley�s sympathetic studies of the french freethinkers of the eighteenth century, voltaire ( ), rousseau ( ), and diderot ( ). he edited the fortnightly review, and for some years this journal was distinguished by brilliant criticisms on the popular religion, contributed by able men writing from many points of view. a part of the book which he afterwards published under the title compromise appeared in the fortnightly in . in compromise, �the whole system of objective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day� is condemned as mischievous, and it is urged that those who disbelieve should speak out plainly. speaking out is an intellectual duty. englishmen have a strong sense of political responsibility, and a correspondingly weak sense of intellectual responsibility. even minds that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by the political spirit which �is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place.� and the principles which have prevailed in politics have been adopted by theology for her own use. in the one case, convenience first, truth second; in the other, emotional comfort first, truth second. if the immorality is less gross in the case of religion, [ ] there is �the stain of intellectual improbity.� and this is a crime against society, for �they who tamper with veracity from whatever motive are tampering with the vital force of human progress.� the intellectual insincerity which is here blamed is just as prevalent to- day. the english have not changed their nature, the �political� spirit is still rampant, and we are ruled by the view that because compromise is necessary in politics it is also a good thing in the intellectual domain. the fortnightly under mr. morley�s guidance was an effective organ of enlightenment. i have no space to touch on the works of other men of letters and of men of science in these combative years, but it is to be noted that, while denunciations of modern thought poured from the pulpits, a popular diffusion of freethought was carried on, especially by mr. bradlaugh in public lectures and in his paper, the national reformer, not without collisions with the civil authorities. if we take the cases in which the civil authorities in england have intervened to repress the publication of unorthodox opinions during the last two centuries, we find that the object has always been to prevent the spread of freethought among the masses. [ ] the victims have been either poor, uneducated people, or men who propagated freethought in a popular form. i touched upon this before in speaking of paine, and it is borne out by the prosecutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. the unconfessed motive has been fear of the people. theology has been regarded as a good instrument for keeping the poor in order, and unbelief as a cause or accompaniment of dangerous political opinions. the idea has not altogether disappeared that free thought is peculiarly indecent in the poor, that it is highly desirable to keep them superstitious in order to keep them contented, that they should be duly thankful for all the theological as well as social arrangements which have been made for them by their betters. i may quote from an essay of mr. frederic harrison an anecdote which admirably expresses the becoming attitude of the poor towards ecclesiastical institutions. �the master of a workhouse in essex was once called in to act as chaplain to a dying pauper. the poor soul faintly murmured some hopes of heaven. but this the master abruptly cut short and warned him to turn his last thoughts towards hell. �and thankful you ought to be,� said he, �that you have a hell to go to.� � [ ] the most important english freethinkers who appealed to the masses were holyoake, [ ] the apostle of �secularism,� and bradlaugh. the great achievement for which bradlaugh will be best remembered was the securing of the right of unbelievers to sit in parliament without taking an oath ( ). the chief work to which holyoake (who in his early years was imprisoned for blasphemy) contributed was the abolition of taxes on the press, which seriously hampered the popular diffusion of knowledge. [ ] in england, censorship of the press had long ago disappeared (above, p. ); in most other european countries it was abolished in the course of the nineteenth century. [ ] in the progressive countries of europe there has been a marked growth of tolerance (i do not mean legal toleration, but the tolerance [ ] of public opinion) during the last thirty years. a generation ago lord morley wrote: �the preliminary stage has scarcely been reached�the stage in which public opinion grants to every one the unrestricted right of shaping his own beliefs, independently of those of the people who surround him.� i think this preliminary stage has now been passed. take england. we are now far from the days when dr. arnold would have sent the elder mill to botany bay for irreligious opinions. but we are also far from the days when darwin�s descent created an uproar. darwin has been buried in westminster abbey. to-day books can appear denying the historical existence of jesus without causing any commotion. it may be doubted whether what lord acton wrote in would be true now: �there are in our day many educated men who think it right to persecute.� in , lecky was a candidate for the representation of dublin university. his rationalistic opinions were indeed brought up against him, but he was successful, though the majority of the constituents were orthodox. in the seventies his candidature would have been hopeless. the old commonplace that a freethinker is sure to be immoral is no longer heard. we may say that we have now [ ] reached a stage at which it is admitted by every one who counts (except at the vatican), that there is nothing in earth or heaven which may not legitimately be treated without any of the assumptions which in old days authority used to impose. in this brief review of the triumphs of reason in the nineteenth century, we have been considering the discoveries of science and criticism which made the old orthodoxy logically untenable. but the advance in freedom of thought, the marked difference in the general attitude of men in all lands towards theological authority to-day from the attitude of a hundred years ago, cannot altogether be explained by the power of logic. it is not so much criticism of old ideas as the appearance of new ideas and interests that changes the views of men at large. it is not logical demonstrations but new social conceptions that bring about a general transformation of attitude towards ultimate problems. now the idea of the progress of the human race must, i think, be held largely answerable for this change of attitude. it must, i think, be held to have operated powerfully as a solvent of theological beliefs. i have spoken of the teaching of diderot and his friends that man�s energies should be devoted to making the earth pleasant. a [ ] new ideal was substituted for the old ideal based on theological propositions. it inspired the english utilitarian philosophers (bentham, james mill, j. s. mill, grote) who preached the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the supreme object of action and the basis of morality. this ideal was powerfully reinforced by the doctrine of historical progress, which was started in france ( ) by turgot, who made progress the organic principle of history. it was developed by condorcet ( ), and put forward by priestley in england. the idea was seized upon by the french socialistic philosophers, saint-simon and fourier. the optimism of fourier went so far as to anticipate the time when the sea would be turned by man�s ingenuity into lemonade, when there would be million poets as great as homer, million writers as great as molière, million men of science equal to newton. but it was comte who gave the doctrine weight and power. his social philosophy and his religion of humanity are based upon it. the triumphs of science endorsed it; it has been associated with, though it is not necessarily implied in, the scientific theory of evolution; and it is perhaps fair to say that it has been the guiding spiritual force of the nineteenth century. it has introduced [ ] the new ethical principle of duty to posterity. we shall hardly be far wrong if we say that the new interest in the future and the progress of the race has done a great deal to undermine unconsciously the old interest in a life beyond the grave; and it has dissolved the blighting doctrine of the radical corruption of man. nowhere has the theory of progress been more emphatically recognized than in the monistic movement which has been exciting great interest in germany ( � ). this movement is based on the ideas of haeckel, who is looked up to as the master; but those ideas have been considerably changed under the influence of ostwald, the new leader. while haeckel is a biologist, ostwald�s brilliant work was done in chemistry and physics. the new monism differs from the old, in the first place, in being much less dogmatic. it declares that all that is in our experience can be the object of a corresponding science. it is much more a method than a system, for its sole ultimate object is to comprehend all human experience in unified knowledge. secondly, while it maintains, with haeckel, evolution as the guiding principle in the history of living things, it rejects his pantheism and his theory of thinking atoms. the old mechanical theory of the [ ] physical world has been gradually supplanted by the theory of energy, and ostwald, who was one of the foremost exponents of energy, has made it a leading idea of monism. what has been called matter is, so far as we know now, simply a complex of energies, and he has sought to extend the �energetic� principle from physical or chemical to biological, psychical, and social phenomena. but it is to be observed that no finality is claimed for the conception of energy; it is simply an hypothesis which corresponds to our present stage of knowledge, and may, as knowledge advances, be superseded. monism resembles the positive philosophy and religion of comte in so far as it means an outlook on life based entirely on science and excluding theology, mysticism, and metaphysics. it may be called a religion, if we adopt mr. mactaggart�s definition of religion as �an emotion resting on a conviction of the harmony between ourselves and the universe at large.� but it is much better not to use the word religion in connexion with it, and the monists have no thought of finding a monistic, as comte founded a positivist, church. they insist upon the sharp opposition between the outlook of science and the outlook of religion, and find the mark of spiritual progress in the fact that religion is [ ] gradually becoming less indispensable. the further we go back in the past, the more valuable is religion as an element in civilization; as we advance, it retreats more and more into the background, to be replaced by science. religions have been, in principle, pessimistic, so far as the present world is concerned; monism is, in principle, optimistic, for it recognizes that the process of his evolution has overcome, in increasing measure, the bad element in man, and will go on overcoming it still more. monism proclaims that development and progress are the practical principles of human conduct, while the churches, especially the catholic church, have been steadily conservative, and though they have been unable to put a stop to progress have endeavoured to suppress its symptoms�to bottle up the steam. [ ] the monistic congress at hamburg in had a success which surprised its promoters. the movement bids fair to be a powerful influence in diffusing rationalistic thought. [ ] if we take the three large states of [ ] western europe, in which the majority of christians are catholics, we see how the ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together. in spain, where the church has enormous power and wealth and can still dictate to the court and the politicians, the idea of progress, which is vital in france and italy, has not yet made its influence seriously felt. liberal thought indeed is widely spread in the small educated class, but the great majority of the whole population are illiterate, and it is the interest of the church to keep them so. the education of the people, as all enlightened spaniards confess, is the pressing need of the country. how formidable are the obstacles which will have to be overcome before modern education is allowed to spread was shown four years ago by the tragedy of francisco ferrer, which reminded everybody that in one corner of western europe the mediaeval spirit is still vigorous. ferrer had devoted himself to the founding of modern schools in the province of catalonia (since ). he was a rationalist, and his schools, which had a marked success, were entirely secular. the ecclesiastical authorities execrated him, and in the summer of chance gave them the means of destroying him. a strike of workmen at [ ] barcelona developed into a violent revolution, ferrer happened to be in barcelona for some days at the beginning of the movement, with which he had no connection whatever, and his enemies seized the opportunity to make him responsible for it. false evidence (including forged documents) was manufactured. evidence which would have helped his case was suppressed. the catholic papers agitated against him, and the leading ecclesiastics of barcelona urged the government not to spare the man who founded the modern schools, the root of all the trouble. ferrer was condemned by a military tribunal and shot (oct. ). he suffered in the cause of reason and freedom of thought, though, as there is no longer an inquisition, his enemies had to kill him under the false charge of anarchy and treason. it is possible that the indignation which was felt in europe and was most loudly expressed in france may prevent the repetition of such extreme measures, but almost anything may happen in a country where the church is so powerful and so bigoted, and the politicians so corrupt. [ ] from greek monos, alone. [ ] besides the works referred to in the text, may be mentioned: winwood reade, martyrdom of man, ; mill, three essays on religion; w. r. cassels, supernatural religion; tyndall, address to british association at belfast; huxley, animal automatism; w. k. clifford, body and mind; all in . [ ] it may be noted that holyoake towards the end of his life helped to found the rationalist press association, of which mr. edward clodd has been for many years chairman. this is the chief society in england for propagating rationalism, and its main object is to diffuse in a cheap form the works of freethinkers of mark (cp. bibliography). i understand that more than two million copies of its cheap reprints have been sold. [ ] the advertisement tax was abolished in , the stamp tax in , the paper duty in , and the optional duty in . [ ] in austria-hungary the police have the power to suppress printed matter provisionally. in russia the press was declared free in by an imperial decree, which, however, has become a dead letter. the newspapers are completely under the control of the police. [ ] i have taken these points, illustrating the monistic attitude to the churches, from ostwald�s monistic sunday sermons (german), , . [ ] i may note here that, as this is not a history of thought, i make no reference to recent philosophical speculations (in america, england, and france) which are sometimes claimed as tending to bolster up theology. but they are all profoundly unorthodox. [ ] chapter viii the justification of liberty of thought most men who have been brought up in the free atmosphere of a modern state sympathize with liberty in its long struggle with authority and may find it difficult to see that anything can be said for the tyrannical, and as they think extraordinarily perverse, policy by which communities and governments persistently sought to stifle new ideas and suppress free speculation. the conflict sketched in these pages appears as a war between light and darkness. we exclaim that altar and throne formed a sinister conspiracy against the progress of humanity. we look back with horror at the things which so many champions of reason endured at the hands of blind, if not malignant, bearers of authority. but a more or less plausible case can be made out for coercion. let us take the most limited view of the lawful powers of society over its individual members. let us lay down, with mill, that �the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually and collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their members is self- protection,� and that coercion is only justified [ ] for the prevention of harm to others. this is the minimum claim the state can make, and it will be admitted that it is not only the right but the duty of the state to prevent harm to its members. that is what it is for. now no abstract or independent principle is discoverable, why liberty of speech should be a privileged form of liberty of action, or why society should lay down its arms of defence and fold its hands, when it is persuaded that harm is threatened to it through the speech of any of its members. the government has to judge of the danger, and its judgment may be wrong; but if it is convinced that harm is being done, is it not its plain duty to interfere? this argument supplies an apology for the suppression of free opinion by governments in ancient and modern times. it can be urged for the inquisition, for censorship of the press, for blasphemy laws, for all coercive measures of the kind, that, if excessive or ill-judged, they were intended to protect society against what their authors sincerely believed to be grave injury, and were simple acts of duty. (this apology, of course, does not extend to acts done for the sake of the alleged good of the victims themselves, namely, to secure their future salvation.) nowadays we condemn all such measures [ ] and disallow the right of the state to interfere with the free expression of opinion. so deeply is the doctrine of liberty seated in our minds that we find it difficult to make allowances for the coercive practices of our misguided ancestors. how is this doctrine justified? it rests on no abstract basis, on no principle independent of society itself, but entirely on considerations of utility. we saw how socrates indicated the social value of freedom of discussion. we saw how milton observed that such freedom was necessary for the advance of knowledge. but in the period during which the cause of toleration was fought for and practically won, the argument more generally used was the injustice of punishing a man for opinions which he honestly held and could not help holding, since conviction is not a matter of will; in other words, the argument that error is not a crime and that it is therefore unjust to punish it. this argument, however, does not prove the case for freedom of discussion. the advocate of coercion may reply: we admit that it is unjust to punish a man for private erroneous beliefs; but it is not unjust to forbid the propagation of such beliefs if we are convinced that they are harmful; it is not unjust to punish him, not for holding them, but for publishing them. the truth [ ] is that, in examining principles, the word just is misleading. all the virtues are based on experience, physiological or social, and justice is no exception. just designates a class of rules or principles of which the social utility has been found by experience to be paramount and which are recognized to be so important as to override all considerations of immediate expediency. and social utility is the only test. it is futile, therefore, to say to a government that it acts unjustly in coercing opinion, unless it is shown that freedom of opinion is a principle of such overmastering social utility as to render other considerations negligible. socrates had a true instinct in taking the line that freedom is valuable to society. the reasoned justification of liberty of thought is due to j. s. mill, who set it forth in his work on liberty, published in . this book treats of liberty in general, and attempts to fix the frontier of the region in which individual freedom should be considered absolute and unassailable. the second chapter considers liberty of thought and discussion, and if many may think that mill unduly minimized the functions of society, underrating its claims as against the individual, few will deny the justice of the chief arguments or question the general soundness of his conclusions. [ ] pointing out that no fixed standard was recognized for testing the propriety of the interference on the part of the community with its individual members, he finds the test in self-protection, that is, the prevention of harm to others. he bases the proposition not on abstract rights, but on �utility, in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.� he then uses the following argument to show that to silence opinion and discussion is always contrary to those permanent interests. those who would suppress an opinion (it is assumed that they are honest) deny its truth, but they are not infallible. they may be wrong, or right, or partly wrong and partly right. ( ) if they are wrong and the opinion they would crush is true, they have robbed, or done their utmost to rob, mankind of a truth. they will say: but we were justified, for we exercised our judgment to the best of our ability, and are we to be told that because our judgment is fallible we are not to use it? we forbade the propagation of an opinion which we were sure was false and pernicious; this implies no greater claim to infallibility than any act done by public authority. if we are to act at all, we must assume our own opinion to be true. to this mill acutely replies: �there is the greatest difference [ ] between assuming an opinion to be true, because with every opportunity for contesting it it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action, and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.� ( ) if the received opinion which it is sought to protect against the intrusion of error is true, the suppression of discussion is still contrary to general utility. a received opinion may happen to be true (it is very seldom entirely true); but a rational certainty that it is so can only be secured by the fact that it has been fully canvassed but has not been shaken. commoner and more important is ( ) the case where the conflicting doctrines share the truth between them. here mill has little difficulty in proving the utility of supplementing one-sided popular truths by other truths which popular opinion omits to consider. and he observes that if either of the opinions which share the truth has a claim not merely to be tolerated but to be encouraged, it is the one which happens to be held by the minority, since this is the one �which [ ] for the time being represents the neglected interests.� he takes the doctrines of rousseau, which might conceivably have been suppressed as pernicious. to the self-complacent eighteenth century those doctrines came as �a salutary shock, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion.� the current opinions were indeed nearer to the truth than rousseau�s, they contained much less of error; �nevertheless there lay in rousseau�s doctrine, and has floated down the stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and these are the deposit which we left behind when the flood subsided.� such is the drift of mill�s main argument. the present writer would prefer to state the justification of freedom of opinion in a somewhat different form, though in accordance with mill�s reasoning. the progress of civilization, if it is partly conditioned by circumstances beyond man�s control, depends more, and in an increasing measure, on things which are within his own power. prominent among these are the advancement of knowledge and the deliberate adaptation of his habits and institutions to new conditions. to advance knowledge and to correct errors, unrestricted freedom of discussion is required. [ ] history shows that knowledge grew when speculation was perfectly free in greece, and that in modern times, since restrictions on inquiry have been entirely removed, it has advanced with a velocity which would seem diabolical to the slaves of the mediaeval church. then, it is obvious that in order to readjust social customs, institutions, and methods to new needs and circumstances, there must be unlimited freedom of canvassing and criticizing them, of expressing the most unpopular opinions, no matter how offensive to prevailing sentiment they may be. if the history of civilization has any lesson to teach it is this: there is one supreme condition of mental and moral progress which it is completely within the power of man himself to secure, and that is perfect liberty of thought and discussion. the establishment of this liberty may be considered the most valuable achievement of modern civilization, and as a condition of social progress it should be deemed fundamental. the considerations of permanent utility on which it rests must outweigh any calculations of present advantage which from time to time might be thought to demand its violation. it is evident that this whole argument depends on the assumption that the progress of the race, its intellectual and moral development, [ ] is a reality and is valuable. the argument will not appeal to any one who holds with cardinal newman that �our race�s progress and perfectibility is a dream, because revelation contradicts it�; and he may consistently subscribe to the same writer�s conviction that �it would be a gain to this country were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than at present it shows itself to be.� while mill was writing his brilliant essay, which every one should read, the english government of the day ( ) instituted prosecutions for the circulation of the doctrine that it is lawful to put tyrants to death, on the ground that the doctrine is immoral. fortunately the prosecutions were not persisted in. mill refers to the matter, and maintains that such a doctrine as tyrannicide (and, let us add, anarchy) does not form any exception to the rule that �there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.� exceptions, cases where the interference of the authorities is proper, are only apparent, for they really come under another rule. for instance, if there is a direct instigation [ ] to particular acts of violence, there may be a legitimate case for interference. but the incitement must be deliberate and direct. if i write a book condemning existing societies and defending a theory of anarchy, and a man who reads it presently commits an outrage, it may clearly be established that my book made the man an anarchist and induced him to commit the crime, but it would be illegitimate to punish me or suppress the book unless it contained a direct incitement to the specific crime which he committed. it is conceivable that difficult cases might arise where a government might be strongly tempted, and might be urged by public clamour, to violate the principle of liberty. let us suppose a case, very improbable, but which will make the issue clear and definite. imagine that a man of highly magnetic personality, endowed with a wonderful power of infecting others with his own ideas however irrational, in short a typical religious leader, is convinced that the world will come to an end in the course of a few months. he goes about the country preaching and distributing pamphlets; his words have an electrical effect; and the masses of the uneducated and half-educated are persuaded that they have indeed only a few weeks to prepare for the day of judgment. multitudes leave their [ ] occupations, abandon their work, in order to spend the short time that remains in prayer and listening to the exhortations of the prophet. the country is paralyzed by the gigantic strike; traffic and industries come to a standstill. the people have a perfect legal right to give up their work, and the prophet has a perfect legal right to propagate his opinion that the end of the world is at hand �an opinion which jesus christ and his followers in their day held quite as erroneously. it would be said that desperate ills have desperate remedies, and there would be a strong temptation to suppress the fanatic. but to arrest a man who is not breaking the law or exhorting any one to break it, or causing a breach of the peace, would be an act of glaring tyranny. many will hold that the evil of setting back the clock of liberty would out- balance all the temporary evils, great as they might be, caused by the propagation of a delusion. it would be absurd to deny that liberty of speech may sometimes cause particular harm. every good thing sometimes does harm. government, for instance, which makes fatal mistakes; law, which so often bears hardly and inequitably in individual cases. and can the christians urge any other plea for their religion when they are unpleasantly reminded that it has caused untold [ ] suffering by its principle of exclusive salvation? once the principle of liberty of thought is accepted as a supreme condition of social progress, it passes from the sphere of ordinary expediency into the sphere of higher expediency which we call justice. in other words it becomes a right on which every man should be able to count. the fact that this right is ultimately based on utility does not justify a government in curtailing it, on the ground of utility, in particular cases. the recent rather alarming inflictions of penalties for blasphemy in england illustrate this point. it was commonly supposed that the blasphemy laws (see above, p. ), though unrepealed, were a dead letter. but since december, , half a dozen persons have been imprisoned for this offence. in these cases christian doctrines were attacked by poor and more or less uneducated persons in language which may be described as coarse and offensive. some of the judges seem to have taken the line that it is not blasphemy to attack the fundamental doctrines provided �the decencies of controversy� are preserved, but that �indecent� attacks constitute blasphemy. this implies a new definition of legal blasphemy, and is entirely contrary to the intention of the laws. sir [ ] j. f. stephen pointed out that the decisions of judges from the time of lord hale (xviith century) to the trial of foote ( ) laid down the same doctrine and based it on the same principle: the doctrine being that it is a crime either to deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the christian religion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule; and the principle being that christianity is a part of the law of the land. the apology offered for such prosecutions is that their object is to protect religious sentiment from insult and ridicule. sir j. f. stephen observed: �if the law were really impartial and punished blasphemy only, because it offends the feelings of believers, it ought also to punish such preaching as offends the feelings of unbelievers. all the more earnest and enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely offensive to those who do not believe them.� if the law does not in any sense recognize the truth of christian doctrine, it would have to apply the same rule to the salvation army. in fact the law �can be explained and justified only on what i regard as its true principle�the principle of persecution.� the opponents of christianity may justly say: if christianity is false, why is it to be attacked only in polite language? its goodness depends on its truth. if you [ ] grant its falsehood, you cannot maintain that it deserves special protection. but the law imposes no restraint on the christian, however offensive his teaching may be to those who do not agree with him; therefore it is not based on an impartial desire to prevent the use of language which causes offence; therefore it is based on the hypothesis that christianity is true; and therefore its principle is persecution. of course, the present administration of the common law in regard to blasphemy does not endanger the liberty of those unbelievers who have the capacity for contributing to progress. but it violates the supreme principle of liberty of opinion and discussion. it hinders uneducated people from saying in the only ways in which they know how to say it, what those who have been brought up differently say, with impunity, far more effectively and far more insidiously. some of the men who have been imprisoned during the last two years, only uttered in language of deplorable taste views that are expressed more or less politely in books which are in the library of a bishop unless he is a very ignorant person, and against which the law, if it has any validity, ought to have been enforced. thus the law, as now administered, simply penalizes bad taste and places disabilities [ ] upon uneducated freethinkers. if their words offend their audience so far as to cause a disturbance, they should be prosecuted for a breach of public order, [ ] not because their words are blasphemous. a man who robs or injures a church, or even an episcopal palace, is not prosecuted for sacrilege, but for larceny or malicious damage or something of the kind. the abolition of penalties for blasphemy was proposed in the house of commons (by bradlaugh) in and rejected. the reform is urgently needed. it would �prevent the recurrence at irregular intervals of scandalous prosecutions which have never in any one instance benefited any one, least of all the cause which they were intended to serve, and which sometimes afford a channel for the gratification of private malice under the cloak of religion.� [ ] the struggle of reason against authority has ended in what appears now to be a decisive and permanent victory for liberty. in the most civilized and progressive countries, freedom of discussion is recognized as a [ ] fundamental principle. in fact, we may say it is accepted as a test of enlightenment, and the man in the street is forward in acknowledging that countries like russia and spain, where opinion is more or less fettered, must on that account be considered less civilized than their neighbours. all intellectual people who count take it for granted that there is no subject in heaven or earth which ought not to be investigated without any deference or reference to theological assumptions. no man of science has any fear of publishing his researches, whatever consequences they may involve for current beliefs. criticism of religious doctrines and of political and social institutions is free. hopeful people may feel confident that the victory is permanent; that intellectual freedom is now assured to mankind as a possession for ever; that the future will see the collapse of those forces which still work against it and its gradual diffusion in the more backward parts of the earth. yet history may suggest that this prospect is not assured. can we be certain that there may not come a great set- back? for freedom of discussion and speculation was, as we saw, fully realized in the greek and roman world, and then an unforeseen force, in the shape of christianity, came in and laid chains upon the human mind and [ ] suppressed freedom and imposed upon man a weary struggle to recover the freedom which he had lost. is it not conceivable that something of the same kind may occur again? that some new force, emerging from the unknown, may surprise the world and cause a similar set-back? the possibility cannot be denied, but there are some considerations which render it improbable (apart from a catastrophe sweeping away european culture). there are certain radical differences between the intellectual situation now and in antiquity. the facts known to the greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few. much that was taught was not proved. compare what they knew and what we know about astronomy and geography�to take the two branches in which (besides mathematics) they made most progress. when there were so few demonstrated facts to work upon, there was the widest room for speculation. now to suppress a number of rival theories in favour of one is a very different thing from suppressing whole systems of established facts. if one school of astronomers holds that the earth goes round the sun, another that the sun goes round the earth, but neither is able to demonstrate its proposition, it is easy for an authority, which has coercive power, [ ] to suppress one of them successfully. but once it is agreed by all astronomers that the earth goes round the sun, it is a hopeless task for any authority to compel men to accept a false view. in short, because she is in possession of a vast mass of ascertained facts about the nature of the universe, reason holds a much stronger position now than at the time when christian theology led her captive. all these facts are her fortifications. again, it is difficult to see what can arrest the continuous progress of knowledge in the future. in ancient times this progress depended on a few; nowadays, many nations take part in the work. a general conviction of the importance of science prevails to-day, which did not prevail in greece. and the circumstance that the advance of material civilization depends on science is perhaps a practical guarantee that scientific research will not come to an abrupt halt. in fact science is now a social institution, as much as religion. but if science seems pretty safe, it is always possible that in countries where the scientific spirit is held in honour, nevertheless, serious restrictions may be laid on speculations touching social, political, and religious questions. russia has men of science inferior to none, and russia has its notorious censorship. it [ ] is by no means inconceivable that in lands where opinion is now free coercion might be introduced. if a revolutionary social movement prevailed, led by men inspired by faith in formulas (like the men of the french revolution) and resolved to impose their creed, experience shows that coercion would almost inevitably be resorted to. nevertheless, while it would be silly to suppose that attempts may not be made in the future to put back the clock, liberty is in a far more favourable position now than under the roman empire. for at that time the social importance of freedom of opinion was not appreciated, whereas now, in consequence of the long conflict which was necessary in order to re- establish it, men consciously realize its value. perhaps this conviction will be strong enough to resist all conspiracies against liberty. meanwhile, nothing should be left undone to impress upon the young that freedom of thought is an axiom of human progress. it may be feared, however, that this is not likely to be done for a long time to come. for our methods of early education are founded on authority. it is true that children are sometimes exhorted to think for themselves. but the parent or instructor who gives this excellent advice is confident that the results of the child�s thinking for [ ] himself will agree with the opinions which his elders consider desirable. it is assumed that he will reason from principles which have already been instilled into him by authority. but if his thinking for himself takes the form of questioning these principles, whether moral or religious, his parents and teachers, unless they are very exceptional persons, will be extremely displeased, and will certainly discourage him. it is, of course, only singularly promising children whose freedom of thought will go so far. in this sense it might be said that �distrust thy father and mother� is the first commandment with promise. it should be a part of education to explain to children, as soon as they are old enough to understand, when it is reasonable, and when it is not, to accept what they are told, on authority. [ ] blasphemy is an offence in germany; but it must be proved that offence has actually been given, and the penalty does not exceed imprisonment for three days. [ ] the quotations are from sir j. f. stephen�s article, �blasphemy and blasphemous libel,� in the fortnightly review, march, , pp. � . [ ] bibliography general lecky, w. e. h., history of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in europe, vols. (originally published in ). white, a. d., a history of the warfare of science with theology in christendom, vols., . robertson, j. m., a short history of free-thought, ancient and modern, vols., . [comprehensive, but the notices of the leading freethinkers are necessarily brief, as the field covered is so large. the judgments are always independent.] benn, a. w., the history of english rationalism in the nineteenth century, vols., . [very full and valuable] greek thought gomperz, th., greek thinkers (english translation), vols. ( - ). english deists stephen, leslie, history of english thought in the eighteenth century, vol. i, . french freethinkers of eighteenth century morley, j., voltaire; diderot and the encyclopaedists; rousseau (see above, chapter vi). rationalistic criticism of the bible (nineteenth century) articles in encyclopoedia biblica, vols. duff, a., history of old testament criticism, . conybeare, f. c., history of new testament criticism, . persecution and inquisition lea, h., a history of the inquisition of the middle ages, vols., ; a history of the inquisition of spain, vols., . haynes, e. s. p., religious persecution, . for the case of ferrer see archer, w., the life, trial and death of francisco ferrer, , and mccabe, j., the martyrdom of ferrer, . toleration ruffini, f., religious liberty (english translation), . the essays of l. luzzatti. liberty of conscience and science (italian), are suggestive. [ ] index aesthetic movement, agnosticism, meaning of, sq. albigeois, persecution of, anabaptists, , , anatomy, anaxagoras, annet, peter, anthropology, anthropomorphism. aristotle, , , arnold, matthew, sqq. asoka, astronomy, � atheism, , , , , athens, sqq. augustine, st., austria-hungary, , authority, meaning of, sqq. averroism, bacon, roger, bahrdt, rain, a., bayle, sq., sqq. benn, a. w, bible, o. t., sqq.; n. t., sqq bible-worship, , blasphemy laws, , , sq., sqq. bolingbroke, bradlaugh, , bruno, giordano, büchner, buckle, butler, bishop, analogy, sq. calvin, cassels, w castellion, causation, law of, sq. charron. cicero, clifford, w. k., clodd, edward, colenso, bishop, collins, anthony, comte, auguste. sq., concordat of , french, condorcet, congregationalists (independents), , , constantine i, emperor, , copernicus, darwin; darwinism, , , defoe, daniel, sq. deism, sqq. democritus, descartes, , design, argument from, , d�holbach, diderot, sq. diocletian, emperor, disestablishment, , dodwell, henry, domitian, emperor, double truth, sq., edelmann, epicureanism, sqq., essays and review, sqq. euripides, exclusive salvation, sq., , ferrer, francisco, sq. fortnightly review, fourier, france, , sqq., sqq. frederick the great, sq. frederick ii, emperor, , free thought, meaning of, galileo de� galilei, sqq. gassendi, geology, sq. germany, sqq., sqq., sqq. gibbon, , sqq. goethe, greg, w. r., gregory ix, pope, gregory xvi, encyclical of, sq. haeckel, , hale, lord chief justice, harrison, frederic, , hegel, sqq. hell, controversy on, [ ] helmholtz, heraclitus, herbert of cherbury, lord, hippocrates, hobbes, sq. holland, , , , holyoake, homer, hume, sqq. huxley, independents, , sq. infallibility, papal, sq. innocent iii, pope, innocent iv, pope, innocent viii, pope, inquisition, sqq.; spanish, sqq.; roman, , , sqq. italy, sqq., james i (england). sq. jews, sqq., , , , , joseph ii, emperor, jowett, benjamin, sq. julian, emperor, justice, arguments from, kant, sq. kett, francis, kyd, laplace, lecky. w. h., , legate, bartholomew, lessing, , linnaeus, locke, sqq., , sq. loisy, abbé, sq. lucian, lucretius, sq. luther, sq., lyell, , manning, cardinal, marlowe, christopher, marsilius, maryland, sq. mazarin, cardinal, , middleton, conyers, , mill, james, , mill, j. s., , , , , sqq. milton, sq. mirabeau, miracles, sqq., , , sq., modernism, sqq. mohammedan free thought, monism, , sqq. montaigne, morley, lord (mr. john), , , sq., nantes, edict of, napoleon i, newman, cardinal, , newman, f. w., ostwald, professor, sqq. paine, thomas, , sqq. paley, sqq. pascal, , sq. pater, pentateuch, sq. pericles, persecution, theory of, sqq., sqq. pitt, william, pius ix, syllabus, sq. pius x, pope, sq. plato, sq. plutarch, prayer, controversy on, press, censorship, sq., sq. priestley, priscillian, progress, idea of, sqq. protagoras, raleigh, sir w., rationalism, meaning of, reade, winwood, reinach, s., renan, revolution, french, sqq. rhode island, richelieu, cardinal, , rousseau. , sqq., ruffini, professor, russia, sacred books, , sq., science, physical, sq., sqq. secularism, seeley, j. r., servetus, shaftesbury. sqq., shelley, , socinianism, , sqq. socrates, sqq., , , sophists, greek, spain, sqq., sq. spencer, herbert. spinoza, sq., , stephen. leslie, , sqq. stephen, j. f.. , sq., stoicism, , sq. [ ] strauss, david, , swinburne. , sq. tamburini. tatian, themistius, theodosius i, emperor, theophilanthropy, sq. thomas aquinas, thomasius, chr., three rings, story of, tiherius, emperor, tindal, matthew, sqq. toland, sq. toleration, sqq., sqq. trajan, emperor, turgot, tyndall, unitarians, , united states, sqq., universities, tests at, utilitarianism, vanini, lucilio, vatican council ( � ), voltaire, sqq., , , sqq. wesley, westbury, lord, wilberforce, williams, roger, sq. witchcraft, sq., , sq. woolston, sqq. xenophanes, sq. heresy: its utility and morality a plea and a justification by charles bradlaugh london: austin & co., , johnson's court, fleet street, e.c. price ninepence. heresy: its morality & utility a plea and a justification. chapter i. introduction what is heresy that it should be so heavily punished? why is it that society will condone many offences, pardon many vicious practices, and yet have such scant mercy for the open heretic, who is treated as though he were some horrid monster to be feared and hated? most religionists, instead of endeavouring with kindly thought to provide some solution for the difficulties propounded by their heretical brethren, indiscriminately confound all inquirers "in one common category of censure; their views are dismissed with ridicule as sophistical and fallacious, abused as infinitely dangerous, themselves denounced as heretics and infidels, and libelled as scoffers and atheists." with some religonists all heretics are atheists. with the pope of rome, garibaldi and mazzini are atheists. with the religious tract society, voltaire and paine were atheists. yet in neither of the above-named cases is the allegation true. voltaire and paine were heretics, but both were theists. garibaldi and mazzini are heretics, but neither of them is an atheist. with few exceptions, the heretics of one generation become the revered saints of a period less than twenty generations later. lord bacon, in his own age, was charged with atheism, sir isaac newton with socinianism, the famous tillotson was actually charged with atheism, and dr. burnet wrote against the commonly received traditions of the fall and deluge. there are but few men of the past of whom the church boasts to-day, who have not at some time been pointed at as heretics by orthodox antagonists excited by party rancour. heresy is in itself neither atheism nor theism, neither the rejection of the church of rome, nor of canterbury, nor of constantinople; heresy is not necessarily of any ist or ism. the heretic is one who has selected his own opinions, or whose opinions are the result of some mental effort; and he differs from others who are orthodox in this:--they hold opinions which are often only the bequest of an earlier generation unquestioningly accepted; he has escaped from the customary grooves of conventional acquiescence, and sought truth outside the channels sanctified by habit. men and women who are orthodox are generally so for the same reason that they are english or french--they were born in england or france, and cannot help the good or ill fortune of their birth-place. their orthodoxy is no higher virtue than their nationality. men are good and true of every nation and of every faith; but there are more good and true men in nations where civilisation has made progress, and amongst faiths which have been modified by high humanising influences. men are good not because of their orthodoxy, but in spite of it; their goodness is the outgrowth of their humanity, not of their orthodoxy. heresy is necessary to progress; heresy in religion always precedes an endeavour for political freedom. you cannot have effectual political progress without wide-spread heretical thought. every grand political change in which the people have played an important part, has been preceded by the popularisation of heresy in the immediately earlier generations. fortunately, ignorant men cannot be real heretics, so that education must be the hand-maiden to heresy. ignorance and superstition are twin sisters. belief too often means nothing more than prostration of the intellect on the threshold of the unknown. heresy is the pioneer, erect and manly, striding over the forbidden line in his search for truth. heterodoxy develops the intellect, orthodoxy smothers it. heresy is the star twinkle in the night, orthodoxy the cloud which hides this faint gleam of light from the weary travellers on life's encumbered pathway. orthodoxy is well exemplified in the dark middle ages, when the mass of men and women believed much and knew little, when miracles were common and schools were rare, and when the monasteries on the hill tops held the literature of europe. heresy speaks for itself in this nineteenth century, with the gas and electric light, with cheap newspapers, with a thousand lecture rooms, with innumerable libraries, and at least a majority of the people able to read the thoughts the dead have left, as well as to listen to the words the living utter. the word heretic ought to be a term of honour; for honest, clearly uttered heresy is always virtuous, and this whether truth or error; yet it is not difficult to understand how the charge of heresy has been generally used as a means of exciting bad feeling. the greek word [------] which is in fact our word heresy, signifies simply, selection or choice. the he etiq philosopher was the one who had searched and found, who, not content with the beaten paths, had selected a new road, chosen a new fashion of travelling in the inarch for that happiness all humankind are seeking. heretics are usually called "infidels," but no word could be more unfairly applied, if by it is meant anything more than that the heretic does not conform to the state faith. if it meant those who do not profess the faith, then there would be no objection, but it is more often used of those who are unfaithful, and then it is generally a libel. mahomedans and christians both call jews infidels, and mahomedans and christians call each other infidels. each religionist is thus an infidel to all sects but his own; there is but one degree of heresy between him and the heretic who rejects all churches. each ordinary orthodox man is a heretic to every religion in the world except one, but he is heretic from the accident of birth without the virtue of true heresy. in our own country heresy is not confined to the extreme platform adopted as a standing point by such a man as myself. it is rife even in the state-sustained church of england, and to show this one does not need to be content with such illustrations as are afforded by the essayists and reviewers, who discover the sources of the world's education rather in greece and italy than in judea, who reject the alleged prophecies as evidence of the messianic character of jesus; who admit that in nature and from nature, by science and by reason, we neither have, nor can possibly have any evidence of a deity working miracles; but declare that for that we must go out of nature and beyond science, and in effect avow that gospel miracles are always _objects_, not _evidences_, of faith; who deny the necessity of faith in jesus as saviour to peoples who could never have such faith; and who reject the notion that all mankind are individually involved in the curse and perdition of adam's sin; or even by the rev. charles voysey, who declines to preach "the god of the bible," and who will not teach that every word of the old and new testament is the word of god; or by the rev. dunbar heath, who in defiance of the bible doctrine, that man has only existed on the earth about , years, teaches that unnumbered chiliads have passed away since the human family commenced to play at nations on our earth; or by bishop colenso, who in his impeachment of the pentateuch, his denial of the literal truth of the narratives of the creation, fall, and deluge, actually impugns the whole scheme of christianity (if the foundation be false, the superstructure cannot be true); or by the rev. baden powell, who declared "that the whole tenor of geology is in entire contradiction to the cosmogony delivered from mount sinai," and who denied a "local heaven above and a local hell beneath the earth;" or by the rev. dr. giles, who, not content with preceding dr. colenso in his assaults on the text of the pentateuch, also wrote as vigorously against the text of the new testament; or by the rev. dr. wall, who, unsatisfied with arguments against the admittedly incorrect authorised translation of the bible, actually wrote to prove that a new and corrected hebrew text was necessary, the hebrew itself being corrupt; or by the rev. dr. irons, who teaches that not only are the gospel writers unknown, but that the very language in which jesus taught is yet to be discovered, who declares that prior to the esraic period the literal history of the old testament is lost, who does not find the trinity taught in scripture, and who declares that the gospel dees not teach the doctrine of the atonement; or by the late archbishop whately, to whom is attributed a latin pamphlet raising strong objections against the truth of the alleged confusion of tongues at babel. we may fairly allege, that amongst thinking clergymen of the church of england, heresy is the rule and not the exception. so soon as a minister begins to preach sermons which he does not buy ready lithographed--sermons which are the work of his brain--so soon heresy more or less buds out, now in the rejection of some church doctrine or article of minor importance, now in some bold declaration at variance with major and more essential tenets. even bishop watson's so famous for his bible apology, declared that the church articles and creeds were not binding on any man. "they may be true, they may be false," he wrote. today scores of church of england clergymen openly protest against, or groan in silence under the enforced subscription of thirty-nine unbelievable articles. sir william hamilton declares that the heads of colleges at oxford well knew that the man preparing for the church "will subscribe thirty-nine articles which he cannot believe, who swears to do and to have done a hundred articles which he cannot or does not perform." in scientific circles the heresy of the most efficient members is startlingly apparent. against members of the anthropological society charges of atheism are freely levelled, and although such a charge does not seem to be justified by any reports of their meetings, or by their printed publications, it is clear that not only out of doors, but even amongst their own circle it is felt that their researches conflict seriously with the hebrew writ. the society has been preached against and prayed against, and yet it is simply a society for discovering everything possible about man, prehistoric as well as modern. it has, however, an unpardonable vice in the eyes of the orthodox--it encourages the utterance of facts without regard to their effect on faiths. the ethnological society is kindred to the last named in many of its objects, and hence some of its most active members have been direct assailants of the hebrew chronology, which, limits man's existence to the short space of , years; they have been deniers(sp.) of the origin of the human race from one pair, of the confusion of tongues at babel, and of the reduction of the human race to one family by the noachian deluge. geological science has a crowd of heretics amongst its professors, men who deny the sudden origin of fauna and flora; who trace the gradual development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms through vast periods of time; and who find no resting place in a beginning of existence, but are obliged to halt in face of a measureless past, inconceivable in its grandeur. geology, to quote the words of dr. kalisch, declares "the utter impossibility of a creation of even the earth alone in six days." mr. goodwin says in the "essays and reviews:" "the school-books of the present day, while they teach the child that the earth moves, yet assure him that it is a little less than six thousand years old, and that it was made in six days. on the other hand, geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years--to be counted by millions rather than by thousands; and that indubitably more than six days elapsed from its first creation to the appearance of man upon its surface." astronomy has in the ranks of its professors many of its most able minds who do not believe in the sun and moon as two great lights, who cannot accept the myriad stars as fixed in the firmament solely to give light upon the earth, who refuse to believe in the heaven as a fixed firmament to divide the waters above from the waters beneath, who cannot by their telescopes discover the local heaven above or the local hell beneath, although their science marks each faint nebulosity crossing, or crossed by the range of the watcher's vision. to quote again from mr. goodwin:--"on the revival of science in the sixteenth century, some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived, were found to be at variance with popular and long established belief. the ptolemaic system of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things. copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate member of a family of planets; which the terrestrials had, until then, fondly imagined to be but pendants and ornaments of their own habitation. the church, naturally, took a lively interest in the disputes which arose between the philosophers ot the new school, and those who adhered to the old doctrines, inasmuch as the hebrew records, the basis of religious faith, manifestly countenanced the opinion of the earth's immobility, and certain other views of the universe, very incompatible with those propounded by copernicus. hence arose the official proceedings against galileo, in consequence of which he submitted to sign his celebrated recantation, acknowledging that 'the proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the scripture;' and that 'the proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and at least erroneous in faith.'" why is it that society is so severe on heresy? three hundred years ago it burned heretics, till thirty years ago it sent them to jail; even in england and america to-day it is content to harass, annoy, and slander them. in the united states a candidate for the governorship of a state, although otherwise admittedly eligible, was assailed bitterly for his suspected socinianism. sir sidney waterlow, standing for a scotch seat, was sharply catechised as to when he had last been inside the unitarian chapel, and only saved his seat by not too boldly avowing his opinions. lord amberley, who was "unwise" enough to be honest in some of his answers, did not obtain his seat for south devon in consequence of the suspicion of heresy excited against him. it is chiefly to the _odium theologicum_ that mr. mill may attribute his rejection at westminster; and it is supposed to have also damaged sir john lubbock in west kent. i only refrain from enlarging on my own case, because i learn from the press that it is chiefly the vulgarity and coarseness of my heresy with which they are indignant. to reply that i have sought to avoid being coarse and vulgar is worse than useless, i am judged untried, condemned unheard; evidence is unnecessary in the case of a man who thus puts himself outside the pale. sir william drummond says, "early associations are generally the strongest in the human mind, and what we have been taught to credit as children we are seldom, disposed to question as men. called away from speculative inquiries by the common business of life, men in general possess neither the inclination, nor the leisure to examine _what_ they believe or _why_ they believe. a powerful prejudice remains in the mind; ensures conviction without the trouble of thinking; and repels doubt without the aid or authority of reason. the multitude then is not very likely to applaud an author, who calls upon it to consider what it had hitherto neglected, and to stop where it had been accustomed to pass on. it may also happen that there is a learned and formidable body, which, having given its general sanction to the literal interpretation of the holy scriptures, may be offended at the presumption of an unhallowed layman, who ventures to hold, that the language of those scriptures is often symbolical and allegorical, even in passages which both the church and the synagogue consider as nothing else than a plain statement of fact. a writer who had sufficient boldness to encounter such obstacles, and to make an appeal to the public, would only expose himself to the invectives of offended bigotry, and to the misrepresentations of interested malice. the press would be made to ring with declamations against him, and neither learning, nor argument, nor reason, nor moderation on his side, would protect him from the literary assassination which awaited him. in vain would he put on the heaven-tempered panoply of truth. the weapons which could neither pierce his buckler nor break his casque, might be made to pass with envenomed points through the joints of his armour. every trivial error which he might commit, would be magnified into a flagrant fault; and every insignificant mistake into which he might fall, would be represented by the bigotted, or by the hireling critics of the day as an ignorant, or as a perverse deviation from the truth." both by the statute law and common law, heresy is punishable, and many are punished for it even in the second half of the nineteenth century. a man who has been educated in, or made profession of christianity, and who shall then deny any of the thirty-nine articles, is liable to indictment and imprisonment, but this course is seldom pursued; the more common practice is for the christian to avail himself of the heretic's want of belief in order to object to his competency as a witness. repeated instances have occurred recently in which the proposed witness has been rejected as untrustworthy, because he was too honest to pretend to hold a faith he in truth denied. besides such open persecution, there is the constant, unceasing, paltry, petty persecuting spirit which refuses to trade with the heretic; which declines to eat with him; which will not employ him; which feels justified in slandering him, which seeks to set his wife's mind against him, and to take away the affection of his children from him. for those who do not believe this, i will instance two clergymen of the church of england: one (who as my teacher when a boy) set a kind father's heart against me, and drove me further in heresy than i then dreamed of marching; and the other, who in cruel wickedness tried to wound me as a man through the feelings of my wife and children, whom he most vilely and basely slandered. the first is yet unpunished, the second escaped condign punishment only by writing himself down libeller, and praying pardon for the slanderous coinage of his brain. and yet this latter church of england clergyman, who had written a strong letter thanking me for my generous forbearance, and who from his own pulpit pretended to express his sorrow, is actually the first and only man in my neighbourhood to cry "atheist" against me, when i mingle in political life, and he thinks the phrase may wound and injure me. chapter ii. the sixteenth century it requires a more practised pen than mine to even faintly sketch the progress of heresy during the past three centuries, but i trust to say enough to give the reader an idea of its rapid growth and wide extension. i say of the past three centuries, because it is only during the past three hundred years that heresy has made the majority of its converts amongst the mass of the people. in earlier times heretics were not only few, but they talked to the few, and wrote to the few, in the language of the few; and indeed it may be fairly said, that it is only during the last hundred years that the greatest men have sought to make heresy "vulgar;" that is, to make it common. one of our leading scientific men admitted recently that he had been reproved by some of his more orthodox friends, for not confining to the latin language such of his geological opinions as were supposed to be most dangerous to the hebrew records. the starting-point of the real era of popular heresy may be placed at the early part of the sixteenth century, when the memories of huss and ziska (who had really inoculated the mass with some spirit of heretical resistance a century before) aided luther in resisting rome. martin luther, born at eisleben in saxony, in , was one of the heretics who sought popular endorsement for his heresy, and who following the example of the ulrich zuingle, of zurich, preached to the people in rough plain words. while others were limited to latin, he rang out in plain german his opposition to tetzel and his protectors. i know that to-day, martin luther is spoken of by orthodox protestants as if he were a saint without blemish, and indeed i do not want to deprive the christian church of the honour of his adherence; he is hardly good enough and true enough for a first-class heretic. yet in justification of my ranking him even so temporarily amongst the heretics of the sixteenth century, it will be sufficient to mention that he regarded "the books of the kings as more worthy of credit than the books of the chronicles," that he wrote as follows:--"the book of esdras i toss into the elbe." "i am so an enemy to the book of esther i would it did not exist." "job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book." "it is a sheer _argumentum fabulæ_" "the book of the proverbs of solomon has been pieced together by others," of ecclesiastes "there is too much of broken matter in it; it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides only in socks." "isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from david." "the history of jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible." "the epistle to the hebrews is not by st. paul, nor indeed by any apostle." "the epistle of james account the writing of no apostle," and "is truly an epistle of sham." the epistle of jude "allegeth sayings or stories which have no place in scripture," "of revelation i can discover no trace that it is established by the holy spirit." if martin luther were alive to-day, the established church of england, which pretends to revere him, would prosecute him in the english ecclesiastical courts if he ventured to repeat the foregoing phrases from her pulpits. what would the writers who attack me for coarseness, say of the following passage, which occurs with reference to melancthon, whom luther boasts that he raised miraculously from the dead? "melancthon," says sir william hamilton, to whose essay i am indebted for the extracts here given, "had fallen ill at weimar from contrition and fear for the part he had been led to take in the landgrave's polygamy: his life was even in danger." "then and there," said luther, "i made our lord god to smart for it. for i threw down the sack before the door, and rubbed his ears with all his promises of hearing prayer, which i knew how to recapitulate from holy writ, so that he could not but hearken to me, should i ever again place any reliance on his promises." martin luther, with his absolute denial of free-will, and with his double code of morality for princes and peasants--easy for one and harsh for the other--may be fairly left now with those who desire to vaunt his orthodoxy; here his name is used only to illustrate the popular impetus given to nonconformity by his quarrel with the papal authorities. luther protested against the romish church, but established by the very fact the right for some more advanced man than doctor martin to protest in turn against the lutheran church. the only consistent church in christendom is the romish church, for it claims the right to think for all its followers. the whole of the protestant churches are inconsistent, for they claim the right to think and judge against rome, but deny extremer nonconformists the right to think and judge against themselves. goethe, says froude, declares that luther threw back the intellectual progress of mankind by using the passions of the multitude to decide subjects which should have been left to the learned. i do not believe this to be wholly true, for the multitude once having their ears fairly opened, listened to more than the appeal to their passions, and examined for themselves propositions which otherwise they would have accepted or rejected from habit and without inquiry. martin luther's public discussions with pen and tongue, in wittemberg, augsburg, liebenwerd, and lichtenberg, and the protest he encouraged against rome, were the commencement of a vigorous controversy, in which the public (who heard for the first time sharp controversial sermons preached publicly in the various pulpits by lutheran preachers on free-will and necessity, election and predestination, &c.) began to take real part and interest; and which is still going on, and will in fact never end until the unholy alliance of church and state is everywhere annulled, and each religion is left to sustain itself by its own truth, or to fall from its own weakness, no man being molested under the law on account of his opinions on religious matters. while luther undoubtedly gave an impetus to the growth of rationalism by his own appeal to reason and his reliance on reason for himself, it is not true that he contended for the right of general freedom of inquiry, nor would he have left unlimited the privileges of individual judgment for others. he could be furious in his denunciations of reason when a freer thinker than himself dared to use it against his superstitions. it is somewhat remarkable that while on the one hand one man, luther, was detaching from the church of rome a large number of minds, another man, loyola, was about the same time engaged in founding that powerful society (the society of jesuits), which has done so much to check free inquiry and maintain the priestly domination over the human intellect. that which luther commenced in germany roughly, inefficiently, and perhaps more from personal feeling for the privileges of the special order to which he belonged than from desire for popular progress, was aided in its permanent effect by descartes, in england by bacon, in france by montaigne, and in italy by bruno. francis bacon, lord verulam, was born on the nd january, , and died . his mother, anne, daughter of sir anthony cooke, was a woman of high education, and certainly with some inclinations favourable to freethought, for she had herself translated into english some of the sermons on fate and free-will of bernard ochino, or bernardin ochinus, an italian reforming heretic, alike repudiated by the powers at rome, geneva, wittemberg, and zurich. ochino, in his famous disquisition "touching the freedom or bondage of the human will, and the foreknowledge, predestination, and liberty of god," after discussing, with great acuteness, and from different points of view, these important topics, comes to the conclusion that there is no outlet to the mazes of thought in which the honest speculator plunges in the endeavour to solve these problems. although, like other writers of that and earlier periods, many of bacon's works were published in latin, he wrote and published also in english, and if i am right in numbering him as one of the heretics of the sixteenth century, he must be also counted a vulgar heretic--i.e., one who wrote in the vulgar tongue, who preached his heresy in the language which the mass understood. lewes says, "bacon and descartes are generally recognised as the fathers of modern philosophy, although they themselves were carried along by the rapidly-swelling current of their age, then decisively setting in the direction of science. it is their glory to have seen visions of the coming greatness, to have expressed in terms of splendid power, the thoughts which were dimly stirring the age, and to have sanctioned the new movement by their authoritative genius." bacon was the populariser of that method of reasoning known as the inductive, that method which seeks to trace back from the phenomena of the moment to the eternal noumenon or noumena--from the conditioned to the absolute. nearly two thousand years before, the same method had been taught by aristotle in opposition to plato, and probably long thousands of years before the grand greek, pre-historic schoolmen had used the method; it is natural to the human mind. the stagirite was the founder of a school, bacon the teacher and populariser for a nation. aristotle's greek was known to few, bacon's eloquent english opened out the subject to the many whom he impregnated with his own confidence in the grand progressiveness of human thought. lewes says; "the spirit of his philosophy was antagonistic to theology, for it was a spirit of doubt and search; and its search was for visible and tangible results." bacon himself, in his essay on superstition, says: "atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further; and we see the times inclined to atheism, as the time of augustus caesar were civil times; but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ (the first motive cause), that ravisheth all the spheres of government." it is true that he also wrote against atheism, and this in strong language, but his philosophy was not used for the purpose of proving theological propositions. he said: "true philosophy is that which is the faithful echo of the voice of the world, which is written in some sort under the dictation of things, which adds nothing of itself, which is only the rebound, the reflection of reality." it has been well said that the words "utility and progress" give the keynotes of bacon's teachings. with one other extract we leave his writings. "crafty men," he says, "contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a man write little, he need have a great memory; if he confer little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." he was the father of experimental philosophy. in one of his suggestions as to the force of attraction of gravitation may be found the first aid to sir isaac newton's later demonstrations on this head; another of his suggestions, worked out by torricelli, ended in demonstrating the gravity of the atmosphere. but to the method he so popularised may be attributed the grandest discoveries of modern times. it is to be deplored that the memory of his moral weakness should remain to spoil the praise of his grand intellect. lord macaulay, in the _edinburgh review_, after contrasting at some length the philosophy of plato with that of bacon, said;--"to sum up the whole: we should say that the aim of the platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. the aim of the baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man. the aim of the platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. the aim of the baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. the former aim was noble; but the latter was attainable. plato drew a good bow; but, like acestes in virgil, he aimed at the stars; and therefore, though there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. his arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing. bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and within bowshot, and hit it in the white. the philosophy of plato began in words and ended in words--noble words in deed-words such as were to be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising boundless dominion over the finest of human languages. the philosophy of bacon began in observations and ended in arts." in france the political heresy of jean bodin--who challenged the divine right of rulers; who proclaimed the right of resistance against oppressive decrees of monarchs; who had words of laudation for tyrannicide, and yet had no conception that the multitude were entitled to use political power, but on the contrary wrote against them--was very imperfect, the conception of individual right was confounded in the habit of obedience to monarchical authority. bodin is classed by mosheim amongst the writers who sowed the seeds of scepticism in france; but although he was far from an orthodox man, it is doubtful if bodin ever intended his views to be shared beyond the class to which he belonged. to the partial glimpse of individual right in the works of bodin add the doctrine of political fraternity taught by la boetie, and then this political heresy becomes dangerous in becoming popular. the most decided heretic and doubter of the sixteenth century was one sanchez, by birth a portuguese, and practising as a physician at toulouse; but the impetus which ultimately led to the spread and popularity of sceptical opinions in relation to politics and theology, is chiefly due to the satirical romances of rabelais and the essays of montaigne. "what rabelais was to the supporters of theology," says buckle, "that was montaigne to the theology itself. the writings of rabelais were only directed against the clergy, but the writings of montaigne were directed against the system of which the clergy were the offspring." montaigne was born at bordeaux , died . louis blanc says of his words, "et ce ne sont pas simples discours d'un philosophe à des philosophes. montaigne s'addresse à tous." montaigne's words were not those of a philosopher talking only to his own order, he addressed himself to mankind at large, and he wrote in language the majority could easily comprehend. voltaire points out that montaigne as a philosopher was the exception in france to his class; he having succeeded in escaping that persecution which fell so heavily on others. montaigne's thoughts were like sharp instruments scattered broadcast, and intended for the destruction of many of the old social and conventional bonds; he was the advocate of individualism, and placed each man as above society, rather than society as more important than each man. montaigne mocked the reasoners who contradicted each other, and derided that fallibility of mind which regarded the opinion of the moment as infallibly true, and which was yet always temporarily changed by an attack of fever or a draught of strong drink, and often permanently modified by some new discovery. less fortunate than montaigne, godfrey a valle was burned for heresy in paris in , his chief offence having been that of issuing a work entitled "de arte nihil credendi." heresy thus championed in france, germany, and england, had in italy its sixteenth century soldiers in pomponatius of mantua, giordano bruno, and telesio, both of naples, and in campanella of calabria, a gallant band, who were nearly all met with the cry of "atheist," and were either answered with exile, the prison, or the faggot. pomponatius, who was born and died , wrote a treatise on the soul, which was so much deemed an attack on the doctrine of immortality despite a profession of reverence for the dogmas of the church, that the work was publicly burned at venice, a special bull of leo x. being directed against the doctrine. bernard telesio was born at naples in , and founded there a school in which mathematics and philosophy were given the first place. during his lifetime he had the good fortune to escape persecution, but sites his death his works were proscribed by the church; telesio was chiefly useful in educating the minds of some of the neapolitans for more advanced thinking than his own. this was well illustrated in the case of thomas campanella, born , who, attracted by the teachings of telesio, wrote vigorously against the old schoolmen and in favor of the new philosophy. despite an affected reverence for the church of rome, campanella spent twenty-seven years of his life in prison. campanella has been, as is usually the case with eminent writers, charged with atheism, but there seems to be no fair foundation for the charges he was a true heretic, for he not only opposed aristotle; but even his own teacher telesio. none of these men, however, yet strove to reach the people, they wrote to and of one another, not to or of the masses. it is said that campanella was fifty times arrested and seven times tortured for his heresy. one andrew de bena, a profound scholar and eminent preacher of the church of rome, carried away by the spirit of the time, came out into the reformed party; but his mind once set free from the old trammels, found no rest in luther's narrow church, and a poetic pantheism was the result. jerome cardan, a mathematician of considerable ability, born at pavia , has been fiercely accused of atheism. his chief offence seems to have been rather in an opposite direction; astrology was with him a favourite subject. while the strange views put forward in some of his works served good purpose by provoking inquiry, we can hardly class cardan otherwise than as a man whose undoubted genius and erudition were more than counterbalanced by his excessively superstitious folly. giordano bruno was born near naples about . he was burned at rome for heresy on the th february, . bruno was burned for alleged atheism, but appears rather, to have been a pantheist. his most prominent avowal of heresy was the disbelief in eternal torment and rejection, of the common orthodox ideas of the devil. he wrote chiefly in italian, his vulgar tongue, and thus effectively aided the grand march of heresy by familiarising the eyes of the people with newer and truer forms of thought. bruno used the tongue as fluently as the pen. he spoke in italy until he had roused an opposition rendering flight the only possibly escape from death. at geneva he found no resting place, the fierce spirit of zuingle and calvin was there too mighty; at paris he might have found favour, with the king, and at the sorbonne, but he refused to attend mass, and delivered a series of popular lectures, which won many admirers; from paris he went to england, where we find him publicly debating at oxford and lecturing on theology, until he excited an antagonism which induced his return to paris, where he actually publicly discussed for three days some of the grand problems of existence. paris orthodoxy could not permit his onslaughts on established opinions, and this time it was to germany bruno turned for hospitality; where, after visiting many of the different states, lecturing freely but with general success, he drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication at helmstadt. at last he returned to italy and spoke at padua, but had at once to fly thence from the inquisition; at venice he found a resting place in prison, whence after six years of dungeon, and after the tender mercy of the rack, he was led out to receive the final refutation of the faggot. there is a grand heroism in the manner in which he received his sentence and bore his fiery punishment. no cry of despair, no prayer for escape, no flinching at the moment of death. bruno's martyrdom may favourably contrast with the highest example christianity gives us. it was in the latter half of the sixteenth century, that unitarianism or socinianism assumed a front rank position in europe, having its chief strength in poland, with considerable force in holland and england. in , one lewis hetzer had been publicly burned at constance, for denying the divinity of jesus; but hetzer was more connected with the anabaptists than with the unitarians. about the same time a man named claudius openly argued amongst the swiss people, against the doctrine of the trinity, and one john campanus contended at wittemberg, and other places, against the usually inculcated doctrines of the church, as to the father, son, and holy ghost. in , valentine gentilis, a neapolitan, was put to death at rome, for teaching the superiority of god the father, over the son and the holy ghost. modern unitarianism appears to have had as its founders or chief promoters, lælius socinus, and his nephew faustus socinus; the first having the better brain and higher genius, but marred by a timid and irresolute character; the second having a more active nature and bolder temperament. from cracow and racow, during the latter half of this century, the unitarians (who drew into their ranks many men of advanced minds.) issued a large number of books and pamphlets, which were circulated amongst the people with considerable zeal and industry. unitarianism was carried from poland into transylvania by a physician, george blandrata, and a preacher francis david, or davides, who obtained the support and countenance of the then ruler of the country. davides, unfortunately for himself, became too unitarian for the unitarians; he adopted the extreme views of one simon budnffius, who, in lithuania, entirely repudiated any sort, of religious worship in reference to jesus. budnæus was excommunicated by the unitarians themselves, and davides was imprisoned for the rest of his life. as the unitarians were persecuted by the old romish and new lutheran churches, so they in turn persecuted seceders from and opposers of their own movement. each man's history involved the widening out of public thought; each act of persecution illustrated a vain endeavour to check the progress of heresy; each new sect marked a step towards the destruction of the old obstructive faiths. about the close of the sixteenth century, ernestius sonerus, of nuremberg, wrote against the doctrine of eternal torment, and also against the divinity of jesus, but his works were never very widely circulated. amongst the distinguished europeans of the sixteenth century whom dr. j. f. smith mentions as either atheists or favouring atheism, were paul jovius, peter aretin, and muretus. rumour has even enrolled leo x. himself in the atheistical ranks. how far some of these men had warranted the charge other than by being promoters of literature and lovers of philosophy, it is now difficult to say. a determined resistance was offered to the spread of heretical opinions in the south of europe by the roman church, and it is alleged that some thousands of persons were burned or otherwise punished in spain, portugal, and naples during the sixteenth century. the inquisition or holy office was in spain and portugal the most prominent and active persecutor, but persecution was carried on vigorously in other parts of europe by the seceders from rome. zuingle, luther, and calvin, were as harsh as the pope towards those with whom they differed. michael servetus, or servede, was a native of arragon, by profession a physician; he wrote against the ordinary doctrines of the trinity, but was far from ordinary unitarianism. he was burned at geneva, at the instance of calvin. calvin was rather fond of burning heretical opponents; to the name of servetus might be added that of gruet, who also was burned at the instance of calvin, for denying the divinity of the christian religion, and for arguing against the immortality of the soul. it is worth notice that while heresy in this sixteenth century began to branch out openly, and to strike its roots down firmly amongst the people, ecclesiastical historians are compelled to record improvement in the condition of society. mosheim says, "in this century the arts and sciences were carried to a pitch unknown to preceding ages, and from this happy renovation of learning, the european churches derived the most signal and inestimable advantages." "the benign influence of true science, and its tendency to improve both the form of religion and the institutions of civil policy, were perceived by many of the states." the love of literature is the most remarkable and characteristic form of advancing civilisation. instead of being the absorbing passion of the learned few, it becomes gradually the delight and occupation of increasing numbers. this cultivation of literary pursuits by the mass is only possible when enough of heresy has been obtained to render their scope of study wide enough to be useful. rotterdam gave life to the polished erasmus, valentia to ludovico vivez, picardy to le fevre, and france to rabelais. in the latter half of this century, giants in literature grew out, giants who wrote for the people. william shakespeare wrote even for those who could not read, but who might learn while looking and listening. his comedies and tragedies are at the same time pictures for the people of diverse phases of english life and character, with a thereunto added universality of pourtrayal and breadth in philosophy, which it is hardly too much to say, that no other dramatist has ever equalled. italy boasts its torquato tasso, whose "jerusalem delivered," the grand work of a great poet, marks, like a mighty monument, the age capable of finding even in a priest-ridden country, an audience amongst the lowest as well as the highest, ready to read and sing, and finally permeated with the poet's outpourings. in astronomy, the name of tycho brahé stands out in the sixteenth century like one of the first magnitude stars whose existence he catalogued. chapter iii. the seventeenth century the seeds of inquiry sown in the sixteenth century resulted in a fruitful display of advanced opinions during the next age. in the page of seventeenth century history, more names of men, either avowedly heretics, or charged by the orthodox with heresy, or whose labours can be shown to have tended to the growth of heresy, may probably be recorded than can be found during the whole of the previously long period during which the christian church assumed to dominate and control european thought. the seventeenth century muster-roll of heresy is indeed a grand one, and gloriously filled. one of its early martyrs was julius caesar vanini, who was burned at toulouse, in the year , aged , as "an impious and obstinate atheist." was he atheist, or was he not? this is a question, in answering which the few remains of his works give little ground for sharing the opinion of his persecutors. yet many writers agree in writing as if his atheism were of indisputable notoriety. he was a poor neapolitan priest, he preached a sort of pantheism; unfortunately for himself, he believed in the utility of public discussion on theological questions, and thus brought upon his head the charge of seeking to convert the world to atheism. in , two men, named legat and whitman, were burned in england for heresy. "but," says buckle, "this was the last gasp of expiring bigotry; and since that memorable day, the soil of england has never been stained by the blood of a man who has suffered for his religious creed." peter charron, of paris, ought perhaps to have been included in the sixteenth century list, for he died in , but his only known work, "la sagesse," belongs to the seventeenth century, in which it circulated and obtained reputation. he urged that religion is the accidental result of birth and education, and that therefore variety of creed should not be cause of quarrel between men, as such variety is the result of circumstances over which the men themselves have had no control; and he urges that as each sect claims to be the only true one, we ought to rise superior to all sects, and without being terrified by the fear of future punishment, or allured by the hope of future happiness, "be content with such practical religion as consists in performing the duties of life." buckle, who speaks in high terms of charron, says, "the sorbonne went so far as to condemn charron's great work, but could not succeed in having it prohibited." rené descartes duperron, a few years later than bacon (he was born in , at la haye, in touraine, died , at stockholm) established the foundations of the deductive method of reasoning, and applied it in a manner which bacon had apparently carefully avoided. both descartes and bacon addressed themselves to the task of substituting for the old systems, a more comprehensive and useful spirit of philosophy; but while bacon sought to accomplish this by persuading men to experiment and observation, descartes commenced with the search for a first and self-evident ground of all knowledge. this, to him, is found in consciousness. the existence of deity was a point which bacon left untouched by reason, yet with descartes it was the first proposition he sought to prove. he says, "i have always thought that the two questions of the existence of god and the nature of the soul, were the chief of those which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than by theology, for although it is sufficient for us, the faithful, to believe in god, and that the soul does not perish with the body, it does not seem possible ever to persuade the infidels to any religion unless we first prove to them these two things by natural reason." to prove this existence of god and the immortality of the soul, descartes needed a firm starting point, one which no doubt could touch, one which no argument could shake. he found this point in the fact of his own existence. he could doubt everything else, but he could not doubt that he, the thinking doubter, existed. his own existence was the primal fact, the indubitable certainty, which served as the base for all other reasonings, hence his famous "cogito ergo sum:" i think, therefore i am. and although it has been fairly objected that descartes did not exist because he thought, but existed and thought; it is nevertheless clear that it is only in the thinking that descartes had the consciousness of his existence. the fact of descartes' existence was, to him, one above and beyond all logic, evidence could not add to the certitude, no scepticism could impeach it. whether or not we agree with the cartesian philosophy, or the reasonings used to sustain it, we must admire the following four rules which he has given us, and which, with the view of consciousness in which we do not entirely concur, are the essential features of the basis of a considerable portion of descartes' system;-- " . never to accept anything as true but what is evidently so; to admit nothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents itself as true, that there can be no reason to doubt it. " . to divide every question into as many separate parts as possible, that each part being more easily conceived, the whole may be more intelligible. " . to conduct the examination with order, beginning by that of objects the most simple, and therefore the easiest to be known, and ascending little by little up to knowledge of the most complex. " . to make such exact calculations, and such circumspections as to be confident that nothing essential has been omitted." "consciousness being the basis of all certitude, everything of which you are clearly and distinctly conscious must be true: everything which you clearly and distinctly conceive, exists, if the idea involve existence." it should be remarked that consciousness being a state of condition of the mind, is by no means an infallible guide? men may fancy they have clear ideas, when their consciousness, if carefully examined, would prove to have been treacherous. descartes argued for three classes of ideas--acquired, compounded, and innate. it is in his assumption of innate ideas that you have one of the radical weaknesses of his system. sir william hamilton points out that the use of the word idea by descartes, to express the object of memory, imagination, and sense, was quite a new usage, only one other writer, david buchanan, having previously used the word idea with this signification. descartes did not write for the mass, and his philosophy would have been limited to a much narrower circle had its spread rested on his own efforts. but the age was one for new thought, and the contemporaries and successors of descartes carried the cartesian logic to extremes he had perhaps avoided, and they taught the new philosophy to the world in a fearless spirit, with a boldness for which descartes could have given them no example. descartes, who in early life had travelled much more than was then the custom, had probably made the personal acquaintance of most of the leading thinkers of europe then living; it would be otherwise difficult to account for the very ready reception given by them to his first work. fortunately for descartes, he was born with a fair fortune, and escaped such difficulties as poorer philosophers must needs submit to. there is perhaps a _per contra_ side. it is more than possible that if the needs of life had compelled him, descartes' scientific predilections might have resulted in more immediate advantage to society. his philosophy is often pedantic to weariness, and his scientific theories are often sterile. the fear of poverty might have quickened some of his speculations into a more practical utterance. buckle reminds us that descartes "was the first who successfully applied algebra to geometry; that he pointed out the important law of the sines; that in an age in which optical instruments were extremely imperfect, he discovered the changes to which light is subjected in the eye by the crystalline lens; that he directed attention to the consequences resulting from the weight of the atmosphere, and that he detected the causes of the rainbow." "descartes," says saintes, "throwing off the swaddling clothes of scholasticism, resolved to owe to himself alone the acquisition of the truth which he so earnestly desired to possess. for what else is the methodical doubt which he established as the starting point in his philosophy, than an energetic protest of the human mind against all external authority? having thus placed all science on a philosophical basis, no matter what, he freed philosophy herself from her long servitude, and proclaimed her queen of the intellect. hence every one who has wished to account to himself for his existence, every one who has desired to know himself to know nature, and to rise to its author; in a word, all who have wished to make a wise use of their intellectual faculties, to apply them, not to hollow speculations which border on nonentity, but to sensible and practical inquiries, have taken and followed some direction from descartes." it is almost amusing when philosophers criticise their predecessors. mons. henri bitter denies to descartes any originality of method or even of illustration, while hegel describes him as the founder of modern philosophy, whose influence upon his own age and on modern times it is impossible to exaggerate. to attempt to deal fully and truly with descartes in the few lines which can be spared here, is impossible; all that is sought is to as it were catalogue his name in the seventeenth century list. whether originator or imitator, whether founder or disciple, it is certain that descartes gave a sharp spur to european thought, and mightily hastened the progress of heresy. it is not the object or duty of the present writer to examine or refute any of the extraordinary views entertained by descartes as to vortices. descartes himself is reported to have said "my theory of vortices is a philosophical romance." science in the last three centuries has travelled even more rapidly than philosophy; and most of the physical speculations of descartes are relegated to the region of grandly curious blunderings. there is one point of error held by descartes sufficiently entertained even to-day--although most often without a distinct appreciation of the position--to justify a few words upon it. descartes denied mental faculties to all the animal kingdom except mankind. all the brute kingdom he regarded as machines without intelligence. in this he was logical, even in error, for he accorded a soul to man which he denied to the brute. soul and mind with him are identified, and thought is the fundamental attribute of mind. to admit that a dog, horse, or elephant can think, that it can remember what happened yesterday, that it can reason ever so incompletely, would be to admit that that dog, horse, or elephant, has some kind of soul; to avoid this he reduces all animals outside the human family to the position of machines. to-day science admits in animals, more or less according to their organisation, perception, memory, judgment, and even some sort of reason. yet orthodoxy still claims a soul for man even if he be a madman from his birth, and denies it to the sagacious elephant, the intelligent horse, the faithful dog, and the cunning monkey. his proof of the existence of deity is thus stated by lewes:--"interrogating his consciousness, he found that he had the idea of god, understanding by god, a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent. this, to him, was as certain a truth as the truth of his own existence. i exist: not only do i exist, but exist as a miserably imperfect finite being, subject to change, greatly ignorant, and incapable of creating anything. in this, my consciousness, i find by my finitude that i am not the all; by my imperfection, that i am not perfect. yet an infinite and perfect being must exist, because infinity and perfection are implied as correlatives in my ideas of imperfection and finitude. god therefore exists: his existence is clearly proclaimed in my consciousness, and can no more be a matter of doubt, when fairly considered, than my own existence. the conception of an infinite being proves his real existence; for if there is not really such a being, i must have made the conception; but if i could make it, i can also unmake it, which evidently is not true; therefore there must be, externally to myself an archetype from which the conception was derived. all that we clearly and distinctly conceive as contained in anything, is true of that thing. now we conceive, clearly and distinctly, that the existence of god is contained in the idea we have of him--_ergo_, god exists." it may not be out of place to note at this demonstration, that the jesuit writer, father hardouin, in his "atheists unmasked," as a recompense for this demonstration of the existence of deity, places descartes and his disciples, le grand and regis, in the first rank of atheistical teachers. voltaire, commenting on this, remarks, "the man who had devoted all the acuteness of his extraordinary intellect to the discovery of new proofs of the existence of a god, was most absurdly charged with denying him altogether." speaking of the proof of the existence of deity, "demonstrations of this kind," says froude, "were the characteristics of the period. descartes had set the example of constructing them, and was followed by cudworth, clarke, berkeley, and many others besides spinoza. the inconclusiveness of the method may perhaps be observed most readily in the strangely opposite conceptions formed by all these writers of the nature of that being whose existence they nevertheless agreed, by the same process, to gather each out of their ideas. it is important, however, to examine it carefully, for it is the very keystone of the pantheistic system. as stated by descartes, the argument stands something as follows:--god is an all-perfect being, perfection is the idea which we form of him, existence is a mode of perfection, and therefore god exists. the sophism, we are told, is only apparent, existence is part of the idea--as much involved in it as the equality of all lines drawn from the centre to the circumference of a circle is involved in the idea of a circle. a non-existent all-perfect being is as inconceivable as a quadrilateral triangle. it is sometimes answered that in this way we may prove the existence of anything, titans, chimaeras, or the olympian gods; we have but to define them as existing, and the proof is complete. but this objection is summarily set aside; none of these beings are by hypothesis absolutely perfect, and, therefore, of their existence we can conclude nothing. with greater justice, however, we may say, that of such terms as perfection and existence we know too little to speculate. existence may be an imperfection for all we can tell, we know nothing about the matter. such arguments are but endless _petitiones principii_--like the self-devouring serpent, resolving themselves into nothing. we wander round and round them, in the hope of finding some tangible point at which we can seize their meaning; but we are presented everywhere with the same impracticable surface, from which our grasp glides off ineffectual." thomas hobbes, of malmesbury, is one of those men more often freely abused than carefully read; he was born april th, , died . he was "the subtlest dialectician of his time," and one of the earliest english advocates of the materialistic limitation of mind; he denies the possibility of any knowledge other than as resulting from sensation; his doctrine is in direct negation of descartes' theory of innate ideas, and would be fatal to the orthodox dogma of mind as spiritual. "whatever we imagine," he says, "is finite. therefore, there is no idea, no conception of anything we call infinite." in a brief pamphlet on his own views, published in , in reply to attacks upon him, he writes, "besides the creation of the world there is no argument to prove a deity," and "that it cannot be decided by any argument that the world had a beginning;" but he professes to admit the authority of the magistrate and the scriptures to override argument. he says that he does not "believe that the safety of the state depends upon the safety of the church." some of hobbes' pieces were only in latin, others were issued in english. in one of those on heresy, he mentions that by the statute of edward vi. cap , there is provision for the repeal of all former acts of parliament "made to punish any manner of doctrine concerning religion." in the following extracts the reader will find the prominent features of that sensationalism which to-day has so many adherents:--"concerning the thoughts of man, i will consider them first singly, and afterwards in a train or dependence upon one another. singly they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us, which is commonly called an object. which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's body, and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of appearances. the original of them all is that which we call sense, for there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the organs of sense. the rest are derived from that original." the effect of this is to deny any possible knowledge other than as results from the activity of the sensative faculties, and is also fatal to the doctrine of a soul. "according," says hobbes, "to the two principal parts of man, i divide his faculties into two sorts--faculties of the body, and faculties of the mind. since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, i will only sum them up in these three heads--power nutritive, power generative, and power motive, of the powers of the mind there be two sorts--cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive, and motive. for the understanding of what i mean by the power cognitive, we must remember and acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or conceptions of the things without us. this imagery and representation of the qualities of the things without, is that which we call our conception, imagination, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them; and the faculty, or power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that i here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power of knowing or conceiving." all the qualities called sensible are, in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth on our organs diversely. neither in us that are pressed are they anything else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion. because the image in vision, consisting of colour and shape, is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the objects of that sense; it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion that the same colour and shape are the very qualities themselves, and for the same cause that sound and noise are the qualities of the bell or of the air. and this opinion hath been so long received that the contrary must needs appear a great paradox, and yet the introduction of species visible and intelligible (which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion) passing to and fro from the object is worse than any paradox, as being a plain impossibility. i shall therefore endeavour to make plain these points. that the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is not the object or thing seen. that there is nothing without us (really) which we call an image or colour. that the said image or colour is but an apparition unto us of the motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head. that as in visions, so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of their inference is not the object but the sentient. strange to say hobbes was protected from his clerical antagonists by the favour of charles ii., who had the portrait of the philosopher of malmesbury hung on the walls of his private room at whitehall. lord herbert, of cherbury (one of the friends of hobbes) born , died , is remarkable for having written a book "de veritate," in favour of natural--and against any necessity for revealed--religion; and yet at the same time pleading a sort of special sign or revelation to himself in favour of its publication. peter gassendi, a native of provence, born , died , was one of the opponents of descartes and of lord herbert, and was an admirer of hobbes; he advocated the old philosophy of epicurus, professing to reject "from it everything contrary to christianity." "but," asks cousin, "how could he succeed in this? principles, processes, results, everything in epicurus is sensualism, materialism, atheism." gassendi's works were characterised by great learning and ability, but being confined to the latin tongue, and written avowedly with the intent of avoiding any conflict with the church, they gave but little immediate impetus to the great heretical movement. arnauld charges gassendi with overturning the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in his discussion with descartes, and leibnitz charges gassendi with corrupting and injuring the whole system of natural religion by the wavering nature of his opinions. buckle says, "the rapid increase of heresy in the middle of the seventeenth century is very remarkable, and it greatly aided civilisation in england by encouraging habits of independent thought." in february , boyle writes from london, "there are few days pass here, that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of some new opinion. if any man have lost his religion, let him repair to london, and i'll warrant him he shall find it: i had almost said too, and if any man has a religion, let him but come hither now and he shall go near to lose it." about , one isaac la peyrere wrote two small treatises to prove that the world was peopled before adam, but being arrested at brussels, and threatened with the stake, he, to escape the fiery refutation, made a full recantation of his views, and restored to the world its dearly prized stain of natural depravity, and to adam his position as the first man. la peyrere's forced recantation is almost forgotten, the opinions he recanted are now amongst common truths. baruch d'espinoza or benedict spinoza, was born nov. , , in amsterdam; an apt scholar, he, at the early age of fourteen, had mastered the ordinary tasks set him by his teacher, the babbi morteira, and at fifteen puzzled and affrighted the grave heads of the synagogue, by attempting the solution of problems which they themselves were well content to pass by. as he grew older his reason took more daring flights, and after attempts had been made to bribe him into submissive silence, when threats had failed to check or modify him, and when even the knife had no effect, then the fury of disappointed fanaticism found vent in the bitter curse of excommunication, and when about twenty-four years of age, spinoza found himself outcast and anathematised. having no private means or rich patrons, and differing in this from nearly every one whose name we have yet given our hero subsisted as a polisher of glasses, microscopes, &c., devoting his leisure to the study of languages and philosophy. there are few men as to whom modern writers have so widely differed in the description of their views, few who have been so thoroughly misrepresented. bayle speaks of him as a systematic atheist. saintes says that he laid the foundations of a pantheism as destructive to scholastic philosophy as to all revealed religion. voltaire repeatedly writes of spinoza as an atheist and teacher of atheism. samuel taylor coleridge speaks of spinoza as an atheist, and prefaces this opinion with the following passage, which we commend to more orthodox, and less acute writers:--"little do these men know what atheism is. not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind, or goodness of heart to be an atheist. i repeat it--not one man in a thousand has either goodness of heart, or strength of mind, to be, an atheist." "and yet," says froude, "both in friend and enemy alike, there has been a reluctance to see spinoza as he really was. the herder and schleiermacher school have claimed him as a christian, a position which no little disguise was necessary to make tenable; the orthodox protestants and catholics have called him an atheist, which is still more extravagant; and even a man like novalis, who, it might have been expected, would have said something reasonable, could find no better name for him than a 'gott trunkener mann,' a god intoxicated man; an expression which has been quoted by everybody who has since written on the subject, and which is about as inapplicable as those laboriously pregnant sayings usually are. with due allowance for exaggeration, such a name would describe tolerably the transcendental mystics, a toler, a boehmen, or a swedenborg; but with what justice can it be applied to the cautious, methodical spinoza, who carried his thoughts about with him for twenty years, deliberately shaping them, and who gave them at last to the world in a form more severe than with such subjects had ever been so much as attempted before? with him, as with all great men, there was no effort after sublime emotions. he was a plain, practical person; his object in philosophy, was only to find a rule by which to govern his own actions and his own judgment; and his treatises contain no more than the conclusions at which he arrived in this purely personal search, with the grounds on which he rested them." spinoza, who was wise enough to know that it was utterly useless to expect an unfettered examination of philosophical problems by men who are bound to accept as an infallible arbiter any particular book, and who knew that reasonings must be of a very limited character which took the alleged hebrew revelation as the centre and starting point for all inquiry, and also as the circling, limitation line for all investigation--devoted himself to the task of examining how far the ordinary orthodox doctrines as to the infallibility of the old testament were fairly maintainable. it was for this reason he penned his "tractatus theologico-politicus," wherein he says--"we see that they who are most under the influence of superstitious feelings, and who covet uncertainties without stint or measure, more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger, cannot help themselves, are the persons, who, with vows and prayers and womanly tears, implore the divine assistance; who call reason, blind, and human wisdom vain; and all, forsooth, because they cannot find an assured way to the vanities they desire." "the mainspring of superstition is fear; by fear too is superstition sustained and nourished." "men are chiefly assailed by superstition when suffering from fear, and all they then do in the name of a vain religion is, in fact, but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit, the delirium of a mind overpowered by terror." he proceeds, "i have often wondered that men who boast of the great advantage they enjoy under the christian dispensation--the peace, the joy they experience, the brotherly love they feel towards all in its exercise--should nevertheless contend with so much acrimony, and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred towards one another. if faith had to be inferred from action rather than profession, it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed the majority of mankind belong." he laid down that "no one is bound by natural law to live according to the pleasure of another, but that every one is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence," and that "he or they govern best who concede to every one the privilege of thinking as he pleases, and of saying what he thinks." criticising the hebrew prophets, he points out that "god used no particular style in making his communications; but in the same measure as the prophet possessed learning and ability, his communications were either concise and clear, or on the contrary, they were rude, prolix, and obscure." the representations of zechariah, as we learn from the accounts themselves, were so obscure that without an explanation they could not be understood by himself; and those of daniel were so dark, that even when explained, they were still unintelligible, not to others only, but also to the prophet himself. he argues entirely against miracles, as either contrary to nature or above nature, declaring any such to be "a sheer absurdity," "_merum esse absurdum_" of the scriptures themselves he points out that the ancient hebrew is entirely lost. "of the authors, or, if you please, writers, of many books, we either know almost nothing, or we entertain grave doubts as to the correctness with which the several books are ascribed to the parties whose names they bear." "then we neither know on what occasion, nor at what time those books were indited, the writers of which are unknown to us. further, we know nothing of the hands into which the books fell; nor of the codices which have furnished such a variety of readings, nor whether, perchance, there were not many other variations in other copies." voltaire says of spinoza, "not only in the character of a jew he attacks the new testament, but in the character of a scholar he ruins the old." the logic of spinoza was directed to the demonstration of one substance with infinite attributes, for which one substance with infinite attributes he had as equivalent the name "god." some who have since followed spinoza, have agreed in his one substance, but have denied the possibility of infinite attributes. attributes or qualities, they urge, are attributes of the finite or conditioned, and that you cannot have attributes of substance except as attributes of its modes. you have in this distinction the division line between spinozism and atheism. spinoza recognises infinite intelligence, but atheism cannot conceive intelligence except in relation as quality of the conditioned, and not as the essence of the absolute. spinoza denied the doctrine of freewill, as with him all phenomena are of god, so he rejects the ordinary notions of good and evil. the popular views of spinoza in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were chiefly derived from the volumes of his antagonists; men learned his name because priests abused him, few had perused his works for themselves. to-day we may fairly say that spinoza's logic and his biblical criticisms gave a vigour and force to the heresy of the latter half of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century; a directness and effectiveness theretofore wanting. as for the bible, there was no longer an affected reverence for every yod or comma, church traditions were ignored wherever inconsistent with reason, and the law itself was boldly challenged when its letter was against the spirit of human progress. one of the greatest promoters of heresy in england was ralph cudworth, born , died . he wrote to combat the atheistical tenets which were then commencing to obtain popularity in england, and was a controversialist so fair and candid in the statement of the opinions of his antagonists, that he was actually charged with heresy himself, and the epithets of arian, socinian, deist, and even atheist were freely levelled against him. "he has raised," says dryden, "such strong objections against the being of a god and providence, that many think he has not answered them." the clamour of bigotry seems to have discouraged cudworth, and he left many of his works unprinted. cousin describes him as "a platonist, of a firm and profound mind, who bends somewhat under the weight of his erudition." thomas burnet, born , died , a clergyman of the church of england, who, though high in favour with king william and the famous archbishop tillotson, is said to have been shut out from preferment in the church chiefly, if not entirely, on account of his many heterodox views. he did not accept the orthodox notions on the mosaic account of the creation, fall, and deluge. regarding the account of the fall as allegorical, he argued for the ultimate salvation of everyone, and of course denied the doctrine of eternal torment. in a curious passage relating to the equivocations of a large number of the clergy in openly taking the oath of allegiance to william iii., while secretly supporting james as king, burnet says, "the prevarication of too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify the growing atheism of the time." as descartes and spinoza had been foremost on the continent, so was locke in england, and no sketch of the progress of heresy during the seventeenth century would be deserving serious regard which did not accord a prominent place to john locke, whom g. h. lewes calls "one of the wisest of englishmen," and of whom buckle speaks as "an innovator in his philosophy, and an unitarian in his creed." he was born in , and died . locke, according to his own fashion, was a sincere and earnest christian; but this has not saved him from being furiously assailed for the materialistic character of his philosophy, and many have been ready to assert that locke's principles "lead to atheism." in politics locke laid down, that unjust and unlawful force on the part of the government might and ought to be resisted by force on the part of the citizens. he urged that on questions of theology there ought to be no penalties consequent upon the reception or rejection of any particular religious opinion. how far those were right who regarded locke's metaphysical reasoning as; dangerous to orthodoxy may be, judged by the following extract on the origin of ideas:--: "follow a child from its birth and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it has matter to think on. after some time, it begins to know the objects, which being most familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. thus it comes, by degrees, to know the persons it daily converses with, and distinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it; and so we may observe, how the mind, by degrees improves in these, and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging, compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and reflecting upon all these. "if it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to have any ideas? i think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. for since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind, before the senses have conveyed any in, i conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with sensation; which is such an impression or emotion, made in some part of the body, as produces some perception in the understanding. it is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call perception, remembering, consideration, reasoning, &c. "in time, the mind comes to reflect on its own operations, about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which i call ideas of reflection. these are the impressions that are made on our senses by outward objects, that are extrinsical to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, becoming also objects of its contemplation, are, as i have said, the original of all knowledge. thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through the senses, by outward objects, or by its own operations, when it reflects on them. this is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of anything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world. all those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing here: in all that good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote speculations, it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation. "in this part, the understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it will have these beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is not in its own power. for the objects of our senses do, many of them, obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no; and the operations of our minds will not let us be without, at least, some obscure notions of them. no man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks. these simple ideas, when offered to the mind, the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects set before it do therein produce. as the bodies that surround us do diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the impressions, and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are annexed to them." the distinction pointed out by lewes between locke and hobbes and gassendi, is that the two latter taught that all our ideas were derived from sensations, while locke said there were two sources, not one source, and these two were sensation and reflection. locke was in style a more popular writer than hobbes, and the heretical effect of the doctrines on the mind not being so immediately perceived in consequence of locke's repeated declarations in favour of christianity, his metaphysical productions were more widely read than those of hobbes; but locke really teaches the same doctrine as that laid down by robert owen in his views on the formation of character; and his views on sensation, as the primary source of ideas, are fatal to all notions of innate ideas and of freewill. voltaire, speaking of locke, says:--"'we shall, perhaps, never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not.' this judicious and guarded observation was considered by more than one divine, as neither more nor less than a scandalous and impious declaration, that the soul is material and mortal. some english devotees, after their usual manner, sounded the alarm. the superstitious are in society what poltroons are in an army--they both feel and excite causeless terror. the cry was, that mr. locke wished to overturn religion; the subject, however, had nothing to do with religion at all; it was purely a philosophical question, and perfectly independent of faith and revelation." one clergyman, the rev. william carrol, wrote, charging atheism as the result of locke's teachings. the famous sir isaac newton even grew so alarmed with the materialistic tendency of locke's philosophy, that when john locke was reported sick and unlikely to live, it is credibly stated that newton went so far as to say that it would be well if the author of the essay on the understanding were already dead. in , one cassimer leszynski, a polish knight, was burned at warsaw for denying the being and providence of a god; but there are no easy means of learning whether the charge arose from prejudice on the part of his accusers, or whether this unfortunate gentleman really held atheistic views. peter bayle, born at carlat, in foix, , died in holland, , was a writer of great power and brilliancy and wide learning. without standing avowedly on the side of scepticism, he did much to promote sceptical views amongst the rapidly growing class of men of letters. he declared that it was better to be an atheist, than to have a false or unworthy idea of god; that a man can be at the same time an atheist and an honest man, and that a people without a religion is capable of good order. bayle's writings grew more heretical towards the latter part of his career, and he suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the church, for having spoken too plainly of the character of david. he said that "if david was the man after god's own heart, it must have been by his penitence, not by his crimes." bayle might have added, that the record ot david's penitence is not easily discoverable in any part of the narrative of his life. matthew tindal, born , died , was, though the son of a clergyman of the established church, one of the first amongst the school of deistical writers who became so prominent in the beginning of the eighteenth century. dr. pye smith catalogues him as "an atheist," but we know no ground for this. he was a zealous controversialist, and commencing by attacking priests, he continued his attack against the revelation they preached. he was a frequent writer, but his "christianity as old as the creation" is his chief work, and the one which has provoked the greatest amount of discussion. it was published nearly at the close of his life, and after he had seen others of his writings burned by the common hangman. dr. matthew tindal helped much to shake belief in the bible, those who wrote against him did much more; if no one had replied to tindal, his attacks on; revelation would have been read by few, but in answering the heretic, bishop waterland and his _confreres_ gave wider circulation to tindal's heresy. john toland was born nov. , , at londonderry, but was educated in scotland. he died . his publications were all about the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and the ability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by the abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents. while severely attacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people, and while also assailing some of the chief orthodox notions, he yet, either in order to escape the law, or from the effect of his religious education, professed a respect for what he was pleased to call true christianity, but which we should be inclined to consider, at the least, somewhat advanced unitarianism. at last, however, his works were ordered to be burned by the common hangman, and to escape arrest and prosecution he had to flee to the continent. dr. j. pye smith describes toland as a pantheist, and calls his pantheisticon "an atheistic liturgy." in one of toland's essays he laments "how hard it is to come to a truth yourself, and how dangerous a thing to publish to others." the publications ot toland were none of them very bulky although numerous, and as most of them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy, they helped to excite popular interest in england, in the critical examination of the scriptures and the doctrines therein taught. besides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn, there were numerous men who--each for a little while, and often coming out from the lower ranks of the people themselves--stirred the hitherto almost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or extravagant statement. fanatics some, mystics some, alchemists some, materialists some, but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the subject they advocated, they nevertheless all helped to agitate the human mind, to render it more restless and inquiring, and thus they all promoted the march of heresy. one feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much philosophy had gained ground, and how deep its roots were striking throughout the european world--viz., that nearly all the writers wrote in the vulgar tongue of their country, or there were published editions of their works in that tongue. a century earlier, and but few escaped from the narrow bonds of learned latin: two centuries before, and none got outside the latin folios; but in this century theology, metaphysics, philosophy, and politics are discussed in french, german, english, and italian. the commonest reader may peruse the most learned author, for the writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing. there were in this century a large number of writers in england and throughout europe, who, taking the bible as a starting-point and limitation for their philosophy, broached wonderful theories as to creation, &c, in which reason and revelation were sought to be made harmonious. enfield, a most orthodox writer, in his "history of philosophy" says, "who does not perceive, from the particulars which have been related concerning these scriptural philosophers, that their labours, however well intended, have been of little benefit to philosophy? their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the sacred scriptures were intended, not only to instruct men in all things necessary to their salvation, but to teach the true principles of physical and metaphysical science." how pregnant the admission that revelation and science cannot be expected to accord--an admission which in truth declares that in all philosophical research it is necessary to go beyond the bible, if not to go against it--an admission which involves the declaration, that so long as men are bound by the letter of the bible, so long all philosophical progress is impossible. in this century the english church lost much of the political power it had hitherto wielded. it was in , that william, bishop of lincoln, was dismissed from the office of lord keeper, and since his day no ecclesiastic has held the great seal of england, and to-day who even in the church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop lord chancellor? the church lost ground in the conflict with charles, but this it might perhaps have recovered, but it suffered irretrievably loss of prestige in its struggle with william. chapter iv. the eighteenth century the eighteenth century deserves that the penman who touches its records shall have some virility; for these records contain, not only the narrative of the rapid growth of the new philosophy in france, england, and germany, where its roots had been firmly struck in the previous century, but they also give the history of a glorious endeavour on the part of a down-trodden and long-suffering people, weakened and degraded by generations of starvation and oppression, to break the yoke of tyranny and superstition. eighteenth century historians can write how the men of france, after having been cursed by a long race of kings, who never dreamed of identifying their interests with those of the people; after enduring centuries of tyranny from priests, whose only gods were power, pleasure, and mammon, and at the hands of nobles, who denied civil rights to their serfs; at last, could endure no longer, but electrified into life by eighteenth century heresy, "spurned under foot the idols of tyranny and superstition," and sought "by the influence of reason to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil and religious liberty." why frenchmen then failed in giving permanent success to their heroic endeavour, and why france, despite the wonderful recent progress in thought, is even yet cursed with corrupt imperialism and state superstition, is not difficult to explain, when we consider that every tyranny in europe united against that young republic to which the monarchy had bequeathed a legacy of a wretched pauper people, a people whose minds had been hitherto wholly in the hands of the priests, whose passions had revolted against wrong, but whose brains were yet too weak for the permanent enjoyment of the freedom temporarily resulting from physical effort. eighteenth century heresy is especially noticeable for its immediate connection with political change. for the first time in european history, the great mass commenced to yearn for the assertion in government of democratic principles. the french republican revolution which overthrew louis xvi. and the bastile, was only possible because the heretical teachers who preceded it, had weakened the divine right of kingcraft; and it was ultimately unsuccessful, only because an overwhelming majority of the people were as yet not sufficiently released from the thraldom of the church, and therefore fell before the allied despotisms of europe, who were aided by the catholic priests, who naturally plotted against the spirit which seemed likely to make men too independent to be pious. in germany the liberation of the masses from the dominion of the church of rome was effected with the, at first, active believing concurrence of the nation; in england this was not so, protestantism here was the result rather of the influence and interests of the king and court, and of the indifference of the great body of the people. the reformed church of england, sustained by the crown and aristocracy, has generally left the people to find their own way to heaven or hell, and has only required abstinence from avowed denial of, or active opposition to, its tenets. its ministers have usually preached with the same force to a few worshippers scattered over their grand cathedrals and numerous churches as to a thronging crowd, but in each these there has been a lack of vitality in the sermon. it is only when the material interests of the church have been apparently threatened that vigour has been shown on the part of its teachers. it is a curious fact, and one for comment hereafter, that while in the modern struggle for the progress of heresy, its sixteenth century pages present many most prominent italian names, when we come to the eighteenth century, there are but few such names worthy special notice; it is no longer from the extreme south, but from france, germany, and england that you have the great array of freethinking warriors. those whom italy boasts too are now nearly all in the idealistic ranks. we commenced the list by a brief reference to bernard mandeville, a dutch physician, born at dordrecht in and who died in ; a writer with great power as a satirist, whose fable of the "bees, or private vices made public benefits," not only served as source for much of helvetius, but had the double honour of an indictment at the middlesex session, and an answer from the pen of bishop berkeley. one of the early, and perhaps one of the most important promoters of heresy in the united kingdom, was george berkeley, an irishman by birth. he was born on the th of march, , at kilcrin, and died at oxford in . it was this writer to whom pope assigned "every virtue under heaven," and of whom byron wrote:-- "when bishop berkeley said 'there was no matter,' and proved it--'twas no matter what he said: they say his system 'tis in vain to batter, too subtle for the airiest human head; and yet who can believe it?" a writer in the _encyclopedia metropolitana_ describes him as "the one, perhaps, whose heart was most free from scepticism, and whose understanding was most prone to it." berkeley is here dealt with as one specially contributing to the growth of sceptical thought, and not as an idealist only. arthur collier published, about the same time as berkeley, several works in which absolute idealim is advocated. collier and berkeley were mouthpieces for the expression of an effort at resistance against the growing spinozistic school. they wrote against substance assumed as the "noumenon lying underneath all phenomena--the substratum supporting all qualities--the something in which all accidents inhere." collier and his writings are almost unknown; berkeley's name has become famous, and his arguments have served to excite far wider scepticism than have those of any other englishman of his age. most religious men who read him misunderstand him, and nearly all misrepresent his theory. hume, speaking of berkeley, says, "most of the writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found, either among the ancient or modern philosophers, bayle not excepted. he professes, however, in his title page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics, as well as against the atheists and freethinkers. but that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction," berkeley wrote for those who "want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of god, or the natural immortality of the soul," and his philosophy was intended to check materialism. the key-note ot his works may be found in his declaration, "the only thing whose existence i deny, is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal substance." the definition given by berkeley of matter is one which no materialist will be ready to accept, i.e.f "an inert, senseless substance in which extension, figure, and motion do actually exist." the "principles of human knowledge" is the work in which berkeley's idealism is chiefly set forth, and many have been the volumes and pamphlets written in reply. whatever might have been berkeley's intention as to refuting scepticism, the result of his labours was to increase it in no ordinary degree; dr. pye smith thug summarises berkeley's views:--"he denied the existence of matter as a cause of our perceptions, but firmly maintained the existence of created and dependent spirits, of which every man is one; that to suppose the existence of sensible qualities and of a material world, is an erroneous deduction from the fact of our perceptions; that those perceptions are-nothing but ideas and thoughts in our minds; that these are produced in perfect uniformity, order, and consistency in all minds, so that their occurrence is according to fixed rules which may be called the laws of nature; that that deity is either the immediate or the mediate cause of these perceptions, by his universal operation on created minds; and that the created mind has a power of managing these perceptions, so that volitions arise, and all the phenomena of moral action and responsibility. the great reply to this is, that it is a hypothesis which cannot be proved, which is highly improbable, and which seems to put upon the deity the inflicting on man a perpetual delusion." the weakness of berkeley's system as a mere question of logic is, that while he requires the most rigorous demonstration of the existence of what he defines as matter, he assumes an eternal spirit with various attributes, and also creates spirits of various sorts. he creates the states of mind resulting from the sensation of surrounding phenomena into ideas, existing independent of the _ego_, when in truth, man's ideas are not in addition to man's mind; but the aggregate of sensative ability, and the result of its exercise is the mind, just as the aggregate of functional ability and activity is life. the foundation of berkeley's faith in the invisible "eternal spirit" in angels as "created spirits," is difficult to discover, when you accept his argument for the rejection of visible phenomena. he in truth should have rejected everything save his own mind, for the mental processes are clearly not always reliable. in dreams, in delirium, in insanity, in temporary disease of particular nerves of sensation, in some phases of magnetic influence, the ideas which berkeley sustains so forcibly are admittedly delusions. as in george berkeley, so we have in bishop butler, an illustration of the endeavour to check the rapidly enlarging scepticism of this century. joseph butler was born in , died , and will be long known by his famous work on the "analogy of religion" to the course of nature. in this place it is not our duty to do more than point out a few features of the argument, observing that this elaborate piece of special pleading for natural and revealed religion, is evidence that danger was apprehended by the clergy, from the spread of freethought views amongst the masses. a popular reply was written to provide against the growing popular objection; bishop butler argues that "we know that we are endued with certain capacities of action, of happiness and misery; for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure, and of suffering pain. now that we have these powers and capacities before death, is a presumption that we shall retain them through, and after death; indeed a probability of it abundantly sufficient to act upon, unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the destruction of those living powers." it may be fairly submitted in reply, that here the argument from analogy is as utterly faulty, as if in the spring season a traveller should say of a wayside pool, it is here before the summer sun shines upon it, and will be here during and after the summer drought, when ordinary experience would teach him that as the pool is only gathered during the rainy season in the hollow ground, so in the dry hot summer days, it will be gradually evaporated under the blazing rays of the july sun. as to the human capacities, experience teaches us that they have changed with the condition of the body; emotional feelings and animal passions, the gratification of which ensured temporary pleasure or pain, have varied, have been newly felt, and have died out in different periods and conditions of our lives, and the presumption is against the complete endurance of all these "capacities for action," &c., even during the whole life, and much more strongly, therefore, against their endurance after death. besides which--continuing the argument from analogy--my "capacities" having only been manifested since my body has existed, and in proportion to my physical ability, the presumption is rather that the manifestation which commenced with the body, will finish as the body finishes. further, it is fair to presume that "death is the destruction of those living powers," for death is the cessation of organic functional activity; a cessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation. of course, the word "destruction" is not here used in any sense of annihilation of substance, but as meaning such a change of condition that vital phenomena are no longer manifested. but, says butler, "we know not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones, and these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent." here, perhaps, there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words "living agent," for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies, then the destruction of flesh, skin, and bones does fairly imply the destruction of the living agent, but if by living agent is intended more than this, then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded. but beyond this, if bishop butler's argument has any value, it proves too much. he says--"nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers.... by death." that is, bishop butler applies his argument for a future state of existence, not only to man, but to the whole animal kingdom; and it may be fairly conceded that there is as much ground to presume that man will live again, as there is that the worm will live again, which, being impaled upon a hook, is eaten by the gudgeon, or that the gudgeon will live again which, threaded as a bait, is torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike, or that the pike will live again after it has been kept out of water till rigid, then gutted, scaled, stuffed with savoury condiments, broiled, and ultimately eaten by piscator and his family. bishop butler's argument, that because pleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting in some particular manner, there is presumptive analogy in favour of future rewards and punishments by deity, appears weak in the extreme. according to butler, god is the author of nature. nature's laws are such, that punishment, immediate or remote, follows non-observance, and reward, more or less immediate, is the result of observance; and because god is by butler's argument, assumed as the author of nature, and has therefore already punished or rewarded once; we are following butler, to presume that he will after death punish or reward again for an action upon which he has already adjudicated. in his chapter on the moral government of god, butler says, "as the manifold appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of the world, prove it to be the work of an intelligent mind, so the particular final causes of pleasure and pain distributed amongst his creatures, prove that they are under his government--what may be called his natural government of creatures endowed with sense and reason." but taking bishop butler's own position, what sort of government is demonstrated by this argument from analogy? god, according to bishop butler's reasoning, designed the whale to swallow the clio borealis, which latter he designed to be so swallowed, but which he nevertheless invested with some , suckers, to enable it in its turn to seize the minute animalcule on which it lives. god designed brutus to kill caesar, orsini to be beheaded by louis napoleon. these, according to butler, would be all under the special control of god's government. deity would guide the clio borealis into the mouth of the whale, guide the dagger of brutus, and arrange for the enjoyment of the cancan by princes of the blood royal. bishop butler's theory that our present life is a state of trial and probation, is met by the difficulty, that while he assumes the justice and benevolence of god as moral governor, he has the fact, that many exist with organisations and capacities so originally different, that it is manifestly most unfair to put one and the same reward, or one and this same publishment for all. the esquimaux or negro is not on a level at the outset of life with the caucasian races. how from analogy can any one argue in favour of the doctrine that an impartial judge who had started them in the race of life unfairly matched, would put the same prize before all, none of the starters being handicapped? bishop butler's argument on the doctrine of necessity, is that which one might expect to find from a hired _nisi prius_ advocate, but which is read with regret coming from the pen of a gentleman, who ought to be striving to convince his erring brethren by the words of truth alone. he says, suppose a child to be educated from his earliest youth in the principles of "fatalism," what then? the reply is, that a necessitarian knowing that a certain education of the human mind was most conducive to human happiness, would strive to impart to his children education of that character. that a worse "fatalism" is inculcated in the doctrine of a fore-ordaining and ever-directing providence, planning and controlling every one of the child's actions, than ever was taught in necessitarian essays. that the child would be taught the laws of existence, and would be shown how certain conduct resulted in pleasure, and certain other conduct was during life attended with pain, and that the result of such teaching would be far more efficacious in its moral results, than the inculcation of a present responsibility, and an ultimate heaven and hell, in which latter doctrine, nearly all christians profess to believe, but nearly all act as if it were not of the slightest consequence whether any such paradise or infernal region exists. henry st. john, lord bolingbroke, born october , , died november , , may be taken as one of the school of polished deistical writers, who, though comparatively few, fairly enough represent the religious opinions of the large majority of the journalists of the present day. in the course of bolingbroke's "letters on the study of history," a strong sceptical spirit is manifested, and he speaks in one of "the share which the divines of all religions have taken in the corruption of history." in another he thus deals with the question of the bible:--"it has been said by abbadie, and others, 'that the accidents which have happened to alter the texts of the bible, and to disfigure, if i may say so, the scriptures in many respects, could not have been prevented without a perpetual standing miracle, and that a perpetual standing miracle is not in the order of providence.' now i can by no means subscribe to this opinion. it seems evident to my reason that the very contrary must be true; if we suppose that god acts towards men according to the moral fitness of things; and if we suppose that he acts arbitrarily, we can form no opinion at all. i think these accidents would not have happened, or that the scriptures would have been preserved entirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding these accidents, if they had been entirely dictated by the holy ghost: and the proof of this probable proposition, according to our clearest and most distinct ideas of wisdom and moral fitness, is obvious and easy. but these scriptures are not so come down to us: they are come down broken and confused, full of additions, interpolations; and transpositions, made we neither know when, nor by whom; and such, in short, as never appeared on the face of any other book, on whose authority men have agreed to rely. this being so, my lord, what hypothesis shall we follow? shall we adhere to some such distinction as i have mentioned? shall we say, for instance, that the scriptures were originally written by the authors to whom they are vulgarly ascribed, but that these authors writ nothing by inspiration, except the legal, the doctrinal, and the prophetical parts, and that in every other respect their authority is purely human, and therefore fallible? or shall we say that these histories are nothing more than compilations of old traditions, and abridgements of old records, made in later times, as they appear to every one who reads them without prepossession and with attention?" it has been alleged that pope's verse is but another rendering of bolingbroke's views without his "aristocratic nonchalance," and that some passages of pope regarded as hostile to revealed religion, were specially due to the influence of bolingbroke; and more than one critic has professed to trace identities of thought and expression in order to show that pope was largely indebted to the published works of st. john. david hume was born at edinburgh, th april, , and died . he created a new school of freethinkers, and is to-day one of the most esteemed amongst sceptical authors. he was a profound thinker, and an easy, elegant writer, who did much to give a force and solidity to extreme heretical reasonings, which they had hitherto been regarded as lacking. his heretical essays have had a far wider circulation since his death, than they enjoyed during his life. many volumes have been issued in the fruitless endeavour to refute him, and all these have contributed to widen the circle of his readers. he adopted and advocated the utilitarian and necessitarian theory of morals, and wrote of ordinary theism and religion, as arising from personification of unknown causes, for general or special phenomena. he held and advanced the idea, which buckle so fully states, and endeavours to prove in his "history of civilisation"--viz., that general laws operate amongst peoples, and influence and determine their so-called moral conduct, much as other laws do the orbits of planets, the occurrences of eclipses, &c. his arguments against miracles, as evidences for revealed religion, remain unrefuted, although they have been made the subject of many attacks. he contends, in effect, that in each account of a miraculous occurrence, there is always more _prima facie_ probability of error, or bad faith on the part of the narrator, than of interference with those invariable sequences known as natural laws, and there was really no reply in the conclusion of dr. campbell, to the effect that we have equally to trust human testimony for an account of the laws of nature and for the narratives of miracles, for in truth you never have the same character of human testimony for the latter as for the former. and, further, while in the case of human testimony as to natural events, it is evidence which you may test and compare with your own experience. this is not so as to miracles, declared at once to be out of the range of all ordinary experience. "men," he says, "are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their senses. when they follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images presented to the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representatives of the other. but this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception. so far, then, we are necessitated by reasoning to contradict the primary instincts of nature, and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our senses. but here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed, when she would obviate the cavils and objections of the sceptics. she can no longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct of nature, for that led us to quite a different system, which is acknowledged fallible, and even erroneous, and to justify this pretended philosophical system by a chain of clear and convincing argument, or even any appearance of argument, exceeds the power of all human capacity. do you follow the instinct and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity of the senses? but these lead you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object--(idealism.) do you disclaim this principle in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of something external? you here depart from your natural propensities, and more obvious sentiments; and yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are connected with external objects--(scepticism.)" charles de secondat baron de montesquieu, born in near bordeaux, died at paris , who earned considerable fame by his "lettres persanes," is more famous for his oft-referred to work "l'esprit des lois." victor cousin describes him as "the man of our country who has best comprehended history, and who first gave an example of true historic method." in the publication of certain of his ideas on history, montesquieu was the layer of the foundation-stone for an edifice which buckle would probably have gloriously crowned had his life been longer. voltaire, who sharply criticises montesquieu, declares that he has earned the eternal gratitude of europe by his grand views and his bold attacks on tyranny, superstition, and grinding taxation. montesquieu urged that virtue is the true essence of republicanism, but misled by the mistaken notions of honour held by his predecessors and contemporaries, he declared honour to be the principle of monarchical institutions. voltaire reminds him that "it is in courts that men, devoid of honour, often attain to the highest dignities; and it is in republics that a known dishonourable citizen is seldom trusted by the people with public concerns." montesquieu wrote in favour of a constitutional monarchy such as then existed in england, and his work shadowed forth a future for the middle class in france. francois marie arouet voltaire, born th february, , at chatenay, died th may, , may be fairly written of as the man to whose fertile brain and active pen, to whose great genius, fierce irony, and thorough humanity, we owe much more of the rapid change of popular thought in europe during the last century than to any other man. his wit, like the electric flash, spared nothing; his love for his kind would have made him the protector of everything weak, his desire to protect himself from the consequences of his truest utterances, often dims the hero-halo with which his name is surrounded. born and trained amongst a corrupt and selfish class, it is not wonderful that we find some of their pernicious habits clinging to parts of his career. on the contrary, it is more wonderful to find that he has shaken off so much of the consequences of his education. neither in politics nor in theology was he so very extreme in his utterances as many deemed him, for while he occasionally severely handled individual monarchs, we do not find him the preacher of republicanism. on the contrary, he is often severe against some of the advanced political views of jean jacques rousseau. he nevertheless suggests that it might have been "the art of working metals which originally made kings, and the art of casting cannons which now maintains them," and as a commentary on kingly conduct in the matter of taxation, declares that "a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and not to flay them." in theological controversy he wrote as a theist, and declares "atheism and fanaticism" to be "two monsters which may tear society in pieces, but the atheist preserves his reason, which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the influence of a madness constantly urging him on." for the ancient jews, and for the hebrew records, voltaire entertained so thorough a feeling of contemptuous detestation, that in his "defense de mon oncle," and his articles and letters on the jews, we find utter disbelief in them as a chosen people, and the strongest abhorrence of their brutal habits, heightened in expression by the scathing satire of his phrases. to the more modern descendants of abraham he said: "we have repeatedly driven you away through avarice; we have recalled you through avarice and stupidity; we still, in more towns than one, make you pay for liberty to breathe the air; we have, in more kingdoms than one, sacrificed you to god; we have burned you as holocausts--for i will not follow your example, and dissemble that we have offered up sacrifices of human blood; all the difference is, that our priests, content with applying your money to their own use, have had you burned by laymen; while your priests always immolated their human victims with their own sacred hands. you were monsters of cruelty and fanaticism in palestine; we have been so in europe." writing on miracles, voltaire asks: "for what purpose would god perform a miracle? to accomplish some particular design upon living beings? he would then, in reality, be supposed to say--i have not been able to effect by my construction of the universe, by my divine decrees, by my eternal laws, a particular object; i am now going to change my eternal ideas and immutable laws, to endeavour to accomplish what i have not been able to do by means of them. this would be an avowal of his weakness, not of his power; it would appear in such a being an inconceivable contradiction. accordingly, therefore, to dare to ascribe miracles to god is, if man can in reality insult god, actually offering him that insult. it is saying to him--you are a weak and inconsistent being. it is therefore absurd to believe in miracles; it is, in fact, dishonouring the divinity." those who are inclined to attack the character of voltaire, should read the account of his endeavours for the calas family. how, when old calas had been broken alive on the wheel at toulouse, and his family were ruined, voltaire took up their case, aided them with means, spared no effort of his pen or brain, and ultimately achieved the great victory of reversing the unjust sentence, and obtaining compensation for the family. it, then, these voltaire-haters have not learned to love this great heretic, let them study the narrative of his even more successful endeavours on behalf of the sirvens; more successful, because in this case he took up the fight before an unjust judgment could be delivered, and thus prevented the repetition of such an iniquitous execution as had taken place in the galas case. the cowardly slanders as to his conduct when dying are not worth notice; those spit on the grave of the dead who would not have dared to look in the face of the living. claud adrian helvetius was born at paris , and died december . his best known works are "de l'esprit," published ; "essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines," ; "traite des systemes," ; "traite des sensations," . rousseau wrote in reply to helvetius, but when the parliament of paris condemned the work "de l'esprit," and it was in consequence burned by the common hangman, rousseau withdrew his refutatory volume. helvetius argues that any religion, of which the chiefs are intolerant, and the conduct of which is expensive to the state, "cannot long be the religion of an enlightened and well governed nation. the people that submit to it will labour only to maintain the ease and luxury of the priesthood; each of its inhabitants will be nothing more than a slave to the sacerdotal power. a religion to be good should be tolerant and little expensive. its clergy should have no authority over the people. a dread of the priest debases the mind and the soul, makes the one brutish and the other slavish. must the ministers of the altar always be armed with the sword of the state? can the barbarities committed by their intolerance ever be forgotten? the earth is yet drenched with the blood they have spilled. civil tolerance alone is not sufficient to secure the peace of nations. every dogma is a seed of discord and injustice sown amongst mankind." "why do you make the supreme being resemble an eastern tyrant? why make him punish slight faults with eternal torment? why thus put the name of the divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil? why oppress the soul with a load of fear, break its springs, and of a worshipper of jesus make a vile, pusillanimous slave? it is the malignant who paint a malignant g-od. what is their devotion? a veil for their crimes." "let not the rewards of heaven be made the price of trifling religious operations, which convey a diminutive idea of the eternal and a false conception of virtue; its rewards should never be assigned to fasting, haircloth, a blind submission, and self-castigation. the man who places these operations among the virtues, might as well place those of leaping, dancing, and tumbling on the rope." "humility may be held in veneration by the dwellers in a monastery or a convent, it favours the meanness and idleness of a monastic life. but ought the humility to be regarded as the virtue of the people? no." speaking of the pagan systems, helvetius says, "all the fables of mythology were mere emblems of certain principles of nature." baron d'holbach, a native of the palatinate, born january , died st january, , deserves special notice, as being the man whose house was the gathering place of the knot of writers and thinkers, who struck light and life into the dark and deadened brain of france. he is generally reputed to have been the author of that well-known work, the "system of nature," which was issued as if by mirabaud. this work, although it was fiercely assailed at the time, by the pen of voltaire, and by the _plaidorie_ of the prosecuting avocat-general, and has since been attacked by hundreds who have never read it, yet remains a wonderfully popular exposition of the power-gathering heresy of the century, and, as far as we are aware, has never received efficient reply. probably next to paine's works, it had in england during the second quarter of this century, the widest circulation of any anti-theological book, and this circulation extending through the manufacturing ranks. in the eighteenth century mirabaud could, in england, only be found in the hands of the few, but fifty years had wondrously multiplied the number of readers. joseph priestley was born near leeds, th march, , and being towards the latter part of his life driven out of england, by the persecuting spirit evinced towards him, and which had been specially excited by his republican tendencies, he died at northumberland, pennsylvania, on the th feb., . originally a church of england clergyman, his first notable inclination to heterodoxy manifested itself in hesitation as to the doctrine of the atonement. he ultimately rejected the immortality and immateriality of the soul, argued for necessitarianism, and earned considerable unpopularity by the boldness of some of his sentiments on political as well as theological matters. priestley was one of the rapidly multiplying instances of heresy alike in religion and politics, but he provoked the most bitter antagonism. his works were burned by the common hangman, his house, library, and scientific instruments were destroyed by an infuriate and pious mob. despite all this, his heresy, according to his own view of it, was not of a very outrageous character, for he believed in deity, in revealed religion, and in christianity, rather putting the blame on misconduct of alleged christians. he said: "the wretched forms under which christianity has long been generally exhibited, and its degrading alliance with, or rather its subjection to a power wholly heterogeneous to it, and which has employed it for the most unworthy purposes, has made it contemptible and odious in the eyes of all sensible men, who are now everywhere casting off the very profession and every badge of it. enlightened christians must themselves, in some measure, join with unbelievers in exposing whatever will not bear examination in or about religion." his writings on scientific topics were most voluminous; his most heretical volumes are those on "matter and spirit." edward gibbon was born at putney, the th april, , and died th january, . he was a polished and painstaking writer, aristocratic in his tendencies and associations, who had educated himself into a disbelief in the principal dogmas of christianity, but who loved the peace and quietude of an easy life too much to enter the lists as an active antagonist of the church. his works, especially the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of "the decline and fall of the roman empire," have been regarded as infidel in their tendency, rather from what has been left unsaid than from the direct statements against christianity. the sneer at the evidence of prophecy, or the doubt of the reality of miraculous evidences, is guardedly expressed. it is only when gibbon can couch his lance against some reckless and impudent forger of christian evidences, such as eusebius, that you have anything like a bold condemnation. a prophecy or a miracle is treated tenderly, and if killed, it is rather with over-affectionate courtesy than by rough handling. in some parts of his vindications of the attacked passages, gibbon's scepticism finds vent in the collection and quotation of unpleasantly heretical views of others, but he carefully avoids committing himself to very distinct personal declarations of disbelief; he claims to be the unbiassed historian recording fact, and leaving others to form their own conclusions. it would perhaps be most appropriate to express his convictions as to the religions of the world, in nearly the same words as he used to characterise the various modes of worship at rome, "all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful." pierre john george cabanis, born at conac, near breves, th june, , died th may, , following condillac in many respects, was one of those whose physiological investigations have opened out wide fields of knowledge in psychology, and who did much to promote the establishment in france, america, and england, of a new school of freethinkers. "subject to the action of external bodies," he says, "man finds in the impressions these bodies make on his organs, at once his knowledge and the causes of his continued existence, for to live is to feel; and in that admirable chain of phenomena which constitute his existence, every want depends on the development of some faculty; every faculty by its very development satisfies some want, and the faculties grow by exercise, as the wants extend with the facility of satisfying them. by the continual action of external bodies on the senses of man, results the most remarkable part of his existence. but is it true that the nervous centres only receive and combine the impressions which reach them from the bodies? is it true that no image or idea is formed in the brain, and that no determination of the sensitive organ takes place, other than by virtue of these same impressions on the senses strictly so-called? the faculty of feeling and of spontaneous movement forms the character of animal nature. the faculty of feeling consists in the property possessed by the nervous system of being warned by the impressions produced on its different parts, and notably on its extremities. these impressions are internal or external. external impressions, when perception is distinct, are called sensations. internal impressions are very often vague and confused, and the animal is then only warned by their effects, and does not clearly distinguish their connection with the causes. the former result from the application of external objects to the organs of sense, and on them ideas depend. the latter result from the development of the regular functions, or from the maladies to which each organ is subject; and from these issue those determinations which bear the name of instincts. feeling and movement are linked together. every movement is determined by an impression, and the nerves, as the organs of feeling, animate and direct the motor organs. in feeling, the nervous organ reacts on itself. in movement it reacts on other parts, to which it communicates the contractile faculty, the simple and fecund principle of all animal movement. finally, the vital functions can exercise themselves by the influence of some nervous ramifications, isolated from the system--the distinctive faculties can develope themselves, even when the brain is almost wholly destroyed, and when it seems wholly inactive. but for the formation of thoughts, it is necessary that the brain should exist, and be in a healthy condition; it is the special organ of thought." thomas paine, the most famous deist of modern times, was born at thetford on the th january, , and died th june, . it will hardly be untrue to say that the famous "rebellious needleman" has been the most popular writer in great britain and america against revealed religion, and that his works, from their plain, clear language, have in those countries had, and still have, a far wider circulation than those of any other modern sceptical author. his anti-theology was allied to his republicanism; he warred alike against church and throne, and his impeachment of each was couched in the plainest anglo-saxon. his name became at the same time a word of terror to the aristocracy and to the clergy. in england numerous prosecutions were commenced against the vendors of his political and theological works, and against persons suspected of giving currency to his views. the peace-officers searched poor men's houses to discover his dreaded works. lancashire and yorkshire artisans read him by stealth, and assembled in corners of fields that they might discuss the "age of reason," and yet be safe from surprise by the authorities. heavy sentences were passed upon men convicted of promulgating his opinions; but all without effect, the forbidden fruit found eager gatherers. paine appears to have been tinged with scepticism from his early boyhood, but it was as a democratic writer that he first achieved literary fame. his "age of reason" was the culminating blow which the dying eighteenth century aimed at the hebrew and christian records. theretofore scholarly philosophers, metaphysicians, and critics had written for their fellows, and whether or not any of the mass read and understood, the authors cared but little. now the people were addressed by one of themselves in language startling in its plainness. paine was not a deep examiner of metaphysical problems, but he was terribly in earnest in his rejection of an impossible creed. charles prangois dupuis was born near chaumont, in france, the th oct., , died th sept., . he played a prominent part in the great revolutionary movement, and was secretary to the national convention. his famous work, "l'origine de tous les cultes," is one of the grand heresy marks of the eighteenth century. himself a pantheist, he searched through the mythic traditions of the greeks, the egyptians, the hindoos, and the hebrews, and as a result, sought to demonstrate a common origin for all religions. dr. john pye smith classes dupuis as an atheist, but this is most certainly an incorrect classification. he did not believe in creation, nor could he go outside the universe to search for its cause, but he regarded god as "la force universelle et eternellement active" and which permeated and animated everything. dupuis was an example of a new and rapidly increasing class of freethinking writers--i.e., those who, not content with doubting the divine origin of the religions they attacked, sought to explain the source and progress of the various systems. he urges that all religions find their base in the attempts at personification of some one or other, or of the whole of the forces of the universe, and shows what an important part the sun and moon have been made to play in the egyptian, greek, and hindoo mythologies. he argues that the fabulous biographies of hercules, bacchus, osiris, mithra, and jesus, find their common origin in the sun-worship, thus cloaked and hidden from the vulgar in each country. he does not attack the hebrew records as simply inaccurate, but endeavours to show clear sabaistic foundation for many of the most important narratives. the works of dupuis and dulaure should be read together; they contain the most complete amongst the many attempts to trace out the common origins of the various mythologies of the world. in the ninth chapter of dupuis' great work, he deals with the "fable made upon the sun adored under the name of christ," "_un dieu qui ait mange autrefois sur la terre, et qu'on y mange aujourd'hui,_" and unquestionably urges strange points of coincidence. it is only astrologically that the th of december can be fixed, he argues, as the birthday of mithra and of jesus, then born of the celestial virgin. our easter festivities for the resurrection of jesus, are but another form of the more ancient rejoicings at that season for adonis, the sun-god, restored to the world after his descent into the lower regions. he recalls that the ancient druidic worship recognised the virgin suckling the child, and gathers together many illustrations favourable to his theory. here we do no more than point out that while reason was rapidly releasing itself from priestly thraldom, heretics were not content to deny the divine origin of christianity, but sought to trace its mundane or celestial source, and strip it of its fabulous plumage. constantine francis chassebeuuf count volney, born at craon in anjou, february rd, , died . he was a deist. in his two great works, "the ruins of empires," and "new researches on ancient history," he advances many of the views brought forward by dupuis, from whom he quotes, but his volumes are much more readable than those of the author of the "origin of all religions." volney appears to have been one of the first to popularise many of spinoza's biblical criticisms. he denied the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch. he wrote most vigorously against kingcraft as well as priestcraft, regarding all systems of monarchy and religion as founded on the ignorance and servility, the superstition and weakness of the people. he puts the following into the mouth of ma-hommedan priests replying to christian preachers: "we maintain that your gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection you ascribe to it. it is not true that it has introduced into the world new and unknown virtues; for example, the equality of mankind in the eyes of god, and the fraternity and benevolence which are the consequence of this equality, were tenets formerly professed by the sect of hermetics and samaneans, from whom you have your descent. as to forgiveness of injuries, it had been taught by the pagans themselves; but in the latitude you give to it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an immorality and a crime. your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek turn the other also, is not only contrary to the feelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice; it emboldens the wicked by impunity, degrades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society--such is the true spirit of your doctrine. the precepts and parables of your gospel also never represent god other than as a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than as a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favour than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious master giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to those who have borne the burthen and heat of the day, and preferring the last comers to the first. in short, your morality throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse; a code of misanthropy calculated to give men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solitude and celibacy. with respect to the manner in which you have practised your boasted doctrine, we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact, and ask, was it your evangelical meekness and forbearance which excited those endless wars among your sectaries, those atrocious persecutions of what you call heretics, those crusades against the arians, the manichseans, and the protestants, not to mention those which you have committed against us, nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting among you, formed of men who have sworn to perpetuate them?* was it the charity of your gospel that led you to exterminate whole nations in america, and to destroy the empires of mexico and peru; that makes you still desolate africa, the inhabitants of which you sell like cattle, notwithstanding the abolition of slavery that you pretend your religion has effected; that makes you ravage india whose domain you usurp; in short, is it charity that has prompted you for three centuries past to disturb the peaceful inhabitants of three continents, the most prudent of whom, those of japan and china, have been constrained to banish you from their country, that they might escape your chains and recover their domestic tranquillity?" * the oath taken by the knights of the order of malta is to kill, or make the mahometans prisoners, for the glory of god. during the early part of the eighteenth century, magazines and other periodicals began to grow apace, and pamphlets multiplied exceedingly in this country. addison, steele, defoe, and dean swift all helped in the work of popular education, and often in a manner probably unanticipated by themselves. dean swifts satire against scepticism was fiercely powerful; but his onslaughts against roman catholics and presbyterians made far more sceptics than his other writings had made churchmen. during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, a new phase of popular progress was exhibited in the comparatively lively interest taken in political questions by the great body of the people inhabiting large towns. in america, france, and england, this was strongly marked; it is however in this country that we find special evidences of the connection between heresy and progress, as contradistinguished from orthodoxy and obstructiveness manifested in the struggle for the liberty of the press and platform; a struggle in which some of the boldest efforts were made by poor and heretical self-taught men. the dying eighteenth century witnessed, in england, repeated instances of state prosecutions, in which the charge of entertaining or advocating the views of the republican heretic, paine, formed a prominent feature, and there is little doubt that the efforts of the london corresponding society (which the government of the day made strenuous endeavours to repress) to give circulation to some of paine's political opinions in yorkshire, lancashire, and the north, had for result the familiarising many men with views they would have otherwise feared to investigate. the step from the "rights of man" to the "age of reason" was but a short stride for an advancing inquirer. in france the end of the eighteenth century was marked by a frightful convulsion. a people starved and degraded for generations, rose in the very desperation of despair, and with a mighty force broke the yoke of traditional feudalism and habitual monarchic reverence; but in the case of france, the revolution was too sudden to be immediately beneficial or enduring, the people were as a mass too poor, and therefore too ignorant to wield the power so rapidly wrested from the class who had so long monopolised it. it is far better to grow out of a creed by the sure and gradual consciousness of the truths of existence, than to dash off a religious garb simply from abhorrence of the shameful practices of its professors, or sudden conviction of the falsity of many of the testimonies in its favour. so it is a more permanent and more complete revolution which is effectuated by educating men to a sense of the majesty and worth of true manhood, than is any mere sudden overturning a rotten or cruel usurpation. monarchies are most thoroughly and entirely destroyed--not by pulling down the throne, or by decapitating the king, but by educating and building up with a knowledge of political duty, each individual citizen amongst the people. it is here that heresy has its great advantage. christianity says, "the powers that be are ordained of god, he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of god." heresy challenges the divine right of the governor, and declares that government should be the best contrivance of national wisdom to promote the national weal, to provide against national want, and alleviate-national suffering--that government which is only a costly machinery for conserving class privileges, and preventing popular freedom, is a tyrannical usurpation of power,which it is the duty of true men to destroy. i have briefly and imperfectly alluded to a few of the men who stand out as the sign-posts of heretical progress during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries; in some future publication of wider scope fairer tribute may be paid to the memories of some of these mighty warriors in the freethought army. my object is to show that the civilisation of the masses is in proportion to the spread of heresy amongst them, that its effect is seen in an exhibition of manly dignity and self-reliant effort which is utterly unattainable amongst a superstitious people. look at the lazzaroni of the neapolitan states, or the peasant of the campagna, and you have at once the fearful illustration of demoralisation by faith in the beggar, brigand, and believer. it is sometimes pretended that such advantages of education and position as the people may boast in england, their civil rights and social advancement, are owing to their christianity, but in point of fact the reverse is the case. for centuries christianity had done little but fetter tightly the masses to church and crown, to priest and baron; the enfranchisement is comparatively modern. even in this very day, in the districts where the people are entirely in the hands of the clergy of the established church, there they are as a mass the most depraved. take the agricultural counties and the agricultural labourers: there are no heretical books or papers to be seen in their cottages, no heretical speakers come amongst them to disturb their contentment; the deputy-lieutenant, the squire, and the rector wield supreme authority--the parish church has no rival. but what are the people as a mass? they are not men, they are not women, they lack men's and women's thoughts and aspirations: they are diggers and weeders, hedgers and ditchers, ploughmen and carters; they are taught to be content with the state of life, in which it has pleased god to place them. my plea is, that modern heresy, from spinoza to mill, has given brain-strength and dignity to every one it has permeated--that the popular propagandists of this heresy, from bruno to carlile, have been the true redeemers and saviours, the true educators of the people. the redemption is yet only at its commencement, the education only lately begun, but the change is traceable already; as witness the power to speak and write, and the ability to listen and read, which have grown amongst the masses during the last years. and if to-day we write with higher hope, it is because the right to speak and the right to print has been partly freed from the fetters forged through long generations of intellect-prostration, and almost entirely freed from the statutory limitations which, under pretence of checking blasphemy and sedition, have really gagged honest speech against pope and emperor, against church and throne. a biographical dictionary of freethinkers of all ages and nations. by j. m. wheeler. london: progressive publishing company, stonecutter street, e.c. . preface. john stuart mill in his "autobiography" declares with truth that "the world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue are complete sceptics in religion." many of these, as mill points out, refrain from various motives from speaking out. the work i have undertaken will, i trust, do something to show how many of the world's worthiest men and women have been freethinkers. my dictionary does not pretend to be a complete list of those who have rendered services to freethought. to form such a compilation would rather be the task of an international society than of an individual. moreover details concerning many worthy workers are now inaccessible. freethought boasts its noble army of martyrs of whom the world was not worthy, and who paid the penalty of their freedom in prison or at the stake. some of the names of these are only known by the vituperation of their adversaries. i have done my best to preserve some trustworthy record of as many as possible. the only complete work with a similar design of which i have any knowledge, is the dictionnaire des athées anciens et modernes, by sylvain maréchal with its supplements by jerome de lalande the astronomer, an. viii. ( )- . that work, which is now extremely rare, gave scarcely any biographical details, and unfortunately followed previous orthodox atheographers, such as buddeus, reimmann, hardouin, garasse, mersenne, in classing as atheists those to whom the title was inapplicable. i have taken no names from these sources without examining the evidence. a work was issued by richard carlile in , entitled a dictionary of modern anti-superstionists; or, "an account, arranged alphabetically, of those who, whether called atheists, sceptics, latitudinarians, religious reformers, or etc., have during the last ten centuries contributed towards the diminution of superstition. compiled by a searcher after truth." the compiler, as i have reason to know, was julian hibbert, who brought to his task adequate scholarship and leisure. it was, however, conceived on too extensive a scale, and in pages, all that was issued, it only reached to the name of annet. julian hibbert also compiled chronological tables of english freethinkers, which were published in the reasoner for . of the anti-trinitarian biography of the rev. robert wallace, or of the previous compilations of saudius and bock, i have made but little use. to include the names of all who reject some of the christian dogmas was quite beside my purpose, though i have included those of early unitarians and universalists who, i conceive, exhibited the true spirit of free inquiry in the face of persecution. to the freydenker lexikon of j. a. trinius ( ) my obligations are slight, but should be acknowledged. to bayle's dictionary, hoefer's nouvelle biographie generale, meyer's konversations lexikon, franck's dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques, and to larousse's grand dictionnaire universel i must also express my indebtedness. in the case of disputed dates i have usually found haydn's dictionary of biography ( ) most trustworthy, but i have also consulted oettinger's valuable moniteur des dates. the particulars have in all cases been drawn from the best available sources. i have not attempted to give a full view of any of the lives dealt with, but merely sought to give some idea of their services and relation to freethought. nor have i enumerated the whole of the works of authors who have often dealt with a variety of subjects. as full a list as is feasible has, however, been given of their distinctive freethought works; and the book will, i hope, be useful to anyone wishing information as to the bibliography of freethought. the only work of a bibliographical kind is the guide du libre penseur, by m. alfred verlière, but his list is very far from complete even of the french authors, with whom it is almost entirely occupied. i should also mention la lorgnette philosophique, by m. paquet, as giving lively sketches, though not biographies, of some modern french freethinkers. in the compilation of my list of names i have received assistance from my friends, mr. g. w. foote (to whom i am also indebted for the opportunity of publication), mr. w. j. birch, mr. e. truelove and mr. f. malibran. for particulars in regard to some english freethinkers i am indebted to mr. charles bradlaugh, mr. george jacob holyoake and mr. e. t. craig, while professor dalla volta, of florence, has kindly assisted me with some of the italian names. i must also express my indebtedness to a. de gubernatis, whose dizionario biografico degli scrittori contemporanei i have found of considerable service. my thanks are also due to g. k. fortescue, esq., for permission to examine the titles of all freethought works in the british museum. some readers may think my list contains names better omitted, while omitting others well deserving a place. i have, for instance, omitted many foreign liberal protestants while including bishop colenso, who, ostensibly, did not go so far. but my justification, if any, must be found in my purpose, which is to record the names of those who have contributed in their generation to the advance of freethought. no one can be more conscious of the imperfections of my work than myself, but i console myself with the reflection of plato, that "though it be the merit of a good huntsman to find game in a wide wood, it is no discredit if he do not find it all"; and the hope that what i have attempted some other will complete. the most onerous part of my task has been the examination of the claims of some thousand names, mostly foreign, which find no place in this dictionary. but the work throughout has been a labor of love. i designed it as my humble contribution to the cause of freethought, and leave it with the hope that it will contribute towards the history of "the good old cause"; a history which has yet to be written, and for which, perhaps, the time is not yet ripe. should this volume be received with an encouraging share of favor, i hope to follow it with a history of freethought in england, for which i have long been collecting materials. a biographical dictionary of freethinkers. abælardus (petrus), b. . a teacher of philosophy at paris, renowned for being loved by the celebrated eloise. he was accused of teaching erroneous opinions, chiefly about the creation and the trinity, and was condemned by a council at soissons in and by that of sens , at the instigation of st. bernard. he was hunted about, but spent his last days as a monk at cluni. he died april, . "abelard," observes hallam, "was almost the first who awakened mankind, in the age of darkness, to a sympathy with intellectual excellence." abano (petrus de). see petrus, de abano. abauzit (firmin), a french writer, descended from an arabian family which settled in the south of france early in the ninth century, b. uzes, nov. . he travelled in holland and became acquainted with bayle, attained a reputation for philosophy, and was consulted by voltaire and rousseau. among his works are, reflections on the gospels, and an essay on the apocalypse, in which he questions the authority of that work. died at geneva march, . his miscellanies were translated in english by e. harwood, . abbot (francis ellingwood). american freethinker, b. boston, nov. . he graduated at harvard university , began life as a unitarian minister, but becoming too broad for that church, resigned in . he started the index, a journal of free religious inquiry and anti-supernaturalism, at toledo, but since at boston. this he edited - . in appeared his impeachment of christianity. in addition to his work on the index, mr. abbot has lectured a great deal, and has contributed to the north american review and other periodicals. he was the first president of the american national liberal league. mr. abbot is an evolutionist and theist, and defends his views in scientific theism, . ablaing van giessenburg (r.c.) see giessenburg. abu bakr ibn al-tufail (abu j'afar) al isbili. spanish arabian philosopher, b. at guadys, wrote a philosophical romance of pantheistic tendency hai ibn yakdan, translated into latin by pocock, oxford , and into english by s. ockley, , under the title of the improvement of human reason. died at morocco . abu-fazil (abu al fadhl ibn mubarak, called al hindi), vizier to the great emperor akbar from . although by birth a muhammadan, his investigations into the religions of india made him see equal worth in all, and, like his master, akbar, he was tolerant of all sects. his chief work is the ayin akbary, a statistical account of the indian empire. it was translated by f. gladwin, . he was assassinated . abul-abbas-abdallah iii. (al mamoun), the seventh abbasside, caliph, son of haroun al rashid, was b. at bagdad sept. . he was a patron of science and literature, collected greek and hebrew manuscripts, and invited the scholars of all nations to his capital. he wrote several treatises and poems. died in war near tarsus, aug. . abul-ola (ahmad ibn abd allah ibn sulaiman), celebrated arabian poet, b. at maari, in syria, dec., . his free opinions gave much scandal to devout moslems. he was blind through small-pox from the age of four years, but his poems exhibit much knowledge. he called himself "the doubly imprisoned captive," in allusion to his seclusion and loss of sight. he took no pains to conceal that he believed in no revealed religion. died may, , and ordered the following verse to be written on his tomb:--"i owe this to the fault of my father: none owe the like to mine." abu tahir (al karmatti), the chief of a freethinking sect at bahrein, on the persian gulf, who with a comparatively small number of followers captured mecca ( ), and took away the black stone. he suddenly attacked, defeated, and took prisoner abissaj whom, at the head of thirty thousand men, the caliph had sent against him. died in . achillini (alessandro), italian physician and philosopher b. bologna oct. . he expounded the doctrines of averroes, and wrote largely upon anatomy. died aug. . his collected works were published at venice, . ackermann (louise-victorine, née choquet), french poetess, b. paris nov. . she travelled to germany and there married ( ) a young theologian, paul ackerman, who in preparing for the ministry lost his christian faith, and who, after becoming teacher to prince frederick william (afterwards frederick iii.), died at the age of thirty-four ( ). both were friends of proudhon. madame ackermann's poems (paris - and ) exhibit her as a philosophic pessimist and atheist. "god is dethroned," says m. caro of her poems (revue des deux mondes, may, ). she professes hatred of christianity and its interested professors. she has also published thoughts of a solitary. sainte beuve calls her "the learned solitary of nice." acollas (pierre antoine rené paul emile), french jurisconsult and political writer, b. la châtre june, , studied law at paris. for participating in the geneva congress of the international society in he was condemned to one year's imprisonment. in he was appointed head of the law faculty by the commune. he has published several manuals popularising the legal rights of the people, and has written on marriage its past, present, and future, . mrs. besant has translated his monograph on the idea of god in the revolution, published in the droits de l'homme. acontius (jacobus--italian, giacomo aconzio). born at trent early in sixteenth century. after receiving ordination in the church of rome he relinquished that faith and fled to switzerland in . he subsequently came to england and served queen elizabeth as a military engineer. to her he dedicated his strategems of satan, published at basle . this was one of the earliest latitudinarian works, and was placed upon the index. it was also bitterly assailed by protestant divines, both in england and on the continent. an english translation appeared in . some proceedings were taken against acontius before bishop grindall, of the result of which no account is given. some passages of milton's areopagitica may be traced to acontius, who, cheynell informs us, lived till . stephen's dictionary of national biography says he is believed to have died shortly after . acosta (uriel). born at oporto , the son of a christianised jew; he was brought up as a christian, but on reaching maturity, rejected that faith. he went to holland, where he published a work equally criticising moses and jesus. for this he was excommunicated by the synagogue, fined and put in prison by the amsterdam authorities, and his work suppressed. after suffering many indignities from both jews and christians, he committed suicide . adams (george), of bristol, sentenced in to one month's imprisonment for selling the oracle of reason. adams (robert c.), canadian freethought writer and lecturer. author of travels in faith from tradition to reason (new york, ), also evolution, a summary of evidence. adler (felix) ph. d. american freethinker, the son of a jewish rabbi, was b. in alzey, germany, aug. . he graduated at columbia college, , was professor of hebrew and oriental literature at cornell university from ' to may ' , when he established in new york the society of ethical culture, to which he discourses on sundays. in he published a volume entitled creed and deed, in which he rejects supernatural religion. dr. adler has also contributed many papers to the radical literature of america. Ænesidemus. a cretan sceptical philosopher of the first century. he adopted the principle of heraclitus, that all things were in course of change, and argued against our knowledge of ultimate causes. airy (sir george biddell). english astronomer royal, b. alnwick july, . educated at cambridge, where he became senior wrangler . during a long life professor airy did much to advance astronomical science. his notes on the earlier hebrew scriptures , proves him to have been a thorough-going freethinker. aitkenhead (thomas), an edinburgh student aged eighteen, who was indicted for blasphemy, by order of the privy council, for having called the old testament "ezra's fables," and having maintained that god and nature were the same. he was found guilty dec. , and hanged for blasphemy, jan. . aitzema (lieuwe van), a nobleman of friesland, b. at dorckum nov. , author of a suppressed history of the netherlands, between - . is classed by reimmann as an atheist. died at the hague feb. . akbar (jalal-ed-din muhammad), the greatest of the emperors of hindostan, b. oct. , was famous for his wide administration and improvement of the empire. akbar showed toleration alike to christians, muhammadans, and to all forms of the hindu faith. he had the christian gospels and several brahmanical treatises translated into persian. the result of his many conferences on religion between learned men of all sects, are collected in the dabistan. akbar was brought up as a muhammadan, but became a theist, acknowledging one god, but rejecting all other dogmas. died sept. . alberger (john). american author of monks, popes, and their political intrigues (baltimore, ) and antiquity of christianity (new york, ). albini (giuseppe). italian physiologist, b. milan. in he studied medicine in paris. he has written on embryology and many other physiological subjects. alchindus. yakub ibn is'hak ibn subbah (abú yúsuf) called al kindi, arab physician and philosopher, the great grandson of one of the companions of muhammad, the prophet, flourished from to about . he was a rationalist in religion, and for his scientific studies he was set down as a magician. alciati (giovanni paolo). a milanese of noble family. at first a romanist, he resigned that faith for calvinism, but gradually advanced to anti-trinitarianism, which he defends in two letters to gregorio pauli, dated austerlitz and . beza says that alciati deserted the christian faith and became a muhammadan, but bayle takes pains to disprove this. died at dantzic about . aleardi (gaetano). italian poet, known as aleardo aleardi, b. verona, nov. . he was engaged in a life-long struggle against the austrian dominion, and his patriotic poems were much admired. in he was elected deputy to parliament for brescia. died verona, july, . alembert (jean le rond d'), mathematician and philosopher, b. at paris nov. . he was an illegitimate son of canon destouches and mme. tencin, and received his christian name from a church near which he was exposed as a foundling. he afterwards resided for forty years with his nurse, nor would he leave her for the most tempting offers. in , he was admitted a member of the academy of sciences. in , he obtained the prize medal from the academy of berlin, for a discourse on the theory of winds. in , he solved the problem of the procession of the equinoxes and explained the mutation of the earth's axis. he next engaged with diderot, with whose opinions he was in complete accord, in compiling the famous encyclopédie, for which he wrote the preliminary discourse. in addition to this great work he published many historical, philosophical and scientific essays, and largely corresponded with voltaire. his work on the destruction of the jesuits is a caustic and far-reaching production. in a letter to frederick the great, he says: "as for the existence of a supreme intelligence, i think that those who deny it advance more than they can prove, and scepticism is the only reasonable course." he goes on to say, however, that experience invincibly proves the materiality of the "soul." died oct. . in two volumes of his posthumous essays were printed in paris. his works prove d'alembert to have been of broad spirit and of most extensive knowledge. alfieri (vittorio), count. famous italian poet and dramatist, b. asti, piedmont, jan. , of a noble family. his tragedies are justly celebrated, and in his essay on tyranny he shows himself as favorable to religious as to political liberty. written in his youth, this work was revised at a more advanced age, the author remarking that if he had no longer the courage, or rather the fire, necessary to compose it, he nevertheless retained intelligence, independence and judgment enough to approve it, and to let it stand as the last of his literary productions. his attack is chiefly directed against catholicism, but he does not spare christianity. "born among a people," he says, "slavish, ignorant, and already entirely subjugated by priests, the christian religion knows only how to enjoin the blindest obedience, and is unacquainted even with the name of liberty." alfieri's tragedy of saul has been prohibited on the english stage. died florence, oct. . alfonso x., surnamed the wise, king of castillo and of leon; b. in , crowned . a patron of science and lover of astronomy. he compiled a complete digest of roman, feudal and canon law, and had drawn up the astronomical tables called alfonsine tables. by his liberality and example he gave a great impulse to spanish literature. for his intercourse with jews and arabians, his independence towards the pope and his free disposal of the clerical revenues, he has been stigmatised as an atheist. to him is attributed the well-known remark that had he been present at the creation of the world he would have proposed some improvements. father lenfant adds the pious lie that "the king had scarcely pronounced this blasphemy when a thunderbolt fell and reduced his wife and two children to ashes." alfonso x. died april, . algarotti (francesco), count. italian writer and art critic, b. at venice, dec. . a visit to england led him to write newtonianism for the ladies. he afterwards visited berlin and became the friend both of voltaire and of frederick the great, who appointed him his chamberlain. died with philosophical composure at pisa, may, . alger (william rounseville), b. at freetown, massachusetts, dec. , educated at harvard, became a unitarian preacher of the advanced type. his critical history of the doctrine of a future life, with a complete bibliography of the subject by ezra abbot, is a standard work, written from the universalist point of view. allen (charles grant blairfindie), naturalist and author, b. in kingston, canada, feb. . he studied at merton college, oxford, and graduated with honors . in appointed professor of logic in queen's college, spanish town, jamaica; from to ' he was its principal. since then he has resided in england, and become known by his popular expositions of darwinism. his published works include physiological Æsthetics ( ), the evolutionist at large ( ), nature studies ( ), charles darwin ( ), and several novels. grant allen has also edited the miscellaneous works of buckle, and has written on force and energy ( ). allen (ethan) col., american soldier, b. at litchfield, connecticut, jan. . one of the most active of the revolutionary heroes, he raised a company of volunteers known as the "green mountain boys," and took by surprise the british fortress of ticonderoga, capturing guns, may, . he was declared an outlaw and £ offered for his arrest by gov. tryon of new york. afterwards he was taken prisoner and sent to england. at first treated with cruelty, he was eventually exchanged for another officer, may, . he was a member of the state legislature, and succeeded in obtaining the recognition of vermont as an independent state. he published in reason the only oracle of man, the first publication in the united states openly directed against the christian religion. it has been frequently reprinted and is still popular in america. died burlington, vermont, feb. . a statue is erected to him at montpelier, vermont. allsop (thomas). "the favorite disciple of coleridge," b. april, , near wirksworth, derbyshire, he lived till . a friend of robert owen and the chartists. he was implicated in the attempt of orsini against napoleon iii. in his letters, conversations and recollections of samuel taylor coleridge, he has imported many of his freethought views. alm (richard von der). see ghillany (f. w.) alpharabius (muhammad ibn muhammad ibn tarkhan) (abu nasr), called al farabi, turkish philosopher, termed by ibn khallikan the greatest philosopher the moslems ever had, travelled to bagdad, mastered the works of aristotle, and became master of avicenna. al farabi is said to have taught the eternity of the world and to have denied the permanent individuality of the soul. his principal work is a sort of encyclopædia. rénan says he expressly rejected all supernatural revelation. died at damascus dec. , aged upwards of eighty. amaury or amalric de chartres, a heretic of the thirteenth century, was a native of bene, near chartres, and lived at paris, where he gave lessons in logic. in a work bearing the title of physion, condemned by a bull of pope innocent iii. ( ), he is said to have taught a kind of pantheism, and that the reign of the father and son must give place to that of the holy spirit. ten of his disciples were burnt at paris dec. , and the bones of amaury were exhumed and placed in the flames. amberley (john russell) viscount, eldest son of earl russell, b. . educated at harrow, edinburgh and trinity college, cambridge, where ill-health prevented him reading for honors. he entered parliament in as radical member for nottingham. lord amberley contributed thoughtful articles to the north british, the fortnightly and theological reviews, and will be remembered by his bold analysis of religious belief ( ), in which he examines, compares and criticises the various faiths of the world. lord amberley left his son to be brought up by mr. spalding, a self-taught man of great ability and force of character; but the will was set aside, on appeal to the court of chancery, in consideration of mr. spalding's heretical views. died jan. . amman (hans jacob), german surgeon and traveller, b. lake zurich . in he went to constantinople, palestine and egypt, and afterwards published a curious book called voyage in the promised land. died at zurich, . ammianus (marcellinus). roman soldier-historian of the fourth century, b. at antioch. he wrote the roman history from the reign of nerva to the death of valens in thirty-one books, of which the first thirteen are lost. his history is esteemed impartial and trustworthy. he served under julian, and compares the rancor of the christians of the period to that of wild beasts. gibbon calls him "an accurate and faithful guide." died about a.d. ammonius, surnamed saccas or the porter, from his having been obliged in the early part of his life to adopt that calling, was born of christian parents in alexandria during the second century. he, however, turned pagan and opened a school of philosophy. among his pupils were origen, longinus and plotinus. he undoubtedly originated the neo-platonic movement, which formed the most serious opposition to christianity in its early career. ammonius died a.d. , aged over eighty years. anaxagoras, a greek philosopher of the ionic school, b. about b.c., lived at athens and enjoyed the friendship of pericles. in b.c. he was accused of atheism for maintaining the eternity of matter and was banished to lampsacus, where he died in b.c. it is related that, being asked how he desired to be honored after death, he replied, "only let the day of my death be observed as a holiday by the boys in the schools." he taught that generation and destruction are only the union and separation of elements which can neither be created nor annihilated. andre-nuytz (louis), author of positivism for all, an elementary exposition of positive philosophy, to which littré wrote a preface, . andrews (stephen pearl). american sociologist, b. templeton, mass., march, . he was an ardent abolitionist, an eloquent speaker, and the inventor of a universal language called alwato. his principle work is entitled the basic outline of universology (n. y., ). he also wrote the church and religion of the future ( ). he was a prominent member and vice-president of the liberal club of new york, a contributor to the london times, the new york truthseeker, and many other journals. died at new york, may, . andrieux (louis). french deputy, b. trévoux july, . was called to the bar at lyons, where he became famous for his political pleading. he took part in the freethought congress at naples in , and in june of the following year he was imprisoned for three months for his attack on the empire. on the establishment of the republic he was nominated procureur at lyons. he was on the municipal council of that city, which he has also represented in the chamber of deputies. in he became prefect of police at paris, but retired in and was elected deputy by his constituents at lyons. he has written souvenirs of a prefect of police ( ). angelucci (teodoro). italian poet and philosopher, b. near tolentino . he advocated aristotle against f. patrizi, and was banished from rome. one of the first emancipators of modern thought in italy, he also made an excellent translation of the Æneid of virgil. died montagnana, . angiulli (andrea). italian positivist, b. castellana feb. , author of a work on philosophy and positive research, naples . he became professor of anthropology at naples in , and edits a philosophical review published in that city since . annet (peter). one of the most forcible writers among the english deists, b. at liverpool in . he was at one time a schoolmaster and invented a system of shorthand. priestley learnt it at school and corresponded with annet. in he published a pamphlet on freethinking the great duty of religion, by p. a., minister of religion. this was followed by the conception of jesus as the foundation of the christian religion, in which he boldly attacks the doctrine of the incarnation as "a legend of the romanists," and the resurrection of jesus considered ( ) in answer to bishop sherlock's trial of the witnesses. this controversy was continued in the resurrection reconsidered and the resurrection defenders stript of all defence. in an examination of the history and character of st. paul he attacks the sincerity of the apostle to the gentiles and even questions the authenticity of his epistles. in supernaturals examined ( ) he argues that all miracles are incredible. in he issued nine numbers of the free inquirer, in which he attacked the authenticity and credibility of the pentateuch. for this he was brought before the king's bench and sentenced to suffer one month's imprisonment in newgate, to stand twice in the pillory, once at charing cross and once at the exchange, with a label "for blasphemy," then to have a year's hard labor in bridewell and to find sureties for good behavior during the rest of his life. it is related that a woman seeing annet in the pillory said, "gracious! pilloried for blasphemy. why, don't we blaspheme every day!" after his release annet set up a school at lambeth. being asked his views on a future life he replied by this apologue: "one of my friends in italy, seeing the sign of an inn, asked if that was the angel." "no," was the reply, "do you not see it is the sign of a dragon." "ah," said my friend, "as i have never seen either angel or dragon, how can i tell whether it is one or the other?" died jan. . the history of the man after god's own heart ( ) ascribed to annet, was more probably written by archibald campbell. the view of the life of king david ( ) by w. skilton, horologist, is also falsely attributed to annet. anthero de quental, portuguese writer, b. san miguel . educated for the law at the university of coimbra, he has published both poetry and prose, showing him to be a student of hartmann, proudhon and rénan, and one of the most advanced minds in portugal. anthony (susan brownell). american reformer, b. of a quaker family at south adams, massachusetts, feb. . she became a teacher, a temperance reformer, an opponent of slavery, and an ardent advocate of women's rights. of the last movement she became secretary. in conjunction with mrs. e. c. stanton and parker pillsbury she conducted the revolutionist founded in new york in , and with mrs. stanton and matilda joslyn gage she has edited the history of woman's suffrage, . miss anthony is a declared agnostic. antoine (nicolas). martyr. denied the messiahship and divinity of jesus, and was strangled and burnt at geneva, april, . antonelle (pierre antoine) marquis d', french political economist, b. arles . he embraced the revolution with ardor, and his article in the journal des hommes libres occasioned his arrest with baboeuf. he was, however, acquitted. died at arles, nov. . antoninus (marcus aurelius). see aurelius. apelt (ernst friedrich), german philosopher, b. reichenau march, . he criticised the philosophy of religion from the standpoint of reason, and wrote many works on metaphysics. died near gorlitz, oct. . aquila, a jew of pontus, who became a proselyte to christianity, but afterwards left that religion. he published a greek version of the hebrew scriptures to show that the prophecies did not apply to jesus (a.d. ). the work is lost. he has been identified by e. deutsch with the author of the targum of onkelos. arago (dominique françois jean), french academician, politician, physicist and astronomer, b. estagel, feb. . he was elected to the french academy of sciences at the age of twenty-three. he made several optical and electro-magnetic discoveries, and advocated the undulatory theory of light. he was an ardent republican and freethinker, and took part in the provisional government of . he opposed the election of louis napoleon, and refused to take the oath of allegiance after the coup d'état of december, . died oct. . humboldt calls him a "zealous defender of the interests of reason." ardigo (roberto), italian philosopher, b. at casteldidone (cremona) jan. , was intended for the church, but took to philosophy. in he published a discourse on peitro pomponazzi, followed next year by psychology as a positive science. signor ardigo has also written on the formation of the solar system and on the historical formation of the ideas of god and the soul. an edition of his philosophical works was commenced at mantua in . ardigo is one of the leaders of the italian positivists. his positivist morals appeared in padua . argens (jean baptiste de boyer) marquis d', french writer, b. at aix, in provence, june . he adopted a military life and served with distinction. on the accession of frederick the great he invited d'argens to his court at berlin, and made him one of his chamberlains. here he resided twenty-five years and then returned to aix, where he resided till his death june, . his works were published in in twenty-four volumes. among them are lettres juives, lettres chinoises and lettres cabalistiques, which were joined to la philosophie du bon sens. he also translated julian's discourse against christianity and ocellus lucanus on the eternity of the world. argens took bayle as his model, but he was inferior to that philosopher. argental (charles augustin de ferriol) count d', french diplomat, b. paris dec. , was a nephew of mme. de tencin, the mother of d'alembert. he is known for his long and enthusiastic friendship for voltaire. he was said to be the author of mémoires du comte de comminge and anecdotes de la cour d'edouard. died jan. . aristophanes, great athenian comic poet, contemporary with socrates, plato, and euripides, b. about b.c. little is known of his life. he wrote fifty-four plays, of which only eleven remain, and was crowned in a public assembly for his attacks on the oligarchs. with the utmost boldness he satirised not only the the political and social evils of the age, but also the philosophers, the gods, and the theology of the period. plato is said to have died with aristophanes' works under his pillow. died about b.c. aristotle, the most illustrious of ancient philosophers, was born at stagyra, in thrace, b.c. he was employed by philip of macedon to instruct his son alexander. his inculcation of ethics as apart from all theology, justifies his place in this list. after the death of alexander, he was accused of impiety and withdrew to chalcis, where he died b.c. . grote says: "in the published writings of aristotle the accusers found various heretical doctrines suitable for sustaining their indictment; as, for example, the declaration that prayer and sacrifices to the gods were of no avail." his influence was predominant upon philosophy for nearly two thousand years. dante speaks of him as "the master of those that know." arnold of brescia, a pupil of abelard. he preached against the papal authority and the temporal power, and the vices of the clergy. he was condemned for heresy by a lateran council in , and retired from italy. he afterwards returned to rome and renewed his exertions against sacerdotal oppression, and was eventually seized and burnt at rome in . baronius calls him "the patriarch of political heretics." arnold (matthew), ll.d. poet and critic, son of dr. arnold of rugby, b. at laleham dec. . educated at winchester, rugby, and oxford, where he won the newdigate prize. in he published the strayed reveller, and other poems, signed a. in he married and became an inspector of schools. in appeared empedocles on etna, a poem in which, under the guise of ancient teaching he gives much secular philosophy. in he was elected professor of poetry at oxford. in he published an essay entitled st. paul and protestantism; in literature and dogma, which, from its rejection of supernaturalism, occasioned much stir and was followed by god and the bible. in mr. arnold published last essays on church and state. mr. arnold has a lucid style and is abreast of the thought of his age, but he curiously unites rejection of supernaturalism, including a personal god, with a fond regard for the church of england. he may be said in his own words to wander "between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born." died april, . arnould (arthur), french writer, b. dieuze april, . as journalist he wrote on l'opinion nationale, the rappel, reforme and other papers. in he published a work on beranger, and in ' a history of the inquisition. in jan. he founded la marseillaise with h. rochefort, and afterwards the journal du peuple with jules valles. he was elected to the national assembly and was member of the commune, of which he has written a history in three volumes. he has also written many novels and dramas. arnould (victor), belgian freethinker, b. maestricht, nov. , advocate at the court of appeal, brussels. author of a history of the church , and a little work on the philosophy of liberalism . arouet (françois marie). see voltaire. arpe (peter friedrich). philosopher, b. kiel, holstein, may, . wrote an apology for vanini dated cosmopolis (i.e., rotterdam, ). a reply to la monnoye's treatise on the book de tribus impostoribus is attributed to him. died, hamburg, nov. . arthur (john) is inserted in maréchal's dictionnaire des athées as a mechanic from near birmingham, who took a prize at paris and republished the invocation to nature in the last pages of the system of nature. julian hibbert inserted his name in his chronological tables of anti-superstitionists, with the date of death . asseline (louis). french writer, b. at versailles in , became an advocate in . in he established la libre pensée, a weekly journal of scientific materialism, and when that was suppressed la pensée nouvelle. he was one of the founders of the encyclopédie générale. he wrote diderot and the nineteenth century, and contributed to many journals. after the revolution of sept. he was elected mayor of the fourteenth arrondissement of paris, and was afterwards one of the municipal council of that city. died april, . assezat (jules). french writer, b. at paris jan. was a son of a compositor on the journal des debats, on which jules obtained a position and worked his way to the editorial chair. he was secretary of the paris society of anthropology, contributed to la pensée nouvelle, edited the man machine of lamettrie, and edited the complete works of diderot in twenty volumes. died june, . assollant (jean, baptiste alfred). french novelist, b. march, . larousse says he has all the scepticism of voltaire. ast (georg anton friedrich). german platonist, b. gotha dec. . was professor of classical literature at landshut and munich. wrote elements of philosophy, , etc. died munich dec. . atkinson (henry george). philosophic writer, b. in . was educated at the charterhouse, gave attention to mesmerism, and wrote in the zoist. in he issued letters on the laws of man's nature and development, in conjunction with harriet martineau, to whom he served as philosophic guide. this work occasioned a considerable outcry. mr. atkinson was a frequent contributor to the national reformer and other secular journals. he died dec. , at boulogne, where he had resided since . aubert de verse (noel). a french advocate of the seventeenth century, who wrote a history of the papacy ( ) and was accused of blasphemy. audebert (louise). french authoress of the romance of a freethinker and of an able reply of a mother to the bishop of orleans, . audifferent (georges). positivist and executor to auguste comte, was born at saint pierre (martinque) in , settled at marseilles, and is the author of several medical and scientific works. aurelius (marcus antoninus). roman emperor and stoic philosopher, b. at rome april, . was carefully educated, and lived a laborious, abstemious life. on the death of his uncle antoninus pius, , the senate obliged him to take the government, but he associated with himself l. verus. on the death of verus in antoninus possessed sole authority, which he exercised with wise discretion and great glory. much of his time was employed in defending the northern frontiers of the empire against teutonic barbarians. he had no high opinion of christians, speaking of their obstinacy, and it is pretended many were put to death in the reign of one of the best emperors that ever ruled. if so we may be assured it was for their crimes. ecclesiastical historians have invented another pious miracle in a victory gained through the prayers of the christians. antoninus held that duty was indispensable even were there no gods. his meditations, written in the midst of a most active life, breathe a lofty morality, and are a standing refutation of the view that pure ethics depend upon christian belief. died march, . austin (charles), lawyer and disciple of bentham, b. suffolk . at cambridge, where he graduated b.a. in and m.a. in , he won, much to the amazement of his friends, who knew his heterodox opinions, the hulsean prize for an essay on christian evidences. for this he was sorry afterwards, and told lord stanley of alderley "i could have written a much better essay on the other side." he afterwards wrote on the other side in the westminster review. successful as a lawyer, he retired in ill-health. j. s. mill writes highly of his influence. the hon. l. a. tollemache gives a full account of his heretical opinions. he says "he inclined to darwinism, because as he said, it is so antecedently probable; but, long before this theory broke the back of final causes, he himself had given them up." died dec. . austin (john), jurist, brother of above, was born march, . a friend of james mill, grote and bentham, whose opinions he shared, he is chiefly known by his profound works on jurisprudence. died dec. . avempace, i.e., muhammad ibn yahya ibn bajjat (abu bekr), called ibn al-saigh (the son of the goldsmith), arabian philosopher and poet, b. at saragossa, practised medicine at seville , which he quitted about , and became vizier at the court of fez, where he died about . an admirer of aristotle, he was one of the teachers of averroes. al-fath ibn khâkân represents him as an infidel and atheist, and says: "faith disappeared from his heart and left not a trace behind; his tongue forgot the merciful, neither did [the holy] name cross his lips." he is said to have suffered imprisonment for his heterodoxy. avenel (georges), french writer, b. at chaumont dec. . one of the promoters of the encyclopédie générale. his vindication of cloots ( ) is a solid work of erudition. he became editor of la république française and edited the edition of voltaire published by le siècle ( - ). died at bougival, near paris, july, , and was, by his express wish, buried without religious ceremony. averroes (muhammad ibn-ahmad ibn rushd), abu al walid, arabian philosopher, b. at cordova in , and died at morocco dec. . he translated and commented upon the works of aristotle, and resolutely placed the claims of science above those of theology. he was prosecuted for his heretical opinions by the muhammadan doctors, was spat upon by all who entered the mosque at the hour of prayer, and afterwards banished. his philosophical opinions, which incline towards materialism and pantheism, had the honor of being condemned by the university of paris in . they were opposed by st. thomas aquinas, and when profoundly influencing europe at the renaissance through the paduan school were again condemned by pope leo x. in . avicenna (husain ibn abdallah, called ibn sina), arabian physician and philosopher, b. aug. in the district of bokhara. from his early youth he was a wonderful student, and at his death june, , he left behind him above a hundred treatises. he was the sovereign authority in medical science until the days of harvey. his philosophy was pantheistic in tone, with an attempt at compromise with theology. aymon (jean), french writer, b. dauphiné . brought up in the church, he abjured catholicism at geneva, and married at the hague. he published metamorphoses of the romish religion, and is said to have put forward a version of the esprit de spinoza under the famous title treatise of three impostors. died about . bagehot (walter), economist and journalist, b. of unitarian parents, langport, somersetshire, feb. ; he died at the same place march, . he was educated at london university, of which he became a fellow. for the last seventeen years of his life he edited the economist newspaper. his best-known works are the english constitution, lombard street and literary studies. in physics and politics ( ), a series of essays on the evolution of society, he applies darwinism to politics. bagehot was a bold, clear, and very original thinker, who rejected historic christianity. baggesen (jens immanuel), danish poet, b. kösor, zealand. feb. . in he visited germany, france, and switzerland; at berne he married the grand-daughter of haller. he wrote popular poems both in danish and german, among others adam and eve, a humorous mock epic ( ). he was an admirer of voltaire. died hamburg, oct. . bahnsen (julius friedrich august), pessimist, b. tondern, schleswig-holstein, mar. . studied philosophy at keil, . he fought against the danes in ' , and afterwards studied at tübingen. bahnsen is an independent follower of schopenhauer and hartmann, joining monism to the idealism of hegel. he has written several works, among which we mention the philosophy of history, berlin, , and the contradiction between the knowledge and the nature of the world ( vols), berlin - . bahrdt (karl friedrich), german deist, b. in saxony, aug. . educated for the church, in he was made professor of biblical philology. he was condemned for heresy, and wandered from place to place. he published a kind of expurgated bible, called new revelations of god: a system of moral religion for doubters and thinkers, berlin, , and a catechism of natural religion, halle, . died near halle, april, . bailey (james napier), socialist, edited the model republic, , the torch, and the monthly messenger. he published gehenna: its monarch and inhabitants; sophistry unmasked, and several other tracts in the "social reformer's cabinet library," and some interesting essays on miscellaneous subjects, at leeds, . bailey (samuel), philosophical writer, of sheffield, b. in . his essay on the formation and publication of opinions appeared in . he vigorously contends that man is not responsible for his opinions because they are independent of his will, and that opinions should not be the subject of punishment. another anonymous freethought work was letters from an egyptian kaffir on a visit to england in search of religion. this was at first issued privately , but afterwards printed as a reasoner tract. he also wrote the pursuit of truth, , and a theory of reasoning, . he was acquainted with both james and john stuart mill, and shared in most of the views of the philosophical radicals of the period. died jan. , leaving £ , to his native town. bailey (william s.), editor of the liberal, published in nashville, tennessee, was an atheist up till the day of death, march, . in a slave-holding state, he was the earnest advocate of abolition. baillie (george), of garnet hill, glasgow. had been a sheriff in one of the scotch counties. he was a liberal subscriber to the glasgow eclectic institute. in he offered a prize for the best essay on christianity and infidelity, which was gained by miss sara hennell. in another prize was restricted to the question whether jesus prophesied the coming of the end of the world in the life-time of his followers. it was gained by mr. e. p. meredith, and is incorporated in his prophet of nazareth. in mr. baillie divested himself of his fortune (£ , ) which was to be applied to the erection and endowment of an institution to aid the culture of the operative classes by means of free libraries and unsectarian schools, retaining only the interest for himself as curator. he only survived a few years. baillière (gustave-germer), french scientific publisher, b. at paris dec. . studied medicine, but devoted himself to bringing out scientific publications such as the library of contemporary philosophy, and the international scientific series. he was elected nov. as republican and anti-clerical member of the municipal council of paris. bain (alexander) ll.d. scotch philosopher, b. at aberdeen in . he began life as a weaver but studied at marischal college - , and graduated m.a. in . he then began to contribute to the westminster review, and became acquainted with john stuart mill, whose logic he discussed in manuscript. in he published the senses and the intellect, and in the emotions and the will, constituting together a systematic exposition of the human mind. from to he occupied the chair of logic in the university of aberdeen, his accession being most obnoxious to the orthodox, and provoking disorder among the students. in he received the degree of ll.d. in addition to numerous educational works dr. bain published a compendium of mental and moral science ( ), mind and body ( ), and education as a science ( ), for the international scientific series. in he published james mill, a biography, and john stuart mill: a criticism, with personal recollections. in he was elected lord rector of the university of aberdeen, and this honor was renewed in , in which year he published practical essays. bainham (james), martyr. he married the widow of simon fish, author of the supplycacion of beggars, an attack upon the clergy of the period. in he was accused of heresy, having among other things denied transubstantiation, the confessional, and "the power of the keys." it was asserted that he had said that he would as lief pray to his wife as to "our lady," and that christ was but a man. this he denied, but admitted holding the salvation of unbelievers. he was burnt april, . baissac (jules), french littérateur, b. vans, , author of several studies in philology and mythology. in he published les origines de la religion in three volumes, which have the honor of being put upon the roman index. this was followed by l'age de dieu, a study of cosmical periods and the feast of easter. in he began to publish histoire de la diablerie chrétienne, the first part of which is devoted to the person and "personnel" of the devil. bakunin (mikhail aleksandrovich), russian nihilist, b. torshok (tver) , of an ancient aristocratic family. he was educated at st. petersburg, and entered as an ensign in the artillery. here he became embued with revolutionary ideas. he went to berlin in , studied the hegelian philosophy, and published some philosophical writings under the name of jules elisard. in ' he visited paris and became a disciple of proudhon. in ' he was expelled from france at the demand of russia, whose government set the price of , silver roubles on his head, went to dresden and became a member of the insurrectionary government. he was arrested and condemned to death, may ' , but his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. he escaped into austria, was again captured and sentenced to death, but was handed over to russia and deported to siberia. after several years' penal servitude he escaped, travelled over a thousand miles under extreme hardship, reached the sea and sailed to japan. thence he sailed to california, thence to new york and london, where with herzen he published the kolokol. he took part in the establishment of the international society, but being at issue with karl marx abandoned that body in . he died at berne july , leaving behind a work on god and the state, both being vigorously attacked. laveleye writes of him as "the apostle of universal destruction." ball (william platt), b. at birmingham nov. . educated at birkbeck school, london. became schoolmaster but retired rather than teach religious doctrines. matriculated at london university . taught pyrotechny in the sultan's service - . received the order of the medjidieh after narrow escape from death by the bursting of a mortar. upon his return published poems from turkey ( ). mr. ball has contributed to the national reformer since and since has been on the staff of the freethinker. he has published pamphlets on religion in schools, the ten commandments and mrs besant's socialism, and has compiled with mr. foote the bible handbook. mr. ball is a close thinker and a firm supporter of evolutional malthusianism, which he has ably defended in the pages of progress. he has of late been engaged upon the question: are the effects of use and disuse inherited? ballance (john), new zealand statesman, b. glenary, antrim, ireland, march . going out to new zealand he became a journalist and started the wanganui herald. he entered parliament in and became colonial treasurer in ' . with sir robert stout he has been a great support to the freethought cause in new zealand. baltzer (wilhelm eduard). german rationalist, b. oct. , at hohenleine in saxony. he was educated as a protestant minister, but resigned and founded at nordhausen in a free community. he took part in the parliament of frankfort in ' ; has translated the life of apollonius of tyana, and is the author of a history of religion and numerous other works. died june, . bancel (françois désiré). french politician, b. le mastre, feb. . became an advocate. in , he was elected to the legislative assembly. after the coup d'état he retired to brussels, where he became professor at the university. in he was elected deputy at paris in opposition to m. ollivier. he translated the work on rationalism by ausonio franchi, and wrote on mysteries, , besides many political works. died june, . barbier (edmond). french translator of the works of darwin, lubbock, and tylor. died . barbier d'aucour (jean). french critic and academician, b. langres, . most of his writings are directed against the jesuits. died paris, sept. . barlow (george). poet, b. in london, june, . in his volumes, under the dawn and poems, real and ideal, he gives utterance to many freethought sentiments. barlow (joel). american statesman, writer and poet, b. reading, connecticut, march, . served as a volunteer in the revolutionary war, became a chaplain, but resigned that profession, taking to literature. in england, in , he published advice to the privileged orders. in france he translated volney's ruins of empires, and contributed to the political literature of the revolution. paine entrusted him with the ms. of the first part of the age of reason. his chief work is entitled the columbiad, . he was sent as minister to france, , and being involved in the misfortunes following the retreat from moscow, died near cracow, poland, dec. . barni (jules romain). french philosophic writer, b. lille, june, . he became secretary to victor cousin, and translated the works of kant into french. he contributed to la liberté de penser ( - ) and to l'avenir ( ). during the empire he lived in switzerland and published martyrs de la libre pensée ( ), la morale dans la démocratie ( ), and a work on the french moralists of the eighteenth century ( ). he was elected to the national assembly, ; and to the chamber of deputies, . died at mers, july, . a statue is erected to him at amiens. barnout (hippolyte). french architect and writer, b. paris , published a rational calendar and . in may he established a journal entitled l'athée, the atheist, which the clerical journals declared drew god's vengeance upon france. he is also author of a work on aerial navigation. barot (françois odysse). french writer, b. at mirabeau . he has been a journalist on several radical papers, was secretary to gustave flourens, and has written on the birth of jesus ( ) and contemporary literature in england ( ). barrett (thomas squire). born sept. , of quaker parents, both grandfathers being ministers of that body; educated at queenwood college, obtained diploma of associate in arts from oxford with honors in natural science and mathematics, contributed to the national reformer between and , published an acute examination of gillespie's argument, à priori, for the existence of god ( ), which in reached a second edition. he also wrote a new view of causation ( ), and an introduction to logic and metyphysics ( ). mr. barrett has been hon. sec. of the london dialectical society, and edited a short-lived publication, the present day, . barrier (f. m.). french fourierist, b. saint etienne , became professor of medicine at lyons, wrote a sketch of the analogy of man and humanity (lyons ), and principles of sociology (paris ), and an abridgment of this entitled catechism of liberal and rational socialism. died montfort-l'amaury . barrillot (françois). french author, b. of poor parents at lyons in . an orphan at seven years of age, he learnt to read from shop signs, and became a printer and journalist. many of his songs and satires acquired popularity. he has also wrote a letter to pope pius ix. on the oecumenical council ( ), signed jean populus, and a philosophical work entitled love is god. died at paris, dec. . barthez (paul joseph), french physician, b. montpelier dec. . a friend of d'alembert, he became associate editor of the journal des savants and encyclopédie méthodique. he was made consulting physician to the king and a councillor of state. shown by the archbishop of sens a number of works relating to the rites of his see he said, "these are the ceremonies of sens, but can you show me the sense [sens] of ceremonies." his principal work is new elements of the science of man. died oct. . basedow (johann bernhard), german rationalist and educational reformer, b. at hamburg sept. . he studied theology at leipsic, became professor at the academy of sora, in denmark, - , and at altona, - . while here he published philalethea, the grounds of religion, and other heterodox works, which excited so much prejudice that he was in danger of being stoned. he devoted much attention to improving methods of teaching. died at magdeburg july, . baskerville (john), famous printer, b. sion hill, wolverley, worcestershire, jan. . lived at birmingham. he was at first a stone-mason, then made money as an artistic japanner, and devoted it to perfecting the art of type-founding and printing. as a printer-publisher he produced at his own risk beautiful editions of milton, addison, shaftesbury, congreve, virgil, horace, lucretius, terence, etc. he was made printer to cambridge university . wilkes once visited him and was "shocked at his infidelity" (!) he died jan. , and was buried in a tomb in his own garden. he had designed a monumental urn with this inscription: "stranger, beneath this cone in unconsecrated ground a friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inurned. may the example contribute to emancipate thy mind from the idle fears of superstition and the wicked arts of priesthood." his will expresses the utmost contempt for christianity. his type was appropriately purchased to produce a complete edition of voltaire. bassus (aufidus). an epicurean philosopher and friend of seneca in the time of nero. seneca praises his patience and courage in the presence of death. bate (frederick), socialist, author of the student , a drama in which the author's sceptical views are put forward. mr. bate was one of the founders of the social experiment at new harmony, now queenswood college, hants, and engraved a view representing the owenite scheme of community. baudelaire (charles pierre), french poet, b. paris, april , the son of a distinguished friend of cabanis and condorcet. he first became famous by the publication of fleurs du mal, , in which appeared les litanies de satan. the work was prosecuted and suppressed. baudelaire translated some of the writings of e. a. poe, a poet whom he resembled much in life and character. the divine beauty of his face has been celebrated by the french poet, théodore de banville, and his genius in some magnificent stanzas by the english poet, algernon swinburne. died paris aug. . baudon (p. l.), french author of a work on the christian superstition, published at brussels in and dedicated to bishop dupanloup under the pseudonym of "aristide." bauer (bruno), one of the boldest biblical critics of germany, b. eisenberg, sept. . educated at the university of berlin, in he received a professorship of theology. he first attained celebrity by a review of the life of jesus by strauss ( ). this was followed by his journal of speculative theology and critical exposition of the religion of the old testament. he then proceeded to a review of the gospel history, upon the publication of which ( ) he was deprived of his professorship at bonn. to this followed christianity unveiled ( ), which was destroyed at zurich before its publication. this work continued his opposition to religion, which was carried still further in ironical style in his proclamation of the day of judgement concerning hegel the atheist. bauer's heresy deepened with age, and in his review of the gospels and history of their origin ( ), to which apostolical history is a supplement, he attacked the historical truth of the new testament narratives. in his review of the epistles attributed to st. paul ( ) he tries to show that the first four epistles, which had hardly ever before been questioned, were not written by paul, but are the production of the second century. in his christ and the cæsars he shows the influence of seneca and greco-roman thought upon early christianity. he died near berlin, april, . bauer (edgar), b. charlottenburg, oct. , brother of the preceding, collaborated in some of his works. his brochure entitled bruno bauer and his opponents ( ) was seized by the police. for his next publication, the strife of criticism with church and state ( ), he was imprisoned for four years. he has also written on english freedom, capital, etc. baume-desdossat (jacques françois, de la), b. , a canon of avignon who wrote la christiade ( ), a satire on the gospels, in which jesus is tempted by mary magdalene. it was suppressed by the french parliament and the author fined. he died april, . baur (ferdinand christian von), distinguished theological critic, b. june, , near stuttgart. his father was a clergyman. he was educated at tübingen, where in he became professor of church history. baur is the author of numerous works on dogmatic and historic theology, in which he subverts all the fundamental positions of christianity. he was an hegelian pantheist. among his more important works are christianity and the church in the first three centuries and paul: his life and works. these are translated into english. he acknowledges only four of the epistles of paul and the revelation as genuine products of the apostolic age, and shows how very far from simplicity were the times and doctrines of primitive christianity. after a life of great literary activity he died at tübingen, dec. . bayle (pierre), learned french writer, b. nov. , at carlat, france, where his father was a protestant minister. he was converted to romanism while studying at the jesuit college, toulouse, . his romanism only lasted seventeen months. he abjured, and fled to switzerland, becoming a sceptic, as is evident from thoughts on the comet, in which he compares the supposed mischiefs of atheism with those of fanaticism, and from many articles in his famous dictionnaire critique, a work still of value for its curious learning and shrewd observation. in his journal nouvelles de la république des lettres he advocates religious toleration on the ground of the difficulty of distinguishing truth from error. his criticism of maimbourg's history of calvinism was ordered to be burnt by the hangman. jurieu persecuted him, and he was ordered to be more careful in preparing the second edition of his dictionary. he died at rotterdam, dec. . bayle has been called the father of free discussion in modern times. bayrhoffer (karl theodor), german philosopher, b. marburg, oct., , wrote the idea and history of philosophy ( ), took part in the revolution of ' , emigrated to america, and wrote many polemical works. died near monroe, wisconsin, feb. . beauchamp (philip). see bentham and grote. beausobre (louis de), b. at berlin, aug. , was adopted by frederick the great out of esteem for his father, isaac beausobre, the author of the history of manicheanism. he was educated first at frankfort-on-oder, then at paris. he wrote on the scepticism of the wise (pyrrhonisme du sage, berlin, ), a work condemned to be burnt by the parliament of paris. he also wrote anonymously the dreams of epicurus, and an essay on happiness (berlin, ), reprinted with the social system of holbach in . died at berlin, dec. . bebel (ferdinand august). german socialist, b. cologne, feb. . brought up as a turner in leipsic. since ' , he became distinguished as an exponent of social democracy, and was elected to the german reichstag in ' . in the following year he was condemned ( march) to two years' imprisonment for high treason. he was re-elected in ' . his principal work is woman in the past, present and future which is translated by h. b. a. walther, . he has also written on the mohammedan culture period ( ) and on christianity and socialism. beccaria (bonesana cesare), an italian marquis and writer, b. at milan, march, . a friend of voltaire, who praised his treatise on crimes and punishments ( ), a work which did much to improve the criminal codes of europe. died milan, nov. . beesly (edward spencer), positivist, b. feckenham, worcestershire, . educated at wadham college, oxford, where he took b.a. in , and m.a. in ' . appointed professor of history, university college, london, in . he is one of the translators of comte's system of positive polity, and has published several pamphlets on political and social questions. beethoven (ludwig van), one of the greatest of musical composers, b. bonn dec. . his genius early displayed itself, and at the age of five he was set to study the works of handel and bach. his many compositions are the glory of music. they include an opera "fidelio," two masses, oratorios, symphonies, concertos, overtures and sonatas, and are characterised by penetrating power, rich imagination, intense passion, and tenderness. when about the age of forty he became totally deaf, but continued to compose till his death at vienna, march, . he regarded goethe with much the same esteem as wagner showed for schopenhauer, but he disliked his courtliness. his republican sentiments are well known, and sir george macfarren, in his life in the imperial dictionary of universal biography, speaks of him as a "freethinker," and says the remarkable mass in c. "might scarcely have proceeded from an entirely orthodox thinker." sir george grove, in his dictionary of music and musicians, says: "formal religion he apparently had none," and "the bible does not appear to have been one of his favorite books." at the end of his arrangement of "fidelio" moscheles had written, "fine. with god's help." to this beethoven added, "o man, help thyself." bekker (balthasar), dutch rationalist, b. metslawier (friesland) march, . he studied at gronigen, became a doctor of divinity, and lived at francker, but was accused of socinianism, and had to fly to amsterdam, where he raised another storm by his world bewitched ( ), a work in which witchcraft and the power of demons are denied. his book, which contains much curious information, raised a host of adversaries, and he was deposed from his place in the church. it appeared in english in . died, amsterdam, june, . bekker was remarkably ugly, and he is said to have "looked like the devil, though he did not believe in him." belinsky (vissarion grigorevich), russian critic, b. pensa , educated at pensa and moscow, adopted the pantheistic philosophy of hegel and schelling. died st. petersburg, may, . his works were issued in volumes, - . bell (thomas evans), major in madras army, which he entered in . he was employed in the suppression of thugee. he wrote the task of to-day, , and assisted the reasoner, both with pen and purse, writing over the signature "undecimus." he contemplated selling his commission to devote himself to freethought propaganda, but by the advice of his friends was deterred. he returned to india at the mutiny. in january, , he became deputy-commissioner of police at madras. he retired in july, , and has written many works on indian affairs. died sept. . bell (william s.), b. in allegheny city, pennsylvania, feb. . brought up as a methodist minister, was denounced for mixing politics with religion, and for his anti-slavery views. in he preached in the universalist church of new bedford, but in dec. ' , renounced christianity and has since been a freethought lecturer. he has published a little book on the french revolution, and some pamphlets. bender (wilhelm), german rationalist, professor of theology at bonn, b. jan. , who created a sensation at the luther centenary, , by declaring that the work of the reformation was incompleted and must be carried on by the rationalists. bennett (de robigne mortimer), founder and editor of the new york truthseeker, b. of poor parents, springfield (n.y.), dec. . at the age of fifteen he joined the shaker society in new lebanon. here he stayed thirteen years and then married. having lost faith in the shaker creed, he went to louisville, kentucky, where he started a drug store. the perusal of paine, volney, and similar works made him a freethinker. in , his letters to a local journal in answer to some ministers having been refused, he resolved to start a paper of his own. the result was the truthseeker, which in january, became a weekly, and has since become one of the principal freethought organs in america. in he was sentenced to thirteen months' imprisonment for sending through the post a pamphlet by ezra h. heywood on the marriage question. a tract, entitled an open letter to jesus christ, was read in court to bias the jury. a petition bearing , names was presented to president hayes asking his release, but was not acceded to. upon his release his admirers sent him for a voyage round the world. he wrote a truthseeker's voyage round the world, letters from albany penitentiary, answers to christian questions and arguments, two large volumes on the gods, another on the world's sages, infidels and thinkers, and published his discussions with humphrey, mair, and teed, and numerous tracts. he died dec. . bentham (jeremy), writer on ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy, b. feb. . a grand uncle named woodward was the publisher of tindal's christianity as old as the creation. was educated at westminster and oxford, where he graduated m.a. . bentham is justly regarded as the father of the school of philosophical radicalism. in philosophy he is the great teacher of utilitarianism; as a jurist he did much to disclose the defects of and improve our system of law. macaulay says he "found jurisprudence a gibberish and left it a science." his most pronounced freethought work was that written in conjunction with grote, published as an analysis of the influence of natural religion, by philip beauchamp, . among his numerous other works we can only mention deontology, or the science of mortality, an exposition of utilitarianism; church of englandism and its catechism examined; not paul, but jesus, published under the pseudonym of gamaliel smith. died june, , leaving his body for the purposes of science. béranger (jean pierre de), celebrated french lyrical poet, b. paris, aug. . his satire on the bourbons twice ensured for him imprisonment. he was elected to the constituant assembly . béranger has been compared not inaptly to burns. all his songs breathe the spirit of liberty, and several have been characterised as impious. he died july, . bergel (joseph), jewish rationalist, author of heaven and its wonders, leipsic, , and mythology of the ancient hebrews, . berger (moriz), author of a work on materialism in conflict with spiritualism and idealism, trieste, . bergerac de (savinien cyrano). see cyrano. bergk (johann adam), german philosopher, b. hainechen, zeitz, june, ; became a private teacher at leipsic and wrote many works, both under his own name and pseudonyms. he published the art of thinking, leipsic, , conducted the asiatic magazine, , and wrote under the name of frey the true religion, "recommended to rationalists and destined for the radical cure of supernaturalists, mystics, etc." died leipsic, oct. . bergk (theodor), german humanist, son of the above, b. leipsic, may, , author of a good history of greek literature, . berigardus (claudius), or beauregard (claude guillermet), french physician and philosopher, b. at moulins about . he became a professor at pisa from till , and then went to padua. his circulus pisanus, published in , was considered an atheistic work. in the form of a dialogue he exhibits the various hypotheses of the formation of the world. the work was forbidden and is very rare. his book entitled dubitationes in dialogum galilæi, also brought on him a charge of scepticism. died in . berkenhout (dr. john), physician and miscellaneous writer, b. , the son of a dutch merchant who settled at leeds. in early life he had been a captain both in the prussian and english service, and in took his m.d. degree at leyden. he published many books on medical science, a synopsis of the natural history of great britain and ireland, and several humorous pieces, anonymously. his principal work is entitled biographia literaria, a biographical history of english literature, . throughout the work he loses no opportunity of displaying his hostility to the theologians, and is loud in his praises of voltaire. died april, . berlioz (louis hector). the most original of french musical composers, b. isère, dec. . he obtained fame by his dramatic symphony of romeo and juliet ( ), and was made chevalier of the legion of honor. among his works is one on the infancy of christ. in his memoirs he relates how he scandalised mendelssohn "by laughing at the bible." died paris, march, . bernard (claude), french physiologist, b. saint julien july, . went to paris , studied medicine, became member of the institute and professor at the museum of natural history, wrote la science experimentale, and other works on physiology. died feb. , and was buried at the expense of the republic. paul bert calls him the introducer of determinism in the domain of physiology. bernier (abbé). see holbach. bernier (françois), french physician and traveller, b. angers about . he was a pupil of gassendi, whose works he abridged, and he defended descartes against the theologians. he is known as le joli philsophe. in he went to syria and egypt, and from thence to india, where he became physician to aurungzebe. on his return he published an account of his travels and of the empire of the great mogul, and died at paris sept. . bernstein (aaron), a rationalist, b. of jewish parents dantzic . his first work was a translation of the song of songs, published under the pseudonym of a. rebenstein ( ). he devoted himself to natural science and published works on the rotation of planets, humboldt and the spirit of the time, etc. his essay on the origin of the legends of abraham, isaac, and jacob was translated by a german lady and published by thomas scott of ramsgate ( ). died berlin, feb. . berquin (louis de), french martyr, b. in artois, . erasmus, his friend, says his great crime was openly professing hatred of the monks. in his works were ordered to be burnt, and he was commanded to abjure his heresies. sentence of perpetual banishment was pronounced on him on april , . he immediately appealed to the parliament. his appeal was heard and rejected on the morning of the th. the parliament reformed the judgment and condemned him to be burnt alive, and the sentence was carried out on the same afternoon at the place de la grève. he died with great constancy and resolution. bert (paul), french scientist and statesman, b. at auxerre, oct. . in paris he studied both law and medicine, and after being professor in the faculty of science at bordeaux, he in obtained the chair of physiology in the faculty of science at paris, and distinguished himself by his scientific experiments. in ' he offered his services to the government of national defence, and in ' was elected to the national assembly, where he signalised himself by his radical opinions. gambetta recognised his worth and made him minister of public instruction, in which capacity he organised french education on a secular basis. his first year of scientific instruction is almost universally used in the french primary schools. it has been translated into english by josephine clayton (madame paul bert). his strong anti-clerical views induced much opposition. he published several scientific and educational works and attacked the morality of the jesuits, ' . in ' he was appointed french resident minister at tonquin, where he died nov. ' . his body was brought over to france and given a state funeral, a pension being also accorded to his widow. bertani (agostino), italian patriot, b. oct. , became a physician at genoa, took part with garibaldi and mazzini, organising the ambulance services. a declared freethinker, he was elected deputy to the italian parliament. died rome april, ' . berti (antonio), italian physician, b. venice june, . author of many scientific works, member of the venice municipal council and of the italian senate. died venice march, . bertillon (louis adolphe), french anthropologist and physician, b. paris april, . his principal work is a statistical study of the french population, paris ' . he edits in conjunction with a. hovelacque and others, the dictionary of the anthropological sciences (' etc.) his sons, jacques (b. ' ) and alphonse (b. ' ), prosecute similar studies. bertrand de saint-germain (guillaume scipion), french physician, b. puy-en-velay oct. . became m.d. , wrote on the original diversity of human races ( ), and a materialistic work on manifestation of life and intelligence through organisation, . has also written on descartes as a physiologist, . berwick (george j.) m.d., appointed surgeon to the east india company in , retired in ' . author of awas-i-hind, or a voice from the ganges; being a solution of the true source of christianity. by an indian officer; london, . also of a work on the forces of the universe, ' . died about . besant (annie) née wood. b. london, oct. . educated in evangelicalism by miss marryat, sister of novelist, but turned to the high church by reading pusey and others. in "holy week" of she resolved to write the story of the week from the gospel. their contradictions startled her but she regarded her doubts as sin. in dec. ' she married the rev. f. besant, and read and wrote extensively. the torment a child underwent in whooping-cough caused doubts as to the goodness of god. a study of greg's creed of christendom and arnold's literature and dogma increased her scepticism. she became acquainted with the rev. c. voysey and thomas scott, for whom she wrote an essay on the deity of jesus of nazareth, "by the wife of a beneficed clergyman." this led to her husband insisting on her taking communion or leaving. she chose the latter course, taking by agreement her daughter with her. thrown on her own resources, she wrote further tracts for mr. scott, reprinted in my path to atheism (' ). joined the national secular society, and in ' wrote in the national reformer over the signature of "ajax." next year she took to the platform and being naturally eloquent soon won her way to the front rank as a freethought lecturess, and became joint editor of the national reformer. some lectures on the french revolution were republished in book form. in april, ' , she was arrested with mr. bradlaugh for publishing the fruits of philosophy. after a brilliant defence, the jury exonerated the defendants from any corrupt motives, and although they were sentenced the indictment was quashed in feb. ' , and the case was not renewed. in may, ' , a petition in chancery was presented to deprive mrs. besant of her child on the ground of her atheistic and malthusian views. sir g. jessell granted the petition. in ' mrs. besant matriculated at the london university and took st b.sc. with honors in ' . she has debated much and issued many pamphlets to be found in theological essays and debates. she wrote the second part of the freethinkers' text book dealing with christian evidence; has written on the sins of the church, , and the evolution of society. she has translated jules soury's religion of israel, and jesus of the gospels; dr. l. büchner on the influence of heredity and mind in animals, and from the fifteenth edition of force and matter. from ' to ' she edited our corner, and since ' has given much time to socialist propaganda, and has written many socialist pamphlets. in dec. ' , mrs. besant was elected a member of the london school board. beverland (hadrianus), dutch classical scholar and nephew of isaac vossius, b. middleburg . he took the degree of doctor of law and became an advocate, but devoted himself to literature. he was at the university of oxford in . his treatise on original sin, peccatum originale (eleutheropoli, ), in which he contends that the sin of adam and eve was sexual inclination, caused a great outcry. it was burnt, beverland was imprisoned and his name struck from the rolls of leyden university. he wrote some other curious works and died about . bevington (louisa s.), afterwards guggenberger; english poetess and authoress of key notes, ; poems, lyrics and sonnets, ' ; wrote "modern atheism and mr. mallock" in the nineteenth century (oct. and dec. ' ), and on "the moral demerits of orthodoxy" in progress, sept. ' . beyle (marie henri), french man of letters, famous under the name of de stendhal, b. grenoble, jan. . painter, soldier, merchant and consul, he travelled largely, a wandering life being congenial to his broad and sceptical spirit. his book, de l'amour is his most notable work. he was an original and gifted critic and romancer. balzac esteemed him highly. he died at paris, march, . prosper merimée has published his correspondence. one of his sayings was "ce qui excuse dieu, c'est qu'il n'existe pas"--god's excuse is that he does not exist. bianchi (angelo), known as bianchi-giovini (aurelio) italian man of letters, b. of poor parents at como, nov. . he conducted several papers in various parts of piedmont and switzerland. his life of father paoli sarpi, , was put on the index, and thenceforward he was in constant strife with the roman church. for his attacks on the clergy in il republicano, at lugano, he was proscribed, and had to seek refuge at zurich, . he went thence to milan and there wrote a history of the hebrews, a monograph on pope joan, and an account of the revolution. his principal works are the history of the popes until the great schism of the west (turin, - ) and a criticism of the gospels, , which has gone through several editions. died may, . biandrata or blandrata (giorgio), italian anti-trinitarian reformer, b. saluzzo about . graduated in arts and medicine at montpellier, . he was thrown into the prison of the inquisition at pavia, but contrived to escape to geneva, where he become obnoxious to calvin. he left geneva in and went to poland where he became a leader of the socinian party. he was assassinated . bichat (marie françois xavier), a famous french anatomist and physiologist, b. thoirette (jura), nov. . his work on the physiology of life and death was translated into english. he died a martyr to his zeal for science, july, . biddle or bidle (john), called the father of english unitarianism, b. wotton-under-edge, gloucestershire, jan. . he took his m.a. degree at oxford, , and became master of the gloucester grammar school, but lost the situation for denying the trinity. he was also imprisoned there for some time, and afterwards cited at westminster. he appealed to the public in defence, and his pamphlet was ordered to be burnt by the hangman, sept. . he was detained in prison till , after which he published several pamphlets, and was again imprisoned in . in oct. , cromwell banished him to the scilly isles, making him an allowance. he returned to london , but after the publication of the acts of uniformity was again seized, and died in prison sept. . bierce (m. h.) see grile (dod). billaud-varenne (jean nicolas), french conventionalist b. la rochelle, april, . about became advocate to parliament; denounced the government and clergy . proposed abolition of the monarchy july, , and wrote elements of republicanism, . withdrew from robespierre after the feast of the supreme being, saying "thou beginnest to sicken me with thy supreme being." was exiled april, , and died at st. domingo, june, . bion, of borysthenes, near the mouth of the dneiper. a scythian philosopher who flourished about b.c. he was sold as a slave to a rhetorician, who afterwards gave him freedom and made him his heir. upon this he went to athens and applied himself to the study of philosophy. he had several teachers, but attached himself to theodorus the atheist. he was famous for his knowledge of music, poetry, and philosophy. some shrewd sayings of his are preserved, as that "only the votive tablets of the preserved are seen in the temples, not those of the drowned" and "it is useless to tear our hair when in grief since sorrow is not cured by baldness." birch (william john), english freethinker, b. london jan. . educated at baliol college, oxford, graduated m.a. at new inn hall. author of an inquiry into the philosophy and religion of shakespeare, ; an inquiry into the philosophy and religion of the bible, ; this work was translated into dutch by "rudolf charles;" paul an idea, not a fact; and the real and ideal. in the stormy time of ' mr. birch did much to support the prosecuted publications. he brought out the library of reason and supported the reasoner and investigator with both pen and purse. mr. birch has resided much in italy and proved himself a friend to italian unity and freedom. he is a member of the italian asiatic society. mr. birch has been a contributor to notes and queries and other journals, and has devoted much attention to the early days of christianity, having many manuscripts upon the subject. bithell (richard), agnostic, b. lewes, sussex, march , of pious parents. became teacher of mathematics and chemistry. is ph.d. of gottingen and b.sc. of london university. in ' he entered the service of the rothschilds. has written creed of a modern agnostic, ; and agnostic problems, . björnson (björnstjerne), norwegian writer, b. quickne dec. . his father was a lutheran clergyman. has done much to create a national literature for norway. for his freethinking opinions he was obliged to leave his country and reside in paris. many of his tales have been translated into english. in björnson published at christiania, with a short introduction, a resumé of c. b. waite's history of the christian religion, under the title of whence come the miracles of the new testament? this was the first attack upon dogmatic christianity published in norway, and created much discussion. the following year he published a translation of colonel ingersoll's article in the north american review upon the "christian religion," with a long preface, in which he attacks the state church and monarchy. the translation was entitled think for yourself. the first edition rapidly sold out and a second one appeared. he has since, both in speech and writing, repeatedly avowed his freethought, and has had several controversies with the clergy. blagosvyetlov (grigorevich e.), russian author, b. in the caucasus, . has written on shelley, buckle, and mill, whose subjection of women he translated into russian. he edited a magazine djelo (cause). died about . blanqui (louis auguste), french politician, b. near nice, feb. , a younger brother of jerome adolphe blanqui, the economist. becoming a communist, his life was spent in conspiracy and imprisonment under successive governments. in ' he was condemned to death, but his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life, and was subject to brutal treatment till the revolution of ' set him at liberty. he was soon again imprisoned. in ' he wrote some remarkable articles on monotheism in le candide. after the revolution of sept. ' , blanqui demanded the suppression of worship. he was again imprisoned, but was liberated and elected member of the commune, and arrested by thiers. in his last imprisonment he wrote a curious book, eternity and the stars, in which he argues from the eternity and infinity of matter. died paris, dec. . blanqui took as his motto "ni dieu ni maître"--neither god nor master. blasche (bernhard heinrich), german pantheist, b. jena april, . his father was a professor of theology and philosophy. he wrote kritik des modernen geisterglaubens (criticism of modern ghost belief), philosophische unsterblichkeitslehre (teaching of philosophical immortality), and other works. died near gotha nov. . blignieres (célestin de), french positivist, of the polytechnic school. has written a popular exposition of positive philosophy and religion, paris ; the positive doctrine, ; studies of positive morality, ; and other works. blind (karl), german republican, b. mannheim, sept. . studied at heidelberg and bonn. in he became a revolutionary leader among the students and populace, was wounded at frankfort, and proscribed. in sept. ' he led the second republican revolution in the black forest. he was made prisoner and sentenced to eight year's imprisonment. in the spring of ' he was liberated by the people breaking open his prison. being sent on a mission to louis napoleon, then president of the french republic at paris, he was arrested and banished from france. he went to brussels, but since ' has lived in in england, where he has written largely on politics, history, and mythology. his daughter mathilde, b. at mannheim, opened her literary career by publishing a volume of poems in under the name of claude lake. she has since translated straus's old faith and the new, and written the volumes on george eliot and madame roland in the eminent women series. blount (charles), english deist of noble family, b. at holloway april, . his father, sir henry blount, probably shared in his opinions, and helped him in his anti-religious work, anima mundi, . this work bishop compton desired to see suppressed. in he published great is diana of the ephesians, or the origin of idolatry, and the two first books of apollonius tyanius, with notes, in which he attacks priestcraft and superstition. this work was condemned and suppressed. blount also published the oracles of reason, a number of freethought essays. by his vindication of learning and liberty of the press, and still more by his hoax on bohun entitled william and mary conquerors, he was largely instrumental in doing away with the censorship of the press. he shot himself, it is said, because he could not marry his deceased wife's sister (august, ). his miscellaneous works were printed in one volume, . blumenfeld (j. c.), wrote the new ecce homo or the self redemption of man, . he is also credited with the authorship of the existence of christ disproved in a series of letters by "a german jew," london, . boerne (ludwig), german man of letters and politician, b. frankfort may, . in he gave up the jewish religion, in which he had been bred, nominally for protestantism, but really he had, like his friend heine, become a freethinker. he wrote many works in favor of political liberty and translated lammenais' paroles d'un croyant. died feb. . bodin (jean), french political writer, b. angers . he studied at toulouse and is said to have been a monk but turned to the law, and became secretary to the duc d'alençon. his book de la republique is highly praised by hallam, and is said to have contained the germ of montesquieu's "spirit of the laws." he wrote a work on demonomania, in which he seems to have believed, but in his colloquium heptaplomeron coloquies of seven persons: a catholic, a lutheran, a calvinist, a pagan, a muhammadan, a jew, and a deist, which he left in manuscript, he put some severe attacks on christianity. died of the plague at laon in . boggis (john) is mentioned by edwards in his gangrena, , as an atheist and disbeliever in the bible. boichot (jean baptiste), b. villier sur suize aug. , entered the army. in ' he was chosen representative of the people. after the coup d'état he came to england, returned to france in ' , was arrested and imprisoned at belle isle. since then he has lived at brussels, where he has written several works and is one of the council of international freethinkers. boindin (nicolas) french litterateur, wit, playwright and academician, b. paris may, . he publicly professed atheism, and resorted with other freethinkers to the famous café procope. there, in order to speak freely, they called the soul margot, religion javotte, liberty jeanneton, and god m. de l'etre. one day a spy asked boindin, "who is this m. de l'etre with whom you seem so displeased?" "monsieur," replied boindin, "he is a police spy." died nov. . his corpse was refused "christian burial." boissiere (jean baptiste prudence), french writer, b. valognes dec. , was for a time teacher in england. he compiled an analogical dictionary of the french language. under the name of sièrebois he has published the autopsy of the soul and a work on the foundations of morality, which he traces to interest. he has also written a book entitled the mechanism of thought, ' . boissonade (j. a.), author of the bible unveiled, paris, . boito (arrigo), italian poet and musician, b. at padua, whose opera "mefistofele," has created considerable sensation by its boldness. bolingbroke (henry saint john) lord, english statesman and philosopher, b. at battersea, oct. . his political life was a stormy one. he was the friend of swift and of pope, who in his essay on man avowedly puts forward the views of saint john. he died at battersea dec. , leaving by will his mss. to david mallet, who in published his works, which included essays written to a. pope, esq., on religion and philosophy, in which he attacks christianity with both wit and eloquence. bolingbroke was a deist, believing in god but scornfully rejecting revelation. he much influenced voltaire, who regarded him with esteem. bonavino (francesco cristoforo) see franchi (ausonio). boni (filippo de), italian man of letters, b. feltre, . editor of a standard biography of artists, published at venice, . he also wrote on the roman church and italy and on reason and dogma, siena, ' , and contributed to stefanoni's libero pensiero. de boni was elected deputy to the italian parliament. he has written on "italian unbelief in the middle ages" in the annuario filosofico del libero pensiero, ' . boniface viii., pope (benedetto gaetano), elected head of christendom, dec. . during his quarrel with philip the fair of france charges were sworn on oath against pope boniface that he neither believed in the trinity nor in the life to come, that he said the virgin mary "was no more a virgin than my mother"; that he did not observe the fasts of the church, and that he spoke of the cardinals, monks, and friars as hypocrites. it was in evidence that the pope had said "god may do the worst with me that he pleases in the future life; i believe as every educated man does, the vulgar believe otherwise. we have to speak as they do, but we must believe and think with the few." died oct. . bonnycastle (john), mathematician, b. whitchurch, bucks, about . he wrote several works on elementary mathematics and became professor of mathematics at the royal military academy, woolwich, where he died may, . he was a friend of fuseli, and private information assures me he was a freethinker. booms (marinus adriaansz), dutch spinozist, a shoemaker by trade, who wrote early in the eighteenth century, and on jan. , was banished. bonnot de condillac (etienne) see condillac. bonstetten (karl victor von), swiss deist, b. berne, sept . acquainted with voltaire and rousseau he went to leyden and england to finish his education. among his works are researches on the nature and laws of the imagination, ; and studies on man, . died geneva, feb. . borde (frédéric), editor of la philosophie de l'avenir, paris, , etc. born la rochelle . has written on liberty of instruction, etc. born (ignaz von) baron, b. carlsruhe, dec. . bred by the jesuits, he became an ardent scientist and a favorite of the empress marie theresa, under whose patronage he published works on mineralogy. he was active as a freemason, and illuminati, and published with the name joannes physiophilus a stinging illustrated satire entitled monchalogia, or the natural history of monks. bosc (louis augustin guillaume), french naturalist, b. paris, jan. ; was tutor and friend to madame roland whose memoirs he published. he wrote many works on natural history. died july, . boucher (e. martin), french writer, b. beaulieu, ; contributed to the rationalist of geneva, where he died . author of a work on revelation and rationalism, entitled search for the truth, avignon, . bougainville (louis antoine de) count, the first french voyager who made the tour around the world; b. paris, nov. . died aug. . he wrote an interesting account of his travels. bouillier (francisque), french philosopher, b. lyons july , has written several works on psychology, and contributed to la liberté de penser. his principal work is a history of the cartesian philosophy. he is a member of the institute and writes in the leading reviews. bouis (casimir), french journalist, b. toulon , edited la libre pensée and wrote a satire on the jesuits entitled calottes et soutanes, . sent to new caledonia for his participation in the commune, he has since his return published a volume of political verses entitled après le naufrage, after the shipwreck, . boulainvilliers (henri de), comte de st. saire, french historian and philosopher, b. oct. . his principal historical work is an account of the ancient french parliaments. he also wrote a defence of spinozism under pretence of a refutation of spinoza, an analysis of spinoza's tractus theologico-politicus, printed at the end of doubts upon religion, londres, . a life of muhammad, the first european work doing justice to islam, and a history of the arabs also proceeded from his pen, and he is one of those to whom is attributed the treatise with the title of the three impostors, . died jan. . boulanger (nicolas-antoine), french deist, b. nov. . died sept. . he was for some time in the army as engineer, and afterwards became surveyor of public works. after his death his works were published by d'holbach who rewrote them. his principal works are antiquity unveiled and researches on the origin of oriental despotism. christianity unveiled, attributed to him and said by voltaire to have been by damilavile, was probably written by d'holbach, perhaps with some assistance from naigeon. it was burnt by order of the french parliament aug. . a critical examination of the life and works of st. paul, attributed to boulanger, was really made up by d'holbach from the work of annet. boulanger wrote dissertations on elisha, enoch and st. peter, and some articles for the encyclopédie. bourdet (dr.) eugene, french positivist, b. paris, . author of several works on medicine and positivist philosophy and education. boureau-deslands (a. f.) see deslandes. bourget (paul), french littérateur, b. at amiens in . has made himself famous by his novels, essays on contemporary psychology, studies of m. rénan, etc. he belongs to the naturalist school, but his methods are less crude than those of some of his colleagues. his insight is most subtle, and his style is exquisite. boutteville (marc lucien), french writer, professor at the lycée bonaparte; has made translations from lessing and published an able work on the morality of the church and natural morality, , for which the clergy turned him out of a professorship he held at sainte-barbe. bovio (giovanni), professor of political economy in the university of naples and deputy to the italian parliament; is an ardent freethinker. both in his writings and in parliament prof. bovio opposes the power of the vatican and the reconciliation between church and state. he has constantly advocated liberty of conscience and has promoted the institution of a dante chair in the university of rome. he has written a work on the history of law, a copy of which he presented to the international congress of freethinkers, . bowring (sir john, k.b., ll d.), politician, linguist and writer, b. exeter, oct., . in early life a pupil of dr. lant carpenter and later a disciple of jeremy bentham, whose principles he maintained in the westminster review, of which he was editor, . arrested in france in , after a fortnight's imprisonment he was released without trial. he published bentham's deontology ( ), and nine years after edited a complete collection of the works of bentham. returned to parliament in ' , and afterwards was employed in important government missions. in ' he visited siam, and two years later published an account of the kingdom and people of siam. he translated goethe, schiller, heine, and the poems of many countries; was an active member of the british association and of the social science association, and did much to promote rational views on the sunday question. died nov. . boyle (humphrey), one of the men who left leeds for the purpose of serving in r. carlile's shop when the right of free publication was attacked in . boyle gave no name, and was indicted and tried as "a man with name unknown" for publishing a blasphemous and seditious libel. in his defence he ably asserted his right to hold and publish his opinions. he read portions of the bible in court to prove he was justified in calling it obscene. upon being sentenced, may, , to eighteen months' imprisonment and to find sureties for five years, he remarked "i have a mind, my lord, that can bear such a sentence with fortitude." bradlaugh (charles). born east london, sept. . educated in bethnal green and hackney. he was turned from his sunday-school teachership and from his first situation through the influence of the rev. j. g. packer, and found refuge with the widow of r. carlile. in dec. he entered the dragoon guards and proceeded to dublin. here he met james thomson, the poet, and contracted a friendship which lasted for many years. he got his discharge, and in ' returned to london and became a solicitor's clerk. he began to write and lecture under the nom de guerre of "iconoclast," edited the investigator, ' ; and had numerous debates with ministers and others. in he began editing the national reformer, which in ' - he successfully defended against a prosecution of the attorney general, who wished securities against blasphemy. in ' he began his efforts to enter parliament, and in was returned for northampton. after a long struggle with the house, which would not admit the atheist, he at length took his seat in . he was four times re-elected, and the litigation into which he was plunged will become as historic as that of john wilkes. prosecuted in ' for publishing the fruits of philosophy, he succeeded in quashing the indictment. mr. bradlaugh has had numerous debates, several of which are published. he has also written many pamphlets, of which we mention new lives of abraham, david, and other saints, who was jesus christ? what did jesus teach? has man a soul, is there a god? etc. his plea for atheism reached its th thousand in . mr. bradlaugh has also published when were our gospels written?, ; heresy, its utility and morality, ; the inspiration of the bible, ; the freethinker's text book, part i., dealing with natural religion, ; the laws relating to blasphemy and heresy, ; supernatural and rational morality, . in mr. bradlaugh commenced a commentary on the bible, entitled the bible, what is it? in this appeared in enlarged form, dealing only with the pentateuch. in he published genesis, its authorship and authenticity. in parliament mr. bradlaugh has become a conspicuous figure, and has introduced many important measures. in he succeeded in passing an oaths bill, making affirmations permissible instead of oaths. his elder daughter, alice, b. april, , has written on mind considered as a bodily function, . died dec. . his second daughter, hypatia bradlaugh bonner, b. march, , has written "princess vera" and other stories, "chemistry of home," etc. brækstad (hans lien), b. throndhjem, norway, sept. . has made english translations from björnson, asbjörnsen, andersen, etc., and has contributed to harper's magazine and other periodical literature. brandes (georg morris cohen), danish writer, by birth a jew, b. copenhagen, feb. . in he translated j. s. mills' subjection of women, and in the following year took a doctor's degree for a philosophical treatise. his chief work is entitled the main current of literature in the nineteenth century. his brother, dr. edvard brandes, was elected to the danish parliament in , despite his declaration that he did not believe either in the god of the christians or of the jews. bray (charles), philosophic writer, b. coventry, jan. . he was brought up as an evangelical, but found his way to freethought. early in life he took an active part in promoting unsectarian education. his first work ( ) was on the education of the body. this was followed by the education of the feelings, of which there were several editions. in he married miss hennell, sister of c. c. hennell, and took the system of nature and volney's ruins of empires "to enliven the honeymoon." among his friends was mary ann evans ("george eliot"), who accompanied mr. and mrs. bray to italy. his works on the philosophy of necessity ( ) and cerebral psychology ( ) give the key to all his thought. he wrote a number of thomas scott's series of tracts: illusion and delusion, the reign of law in mind as in matter, toleration with remarks on professor tyndall's "address," and a little book, christianity in the light of our present knowledge and moral sense ( ). he also wrote a manual of anthropology and similar works. in a postscript to his last volume, phases of opinion and experience during a long life, dated sept. , he stated that he has no hope or expectation or belief even in the possibility of continued individuality after death, and that as his opinions have done to live by "they will do to die by." he died oct. . bresson (léopold), french positivist, b. lamarche, . educated at the polytechnic school, which he left in and served on public works. for seventeen years was director of an austrian railway company. wrote idées modernes, . bridges (john henry), m.d. english positivist, b. , graduated b.a. at oxford , and b.m. ; has written on religion and progress, contributed to the fortnightly review, and translated comte's general view of positivism ( ) and system of positive polity ( ). bril (jakob), dutch mystical pantheist, b. leyden, jan. . died . his works were published at amsterdam, . brissot (jean pierre) de warville, active french revolutionist, b. chartres, jan. . he was bred to the law, but took to literature. he wrote for the courier de l'europe, a revolutionary paper suppressed for its boldness, published a treatise on truth, and edited a philosophical law library, - . he wrote against the legal authority of rome, and is credited with philosophical letters upon st. paul and the christian religion, neufchatel, . in he was imprisoned in the bastille for his writings. to avoid a second imprisonment he went to england and america, returning to france at the outbreak of the revolution. he wrote many political works, became member of the legislative assembly, formed the girondist party, protested against the execution of louis xvi., and upon the triumph of the mountain was executed with twenty-one of his colleagues, oct., . brissot was a voluminous writer, honest, unselfish, and an earnest lover of freedom in every form. bristol (augusta), née cooper, american educator, b. croydon, new haven, april, . in became teacher and gained repute by her poems. in sept. , she represented american freethinkers at the international conference at brussels. she has written on science and its relations to human character and other works. broca (pierre paul), french anthropologist, b. june, . a hard-working scientist, he paid special attention to craniology. in he founded the school of anthropology and had among his pupils gratiolet, topinard, hovelacque and dr. carter blake, who translated his treatise on hybridity. he established the review of anthropology, published numerous scientific works and was made a member of the legion of honor. in philosophy he inclined to positivism. died paris, july, . brooksbank (william), b. nottingham dec. . in he wrote in carlile's lion, and has since contributed to the reasoner, the pathfinder, and the national reformer. he was an intimate friend of james watson. he wrote a sketch of the religions of the earth, revelation tested by astronomy, geography, geology, etc., , and some other pamphlets. mr. brooksbank is still living in honored age at nottingham. brothier (léon), author of a popular history of philosophy, , and other works in the bibliothèque utile. he contributed to the rationalist of geneva. broussais (françois joseph victor), french physician and philosopher, b. saint malo, dec. . educated at dinan, in he served as volunteer in the army of the republic. he studied medicine at st. malo and brest, and became a naval surgeon. a disciple of bichat, he did much to reform medical science by his examination of received medical doctrines and to find a basis for mental and moral science in physiology by his many scientific works. despite his bold opinions, he was made commander of the legion of honor. he died poor at st. malo nov. , leaving behind a profession of faith, in which he declares his disbelief in a creator and his being "without hope or fear of another life." brown (george william), dr., of rockford, illinois, b. in essex co., n.y., oct. , of baptist parents. at years of age he was expelled the church for repudiating the dogma of an endless hell. dr. brown edited the herald of freedom, kansas. in his office was destroyed by a pro-slavery mob, his type thrown into the river, and himself and others arrested but was released without trial. dr. brown has contributed largely to the ironclad age and other american freethought papers, and is bringing out a work on the origin of christianity. brown (titus l.), dr., b. oct. , at hillside (n.y.). studied at the medical college of new york and graduated at the homoeopathic college, philadelphia. he settled at binghamton where he had a large practice. he contributed to the boston investigator and in was elected president of the freethinkers association. died aug. . browne (sir thomas), physician and writer, b. london, oct. . he studied medicine and travelled on the continent, taking his doctor's degree at leyden ( ). he finally settled at norwich, where he had a good practice. his treatise religio medici, famous for its fine style and curious mixture of faith and scepticism, was surreptitiously published in . it ran through several editions and was placed on the roman index. his pseudodoxia epidemica; enquiries into vulgar and common errors, appeared in . while disputing many popular superstitions he showed he partook of others. this curious work was followed by hydriotaphia, or urn-burial, in which he treats of cremation among the ancients. to this was added the garden of cyrus. he died oct. . bruno (giordano), freethought martyr, b. at nola, near naples, about . he was christened filippo which he changed to filoteo, taking the name of giordano when he entered the dominican order. religious doubts and bold strictures on the monks obliged him to quit italy, probably in . he went to geneva but soon found it no safe abiding place, and quitted it for paris, where he taught, but refused to attend mass. in he visited england, living with the french ambassador castelnau. having formed a friendship with sir philip sidney, he dedicated to him his spaccio della bestia triomfante, a satire on all mythologies. in he took part in a logical tournament, sustaining the copernican theory against the doctors of oxford. the following year he returned to paris, where he again attacked the aristotelians. he then travelled to various cities in germany, everywhere preaching the broadest heresy. he published several pantheistic, scientific and philosophical works. he was however induced to return to italy, and arrested as an heresiarch and apostate at venice, sept. . after being confined for seven years by the inquisitors, he was tried, and burnt at rome feb. . at his last moments a crucifix was offered him, which he nobly rejected. bruno was vastly before his age in his conception of the universe and his rejection of theological dogmas. a statue of this heroic apostle of liberty and light, executed by one of the first sculptors of italy, is to be erected on the spot where he perished, the municipal council of rome having granted the site in face of the bitterest opposition of the catholic party. the list of subscribers to this memorial comprises the principal advanced thinkers in europe and america. brzesky (casimir liszynsky podsedek). see liszinski. bucali or busali (leonardo), a calabrian abbot of spanish descent, who became a follower of servetus in the sixteenth century, and had to seek among the turks the safety denied him in christendom. he died at damascus. buchanan (george), scotch historian and scholar, b. killearn, feb. . evincing an early love of study, he was sent to paris at the age of fourteen. he returned to scotland and became distinguished for his learning. james v. appointed him tutor to his natural son. he composed his franciscanus et fratres, a satire on the monks, which hastened the scottish reformation. this exposed him to the vengeance of the clergy. not content with calling him atheist, archbishop beaton had him arrested and confined in st. andrew's castle, from whence he escaped and fled to england. here he found, as he said, henry viii. burning men of opposite opinions at the same stake for religion. he returned to paris, but was again subjected to the persecution of beaton, the scottish ambassador. on the death of a patron at bordeaux, in , he was seized by the inquisition and immured for a year and a half in a monastery, where he translated the psalms into latin. he eventually returned to scotland, where he espoused the party of moray. after a most active life, he died sept. , leaving a history of scotland, besides numerous poems, satires, and political writings, the most important of which is a work of republican tendency, de jure regni, the rights of kings. buchanan (robert), socialist, b. ayr, . he was successively a schoolmaster, a socialist missionary and a journalist. he settled in manchester, where he published works on the religion of the past and present, ; the origin and nature of ghosts, . an exposure of joseph barker, and a concise history of modern priestcraft also bear the latter date. at this time the socialists were prosecuted for lecturing on sunday, and buchanan was fined for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, etc. after the decline of owenism, he wrote for the northern star, and edited the glasgow sentinel. he died at the home of his son, the poet, at bexhill, sussex, march, . buchanan (joseph rhodes), american physician, b. frankfort, kentucky, dec. . he graduated m.d. at louisville university, , and has been the teacher of physiology at several colleges. from - he published buchanan's journal of man, and has written several works on anthropology. buchner (ludwig). see buechner. buckle (henry thomas), philosophical historian, b. lee, kent, nov. . in consequence of his delicate health he was educated at home. his mother was a strict calvinist, his father a strong tory, but a visit to the continent made him a freethinker and radical. he ever afterwards held travelling to be the best education. it was his ambition to write a history of civilisation in england, but so vast was his design that his three notable volumes with that title form only part of the introduction. the first appeared in , and created a great sensation by its boldness. in the following year he championed the cause of pooley, who was condemned for blasphemy, and dared the prosecution of infidels of standing. in he visited the east, in the hope of improving his health, but died at damascus, may, . much of the material collected for his history has been published in his miscellaneous and posthumous works, edited by helen taylor, . an abridged edition, edited by grant allen, appeared in . buechner (friedrich karl christian ludwig), german materialist, b. darmstadt, march, . studied medicine in geissen, strassburg and vienna. in ' he startled the world with his bold work on force and matter, which has gone through numerous editions and been translated into nearly all the european languages. this work lost him the place of professor which he held at tübingen, and he has since practised in his native town. büchner has developed his ideas in many other works such as nature and spirit ( ), physiological sketches, ' ; nature and science, ' ; conferences on darwinism, ' ; man in the past, present and future, ' ; materialism its history and influence on society, ' ; the idea of god, ' ; mind in animals, ' ; and light and life, ' . he also contributes to the freidenker, the dageraad, and other journals. buffon (georges louis leclerc), count de, french naturalist, b. montford, burgundy, sept. . an incessant worker. his natural history in volumes bears witness to the fertility of his mind and his capacity for making science attractive. buffon lived much in seclusion, and attached himself to no sect or religion. some of his sentences were attacked by the sorbonne. hérault de sêchelles says that buffon said: "i have named the creator, but it is only necessary to take out the word and substitute the power of nature." died at paris april, . buitendijk or buytendyck (gosuinus van), dutch spinozist, who wrote an apology at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was banished . bufalini (maurizio), italian doctor, b. cesena june, . in he published an essay on the doctrine of life in opposition to vitalism, and henceforward his life was a conflict with the upholders of that doctrine. he was accused of materialism, but became a professor at florence and a member of the italian senate in . died at florence march, . burdach (karl friedrich), german physiologist, b. leipsic june, . he occupied a chair at the university of breslau. his works on physiology and anthropology did much to popularise those sciences, and the former is placed on the index librorum prohibitorum for its materialistic tendency. he died at konigsberg, july, . burdon (william), m.a., writer, b. newcastle, sept. . graduated at emmanuel college, cambridge, . he was intended for a clergyman, but want of faith made him decline that profession. his principal work is entitled materials for thinking. colton largely availed himself of this work in his lacon. it went through five editions in his lifetime, and portions were reprinted in the library of reason. he also addressed three letters to the bishop of llandaff, wrote a life and character of bonaparte, translated an account of the revolution in spain, edited the memoirs of count boruwlaski, and wrote some objections to the annual subscription to the sons of the clergy. died in london, may, . burigny (jean levesque de), french writer, b. rheims, . he became a member of the french academy, wrote a treatise on the authority of the pope, a history of pagan philosophy and other works, and is credited with the critical examination of the apologists of the christian religion, published under the name of freret by naigeon, . levesque de burigny wrote a letter in answer to bergier's proofs of christianity, which is published in naigeon's recueil philosophique. died at paris, oct. . burmeister (hermann), german naturalist, b. stralsund, jan. . in he became a doctor at halle. in ' he was elected to the national assembly. in he went to brazil. his principal work is the history of creation, . burmeister or baurmeister (johann peter theodor) a german rationalist and colleague of ronge. born at flensburg, . he resided in hamburg, and wrote in the middle of the present century under the name of j. p. lyser. burnet (thomas), b. about at croft, yorkshire. through the interest of a pupil, the duke of ormonde, he obtained the mastership of the charterhouse, . in the first part of his telluris theoria sacra, or sacred theory of the earth, appeared in latin, and was translated and modified in . in burnet published, both in english and in latin, his archæologiæ philosophicæ, or the ancient doctrine of the origin of things. he professes in this to reconcile his theory with genesis, which receives a figurative interpretation; and a ludicrous dialogue between eve and the serpent gave great offence. in a popular ballad burnet is represented as saying-- that all the books of moses were nothing but supposes. he had to resign a position at court. in later life he wrote de fide et officiis christianorum (on christian faith and duties), in which he regards historical religions as based on the religion of nature, and rejects original sin and the "magical" theory of sacraments; and de statu mortuorum et resurgentium, on the state of the dead and resurrected, in which he opposed the doctrine of eternal punishment and shadowed forth a scheme of deism. these books he kept to himself to avoid a prosecution for heresy, but had a few copies printed for private friends. he died in the charterhouse sept. . a tract entitled hell torments not eternal was published in . burnett (james), lord monboddo, a learned scotch writer and judge, was b. monboddo, oct. . he adopted the law as his profession, became a celebrated advocate, and was made a judge in . his work on the origin and progress of language (published anonymously - ), excited much derision by his studying man as one of the animals and collecting facts about savage tribes to throw light on civilisation. he first maintained that the orang-outang was allied to the human species. he also wrote on ancient metaphysics. he was a keen debater and discussed with hume, adam smith, robertson, and lord kames. died in edinburgh, may, . burnouf (emile louis), french writer, b. valonges, aug. . he became professor of ancient literature to the faculty of nancy. author of many works, including a translation of selections from the novum organum of bacon, the bhagvat-gita, an introduction to the vedas, a history of greek literature, studies in japanese, and articles in the revue des deux mondes. his heresy is pronounced in his work on the science of religions, , in his contemporary catholicism, and life and thought, . burnouf (eugène), french orientalist, cousin of the preceding; b. paris, aug. . he opened up to the western world the pali language, and with it the treasures of buddhism, whose essentially atheistic character he maintained. to him also we are largely indebted for a knowledge of zend and of the avesta of the zoroastrians. he translated numerous oriental works and wrote a valuable introduction to the history of indian buddhism. died at paris, may, . burns (robert), scotland's greatest poet, b. near ayr, jan. . his father was a small farmer, of enlightened views. the life and works of burns are known throughout the world. his freethought is evident from such productions as the "holy fair," "the kirk's alarm," and "holy willie's prayer," and many passages in private letters to his most familiar male friends. died at dumfries, july, . burr (william henry), american author, b. , gloversville, n.y., graduated at union college, schenectady, became a shorthand reporter to the senate. in he retired and devoted himself to literary research. he is the anonymous author of revelations of antichrist, a learned book which exposes the obscurity of the origin of christianity, and seeks to show that the historical jesus lived almost a century before the christian era. he has also written several pamphlets: thomas paine was junius, : self contradictions of the bible; is the bible a lying humbug? a roman catholic canard, etc. he has also frequently contributed to the boston investigator, the new york truthseeker, and the ironclad age of indianapolis. burton (sir richard francis), traveller, linguist, and author, b. barham house, herts, march, . intended for the church, he matriculated at oxford, but in entered the east india company's service, served on the staff of sir c. napier, and soon acquired reputation as an intrepid explorer. in ' he returned to england and started for mecca and medina, visiting those shrines unsuspected, as a moslem pilgrim. he was chief of the staff of the osmanli cavalry in the crimean war, and has made many remarkable and dangerous expeditions in unknown lands; he discovered and opened the lake regions in central africa and explored the highlands of brazil. he has been consul at fernando po, santos, damascus, and since at trieste, and speaks over thirty languages. his latest work is a new translation of the thousand nights and a night in vols. being threatened with a prosecution, he intended justifying "literal naturalism" from the bible. burton's knowledge of arabic is so perfect that when he used to read the tales to arabs, they would roll on the ground in fits of laughter. butler (samuel), poet, b. in strensham, worcestershire, feb. . in early life he came under the influence of selden. he studied painting, and is said to have painted a head of cromwell from life. he became clerk to sir samuel luke, one of cromwell's generals, whom he has satirised as hudibras. this celebrated burlesque poem appeared in and became famous, but, although the king and court were charmed with its wit, the author was allowed to remain in poverty and obscurity till he died at covent garden, london, sept. . butler expressed the opinion that "religion is the interest of churches that sell in other worlds in this to purchase." buttmann (philipp karl), german philologist, b. frankfort, dec. . became librarian of the royal library at berlin. he edited many of the greek classics, wrote on the myth of the deluge, , and a learned work on mythology, . died berlin, june, . buzot (françois léonard nicolas), french girondin, distinguished as an ardent republican and a friend and lover of madame roland. born at evreux, march, ; he died from starvation when hiding after the suppression of his party june, . byelinsky (vissarion g.) see belinsky. byron (george gordon noel) lord, b. london, jan. . he succeeded his grand-uncle william in ; was sent to harrow and cambridge. in he published his hours of idleness, and awoke one morning to find himself famous. his power was, however, first shown in his english bards and scotch reviewers, in which he satirised his critics, . he then travelled on the continent, the result of which was seen in his childe harold's pilgrimage and other works. he married jan. , but a separation took place in the following year. lord byron then resided in italy, where he made the acquaintance of shelley. in he devoted his name and fortune to the cause of the greek revolution, but was seized with fever and died at missolonghi, april, . his drama of cain: a mystery, , is his most serious utterance, and it shows a profound contempt for religious dogma. this feeling is also exhibited in his magnificent burlesque poem, the vision of judgment, which places him at the head of english satirists. in his letters to the rev. francis hodgson, , he distinctly says: "i do not believe in any revealed religion.... i will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another.... the basis of your religion is injustice; the son of god, the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty," etc. cabanis (pierre jean george), called by lange "the father of the materialistic physiology," b. conac, june, . became pupil of condillac and friend of mirabeau, whom he attended in his last illness, of which he published an account . he was also intimate with turgot, condorcet, holbach, diderot, and other distinguished freethinkers, and was elected member of the institute and of the council of five hundred in the revolution. his works are mostly medical, the chief being des rapports du physique et du morale de l'homme, in which he contends that thoughts are a secretion of the brain. died rueil, near paris, may, . cæsalpinus (andreas), italian philosopher of the renaissance, b. arezzo, tuscany, . he became professor of botany at pisa, and linnæus admits his obligations to his work, de plantis, . he also wrote works on metals and medicine, and showed acquaintance with the circulation of the blood. in a work entitled demonum investigatio, he contends that "possession" by devils is amenable to medical treatment. his quæstionum peripateticarum, in five books, geneva, , was condemned as teaching a pantheistic doctrine similar to that of spinoza. bishop parker denounced him. died feb. . cæsar (caius julius), the "foremost man of all this world," equally renowned as soldier, statesman, orator, and writer, b. july, b.c., of noble family. his life, the particulars of which are well known, was an extraordinary display of versatility, energy, courage, and magnanimity. he justified the well-known line of pope, "cæsar the world's great master and his own." his military talents elevated him to the post of dictator, but this served to raise against him a band of aristocratic conspirators, by whom he was assassinated, march, b.c. his commentaries are a model of insight and clear expression. sallust relates that he questioned the existence of a future state in the presence of the roman senate. froude says: "his own writings contain nothing to indicate that he himself had any religious belief at all. he saw no evidence that the gods practically interfered in human affairs.... he held to the facts of this life and to his own convictions; and as he found no reason for supposing that there was a life beyond the grave he did not pretend to expect it." cahuac (john), bookseller, revised an edition of palmer's principles of nature, . for this he was prosecuted at the instance of the "vice society," but the matter was compromised. he was also prosecuted for selling the republican, . calderino (domizio), a learned writer of the renaissance, b. in , in the territory of verona, and lived at rome, where he was professor of literature, in . he edited and commented upon many of the latin poets. bayle says he was without religion. died in . calenzio (eliseo), an italian writer, b. in the kingdom of naples about . he was preceptor to prince frederic, the son of ferdinand, the king of naples. he died in , leaving behind a number of satires, fables and epigrams, some of which are directed against the church. call (wathen mark wilks), english author, b. june, . educated at cambridge, entered the ministry in , but resigned his curacy about on account of his change of opinions, which he recounts in his preface to reverberations, . mr. call is of the positivist school, and has contributed largely to the fortnightly and westminster reviews. callet (pierre auguste), french politician, b. st. etienne, oct. ; became editor of the gazette of france till . in he was nominated republican representative. at the coup d'état of dec. , he took refuge in belgium. he returned to france, but was imprisoned for writing against the empire. in , callet was again elected representative for the department of the loire. his chief freethought work is l'enfer, an attack upon the christian doctrine of hell, . camisani (gregorio), italian writer, b. at venice, . a professor of languages in milan. he has translated the upas of captain r. h. dyas and other works. campanella (tommaso), italian philosopher, b. stilo, calabria, sept. . he entered the dominican order, but was too much attracted by the works of telesio to please his superiors. in his philosophia sensibus demonstratio was printed at naples. being prosecuted, he fled to rome, and thence to florence, venice, and padua. at bologna some of his ms. fell into the hands of the inquisition, and he was arrested. he ably defended himself and was acquitted. returning to calabria in , he was arrested on charges of heresy and conspiracy against the spanish government of naples, and having appealed to rome, was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the prison of the holy office. he was put to the torture seven times, his torments on one occasion extending over forty hours, but he refused to confess. he was dragged from one prison to another for twenty-seven years, during which he wrote some sonnets, a history of the spanish monarchy, and several philosophical works. on may, , he was released by the intervention of pope urban viii. he was obliged to fly from rome to france, where he met gassendi. he also visited descartes in holland. julian hibbert remarked that his atheismus triumphatus--atheism subdued, , would be better entitled atheismus triumphans--atheism triumphant--as the author puts his strongest arguments on the heterodox side. in his city of the sun, campanella follows plato and more in depicting an ideal republic and a time when a new era of earthly felicity should begin. hallam says "the strength of campanella's genius lay in his imagination." his "sonnets" have been translated by j. a. symonds. died paris, may, . campbell (alexander), socialist of glasgow, b. about the beginning of the century. he early became a socialist, and was manager at the experiment at orbiston under abram combe, of whom he wrote a memoir. upon the death of combe, , he became a socialist missionary in england. he took an active part in the co-operative movement, and in the agitation for an unstamped press, for which he was tried and imprisoned at edinburgh, - . about he returned to glasgow and wrote on the sentinel. in he was presented with a testimonial and purse of sovereigns by admirers of his exertions in the cause of progress. died about . campion (william), a shoemaker, who became one of r. carlile's shopmen; tried june, , for selling paine's age of reason. after a spirited defence he was found guilty and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. in prison he edited, in conjunction with j. clarke, e. hassell, and t. r. perry, the newgate monthly magazine, to which he contributed some thoughtful papers, from sept. , to aug. , when he was removed to the compter. canestrini (giovanni), italian naturalist, b. rerò, . he studied at vienna, and in ' was nominated professor of natural history at geneva. signor canestrini contributed to the annuario filosofico del libero pensiero, and is known for his popularisation of the works of darwin, which he has translated into italian. he has written upon the origin of man, which has gone through two editions, milan, ' -' , and on the theory of evolution, turin, ' . he was appointed professor of zoology, anatomy and comparative physiology at padua, where he has published a memoir of charles darwin, ' . cardano (girolamo), better known as jerome cardan, italian mathematician, and physician, b. pavia, sept. . he studied medicine, but was excluded from the milan college of physicians on account of illegitimate birth. he and his young wife were at one time compelled to take refuge in the workhouse. it is not strange that his first work was an exposure of the fallacies of the faculty. a fortunate cure brought him into notice and he journeyed to scotland as the medical adviser of the archbishop of st. andrews, . in he was arrested at bologna for heresy, but was released, although deprived of his professorship. he died at rome, sept. , having, it is said, starved himself to verify his own prediction of his death. despite some superstition, cardano did much to forward science, especially by his work on algebra, and in his works de subtilitate rerum and de varietate rerum, amid much that is fanciful, perceived the universality of natural law and the progressive evolution of life. scaliger accused him of atheism. pünjer says "cardanus deserves to be named along with telesius as one of the principal founders of natural philosophy." carducci (giosuè), italian poet and professor of italian literature at the university of bologna, b. pietrasantra, in the province of lucca, july, . as early as ' he cried, abasso tutti i re! viva la republica--down with all kings! long live the republic! sprung into fame by his hymn to satan, ' , by which he intended the spirit of resistance. he has written many poems and satires in which he exhibits himself an ardent freethinker and republican. at the end of ' he wrote his famous verse "il secoletto vil che cristianeggia"--"this vile christianising century." in ' he became professor of greek in bologna university, being suspended for a short while in ' for an address to mazzini. in ' he was elected as republican deputy to the italian parliament for lugo di romagna. carlile (eliza sharples), second wife of richard carlile, came from lancashire during the imprisonment of carlile and taylor, , delivered discourses at the rotunda, and started a journal, the isis, which lasted from feb. to dec. . the isis was dedicated to the young women of england "until superstition is extinct," and contained frances wright's discourses, in addition to those by mrs. carlile, who survived till ' . mr. bradlaugh lodged with mrs. carlile at the warner place institute, in . she had three children, hypatia, theophila and julian, of whom the second is still living. carlile (jane), first wife of r. carlile, who carried on his business during his imprisonment, was proceeded against, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, . she had three children, richard, alfred, and thomas paine carlile, the last of whom edited the regenerator, a chartist paper published at manchester, . carlile (richard), foremost among the brave upholders of an english free press, b. ashburton, devon, dec. . he was apprenticed to a tin-plate worker, and followed that business till he was twenty-six, when, having read the works of paine, he began selling works like wooler's black dwarf, which government endeavored to suppress. sherwin offered him the dangerous post of publisher of the republican, which he accepted. he then published southey's wat tyler, reprinted the political works of paine and the parodies for which hone was tried, but which cost carlile eighteen weeks' imprisonment. in he published paine's theological works. the prosecution instituted induced him to go on printing similar works, such as palmer's principles of nature, watson refuted, jehovah unveiled, etc. by oct. , he had six indictments to answer, on two of which he was tried from to october. he read the whole of the age of reason in his defence, in order to have it in the report of the trial. he was found guilty and sentenced ( nov.) to fifteen hundred pounds fine and three years' imprisonment in dorchester gaol. during his imprisonment his business was kept on by a succession of shopmen. refusing to find securities not to publish, he was kept in prison till nov. , when he was liberated unconditionally. during his imprisonment he edited the republican, which extended to fourteen volumes. he also edited the deist, the moralist, the lion (four volumes), the prompter (for no. of which he again suffered thirty-two months' imprisonment), and the gauntlet. amongst his writings are an address to men of science, the gospel according to r. carlile, what is god? every woman's book, etc. he published doubts of infidels, janus on sion, sepher toldoth jeshu, d'holbach's good sense, volney's ruins, and many other freethought works. he died feb. , bequeathing his body to dr. lawrence for scientific purposes. carlyle (thomas), one of the most gifted and original writers of the century, b. dec. , at ecclefechan, dumfriesshire, where his father, a man of intellect and piety, held a small farm. showing early ability he was intended for the kirk, and educated at the university of edinburgh. he, however, became a tutor, and occupied his leisure in translating from the german. he married jane welsh oct. , and wrote in the london magazine and edinburgh review many masterly critical articles, notably on voltaire, diderot, burns, and german literature. in - his sartor resartus appeared in fraser's magazine. in ' he removed to london and began writing the french revolution, the ms. of the first vol. of which he confided to mill, with whom it was accidentally burnt. he re-wrote the work without complaint, and it was published in ' . he then delivered a course of lectures on "german literature" and on "heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history," in which he treats mahomet as the prophet "we are freest to speak of." his past and present was published in ' . in ' appeared oliver cromwell's letters and speeches. in ' he published latter-day pamphlets, which contains his most distinctive political and social doctrines, and in the following year his life of john sterling, in which his heresy clearly appears. his largest work is his history of the life and times of frederick the great, in vols. he was elected rector of edinburgh university in ' . died feb. . mr. froude, in his biography of carlyle, says, "we have seen him confessing to irving that he did not believe as his friend did in the christian religion." ... "the special miraculous occurrences of sacred history were not credible to him." carneades, sceptical philosopher, b. cyrene about b.c. . he went early to athens, and attended the lectures of the stoics, learning logic from diogenes. in the year , he was chosen with other deputies to go to rome to deprecate a fine which had been placed on the athenians. during his stay at rome he attracted great attention by his philosophical orations. carneades attacked the very idea of a god at once infinite and an individual. he denied providence and design. many of his arguments are preserved in cicero's academics and de natura deorum. carneades left no written works; his views seem to have been systematised by his follower clitomachus. he died b.c. . carneades is described as a man of unwearied industry. his ethics were of elevated character. carneri (bartholomäus von), german writer, b. trieste, nov. . educated at vienna. in he sat in the austrian parliament with the liberals. author of an able work on morality and darwinism, vienna, . has also written der mensch als selbstweck, "humanity as its own proper object," ; grundlegung der ethik, foundation of morals, ; and ethical essays on evolution and happiness, stuttgart, . carra (jean louis), french man of letters and republican, b. at pont de veyle. he travelled in germany, italy, turkey, russia, and moldavia, where he became secretary to the hospodar. on returning to france he became employed in the king's library and wrote a history of moldavia and an essay on aerial navigation. he warmly espoused the revolution and was one of the most ardent orators of the jacobin club. in the national assembly he voted for the death of louis xvi., but was executed with the girondins, oct. . his freethought sentiments are evident from his system of reason, ; his spirit of morality and philosophy, ; new principles of physic, - , and other works. carrel (jean baptiste nicolas armand), called by saint beuve "the junius of the french press," b. rouen, may, . he became a soldier, but, being a republican, fought on behalf of the spanish revolution. being taken prisoner, he was condemned to death, but escaped through some informality. he became secretary to thierry, edited the works of p. l. courier, and established the nation in conjunction with thiers and mignet. j. s. mill writes of him in terms of high praise. the leading journalist of his time, his slashing articles led to several duels, and in an encounter with emile de girardin ( july, ) he was fatally wounded. on his death-bed, says m. littré, he said "point de prêtres, point d'église"--no priests nor church. died july, . he wrote a history of the counter-revolution in england, with an eye to events in his own country. carus (julius viktor), german zoologist, b. leipsic, aug. . has been keeper of anatomical museum at oxford, and has translated darwin's works and the philosophy of g. h. lewes. carus (karl gustav), german physiologist and pantheist, b. leipsic, jan. . he taught comparative anatomy at the university of that town, and published a standard introduction to that subject. he also wrote psyche, a history of the development of the human soul, , and nature and idea, . died at dresden, july, . castelar y ripoll (emilio), spanish statesman, b. cadiz, sept. . he began as a journalist, and became known by his novel ernesto, . as professor of history and philosophy, he delivered lectures on "civilisation during the first three centuries of christendom." la formula del progresso contains a sketch of democratic principles. on the outbreak of the revolution of ' he advocated a federal republic in a magnificent oration. the crown was however offered to amadeus of savoy. "glass, with care," was castelar's verdict on the new dynasty, and in feb. ' castelar drew up a republican constitution; and for a year was dictator of spain. upon his retirement to france he wrote a sketchy history of the republican movement in europe. in ' he returned to spain and took part in the cortes, where he has continued to advocate republican views. his old rome and new italy, and life of lord byron have been translated into english. castelli (david), italian writer, b. livorno, dec. . since he has held the chair of hebrew in the institute of superior studies at florence. he has translated the book of ecclesiastes with notes, and written rationalistic works on talmudic legends, ; the messiah according to the hebrews, ' ; the bible prophets, ' ; and the history of the israelites, . castilhon (jean louis), french man of letters, b. at toulouse in . he wrote in numerous publications, and edited the journal of jurisprudence. his history of dogmas and philosophical opinions had some celebrity, and he shows himself a freethinker in his essay on ancient and modern errors and superstitions, amsterdam, ; his philosophical almanack, ; and his history of philosophical opinions, . died . cattell (christopher charles), writer in english secular journals, author of search for the first man; against christianity; the religion of this life, etc. caumont (georges), french writer of genius, b. about . suffering from consumption, he wrote judgment of a dying man upon life, and humorous and familiar conversations of a sick person with the divinity. died at madeira, . cavalcante (guido), noble italian poet and philosopher, b. florence, . a friend of dante, and a leader of the ghibbelin party. he married a daughter of farinata delgi uberti. bayle says, "it is said his speculation has as their aim to prove there is no god. dante places his father in the hell of epicureans, who denied the immortality of the soul." guido died in . an edition of his poems was published in . cavallotti (felice carlo emanuel), italian poet and journalist, b. milan, nov. , celebrated for his patriotic poems; is a pronounced atheist. he was elected member of the italian parliament in . cayla (jean mamert), french man of letters and politician b. vigan (lot) . became in ' editor of the emancipator of toulouse, a city of which he wrote the history. at paris he wrote to the siècle, the république française and other journals, and published european celebrities and numerous anti-clerical brochures, such as the clerical conspiracy, ' ; the devil, his grandeur and decay, ' ; hell demolished, ' ; suppression of religious orders, ' ; and the history of the mass,' . he died may, . cazelles (emile), french translator of bentham's influence of natural religion, paris, . has also translated mill's subjection of women and his autobiography and essays on religion. cecco d'ascoli, i.e., stabili (francesco degli), italian poet, b. ascoli, . he taught astrology and philosophy at bologna. in he was arrested by the inquisition for having spoken against the faith, and was condemned to fine and penitence. he was again accused at florence, and was publicly burnt as an heretic sept. . his best known work is entitled acerba, a sort of encyclopædia in rhyme. cellarius (martin), anabaptist, who deserves mention as the first avowed protestant anti-trinitarian. he studied oriental languages with reuchlin and melancthon, but having discussed with anabaptists acknowledged himself converted, , and afterwards gave up the deity of christ. he was imprisoned, and on his release went to switzerland, where he died oct. . celsus, a pagan philosopher, who lived in the second century. he was a friend of lucian, who dedicated to him his treatise on the false prophet. he wrote an attack on christianity, called the true word. the work was destroyed by the early christians. the passages given by his opponent, origen, suffice to show that he was a man of high attainments, well acquainted with the religion he attacked, and that his power of logic and irony was most damaging to the christian faith. cerutti (giuseppe antonio gioachino), poet, converted jesuit, b. turin, june, . he became a jesuit, and wrote a defence of the society. he afterwards became a friend of mirabeau, adopted the principles of , wrote in defence of the revolution, and wrote and published a philosophical breviary, or history of judaism, christianity, and deism, which he attributed to frederick of prussia. his opinions may also be gathered from his poem, les jardins de betz, . died paris, feb. . chaho (j. augustin), basque man of letters, b. tardets, basses-pyrénées, oct. . his principal works are a philosophy of comparative religion, and a basque dictionary. at bayonne he edited the ariel. in this was suppressed and he was exiled. died oct. . chaloner (thomas), m.p., regicide, b. steeple claydon, bucks, . educated at oxford, he became member for richmond (yorks), . was a witness against archbishop laud, and one of king charles's judges. in he was made councillor of state. wood says he "was as far from being a puritan as the east is from the west," and that he "was of the natural religion." he wrote a pretended true and exact relation of the finding of moses his tomb, , being a satire directed against the presbyterians. upon the restoration he fled to the low countries, and died at middelburg, zeeland, in . chambers (ephraim), originator of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, b. kendal about . the first edition of his work appeared in , and procured him admission to the royal society. a french translation gave rise to diderot and d'alembert's encyclopédie. chambers also edited the literary magazine, , etc. his infidel opinions were well known, and the cyclopædia was placed upon the index, but he was buried in the cloisters of westminster abbey. died may, . chamfort (sébastien roch nicolas), french man of letters, b. in auvergne, near clermont, . he knew no parent but his mother, a peasant girl, to supply whose wants he often denied himself necessaries. at paris he gained a prize from the academy for his eulogy on molière. about he published a dramatic dictionary and wrote several plays. in he obtained a seat in the academy, being patronised by mme. helvetius. he became a friend of mirabeau, who called him une tête électrique. in he commenced a work called pictures of the revolution. in the following year he became secretary of the jacobin club and national librarian. arrested by robespierre, he desperately, but vainly, endeavored to commit suicide. he died april, , leaving behind numerous works and a collection of maxims, thoughts, characters, and anecdotes, which show profound genius and knowledge of human nature. chapman (john), m.r.c.s., b. . has written largely in the westminster review, of which he is proprietor. chappellsmith (margaret), née reynolds, b. aldgate, feb. . early in life she read the writings of cobbett. in ' she began writing political articles in the dispatch, and afterwards became a socialist and freethought lecturess. she married john chappellsmith in ' , and in ' she began business as a bookseller. in ' she expressed a preference for the development theory before that of creation. in ' they emigrated to the united states, where mrs. chappellsmith contributed many articles to the boston investigator. charles (rudolf). see giessenburg. charma (antoine), french philosopher, b. jan. . in ' he was nominated to the chair of philosophy at caen. he was denounced for his impiety by the count de montalembert in the chamber of peers, and an endeavor was made to unseat him. he wrote many philosophical works, and an account of didron's histoire de dieu. died aug. . charron (pierre), french priest and sceptic, b. paris, . he was an intimate friend of montaigne. his principal work is a treatise on wisdom, , which was censured as irreligious by the jesuits. franck says "the scepticism of charron inclines visibly to 'sensualisme' and even to materialism." died paris, nov. . chasseboeuf de volney (constantin françois). see volney. chastelet du or chatelet lomont (gabrielle emilie le tonnelier de breteuil), marquise, french savante, b. paris, dec . she was learned in mathematics and other sciences, and in latin, english and italian. in she published a work on physical philosophy entitled institutions de physique. she afterwards made a good french translation of newton's principia. she lived some years with voltaire at cirey between and , and addressed to him doubts on revealed religions, published in . she also wrote a treatise on happiness, which was praised by condorcet. chastellux (françois jean de), marquis. a soldier, traveller and writer, b. paris . wrote on public happiness ( vols., amst. ), a work voltaire esteemed highly. he contributed to the encyclopédie; one article on "happiness," being suppressed by the censor because it did not mention god. died paris, oct. . chatterton (thomas), the marvellous boy poet, b. bristol, nov, . his poems, which he pretended were written by one thomas rowley in the fourteenth century and discovered by him in an old chest in redcliffe church, attracted much attention. in he visited london in hopes of rising by his talents, but after a bitter experience of writing for the magazines, destroyed himself in a fit of despair aug. . several of his poems betray deistic opinions. chaucer (geoffrey), the morning star of english poetry and first english humanist, b. london about . in he was attached to the household of lionel, third son of edward iii. he accompanied the expedition to france - , was captured by the french, and ransomed by the king. he was patronised by john of gaunt, and some foreign missions were entrusted to him, one of them being to italy, where he met petrarch. all his writings show the influence of the renaissance, and in his canterbury pilgrims he boldly attacks the vices of the ecclesiastics. died oct. , and was buried in westminster abbey. chaumette (pierre gaspard), afterwards anaxagoras, french revolutionary, b. nevers, may, . the son of a shoemaker, he was in turn cabin boy, steersman, and attorney's clerk. in early youth he received lessons in botany from rousseau. he embraced the revolution with ardor, was the first to assume the tri-color cockade, became popular orator at the club of the cordeliers, and was associated with proudhomme in the journal les revolutions de paris. nominated member of the commune aug. , he took the name of anaxagoras to show his little regard for his baptismal saints. he was elected procureur syndic, in which capacity he displayed great activity. he abolished the rod in schools, suppressed lotteries, instituted workshops for fallen women, established the first lying-in-hospital, had books sent to the hospitals, separated the insane from the sick, founded the conservatory of music, opened the public libraries every day (under the ancien régime they were only open two hours per week), replaced books of superstition by works of morality and reason, put a graduated tax on the rich to provide for the burial of the poor, and was the principal mover in the feasts of reason and closing of the churches. he was accused by robespierre of conspiring with cloots "to efface all idea of the deity," and was guillotined april, . chaussard (pierre jean baptiste), french man of letters, b. paris, oct. . at the revolution he took the name of publicola, and published patriotic odes, esprit de mirabeau, and other works. he was preacher to the theophilanthropists, and became professor of belles lettres at orleans. died jan. . chemin-dupontes (jean baptiste), b. . one of the founders of french theophilanthropy; published many writings, the best known of which is entitled what is theophilanthropy? chenier (marie andré de), french poet, b. constantinople, oct. . his mother, a greek, inspired him with a love for ancient greek literature. sent to college at paris, he soon manifested his genius by writing eclogues and elegies of antique simplicity and sensibility. in he came to england as secretary of legation. he took part in the legal defence of louis xvi., eulogised charlotte corday, and gave further offence by some letters in the journal de paris. he was committed to prison, and here met his ideal in the comtesse de coigny. confined in the same prison, to her he addressed the touching verses, the young captive (la jeune captive). he was executed july, , leaving behind, among other poems, an imitation of lucretius, entitled hermes, which warrants the affirmation of de chênedolle, that "andré chénier était athée avec délices." chenier (marie joseph de), french poet and miscellaneous writer, brother of the preceding, b. constantinople, aug. . he served two years in the army, and then applied himself to literature. his first successful drama, "charles ix.," was produced in , and was followed by others. he wrote many patriotic songs, and was made member of the convention. he was a voltairean, and in his nouveaux saints ( ) satirised those who returned to the old faith. he wrote many poems and an account of french literature. died paris, jan. . chernuishevsky or tchernycheiosky (nikolai gerasimovich), russian nihilist, b. saratof, . educated at the university of st. petersburg, translated mill's political economy, and wrote on superstition and the principles of logic, ' . his bold romance, what is to be done? was published ' . in the following year he was sentenced to the siberian mines, where, after heartrending cruelties, he has become insane. chesneau du marsais (césar). see dumarsais. chevalier (joseph philippe), french chemist, b. saint pol, march, , is the author of an able book on "the soul from the standpoint of reason and science," paris, ' . he died at amiens in . chies y gomez (ramon), spanish freethinker, b. medina de pomar, burgos, oct. . his father, a distinguished republican, educated him without religion. in ' chies went to madrid, and followed a course of law and philosophy at the university, and soon after wrote for a madrid paper la discusion. he took an active part in the revolution of ' , and at the proclamation of the republic, ' , became civil governor of valencia. in ' he founded a newspaper el voto nacional, and since ' has edited las dominicales del libre pensamiento, which he also founded. ramon chies is one of the foremost freethought champions in spain and lectures as well as writes. child (lydia maria) née francis, american authoress, b. medford, mass., feb. . she early commenced writing, publishing hobomok, a tale of early times, in ' . from ' she kept a private school in watertown until ' , when she married david lee child, a boston lawyer. she, with him, edited the anti-slavery standard, ' , etc., and by her numerous writings did much to form the opinion which ultimately prevailed. she was, however, long subjected to public odium, her heterodoxy being well known. her principal work is the progress of religious ideas, vols.; ' . died wayland, mass., oct. . she was highly eulogised by wendell phillips. chilton (william), of bristol, was born in . in early life he was a bricklayer, but in ' he was concerned with charles southwell in starting the oracle of reason, which he set up in type, and of which he became one of the editors. he contributed some thoughtful articles on the theory of development to the library of reason, and wrote in the movement and the reasoner. died at bristol, may, . chubb (thomas), english deist, b. east harnham, near salisbury, sept. , was one of the first to show rationalism among the common people. beginning by contending for the supremacy of the father, he gradually relinquished supernatural religion, and considered that jesus christ was of the religion of thomas chubb. died feb. , leaving behind two vols. which he calls a farewell to his readers, from which it appears that he rejected both revelation and special providence. church (henry tyrell), lecturer and writer, edited tallis's shakespeare, wrote woman and her failings, , and contributed to the investigator when edited by mr. bradlaugh. died july, . clapiers (luc de). see vauvenargues. claretie (jules armand arsène), french writer, b. limoges, dec. . a prolific writer, of whose works we only cite free speech, ' ; his biographies of contemporary celebrities; and his work camille desmoulins, ' . clarke (john), brought up in the methodist connection, changed his opinion by studying the bible, and became one of carlile's shopmen. he was tried june, , for selling a blasphemous libel in number , vol. ix., of the republican, and after a spirited defence, in which he read many of the worst passages in the bible, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and to find securities for good behavior during life. he wrote while in prison, a critical review of the life, character, and miracles of jesus, a work showing with some bitterness much bold criticism and biblical knowledge. it first appeared in the newgate magazine and was afterwards published in book form, and ' . clarke (marcus), australian writer, b. kensington, . went to victoria, ' ; joined the staff of melbourne argus. in ' was made assistant librarian of the public library. he has compiled a history of australia, and written the peripatetic philosopher (a series of clever sketches), his natural life (a powerful novel), and some poems. an able freethought paper, "civilisation without delusion," in the victoria review, nov. ' , was replied to by bishop moorhouse. the reply, with clarke's answer, which was suppressed, was published in ' . died . claude-constant, author of a freethinkers' catechism published at paris in . clavel (adolphe), french positivist and physician, b. grenoble, . he has written on the principles of , on those of the nineteenth century, on positive morality, and some educational works. clavel (f. t. b.), french author of a picturesque history of freemasonry, and also a picturesque history of religions, , in which christianity takes a subordinate place. clayton (robert), successively bishop of killala, cork, and clogher, b. dublin, . by his benevolence attracted the friendship of samuel clarke, and adopted arianism, which he maintained in several publications. in he proposed, in the irish house of lords, the omission of the nicene and athanasian creeds from the liturgy, and stated that he then felt more relieved in his mind than for twenty years before. a legal prosecution was instituted, but he died, it is said, from nervous agitation ( feb. ) before the matter was decided. cleave (john), bookseller, and one of the pioneers of a cheap political press. started the london satirist, and cleave's penny gazette of variety, oct. , , to jan. , ' . he published many chartist and socialistic works, and an abridgment of howitt's history of priestcraft. in may, ' , he was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for selling haslam's letters to the clergy. clemenceau (georges benjamin eugene), french politician, b. moulleron-en-pareds, sept. . educated at nantes and paris, he took his doctor's degree in ' . his activity as republican ensured him a taste of gaol. he visited the united states and acted as correspondent on the temps. he returned at the time of the war and was elected deputy to the assembly. in jan. he founded la justice, having as collaborateurs m. c. pelletan, prof. acollas and dr. c. letourneau. as one of the chiefs of the radical party he was largely instrumental in getting m. carnot elected president. clemetshaw (c.), french writer, using the name cilwa. b. sept. of english parents; has contributed to many journals, was delegate to the international congress, london, of ' , and is editor of le danton. clemens (samuel langhorne), american humorist, better known as "mark twain," b. florida, missouri, nov. . in ' he served as mississippi pilot, and takes his pen name from the phrase used in sounding. in innocents abroad, or the new pilgrim's progress, ' , by which he made his name, there is much jesting with "sacred" subjects. mr. clemens is an agnostic. clifford (martin), english rationalist. was master of the charterhouse, , and published anonymously a treatise of human reason, london, ' , which was reprinted in the following year with the author's name. a short while after its publication laney, bishop of ely, was dining in charterhouse and remarked, not knowing the author, "'twas no matter if all the copies were burnt and the author with them, because it made every man's private fancy judge of religion." clifford died dec. . in the nouvelle biographie générale clifford is amusingly described as an "english theologian of the order des chartreux," who, it is added, was "prior of his order." clifford (william kingdon), mathematician, philosopher, and moralist, of rare originality and boldness, b. exeter may, . at the age of fifteen he was sent to king's college, london, where he showed an early genius for mathematics, publishing the analogues of pascal's theorem at the age of eighteen. entered trinity college, cambridge, in ' . in ' he was second wrangler. elected fellow of his college, he remained at cambridge till , when he accompanied the eclipse expedition to the mediterranean. the next year he was appointed professor of mathematics at london university, a post he held till his death. he was chosen f.r.s. ' . married miss lucy lane in april, ' . in the following year symptoms of consumption appeared, and he visited algeria and spain. he resumed work, but in ' took a voyage to madeira, where he died march. not long before his death appeared the first volume of his great mathematical work, elements of dynamic. since his death have been published the common sense of the exact sciences, and lectures and essays, in two volumes, edited by leslie stephen and mr. f. pollock. these volumes include his most striking freethought lectures and contributions to the fortnightly and other reviews. he intended to form them into a volume on the creed of science. clifford was an outspoken atheist, and he wrote of christianity as a religion which wrecked one civilisation and very nearly wrecked another. cloots or clootz (johann baptist, afterwards anacharsis) baron du val de grâce, prussian enthusiast, b. near cleves, june, , was a nephew of cornelius de pauw. in he published the the certainty of the proofs of mohammedanism, under the pseudonym of ali-gier-ber, an anagram of bergier, whose certainty of the proofs of christianity he parodies. he travelled widely, but became a resident of paris and a warm partisan of the revolution, to which he devoted his large fortune. he wrote a reply to burke, and continually wrote and spoke in favor of a universal republic. on june, , he, at the head of men of all countries, asked a place at the feast of federation, and henceforward was styled "orator of the human race." he was, with paine, priestley, washington and klopstock, made a french citizen, and in was elected to the convention by two departments. he debaptised himself, taking the name anacharsis, was a prime mover in the anti-catholic party, and induced bishop gobel to resign. he declared there was no other god but nature. incurring the enmity of robespierre, he and paine were arrested as foreigners. after two and a half months' imprisonment at st. lazare, he was brought to the scaffold with the hébertistes, march, . he died calmly, uttering materialist sentiments to the last. clough (arthur hugh), poet, b. liverpool, jan. . he was educated at rugby, under dr. arnold, and at oxford, where he showed himself of the broad school. leslie stephen says, "he never became bitter against the church of his childhood, but he came to regard its dogmas as imperfect and untenable." in ' he visited paris, and the same year produced his bothie of toper-na-fuosich: a long-vacation pastoral. between ' and ' he was professor of english literature in london university. in ' he visited the united states, where he gained the friendship of emerson and longfellow, and revised the dryden translation of plutarch's lives. died at florence, nov. . his remains are published in two volumes, and include an essay on religious tradition and some notable poems. he is the thyrsis of matthew arnold's exquisite monody. cnuzius (matthias). see knutzen. coke (henry), author of creeds of the day, or collated opinions of reputable thinkers, in vols, london, . cole (peter), a tanner of ipswich, was burnt for blasphemy in the castle ditch, norwich, . a dr. beamond preached to him before the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, "but he would not recant." see hamont. colenso (john william), b. jan. . was educated at st. john's, cambridge, and became a master at harrow. after acquiring fame by his valuable treatise on algebra, ' , he became first bishop of natal, ' . besides other works, he published the pentateuch and book of joshua critically examined, - , which made a great stir, and was condemned by both houses of convocation and its author declared deposed. the privy council, march ' , declared this deposition "null and void in law." colenso pleaded the cause of the natives at the time of the zulu war. he died june, . colins (jean guillaume césar alexandre hippolyte) baron de, belgian socialist and founder of "collectivism," b. brussels, dec. . author of nineteen volumes on social science. he denied alike monotheism and pantheism, but taught the natural immortality of the soul. died at paris, nov. . a number of disciples propagate his opinions in the philosophie de l'avenir. collins (anthony), english deist, b. heston, middlesex, june, . he studied at cambridge and afterwards at the temple, and became justice of the peace and treasurer of the county of essex. he was an intimate friend of locke, who highly esteemed him and made him his executor. he wrote an essay on reason, ; priestcraft in perfection, ; a vindication of the divine attributes, and a discourse on freethinking, . this last occasioned a great outcry, as it argued that all belief must be based on free inquiry, and that the use of reason would involve the abandonment of supernatural revelation. in he published an inquiry concerning human liberty, a brief, pithy defence of necessitarianism, and in a discourse on liberty and necessity. in appeared his discourse on the grounds and reasons of the christian religion, and this was followed by the scheme of literal prophecy considered, . he was a skilful disputant, and wrote with great ability. he is also credited with a discourse concerning ridicule and irony in writing. died at london, dec. . collins, says mr. leslie stephen, "appears to have been an amiable and upright man, and to have made all readers welcome to the use of a free library." professor fraser calls him "a remarkable man," praises his "love of truth and moral courage," and allows that in answering dr. samuel clarke on the question of liberty and necessity he "states the arguments against human freedom with a logical force unsurpassed by any necessitarian." a similar testimony to collins as a thinker and dialectician is borne by professor huxley. colman (lucy n.), american reformer, b. july, , has spent most of her life advocating the abolition of slavery, women's rights, and freethought. she has lectured widely, written reminisences in the life of a reformer of fifty years, and contributed to the truthseeker and boston investigator. colotes, of lampsacus, a hearer and disciple of epicurus, with whom he was a favorite. he wrote a work in favor of his master's teachings. he held it was unworthy of a philosopher to use fables. combe (abram), one of a noted scotch family of seventeen, b. edinburgh, jan. . he traded as a tanner, but, becoming acquainted with robert owen, founded a community at orbiston upon the principle of owen's new lanark, devoting nearly the whole of his large fortune to the scheme. but his health gave way and he died aug. . he wrote metaphysical sketches of the old and new systems and other works advocating owenism. combe (andrew), physician, brother of the above, b. edinburgh, oct. ; studied there and in paris; aided his brother george in founding the phrenological society; wrote popular works on the principles of physiology and the management of infancy. died near edinburgh, aug. . combe (george), phrenologist and educationalist, b. edinburgh, oct. . he was educated for the law. became acquainted with spurzheim, and published essays on phrenology, , and founded the phrenological journal. in ' he published the constitution of man, which excited great controversy especially for removing the chimeras of special providence and efficacy of prayer. in ' he married a daughter of mrs. siddons. he visited the united states and lectured on moral philosophy and secular education. his last work was the relations between science and religion, ' , in which he continued to uphold secular theism. he also published many lectures and essays. among his friends were miss evans (george eliot), who spent a fortnight with him in ' . he did more than any man of his time, save robert owen, for the cause of secular education. died at moor park, surrey, aug. . combes (paul), french writer, b. paris, june, . has written on darwinism, ' , and other works popularising science. commazzi (gian-battista), count author of politica e religione trovate insieme nella persona di giesù cristo, nicopoli [vienna] vols., - , in which he makes jesus to be a political impostor. it was rigorously confiscated at rome and vienna. comparetti (domenico), italian philologist, b. rome in . signor comparetti is professor at the institute of superior studies, rome, and has written many works on the classic writers, in which he evinces his pagan partialities. comte (isidore auguste marie françois xavier), french philosopher, mathematician and reformer, b. at montpelier, jan. . educated at paris in the polytechnic school, where he distinguished himself by his mathematical talent. in he made the acquaintance of st. simon, agreeing with him as to the necessity of a social renovation based upon a mental revolution. on the death of st. simon (' ) comte devoted himself to the elaboration of an original system of scientific thought, which, in the opinion of some able judges, entitles him to be called the bacon of the nineteenth century. mill speaks of him as the superior of descartes and leibniz. in ' he married, but the union proved unhappy. in the following year he lectured, but broke down under an attack of brain fever, which occasioned his detention in an asylum. he speedily recovered, and in ' resumed his lectures, which were attended by men like humboldt, ducrotay, broussais, carnot, etc. in ' he put forward the first volumes of his course of positive philosophy, which in ' was completed by the publication of the sixth volume. a condensed english version of this work was made by harriet martineau, ' . in ' comte formed a passionate platonic attachement to mme. clotilde de vaux, who died in the following year, having profoundely influenced comte's life. in consequence of his opinions, he lost his professorship, and was supported by his disciples--mill, molesworth and grote, in england, assisting. among other works, comte published a general view of positivism, ' , translated by dr. bridges, ' ; a system of positive polity, ' , translated by drs. bridges, beesley, f. harrison, etc., ' - ; and a positive catechism, ' , translated by dr. congreve, ' . he also wrote on positive logic, which he intended to follow with positive morality and positive industrialism. comte was a profound and suggestive thinker. he resolutely sets aside all theology and metaphysics, coordinates the sciences and substitutes the service of man for the worship of god. mr. j. cotter morison says "he belonged to that small class of rare minds, whose errors are often more valuable and stimulating than other men's truths." he died of cancer in the stomach at paris, sept. . condillac (etienne bonnot de), french philosopher, b. grenoble, about . his life was very retired, but his works show much acuteness. they are in vols., the principal being a treatise on the sensations, ; a treatise on animals, and an essay on the origin of human knowledge. in the first-named he shows that all mental life is gradually built up out of simple sensations. died aug. . condorcet (marie jean antoine nicolas caritat, marquis de), french philosopher and politician, b. ribemont, picardy, sept. . dedicated to the virgin by a pious mother, he was kept in girl's clothes until the age of . sent to a jesuit's school, he soon gave up religion. at sixteen he maintained a mathematical thesis in the presence of alembert. in the next year he dedicated to turgot a profession of faith. after some mathematical works, he was made member of the academy, of which he was appointed perpetual secretary, . in he published his atheistic letters of a theologian. he also wrote biographies of turgot and voltaire, and in favor of american independence and against negro slavery. in he represented paris in the national assembly, of which he became secretary. it was on his motion that, in the following year, all orders of nobility were abolished. voting against the death of the king and siding with the gironde drew on him the vengeance of the extreme party. he took shelter with madame vernet, but fearing to bring into trouble her and his wife, at whose instigation he wrote his fine sketch of the progress of the human mind while in hiding, he left, but, being arrested, died of exhaustion or by poison self-administered, at bourg la reine, march, . condorcet (sophie de grouchy caritat, marquise de), wife of above, and sister of general grouchy and of mme. cabanis, b. . she married condorcet , and was considered one of the most beautiful women of her time. she shared her husband's sentiments and opinions and, while he was proscribed, supported herself by portrait painting. she was arrested, and only came out of prison after the fall of robespierre. she translated adam smith's theory of the moral sentiments, which she accompanied with eight letters on sympathy, addressed to cabanis. she died sept. . her only daughter married gen. arthur o'connor. confucius (kung kew) or kung-foo-tsze, the philosopher kung, a chinese sage, b. in the state of loo, now part of shantung, about b.c. . he was distinguished by filial piety and learning. in his nineteenth year he married, and three years after began as a teacher, rejecting none who came to him. he travelled through many states. when past middle age he was appointed chief minister of loo, but finding the duke desired the renown of his name without adopting his counsel, he retired, and devoted his old age to editing the sacred classics of china. he died about b.c. . his teaching, chiefly found in the lun-yu, or confucian analects, was of a practical moral character, and did not include any religious dogmas. congreve (richard), english positivist, born in . educated at rugby under t. arnold, and oxford , m.a. ; was fellow of wadham college - . in ' he published his edition of aristotle politics. he became a follower of comte and influenced many to embrace positivism. translated comte's catechism of positive philosophy, , and has written many brochures. dr. congreve is considered the head of the strict or english comtists, and has long conducted a small "church of humanity." connor (bernard), a physician, b. co. kerry, of catholic family, . he travelled widely, and was made court physician to john sobieski, king of poland. he wrote a work entitled evangelium medici ( ), in which he attempts to account for the christian miracles on natural principles. for this he was accused of atheism. he died in london oct. . constant de rebecque (henri benjamin), swiss writer, b. lausanne, oct. , and educated at oxford, erlangen and edinburgh. in he entered paris as a protégé of mme. de stael, and in became a member of the tribunal. he opposed buonaparte and wrote on roman polytheism and an important work on religion considered in its source, its forms and its developments ( vols.; - ). died dec. . constant professed protestantism, but was at heart a sceptic, and has been called a second voltaire. a son was executor to auguste comte. conta (basil), roumanian philosopher, b. neamtza nov. . studied in italy and belgium, and became professor in the university of jassy, moldavia. in ' he published in brussels, in french, a theory of fatalism, which created some stir by its boldness of thought. conway (moncure daniel), author, b. in fredericksburg, stafford co. virginia, march, . he entered the methodist ministry ' , but changing his convictions through the influence of emerson and hicksite quakers, entered the divinity school at cambridge, where he graduated in ' and became pastor of a unitarian church until dismissed for his anti-slavery discourses. in ' he preached in cincinnati and there published the natural history of the devil, and other pamphlets. in ' mr. conway came to england and was minister of south place from the close of ' until his return to the states in ' . mr. conway is a frequent contributor to the press. he has also published the earthward pilgrimage, , a theory reversing bunyan's pilgrim's progress; collected a sacred anthology from the various sacred books of the world , which he used in his pulpit; has written on human sacrifices, , and idols and ideals, . his principal work is demonology and devil lore, , containing much information on mythology. he also issued his sermons under the title of lessons for the day, two vols., , and has published a monograph on the wandering jew, a biography of emerson, and is at present engaged on a life of thomas paine. cook (kenningale robert), ll.d., b. in lancashire sept. , son of the vicar of stallbridge. when a boy he used to puzzle his mother by such questions as, "if god was omnipotent could he make what had happened not have happened." he was intended for the church, but declined to subscribe the articles. graduated at dublin in ' , and took ll.d. in ' . in ' he became editor of the dublin university magazine, in which appeared some studies of the lineage of christian doctrine and traditions afterwards published under the title of the fathers of jesus. dr. cook wrote several volumes of choice poems. died july, . cooper (anthony ashley), see shaftesbury. cooper (henry), barrister, b. norwich about . he was a schoolfellow of wm. taylor of norwich. he served as midshipman at the battle of the nile, but disliking the service became a barrister, and acquired some fame by his spirited defence of mary ann carlile, july, , for which the report of the trial was dedicated to him by r. carlile. he was a friend of lord erskine, whose biography he commenced. died sept. . cooper (john gilbert), poet, b. thurgaton priory, notts, . educated at westminster school and trinity college, cambridge. an enthusiastic disciple of lord shaftesbury. under the name of "philaretes" he contributed to dodsley's museum. in he published a life of socrates, for which he was coarsely attacked by warburton. he wrote some poems under the signature of aristippus. died mayfair, london, april, . cooper (peter), a benevolent manufacturer, b. n. york, feb. . he devoted over half a million dollars to the cooper institute, for the secular instruction and elevation of the working classes. died april, . cooper (robert), secularist writer and lecturer, b. dec. , at barton-on-irwell, near manchester. he had the advantage of being brought up in a freethought family. at fourteen he became teacher in the co-operative schools, salford, lectured at fifteen, and by seventeen became an acknowledged advocate of owenism, holding a public discussion with the rev. j. bromley. some of his lectures were published--one on original sin sold twelve thousand copies--when he was scarcely eighteen. the holy scriptures analysed ( ) was denounced by the bishop of exeter in the house of lords. cooper was dismissed from a situation he had held ten years, and in became a socialist missionary in the north of england and scotland. at edinburgh ( ) he wrote free agency and orthodoxy, and compiled the infidel's text book. about ' he came to london, lecturing with success at john street institution. in ' he started the london investigator, which he edited for three years. in it appears his lectures on "science v. theology," "admissions of distinguished men," etc. failing health obliged him to retire leaving the investigator to "anthony collins" (w. h. johnson), and afterwards to "iconoclast" (c. bradlaugh). at his last lecture he fainted on the platform. in he remodelled his infidel text-book into a work on the bible and its evidences. he devoted himself to political reform until his death, may, . cooper (thomas), m.d., ll.d., natural philosopher, politician, jurist and author, b. london, oct. . educated at oxford, he afterwards studied law and medicine; was admitted to the bar and lived at manchester, where he wrote a number of tracts on "materialism," "whether deity be a free agent," etc., . deputed with james watt, the inventor, by the constitutional clubs to congratulate the democrats of france (april, ), he was attacked by burke and replied in a vigorous pamphlet. in ' he published information concerning america, and in the next year followed his friend priestly to philadelphia, established himself as a lawyer and was made judge. he also conducted the emporium of arts and sciences in that city. he was professor of medicine at carlisle college, ' , and afterwards held the chairs both of chemistry and political economy in south carolina college, of which he became president, - . this position he was forced to resign on account of his religious views. he translated from justinian and broussais, and digested the statutes of south carolina. in philosophy a materialist, in religion a freethinker, in politics a democrat, he urged his views in many pamphlets. one on the right of free discussion, and a little book on geology and the pentateuch, in reply to prof. silliman, were republished in london by james watson. died at columbia, may, . [ ] [ ] so varied was the activity of t. cooper during his long life that his works in the british museum were catalogued as by six different persons of the same name. i pointed this out, and the six single gentlemen will be rolled into one. coornhert (dirk volkertszoon), dutch humanist, poet and writer, b. amsterdam, . he travelled in his youth through spain and portugal. he set up as an engraver at haarlem, and became thereafter notary and secretary of the city of haarlem. he had a profound horror of intolerance, and defended liberty against beza and calvin. the clergy vituperated him as a judas and as instigated by satan, etc. bayle, who writes of him as theodore koornhert, says he communed neither with protestants nor catholics. the magistrates of delft drove him out of their city. he translated cicero's de officiis, and other works. died at gouda, oct. . cordonnier de saint hyacinthe. see saint-hyacinthe (themiseuil de). corvin-wiersbitski (otto julius bernhard von), prussian pole of noble family, who traced their descent from the roman corvinii, b. gumbinnen, oct. . he served in the prussian army, where he met his friend friedrich von sallet; retired into the landwehr , went to leipsic and entered upon a literary career, wrote the history of the dutch revolution, ; the history of christian fanaticism, , which was suppressed in austria. he took part with the democrats in ' ; was condemned to be shot sept. ' , but the sentence was commuted; spent six years' solitary confinement in prison; came to london, became correspondent to the times; went through american civil war, and afterwards franco-prussian war, as a special correspondent. he has written a history of the new time, - . died since . cotta (bernhard), german geologist, b. little zillbach, thuringia, oct. . he studied at the academy of mining, in freiberg, where he was appointed professor in ' . his first production, the dendroliths, ' , proved him a diligent investigator. it was followed by many geological treatises. cotta did much to support the nebular hypothesis and the law of natural development without miraculous agency. he also wrote on phrenology. died at freiburg, sept . cotta (c. aurelius), roman philosopher, orator and statesman, b. b.c. . in ' he became consul. on the expiration of his office he obtained gaul as a province. cicero had a high opinion of him and gives his sceptical arguments in the third book of his de natura deorum. courier (paul louis), french writer, b. paris, jan. . he entered the army and became an officer of artillery, serving with distinction in the army of the republic. he wrote many pamphlets, directed against the clerical restoration, which place him foremost among the literary men of the generation. his writings are now classics, but they brought him nothing but imprisonment, and he was apparently assassinated, april, . he had a presentiment that the bigots would kill him. coventry (henry), a native of cambridgeshire, b. about , fellow of magdalene college, author of letters of philemon to hydaspus on false religion ( ). died dec. . coward (william), m.d., b. winchester, . graduated at wadham college, oxford, . settled first at northampton, afterwards at london. published, besides some medical works, second thoughts concerning human soul, which excited much indignation by denying natural immortality. the house of commons ( march, ) ordered his work to be burnt. he died in . cox (the right rev. sir george william), b. , was educated at rugby and oxford, where he took b.c.l. in . entered the church, but has devoted himself to history and mythology. his most pretentious work is mythology of the aryan nations ( ). he has also written an introduction to comparative mythology and several historical works. in he became bishop of bloemfontein. he is credited with the authorship of the english life of jesus, published under the name of thomas scott. at the church congress of he read an heretical paper on biblical eschatology. his last production is a life of bishop colenso, vols, . coyteux (fernand), french writer, b. ruffec, . author of a materialistic system of philosophy, brussels, studies on physiology, paris, , etc. craig (edward thomas), social reformer, b. at manchester aug. . he was present at the peterloo massacre ' ; helped to form the salford social institute and became a pioneer of co-operation. in ' he became editor of the lancashire co-operator. in nov. of the same year he undertook the management of a co-operative farm at rahaline, co. clare. of this experiment he has written an history, ' . mr. craig has edited several journals and contributed largely to radical and co-operative literature. he has published a memoir of dr. travis and at the age of he wrote on the science of prolonging life. cramer (johan nicolai), swedish writer, b. wisby, gottland, feb. . he studied at upsala and became doctor of philosophy ' ; ordained priest in ' ; he resigned in ' . in religion he denies revelation and insists on the separation of church and state. among his works we mention separation from the church, a freethinker's annotations on the reading of the bible, stockholm, . a confession of faith; forward or back? ( ). he has also written on the punishment of death ( ), and other topics. cranbrook (rev. james.) born of strict calvinistic parents about . mr. cranbrook gradually emancipated himself from dogmas, became a teacher, and for sixteen years was minister of an independent church at liscard, cheshire. he also was professor at the ladies' college, liverpool, some of his lectures there being published ' . in jan. ' , he went to albany church, edinburgh, but his views being too broad for that congregation, he left in feb. ' but continued to give sunday lectures until his death, june, . in ' he published credibilia: an inquiry into the grounds of christian faith and two years later the founders of christianity, discourses on the origin of christianity. other lectures on human depravity, positive religion, etc., were published by thomas scott. cranch (christopher pearse), american painter and poet, b. alexandria, virginia, march, , graduated at divinity school, cambridge, mass. ' , but left the ministry in ' . he shows his freethought sentiments in satan, a libretto, boston, ' , and other works. craven (m. b.), american, author of a critical work on the bible entitled triumph of criticism, published at philadelphia, . cremonini (cesare), italian philosopher, b. cento, ferrara, , was professor of philosophy at padua from to , when he died. a follower of aristotle, he excited suspicion by his want of religion and his teaching the mortality of the soul. he was frequently ordered by the jesuits and the inquisition to refute the errors he gave currency to, but he was protected by the venetian state, and refused. like most of the philosophers of his time, he distinguished between religious and philosophic truth. bayle says. "il a passé pour un esprit fort, qui ne croyait point l'immortalité de l'âme." larousse says, "on peut dire qu'il n'était pas chrétien." ladvocat says his works "contain many things contrary to religion." cross (mary ann). see eliot (george). crousse (louis d.), french pantheistic philosopher, author of principles, or first philosophy, , and thoughts, . curtis (s. e.), english freethinker, author of theology displayed, . he has been credited with the protestant's progress to infidelity. see griffith (rees). died . croly (david goodman), american positivist, b. new york, nov. . he graduated at new york university in ' , and was subsequently a reporter on the new york herald. he became editor of the new york world until ' . from ' to ' he edited the modern thinker, an organ of the most advanced thought, and afterwards the new york graphic. mr. croly has written a primer of positivism, ' , and has contributed many articles to periodicals. his wife, jane cunningham, who calls herself "jennie june," b. , also wrote in the modern thinker. cross (mary ann), see eliot (george). crozier (john beattie), english writer of scottish border parentage, b. galt, ontario, canada, april, . in youth he won a scholarship to the grammar school of the town, and thence won another scholarship to the toronto university, where he graduated ' , taking the university and starr medals. he then came to london determined to study the great problems of religion and civilisation. he took his diploma from the london college of physicians in ' . in ' he wrote his first essay, "god or force," which, being rejected by all the magazines, he published as a pamphlet. other essays on the constitution of the world, carlyle, emerson, and spencer being also rejected, he published them in a book entitled the religion of the future, ' , which fell flat. he then started his work civilisation and progress, which appeared in ' , and was also unsuccessful until republished with a few notices in ' , when it received a chorus of applause, for its clear and original thoughts. mr. crozier is now engaged on his autobiography, after which he proposes to deal with the social question. cuffeler (abraham johann), a dutch philosopher and doctor of law, who was one of the first partizans of spinoza. he lived at utrecht towards the end of the seventeenth century, and wrote a work on logic in three parts entitled specimen artis ratiocinandi, etc., published ostensibly at hamburg, but really at amsterdam or utrecht, . it was without name but with the author's portrait. cuper (frans), dutch writer, b. rotterdam. cuper is suspected to have been one of those followers of spinoza, who under pretence of refuting him, set forth and sustained his arguments by feeble opposition. his work entitled arcana atheismi revelata, rotterdam , was denounced as written in bad faith. cuper maintained that the existence of god could not be proved by the light of reason. cyrano de bergerac (savinien), french comic writer, b. paris march, . after finishing his studies and serving in the army in his youth he devoted himself to literature. his tragedy "agrippine" is full of what a bookseller called "belles impiétés," and la monnoye relates that at its performance the pit shouted "oh, the wretch! the atheist! how he mocks at holy things!" cyrano knew personally campanella, gassendi, lamothe le vayer, linière, rohault, etc. his other works consist of a short fragment on physic, a collection of letters, and a comic history of the states and empires of the moon and the sun. cyrano took the idea of this book from f. godwin's man in the moon, , and it in turn gave rise to swift's gulliver's travels and voltaire's micromegas. died paris, . czolbe (heinrich), german materialist, b. near dantzic, dec. , studied medicine at berlin, writing an inaugural dissertation on the principles of physiology, ' . in ' he published his new exposition of sensationalism, in which everything is resolved into matter and motion, and in ' a work on the limits and origin of human knowledge. he was an intimate friend of ueberweg. died at königsberg, feb. . lange says "his life was marked by a deep and genuine morality." d'ablaing. see giessenburg. dale (antonius van), dutch writer, b. haarlem, nov. . his work on oracles was erudite but lumbersome, and to it fontenelle gave the charm of style. it was translated into english by mrs. aphra behn, under the title of the history of oracles and the cheats of pagan priests, . van dale, in another work on the origin and progress of idolatry and superstition, applied the historical method to his subject, and showed that the belief in demons was as old and as extensive as the human race. he died at haarlem, nov. . damilaville (etienne noël), french writer, b. at bordeaux, . at first a soldier, then a clerk, he did some service for voltaire, who became his friend. he also made the friendship diderot, d'alembert, grimm, and d'holbach. he contributed to the encyclopédie, and in published an attack on the theologians, entitled theological honesty. the book entitled christianity unveiled [see boulanger and holbach] was attributed by voltaire, who called it impiety unveiled, and by la harpe and lalande to damilaville. voltaire called him "one of our most learned writers." larousse says "he was an ardent enemy of christianity." he has also been credited with a share in the system of nature. died dec. . dandolo (vincenzo) count, italian chemist, b. venice, oct. , wrote principles of physical chemistry, a work in french on the new men, in which he shows his antagonism to religion, and many useful works on vine, timber, and silk culture. died varessa, dec. . danton (georges jacques), french revolutionist, b. arcis sur aube, oct. . an uncle wished him to enter into orders, but he preferred to study law. during the revolution his eloquence made him conspicuous at the club of cordeliers, and in feb. , he became one of the administrators of paris. one of the first to see that after the flight of louis xvi. he could no longer be king, he demanded his suspension, and became one of the chief organisers of the republic. in the alarm caused by the invasion he urged a bold and resolute policy. he was a member of the convention and of the committee of public safety. at the crisis of the struggle with robespierre, danton declined to strike the first blow and disdained to fly. arrested march, , he said when interrogated by the judge, "my name is danton, my dwelling will soon be in annihilation; but my name will live in the pantheon of history." he maintained his lofty bearing on the scaffold, where he perished april, . for his known scepticism danton was called fils de diderot. carlyle calls him "a very man." dapper (olfert), dutch physician, who occupied himself with history and geography, on which he produced important works. he had no religion and was suspected of atheism. he travelled through syria, babylonia, etc., in . he translated herodotus ( ) and the orations of the late prof. caspar v. baerli ( ), and wrote a history of the city of amsterdam, . died at amsterdam . darget (etienne), b. paris, ; went to berlin in and became reader and private secretary to frederick the great ( - ), who corresponded with him afterwards. died . darwin (charles robert), english naturalist, b. shrewsbury, feb. . educated at shrewsbury, edinburgh university, and cambridge. he early evinced a taste for collecting and observing natural objects. he was intended for a clergyman, but, incited by humboldt's personal narrative, resolved to travel. he accompanied captain fitzroy in the "beagle" on a voyage of exploration, ' - , which he narrated in his voyage of a naturalist round the world, which obtained great popularity. in ' he married, and in ' left london and settled at down, kent. his studies, combined with the reading of lamarck and malthus, led to his great work on the origin of species by means of natural selection, ' , which made a great outcry and marked an epoch. darwin took no part in the controversy raised by the theologians, but followed his work with the fertilisation of orchids, ' ; cross and self fertilisation of plants, ' ; variations of plants and animals under domestication, ' ; and in ' the descent of man and selection in relation to sex, which caused yet greater consternation in orthodox circles. the following year he issued the expression of the emotions of men and animals. he also published works on the movements of plants, insectivorous plants, the forms of flowers, and earthworms. he died april, , and was buried in westminster abbey, despite his expressed unbelief in revelation. to a german student he wrote, in ' , "science has nothing to do with christ, except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. for myself i do not believe that there ever has been any revelation." in his life and letters he relates that between and he had come to see "that the old testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the hindoos." he rejected design and said "i for one must be content to remain an agnostic." darwin (erasmus), dr., poet, physiologist and philosopher, grandfather of the above, was born at elston, near newark, dec. . educated at chesterfield and cambridge he became a physician, first at lichfield and afterwards at derby. he was acquainted with rousseau, watt and wedgwood. his principal poem, the botanic garden was published in , and the temple of nature in . his principal work is zoomania, or the laws of organic life ( ), for which he was accused of atheism. he was actually a deist. he also wrote on female education and some papers in the philosophical transactions. died at derby, april, . daubermesnil (françois antoine), french conventionalist. elected deputy of tarn in . afterwards became a member of the council of five hundred. he was one of the founders of theophilanthropy. died at perpignan . daudet (alphonse), french novelist, b. at nîmes, may , author of many popular romances, of which we mention l'evangeliste, ' , which has been translated into english under the title port salvation. daunou (pierre claude françois), french politician and historian, b. boulogne, aug. . his father entered him in the congregation of the fathers of the oratory, which he left at the revolution. the department of calais elected him with carnot and thomas paine to the convention. after the revolution he became librarian at the pantheon. he was a friend of garat, cabanis, chenier, destutt tracy, ginguené and benj. constant. wrote historical essay on the temporal power of the popes, . died at paris, june, , noted for his benevolence. davenport (allen), social reformer, b. . he contributed to carlile's republican; wrote an account of the life, writings and principles of thomas spence, the reformer ( ); and published a volume of verse, entitled the muses' wreath ( ). died at highbury, london, . davenport (john), deist, b. london, june, , became a teacher. he wrote an apology for mohammed and the koran, ; curiositates eroticoe physiologæ, or tabooed subjects freely treated, and several educational works. died in poverty may, . david of dinant, in belgium, pantheistic philosopher of the twelfth century. he is said to have visited the papal court of innocent iii. he shared in the heresies of amalric of chârtres, and his work quaterini was condemned and burnt ( ). he only escaped the stake by rapid flight. according to albert the great he was the author of a philosophical work de tomis, "of subdivisions," in which he taught that all things were one. his system was similar to that of spinoza. david (jacques louis), french painter, born at paris, aug. , was made painter to the king, but joined the jacobin club, became a member of the convention, voted for the king's death and for the civic festivals, for which he made designs. on the restoration he was banished. died at brussels, dec. . david was an honest enthusiast and a thorough freethinker. davidis or david (ferencz), a transylvanian divine, b. about . he was successively a roman catholic, a lutheran and an antitrinitarian. he went further than f. socinus and declared there was "as much foundation for praying to the virgin mary and other dead saints as to jesus christ." he was in consequence accused of judaising and thrown into prison at deva, where he died june, . davies (john c.), of stockport, an english jacobin, who in published a list of contradictions of the bible under the title of the scripturian's creed, for which he was prosecuted and imprisoned. the work was republished by carlile, , and also at manchester, . davidson (thomas), bookseller and publisher, was prosecuted by the vice society in oct. , for selling the republican and a publication of his own, called the deist's magazine. for observations made in his defence he was summoned and fined £ , and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in oakham gaol. he died dec. . debierre (charles), french writer, author of man before history, . de dominicis. see dominicis. de felice (francesco), italian writer, b. catania, sicily, , took part in the revolution of ' , and when garibaldi landed in sicily was appointed president of the provisional council of war. has written on the reformation of elementary schools. de greef (guillaume joseph), advocate at brussels court of appeal, b. at brussels, oct. . author of an important introduction to sociology, . wrote in la liberté, - , and now writes in la societé nouvelle. de gubernatis (angelo), italian orientalist and writer, b. turin, april, ; studied at turin university and became doctor of philosophy. he studied sanskrit under bopp and weber at berlin. sig. de gubernatis has adorned italian literature with many important works, of which we mention his volumes on zoological mythology, which has been translated into english, ' : and on the mythology of plants. he has compiled and in large part written a universal history of literature, vols. ' - ; edited la revista europea and the revue internationale, and contributed to many publications. he is a brilliant writer and a versatile scholar. de harven (emile jean alexandre), b. antwerp, sept. , the anonymous author of a work on the soul: its origin and destiny (antwerp, ). dekker (eduard douwes), the greatest dutch writer and freethinker of this century, b. amsterdam, march, . in ' he accompanied his father, a ship's captain, to the malayan archipelago. he became officer under the dutch government in sumatra, amboina, and assistant-resident at lebac, java. he desired to free the javanese from the oppression of their princes, but the government would not help him and he resigned and returned to holland, ' . the next four years he spent, in poverty, vainly seeking justice for the javanese. in ' he published under the pen name of "multatuli" max havelaar, a masterly indictment of the dutch rule in india, which has been translated into german, french and english. then follow his choice minnebrieven (love letters), ' ; vorstenschool (a school for princes), and millioenen studiën (studies on millions). his ideën, vols. ' - , are full of the boldest heresy. in most of his works religion is attacked, but in the ideas faith is criticised with much more pungency and satire. he wrote "faith is the voluntary prison-cell of reason." he was an honorary member of the freethought society, de dageraad, and contributed to its organ. during the latter years of his life he lived at wiesbaden, where he died feb. . his corpse was burned in the crematory at gotha. de lalande (see lalande). delambre (jean baptiste joseph), french astronomer, b. amiens, sept. , studied under lalande and became, like his master, an atheist. his tables of the orbit of uranus were crowned by the academy, . in he succeeded lalande as professor of astronomy at the collége de france. he is the author of a history of astronomy in five volumes, and of a number of astronomical tables and other scientific works he was appointed perpetual secretary of the academy of sciences. died aug. , and was buried at père la chaise. cuvier pronouncing a discourse over his grave. de la ramee. see ramée. delboeuf (joseph remi léopold), belgian writer, b. liège, sept. ; is professor at the university of liège, and has written psychology as a natural science, its present and its future; application of the experimental method to the phenomena of the soul, ' , and other works. in his philosophical prolegomena to geometry he suggests that even mathematical axioms may have an empirical origin. delbos (léon), linguist, b. sept. of spanish father and scotch mother. educated in paris, lycée charlemagne. is an m.a. of paris and officier d'académie. speaks many languages, and is a good arabic and sanskrit scholar. has travelled widely and served in the franco-german war. besides many educational works, m. delbos has written l'athée, the atheist, a freethought romance ' , and in english the faith in jesus not a new faith, ' . he has contributed to the agnostic annual, and is a decided agnostic. delepierre (joseph octave), belgian bibliophile, b. bruges, march, . was for thirty-five years secretary of legation to england. his daughter married n. truebner, who published his work l'enfer, , and many other bibliographical studies. died london, aug. . delescluze (louis charles), french journalist and revolutionary, b. dreux, oct. , was arrested in ' for sedition. implicated in a plot in ' , he took refuge in belgium. in ' he issued at paris la revolution démocratique et sociale, but was soon again in prison. he was banished, came to england with ledru rollin, but returning to france in ' was arrested. in ' he published the réveil, for which he was again fined and sentenced to prison for ten years. in ' he was amnestied and imprisoned. he became head of the commune committee of public safety, and died at the barricade, may, . deleyre (alexandre), french writer, b. porbats, near bordeaux, jan. . early in life he entered the order of jesuits, but changed his faith and became the friend of rousseau and diderot. he contributed to the encyclopédie, notably the article "fanatisme," and published an analysis of bacon and works on the genius of montesquieu and saint evremond, and a history of voyages. he embraced the revolution with ardor, was made deputy to the convention, and in was made member of the institute. died at paris, march, . delisle de sales. see isoard delisle (j. b. c.) dell (john henry), artist and poet, b. aug. . contributed to progress, wrote nature pictures, ' , and the dawning grey, ' , a volume of vigorous verse, imbued with the spirit of democracy and freethought. died jan. . deluc (adolphe), professor of chemistry at brussels, b. paris, sept. . collaborated on la libre recherche. de maillet. see maillet (benoît de). democritus, a wealthy atheistic philosopher, b. abdera, thrace, b.c. . he travelled to egypt and over a great part of asia, and is also said to have visited india. he is supposed to have been acquainted with leucippus, and sixty works were ascribed to him. died b.c. . he taught that all existence consisted of atoms, and made the discovery of causes the object of scientific inquiry. he is said to have laughed at life in general, which montaigne says is better than to imitate heraclitus and weep, since mankind are not so unhappy as vain. democritus was the forerunner of epicurus, who improved his system. demonax, a cynical philosopher who lived in the second century of the christian era and rejected all religion. an account of him was written by lucian. demora (gianbattista), director of the libero pensatore of milan, and author of some dramatic works. denis (hector), belgian advocate and professor of political economy and philosophy at brussels university, b. braine-le-comte, april, . has written largely on social questions and contributed to la liberté, la philosophie positive, etc. is one of the council of the international federation of freethinkers. denslow (van buren), american writer, author of essays on modern thinkers, , to which colonel ingersoll wrote an introduction. he contributed a paper on the value of irreligion to the religio philosophic journal of america, jan. ' , and has written in the truthseeker and other journals. denton (william f.), poet, geologist, and lecturer, b. darlington, durham, jan. . after attaining manhood he emigrated to the united states, ' , and in ' published poems for reformers. he was a prolific writer, and constant lecturer on temperance, psychology, geology, and freethought. in ' he published radical discourses on religious subjects (boston, ' ), and radical rhymes, ' . he travelled to australasia, and died of a fever while conducting scientific explorations in new guinea aug. . de paepe (césar) dr., belgian socialist, b. ostend, july, . he was sent to the college of st. michel, brussels. he obtained the diploma of candidate of philosophy, but on the death of his father became a printer with désiré brismée (founder of les solidaires, a rationalist society). proudhon confided to him the correction of his works. he became a physician and is popular with the workmen's societies. he was one of the foremost members of the international and attended all its congresses, as well as those of the international federation of freethinkers. he has written much on public hygiene, political economy, and psychology, collaborating in a great number of the most advanced journals. dr. de paepe is a short, fair, energetic man, capable both as a speaker and writer. depasse (hector), french writer, b. at armentières in , is editor of la république française, and member of the paris municipal council. he has written a striking work on clericalism, in which he urges the separation of church and state, ; and is author of many little books on contemporary celebrities, among them are gambetta, bert, ranc, etc. de ponnat. see ponnat (--de), baron. de pontan. see ponnat. de potter (agathon louis), belgian economist, b. brussels, nov. . has written many works on social science, and has collaborated to la ragione (reason), ' , and la philosophie de l'avenir. de potter (louis antoine joseph), belgian politician and writer, father of the above, b. of noble family, bruges, april, . in he went to italy and lived ten years at rome. in ' he wrote the spirit of the church, in vols., which are put on the roman index. a strong upholder of secular education in belgium, he was arrested more than once for his radicalism, being imprisoned for eighteen months in ' . in sept. ' he became a member of the provisional government. he was afterwards exiled and lived in paris, where he wrote a philosophical and anti-clerical history of christianity, in vols., - . he also wrote a rational catechism, , and a rational dictionary, , and numerous brochures. died bruges, july, . deraismes (maria), french writer and lecturer, b. paris, aug. . she first made her name as a writer of comedies. she wrote an appeal on behalf of her sex, aux femmes riches, ' . the masonic lodge of le pecq, near paris, invited her to become a member, and she was duly installed under the grand orient of france. the first female freemason, was president of the paris anti-clerical congress of , and has written much in her journal, le républicain de seine et oise. de roberty (eugene). see roberty. desbarreaux (jacques vallée), seigneur, french poet and sceptic, b. paris, , great-nephew of geoffrey vallée, who was burnt in . many stories are related of his impiety, e.g. the well-known one of his having a feast of eggs and bacon. it thundered, and des barreaux, throwing the plate out of window, exclaimed, "what an amount of noise over an omelette." it was said he recanted and wrote a poem beginning, "great god, how just are thy chastisements." voltaire, however, assigns this poem to the abbé levau. died at chalons, may, . descartes (rené), french philosopher, b. at la haye, march, . after leaving college he entered the army in ' , and fought in the battle of prague. he travelled in france and italy, and in ' settled in holland. in ' he produced his famous discourses upon the method of reasoning well, etc., and in ' his meditations upon first philosophy. this work gave such offence to the clergy that he was forced to fly his country "parce qu'il y fait trop chaud pour lui." he burnt his traite du monde (treatise on the world) lest he should incur the fate of gallilei. though a theist, like bacon, he puts aside final causes. he was offered an asylum by christina, queen of sweden, and died at stockholm feb. . deschamps (léger-marie), known also as dom deschamps, a french philosopher, b. rennes, poitiers, jan. . he entered the order of benedictines, but lost his faith by reading an abridgment of the old testament. he became correspondent of voltaire, rousseau, d'alembert, helvetius, and other philosophers. "ce prêtre athée," as ad. franck calls him, was the author of a treatise entitled la vérité, ou le vrai système, in which he appears to have anticipated all the leading ideas of hegel. god, he says, as separated from existing things, is pure nothingness. an analysis of his remarkable work, which remained in manuscript for three-quarters of a century, has been published by professor beaussire (paris, ). died at montreuil-bellay, april . deslandes (andré françois boureau), b. pondichery, . became member of the berlin academy and wrote numerous works, mostly under the veil of anonymity, the principal being a critical history of philosophy, vols( ). his pygmalion, a philosophical romance, was condemned by the parliament of dijon, . his reflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont mort en plaisantant (amsterdam, ) was translated into english and published in under the title, dying merrily. another work directed against religion was on the certainty of human knowledge, a philosophical examination of the different prerogatives of reason and faith (london, ). died paris, april, . des maizeaux (pierre), miscellaneous writer, b. auvergne, . he studied at berne and geneva, and became known to bayle who introduced him to lord shaftesbury, with whom he came to london, . he edited the works of bayle, saint evremond and toland, whose lives he wrote, as well as those of hales and chillingworth. anthony collins was his friend, and at his death left him his manuscripts. these he transferred to collins's widow and they were burnt. he repented and returned the money, jan. , as the wages of iniquity. he became secretary of the royal society of london, where he died, july, . desmoulins (lucié simplice camille benôit), french revolutionary writer, b. guise, march, . he was a fellow-student of robespierre at paris, and became an advocate and an enthusiastic reformer. in july ' he incited the people to the siege of the bastille, and thus began the revolution. on dec. he married lucile laridon-duplessis. he edited le vieux cordelier and the révolutions de france et de brabant, in which he stated that mohammedanism was as credible as christianity. he was a deist, preferring paganism to christianity. both creeds were more or less unreasonable; but, folly for folly, he said, i prefer hercules slaying the erymanthean boar to jesus of nazareth drowning two thousand pigs. he was executed with danton, april . his amiable wife, lucile, who was an atheist (b. ), in a few days shared his fate (april ). carlyle calls desmoulins a man of genius, "a fellow of infinite shrewdness, wit--nay, humor." des periers (jean bonaventure), french poet and sceptic, b. arnay le duc, about . he was brought up in a convent, only to detest the vices of the monks. in he lived in lyons and assisted dolet. he probably knew rabelais, whom he mentions as "francoys insigne." attached to the court of marguerite of valois, he defended clement marot when persecuted for making a french version of the psalms. he wrote the cymbalum mundi, a satire upon religion, published under the name of thomas de clenier à pierre tryocan, i.e., thomas incrédule à pierre croyant, . it was suppressed and the printer, jehan morin, imprisoned. des periers fled and died (probably by suicide, to escape persecution) . an english version of cymbalum mundi was published in . p. g. brunet, the bibliographer, conjectures that des periers was the author of the famous atheistic treatise, the three impostors. destriveaux (pierre joseph), belgian lawyer and politician, b. liége, march, . author of several works on public right. died schaerbeck (brussels), feb. . destutt de tracy (antoine louis de claude) count, french materialist philosopher, b. july, . his family was of scotch origin. at first a soldier, he was one of the first noblemen at the revolution to despoil himself of his title. a friend of lafayette, condorcet, and cabanis, he was a complete sceptic in religion; made an analysis of dupuis' origine de tous les cultes ( ), edited montesquieu and cabanis, was made a member of the french academy ( ), and wrote several philosophical works, of which the principal is elements of ideology. he was a great admirer of hobbes. died paris, march, . des vignes (pietro), secretary to frederick ii. ( - ). mazzuchelli attributes to him the treatise de tribus impostoribus. detrosier (rowland), social reformer and lecturer, b. , the illegitimate son of a manchester man named morris and a frenchwoman. in his early years he was "for whole days without food." self-educated, he established the first mechanics' institute in england at hulme, gave sunday scientific lectures, and published several discourses in favor of secular education. he became secretary of the national political union. he was a deist. like bentham, who became his friend, he bequeathed his body for scientific purposes. died in london, nov. . deubler (konrad). the son of poor parents, b. goisern, near ischl, upper austria, nov. . self-taught amid difficulties, he became the friend of feuerbach and strauss, and was known as "the peasant philosopher." in he was indicted for blasphemy, and was sentenced to two years' hard labor and imprisonment during pleasure. he was incarcerated from dec. ' , till nov. ' at brünn, and afterwards at olmutz, where he was released march, . he returned to his native place, and was visited by feuerbach. in ' he was made burgomaster by his fellow-townsmen. died march, . deurhoff (willem), dutch writer, b. amsterdam, march . educated for the church, he gave himself to philosophy, translated the works of descartes, and was accused of being a follower of spinoza. forced to leave his country, he took refuge in brabant, but returned to holland, where he died oct. . he left some followers. de wette. (see wette m. l. de). d'holbach. see holbach (p. h. d. von), baron. diagoras, greek poet, philosopher, and orator, known as "the atheist," b. melos. a pupil of democritus, who is said to have freed him from slavery. a doubtful tradition reports that he became an atheist after being the victim of an unpunished perjury. he was accused (b.c. ) of impiety, and had to fly from athens to corinth, where he died. a price was put upon the atheist's head. his works are not extant, but several anecdotes are related of him, as that he threw a wooden statue of hercules into the fire to cook a dish of lentils, saying the god had a thirteenth task to perform; and that, being on his flight by sea overtaken by a storm, hearing his fellow-passengers say it was because an atheist was on board, he pointed to other vessels struggling in the same storm without being laden with a diagoras. di cagno politi (niccola annibale), italian positivist, b. bari, . studied at naples under angiulli, has written on modern culture and on experimental philosophy in italy, and contributed articles on positivism to the rivista europea. diderot (denis), french philosopher, b. langres, oct. . his father, a cutler, intended him for the church. educated by jesuits, at the age of twelve he received the tonsure. he had a passion for books, but, instead of becoming a jesuit, went to paris, where he supported himself by teaching and translating. in he published philosophic thoughts, which was condemned to be burnt. it did much to advance freedom of opinion. three years later his letters on the blind occasioned his imprisonment at vincennes for its materialistic atheism. rousseau, who called him "a transcendent genius," visited diderot in prison, where he remained three years. diderot projected the famous encyclopédie, which he edited with alembert, and he contributed some of the most important articles. with very inadequate recompense, and amidst difficulties that would have appalled an ordinary editor, diderot superintended the undertaking for many years ( - ). he also contributed to other important works, such as raynal's philosophic history, l'esprit, by helvetius, and the system of nature and other works of his friend d'holbach. diderot's fertile mind also produced dramas, essays, sketches, and novels. died july, . comte calls diderot "the greatest thinker of the eighteenth century." diercks (gustav), german author of able works on the history of the development of human spirit (berlin, - ) and on arabian culture in spain, . is a member of the german freethinkers' union. dilke (ashton wentworth), b. . educated at cambridge, travelled in russia and central asia, and published a translation of turgenev's virgin soil. he purchased and edited the weekly dispatch; was returned as m.p. for newcastle in , but, owing to ill health, resigned in favor of john morley, and died at algiers march, . dinter (gustav friedrich), german educationalist, b. borna, near leipsic, feb. . his bible for schoolmasters is his best-known work. it sought to give rational notes and explanations of the jew books, and excited much controversy. died at konigsberg, may, . dippel (johann konrad), german alchemist and physician, b. aug. , at frankenstein, near darmstadt. his papismus vapulans protestantium ( ) drew on him the wrath of the theologians of giessen, and he had to flee for his life. attempting to find out the philosopher's stone, he discovered prussian blue. in he published his satires against the protestant church, hirt und eine heerde, under the name of christianus democritos. he denied the inspiration of the bible, and after an adventurous life in many countries died april, . dobrolyubov (nikolai aleksandrovich), russian author, b. , at nijni novgorod, the son of a priest. educated at st. petersburg, he became a radical journalist. his works were edited in four vols. by chernuishevsky. died nov. . dodel-port (prof. arnold), swiss scientist, b. affeltrangen, thurgau, oct. . educated at kreuzlingen, he became in ' teacher in the oberschule in hauptweil; then studied from ' -' at geneva, zürich, and munich, becoming privat docent in the university of zürich, ' . in ' he published the new history of creation. in ' he issued his world-famous botanical atlas, and was in ' made professor of botany in the zürich university and director of the botanical laboratory. he has also written biological fragments ( ), the life and letters of konrad deubler, "the peasant philosopher" ( ), and has just published moses or darwin? a school question, . dr. dodel-port is an hon. member of the london royal society and vice-president of the german freethinkers' union. dodwell (henry), eldest son of the theologian of that name, was b. shottesbrooke, berkshire, about the beginning of the eighteenth century. he was educated at magdalen hall, when he proceeded b.a., feb. . in ' he published a pamphlet entitled christianity not founded on argument, which in a tone of grave irony contends that christianity can only be accepted by faith. he was brought up to the law and was a zealous friend of the society for the promotion of arts, manufactures, and commerce. died . doebereiner (johann wolfgang), german chemist, b. bavaria, dec. . in he became professor of chemistry at jena, where he added much to science. died march, . he was friend and instructor to goethe. dolet (etienne), a learned french humanist, b. orleans aug. . he studied in paris, padua and venice. for his heresy he had to fly from toulouse and lived for some time at lyons, where he established a printing-press and published some of his works, for which he was imprisoned. he was acquainted with rabelais, des periers, and other advanced men of the time. in the parliament condemned his books to be burnt, and in the next year he was arrested on a charge of atheism. after being kept two years in prison he was strangled and burnt, aug. . it is related that seeing the sorrow of the crowd, he said: "non dolet ipe dolet, sed pia turba dolet."--dolet grieves not, but the generous crowd grieves. his goods being confiscated, his widow and children were left to beggary. "the french language," says a. f. didot, "owes him much for his treatises, translations, and poesies." dolet's biographer, m. joseph boulmier, calls him "le christ de la pensée libre." philosophy has alone the right, says henri martin, to claim dolet on its side. his english biographer, r. c. christie, says he was "neither a catholic nor a protestant." dominicis (saverio fausto de), italian positivist philosopher, b. buonalbergo, . is professor of philosophy at bari, and has written on education and darwinism. dondorf (dr. a.), see anderson (marie) in supplement. doray de longrais (jean paul), french man of letters. b. manvieux, . author of a freethought romance, faustin, or the philosophical age. died at paris, . dorsch (eduard), german american freethinker, b. warzburg jan. . he studied at munich and vienna. in ' he went to america and settled in monroe, michigan, where he published a volume of poems, some being translations from swinburne. died jan. . dorsey (j. m.), author of the the true history of moses, and others, an attack on the bible, published at boston in . draparnaud (jacques philippe raymond), french doctor, b. june, , at montpelier, where he became professor of natural history. his discourses on life and vital functions, and on the philosophy of the sciences and christianity ( ), show his scepticism. died feb. . draper (john william), scientist and historian, b. st. helens, near liverpool, may . the son of a wesleyan minister, he was educated at london university. in ' he emigrated to america, where he was professor of chemistry and natural history in new york university. he was one of the inventors of photography and the first who applied it to astronomy. he wrote many scientific works, notably on human physiology. his history of the american civil war is an important work, but he is chiefly known by his history of the intellectual development of europe and history of the conflict of religion and science, which last has gone through many editions and been translated into all the principal languages. died jan. . dreyfus (ferdinand camille), author of an able work on the evolution of worlds and societies, . droysen (johann gustav), german historian, b. treptoir, july, . studied at berlin; wrote in the hallische jahrbücher; was professor of history at keil, ; jena ' and berlin ' . has edited frederick the great's correspondence, and written other important works, some in conjunction with his friend max duncker. died june, . drummond (sir william), of logie almond, antiquary and author, b. about ; entered parliament as member for st. mawes, cornwall, . in the following year he became envoy to the court of naples, and in ambassador to constantinople. his principal work is origines, or remarks on the origin of several empires, states, and cities ( vols. - ). he also printed privately the oedipus judaicus, . it calls in question, with much boldness and learning, many legends of the old testament, to which it gave an astronomical signification. it was reprinted in ' . sir william drummond also wrote anonymously philosophical sketches of the principles of society, . died at rome, march, . duboc (julius) german writer and doctor of philosophy b. hamburg, oct. . educated at frankfurt and giessen, is a clever journalist, and has translated the history of the english press. has written an atheistic work, das leben ohne gott (life without god), with the motto from feuerbach "no religion is my religion, no philosophy my philosophy," . he has also written on the psychology of love, and other important works. dubois (pierre), a french sceptic, who in published the true catechism of believers--a work ordered by the court of assizes to be suppressed, and for which the author (sept. ' ) was condemned to six months' imprisonment and a fine of one thousand francs. he also wrote the believer undeceived, or evident proofs of the falsity and absurdity of christianity; a work put on the index in ' . du bois-reymond (emil), biologist, of swiss father and french mother, b. berlin, nov. . he studied at berlin and bonn for the church, but left it to follow science, ' . has become famous as a physiologist, especially by his researches in animal electricity, ' - . with helmholtz he has done much to establish the new era of positive science, wrongly called by opponents materialism. du bois-reymond holds that thought is a function of the brain and nervous system, and that "soul" has arisen as the gradual results of natural combinations, but in his limits of the knowledge of nature, ' , he contends that we must always come to an ultimate incomprehensible. du bois-reymond has written on voltaire and natural science, ' ; la mettrie, ' ; darwin versus galiani, ' ; and frederick ii. and rousseau, ' . since ' he has been perpetual secretary of the academy of sciences, berlin. dubuisson (paul ulrich), french dramatist and revolutionary, b. lauat, . a friend of cloots he suffered with him on the scaffold, march, . dubuisson (paul), living french positivist, author of grand types of humanity. du chatelet lomont. see chastelet. duclos (charles pinot), witty french writer, b. dinan, feb. . he was admitted into the french academy, and became its secretary, . a friend of diderot and d'alembert. his considerations sur les moeurs is still a readable work. died march, . ducos (jean françois), french girondist, b. bordeaux in . elected to the legislative assembly, he, on the th oct. , demanded the complete separation of the state from religion. he shared the fate of the girondins, oct. , crying with his last breath, "vive la republique!" du deffand (marie), marchioness, witty literary frenchwoman, b. . chamfort relates that when young and in a convent she preached irreligion to her young comrades. the abbess called in massillon, to whom the little sceptic gave her reasons. he went away saying "she is charming." her house in paris was for fifty years the resort of eminent authors and statesmen. she corresponded for many years with horace walpole, d'alembert and voltaire. many anecdotes are told of her; thus, to the cardinal de polignac, who spoke of the miracle of st. denis walking when beheaded, she said "il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte." died sept. . to the curé of saint sulpice, who came to her death-bed, she said "ni questions, ni raisons, ni sermons." larousse calls her "belle, instruite, spirituelle mais sceptique et materialiste." dudgeon (william), a berwickshire deist, whose works were published (privately printed at edinburgh) in . dudnevant (a. l. a. dupin), baroness. see sand (georges). duehring (eugen karl), german writer, b. berlin, jan. ; studied law. he has, though blind, written many works on science and political economy, also a critical history of philosophy, ' - , and science revolutionized, ' . in oct. , his death was maliciously reported. dulaure (jacques antoine), french archæologist and historian, b. clermont-ferrand, dec. . in - he published six volumes of a description of france. he wrote many pamphlets, including one on the private lives of ecclesiastics. elected to the convention in , he voted for the death of the king. proscribed as a girondist, sept. , he fled to switzerland. he was one of the council of five hundred, - . dulaure wrote a learned treatise on superstitions, but he is best known by his history of paris, and his short history of different worships, , in which he deals with ancient fetishism and phallic worship. died paris, aug. . dulaurens (henri joseph). french satirist, b. douay, march, . he was brought up in a convent, and made a priest nov. . published a satire against the jesuits, , he was compelled to fly to holland, where he lived in poverty. he edited l'evangile de la raison, a collection of anti-christian tracts by voltaire and others, and wrote l'antipapisme révelé in . he was in that year condemned to perpetual imprisonment for heresy, and shut in the convent of mariabaum, where he died . dulaurens was caustic, cynical and vivacious. he is also credited with the portfolios of a philosopher, mostly taken from the analysis of bayle, cologne, . dulk (albert friedrich benno), german poet and writer, b. konigsberg, june, ; he became a physician, but was expelled for aiding in the revolution of ' . he travelled in italy and egypt. in ' he published jesus der christ, embodying rationalism in prose and verse. he has also written stimme der menschheit, vols., ' , ' , and der irrgang des lebens jesu, ' , besides numerous plays and pamphlets. died oct. . dumont (léon), french writer, b. valenciennes, . studied for the bar, but took to philosophy and literature. he early embraced darwinism, and wrote on hæckel and the theory of evolution, ' . he wrote in la revue philosophique, and other journals. died valenciennes, jan. . dumarsais (césar chesneau), french grammarian and philosopher, b. marseilles, july, . when young he entered the congregation of the oratory. this society he soon quitted, and went to paris, where he married. a friend of boindin and alembert, he wrote against the pretensions of rome and contributed to the encyclopédie. he is credited with an analysis of the christian religion and with the celebrated essai sur les préjugés, par mr. d. m., but the latter was probably written by holbach, with notes by naigeon. le philosophe, published in l'evangile de la raison by dulaurens, was written by voltaire. died june, . dumarsais was very simple in character, and was styled by d'alembert the la fontaine of philosophers. dumont (pierre etienne louis), swiss writer, b. geneva, july, . was brought up as a minister, but went to france and became secretary to mirabeau. after the revolution he came to england, where he became acquainted with bentham, whose works he translated. died milan, sept. . duncker (maximilian wolfgang), german historian, b. berlin, oct. . his chief work, the history of antiquity, - , thoroughly abolishes the old distinction of sacred and profane history, and freely criticises the jewish records. a translation in six volumes has been made by e. abbot. duncker took an active part in the events of ' and ' , and was appointed director-general of the state archives. died july, . dupont (jacob louis), a french mathematician and member of the national convention, known as the abbé dupont, who, dec. , declared himself an atheist from the tribune of the convention. died at paris in . dupont de nemours (pierre samuel), french economist, b. paris, dec. . he became president of the constituent assembly, and was a theophilantrophist. died delaware, u.s.a., aug. . dupuis (charles françois), french astronomer and philosopher, b. trie-le-chateau, oct. . he was educated for the church, which he left, and married in . he studied under lalande, and wrote on the origin of the constellations, . in he became a member of the academy of inscriptions. at the revolution he was chosen a member of the convention. during the reign of terror he saved many lives at his own risk. he was afterwards one of the council of five hundred, and president of the legislative body. his chief work is on the origin of religions, vols., , in which he traces solar worship in various faiths, including christianity. this has been described as "a monument of the erudition of unbelief." dupuis died near dijon, sept. . dutrieux (pierre joseph), belgian physician, b. tournai, july, . went to cairo and became a bey. died jan. . dutton (thomas), m.a., theatrical critic, b. london, . educated by the moravians. in he published a vindication of the age of reason by thomas paine. he translated kotzebue's pizarro in peru, , and edited the dramatic censor, , and the monthly theatrical reporter, . duvernet (théophile imarigeon), french writer, b. at ambert . he was brought up a jesuit, became an abbé, but mocked at religion. duvernet became tutor to saint simon. for a political pamphlet he was imprisoned in the bastille. while here he wrote a curious and rare romance, les devotions de mme. de bethzamooth. he wrote on religious intolerance, , and a history of the sorbonne, , but is best known by his life of voltaire ( ). in he wrote a letter to the convention, in which he declares that he renounces the religion "born in a stable between an ox and an ass." died in . dyas (richard h.), captain in the army. author of the upas. he resided long in italy and translated several of the works of c. voysey. eaton (daniel isaac), bookseller, b. about , was educated at the jesuits' college, st. omer. being advised to study the bible, he did so, with the result of discarding it as a revelation. in he was prosecuted for publishing paine's rights of man, but the prosecution fell through. he afterwards published politics for the people, which was also prosecuted, , as was his political dictionary, . to escape punishment, he fled to america, and lived there for three years and a half. upon returning to england, his person and property were seized. books to the value of £ , were burnt, and he was imprisoned for fifteen months. he translated from helvetius and sold at his "rationcinatory or magazine for truths and good sense," cornhill, in , the true sense and meaning of the system of nature. the law of nature had been previously translated by him. in ' he issued the first and second parts of paine's age of reason, and on march, ' , was tried before lord ellenborough on a charge of blasphemy for issuing the third and last part. he was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment and to stand in the pillory. the sentence evoked shelley's spirited letter to lord ellenborough. eaton translated and published freret's preservative against religious prejudices, , and shortly before his death, at deptford, aug. , he was again prosecuted for publishing george houston's ecce homo. eberhard (johann august), german deist, b. halberstadt, aug. , was brought up in the church, but persecuted for heresy in his new apology for socrates, , was patronised by frederick the great, and appointed professor of philosophy at halle, where he opposed the idealism of kant and fichte. he wrote a history of philosophy, . died halle, jan. . eberty (gustav), german freethinker, b. july, . author of some controversial works. died berlin, feb. . echtermeyer (ernst theodor), german critic, b. liebenwerda, . he studied at halle and berlin, and founded, with a. ruge, the hallische jahrbücher, which contained many freethought articles, - . he taught at halle and dresden, where he died, may, . edelmann (johann christian), german deist, b. weissenfels, saxony, july, ; studied theology in jena, joined the moravians, but left them and every form of christianity, becoming an adherent of spinozism. his principal works are his unschuldige wahrheiten, (innocent truths), in which he argues that no religion is of importance, and moses mit aufgedecktem angesicht (moses unmasked), , an attack on the old testament, which, he believed, proceeded from ezra; die göttlichkeit der vernunft (the divinity of reason), , and christ and belial. his works excited much controversy, and were publicly burnt at frankfort, may, . edelmann was chased from brunswick and hamburg, but was protected by frederick the great, and died at berlin, feb. . mirabeau praised him, and guizot calls him a "fameux esprit fort." edison (thomas alva), american inventor, b. milan, ohio, feb. . as a boy he sold fruit and papers at the trains. he read, however, gibbon, hume and other important works before he was ten. he afterwards set up a paper of his own, then became telegraph operator, studied electricity, invented electric light, the electric pen, the telephone, microphone, phonograph, etc. edison is known to be an agnostic and to pay no attention to religion. eenens (ferdinand), belgian writer, b. brussels, dec. . eenens was an officer in the belgian army, and wrote many political and anti-clerical pamphlets. he also wrote la vérité, a work on the christian faith, ; le paradis terrestre, ' , an examination of the legend of eden, and du dieu thaumaturge, ' . he used the pen names "le père nicaise," "nicodème polycarpe" and "timon iii." died at brussels in . effen (justus van), dutch writer, b. utrecht, feb. . edited the misanthrope, amsterdam, - ; translated robinson crusoe, swift's tale of a tub, and mandeville's thoughts on religion, ; published the dutch spectator, - . died at bois-le-duc, sept. . eichhorn (johann gottfried), german orientalist and rationalist, b. oct. , became professor of oriental literature and afterwards professor of theology at gottingen. he published introductions to the old and new testaments and a commentary on the apocalypse, in which his criticism tends to uproot belief in the bible as a divine revelation. he lectured every day for fifty-two years. died june, . "elborch (conrad von)," the pseudonym of a living learned dutch writer, whose position does not permit him to reveal his true name. born jan. , he has contributed to de dageraad (the daybreak), under various pen-names, as "fra diavolo," "denis bontemps," "j. van den ende," etc. he has given, in ' , a translation of the rare and famous latin treatise, de tribus impostoribus (on three impostors) [jesus, moses, and muhammad], with an important bibliographic and historical introduction. "eliot (george)," the pen-name of mary ann lewes (née evans) one of the greatest novelists of the century, b. at arbury farm, near griff, warwickshire, nov. . in ' the family removed to foleshill, near coventry. here she made the friendship of the household of charles bray, and changed her views from evangelical christianity to philosophical scepticism. influenced by the inquiry into the origin of christianity, by c. c. hennell (bray's brother-in-law), she made an analysis of that work. her first literary venture was translating strauss' leben jesu, published in . after the death of her father (' ) she travelled with the brays upon the continent, and upon her return assisted dr. chapman in the editorship of the westminster review, to which she contributed several articles. she translated feuerbach's essence of christianity, ' , the only work published with her real name, and also translated from spinoza's ethics. introduced by herbert spencer to george henry lewes, she linked her life with his in defiance of the conventions of society, july, ' . both were poor, but by his advice she turned to fiction, in which she soon achieved success. her scenes of clerical life, adam bede, mill on the floss, silas marner, romola, felix holt, middlemarch, daniel deronda, and theophrastus such have become classics. as a poet, "george eliot" does not rank so high, but her little piece, "oh, may i join the choir invisible," well expresses the emotion of the religion of humanity, and her spanish gipsy she allowed was "a mass of positivism." lewes died in , and within two years she married his friend, j. w. cross. her new happiness was short-lived. she died dec. , and is buried with lewes at highgate. ellero (pietro) italian jurisconsult, b. pordenone, oct. , counsellor of the high court of rome, has been professor of criminal law in the university of bologna. author of many works on legal and social questions. his scritti minori, scritti politici and la question sociale have the honor of a place on the roman index. elliotson (john, m.d., f.r.s.), an eminent medical man, b. london, . he became physician at st. thomas's hospital in , and made many contributions to medical science. by new prescriptions of quinine, creasote, etc., he excited much hostility in the profession. he was the first in this country to advocate the use of the stethoscope. he was also the first physician to discard knee-breeches and silk stockings, and to wear a beard. in ' he was chosen professor at university college, but, becoming an advocate of curative mesmerism, he resigned his appointments, ' . he was founder and president of the london phrenological society, and, in addition to many medical works, edited the zoist (thirteen vols.), translated blumenbach's physiology, and wrote an introduction to engledue's cerebral physiology, defending materialism. thackeray dedicated pendennis to him, ' , and he received a tribute of praise from dickens. died at london, july, . eichthal (gustave d'), french writer, b. of jewish family, nancy, march, . he became a follower of saint simon, was one of the founders of the société d'ethnologie, and published les evangiles, a critical analysis of the gospels, vols, paris, ' . this he followed by the three great mediterranean nations and christianity and socrates and our time, ' . he died at paris, april, , and his son published his mélanges de critique biblique (miscellanies of biblical criticism), in which there is an able study on the name and character of "jahveh." emerson (ralph waldo), american essayist, poet, and philosopher, b. boston may, . he came of a line of ministers, and was brought up like his father, educated at harvard college, and ordained as a unitarian minister, . becoming too broad for the church, he resigned in ' . in the next year he came to europe, visiting carlyle. on his return he settled at concord, giving occasional lectures, most of which have been published. he wrote to the dial, a transcendentalist paper. tending to idealistic pantheism, but without systematic philosophy, all his writings are most suggestive, and he is always the champion of mental freedom, self-reliance, and the free pursuit of science. died at concord, april, . matthew arnold has pronounced his essays "the most important work done in prose" in this century. emerson (william), english mathematician, b. hurworth, near darlington, may, . he conducted a school and wrote numerous works on mathematics. his vigorous, if eccentric, individuality attracted carlyle, who said to mrs. gilchrist, "emerson was a freethinker who looked on his neighbor, the parson, as a humbug. he seems to have defended himself in silence the best way he could against the noisy clamor and unreal stuff going on around him." died may, . he compiled a list of bible contradictions. emmet (robert), irish revolutionist, b. in dublin , was educated as a barrister. expelled from dublin university for his sympathy with the national cause in ; he went to the continent, but returned in to plan an ill-starred insurrection, for which he was executed sept. . emmet made a thrilling speech before receiving sentence, and on the scaffold refused the services of a priest. it is well known that his desire to see once more his sweetheart, the daughter of curran, was the cause of his capture and execution. engledue (william collins), m.d., b. portsea . after taking his degree at edinburgh, he became assistant to dr. lizars and was elected president of the royal medical society of edinburgh. he returned to portsmouth in ; originated the royal portsmouth hospital and established public baths and washhouses. he contributed to the zoist and published an exposition of materialism under the title of cerebral physiology, , republished by j. watson, . died jan. . english (george bethune), american writer and linguist, b. cambridge, mass., march, . he studied law and divinity, and graduated at harvard, , but becoming sceptical published grounds of christianity examined, . the work excited some controversy, and has been reprinted at toronto, . he joined the egyptian service and became general of artillery. he had a variable genius and a gift of languages. at marseilles he passed for a turk with a turkish ambassador; and at washington he surprised a delegation of cherokees by disputing with them in their own tongue. he wrote a reply to his critics, entitled five smooth stones out of the brook, and two letters to channing on his sermons against infidelity. died at washington, sept. . ense (varnhagen von). see varnhagen. ensor (george), an irish writer, b. loughgall, . educated at trinity college; he became b.a. . he travelled largely, and was a friend of liberty in every country. besides other political works he published, the independent man, ; on national government, ; a review of the miracles, prophecies and mysteries of the old and new testaments, first printed as janus on sion, , and republished ; and natural theology examined, , the last being republished in the library of reason. bentham described him as clever but impracticable. died ardress, co. armagh, dec. . epicurus, greek philosopher, b. samos, b.c. . he repaired to athens, b.c. . influenced by the works of demokritos, he occupied himself with philosophy. he purchased a garden in athens, in which he established his school. although much calumniated, he is now admitted to have been a man of blameless life. according to cicero, he had no belief in the gods, but did not attack their existence, in order not to offend the prejudices of the athenians. in physics he adopted the atomic theory, and denied immortality. he taught that pleasure is the sovereign good; but by pleasure he meant no transient sensation, but permanent tranquility of mind. he wrote largely, but his works are lost. his principles are expounded in the great poem of lucretius, de rerum natura. died b.c. , leaving many followers. "erdan (alexandre)," the pen-name of alexandre andre jacob, a french writer, b. angles . he was the natural son of a distinguished prelate. educated at saint sulpice for the church, he read proudhon, and refused to take holy orders. he became a journalist and an advocate of phonography. his work, la france mystique ( ), in which he gives an account of french religious eccentricities, was condemned for its scepticism which appears on every page. sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of three thousand francs, he took refuge in italy. died at frascati, near rome, sept. . ernesti (johann august), german critic, b. tennstadt, aug. . studied at wittenberg and leipsic, where he was appointed professor of classical literature. renowned as a philologist, he insisted that the bible must be interpreted like any other book. died leipsic, sept. . escherny (françois louis d') count, swiss litterateur, b. neufchatel, nov. . he spent much of his life in travel. at paris he became the associate of helvetius, diderot, and particularly rousseau, whom he much admired. he wrote lacunes de la philosophie (amsterdam, ) and a work on equality ( ), in which he displays his freethought. died at paris, july, . espinas (alfred), french philosopher, b. saint-florentin, . has translated, with th. ribot, h. spencer's principles of psychology, and has written studies on experimental philosophy in italy, and on animal societies ( ). espronceda (josé), popular spanish poet, b. almendralejo (estremadura) in . after the war of independence he went to madrid and studied under alberto lista, the poet and mathematician. he became so obnoxious to the government by his radical principles that he was imprisoned about the age of fifteen, and banished a few years later. he passed several years in london and paris, and was brought under the influence of byron and hugo. he fought with the people in the paris revolution of july, . on the death of the spanish king in ' he returned to madrid, but was again banished for too free expression of his opinions. he returned and took part in the revolutionary contest of ' - . he was elected to the cortes in ' , and appointed secretary of embassy to the hague. died may, . among his works are lyrical poems, which often remind us of heine; an unfinished epic, el pelayo; and el diablo-mundo (the devil-world), a fine poem, due to the inspiration of faust and don juan. espronceda was a thorough sceptic. in his song of the pirate he asks, "who is my god?--liberty"; and in his concluding lines to a star he says: i unheedingly follow my path, at the mercy of winds and of waves. wrapt thus within the arms of fate, what care i if lost or saved. estienne (henri), the ablest of a family of learned french printers, known in england as stephens; b. paris, . at the age of eighteen he assisted his father in collating the mss. of dionysius of halicarnassus. in he established a printing office of his own, and issued many greek authors; and in the thesaurus linguæ græcæ. his apologie pour herodote (englished as a world of wonders) is designed as a satire on christian legends, and directed against priests and priestcraft. he was driven from place to place. sir philip sidney highly esteemed him, and "kindly entertained him in his travaile." died . garasse classes him with atheists. esteve (pierre), french writer, b. montpelier at the beginning of the eighteenth century. he wrote a history of astronomy and an anonymous work on the origin of the universe explained from a principle of matter; berlin, . ettel (konrad), austrian freethinker, b. jan. , at neuhof, sternberg. studied at the gymnasium kremsier, and at the wish of his parents at the theological seminary olmütz, which he left to study philosophy at vienna. he has written many poems and dramas. his grundzuge der natürlichen weltanschauung (sketch of a natural view of the world), a freethinker's catechism, , has reached a fourth edition. evans (george henry), b. at bromyard, herefordshire, march, . while a child, his parents emigrated to new york. he set up as a printer, and published the correspondent, the first american freethought paper. he also published the working man's advocate, man, young america, and the radical. he labored for the transportation of mails on sundays, the limitation of the right to hold lands, the abolition of slavery, and other reforms. his brother became one of the chief elders of the shakers. died in granville, new jersey, feb. . evans (william), b. swansea, , became a follower of robert owen. he established the potter's examiner and workman's advocate, ' , and wrote in the co-operative journals under the anagram of "millway vanes." died march, . evanson (edward), theological critic, b. warrington, lancashire, april, . he graduated at cambridge, became vicar of south mimms, and afterwards rector of tewkesbury. entertaining doubts on the trinity, he submitted them to the archbishop of canterbury without obtaining satisfaction. he made some changes in reading the litany, and for expressing heretical opinions in a sermon in , he was prosecuted, but escaped in consequence of some irregularity in the proceedings. in he published an anonymous tract on the trinity. in he addressed a letter to the bishop of lichfield on the prophecies of the new testament, in which he tried to show that either christianity was false or the orthodox churches. in the following year he resigned both his livings and took pupils. in he published his principal work, the dissonance of the four generally-received evangelists, in which he rejected all the gospels, except luke, as unauthentic. this work involved him in a controversy with dr. priestley, and brought a considerable share of obloquy and persecution from the orthodox. died sept. . eve'merus or euhemerus, a sicilian author of the time of alexander the great, who sought to rationalise religion, and treated the gods as dead heroes. he is usually represented as an atheist. eudes (emile françois désiré), french communist, b. roncey, . he became a chemist, and was condemned, with régnard, to three months' imprisonment for writing in la libre pensée, ' , of which he was director. he joined the ranks of the commune and became a general. when the versailles troops entered paris he escaped to switzerland. on his return after the amnesty, he wrote with blanqui. died at a public meeting in paris, aug. . ewerbeck (august hermann), dr., b. dantzic. after the events of , he lived at paris. he translated into german cabet's voyage en icarie, and in an important work entitled qu'est ce que la religion? (what is religion), ' , translated into french feuerbach's "essence of religion," "essence of christianity," and "death and immortality." in a succeeding volume what is the bible? he translated from daumer, ghillany, luetzelberger and b. bauer. ewerbeck also wrote in french an historical work on germany and the germans; paris, . fabre d'eglantine (philippe françois nazaire), french revolutionist and playwriter, b. carcassonne, dec. . after some success as a poet and playwright he was chosen as deputy to the national convention. he voted for the death of louis xvi., and proposed the substitution of the republican for the christian calendar, sept. . he was executed with his friend danton, april, . fabricatore (bruto), italian writer, b. sarno, naples, . his father antonio had the honor of having a political work placed on the index, . he took part in the anti-papal freethought council of , and has written works on dante, etc. farinata. see uberti (farinata degli). fauche (hippolyte), french orientalist, b. auxerre, may, . translations of the mahabharata, the ramayana, and the plays of kalidasa, attest his industry and erudition. he contributed to la liberté de penser. died at juilly, feb. . fausto (sebastiano), da longiano, italian of the beginning of the th century, who is said to have projected a work the temple of truth, with the intention of overturning all religions. he translated the meditations of antoninus, also wrote observations on cicero, . feer (henri léon), french orientalist, b. rouen, nov. , is chiefly known by his buddhistic studies, - . fellens (jean baptiste), professor of history, b. bar-sur-aube, . author of a work on pantheism, paris, . fellowes (robert), ll.d., b. norfolk , educated at oxford. he took orders in , and wrote many books, but gradually quitted the doctrines of the church and adopted the deistic opinions maintained in his work entitled the religion of the universe ( ). dr. fellowes was proprietor of the examiner and a great supporter of the london university. died feb. . fenzi (sebastiano), italian writer, b. florence, oct. . educated by the jesuits in vienna, england and paris. founded in ' the revista britannica, writer on the journal l'italiano, and has written a credo which is a non-credo. feringa (frederik), dutch writer, b. groningen, april, . studied mathematics. a contributor to de dageraad (the daybreak) over the signature, "muricatus"; he has written important studies, entitled democratie en wetenschap (democracy and science), , also wrote in de vrije gedachte (freethought). fernau (rudolf), dr., german author of christianity and practical life, leipsic, ; the alpha and omega of reason, leipsic, ; zoologica humoristica, ; and a recent work on religion as ghost and god worship. feron (emile), belgian advocate, b. brussels, july, . councillor of the international freethought federation. ferrari (giuseppe), italian philosopher, b. milan march, . a disciple of romagnosi, a study of whose philosophical writings he published ' . he also published the works of vico, and in ' a work entitled vico and italy, and in the following year another on the religious opinions of campanella. attacked by the catholic party, he was exiled, living in paris, where he became a collaborator with proudhon and a contributor to the revue de deux mondes. in ' he was made professor of philosophy at strasbourg, but appointment was soon cancelled on account of his opinions. he wrote a history of the revolution of italy, ' , and a work on china and europe. his history of the reason of the state, ' , is his most pronounced work. in ' , he was elected to the italian parliament, where he remained one of the most radical members until his death at rome july, . ferri (enrico), member of the italian parliament, formerly professor of criminal law at the university of siena, studied at mantua under professor ardigo. has written a large work on the non-existence of free will, and is with professor lombroso, leader of the new italian school of criminal law reform. ferri (luigi), italian philosopher, b. bologna, june . studied in paris and became licentiate of letters in . author of history of philosophy in italy, paris ; the psychology of pomponazzi, etc. ferrière (emile), french writer and licentiate of letters, b. paris, ; author of literature and philosophy, ; darwinism, , which has gone through several editions; the apostles, a work challenging early christian morality, ; the soul the function of the brain, a scientific work of popular character in two vols., ; and paganism of the hebrews until the babylonian captivity, . all these are works of pronounced freethought. m. ferrière has also announced a work jesus bar joseph. feuerbach (friedrich heinrich), son of a famous german jurist, was b. at ansbach sept. . he studied philology, but set himself to preach what his brother ludwig taught. he wrote theanthropos, a series of aphorisms (zurich, ' ), and an able work on the religion of the future, ' - ; and thoughts and facts, hamburg, ' . died nurenberg, jan. . feuerbach (ludwig andreas), brother of the preceding, b. landshut, bavaria, july . he studied theology with a view to the church, but under the influence of hegel abandoned it for philosophy. in ' he was made professor at erlangen, but was dismissed in consequence of his first published work, thoughts upon death and immortality, ' , in which he limited immortality to personal influence on the human race. after a wandering life he married in ' , and settled near anspach. he published there a history of modern philosophy from bacon to spinoza. this was followed by a work on peter bayle. in ' he wrote on philosophy and christianity, and in ' his work called the the essence of christianity, in which he resolves theology into anthropology. this book was translated by mary ann evans, ' . he also wrote principles of the philosophy of the future. after the revolution of ' he was invited to lecture by the students of heidelberg, and gave his course on the essence of religion, published in ' . in ' he published theogony from the sources of classical, hebrew, and christian antiquity, and in ' theism, freedom, and immortality from the standpoint of anthropology. died at rechenberg, near nurenberg, sept. . his complete works were published at leipsic in . he was a deep thinker and lucid writer. fichte (johann gottlieb), one of the greatest german thinkers, b. may, . he studied at the universities of jena, leipsic, and wittenberg, embraced "determinism," became acquainted with kant, and published anonymously, a criticism of all revelation. he obtained a chair of philosophy at jena, where he developed his doctrines of science, asserting that the problem of philosophy is to seek on what foundations knowledge rests. he gave moral discourses in the lecture-room on sunday, and was accused of holding atheistical opinions. he was in consequence banished from saxony, . he appears to have held that god was not a personal being, but a system of intellectual, moral, and spiritual laws. fichte took deep interest in the cause of german independence, and did much to rouse his countrymen against the domination of the french during the conquest which led to the fall of napoleon. besides many publications, in which he expounds his philosophy, he wrote eloquent treatises on the vocation of man, the nature and vocation of the scholar, the way towards the blessed life, etc. died berlin jan. . "figaro." see larra (mariano josé de). figuiera (guillem), provençal troubadour and precursor of the renaissance, b. toulouse about . his poems were directed against the priests and court of rome. filangieri (gaetano), an italian writer on legislation, b. naples, aug. . he was professor at that city. his principal work is la scienza della legislazione, . in the fifth volume he deals with pre-christian religions. the work was put on the index. died july, . fiorentino (francesco), italian philosopher, b. sambiasa, nicastro, may, . in he became professor of philosophy at spoletto, in ' at bologna, and in ' at naples. he was elected deputy to parliament, nov. ' . a disciple of felice tocco, he paid special attention to the early italian freethinkers, writing upon the pantheism of giordano bruno, naples, ' ; pietro pomponazzi, florence, ' ; bernardius telesio, florence, vols., ' - . he has also written on strauss and spinoza. in the nuova antologia he wrote on j. c. vanini, and on cæsalpinus, campanella, and bruno. a friend of bertrando spaventa, he succeeded to his chair at naples in ' . died dec. . fischart (johann), german satirist called mentzer, b. strasbourg about . his satires in prose and verse remind one of rabelais, whom he in part translated, and are often directed against the church. died at forbach in . fischer (j. c.), german materialist, author of a work on the freedom of the will , a criticism of hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, ' ; das bewusstsein, ' . died . fischer (kuno), german philosopher, b. july, , at sandewald, silesia. educated at leipsic and halle, in he was appointed professor of philosophy at jena. his chief works are history of modern philosophy, ' - ; life and character of spinoza; francis bacon, ' ; and lessing, ' . fiske (john), american author, b. hartford, connecticut, march, . graduated at harvard, ' . in ' - was lecturer on philosophy at that university, and from ' - librarian. mr. fiske has lectured largely, and has written myths and mythmakers, ' ; outlines of cosmic philosophy, vols. ' ; darwinism, and other essays, ' ; excursions of an evolutionist, ' ; the idea of god as affected by modern knowledge, ' . flaubert (gustave), french novelist, b. rouen, dec. . the son of a distinguished surgeon, he abandoned his father's profession for literature. his masterpiece, madame bovary, published in ' in the revue de paris, drew a prosecution upon that journal which ended in a triumph for the author. for his next great work, salammbô, ' , an epic of carthage, he prepared himself by long antiquarian studies. his intellectual tendencies are displayed in the temptation of saint anthony. he stands eminent among the naturalist school for his artistic fidelity. he was a friend of théophile gautier, ivan turgenev, emile zola and "george sand." his correspondence with the last of these has been published. he distinctly states therein that on subjects like immortality men cheat themselves with words. died at rouen, may, . flourens (marie jean pierre), french scientist, b. near béziers, april, . in he was admitted into the academy of sciences, after having published a work on the nervous system of vertebrates; he became perpetual secretary in ' . a work on human longevity and the quantity of life on the globe was very popular. died near paris, dec. . flourens (gustave), eldest son of the preceding, b. paris, aug. . in ' he took his father's chair at the college of france, and his course on "ethnography" attracted much attention. in the following year he published his work on the science of man. his bold heresy lost him his chair, and he collaborated on larousse's grand dictionnaire. in ' he left france for crete, where for three years he fought in the mountains against the turkish troops. upon his return he was arrested for presiding at a political meeting. he showed himself an ardent revolutionist, and was killed in a skirmish near nanterre, april, . fonblanque (albany william), english journalist, b. london, ; the son of an eminent lawyer. in he was on the staff of the times, and contributed to the westminster review. in ' he became editor of the examiner, and retained his post until ' . his caustic wit and literary attainments did much to forward advanced liberal views. a selection of his editorials was published under the title, england under seven administrations. died oct. . fontanier (jean), french writer, who was burnt at the place de grève, , for blasphemies in a book entitled le tresor inestimable. garasse, with little reason, calls him an atheist. fontenelle (bernard le bovier de), nephew of corneille, called by voltaire the most universal genius of the reign of louis xiv., b. rouen, feb. . dedicated to the virgin and st. bernard, he was educated at the jesuits' college. he went to paris in ; wrote some plays and dialogues of the dead, . in appeared his conversations on the plurality of worlds, and in the following year his history of oracles, based on the work of van dale, for which he was warmly attacked by the jesuit baltus, as impugning the church fathers. he was made secretary to the academy of sciences in , a post he held forty-two years. he wrote doubts on the physical system of occasional causes, and is also credited with a letter on the resurrection of the body, a piece on the infinite, and a treatise on liberty; "but," says l'abbé ladvocat, "as these books contain many things contrary to religion, it is to be hoped they are not his." fontenelle nearly reached the age of one hundred. a short time before he died ( jan. ), being asked if he felt any pain, "i only feel," he replied, "a difficulty of existing." foote (george william), writer and orator, b. plymouth, jan. . was "converted" in youth, but became a freethinker by reading and independent thought. came to london in , and was soon a leading member of the young men's secular association. he taught in the hall of science sunday school, and became secretary of the republican league. devoting his time to propagating his principles, he wrote in the secular chronicle and national reformer, and in ' started the secularist in conjunction with mr. g. j. holyoake, and after the ninth number conducting it alone. this afterwards merged in the secular review. in ' mr. foote edited the liberal, and in sept. ' , started the freethinker, which he still edits. in the following year a prosecution was commenced by the public prosecutor, who attempted to connect mr. bradlaugh with it. undaunted, mr. foote issued a christmas number with an illustrated "comic life of christ." for this a prosecution was started by the city authorities against him and his publisher and printer, and the trial came on first in march, ' . the jury disagreed, but judge north refused to discharge the prisoners, and they were tried again on the th march; judge north directing that a verdict of guilty must be returned, and sentencing mr. foote to one year's imprisonment as an ordinary criminal subject to the same "discipline" as burglars. "i thank you, my lord; your sentence is worthy of your creed," he remarked. on april, ' , mr. foote was brought from prison before lord coleridge and a special jury on the first charge, and after a splendid defence, upon which he was highly complimented by the judge, the jury disagreed. he has debated with dr. mccann, rev. a. j. harrison, the rev. w. howard, the rev. h. chapman, and others. mr. foote has written much, and lectures continually. among his works we mention heroes and martyrs of freethought ( ); god, the soul, and a future state; secularism the true philosophy of life ( ); atheism and morality; the futility of prayer; bible romances; death's test, afterwards enlarged into infidel death-beds; the god christians swear by; was jesus insane? blasphemy no crime; arrows of freethought; prisoner for blasphemy ( ); letters to jesus christ; what was christ? bible heroes; and has edited the bible hand-book with mr. w. p. ball, and the jewish life of christ with the present writer, in conjunction with whom he has written the crimes of christianity. from - he edited progress, in which appeared many important articles from his pen. mr. foote is president of the london secular federation, and a vice-president of the national secular society. fouillee (alfred), french philosopher, b. la pouëze, near angers, oct. . has been teacher at several lyceums, notably at bordeaux. he was crowned by the academy of moral sciences for two works on the philosophy of plato and socrates. elected professor of philosophy at the superior normal school, paris, he sustained a thesis at the sorbonne on liberty and determinism, which was violently attacked by the catholics. this work has gone through several editions. m. fonillée has also written an able history of philosophy, , contemporary social science, and an important critique of contemporary moral systems ( ). he has written much in the revue des deux mondes, and is considered, with taine, ribot, and renan, the principal representative of french philosophy. his system is known as that of idèes-forces, as he holds that ideas are themselves forces. his latest work expounds the views of m. guyau. forberg (friedrich karl), german philosopher, b. meuselwitz, aug. , studied theology at leipsic, and became private docent at jena. becoming attached to fichte's philosophy, he wrote with fichte in niethammer's philosophical journal on "the development of religious ideas," and an article on "the ground of our faith in divine providence," which brought on them a charge of atheism, and the journal was confiscated by the electorate of saxony. forberg held religion to consist in devotion to morality, and wrote an apology for alleged atheism, . in he became librarian at coburg, and devoted himself to the classics, issuing a manuel d'erotologie classique. died hildburghausen jan. . forder (robert), b. yarmouth, oct. . coming to to woolwich, he became known as a political and freethought lecturer. he took part in the movement to save plumstead common from the enclosers, and was sent to trial for riotous proceedings, but was acquitted. in ' he was appointed paid secretary to the national secular society, a post he has ever since occupied. during the imprisonment of messrs. foote, ramsey, and kemp, in ' , mr. forder undertook charge of the publishing business. he has lectured largely, and written some pamphlets. forlong (james george roche). major general, h.b.a., b. lanarkshire, scotland, nov. . educated as an engineer, joined the indian army ' , fought in the s. mahrata campaign ' - , and in the second burmese war. on the annexation of barma he became head of the survey, roads and canal branches. in ' - he travelled extensively through egypt, palestine, turkey, greece, italy, spain, etc. from ' - was a superintending engineer of calcutta, and in upper bengal, north-west provinces, and rajputana, and ' - was secretary and chief engineer to the government of oudh. he retired in ' after an active service of years, during which he frequently received the thanks of the indian and home governments. in his youth he was an active evangelical, preaching to the natives in their own tongues. he has, however, given his testimony that during his long experience he has known no one converted solely by force of reasoning or "christian evidences." a great student of eastern religions, archæology, and languages, he has written in various periodicals of the east and west, and has embodied the result of many years researches in two illustrated quarto volumes called rivers of life, setting forth the evolution of all religions from their radical objective basis to their present spiritualised developments. in an elaborate chart he shows by streams of color the movements of thought from , b.c. to the present time. fourier (françois marie charles), french socialist, b. besançon, april, . he passed some of the early years of his life as a common soldier. his numerous works amid much that is visionary have valuable criticisms upon society, and suggestions for its amelioration. he believed in the transmigration of souls. died at paris, oct. . fox (william johnson), orator and political writer, b. near wrentham, suffolk, . intended for the congregational ministry, he became a unitarian, and for many years preached at south place, finsbury, where he introduced the plan of taking texts from other books besides the bible. one of his first published sermons was on behalf of toleration for deists at the time of the carlile prosecutions . he gradually advanced from the acceptance of miracles to their complete rejection. during the anti-corn law agitation he was a frequent and able speaker. in he became m.p. for oldham, and retained his seat until his retirement in ' . he was a prominent worker for radicalism, contributing to the westminster review, weekly dispatch, and daily news. for some years he edited the monthly repository. his works, which include spirited lectures to the working classes, and a philosophical statement of religions ideas, were published in twelve volumes, ' - . died june, . "franchi (ausonio)," the pen name of francesco cristoforo bonavino, italian ex-priest, b. pegli, feb. . brought up in the church and ordained priest in ' , the practice of the confessional made him sceptical and he quitted it for philosophy, having ceased to believe in its dogmas, ' . in ' he published his principal work, entitled the philosophy of the italian schools. the following year he published the religion of the nineteenth century. he established la razione (reason) and il libero pensiero at turin, ' - ; wrote on the rationalism of the people, geneva, ' , and became an active organiser of anti-clerical societies. in ' he published a criticism of positivism, and has since written critical and polemical essays, vols. milan, ' - . in ' was appointed professor of philosophy in the academy of milan by terenzio mamiani. francis (samuel), m.d., author of watson refuted, published by carlile, . francois de neufchateau (nicolas louis), count, french statesman, poet, and academician, b. lorraine, april, . in his youth he became secretary to voltaire, who regarded him as his successor. he favored the revolution, and was elected to the legislative assembly in ' . as member of the directory, ' , he circulated d'holbach's contagion sacrée. he became president of the senate, ' - . he wrote numerous pieces. died at paris jan. . franklin (benjamin), american patriot and philosopher, b. boston jan. . he was apprenticed to his uncle as a printer, came to england and worked at his trade ' - ; returned to philadelphia, where he published a paper and became known by his poor richard's almanack. he founded the public library at philadelphia, and made the discovery of the identity of lightning with the electric fluid. he became member of the provincial assembly and was sent to england as agent. when examined before the house of commons he spoke boldly against the stamp act. he was active during the war with this country, and was elected member of congress. became envoy to france, and effected the treaty of alliance with that country, feb. ' , which secured the independence of the american colonies. turgot summed up his services in the fine line eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis. "he wrested the thunderbolt from heaven and the sceptre from kings." died at philadelphia, april, . fransham (john), a native of norwich, b. , became a teacher of mathematics, renounced the christian religion, and professed paganism, writing several treatises in favor of disbelief. died . frauenstaedt (christian martin julius), dr., philosopher and disciple of schopenhauer, b. april, , at bojanowo, posen. he studied philosophy and theology at berlin, but meeting schopenhauer at frankfort in ' he adopted the views of the pessimist, who made him his literary executor. among frauenstädt's works are letters on natural religion, ' , the liberty of men and the personality of god, ' ; letters on the philosophy of schopenhauer, ' , etc. died at berlin, jan. . frederick ii. (emperor of germany), the greatest man of the thirteenth century and founder of the renaissance, b. dec. . was elected to the throne in . he promoted learning, science, and art, founded the universities of vienna and naples, had the works of aristotle and averroes translated, and was the patron of all the able men of his time. for his resistance to the tyranny of the church he was twice excommunicated. he answered by a letter attacking the pope (gregory ix.), whom he expelled from rome in ' . he made a treaty with the sultan of egypt, by which he became master of jerusalem. for some heretical words in his letter, in which he associates the names of christ, moses, and mohammed, he was reported author of the famous work de tribus impostoribus. he addressed a series of philosophical questions to ibn sabin, a moslem doctor. he is said to have called the eucharist truffa ista, and is credited also with the saying "ignorance is the mother of devotion." died at florence, dec. . frederick the great (king of prussia), b. jan. , was educated in a very rigid fashion by his father, frederick william i. he ascended the throne and soon displayed his political and military ability. by a war with austria he acquired silesia. he wrote several deistical pieces, and tolerated all religions and no religion saying "every man must get to heaven his own way." he attracted to his court men like lamettrie, d'argens, maupertuis, and voltaire, who, says carlyle, continued all his days friedrich's chief thinker. in france, austria, sweden, and russia united against him, but he held his own against "a world in arms." after a most active life frederick died at potsdam, aug. . the philosophical breviary attributed to him was really written by cérutti. fredin (nils edvard), swedish writer, b. . has published translation of modern poets, and also of col. ingersoll's writings. in ' he was awarded first prize by the swedish academy for an original poem. freeke (william), b. about , wrote a brief but clear confutation of the trinity, which being brought before the notice of the house of lords it was on jan. ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, and the author being prosecuted by the attorney general was fined £ . freiligrath (ferdinand) german poet, b. detmold june, . in ' he acquired notice by some poems. in ' he published his profession of faith mein glaubensbekenntniss, and was forced to fly the country. in ' he returned and joined karl marx on the neue rheinische zeitung. again prosecuted he took refuge in london, devoting his leisure to poetry and translation. freiligrath holds a high place among the poets of his time. died kannstadt, near stuttgart, march . fréret (nicolas), french historical critic, b. feb. . he was a pupil of rollin, and was patronised by boulainvilliers. distinguished by his attainments in ancient history, philosophy and chronology, he became member of the academy of inscriptions . for a discourse on the "origin of the franks," he was incarcerated for four months in the bastille. while here he read bayle so often that he could repeat much from memory. he was an unbeliever, and the author of the atheistic letters from thrasybulus to leucippe on natural and revealed religion, and perhaps of la moisade, a criticism of the pentateuch, translated by d. i. eaton, as a preservative against religious prejudices. the letters to eugenie, attributed to fréret, were written by d'holbach, and the critical examination of the apologists of the christian religion by j. levesque de burigny. a critical examination of the new testament, which long circulated in ms. has also been wrongly attributed to fréret. died at paris, march, . frey (william), the adopted name of a russian positivist and philanthropist, b. of noble family, the son of a general, . educated at the higher military school, st. petersburg, he became teacher in a government high school, and disgusted with the oppression and degradation of his country he went to new york in where he established co-operative communities and also russian colonies in kansas and oregon. in he came to london in order to influence his countrymen. in ' he revisited russia. died nov. . fries (jacob friedrich), german philosopher, b. barby, aug. . brought up as a moravian, he became a deist. fries is of the neo-kantian rationalistic school. among his writings are a system of metaphysics, ; a manual of the philosophy of religion and philosophical Æsthetics, heidelberg ' ; in which he resolves religion into poetry. he criticised kant's proofs of god and immortality, and wrote a history of philosophy. died jena, aug. . frothingham (octavius brooks), american author, b. boston, nov. . graduated at harvard, ' , and became unitarian minister. in ' he became pastor of the most radical unitarian congregation in new york. in ' he became first president of the free religious association, but, becoming too advanced, resigned in ' and came to europe. since his return to boston, ' , he has devoted himself to literature. he has published the religion of humanity, n.y., ' ; life of theodore parker, ' ; the cradle of the christ, ' ; life of gerrit smith, ; and numerous sermons. froude (james anthony), man of letters and historian, the son of an archdeacon of totnes, was b. dartington, devon, april, , and educated at westminster and oxford, where he took his degree in ' , was elected fellow of exeter college and received deacon's orders. at first, under the influence of the romanising movement, he became a rationalist and abandoned his fellowship and clerical life. his nemesis of faith, ' , showed the nature of his objections. mr. froude devoted his abilities to a literary career, and fell under the influence of carlyle. for many years he edited fraser's magazine, in which he wrote largely. his essays are collected under the title of short studies on great subjects, ' - . his largest work is the history of england, from the fall of wolsey to the defeat of the spanish armada, ' - . his life of carlyle, ' , and publication of carlyle's reminiscenses provoked much controversy. his magical translation of lucian's most characteristic dialogue of the gods is done with too much verve to allow of the supposition that the translator is not in sympathy with his author. fry (john), a colonel in the parliamentary army. in he was elected one of the burgesses of shaftesbury, but his return was declared void. after serving with distinction in the army, he was called to the house of commons by the independents in . he voted for charles i. being put on trial; and sat in judgment when sentence was passed on him. he was charged with blasphemy and wrote the accuser shamed, , which was ordered to be burnt for speaking against "that chaffie and absurd opinion of three persons in the godhead." he also wrote the clergy in their colors, . fuller (sarah margaret), american authoress, b. cambridgeport, massachusetts, may, . in ' - she edited the dial. she also published woman in the nineteenth century, ' . among friends she counted emerson, hawthorne, channing, and mazzini. she visited europe and married at rome the marquis d'ossoli. returning she was shipwrecked and drowned off the coast of new jersey, july, . furnemont (léon), belgian advocate, b. charleroi, april, . entered the school of mines liége in ' , and founded the circle of progressive students. became president of international congress of students, ' , and represented young belgium at the funeral of victor hugo. radical candidate at the brussels municipal elections, he obtained , votes, but was not elected. he is a councillor of the international federation of freethinkers and director of a monthly journal, la raison, . gabarro (bartolomé) dr., spanish writer, b. ygualade, barcelona, sept. , was educated in a clerical college with a view to taking the clerical habit, he refused and went to america. after travelling much, he established a day school in barcelona and founded an anti-clerical league of freethinkers pledged to live without priests. this induced much clerical wrath, especially when dr. gabarro founded some anti-clerical groups and over lay schools. for denouncing the assassins of a freethinker he was pursued for libel, sentenced to four years' imprisonment, and forced to fly to cerbere on the frontier, where he continues his anti-clerical journal la tronada. he has written many anti-clerical brochures and an important work on pius ix. and history. gabelli (aristide), italian writer, b. belluno, march, . author of the religious question in italy, ' , man and the moral sciences, ' , in which he rejects all metaphysics and supernaturalism, and thoughts, . gage (matilda joslyn), american reformer, b. cicero, new york, march, . her father, dr. h. joslyn, was an active abolitionist. educated at de peyster and hamilton, n.y., in ' she married henry h. gage. from ' till ' she wrote and spoke against slavery. in ' she was made president of the national woman's suffrage association. she is joint author of the history of woman suffrage with miss anthony and mrs. stanton, and with them considers the church the great obstacle to woman's progress. gagern (carlos von), b. rehdorf, neumark, dec. . educated at berlin, travelled in ' to paris where he became acquainted with humboldt. he went to spain and studied basque life in the pyrenees; served in the prussian army, became a friend of wislicenus and the free-religious movement. in ' he went to mexico; here he had an appointment under general miramon. in the french-mexican expedition he was taken prisoner in ' ; released in ' he went to new york. he was afterwards military attaché for mexico at berlin. his freethought appears in his memoirs entitled dead and living, , and in his volume sword and trowel, . died madrid dec. . gall (franz joseph), founder of phrenology, b. baden, march, . he practised as a physician in vienna, devoting much time to the study of the brain, and began to lecture on craniology in that city. in he was prohibited from lecturing. he joined dr. spurzheim and they taught their system in various cities of europe. died at paris, aug. . galton (francis), grandson of erasmus darwin, was born in . educated at birmingham, he studied medicine at king's college, london, and graduated at cambridge, ' . in ' and ' he travelled in africa. he wrote a popular art of travel, and has distinguished himself by many writings bearing on heredity, of which we name hereditary genius, ' , english men of science, ' . in his inquiries into human faculty and developement, ' , he gives statistical refutation of the theory of prayer. mr. galton was secretary of the british association from ' - , president of the geographical section in ' and ' , and of the anthropological section in ' and ' . he is president of the anthropological institute. gambetta (léon michel), french orator and statesman, b. cahors, oct. . his uncle was a priest and his father wished him to become one. educated at a clerical seminary, he decided to study for the law. in ' he was enrolled at the bar. his defence of delescluze ( nov. ), in which he vigorously attacked the empire, made him famous. elected to the assembly by both paris and marseilles, he became the life and leader of the opposition. after sedan he proclaimed the republic and organised the national defences, leaving paris, then invested by the germans, in a balloon. from tours he invigorated every department, and was the inspiration of the few successes won by the french. gambetta preserved the republic against all machinations, and compelled macmahon to accept the second of the alternatives, "se soumettre ou se demettre." he founded the republique française, and became president of the chamber. gambetta was a professed disciple of voltaire, an admirer of comte, and an open opponent of clericalism. all the members of his cabinet were freethinkers. died dec. . his public secular funeral was one of the largest gatherings ever witnessed. gambon (ferdinand charles), french communist, b. bourges, march, . in he became an advocate, and he founded the journal des ecoles. in ' he was elected representative. the empire drove him into exile, he returned at amnesty of ' . in ' he refused to pay taxes. in ' was elected deputy at paris, and was one of the last defenders of the commune. imprisoned, he was released in ' . formed a league for abolishing standing army. died sept. . garat (dominique joseph), count, french revolutionist, orator and writer, b. near bayonne, september, . he became a friend of d'alembert, diderot and condercet, and in was elected to the assembly, where he spoke in favor of the abolition of religion. as minister of justice he had to notify to louis xvi his condemnation. he afterwards taught at the normal school, and became a senator, count, and president of the institute. died at urdains december, . garborg (arne), b. western coast of norway, jan. . brought up as a teacher at the public schools, he entered the university of christiania in . founded a weekly paper fedraheimen, written in the dialect of the peasantry. held an appointment for some years in the government audit office. in ' he published a powerfully written tale, a freethinker, which created a deal of attention. since he has published peasant students, tales and legends, youth, men, etc. he is one of the wittiest and cleverest controversialists on the norwegian press. garcia-vao (antonio rodriguez), spanish poet and miscellaneous writer, b. manzanares, . educated at the institute of cardinal cisneros, where he made brilliant studies. he afterwards studied at the madrid university and became a lawyer. after editing several papers, he attached himself to the staff of las dominicales del libre pensiamento. among his numerous works are a volume of poems, echoes of a free mind, love and the monks, a satire, a study of greco-roman philosophy, etc. this promising student was stabbed in the back at madrid, december, . garde (jehan de la), bookseller, burnt together with four little blasphemous books at paris in . garibaldi (guiseppe), italian patriot and general, b. nice, july, . his father, a small shipmaster, hoped he would become a priest. young garibaldi objected, preferring a sailor's life. a trip to rome made him long to free his country. he joined mazzini's movement, "young italy," and being implicated in the genoese revolt of ' , he fled at risk of his life to marseilles, where he learnt he was sentenced to death. he went to south america and fought on behalf of the republic of uruguay. here he met anita rivera, his beautiful and brave wife, who accompanied him in numerous adventures. returning to italy he fought against the austrians in ' , and next year was the soul of resistance to the french troops, who came to restore papal authority. garibaldi had to retire; his wife died, and he escaped with difficulty to genoa, whence he went to new york, working for an italian soap and candlemaker at staten island. in ' he returned and bought a farm on the isle of caprera. in ' he again fought the austrians, and in may, ' , landed at marsala, sicily, took palermo, and drove francis ii. from naples. though a republican he saluted victor emanuel as king of italy. vexed by the cessation of nice to france, he marched to rome, but was wounded by victor emanuel's troops, and taken prisoner to varignaro. here he wrote his rule of the monk, a work exhibiting his love of liberty and hatred of the priesthood. in ' he visited england, and was enthusiastically received. in ' he again took part in an attempt to free rome from the papal government. in ' he placed his sword at the service of the french republic, and the only standard taken from the germans was captured by his men. elected member of the italian parliament in his later years he did much to improve the city of rome. in one of his laconic letters of ' , he says "dear friend,--man has created god, not god man,--yours ever, garibaldi." he died june, ' , and directed in his will that he should be cremated without any religious ceremony. garrison (h. d.), dr. of chicago. author of an able pamphlet on the absence of design in nature, . garth (sir samuel), english poet, wit, and physician, b. yorkshire, , and educated at cambridge. he helped to establish dispensaries, and lashed the opposition in his poem the dispensary. he was made physician to king george i. died june . gaston (h.), french author of a brochure with the title dieu, voila, l'ennemi, god the enemy, . gattina (f. p. della). see petruccelli. gautama (called also gotama, buddha, and sakyamuni), great hindu reformer and founder of buddhism, b. kapilavastu, b.c. many legends are told of his birth and life. he is said to have been a prince, who, pained with human misery, left his home to dedicate himself to emancipation. his system was rather a moral discipline than a religion. though he did not deny the hindu gods he asserted that all beings were subject to "karma," the result of previous actions. he said, "if a man for a hundred years worship agni in the forest, and if he but for one moment pay homage to a man whose soul is grounded in true knowledge, better is that homage than sacrifice for a hundred years." according to ceylonese writers gautama buddha died at kusinagara, b.c. . gautier (théophile), exquisite french poet and prose writer, b. tarbes, aug. . he wrote no definite work against priestcraft or superstition, but the whole tendency of his writings is pagan. his romanticism is not christian, and he made merry with "sacred themes" as well as conventional morality. baudelaire called him an impeccable master of french literature, and balzac said that of the two men who could write french, one was théophile gautier. died oct. . geijer (erik gustaf), eminent swedish historian, poet, and critic, b. wermland, jan. . at the age of he was awarded the swedish academy's first prize for a patriotical poem. at first a conservative in religious, philosophical, and political matters he became through his historical researches an ardent adherent of the principles of the french revolution. his historical work and indictment against "the protestant creed" was published in in a philosophical treatise, thorild, which was prosecuted. his acquittal by an enlightened jury stayed religious prosecutions in sweden for over sixty years. he died april . a monument was erected to him last year at the university of upsala, where he was professor of history. his works have been republished. geijerstam (gustaf), swedish novelist, b. . is one of the freethinking group of young sweden. geismar (martin von), editor of a library of german rationalists of the eighteenth century, in five parts, including some of the works of bahrdt, eberhardt, knoblauch, etc, - . he also added pamphlets entitled germany in the eighteenth century. gellion-danglar (eugène), french writer, b. paris, . became professor of languages at cairo, wrote in la pensée nouvelle, was made sous préfect of compiègne, ' , wrote history of the revolution of , and a study of the semites, ' . gemistos (georgios), surnamed plethon, a philosophic reviver of pagan learning, b. of noble parents at byzantium about . he early lost his faith in christianity, and was attracted to the moslem court at brusa. he went to italy in the train of john palælogus in , where he attracted much attention to the platonic philosophy, by which he sought to reform the religious, political and moral life of the time. gennadius, the patriarch of constantinople, roundly accused him of paganism. died . genard (françois), french satirist, b. paris about . he wrote an irreligious work called a parallel of the portraits of the age, with the pictures of the holy scriptures, for which he was placed in the bastille, where it is believed he finished his days. gendre (barbe), russian writer in french, b. cronstadt, dec. . she was well educated at kief, where she obtained a gold medal. by reading the works of büchner, buckle, and darwin she became a freethinker. settling in paris, she contributed to the revue internationale des sciences, to la justice and the nouvelle revue, etc. some of her pieces have been reprinted under the title etudes sociales (social studies, paris, ), edited by dr. c. letourneau. died dec. . gener (pompeyo), spanish philosopher, b. barcelona, , is a member of the society of anthropology, and author of a study of the evolution of ideas entitled death and the devil, paris, ' . this able work is dedicated to renan and has a preface by littré. the author has since translated it into spanish. genestet (petrus augustus de), dutch poet and agnostic, b. amsterdam, nov. . he studied theology, and for some years was a protestant minister. his verses show him to be a freethinker. died at rozendaal, july, . genin (françois), french philologist, b. amiens, feb. . he became one of the editors of the national, of paris, about ' , and wrote for it spirited articles against the jesuits. he published works on the jesuits and the universities, the church or the state, etc. in ' the french academy awarded a prize to his lexicon of the language of molière. he edited diderot, ' , and is known for his researches into the origin of the french language and literature. died paris, dec. . genovesi (antonio), italian philosopher, b. castiglione, nov. . he read lectures in philosophy at naples, but by his substitution of doubt for traditional belief he drew upon himself many attacks from the clergy. the book by which he is best known is his italian morality. died at naples, sept. . gensonne (armand), french lawyer and one of the leaders of the girondists, b. bordeaux, aug. . he was elected to the legislative assembly in , and to the convention in . in the struggle with the jacobins, gensonné was one of the most active and eloquent champions of his party. he was executed with his colleagues oct. . gentilis (giovanni valentino), italian heretic, b. consenza, naples, about . he fled to avoid persecution to geneva, where in he was thrown into prison at the instigation of calvin. fear of sharing the fate of servetus made him recant. he wandered to poland, where he joined alciati and biandrata, but he was banished for his innovations. upon the death of calvin he returned to switzerland, where he was arrested for heresy, june, . after a long trial he was condemned for attacking the trinity, and beheaded at berne, (?) sept. . ladvocat says "he died very impiously, saying he thought himself honored in being martyred for the glory of the father, whereas the apostles and other martyrs only died for the glory of the son." geoffrin (marie therèse, neé rodet), a french lady distinguished as a patroness of learning and the fine arts, b. paris, june, . she was a friend of alembert, voltaire, marmontel, montesquieu, diderot, and the encyclopædists, and was noted for her benevolence. died at paris, oct. . gerhard (h.), dutch socialist, b. delft, june, . educated at an orphanage he became a tailor, travelled through france, italy, and switzerland, and in ' returned to amsterdam. he wrote for de dageraad, and was correspondent of the internationale. died july, . gerhard (a. h.), son of foregoing, b. lausanne, switzerland, april, . is headmaster of a public school, and one of the editors of de dageraad. germond (j. b. l.), editor of marèchal's dictionnaire des athées, brussels, . gertsen (aleksandr ivanovich). see herzen. ghillany (friedrich wilhelm), german critic, b. at erlangan, april, . in ' he became professor of history at nurenberg. his principal work is on human sacrifices among the ancient jews, nurnberg, ' . he also wrote on the pagan and christian writers of the first four centuries. under the pseudonym of "richard von der alm" he wrote theological letters, ; jesus of nazareth, ; and a collection of the opinions of heathen and jewish writers of the first four centuries upon jesus and christianity. died june, . giannone (pietro), italian historian, b. ischitella, naples, may, . he devoted many years to a history of the kingdom of naples, in which he attacked the papal power. he was excommunicated and fled to vienna, where he received a pension from the emperor, which was removed on his avowal of heterodox opinions. he was driven from austria and took refuge in venice: here also was an inquisition. giannone was seized by night and cast before sunrise on the papal shore. he found means, however, of escaping to geneva. having been enticed into savoy in , he was arrested by order of the king of sardinia, and confined in prison until his death, march, . gibbon (edward), probably the greatest of historians, b. putney, april . at oxford be became a romanist, but being sent to a calvinist at lausanne, was brought back to protestantism. when visiting the ruins of the capitol at rome, he conceived the idea of writing the decline and fall of that empire. for twenty-two years before the appearance of his first volume he was a prodigy of arduous application, his investigations extending over the whole range of intellectual and political activity for nearly fifteen hundred years. his monumental work, bridging the old world and the new, is an historic exposure of the crimes and futility of christianity. gibbon was elected to parliament in ' , but did not distinguish himself. he died of dropsy, in london, jan. . gibson (ellen elvira), american lecturess, b. winchenden, mass. may, , and became a public school teacher. study of the bible brought her to the freethought platform. at the outbreak of the american civil war she organised ladies' soldiers' aid societies, and was elected chaplain to the st wisconsin volunteer artillery. president lincoln endorsed the appointment, which was questioned. she has written anonymously godly women of the bible, and has contributed to the truthseeker, boston investigator, and ironclad age, under her own signature and that of "lilian." giessenburg (rudolf charles d'ablaing van), one of the most notable of dutch freethinkers, b. of noble family, april, . an unbeliever in youth, in ' he went to batavia, and upon his return set up as a bookseller under the name of r. c. meijer. with junghuhn and günst, he started de dageraad, and from ' - was one of the contributors, usually under his name "rudolf charles." he is a man of great erudition, has written het verbond der vrije gedachte (the alliance of freethought); de tydgenoot op het gebied der rede (the contemporary in the field of reason); de regtbank des onderzoeks (the tribunal of inquiry); zedekunde en christendom (ethics and christianity); curiositeiten van allerlei aard (curiosities of various kinds). he has also published the religion and philosophy of the bible by w. j. birch and brooksbank's work on revelation. he was the first who published a complete edition of the famous testament du curé jean meslier in three parts (' ), has published the works of douwes dekker and other writers, and also curieuse gebruiken. gilbert (claude), french advocate, b. dijon, june, . he had printed at dijon, in , histoire de calejava, ou de l'isle des hommes raisonables, avec le paralelle de leur morale et du christianisme. the book has neither the name of author or printer. it was suppressed, and only one copy escaped destruction, which was bought in by the duc de la vallière for livres. it was in form of a dialogue ( pp.), and attacked both judaism and christianity. gilbert married in , and died at dijon feb. . gill (charles), b. dublin, oct. , was educated at the university of that city. in ' he published anonymously a work on the evolution of christianity. it was quoted by mr. foote in his defences before judge north and lord coleridge, and in the following year he put his name to a second edition. mr. gill has also written a pamphlet on the blasphemy laws, and has edited, with an introduction, archbishop laurence's book of enoch, . giles (rev. john allen, d.ph.), b. mark, somersetshire, oct. . educated at the charterhouse and oxford, where he graduated b.a. as a double first-class in ' . he was appointed head-master of the city of london school, which post he left for the church. the author of over volumes of educational works, including the keys to the classics; privately he was a confirmed freethinker, intimate with birch, scott, etc. his works bearing on theology show his heresy, the principal being hebrew records , christian records . these two were published together in amended form in . he also wrote codex apocryphus novi testamenti , writings of the early christians of the second century , and apostolic records, published posthumously in . died sept . ginguene (pierre louis), french historian b. rennes, april, . educated, with parny, by jesuits. at paris he became a teacher, embraced the revolution, wrote on rousseau and rabelais, and collaborated with chamfort in the historic pictures of the french revolution. thrown into prison during the terror, he escaped on the fall of robespierre, and became director of public instruction. his principal work is a literary history of italy. died paris, nov. . gilliland (m. s.) miss, b. londonderry , authoress of a little work on the future of morality, from the agnostic standpoint, . gioja (melchiorre), italian political economist, b. piazenza, sept. . he advocated republicanism, and was appointed head of a bureau of statistics. for his brochure la scienza del povero diavolo he was expelled from italy in . he published works on merit and rewards and the philosophy of statistics. died at milan jan. . girard (stephen), american philanthropist, b. near bordeaux france, may, . he sailed as cabin boy to the west indies about ; rose to be master of a coasting vessel and earned enough to settle in business in philadelphia in . he became one of the richest merchants in america, and during the war of he took the whole of a government loan of five million dollars. he called his vessels after the names of the philosophers helvetius, montesquieu, voltaire, rousseau, etc. he contributed liberally to all public improvements and radical movements. on his death he left large bequests to philadelphia, the principal being a munificent endowment of a college for orphans. by a provision of his will, no ecclesiastic or minister of any sect whatever is to hold any connection with the college, or even be admitted to the premises as a visitor; but the officers of the institution are required to instruct the pupils in secular morality and leave them to adopt their own religious opinions. this will has been most shamefully perverted. died philadelphia, dec. . glain (d. de saint). see saint glain. glennie (john stuart stuart), living english barrister and writer, author of in the morningland, or the law of the origin and transformation of christianity, , the most important chapter of which was reprinted by thomas scott, under the title, christ and osiris. he has also written pilgrim memories, or travel and discussion in the birth-countries of christianity with the late h. t. buckle, . glisson (francis), english anatomist and physician, b. rampisham, dorsetshire, . he took his degree at cambridge, and was there appointed regius professor of physic, an office he held forty years. he discovered glisson's capsule in the liver, and was the first to attribute irritability to muscular fibre. in his tractatus de natura substantiæ energetica, , he anticipates the natural school in considering matter endowed with native energy sufficient to account for the operations of nature. dr. glisson was eulogised by harvey, and boerhaave called him "the most accurate of all anatomists that ever lived." died in . godwin (mary). see wollstonecraft. godwin (william), english historian, political writer and novelist, b. wisbeach, cambridgeshire, march, . the son of a dissenting minister, he was designed for the same calling. he studied at hoxton college, and came out, as he entered, a tory and calvinist; but making the acquaintance of holcroft, paine, and the english jacobins, his views developed from the unitarianism of priestley to the rejection of the supernatural. in ' he published his republican work on political justice. in the following year he issued his powerful novel of caleb williams. he married mary wollstonecraft, ' ; wrote, in addition to several novels and educational works, on population, in answer to malthus, ; a history of the commonwealth, ' - ; thoughts on man, ' ; lives of the necromancers, ' . some freethought essays, which he had intended to form into a book entitled the genius of christianity unveiled, were first published in ' . they comprise papers on such subjects as future retribution, the atonement, miracles, and character of jesus, and the history and effects of the christian religion. died april, . goethe (johann wolfgang von), germany's greatest poet, b. frankfort-on-main, aug. . he records that early in his seventh year ( nov. ) the great lisbon earthquake filled his mind with religious doubt. before he was nine he could write several languages. educated at home until sixteen, he then went to leipsic university. at strasburg he became acquainted with herder, who directed his attention to shakespeare. he took the degree of doctor in , and in the same year composed his drama "goetz von berlichingen." he went to wetzlar, where he wrote sorrows of werther, , which at once made him famous. he was invited to the court of the duke of saxe-weimar and loaded with honors, becoming the centre of a galaxy of distinguished men. here he brought out the works of schiller and his own dramas, of which faust is the greatest. his chief prose work is wilhelm meister's apprenticeship. his works are voluminous. he declared himself "decidedly non-christian," and said his objects of hate were "the cross and bugs." he was averse to abstractions and refused to recognise a deity distinct from the world. in philosophy he followed spinoza, and he disliked and discountenanced the popular creed. writing to lavater in he said: "you look upon the gospel as it stands as the divinest truth: but even a voice from heaven would not convince me that water burns and fire quenches, that a woman conceives without a man, and that a dead man can rise again. to you, nothing is more beautiful than the gospel; to me, a thousand written pages of ancient and modern inspired men are equally beautiful." goethe was opposed to asceticism, and pfleiderer admits "stood in opposition to christianity not merely on points of theological form, but to a certain extent on points of substance too." goethe devoted much attention to science, and he attempted to explain the metamorphosis of plants on evolutionary principles in . died march, . goldstuecker (theodor), sanskrit scholar, of jewish birth, but a freethinker by conviction, b. konigsberg jan. ; studied at bonn under schlegel and lassen, and at paris under burnouf. establishing himself at berlin, he was engaged as tutor in the university and assisted humboldt in the matter of hindu philosophy in the cosmos. a democrat in politics, he left berlin at the reaction of ' and came to england, where he assisted professor wilson in preparing his sanskrit-english dictionary. he contributed important articles on indian literature to the westminster review, the reader, the athenæum and chambers' encyclopædia. died in london, march, . goldziher (ignacz), hungarian orientalist, b. stuhlweissenburg, . is since doctor of semitic philology in buda-pesth; is author of mythology among the hebrews, which has been translated by russell martineau, ' , and has written many studies on semitic theology and literature. gordon (thomas), scotch deist and political reformer, was b. kells, kirkcudbright, about , but settled early in london, where he supported himself as a teacher and writer. he first distinguished himself by two pamphlets in the bangorian controversy, which recommended him to trenchard, to whom he became amanuensis, and with whom he published cato's letters and a periodical entitled the independent whig, which he continued some years after trenchard's death, marrying that writer's widow. he wrote many pamphlets, and translated from barbeyrac the spirit of the ecclesiastics of all ages. he also translated the histories of tacitus and sallust. he died july, , leaving behind him posthumous works entitled a cordial for low spirits and the pillars of priestcraft and orthodoxy shaken. gorlæus (david), a dutch philosopher, b. at utrecht, towards the end of the sixteenth century, has been accused of atheism on account of his speculations in a work published after his death entitled exercitationes philosophicæ, leyden . govea or gouvea [latin goveanus] (antonio), portugese jurist and poet, b. , studied in france and gained great reputation by his legal writings. calvin classes him with dolet, rabelais, and des periers, as an atheist and mocker. he wrote elegant latin poems. died at turin, march, . gratiolet (louis-pierre), french naturalist, b. sainte foy, july , noted for his researches on the comparative anatomy of the brain. died at paris feb. . graves (kersey), american, author of the biography of satan, , and the world's sixteen crucified saviors, . works of some vogue, but little value. gray (asa), american naturalist, b. nov. , paris, oneida co., new york. studied at fairfield and became physician . wrote elements of botany, , became professor of nat. hist. at harvard, and was the first to introduce darwinism to america. wrote an examination of darwin's treatise . succeeded agassiz as governor of smithsonian institute, and worked on american flora. died at cambridge, mass., jan. . green (h. l.), american freethinker, b. feb. . edits the freethinker's magazine published at buffalo, new york. greg (william rathbone), english writer, b. manchester . educated at edinburgh university, he became attracted to economic studies and literary pursuits. he was one of the founders of the manchester statistical society, a warm supporter of the anti-corn law league, and author of one of its prize essays. in ' he wrote on efforts for the extinction of the african slave trade. in ' he published his creed of christendom, which has gone through eight editions, and in his enigmas of life, of which there were thirteen editions in his life. he published also essays on political and social science, and was a regular contributor to the pall mall gazette. his works exhibit a careful yet bold thinker and close reasoner. died at wimbledon nov. . grenier (pierre jules), french positivist, b. beaumont, perigord, , author of a medical examination of the doctrine of free will, ' , which drew out letter from mgr. dupanloup, bishop of orleans, imploring him to repudiate his impious doctrines. also author of aphorisms on the first principles of sociology, . "grile (dod)," pen name of ambrose bierce, american humorist, who wrote on the san francisco news-letter. his nuggets and dust and fiend's delight, were blasphemous; has also written in fun, and published cobwebs from an empty skull, . grimm (friedrich melchior von), baron. german philosophic writer in french, b. ratisbon, dec. . going to france he became acquainted with d'holbach and with rousseau, who was at first his friend, but afterwards his enemy. he became secretary to the duke of orleans, and wrote in conjunction with diderot and raynal caustic literary bulletins containing criticisms on french literature and art. in he was envoy from the duke of saxe gotha to the french court, and after the french revolution was appointed by catherine of russia her minister at hamburg. grimm died at gotha, dec. . he is chiefly known by his literary correspondence with diderot published in seventeen vols. - . gringore (pierre), french poet and dramatist, b. about , satirised the pope and clergy as well as the early reformers. died about . grisebach (eduard), german writer, b. gottingen oct. . studied law, but entered the service of the state and became consul at bucharest, petersburg, milan and hayti. has written many poems, of which the best known is the new tanhäuser, first published anonymously in ' , and followed by tanhäuser in rome, ' . has also translated kin ku ki kuan, chinese novels. is a follower of schopenhauer, whose bibliography he has compiled, . grote (george), the historian of greece, b. near beckenham, kent, nov. . descended from a dutch family. he was educated for the employment of a banker and was put to business at the age of sixteen. he was however addicted to literary pursuits, and became a friend and disciple of james mill and jeremy bentham. in he married a cultured lady, harriet lewin, and in ' his analysis of the influence of natural religion was published by carlile, under the pen name of philip beauchamp. he also wrote in the westminster review. in ' he was elected as radical m.p. for the city of london and retained his seat till ' . he was chiefly known in parliament for his advocacy of the ballot. in ' -' he published his famous history of greece, which cost him the best years of his life; this was followed by plato and the other companions of socrates. his review of j. s. mill's examination of sir william hamilton's philosophy, ' , showed he retained his freethought until the end of his life. he died june ' , and was buried in westminster abbey. grote (harriet) nee lewin, wife of the above, b. , shared in his opinions and wrote his life. died dec. . gruen (karl) german author, b. sept. , lüdenschied, westphalia, studied at bonn and berlin. in ' he came to paris, was a friend to proudhon and translated his philosophy of misery, was arrested in ' and condemned to exile; lived at brussels till ' , when he was made professor at frankfort. he became professor of english at the college of colmar, established a radical journal the mannheim evening news and he wrote biographical studies of schiller, ' , and feuerbach, ' . a culture history of the th- th centuries, and the philosophy of the present, ' . died at vienna february, . gruet (jacques), swiss freethinker, tortured and put to death for blasphemy by order of calvin at geneva, july, . after his death papers were found in his possession directed against religion. they were burnt by the common hangman, april, . gruyer (louis auguste jean françois-philippe), belgian philosopher, b. brussels, nov. . he wrote an essay of physical philosophy, , tablettès philosophiques, ' . principles of physical philosophy, ' , etc. he held the atomic doctrine, and that matter was eternal. died brussels oct. . guadet (marguerite elie), girondin, b. saint emilion (gironde), july, . he studied at bordeaux, and became an advocate in ' . he threw himself enthusiastically into the revolution, and was elected deputy for the gironde. his vehement attacks on the jacobins contributed to the destruction of his party, after which he took refuge, but was arrested and beheaded at bordeaux, june, . gubernatis (angelo de), see de gubernatis. guépin (ange), french physician, b. pontivy, aug. . he became m.d. in ' . after the revolution of july, ' , dr. guépin was made professor at the school of medicine at nantes. he formed the first scientific and philosophical congress, held there in ' . in ' he became commissaire of the republic at nantes, and in ' was deprived of his situation. in ' he published his philosophy of the nineteenth century. after the fall of the empire, m. guépin became prefet of la loire inférieure, but had to resign from ill-health. died at nantes, may, , and was buried without any religious ceremony. gueroult (adolphe), french author, b. radepont (eure), jan. . early in life he became a follower of saint simon. he wrote to the journal des debats, the republique, credit and industrie, and founded l'opinion national. he was elected to the legislature in ' , when he advocated the separation of church and state. died at vichy, july, . guerra junqueiro. portuguese poet, b. . his principal work is a poem on the death of don juan, but he has also written the death of jehovah, an assault upon the catholic faith from the standpoint of pantheism. portuguese critics speak highly of his powers. guerrini (olindo), italian poet, b. forli, oct. . educated at ravenna, turin, and bologna university; he has written many fine poems under the name of lorenzo stecchetti. in the preface to nova polemica he declares "primo di tutto dice, non credo in dio" ("first of all i say do not believe in god.") gueudeville (nicolas), french writer, b. rouen, . he became a benedictine monk, and was distinguished as a preacher, but the boldness of his opinions drew on him the punishment of his superiors. he escaped to holland, and publicly abjured catholicism. he taught literature and philosophy at rotterdam, wrote the dialogue of the baron de la hontan with an american savage amst. , appended to the travels of la hontan, , edited by gueudeville. this dialogue is a bitter criticism of christian usages. he translated erasmus's praise of folly ( ), more's utopia ( ), and c. agrippa, of the uncertainty and vanity of sciences ( ). died at the hague, . guichard (victor), french writer, b. paris, aug. . he became mayor of sens, and was elected deputy for the yonne department. he was exiled in ' , but again elected in ' . his principal work is la liberté de penser, fin du pouvoir spirituel ( ). died at paris, th nov. . guild (e. e.), b. in connecticut, may, . in ' he became a christian minister, but after numerous debates became turned universalist. in ' he published the universalist book of reference, which went through several editions. it was followed by pro and con, in which he gives the arguments for and against christianity. guirlando (giulio) di treviso. italian heretic, put to death at venice for anti-trinitarian heresy, oct. . gundling (nicolaus hieronymus), german scholar and deistic philosopher, b. near nuremberg, feb. . he wrote a history of the philosophy of morals, , and the way to truth, . one of the first german eclectics, he took much from hobbes and locke, with whom he derived all ideas from experience. died at halle, dec. . gunning (william d.), american scientific professor, b. bloomingburg, ohio. graduated at oberlin and studied under agassiz. he wrote life history of our planet, chicago, , and contributed to the open court. died greeley, colorado, march, . günst (dr. frans christiaan), dutch writer and publisher, b. amsterdam, aug. . he was intended for a catholic clergyman; studied at berne, where he was promoted ' . returning to holland he became bookseller and editor at amsterdam. he was for many years secretary of the city theatre. günst contributed to many periodicals, and became a friend of junghuhn, with whom he started de dageraad, the organ of the dutch freethinkers, which he edited from ' to ' . he usually contributed under pseudonyms as "mephistho" or ([therefore]). he was for many years president of the independent lodge of freemasons, "post nubila lux," and wrote on adon hiram, the oldest legend of the freemasons. he also wrote wijwater voor roomsch katholieken (holy water for the roman catholics); de bloedgetuigen der spaansche inquisitie (the martyrs of the spanish inquisition, ' ); and heidenen en jezuieten, eene vergelijking van hunne zedeleer (pagans and jesuits, a comparison of their morals, ' ). in his life and conversation he was frater gaudens. died dec. . guyau (marie jean), french philosopher, b. , was crowned at the age of by the institute of france for a monograph on utilitarian morality. in the following year he had charge of a course of philosophy at the condorcet lycée at paris. ill health, brought on by excess of work, obliged him to retire to mentone, where he occupied himself with literature. his principal works are la morale d'epicure (the morality of epicurus), in relation to present day doctrines, , la morale anglaise contemporaine (contemporary english ethics), ' , crowned by the academy of moral sciences. verses of a philosopher, ' . esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction (sketch of morality without obligation or sanction,) ' , and l'irreligion de l'avenir (the irreligion of the future) ' . m. guyau was a follower of m. fouillée, but all his works bear the impress of profound thought and originality. a chief doctrine is the expansion of life. died mentone, march, . guyot (yves), french writer and statesman, b. dinan, . he wrote with sigismond lacroix a study of the social doctrines of christianity, ' , and a work on morality in the bibliothèque matérialiste. elected on the municipal council of paris ' - , he has since been a deputy to the chamber, and is now a member of the government. he has written the principles of social economy, ' , and many works on that topic; has edited diderot's la religieuse and the journals droits de l'homme and le bien public. gwynne (george), freethought writer in the reasoner and national reformer, under the pen-name of "aliquis." his reply to j. h. newman's grammar of assent shewed much acuteness. he served the cause both by pen and purse. died sept. . gyllenborg (gustaf fredrik), count. swedish poet, b. dec. , was one of the first members of the academy of stockholm and chancellor of upsala university. he published satires, fables, odes, etc., among which may be named the passage of the belt. his opinions were deistic. died march, . haeckel (ernst heinrich philipp august), german scientist, b. potsdam, feb. ; studied medicine and science at würzburg, berlin, and vienna. in ' he went to italy and studied zoology at naples, and two years later was made professor of zoology at jena. between ' and ' he travelled over europe besides visiting syria and egypt, and later he visited india and ceylon, writing an interesting account of his travels. he is the foremost german supporter of evolution; his natural history of creation, ' , having gone through many editions, and been translated into english ' , as have also his evolution of man, vols. ' , and pedigree of man, ' . besides numerous monographs and an able work on cellular psychology, professor haeckel has published important popular lectures on evolution, ' , and on freedom in science and teaching, published with a prefatory note by professor huxley, ' . hagen (benjamin olive), socialist, b. june, . about the year his attention was attracted to the socialists by the abuse they received. led thus to inquire, he embraced the views of robert owen, and was their chief upholder for many years in the town of derby, where he lived to be upwards of seventy years of age. his wife also deserves mention as an able lady of freethought views. halley (edmund), eminent english astronomer, known in his lifetime as "the infidel mathematician," b. haggerston, london, oct. ; educated at oxford. at twenty he had made observations of the planets and of the spots on the sun. in nov. ' he went to st. helena where he prepared his catalogue of southern stars, ' . he also found how to take the sun's parallax by means of the transits of mercury or venus. in ' he was elected a f.r.s. two years later he made observation on "halley's comet," and in ' published his theory of the variation of the magnet. he became a friend of sir isaac newton, whom he persuaded to publish his principia. in ' he commanded a scientific expedition to the south atlantic. in he was made sec. of the royal society and in astronomer-royal. he then undertook a task which required nineteen years to perform, viz: to observe the moon throughout an entire revolution of her nodes. he lived to finish this task. died jan. . halley was the first who conceived that fixed stars had a proper motion in space. chalmers in his biographical dictionary says, "it must be deeply regretted that he cannot be numbered with those illustrious characters who thought it not beneath them to be christians." hammon (w.), pseudonym of turner william, q. v. hamond or hamont (matthew), english heretic, by trade a ploughwright, of hethersett, norfolk, burnt at norwich, may , for holding "that the new testament and the gospel of christ were pure folly, a human invention, a mere fable." he had previously been set in the pillory and had both his ears cut off. hannotin (emile), french deist, b. bar le duc in , and some time editor of the journal de la meuse. author of new philosophical theology, ' ; great questions, ' ; ten years of philosophical studies, ' ; and an essay on man, in which he seeks to explain life by sensibility. hanson (sir richard davies), chief justice of south australia, b. london, dec. . he practised as attorney for a short time in london, and wrote for the globe and morning chronicle. in he took part in the attempt to found a colony in south australia. in he became advocate-general of the colony, and subsequently in chief justice. in he was knighted. he wrote on law in nature , the jesus of history , and st. paul . hanson wrote letters to and from rome a.d. , and . selected and translated by c.v.s. . died at adelaide mar. . hardwicke (edward arthur), m.d., eldest son of junius hardwicke, f.r.c.s., of rotherham, yorks. in ' he qualified as a surveyor, and in ' as a physician. for twelve years he was surgeon superintendent of the government emigration service. he is an agnostic of the school of herbert spencer, and has contributed to freethought and scientific periodicals. hardwicke (herbert junius), m.d., brother of above, b. sheffield, jan. . studied at london, edinburgh and paris. in ' he became a member of the edinburgh college of physicians. next year he was the principal agent in establishing the sheffield public hospital for skin diseases. besides numerous medical works, dr. hardwicke set up a press of his own in order to print the popular faith unveiled, the publishers requiring guarantee in consequence of the prosecution of mr. foote (' ), and evolution and creation (' ). he has contributed to the agnostic annual, and has recently written rambles in spain, italy and morocco (' ). harriot (thomas), english mathematician, b. oxford, , accompanied raleigh to virginia and published an account of the expedition. he was noted for his skill in algebra, and a. wood says "he was a deist." died july . harrison (frederic), m.a., english positivist, b. london oct. , educated at london and oxford, when he was st class in classics. he was called to the bar in ' . he has since been appointed professor of jurisprudence and international law. he has written many important articles in the high-class reviews, and has published the meaning of history, order and progress, and on the choice of books and other literary pieces, ' , and has translated vol. ii of comte's positive polity. he was one of the founders of the positivist school, ' , and of newton hall in ' . a fine stylist, his addresses and magazine articles bear the stamp of a cultured man of letters. hartmann (karl robert eduard), german pantheistic pessimist philosopher, b. berlin, feb. . in ' he entered the prussian army, but an affection of the knee made him resign in ' . by the publication of his philosophy of the unconscious in ' , he became famous, though it was not translated into english until ' . he has since written numerous works of which we name self-dissolution of christianity and the religion of the future, ' , the crisis of christianity in modern theology, ' , the religious consciousness of mankind, ' , and modern problems, ' . latterly hartmann has turned his attention to the philosophy of politics. hartogh heys van zouteveen (dr. herman), a learned dutch writer, b. delft feb. . he studied law and natural philosophy at leyden, and graduated doctor of law in ' and doctor of natural philosophy in ' . in ' he received a gold medal from the king of holland for a treatise on the synthesis of organic bodies. dr. hartogh was some time professor of chemistry and natural history at the hague, but lived at delft, where he was made city councillor and in ' and ' travelled through egypt and nubia as correspondent of het vaderland and was the guest of the khedive. he translated into dutch darwin's descent of man and expressions of the emotions, both with valuable annotations of his own. he has also translated and annotated some of the works of ludwig büchner and "carus sterne," from the german, and works from the french, besides writing several original essays on anthropology, natural history, geology, and allied sciences, contributing largely to the spread of darwinian ideas in holland. in ' he visited the united states and the pacific coast. since ' he has resided at assen, of which he was named member of the city council, but could not take his seat because he refused the oath. he is a director of the provincial archæological museum at assen, and a member of the dutch literary society the royal institution of netherlands, india, and other scientific associations. for a long while he was a member of the dutch freethinkers' society, de dageraad, of which he became president. to the organ de dageraad he contributed important works, such as jewish reports concerning jesus of nazareth and the origin of religious ideas, the last of which has been published separately. haslam (charles junius), b. widdington, northumberland, april, . he spent most of his life near manchester, where he became a socialist and published letters to the clergy of all denominations, showing the errors, absurdities, and irrationalities of their doctrines, ' . this work went through several editions, and the publishers were prosecuted for blasphemy. he followed it by letters to the bishop of exeter, containing materials for deciding the question whether or not the bible is the word of god, ' , and a pamphlet who are the infidels? in ' he removed to benton, where he has since lived. in ' he issued a pamphlet entitled the suppression of war. hassell (richard), one of carlile's shopmen, sentenced to two years imprisonment in newgate for selling paine's age of reason, may, . he died in october . hattem (pontiaam van), dutch writer, b. bergen . he was a follower of spinoza, inclined to pantheistic mysticism, and had several followers. died . haureau (jean barthelemy), french historian, b. paris . at the age of twenty he showed his sympathy with the revolution by a work on the mountain. in turn journalist and librarian he has produced many important works, of which we name his manual of the clergy, ' , which drew on him attacks from the clericals, and his erudite critical examination of the scholastic philosophy, ' . hauy (valentine), french philanthropist, b. saint-just nov. . he devoted much attention to enabling the blind to read and founded the institute for the young blind in . he was one of the founders of theophilantropy. in he went to russia, where he stayed till , devoting himself to the blind and to telegraphy. died at paris march, . havet (ernest august eugène), french scholar and critic, b. paris, april, . in ' he was appointed professor of greek literature at the normal school. in ' he was made professor of latin eloquence at the collége de france. in ' an article on renan's vie de jesus in the revue des deux mondes excited much attention, and was afterwards published separately. his work on christianity and its origins, vols. - , is a masterpiece of rational criticism. hawkesworth (john), english essayist and novelist, b. in london about . became contributor to the gentleman's magazine and editor of the adventurer. in ' he edited swift's works with a life of that author. he compiled an account of the voyages of byron, wallis, carteret, and cook for government, for which he received £ , ; but the work was censured as incidentally attacking the doctrine of providence. his novel almoran and hamet was very popular. died at bromley, kent, nov. . hawley (henry), a scotch major-general, who died in , and by the terms of his will prohibited christian burial. hebert (jacques rené), french revolutionist, b. alençon nov. , published the notorious père duchêsne, and with chaumette instituted the feasts of reason. he was denounced by saint just, and guillotined march . his widow, who had been a nun, was executed a few days later. hegel (georg wilhelm friedrich), german metaphysician b. stuttgart, aug. . he studied theology at tübingen, but, becoming acquainted with schelling, devoted his attention to philosophy. his encyclopædia of the philosophical sciences made a deep impression in germany, and two schools sprang up, one claiming it as a philosophical statement of christianity, the other as pantheism hostile to revelation. hegel said students of philosophy must begin with spinozism. he is said to have remarked that of all his many disciples only one understood him, and he understood him falsely. he was professor at jena, heidelberg, and berlin, in which last city he died nov. , and was buried beside fichte. heine (heinrich), german poet and littérateur, b. of jewish parents at dusseldorf, dec. . he studied law at bonn, berlin, and göttingen; became acquainted with the philosophy of spinoza and hegel; graduated ll.d., and in june renounced judaism and was baptised. the change was only formal. he satirised all forms of religious faith. his fine pictures of travel was received with favor and translated by himself into french. his other principal works are the book of songs, history of recent literature in germany, the romantic school, the women of shakespeare, atta troll and other poems. in he married a french lady, having settled in paris, where "the voltaire of germany" became more french than german. about he became paralysed and lost his eyesight, but he still employed himself in literary composition with the aid of an amanuensis. after an illness of eight years, mostly passed in extreme suffering on his "mattress grave," he died feb. . heine was the greatest and most influential german writer since goethe. he called himself a soldier of freedom, and his far-flashing sword played havoc with the forces of reaction. heinzen (karl peter) german-american poet, orator and politician, b. near dusseldorf, feb. . he studied medicine at bonn, and travelled to batavia, an account of which he published (cologne ). a staunch democrat, in he published at darmstadt a work on the prussian bureaucracy, for which he was prosecuted and had to seek shelter in switzerland. at zurich he edited the german tribune and the democrat. at the beginning of ' he visited new york but returned to participate in the attempted german revolution. again "the regicide" had to fly and in august ' returned to new york. he wrote on many papers and established the pioneer (now freidenker), first in louisville, then in cincinnati, then in new york, and from ' in boston. he wrote many works, including letters on atheism, which appeared in the reasoner , poems, german revolution, the heroes of german communism, the rights of women, mankind the criminal, six letters to a pious man (boston ), lessons of a century, and what is humanity? ( .) died boston nov. . hellwald (friedrich von), german geographer, b. padua march , and in addition to many works on various countries has written an able culture history, . helmholtz (hermann ludwig ferdinand von) german scientist, b. potsdam aug. . distinguished for his discoveries in acoustics, optics and electricity, he is of the foremost rank among natural philosophers in europe. among his works we mention the conservation of force ( ), and popular scientific lectures ( - .) professor helmholtz rejects the design hypothesis. helvetius (claude adrien) french philosopher, b. paris jan. . descended from a line of celebrated physicians, he had a large fortune which he dispensed in works of benevolence. attracted by reading locke he resigned a lucrative situation as farmer-general to devote himself to philosophy. in august he published a work on the mind (de l'esprit) which was condemned by pope clement xiii, jan. , and burnt by the order of parliament feb. for the hardihood of his materialistic opinions. mme. du deffand said "he told everybody's secret." it was republished at amsterdam and london. he also wrote a poem on happiness and a work on man his faculties and education. he visited england and prussia and became an honored guest of frederick the great. died dec. . his wife, née anne catherine de lingville, b. , after his death retired to auteuil, where her house was the rendezvous of condillac, turgot, d'holbach, morellet, cabanis, destutt de tracy, etc. this re-union of freethinkers was known as the société d'auteuil. madame helvetius died august . henault, or hesnault (jean), french epicurean poet of the th century, son of a paris baker, was a pupil of gassendi, and went to holland to see spinoza. bayle says he professed atheism, and had composed three different systems of the mortality of the soul. his most famous sonnet is on the abortion. died paris, . henin de cuvillers (etienne felix), baron, french general and writer, b. balloy, april, . he served as diplomatist in england, venice, and constantinople. employed in the army of italy, he was wounded at arcola, sept. ' . he was made chevalier of the legion of honor in . he wrote much, particularly on magnetism. in the th vol. of his archives du magnétisme animal, he suggests that the miracles of jesus were not supernatural, but wrought by means of magnetism learnt in egypt. in other writings, especially in reflections on the crimes committed in the name of religion, ' , he shows himself the enemy of fanaticism and intolerance. died august, . hennell (charles christian), english freethinker, b. march, , author of an able inquiry concerning the origin of christianity, first published in ' , a work which powerfully influenced "george eliot," and a translation of which was introduced to german readers by dr. d. f. strauss. it was hennell who induced "george eliot" to translate strauss's life of jesus. he also wrote on christian theism. hennell lived most of his time in coventry. he was married at london in ' , and died sept. . herault de sechelles (marie jean), french revolutionist, b. of noble family, paris, . brought up as a friend of buffon and mirabeau, he gained distinction as a lawyer and orator before the revolution. elected to the legislative assembly in ' , he was made president of the convention, nov. . he edited the document known as the constitution of , and was president and chief speaker at the national festival, aug. ' . he drew on himself the enmity of robespierre, and was executed with danton and camille desmoulins, april, . herbart (johann friedrich), b. oldenburg may . in he was made professor of philosophy at göttingen, and in became kant's successor at königsberg and opposed his philosophy. though religiously disposed, his philosophy has no room for the notion of a god. he was recalled to göttingen, where he died aug. . herbert (edward), lord of cherbury, in shropshire, b. montgomery castle, . educated at oxford, after which he went on his travels. on his return he was made one of the king's counsellors, and soon after sent as ambassador to france to intercede for the protestants. he served in the netherlands, and distinguished himself by romantic bravery. in he was made a peer of ireland, and in ' an english peer. during the civil wars he espoused the side of parliament. his principal work is entitled de veritate, the object of which was to assert the sufficiency of natural religion apart from revelation. he also wrote lay religion, his own memoirs, a history of henry viii., etc. died aug. . hertell (thomas), judge of the marine court of new york, and for some years member of the legislature of his state. he wrote two or three small works criticising christian theology, and exerted his influence in favour of state secularization. hertzen or gertsen (aleksandr ivanovich), russian patriot, chief of the revolutionary party, b. moscow, march, . he studied at moscow university, where he obtained a high degree. in ' he was arrested for saint simonian opinions and soon afterwards banished to viatka, whence he was permitted to return in ' . he was expelled from russia in ' , visited italy, joined the "reds" at paris in ' , took refuge at geneva, and soon after came to england. in ' he set up in london a russian printing press for the publication of works prohibited in russia, and his publications passed into that country in large numbers. among his writings are dilettantism in science, ' ; letters on the study of nature, ' - ; who's to blame? ' ; memoirs of the empress catherine, and my exile, ' . in ' herzen started the magazine the kolokol or bell. died at paris, jan. . his son, alessandro herzen, b. wladimar, , followed his father's fortunes, learnt most of the european languages and settled at florence, where he did much to popularise physiological science. he has translated maudsley's physiology of mind, and published a physiological analysis of human free will. herwegh (georg), german radical and poet, b. stuttgart, may, . intended for the church, he left that business for literature. his gedichte eines lebendigen (poems of a living man) aroused attention by their boldness. in ' he raised a troop and invaded baden, but failed, and took refuge in switzerland and paris. died at baden-baden, april, . hetherington (henry), english upholder of a free press, b. soho, london, . he became a printer, and was one of the most energetic of working men engaged in the foundation of mechanics' institutes. he also founded the metropolitan political union in march, , which was the germ both of trades' unionism and of the chartist movement. he resisted the "taxes upon knowledge" by issuing unstamped the poor man's guardian, a weekly newspaper for the people, established, contrary to "law," to try the power of "might" against "right," ' - . for this he twice suffered sentences of six months' imprisonment. he afterwards published the unstamped, and his persistency had much to do in removing the taxes. while in prison he wrote his cheap salvation in consequence of conversation with the chaplain of clerkenwell gaol. on dec. , ' , he was tried for "blasphemous libel" for publishing haslam's letters to the clergy, and received four month's imprisonment. hetherington published a few hundred bible contradictions, and other freethought works. much of his life was devoted to the propaganda of chartism. he died aug. , leaving a will declaring himself an atheist. hetzer (ludwig), anti-trinitarian martyr, b. bischopzell, switzerland; was an anabaptist minister at zurich. he openly denied the doctrine of the trinity, and was condemned to death by the magistrates of constance on a charge of blasphemy. the sentence was carried out feb. . heusden (c. j. van), dutch writer in de dageraad. has written several works, thoughts on a coming more universal doctrine, by a believer, etc. hibbert (julian), freethought philanthropist, b. . during the imprisonment of richard carlile he was active in sustaining his publications. learning that a distinguished political prisoner had received a gift of £ , , he remarked that a freethinking prisoner should not want equal friends, and gave carlile a cheque for the same amount. julian hibbert spent nearly £ , in fitting up carlile's shop in fleet street. he contributed "theological dialogues" to the republican, and also contributed to the poor man's guardian. hibbert set up a private press and printed in uncial greek the orphic hymns, ' , and also plutarch and theophrastus on superstition, to which he wrote a life of plutarch and appended valuable essays "on the supposed necessity of deceiving the vulgar"; "various definitions of an important word" [god], and a catalogue of the principal modern works against atheism. he also commenced a dictionary of anti-superstitionists, and chronological tables of british freethinkers. he wrote a short life of holbach, published by james watson, to whom, and to henry hetherington, he left £ each. died december . hedin (sven adolph), swedish member of the "andra kammaren" [house of commons], b. . studied at upsala and became philosophical candidate, ' . edited the aftonbladet, ' - . has written many radical works. higgins (godfrey), english archæologist, b. skellow grange, near doncaster, . educated at cambridge and studied for the bar, but never practised. being the only son he inherited his father's property, married, and acted as magistrate, in which capacity he reformed the treatment of lunatics in york asylum. his first work was entitled horæ sabbaticæ, , a manual on the sunday question. in ' he published an apology for the life and character of mohammed and celtic druids, which occasioned some stir on account of the exposure of priestcraft. he died aug. , leaving behind a work on the origin of religions, to the study of which he devoted ten hours daily for about twenty years. the work was published in two volumes in , under the title of "anacalypsis, an attempt to draw aside the veil of the saitic isis; or an inquiry into the origin of languages, nations, and religions." hillebrand (karl), cosmopolitan writer, b. sept. , at giessen. his father, joseph hillebrand, succeeded hegel as professor at heidelberg. involved in the revolutionary movement in germany, karl was imprisoned in the fortress of rastadt, whence he escaped to france. he taught at strasbourg and paris, where he became secretary to heine. on the poet's death he removed to bordeaux, where he became a naturalised frenchman. he became professor of letters at douay. during the franco-prussian war he was correspondent to the times, and was taken for a prussian spy. in he settled at florence, where he translated the poems of carducci. hillebrand was a contributor to the fortnightly review, nineteenth century, revue des deux mondes, north american review, etc. his best known work is on france and the french in the second half of the nineteenth century. died at florence, oct. . hins (eugène), belgian writer, dr. of philosophy, professor at royal athenæum, charleroi, b. st. trond, . as general secretary of the international, he edited l'internationale, in which he laid stress on anti-religious teaching. he contributed to la liberté, and was one of the prominent lecturers of the societies les solidaires, and la libre-pensée of brussels. he has written la russie dé voilée au moyen de sa littérature populaire, , and other works. hippel (theodor gottlieb von), german humoristic poet, b. gerdauen, prussia, jan. . he studied theology, but resigned it for law, and became in burgomaster of königsberg. his writings, which were published anonymously, betray his advanced opinions. died bromberg, april, . hittell (john s.), american freethinker, author of the evidences against christianity (new york, ): has also written a plea for pantheism, a new system of phrenology, the resources of california, a history of san francisco, a brief history of culture (new york, ), and st. peter's catechism (geneva, ). hoadley (george), american jurist, b. new haven, conn., july, . he studied at harvard, and in ' was admitted to the bar, and in ' was elected judge of the superior court of cincinnati. he afterwards resigned his place and established a law firm. he was one of the counsel that successfully opposed compulsory bible reading in the public schools. hobbes (thomas), english philosopher, b. malmesbury, april, . in he became tutor to a son of the earl of devonshire, with whom he made the tour of europe. at pisa in he made the acquaintance of galileo. in he printed his work de cive. in appeared in english his work on human nature, and in the following year his famous leviathan. at the restoration he received a pension, but in parliament, in a bill against atheism and profaneness, passed a censure on his writings, which much alarmed him. the latter years of his life were spent at the seat of the duke of devonshire, chatsworth, where he died dec. . hodgson (william, m.d.), english jacobin, translator of d'holbach's system of nature ( ). in he was confined in newgate for two years for drinking to the success of the french republic. in prison he wrote the commonwealth of reason. hoelderlin (johann christian friedrich), german pantheistic poet, b. laufen, march, . entered as a theological student at tübingen, but never took to the business. he wrote hyperion, a fine romance ( - ), and lyric poems, admired for their depth of thought. died tübingen, june, . hoijer (benjamin carl henrik), swedish philosopher, b. great skedvi, delecarlia, june, . was student at upsala university ' , and teacher of philosophy ' . his promotion was hindered by his liberal opinions. by his personal influence and published treatises he contributed much to swedish emancipation. in he became professor of philosophy at upsala. died june, . holbach (paul heinrich dietrich von) baron, b. heidelsheim jan. . brought up at paris where he spent most of his life. rich and generous he was the patron of the encyclopædists. buffon, diderot, d'alembert, helvetius, rousseau, grimm, raynal, marmontel, condillac, and other authors often met at his table. hume, garrick, franklin, and priestley were also among his visitors. he translated from the german several works on chemistry and mineralogy, and from the english, mark akenside's pleasures of the imagination. he contributed many articles to the encyclopédie. in he visited england, and from this time was untiring in his issue of freethought works, usually put out under pseudonyms. thus he wrote and had published at amsterdam christianity unveiled, attributed to boulanger. the spirit of the clergy, translated, from the english of trenchard and gordon, was partly rewritten by d'holbach, . his sacred contagion or natural history of superstition, was also wrongly attributed to trenchard and gordon. this work was condemned to be burnt by a decree of the french parliament, aug. . d'holbach also wrote and published the history of david, , the critical history of jesus christ, letters to eugenia, attributed to freret, portable theology, attributed to bernier, an essay on prejudices, attributed to m. du m [arsais], religious cruelty, hell destroyed, and other works, said to be from the english. he also translated the philosophical letters of toland, and collins's discourses on prophecy, and attributed to the latter a work with the title the spirit of judaism. these works were mostly conveyed to the printer, m. rey, at amsterdam, by naigeon, and the secret of their authorship was carefully preserved. hence d'holbach escaped persecution. in he published his principal work the system of nature, or the laws of the physical and moral world. this text-book of atheistic philosophy, in which d'holbach was assisted by diderot, professed to be the posthumous work of mirabaud. it made a great sensation. within two years he published a sort of summary under the title of good sense, attributed to the curé meslier. in he wrote on natural politics and the social system. his last important work was universal morality; or the duties of man founded upon nature. d'holbach, whose personal good qualities were testified to by many, was depicted in rousseau's nouvelle héloise as the benevolent atheist wolmar. died jan. . holcroft (thomas), english author, b. dec. , was successively a groom, shoemaker, schoolmaster, actor and author. his comedies "duplicity," , and "the road to ruin," , were very successful. he translated the posthumous works of frederick the great, . for his active sympathy with the french republicans he was indicted for high treason with hardy and horne tooke in , but was discharged without a trial. died march, . holland (frederic may), american author, b. boston, may, , graduated at harvard in ' , and in ' was ordained unitarian minister at rockford, ill. becoming broader in his views, he resigned, and has since written in the truthseeker, the freethinkers' magazine, etc. his principal work is entitled the rise of intellectual liberty, . hollick (dr. frederick), socialist, b. birmingham, dec. . he was educated at the mechanics' institute of that town, and became one of the socialist lecturers under robert owen. he held a public discussion with j. brindley at liverpool, in , on "what is christianity?" on the failure of owenism he went to america, where some of his works popularising medical science have had a large circulation. hollis (john), english sceptic, b. . author of sober and serious reasons for scepticism, ; an apology for disbelief in revealed religion, ; and free thoughts, . died at high wycombe, bucks nov. . hollis, who came of an opulent dissenting family, was distinguished by his love of truth, his zeal in the cause of freedom, and by his beneficence. holmes (william vamplew), one of carlile's brave shopmen who came up from leeds to uphold the right of free publication. he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, march, ' , for selling blasphemous and seditious libels in an address to the reformers of great britain, and when in prison was told that "if hard labor was not expressed in his sentence, it was implied." on his release holmes went to sheffield and commenced the open sale of all the prohibited publications. holwell (john zephaniah), noted as one of the survivors of the black hole of calcutta, b. dublin, sept. . he practised as a surgeon, went to india as a clerk, defended a fort at calcutta against surajah dowlah, was imprisoned with one hundred and forty-five others in the "black hole," th june, , of which he published a narrative. he succeeded clive as governor of bengal. on returning to england he published a dissertation directed against belief in a special providence, and advocating the application of church endowments to the exigencies of the state (bath, ). died nov. . holyoake (austin), english freethinker, b. birmingham, oct. . his mental emancipation came from hearing the lectures of robert owen and his disciples. he took part in the agitation for the abolition of the newspaper stamp--assisting when risk and danger had to be met--and he co-operated with his brother in the production of the reasoner and other publications from ' till ' . soon after this he printed and sub-edited the national reformer, in which many of his freethought articles appeared. among his pamphlets may be mentioned heaven and hell, ludicrous aspects of christianity, thoughts on atheism, the book of esther, and daniel the dreamer. he also composed a secular burial service. austin holyoake took pride in the character of freethought, and was ever zealous in promoting its welfare. his amiable spirit endeared him to all who knew him. he died april, , leaving behind thoughts written on his deathbed, in which he repudiated all belief in theology. holyoake (george jacob), b. birmingham, april . became mathematical teacher of the mechanics' institution. influenced by combe and owen he became a freethinker, and in ' a socialist missionary. in ' , when southwell was imprisoned for writing in the oracle of reason, mr. holyoake took charge of that journal, and wrote the spirit of bonner in the disciples of jesus. he was soon arrested for a speech at cheltenham, having said, in answer to a question, that he would put the deity on half-pay. tried aug. ' , he was sentenced to six months imprisonment, of which he gave a full account in his last trial by jury for atheism in england. in dec. ' he edited with m. q. ryall the movement, bearing the motto from bentham, "maximise morals, minimise religion." the same policy was pursued in the reasoner, which he edited from till . among his many pamphlets we must notice the logic of death, ' , which went through numerous editions, and was included in his most important freethought work, the trial of theism. in ' he published a brief memoir of r. carlile. in ' he first used the term "secularist," and in oct. ' the first secular conference was held at manchester mr. holyoake presiding. in jan. ' he held a six nights discussion with the rev. brewin grant, and again in oct. ' . he purchased the business of james watson, and issued many freethought works, notably the library of reason--a series, the cabinet of reason, his own secularism, the philosophy of the people, etc. in ' he was secretary to the british legion sent out to garibaldi. mr. holyoake did much to remove the taxes upon knowledge, and has devoted much attention to co-operation, having written a history of the movement and contributed to most of its journals. home (henry), scottish judge, was b. . his legal ability was made known by his publication of remarkable decisions of the court of session, . in he was raised to the bench as lord kames. he published essays on the principles of morality and natural religion ( ), elements of criticism ( ), and sketches of the history of man, in which he proved himself in advance of his age. died dec. . hon, le (henri). see le hon. hooker (sir joseph dalton), english naturalist, b. . he studied medicine at glasgow, graduating m.d ' . in ' he became assistant-director of kew gardens, and from ' - sole director. renowned as a botanist, he was the first eminent man of science to proclaim his adoption of darwinism. hope (thomas), novelist and antiquarian, b. . famous for his anonymous anastasius, or memories of a modern greek, he also wrote an original work on the origin and prospects of man ' . died at london feb. . houten (samuel van), dutch freethinker, b. groningen. feb. ; he studied law and became a lawyer in that city. in ' he was chosen member of the dutch parliament. has published many writings on political economy. in ' he wrote a book entitled das causalitätgesetz (the law of causality). houston (george). was the translator of d'holbach's ecce homo, first published in edinburgh in , and sometimes ascribed to joseph webb. a second edition was issued in . houston was prosecuted and was imprisoned two years in newgate, with a fine of £ . he afterwards went to new york, where he edited the minerva ( ). in jan. , he started the correspondence, which, we believe, was the first weekly freethought journal published in america. it lasted till july . he also republished ecce homo. houston helped to establish in america a "free press association" and a society of free inquirers. hovelacque (abel), french scientist, b. paris nov. . he studied law and made part of the groupe of la pensée nouvelle, with asseline, letourneau, lefevre, etc. he also studied anthropology under broca and published many articles in the revue d'anthropologie. he founded with letourneau, thulié, asseline, etc. the "bibliothèque des sciences contemporains" and published therein la linguistique. he also founded with the same the library of anthropological science and published in collaboration with g. hervé a prècis of anthropology and a study of the negroes of africa. he has also contributed to the dictionary of anthropology. for the "bibliothèque materialiste" he wrote a work on primitive man. he has also published choice extracts from the works of voltaire, diderot and rousseau, a grammar of the zend language, and a work on the avesta zoroaster and mazdaism. in ' he was made a member of the municipal council of paris, and in ' was elected deputy to the chamber where he sits with the autonomist socialist group. howdon (john), author of a rational investigation of the principles of natural philosophy, physical and moral, printed at haddington, , in which he attacks belief in the bible. huber (marie), swiss deist, b. of protestant parents, geneva, . in a work on the system of theologians, , she opposed the dogma of eternal punishment. in ' published letters on the religion essential to man. this was translated into english in the same year. other works show english reading. she translated selections from the spectator. died at lyons, june, . hudail (abul). see muhammad ibn hudail (al allaf.) huet (coenraad busken), dutch writer, b. the hague, dec. . he became minister of the walloon church at haarlem, but through his freethought left the church in ' , and became editor of various newspapers, afterwards living in paris. he wrote many works of literary value, and published letters on the bible, ' , etc. died . hugo (victor marie), french poet and novelist, b. besançon, feb. . was first noted for his odes, published in ' . his dramas "hernani," ' , and "marion delorme," ' , were highly successful. he was admitted into the french academy in ' , and made a peer in ' . he gave his cordial adhesion to the republic of ' , and was elected to the assembly by the voters of paris. he attacked louis napoleon, and after the coup d'état was proscribed. he first went to brussels, where he published napoleon the little, a biting satire. he afterwards settled at guernsey, where he remained until the fall of the empire, producing the legend of the ages, ' , les miserables, ' , toilers of the sea, ' , and other works. after his return to paris he produced a new series of the legend of the ages, the pope, religions and religion, torquemada, and other poems. he died may, , and it being decided he should have a national funeral, the pantheon was secularised for that purpose, the cross being removed. since his death a poem entitled the end of satan has been published. hugues (clovis), french socialist, poet, and deputy, b. menerbes, nov. . in youth he desired to become a priest, but under the influence of hugo left the black business. in ' he became head of the communist movement at marseilles. he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. in ' he was elected deputy, and sits on the extreme left. humboldt (friedrich heinrich alexander von), illustrious german naturalist and traveller, b. berlin, sept. . he studied under heyne and blumenbach, travelled in holland, france and england with george forster, the naturalist, and became director-general of mines. in he set out to explore south america and mexico, and in returned with a rich collection of animals, plants and minerals. humboldt became a resident of paris, where he enjoyed the friendship of lalande, delambre, arago, and all the living distinguished french scientists. after numerous important contributions to scientific knowledge, at the age of seventy-four he composed his celebrated cosmos, the first volume of which appeared in ' and the fourth in ' . to varnhagen von ense he wrote in : "bruno bauer has found me pre-adamatically converted. many years ago i wrote, 'toutes les réligions positives offrent trois parties distinctes; un traité de moeurs partout le même et très pur, un rève géologique, et un mythe ou petit roman historique; le dernier élément obtient le plus d'importance.'" later on he says that strauss disposes of "the christian myths." humboldt was an unwearied student of science, paying no attention to religion, and opposed his brother in regard to his essay on the province of the historian, because he considered it to acknowledge the belief in the divine government of the world, which seemed to him as complete a delusion as the hypothesis of a principle of life. he died in berlin, may, , in his ninetieth year. humboldt (karl wilhelm von), prussian statesman and philosopher, b. potsdam, june, . he was educated by campe. went to paris in , and hailed the revolution with enthusiasm. in ' he published ideas on the organization of the state. he became a friend of schiller and goethe, and in was minister of public instruction. he took part in founding the university of berlin. he represented prussia at the congress of vienna, ' . he advocated a liberal constitution, but finding the king averse, retired at the end of ' , and devoted himself to the study of comparative philology. he said there were three things he could not comprehend--orthodox piety, romantic love, and music. he died april, . his works were collected and edited by his brother. hume (david), philosopher and historian, b. edinburgh, april, . in he went to france to study, and there wrote his treatise on human nature, published in . this work then excited no interest friendly or hostile. hume's essays moral and political appeared in , and in his inquiry concerning the principles of morals which of all his writings he considered the best. in he published his natural history of religion, which was furiously attacked by warburton in an anonymous tract. in he published the first volume of his history of england, which he did not complete till . he became secretary to the earl of hertford, ambassador at paris, where he was cordially welcomed by the philosophers. he returned in , bringing rousseau with him. hume became under secretary of state in , and in retired to edinburgh, where he died aug. . after his death his dialogues on natural religion were published, and also some unpublished essays on suicide, the immortality of the soul, etc. hume's last days were singularly cheerful. his friend, the famous dr. adam smith, considered him "as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." hunt (james), ph.d., physiologist, b. , was the founder of the anthropological society, of which he was the first president, ' . he was the author of the negro's place in nature, a work on stammering, etc. died aug. . hunt (james henry leigh), poet, essayist and critic, b. southgate, middlesex, oct. . was educated with lamb and coleridge at christ's hospital, london. he joined his brother john in editing first the sunday news, , and then the examiner, . they were condemned to pay a fine, each of £ , and to be imprisoned for two years, - , for a satirical article, in which the prince regent was called an "adonis of fifty." this imprisonment procured him the friendship of shelley and byron, with whom, after editing the indicator he was associated in editing the liberal. he wrote many choice books of poems and criticisms, and in his religion of the heart, ' , repudiates orthodoxy. died aug. . hutten (ulrich von), german poet and reformer, b. of noble family steckelberg, hesse cassel, april . he was sent to fulda to become a monk, but fled in to erfurt, where he studied humaniora. after some wild adventures he went to wittenberg in , and vienna , and also studied at pavia and bologna. he returned to germany in as a common soldier in the army of maximilian. his great object was to free his country from sacerdotalism, and most of his writings are satires against the pope, monks and clergy. persecution drove him to switzerland, but the council of zurich drove him out of their territory and he died on the isle of ufnau, lake zürich, aug. . hutton (james), scotch geologist and philosopher, b. at edinburgh june, . he graduated as m.d. at leyden in , and investigated the strata of the north of scotland. he published a dissertation on light, heat, and fire, and in his theory of the world, , attributes geological phenomena to the action of fire. he also wrote a work entitled an investigation of the principles of knowledge, the opinions of which, says chalmers, "abound in sceptical boldness and philosophical infidelity." died march . huxley (thomas henry), ll.d., ph.d., f.r.s., b. ealing, may, . he studied medicine, and in ' took m.r.c.s., and was appointed assistant naval surgeon. his cruises afforded opportunities for his studies of natural history. in ' he was elected fellow of the royal society, and in ' was made professor at the school of mines. in ' he lectured on "the relation of man to the lower animals," and afterwards published evidence as to man's place in nature ( ). in addition to numerous scientific works, professor huxley has written numerous forcible articles, addresses, etc., collected in lay sermons, ' ; critiques and addresses, ' ; and american addresses, ' . a vigorous writer, his hume in the "english men of letters" series is a model of clear exposition. in his controversies with mr. gladstone, in his articles on the evolution of theology, and in his recent polemic with the rev. mr. wace in the nineteenth century, professor huxley shows all his freshness, and proves himself as ready in demolishing theological fictions as in demonstrating scientific facts. he states as his own life aims "the popularising of science and untiring opposition to that ecclesiastical spirit, that clericalism, which in england, as everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, is the deadly enemy of science." hypatia, pagan philosopher and martyr, b. alexandria early in the second half of the fourth century. she became a distinguished lecturer and head of the neo-platonic school (c. ). the charms of her eloquence brought many disciples. by a christian mob, incited by st. cyril, she was in lent torn from her chariot, stripped naked, cut with oyster-shells and finally burnt piecemeal. this true story of christian persecution has been disguised into a legend related of st. catherine in the roman breviary (nov. ). ibn bajjat. see avenpace. ibn massara. see massara in supplement. ibn rushd. see averroes. ibn sabîn. see sabin. ibn sina. see avicenna. ibn tofail. see abu bakr. ibsen (henrik), an eminent norwegian dramatist and poet, b. skien, march, . at first he studied medicine, but he turned his attention to literature. in ' , through the influence of ole bull, he became director of the theatre at bergen, for which he wrote a great deal. from ' to ' he directed the theatre at christiania. in the following year he went to rome. the storthing accorded him an annual pension for his services to literature. his dramas, brand, (peer gynt), kejser og galilær (cæsar [julian] and the galilean), nora, and samfundets stotler (the pillars of society), and ghosts exhibit his unconventional spirit. ibsen is an open unbeliever in christianity. he looks forward to social regeneration through liberty, individuality, and education without superstition. ilive (jacob), english printer and letter founder, b. bristol about . he published a pretended translation of the book of jasher, , and some other curious works. he was prosecuted for blasphemy in some modest remarks on the late bishop sherlock's sermons, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, june, - june, . he was confined in the clerkenwell house of correction and published some pamphlets exposing the bad condition of the prison and suggesting means for its improvement. he died in . imray (i. w.), author, b. . wrote in carlile's republican and lion, and published "altamont," an atheistic drama, in . ingersoll (robert green), american orator, b. dresden, new york, aug. . his father was a congregationalist clergyman. he studied law, and opened an office in shawneetown, illinois. in ' he became colonel of the th illinois cavalry, and served in the war, being taken prisoner. in ' he was appointed attorney-general for illinois. at the national republican convention, ' , he proposed blaine for president in a speech that attracted much attention. in ' he refused the post of minister to germany. he has conducted many important cases, and defended c. b. reynolds when tried for blasphemy in ' . col. ingersoll is the most popular speaker in america. eloquence, humor, and pathos are alike at his command. he is well known by his books, pamphlets, and speeches directed against christianity. he had published the gods, ghosts, some mistakes of moses, and a collection of his lectures, ' , and prose poems and extracts, ' . most of his lectures have been republished in england. we mention what must i do to be saved? hell, the dying creed, myth and miracle, do i blaspheme? real blasphemy. in the pages of the north american review col. ingersoll has defended freethought against judge black, the rev. h. field, mr. gladstone, and cardinal manning. inman (thomas), b.a., physician and archæologist, b. . educated at london university, he settled at liverpool, being connected with the well-known shipping family of that port. he is chiefly known by his work on ancient faiths embodied in ancient names, in which he deals with the evidences of phallic worship amongst jews and other nations. it was first published in ' . a second edition appeared in ' . he also wrote ancient pagan and modern christian symbolism exposed and explained, ' , and a controversial freethought work, entitled ancient faiths and modern, published at new york ' . dr. inman was for some time president of the liverpool literary and philosophical society, and was physician to the royal infirmary of that city. his professional life was one of untiring industry. he wrote several medical works, including two volumes on the preservation and restoration of health. died at clifton, may. . iron (ralph), pseudonym of olive schreiner, q.v. isnard (felix), french physician, b. grasse . author of a work on spiritualism and materialism, . isnard (maximin), girondin revolutionist, b. grasse feb. . he was made a member of the assembly, in which he declared, "the law, behold my god. i know no other." he voted for the death of the king, and was nominated president of the convention. on the fall of the girondins he made his escape, and reappeared after the fall of robespierre. in he was one of the council of five hundred. died . isoard (eric michel antoine), french writer, b. paris, . was naval officer in ' but arrested as socialist in ' . in ' he was made sous-prefet of cambrai and wrote guerre aux jésuites. isoard delisle (jean baptiste claude), called also delisle de sales, french man of letters, b. lyons . when young he entered the congregation of the oratory, but left theology for literature. in he published the philosophy of nature, which in was discovered to be irreligious, and he was condemned to perpetual banishment. while in prison he was visited by many of the philosophers, and a subscription was opened for him, to which voltaire gave five hundred francs. he went to the court of frederick the great, and subsequently published many works of little importance. died at paris sept. . jacob (andre alexandre). see erdan (a.) jacobson (augustus), american, author of why i do not believe, chicago , and the bible inquirer. "jacobus (dom)" pseudonym of potvin (charles) q.v. jacoby (leopold) german author of the idea of development. vols. berlin - . jacolliot (louis), french orientalist, b. saint etienne, . brought up to the law, in ' he was made judge at pondichery. he first aroused attention by his work, the bible in india, ' . he also has written on genesis of humanity, ' . the religions legislators, moses, manu and muhammad, ' , and the natural and social history of humanity, ' , and several works of travel. jantet (charles and hector), two doctors of lyons, b. the first in , the second in ' , have published together able aperçus philosophiques on rènan's life of jesus, ' , and doctrine medicale matérialiste, . jaucourt (louis de), chevalier, french scholar and member of the royal society of london and of the academies of berlin and stockholm, b. paris sept. . he studied at geneva, cambridge, and leyden, furnished the encyclopédie with many articles, and conducted the bibliothèque raisonnée. died at compiègne, feb. . jefferies (richard), english writer, b. , famous for his descriptions of nature in the gamekeeper at home, wild life in a southern country, etc. in his autobiographical story of my heart ( ) mr. jefferies shows himself a thorough freethinker. died goring-on-thames, aug. . jefferson (thomas), american statesman, b. shadwell, virginia, april . he studied law and was admitted to the bar in . he became a member of the house of burgesses, - . in he published his summary views of the rights of british-americans. he drafted and reported to congress the "declaration of independence" which was unanimously adopted, july . he was governor of virginia from to , and originated a system of education in the state. he was ambassador to paris from - , secretary of state from - , vice-president - and third president of the united states - . in ' he founded the university of virginia, of which he was rector till his death, july . dr. j. thomas in his dictionary of biography says "in religion he was what is denominated a freethinker." he spoke in old age of "the hocus-pocus phantom of god, which like another cerberus had one body and three heads." see his life by j. parton. johnson (richard mentor), colonel, american soldier and statesman, b. bryant's station, kentucky, oct. . was educated at lexington, studied law, and practiced with success. became member of the kentucky legislature in , and raised a regiment of cavalry ' . fought with distinction against british and indians. was member of congress from - , and from ' - ; a united states senator from ' - , and vice-president of the united states, ' - . is remembered by his report against the suspension of sunday mails and his speeches in favor of rights of conscience. died at frankfort, kentucky, nov. . johnson (samuel), american author, b. salem, massachusetts, oct. . he was educated at harvard, and became pastor of a "free church" at lynn in ' . he never attached himself to any denomination, although in some points his views were like those of the unitarians and universalists. about ' he published, in conjunction with s. longfellow, brother of the poet, hymns of the spirit, oriental religions in relation to universal religion, of which the volume on india appeared in ' , china ' , and persia ' . died andover, feb. . jones (ernest charles), barrister and political orator, b. berlin, jan. . his father was in the service of the king of hanover, who became his godfather. called to the bar in ' in the following year he joined the chartist movement, editing the people's paper, notes to the people, and other chartist periodicals. in ' he was tried for making a seditious speech, and condemned to two years' imprisonment, during which he wrote beldagon church and other poems. he stood for halifax in ' , and nottingham in ' and ' , without success. he was much esteemed by the working classes in manchester, where he died jan. . jones (john gale), political orator, b. . at the time of the french revolution he became a leading member of the london corresponding society. arrested at birmingham for sedition, he obtained a verdict of acquittal. he was subsequently committed to newgate in feb. , for impugning the proceedings of the house of commons, and there remained till his liberation was effected by the prorogation of parliament, june . on dec. ' he was again convicted for "a seditious and blasphemous libel." he was a resolute advocate of the rights of free publication during the trials of carlile and his shopmen. died somers town, april, . jones (lloyd), socialist, b. of catholic parents at brandon, co. cork, ireland, in march, . in ' he came over to manchester, and in ' joined the followers of robert owen. he became "a social missionary," and had numerous debates with ministers, notably one on "the influence of christianity" with j. barker, then a methodist, at manchester, in ' . lloyd jones was an active supporter of co-operation and trades-unionism, and frequently acted as arbitrator in disputes between masters and men. he contributed to the new moral world, spirit of the age, glasgow sentinel, leeds express, north british daily mail, newcastle chronicle, and co-operative news. died at stockwell, may, , leaving behind a life of robert owen. joseph ii., emperor of germany, son of francis i. and maria theresa, b. vienna march . in he was elected king of the romans, and in the following year succeeded to the throne of germany. he wrought many reforms, suppressed the jesuits , travelled in france as count falkenstein, saw d'alembert but did not visit voltaire. he abolished serfdom, allowed liberty of conscience, suppressed several convents, regulated others, abridged the power of the pope and the clergy, and mitigated the condition of the jews. carlyle says "a mighty reformer he had been, the greatest of his day. austria gazed on him, its admiration not unmixed with terror. he rushed incessantly about, hardy as a charles twelfth; slept on his bearskin on the floor of any inn or hut;--flew at the throat of every absurdity, however broad and based or dangerously armed. 'disappear i say.' a most prompt, severe, and yet beneficent and charitable kind of man. immensely ambitious, that must be said withal. a great admirer of friedrich; bent to imitate him with profit. 'very clever indeed' says friedrich, 'but has the fault (a terribly grave one!) of generally taking the second step without having taken the first.'" died vienna feb. . jouy (victor joseph etienne de), french author b. jouy near versailles . he served as soldier in india and afterwards in the wars of the republic. a disciple of voltaire to whom he erected a temple, he was a prolific writer, his plays being much esteemed in his own day. died sept. . julianus (flavius claudius), roman emperor, b. constantinople nov. . in the massacre of his family by the sons of constantine he escaped. he was educated in the tenets of christianity but returned to an eclectic paganism. in he was declared cæsar. he made successful campaigns against the germans who had overrun gaul and in was made emperor. he proclaimed liberty of conscience and sought to uproot the christian superstition by his writings, of which only fragments remain. as emperor he exhibited great talent, tact, industry, and skill. he was one of the most gifted and learned of the roman emperors, and his short reign (dec. -- june, ), comprehended the plans of a life-long administration. he died while seeking to repel a persian invasion, and his death was followed by the triumph of christianity and the long night of the dark ages. junghuhn (franz wilhelm), traveller and naturalist, b. mansfeld, prussia oct . his father was a barber and surgeon. franz studied at halle and berlin. he distinguished himself by love for botany and geology. in a duel with another student he killed him and was sentenced to imprisonment at ehrenbreitster for years. there he simulated madness and was removed to the asylum at coblentz, whence he escaped to algiers. in ' he joined the dutch army in the malay archipelago. he travelled through the island of java making a botanical and geological survey. in ' he published his licht en schaduwbeelden uit de binnenlanden van java (light and shadow pictures from the interior of java), which contains his ideas of god, religion and science, together with sketches of nature and of the manners of the inhabitants. this book aroused much indignation from the pious, but also much agreement among freethinkers, and led to the establishment of de dageraad (the daybreak,) the organ of the dutch freethinkers union. junghuhn afterwards returned to java and died april, ' at lemberg, preanges, regentsch. his light and shadow pictures have been several times reprinted. kalisch (moritz marcus), ph.d., b. of jewish parents in pomerania, may, . educated at the university of berlin, where he studied under vatke and others. early in ' he came to england as a political refugee, and found employment as tutor to the rothschild family. his critical commentary on the pentateuch commenced with a volume on exodus, ' , genesis ' , leviticus in two vols. in ' and ' respectively. his rational criticism anticipated the school of wellhausen. he published bible studies on balaam and jonah ' , and discussions on philosophy and religion in a very able and learned work entitled path and goal, ' . kalisch also contributed to scott's series of freethought tracts. died at baslow, derbyshire, aug. . kames (lord). see home (henry). kant (immanuel), german critical philosopher, b. königsberg, april, . he became professor of mathematics in . in he published his great work, the critick of pure reason, which denied all knowledge of the "thing itself," and overthrew the dogmatism of earlier metaphysics. in the philosopher fell under the royal censorship for his religion within the limits of pure reason. kant effected a complete revolution in philosophy, and his immediate influence is not yet exhausted. died at königsberg, feb. . kapila. one of the earliest hindu thinkers. his system is known as the atheistic philosophy. it is expounded in the sankhya karika, an important relic of bold rationalistic indian thought. his aphorisms have been translated by j. r. ballantyne. karneades. see carneades. keeler (bronson c.) american author of an able short history of the bible, being a popular account of the formation and development of the canon, published at chicago . keim (karl theodor), german rationalist, b. stuttgart, dec. . was educated at tübingen, and became professor of theology at zürich. is chiefly known by his history of jesus of nazara (' -' ). he also wrote a striking work on primitive christianity (' ), and endeavored to reproduce the lost work of celsus. his rationalism hindered his promotion, and he was an invalid most of his days. died at giessen, where he was professor, nov. . keith (george), lord marshall, scotch soldier, b. kincardine , was appointed by queen anne captain of guard. his property being confiscated for aiding the pretender, he went to the continent, and like his brother, was in high favor with frederick the great. died berlin, may, . keith (james francis edward), eminent military commander, b. inverugie, scotland, june, . joined the army of the pretender and was wounded at sheriffmuir, . he afterwards served with distinction in spain and in russia, where he rose to high favor under the empress elizabeth. in he took service with frederick the great as field-marshal, and became governor of berlin. carlyle calls him "a very clear-eyed, sound observer of men and things. frederick, the more he knows him, likes him the better." from their correspondence it is evident keith shared the sceptical opinions of frederick. after brilliant exploits in the seven years' war at prague, rossbach, and olmutz, marshal keith fell in the battle of hochkirch, oct. . kenrick (william), ll.d., english author, b. near watford, herts, about . in he published, at dublin, under the pen-name of ontologos, an essay to prove that the soul is not immortal. his first poetic production was a volume of epistles, philosophical and moral ( ), addressed to lorenzo; an avowed defence of scepticism. in he commenced the london review, and the following year attacked soame jenyns's work on christianity. he translated some of the works of buffon, rousseau, and voltaire. died june . kerr (michael crawford) american statesman, b. titusville, western pennsylvania, march . he was member of the indiana legislature ' , and elected to congress in ' and endeavoured to revise the tariff in the direction of free-trade. died rockbridge, virginia, aug. , a confirmed freethinker and materialist. ket, kett, or knight (francis), of norfolk, a relative of the rebellious tanner. he was of windham and was an m.a. he was prosecuted for heresy and burnt in the castle ditch, norwich, jan. . stowe says he was burnt for "divers detestable opinions against christ our saviour." khayyam (omar) or umar khaiyam, persian astronomer, poet, b. naishapur khorassan, in the second half of the eleventh century, and was distinguished by his reformation of the calendar as well as by his verses (rubiyat), which e. fitzgerald has so finely rendered in english. he alarmed his contemporaries and made himself obnoxious to the sufis. died about . omar laughed at the prophets and priests, and told men to be happy instead of worrying themselves about god and the hereafter. he makes his soul say, "i myself am heaven and hell." kielland (alexander lange), norwegian novelist, b. stavanger, feb. . he studied law at christiania, but never practised. his stories, workpeople, skipper worse, poison, and snow exhibit his bold opinions. kleanthes. see cleanthes. klinger (friedrich maximilian von), german writer, b. frankfort, feb. . went to russia in , and became reader to the grand duke paul. published poems, dramas, and romances, exhibiting the revolt of nature against conventionality. goethe called him "a true apostle of the gospel of nature." died at petersburg, feb. . kneeland (abner), american writer, b. gardner, mass., april, , became a baptist and afterwards a universalist minister. he invented a new system of orthography, published a translation of the new testament, , the deist ( vols.), ' , edited the olive branch and the christian inquirer. he wrote the fourth epistle of peter, ' , and a review of the evidences of christianity, being a series of lectures delivered in new york in ' . in that year he removed to boston, and in april ' commenced the boston investigator, the oldest freethought journal. in ' he was indicted and tried for blasphemy for saying that he "did not believe in the god which universalists did." he was sentenced jan. ' , to two months' imprisonment and fine of five hundred dollars. the verdict was confirmed in the courts of appeal in ' , and he received two months' imprisonment. kneeland was a pantheist. he took frances wright as an associate editor, and soon after left the boston investigator in the hands of p. mendum and seaver, and retired to a farm at salubria, where he died august, . his edition, with notes, of voltaire's philosophical dictionary, was published in two volumes in . knoblauch (karl von), german author, b. dillenburg, nov. . he was a friend of mauvillon and published several works directed against supernaturalism and superstition. died at bernburg, sept. . knowlton (charles) dr., american physician and author, b. templeton, mass., may, . he published the fruits of philosophy, for which he was imprisoned in ' . he was a frequent correspondent of the boston investigator, and held a discussion on the bible and christianity with the rev. mr. thacher of harley. about ' he published the elements of modern materialism. died in winchester, mass., feb. . knutzen (matthias), b. oldensworth, in holstein, . he early lost his parents, and was brought to an uncle at königsberg, where he studied philosophy. he took to the adventurous life of a wandering scholar and propagated his principles in many places. in he preached atheism publicly at jena, in germany, and had followers who were called "gewissener," from their acknowledging no other authority but conscience. it is said there were seven hundred in jena alone. what became of him and them is unknown. a letter dated from rome gives his principles. he denied the existence of either god or devil, deemed churches and priests useless, and held that there is no life beyond the present, for which conscience is a sufficient guide, taking the place of the bible, which contains great contradictions. he also wrote two dialogues. koerbagh (adriaan), dutch martyr, b. amsterdam, or . he became a doctor of law and medicine. in he published a flower garden of all loveliness, a dictionary of definitions in which he gave bold explanations. the work was rigidly suppressed, and the writer fled to culemborg. there he translated a book de trinitate, and began a work entitled a light shining in dark places, to illuminate the chief things of theology and religion by vrederijk waarmond, inquisitor of truth. betrayed for a sum of money, koerbagh was tried for blasphemy, heavily fined and sentenced to be imprisoned for ten years, to be followed by ten years banishment. he died in prison, oct. . kolb (georg friedrich), german statistician and author, b. spires sept. , author of an able history of culture, - . died at munich may, . koornhert (theodore). see coornhert (dirk volkertszoon.) korn (selig), learned german orientalist of jewish birth, b. prague, april, . a convert to freethought, under the name of "f. nork," he wrote many works on mythology which may still be consulted with profit. a list is given in fuerst's bibliotheca judaica. we mention christmas and easter explained by oriental sun worship, leipsic, ' ; brahmins and rabbins, weissen, ' ; the prophet elijah as a sun myth, ' ; the gods of the syrians, ' ; biblical mythology of the old and new testament, vols. stuttgart, ' -' . died at teplitz, bohemia, oct. . krause (ernst h. ludwig), german scientific writer, b. zielenzig nov. . he studied science and contributed to the vossische zeitung and gartenlaube. in ' he published, under the pen-name of "carus sterne," a work on the natural history of ghosts, and in ' a work on growth and decay, a history of evolution. in ' he established with hæckel, dr. otto caspari, and professor gustav jaeger, the monthly magazine kosmos, devoted to the spread of darwinism. this he conducted till ' . in kosmos appeared the germ of his little book on erasmus darwin, ' , to which charles darwin wrote a preliminary notice. as "carus sterne" he has also written essays entitled prattle from paradise, the crown of creation, ' , and an illustrated work in parts on ancient and modern ideas of the world, ' , etc. krekel (arnold), american judge, b. langenfield, prussia march, . went with parents to america in ' and settled in missouri. in ' he was elected justice of the peace and afterwards county attorney. in ' he was elected to the missouri state legislature. he served in the civil war being elected colonel, was president of the constitutional convention of ' and signed the ordinance of emancipation by which the slaves of missouri were set free. he was appointed judge by president lincoln march, ' . a pronounced agnostic, when he realized he was about to die he requested his wife not to wear mourning, saying that death was as natural as birth. died at kansas july, . krekel (mattie h. hulett), b. of freethinking parents, elkhart indiana april, . educated at rockford, illinois, in her th year became a teacher. married judge krekel, after whose death, she devoted her services to the freethought platform. kropotkin (petr aleksyeevich) prince, russian anarchist, b. moscow dec . after studying at the royal college of pages he went to siberia for five years to pursue geological researches. in ' he went to belgium and switzerland and joined the international. arrested in russia, he was condemned to three years imprisonment, escaped ' and came to england. in ' he founded at geneva, le révolté was expelled. accused in france in ' of complicity in the outrage at lyons, he was condemned to five years imprisonment, but was released in ' , since which he has lived in england. a brother who translated herbert spencer's "biology" into russian, died in siberia in the autumn of . laas (ernst) german writer, b. furstenwalde, june, . he has written three volumes on idealism and positivism, -' , and also on kant's place in the history of the conflict between faith and science, berlin, . he was professor of philosophy at strassburg, where he died july, . labanca (baldassarre), professor of moral philosophy in the university of pisa, b. agnone, . he took part in the national movement of ' , and in ' was imprisoned and afterwards expelled from naples. he has written on progress in philosophy and also a study on primitive christianity, dedicated to giordano bruno, the martyr of freethought, ' . lachatre (maurice), french writer, b. issoudun , edits a "library of progress," in which has appeared his own history of the inquisition, and history of the popes, ' . lacroix (sigismund), the pen name of sigismund julien adolph krzyzanowski, b. warsaw may, . his father was a refugee. he wrote with yves guyot the social doctrines of christianity. in ' he was elected a municipal councillor of paris. in ' he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for calling jesus "enfant adulterin" in le radical. in feb. ' he was elected president of the municipal council, and in ' deputy to the french parliament. laffitte (pierre), french positivist philosopher, b. feb. at beguey (gironde), became a disciple of comte and one of his executors. he was professor of mathematics, but since the death of his master has given a weekly course of instruction in the former apartment of comte. m. laffitte has published discourses on the general history of humanity, ' , and the great types of humanity, ' - . in ' he founded la revue occidentale. lagrange (joseph louis), count, eminent mathematician, b. turin, jan. . he published in his analytical mechanics, which is considered one of the masterpieces of the human intellect. he became a friend of d'alembert, diderot, condorcet, and delambre. he said he believed it impossible to prove there was a god. died april . la hontan (jean), early french traveller in canada, b. . in his account of dialogues with an american savage, , which was translated into english, he states objections to religion. died in hanover, . lainez (alexandre), french poet, b. chimay, hainault, , of the same family with the general of the jesuits. he lived a wandering bohemian life and went to holland to see bayle. died at paris april, . laing (samuel), politician and writer, b. edinburgh , the son of s. laing of orkney. educated at cambridge, where he took his degree ' ; called to the bar ' ; became secretary of the railway department of the board of trade; returned as liberal m.p. for kirkwall ' ; helped repeal duty on advertisements in newspapers. in ' he became finance minister for india. his modern science and modern thought, ' , is a plain exposition of the incompatibility of the old and new view of the universe. in the modern zoroastrian, ' , he gives the philosophy of polarity, in which, however, he was anticipated by mr. crozier, who in turn was anticipated by emerson. in ' he entered into a friendly correspondence with mr. gladstone on the subject of agnosticism his portion of which has been published. lakanal (joseph), french educator, b. serres, july, . studied for priesthood, but gave up that career. he entered with ardor into the revolution, was a member of the convention - , and there protected the interests of science. at the restoration in he retired to america, and was welcomed by jefferson and became president of the university of louisiana. he returned to france after the revolution of ' , and died in paris feb. . lalande (joseph jèrome le francais de), distinguished french astronomer, b. bourg en bresse, july . educated by the jesuits, he was made a member of the academy of sciences in his th year. in he became professor of astronomy at the college of france. in he published his treatise of astronomy, to which dupuis subjoined a memoir, which formed the basis of his origin of all religions, the idea of which he had taken from lalande. in aug lalande hazarded his own life to save dupont de nemours, and some priests whom he concealed in the observatory of mazarin college. it was upon lalande's observations that the republican calender was drawn up. at lalande's instigation sylvain maréchal published his dictionary of atheists, to which the astronomer contributed supplements after maréchal's death. lalande professed himself prouder of being an atheist than of being an astronomer. his bibliographie astronomique is called by prof. de morgan "a perfect model of scientific bibliography." it was said that never did a young man address himself to lalande without receiving proof of his generosity. he died at paris april, . lamarck (jean baptiste pierre antoine de monet) french naturalist, b. picardy aug. , educated for the church, but entered the army in , and fought with distinction. having been disabled, he went to paris, studied botany, and published french flora in , which opened to him the academy of sciences. he became assistant at the museum of natural history, and in propounded, in his zoological philosophy, a theory of transmutation of species. his natural history of invertebrate animals ( - ) was justly celebrated. he became blind several years before his death, dec. . lamborelle (louis). belgian author of books on the good old times, brussels, ; the apostles and martyrs of liberty of conscience, antwerp, , and other anti-clerical works. lamborelle lost a post under government through his anticlerical views, and is one of the council of the belgian freethought party. lamettrie (julian offray de). french physician and philosopher, b. st. malo, dec. . destined for the church, he was educated under the jesuits at caen. he, however, became a physician, studying under boerhaave, at leyden. returning to france, he became surgeon to the french guard, and served at the battles of fontenoy and dettingen. falling ill, he noticed that his faculties fluctuated with his physical state, and drew therefrom materialistic conclusions. the boldness with which he made his ideas known lost him his place, and he took refuge in holland. here he published the natural history of the soul, under the pretence of its being a translation from the english of charp [sharp], . this was followed by man a machine ( ), a work which was publicly burnt at leyden, and orders given for the author's arrest. it was translated into english, and reached a second edition (london, ). it was often attributed to d'argens. lamettrie held that the senses are the only avenues to knowledge, and that it is absurd to assume a god to explain motion. only under atheism will religious strife cease. lamettrie found an asylum with frederick the great, to whom he became physician and reader (feb. ). here he published philosophical reflections on the origin of animals ( ), translated seneca on happiness, etc. he died nov. , and desired by his will to be buried in the garden of lord tyrconnel. the great king thought so well of him that he composed his funeral eulogy. la mothe le vayer (françois de). french sceptical philosopher, b. paris, , was patronised by louis xiv., and was preceptor to the duke of anjou. published the virtue of pagans and dialogues after the manner of the ancients, in which he gave scope to his scepticism. two editions of his collected works appeared, but neither of these contains the dialogues of orasius tubero (frankfort , probably a false date). died . lancelin (pierre f.), french materialist, b. about . became a constructive engineer in the french navy, wrote an able introduction to the analysis of science, vols. - , and a physico-mathematical theory of the organisation of worlds, . died paris, . land (jan pieter nicolaus), dutch writer, b. delft, april, . has written critical studies on spinoza, and brought out an edition of the philosopher's works in conjunction with j. van vloten. landesmann (heinrich). see lorm. landor (walter savage), english poet, b. ipsley court, warwickshire, jan. . he was educated at rugby and oxford, and, inheriting a fortune, could indulge his tastes as an author. he published a volume of poems in , and gebir in . an ardent republican, he served as a volunteer colonel in the spanish army against napoleon from to , besides devoting a considerable sum of money to the spanish cause. he became a resident of florence about . his reputation chiefly rests on his great imaginary conversations, in which many bold ideas are presented in beautiful language. landor was unquestionably the greatest english writer of his age. while nominally a christian, he has scattered many freethought sentiments over his various works. died at florence, sept. . lanessan (jean louis de), french naturalist, b. at saint andré de cubzac (gironde), july, . at he became a naval physician, and m.d. in ' . he was elected in ' as radical member of the municipal council of paris, and re-elected in ' . in august of the same year he was elected deputy for the department of the seine. he founded le reveil, edited the marseillaise, and started the international biological library, to which he contributed a study on the doctrine of darwin. he has written a standard work on botany, and has written vol. iii. of the "materialists' library," on the evolution of matter. lanfrey (pierre), french author and senator, b. chambéry, oct. , became known by a book on the church and the philosophers of the eighteenth century, ' , and celebrated by his history of napoleon i. ' - . m. lanfrey also wrote the political history of the popes, a work placed on the index. died at pau, nov. . lang (andrew), man of letters, b. selkirk, march, . educated at st. andrews and oxford. mr. lang made his name by his translation of the odyssey with mr. butcher, and by his graceful poems and ballads. he has written in the wrong paradise, and many other pleasant sketches. more serious work is shown in custom and myth, ' , and myth, ritual and religion, ' . a disciple of e. b. tylor, mr. lang successfully upholds the evolutionary view of mythology. lang (heinrich), german rationalist, b. nov. . studied theology under baur at tübingen, and became teacher at zürich, where he died, jan. . lange (friedrich albert), german philosopher and writer, b. wald, near solix, sept. . he studied at bonn, and became teacher in the gymnasium of cologne, ' . in ' he returned to bonn as teacher of philosophy, and there enjoyed the friendship of ueberweg. he became proprietor and editor of the democratic landbote, and filled various municipal offices. in ' he was called to the chair of philosophy at zürich, but resigned in ' and accepted a similar post at marburg, where he died nov. . his fame rests on his important history of materialism, which has been translated into english. langsdorf (karl christian), german deist, b. may, , author of god and nature, a work on the immortality of the soul, and some mathematical books. died heidelberg, june, . lankester (edwin ray), f.r.s., ll.d., english scientist, b. london, may, , and educated at st. paul's school and oxford. has published many scientific memoirs, revised the translation of haeckel's history of creation, and has done much to forward evolutionary ideas. in he exposed the spiritist medium slade, and procured his conviction. he is professor of zoology and natural history in the university of london. la place (pierre simon). one of the greatest astronomers, b. beaumont-en-auge, march, . his father was a poor peasant. through the influence of d'alembert, la place became professor of mathematics in the military school, . by his extraordinary abilities he became in member of the academy of science, which he enriched with many memoirs. in he published his exposition of the system of the universe, a popularisation of his greater work on celestial mechanics, - . among his sayings were, "what we know is but little, what we know not is immense." "there is no need for the hypothesis of a god." died paris, march, . larevelliere-lepaux (louis marie de), french politician, b. montaigu aug. . attached from youth to the ideas of rousseau, he was elected with volney to represent angers in the national assembly. he was a moderate republican, defended the proscribed girondins, was doomed himself but escaped by concealment, and distinguished himself by seeking to replace catholicism with theophilanthropy or natural religion. he wrote reflections on worship and the national fêtes. he became president of the directory, and after the brumaire retired, refusing to swear fealty to the empire though offered a pension by napoleon. died paris, march, . larousse (pierre athanase), french lexicographer, b. of poor parents, oct. , at toucy, yonne, where he became teacher. he edited many school books and founded the grand dictionnaire universel du xixe. siecle, - . this is a collection of dictionaries, and may be called the encyclopedie of this century. most of m. larousse's colleagues were also freethinkers. died at paris, jan. . larra (mariano josé de), distinguished spanish author, b. madrid, march, . he went with his family to france and completed his education. he returned to spain in ' . at eighteen he published a collection of poems, which was followed by el duende satirico (the satirical goblin). in ' appeared his pobrecito hablador (poor gossip), a paper in which he unmercifully satirised the public affairs and men of spain. it was suppressed after its fourteenth number. he edited in the following year the revista española, signing his articles "figaro." he travelled through europe, and on his return to madrid edited el mundo. larra wrote also some dramas and translated lamennais' paroles d'un croyant. being disappointed in love he shot himself, april, . ch. de mazade, after speaking of larra's scepticism, adds, "larra could see too deep to possess any faith whatever. all the truths of this world, he was wont to say, can be wrapped in a cigarette paper!" larroque (patrice), french philosopher, b. beaume, march, . he became a teacher and was inspector of the academy of toulouse, - , and rector of the academies of cahors, limoges, and lyons, - . in the latter year he was denounced for his opposition to clerical ideas and lost his place. among his numerous works we mention de l'esclavage chez les nations chrétiennes, ' , in which he proves that christianity did not abolish slavery. this was followed by an critical examination of the christian religion, ' , and a work on religious renovation, ' , which proposes a moral system founded upon pure deism. both were for a while prohibited in france. m. larroque also wrote on religion and politics, ' . died at paris, june, . lassalle (ferdinand johann gottlieb), founder of german social democratic party, b. of jewish parents, april, , in breslau, studied philosophy and law at breslau and berlin. he became a follower of hegel and feuerbach. heine, at paris, ' , was charmed with him. humboldt called him "wunderkind." in he published a profound work on the philosophy of heraclitus. for planning an insurrection against the prussian government he was arrested, but won his acquittal. died through a duel, aug. . lastarria (josé victorino), chilian statesman and positivist, b. rancagua, . from youth he applied himself to teaching and journalism, and in ' was appointed teacher of civil law and literature in the national institute. he has founded several journals and literary societies. from ' he has been at different times deputy to the legislature and secretary to the republic of chili. he has also served as minister to peru and brazil. in ' he founded the santiago academy of science and literature; has written many works, and his lecciones de politicia positiva has been translated into french by e. de rivière and others, . lau (theodor ludwig), german philosopher, b. at königsberg, june , studied at königsberg and halle, and about travelled through holland, england, and france. in he published in latin, at frankfort, philosophical meditations on god, the world, and man, which excited an outcry for its materialistic tendency and was suppressed. he was a follower of spinoza, and held several official positions from which he was deposed on account of his presumed atheism. died at altona, feb. . laurent (françois), belgian jurisconsult, b. luxembourg, july, . studied law and became an advocate. in ' he was made professor of civil law in the university of ghent, a post he held, despite clerical protests, till his retirement in ' . a voluminous author on civil and international law, his principal work is entitled studies in the history of humanity. he was a strong advocate of the separation of church and state, upon which he wrote, - . he also wrote letters on the jesuits, ' . died in . law (harriet), english lecturess, who for many years occupied the secular platform, and engaged in numerous debates. she edited the secular chronicle, - . lawrence (james), knight of malta, b. fairfield, jamaica, , of good lancashire family. educated at eton and gottingen; became acquainted with schiller and goethe at stuttgart and weimar, was detained with english prisoners at verdun. in he published his the empire of the nairs, or the rights of women, a free-love romance which he wrote in german, french, and english. he also wrote in french and english, a curious booklet the children of god, london, . he addressed a poem on tolerance to mr. owen, on the occasion of his denouncing the religions of the world. it appears in the etonian out of bounds. died at london sept. . lawrence (sir william), surgeon, b. cirencester, . admitted m.r.c.s., , in ' he was chosen, f.r.s., and two years later was named professor of anatomy and surgery at the royal college of surgeons. while he held that chair he delivered his lectures on man, which on their publication in roused a storm of bigotry. in his early manhood, lawrence was an earnest advocate of radical reform; but notwithstanding his early unpopularity, he acquired a lucrative practice. died london, july, . layton (henry), educated at oxford, and studied at gray's inn, being called to the bar. he wrote anonymously observations on dr. bentley's confutation of atheism ( ), and a search after souls, and spiritual observations in man ( ). leblais (alphonse), french professor of mathematics, b. mans, . author of a study in positivist philosophy entitled materialism and spiritualism ( ), to which littré contributed a preface. le bovier de fontenelle. see fontenelle. lecky (william edward hartpole), historian, b. near dublin, march, . educated at trinity college, dublin. his works, which are characterised by great boldness and originality of thought, are a history of the rise and spirit of rationalism in europe (' ), a history of european morals from augustus to charlemagne (' ), and a history of england in the eighteenth century ( - ). leclerc (georges louis). see buffon. leclerc de septchenes (n.), b. at paris. became secretary to louis xvi., translated the first three vols. of gibbon, and wrote an essay on the religion of the ancient greeks ( ). a friend of lalande, he prepared an edition of freret, published after his death. died at plombieres, june, . leconte de lisle (charles marie rené), french poet, b. isle of bourbon, oct. . after travelling in india, returned to paris, and took part in the revolution of ' , but has since devoted himself mainly to poetry, though he has written also a republican catechism and a popular history of christianity (' ). one of his finest poems is kain. on being elevated to the seat of victor hugo at the academy in ' , he gave umbrage to jews and catholics by incidentally speaking of moses as "the chief of a horde of ferocious nomads." lecount (peter), lieutenant in the french navy. he was engaged in the battle of navarino. came to england as a mathematician in the construction of the london and birmingham railway, of which he wrote a history ( ). he wrote a curious book in three volumes entitled a few hundred bible contradictions; a hunt after the devil and other old matters, by john p. y., m.d.; published by h. hetherington (' ). the author's name occurs on p. , vol i., as "the rev. peter lecount." leenhof (frederick van), b. middelburg (zealand), aug. . became a minister of zwolle, where he published a work entitled heaven on earth ( ), which subjected him to accusations of atheism. it was translated into german in . lefevre (andré), french writer, b. provins, nov. . he became, at the age of twenty-three, one of the editors of the magasin pittoresque. he wrote much in la libre pensée and la pensée nouvelle; has translated lucretius in verse (' ), and written religions and mythologies compared (' ); contributed a sketchy history of philosophy to the library of contemporary science (' ); has written man across the ages (' ) and the renaissance of materialism (' ). he has also edited the lettres persanes of montesquieu, some dialogues of voltaire, and diderot's la religieuse (' ). lefort (césar), disciple of comte. has published a work on the method of modern science (paris, ). lefrancais de lalande. see lalande. legate (bartholomew), antitrinitarian native of essex, b. about , was thrown into prison on a charge of heresy, . king james had many personal interviews with him. on one occasion the king asked him if he did not pray to jesus christ. he replied that he had done so in the days of his ignorance, but not for the last seven years. "away, base fellow!" said his majesty, "it shall never be said that one stayeth in my presence who hath never prayed to the savior for seven years together." he was burnt at smithfield by the king's writ, de hæretico comburendo, march, , being one of the last persons so punished in england. leguay de premontval. see premontval. le hon (henri) belgian scientist, b. ville-pommeroeul (hainault) , was captain in the belgian army, professor at the military school of brussels, and chevalier of the order of leopold. author of l'homme fossile en europe, ' . translated professor omboni's exposition of darwinism. died at san remo, . leidy (joseph), m.d., american naturalist, b. philadelphia, sept. . he became professor of biology at the university of philadelphia, and is eminent for his contributions to american palæontology. leigh (henry stone), english author of a deistic work on the religions of the world, . leland (theron c.), american journalist, b. april, . he edited with wakeman the journal man. died june, . lemaire (charles), member of the academical society of saint quentin, author of an atheistic philosophical work, in two vols., entitled initiation to the philosophy of liberty, paris, . lemonnier (camille), belgian writer, b. ixel les bruxelles, , author of stories and works on hysteria, death, etc., in which he evinces his freethought sentiments. lenau (nicolaus), i.e. nicolaus franz niembsch von strehlenau, hungarian poet, b. czatad, aug. . his poems, written in german, are pessimistic, and his constitutional melancholy deepened into insanity. died ober-döbling, near vienna, aug. . lennstrand (viktor e.), swedish writer and orator, b. gefle, jan. . educated at upsala university. founded the swedish utilitarian society, march ' , and in may was sentenced to a fine of crowns for denial of the christian religion. on the th nov. he was imprisoned for three months for the same offence. has written several pamphlets and has incurred several fresh prosecutions. in company with a. lindkvist he has founded the fritankaren as the organ of swedish freethought. leontium, athenian hetæra, disciple and mistress of epicurus (q.v.) she acquired distinction as a philosopher, and wrote a treatise against theophrastus, which is praised by cicero as written in a skilful and elegant manner. leopardi (giacomo), count, italian pessimist poet, b. recanati (ancona), june, . in he won a high place among poets by his lines addressed to italy. his canti, ' , are distinguished by eloquence and pathos, while his prose essays, operette morali, ' , are esteemed the finest models of italian prose of this century. leopardi's short life was one long disease, but it was full of work of the highest character. as a poet, philologist, and philosopher, he is among the greatest of modern italians. died at naples, july, . lequinio (joseph marie), french writer and conventionnel, b. sarzeau, . elected mayor of rennes, , and deputy from morbihar to the legislative assembly. he then professed atheism. he voted the death of louis xvi. "regretting that the safety of the state did not permit his being condemned to penal servitude for life." in he published prejudices destroyed, signed "citizen of the world," in which he considered religion as a political chain. he took part in the feasts of reason, and wrote philosophy of the people, . died . lermina (jules hippolyte), french writer, b. march, . founded the corsair and satan, and has published an illustrated biographical dictionary of contemporary france, - . lermontov (mikhail yur'evich), russian poet and novelist, b. moscow, oct. . said to have come of a scotch family, he studied at moscow university, from which he was expelled. in ' he entered the military academy at st. petersburg, and afterwards joined the hussars. in ' some verses on the death of pushkin occasioned his being sent to the caucasus, which he describes in a work translated into english, ' . his poems are much admired. the demon, exhibiting satan in love, has been translated into english, and so has his romance entitled a hero of our times. he fell in a duel in the caucasus, july, . leroux (pierre), french socialist and philosophic writer, b. bercy, near paris, april, . at first a mason, then a typographer, he invented an early composing machine which he called the pianotype. in he became editor of the globe. becoming a saint simonian, he made this paper the organ of the sect. he started with reynaud l'encyclopédie nouvelle, and afterwards with l. viardot and mme. george sand the revue indépendante (' ), which became noted for its pungent attacks on catholicism. his principal work is de l'humanite (' ). in june ' m. leroux was elected to the assembly. after the coup d'état he returned to london and jersey. died at paris, april, . leroy (charles georges), lieutenant ranger of the park of versailles, b. , one of the writers on the encyclopédie. he defended the work of helvetius on the mind against voltaire, and wrote philosophical letters on the intelligence and perfectibility of animals ( ), a work translated into english in . died at paris . lespinasse (adolf frederik henri de). dutch writer, b. delft, may, . studied medicine, and established himself first at deventer and afterwards at zwartsluis, vaassen, and hasselt. in the dageraad he wrote many interesting studies under the pen-name of "titus," and translated the work of dupuis into dutch. in he emigrated to america and became director of a large farm in iowa. died in orange city (iowa) . l'espinasse (julie jeanne eléonore de). french beauty and wit, b. lyons, nov. . she became the protégé of madame du deffand, and gained the favor of d'alembert. her letters are models of sensibility and spirit. died paris, may, . lessing (gotthold ephraim). german critic and dramatic poet, b. kamenz, jan. . he studied at leipsic, and at berlin became acquainted with voltaire and mendelssohn. made librarian at wolfenbüttel he published fragments of an unknown ( ), really the vindication of rational worshippers of god, by reimarus, in which it was contended that christian evidences are so clad in superstition as to be unworthy credence. among his writings were the freethinker and nathan the wise, his noblest play, in which he enforces lessons of toleration and charity to all faiths. the effect of his writings was decidedly sceptical. heine calls lessing, after luther, the greatest german emancipator. died at brunswick feb. . lessona (michele). italian naturalist, b. sept., ; has translated some of the works of darwin. leucippus. greek founder of the atomic philosophy. l'estrange (thomas), writer, b. jan. . with a view to entering the church he graduated at trinity college, dublin, feb. ' , but became an attorney. having read f. a. paley's introduction to the iliad, he became convinced that the "cooking" process there described, has been undergone by all sacred books now extant. he wrote for thomas scott's series valuable tracts on our first century, primitive church history, irenæus, order, the eucharist. he also edited hume's dialogues on natural religion, and wrote the first ten alleged persecutions. levallois (jules), french writer, b. rouen may, . in ' he became secretary to sainte beuve. wrote déisme et christianisme, . lewes (george henry), english man of letters, b. in london, april, , he became a journalist and dramatic critic. in - appeared his biographical history of philosophy, which showed higher power. this has been republished as history of philosophy from thales to comte. lewes was one of the first to introduce english readers to comte in his account of comte's philosophy of the sciences, ' . in ' he became one of the founders of the leader, for which he wrote till ' . in that year he began his association with "george eliot" (q.v.). his life of goethe appeared in ' , and from this time he began to give his attention to scientific, especially biological, studies. in ' he published an important essay on aristotle. on the foundation of the fortnightly review, ' , lewes was appointed editor. his last work, problems of life and mind, vols. ' - , was never completed owing to his death, nov. . he bequeathed his books to dr. williams's library. lichtenberg (georg christoph), german satirical writer and scientist, b. ober-ramstädt, july, ; a friend of g. forster, he left many thoughts showing his advanced opinions. died göttingen, feb. . lick (james), american philanthropist, b. fredericksburg, pa., aug. . in he settled in california and made a large fortune by investing in real estate. he was a materialist and bequeathed large sums to the lick observatory, mount hamilton, and for other philanthropic purposes. died san francisco, oct. . lilja (nicolai), swedish writer, b. rostanga, oct. . studied at lund and became parish clerk in the lund diocese. he wrote, on man; his life and destiny. died lund . lincoln (abraham), sixteenth president of the united states, b. kentucky, feb. . an uncompromising opponent of slavery, his election (nov. ' ) led to the civil war and the emancipation of slaves. ward h. lamon, who knew him well, says he "read volney and paine and then wrote a deliberate and labored essay, wherein he reached conclusions similar to theirs. the essay was burnt, but he never denied or regretted its composition." mrs. lincoln said, "mr. lincoln had no hope and no faith in the usual acceptance of those words." assassinated april, , he expired the following morning. lindet (robert thomas), "apostate" french bishop, b. bernay, . was elected to the states-general by the clergy of his district. he embraced republican principles, and in march, , was made bishop of l'eure. in nov. he publicly married. on nov. , renounced his bishopric. he proposed that civil festivals should take the place of religious ones. he became member of the conseil des anciens. died bernay, aug. , and was buried without religious service. lindh (theodor anders), b. borgo (finland), jan. . studied at helsingfors university, ' - ; became lawyer in ' , and is now a member of the municipal council of borgo. he has written many poems in swedish, and also translated from the english poets, and has published freethought essays, which have brought him into controversy with the clergy. lindkvist (alfred), swedish writer, b. gefle, oct. , of pious parents. at the university of upsala he studied european literature, and became acquainted with the works of mill, darwin, and spencer. he has published two volumes of poems, snow drops and april days, and lost a stipend at the university by translating from the danish a rationalistic life of jesus entitled the reformer from galilee. mr. lindkvist has visited paris, and collaborated on a stockholm daily paper. in ' he joined his friend lennstrand in propagating freethought, and in nov. received a month's imprisonment for having translated one of j. symes's anti-christian pamphlets. he now edits fritankaren in conjunction with mr. lennstrand. lindner (ernst otto timotheus), german physician, b. breslau, nov. . a friend of schopenhauer, whose philosophy he maintained in several works on music. he edited the vossische zeitung from ' . died at berlin, aug. . liniere (françois payot de), french satiric poet, b. paris, ; known as the atheist of senlis. boileau says the only act of piety he ever did was drinking holy water because his mistress dipped her finger in it. wrote many songs and smart epigrams, and is said to have undertaken a criticism of the new testament. died at paris in . linton (eliza, née lynn) novelist and journalist, daughter of vicar of crosthwaite, cumberland, b. keswick, . has contributed largely to the leading radical journals, and has written numerous works of fiction, of which we must mention under which lord? and the rebel of the family. in ' she published the true history of joshua davidson, christian and communist, and in ' the autobiography of christopher kirkland. she has also written on the woman question, and contributed largely to periodical literature. linton (william james), poet, engraver, and author, b. at london, . a chartist in early life, he was intimately associated with the chief political refugees. he contributed to the democratic press, and also, we believe, to the oracle of reason. he wrote the reasoner tract on "the worth of christianity." he was one of the founders of the leader, has edited the truthseeker, the national and the english republic, and has published famine a masque, a life of paine, and a memoir of james watson and some volumes of poems. in ' he went to america, but has recently returned. liscow (christian ludwig), one of the greatest german satirists, b. wittenberg, april, . he studied law in jena, and became acquainted with hagedorn in hamburg. in he was councillor of war at dresden. this post he abandoned, occupying himself with literature until his death, oct. . liscow's principal satires are the uselessness of good works for our salvation and the excellence and utility of bad writers. he has been called the german swift, and his works show him to have been an outspoken freethinker. lisle (lionel), author of the two tests: the supernatural claims of christianity tried by two of its own rules (london, ). liszinski (casimir), polish martyr of noble birth. denounced as an atheist in by the bishop of wilna and posnovia, he was decapitated and burnt at grodno march, . his ashes were placed in a cannon and scattered abroad. among the statements in liszinski's papers was that man was the creator of god, whom he had formed out of nothing. littre (maximilian paul emile), french philologist and philosopher, b. paris, feb. . he studied medicine, literature and most of the sciences. an advanced republican, he was one of the editors of the national. his edition of the works of hippocrates ( - ) proved the thoroughness of his learning. he embraced the doctrines of comte, and in ' published a lucid analysis of the positive philosophy. he translated the life of jesus, by strauss, and wrote the literary history of france. his dictionary of the french language, in which he applied the historical method to philology, is one of the most colossal works ever performed by one man. he wrote on comte and positive philosophy, comte and mill, etc., but refused to follow comte in his later vagaries. from ' till his death he conducted la philosophie positive. littré also wrote science from the standpoint of philosophy, ' ; literature and history, ' ; fragments of positive philosophy and contemporary sociology, ' . he was proposed for the academy in ' , but was bitterly opposed by bishop dupanloup, and was elected in ' . in the same year he was elected to the national assembly, and in ' was chosen senator. under the empire he twice refused the legion of honor. after a long life of incessant labor, he died at paris, june . lloyd (john william), american poet and writer, b. of welsh-english stock at westfield, new jersey, june, . is mostly self-educated. after serving apprenticeship as a carpenter, became assistant to dr. trall. brought up as an orthodox christian he became an agnostic and anarchist, and has written much in liberty and lucifer. lohmann (hartwic), a native of holstein, who in occupied a good position in flensburg. he was accused of atheism. in he practised medicine at copenhagen. he wrote a work called the mirror of faith. died . lollard (walter), heretic and martyr, b. england, towards end of thirteenth century, began to preach in germany in . he rejected the sacraments and ceremonies of the church. it is said he chose twelve apostles to propagate his doctrines and that he had many followers. arrested at cologne in , he was burnt to death, dying with great courage. loman (abraham dirk), dutch rationalist, b. the hague sep. . he holds the entire new testament to be unhistorical, and the pauline epistles to belong to the second century, and has written many critical works. lombroso (cesare). italian writer and scientist, b. nov. , has been a soldier and military physician. introduced darwinism to italy. has written several works, mostly in relation to the physiology of criminals. longet (françois achille), french physiologist, b. st. germain-en-laye, , published a treatise on physiology in vols. and several medical works. died bordeaux, april, . longiano (sebastiano). see fausto. longue (louis pierre de), french deist, writer in the service of the house of conti; wrote les princesses de malabares, adrianople, , in which he satirised religion. it was condemned to be burnt dec. , and a new edition published in holland with the imprint tranquebar, . lorand (georges), belgian journalist, b. namur, , studied law at bologna (italy) and soon became an active propagator of atheistic doctrines among the youth of the university and in workmen associations. he edits la réforme at brussels, the ablest daily exponent of freethought and democratic doctrines in belgium. he has lately headed an association for the suppression of the standing army. "lorm (hieronymus)," the pen name of heinrich landesmann. german pessimistic poet, b. nikolsberg, aug. . in addition to many philosophical poems, he has written essays entitled nature and spirit, vienna, ' . lozano (fernando), spanish writer in las dominicales dal libre pensamiento, where he uses the signature "demofilo." he has written battles of freethought, possessed by the devil, the church and galeote, etc. lubbock (sir john), banker, archæologist, scientist and statesman, b. in london, april, . educated at eton, he was taken into his father's bank at the age of fourteen, and became a partner in ' . by his archæological works he has most distinguished himself. he has written prehistoric times as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages (' ), and the origin of civilisation and the primitive condition of man (' ). lucretius carus (titus). roman philosophical poet, b. about b.c. . little is known of his life, but his name is immortalised by his atheistic work, de rerum natura, in six books, which is the finest didactic poem in any language. lucretius has been said to have believed in one god, epicurus, whose system he expounds. full of animation, dignity, and sublimity, he invests philosophy with the grace of genius. is said to have died by his own hand b.c. . luetzelberger (ernst karl julius), german controversialist b. ditterswind, oct. . he was a friend of the feuerbachs. he wrote on the church tradition of the apostle john. he also wrote a work on jesus, translated in ewerbeck's qu'est ce que la religion. in ' he was appointed town librarian at nuremberg. lunn (edwin), owenite lecturer. published pamphlets on prayer, its folly, inutility, etc. , and divine revelation examined, . luys (jules bernard), french alienist, b. paris, . is physician at l'hopital de la charité, paris, and author of a work on the brain and its functions in the "international scientific series." lyell (sir charles), geologist, b. kinnordy, forfarshire, nov. . was educated at exeter college, oxford, and devoted himself to geology. in - appeared his great work, the principles of geology, which went through numerous editions. his last important work was geological evidences of the antiquity of man, in which he accepts the darwinian theory. died feb. . maccall (william), writer, b. largs. scotland, . educated at glasgow, he found his way to the unitarian church which he left as insufficiently broad. he wrote elements of individualism (' ), translated spinoza's treatise on politics (' ), wrote to the critic as "atticus," contributed to the national reformer, secular review, etc., published foreign biographies (' ), and translated dr. letourneau's biology and other works. maccall was an idealistic pantheist of strong individual character. died at bexley, nov. . macchi (mauro), italian writer, b. milan, july, . became professor of rhetoric at the age of twenty-four, when, becoming obnoxious to the austrians by the liberty of his opinions, he was deprived of his position. he betook himself to radical journalism, founded l'italia, a republican journal, for which he was exiled. he was associated with ausonio franchi and luigi stefanoni in the libero pensiero and the libero pensatore, and founded an italian association of freethinkers. in ' he was elected deputy to parliament for cremona, and in ' was elevated to the senate. died at rome, dec. . one of his principal works is on the council of ten. macdonald (eugene montague), editor of the new york truthseeker, b. chelsea, maine, feb. . he learned the printer's trade in new york, where he became foreman to d. m. bennett, and contributed to the paper, which he has conducted since mr. bennett's death. macdonald (george), brother of the preceding. wrote on the truthseeker, and now conducts freethought, of san francisco, in company with s. p. putnam. george macdonald is a genuine humorist and a sound freethinker. mcdonnell (william), american novelist, b. sept. . author of the heathens of the heath and exeter hall, ' , both freethought romances. mackay (robert william), author of the progress of the intellect, , sketch of the rise and progress of christianity, ' , and the tubingen school, ' . mackey (sampson arnold), astronomer and shoemaker, of norwich, who is said to have constructed an orrery out of leather. he wrote the mythological astronomy of the ancients, norwich, - , pious frauds, ' , a lecture on astronomy and geology, edited by w. d. saull, ' , urania's key to the revelation, ' , and the age of mental emancipation, ' - . mackey also wrote the sphinxiad, a rare book. died . mackintosh (thomas simmons), author of the electrical theory of the universe, , and an inquiry into the nature of responsibility. died . macsweeney (myles), mythologist, b. at enniskillen . he came to london, and hearing robert taylor at the rotunda in , adopted his views. he held that jesus never existed, and wrote in the national reformer, secular chronicle, and other papers. he published a pamphlet on moses and bacchus in . died jan. . madach (imré), hungarian patriot and poet, b. jan. , at sztregova, studied at the university of buda pesth, and afterwards lived at cseszlova. he was in ' incarcerated for a year for having given asylum at his castle to a political refugee. he became in ' delegate at pesth. in this year he published his fine poem az ember tragédiája (the human tragedy), in which mankind is personified as adam, with lucifer in his company. many freethought views occur in this poem. died oct. . his works were published in vols., . maier (lodewyk). see meyer. maillet (benôit de). french author, b. saint michiel, april, . he was successively consul in egypt and at leghorn; and died at marseilles, jan. . after his death was published "telliamed" (the anagram of his name), in which he maintained that all land was originally covered with water and that every species of animal, man included, owes its origin to the sea. "mainlaender" (philipp), pseudonym of philipp batz, german pessimist, author of a profound work entitled the philosophy of redemption, the first part of which was published in . it was said that "mainländer" committed suicide in that year, but the second part of his work has come out - . he holds that polytheism gives place to monotheism and pantheism, and these again to atheism. "god is dead, and his death was the life of the world." malherbe (françois de). french poet, b. caen, . he served in the civil wars of the league, and enjoyed the patronage of henry iv. he was called the prince of poets and the poet of princes. many stories are told illustrating his sceptical raillery. when told upon his death-bed of paradise and hell he said he had lived like others and would go where others went. died paris, oct. . mallet (mme. josephine). french authoress of a work on the bible, its origin, errors and contradictions ( ). malon (benoît). french socialist, b. near st. etienne, . one of the founders of the international; he has written a work on that organisation, its history and principles (lyons, ). he is editor on l'intransigeant, conducted the revue socialiste, and has written on the religion and morality of the socialists and other works. malvezin (pierre). french journalist, b. junhac, june . author of la bible farce (brussels, .) this work was condemned and suppressed, , and the author sentenced to three month's imprisonment. he conducts the review la fraternité. mandeville (bernhard), b. dort. . he studied medicine, was made a doctor in holland, and emigrated to london. in he published a poetical satire, the grumbling hive, or knaves turned honest. in , he published the virgin unmasked, and in , free thoughts on religion the church and national happiness. in the same year appeared his fables of the bees or private vices, public benefits. this work was presented by the grand jury of middlesex, and . it was attacked by law, berkeley, and others. mandeville replied to berkeley in a letter to dion, occasioned by a book called alciphron, or the minute philosopher, . he also wrote an inquiry of honor, and usefulness of christianity in war, . died, london, jan. . mantegazza (paolo), italian anthropologist, b. monza, oct. . studied medicine at milan, pisa, and paria, and travelled considerably through europe, and produced at paris in his first book the physiology of pleasure. he has also written on the physiology of pain, spontaneous generation, anthropological works on ecstacy, love and other topics, and a fine romance il dio ignoto, the unknown god ( ). mantegazza is one of the most popular and able of italian writers. manzoni (romeo), dr. italian physician, b. arogno, , studied philosophy at milan, and graduated at naples. he has written on the doctrine of love of bruno and schopenhauer a life of jesus, also il prete, a work translated into german with the title religion as a pathological phenomenon, etc. marchena (josé), spanish writer, b. utrera, andalusia, . brought up for the church, reading the writings of the french philosophers brought on him the inquisition. he fled to france where he became a friend of brissot and the girondins. he wrote a pronounced essai de théologie, , and translated into spanish molière's tartufe, and some works of voltaire. he translated dupuis' origine de tous les cultes, became secretary to murat, and died jan. . marechal (pierre sylvain), french author, b. paris, aug. ; was brought up to the bar, which he quitted for the pursuit of literature. he was librarian to the mazarin college, but lost his place by his book escaped from the deluge, psalms, by s. ar. lamech (anagram), . this was a parody of the style of the prophets. in he wrote le nouveau lucrece. in appeared his almanack of honest people, in which the name of jesus christ was found beside that of epicurus. the work was denounced to parliament, burnt at the hands of the hangman, and maréchal imprisoned for four months. he welcomed the revolution, and published a republican almanack, . in and he published his code of a society of men without god, and free thoughts on the priests. in appeared his most learned work, travels of pythagoras in egypt, chaldea, india, rome, carthage, gaul, etc. vols. into this fiction maréchal puts a host of bold philosophical, political, and social doctrines. in he published his famous dictionary of atheists, which the government prohibited and interdicted journals from noticing. in the following year appeared his for and against the bible. died at montrouge, jan. . his beneficence is highly spoken of by lalande. maret (henry), french journalist and deputy, b. santerre, march, . he ably combatted against the empire, and edits le radical; was elected deputy in ' . marguerite, of valois, queen of navarre, sister to francis i. b. at angouleme, april, . deserves place for her protection to religious reformers. died dec. . marguetel de saint denis. see saint evremond (c.) mario (alberto), italian patriot, b. june, . he edited the tribune and free italy, became aide-de-camp to garibaldi and married jessie white, an english lady. in ' he wrote a polemic against the papacy entitled slavery and thought. died june, . marlow (christopher), english poet and dramatist, b. canterbury, feb. . educated at benet college, cambridge, where he took his degree in . he devoted himself to dramatic writing and according to some became an actor. he was killed in a brawl at deptford, june, , in time to escape being tried on an information laid against him for atheism and blasphemy. the audacity of his genius is displayed in tamburlaine and dr. faustus. of the latter, goethe said "how greatly is it all planned." swinburne says "he is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer in all our poetic literature." marr (wilhelm), german socialist, author of religious excursions, , and several anti-semitic tracts. marsais (cesar chesneau du). see du marsais. marselli (niccola), italian writer, b. naples, nov. . author of advanced works on the science of history, nature and civilisation, the origin of humanity, the great races of humanity, etc. marston (philip bourke), english poet, b. london, aug. . he became blind in childhood, and devoted to poetry. a friend of d. g. rossetti, swinburne, and thomson, his poems are sad and sincere. died feb. , and was buried in accordance with his own wishes in unconsecrated ground at highgate, and without religious service. marsy (françois marie de), b. paris, , educated as a jesuit. he brought out an analysis of bayle, , for which he was confined in the bastile. died dec. . marten (henry), regicide, b. oxford, . educated at oxford, where he proceeded b.a., . he was elected to parliament in , and expelled for his republican sentiments in . he resumed his seat jan. , took part in the civil war, sat as one of king charles's judges, and became one of the council of state. he proposed the repeal of the statute of banishment against the jews, and when it was sought to expel all profane persons, proposed to add the words "and all fools." tried for regicide oct. , he was kept in chepstow castle till his death, sep. . carlyle calls him "sworn foe of cant in all its figures; an indomitable little pagan if not better." martin (emma), english writer and lecturess, b. bristol, . brought up as a baptist, she, for a time, edited the bristol magazine. she wrote the exiles of piedmont and translated from the italian the maxims of guicciardini. the trials of holyoake and southwell for blasphemy led her to inquire and embrace the freethought cause. while holyoake and paterson were in gaol, mrs. martin went about committing the "crime" for which they were imprisoned. in ' she published baptism a pagan rite. this was followed by tracts for the people on the bible no revelation, religion superseded, prayer, god's gifts and men's duties, a conversation on the being of god, etc. she also lectured and wrote on the punishment of death, to which she was earnestly opposed. died oct. . martin (bon louis henri), french historian, b. st. quentin, feb. . he was sent to paris to study law, but abandoned it for history. his history of france, in nineteen vols. ( - ), is a monumental work of erudition. a confirmed republican, he warmly opposed the second empire and after its fall became member of the national assembly, ' , and senator, ' . he was elected member of the academy, ' . in addition to his historical works he contributed to le siecle, la liberté de penser, and l'encyclopédie nouvelle, etc. died dec. . martin (louis), author of les evangiles sans dieu (called by victor hugo cette noble page), paris, , describes himself as an atheist socialist. martin (louis auguste). french writer, b. paris, april, , editor of the morale independante and member of the institute of geneva. for his true and false catholics (' ), he was fined three thousand francs and imprisoned for six months. he published the annuaire philosophique. several of his works are placed on the roman index. died paris, april, . martinaud (m.), an ex-abbé who refused ordination, and wrote letters of a young priest, who is an atheist and materialist, to his bishop, paris, , in which he says, "religion is the infancy of peoples, atheism their maturity." martineau (harriet), b. norwich june, , descended from a huguenot family. brought up as a unitarian, she began writing devotional exercises for young persons, and, taking to literature as a means of living, distinguished herself by popularisations of political economy. the letters on the laws of man's nature and development, which passed between her and h. g. atkinson, appeared in ' , and disclosed her advance to the positivist school of thought. in ' she issued a condensed account of comte's philosophy. she wrote a history of england during the thirty years' peace, and numerous other works. died at ambleside june, . her autobiography, published after her death, shows the full extent of her unbelief. masquerier (lewis), american land reformer of huguenot descent, b. march, . wrote the sataniad, established greenpoint gazette, and contributed to the boston investigator. died jan. . massenet (jules emile fréderic), french musical composer, b. montard, may, . has written a daring and popular oratorio on marie magdeleine, and an opera, herodiade. massey (gerald), poet and archæologist, b. of poor parents at tring, in herts, may, . at eight years of age he was sent to a factory to earn a miserable pittance. at the age of fifteen he came to london as an errand boy, read all that came in his way, and became a freethinker and political reformer. inspired by the men of ' , he started the spirit of freedom, ' . it cost him five situations in eleven months. in ' his ballad of babe christabel, with other lyrical poems at once gave him position as a poet of fine taste and sensibility. mr. massey devoted himself to the study of egyptology, the result of which is seen in his book of beginnings and natural genesis, ' - , in which he shows the mythical nature of christianity. mr. massey has also lectured widely on such subjects as why don't god kill the devil? the historical jesus and the mythical christ, the devil of darkness in the light of evolution, the coming religion, etc. his poems are being re-published under the title my lyrical life. massey (james). see tyssot. (s.) massol (marie alexandre), french writer, b. beziers, march, . he studied under raspail, went to paris in ' and became a saint simonian. in ' he wrote on lamennais' la réforme, and on the voix du peuple with his friend proudhon, to whom he became executor. in ' he established la morale independante with the object of showing morality had nothing to do with theology. died at paris april, . maubert de gouvest (jean henri), french writer, b. rouen, nov. . brought up as a monk, he fled and took service in the saxon army. he was thrown into prison by the king of poland, but the papal nuncio procured his release on condition of retaking his habit. this he did and went to rome to be relieved of his vows. failing this he went to switzerland and england, where he was well received by lord bolingbroke. he published lettres iroquoises, irocopolis, , and other anonymous works. at frankfort in he was arrested as a fugitive monk and vagabond, and was imprisoned eleven months. died at altona, nov. . maudsley (henry), m.d., b. near giggleswick, yorkshire, feb. . educated at london university, where he graduated m.d. in . taking mental pathology as his speciality, he soon reached eminence in his profession. from ' -' he was professor of medical jurisprudence at university college, london. his works on the physiology and pathology of the mind (' ), body and mind (' ), responsibility in mental disease (' ), and body and will (' ) have attracted much attention. his natural laws and supernatural seemings (' ) is a powerful exposure of the essence of all superstition. mauvillon (jakob von), b. leipzig, march, . though feeble in body, he had a penchant for the army, and joined the engineer corps of hanover, and afterwards became lieutenant-colonel in the service of the duke of brunswick. a friend and admirer of mirabeau, he defended the french revolution in germany. he wrote anonymously paradoxes moraux (amsterdam, ) and the only true system of the christian religion (berlin, ), at first composed under the title of false reasonings of the christian religion. died in brunswick, jan. . mazzini (giuseppe), italian patriot, b. genoa, june . in ' he graduated ll.d., in the university of genoa, and plunged into politics, becoming the leader of young italy, with the object of uniting the nation. condemned to death in ' , he went to switzerland and was expelled, then came to england in ' . in ' he returned, and in march ' was made triumvir of rome with saffi and armellini. compelled, after a desperate resistance, to retire, he returned to london. he wrote in the westminster review and other periodicals and his works are numerous though mostly of a political character. they are distinguished by highmindedness, love of toleration and eloquence. carlyle called mazzini "a man of genius and virtue, a man of sterling veracity, humanity and nobleness of mind." died at pisa march, . he was a deist. meissner (alfred), german poet, b. teplitz, oct. . has written ziska, an epic poem, the son of atta troll, recollections of heine, etc. died teplitz, may, . meister (jacques henri), swiss writer, b. bückeburg, aug. . intended for a religious career, he went to france, and became acquainted with d'holbach and diderot, of whom he wrote a short life, and was secretary to grimm. he wrote the origin of religious principles, , and natural morality, . menard (louis), french author and painter, b. paris, . in ' -' he wrote prologue of a revolution, for which he was obliged to leave france. has written on morality before the philosophers, ' , studies on the origin of christianity, ' , and freethinkers' religious catechism, ' . mendoza (diego hurtado de), famous and learned spanish author, b. of distinguished family, granada, . intended for the church, he studied latin, greek, arabic, and hebrew, but on leaving the university he joined the army. at school he wrote his well known comic novel, lazarillo de tormes, which was condemned by the inquisition. sent on an embassy to pope paul iii., the latter was greatly shocked at his audacity and vehemence of speech. his chief work is his history of the moorish wars, which remained unprinted thirty years, through the intolerant policy of philip ii. mendoza's satires and burlesques were also prohibited by the inquisition. he commented aristotle and translated his mechanics. died at valladolid, april, . mendum (josiah p.), publisher and proprietor of the boston investigator, b. kennebunk, maine, july, . he became a printer, and in became acquainted with abner kneeland and after his imprisonment engaged to print the investigator, and when kneeland left boston for the west to recruit his health, he carried on the paper together with mr. horace seaver. mr. mendum was one of the founders of the paine memorial hall, boston, and a chief support of freethought in that city. mentelle (edme), french geographer and historian, b. paris, oct. . studied at the college de beauvais under crévier. his précis de l'histoire des hébreux ( ), and précis de l'histoire universelle are thoroughly anti-christian. he doubted if jesus ever existed. he was a member of the institute and chevalier of the legion of honor. died at paris, dec. . mercier (l. a.), author of la libre pensée, brussels, . meredith (evan powell), welsh writer, author of the prophet of nazareth ( ), an able work exposing the prophecies of jesus, and amphilogia, a reply in to the bishop of landaff and the rev. j. f. francklin, ' . meredith (george), philosophical poet and novelist, b. hampshire, , and educated partly on the continent. intended for the law, he adopted literature in preference. he first appeared as a poet with poems (' ). of his powerful novels we mention the ordeal of richard feveril (' ), emilia in england (' ), now sandra belloni, with vittoria (' ) for a sequel. rhoda fleming, beauchamp's career (' ), the egoist (' ), the tragic comedians (' ) and diana of the crossways (' ). deep thought and fine grace characterise his writings. as a poet mr. meredith is not popular, but his volumes of verse are marked by the highest qualities, and give him a place apart from the throng of contemporary singers. merimee (prosper), learned french writer, b. paris, sept. , author of numerous essays and romances. was made inspector general of historic monuments and was admitted to the academy in ' . in his anonymous brochure on h(enri) b(eyle), eleutheropolis (brussels), ' , there is an open profession of atheism. died at cannes, sept. . merritt (henry), english painter and writer, b. oxford, june, . on coming to london he lived with mr. holyoake, and contributed to the reasoner, using the signature "christopher." he wrote on dirt and pictures and robert dalby and his world of troubles, etc. died in london, july, . meslier or mellier (jean), curé of etrepigny, champagne, b. mazerny, rethelois, june, . died in . after his death a will was discovered of which he had made three copies, in which he repudiated christianity and requested to be buried in his own garden. his property he left to his parishioners. voltaire published it under the title of extract from the sentiments of jean meslier. to meslier has been attributed the work entitled le bon sens, written by baron d'holbach. le testament de jean meslier has been published in three volumes at amsterdam, , preceded by a study by rudolf charles (r. c. d'ablaing van giessenburg). it calls in question all the dogmas of christianity. anacharsis clootz proposed to the national convention to erect a statue to this "honest priest." metchnikov (léon), russian writer in french; author of a work on japan and of able articles, notably one on christian communion in the revue internationale des sciences biologiques, tome . metrodorus of lampsacus. greek philosopher, b. b.c., a disciple and intimate friend of epicurus. he wrote numerous works, the titles of which are preserved by diogenes laertius. died b.c. . mettrie, see la mettrie. meunier (amédée victor), french writer, b. paris, may, . has done much to popularise science by his scientific essays, - , the ancestors of adam, ' , etc. meyer (lodewijk), a dutch physician, a friend and follower of spinoza, who published exercitatio paradoxa on the philosophical interpretation of scripture, eleutheropoli (amst.), . this has been wrongly attributed to spinoza. it was translated into dutch in . he is also credited with lucii antistic constantes, de jure ecclesiasticorum. alethopoli (amst.), . this work is also attributed to another writer, viz. p. de la court. mialhe (hippolyte), french writer, b. roquecourbe (tarn), . from ' - he was with the french army of occupation at rome. he has organised federations of freethinkers in france, edited l'union des libres-penseurs, and has written mémoires d'un libre penseur (nevers, ). michelet (jules), french historian, b. paris, aug. . became a professor of history in . has written a history of france and of the french revolution; the jesuits, with his friend quinet, ' ; the priest, woman and the family, ' ; the sorceress, dealing with witchcraft in the middle ages, ' ; the bible of humanity, ' . his lectures were interdicted by the government of louis phillippe, and after the coup d'état he was deprived of his chair. all michelet's works glow with eloquence and imagination. he never forgot that he was a republican and freethinker of the nineteenth century. died at hyères, feb. . michelet (karl ludwig), german philosopher of french family, b. berlin, dec. . in ' he became professor of philosophy. a disciple of hegel, he edited his master's works, ' . his principle work is a system of philosophy as an exact science, ' - . he has also written on the relation of herbert spencer to german philosophy. middleton (conyers), freethinking clergyman, b. york . his letters from rome, , showed how much roman christianity had borrowed from paganism, and his free inquiry into the miraculous powers supposed to have subsisted in the christian church, , was a severe blow to hitherto received "christian evidences." he also wrote a classic life of cicero. died at hildersham near cambridge, july, . mignardi (g.), italian writer, who in published memorie di un nuovo credente (memoirs of a new believer). milelli (domenico), italian poet, b. catanzaro, feb. . his family intended to make him a priest, but he turned out a rank pagan, as may be seen in his odi pagane, ' , canzonieri, ' , and other works. mill (james), philosopher and historian, b. northwaterbridge, montrose, april, . studied at edinburgh, and distinguished himself by his attainments in greek and moral philosophy. he was licensed as preacher in the scotch church, but removed to london in , and became editor of the literary review, and contributed to the reviews. he published, ' -' , his history of british india. he contributed many articles to the fifth edition of the encyclopædia britannica. a friend of bentham, he wrote largely in the westminster review, and did much to forward the views of philosophic radicalism. his analysis of the human mind, ' , is a profound work. in religion he was a complete sceptic. reading bishop butler's analogy made him an atheist. died june, . mill (john stuart), eminent english writer, son of the preceding, b. london, may, . educated by his father without religion, he became clerk in the east india house, and early in life contributed to the westminster and edinburgh reviews. of the first he became joint editor in ' . his system of logic, ' , first made him generally known. this was followed by his principles of political economy. in ' appeared his small but valuable treatise on liberty, in which he defends the unrestricted free discussion of religion. among subsequent works were utilitarianism, ' ; auguste comte and positivism, ' ; examination of sir william hamilton's philosophy ' ; dissertations and discussions, ' -' ; and the subjection of women, ' . in ' he was elected to parliament for westminster, but lost his seat in ' . in ' he was chosen rector of st. andrews, and delivered the students an able address. prof. bain says "in everything characteristic of the creed of christendom he was a thorough-going negationist. he admitted neither its truth nor its utility." died at avignon, may, , leaving behind his interesting autobiography and three essays on "nature," "theism," and "religion." mille (constantin), roumanian writer, b. at bucharest, educated at paris. he lectured at jassy and bucharest on the history of philosophy, from a materialistic point of view. he was also active with codreano, and after the latter's death (' ), in spreading socialism. millé contributes to the rivista sociala and the vütorul, edited by c. pilitis. milliere (jean baptiste), socialist, b. of poor parents, lamarche (côte d'or), dec. . he became an advocate, and founded the proletaire at clermont ferrand. for writing revolutionary studies he was, after the coup d'état, banished to algeria until the amnesty of ' . in ' millière started, with rochefort, the marseillaise, of which he became one of the principal directors. at the election for the national assembly he was elected for paris by , votes. although he took no part in the commune, but sought to act as an intermediary, he was arrested and summarily shot near the pantheon, paris, may, . he died crying "vive l'humanité." mirabaud (jean baptiste de), french writer, b. paris, . he translated tasso and ariosto, and became perpetual secretary to the french academy. he wrote opinions of the ancients on the jews, a critical examination of the new testament, (published under the name of fréret), the world: its origin and antiquity, , sentiments of a philosopher on the nature of the soul inserted in the collection entitled nouvelle libertés de penser, amst. (paris) . the system of nature, attributed to mirabaud, was written by d'holbach. mirabaud died june, . mirabeau (honoré gabriel riquetti comte de), french statesman and orator, b. at the chateau de bignon (loiret) march, . he inherited a passionate nature, a frank strong will, generous temper, and a mind of prodigious activity. he entered the army in , but by an amorous intrigue provoked the ire of his father, by whom he was more than once imprisoned. in he went to amsterdam and employed himself in literary work. in appeared anonymously his erotika biblion, dealing with the obscenity of the bible. in he was sent to berlin, where he met frederick and collected materials for his work on the prussian monarchy. he returned to the opening of the states general and soon became leader of the revolution, being in jan. chosen president of the national assembly. he advocated the abolition of the double aristocracy of lords and bishops, the spoliation of the church and the national guard. carlyle calls him "far the strongest, best practical intellect of that time." he died april, . among his last words were, "envelop me with perfumes and crown me with flowers that i may pass away into everlasting sleep." miranda (don francisco). south american patriot and general, b. caracas , aided the americans in their war of independence, tried to free guatimalaus from the spanish, allied himself to the girondins and became second in command in the army of dumouriez. he was a friend of thomas paine. in - he was engaged seeking to free peru from the spaniards, by whom he was made prisoner, and died in a dungeon at cadiz, jan. . it was said general miranda made a sceptic of james mill. miron. see morin (andré saturnin.) mitchell (j. barr), dr., anonymous author of dates and data ( ) and chrestos; a religious epithet ( ). dr. mitchell has also written in the national reformer, using his initials only. mitchell (logan), author of lectures published as the christian mythology unveiled. this work was also issued under the title superstition besieged. it is said that mitchell committed suicide in nov. . he left by his will a sum of £ to any bookseller who had the courage to publish his book. it was first published by b. cousens, and was republished in ' . mittermaier (karl josef anton von), german jurisconsult, b. munich, aug. . studied law and medicine at landshut, where he became professor. his works on law gained him a high reputation. he obtained a chair at the heidelberg university. in he represented baden in parliament. he advocated the unity of germany and took an active part in the radical movement of ' . his writings are all in the direction of freedom. died aug. . mittie (stanilas), in proposed the taking of church bells to make money and cannon, and during the revolution distinguished himself by other anti-clerical suggestions. died . mocenicus (philippus), archbishop of nicosia, cyprus, a venetian philosopher, whose heretical contemplations were printed at geneva, , with the peripatetic question of cæsalpinus and the books of telesio on the nature of things in the volume entitled tractationum philosophicarum. moleschott (jacob), scientific materialist, b. of dutch parents at 's hertogenbosch, aug. ; studied at heidelburg where he graduated m.d. became professor of physiology at zurich and afterwards at turin. becoming a naturalised italian he was in ' made a senator, and in ' professor of physiology at the university of rome. he has written circulation of life, light and life, physiological sketches, and other medical and scientific works. lange calls him "the father of the modern materialistic movement." molesworth (sir william), statesman and man of letters, the eighth baronet of his family, b. cornwall, may, . in ' he was returned m.p. for east cornwall, and from ' - sat for leeds. in ' he was first commissioner of public works, and in ' was secretary for the colonies. he was for some time proprietor and conductor of the westminster review, in which he wrote many articles. a noble edition of hobbes was produced at his expense, ' - , and he contributed to the support of auguste comte. died oct. . mommsen (theodor), historian, b. garding (schleswig), nov. . studied at kiel, and travelled from ' to . he became professor of law of leipsic, zürich and berlin. is best known by his history of rome, ' - , a work of great research and suggestiveness in which he expresses the opinion that it is doubtful if the world was improved by christianity. monboddo (lord). see burnett (james). monge (gaspard), french scientist, b. at beaume, may . taught physics and mathematics at the military school of mezieres, became a member of the academy of sciences in , and through the influence of condorcet was made minister of the marine in . he was one of the founders of the polytechnic school. napoleon made him a senator, created him count of pelusium, and gave him an estate for his many services to the french nation. on the return of the bourbons he was deprived of all his emoluments. died july, . maréchal and lalande insert his name in their list of atheists. mongez (antoine), french archæologist, b. lyons, june . distinguished by his studies, he became a member of the academy of inscriptions and of the institute, before which he said "he had the honor to be an atheist." he was one of the most ardent members of the convention, and wrote many memoirs. died at paris, july, . monroe (j. r.), dr., editor and proprietor of the ironclad age, b. monmouth, co. new jersey, about . in ' he went to rochford, where he had a good practice as a doctor. in ' he started the rochford herald, and in july, ' , the seymour times. during the civil war he was appointed surgeon to the th regiment, and after some hard service his own health broke down. in ' dr. monroe published his dramas and poems in a volume. from this time his paper became more freethought and less political. in april, ' , he removed to indianapolis, indiana, and changed the name to the age, afterwards monroe's ironclad age. dr. monroe is a clever writer and a modest man, with a remarkable fund of natural humor. among his publications are poems on the origin of man, etc., genesis revised, and holy bible stories. montaigne (michel de), french philosophic essayist, b. at the family castle in perigord, feb. . he studied law and became a judge at bordeaux about . in he produced his famous "essays," which indicate a sprightly humor allied to a most independent spirit. the essays, hallam says, make in several respects an epoch in literature. emerson says, "montaigne is the frankest and honestest of all writers." montaigne took as his motto: que sçais-je? [what know i?] and said that all religious opinions are the result of custom. buckle says, "under the guise of a mere man of the world, expressing natural thoughts in common language, montaigne concealed a spirit of lofty and audacious inquiry." montaigne seems to have been the first man in europe who doubted the sense and justice of burning people for a difference of opinion. his denunciation of the conduct of the christians in america does him infinite honor. died sept. . monteil (charles françois louis edgar), french journalist, b. vire, jan. . fought against the empire, writing in le rappel. during the commune he was secretary to delescluze. for his histoire d'un frère ignorantin, ' , he was prosecuted by the christian brothers, and condemned to one year's imprisonment, , francs fine, and , francs damages. in ' he wrote a freethinker's catechism, published at antwerp, and in ' an edition of la république française. in ' he was made a member of the municipal council of paris, and re-elected in ' . in ' he was made chevalier of the legion of honor. he has compiled an excellent secular manual of instruction for schools. montesquieu (charles de secondat), baron, eminent french writer, b. near bordeaux, jan. . his first literary performance was entitled persian letters, . in he was admitted a member of the french academy, though opposed by cardinal fleury on the ground that his writings were dangerous to religion. his chief work is the spirit of laws, . this work was one of the first-fruits of the positive spirit in history and jurisprudence. the chapters on slavery are written in a vein of masterly irony, which voltaire pronounced to be worthy of molière. died feb. . montgomery (edmund), dr. philosopher, b. of scotch parents, edinburgh . in youth he lived at frankfort, where he saw schopenhauer, and afterwards attended at heidelberg the lectures of moleschott and kuno fischer. he became a friend of feuerbach. he wrote in german and published at munich in ' , the kantian theory of knowledge refuted from the empirical standpoint. in ' he published a small book on the formation of so-called cells in animal bodies. in ' he went to texas and prosecuted his scientific studies on life. he has written in the popular science monthly, the index, and the open court and mind. dr. montgomery holds not only that there is no evidence of a god, but that there is evidence to the contrary. montgolfier (michel joseph), aeronaut, b. aug. . he was the first to ascend in an air balloon, june . a friend of delambre and la lalande, he was on the testimony of this last an atheist. died june . mook (friedrich) german writer, b. bergzabern, sept. , studied philosophy and theology at tübingen, but gave up the latter to study medicine. he lived as a writer at heidelberg and became lecturer to a free congregation at nürenburg, and wrote a popular life of jesus, published at zürich, ' - . he travelled abroad and was drowned in the river jordan, dec. . his brother kurt, b. feb. , is a physician who has published some poems. moor (edmund), major in the east indian company, author of the hindu pantheon, and oriental fragments, ' . died . moreau (hégésippe), french poet, b. paris , april . a radical and freethinker, he fought in the barricades in ' . wrote songs and satires of considerable merit, and a prose work entitled the mistletoe and the oak. his life, which was a continual struggle with misery, terminated in a hospital, dec. . his works have been collected, with an introduction by sainte-beuve. moreau (jacques joseph), dr. of tours, b. montresor, . he became a distinguished alienist of the materialist school, and wrote on moral faculties from a medical point of view, ' , and many physiological works. morelly, french socialist of the eighteenth century, b. vitry-le-français, author of a work called code de la nature, sometimes attributed to diderot. it was published in , and urges that man should find circumstances in which depravity is minimised. morgan (thomas), welsh deist, known by the title of his book as the moral philosopher, . was a presbyterian, but was deposed for arianism about , and practised medicine at bristol. he edited radicati's dissertation on death, . his moral philosopher seeks to substitute morality for religion. he calls moses "a more fabulous romantic writer than homer or ovid," and attacks the evidence of miracles and prophecy. this was supplemented by a further vindication of moral truth and reason, , and superstition and tyranny inconsistent with theocracy, . he replied to his opponents over the signature "philalethes." his last work was on physico-theology, . lechler calls morgan "the modern marcion." died at london, jan. . morgan (sir thomas charles), m.d., b. . educated at cambridge. in he was made a baronet, and married miss sidney owensen. a warm friend of civil and religious liberty and a sceptic, he is author of sketches of the philosophy of life, ' , and the philosophy of morals, ' . the examiner says, "he was never at a loss for a witty or wise passage from rabelais or bayle." died aug. . morin (andré saturnin), french writer, b. chatres, nov. . brought up to the law, and became an advocate. in ' he wrote defending the revolution against the restoration. in ' he was made sous-prefet of nogent. during the empire he combated vigorously for republicanism and freethought, writing under the signature "miron," in the rationaliste of geneva, the libre pensée of paris, the libero-pensiero of milan, and other papers. he was intimately associated with ausonio franchi, trezza, stefanoni, and the italian freethinkers. his principal work is an examination of christianity, in three volumes, ' . his jesus reduced to his true value has gone through several editions. his essai de critique religieuse, ' , is an able work. m. morin was one of the founders of the bibliothèque démocratique, to which he contributed several anti-clerical volumes, the one on confession being translated into english by dr. j. r. beard. in ' he was elected on the municipal council of paris, where he brought forward the question of establishing a crematorium. died at paris, july, , and was cremated at milan. morison (james augustus cotter), english positivist and man of letters, b. london, . graduated at lincoln coll. oxford, m.a., ' . in ' he published the life and times of saint bernard. he was one of the founders of the fortnightly review, in which he wrote, as well as in the athenæum. he contributed monographs on gibbon and macaulay to morley's "men of letters" series. in ' he published his striking work the service of man, an essay towards the religion of the future, which shows that the benefits of christianity have been much exaggerated and its evils palpable. all his writings are earnest and thoughtful. he collected books and studied to write a history of france, which would have been a noble contribution to literature; but the possession of a competence seems to have weakened his industry, and he never did justice to his powers. even the service of man was postponed until he was no longer able to complete it as he intended. morison was a brilliant talker, and the centre of a wide circle of friends. george meredith dedicated to him a volume of poems. died at hampstead, feb. . morley (john), english writer and statesman, b. blackburn, dec. , educated at oxford. among his fellow students was j.c. morison. he contributed to the leader and the saturday review, edited the morning star, and the fortnightly review, ' - , in which appeared the germs of most of his works, such as on compromise, voltaire, ' ; rousseau, ' ; diderot and the encyclopædists ' . during his editorship important freethought papers appeared in that review. from may, ' till aug. ' he edited the pall mall gazette. upon the death of ashton dilke, m.p., he was elected to parliament for newcastle, and in feb. ' was appointed by mr. gladstone chief secretary for ireland. morselli (enrico agostino), italian doctor and scientist, b. modena, . has written many anthropological works, notably one on suicide in the international scientific series, and a study on "the religion of mazzini." he edits the rivista di filosofia scientifica, and has translated herbert spencer on the past and future of religion. mortillet (louis laurent gabriel de), french scientist, b. meylan (isère), aug. , and was educated by jesuits. condemned in ' for his political writings he took refuge in switzerland. he has done much to promote prehistoric studies in france. has written materials to serve for the positive and philosophical history of man, ' . the sign of the cross before christianity, ' , contribution to the history of superstition, and prehistoric antiquity of man, ' . he contributed to the revue indépendante, pensée nouvelle, etc. m. de mortillet is curator of the museum of st. germain and was elected deputy in . moss (arthur b.), lecturer and writer, b. may, . has written numerous pamphlets, a number of which are collected in waves of freethought, ' . others are nature and the gods, man and the lower animals, two revelations, etc. mr. moss has been a contributor to the secular chronicle, secular review, freethinker, truthseeker, and other journals, and has had a written debate on "was jesus god or man." a school board officer, he was for a time prohibited from lecturing on sunday. a collection of his lectures and essays has been published, . mothe le vayer. see la mothe le vayer. mott (lucretia), american reformer, nee coffin, b. nantucket, jan. . she was a quakeress, but on the division of the society in went with the party who preferred conscience to revelation. a strong opponent of slavery, she took an active part in the abolitionist movement. she was delegated to the world's anti-slavery convention in london in , but excluded on account of her sex. a friend of mrs. rose and mrs. stanton. took an active part in women's rights conventions. died at philadelphia, nov. . muhammad ibn al hudail al basri, philosopher of asia minor, founder of the muhammadan freethinking sect of mutazilah, b. about . died about . muhammad ibn muhammad ibn tarkhan (abu nasr.) see alpharabius. muhammad ibn yahya ibn bajjat. see avempace. muhammad jalal ed din. see akbar. muller (dr. h. c.) dutch writer, b. oct. . has contributed good articles to de dageraad (the daybreak), and is now teacher of modern greek at the university of amsterdam. murger (henri), french author, b. paris, , contributed to the revue des deux mondes, tales poems and dramas. in his poem le testament in "winter nights" he says in answer to the inquiring priest "reponds lui que j'ai lu voltaire." his most popular work is entitled scenes of bohemian life. died paris, jan. . musset (louis charles alfred de), french poet, b. paris, nov. . before the age of twenty he became one of the leaders of the romantic school. his prose romance, confession d'un enfant du siècle, ' , exhibits his intellectual development and pessimistic moods. among his finest works are four poems entitled nuits. he contributed to the revue des deux mondes, and was admitted into the academy in ' . died at paris may, . naber (samuel adriaan), learned dutch writer, b. gravenhage, july, . studied at leyden and became rector of the haarlem gymnasium, and head teacher at the amsterdam athenæum. he has edited a journal of literature, and is joint author with dr. a. pierson of verisimilia ( ), a latin work showing the fragmentary and disjointed character of the epistles attributed to paul. nachtigal (gustav.), dr., german traveller, b. eichstadt, feb. . he studied medicine, went to algiers and tunis, became private physician to the bey of tunis, explored north africa, and wrote an account thereof, sahara und sudan. he became german consul general at tunis, and died april, . naigeon (jacques andré), french atheist, b. dijon . at first an art student, he became a disciple and imitator of diderot. he became copyist to and collaborator with holbach and conveyed his works to amsterdam to be printed. he contributed to the encyclopédie, notably the articles ame and unitaires and composed the militaire philosophe, or difficulties on religion proposed to father malebranche, . this was his first work, the last chapter being written by holbach. he took some share in several of the works of that writer, notably in the theologie portative. he published the recuéil philosophique, vols., londres (amst.), ; edited holbach's essay on prejudices and his morale universelle. he also edited the works of diderot, the essays of montaigne and a translation of toland's philosophical letters. his principal work is the dictionary of ancient and modern philosophy in the encyclopédie méthodique (paris - .) he addressed the national assembly on liberty of opinion, , and asked them to withhold the name of god and religion from their declaration of the rights of man. naigeon was of estimable character. died at paris, feb. . naquet (joseph alfred). french materialist, b. carpentras, oct. , became m.d. in ' . in ' he received fifteen months imprisonment for belonging to a secret society. he founded, with m. regnard, the revue encyclopédique, which was suppressed at once for containing an attack on theism. in ' he issued a work on religion, property, and family, which was seized and the author condemned to four months imprisonment, a fine of five hundred francs, and the perpetual interdict of civil rights. he represented vaucluse in the national assembly, where he has voted with the extreme left. he was re-elected in ' . the new law of divorce in france has been passed chiefly through m. naquet's energetic advocacy. in ' he was elected to the senate, and of late has distinguished himself by his advocacy of general boulanger. nascimento (francisco manuel do). portuguese poet, b. lisbon, dec, . he entered the church, but having translated molière's tartuffe, was accused of heresy ( ), and had to fly for his life from the inquisition. he wrote many poems and satires under the name of "filinto elysio." died feb. . navez (napoleon), belgian freethinker, president of la libre pensée, of antwerp, and active member of the council of the international federation of freethinkers. nelson (gustave), a writer in the new york truthseeker, conjectured to be the author of bible myths and their parallels in other religions, a large and learned work, showing how much of christianity has been taken from paganism. newcomb (simon), ll.d., american astronomer, b. wallace, (nova scotia), march, . went to the united states in ' , and was appointed computor on the nautical almanack. in ' he became senior professor of mathematics in the u. s. navy. he has been associated with the equipment of the lick observatory, and has written many works on mathematics and astronomy, as well as principles of political economy, . newman (francis william) brother of cardinal newman, b. london . educated at oxford, he was elected to a fellowship at balliol college ' , but resigned in ' , being unable conscientiously to comply with the regulations of the test act then in force. he then went to bagdad with the object of assisting in a christian mission, but his further studies convinced him he could not conscientiously undertake the work. he returned to england and became classical teacher in bristol college, and subsequently latin professor at london university. in the soul: its sorrows and aspirations, ' , he states his theistic position, and in phases of faith, ' , he explains how he came to give up christianity. he has also written a history of the hebrew monarchy, ' , theism: doctrinal and practical, ' , and a number of scott's tracts on the defective morality of the new testament, the historical depravation of christianity, the religious weakness of protestantism, etc. also religion not history, ' ; what is christianity without christ? ' ; christianity in its cradle, ' ; and life after death, ' . neymann (clara), german american freethought lecturess, friend and colleague of frau hedwig henrich wilhelmi. nicholson (william), english writer on chemistry and natural philosophy, b. london . he went to india at an early age, and upon returning settled at london as a mathematical teacher. he published useful introductions to chemistry and natural philosophy. conducted the british encyclopedia, and the journal of natural philosophy. he also wrote the doubts of the infidels, submitted to the bench of bishops by a weak christian, , a work republished by carlile and also by watson. he died in poor circumstances may, . nicolai (christoph friedrich), german writer, b. berlin, march, . a friend of lessing, and moses mendelssohn; he was noted for founding "the universal german library." he wrote anecdotes of friedrich ii., and many other works. died at berlin, jan. . nietzsche (friedrich wilhelm), german writer, b. lutzen, oct. , author of sketches of strauss, schopenhauer, and wagner, and of morgenröthe, and other philosophical works. died . nieuwenhuis (ferdinand jakob domela), dutch publicist, b. utrecht, may, . at first a minister of the lutheran church, on nov. , ' , he told his congregation that he had ceased to believe in christianity, and as an honest man resigned. he then contributed to de banier (banner) de dageraad (dawn) and de vragen des tijds (questions of the time.) on st march, ' he started a socialist paper recht voor allen, now an important daily organ of socialism and freethought. his principle writings are--with jesus, for or against socialism, the religious oath question, the religion of reason, the religion of humanity. on jan. , ' , he was sentenced to one years' solitary confinement for an article he had not written, and was harshly treated till upon pressure of public opinion, he was liberated aug. . he is now member of the dutch parliament. noeldeke (theodor), german orientalist, b. harburg, march, . studied at gottingen, vienna, leyden, and berlin, and has been professor of oriental studies at gottingen, kiel, and strasburg. he has written a history of the koran, ' ; a life of mahomet, ' ; and a literary history of the old testament, which has been translated into french by mm. derembourg and j. soury, ' . noire (ludwig), german monist, b. march, . studied at geissen, and became a teacher at mainz. his works show the influence of spinoza and schopenhauer. he is the author of aphorisms on the monist philosophy, ' , and a work on the origin of speech, ' . he contends that language originates in instinctive sounds accompanying will in associative actions. died march, . noorthouck (john), author of a history of london, , and an historical and classical dictionary, . has been credited with the life of the man after god's own heart. see annet. nordau (max simon), b. of jewish parents at pesth, july, . he became a physician in ' . he has written several books of travels and made some noise by his trenchant work on convential lies of our civilisation. he has since written on the sickness of the century. nork (felix). see korn (selig). nott (josiah clark), dr., american ethnologist, b. columbia, south carolina, march, . he wrote the physical history of the jewish race, types of mankind, ' , and indigenous races of the earth, ' ; the last two conjointly with g. r. gliddon, and with the object of disproving the theory of the unity of the human race. died at mobile, march, . noun (paul), french author of the scientific errors of the bible, . noyes (thomas herbert), author of hymns of modern man, . nunez (rafael), president of columbia, b. carthagena, sept. . he has written many poems and political articles, and in philosophy is a follower of mill and spencer. nuytz (louis andré). see andre-nuytz. nystrom (anton christen), dr. swedish positivist, b. feb. . studied at upsala and became a medical doctor in lund, ' . he served as assistant and field doctor in the dano-prussian war of ' , and now practises an alienist in stockholm, where he has established a positivist society and workmen's institute. has written a history of civilisation. ocellus lucanus, early greek philosopher, who maintained the eternity of the cosmos. an edition of his work was published with a translation by the marquis d'argens, and thomas taylor published an english version. ochino (bernardino tommasini), italian reformer, b. sienna, . a popular preacher, he was chosen general of the capuchins. converted to the reformation by jean valdez, he had to fly to geneva, . invited to england by cranmer, he became prebend of canterbury and preached in london until the accession of mary, when he was expelled and went to zurich. here he became an antitrinitarian, and was banished about for thirty dialogues, in one of which he shows that neither in the bible nor the fathers is there any express prohibition of polygamy. he went to poland and joined the socinians, was banished thence also, and died slaukau, moravia, in . beza ascribes the misfortunes of ochinus, and particularly the accidental death of his wife, to the special interposition of god on account of his erroneous opinions. o'connor (arthur, afterwards condorcet), general, b. mitchells, near bandon (cork), july, . joined the united irishmen and went to france to negotiate for military aid. in may he was tried for treason and acquitted. he entered the french service and rose to distinction. in he married elisa, the only daughter of condorcet, whose name he took, and whose works he edited. he also edited the journal of religious freedom. died at bignon, april, . o'donoghue (alfred h.) irish american counsellor at law, b. about . educated for the episcopal ministry at trinity college, dublin, but became a sceptic and published theology and mythology, an inquiry into the claims of biblical inspiration and the supernatural element in religion, at new york, . oest (johann heinrich) german poet, b. cassel . wrote poems published at hamburg, , and was accused of materialism. offen (benjamin), american freethinker, b. in england, . he emigrated to new york, where he became lecturer to the society of moral philantropists at tammany hall. he wrote biblical criticism and a legacy to the friends of free discussion, and supported the correspondent, free inquirer, and boston investigator. died new york, may, . offray de la mettrie (julian). see lamettrie. o'keefe (j. a.), m.d. educated in germany; author of an essay on the progress of the human understanding, , in which he speaks disparagingly of christianity. he was a follower of kant, and was classed with living authors of great britain in . o'kelly (edmund de pentheny), a descendant of the o'kelly's; author of consciousness, or the age of reason, ; theological papers, published by holyoake; and theology for the people, ' , a series of short papers suggestive of religious theism. oken (lorenz), german morphologist and philosopher, b. offenburg, aug. . he studied at göttingen and became a privat-docent in that university. in a remarkable sketch of natural philosophy, , he advanced a scheme of evolution. he developed his system in a work on generation, , and a manual of natural philosophy, . he was professor at jena, but dismissed for his liberal views. from ' till ' he edited the scientific journal isis. in ' he became a professor at zürich, where he died, aug. . oliver (william), m.d., of bath, who was accused of atheism. died . omar khayyam. see khayyam. omboni (giovanni), lombard naturalist, b. abbiategrasso, june, . is professor of geology at padua, and author of many scientific works. onimus (ernest nicolas joseph), dr., french positivist, b. near mulhouse, dec. . studied medicine at strasburg and paris, and wrote a treatise on the dynamical theory of heat in biological sciences, . in ' he was one of the jury of the vienna exhibition, and obtained the cross of the legion of honor. is author of the psychology in the plays of shakespere, ' , and has written in the revue positive and other periodicals. oort (henricus), dutch rationalist, b. eemnes, dec. . studied theology at leyden, and became teacher at amsterdam. has written many works, of which we mention the worship of baalim in israel, translated by bp. colenso, , and the bible for young people, written with drs. hooykaas and kuenen, and translated by p. h. wickstead, - . orelli (johann kaspar von), learned swiss critic, b. zürich, feb. . edited many classics, and wrote a letter in favor of strauss at the time when there was an outcry at his being appointed professor at zürich. died jan. . osborne (francis), english writer, b. clucksand, beds. . was an adherent of cromwell in the civil war. his advice to a son, , was popular though much censured by the puritans who drew up a complaint against his works and proposed to have them burnt, and an order was passed july, , forbidding them to be sold. died . oscar (l.), swiss writer, author of religion traced back to its source, basel, . he considers religion "a belief in conflict with experience and resting on exaggerated fancies" of animism and mythology. one of his chapters is entitled "the crucifixion of the son of god as christian mythology." ossoli (countess d'). see fuller (margaret). oswald (eugen), german teacher in england. author of many popular school books, and a study of positivism in england, . oswald (felix leopold), american writer, b. belgium, . educated as a physician, he has devoted his attention to natural history, and in pursuit of his studies has travelled extensively. he has contributed to the popular science monthly, the truthseeker and other journals, and has published summerland sketches, or rambles in the backwoods of mexico and central america, ' ; physical education, ' ; the secrets of the east, ' , which argues that christianity is derived from buddhism, and the bible of nature or the principles of secularism, ' . dr. oswald is now employed as curator of natural history in brazil. o'toole (adam duff), irish freethought martyr, burnt to death at hogging (now college) green, dublin, in . holinshed says he "denied obstinatelie the incarnation of our savior, the trinitie of persons in the vnitie of the godhead and the resurrection of the flesh; as for the holie scripture, he said it was but a fable; the virgin marie he affirmed to be a woman of dissolute life, and the apostolic see erronious." "ouida," see ramée (louise de la). ouvry (henry aimé), col., translator of feuchterslebens, dietetics of the soul and rau's unsectarian catechism, and author of several works on the land question. overton (richard), english republican, who wrote a satire on relics, , and a treatise on man's mortality (london, , amsterdam, ) a work designed to show man is naturally mortal. owen (robert), social reformer, b. newton, montgomeryshire, wales, march, . at he was so distinguished by his business talents that he became partner in a cotton mill. in he married the daughter of david dale, and soon afterwards became partner and sole manager at new lanark mills, where he built the first infant schools and improved the dwellings of the workmen. from - he published new views on society, or, essays on the formation of character. in ' he caused much excitement by proclaiming that the religions of the world were all false, and that man was the creature of circumstances. in ' he went to america and purchased new harmony, indiana, from the rappists to found a new community, but the experiment was a failure, as were also others at orbiston, laner, and queenswood, hants. in ' he debated at cincinatti with alex. campbell on the evidences of christianity. he published a numerous series of tracts, robert owen's journal, and the new moral world, ' . he debated on his social system with the rev. j. h. roebuck, r. brindley, etc. as his mind began to fail he accepted the teachings of spiritism. died newton, nov. . owen profoundly influenced the thought of his time in the direction of social amelioration, and he is justly respected for his energy, integrity and disinterested philanthropy. owen (robert dale), son of the above, b. glasgow nov. . was educated by his father till , when he was sent to fellenberg's school, near berne, switzerland. in ' he went to america to aid in the efforts to found a colony at new harmony, indiana. on the failure of that experiment he began with frances wright, in nov. ' , the publication of the free inquirer, which was continued till ' . in that year he had a written discussion with o. bachelor on the existence of god, and the authenticity of the bible, in which he ably championed the freethought cause. he wrote a number of tracts of which we mention situations, ; address on free inquiry, ; prossimo's experience, consistency, galileo and the inquisition. he was elected to congress in ' . after fifteen years of labor he secured the women of indiana independent rights of property. he became charge d'affaires at naples in ' . during the civil war he strongly advocated slave emancipation. like his father he became a spiritualist. died at lake george, june, . paalzow (christian ludwig), german jurist, b. osterburg (altmark), nov. , translated voltaire's commentaries on the spirit of the laws and burigny's examination of the apologists of christianity (leipzic, ), and wrote a history of religious cruelty (mainz, ). died may, . paepe (cesar de). see de paepe. pagano (francisco mario saverio antonio carlo pasquale). italian jurist, philosopher and patriot, b. brienza, . he studied at naples, and became the friend of filangieri. was made professor of criminal law in . for his political essays in three volumes ( - ) he was accused of atheism and impiety. he wrote on criminal process and a work on god and nature. taking part in the provisional government of the neapolitan republic in , he was taken prisoner by the royalists and executed oct. . page (david). scotch geologist, b. aug. . author of introductory and advanced text-books of geology, which went through many editions. he gave advanced lectures in edinburgh, and edited life lights of song, ' . his man where, whence, and whither?, ' , advocating darwinian views, made some stir in scotland. he became professor of geology at durham university. a friend of robert chambers, he was for some time credited with that writer's vestiges of creation, in the scientific details of which he assisted. died at newcastle-on-tyne, march, . paget (violet). english authoress, who, under the pen-name of "vernon lee," has written studies of the eighteenth century in italy and baldwin, dialogues on views and aspirations . since ' she has lived chiefly in florence, and contributes to the principal reviews, an article in the contemporary (may ' ) on "responsibilities of unbelief" being particularly noticeable. miss paget's writings show a cultivated mind and true literary instinct. pageze (l.) french socialist; has written on the concordat and the budget des cultes, ' , separation of church and state, ' , etc. paine (thomas), deist, b. thetford, norfolk, jan., . his father was a quaker and staymaker, and paine was brought up to the trade. he left home while still young, went to london and sandwich, where he married the daughter of an exciseman, and entered the excise. he was selected by his official associates to embody their wants in a paper, and on this work he displayed such talent that franklin, then in london, suggested america as a good field for his abilities. paine went in , and soon found work for his pen. he became editor of the pennsylvanian magazine and contributed to the pennsylvanian journal a strong anti-slavery essay. common sense, published early in , advocating absolute independence for america, did more than anything else to precipitate the great events of that year. each number of the crisis, which appeared during the war, was read by washington's order to each regiment in the service. paine subscribed largely to the army, and served for a short time himself. after peace was declared, congress voted him three thousand dollars, and the state of new york gave him a large farm. paine turned his attention to mechanics, and invented the tubular iron bridge, which he endeavored to introduce in europe. reaching france during the revolution, he published a pamphlet advocating the abolition of royalty. in he published his rights of man, in reply to burke. for this he was outlawed. escaping from england, he went to france, where he was elected to the convention. he stoutly opposed the execution of the king, and was thrown by robespierre into the luxembourg prison, where for nearly a year he awaited the guillotine. during this time he wrote the first part of the age of reason, which he completed on his release. this famous book, though vulnerable in some minor points of criticism, throws a flood of light on christian dogmas, and has had a more extended sale than any other freethought work. as a natural consequence, paine has been an object of incessant slander by the clergy. paine died at new york june, , and, by his own direction was buried on his farm at new rochelle. cobbett is said to have disinterred him and brought his bones to england. pajot (françois). see liniere. paleario (aonio), i.e., antonio, della paglia, italian humanist and martyr, b. about at véroli in the roman campagna. in he went to rome and took place among the brilliant men of letters of court of leo x. after the taking of rome by charles v. he retired to sienna. in he published at lyons an elegant latin poem on the mortality of the soul--modeled on lucretius. he was professor of eloquence at milan for ten years, but was accused of heresy. he had called the inquisition a poignard directed against all men of letters. on july, , he was hung and his body thrown into the flames. a work on the benefit of christ's death has been attributed to him on insufficient grounds. it is attributed to benedetto da mantova. pallas (peter simon), german naturalist and traveller, b. berlin, sept. . educated as a physician at gottingen and leyden, he was invited by catherine ii. to become professor of natural history at st. petersburg. he travelled through siberia and settled in the crimea. in he returned to berlin, where he died sept. . lalande spoke highly of him, and cuvier considered him the founder of modern geology. pallavicino (ferrante), italian poet and wit, b. piacenza . he became a canon of the lateran congregation, but for composing some satirical pieces against pope urban viii. had a price set on his head. he fled to venice, but a false friend betrayed him to the inquisition, and he was beheaded at avignon, march, . palmer (courtlandt), american reformer, b. new york, march, , graduated at the columbia law-school in ' . he was brought up in the dutch reformed church, but became a freethinker while still young. mr. palmer did much to promote liberal ideas. in ' he established and became president of the nineteenth century club, for the utmost liberty of public discussion. he contributed to the freethinker's magazine, truthseeker, etc. a sister married prof. draper with whom he was intimate. died at new york, july, , and was cremated at fresh pond, his friend col. r. g. ingersoll delivering an eulogium. palmer (elihu), american author, b. canterbury, connecticut, . he graduated at dartmouth in , and studied divinity but became a deist in . in he became totally blind from an attack of yellow fever. in he lectured to a deistical society in new york. after this he dictated his principles of nature, , a powerful anti-christian work, reprinted by carlile in ' . he also wrote prospect or view of the moral world from the year . palmer was the head of the society of columbian illuminati founded in new york in . he died in philadelphia, april, . panaetius, stoic philosopher, b. rhodes, a pupil of diogenes the stoic, and perhaps of carneades. about b.c. he visited rome and taught a moderate stoicism, denying the doctrine of the conflagration of the world, and placing physics before dialectics. he wrote a work on duties, to which cicero expresses his indebtedness in his de officiis. died in athens b.c. pancoucke (charles joseph), eminent french publisher, b. lille, nov. . he settled at paris and became acquainted with d'alembert, garat, etc., and was a correspondent of rousseau, buffon and voltaire, whose works he brought out. he translated lucretius, , brought out the mercure de france, projected in the important encyclopédie méthodique, of which there are vols., and founded the moniteur, . died at paris, dec. . pantano (eduardo), italian author of a little book on the sicilian vespers and the commune, catania, . papillon (j. henri fernand), french philosophic writer, b. belfort, june, . he wrote an introduction to chemical philosophy, ' ; contributed to the revue de philosophie positive and the revue des deux mondes. his principal work is entitled nature and life, ' . died at paris dec. . paquet (henri remi rené), french writer, b. charleville, sep. . after studying under the jesuits he went to paris, where he became an advocate, but devoted his main attention to literature. under the anagram of "nérée quépat" he has published la lorgnette philosophique, ' , a dictionary of the great and little philosophers of our time, a study of la mettrie entitled materialist philosophy in the eighteenth century and other works. pare (william), owenite social reformer, b. birmingham, aug. . wrote an abridgment of thompson's distribution of wealth, also works on capital and labor ' , co-operative agriculture, at rahaline, ' , etc. he compiled vol. of the biography of robert owen. died at croydon, june, . parfait (noel), french writer and politician, b. chartres, nov. . took part in the revolution of ' , and wrote many radical brochures. after the coup d'état he took refuge in belgium. in ' was elected deputy and sat on the extreme left. parfait (paul), son of the foregoing, b. paris, . author of l'arsenal de la dévotion, ' , notes to serve for a history of superstition, and a supplement le dossier des pélerinages, ' , and other pieces. died . parisot (jean patrocle), a frenchman who wrote la foy devoilée par la raison, [faith unveiled by reason], a work whose title seems to have occasioned its suppression. parker (theodore), american rationalist, b. lexington, mass., aug. . from his father--a unitarian--he inherited independence of mind, courage, and love of speculation. brought up in poverty he studied hard, and acquired a university education while laboring on the farm. in march, ' , he became an assistant teacher at boston. in june, ' , he was ordained unitarian minister. parker gradually became known as an iconoclast, and study of the german critics made him a complete rationalist, so that even the unitarian body rejected him. a society was established to give him a hearing in boston, and soon his fame was established. his discourse on matters pertaining to religion, ' , exhibited his fundamental views. he translated and enlarged de wette's critical introduction to the old testament. a fearless opponent of the fugitive slave law, he sheltered slaves in his own house. early in ' failing health compelled him to relinquish his duties. died at florence, may, . he bequeathed his library of , volumes to the boston public library. parmenides, a greek philosopher, b. elea, italy, b.c. is said to have been a disciple of xenophanes. he developed his philosophy about b.c. in a didactic poem on nature, fragments of which are preserved by sextus empiricus. he held to reason as our guide, and considered nature eternal. parny (Évariste désiré de forges de), viscount. french poet, b. st. paul, isle of bourbon, feb. . educated in france, he chose the military profession. a disappointed passion for a creole inspired his "amatory poems," and he afterwards wrote the audacious war of the gods, paradise lost, and the gallantries of the bible. his poems, though erotic, are full of elegant charm, and he has been named the french tibullus. he was admitted into the french academy in . died at paris, dec. . parton (james), author, b. canterbury, england, feb. . was taken to the united states when a child and educated at new york. he married miss willis, "fannie fern," and has written many biographies, including lives of thomas jefferson, ' , and of voltaire, ' . he has also written on topics of the time, ' , and church taxation. he resided in new york till ' when he removed to newburyport, massachusetts. parvish (samuel), deistic author of an inquiry into the jewish and christian revelation (london, ), of which a second edition was issued in . pasquier (Étienne). french journalist, b. april, , at paris. brought up to the bar he became a successful pleader. he defended the universities against the jesuits, whom he also attacked in a bitter satire, catéchisme des jésuites. died paris, aug. . passerano (alberto radicati di) count. italian philosopher of last century, attached to the court of victor amedée ii. for some pamphlets written against the papal power he was pursued by the inquisition and his goods seized. he lived in england and made the acquaintance of collins, also in france and holland, where he died about , leaving his goods to the poor. in that year he published at rotterdam recueil de pièces curieuses sur les matieres les plus íntéressantes, etc., which contains a parallel between mahomet and sosem (anagram of moses), an abridged history of the sacerdotal profession, and a faithful and comic recital of the religion of modern cannibals, by zelin moslem; also a dissertation upon death, which was published separately in . the recueil was republished at london in . he also wrote a pretended translation from an arabic work on mohammedanism, satirising the bible, and a pretended sermon by elwall the quaker. pasteur (louis). french scientist b. dôle, dec , became doctor in ' and professor of physic at strassburg in ' . he received the rumford medal of the royal society in ' for his discoveries in polarisation and molecular chemistry. decorated with the legion of honor in ' , he was made commander ' and grand officer ' . his researches into innoculation have been much contested, but his admirers have raised a large institute for the prosecution of his treatment. he was elected to the academy as successor of littré. he gave his name as vice-president of the british secular union. pastoret (claude emmanuel joseph pierre de), marquis, french statesman and writer, b. of noble family at marseilles, oct. . educated by the oratorians at lyons, in he published an elege de voltaire. by his works on zoroaster, confucius and mahomet ( ) and on moses considered as legislator and moralist ( ) he did something for the infant science of comparative religion. his principal work is a learned history of legislation, in vols. ( - ), in which he passes in review all the ancient codes. he embraced the revolution, and became president of the legislative assembly ( oct. ). he proposed the erection of the column of july on the place of the bastille, and the conversion of the church of ste geneviève into the pantheon. on the th june, , he presented a motion for the complete separation of the state from religion. he fled during the terror, but returned as deputy in . in he succeeded his friend volney as member of the french academy, in ' received the cross of the legion of honor, and in ' became chancellor of france. died at paris, sept. . pater (walter horatio), english writer, b. london, aug. . b.a. at oxford in ' , m.a. in ' . has written charming essays in the westminster review, macmillan, and the fortnightly review. in ' he published the renaissance, and in ' marius the epicurean, his sensations and ideas. paterson (thomas), b. near lanark early in this century. after the imprisonment of southwell and holyoake he edited the oracle of reason. for exhibiting profane placards he was arrested and sentenced jan. to three months' imprisonment. his trial was reported under the title god v. paterson (' .) he insisted on considering god as the plaintiff and in quoting from "the jew book" to show the plaintiff's bad character. when released he went to scotland to uphold the right of free publication, and was sentenced nov. ' to fifteen months' imprisonment for selling "blasphemous" publications at edinburgh. on his release he was presented with a testimonial april, , h. hetherington presiding. paterson went to america. patin (gui), french physician, writer, and wit, b. near beauvais aug. . he became professor at the college of france. his reputation is chiefly founded on his letters, in which he attacked superstition. larousse says "c'était un libre penseur de la famille de rabelais." died at paris aug. . patot. see tyssot de patot (s.) pauw (cornelius), learned dutch writer, b. amsterdam, . he wrote philosophical researches on the americans, and also on the egyptians, chinese, and greeks. was esteemed by frederick the great for his ingenuity and penetration. died at xanten, july, . he was the uncle of anacharsis clootz. peacock (john macleay), scotch poet, b. march, . he wrote many poems in the national reformer, and in ' published hours of reverie. died may, . peacock or pecock (reginald), the father of english rationalism, b. about , and educated at oriel college oxford, of which he was chosen fellow in . was successively bishop of st asaph, , and chichester, , by the favor of humphrey, the good duke of gloster. he declared that scripture must in all cases be accommodated to "the doom of reason." he questioned the genuineness of the apostles' creed. in he was accused of heresy, recanted from fear of martyrdom, was deprived of his bishopric, and imprisoned in a monastery at canterbury, where he used to repeat to those who visited him, "wit hath wonder, that reason cannot skan, how a moder is mayd, and god is man." his books were publicly burnt at oxford. he died in . his influence doubtless contributed to the reformation. pearson (karl), author of a volume of essays entitled the ethic of freethought, . educated at cambridge; b.a. ' , m.a. ' . pechmeja (jean de), french writer. a friend of raynal, he wrote a socialistic romance in books in the style of telemachus, called télèphe, . died . peck (john), american writer in the truthseeker. has published miracles and miracle workers, etc. pecqueur (a.), contributor to the rationaliste of geneva, . pelin (gabriel), french author of works on spiritism explained and destroyed, , and god or science, ' . pelletan (charles camille), french journalist and deputy, son of the following; b. paris, june, . studied at the lycée louis le grand. he wrote in la tribune française, and le rappel, and since ' has conducted la justice with his friend clémenceau, of whom he has written a sketch. pelletan (pierre clement eugène), french writer, b. saint-palais-sur-meir, oct. . as a journalist he wrote in la presse, under the name of "un inconnu," articles distinguished by their love of liberty and progress. he also contributed to the revue des deux mondes. in ' he published his profession of faith of the nineteenth century, and in ' the law of progress and the philosophical kings. from ' -' he opposed napoleon in the siècle, and afterwards established la tribune française. in ' he was elected deputy, but his election being annulled, he was re-elected in ' . he took distinguished rank among the democratic opposition. after the battle of sedan he was made member of the committee of national defence, and in ' of the senate, of which he became vice-president in ' . in ' he wrote a study on frederick the great entitled un roi philosophe, and in ' is god dead? died at paris, dec. . pemberton (charles reece). english actor and author, b. pontypool, s. wales, jan. . he travelled over most of the world and wrote the autobiography of pel verjuice, which with other remains was published in . died march, . pennetier (georges), dr., b. rouen, , director of the museum of natural history at rouen. author of a work on the origin of life, ' , in which he contends for spontaneous generation. to this work f. a. pouchet contributed a preface. perfitt (philip william), theist, b. , edited the pathfinder, ' - . preached at south place chapel. wrote life and teachings of jesus of nazareth, ' . periers (bonaventure des). see desperiers. perot (jean marie albert), french banker, author of a work on man and god, which has been translated into english, , and moral and philosophical allegories (paris, ). perrier (edmond), french zoologist, curator at museum of natural history, paris, b. tulle, . author of numerous works on natural history, and one on transformisme, ' . perrin (raymond s.), american author of a bulky work on the religion of philosophy, or the unification of knowledge: a comparison of the chief philosophical and religious systems of the world, . perry (thomas ryley), one of carlile's shopmen, sentenced to three years' imprisonment in newgate for selling palmer's principles of nature. he became a chemist at leicester and in petitioned parliament for the prisoners for blasphemy, paterson and roalfe, stating that his own imprisonment had not fulfilled the judge's hope of his recantation. petit (claude), french poet, burnt on the place de grève in as the author of some impious pieces. petronius, called arbiter (titus), roman epicurean poet at the court of nero, in order to avoid whose resentment he opened his veins and bled to death in a.d. , conversing meanwhile with his friends on the gossip of the day. to him we owe the lines on superstition, beginning "primus in orbe deos fecit timor." petronius is famous for his "pure latinity." he is as plain-spoken as juvenal, and with the same excuse, his romance being a satire on nero and his court. petruccelli della gattina (ferdinando) italian writer, b. naples, , has travelled much and written many works. he was deputy to the naples parliament in ' , and exiled after the reaction. petrus de abano. a learned italian physician, b. abano . he studied at paris and became professor of medicine at padua. he wrote many works and had a great reputation. he is said to have denied the existence of spirits, and to have ascribed all miracles to natural causes. cited before the inquisition in as a heretic, a magician and an atheist, he ably defended himself and was acquitted. he was accused a second time but dying ( ) while the trial was preparing, he was condemned after death, his body disinterred and burnt, and he was also burnt in effigy in the public square of padua. peypers (h. f. a.), dutch writer, b. de rijp, jan. , studied medicine, and is now m.d. at amsterdam. he is a man of erudition and good natured though satirical turn of mind. he has contributed much to de dageraad, and is at present one of the five editors of that freethought monthly. peyrard (françois), french mathematician, b. vial (haute loire) . a warm partisan of the revolution, he was one of those who ( nov. ) incited bishop gobel to abjure his religion. an intimate friend of sylvian maréchal, peyrard furnished him with notes for his dictionnaire des athées. he wrote a work on nature and its laws, - , and proposed the piercing of the isthmus of suez. he translated the works of euclid and archimedes. died at paris oct. . peyrat (alphonse), french writer, b. toulouse, june, . he wrote in the national and la presse, and combated against the second empire. in ' he founded l'avenir national, which was several times condemned. in feb. ' , he was elected deputy of the seine, and proposed the proclamation of the republic. in ' he was chosen senator. he wrote a history of the dogma of the immaculate conception, ' ; history and religion, ' ; historical and religious studies, ' ; and an able and scholarly elementary and critical history of jesus, ' . peyrere (isaac de la), french writer, b. bordeaux, , and brought up as a protestant. he entered into the service of the house of condé, and became intimate with la mothe de vayer and gassendi. his work entitled præadamitæ, , in which he maintained that men lived before adam, made a great sensation, and was burnt by the hangman at paris. the bishop of namur censured it, and la peyrère was arrested at brussels, , by order of the archbishop of malines, but escaped by favor of the prince of condé on condition of retracting his book at rome. the following epitaph was nevertheless made on him: la peyrere ici gît, ce bon israelite, hugenot, catholique, enfin pre-adamite: quatre religions lui plurent à la fois: et son indifférence était si peu commune qu'après ans qu'il eut à faire un choix le bon homme partit, et n'en choisit pas une. died near paris, jan. . pfeiff (johan gustaf viktor), swedish baron, b. upland, . editor of the free religious periodical, the truthseeker, since . he has also translated into swedish some of the writings of herbert spencer. pharmacopulo (a.p.) greek translator of büchner's force and matter, and corresponding member of the international federation of freethinkers. phillips (sir richard), industrious english writer, b. london, . he was hosier, bookseller, printer, publisher, republican, sheriff of london ( - ), and knight. he compiled many schoolbooks, chiefly under pseudonyms, of which the most popular were the rev. j. goldsmith and rev. d. blair. his own opinions are seen most in his million of facts. died at brighton april, . phillippo (william skinner), farmer, of wood norton, near thetford, norfolk. a deist who wrote an essay on political and religious meditations, . pi-y margall (francisco), spanish philosopher and republican statesman, b. barcelona, . the first book he learnt to read was the ruins of volney. studied law and became an advocate. he has written many political works, and translated proudhon, for whom he has much admiration, into spanish. he has also introduced the writings and philosophy of comte into his own country. he was associated with castelar and figueras in the attempt to establish a spanish republic, being minister of the interior, and afterwards president in . pichard (prosper). french positivist, author of doctrine of reality, "a catechism for the use of people who do not pay themselves with words," to which littré wrote a preface, . pierson (allard). dutch rationalist critic, b. amsterdam april, . educated in theology, he was minister to the evangelical congregation at leuven, afterwards at rotterdam and finally professor at heidelberg. he resigned his connection with the church in ' . he has written many works of theological and literary value of which we mention his poems ' , new studies on calvin, ' , and verisimilia, written in conjunction with s. a. naber, ' . pigault-lebrun (guillaume charles antoine), witty french author, b. calais, april, . he studied under the oratorians of boulogne. he wrote numerous comedies and romances, and le citateur, , a collection of objections to christianity, borrowed in part from voltaire, whose spirit he largely shared. in napoleon threatened the priests he would issue this work wholesale. it was suppressed under the restoration, but has been frequently reprinted. pigault-lebrun became secretary to king jerome napoleon, and died at la celle-saint-cloud, july, . pike (j. w.) american lecturer, b. concord (ohio), june, , wrote my religious experience and what i found in the bible, . pillsbury (parker), american reformer, b. hamilton, mass., sep. . was employed in farm work till ' , when he entered gilmerton theological seminary. he graduated in ' , studied a year at andover, was congregational minister for one year, and then, perceiving the churches were the bulwark of slavery, abandoned the ministry. he became an abolitionist lecturer, edited the herald of freedom, national anti-slavery standard, and the revolution. he also preached for free religious societies, wrote pious frauds, and contributed to the boston investigator and freethinkers' magazine. his principal work is acts of the anti-slavery apostles, . piron (alexis), french comic poet, b. dijon, july, . his pieces were full of wit and gaiety, and many anecdotes are told of his profanity. among his sallies was his reply to a reproof for being drunk on good friday, that failing must be excused on a day when even deity succumbed. being blind in his old age he affected piety. worried by his confessor about a bible in the margin of which he had written parodies and epigrams as the best commentary, he threw the whole book in the fire. asked on his death-bed if he believed in god he answered "parbleu, i believe even in the virgin." died at paris, jan. . pisarev (dmitri ivanovich) russian critic, journalist, and materialist, b. . he first became known by his criticism on the scholastics of the nineteenth century. died baden, near riga, july . his works are published in ten vols. petersburg, . pitt (william). earl of chatham, an illustrious english statesman and orator, b. boconnoc, cornwall, nov. . the services to his country of "the great commoner," as he was called, are well known, but it is not so generally recognised that his letter on superstition, first printed in the london journal in , entitles him to be ranked with the deists. he says that "the more superstitious people are, always the more vicious; and the more they believe, the less they practice." atheism furnishes no man with arguments to be vicious; but superstition, or what the world made by religion, is the greatest possible encouragement to vice, by setting up something as religion, which shall atone and commute for the want of virtue. this remarkable letter ends with the words "remember that the only true divinity is humanity." place (francis), english radical reformer and tailor; b. at charing cross. he early became a member of the london, corresponding society. he wrote to carlile's republican and lion. a friend of t. hardy, h. tooke, james mill, bentham, roebuck, hetherington, and hibbert (who puts him in his list of english freethinkers). he was connected with all the advanced movements of his time and has left many manuscripts illustrating the politics of that period, which are now in the british museum. he always professed to be an atheist--see reasoner, march, ' . died at kensington, jan. . platt (james), f.s.s., a woolen merchant and deistic author of popular works on business, ' ; morality, ' ; progress, ' ; life, ' ; god and mammon, etc. pliny (caius plinius secundus), the elder, roman naturalist, b. verona, a.d. . he distinguished himself in the army, was admitted into the college of augurs, appointed procurator in spain, and honored with the esteem of vespasian and titus. he wrote the history of his own time in books, now lost, and a natural history in books, one of the most precious monuments of antiquity, in which his epicurean atheism appears. being with the fleet at misenum, aug. a.d. , he observed the eruption of mount vesuvius, and landing to assist the inhabitants was himself suffocated by the noxious vapors. plumacher (olga), german pessimist, follower of hartmann, and authoress of a work on pessimism in the past and future, heidelberg, . she has also defended her views in mind. plumer (william) american senator, b. newburyport, mass. june, . in he became a baptist preacher, but resigned on account of scepticism. he remained a deist. he served in the legislature eight terms, during two of which he was speaker. he was governor of new hampshire, - , wrote to the press over the signature "cincinnatus," and published an address to the clergy, ' . he lived till june, . plutarch. greek philosopher and historian, b. cheronæa in boetia, about a.d. . he visited delphi and rome, where he lived in the reign of trajan. his parallel lives of forty-six greeks and romans have made him immortal. he wrote numerous other anecdotal and ethical works, including a treatise on superstition. he condemned the vulgar notions of deity, and remarked, in connection with the deeds popularly ascribed to the gods, that he would rather men said there was no plutarch than traduce his character. in other words, superstition is more impious than atheism. died about a.d. . poe (edgar allan), american poet, grandson of general poe, who figured in the war of independence, b. boston, jan. . his mother was an actress. early left an orphan. after publishing tamerlane and other poems, ' , he enlisted in the united states army, but was cashiered in ' . he then took to literary employment in baltimore and wrote many stories, collected as the tales of mystery, imagination, and humor. in ' appeared the raven and other poems, which proved him the most musical and dextrous of american poets. in ' he published eureka, a prose poem, which, though comparatively little known, he esteemed his greatest work. it indicates pantheistic views of the universe. his personal appearance was striking and one of his portraits is not unlike that of james thomson. died in baltimore, oct. . poey (andrés), cuban meteorologist and positivist of french and spanish descent, b. havana, . wrote in the modern thinker, and is author of many scientific memoirs and a popular exposition of positivism (paris, ), in which he has a chapter on darwinism and comtism. pompery (edouard), french publicist, b. courcelles, . a follower of fourier, he has written on blanquism and opportunism, ' , and a life of voltaire, ' . pomponazzi (pietro) [lat. pomponatius], italian philosopher, b. mantua, of noble family, sept. . he studied at padua, where he graduated as laureate of medicine. next year he was appointed professor of philosophy at padua, teaching in concurrence with achillini. he afterwards taught the doctrines of aristotle at ferrara and bologna. his treatise de immortalitate animæ, , gave great offence by denying the philosophical foundation of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. the work was burnt by the hangman at venice, and it is said cardinal bembo's intercession with pope leo x. only saved pomponazzi from ecclesiastical procedure. among his works is a treatise on fate, free will, etc. pomponazzi was a diminutive man, and was nicknamed "peretto." he held that doubt was necessary for the development of knowledge, and left an unsullied reputation for upright conduct and sweet temper. died at bologna, may, , and was buried at mantua, where a monument was erected to his memory. ponnat (de), baron, french writer, b. about . educated by jesuits, he became a thorough freethinker and democrat and a friend of a. s. morin, with whom he collaborated on the rationaliste of geneva. he wrote many notable articles in la libre pensée, le critique, and le candide, for writing in which last he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. he published, under the anagram of de pontan, the cross or death, a discourse to the bishops who assisted at the ecumenical council at rome (brussels, ' ). his principal work is a history of the variations and contradictions of the roman church (paris, ' ). died in . porphyry, greek philosoper of the new platonic school, b. sinia, a.d. his original name was malchus or melech--a "king." he was a pupil of longinus and perhaps of origen. some have supposed that he was of jewish faith, and first embraced and then afterwards rejected christianity. it is certain he was a man of learning and intelligence; the friend as well as the disciple of plotinus. he wrote (in greek) a famous work in fifteen books against the christians, some fragments of which alone remain in the writings of his opponents. it is certain he showed acquaintance with the jewish and christian writings, exposed their contradictions, pointed out the dispute between peter and paul, and referred daniel to the time of antiochus epiphanes. he wrote many other works, among which are lives of plotinus and pythagorus. died at rome about . porzio (simone), a disciple of pomponazzi, to whom, when lecturing at pisa, the students cried "what of the soul?" he frankly professed his belief that the human soul differed in no essential point from the soul of a lion or plant, and that those who thought otherwise were prompted by pity for our mean estate. these assertions are in his treatise de mente humanâ. "posos (juan de)," an undiscovered author using this pen-name, expressed atheistic opinions in a book of imaginary travels, published in dutch at amsterdam in , and translated into german at leipsic, . post (amy), american reformer, b. . from ' she was a leading advocate of slavery abolition, temperance, woman's suffrage and religious reform. died rochester, new york, jan. . potter (agathon louis de). see de potter (a. l.) potter (louis antoine joseph de). see de potter (l. a. j.) potvin (charles), belgian writer b. mons. dec. , is member of the royal academy of letters, and professor of the history of literature at brussels. he wrote anonymously poesie et amour ' , and rome and the family. under the name of "dom jacobus" he has written an able work in two volumes on the church and morality, and also tablets of a freethinker. he was president of "la libre pensée" of brussels from ' to ' , is director of the revue de belgique and has collaborated on the national and other papers. pouchet (felix archimède), french naturalist, b. rouen aug. . studied medicine under dr. flaubert, father of the author of mme. bovary, and became doctor in ' . he was made professor of natural history at the museum of rouen, and by his experiments enriched science with many discoveries. he defended spontaneous generation and wrote many monographs and books of which the principal is entitled the universe, ' . died at rouen, dec. . pouchet (henri charles george), french naturalist, son of the proceeding, b. rouen, , made m.d. in ' , and in ' professor of comparative anatomy in the museum of natural history at paris. in ' he was decorated with the legion of honor. he has written on the plurality of the human race, ' , and collaborated on the siècle, and the revue des deux mondes and to la philosophie positive. pouchkine (a.), see pushkin. pougens (marie charles joseph de), french author, a natural son of the prince de conti, b. paris, aug. . about the age of he was blinded by small pox. he became an intimate friend of the philosophers, and, sharing their views, embraced the revolution with ardor, though it ruined his fortunes. he wrote philosophical researches, , edited the posthumous works of d'alembert, , and worked at a dictionary of the french language. his jocko, a tale of a monkey, exhibits his keen sympathy with animal intelligence, and in his philosophical letters, , he gives anecdotes of voltaire, rousseau, d'alembert, pechmeja, franklin, etc. died at vauxbuin, near soissons, dec. . poulin (paul), belgian follower of baron colins and author of what is god? what is man? a scientific solution of the religious problem (brussels, ), and re-issued as god according to science, ' , in which he maintains that man and god exclude each other, and that the only divinity is moral harmony. poultier d'elmolte (françois martin), b. montreuil-sur-mer, oct. . became a benedictine monk, but cast aside his frock at the revolution, married, and became chief of a battalion of volunteers. elected to the convention he voted for the death of the king. he conducted the journal, l'ami des lois, and became one of the council of ancients. exiled in , he died at tournay in belgium, feb. . he wrote morceaux philosophiques in the journal encyclopédique; victoire, or the confessions of a benedictine; discours décadaires, for the use of theophilantropists, and conjectures on the nature and origin of things, tournay, . powell (b. f.), compiler of the bible of reason, or scriptures of ancient moralists; published by hetherington in . prades (jean martin de), french theologian b. castel-sarrasin, about . brought up for the church, he nevertheless became intimate with diderot and contributed the article certitude to the encyclopédie. on the th nov. he presented to the sorbonne a thesis for the doctorate, remarkable as the first open attack on christianity by a french theologian. he maintained many propositions on the soul, the origin of society, the laws of moses, miracles, etc., contrary to the dogmas of the church, and compared the cures recorded in the gospels to those attributed to esculapius. the thesis made a great scandal. his opinions were condemned by pope benedict xiv., and he fled to holland for safety. recommended to frederick the great by d'alembert he was received with favor at berlin, and became reader to that monarch, who wrote a very anti-christian preface to de prades' work on ecclesiastical history, published as abrége de l'histoire ecclesiastique de fleury, berne (berlin) . he retired to a benefice at glogau (silesia), given him by frederick, and died there in . prater (horatio), a gentleman of some fortune who devoted himself to the propagation of freethought ideas. born early in the century, he wrote on the physiology of the blood, . he published letters to the american people, and literary essays, ' . died july, . he left the bulk of his money to benevolent objects, and ordered a deep wound to be made in his arm to insure that he was dead. preda (pietro), italian writer of milan, author of a work on revelation and reason, published at geneva, , under the pseudonym of "padre pietro." premontval (andre pierre le guay de), french writer, b. charenton, feb. . at nineteen years of age, while in the college of plessis sorbonne, he composed a work against the dogma of the eucharist. he studied mathematics and became member of the academy of sciences at berlin. he wrote le diogene de d'alembert, or freethoughts on man, , panangiana panurgica, or the false evangelist, and vues philosophiques, amst., vols., . he also wrote de la théologie de l'etre, in which he denies many of the ordinary proofs of the existence of a god. died berlin, . priestley (joseph), ll.d., english philosopher, b. fieldhead, near leeds, march, . brought up as a calvinist, he found his way to broad unitarianism. famous as a pneumatic chemist, he defended the doctrine of philosophical necessity, and in a dissertation annexed to his edition of hartley expressed doubts of the immateriality of the sentient principal in man. this doctrine he forcibly supported in his disquisitions on matter and spirit, . through the obloquy these works produced, he lost his position as librarian to lord shelburne. he then removed to birmingham, and became minister of an independent unitarian congregation, and occupied himself on his history of the corruptions of christianity and history of the early opinions concerning jesus christ, which involved him in controversy with bishop horsley and others. in consequence of his sympathy with the french revolution, his house was burnt and sacked in a riot, july, . after this he removed to hackney, and was finally goaded to seek an asylum in the united states, which he reached in . even in america he endured some uneasiness on account of his opinions until jefferson became president. died feb. . pringle (allen), canadian freethinker, author of ingersoll in canada, . proctor (richard anthony), english astronomer, b. chelsea, march, . educated at king's college, london, and at st. john's, cambridge, where he became b.a. in ' . in ' he became fellow of the royal astronomical society, of which he afterwards became hon. sec. he maintained in ' the since-established theory of the solar corona. he wrote, lectured, and edited, far and wide, and left nearly fifty volumes, chiefly popularising science. attracted by newman, he was for a while a catholic, but thought out the question of catholicism and science, and in a letter to the new york tribune, nov. ' , formally renounced that religion as irreconcilable with scientific facts. his remarks on the so-called star of bethlehem in the universe of suns, and other science gleanings, and his sunday lectures, indicated his heresy. in ' he started knowledge, in which appeared many valuable papers, notably one (jan. ' ), "the beginning of christianity." he entirely rejected the miraculous elements of the gospels, which he considered largely a rechauffé of solar myths. in other articles in the freethinkers' magazine and the open court he pointed out the coincidence between the christian stories and solar myths, and also with stories found in josephus. the very last article he published before his untimely death was a vindication of colonel ingersoll in his controversy with gladstone in the north american review. in ' he settled at st. josephs, mobille, where he contracted yellow fever and died at new york, sep. . proudhon (pierre joseph), french anarchist and political thinker, b. besançon, jan. . self-educated he became a printer, and won a prize of , francs for the person "best fitted for a literary or scientific career." in ' appears his memoir, what is property? in which he made the celebrated answer "c'est le vol." in ' the creation of order in humanity appeared, treating of religion, philosophy and logic. in ' he published his system of economical contradictions, in which appeared his famous aphorism, "dieu, c'est le mal." in ' he introduced his scheme of the organisation of credit in a bank of the people, which failed, though proudhon saw that no one lost anything. he attacked louis bonaparte when president, and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and a fine of , francs. on jan. ' he married by private contract while in prison. for his work on justice in the revolution and in the church he was condemned to three years' imprisonment and , francs fine in ' . he took refuge in belgium and returned in ' . died at passy, jan. . among his posthumous works was the gospels annotated, ' . proudhon was a bold and profound thinker of noble aspirations, but he lacked the sense of art and practicability. his complete works have been published in vols. protagoras, greek philosopher, b. abdera, about b.c. is said to have been a disciple of democritus, and to have been a porter before he studied philosophy. he was the first to call himself a sophist. he wrote in a book on the gods, "respecting the gods, i am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." for this he was impeached and banished, and his book burnt. he went to epirus and the greek islands, and died about . he believed all things were in flux, and summed up his conclusions in the proposition that "man is the measure of all things, both of that which exists and that which does not exist." grote, who defends the sophists, says his philosophy "had the merit of bringing into forcible relief the essentially relative nature of cognition." prudhomme (sully). see sully prudhomme. pückler muskau (hermann ludwig heinrich), prince, a german writer, b. muskau, oct. . he travelled widely and wrote his observations in a work entitled letters of a defunct, ; this was followed by tutti frutti, ' ; semilasso in africa, ' , and other works. died feb. . pushkin (aleksandr sergyeevich), eminent russian poet, often called the russian byron, b. pskow, may, . from youth he was remarkable for his turbulent spirit, and his first work, which circulated only in manuscript, was founded on parny's guerre des dieux, and entitled the gabrielade, the archangel being the hero. he was exiled by the emperor, but, inspired largely by reading voltaire and byron, put forward numerous poems and romances, of which the most popular is eugene onéguine, an imitation of don juan. he also wrote some histories and founded the sovremennik (contemporary), . in jan. he was mortally wounded in a duel. putnam (samuel p.), american writer and lecturer, brought up as a minister. he left that profession for freethought, and became secretary to the american secular union, of which he was elected president in oct. . in ' he started freethought at san francisco in company with g. macdonald. has written poems, prometheus, ingersoll and jesus, adami and heva; romances entitled golden throne, waifs and wanderings, and gottlieb, and pamphlets on the problem of the universe, the new god, and the glory of infidelity. putsage (jules), belgian follower of baron colins, founder of the colins philosophical society at mons; has written on determinism and rational science, brussels , besides many essays in la philosophie de l'avenir of paris and la societe nouvelle of brussels. pyat (felix) french socialist, writer and orator, b. vierzon, oct. . his father was religious and sent him to a jesuit college at bourges, but he here secretly read the writings of beranger and courier. he studied law, but abandoned it for literature, writing in many papers. he also wrote popular dramas, as the rag-picker of paris, ' . after ' he lived in england, where he wrote an apology for the attempt of orsini, published by truelove, ' . in ' he founded the journal le combat. elected to the national assembly he protested against the treaty of peace, was named member of the commune and condemned to death in ' . he returned to france after the armistice, and has sat as deputy for marseilles. died, saint gerainte near nice, aug. . pyrrho. greek philosopher, a native of elis, in peloponesus, founder of a sceptical school about the time of epicurus; is said to have been attracted to philosophy by the books of democritus. he attached himself to anaxarchus, and joined her in the expedition of alexander the great, and became acquainted with the philosophy of the magi and the indian gymnosophists. he taught the wisdom of doubt, the uncertainty of all things, and the rejection of speculation. his disciples extolled his equanimity and independence of externals. it is related that he kept house with his sister, and shared with her in all domestic duties. he reached the age of ninety years, and after his death the athenians honored him with a statue. he left no writings, but the tenets of his school, which were much misrepresented, may be gathered from sextus and empiricus. quental. see anthero de quental. "quepat (nérée.") see paquet (rené). quesnay (françois), french economist, b. mérey, june . self educated he became a physician, but is chiefly noted for his tableau economique, , and his doctrine of laissez faire. he derived moral and social rules from physical laws. died versailles, dec. . quinet (edgar), french writer, b. bourgen bresse, feb. . he attracted the notice of cousin by a translation of herder's the philosophy of history. with his friend michelet he made many attacks on catholicism, the jesuits being their joint work. he fought in the revolution of ' , and opposed the second empire. his work on the genius of religion, ' , is profound, though mystical, and his historical work on the revolution, ' is a masterpiece. died at versailles, march, . quintin (jean), heretic of picardy, and alleged founder of the libertines. he is said to have preached in holland and brabant in , that religion was a human invention. quintin was arrested and burnt at tournay in . quris (charles), french advocate of angers, who has published some works on law and la défense catholique et la critique, paris, . rabelais (françois), famous and witty french satirist and philosopher, b. chinon, touraine, jan. . at an early age he joined the order of franciscans, but finding monastic life incompatible with his genial temper, quitted the convent without the leave of his superior. he studied medicine at montpelier about , after which he practised at lyons. his great humorous work, published anonymously in , was denounced as heretical by the clergy for its satires, not only on their order but their creed. the author was protected by francis i. and was appointed curé of meudon. died at paris, april, . his writings show surprising fertility of mind, and coleridge says, "beyond a doubt he was among the deepest as well as boldest thinkers of his age." radenhausen (christian), german philosopher, b. friedrichstadt, dec. . at first a merchant and then a lithographer, he resided at hamburg, where he published isis, mankind and the world ( vols.), ' - ; osiris, ' ; the new faith, ' ; christianity is heathenism, ' ; the true bible and the false, ' ; esther, ' . radicati (alberto di), count. see passerano. ragon (jean marie de), french freemason, b. bray-sur-seine, . by profession a civil engineer at nancy, afterwards chief of bureau to the minister of the interior. author of many works on freemasonry, and the mass and its mysteries compared with the ancient mysteries, . died at paris, . ram (joachim gerhard), holstein philosopher of the seventeenth century, who was accused of atheism. ramaer (anton gerard willem), dutch writer b. jever, east friesland, aug. . from ' he served as officer in the dutch army. he afterwards became a tax collector, and in ' was pensioned. he wrote on schopenhauer and other able works, and also contributed largely to de dageraad, often under the pseudonym of "laçhmé." he had a noble mind and sacrificed much for his friends and the good cause. died feb. . ramee (louise de la), english novelist, b., of french extraction, bury st. edmunds, . under the name of "ouida," a little sister's mispronunciation of louisa, she has published many popular novels, exhibiting her free and pessimistic opinions. we mention tricotin, folle farine, signa, moths and a village commune. she has lived much in italy, where the scenes of several novels are placed. ramee (pierre de la) called ramus, french humanist, b. cuth (vermandois) . he attacked the doctrines of aristotle, was accused of impiety, and his work suppressed . he lost his life in the massacre of st. bartholomew, aug. . ramsey (william james), b. london, june, . becoming a freethinker early in life, he for some time sold literature at the hall of science and became manager of the freethought publishing co. starting in business for himself he published the freethinker, for which in ' he was prosecuted with mr. foote and mr. kemp. tried in march ' , after a good defence, he was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, and on mr. foote's release acted as printer of the paper. ranc (arthur), french writer and deputy, b. poitiers, dec. , and was brought up a freethinker and republican by his parents. he took the prize for philosophy at the college of poitiers, and studied law at paris. he conspired with c. delescluze against the second empire and was imprisoned, but escaped to geneva. he collaborated on la marseillaise, was elected on the municipal council of paris in ' , and deputy, ' . has written under the empire and many other political works. randello (cosimo), italian author of the simple story of a great fraud, being a criticism of the origin of christianity, directed against pauline theology, published at milan, . rapisardi (mario), italian poet, b. catania, sicily, . has translated lucretius, ' , and published poems on lucifer, and the last prayer of pius ix., ' , etc. raspail (françois vincent), french chemist and politician b. carpentras jan. , was brought up by ecclesiastics and intended for the church. he became, while quite young, professor of philosophy at the theological seminary of avignon but an examination of theological dogmas led to their rejection. he went to paris, and from - gave lessons, and afterwards became a scientific lecturer. he took part in the revolution of ' . louis philippe offered him the legion of honor but he refused. taking part in all the revolutionary outbreaks he was frequently imprisoned. elected to the chamber in ' and sat on the extreme left. died at arcueil jan. . rau (herbert), german rationalist b. frankfort feb. . he studied theology and became preacher to free congregations in stuttgart and mannheim. he wrote gospel of nature, a catechism of the religion of the future, and other works. died frankfort sept. . rawson (albert leighton) ll.d. american traveller and author, b. chester, vermont oct. . after studying law, theology, and art, he made four visits to the east, and made in ' - a pilgrimage from cairo to mecca, disguised as a mohammedan student of medicine. he has published many maps and typographical and philological works, and illustrated beecher's life of jesus. has also written on the antiquities of the orient, new york, ' , and chorography of palestine, london, ' . has written in the freethinkers' magazine, maintaining that the bible account of the twelve tribes of israel is non-historical. raynal (guillaume thomas françois) l'abbé, french historian and philosopher, b. saint geniez, april, . he was brought up as a priest but renounced that profession soon after his removal to paris, , where he became intimate with helvetius, holbach, etc. with the assistance of these, and diderot, pechmeja, etc., he compiled a philosophical history of european establishments in the two indies ( vols. and ), a work full of reflections on the religious and political institutions of france. it made a great outcry, was censured by the sorbonne, and was burnt by order of parliament may, . raynal escaped and passed about six years in exile. died near paris, march, . reade (william winwood), english traveller and writer, nephew of charles reade the novelist, b. murrayfield, near crieff, scotland, dec. . he studied at oxford, then travelled much in the heart of africa, and wrote savage africa, ' , the african sketch book, and in ' , the story of the ashantee campaign; which he accompanied as times correspondent. in the martyrdom of man (' ), he rejects the doctrine of a personal creator. it went through several editions and is still worth reading. he also wrote liberty hall, a novel, ' ; the veil of isis, ' , and see saw, a novel, ' . he wrote his last work the outcast, a freethought novel, with the hand of death upon him. died april, . reber (george), american author of the christ of paul, or the enigmas of christianity (new york, ), a work in which he exposes the frauds and follies of the early fathers. reclus (jean jacques elisée), french geographer and socialist, the son of a protestant minister, b. sainte-foy-la-grande (gironde), march, , and educated by the moravian brethren, and afterwards at berlin. he early distinguished himself by his love for liberty, and left france after the coup d'état of dec. ' , and travelled till ' in england, ireland, and the north and south america, devoting himself to studying the social and political as well as physical condition of the countries he visited, the results being published in the tour du monde, and revue des deux mondes, in which he upheld the cause of the north during the american war. in ' he supported the commune and was taken prisoner and sentenced to transportation for life. many eminent men in england and america interceded and his sentence was commuted to banishment. at the amnesty of march ' , he returned to paris, and has devoted himself to the publication of a standard universal geography in vols. in ' he gave two of his daughters in marriage without either religious or civil ceremony. he has written a preface to bakounin's god and the state, and many other works. reddalls (george holland), english secularist, b. birmingham, nov. . he became a compositor on the birmingham daily post, but wishing to conduct a freethought paper started in business for himself, and issued the secular chronicle, ' , which was contributed to by francis neale, h. v. mayer, g. standring, etc. he died oct. . reghillini de schio (m.), professor of chemistry and mathematics, b. of venetian parents at schio in . he wrote in french an able exposition of masonry, , which he traced to egypt; and an examination of mosaism and christianity, ' . he was mixed in the troubles of venice in ' , and fled to belgium, dying in poverty at brussels aug. . regnard (albert adrien), french doctor and publicist, b. lachante (nièvre), march, , author of essais d'histoire et de critique scientifique (paris, ' )--a work for which he could find no publisher, and had to issue himself--in which he proclaimed scientific materialism. losing his situation, he started, with naquet and clemenceau, the revue encyclopédique, which being suppressed on its first number, he started la libre pensée with asseline, condereau, etc. his articles in this journal drew on him and eudes a condemnation of four months' imprisonment. he wrote new researches on cerebral congestion, ' , and was one of the french delegates to the anti-council of naples, ' . has published atheism, studies of political science, dated londres, ' ; a history of england since ; and has translated büchner's force and matter, ' . he was delegate to the freethinkers' international congress at antwerp, ' . regnard (jean françois), french comic poet, b. paris. feb. . he went to italy about , and on returning home was captured by an algerian corsair and sold as a slave. being caught in an intrigue with one of the women, he was required to turn muhammadan. the french consul paid his ransom and he returned to france about . he wrote a number of successful comedies and poems, and was made a treasurer of france. he died as an epicurean, sept. . regnier (mathurin), french satirical poet, b. chartres, dec. . brought up for the church, he showed little inclination for its austerities, and was in fact a complete pagan, though he obtained a canonry in the cathedral of his native place. died at rouen, oct. . reich (eduard) dr., german physician and anthropologist of sclav descent on his father's side, b. olmütz, march . he studied at jena and has travelled much, and published over thirty volumes besides editing the athenæum of jena ' , and universities of grossenbain, ' . of his works we mention man and the soul, ' ; the church of humanity, ' ; life of man as an individual, ' ; history of the soul, ' ; the emancipation of women, ' . reil (johann christian), german physician, b. rauden, east friesland, feb. . intended for the church, he took instead to medicine; after practising some years in his native town he went in to halle, and in he was made professor of medicine at berlin university. he wrote many medical works, and much advanced medical science, displacing the old ideas in a way which brought on him the accusation of pantheism. attending a case of typhus fever at halle he was attacked by the malady, and succumbed nov. . reimarus (hermann samuel), german philologist, b. hamburg, dec. . he was a son-in-law of j. a. fabricus. studied at jena and wittenberg; travelled in holland and england; and was appointed rector of the gymnasium in weimar, , and in hamburg, . he was one of the most radical among german rationalists. he published a work on the principle truths of natural religion, , and left behind the wolfenbüttel fragments, published by lessing in . died at hamburg, march, . strauss has written an account of his services, . reitzel (robert), german american revolutionary, b. baden, . named after blum, studied theology, went to america, walked from new york to baltimore, and was minister to an independent protestant church. studied biology and resigned as a minister, and became speaker of a freethought congregation at washington for seven years. is now editor of der arme teufel of detroit, and says he "shall be a poor man and a revolutionaire all my life." remsburg (john e.), american lecturer and writer, b. . has written a series of pamphlets entitled the image breaker, false claims of the christian church, ' , sabbath breaking, thomas paine, and a vigorous onslaught on bible morals, instancing twenty crimes and vices sanctioned by scripture, ' . renan (joseph ernest), learned french writer, b. tréguier (brittany) feb. . was intended for the church and went to paris to study. he became noted for his linguistic attainment, but his studies and independence of thought did not accord with his intended profession. my faith, he says was destroyed not by metaphysics nor philosophy but by historical criticism. in ' he gave up all thoughts of an ecclesiastic career and became a teacher. in ' he gained the volney prize, for a memoir on the semitic languages, afterwards amplified into a work on that subject. in ' he published his work on averroës and averroïsm. in ' was elected member of the academy of inscriptions, and in ' sent on a mission to syria; having in the meantime published a translation of job and song of songs. here he wrote his long contemplated vie de jesus, ' . in ' he had been appointed professor of hebrew in the institute of france, but denounced by bishops and clergy he was deprived of his chair, which was, however, restored in ' . the pope did not disdain to attack him personally as a "french blasphemer." the vie de jesus is part of a comprehensive history of the origin of christianity, in vols., ' - , which includes the apostles, st paul, anti-christ, the gospels, the christian church, and marcus aurelius, and the end of the antique world. among his other works we must mention studies on religious history (' ), philosophical dialogues and fragments (' ), spinoza (' ), caliban, a satirical drama (' ), the hibbert lecture on the influence of rome on christians, souvenirs, ' ; new studies of religious history,' ; the abbess of jouarre, a drama which made a great sensation in ' ; and the history of the people of israel, ' - . renand (paul), belgian author of a work entitled nouvelle symbolique, on the identity of christianity and paganism, published at brussels in . rengart (karl fr.), of berlin, b. , democrat and freethought friend of c. deubler. died about . renard (georges), french professor of the academie of lausanne; author of man, is he free? , and a life of voltaire, ' . renouvier (charles bernard), french philosopher, b. montpellier, . an ardent radical and follower of the critical philosophy. among his works are manual of ancient philosophy ( vols., ' ); republican manual, ' ; essays of general criticism, ' ; science of morals, ' ; a translation, made with f. pillon, of hume's psychology, ' ; and a sketch of a systematic classification of philosophical doctrines, ' . renton (william), english writer, b. edinburgh, . educated in germany. wrote poems entitled oil and water colors, and a work on the logic of style, ' . at keswick he published jesus, a psychological estimate of that hero, ' . has since published a romance of the last generation called bishopspool, ' . rethore (françois), french professor of philosophy at the lyceum of marseilles, b. amiens, . author of a work entitled condillac, or empiricism and rationalism, ' . has translated h. spencer's classification of sciences. reuschle (karl gustav), german geographer, b. mehrstetten, dec. . he wrote on kepler and astronomy, ' , and philosophy and natural science, ' , dedicated to the memory of d. f. strauss. died at stuttgart, may, . revillon (antoine, called tony), french journalist and deputy, b. saint-laurent-les mâcon (ain), dec. . at first a lawyer in ' , he went to paris, where he has written on many journals, and published many romances and brochures. in ' he was elected deputy. rey (marc michel), printer and bookseller of amsterdam. he printed all the works of d'holbach and rousseau and some of voltaire's, and conducted the journal des savans. reynaud (antoine andre louis), baron, french mathematician, b. paris, sept. . in he became one of the national guard of paris. he was teacher and examiner for about thirty years in the polytechnic school. a friend of lalande. died paris, feb. . reynaud (jean ernest), french philosopher, b. lyons, feb. . for a time he was a saint simonian. in ' he edited with p. leroux the encyclopédie nouvelle. he was a moderate democrat in the assembly of ' . his chief work, entitled earth and heaven, ' , had great success. it was formally condemned by a clerical council held at périgueux. died paris, june, . reynolds (charles b.), american lecturer, b. aug. . was brought up religiously, and became a seventh day baptist preacher, but was converted to freethought. he was prosecuted for blasphemy at morristown, new jersey, may , , , and was defended by col. ingersoll. the verdict was one of guilty, and the sentence was a paltry fine of dollars. has written in the boston investigator, truthseeker, and ironclad age. reynolds (george william macarthur), english writer; author of many novels. wrote errors of the christian religion, . rialle (j. girard de), french anthropologist, b. paris . he wrote in la pensée nouvelle, conducted the revue de linguistique et de philologie comparée, and has written on comparative mythology, dealing with fetishism, etc., ' , and works on ethnology. ribelt (léonce), french publicist, b. bordeaux , author of several political works and collaborator on la morale indépendante. ribeyrolles (charles de), french politician, b. near martel (lot) . intended for the church, he became a social democrat; edited the emancipation of toulouse, and la réforme in ' . a friend of v. hugo, he shared in his exile at jersey. died at rio-janeiro, june, . ribot (théodule), french philosopher, b. guingamp (côtes du-nord) ; has written contemporary english psychology ' , a resume of the views of mill, bain, and spencer, whose principles of psychology he has translated. has also written on heredity, ' ; the philosophy of schopenhauer, ' ; the maladies of memory, personality and will, vols.; and contemporary german psychology. he conducts the revue philosophique. ricciardi (giuseppe napoleone), count, italian patriot, b. capodimonte (naples), july, , son of francesco ricciardi, count of camaldoli, - . early in life he published patriotic poems. he says that never after he was nineteen did he kneel before a priest. in ' he founded at naples il progresso, a review of science, literature, and art. arrested in ' as a republican conspirator, he was imprisoned eight months and then lived in exile in france until ' . here he wrote in the revue indépendante, pointing out that the papacy from its very essence was incompatible with liberty. elected deputy to the neapolitan parliament, he sat on the extreme left. he wrote a history of the revolution of italy in ' (paris ' ). condemned to death in ' , his fortune was seized. he wrote an italian martyrology from - (turin ' ), and the pope and italy, ' . at the time of the ecumenical council he called an anti-council of freethinkers at naples, ' . this was dissolved by the italian government, but it led to the international federation of freethinkers. count ricciardi published an account of the congress. his last work was a life of his friend mauro macchi, ' . died . richepin (jean), french poet, novelist, and dramatist, b. médéah (algeria) in . he began life as a doctor, and during the franco-german war took to journalism. in ' he published the song of the beggars, which was suppressed. in ' appeared les blasphèmes, which has gone through several editions. richer (léon), french deist and journalist, b. laigh, . he was with a. guéroult editor of l'opinion nationale, and in ' founded and edits l'avenir des femmes. in ' he published letters of a freethinker to a village priest, and has written many volumes in favor of the emancipation of women, collaborating with mdlle. desraismes in the women's rights congresses held in paris. rickman (thomas clio), english radical. he published several volumes of poems and a life of his friend thomas paine, , of whom he also published an excellent portrait painted by romney and engraved by sharpe. riem (andreas), german rationalist b. frankenthal . he became a preacher, and was appointed by frederick the great chaplain of a hospital at berlin. this he quitted in order to become secretary of the academy of painting. he wrote anonymously on the aufklaring. died . ritter (charles), swiss writer b. geneva , and has translated into french strauss's essay of religious history, george eliot's fragments and thoughts, and zeller's christian baur and the tübingen school. roalfe (matilda), a brave woman, b. . at the time of the blasphemy prosecutions in , she went from london to edinburgh to uphold the right of free publication. she opened a shop and circulated a manifesto setting forth her determination to sell works she deemed useful "whether they did or did not bring into contempt the holy scriptures and the christian religion." when prosecuted for selling the age of reason, the oracle of reason, etc., she expressed her intention of continuing her offence as soon as liberated. she was sentenced to two months imprisonment jan. ' , and on her liberation continued the sale of the prosecuted works. she afterwards married mr. walter sanderson and settled at galashiels, where she died nov. . robert (pierre françois joseph), french conventionnel and friend of brissot and danton, b. gimnée (ardennes) jan. . brought up to the law he became professor of public law to the philosophical society. he was nominated deputy for paris, and wrote republicanism adapted to france, , became secretary to danton, and voted for the death of the king. he wrote in prudhomme's révolutions de paris. died at brussels . robertson (a. d.), editor of the free enquirer, published at new york, . robertson (john mackinnon), scotch critic, b. arran, nov. . he became journalist on the edinburgh evening news, and afterwards on the national reformer. mr. robertson has published a study of walt whitman in the "round table series." essays towards a critical method, ' , and has contributed to our corner, time, notably an article on mithraism, march, ' , the westminster review, etc. he has also issued pamphlets on socialism and malthusianism, and toryism and barbarism, ' , and edited hume's essay on natural religion, ' . roberty (eugène de), french positivist writer, of russian birth, b. podolia (russia), ; author of works on sociology, paris, ' , and the old and the new philosophy, an essay on the general laws of philosophic development, ' . he has recently written a work entitled the unknowable, ' . robin (charles philippe), french physician, senator member of the institute and of the academy of medecine, b. jasseron (aix), june, . became m.d. in ' , and d.sc. ' . in company with littré he refounded nysten's dictionary of medicine, and he has written many important medical works, and one on instruction. in ' his name was struck out of the list of jurors on the ground of his unbelief in god, and it thus remained despite many protests until ' . in the same year he was elected senator, and sits with the republican left. he has been decorated with the legion of honor. robinet (jean baptiste rené), french philosopher, b. rennes, june, . he became a jesuit, but gave it up and went to holland to publish his curious work, de la nature, , by some attributed to toussaint and to diderot. he continued marsy's analysis of bayle, edited the secret letters of voltaire, translated hume's moral essays, and took part in the recueil philosophique, published by j. l. castilhon. died at rennes, march, . robinet (jean eugène françois), french physician and publicist, b. vic-sur-seille, . he early attached himself to the person and doctrine of auguste comte, and became his physician and one of his executors. during the war of ' he was made mayor of the sixth arrondissement of paris. he has written a notice of the work and life of a. comte, ' , a memoir of the private life of danton, ' , the trial of the dantonists, ' , and contributed an account of the positive philosophy of a. comte and p. lafitte to the "bibliothèque utile," vol. , ' . roell (hermann alexander), german theologian, b. , author of a deistic dissertation on natural religion, published at frankfort in . died amsterdam, july, . rogeard (louis auguste), french publicist, b. chartres, april, . became a teacher but was dismissed for refusing to attend mass. in ' he moved to paris and took part in the revolutionary movement. he was several times imprisoned under the empire, and in ' was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for writing les propos de labienus (london, i.e. zürich), ' . he fled to belgium and wrote some excellent criticism on the bible in the rive gauche. in ' he assisted pyat on le vengeur, and was elected on the commune but declined to sit. an incisive writer, he signed himself "atheist." is still living in paris. rokitansky (karl), german physician and scientist, founder of the viennese school in medicine, b. königgrätz (bohemia) feb. , studied medicine at prague and vienna, and received his degree of doctor in ' . his principal work is a manual of practical anatomy, ' - . died vienna, july, . roland (marie jeanne), née phlipon, french patriot, b. paris, march, . fond of reading, plutarch's lives influenced her greatly. at a convent she noted the names of sceptics attached and read their writings, being, she says, in turn jansenist, stoic, sceptic, atheist, and deist. the last she remained, though miss blind classes her with agnostics. after her marriage in with jean marie roland de la platiêre (b. lyons, ), madame roland shared the tasks and studies of her husband, and the revolution found her an ardent consort. on the appointment of her husband to the ministry, she became the centre of a girondist circle. carlyle calls her "the creature of simplicity and nature, in an age of artificiality, pollution, and cant," and "the noblest of all living frenchwomen." on the fall of her party she was imprisoned, and finally executed, nov. . her husband, then in hiding, hearing of her death, deliberately stabbed himself, nov. . rolph (william henry), german philosopher, b. of english father, berlin, aug. . he became privat-docent of zoology in the university of leipsic, and wrote an able work on biological problems, ' , in which he accepts evolution, discards theology, and places ethics on a natural basis. died aug. . romagnosi (giovanni domenico), italian philosopher and jurist, b. salso maggiore, dec. . he published in an able work on penal legislation, genesis of penal law, many pages of which are borrowed from d'holbach's system of nature. he became professor of law in parma, milan, and pavia. a member of the italian academy, he was named professor at corfu, where he died june, . in ' he wrote elements of philosophy, followed by what is a sound mind? (' ) and ancient moral philosophy, ' . a somewhat obscure writer, he nevertheless contributed to the positive study of sociology. romiti (guglielmo), italian positivist. professor of anatomy in the university of siena. has published anatomical notes, and a discourse which excited some commotion among the theologians. romme (gilbert), french mathematician, b. riou, , became deputy to the legislative assembly in , and to the convention in . in sept. he introduced the new republican calendar, the plan of which was drawn by lalande, and the names assigned by fabre d'eglantine. he advocated the fêtes of reason. being condemned to death, he committed suicide, june, . his brother charles, b. , was also an eminent geometrician, and a friend of laland. he died june, . ronge (johannes), german religious reformer, b. bischopwalde (silesia), oct. . he entered the seminary of breslau, and became a catholic priest in ' . his liberal views and bold preaching soon led to his suspension. in ' his letter denouncing the worship of "the holy coat," exhibited by arnoldi, bishop of treves, made much clamor. excommunicated by the church, he found many free congregations, but was proscribed after the revolution of ' and took refuge in england. in ' he issued a revolutionary manifesto. in ' he returned to frankfort, and in ' settled at darmstadt. died at vienna, oct. . ronsard (pierre), french poet, b. of noble family sept. . he became page to the duke of orleans, and afterwards to james v. of scotland. returning to france, he was a great favorite at the french court. died dec. . roorda van eysinga (sicco ernst willem), dutch positivist, b. batavia (java), aug. . he served as engineer at java, and was expelled about ' for writing on behalf of the javanese. he contributed to the de dageraad and revue positive. died clarens (switzerland), oct. . roquetaillade (jean de la), also known as rupescina, early french reformer of auvillac (auvergne), who entered the order of the franciscans. his bold discourses led to his imprisonment at avignon , by order of innocent vi., when he wrote an apology. accused of magic, nostradamus says he was burnt at avignon in , but this has been disputed. rose (charles h.), formerly of adelaide, australia, author of a light to lighten the gentiles, . rose (ernestine louise) née süsmond potowsky, radical reformer and orator, b. peterkov (poland), jan. . her father was a jewish rabbi. from early life she was of a bold and inquiring disposition. at the age of she went to berlin. she was in paris during the revolution of ' . soon after she came to england where she embraced the views of robert owen, who called her his daughter. here she married mr. william e. rose, a gentleman of broad liberal views. in may ' , they went to the united states and became citizens of the republic. mrs. rose lectured in all the states on the social system, the formation of character, priestcraft, etc. she lectured against slavery in the slave-owning states and sent in ' the first petition to give married women the right to hold real estate. she was one of the inaugurators of the woman's rights movement, and a constant champion of freethought. an eloquent speaker, some of her addresses have been published. defence of atheism, women's rights and speech at the hartford bible convention in ' . about ' she returned to england where she still lives. one of her last appearances at public was at the conference of liberal thinkers at south place chapel in ' , where she delivered a pointed speech. mrs. rose has a fine face and head, and though aged and suffering, retains the utmost interest in the freethought cause. roskoff (georg gustav), german rationalist, b. presburg, hungary, aug. . he studied theology and philosophy at halle, and has written works on hebrew antiquity, ' . the samson legend and herakles myth, ' , and a standard history of the devil in vols., leipzig, ' . ross (william stewart), scotch writer, b. mar. . author of poems and educational works, and editor of secular review, now the agnostic journal. wrote god and his book, ' , and several brochures published under the pen name of "saladin." rosseau (leon), french writer in the rationalist of geneva under the name of l. russelli. he published separately the female followers of jesus, founded the horizon, contributed to la libre pensée, and was editor of l'athée. died . rossetti (dante gabriel), poet and painter, b. of italian parents, london, may, . educated at king's college, he became a student at the royal academy and joined the pre-raphaelites. as a poet artist he exhibited the richest gifts of originality, earnestness, and splendour of expression. died at westgate on sea, april, . rossetti (william michael) critic and man of letters, brother of the preceding, b. london, sep. . educated at king's college, he became assistant secretary in the inland revenue office. he has acted as critic for many papers and edited many works, the chief being an edition of shelley, ' , with a memoir and numerous notes. he is chairman of the committee of the shelley society. rossmaessler (emil adolf), german naturalist b. leipsic march, . studied theology, but abandoned it for science, and wrote many scientific works of repute. in ' he was elected to parliament. among his writings are man in the mirror of nature. ' - . the history of the earth, ' . died as a philosopher april, . roth (julius), dr., german author of religion and priestcraft, leipzig, ; jesuitism, ' . rothenbuecher (adolph), dr., german author of an able little handbook of morals, written from the secular standpoint, cottbus, . rotteck (karl wenceslaus von), german historian and statesman b. freiburg july, . studied in his native town, where in be became professor of history. in he represented his university in the states of baden, where he distinguished himself by his liberal views. he was forbidden by government to edit any paper and was deprived of his chair. this persecution hastened his death, which occurred nov . rotteck's general history of the world ( vols., ) was very popular and gave one of the broadest views of history which had then appeared. rousseau (jean jacques), swiss philosopher, b. geneva, june, . after a varied career he went to paris in and supported himself. in he obtained a prize from the academy of dijon for negative answer to the question "whether the re-establishment of the arts and sciences has conduced to the purity of morals." this success prompted further literary efforts. he published a dictionary of music, the new heloise ( ), a love story in the form of letters, which had great success, and emilius (may ), a moral romance, in which he condemns other education than that of following nature. in this work occurs his confession of faith of a savoyard vicar, discarding the supernatural element in christianity. the french parliament condemned the book june, , and prosecuted the writer, who fled to switzerland. pope clement xviii fulminated against emile, and rousseau received so many insults on account of his principles that he returned to paris and on the invitation of hume came to england in jan. . he knew little english and soon took offence with hume, and asked permission to return to paris, which he obtained on condition of never publishing anything more. he however completed his confessions, of which he had previously composed the first six books in england. rousseau was a sincere sentimentalist, an independent and eloquent, but not deep thinker. his captious temper spoiled his own life, but his influence has been profound and far-reaching. died near paris, july, . rouzade (leonie) madame, french freethought lecturess. has written several brochures and novels, notably le monde renversé, , and ci et ca, ca et la, ideas upon moral philosophy and social progress. writes in malon's revue socialiste, and is one of the editors of les droits des femmes. roy (joseph), french translator of feuerbach's essence of christianity, , and religion, death, immortality, ' . has also translated marx's capital. royer (clemence auguste), french authoress, b. nantes, april, , of catholic royalist family. visiting england in ' , she studied our language and literature. going to switzerland, in ' she opened at lausanne a course of logic and philosophy for women. in ' she shared with proudhon in a prize competition on the subject of taxation. in ' she translated darwin's origin of species, with a bold preface and notes. in ' her philosophical romance the twins of hellas appeared at brussels, and was interdicted in france. her ablest work is on the origin of man and of societies, ' . in this she states the scientific view of human evolution, and challenges the christian creed. this was followed by many memoirs, pre-historic funeral rites, ' ; two hypotheses of heredity, ' ; the good and the moral law, ' . mdlle. royer has contributed to the revue moderne, revue de philosophie, positive, revue d'anthropologie, etc., and has assisted and spoken at many political, social, and scientific meetings. rüdt (p. a.), ph. d., german lecturer and "apostle of unbelief," b. mannheim, dec. . educated at mannheim and carlsruhe, he studied philosophy, philology, and jurisprudence at heidelberg university, ' - . dr. rüdt became acquainted with lassalle, and started a paper, die waffe, and in ' was imprisoned for participation in social democratic agitation. from ' to ' he lived in st. petersburg as teacher, and has since devoted himself to freethought propaganda. several of his addresses have been published. ruelle (charles claude), french writer, b. savigny, . author of the history of christianity, ' , and la schmita, ' . ruge (arnold), german reformer, b. bergen (isle rügen), sept. . studied at halle, jena, and heidelberg, and as a member of the tugenbund was imprisoned for six years. after his liberation in ' he became professor at halle, and with echtermeyer founded the hallische jahrbücher, ' , which opposed church and state. in ' he started die reform. elected to the frankfort assembly, he sat on the extreme left. when compelled to fly he came to england, where he wrote new germany in "cabinet of reason" series, and translated buckle's history of civilisation. he acted as visiting tutor at brighton, where he died dec. . ruggieri (cosmo), florentine philosopher and astrologer, patronised by catherine de medicis. he began to publish almanachs in , which he issued annually. he died at paris in , declaring himself an atheist, and his corpse was in consequence denied christian burial. rumpf (johann wilhelm), swiss author of church, faith, and progress, and the bible and christ, a criticism (strasburg, ). edited das freire wort (basle, ' ). russell (john). see amberley. ryall (malthus questell), was secretary of the anti-persecution union, , and assisted his friend mr. holyoake on the oracle of reason and the movement. died . rydberg (abraham viktor), swedish man of letters, b. jönköping, dec. . he has written many works of which we mention the last athenian roman days, and the magic of the middle ages, which have been translated into english. rystwick (herman van), early dutch heretic who denied hell and taught that the soul was not immortal, but the elements of all matter eternal. he was sent to prison in , and set at liberty upon abjuring his opinion, but having published them a second time, he was arrested at the hague, and burnt to death in . sabin (ibn), al mursi, spanish arabian philosopher, b. murcia about of noble family. about he corresponded with frederick ii., replying to his philosophical questions. committed suicide about . sadoc, a learned jewish doctor in the third century b.c. he denied the resurrection, the existence of angels, and the doctrine of predestination, and opposed the idea of future rewards and punishments. his followers were named after him, sadducees. saga (francesco) de rovigo, italian heretic, put to death for anti-trinitarianism at venice, feb. . saigey (emile), french inspector of telegraph wires. wrote modern physics, , and the sciences in the eighteenth century: physics of voltaire, ' . died . saillard (f.), french author of the revolution and the church (paris, ' ), and the organisation of the republic, ' . sainte beuve (charles augustin), french critic and man of letters b. boulogne, dec. . educated in paris, he studied medicine, which he practised several years. a favorable review of v. hugo's odes and ballades gained him the intimacy of the romantic school. as a critic he made his mark in ' with his historical and critical picture of french poetry in the sixteenth century. his other principal works are his history of port royal, ' - ; literary portraits, ' - ; and causeries du lundi, ' - . in ' he was elected to the academy, and in ' was made a senator. as a critic he was penetrative, comprehensive, and impartial. saint evremond (charles de marguetel de saint denis) seigneur de, french man of letters, b. st. denys-le-guast (normandy), april, . he studied law, but subsequently entered the army and became major-general. he was confined in the bastile for satirising cardinal mazarin. in england he was well received at the court of charles ii. he died in london, sept. , and was buried in westminster abbey. asked on his death-bed if he wished to reconcile himself to god, he replied, he desired to reconcile himself to appetite. his works, consisting of essays, letters, poems, and dramas, were published in vols. . saint-glain (dominique de), french spinozist, b. limoges, about . he went into holland that he might profess the protestant religion more freely; was captain in the service of the states, and assisted on the rotterdam gazette. reading spinoza, he espoused his system, and translated the tractatus theologico-politicus into french, under the title of la clef du sanctuaire, . this making much noise, and being in danger of prosecution, he changed the title to ceremonies superstitieuses des juifs, and also to reflexions curieuses d'un esprit desintéressé, . saint-hyacinthe (themiseul de cordonnier de), french writer, b. orleans, sept. . author of philosophical researches, published at rotterdam, . died near breda (holland), . voltaire published his diner du comte de boulainvilliers under the name of st. hyacinthe. saint john (henry). see bolingbroke, lord. saint lambert (charles, or rather jean françois de), french writer, b. nancy, dec. . after being educated among the jesuits he entered the army, and was admired for his wit and gallantry. he became a devoted adherent of voltaire and an admirer of madame du chatelet. he wrote some articles in the encyclopédie, and many fugitive pieces and poems in the literary journals. his poem, the seasons, procured him admission to the academy. he published essays on helvetius and bolingbroke, and le catéchisme universel. his philosophical works were published in . died paris, feb. . sale (george), english oriental scholar, b. kent, , educated at canterbury. he was one of a society which undertook to publish a universal history, and was also one of the compilers of the general dictionary. his most important work was a translation of the koran, with a preliminary discourse and explanatory notes, . he was one of the founders of the society for the encouragement of learning. died nov. . salieres (a.), contributor to l'athée, . has written a work on patriotism, . sallet (friedrich von), german pantheist poet of french descent, b. neisse (silesia), april, . an officer in the army, he was imprisoned for writing a satire on the life of a trooper. in ' he attended hegel's lectures at berlin, and in ' quitted the army. he wrote a curious long poem entitled the layman's gospel, in which he takes new testament texts and expounds them pantheistically--the god who is made flesh is replaced by the man who becomes god. died reichau (silesia), feb. . salmeron y alonso (nicolas), spanish statesman, b. alhama lo seco, . studied law, and became a democratic journalist; a deputy to the cortes in , and became president thereof during the republic of ' . he wrote a prologue to the work of giner on philosophy and arts, ' , and his own works were issued in . salt (henry stephens), english writer, b. india, sept. ; educated at eton, where he became assistant master. a contributor to progress, he has written literary sketches, ' . a monograph on shelley, and a life of james thomson, "b.v.", . saltus (edgar evertson), american author, b. new york june . studied at concord, paris, heidelberg and munich. in ' he published a sketch of balzac. next year appeared the philosophy of disenchantment, appreciative and well written views of schopenhauer and hartmann. this was followed by the anatomy of negation, a sketchy account of some atheists and sceptics from kapila to leconte de lisle, ' . has also written several novels, and eden, an episode, ' . his brother francis is the author of honey and gall, a book of poems (philadelphia, ' .) salverte (anne joseph eusèbe baconniere de), french philosopher, b. paris, july, . he studied among the oratorians. wrote epistle to a reasonable woman, an essay on what should be believed, , contributed to maréchal's dictionnaire des athées, published an eloge on diderot, , and many brochures, among others a tragedy on the death of jesus christ. elected deputy in ' , he was one of the warm partisans of liberty, and in ' , demanded that catholicism should not be recognised as the state religion. he is chiefly remembered by his work on the occult sciences, ' , which was translated into english, ' . to the french edition of ' littré wrote a preface. he died oct. . on his death bed he refused religious offices. sand (george), the pen name of amandine lucile aurore dupin, afterwards baroness dudnevant, french novelist, b. paris, july, , and brought up by her grandmother at the château de nohant. reading rousseau and the philosophers divorced her from catholicism. she remained a humanitarian. married sept. , baron dudnevant, an elderly man who both neglected and ill-treated her, and from whom after some years she was glad to separate at the sacrifice of her whole fortune. her novels are too many to enumerate. the revolution of ' drew her into politics, and she started a journal and translated mazzini's republic and royalty in italy, died at her chateau of nohant, june, . her name was long obnoxious in england, where she was thought of as an assailant of marriage and religion, but a better appreciation of her work and genius is making way. sarcey (franscique), french critic, b. dourdan, oct. , editor of le xixe. siècle, has written plays, novels, and many anti-clerical articles. "sarrasi," pseudonym of a. de c....; french orientalist b. department of tarn, , author of l'orient devoilé, ' , in which he shows the mythical elements in christianity. saull (william devonshire), english geologist, b. . he established a free geological museum, contributed to the erection of the john street institute, and was principally instrumental in opening the old hall of science, city road. he wrote on the connection between astronomy, geology, etc. he died april, , and is buried in kensal green, near his friends, allen davenport and henry hetherington. saunderson (nicholas), english mathematician b. thurleston (yorkshire), jan. . he lost both his eyes and his sight by small pox when but a year old, yet he became conversant with euclid, archimedes, and diophantus, when read to him in greek. he lectured at cambridge university, explaining newton's mathematical principles of natural philosophy, and even his works on light and color. it was said, "they have turned out whiston for believing in but one god, and put in saunderson, who believes in no god at all." saunderson said that to believe in god he must first touch him. died april, . sauvestre (charles), french journalist, b. mans. , one of the editors of l'opinion nationale. has written on the clergy and education (' ), monita secreta societatis jesu; secret instructions of the jesuits (' ), on the knees of the church (' ), religious congregations unveiled (' ), and other anti-clerical works. he died at paris in . saville (sir george), marquis of halifax, english statesman, b. yorkshire, . he became president of the council in the reign of james ii., but was dismissed for opposing the repeal of the test acts. he wrote several pieces and memoirs. burnet gives a curious account of his opinions, which he probably tones down. sawtelle (c. m.), american author of reflections on the science of ignorance, or the art of teaching others what you don't know yourself, salem, oregon, . sbarbaro (pietro), italian publicist and reformer, b. savona, ; studied jurisprudence. he published a work on the philosophy of research, ' . in ' he dedicated to mauro macchi a book on the task of the nineteenth century, and presided at a congress of freethinkers held at loreto. has written popular works on the conditions of human progress, the ideal of democracy, and an essay entitled from socino to mazzini, ' . schade (georg), german deist, b. apenrade, . he believed in the immortality of brutes. in he was imprisoned for his opinions on the isle of christiansoe. he settled at kiel, holstein, in , where he died in . scherer (edmond), french critic and publicist, b. paris april, . of protestant family, he became professor of exegesis at geneva, but his views becoming too free, he resigned his chair and went to strasburg, where he became chief of the school of liberal protestants, and in the revue de théologie et de philosophie chrétienne, ' - , put forward views which drew down a tempest from the orthodox. he also wrote in the bibliotheque universelle and revue des deux-mondes. some of his articles have been collected as mélanges de critique religieuse, ' ; and mélanges d'histoire religieuse, ' . he was elected deputy in ' , and sat with the republicans of the left. died . scherr (johannes), german author, b. hohenrechberg, oct. . educated at zürich and tübingen, he wrote in ' with his brother thomas a popular history of religious and philosophical ideas, and in ' a history of religion, in three parts. in ' he became professor of history and literature at zürich, and has written many able literary studies, including histories of german and english literature. died at zürich, nov. . schiff (johan moriz), german physiologist, b. frankfort, . educated at berlin and gottingen, he became professor of comparative anatomy at berne, ' - ; of physiology at florence, ' - , and at genoa. has written many physiological treatises, which have been attacked as materialistic. schiller (johann christoph friedrich von), eminent german poet and historian, b. marbech, nov. . his mother wished him to become a minister, but his tastes led him in a different direction. a friend of goethe, he enriched german literature with numerous plays and poems, a history of the netherlands revolt, and of the thirty years' war. he died in the prime of mental life at weimar, may, . schmidt (eduard oskar), german zoologist, b. torgau, feb. . he travelled widely, and became professor of natural history at jena. among the first of germans to accept darwinism, he has illustrated its application in many directions, and published an able work on the doctrine of descent and darwinism in the "international scientific series." died at strasburg, jan. . schmidt (kaspar), german philosopher, b. bayreuth, oct. . studied at berlin, erlangen, and königsberg, first theology, then philosophy. under the pseudonym of "max stirner" he wrote a system of individualism the only one, and his possession (der einzige und sein eigenthum), ' . he also wrote a history of reaction in two parts (berlin, ' ), and translated smith's wealth of nations and say's text-book of political economy. died at berlin, june, . schneeberger (f. j.), austrian writer, b. vienna, sept, . has written some popular novels under the name of "arthur storch," and was one of the founders of the german freethinkers' union. schoelcher ( victor), french philosophist, b. paris, july . while still young he joined the secret society aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera, and studied social questions. he devoted himself from about ' to advocating the abolition of slavery, and wrote many works on the subject. on march, ' , he was made under secretary of the navy, and caused a decree to be issued by the provisional government enfranchising all slaves on french territory. he was elected deputy for martinique ' and ' . after dec. ' , he came to london, where he wrote occasionally in the reasoner and national reformer. he returned to france during the war, and took part in the defence of paris. in ' he was again returned for martinique, and in ' he was elected a life senator. scholl (aurélien), french journalist, b. bordeaux, july, . he began life as a writer on the corsaire, founded satan, le nain jaune, etc., and writes on l'evénement. has written several novels, and le procès de jésus christ, ' . scholl (karl), german writer and preacher to the free religious bodies of mannheim and heidelberg, b. karlsruhe, aug. . he became a minister ' , but was suspended for his free opinions in ' . his first important work was on the messiah legend of the east (hamburg, ' ), and in ' he published a volume on free speech, a collection of extracts from french, english, and american freethinkers. in ' he started a monthly journal of the religion of humanity, es werde licht! which continued for many years. has published many discourses, and written truth from ruins, ' , and on judaism and the religion of humanity, ' . schopenhauer (arthur), german pessimist philosopher, b. danzig, feb. . the son of a wealthy and well-educated merchant and a vivacious lady, he was educated in french and english, and studied at göttingen science, history, and the religions and philosophies of the east. after two visits to italy, and an unsuccessful attempt to obtain pupils at berlin, he took up his abode at frankfort. in he wrote his chief work, the world as will and idea, translated into english in ' . his philosophy is expressed in the title, will is the one reality, all else appearance. he also wrote the two ground problems of ethics, ' , on the freedom of will, and a collection of essays entitled parega and paralipomena (' ). died at frankfort, sept. . schopenhauer was a pronounced atheist, and an enemy of every form of superstition. he said that religions are like glow-worms; they require darkness to shine in. schroeter (eduard), german american writer, b. hannover, june, , studied theology at jena; entered the free-religious communion in ' . in ' , he went to america, living since ' in sauk city, and frequently lecturing there. in ' , he attended the international conference of freethinkers at brussels. he was a constant contributor to the freidenker, of milwaukee, until his death april, . schroot (a.), german author of visions and ideas (berlin, ), natural law and human will; creation and man, and science and life (hamburg, ). schuenemann pott (friedrich), german american, b. hamburg, april, . he joined the "freie gemeinde," and was expelled from prussia in ' . after the revolution he returned to berlin and took part in democratic agitation, for which he was tried for high treason, but acquitted. in ' he removed to america, where he made lecturing tours over the states settling at san francisco. schultze (karl august julius fritz), german writer, b. celle, may, , studied at jena, göttingen and münich, has written an able study on fetishism, leipzig ' , a pamphlet on religion in german schools, ' , a history of the philosophy of the renaissance, ' , and kant and darwin, ' . in ' , he was appointed professor of philosophy in jena, since which he has written the elements of materialism, ' , philosophy of the natural sciences, vols. ' - , and elements of spiritualism, . schumann (robert alexander), german musical composer, b. nekau, july, . he studied law at leipsic, but forsook it for music. he started a musical journal ' , which he edited for some years. his lyrical compositions are unsurpassed, and he also composed a "profane" oratorio, paradise and the peri (' ). his character and opinions are illustrated by his letters. died july, . schweichel (georg julius robert), german writer, b. königsberg, july, . he studied jurisprudence, but took to literature. taking part in the events of ' , after the reaction he went to switzerland. has written several novels dealing with swiss life, also a life of auerbach. he wrote the preface to dulk's irrgang des leben's jesu, . schweitzer (jean baptista von), german socialist poet, b. frankfort, july, . he studied law in berlin and heidelberg; became after lassalle's death president of the german workmen's union, and was sent to parliament in ' . he wrote the zeitgeist and christianity, ' , the darwinians, ' , and several other works. died july, . scot (reginald), english rationalist, author of the discoverie of witchcraft, , the first english work to question the existence of witches. it was burnt by order of king james i, and was republished in . scot died in . scott (thomas), english scholar, b. april . in early life he travelled widely, lived with indians and had been page to chas. x, of france. having investigated christianity, he in later life devoted himself to freethought propaganda by sending scholarly pamphlets among the clergy and cultured classes. from ' - , he issued from mount pleasant, ramsgate, over a hundred different pamphlets by bp. hinds, f. w. newman, kalisch, lestrange, willis, strange, etc., most of which were given away. he issued a challenge to the christian evidence society, and wrote with sir g. w. cox, the english life of jesus ' . altogether his publications extend to twenty volumes. little known outside his own circle, thomas scott did a work which should secure him lasting honor. died at norwood, dec. . seaver (horace holley), american journalist, b. boston, aug. . in ' he became a compositor on the boston investigator, and during kneeland's imprisonment took the editorship, which he continued for upwards of fifty years during which he battled strenuously for freethought in america. his articles were always very plain and to the point. a selection of them has been published with the title occasional thoughts (boston, ' ). with mr. mendum, he helped the erection of the paine memorial hall, and won the esteem of all freethinkers in america. died, aug. . his funeral oration was delivered by colonel ingersoll. sebille (adolphe), french writer, who, under the pseudonym of "dr. fabricus," published god, man, and his latter end, a medico-psychological study, , and letters from a materialist to mgr. dupanloup, - . sechenov or setchenoff (ivan), russian philosopher, who, in , published psychological studies, explaining the mind by physiology. the work made a great impression in russia, and has been translated into french by victor derély, and published in ' with an introduction by m. g. wyrouboff. secondat (charles de). see montesquieu. seeley (john robert), english historian and man of letters, b. london, , educated at city of london school and cambridge, where he graduated in ' . in ' , he was appointed professor of latin in london university. in ' , appeared his ecce homo, a survey of the life and work of jesus christ, published anonymously, and which lord shaftesbury denounced in unmeasured terms as vomitted from the pit of hell. in ' , he became professor of modern history at cambridge, and has since written some important historical works as well as natural religion (' ). prof. seeley is president of the ethical society. segond (louis august), french physician and positivist, author of a plan of a positivist school to regenerate medicine, , and of several medical works. seidel (martin), silesian deist, of olhau, lived at the end of the sixteenth century. he held that jesus was not the predicted messiah, and endeavored to propagate his opinion among the polish socinians. he wrote three letters on the messiah, the foundations of the christian religion, in which he considered the quotation from the old testament in the new, and pointed out the errors of the latter. sellon (edward), english archæologist, author of the monolithic temples of india; annotations on the sacred writings of the hindus, , and other scarce works, privately printed. semerie (eugène), french positivist, b. aix, jan. . becoming physician at charenton, he studied mental maladies, and in ' published a work on intellectual symptoms of madness, in which he maintained that the disordered mind went back from positivism to metaphysics, theology, and then to fetishism. this work was denounced by the bishop of orleans. dr. semerie wrote a simple reply to m. dupanloup, ' . during the sieges of paris he acted as surgeon and director of the ambulance. a friend of pierre lafitte, he edited the politique positive, and wrote positivists and catholics, ' , and the law of the three states, ' . died at grasse, may, . semler (johann salomo), german critic, b. saalfeld, dec. . he was professor of theology at halle and founder of historical biblical criticism there. he translated simon's critical history of the new testament, and by asserting the right of free discussion drew down the wrath of the orthodox. died at halle, march, . serafini (maria alimonda), italian authoress of a catechism for female freethinkers (geneva, ), and a work on marriage and divorce (salerno, ' ). serveto y reves (miguel), better known as michael servetus, spanish martyr, b. villanova (aragon), . intended for the church, he left it for law, which he studied at toulouse. he afterward studied medicine at paris, and corresponded with calvin on the subject of the trinity, against which he wrote de trinitatis erroribus and christianismi restitutio, which excited the hatred of both catholics and protestants. to calvin servetus sent a copy of his last work. calvin, through one trie, denounced him to the catholic authorities at lyons. he was imprisoned, but escaped, and to get to naples passed through geneva, where he was seized at the instance of calvin, tried for blasphemy and heresy, and burnt alive at a slow fire, oct. . seume (johann gottfried), german poet, b. near weissenfels, jan. . he was sent to leipsic, and intended for a theologian, but the dogmas disgusted him, and he left for paris. he lived an adventurous life, travelled extensively, and wrote promenade to syracuse, , and other works. died at teplitz, june, . sextus empiricus, greek sceptical philosopher and physician, who probably lived early in the third century of the christian era. he left two works, one a summary of the doctrines of the sceptics in three books; the other an attack on all positive philosophy. shadwell (thomas), english dramatist, b. straton hall, norfolk, . although damned by dryden in his mac flecknoe, shadwell's plays are not without merit, and illustrate the days of charles ii. died dec. . shaftesbury (anthony ashley cooper), third earl, b. london, feb. . educated by locke, in he was elected m.p. for poole, and proposed granting counsel to prisoners in case of treason. his health suffering, he resigned and went to holland, where he made the acquaintance of bayle. the excitement induced by the french prophets occasioned his letters upon enthusiasm, . this was followed, by his moralists and sensus communis. in he removed to naples, where he died feb. . his collected works were published under the title of characteristics, . they went through several editions, and did much to raise the character of english deism. shakespeare (william). the greatest of all dramatists, b. stratford-on-avon, april, . the materials for writing his life are slender. he married in his th year, went to london, where he became an actor and produced his marvellous plays, the eternal honor of english literature. shakespeare gained wealth and reputation and retired to his native town, where he died april , . his dramas warrant the inference that he was a freethinker. prof. j. r. green says, "often as his questionings turned to the riddle of life and death, and leaves it a riddle to the last without heeding the common theological solutions around him." his comprehensive mind disdained endorsement of religious dogmas and his wit delighted in what the puritans call profanity. mr. birch in his inquiry into the philosophy and religion of shakespeare, sustains the position that he was an atheist. shaw (james dickson), american writer, b. texas, dec. . brought up on a cattle farm, at the civil war he joined the southern army, took part in some battles, and was wounded. he afterwards entered the methodist episcopal ministry, ' ; studied biblical criticism to answer sceptics, and his own faith gave way. he left the church in march, ' , and started the independent pulpit at waco, texas, in which he publishes bold freethought articles. he rejects all supernaturalism, and has written the bible, what is it?, studies in theology, the bible against itself, etc. shelley (percy bysshe), english poet, b. field place (sussex), aug. . from eton, where he refused to fag, he went to oxford. here he published a pamphlet on the necessity of atheism, for which he was expelled from the university. his father, sir timothy shelley, also forbade him his house. he went to london, wrote queen mab, and met miss westbrook, whom, in , he married. after two children had been born, they separated. in ' shelley learned that his wife had drowned herself. he now claimed the custody of his children, but, in march, ' , lord eldon decided against him, largely on account of his opinions. shelley had previously written a letter to lord ellenborough, indignantly attacking the sentence the judge passed on d. i. eaton for publishing paine's age of reason. on dec. ' , shelley married mary, daughter of william godwin and mary wollstonecraft. in ' , fearing their son might also be taken from him, he left england never to return. he went to italy, where he met byron, composed the cenci, the witch of atlas, prometheus unbound, adonais, epipsychidion, hellas, and many minor poems of exquisite beauty, the glory of our literature. he was drowned in the bay of spezzia, july, . shelley never wavered in his freethought. trelawny, who knew him well, says he was an atheist to the last. siciliani (pietro), professor in the university of bologna b. galatina, sep. , author of works on positive philosophy, socialism, darwinism, and modern sociology, ' ; and modern psychogeny, with a preface by j. soury, ' . died dec. ' . sidney (algernon), english republican, and second son of robert, earl of leicester, b. . he became a colonel in the army of parliament, and a member of the house of commons. on the restoration he remained abroad till , but being implicated in the rye house plot, was condemned by judge jeffreys to be executed on tower hill, dec. . sierebois (p.). see boissière. siffle (alexander françois), dutch writer, b. middleburg, may, . studied law at leyden, and became notary at middleburg. he wrote several poems and works of literary value, and contributed to de dageraad. he was a man of wide reading. died at middleburg, oct. . sigward (m.), b. st. leger-sur-dhume, france, april, . an active french democrat and freethinker, and compiler of a republican calendar. he took part in the international congress at paris ' , and is one of the editors of le danton. simcox (edith), author of natural law in the english and foreign philosophical library; also wrote on the design argument in the fortnightly review, , under the signature "h. lawrenny." simon de tournai, a professor at paris university early in the xiiith century. he said that "three seducers," moses, jesus, and muhammad, "have mystified mankind with their doctrines." he was said to have been punished by god for his impiety. simon (richard), learned french theological critic, b. dieppe, may, . brought up by the congregation of the oratory, he distinguished himself by bold erudition. his critical history of the old testament, , was suppressed by parliament. he followed it with a critical history of the new testament, which was also condemned. died at dieppe, april, . simonis.--a physician, b. at lucques and persecuted in poland for his opinions given in an atheistic work, entitled simonis religio, published at cracow, . simpson (george), of the glasgow zetetic society, who in put forward a refutation of the argument a priori for the being and attributes of god, in reply to clarke and gillespie. he used the signature "antitheos." died about . sjoberg (walter), b. may, , at borgo (finland), lives near helsingfors, and took part in founding the utilistiska samfundet there. during the imprisonment of mr. lennstrand he gave bold lectures at stockholm. skinner (william), of kirkcaldy, deist, author of thoughts on superstition or an attempt to discover truth (cupar, ), was credited also with jehovah unveiled or the god of the jews, published by carlile in . slater (thomas), english lecturer, b. sept. . has for many years been an advocate of secularism and co-operation. he was on the town council of bury, and now resides at leicester. slenker (elmina), née drake, american reformer, b. of quaker parents, dec. . at fourteen, she began notes for her work, studying the bible, afterwards published at boston, ' ; she conducts the children's corner in the boston investigator, and has contributed to most of the american freethought papers. has written john's way (' ), mary jones, the infidel teacher (' ), the darwins (' ), freethought stories. resides at snowville, virginia. smith (geritt), american reformer, b. utica (n.y.), march, , graduated at hamilton's college. he was elected to congress in , but only served one session. though of a wealthy slaveholding family, he largely devoted his fortune to the anti-slavery cause. in religion, originally a presbyterian, he came to give up all dogmas, and wrote the religion of reason, ' , and nature the base of a free theology, ' . died, new york, dec. . snoilsky (karl johan gustav), count, swedish poet, b. stockholm, sept. . studied at upsala, ' . displays his freethought in his poems published under the name of "sventröst." socinus [ital. sozzini] (fausto), anti-trinitarian, b. siena, dec. . he adopted the views of his uncle, laelio, ( - ), and taught them with more boldness. in he went to switzerland, and afterwards to poland, where he made many converts, and died march, . sohlman (per august ferdinand), swedish publicist, b. nerika, . he edited the aftonbladet, of stockholm, from ' , and was a distinguished liberal politician. died at stockholm, . somerby (charles pomeroy), american publisher, b. . has issued many important freethought works, and is business manager of the truthseeker. somerset (edward adolphus saint maur), th duke of, b. dec. . educated at eton and oxford. he married a daughter of thomas sheridan. sat as m.p. for totnes, ' - , and was lord of the treasury, ' - , and first lord of the admiralty, ' - . in ' he startled the aristocratic world by a trenchant attack on orthodoxy entitled christian theology and modern scepticism. he also wrote on mathematics and on monarchy and democracy. died nov. . soury (auguste jules), french philosopher, b. paris, . in ' he became librarian at the bibliothèque nationale. he has contributed to the revue des deux mondes, revue nouvelle, and other journals, and has published important works on the bible and archæology, ' ; historical studies on religions, ' ; essays of religious criticism, ' ; jesus and the gospels, ' , a work in which he maintains that jesus suffered from cerebral affection, and which has been translated into english, together with an essay on the religion of israel from his historical studies. studies of psychology, ' , indicated a new direction in m. soury's freethought. he has since written a breviary of the history of materialism, ' ; naturalist theories of the world and of life in antiquity, ' ; natural philosophy, ' ; contemporary psychological doctrines, ' . he has translated noeldeke's literary history of the old testament, ; haeckel's proofs of evolution, ' ; and preyer's elements of general physiology, ' . southwell (charles), english orator, b. london, . he served with the british legion in spain, and became an actor and social missionary. in nov. ' he started the oracle of reason at bristol, for an article in which on "the jew book" he was tried for blasphemy jan. ' , and after an able defence sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, and a fine of one hundred pounds. after coming out he edited the lancashire beacon. he also lectured and debated both in england and scotland; wrote christianity proved idolatry, ' ; apology for atheism, ' ; difficulties of christianity, ' ; superstition unveiled; the impossibility of atheism which he held on the ground that theism was unproved, and another fourpenny wilderness, in answer to g. j. holyoake's criticism of the same. he also wrote about ' , confessions of a freethinker, an account of his own life. in ' he went to new zealand, and died at auckland aug. . souverain (n.), french author of platonism unveiled , a posthumous work. he had been a minister in poitou and was deposed on account of his opinions. sozzini. see socinus. spaink (pierre françois), dutch physician, b. amsterdam, dec. , and studied at the city, wrote for a time on de dageraad, with the pen names "a. th. eist." and "f.r.s." has translated romanes' scientific evidences of organic evolution. spaventa (bertrando), italian philosopher, b. . since ' he has been professor of philosophy at naples. has written upon the philosophy of kant, gioberti, spinoza, hegel, etc. died . specht (karl august), dr. german writer, b. lhweina, july, . has been for many years editor of menschenthum at gotha, and has written on brain and soul, theology and science and a popular history of the world's development, which has gone through several editions. dr. specht is a leading member of the german freethinkers' union. spencer (herbert), english philosopher, b. derby, . he was articled to a civil engineer, but drifted into literature. he wrote in the westminster review, and at the house of dr. chapman met mill, lewes and "george eliot." his first important work was social statistics, ' . four years later appeared his principles of psychology, which with first principles, ' ; principles of biology, ' ; principles of sociology, ' - , and data of ethics, ' , form part of his "synthetic philosophy" in which he applies the doctrines of evolution to the phenomena of mind and society no less than to animal life. he has also published essays, vols, ' - ; a work on education ' ; recent discussions on science, philosophy and morals, ' ; the study of sociology, ' ; descriptive sociology, ' - , an immense work compiled under his direction. also papers directed against socialism; the coming slavery, ' ; and man and the state, ' , and has contributed many articles to the best reviews. spinoza (baruch), pantheistic philosopher, b. of jewish parents, amsterdam, nov. . he early engaged in the study of theology and philosophy, and, making no secret of his doubts, was excommunicated by the synagogue, july, . about the same time he narrowly escaped death by a fanatic's dagger. to avoid persecution, he retired to rhinsburg, and devoted himself to philosophy, earning his living by polishing lenses. about he settled at the hague, where he remained until his death. in he issued his tractatus theologico-politicus, which made a great outcry; and for more than a century this great thinker, whose life was gentle and self-denying, was stigmatized as an atheist, a monster, and a blasphemer. a re-action followed, with lessing and goethe, upon whom he had great influence. though formerly stigmatized as an atheist, spinoza is now generally recognised as among the greatest philosophers. he died in poverty at the hague, feb. . his ethics was published with his opera posthuma. the bi-centenary of his death was celebrated there by an eloquent address from m. rénan. spooner (lysander), american writer, b. athol (mass.), jan. . his first pamphlet was a deist's reply to the alleged supernatural evidences of christianity. he started letter-carrying from boston to new york, but was overwhelmed with prosecutions. he published many works against slavery, and in favor of individualism. died at boston, may, . stabili (francesco), see cecco' d'ascoli. stamm (august theodor), german humanist, wrote the religion of action, translated into english, . after the events of ' , he came to england, went to america, aug. ' . standring (george), english lecturer and writer, b. oct. , was for some years chorister at a ritualistic church, but discarded theology after independent inquiry in ' . he became hon. sec. of the national secular society about ' , resigning on appointment of paid sec., was auditor and subsequently vice-president. started republican chronicle, april, , this was afterwards called the republican, and in sept. ' the radical. he is sec. of the london secular federation, and has contributed to the national reformer, freethinker, progress, our corner, reynolds's and pall mall gazette. his brother, sam., b. july, , is also an active freethinker. stanley (f. lloyd), american author of an outline of the future religion of the world (new york and london, ), a deistic work in which he criticises preceding religions. stanton (elizabeth, née cady), american reformer, b. johnstone, new york, nov. . a friend of ernestine rose and lucretia mott, she was associated with them in the anti-slavery and the woman's rights crusades, of which last the first convention was held at her home in seneca falls, july ' . she edited with her friends, susan anthony and parker pilsbury, the revolution, and is joint author of history of woman's suffrage (' - ). she has written in the north american review notably on "has christianity benefited woman," may, . stap (a.), author of historic studies on the origins of christianity. bruxelles, , and the immaculate conception, . starcke (carl nicolay), dr. and teacher of philosophy in the university of copenhagen, b. march, . a decided disciple of feuerbach on whom he published a dissertation in ' . this able monograph on the whole doctrine of the german philosopher was in ' , published in a german edition. prof. starcke has since published in the "international scientific series," a work on the primitive family, in which he critically surveys the views of lubbock, maine, mclennan, etc. he is now engaged on a work on ethics based on the doctrines of ludwig feuerbach. stecchetti (lorenzo). see guerrini (o.) stefanoni (luigi). italian writer and publicist, b. milan, . in ' , his first romance, the spanish in italy was suppressed by the austrians. he joined garibaldi's volunteers and contributed to unita italiana. in ' , he founded at milan the society of freethinkers and the organ il libero pensiero, in which he wrote a critical history of superstition, afterwards published separately vols. ' . he also compiled a philosophical dictionary, ' - ; and wrote several romances as l'inferno, the red and black of rome, etc. he translated büchner's force and matter, morin's jesus réduit, la mettrie's man-machine, letourneau's physiology of the passions, and feuerbach's essence of religion. steinbart (gotthelf, samuel), german rationalist, b. züllichau, sept. . brought up in a pietist school, he became a freethinker through reading voltaire. in ' , he became prof. of philosophy at frankfurt-on-the-oder, and wrote a system of pure philosophy, ' . died, feb. . steinthal (hajjim), german philologist, b. gröbzig, may, , has written many works on language and mythology. steller (johann), advocate at leipsic, published an heretical work, pilatus liberatoris jesu subsidio defensus, dresden, . "stendhal (m. de)," pseud, see beyle (m. h.) stephen (sir james fitzjames), english judge and writer, b. london, march, . studied at cambridge, graduated b.a. ' , and was called to the bar in ' . he was counsel for the rev. rowland williams when tried for heresy for writing in essays and reviews, and his speech was reprinted in ' . he wrote in the saturday review, and reprinted essays by a barrister. from dec. ' , to april, ' , he was legal member of the indian council, and in ' was appointed judge. he is author of liberty, equality, and fraternity, ' , and some valuable legal works. he has written much in the nineteenth century, notably on the blasphemy law ' , and modern catholicism, oct. ' . stephen (leslie), english man of letters, brother of preceding, b. london, nov. . educated at cambridge where he graduated m.a., ' . he married a daughter of thackeray, and became editor of the cornhill magazine from ' - , when he resigned to edit the dictionary of national biography. mr. stephen also contributed to macmillan, the fortnightly, and other reviews. some of his boldest writing is found in essays on freethinking and plainspeaking, ' . he has also written an important history of english thought in the eighteenth century, ' , dealing with the deistic movement, and the science of ethics, ' , besides many literary works. stern (j)., rabbiner, german writer, b. of jewish parents, liederstetten (wurtemburg), his father being rabbi of the town. in ' he went to the talmud high school, presburg and studied the kabbalah, which he intended to translate into german. to do this he studied spinoza, whose philosophy converted him. in ' he graduated at stuttgart. he founded a society, to which he gave discourses collected in his first book, gottesflamme, ' . his old and new faith among the jews, ' , was much attacked by the orthodox jews. in women in the talmud, ' , he pleaded for mixed marriages. he has also written jesus as a jewish reformer, the egyptian religion and positivism, and is the pentateuch by moses? in ' he went to live at stuttgart, where he has translated spinoza's ethics, and is engaged on a history of spinozism. "sterne (carus)"; pseud. see krause (e). stevens (e. a.), of chicago, late secretary of american secular union, b. june, . author of god in the state, and contributor to the american freethought journals. stewart (john), commonly called walking stewart, b. london before . was sent out in as a writer to madras. he walked through india, africa, and america. he was a materialist. died in london, feb. . "stirner (max)." see schmidt (kaspar). stosch (friedrich wilhelm), called also stoss (johann friedrich), b. berlin, , and studied at frankfort-on-the-oder. in he published a little book, concordia rationis et fidei, amst. [or rather berlin]. it was rigorously suppressed, and the possession of the work was threatened with a penalty of five hundred thalers. lange classes him with german spinozists, and says "stosch curtly denies not only the immateriality, but also the immortality of the soul." died . stout (sir robert), new zealand statesman, b. lerwick (shetland isles), . he became a pupil teacher, and in ' left for new zealand. in ' he began the study of the law, was elected to the general assembly in ' , and became attorney-general in march, ' . he has since been minister of education of the colony. strange (thomas lumsden), late madras civil service, and for many years a judge of the high court, madras. a highly religious man, and long an evangelical christian, he joined the plymouth brethren, and ended in being a strong, and then weak theist, and always an earnest advocate of practical piety in life and conduct, and a diligent student and writer. when judge, he sentenced a brahmin to death, and sought to bring the prisoner "to jesus." he professed himself influenced, but at the gallows "he proclaimed his trust to be in rama and not in christ." this set the judge thinking. he investigated christianity's claims, and has embodied the result in his works. the bible, is it the word of god? ' ; the speaker's commentary reviewed, ' ; the development of creation on the earth, ' ; the legends of the old testament, ' ; and the sources and development of christianity, ' . a friend of t. scott and general forlong, he died at norwood, sept. . strauss (david friedrich), german critic, b. ludwigsburg (wurtemburg), jan. . he studied theology at tübengen, was ordained in ' , and in ' became assistant-teacher. his life of jesus critically treated, ' , in which he shows the mythical character of the gospels, aroused much controversy, and he was deprived of his position. in ' the zürich government appointed him professor of church history, but they were obliged to repeal their decision before the storm of christian indignation. his next important work was on the christian doctrines ( vols.), ' . in ' he wrote on julian the apostle, and in ' an account of the life and time of ulrich von hutten. he prepared a new life of christ for the german people, ' , followed by the christ of the creeds and the jesus of history. in ' he published his lectures on voltaire, and two years later his last work the old faith and the new, in which he entirely breaks not only with christianity but with the belief in a personal god and immortality. a devoted servant of truth, his mind was always advancing. he died at his native place, feb. . strindberg (johan august), swedish writer, known as the scandinavian rousseau, b. stockholm, jan. . he has published many prominent rationalistic works, as the red chamber and marriage. the latter was confiscated. he is one of the most popular poets and novelists in sweden. stromer (hjalmar), swedish astronomer, b. . he lectured on astronomy and published several works thereon, and also wrote confessions of a freethinker. died . strozzi (piero), italian general in the service of france, b. of noble florentine family . intended for the church he abandoned it for a military career, and was created marshal of france by henry ii. about . he was killed at the siege of thionville, june , and being exhorted by the duc de guise to think of jesus, he calmly declared himself an atheist. suard (jean baptiste antione), french writer, b. besançon, jan, . he became a devoted friend of baron d'holbach and of garat, and corresponded with hume and walpole. he wrote miscellanies of literature, etc. he had the post of censor of theatres. died at paris july, . sue (marie joseph, called eugène), french novelist, b. paris, dec. . he wrote many romances, of which the mysteries of paris and the wandering jew, ' - , were the most popular. in ' he was elected deputy and sat at the extreme left, but was exiled by the coup d'etat. he died as a freethinker at annecy (savoy), july . sullivan (j.), author of search for deity, an inquiry as to the origin of the conception of god (london, ). sully prudhomme (renè françois armand), french poet, b. paris, march . he studied law but took to poetry and has published many volumes. in ' he was made chevalier of honor, and in ' member of the academy. his poems are of pessimistic cast, and full of delicacy of philosophical suggestion. sunderland (la roy), american author and orator, b. exeter (rhode island), may, . he became a methodist preacher and was prominent in the temperance and anti-slavery movements. he came out of the church as the great bulwark of slavery and opposed christianity during the forty years preceding his death. he wrote many works against slavery and pathetism, ' ; book of human nature, ' , and ideology, vols., ' - . died in quincy (mass.) may, . suttner (bertha von), baroness, austrian author of inventory of a soul, , and of several novels. sutton (henry s.), anonymous author of quinquenergia; or, proposals for a new practical theology, and letters from a father to a son on revealed religion. swinburne (algernon charles), english poet and critic, b. london, april, , educated at oxford, and went to florence, where he spent some time with w. s. landor. atalanta in calydon, a splendid reproduction of greek tragedy, first showed his genius. poems and ballads, , evinced his unconventional lyrical passion and power, and provoked some outcry. in his songs before sunrise, , he glorifies freethought and republicanism, with unsurpassed wealth of diction and rhythm. mr. swinburne has put forward many other volumes of melodious and dramatic poems, and also essays, studies, and prose miscellanies. symes (joseph), english lecturer and writer, b. portland, jan. , of pious methodist parents. in ' he offered himself as candidate for the ministry, and was sent to the wesleyan college, richmond, and in ' went on circuit as preacher. having come to doubt orthodoxy, he resigned in ' , preached his first open freethought lecture at newcastle, dec. ' . had several debates, wrote philosophic atheism, man's place in nature, hospitals not of christian origin, christianity a persecuting religion, blows at the bible, etc. he contributed to the freethinker, and was ready to conduct it during mr. foote's imprisonment. he went to melbourne, dec. ' , and there established the liberator, and has written life and death of my religion, ' ; christianity and slavery, phallic worship, etc. symonds (john addington), english poet and author, b. bristol, oct. , educated at harrow and oxford, and was elected in ' to a fellowship at magdalen college, which he vacated on his marriage. his chief work is on the renaissance in italy, vols., completed in ' . he has also written critical sketches, studies, and poems. ill health compels his living abroad. taine (hippolyte adolphe), d.c.l., brilliant french man of letters, b. vouziers, april, . educated at the college bourbon (now the condorcet lyceum), in ' he took the degree of doctor of letters. in ' appears his french philosophers of the nineteenth century, in which he sharply criticised the spiritualist and religious school. he came to england and studied english literature; his hand history of which was sent in for the academy prize, ' , but rejected on the motion of bishop dupanloup on account of its materialist opinions. also wrote on english positivism, a study of j. s. mill. in ' oxford made him d.c.l., and in nov. ' , he was elected to the french academy; his latest work is the origins of contemporary france. talandier (alfred), french publicist, b. limoges, sept. . after entering the bar, he became a socialist and took part in the revolution of ' . proscribed after dec. he came to england, started trades unions and co-operation, translated smiles's self-help, and wrote in the national reformer. returned to paris in ' and became professor at the lycée henri iv. in ' he was deprived of his chair, but elected on the municipal council of paris, and two years later chosen as deputy, and was re-elected in ' . in ' he published a popular rabelais and has written in our corner on that great freethinker. taubert (a.), the maiden name of dr. hartmann's first wife. she wrote the pessimists and their opponents, . taule (ferdinand), m.d., of strassburg, author of notions on the nature and properties of organised matter. paris, . taurellus (nicolaus), german physician and philosopher, b. montbéhard, nov. , studied medicine at tübingen and basle. for daring to think for himself, and asking how the aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world could be reconciled with the dogma of creation, he was stigmatised as an atheist. wrote many works in latin, the principal of which is philosophiæ triumphans, . he died of the plague sept. . taylor (robert), ex-minister, orator, and critic, b. edmonton, aug. . in he walked guy's and st. thomas's hospital, and became m.r.c.s., . persuaded to join the church, he entered st. john's, cambridge, oct. , in jan. ' graduated b.a., and soon after took holy orders. he was curate at midhurst till ' , when he first became sceptical through discussions with a tradesman. he preached a sermon on jonah which astonished his flock, and resigned. he then went to dublin and published the clerical review and started "the society of universal benevolence." in ' he came to london and started "the christian evidence society," and delivered discourses with discussion; also edited the philalethian. in ' he was indicted for blasphemy, tried oct. , after an able defence he was found guilty, and on feb. ' sentenced to one year's imprisonment in oakham gaol. here he wrote his syntagma on the evidences of christianity, and his chief work, the diegesis, being a discovery of the origins, evidences, and early history of christianity. he also contributed a weekly letter to the lion, which r. carlile started on his behalf. on his liberation they both went on "an infidel mission" about the country, and on may the rotunda, blackfriars, was taken, where taylor attired in canonicals delivered the discourses published in the devil's pulpit. he was again prosecuted, and on july, ' , was sentenced to two year's imprisonment. he was badly treated in gaol, and soon after coming out married a wealthy lady and retired. died at jersey, june, . taylor (thomas), known as "the platonist," b. london, . he devoted his life to the elucidation and propagation of the platonic philosophy. he translated the works of plato, aristotle, porphyry, five books of plotinus, six books of proclus, gamblichus on the mysteries, arguments of celsus taken from origen, arguments of julian against the christians, orations of julian, etc. he is said to have been so thorough a pagan that he sacrificed a bull to zeus. died in walworth, nov. . taylor (william), of norwich, b. nov. . he formed an acquaintance with southey, with whom he corresponded. his translations from the german, notably lessing's nathan the wise, brought him some repute. he also wrote a survey of german poetry and english synonyms, . he edited the norwich iris, , which he made the organ of his political and religions views. in ' he published anonymously a letter concerning the two first chapters of luke, also entitled who was the father of jesus christ? , in which he argues that zacharias was the father of jesus christ. also wrote largely in the monthly review, replying therein to the abbé barruel; and the critical review when edited by fellowes, in which he gave an account of the rationalism of paulus. died at norwich, march, . tchernychewsky (n. g.) see chernuishevsky. "tela (josephus)," the latinised name of joseph webbe who in edited the philosophical library, containing the life and morals of confucius, epicurus, isoscrates, mahomet, etc., and other pieces. webbe is also thought to have been concerned in the production of ecce homo, ' . cushing, in his initials and pseudonyms, refers tela to "joseph webb," - ; an american writer; grand master of freemasons in america; died in boston." i am not satisfied that this is the same person. telesio (bernardino), italian philosopher, b. of noble family at cosenza, . he studied at padua, and became famous for his learning, optical discoveries, and new opinions in philosophy. he wrote in latin on the nature of things according to proper principles, . he opposed the aristotelian doctrine in physics, and employed mathematical principles in explaining nature, for which he was prosecuted by the clergy. he died oct. . his works were placed in the index, but this did not prevent their publication at venice, . telle (reinier), or regnerus vitellius, dutch humanist, b. zierikzee, . he translated servetus on the errors of the trinity, published . died at amsterdam, . testa (giacinto), of messina, italian author of a curious storia di gesù di nazareth, , in which he maintains that jesus was the son of giuseppe pandera, a calabrian of brindisi. thaer (albrecht daniel). german agriculturist, b. celle, may, . studied at gottingen, and is said to have inspired lessing's work on the education of the human race. died oct. . theodorus of cyrene, a greek philosopher, whose opinions resembled those of epicurus. he was banished for atheism from his native city. he resided at athens about b.c. when threatened with crucifixion, he said it mattered little whether he rotted in the ground or in the air. theophile de viau, french satiric poet, b. clerac, . for the alleged publication of le parnasse satyriques, he was accused of atheism, condemned to death, and burnt in effigy. he fled, and was received by the duc de montmorency at chantilly, where he died, sept. . thompson (daniel greenleaf), american author of works on the problem of evil, ' ; the religious sentiments, etc. he is president of the nineteenth century club. thomson (charles otto), captain, b. stockholm, jan. . went to sea in ' and became a merchant captain in ' , and was subsequently manager of the eskilstuna gas works. at eskilstuna he started a utilitarian society in ' , of which he is president. he has done much to support mr. lennstrand in his freethought work in sweden; has translated articles by ingersoll, foote and others, and has lectured on behalf of the movement. he shares in the conduct of fritänkaren. thomson (james), pessimistic poet, b. port glasgow, nov. . educated at the caledonian asylum, london, he became a schoolmaster in the army, where he met mr. bradlaugh, whom he afterwards assisted on the national reformer. to this paper he contributed many valuable essays, translations, and poems, including his famous "city of dreadful night," the most powerful pessimistic poem in the english language, (april, ' , afterwards published with other poems in ' ). "vane's story" with other poems was issued in ' , and "a voice from the nile," and "shelley" (privately printed in ' ). thomson also contributed to the secularist and liberal, edited by his friend foote, who has published many of his articles in a volume entitled satires and profanities, which includes "the story of a famous old jewish firm," also published separately. thomson employed much of his genius in the service of freethought. died june, . thomson (william), of cork. a disciple of bentham, and author of the distribution of wealth, ; appeal for women, ' ; labor reward, ' , and in the co-operative magazine. thorild (thomas), or thoren, swedish writer, b. bohuslau, april, . in he studied at lund, and in went to stockholm, and published many poems and miscellaneous pieces in swedish, latin, german, and english, in which he wrote cromwell, an epic poem. in he wrote common sense on liberty, with a view of extending the liberty of the press. he was a partisan of the french revolution, and for a political work was imprisoned and exiled. he also wrote a sermon of sermons, attacking the clergy, and a work maintaining the rights of women. died at greifswald; oct. . he was a man far in advance of his time, and is now becoming appreciated. thulie (jean baptiste henri), french physician and anthropologist, b. bordeaux, . in ' he founded a journal, "realism." in ' he published a work on madness and the law. he contributed to la pensée nouvelle, defending the views of büchner. he has written an able study, la femme, woman, published in ' . m. thulie has been president of the paris municipal council. tiele (cornelis petrus), dutch scholar, b. leyden, dec. . although brought up in the church, his works all tell in the service of freethought, and he has shown his liberality of views in editing the poems of genestet together with his life, ' . he has written many articles on comparative religion, and two of his works have been translated into english, viz., outlines of the history of religion, a valuable sketch of the old faiths, fourth ed. ' ; and comparative history of the egyptian and mesopotamian religions, ' . tillier (claude), french writer, b. of poor parents, clamecy, april, . he served as a conscript, and wrote some telling pamphlets directed against tyranny and superstition, and some novels, of which we note my uncle benjamin. died at nevers, oct. . his works were edited by f. pyat. tindal (matthew), ll.d., english deist, b. beer-ferris, devon, . educated at oxford, and at first a high churchman, he was induced to turn romanist in the reign of james ii., but returned to protestantism and wrote the rights of the christian church. this work was much attacked by the clergy, who even indicted the vendors. a defence which he published was ordered to be burnt by the house of commons. in he published christianity as old as the creation, to which no less than answers were published. he died aug. , and a second volume, which he left in ms., was destroyed by order of gibson, bishop of london. toland (john), irish writer, b. redcastle, near londonderry, nov. . educated as a catholic, he renounced that faith in early youth, went to edinburgh university, where he became m.a. in , and proceeded to leyden, studying under spanheim, and becoming a sceptic. he also studied at oxford, reading deeply in the bodleian library, and became the correspondent of le clerc and bayle. in he startled the orthodox with his christianity not mysterious, which was "presented" by the grand jury of middlesex and condemned by the lower house of convocation. the work was also burnt at dublin, sept. . he wrote a life of milton ( ), in which, mentioning eikon basilike, he referred to the "suppositious pieces under the name of christ, his apostles and other great persons." for this he was denounced by dr. blackhall before parliament. he replied with amytor, in which he gives a catalogue of such pieces. he went abroad and was well received by the queen of prussia, to whom he wrote letters to serena ( ), which, says lange, "handles the kernel of the whole question of materialism." in he published adeisidænon and origines judaicæ. in nazarenus, on jewish, gentile and mahommedan christianity, in which he gave an account of the gospel of barnabus. he also wrote four pieces entitled tetradymus and pantheisticon, which described a society of pantheists with a liturgy burlesquing that of the catholics. toland died with the calmness of a philosopher, at putney, march, . lange praises him highly. tollemache (hon. lionel arthur), b. , son of baron tollemache, a friend of c. austin, of whom he has written. wrote many articles in fortnightly review, reprinted (privately) as stones of stumbling, ' . has also written safe studies, ' ; recollections of pallison, ' ; and mr. romanes's catechism, ' . tone (theobald wolfe), irish patriot, b. dublin, june, . educated at trinity college in , he obtained a scholarship in , b.a. he founded the society of united irishmen, . kept relations with the french revolutionists, and in induced the french directory to send an expedition against england. he was taken prisoner and committed suicide in prison, dying nov. . topinard (paul), m.d., french anthropologist, b. isle-adam . editor of the revue d'anthropologie, and author of a standard work on that subject published in the library of contemporary science. toulmin (george hoggart), m.d., of wolverhampton. author of the antiquity and duration of the world, ; the eternity of the universe, ; the last being republished in . tournai (simon de). see simon. traina (tommaso), italian jurist. author of a work on the ethics of herbert spencer, turin, . travis (henry), dr., b. scarborough, . he interested himself in the socialistic aspect of co-operation, and became a friend and literary executor to robert owen. in ' - he edited robert owen's journal. he also wrote on effectual reform, free will and law, moral freedom and causation, and a manual of social science, and contributed to the national reformer. died feb. . trelawny (edward john), b. cornwall, nov. . became intimate in italy with shelley, whose body he recovered and cremated in august, . he accompanied byron on his greek expedition, and married a daughter of a greek chief. he wrote adventures of a younger son, ' ; and records of shelley, byron, and the author, ' . he died aug. , and was cremated at gotha, his ashes being afterwards placed beside those of shelley. trelawny was a vehement pagan despising the creeds and conventions of society. swinburne calls him "world-wide liberty's lifelong lover." trenchard (john), english deist and political writer, b. somersetshire, . he studied law, but abandoned it, and was appointed commissioner of forfeited estates in ireland. in conjunction with gordon he wrote cato's letters on civil and religious liberty, and conducted the independent whig. he sat in the house of commons as m.p. for taunton; he also wrote the natural history of superstition, ; but la contagion sacree, attributed to him, is really by d'holbach. died dec. . trevelyan (arthur), of tyneholm, tranent, n.b., a writer in the reasoner and national reformer. published the insanity of mankind (edinburgh, ), and some tracts. he was a vice-president of the national secular society. died at tyneholm, feb. . trezza (gaetano), italian writer, b. verona, dec. . was brought up and ordained a priest, and was an eloquent preacher. study led him to resign the clerical profession. he has published confessions of a sceptic, ' ; critical studies, ' ; new critical studies, ' . he is professor of literature at the institute of high studies, florence. to the first number of the revue internationale ' , he contributed les dieux s'en vont. he also wrote religion and religions, ' ; and a work on st. paul. a study on lucretius has reached its third edition, ' . tridon (edme marie, gustave), french publicist, b. chatillon sur seine, burgundy, june, . educated by his parents who were rich, he became a doctor of law but never practised. in ' he published in le journal des ecoles, his remarkable study of revolutionary history les hébertistes. in may, ' he founded with blanqui, etc., le candide, the precursor of la libre pensée, ' , in both of which the doctrines of materialism were expounded. delegated in ' to the international students congress at liége his speech was furiously denounced by bishop dupanloup; he got more than two years' imprisonment for articles in le candide and la libre pensée, and in ste pelagie contracted the malady which killed him. while in prison he wrote the greater part of his work du molochisme juif, critical and philosophical studies of the jewish religion, only published in ' . after sept. ' , he founded la patrie en danger. in feb. ' he was elected deputy to the bordeaux assembly, but resigned after voting against declaration of peace. he then became a member of the paris commune, retiring after the collapse to brussels where he died aug. . he received the most splendid freethinker's funeral witnessed in belgium. truebner (nicolas), publisher, b. heidelberg, june, . after serving with longman and co., he set up in business, and distinguished himself by publishing works on freethought, religions, philosophy and oriental literature. died london, march, . truelove (edward), english publisher, b. oct. . early in life he embraced the views of robert owen, and for nine years was secretary of the john street institution. in ' and ' he threw in his lot with the new harmony community, hampshire. in ' he took a shop in the strand, where he sold advanced literature. he published voltaire's philosophical dictionary and romances, paine's complete works, d'holbach's system of nature, and taylor's syntagma and diegesis. in ' he was prosecuted for publishing a pamphlet on tyrannicide, by w. e. adams, but the prosecution was abandoned. in ' he was, after two trials, sentenced to four months' imprisonment for publishing r. d. owen's moral physiology. upon his release he was presented with a testimonial and purse of sovereigns. trumbull (matthew m.), american general, a native of london, b. . about the age of twenty he went to america, served in the army in mexico, and afterwards in the civil war. general grant made him collector of revenue for iowa. he held that office eight years, and then visited england. in he went to chicago, where he exerted himself on behalf of a fair trial for the anarchists. tschirnhausen (walthier ehrenfried), german count, b. . he was a friend of leibniz and wolff, and in philosophy a follower of spinoza, though he does not mention him. died . tucker (benjamin r.), american writer, b. dartmouth, mass., april, . edits liberty, of boston. turbiglio (sebastiano), italian philosopher, b. chiusa, july, , author of a work on spinoza and the transformation of his thoughts, . turgenev (ivan sergyeevich), russian novelist, b. orel, oct. . in his novels, fathers and sons and virgin soil he has depicted characters of the nihilist movement. died at bougival, near paris, sept. . turner (william), a surgeon of liverpool, who, under the name of william hammon, published an answer to dr. priestley's letters to a philosophical unbeliever, , in which he avows himself an atheist. tuuk (titia, van der), dutch lady, b. zandt, nov. . was converted to freethought by reading dekker, and is now one of the editors of de dageraad. twesten (karl), german publicist and writer, b. kiel, april, . studied law, ' - , in berlin and heidelberg, and became magistrate in berlin and one of the founders of the national liberal party. wrote on the religious, political, and social ideas of asiatics and egyptians ( vols.), ' . died berlin, oct. . tylor (edward burnet), d.c.l., f.r.s., english anthropologist, b. camberwell, oct. . he has devoted himself to the study of the races of mankind, and is the first living authority upon the subject. he has wrote anahuac, or mexico and the mexicans, ' ; researches into the early history of mankind, ' ; primitive culture; being researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom ( vols.), ' . in this splendid work he traces religion to animism, the belief in spirits. he has also written an excellent handbook of anthropology, an introduction to the study of man and civilisation, ' ; and contributed to the encyclopædia britannica, as well as to periodical literature. he is president of the anthropological society. tyndall (john), ll.d., f.r.s., irish scientist, b. near carlow, . in ' he became a teacher in queenswood college (hants), and afterwards went to germany to study. in ' he went to switzerland with professor huxley, and they wrote a joint work on glaciers. he contributed to the fortnightly review, notably an article on miracles and special providence, ' . in ' he went on a lecturing tour in the united states, and two years later was president of the british association. his address at belfast made a great stir, and has been published. in addition to other scientific works he has published popular fragments of science, which has gone through several editions. tyrell (henry). see church. tyssot de patot (simon), b. of french family in delft, . he became professor of mathematics at deventer. under the pen name of "jacques massé" he published voyages and adventures, bordeaux, , a work termed atheistic and scandalous by reimmann. it was translated into english by s. whatley, , and has been attributed to bayle. ueberweg (friedrich), german philosopher, b. leichlingen jan. ; studied at göttingen and berlin, and became professor of philosophy at königsberg, where he died june, . his chief work is a history of philosophy. lange cites czolbe as saying "he was in every way distinctly an atheist and materialist." uhlich (johann jacob marcus lebericht), german religious reformer, b. köthen feb. . he studied at halle and became a preacher. for his rationalistic views he was suspended in , and founded the free congregation at magdeburg. he wrote numerous brochures defending his opinions. his religion of common sense has been translated and published in america. died at magdeburg, march, . ule (otto), german scientific writer, b. lossow jan. . studied at halle and berlin. in ' he started the journal die natur, and wrote many works popularising science. died at halle aug. . underwood (benjamin f.). american lecturer and writer, b. new york july, . has been a student and a soldier in the civil war. he fought at ball's bluff, virginia, oct. ' , was wounded and held prisoner in richmond for nine months. in ' he edited the index in conjunction with mr. potter, and in ' started the open court at chicago. he has had numerous debates; those with the rev. j. marples and o. a. burgess being published. he has also published essays and lectures, the religion of materialism, influence of christianity on civilisation, etc. his sister, sara a., has written heroines of freethought, new york, . vacherot (etienne), french writer, b. langres, july, . in ' he replaced victor cousin in the chair of philosophy at the sorbonne. for his free opinions expressed in his critical history of the school of alexandria, a work in three vols. crowned by the institute, ' - , he was much attacked by the clergy and at the empire lost his position. he afterwards wrote essays of critical philosophy, ' , and la religion, ' . vacquerie (auguste), french writer, b. villequier, . a friend of victor hugo. he has written many dramas and novels of merit, and was director of le rappel. vaillant (edouard marie), french publicist, b. vierzon, jan. . educated at paris and germany. a friend of tridon he took part in the commune, and in ' was elected muncipal councillor of paris. vairasse (denis) d'alais, french writer of the seventeenth century. he became both soldier and lawyer. author of histoire des sevarambes, ; imaginary travels in which he introduced free opinions and satirised christianity. vale (gilbert) author, b. london, . he was intended for the church, but abandoned the profession and went to new york, where he edited the citizen of the world and the beacon. he published fanaticism; its source and influence, n.y. , and a life of paine, ' . died brooklyn, n.y. aug. . valk (t. a. f. van der), dutch freethinker, who, after being a christian missionary in java, changed his opinions, and wrote in de dageraad between - , using the pen name of "thomas." valla (lorenzo), italian critic, b. piacenza, . having hazarded some free opinions respecting catholic doctrines, he was condemned to be burnt, but was saved by alphonsus, king of naples. valla was then confined in a monastery, but pope nicholas v. called him to rome and gave him a pension. he died there, aug. . vallee (geoffrey), french martyr, b. orleans, . he wrote la béatitude des chréstiens ou le fléo de la foy, for which he was accused of blasphemy, and hanged on the place de gréve, paris, feb. . valliss (rudolph), german author of works on the natural history of gods (leip., ); the eternity of the world, ' ; catechism of human duty, ' , etc. van cauberg (adolphe), belgian advocate. one of the founders and president of the international federation of freethinkers. died . van effen. see effen. vanini (lucilio, afterwards julius cæsar), italian philosopher and martyr, b. taurisano (otranto), . at rome and padua he studied averroism, entered the carmelite order, and travelled in switzerland, germany, holland and france making himself admired and respected by his rationalistic opinions. he returned to italy in , but the inquisition was on his track and he took refuge at venice. in he visited england, and in got lodged in the tower. when released he went to paris and published a pantheistic work in latin on the admirable secrets of nature, the queen and goddess of mortals. it was condemned by the sorbonne and burnt, and he fled to toulouse in ; but there was no repose for freethought. he was accused of instilling atheism into his scholars, tried and condemned to have his tongue cut out, his body burned and his ashes scattered to the four winds. this was done feb. . president gramond, author of history of france under louis xiii., writes "i saw him in the tumbril as they led him to execution, mocking the cordelier who had been sent to exhort him to repentance, and insulting our savior by these impious words. 'he sweated with fear and weakness, and i die undaunted.'" vapereau (louis gustave), french man of letters, b. orleans april, . in ' he became the secretary of victor cousin. he collaborated on the dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques and the liberté de penser, but is best known by his useful dictionnaire universel des contemporains. in ' he was nominated prefect of cantal, but on account of the violent attacks of the clericals was suspended in ' and resumed his literary labors, compiling a universal dictionary of writers, ' , and elements of the history of french literature, - . varnhagen von ense (earl august ludwig philipp), german author, b. dusseldorf, feb. . he studied medicine and philosophy, entered the austrian and russian armies, and served in the prussian diplomatic service. he was an intimate friend of alex. von humboldt, and shared his freethinking opinions. died in berlin, oct. . he vividly depicts the men and events of his time in his diary. vauvenargues (luc de clapiers), marquis; french moralist, b. aix, aug. . at eighteen he entered the army, and left the service with ruined health in . he published in an introduction to the knowledge of the human mind, followed by reflections and maxims, which was deservedly praised by his friend voltaire. died at paris may, . his work, which though but mildly deistic, was rigorously suppressed, and was reprinted about . velthuysen (lambert), dutch physician, b. utrecht, . he wrote many works on theology and philosophy in latin. his works, de officio pastorum and de idolatria et superstitione were proceeded against in , but he was let off with a fine. died . venetianer (moritz), german pantheist, author of der allgeist, , and a work on schopenhauer as a scholastic. vereschagin (vasily), russian painter, b. novgorod, . he studied at paris under gerome, took part in the russo-turkish war, and has travelled widely. the realistic and anti-religious conceptions of his holy family and resurrection were the cause of their being withdrawn from the vienna exhibition in oct. ' , by order of the archbishop. in his autobiographical sketches, translated into english, ' , he shows his free opinions. vergniaud (pierre victurnien), french girondist orator, b. limoges, may, . he studied law, and became an advocate. elected to the legislative assembly in , he also became president of the convention. at the trial of the king he voted for the appeal to the people, but that being rejected, voted death. with gensonné and guadet, he opposed the sanguinary measures of robespierre, and, being beaten in the struggle, was executed with the girondins, oct. . vergniaud was a brilliant speaker. he said: "reason thinks, religion dreams." he had prepared poison for himself, but as there was not enough for his comrades, he resolved to suffer with them. verlet (henri), french founder and editor of a journal, la libre pensée, , and author of a pamphlet on atheism and the supreme being. verliere (alfred), french author of a guide du libre-penseur (paris, ); collaborated la libre pensée, rationaliste, etc. to bishop dupanloup's athéisme et peril social he replied with deisme et peril social, for which he was condemned to several months' imprisonment. vermersch (eugène), french journalist, b. lille about . took part in the commune, and has written on many radical papers. vernes (maurice), french critic, b. mauroy, . has published melanges de critique religieuse, and translated from kuenen and tiele. veron (eugène), french writer and publicist, b. paris, may, . he wrote on many journals, founded la france republicaine at lyons, and l'art at paris. besides historical works he has written l'esthetique in the "library of contemporary science," ' ; the natural history of religions, vols., in the bibliothèque materialiste, ' ; and la morale, ' . viardot (louis), french writer, b. dijon, july, . he came to paris and became an advocate, but after a voyage in spain, left the bar for literature, writing on the globe national and siècle. in ' he founded the revue independante with "george sand," and pierre leroux. he made translations from the russian, and in addition to many works on art he wrote the jesuits, ' ; apology of an unbeliever, translated into english, ' , and republished as libre examen, ' . died . vico (giovanni battista), italian philosopher, b. naples . he became professor of rhetoric in the university of that city, and published a new science of the common nature of nations, , in which he argues that the events of history are determined by immutable laws. it presents many original thoughts. died naples, jan. . virchow (rudolf), german anthropologist, b. schivelbein pomerania, oct. . studied medicine at berlin and became lecturer, member of the national assembly of ' , and professor of pathological anatomy at berlin. his cellular pathology, ' , established his reputation. he was chosen deputy and rose to the leadership of the liberal opposition. his scientific views are advanced although he opposed the haeckel in regard to absolute teaching of evolution. vischer (friedrich theodor), german art critic, b. ludwigsburg, june, . was educated for the church, became a minister, but renounced theology and became professor of and is jahrbücher der gegenwart, ' , was accused of blasphemy and for his freethinking opinions he was suspended two years. at the revolution of ' he was elected to the national assembly. in ' he became professor at zürich. his work on Æsthetic, or the science of the beautiful, ' - , is considered classic. he has also written, old and new, ' , and several anonymous works. died gmunden, sept. . vitry (guarin de) french author of a rapid examination of christian dogma, addressed to the council of . vloten (johannes van), dutch writer, b. kampen, jan. ; studied theology at leiden and graduated d.d. in ' . he has, however, devoted himself to literature, and produced many works, translating plays of shakespeare, editing spinoza, and writing his life--translated into english by a. menzies. he edited also de levensbode, , etc. voelkel (titus), dr., german lecturer and writer, b. wirsitz (prussian poland) dec. . studied (' - ) theology, natural philosophy, and mathematics, and spent some years in france. he returned ' , and was for ten years employed as teacher at higher schools. since ' has been "sprecher" of freethought associations and since ' editor of the neues freireligiöses sonntags-blatt, at magdeburg. in ' he was several times prosecuted for blasphemy and each time acquitted. he represented several german societies at the paris congress of freethinkers, ' . voglet (prosper), belgian singer, b. brussels, . he was blinded through his baptism by a catholic priest, and has in consequence to earn his living as a street singer. his songs, of his own composition, are anti-religious. many have appeared in la tribune du peuple, which he edited. vogt (karl), german scientist, b. giessen, july, , the son of a distinguished naturalist. he studied medicine and became acquainted with agassiz. in ' he was elected deputy to the national assembly. deprived of his chair and exiled, he became professor of natural history at geneva. his lectures on man, his position in creation and in the history of the earth, ' , made a sensation by their endorsement of darwinism. they were translated into english and published by the anthropological society. he has also written a manual of geology, physiological letters, zoological letters, blind faith and science, etc., and has contributed to the leading freethought journals of germany and switzerland. volkmar (gustav), swiss critic, b. hersfeld, jan. . studied at marburg ' - ; became privat docent at zurich, ' , and professor ' . he has written rationalist works on the gospel of marcion, ' ; justin martyr, ' ; the origin of the gospels, ' ; jesus and the first christian ages, ' , etc. volney (constantin françois chassebouf de), count, french philosopher, b. craon (anjou) feb. . having studied at ancenis and angers, he went to paris in . here he met d'holbach and others. in he started for egypt and syria, and in published an account of his travels. made director of commerce in corsica, he resigned on being elected to the assembly. though a wealthy landlord, he wrote and spoke for division of landed property. in his eloquent ruins appeared. during the terror he was imprisoned for ten months. in ' he visited america. returning to france, napoleon asked him to become colleague in the consulship but volney declined. he remonstrated with napoleon when he re-established christianity by the concordat, april . among his other works was a history of samuel and the law of nature. died april, . voltaire (françois marie. arouet de), french poet, historian and philosopher, b. paris nov. . educated by the jesuits, he early distinguished himself by his wit. for a satirical pamphlet on the death of louis xiv he was sent to the bastille for a year and was afterwards committed again for a quarrel with the chevalier de rohan. on his liberation he came to england at the invitation of lord bolingbroke, and became acquainted with the english freethinkers. his lettres philosophiques translated as "letters on the english," , gave great offence to the clergy and was condemned to be burnt. about he retired to the estate of the marquise de châtelet at cirey, where he produced many plays. we may mention mahomet, dedicated to the pope, who was unable to see that its shafts were aimed at the pretences of the church. in he accepted the invitation of frederick ii. to reside at his court. but he could not help laughing at the great king's poetry. the last twenty years of his life was passed at ferney near the genevan territory, which through his exertions became a thriving village. he did more than any other man of his century to abolish torture and other relics of barbarism, and to give just notions of history. to the last he continued to wage war against intolerance and superstition. his works comprise over a thousand pieces in seventy volumes. over fifty works were condemned by the index, and voltaire used no less than one hundred and thirty different pen-names. his name has risen above the clouds of detraction made by his clerical enemies. died may, . voo (g. w. van der), dutch writer, b. april, . for more than half a century he was schoolmaster and teacher of the french language at rotterdam, where he still lives. he contributed many articles to de dageraad. vosmaer (carel), dutch writer, b. the hague march, . studied law at leyden. he edited the tydstroom ( - ) and spectator ( - ), and wrote several works on dutch art and other subjects. died at montreux (switzerland), june, . voysey (charles), english theist, b. london march, . graduated b.a. at oxford, ' , was vicar of healaugh, yorkshire, ' - , and deprived feb. ' for heresy in sermons published in the sling and the stone. he has since established a theistic church in swallow street, piccadilly, and his sermons are regularly published. he has also issued fragments from reimarus, ' , edited the langham magazine and published lectures on the bible and the theistic faith, etc. vulpian (edme felix alfred), french physician, b. jan. . wrote several medical works and upon being appointed lecturer at the school of medicine, ' , was violently opposed on account of his atheism. he was afterwards elected to the academy of sciences. died may, . wagner (wilhelm richard), german musical composer and poet, b. leipsic, may, . from ' - he was conductor of the royal opera, dresden, but his revolutionary sentiments caused his exile to switzerland, where he produced his "lohengrin." in ' he was patronised by ludwig ii. of bavaria, and produced many fine operas, in which he sought that poetry, scenery, and music should aid each other in making opera dramatic. in philosophy he expressed himself a follower of schopenhauer. died at venice, feb. . waite (charles burlingame), american judge, b. wayne county, n.y. jan. . educated at knox college, illinois, he was admitted to the bar in ' . after successful practice in chicago, he was appointed by president lincoln justice of the supreme court of utah. in ' he issued his history of the christian religion to the year a.d. , a rationalistic work, which explodes the evangelical narratives. wakeman (thaddeus b.), american lawyer and positivist, b. dec. , was one of the editors of man and a president of the new york liberal club. a contributor to the freethinkers' magazine. walferdin (françois-hippolyte), b. langres, june, . a friend of arago he contributed with him to the enlargement of science, and was decorated with the legion of honor in . he published a fine edition of the works of diderot in ' , and left the bust of that philosopher to the louvre. died jan. . walker (e.), of worcester. owenite author of is the bible true? and what is blasphemy? . walker (edwin c.), editor of lucifer and fair play, valley falls, kansas. walker (thomas), orator, b. preston, lancashire, feb. . went to america and at the age of sixteen took to the platform. in ' he went to australia, and for a while lectured at the opera, melbourne. in ' he started the australian secular association, of which he was president for two years when he went to sydney. in ' he was convicted for lecturing on malthusianism, but the conviction was quashed by the supreme court. in ' he was elected m.p. for northumberland district. is president of australian freethought union. walser (george h.), american reformer, b. dearborn co. indiana, may, . became a lawyer, and a member of the legislature of his state. he founded the town of liberal barton co. missouri, to try the experiment of a town without any priest, church, chapel or drinking saloon. mr. walser has also sought to establish there a freethought university. ward (lester frank). american botanist, b. joliet, illinois, june, . he served in the national army during the civil war and was wounded. in ' he settled at washington and became librarian of the u.s. bureau of statistics. he is now curator of botany and fossil plants in the u.s. national museum. has written many works on paleo-botany, and two volumes of sociological studies entitled dynamic sociology. he has contributed to the popular science monthly. ward (mary a.), translator of amiel's journal, and authoress of a popular novel robert elsmere, . warren (josiah). american reformer, b. june, . he took an active part in robert owen's communistic experiment at new harmony, indiana, in ' - . his own ideas he illustrated by establishing a "time store" at cincinnati. his views are given in a work entitled true civilisation. died boston, mass. april, . washburn (l. k.), american lecturer and writer, b. wareham, plymouth, mass., march, . in ' he went to barre. was sent to a unitarian school for ministers, and was ordained in ipswich, feb. ' . he read from the pulpit extracts from parker, emerson, and others instead of the bible. he went to minneapolis, where he organised the first freethought society in the state. he afterwards resided at revere, and delivered many freethought lectures, of which several have been published. he now edits the boston investigator. waters (nathaniel ramsey), american author of rome v. reason, a memoir of christian and extra christian experience. watson (james), english upholder of a free press, b. malton (yorks), sept. . during the prosecution of carlile and his shopmen in he volunteered to come from london to leeds. in feb. ' he was arrested for selling palmer's principles of nature, tried april, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, during which he read gibbon, hume, and mosheim. when liberated he became a compositor on the republican. in ' julian hibbert gave him his type and presses, and he issued volney's lectures on history. in feb. ' he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for selling the poor man's guardian. hibbert left him £ , which he used in printing d'holbach's system of nature, volney's ruins, f. wright's lectures, r. d. owen's pamphlets, paine's works, and other volumes. died at norwood, nov. . watson (thomas), author of the mystagogue, leeds, . watts (charles), secularist orator, b. bristol, feb. . converted to freethought by hearing charles southwell, he became a lecturer and assistant editor on the national reformer. mr. watts has had numerous debates, both in england and america, with dr. sexton, rev. mr. harrison, brewin grant, and others. he started the secular review with g. w. foote, and afterwards secular thought of toronto. he wrote a portion of the freethinker's text book, and has published christianity: its origin, nature and influence; the teachings of secularism compared with orthodox christianity, and other brochures. watts (charles a.), a son of above, b. may, . conducts watts's literary gazette and edits the agnostic annual. watts (john), brother of charles, b. bedminster, bristol, oct. . his father was a wesleyan preacher, and he was converted to freethought by his brother charles. he became sub-editor of the reasoner, and afterwards for a time edited the national reformer. he edited half hours with freethinkers with "iconoclast," and published several pamphlets, logic and philosophy of atheism, origin of man, is man immortal? the devil, who were the writers of the new testament, etc. died oct. . watts (of lewes, sussex), author of the yahoo, a satire in verse (first published in ), also the great dragon cast out. webber (zacharias), dutch painter, who in the seventeenth century wrote heretical works on the temptation of christ and the seduction of adam and eve, etc. he defended bekker, whom he surpassed in boldness. under the pen name j. adolphs he wrote the true origin, continuance and destruction of satan. died in . weber (karl julius), german author, b. langenburg, april, . studied law at erlangen and göttingen. he lived for a while in switzerland and studied french philosophy, which suited his satirical turn of mind. he wrote a history of monkery, - ; letters of germans travelling in germany, ' - ; and demokritos, or the posthumous papers of a laughing philosopher, ' - . died kupferzell, july, . weitling (wilhelm), german social democrat, b. magdeburg, . he was a leader of "der bund der gerechten," the league of the just, and published at zürich the gospel of poor sinners. he also wrote humanity, as it is and as it should be. he emigrated to america, where he died jan. . wellhausen (julius), german critic, b. hameln may, , studied theology at göttingen, and became professor in griefswald, halle, and marburg. is renowned for his history of israel in progress, ' , etc., and his prolegomena to the same, and his contributions to the encyclopædia britannica. westbrook (richard brodhead), dr., american author, b. pike co., pennsylvania, feb. . he became a methodist preacher in ' , and afterwards joined the presbyterians, but withdrew about ' , and has since written the bible: whence and what? and man: whence and whither? in ' dr. westbrook was elected president of the american secular union, and has since offered a prize for the best essay on teaching morality apart from religion. westerman (w. b.) during many years, from - , an active co-operator on de dageraad. westra (p.), dutch freethinker, b. march, . has for some years been active secretary of the dutch freethought society, "de dageraad." wettstein (otto), german american materialist, b. barmen, april, . about ' his parents emigrated. in ' he set up in business as a jeweller at rochelle. he contributed to the freethinkers' magazine, the ironclad age, and other journals, and is treasurer of the national secular union. white (andrew dickson), american educator, b. homer, n.y., nov. . he studied at yale, where he graduated in ' ; travelled in europe, and in ' was elected professor of history and english literature in the university of michigan. he was elected to the state senate, and in ' became first president of cornell, a university which he has largely endowed. among his works we must mention the warfare of science (n.y., ' ) and studies in general history and in the history of civilisation, ' . whitman (walt), american poet, b. west hills, long island, n.y., may, . educated in public schools, he became a printer, and travelled much through the states. in the civil war he served as a volunteer army nurse. his chief work, leaves of grass, with its noble preface, appeared in ' , and was acclaimed by emerson as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that america has yet contributed." it was followed by drum taps, november boughs and sands at seventy. this "good gray poet" has also written prose essays called democratic vietas and specimen days and collect. wicksell (knut), swedish author and lecturer, b. stockholm, dec. , studied at upsala, and became licentiate of philosophy in ' . has written brochures on population, emigration, prostitution, etc., and anonymously a satirical work on bible stories, as by tante malin. represented sweden at the paris conference of ' . wieland (christopher martin), german poet and novelist, b. near biberach, sept. . a voluminous writer, he was called the voltaire of germany. among his works we notice dialogues of the gods, agathon, a novel, and euthanasia, in which he argues against immortality. he translated horace, lucian and shakespeare. died weimer, jan. . his last words were "to be or not to be." wiener (christian), dr., german author of a materialistic work on the elements of natural laws, . wiessner (alexander), german writer, author of an examination of spiritualism (leipsic, ). wigand (otto friedrich), german publisher, b. göttingen, aug. . in he established himself in leipsic, where he issued the works of ruge, bauer, feuerbach, scherr, and other freethinkers. died aug. . wightman (edward), english anti-trinitarian martyr of burton-on-trent. was burnt at lichfield april, , being the last person burnt for heresy in england. wihl (ludwig), german poet, b. oct. . died brussels, jan. . wilbrandt (adolf), german author, b. rosbock, aug. . has written on heinrich von kleist, hölderlin, the poet of pantheism, and published many plays, of which we may mention giordano bruno, , and also some novels. wilhelmi (hedwig henrich), german lecturess and author of vortrage, published at milwaukee, . she attended the paris congress of ' . wilkinson (christopher), of bradford, b. . wrote with squire farrah an able examination of dr. godwin's arguments for the existence of god, published at bradford, . williams (david), welsh deist, b. cardiganshire, . he became a dissenting minister but after publishing two volumes of sermons on religious hypocrisy, , dissolved the connections. in conjunction with franklin and others he founded a club and drew up a liturgy on the universal principles of religion and morality, which he used at a deistic chapel opened in margaret street, cavendish square, april, . he wrote various political and educational works, and established the literary fund in . died soho, london, june, . willis (robert), physician and writer, b. edinburgh, . he studied at the university and became m.d. in . he soon after came to london, and in ' became m.r.c.s. he became librarian to the college of surgeons. besides many medical works he wrote a life of spinoza, ' , and servetus and calvin, ' . he also wrote on the pentateuch and book of joshua in the face of the science and moral senses of our age, and a dialogue by way of catechism, both published by t. scott. died at barnes, sept. . wilson (john), m.a., of trin. coll., dublin, author of thoughts on science, theology and ethics, . wirmarsius (henrik), dutch author of den ingebeelde chaos, . wislicenus (gustav adolf), german rationalist, b. saxony, nov. . he studied theology at halle, and became a minister, but in consequence of his work letter or spirit ( ) was suspended and founded the free congregation. for his work on the bible in the light of modern culture he was, in sept. ' , sentenced to prison for two years. he went to america, and lectured in boston and new york. he returned to europe in ' , and stayed in zürich, where he died oct. . his chief work, the bible for thinking readers, was published at leipsic in ' . wittichius (jacobus), dutch spinozist, b. aken, jan. . wrote on the nature of god, . died oct. . wixon (susan h.), american writer and editor of the "children's corner" in the truthseeker, has for many years been an advocate of freethought, temperance, and women's rights. she was a school teacher and member of the board of education of the city of fall river, mass., where she resides. she contributes to the boston investigator. wollny (dr. f.), german author of principles of psychology (leipsic, ), in the preface to which he professes himself an atheist. wollstonecraft (mary), english authoress, b. hoxton, april, . she became a governess. in she settled in london, and began her literary labors with thoughts on the education of daughters. she also wrote a vindication of the rights of man, in answer to burke, and vindication of the rights of woman. in she married william godwin, and died in childbirth. wooley (milton), dr., american author of science of the bible ; career of jesus christ, ' ; and a pamphlet on the name god. died aug. . woolston (thomas), rev. english deist, b. northampton, . he studied at cambridge, and became a fellow at sydney college and a minister. he published in the old apology, which was followed by other works in favor of an allegorical interpretation of scripture. in he began his six discourses upon the miracles, which were assailed in forcible, homely language. thirty thousand copies are said to have been sold, and sixty pamphlets were written in opposition. woolston was tried for blasphemy and sentenced (march, ) to one year's imprisonment and a fine of £ . this he could not pay, and died in prison jan. . wright (elizur), american reformer, b. south canaan, litchfield co., connecticut, feb. . he graduated at yale college, ' . having warmly embraced the principles of the abolitionists, he became secretary of the american anti-slavery society, and edited the abolitionist and commonwealth. he was a firm and uncompromising atheist, and a contributor to the boston investigator, the freethinker's magazine, etc. died at boston, dec. ' . his funeral oration was delivered by col. ingersoll. wright (frances), afterwards d'arusmont, writer and lecturess, b. dundee, sept. . at the age of eighteen she wrote a few days in athens, in which she expounds and defends the epicurean philosophy. she visited the united states, and wrote views on society and manners in america, . she bought , acres in tennessee, and peopled it with slave families she purchased and redeemed. she afterwards joined owen's experiment; in part edited the new harmony gazette, and afterwards the free inquirer. a course of popular lectures was published at new york in ' , in which she boldly gives her views on religion. she also wrote a number of fables and tracts, and assisted in founding the boston investigator. died at cincinnati, dec. . wright (henry clarke), american reformer, b. sharon, litchfield co. connecticut, aug. . a conspicuous anti-slavery orator, he was a friend of ernestine rose, lucretia mott, etc. he wrote the living, present and the dead past. died pawtucket, rhode island, aug. . wright (susannah), one of carlile's shopwomen. tried nov. , for selling pamphlets by carlile. she made a good defence, in the course of which she was continually interrupted. wundt (wilhelm max), german scientist, b. neckaran (baden), aug. . his father was a clergyman. he studied medicine at tübingen, heidelberg, and berlin, and became professor of physiology at heidelberg in ' , and has since held chairs at zurich and leipsic. his principal works are principles of physiological psychology, ' ; manual of human physiology; logic, ' ; essays, ' ; ethik, ' . wuensch (christian ernest), german physician, b. hohenstein, . was professor of mathematics and physics in frankfort on the oder, . wyrouboff (gr.), count; russian positivist, who established the revue de philosophie positive with littré, and edited it with him from - . xenophanes, greek philosopher, b. colophon, about b.c. he founded the eleatic school, and wrote a poem on nature and eleaticism, in which he ridiculed man making gods in his own image. ximines (augustin louis), marquis de, french writer, b. paris, feb. . was an intimate friend of voltaire, and wrote several plays. died paris, may, . york (j. l.), american lecturer, b. new york, . he became a blacksmith, then a methodist minister, then unitarian, and finally freethought advocate. he was for some years member of the california legislature, and has made lecturing tours in australia and through the states. yorke (j. f.), author of able notes on evolution and christianity, london, . youmans (edward livingstone), american scientist, b. coeymans, n.y., june, . though partially blind he was a great student. he became m.d. about , and began to lecture on science, popularly expounding the doctrines of the conservation of energy and evolution. he popularised herbert spencer, planned the "international scientific series," and in ' established the popular science monthly, in which he wrote largely. died at new york, jan. . zaborowski moindrin (sigismond), french scientific writer, b. la créche, . has written on the antiquity of man, ' ; pre-historic man, ' ; origin of languages, ' ; the great apes, ' ; scientific curiosities, ' . zambrini (francesco), italian writer, b. faenza, jan. . educated at ravenna and bologna. he devoted himself to literature and produced a great number of works. died july, . zarco (francisco), mexican journalist, b. durango, dec. . edited el siglo xix and la ilustracion, in which he used the pen-name of "fortun." he was elected to congress in ' , and imprisoned by the reactionaries in ' . juarez made him secretary of state and president of council. he was a friend of gagern. died mexico, dec. . zeller (eduard), german critic, b. kleinbottwar (würtemberg), jan. . studied theology at tübingen and berlin, became professor at berne, ' . he married a daughter of baur; gave up theology for philosophy, of which he has been professor at berlin since ' . has written a memoir of strauss, ' ; outlines of the history of greek philosophy, ' ; frederick the great as a philosopher, ' ; and other important works. zijde (karel van der), dutch writer, b. overschie, july, . has been teacher at rotterdam. under the pen-name of m. f. ten bergen he wrote the devil's burial, . besides this he has written many literary articles, and is now teacher of dutch and german at zaandam. zimmern (helen), b. hamburg, march, . has lived in england since ' , and is naturalised. she has written lives of schopenhauer and lessing, and a paraphrase of firdusi's shah nahmeh. zola (emile), french novelist, b. of italian father, paris, april, . by his powerful collection of romances known as les rougon macquart, he made himself the leader of the "naturalist" school, which claims to treat fiction scientifically, representing life as it is without the ideal. zorrilla (manuel ruiz), spanish statesman, b. burgo-de-osma, , became a lawyer, and in ' was returned to the cortes by the progressive party. for a brochure against the neo-catholics he was prosecuted. in ' he became president of the cortes, and has since been exiled for his republicanism. zouteveen (h. h. h. van). see hartogh. zuppetta (luigi), italian jurist and patriot, b. castelnuovo, june, . he studied at naples, took part in the democratic movement of ' , was exiled and returned in , and has been professor of penal law in the university of pavia. supplement. those which have already appeared are marked * abd al hakk ibn ibrahim ibn muhammad ibn sabin. see sabin. abu abd'allah muhammad ibn massara al jabali. arabian pantheist b. . he lived at cordova in spain and studied the works of empedocles and other greek philosophers. accused of impiety, he left spain and travelled through the east. returned to spain and collected disciples whom he led to scepticism. he was the most eminent predecessor of ibn rushd or averroes. died oct. . his works were publicly burned at seville. * acosta (uriel), the name of his work was examen traditorum philosophicarum ad legem scriptam. acuna (rosario de), spanish writer and lecturess, b. madrid about . contributes to las dominicales of madrid. has written the doll's house, and other educational works. * adams (robert c.), american freethought writer and lecturer, the son of the rev. needham adams, b. boston . he became a sea-captain, and was afterwards shipper at montreal. has written in secular thought, the truthseeker and the freethinker's magazine, and published rational lectures under the title pioneer pith, ' . in ' he was elected president of the canadian secular union. admiraal (aart), dutch writer, b. goedereede, oct. . at first a schoolmaster, he became in ' director of the telegraph bureau at schoonhoven. he wrote from ' for many years in de dageraad over the anagram "aramaldi." in ' he published the religion of the people under the pseudonym "bato van der maas," a name he used in writing to many periodicals. a good mind and heart with but feeble constitution. he died nov. . airoldi (j.) italian lawyer, b. lugano (switzerland), ; a poet and writer of talent. albaida (don jose m. orense), spanish nobleman (marquis), one of the founders of the republican party. was expelled for his principles; returned to spain, and was president of the cortes in . * alchindus. died about . * aleardi had better be deleted. i am now told he was a christian. alfarabi. see alpharabius. algeri (pomponio), a youth of nola. studied at padua, and was accused of heresy and atheism, and burnt alive in a cauldron of boiling oil, pitch, and turpentine at rome in . alkemade (a. de mey van), dutch nobleman, who contributed to de dageraad, and also published a work containing many bible contradictions, ; and in ' a work on the bible under the pen name "alexander de m." allais (denis de). see vairasse. allais (giovanni), italian doctor, b. casteldelfino, . almquist (herman), swedish, b. , orientalist; professor of philology at the university of upsala. an active defender of new ideas and freethought. altmeyer (jean jacques), belgian author, b. luxembourg, jan. . was professor at the university of brussels. he wrote an introduction to the philosophical study of the history of humanity, ' , and other historical works. died sept. . amari (michele), sicilian historian and orientalist, b. palmero, july, . in ' he produced a version of scott's marmion. he wrote a standard history of the musulmen in sicily. after the landing of garibaldi, he was made head of public instruction in the island. he took part in the anti-clerical council of ' . died at florence, july . * amaury de chartres. according to l'abbè ladvocat his disciples maintained that the sacraments were useless, and that there was no other heaven than the satisfaction of doing right, nor any other hell than ignorance and sin. anderson (marie), dutch lady freethinker, b. the hague, aug. . she has written many good articles in de dageraad, and was for some time editress of a periodical de twintigste eeuw (the twentieth century). she has also written some novels. she resides now at würzburg, germany, and contributes still to de dageraad. as pen-name she formerly used that of "mevrouw quarlès" and now "dr. al. dondorf." * anthero de quental. this name would be better under quental. apono. see petrus de abano. this would probably be best under abano. * aquila. justinian forbade the jews to read aquila's version of the scriptures. aranda (pedro pablo abarca de bolea), count, spanish statesman, b. of illustrious family, saragossa, dec. . was soldier and ambassador to poland. he imbibed the ideas of the encyclopædists, and contributed to the expulsion of the jesuits from spain in . he also disarmed the inquisition. in he was elected spanish minister to france. he was recalled and exiled to aragon, where he died in . argilleres (antoine), at first a jacobin monk and afterwards a protestant preacher, was tortured several times, then decapitated and his head nailed to a gibbet at geneva, - , for having eight years previously taken the part of servetus against calvin at pont-de-veyle in bresse. * arnould (victor). has continued his tableau in the positivist revue and la societé nouvelle. from to ' he edited la liberté, in which many a battle for freethought has been fought. ascarate (gumezindo de), spanish professor of law at the university of madrid and republican deputy, b. leon about . one of the ablest radical parliamentary orators; in philosophy, he is a follower of krause. he has written social studies, self-government and monarchy, and other political works. aszo y del rio (ignacio jordan de), spanish jurist and naturalist, b. saragossa, . was professor at madrid, and left many important works on various branches of science. in his political works he advocated the abolition of ecclesiastical power. died . * aubert de verse (noel) had probably better be omitted, although accused of blasphemy himself, i find he wrote an answer to spinoza, which i have not been able to see. auerbach (berthold), german novelist of jewish extraction, b. nordstetten, feb. . devoted to spinoza, in ' he published a life of the philosopher and a translation of his works, having previously published an historical romance on the same subject. died cannes, feb. . * aymon (jean). la vie et l'esprit de m. benoit spinoza (la haye, ) was afterwards issued under the famous title treatise of three impostors. * bahrdt (karl friedrich). the writings of this enfant terrible of the german aufklarung fill volumes. * bailey (william shreeve) was born feb. . he suffered much on account of his opinions. died nashville, feb . photius fisk erected a monument to his memory. * bancel (francis désiré). in his work les harangues de l'exil, vols., , his freethought views are displayed. he also wrote in la revue critique. barnaud (nicolas), of crest in dauphiné. lived during the latter half of the sixteenth century. he travelled in france, spain, and germany, and to him is attributed the authorship of a curious work entitled le cabinet du roy de france, which is largely directed against the clergy. barreaux. see des barreaux. barth (ferdinand), b. mureck, steyermark austria, . in ' he attained reputation as orator to working men and took part in the revolution. when vienna was retaken he went to leipzig and zurich, where he died in , leaving a profession of his freethought. bartrina, spanish atheistic poet, b. barcelona, , where he died in . bedingfield (richard, w. t.), pantheistic writer, b. may, , wrote in national reformer as b.t.w.r., established freelight, ' . died feb. . * berigardus (claudius), b. aug. . * bertillon (louis adolphe). in a letter to bp. dupanloup, april, ' , he said, you hope to die a catholic, i hope to die a freethinker. died . * berwick (george j.) m.d., dr. berwick, i am informed, was the author of the tracts issued by thomas scott of ramsgate with the signature of "presbyter anglicanus." blein (f. a. a.), baron, french author of essais philosophiques, paris, . blum (robert), german patriot and orator, b. cologne, nov. . he took an active part in progressive political and religious movements, and published the christmas tree and other publications. in ' he became deputy to the frankfort parliament and head of the republican party. he was one of the promoters at the insurrection of vienna, and showed great bravery in the fights of the students with the troops. shot at vienna, nov. . * blumenfleld (j. c.), this name i suspect to be a pseudonym. bolin (a. w.), a philosophic writer of finland, b. aug. . studied at helsingford, ' , and became doctor of philosophy in ' , and professor in ' . he has written on the freedom of the will, the political doctrines of philosophy, etc. a subject of russian finland; he has been repeatedly troubled by the authorities for his radical views on religious questions. bolivar (ignacio), spanish professor of natural history at the university of madrid, and one of the introducers of darwinian ideas. boppe (herman c.), editor of freidenker of milwaukee, u.s.a. borsari (ferdinand), italian geographer, b. naples, author of a work of the literature of american aborigines, and a zealous propagator of freethought. bostrom (christopher jacob), swedish professor at upsala, b. jan. . besides many philosophical works, published trenchant criticism of the christian hell creed. died march, . boucher (e. martin), b. beaulieu . conducted the rationaliste at geneva, where he died . his work search for the truth was published at avignon, . bourneville (magloire désir), french deputy and physician, b. garancières, oct. . studied medicine at paris, and in ' was appointed physician to the asylum of bicêtre. he was municipal councillor of paris from ' to ' . on the death of louis blanc he was elected deputy in his place. wrote science and miracle, ' ; hysteria in history, ' ; and a discourse on etienne dolet at the erection of the statue to that martyr, may . boutteville (marc lucien), french writer, professor at the lycee bonaparte. wrote to dupanloup on his pamphlet against atheism, ; wrote in la pensée nouvelle, ' ; is author of a large and able work on the morality of the church and natural morality, ' ; and has edited the posthumous works of proudhon, . * bovio (giovanni), b. trani, , dr. of law and advocate. author of a dramatic piece, cristo alla festa di purim, and of a history of law in italy. signor bovio delivered the address at unveiling the monument to bruno at rome, june, . boyer. see argens. * bradlaugh (charles), m.p. in april, , he introduced a bill to repeal the blasphemy laws. braga (teofilo), portuguese positivist, b. feb. . educated at coimbra. has written many poems, and a history of portuguese literature. is one of the republican leaders. branting (hjalmar), swedish socialist, b. . sentenced in ' to three months' imprisonment for blasphemy in his paper social democraten. braun (eugen), dr. see f. w. ghillany. braun (wilhelm von), swedish humoristic poet, b. . he satirised many of the bible stories. died . brewer (ebenezer cobham), english author. has written numerous school books, and compiled a dictionary of miracles, . brismee (desiré), belgian printer, b. ghent, july, . as editor of le drapeau he underwent eighteen months' imprisonment. the principle founder of les solidaires, he was the life-long secretary of that society, and his annual reports are a valuable contribution towards the history of freethought in belgium. an eloquent speaker, many of his freethought orations were printed in la tribune du peuple. died at brussels feb. . * brothier (léon). died about . * brown (g. w.) dr. brown's new work is published at rockford, illinois, and entitled researches in jewish history, including the rise and development of zoroastrianism and the derivation of christianity. * bruno (giordano), b. nola, march, . the avisso di roma of feb. , records the fact of his being burnt, and that he died impenitent. signor mariotti, state secretary to the minister of public instruction, has found a document proving that bruno was stripped naked, bound to a pole, and burnt alive, and that he bore his martyrdom with great fortitude. buen (odon de), spanish writer on las dominicales, of madrid, b. aragon, . professor of natural history at the university of barcelona. has written an account of a scientific expedition from christiania to treggurt, has translated memoirs of garibaldi. he married civilly the daughter of f. lozano, and was delegate to the paris freethought conference, . calderon (alfredo), spanish journalist and lawyer, b. . he edits la justicia. has written several books on law. calderon (lauresmo), professor of chemistry in the university of madrid, b. . is a propagator of darwinian ideas. calderon (salvador), spanish geologist and naturalist, b. ; professor at the university of seville. has made scientific travels in central america, and written largely on geological subjects. calvo (rafael), spanish actor and dramatic author, b. . a pronounced republican and freethinker. * canestrini (giovanni), b. revo (trente), dec. . cassels (walter richard), a nephew of dr. pusey, is the author of supernatural religion, a critical examination of the worth of the gospels (two vols. and three ' ). has written under his own name eidolon and other poems, , and poems, ' . in ' he published a reply to dr. lightfoot's essays. castro (fernando), spanish philosopher and historian. he was a priest, and on his death-bed confessed himself a freethinker, and had a secular burial. died about , aged years. cavia (mariano), spanish journalist and critic, b. , editor of the liberal of madrid. * coke (henry), author of creeds of the day, is the third son of the first earl of leicester, and was born jan. . he served in the navy during the first china war, - . published accounts of the siege of vienna, ' , at which he was present, also "ride over rocky mountains," which he accomplished with great hardships in ' . was private secretary to mr. horsman when chief secretary for ireland in ' -' . married lady k. egerton, . cornette (henri arthur marie), belgian professor of flemish literature at antwerp, b. bruges, march, . a writer in l'avenir of brussels and the revue socialite, he has published separate works on freemasonry, ; pessimism and socialism, ' ; freethought darwinism, etc. curros (enriquez), living spanish poet, who was prosecuted by the bishop of santiago, of galicia, for his collection of poems entitled airs of my country, but he was acquitted by the jury. czerski (johannes), german reformer, b. warlubien, west prussia, may, . he became a catholic priest in ' , broke with the church, associated himself with ronge, married, and was excommunicated. has written several works against roman catholicism, and is still living at schneidemükl-posen. d'ercole (pasquale), italian professor of philosophy in the university of turin, author of a work on christian theism, in which he holds that the principles of philosophic theism are undemonstrated and at variance both with reality and with themselves. deschanel (emile auguste), french senator, b. paris, nov. . he wrote in the revue independante, revue des deux mondes and liberté de penser; for writing against clericalism in the last he was deprived of his chair. after dec. he went to belgium. he has been professor of modern literature at the college of france, and written many important works. desnoiresterres (gustave le brisoys), frenchman of letters, b. bayeux, june, , author of epicurienes et lettres xvii. and xviii. siècles, , and voltaire et la société française au xviii. siècle, an important work in eight vols. * desraimes (maria), b. aug. . diogenes (apolloinates), a cretan, natural philosopher, who lived in the fifth century b.c. he is supposed to have got into trouble at athens through his philosophical opinions being considered dangerous to the state. he held that nothing was produced from nothing or reduced to nothing; that the earth was round and had received its shape from whirling. he made no distinction between mind and matter. donius (augustinus), a materialist, referred to by bacon. his work, de natura dominis, in two books, , refers the power of the spirit, to motion. the title of his second book is "omnes operationes spiritus esse motum et semum." dosamantes (jesus ceballos), mexican philosopher; author of works on absolute perfection, mexico, , and modern pharisees and sadducees (mystics and materialists), ' . druskowitz (helene), dr., b. vienna, may, . miss druskowitz is doctor of philosophy at dresden, and has written a life of shelley, berlin, ' ; a little book on freewill, and the new doctrines, ' . dufay (henri), author of la legende du christ, . duller (eduard), german poet and historian, b. vienna, nov. . he wrote a history of the jesuits (leipsic, ' ) and the men of the people (frankfort, ' -' ). died at wiesbaden, july, . * du marsais (césar chesneau). he edited mirabaud's anonymous work on the world and its antiquity and the soul and its immortality, londres, . * fellowes (r.) graduated b.a. at oxford , m.a. . died feb. . figueras-y-moracas (estanilas), spanish statesman and orator, b. barcelona, nov. . studied law and soon manifested republican opinions. in ' he was elected to the cortes, was exiled in ' , but returned in ' . he fought the candidature of the duc de montpensiér in ' , and became president of the spanish republic feb. ' . died poor in , and was buried without religious ceremony, according to his wish. fitzgerald (edward), english poet and translator, b. near woodbridge, suffolk, march, . educated at cambridge and took his degree in ' . he lived the life of a recluse, and produced a fine translation of calderon. his fame rests securely on his fine rendering of the quatrains of omar khayyam. died june, . galletti (baldassare), cavalier pantheist of palermo. has translated feuerbach on death and immortality, and also translated from morin. died rome, feb. . ganeval (louis), french professor in egypt, b. veziat, , author of a work on egypt and jesus devant l'histoire n'a jamais vécu. the first part, published in ' , was prohibited in france, and the second part was published at geneva in ' . garrido (fernando), spanish writer, author of memoirs of a sceptic, cadiz , a work on contemporary spain, published at brussels in ' , the jesuits, and a large history of political and religious persecutions, a work rendered into english in conjunction with c. b. cayley. died at cordova in . gerling (fr. wilhelm), german author of letter of a materialist to an idealist, berlin , to which frau hedwig henrich wilhelmi contributes a preface. geroult de pival, french librarian at rouen; probably the author of doutes sur la religion, londres, . died at paris about . goffin (nicolas), founder of the society la libre of liége and president of la libre pensée of brussels, and one of the general council of the international federation of freethinkers. died may, . goldhawke (j. h.), author of the solar allegories, proving that the greater number of personages mentioned in the old and new testaments are allegorical beings, calcutta . gorani (giuseppe), count, b. milan, . he was intimate with beccaria, d'holbach, and diderot. he wrote a treatise on despotism, published anonymously, ; defended the french revolution and was made a french citizen. died poor at geneva, dec. . govett (frank), author of the pains of life, , a pessimistic reply to sir j. lubbock's pleasures of life. mr. govett rejects the consolations of religion. guimet (etienne emile), french traveller, musician, anthropologist and philanthropist, b. lyons, june, , the son of the inventor of ultramarine, whose business he continued. he has visited most parts of the world and formed a collection of objects illustrating religions. these he formed into a museum in his native town, where he also founded a library and a school for oriental languages. this fine museum which cost several million francs, he presented to his country, and it is now at paris, where m. guimet acts as curator. in he began publishing annales du musée guimet, in which original articles appear on oriental religions. he has also written many works upon his travels. he attended the banquet in connection with the international congress of freethinkers at paris, . guynemer (a. m. a. de), french author of a dictionary of astronomy, , and an anonymous unbelievers' dictionary, ' , in which many points of theology are discussed in alphabetical order. hamerling (robert), german poet, b. kirchberg am wald, march, . author of many fine poems, of which we mention ahasuerus in rome ' . the king of sion; danton and robespierre a tragedy. he translated leopardis' poems ' . died at gratz, july, . heyse (paul johann ludwig), german poet and novelist, b. berlin, march, . educated at the university, after travelling to switzerland and italy he settled at munich in ' . has produced many popular plays and romances, of which we specially mention the children of the world, ' , a novel describing social and religious life of germany at the present day, and in paradise, . hicks (l. e.) american geologist, author of a critique of design arguments. boston, . hitchman (william), english physician, b. northleach, gloucestershire, , became m.r.c.s. in ' , m.d. at erlangen, bavaria. he established freelight, and wrote a pamphlet, fifty years of freethought. died . hoeffding (harald), dr., professor of philosophy at the university of copenhagen, b. copenhagen, . has been professor since ' . is absolutely free in his opinion and has published works on the newer philosophy in germany, ' , and in england, ' . in the latter work special attention is devoted to the works of mill and spencer. german editions have been published of his works grundlage der humanen ethik (basis of human ethics ' ), psychologie im umriss (outlines of psychology ' ), and ethik . holst (nils olaf), swedish geologist, b. . chairman of the swedish society for religious liberty. ignell (nils), swedish rationalist, b. july, . brought up as a priest, his free views gave great offence. he translated renan's life of jesus, and did much to arouse opposition to orthodox christianity. died at stockholm, june, . jacobsen (jens peter), danish novelist and botanist, b. thistede, april, . he did much to spread darwinian views in scandinavia, translating the origin of species and descent of man. among his novels we may name fru marie grubbe, scenes from the xvii. century, and niels lyhne, in which he develops the philosophy of atheism. this able young writer died at his birth place, april . kleist (heinrich von), german poet, b. frankfurt-on-oder, oct. . left an orphan at eleven, he enlisted in the army in , quitted it in four years and took to study. kant's philosophy made him a complete sceptic. in he went to paris to teach kantian philosophy, but the results were not encouraging. committed suicide together with a lady, near potsdam, nov. . kleist is chiefly known by his dramas and a collection of tales. letourneau (charles jean marie), french scientist, b. auray (morbihan), . educated as physician. he wrote in la pensée nouvelle, and has published physiology of the passions, ' ; biology, ' , translated into english by w. maccall; science and materialism, ' ; sociology based on ethnography, ' ; and the evolution of marriage and the family, ' . he has also translated büchner's man according to science, light and life and mental life of animals, haeckel's history of creation, letters of a traveller in india, and herzen's physiology of the will. lippert (julius), learned german author of works on soul worship, berlin, ; the universal history of priesthoods, ' ; and an important culture history of mankind, ' - . lloyd (william watkiss), author of christianity in the cartoons, london , in which he criticises rafael and the new testament side by side. he has also written the age of pericles, and several works on shakespeare. lucian, witty greek writer, b. of poor parents, samosata, on the euphrates, and flourished in the reign of marcus aurelius and commodus. he was made a sculptor, but applied himself to rhetoric. he travelled much, and at athens was intimate with demonax. his principal works are dialogues, full of wit, humor, and satire, often directed against the gods. according to suidas he was named the blasphemer, and torn to pieces by dogs for his impiety, but on this no reliance can be placed. on the ground of the dialogue philopatris, he has been supposed an apostate christian, but it is uncertain if that piece is genuine. it is certain that he was sceptical, truth-loving, and an enemy of the superstition of the time which he depicts in his account of alexander, the false prophet. maglia (adolfo de), spanish journalist, b. valencia, june, , began writing in la tronada at barcelona, and afterwards published l'union republicana. he founded the freethinking group "el independiente" and edits el clamor setabense and el pueblo soberano. was secretary for spain at the anticlerical congress at rome in ' , and in ' at paris. during this year he has been condemned to six years' imprisonment and a fine of , francs for attacking leo xiii. and the catholic dogmas. disciples, whom he conducted from faith to scepticism. he was the most eminent predecessor of ibn roschd or averroës. died oct.-nov. . his works were publicly burned at seville. mata (pedro), spanish physician, professor at the university of madrid. author of a poem, glory and martyrdom, ; a treatise on human reason, ' - ; and on moral liberty and free will, ' . mendizabal (juan alvarez), spanish liberal statesman, b. cadiz, . was minister during the reign of cristina, and contributed to the subjugation of the clerical party. he abolished the religious orders and proclaimed their goods as national property. died at madrid, nov. . * meredith (evan powell), b. . educated at pontypool college, he became a baptist minister, and was an eloquent preacher in the welsh tongue. he translated the bible into welsh. investigation into the claims of christianity made him resign his ministry. in his prophet of nazareth he mentioned a purpose of writing a work on the gospels, but it never appeared. he died at monmouth july, . miralta (constancio), the pen name of a popular spanish writer, b. about . has been a priest and doctor of theology, and is one of the writers on las dominicales. his most notable works are memoirs of a poor clerical, the secrets of confession, and the sacrament exposed. his work on the doctrine of catholicism upon matrimony has greatly encouraged civil marriages. moraita (miguel), spanish historian, b. about . is professor of history at madrid, and one of the most ardent enemies of clericalism. has written many works, including a voluminous history of spain. in ' he made a discourse at the university against the pretended antiquity of the mosaic legends, which caused his excommunication by several bishops. he was supported by the students, against whom the military were employed. he is grand master of the spanish freemasons. moya (francisco xavier), spanish statistician, b. about . was deputy to the cortes of , and has written several works on the infallibility of the pope and on the temporal power. nakens (josé), spanish journalist, b. . founder and editor of el motin, a republican and freethought paper of madrid, in connection with which there is a library, in which he has written la piqueta--the pick-axe. nees von esenbeck (christian gottfried), german naturalist, b. odenwald, feb. . he became a doctor of medicine, and was professor of botany at bohn, , and breslau, ' . he was leader of the free religious movement in silesia, and in ' , took part in the political agitations, and was deprived of his chair. wrote several works on natural philosophy. died at breslau, march, . nyblaus (claes gudmund), swedish bookseller, b. , has published some anti-christian pamphlets. offen (benjamin), american lecturer, b. england, . he emigrated to america and became lecturer to the society of moral philanthropists at tammany hall, new york, and was connected with the free discussion society. he wrote a legacy to the friends of free discussion, a critical review of the bible. died at new york, may, . palmaer (bernhard henrik), swedish satirist, b. aug. . author of the last judgment in the crow corner. died at linkoping, july, . panizza (mario). italian physiologist and philosopher; author of a materialist work on the philosophy of the nervous system, rome, . perez galdos (benito), eminent living spanish novelist, b. canary islands, lived since his youth in madrid. of his novels we mention gloria, which has been translated into english, and la familia de leon roch, , in which he stoutly attacks clericalism and religious intolerance. he has also written episodes nacionales, and many historical novels. regenbrecht (michael eduard), german rationalist, b. brannsberg, . he left the church with ronge, and became leader of the free religious movement at breslau, where he died june, . robert (roberto). spanish anti-clerical satirist, b. . became famous by his mordant style, his most celebrated works being the rogues of antonio, the times of mari casania, the skimmer of the centuries. died in . rupp (julius), german reformer, b. königsberg, aug. . studied philosophy and theology, and became in ' a minister. he protested against the creeds, and became leader of the free-religious movement in east prussia. ryberg (y. e.), swedish merchant captain, b. oct. . he has translated several of mr. bradlaugh's pamphlets and other secular literature. sachse (heinrich ernst), german atheist, b. . at magdeburg he did much to demolish the remains of theism in the free-religious communities. died . sales y ferre (manuel), spanish scientist, b. about . professor at the university of seville. has published several works on geology and prehistoric times. schneider (georg heinrich), german naturalist, b. mannheim, . author of the human will from the standpoint of the new development theory (berlin, ), and other works. schreiner (olive), the daughter of a german missionary in south africa. authoress of "the story of an african farm," . serre (... de la), author of an examination of religion, attributed to saint evremond, . it was condemned to be burnt by the parliament of paris. suner y capderila. spanish physician of barcelona, b. . became deputy to the cortes in , and is famous for his discourses against catholicism. tocco (felice), italian philosopher and anthropologist, b. catanzaro, sept. , and studied at the university of naples and bologna, and became professor of philosophy at pisa. he wrote in the rivista bolognese on leopardi, and on "positivism" in the rivista contemporanea. he has published works on a. bain's theory of sensation, ' ; thoughts on the history of philosophy, ' ; the heresy of the middle ages, ' ; and giordano bruno, ' . tommasi (salvatore), italian evolutionist, author of a work on evolution, science, and naturalism, naples , and a little pamphlet in commemoration of darwin, ' . tubino (francisco maria), spanish positivist, b. seville, , took part in garibaldi's campaign in sicily, and has contributed to the rivista europea. tuthill (charles a. h.), author of the origin and development of christian dogma, london, . vernial (paul), french doctor and member of the anthropological society of paris, author of a work on the origin of man, . wheeler (joseph mazzini), atheist, b. london, jan., . converted from christianity by reading newman, mill, darwin, spencer, etc. has contributed to the national reformer secularist, secular chronicle, liberal, progress, and freethinker which he has sub-edited since , using occasionally the signatures "laon," "lucianus" and other pseudonyms. has published frauds and follies of the fathers ' , footsteps of the past, a collection of essays in anthropology and comparative religion ' ; and crimes of christianity, written in conjunction with g. w. foote, with whom he has also edited sepher toldoth jeshu. the compiler of the present work is a willing drudge in the cause he loves, and hopes to empty many an inkstand in the service of freethought. lectures of col. r. g. ingersoll including his answers to the clergy, his oration at his brother's grave, etc., etc. complete in two volumes volume i contents gods ghosts hell individuality humboldt which way the great infidels talmagian theology at a child's grave ingersoll's oration at his brother's grave mistakes of moses skulls and replies what shall we do to be saved? ingersoll's answer to prof. swing, dr. thomas, and others ingersoll's lecture on gods ladies and gentlemen: an honest god is the noblest work of man. each nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. he hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. all these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. all these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together. these gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some with wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into holy ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. some were married--all ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant; as they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment. these gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as might command, and to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. none of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. all were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. as a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of american presidents. the deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. in order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and they have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters. nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. nothing so enrages them, even now as to have some one deny their existence. few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. these gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. they presided over everybody and everything. they attended to every department. all was supposed to be under their immediate control. nothing was too small--nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. from their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. it is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. some left their shining abode to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner for cleaning the intestines of a bird. when the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first born. the priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them. these gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. for all this, and for all these, you may be forgiven. for all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict. one of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance the following laws of war: "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. and it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. but the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save alive nothing that breatheth." is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? can you believe that such directions were given by any except an infinite fiend? remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. peace was offered on condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their home, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled babe. and we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. we are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. because we refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. let the people hate, let the god threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him. the book, called the bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. this is the book to read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! this is the book recognized in our constitution as the source of authority and justice! strange that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing god bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. the orthodox church never will forgive the universalist for saying "god is love." it has always been considered as one of the very highest evidence of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. it has always been heresy to say, "god will at last save all." we are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of god. as a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. in the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. the instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. it is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. if we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action. the doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. it is the infamy of infamies. the notion that faith in christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." what man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease god? and yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. the jews pacified jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the christian system, the blood of jesus softened the heart of god a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. it is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. whether the bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. salvation through slavery is worthless. salvation from slavery is inestimable. as long as man believes the bible to be infallible, that is his master. the civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief--the result of free thought. all that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention--of barbarian invention--is to read it. read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition--then read the holy bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as well. these devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. some had headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy clouds, kissing the wife of the god of gods. these devils generally sympathized with man. there is in regard to them a most wonderful fact: in nearly all the theologies, mythologic and religious, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. no devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods. the pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. the frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. no devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality. one of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. the old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea. this, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act not of a devil, but of god so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. what a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil! one of the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people. was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery? one of these gods is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery: "if thou buy a hebrew servant six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife and my children; i will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." according to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would desert forever his wife and children. did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? who can worship such a god? who can bend the knee to such a monster? who can pray to such a fiend? all these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies. did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? the basest thing recorded of the devil, is what he did concerning job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these gods and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the character of "my servant job." the first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called genesis, and is as follows: "now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the lord god had made, and he said unto the woman, yea, hath god said, ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? and the woman said unto the serpent. we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden god hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat...... and the lord god said, behold the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden to till the ground from which he was taken. so he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." according to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. adam and eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil. the account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. the church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. the priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." from every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear "lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." for this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods. if the account given in genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? he was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization. give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. banish me from eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge! some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled to say, is our own. the jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their devil at the same time. this borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our people. he is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our god. to me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. they are a perfectly natural production. man has created them all, and under the same circumstances will create them again. man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. no god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. the negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. the mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. the jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. zeus was a perfect greek and jove looked as though a member of the roman senate. the gods of egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. the gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. the gods of india were often mounted upon elephants, those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice. in some countries, even at this day, if the people after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. 'how now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care, you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.' hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the street. if, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their request, then with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. 'of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. why should you bring this beating on yourself. but what is done cannot be undone.' let us not think of it any more. if you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter again than before. man has never been at a loss for gods. he has worshiped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. he has worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages, prostrated himself before enormous snakes. savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. the todas worship a cow-bell. the kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. had woman been the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the ruler of nature would have been woman, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low necked dresses, laces and back-hair. nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities. man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his surroundings. he cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. he can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses; but he cannot create. having seen exhibitions of power, he can say, omnipotent. having lived, he can say, immortality. knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. conceiving something of intelligence, he can say god. having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. a few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. the superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses. it is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. we have in imagination created an impossible monster. and yet the various parts of this monster really exist. so it is with all the gods that man has made. beyond nature man cannot go even in thought--above nature he cannot rise--below nature he cannot fall. man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. to preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. he endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed become enraged. the lightning and thunder terrified him. in the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. the great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and more than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. the strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. for some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power--that they were not all alike malevolent--that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. for this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice. these ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man. for ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. for thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. they would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. if the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit. to pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. the poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. with bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. it was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. it was with the barbarian then as with the civilized now--one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. this was the origin of the priesthood. the priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. he was man's attorney at the court of heaven. he carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. he came back with a command, with authority and with power. man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. even christ, the supposed son of god, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. the religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the new testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction. the fact that christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to man. st. matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of god; and it has always excited the wonder of christians that the temptation was so nobly and heroically withstood. the account to which i refer is as follows: "then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. and when the tempter came to him, he said: 'if thou be the son of god command that these stones be made bread.' but he answered, and said 'it is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god.' then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him: 'if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down, for it is written. he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.' jesus said unto him 'it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god.' again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him 'all these will i give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'" the christians now claim that jesus was god. if he was god, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took the omnipotent god and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. failing in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world--this grain of sand--if he, the god of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! is it possible the devil was such an idiot? should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? think of it! the devil--the prince of sharpers--the king of cunning--the master of finesse, trying to bribe god with a grain of sand that belonged to god! is there in ail the religious literature of the world any thing more grossly absurd than this? these devils, according to the bible, were various kinds--some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. all could not be cast out in the same way. the deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. st. mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to christ. the boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. "jesus said unto the spirit: 'thou dumb and deaf spirit. i charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" whereupon, the deaf spirit having heard what was said, cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. the ease with which christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. to whom he replied: "this kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." is there a christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? the trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their bible. in the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. the people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. all founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits--and suspending the laws of nature. casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. a prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness, was regarded with contempt. the utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits. this belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena. phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil spirits. it being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man. good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil--so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god. many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true; that all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be false. if the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the believer in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. the truth is, a god was inferred from good, and a devil from bad, phenomena. and it is just as natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a god would produce misery. consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. if phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. if they were all bad, we, might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power; but as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and sometimes by malice; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man. the foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. that most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer. thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. some want health restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the lord to do as he thinks best. thousands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like david, pray for revenge, and some implore, even god, not to lead them into temptation. all these prayers rest upon, and are produced by the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. this belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. all sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences, and our own bible is no exception to this rule. if we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. if there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be? the scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference: animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that general joshua may have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refused to burn; water positively declined to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes altogether easier than history; the sons of god become enamored of the world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of man; an excellent article of brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for forty years, birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and god himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dressmaker. the veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. the shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. man dwelt in an unreal world. he mistook his ideas, his dream, for real things. his fears became terrible and malicious monsters. he lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. the obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing--with beak and hoof--with leering look and sneering mouths--with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark. it is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered: of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. no wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees--that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. no wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. no wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear. the savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. as he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. at last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity--finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure--finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless--he begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon himself. the people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. only upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere in the affairs of men. in most matters we are at last supposed to be free. since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business of producing famine. now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents. as a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. cholera, yellow fever, and smallpox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. as a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for violating the sabbath. they still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth: but ordinary people are left to shift for themselves as best they may. in wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man with an honest referee, is almost sure to win. the church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. to give up that doctrine is to give up all. the church must insist that prayer is answered--that some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere and humble christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all. a devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his attentions, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "see," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! what a long slender bill he has! observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! he does not cause the slightest ripple. he is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "my son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of god, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "yes" replied the boy, "i think i see the goodness of god, at least so far as the crane is concerned: but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks that in the beginning some god made the laws governing the universe. he believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with than without a lever; that this god so made matter, and so established the order of things, that--two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. he insists that it took a direct interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. like the old scotch divine, he thanks god that sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event. these religious people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything. they insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. they point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the april rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? that what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the april rain? how beautiful the process of digestion! by what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! by what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! see by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding, quivering, dainty flesh! see how it gradually but surely expands and grows! by what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! what beautiful colors it presents! seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. all the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? we are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god has. if a god created the universe, then there must have been a time when he commenced to create. back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing--absolutely nothing--except this supposed god. according to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness. admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it? it certainly was not made of nothing. nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. it follows, then, that a god must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. the universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material. with this very thought in his mind, anaximander of miletus said: "creation is the decomposition of the infinite." it has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for the fact that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. this proves the material universe to be infinite. if an infinite universe has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left? the idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity. it is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. it is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. neither matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. force cannot exist apart from matter. matter exists only in connection with force, and consequently a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility. force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been created. matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple motions to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control. thought is a form of force. we walk with the same force with which we think. man is an organism that changes several forms of force into thought-force. man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and produce what we call thought. think of that wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine tragedy of hamlet! a god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of changing other forms of force into thought-force. this is what we call eating. therefore, if the god thinks he must eat, that is to say, he must of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to think. it is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus imparted. if neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then, of the existence of a power superior to nature? the theologian will probably reply, "we have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all this, matter could not have put itself in motion." suppose, for the sake of an argument, that there is no being superior to nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. now suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect? yes. suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the least. this would be an effect. if this is so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being superior to nature. now suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly the same? yes. like causes, producing like effects, is what we mean by law and order. then we have matter, force, effect, law and order without a being superior to nature. now, we know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. the atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must, as to something else, have been a cause. then we have matter, force, law, order, cause and effect without a being superior to nature. nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. his throne is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force, without law, without cause, and without effect. but what put all this matter in motion? if matter and force have existed from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. there can be no force without motion. force is forever active, and there is, and there can be no cessation. if therefore, matter and force have existed from eternity, so has motion. in the whole universe there is not even one atom in a state of rest. a deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. that which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a man. there is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect. pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. the rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. the founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. it was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. in times of ignorance this was easy to do. the credulity of the savage was almost boundless. to him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle--that is to say, a violation of nature--that is to say, a falsehood. no one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. truth scorns the assistance of miracle. nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. no miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature. the church wishes us to believe. let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. we are told that nature has a superior. let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertion. we have heard talk enough. we have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. we have read your bible and the works of your best minds. we have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. all these amount to less than nothing. we beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. we pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. we know all about your moldy wonders and your stale miracles. we want this year's fact. we ask only one. give us one fact of charity. your miracles are too ancient. the witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. their reputations for "truth and veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. do not send us to jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with shadrach, moshech, and abednego. do not compel us to navigate the sea with captain jonah, nor dine with mr. ezekiel. there is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with samson. we have positively lost interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by balaam's inspired donkey. it is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. we demand a new miracle and we demand it now. let the church furnish at least one, or forever after hold her peace. in the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her god. at that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. they became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. and now this same church--the people having found so little sense--admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle, but insists--that absence of miracle--the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. the fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary. sir william hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following language: "the phenomena of matter taken by themselves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a god, would on the contrary ground even an argument to his negation. the phenomena of a material world are subjected to immutable laws; are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of mechanical necessity." nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. she cannot create, but she eternally transforms. there was no beginning; and there can be no end. the best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. they find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. they insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he had somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "great first cause." they say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce matter. they tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. why not say, god has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? so far as we know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. we cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain. the science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power, is called metaphysics or theology. the theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient causes--nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity. they therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this superior power. the trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. every thought must have had an efficient cause. every motive, every desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. there is no room in the mind of a man for providence or change. the facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of the planets. a poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. you will seek in vain for a thought in man's brain without its efficient cause. every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. mental phenomena are considered more complicated than those of matter, and consequently more mysterious. being more mysterious, they are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. no one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown and incomprehensible. our ignorance is god; what we know is science. when we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. the real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. from that moment the church ceases to exist. the tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the bible will take its place with the shastras, puranas, vedas, eddas, sagas and korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men. "but," says the religionist "you cannot explain everything; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my god." we are explaining more every day. we are understanding more every day; consequently your god is growing smaller every day. nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is god. to this we again replied: every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. every effect must in its turn become a cause. therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity become a cause. the converse of these propositions must be true. every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect. therefore, there could have been no first cause. a first cause is just as impossible as a last effect. beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist. the moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in general or special providence becomes impossible. from that instant men will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. they will abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. the element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. the plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. the mind will investigate without reverence and publish its conclusions without fear. agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the jewish scriptures. the moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. the little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory lasting and universal. if we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and people, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed. man should cease to expect aid from on high. by this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. the present is the necessary child of all the past. there has been no chance, and there can be no interference. if abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. if slaves are freed, man must free them. if new truths are discovered, man must discover them. if the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind, if the defenseless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. the grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone. nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention, forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. she neither weeps nor rejoices. she produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. she knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. she is neither merciful nor cruel. she cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. she does not know even the attitude of prayer. she appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence. and yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy, to obtain its aid. his best energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. the horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect independence of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. the history of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers and to pacify the other. both powers have inspired little else than abject fear. the cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown of god, were equally terrible. in any event, man's fate was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact. until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of phantom masters--neither of whom promise liberty in this world nor in the next. man must learn to rely upon himself. reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. to prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world. although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and goodness of god, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures. immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been denounced as infidels, atheists and scoffers. the whole power of the church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to compel a denial of the authority of demonstration,--and to induce some judas to betray reason, one of the saviors of mankind. during that frightful period known as the "dark ages," faith reigned, with scarcely rebellious subject. her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. the great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. at her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. the scales of justice were turned with gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. she built cathedrals for god, and dungeons for men. she peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. for centuries the world was retracing its steps--going steadily back toward, barbaric night! a few infidels--a few heretics cried, "halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind. the thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. as long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and god? under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth? the originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the christian world. as long as every question is answered by the word "god," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. as fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge. it is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations by saying, "it is the will of god." such an explanation puts ignorance and education upon exact equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting for anything whatever. will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to ascertain how and why god acts? science, from such a standpoint, would consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavor to ascertain the rule necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice. from a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the condition of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means of which man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain. a belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal efforts. why should man endeavor to thwart the designs of god? "which of you, with taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?" under the influence of this belief, man, basking in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. believing himself in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. so long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition and misery. the energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. for countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. to please him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babies; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flames; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn the ecstasies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpetrated. through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived. most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent. women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babies; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. during all these years the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored, and heaven has been deaf and blind. of what use have the gods been to man? it is no answer to say that some god created the world, established certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his children, weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone. it is no solution to declare that in some other world this god will render a few or even all of his subjects happy. what right have we to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do better than he has done, and is doing? the world is filled with imperfections. if it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? if the infinite father allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? will god have more power? will he become more merciful? will his love for his poor creatures increase? can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever. we are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous and grand. supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy? the little children, according to this philosophy, can never be developed. they were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. if the clergy are right on this question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and distressed. if evil is necessary to the development of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of paradise? since paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon as unanswerable. the church teaches that this world, and all that it contains, were created substantially as we now see them, that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. the most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea, that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. the theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of evolution did not occur to them. our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. the earth appeared to them fresh from the hands of a deity. they knew nothing of the slow evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first. suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. and suppose further, that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand years of labor and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him that by splitting the log he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins: that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage, when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic? suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinite accomplished and scientific architect. does not an improvement in the things created, show the corresponding improvement in the creator? would an infinitely wise, good and powerful god, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterward abandoned? can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? who can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour animals? so that every mouth is a slaughter-house, and every stomach a tomb? is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage? what would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts; and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend? and yet this is exactly what the orthodox god has done. according to the theologians, god prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. the next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary god. a very pious friend of mine, having heard that i had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. he said that, in his judgment, it was impossible to point out an imperfection. "be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "well," said i, "i would make good health catching, instead of disease." the truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent god, who is superior to and independent of nature. the clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next. we are assured that all is perfection in heaven--there the skies are cloudless--there all is serenity and peace. here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. pestilence may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony--yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. children may expire vainly asking for bread; babies may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. the innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves, while the angels play upon their golden harps. the streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. in heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. their eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. the saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a moment's thought to his drowning brothers. with the indifference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. the smiles of the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. the shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth. having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: how did he free himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these despots of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? how did he, even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off, the yoke of superstition? probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. from this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with reference to him. he noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical, and that even comets came at certain intervals. this convinced him that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to do with them. he perceived that they were not caused for his benefit or injury. he thus learned to regard them with admiration instead of fear. he began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity but resulted often from the neglect and ignorance of man. he learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. he found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and would be cured by natural means. he demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. he found by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. at last, he began to discover that his individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough to stop one. after many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an earthquake. he noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. he was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the right did not always prevail. he noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent. he was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. he finally ascertained that there could be no possible connection between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give sheep to a priest. he began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. he observed that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized. he noticed a vast difference between religions and justice, and that the worshipers of the same god took delight in cutting each other's throats. he saw that these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. at last he had the courage to suspect, that no god at any time interferes with the order of events. he learned a few facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers. finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be shaken; finding his priests ignorant on some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth. this was the commencement of intellectual freedom. the civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. the intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. the church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. in spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. by reading his bible, he found that the ideas of his god were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. he also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. in every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. these divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. christ was crucified by the religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of god. religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards god and hatred towards man. the terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. a few began to compare christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. they also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. they began to suspect, that their religion, after all, was not of much real value. for three hundred years the christian world endeavored to rescue from the "infidel" the empty sepulchre of christ. for three hundred years the armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. this immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust throughout all christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a god who had been vanquished by mohammed. the people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. the discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree. for ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. this is the war between science and faith. the few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. the many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. the few have said, "think!" the many have said, "believe!" the first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance. men began to investigate, and the church began to oppose. the astronomer scanned the heavens, while the church branded his grand forehead with the word, "infidel"; and now, not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a christian name. in spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found hidden within her bosom, souvenirs of all the ages. old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, useful truths took their places. one by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. a new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored, and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without. these are the sublime truths that enable man to throw off the yoke of superstition. these are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of priests. in the vast cemetery called the past are most of the religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. the sacred temples of india were ruins long ago. over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; kali, the goddess; draupadi, the white-armed, and chrishna, the christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. along the banks of the sacred nile, isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead osiris. the shadow of typhon's scowl falls no more upon the waves. the sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of memnon, but memnon is as voiceless as the sphinx. the sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. odin, the author of life and soul, vili and ve, and the mighty giant ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the north; and thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more. broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. the divine fires of persia and of the aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. the harp of orpheus is still; the drained cup of bacchus has been thrown aside; venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. the streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. the gods have flown from high olympus. not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and danee lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. hushed forever are the thunders of sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk and honey is but a desert and waste. one by one, the myths have faded from the clouds; one by one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one facts, truths and realities have taken their places. the supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. the gods have fled, but man is here. nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. religions are the same. the same inexorable destiny awaits them all. the gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. they were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. the deities of one age are the by-words of the next. the religion of one day and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than others have been. when india was supreme, brahma sat upon the world's throne. when the scepter passed to egypt, isis and osiris received the homage of mankind. greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and zeus put on the purple of authority. the earth trembled with the tread of rome's intrepid sons, and jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. rome fell, and christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now christ sits upon the old throne. who will be his successor? day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. day by day, the old spirit dies out of book and creed. the burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to return. the ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out of the human heart. the worn out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. as time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small, and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. there is an "irrepressible conflict" between religion and science, and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world. while utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify everyone of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn. reason, observation and experience--the holy trinity of science--have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. this is enough for us. in this belief we are content to live and die. if by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. until then, let us stand erect. notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with tearing down without building again. the church should by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. the history of religious persecutions fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence. the mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. the moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast aside. a surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him any assistance in his power. the surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. these remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, "do not, i pray you, take away my crutches. they are my only support, and without them, i should be miserable, indeed." "i am not going," said the surgeon, "to take away your crutches. i am going to cure you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself." for the vagaries of the clouds, the infidels propose to substitute the realities of the earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and achievements of science; and for the theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of thought. we do not say we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all in truth. we know of no end to the development of man. we cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. the history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars. we are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. we are not forgoing fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. we are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. this of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. philosophy has not the egotism of faith. while superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. we do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods, that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. we are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. we do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. we know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. it is a means to an end; the real end being the happiness of man. felling forests is not the end of agriculture. driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce. we are laying the foundations of a grand temple of the future--not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people--wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of humanity. we are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants--gorged indolence and famished industry--truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. we are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the king of kings, and god of gods. ingersoll's lecture on ghosts. ladies and gentlemen: in the first place, allow me to tender my sincere thanks to the clergy of this city. i feel that i am greatly indebted to them for this magnificent audience. it has been said, and i believe it myself, that there is a vast amount of intolerance in the church of today, but when twenty-four clergymen, three of whom, i believe, are bishops, act as my advance agents, without expecting any remuneration, or reward in this world, i must admit that perhaps i was mistaken on the question of intolerance. and i will say, further, that against those men i have not the slightest feeling in the world; every man is the product of his own surroundings; he is the product of every circumstance that has ever touched him; he is the product to a certain degree of the religion and creed of his day, and when men show the slightest intolerance i blame the creed, i blame the religion, i blame the superstition that forced them to do so. i do not blame those men. allow me to say, further, that this world is not, in my judgment, yet perfect. i am doing, in a very feeble way, to be sure, but i am still endeavoring, according to my idea, to make this world just a little better; to give a little more liberty to men, a little more liberty to women. i believe in the government of kindness; i believe in truth, in investigation, in free thought. i do not believe that the hand of want will be eternally extended in the world; i do not believe that the prison will forever scar the ground; i do not believe that the shadow of the gallows will forever curse the earth; i do not believe that it will always be true that the men who do the most work will have the least to wear and the least to eat. i do believe that the time will come when liberty and morality and justice, like the rings of saturn, will surround the world; that the world will be better, and every true man and every free man will do what he can to hasten the coming of the religion of human advancement. i understand that for the thousands and thousands of years that have gone by, all questions have been settled by religion. i understand that during all this time the people have gotten their information from the sacerdotal class--from priests. i know that when india was supreme they worshipped brahma and vishnu, and that when rome held in its hand the red sword of war they worshipped jove, and i know now that our religion has swept to the top. any man living in india a few hundred or thousand years ago would have said, this is the only true religion. why? because here is the only true civilization. a man afterward living in egypt would have said, this is the only true religion, because we have the best civilization; a greek in athens would have said this is the only true religion, and a roman would have said we have the true religion, and now those religions all having died, although they were all true religions, we say ours is the only religion, because we are the greatest commercial nation in the world. there will come other nations; there will come other religions. man has made every religion in this world, in my judgment, and the religion, has been good or bad according as the men who made it were good or bad. if they were savages and barbarians, they made a god like the jehovah of the jews; if they were civilized, if they were kind and tender, they filled the heavens with kindness and love. every man makes his own god. show me the god a man worships, and i will tell you what kind of a man he is. every one makes his own god, every one worships his own god; and if you are a civilized man you will have a civilized god, and we have been civilizing ours for hundreds and hundreds of years. he is getting better every day. i am going to tell you tonight just exactly what i think. the other lecture i delivered here was my conservative lecture; this is my radical one! we even hear it suggested that our religion, our bible, has given us all we have of prosperity and greatness and grandeur. i deny it! we have become civilized in spite of it, and i will show you tonight that the obstruction that every science has had is what we have been pleased to call our religion--or superstition. i had a conversation with a gentleman once--and these gentlemen are always mistaking something that goes along with a thing for the cause of the thing--and he stated to me that his particular religion was the cause of all advancement. i said to him: "no, sir; the causes of all advancement, in my judgment, are plug hats and suspenders." and i said to him: "you go to turkey, where they are semi-barbarians, and you won't find a pair of suspenders or a plug hat in all that country; you go to russia, and you will find now and then a pair of suspenders at moscow or st. petersburg; you go on down till you strike austria, and black hats begin; then you go on to paris, berlin and new york, and you will find everybody wears suspenders and everybody wears black hats. wherever you find education and music there you will find black hats and suspenders." he said that any man who said to him that plug hats and suspenders had done more for mankind than the bible and religion he would not talk to. as a matter of fact, we are controlled today by men who do not exist. we are controlled today by phenomena that never did exist. we are controlled by ghosts and dead men, and in the grasp of death is a scepter that controls the living present. i propose that we shall govern ourselves! i propose that we shall let the past go, and let the dead past bury the dead past. i believe the american people have brains enough, and nerve enough, and courage enough, to control and govern themselves, without any assistance from dust or ghosts. that is my doctrine, and i am going to do what i can while i live to increase that feeling of independence and manhood in the american people.--we can control ourselves. i believe in the gospel of this world; i believe in happiness right here; i do not believe in drinking skim milk all my life with the expectation of butter beyond the clouds. i believe in the gospel, i say, in this world. this is a mighty good world. there are plenty of good people in this world. there is lots of happiness in this world and, i say, let us, in every way we can, increase it. i envy every man who is content with his lot, whether he is poor or whether he is rich. i tell you, the man that tries to make somebody else happy, and who owns his own soul, nobody having a mortgage or deed of trust upon his manhood or liberty--this world is a pretty good world for such a man. i do not care: i am going to say my say, whether i make money or grow poor; no matter whether i get high office or walk along the dusty highway of the common. i am going to say my say, and i had rather be a farmer and live on forty acres of land--live in a log cabin that i built myself, and have a little grassy path going down to the spring, so that i can go there and hear the waters gurgling, and know that it is coming out from the lips of the earth, like a poem, whispering to the white pebbles--i would rather live there, and have some hollyhocks at the corner of the house, and the larks singing and swinging in the trees, and some lattice over the window, so that the sunlight can fall checkered on the babe in the cradle. i had rather live there, and have the freedom of my own brain; i had rather do that than live in a palace of gold, and crawl, a slimy hypocrite, through this world. superstition has done enough harm already; every religion, nearly, suspects everything that is pleasant, everything that is joyous, and they always have a notion that god feels best when we feel worst. they have chained the andromeda of joy to the cold rock of ignorance and fear, there to be devoured by the dragon of superstition. church and state are two vultures that have fed upon the heart of chained prometheus. i say, let the human race have a chance let every man think for himself and express that thought. there is no wrath in the serene heavens; there is no scowl in the blue of the sky. upon the throne of the universe tyranny does not sit as a king. the speaker here took from his pocket a pair of spectacles, and adjusted them, saying: i am sorry to admit it; i have got to come to it. i hate to put on a pair of spectacles, but the other day, as i was putting them on, a thought struck me. i see progress in this. to progress is to overcome the obstacles of nature, and in order to overcome this obstacle of the loss of sight man invented spectacles. spectacles led men to the telescope, with which he read all the starry heavens; and had it not been for the failure of sight we wouldn't have seen a millionth part that we have. in the first place, we owe nothing but truth to the dead. i am going to tell the truth about them. there are three theories by which men account for all phenomena--for everything that happens: first, the supernatural. in the olden time, everything that happened some deity produced, some spirit, some devil, some hobgoblin, some dryad, some fairy, some spook, something except nature. first, then, the supernatural; and a barbarian, looking at the wide, mysterious sea, wandering through the depths of the forest, encountering the wild beasts, troubled by strange dreams, accounted for everything by the action of spirits, good and bad. second, the supernatural and natural. there is where the religious world is today--a mingling of the supernatural and natural, the idea being that god created the world and imposed upon men certain laws, and then let them run, and if they ever got into any trouble then he would do a miracle, and accomplish any good that he desired to do. third--and that is the grand theory--the natural. between these theories there has been from the dawn of civilization a conflict. in this great war nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural. the believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without. the naturalists maintain that nature acts from within; that nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that nature, with infinite arms, embraces everything that exists, and that the supposed powers beyond the limits of the materially real are simply ghosts. you say, ah! this is materialism! this is the doctrine of matter! what is matter? i take a handful of earth in my hands, and into that dust i put seeds, and arrows from the eternal quiver of the sun smite it, and the seeds grow and bud and blossom, and fill the air with perfume in my sight. do you understand that? do you understand how this dust and these seeds and that light and this moisture produced that bud and that flower and that perfume? do you understand that any better than you do the production of thought? do you understand that any better than you do a dream? do you understand that any better than you do the thoughts of love that you see in the eyes of the one you adore? can you explain it? can you tell what matter is? have you the slightest conception? yet you talk about matter as though you were acquainted with its origin; as though you had compelled, with clenched hands, the very rocks to give up the secret of existence? do you know what force is? can you account for molecular action? are you familiar with chemistry? can you account for the loves and the hatreds of the atoms? is there not something in matter that forever excludes you? can you tell what matter really is? before you cry materialism, you had better find what matter is. can you tell of anything without a material basis? is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of a single atom? can you have a thought that is not suggested to you by what you call matter? did any man or woman or child ever have a solitary thought, dream or conception, that was not suggested to them by something they had seen in nature? can you conceive of anything the different parts of which have been suggested to you by nature? you can conceive of an animal with the hoofs of a bison, with the pouch of a kangaroo, with the head of a buffalo, with the tail of a lion, with the scales of a fish, with the wings of a bird, and yet every part of this impossible monster has been suggested to you by nature. you say time, therefore you can think eternity. you say pain, therefore you can think hell. you say strength, therefore you can think omnipotence. you say wisdom, therefore you can think infinite wisdom. everything you see, everything you can dream of or think of, has been suggested to you by your surroundings, by nature. man cannot rise above nature; below nature man cannot fall. imagine, if you please, the creation of a single atom. can any one here imagine the creation out of nothing of one atom? can any one here imagine the destruction of one atom? can you imagine an atom being changed to nothing? can you imagine nothing being changed to an atom? there is not a solitary person here with an imagination strong enough to think either of the creation of an atom or of the annihilation of an atom. matter and the universe are the same yesterday, today and forever. there is just as much matter in the universe today as there ever was, and as there ever will be; there is just as much force and just as much energy as there ever was or ever will be; but it is continually taking different shapes and forms; one day it is a man, another day it is animal, another day it is earth, another day it is metal, another day it is gas, it gains nothing and it loses nothing. our fathers denounced materialism and accounted for all phenomena how? by the caprice of gods and devils. for thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good ghosts, bad ghosts, benevolent and malevolent, in some mysterious way produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and failure, were but arrows shot by those ghosts or shadowy phantoms, to reward or punish mankind; that they were displeased or pleased by our actions, that they blessed the earth with harvest or cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men; that they crowned or uncrowned kings; that they controlled war; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing the brave mariner to meet his wife and children inside the harbor bar, or strewed the sad shore with wrecks of ships and the bodies of men. formerly these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. earth, air and water were filled with these phantoms, but in modern times they have greatly decreased in number, because the second proposition that i stated, the supernatural and the natural, has generally been adopted, but the remaining ghosts are supposed to perform the same functions as of yore. let me say right here that the object of every religion ever made by man has been to get on the good side of supposed powers; has been to petition the gods to stop the earthquakes, to stop famine, to stop pestilence. it has always been something that man should do to prevent being punished by the powers of the air or to get from them some favors. it has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be appeased; that they could be bettered by sacrifices, by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by shedding the blood of men and beasts, by forms, by ceremonies, by kneelings, by prostrations and flagellations, by living alone in the wild desert, by the practice of celibacy, by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and children, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers and by putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the lips of men, by believing things without evidence, by believing things against evidence, by disbelieving and denying demonstrations, by despising facts, by hating reason, by discouraging investigation, by making an idiot of yourself--all these have been done to appease the winged monsters of the air. in the history of our poor world no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by believers in ghosts, and all the shadows were born of cowardice and malignity; they were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition. from these ghosts our fathers received their information. these ghosts were the schoolmasters of our ancestors. they were the scientists, the philosophers, the geologists, the legislators, the astronomers, the physicians, the metaphysicians and historians of the past. let me give you my definition of metaphysics, that is to say, the science of the unknown, the science of guessing. metaphysics is where two fools get together, and each one admits that neither can prove, and both say, "hence we infer." that is the science of metaphysics. for this these ghosts were supposed to have the only experience and real knowledge; they inspired men to write books, and the books were sacred. if facts were found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts, and especially for the discoverers of these facts. it was then and still is believed that these sacred books are the basis of the idea of immortality, to give up the idea that these books were inspired is and to renounce the idea of immortal life. i deny it! men existed before books; and all the books that were ever written were written, in my judgment, by men, and the idea of immortality was not born of a book, but was born of the man who wrote the book. the idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating its countless waves of hope and joy against the shores of time, and was not born of any book, nor of any religion, nor of any creed; it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the clouds and mists of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow of hope shining upon the tears of grief. we love, therefore we wish to live, and the foundation of the idea of immortality is human affection and human love, and i have a thousand times more confidence in the affections of the human heart, in the deep and splendid feelings of the human soul than i have in any book that ever was or ever can be written by mortal man. from the books written by those ghosts we have at least ascertained that they knew nothing whatever of the world in which we live. did they know anything about any other? upon every point where contradiction is possible, the ghosts have been contradicted. by these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, by this aristocracy of the clouds the affairs of government were administered all authority to govern came from them. the emperors, kings and potentates, every one of them, had the divine petroleum poured upon his head, the kerosene of authority. the emperors, king and potentates had communications from the phantoms. man was not considered as the source of power; to rebel against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the offenders could appease the invisible phantoms and by the authority of the ghosts man was crushed and slayed and plundered. many toiled wearily in the sun and storm that a few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness, and many lived in huts and caves and dens that the few might dwell in palaces, and many clothed themselves with rags that a few might robe themselves in purple and gold, and many crept and cringed and crawled that a few might tread upon their necks with feet of iron. from the ghosts men received not only authority but information. they told us the form of the earth; they informed us that eclipses were caused by the sins of man, especially the failure to pay tithes that the universe was made in six days; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was dangerous; that trying to be wise beyond what they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent spirit; they told us there was no virtue like belief; no crime like doubt, that investigation was simply impudence, and the punishment therefore violent torment; they not only told us all about this world but about two others, and if their statements about the other two are as true as they were about this, no one can estimate the value of their information. for countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. to accomplish this infamous purpose, to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light to pollute every mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were used. in order to show you the information we got from the ghosts, and the condition of the world when the ghosts were the kings, let me call your attention to this: during these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers and doctors, learned and unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, of fear and faith, called witchcraft. witchcraft today is religion carried out. they believed that man was the sport and prey of devils; that the very air was thick with these enemies of man, and, with few exceptions, this hideous belief was universal. under these conditions progress was almost impossible. fear paralyzed the brain. progress is born of courage. fear believes, courage doubts. fear falls upon the earth and prays; courage stands erect and thinks. fear retreats; courage advances. fear is barbarism, courage is civilization. fear believes in witchcraft; courage in science and in eternal law. the facts upon which this terrible belief rested were proved over and over again in nearly every court in europe. thousands confessed themselves guilty, admitted they had sold themselves to the devil. they gave the particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. they confessed themselves guilty when they knew that confession was death; knew that their property would be confiscated and their children left to beg their bread. this is one of the miracles of history, one of the strangest contradictions of the human mind. without doubt they really believed themselves guilty. in the first place, they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they became insane. they had read the account of the witch of endor calling up the dead body of samuel. he is an old man; he has his mantle on. they had read the account of saul stooping to the earth and conversing with the spirit that had been called from the region of space by a witch. they had read a command from the almighty, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and they believed the world was full of witches, or else the almighty would not have made a law against them. they believed in witchcraft, and when they were charged with it, they probably became insane, and in their insanity they confessed their guilt. they found themselves abhorred and deserted, charged with a crime they could not disprove. like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them deeper. caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the devotees of superstition, hope fled and nothing remained but the insanity of confession. the whole world appeared insane. in the time of james i, a man was burned for causing a storm at sea, with the intention of drowning one of the royal family, but i do not think it would have been much of a crime if he had been really guilty. how could he disprove it? how could he show that he did not cause a storm at sea? all storms were at that time supposed to be inspired by the devil; the people believed that all storms were caused by him, or by persons whom he assisted. i implore you to remember that the men who believed these things wrote our creeds and our confessions of faith, and it is by their dust that i am asked to kneel and pay implicit homage, instead of investigating; and i implore you to recollect that they wrote our creeds. a woman was tried and convicted before sir matthew hale, one of the greatest judges and lawyers of england, for having caused children to vomit crooked pins. think of that! the learned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that it was established by all history and expressly taught by the bible. the woman was hung and her body was burned. sir thomas moore declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the sacred scriptures. john wesley, too, was a firm believer in ghosts, and insisted upon their existence after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in england, and i beg of you to remember that john wesley was the founder of the methodist church. in new england a woman was charged with being a witch and with having changed herself into a fox; while in that condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs, and a committee of three men was ordered by the court to examine this woman. they removed her clothing, and searched for what they were pleased to call witch-spots--that is to say, spots into which a needle could be thrust without giving pain; they reported to the court that such spots were found. she denied that she had ever changed herself into a fox. on the report of the committee she was found guilty, and she was actually executed by our puritan fathers, the gentlemen who braved the danger of the deep for the sake of worshiping god and persecuting their fellow men. i belong to their blood, and the best thing i can say about them, and that which rises like a white shaft to their eternal honor, is that they were in favor of education. a man was attacked by a wolf; he defended himself and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws, and the wolf ran away; he put it in his pocket and carried it home; there he found his wife with one of her hands gone, and he took that paw from his pocket and put it upon her arm, and it assumed the appearance of a human hand, and he charged his wife with being a witch. she was tried, she confessed her guilt, and she was hung and her body was burned! my! is it possible? did not somebody say something against such an infamous proceeding? yes, they did! there was a young men's association who invited a man to come and give his ideas upon the subject. he denounced it. he said it was outrageous, that it was nonsensical, that it was infamous and the moment he went away the young men met and passed a resolution that he had deceived them; and the clergy at that time protested and said, of course, let the man think, if you call that kind of stuff thinking. but there was one man belonging to this association who had the courage to stand by the truth. whether he believed in what the speaker said or not, he had that manliness; and i take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart a man. i have no idea he agrees with me except in this: whatever you do, do it like a man and be honest about it. people were burned for causing frost in summer; for destroying crops with hail; for causing storms--for making cows go dry; for souring beer; for putting the devil in emptyings so that they would not rise. the life of no one was secure. to be charged was to be convicted. every man was at the mercy of every other. this infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that, to express a doubt as to its existence was to be suspected yourself. they believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and they believed that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. they absolutely tried, convicted and executed dumb beasts. at vail, in , a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an egg, and the clergy said they had no doubt of it. rooster eggs were used only in making witch-ointment. this everybody knew. the rooster was convicted, and with all due solemnity, he was burned in the public square. so a hog and six pig died for having killed and partially eaten a child. the hog was convicted, but the pigs, on account of their extreme youth, were acquitted. as late as , a cow, charged with being possessed of a devil, was tried and was convicted. they used to exorcise rats, snakes and vermin; they used to go through the alleys and streets and fields and warn them to leave within a certain number of days, and if they did not leave, they threatened them with certain pains and penalties which they proceeded to recount. but let us be careful how we laugh about those things; let us not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age. we must not forget that some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. only a little while ago the governor of minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer to see if the lord could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers--or send them into some other state. about the close of the fifteenth century was the excitement in regard to witchcraft, and pope innocent the eighth issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of this crime. forms for the crime were regularly issued. for two hundred and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of witchcraft by burning, hanging and torturing men, women and little children. protestants were as active as catholics; and in geneva five hundred witches were burned at the stake in three months, and one thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of couro; at least one hundred thousand victims suffered in germany, the last execution being in galesburgh, and taking place in , and the last in switzerland, . in england statutes were passed from henry vi to james i, defining the crime and punishment, and the last act passed in the british parliament was when lord bacon was a member of the house. in mrs. hicks and daughter, nine years of age, were hung for selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm at sea by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. in england it has been estimated that at least , were hung or burned. the last victim executed in scotland was . she was an innocent old woman who had so little idea of her condition, that she rejoiced at the sight of the fire destined to consume her to ashes. she had a daughter, lame in her hands, a circumstance accounted for from the fact that the witch had been used to transfer her daughter into a pony and get her shod by the devil! intelligent ancestors! in nineteen persons were executed in salem, massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. it was thought in those days that men and women made contracts with the devil, and those contracts were confirmed at a meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil presided; these contracts in some cases were for a few years, others for life. general assemblages of witches were held once a year. to these they rode from great distances on brooms and dogs, and there they did homage to the prince of hell and offered him sacrifices. in the populace of holland plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress, and as the miserable woman persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty, and was beaten to death. it was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he pleased, and whoever denounced this idea was denounced as an infidel; that the believers in witchcraft appealed to the devil; that with the devil were associated innumerable spirits, who ranged over the world endeavoring to torment mankind; that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom transcending the limits of human faculties. they believed the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles in a few seconds; they believed this because they knew that christ had been carried by the devil, in the same manner, into a high mountain, and placed upon a pinnacle. according to their account, the prince of the air had absolutely taken the god of this infinite universe, the creator of all its shining, wheeling stars--he had been absolutely taken by the devil to a pinnacle of the temple, and there had been tempted by the devil to cast himself to the earth. take from the church itself the threat and fear of hell and it becomes an extinct volcano. with the doctrine of hell taken from the church, that is the end of the fall of man, that is the end of the scheme of atonement. take from them the idea of an eternal place of torment, and the church is thrown back simply upon facts. and dean stanley, the leading ecclesiastic of great britain, only the other day in winchester abbey, said science will be the only theology of the future. morality is the only religion of the years to come. not withstanding all the infamous things laid to the charge of the church, we are told that the civilization of today is the child of what we are pleased to call superstition. let me call your attention to what they received from their fears of these ghosts. let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by those philosophers. there is one thing that a man is interested in, if he is in anything, and that is in the science of medicine. a doctor is, so to speak, in partnership with nature. he is a preserver if he is worthy of the name. and now i want to show what they have gotten from these ghosts upon the science of medicine. according to them, all of the diseases were produced as a punishment by the good ghosts, or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. there were, properly speaking, no diseases; the sick were simply possessed by ghosts. the science of medicine consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises and for thousands of years all diseases were treated with incantations, hideous noises, with the beating of drums and gongs; everything was done to make the position of a ghost as unpleasant as possible; and they generally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the patient died. these ghosts were supposed to be different in rank, power and dignity. now, then, a man pretended to have won the favor of some powerful ghost who gave him power over the little ones. such a man became a very great physician. it was found that a certain kind of smoke was exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of your ordinary ghost. with this smoke the sick room would be filled until the ghost vanished or the patient died. it was also believed that certain words, when properly pronounced, were the most effective weapons, for it was for a long time supposed that latin words were the best, i suppose because latin was a dead language. for thousands of years medicine consisted in driving the devils out of men. in some instances bargains and promises were made with the ghosts. one case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man off for a herd of swine. in this transaction the devils were the losers, the swine having immediately drowned themselves in the sea. this idea of disease appears to have been almost universal and is not yet extinct. the contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitching of those afflicted with cholera, were all seized as proof that the bodies of men were filled with vile and malignant spirits. whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes; whoever endeavored to cure disease by natural means was denounced as an infidel. to explain anything was a crime. it was to the interest of the sacerdotal class that all things should be accounted for by the will and power of god and the devil. the moment it is admitted that all phenomena are within the domain of the natural, and that all the prayers in the world cannot change one solitary fact, the necessity for the priest disappears. religion breathes the idea of miracles. take from the minds of men the idea of the supernatural, and superstition ceases to exist; for this reason the church has always despised the man who explains the wonderful. the moment that it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul. after the devil was substantially abandoned in the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that god had nothing to do with ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the diseases were sent by him as punishment for the people; it was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even stay the ravages of pestilence. formerly, when a pestilence fell upon a people, the arguments of the priest were boundless. he told the people that they had refused to pay their tithes, and they had doubted some of the doctrines of the church, that in their hearts they had contempt for some of the priests of the lord, and god was now taking his revenge, and the people, for the most part, believed this issue of falsehood, and hastened to fall upon their knees and to pour out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy. the church never wanted disease to be absolutely under the control of man. timothy dwight, president of yale college, preached a sermon against vaccination. his idea was that if god had decreed that through all eternity certain men should die of small pox, it was a frightful sin to endeavor to prevent it; that plagues and pestilence were instruments in the hands of god with which to gain the love and worship of mankind; to find the cure for the disease was to take the punishment from the church. no one tries to cure the ague with prayer because quinine has been found to be altogether more reliable. just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease is left out of the list of prayer. the number of diseases with which god from time to time afflicts mankind is continually decreasing, because the number of diseases that man can cure is continually increasing. in a few years all diseases will be under the control of man. the science of medicine has but one enemy--superstition. man was afraid to save his body for fear he would lose his soul. is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment, that makes god a heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave? the ghosts were also historians, and wrote the grossest absurdities. they wrote as though they had been eye witnesses of every occurrence. they told all the past, they predicted all the future, with an impudence that amounted to sublimity. they said that the tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called tartars because that was one of the names of hell. these gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins from the fact that those birds used to carry water to the unhappy infants in hell. other eminent historians say that nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. when i read that, i said some of the croakers of the present day would be better for such a vomit. others say that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer. they tell us that king arthur was not born like other mortals; that he had great luck in killing giants; that one of the giants that he killed wore clothes woven from the beards of kings that he had slain, and, to cap the climax, the authors of this history were rewarded for having written the only reliable history of their country. these are the men from whom we get our creeds and our confessions of faith. in all the histories of those days there is hardly a truth. facts were not considered of any importance. they wrote, and the people believed that the tracks of pharaoh's chariot were still visible upon the sands of the red sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved as perpetual witnesses of the miracles that had been performed, and they said to any man who denied it, "go there and you will find the tracks still upon the sand." they accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits; with cause and effect they had nothing to do. facts were in no way related to each other. god, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and disconnected events, and from his quiver came the arrows of pestilence and death. the moment the idea is abandoned that everything in this universe is natural--that all phenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain of being--the conception of history becomes impossible that the ghost of the present is not the child of the past; the present is not the mother of the future. in the domain of superstition all is accident and caprice; and do not, i pray you, forget that the writers of our creeds and confessions of faith believed this to be a world of chance. nothing happens by accident; nothing happens by chance. in the wide universe everything is necessarily produced, every effect has behind it a cause, every effect is in its turn a cause, and there is in the wide domain of the infinite not room enough for a miracle. when i say this, i mean this is my idea. i may be wrong, but that is my idea. it was believed by our intelligent ancestors that all law derived its greatness and force from the fact that it had been communicated to man by ghosts. of course, it is not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law, but they told it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a rule, paid them exceedingly well for the trouble. it was a long time before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and, strange as it may appear, most of their laws are vastly superior to the ghost article. through the web and woof of human legislation gradually began to run and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice. during these years of darkness it was believed that, rather than see an act of injustice done, rather than see the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere and i do wish, from the bottom of my heart, that that was the truth. there never was forced upon my heart a more frightful conviction than this--the right does not always prevail; there never was forced upon my mind a more cruel conclusion than this--innocence is not always a sufficient shield. i wish it was. i wish, too, that man suffered nothing but that which he brings upon himself and yet i find that in nine districts in india, between the st day of last january and the st day of june, , , people starved to death, and that little children, with their lips upon the breasts of famine, died, wasted away. and why, simply because a little while before the wind did not veer the one hundredth part of a degree, and send clouds over the country, freighted with rain, freighted with love and joy. but if that wind had just turned that way there would have been happy men, women and children, all clad in the garments of health. i wish that i could know in my heart that there was some power that would see to it that men and women got exact justice somewhere. i do wish that i knew--the right would prevail--that innocence was an infinite shield. during these years it was believed that rather than see an act of injustice done some ghost would interfere. this belief, as a rule, gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and, as the other man was dead, no complaint was ever made by him. this doctrine was a sanctification of brute force and chance. prisoners were made to grasp hot irons, and if it burned them their guilt was established. others were tied hands and feet and cast into the sea, and if they sank, the verdict of guilt was unanimous; if they did not sink then they said water is such a pure element that it refuses to take a guilty person, and consequently he is a witch or wizard. why, in england, persons accused of crime could appeal to the cross, and to a piece of sacramental bread. if he could swallow this without choking he was acquitted. and this practice was continued until the time of king edward, who was choked to death; after which it was discontinued. ghosts and their followers always took delight in torturing with unusual pain any infraction of their laws, and generally death was the penalty. sometimes, when a man committed only murder, he was permitted to flee to a place of refuge--murder being only a crime against man--but for saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines, or for worshiping wrong ghosts, or for failing to pray to the right one, or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood, or bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard rams' horns as artillery, or for saying that a raven as a rule, was a poor landlord, death, produced by all the ways that ingenuity or hatred could devise, was the penalty suffered by these men. i tell you tonight law is a growth; law is a science. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. things are not right because they are commanded; they are not wrong because they are prohibited. they are prohibited because we believe them wrong; they are commended because we believe them right. there are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. all progress in legislation for a thousand years has consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts. the idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer. if man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his brother, if he could neither feel nor inflict punishment, the idea of law, the idea of right, the idea of wrong, never could have entered into his brain. if man could not suffer, if he could not inflict suffering, the word conscience never would have passed the lips of man. there is one good--happiness. there is one sin--selfishness. all laws should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of the other. under the regime of the ghosts the laws were not understood to exist in the nature of things; they were supposed to be irresponsible commands, and these commands were not supposed to rest upon reason; they were simply the product of arbitrary will. these penalties for the violations of those laws were as cruel as the penalties were absurd. there were over two hundred offenses for which man was punished with death. think of it! and these laws are said to have come from a most merciful god. and yet we have become civilized to that degree in this country that in the state of new york there is only one crime punishable with death. think of it! did i not tell you that we were now civilizing our gods? the tendency of those horrible laws, the tendency of those frightful penalties, was to blot the idea of justice from the human soul. now, i want to show you how perfectly every department of human knowledge, or rather of ignorance, was saturated with superstition. i will for a moment refer to the science of language. it was thought by our fathers that hebrew was the original language; that it was taught to adam and eve in the garden of eden by the almighty himself. every fact inconsistent with that idea was thrown away. according to the ghosts, the trouble at the tower of babel accounted for the fact that all the people did not speak the hebrew language. the babel question settled all questions in the science of language. after a time so many facts were found to be so inconsistent with the hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages began to be used. andrew kent published a work on the science of language, in which he stated that god spoke to adam, and adam answered, in hebrew, and that the serpent probably spoke to eve in french. in another celebrated work was published at antwerp, in which the whole matter was put at rest, showing beyond a doubt that the language spoken in paradise was neither more nor less than plain holland dutch. another celebrated writer, a contemporary of sir isaac newton, discouraged the idea that all languages could be traced to one; he maintained that language was of natural growth; that we speak as naturally as we grow; we talk as naturally as sings a bird, or as blooms and blossoms a flower. experience teaches us that this be so; words are continually dying and continually may being born--words are the garments of thought. through the lapse of time some were as rude as the skins of wild beasts, and others pleasing and cultured like silk and gold. words have been born of hatred and revenge, of love and self sacrifice and fear, of agony and joy the stars have fashioned them, and in them mingled the darkness and the dawn. every word that we get from the past is, so to speak, a mummy robed in the linen of the grave. they are the crystallizations of human history, of all that man enjoyed, of all that man has suffered, his victories and defeats, all that he has lost and won. words are the shadows of all that has been; they are the mirrors of all that is. the ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology. according to them the world was made out of nothing, and a little more nothing having been taken than was used in the construction of the world, the stars were made out of the scraps that were left over. cosmos, in the sixth century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who carried them upon their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew them after. he also taught that each angel who pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the stars might always remain the same. he stated that this world was a vast body of water, with a strip of land on the outside; that adam and eve lived on the outer strip; that their descendants were drowned on the outer strip, all except noah and his family; he accounted for night and day by saying that on the outer strip of land was a mountain, around which the sun revolved, producing darkness when it was hidden from sight, and daylight when it emerged; he also declared the earth to be flat. this he proved by many passages from the bible; among other reasons for believing the earth to be flat he referred to a passage in the new testament, which says that christ shall come again in glory and power, and every eye shall see him, and said, now, if the world is round how are the people on the other side going to see christ when he comes? that settled the question, and the church not only indorsed this book but declared that whoever believed either less or more was a heretic and would be dealt with as such. in those blessed days ignorance was a king and science was an outcast. the church knew that the moment the earth ceased to be the center of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry sphere of existence, every religion would become a thing of the past. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their fellowmen; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. in the name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold each other. they filled heaven with tyrants and the earth with slaves. they filled the present with intolerance and the future with horror. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they declared superstition to be the real religion. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind; they polluted the conscience, they subverted justice, and they sainted hypocrisy. i have endeavored in some degree to show you what has been and always will be when men are governed by superstition. when they destroy the sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of others and do not investigate them themselves, even the great men of those days appear nearly as weak as the most ignorant. one of the greatest men of the world, an astronomer second to none, discoverer of the three great laws that explain the solar system, was an astrologer and believed that he could predict the career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. he believed in what is called the music of the spheres, and he ascribed the qualities of the music--alto, bass, tenor and treble--to certain of the planets. another man kept an idiot, whose words he put down and then put them together in such a manner as to make promises, and waited patiently to see that they were fulfilled. luther believed he had actually seen the devil and discussed points of theology with him. the human mind was enchained. every idea, almost, was a mystery. facts were looked upon as worthless; only the wonderful was worth preserving. devils were thought to be the most industrious beings in the universe, and with these imps every occurrence of an unusual character was connected. there was no order, certainty; everything depended upon ghosts and phantoms, and man, for the most part, considered himself at the mercy of malevolent spirits. he protected himself as best he could with holy water, and with tapers, and wafers, and cathedrals. he made noises to frighten the ghosts and music to charm them; he fasted when he was hungry and he feasted when he was not; he believed everything unreasonable; he humbled himself; he crawled in the dust; he shut the doors and windows; and excluded every ray of light from his soul; and he delayed not a day to repair the walls of his own prison; and from the garden of the human heart they plucked and trampled into the bloody dust the flowers and blossoms; they denounced man as totally depraved; they made reason blasphemy; they made pity a crime; nothing so delighted them as painting the torments and tortures of the damned. over the worm that never dies they grew poetic. according to them, the cries ascending from hell were the perfume of heaven. they divided the world into saints and sinners, and all the saints were going to heaven, and all the sinners yonder. now, then, you stand in the presence of a great disaster. a house is on fire, and there is seen at a window the frightened face of a woman with a babe in her arms, appealing for help; humanity cries out: "will someone go to the rescue?" they do not ask for a methodist, a baptist, or a catholic; they ask for a man; all at once there starts from the crowd one that nobody ever suspected of being a saint; one may be, with a bad reputation; but he goes up the ladder and is lost in the smoke and flame; and a moment after he emerges, and the great circles of flame hiss around him; in a moment more he has reached the window; in another moment, with the woman and child in his arms, he reaches the ground and gives his fainting burden to the bystanders and the people all stand hushed for a moment, as they always do at such times, and then the air is rent with acclamations. tell me that that man is going to be sent to hell, to eternal flames, who is willing to risk his life rather than a woman and child should suffer from the fire one moment! i despise that doctrine of hell! any man that believes in eternal hell is afflicted with at least two diseases--petrifaction of the heart and petrifaction of the brain. i have seen upon the field of battle a boy sixteen years of age struck by a fragment of a shell; i have seen him fall; i have seen him die with a curse upon his lips and the face of his mother in his heart. tell me that his soul will be hurled from the field of battle where he lost his life that his country might live--where he lost his life for the liberties of man--tell me that he will be hurled from that field to eternal torment! i pronounce it an infamous lie. and yet, according to these gentlemen, that is to be the fate of nearly all the splendid fellows in this world. i had in my possession a little while ago a piece of fresco that used to adorn a church at stratford-on-avon, the place where shakespeare lived, and there was a picture representing the morning of the resurrection and people were getting out of their graves and devils were grabbing them by their heels. and there was an immense monster, with jaws open so wide that a man could walk down its throat, and the flames were issuing therefrom, and there were devils driving people in droves down the throat of this monster; and there was an immense kettle in which they had put these men, and the fire was being stirred under it, and hot pitch was being poured on top, and little devils were setting it on fire and then on the walls there were hundreds hung up by their tongues to hooks and nails; and then the saved--there were some five or six saved--upon the horizon, and they had a most self-satisfied grin of "i told you so." at the risk of being tiresome, i have said that i have to show the direction of the human mind in slavery, the effects of widespread ignorance, and the result of fear. i want to convince you that every form of slavery, physical or mental, is a viper that will finally fill with poison the breast of any man alive. i want to show you that there should be republicanism in the domain of thought as well as in civil government. the first step toward progress is for man to cease to be the slave of the creatures of his creation. men found at last that the event is more valuable than the prophecy, especially if it never comes to pass. they found that diseases were not produced by spirits; that they could not be cured by frightening them away. they found that death was as natural as life. they began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body, and they found that all was natural, and the conjurer and the sorcerer were dismissed, and the physician and surgeon were employed. they learned that being born under a star or planet had nothing to do with their luck; the astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place. they found that the world had swept through the constellation for millions of ages. they found that diseases were produced as easily as grass, and were not sent as punishment on men for failing to believe a creed. they found that man, through intelligence, could take advantage of the affairs of nature; that he could make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings slaves at his bidding to administer to his wants; they found the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that they were entirely ignorant of history; that they were bad doctors and worse surgeons; that they knew nothing of the law and less of justice that they were poor politicians; that they were tyrants, and that they were without brains and utterly destitute of hearts. the condition of this world during the dark ages shows exactly the result of enslaving the souls of men. in those days there was no liberty. liberty was despised, and the laborer was considered but little above the beast. ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world; superstition ran riot, and credulity sat upon the throne of the soul. murder and hypocrisy were the companions of man, and industry was a slave. every country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owner. lord bacon was the first man who maintained that a christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with a mohammedan nation. every man who could read or write was suspected of being a heretic in those days. only one person in , could read or write. all thought was discouraged. the whole earth was ruled by the mitre and sceptre, by the altar and throne, by fear and force, by ignorance and faith, by ghouls and ghosts. in the th century the following law was in force in england: "whosoever reads the scripture in the mother tongue shall forfeit land, cattle, life and goods, for themselves and their heirs forever, and should be condemned for heretics to god, enemies to the crown, and traitors to the land." during the period this law was in force, thirty-nine were hanged and their bodies burned. in the th century men were burned because they failed to kneel to a procession of monks. even the reformers, so called, had no idea of liberty only when in the minority; the moment they were clothed with power, they began to exterminate with fire and sword. castillo--and i want you to recollect it--was the first minister in the world that declared in favor of universal toleration. castillo was pursued by john calvin like a wild beast. calvin said that such a monstrous doctrine he crucified christ afresh, and they pursued that man until he died; recollect it! they can't do that now-a-days! you don't know how splendid i feel about the liberty i have. the horizon is filled with glory and the air is filled with wings. if there are any in this world who think they had better not tell what they really think because it will take bread from their little children, because it will take clothing from their families--don't do it! don't make martyrs of yourselves! i don't believe in martyrdom! go right along with them; go to church and say amen as near the right place as you can. i will do your talking for you. they can't take the bread away from me. i will talk. bodemus, a lawyer of france, wrote a few words in favor of freedom of conscience. montaigne was the first to raise his voice against torture in france; but what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant, infatuated, malevolent millions! i intend to do what little i can, and i am going to do it kindly. i am going to appeal to reason and to charity, to justice, to science, and to the future. for my part, i glory in the fact that in the new world, in the united states, liberty of conscience was first granted to man, and that the constitution of the united states was the first great decree entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing church and state. it is the grandest step ever taken by the human race and the declaration of independence was the first document that retired ghosts from politics. it is the first document that said authority does not come from the phantoms of the air; authority is not from that direction; it comes from the people themselves. the declaration of independence enthroned man and dethroned the phantoms. you will ask what has caused this change in three hundred years. i answer, the inventions and discoveries of the few; the brave thoughts and heroic utterances of the few; the acquisition of a few facts; getting acquainted with our mother, nature. besides this, you must remember that every wrong in some way, tends to abolish itself. it is hard to make a lie last always. a lie will not fit the truth; it will only fit another lie told on purpose to fit it. nothing but truth lives. the nobles and the kings quarreled; the priests began to dispute, and the millions began to get their rights. in printing was discovered. at that time the past was a vast cemetery, without an epitaph. the ideas of men had mostly perished in the brains that had produced them. printing gives an opening for thought; it preserves ideas; it made it possible for a man to bequeath to the world the wealth of his thoughts. about the same time, or a little before, the moors had gone into europe, and it can be truthfully said that science was thrust into the brain of europe upon the point of a moorish lance. they gave us paper, and what is printing without paper? a bird without wings. i tell you paper has been a splendid thing. the discovery of america, whose shores were trod by the restless feet of adventure and the people of every nation--out of this strange mingling of facts and fancies came the great republic. every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the cloud. every mechanical art is an educator; every loom, every reaper, every mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press, every telegraph is a missionary of science and an apostle of progress; every mill, every furnace with its wheels and levers, in which something is made for the convenience, for the use and the comfort and the well-being of man, is my kind of church, and every schoolhouse is a temple. education is the most radical thing in this world. to teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution; to build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort; every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of progress; every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of steel. i thank the inventors and discoverers. i thank columbus and magellan. i thank locke and hume, bacon and shakespeare. i thank fulton and watt, franklin and morse, who made lightning the messenger of man. i thank luther for protesting against the abuses of the church, but denounce him because he was an enemy of liberty. i thank calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, but i abhor him because he burned servetus. i thank the puritans for saying that resistance to tyrants is obedience to god, and yet i am compelled to admit that they were tyrants themselves. i thank thomas paine because he was a believer in liberty. i thank voltaire, that great man who for half a century was the intellectual monarch of europe, and who, from his throne at the foot of the alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in christendom. i thank the inventors, i thank the discoverers, the thinkers and the scientists, and i thank the honest millions who have toiled. i thank the brave men with brave thoughts. they are the atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization; they are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of superstition. we are beginning to learn that to swap off a superstition for a fact, to ascertain the real, is to progress. all that gives us better bodies and minds and clothes and food and pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts, and that makes us better husbands and wives and better citizens, all these things combined produce what we call the progress of the human race. man advances only as he overcomes the obstacles of nature. it is done by labor and thought. labor is the foundation. without great labor it is impossible to progress. without labor on the part of those who conduct all great industries of life, of those who battle with the obstacles of the sea, on the part of the inventors, the discoverers, and the brave, heroic thinkers, no surplus is produced; and from the surplus produced by labor, spring the schools and universities, the painters, the sculptors, the poets, the hopes, the loves and the aspirations of the world. the surplus has given us the books. it has given us all there is of beauty and eloquence. i am aware there is a vast difference of opinion as to what progress is, and that many denounce my ideas. i know there are many worshipers of the past. they see no beauty in anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise. they see nothing like the ancients; no orators, poets or statesmen like those who have been dust for thousands of years. in a sermon on a certain evening, some time ago, the rev. dr. magee of albany, n. y., stated that colonel ingersoll, referring to jesus christ, called him a "dirty little jew." i denounce that as a dirty little lie. i have as much reverence for any man who ever did what he believed was right, and died in order to benefit mankind, as any man in this world. do they treat an opponent with fairness? are they investigating? do they pull forward or do they hold back? is science indebted to the church for a single fact? let us know what it is. what church has been the asylum for a persecuted truth? what reform has been inaugurated by the church? did the church abolish slavery? no. who commenced it? such men as garrison and pillsbury and wendel phillips. they were the titans that attacked the monster, and not a solitary one of them ever belonged to a church. has the church raised its voice against war? no. are men restrained by superstition? are men restrained by what you call religion? i used to think they were not; now i admit they are. no man has ever been restrained from the commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. there was a man who committed murder. they got the evidence, but he confessed that he did it. "what did you do it for?" "money." "did you get any money?" "yes." "how much?" "fifteen cents." "what kind of a man was he?" "a laboring man i killed." "what did you do with the money?" "i bought liquor with it." "did he have anything else?" "i think he had some meat and bread." "what did you do with that?" "i ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was friday." so you see it will restrain in some things. just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of ghosts he has advanced; to that extent he has freed himself from the tyrant's poison. man has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it himself. he has found that a master is a slave; that a tyrant is also a slave. he has found that governments should be administered by men for men; that the rights of all are to be protected; that woman is at least the equal for man; that men existed before books; that all creeds were made by men; that the few have a right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible to himself and to others. true religion must be free; without liberty the brain is a dungeon and the mind the convict. the slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot worship, he cannot adore. true religion is the perfume of the free and grateful air. true religion is the subordination of the passions to the intellect. it is not a creed; it is a life. the theory that is afraid of investigation is not deserving of a place in the human mind. i do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. i do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with the heights of thought. i simply plead for freedom. i denounce the cruelties and horrors of slavery. i ask for light and air for the souls of men. i say, take off those chains--break those manacles--free those limbs--release that brain. i plead for the right to think--to reason--to investigate. i ask that the future may be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. i implore every human being to be a soldier in the army of progress. i will not invade the rights of others. you have no right to erect your toll-gates upon the highways of thought. you have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human race. you have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of ghosts. believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your liberties in your own way, and extend to all others the same right. i attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. i attack slavery. i ask for room--room for the human mind. why should we sacrifice a real world that we have for one we know not of? why should we enslave ourselves? why should we forge fetters for our own hands? why should we be the slaves of phantoms--phantoms that we create ourselves? the darkness of barbarism was the womb of these shadows. in the light of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. they have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. they made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment. they blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. they subverted all the ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite virtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offenses. i plead for light, for air, for opportunity. i plead for individual independence. i plead for the rights of labor and of thought. i plead for a chainless future. let the ghosts go--justice remains. let them disappear--men, women and children are left. let the monster fade away--the world remains, with its hills and seas and plains, with its seasons of smiles and frowns, its springs of leaf and bud, its summer of shade and flower, its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely wan, while death, poetic death, with hands that color whate'er they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her tapestries of gold and brown. the world remains, with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. all these are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope, and love and aspiration high. all these remain. let the ghosts go--we will worship them no more. man is greater than these phantoms. humanity is grander than all the creeds, than all the books. humanity is the great sea, and these creeds and books and religions are but the waves of a day. humanity is the sky, and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds, changing continually, destined finally to melt away. let the ghosts go. we will worship them no more. let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands, and fade forever from the imaginations of men. ingersoll's lecture on hell ladies and gentlemen: the idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side, and cowardice on the other. in my judgment the american people are too brave, too charitable, too generous, too magnanimous to believe in the infamous dogma of an eternal hell. i have no respect for any human being who believes in it. i have no respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of childhood with that infamous lie. i have no respect for the man who will add to the sorrows of this world with the frightful dogma. i have no respect for any man who endeavors to put that infinite cloud, that infinite shadow, over the heart of humanity. i want to be frank with you. i dislike this doctrine, i hate it, i despise it; i defy this doctrine. for a good many years the learned intellects of christendom have been examining into the religions of other countries in the world, the religions of the thousands that have passed away. they examined into the religions of egypt, the religion of greece, the religion of rome and of the scandinavian countries. in the presence of the ruins of those religions the learned men of christendom insisted that those religions were baseless, that they are fraudulent. but they have all passed away. while this was being done the christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned men got through with the religions of other countries they turned their attention to our religion. by the same mode of reasoning, by the same methods, by the same arguments that they used with the old religions, they were overturning the religion of our day. why? every religion in this world is the work of man. every one! every book has been written by man. men existed before the books. if books had existed before man, i might admit there was such a thing as a sacred volume. in my judgment man has made every religion and made every book. there is another thing to which i wish to call your attention. man never had an idea; man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. every idea in the world that man has, came to him by nature. man cannot conceive of anything the hint of which you have not received from your surroundings. you can imagine an animal with the hoof of a bison, with the pouch of the kangaroo, with the wings of an eagle, with the beak of a bird, and with the tail of the lion; and yet every point of this monster you borrowed from nature. every thing you can think of--every thing you can dream of, is borrowed from your surroundings--everything. and there is nothing on this earth coming from any other sphere whatever. man has produced every religion in the world. and why? because each generation bodes forth the knowledge and the belief of the people at the time it was made, and in no book is there any knowledge found, except that of the people who wrote it. in no book is there found any knowledge, except that of the time in which it was written. barbarians have produced, and always will produce barbarian religions. barbarians have produced, and always will produce ideas in harmony with their surroundings, and all the religions of the past were produced by barbarians--every one of them. we are making religions today. we are making religions to-night. that is to say, we are changing them, and the religion of to-day is not the religion of one year ago. what changed it? science has done it; education and the growing heart of man has done it. we are making these religions every day, and just to the extent that we become civilized ourselves will we improve the religion of our fathers. if the religion of one hundred years ago, compared with the religion of to-day is so low, what will it be in one thousand years? if we continue making the inroads upon orthodoxy which we have been making during the last twenty-five years, what will it be fifty years from to-night? it will have to be remonetized by that time, or else it will not be legal tender. in my judgment, every religion that stands by appealing to miracles is dishonor. [sic] every religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. that proves to me that they all tell the truth--about others. why? suppose mr. smith should tell mr. brown that he--smith--saw a corpse get out of the grave, and that when he first saw it, it was covered with the worm's of death, and that in his presence it was reclothed in healthy, beautiful flesh. and then suppose mr. brown should tell mr. smith, "i saw the same thing myself. i was in a graveyard once, and i saw a dead man rise." suppose then that smith should say to brown, "you're a liar," and brown should reply to smith, "and you're a liar," what would you think? it would simply be because smith, never having seen it himself, didn't believe brown; and brown, never having seen it, didn't believe smith had. now, if smith had really seen it, and brown told him he had seen it too, then smith would regard it as a corroboration of his story, and he would regard brown as one of his principal witnesses. but, on the contrary, he says, "you never saw it." so, when man says, "i was upon mount sinai, and there i met god, and he told me, 'stand aside and let me drown these people';" and another man says to him, "i was upon a mountain, and there i met the supreme brahma," and moses says, "that's not true," and contends that the other man never did see brahma, and he contends that moses never did see god, that is in my judgment proof that they both speak truly. every religion, then, has charged every other religion with having been an unmitigated fraud; and yet, if any man had ever seen the miracle himself, his mind would be prepared to believe that another man had seen the same thing. whenever a man appeals to a miracle he tells what is not true. truth relies upon reason, and the undeviating course of all the laws of nature. now, we have a religion--that is, some people have. i do not pretend to have religion myself. i believe in living for this world--that's my doctrine--in living here, now, to-day, to-night--that's my doctrine, to make everybody happy that you can. now, let the future take care of itself and if i ever touch the shores of another world i will be just as ready and anxious to get into some remunerative employment as anybody else. now, we have got in this country a religion which men have preached for about eighteen hundred years, and just in proportion as their belief in that religion has grown great, men have grown mean and wicked; just in proportion as they have ceased to believe it, men have become just and charitable. and if they believe it to-night as they once believed it, i wouldn't be allowed to speak in the city of new york. it is from the coldness and infidelity of the churches that i get my right to preach; and i say it to their credit. now we have a religion. what is it? they say in the first place that all this vast universe was created by a deity. i don't know whether it was or not. they say, too, that had it not been for the first sin of adam there would never have been any devil in this world, and if there had been no devil there would have been no sin, and if there had been no sin there never would have been any death. for my part i am glad there was somebody had to die to give me room, and when my turn comes i'll be willing to let somebody else take my place. but whether there is another life or not, if there is any being who gave me this, i shall thank him from the bottom of my heart, because, upon the whole, my life has been a joy. now they say, because of this first sin all men were consigned to eternal hell. and this because adam was our representative. well, i always had an idea that my representative ought to live somewhere about the same time i do. i always had an idea that i should have some voice in choosing my representative. and if i had a voice i never should have voted for the old gentleman called adam. now in order to regain man from the frightful hell of eternity, christ himself came to this world and took upon himself flesh, and in order that we might know the road to eternal salvation he gave us a book, and that book is called the bible, and whenever that bible has been read men have immediately commenced cutting each others' throats. wherever that bible has been circulated, they have invented inquisitions and instruments of torture, and they commenced hating each other with all their hearts. but i am told now, we are all told that this bible is the foundation of civilization, but i say that this bible is the foundation of hell, and we never shall get rid of the dogma of hell until we get rid of the idea that it is an inspired book. now, what does the bible teach? i am not going to talk about what this minister or that minister says it teaches; the question is "ought a man to be sent to eternal hell for not believing this bible to be the work of a merciful father?" and the only way to find out is to read it; and a very few people do read it now. i will read a few passages. this is the book to be read in the schools, in order to make our children charitable and good; this is the book that we must read in order that our children may have ideas of mercy, charity and justice. does the bible teach mercy? now be honest, i read: "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood; and the sword shall devour flesh." (deut. xxxii, .) pretty good start for a merciful god! "that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." (ps. lxviii, .) again: "and the lord thy god will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee." (deut. vii, .) "but the lord thy god shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. "and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them." (deut. vii, , .) "so joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by waters of merom suddenly; and they fell upon them. "and the lord delivered them into the hand of israel, who smote them, and chased them unto great zidon, and unto misrephothimaim, and unto the valley of mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining. "and joshua did unto them as the lord bade him; he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. "and joshua at that time turned back, and took hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword; for hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. "and they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe; and he burnt hazor with fire. "and all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as moses the servant of the lord commanded. "but as for the cities that stood still in their strength, israel burnt none of them, save hazor only; that did joshua burn. "and all the spoil of these cities and the cattle, the children of israel took for a prey unto themselves, but every man they smote with the edge of the sword [brave!] until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe. [as the moral god had commanded them.] "as the lord commanded moses, his servant, so did moses command joshua, and so did joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the lord commanded moses. "so joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of goshen, and the valley of the same. "even from the mount halak, that goeth up to seir; even unto baalgad in the valley of lebanon under mount hermon; and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them. "joshua made war a long time with all those kings. "there was not a city that made peace with the children of israel, save the hivites, the inhabitants of gideon; all other they took in battle. "for it was of the lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the lord commanded moses. "and at that time came joshua, and cut off the anakims from the mountains, from hebron, for debit, from anab, and from all the mountains of judah, and from all the mountains of israel; joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. "there was none of the anakims left in the land of the children of israel, only in gaza, in gath, and in ashdod there remained. "so joshua took the whole land, according to all that the lord said unto moses; and joshua gave it for an inheritance unto israel according to their divisions by their tribes. and the land rested from war." (josh. xi, to .) "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. "and it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. "and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. "and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. "but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. "thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. "but of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: "but thou shalt utterly destroy them." (deut. xx, - .) neither the old men nor the women, nor the maidens, nor the sweet-dimpled babe, smiling upon the lap of his mother, were to be spared. "and he said unto them, thus saith the lord god of israel [a merciful god indeed]. put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate through-out the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor." (exod. xxxii, .) now recollect, these instructions were given to an army of invasion, and the people who were slayed were guilty of the crime of fighting for their homes. oh, most merciful god! the old testament is full of curses, vengeance, jealousy and hatred, and of barbarity and brutality. now do you not for one moment believe that these words were written by the most merciful god. don't pluck from the heart the sweet flowers of piety and crush them by superstition. do not believe that god ever ordered the murder of innocent women and helpless babes. do not let this supposition turn your hearts into stone. when anything is said to have been written by the most merciful god, and the thing is not merciful, then i deny it, and say he never wrote it. i will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then i will go to hell with my reason rather that to heaven without it. now does this bible teach political freedom, or does it teach political tyranny? does it teach a man to resist oppression? does it teach a man to tear from the throne of tyranny the crowned thing and robber called a king? let us see [reading:] "let every soul be subject to the higher powers: for there is no power but of god, the powers that are ordained of god." (rom. xii, .) all the kings, and princes, and governors, and thieves and robbers that happened to be in authority were placed there by the infinite father of all! "whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of god." and when george washington resisted the power of george the third he resisted the power of god. and when our fathers said, "resistance to tyrants is obedience to god," they falsified the bible itself. "for he is the minister of god to thee for good. but if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of god, revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. "wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." (rom. xiii, , .) i deny this wretched doctrine. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, i am a rebel. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give man liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, i am on the side of that rebellion. i deny that the rulers are crowned by the most high; the rulers are the people, and the presidents and others are but the servants of the people. all authority comes from the people, and not from the aristocracy of the air. upon these texts of scripture which i have just read rest the thrones of europe, and these are the voices that are repeated from age to age by brainless kings and heartless kings. does the bible give woman her rights? is this bible humane? does it treat woman as she ought to be treated, or is it barbarian? let us see. "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." ( timothy ii, .) if a woman would know anything let her ask her husband. imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only that source of information! "but i suffer not a woman to teach, not to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. for adam was first formed, then eve. [what magnificent reason!]" "and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." [splendid!] "but i would have you know that the head of every man is christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of christ is god." that is to say, there is as much difference between the woman and man as there is between christ and man. this is the liberty of woman. "for the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man." it was the man's cut till that was taken, not the woman's. "neither was the man created for the woman." well, what was he created for? "but the woman was created for the man. wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the lord." there's liberty! "for the husband is the head of the wife, even as christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body. "therefore, as the church is subject unto christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." good again! even the savior didn't put man and woman upon an equality. the man could divorce the wife, but the wife could not divorce the husband, and according to the old testament, the mother had to ask for forgiveness for being the mother of babes. splendid! here is something from the old testament: "when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou has taken them captive. "and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and has a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife. "then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails." (deut. xxi, - .) that is in self-defense, i suppose! this sacred book, this foundation of human liberty, of morality, does it teach concubinage and polygamy? read the thirty-first chapter of numbers, read the twenty-first chapter of deuteronomy, read the blessed lives of abraham, of david or of solomon, and then tell me that the sacred scripture does not teach polygamy and concubinage! all the language of the world is not sufficient to express the infamy of polygamy; it makes man a beast and woman a stone. it destroys the fireside and makes virtue an outcast. and yet it is the doctrine of the bible--the doctrine defended by luther and melanchthon! it takes from our language those sweetest words, father, husband, wife, and mother, and takes us back to barbarism, and fills our hearts with the crawling, slimy serpents of loathsome lust. does the bible teach the existence of devils? of course it does. yes, it teaches not only the existence of a good being, but a bad being. this good being had to have a home; that home was heaven. this bad being had to have a home; and that home was hell. this hell is supposed to be nearer to earth than i would care to have it, and to be peopled with spirits, spooks, hobgoblins, and all the fiery shapes with which the imagination of ignorance and fear could people that horrible place; and the bible teaches the existence of hell and this big devil and all these little devils. the bible teaches the doctrine of witchcraft and makes us believe that there are sorcerers and witches, and that the dead could be raised by the power of sorcery. does anybody believe it now? "then said saul unto his servants, seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that i may go to her, and inquire of her. and his servants said to him, behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at endor. "and saul disguised himself and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, i pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up whom i shall name unto thee. [that was a pretty good spiritual seance.] "and the woman said unto him, behold, thou knowest what saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land; wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life to cause me to die? "and saul sware to her by the lord, saying, as the lord liveth there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. "then said the woman, whom shall i bring up unto thee? and he said, bring me up samuel. "and when the woman saw samuel, she cried with a loud voice; and the woman spake to saul, saying, why hast thou deceived me? for thou art saul. "and the king said unto her, be not afraid; for what sawest thou? and the woman said unto saul, i saw gods ascending out of the earth. "and he said unto her, what form is he of? and she said, an old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. and saul perceived that it was samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself." ( saml. xxviii, - .) in another place he declares that witchcraft is an abomination unto the lord. he wanted no rivals in this business. now what does the new testament teach? "then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. "and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. [sic] "and when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the son of god, command that these stones be made bread. "but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god. "then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, "and saith unto him, if thou be the son of god, hell cast thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. "jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god." (matt. iv, .) is it possible that anyone can believe that the devil absolutely took god almighty, and put him on the pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to persuade him to jump down? is it possible? "again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; "and saith unto him, all these things will i give thee, if thou will fall down and worship me. "then saith jesus unto him, get thee hence, satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the lord thy god, and him only shalt thou serve." (matt. iv, - .) now, the devil must have known at that time that he was god, and god at that time must have known that the other was the devil. how could the latter be conceived to have the impudence to promise god a world in which he did not have a tax-title to an inch of land? "then the devil leaveth him; and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." (matt. iv, .) "and they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the gadarines. "and when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, "who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains, "because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces; neither could any man tame him, "and always, night and day, he was in the mountains and tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. "but when he saw jesus afar off, he came and worshiped him. "and cried with a loud voice and said, what have i to do with thee, jesus, thou son of the most high god? i adjure thee by god, that thou torment me not. "(for he said unto him, come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.) "and he asked him, what is thy name? and he answered saying, my name is legion: for we are many. "and he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. "now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. "and all the devils besought him, saying, send us into the swine that we may enter into them. "and forthwith jesus gave them leave. and the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked in the sea." (mark v, - .) now i will ask a question: should reasonable men, in the nineteenth century in the united states of america, believe that that was an actual occurrence? if my salvation depends upon believing that, i am lost. i have never experienced the signs by which it is said a believer may be known. i deny all the witch stories in this world. these fables of devils have covered the world with blood; they have filled the world with fear, and i am going to do what i can to free the world of these insatiate monsters, small and great; they have filled the world with monsters, they have made the world a synonym of liar and ferocity. and it is this book that ought to be read in all the schools--this book that teaches man to enslave his brother! if it is larceny to steal the result of labor, how much more is it larceny to steal the laborer himself? "moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. "and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your brethren the children of israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor." (lev. xxv, , .) why? because they are not as good as you will buy of the heathen roundabout. now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. "if thou buy an hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. "if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. "if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. "and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and my children; i will not go out free. "then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." (exod. xxi, - .) this is the doctrine which has ever lent itself to the chains of slavery, and makes a man imprison himself rather than desert his wife and children. i hate it. now, listen to the new testament, the tidings of great joy for all people! "servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto christ. "not with eye-service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of christ, doing the will of god from the heart." (eph. vi, , .) trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto christ. "not with eye-service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of christ, doing the will of god from the heart." (eph. vi, , .) splendid doctrine. "servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. "for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward god endure grief, suffering wrongfully." ( peter ii, , .) "servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." he was afraid they might not work all the time, so he adds: "not with the eye-service, as men pleasers, but in the singleness of heart fearing god." read the twenty-first chapter of exodus, to . "and if a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. "if she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed; to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. and if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. "if he take him another wife, her food, her raiment and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. "and if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money." "servants, be obedient to your masters," is the salutation of the most merciful god to one who works for nothing and who receives upon his naked back the lash, as legal tender for service performed. "servants, be obedient to your masters," is the salutation of the most merciful god to the slave-mother bending over her infant's grave. "servants, be obedient to your masters," is the salutation to a man endeavoring to escape pursuit, followed by savage blood-hounds, and with his eye fixed upon the northern star. this book ought to be read in the schools, so that our children will love liberty. what does this same book say of the rights of little children? let us see how they are treated by the "most merciful god." "if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them. "then shall his father and his mother lay hold of him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. "and they shall say unto the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton, and a drunkard. "and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all israel shall hear and fear." (deut. xxi, - .) abraham was commanded to offer his son isaac as a sacrifice, and he intended to obey. the boy was not consulted. did you ever hear the story of jephthah's daughter? returning him jephthah said: "and jephthah vowed a vow unto the lord, and said, if thou shalt without fail deliver the children of ammon into mine hands, "then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when i return in peace from the children of ammon shall surely be the lord's, and i will offer it up for a burnt offering. "so jephthah passed over unto the children of ammon to fight against them; and the lord delivered them into his hands. "and he smote them from aroer, even till thou come to minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards with a very great slaughter. thus the children of ammon were subdued before the children of israel. "and jephthah came to mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child: besides her he had neither son nor daughter. "and it came to pass when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, alas, my daughter! thou has brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for i have opened my mouth unto the lord, and i cannot go back. "and she said unto him, my father, if thou has opened thy mouth unto the lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even to the children of ammon. "and she said unto her father, let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that i may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, i and my fellows. "and he said, go. and he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. "and it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed." is there in the history of the world a sadder story than this? can a god who would accept such a sacrifice be worthy of the worship of civilized men? i believe in the rights of children. i plead for the republic of home, for the democracy of the fireside, and for this i am called a heathen and a devil by those who believe in the cheerful and comforting doctrine of eternal damnation. read the book of job; read that god met the devil and asked him where he had been, and he said, "walking up and down the country;" and the lord said to him, "have you noticed my man job over here, how good he is?" and the devil said, "of course he's good, you give him everything he wants. just take away his property and he'll curse you. you just try it." and he did try it, and took away his goods, but job still remained good. the devil laughed and said that he had not been tried enough. then the lord touched his flesh, but he was still true. then he took away his children, but he remained faithful, and in the end, to show how much job made by his fidelity, his property was all doubled, and he had more children than ever. if you have a child, and you love it, would you be satisfied with a god who would destroy it, and endeavor to make it up by giving you another that was better looking? no, you want that one; you want no other, and yet this is the idea of the love of children taught in the bible. does the bible teach you freedom of religion? to day we say that every man has a right to worship god or not, to worship him as he pleases. is it the doctrine of the bible? let us see. "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying. let us go and serve other gods, which thou has not known, thou, nor thy fathers; "namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; "thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; "but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. "and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he has sought to thrust thee away from the lord thy god, which brought thee out of the land of egypt, from the house of bondage." (deut. xiii, - .) and do you know, according to that, if your wife--your wife that you love as your own soul--if you had lived in palestine, and your wife had said to you, "let us worship a sun whose golden beams clothe the world in glory; let us worship the sun, let us bow to that great luminary; i love the sun because it gave me your face; because it gave me the features of my babe; let us worship the sun," it was then your duty to lay your hands upon her, your eye must not pity her, but it was your duty to cast the first stone against that tender and loving breast! i hate such doctrine! i hate such books! i hate gods that will write such books! i tell you that it is infamous! "if there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the lord thy god giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the lord thy god, in transgressing his covenant, "and hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which i have not commanded; "and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in israel; "then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die." (deut. xvii, - .) that is the religious liberty of the bible--that's it. and this god taught that doctrine to the jews, and said to them, "any one that teaches a different religion, kill him!" now, let me ask, and i want to do it reverently, if, as is contended, god gave these frightful laws to the flesh, and come among the jews, and taught a different religion, and these jews, in accordance with the laws which this same god gave them, crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown? the mercy of all this comes in what is called "the plan of salvation." what is that plan? according to this great plan, the innocent suffer for the guilty to satisfy a law. what sort of a law must it be that would be satisfied with the suffering of innocence? according to this plan, the salvation of the whole world depends upon the bigotry of the jews and the treachery of judas. according to the same plan, we all would have gone to eternal hell. according to the same plan, there would have been no death in the world if there had been no sin, and if there had been no death you and i would not have been called into existence, and if we did not exist we could not have been saved, so we owe our salvation to the bigotry of the jews and the treachery of judas, and we are indebted to the devil for our existence. i speak this reverently. it strikes me that what they call the atonement is a kind of moral bankruptcy. under its merciful provisions man is allowed the privilege of sinning credit, and whenever he is guilty of a mean action he says, "charge it." in my judgment, this kind of bookkeeping breeds extravagance in sin. suppose we had a law in new york that every merchant should give credit to every man who asked it, under pain and penitentiary, and that every man should take the benefit of the bankruptcy statute any saturday night? doesn't the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin? that's the question. who's afraid of punishment which is so far away? whom does the doctrine of hell stop? the great, the rich, the powerful? no; the poor, the weak, the despised, the mean. did you ever hear of a man going to hell who died in new york worth a million of dollars, or with an income of twenty-five thousand a year? did you? did you ever hear of a man going to hell who rode in a carriage? never. they are the gentlemen who talk about their assets, and who say: "hell is not for me; it is for the poor. i have all the luxuries i want, give that to the poor." who goes to hell? tramps! let me tell you a story. there was once a frightful rain, and all the animals held a convention, to see whose fault it was, and the fox nominated the lion for chairman. the wolf seconded the motion, and the hyena said "that suits." when the convention was called to order the fox was called upon to confess his sins. he stated, however, that it would be much more appropriate for the lion to commence first. thereupon the lion said: "i am not conscious of having committed evil. it is true i have devoured a few men, but for what other purpose were men made?" and they all cheered, and were satisfied. the fox gave his views upon the goose question, and the wolf admitted that he had devoured sheep, and occasionally had killed a shepherd, "but all acquainted with the history of my family will bear me out when i say that shepherds have been the enemies of my family from the beginning of the world." then way in the rear there arose a simple donkey, with a kind of abrahamic countenance. he said: "i expect it's me. i had eaten nothing for three days except three thistles. i was passing a monastery, the monks were at mass. the gates were open leading to a yard full of sweet clover. i knew it was wrong but i did slip in and i took a mouthful, but my conscience smote me and i went out;" and all the animals shouted, "he's the fellow!" and in two minutes they had his hide on the fence. that's the kind of people that go to hell. now this doctrine of hell, that has been such a comfort to my race, which so many ministers are pleading for, has been defended for ages by the fathers of the church. your preacher says that the sovereignty of god implies that he has an absolute, unlimited and independent right to dispose of his creatures as he will, because he made them. has he? suppose i take this book and change it immediately into a servient human being. would i have a right to torture it because i made it? no; on the contrary, i would say, having brought you into existence, it is my duty to do the best for you i can. they say god has a right to damn me because he made me. i deny it. another one says god is not obliged to save even those who believe in christ, and that he can either bestow salvation upon his children or retain it without any diminution of his glory. another one says god may save any sinner whatsoever, consistently with his justice. let a natural person--and i claim to be one--moral or immoral, wise or unwise; let him be as just as he can, no matter what his prayers may be, what pains he may have taken to be saved, or whatever circumstances he may be in. god, according to this writer, can deny him salvation, without the least disparagement of his glory. his glories will not be in the least obscured--there is no natural man, be his character what it may, but god may cast down to hell without being charged with unfair dealing in any respect with regard to that man. theologians tell us that god's design in the creation was simply to glorify himself. magnificent object! "the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of god, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the lamb." (rev. xiv, - .) do you know nobody would have had an idea of hell in this world if it hadn't been for volcanoes? they were looked upon as the chimneys of hell. the idea of eternal fire never would have polluted the imagination of man but for them. an eminent theologian, describing hell, says: "there is no recounting the millions of ages the damned shall suffer. all arithmetic ends here"--and all sense, too! "they shall have nothing to do in passing away this eternity but to conflict with torments. god shall have no other use or employment for them." these words were said by gentlemen who died christians, and who are now in the harp business in the world to come. another declares there is nothing to keep any man or christian out of hell except the mere pleasure of god, and their pains never grow any easier by their becoming accustomed to them. it is also declared that the devil goes about like a lion, ready to doom the wicked. did it never occur to you what a contradiction it is to say that the devil will persecute his own friends? he wants all the recruits he can get; why then should he persecute his friends? in my judgment he should give them the best hell affords. it is in the very nature of things that torments inflicted have no tendency to bring a wicked man to repentance. then why torment him if it will not do him good? it is simply unadulterated revenge. all the punishment in the world will not reform a man, unless he knows that he who inflicts it upon him does it for the sake of reformation, and really and truly loves him, and has his good at heart. punishment inflicted for gratifying the appetite makes man afraid, but debases him. various reasons are given for punishing the wicked; first, that god will vindicate his injured majesty. well, i am glad of that! second, he will glorify his justice--think of that. third, he will show and glorify his grace. every time the saved shall look upon the damned in hell it will cause in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace of god. every look upon the damned will double the ardor and the joy of the saints in heaven. can the believing husband in heaven look down upon the torments of the unbelieving wife in hell and then feel a thrill of joy? that's the old doctrine--not of our days; we are too civilized for that. o, but it is the doctrine that if you saw your wife in hell--the wife you love, who, in your last sickness, nursed you, that, perhaps supported you by her needle when you were ill; the wife who watched by your couch night and day, and held your corpse in her loving arms when you were dead--the sight would give you great joy. that doctrine is not preached to-day. they do not preach that the sight would give you joy; but they do preach that it will not diminish your happiness. that is the doctrine of every orthodox minister in new york, and i repeat that i have no respect for men who preach such doctrines. the sight of the torments of the damned in hell will increase the ecstasy of the saints forever! on this principle man never enjoys a good dinner so much as when a fellow-creature is dying of famine before his eyes, or he never enjoys the cheerful warmth of his own fireside so greatly as when a poor and abandoned wretch is dying on his doorstep. the saints enjoy the ecstasy and the groans of the tormented are music to them. i say here to-night that you cannot commit a sin against an infinite being. i can sin against my brother or my neighbor, because i can injure them. there can be no sin where there is no injury. neither can a finite being commit infinite sin. an old saint believed that hell was in the interior of the earth, and that the rotation of the earth was caused by the souls trying to get away from the fire. the old church at stratford-on-avon, shakespeare's home, in adorned with pictures of hell and the like. one of the pictures represents resurrection morning. people are getting out of their graves, and devils are catching hold of their heels. in one place there is a huge brass monster, and devils are driving scores of lost souls into his mouth. over hot fires hang caldrons with fifty or sixty people in each, and devils are poking the fires. people are hung up on hooks by their tongues, and devils are lashing them. up in the right hand corner are some of the saved, with grins on their faces stretching from ear to ear. they seem to say: "aha, what did i tell you?" some of the old saints--gentlemen who died in the odor of sanctity, and are now in the harp business--insisted that heaven and hell would be plainly in view of each other. only a few years ago, rev. j. furness (an appropriate name) published a little pamphlet called "a sight in hell." i remember when i first read that. my little child, seven years old, was ill and in bed. i thought she would not hear me, and i read some of it aloud. she arose and asked, "who says that?" i answered, "that's what they preach in some of the churches." "i never will enter a church as long as i live!" she said, and she never has. the doctrine of orthodox christianity is that the damned shall suffer torment forever and forever. and if you were a wanderer, footsore, weary, with parched tongue, dying for a drop of water, and you met one who divided his poor portion with you, and died as he saw you reviving--if he was an unbeliever and you a believer, and you died and went to heaven, and he called to you from hell for a draught of water, it would be your duty to laugh at him. rev. mr. spurgeon says that everywhere in hell will be written the words "for ever." they will be branded on every wave of flame, they will be forged in every link of every chain, they will be seen in every lurid flash of brimstone--everywhere will be those words "for ever." everybody will be yelling and screaming them. just think of that picture of the mercy and justice of the eternal father of us all. if these words are necessary why are they not written now everywhere in the world, on every tree, and every field, and on every blade of grass? i say i am entitled to have it so. i say that it is god's duty to furnish me with the evidence. here is another good book read in every sunday-school--a splendid book--pollok's "course of time." every copy in the world of such books as that ought to be burned. well, the author pretends to have gone to hell, and i think that he ought to have stopped there. [the lecturer read the passage from the work descriptive of the torments of the damned, and proceeded:] and that book is put into the hands of children in order that they may love and worship the most merciful god. in old time they had to find a place for hell and they found a hundred places for it. one says that it was under lake avernus, but the christians thought differently. one divine tells us that it must be below the earth because christ descended into hell. another gives it as his opinion that hell is in the sun, and he tells us that nobody, without an express revelation from god, can prove that it is not there. most likely. well, he had the idea at all events of utilizing the damned as fuel to warm the earth. but i will quote from another poet--if it is lawful to call him a poet. i mean tupper. [colonel ingersoll quoted from that orthodox author, and continued:] another divine preached a sermon no further back than , in which he said that the damned will grow worse; and the same divine says that the devil was the first universalist. then i am on the side of the devil. the fact is, that you have got not merely to believe the bible; but you must also believe in a certain interpretation of it, and, mind you, you must also believe in the doctrine of the trinity. i want to explain what that is, so that you may never have an excuse for not knowing it. i quote from the best theologian that ever wrote. [then he went on to give in substance the athanasian definition of the trinity, winding up with a long string of adjectives, culminating in the description "entirely incomprehensible."] if you don't understand it after that, it is you own fault. now, you must believe in that doctrine. if you do not, all the orthodox churches agree in condemning you to everlasting flames. we have got to burn through all our lives simply with the view of making them happy. we are taught to love our enemies, to pray for those that persecute us, to forgive. should not the merciful god practice what he preaches? i say that reverently. why should he say, "forgive your enemies," if he will not himself forgive? why should he say "pray for those that despise and persecute you," but if they refuse to believe his doctrine he will burn them forever? i cannot believe it. here is a little child, residing in the purlieus of the city--some boy who is taught that it is his duty to steal by his mother, who applauds his success and pats him on the head and calls him a good boy--would it be just to condemn him to an eternity of torture? suppose there is a god; let us bring to this question some common sense. i care nothing about the doctrines of religions or creeds of the past. let us come to the bar of the nineteenth century and judge matter by what we know, by what we think, by what we love. but they say to us, "if you throw away the bible what are we to depend on then?" but no two persons in the world agree as to what the bible is, what they are to believe, or what they are not to believe. it is like a guidepost that has been thrown down in some time of disaster, and has been put up the wrong way. nobody can accept its guidance, for nobody knows where it would direct him. i say, "tear down the useless guidepost," but they answer, "oh, do not do that or we will have nothing to go by." i would say, "old church, you take that road and i will take this." another minister has said that the bible is the great town-clock, at which we all may set our watches. but i have said to a friend of that minister: "suppose we all should set our watches by that town-clock, there would be many persons to tell you that in old times the long hand was the hour hand, and besides, the clock hasn't been wound up for a long time." i say let us wait till the sun rises and set our watches by nature. for my part, i am willing to give up heaven to get rid of hell. i had rather there should be no heaven than that any solitary soul should be condemned to suffer forever and ever. but they tell me that the bible is the good book. now, in the old testament there is not in my judgment a single reference to another life. is there a burial service mentioned in it in which a word of hope is spoken at the grave of the dead? the idea of eternal life was not born of any book. that wave of hope and joy ebbs and flows, and will continue to ebb and flow as long as love kisses the lips of death. let me tell you a tale of the persian religion of a man who, having done good for long years of his life, presented himself at the gates of paradise, but the gates remained closed against him. he went back and followed up his good works for seven years longer, and the gates of paradise still remaining shut against him, he toiled in works of charity until at last they were opened unto him. think of that, pursued the lecturer, and send out your missionaries among those people. there is no religion but goodness, but justice, but charity. religion is not theory; it is life. it is not intellectual conviction; it is divine humanity, and nothing else. colonel ingersoll here told another tale from the hindoo, of a man who refused to enter paradise without a faithful dog, urging that ingratitude was the blackest of all sins. "and the god," he said, "admitted him, dog and all." compare that religion with the orthodox tenets of the city of new york. there is a prayer which every brahmin prays, in which he declares that he will never enter into a final state of bliss alone, but that everywhere he will strive for universal redemption; that never will he leave the world of sin and sorrow, but remain suffering and striving and sorrowing after universal salvation. compare that with the orthodox idea, and send out your missionaries to the benighted hindoos. the doctrine of hell is infamous beyond all power to express. i wish there were words mean enough to express my feelings of loathing on this subject. what harm has it not done? what waste places has it not made? it has planted misery and wretchedness in this world; it peoples the future with selfish joys and lurid abysses of eternal flame. but we are getting more sense every day. we begin to despise those monstrous doctrines. if you want to better men and women, change their conditions here. don't promise them something somewhere else. one biscuit will do more good than all the tracts that were ever peddled in the world. give them more whitewash, more light, more air. you have to change men physically before you change them intellectually. i believe the time will come when every criminal will be treated as we now treat the diseased and sick, when every penitentiary will become a reformatory, and that if criminals go to them with hatred in their bosoms, they will leave them without feelings of revenge. let me tell you the story of orpheus and eurydice. eurydice had been carried away by the god of hell, and orpheus, her lover, went in quest of her. he took with him his lyre, and played such exquisite music that all hell was amazed. ixion forgot his labors at the wheel, the daughters of danaus ceased from their hopeless task, tantalus forgot his thirst, even pluto smiled, and, for the first time in the history of hell, the eyes of the furies were wet with tears. as it was with the lyre of orpheus, so it is to-day with the great harmonies of science, which are rescuing from the prisons of superstition the torn and bleeding heart of man. ingersoll's lecture on individuality, an arraignment of the church. "his soul was like a star and dwelt apart." on every hand are the enemies of individuality, and mental freedom. custom meets us at the cradle,--and leaves us only at the tomb. our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. we are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word "suppression." our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought to do it. at every turn we run not to have it, and ought not against a cherubim and a flaming sword, guarding some entrance to the eden of our desire. we are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. we are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid. we have all read accounts of christian gentlemen remarking when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother's advice! but, after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not been followed! how lucky it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey! universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. suppose the church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the word liberty and progress have been blotted from the human speech? in defiance of advice, the world has advanced. suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been left to fix the form of government! suppose our fathers had taken the advice of paul, who was subject to the powers that be, "because they are ordained of god;" suppose the church could control the world today, we would go back to chaos and old night. philosophy would be branded as infamous; science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars; and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame. it is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions; some one who had the grit to say his say. i believe it was magellan who said, "the church says the earth is flat; but i have seen its shadow on the moon, and i have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." on the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn and success. the trouble with most people is that they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. they think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time, and that the forefathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. all these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when very small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book, and they are all willing to swear that mother was a good woman. it is hard to overestimate the influence of early training--in the direction of superstition. you first teach children that a certain book is true--that it was written by god himself--that to question its truth is sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy; the consequence is that before they read that book they believe it to be true. when they do read, their minds are wholly unfitted to investigate its claim. they accept it as a matter of course. in this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge; and charity, with bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. in this way we are taught that the revenge of man is the justice of god, that mercy is not the same everywhere. in this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. in this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. in this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of nature, superstition has scribbled her countless lies. our great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. they teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. they do not say, "we think this is so." but "we know this is so." they do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. they keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. all this is infamous. in this way you make christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make women. you can make followers but no leaders; disciples, but no christs. you may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise. an eastern monarch said to a hermit, "come with me and i will give you power." "i have all the power that i know how to use," replied the hermit. "come," said the king, "i will give you wealth." "i have no wants that money can supply." "i will give you honor." "ah! honor cannot be given; it must be earned." "come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and i will give you happiness." "no," said the man of solitude; "there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free." "you shall have liberty too." "then i will stay." and all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool. now and then somebody examines, and, in spite of all, keeps up his manhood and has courage to follow where his reason leads. then the pious get together and repeat wise saws and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. the stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly, hoot. wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and, like the snakes of superstition, writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, perjury her oath, and the law its power; and bigotry tortures and the church kills. the church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason that a robber dislikes a sheriff, or that a thief despises the prosecuting witness. tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. the church demands worship, the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. to worship another is to degrade yourself. worship is awe, and dread, and vague fear, and blind hope. it is the spirit of worship that elevates the one and degrades the many; and manacles even its own hands. the spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. the worshiper always regrets that he is not the worshiped. we should all remember that the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect. whoever worships, abdicates. whoever believes, at the commands of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to brute. the despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. at one time the same thing could have been truly said in india, in egypt, in greece, in rome, and in every country that has in the history of the world, swept to empire. this argument proves too much not only, but the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. numberless circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity of the christian world. the truth is that we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. the church has won no victories for the rights of man. over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the church. wherever brave blood has been shed the sword of the church has been wet. on every chain has been the sign of the cross. the alter and the throne have leaned against and supported each other. who can appreciate the infinite impudence of one man assuming to think for others? who can imagine the impudence of a church that threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? in the presence of the unknown we have all an equal right to guess. over the vast plain called life we are all travelers, and not one traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. true it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guideboards. at every turn and crossing you find them, and upon each one is written the exact direction and distance. one great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers are confused in proportion to the number they read. thousands of people are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the traveler that his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guideboards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites, and liars. "well," says a traveler "you may be right in what you say, but allow me at least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into their claims. i wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of such great importance." "no sir!" shouts the zealot; "that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. you must go my way, without investigation or you are as good as damned already." "well," says the traveler, "if that is so, i believe i had better go your way." and so most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all. these travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others as infidels and atheists. in my judgment every human being should take a road of his own. every mind should be true to itself; should think, investigate and conclude for itself. this is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. every soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they come--from earth or heaven, from men or gods. besides, every traveler upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as to the road that should be taken. each is entitled to the honest opinion of all. and there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. the person giving the opinion must be free from fear. the merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit. there can be no advance without liberty. suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night. the tendency of orthodox religion today is towards mental slavery and barbarism. not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows that a majority of his congregation think otherwise. he knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. he knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? is any such thing possible? do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? no two trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike? infinite diversity is the law. religion tries to force all minds into one mold. knowing that all cannot believe, the church endeavors to make all say that they believe. she longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom. nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. in this sense every church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph. we should all remember that to be like other folks is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. the great trouble with imitation is that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. after all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make is to trade off his individuality for what is called respectability. there is no saying more degrading than this: "it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a dog." it is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. most people hate responsibility; therefore they join something and become the tail of some lion. they say, "my party can act for me--my church can do my thinking. it is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which i belong without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever." these people are respectable. they hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. they regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. they love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor is. besides this natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility is and always has been the fact that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. the reason has been denounced by all christendom as the only unsafe guide. the church has left nothing undone to prevent, man following the logic of his brain. the plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. the grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. the order of nature has been, as it were, reversed, in order that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. the man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of god and his holy church. from the organization of the first church until this moment every member has borne the marks of collar and chain, and whip. no man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. the highest crime against a creed is to change it. reformation is treason. thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various churches. what for? in order that they may be prepared to investigate the phenomena by which we are surrounded? no! the object, and the only object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed. that they may learn the arguments of their respective churches and repeat them in the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. if one after being thus trained at the expense of the methodists turns presbyterian or baptist, he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you. the consequence of this is that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of fear, of tyranny, and hypocrisy. every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, "if i write that, my wife and children may want for bread, i will be covered with shame and branded with infamy, but if i write this, i will gain position, power and honor. my church rewards defenders and burns reformers." under these conditions, all your scotts, henrys and mcknights have written; and weighed in these scales what are their commentaries worth? they are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of the paid attorneys of superstition. who can tell what the world has lost by this infamous system of suppression? how many grand thinkers died with the mailed hand of superstition on their lips? how many splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the poisonous coils of that python, the church! for thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict. to him, who had braved the church, every door was shut, every knife was open. to shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust of bread when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all crimes, not one of which the church ever did forgive; and with the justice taught of god his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions and vipers. who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire--to defy and scorn her heaven and her devil and her god? they were the noblest sons of earth. they were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of science. they were the real titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods. the church has been, and still is, the great robber. she has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. she is the stone at the sepulcher of liberty; the upas tree in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. under her influence even the protestant mother expects to be in heaven, while her brave boy, who is fighting for the rights of man, shall writhe in hell. it is said that some of the indian tribes place the heads of their children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently changed. to us this seems a most shocking custom, and yet, after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the straight-jacket of a creed, to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the god of the bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? every child in the christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage. all the machinery of the church is constantly employed in thus corrupting the reason of children. in every possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. every sunday-school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality. the poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to god than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe that god did an impossible act is far better than to do a good one yourself. they are told that all the religions have been simply the john the baptist of ours; that all the gods of antiquity have withered and sunken into the jehovah of the jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in the motto of the evangelical alliance, "liberty in non-essentials;" that all there is, or ever was of religion can be found in the apostle's creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that graveyards are the best possible universities, and that the children must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers. it has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions during all eternity the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. he certainly would now and then be tempted to make the same remark made by an english gentleman to his poor guest. this gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. the man was so overcome with honor that to everything the gentleman said he replied, "yes." tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the gentleman cried out, "for god's sake, my good man, say 'no' just once, so there will be two of us." is it possible that an infinite god created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising orthodox christians; that he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum, filled with baptist barnacles, petrified presbyterians, and methodist mummies? i want no heaven for which i must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. better rot in the windowless tomb to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god. religion does not and cannot contemplate man as free. she accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand erect. she cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. the wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. the star-lit heights of genius and individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. her subjects cringe at her feet covered with the dust of obedience. they are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like the antique statues, but shriveled deformities studying with furtive glance the cruel face of power. no religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. there is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men, here or hereafter. and yet the protestant has vied with the catholic in denouncing freedom of thought, and while i was taught to hate catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion. luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of his nature; calvin despised from the very bottom of his petrified heart anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared to advocate it was to crucify christ afresh. all the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. the truth is that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free thought. a believer is a songless bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wings. at present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious liberty. of these churches we will ask this question: "how can a man who conscientiously believes in religious liberty worship a god who does not?" they say to us: "we will not imprison you on account of your belief, but our god will. we will not burn you because you throw away the sacred scriptures; but their author will," "we think it an infamous crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake; but the god whom we ignorantly worship will on that account damn his own children forever." why is it that these christians do not only detest the infidels, but so cordially despise each other? why do they refuse to worship in the temples of each other? why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so much for the baptism of children? why will they adorn their churches with the money of thieves, and flatter vice for the sake of subscription? why will they attempt to bribe science to certify to the writings of god? why do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth of christianity? why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents, kings, emperors and scientists, begging like lazarus for a few crumbs of religious comfort? why are they so delighted to find an allusion to providence in the message of lincoln? why are they so afraid that some one will find out that paley wrote an essay in favor of the epicurean philosophy, and that sir isaac newton was once an infidel? why are they so anxious to show that voltaire recanted, that paine died palsied with fear; that the emperor julian cried out, "galilean, thou hast conquered;" that gibbon died a catholic; that agassiz had a little confidence in moses; that the old napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought christ greater than himself or caesar; that washington was caught on his knees at valley forge; that blunt old ethan allen told his child to believe the religion of her mother; that franklin said, "don't unchain the tiger;" that volney got frightened in a storm at sea, and that oakes ames was a wholesale liar? is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, the old words destined to be the epitaph of all religions? every assertion of individual independence has been a step towards infidelity. luther started toward humboldt, wesley toward bradlaugh. to really reform the church is to destroy it. every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time. i will not say the church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. its history is infamous and glorious. it has delighted in the production of extremes. it has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. it has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. it has been a charitable highwayman, a generous pirate. it has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. it has built more prisons than asylums. it made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. in one hand it carried the alms-dish, and in the other a sword. it has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. it filled the world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own christ it crucified the individuality of man. it has sought to destroy the independence of the soul, and put the world upon its knees. this is its crime. the commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. in order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth and all the truth; that god had made it the keeper of all his secrets; his agent and his vice-agent. it declared that all other religions were false and infamous. it rendered all compromises impossible, and all thought superfluous. thought was an enemy, obedience was its friend. investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was suppressed. the holy of holies was behind the curtain. all this was upon the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an expert, and that imposture detests curiosity. "he that hath ears to hear let him hear," has always been one of the favorite texts of the church. in short, christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the human race. across the highway of progress it has always been building breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayerbooks, creeds, dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the christians have gathered behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at the soldiers of freedom. and even the liberal christian of today has his holy of holies, and in the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. he still clings to a part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. we associate the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. it seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the silly fables of barbarism. some throw away the old testament and cling to the new, while others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal god, and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care. even this, in my opinion, as science, the great iconoclast, marches onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest. the great ghost will surely share the fate of the little ones. they fled at the first appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day. until then, the independence of man is little more than a dream. overshadowed by an immense personality--in the presence of the irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. beneath the frown of the absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave--beneath his smile be is at best only a fortunate serf. governed by a being whose arbitrary will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the pleasure of the unknown. under these circumstances what wretched object can he have in lengthening out his aimless life? and yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of what the gods may do, and the safe side is considered the best side. a gentleman walking among the ruins of athens came upon a fallen statue of jupiter. making an exceedingly low bow, he said: "jupiter, i salute thee." he then added: "should you ever get up in the world again, do not forget, i pray you, that i treated you politely while you were prostrate." we have all been taught by the church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of deity as to express a doubt as to his existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. numerous well-attested instances were referred to, of atheists being struck dead for denying the existence of god. according to these religious people, god is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. knowing as he does that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence the most infamous of crimes. according to the orthodox logic, god having furnished us with imperfect minds has a right to demand a perfect result. suppose mr. smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a discussion as to the existence of mr. smith, and suppose one should have the temerity to declare upon the honor of a bug that he had examined the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of smith had ever lived. think then of mr. smith flying into an ecstasy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed, "i will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that smith is a diabolical fact!" what then can we think of god who would open the artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? and what man, who really thinks, can help repeating the words of aeneas, "if there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man." in religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and steady development. at the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times) is catholicism, and at the top are atheism and science. the intermediate rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion. but whatever may be the truth on any subject has nothing to do with our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form. all that i ask is the right i freely accord to all others. a few years ago a methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a piece of friendly advice. "although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say so. that you should keep to yourself." "do you believe the bible?" said i. he replied, "most assuredly." to which i retorted, "your answer conveys no information to me. you may be following your own advice. you told me to suppress my opinions. of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth himself." it is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. "this above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." it is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. it is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say: "there is nobody in this bed!" it is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed, and that you are indebted to your memory for your principles, that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. it is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry "crucify him" because the others do. that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it. surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. surely it is worth something to be one and to feel that the census of the universe would not be complete without counting you. surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls, fences, prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no lock, no cell, in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself. ingersoll's lecture on humboldt ladies and gentlemen: great minds seem to be a part of the infinite. those possessing them seem to be brothers of the mountains and the seas. humboldt was one of these. he was one of the few great enough to rise above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation and reason are the only basis of knowledge. he became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich and noble--in spite of position. i say in spite of these things, because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the destroyers of talent. it is often said of this or that man that he is a self-made man--that he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every obstacle to overcome he became great. this is a mistake. poverty is generally an advantage. most of the intellectual giants of the world have been nursed at the sad but loving breast of poverty. most of those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest round. they were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of europe, in the log-houses of america, in the factories of the great cities, in the midst of toil, in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of want. they were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel. it is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure, and so i say that humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and high social position, became truly and grandly great. in the antiquated and romantic castle of tegel, by the side of the pine forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of berlin, the great humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and there he was educated after the method suggested by rousseau--campe, the philologist and critic, and the intellectual kunth being his tutors. there he received the impressions that determined his career; there the great idea that the universe is governed by law took possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime truth. he came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of nature. he longed to give a physical description of the universe--a grand picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called special-providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is governed by law. to establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind. that fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the age of reason. the object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. for this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty the geographical distribution of plants. he investigated the laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the atmosphere. he studied the formation of the earth's crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered through the craters of extinct volcanoes. he became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so humboldt became acquainted with all the known sciences. his fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and splendid generalizations. he was to science what shakespeare was to the drama. he found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts, all portions of a vast system--parts of a great machine; he discovered the connection that each bears to all, put them together, and demonstrated beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law. he knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of all natural investigation. he was infinitely practical. origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do. his surroundings made him what he was. in accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of his time. great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation; they fulfill the prophecies of their age. nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same idea entertained by humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way. there was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all facts, or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general fact, and that the task of science is to discover this connection; to comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of things. germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge. humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics and logicians of his time. he was the companion of schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the beautiful; of goethe, the grand patriarch of german literature; of wieland, who has been called the voltaire of germany; of herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man; of kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of schleiermacher, the pantheist; of schlegel, who gave to his country the enchanted realm of shakespeare--of the sublime kant, author of the first work published in germany on pure reason; of fichte, the infinite idealist; of schopenhauer, the european buddhist who followed the great gautama to the painless and dreamless nirvana, and of hundreds of others whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world. the german mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark ages of ignorance, fear and faith. guided by the holy light of reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and illustrated. humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought became courageous; the athlete, reason, challenged to mortal combat the monsters of superstition. no wonder that under these influences humboldt formed the great purpose of presenting to the world a picture of nature, in order that men might, for the first time, behold the face of their mother. europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in the new world, where, in the most circumscribed limits, he could find the greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate upon them all. he sailed along the gigantic amazon--the mysterious orinoco--traversed the pampas--climbed the andes until he stood upon the crags of chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. for nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid bonpland. nothing escaped his attention. he was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. he was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. his collections were immense, and valuable beyond calculation to every science. he endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning. upon his return to europe he was hailed as the second columbus; as the scientific discoverer of america; as the revealer of a new world; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth that universe is governed by law. i have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side--above him the eternal snow; below, smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm. his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm, his forehead majestic--grander than the mountain upon which he sat. "crowned with the snow of his whitened hair," he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. not satisfied with his discoveries in america, he crossed the steppes of asia, the wastes of siberia, the great ural range, adding to the knowledge of mankind at every step. his energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought. he was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement--with an ardor that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the polar star. in order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at berlin a course of lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following subjects: five upon the nature and limits of physical geography. three were devoted to a history of science. two to inducements to a study of natural science. sixteen on the heavens. five on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the earth, and to the polar light. four were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs, earthquakes and volcanoes. two on mountains, and the type of their formation. two on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of continents, and the elevation of soil over ravines. three on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth. ten on the atmosphere--as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on the distribution of heat. one on the geographic distribution of organized matter in general, three on the geography of plants. three on the geography of animals; and two on the races of men. these lectures are what is known as the cosmos, and present a scientific picture of the world--of infinite diversity in unity; of ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law. these lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation and experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men; the effects of climate upon individuals and nations; the relation we sustain to other worlds, and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in accordance with inexorable law. there are some truths, however, that we never should forget: superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. since the murder of hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished blade of greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant catholicism, until today, superstition has detested every effort of reason. it is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory that the church achieved over philosophy. for ages science was utterly ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and god was supposed to be happy only when his children were miserable. the world was governed by an almighty's whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of nature; could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine, and death in all its forms. there was no idea of the certain; all depended upon divine pleasure--or displeasure, rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. to the poor multitude the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking, with infinite power, to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue. the very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the glittering vengeance of god, and the earth was thick with snares for the unwary feet of man. the soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a continual warfare being waged between the deity and the devil for the possession of every soul, the latter generally being considered victorious. the flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the displeasure of heaven and the sinfulness of man. the blight that withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the messengers of the creator. the world was governed by fear. against all the evils of nature there was known only the defense of prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. man, in his helplessness, endeavored to soften the heart of god. the faces of the multitude were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites, kings and priests. my heart bleeds when i contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite horror, who snatched babes, with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks, from the white breasts of mothers and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame. slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth that the universe is governed by law--that disease fastens itself upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the lightning for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer; that paying tithes causes rather than prevents famine; that pleasure is not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby, sung to put the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed power; that offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. slowly, grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind. from copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on the infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in accordance with law. true, the earth began to grow small, but man began to grow great. the moment the fact was established that other worlds are governed by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under its dominion. the old theological method of accounting for physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the deity was, by the intellectual, abandoned. they found: that disease, death, life, thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of animals--in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable. let it be understood by the term law is meant the same invariable relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing from like conditions. law is a fact--not a cause. it is a fact that like conditions produce like results; this fact is law. when we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable fact, inseparable from all phenomena. law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. it could not have been otherwise than as it is. that which necessarily exists has no creator. only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this insignificant atom. the german mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece of egotism. purbach and mullerus, in the fifteenth century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. to the latter the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the second of the three steps by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet both of these men believed in the most childish absurdities--at least in enough of them to die without their orthodoxy having ever been questioned. next came the great copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of experience, observation and reason. he removed the earth, so to speak, from the center of the universe, and ascribed to it a twofold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar system. at his bidding the earth began to revolve. at the command of his genius it commenced its grand flight amid the eternal constellations around the sun. for fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. all at once, by the exertions of galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as to consume the philosophy of aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon experience, observation and reason. the earth was no longer considered a universe governed by the caprices of some revengeful deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to adorn the night. i have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first splendid step forward! the first sublime blow that shattered the lance and shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that man received from heaven. because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the infinite to man, the first authoritative declaration that the universe is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism; and because it is the sublimest victory that reason has achieved. in speaking of astronomy i have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. long ago, on the banks of the ganges, ages before copernicus lived, aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere and revolves on its own axis. this, however, does not detract from the glory of the great german. the discovery of the hindoo had been lost in the midnight of europe--in the age of faith--and copernicus was as much a discoverer as though aryabhatta had never lived. in this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of august comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of guttenberg, watt, stephenson, arkwright, all soldiers of science in the grand army of the dead kings. the glory of science is that it is freeing the soul-breaking the mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to thought--filling the world with mercy, justice and joy. science found agriculture plowing with a stick--reaping with a sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools--man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture--in building inquisitions and cathedrals. it found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting protestants, and the burners of men. it found a world full of fear, ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts, of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation. it found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. it found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. it found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world. such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. for the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. to obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason is noble. ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it--the one grovels, the other soars. no wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. a man with a false diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that superstition abhors science. in all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. the have worshiped their destroyers--they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder. imposture has always worn a crown. the world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. to think is to advance. everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men--the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. at the head of this great army of investigators stood humboldt--the serene leader of an intellectual host--a king by the suffrage of science, and the divine right of genius. and today we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier--some wily politician called a statesman--some robber called a king--nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint. we are honoring the grand humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error--not men: who shed light--not blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth and the happiness of all mankind. his life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast. we honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. we honor him because he honored us--because he labored for others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. for these reasons he is honored throughout the world. millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence, and recounting what he accomplished. we associate the name of humboldt with oceans, continents mountains and volcanoes--with the great plains--the wide deserts--the snow-lipped craters of the andes--with primeval forests and european capitals--with wildernesses and universities--with savages and savants--with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. he was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. he stood erect by the grand, tranquil column of reason. he was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the universal mother--and with her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called death. history added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals. the world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there, upon everlasting stone, his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: "the universe is governed by law!" ingersoll's lecture on which way? ladies and gentlemen: for thousands of years men have been asking the questions: "how shall we civilize the world? how shall we protect life, liberty, property and reputations? how shall we do away with crime and poverty? how clothe, and feed, and educate, and civilize mankind?" these are the questions that are asked by thoughtful men and thoughtful women. the question with them is not, "what will we do in some other world?" time enough to ask that when we get there. the business we will attend to now is, how are, we to civilize the world? what priest shall i ask? what sacred volume shall i search? what oracle can i consult? at what shrine must i bow to find out what is to be done? each church has a different answer; each has a different recipe for the salvation of the people, but not while they are in this world. all that is to be done in this world is to get ready for the next. in the first place i am met by the theological world. have i the right to inquire? they say, "certainly; it is your duty to inquire." each church has a recipe for the salvation of this world, but not while you are in this world--afterward. they treat time as a kind of pier--a kind of wharf running out into the great ocean of eternity; and they treat us all as though we were waiting there, sitting on our trunks, for the gospel ship. i want to know what to do here. have i the right to inquire? yes. if i have the right to inquire, then i have the right to investigate. if i have the right to investigate, i have the right to accept. if i have the right to accept, i have the right to reject. and what religion have i the right to reject? that which does not conform with my reason, with my standard of truth, with my standard of common sense. millions of men have been endeavoring to govern this world by means of the supernatural. thousands and thousands of churches exist, thousands of cathedrals and temples have been built, millions of men have been engaged to preach this gospel; and what has been the result in this world? will one church have any sympathy with another? does the religion of one country have any respect for that of another? or does not each religion claim to be the only one? and does not the priest of every religion, with infinite impudence, consign the disciples of all others to eternal fire? why is it the churches have failed to civilize this world? why is it that the christian countries are no better than any other countries? why is it that christian men are no better than any other men? why is it that ministers as a class are no better than doctors, or lawyers, or merchants, or mechanics, or locomotive engineers? and a locomotive engineer is a thousand times more useful. give me a good engineer and a bad preacher to go through this world with rather than a bad engineer and a good preacher; and there is this curious fact about the believers in the supernatural: the priests of one church have no confidence in the miracles and wonders told by the priests of the other churches. maybe they know each other. a christian missionary will tell the hindoo of the miracles of the bible; the hindoo smiles. the hindoo tells the christian missionary of the miracles of his sacred books; and the missionary looks upon him with pity and contempt. no priest takes the word of another. i heard once a little story that illustrates this point: a gentleman in a little party was telling of a most wonderful occurrence, and when he had finished everybody said: "is it possible? why, did you ever hear anything like that?" all united in a kind of wondering chorus except one man. he said nothing. he was perfectly still and unmoved; and one who had been greatly astonished by the story said to him: "did you hear that story?" "yes." "well, you don't appear to be excited." "well no," he said; "i am a liar myself." there is another trouble with the supernatural. it has no honesty; it is consumed by egotism; it does not think--it knows; consequently it has no patience with the honest doubter. and how has the church treated the honest doubter? he has been answered by force, by authority, by popes, by cardinals and bishops, and councils, and, above all, by mobs. in that way the honest doubter has been answered. there is this difference between the minister, the church, the clergy, and the men who believe in this world. i might as well state the question--i may go further than you. the real question is this: are we to be governed by a supernatural being, or are we to govern ourselves? that is the question. is god the source of power, or does all authority spring, in governing, from the consent of the governed? that is the question. in other words, is the universe a monarchy, a despotism, or a democracy? i take the democratic side, not in a political sense. the question is, whether this world should be governed by god or by man; and when i say "god" i mean the being that these gentlemen have treated and enthroned upon the ignorance of mankind. now let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the bible is true. let us admit, for the sake of argument, that god once governed this world--not that he did, but let us admit it, and i intend to speak of no god but our god, because we all insist that of all the gods ours is the best, and if he is not good we need not trouble ourselves about the others. let them take care of themselves. now, the first question is, whether this world shall be governed by god or man. admitting that the being spoken of in the bible is god, he governed this world once. there was a theocracy at the start. that was the first government of the world. now, how do you judge of a man? the best test of a man is, how does he use power? that is the supreme test of manhood. how does he treat those within his control? the greater the man, the grander the man, the more careful he is in the use of power--the tenderer he is, the nearer just, the greater, the more merciful, the grander, the more charitable. tell me how a man treats his wife or his children, his poor debtors, his servants, and i will tell you what manner of a man he be. that, i say, is the supreme test, and we know tonight how a good and great man treats his inferiors. we know that. and a man endeavoring to raise his fellow-men higher in the scale of civilization--what will that man appeal to? will he appeal to the lowest or to the highest that is in man? let us be honest. will he appeal to prejudice--the fortress, the armor, the sword and shield of ignorance? will he appeal to credulity--the ring in the nose by which priests lead stupidity? will he appeal to the cowardly man? will he play upon his fears--fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever and fulcrum of hypocrisy? will he appeal to the selfishness and all the slimy serpents that crawl in the den of savagery? or will he appeal to reason, the torch of the mind? will he appeal to justice? will he appeal to charity, which is justice in blossom? will he appeal to liberty and love? these are the questions. what will he do? what did our god do? let us see. the first thing we know of him is in the garden of eden. how did he endeavor to make his children great, and strong, and good, and free? did he say anything to adam and eve about the sacred relation of marriage? did he say anything to them about loving children? did he say anything to them about learning anything under heaven? did he say one word about intellectual liberty? did he say one word about reason or about justice? did he make the slightest effort to improve them? all that he did in the world was to give them one poor little miserable, barren command, "thou shalt not eat of a certain fruit." that's all that amounted to anything; and, when they sinned, did this great god take them in the arms of his love and endeavor to reform them? no; he simply put upon them a curse. when they were expelled he said to the woman: "i will greatly multiply thy sorrow. in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. thy husband shall rule over thee." god made every mother a criminal, and placed a perpetual penalty of pain upon human love. our god made wives slaves--slaves of their husbands. our god corrupted the marriage relation and paralyzed the firesides of this world. that is what our god did. and what did he say to poor adam? "cursed be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field, and in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." did he say one word calculated to make him a better man? did he put in the horizon of the future one star of hope? let us be honest, and see what this god did, and we will judge of him simply by ordinary common sense. after a while cain murdered his brother, and he was detected by this god. and what did this god say to him? did he say one word of the crime of shedding human blood? not a word. did he say one word calculated to excite in the breast of cain the slightest real sorrow for his deed? not the slightest. did he tell him anything about where abel was? nothing. did he endeavor to make him a better man? not a bit. what had he ever taught him before on that subject? nothing. and so cain went out to the other sons and daughters of adam, according to the bible, and they multiplied and increased until they covered the earth. god gave them no code of laws. god never built them a schoolhouse. god never sent a teacher. god never said a word to them about a future state. god never held up before their gaze that dazzling reward of heaven; never spoke about the lurid gulfs of hell; kept divine punishment a perfect secret, and without having given them the slightest opportunity, simply drowned the world. splendid administration! cleveland will do better than that. and, after the waters had gone away, then he gave them some commandments. i suppose that he saw by that time that they needed guidance. and here are the commandments: . you may eat all kinds of birds, beasts and fishes. . you must not eat blood; if you do, i will kill you. . whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. nothing more. no good advice; not a word about government; not a word about the rights of man or woman, or children; not a word about any law of nature; not a word about any science--nothing, not even arithmetic. nothing. and so he let them go on, and in a little while they came to the same old state; and began building the tower of babel; and he went there and confounded, as they said, their languages. never said a word to them; never told them how foolish it was to try and reach heaven that way. and the next we find him talking to abraham, and with abraham he makes a contract. and how did he do it? "i will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee." fine contract for a god. and thereupon he made certain promises to abraham--promised to give him the whole world, all the nations round about, and that his seed should be as the sands of the sea. never kept one of his promises--not one. he made the same promises to isaac, and broke every one. then he made them all over to jacob, and broke every one; made them again to moses, and broke them all. never said a word about anybody behaving themselves--not a word. finally, these people whom he had taken under his special care became slaves in the land of egypt. how ashamed god must have been! finally he made up his mind to rescue them from that servitude, and he sent moses and aaron. he never said a word to moses or aaron that pharaoh was wrong. he never said a word to them about how the women felt when their male children were taken and destroyed. he simply sent moses before pharaoh with a cane in his hand that he could turn into a serpent; and, when pharaoh called in magicians and they did the same, pharaoh laughed. and then they made frogs; and pharaoh sent for his magicians, and they did the same, and pharaoh still laughed. and this god had infinite power, but pharaoh defeated him at every point! it puts me in mind of the story that great fenian told when the great excitement was about ireland. an irishman was telling about the condition of ireland. he said: "we have got in ireland now over , soldiers, all equipped. every man of them has got a musket and ammunition. they are ready to march at a minute's notice." "but," said the other man, "why don't they march?" "why," said the other man, "the police won't let them." how admirable! imagine the infinite god endeavoring to liberate the hebrews, and prevented by a king, who would not let the children of israel go until he had done some little miracles with sticks! think of it! but, said christians, "you must wait a little while if you wish to find the foundation of law." christians now assert that from sinai came to this world all knowledge of right and wrong, and that from its flaming top we received the first ideas of law and justice. let us look at those ten commandments. which of those ten commandments were new, and which of those ten commandments were old? "thou shalt not kill." that was as old as life. murder has been a crime; also, because men object to being murdered. if you read the same bible you will find that moses, seeing an israelite and an egyptian contending together, smote the egyptian and hid his body in the sand. after he had committed that crime moses fled from the land. why? simply because there was a law against murder. that is all. "honor thy father and thy mother." that is as old as birth. "thou shalt not commit adultery." that is as old as sex. "thou shalt not steal." that is as old as work, and as old as property. "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." that is as old as the earth. never was there a nation, never was there a tribe on the earth that did not have substantially, those commandments. what, then, were new? first, "thou shalt worship no other god; thou shalt have no other god." why? "because i am a jealous god." second, "thou shalt not make any graven image." third, "thou shalt not take my name in vain." fourth, "thou shalt not work on the sabbath day." what use were these commandments? none--not the slightest. how much better it would have been if god from sinai, instead of the commandments, had said: "thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-man; no human being is entitled to the results of another's labor." suppose he had said: "thou shalt not persecute for opinion's sake; thought and speech must be forever free." suppose he had said, instead of "thou shalt not work on the sabbath day," "a man shall have but one wife; a woman shall have but one husband; husbands shall love their wives; wives shall love their husbands and their children with all their hearts and as themselves"--how much better it would have been for this world. long before moses was born the egyptians taught one god; but afterwards, i believe, in their weakness, they degenerated into a belief in the trinity. they taught the divine origin of the soul, and taught judgment after death. they taught as a reward for belief in their doctrine eternal joy, and as a punishment for non-belief eternal pain. egypt, as a matter of fact, was far better governed than palestine. the laws of egypt were better than the laws of god. in egypt woman was equal with man. long before moses was born there were queens upon the egyptian throne. long before moses was born they had a written code of laws, and their laws were administered by courts and judges. they had rules of evidence. they understood the philosophy of damages. long before moses was born they had asylums for the insane and hospitals for the sick. long before god appeared on sinai there were schools in egypt, and the highest office next to the throne was opened to the successful scholar. the egyptian married but one wife. his wife was called the lady of the house. women were not secluded; and, above all and over all, the people of egypt were not divided into castes, and were infinitely better governed than god ever thought of. i am speaking of the god of this bible. if moses had remembered more of what he saw in egypt his government would have been far better than it was. long before these commandments were given, zoroaster taught the hindoos that there was one infinite and supreme god. they had a code of laws, and their laws were administered by judges in their courts. by those laws, at the death of a father, the unmarried daughter received twice as much of his property as his son. compare those laws with the laws of moses. so, too, the romans had their code of laws. the romans were the greatest lawyers the world produced. the romans had a code of civil laws, and that code today is the foundation of all law in the civilized world. the romans built temples to truth, to faith, to valor, to concord, to modesty, to charity and to chastity. and so with the grecians. and yet you will find christian ministers today contending that all ideas of law, of justice and of right came from sinai, from the ten commandments, from the mosaic laws. no lawyer who understands his profession will claim that is so. no lawyer who has studied the history of law will claim it. no man who knows history itself will claim it. no man will claim it but an ignorant zealot. let us go another step--let us compare the ideas of this god with the ideas of uninspired men. i am making this long preface because i want to get it out of your minds that the bible is inspired. now let us go along a little and see what is god's opinion of liberty. nothing is of more value in this world today than liberty--liberty of body and liberty of mind. without liberty, the universe would be as a dungeon into which human beings are flung like poor and miserable convicts. intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind. without it we should be in darkness. now, jehovah commanded the jewish people to take captives the strangers and sojourners amongst them, and ordered that they and their children should be bondsmen and bondswomen for ever. now let us compare jehovah to epictetus--a man to whom no revelation was ever made--a man to whom this god did not appear. let us listen to him: "remember your servants are to be treated as your own brothers--children of the same god." on the subject of liberty is not epictetus a better authority than jehovah, who told the jews to make bondsmen and bondswomen of the heathen round about? and he said they were to make them their bondsmen and bondswomen forever. why? because they were heathen. why? because they were not children of the jews. he was the god of the jews and not of the rest of mankind. so he said to his chosen people: "pillage upon the enemy and destroy the people of other gods. buy the heathen round about." yet cicero, a poor pagan lawyer, said this--and he had not even read the old testament--had not even had the advantage of being enlightened by the prophets: "they who say that we should love our fellow-citizens, and not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, and with it benevolence and justice would perish forever." is not cicero greater than jehovah? the bible, inspired by jehovah, says: "if a man smite his servant with a rod and he die under his hand he shall be punished. it he continue a day or two and then die, he shall not be punished." zeno, the founder of the stoics, who had never heard of jehovah, and never read a word of moses, said this: "no man can be the owner of another, and the title is bad. whether the slave became a slave by conquest or by purchase, the title is bad." let us come and see whether jehovah has any humanity in him. jehovah ordered the jewish general to make war, and this was the order: "and when the lord thy god shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." and yet epictetus, whom i have already quoted, said: "treat those in thy power as thou wouldst have thy superiors treat thee." i am on the side of the pagan. is it possible that a being of infinite goodness said: "i will heap mischief upon them; i will send my arrows upon them. they shall be burned with hunger; they shall be devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction. i will also send the teeth of locusts upon them, with the poisonous serpent of the desert. the sound without and the terror within, shall destroy both the young men and the virgins, the sucklings also, and the men with gray hairs." while seneca, a poor uninspired roman, said: "a wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but will accomplish in other way all that is sought. he will spare some; he will pardon and watch over some because of their youth; he will pardon these on account of their ignorance. his clemency will not fail what is sought by justice, but his clemency will fulfill justice." that was said by seneca. can we believe that this jehovah said: "let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg. let them seek their bread out of desolate places. let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor. let no one extend mercy unto them, neither let any favor his fatherless children." did jehovah say this? surely he had never heard this line--this plaintive music from the hindoo: "sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the voices of their own children." let us see the generosity of jehovah out of the cloud of darkness on mount sinai. he said to the jews: "thou shalt have no other god before me. thou shalt not bow down to any other gods, for the lord thy god is a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third an fourth generation of them that hate me." just think of god saying to people: "if you do not love me i will damn you." contrast this with the words put by the hindoo poet into the mouth of brahma: "i am the same to all mankind. the who honestly worship other gods involuntarily worship me. i am he that partaketh of all worship. i am the reward of worship." how perfectly sublime! let me read it to you again: "i am the same to all mankind. they who honestly worship other gods involuntarily worship me. i am he that partaketh of all worship. i am the reward of worship." compare these passages. the first is a dungeon, which crude hands have digged with jealous slime. the other is like the dome of the firmament, inlaid with constellations. is it possible god ever said: "if a prophet deceive when he hath spoken a thing, i, the lord, hath deceived that prophet?" compare that passage with the poet, a pagan: "better remain silent the remainder of life than speak falsely." can we believe a being of infinite mercy gave this command: "put every man his sword by his side; go from the gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. consecrate it, yourselves this day. let every man lay his sword even upon his son, upon his brother, that he bestow blessing upon me this day." surely that was not the outcome of a great, magnanimous spirit, like that of the roman emperor, who declared: "i had rather keep a single roman citizen alive than slay a thousand enemies." compare the last command given to the children of israel with the words of marcus aurelius: "i have formed an ideal of the state, in which there is the same law for all, and equal rights and equal liberty of speech established for all--an empire where nothing is honored so much as the freedom of the citizens." i am on the side of the roman emperor. what is more beautiful than the old story from sufi? there was a man who for seven years did every act of good, every kind of charity, and at the end of the seven years he mounted the steps to the gate of heaven and knocked. a voice cried, "who is there?" he cried, "thy servant, o lord;" and the gates were shut. seven other years he did every good work, and again mounted the steps to heaven and knocked. the voice cried, "who is there?" he answered, "thy slave, o god;" and the gates were shut. seven other years he did every good deed, and again mounted the steps to heaven, and the voice said: "who is there?" he replied "thyself, o god;" and the gates wide open flew. is there anything in our religion so warm or so beautiful as that? compare that story from a pagan with the presbyterian religion. take this story of endesthora, who was a king of egypt, and started for the place where the horizon touched the earth, where he was to meet god. with him followed argune and bemis and traubation. they were taught that, when any man started after god in that way, if he had been guilty of any crime he would fall by the way. endesthora walked at the head and suddenly he missed argune. he said, "he was not always merciful in the hour of victory." a little while after he missed bemis, and said, "he fought not so much for the rights of man as for his own glory." a little farther on he missed traubation. he said, "my god, i know no reason for his failing to reach the place where the horizon touches the earth;" and the god ram appeared to him, and opening the curtains of the sky, said to him: "enter." and endesthora said: "but where are my brethren? where are argune and beinis and traubation?" and the god said: "they sinned in their time, and they are condemned to suffer below." then said endestbora: "i do not wish to enter into your heaven without my friends. if they are below, then i will join them." but the god said: "they are here before you; i simply said this to try your soul." endesthora simply turned and said: "but what of my dog?" the god said, "thou knowest that if the shadow of a dog fall upon the sacrifice, it is unclean. how, then, can a dog enter heaven?" and endesthora replies: "i know that, and i know another thing; that ingratitude is the blackest of crimes, whether it be to man or beast. that dog has been my faithful friend. he has followed me and i will not desert even him." and the god said: "let the dog follow." compare that with the bible stories. long before the advent of christ, aristotle said: "we should conduct ourselves toward others as we would have them conduct themselves toward us." seneca said: "do not to your neighbor what you would not have your neighbor do to you." socrates said: "act toward others as you would have others act toward you. forgive your enemies, render good for evil, and kiss even the hand that is upraised to smite." krishna said: "cease to do evil; aim to do well; love your enemies. it is the law of love that virtue is the only thing that has strength." poor, miserable pagans! did you ever hear anything like this? is it possible that one of the authors of the new testament was inspired when he said that man was not created for woman, but woman for man? epictetus said: "what is more delightful than to be so dear to your wife as to be on her account dearer even to yourself?" compare that with st. paul: "but i would have you know that the head of every man is christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of christ is god. wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the lord." that was inspiration. this was written by a poor, despised heathen: "in whatever house the husband is contented with the wife and the wife with the husband, in that house will fortune dwell. in the house where the woman is not honored, let the curse be pronounced. where the wife is honored, there god is truly worshiped." i wish jehovah had said something like that from sinai. is there anything as beautiful as this in the new testament: "shall i tell you where nature is more blest and fair? it is where those we love abide. though the space be small, it is ample as earth; though it be a desert, through it run the rivers of paradise." compare these things with the curses pronounced in the old testament, where you read of the heathen being given over to butchery and death, and the women and babes to destruction; and, after you have read them, read the chapters of horrors in the new testament, threatening eternal fire and flame; and then read this, the greatest thought uttered by the greatest of human beings: the quality of mercy is not strained. it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. it is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes; 'tis mightiest in the mighty; it becomes the throned monarch better this his crown. compare that with your doctrine of the new testament! if jehovah was an infinite god and knew things from the beginning, he knew that his bible would be a breast-work behind which tyranny and hypocrisy would crouch, and knew his bible would be the auction-block on which the mother would stand while her babe was sold from her, because he knew his bible would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be quoted in defense of robbers called kings, and by hypocrites called priests. he knew that he had taught the jewish people; he knew that he had found them free and left them slaves; he knew that he had broken every single promise made to them; he knew that, while other nations advanced in knowledge, in art, in science, his chosen people were subjects still. he promised them the world; he gave them a desert. he promised them liberty, and made them slaves. he promised them power; he gave them exile, and any one who reads the old testament is compelled to say that nothing could add to their misery. let us be honest. how do you account for this religion? this world; where did it come from? you hear every minister say that man is a religious animal--that religion is natural. while man is an ignorant animal man will be a theological animal, and no longer. where did we get this religion? the savage knew but little of nature, but thought that everything happened in reference to him. he thought his sins caused earthquakes, and that his virtues made the sunshine. nothing is so egotistical as ignorance. you know, and so do i, that if no human being existed, the sun would shine, and that tempests would now and then devastate the earth; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, daisies would grow, roses would fill the air with perfume, and now and then volcanoes would illuminate the horizon with their lurid glare; the grass would grow, the waters would run, and so far as nature is concerned, everything would be as joyous as though the earth were filled with happy homes. we know the barbarian savage thinks that all this was on his account. he thinks that there dwelt two very powerful deities; that there was a good one, because he knows good things happen to him; and that there was a bad one, because he knows bad things happen to him. behind the evil influence he puts a devil, and behind the good, an intention of god; and then he imagines both these beings are in opposition, and that, between them, they struggle for the possession of his ignorant soul. he also thinks that the place where the good deity lives is heaven, and that the place where the other deity keeps himself is a place of torture and punishment. and about that time other barbarians have chosen too keep the ignorant ones in subjection by means of the doctrine of fear and punishment. there is no reforming power in fear. you can scare a man, maybe, so bad that he won't do a thing, but you can't scare him so bad he won't want to do it. there is no reforming power in punishment or brute force; but our barbarians rather imagined that every being would punish in accordance with his power, and his dignity, and that god would subject them to torture in the same way as those who made him angry. they knew the king would inflict torments upon one in his power, and they supposed that god would inflict torture according to his power. they knew the worst torture was a slow, burning fire; added to it the idea of eternity, and hell was produced. that was their idea. all meanness, revenge, selfishness, cruelty, and hatred of which men here are capable burst into blossom and bore fruit in that one word, "hell." in this way a god of infinite wisdom experimented with man, keeping him between an outstretched abyss beneath and a heaven above; and in time the man came to believe that he could please god by having read a few sacred books, could count beads, could sprinkle water, eat little square pieces of bread, and that he could shut his eyes and say words to the clouds; but the moment he left this world nothing remained except to damn him. he was to be kept miserable one day in seven, and he could slander and persecute other men all the other days in the week. that was the chance that god gave a man here, but the moment he left this world that settled it. he would go to eternal pain or else to eternal joy. that was the way that the supernatural governed this world--through fear, through terror, through eternity of punishment; and that government, i say tonight, has failed. how has it been kept alive so long? it was born in ignorance. let me tell you, whoever attacks a creed will be confronted with a list of great men who have believed in it. probably their belief in that creed was the only weakness they had. but he will be asked, "so you know more than all the great men who have taught and all the respectable men who have believed in that faith?" for the church is always going about to get a certificate from some governor, or even perhaps members of the legislature, and you are told, because so-and-so believed all these things, and you have no more talents than they, that you should believe the same thing. but i contend, as against this argument, that you should not take the testimony of these men unless you are willing to take at the same time all their beliefs on other subjects. then, again, they tell you that the rich people are all on their side, and i say so, too. the churches today seek the rich, and poverty unwillingly seeks them. light thrown from diamonds adorns the repentant here. we are told that the rich, the fortunate, and the holders of place are christians now; and yet ministers grow eloquent over the poverty of christ, who was born in a manger, and say that the holy ghost passed the titled ladies of the world and selected the wife of a poor mechanic for the mother of god. such is the difference between theory and practice. the church condemns the men of jerusalem who held positions and who held the pretensions of the savior in contempt. they admit that he was so little known that they had to bribe a man to point him out to the soldiers. they assert that he performed miracles; yet he remained absolutely unknown, hidden in the depth of obscurity. no one knew him, and one of his disciples had to be bribed to point him out. surely he and his disciples could have met the arguments which were urged against their religion at that time. so long as the church honored philosophers she kept her great men in the majority. how is it now? i say tonight that no man of genius in the world is in the orthodox pulpit, so far as i know. where are they? where are the orthodox great men? i challenge the christian church to produce a man like alexander humboldt. i challenge the world to produce a naturalist like haeckel. i challenge the christian world to produce a man like darwin. where in the ranks of orthodoxy are historians like draper and buckle? where are the naturalists like tyndall, philosophers like mills and spencer, and women like george eliot and harriet martineau? you may get tired of the great-men argument; but the names of the great thinkers, and naturalists and scientists of our time cannot be matched by the supernatural world. what is the next argument they will bring forward? the father and mother argument. you must not disgrace your parents. how did christ come to leave the religion of his mother? that argument proves too much. there is one way every man can honor his mother--that is by finding out more than she knew. there is one way a man can honor his father--by correcting the old man's errors. most people imagine that the creed we have came from the brain and heart of christ. they have no idea how it was made. they think it was all made at one time. they don't understand that it was a slow growth. they don't understand that theology is a science made up of mistakes, prejudices and falsehoods. let me tell you a few facts: the emperor constantine, who lifted the christian religion into power, murdered his wife and his eldest son the very year that he convened the council of nice to decide whether jesus christ was man or god; and that was not decided until the year of grace . then theodosius called a council at constantinople in , and this council decided that the holy ghost proceeded from the father. you see, there was a little doubt on that question before this was done. then another council was called later to determine who the virgin mary really was, and it was solemnly decided that she was the mother of christ. in , and then in , a council was held in chalcedon, by the emperor marcian, and that decided that christ had two natures--a human and a divine. in another council was held at constantinople; and in at lyons, it was decided that the holy ghost proceeded not only from the father but from the son; and when you take into consideration the fact that a belief in the trinity is absolutely essential to salvation, you see how important it was that these doctrines should have been established in , when millions of people had dropped into hell in the interim solely because they had forgotten that question. at last we know how religions are made. we know how miracles are manufactured. we know the history of relics, and bones, and pieces of the true cross. and at last we understand apostolic succession. at last we have examined other religions, and we find them all the same, and we are beginning to suspect that ours is like the rest. i think we understand it. i read a little story, a short time ago, from the japanese, that throws light upon the question. there was an old priest at a monastery. this monastery was built over the bones of what he called a saint, and people came there and were cured of many diseases. this priest had an assistant. after the assistant grew up and got quite to understand his business, the old priest gave him a little donkey, and told him that henceforth he was to take care of himself. the young priest started out with his little donkey, and asked alms of those he met. few gave to him. finally he got very poor. he could not raise money enough to feed the donkey. finally the donkey died; he was about to bury it when a thought occurred to him. he buried the donkey and sat down on the grave, and to the next stranger that passed he said: "will you not give a little money to erect a shrine over the bones of a sinless one?" thereupon a man gave money. others followed his example, a shrine was raised, and in a little while a monastery was built over the bones of the sinless one. down in the grave the young priest made an orifice, so that persons afflicted with any disease could reach down and touch the bones of the sinless one. hundreds were thus cured, and persons left their crutches as testimonials to the miraculous power of the bones of the sinless one. finally the priest became so rich that he thought he would visit his old master. he went to the old monastery with a fine retinue. his old master asked him how he became so rich and prosperous. he replied: "old age is stupid, but youth has thought." later on he explained to the old priest how the donkey had died, and how he had raised a monastery over the bones of the sinless one; and again reminded him that old age is stupid, but youth has thought. the old priest exclaimed: "not quite so fast, young man; not quite so fast. don't imagine you worked out anything new. this shrine of mine is built over the bones of the mother of your little donkey." we have now reached a point in the history of the world when we know that theocracy as a form of government is a failure, and we see that theology as a foundation of government is an absolute failure. we can see that theocracy and theology created, not liberty, but despotism. we know enough of the history of the churches in this world to know that they never can civilize mankind; that they are not imbued with the spirit of progress; that they are not imbued with the spirit of justice and mercy. what i ask you tonight is: what has the church done to civilize mankind? what has the church done for us? how has it added to the prosperity of this world? has it ever produced anything? nothing. why, they say, it has been charitable. how can a beggar be charitable? a beggar produces nothing. the church has been an eternal and everlasting pauper. it is not charitable. it is an object of charity, and yet it claims to be charitable. the giver is the charitable one. somebody who has made something, somebody who has by his labor produced something, he alone can be charitable. and let me say another thing: the church is always on the wrong side. let us take, first, the episcopal church--if you call that a church. let me tell you one thing about that church. you know what is called the rebellion in england in ? do you know what caused it? i will tell you. king james was a catholic, and notwithstanding that fact, he issued an edict of toleration for the dissenters and catholics. and what next did he do? he ordered all the bishops to have this edict of toleration read in the episcopal churches. they refused to do it--most of them. you recollect that trial of the seven bishops? that is what it was all about; they would not read the edict of toleration. then what happened? a strange thing to say, and it is one of the miracles of this world: the dissenters, in whose favor that edict was issued, joined hands with the episcopalians, and raised the rebellion against the king, because he wanted to give the dissenters liberty, and these dissenters and these episcopalians, on account of toleration, drove king james into exile. this is the history of the first rebellion the church of england ever raised against the king, simply because he issued an edict of toleration and the poor, miserable wretches in whose favor the edict was issued joined hands with their oppressors. i want to show you how much the church of england has done for england. i get it from good authority. let me read it to you to show how little influence the christian church, the church of england, had with the government of that country. let me tell you that up to the reign of george i. there were in that country sixty-seven offenses punishable with death. there is not a lawyer in this city who can think of those offenses and write them down in one day. think of it! sixty-seven offenses punishable with death! now, between the accession of george i. and the termination of the reign of george iii. there were added new crimes punishable with death, making in all crimes in england punishable with death. there is no lawyer in this state who can think of that many crimes in a week. now, during all those years the government was becoming more and more cruel; more and more barbarous; and we do not find, and we have not found, that the church of england, with its , or , ministers, with its more than a score of bishops in the house of lords, has ever raised its voice or perfected any organization in favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous cruelty which the laws were continually inflicting. and was not voltaire justified in saying that "the english were a people who murdered by law?" now, that is an extract from a speech made by john bright in may, . that shows what the church of england did. two hundred and twenty-three offenses in england punishable with death, and no minister, no bishop, no church organization raising his or its voice, against the monstrous cruelty. and why? even then it was better than the law of jehovah. and the protestants were as bad as the catholics. you remember the time of henry iv. in france, when the edict of nantes was issued simply to give the protestants the right to worship god according to the dictates of their conscience. just as soon as that edict was issued the protestants themselves, in the cities where they had the power, prevented the catholics from worshiping their god according to the dictates of their conscience, and it was on account of the refusal of those protestants to allow the catholics to worship god as they desired that there was a civil war lasting for seven years in france. richelieu came into authority about the second or third year of that war. he made no difference between protestants and catholics; and it was owing to richelieu that the thirty years' war terminated. it was owing to richelieu that the peace of westphalia was made in , although i believe he had been dead a year before that time; but it was owing to him, and it was the first peace ever made between nations on a secular basis, with everything religious left out, and it was the last great religious war. you may ask me what i want. well, in the first place i want to get theology out of government. it has no business there. man gets his authority from man, and is responsible only to man. i want to get theology out of politics. our ancestors in retired god from politics, because of the jealousies among the churches, and the result has been splendid for mankind. i want to get theology out of education. teach the children what somebody knows, not what somebody guesses. i want to get theology out of morality, and out of charity. don't give for god's sake, but for man's sake. i want you to know another thing; that neither protestants nor catholics are fit to govern this world. they are not fit to govern themselves. how could you elect a minister of any religion president of the united states. could you elect a bishop of the catholic church, or a methodist bishop, or episcopal minister, or one of the elders? no. and why? we are afraid of the ecclesiastic spirit. we are afraid to trust the liberties of men in the hands of people who acknowledge that they are bound by a standard different from that of the welfare of mankind. the history of italy, france, spain, portugal, cuba, and brazil all show that slavery existed where catholicism was a power. i would suggest an education that would rule theology out of the government, and teach people to rely more on themselves and less on providence. there are two ways of living--the broad way of life lived for others, and the narrow theological way. it is wise to so live that death can be serenely faced, and then, if there is another world, the best way to prepare for it is to make the best of this; and if there be no other world, the best way to live here is to so live as to be happy and make everybody else happy. ingersoll's lecture on the great infidels ladies and gentlemen: there is nothing grander in this world than to rescue from the leprosy of slander a great and splendid name. there is nothing nobler than to benefit our benefactors. the infidels of one age have been the aureole saints of the next. the destroyers of the old have always been the creators of the new. the old passes away and the new becomes old. there is in the intellectual world, as in the material, decay and growth; and even by the sunken grave of age stand youth and joy. the history of progress is written in the lives of infidels. political rights have been preserved by traitors; intellectual rights by infidels. to attack the kings was treason; to dispute the priests blasphemy. the sword and cross have always been allies; they defended each other. the throne and altar are twins--vultures born of the same egg. it was james i. who said: "no king, no bishop; no church, no crown; no tyrant in heaven, no tyrant on earth." every monarchy that has disgraced the world, every despotism that has covered the cheeks of men with fear has been copied after the supposed despotism of hell. the king owned the bodies and the priest owned the souls; one lived on taxes and the other on alms; one was a robber and the other a beggar. the history of the world will not show you one charitable beggar. he who lives on charity never has anything to give away. the robbers and beggars controlled not only this world, but the next. the king made laws, the priest made creeds; with bowed backs the people received and bore the burdens of the one, and with the open mouth of wonder the creed of the other. if any aspired to be free they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a hero who slaughtered the children of the brave. the king ruled by force, the priest by fear and by the bible. the king said to the people: "god made you peasants and me a king; he clothed you in rags and housed you in hovels; upon me he put robes and gave me a palace." such is the justice of god. the priest said to the people: "god made you ignorant and vile, me holy and wise; obey me, or god will punish you here and hereafter." such is the mercy of god. infidels are the intellectual discoverers. infidels have sailed the unknown sea and have discovered the isles and continents in the vast realms of thought. what would the world have been had infidels never existed? what the infidel is in religion the inventor is in mechanics. what the infidel is in religion the man willing to fight the hosts of tyranny is in the political world. an infidel is a gentleman who has discovered a fact and is not afraid to tell about it. there has been for many thousands of years an idea prevalent that in some way you can prove whether the theories defended or advanced by a man are right or wrong by showing what kind of a man he was, what kind of a life he lived, and what manner of death he died. there is nothing to this. it makes no difference what the character of the man was who made the first multiplication table. it is absolutely true, and whenever you find an absolute fact, it makes no difference who discovered it. the golden rule would have been just as good if it had first been whispered by the devil. it is good for what it contains, not because a certain man said it. gold is just as good in the hands of crime as in the hands of virtue. whatever it may be, it is gold. a statement made by a great man is not necessarily true. a man entertains certain opinions, and then he is proscribed because he refuses to change his mind. he is burned to ashes, and in the midst of the flames he cries out that he is of the same opinion still. hundreds then say that he has sealed his testimony with his blood, and that his doctrines must be true. all the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of any one opinion. martyrdom as a rule establishes the sincerity of the martyr, not the correctness of his thought. things are true or false independently of the man who entertains them. truth cannot be affected by opinion; an error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it the truth. no christian will admit that any amount of heroism displayed by a mormon is sufficient to show that joseph smith was an inspired prophet. all the courage and culture, all the poetry and art of ancient greece do not even tend to establish the truth of any myth. the testimony of the dying concerning some other world, or in regard to the supernatural, cannot be any better than that of the living. in the early days of christian experience an intrepid faith was regarded as a testimony in favor of the church. no doubt, in the arms of death, many a one went back and died in the lay of the old faith. after awhile christians got to dying and clinging to their faith; and then it was that christians began to say: "no man can die serenely without clinging to the cross." according to the theologians, god has always punished the dying who did not happen to believe in him. as long as men did nothing except to render their fellowmen wretched, god maintained the strictest neutrality, but when some honest man expressed a doubt as to the jewish scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the right god by the wrong man, then the real god leaped like a wounded tiger upon this dying man, and from his body tore his wretched soul. there is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed, or the innocent have been shielded by god. thousands of crimes are committed every day, and god has no time to prevent them. he is too busy numbering hairs and matching sparrows; he is listening for blasphemy; he is looking for persons who laugh at priests; he is examining baptismal registers; he is watching professors in colleges who begin to doubt the geology of moses or the astronomy of joshua. all kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. as a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast discredit upon his profession. the murderer upon the scaffold smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. the emperor constantine, who lifted christianity into power, murdered his wife and oldest son. now and then, in the history of the world, there has been a man of genius, a man of intellectual honesty. these men have denounced the superstition of their day. they were honest enough to tell their thoughts. some of them died naturally in their beds, but it would not do for the church to admit that they died peaceably; that would show that religion was not necessary in the last moments. the first grave, the first cathedral; the first corpse was the first priest. if there was no death in the world there would be no superstition. the church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels have been infinitely wretched. upon this point, catholics and protestants have always stood together. they are no longer men; they become hyenas, they dig open graves. they devour the dead. it is an auto da fe presided over by god and his angels. these men believed in the accountability of men in the practice of virtue and justice. they believed in liberty, but they did not believe in the inspiration of the bible. that was their crime. in order to show that infidels died overwhelmed with remorse and fear they have generally selected from all the infidels since the days of christ until now five men--the emperor julian, bruno, diderot, david hume and thomas paine. they forget that christ himself was not a christian, that he did what he could to tear down the religion of his day; that he held the temple in contempt. i like him because he held the old jewish religion in contempt; because he had sense enough to say that doctrine was not true. in vain have their calumniators been called upon to prove their statements. they simply charge it, they simply relate it, but that is no evidence. the emperor julian did what he could to prevent christians destroying each other. he held pomp and pride in contempt. in battle with the persians he was mortally wounded. feeling that he had but a short time to live, he spent his last hours in discussing with his friends the immortality of the soul. he declared that he was satisfied with his conduct, and that he had no remorse to express for any act he had ever done. the first great infidel was giordano bruno. he was born in the year of grace . he was a dominican friar--catholic--and afterwards he changed his mind. the reason he changed was because he had a mind. he was a lover of nature, and said to the poor hermits in their caves, to the poor monks in their monasteries, to the poor nuns in their cells: "come out in the glad fields; come and breathe the fresh, free air; come and enjoy all the beauty there is in the world. there is no god who can be made happier by you being miserable; there is no god who delights to see upon the human face the tears of pain, of grief, of agony. come out and enjoy all there is of human life; enjoy progress, enjoy thought, enjoy being somebody and belonging to yourself." he revolted at the idea of transubstantiation; he revolted at the idea that the eternal god could be in a wafer. he revolted at the idea that you could make the trinity out of dough--bake god in an oven as you would a biscuit. i should think he would have revolted. the idea of a man devouring the creator of the universe by swallowing a piece of bread. and yet that is just as sensible as any of it. those who, when smitten on one cheek turn the other, threatened to kill this man. he fled from his native land and was a vagabond in nearly every nation of europe. he declared that he fought not what men really believed, but what they pretended to believe. and, do you know, that is the business i am in? i am simply saying what other people think; i am furnishing clothes for their children, i am putting on exhibition their offspring, and they like to hear it, they like to see it. we have passed midnight in the history of the world. bruno was driven from his native country because he taught the rotation of the earth; you can see what a dangerous man he must have been in a well regulated monarchy. you see he had found a fact, and a fact has the same effect upon religion that dynamite has upon a russian czar. a fellow with a new fact was suspected and arrested, and they always thought they could destroy it by burning him, but they never did. all the fires of martyrdom never destroyed one truth; all the churches of the world have never made one lie true. germany and france would not tolerate bruno. according to the christian system, this world was the center of everything. the stars were made out of what little god happened to have left when he got the world done. god lived up in the sky, and they said this earth must rest upon something, and finally science passed its hand clear under, and there was nothing. it was self-existent in infinite space. then the church began to say they didn't say it was flat--not so awful flat--it was kind of rounding. according to the ancient christians god lived from all eternity, and never worked but six days in his whole life, and then had the impudence to tell us to be industrious. i heard of a man going to california over the plains, and, there was a clergyman on board, and he had a great deal to say, and finally he fell in conversation with the ' -er, and the latter said to the clergyman: "do you believe that god made this world in six days?" "yes, i do." they were then going along the humboldt. says he: "don't you think he could put in another day to advantage right around here?" bruno went to england and delivered lectures at oxford. he found that there was nothing taught there but superstition, and so called oxford the "wisdom of learning." then they told him they didn't want him any more. he went back to italy, where there was a kind of fascination that threw him back to the very doors of the inquisition. he was arrested for teaching that there were other worlds, and that stars are suns around which revolve other planets. he was in prison for six years. (during those six years galileo was teaching mathematics.) six years in a dungeon; and then he was tried, denounced by the inquisition, excommunicated, condemned by brute force, pushed upon his knees while he received the benediction of the church, and on the th of february, in the year of our lord , he was burned at the stake. he believed that the world is animated by an intelligent soul, the cause of force but not of matter; that matter and force have existed from eternity; that this force lives in all things, even in such as appear not to live--in the rock as much as in the man; that matter is the mother of forms and the grace of forms; that the matter and force together constitute god. he was a pantheist--that is to say, he was an atheist. he had the courage to die for what he believed to be right. the murder of bruno will never, in my judgment, be completely and perfectly revenged until from the city of rome shall be swept every vestige of priests and pope--until from the shapeless ruins of st. peter's, the crumbled vatican and the fallen cross of rome, rises a monument sacred to the philosopher, the benefactor and the martyr--bruno. voltaire was born in . when he was born, the natural was about the only thing that the church did not believe in. monks sold amulets, and the priests cured in the name of the church. the worship of the devil was actually established, which today is the religion of china. they say: "god is good; he won't bother you; joss is the one." they offer him gifts, and try and soften his heart;--so, in the middle ages, the poor people tried to see if they could not get a short cut, and trade directly with the devil, instead of going round-about through the church. in these days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture. voltaire did more for human liberty than any other man who ever lived or died. he appealed to the common sense of mankind--he held up the great contradictions of the sacred scriptures in a way that no man, once having read him, could forget. for one, i thank voltaire for the liberty i am enjoying this moment. how small a man a priest looked when he pointed his finger at him; how contemptible a king. toward the last of may, , it was whispered in paris that voltaire was dying. he expired with the most perfect tranquility. there have been constructed most shameless lies about the death of this great and wonderful man, compared with whom all his calumniators, living or dead, were but dust and vermin. from his throne at the foot of the alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. he was the pioneer of his century. in , in scotland, david hume was born. scotch presbyterianism is the worst form of religion that has ever been produced. the scotch kirk had all the faults of the church of rome, without a redeeming feature. the church hated music, despised painting, abhorred statuary, and held architecture in contempt. anything touched with humanity, with the weakness of love, with the dimple of joy, was detested by the scotch kirk. god was to be feared; god was infinitely practical; no nonsense about god. they used to preach four times a day. they preached on friday before the sunday upon which they partook of the sacrament, and then on saturday; four sermons on sunday, and two or three on monday to sober up on. they were bigoted and heartless. one case will illustrate. in the beginning of this nineteenth century a boy seventeen years of age was indicted at edinburgh for blasphemy. he had given it as his opinion that moses had learned magic in egypt, and had fooled the jews. they proved that on two or three occasions, when he was real cold, he jocularly remarked that he wished he was in hell, so that he could warm up. he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. he recanted; he even wrote that he believed the whole business; and that he just said it for pure devilment. it made no difference. they hung him, and his bruised and bleeding corpse was denied to his own mother, who came and besought them to let her take her boy home. that was scotch presbyterianism. if the devil had been let loose in scotland he would have improved that country at that time. david hume was one of the few scotchmen who was not owned by the church. he had the courage to examine things for himself, and to give his conclusion to the world. his life was unstained by an unjust act. he did not, like abraham, turn a woman from his door with his child in her arms. he did not, like king david, murder a man that he might steal his wife. he didn't believe in scotch presbyterianism. i don't see how any good man ever did. just think of going to the day of judgment, if there is one, and standing up before god and admitting, without a blush, that you have lived and died a scotch presbyterian. i would expect the next sentence would be, "depart ye cursed in everlasting fire." hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until you had proved the miracle. of course that excited the church. why? because they could not prove one of them. how are you going to prove a miracle? who saw it, and who would know a devil if he did see him? hume insisted that at the bottom of all good is something useful; that after all, human happiness was the great object, end, and aim of life; that virtue was not a termagant, with sunken cheeks and frightful eyes, but was the most beautiful thing in the world, and would strew your path with flowers from the cradle to the grave. when he died they gave an account of how he had suffered. they knew that the horrors of death would fall upon him, and that god would get his revenge. but his attending physician said that his death was the most serene and most perfectly tranquil of any he had ever seen. adam smith said he was as near perfect as the frailty incident to humanity would allow human being to be. the next is benedict spinoza, a jew, born at amsterdam in . he studied theology, and asked the rabbis too many questions, and talked too much about what he called reason, and finally he was excommunicated from the synagogue, and became an outcast at the age of twenty-four, without friends. cursed, anathematized, bearing upon his forehead the mark of cain, he undertook to solve the problem of the universe. to him the universe was one. the infinite embraced the all. that all was god. he was right; the universe is all there is, and if god does not exist in the universe he exists nowhere. the idea of putting some little jewish jehovah outside the universe, as if to say that from an eternity of idleness he woke up one morning and thought he would make something. the propositions of spinoza are as luminous as the stars, and his demonstrations, each one of them, is a gibraltar, behind which logic sits laughing at all the sophistries of theological thought. in every relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient, loving, affectionate. he died in . in his life of forty-four years he had climbed to the very highest alpine of human thought. he was a great and splendid man, an intellectual hero, one of the benefactors, one of the titans of our race. and now i will say a few words about our infidels. we had three, to say the least of them--paine, franklin and jefferson. in their day the colonies were filled with superstition, and the puritans with the spirit of persecution. law, savage, ignorant and malignant, had been passed in every colony for the purpose of destroying intellectual liberty. manly freedom was unknown. the toleration act of maryland tolerated only chickens, not thinkers, not investigators. it tolerated faith, not brains. the charity of roger williams was not extended to one who denied the bible. let me show you how we have advanced. suppose you took every man and woman out of the penitentiary in new england and shipped them to a new country where man before had never trod, and told them to make a government, and constitution, and a code of laws for themselves. i say tonight that they would make a better constitution and a better code of laws than any that were made in any of the original thirteen colonies of the united states. not that they are better men, not that they are more honest, but that they have got more sense. they have been touched with the dawn of the eternal day of liberty that will finally come to this world. they would have more respect for others' rights than they had at that time. but the churches were jealous of each other, and we got a constitution without religion in it from the mutual jealousies of the church, and from the genius of men like paine, franklin and jefferson. we are indebted to them for a constitution without a god in it. they knew that if you put god in there, an infinite god, there wouldn't be any room for the people. our fathers retired jehovah from politics. our fathers, under the directions and leadership of those infidels, said, "all power comes from the consent of the governed." george washington wanted to establish a church by law in virginia. thomas jefferson prevented it. under the guaranty of liberty of conscience which was given, our legislation has improved, and it will not be many years before all laws touching liberty of conscience, excepting it may be in the state of delaware, will be blotted out, and when that time comes we or our children may thank the infidels of . the church never pretended that franklin died in fear. franklin wrote no books against the bible. he thought it useless to cast the pearls of thought before the swine of his generation. jefferson was a statesman. he was the author of the declaration of independence, founder of a university, father of a political body, president of the united states, a statesman, and a philosopher. he was too powerful for the churches of his day. paine attacked the trinity and the bible both. he had done these things openly--his arguments were so good that his reputation got bad. i want you to recollect tonight that he was the first man who wrote these words: "the united states of america." i want you to know tonight that he was the first man who suggested the federal constitution. i want you to know that he did more for the actual separation from great britain than any man that ever lived. i want you to know that he did as much for liberty with his pen as any soldier did with his sword. i want you to know that during the revolution his "crisis" was the pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. i want you to know that his "common sense" was the one star in the horizon of despotism. i want you to know that he did as much as any living man to give our free flag to the free air. he was not content to waste all his energies here. when the volcano covered europe with the shreds of robes and the broken fragments of thrones, paine went to france. he was elected by four constituencies. he had the courage to vote against the death of louis, and was imprisoned. he wrote to washington, the president, and asked him to interfere. washington threw the letter in the wastebasket of forgetfulness. when paine was finally released he gave his opinion of george washington, and, under such circumstances, i say a man can be pardoned for having said even unjust things. the eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreaths of progress, and thomas paine said: "i will do something to liberate mankind from superstition." he wrote the "age of reason." for his good, he wrote it too soon; for ours, not a day too quick. from that moment he was a despised and calumniated man. when he came back to this country he could not safely walk the streets for fear of being mobbed. under the constitution he had suggested, his rights were not safe; under the flag that he had helped give to heaven, with which he had enriched the air, his liberty was not safe. is it not a disgrace to us that all the lies that have been told about him, and will be told about him, are a perpetual disgrace? i tell you that upon the grave of thomas paine the churches of america have sacrificed their reputation for veracity. who can hate a man with a creed: "i believe in one god and no more, and i hope for immortality; i believe in the equality of man, and that religious duty consists in doing justice, in doing mercy, and in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be faithful to himself. one good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests. man has no property in man, and the key of heaven is in the keeping of no saint." grand, splendid, brave man!--with some faults, with many virtues; the world is better because he lived; and if thomas paine had not lived i could not have delivered this lecture here tonight. did all the priests of rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as bruno? did all the priests of france do as great a work for the civilization of this world as diderot and voltaire? did all the ministers of scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as david hume? have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes from the day of pentecost to the last election done as much for human liberty as thomas paine? what would the world be now if infidels had never been? infidels have been the flower of all this world. recollect, by infidels i mean every man who has made an intellectual advance. by orthodox i mean a gentleman who is petrified in his mind, whopping around intellectually, simply to save the funeral expenses of his soul. infidels are the creditors of all the years to come. they have made this world fit to live in, and without them the human brain would be as empty as the chronicles soon will be. unless they preach something that the people want to hear, it is not a crime to benefit our fellow-man intellectually. the churches point to their decayed saints and their crumbled popes and say, "do you know more than all the ministers that ever lived?" and, without the slightest egotism or blush, i say, "yes; and the name of humboldt outweighs them all." the men who stand in the front rank, the men who know most of the secrets of nature, the men who know most are today the advanced infidels of this world. i have lived long enough to see the brand of intellectual inferiority on every orthodox brain. ingersoll's lecture on talmagian theology. ladies and gentlemen: nothing can be more certain than that no human being can by any possibility control his thought. we are in this world--we see, we hear, we feel, we taste; and everything in nature makes an impression upon the brain, and that wonderful something, enthroned there with these materials, weaves what we call thought, and the brain can no more help thinking than the heart can help beating. the blood pursues its old accustomed round without our will. the heart beats without asking leave of us, and the brain thinks in spite of all that we can do. this being true, no human being can justly be held responsible for his thought any more than for the beating of his heart, any more than for the course pursued by the blood, any more than for breathing air. and yet for thousands of years thought has been thought to be a crime, and thousands and millions have threatened us with eternal fire if we give the product of that brain. each brain, in my judgment, is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and thought is the crop that man reaps, and it certainly cannot be a crime to gather; it certainly cannot be a crime to tell it, which simply amounts to the right to sell your crop or to exchange your product for the product of some other man's brain. that is all it is. most brains--at least some--are rather poor fields, and the orthodox worst of all. that field produces mostly sorrel and mullin, while there are fields which, like the tropic world, are filled with growth, and where you find the vine and palm, royal children of the sun and brain. i then stand simply for absolute freedom of thought--absolute; and i don't believe, if there be a god, that it will be or can be pleasing to him to see one of his children afraid to express what he thinks. and, if i were god, i never would cease making men until i succeeded in making one grand enough to tell his honest opinion. now there has been a struggle, you know, a long time between the believers in the natural and the supernatural--between gentlemen who are going to reward us in another world and those who propose to make life worth living here and now. in all ages the priest, the medicine man, the magician, the astrologer, in other words, gentlemen who have traded upon the fear and ignorance of their fellow-man in all countries--they have sought to, make their living out of others. there was a time when a god presided over every department of human interest, when a man about to take a voyage bribed the priest of neptune so that he might have a safe journey, and when he came back, he paid more, telling the priest that he was infinitely obliged to him; that he had kept waves from the sea and storms in their caves. and so, when one was sick he went to a priest; when one was about to take a journey he visited the priest of mercury; if he were going to war he consulted the representative of mars. we have gone along. when the poor agriculturist plowed his ground and put in the seed he went to the priest of some god and paid him to keep off the frost. and the priest said he would do it; "but," added the priest, "you must have faith." if the frost came early he said, "you didn't have faith." and besides all that he says to him: "anything that has happened badly, after all, was for your good." well, we found out, day by day, that a good boat for the purpose of navigating the sea was better than prayers, better than the influence of priests; and you had better have a good captain attending to business than thousands of priests ashore praying. we also found that we could cure some diseases, and just as soon as we found that we could cure diseases we dismissed the priest. we have left him out now of all of them, except it may be cholera and smallpox. when visited by a plague some people get frightened enough to go back to the old idea--go back to the priest, and the priest says: "it has been sent as a punishment." well, sensible people began to look about; they saw that the good died as readily as the bad; they saw that this disease would attack the dimpled child in the cradle and allow the murderer to go unpunished; and so they began to think in time that it was not sent as a punishment; that it was a natural result; and so the priest stepped out of medicine. in agriculture we need him no longer; he has nothing to do with the crops. all the clergymen in this world can never get one drop of rain out of the sky; and all the clergymen in the civilized world could not save one human life if they tried it. oh, but they say, "we do not expect a direct answer to prayer; it is the reflex action we are after." it is like a man endeavoring to lift himself up by the straps of his boots; he will never do it, but he will get a great deal of useful exercise. the missionary goes to some pagan land, and there he finds a man praying to a god of stone, and it excites the wrath of the missionary. i ask you tonight, does not that stone god answer prayer just as well as ours? does he not cause rain? does he not delay frost? does he not snatch the ones that we love from the grasp of death precisely the same as ours? yet we have ministers that are still engaged in that business. they tell us that they have been "called;" that they do not go at their profession as other people do, but they are "called;" that god, looking over the world, carefully selects his priests, his ministers, and his exhorters. i don't know. they say their calling is sacred. i say to you tonight that every kind of business that is honest that a man engages in for the purpose of feeding his wife and children, for the purpose of building up his home, for the purpose of feeding and clothing the ones he loves--that business is sacred. they tell us that statesmen and poets, philosophers, heroes, and scientists and inventors come by chance; that all other departments depend entirely upon luck; but when god wants exhorters he selects. they also tell us that it is infinitely wicked to attack the christian religion, and when i speak of the christian religion i do not refer especially to the christianity of the new testament; i refer to the christianity of the orthodox church, and when i refer to the clergy i refer to the clergy of the orthodox church. there was a time when men of genius were in the pulpits of the orthodox church; that time is past. when you find a man with brains now occupying an orthodox pulpit you will find him touched with heresy--every one of them. how do they get most of these ministers? there will be a man in the neighborhood not very well--not having constitution enough to be wicked, and it instantly suggests itself to everybody who sees him that he would make an excellent minister. there are so many other professions, so many cities to be built, so many railways to be constructed, so many poems to be sung, so much music to be composed, so many papers to edit, so many books to read, so many splendid things, so many avenues to distinction and glory, so many things beckoning from the horizon of the future to every great and splendid man that the pulpit has to put up with the leavings--ravelings, selvage. these preachers say, "how can any man be wicked and infamous enough to attack our religion and take from the world the solace of orthodox christianity?" what is that solace? let us be honest. what is it? if the christian religion be true, the grandest, greatest, noblest of the world are now in hell, and the narrowest and meanest are now in heaven. humboldt, the shakespeare of science, the most learned man of the most learned nation, with a mind grand enough to grasp not simply this globe, but this constellation--a man who shed light upon the whole earth--a man who honored human nature, and who won all his victories on the field of thought--that man, pure and upright, noble beyond description, if christianity be true, is in hell this moment. that is what they call "solace"--"tidings of great joy." laplace, who read the heavens like an open book, who enlarged the horizon of human thought, is there too. beethoven, master of melody and harmony, who added to the joy of human life, and who has borne upon the wings of harmony and melody millions of spirits to the height of joy, with his heart still filled with melody--he is in hell today. robert burns, poet of love and liberty, and from his heart, like a spring gurgling and running down the highways, his poems have filled the world with music. they have added luster to human love. that man who, in four lines, gave all the philosophy of life-- to make a happy fireside clime for weans and wife is the true pathos and sublime of human life --he is there with the rest. charles dickens, whose genius will be a perpetual shield, saving thousands and millions of children from blows, who did more to make us tender with children than any other writer that ever touched a pen--he is there with the rest, according to our christian religion. a little while ago there died in this country a philosopher--ralph waldo emerson--a man of the loftiest ideal, a perfect model of integrity, whose mind was like a placid lake and reflected truths like stars. if the christian religion be true, he is in perdition today. and yet he sowed the seeds of thought, and raised the whole world intellectually. and longfellow, whose poems, tender as the dawn, have gone into millions of homes, not an impure, not a stained word in them all; but he was not a christian. he did not believe in the "tidings of great joy." he didn't believe that god so loved the world that he intended to damn most everybody. and now he has gone to his reward. and charles darwin--a child of nature--one who knew more about his mother than any other child she ever had. what is philosophy? it is to account for phenomena by which we are surrounded--that is, to find the hidden cord that unites everything. charles darwin threw more light upon the problem of human existence than all the priests who ever lived from melchisedec to the last exhorter. he would have traversed this globe on foot had it been possible to have found one new fact or to have corrected one error that he had made. no nobler man has lived--no man who has studied with more reverence (and by reverence i mean simply one who lives and studies for the truth)--no man who studied with more reverence than he. and yet, according to orthodox religion, charles darwin is in hell. consolation! so, if christianity be true, shakespeare, the greatest man who ever touched this planet, within whose brain were the fruits of all thought past, the seeds of all to be--shakespeare, who was an intellectual ocean toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought received their dew and rain--that man who has added more to the intelligence of the world than any other who ever lived--that man, whose creations will live as long as man has imagination, and who has given more happiness upon the stage and more instruction than has flown from all the pulpits of this earth--that man is in hell, too. and harriet martineau, who did as much for english liberty as any man, brave and free--she is there. "george eliot," the greatest woman the english-speaking people ever produced--she is with the rest. and this is called "tidings of great joy." who are in heaven? how could there be much of a heaven without the men i have mentioned--the great men that have endeavored to make the world grander--such men as voltaire, such men as diderot, such men as the encyclopedists, such men as hume, such men as bruno, such men as thomas paine? if christianity is true, that man who spent his life in breaking chains is now wearing the chains of god; that man who wished to break down the prison walls of tyranny is now in the prison of the most merciful christ. it will not do. i can hardly express to you today my contempt for such a doctrine; and if it be true, i make my choice today, and i prefer hell. who is in heaven? john calvin! john knox! jonathan edwards! torquemada--the builders of dungeons, the men who have obstructed the march of the human race. these are the men who are in heaven; and who else? those who never had brain enough to harbor a doubt. and they ask me: how can you be wicked enough to attack the christian religion? "oh," but they say, "god will never forgive you if you attack the orthodox religion." now, when i read the history of this world, and when i think of the experience of my fellow-men, when i think of the millions living in poverty, and when i know that in the very air we breathe and in the sunlight that visits our homes there lurks an assassin ready to take our lives, and even when we believe we are in the fullness health and joy, they are undermining us with their contagion--when i know that we are surrounded by all these evils, and when i think of what man has suffered, i do not wonder if god can forgive man, but i often ask myself, "can man forgive god?" there is another thing. some of these ministers have talked about me, and have made it their business to say unpleasant things. among others the rev. mr. talmage, of brooklyn--a man of not much imagination, but of most excellent judgment--charges that i am a "blasphemer." a frightful charge! terrible, if true! what is blasphemy? it is a sin, as i understand, against god. is god infinite? he is, so they say; he is infinite; absolutely conditionless? can i injure the conditionless? no. can i sin against anything that i cannot injure? no. that is a perfectly plain proposition. i can injure my fellow-man, because he is a conditioned being, and i can help to change those conditions. he must have air; he must have food, he must have clothing; he must have shelter; but god is conditionless, and i cannot by any possibility affect him. consequently i cannot sin against him. but i can sin against my fellow-man, so that i ought to be a thousand times more careful of doing injustice than of uttering blasphemy. there is no blasphemy but injustice, and there is no worship except the practice of justice. it is a thousand times more important that we should love our fellow-men than that we should love god. it is better to love wife and children than to love jesus christ, he is dead; they are alive. i can make their lives happy and fill all their hours with the fullness of joy. that is my religion; and the holiest temple ever erected beneath the stars is the home; the holiest altar is the fireside. what is this blasphemy? first, it is a geographical question. there was a time when it was blasphemy in jerusalem to say that christ was god. in this country it is now blasphemy to say that he was not. it is blasphemy in constantinople to deny that mahomet was the prophet of god; it is blasphemy here to say that he was. it is a geographical question; you cannot tell whether it is blasphemy or not without looking at the map. what is blasphemy? it is what the mistake says about the fact. it is what the last year's leaf says about this year's bud. it is the last cry of the defeated priest. blasphemy is the little breast-work behind which hypocrisy hides; behind which mental impotency feels safe. there is no blasphemy but the avowal of thought, and he who speaks what he thinks blasphemes. that i have had the hardihood--it doesn't take much--to attack the sacred scriptures. i have simply given my opinion; and yet they tell me that that book is holy--that you can take rags, make pulp, put ink on it, bind it in leather, and make something holy. the catholics have a man for a pope; the protestants have a book. the catholics have the best of it. if they elect an idiot he will not live forever, and it is impossible for us to get rid of the barbarisms in our book. the catholics said, "we will not let the common people read the bible." that was right. if it is necessary to believe it in order to get to heaven no man should run the risk of reading it. to allow a man to read the bible on such conditions is to set a trap for his soul. the right way is never to open it, and when you get to the day of judgment, and they ask you if you believe it say "yes, i have never read it." the protestant gives the book to a poor man and says: "read it. you are at liberty to read it." "well, suppose i don't believe it, when i get through?" "then you will be damned." no man should be allowed to read it on those conditions. and yet protestants have done that infinitely cruel thing. if i thought it was necessary to believe it i would say never read another line in it but just believe it and stick to it. and yet these people really think that there is something miraculous about the book. they regard it as a fetish--a kind of amulet--a something charmed, that will keep off evil spirits, or bad luck, stop bullets, and do a thousand handy-things for the preservation of life. i heard a story upon that subject. you know that thousands of them are printed in the sunday-school books. here is one they don't print. there was a poor man who had belonged to the church, but he got cold, and he rather neglected it, and he had bad luck in his business, and he went down and down and down until he hadn't a dollar--not a thing to eat; and his wife said to him, "john, this comes of you having abandoned the church, this comes of your having done away with family worship. now, i beg of you, let's go back." well, john said it wouldn't do any harm to try. so he took down the bible, blew the dust off it, read a little from a chapter, and had family worship. as he was putting it up he opened it again, and there was a $ bill between the leaves. he rushed out to the butcher's and bought meat, to the grocer's and bought tea and bread, and butter and eggs, and rushed back home and got them cooked, and the house was filled with the perfume of food; and he sat down at the table, tears in every eye and a smile on every face. she said, "what did i tell you?" just then there was a knock on the door, and in came a constable, who arrested him for passing a $ counterfeit bill. they tell me that i ought not to attack the bible--that i have misrepresented it, and among other things that i have said that, according to the bible, the world was made of nothing. well, what was it made of? they say god created everything. consequently, there must have been nothing when he commenced. if he didn't make it of nothing, what did he make it of? where there was, nothing, he made something. yes; out of what? i don't know. this doctor of divinity, and i should think such a divinity would need a doctor, says that god made the universe out of his omnipotence. why not out of his omniscience, or his omnipresence? omnipotence is not a raw material. it is the something to work raw material with. omnipotence is simply all powerful, and what good would strength do with nothing? the weakest man ever born could lift as much nothing as god. and he could do as much with it after he got it lifted. and yet a doctor of divinity tells me that this world was made of omnipotence. and right here let me say i find even in the mind of the clergymen the seeds of infidelity. he is trying to explain things. that is a bad symptom. the greater the miracle the greater the reward for believing it. god cannot afford to reward a man for believing anything reasonable. why, even the scribes and pharisees would believe a reasonable thing. do you suppose god is to crown you with eternal joy and give you a musical instrument for believing something where the evidence is clear? no, sir. the larger the miracle the more grace. and let me advise the ministers of chicago and of this country, never to explain a miracle; it cannot be explained. if you succeed in explaining it, the miracle is gone. if you fail you are gone. my advice to the clergy is, use assertion; just say "it is so," and the larger the miracle the greater the glory reaped by the eternal. and yet this man is trying to explain, pretending that he had some raw material of some kind on hand. and then i objected to the fact that he didn't make the sun until the fourth day, and that, consequently, the grass could not have grown--could not have thrown its mantle of green over the shoulders of the hill--and that the trees would not blossom and cast their shade upon the sod without some sunshine; and what does this man say? why, that the rocks, when they crystallized, emitted light, even enough to raise a crop by. and he says "vegetation might have depended on the glare of volcanoes in the moon." what do you think would be the fate of agriculture depending on the "glare of volcanoes in the moon?" then he says "the aurora borealis." why, you couldn't raise cucumbers by the aurora borealis. and he says "liquid rivers of molten granite." i would like to have a farm on that stream. he guesses everything of the kind except lightning-bugs and foxfire. now, think of that explanation in the last half of the nineteenth century by a minister. the truth is, the gentleman who wrote the account knew nothing of astronomy--knew as little as the modern preacher does--just about the same; and if they don't know more about the next world than they do about this, it is hardly worth while talking with them on the subject. there was a time, you know, when the minister was the educated man in the country, and when, if you wanted to know anything, you asked him. now you do if you don't. so i find this man expounding the flood, and he says it was not very wet. he begins to doubt whether god had water enough to cover the whole earth. why not stand by his book? he says that some of the animals got into the ark to keep out of the wet. i believe that is the way the democrats got to the polls last tuesday. another divine says that god would have drowned them all, but it was purely for the sake of economy that he saved any of them. just think of that! according to this christian religion all the people in the world were totally depraved through the fall, and god found he could not do anything with them, so he drowned them. now, if god wanted to get up a flood big enough to drown sin, why did he not get up a flood big enough to drown the snake? that was his mistake. now, these people say that if jonah had walked rapidly up and down the whale's belly he would have avoided the action of its gastric-juice. imagine jonah sitting in the whale's mouth, on the back of a molar-tooth; and yet this doctor of divinity would have us believe that the infinite god of the universe was sitting under his gourd and made the worm that was at the root of jonah's vine. great business. david is said to have been a man after god's own heart, and if you will read the twenty-eighth chapter of chronicles you will find that david died full of years and honors. so i find in the great book of prophecy, concerning solomon: "he shall reign in peace and quietness, he shall be my son, and i shall be his father, and i will preserve his kingdom." was that true? it won't do. but they say god couldn't do away with slavery suddenly, nor with polygamy all at once--that he had to do it gradually--that if he had told this man you mustn't have slaves, and one man that he must have one wife, and one wife that she must have one husband, he would have lost the control over them notwithstanding all the miraculous power. is it not wonderful that when they did all these miracles nobody paid any attention to them? isn't it wonderful that, in egypt, when they performed these wonders--when the waters were turned into blood, when the people were smitten with disease and covered with the horrible animals--isn't it wonderful that it had no influence on them? do you know why all these miracles didn't affect the egyptians? they were there at the time. isn't it wonderful, too, that the jews who had been brought from bondage--had followed a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night--who had been miraculously fed, and for whose benefit water had leaked from the rocks and followed them up and down hill through all their journeying--isn't it wonderful, when they had seen the earth open and their companions swallowed, when they had seen god himself write in robes of flames from sinai's crags, when they had seen him talking face to face with moses--isn't it a little wonderful that he had no more influence over them? they were there at the time. and that is the reason they didn't mind it--they were there. and yet, with all these miracles, this god could not prevent polygamy and slavery. was there no room on the two tables of stone to put two more commandments? better have written them on the back, then. better have left the others all off and put these two on. man shall not enslave his brother, (you shall not live on unpaid labor), and the one man shall have the one wife. if these two had been written and the other ten left off, it would have been a thousand times better for this world. but, they say, god works gradually. no hurry about it. he is not gradual about keeping sunday, because, if he met a man picking up sticks, he killed him; but in other things he is gradual. suppose we wanted now to break certain cannibals of eating missionaries--wanted to stop them from eating them raw? of course we would not tell them, in the first place, it was wrong. that would not do. we would induce them to cook them. that would be the first step toward civilization. we would have them stew them. we would not say it is wrong to eat missionary, but it is wrong to eat missionary raw. then, after they began stewing them, we would put in a little mutton--not enough to excite suspicion but just a little, and so, day by day, we would put in a little more mutton and a little less missionary until, in about what the bible calls "the fullness of time," we would have clear mutton and no missionary. that is god's way. the next great charge against me is that i have disgraced my parents by expressing my honest thoughts. no man can disgrace his parents that way. i want my children to express their real opinions, whether they agree with mine or not. i want my children to find out more than i have found, and i would be gratified to have them discover the errors i have made. and if my father and mother were still alive i feel and know that i am pursuing a course of which they would approve. i am true to my manhood. but think of it! suppose the father of dr. talmage had been a methodist and his mother an infidel. then what. would he have to disgrace them both to be a presbyterian. the disciples of christ, according to this doctrine, disgraced their parents. the founder of every new religion, according to this doctrine, was a disgrace to his father and mother. now there must have been a time when a talmage was not a presbyterian, and the one that left something else to join that church disgraced his father and mother. why, if this doctrine be true why do you send missionaries to other lands and ask those people to disgrace their parents? if this doctrine be true nobody has religious liberty except foundlings, and it should be written over every foundling hospital: "home for religious liberty." it won't do. what is the next thing i have said? i have taken the ground, and i take it again today, that the bible has only words of humiliation for woman. the bible treats woman as the slave, the serf of man, and wherever that book is believed in thoroughly woman is a slave. it is the infidelity in the church that gives her what liberty she has today. oh! but, says the gentleman, think of the heroines in the bible. how could a book be opposed to woman which has pictured such heroines? well, that is a good argument. let's answer it. who are the heroines? he tells us. the first is esther. who was she? esther is a very peculiar book, and the story is about this: ahasaerus was a king. his wife's name was vashti. she didn't please him. he divorced her, and advertised for another. a gentleman by the name of mordecai had a good looking niece, and he took her to market. her name was esther. i don't feel like reading the whole of the second chapter. it is sufficient to say she was selected. after a time there was a gentleman by the name of haman who, i should think, was in the cabinet, according to the story. and this man mordecai began to put on considerable style because his niece was the king's wife, and he would not bow, or he would not rise, or he would not meet this gentleman with marks of distinguished consideration, so he made up his mind to have him hung. then they got out an order to kill the jews, and this esther went to see the king. in those days they believed in the bismarkian style of government--all power came from the king, not from the people; if anybody went to see this king without an invitation, and he failed to hold out his sceptre to him, the person was killed just to preserve the dignity of the monarch. when esther arrived he held out the sceptre, and there-upon she induced him to send out another order for the fellows who were to kill the jews, and they killed , or , of them. and they came back and said, "kill haman and his ten sons," and they hung the family up. that is all there is to the story. and yet this esther is held up as a model of womanly grace and tenderness, and there is not a more infamous story in the literature of the world. the next heroine is ruth. i admit, that is a very pretty story. but ruth was guilty of more things that would be deemed indiscreet than any girl in brooklyn. that is all there is about ruth. the next heroine is hannah. and what do you suppose was the matter with her? she made a coat for her boy; that's all. i have known a woman make a whole suit! the next heroine was abigail. she was the wife of natal. king david had a few soldiers with him, and he called at the house of natal, and asked if he could not get food for his men. abigail went down to give him something to eat, and she was very much struck with david, david evidently fancied her. natal died within a week. i think he was poisoned. david and abigail were married. if that had happened in chicago there would have been a coroner's jury, and an inquest; but that is all there was to that. the next is dorcas. she was in the new testament. she was real good to the ministers. those ladies have always stood well with the church. she was real good to the poor. she died one day, and you never hear of her again. then there was that person that was raised from the dead. i would like to know from a person that had recently been raised from the dead, where he was when he was wanted, what he was traveling about, and what he was engaged in. i cannot imagine a more interesting person than one that has just been raised from the dead. lazarus comes from the tomb, and i think sometimes that there must be a mistake about it, because when they come to die again thousands of people would say, "why, he knows all about it!" would it not be noted if a man had two funerals? now, then, these are all the heroines, to show you how little they thought of woman in that day. in the days of the old testament they did not even tell us when the mother of us all (eve) died, nor where she is buried, nor anything about it. they do not even tell us where the mother of christ sleeps, nor when she died. never is she spoken of after the morning of the resurrection. he who descended from the cross went not to see her; and the son had no word for the broken-hearted mother. the story is not true. i believe christ was a great and good man, but he had nothing about him miraculous except the courage to tell what he thought about the religion of his day. the new testament, in relating what occurred between christ and his mother, mentions three instances; once, when they thought he had been lost in jerusalem, when he said to them, "wist ye not that i must be about my father's business?" next, at the marriage of cana, when he said to the woman, "what have i to do with thee?"--words which he never said; and again from the cross, "mother, behold thy son;" and to the disciple, "behold thy mother!" so of mary magdalene. in some respects there is no character in the new testament that so appeals to us as loving christ--first at the sepulchre--and yet when he meets her after the resurrection he had for her the comfort only of the chilling words, "touch me not!" i don't believe it. there were thousands of heroic women then. there are heroic women now. think of the women who cling to fallen and disgraced husbands day by day, until they reach the gutter, and who stoop down to lift them from that position, and raise them up to be men once more! every country is civilized in proportion as it honors woman. there are women in england working in mines, deformed by labor, that would become wild beasts were it not for the love they bear for home. can you find among the women of the new testament any women that can equal the women born of shakespeare's brain? you can find no woman like isabella, where reason and purity blend into perfect truth; no woman like juliet, where passion and purity meet like red and white within the bosom of a flower; no woman like imogen, who said, "what is it to be false?" no woman like cordelia, that would not show her wealth of love in hope of gain; nor like hermione, who bore the cross of shame for years; nor like miranda, who told her love as the flower exposes its bosom to the sun; nor like desdemona, who was so pure that she could not suspect that another could suspect her of a crime. and we are told that woman sinned first and man second; that man was made first and woman not till afterwards. the idea is that we could have gotten along without the woman well enough, but they never could have gotten along without us. i tell you that love is better than piety, love is better than all the ceremonial worship of the world, and it is better to love something than to believe anything on this globe. so this minister, seeking a mark to throw an arrow somewhere--trying to find some little place in the armor--charges me with having disparaged queen victoria. that you know is next to blasphemy. well, i never did anything of the kind--never said a word against her in in life, neither as wife, or mother, or queen--never doubted but that she is a good woman enough, and i have always admitted that her reputation was good in the neighborhood where she resides. i never had any other opinion. all i said in the world was--i was endeavoring to show that we are now to have an aristocracy of brain and heart--that is all--and i said, 'speaking of louis napoleon, he was not satisfied with simply being an emperor and having a little crown on his head, but wanted to prove that he had something in his head, so he wrote the life of julius caesar, and that made him a member of the french academy; and speaking of king william, upon whose head is the divine petroleum of authority, i asked how he would like to exchange brains with haeckel, the philosopher. then i went over to england, and said "queen victoria wears the garment of power given her by blind fortune, by eyeless chance; 'george eliot' is arrayed in robes of glory, woven in the loom of her own genius." thereupon i am charged with disparaging a woman. and this priest, in order to get even with me, digs open the grave of "george eliot" and endeavors to stain her unresisting dust. he calls her an adulteress--the vilest word in the languages of men--and he does it because she hated the presbyterian creed, because she, according to his definition, was an atheist, because she lived without faith and died without fear, because she grandly bore the taunts and slanders of the christian world. "george eliot" carried tenderly in her heart the faults and frailties of her race. she saw the highway of eternal right through all the winding paths, where folly vainly stalks with thorn-pierced hands, the fading flowers of selfish joy; and whatever you may think or i may think of the one mistake in all her sad and loving life, i know and feel that in the court where her conscience sat as judge she stood acquitted, pure as light and stainless as a star. "george eliot" has joined the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of this world, and her wondrous lines, her touching poems, will be read hundreds of years after every sermon in which a priest has sought to stain her name shall have vanished utterly from human speech. how appropriate here, with some slight change, the words of laertes at ophelia's grave: lay her in the earth; and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring; i tell thee, priest and minister, a ministering angel shall this woman be when thou liest howling. i have no words with which to express my loathing hatred and condemnation of the man who will stain a noble woman's grave. the next argument in favor of the "sacred scriptures" is the argument of numbers; and this minister congratulates himself that the infidels could not carry a precinct, or a county, or a state in the united states. well, i tell you, they can come proportionately near it--just in proportion that that part of the country is educated. the whole world doesn't move together in one life. there has to be some man to take a step forward and the people follow; and when they get where that man was, some other titan has taken another step, and you can see him there on the great mountain of progress. that is why the world moves. there must be pioneers, and if nobody is right except he who is with the majority, then we must turn and walk toward the setting sun. he says "we will settle this by suffrage." the christian religion was submitted to a popular vote in jerusalem, and what was the result? "crucify him "--an infamous result, showing that you can't depend on the vote of barbarians. but i am told that there are , , christians in the world. well, what of it? there are more buddhists. and they say, what a number of bibles are printed!--more bibles than any other book. does this prove anything? true, because more of them. suppose you should find published in the new york herald something about you, and you should go to the editor and tell him: "that is a lie;" and he should say: "that can't be; the herald has the largest circulation of any paper in the world." three hundred millions of christians, and here are the nations that prove the truth of christianity: russia , , christians. i am willing to admit it; a country without freedom of speech, without freedom of press--a country in which every mouth is a bastille and every tongue a prisoner for life--a country in which assassins are the best men in it. they call that christian. girls sixteen years of age, for having spoken in favor of human liberty, are now working in siberian mines. that is a christian country. only a little while ago a man shot at the emperor twice. the emperor was protected by his armor. the man was convicted, and they asked him if he wished religious consolation. "no." "do you believe in a god?" "no;" if there was a god there would be no russia. sixteen millions of christians in spain--spain that never touched a shore except as a robber--spain that took the gold and silver of the new world and used it as an engine of oppression in the old--a country in which cruelty was worship, in which murder was prayer--a country where flourished the inquisition--i admit spain is a christian country. if you don't believe it i do. read the history of holland, read the history of south america, read the history of mexico--a chapter of cruelty beyond the power of language to express. i admit that spain is orthodox. if you will go there you will find the man who robs you and asks god to forgive you--a country where infidelity hasn't made much headway, but, thank god, where there is even yet a dawn, where there are such men as castelar and others, who begin to see that one schoolhouse is equal to three cathedrals and one teacher worth all the priests. italy is another christian nation, with , , christians. in italy lives the only authorized agent of god, the pope. for hundreds of years italy was the beggar of the earth, and held out both hands. gold and silver flowed from every land into her palms, and she became covered with nunneries, monasteries, and the pilgrims of the world. italy was sacred dust. her soil was a perpetual blessing, her sky was an eternal smile. italy was guilty not simply of the death of the catholic church, but italy was dead and buried and would have been in her grave still had it not been for mazzini, garibaldi, and cavour. when the prophecy of garibaldi shall be fulfilled, when the priests, with spades in their hands, shall dig ditches to drain the pontine marshes, when the monasteries shall be factories, when the whirling wheels of industry shall drown the drowsy and hypocritical prayers, then and not till then, will italy be great and free. italy is the only instance in our history and in the history of the world, so far as we know, of the resurrection of a nation. she is the first fruits of them that sleep. portugal is another christian country. she made her living in the slave trade for centuries. i admit that all the blessings that that country enjoyed flowed naturally from catholicism, and we believe in the same scriptures. if you don't believe it, read the history of the persecution of the jewish people. i admit that germany is a christian nation; that is, christians are in power. when the bill was introduced for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the jews, bismark spoke against it, and said "germany is a christian nation, and therefore, we cannot pass the bill." austria is another christian nation. if you don't believe it, read the history of hungary, and, if you still have doubts, read the history of the partition of poland. but there is one good thing in that country. they believe in education, and education is the enemy of ecclesiasticism. every thoroughly educated man is his own church, and his own pope, and his own priest. they tell me that the united states--our country--is christian. i deny it. it is neither christian nor pagan; it is human. our fathers retired all the gods from politics. our fathers laid down the doctrine that the right to govern comes from the consent of the governed, and not from the clouds. our fathers knew that if they put an infinite god in the constitution there would be no room left for the people. our fathers used the language of lincoln, and they made a government for the people by the people. this is not a christian country. some gentleman said, "how about delaware?" i told him there was a man in washington some twenty or thirty years ago who came there and said he was a revolutionary soldier and wanted a pension. he was so bent and bowed over that the wind blew his shoestrings into his eyes. they asked him how old he was, and he said fifty years. "why, good man, you can't get a pension, because the war was over before you were born. you mustn't fool us." "well," said he, "i'll tell you the truth: i lived sixty years in delaware, but i never count it, and hope god won't." and these christian nations which have been brought forward as the witnesses of the truth of the scriptures owe $ , , , , which represents christian war, christian cannon, christian shot, and christian shell. the sum is so great that the imagination is dazed in its contemplation. that is the result of loving your neighbor as yourself. the next great argument brought forward by these gentlemen is the persecution of the jews. we are told in the nineteenth century that god has the jews persecuted simply for the purpose of establishing the authenticity of the scriptures, and every jewish home burned in russia throws light on the gospel, and every violated jewish maiden is another evidence that god still takes an interest in the holy scriptures. that is their doctrine. they are "fulfilling prophecy." the christian grasps the jew, strips him, robs him, makes him an outcast, and then points to him as a fulfillment of prophecy; and we are today laying the foundation of future persecution--we are teaching our children the monstrous falsehood that jews crucified god, and the nation consented. they crucified a good man. what nation has not? what race has not? think of the number killed by the presbyterians; by the catholics. every sect, with maybe two or three exceptions, have crucified their fellows, and every race has burned its greatest and its best. and yet we are filling the minds of children with hatred of the jewish people. it is a poor business. "ah?" but they say, "these people are cursed by god." i say they never had any good fortune until the jehovah of the bible deserted them. whenever they have had a reasonable chance they have been the most prosperous people in the world. i never saw one begging. i never saw one in the criminal dock. for hundreds of years they were not allowed to own any land, for hundreds of years they were not allowed to work at any trade; they were driven simply to dealing in money, and in precious stones, and things of that character, and, by a kind of poetic justice, they have today the control of the money of the world. i am glad to see that kings and emperors go to the offices of the jews, with their hats in their hands, to have their notes discounted. and yet i am told by clergymen that all this infamy has been kept up simply to establish the truth of the gospel. i despise such doctrine. as long as the liberty of one jew is unsafe, my liberty is not secure. liberty for all, and not until then will the liberty of any be assured. "ah"; but says this man, "nobody ever died cheerfully for a lie. the jewish people have suffered persecution for , years, and they have suffered it cheerfully." if this doctrine is true, then judaism must be true and christianity must be false. but martyrdom doesn't prove the truth if the martyr knows it. it simply proves the barbarity of his persecutors, and has no sincerity. that is all it proves. but you must remember that this gentleman who believes in this doctrine is a presbyterian, and why should a presbyterian object? after a few hundred years of burning he expects to enjoy the eternal auto da fe of hell--an auto da fe that will be presided over by god and his angels, and they will be expected to applaud. he is a presbyterian; and what is that? it is the worst religion of this earth. i admit that thousands and millions of presbyterians are good people, no man ever being half so bad as his creed. i am not attacking them. i am attacking their creed. i am attacking what this religion calls "tidings of great joy." and, according to that, hundreds of billions and billions of years ago our fate was irrevocably and forever fixed, and god in the secret counsels of his own inscrutable will, made up his mind whom he would save and whom he would damn. when thinking of that god i always think of the mistake of a methodist preacher during the war. he commenced the prayer--and never did one more appropriate for the presbyterian god or the methodist go up--"o, thou great and unscrupulous god." this presbyterian believes that billions of years before that baby in the cradle--that little dimpled child, basking in the light of a mother's smile--was born, god had made up his mind to damn it; and when talmage looks at one of those children who will probably be damned he is cheerful about it; he enjoys it. that is presbyterianism--that god made man and damned him for his own glory. if there is such a god, i hate him with every drop of my blood; and if there is a heaven it must be where he is not. now think of that doctrine! only a little while ago there was a ship from liverpool out eighty days with its rudder washed away; for ten days nothing to eat--nothing but the bare decks and hunger; and the captain took a revolver in his hand and put it to his brain and said: "some of us must die for the others. and it might as well be i." one of his companions grasped the pistol and said: "captain, wait; wait one day more. we can live another day." and the next morning the horizon was rich with a sail, and they were saved. and yet if presbyterianism is true; if that man had put the bullet through his infinitely generous brain so that his comrades could have eaten of his flesh and reached their homes and felt about their necks the dimpled arms of children and the kisses of wives upon their lips--if presbyterianism be true, god had a constable ready there to clutch that soul and thrust it down to eternal hell. tidings of great joy. and yet this is religion. why, if that doctrine be true, every soldier in the revolutionary war who died not a christian has been damned; every one in the war of , who kept our flag upon the sea, if he died not a christian has been damned; and every one in the civil war who fought to keep our flag in heaven, not a christian, and the ones who died in andersonville and libby, not christians, are now in the prison of god, where the famine of andersonville and libby would be regarded as a joy. orthodox christianity! why, we have an account in the bible--it comes from the other world--from both countries--from heaven and from hell--let us see what it is. here is a rich man who dies. the only fault about him was, he was rich; no other crime was charged against him. we are told that the rich man died, and when he lifted up his eyes he found no sympathy, yet even in hell he remembered his five brethren, and prayed that some one should be sent to them so that they should not come there. i tell you i had rather be in hell with human sympathy than in heaven without it. the bible is not inspired, and ministers know nothing about another world. they don't know. i am satisfied there is no world of eternal pain. if there is a world of joy, so much the better. i have never put out the faintest star of human hope that ever trembled in the night of life. there was a time when i was not; after that i was; now i am. and it is just as probable that i will live again as it was that i could have lived before i did. let it go. ah! but what will life be? the world will be here. men and women will be here. the page of history will be open. the walls of the world will be adorned with art, the niches with sculpture; music will be here, and all there is of life and joy. and there will be homes here, and the fireside, and there will be a common hope without a common fear. love will be here, and love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. love was the first to dream of immortality. love is the morning and evening star. it shines upon the child; it sheds its radiance upon the peaceful tomb. love is the mother of beauty--the mother of melody, for music is its voice. love is the builder of every hope, the kindler of every fire on every hearth. love is the enchanter, the magician that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens out of common clay. love is the perfume of that wondrous flower the heart. without that divine passion, without that divine sway, we are less than beasts, and with it earth is heaven and we are gods. ingersoll's oration at a child's grave. in a remote corner of the congressional cemetery at washington, a small group of people with uncovered heads were ranged around a newly-opened grave. they included detective and mrs. george o. miller and family and friends, who had gathered to witness the burial of the former's bright little son harry. as the casket rested upon the trestles there was a painful pause, broken only by the mother's sobs, until the undertaker advanced toward a stout, florid-complexioned gentleman in the party and whispered to him, the words being inaudible to the lookers-on. this gentleman was col. robert g. ingersoll, a friend of the millers, who had attended the funeral--at their request. he shook his head when the undertaker first addressed him, and then said suddenly, "does mrs. miller desire it?" the undertaker gave an affirmative nod. mr. miller looked appealingly toward the distinguished orator, and then colonel ingersoll advanced to the side of the grave, made a motion denoting a desire for silence, and, in a voice of exquisite cadence, delivered one of his characteristic eulogies for the dead. the scene was intensely dramatic. a fine drizzling rain was falling, and every head was bent, and every ear turned to catch the impassioned words of eloquence and hope that fell from the lips of the famed orator. colonel ingersoll was unprotected by either hat or umbrella. his invocation thrilled his hearers with awe, each eye that had previously been bedimmed with tears brightening, and sobs becoming hushed. the colonel said: my friends: i know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet i wish to take from every grave its fear. here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all have met. the future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. from the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth patriarchs and babes sleep side by side. why should we fear that which will come to all that is? we cannot tell. we do not know which is the greatest blessing, life or death. we cannot say that death is not good. we do not know whether the grave is the end of this life or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. neither can we tell which is the more fortunate, the child dying in its mother's arms before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch. every cradle asks us "whence?" and every coffin "whither?" the poor barbarian weeping above his dead can answer the question as intelligently and satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. the tearful ignorance of the one is just as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. no man standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears. it may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. if those who press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. maybe a common faith treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness, and i should rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not. another life is naught, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here. they who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave need have no fear. the largest and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. we know that through the common wants of life, the needs and duties of each hour, their grief will lessen day by day until at last these graves will be to them a place of rest and peace--almost of joy. there is for them this consolation: the dead do not suffer. if they live again their lives will surely be as good as ours. we have no fear; we are all children of the same mother and the same fate awaits us all. we, too, have our religion, and it is this: "help for the living, hope for the dead." ingersoll at his brother's grave.--a most exquisite, yet one of the most sad and mournful sermons the funeral of hon. ebon c. ingersoll, brother of col. robert g. ingersoll, of illinois, took place at his residence in washington, d.c., june , . the ceremonies were extremely simple, consisting merely of viewing the remains by relatives and friends, and a funeral oration by col. robert g. ingersoll, brother of the deceased. a large number of distinguished gentlemen were present, including secretary sherman, assistant secretary hawley, senators blaine, vorhees, paddock, allison, logan, hon. thomas henderson, gov. pound, hon. wm. m. morrison, gen. jeffreys, gen. williams, col. james fishback, and others. the pall-bearers were senators blaine, vorhees, david davis, paddock and allison, col. ward, h. lamon, hon. jeremiah wilson of indiana, and hon. thomas a. boyd of illinois. soon after mr. ingersoll began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead, his eyes filled with tears. he tried to hide them behind his eye-glasses, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief. it was after some delay and the greatest efforts of self-mastery, that col. ingersoll was able to finish reading his address, which was as follows: my friends: i am going to do that which the dead often promised he would do for me. the loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. he had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but being weary for a moment he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. while yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar over a sunken ship. for, whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all. and every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love, and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. this brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. he was the friend of all heroic souls. he climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. he loved the beautiful and was with color, form and music touched to tears. he sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart and with the purest hand he faithful discharged all public trusts. he was a worshiper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed. a thousand times i have heard him quote the words: "for justice all place a temple and all season summer." he believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worshiper, humanity the only religion, and love the priest. he added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers. life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. we strive in vain to look beyond the heights. we cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. from the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. he who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "i am better now." let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. and now, to you who have been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office, for the dead, we give his sacred dust. speech can not contain our love. there was--there is--no gentler, stronger, manlier man. ingersoll's lecture on the mistakes of moses. now and then some one asks me why i am endeavoring to interfere with the religious faith of others, and why i try to take from the world the consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. and i answer, i want to do what little i can to make my country truly free. i want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people. i want it so that we can differ upon all those questions, and yet grasp each other's hands in genuine friendship. i want in the first place to free the clergy. i am a great friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have found it out generally. i want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sitting upon the limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. but i want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and i want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his thought. as it is now, ministers are employed like attorneys--for the plaintiff or the defendant. if a few people know of a young man in the neighborhood maybe who has not a good constitution,--he may not be healthy enough to be wicked--a young man who has shown no decided talent--it occurs to them to make him a minister. they contribute and send him to some school. if it turns out that that young man has more of the man in him than they thought, and he changes his opinion, everyone who contributed will feel himself individually swindled--and they will follow that young man to the grave with the poisoned shafts of malice and slander. i want it so that every one will be free--so that a pulpit will not be a pillory. they have in massachusetts, at a place called andover, a kind of minister factory; and every professor in that factory takes an oath once in every five years--that is as long as an oath will last--that not only has he not during the last five years, but so help him god, he will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he could easier keep. since the foundation of that institution there has not been one case of perjury. they believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from sheffield and birmingham. and every man who knows where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he reads, and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and shrivel, and become solemnly stupid day after day until he meets with death. it is all wrong; it is cruel. those men should be allowed to grow. they should have the air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. i want to free the schools of our country. i want it so that when a professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with moses, he will not hide the fact. i wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church and schools. the common school is the bread of life, but there should be nothing taught except what somebody knows; and anything else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation. i want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; that they will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be trammeled by the superstitions of our day. what has religion to do with facts? nothing. is there any such thing as methodist mathematics, presbyterian botany, catholic astronomy or baptist biology? what has any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science? nothing but to hinder, delay or embarrass. i want, then, to free the schools; and i want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend he is a methodist, or his wife a baptist, or his grandmother a catholic; so that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. i want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brains enough to prophesy the destiny of the american republic, no matter what his opinions may be upon any religious subject. suppose we are in a storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, and it is necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man presents himself. would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out his opinion on the five points of calvinism? what has that to do with it? congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and from what little experience i have had in washington, very little to do with any kind of religion whatever. now i hope, this afternoon, this magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are baptists or methodists, and remember that they are men and women. these are the highest titles humanity can bear--and every title you add, belittles them. man is the highest; woman is the highest. let us remember that our views depend largely upon the country in which we happen to live. suppose we were born in turkey most of us would have been mohammedans; and when we read in the book that when mohammed visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel named gabriel, who was so broad between his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to make the journey, we probably would have believed it. if we did not, people would say: "that young man is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the fabric of our religion. what do you propose to give us instead of that angel? we cannot afford to trade off an angel of that size for nothing." or if we had been born in india, we would have believed in a god with three heads. now we believe in three gods with one head. and so we might make a tour of the world and see that every superstition that could be imagined by the brain of man has been in some place held to be sacred. now some one says, "the religion of my father and mother is good enough for me." suppose we all said that, where would be the progress of the world? we would have the rudest and most barbaric religion--religion which no one could believe. i do not believe that it is showing real respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did. every good father and every good mother wish their children to find out more than they knew every good father wants his son to overcome some obstacle that he could not grapple with and if you wish to reflect credit on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did, because you live in a better time. every nation has had what you call a sacred record, and the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and the more inspired is the record. we, of course, are not an exception, and i propose to talk a little about what is called the pentateuch, a book, or a collection of books, said to have been written by moses. and right here in the commencement let me say that moses never wrote one word of the pentateuch--not one word was written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. but as the general opinion is that moses wrote these books, i have entitled this lecture "the mistakes of moses." for the sake of this lecture, we will admit that he wrote it. nearly every maker of religion has commenced by making the world; and it is one of the safest things to do, because no one can contradict as having been present, and it gives free scope to the imagination. these books, in times when there was a vast difference between the educated and the ignorant, became inspired and people bowed down and worshiped them. i saw a little while ago a bible with immense oaken covers, with hasps and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and i can imagine how that book would be regarded by barbarians in europe when not more than one person in a dozen could read and write. in imagination i saw it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the swinging of the censer and the smoke rising; and when that bible was put on the altar i can imagine the barbarians looking at it and wondering what influence that book could have on their lives and future. i do not wonder that they imagined it was inspired. none of them could write a book, and consequently when they saw it they adored it; they were stricken with awe; and rascals took advantage of that awe. now they say that the book is inspired. i do not care whether it is or not; the question is: is it true? if it is true it doesn't need to be inspired. nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. a fact never went into partnership with a miracle. truth scorns the assistance of wonders. a fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell--whether it is or not a fact. a lie will not fit anything except a lie made for the express purpose; and, finally, some one gets tired of lying, and the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is a chance for inspiration. right then and there a miracle is needed. the real question is, in the light of science, in the light of the brain and heart of the nineteenth century, is this book true? the gentleman who wrote it begins by telling us that god made the universe out of nothing. that i cannot conceive; it may be so, but i cannot conceive it. nothing in the light of raw material, is, to my mind, a decided and disastrous failure. i cannot imagine of nothing being made into something, any more than i can of something being changed back into nothing. i cannot conceive of force aside from matter, because force to be force must be active, and unless there is matter there is nothing for force to act upon, and consequently it cannot be active. so i simply say i cannot comprehend it. i cannot believe it. i may roast for this, but it is my honest opinion. the next thing he proceeds to tell us is that god divided the darkness from the light, and right here let me say when i speak about god i simply mean the being described by the jews. there may be in immensity a being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose every thought is a glittering star, but i know nothing about him,--not the slightest,--and this afternoon i am simply talking about the being described by the jewish people. when i say god, i mean him. moses describes god dividing the light from the darkness. i suppose that at that time they must have been mixed. you can readily see how light and darkness can get mixed. they must have been entities. the reason i think so is because in that same book i find that darkness overspread egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used to have on exhibition in rome a bottle of the darkness that once overspread egypt. the gentleman who wrote this in imagination saw god dividing light from the darkness. i am sure the man who wrote it, believed darkness to be an entity, a something, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light. the next thing that he informs us is that god divided the waters above the firmament from those below the firmament. the man who wrote that believed the firmament to be a solid affair. and that is what the gods did. you recollect the gods came down and made love to the daughters of men--and i never blamed them for it. i have never read a description of any heaven i would not leave on the same errand. that is where the gods lived. there is where they kept the water. it was solid. that is the reason the people prayed for rain. they believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a window and let out the desired quantity. i find in the psalms that "he bowed the heavens and came down;" and we read that the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb into the abode of the gods. the man who wrote that believed the firmament to be solid. he knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. he did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and that, disappointed, their vaporous sighs changed to tears and fell again as rain. the next thing he tells us is that the grass began to grow; and the branches of the trees laughed into blossom, and the grass ran up the shoulder of the hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light had left the eternal quiver of the sun. not a blade of grass had ever been touched by a gleam of light. and i do not think that grass will grow to hurt without a gleam of sunshine. i think the man who wrote that simply made a mistake, and is excusable to a certain degree. the next day he made the sun and moon--the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. do you think the man who wrote that knew anything about the size of the sun? i think he thought it was about three feet in diameter, because i find in some book that the sun was stopped a whole day, to give a general named joshua time to kill a few more amalekites; and the moon was stopped also. now it seems to me that the sun would give light enough without stopping the moon; but as they were in the stopping business they did it just for devilment. at another time, we read, the sun was turned ten degrees backward to convince hezekiah that he was not going to die of a boil. how much easier it would have been to cure the boil. the man who wrote that thought the sun was two or three feet in diameter, and could be stopped and pulled around like the sun and moon in a theatre. do you know that the sun throws out every second of time as much heat as could be generated by burning eleven thousand millions tons of coal? i don't believe he knew that, or that he knew the motion of the earth. i don't believe he knew that it was turning on its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did, he would have understood the immensity of heat that would have been generated by stopping the world. it has been calculated by one of the best mathematicians and astronomers that to stop the world would cause as much heat as it would take to burn a lump of solid coal three times as big as the globe. and yet we find in that book that the sun was not only stopped, but turned back ten degrees, simply to convince a gentleman that he was not going to die of a boil. they will say i will be damned if i do not believe that, and i tell them i will if i do. then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in five words: "he made the stars also." he came very near forgetting the stars. do you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are stars as much larger than this earth as this earth is larger than the apple which adam and eve are said to have eaten. do you believe that he knew that this world is but a speck in the shining, glittering universe of existence? i would gather from that that he made the stars after he got the world done. the telescope, in reading the infinite leaves of the heavens, has ascertained that light travels at the rate of , miles per second, and it would require millions of years to come from some of the stars to this earth. yet the beams of those stars mingle in our atmosphere, so that if those distant orbs were fashioned when this world began, we must have been whirling in space not six thousand, but many millions of years. do you believe the man who wrote that as a history of astronomy really knew that this world was but a speck compared with millions of sparkling orbs? i do not. he then proceeds to tell us that god made fish and cattle, and that man and woman were created male and female. the first account stops at the second verse of the second chapter. you see, the bible originally was not divided into chapters; the first bible that was ever divided into chapters in our language was made in the year of grace . the bible was originally written in the hebrew language, and the hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing. it was written with consonants, and without being divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no system of punctuation whatever. after you go home tonight write an english sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. when the bible was divided into verses and chapters, the divisions were not always correct, and so the division between the first and second chapter of genesis is not in the right place. the second account of the creation commences at the third verse and it differs from the first in two essential points. in the first account man is the last made; in the second man is made before the beasts. in the first account, man is made "male and female"; in the second only a male is made, and there is no intention of making a woman whatever. you will find by reading that second chapter that god tried to palm off on adam a beast as his helpmeet. everybody talks about the bible and nobody reads it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. i am probably the only man in the united states who has read the bible through this year. i have wasted that time, but i had a purpose in view. just read it, and you will find, about the twenty-third verse, that god caused all the animals to walk before adam in order that he might name them. and the animals came like a menagerie into town, and as adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers and creepers, this god stood by to see what he would call them. after this procession passed, it was pathetically remarked, "yet was there not found any helpmeet for adam." adam didn't see anything that he could fancy. and i am glad he didn't. if he had, there would not have been a free-thinker in this world; we should have all died orthodox. and finding adam was so particular, god had to make him a helpmeet, and having used up the nothing, he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman with, and he took from the man a rib. how did he get it? and then imagine a god with a bone in his hand, and about to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette. right here it is only proper that i should warn you of the consequences of laughing at any story in the bible. when you come to die, your laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. as you look back upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted--all that may be forgiven you but if you recollect that you have laughed at god's book you will see through the shadows of death, the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. let me show you how it will be. for instance it is the day of judgment. when the man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, he says to his soul "where are you from?" "i am from the world." "yes sir. what kind of a man were you?" "well, i don't like to talk about myself." "but you have to. what kind of a man were you?" "well, i was a good fellow; i loved my wife, i loved my children. my home was my heaven; my fire-side was my paradise, and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those i love, that to me was a perpetual joy. i never gave one of them a solitary moment of pain. i don't owe a dollar in the world and i left enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the house i loved. that is the kind of a man i am." "did you belong to any church?" "i did not. they were too narrow for me. they were always expecting to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned." "well, did you believe that rib story?" "what rib story--do you mean that adam and eve business? no, i did not. to tell you the god's truth, that was a little more than i could swallow." "to hell with him. next. where are you from?" "i'm from the world, too. do you belong to any church?" "yes, sir, and to the young men's christian association." "what is your business?" "cashier in a bank." "did you ever run off with any money? i don't like to tell, sir." "well, you have to." "yes, sir i did." "what kind of a bank did you have?" "a savings bank." "how much did you run off with?" "one hundred thousand dollars." "did you take anything else along with you?" "yes sir." "what?" "i took my neighbor's wife." "did you have a wife and children of your own?" "yes, sir." "and you deserted them?" "oh, yes; but such was my confidence in god that i believed he would take care of them." "have you heard of them since?" "no, sir. did you believe that rib story?" "ah, bless your soul, yes! i believe all of it, sir; i often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the bible, so that i could show what my faith could do." "you believed it, did you?" "yes, with all my heart." "give him a harp." i simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these stories. of all the authors in the world god hates a critic the worst. having got this woman done he brought her to the man, and they started house-keeping, and a few minutes afterward a snake came through a crack in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit. she was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know whether snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the apples or not. well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was made. god ought to have rubbed him out at once. he might have known that no good could come of starting the world with a man like that. they were turned out. then the trouble commenced, and people got worse and worse. god, you must recollect, was holding the reins of government, but he did nothing for them. he allowed them to live six hundred and sixty-nine years without knowing their a. b. c. he never started a school, not even a sunday school. he didn't even keep his own boys at home. and the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to drown them. yet that same god has the impudence to tell me how to raise my own children. what would you think of a neighbor, who had just killed his babes giving you his views on domestic economy? god found that he could do nothing with them and he said: "i will drown them all except a few." and he picked out a fellow by the name of noah, that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. if i had to drown anybody, i would have drowned him. i believe that noah had then been married something like one hundred years. god told him to build a boat, and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet broad and fifty-five feet high, with one door shutting on the outside, and one window twenty-two inches square. if noah had any hobby in the world it was ventilation. then into this ark he put a certain number of all the animals in the world. naturalists have ascertained that at that time there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects necessary to go into the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred reptiles, to say nothing of the mastodon, the elephant and the animalcule, of which thousands live upon a single leaf and which cannot be seen by the naked eye. noah had no microscope, and yet he had pick them out by pairs. you have no idea the trouble that man had. some say that the flood was not universal, that it was partial. why then did god say "i will destroy every living thing beneath the heavens." if it was partial why did noah save the birds? an ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, can beat a partial flood. why did he put the birds in there--the eagles, the vultures, the condors--if it was only a partial flood? and how did he get them in there? were they inspired to go there, or did he drive them up? did the polar bear leave his home of ice and start for the tropic inquiring for noah; or could the kangaroo come from australia unless he was inspired, or somebody was behind him? then there are animals on this hemisphere not on that. how did he get them across? and there are some animals which would be very unpleasant in an ark unless the ventilation was very perfect. when he got the animals in the ark, god shut the door and noah pulled down the window. and then it began to rain, and it kept on raining until the water went twenty nine feet over the highest mountain. chimborazo, then as now, lifted its head above the clouds, and then as now, there sat the condor. and yet the waters rose and rose over every mountain in the world--twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks, covered with snow and ice. how deep were these waters? about five and a half miles. how long did it rain? forty days. how much did it have to rain a day? about eight hundred feet. how is that for dampness? no wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. if i had been there i would have said the whole side of the house was out. how long were they in this ark? a year and ten days, floating around with no rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. the window was shut, and there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. who ran this ark--who took care of it? finally it came down on mount ararat, a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the animals from the tropics a chance. then noah opened the window and got a breath of fresh air, and let out all the animals; and then noah took a drink, and god made a bargain with him that he would not drown us any more, and he put a rainbow in the clouds and said: "when i see that i will recollect that i have promised not to drown you." because if it was not for that he is apt to drown us at any moment. now can anybody believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? are you not all familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches before our eyes? then the people started out again, and they were as bad as before. here let me ask why god did not make noah in the first place? he knew he would have to drown adam and eve and all his family. then another thing, why did he want to drown the animals? what had they done? what crime had they committed? it is very hard to answer these questions--that is, for a man who has only been born once. after a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods heard about it and said "let's go down and see what man is up to." they came, and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and thereupon he confounded the language to prevent them succeeding, so that the fellow up above could not shout down "mortar" or "brick" to the one below, and they had to give it up. is it possible that any one believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of languages in the world? do you know that language is born of human experience, and is a physical science? do you know that every word has been suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man--that there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others as wild as the beasts? do you know that language is dying and being born continually--that every language has its cemetery and its cradle, its bud and blossom, and withered leaf? man has loved, enjoyed and suffered, and language is simply the expression he gives those experiences. then the world began to divide, and the jewish nation was started. now i want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were barbarians. if the jewish people had to write these books now they would be civilized books, and i do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors did. we find the jewish people first in canaan, and there were seventy of them, counting joseph and his children already in egypt. they lived two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into egypt and stayed there two hundred and fifteen years they were four hundred and thirty years in canaan and egypt. how many did they have when they went to egypt? seventy. how many were they at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? three millions. that is a good many. we had at the time of the revolution in this country three millions of people. since that time there have been four doubles, until we have forty-eight millions today. how many would the jews number at the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? call it eight doubles and we have forty thousand. but instead of forty thousand they had three millions. how do i know they had three millions? because they had six hundred thousand men of war. for every honest voter in the state of illinois there will be five other people, and there are always more voters than men of war. they must have had at the lowest possible estimate three millions of people. is that true? is there a minister in the city of chicago that will testify to his own idiocy by claiming that they could have increased to three millions by that time? if there is, let him say so. do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a lie. when they got into the desert they took a census to see how man first-born children there were. they found they had twenty-thousand two hundred and seventy-three first-born males. it is reasonable to suppose there was about the same number of first-born girls, or forty-five thousand first-born children. there must have been about as many mothers as first-born children. dividing three millions by forty-five thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in israel had to have on the average sixty-eight children apiece. some stories are too thin. this is too thick. now, we know that among three million people there will be about three hundred births a day; and according to the old testament, whenever a child was born the mother had to make a sacrifice--a sin-offering for the crime of having been a mother. if there is in this universe anything that is infinitely pure, it is a mother with her child in her arms. every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place. at that time there were at least three hundred births a day, and the priests had to cook and eat these pigeons in the most holy place; and at that time there were only three priests. two hundred birds apiece per day! i look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. then where were these jews? they were upon the desert of sinai; and sahara compared to that is a garden. imagine an ocean of lava, torn by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a gorgon and changed to stone. such was the desert of sinai. the whole supplies of the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of sinai for forty years. it would cost one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt christendom. and yet there they were with flocks and herds--so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and fifty thousand first-born lambs at one time. it would require millions of acres to support these flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and there is no account of it raining baled hay. they sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the altar within two hours, and there, were only three priests. they would have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. three millions of people would make a column six miles long. some reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. well, that would make a column of over a mile. where were these people going? they were going to the holy land. how large was it? twelve thousand square miles--one-fifth the size of illinois--a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. there never was a land agent in the city of chicago that would not have blushed with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey. do you believe that god almighty ever went into partnership with hornets? is it necessary unto salvation? god said to the jews "i will send hornets before you, to drive out the canaanites." how would a hornet know a canaanite? is it possible that god inspired the hornets--that he granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? i am willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native country than a few hornets attending strictly to business. god said "kill the canaanites slowly." why? "lest the beasts of the field increase upon you." how many jews were there? three millions. going to a country, how large? twelve thousand square miles. but were there nations already in this holy land? yes, there were seven nations "mightier than the jews." say there would be twenty-one millions when they got there, or twenty-four millions with themselves. yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts of the field increase upon them. is there a man in chicago that believes that! then what does he teach it to little children for? let him tell the truth. so the same god went into partnership with snakes. the children of israel lived on manna--one account says all the time, and another only a little while. that is the reason there is a chance for commentaries, and you can exercise faith. if the book was reasonable everybody could get to heaven in a moment. but whenever it looks as if it could not be that way and you believe, you are almost a saint, and when you know it is not that way and believe, you are a saint. he fed them on manna. now manna is very peculiar stuff. it would melt in the sun, and yet they used to cook it by seething and baking. i would as soon think of frying snow and boiling icicles. but this manna had other peculiar qualities. it shrank to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. what a magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and swelling according to the volume of business! there was not a change in the bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that god could just as well give them three square meals a day. they remembered about the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of egypt, and they said: "our souls abhorreth this light bread." then this god got mad--you know cooks are always touchy--and thereupon he sent snakes to bite the men, women and children. he also sent them quails in wrath and anger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, he struck thousands of them dead. he always acted in that way, all of a sudden. people had no chance to explain--no chance to move for a new trial--nothing. i want to know if it is reasonable he should kill people for asking for one change of diet in forty years. suppose you had been boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said: "my soul abhorreth hash!" what would you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes upon you? now is it possible for people to believe this? the bible says their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at the knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. they grew right along with them. the little boy starting out with his first pants grew up and his pants grew with him. some commentators have insisted that angels attended to their wardrobes. i never could believe it. just think of one angel hunting another and saying: "there goes another button." i cannot believe it. there must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. do you believe the real god--if there is one--ever killed a man for making hair-oil? and yet you find in the pentateuch that god gave moses a recipe for making hair-oil to grease aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the same hair-oil he should be killed. and he gave him a formula for making ointment, and he said if anybody made ointment like that he should be killed. i think that is carrying patent-laws to excess. there must be some mistake about it. i cannot imagine the infinite creator of all the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair-oil. do you believe that the real god came down to mount sinai with a lot of patterns for making a tabernacle-patterns for tongs, for snuffers, and such things? do you believe that god came down on that mountain and told moses how to cut a coat, and how it should be trimmed? what would an infinite god care on which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, or how the buttons were placed? do you believe god told moses to make curtains of fine linen? where did they get their flax in the desert? how did they weave it? did he tell him to make things of gold, silver and precious stones, when they hadn't them? is it possible that god told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees? you see all these things were written hundreds of years afterwards, and the priests, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. they did not say, "this is our law," but, "thus said god to moses in the wilderness." now, can you believe that? imagine a scene: the eternal god tells moses "here is the way i want you to consecrate my priests. catch a sheep and cut his throat." i never could understand why god wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean trick; perhaps it was because his priests were fond of mutton. he tells moses further to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a little on his right ear, and a little on his right big toe? do you believe god ever gave such instructions for the consecration of his priests? if you should see the south sea islanders going through such a performance you could not keep your face straight. and will you tell me that it had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite god? supposing the blood got on the left toe? then we find in this book how god went to work to make the egyptians let the israelites go. suppose we wish to make a treaty with the mikado of japan, and mr. hayes sent a commissioner there; and suppose he should employ hermann, the wonderful german, to go along with him; and when they came in the presence of the mikado herman threw down an umbrella, which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner said: "this is my certificate." you would say the country is disgraced. you would say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with jugglery. yet we are told god sent moses and aaron before pharaoh, and when they got there moses threw down a stick which turned into a snake. that god is a juggler--he is the infinite prestidigitator. is that possible? was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a snake? if it was the appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. then the necromancers of egypt were sent for, and they threw down sticks, which turned into snakes, but those were not so large as moses' snakes, which swallowed them. i maintain that it is just as hard to make small snakes as it is to make large ones; the only difference is that to make large snakes either larger sticks or more practice is required. do you believe that god rained hail on innocent cattle, killing them in the highways and in the field? why should he inflict punishment on cattle for something their owners had done? i could never have any respect for a god that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on account of the crime of its owner. is it possible that god worked miracles to convince pharaoh that slavery was wrong? why did he not tell pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? why did he not tell him, "your government is founded on slavery, and it will go down, and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man your temples, your altars, and your fanes?" why did he not speak about the infamy of slavery? because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. can we believe that god will allow a man to give his wife the right of divorcement and make the mother of his children a wanderer and a vagrant. there is not one word about woman in the old testament except the word of shame and humiliation. the god of the bible does not think woman is as good as man. she never was worth mentioning. it did not take the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. i have no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man. and if there is any god in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks of my wife, he is not well acquainted with both of us. and yet they say that that was done on account of the hardness of their hearts; and that was done in a community where the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to death for picking up sticks on sunday. would it not have been better to stone to death every man who abused his wife and allowed them to pick up sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts? if god wanted to take those jews from egypt to the land of canaan, why didn't he do it instantly? if he was going to do a miracle why didn't he do one worth talking about? after god had killed all the first-born in egypt, after he had killed all the cattle, still egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hundred thousand men. and because this god overwhelmed the egyptian army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the attention of the jews to the fact that he overthrew pharaoh and his hosts. did he help much with their six-hundred thousand men? we find by the records of the day that the egyptian standing army at that time was never more than one hundred thousand men. must we believe all these stories in order to get to heaven when we die? must we judge of a man's character by the number of stories he believes? are we to get to heaven by creed or by deed? that is the question. shall we reason, or shall we simply believe? ah, but they say the bible is not inspired about those little things. the bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud. but they do not. they have a tremulous motion of the lip. but the being that made them says they chew the cud. the bible, therefore, is not inspired in natural history. is it inspired in its astrology? no. well, what is it inspired in? in its law? thousands of people say that if it had not been for the ten commandments we would not have known any better than to rob and steal. suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, hoed them all summer, and dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had sat upon the fence all the time and watched him? do you believe it would be necessary for that man to read the ten commandments to find out who, in his judgment had a right to take those potatoes? all laws against larceny have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor. why is there a law against murder? simply because a large majority of people object to being murdered. that is all. and all these laws were in force thousands of years before that time. one of the commandments said they should not make any graven images, and that was the death of art in palestine. no sculptor has ever enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. but they say the bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no civilization without this bible. then god knows that just as well as you do. god always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation without a bible, why didn't god give every nation just one bible to start with? why did god allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go down to hell just for the lack of a bible? they say that it is morally inspired. well, let us examine it. i want to be fair about this thing, because i am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this question--whether the bible is true or not. i say it is not and upon that i am willing to wager my soul. is there a woman here who believes in the institution of polygamy? is there a man here who believes in that infamy? you say: "no, we do not." then you are better than your god was four thousand years ago. four thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it and upheld it. i pronounce it and denounce it the infamy of infamies. it robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it. it takes the fire-side away forever. it takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. i was in utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where god used to talk to brigham young. he never said anything to me. i said that it was just as reasonable that god in the nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist in utah as it was that four thousand years ago, on mount sinai, he talked to moses upon that hellish and damnable question. i have no love for any god who believes in polygamy. there is no heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the one man loves the one woman. i guess it is not inspired on the polygamy question. may be it is inspired about religious liberty. god says if anybody differs with you about religion, "kill him." he told his peculiar people, "if any one teaches a different religion, kill him!" he did not say, "try and convince him that he is wrong," but "kill him." he did not say, "i am in the miracle business, and i will convince him," but "kill him." he said to every husband, "if your wife, that you love as you love your own soul, says, 'let us go and worship other gods,' then 'thy hand shall be first upon her and she shall be stoned with stones until she dies.'" well, now, i hate a god of that kind, and i cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from him. a god tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on religion! if the real god were to tell me to kill my wife, i would not do it. if you had lived in palestine at that time, and your wife--the mother of your children--had woke up at night and said "i am tired of jehovah. he is always turning up that board-bill. he is always telling about whipping the egyptians. he is always killing somebody. i am tired of him. let us worship the sun. the sun has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with green and flowers; by its divine light i first saw your face; its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful babe. let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love and joy." then what would it be your duty to do--kill her? do you believe a real god ever did that? your hand should be first upon her, and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it against the white bosom filled with love for you, and saw running away the red current of her sweet life, then you would look up to heaven and receive the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you had to obey. i guess the bible was not inspired about religious liberty. let me ask you right here: suppose, as a matter of fact, god gave those laws to the jews and told them "whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill him," and suppose that afterwards the same god took upon himself flesh, and came to the world and taught and preached a different religion, and the jews crucified him--did he not reap exactly what he sowed? may be this book is inspired about war. god told the israelites to overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending their native land. kill the old men? yes. kill the women? certainly. and the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and coo in the face of murder--dash out their brains; that is the will of god. will you tell me that any god ever commanded such infamy? kill the men and the women, and the young men and the babes! "what shall we do with the maidens?" "give them to the rabble murderers!" do you believe that god ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? if there is any god, i pray him to write in the book of eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that i denied that lie. whenever a woman reads a bible and comes to that passage, she ought to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. do you tell me that any decent god would do that? what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? just think of it, and yet that is the god that we want to get into the constitution. that is the god we teach our children about so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! that monster--that fiend--i guess the bible is not inspired about religious liberty, nor about war. then, if it is not inspired about these things, may be it is inspired about slavery. god tells the jews to buy up the children of the heathen round about and they should be servants for them. what is a "servant?" if they struck a "servant" and he died immediately, punishment was to follow; but if the injured man should linger a while, there was no punishment, because the servant represented their money! do you believe that it is right--that god made one man to work for another and to receive pay in rations? do you believe god said that a whip on the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? is it possible that the real god ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? what more does he say? when the time of a married slave expired, he could not take his wife and children with him. then if the slave did not wish to desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and became his master's property forever. do you believe that god ever turned the dimpled cheeks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slavery? do you know that a god like that would not make a respectable devil? i want none of his mercy. i want no part and no lot in the heaven of such a god. i will go to perdition, where there is human sympathy. the only voice we have ever had from either of those other worlds came from hell. there was a rich man who prayed his brothers to attend to lazarus so that they might "not come to this place." that is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across the river having any sympathy. and i would rather be in hell, asking for water, than in heaven denying that petition. well, what is this book inspired about? where does the inspiration come from? why was it that so many animals were killed? it was simply to make atonement for man--that is all. they killed something that had not committed a crime, in order that the one who had committed the crime might be acquitted. based upon that idea is the atonement of the christian religion. that is the reason i attack this book--because it is the basis of another infamy, viz: that one man can be good for another, or that one man can sin for another. i deny it. you have got to be good for yourself; you have got to sin for yourself. the trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong man. for instance, i kill some one. he is a good man. he loves his wife and children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a christian, and he goes to hell. just as soon as i am convicted and cannot get a pardon i get religion, and i go to heaven. the hand of mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim. there is no atonement for the saint--only for the sinner and the criminal. the atonement saves the wrong man. i have said that i would never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine. i did not care what i started out on. i was always going to attack this doctrine. and in my conclusion i want to draw you a few pictures of the christian heaven. but before i do that i want to say the rest i have to say about moses. i want you to understand that the bible was never printed until . i want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, in possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did change it, because no two ever agreed. much of it was in the waste basket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear of memory. i want you also to know that the jews themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the old testament. i want you to know that two or three years before christ, the hebrew manuscript was translated into greek, and that the original from which the translation was made, has never been seen since. some latin bibles were found in africa but no two agreed; and then they translated the septuagint into the languages of europe, and no two agreed. henry viii. took a little time between murdering his wives to see that the word of god was translated correctly. you must recollect that we are indebted to murderers for our bibles and our creeds. constantine, who helped on the good work in its early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling their blood with the blood of the savior. the bible that henry viii. got up did not suit, and then his daughter, the murderess of mary, queen of scots, got up another edition, which also did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, king james, prepared the edition which we now have. there are at least one hundred thousand errors in the old testament, but everybody sees that it is not enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility. but these errors are gradually being fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by arabs instead of "ravens," and samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred "sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat. i want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the time the bible was composed, and that the jews were infinitely ignorant in their day and generation--that they were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the world. i want you to know that there are fourteen hundred millions of people in the world; and that with all the talk and work of the societies, only one hundred and twenty millions have got bibles. i want you to understand that not one person in one hundred in this world ever read the bible, and no two ever understood it alike who did read it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. i want you to understand that where this bible has been, man has hated his brother--there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword. i want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with the sword, and that the religion of jesus christ was established by murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. i want you to know that the church carried the black flag. then talk about the civilizing influence of this religion! now, i want to give an idea or two in regard to the christian's heaven. of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "if i can only get my little soul in." i have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. here is what we are taught by the church today. we are taught by it that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life, in hell. but they say, "we don't believe in fire. what we believe in now is remorse." what will you have remorse for? for the mean things you have done when you are in hell? will you have any remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven? or will you be so good then that you won't care how you used to be? don't you see what an infinitely mean belief that is? i tell you today that, no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending the summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged you will drop a little behind in the tune. and, no matter in what part of hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will cool up a little. according to this christian doctrine, when you are in heaven you won't care how mean you were once. what must be the social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never would have been there if he had not got scared? what must be the social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had not pitied him he ought to have been damned? is it a compliment to an infinite god to say that every being he ever made deserved to be damned the minute he got him done, and that he will damn everybody he has not had a chance to make over. is it possible that somebody else can be good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul? for instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. he has got about him splendid children whom he has loved and cared for with all his heart. but he did not happen to believe in this bible; he did not believe in the pentateuch. he did not believe that because some children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, god sent two bears and tore the little darlings to pieces. he had a tender heart, and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody fragments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of grief; he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not believe that god was such an infinite monster. that was all he thought, but he went to hell. then, there is another man who made a hell on earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and his children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the world. but just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow got religion, and he never did another thing except to take his medicine. he never did a solitary human being a favor, and he died and went to heaven. don't you think he would be astonished to see that other man in hell, and say to himself, "is it possible that such a splendid character should bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at last has brought me next to god?" or, let us put another case. you were once alone in the desert--no provisions, no water, no hope, just when your life was at its lowest ebb a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out. how you would bless that man. time rolls on. you die and go to heaven; and one day you see through the black night of hell, the friend who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips. he cries to you, "remember what i did in the desert--give me to drink." how mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be unable to relieve him. but this is the christian heaven. we sit by the fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney--everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing. how happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast. and we say, "god is good," and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night but forever. or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted; and famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust. how that would increase the appetite! and yet that is the christian heaven. don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? and i would have everyone who hears me, swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build another church in which is taught such infamous lies. i want everyone of you to say, that you never will, directly or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to preach that falsehood. it has done harm enough. it has covered the world with blood. it has filled the asylums for the insane. it has cast a shadow in the heart, in the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. i say let us rid the heavens of this monster, and write upon the dome "liberty, love and law." no matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do exactly what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought in our brains. rather than have this christianity true, i would rather all the gods would destroy themselves this morning. i would rather the whole universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this instant. rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the eternal abyss of pain, i would see the utter and eternal destruction of this universe. i would rather see the shining fabric of our universe crumble to unmeaning chaos, and take itself where oblivion broods and memory forgets. i would rather the blind samson of some imprisoned force, released by thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this world that man in stress and strain, in astonishment and fear, should suddenly fall back to savagery and barbarity. i would rather that this thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles rub the wheel, the parent star, on which the light should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to have this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment true; rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the many established as the word of god. one world at a time is my doctrine. let us make some one happy here. happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. let every man try to make his wife happy, his children happy. let every man try to make every day a joy, and god cannot afford to damn such a man. i cannot help god; i cannot injure god. i can help people; i can injure people. consequently humanity is the only real religion. i cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from robert burns: "to make a happy fireside clime to weans and wife-- that's the true pathos and sublime of human life." ingersoll's lecture on skulls,--and his replies to prof. swing, dr. collyer, and other critics--reprinted from "the chicago times." ladies and gentlemen: man advances just in the proportion that he mingles his thoughts with his labor--just in the proportion that he takes advantage of the forces of nature; just in proportion as he loses superstition and gains confidence in himself. man advances as he ceases to fear the gods and learns to love his fellow-men. it is all, in my judgment, a question of intellectual development. tell me the religion of any man and i will tell you the degree he marks on the intellectual thermometer of the world. it is a simple question of brain. those among us who are the nearest barbarism have a barbarian religion. those who are nearest civilization have the least superstition. it is, i say, a simple question of brain, and i want, in the first place, to lay the foundation to prove that assertion. a little while ago i saw models of nearly everything that man has made. i saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth twice as long as his forehead was high, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his orthodox head--i saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from shore to shore. and i saw at the same time the paintings of the world, from the rude daub of yellow mud to the landscapes that enrich palaces and adorn houses of what were once called the common people. i saw also their sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of today,--to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction. i saw their books--books written upon the skins of wild beasts--upon shoulder-blades of sheep--books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. when i speak of libraries i think of the remark of plato: "a house that has a library in it has a soul." i saw at the same time the offensive weapons that man has made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same savage when he crawled from his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flintlock, to the caplock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. i saw too, the armor from the shell of a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country, the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel. and i say orthodox not only in the matter of religion, but in everything. whoever has quit growing, he is orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion, philosophy--no matter what. whoever thinks he has found it all out he is orthodox. orthodoxy is that which rots, and heresy is that which grows forever. orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of the darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal coming day, the light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intellectual pioneers of the world. i saw their implements of agriculture, from the plow made of a crooked stick, attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, with which our ancestors scraped the earth, and from that to the agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. in the old time there was but one crop; and when the rain did not come in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell upon their knees. at that time they were full of superstition. they were frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at his poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. but now, instead of depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain enough for one there may be enough for another. and if the frosts kill all, we have railroads and steamship--enough to bring what we need from some other part of the world. since man has found out something about agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of producing famines. i saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tomtom--that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have today, that make the common air blossom with melody, and i said to myself there is a regular advancement. i saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has been found, the neanderthal skull--skulls from central africa, skulls from the bushmen of australia--skulls from the farthest isles of the pacific sea--up to the best skulls of the last generation--and i noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, and i said to myself: "after all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." there was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the krupp gun, between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by verdi. the first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty and love. and i said to myself, it is all a question of intellectual development. man has advanced just as he has mingled his thought with his labor. as he has grown he has taken advantage of the forces of nature; first of the moving wind, then of the falling water and finally of steam. from one step to another he has obtained better houses, better clothes, and better books, and he has done it by holding out every incentive to the ingenious to produce them. the world has said, give us better clubs and guns and cannons with which to kill our fellow christians. and whoever will give us better weapons and better music, and better houses to live in, we will robe him in wealth crown him in honor, and render his name deathless. every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things, and that is the reason we have advanced in all mechanical arts. but that gentleman in the dugout not only had his ideas about politics, mechanics, and agriculture; he had his ideas also about religion. his idea about politics was "might makes right." it will be thousands of years, may be, before mankind will believe in the saying that "right makes might." he had his religion. that low skull was a devil factory. he believed in hell, and the belief was a consolation to him. he could see the waves of god's wrath dashing against the rocks of dark damnation. he could see tossing in the whitecaps the faces of women, and stretching above the crests the dimpled hands of children; and he regarded these things as the justice and mercy of god. and all today who believe in this eternal punishment are the barbarians of the nineteenth century. that man believed in a devil, that had a long tail terminating with a fiery dart; that had wings like a bat--a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing brimstone, that had a cloven foot, such as some orthodox clergymen seem to think i have. and there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil in all the years since. the moment you drive the devil out of theology, there is nothing left worth speaking of. the moment they drop the devil, away goes atonement. the moment they kill the devil, their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for mankind. you must keep the devil and, you must keep hell. you must keep the devil, because with no devil no priest is necessary. now, all i ask is this--the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his dug-out, and that is what i am going to do, the best i can. no matter what church you belong to, or what church belongs to us. let us be honor bright and fair. i want to ask you: suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest if there was one at that time, had told these gentlemen in the dug-out: "that dug-out is the best boat that can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle of it and a rag on the stick, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment--honor bright--would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and i presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose the king and priest had said: "the tomtom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it--that is how we obtained it; and any man who says it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,"--i ask you, what effect would that have had upon music? if that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of beethoven? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said "that crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented, the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in an exceedingly holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture? now, all i ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his mechanical arts. why don't we go back to that period to get the telegraph? because they were barbarians. and shall we go to barbarians to get our religion? what is religion? religion simply embraces the duty of man to man. religion is simply the science of human duty and the duty of man to man--that is what it is. it is the highest science of all. and all other sciences are as nothing, except as they contribute to the happiness of man. the science of religion is the highest of all, embracing all others. and shall we go to the barbarians to learn the science of sciences? the nineteenth century knows more about religion than all the centuries dead. there is more real charity in the world today than ever before. there is more thought today than ever before. woman is glorified today as she never was before in the history of the world. there are more happy families now than ever before--more children treated as though they were tender blossoms than as though they were brutes than in any other time or nation. religion is simply the duty a man owes to man; and when you fall upon your knees and pray for something you know not of, you neither benefit the one you pray for nor yourself. one ounce of restitution is worth a million of repentances anywhere, and a man will get along faster by helping himself a minute than by praying ten years for somebody to help him. suppose you were coming along the street, and found a party of men and women on their knees praying to a bank, and you asked them, "have any of you borrowed any money of this bank?" "no, but our fathers, they, too, prayed to this bank." "did they ever get any?" "no, not that we ever heard of." i would tell them to get up. it is easier to earn it, and it is far more manly. our fathers in the "good old times,"--and the best that i can say of the "good old times" is that they are gone, and the best i can say of the good old people that lived in them is that they are gone, too--believed that you made a man think your way by force. well, you can't do it. there is a splendid something in man that says: "i won't; i won't be driven." but our fathers thought men could be driven. they tried it in the "good old times." i used to read about the manner in which the early christians made converts--how they impressed upon the world the idea that god loved them. i have read it, but it didn't burn into my soul. i didn't think much about it--i heard so much about being fried forever in hell that it didn't seem so bad to burn a few minutes. i love liberty and i hate all persecutions in the name of god. i never appreciated the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion until i saw the iron arguments that christians used. i saw, for instance, the thumb-screw, two little innocent looking pieces of iron, armed with some little protuberances on the inner side to keep it from slipping down, and through each end a screw, and when some man had made some trifling remark, for instance, that he never believed that god made a fish swallow a man to keep him from drowning, or something like that, or, for instance, that he didn't believe in baptism. you know that is very wrong. you can see for yourself the justice of damning a man if his parents happened to baptize him in the wrong way--god cannot afford to break a rule or two to save all the men in the world. i happened to be in the company of some baptist ministers once--you may wonder how i happened to be in such company as that--and one of them asked me what i thought about baptism. well, i told them i hadn't thought much about it--that i had never sat up nights on that question. i said: "baptism--with soap--is a good institution." now, when some man had said some trifling thing like that, they put this thumb-screw on him, and in the name of universal benevolence and for the love of god--man has never persecuted man for the love of man; man has never persecuted another for the love of charity--it is always for the love of something he calls god, and every man's idea of god is his own idea. if there is an infinite god, and there may be--i don't know--there may be a million for all i know--i hope there is more than one--one seems so lonesome. they kept turning this down, and when this was done, most men would say: "i will recant." i think, i would. there is not much of the martyr about me. i would have told them: "now you write it down, and i will sign it. you may have one god or a million, one hell or a million. you stop that--i am tired." do you know, sometimes i have thought that all the hypocrites in the world are not worth one drop of honest blood. i am sorry that any good man ever died for religion. i would rather let them advance a little easier. it is too bad to see a good man sacrificed for a lot of wild beasts and cattle. but there is now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. there was now and then a sublime heart willing to die for an intellectual conviction, and had it not been for these men we would have been wild beasts and savages today. there were some men who would not take it back, and had it not been for a few such brave, heroic souls in every age we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our breasts, dancing around some dried-snake fetish. and so they turned it down to the last thread of agony, and threw the victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. this was done in the name of love, in the name of mercy, in the name of the compassionate christ. and the men that did it are the men that made our bible for us. i saw, too, at the same time, the collar of torture. imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. this argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. then he could not walk nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured by these points. in a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. this man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "i do not believe that god, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men." and that was done to convince the world that god so loved the world that he died for us. that was in order that people might hear the glad tidings of great joy to all people. i saw another instrument, called the scavenger's daughter. imagine a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well and just above the pivot that unites the blades a circle of iron. in the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced, and in that position the man would be thrown upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony that insanity took pity. and this was done to keep people from going to hell--to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his logic--and it was done, too, by protestants--protestants that persecuted to the extent of their power, and that is as much as catholicism ever did. they would persecute now if they had the power. there is not a man in this vast audience who will say that the church should have temporal power. there is not one of you but what believes in the eternal divorce of church and state. is it possible that the only people who are fit to go to heaven are the only people not fit to rule mankind? i saw at the same time the rack. this was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping. over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance, denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to believe in order to get to heaven--but, thank the lord, you don't have to understand it. this man merely denied that three times one was one, or maybe he denied that there was ever any son in the world exactly as old as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than his mother--then they put that man on the rack. nobody had ever been persecuted for calling god bad--it has always been for calling him good. when i stand here to say that, if there is a hell, god is a fiend, they say that is very bad. they say i am trying to tear down the institutions of public virtue. but let me tell you one thing: there is no reformation in fear--you can scare a man so that he won't do it sometimes, but i will swear you can't scare him so bad that he won't want to do it. then they put this man on the rack and priests began turning these levers, and kept turning until the ankles, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists, and all the joints of the victim were dislocated, and he was wet with agony, and standing by was a physician to feel his pulse. what for? to save his life? yes. in mercy? no. but in order that they might have the pleasure of racking him once more. and this was the christian spirit. this was done in the name of civilization, in the name of religion, and all these wretches who did it died in peace. there is not an orthodox preacher in the city that has not a respect for every one of them. as, for instance, for john calvin, who was a murderer and nothing but a murderer, who would have disgraced an ordinary gallows by being hanged upon it. these men when they came to die were not frightened. god did not send any devils into their death-rooms to make mouths at them. he reserved them for voltaire, who brought religious liberty to france. he reserved them for thomas paine, who did more for liberty than all the churches. but all the inquisitors died with the white hands of peace folded over the breast of piety. and when they died, the room was filled with the rustle of the wings of angels, waiting to bear the wretches to heaven. when i read these frightful books it seems to me sometimes as though i had suffered all these things myself. it seems sometimes as though i had stood upon the shore of exile, and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; it seems to me as though i had been staked out upon the sands of the sea, and drowned by the inexorable, advancing tide; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though i had been chained in the cell of inquisition, and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though i had stood upon the scaffold and saw the glittering axe fall upon me; as though i had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though i had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds by all the countless hands of hate. and, while i so feel, i swear that while i live i will do what little i can to augment the liberties of man, woman and child. i denounce slavery and superstition everywhere. i believe in liberty, and happiness, and love, and joy in this world. i am amazed that any man ever had the impudence to try and do another man's thinking. i have just as good a right to talk theology as a minister. if they all agreed i might admit it was a science, but as all disagree, and the more they study the wider they get apart, i may be permitted to suggest, it is not a science. when no two will tell you the road to heaven,--that is, giving you the same route--and if you would inquire of them all, you would just give up trying to go there, and say i may as well stay where i am, and let the lord come to me. do you know that this world has not been fit for a lady and gentleman to live in for twenty-five years, just on account of slavery. it was not until the year that great britain abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her judges, her priests occupying her pulpits, the members of the royal family, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. it was not until the same year that the united states of america abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the states. it was not until the th day of august, , that great britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the st day of january, , that abraham lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic north, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. abraham lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the united states. upon his monument these words should be written: "here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy." for two hundred years the christians of the united states deliberately turned the cross of christ into a whipping-post. christians bred hounds to catch other christians. let me show you what the bible has done for mankind: "servants, be obedient to your masters." the only word coming from that sweet heaven was, "servants, obey your masters." frederick douglas told me that he had lectured upon the subject of freedom twenty years before he was permitted to set his foot in a church. i tell you the world has not been fit to live in for twenty-five years. then all the people used to cringe and crawl to preachers. mr. buckle, in his history of civilization, shows that men were even struck dead for speaking impolitely to a priest. god would not stand it. see how they used to crawl before cardinals, bishops and popes. it is not so now. before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. all this is slowly, but surely changing. we no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. our fathers worshiped the golden calf. the worst you can say of an american now is, he worships the gold of the calf. even the calf is beginning to see this distinction. the time will come when no matter how much money a man has, he will not be respected unless he is using it for the benefit of his fellow-men. it will soon be here. it no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor. the last napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the french. he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head. he wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head. so he wrote the life of julius caesar, that he might become a member of the french academy. the emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. compare, for instance, king william and helmholtz. the king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim--one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. compare this king with helmholtz, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. compare george eliot with queen victoria. the queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while george eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius. and so it is the world over. the time is coming when a man will be rated at his real worth, and that by his brain and heart. we care nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place. no matter if he is president, if he rattles in the place nobody cares anything about him. i might give you an instance in point, but i won't. the world is getting better and grander and nobler every day. now, if men have been slaves, if they have crawled in the dust before one another, what shall i say of women? they have been the slaves of men. it took thousands of ages to bring women from abject slavery up to the divine height of marriage. i believe in marriage. if there is any heaven upon earth, it is in the family by the fireside and the family is a unit of government. without the family relation that is tender, pure and true, civilization is impossible. ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons tonight are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. the chains around your necks; and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. nearly every civilization in this world accounts for the devilment in it by the crimes of woman. they say woman brought all the trouble into the world. i don't care if she did. i would rather live in a world full of trouble with the women i love, than to live in heaven with nobody but men. i read in a book an account of the creation of the world. the book i have taken pains to say was not written by any god. and why do i say so? because i can write a far better book myself. because it is full of barbarism. several ministers in this city have undertaken to answer me--notably those who don't believe the bible themselves. i want to ask these men one thing. i want them to be fair. every minister in the city of chicago that answers me, and those who have answered me had better answer me again--i want them to say, and without any sort of evasion--without resorting to any pious tricks--i want them to say whether they believe that the eternal god of this universe ever upheld the crime of polygamy. say it square and fair. don't begin to talk about that being a peculiar time, and that god was easy on the prejudices of those old fellows. i want them to answer that question and to answer it squarely, which they haven't done. did this god, which you pretend to worship, ever sanction the institution of human slavery? now, answer fair. don't slide around it. don't begin and answer what a bad man i am, nor what a good man moses was. stick to the text. do you believe in a god that allowed a man to be sold from his children? do you worship such an infinite monster? and if you do, tell your congregation whether you are not ashamed to admit it. let every minister who answers me again tell whether he believes god commanded his general to kill the little dimpled babe in the cradle. let him answer it. don't say that those were very bad times. tell whether he did it or not, and then your people will know whether to hate that god or not. be honest. tell them whether that god in war captured young maidens and turned them over to the soldiers; and then ask the wives and sweet girls of your congregation to get down on their knees and worship the infinite fiend that did that thing. answer! it is your god i am talking about, and if that is what god did, please tell your congregation what, under the same circumstances, the devil would have done. don't tell your people that is a poem. don't tell your people that is pictorial. that won't do. tell your people whether it is true or false. that is what i want you to do. in this book i read about god's making the world and one man. that is all he intended to make. the making of woman was a second thought, though i am willing to admit that as a rule second thoughts are best. this god made a man and put him in a public park. in a little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; then he found he had made a mistake, and that he would have to make somebody to keep him company. but having used up all the nothing he originally used in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of a man to start a woman with. so he causes sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, i do not say this story is true. after the sleep had fallen on this man the supreme being took a rib, or, as the french would call it, a cutlet, out of him, and from that he made a woman; and i am willing to swear, taking into account the amount and quality of the raw material used, this was the most magnificent job ever accomplished in this world. well, after he got the woman done she was brought to the man, not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. he liked her and they started housekeeping, and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do--and of course they did it. i would have done it in fifteen minutes, i know it. there wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of clubs. and then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back. and then trouble commenced and we have been at it ever since. nearly all the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that. well, i read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. it was written about four thousand years before the other. all commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last. but i would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. it is a great deal better to be mistaken in dates than to go to the devil. in this other account the supreme brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. he made the world and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island of ceylon. according to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. such birds, such songs, such flowers, and such verdure! and the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand aeolian harps. brahma, when he put them there, said: "let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." when i read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that i said to myself: "if either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, i hope it will be this one." then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. imagine that courtship! no prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "young man, how do you expect to support her?" nothing of that kind, nothing but the nightingale singing its song of joy and pain, as though the thorn already touched its heart. they were married by the supreme brahma, and he said to them, "remain here; you must never leave this island." well, after a little while the man--and his name was adami, and the woman's name was heva--said to heva: "i believe i'll look about a little." he wanted to go west. he went to the western extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there, that he went back and told heva: "the country over there is a thousand times better than this, let us migrate." she, like every other woman that ever lived, said: "let well enough alone we have all we want; let us stay here." but he said: "no, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. but the moment they got over, they heard a crash, and, looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. the mirage had disappeared, and there was naught but rocks and sand, and the supreme brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell. then it was that the man spoke--and i have liked him ever since for it--"curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine." that's the kind of a man to start a world with. the supreme brahma said: "i will save her but not thee." and she spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me. i do not wish to live without him, i love him." then the supreme brahma said--and i have liked him ever since i read it--"i will spare you both, and watch over you and your children forever." honor bright, is that not the better and grander story? and in that same book i find this "man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love. when the one man loves the one woman, and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven, and come and sit in that house, and sing for joy." in the same book this: "blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." magnificent character! a missionary certainly ought to talk to that man. and i find this: "never will i accept private, individual salvation, but rather will i stay and work, strive and suffer, until every soul from every star has been brought home to god." compare that with the christian that expects to go to heaven while the world is rolling over niagara to an eternal and unending hell. so i say that religion lays all the crime and troubles of this world at the beautiful feet of woman. and then the church has the impudence to say that it has exalted women. i believe that marriage is a perfect partnership; that woman has every right that man has--and one more--the right to be protected. above all men in the world i hate a stingy man--a man that will make his wife beg for money. "what did you do with the dollar i gave you last week? and what are you going to do with this?" it is vile. no gentleman will ever be satisfied with the love of a beggar and a slave--no gentleman will ever be satisfied except with the love of an equal. what kind of children does a man expect to have with a beggar for their mother? a man can not be so poor but that he can be generous, and if you only have one dollar in the word and you have got to spend it, spend it like a lord--spend it as though it were a dry leaf, and you the owner of unbounded forests--spend it as though you had a wilderness of your own. that's the way to spend it. i had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. if it has got to go, let it go. and this is my advice to the poor. for you can never be so poor that whatever you do you can't do in a grand and manly way. i hate a cross man. what right has a man to assassinate the joy of life? when you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics, great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds, they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. a woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this gentleman--the head of the family--the boss. i was reading the other day of an apparatus invented for the ejecting of gentlemen who subsist upon free lunches. it is so arranged that when the fellow gets both hands into the victuals, a large hand descends upon him, jams his hat over his eyes--he is seized, turned toward the door, and just in the nick of time an immense boot comes from the other side, kicks him in italics, sends him out over the sidewalk and lands him rolling in the gutter. i never hear of such a man--a boss--that i don't feel as though that machine ought to be brought into requisition for his benefit. love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent of interest on the outlay. love is the only thing in which the height of extravagance is the last degree of economy. it is the only thing, i tell you. joy is wealth. love is the legal tender of the soul--and you need not be rich to be happy. we have all been raised on success in this country. always been talked with about being successful, and have never thought ourselves very rich unless we were the possessors of some magnificent mansion, and unless our names have been between the putrid lips of rumor we could not be happy. every little boy is striving to be this and be that. i tell you the happy man is the successful man. the man that has won the love of one good woman is a successful man. the man that has been the emperor of one good heart, and that heart embraced all his, has been a success. if another has been the emperor of the round world and has never loved and been loved, his life is a failure. it won't do. let us teach our children the other way, that the happy man is the successful man, and he who is a happy man is the one who always tries to make some one else happy. the man who marries a woman to make her happy; that marries her as much for her own sake as for his own; not the man that thinks his wife is his property, who thinks that the title to her belongs to him--that the woman is the property of the man; wretches who get mad at their wives and then shoot them down in the street because they think the woman is their property. i tell you it is not necessary to be rich and great and powerful to be happy. a little while ago i stood by the grave of the old napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of black egyptian marble, where rest at last the ashes of the restless man. i leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. i saw him walk upon the banks of the seine, contemplating suicide--i saw him at toulon--i saw him putting down the mob in the streets of paris--i saw him at the head of the army of italy--i saw him crossing the bridge of lodi with the tri-color in his hand--i saw him in egypt in the shadows of the pyramids--i saw him conquer the alps and mingle the eagles of france with the eagles of the crags. i saw him at marengo--at ulm and austerlitz. i saw him in russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. i saw him at leipzig in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to elba. i saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. i saw him upon the frightful field of waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. and i saw him at st. helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. i thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. and i said i would rather have been a french peasant and worn wooden shoes. i would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun; i would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; i would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as napoleon the great. it is not necessary to be rich in order to be happy. it is only necessary to be in love. thousands of men go to college and get a certificate that they have an education, and that certificate is in latin and they stop studying, and in two years, to save their life, they couldn't read the certificate they got. it is mostly so in marrying. they stop courting when they get married. they think, we have won her and that is enough. ah! the difference before and after! how well they look! how bright their eyes! how light their steps, and how full they were of generosity and laughter! i tell you a man should consider himself in good luck if a woman loves him when he is doing his level best! good luck! good luck! and another thing that is the cause of much trouble is that people don't count fairly. they do what they call putting their best foot forward. that means lying a little. i say put your worst foot forward. if you have got any faults admit them. if you drink say so and quit it. if you chew and smoke and swear, say so. if some of your kindred are not very good people, say so. if you have had two or three that died on the gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. tell all your faults and if after she knows your faults she says she will have you, you have got the dead wood on that woman forever. i claim that there should be perfect equality in the home, and i can not think of anything nearer heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and true democracy at the fireside. all are equal. and then, do you know, i like to think that love is eternal; that if you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her no matter what she may do; that if she really loves you, for your sake, the same; that love does not look at alterations, through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years--if you really love her you will always see the face you loved and won. and i like to think of it. if a man loves a woman she does not ever grow old to him. and the woman who really loves a man does not see that he is growing older. he is not decrepit to her. he is not tremulous. he is not old. he is not bowed. she always sees the same gallant fellow that won her hand and heart. i like to think of it in that way, and as shakespeare says: "let time reach with his sickle as far as ever he can; although he can reach ruddy cheeks and ripe lips, and flashing eyes, he can not quite reach love." i like to think of it. we will go down the hill of life together, and enter the shadow one with the other, and as we go down we may hear the ripple of the laughter of our grandchildren, and the birds, and spring, and youth, and love will sing once more upon the leafless branches of the tree of age. i love to think of it in that way--absolute equals, happy, happy, and free, all our own. but some people say: "would you allow a woman to vote?" yes, if she wants to; that is her business, not mine. if a woman wants to vote, i am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. but, they say, woman has not sense enough to vote. it don't take much. but it seems to me there are some questions, as for instance, the question of peace or war, that a woman should be allowed to vote upon. a woman that has sons to be offered on the altar of that moloch, it seems to me that such a woman should have as much right to vote upon the question of peace and war as some thrice-besotted sot that reels to the ballot box and deposits his vote for war. but if women have been slaves, what shall we say of the little children, born in the sub-cellars, children of poverty, children of crime, children of wealth, children that are afraid when they hear their names pronounced by the lips of their mother, children that cower in fear when they hear the footsteps of their brutal father, the flotsam and jetsam upon the rude sea of life, my heart goes out to them one and all. children have all the rights that we have and one more, and that is to be protected. treat your children in that way. suppose your child tells a lie. don't pretend that the whole world is going into bankruptcy. don't pretend that that is the first lie ever told. tell them, like an honest man, that you have told hundreds of lies yourself, and tell the dear little darling that it is not the best way; that it soils the soul. think of the man that deals in stocks whipping his children for putting false rumors afloat! think of an orthodox minister whipping his own flesh and blood, for not telling all it thinks! think of that! think of a lawyer for beating his child for avoiding the truth! when the old man makes about half his living that way. a lie is born of weakness on one side and tyranny on the other. that is what it is. think of a great big man coming at a little bit of a child with a club in his hand! what is the little darling to do? lie, of course. i think that mother nature put that ingenuity into the mind of the child, when attacked by a parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie to defend itself. when a great general wins a battle by what they call strategy, we build monuments to him. what is strategy? lies. suppose a man as much larger than we are as we are larger than a child five years of age, should come at us with a liberty pole in his hand, and in tones of thunder want to know "who broke that plate," there isn't one of us, not excepting myself, that wouldn't swear that we never had seen that plate in our lives, or that it was cracked when we got it. another good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it yourself. keep your word with your child the same as you would with your banker. if you tell a child you will do anything, either do it or give the child the reason why. truth is born of confidence. it comes from the lips of love and liberty. i was over in michigan the other day. there was a boy over there at grand rapids about five or six years old, a nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made--what you might call a nineteenth century boy. his father and mother had promised to take him out riding. they had promised to take him out riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. well, after while that got kind of played out with the little boy, and the day before i was there they played the trick on him again. they went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with his nurse, and he saw them. the whole thing flashed on him in a moment. he took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to his father and mother, "there go the two d--t liars in the state of michigan!" when you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even the darkness. it is just as easy that way as any in the world. i want to tell you tonight that you can not get the robe of hypocrisy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through every veil, and if you pretend to your children that you are the best man that ever lived--the bravest man that ever lived--they will find you out every time. they will not have the same opinion of father when they grow up that they used to have. they will have to be in mighty bad luck if they ever do meaner things than you have done. when your child confesses to you that it has committed a fault, take that child in your arms, and let it feel your heart beat against its heart, and raise your children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams to you along the pathway of life. abolish the club and the whip from the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the brutal will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip. every little while some door is thrown open in some orphan asylum, and there we see the bleeding back of a child whipped beneath the roof that was raised by love. it is infamous, and a man that can't raise a child without the whip ought not to have a child. if there is one of you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you something. have your photograph taken at the time and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, looking like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. if that little child should die, i can not think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming from the sad heart of the earth, and sit down upon that mound, and look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. just think of it. i could not bear to die in the arms of a child that i had whipped. i could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were withered beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that i had struck. some christians act as though they really thought that when christ said, "suffer little children to come unto me," he had a rawhide under his coat. they act as though they really thought that he made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance. i have known christians to turn their children from their doors, especially a daughter, and then get down on their knees and pray to god to watch over them and help them. i will never ask god to help my children unless i am doing my level best in that same wretched line. i will tell you what i say to my girls: "go where you will; do what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; in all the storms and winds and earthquakes of life, no matter what you do, you never can commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms or my heart to you. as long as i live you have one sincere friend." call me an atheist; call me an infidel because i hate the god of the jew--which i do. i intend so to live that when i die my children can come to my grave and truthfully say: "he who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." when i was a boy there was one day in each week too good for a child to be happy in. in these good old times sunday commenced when the sun went down on saturday night and closed when the sun went down on sunday night. we commenced saturday to get a good ready. and when the sun went down saturday night there was a gloom deeper than midnight that fell upon the house. you could not crack hickory nuts then. and if you were caught chewing gum, it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. well, after a while we got to bed sadly and sorrowfully after having heard heaven thanked that we were not all in hell. and i sometimes used to wonder how the mercy of god lasted as long as it did, because i recollected that on several occasions i had not been at school, when i was supposed to be there. why i was not burned to a crisp was a mystery to me. the next morning we got ready for church--all solemn, and when we got there the minister was up in the pulpit, about twenty feet high, and he commenced at genesis about "the fall of man," and he went on to about twenty thirdly; then he struck the second application, and when he struck the application i knew he was about half way through. and then he went on to show the scheme how the lord was satisfied by punishing the wrong man. nobody but a god would have thought of that ingenious way. well, when he got through that, then came the catechism--the chief end of man. then my turn came, and we sat along on a little bench where our feet came within about fifteen inches of the floor, and the dear old minister used to ask us: "boys, do you know that you ought to be in hell?" and we answered up as cheerfully as could be expected under the circumstances. "yes, sir." "well, boys, do you know that you would go to hell if you died in your sins?" and we said: "yes, sir." and then came the great test: "boys"--i can't get the tone, you know. and do you know that is how the preachers get the bronchitis. you never heard of an auctioneer getting the bronchitis, nor the second mate on a steamboat--never. what gives it to the minister is talking solemnly when they don't feel that way, and it has the same influence upon the organs of speech that it would have upon the cords of the calves of your legs to walk on your tip-toes, and so i call bronchitis "parsonitis." and if the ministers would all tell exactly what they think they would all get well, but keeping back a part of the truth is what gives them bronchitis. well the old man--the dear old minister--used to try and show us how long we would be in hell if we would only locate there. but to finish the other. the grand test question was: "boys, if it was god's will that you should go to hell, would you be willing to go?" and every little liar said: "yes, sir." then, in order to tell how long we would stay there, he used to say: "suppose once in a billion ages a bird should come from a far distant clime and carry off in its bill one little grain of sand, the time would finally come when the last grain of sand would be carried away. do you understand?" "yes, sir." "boys, by that time it would not be sun-up in hell." where did that doctrine of hell come from? i will tell you; from that fellow in the dug-out. where did he get it? it was a souvenir from the wild beasts. yes, i tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl of wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter of malicious apes. and i despise it with every drop of my blood and defy it. if there is any god in this universe who will damn his children for an expression of an honest thought i wish to go to hell. i would rather go there than go to heaven and keep the company of a god that would thus damn his children. oh it is an infamous doctrine to teach that to little children, to put a shadow in the heart of a child to fill the insane asylums with that miserable, infamous lie. i see now and then a little girl--a dear little darling, with a face like the light, and eyes of joy, a human blossom, and i think, "is it possible that little girl will ever grow up to be a presbyterian?" is it possible, my goodness, that that flower will finally believe in the five points of calvinism or in the eternal damnation of man? is it possible that that little fairy will finally believe that she could be happy in heaven with her baby in hell? think of it! think of it! and that is the christian religion! we cry out against the indian mother that throws her child into the ganges, to be devoured by the alligator or crocodile, but that is joy in comparison with the christian mother's hope, that she may be in salvation while her brave boy is in hell. i tell you i want to kick the doctrine about hell--i want to kick it out every time i go by it. i want to get americans in this country placed so they will be ashamed to preach it. i want to get the congregations so that they won't listen to it. we cannot divide the world off into saints and sinners in that way. there is a little girl, fair as a flower, and she grows up until she is twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years old. are you going to damn her in the fifteenth, sixteenth or seventeenth year, when the arrow from cupid's bow touches her heart and she is glorified--are you going to damn her now? she marries and loves, and holds in her arms a beautiful child? are you going to damn her now? when are you going to damn her? because she has listened to some methodist minister and after all that flood of light failed to believe? are you going to damn her then? i tell you god can not afford to damn such a woman. a woman in the state of indiana forty or fifty years ago who carded the wool and made rolls and spun them, and made the cloth and cut out the clothes for the children, and nursed them, and sat up with them nights and--gave them medicine, and held them in her arms and wept over them--cried for joy and wept for fear, and finally raised ten or eleven good men and women with the ruddy glow of health upon their cheeks, and she would have died for any one of them any moment of her life, and finally she, bowed with age and bent with care and labor, dies, and at the moment the magical touch of death is upon her face, she looks as though she never had had a care, and her children burying her cover her face with tears. do you tell me god can afford to damn that kind of a woman? one such act of injustice would turn heaven itself into hell. if there is any god, sitting above him in infinite serenity we have the figure of justice. even a god must do justice; even a god must worship justice; and any form of superstition that destroys justice is infamous! just think of teaching that doctrine to little children! a little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a little tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate--and singing and swinging, and the music in in happy waves rippling out of the tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against the tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies. oh! the idea there can be any day too good for a child to be happy in! well, after we got over the catechism, then came the sermon in the afternoon, and it was exactly like the one in the forenoon, except the other end to. then we started for home--a solemn march--"not a soldier discharged his farewell shot"--and when we got home, if we had been really good boys, we used to be taken up to the cemetery to cheer us up, and it always did cheer me, those sunken graves, those leaning stones, those gloomy epitaphs covered with the moss of years always cheered me. when i looked at them i said: "well, this kind of thing can't last always." then we came back home, and we had books to read which were very eloquent and amusing. we had josephus, and the "history of the waldenses," and fox's "book of martyrs," baxter's "saint's rest," and "jenkyn on the atonement." i used to read jenkyn with a good deal of pleasure, and i often thought that the atonement would have to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would i write such a book for boys. then i would look to see how the sun was getting on, and sometimes i thought it had stuck from pure cussedness. then i would go back and try jenkyn's again. well, but it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our hats and we would give three cheers for liberty once again. i tell you, don't make slaves of your children on sunday. the idea that there is any god that hates to hear a child laugh! let your children play games on sunday. here is a poor man that hasn't money enough to go to a big church and he has too much independence to go to a little church that the big church built for charity. he doesn't want to slide into heaven that way. i tell you don't come to church, but go to the woods and take your family and a lunch with you, and sit down upon the old log and let the children gather flowers and hear the leaves whispering poems like memories of long ago, and when the sun is about going down, kissing the summits of far hills, go home with your hearts filled with throbs of joy. there is more recreation and joy in that than going to a dry goods box with a steeple on top of it and hearing a man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine to one for being eternally damned. let us make this sunday a day of splendid pleasure, not to excess, but to everything that makes man purer and grander and nobler. i would like to see now something like this: instead of so many churches, a vast cathedral that would hold twenty or thirty thousands of people, and i would like to see an opera produced in it that would make the souls of men have higher and grander and nobler aims. i would like to see the walls covered with pictures and the niches rich with statuary; i would like to see something put there that you could use in this world now, and i do not believe in sacrificing the present to the future; i do not believe in drinking skimmed milk here with the promise of butter beyond the clouds. space or time can not be holy any more than a vacuum can be pious. not a bit, not a bit; and no day can be so holy but what the laugh of a child will make it holier still. strike with hand of fire, on, weird musician, thy harp, strung with apollo's golden hair! fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ's keys; blow, bugler, blow until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. but know your sweetest strains are discords all compared with childhood's happy laugh--the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! o, rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. o laughter, rose lipped daughter of joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. don't plant your children in long, straight rows like posts. let them have light and air and let them grow beautiful as palms. when i was a little boy children went to bed when they were not sleepy, and always got up when they were. i would like to see that changed, but they say we are too poor, some of us, to do it. well, all right. it is as easy to wake a child with a kiss as with a blow; with kindness as with curse. and, another thing; let the children eat what they want to. let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they desire. that is my doctrine. they know what they want much better than you do. nature is a great deal smarter than you ever were. all the advance that has been made in the science of medicine, has been made by the recklessness of patients. i can recollect when they wouldn't give a man water in a fever--not a drop. now and then some fellow would get so thirsty he would say "well, i'll die any way, so i'll drink it," and thereupon he would drink a gallon of water, and thereupon he would burst into a generous perspiration, and get well--and the next morning when the doctor would come to see him they would tell him about the man drinking the water, and he would say: "how much?" "well, he swallowed two pitchers full." "is he alive?" "yes." so they would go into the room and the doctor would feel his pulse and ask him: "did you drink two pitchers of water?" "yes." "my god! what a constitution you have got." i tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always mind. why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago, we would all have been slaves. if we had done as the priests told us we would all have been idiots. if we had done as the doctors told us we would all have been dead. we have been saved by disobedience. we have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and i want to see more of it, day after day, and i want to see children raised so they will have it. that is my doctrine. give the children a chance. be perfectly honor bright with them, and they will be your friends when you are old. don't try to teach them something they can never learn. don't insist upon their pursuing some calling they have no sort of faculty for. don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when she has no ear for music, and when she has practiced until she can play "bonaparte crossing the alps," and you can't tell after she has played it whether bonaparte ever got across or not. men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers, and if there is any heaven in this world, it is in the family. it is where the wife loves the husband, and the husband loves the wife, and where the dimpled arms of children are about the necks of both. that is heaven, if there is any--and i do not want any better heaven in another world than that, and if in another world i can not live with the ones i loved here, then i would rather not be there. i would rather resign. well, my friends, i have some excuses to make for the race to which i belong. in the first place, this world is not very well adapted to raising good men and good women. it is three times better adapted to the cultivation of fish than of people. there is one little narrow belt running zigzag around the world, in which men and women of genius can be raised, and that is all. it is with man as it is with vegetation. in the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed--every limb twisted as through pain--getting a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. you go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. you might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and women where their surroundings are unfavorable. you must have the proper climate and soil. there never has been a man or woman of genius from the southern hemisphere, because the lord didn't allow the right climate to fall upon the land. it falls upon the water. there never was much civilization except where there has been snow, and ordinarily decent winter. you can't have civilization without it. where man needs no bedclothes but clouds, revolution is the normal condition of such a people. it is the winter that gives us the home; it is the winter that gives us the fireside and the family relation and all the beautiful flowers of love that adorn that relation. civilization, liberty, justice, charity and intellectual advancement are all flowers that bloom in the drifted snow. you can't have them anywhere else, and that is the reason we of the north are civilized, and that is the reason that civilization has always been with winter. that is the reason that philosophy has been here, and, in spite of all our superstitions, we have advanced beyond some of the other races, because we have had this assistance of nature, that drove us into the family relation, that made us prudent; that made us lay up at one time for another season of the year. so there is one excuse i have for my race. i have got another. i think we came from the lower animals. i am not dead sure of it, but think so. when i first read about it i didn't like it. my heart was filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. i thought how terrible it will be upon the nobility of the old world. think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke orang-outang or to the princess chimpanzee. after thinking it all over i came to the conclusion that i liked that doctrine. i became convinced in spite of myself. i read about rudimentary bones and muscles. i was told that everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. i asked: "what are they?" i was told: "they are the remains of muscles; that they became rudimentary from the lack of use." they went into bankruptcy. they are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears. well, at first, i was greatly astonished, and afterward i was more astonished to find they had become rudimentary. how can you account for john calvin unless we came up from the lower animals? how could you account for a man that would use the extremes of torture unless you admit that there is in man the elements of a snake, of a vulture, a hyena, and a jackal? how can you account for the religious creeds of today? how can you account for that infamous doctrine of hell, except with an animal origin? how can you account for your conception of a god that would sell women and babes into slavery? well, i thought that thing over and i began to like it after a while, and i said: "it is not so much difference who my father was as who his son is." and i finally said i would rather belong to a race that commenced with the skull-less vertebrates in the dim laurentian seas, that wriggled without knowing why they wriggled, swimming without knowing where they were going, that come along up by degrees through millions of ages, through all that crawls, and swims, and floats, and runs, and growls, and barks, and howls, until it struck this fellow in the dug-out. and then that fellow in the dugout getting a little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist, and finally the heads getting a little higher and looming up a little grander and more splendidly, and finally produced shakespeare, who harvested all the field of dramatic thought and from whose day until now there have been none but gleaners of chaff and straw. shakespeare was an intellectual ocean whose waves touched all the shores of human thought, within which were all the tides and currents and pulses upon which lay all the lights and shadows, and over which brooded all the calms, and swept all the storms and tempests of which the soul is capable. i would rather belong to that race that commenced with that skull-less vertebrate; that produced shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward and upward forever. i would rather belong to that race than to have descended from a perfect pair upon which the lord has lost money every moment from that day to this. now, my crime has been this: i have insisted that the bible is not the word of god. i have insisted that we should not whip our children. i have insisted that we should treat our wives as loving equals. i have denied that god--if there is any god--ever upheld polygamy and slavery. i have denied that that god ever told his generals to kill innocent babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war. i have denied that and for that i have been assailed by the clergy of the united states. they tell me i have misquoted; and i owe it to you, and maybe i owe it to myself, to read one or two words to you upon this subject. in order to do that i shall have to put on my glasses; and that brings me back to where i started--that man has advanced just in proportion as his thought has mingled with his labor. if man's eyes hadn't failed he would never have made any spectacles, he would never have had the telescope, and he would never have been able to read the leaves of heaven. col. ingersoll's reply to dr. collyer. now, they tell me--and there are several gentlemen who have spoken on this subject--the rev. mr. collyer, a gentleman standing as high as anybody, and i have nothing to say against him--because i denounced god who upheld murder, and slavery and polygamy, he said that what i said was slang. i would like to have it compared with any sermon that ever issued from the lips of that gentleman. and before he gets through he admits that the old testament is a rotten tree that will soon fall into the earth and act as a fertilizer for his doctrine. is it honest in that man to assail my motive? let him answer my argument! is it honest and fair in him to say i am doing a certain thing because it is popular? has it got to this, that, in this christian country, where they have preached every day hundreds and thousands of sermons--has it got to this that infidelity is so popular in the united states? if it has, i take courage. and i not only see the dawn of a brighter day, but the day is here. think of it! a minister tells me in this year of grace, , that a man is an infidel simply that he may be popular. i am glad of it. simply that he may make money. is it possible that we can make more money tearing up churches than in building them up? is it possible that we can make more money denouncing the god of slavery than we can praising the god that took liberty from man? if so, i am glad. i call publicly upon robert collyer--a man for whom i have great respect--i call publicly upon robert collyer to state to the people of this city whether he believes the old testament was inspired. i call upon him to state whether he believes that god ever upheld these institutions; whether god was a polygamist; whether he believes that god commanded moses or joshua or any one else to slay little children in the cradle. do you believe that robert collyer would obey such an order? do you believe that he would rush to the cradle and drive the knife of theological hatred to the tender heart of a dimpled child? and yet when i denounce a god that will give such a hellish order, he says it is slang. i want him to answer; and when he answers he will say he does not believe the bible is inspired. that is what he will say, and he holds these old worthies in the same contempt that i do. suppose he should act like abraham. suppose he should send some woman out into the wilderness with his child in her arms to starve, would he think that mankind ought to hold up his name forever, for reverence. robert collyer says that we should read and scan every word of the old testament with reverence; that we should take this book up with reverential hands. i deny it. we should read it as we do every other book, and everything good in it, keep it and everything that shocks the brain and shocks the heart, throw it away. let us be honest. ingersoll's reply to prof. swing prof. swing has made a few remarks on this subject, and i say the spirit he has exhibited has been as gentle and as sweet as the perfume of a flower. he was too good a man to stay in the presbyterian church. he was a rose among thistles. he was a dove among vultures and they hunted him out, and i am glad he came out. i tell all the churches to drive all such men out, and when he comes i want him to state just what he thinks. i want him to tell the people of chicago whether he believes the bible is inspired in any sense except that in which shakespeare was inspired. honor bright, i tell you that all the sweet and beautiful things in the bible would not make one play of shakespeare; all the philosophy in the world would not make one scene in hamlet; all the beauties of the bible would not make one scene in the midsummer night's dream; all the beautiful things about woman in the bible would not begin to create such a character as perditu or imogene or miranda. not one. i want him to tell whether he believes the bible was inspired in any other way than shakespeare was inspired. i want him to pick out something as beautiful and tender as burns' poem to mary in heaven. i want him to tell whether he believes the story about the bears eating up children; whether that is inspired. i want him to tell whether he considers that a poem or not. i want to know if the same god made those bears that devoured the children because they laughed at an old man out of hair. i want to know if the same god that did that is the same god who said, "suffer little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven." i want him to answer it, and answer it fairly. that is all i ask. i want just the fair thing. now, sometimes mr. swing talks as though he believed the bible, and then he talks to me as though he didn't believe the bible. the day he made this sermon i think he did, just a little, believe it. he is like the man that passed a ten dollar counterfeit bill. he was arrested and his father went to see him and said, "john, how could you commit such a crime? how could you bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave?" "well," he says, "father, i'll tell you. i got this bill and some days i thought it was bad and some days i thought it was good, and one day when i thought it was good i passed it." i want it distinctly understood that i have the greatest respect for prof. swing, but i want him to tell whether the th psalm is inspired. i want him to tell whether the passages i shall afterward read in this book are inspired. that is what i want. ingersoll's reply to brooke herford, d.d. then there is another gentleman here. his name is herford. he says it is not fair to apply the test of truth to the bible--i don't think it is myself. he says although moses upheld slavery, that he improved it. they were not quite so bad as they were before, and heaven justified slavery at that time. do you believe that god ever turned the arms of children into chains of slavery? do you believe that god ever said to a man: "you can't have your wife unless you will be a slave? you can not have your children unless you will lose your liberty; and unless you are willing to throw them from your heart forever, you can not be free?" i want mr. herford to state whether he loves such a god. be honor bright about it. don't begin to talk about civilization or what the church has done or will do. just walk right up to the rack and say whether you love and worship a god that established slavery. honest! and love and worship a god that would allow a little babe to be torn from the breast of its mother and sold into slavery. now tell it fair, mr. herford, i want you to tell the ladies in your congregation that you believe in a god that allowed women to be given to the soldiers. tell them that, and then if you say it was not the god of moses, then don't praise moses any more. don't do it. answer these questions. ingersoll gatling gun turned on dr. ryder then here is another gentleman, mr. ryder, the rev. mr. ryder, and he says that calvinism is rejected by a majority of christendom. he is mistaken. there is what they call the evangelical alliance. they met in this country in or , and there were present representatives of all the evangelical churches in the world, and they adopted a creed, and that creed is that man is totally depraved. that creed is that there is an eternal, universal hell, and that every man that does not believe in a certain way is bound to be damned forever, and that there is only one way to be saved, and that is by faith, and by faith alone; and they would not allow anybody to be represented there that did not believe that, and they would not allow a unitarian there, and would not have allowed dr. ryder there, because he takes away from the christian world the consolation naturally arising from the belief in hell. dr. ryder is mistaken. all the orthodox religion of the day is calvinism. it believes in the fall of man. it believes in the atonement. it believes in the eternity of hell, and it believes in salvation by faith; that is to say, by credulity. that is what they believe, and he is mistaken; and i want to tell dr. kyder today, if there is a god, and he wrote the old testament, there is a hell. the god that wrote the old testament will have a hell. and i want to tell dr. ryder another thing, that the bible teaches an eternity of punishment. i want to tell him that the bible upholds the doctrine of hell. i want to tell him that if there is no hell, somebody ought to have said so, and jesus christ should not have said: "i will at the last day say: 'depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" if there was not such a place, christ would not have said: "depart from me, ye cursed, and these shall go hence into everlasting fire." and if you, dr. ryder, are depending for salvation on the god that wrote the old testament, you will inevitably be eternally damned. there is no hope for you. it is just as bad to deny hell as it is to deny heaven. it is just as much blasphemy to deny the devil as to deny god, according to the orthodox creed. he admits that the jews were polygamists, but, he says, how was it they finally quit it? i can tell you--the soil was so poor they couldn't afford it. prof. swing says the bible is a poem, dr. ryder says it is a picture. the garden of eden is pictorial; a pictorial snake and a pictorial woman, i suppose, and a pictorial man, and maybe it was a pictorial sin. and only a pictorial atonement. ingersoll's reply to rabbi bien then there is another gentleman, and he a rabbi, a rabbi bien, or bean, or whatever his name is, and he comes to the defense of the great law-giver. there was another rabbi who attacked me in cincinnati, and i couldn't help but think of the old saying that a man got off when he said the tallest man he ever knew, his name was short. and the fattest man he ever saw, his name was lean. and it is only necessary for me to add that this rabbi in cincinnati was wise. the rabbi here, i will not answer him, and i will tell you why. because he has taken himself outside of all the limits of a gentleman; because he has taken it upon himself to traduce american women in language the beastliest i ever read; and any man who says that the american women are not just as good women as any god can make and pick his mud today, is an unappreciative barbarian. i will let him alone because he denounced all the men in this country, all the members of congress, all the members of the senate, and all the judges upon the bench; in his lecture he denounced them as thieves and robbers. that won't do. i want to remind him that in this country the jews were first admitted to the privileges of citizens; that in this country they were first given all their rights, and i am as much in favor of their having their rights as i am in favor of having my own. but when a rabbi so far forgets himself as to traduce the women and men of this country, i pronounce him a vulgar falsifier, and let him alone. strange, that nearly every man that has answered me has answered me mostly on the same side. strange, that nearly every man that thought himself called upon to defend the bible was one who did not believe in it himself. isn't it strange? they are like some suspected people, always anxious to show their marriage certificate. they want at least to convince the world that they are not as bad as i am. now, i want to read you just one or two things, and then i am going to let you go. i want to see if i have said such awful things, and whether i have got any scripture to stand by me. i will read only two or three verses. does the bible teach man to enslave his brother? if it does, it is not the word of god, unless god is a slaveholder. "moreover, all the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy of their families which are with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall be your possession. ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them. they shall be your bondsmen forever."--(old testament.) upon the limbs of unborn babes this fiendish god put the chains of slavery. i hate him. "both thy bondmen and bondwomen shall be of the heathen round about thee and them shall ye buy, bondmen and bondwomen." now let us read what the new testament has. i could read a great deal more, but that is enough. "servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh in fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto christ." this is putting the dirty thief that steals your labor on an equality with god. "servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward." "for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward god endure grief, suffering wrongfully." the idea of a man on account of conscience toward god stealing another man, or allowing him nothing but lashes on his back as legal-tender for labor performed. "let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of god and his doctrine be not blasphemed." how can you blaspheme the name of god by asserting your independence? how can you blaspheme the name of a god by striking fetters from the limbs of men? i wish some of your ministers would tell you that. "and they that have believing masters let them not despise them." that is to say, a good christian could own another believer in jesus christ; could own a woman and her children, and could sell the child away from its mother. that is a sweet belief. o, hypocrisy! "let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." oh, what slush! here is what they will tell the poor slave, so that he will serve the man that stole his wife and children from him: "for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. having food and raiment let us be therewith content." don't you think that it would do just as well to preach that to the thieving man as to the suffering slave? i think so. then this same bible teaches witchcraft, that spirits go into the bodies of the man, and pigs, and that god himself made a trade with the devil, and the devil traded him off--a man for a certain number of swine, and the devil lost money because the hogs ran right down into the sea. he got a corner on that deal. now let us see how they believed in the rights of children: "if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not harken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. and they shall say unto the elders of his city, 'this, our son, is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.' and all the men of this city shall stone him with stones, that he die, so shalt thou put evil away." that is a very good way to raise children. here is the story of jephthah. he went off and he asked the lord to let him whip some people, and he told the lord if he would let him whip them, he would sacrifice to the lord the first thing that met him on his return; and the first thing that met him was his own beautiful daughter, and he sacrificed her. is there a sadder story in all history than that? what do you think of a man that would sacrifice his own daughter? what do you think of a god that would receive that sacrifice? now, then, they come to women in this blessed gospel, and let us see what the gospel says about women. then you ought all to go to church, girls, next sunday and hear it. "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection; but i suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence for adam was formed first, not eve." don't you see? "and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." (that is mr. timothy.) "but i would have you know that the head of every man is christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of christ is god." i suppose that every old maid is acephalous. "for a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of god; but the woman is the glory of the man. for the man is not of the woman, but woman of the man. neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man." "wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband as unto the lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as christ is the head of the church." do you hear that? you didn't know how much we were above you. when you go back to the old testament, to the great law-giver, you find that the woman has to ask forgiveness for having borne a child. if it was a boy, thirty-three days she was unclean; if it was a girl, sixty-six. nice laws! good laws! if there is a pure thing in this world, if there is a picture of perfect purity, it is a mother with her child in her arms. yes, i think more of a good woman and a child than i do of all the gods i have ever heard these people tell about. just think of this: "when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to thy wife, then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails." wherefore, ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake. "for this cause pay you tribute also, for they are god's ministers." i despise this wretched doctrine. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in favor of the right, i am a rebel. i suppose alexander, czar of russia, was put there by the order of god, was he? i am sorry he was not removed by the nihilist that shot at him the other day. i tell you, in a country like that, where there are hundreds of girls not years of age prisoners in siberia, simply for giving their ideas about liberty, and we telegraphed to that country, congratulating that wretch that he was not killed, my heart goes into the prison, my heart goes with the poor girl working as a miner in the mines, crawling on her hands and knees getting the precious ore out of the mines, and my sympathies go with her, and my sympathies cluster around the point of the dagger. does the bible describe a god of mercy? let me read you a verse or two: "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." "thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." "and the lord thy god will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. "but the lord thy god shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed." "and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them." i can see what he had her nails pared for. does the bible teach polygamy? the rev. dr. newman, consul general to all the world--had a discussion with elder heber of kimball, or some such wretch in utah--whether the bible sustains polygamy, and the mormons have printed that discussion as a campaign document. read the order of moses in the st chapter of numbers. a great many chapters i dare not read to you. they are too filthy. i leave all that to the clergy. read the st chapter of exodus, the st chapter of deuteronomy, the life of abraham, and the life of david, and the life of solomon, and then tell me that the bible does not uphold polygamy and concubinage! let them answer. then i said that the bible upheld tyranny. let me read you a little: "let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god. the powers that be are ordained of god." george iii was king by the grace of god, and when our fathers rose in rebellion, according to this doctrine, they rose against the power of god; and if they did they were successful. and so it goes on, telling of all the cities that were destroyed, and of the great-hearted men, that they dashed their brains out, and all the little babes, and all the sweet women that they killed and plundered--all in the name of a most merciful god. well, think of it! the old testament is filled with anathemas, and with curses, and with words of revenge, and jealousy, and hatred, and meanness, and brutality. have i read enough to show that what i said is so? i think i have. i wish i had time to read to you further of what the dear old fathers of the church said about woman--wait a minute, and i will read you a little. we have got them running. st. augustine in his d book says: "a woman ought to serve her husband as unto god, affirming that woman ought to be braced and bridled betimes, if she aspire to any dominion, alleging that dangerous and perilous it is to suffer her to precede, although it be in temporal and corporeal things. how can woman be in the image of god, seeing she is subject to man, and hath no authority to teach, neither to be a witness, neither to judge, much less to rule or bear the rod of empire." oh, he is a good one. these are the very words of augustine. let me read some more. "woman shall be subject unto man as unto christ." that is st. augustine, and this sentence of augustine ought to be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms that women are all the more subject to man. and now, st. ambrose, he is a good boy. "adam was deceived by eve--called heva--and not heva by adam, and therefore just it is that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom she called sin, lest that again she slip and fall with womanly facility. don't you see that woman has sinned once, and man never? if you give woman an opportunity, she will sin again, whereas if you give it to man, who never, never betrayed his trust in the world, nothing bad can happen. let women be subject to their own husbands as unto the lord, for man is the head of woman, and christ is the head of the congregation." they are all real good men, all of them. "it is not permitted to woman to speak; let her be in silence; as the law said: unto thy husband shalt thou ever be, and he shall bear dominion over thee." so st. chrysostom. he is another good man. "woman," he says, "was put under the power of man, and man was pronounced lord over her; that she should obey man, that the head should not follow the feet. false priests do commonly deceive women, because they are easily persuaded to any opinion,--especially if it be again given, and because they lack prudence and right reason to judge the things that be spoken; which should not be the nature of those that are appointed to govern others. for they should be constant, stable, prudent, and doing everything with discretion and reason, which virtues woman can not have in equality with man." i tell you women are more prudent than men. i tell you, as a rule, women are more truthful than men. i tell you that women are more faithful than men--ten times as faithful as man. i never saw a man pursue his wife into the very ditch and dust of degradation and take her in his arms. i never saw a man stand at the shore where she had been morally wrecked, waiting for the waves to bring back even her corpse to his arms but i have seen woman do it. i have seen woman with her white arms lift man from the mire of degradation, and hold him to her bosom as though he were an angel. and these men thought woman not fit to be held as pure in the sight of god as man. i never saw a man that pretended that he didn't love a woman; that pretended that he loved god better than he did a woman, that he didn't look hateful to me, hateful and unclean. i could read you twenty others, but i haven't time to do it. they are all to the same effect exactly. they hate woman, and say man is as much above her as god is above man. i am a believer in absolute equality. i am a believer in absolute liberty between man and wife. i believe in liberty, and i say, "oh, liberty, float not forever in the far horizon--remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet; but come and make thy home among the children of men." i know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. i know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. i can not dream of the victories to be won. i do know that, coming upon the field of thought; but down the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, woman and child. i never addressed a more magnificent audience in my life, and i thank you, i thank you a thousand times over. ingersoll's catechism and bible-class nothing is more gratifying than to see ideas that were received with scorn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. only a few weeks ago i stated that the bible was not inspired; that moses was mistaken, that the "flood" was a foolish myth; that the tower of babel existed only in credulity; that god did not create the universe from nothing, that he did not start the first woman with a rib; that he never upheld slavery; that he was not a polygamist; that he did not kill people for making hair-oil, that he did not order his generals to kill the dimpled babes; that he did not allow the roses of love and the violets of modesty to be trodden under the brutal feet of lust; that the hebrew language was written without vowels; that the bible was composed of many books written by unknown men; that all translations differed from each other, and that this book had filled the world with agony and crime. at that time i had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergymen in chicago would substantially agree with me--in public. i have read the replies of the rev. robert collyer, dr. thomas, rabbi kohler, rev. brooke herford, prof. swing, and dr. ryder, and will now ask them a few questions, answering them in their own words. first, rev. robert collyer: question. what is your opinion of the bible? answer. "it is a splendid book. it makes the noblest type of catholics and the meanest bigots. through this book men give their hearts for good to god, or for evil to the devil. the best argument for the intrinsic greatness of the book is that it can touch such wide extremes, and seem to maintain us in the most unparalleled cruelty, as well as the most tender mercy; that it can inspire purity like that of the great saints and afford arguments in favor of polygamy. the bible is the text book of ironclad calvinism and sunny universalism. it makes the quaker quiet and the millerite crazy. it inspired the union soldier to live and grandly die for the right, and stonewall jackson to live nobly and die grandly for the wrong." q. but, mr. collyer, do you really think that a book with as many passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired? a. i look upon the old testament as a rotting tree. when it falls it will fertilize a bank of violets. q. do you believe that god upheld slavery and polygamy? do you believe that he ordered the killing of babes and the violation of maidens? a. "there is three-fold inspiration in the bible, the first peerless and perfect, the word of god to man;--the second simply and purely human, and then below this again, there is an inspiration born of an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well can be. a three-fold inspiration, of heaven first, then of the earth, and then of hell, all in the same book, all sometimes in the same chapter, and then, besides, a great many things that need no inspiration." q. then, after all, you do not pretend that the scriptures are really inspired? a. "the scriptures make no such claim for themselves as the church make's for them. they leave me free to say this is false, or this is true. the truth even within the bible dies and lives, makes on this side and loses on that." q. what do you say to the last verse in the bible, where a curse is threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book? a. "i have but one answer to this question, and it is: let who will have written this, i can not for an instant believe that it was written by a divine inspiration. such dogmas and threats as these are not of god, but of man, and not of any man of a free spirit and heart eager for the truth, but a narrow man who would cripple and confine the human soul in its quest after the whole truth of god, and back those who have done the shameful things in the name of the most high." q. do you not regard such talk as slang? (supposed) answer. if an infidel had said that the writer of revelations was narrow and bigoted, i might have denounced his discourse as "slang," but i think that unitarian ministers can do so with the greatest propriety. q. do you believe in the stories of the bible, about jael, and the sun standing still, and the walls falling at the blowing of horns? a. "they may be legends, myths, poems, or what they will, but they are not the word of god. so i say again, it was not the god and father of us all who inspired the woman to drive that nail crashing through the king's temple after she had given him that bowl of milk and bid him sleep in safety, but a very mean devil of hatred and revenge that i should hardly expect to find in a squaw on the plains. it was not the ram's horns and the shouting before which the walls fell flat. if they went down at all, it was through good solid pounding. and not for an instant did the steady sun stand still or let his planet stand still while barbarian fought barbarian. he kept just the time then he keeps now. they might believe it who made the record. i do not. and since the whole christian world might believe it, still we do not who gather in this church. a free and reasonable mind stands right in our way. newton might believe it as a christian and disbelieve it as a philosopher. we stand then with the philosopher against the christian, for we must believe what is true to us in the last test, and these things are not true." second, rev. dr. thomas. question. what is your opinion of the old testament? answer. "my opinion is that it is not one book, but many--thirty-nine books bound up in one. the date and authorship of most of these books are wholly unknown. the hebrews wrote without vowels and without dividing the letters into syllables, words or sentences. the books were gathered up by ezra. at that time only two of the jewish tribes remained. all progress had ceased. in gathering up the sacred book, copyists exercised great liberty in making changes and additions." q. yes, we know all that, but is the old testament inspired? a. "there maybe the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory; of patriotism--and there are such inspirations. there are moments when great truths and principles come to men. they seek the man and not the man them." q. yes, we will admit that, but is the bible inspired? a. "but still i know of no way to convince any one of spirit and inspiration and god only as his reason may take hold of these things." q. do you think the old testament true? a. "the story of eden may be an allegory; the history of the children of israel may have mistakes." q. must inspiration claim infallibility? a. "it is a mistake to say that if you believe one part of the bible you must believe all. some of the thirty-nine books may be inspired, others not; or there may be degrees of inspiration." q. do you believe that god commanded the soldiers to kill the children and the married women and save for themselves the maidens, as recorded in numbers : ? do you believe that god upheld slavery? do you believe that god upheld polygamy? a. "the bible may be wrong in some statements. god and right can not be wrong. we must not exalt the bible above god. it may be that we have claimed too much for the bible, and thereby given not a little occasion for such men as mr. ingersoll to appear at the other extreme, denying too much." q. what then shall be done? a. "we must take a middle ground. it is not necessary to believe that the bears devoured the forty-two children, nor that jonah was swallowed by the whale." third, rev. dr. kohler. question. what is your opinion about the old testament? answer. "i will not make futile attempts of artificially interpreting the letter of the bible so as to make it reflect the philosophical, moral and scientific views of our time. the bible is a sacred record of humanity's childhood." q. are you an orthodox christian? a. "no. orthodoxy, with its face turned backward to a ruined temple or a dead messiah, is fast becoming like lot's wife, a pillar of salt." q. do you really believe the old testament was inspired? a. "i greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like voltaire and thomas paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so instrumental in bringing about this glorious era of freedom, so congenial and blissful, particularly to the long-abused jewish race." q. do you believe in the inspiration of the bible? a. "of course there is a destructive ax needed to strike down the old building in order to make room for the grander new. the divine origin claimed by the hebrews for their national literature was claimed by all nations for their old records and laws as preserved by the priesthood. as moses--the hebrew law giver, is represented as having received the law from god on the holy mountains, so is zoroaster, the persian, manu, the hindoo, minos, the cretan, lycurgus, the spartan, and numa, the roman." q. do you believe all the stories in the bible? a. "all that can and must be said against them is that they have been too long retained around the arms and limbs of grown-up manhood to check the spiritual progress of religion; that by jewish ritualism and christian dogmatism they became fetters unto the soul, turning the light of heaven into a misty haze to blind the eye, and even into a hell fire of fanaticism to consume souls." q. is the bible inspired? a. "true, the bible is not free from errors, nor is any work of man and time. it abounds in childish views and offensive matters. i trust it will, in a time not far off, be presented for common use in families, schools, synagogues and churches, in a refined shape, cleansed from all dross and chaff, and stumbling-blocks on which the scoffer delights to dwell." fourth, rev. mr. herford. question. is the bible true? answer. "ingersoll is very fond of saying 'the question is not, is the bible inspired, but is it true?' that sounds very plausible, but you know as applied to any ancient book it is simply nonsense." q. do you think the stories in the bible exaggerated? a. "i dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated." q. do you think that god upheld polygamy? a. "the truth of which simply is, that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among the jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets did not come to the idea of its being wrong. but what is there to be indignant about in that? and so you really wonder why any man should be indignant at the idea that god upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called polygamy? what is there to be indignant about in that?" fifth, prof. swing. question. what is your idea of the bible? answer. "i think it a poem." sixth, rev. dr. ryder. question. and what is your idea of the sacred scriptures? answer. "like other nations, the hebrews had their patriotic, descriptive, didactic and lyrical poems in the same varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike other nations, whatever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the characteristic of religion." q. i suppose you fully appreciate the religious characteristics of the song of solomon? no answer. q. does the bible uphold polygamy? a. "the law of moses did not forbid it, but contained many provisions against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to restrict it within narrow limits." q. so you think god corrected some of the worst abuses of polygamy, but preserved the institution itself? i might question many others, but have concluded not to consider those as members of my bible class who deal in calumnies and epithets. from the so-called "replies" of such ministers it appears that, while christianity changes the heart, it does not improve the manners, and one can get into heaven in the next world without having been a gentleman in this. it is difficult for me to express the deep and thrilling satisfaction i have experienced in reading the admissions of the clergy of chicago. surely the battle of intellectual liberty is almost won when ministers admit that the bible is filled with ignorant and cruel mistakes; that each man has the right to think for himself, and that it is not necessary to believe the scriptures in order to be saved. from the bottom of my heart, i congratulate my pupils on the advance they have made, and hope soon to meet them on the serene heights of perfect freedom. ingersoll's new departure--his lecture entitled "what shall we do to be saved?"--delivered in mcvicker's theatre, chicago, sept. , [from the chicago times. verbatim report.] ladies and gentlemen: fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates the soul. courage is liberty. i am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. in the realm of the mind every one is monarch. every one is robed, sceptered, and crowned, and every one wears the purple of authority. i belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force. now, i beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that you are methodists, or baptists, or catholics, or presbyterians, and let us for an hour or two remember only that we are men and women. and allow me to say "man" and "woman" are the highest titles that can be bestowed upon humanity. "man" and "woman." and let us if possible banish all fear from the mind. do not imagine that there is some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing that every man and woman should think for himself and herself. do not imagine that there is any being who would give to his children the holy torch of reason and then damn them for following where the holy light led. let us have courage. priests have invented a crime called "blasphemy," and behind that crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. there is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice. there is but one worship, and that is justice. you need not fear the anger of a god whom you cannot injure. rather fear to injure your fellow-men. do not be afraid of a crime you cannot commit. rather be afraid of the one that you may commit. there was a jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear: "eat some bacon." he knew if there was anything in the universe calculated to excite the wrath of the infinite being, who made every shining star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon. he knew it, and he knew the infinite being was looking, and that he was the infinite eaves-dropper of the universe. but his appetite got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us all, and he ate that bacon. he knew it was wrong. when he went into that restaurant the weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as june, and when he came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the lightning leaping from one to the other, and the earth shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. he went back into that restaurant with a face as white as milk, and he said to one of the keepers: "my god, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon?" as long as we harbor such opinions of infinity; as long as we imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny, so long the sons of men will be cringing, intellectual cowards. let us think, and let us honestly express our thought. do not imagine for a moment that i think people who disagree with me are bad people. i admit, and i cheerfully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind and a very large majority, a vast number, are reasonably honest. i believe that most christians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to make this world better. i do not pretend to be better than they are. it is an intellectual question. it is a question, first, of intellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar of human reason. i do not pretend to be better than the are. probably i am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not the question. the question is "bad as i am, have i a right to think?" and i think i have, for two reasons. first, i can't help it. and secondly, i like it. the whole question is right at a point. if i have not a right to express my thoughts, who has? "oh," they say, "we will allow you, we will not burn you." "all right; why won't you burn me?" "because we think a decent man will allow others to think and express his thought." "then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would be infamous in you!" "yes." "and yet you worship a god who will, all you declare, punish me forever." the next question then is: can i commit a sin against god by thinking? if god did not intend i should think, why did he give me a "thinker." now, then, we have got what they call the christian system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how i can be wicked enough to attack that system. there are many good things about it, and i shall never attack anything that i believe to be good! i shall never fear to attack anything i honestly believe to be wrong. we have, i say, what they call the christian religion, and, i find, just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have gone back to barbarism. i find that spain, portugal, italy are the three worst nations in europe; i find that the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous france. and so i say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute intellectual freedom. i find among ourselves the men who think at least as good as those who do not. we have, i say, a christian system, and that is founded upon what they are pleased to call system the "new testament." who wrote the new testament? i don't know. who does know? nobody! we have found some fifty-two manuscripts containing portions of the new testament. some of those manuscripts leave out five or six books--many of them. others more others less. no two of these manuscripts agree. nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts. they are all written in greek; the disciples of christ knew only hebrew. nobody ever saw, so far as we know, one of the original hebrew manuscripts. nobody ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original hebrew manuscripts. no doubt the clergy of your city have told you these facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having repeated them once more. these manuscripts are written in what are called capital greek letters. they are called uncial characters; and the new testament was not divided into chapters and verses, even, until the year of grace . recollect it. in the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by nobody. the epistles are addressed to nobody; and they are signed by the same person. all the addresses, all the pretended earmarks showing to whom they are written and by whom they are written are simply interpolations, and everybody who has studied the subject knows it. it is further admitted that even these manuscripts have not been properly translated, and they have a syndicate now making a new translation; and i suppose that i cannot tell whether i really believe the testament or not until i see that new translation. you must remember, also, one other thing. christ never wrote a solitary word of the new testament--not one word. there is an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand, but that has not been preserved. he never told anybody to write a word. he never said: "matthew, remember this. mark, don't forget to put that down. luke, be sure that in your gospel you have this. john, don't forget it." not one word. and it has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. why was nothing written? i will tell you. in my judgment they expected the end of the world in a very few days. that generation was not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up as a scroll, and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. that was their belief. they believed that the world was to be destroyed, and that there was to be another coming, and that the saints were then to govern the world. and they even went so far among the apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to divide out the offices in advance. this testament was not written for hundreds of years after the apostles were dust. these facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. they were in the wastebaskets of forgetfulness. they depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant winds. and finally, when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of the text. and, finally, when it was made, and the church got in trouble, and wanted a passage to help it out, one was interpolated to order. so that now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hundred interpolations in the testament. and i will pick some of them out before i get through. and let me say here, once for all, that for the man christ i have infinite respect. let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground; and let me say, once for all, to that great and serene man i gladly pay the homage of my admiration and my tears. he was a reformer in his day. he was an infidel in his time. he was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom out of the human mind. had i lived at that time i would have been his friend, and should he come again he would not find a better friend than i will be. that is for the man. for the theological creation i have a different feeling. if he was, in fact, god, he knew that there was no such thing as death. he knew that what we call death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a death that was simply eternal life. but when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven, not knowing but that death ends all--not knowing but that, when the shadows creep over him, the darkness will be eternal--there is heroism. and so for the man who, in the darkness, said: "my god, why hast thou forsaken me?"--for that man i have nothing but respect, admiration, and love. a while ago i made up my mind to find out what was necessary for me to do in order to be saved. if i have got a soul, i want it saved. i do not wish to lose anything that is of value. for thousands of years the world has been asking that question "what shall we do to be saved?" saved from poverty? no. saved from crime? no. tyranny? no. but "what shall we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the god who made us all?" if god made us, he will not destroy us. infinite wisdom never made a poor investment. and upon all the works of an infinite god, a dividend must finally be declared. the pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. the doctrine of endless punishment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. i despise it, and i defy it. i made up my mind, i say, to see what i had to do in order to save my soul according to the testament, and thereupon i read it. i read the gospel, matthew, mark, luke, and john. but i found that the church had been deceiving me. i found that the clergy did not understand their own book. i found that they had been building upon passages that had been interpolated. i found that they had been building upon passages that were entirely untrue. and i will tell you why i think so. the first of these gospels was written by st. matthew, according to the claim. of course he never wrote a word of it. never saw it. never heard of it. but, for the purpose of this lecture, i will admit that he wrote it. i will admit that he was with christ for three years, that he heard much of his conversation during that time and that he became impregnated with the doctrines, or dogmas, and the ideas of jesus christ. now let us see what matthew says we must do in order to be saved. and i take it that, if this be true, matthew is as good an authority as any minister in the world. the first thing i find upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth chapter of matthew, and is embraced in what is commonly known as the sermon on the mount. it is as follows: "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." good! "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." good! whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the bible or not. "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." good! "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god. blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of god. blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake," (that's me, little) "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." in the same sermon he says: "think not that i am come to destroy the law or the prophets. i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." and then he makes use of this remarkable language, almost as applicable today as it was then: "for i say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." good! in the sixth chapter i find the following, and it comes directly after the prayer known as the lord's prayer: "for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses." i accept the conditions. there is an offer; i accept it. if you will forgive men that trespass against you, god will forgive your trespasses against him. i accept, and i never will ask any god to treat me any better than i treat my fellowmen. there is a square promise. there is a contract. if you will forgive others, god will forgive you. and it does not say you must believe in the old testament, nor be baptized, nor join the church, nor keep sunday. it simply says, if you forgive others god will forgive you; and it must be true. no god could afford to damn a forgiving man. (a voice: "will he forgive democrats?") oh, certainly. let me say right here that i know lots of democrats, great, broad, whole-souled, clever men, and i love them. and the only bad thing about them is that they vote the democratic ticket. and i know lots of republicans so mean and narrow that the only decent thing about them is that they vote the republican ticket. now let me make myself plain upon that subject, perfectly plain. for instance, i hate presbyterianism, but i know hundreds of splendid presbyterians. understand me. i hate methodism, and yet i know hundreds of splendid methodists. i dislike a certain set of principles called democracy, and yet i know thousands of democrats that i respect and like. i like a certain set of principles--that is, most of them,--called republicanism, and yet i know lots of republicans that are a disgrace to those principles. i do not war against men. i do not war against persons. i war against certain doctrines that i believe to be wrong. and i give to every other human being every right that i claim for myself. of course i did not intend today to tell what we must do in the election for the purpose of being saved. the next thing that i find is in the seventh chapter and the second verse: "for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." good! that suits me! and in the twelfth chapter of matthew: "for whosoever shall do the will of my father that is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. for the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according--" to the church he belongs to? no. to the manner in which he was baptized? no. according to his creed? no. "then he shall reward every man according to his works." good! i subscribe to that doctrine. and in the sixteenth chapter: "and jesus called a little child to him and stood him in the midst, and said: 'verily, i say unto you, except ye become converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" i do not wonder that a reformer in his day that met the scribes and pharisees and hypocrites, i do not wonder that at last he turned to children and said: "except ye become as little children," i do not wonder. and yet, see what children the children of god have been. what an interesting dimpled darling john calvin was. think of that prattling babe known as jonathan edwards! think of the infants that founded the inquisition, that invented instruments of torture to tear human flesh. they were the ones who had become as little children. so i find in the nineteenth chapter: "and behold, one came and said unto him: 'good master, what good thing shall i do in order to inherit eternal life?' and he said unto him, 'why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, and that is god, but if thou will enter into eternal life, keep the commandments,' and he said unto him, 'which?'" now, there is a pretty fair issue. here is a child of god asking god what is necessary for him to do in order to inherit eternal life. and god says to him: keep the commandments. and the child said to the almighty: "which?" now if there ever had been an opportunity given to the almighty to furnish a gentleman with an inquiring mind with the necessary information upon that subject, here was the opportunity. he said unto him, 'which?' and jesus said: "thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." he did not say to him: "you must believe in me--that i am the only begotten son of the living god." he did not say: "you must be born again." he did not say: "you must believe the bible." he did not say: "you must remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." he simply said: "thou shalt do no murder. thou shalt not commit adultery. thou shalt not steal. thou shalt not bear false witness. honor thy father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." and thereupon the young man, who i think was a little "fresh," and probably mistaken, said unto him: "all these things have i kept from my youth up." i don't believe that. now comes in an interpolation. in the old times when the church got a little scarce for money, they always put in a passage praising poverty. so they had this young man ask: "what lack i yet?" and jesus said unto him: "if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven." the church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. and when the next verse was written the church must have been nearly dead-broke. "and again i say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god." did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on account of that verse? and then comes another verse, which i believe is an interpolation: "and every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." christ never said it. never. "whosoever shall forsake father and mother." why he said to this man who asked him "what shall i do to inherit eternal life?" among other things, he said "honor thy father and thy mother." and we turn over the page and he says: "if you will desert your father and your mother you shall have everlasting life." it won't do. if you desert your wife and your little children, or your lands--the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and children. think of that! i do not accept the terms. i will never desert the one i love for the promise of any god. it is far more important that we shall love our wives than that we shall love god. and i will tell you why you cannot help him. you can help her. you can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. it is far more important that you love your children than that you love jesus christ.--and why? if he is god you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. let me tell you to-day, it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. the holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. and the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and children. there was a time when people believed that infamy. there was a time when they did desert fathers; and mothers, and wives and children. st. augustine says to the devotee: "fly to the desert, and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. though your father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step over them; and though your children pursue and with weeping eyes beseech you to return, listen not. it is the temptation of the evil one. fly to the desert and save your soul." think of such a soul being worth saving. while i live i propose to stand by the folks. here there is another condition of salvation. i find it in the th chapter: "then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, 'come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. for i was a hungered and ye gave me meat; i was thirsty and ye gave me drink; i was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me; and i was sick and ye visited me; and i was in prison, and ye came unto me." good! and i tell you tonight that god will not punish with eternal thirst the man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor. god will not allow to live in eternal nakedness of pain the man who has clothed others. for instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor stands aside and allows a woman whom he never saw before to take his place in the boat, and he stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down. do you tell me there is any god who will push the life-boat from the shore of eternal life, when that man wishes to step in? do you tell me that god can be unpitying to the pitiful, that he can be unforgiving to the forgiving? i deny it; and from the aspersions of the pulpit i seek to rescue the reputation of the deity. now, i have read you everything in matthew on the subject of salvation. that is all there is. not one word about believing anything. it is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial; and if only that gospel had been preached, persecution never would have shed one drop of blood. not one. now, according to the testimony, matthew was well acquainted with christ. according to the testimony, he had been with him, and his companion for years, and if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get to heaven, matthew should have told us. but he forgot it. or he didn't believe it. or he never heard of it. you can take your choice. the next is mark. now let us see what he says. and for the purpose of this lecture it is sufficient for me to say that mark agrees, substantially, with matthew, that god will be merciful to the merciful; that he will be kind to the kind that he will pity the pitying. and it is precisely, or substantially, the same as matthew until i come to the th verse of the th chapter, and then i strike an interpolation, put in by hypocrisy, put in by priests, who longed to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of universal authority. let me read it to you. and it is the most infamous passage in the bible. christ never said it. no sensible man ever said it. "and he said unto them"--that is, unto his disciples--"go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." now, i propose to prove to you that that is an interpolation. now how will i do it? in the first place, not one word is said about belief in matthew. in the next place, not one word is said about belief in mark, until i come to that verse. and when is that said to have been spoken? according to mark, it is a part of the last conversation of jesus christ--just before, according to the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes. if there ever was any important thing happened in this world, that is one of them. if there was any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last conversation with god before he rose through the air and seated himself upon the throne of the infinite. we have in this testament five accounts of the last conversation happening between jesus christ and his apostles. matthew gives it. and yet matthew does not state that in that conversation he said: "whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned." and if he did say those words, they were the most important that ever fell from his lips. matthew did not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it. then i turn to luke, and he gives an account of this same last conversation, and not one word does he say upon that subject. now it is the most important thing, if christ said it, that he ever said. then i turn to john, and he gives an account of the last conversation, but not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbelief. not one solitary word on the subject of damnation. not one. then i turn to the first chapter of the acts, and there i find an account of the last conversation; and in that conversation there is not one word upon this subject. now, i say, that demonstrates that the passage in mark is an interpolation. what other reason have i got? that there is not one particle of sense in it. why? no man can control his belief. you hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. you cannot believe as you wish. you must believe as you must. and he might as well have said: "go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved, and whosoever hath not shall be damned." i have another reason. i am much obliged to the gentleman who interpolated these passages. i am much obliged to him that he put in some more--two, more. now hear: "and these signs shall follow them that believe." good. "in my name shall they cast out devils. they shall speak with new tongues, and they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." bring on your believer! let him cast out a devil. i do not claim a large one, "just a little one for a cent." let him take up serpents. "and if he drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt him." let me mix up a dose for the theological believer, and if it does not hurt him i'll join a church. o, but, "they say those things only lasted through that apostolic age." let us see. "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. and these signs shall follow them that believe." how long? i think at least until they had gone into all the world. certainly these signs should follow until all the world had been visited. and yet if that declaration was in the mouth of christ, he then knew that one-half of the world was unknown and that he would be dead , years before his disciples would know that there was another world. and yet he said, "go into all the world and preach the gospel," and he knew then that it would be , years before anybody went. well, if it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the old world, surely it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the new world. and the very reason that signs should follow would be to convince the unbeliever, and there are as many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as necessary today as they ever were. i would like a few myself. this frightful declaration, "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has filled the world with agony and crime. every letter of this passage has been sword and fagot; every word has been dungeon and chain. that passage made the sword of persecution drip with innocent blood for ten centuries. that passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the flames of fagots. that passage contradicts the sermon on the mount. that passage travesties the lord's prayer. that passage turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into the superstition of creed and cruelty. i deny it. it is infamous. christ never said it! now i come to luke, and it is sufficient to say that luke substantially agrees with matthew and with mark. substantially agrees, as the evidence is read. i like it. "be ye therefore merciful, as your father also is merciful." good! "judge not, and ye shall not be judged. condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and ye shall be forgiven." good! "give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." good! i like it. "for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." he agrees substantially with mark; he agrees substantially with matthew; and i come at last to the nineteenth chapter. "and zaccheus stood and said unto the lord, 'behold, lord, the half of my goods i give to the poor, and if i have taken anything from any man by false accusation, i restore him four-fold.' and jesus said unto him, 'this day is salvation come to this house.'" that is good doctrine. he didn't ask zaccheus what he believed. he didn't ask him, do you believe in the bible? do you believe in the five points? have you ever been baptized-sprinkled? oh! immersed. "half of my goods i give to the poor, and if i have taken anything from any man by false accusation, i restore him four-fold." "and christ said, 'this day is salvation come to this house.'" good! i read also in luke that christ when upon the cross forgave his murderers, and that is considered the shining gem in the crown of his mercy--that he forgave his murderers. that he forgave the men who drove the nails in his hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side; the soldier that in the hour of death offered him in mockery the bitterness to drink; that he forgave them all freely, and that yet, although he would forgive them, he will in the nineteenth century damn to eternal fire an honest man for the expression of his honest thoughts. that won't do. i find too, in luke, an account of two thieves that were crucified at the same time. the other gospels speak of them. one says they both railed upon him. another says nothing about it. in luke we are told that one did, but one of the thieves looked and pitied christ, and christ said to that thief: "this day shalt thou meet me in paradise." why did he say that? because the thief pitied him. and god cannot afford to trample beneath the feet of his infinite wrath the smallest blossom of pity that ever shed its perfume in the human heart! who was this thief? to what church did he belong? i don't know. the fact that he was a thief throws no light on that question. who was he? what did he believe? i don't know. did he believe in the old testament? in the miracles? i don't know. did he believe that christ was god? i don't know. why, then, was the promise made to him that he should meet christ in paradise. simply because he pitied innocence suffering on the cross. god cannot afford to damn any man that is capable of pitying anybody. and now we come to john, and that is where the trouble commences. the other gospels teach that god will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good. now we come to john, and here is another doctrine. and allow me to say that john was not written until centuries after the others. this, the church got up: "and jesus answered and said unto him: 'furthermore i say unto thee that except a man be born again he cannot see the "kingdom of god."'" why didn't he tell matthew that? why didn't he tell luke that? why didn't he tell mark that? they never heard of it, or forgot it, or they didn't believe it. "except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of god." why? "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. marvel not that i said unto thee, 'ye must be born again.' that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit,"--and he might have added that which is born of water is water. "marvel not that i say unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" and then the reason is given, and i admit i did not understand it myself until i read the reason, and will understand it as well as i do; and here it is: "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." so i find in the book of john the idea of the real presence. so i find in the book of john, that in order to be saved we must eat of the flesh and we must drink of the blood of jesus christ, and if that gospel is true, the catholic church is right. but it is not true. i cannot believe it, and yet for all that it may be true. but i don't believe it. neither do i believe there is any god in the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief. "why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to be true. what would you do then?" i would walk up like a man, and say, "i was mistaken." "and suppose god was about to pass judgment on you, what would you say?" i would say to him, "do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." why not? i am told that i must render good for evil. i am told that if smitten on one cheek i must turn the other. i am told that i must overcome evil with good. i am told that i must love my enemies; and will it do for this god who tells me, "love my enemies," to say, "i will damn mine." no, it will not do; it will not do. in the book of john all this doctrine of regeneration; all this doctrine that it is necessary to believe on the lord jesus christ; all the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief--in this book of john all these doctrines find their warrant; nowhere else. read these three gospels and then read john, and you will agree with me that the gospels that teach "we must be kind, we must be merciful, we must be forgiving, and thereupon that god will forgive us," is true, and then say whether or no that doctrine is not better than the doctrine that somebody else can be good for you, that somebody else can be bad for you, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe something that you do not understand. now upon these gospels that i have read the churches rest; and out of those things that i have read they have made their creeds. and the first church to make a creed, so far as i know, was the catholic. i take it that is the first church that had any power. that is the church that has preserved all these miracles for us. that is the church that preserved the manuscripts for us. that is the church whose word we have to take. that church is the first witness that protestantism brought to the bar of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred years ago; and while the witness is there protestantism takes pains to say: "you can't believe one word that witness says, now." that church is the only one that keeps up a constant communication with heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints. that church is an agent of god on earth. that church has a person who stands in the place of deity; and that church, according to their doctrine, is infallible. that church has persecuted to the exact extent of her power--and always will. in spain that church stands erect, and that church is arrogant. in the united states that church crawls. but the object in both countries is the same, and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty. that church teaches us that we can make god happy by being miserable ourselves. that church teaches you that a nun is holier in the sight of god than a loving mother with a child in her thrilled and thrilling arms. that church teaches you that a priest is better than a father. that church teaches you that celibacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world. that church tells the girl of or years of age, with eyes like dew and light--that girl with the red of health in the white of her beautiful checks--tells that girl, "put on the veil woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please god." i tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil, and renounce the beauties of the world, until she was at least years of age. wait until she knows what she wants. i am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests weaving webs to catch the flies of youth; and there ought to be a law appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year, and release every person who expresses a desire to be released. i don't believe in keeping penitentiaries for god. no doubt they are honest about it. that is not the question. now this church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the foundation of orthodox religion. let me read it to you: "whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." now the faith is this: "that we worship one god in trinity, and trinity in unity." of course you understand how that's done, and there's no need of my explaining it. neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. you see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if you divided, the substance. "for one is the person of the father, another of the son, and another of the holy ghost; but the godhead of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost is all one "--you know what i mean by godhead. in glory equal, and in majesty co-eternal. such as the father is, such is the son, such is the holy ghost. the father is uncreated, the son uncreated, the holy ghost uncreated. the father incomprehensible, the son incomprehensible, the holy ghost incomprehensible. and that is the reason we know so much about the thing. "the father is eternal, the son eternal, the holy ghost eternal," and yet there are not three eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible. "in like manner, the father is almighty, the son almighty, the holy ghost almighty." yet there are not three almighties, only one almighty. so the father is god, the son god, the holy ghost god, and yet not three gods; and so likewise, the father is lord, the son is lord, the holy ghost is lord, yet there are not three lords, for as we are compelled by the christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be god and lord, so we are all forbidden by the catholic religion to say there are three gods, or three lords. "the father is made of no one, not created or begotten. the son is from the father alone, not made, nor created, or begotten. the holy ghost is from the father and the son, not made nor begotten, but proceeded--" you know what proceeding is. "so there is one father, not three fathers." why should there be three fathers, and only one son? "one son, and not three sons; one holy ghost, not three holy ghosts; and in this trinity there is nothing before or afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are coeternal with one another, and coequal, so that in all things the unity is to be worshiped in trinity, and the trinity is to be worshiped in unity, and therefore we will believe." those who will be saved must thus think of the trinity. furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our lord jesus christ. now the right of this thing is this: that we believe and confess that our lord jesus christ, the son of god, is both god and man. he is god of the substance of his father begotten before the world was. that was a good while before his mother lived. "and he is man of the substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect god and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh subsisting equal to the father according to his godhead, but less than the father, according to his manhood, who being both god and man is not two but one--one not by conversion of god into flesh but by the taking of the manhood into god." you see that it is a great deal easier than the other. "one altogether, not by a confusion of substance, but by unity of person, for as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so god the man, is one christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the right hand of god, the father almighty, and he shall come to judge the living and the dead." in order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. what a blessing, that we do not have to understand it. and in order to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees, before that infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies; thousands and millions have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones of all the victims of the catholic church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise in our presence, and the eyes even of priests would be suffused with tears. that church covered europe with cathedrals and dungeons. that church robbed men of the jewel of the soul. that church had ignorance upon its knees. that church went into partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between these two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured. of course i have met, and cheerfully admit that there is thousands of good catholics; but catholicism is contrary to human liberty. catholicism bases salvation upon belief. catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. and for that reason, it is wrong. now, the next church that comes along in the way that i wish to speak of is the episcopalian. that was founded by henry viii., now in heaven. he cast off queen catherine and catholicism together. and he accepted episcopalianism and annie boleyn at the same time. that church, if it had a few more ceremonies, would be catholic. if it had a few less, nothing. we have an episcopalian church in this country, and it has all the imperfection of a poor relation. it is always boasting of a rich relative. in england the creed is made by law, the same as we pass statutes here. and when a gentleman dies in england, in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the acts of parliament. it becomes a question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point. lost on demurrer. a few years ago, a gentleman by the name of seabury, samuel seabury, was sent over to england to get some apostolic succession. we hadn't a drop in the house. it was necessary for the bishops of the english church to put their hands upon his head. they refused; there was no act of parliament justifying--it. he had then to go to the scotch bishops; and, had the scotch bishops refused, we never would have had any apostolic succession in the new world. and god would have been driven out of half the world; and the true church never could have been founded. but the scotch bishops put their hands on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of heads and hands from st. paul to the last bishop. in this country the episcopal church has done some good, and i want to thank that church. having, on an average, less religion than the others, on an average you have done more good to mankind. you preserved some of the humanities. you did not hate music, you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. and some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and god would overlook it, or would look the other way. for all these things accept my thanks. when i was a boy, the other churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious sin against the holy ghost; and they used to teach that when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing seven-up, that the eternal god stood whetting the sword of his eternal wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest hell. and so that church has done some good. after a while, in england, a couple of gentlemen, or a couple of men by the name of wesley and whitfield, said: "if everybody is going to hell, nearly, somebody ought to mention it." the episcopal clergy said: "keep still; don't tear your gown." wesley and whitfield said: "this frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetops at every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion." they were good, honest men. they believed their doctrine. and they said: "if there is a hell, and a niagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say something." they were right; somebody ought, if such thing was true. wesley was a believer in the bible. he believed in the actual presence of the almighty. god used to do miracles for him; used to put off a rain several days to give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of lameness; used to cure mr. wesley's headaches. and mr. wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. he believed that devils had possession of people. he talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave; and that he was going into another person; that he would be there at a certain time; and wesley went to that other person, and there the devil was, prompt to the minute. he regarded every conversion as an absolute warfare between god and this devil for the possession of that human soul. honest, no doubt. mr. wesley did not believe in human liberty. honest, no doubt. was opposed to the liberty of the colonies. honestly so. mr. wesley preached a sermon entitled, "the cause and cure of earthquakes," in which he took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin and the only way to stop them was to believe in the lord jesus christ. no doubt an honest man. wesley and whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. wesley insisted that god invited everybody to the feast. whitfield said he did not invite those he knew would not come. wesley said he did. whitfield said: "well, he didn't put plates for them, anyway." wesley said he did. so that, when they were in hell, he could show them that there was a seat left for them. and that church that they founded is still active. and probably no church in the world has done so much preaching for as little money as the methodists. whitfield believed in slavery and advocated the slave trade. and it was of whitfield that whittier made the two lines: he bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, fanned by the wings of the holy ghost. we have lately had a meeting of the methodists, and i find, by their statistics, that they believe they have converted , folks in a year. that in order to do this, they have , preachers, , sunday-school scholars, and about $ , , , invested in church property. i find, in looking over the history of the world, that there are , , or , , , of people born a year, and if they are saved at the rate of , a year, about how long will it take that doctrine to save this world? good, honest people; they are mistaken. in old times they were very simple. churches used to be like barns. they used to have them divided--men on that side, and women on this. a little barbarous. we have advanced since then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank god as heartily as though sitting between two men that he has never been introduced to. there is another thing these methodists should remember, and that is, that the episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. and they should remember that the free-thinkers have always treated them kindly and well. there is one thing about the methodist church in the north that i like. but i find that it is not methodism that does that. i find that the methodist church in the south is as much opposed to liberty as the methodist church north is in favor of liberty. so it is not methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. they differ a little in their creed from the rest. they do not believe that god does everything. they believe that he does his part, and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a partnership business. the next church is the presbyterians--in my judgment the worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. this church was founded by john calvin, a murderer! john calvin, having power in geneva, inaugurated human torture. voltaire abolished torture in france. the man who abolished torture, if the christian religion be true, god is now torturing in hell; and the man who inaugurated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. it won't do. john knox started this doctrine in scotland, and there is this peculiarity about presbyterianism, it grows best where the soil is poorest. i read the other day an account of a meeting between john knox and john calvin. imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! as i read their conversation it seemed to me as though john knox and john calvin were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. they believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy, and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal damnation. they taught the doctrine that god had a right to damn us because he made us. that is just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. there is some dust. unconscious dust! what right has god to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows that human being will sin; and he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? why not leave him in the unconscious dust? what right has an infinite god to add to the sum of human agony? suppose i knew that i could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient human being, and i knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. if i did it, i would be a fiend. i would leave that being in the unconscious dust. and yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine, or we are to be eternally damned! it won't do. in there was a division in this church, and they had a lawsuit to see which was the church of god. and they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury decided that the new school was the church of god, and then they got a new trial, and the next jury decided that the old school was the church of god, and that settled it. that church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me! i don't want it! i don't wish to go to heaven unless i can settle by the books, and go there because i ought to go there. i have said, and i say again, i don't want to be a charity angel. i have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies. the other day a young gentleman, a presbyterian, who had just been converted, came to me and gave me a tract and he told me he was perfectly happy. ugh! says i: "do you think a great many people are going to hell?" "oh, yes." "and you are perfectly happy?" "well, he didn't know as he was quite." "wouldn't you be happier if they were all going to heaven?" "o, yes." "well, then you are not perfectly happy?" "no, he didn't think he was." says i: "when you get to heaven, then you would be perfectly happy?" "oh, yes." "now, when we are only going to hell, you are not quite happy; but when we are in hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy?" you won't be as decent when you get to be an angel as you are now, will you? "well," he said, "that was not exactly it." said i: "suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven then?" "well," he says, "i suppose god would know the best place for mother." and i thought to myself, then, if i was a woman, i would like to have five or six boys like that. it will not do. heaven is where are those we love, and those who love us. and i wish to go to no world unless i can be accompanied by those who love me here. talk about the consolations of this infamous doctrine. the consolations of a doctrine that makes a father say, "i can be happy with my daughter in hell"; that makes a mother say, "i can be happy with my generous, brave boy in hell"; that makes a boy say, "i can enjoy the glory of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman who would have died for me, in eternal agony." and they call that tidings of great joy. i have not time to speak of the baptists,--that jeremy taylor said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance on the earth. nor of the quakers, the best of all, and abused by all. i can not forget that george fox, in the year of grace , was put in the pillory and whipped from town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon, and what for? simply because he preached the doctrine: "thou shalt not resist evil with evil. thou shalt love thy enemies." think what the church must have been that day to scar the flesh of that loving man! just think of it! i say i have not time to speak of all these sects. and of the varieties of presbyterians and campbellites. the people who think they must dive in order to go up. there are hundreds and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed that i read, differing simply in degree. ah but they say to me: "you are fighting something that is dead. nobody believes this, now." the preachers do not believe what they preach in the pulpit. the people in the pews do not believe what they hear preached. and they say to me: "you are fighting something that is dead. this is all a form, we do not believe a solitary creed in it. we sign it and swear that we believe it, but we don't. and none of us do. and all the ministers they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not quite." i don't know whether this is so or not. i take it that they believe what they preach. i take it that when they meet and solemnly agree to a creed, i take it they are honest and solemnly believe in that creed. the evangelical alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations of the world, met only a few years ago, and here is their creed: they believe in the divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the holy scriptures; the right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of holy scriptures, but if you interpret wrong you are damned. they believe in the unity of the godhead and the trinity of the persons therein. they believe in the utter depravity of human nature. there can be no more infamous doctrine than that. they look upon a little child as a lump of depravity. i look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, under proper circumstances, blossom into rich and glorious life. total depravity of human nature! here is a woman whose husband has been lost at sea; the news comes that he has been drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. there is something in her heart that tells her he is alive. and she waits. and years afterwards as she looks down toward the little gate, she sees him; he has been given back by the sea, and she rushes to his arms and covers his face with kisses, and with tears. and if that infamous doctrine is true, every tear is a crime, and every kiss a blasphemy. it won't do. according to that doctrine, if a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the repentance and the taking back of the property are two other crimes if he is totally depraved: it is an infamy. what else do they believe? "the justification of a sinner by faith alone," without works, just faith. believing something that you don't understand. of course god cannot afford to reward a man for believing anything that is reasonable. god rewards only for believing something that is unreasonable, if you believe something that you know is not so. what else? they believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the eternal punishment of the wicked. tidings of great joy! they are so good that they will not associate with universalists. they will not associate with unitarians. they will not associate with scientists. they will only associate with those who believed that god so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. then they say to me: "what do you propose? you have torn this down; what do you propose to give in the place of it?" i have not torn the good down. i have only endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. i do not tear away the passage, "god will be merciful to the merciful." i do not destroy the promise, "if you will forgive others, god will forgive you." i would not for anything blot out the faintest stars that shine in the horizon of human despair, nor in the horizon of human hope; but i will do what i can to get that infinite shadow out of the heart of man. "what do you propose to put in place of this?" well, in the first place, i propose good fellowship--good friends all around. no matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. that is your opinion. this is mine: "let us be friends." science makes friends, religion--superstition--makes enemies. they say, "belief is important." i say no, good actions are important. judge by deed, not by creed, good fellowship. we have had too many of these solemn people. whenever i see an exceedingly solemn man, i know he is an exceedingly stupid man. no man of any humor ever founded any religion--never. humor sees both sides, while reason is the holy light; humor carries the lantern and the man with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of superstition. i like a man who has got good feeling for everybody--good fellowship. one man said to another: "will you take a glass of wine?" "i don't drink." "will you smoke a cigar?" "i don't smoke." "maybe you will chew something?" "i don't chew." "let us eat some hay." "i tell you i don't eat hay." "well, then, good-bye; for you are no company for man or beast." i believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of good nature, the gospel of good health. let us pray to our bodies. take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves. good health! and i believe that the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. i believe the time will come when man will not fill the future with consumption and insanity. i believe the time will come when we study ourselves, and understand the laws of health, that we will say, "we are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children." even if i got to heaven, and had a harp, i would hate to look back upon my children and grandchildren, and see them diseased, deformed, crazed, all suffering the penalties of crimes i had committed. i, then, believe in the gospel of good health, and i believe in a gospel of good living. you can not make any god happy by fasting. let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked--and it is a thousand times better to know how to cook it than it is to understand any theology in the world. i believe in the gospel of good clothes. i believe in the gospel of good houses, in the gospel of water and soap. i believe in the gospel of intelligence, in the gospel of education. the school-house is my cathedral. the universe is my bible. i believe in that gospel of justice that we must reap what we sow. i do not believe in forgiveness. if i rob mr. smith and god forgives me, how does that help smith? if i, by slander, cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower, and afterward i get forgiveness, how does that help her? if there is another world we have got to settle. no bankrupt court there. pay down. the christians say, that among the ancient jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep, now they say,--"charge it." "put it upon the slate." it won't do, for every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and to the one you injure. and if you have ever clothed another with unhappiness, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you hadn't done that thing. no forgiveness. eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice. that is what i believe in. and if it goes hard with me, i will stand it, and i will stick to in logic and i will bear it like a man. and i believe, too, in the gospel of liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. i believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away the more you will have. in liberty, extravagance is economy. let us be just. let us be generous to each other. i believe in the gospel of intelligence. that is the only lever capable of raising mankind. intelligence must be the savior of this world. humanity is the grand religion, and no god can put another in hell in another world who has made a little heaven in this. god cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. god cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody. so i believe in this great gospel of generosity. "ah! but," they say, "it won't do. you must believe. i say no. my gospel of health will bring life. my gospel of intelligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. my doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. my doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. my doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of the ignorance of superstition. my doctrine will give us health, wealth, and happiness. that is what i want. that is what i believe in. give us intelligence. in a little while a man may find that he cannot steal without robbing himself. he will find that he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. he will find that every crime is a mistake. he will find that only that man carries the cross who does wrong, and that the man who does right the cross turns to wings upon his shoulders that will bear him upwards forever. he will find that intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all the human race. "oh," but they say to me, "you take away immortality." i do not. if we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief. as long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love, we will say: "oh, that we could meet again!" and whether we do or not, it will not be the work of theology. it will be a fact in nature. i would not for my life destroy one star of human hope; but i want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle, and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, that she will not be compelled to believe that, ninety-nine chances in a hundred, she is raising kindling-wood for hell. one world at a time--that is my doctrine. it is said in the testament, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" and i say, sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof. and suppose, after all, that death does end all, next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. next to external life is eternal death. upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark will never know again the touch of tears. lips that have been touched by eternal silence will never utter another word of grief. hearts of dust do not break; the dead do not weep. and i had rather think of those i have loved, and those i have lost, as having returned, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world--i would rather think of them as unconscious dust--i would rather think of them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds--i would rather think of them as the inanimate and eternally unconscious, that to have even a suspicion that their naked souls had been clutched by an orthodox god. but for me, i will leave the dead where nature leaves them. and whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart i will cherish; but i can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. and i would rather that every god would destroy himself; i would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, that that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. i have made up my mind that if there is a god, he will be merciful to the merciful. upon that rock i stand. that he will forgive the forgiving. upon that rock i stand. that every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. and upon that rock i stand. the honest man, the good, kind, sweet woman, the happy child, has nothing to fear, neither in this world, nor the world to come. and upon that rock i stand. ingersoll's answer to prof. swing, dr. thomas, and others after looking over the replies made to his new lecture, col. ingersoll was asked by a tribune reporter what he thought of them. he replied as follows: i think they dodge the point. the real point is this: if salvation by faith is the real doctrine of christianity, i asked on sunday before last, and i still ask, why didn't matthew tell it? i still insist that mark should have remembered it, and i shall always believe that luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. i was endeavoring to show that modern christianity has for its basis an interpolation. i think i showed it. the only gospel on the orthodox side is that of john, and that was certainly not written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the others were written. i know very well that the catholic church claimed during the dark ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the gospels by persons living in the first, second and third centuries; but i believe such manuscripts were manufactured by the catholic church. for many years in europe there was not one person in , who could read and write. during that time the church had in its keeping the literature of our world. they interpolated as they pleased. they created. they destroyed. in other words, they did whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith. the gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and i again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depended upon belief in the lord jesus christ, matthew did not mention it. some one has said that christ didn't make known this doctrine of salvation by belief or faith until after his resurrection. certainly none of the gospels were written until after his resurrection; and if he made that doctrine known after his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should have been in matthew, mark, and luke, as well as john. the replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the new testament. in other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological bias. there is one thing i wish to correct here. in an editorial in the tribune it was stated that i had admitted that christ was beyond and above buddha, zoroaster, confucius, and others. i didn't say so. another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good one. in my lecture i asked why it was that the disciples of christ wrote in greek, whereas, in fact, they understood only hebrew. it is now claimed that greek was the language of jerusalem at that time; that hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one understood it except the literati and the highly educated. if i fell into an error upon this point it was because i relied upon the new testament. i find in the twenty-first chapter of the acts an account of paul having been mobbed in the city of jerusalem; that he was protected by a chief captain and some soldiers; that, when upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the captain to speak unto the people. in the fortieth verse of that chapter i find the following: "and when he had given him license, paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people; and when there was made a great silence he spake unto them in the hebrew tongue, saying--" and then follows the speech of paul, wherein he gives an account of his conversion. it seems a little curious to me that paul for the purpose of quieting the mob, would speak to that mob in an unknown language. if i were mobbed in the city of chicago, and wished to defend myself with an explanation, i certainly would not make that explanation in chocktaw, even if i understood that tongue. my present opinion is that i would speak in english; and the reason i would speak in english is, because that language is generally understood in this city. and so i conclude from the account in the twenty-first chapter of the acts that "hebrew was the language of jerusalem at that time, or that paul would not have addressed the mob in that tongue." "did you read mr. courtney's answer?" "i read what mr. courtney read from others, and think some of his quotations very good; and have no doubt that the authors will feel complimented by being quoted." "but what about there being belief in matthew?" "mr. courtney says that certain people were cured of diseases on account of faith. admitting that mumps, measles, and whooping-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a suggestion that salvation depended upon a like faith. i think he can hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the new testament to prove his doctrine. there is one instance in which a miracle was performed by christ without his knowledge. and i hardly think that even mr. courtney would insist that any faith could have been great enough for that. the fact is, i believe that all these miracles were ascribed to christ long after his death, and that christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any supernatural power whatever. neither do i believe that he claimed any supernatural origin. he claimed simply to be a man--no less, no more. i don't believe mr. courtney is satisfied with his own reply." "and now as to prof. swing?" "mr. swing has been out of the orthodox church so long that he seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it. i don't believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of chicago who will agree with mr. swing that salvation by faith is no longer preached. prof. swing seems to think it of no importance who wrote the gospel of st. matthew. in this i agree with him. judging from what he said, there is hardly difference enough of opinion between us to justify a reply on his part. he, however, makes one mistake. i did not in the lecture say one word about tearing churches down. i have no objection to people building all the churches they wish. while i admit that it is a pretty sight to see children on a morning in june going through the fields to the country church, i still insist that the beauty of that sight doesn't answer the question how it is that matthew forgot to say anything about salvation through christ. prof. swing is a man of poetic temperament; but this is not a poetic question." "how did the card of dr. thomas strike you?" "i think the reply of dr. thomas in the best possible spirit. i regard him to day as the best intellect in the methodist denomination. he seems to have what is generally understood as a christian spirit. he has always treated me with perfect fairness, and i should have said long ago many grateful things, had i not feared i might hurt with his own people. he seems to be by nature a perfectly fair man; and i know of no man in the united states for whom i have a profounder respect. of course i don't agree with mr. thomas. i think in many things he is mistaken. but i believe him to be perfectly sincere. there is one trouble about him,--he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great trouble to many of his brethren. certain methodist hazelbrush feel a little uneasy in the shadow of his oak." "are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons." "not unless something better is done than has been. of course i don't know what another sabbath may bring forth. i am waiting. but of one thing i feel perfectly assured; that no man in the united states, or in the world, can account for the fact, if we are to be saved only by faith in christ, that matthew forgot it, that luke said nothing about it, and that mark never mentioned it except in two passages written by another person. until that is answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "hamlet," i shall say: 'ay, tell me that and unyoke.' in the meantime, i wish to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned. i cannot see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise." ludicrous aspects of christianity: a response to the challenge of the bishop of manchester. by austin holyoak the bishop of manchester, in a speech delivered by him in oldham in august, , is reported to have said that "he could defy anyone to try to caricature the work, the character, or the person of the lord jesus christ." he no doubt felt confident in throwing out such a challenge, as the attempt would be considered so atrociously impious that few men could be found with courage enough to incur the odium of such an act. we confess that we have not the temerity to wound the sensitiveness of the devoutly religious. what may be deemed of the nature of caricature in the following remarks the reader is requested to regard as merely the spontaneous utterance of one who is keenly alive to the ludicrous, and who is not awed by the belief that the bible is an infallible volume. we find the new testament, when read without the deceptive spectacles of _faith_ as amusing, as extravagant, and as contradictory in many places as most books. a system of religion, to be a moral guide to men, should be perfect in all its parts. it should not consist of a few precepts which might be followed under certain circumstances, the rest being made up of impossibilities and contradictions; but should be so comprehensive as to embrace all orders of men under all circumstances. and a divine exemplar to mankind, if such a being can be imagined, should possess every human virtue in perfection, and be absolutely without fault. we are told daily and hourly that jesus christ possesses these transcendent qualities, and is worthy of the homage and admiration of the world. we ask where this divine image is to be found, and are referred to the four gospels in the new testament. all that is there written was written by inspiration of god, and god therefore is the painter of the lineaments of his own son. we will take it as such, and see what aspect jesus presents when viewed in the light we are able to bring to bear upon his portrait. we shall follow a somewhat different plan to that adopted by m. rénan. that great french writer has evidently gone to his task with the intention or anticipation of finding an almost perfect man, and he ends by believing he really sees one in jesus. we have taken up the gospels with the desire of finding what is actually there; and as it appears to us, so we will present it to the reader. we know that some will view the sayings and actions in a different light; but that is inevitable. no two persons ever see in the painted portrait of a friend or relative, precisely the same expression; yet they may be equally honest. now we claim to be regarded as truthful in the following portraiture, though jesus appears to us a very different man to what he appeared to m. renan. some may say we are flippant, but that we cannot help, though we may regret it. we must express ourselves in our own way, and we most be excused if we laugh at what seems ludicrous or absurd. we may be accused of a want of reverence, but we cannot feel reverence for what does not excite that feeling in us. these pages are not critical--they do not pretend to be learned--they do not seek to explain away anything on the score of "forgeries" or "interpolations." they are based upon the supposition that the _four_ gospels are each and collectively true, and without contradiction. no attempt is made to reconcile contradictions by rejecting all that does not harmonise. the churches do not do so--they cling to all within the two covers of the "sacred book," and of course take the responsibility. nothing will be here set down that jesus did not utter; no meaning will be put upon his words that they will not legitimately bear; we have judged of him as we find him in the general actions of his life. a devout believer will exclaim, with uplifted hands and eyes--"oh, this is blasphemy; it is revolting to the moral sense; christ was the son of god, and therefore perfect. he could not be what you have represented him to be, or people long ago would have ceased to worship him. he is the one sublime character whose image fills the world, and before whom millions bow the head in reverent humility." just so; that is where the delusion arises. men have been taught that they must not think--that they must not doubt--that they must not examine the grounds of their faith--they must _believe_, and that the sin of unbelief is everlasting perdition. a halo of sanctity is thrown around this distorted image--there is a sacred mystery, a "holy of holies" into which common sense must not enter; and so devotees fall down at the threshold and worship, where they should stand erect in reliance on their own reason and judgment, and examine fearlessly for themselves into those doctrines on a belief in which their everlasting salvation is said to depend. jesus, the son of mary, but not the son of joseph, mary's husband, was, according to his biographers, an illegitimate child--at least, his birth seems to have been brought about in a most illegitimate way. one matthew, who pretends to know a great deal about this child, even before it was born, wishes his readers to infer that jesus was descended in a direct line from that worthy man and favourite of god, king david, through exactly twenty-eight generations; that is, down to joseph, who was not the father of jesus at all. he was the son of the holy ghost, but who or what that was no man knows, and no one has been able to comprehend unto this day. another biographer named luke, more sensible than matthew, like a modern welshman traces jesus's descent direct from adam, who, being the first man, _was_ probably a very distant relative of his. this extraordinary child jesus, who in his own language was simply joshua, came into the world to fulfil no end of prophecies. he was to be called jesus, that he might save his people from their sins. but he did not do it, as the jews have had amongst them since his time as great criminals as ever existed before. he was also to be named emmanuel, "which, being interpreted, is god with us." but he never was called emmanuel, so the second prophecy was fulfilled! he was born in a house in the first instance, and a star was seen to walk before certain wise men and direct them where he was. in the second instance he was born in a manger, in the stable of an inn where certain shepherds found mary, and joseph, and the babe lying. these were not wise men from the east, but poor ignorant shepherds from the neighbouring fields, and they were not led by a star, but had seen an angel of the lord by night, who terrified them very much, and departed without telling them in which particular manger the saviour was to be found. the angel appeared amid loud sounds of "glory to god in the highest, and on earth peace, and good-will towards men." if those glad tidings of great joy _were_ heard then, they have never been heard since, for the advent of this child was the signal for war, and strife, and bloodshed among mankind, which have desolated every land where the christian name has been spoken. after their fright was over, the shepherds consulted together, and resolved to go into bethlehem, to look for "this thing which had come to pass." they alighted upon joseph and his family all lying in a manger, much to the surprise of mary, who evidently did not comprehend what the excitement was about, for we are told that "mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." so after all, who knows that they found the right babe at last? if such evidence as is here given were adduced in a court of law to prove the identity of a lost heir to an estate, it would never be allowed to go even to trial, but the grand jury would ignore the bill at once. however, as jesus was declared the rightful heir, we must accept that fact, and proceed to examine how far he administered the great estate to which he was born. joseph was a very drowsy man, who had to be continually warned and roused by angels as to what he should do and the dangers which threatened him. being made wide awake to the fact that herod sought to kill the child, he suddenly fled into egypt with his family, and there remained till the death of herod, that another prophecy might be fulfilled, "out of egypt have i called my son." but he did not go into egypt, but was taken back to nazareth at eight days old, and there remained till he was a man. so the third prophecy was fulfilled! jesus is familiarly known by the name of the "meek and lowly," but this is a title which scarcely seems warranted by the narratives. from his youth upwards he gave signs of the possession of an imperious disposition and a vituperative tongue, and he on several occasions manifested a want of filial affection. his parents went to jerusalem every year to the feast of the passover, and at the age of twelve jesus was taken. when the parents returned, the boy remained behind unknown to them, and they had got a day's journey on their way home before they missed him. they retraced their steps to jerusalem in much trouble, and at last, after three days' search, found the truant comfortably seated in the temple in the midst of the doctors, holding a learned argument with them. when his mother saw him she asked him why he had caused them so much sorrow. instead of showing any penitence, he pertly answered, "how is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that i must be about my father's business?" and mary, though she knew he was the son of the holy ghost, had not the slightest idea what he meant. when he "began to be about thirty years of age," he met with john baptist, a strange sort of anchorite, who used to dress in camelshair and eat locusts and wild honey. from this cynic jesus learnt much, especially the habit of calling names. when people presented themselves to john to be baptised, he greeted them in this loving way--"o generation of vipers, who hath warned _you_ to flee from the wrath to come?" jesus was baptised, and afterwards retailed much that john had said, especially his abusive phrases. at this ceremony of immersion the heavens opened to jesus, and the spirit of god descended like a dove and alighted upon him. this spirit assumes as many shapes as satan himself, and altogether appears to be a very curious bird of passage. this baptism was not a happy thing to jesus, for immediately afterwards he was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and he had to fast forty days and forty nights, and afterwards, we are gravely told, "he was an hungered," which is not a remarkable fact, seeing that he was a young man of very good appetite. we shall see, as we get farther on, that his love of eating and drinking was manifested on many carious occasions. the old and new testaments teem with accounts of feasts and carouses by the chosen of the lord, and the lord himself, to such a degree, that christianity has not inaptly been termed the religion of gourmands. jesus frequently manifests great readiness and smartness in reply, which is either an answer to the question addressed to him, or a very clever evasion of it. when the devil had got jesus, he said to him, "if thou be the son of god, command that these stones be made bread." the devil evidently thought that to make something to eat would be the greatest temptation he could offer him. but jesus evaded the task by saying, "it is written that man shall not live by bread alone." the devil tried again, and took him to the pinnacle of a temple, and asked him to cast himself down, saying--"for it is written he shall give his angels charge concerning thee." jesus said unto him, "it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god." the devil tried a third time, and took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of this world, and the _glory_ of them, and promised him all if he would fall down and worship him. how could jesus see from one spot all the kingdoms of the world? as no one looking straight before him can see round a globe; but if it was done by supernatural power, why take the trouble to go to the top of an exceeding high mountain? the _flat_ country would have been a more suitable spot. he also saw the _glory_ of them, which must have puzzled him greatly, for what is the glory of one place, is sometimes the shame of another, jesus said, "get thee hence, satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the lord thy god, and him only shalt thou serve." the devil deemed this conclusive, and thereupon took his departure. after john the baptist was cast into prison, jesus went to reside in capernaum, and there commenced to preach from john's text--"repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." at the outset of his public career he was a copyist, and he remained so to the end of his life. he simply repeated other men's sayings, or elaborated the traditions and prophecies which were so prevalent among the jews of his day. this kingdom of heaven did not mean something in another world somewhere in the clouds, but simply a new order of things here, and that more especially among the jews. at times, it must be confessed, it is difficult to understand what it meant if not an improved mental state, and not a material kingdom at all. jesus belonged to the working class, and his followers were of the lower orders, and he constantly preached against riches, which was very popular. his followers now appreciate his sublime example so much, that they get rich as fast as they can, especially the successors of the apostles, who are content if they can only get princely incomes, and a palace wherein to lay their heads! jesus wanted followers, so he walked out by the sea of galilee, and saw peter and andrew casting their nets. if they had been only fishing for small fry, he could not have more contemptuously addressed them. "and he said unto them, follow me, and i will make you fishers of men. and they straightway left their nets and followed him." a curious phenomenon strikes one here. peter and andrew have never seen jesus before; he does not tell them who he is; he explains no principles to them by which to enlist their sympathies and awaken conviction--he merely says, "follow me, and i will make you fishers of men," and in prospect of that delightful occupation they abandon their home and calling to accompany a stranger on a doubtful mission, whatever fish may have come to their net afterwards, they certainly could never have caught two greater flat-fish than themselves. a more striking instance of blind following is not to be found upon record. peter afterwards became the greatest fanatic of all the disciples, and caused his master some trouble through his excess of zeal. and this is the man to whom are entrusted the keys of heaven. no wonder the ignorant fanatics find a ready admission, whilst sensible people are excluded. and he too is the great predecessor of the pope of rome, the head of a church which preaches the efficacy of saints' relics, the liquefaction of blood, and the truth of winking virgins. fanaticism was at the foundation, and delusion and ignorance very naturally result. others followed jesus, forsaking their nets and their parents, and they went about all galilee, jesus preaching and curing all sorts of disease and sickness--and curious indeed were some of his cures, such as are not mentioned in any modern pharmacopoeia. having vanquished great satan himself on three occasions, the minor devils had no chance with him, and woe betide all who came before him inhabiting human beings. all these cures were performed that a prophecy might be fulfilled, "which was spoken by esaias the prophet, saying-, himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." but then he did nothing of the kind. and so that prophecy was fulfilled! to cure a disease is not to take it upon ourselves; if it were, the royal college of surgeons would soon become an institution of the past. you might love your neighbour as yourself, but to be expected to have the measles tor him, would cool the warmest friendship. one style of cure jesus had which may have been very efficacious, but it certainly was not delicate. once a deaf man, who had an impediment in his speech, was brought to him to be healed. jesus took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and spat and touched his tongue. and a blind man was brought to him, whom he took by the hand and led out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands on him, asked him if he saw aught and the man was restored to sight this kind of lubrication could scarcely be deemed pleasant. neither do we find an incentive to cleanliness in this, for we are told, "as he spake, a certain pharisee besought him to dine with him; and he went in, and sat down to meat and when the pharisee saw it, he mar-yelled that he had not first washed before dinner. and the lord said onto him, now do ye pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening wickedness. ye fools, did not he that made that which is _without_, make that which it _within_ also?" this may be very true, but it is also very dirty; and though it may satisfy the son of god, would not be an excuse for any man who wished to be considered decent. the fame of jesus spread rapidly, and great multitudes flocked to hear him. one day he went up into a mountain, and addressed the people, but his discourse was of rather an extravagant description. as we understand matters in these days, what is the amount of truth contained in the following sentences?-- "blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "blessed art they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. "blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. "blessed an the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god. "blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of god. "blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." this kingdom of heaven is past all comprehension. the poor in spirit have it, and the persecuted for righteousness' sake have it; and if these are the penalties to be paid for its possession, it is not worth the winning. then is it possible or proper for any one to act in this way:--"if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off?" who in his senses would think of doing so? who would stand by and allow others to do it? and who lives according to this christian principle, and who follows this precept:--"resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also?" in the first place, it is grossly immoral _not_ to resist evil; and in the second, all the world repudiates the doctrine of non-resistance under such circumstances. if any one smites us on the right cheek, do we not quickly turn and hit him on the left? it is a natural instinct, and to act otherwise is cowardice. do the proceedings of our law courts furnish many instances of the adoption of this recommendation:--"and if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also?" one half humanity would very soon be stripped by the other half. "and whoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." no one with any spirit or power of resistance would think of submitting to the _compulsion_ of walking a mile with a person, much less of going two in the company of one whose society might be a nuisance. and if we are to give to every one that asketh, what are our vagrancy laws but a flagrant violation of christianity? the injunction is here given without the slightest qualification, and is an encouragement to mendicancy the world over. there are one or two precepts specially binding on christians of the present day! this, for instance, is very much obeyed:--"and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, _and in the corners of the streets_, that they may be seen of men." this, we know, is universally observed by the followers of jesus. it is obeyed by the ordained minister in his canonicals; the primitive in his whitewashed tabernacle; the methodist in his tub; the revivalists in their delirious and epileptic gatherings; the ranters in their camp meetings, and howling peregrinations through our country towns and villages; and above all, those highly gifted young men belonging to the town mission, who render the night hideous by their insane ravings at the corners of the streets and in the paths of public places. it is consoling to find the "salt of the earth" such consistent followers of their great master. it is because _they_ are the salt of the earth, that the world has got into such a precious pickle. bishops especially, and pluralists in particular, nurse in their hearts this saying: "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." no, poor men, they think too much about their heavenly father! a few thousand! a year are quite sufficient for them. and christian bankers and millionaires equally regard the injunction. this is a christian country, and we are a christian people, and our various provident and benefit societies and savings' banks tell how we esteem this command: "take no thought for the morrow, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?" we don't think of the morrow merely, but of years to come, and he who is the most careful in providing for the future, is most honoured amongst men. now all these impracticable and extravagant commands are taken from the much-vaunted sermon on the mount, and jesus said, whosoever heard them, and obeyed them, he would liken unto a _wise_ man; but whosoever obeyed them not, he would liken unto a foolish man. it may be an honour to be deemed foolish in such a case; but what shall we say of the professing christian, who considers himself so much superior to the freethinker, and who boasts of his principles being the checks which keep him moral, and says that if it had not been for his blessed saviour the world would have been lost? why, out of the mouth of jesus himself he is proved to be a hypocrite and foolish, for he does what is solemnly condemned, and leaves undone what is strictly enjoined. "and it came to pass, when jesus had ended these sayings, the people _were_ astonished at his doctrine." and can any rational inquirer be astonished at that? on reading over these gospels calmly, and seeing what are attributed to jesus as his sayings and doings, one is amazed at the credulity of the world in allowing such a stupendous delusion as the christian religion to be palmed upon it as something divine derived direct from deity. after this startling sermon, great multitudes followed jesus, and wherever he went he healed the sick and performed miracles, but he generally enjoined the convalescents not to mention to any one what he had done. the reason for this is not given, but if one may make a conjecture, it was either because he had really worked no cure at all, or else he was afraid of having too many demands made upon his time. we are told that when "jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side" of the water, that he might get away from them. before he departed, a disciple said unto him, "lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. but jesus said unto him, follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." is this an instance of meekness? when on board the ship, a great storm came on, and the sailors were afraid of being wrecked. so they awoke jesus, telling him of their danger. he first chided them, and then scolded the winds and the waves, which at once subsided. when he was come to the other side, into the country of the gergesenes, he was met by two men possessed with devils, who asked him if he had come to torment them before their time? and singular to say, the devils also, from the _interior_, entered into conversation with jesus, asking as a favour, that if they were cast out, they might be allowed to go into a herd of swine which were feeding some distance off. why they should choose such an abode is not apparent; but having permission to go, they at once entered into possession, much to the astonishment of the poor porkies, who took fright and ran violently down a steep hill into the sea, and all, to the number of , , perished in the waters. o unhappy pigs! o miserable devils! the son of man, whom you had never injured, worked your speedy destruction. "and, behold, the whole city came out to meet jesus; and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of _their_ coasts." they had more desire to save their bacon than to see miracles worked at the expense of their pigs. jesus entered into a ship and came over to his own city, where a certain ruler came and worshipped him, saying that his daughter was dead, but making the request that she should be raised to life again. when jesus entered the ruler's house, he said, "give place, for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth." and they laughed him to scorn. but when the house was cleared he took the girl by the hand, and the maid arose. this was regarded as a miracle, but it could not be, because jesus said the girl only slept, and it is not possible that a perfect god could tell an untruth. after this jesus called together his twelve disciples, and gave them instructions what to do. he said:--"provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the workman is worthy of his meat. and into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go hence. and when ye come into a house, salute it. and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. verily i say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of sodom and gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city." but it is doubtful if he meant the land of sodom and gomorrha, or tyre and sidon. however, though we may overlook this uncertainty, we cannot the fact, that a threat of destroying cities is held out if his disciples are not received and fed by people upon whom they have not the slightest claim. this advice would justify the order of 'mendicant friars in their lazy habit of living upon all who are willing to support them. he also added--"behold, i send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." have not the jesuits carried out this advice? and then he gave utterance to this painful truth to which the blood-stained pages of history can testify:--"think not that i am come to send peace on earth: i came _not_ to send peace, but a sword. for i am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. he that loveth father or mother more than, me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." there has been no peace, and there can be none, in the world, so long as the contradictory and impossible doctrines of jesus of nazareth are taught as infallible truth. house has been divided against house, the father's hand lifted against the child, and the mother's loving tenderness turned to bitterest hate, because of differences of opinion upon christian dogmas. while jesus was making one of his incoherent speeches, somebody told him that his mother and brothers were without, desiring to speak with him. "but he answered and said unto him that told him, who is my mother? and who are my brethren? and he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, behold my mother and my brethren." there is here manifested a want of natural affection unbecoming any man, and which justifies m. rénan in saying, notwithstanding his great reverence for jesus, that he was more loved than loving. there is scarcely a trace of affection throughout his life, from his childhood to his death. he was mystical and fanatical, like all who seek to set themselves up as inspired teachers. one day jesus sat by the sea-side and talked to the people in parables. he is answerable for the following:--"for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath _not_, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." he says immediately after, as a sort of apology, "therefore speak i to then in parables, because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand." it would be a miracle greater than that worked among the pigs, if anyone did understand. this sort of talk must have been indulged in for amusement--it could not have had any serious purport, or if it had, it is too profound to be understood. when jesus learnt the execution of john the baptist, he departed into a desert place, but the multitude heard of him, and followed him out of the cities. and when evening came, the disciples asked him to send the multitude away, that they might go into the villages and buy themselves victuals. we do not usually find villages in _desert_ places; but that was quite as possible in this case as what followed. jesus said they need not go, and told the disciples to give to the people to eat. they said, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. he said, bring them hither to me. and then looking up to heaven, he blessed and brake, and distributed to the multitude. now out of this very small commissariat, about five thousand men, besides women and children, ate and were filled, and left twelve baskets full of fragments at the end of the feast. all we can deplore is, that the age of miracles is past. if anyone could do this now, what a number of attached followers be would have, no matter what his speculative opinions might be. he might believe in the eternity of punishments; in three gods in one, or one in three; in election, predestination, or transmigration of souls--in short, in anything or nothing; if he could only feed his flock by casting his eyes up to heaven, he would soon empty all the churches and chapels in the kingdom. as rénan very powerfully points out, no miracle ever yet took place under scientific conditions; and till one of this description is wrought under such conditions, we must be allowed to suspend our judgment. we do not say it did not take place, but we don't believe it. it is true it does not say what kind of fishes the two were which served to fill five thousand men, _besides_ women and children, who probably ran the number up to eight thousand. perhaps the fishes were whales, as the whole story is so "very like a whale" that any suggested solution of the astounding tale is legitimate. this miracle was once discussed by a society in chicago, and the 'cute american intellect found a key to the mystery, for they _resolved_--"that the multitude must certainly have made their repast off _multiplication tables_!" after this stupendous feat, jesus constrained his disciples to get into the ship and go across the water, whilst he remained behind to get rid of his well fed friends. and when night came, the ship was tossed by the storm. and in the fourth watch jesus went unto them walking on the sea. when his disciples saw him they said he was a spirit, and cried out for fear. but jesus said, be of good cheer; it is i; be not afraid. then the enthusiastic peter said, lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. jesus said, come; to which peter responded by stepping out of the ship; but he could not float, and began to sink rapidly, and would have perished if his master had not put out his hand and saved him. if this system of aquatic locomotion could be instituted now, it would supersede all lifeboats. but we have little _faith_ in these days of scientific facts, and it requires an immense amount of that commodity to be able to attempt even what was said to have been accomplished by the founders of our national religion. jesus did not confine his creative abilities to the solid comforts of life, but exercised them upon the liquid luxuries of existence. being invited to a wedding, and there being no wine, his mother, with a woman's natural solicitude on such an occasion, said to him, "they have no wine. jesus saith unto her, woman, what have i to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." now, what such a churlish answer had to do with the simple remark made by his mother, we leave to gentle christians to say. however, after a time he became more amiable; and, no doubt, reflecting upon the disappointment of those who had come to a marriage feast, and found nothing but water to drink, he took compassion on them, and turned the water into wine, to the extent of "six water pots, containing two or three firkins apiece." "this beginning of miracles did jesus in cana of galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him." well they might; and we fear that any man in these days who should do such things, would have many followers, in spite of all the preaching of all the teetotallers, who, strange to say, for the most part profess to be good christians, notwithstanding that christ, when he had the opportunity of rebuking wine bibbing, did not do so, but encouraged it by supplying the very beverage which teetotallers so vehemently condemn. when jesus came into the coasts of cæsarea philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that i the son of man am? he was anxious to know what people thought of him now that he was become so famous. "and they said, some say that thou art john the baptist; some, elias; and others, jeremias, or one of the prophets. he saith unto them, but whom say _ye_ that i am?" of course peter was ready to crown all, and he said--"thou art the christ, the son of the living god." for which jesus blessed peter, and promised him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; but they soon fell to quarrelling, when jesus said that he must go unto jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. peter rebuked him, and said it should not be; but jesus turned upon him, and said, "get thee behind me, satan: thou art an offence unto me." it was not very dignified or in good taste after peter had imparted such an important fact to him, which was done by a revelation of his father which is in heaven.. but such was the manner of jesus. when he left galilee, and came into judæa, he resolved to go to jerusalem; and when he was come to the mount of olives, he sent two of his disciples to a village on a very questionable errand. it was to perform no less an act than the appropriation of a donkey and her colt. he told them that, if any one said aught unto them, they were to say, "the lord hath need of them." that kind of answer would scarcely be deemed satisfactory in these days, especially to a policeman. he would very likely reply, if the lord hath need of the ass, the magistrate hath need of thee; and if the instigator of the deed were not the actual thief, he would be charged as an accessory before the fact, and would be provided with board and lodging at the expense of the county for at least twelve months. this was done that another prophecy might be fulfilled, which said, "tell ye the daughter of sion, behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." but this prophet must have been an ass, or he would have known that even the son of man would find it difficult to sit upon two asses of such unequal size at the same time. apart from the absurdity of the story, it is an example of very loose notions indeed of the rights of property, which, if stated of mahomet, of joseph smith the mormon, or any other founder of a religious sect, would be quoted as a proof of his obliquity of moral vision. after this successful exploit of taking unto himself other people's goods, jesus became quite daring; and when he got to jerusalem he went into the temple of god, where he found a number of people carrying on their usual business. he had no more right there than they had--in fact, not so much, as he was a stranger to the city. but, notwithstanding this, he got a rope, and thrashed every one out of the place, upsetting the tables and chairs, and creating such a consternation as only a bedlamite broken loose would be likely to produce. though this was immediately after the appropriation of the two donkeys, upon which he had actually ridden to the temple, he called all the tradespeople dishonest, and accused them of having turned the place into a den of thieves. whatever it might have been before he came, certainly one would think the designation not inappropriate after the arrival of himself and his disciples. he was not arrested on the spot for this act of assault and battery; but what should we think of the city police commissioner if he neglected to order into custody any mad enthusiast who might so conduct himself on the stock exchange? but he would not, and the enthusiast's vagaries and his visit to the police cell would be a very little time apart. it would be no use his alleging that he was about his father's business, and that he was fulfilling prophecy--that would only aggravate the offence. he would be told that if his father did not take better care of him, the county asylum would; and the prophet would very soon be "wanted" who had instigated such folly. jesus did not remain in the city during the night--it was not prudent after such an advent in the morning, but he went and lodged in bethany, a little way out of town. in returning next morning he was hungry, so, when he came to a fig-tree, he looked at it hoping to find some fruit on it, but there was none, as it was not the right season. we should forgive an excited hungry man here if he, in a moment of forgetfulness, looked for apples in winter; but if he began to curse the tree for not bearing fruit out of season, we should think he was mad past doubt. yet this is exactly what jesus did; and not only so, but he withered the tree that it should not bear fruit thenceforward forever. his disciples marvelled at what he had done, as well they might. "jesus answered and said unto them, verily i say unto you, if ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. and all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." no persons have ever yet had the requisite amount of faith to remove mountains; and the less they try such credulity on fruit trees, the better for our orchards. nobody does or can believe such insane talk. jesus went to the temple again, and whilst he was preaching, the chief priests and elders came and asked him by what authority he did such things. in true quaker style he answered them by asking a question, which had the merit of being impossible of solution. he said--"the baptism of john, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?" they said: "we cannot tell. and he said unto them, neither tell i you by what authority i do these things." that seemed to silence his interrogators, but it did not answer them. it was a favourite way with this messiah; and we remain as much in the dark to this hour as did the chief priests and elders. this method of evasion is also exemplified in the case of the tribute money. when asked whether it was lawful to render tribute unto cæsar, he said, looking at a coin, "whose is this image and superscription?" they said, cæsar's. "then saith he unto them, render therefore unto cæsar the things which are cæsar's, and unto god the things that are god's." rénan says on this point--"to establish as a principle that we must recognise the legitimacy of a power by the inscription on its coins, to proclaim that the perfect man pays tribute with scorn, and without question, was to destroy republicanism in the ancient form, and to favour all tyranny. christianity, in this sense, has contributed much to weaken the sense of duty of the citizen, and to deliver the world into the absolute power of existing circumstances." but we are not surprised that he should so readily teach the payment of tribute, considering how easy he found it to pay tribute himself; for the ludicrous account given in matthew, in the same chapter which describes the transfiguration, shows jesus discharging his own liability and that of peter in the most original manner imaginable. not wishing to offend the tax collectors, he said to peter--"go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: take that, and give unto them for me and thee." if fish of this description swam in rivers now, they would be preserved to the exclusion of the most delicious members of the finny tribe. every man would be an angler, and fishing-tackle making would be the most lucrative trade known. take another instance of evasion. the sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, so they put a question to jesus on that point. they instanced a woman who had been married to seven brothers in succession, all of whom had died. therefore, in the resurrection, they asked whose wife she would be out of the seven when they met again. this was quickly disposed of, for "jesus answered and said onto them, ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of god. for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of god in heaven." if this is so, what becomes of the hope which believers in immortality have that in heaven they will be joined again to those they have lost on earth? this great consolation of the christian is founded on a delusion. jesus also supplemented his statement with this remarkable declaration, "but as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by god, saying, i am the god of abraham, and the god of isaac, and the god of jacob? god is _not_ the god of the _dead_, but of the _living_," what then is the use of catholic prayers for the souls of those in purgatory? what is the utility of our burial service, which goes upon the supposition that god will attend to our requests as touching the dead we are about to consign to the grave? freethinkers and rational thinkers discard the whole ceremony as a mockery. when once dead, the particles which composed our bodies are dissolved, and pass into new combinations--_we_ never live again. after he had done all his preaching, and had thoroughly aroused the ire of the authorities and most of the people of jerusalem against him, he began to fear that he would have to suffer for it, and he told his disciples so. after they had supped together in the house of one of the friends, they departed to the mount of olives outside the city, and jesus said they would all be offended with him because of that night. peter the loquacious declared, that though all men might be offended because of him, he would never be. jesus had no great opinion of peter's steadfastness, and told him, notwithstanding his protestations of attachment, that before the cock crew he would deny him thrice. peter asseverated again: "though i should die with ye, yet will i not deny thee." poor peter's word, like his judgment, however, was not to be relied upon, for the very next day he denied all knowledge of jesus, and when pressed for an answer, he began to curse and to swear that he had never seen him. soon after this the garden of gethsemane, into which they had entered; was surrounded by a multitude with staves and with swords, and jesus was arrested, peter the dauntless did make some resistance, and cut off the ear of malchus, a servant of the high priest; but the loss was only temporary, for we are told that jesus immediately "touched his ear, and healed him," and if this does not mean that he stuck the ear on again, what does it mean? when jesus was arrested in the garden, all the disciples, escaped as quickly as possible, but peter followed at a distance; and when jesus was taken to the house of caiaphas the high priest, peter entered and mixed with the servants. he was soon recognised as a follower of jesus; but when accused of the fact, he stoutly denied it three times, the last with oaths, like the low-bred man he was; for though he had been consorting with jesus a long time, he had not learnt refinement of manners, which is not wonderful, as jesus certainly did not set an example of choiceness of language, his favourite mode of speech being to call people fools, and to launch curses at them. but peter had to fulfil a prophecy--namely, that he would deny his master _thrice_, before the cock crew _twice_, which he did before the cock crew _once_. and so that prophecy was fulfilled! when jesus was first examined on the charge of blasphemy he remained silent, and would not answer any questions put to him. then caiaphas said--"i adjure thee by the living god that thou tell us whether thou be christ, the son of god." jesus at last replied--"thou hast said," which may fairly be interpreted to mean, "you say i am, not i." this is in keeping with his usual evasive mode of answering, as before pointed out. especially as he continued--"nevertheless i say unto you, _hereafter_ shall ye see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." this was declared blasphemous, and we know how excited bigoted people get when that word is pronounced. so they struck the enthusiast, as he had struck others in the temple. in the morning he was bound and led before pilate the governor, who asked him, "art thou the king of the jews?" he again answered, "thou sayest" and when the chief priests and elders repeated their charges, he still refused to answer them, which surprised pilate. however, pilate saw no harm in what he had done, and was anxious to set him at liberty; but the priests, as is usual with them, persisted in their demands of vengeance against one who had offended them. then jesus was delivered over to the soldiers to be crucified, which was a very barbarous mode of execution. he was cruelly treated by the soldiers, who were incited thereto by the priests. he died the death of a malefactor, but his end was brought about by his own wild and extravagant conduct. in these days he would have been confined as a lunatic, but in that barbarous time, and under the influence of priests, he was tortured to death. no one can contemplate his fate, whatever his faults may have been, without feelings of sorrow. but if his death was to fulfil prophecy, and to save a lost and ruined world, we ought to regard it with exultation and great joy, and not only observe good friday as a national holiday, but every friday as a public festival. but who, on calmly reading the narrative, and dismissing from his mind the fables taught him in his childhood, can see anything supernatural in jesus' life and death? he displayed through life all the infirmities and littlenesses of a man, and he died like one who had brought about his own death by his own acts. when on the cross, and no doubt in mortal agony, he exclaimed, in the utterness of despair, like one who had long trusted to a delusion, and when too late had found out his mistake--"my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" the chief priests and elders, the people about, and even the two thieves who were dying with him, jeered him for his folly, saying, "he trusted in god; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, i am the son of god." but there was no deliverance from heaven for him more than for any other man. jesus had acted so extravagantly from the time he entered on public life that it is not surprising that his followers were infected by his example, and it is to them we are indebted for the re-appearance of jesus after he was dead and buried. he himself said that he was to fulfil the prophecy of jonas, for, as he was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so should the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. yet he never went into the heart of the earth, but was laid in a tomb or cave with a door to it; and he was not even there three days and three nights, but only two nights, and not two days altogether. and so that prophecy was fulfilled! jesus prophesied his own resurrection only, but the earthquake which followed his death was no respecter of persons, for when the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. no orthodox, christians doubt for a moment that jesus rose again from the dead, because he was to do so, and he was the son of god; but do they believe these unknown saints revisited the glimpses of the moon, and experienced a resurrection equal to that of jesus, for no purpose at all, and for no merit of their own? yet we have no more authority for the one than the other, and no reason to believe one more than the other. toward the end of the sabbath (that is, saturday evening) came mary magdalene, with the other mary, to see the sepulchre where jesus was laid, and another earthquake took place, and the angel of the lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment like snow. he told the women that jesus had risen, and asked them to see the place where the lord lay. but whether they looked or not we are not told, but they ran away with fear and great joy to tell the disciples. and as they went, whom should they meet but jesus himself, who said to them, "all hail." but then there is some little confusion in this infallible narrative. it was not towards the end of saturday, but very early in the morning of sunday, at the rising of the sun, that the women came, and for the purpose of anointing the body. and the stone was still against the door, and they said, who shall roll us away the stone? but when they looked again the stone was away, and on entering the sepulchre they saw a young man dressed in white sitting _inside_, and no angel with a lightning face sitting _outside_. the women fled with terror, but told no man what they had seen; and it isa mystery to this day how that which was never told to any one is known to nearly all the world. jesus did not meet the two marys, but appeared first to mary magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. she went and told the disciples about the resurrection, but they believed her not. he appeared afterwards to two of his disciples, but they did not believe in his resurrection, neither did the eleven disciples, to whom he appeared. if they who knew him intimately did not believe in it after only three days' absence from them, shall we, after a lapse of eighteen hundred years, put faith in this clumsy, impossible, and absurd fable? but perhaps the condition he attached to the belief may have something to do with the faith of so many people in these days. he said, after upbraiding his disciples for their unbelief and hardness of heart--"he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." that threat, fulminated from thousands of pulpits, has frightened timid and weak people in nearly every age of the christian era. but then again there were not two women but many who went to the sepulchre, and they found the stone away; and when they entered they saw two men in shining garments, and the women did not conceal what they had seen, but went and told all the disciples, but they were not believed. this time the lively peter ran to the tomb to look for himself, and saw nothing but the linen clothes lying by themselves. after that two of the disciples went to emmana, where jesus himself joined them, but they knew him not, and did not believe the story of his resurrection. he then rebuked them in his usual sweet and placid style, by exclaiming, "o fools, and slow of heart," and beginning at moses and all the prophets, "he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself," which must have been a tolerably long discourse for one so recently out of the grave. they asked him to stop with them and have something to eat, which, his appetite being as good as ever, he consented to do; and it was his mode of breaking bread and blessing it that convinced them that he was jesus. and he then vanished out of their sight. they went to jerusalem and told the others what they had seen, and while they were talking jesus stood in the midst of them; but they did not know him again, but took him to be a spirit. he said--"behold my hands and my feet, that it is myself; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." and while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, he said unto them, "have ye here any meat?" he was again hungry, and they gave him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. and he took it, and did eat before them. that was enough to convince them a second time. "and he led them out as far as bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. and it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven," with the broiled fish on his stomach, where he entered into joy everlasting. the foregoing will certainly be declared "blasphemous" by all true believers, and will no doubt be pronounced a "caricature" of jesus by even unitarians. but the fault does not lie with us--it is in the text, which we did not make. we are not responsible for the representation, for we have scrupulously followed the inspired delineations of the evangelists. let us briefly sum up this biography. jesus was the son of god, and not the son of his mother's husband, and his mother remained a virgin notwithstanding his conception and birth, although she strangely offered the usual sacrifice when the days of her purification were accomplished. he was descended from the royal line of david, that is, joseph the husband of his mother was so descended; but then joseph was not his father at all. the miraculous boy was to fulfil many prophecies; but although he often purposely acted in order to fulfil them, several given as illustrations are singularly wide of the mark. at twelve years of age he was a match for learned doctors in disputation, and could pertly rebuke his mother for inquiring where he had been for three days and three nights. he was baptised at thirty by john, who taught him rudeness of manners; and though a dove descended direct from heaven, and alighted on his head, he was immediately taken by the spirit into very dangerous places, was kept a remarkably long time without food, and was very strangely tempted by the devil in person. he became a great talker, dealt largely in mystical language, and gathered followers from the poorest, most ignorant, and most credulous of his countrymen. he cured all sorts of diseases and afflictions, though there is no evidence that he ever underwent a medical training. he worked miracles, as became an eastern founder of a sect, but his achievements scarcely rank as high as the tricks of an indian juggler. he was uneducated, and never, so far as the record goes, wrote a line in his life; but as a preacher he was famous, and always succeeded in making his hearers marvel at his strange doctrines--doctrines so contradictory that no sane man can follow them. he was vituperative in his language, austere in his manners, undutiful and repelling to his mother. he appropriated other persons' property, and immediately after violently assaulted a large number of men, whom he charged with being dishonest. when asked questions touching vital points of his own doctrines, he usually gave evasive answers. he promised his disciples all sorts of wonderful powers if they would believe in him, and he promised also to come in a cloud with great glory before that generation passed away; but having risen from the grave, and ascended into heaven, he has not returned in a cloud with glory up to the time of our going to press. he ultimately met the death of a malefactor, and in the last moments of agony his fanaticism was strong upon him, for he promised to the thief who flattered him that he would meet him that day in paradise, though he did not go there himself till about six weeks afterwards. after his death he was brought to life again, thus defying all the laws of physiology. when but just out of the grave, his powers of preaching were as strong as ever, and his appetite as vigorous as though he had returned from a long journey; and after partaking of a singular repast, and before he had had time to digest it, he ascended into the clouds without the aid of a balloon, and was seen no more. all this, with much more of the same incredible nature, is taught as infallible truth by some of the best educated men the universities can produce, and belief in the whole of it is necessary to "respectability" in this life, and to salvation in a life after death. how educated men can believe it, is a mystery which we trust the school boards of the future will be able to unravel; at present we find it as insoluble as all the other sublime mysteries of christianity, for we cannot believe that a university training necessarily makes men hypocrites, and we are loth to believe that on one most important subject it necessarily makes them imbecile. there would be fewer believers if there were more inquirers. the advocates of bible reading in elementary schools must feel that there is danger to the faith lurking in the future if that "precious book" is read and not "expounded." dogmatic teaching is the stronghold of the religion of christendom. the "plain, unvarnished tale" of the four gospels would carry with it its own condemnation, for the best refutation of christianity is a true knowledge of christ. printed and published by c. watts, , johnson's court, fleet st, london, e.c. price twopence nature and the gods from "the atheistic platform", twelve lectures by arthur b. moss london: freethought publishing company , fleet street, e.c. nature and the gods ladies and gentlemen,--no word has played a more important part in the discussion of scientific and philosophical questions than the word nature. everyone thinks he knows the meaning of it. yet how few have used it to express the same idea; indeed it has been employed to convey such a variety of impressions that john stuart mill asserts that it has been the "fruitful source" of the propagation of "false taste, false philosophy, false morality, and even bad law." now, i propose in this lecture that we start with some clear ideas concerning the meaning of such words, upon the right understanding of which the whole force of my arguments depends. what, then, is meant by the word nature? when used by a materialist it has two important meanings. in its large and philosophical sense it means, as mr. mill says: "the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them, including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening--the unused capabilities of matter being as much a part of the idea of nature as those which take effect." but the word nature is often used, and rightly used, to distinguish the "natural" from the "artificial" object--that is, to indicate the difference between a thing produced spontaneously by nature, from a thing wrought by the skill and labor of man. but it must not be supposed that the artificial object forms no part of nature. all art belongs to nature. art simply means the adaptation, the moulding into certain forms of the things of nature, and therefore the artistic productions of man are included in the comprehensive sense of the term nature which i just now used. now in nature there is a permanent and a changeable-element, but man only takes cognisance of the changeable or phenomenal element; of the substratum underlying phenomena he knows and can know nothing whatever; that is, man does not know what matter and force are in themselves in the abstract, he only knows them in the concrete, as they affect him through the medium of his senses. now i allege that nearly all the mistakes of theology have arisen from the ignorance of man in regard to nature and her mode of operation. let us consider for a moment a few facts in reference to man. of course i don't want to take you back to his origin. but suppose we go back no further than a few thousand years, we shall find that man lived in holes in the earth; that he moved about in fear and trembling; that not only did he fight against his fellow creatures, but that he went in constant fear of animals who sought him as their prey. under these circumstances he looked to nature for assistance. he felt how unspeakably helpless he was, and he cried aloud for help. sometimes he imagined that he received what in his agony he had yearned for. then it was that he thought that nature was most kind. perhaps he wanted food to eat and had tried in vain to procure it. but presently a poor beast comes across his path, and he slays it and satisfies his hunger. or perhaps he himself is in danger. a ferocious animal is in pursuit of him and he sees no means of escape, but presently comes in view a narrow stream of water which he can swim across, but which his pursuer cannot. when he is again secure he utters a deep sigh of relief. in time he makes rapid strides of progress. he learns to keep himself warm while the animals about him are perishing with cold; he learns to make weapons wherewith to destroy his enemies; but his greatest triumph of all is when he has learned how to communicate his thoughts to his fellows. up to now it would be pretty safe to say that man was destitute of all ideas concerning the existence of god or gods. but he advances one stage further, and his thoughts begin to take something like definite shape. he forms for himself a theory as to the cause of the events happening about him. and now the reign of the gods begins. man is still a naked savage; as voltaire truly says: "man had only his bare skin, which continually exposed to the sun, rain and hail, became chapped, tanned, and spotted. the male in our continent was disfigured by spare hairs on his body, which rendered him frightful without covering him. his face was hidden by these hairs. his skin became a rough soil which bore a forest of stalks, the roots of which tended upwards and the branches of which grew downwards. it was in this state that this animal ventured to paint god, when in course of time he learnt the art of description." ("philosophical dictionary," vol. ii., page ). naturally enough man's first objects of worship were fetishes--gods of wood, stone, trees, fire, water. by-and-bye, however, he came to worship living beings; in fact, any animal that he thought was superior in any way to himself was converted into an object of worship. but none of these gods were of any assistance to him in promoting his advancement in the world. and neither did he receive any assistance from the spontaneous action of nature. in fact he advanced in the road of civilisation only in proportion as he offered ceaseless war against the hurtful forces of nature, using one force to counteract the destructive character of another. think what the earth must have been without a solitary house upon it, without a man who yet knew how to till the soil! must it not have been a howling wilderness fit only for savage beasts and brutal barbarians? in course of time, however, man made great strides. he began to live in communities, which afterwards grew, into nations. he betook himself also to the art of agriculture, and supplied himself and his fellows with good, nutritious food. and with this growth of man the gods underwent a similar transition. now instead of bowing down before fetishes, man transferred his worship to gods and goddesses who were supposed to dwell somewhere in the sky. and these gods were of a very peculiar kind. each of them had a separate department to himself and performed only a certain class of actions. one made the sun to shine and the trees to grow; one had a kind of dynamite factory to himself, and manufactured lightning and thunder; another was a god of love; another secretary for war; another perpetual president of the celestial peace society. some had several heads; some had only one eye or one arm; some had wings, while others appeared like giants, and hurled thunderbolts at the heads of unoffending people. but these gods were of no more service to man than those that preceded them. if man advanced it was by his own effort, by virtue of using his intelligence, by strife, warfare, and by suffering. neither nature nor the gods taught man to be truthful, honest, just, nor even to be clean. no god came to tell him that he must not lie, nor steal, nor murder.. all virtues are acquired, all are the result of education. and it was only after coming together and being criticised by one another; men being criticised by women who no doubt taught them that when they came a-wooing they would have a very slight chance if they were not clean and respectable; living in societies and being governed by the wisest among their fellows, who were able to judge as to what kind of actions produced the most beneficial results, that laws against theft, adultery, and murder, and other evil actions, were established. from polytheism, or belief in many gods, the next great step was to monotheism, or belief in one god. this was an important transition, and meant the clearing from the heavens of many fictitious deities. but though the monotheist believed only in one god, that did not prevent others from believing in an entirely different deity. the ancient jew worshipped jahveh, but that did not prevent the baalites from having a god of their own, to whom they could appeal in the hour of need. and just let me here observe that the early monotheist always worshipped an anthropomorphic or man-like deity. and he worshipped such a god because man was the highest being of whom he had any conception. his god was always the counterpart of himself and reflected all the characteristics of his own nature. was he brutal and licentious? so was his god. was he in favor of aggressive wars? so was his god. was he a petty tyrant, in favor of slavery? so was his god. was he a polygamist? so was his god. was he ignorant of the facts of life? so was his god. was he revengeful and relentless? so was his god. and in whatever book we find a deity described as a malevolent or fiendish wretch depend upon it, by whatever name that book may be known, and by whomsoever it may be reverenced, it was written by one who possessed in his own person precisely the same characteristics as those he depicted in the character of his deity. the jewish god, jahveh, it must be understood, was not a spiritual being, although it is sometimes pretended that he was. no. he was a purely material being. true he lived somewhere up above, but he made very frequent visits to the earth. once he walked in the garden of eden "in the cool of day," or "his voice" did for him (gen. iii., ). once he stood upon a mountain, whither moses, aaron, nadab and abihu had gone to hold a consultation with him (ex. xxiv., ). once he talked with moses "face to face" (ex. xxxiii., ). and not only was jahveh a material being, but on the whole he was not a very formidable deity. in point of truth he was a very little fellow. and by way of diversion he was sometimes drawn about in a small box, or ark, two feet long and three feet wide (sam. vi., , ). as evidence that even among professional christians to-day jahveh is not looked upon as a very stalwart fellow, mr. edward gibson, in the house of commons, a short time ago said that if mr. bradlaugh were admitted into that assembly the effect of it would be that god would be "thrown out of the window." and if you want to find a man with "small ideas" on general matters it is only necessary to know the kind of god he worships to be able to determine the intellectual width and depth of such a man's mind. why is this? because all ideas of god were born in the fertile imaginations of men, and a man's idea of god is invariably the exact measurement of himself, morally and intellectually. it may be urged by some theists that man is indebted to jahveh for his existence, and that he owes his moral and intellectual advancement to the fact that this deity, through the medium of moses and the other inspired writers, laid down certain commandments for his guidance in life. when it is remembered, however, that if man is indebted in any way to jahveh for his existence, he owes him only the exact equivalent of the benefits he has received, i think it will be seen that on the whole man's indebtedness to this deity is very small indeed. was adam indebted to jahveh for the imperfect nature which compelled him to commit the so-called sin which imperilled the future destiny of human race? were all the "miserable sinners"--the descendants of the first pair--indebted to jahveh for their "corrupt" natures? if yes, what kind of god was man indebted to? to a god who once drowned the whole of mankind except one family? to a god who said that he was a jealous being who "visited the sins of the father upon the children unto a third and fourth generation." (ex. xx., )? to a god who sanctioned slavery (lev. xxv., , ) and injustice of all kinds? to a god who said "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (ex. xxii., ), and gave instructions for men to kill the blasphemers among their fellows (lev. xxiv., )? to a god who told moses to go against the midianites and slay every man among them, preserving only the virgins among the women to satisfy the lustful natures of a brutal horde of soldiers (numbers xxxi., -- )? to a god to whom, as shelley says, the only acceptable offerings were "the steam of slaughter, the dissonance of groans, and the flames of a desolate land" (dialogue between "eusebes and theosophus," prose writings, page )? i deny that man has ever been in any way indebted to such a god, and i say moreover that such a deity never had any real existence, except in the base imaginations of ignorant and brutal men. but the next stage was from the material to the spiritual god. many ages must have elapsed before this more elevating though equally absurd belief became to be accepted, even by a small minority of mankind. but the time eventually did come--a time which happily is now rapidly passing away--when intellectual men believed that the proposition of the existence of god could be demonstrated to all rational minds. some said that god's existence was self-evident to every intelligent mind; others that nature and men could not have come by "chance"; that they must have had a cause; some said that the harmony existing in the universe proved god's existence; others that everybody except fools "felt in their hearts" that there was a god. but these imaginary proofs did not always convince. at last there came forth philosophers who said that there was a mode of reasoning, the adoption of which "leads irresistibly up to the belief in god," and that that mode was called the mode _à priori_. another school said that the _à priori_, or reasoning from cause to effect, was an altogether fallacious method, and that the only satisfactory mode of establishing god's existence was the _à posteriori_, or reasoning from effect to cause. another school said that taken singly neither of these modes of reasoning established the existence of deity, but that both taken together "formed a perfect chain" of reasoning that was quite conclusive on the point. neither of these schools, however, showed how two bad arguments could possibly make one good one. but let me just briefly examine these arguments put forward so confidently by leading theists. the first method--_à priori_--invariably takes the form of an attempt to establish what is called a "great first cause." when it is said that there must be a "first cause" to account for the existence of nature, such language, to say the least, shows a total misapprehension of the meaning of the word "cause," as used by scientific men. "first cause," as applied to nature as a whole, remembering the definition i have given, is an absurdity. cause and effect apply only to phenomena. each effect is a cause of some subsequent effect, and each cause is an effect of some antecedent cause. the phenomena of the universe form a complete chain of causes and effects, and in an infinite regression there can be no first cause. let me explain what i mean more fully. for instance, here is a chain; suppose it is to form a perfect circle, every link in which is perfect; now if you were to go round and round this chain from now to doomsday you would never come to the first link. it is the same in nature. you can go back, and back, and back through successive causes and effects, but you will never come to a "first cause"; you will not be able to say "here is the end of nature, and here the beginning of something else." there is no brick wall to mark the boundary line of nature. you cannot "look through nature up to nature's god,"--the poet pope notwithstanding--for nature seems endless, and you can neither penetrate her heights nor fathom her depths. and i have one other word to say in reference to this _à priori_ method, before finally disposing of it. it is this, that it is an altogether unscientific method. man knows nothing whatever of cause except in the sense' that in the immediate antecedent of an effect. man's experience is of effects; these he takes cognisance of; of these he has some knowledge, but of cause, except as a means to an end, he has none. but this brings me to the second mode of reasoning in proof of god's existence, the _à posteriori_ and this has one advantage in its favor, and that is, that it is a scientific method. it reasons from known effects up to the supposed causes of them. now this generally assumes the form, no matter under what guise, of the famous "design argument." dr. paley stated it many years ago, and it has not been much improved since his day. it is generally stated in this way: "the world exhibits marks of design; that design must have had a designer; that designer must be a person; that person is god." a number of illustrations are then brought forward to support this contention. for instance, it is argued that when a man observes a watch or a telescope, or any article that has been made to answer a certain purpose, and the mechanism of which is so adjusted as to effect the desired object, it is said that from the marks of design or contrivance observed in the mechanism, he infers that these articles are the products of some human designer. and so it is said that when we look around the world and see how beautifully things are designed, the eye to see, the ear to hear; how admirably things are adapted the one to the other, are we not justified by similar reasoning in concluding that these are the productions of an almighty and infinite designer? briefly stated that is the argument. now let me examine it. and in the first place it will be observed that it is assumed that there is a great resemblance between the works of nature and the artistic works of man. but is this really a fact? man simply moulds natural objects into certain forms; they are then called artificial objects. we know that man designs watches and telescopes; it is a fact within our experience. but there is not the slightest similarity between the process of manufacture and the natural process of growth; so that when we see various objects of nature, we do hot conclude, however harmoniously the parts may work together, that they were designed. we know a manufactured article from a natural object, we could not mistake the one for the other. but let us suppose that we did not know that men made watches; it is very probable that we should then think that a watch was not made at all, but that it was a natural object. take an illustration. suppose that i were to lay a watch upon the earth somewhere in south africa; suppose that in a short time a savage wandering near the spot where the watch was deposited should observe it, should take it into his hand and handle it--i am assuming that the savage had never seen a watch before, and was not aware that men designed and constructed watches--think you that he would for a moment notice that it exhibited marks of design? no, i think he would be more likely to come to the opinion that it was alive. the design argument therefore is purely an argument drawn from experience. but what experience has man of god? speaking for myself i can say that i have absolutely no experience of him at all, and i am not acquainted with anybody who has. man does not know god as a designer or constructor; he neither knows of his capabilities, nor his existence; and he therefore cannot reasonably say that god is the designer of anything. the human eye is very often adduced by the theist as an illustration of design. now nobody can deny that the eye is a delicate, complicated, and beautiful structure; nobody could fail to see and acknowledge with feelings of admiration the wonderful adjustment and harmonious working of its various parts; and all would readily acknowledge how admirably it is fitted to perform its functions. but yet to acknowledge all this is not to admit that the eye is designed. to point to the combinations and conditions which produce this result, without showing that these conditions were designed, is to beg the whole question. and it must be distinctly understood that the _onus probandi_ as the lawyers say, lies with the affirmer of the design argument and not with him who does not see evidence in it sufficient to command belief. to show that a thing is capable of effecting a certain result does not prove that it was designed for that purpose. for example. i hold this glass in my hand; i now release my hold from it and it instantly falls to the ground; that does not surely prove either that i was designed to hold up that glass, or that the glass was designed to fall on withdrawing my grasp from it. at most it only proves that i am capable of holding it, and that when i release it, it is impelled by the law of gravitation to fall towards the earth. but there is another view of this question i wish to present to you. from this argument it is not quite clear that there is only one supreme god of the universe. admittedly this is an argument based upon experience. what does experience teach us in respect to a person? simply this. that a person must have an organisation, and a person with an organisation must be a limited being. has god an organisation? if he has not, he cannot be intelligent, cannot perceive, recollect, judge; and if he has, then an organisation implies contrivance, and contrivance implies a contriver, and this again instead of leading up to one god, leads to an innumerable tribe of deities each mightier and more complicated than the other. if the theist retorts that a person need not have an organisation, the atheist at once replies that neither need the designer of nature be a person. but these are not the only objections to be used against the design argument. the _à priori_ theologians have some very potent arguments to advance. mr. william gillespie has discovered twenty-four defects of _à posteriori_ arguments, and i think he has conclusively shown that all the attributes claimed for deity are impeached by this method. in my humble opinion the design argument has grown out of the arrogance and conceit of man, who imagines that the earth and all the things existing upon it were treated especially for his benefit. suppose that i admit that there is design in nature, the theist has then to account for some awkward and many horrible designs. how will he get over the fact that nature is one vast battle-field on which all life is engaged in warfare? what goodness will he see in the design that gives the strong and cunning the advantage over the weak and simple? what beneficence will he detect in the fact that all animals "prey" upon one another? and that man is not exempt from the struggle? famine destroys thousands; earthquakes desolate a land; and what tongue can tell the anguish and pain endured by the very poor in all great countries of the earth? think of the "ills to which flesh is heir." think of the diseases from which so many thousands suffer. think how many endure agony from cancer or tumor, how many have within their bodies parasites which locate themselves in the liver, the muscles, and the intestines, causing great agony and sometimes death. think how many are born blind and how many become sightless on account of disease. think of the deaf and the dumb, and of the poor idiots who pass a dreary and useless existence in asylums. then think of the accidents to which all men are liable. think of the many who are killed or injured on railways every year. think of men and boys who injure or destroy their limbs in machinery during the performance of their daily work. think of the thousands who find a premature and watery grave. in one of our london workhouses i saw recently a young man who had met with a dreadful accident; who had had his hand frightfully lacerated by a circular saw, which will prevent him from ever working again. think of his suffering. think of the misery his wife and children will have to bear on account of it. it almost makes one shed bitter tears to think of it; and yet we are to be told, we who are striving to alleviate suffering and mitigate the evils which afflict our fellow creatures, we are to be told that an infinitely wise and good god designs these things. oh the blasphemy of it! surely an infinite fiend could not do worse; and if i thought that nature were intelligent, that nature knew of the suffering she inflicted on all kinds of living beings and had the power to prevent it, but would not, i would curse nature even though the curse involved for me a sudden and painful death. but nature heareth not man's protests or appeals--she is blind to his sufferings and deaf to his prayers. oh, but it's said: "see what harmony there is in the universe:" _per se_ there is neither harmony nor chaos in nature; we call that harmony which pleasantly affects us, and that chaos which does the reverse. some theist may say: "suppose that i grant that i cannot prove that god exists, what then? you cannot prove your own existence, and yet you believe that you exist." i am well aware that i cannot prove my own existence; i don't want to prove it; it's a fact, and it stands for itself--to me it is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of certainty. i know that i exist. cannot god make the evidence of his existence as clear as my own is to me? if he cannot, what becomes of his power? and if he will not, what of his goodness? and it must be remembered that there are thousands of intelligent atheists in the world to-day. now, either god does not wish man to believe in him, or if he does he lacks the power to produce conviction. o theist--you who profess to be conversant with the ways of the almighty--explain to me, now, how it is that in proportion as men cultivate their minds and reason on theological questions that the tendency is for them to disbelieve even in the ethereal deity of modern theism. and it will not do in the nineteenth century to put jesus forward as a god. he was no god. he possessed many good qualities, no doubt, as a man--but not one attribute which is claimed for god. he was neither all-wise, nor all-good, nor all-powerful, and he was only a finite being. and how can it be pretended by sensible persons that a finite man living on the earth, born of a woman, and dying like any other ordinary being, could possibly be the infinite god of the universe? is it not absurd? i cannot believe it, and anybody with brains that devotes a moment's thought to the matter, must acknowledge either that it is incomprehensible, or that it is monstrously absurd. in this country we are not asked to believe in any of the "foreign gods"--the gods of ancient greece or rome--the gods of china, india, or egypt, etc.--and we need not now discuss as to how far these deities have influenced human conduct for good or for ill. england, as a civilised country, is not very old. and civilisation has always meant a banishment of the gods. while men considered how to please the gods, they neglected in a great measure the work of the world. as plato said: "the gods only help those who help themselves." well they are just the persons who do not want help; and i shall never worship any god who leaves the helpless and the unfortunate to perish. if god only "helps those who help themselves," he might as well leave the helping alone, because even as we find the world to-day, the whole of life seems to be based on the principle that, "unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have in abundance, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." the man who has a strong constitution may struggle successfully in the world; the man with great affluence may win an easy victory over his fellows; the man who has plenty of "influential friends" has good prospects; but the poor, the weakly, the ignorant, what hope have they--they have to suffer and toil, and toil and suffer from the cradle to the tomb. how is it, then, you may ask, if man has received no assistance from without, either from nature or the gods, that he has achieved such splendid results in the world? the answer is simple enough. the great struggle for life--the desire to get food, clothing, habitation, comfort--these have been the motives which have urged men on. the desire to get food caused men to till the soil, and, as the demand increased, the methods of cultivation improved; with improved taste came improved raiment and dwellings for the rich; plain dress and decent habitation for the poor. men having given up the worship of nature, began to study her; they found that by diligent investigation, and the application of their augmented knowledge, they were able to beautify the world, and render their lives happy. then we began to have great scientific discoveries. navigation, steam-power, telegraphy, electricity; by a knowledge of the use of these powers man has been able to conquer the destructive character of many natural forces, and to transfer a world of misery into a home of comparative comfort. and i say that the world is indebted far more to those who built houses, made clothes, navigated ships, made machinery, wrote books, than to all the gods and their clerical representatives the world has ever known. belief in god never helped a man to supersede the sailing vessel by the steamship, the old coach by the railroad, the scythe by the reaping machine, nor the fastest locomotion by the telegraph wires. man's necessities allured him on to all these achievements. one stephenson is worth a thousand priests--one edison of more value to the world than all the gods ever pictured by the imagination. and we must not forget the men who freed the human intellect from the fetters of a degrading superstition. we must not forget what the world owes to our brunos, our spinozas, our voltaires, our paines, our priestleys; for these, by teaching men to rely on their reason, have opened out channels of thought that were previously closed, and mines of intellectual and material wealth that have since yielded great results. and so it must now be said that man is master of nature, and he finds that she is just as good as a servant as she was bad as a master. but the earth is not yet a paradise. theology is not yet entirely banished; the debris of the decayed beliefs still cumber our path and impede our progress. there is even now much that remains to be done. plenty of labor to be performed. ignorance, poverty, and crime and misery still exist and exert their evil influence in the world. the philanthropist and the reformer have still their work to do. the ignorant have yet to be instructed, the hungry have yet to be fed, the homeless have yet to be provided for. and i have come to the opinion after years of experience, that ignorance is the real cause of all the misery and suffering in the world; that that man is truly wise who sees that it is against his own interest to do a paltry act, to perform an evil deed. all actions carry with them their consequences, and you can no more escape the effects of your evil deeds than you can evade the law of gravitation, or elude the grim monster death when the dread hour arrives. no. if you would be happy you must act virtuously--act as you would desire all others to do to promote your happiness. say to yourselves: "if every one were to act as i am doing, would the world be benefited?" and if you come to the opinion that the world would not be improved by such conduct, depend upon it your actions are not good. remember that once you perform a deed in nature it is irrevocable; and if it is bad repentance is worse than useless. all actions either have an evil or a good result. every deed leaves its indelible impress on the book of nature, from which no leaves can be torn and nothing can be expunged. and remember, too, that the man who makes his fellow-creatures happy cannot displease a god who is good; and a god who is not good is neither deserving of admiration nor service. an infinite and all-powerful god cannot need the assistance of man; but man needs the assistance of his brothers and sisters to diffuse the glorious light of knowledge through the world; needs assistance to alleviate suffering, to remove injustice, and secure the possibility of freedom and happiness for all. therefore i urge you to abate not your enthusiasm, but work bravely on; and when the evening of your life approaches, with wife by your side and your children playing joyously about you, with many friends to cheer and thank you--then will you know that your life's labor has not been in vain. a few words about the devil, and other biographical sketches and essays by charles bradlaugh new york: a. k. butts & co., dey street. . autobiography of charles bradlaugh. a page of his life. at the request of many friends, and by way of farewell address on leaving for america, i, for the first time in my life, pen a partial autobiographical sketch. i do not pretend that the narrative will be a complete picture of my life, i only vouch the accuracy of the facts so far as i state them. i have not the right in some cases to state political occurrences in which others now living are involved, nor have i the courage of jean jacques rousseau, to photograph my inner life. i shall therefore state little the public may not already know. i was born on the th september, , in a small house in bacchus walk, hoxton. my father was a solicitor's clerk with a very poor salary, which he supplemented by law writing. he was an extremely industrious man, and a splendid penman. i never had the opportunity of judging his tastes or thoughts, outside his daily labors, except in one respect, in which i have followed in his footsteps. he was passionately fond of angling. until my life needs little relation. my schooling, like that of most poor men's children, was small in quantity, and, except as to the three r's, indifferent in quality. i remember at seven years of age being at a national school in abbey street, bethnel green; between seven and nine i was at another small private school in the same neighborhood, and my "education" was completed before i was eleven years of age at a boys' school in coalharbor street, hackney road. when about twelve years of age i was first employed as errand lad in the solicitor's office where my father remained his whole life through. after a little more than two years in this occupation, i became wharf clerk and cashier to a firm of coal merchants in britannia fields, city road. while in their employment the excitement of the chartist movement was at its height in england, and the authorities, frightened by the then huge continental revolution wave, were preparing for the prosecution of some of the leaders among the chartists. meetings used to be held almost continuously all day on sunday, and every week-night in the open air on bonner's fields, near where the consumption hospital now stands. these meetings were in knots from fifty to five hundred, sometimes many more, and were occupied chiefly in discussions on theological, social, and political questions, any bystander taking part. the curiosity of a lad took me occasionally in the week evenings to the bonner's fields gatherings. on the sunday i, as a member of the church of england, was fully occupied as a sunday-school teacher. this last-named fashion of passing sunday was broken suddenly. the bishop of london was announced to hold a confirmation in bethnal green. the incumbent of st. peter's, hackney road, the district in which i resided, was one john graham packer, and he, desiring to make a good figure when the bishop came, pressed me to prepare for confirmation, so as to answer any question the bishop might put. i studied a little the thirty-nine articles of the church of england, and the four gospels, and came to the conclusion that they differed. i ventured to write the rev. mr. packer a respectful letter, asking him for aid and explanation. all he did was to denounce my letter to my parents as atheistical, although at that time i should have shuddered at the very notion of becoming an atheist, and he suspended me for three months from my office of sunday-school teacher. this left me my sundays free, for i did not like to go to church while suspended from my teacher's duty, and i, instead, went to bonner's fields, at first to listen, but soon to take part in some of the discussions which were then always pending there. at the commencement i spoke on the orthodox christian side, but after a debate with mr. j. savage, in the warner place hall, in , on the "inspiration of the bible," i found that my views were getting very much tinged with freethought, and in the winter of that year, at the instigation of mr. packer, to whom i had submitted the "diegesis" of robert taylor, i--having become a teetotaler, which in his view brought out my infidel tendencies still more vigorously--had three days given me by my employers, after consultation with my father, to "change my opinions or lose my situation." i am inclined to think now that the threat was never intended to have been enforced, but was used to terrify me into submission. at that time i hardly knew what, if any, opinions i had, but the result was that sooner than make a show of recanting, i left home and situation on the third day, and never returned to either. i was always a very fluent speaker, and now lectured frequently at the temperance hall, warner place, hackney road, at the small hall in philpot street, and in the open air in bonner's fields, where at last on sunday afternoons scores of hundreds congregated to hear me. my views were then deistical, but rapidly tending to the more extreme phase in which they ultimately settled. i now took part in all the gatherings held in london on behalf of the poles and hungarians, and actually fancied that i could write poetry on kossuth and mazzini. it was at this time i made the acquaintance of my friend and co-worker, mr. austin holyoake, at his printing office in queen's head passage, and i remember him taking me to john street institution, where, at one of the pleasant saturday evening gatherings, i met the late mrs. emma martin. at mr. austin holyoake's request, mr. george jacob holyoake, to my great delight, presided at one of my lectures in philpot street, and i felt special interest in the number of the _reasoner_ which contained a brief reference to myself and that lecture. i wrote my first pamphlet, "a few words on the christian's creed," about the middle of , and was honored by dr. campbell of the _british banner_ with a leading article vigorously assailing me for the lectures i had then delivered. after leaving home i was chiefly sheltered by mrs. sharpies carlile, with whose children, hypatia, theophila, and julian, i shared such comforts as were at her disposal. here i studied hard everything which came in my way, picking up a little hebrew and an imperfect smattering of other tongues. i tried to earn my living as a coal merchant, but at sixteen, and without one farthing in my pocket, the business was not extensive enough to be profitable. i got very poor, and at that time was also very proud. a subscription offered me by a few freethinkers shocked me, and awakened me to a sense of my poverty; so telling no one where i was going, i went away, and on the th of december, , was, after some difficulty, enlisted in the seventh dragoon guards. with this corps i remained until october, , being ultimately appointed orderly-room clerk; the regiment, during the whole of the time i remained in it, being quartered in ireland. while i was in the regiment i was a teetotaler, and used often to lecture to the men in the barrack-room at night, and i have more than once broken out of portobello barracks to deliver teetotal speeches in the small french street hall, dublin. many times have i spoken there in my scarlet jacket, between james haughton and the good old father, the rev. dr. spratt, a roman catholic priest, then very active in the cause of temperance. while i was in the regiment my father died, and in the summer of an aunt's death left me a small sum, out of which i purchased my discharge, and returned to england, to aid in the maintenance of my mother and family. i have now no time for the full story of my army life, which, however, i may tell some day. before i left the regiment i had won the esteem of most of the privates, and of some of the officers. i quitted the regiment with a "very good character" from the colonel, but i am bound to add, that the captain would not have concurred in this character had he had any voice in the matter. the lieutenant-colonel, c. p. ainslie, earned an eternal right to grateful mention at my hands by his gentlemanly and considerate treatment. i can not say the same for my captain, who did his best to send me to jail, and whom i have not yet quite forgiven. on returning to civilian life i obtained employment in the daytime with a solicitor named rogers, and in the evening as clerk to a building society; and soon after entering this employ i began again to write and speak, and it was then i, to in some degree avoid the efforts which were afterward made to ruin me, took the name "iconoclast," under which all my anti-theological work down to was done. i give mr. rogers' name now for he is dead, and malice can not injure him. many anonymous letters were sent to him to warn him of my irreligious opinions; he treated them all with contempt, only asking me not to let my propaganda become an injury to his business. soon after my discharge from the army i had a curious adventure. while i was away a number of poor men had subscribed their funds together and had erected a working man's hall, in goldsmith's row, hackney road. not having any legal advice, it turned out that they had been entrapped into erecting their building on freehold ground without any lease or conveyance from the freeholder, who asserted his legal right to the building. the men consulted me, and finding that under the statute of frauds they had no remedy, i recommended them to offer a penalty rent of £ a year. this being refused, i constituted myself into a law court, and without any riot or breach of the peace, i, with the assistance of a hundred stout men, took every brick of the building bodily away, and divided the materials, so far as was possible, among the proper owners. i think i can see now the disappointed rascal of a freeholder when he only had his bare soil left once more. he did not escape unpunished, for to encourage the others to contribute, he had invested some few pounds in the building. he had been too clever; he had relied on the letter of the law, and i beat him with a version of common-sense justice. i lectured once or twice a week in the small philpot street hall, very often then in the hall of science, city road, and then in the old john street institution, until i won myself a name in the party throughout the country. in had my first notable adventure with the authorities in reference to the right of meeting in hyde park, and subsequently gave evidence before the royal commission ordered by the house of commons, presided over by the right hon. stuart wortley. i was very proud that day at westminster, when, at the conclusion of my testimony against the authorities, the commissioner publicly thanked me, and the people who crowded the court of exchequer cheered me, for the manner in which i denied the right of sir richard mayne, the then chief commissioner of police, to issue the notices forbidding the people to meet in the park. this was the first step in a course in which i have never flinched or wavered. in i undertook, with others, the publication of a series of papers, entitled "half-hours with freethinkers," the late john watts being one of my co-workers. i also by myself commenced the publication of my "commentary on the pentateuch," which has since been entirely re-written and now forms my "bible: what it is." during the autumn of paid my first lecture visit to northampton. early in , when mr. edward truelove was suddenly arrested for publishing the pamphlet, "is tyrannicide justifiable?" i became honorary secretary to the defense, and was at the same time associated with the conduct of the defense of simon bernard, who was arrested at the instigation of the french government for alleged complicity in the orsini tragedy. it was at this period i gained the friendship of poor bernard, which, without diminution, retained until he died; and also the valued frendship of thomas allsop, which i still preserve. my associations were from thenceforward such as to encourage in me a strong and bitter feeling against the late emperor napoleon. while he was in power i hated him, and never lost an opportunity of working against him until the _decheance_ came. i am not sure now that i always judged him fairly; but nothing, i think, could have tempted me to either write or speak of him with friendliness during his life. _le sang de mes amis etait sur son ame_. now that the tomb covers his remains, my hatred has ceased; but no other feeling has arisen in its place. should any of his family seek to resume the imperial purple, i should remain true to my political declarations of sixteen years since, and should exert myself to the uttermost to prevent france falling under another empire. i write this with much sadness, as to have dispelled some of my illusions held firmly during the fifteen years which preceded. i had believed in such men as louis blanc, lodru rollin, victor hugo, as possible statesmen of france. i was mistaken. they were writers, talkers, and poets; good men to ride on the stream, or to drown in honest protest, but lacking force to swim against, or turn back, the tide by the might of their will. i had believed too in a republican france, which is yet only in the womb of time, to be born after many pangs and sore travailing. in i saw joseph mazzini for the first time, and remained on terms of communication with the great italian patriot until the year , from time to time bringing him correspondence from italy, where my business sometimes took me. after we found ourselves holding diverse opinions on the franco-prussian question--mazzini went for prussia, i for france--and i never saw him again. in june, , i held my first public formal theological debate with the rev. brewin grant, b.a., at that time a dissenting minister at sheffield. mr. grant was then a man of some ability, and if he could have forgotten his aptitudes as a circus jester, would have been a redoubtable antagonist. during this year i was elected president of the london secular society, in lieu of mr. george jacob holyoake, who had theretofore led the english free-thought party, but who has of late years devoted himself more completely to general journalistic work. in november, , i commenced editorial duties with the _investigator_, formerly conducted by the late robert cooper, which i continued until august, . it had but a small circulation, and was financially a very great failure. for the encouragement of young propagandists, i may here insert a little anecdote of my early lecturing experience. i had lectured in edinburgh in mid-winter, the audience was small, the profits microscopical. i, alter paying my bill at the temperance hotel, where i then stayed, had only a few shillings more than my parliamentary fare to bolton, where i was next to lecture. i was out of bed at five on a freezing morning, and could have no breakfast, as the people were not up. i carried my luggage (a big tin box, corded round, which then held books and clothes, and a small black bag), for i could not spare any of my scanty cash for a conveyance or porter. the train from edinburgh being delayed by a severe snow-storm, the corresponding parliamentary had left carlisle long before our arrival. in order to reach bolton in time for my lecture, i had to book by a quick train, starting in about three-quarters of an hour, but could only book to preston, as the increased fare took all my money, except / d. with this small sum i could get no refreshment in the station, but in a little shop in the street outside i got a mug of tea and a little hot meat pie. from preston, i got with great difficulty on to bolton, handing my black bag to the station-master there as security for my fare from preston, until the morning. i arrived in bolton about quarter to eight; the lecture commenced at eight, and i, having barely time to run to my lodgings, and wash and change, went onto the platform cold and hungry. i shall never forget that lecture; it was in an old unitarian chapel. we had no gas, the building seemed full of a foggy mist, and was imperfectly lit with candles. everything appeared cold, cheerless, and gloomy. the most amusing feature was that an opponent, endowed with extra piety and forbearance, chose that evening to specially attack me for the money-making and easy life i was leading. peace to that opponent's memory, i have never seen him since. it was while in scotland on this journey i made the acquaintance, and ultimately won the frendship, of the late alexander campbell, of glasgow--a generous, kindly-hearted old socialist missionary, who, at a time when others were hostile, spoke encouragingly to me, and who afterward worked with me for a long period on this journal [_the national reformer_]. occasionally the lectures were interfered with by the authorities, but this happened oftener in the provinces than in london. in march, , i was to have lectured in saint martin's hall on "louis napoleon," but the government--on a remonstrance by count walewski, as to language used at a previous meeting, at which i had presided for dr. bernard--interfered; the hall was garrisoned by police, and the lecture prevented. mr. hullah, the then proprietor, being indemnified by the authorities, paid damages for his breach of contract, to avoid a suit which i at once commenced against him. later in the same month i held a debate in northampton with mr. john bowes, a rather heavy, but well-meaning, old gentleman, utterly unfitted for platform controversy. the press now began to deal with me tolerably freely, and i find "boy," "young man," and "juvenile appearance" very frequent in the comments. my want of education was an especial matter for hostile criticism, the more particularly so when the writer had neither heard nor seen me. discussions now grew on me so thick and fast that even some of the most important debates may perhaps escape notice in this imperfect chronicling. at sheffield i debated with a reverend dr. mensor, who styled himself a jewish rabbi. he was then in the process of gaining admission to the church of england, and had been put forward to show my want of scholarship. we both scrawled hebrew characters for four nights on a black board, to the delight and mystification of the audience, who gave me credit for erudition, because i chalked the square letter characters with tolerable rapidity and clearness. at glasgow i debated with a mr. court, representing the glasgow protestant association, a glib-tongued missionary, who has since gone to the bad; at paisley with a mr. smart, a very gentlemanly antagonist; and at halifax with the rev. t. d. matthias, a welsh baptist minister, unquestionably very sincere. all these were formal debates, and were reported with tolerable fullness in the various journals. in the early part of i, aided by my friends at sheffield, halifax, and other parts of england, projected the _national reformer_ in small shares. unfortunately just after the issue of its prospectus, joseph barker returned from america, and was associated with me in the editorship. the arrangement was peculiar, mr. barker editing the first half of the paper and i the second. it was not precisely a happy union, and the unnatural alliance came to an end in a very brief period. in august. , i officially parted company with joseph barker as editor. we had been practically divorced for months before: the first part of the paper usually contained abuse of those who wrote in the second half. he came to me originally at sheffield, pretending to be an atheist and a republican, and soon after pretended to be a christian, and spoke in favor of slavery. i am sometimes doubtful as to how far mr. barker deluded himself, as well as others, in his various changes of theological and political opinions. if he had had the slightest thoroughness in his character, he would have been a great man; as it is, he is only a great turn-coat. in june, , i debated again with the reverend brewin grant, every monday for four weeks, at bradford, and during this debate had a narrow escape of my life. in one of my journeys to london, the great northern train ran through the station at king's cross, and many persons were seriously injured. i got off with some trifling bruises and a severe shaking. garibaldi having at this time made his famous marsala effort, i delivered a series of lectures in his aid, and am happy to be able to record that, though at that time very poor, i sent him one hundred guineas as my contribution by my tongue. this money was chiefly sent through w. h. ashurst, esq., now solicitor to the general post office, and among the letters i preserve i have one of thanks from "g. garibaldi," for what i was then doing for italy. in this year i debated for four nights with dr. brindley, an old antagonist of the socialists, at oldham; for two nights with the rev. dr. baylee, the president of st. aidan's college, at birkenhead, where a church of england curate manufactory was for some time carried on; and for two nights with the rev. dr. rutherford, of newcastle. dr. rutherford has since so identified himself with the cause of the tyneside workers, that i read with regret any harsh words that escaped me in that debate. although during late years i have managed to keep all my meetings free from violence or disorder, this was not always so. in october, , i paid my first visit to wigan, and certainly lectured there under considerable difficulty, and incurred personal clanger, the resident clergy actually inciting the populace to physical violence, and part destruction of the building i lectured in. i, however, supported by one courageous woman and her husband, persevered, and despite bricks and kicks, visited wigan again and again, until i had, _bon gre malgre_ improved the manners and customs of the people, so that now am a welcome speaker there. i could not improve the morals of the clergy, as the public journals have recently shown, but that was their misfortune not my fault. in the winter of , i held two formal debates in wigan, all of which were fully reported in the local journals; one with mr. hutchings, a respectable nonconformist layman, and the other with the rev. woodville woodman, a swedenborgian divine. early in i visited guernsey in consequence of an attempt made by the law courts of the island to enforce the blasphemy laws against a mr. stephen bendall, who had distributed some or my pamphlets to the guernseyites, and had been condemned to imprisonment in default of finding sureties not to repeat the offense. not daring to prosecute me, although challenged in writing, the authorities permitted drink and leave of absence to be given to soldiers in the garrison on condition they would try to prevent the lecture, and the house in which i lectured was broken into by a drunken and pious mob, shouting "kill the infidel." my antagonists were fortunately as cowardly as they were intolerant, and i succeeded in quelling the riot, delivering my lecture in spite of all opposition, although considerable damage was done to the building. shortly after this i visited plymouth, where the young men's christian association arranged to prosecute me. they were, however, a little too hasty, and had me arrested at an open air meeting when i had scarcely commenced my speech, having only uttered the words: "friends, i am about to address you on the bible." having locked me up all night, and refused bail, it was found by their legal adviser that a blunder had been committed, and a charge of "exciting a breach of the peace, and assaulting the constable in the execution of his duty," was manufactured. it was tolerably amusing to see the number of dinners, suppers, and breakfasts, all accompanied with pots or cups of devonshire cream, sent in to the devonport lock-up, where i was confined, by various friends who wanted to show their sympathy. the invented charge, though well sworn to, broke down after two days' hearing, under the severe cross-examination to which i subjected the witnesses. i defended myself, two lawyers appeared against me, and seven magistrates sat on the bench, predetermined to convict me. finding that the evidence of the whole of the witnesses whom i wished to call was to be objected to, because un-believers in hell were then incompetent as witnesses according to english law, i am pleased to say that several nonconformists, disgusted with the bigotry and pious perjury of my prosecutors, came forward. the result was a triumphant victory, and a certificate of dismissal, which i wrung from the reluctant bench of great unpaid. i was not yet satisfied; some of the magistrates had tried to browbeat me, and i announced in court that i would deliver the lecture i had been prevented from delivering to an audience assembled in the borough, and that i should sue at law the superintendent of police who had arrested me. the first portion of my defiance was the most difficult to give effect to; not a hall could be hired in devonport, and nearly all the convenient open land being under military jurisdiction, it was impossible to procure the tenancy of a field for an open-air meeting. i, however, fulfilled my promise, and despite the police and military authorities combined, delivered my lecture to an audience assembled in their very teeth. devonport, stonehouse, and plymouth form one garrisoned and fortified town, divided by the river tamar. all the water to the sea is under the separate jurisdiction of saltash, some miles distant. i obtained a large boat on which a temporary platform was built, and this boat was quietly moored in the river tamar on the devonport side, about two fathoms from the shore. placards were issued stating that, acting under legal advice, i should address the meeting and deliver the prevented lecture "near to the devonport park gates." overwhelming force was prepared by the devonport authorities, and having already erred by too great haste, this time they determined to let me fairly commence my lecture before they arrested me. to their horror i quietly walked past the park gates where the crowd was waiting, and passing down a by-lane to the river side, stepped into a little boat, was rowed to the large one, and then delivered my lecture, the audience who had followed me standing on an open wharf, all within the jurisdiction of the borough of devonport, and i being about feet outside the borough. the face of the mayor ready to read the riot act, the superintendent with twenty-eight picked policemen to make sure or my arrest, and a military force in readiness to overawe any popular demonstration--all these were sights to remember. i am afraid the devonport young men's christian association did not limit themselves to prayers and blessings on that famous sunday. as i had promised, the authorities refusing any apology for the wrongful arrest, i commenced an action against superintendent edwards, by whom i had been taken into custody. the borough magistrates indemnified their officer and found funds to resist me. i fought with very little help save from one tried, though anonymous friend, for joseph barker, my co-editor, but not co-worker, in our own paper, discouraged any pecuniary support. the cause was made a special jury one, and came on for trial at exeter assizes. unfortunately i was persuaded to brief counsel, and sir robert collier, my leader, commenced his speech with an expression of sorrow for my opinions. this damaged me very much, although i won the case easily after a long trial. the jury, composed of devonshire landowners, only gave me a farthing damages, and mr. baron channell refused to certify for costs. i was determined not to let the matter rest here, and myself carried it to the court _in banco_, where i argued it in person for two whole days, before lord chief justice erie and a full bench of judges. although i did not succeed in improving my own position, i raised public opinion in favor of free speech, and the enormous costs incurred by the borough authorities, and which they had to bear, have deterred them from ever again interfering either with my lectures or those of any other speaker, and i now have crowded audiences in the finest hall whenever i visit the three towns. these proceedings cost me several hundred pounds, and burdened me with a debt which took long clearing off. in , i held a four nights' discussion with a dissenting clergyman, the rev. w. barker. my opponent was probably one of the most able and straightforward among my numerous antagonists. about this time a severe attack of acute rheumatism prostrated me, and having soon after to visit italy, i, at first under medical advice, adopted the habit of drinking the light continental wines, and although continuing an advocate of sobriety, i naturally ceased to take part in any teetotal gatherings. in the struggle between the northern and southern states of america, my advocacy and sympathies went with what i am glad to say was the feeling of the great mass of the english people--in favor of the north; and my esteemed friend, and then contributor, w. e. adams, furnished most valuable aid with his pen in the enlightenment of public opinion, at a time when many of our aristocracy were openly exulting in what they conceived to be the probable break-up of the united states republic. during the lancashire cotton famine i lectured several times in aid of the fund. i began now also to assume a much more prominent position in the various english political movements, and especially to speak on the irish church and irish land questions. on the irish questions, i owe much to my late co-worker and contributor, poor peter fox andre, a thoroughly honest and whole-souled man, whose pen was always on the side of struggling nationalities. one of the disadvantages connected with a public career is, that every vile scoundrel who is too cowardly to face you openly can libel you anonymously. i have had, i think, my full share of this kind of annoyance. most of the slanders i have treated with utter contempt, and if i had alone consulted my own feelings, should probably never have pursued any other course. twice, however, i have had recourse to the judgment of the law--once in the case of a clergyman of the church of england, who indulged in a foul libel affecting my wife and children. this fellow i compelled to retract every word he had uttered, and to pay £ , which, after deducting the costs, was divided among various charitable institutions. the reverend libeler wrote me an abject letter, begging me not to ruin his prospects in the church by publishing his name; i consented, and he has since repaid my mercy by losing no opportunity of being offensive. he is a prominent contributor to the _rock_, and a fierce ultra-protestant. he must have greater confidence in my honor than in his own, or fear of exposure would compel him to greater reticence. the other case arose during the election, and will be dealt with in its proper order. it was my fortune to be associated with the reform league from its earliest moments until its dissolution. it is hardly worth while to repeat the almost stereotyped story of the successful struggle made by the league for parliamentary reform. e. beales, esq., was the president of the league, and i was one of its vice-presidents, and continued nearly the whole time of its existence a member of its executive. the whole of my services and journeys were given to the league without the slightest remuneration, and i repeatedly, and according to my means, contributed to its funds. when i resigned my position on the executive i received from mr. george howell, the secretary, and from mr. beales, the president, the most touching and flattering letters as to what mr. beales was pleased to describe as the loyalty and utility of my services to the league. mr. george howell concluded a long letter as follows: "be pleased to accept my assurance of sincere regards for your manly courage, consistent and honorable conduct in our cause, and for your kindly consideration for myself as secretary of this great movement on all occasions." these letters have additional value from the fact that mr. beales, whom i sincerely respect, differs widely from me in matters of faith, and mr. howell is, fortunately, far from having any friendly feeling toward me. it was while on the executive of this league that i first became intimately acquainted with mr. george odger, and had reason to be pleased with the straightforward course he pursued, and the honest work he did as one of the executive committee. mr. john baxter langley and mr. r. a. cooper were also among my most prominent co-workers. my sympathy with ireland, and open advocacy of justice for the irish, nearly brought me into serious trouble. some who were afterward indicted as the chiefs of the so-called fenian movement, came to me for advice. so much i see others have written, and the rest of this portion of my autobiography i may write some day. at present there are men not out of danger whom careless words might imperil, and as regards myself i shall not be guilty of the folly of printing language which a government might use against me. my pamphlet on the irish question, published in , won a voluntary letter of warm approval from mr. gladstone, the only friendly writing i ever received from him in my life. at huddersfield, the philosophical hall having been duly hired for my lectures, pious influence was brought to bear on the lessee to induce him to break the contract. fortunately what in law amounted to possession had been given, and on the doors being locked against me, i broke them open, and delivered my lecture to a crowded and most orderly audience. i was arrested, and an attempt was made to prosecute me before the huddersfield magistrates; but i defended myself with success, and defeated with ease the conservative solicitor, n. learoyd, who had been specially retained to insure my committal to jail. in i entered into a contest with the conservative government which, having been continued by the gladstone government, finished in with a complete victory for myself. according to the then law every newspaper was required to give sureties to the extent of £ against blasphemous or seditious libel. i had never offered to give these sureties, as they would have probably been liable to forfeiture about once a month. in march, , the disraeli government insisted on my compliance with the law. i refused. the government then required me to stop my paper. i printed on the next issue, "printed in defiance of her majesty's government." i was then served with an attorney-general's information, containing numerous counts, and seeking to recover enormous penalties. i determined to be my own barrister, and while availing myself in consultation of the best legal advice, i always argued my own case. the interlocutory hearings before the judges in chambers were numerous, for i took objection to nearly every step made by the government, and i nearly always succeeded. i also brought the matter before parliament, being specially backed in this by mr. milner gibson, mr. john stuart mill, and mr. e. h. j. crawford. when the information was called on for trial in a crowded court before mr. baron martin, the government backed out, and declined to make a jury; so the prosecution fell to the ground. strange to say, it was renewed by the gladstone government, who had the coolness to offer me, by the mouth of attorney-general collier, that they would not enforce any penalties if i would stop the paper, and admit that i was in the wrong. this i declined, and the prosecution now came on for trial before baron bramwell and a special jury. against me were the attorney-general, sir r. collier, the solicitor-general, sir j. d. coleridge, and mr. crompton hutton. i found that these legal worthies were blundering in their conduct of the trial, and at _nisi prius_ i let them obtain a verdict, which however, i reversed on purely technical grounds, after a long argument, which i sustained before lord chief baron kelly and a full court sitting in banco. having miserably failed to enforce the law against me, the government repealed the statute, and i can boast that i got rid of the last shackle of the obnoxious english press laws. mr. j. s. mill wrote me: "you have gained a very honorable success in obtaining a repeal of the mischievous act by your persevering resistance." the government, although beaten, refused to reimburse me any portion of the large outlay incurred in fighting them. it has always been my ambition to enter parliament, and at the general election for i, for the first time, entered the arena as a candidate. i was beaten; but this is scarcely wonderful. i had all the journals in england except three against me. every idle or virulent tale which folly could distort or calumny invent was used against me. despite all, i polled nearly , votes, and i obtained unasked, but not ungratefully listened to, the public acknowledgments from the mayor of the borough, also from one of my competitors, mr. charles gilpin, as to the loyal manner in which i had fought the contest through. during the election struggle libels rained from all sides. one by the late mr capper, m. p., seeking reelection at sandwich, was the monstrous story, that in the open square at northampton i had taken out my watch and defied god to show his power by striking me dead in five minutes. challenged for his authority mr. capper pretended to have heard the story from mr. c. gilpin, m. p., who indignantly denied being any party to the falsehood. i insisted on an apology from mr. capper, which being refused i sued him, but he died soon after the writ was served. the story was not an original invention by mr. capper; it had been reported of abner kneeland thirty years before, and is still a favorite one with pious missionaries at street corners. a still more outrageous slander was inserted in the _razor_, a pseudo-comic weekly. i compelled this journal to give a full apology, but not until after two years' litigation, and a new trial had been ordered. when obliged to recant, the christian proprietor became insolvent, to avoid payment of the costs. unfortunately born poor, my life had been one continued struggle, and the burden of my indebtedness was sorely swollen in this and similar contests. probably the most severe, and to me certainly the most costly, struggle has been on the oath question. formerly it was a fatal objection against the competency of a witness who did not believe in a deity and in a future state of rewards and punishments. several attempts had been made to alter the law, but they had all failed; and indeed sir j. trevelyan's measures only provided for affirmation, and did not seek to abolish the incompetency. in a case in which i was plaintiff in the court of common pleas, my evidence was objected to, and i determined to fight the matter through every possible court, and to get the law changed if possible. i personally argued the case before lord chief justice bovill and a full bench, in the court of common pleas, and with the aid of the present mr. justice denman and the late lord chancellor hatherly, the law was twice altered in parliament. before victory was ultimately obtained i had to carry the case into the court of error, and i prepared and sent out at my own cost more than two hundred petitions to parliament. ultimately the evidence amendment act, , and the evidence further amendment act, , gave freethinkers the right to enter the witness box, and i won my suit. the christian defendant finished by becoming bankrupt, and i lost a terribly large sum in debt and costs. the original debt and interest were over £ , and the costs of the various proceedings were very heavy. in the winter of the mirfield town hall, which had been properly taken and paid for for two nights' lectures, was refused by the proprietors, who barricaded the hall, and obtained a great force of police from the neighborhood. in order that the law might be clearly settled on this matter, i brought an action to try the question, and although the late mr. justice willis expressed himself strongly in my favor, it was held by mr. justice mellor at _nisi prius_ that nothing, except a deed under seal or an actual demise, would avail. a mere agreement for a user of a hall was a license revocable at will, even when for a valuable consideration. this convinced me that when hall proprietors break their contracts, i must enforce my rights as i did at huddersfield, and have done in other places. during the franco-prussian struggle i remained neutral until the th of september. i was against bismark and his blood-and-iron theory, but i was also against the empire and the emperor; so i took no part with either. i was lecturing at plymouth the day the _decheance_ was proclaimed, and immediately after wrote my first article in favor of republican france. i now set to work and organized a series of meetings in london and the provinces, some of which were cooperated in by dr. congreve, professor beesly, and other prominent members of the positivist party. these meetings exercised some little effect on the public opinion in this country, but unfortunately the collapse on the part of france was so complete, and the resources commanded by bismark and moltke so vast, that, except as expressing sympathy, the results were barren. in october, , i, without any previous communication from myself to them, received from the republican government at tours a long and flattering letter, signed by leon gambetta, adolphe cremieux, al glais bizoin, and admiral fourichon, declaring that they, as members of the "gouvernement de la defense nationale, reunis en delegation a tours," "tiennent a honneur de vous remercier chalereusement du noble concours que vous apportez a la cause de la france." on the d of february, , m. tissot, the charge d'affaires of france in england, wrote me: "quant a moi, mon cher ami, le ne puis que constater ici, comme je l'ai deja fait, comme je le feraien toute occasion, la dette que nous avons contracted envers vous. vous nous avez donne votre temps, votre activite, votre eloquence, votre ame, la meilleure partie de vous meme, en un mot; la france que vous avez ete seule a defendre ne l'oubliera jamais." this is probably a too flattering estimate of my services to france, but coming from the official representative of the french republic, i feel entitled to insert it. in september, , monsieur emmanuel arago, member of the provisional government of the th of september, wrote the following words upon the letter which had been sent me, as above mentioned, in october, , by the delegate government of tours: "en lisant cette lettre, j'eprouve tres vivement le regret de n'avoir pu, en-ferme dans paris, joindre ma signature a celles de mes collegues de la delegation de tours. mr. bradlaugh est et sera toujours dans la republique notre concitoyen." during , , and , held several debates with the rev. a. j. harrison, formerly of huddersfield. the first at newcastle, in the splendid town hall of that place, was attended by about , persons. the second debate at bristol, was notable from being presided over by professor newman. the third discussion was at birmingham, and was an attempt at the socratic method, and the last platform encounter, was in the new hall of science, london. of the rev. mr. harrison it is enough i should say that, a few weeks since, when rumor put my life in danger, he was one of the first to write a kindly and unaffected letter of sympathy to mrs. bradlaugh. when the great cry of thanksgiving was raised for the recovery of the prince of wales, i could not let it pass without protest. while he lay dangerously ill i had ceased to make any attack on himself or family, but i made no pretense of a grief i did not feel. when the thanksgiving day was fixed, and tickets for st. paul's were sent by the lord chamberlain to working men representatives, i felt it right to hold a meeting of protest, which was attended by a crowded audience in the new hall of science. the "right of meeting" has given me three important occasions of measuring swords with the government during the last few years, and each time defeat has attended the government. the first, the hyde park meeting, where i acted in accord with mr. beales, to whom as chief, let the honor go of this conflict. the second was on the st july, , under the following circumstances. a meeting had been held by mr. g. odger and some of his friends in hyde park, on sunday the th of july, to protest against the grant to prince arthur; this meeting was adjourned until the following evening. late on the sunday afternoon, the adjourned meeting was forbidden by the government. early on monday morning mr. odger applied to me to give the friends the benefit of my legal knowledge and personal influence. i consented, and the government persevering, i took my share of the responsibility of the gathering, and signed with mr. odger a new notice convening the meeting. the home office not only served us also with a written prohibition, but threatened and prepared to use force. i immediately gave mr. bruce notice that the force would be illegal, and that it would be resisted. at the last moment, and in fact only some half hour before the meeting commenced, the government abandoned its prohibition, and an enormous meeting of a most orderly character was held in absolute defiance of the authorities. the more recent case was in december, , when finding that mr. odger, mr. bailey, and others, had been prosecuted under some monstrous and ridiculous regulations invented by mr. ayrton, i, on my own responsibility, determined to throw down the gauntlet to the government. i did this most successfully, and soon after the opening of parliament the obnoxious regulations were annulled. it is at present too early to speak of the republican movement in england, which i have sought, and not entirely without success, to organize on a thoroughly legal basis. it is a fair matter for observation that my lectures on "the impeachment of the house of brunswick," have been delivered to crowded audiences assembled in some of the finest halls in england and scotland, notably the free trade hall, manchester, the town hall, birmingham, the town hall, northampton, and the city hall, glasgow. it is, as far as i am aware, the first time any english citizen has, without tumult or disorder and in buildings belonging to various municipalities, directly challenged the hereditary right of the reigning family. in penning the foregoing sketch i had purposely to omit many facts connected with branches of italian, irish, and french politics. i have also entirely omitted my own struggles for existence. the political parts are left out because there are secrets which are not my own alone, and which may not bear full telling for many years to come. the second, because i hope that another year or two of hard work may enable me to free myself from the debt load which for some time has hung heavily round me. a few words about the devil to have written under this head in the reign of james rex, of pious memory, would have, probably, procured for me, without even the perusal of my pamphlet, the reputation of dr. faustus, and a too intimate acquaintance with some of the pleasant plans of torturing to death practiced by the clever witch-finders of that day. i profess, however, no knowledge of the black art, and am entirely unskilled in _diablerie_, and feel quite convinced that the few words i shall say about his satanic majesty will not be cause of any unholy compacts in which bodies or souls are signed away in ink suspiciously red. in many countries, dealing with the devil has been a perilous experiment. in , an unfortunate named andre dubuisson was confined in the bastile, charged with raising the devil. to prevent even the slightest apprehension on the part of my reader that i have any desire or intent toward placing him unpleasantly near a black-visaged, sulphureous-constitutioned individual, horned like an old goat, with satyr-like legs, a tail of unpleasant length, and a disposition to buy a body from any unfortunate wight ready to dispose of it, i have only to assert my intention of treating the subject entirely from a biblical point of view. doubtless i ought to do this; the christian devil is a bible institution. i say, \ advisedly, the christian devil, because other religions have boasted their devil, and it is well to prevent confusion. but i frankly admit that none of these religions have the honor of a devil so devilish as our own. indeed our devil ought to be the best: it costs the most. no other religion besides our own can boast the array of popes, bishops, conferences, rectors, incumbents, and paid preachers of various titles. and all these to preach against the devil! it is necessary, before entering upon my subject, that i should confess my little ability to do it justice. i am unable to say, certainly, whether i am writing about a singular devil or a plurality of devils. in one text "devils" are mentioned,* recognizing a plurality; in another, "the devil,"** as if there was but one. we may, however, fairly assume that either there is one devil, more than one, or less than one; and, having thus cleared our path from mere numerical difficulties, we will proceed to give the devil his due. satan appears either to have been a child of god, or, at any rate, a most intimate acquaintance of the family; for we find that on "a day when the children of god came to present themselves before the lord, that satan came also among them;"*** and no surprise or disapprobation is manifested at his presence. the conversation narrated in the book of job as occurring between god and the devil has, for us, a value proportioned to the rarity of the scene, and to the high character of the personages concerned. * leviticus xvii, . ** luke iv, . *** job i, we are, therefore, despite the infidel criticism of martin luther, who condemns the book of job as "a sheer _argumentum fabulæ_" determined to examine carefully the whole particulars for ourselves; and, in so doing, we are naturally surprised to find god, the omniscient, putting to satan the query, whence comest thou? we cannot suppose god, the all-wise, ignorant upon the subject, and we can not avoid a feeling of astonishment that such an interrogatory should have been made. satan's reply, assuming its correctness--and this the text leaves us no reason to doubt--increases our surprise and augments our astonishment. the answer given is, "from going to and fro in the earth, and from going up and down it," in remarking on this answer, i do not address myself to those wretched persons who, relying on their reason and common sense, ignore the divine truth. i address myself to the true believer, and i ask, is he not astonished to find, from his bible, that satan could have gone to and fro in the earth, and walked up and down, and yet not have met god, the omnipresent, occasionally during his journeying? the lord makes no comment on satan's reply, but says, "hast thou not considered my servant job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth god and escheweth evil?" it is rather extraordinary that god should wish to have the devil's opinion on the only good man recorded as then living in the world: the more extraordinary when we know that god is all-wise, and knew satan's opinion without asking it, and that god is immutable, and, therefore, would not be influenced by the expression of the devil's opinion when uttered. satan's answer is, "doth job fear god for naught? hast thou not made an hedge about him, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blest the work of his hand, and his substance is increased in the land; but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." what is god's reply to this audacious assertion? does he express his determination to protect the righteous job? does he use his power to rebuke the evil tempter? no. "the lord said unto satan, behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put forth not thine hand." and this was job's reward for being a perfect and upright man, one that feared god and eschewed evil. he was not sent to the devil, but the devil was sent to all that he had. and he lost all without repining--sons, daughters, oxen, asses, camels and sheep, all destroyed, and yet job sinned not. some divines have urged that we here get a beautiful picture of patience and contentment under wrong and misfortune. but i reply that it is not good to submit patiently to wrong, or to rest contented under misfortune. i urge that it is manlier far to resist wrong, nobler far to wage war against wrong, better far to carefully investigate the causes of wrong and misfortune, with a view to their removal. contentment under wrong is a crime, voluntary submission under oppression is not the virtue some would have it to be. "again there was a day when the sons of god came to present themselves before the lord [as if god's children could ever be absent from him], and satan came also among them to present himself before the lord. and the lord said unto satan, from whence comest thou? and satan answered the lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. and the lord said unto satan, hast thou considered my servant job, that there is none like him in the earth? a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth god and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause." can god be moved against a man to destroy him without a cause? if so, god is neither immutable nor all-wise. yet the bible puts into god's mouth the terrible admission that the devil had moved god against job to destroy him without cause. if true, it destroys god's goodness; if false, then the bible is no revelation. but satan answered the lord and said, "skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life; put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face." does the lord now drive the devil from his presence? is there any expression of wrath or indignation against his tempter? not so. "the lord said unto satan, behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life." and job, being better than everybody else, finds himself smitten in consequence with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. the ways of the lord are not as our ways, or this would seem the reverse of an encouragement to virtue. we turn over the pages of our bible for further information on this diabolic theme. after reading the account of the numbering by david attentively, one is puzzled by the apparent contradiction, that in one place "god" and in another "satan" occurs.* * chron. xxi, ; sam. xxiv, but it may be that there is more harmony between god and the devil than ordinary men are aware. unfortunately, we have not the advantage of great scholarship, but one erudite commentator on the bible tells us, in speaking of the hebrew word azazel: "this terrible and venerable name of god, through the pens of biblical glossers, has been _a devil, a mountain_, a wilderness, and a he-goat."* well may incomprehensibility be an attribute of deity, when, even to holy and reverend fathers, god has been sometimes undistinguishable from a he-goat or a devil. goats and devils are alike represented with horns and tails. we trust that profanity will not enlarge on this sad confusion of ideas. not possessing great lingual acquirements, we adhere to the english bible, believing that religion can never be improved by mere common sense, or human effort. we admire, without understanding, the skill of the missionary, who makes the word "mooigniazimoongo" an equivalent for god in the sooahelee dialect, and who represents "original sin" to the ottomi indian by the word "teacatzintiliztlatlacolli," and who recommends the delaware to repentance as "schiwelendamowitchewagan." we do not wonder that in these translating thaumaturgic exploits god and devil get mistaken for each other. god is a spirit. jesus was led up of the spirit to be tempted of the devil; and it is also true that spirits are very likely to lead men to the devil. too intimate acquaintance with whisky toddy overnight is often followed by the _delirium tremens_ and blue-devils on the morrow. we advise our readers to eschew alike spirituous and spiritual mixtures. they interfere sadly with sober thinking, and play the devil with your brains. the history of the temptation of jesus by the devil has been dealt with in another essay.** yet it may be well to add the opinion of a church of england divine in this place: "that the devil should appear personally _to_ the son of god _is certainly not more wonderful_ than that he should, in a more remote age, have appeared _among_ the sons of god, in the presence of god himself, to tempt and torment the righteous job." * g. r. gliddon's extract from "land's sagra scritura," chap. iii, sec. . ** "who was jesus christ?" p. . but that satan should carry jesus, bodily and literally, through the air--first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the topmost pinnacle of the temple--is wholly inadmissible, it is an insult to our understanding.* it is pleasant to be able to find so many clergymen, in these days, zealously repudiating their own creeds. i am not prepared to speak strongly as to the color of the devil; white men paint him black, black men white; but, allowing for the prejudices of dark-colored and fair-skinned believers, an invisible green would not be an unreasonable tint. we presume that he is not colorless, as otherwise the evangelists or the persons present would have labored under considerable difficulties in witnessing the casting out of the devil from the man in the synagogue.** this devil is described as an unclean devil, and it is, therefore, a fair inference that there are some clean devils as well as dirty devils. printer's devils are mostly unclean devils, but then they are only little devils, and we must not make too much of them. nearly all the devils seem to talk, and it has therefore been conjectured by some bachelor metaphysicians that they are of the feminine gender, but i see no reason to agree in this, and my wife is of a contrary opinion. the devils are probably good christians--one text tells us that they believe and tremble. it is a fact with some poor devils that the more they believe the more they tremble. we are told in another text that the devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. he will have extremely bad taste, however, if he eat up the lean and bony working-classes, while so many fat bishops and stout archdeacons remain unconsumed. *"christian records," by the rev. dr. giles, p. . ** luke iv, , . devils should be a sort of eternal salamander, for we are told there is everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,* and that there is a lake of brimstone and fire, into which the devil was cast.** perhaps instead of being salamander they will, while in the fire, be rather of the 'otter tribe; but this is a question which mr. c. h. spurgeon, who is a far better judge of brimstone than myself, would be more competent to settle. the devil has, at least upon one occasion, figured as a controversialist. he disputed with the archangel michael, contending about the body of moses;*** and in these degenerate days of personality in debate it is pleasant to know that the religious champion, unlike the grants, coopers, and brindleys of the present period, was very civil toward his satanic opponent. the devil was once imprisoned for , years in a bottomless pit.**** if a pit has no bottom, it seems but little confinement to shut the top; but with faith and prayer, even a good foundation may be obtained for a bottomless pit. it is urged by some that the devil was the serpent of genesis--that is, that it was really satan who, in this guise, tempted eve. there is this difficulty in the matter: the devil is a liar,***** but in the interview with eve the serpent seems to have confined himself to the strict truth.****** there is, in fact, no point of resemblance--no horns, no hoof, nothing except the tail--which can be in any way identified. * matt, xxv, . ** jude, . *** john viii, . **** rev. xxi, . ***** rev. xxi, . ****** genesis iii, , , . the old testament speaks a little of the devils, sometimes of satan, but never of "the devil," and it seems almost too much, in matthew, to usher him in, in the temptation scene, without introduction, and as if he were an old acquaintance. i do not remember reading, in the old testament, anything about the lake of brimstone and fire; this feature of faith was reserved for the warmth of christian love to inspire; the pentateuch makes no reference to it. zechariah, in a vision, saw "joshua, the high-priest, standing before the angel of the lord, and satan standing at his right hand to resist him."* why the devil wanted to resist joshua is not clear; but as joshua's garments were in a very filthy state, it may be that he was preaching to the priest the virtues of cleanliness. it is often said that cleanliness is next to godliness; i honestly confess that i should prefer a clean sinner to a dirty saint. jesus said that one of the twelve disciples was a devil,** but i am not prepared to say whether he meant the unfaithful and cowardly peter, to whom he intrusted the keys of heaven, or judas who sold him for money, just as would nearly any bishop of the present day. the bishops preach that it is as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle; yet they enrich themselves, and their families, as greedily and carelessly as if they, at any rate, never expected to smell brimstone as a consequence. you are told to resist the devil, and he will flee from you;*** if this be true, he is a cowardly devil, and thus does not agree quite with milton's picture of his grand, defiant, almost heroism. but then milton was a poet, and true religion has but little poetry in it. * zechariah iii, . **john vi, . ***james iv, . jeroboam, one of the jewish monarchs, ordained priests for the devils,* and this may be the reason why, at the present day, all the orthodox clergy are gentlemen in black. in the time of jesus, satan must, when not in the body of some mad, deaf, dumb, blind, or paralytic person, have been in heaven; for jesus, on one occasion, told his disciples that he saw satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.** of course, this would betoken a rapid descent, but although a light affair, it is no laughing matter, and we reverently leave it to the clergy to explain the text. jesus told simon peter that satan desired to have him, that he might sift him as wheat;*** in this text it may be urged that jesus was chaffing his disciple. paul, the apostle, seems to have looked on the devil much as the magistrates of guernsey, devonport, and yarmouth look on the police, for paul delivered hymeneus and alexander unto satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.**** revivalists are much indebted for their evanescent successes to hell and the devil, if the following extract from the experience of a christian preacher be reliable: "thomas english was one of those very noisy and active preachers who do so much in promoting revivals." he would tell his hearers of "dwelling with devouring fire, bearing everlasting burning, roasting on the devil's spit, broiling on his gridiron, being pitched about with his fork, drinking the liquid fire, breathing the brimstone fumes, drowning in a red-hot sea, lying on fiery beds,"***** etc. * chron: xi, . ** luke x, . *** luke xxii, . **** tim. i, . ***** "pilgrim's progress from methodism to christianity." in the present year the vulgar tirades of reginald radcliffe, richard weaver, and c. h. spurgeon (some of them delivered in exeter hall) will serve to evidence that the above quotation is not the exaggeration which some might think. in london, before crowded audiences, mr. weaver, without originality, and with only the merit of copied coarseness, has called upon the lord to "shake the ungodly for five minutes over the mouth of hell." mr. spurgeon has drawn pictures of hell which, if true and revealed to him by god, are most disgustingly frightful, and which being, as we believe, false, and but the creation of his own vulgar, morbid fancies, induce, on our part, a feeling of contempt as well as disgust. the wesleyans, some years since, made the devil a prominent feature in the famous "fly-sheet" controversy, so much so that a wesleyan, speaking and writing on the subject, suggested that the authors of the "fly-sheets" were devils, and another once-wesleyan writer says: "the first thing which made me inquire about the devil was that i thought him abused. i thought him bad enough, but could not help fearing that people told lies about him. r. s------, a very zealous prayer-leader, stole some oats, and imputed the blame to the devil. t. c------ got drunk, and complained in the love-feast that the devil had been very busy with him for some time, and then took him in an unguarded moment. b. s----- was detected in lying, and complained that satan had gained the advantage over him. old george white burned his fingers in lighting his pipe, and declared that it was the devil that caused him to do it; and farmer duffy horsewhipped his wife, and said that he did it to beat the devil out of her. this make me desirous to know what influence the devil really had, and i was stimulated to this inquiry by my friend, mr. trelevan, who assured mo that the devil was as necessary as the almighty to the orthodox faith."* the fashionable preachers in the neighborhood of belgravia mostly eschew the devil, and avoid the taint of brimstone; treacle is the commodity they dispense. * "pilgrim's progress from methodism to christianity." for myself, the only devil i know is that black devil ignorance, fostered by knavery and tyranny; a devil personified by the credulous many, and kept up in the past by the learned but treacherous few, who preferred to rule the masses by their fears, rather than to guide them through their love. this devil has, indeed, not been a roaring lion, but a cowardly and treacherous boa constrictor; it has enveloped in its massive folds glorious truths, and in the fierceness of its brute power has crushed them in its writhings. but oh! a glorious day is coming: amid the heretofore gloom of night the bright rays of the rising sun are piercing, the light of truth dispels the mists of ignorance. bright facts drive out dark delusions; mighty truths triumph over pious frauds, and no longer need men be affrighted by the notion of an omnipotent fiend, wandering through the earth, ever seeking their damnation. yes--to partially adopt the phraseology of a writer in "macmillan's magazine"--i do refuse to see in god a being omniscient as omnipotent, who puts us into this world without our volition, leaves us to struggle through it as we can, unequally pitted against an almost omnipotent and supersubtile devil, and then, if we fail, finally drops us out of this world into hell-fire, where a legion of inferior devils find constant and never-ending employment in inventing fresh tortures for us; our crime being that we have not succeeded where success was rendered impossible. no high, no manly, no humane thinkings are developed in the doctrine of devils and damnation. if a potent faith, it degrades alike the teacher and the taught, by its abhorrent mercilessness; and if a form, instead of a faith, then is the devil doctrine a misleading sham, which frightens weak minds and never developes strong men. new life of david. in compiling a biographical account of any ancient personage, impediments mostly arise from the uncertainty of the various traditions out of which we gather our biography, and from the party bias and coloring which often pervade and detract from their value. in the present case no such obstacle is met with, no such bias can be imagined, for, in giving the life of david, we extract it from an all-wise god's perfect and infallible revelation to man, and thus are enabled to present it to our readers free from any doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. the father of david was jesse, an ephrathite of bethlehem-judah. jesse had either eight sons ( samuel xvi, , , and xvii, ) or only seven ( chron. ii, to ), and david was either the eighth son or the seventh. some may think this a difficulty to commence with, but such persons will only be those who rely on their own intellectual faculties, or who have been misled by colenso's arithmetic. if you, my dear reader, are in any doubt, at once consult some qualified divine, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference between eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith, by the help of the spirit. arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement, and one which all true believers should eschew. in proof of this, i may observe that the proposition three times one are one is a fundamental article of the christian faith. david's great grandmother was the holy harlot rahab, and his grandmother was a lady who when unmarried went in the night and lay at the feet of boaz, and left in the morning before it was light enough for any one to recognize her like her grandson she was "prudent in matters." when young, david tended his father's sheep, and apparently while so doing he obtained the reputation for being cunning in playing, a mighty valiant man, and a man of war and prudent in matters. he obtained his reputation as a soldier early and wonderfully, for he was "but a youth," and god's most holy word asserts that when going to fight with goliath he tried to walk in armor, and could not, for he was not accustomed to it ( samuel xvii, , douay version). samuel shortly prior to this anointed david, and the spirit of the lord came upon him from that day forward. if a man takes to spirits his life will probably be one of vice, misery, and misfortune, and if spirits take to him the result in the end is nearly the same. saul being king of israel, an evil spirit from the lord troubled him. the devil has no ear for music, and saul was recommended to have david to play on a harp in order that harmony might drive this evil spirit back to the lord who sent it. the jews' harp was played successfully, and saul was often relieved from the evil spirit by the aid of david's ministrations. there is nothing miraculous in this; at the people's concerts many a working man has been released from the "blue devils" by a stirring chorus, a merry song, or patriotic anthem. david was appointed armor-bearer to the king, but curiously enough this office does not appear to have interfered with his duties as a shepherd; indeed the care of his father's sheep took precedence over the care of the king's armor, and in the time of war he "went and returned to feed his father's sheep." perhaps his "prudence in matters" induced him thus to take care of himself. a philistine, one goliath of gath (whose hight was six cubits and a span, or about nine feet six inches, at a low computation) had defied the armies of israel. this goliath was (to use the vocabulary of the reverend sporting correspondent of a certain religious newspaper) a veritable champion of the heavy weights. he carried in all two cwt. of armor, offensive and defensive, upon his person, and his challenge had great weight. none dared accept it among the soldiers of saul until the arrival of david with some food for his brethren. david volunteered to fight the giant, but saul objecting that he was not competent to take part in a conflict so dangerous, david related how he pursued a _lion and a bear_, how he caught _him_ by his beard and slew _him_. david's offer was accepted, he was permitted to fight the giant. in one verse david slew the philistine with a stone, in another verse he slew him with the giant's own sword, while in samuel, c. xxi, v. , we are told that goliath the gittite was slain by elhanan. our transalators, who have great regard for our faiths and more for their pulpits, have kindly inserted the words "the brother of" before goliath. this saves the true believer from the difficulty of understanding how goliath of gath could have been killed by different men at different times. david was previously well known to saul, and was much loved and favored by that monarch. he was also seen by the king before he went forth to do battle with the gigantic philistine. yet saul had forgotten his own armor-bearer and much-loved harpist, and was obliged to ask abner who david was. abner, captain of the king's host, familiar with the person of the armor-bearer to the king, of course knew david well; he therefore answered, "as thy soul liveth, o king, i can not tell." one day the evil spirit from the lord came upon saul and he prophesied. men who are spiritually inclined often talk great nonsense under the influence of spirits, which they sometimes regret when sober. it is, however, an interesting fact in ancient spiritualism to know that saul prophesied with a devil in him. under the joint influence of the devil and prophecy, he tried to kill david, and when this was repeated, even after david had married the king's daughter (for whose wedding trousseau he had procured an interesting and delicate offering by the slaughter of two hundred men), then to save his own life david fled to naioth, and saul sent there messengers to arrest him, but the king's messengers having all become prophets, in the end saul went himself, and this time the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he stripped off his clothes and prophesied as hard as the rest. what he phrophesied about we do not know. in fact, the priests have made so great deduction from the profits during the plenitude of their power, that there has been little which is profitable in connection with religion left for the people. david lived in exile for some time, having collected around him every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented. saul made several fruitless attempts to effect his capture, with no better result than that he twice placed himself in the power of david, who twice showed the mercy to a cruel king which he never conceded to an unoffending people. david having obtruded himself upon achish, king of gath, and doubtful of his safety, feigned madness to cover his retreat. he then lived a precarious life, sometimes levying a species of blackmail upon defenseless farmers. having applied to one farmer to make him some compensation for permitting the farm to go unrobbed, and his demand not having been complied with, david, who is a man after the heart of the god of mercy, immediately determined to murder the farmer and all his household for their wicked reluctance in submitting to his extortions. the wife of farmer nabal compromised the matter. david "accepted her person" and ten days afterward nabal was found dead in his bed. david afterward went with six hundred men and lived under the protection of achish, king of gath; and while thus residing (being the anointed one of a god who says "thou shalt not steal,") he robbed the inhabitants of the surrounding places; being also obedient to the statute "thou shalt do no murder," he slaughtered, and left neither man nor woman alive to report his robberies to king achish; and as he "always walked in the ways" of a god to whom "lying lips are an abomination," he made false reports to achish in relation to his actions. of course this was all for the glory of god, whose ways are not as our ways. soon the philistines were engaged in another of the constantly recurring conflicts with the israelites. who offered them the help of himself and band? who offered to make war on his own countrymen? david, the man after god's own heart, who obeyed his statutes and who walked in his ways to do only that which was right in the sight of god. the philistines rejected the traitor's aid, and saved david from the consummation of this baseness. while david was making this unpatriotic proffer of his services to the philistines, his own city of ziglag was captured by the amalekites, who were doubtless endeavoring to avenge some of the most unjustifiable robberies and murders perpetrated by david and his followers in their country. david's own friends evidently thought that this misfortune was a retribution for david's crimes, for they spoke of stoning him. the amalekites had captured and carried off every thing, but they do not seem to have maltreated or killed any of their enemies. david was less merciful. he pursued them, recaptured the spoil, and spared not a man of them, save who escaped on camels. in consequence of the death of saul, david soon after was elevated to the throne of judah, while ishbosheth, son of saul, was made king of israel. but ishbosheth, having been assassinated, david slew the assassins, when they, hoping for reward, brought him the news, and he reigned ultimately over israel also. as my religious readers are doubtless aware, the lord god of israel, after the time of moses, usually dwelt on the top of an ark or box, between two figures of gold, and on one occasion david made a journey with his followers to baal, to bring thence the ark of god. they placed it on a new cart drawn by oxen. on their journey the oxen stumbled and consequently shook the cart, and one of the drivers, whose name was uzzah, fearing that god might be tumbled to the ground, took hold of the ark, apparently in order to steady it, and prevent it from overturning. god, who is a god of love, was much displeased that any one should presume to do any such act of kindness, and killed uzzah on the spot as a punishment for his error. this shows that if a man sees the church of god tumbling down, he should never try to prop it up; if it be not strong enough to save itself the sooner it falls the better for human kind--that is, if they keep away from it while it is falling. david was much displeased that the lord had killed uzzah; in fact, david seems to have wished for a monopoly of slaughter, and always manifested displeasure when killing was done unauthorized by himself. being displeased, david would not take the ark to jerusalem; he left it in the house of obed edom, but as the lord proved more kind to obed edom than he had done to uzzah, david determined to bring it away, and he did so, and david danced before the ark in a state of semi-nudity, for which he was reproached by michal. the story is one which, by itself, would be as entertaining to a depraved mind as any holywell-street pamphlet, if lord campbell's act did not prevent the publication of indecencies. the pages of god's most holy word, we believe, do not come within the scope of the act, and lovers of obscene language may therefore have legal gratification so long as the bible shall exist. the god of israel, who had been leading a wandering life for many years, and who had "walked in a tent and in a tabernacle," and "from tent to tent," and "from one tabernacle to another," and who "had not dwelt in any house" since the time that he brought the isrealites out of egypt, was offered "an house for him to dwell in," but he declined to accept it during the lifetime of david, although he promised to permit the son of david to erect him such an abode. david being now a powerful monarch, and having many wives and concubines, saw one day the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers. to see, with this licentious monarch, was to crave for the gratification of his lust. the husband, uriah, was fighting for the king, yet david was base enough to steal his wife's virtue during uriah's absence in the field of battle. "thou shalt not commit adultery," was one of the commandments, yet we are told by god of this david, "who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart to do only that which was right in mine eyes" ( kings, c. xiv, v. ). david having seduced the wife, sent for her husband, wishing to make him condone his wife's dishonor, as many a man has done in other lands, when a king or prince has been the seducer. some hold that virtue in rags is less worth than vice when coroneted. uriah would not be thus tricked, and david, the pious david, coolly planned, and without mercy caused to be executed, the treacherous murder of uriah. god is all just; and david having committed adultery and murder, god punished and killed an innocent child, which had no part or share in david's crime, and never chose that it should be born from the womb of bathsheba. after this the king david was even more cruel and merciless than before. previously he had systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of moab, now he sawed people with saws, cut them with harrows and axes, and made them pass through brick-kilns. yet of this man god said he "did that which was right in mine eyes." so bad a king, so treacherous a man, a lover so inconstant, a husband so adulterous, of course was a bad father, having bad children. we are little surprised, therefore, to read that his son ammon robbed his sister, david's daughter tamar, of her virtue; and that ammon was afterward slain by his own brother, david's son absalom, and are scarcely astonished that absalom himself, on the house-top, in the sight of all israel, should complete his father's shame by an act worthy a child of god's selected people. yet these are god's chosen race, and this is the family of the man "who walked in god's ways all the days of his life." god, who is all-wise and all-just, and who is not a man that he should repent, had repented that he, had made saul king because saul spared one man. in the reign of david the same good god sent a famine for three years on the decendants of abraham, and upon being asked his reason for thus starving his chosen ones, the reply of the deity was that he sent the famine on the subjects of david because saul slew the gibeonites. satisfactory reason!--because oliver cromwell slew the royalists, god will punish the subjects of charles the second. one reason is to profane eyes equivalent to the other, but a bishop or even a rural dean would show how remarkably god's justice was manifested. david was not behindhand in justice. he had sworn to saul that he would not cut off his seed--i.e. that he would not destroy saul's family. he therefore took two of saul's sons, and five of saul's grandsons, and gave them up to the gibeonites, who hung them. strangely wonderful are the ways of the lord! saul slew the gibeonites, therefore years afterward god starves judah. the gibeonites hang men who had nothing to do with the crime of saul, except that they are his decendants, and then we are told "the lord was intreated for the land." perhaps david wanted to get rid of the royal family of saul. the anger of the lord being kindled against israel, and he wanting some excuse for punishing the decendants of jacob, moved david to number his people. the chronicles say that it was satan, and pious people may thus learn that there is little difference between god and the devil when rightly understood. both are personifications founded in the ignorance of the masses, and their continuance will cease with their credulousness. david caused a census to be taken of the tribes of israel and judah. there is a trivial disagreement to the extent of about , soldiers between samuel and chronicles, but the readers must not allow so slight an inaccuracy as this to stand between them and heaven. what are , men when looked at prayerfully? the idea that any doubt should arise is to a devout mind at the same time profane and preposterous. infidels suggest that , , soldiers form a larger army than the jews are likely to have possessed. i can only add that as god is omnipotent, there is no reason to limit his power of increasing or decreasing miraculously the armament of the jewish nation. david, it seems, did wrong in numbering his people, although we are never told that he did wrong in robbing or murdering their neighbors, or in pillaging peaceful agriculturists. david said, "i have sinned." the king having done wrong, an all-merciful god brought a pestilence on the people, and murdered , israelites for an offense which their ruler had committed. the angel who was engaged in this terrible slaughter stood somewhere between heaven and earth, and stretched forth his hand with a drawn sword in it to destroy jerusalem itself, but even the blood-thirsty deity of the bible "repented him of the evil," and said to the angel, "it is enough." many volumes might be written to answer the inquiries--where did the angel stand, and on what? of what metal was the sword, and where was it made? as it was a drawn one, where was the scabbard? and did the angel wear a sword belt? examined in a pious frame of mind, much holy instruction may be derived from the attempt at solution of these problems. david now grows old and weak, and at last, notwithstanding that he has the advantage of a pretty maiden to cherish him, he wears out, and his death hour comes. oh! for the dying words of the psalmist! what pious instruction shall we derive from the deathbed scene of the man after god's own heart! listen to the last words of judah's expiring monarch. you who have been content with the pious frauds and forgeries perpetrated with reference to the deathbeds and dying words of the great, the generous, the witty voltaire, the manly, the self-denying, the incorruptible thomas paine, the humane, simple, child-like man, yet mighty poet, shelley--you who have turned away from these with horror, unfounded if real, come with me to the death couch of the special favorite of god. bathsheba's child stands by his side. does any thought of the murdered uriah rack old david's brain, or has a tardy repentance effaced the bloody stain from the pages of his memory? what does the dying david say? does he talk of cherubs, angels, and heavenly choirs? nay, none of these things pass his lips. does he make a confession of his crime-stained life, and beg his son to be a better king, a truer man, a more honest citizen, a wiser father? nay, not so--no word or sigh of regret, no expression of remorse or repentance escaped his lips. what does the dying david say? this foul adulterer, whom god has made king; this red-handed robber, whose life has been guarded by "our father which art in heaven;" this perjured king, whose lying lips have found favor in the sight of god, and who when he dies is safe for heaven. does david repent? nay--like the ravenous tiger or wolf, which once tasting blood is made more eager for the prey, he yearns for blood; he dies, and with his dying breath begs his son to bring the grey hairs of two old men down to the grave with blood. yet this is the life of god's anointed king, the chief one of god's chosen people. david is alleged to have written several psalms. in one of these he addresses god in the phraseology of a member of the p. r. praising deity that he had smitten all of his enemies on the cheek bone and broken the teeth of the ungodly. in these days, when "muscular christianity" is not without advocates, the metaphor which presents god as a sort of magnificent benicia boy may find many admirers. in the eighteenth psalm, david describes god as with "smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth," by which "coals were kindled." he represents god as coming down from heaven, and says "he rode upon a cherub." the learned parkhurst gives a likeness of a one-legged, four-winged, four-faced animal, part lion, part bull, part eagle, part man, and if a cloven foot be any criterion, part devil also. this description, if correct, will give some idea to the faithful of the wonderful character of the equestrian feats of deity. in the twenty-sixth psalm, the writer, if david, exposes his own hypocrisy in addition to his other vices. he has the impudence to tell god that he has been a man of integrity and truth; that he has avoided evildoers, although if we are to believe the thirty-eighth psalm, the vile hypocrite must have already been subject to a loathsome disease--a penalty consequent on his licentiousness and criminality. in another psalm, david the liar tells god that "he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." to understand his malevolent nature we can not do better than quote his prayer to god against an enemy (psalm cix, - ): " . set thou a wicked man over him: and let satan stand at his right hand. " . when he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. " . let his days be few: and let another take his office. " . let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. " . let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. " . let the extortioner catch all that he hath: and let the strangers spoil his labor. " . let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. " . let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. " . let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the lord: and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out." a full consideration of the life of david must give great help to each orthodox reader in promoting and sustaining his faith. while he is spoken of by deity as obeying all the statutes and keeping all the commandments, we are astonished to find that murder, theft, lying, adultery, licentiousness, and treachery are among the crimes which may be laid to his charge. david was a liar, god is a god of truth; david was merciless, god is merciful, and of long suffering; david was a thief, god says "thou shalt not steal;" david was a murderer, god says "thou shalt do no murder;" david took the wife of uriah, and "accepted" the wife of nabal, god says "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife;" yet, notwithstanding all these things, david was a man after god's own heart. had this jewish monarch any redeeming traits in his character? was he a good citizen? if so, the bible has carefully concealed every action which would entitle him to such an appellation, and in lieu has given us the record of his attempted extortion in the case of nabal, and furnished us with a notice of his horde of followers--outlawed, discontented, and in debt. was he a kind and constant husband? was he grateful to those who aided him in his hour of need? nay; like the wounded serpent which, half frozen by the wayside, is warmed into new life in the traveler's breast, and then treacherously stabs him with his poisoned fangs, so david robbed and murdered the friends and allies of the king of gath, who had afforded him refuge against the pursuit of saul. does his patriotism outshine his many vices? does his love of country efface his many misdoings? not even this. david was a heartless traitor who volunteered to serve against his own countrymen, and would have done so had not the philistines rejected his treacherous help. was he a good king? so say the priesthood now; but where is the evidence of his virtue? his crimes brought a plague and pestilence on his subjects, and his reign is a continued succession of wars, revolts, and assassinations, plottings and counterplots. the life of david is a dark blot on the page of human history, and our best hope is that if a spirit from god inspired the writer, then that it was a lying spirit, and that he has given us fiction instead of truth. new life of jacob. it is pleasant work to present to the reader sketches of god's chosen people. more especially is it an agreeable task to recapitulate the interesting events occurring during the life of a man whom god has loved. jacob was the son of isaac; the grandson of abraham. these three men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that the god of the bible delighted to be called the "god of abraham, the god of isaac, and the god of jacob." it is true, abraham owned slaves, was not exact as to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his wife and child out to the mercies of a sandy desert. that isaac in some sort followed his father's example and disingenuous practices, and that jacob was without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal cozener, a cowardly trickster, a cunning knave, but they must nevertheless have been good men, for god was "the god of abraham, the god of isaac, and the god of jacob." the name jacob is not inappropriate. kalisch says: "this appellation, if taken in its obvious etymological meaning, implies a deep ignominy; for the root from which it is derived signifies _to deceive, to defraud,_ and in such a despicable meaning the same form of the word is indeed used elsewhere (jeremiah ix, ). jacob would, therefore, be nothing else but the crafty _impostor_; in this sense esau, in the heat of his animosity, in fact clearly explains the word, justly is his name called jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me twice" (genesis xxvii, ). according to the ordinary orthodox bible chronology, jacob was born about or b. c, that is, about , years from "in the beginning," his father isaac being then sixty years of age. there is a difficulty connected with holy scripture chronology which would be insuperable were it not that we have the advantage of spiritual aids in elucidation of the text. this difficulty arises from the fact that the chronology of the bible, in this respect, like the major portion of bible history, is utterly unreliable. but we do not look to the old or new testament for mere commonplace, everyday facts; or if we do, severe will be the disappointment of the truthseeker; we look there for mysteries, miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and have no difficulties in finding the objects of our search. jacob was born, together with his twin brother, esau, in consequence of special entreaty addressed by isaac to the lord on behalf of rebekah, to whom he had been married about nineteen years, and who was yet childless. infidel physiologists (and it is a strange, though not unaccountable, fact that all who are physiologists are also in so far infidel) assert that prayer would do little to repair the consequence of such disease, or such abnormal organic structure, as would compel sterility. but our able clergy are agreed that the bible was not intended to teach us science; or, at any rate, we have learned that its attempts in that direction are most miserable failures. its mission is to teach the unteachable; to enable us to comprehend the incomprehensible. before jacob was born god decreed that he and his descendants should obtain the mastery over esau and his descendants--"the elder shall serve the younger."* the god of the bible is a just god, but it is hard for weak flesh to discover the justice of this proemial decree, which so sentenced to servitude the children of esau before their father's birth. *gen. xxv, . jacob came into the world holding by his brother's heel, like some cowardly knave in the battle of life, who, not daring to break a gap in the hedge of conventional prejudice, which bars his path, is yet ready enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to gather the fruits of his courage. "and the boys grew: and esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field: and jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents." one day esau returned from his hunting faint and wearied to the very point of death. he was hungry, and came to jacob, his twin and only brother, saying, "feed me, i pray thee,"* "for i am exceedingly faint."** in a like case would not any man so entreated immediately offer to the other the best at his command, the more especially when that other is his only brother, born at the same time, from the same womb, suckled at the same breast, fed under the same roof? but jacob was not a man and a brother, he was one of god's chosen people, and one who had been honored by god's prenatal selection. "if a man come unto me and hate not his brother, he can not be my disciple." so taught jesus the jew, in after time, but in this earlier age jacob the jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. it is one of the misfortunes of theology, if not its crime, that profession of love to god is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man. jacob was one of the founders of the jewish race, and even in this their pre-historic age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly developed. "jacob said" to esau, "sell me this day thy birthright." the famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for a mess of pottage. * gen. xxv, **douay version. if to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly take advantage of his brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright, all good and honest men would shun him as an unbrotherly scoundrel and most contemptible knave; yet, less than , years ago, a very different standard of morality must have prevailed. indeed, if god is unchangeable, divine notions of honor and honesty must to-day be widely different from those of our highest men. god approved and endorsed jacob's conduct. his approval is shown by his love afterward expressed for jacob, his endorsement by his subsequent attention to jacob's welfare. we may learn from this tale, so pregnant with instruction, that any deed which to the worldly and sensible man appears like knavery while understood literally, becomes to the devout and prayerful man an act of piety when understood spiritually. much faith is required to thoroughly understand this; _for example_, it looks like swindling to collect poor children's halfpence and farthings in the sunday schools for missionary purposes abroad, and to spend thereout two or three hundred pounds in an annual jubilatory dinner for well-fed pauper parsons at home; and so thought the noble lord who wrote to the _times_ under the initials s. g. o. if he had possessed more faith and less sense, he would have seen the piety and completely overlooked the knavery of the transaction. pious preachers and clever commentators declare that esau despised his birthright. i do not deny that they might back their declaration by scripture quotations, but i do deny that the narrative ought to convey any such impression. esau's words were, "behold i am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?" isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near approach of death, was anxious to bless esau before he died, and directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt some venison for a savory meat, such as old isaac loved. esau departed, but when he had left his father's presence in order to fulfill his request, jacob appeared on the scene. instigated by his mother, he, by an abject stratagem, passed himself off as esau. with a savory meat prepared by rebekah, he came into his father's presence, and isaac said, "who art thou, my son?" lying lips are an abomination to the lord. the lord loved jacob, yet jacob lied to his old blind father, saying, "i am esau, thy first-born." isaac had some doubts: these are manifested by his inquiring how it was that the game was killed so quickly. jacob, whom god loved, in a spirit of shameless blasphemy replied, "because the lord thy god brought it to me." isaac still hesitated, fancying that he recognized the voice to be the voice of jacob, and again questioned him, saying, "art thou my very son esau?" god is the god of truth and loved jacob, yet jacob said, "i am." then isaac blessed jacob, believing that he was blessing esau: and god permitted the fraud to be successful, and himself also blessed jacob. in that extraordinary composition known as the epistle to the hebrews, we are told that by faith isaac blessed jacob. but what faith had isaac? faith that jacob was esau? his belief was produced by deceptive appearances. his faith resulted from false representations. and there are very many men in the world who have no better foundation for their religious faith than had isaac when he blessed jacob, believing him to be esau. in the douay bible i find the following note on this remarkable narrative: "st. augustine (x. contra mendacium c. ), treating at large upon this place, excuseth jacob from a lie, because thi's whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterward to be given to the gentiles before the carnal jews, which jacob, by prophetic light, might understand. so far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and by esau's free cession, belonged to jacob; so that if there were any lie in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one." how glorious to be a pa triarch, and to have a real saint laboring years after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic light. lying is at all times most disreputable, but at the deathbed the crime is rendered more heinous. the death hour would have awed many men into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on jacob. although isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from the dying man the sought-for prize. god is said to love righteousness and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous jacob, and hated the honest esau. all knaves are tinged more or less with cowardice. jacob was no exception to the rule. his brother enraged at the deception practiced upon isaac, threatened to kill jacob. jacob was warned by his mother and fled. induced by rebekah, isaac charged jacob to marry one of laban's daughters. on the way to haran, where laban dwell, jacob rested and slept. while sleeping he dreamed; ordinarily dreams have little significance, but in the bible they are more important. some of the most weighty and vital facts (?) of the bible are communicated in dreams, and rightly so; if the men had been wide awake, they would have probably rejected the revelation as absurd. so much does that prince of darkness, the devil, influence mankind against the bible in the daytime, that it is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant, that god's mysteries are most clearly seen and understood. jacob "saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven; the angels of god ascending and descending by it, and _the lord leaning upon the ladder_." in the ancient temples of india, and in the mysteries of mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by which the spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one of probably far higher antiquity than the age of jacob. did paganism furnish the groundwork for the patriarch's dream? "no man hath seen god at any time." god is "invisible." yet jacob saw the invisible god, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above a ladder or leaning upon it. true, it was all a dream. yet god spoke to jacob; but perhaps that was a delusion too. we find by scripture that god threatens to send to some "strong delusions, that they might believe a lie and be damned." poor jacob was much frightened, as any one might be, to dream of god leaning on so long a ladder. what if it had broken and the dreamer underneath it? jacob's fears were not so powerful but that his shrewdness and avarice had full scope in a sort of half-vow, half-contract, made in the morning. jacob said, "if god will be with me and will keep me in this way that i go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that i shall come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the lord be my god." the inference deducible from this conditional statement is, that if god failed to complete the items enumerated by jacob, then the latter would have nothing to do with him. jacob was a shrewd jew, who would have laughed to scorn the preaching, "take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?" after this contract, jacob went on his journey, and reached the house of his mother's brother, laban, into whose service he entered. "diamond cut diamond" would be an appropriate heading to the tale which gives the transactions between jacob the jew and laban the son of nahor. laban had two daughters. rachel, the youngest, was "beautiful and well-favored;" leah, the elder, was "blear-eyed." jacob served for the pretty one; but on the wedding-day laban made a feast, and gave jacob the ugly leah instead of the pretty rachel. jacob being (according to josephs) both in drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he discovered his error. after this jacob served for rachel also, and then the remainder of the chapter of jacob's servitude to laban is but the recital of a series of frauds and trickeries. jacob embezzled laban's property, and laban misappropriated and changed jacob's wages. in fact, if jacob had not possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would probably have failed in the endeavor to cheat his master; but god, who says "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor anything that is thy neighbor's," encouraged jacob in his career of criminality. at last, jacob, having amassed a large quantity of property, determined to abscond from his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle's absence at sheepshearing, "he stole away unawares," taking with him his wives, his children, flocks, herds, and goods. to crown the whole, rachel, worthy wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father's gods. in the present day the next phase would be the employment of mr. sergeant vericute, of the special detective department, and the issue of bills as follows: "one hundred shekels reward, absconded, with a large amount of property, jacob, the jew. information to be given to laban, the syrian, at haran, in the east, or to mr. serjeant vericute, scotland yard." but in those days god's ways were not as our ways. god came to laban in a dream and compounded the felony, saying, "take heed thou speak not anything harshly against jacob."* this would probably prevent laban giving evidence in a police court against jacob, and thus save him from transportation or penal servitude. after a reconciliation and treaty had been effected between jacob and laban, the former went on his way "and the angel of god met him." angels are not included in the circle with which i have at present made acquaintance, and i hesitate, therefore, to comment on the meeting between jacob and the angels. balaam's ass, at a later period, shared the good fortune which was the lot of jacob, for that animal also had a meeting with an angel. jacob was the grandson of the faithful abraham to whom angels also appeared. perhaps angelic apparitions are limited to asses and the faithful. on this point i do not venture to assert, and but timidly suggest. it is somewhat extraordinary that jacob should have manifested no surprise at meeting a host of angels. still more worthy of note is it that our good translators elevate the same words into "angels" in verse , which they degrade into "messengers" in verse . john bellamy, in his translation, says the "angels were not immortal angels," and it is very probable john bellamy was right. * genesis xxxi, , douay version. jacob sent messengers before him to esau, and heard that the latter was coming to meet him followed by men. jacob, a timorous knave at best, became terribly afraid. he, doubtless, remembered the wrongs inflicted upon esau, the cruel extortion of the birthright, and the fraudulent obtainment of the dying isaac's blessing. he, therefore, sent forward to his brother esau a large present as a peace offering. he also divided the remainder of his flocks, herds, and goods, into two divisions, that if one were smitten, the other might escape; sending these on, he was left alone. while alone he wrestled with either a man, or an angel, or god. the text says "a man," the heading to the chapter says "an angel," and jacob himself says that he has "seen god face to face." whether god, angel, or man, it was not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of _bell's life_ referee, he would, unquestionably, declare it to be most unfair to touch "the hollow of jacob's thigh" so as to put it "out of joint," and, consequently, award the result of the match to jacob. jacob, notwithstanding the injury, still kept his grip, and the apocryphal wrestler, finding himself no match at fair struggling, and that foul play was unavailing, now tried entreaty, and said, "let me go, for the day breaketh." spirits never appear in the daytime, when, if they did appear, they could be seen and examined; they are more often visible in the twilight, in the darkness, and in dreams. jacob would not let go, his life's instinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably, because he could get nothing else, he insisted on his opponent's blessing before he let him go. in the roman catholic version of the bible there is the following note: chap, xxxii, . _a man, etc._ "this was an angel in human shape, as we learn from _osee_ (xii, ). he is called _god_ (xv, and ), because he represented the son of god. this wrestling in which jacob, assisted by god, was a match for an angel, was so ordered (v. ) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine assistance, that neither esau nor any other man should have power to hurt him." how elevating it must be to the true believer to conceive god helping jacob to wrestle with his own representative. read prayerfully, doubtless, the spiritual and inner meaning of the text (if it have one) is most transcendental. read sensibly, the literal and only meaning the text conveys is that of an absurd tradition of an ignorant age. on the morrow jacob met esau: "and esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept. "and he said, what meanest thou by all this drove which i met? and he said these are to find grace in the sight of my lord. "and esau said, i have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself." the following expressive comment, from the able pen of mr. holyoake, deserves transcription: "the last portion of the history of jacob and esau is very instructive. the coward fear of jacob to meet his brother is well delineated. he is subdued by a sense of his treacherous guilt. the noble forgiveness of esau invests his memory with more respect than all the wealth jacob won, and all the blessings of the lord he received. could i change my name from jacob to esau, i would do it in honor of him. the whole incident has a dramatic interest. there is nothing in the old or new testament equal to it. the simple magnanimity of esau is scarcely surpassed by anything in plutarch. in the conduct of esau we see the triumph of time, of filial affection, and generosity over a deep sense of execrable treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable injury." was not esau a merciful, generous man? yet god hated him, and shut him out of all share in the promised land. was not jacob a mean, prevaricating knave, a crafty, abject cheat? yet god loved and rewarded him. how great are the mysteries in this bible representation of an all-good and all-loving god thus hating good and loving evil. at the time of the wrestling, a promise was made, which is afterward repeated by god to jacob, that the latter should not be any more called jacob, but israel. this promise was not strictly kept; the name "jacob" being used repeatedly, mingled with that of israel in the after part of jacob's history. jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the heads of the twelve jewish tribes. we have not much space to notice them: suffice it to say that one joseph, who was much loved by his father, was sold by his brethren into slavery. this transaction does not seem to have called for any special reproval from god. joseph, who from early life was skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions of pharaoh in obtaining a sort of premiership in egypt; while filling this office he managed to act like the russells and the greys of our own time. we are told that he "_placed_ his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of egypt, in the best of the land." joseph made the parallel still stronger between himself and a more modern head of the treasury bench; he not only gave his own family the best place in the land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained the land for the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over the land of egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the produce, always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the priest. judah, another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he had a child. a third, named reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice, equaled only by that of absalon the son of david; of simeon and levi, two more of jacob's sons, it is said that "instruments of cruelty were in their habitations;" their conduct, as detailed in the th chapter of genesis, alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. after jacob had heard that his son joseph was governor in egypt, but before he had journeyed farther than beer-sheba, god spake unto him in the visions of the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a new name, or being more accustomed to the old one, said, "jacob, jacob," and then told him to go down into egypt, where jacob died after a residence of about seventeen years, when years of age. before jacob died he blessed, first the sons of joseph, and then his own children, and at the termination of his blessing to ephraim and manasseh we find the following speech addressed to joseph: "moreover, i have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which i took out of the hand of the amorite with my sword and with my bow." this speech implies warlike pursuit on the part of jacob, of which the bible gives no record, and which seems incompatible with his recorded life. the sword of craft and the bow of cunning are the only weapons in the use of which he was skilled. when his sons murdered and robbed the hivites, fear seems to have been jacob's most prominent characteristic. it is not my duty, nor have i space here, to advocate any theory of interpretation, but it may be well to mention that many learned men contend that the whole history of jacob is but an allegory. that the twelve patriarchs but typify the twelve signs of the zodiac, as do the twelve great gods of the pagans, and twelve apostles of the gospels. from the history of jacob it is hard to draw any conclusions favorable to the man whose life is narrated. to heap additional epithets on his memory would be but waste of time and space. i conclude by regretting that if god loved one brother and hated another, he should have so unfortunately selected for his love the one whose whole career shows him in a most despicable light. new life of abraham. most undoubtedly father abraham is a personage whose history should command our attention, if only because he figures as the founder of the jewish race--a race which, having been promised protection and favor by deity, appear to have experienced little else besides the infliction, or sufferance of misfortune and misery. men are taught to believe that god, following out a solemn covenant made with abraham, suspended the operations of nature to aggrandize the jews; that he promised always to bless and favor them if they adhered to his worship and obeyed the priests. the promised blessings were, usually, political authority, individual happiness and sexual power, long life, and great wealth; the threatened curses for idolatry or disobedience: disease, loss of property and children, mutilation, death. among the blessings: the right to kill, plunder, and ravish their enemies, with protection, while pious, against any subjection to retaliatory measures. and all this because they were abraham's children! abraham is an important personage. without abraham, no jesus, no christianity, no church of england, no bishops, no tithes, no church rates. but for abraham england would have lost all these blessings. abraham was the great-grandfather of judah, the head of the tribe to which god's father, joseph, belonged. in gathering materials for a short biographical sketch, we are at the same time comforted and dismayed by the fact that the only reliable account of abraham's career is that furnished by the book of genesis, supplemented by a few brief references in other parts of the bible, and that, outside "god's perfect and infallible revelation to man," there is no reliable account of abraham's existence at all. we are comforted by the thought that genesis is unquestioned by the faithful, and is at present protected by church and state against heretic assaults; but we are dismayed when we think that, if infidelity, encouraged by colenso and kalisch, upsets genesis, abraham will have little historical claim on our attention some philologists have asserted that brama and abraham are alike corruptions of abba rama, or abrama, and that sarah is identical with sarasvati. abram, is a chaldean compound, meaning father of the elevated, or exalted father [------] is a compound of chaldee and arabic, signifying father of a multitude. in part v of his work colenso mentions that adonis was formerly identified with abram, "high father," adonis being the personified sun. leaving incomprehensible philology for the ordinary authorized version of our bibles, we find that abraham was the son of terah. the text does not expressly state where abraham was born, and i can not therefore describe his birthplace with that accuracy of detail which a true believer might desire, but i may add that he "dwelt in old time on the other side of the flood." (joshua xxiv, , .) the situation of such dwelling involves a geographical problem most unlikely to be solved unless the inquirer is "half seas over." abraham was born when terah, his father, was seventy years of age; and, accord-ing to genesis, terah and his family came forth out of ur of the chaldees, and went to haran and dwelt there. we turn to the map to look for ur of the chaldees, anxious to discover it as possibly abraham's place of nativity, but find that the translators of god's inspired word have taken a slight liberty with the text by substituting "ur of the chaldees" for "aur kasdim," the latter being, in plain english, _the light of the magi, or conjurers, or astrologers_. [------] is stated by kalisch to have been made the basis for many extraordinary legends, as to abraham's rescue from the flames. abraham, being born--according to hebrew chronology, , years after the creation, and according to the septuagint , years after the event--when his father was seventy, grew so slowly that when his father reached the good old age of years, abraham had only arrived at years, having, apparently, lost no less than year's growth during his father's lifetime. st. augustine and st jerome gave this up as a difficulty inexplicable. calmet endeavors to explain it, and makes it worse. but what real difficulty is there? do you mean, dear reader, that it is impossible abraham could have lived years, and yet be only years of age? is this your objection? it is a sensible one, i admit, but it is an infidel one. eschew sense, and, retaining only religion, ever remember that with god all things are possible. indeed, i have read myself that gin given to young children stunts their growth; and who shall say what influence of the spirit prevented the full development of abraham's years? it is a slight question whether abraham and his two brothers were not born the same year; if this be so, he might have been a small child, and not grown so quickly as he would have otherwise done. "the lord" spoke to abraham, and promised to make of him a great nation, to bless those who blessed abraham, and to curse those who cursed him. i do not know precisely which lord it was that spake unto abraham. in the hebrew it says it was [------] jeue, or, as our translators call it, jehovah; but as god said (exodus vi, ) that by the name "jehovah was i not known" to either abraham, isaac, or jacob, we must conclude either that the omniscient deity had forgotten the matter, or that a counterfeit lord had assumed a title to which he had no right. the word jehovah, which the book of exodus says abraham did not know, is nearly always the name by which abraham addresses or speaks of the jewish deity. abraham having been promised protection by the god of truth, initiated his public career with a diplomacy of statement worthy of talleyrand, thiers, or gladstone. he represented his wife sarah as his sister, which, if true, is a sad reproach to the marriage. the ruling pharaoh, hearing the beauty of sarah commended, took her into his house, she being at that time a fair jewish dame, between and years of age, and he entreated abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen, asses and servants, and camels. we do not read that abraham objected in any way to the loss of his wife. the lord, who is all-just, finding out that pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but also punished the king's household, who could hardly have interfered with his misdoings. abraham got his wife back, and went away much richer by the transaction. whether the conduct of father abraham in pocketing quietly the price of the insult--or honor--offered to his wife is worthy of modern imitation, is a question i leave to be discussed by convocation when it has finished with the athanasian creed. after this transaction we are not surprised to hear that abraham was very rich in "silver and gold." so was the duke of marlborough after the king had taken his sister in similar manner into his house. in verse of chapter xii, there is a curious mistranslation in our version. the text is: "it is for that i had taken her for my wife," our version has: "_i might have taken_ her." the douay so translates as to take a middle phrase, leaving it doubtful whether or not pharaoh actually took sarah as his wife. in any case, the egyptian king acted well throughout. abraham plays the part of a timorous, contemptible hypocrite. strong enough to have fought for his wife, he sold her. yet abraham was blessed for his faith, and his conduct is our pattern! despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, abraham was a man of wonderful courage and warlike ability. to rescue his relative, lot:--with whom he could not live on the same land without quarreling, both being religious--he armed servants, and fought with four powerful kings, defeating them and recovering the spoil. abraham's victory was so decisive that the king of sodom, who fled and fell (xiv, ) in a previous encounter, now met abraham alive (see v, ), to congratulate him on his victory. abraham was also offered bread and wine by melchisedek, king of salem, priest of the most high god. where was salem? some identify it with jerusalem, which it can not be, as jebus was not so named until after the time of the judges (judges xix, ). how does this king, of this unknown salem, never heard of before or after, come to be priest of the most high god? these are queries for divines--orthodox disciples believe without inquiring. melchisedek was most unfortunate as far as genealogy is concerned. he had no father. i do not mean by this that any bar sinister defaced his escutcheon. he not only was without a father, but without mother also; he had no beginning of days or end of life, and is therefore probably at the present time an extremely old gentleman, who would be an invaluable acquisition to any antiquarian association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance. god having promised abraham a numerous family, and the promise not having been in any part fulfilled, the patriarch grew uneasy and remonstrated with the lord, who explained the matter thoroughly to abraham when the latter was in a deep sleep, and a dense darkness prevailed. religions explanations come with greater force under these or similar conditions. natural or artificial light and clear-sightedness are always detrimental to spiritual manifestations. abraham's wife had a maid named hagar, and she bore to abraham a child named ishmael; at the time ishmael was born, abraham was years of age. just before ishmael's birth hagar was so badly treated that she ran away. as she was only a slave, god persuaded hagar to return, and humble herself to her mistress. thirteen years afterward god appeared to abraham, and instituted the rite of circumcision--which rite had been practiced long before by other nations--and again renewed the promise. the rite of circumcision was not only practiced by nations long anterior to that of the jews, but appears, in many cases, not even to have been pretended as a religious rite. (see kalisch, genesis, p. ; cahen, genese, p. ) after god had "left off talking with him, god went up from abraham." as god is infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but still the bible says god went up, and it is the duty of the people to believe that he did so, especially as the infinite deity then and now resides habitually in "heaven," wherever that may be. again the lord appeared to abraham, either as three men or angels, or as one of the three; and abraham, who seemed hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash their feet, and to rest under the tree, and gave butter and milk and dressed calf, tender and good, to them, and they did eat; and after the inquiry as to where sarah then was, the promise of a son is repeated. sarah--then by her own admission an old woman, stricken in years--laughed when she heard this, and the lord said, "wherefore did sarah laugh?" and sarah denied it, but the lord said, "nay, but thou didst laugh." the three then went toward sodom, and abraham went with them as a guide; and the lord explained to abraham that some sad reports had reached him about sodom and gomorrah, and that he was then going to find out whether the report was reliable. god is infinite, and was always therefore at sodom and gomorrah, but had apparently been temporarily absent; he is omniscient, and therefore knew everything which was happening at sodom and gomorrah, but he did not know whether or not the people were as wicked as they had been represented to him. god, job tells us, "put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly." between the rogues and the fools, therefore, the all-wise and all-powerful god seems to be as liable to be mistaken in the reports made to him as any monarch might be in reports made by his ministers. two of the three men, or angels, went on to sodom, and left the lord with abraham, who began to remonstrate with deity on the wholesale destruction contemplated, and asked him to spare the city if fifty righteous should be found within it. god said, "if i find fifty righteous within the city, then will i spare the place for their sakes." god being all-wise, he knew there were not fifty in sodom, and was deceiving abraham. by dint of hard bargaining, in thorough hebrew fashion, abraham, whose faith seemed tempered by distrust, got the stipulated number reduced to ten, and then "the lord went his way." jacob ben chajim, in his introduction to the rabbinical bible, p. , tells us that the hebrew text used to read in verse : "and jehovah still stood before abraham;" but the scribes altered it, and made abraham stand before the lord, thinking the original text offensive to deity. the th chapter of genesis has given plenty of work to the divines. augustin contended that god can take food, though he does not require it. justin compared "the eating of god with the devouring power of the fire." kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers "who have taxed all their ingenuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attributes of deity." in the epistle to the romans, abraham's faith is greatly praised. we are told, iv, , , that: "being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of sarah's womb." "he staggered not at the promise of god through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to god." yet, so far from abraham giving god glory, we are told in genesis, xvii, , that: "abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old, and shall sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?" the rev. mr. boutell says that "the declaration which caused sarah to 'laugh,' shows the wonderful familiarity which was then permitted to abraham in his communications with god." after the destruction of sodom and gomorrah, abraham journeyed south and sojourned in gerar, and either untaught or too well taught by his previous experience, again represented his wife as his sister, and abimelech, king of gerar, sent and took sarah. as before, we find neither remonstrance nor resistance recorded on the part of abraham. this time god punished, _a la_ malthus, the women in abimelech's house for an offense they did not commit, and sarah was again restored to her husband, with sheep, oxen, men-servants, and women-servants, and money. infidels object that the bible says sarah "was old and well stricken in age;" that "it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women;" that she was more than ninety years of age; and that it is not likely king abimelech would fall in love with an ugly old woman. we reply, "_chacun a son gout?_" it is clear that sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as god resorted to especial means to protect her virtue from abimelech. at length isaac is born, and his mother sarah now urges abraham to expel hagar and her son, "and the thing was very grievous in abraham's sight because of his son;" the mother being only a bondwoman does not seem to have troubled him. god, however, approving sarah's notion, hagar is expelled, "and she departed and wandered in the wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs." she had apparently carried the child, who being at least more than fourteen, and according to some calculations as much as seventeen years of age, must have been a heavy child to carry in a warm climate. god never did tempt any man at any time, but he "did tempt abraham" to kill isaac by offering him as a burnt offering. the doctrine of human sacrifice is one of the holy mysteries of christianity, as taught in the old and new testament. of course, judged from a religious or biblical standpoint, it can not be wrong, as, if it were, god would not have permitted jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by offering her as a burnt offering, nor have tempted abraham to sacrifice his son, nor have said in leviticus, "none devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death" (xxvii, ), nor have in the new testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his only son jesus, at the same time son and begetting father. abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his own conduct when about to kill isaac, for he not only concealed from his servants his intent, but positively stated that which was not true, saying, "i and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." if he meant that he and isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the sacrifice would not take place. nay, abraham even deceived his own son, who asked him where was the lamb for the burnt offering? but we learn from the new testament that abraham acted in this and other matters "by faith," so his falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith, must be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions of every-day life. just as abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his son, the angel of the lord called to him from heaven, and prevented the murder, saying, "now i know that thou fearest god, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son." this would convey the impression that up to that moment the angel of the lord was not certain upon the subject. in genesis xiii, god says to abraham, "lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward and westward. for all the land which thou seest, to thee will i give it, and to thy seed for ever. arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for i will give it unto thee." yet, as is admitted by the rev. charles boutell, in his "bible dictionary," "the only portion of territory in that land of promise, of which abraham became possessed" was a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for. although abraham was too old to have children _before_ the birth of isaac, he had many children _after_ isaac is born. he lived to "a good old age," and died "full of years," but was yet younger than any of those who preceded him, and whose ages are given in the bible history, except nahor. abraham gave "all that he had to isaac," but appears to have distributed the rest of the property among his other children, who were sent to enjoy it somewhere down east. according to the new testament, abraham is now in paradise, but abraham in heaven is scarcely an improvement upon abraham on-earth. when he was entreated by an unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his tongue, father abraham replied, "son, remember that in thy life-time thou receivedst thy good things, and now thou art tormented," as if the reminiscence of past good would alleviate present and future continuity of evil. new life of moses. the "life of abraham" was presented to our readers, because, as the nominal founder of the jewish race, his position entitled him to that honor. the "life of david," because, as one of the worst men and worst kings ever known, his history might afford matter for reflection to admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for comment to the advocates of a republican form of government. the "life of jacob" served to show how basely mean and contemptibly deceitful a man might become, and yet enjoy god's love. having given thus a brief outline of the career of the patriarch, the king, and the knave, the life of a priest naturally presents itself as the most fitting to complement the present quadrifid series. moses, the great grandson of levi, was born in egypt, not far distant from the banks of the nile, a river world-famous for its inundations, made familiar to ordinary readers by the travelers who have journeyed to discover its source, and held in bad repute by strangers, especially on account of the carnivorous saurians who infest its waters. the mother and father of our hero were both of the tribe of levi, and were named jochebed and amram. the infant moses was, at the age of three months, placed in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink. this was done in order to avoid the decree of extermination propounded by the reigning pharaoh against the male jewish children. the daughter of pharaoh, coming down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compassion upon him, adopting him as her son. of the early life of moses we have but scanty record. we are told in the new testament that he was learned in the wisdom of the egyptians,* and that, "when he was come to years he refused by faith** to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter." perhaps the record from which the new testament writers quoted has been lost; it is certain that the present version of the old testament does not contain those statements. the record which is lost _may_ have been god's original revelation to man, and of which our bible _may_ be an incomplete version. i am little grieved by the supposition that a revelation may have been lost, being, for my own part, more inclined to think that no revelation has ever been made. josephus says that, when quite a baby, moses trod contemptuously on the crown of egypt. the egyptian monuments and exodus are both silent on this point. josephus also tells us that moses led the egyptians in war against the ethiopians, and married tharbis, the daughter of the ethiopian monarch. this also is omitted both in egyptian history and in the sacred record. when moses was grown, according to the old testament, or when he was years of age according to the new, "it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of israel." "and he spied an egyptian smiting a hebrew." "and he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the egyptian, and hid him in the sand." the new testament says that he did it, "for he supposed that his brethren would understand how that god, by his hand, would deliver them."*** * acts, vii, . ** hebrews, xi, . *** acts, vii, . but this is open to the following objections: the old testament says nothing of the kind; there was no man to see the homicide, and as moses hid the body, it is hard to conceive how he could expect the israelites to understand a matter of which they not only had no knowledge whatever, but which he himself did not think was known to them; if there were really no man present, the story of the after accusation against moses needs explanation: it might be further objected that it does not appear that moses at that time did even himself conceive that he had any mission from god to deliver his people. moses fled from the wrath of pharaoh, and dwelt in midian, where he married the daughter of one reuel, or jethro. this name is not of much importance, but it is strange that if moses wrote the books of the pentateuch he was not more exact in designating so near a relation. while acting as shepherd to his father-in-law, "he led the flock to the back side of the desert," and "the angel of the lord appeared to him in a flame of fire:" that is, the angel was either a flame, or was the object which was burning, for this angel appeared in the midst of a bush which burned with fire, but was not consumed. this flame appears to have been a luminous one, for it was a "great sight," and attracted moses, who turned aside to see it. but the luminosity would depend on substance ignited and rendered inacandescent. is the angel of the lord a substance susceptible of ignition and incandescence? who knoweth? if so, will the fallen angels ignite and burn in hell! god called unto moses out of the midst of the bush. it is hard to conceive an infinite god in the middle of a bush; yet as the law of england says that we must not "deny the holy scriptures of the old and new testaments to be of divine authority," in order not to break the law, i advise all to believe that, in addition to being in the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful god also sat on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterward in a temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and being a spirit without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as a man. moses, when spoken to by god, "hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon god." if moses had known that god was _invisible_ he would have escaped this fear. god told moses that the cry of the children of israel had reached him, and that he had _come down_ to deliver them, and that moses was to lead them out of egypt. moses does not seem to have placed entire confidence in the phlegmonic divine communication, and asked, when the jews should question him on the name of the deity, what answer should he make? it does not appear from this that the jews, if they had so completely forgotten god's name, had much preserved the recollection of the promise comparatively so recently made to abraham, to isaac, and to jacob. the answer given according to our version is "i am that i am;" according to the douay, "i am who am." god, in addition, told moses that the jews should spoil the egyptians of their wealth; but even this promise of plunder so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting jew of the bible type, did not avail to overcome the scruples of moses. god therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and thus transform it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent moses at first fled in fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its original shape, moses, with even other wonders at command, still hesitated; he had an impediment in his speech. god cured this by the appointment of aaron, who was eloquent, to aid his brother. god directed moses to return to egypt, but his parting words must somewhat have damped the future legislator's hope of any speedy or successful ending to his mission. god said, "i will harden pharaoh's heart that he shall not let the people go." on the journey back to egypt god met moses "by the way in the inn, and sought to kill him." i am ignorant as to the causes which prevented the omnipotent deity from carrying out his intention; the text does not explain the matter, and i am not a bishop or a d. d., and i do not therefore feel justified in putting my assumptions in place of god's revelation. moses and aaron went to pharaoh, and asked that the jews might be permitted to go three days' journey in the wilderness; but the king of egypt not only refused their request, but gave them additional tasks, and in consequence moses and aaron went again to the lord, who told them, "i appeared unto abraham, unto isaac, and unto jacob by the name of god almighty; but by my name jehovah was i not known unto them." whether god had forgotten that the name of jehovah was known to abraham, or whether he was here deceiving moses and aaron, are points the solution of which i leave to the faithful, referring them to the fact that abraham called a place* jehovah-jireh. * genesis xxii, after this moses and aaron again went to pharaoh and worked wonderfully in his presence. thaumaturgy is coming into fashion again, but the exploits of moses far exceeded any of those performed by mr. home or the davenport brothers. aaron flung down his rod, and it became a serpent; the egyptian magicians flung down their rods, which became serpents also; but the rod of aaron, as though it had been a jew money-lender or a tithe collecting parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors, and the jewish leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival conjurors. moses and aaron carried on the miracle-working for some time. all the water of the land of egypt was turned by them into blood, but the magicians did so with their enchantments, and it had no effect on pharaoh. then showers of frogs, at the instance of aaron, covered the land of egypt; but the egyptians did so with their enchantments, and frogs abounded still more plentifully. the jews next tried their hands at the production of lice, and here--to the glory of god be it said--the infidel egyptians failed to imitate them. it is written that "cleanliness is next to godliness," but we can not help thinking that godliness must have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon resulted in lice. the magicians were now entirely discomfited. the preceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of egypt; but in the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to egyptians only, and were not extended to goshen, in which the israelites dwelt. the next plague in connection with the ministration of moses and aaron was that "all the cattle of egypt died." after "all the cattle" were dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains upon man and beast. this failing in effect, moses afterward stretched forth his hand and smote "both man and beast" with hail, then covered the land with locusts, and followed this with a thick darkness throughout the land--a darkness which _might_ have been felt. whether it was felt is a matter on which i am unable to pass an opinion. after this, the egyptians being terrified by the destruction of their first-born children, the jews, at the instance of moses, borrowed of the egyptians jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the egyptians. the fact is, that the egyptians were in the same position as the payers of church rates, tithes, vicars' rates, and easter dues: they lent to the lord's people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repayment is required. they prefer promising you a crown of glory to paying you at once five shillings in silver. moses led the jews through the red sea, which proved a ready means of escape, as may be easily read in exodus, which says that the lord "made the sea dry land" for the israelites, and afterward not only overwhelmed in it the egyptians who sought to follow them, but, as josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried to the camp of the hebrews the arms of the egyptians, so that the wandering jews might not be destitute of weapons. after this the israelities were led by moses into shur, where they were without water for three days, and the water they afterward found was too bitter to drink until a tree had been cast into the well. the israelites were then fed with manna, which, when gathered on friday, kept for the sabbath, but rotted if kept from one week day to another. the people grew tired of eating manna, and complained, and god sent fire among them and burned them up in the uttermost parts of the camp; and after this the people wept and said, "who shall give us flesh to eat? we remember the fish we did eat in egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic; but now there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." this angered the lord, and he gave them a feast of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of the lord was kindled, and he smote the jewish people with a very great plague.* * numbers xi. the people again in rephidim were without water, and moses therefore smote the rock of horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock. at rephidim the amalekites and the jews fought together, and while they fought, moses, like a prudent general, went to the top of a hill, accompanied by aaron and hur, and it came to pass that when moses held up his hands israel prevailed, and when he let down his hands amalek prevailed. but moses' hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon, and aaron and hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and joshua discomfited amalek, and his people with the edge of the sword. how the true believer ought to rejoice that the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the jews might have been slaughtered, and there might have been no royal line of david, no jesus, no christianity. that stone should be more valued than the precious black stone of the moslem; it is the corner-stone of the system, the stone which supported the mosaic rule. god is everywhere, but moses went _up_ unto him, and the lord called to him _out_ of a mountain and came to him _in_ a thick cloud, and descended on mount sinai _in_ a fire, in consequence of which the mountain smoked, and the lord _came down upon the top_ of the mountain and called moses _up_ to him; and then the lord gave moses the ten commandments, and also those precepts which follow, in which jews are permitted to buy their fellow-countrymen for six years, and in which it is provided that, if the slave-master shall give his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him sons or daughters, that the wife and the children shall be the property of her master. in these precepts it is also permitted that a man may sell his own daughter for the most base purposes. also that a master may beat his slave so that if he do not die until a few days after the ill-treatment, the master shall escape justice because the slave is his money. also that jews may buy strangers and keep them as slaves for ever. while moses was up in the mount the people clamored for aaron to make them gods. moses had stopped away so long that the people gave him up for lost. aaron, whose duty it was to have pacified and restrained them, and to have kept them in the right faith, did nothing of the kind. he induced them to bring all their gold, and then made it into a calf, before which he built an altar, and then proclaimed a feast. manners and customs change. in those days the jews did see the god that aaron took their gold for, but now the priests take the people's gold, and the poor contributors do not even see a calf for their pains, unless indeed they are near a mirror at the time when they are making their voluntary contributions. and the lord told moses what happened, and said, "i have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people. now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that i may consume them." moses would not comply with god's request, but remonstrated, and expostulated, and begged him not to afford the egyptians an opportunity of speaking against him. moses succeeded in changing the unchangeable, and the lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. although moses would not let god's "wrath wax hot" his own "anger waxed hot," and he broke, in his rage, the two tables of stone which god had given him, and on which the lord had graven and written with his own finger. we have now no means of knowing in what language god wrote, or whether moses afterward took any pains to rivet together the broken pieces. it is almost to be wondered at that the christian evidence societies have not sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the tables, which may even yet remain beneath the mount. moses took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and strewed it upon water and made the children of israel drink of it. after this moses armed the priests and killed , jews, "and the lord plagued the people because they had made the calf which aaron had made."* moses afterward pitched the tabernacle without the camp; and the cloudy pillar in which the lord went, descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and the lord talked to moses "face to face, as a man would to his friend."** and the lord then told moses, "thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live."*** before this moses and aaron and nadab and abihu, and seventy of the elders of israel, "saw the god of israel, and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone,... and upon the nobles of the children of israel he laid not his hand; also they saw god, and did eat and drink."**** * exodus xxxii, . ** ib. xxxiii, . *** ib. xxxiii, . **** ib. xxiv, . aaron, the brother of moses, died under very strange circumstances. the lord said unto moses, "strip aaron of his garments and put them upon eleazar, his son, and aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there." and moses did as the lord commanded, and aaron died there on the top of the mount, where moses had taken him. there does not appear to have been any coroner's inquest in the time of aaron, and the suspicious circumstances of the death of the brother of moses have been passed over by the faithful. when moses was leading the israelites over moab, balak the king of the moabites sent to balaam in order to get balaam to curse the jews. when balak's messengers were with balaam, god came to balaam also, and asked what men they were. of course god knew, but he inquired for his own wise purposes, and balaam told him truthfully. god ordered balaam not to curse the jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the moabitish messengers away. then balak sent again high and mighty princes under whose influence balaam went mounted on an ass, and god's anger was kindled against balaam, and he sent an angel to stop him by the way; but the angel did not understand his business well, and the ass first ran into a field, and then close against the wall, and it was not until the angel removed to a narrower place that he succeeded in stopping the donkey; and when the ass saw the angel she fell down. balaam did not see the angel at first; and, indeed we may take it as a fact of history that asses have always been the most ready to perceive angels. moses may have been a great author, but we have little means of ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. divines talk of genesis to deuteronomy as the five books of moses, but eusebius, in the fourth century, attributed them to ezra, and saint chrysostom says that the name of moses has been affixed to the books without authority, by persons living long after him. it is quite certain that if moses lived , years ago, he did not write in square letter hebrew, and this because the character has not existed so long. it is indeed doubtful if it can be carried back , years. the ancient hebrew character, though probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern among the ancient languages of the earth. it is urged by orthodox chronologists that moses was born about b. c., and that the exodus took place about b. c. unfortunately "there are no recorded dates in the jewish scriptures that are trustworthy." moses, or the hebrews, not being mentioned upon egyptian monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth century b. c. inclusive, and never being alluded to by any extant writer who lived prior to the septuagint translation at alexandria (commencing in the third century b. c.), there are no extraneous aids, from sources alien to the jewish books through which any information, worthy of historical acceptance, can be gathered elsewhere about him or them.* moses died in the land of moab when he was years of age. the lord buried moses in a valley of moab, over against bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. josephus says that "a cloud came over him on the sudden and he disappeared in a certain valley." the devil disputed about the body of moses, contending with the archangel michael;** but whether the devil or the angel had the best of the discussion, the bible does not tell us. de beauvoir priaulx,*** looking at moses as a counselor, leader, and legislator, says: "invested with this high authority, he announced to the jews their future religion, and announced it to them as a state religion, and as framed for a particular state, and that state only. * gliddon's types of mankind: mankind's chronology, p. . ** jude, v. . *** questiones mosaicæ, p. . he gave this religion, moreover, a creed so narrow and negative--he limited it to objects so purely temporal, he crowded it with observances so entirely ceremonial or national--that we find it difficult to determine whether moses merely established this religion in order that by a community of worship he might induce in the tribe-divided israelites that community of sentiment which would constitute them a nation; or, whether he only roused them to a sense of their national dignity, in the hope that they might then more faithfully perform the duties of priests and servants of jehovah. in other words, we hesitate to decide whether in the mind of moses the state was subservient to the purposes of religion, or religion to the purposes of state." the same writer observes* that, according to the jewish writings, moses "is the friend and favorite of the deity. he is one whose prayers and wishes the deity hastens to fulfill, one to whom the deity makes known his designs. the relations between god and the prophet are most intimate. god does not disdain to answer the questions of moses, to remove his doubts, and even occasionally to receive his suggestions, and to act upon them even in opposition to his own predetermined decrees." * questiones mosaicæ p. . new life of jonah jonah was the son of amittai of gath-hepher, which place divines identify with gittah-hepher of the children of zebulun. dr. iuman says that gath-hepher means "the heifer's trough." gesenius translates it "the wine-press of the well." bible dictionaries say that gath-hepher is the same as el-meshhad, and affirm that the tomb of jonah was "long shown on a rocky hill near the town." the blood of saint januarius is shown in naples to this day. nothing is known of the sex or life of amittai, except that jonah was his or her son, and that gath-hepher was her or his place of residence; but to a true believer these two facts, even though standing utterly alone, will be pregnant with instruction. to the skeptic and railer, amittai is as an unknown quantity in an algebraic problem. jonah was not a very common proper name, [------] means a dove, and some derive it from the arabic root--to be weak, gentle; so that one meaning of jonah, according to gesenius, would be feeble, gentle bird. the prophet jonah was by no means a feeble, gentle bird; he was rather a bird of prey. certainly it was his intention to become a bird of passage. the date of the birth of jonah is not given; the margin of my bible dates the book of jonah b. c. cir. , and my bible dictionary fixes the date of the matter to which the book relates at "about b. c. ." if from any reason either of these dates should be disagreeable to the reader, he can choose any other date without fear of anachronism. jonah was a prophet; so is dr. cumming, so is brigham young; there is no evidence that jonah followed any other profession. jonah's profit probably hardly equaled that realized by the archbishop of canterbury, but he had money enough to pay his fare "from the presence of the lord" to tarshish. the exact distance of this voyage may be easily calculated by remembering that the lord is omnipresent, and then measuring from his boundary to tarshish. the fare may be worked out by the differential calculus after evening prayer. the word of the lord came to jonah; when or how the word came the text does not record, and to any devout mind it is enough to know that it came. the first time in the world's history that the word of the lord ever came to anybody, may be taken to be when adam and eve "heard the voice of the lord" "walking in the garden" of eden "in the cool of the day." between the time of adam and jonah a long period had elapsed; but human nature, having had many prophets, was very wicked. the lord wanted jonah to go with a message to nineveh. nineveh was apparently a city of three days' journey in size. allowing twenty miles for each day, this would make the city about miles across, or about miles in circumference. some faint idea may be formed of this vast city, by adding together london, paris, and new york, and then throwing in liverpool, manchester, glasgow, edinburgh, marseilles, naples, spurgeon's tabernacle. jonah knowing that the lord did not always carry out his threats or perform his promises, did not wish to go to nineveh, and "rose up to flee to tarshish from the presence of the lord," the tarshish for which jonah intended his flight was either in spain or india or elsewhere. i am inclined, after deep reflection and examination of the best authorities, to give the preference to the third-named locality. when cain went "out of the presence of the lord," he went into the land of nod, but whether tarshish is in that or some other country there is no evidence to determine. to get to tarshish, jonah--instead of going to the port of tyre, which was the nearest to his reputed dwelling, and by far the most commodious--went to the more distant and less convenient port of joppa, where he found a ship going to tarshish; "so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them into tarshish, from the presence of the lord." jonah was, however, very short-sighted. just as in the old greek mythology, winds and waves are made warriors for the gods, so the god of the hebrews "sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." luckily she was not an old leaky vessel, over-laden and heavily insured; one which the sanctimonious owners desired to see at the bottom, and which the captain did not care to save. christianity and civilization were yet to bring forth that glorious resultant, a pious english ship-owner, with a newly-painted, but, under the paint, a worn and rusty iron vessel, long abandoned as unfit, but now fresh named, and so insured that davy jones' locker becomes the most welcome haven of refuge. "the mariners were afraid.... and cast forth the wares" into the sea to lighten the ship. but where was jonah during this noise? men trampling on deck, hoarse and harsh words of command, and the fury of the storm troubled not our prophet. sea-sickness, which spares not the most pious, had no effect upon him. "jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep." the battering of the waves against the sides disturbed not his devout slumbers; the creaking of the vessel's timbers spoiled not his repose. despite the pitching and rolling of the vessel jonah "was fast asleep." had he been in the comfortable berth of a cunarder, it would not have been easy to sleep through such a storm. had he been in the hold of a smaller vessel on the bay of biscay, finding himself now with his head lower than his heels, and now with his body playing hide and seek among loose articles of cargo, it would have required great absence of mind to prevent waking. had he only been on an irish steamer carrying cattle on deck, between bristol and cork, with a portion of the bulwarks washed away, and a squad of recruits "who cried every man to his god," he would have found the calmness of undisturbed slumber difficult. but jonah was on board the joppa and tarshish boat, and he "was fast asleep." as the crew understood the theory of storms, they of course knew that when there is a tempest at sea it is sent by god, because he is offended by some one on board the vessel. modern scientists scout this notion, and pretend to track storm waves across the world, and to affix storm signals in order to warn mariners. they actually profess to predict atmospheric changes, and to explain how such changes take place. church clergymen know how futile science is, and how potent prayers are, for vessels at sea. the men on the joppa vessel said, "every one to his fellow, come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. so they cast lots, and the lot fell upon jonah." it was always a grave question in sacred metaphysics as to whether god directed jonah's lot, and, if yes, whether the casting of lots is analogous to playing with loaded dice. the bishop of lincoln, who understands how far cremation may render resurrection awkward, is the only divine capable of thoroughly resolving this problem. for ordinary christians it is enough to know that the lot fell upon jonah. before the crew commenced casting lots to find out, they had cast lots of their wares overboard, so that when the lot fell on jonah it was much lighter than it would have been had the lot fallen upon him during his sleep. still, if not stunned by the lot which fell upon him, he stood convicted as the cause of the tempest and the crews. "then said they unto him, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? and he said unto them, i am an hebrew; and i fear the lord, the god of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, why hast thou done this? for the men-knew that he fled from the presence of the lord, because he had told them. then said they unto him, what shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. and he said unto them, take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for i know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not; for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. wherefore they cried unto the lord, and said, we beseech thee, o lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, o lord, hast done as it pleased thee. so they took up jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging." no pen can improve this story; it is so simple, so natural, so child-like. every one has heard of casting oil on troubled waters. it stands to reason that a fat prophet would produce the same effect. what a striking illustration of the power of faith it will be when bishops leave their own sees in order to be in readiness to calm an ocean storm. or if not a bishop, at least a curate; and even a lean curate, for with sea air, a ravenous appetite, and a white star line cabin bill of fare of breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, fatness would soon be arrived at. in the interests of science i should like to see an episcopal prophet occasionally thrown overboard during a storm. the experiment must in any case be advantageous to humanity; should the tempest be stilled, then the ocean would be indeed the broad way, not leading to destruction; should the storm not be conquered, there would even then be promotion in the church, and happiness to many at the mere cost of one bishop. "now the lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up jonah." jesus says the fish was a whale. a whale would have needed preparation, and the statement has an air of _vraisemblance_. the fish did swallow jonah. "jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." poor jonah! and poor fish! poor jonah, for it can scarcely be pleasant, even if you escape suffocation, to be in a fish's belly with too much to drink, and no room to swallow, and your solids either raw or too much done. poor fish! for even after preparation it must be disagreeable to have one's poor stomach turned into a sort of prayer meeting. jonah was taken in; but the fish found that taking in a parson was a feat neither easy nor healthy. after jonah had uttered guttural sounds from inside the fish's belly for three days and three nights, the lord spake unto the fish, and the fish was sick of jonah, "and it vomited out jonah upon the dry land." some skeptics urged that a whale could not have swallowed jonah; but once, at todmorden, a church of england clergyman, who had been curate to the reverend charles kingsley, got rid of this as an objection by assuring us that he should have equally believed the story had it stated that jonah had swallowed the whale. and then the word of the lord came to jonah once more, and this time jonah obeyed. he was to take god's message to the citizens of nineveh. "and jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, yet forty days, and nineveh shall be overthrown." should jonah come to london in the present day with a similar message, he would meet scant courtesy from our clergy. a foreigner and using a strange tongue, he would probably find himself in colney hatch or hanwell. to come to england in the name of mahomet or buddha, or osiris or jupiter, would have little effect. but the ninevites do not seem even to have raised the question that the god of the hebrews was not their god. they listened to jonah, and "the people of nineveh believed god, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. for word came unto the king of nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes. and he caused it to be proclaimed and published through nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto god: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands." the consumption of sackcloth for covering every man and beast must have been rather large, and the nineveh sackcloth manufacturers must have had enormous stocks on hand to supply the sudden demand. the city article of the _nineveh times_, if such a paper existed, would probably have described "sackcloth firm, with a tendency to rise." man and beast, all dressed in or covered with sackcloth! it would be sometimes difficult to distinguish a ninevite man from a ninevite beast, the dress being similar for all. this is a difficulty, however, other nations have shared with the ninevites. men and women may sometimes be seen in london dressed in broadcloth and satins, and, though their clothing is distinguishable enough, their conduct is sometimes so beastly that the naked beasts are the more respectable. nineveh was frightened, and nineveh moaned, and nineveh determined to do wrong: no more. "and god saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and god repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." god, the unchangeable, changed his purpose, and spared the city, which in his infinite wisdom he had doomed. "but it displeased jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." it was enough to vex a saint to be sent to prophesy the destruction of the city in six weeks, and then nothing at all to happen. "and he prayed unto the lord, and said, i pray thee, o lord, was not this my saying, when i was yet in my country? therefore i fled before unto tarshish." jonah did not like to be a discredited prophet and cried, "therefore now, o lord, take, i beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. then said the lord, doest thou well to be angry?" jonah, knowing the lord, was still curious and uncertain as well as angry. he was a prophet and a skeptic. "so jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. and the lord god prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. so jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. but god prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. and it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that god prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, it is better for me to die than to live. and god said to jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? and he said, i do well to be angry, even unto death. then said the lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not i spare nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that can not discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" the lord seems to have overlooked that jonah had more pity on himself than the gourd, whose only value to him was as a shade from the sun. jonah, too, might have reminded the lord that there were more than , persons similarly situated at the deluge and at the slaughter of the midianites, and that the "much cattle" had never theretofore been reckoned in the divine decrees of mercy. here ends the new life of jonah. of the prophet's childhood we know nothing; of his middle age no more than we have here related; of his old age and death we have nothing to say. it is enough for good christians to know that "jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." according to jesus the story of jonah is as true as gospel. who was jesus christ? many persons will consider the question heading this pamphlet as one to which the gospels have given a sufficient answer, and that no further inquiry is necessary. we, in reply, point out that while the general christian body affirm that jesus was god incarnate on earth, the unitarian christians, less in numerical strength, but numbering a large proportion of the more intelligent and humane, absolutely deny this divinity; and even in the earliest ages of the christian church heretics were found who scrupled not to deny that jesus had ever existed in the flesh. under these circumstances, it is well to prosecute the inquiry to the uttermost, that our faith may rest on sure foundations. the history of jesus christ is contained in four books, or gospels. we know not with any degree of certainty, and have now no means of knowing, when these gospels were written, we know not where they were written, and we know not by whom they were written. until after the year a. d. , no author, except irenæus, professes to mention any gospels by matthew, mark, luke, or john, and there is no sufficient evidence to identify the gospels we have with the writings to which irenseus refers. the church has, however, kindly provided us with an author for each gospel, and the early fathers have proved there ought to be four gospels, because there are four seasons, four principal points to the compass, etc. our duty is simply to believe. with regard to the gospel first in order, it is true that divines themselves disagree as to the language in which it was written. some allege that the original was in hebrew, others deny that our greek version has any of the characters of a translation. this increases our difficulty, but if we wish for temporal welfare we must believe with the party which is most fashionable, and if we simply wish for truth, we had better disregard all parties and avoid their creeds. our authorized english translation of the four gospels is made from the received greek version; this version was made at alcala in spain, and the mss. from which it was obtained were afterward sold by the pious christians and manufactured into sky-rockets by one torjo, a firework maker. so that the same christians who threaten us with the pains of hell if we reject the gospels, actually condemned their own books to brimstone and fire. the only variation in the mode of burning is this--the holy mss., when made into sky-rockets, were shot upward and burnt in their ascent to the heavenly regions, and we are to burn in our descent into the lower regions of the bottomless pit. we do not know the hour, the day, the month, or the year, in which jesus was born. the only point on which divines generally agree is, that he was not born on christmas day. the oxford chronology places the matter in no clearer light, and more than thirty learned authorities give us a period of over seven years difference in their reckoning. the place of his birth is also uncertain, as may be ascertained by careful reference to the text. for instance, the jews in the very presence of jesus reproached him that he ought to have been born at bethlehem, and he never ventured to say, "i was born there." (john vii, , , .) jesus was the son of david the son of abraham (matthew i), and his descent from abraham is traced through isaac, who was born of sarai (whom the writer of the epistle to galatians, chap, iv, v. , says was a covenant and not a woman), and ultimately through joseph, who was not only not his father, but is not shown to have had any relationship to jesus at all, and through whom the genealogy should not be traced. there are two genealogies in the four gospels which have the merit of contradicting each other, and these in part may be collated with the old testament genealogy, which has the advantage of agreeing with neither. much prayer and faith will be required in this introduction to the history of jesus. the genealogy of matthew possesses peculiar points of interest to a would-be believer. it is self-contradictory, counts thirteen names as fourteen without explanation, and omits the names of three kings without apology. matthew (i, ), says abiud was the son of zorobabel. luke says zorobabel's son was rhesa. the old testament contradicts both, and gives meshullam and hananiah and shelomith, their sister ( chron. iii, ), as the names of zorobabel's children. some greek mss. insert "joram" into luke iii, . i do not know whether we shall be damned for omitting or for inserting joram: those who believe had better look to this. jesus was born without a father after his mother had been visited by the angel gabriel, who "came in unto her" with a message from god. his reputed father, joseph, had two fathers, one named jacob, the other named heli. the divines feeling this to be a difficulty, have kindly invented a statement that heli was the father of mary. the birth of jesus was miraculously announced to mary and to joseph by visits of an angel, but they so little regarded the miraculous annunciation that they marveled soon after at things spoken by simeon, which were much less wonderful in character. jesus was the son of god, or god manifest in the flesh, and his birth was first discovered by some wise men or astrologers. the god of the bible, who is a spirit, had previously said that these men were an abomination in his sight, and he therefore, doubtless, preferred them to be his first visitors in the flesh to keep up his character for incomprehensibility. these men saw _his_ star in the east, but it did not tell them much, for they were obliged to come and ask information from herod the king. herod inquired of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident jeremiah was right, if he said, "the prophets prophecy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means," for these chief priests, like the brewin grants and the brindleys of the present day, misquoted to suit their purposes, and invented a false prophecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. the star, after they knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, led the wise men and went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. the story will be better understood if the reader will walk out at night and notice some star, and then see how many houses it will be over. the writer of the third gospel does not appear to have been aware of the star story, and he therefore invents an angel who tells some shepherds; but as this last named adventure does not appear to have happened in the reign of herod at all, perhaps jesus was born twice. after the wise men had left jesus, an angel warned joseph to flee with him and mary into egypt, and joseph did fly and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of herod; and this was done to fulfill a prophecy. on referring to hosea (xi, ), we find the words have no reference whatever to jesus, and that, therefore, either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfillment of the prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. the jesus of the third gospel never went into egypt at all in his childhood; perhaps there were two jesus christs? when jesus began to be about thirty years of age he was baptized by john in the river jordan. john, who knew him, according to the writer of the first gospel, forbade him directly he saw him; but, according to the writer of the fourth gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no occasion to forbid him. god is an "invisible" "spirit," whom no man hath seen (john i, ), or can see. (exodus xxxiii, ); but john, who was a man, saw the spirit of god descending like a dove. god is everywhere, but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "this is my beloved son, in whom i am well pleased." although john heard this from god's own mouth, he did not always believe it, but sometime after sent two of his disciples to jesus to inquire if he were really the christ (matthew xi, , ). immediately after the baptism, jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. i do not know anything about either "the spirit" or "the devil" here mentioned, and the writer does not explain anything about them; he speaks of them familiarly, as old acquaintances. jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and in those days he did eat nothing. of course it would be difficult to find a more severe fast--forty days and nights is a long period to abstain from food. moses fasted twice that period. such fasts take place in religious books, but they are seldom found in every-day life. such fasts are nearly miraculous. miraculous events are events which never happened in the past, do not take place in the present, and never will occur in the future. jesus was god, and by his power as god fasted. this all must believe. the only difficulty is, to understand on the hypothesis of his divinity, what made him hungry. when jesus was hungry the devil tempted him by offering him stones, and asking him to make them bread. we have heard of men having hard nuts to crack, but that stones should be offered to a hungry man for extempore bread-making hardly seems a probable temptation. which temptation came next is a matter of doubt. the holy ghost, which the clergy assert inspired matthew and luke, does not appear to have inspired them both alike, and they relate the story of the temptation in different order. according to one, the devil next taketh jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempts him to throw himself to the bottom, by quoting scripture that angels should bear him in their arms. jesus was, however, either a disbeliever in scripture, or remembered that the devil, like other gentlemen in black, grossly misquoted to suit his purpose, and the temptation failed. the devil then took jesus to an exceedingly high mountain, from whence he showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory thereof, in a moment of time, which was very quick. it is urged that this did not include a view of the antipodes, but only referred to the kingdoms then known. if this be true, it must have been a long look from judea to china, which was then a known kingdom. the eye of faith will, however, see things afar off and sometimes will also see things which are not. the mountain must have been very high--much higher than the diameter of the earth; it must have been solid in proportion, therefore would have capsized the earth in its revolutions, if even temporarily placed upon it. the devil then offered jesus, who was the same as god, and therefore omnipotent, all the kingdoms of the world, if he, jesus the omnipotent god, would fall down and worship his own creature, the devil. some object that if god is the creator and omnipotent ruler of the world, then the devil would have no control over the kingdoms of the world, and that the offer could be no temptation as it was made to jesus, who was both god omnipotent and all-wise, as well as man. these objectors may easily be answered by asserting that it requires a proper submission of the intellect, and an abhorrence of worldly reason, in order properly to understand these books. after this jesus taught the multitudes. his teachings will form the subject of a separate tract. we are here only endeavoring to answer our preliminary question by a narration of his history. after the temptation, jesus is alleged to have worked many miracles, casting out devils, and otherwise creating marvels among the inhabitants of judea. bedevilment is now at a sad discount, and if a second jesus of nazareth were in this heretical age to boast that he possessed the power of casting out devils, he would stand a fair chance of expiating his offense by a three months' penance with hard labor in the highly polished interior of some borough jail. now if men be sick and they have a little wisdom, the physician is resorted to, who administers medicine to cure the disease. if men have much wisdom they study physiology, while they have health, in order to prevent sickness altogether. in the time of the early christians prayer and faith (james v, , ) occupied the position of utility since usurped by rhubarb, jalap, _et similibus_. men who had lost their sight in the time of christ were attacked not by disease but by the devil; we have heard of men seeing double who have allowed spirits to get into their heads. in the days of jesus one spirit would make a man blind, or deaf, or dumb; occasionally a number of devils would get into a man and drive him mad. we do not doubt this, nor do we ask our readers to doubt. we are grieved to be obliged to add that although we do not doubt the story of devils, neither do we believe them. our state of mind is neither that of doubt, nor of absolute conviction of their correctness. on one occasion, jesus met either one man (mark v, ) or two men (matthew viii, ) possessed with devils. i am not in a position to advance greater reasons for believing that it was one man who was possessed than for believing there were two in the clutches of the devils. the probabilities are equal--that is, the amount of probability is not greater upon the one side than upon the other--that is, there is no probability on either side. the devils knew jesus and addressed him by name. jesus was not so familiar with the imp, or imps, and we find inquired the name of the particular devil he was addressing. the answer given in latin would induce a belief that the devils usually spoke in that tongue. this may be an error, but, of course, it is well to give consideration to every particular when we know we are to be eternally damned if we happen to believe the wrong statement. jesus wanted to cast out the devils, this they do not seem to have cared about, but they appear to have had a decided objection to being cast out of the country. whether palestine was the native country of the devils, and that therefore they were loth to quit it, i know not, but it is likely enough, as christianity is alleged to have had its rise there. a compromise was agreed to, and at their own request the devils were transferred to a herd of swine. people who believe this may be said to "go the whole hog." the jesus of the four gospels is also alleged to have fed large multitudes of people under circumstances of a most ultra-thaumaturgic character. to the first book of euclid is, prefixed an axiom that "the whole is greater than its part." john wesley is alleged to have eschewed mathematics lest it should lead him to infidelity. john wesley was wise, for if any man be foolish enough to accept euclid's axiom, he will be compelled to reject the miraculous feeding of , people with five loaves and two small fishes. it is difficult under any circumstances to perform a miracle. the original difficulty is rather increased than diminished by the assertion that after the multitude had been fed, twelve baskets full of fragments remained. perhaps the loaves were very large or the baskets very small. jesus is related to have walked on the sea at a time when it was very stormy, and when, to use the words of the text, "the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew." walking on the water is a great feat if it be calm, but when the waves run high it is still more wonderful. perhaps it was because jesus must have been often engulfed by the angry waves, that one sect prefers baptism by complete immersion. we admire this miracle; we know how difficult it is for a man to keep his head above water in the affairs of life. the miracle of turning water into wine at cana, in galilee, is worthy of considerable attention, in the endeavor to answer the question, who was jesus christ? jesus and his disciples had been called to a marriage feast, and when there the company fell short of wine. the mother of jesus to whom the catholics offer worship, and pay great adoration, informed jesus of the deficiency. jesus, who was very meek and gentle, answered her in the somewhat uncourteous and unmeaning phrase, "woman, what have i to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." his mother seemed to have expected a miracle by her conduct, yet if the fourth gospel speak the truth, that was the beginning of miracle working on the part of jesus. perhaps something had previously happened which is not recorded, and which would explain this apparent inconsistency. we must exert our faith to fill up any little gap which may be in the way of salvation. jesus having obtained six waterpots full of water, turned them into wine. teetotalers who reject spirits in bottles, but accept spiritual teachings, and who can not believe god would specially provide means of drunkenness, urge that this wine was not of intoxicating quality. we will hope their hypothesis is a correct one, but there is nothing to justify it in our text. in fact, the curious connection between the phrase "well drunk" and the time at which the miracle was performed, would almost warrant the allegation that the guests were already in such a state as to render unnecessary the administration of further intoxicants. the moral effects of this miracle are not easily conceivable by carnal minds. shortly after this jesus went to the temple, and in a meek and quiet manner, with a scourge of small curds drove thereout the cattle dealers and money changers who had assembled there in the ordinary course of their business. it is hardly probable that the jews would have permitted this without violent resistance to so rough a course of procedure. the writer of the fourth gospel placed this event very early in the public life of jesus. the writer of the third gospel fixes the occurrence much later. perhaps it happened twice, or perhaps they have both made a mistake in the time. the jesus of the four gospels is alleged to have been god all-wise; being hungry, he went to a fig-tree, when the season of figs was not yet come. of course there were no figs upon the tree, and jesus then caused the tree to wither away. this is an interesting account to a true orthodox trinitarian. such a one will believe: first, that jesus was god, who made the tree, and prevented it from bearing figs; second, that god the all-wise, who is not subject to human passions, being hungry, went to the fig-tree, on which he knew there would be no figs, expecting to find some there; third, that god the all-just then punished the tree because it did not bear figs in opposition to god's eternal ordination. this account is a profound mystery to a truly religious man. he bow's his head, flings his carnal reason away, and looks at the matter in a prayerful spirit, with an eye of faith. faith as a grain of mustard seed will remove a mountain. the only difficulty is to get the grain of faith; all is easy when that is done. the "eye of faith" is a great help, it sometimes enables men to see that which does not exist. jesus had a disciple named peter, who, having much faith, was a great rascal and denied his leader in his hour of need. jesus was previously aware that peter would be a rascal, and he gave him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and told him that whatsoever be bound on earth should be bound in heaven. many an honest man has been immured in a dungeon, and has had the key turned on him by a rascally jailor. it is to be regretted that the like should be promised for all eternity. peter was to have denied jesus three times before the cock should crow (matt. , ). the cock was doubtless an infidel cock, and would not wait. he crowed before peter's second denial (mark xiv, ). commentators urge that the words used do not refer to the crowing of any particular cock, but to a special hour of the morning called "cockcrow." the commentators have but one difficulty to get over, and that is, that if the gospel be true, their explanation is false. peter's denial becomes the more extraordinary when we remember that he had seen moses, jesus, and elias talking together, and had heard a voice from a cloud say, "this is my beloved son, in whom i am well pleased." if peter could thus deny jesus after having heard god vouch his divinity, and if peter not only escapes punishment but gets the office of gatekeeper to heaven, how much should we escape punishment and obtain reward, who only deny because we can not help it, and who have no corroborative evidence of sight or hearing to compel our faith? the jesus of the first gospel promised that, as jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so he (jesus) would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. yet he was buried on friday evening, and was out of the grave before saturday was over. of course this is susceptible of explanation; you must have faith and believe that in some other language something else was said which ought to be translated differently. or, if you can not believe thus, then you must have faith until you stretch the one day and part of another day, and one night and part of another night, into three days and three nights. our orthodox translators have made jesus perform a curious equestrian feat on his entry into jerusalem. the text says, they "brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and set him thereon." perhaps this does not mean that he rode on both at one time. on the cross, the jesus of the four gospels, who was god, cried out, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" god can not forsake himself. jesus was god himself. yet god forsook jesus, and the latter cried out to know why he was forsaken. this is one of the mysteries of the holy christian religion which, "unless a man rightly believe without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." at the crucifixion of jesus wonderful miracles took place. "the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the grave after his resurrection and appeared unto many." we do not know which saints these were. whether they numbered among them st. abraham, who permitted his wife to incur the risk of dishonor, and who accepted riches to gild his shame; who turned his wife into the desert with one bottle of water and some bread. saint lot, of whom the less said the purer our pages; saint judah, who wanted to burn alive a woman he had gotten with child; saint jacob, the liar and cheat; saint joseph, the model prime minister, who bought the people's rights with their own corn; saint moses, the conjuror, who killed , jews because his own brother aaron had persuaded them to make a golden calf; saint jael, the blessed above all women, because she drove most treacherously a nail into the skull of a sleeping guest; saint samson, who slew one thousand men with the jawbone of an ass; saint gideon, who frightened a large body of midianites, with trumpets, pitchers, and lanterns. poor midianites, they had all been exterminated long before gideon's time; it must have been an extraordinary providence to bring them into life in order to frighten them; but god's ways are not as our ways. this is a digression--in plain language, we do not know who "the saints" were. they "appeared unto many," but there is not the slightest evidence that any one ever saw them. their "bodies" came out of the graves, so we suppose that the bodies of the saints do not decompose like those of ordinary human beings. as the saints rose, so did jesus. as they had their bodies, so had he. he must have much changed in the grave, for his disciples did not know him when he stood on the shore (john xxi, ). according to the first gospel jesus appeared to two women after his resurrection, and afterward met eleven of his disciples by appointment on a mountain in galilee. we do not know when the appointment was made; the only verse on which divines rely as being capable of bearing this construction is matt, xxxi, , and that voice is silent both as to place and time--in fact, gives no promise of any meeting whatever. according to the second gospel, he appeared first to one women, and when she told the disciples they did not believe it. yet we are bound to unhesitatingly accept that which the disciples of jesus rejected. we have an advantage which perhaps the disciples lacked. we have several different stories of the same event, and we can select that which appears to us the most probable. the disciples might have been so unfortunate as to have only one account. by the second gospel we learn that instead of the eleven going to galilee after jesus, he came to them as they sat at meat. in the third gospel, wo are told that he first appeared to two of his disciples at emmaus, and they did not know him until they had been a long time in his company--in fact, according to the text, it was evening before they recognized him, so we suppose the light of faith supplied the want of the light of day. unfortunately directly they saw him they did not see him, for as soon as they knew him he vanished out of their sight. he immediately afterward appeared to the eleven at jerusalem, and not at galilee, as stated in the first gospel. jesus asked for some meat, and the disciples gave him a portion of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he did eat. in these degenerate days it is hard to believe in a ghost eating fried fish, yet we must try to do it for our soul's sake, which otherwise may be burned for ever in the fire that is never quenched. there is certainly nothing more improbable in god the son eating broiled fish after he was dead, than there is in believing god the father ate dressed calf, tender and good, prepared for him by abraham (_vide_ genesis xviii). a truly pious and devout mind will not look at the letter which killeth, but for the spirit which maketh alive. jesus was afterward taken up into heaven, a cloud received him, and he was missed. god of course is everywhere, and heaven is not more above than below, but it is necessary we should believe that jesus has ascended into heaven to sit on the right hand of god, who is infinite and has no right hand. our question at the commencement was, "who was jesus christ?" was he a man?--surely not. born without a father, in the lifetime of herod, according to luke. residing in egypt, according to matthew, at a period in which, if luke be true, he never could have visited egypt at all. his whole career is, not simply a series of improbabilities, not simply a series of absurdities, but, in truth, a series of fables destitute of foundation in fact. who was christ? born of a virgin. so was chrishna, the hindoo god incarnate. the story of chrishna is identical in many respects with that of jesus. the story of chrishna was current long prior to the birth of jesus. the story of chrishna is believed by the inhabitants of hindostan and disbelieved by the english, who say it is a myth, a fable. we add that both are equally true, and that both are equally false. who was jesus christ? a man or a myth? his history being a fable, is the hero a reality? do you allege that it was impossible to forge books so large as the gospels? then the answer is that christians were skilled in the art of forging epistles, gospels, acts, decrees of councils, etc. will you urge that this only applies to the romish church? then you will admit that your stream runs from a polluted fountain? who was jesus christ? who was saint patrick, who excelled the reptiles from ireland? who was fin ma coul? who was odin? perhaps there was a man who really lived and performed some special actions attracting popular attention, but beyond this jesus christ is a fiction. what did jesus teach? the doctrines of jesus may be sought for and found in a small compass. four thin gospels are alleged to contain nearly the entirety of his sayings, and as most englishmen are professedly christians, it might be fairly supposed that the general public were conversant with christ's teachings. this, however, is not the case. the bulk of professors believe from custom rather than from reading. they profess a faith as they follow a fashion--because others have done so before them. what did jesus teach? manly self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practice of right? no; the key-stone of his whole teaching may be found in the text, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."* * matthew v, . is poverty of spirit the chief among virtues, that jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? is poverty of spirit a virtue at all? surely not. manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fullness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of spirit is a crime. when men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and haughty in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent evil, wrong, and injustice whenever they can, then is their greater opportunity for happiness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in some may-be heaven, hereafter. are you poor in spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did jesus teach? "unto whom that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other."* 'twere better far to teach that "he who courts oppression shares the crime." rather say, if smitten once, take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. i have heard men preach passive resistance, but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course degrading in the extreme. shelley breathed higher humanity in his noble advice: "stand ye calm and resolute, like a forest close and mute, with folded arms and looks, which are weapons of an unvanquished war." there is a wide distinction between the passive resistance to wrong and the courting of further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. i have in no case seen this better illustrated than in mr. george jacob holyoake's history of his imprisonment in gloucester jail,** where passive resistance saved him from the indignity of a prison dress, and also from compulsory attendance at morning prayer in the prison chapel, which in his case would have been to him an additional insult. but the teaching of jesus goes much beyond this kind of conduct; the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to the fullest extent--"him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. give to every man that asketh of thee, and from him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again."*** poverty of person is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation of poverty of spirit. * luke vi, . ** "last trail by jury for atheism." *** luke vi, , . poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and if jesus knew that poverty of goods would result from his teaching, we might expect some notice of this. and so there is--as if he wished to keep the poor content through their lives with poverty, he says, "blessed be ye poor for yours is the kingdom of god."* "but woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation."** he pictures one in hell, whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in heaven, whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor.*** he at another time tells his hearers that it is as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.**** the only intent of such teaching could be to induce the poor to remain content with the want and misery attendant on their wretched state in this life, in the hope of a higher recompense in some future life. is it good to be content with poverty? nay, 'tis better far to investigate the cause of such poverty, with a view to its cure and prevention. the doctrine is a most horrid one which declares that the poor shall not cease from the face of the earth. poor in spirit and poor in pocket. with no courage to work for food, or money to purchase it! we might well expect to find the man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also; and what does jesus teach?--"blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled."***** he does not say when the filling shall take place, but the date is evidently postponed until the time when you will have no stomachs to replenish. it is not in this life that the hunger is to be sated. do you doubt me, turn again to your testament and read, "woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger."****** this must surely settle the point. * luke vi, . ** luke vi, . *** luke xvi, -- . **** luke xviii, . ***** luke vi, . ****** luke vi, . it would be but little vantage to the hungry man to bless him by filling him, if, when he had satisfied his appetite, he were met by a curse which had awaited the completion of his repast. craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next? the man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong will probably bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. and what does jesus teach?--"blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh."* is this true, and if true, when? "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."** aye, but when? not while they mourn and weep. weeping for the past is vain; 'tis past, and a deluge of tears will never wash away its history. weeping for the present is worse than vain--it obstructs your sight. in each minute of your life the aforetime future is present-born, and you need dry and keen eyes to give it and yourself a safe and happy deliverance. when shall they that mourn be comforted? are slaves that weep salt teardrops on their steel shackles comforted in their weeping? nay, but each pearly overflow, as it falls, rusts mind as well as fetter. ye who are slaves and weep, will never be comforted until ye dry your eyes and nerve your arms, and, in the plenitude of your manliness, "shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep have fallen on you." jesus teaches that the poor, the hungry and the wretched shall be blessed? this is not so. the blessing only comes when they have ceased to be poor, hungry and wretched. contentment under poverty, hunger and misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows. these three, like foul diseases, spread quickly wherever humanity is stagnant and content with wrong. * luke vi, . ** matthew v, . what did jesus teach? "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."* so far well, but how if thy neighbor will not hear thy doctrine when thou preacheth the "glad tidings of great joy" to him? then forgetting all thy love, and with bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can manifest, thou "shalt shake off the dust from your feet," and by so doing make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of sodom and gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbor who has ventured to maintain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his priest.** it is, indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one another could result from the dehumanizing and isolating faith required from the disciple of jesus. ignatius loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his protestant brethren,*** "if any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple."**** "think not that i am come to send peace on earth. i came not to send peace, but a sword. for i am come to set men at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes they shall be of his own household.*****" "every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."****** the teaching of jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself. the teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow. * matthew xix, . ** matthew x, , . *** luke xiv, . **** matthew x, -- . ***** matthew xix, . the human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. there is no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness; our joy depends on our brother's also. but what does jesus teach? that "many are called, but few are chosen;" that the majority will inherit an eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal happiness. and on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? on a truthful course of life? not so. jesus puts father abraham in heaven, whose reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. the passport througli heaven's portals is faith. "he that believeth and baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned."* are you married? have you a wife you love? she dies and you. you from your first speech to your last had ever said, "i believe," much as a clever parrot might say it, if well taught. you had never examined your reasons for your faith for, like a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal reason. you said, therefore, "i believe in god and jesus christ," because you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, "i believe in allah, and in mahomet his prophet," had your birthplace been a few degrees more eastward, and your parents and instructors turks. you believed in this life and awake in heaven. your much-loved wife did not think as you did--she could not. her organization, education and temperament were all different from your own. she disbelieved because she could not believe. she was a good wife, but she disbelieved, a good and affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. a virtuous and kindly woman, but she disbelieved. and you are to be happy for an eternity in heaven, while she is writhing in agony in hell. * mark xvi, . if true, i could say with shelley, of this christianity, that it "peoples earth with demons, hell with men, and heaven with slaves." it is often urged that jesus is the savior of the world, that he brought redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. but what did jesus teach? "go not into any way of the gentiles, and into any city of the samaritan enter ye not."* these were his injunctions to those whom he first sent out to preach. "i am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of israel," is his hard answer to the poor syrophenician woman who is entreating succor for her child. christianity, as first taught by jesus, was for the jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them that the world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it. "he came unto his own and his own received him not,"** why should the jews be more god's own than the gentiles? is god the creator of all? and did he create the descendant of abraham with greater right and privilege than all other men? then, indeed, is great and grievous injustice done. you and i had no choice whether we would be born jews or gentiles; yet to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which if accepted, shuts out all beside. the kingdom of heaven is a prominent feature in the teachings of jesus, and it may be well to ascertain, as precisely as we can, the picture drawn by god incarnate of his own special domain. 'tis likened to a wedding feast, to which the invited guests coming not, servants are sent out into the highways to gather all they can find--both good and bad. the king comes in to see his motley array of guests, and findeth one without a wedding garment. * matt. x, . ** john i, . the king inquired why he came into the feast without one, and the man, whoso attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. and who can wonder? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the fashion of his coming or his attiring. then comes the king's decree, the command of the all-merciful and loving king of heaven: "bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." commentators urge that it was the custom to provide wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. the text does not warrant this position, but assigns, as an explanation of the parable, that an invitation to the heavenly feast will not insure its partakal, for that many are called, but few are chosen. what more of the kingdom of heaven? "there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance."* nay, it is urged that the greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has sinned, so much the more he loves god. "to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."** is not this indeed asserting that a life of vice, with its stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consistent and virtuous conduct? why should the fatted calf be killed for the prodigal son?*** why should men be taught to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? these ambiguities, these assertions of punishment and forgiveness of crime, instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious detractions from a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim divinity. * luke xv, . ** luke , . *** luke xv, . will you again turn back to the love of jesus as the redeeming feature of the whole? then, i ask you, read the story of the fig-tree* withered by the hungry jesus. the fig-tree, if he were all-powerful god, was made by him, he limited its growth and regulated its development. he prevented it from bearing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his _infinite love_ was angry that the tree had not upon it that which it could not have. tell me the love expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his parables, and in which he says: "for, i say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. but those, mine enemies, which would not that i should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me."** what love is expressed by that jesus who, if he were god, represents himself as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few who are chosen): 'depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.'*** * matt xxi, - ; mark xi, - . ** luke xix, , . *** matt, xxv, . far from love is this horrid notion of eternal torment. and yet the popular preachers of to-day talk first of love and then of "hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire, where poisonous and undying worms prolong eternal misery to those hapless slaves, whose life has been a penance for its crimes." in reading the sayings attributed to jesus, all must be struck by the passage which so extraordinarily influenced the famous origen.* if he understood it aright, its teachings are most terrible. if he understood it wrongly, what are we to say for the wisdom of teaching which expresses so vaguely the meaning which it rather hides than discovers by its words? the general intent of christ's teaching seems to be an inculcation of neglect of this life, in the search for another. "labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en-dureth unto everlasting life."** "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?.... but seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." the effect of these texts, if fully carried out, would be most disastrous; they would stay all scientific discoveries, prevent all development of man's energies. it is in the struggle for existence here that men are compelled to become acquainted with the conditions which compel happiness or misery. it is only by the practical application of that knowledge, that the wants of society are understood and satisfied, and disease, poverty, hunger, and wretchedness, prevented. jesus substitutes "i believe," for "i think," and puts "watch and pray," instead of "think and act." belief is made the most prominent feature, and is, indeed, the doctrine which pervades, permeates, and governs all christianity. it is represented that, at the judgment, the world will be reproved "of sin because they believe not." this teaching is most disastrous; man should be incited to active thought: belief is a cord which would bind him to the teachings of an uneducated past. * matt. xix, . ** matt, xxiv, . thought, mighty thought, mighty in making men most manly, will burst this now rotting cord, and then--shaking off the cobwebbed and dust-covered traditions of dark old times, humanity shall stand crowned with a most glorious diadem of facts, which, like gems worn on a bright summer's day, shall grow more resplendent as they reflect back the rays of truth's meridian sun. fit companion to blind belief in slave-like prayer. men pray as though god needed most abject entreaty ere he would grant them justice. what does jesus teach on this? what is his direction on prayer? "after this manner pray ye: our father, which art in heaven." do you think that god is the father of all, when you pray that he will enable you to defeat some other of his children, with whom your nation is at war? and why "which art in heaven?" where is heaven? you look upward, and if you were at the antipodes, would look upward still. but that upward would be downward to us. do you know where heaven is, if not, why say "which art in heaven?" is god infinite, then he is in earth also, why limit him to heaven? "hallowed be thy name." what is god's name? and if you know it not, how can you hallow it? how can god's name be hallowed even if you know it? "thy kingdom come." what is god's kingdom, and will your praying bring it quicker? is it the judgment day, and do you say "love one another," pray for the more speedy arrival of that day on which god may say to your fellow, "depart ye cursed into everlasting fire?" "thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." how is god's will done in heaven? if the devil be a fallen angel, there must have been rebellion even there. "give us this day our daily bread," will the prayer get it without work? no. will work get it without the prayer? yes? why pray then for bread to god, who says, "blessed be ye that hunger.... woe unto you that are full?" "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." what debts have you to god? sins? samuel taylor coleridge says, "a sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances. circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circumstances.... the evil derives from the circumstances.... and such evil is not sin."* do you say that you are independent of all circumstances, that you can control them, that you have a free will? mr. buckle says that the assertion of a free will "involves two assumptions, of which the first, though possibly true, has never been proved, and the second is unquestionably false. these assumptions are that there is an independent faculty, called consciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible."** "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." do you think god will possibly lead you into temptation? if so, you can not think him all-good, if not all-good he is not god, if god, the prayer is a blasphemy. * "aids to reflection," , p. . ** "history of civilization," vol. i, p. . i close this paper with the last scene in jesus' life, not meaning that i have--in these few pages--fully examined his teachings; but hoping that enough is even here done to provoke inquiry and necessitate debate, jesus, according to the general declaration of christian divines, came to die, and what does he teach by his death? the rev. f. d. maurice it is, i think, who well says, "that he who kills for a faith must be weak, that he who dies for a faith must be strong." how did jesus die? giordano bruno, and julius caesar vanini, were burned for atheism. they died calm, heroic defiant of wrong. jesus, who could not die, courted death, that he, as god, might accept his own atonement, and might pardon man for a sin which he had not committed, and in which he had no share. the death he courted came, and when it came he could not face it, but prayed to himself that he might not die. and then, when on the cross, if two of the gospels do him no injustice, his last words--as there recorded--were a bitter cry of deep despair, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" the rev. enoch mellor, in his work on the atonement, says, "i seek not to fathom the profound mystery of these words. to understand their full import would require one to experience the agony of desertion they express." do the words, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" express an "agony" caused by a consciousness of "desertion?" doubtless they do; in fact, if this be not the meaning conveyed by the despairing death-cry, then there is in it no meaning whatever. and if those words do express a "bitter agony of desertion," then they emphatically contradict the teachings of jesus. "before abraham was, i am." "i and my father are one." "thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god." these were the words of jesus, words conveying (together with many other such texts) to the reader an impression that divinity was claimed by the man who uttered them. if jesus had indeed been god, the words "my god, my god," would have been a mockery most extreme. god could not have deemed himself forsaken by himself. the dying jesus, in that cry, confessed himself either the dupe of some other teaching, a self-deluded enthusiast, or an arch-imposter, who, in the bitter cry, with the wide-opening of the flood-gates through which life's stream ran out, confessed aloud that he, at least, was no deity, and deemed himself a god-forsaken man. the garden scene of agony is fitting prelude to this most terrible act. jesus, who is god, prays to himself, in "agony he prayed most earnestly."* he refuses to hear his own prayers, and he, the omnipotent, is forearmed against his coming trial by an angel from heaven, who "strengthened" the great creator. was jesus the son of god? praying, he said, "father, the hour is come, glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee."** and was he glorified? his death and resurrection most strongly disbelieved in the very city where they happened, if, indeed, they ever happened at all. his doctrines rejected by the only people to whom he preached them. his miracles denied by the only nation where they are alleged to have been performed; and he himself thus on the cross, crying out, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" surely no further comment is needed on this head, to point more distinctly to the most monstrous mockery the text reveals. * luke, xxii, . ** john, xvii, . to those who urge that the course i take is too bold, or that the problems i deal with are two deep or sacred, i will reply in herschel's version of schiller, wouldst thou reach perfection's goal, stay not! rest not! forward strain, hold not hand, and draw not rein. perseverance strikes the mark, expansion clears whatever is dark, truth in the abyss doth dwell, my say is said--now fare the well. the twelve apostles. all, good christians, indeed all christians--for are there any who are not models of goodness?--will desire that their fellow-creatures who are unbelievers should have the fullest possible information, biographical or otherwise, as to the twelve persons specially chosen by jesus to be his immediate followers. it is not for the instruction of the believer that i pen this brief essay; he would be equally content with his faith in the absence of all historic vouchers. indeed a pious worshiper would cling to his creed not only without testimony in its favor, but despite direct testimony against it. it is to those not within the pale of the church that i shall seek to demonstrate the credibility of the history of the twelve apostles. the short biographical sketch here presented is extracted from the first five books of the new testament, two of which at least are attributed to two of the twelve. it is objected by heretical men who go as far in their criticisms on the gospels as colenso does with the pentateuch, that not one of the gospels is original or written by any of the apostles; that, on the contrary, they were preceded by numerous writings, since lost or rejected, these in their turn having for their basis the oral tradition which preceded them. it is alleged that the four gospels are utterly anonymous, and that the fourth gospel is subject to strong suspicions of spuriousness. it would be useless to combat, and i therefore boldly ignore these attacks on the authenticity of the text, and proceed with my history. the names of the twelve are as follows: simon, surnamed peter; andrew, his brother; james and john, the sons of zebedee; andrew; philip; bartholomew; matthew; james, the son of alphaeus; simon, the canaanite; judas iscariot; and a twelfth, as to whose name there is some uncertainty; it was either lebbaeus, thaddaeus, or judas. it is in matthew alone (x, ) that the name of lebbaeus is mentioned thus: "lebbaeus, whose surname was thaddaeus." we are told, on this point, by able biblicists, that the early mss. have not the words "whose surname was thaddaeus," and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the gospel according to matthew with that attributed to mark. how good must have been the old fathers who sought to improve upon the holy ghost by making clear that which inspiration had left doubtful! in the english version of the rheims testament used in this country by our roman catholic brethren, the reconciliation between matthew and mark is completed by omitting the words "lebbaeus whose surname was," leaving only the name "thaddaeus" in matthew's text. this omission must be correct, being by the authority of an infallible church. if matthew x, , and mark iii, , be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple lebbaeus, and the second gives him the name thaddaeus, there is yet the difficulty that in luke vi, , corroborated by john xiv, , there is a disciple spoken of as "judas, not iscariot." "judas, the brother of james." commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that thaddaeus is a syriac word, having much the same meaning as judas. this has been answered by the objection that if matthew's gospel uses thaddæus in lieu of judas, then he ought to speak of thaddaeus iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a hebrew original for the gospel attributed to matthew, there is not the slightest pretense for alleging that matthew wrote in syriac. it is to be hoped that the unbelieving reader will not stumble on the threshold of his study because of a little uncertainty as to a name. what is in a name? the jewish name which we read as jesus is really joshua, but the name to which we are most accustomed seems the one we should adhere to. simon peter being the first named among the disciples of jesus, deserves the first place in this notice. the word "simon" may be rendered, if taken as a greek name, _flatnose_ or _ugly_. some of the ancient greek and hebrew names are characteristic of peculiarities in the individual, but no one knows whether peter's nose had anything to do with his name. simon is rather a hebrew name, but peter is greek, signifying a _rock_ or _stone_. peter is supposed to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and his second name may express his stony insensibility to all appeals by infidels for admittance to the celestial regions. lord byron's "vision of judgment" is the highest known authority as to saint peter's celestial duties, but this nobleman's poems are only fit for very pious readers. peter, ere he became a parson, was by trade a fisher, and when jesus first saw peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother andrew, casting a net into the sea of galilee, jesus walking by the sea said to them, "follow me, and i will make you fishers of men."* the two brothers did so, and they became christ's disciples. the successors of peter have since reversed the apostles' early practice: instead of now casting their nets into the sea, the modern representatives of the disciples of jesus draw the sees into their nets, and, it is believed, find the result much more profitable. when jesus called peter no one was with him but his brother andrew; a little further on, the two sons of zebedee were in a ship with their father mending nets. this is the account of peter's call given in the gospel according to matthew, and as matthew was inspired by the holy ghost, who is identical with god the father, who is one with god the son, who is jesus, the account is doubtless free from error. in the gospel according to john, which is likewise inspired in the same manner, from the same source, and with similar infallibility, we learn that andrew was originally a disciple of john the baptist, and that when andrew first saw jesus, peter was not present, but andrew went and found peter who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found the messiah," and that andrew then brought peter to jesus, who said, "thou art simon, the son of jonas; thou shalt be called cephas." there is no mention in this gospel narrative of the sons of zebedee being a little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of galilee. this call is clearly on land, whether or not near the sea of galilee does not appear. in the gospel according to luke, which is as much inspired as either of the two before-mentioned gospels, and, therefore equally authentic with each of them, we are told** that when the call took place, jesus and peter were both at sea. jesus had been preaching to the people, who, pressing upon him, he got into simon's ship, from which he preached. * matthew iv, - . ** luke v, - . after this he directed simon to put out into the deep and let down the nets. simon answered, "master, we have toiled all night and taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word i will let down the net." no sooner was this done than the net was filled to breaking, and simon's partners, the two sons of zebedee, came to help, when, at the call of jesus, they brought their ships to land, and followed him. from these accounts the unbeliever may learn that when jesus called peter, either both jesus and peter were on the land, or one was on land and the other on sea, or both of them were at sea. he may also learn that the sons of zebedee were present at the time, having come to help to get in the great catch, and were called with peter; or that they were further on, sitting mending nets with their father, and were called afterward; or that they were neither present nor near at hand. he may also be assured that simon was in his ship when jesus came to call him, and that jesus was on land when andrew, simon's brother, found simon and brought him to jesus to be called. the unbeliever must not hesitate because of any apparent incoherence or contradiction in the narrative. with faith it is easy to harmonize the three narratives above quoted, especially when you know that jesus had visited simon's house before the call of simon,* but did not go to simon's house until after simon had been called.** jesus went to simon's house and cured his wife's mother of a fever. robert taylor,*** commenting on the fever-curing miracle, says: "st. luke tells us that this fever had taken the woman, not that the woman had taken the fever, and not that the fever was a very bad fever, or a yellow fever, or a scarlet fever, but that it was a great fever--that is, i suppose, a fever six feet high at least; a personal fever, a rational and intelligent fever, that would yield to the power of jesus' argument, but would never have given way to james' powder. so we are expressly told that jesus rebuked the fever--that is, he gave it a good scolding; asked it, i dare say, how it could be so unreasonable as to plague the poor old woman so cruelly, and whether it wasn't ashamed of itself; and said, perhaps, _get out you naughty, wicked fever, you_; and such like objurgatory language, which the fever, not used to being rebuked in such a manner, and being a very sensible sort of fever, would not stand, but immediately left the old woman in high dudgeon." this robert taylor, although a clergyman of the church of england, has been convicted of blasphemy and imprisoned for writing in such wicked language about the bible. simon peter, as a disciple, performed many miracles, some when in company with jesus, and more when separately by himself. these miracles, though themselves un-vouched by any reliable testimony, and disbelieved by the people among whom they worked, are strong evidence in favor of the apostolic character claimed for peter. * luke iv, . ** matthew viii, . *** devil's pulpit, vol. i., p. . on one occasion the whole of the disciples were sent away by jesus in a ship, the savior remaining behind to pray. about the fourth watch of the night, when the ship was in the midst of the sea, jesus went unto his disciples, walking on the sea. though jesus went unto his disciples, and as an expeditious way, i suppose, of arriving with them, he would have passed by them, but they saw him, and supposing him to be a spirit, cried out. jesus bid them be of good cheer, to which peter answered, "lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee."* jesus said, "come," and peter walked on the water to go to jesus. but the sea being wet and the wind boisterous, peter became afraid, and instead of walking on the water began to sink into it, and cried out "lord save me," and immediately jesus stretched out his hand and caught peter. some object that the two gospels according to john and mark, which both record the feat of water-walking by jesus, omit all mention of peter's attempt. probably the holy ghost had good reasons for omitting it. a profane mind might make a jest of an apostle "half seas over," and ridicule an apostolic gatekeeper who could not keep his head above water. peter's partial failure in this instance should drive away all unbelief, as the text will show that it was only for lack of faith that peter lost his buoyancy. simon is called bar-jonah, that is, son of jonah; but i am not aware if he is any relation to the jonah who lived under water in the belly of a fish three days and three nights. it was simon peter who, having told jesus he was the son of god, was answered, "blessed art thou simon bar-jonah, flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee."** we find a number of disciples shortly before this, and in peter's presence, telling jesus that he was the son of god,*** but there is no real contradiction between the two texts. it was on this occasion that jesus said to simon, "thou art peter, and upon this rock i will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and i will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." * matt, xiv, ; mark vi, . ** matt. xvi, . *** matt, xiv, . under these extraordinary declarations from the mouth of god the son, the bishops of rome have claimed, as successors of peter, the same privileges, and their pretensions have been, acceded to by some of the most powerful monarchs of europe. under this claim the bishops, or popes of rome, have at various times issued papal bulls, by which they have sought to bind the entire world. many of these have been very successful, but in , philip the fair, of france, publicly burned the pope boniface's bull after an address in which the states-general had denounced, in words more expressive than polite, the right of the popes of rome to saint peter's keys on earth. some deny that the occupiers of the episcopal seat in the seven-hilled city are really of the church of christ, and they point to the bloody quarrels which have raged between men contending for the papal dignity. they declare that those vicars of christ have more than once resorted to fraud, treachery, and murder, to secure the papal dignity. they point to stephen vii, the son of an unmarried priest, who cut off the head of his predecessor's corpse; to sergius iii, convicted of assassination; to john x, who was strangled in the bed of his paramour theodora; to john xi, son of pope sergius iii, famous only for his drunken debauchery; to john xii, found assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; to benedict ix, who both purchased and sold the pontificate; to gregory vii, _pseudo_ lover of the countess matilda, and the author of centuries of war carried on by his successors. and if these suffice not, they point to alexander borgia, whose name is but the echo of crime, and whose infamy will be as lasting as history. it is answered, "by the fruit ye shall judge of the tree." it is useless to deny the vine's existence because the grapes are sour. peter, the favored disciple, it is declared was a rascal, and why not his successors? they have only to repent, and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine righteous men. such language is very terrible, and arises from allowing the carnal reason too much freedom. all true believers will be familiar with the story of peter's sudden readiness to deny his lord and teacher in the hour of danger, and will easily draw the right moral from the mysterious lesson here taught, but unbelievers may be a little puzzled by the common infidel objections on this point. these objections, therefore, shall be first stated, and then refuted in the most orthodox fashion. it is objected that all the denials were to take place before the cock should crow,* but that only one denial actually took place before the cock crew.** that the first denial by peter that he knew jesus, or was one of his disciples, was at the door to the damsel,*** but was inside while sitting by the fire,**** that the second denial was to a man, and apparently still sitting by the fire,***** but was to a maid when he was gone out into the porch. that these denials, or, at any rate, the last denial, were all in the presence of jesus,****** who turned and looked at peter, but that the first denial was at the door, jesus being inside the palace, the second denial out in the porch, jesus being still inside,******* and the third denial also outside. * matt. xxvi, . ** luke xxii, . *** john xiii, . **** mark xiv, . ***** john xviii, . ****** luke xxii, ., luke xxii, ., luke xxii, . ******* mark xiv, . the refutation of these paltry objections is simple, but as none but an infidel would need to hear it, we refrain from penning it. none but a disciple of paine, or follower of voltaire, would permit himself to be drawn to the risk of damnation on the mere question of when some cock happened to crow, or the particular spot on which a recreant apostle denied his master. two of the twelve apostles, whose names are not, given, saw jesus after he was dead, on the road to emmaus, but they did not know him; toward evening they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. in broad daylight they did not know him; at evening time they knew him. while they did not know him they could see him; when they did know him they could not see him. well may true believers declare that the ways of the lord are wonderful. one of the apostles, thomas called didymus, set the world an example of unbelief. he disbelieved the other disciples when they said to him "we have seen the lord," and required to see jesus, though dead, alive in the flesh, and touch the body of his crucified master. thomas the apostle had his requirements complied with--he saw, he touched, and he believed. the great merit is to believe without any evidence-- "he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." how it was that thomas the apostle did not know jesus when he saw him shortly after near the sea of tiberias, is another of the mysteries of the holy christian religion. the acts of the apostles after the death of jesus deserve treatment in a separate paper; the present essay is issued in the meantime to aid the bishop of london in his labors to stem the rising tide of infidelity. the atonement. "quel est donc ce dieu qui fait mourir dieu pour apaiser dieu?" adam's sin is the corner-stone of christianity; the keystone of the arch. without the fall there is no redeemer, for there is no fallen one to be redeemed. it is, then, to the history of adam that the examinant of the atonement theory should first direct his attention. to try the doctrine of the atonement by the aid of science would be fatal to christianity. as for the man, adam, , years ago the first of the human race, his existence is not only unvouched for by science, but is actually questioned by the timid, and challenged by the bolder exponents of modern ethnology. the human race is traced back far beyond the period fixed for adam's sin. egypt and india speak for humanity busy with wars, cities and monuments, prior to the date given for the garden scene in eden. the fall of adam could not have brought sin upon mankind, and death by sin, if hosts of men and women had lived and died ages before the words "thou shalt surely die" were spoken by god to man. nor could all men inherit adam's misfortune, if it be true that it is not to one center, but to many centers of origin that we ought to trace back the various races of mankind. the theologian who finds no evidence of death prior to the offense shared by adam and eve is laughed to scorn by the geologist who point to the innumerable petrifactions on the earth's bosom, which with a million tongues declare more potently than loudest speech thai organic life in myriads of myriads was destroyed incalculable ages before man's era on our world. science, however, has so little to offer in support of any religious doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely theologic tenets, that we turn to a point giving the christian greater vantage ground; and, accepting for the moment his premises, we deny that he can maintain the possibility of adam's sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-good god. did adam sin? we will take the christian's bible in our hands to answer the question, first defining the word sin. what is sin? samuel taylor coleridge says, "a sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances...." an act to be sin must be original, and a state or act that has not its origin in the will may be calamity, deformity, or disease, but sin it can not be. it is not enough that the act appears voluntary, or that it has the most hateful passions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and accompaniment. all these may be found in a madhouse, where neither law nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. the reason of law declared the maniac not a free agent, and the verdict follows, of course _not guilty?_ did adam sin? the bible story is that a deity created one man and one woman; that he placed them in a garden wherein he had also placed a tree which was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. that although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not to eat of the fruit of this attractive tree, under penalty of death. supposing adam to have at once disobeyed this injunction, would it have been sin? the fact that god had made the tree good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, would have surely been sufficient circumstance of justification on the god-created inducement to partake of its fruit. the inhibition lost its value as against the enticement. if the all-wise had intended the tree to be avoided, would he have made its allurements so overpowering to the senses? but the case does not rest here. in addition to all the attractions of the tree, and as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent, gifted with suasive speech, who, either wiser or more truthful than the all-perfect deity, says that although god has threatened immediate death as the consequence of disobedience to his command, yet they "shall not die; for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." the tempter is stronger than the tempted, the witchery of the serpent is too great for the spellbound woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations; overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the seducer, she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband also. and for this their offspring are to suffer! the yet unborn children are to be the victims of god's vengeance on their parents' weakness--though he had made them weak; though, indeed, he had created the tempter sufficiently strong to practice upon this weakness, and had arranged the causes predisposing man and woman to commit the offense--if, indeed, it be an offense to pluck the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. it is for this fall that jesus is to atone. he is sacrificed to redeem the world's inhabitants from the penalties for a weakness (for sin it was not) they had no share in. it was not sin, for the man was influenced by circumstances pre-arranged by deity, and which man was powerless to resist or control. but if man was so influenced by such circumstances, then it was god who influenced man--god who punished the human race for an action to the commission of which he impelled their progenitor. adam did not sin. he ate of the fruit of a tree which god had made good to be eaten. he was induced to this through the indirect persuasion of a serpent god had made purposely to persuade him. but even if adam did sin, and even he and eve, his wife, were the first parents of the whole human family, what have we to do with their sin? we, unborn when the act was committed and without choice as to coming into the world. does jesus atone for adam's sin? adam suffered for his own offense; he, according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of the fruit of the earth all his life as punishment for his offense. atonement, after punishment, is surely a superfluity. did the sacrifice of jesus serve as atonement for the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for adam's sin only? if the atonement is for the whole world, does it extend to unbelievers as well as to believers in the efficacy? if it only includes believers, then what has become of those generations who, according to the bible, for , years succeeded each other in the world without faith in christ because without knowledge of his mission? should not jesus have come , years earlier, or, at least, should he not have come when the ark on ararat served as monument of god's merciless vengeance, which had made the whole earth a battle-field, whereon the omnipotent had crushed the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the innumerable myriads of decayed dead? if it be declared that, though the atonement by jesus only applies to believers in his mission so far as regards human beings born since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective effect, then the answer is that it is unfair to those born after jesus to make faith the condition precedent to the saving efficacy of atonement, especially if belief be required from all mankind posterior to the christian era, whether they have heard of jesus or not. japanese, chinese, savage indians, kaffirs, and others, have surely a right to complain of this atonement scheme, which insures them eternal damnation by making it requisite to believe in a gospel of which they have no knowledge. if it be contended that belief shall only be required from those to whom the gospel of jesus has been preached, and who have had afforded to them the opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a cause of complaint against christian missionaries have those peoples who, without such missions, might have escaped damnation for unbelief. the gates of hell are opened to them by the earnest propagandist, who professes to show the road to heaven. but does this atonement serve only to redeem the human family from the curse inflicted by deity in eden's garden for adam's sin, or does it operate as satisfaction for all sin? if the salvation is from the punishment for adam's sin alone, and if belief and baptism are, as jesus himself affirms, to be the sole conditions precedent to any saving efficacy in the much-lauded atonement by the son of god, then what becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never baptized, and, never having any mind, consequently never has any belief? or what becomes of one idiot born who, throughout his dreary life, never has mental capacity for the acceptance, or examination of, or credence in, any religious dogmas whatever? is the idiot saved who can not believe? is the infant saved that can not believe? i, with some mental faculties tolerably developed, can not believe. must i be damned? if so, fortunate short-lived babe! lucky idiot! that the atonement should not be effective until the person to be saved has been baptized is at least worthy of comment; that the sprinkling a few drops of water should quench the flames of hell is a remarkable feature in the christian's creed. "one can't but think it somewhat droll pump-water thus should cleanse a soul." how many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of baptism among those loving brothers in christ who believe he died for them! how strange an idea that, though god has been crucified to redeem mankind, it yet needs the font of water to wash away the lingering stain of adam's crime. one minister of the church of england, occupying the presidential chair of a well-known training college for church clergymen in the north of england, seriously declared, in the presence of a large auditory and of several church dignitaries, that the sin of adam was so potent in its effect that if a man _had never been born, he would yet have been damned for sin!_ that is, he declared that man existed before birth, and that he committed sin before he was born; and if never born, would, notwithstanding, deserve to suffer eternal torment for that sin! it is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so monstrously absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridiculous than the ordinary orthodox and terrible doctrine that god, the undying, in his infinite love, killed himself under the form of his son to appease the cruel vengeance of god, the just and merciful, who, without this, would have been ever vengeful, unjust and merciless. the atonement theory, as presented to us by the bible, is in effect as follows: god creates man, surrounded by such circumstances as the divine mind chose, in the selection of which man had no voice, and the effects of which on man were all foreknown and predestined by deity. the result is man's fall on the very first temptation, so frail the nature with which he was endowed, or so powerful the temptation to which he was subjected. for this fall not only does the all-merciful punish adam, but also his posterity; and this punishment went on for many centuries, until god, the immutable, changed his purpose of continual condemnation of men for sins they had no share in, and was wearied with his long series of unjust judgments on those whom he created in order that he might judge them. that, then, god sent his son, who was himself and was also his own father, and who was immortal, to die upon the cross, and, by this sacrifice, to atone for the sin which god himself had caused adam to commit, and thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the all-merciful, which would otherwise have been continued against men yet unborn for an offense they could not have been concerned in or accessory to. whether those who had died before christ's coming are redeemed the bible does not clearly tell us. those born after are redeemed only on condition of their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice offered, and in the truth of the history of jesus's life. the doctrine of salvation by sacrifice of human life is the doctrine of a barbarous and superstitous age; the outgrowth of a brutal and depraved era. the god who accepts the bloody offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punishing the guilty culprit shows no mercy in sparing the offender: he has already satiated his lust for vengeance on the first object presented to him. yet sacrifice is an early and prominent, and, with slight exception, an abiding feature in the hebrew record--sacrifice of life finds appreciative acceptance from the jewish deity. cain's offering of fruits is ineffective but abel's altar, bearing the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, finds respect in the sight of the lord. while the face of the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead, after god in his infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that the ascending smoke from noah's burnt sacrifice of bird and beast produced pleasure in heaven, and god himself smelled a sweet savor from the roasted meats. to reach atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly--it is crime. the past can never be recalled, and the only reference to it should be that, by marking its events, we may avoid its evil deeds and improve upon its good ones. for jesus himself--can man believe in him? --in his history contained in anonymous pamphlets uncorroborated by contemporary testimony?--this history, in which, in order to fulfill a prophecy which does not relate to him, his descent from david is demonstrated by tracing through two self-contradictory genealogies the descent of joseph who was not his father--this history, in which the infinite god grows, from babyhood and hus cradle through childhood to manhood, as though he were not god at all--this history, full of absurd wonders, devils, magicians, and evil spirits, rather fit for an arabian night's legend than the word of god to his people--this history, with its miraculous raisings of the dead to life, disbelieved and contradicted by the people among whom they are alleged to have been performed; but, nevertheless, to be accepted by us to-day with all humility--this history, with the man-god subject to human passions and infirmities, who comes to die, and who prays to his heavenly father (that is, to himself) that he will spare him the bitter cup of death--who is betrayed, having himself, ere he laid the foundations of the world, predestined judas to betray him, and who dies, being god immortal crying with his almost dying breath, "my god! my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" were adam and eve our first parents? this question, were adam and eve our first parents? is indeed one of most grave importance. if the answer be a negative one, it is, in fact, a denial of the whole scheme of christianity. the christian theory is that adam, the common father of the whole human race, sinned, and that by his sin he dragged down all his posterity to a state from which redemption was needed; and that jesus is, and was, the redeemer, by whom all mankind are and were saved from the consequences of the fall of adam. if adam, therefore, be proved not to be the first man--if it be shown that it is not to adam the various races of mankind are indebted for their origin, then the whole hypothesis of fall and redemption is dissipated. in a pamphlet like the present it is impossible to give any statement and analysis of the various hypotheses as to the origin of the human race. i frankly admit that my only wish and intent is, to compel people to examine the bible record for themselves, instead of making it their fetich, bowing down before it without thought. i am inclined to the opinion that the doctrine of a plurality of sources for the various types of the human race is a correct one; that wherever the conditions for life have been found, there also has been the degree of life resultant on those conditions. my purpose in this essay is not to demonstrate the correctness of my own thinking, but rather to illustrate the incorrectness of the geneiacal teaching. were adam and eve our first parents? on the one hand an answer in the affirmative to this question can be obtained from the bible, which asserts adam and eve to be the first man and woman made by god, and fixes the date of their making about , years, little more or less, from the present time. on the other hand, it seems to me that science emphatically declares man to have existed on the earth for a far more extended period; affirms that, as far as we can trace man, we find him in isolated groups, diverse in type, till we lose him in the ante-historic period; and, with nearly equal distinctness, denies that the various existing races find their common parentage in one pair. it is only on the first point that i attack the bible chronology of man's existence. i am aware that compilations based upon the authorized version of the old testament scriptures are open to objection, and that while from the hebrew , years represent the period from adam to the deluge generally acknowledged, the samaritan pentateuch only yields for the same period , years, while the septuagint version furnishes , years; there is, i am also informed, on the authority of a most erudite egyptologist, a fatal objection to the septuagint chronology--_i. e._, that it makes methusaleh outlive the flood.* the deluge occurred, according to the septuagint, in the year of the world , , and, by adding up the generations previous to methusaleh's-- adam.............................................. seth.............................................. enos.............................................. cainan............................................ malaleel.......................................... jared............................................. enoch............................................. ................................................. * sharpe's history of egypt, page . --we shall find that he was born in the year of the world , . he lived years, and therefore died in , . but this is fourteen years after the deluge. the rev. dr. lightfoot, who wrote about , , fixes the month of the creation at september, , years preceding the date of his book, and says that adam was expelled from eden on the day in which he was created.* in the london _ethnological journal_, for which i am indebted to the kindness of its editor, an able ethnologist and careful thinker, the reader will find a chronology of genesis ably and elaborately examined. at present, for our immediate purpose, we will take the ordinary. english bible, which gives the following result: from adam to abraham (gen. v and xi)............. from abraham to isaac (gen. xxi, )............... from isaac to jacob (gen. xxv, ).................. from jacob going into egypt (gen. xlvii, )......... sojourn in egypt (exod. xii, )..................... duration of moses* leadership (exod. vii, ; xxxi, ). thence to david, about............................. from david to captivity, fourteen generations ( ), about twenty-two reigns.......................... captivity to jesus, fourteen generations, about...... less disputed years of sojourn in egypt...... from adam to abraham the dates are certain, if we take the bible statement, and there is certainly no portion of the orthodox text, except the period of the judges, which will admit any considerable extension of the ordinary oxford chronology. * harmony of the four evangelists, and harmony of the old testament. the book of judges is not a book of history. everything in it is recounted without chronological order. it will suffice to say, that the ciphers which we find in the book of judges, and in the first book of samuel, yield us, from the death of joshua to the commencement of the reign of saul, the sum total of years, which would make, since the exode from egypt, years; whereas the first book of kings counts but years, from the going out of egypt down to the foundation of the temple under solomon. according to this we must suppose that several of the judges governed simultaneously.* * munk's palestine, p. . in reading alfred maury's profound essay on the classification of tongues, i was much struck with the fact that he, in his philological researches, traces back some of the ancient greek mythologies to a sanscrit source. he has the following remark, worthy of earnest attention: "the god of heaven, or the sky, is called by the greeks _zeus pater_; and let us here notice that the pronunciation of z resembles very much that of d, inasmuch as the word zeus becomes in the genitive _dios_. the latins termed the same god _dies-piter_, or jupiter now in the veda the god of heaven is called dyash-pitai." what is this but the original of our own christian god, the father, the [------] (_jeue_) pater of the old testament? i introduce this remark for the purpose of shaking a very commonly entertained opinion that the hebrew records, whether or not god-inspired, are at any rate the most antique, and are written in a primitive tongue. neither is it true that hebrew mythology is the most ancient, nor the hebrew language the most primitive; on the contrary, the mythology is clearly derived, and the language in a secondary or tertiary state. what is the value of this book of genesis, which is the sole authority for the hypothesis that adam and eve, about , years ago, were the sole founders of the peoples now living on the face of the earth? written we know not by whom, we know not when, and we know not in what language. if we respect the book, it must be from its internal merits; its author is to us unknown. eusebius, chrysostom, and clemens alexandrinus alike agree that the name of moses should not stand at the head of genesis as the author of the book. as to its internal merit origen did not hesitate to declare the contents of the first and second chapters of genesis to be purely figurative. our translation of it has been severely criticised by the learned and pious bellamy, and by the more learned and less pious sir william drummond. errors almost innumerable have been pointed out, the correctness of the hebrew text itself questioned, and yet this book is an unerring guide to the students of ethnology. they may do anything, everything, except stray out of the beaten track. we have, therefore, on the one hand, an anonymous book, which indeed does not take you back so much as , years, for at least , years must be deducted for the noachian deluge, when the world's inhabitants were again reduced to one family, one race, one type. on the other hand, we have now existing eskimo men, of the arctic realm; chinamen, of the asiatic realm; englishmen, of the european realm; sahara negroes, of the african realm; fuegians, of the american realm; new zealanders, of the polynesian realm; the malay, representative of the realm which bears his name; the tasmanian, of the australian realm, with other families of each realm too numerous for mention here; dark and fair, black-skinned and white-skinned, woolly-haired and straight-haired; low forehead, high forehead; hottentot limb, negro limb, caucasian limb. do all these different and differing structures and colors trace their origin to one pair? to adam and eve, or rather to noah and his family? or are they (the various races) indigenous to their nature, soils, and climates? and are these various types naturally resultant, with all their differences, from the differing conditions for life persistent to and consistent with them? the question, then, really is this: have the different races of men all found their common parent in noah, about , years ago? assuming the unity of the races or species of men now existing, there are but three suppositions on which the diversity now seen can be accounted for: " . a miracle, or direct act of the almighty, in changing one type into another. " . the gradual action of physical causes, such as climate, food, mode of life, etc. " . congenital or accidental varieties."* we may fairly dismiss entirely from our minds the question of miracle. such a miracle is nowhere recorded in the bible, and it lies upon any one hardy enough to assert that the present diversity has a miraculous origin to show some kind of reasons for his faith, some kind of evidence for our conviction, and until this is done we have no reason to dwell on the first hypothesis. of the permanence of type under its own climatic conditions--that is, in the country to which it is indigenous--we have overwhelming proof in the statue of an ancient egyptian scribe, taken from a tomb of the fifth dynasty, , years old, and precisely corresponding to the fellah of the present day.** * "types of mankind," dr. nott, p. . ** m. pulzsky on iconography--"indigenous races," p. . the sand had preserved the color of the statuette, which, from its portrait-like beauty, marks a long era of art-progress preceding its production. it antedates the orthodox era of the flood, carries us back to a time when, if the bible were true, adam was yet alive, and still we find before it kings reigning and ruling in mighty egypt. can the reader wonder that these facts are held to impeach the orthodox faith? on the second point dr. nott writes: "it is a commonly received error that the influence of a hot climate is gradually exerted on successive generations, until one species of mankind is completely changed into another.... this idea is proven to be false.... a sunburnt cheek is never handed down to succeeding generations. the exposed parts of the body are alone tanned by the sun, and the children of the white-skinned europeans in new orleans, mobile, and the west indies are born as fair as their ancestors, and would remain so if carried back to a colder climate."* pure negroes and negresses, transported from central africa to england, and marrying among themselves, would never acquire the characteristics of the caucasian races; nor would pure englishmen and englishwomen, emigrating to central africa, and in like manner intermarrying, ever become negroes or negresses. the fact is, that while you don't bleach the color of the dark-skinned african by placing him in london, you bleach the life out of him; and _vice versa_ with the englishman.** * "types of mankind," p. . ** "indigenous races of the earth," p. . the alleged discovery of white-skinned negroes in western africa does not affect this question: it is not only to the color of the skin, but also the general negro characteristics that the above remarks apply. for a long time there has been ascribed to man the faculty of adapting himself to every climate. the following facts will show the ascription a most erroneous one: "in egypt the austral negroes are, and the caucasian memlooks were, unable to raise up even a third generation; in corsica french families vanish beneath italian summers. where are the descendants of the romans, the vandals, or the greeks in africa? in modern arabia, years after mahomed ali had got clear of the morea war, , arnaots (albanians) were soon reduced to some men. at gibraltar, in , a negro regiment was almost annihilated by consumption. in , during the three weeks on the niger, europeans out of caught african fever, and died; out of negro sailors only eleven were affected, and not one died. in the british expedition to walchereen failed in the netherlands through marsh fever. about the same time, in st. domingo, about , french soldiers died from malaria. of , frenchmen, only , survived exposure to that antillian island; while the dominicanized african negro, tous-saint l'overture, retransported to europe, was perishing from the chill of his prison in france." on the third point we again quote dr. nott: "the only argument left, then, is that of congenital varieties or peculiarities, which are said to spring up and be transmitted from parent to child, so as to form new races. let us pause for a moment to illustrate this fanciful idea. the negroes of africa, for example, are admitted not to be offsets from some other race which have been gradually blackened and changed in a moral and physical type by the action of climate, but it is asserted that 'once, in the flight of ages,' some genuine little negro, or rather many such, were born of caucasian, mongol, or other light-skinned parents, and then have turned about and changed the type of the inhabitants of a whole continent. so, in america, the countless aborigines found on this continent, which we have reason to believe were building mounds before the time of abraham, are the offspring of a race changed by accidental or congenital varieties. thus, too, old china, india, australia, oceana, etc., all owe their types, physical and mental, to congenital and accidental varieties, and are descended from adam and eve! can human credulity go further, or human ingenuity invent any argument more absurd?" but even supposing these objections to the second and third suppositions set aside, there are two other propositions which, if affirmed, as i believe they may be, entirely overthrow the orthodox assertion "that adam and eve, six thousand years ago, were the first pair; and that all diversities now existing must find their common source in noah--less than four thousand three hundred years from the present time." these two are as follows. . that man may be traced back on the earth long prior to the alleged adamic era. . that there are diversities traceable as existing among the human race four thousand five hundred years ago as marked as in the present day. to illustrate the position that man may be traced back to a period long prior to the adamic era, we refer our readers to the chronology of the late baron bunsen, who, while allowing about , years for man's existence on earth, fixes the following dates, after a patient examination of the nilotic antiquities: egyptians under a republican form.............. , b. c. ascension of bytis, the theban, first priest king. , elective kings in egypt......................... , hereditary kings in upper and lower egypt (a double empire) form......................... , * * nott and gliddon, "indigenous races," page . the assertion of such an antiquity for egypt is no modern hypothesis. plato puts language into the mouth of an egyptian first claiming in that day an antecedent , years for painting and sculpture in egypt. this has long been regarded as fabulous because it was contrary to the hebrew chronology. if this be the result of the researches into egyptian archæology, the reader will scarcely be surprised to find me endeavoring from other sources to get corroborative evidence of a still more astonishing character. there are few who now pretend that the whole _creation (?)_ took place , years ago, although if it be true that god made all in six days, and man on the sixth, then the universe would only be more ancient than adam by some five days. to state the age of the earth at , years is simply preposterous, when we ascertain that it would require about , , of years for the formation of the fossiliferous rocks alone, and that , , of years have been stated as a moderate estimate for the antiquity of our globe. the deltas of the great rivers afford corroboration to our position as to man's duration. the delta of the nile, formed by immense quantities of sedimentary matter, which in like manner is still carried down and deposited, has not perceptibly increased during the last , years. "in the days of the earliest pharaohs, the delta, as it now exists, was covered with ancient cities and filled with a dense population, whose civilization must have required a period going back far beyond any date that has yet been assigned to the deluge of noah, or even to the creation of the world."* from borings which have been made at new orleans to the depth of feet, from excavations for public works, and from examinations in parts of louisiana, where the range between high and low water is much greater than it is at new orleans, no less than ten distinct cypress forests divided from each other by eras of aquatic plants, etc., have been traced, arranged vertically above each other; and from these and other data it is estimated by dr. benet dowler that the age of the delta is at least , years; and in the excavations above referred to human remains have been found below the further forest level, making it appear that the human race existed in the delta of the mississippi more than , years ago.** it is further urged, by the same competent writer, that human bones discovered on the coast of brazil near santas, and on the borders of a lake called lagoa santa, by captain elliott and dr. lund, thoroughly incorporated with a very hard breccia, every one in a fossil state, demonstrate that aboriginal man in america antedates the mississippi alluvia, and that he can even boast a geological antiquity, because numerous species of animals have become extinct since american humanity's first appearance.*** * gliddon's "types of mankind," page . ** "types," pages to . *** "types," pages and . with reference to the second point, as to the possibility of tracing back the diversities of the human race to an antediluvian date, it is simply sufficient to point on the one side to the remains of the american indian disentombed from the mississippi forests, and on the other to the egyptian monuments, tombs, pyramids, and stuccoes, revealing to us caucasian men, and negro men, their diversities as marked as in the present day. sir william jones, in his day, claimed for sanscrit literature a vast antiquity, and asserted the existence of the religions of egypt, greece, india, and italy, prior to the mosaic era. so far as egypt is concerned the researches of lepsius, bunsen, champollion, lenormant, gliddon, and others, have fully verified the position of the learned president of the asiatic society. we have egyptian statues of the third dynasty, going back far beyond the , years, which would give the orthodox era of the deluge, and taking us over the , years fixed by our second proposition. the fourth dynasty is rich in pyramids, tombs, and statues; and, according to lepsius, this dynasty commenced , b. c, or about , years from the present date. in reading a modern work on the orthodox side,* i have been much pained by the constant assumption that the long chronologists must be in error, because their views do not coincide with orthodox teachings. orthodox authors treat their heterodox brethren as unworthy of credit, because of their heterodoxy. the writer asserts** that the earliest reference to the negro tribes is in the era of the th dynasty. supposing for a moment this to be correct, i ask what even then will be the state of the argument? the th dynasty, according to lepsius, ends about , years ago. the orthodox chronology fixes the deluge about years earlier. will any sane man argue that there was sufficient lapse of time in three centuries for the development of caucasian and negro man from one family? * "archaia," by dr. dawson. ** "archaia," page . the fact is that we trace back the various types of man now known, not to one center, not to one country, not to one family, not to one pair, but we trace them to different centers, to distinct countries, to separate families, probably to many pairs. wherever the conditions for life are found, there are living beings also. the conditions of climate, soil, etc., of central africa, differ from those of europe. the indigenous races of central africa differ from those of europe. without pretending, in the present limited essay, to do more than index some of the most prominent features of the case, i yet hope that enough is here stated to interest my readers in the prosecution of future inquiry upon the important question which serves as the title to these pages. i put forward no knowledge from myself, but am ready to listen to the teachings of wiser men; and while i shrink from the ordinary orthodox assertion of adamic unity of origin, accompanied as it is by threats of pains and penalties if rejected, i am yet ready to receive it, if it can be presented to me associated with facts, and divested of those future hell-fire torments and present societarian persecutions which now form its chief, if not sole, supports. the rejection of the bible account of the peopling of the world involves also the rejection, as has been already remarked, of the entire scheme of christianity. according to the orthodox rendering of both new and old testament teaching, all men are involved in the curse which followed adam's sin. but if the account of the fall be mythical, not historical; if adam and eve--supposing them to have ever existed--were preceded on the earth by many nations and empires, what becomes of the doctrine that jesus came to redeem mankind from a sin committed by one who was not the common father of all humanity? reject adam, and you can not accept jesus. refuse to believe genesis, and you can not give credence to matthew, mark, luke, john and paul. the old and new testaments are so connected together that to dissolve the union is to destroy the system. the account of the creation and fall of man is the foundation-stone of the christian church. if this stone be rotten, the superstructure can not be stable. it is therefore most important that those who profess a faith in christianity should consider facts which so vitally and materially affect the creed they hold. a plea for atheism. gillespie says that "an atheist propagandist seems a nondescript monster created by nature in a moment of madness." despite this opinion, it is as the propagandist of atheism that i pen the following lines, in the hope that i may succeed in removing some few of the many prejudices which have been created against not only the actual holders of atheistic opinions, but also against those wrongfully suspected of entertaining such ideas. men who have been famous for depth of thought, for excellent wit, or great genius, have been recklessly assailed as atheists by those who lacked the high qualifications against which the spleen of the calumniators was directed. thus, not only has voltaire been without ground accused of atheism, but bacon, locke, and bishop berkeley himself, have, among others, been denounced by thoughtless or unscrupulous pietists as inclining to atheism, the ground for the accusation being that they manifested an inclination to improve human thought. it is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation to speak in unmeasured language of atheism as favoring immorality, and of atheists as men whose conduct is necessarily vicious, and who have adopted atheistic views as a disparate defiance against a deity justly offended by the badness of their lives. such persons urge that among the proximate causes of atheism are vicious training, immoral and profligate companions, licentious living, and the like. dr. john pye smith, in his "instructions on christian theology," goes so far as to declare that "nearly all the atheists upon record have been men of extremely debauched and vile conduct." such language from the christian advocate is not surprising, but there are others who, professing great desire for the spread of freethought, and with pretensions to rank among acute and liberal thinkers, declare atheism impracticable, and its teachings cold, barren, and negative. in this brief essay i shall except to each of the above allegations, and shall endeavor to demonstrate that atheism affords greater possibility for human happiness than any system yet based on theism, or possible to be founded thereon, and that the lives of true atheists must be more virtuous, because more human, than those of the believers in deity, the humanity of the devout believer often finding itself neutralized by a faith with which it is necessarily in constant collision. the devotee piling the faggots at the _auto de fe_ of a heretic, and that heretic his son, might, notwithstanding, be a good father in every respect but this. heresy, in the eyes of the believer, is highest criminality, and outweighs all claims of family or affection. atheism, properly understood, is in nowise a cold, barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion and action of highest humanity. let atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned--its defense unheard--on the _ex parte_ slanders of the professional preachers of fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage is bold enough while the pulpit protects the sermon, but whose valor becomes tempered with discretion when a free platform is afforded and discussion claimed; nor misjudged because it has been the custom to regard atheism as so unpopular as to render its advocacy impolitic. the best policy against all prejudice is to assert firmly the verity. the atheist does not say "there is no god," but he says, "i know not what you mean by god: i am without idea of god; the word 'god' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. i do not deny god, because i can not deny that of which i have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me." if you speak to the atheist of god as a creator, he answers that the conception of creation is impossible. we are utterly unable to construe it in thought as possible that the complement of existence has been either increased or diminished, much less can we conceive an absolute origination of substance. we can not conceive either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or on the other, something becoming nothing. the theist who speaks of god creating the universe, must either suppose that deity evolved it out of himself, or that he produced it from nothing. but the theist can not regard the universe as evolution of deity, because this would identify universe and deity, and be pantheism rather than theism. there would be no distinction of substance--in fact, no creation. nor can the theist regard the universe as created out of nothing, because deity is, according to him, necessarily eternal and infinite. his existence being eternal and infinite, precludes the possibility of the conception of vacuum to be filled by the universe if created. no one can even think of any point of existence in extent or duration and say here is the point of separation between the creator and the created. indeed, it is not possible for the theist to imagine a beginning to the universe. it is not possible to conceive either an absolute commencement, or an absolute termination of existence; that is, it is impossible to conceive a beginning before which you have a period when the universe has yet to be: or to conceive an end, after which the universe, having been, no longer exists. it is impossible in thought to originate or annihilate the universe. the atheist affirms that he cognizes to-day effects, that these are at the same time causes and effects--causes to the effects they precede, effects to the causes they follow. cause is simply everything without which the effect would not result, and with which it must result. cause is the means to an end, consummating itself in that end. the theist who argues for creation must assert a point of time, that is, of duration, when the created did not yet exist. at this point of time either something existed or nothing; but something must have existed, for out of nothing nothing can come. something must have existed, because the point fixed upon is that of the duration of something. this something must have been either finite or infinite; if finite, it could not have been god; and if the something were infinite, then creation was impossible, as it is impossible to add to infinite existence. if you leave the question of creation and deal with the government of the universe, the difficulties of theism are by no means lessened. the existence of evil is then a terrible stumbling-block to the theist. pain, misery, crime, poverty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness, and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful. evil is either caused by god, or exists independently; but it can not be caused by god, as in that case he would not be all-good; nor can it exist independently, as in that case he would not be all-powerful. evil must either have had a beginning, or it must be eternal; but, according to the theist, it can not be eternal, because god alone is eternal. nor can it have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have originated in god, or outside of god; but, according to the theist, it can not have originated in god, for he is all-good, and out of all-goodness evil can not originate; nor can evil have originated outside of god, for, according to the theist, god is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or beyond infinity. to the atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely different aspect. he declares that evil is a result, but not a result from god or devil. he affirms that by conduct founded on knowledge of the laws of existence it is possible to ameliorate and avoid present evil, and, as our knowledge increases, to prevent its future recurrence. some declare that the belief in god is necessary as a check to crime. they allege that the atheist may commit murder, lie, or steal, without fear of any consequences. to try the actual value of this argument, it is not unfair to ask, do theists ever steal? if yes, then in each such theft, the belief in god and his power to punish has been inefficient as a preventive of the crime. do theists ever lie or murder? if yes, the same remark has farther force--hell-fire failing against the lesser as against the greater crime. the fact is that these who use such an argument overlook a great truth--i.e., that all men seek happiness, though in very diverse fashions. ignorant and miseducated men often mistake the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the endeavor to obtain it. atheists hold that by teaching mankind the real road to human happiness, it is possible to keep them from the by-ways of criminality and error. atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because god offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle surrounding him. atheism would preserve man from lying, stealing, murdering now, not from fear of an eternal agony after death, but because these crimes make this life itself a course of misery. while theism, asserting god as the creator and governor of the universe, hinders and checks man's efforts by declaring god's will to be the sole directing and controlling power, atheism, by declaring all events to be in accordance with natural laws--that is, happening in certain ascertainable sequences--stimulates man to discover the best conditions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements to morality. while the theist provides future happiness for a scoundrel repentant on his death bed, atheism affirms present and certain happiness for the man who does his best to live here so well as to have little cause for repenting hereafter. theism declares that god dispenses health and inflicts disease, and sickness and illness are regarded by the theist as visitations from an angered deity, to be borne with meekness and content. atheism declares that physiological knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing our infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not as the ordinance of offended deity, but from ill-ventilated dwellings and workshops, bad and insufficient food, excessive toil, mental suffering, exposure to inclement weather, and the like--all these finding root in poverty, the chief source of crime and disease; that prayers and piety afford no protection against fever, and that if the human being be kept without food he will starve as quickly whether he be theist or atheist, theology being no substitute for bread. when the theist ventures to affirm that his god is an existence other than and separate from the so-called material universe, and when he invests this separate, hypothetical existence with the several attributes of omniscence, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity, infinity, immutability, and perfect goodness, then the atheist, in reply says, "i deny the existence of such a being." it becomes very important, in order that injustice may not be done to the theistic argument, that we should have--in lieu of a clear definition, which it seems useless to ask for--the best possible clue to the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word god. if it were not that the word is an arbitrary term, invented for the ignorant, and the notions suggested by which are vague and entirely contingent upon individual fancies, such a clue could be probably most easily and satisfactorily obtained by tracing back the word "god," and ascertaining the sense in which it was used by the uneducated worshipers who have gone before us; collating this with the more modern theism, qualified as it is by the superior knowledge of to-day. dupuis says: "the word god appears intended to express the force universal, and eternally active, which endows all nature with motion according to the laws of a constant and admirable harmony; which develops itself in the diverse forms of organized matter, which mingles with all, gives life to all; which seems to be one through all its infinitely varied modifications, and inheres in itself alone." in the "bon sens" of cure meslier, it is asked, "qu'est ce que dieu?" and the answer is: "it is an abstract word coined to designate the hidden force of nature, or rather it is a mathematical point having neither length, breadth, nor thickness." the orthodox fringe of the theism of to-day is hebraistic in its origion--that is, it finds its root in the superstition and ignorance of a petty and barbarous people nearly destitute of literature, poor in language, and almost entirely wanting in high conceptions of humanity. it might, as judaism is the foundation of christianity, be fairly expected that the ancient jewish records would aid us in our search after the meaning to be attached to the word "god." the most prominent words in hebrew rendered god or lord in english are [------] _jeue_, and [------] _aleim_. the first word, jeue, called by our orthodox jehovah, is equivalent to "that which exists," and indeed embodies in itself the only possible trinity in unity--i. e. past, present, and future. there is nothing in this hebrew word to help you to any such definition as is required for the sustenance of modern theism. the most you can make of it by any stretch of imagination is equivalent to the declaration "i am, i have been, i shall be." the word [----] is hardly ever spoken by religious jews, who actually in reading substitute for it, adonai, an entirely different word. dr. wall notices the close resemblance in sound between the word _yehowa_ or _yeue_, or jehovah, and jove. in fact [--------], jupiter and jeue, pater, (god the father) present still closer resemblance in sound. jove is also [----] or [----] or [----], whence the word deus and our deity. the greek mythology, far more ancient than that of the hebrews, has probably found for christianity many other and more important features of coincidence than that of a similarly sounding name. the word [----] traced back affords us no help beyond that it identifies deity with the universe. plato says that the early greeks thought that the only gods were the sun, moon, earth, stars and heaven. the word aleim, assists us still less in defining the word god, for parkhurst translates it as a plural noun signifying "the curser," deriving it from the verb _to curse_. finding that philology aids us but little, we must endeavor to arrive at the meaning of the word "god" by another rule. it is utterly impossible to fix the period of the rise of theism among any particular people, but it is, notwithstanding, comparatively easy, if not to trace out the development of theistic ideas, at any rate to point to their probable course of growth among all peoples. keightley, in his "origin of mythology," says: "supposing, for the sake of hypothesis, a race of men in a state of total or partial ignorance of deity, their belief in many gods may have thus commenced. they saw around them various changes brought about by human agency, and hence they knew the power of intelligence to produce effects. when they beheld other and greater effects, they ascribed them to some unseen being, similar but superior to man." they associated particular events with special unknown beings (gods), to each of whom they ascribed either a peculiarity of power, or a sphere of action not common to other gods. thus one was god of the sea, anothor god of war, another god of love, another ruled the thunder and lightning; and thus through the various elements of the universe and passions of humankind, so far as they were then known. this mythology became modified with the advancement of human knowledge. the ability to think has proved itself oppugnant to and destructive of the desire to worship. science has razed altar after altar heretofore erected to the unknown gods, and pulled down deity after deity from the pedestals on which ignorance and superstition had erected them. the priest who had formerly spoken as the oracle of god lost his sway, just in proportion as the scientific teacher succeeded in impressing mankind with a knowledge of the facts around them. the ignorant who had hitherto listened unquestioning during centuries of abject submission to their spiritual preceptors, at last commenced to search and examine for themselves, and were guided by experience rather than by church doctrine. to-day it is that advancing intellect which challenges the reserve guard of the old armies of superstition, and compels a conflict which humankind, must in the end have great gain by the forced enunciation of the truth. from the word "god" the theist derives no argument in his favor; it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demonstrates nothing, explains nothing. the theist answers that this is no sufficient objection, that there are many words which are in common use to which the same objection applies. even admitting that this were true, it does not answer the atheist's objection. alleging a difficulty on the one side is not a removal of the obstacle already pointed out on the other. the theist declares his god to be not only immutable, but also infinitely intelligent, and says: "matter is either essentially intelligent, or essentially non-intelligent; if matter were essentially intelligent, no matter could be without intelligence; but matter can not be essentially intelligent, because some matter is not intelligent, therefore matter is essentially non-intelligent: but there is intelligence, therefore there must be a cause for the intelligence, independent of matter; this must be an intelligent being--i.e.., god." the atheist answers, i do not know what is meant, in the mouth of the atheist, by "matter." "matter," "substance," "existence," are three words having the same signification in the atheist's vocabulary. it is not certain that the theist expresses any very clear idea when he uses the words "matter" and "intelligence." reason and understanding are sometimes treated as separate faculties, yet it is not unfair to presume that the theist would include them both under the word intelligence. perception is the foundation of the intellect. the perceptive faculty, or perceptive faculties, differs or differ in each animal, yet in speaking of matter that theist uses the word "intelligence" as though the same meaning were to be understood in every case. the recollection of the perceptions is the exercise of a different faculty from the perceptive faculty, and occasionally varies disproportionately; thus an individual may have great perceptive faculties, and very little memory, or the reverse, yet memory, as well as perception, is included in intelligence. so also the faculty of comparing between two or more perceptions; the faculty of judging and the faculty of reflecting--all these are subject to the same remarks, and all these and other faculties are included in the word intelligence. we answer, then, that "god" (whatever that word may mean) can not be intelligent. he can never perceive; the act of perception results in the obtaining a new idea, but if god be omniscient his ideas have been eternally the same. he has either been always and always will be perceiving, or he has never perceived at all. but god can not have been always perceiving, because if he had he would always have been obtaining fresh knowledge, in which case he must have some time had less knowledge than now; that is he would have been less perfect; that is, he would not have been god: he can never recollect or forget, he can never compare, reflect nor judge. there can not be perfect intelligence without understanding; but following coleridge, "understanding is the faculty of judging according to sense." the faculty of whom? of some person, judging according to that person's senses? but has "god" senses? is there anything beyond "god" for "god" to sensate? there can not be perfect intelligence without reason. by reason we mean that faculty or aggregation of faculties which avails itself of past experience to predetermine, more or less accurately, experience in the future, and to affirm truths which sense perceives, experiment verifies, and experience confirms. to god there can be neither past nor future, therefore to him reason is impossible. there can not be perfect intelligence without will, but has god will? if god wills, the will of the all-powerful must be irresistible; the will of the infinite must exclude all other wills. god can never perceive. perception and sensation are identical. every sensation is accompanied by pleasure or pain. but god, if immutable, can neither be pleased nor pained. every fresh sensation involves a change in mental and perhaps in physical condition. god, if immutable, can not change. sensation is the source of all ideas, but it is only objects external to the mind which can be sensated. if god be infinite there can be no objects external to him, and therefore sensation must be to him impossible. yet without perception where is intelligence? god can not have memory or reason--memory is of the past, reason for the future, but to god immutable there can be no past, no future. the words past, present, and future, imply change; they assert progression of duration. if god be immutable, to him change is impossible. can you have intelligence destitute of perception, memory, and reason? god can not have the faculty of judgment--judgment implies in the act of judging a conjoining or disjoining of two or more thoughts, but this involves change of mental condition. to god, the immutable, change is impossible. can you have intelligence, yet no perception, no memory, no reason, no judgment? god can not think. the law of the thinkable is that the thing thought must be separated from the thing which is not thought. to think otherwise would be to think of nothing--to have an impression with no distinguishing mark, would be to have no impression. yet this separation implies change, and to god, immutable, change is impossible. can you have intelligence without thought? if the theist replies to this that he does not mean by infinite intelligence as an attribute of deity an infinity of the intelligence found in a finite degree of humankind, then he is bound to explain, clearly and distinctly, what other "intelligence" he means, and until this be done the foregoing statements require answer. the atheist does not regard "substance" as either essentially intelligent or the reverse. intelligence is the result of certain conditions of existence. burnished steel is bright--that is, brightness is the necessity of a certain condition of existence. alter the condition, and the characteristic of the condition no longer exists. the only essential of substance is its existence. alter the wording of the theist's objection. matter is either essentially bright, or essentially non-bright. if matter were essentially bright, brightness should be the essence of all matter; but matter can not be essentially bright, because some matter is not bright, therefore matter is essentially non-bright; but there is brightness, therefore there must be a cause for this brightness independent of matter; that is, there must be an essentially bright being--i.e., god. another theistic proposition is thus stated: "every effect must have a cause; the first cause universal must be eternal: _ergo_, the first cause universal must be god." this is equivalent to saying that "god" is "first cause." but what is to be understood by cause? defined in the absolute, the word has no real value. "cause," therefore, cannot be eternal. what can be understood by "first cause?" to us the two words convey no meaning greater than would be conveyed by the phrase "round triangle." cause and effect are correlative terms--each cause is the effect of some precedent; each effect the cause of its consequent. it is impossible to conceive existence terminated by a primal or initial cause. the "beginning," as it is phrased, of the universe, is not thought out by the theist, but conceded without thought. to adopt the language of montaigne, "men make themselves believe that they believe." the so-called belief in _creation_ is nothing more than the prostration of the intellect on the threshold of the unknown. we can only cognize the ever-succeeding phenomena of existence as a line in continuous and eternal evolution. this line has to us no beginning; we trace it back into the misty regions of the past but a little way; and however far we may be able to journey, there is still the great beyond then what is meant by "universal cause?" spinoza gives the following definition of cause, as used in its absolute signification: "by cause of itself i understand that, the essence of which involves existence, or that, the nature of which can only be considered as existent." that is, spinoza treats "cause" absolute and "existence" as two words having the same meaning. if his mode of defining the word be contested, then it has no meaning other than its relative signification, of a means to an end. "every effect must have a cause." every effect implies the plurality of effects, and necessarily that each effect must be finite; but how is it possible from a finite effect to logically deduce a universal, i.e., infinite, cause? there are two modes of argument presented by theists, and by which, separately or combined, they seek to demonstrate the being of a god. these are familiarly known as the arguments _a priori_ and _a posteriori_. the a posteriori argument has been popularized in england by paley, who has ably endeavored to bide the weakness of his demonstration under an abundance of irrelevant illustration. the reasoning of paley is very deficient in the essential points where it most needed strength. it is utterly impossible to prove by it the eternity or infinity of deity. as an argument founded on analogy, the design argument, at the best, could only entitle its propounder to infer the existence of a finite cause, or, rather, of a multitude of finite causes. it ought not to be forgotten that the illustrations of the eye, the watch, and the man, even if admitted as instances of design, or, rather, of adaptation, are instances of eyes, watches, and men, designed or adapted out of pre-existing substance, by a being of the same kind of substance, and afford, therefore, no demonstration in favor of a designer, alleged to have actually created substance out of nothing, and also alleged to have created a substance entirely different from himself. the _a posteriori_ argument can never demonstrate infinity for deity. arguing from an effect finite in extent, the most it could afford would be a cause sufficient for that effect, such cause being possibly finite in extent and duration. and as the argument does not demonstrate god's infinity, neither can it, for the same reason, make out his omniscience, as it is clearly impossible to logically claim infinite wisdom for a god possibly only finite. god's omnipotence remains unproved for the same reason, and because it is clearly absurd to argue that god exercises power where he may not be. nor can the _a posteriori_ argument show god's absolute freedom, for, as it does nothing more than seek to prove a finite god, it is quite consistent with the argument that god's existence is limited and controlled in a thousand ways. nor does this argument show that god always existed; at the best the proof is only that some cause, enough for the effect, existed before it, but there is no evidence that this cause differs from any other causes, which are often as transient as the effect itself. and as it does not demonstrate that god has always existed, neither does it demonstrate that he will always exist, or even that he now exists. it is perfectly in accordance with the arguement, and with the analagy of cause and effect that the effect may remain after the cause has ceased to exist. nor does the argument from design demonstrate one god. it is quite consistent with this argument that a separate cause existed for each effect, or mark of design, discovered, or that several causes contributed to some or one of such effects. so that if the argument be true, it might result in a multitude of petty deities, limited in knowledge, extent, duration, and power; and, still worse, each one of this multitude of gods may have had a cause which would also be finite in extent and duration, and would require another, and so on, until the design argument loses the reasoner among an innumerable crowd of deities, none of whom can have the attributes claimed for god. the design argument is defective as an argument from analogy, because it seeks to prove a creator god who designed, but does not explain whether this god has been eternally designing, which would be absurd; or, if he at some time commenced to design, what then induced him so to commence. it is illogical, for it seeks to prove an immutable deity by demonstrating a mutation on the part of deity. it is unnecessary to deal specially with each of the many writers who have used from different standpoints the _a posteriori_ form of argument in order to prove the existence of deity. the objections already stated apply to the whole class; and, although probably each illustration used by the theistic advocate is capable of an elucidation entirely at variance with his argument, the main features of objection are the same. the argument _a posteriori_ is a method of proof in which the premises are composed of some position of existing facts, and the conclusion asserts a position antecedent to those facts. the argument is from given effects to their causes. it is one form of this argument which asserts that man has a moral nature, and from this seeks to deduce the existence of a moral governor. this form has the disadvantage that its premises are illusory. in alleging a moral nature for man, the theist overlooks the fact that the moral nature of man differs somewhat in each individual, differs considerably in each nation, and differs entirely in some peoples. it is dependent on organization and education: these are influenced by climate, food, and mode of life. if the argument from man's nature could demonstrate anything, it would prove a murdering god for the murderer, a lascivious god for the licentious man, a dishonest god for the thief, and so through the various phases of human inclination. the _a priori_ arguments are methods of proof in which the matter of the premises exists in the order of conception antecedently to that of the conclusion. the argument is from cause to effect. among the prominent theistic advocates relying upon the _a priori_ argument in england are dr. samuel clarke, the rev. moses lowman, and william gillespie. as this last gentleman condemns his predecessors for having utterly failed to demonstrate god's existence, and as his own treatise on the "necessary existence of god" comes to us certified by the praise of lord brougham and the approval of sir william hamilton, it is to mr. william gillespie that the reader shall be directed. the propositions are first stated entirely, so that mr. gillespie may not complain of misrepresentation: . infinity of extension is necessarily existing. . infinity of extension is necessarily indivisible. corollary.--infinity of extension is necessarily immovable. . there is necessarily a being of infinity of extension. . the being of infinity of extension is necessarily of unity and simplicity. sub-proposition.--the material universe is finite in extension. . there is necessarily but one being of infinity of expansion. part , proposition .--infinity of duration is necessarily existing. . infinity of duration is necessarily indivisible. corollary.--infinity of duration is necessarily immovable. . there is necessarily a being of infinity of duration. . the being of infinity of duration is necessarily of unity and simplicity. sub-proposition.--the material universe is finite in duration. corollary.--every succession of substances is finite in duration. . there is necessarily but one being of infinity of duration. part , proposition .--there is necessarily a being of infinity of expansion and infinity of duration. . the being of infinity of expansion and infinity of duration is necessarily of unity and simplicity. division , part .--the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and of duration is necessarily intelligent and all-knowing. part .--the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and of duration, who is all-knowing, is necessarily all-powerful. part .--the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and of duration, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, is necessarily entirely free. division .--the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and of duration, who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and entirely free, is necessarily completely happy. sub-proposition.--the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and of duration, who is all-knowing, all-powerful, entirely free, and completely happy, is necessarily perfectly good. the first objection against the foregoing arguments is that it seeks to prove too much. it affirms one existence (god) infinite in extent and duration, and another entirely different and distinct existence (the material universe) finite in extent and duration. it therefore seeks to substantiate everything and something more. the first proposition is curiously worded, and the argument to demonstrate it is undoubtedly open to more than one objection. mr. gillespie has not defined infinity, and it is possible therefore his argument may be misapprehended in this paper. infinite signifies nothing more than indefinite. when a person speaks of infinite extension he can only mean to refer to the extension of something to which he has been unable to set limits. the mind can not conceive extension _per se_, either absolute or finite. it can only conceive something extended. it might be impossible mentally to define the extension of some substance. in such a case its extension would be indefinite; or, as mr. gillespie uses the word, infinite. no one can therefore possibly have any idea of infinity of extension. yet it is upon the existence of such an idea, and on the impossibility of getting rid of it, that mr. gillespie grounds his first proposition. if the idea does not exist, the argument is destroyed at the first step. mr. gillespie argues that it is utterly beyond the power of the human mind to conceive infinity of extension non-existent. he would have been more correct in asserting that it is utterly beyond the power of the human mind to conceive infinity of extension at all, either existent or non-existent. extension can only be conceived as quality of substance. it is possible to conceive substance extended. it is impossible in thought to limit the possible extension of substance. mr. gillespie having asserted that we can not but believe that infinity of extension exists, proceeds to declare that it exists necessarily. for, he says, everything the existence of which we can not but believe, exists necessarily. it is not necessary at present to examine what mr. gillespie means by existing necessarily; it is sufficient to have shown that we do not believe in the existence of infinity of extension, although we may and do believe in the existence of substance, to the extension of which we may be unable to set limits. but, says mr. gillespie, "everything the existence of which we can not but believe is necessarily existing." then as we can not but believe in the existence of the universe (or, to adopt mr. gillespie's phrase, the material universe), the material universe exists necessarily. if by "anything necessarily existing," he means anything the essence of which involves existence, or the nature of which can only be considered as existent, then mr. gillespie, by demonstrating the necessary existence of the universe, refutes his own later argument, that god is its creator. mr. gillespie's argument, as before remarked, is open to misconception, because he has left us without any definition of some of the most important words he uses. to avoid the same objection, it is necessary to state that by substance or existence i mean that which is in itself and is conceived per se--that is, the conception of which does not involve the conception of anything else as antecedent to it. by quality, that by which i cognize any mode of existence. by mode, each cognized condition of existence. regarding extension as quality of mode of substance, and not as substance itself, it appears absurd to argue that the quality exists otherwise than as quality of mode. the whole of the propositions following the first are so built upon it, that if it fails they are baseless. the second proposition is, that infinity of extension is necessarily indivisible. in dealing with this proposition, mr. gillespie talks of the _parts_ of infinity of extension, and winds up by saying that he means parts in the sense of partial consideration only. now not only is it denied that you can have any idea of infinity of extension, but it is also denied that infinity can be the subject of partial consideration. mr. gillespie's whole proof of this proposition is intended to affirm that the parts of infinity of extension are necessarily indivisible from each other. i have already denied the possibility of conceiving infinity in parts; and, indeed, if it were possible to conceive infinity in parts, then that infinity could not be indivisible, for mr. gillespie says that, by indivisible, he means indivisible, either really or mentally. now each part of anything conceived is, in the act of conceiving, mentally separated from, either other parts of, or from the remainder of, the whole of which it is part. it is clearly impossible to have a partial consideration of infinity, because the part considered must be mentally distinguished from the unconsidered remainder, and, in that case, you have, in thought, the part considered finite, and the residue certainly limited, at least, by the extent of the part under consideration. if any of the foregoing objections are well-founded, they are fatal to mr. gillespie's argument. the argument in favor of the corollary to the second proposition is that the parts of infinity of extension are necessarily immovable among themselves; but if there be no such thing as infinity of extension--that is, if extension be only a quality and not necessarily infinite; if infinite mean only indefiniteness or illimitability, and if infinity can not have parts--this argument goes for very little. the acceptance of the argument that the parts of infinity of extension are immovable is rendered difficult when the reader considers mr. gillespie's sub-proposition ( ) that the parts of the material universe are movable and divisible from each other. he urges that a part of the infinity of extension or of its substratum must penetrate the material universe and every atom of it. but if infinity can have no parts, no part of it can penetrate the material universe. if infinity have parts (which is absurd), and if some part penetrate every atom of the material universe, and if the part so penetrating be immovable, how can the material universe be considered as movable, and yet as penetrated in every atom by immovability? if penetrated be a proper phrase, then, at the moment when the part of infinity was penetrating the material universe, the part of infinity so penetrating must have been in motion. mr. gillespie's logic is faulty. use his own language, and there is either no penetration, or there is no immovability. in his argument for the fourth proposition, mr. gillespie--having by his previous proposition demonstrated (?) what he calls a substratum for the before demonstrated (?) infinity of extension--says, "it is intuitively evident that the substratum of infinity of extension can be no more divisible than infinity of extension." is this so? might not a complex and divisible substratum be conceived by us as possible to underlie a (to us) simple and indivisible indefinite extension, if the conception of the latter were possible to us? there can not be any intuition. it is mere assumption, as, indeed, is the assumption of extension at all, other than as the extension of substance. in his argument for proposition , gillespie says that "any one who asserts that he can suppose two or more necessarily existing beings, each of infinity of expansion, is no more to be argued with than one who denies, whatever is, is." why is it more difficult to suppose this than to suppose one being of infinity, and, in addition to this infinity, a material universe? is it impossible to suppose a necessary being of heat, one of light, and one of electricity, all occupying the same indefinite expansion? if it be replied that you can not conceive two distinct and different beings occupying the same point at the same moment, then it must be equally impossible to conceive the material universe and god existing together. the second division of mr. gillespie's argument is also open to grave objection. having demonstrated to his own satisfaction an infinite substance, and also having assumed in addition a finite substance, and having called the first an infinite "being"--perhaps from a devout objection to speak of god as substance--mr. gillespie seeks to prove that the infinite being is intelligent. he says: "intelligence either began to be, or it never began to be. that is never began to be is evident in this, that if it began to be, it must have had a cause; for whatever begins to be must have a cause. and the cause of intelligence must be of intelligence; for what is not of intelligence can not make intelligence begin to be. now intelligence being before intelligence began to be is a contradiction. and this absurdity following from the supposition that intelligence began to be, it is proved that intelligence never began to be: to wit, is of infinity of duration." mr. gillespie does not condescend to tell us why "what is not of intelligence cannot make intelligence begin to be;" but it is not unfair to suppose that he means that of things which have nothing in common one can not be the cause of the other. let us apply mr. gillespie's argument to the material universe, the existence of which is to him so certain that he has treated it as a self-evident proposition. the material universe--that is, matter--either began to be, or it never began to be. that it never began to be is evident in this, that if it began to be, it must have had a cause; for whatever begins to be must have a cause. and the cause of matter must be of matter; for what is not of matter can not make matter begin to be. now matter being before matter began to be is contradiction. and this absurdity following from the supposition that matter--i. e., the material universe--began to be, it is proved that the material universe never began to be--to wit, is of indefinite duration. the argument as to the eternity of matter is at least as logical as the argument for the eternity of intelligence. mr. gillespie may reply that he affirms the material universe to be finite in duration, and that by the argument for his proposition, part , he proves that the one infinite being (god) is the creator of matter. his words are: "as the material universe is finite in duration, or began to be, it must have had a cause; for whatever begins to be must have a cause. and this cause must be [mr. gillespie does not explain why], in one respect or other, the simple sole being of infinity of expansion and duration, who is all-knowing [the all-knowing or intelligence rests on the argument which has just been shown to be equally applicable to matter], inasmuch as what being, or cause independent of that being, could there be? and, therefore, that being made matter begin to be." taking mr. gillespie's own argument, that which made matter begin to be must be of matter, for what is not matter can not make matter begin to be, then mr. gillespie's infinite being (god) must be matter. but there is yet another exception to the preposition, which is that the infinite being (god) is all-powerful. having, as above, argued that the being made matter, he proceeds, "and this being shown, it must be granted that the being is, necessarily, all-powerful." nothing of the kind need be granted. if it were true that it was demonstrated that the infinite being (god) made matter, it would not prove him able to make anything else; it might show the being cause enough for that effect, but does not demonstrate him cause for all effects. so that if no better argument can be found to prove god all-powerful, his omnipotence remains unproved. mr. gillespie's last proposition is that the being (god) whose existence he has so satisfactorily (?) made out is necessarily completely happy. in dealing with this proposition, mr. gillespie talks of unhappiness as existing in various kinds and degrees. but, to adopt his own style of argument, unhappiness either began to be, or it never began to be. that it never began to be is evident in this, that whatever began to be must have had a cause, for whatever begins to be must have a cause. and the cause of unhappiness must be of unhappiness, for what is not of unhappiness can not make unhappiness begin to be. but unhappiness being before unhappiness began to be is a contradiction; therefore unhappiness is of infinity of duration. but proposition , part , says there is but one being of infinity of duration. the one being of infinity of duration is therefore necessarily unhappy. mr. gillespie's arguments recoil on himself, and are destructive of his own affirmations. in his argument for the sub-proposition, mr. gillespie says that god's motive, or one of his motives, to create, must be believed to have been a desire to make happiness, besides his own consummate happiness, begin to be. that is, god, who is consummate happiness everywhere forever, _desired_ something. that is, he wanted more than then existed. that is, his happiness was not complete. that is, mr. gillespie refutes himself. but what did infinite and eternal complete happiness desire? it desired (says mr. gillespie) to make more happiness--that is, to make more than an infinity of complete happiness. mr. gillespie's proof, on the whole, is at most that there exists necessarily substance, the extension and duration which we can not limit. part of his argument involves of the use of the very _a posteriori_ reasoning just considered, regarded by himself as utterly worthless for the demonstration of the existence of a being with such attributes as orthodox theism tries to assert. if sir william hamilton meant no flattery in writing that mr. gillespie's works was one of the "very ablest" on the theistic side, how wretched indeed must, in his opinion, have been the logic of the less able advocates for theism. every theist must admit that if a god exists, he could have so convinced all men of the fact of his existence that doubt, disagreement, or disbelief would be impossible. if he could not do this, he would not be omnipotent, or he would not be omniscient--that is, he would not be god. every theist must also agree that if a god exists, he would wish all men to have such a clear consciousness of his existence and attributes that doubt, disagreement, or belief on this subject would be impossible. and this, if for no other reason, because that out of doubts and disagreements on religion have too often resulted centuries of persecution, strife, and misery, which a good god would desire to prevent. if god would not desire this, then he is not all-good--that is he is not god. but as many men have doubts, a large majority of mankind have disagreements, and some men have disbeliefs as to god's existence and attributes, it follows either that god does not exist, or that he is not all-wise, or that he is not all-powerful, or that he is not all-good. every child is born into the world an atheist; and if he grows into a theist, his deity differs with the country in which the believer may happen to be born, or the people among whom he may happen to be educated. the belief is the result of education or organization. religious belief is powerful in proportion to the want of scientific knowledge on the part of the believer. the more ignorant, the more credulous. in the mind of the theist "god" is equivalent to the sphere of the unknown; by the use of the word he answers without thought problems which might otherwise obtain scientific solution. the more ignorant the theist, the greater his god. belief in god is not a faith founded on reason, but a prostration of the reasoning faculties on the threshold of the unknown. theism is worse than illogical; its teachings are not only without utility; but of itself it has nothing to teach. separated from christianity with its almost innumerable sects, from maliometanism with its numerous divisions, and separated also from every other preached system, theism is a will-o'-the-wisp, without reality. apart from orthodoxy, theism is a boneless skeleton; the various mythologies give it alike flesh and bone, otherwise coherence it hath none. what does christian theism teach? that the first man made perfect by the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good god, was nevertheless imperfect, and by his imperfection brought misery into the world, when the all-good god must have intended misery should never come. that this god made men to share this misery--men whose fault was their being what he made them. that this god begets a son, who is nevertheless his unbegotten self, and that by belief in the birth of god's eternal son, and in the death of the undying who died to satisfy god's vengeance, man may escape the consequences of the first man's error. christian theism declares that belief alone can save man, and yet recognizes the fact that man's belief results from teaching, by establishing missionary societies to spread the faith. christian theism teaches that god, though no respecter of persons, selected as his favorites one nation in preference to all others: that man can do no good of himself or without god's aid, but yet that each man has a free will; that god is all-powerful, but that few go to heaven and the majority to hell; that all are to love god, who has predestined from eternity that by far the largest number of human beings are to be burning in hell for ever. yet the advocates for theism venture to upbraid those who argue against such a faith. either theism is true or false. if true, discussion must help to spread its influence; if false, the sooner it ceases to influence human conduct the better for human kind. it will be useless for the clergy to urge that such a pamphlet deserves no reply. it is true the writer is unimportant, and the language in which his thoughts find expression lacks the polish of a macaulay, and the fervor of a burke; but they are nevertheless his thoughts, uttered because it is not only his right, but his duty, to give them utterance. and this plea for atheism is put forth challenging the theists to battle for their cause, and in the hope that the strugglers being sincere, truth may give laurels to the victor and the vanquished; laurels to the victor in that he has upheld the truth; laurels still welcome to the vanquished, whose defeat crowns him with a truth he knew not of before. is there a god? some of those who have heard me venture to examine the question of the existence of deity _viva voce_, have desired to have my reasons for holding the atheistic position briefly stated, and while i do not pretend to exhaust the subject in these few pages, i trust to say enough to provoke thought and inquiry. i do not say, "there is no god," and the scarcely polite rejoinder of those who quote the psalmist can not, therefore, be applied with justice toward myself. i have never yet heard living man give me a clear, coherent definition of the word "god," and i have never read any definition from either dead or living man expressing a definite and comprehensible idea of deity. in fact, it has always appeared to me that men use that word rather to hide their ignorance than to express their knowledge.* * in sir william hamilton's essay on cousin, i find a note quoting mr. piesse on kant, in which the word god stands as the equivalent for a phase of the unknowable. climatic conditions often, and diversity of human race always, govern and modify the meaning conveyed by the word. by "god" one nation or sect expresses love; another, vengeance; another, good; another, wisdom; another, fire; another, water; another, air; another, earth; and some even confound their notion of deity with that of devil. elihu palmer well observes: "the christian world worships three infinite gods, and one omniscient devil." i do not deny "god," because that word conveys to me no idea, and i can not deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. i can not war with a nonentity. if, however, god is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which i am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the _noumenon_, of which the word "i" represents only a specialty of _phenomena_, then i deny "god," and affirm that it is impossible "god" can be. that is, i affirm that there is one existence, and deny that there can be more than one. atheists are sometimes content to say to their opponents, your "proofs" are no proofs, your "evidences" are failures, you do not and can not prove the existence of deity. this ground may be safe, but the conduct of its occupier is not daring. the swordsman who always guarded and parried, but never ventured cut or thrust, might himself escape unwounded, but he would thus make but little progress toward victory over his opponent. it is well to show that the position of your antagonist is weak, but it is better to prove that you are strong. in a paper as limited as the present, it is necessary to be brief both in answer to opponents and in the statements of my own opinions. this is rather intended as the challenging speech of a debate, not as a complete essay on the existence of deity. there are two modes in which theists endeavor to prove the existence of god, and each of these modes is in its turn denounced by theistic writers-- st, the _a priori_; d, the _a posteriori_. of the former, pearson, in his "prize essay on infidelity," says: "the _a priori_ mode of reasoning is the exclusive idol of many of the german logicians.... but in their hands this kind of reasoning has completely failed. it conducts the mind to no firm resting place; it bewilders instead of elucidating our notions of god, of man, and the universe. it gives us no divine personal existence, and leaves us floating in a region of mere vague abstractions. such reasonings are either altogether vain or are not really what they profess to be. in our country the name of dr. clarke is chiefly associated with the _a priori_ argument.... clarke himself found it necessary to stoop to the argument _a posteriori_, and thereby acknowledged the fallacy of attempting to reason exclusively _a priori_.... the fate of dr. clarke's pretended demonstration, and the result, in so far as theology is concerned, of the transcendental reasoning of the continental philosophers, show the futility of attempting to rise up to the height of the great argument of the existence of god by the _a priori_ method alone." of the latter, william gillespie, in his "treatise on the necessary existence of deity," writes that it "can never make it appear that infinity belongs in any way to god." it "can only entitle us to infer the existence of a being of finite extension, for, by what rule in philosophy can we deduce from the existence of an object finite in extent (and nothing is plainer than that the marks of design which we can discover must be finite in their extent) the existence of a cause of infinity of extension? what, then, becomes of the omnipresence of the deity, according to those who are content to rest satisfied from the reasoning of experience?... it will be vain to talk of the deity being present by his energy? although he may not be present by his substance, to the whole universe. for, 'tis natural to ask not so much how it is proved that god is virtually present, though not substantially present, in every part of nature, as what can be meant by being everywhere present by mere energy?" this reasoning can no more make out that the deity is omnipresent by his virtue, than that he is omnipresent as to his substance.... and, from the inaptitude of the reasoning under consideration to show that immensity, or omnipresence, belongs to god, it will be found to follow, directly and immediately, that his wisdom and power can not be shown to be more than finite, and that he can never be proved to be a free agent.... omnipresence (let it be only by energy) is absolutely necessary in a being of infinity of wisdom. and therefore, 'the design argument' is unable to evince that the deity is in possession of this attribute. it likewise plainly follows, from the inaptitude of this argument to show that god is omnipresent, that thereby we can not prove infinity of power to belong to him. for, if the argument can not make out that the being it discovers is everywhere present, how can it ever make out that he is everywhere powerful? by careful reflection, too, we may perceive that omnipotence of another kind than power, winch can exert itself in all places, requires the existence of immensity. "the design argument" can never evince that god is a free agent.... if we can not prove the immensity or omnipresence of the deity, we can for that reason never show that he is omniscient, that he is omnipotent, that he is entirely free.... if the deity can not be proved to be of infinity in any given respect, it would be nothing less than absurd to suppose that he could be proved to be of infinity in any other respect. it "can do no more than prove that at the commencement of the phenomena which pass under its review, there existed a cause exactly sufficient to make the effects begin to be. that this cause existed from eternity, the reasonings from experience by no means show. nay, for aught they make known, the designer himself may not have existed long before those marks of design which betoken his workmanship." this reasoning "can not prove that the god whom it reveals has existed from all eternity, therefore, for anything it intimates, god may at some time cease to be, and the workmanship may have an existence when the workman hath fallen into annihilation.... such reasonings can never assure us of the unity of the deity." whether there be one god or not, the argument from experience doth by no means make clear. it discovers marks of design in the phenomena of nature, and infers the existence of at least one intelligent substance sufficient to produce them. further, however, it advances not our knowledge. whether the cause of the phenomena be one god or many gods, it pretends not to determine past all doubt.... but did this designer create the matter in which the design appeared? of this the argument can not convince us, for it does no more than infer a designing cause from certain appearances, in the same way we would infer from finding some well-contrived machine in a desert that a human being had left it there.... now, because this reasoning can not convince us of such a creation, it can not convince us there is not a plurality of deities, or of the causes of things.... if we can not prove the eternity of god, it is not possible we can prove the unity of god. to say that, for anything we know to the contrary, he may have existed from all eternity, being much the same as saying that, for anything we know to the contrary, there may be another god or many gods beside." sir w. hamilton considered that the only valid arguments for the existence of a god, and for the immortality of the human soul, rest on the ground of man's moral nature. dr. lyman beecher issued, some few years since, a series of lectures on atheism, without merit or fairness, and which are here only alluded to as fairly illustrating a certain class of orthodox opposition. his statements of atheistic opinions are monstrous perversions, and his answers are directed against the straw man built together by himself. the doctrine of "almighty chance" which dr. beecher attacks, is one which i never heard an educated atheist teach, and the misrepresentation of freethought objects is so obvious that it can only be effectual with those who have never freed themselves from the trammels which habit and fashion-faith bound upon them in their infancy, and which have strengthened with their growth. the rev. j. orr, in his "treatise on theism," says, "all inquiry about chance is, however, impertinent in the present day. the idea is an infantine one, possible of entertainment only in the initial state of human knowledge. chance is _not_ the position relied upon by modern atheism. and when, therefore, the theist expends the artillery of his argument upon this broken down and obsolete notion, he is intermeddling with the dead, and after accomplishing the destruction of the venerable fallacy, the modern atheist will likely ask him to come down to the nineteenths century and meet him there." the only attempt at argument in dr. beecher's book is founded on the assumption: st. that there is an existence called matter. d. that there are certain effects perceivable which can not result from matter. d. that therefore there is a god the cause for these effects. where are there any materialists who accept dr. beecher's limitation of matter? it is a word i do not use myself. on the question of evil, coleridge, in his "aids to reflection," says: " st. that evil must have had a beginning, since otherwise it must either be god or a co-eternal and co-equal rival with god. d. that it could not originate in god; for if so, it would at once be evil and not evil, or god would be at once god--that is, infinite goodness--and not god." if god be infinite goodness, can evil exist at all? it is necessary above all that we should understand the meaning of each word we use. some men talk as if their words were intended rather to conceal than to express their ideas. so far as this essay is concerned i will endeavor to avoid this difficulty by explicitly defining each special word i use. dugald stewart, indeed, says, "that there are many words used in philosophical discourse which do not admit of logical definition, is abundantly manifest. this is the case with all those words that signify things un-compounded, and consequently unsusceptible of analysis--a proposition, one should think, almost self-evident; and yet it is surprising how very generally it has been overlooked by philosophers." the advantages, however, accruing from frequent definitions are very great; at the least they serve to explain what was meant by the persons using the word, whereas sometimes two men confuse each word by using words to which each attaches an opposite or a dissimilar value. men will talk of "first cause," and "intelligent first cause." do they know what they mean? i confess i do not, and from the manner in which they use the words, the most charitable conclusion is that they use them because others have done so, and for no worse or better reason. they talk of the "beauties of creation," and "works of the great creator." if by creation is meant the origin of existence, then each utterance of the phrase is an absurdity. the human mind is utterly incapable of construing it in thought as possible that the complement of existence has either been increased or diminished. man can neither conceive nothing becoming something nor something becoming nothing. definitions.-- . by existence, or substance, i mean that which is in itself and is conceived _per se_--that is, the conception of which does not require the conception of anything else as antecedent to it. whenever i use the words universe or matter, i use them in the same sense as representing the totality of existence. existence can only be known in its modes, and these by their attributes. . by attribute, i understand that by which i cognize any mode of existence. hardness, brightness, color, life, form, etc., are attributes of conditional existence. . by mode, i understand each cognized condition or accident of existence. . by eternity i mean indefinite duration; that is duration which is to me illimitable. . by infinity, i mean indefinite extension. the axioms, so far as i shall give them, are in the precise language of spinoza. " . everything which is, is in itself, or in some other thing.. . that which cannot be conceived through another _per aliud_, must be conceived _per se_. . from a given determinate cause, the effect necessarily follows; and, _vice versa_, if no determinate cause be given, no effect can follow. . the knowledge of an effect depends on a knowledge of the cause, and includes it. . things that have nothing in common with each other, can not be understood by means of each other--that is, the conception of one does not involve the conception of the other." propositions.--existence is prior to its modes. this follows from definitions and , because modes of existence are conceived relatively and in dependence on existence, which is absolutely precedent in such conception. existences having different attributes have nothing in common with each other. this is founded on definition . existences have nothing in common with each other, can not be the cause of, or affect one another. if they have nothing in common, they can not be conceived by means of each other (per axiom ), and they can not be conceived as relating to each other, but must be conceived _per se_ (per definition ); and as (per axiom ) the knowledge of an effect depends on the knowledge of the cause and includes it, it is impossible to conceive any existence as an effect, so long as you can not conceive it in relation to any other existence. by "cause" in the absolute, i mean "existence." in its popular or relative sense, i use "cause" as an effect of some precedent causative influence, itself the cause of some consequent effect, as the means toward an end, in the accomplishment of which end it completes itself. what fact is there so certain that i may base all my reasonings upon it? my existence is this primary fact; this, to me, indubitable certainty. i am. this logic can neither prove nor disprove. the very nature of proof is to make a proposition more clear to the mind than it was before, and no amount of evidence can in-crease my conviction of the certainty of my own existence. i do not affirm that i am in existence, but i affirm that there is existence. this existence is either eternal, that is, unlimited in duration, that is, indefinite in duration; or else it had a beginning, that is, it has been created. if created, then such creation must be by some existence the same as itself, or by some existence differing from itself. but it can not have been created by any existence the same as itself, because to imagine such, would be to conceive no more than a continuance of the same existence--there would be no discontinuity. "but," says s. t. coleridge, "where there is no discontinuity, there can be no origination." and it can not have been created by any existence differing from itself, because things which have nothing in common with one another can not be the cause of, or affect, one another. therefore, this existence has not been created, that is, its duration is indefinite--that is, you can not conceive a beginning--that is, it is eternal. this eternal existence is either infinite in extent, that is, is unlimited in extent, or it is finite, that is, limited. if limited, it must be limited by an existence the same as itself, or by an existence differing from itself. but the same arguments which applied to a limitation of duration, also apply to a limitation of extension. therefore, this existence is unlimited in extent; that is, is infinite and eternal--that is, there is only one existence. it is at this point that atheism separates from pantheism. pantheism demonstrates one existence, but affirms for it infinite attributes. atheism denies that attributes can be infinite. attributes are but the distinguishing characteristics of modes, and how can that be infinite which is only the quality of finity? men do not talk of infinite hardness or of infinite softness; yet they talk of infinite intelligence. intelligence is not an existence, and the word is without value unless it strictly comprehend, and is included in, that which is intelligent. the hardness of the diamond, the brilliancy of the burnished steel, have no existence apart from the diamond or the steel. i, in fact, affirm that there is only one existence, and that all we take cognizance of is mode, or attribute of mode, of that existence. i have carefully abstained from using the words "matter" and "spirit." dr. priestly says: "it has generally been supposed that there are _two distinct kinds of substance_ in human nature, and they have been distinguished by the terms _matter_, and _spirit_, or _mind_. the former of these has been said to be possessed of the property of _extension_, viz., of length, breadth and thickness, and also of _solidity_ or impenetrability, and consequently of a _vis inertiæ_; but it is said to be naturally destitute of all other powers whatever. the latter has of late been defined to be a substance entirely destitute of all extension, or relation to space, so as to have no property in common with matter; and therefore to be properly _immaterial_, but to be possessed of the powers of perception, intelligence, and self-motion. matter is alleged to be that kind of substance of which our bodies are composed, whereas the principle of perception and thought belonging to us is said to reside in a spirit, or immaterial principle, intimately united to the body; while higher orders of intelligent beings, and especially the divine being, are said to be purely immaterial. it is maintained that neither matter nor spirit (meaning by the latter the subject of sense and thought) correspond to the definitions above mentioned. for that matter is not that _inert_ substance that it has been supposed to be; that powers of _attraction or repulsion_ are necessary to its very being, and that no part of it appears to be _impenetrable_ to other parts; i therefore define it to be a substance possessed of the property of extension, and powers of attraction or repulsion; and since it has never yet been asserted that the powers of _sensation_ and _thought_ are incompatible with these (_solidity or impenetrability_, and, consequently, a _vis inertiæ_, only having been thought to be repugnent to them), i therefore maintain that we have no reason to suppose that there are in man two substances so distinct from each other as have been represented. it is likewise maintained that the notion of two substances that have no common property, and yet are capable of intimate connection and mutual action, is absurd." i do not conceive _spirit or mind_ as an existence. by the word _mind_, i simply express the totality of perception, observation, collection, and recollection of perceptions, reflection and various other mental processes. dugald stewart, in his "essay on locke," says: "we are conscious of sensation, thought, desire, volition, but we are not conscious of the existence of the mind itself." it is urged that the idea of god is universal. this is not only not true, but i, in fact, deny that any coherent idea exists in connection with the word "god." the chief object to which the emotions of any people were directed in ancient times became their god. when these emotions were combined with vague traditions, and a priesthood became interested in handing down the traditions, and increasing the emotions, then the object becoming sacred was hallowed and adored, and uncertain opinions formed the basis of a creed. any prominent phenomenon in the universe, which was not understood, was personified, as were also the various passions and phases of humanity. these, in time, were preached as religious truths, and thus diverted the people from inquiry into the natural causes of phenomena, which they accounted for as ordained by god, and when famine or pestilence occurred, instead of endeavoring to remove its cause or using preventive measures against a recurrence of the evil, they sought to discover why the supernatural power was offended, and how it might be appeased, and ascribing to it their own passions and emotions, they offered prayers and sacrifices. these errors becoming institutions of the country, the people, prompted by their priests, regarded all those who endeavored to overturn them by free and scientific thought and speech as blasphemers, and the religion of each state has, therefore, always been opposed to the education of the people. archbishop whately, in his "elements of rhetoric," part , chap, ii, sec. , urges that "those who represent god or gods as malevolent, capricious, or subject to human passions and vices, are invariably to be found among those who are brutal and uncivilized." we admit this, but ask is it not the fact that both the old and new testament teachings do represent god as malevolent, capricious, and subject to human passions and vices--that is, are not these bible views of god relics of a brutal and uncivilized people? there is, of course, not room in a short essay like the present to say much upon the morality of atheism, and it should therefore suffice to say, that truth and morality go hand in hand. that that is moral which tends to the permanent happiness of all. the continuance of falsehood never can result in permanent happiness; and therefore if atheism be truthful, it must be moral, if it be against falsehood, it must tend to human happiness. yet if quoting great names will have effect, lord bacon, who is often quoted against atheism, also says: "atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, _though religion were not_; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the mind of men; therefore atheism never did perturb states, for it makes men wary of themselves as looking no further; and we see the times inclined to atheism, as the times of augustus caesar were civil times; but superstition has been the confusion of many states." george combe says: "i have known men in whom the reasoning organs were amply developed and well cultivated, who assured me that they could not reach the conviction of the being of a god. i have known such men equal in point of integrity and practical benevolence to the most orthodox believers." in the west riding of yorkshire, among the men themselves, a wealthy employer bore favorable testimony to the conduct and intelligence of atheistic working men. nay, even the fanatical dr. lyman beecher is obliged to concede that atheism made converts among "females of education and refinement--females of respectable standing in society." has man a soul? [this lecture was originally delivered to the sheffield secular society, and was printed from the reporter's notes without efficient correction from myself, i, at that time, suffering under a severe attack of acute rheumatism. the lecture has since been often re-delivered; and three editions having been exhausted, i have again corrected and revised the present edition. it is not intended as an answer to the question which forms the title, but it is intended to provoke thought upon this important subject.] what do you mean by soul? what is the soul? is it i? is it the body? is it apart from the body? is it an attribute of the body? has it a separate and distinct existence from the body? what is the soul? if i ask one of those who claim to be considered orthodox men, they will tell me that the soul is a spirit--that the soul lives after the body is dead. they will tell me that the soul is immortal, and that the body is mortal; that the soul has nothing whatever in common with the body; that it has an existence entirely independent of the body. they will tell me that after the body has decayed--after the body has become re-absorbed in the universe, of which it is but a part, that the soul still exists. is there any proof of the existence of the same individual soul apart from all material conditions? i have endeavored to examine this subject, and, up to the present time, i have not found one iota of proof in support of the positions thus put forward. i have no idea of any existence except that of which i am part. i am. of my own existence i am certain i think. i am. but what is it that thinks? is it my soul? is it "me," and yet distinct from me? i am but a mode of existence. i am only part of the great universe. the elements of which i am composed are indissolubly connected with that great existence which is around me and within me, and which i help to make up. if men tell me i am a compound, and not a compound--a mixture, and not a mixture--a joining together, and not a joining together--of two entirely different existences, which they call "matter" and "spirit," i am compelled to doubt those men. the ability to think is but an attribute of a certain modification of existence. intelligence is a word by which we express the sum of certain abilities, always attending a certain mode of existence. i find intelligence manifested so far as organization is developed. i never find intelligence without animal organization. i find intelligence manifested in degree, only so far as i find a higher or lower type of organization--that is, i find man's intellectual faculties limited by his organization. but the orthodox tell me that my soul has an immaterial existence, independent of all organization--independent of all climatic conditions--independent of all education. is that so? when does the soul come into man? when does it go out of man? if the soul is immortal, why is it that standing here, in the prime of health and strength, if part of that roof should fall fracturing my skull, and pressing upon my brain--how is it, if my soul is not subject to material conditions, that it then ceases to act? is the plaster roof more powerful than my immortal soul? or is it that intelligence is the necessary result of a certain condition of existence, and that the moment you destroy that condition--the moment you destroy the organization--the result ceases to be realizable? by the course of reasoning you adopt (says the orthodox objector) you reduce man to the same level as the beasts. and why not? i stand on the river's bank, i see there a man full grown, possessed of the physical figure of man, but an idiot--an idiot from his birth upward--one who could not, even if he would, think and act as other men. a little child is there playing on the bank, and the idiot, having large destructive propensities, has thrust the child into the water, and he stands there jabbering and gesticulating while the little child is drowning in the river. and see how half-vacantly, half-triumphantly, he points to the helpless child. a newfoundland dog has come to the bank; it jumps in and brings the child out and saves its life. yet theologians tell me that the idiot has a soul, and that the newfoundland dog has not one. i can not understand these nice distinctions, which make the man so superior to the beast in matters in which he is positively inferior. man has doubtless an organization on the whole far superior intellectually to that of any other animal, but he is only superior by virtue of his superior organization and its consequent susceptibility for development or education. many brutes can see more clearly than man; but they possess not the capability for the manufacture of telescopes to aid their vision. many brutes can run more swiftly, but they manifest no capacity for the subjugation of a steam power which far outstrips their speed. but man himself, a well-organized, thoughtful, intelligent, well-educated man, by a fall from a horse, by a tile from a roof, may receive an injury to his nervous encephalic apparatus, and may be, even while a man in shape, as low as the brute in the imbecility of his reason, and inferior to the brute in physical strength. there is as much difference between different races of men, there is, in fact, more difference between a pure caucasian and a sahara negro, than between the sahara negro and the infant chimpanzee. when did the soul come into the body? has it been waiting from all eternity to occupy each body the moment of birth? is this the theory that is put forward to man--that there are many millions of souls still waiting, perhaps, in mid air, 'twixt heaven and earth, to occupy the still unborn babes? is that the theory? or do you allege that god specially creates souls for each little child at the moment it is born or conceived? which is the theory put forward? is it that the soul being immortal--being destined to exist for ever, has existed from all eternity? if not, how do you know that the soul is to exist for ever; when it only comes into existence with the child? may not that which has recently begun to be, soon cease to be? in what manner does the soul come into the child? is it a baby's soul, and does it grow with the child? or, does it possess its full power the moment the child is born? when does it come into the child? does it come in the moment the child begins to form, or is it the moment the child is born into the world? whence is it this soul comes? dr. cooper, quoting lawrence on the "functions of the brain," says: "sir everard home, with the assistance of mr. bauer and his microscope, has shown us a man eight days old from the time of conception, about as broad and a little longer than a pin's head. he satisfied himself that the brain of this homunculus was discernible. could the immaterial mind have been connected with it at this time? or was the tenement too small even for so etherial a lodger? even at the full period of uterogestation, it is still difficult to trace any vestiges of mind: and the believers in its separate existence have left us quite in the dark on the precise time when they suppose this union of soul and body to take place." many of those who tell me that man has a soul, and that it is immortal--that man has a soul, and that the beast has not one--forget or ignore the fact that at a very early stage in the formation of the brain the state of the brain corresponds to that of the avertebrated animal, or animal that is without vertebra. if the brain had stopped in its first month's course of formation, would the child have had a soul? if it would have had a soul, then have avertebrated animals souls also? if you tell me it would not have had a soul, then i ask, how do you know it? and i ask you what ground you have for assuming that the soul did not begin to form with the formation of the brain? i ask you whether it was pre-existing, or at what stage it came? in the second month this brain corresponds then to the brain of an osseous fish. supposing the development of the child had been then stopped, had it a soul at that time? if so, have fishes souls? again, if you tell me that the child had not a soul, then, i ask, why not? how do you know it had not? what ground have you for alleging that the soul did not exist in the child? we go on still further, and in the third month we find that brain corresponds then to that of a turtle, and in the fourth to that of a bird; and in the fifth month, to an order termed _rodentia_; sixth, to that of the _ruminantia_; seventh, to that of the _dugitigrada_; eighth, to that of the _quadrumana_; and not till the ninth month does the brain of the child attain a full human character. i, of course, here mean to allege no more than dr. fletcher, who says, in his "rudiments of physiology," quoted by the author of the "vestiges of creation": "this is only an approximation to the truth; since neither is the brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the species of any of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely the same; nor does the brain of the human fetus at any time precisely resemble, perhaps, that of any individual whatever among the lower animals. nevertheless it may be said to represent, at each of the above-named periods, the aggregate, as it were, of the brains of each of the tribes stated." now, should a birth have taken place at any of the eight stages, would the child thus prematurely born have had a soul? that is the question i propose to you. you who affirm that man has a soul, it lies upon you, here, without charging me with blasphemy--without charging me with ignorance--without charging me with presumption--it lies upon you who affirm, to state the grounds for your belief. at which stage, if at any, did the soul come into the child? at the moment of the birth? why when a child is born into the world it can scarcely see--it can not speak--it can not think--but after a short time i jingle my keys, and it begins to give faint smiles; and after a few weeks, it is pleased with the jingling of my keys. is it the soul which is learning to appreciate the sound of the jingling keys, and pleased with them? is it the immaterial and immortal soul amused and pleased with my bundle of keys? where is the soul? how is it that the soul can not speak the moment the child is born--can not even think? how is it, that if i keep that child without telling it any thing of its soul until it become fourteen or fifteen years of age, it would then speak and think as i had taught it to speak and think; and if i kept it without the knowledge of a soul, it would have no knowledge of a soul at that age? how is that? rajah brooke, at a missionary meeting in liverpool, told his hearers there that the dyaks, a people with whom he was connected, had no knowledge of god, of a soul, or of any future state. how is it that the dyaks have got this soul and yet live knowing nothing whatever about it? and the dyaks are by no means the only people who live and die knowing nothing of any immortal and immaterial soul. again you tell me that this soul is immortal. do you mean that it has eternally existed--has never been created? if so, you deny a god who is the creator of all things. if the soul began at some time to exist, where is the evidence that it will not also at some time cease to exist? it it came into existence with the body's birth, why not cease with the body's death? you say the soul is immaterial; do you mean that it is susceptible to material conditions or do you not? if susceptible to material conditions, what do you mean by its being immortal and immaterial? if not susceptible to material conditions, then explain to me how it is that under good conditions it prospers and advances, and under bad conditions deteriorates and recedes. if a child is born in some of the back streets of our city, and lives on bad food in a wretched cellar, it grows up a weak and puny pale-faced child. if allowed to crawl into existence on the edge of a gutter, imperfectly educated, in fact mis-educated, it steals--steals, perhaps, to live--and it becomes an outcast from society. is this immortal soul affected by the bodily conditions? or is the soul originally naturally depraved? and if the soul is primarily naturally depraved, why is god so unjust as to give a naturally depraved soul to any body? if not, how is it that this immortal soul, when the body is kept without food, permits the man who has no money to buy food, to steel to satisfy his hunger? you allege that the soul moves my body. you assert that matter is inert, unintelligent; that it is my active, intelligent soul that moves and impels my inert and non-intelligent body. is my immortal soul hindered and controlled by the state of my body's general health? does my soul feel hungry and compel my body to steal? some theologians declare that my soul is immaterial--that there is no means by which i can take any cognizance whatever of it. what does that mean, except that they know nothing whatever about it? sir w. hamilton admits that we are entirely ignorant as to the connection between soul and body. yet many who in so many words admit that they have no knowledge, but only faith in the soul's existence, are most presumptuous in affirming it, and in denouncing those who dispute their affirmation. it is an easy method to hide ignorance, by denouncing your opponent as an ignorant blasphemer. joseph priestley, in his book upon matter and spirit, quotes from hallet's discourses, as follows; "i see a man move and hear him speak for some years. from his speech i certainly infer that he thinks, as i do. i then see that man is a being who thinks and acts. after some time the man falls down in my sight, grows cold and stiff, and speaks and acts no more. is it not then natural to conclude that he thinks no more; as the only reason i had to believe that he did think was his motion and his speech. and now that his motion and speech have ceased, i have lost the only way of proving that he had the power of thought. upon this sudden death, one visible thing, the one man, has greatly changed. whence could i infer that the same being consisted of two parts, and that the inward part continues to live and think, and flies away from the body? when the outward part ceases to live and move, it looks as if the whole _man_ was gone, and that he, with all his powers, ceases at the same time. his motion and thought both die together, as far as i can discern. the powers of thought, of speech and motion, equally depend upon the body, and run the same fate in case of declining age. when a man dies through old age, i perceive his powers of speech, motion, and thought decay and die together, and by the same degrees. that moment he ceases to move and breathe he appears to cease to think, too. when i am left to my reason it seems to me that my power of thought depends as much upon the body as my sight and hearing. i could not think in infancy; my power of thought, of sight, and of feeling are equally liable to be obstructed by the body. a blow on the head has deprived a man of thought, who could yet see, and feel and move; so naturally the power of thinking seems as much to belong to the body as any power of man whatsoever. naturally there appears no more reason to suppose that a man can think out of the body than he can hear sounds and feel cold out of the body." what do those mean who say that man is made up of two parts--matter and mind? i know of only one existence. i find that existence manifested variously, each mode having certain variations of attributes by which it is cognized. one of these attributes, or a collection of certain attributes, i find in, or with, certain modifications of that existence, that is, in or with animal life--this attribute, or these attributes, we call intelligence. in the same way that i find upon the blade of a knife brightness, consequent upon a certain state of the metal, so do i find in man, in the beast, different degrees, not of brightness, but of intelligence, according to their different states of organization. i am told that the mind and the body are separate from one another. are the brightness and steel of the knife separate? is not brightness the quality attaching to a certain modification of existence--steel? is not intelligence a quality attaching to a certain modification of existence--man? the word brightness has no meaning, except as relating to some bright thing. the word intelligence, no meaning, except as relating to some intelligent thing. i take some water and drop it upon the steel, in due course the process of oxidation takes place and the brightness is gone. i drop into man's brain a bullet; the process of destruction of life takes place, and his intelligence is gone. by changing the state of the steel we destroy its brightness, and by disorganizing the man destroy his intelligence. is mind an entity or result? an existence or a condition? surely it is but the result of organic activity, a phenomenon of animal life. dr. engledue says: "in the same way as organism generally has the power of manifesting, when the necessary stimuli are applied, the phenomena which are designated life; so one individual portion--brain, having peculiar and distinct properties, manifests on the application of its appropriate stimuli a peculiar and distinct species of action. if the sum of all bodily function--life, be not an entity, how can the product of the action of one portion of the body--brain, be an entity? feeling and intelligence are but fractional portions of life." i ask those who are here to prove that man has a soul, to do so apart from revelation. if the soul is a part of ourselves, we require no supernatural revelation to demonstrate its existence to us. d'holbach says: "the doctrine of spirituality, such as it now exists, affords nothing but vague ideas; it is rather a poisoner of all ideas. let me draw your attention to this: the advocates of spirituality do not tell you anything, but in fact prevent you from knowing anything. they say that spirit and matter have nothing in common, and that mortal man can not take cognizance of immortality. an ignorant man may set himself up as an orator upon such a matter. he says you have a soul--an immortal soul. take care you don't lose your soul. when you ask him what is my soul, he says he does not know--nobody knows--nobody can tell you. this is really that which they do. what is this doctrine of spirituality? what does it present to the mind? a substance unsubstantial that possesses nothing of which our senses enable us to take cognizance." theologians urge that each of us has a soul superior to all material conditions, and yet a man who speaks can not communicate by his speaking soul so freely with that man who is deaf and dumb; the conditions cramp that which is said to be uncontrolled by any conditions. if you cut out a man's tongue, the soul no longer speaks. if you put a gag in his mouth, and tie it with a handkerchief, so that he can not get it out, his soul ceases to speak. the immaterial soul is conquered by a gag, it can not utter itself, the gag is in the way. the orthodox say that the soul is made by god; and what do you know about god? why just as much as we know about the soul. and what do you know about the soul? nothing whatever. how is it that if the soul is immaterial, having nothing in common with matter, that it is only manifest by material means? and how is it that it is incased and inclosed in my material frame? they affirm that my soul is a spirit--that i receive the same spirit from god. how is it that my spirit is now by myself, and by my mortal body, denying its own existence? is my mortal soul acting the hypocrite, or is it ignorant of its own existence, and can not help itself to better knowledge? and if it can not help itself, why not, if it is superior to the body? and if you think it a hypocrite, tell me why. what is meant by the declaration that man is a compound of matter and spirit?--things which the orthodox assert have nothing in common with one another. of the existence of what you call matter you are certain, because you and i, material beings, are here. are you equally certain of the existence of mind, as an existence independent and separate from matter? and if you are, tell me why. have you ever found it apart from matter? if so, when and where? have you found that the mind has a separate and distinct existence? if so, under what circumstances? and tell me--you who define matter as unintelligent, passive, inert, and motionless--who talk of the _vis inertiæ_ of matter--tell me what you mean when you give these definitions to it? you find the universe, and this small portion of it on which we are, ceaselessly active. why do you call it passive, except it be that you want courage to search for true knowledge as to the vast capabilities of existence, and, therefore, invent such names as god and soul to account for all difficulties, and to hide your ignorance? what do you mean by passive and inert matter? you tell me of this world--part of a system--that system part of another--that of another--and point out to me the innumerable planets, the countless millions of worlds, in the universe. you, who tell me of the vast forces of the universe, what do you mean by telling me that that is motionless? what do you mean by yet pointing to the immeasurable universe and its incalculably mighty forces and affirming that they are incapable of every perceptible effect? you, without one fact on which to base your theory, strive to call into existence another existence which must be more vast, and which you allege produces this existence and gives its powers to it. sir isaac newton says: "we are to admit no more causes of things than are sufficient to explain appearances." what effect is there which the forces of existence are incapable of producing? why do you come to the conclusion that the forces of the universe are incapable of producing every effect of which i take cognizance? why do you come to the conclusion that intelligence is not an attribute--why? what is there which enables you to convert it into a separate and distinct existence? is there anything? is it spirit? what is spirit? that of which the mortal man can know nothing, you tell me--that it is nothing which his senses can grasp--that is, no man, but one who disregards his senses, can believe in it, and that it is that which no man's senses can take cognizance of. if a man who uses his senses can never by their aid take cognizance of spirit, then as it is through the senses alone man knows that which is around him, you can know nothing about spirit until you go out of your senses. when i speak of the senses, i do not limit myself to what are ordinarily termed man's five senses--i include all man's sensitive faculties, and admit that i do not know the extent of, and am not prepared to set a limit to, the sensitive capabilities of man. i have had personal experience in connection with psycho-magnetic phenomena of faculties in man and woman not ordinarily recognized, and am inclined to the opinion that many men have been made converts to the theories of spiritualism because their previous education had induced them to set certain arbitrary limits to the domains of the natural. when they have been startled by phenomena outside these conventional limitations they at once ascribed them to supernatural influences rather than reverse their previous rules of thinking. some urge that the soul is life. what is life? is it not the word by which we express the aggregate normal functional activity of vegetable and animal organisms necessarily differing in degree, if not in kind, with each different organization? to talk of immortal life and yet to admit the decay and destruction of the organization, is much the same as to talk of a square circle. you link together two words which contradict each other. the solution of the soul problem is not so difficult as many imagine. the greatest difficulty is, that we have been trained to use certain words as "god," "matter," "mind," "spirit," "soul," "intelligence," and we have been further trained to take these words as representatives of realities, which, in fact, they do not represent. we have to unlearn much of our school lore. we have specially to carefully examine the meaning of each word we use. the question, lies in a small compass. is there one existence or more? of one existence i am conscious, because i am a mode of it. i know of no other existence. i know of no existence but that existence of which i am a mode. i hold it to be capable of producing every effect. it is for the man who alleges that there is another, to prove it. i know of one existence. i do not endeavor to demonstrate to you my existence, it needs no demonstration--i am my existence is undeniable. i am speaking to you you are conscious of my existence. you and i are not separate entities, but modes of the same existence. we take cognizance of the existence which is around us and in us, and which is the existence of which we are modes. of the one existence we are certain. it is for those who affirm that the universe is "matter," and who affirm that there also exists "spirit," to remember that they admit the one existence i seek to prove, and that the onus lies on them to demonstrate a second existence--in fact, to prove there is the other existence which they term spiritual. there can not exist two different substances or existences having the same attributes, or qualities. there can not be two existences of the same essence, having different attributes, because it is by the attributes alone that we can distinguish the existences. we can only judge of the substance by its modes. we may find a variety of modes of the same substance, and we shall find points of union which help to identify them, the one with the other--the link which connects them with the great whole. we can only judge of the existence of which we are a part (in consequence of our peculiar organization) under the form of a continuous chain of causes and effects--each effect a cause to the effect it precedes, each cause an effect of the causative influence which heralded its advent. the remote links of that line are concealed by the darkness of the far off past. nay, more than this, the mightiest effort of mind can never say, _this is the first cause_. weakness and ignorance have said it--but why? to cloak their weakness, to hide their ignorance. knaves have said it--but why? to give scope to their cunning, and to enable them to say to the credulous, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." the termination is in the as yet unknowable future; and i ask you, presumptuous men, who dare to tell me of god and soul, of matter and creation--when possessed you the power to sunder links of that great chain and write, "in the beginning?" i deny that by the mightiest effort of the strongest intellect man can ever say of any period, at this point substance began to be--before this existence was not. has man a soul? you who tell me he has a soul, a soul independent of material conditions, i ask you how it is that these immortal souls strive with one another to get mortal benefits? has man a soul? if man's soul is not subject to material conditions, why do i find knavish souls?--why slavish souls?--tyrannous souls? your doctrine that man has a soul prevents him from rising. when you tell him that his soul is not improvable by material conditions, you prevent him from making himself better than he is. man's intelligence is a consequence of his organization. organization is improvable, the intelligence becomes more powerful as the organization is fully developed, and the conditions which surround man are made more pure. and the man will become higher, truer, and better when he knows that his intelligence is an attribute, like other attributes, capable of development, susceptible of deterioration, he will strive to effect the first and to guard against the latter. look at the number of people putting power into the hands of one man, because he is a lord--surely they have no souls. see the mass cringing to a wretched idol--surely these have no souls. see men forming a pyramid of which the base is a crushed and worn-out people, and the apex a church, a throne, a priest, a king, and the frippery of a creed--have those men souls? society should not be such a pyramid, it should be one brotherly circle, in which men should be linked together by a consciousness that they are only happy so linked, conscious that when the chain is broken, then the society and her peace is destroyed. what we teach is not that man has a soul apart and independent of the body, but that he has an ability, an intelligence, an attribute of his body, capable of development, improvable, more useful, according as he elevates himself and his fellows. give up blind adhesion to creeds and priests, strive to think and follow out in action the result of your thoughts. each mental struggle is an enlargement of your mind, an addition to your brain power, an increase of your soul--the only soul you have. labor's prayer. "give us this day our daily bread" is the entreaty addressed by the tiller of the soil to the "our father," who has promised to answer prayer. and what answer cometh from heaven to this the bread winner's petition? walk among the cotton workers of lancashire, the cloth-weavers of yorkshire, the durham pitmen, the staffordshire puddlers, the cornish miners, the london dock laborers, go anywhere where hands are roughened with toil, where foreheads are bedewed with sweat of work, and see the lord's response to the prayer, the father's answer to his children! the only bread they get is the bread they take; in their hard struggle for life-sustenance the loaves come but slowly, and heaven adds not a crust, even though the worker be hungry, when he rises from his toil-won meal. not even the sight of pale-faced wife, and thin forms of half-starved infants can move to generosity the ruler of the world. the laborer may pray, but, if work be scant and wages low, he pines to death while praying. his prayer gives no relief, and misery's answer is the mocking echo to his demand. it is said by many a pious tongue that god helps the poor; the wretchedness of some of their hovel houses, found alas! too often, in the suburbs of our wealthiest cities, grimy black, squalid, and miserable; the threadbare raggedness of their garments; the unwholesomeness of the food they eat; the poisoned air they breathe in their narrow wynds and filthy alleys; all these tell how much god helps the poor. do you want to see how god helps the poor? go into any police court when some little child-thief is brought up for hearing; see him shoeless, with ragged trousers, threadbare, grimy, vest hardly hanging to his poor body, shirt that seems as though it never could have been white, skin dull brown with dirt, hair innocent of comb or brush, eye ignorantly, sullenly-defiant, yet downcast; born poor, born wretched, born in ignorance, educated among criminals, crime the atmosphere in which he moved; and society his nurse and creator, is now virtuously aghast at the depravity of this its own neglected nursling, and a poor creature whom god alone hath helped. go where the weakly wife in a narrow room huddles herself and little children day after day; and where the husband crowds in to lie down at night; they are poor and honest, but their honesty bars not the approach of disease, fever, sorrow, death--god helps not the line of health to their poor wan cheeks. go to the county workhouse in which is temporarily housed the wornout farm laborer, who, while, strength enough remained, starved through weary years with wife and several children on eight shillings per week--it is thus god helps the poor. and the poor are taught to pray for a continuance of this help, and to be thankful and content to pray that to-morrow may be like to-day, thankful that yesterday was no worse than it was, and content that to-day is as good as it is. are there many repining at their miseries, the preacher, with gracious intonation, answers rebukingly that god, in his wisdom, has sent these troubles upon them as chastisement for their sins. so, says the church, all are sinners, rich its well as poor; but rich sinners feel that the chastising rod is laid more lightly on their backs than it is upon those of their meaner brethren. weekday and sunday it is the same contrast; one wears fustian, the other broadcloth; one prepares for heaven in the velvet cushioned pew, the other on the wooden benches of the free seats. in heaven it will be different--all there above are to wear crowns of gold and fine linen, and, therefore, here below the poor man is to be satisfied with the state of life into which it has pleased god to call him. the pastor, who tells him this, looks upon the laborer as an inferior animal, and the laborer by force of habit regards the landowner and peer, who patronizes his endeavors, as a being of a superior order. is there no new form of prayer that labor might be taught to utter, no other power to which his petition might be addressed? prayer to the unknown for aid gives no strength to the prayer. in each beseeching he loses dignity and self-reliance, he trusts to he knows not what, for an answer which cometh he knows not when, and mayhap may never come at all. let labor pray in the future in another fashion and at another altar. let laborer pray to laborer that each may know labor's rights, and be able to fulfill labor's duties. the size of the loaf of daily bread must depend on the amount of the daily wages, and the laborer must pray for better wages. but his prayer must take the form of earnest, educated endeavor to obtain the result desired. let workmen, instead of praying to god in their distress, ask one another why are wages low? how can wages be raised? can we raise our own wages? having raised them, can we keep them fixed at the sum desired? what causes produce a rise and fall in wages? are high wages beneficial to the laborer? these are questions the pulpit has no concern with. the reverend pastor will tell you that the "wages of sin is death," and will rail against "filthy lucre;" but he has no inclination for answering the queries here propounded. why are wages low? wages are low because the wage-winners crowd too closely. wages are low because too many seek to share one fund. wages are lower still because the laborer fights against unfair odds; the laws of the country, overriding the laws of humanity, have been enacted without the laborer's consent, although his obedience to them is enforced. the fund is unfairly distributed as well as too widely divided. statutes are gradually being modified, and the working man may hope for ampler justice from the employer in the immediate future than was possible in the past, but high and healthy wages depend on the working man himself. wages can be raised by the work-ing classes exercising a moderate degree of caution in increasing their numbers. wages must increase when capital increases more rapidly than population, and it is the duty of the working man, therefore, to take every reasonable precaution to check the increase of population and to accelerate the augmentation of capital. can working-men, by combination, permanently raise the rate of wages? one gentleman presiding at a meeting of the national association for the promotion of social science for the discussion of the labor question, very fairly said, "it is not in the power of the men alone, or of the masters alone, or of both combined, to say what shall be the amount of wages at any particular time in any trade or country. the men and the masters are, at most, competitors for the division, at a certain rate, of a certain fund, provided by [themselves and] others--that is, by the consumers. if that fund is small, no device can make the rate of profit or rate of wages higher." this is in theory quite correct, if it means that no device can make the total divisible greater than it is, but not if it refers to the increase of profit or wages by partial distribution. in practice, although it is true that if the fund be small and the seekers to share it be many, the quotient to each must be necessarily very small, yet it is also true that a few of the competitors--_i.e._ the capitalists, may and do absorb for their portions of profits an improper and unfairly large amount, thus still further reducing the wretchedly small pittance in any case receivable by the mass of laborers. it is warmly contended that the capitalist and laborer contend for division of the fund appropriable in fair and open field; that the capitalist has his money to employ, the man his labor to sell; that if workmen are in excess of the capitalist's requirements, so that the laborer has to supplicate for employment, wages can not rise, and will probably fall; but that if, on the contrary, capital has need to invite additional laborers, then wages must rise. that is the law of supply and demand brought prominently forward. in great part this is true, but it is not true that capital and labor compete in fair and open field, any more than it is true that an iron-clad war vessel, with heavy ordnance, would compete in fair field with a wooden frigate, equipped with the material in use thirty years ago. capital is gold-plated, and carries too many guns for unprotected labor. the intelligent capitalist makes the laws affecting master and servant, which the uneducated laborer must obey, but has no effective voice to alter. the capitalist forms the government of the country, which in turn protects capital against labor; this government the laborer must sustain, and dares not modify. the capitalist does combine, and has combined, and the result of this combination has been an unfair appropriation of the divisible fund. why should not the laborer combine also? the answer is truly that no combination of workmen can increase the rate of wages, if at the same time the number of laborers increases more rapidly than the capital out of which their wages must be paid. but the men may combine to instruct one another in the laws of political economy; they may combine to apply their knowledge of those laws to the contracts between employer and employed. they may combine to compel the repeal of unjust enactments under which an unfair distribution of the labor fund is not only possible but certain. organizations of laborers are, therefore, wise and necessary; the object of such organizations should be the permanent elevation and enfranchisement of the members. no combination of workmen, which merely dictates a temporary cessation from labor, can ultimately and permanently benefit the laborer; while it certainly immediately injures him and deteriorates his condition, making his home wretched, his family paupers. nor can even co-operative combination, praiseworthy as it certainly is, to procure for the laborer a larger share of the profits of his labor permanently benefit him, except in so far that temporarily alleviating his condition, and giving him leisure for study, it enables him to educate himself; unless, at the same time, the co-operator is conscious that the increase or reduction in the amount of wages depends entirely on the ratio of relation preserved between population and its means of subsistence, the former always having a tendency to increase more rapidly than the latter. it is with the problem of too many mouths for too little bread that the laborer has really to deal: if he must pray, it should be for more bread and for fewer mouths. the answer often given by the workman himself to the advocate of malthusian views is, that the world is wide enough for all, that there are fields yet unplowed broad enough to bear more corn than man at present could eat, and that there is neither too little food nor are there too many mouths; that there is, in fact, none of that over-population with which it is sought to affright the working man. over-population in the sense that the whole world is too full to contain its habitants, or that it will ever become too full to contain them, is certainly a fallacy, but overpopulation is a lamentable truth in its relative sense. we find evidences of over-population in every old country of the world. the pest of over-population is the existence of poverty, squalor, wretchedness, disease, ignorance, misery, and crime. low rate of wages, and food dear, here you have two certain indices of relative over-population. wages depending on the demand for and supply of laborers, wherever wages are low it is a certain sign that there are too many candidates for employment in that phase of the labor market. the increased cost of production of food, and its consequent higher price, also mark that the cultivation has been forced, by the numbers of the people to descend to less productive soils. poverty is the test and result of over-population. it is not against some possible increase of their numbers, which may produce possibly greater affliction, that the working men are entreated to agitate. it is against the existing evils which afflict their ranks, evils alleged by sound students of political economy to have already resulted from inattention to the population question, that the energies of the people are sought to be directed, the operation of the law of population has been for centuries entirely ignored by those who have felt its adverse influence most severely. it is only during the last thirty years that any of the working classes have turned their attention to the question; and only during the last few years that it has to any extent been discussed among them. yet all the prayers that labor ever uttered since the first breath of human life, have not availed so much for human happiness as will the earnest examination by one generation of this, the greatest of all social questions, the root of all political problems, the foundation of all civil progress. poor, man must be wretched. poor, he must be ignorant. poor, he must be criminal; and poor he must be till the cause of poverty has been ascertained by the poor man himself and its cure planned by the poor man's brain, and effected by the poor man's hand. outside his own rank none can save the poor. others may show him the abyss, but he must avoid its dangerous brink himself. others may point out to him the chasm, but he must build his own bridge over. labor's prayer must be to labor's head for help from labor's hand to strike the blow that severs labor's chain, and terminates the too long era of labor's suffering. during the last few years our daily papers, and various periodicals, magazines, and reviews have been more frequently, and much less partially, devoted than of old to the discussion of questions relating to the laborer's condition, and the means of ameliorating it. in the legislative assembly debates have taken place which would have been impossible fifty years since. works on political economy are now more easily within the reach of the working man than they were some years ago. people's editions are now published of treatises on political economy which half a century back the people were unable to read. it is now possible for the laborer, and it is the laborer's duty, to make himself master of the laws which govern the production and distribution of wealth. undoubtedly there is much grievous wrong in the mode of distribution of wealth, by which the evils that afflict the poorest stragglers are often specially and tenfold aggravated. the monopoly of land, the serf state of the laborer, are points requiring energetic agitation. the grave and real question is, however, that which lies at the root of all, the increase of wealth as against the increase of those whom it subsists. the leaders of the great trades unions of the country, if they really desire to permanently increase the happiness of the classes among whom they exercise influence, can speedily promote this object by encouraging their members to discuss freely the relations of labor to capital; not moving in one groove, as if labor and capital were necessarily antagonistic, and that therefore labor must always have rough-armed hand to protect itself from the attacks of capital; but, taking new ground, to inquire if labor and capital are bound to each other by any and what ties, ascertaining if the share of the laborer in the capital fund depends, except so far as affected by inequality in distribution, on the proportion between the number of laborers and the amount of the fund. the discussing, examining, and dealing generally with these topics, would necessarily compel the working man to a more correct appreciation of his position. any such doctrine as that "the poor shall never cease out of the land;" or that we are to be content with the station in life into which it has pleased god to call us; or that we are to ask and we shall receive, must no longer avail. schiller most effectively answers the advocates of prayer: "help, lord, help! look with pity down! a paternoster pray; what god does, that is justly done, his grace endures for aye." "oh, mother! empty mockery, god hath not justly dealt by me: have i not begged and prayed in vain; what boots it now to pray again?" labor's only and effective prayer must be in life action for its own redemption; action founded on thought, crude thought, and sometimes erring at first, but ultimately developed into useful thinking, by much patient experimenting for the right and true. poverty: its effects on the political condition of the people. "political economy does not itself instruct how to make a nation rich, but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making a nation rich must first be a political economist."--john stuart mill. "the object of political economy is to secure the means of subsistence of all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which might render this precarious, to provide everything necessary for supplying the wants of society, and to employ the inhabitants so as to make the interests accord with their supplying each other's wants."--sir james stewart. on one occasion in the world's history, a people rose searching for upright life, who had previously, for several generations, depressed by poverty and its attendant hand-maidens of misery, prowled hunger-striken and disconsolate, stooping and stumbling through the byways of existence. a mighty revolution resulted in much rough justice and some brutal vengeance, much rude right, and some terrific wrong. among the writers who have since narrated the history of this people's struggle, some penmen have been assiduous and hasty to search for, and chronicle the errors, and have even not hesitated to magnify the crimes of the rebels; while they have been slow to recognize the previous demoralizing tendency of the system rebelled against. in this pamphlet it is proposed to very briefly deal with the state of the people in france immediately prior to the grand convulsion which destroyed the bastile monarchy, and set a glorious example of the vindication of the rights of man against opposition the most formidable that can be conceived; believing that even in this slight illustration of the condition of the masses in france who sought to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil and religious liberty, an answer may be found to the question: "what is the effect of poverty on the political condition of the people." in taking the instance of france, it is not that the writer for one moment imagines that poverty is a word without meaning in our own lands. the clamming factory hands in the lancanshire valleys, the distressed ribbon weavers of conventry, and the impoverished laborers in various parts of ireland and scotland would be able to give us a definition of the word fearful in its distinctness. but in england poverty is happily partial, while in france in the eighteenth century poverty was universal outside the palaces of the nobles and the mansions of the church, where luxury, voluptuousness, and effeminacy were regnant. in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries travelers in france could learn from "the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty, the dismal nakedness of the empty cottages, and the starving, ragged population, how much men could endure without dying." on the one side a discontented, wretched, hungry mass of tax-providing slaves, and on the other a rapacious, pampered, licentious, spendthrift monarchy. this culminated in the refusal of the laborers to cultivate the fertile soil because, the tax-gatherer's rapacity left an insufficient remnant to provide the cultivator with the merest necessaries of life. then followed "uncultivated fields, unpeopled villages, and houses dropping to decay;" the great cities--as paris, lyons, and bordeaux--crowded with begging skeletons, frightful in their squallid disease and loathsome aspect. even after the national assembly had passed some measures of temporary alleviation, the distress in paris itself was so great that at the gratuitious distributions of bread "old people have been seen to expire with their hand stretched out to receive the loaf, and women waiting in their turn in front of the baker's shop were prematurely delivered of dead children in the open streets." the great mass of the people were as ignorant as they were poor; were ignorant indeed because they were poor. ignorance is the pauper's inalienable heritage. when the struggle is for the means of subsistence, and these are only partially obtained, there is little hope for the luxury of a leisure hour in which other emotions can be cultivated than those of the mere desires for food and rest--sole results of the laborious monotonousness of machine work; a round of toil and sleep closing in death--the only certain refuge for the worn out laborer. without the opportunity afforded by the possession of more than will satisfy the immediate wants, there can be little or no culture of the mental faculties. the toiler badly paid and ill-fed, is separated from the thinker. nobly-gifted, highly-cultured though the poet may be, his poesy has no charms for the father to whom one hour's leisure means short food for his hungry children clamoring for bread. the picture gallery, replete with the finest works of our greatest masters, is forbidden ground to the pitman, the plowman, the poor pariahs to whom the conceptions of the highest art-treasures are impossible. the beauties of nature are almost equally inaccessible to the dwellers in the narrow lanes of great cities. out of your narrow wynds in edinburgh and glasgow, and on to the moor and mountain-side, ye poor, and breathe the pure life-renewing breezes. not so; the moors are for the sportsmen and peers, not peasants; and a scotch duke--emblem of the worst vices of a corrupt and selfish, but fast-decaying house of lords--closes miles of heather against the pedestrian's foot. but even this paltry oppression is unneeded. duke despicable is in unholy alliance with king poverty, who mocks at the poor mother and her wretched, ragged family, when from the garret or cellar in a great babylon wilderness they set out to find green fields and new life. work days are sacred to bread, and clothes, and rent; hunger, inclement weather, and pressing landlord forbid the study of nature 'twixt monday morn and saturday night, and on sunday god's ministers require to teach a weary people how to die, as if the lesson were not unceasingly inculcated in their incessant toil. oh! horrid mockery; men need teaching how to live. according to religionists, this world's bitter misery is a dark and certain preface, "just published," to a volume of eternal happiness, which for , years has been advertised as in the press and ready for publication, but which after all may never appear. and notwithstanding that every-day misery is so very potent, mankind seem to heed it but very little. the second edition of a paper containing the account of a battle in which some , were killed and , wounded, is eagerly perused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims hundreds of thousands, is allowed to rage without the uplifting of a weapon against the common enemy. the poor in france were awakened by rousseau's startling declaration that property was spoliation, they knew they had been spoiled, the logic of the stomach was conclusive, empty bellies and aching brains were the predecessors of a revolution which sought vengeance when justice was denied, but which full-stomached and empty-headed tories of later days have calumniated and denounced. warned by the past, ought we not to-day to give battle to that curse of all old countries--poverty? the fearful miseries of the want of food and leisure which the poor have to endure are such as to seriously hinder their political enfranchisement. those who desire that men and women shall have their rights of citizens, should be conscious how low the poor are trampled down, and how incapable poverty renders them for the performance of the duties of citizenship. so that the question of political freedom is really determined by the wealth or poverty of the masses; to this extent, at any rate, that a poverty-stricken people must necessarily, after that state of pauperism has existed for several generations, be an ignorant and enslaved people. the problem is, how to remove poverty, as it is only by the removal of poverty that the political emancipation of the nation can be rendered possible. it has been ascertained that the average food of the agricultural laborer in england is about half that alloted by the jail dietary to sustain criminal life. so that the peasant who builds and guards his master's haystack gets worse fed and worse lodged than the incendiary convicted for burning it down. how can this poverty be removed and prevented? i quote the reply from one who has written most elaborately in elucidation of the views of malthus and mill: "there is but one possible mode of preventing any evil--namely, to seek for and remove its cause. the cause of low wages, or in other words of poverty, is overpopulation; that is, the existence of too many people in proportion to the food, of too many laborers in proportion to the capital. it is of the very first importance that the attention of all who seek to remove poverty should never be diverted from this great truth. the disproportion between the numbers and the food is the _only real cause_ of social poverty. individual cases of poverty may be produced by individual misconduct, such as drunknness, ignorance, laziness, or disease; but these and all other accidental influences must be wholly thrown out of the question in considering the permanent cause, and aiming at the prevention of poverty. drunknness and ignorance, moreover, are far more frequently the _effect_ than the cause of poverty. population and food, like two runners of unequal swiftness chained together, advance side by side; but the ratio of increase of the former is so immensely superior to that of the latter, that it is necessarily greatly _checked_; and the checks are of course either more deaths or fewer births--that is, either positive or preventive." unless the _necessity_ of the preventive or positive checks to population be perceived; unless it be clearly seen, that they must operate in one form, if not in another; and that _though individuals may escape them, the race can not_; human society is a hopeless and insoluble riddle. quoting john stuart mill, the writer from whom the foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds: "the great object of statesmanship should be to raise the habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and to bring them into such a position as shows them most clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. for this purpose he advises that there should be, first, an extended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the laborers left at home, and raise their standard of comfort; also that the population truths should be disseminated as widely as possible, so that a powerful public feeling should be awakened among the working classes against undue procreation on the part of any individual among them--a feeling which could not fail greatly to influence individual conduct; and also that we should use every endeavor to get rid of the present system of labor--namely, that of employers, and employed, and adopt to a great extent that of independent or associated industry. his reason for this is, that a hired laborer, who has no personal interest in the work he is engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight, living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over his powers of procreation; whereas the laborer who has a personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as, for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a copartnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large family." the end in view in all this is the attainment of a greater amount of happiness for humankind. the rendering life more worth the living, by distributing more equally than at present its love, its beauties, and its charms. in one of his most recent publications, mr. john stuart mill observes: "in a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has a moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find tins enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering, such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration, can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education and proper control of noxious influences, while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe." in a former pamphlet, "jesus, shelly, and malthus," the reader's attention was entreated to this grave question. in a few pages it is impossible to do more than erect a fingerpost to point out a possible road to a given end. to attempt in a narrow compass to give complete details, would be as unwise as it would be unavailing. my desire is rather to provoke discussion among the masses than to obtain willing auditors among the few, and i affirm it, therefore, as a proposition which i am prepared to support, "that the political conditions of the people can never be permanently reformed until the cause of poverty has been discovered and the evil itself prevented and removed." why do men starve? why is it that human beings are starved to death, in a wealthy country like england, with its palaces, its cathedrals, and its abbeys; with its grand mansions, and luxurious dwellings, with its fine inclosed parks, and strictly guarded preserves; with its mills, mines, and factories; with its enormous profits to the capitalist; and with its broad acres and great rent rolls to the landholder? the feet that men, old, young, and in the prime of life; that women, and that children, do so die, is indisputable. the paragraph in the daily journals, headed "death from starvation," or "another death from destitution," is no uncommon one to the eyes of the careful reader. in a newspaper of one day, december , , may be read the verdict of a london jury that "the deceased, robert bloom, died from the mortal effects of effusion on the brain and disease of the lungs, arising from natural causes, but the said death was accelerated by destitution, and by living in an ill-ventilated room, and in a court wanting in sanitary requirements;" and the verdict of another jury, presided over by the very coroner who sat on the last case, "that the deceased, mary hale, was found dead in a certain room from the mortal effects of cold and starvation;" as also the history of a poor wanderer from the glasgow city poor house found dead in the snow. in london, the hive of the world, with its merchant millionaires, even under the shadow of the wealth pile, starvation is as busy as if in the most wretched and impoverished village; busy, indeed, not always striking the victim so obtrusively that the coroner's inquest shall preserve a record of the fact, but more often busy quietly, in the wretched court and narrow lane, up in the garret, and down in the cellar, stealing by slow degrees the life of the poor. why does it happen that christian london, with its magnificent houses for god, has so many squalid holes for the poor? christianity from its thousand pulpits teaches, "ask and it shall be given to you," "who if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" yet with much prayer the bread is too frequently not enough, and it is, alas! not seldom that the prayer for bread gets the answer in the stone of the paved street, where he lays him down to die. the prayer of the poor outcast is answered by hunger, misery, disease, crime and death, and yet the bible says, "blessed be ye poor."' ask the orthodox clergyman why men starve, why men are poor and miserable; he will tell you that it is god's will; that it is a punishment for man's sins. and so long as men are content to believe that it is god's will that the majority of humankind should have too little happiness, so long will it be impossible effectually to get them to listen to the answer to this great question. men starve because the great bulk of them are ignorant of the great law of population, the operation of which controls their existence and determines its happiness or misery. they starve because pulpit teachers have taught them for centuries to be content with the state of life in which it has pleased god to call them, instead of teaching them how to extricate themselves from the misery, degradation, and ignorance which a continuance of poverty entails. men starve because the teachers have taught heaven instead of earth, the next world instead of this. it is now generally admitted by those who have investigated the subject that there is a tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment nature produces. in the human race, there is a constant endeavor on the part of its members to increase beyond the means of subsistence within their reach. the want of food to support this increase operates, in the end, as a positive obstacle to the further spread of population, and men are starved because the great mass of them have neglected to listen to one of nature's clearest teachings. the unchecked increase of population is in a geometrical ratio, the increase of food for their subsistence is in an arithmetical ratio. that is, while humankind would increase in proportion as , , , , , , , , , food would only increase as , , , , , , , , . the more the mouths the less the proportion of food. while the restraint to an increase of population is thus a want of food, and starvation is the successful antagonist of struggling human life, it is seldom that this obstacle operates immediately--its dealing is more often indirectly against its victims. those who die of actual famine are few indeed compared with those who die from various forms of disease, induced by scarcity of the means of subsistence. if any of my readers doubt this, their doubts may be removed by a very short series of visits to the wretched homes of the paupers of our great cities. suicide is the refuge mainly of those who are worn out in a bitter, and, to them, a hopeless struggle against accumulated ills. disease, suffering, and misery are the chief causes of the prevalence of suicide in our country, and suicide is therefore one form, although comparatively minute, in which the operation of the law of population may be traced. from dread of the pangs of poverty, men, women, and children are driven to unwholesome occupations, which destroy not only the health of the man and woman actually employed, but implant the germs of physical disease in their offspring. a starving woman seeking food mixes white lead with oil and turpentine for a paltry pittance, which provides bare existence for her and those who share it; in a few weeks, she is so diseased she can work no longer, and the hospital and grave in turn receive her. men and women are driven to procure bread by work in lead mines; they rapidly dig their own graves, and not alone themselves, but their wretched offspring, are death-stricken as the penalty; the lead poisons the blood of parent and child alike. young women and children work at artificial flower-making, and soon their occupation teaches that scheele's and schweenfurth green, bright and pleasing colors to the eye, are death's darts too often fatally aimed. the occupation may be objected to as unhealthy; but the need for food is great, and the woman's or child's wages, wretchedly little though they are, yet help to fill the mouths at home: so the wage is taken till the worker dies. here, again, the checks to an increase of population all stop short of starvation--the victims are poisoned instead of starved. so where some forty or fifty young girls are crowded into a badly ventilated work-room, not large enough for half the number, from early in the morning till even near midnight, when orders press; or in some work-room where slop clothes are made, and twenty-five tailors are huddled together in a little parlor scarce wide enough for three--they work to live, and die slowly while they work. they are not starved, but is this sort of asphyxiation much better? the poor, are not only driven to unhealthy, but also to noisome, dwellings. there are in london, liverpool, glasgow, edinburgh, manchester, and other large cities, fearful alleys, with wretched houses, and small ill-ventilated rooms, each room containing a family, the individuals of which are crowded together under conditions so wretched that disease, and often speedy death, is the only possible result. in the east of london, ten, eleven, and, in some cases, fourteen persons have been found sleeping in one wretched little room. is it wonderful that some of these misery-stricken ones die before they have time to starve? from poverty the mother, obliged to constantly work that the miserable pittance she gets may yield enough to sustain bare life, is unable properly to nurse and care for baby-child, and often quick death, or slow but certain disease, ending ultimately in the grave, is the result. the poor live by wages. wages popularly signify the amount of money earned by the laborer in a given time; but the real value of the money-wages is the amount in quantity and quality of the means of subsistence which the laborer can purchase with that money. wages may be nominally high, but really low, if the food and commodities to be purchased are, at the same time, dear in price. an undue increase of population reduces wages in more than one way; it reduces them in effect, if not in nominal amount, by increasing the price of the food to be purchased; and it also reduces the nominal amount, because the nominal amount depends on the amount of capital at disposal for employ, and the number of laborers seeking employment. no remedies for low wages, no scheme for the prevention and removal of poverty, can ever be efficacious until they operate on and through the minds and habits of the masses. it is not from rich men that the poor must hope for deliverance from starvation. it is not to charitable associations the wretched must appeal. temporary alleviation of the permanent evil is the best that can be hoped for from such aids. it is by the people that the people must be saved. measures which increase the dependence of the poor on charitable aid can only temporarily benefit one portion of the laboring class while injuring another in the same proportion; and charity, if carried far, must inevitably involve the recipients in ultimate ruin and degradation by destroying their mutual self-reliance. the true way to improve the worker, in all cases short of actual want of the necessaries of life, is to throw him entirely on his own resources, but at the same time to teach him how he may augment those resources to the utmost. it is only by educating the ignorant poor to a consciousness of the happiness possible to them, as a result of their own exertions, that you can induce them effectually to strive for it. but, alas! as mr. mill justly observes, "education is not compatible with extreme poverty. it is impossible effectually to teach an indigent population." the time occupied in the bare struggle to exist leaves but few moments and fewer opportunities for mental cultivation to the very poor. the question of wages and their relation to capital and population, a question which interests a poor man so much, is one on which he formerly hardly ever thought at all, and on which even now he thinks much too seldom. it is necessary to impress on the laborer that the rate of wages depends on the proportion between population and capital. if population increases without an increase of capital, wages fall; the number or competitors in the labor market being greater, and the fund to provide for them not having increased proportionately, and, if capital increases without an increase of population, wages rise. many efforts have been made to increase wages, but none of them can be permanently successful which do not include some plan for preventing a too rapid increase of laborers. population has a tendency to increase, and has increased faster than capital; this is evidenced by the poor and miserable condition of the great body of the people in most of the old countries of the world, a condition which can only be accounted for upon one of two suppositions, either that there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster than capital, or that capital has, by some means, been prevented from increasing as rapidly as it might have done. that population has such a tendency to increase that, unchecked, it would double itself in a small number of years--say twenty-five--is a proposition which most writers of any merit concur in, and which may be easily proven. in some instances, the increase has been even still more rapid. that capital has not increased sufficiently is evident from the existing state of society. but that it could increase under any circumstances with the same rapidity as is possible to population is denied. the increase of capital is retarded by an obstacle which does not exist in the case of population.. the augmentation of capital is painful. it can only be effected by abstaining from immediate enjoyment. in the case of augmentation of population precisely the reverse obtains. there the temporary and immediate pleasure is succeeded by the permanent pain. the only possible mode of raising wages permanently, and effectually benefiting the poor, is by so educating them that they shall be conscious that their welfare depends upon the exercise of a greater control over their passions. in penning this brief paper, my desire has been to provoke among the working classes a discussion and careful examination of the teachings of political economy, as propounded by mr. j. s. mill and those other able men who, of late, have devoted themselves to elaborating and popularizing the doctrines enunciated by malthus. while i am glad to find that there are some among the masses who are inclined to preach and put in practice the teachings of the malthusian school of political economists, i know that they are yet few in comparison with the great body of the working classes who have been taught to look upon the political economist as the poor man's foe. it is nevertheless among the working men alone, and, in the very ranks of the starvers, that the effort must be made to check starvation. the question is again before us: how are men to be prevented from starving? not by strikes, during the continuance of which food is scarcer than before. no combinations of workmen can obtain high wages if the number of workers is too great. it is not by a mere struggle of class against class that the poor man's ills can be cured. the working classes can alleviate their own sufferings. they can, by co-operative schemes, which have the advantage of being educational in their operation, temporarily and partially remedy some of the evils, if not by increasing the means of subsistence, at any rate by securing a larger portion of the result of labor to the proper sustenance of the laborer. systems of associated industry are of immense benefit to the working classes, not alone or so much from the pecuniary improvement they result in, but because they develop in each individual a sense of dignity and independence which he lacks as a mere hired laborer. they can permanently improve their condition by taking such steps as shall prevent too rapid an increase of their numbers, and, by thus checking the supply of laborers, they will, as capital augments, increase the rate of wages paid to the laborer. the steady object of each working man should be to impress on his fellow-worker the importance of this subject. let each point out to his neighbor not only the frightful struggle in which a poor man must engage who brings up a large family, but also that the result is to place in the labor market more claimants tor a share of the fund which has hitherto been found insufficient to keep the working classes from death by starvation. the object of this pamphlet will be amply attained if it serve as the means of inducing some of the working classes to examine for themselves the teachings of political economy. all that is at present needed is that laboring men and women should be accustomed, both publicly and at home, to the consideration and discussion of the views and principles first openly propounded by mr. malthus, and since elaborated by mr. mill and other writers. the mere investigation of the subject will of itself serve to bring to the notice of the masses many facts hitherto entirely ignored by them. all must acknowledge the terrible ills resulting from poverty, and all therefore are bound to use their faculties to discover if possible its cause and cure. it is more than folly for the working man to permit himself to be turned away from the subject by the cry that the political economists have no sympathy with the poor. if the allegation were true, which it is not, it would only afford an additional reason why this important science should find students among those who most need aid from its teachings. the land question. large estates inimical to the welfare of the people property in land differs from ordinary property. wealth, which is the accumulated result of labor, is sometimes, but not often, accumulated in the hands of the laborer, and is more frequently accumulated in the hands of some person who has purchased the result of the laborers toil. such personal wealth is capable of indefinite increase; and the exclusive right to its disposal is protected in the hands of its possessor, so long as he does not avail himself of this legal protection to use the wealth mischievously to his fellows. there would be no incentive in the laborer to economy, or to increased exertion, unless the state gave him reasonable protection in the enjoyment of his savings. unfortunately, to obtain the protection of the authorities, he has in this country to give up an unreasonably large portion of his earnings to defray the cost of local and imperial government. during the reign of her present majesty, imperial taxation alone has increased from about £ , , to £ , , . the state has no right to interfere with a man's daily disposition of his personal wealth, merely on the ground that he might have used it more advantageously for his fellows. with land it is quite different; it is limited in extent, and the portions of it capable of producing food with ease to the cultivator are still more limited. every individual member of the commonwealth has an indefeasible interest in the totality of the land, and no man ought to assert an absolute freehold in land hostile to the interest of his fellow. the land is part of the general soil of the state, and should be held subject to the general welfare of the citizens. no man has a right so to hold land that his tenure is detrimental to the happiness of the dwellers upon it or around it. this principle is already recognized in much of our legislation. a man can not say to a railway company--which has obtained the usual compulsory powers of taking land--"you shall not cross my private estate;" the law would answer, if he did, by saying, "the railway is for the good of the state; you as an individual must give way to the general good, and must lose your land, receiving a fair and reasonable money value for it." this principle should be applied more widely: and if it be for the good of the commonwealth that some of the enormous land monopolies of this country should be broken up, no statesman ought to be deterred by the mere dread of interfering with the so-called rights of private property. mr. mill says: "when the 'sacredness of property' is talked of, it should always be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. no man made the land. it is the original inheritance of the whole species. its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. when private property in land is not expedient it is unjust." the possession of land involves and carries with it the duty of cultivating that land, and, in fact, individual proprietorship of soil is only defensible so long as the possessor can show improvement and cultivation of the land he holds. to quote again from mr. john stuart mill: "the essential principle of property being to assure to all persons what they have produced by their labor, and accumulated by their abstinence, this principle can not apply to that which is not the produce of labor, the raw material of the earth." mr. mill urges that property in land "is only valid in so far as the proprietor of the land is its improver." "in no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered upon it." yet, in england and wales alone, the landlords who received for rent, in the year , £ , , , now receive about £ , , , and for this have no obligation on them to cultivate. the holding cultivable land in an uncultivated condition in this overcrowded country ought to be made a statutory misdemeanor, the penalty for which should be the forfeiture to the state of the land so left uncultivated, at, say, a twenty years' purchase of its annual return in the neglected or misapplied state in which it was found at the time of conviction. the true theory of landholding should be that the state should be the only freeholder, all other tenures being limited in character; and cultivation ought to be a special condition of tenancy.... the holder of land should either cultivate it with his own hands, or, as would be most frequently the case, by the hands of others; but in the latter case, the landed proprietor is bound to allow the agricultural laborer to live by his labor. by living i mean that the laborer should have healthy food, shelter, and clothing, and sufficient leisure in which to educate himself and his family, besides the necessary leisure for rest from his labors. at present agricultural laborers do not live; they only drag wearily through a career but little higher in any respect than--and often not half so comfortable as--that of many of the other animals on the estate.... little boys and girls, in the midland, eastern, southern, and southwestern counties of england, go into the fields to work, in some instances, soon after six years of age; in very many cases before they are seven years old, and in nearly all cases before they have attained eight. it is true, that the work at first may be the comparatively idle work of scaring birds or tending sheep, but it involves exposure of the child's yet delicate frame in the cold and damp of spring, and then to the heat of the summer sun, from day-dawn to evening. this too often results in the stunted growth and diseased frame found so frequently among the english poor. i say nothing of the demoralization of children consequent on their employment, without regard to sex, in the field gangs. i pass by the fact that work at this early age utterly incapacitates them, as a body, for mental effort. it is enough to declare that no child ought to have to work on the land until he is ten years of age, and if i am told that the fathers--only earning, in the majority of instances, from nine to thirteen shillings per week--need the additional petty wage these wretched babes may bring home, then again i answer, that it is to the landholder's enormous income that the state ought to look for the means of educating the too often worse than savages who are reared on his estate, and who by their labors swell his rent-roll. that a few landed proprietors should have gigantic incomes, while the mass of the people are so poor--that in gloucester, the rev. mr. frazer describes "type after type of social life almost degraded to the level of barbarism"--that near lavenham, "the cottages are unfit for human habitation"--that in norfolk the parliamentary returns speak of their dwellings in one as "miserable," in a second as "deplorable," in a third as "detestable," in a fourth as "a disgrace to a christian community;" while near docking, we are told, in consequence of the overcrowding of the wretched poor, "the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into something below the level of the swine." this is a state of things that if the landholders will not redress willingly they must be made to remedy before it is too late. a few men have vast estates and excessive incomes; the millions have seldom an inch of land until they inherit the grave, and have a starvation wage out of which a proportion is taken back for rent. take the vast property of the marquis of westminster, whose income is credibly stated at something near a million a year; or that of the duke of devonshire, amounting to , acres in the county of derby alone, without regarding his irish or other estates; or that of the duke of norfolk, whose sussex estate is fifteen miles in circuit; or that of the duke of sutherland, which stretches across and contains the whole of sutherlandshire from sea to sea; or that of the marquis of bute, on which £ , ,- sterling were spent by his trustees during his minority; or that of the marquis of breadalbane, who is said to be able to ride from his own door one hundred miles straight to the sea on his own freehold land; or those of the duke of richmond and lord leconfield, who between them own nearly the whole of the eastern portion of the county of sussex, containing nearly square miles. and such estates have a tendency to increase rather than to diminish. in northumberland, the ducal proprietor, whose titular rank is derived from the county, is a constant purchaser of any lands put up for sale. mr. bright, in , spoke of one nobleman who devoted £ , a year of his income to the purchase of additional land. these large properties must all be broken up; they paralyze the people, and they corrupt their possessors. we prefer that the breaking up shall be voluntary and gradual, but it must begin at once, for hungry bellies are multiplying daily. the state ought to put the peasantry in possession of the land, and this might be done in several ways at the same time. . there is the prussian land system, a modification of which might be made to work well here, and which since has enabled the smallest occupiers of peasants' land to acquire the proprietorship at twenty years' purchase; the amount of which is paid to the landlord, not in money, but in rent debentures issued by authority of the state, and bearing four per cent, interest, and gradually redeemable by means of the one per cent, difference, which at compound interest extinguishes the principal in a little over forty-one years. the prussian peasant has, however, two other options: he may pay less by one-tenth to the state bank than the rent he formerly paid to his landlord, in which case the purchase debentures take fifty-six years to redeem; or he may, if he can raise the cash, compel his landlord to accept eighteen years' purchase money of the annual rent. by this means nearly , peasant proprietors have been created in prussia. kent debentures to the extent of many millions have been issued to the landholders, and in less than nineteen years more than one-eighth of the debentures issued have been entirely redeemed and extinguished. . the legislature should declare that leaving cultivable land uncultivated gave the government the right to take possession of such land, assessing it by its actual return for the last live years, and not by its real value, and handing to the proprietor the amount of, say, twenty years' purchase in consolidated stock, redeemable in a limited term of years. the land so taken should not be sold at all, but should be let out to persons willing to become cultivators, on sufficiently long terms of tenancy to fairly recoup his labor and capital to the cultivator, who should yearly pay into the national treasury, in lieu of all other imperial taxes, a certain proportion of the value of the annual produce. . the game laws should be abolished. game preserving in england is not only injurious, in that it diverts land capable of corn-bearing from the purpose it should fulfill, of growing corn to feed the starving, but it is injurious in that it prevents proper cultivation of surrounding farms, and demoralizes and makes criminals of the neighboring agriculturial laborers, creating for them a kind and degree of crime which would be otherwise unknown. poaching, which is so severely punished, is actually fostered and encouraged by the very landholders who punish it. pheasants and partridges' eggs are bought to stock preserves; the gamekeepers who buy these eggs shut their eyes to the mode in which they have been procured. the lad who was encouraged to procure the eggs finds himself in jail when he learns that shooting or trapping pheasants gains a higher pecuniary reward than leading the plow horse, or trimming the hedge, or grubbing the plantation. poaching is the natural consequence of rearing a large number of rabbits, hares, partridges, and pheasants, in the midst of an underpaid, underfed, badly-housed, and deplorably ignorant body of people. the brutal outrages of gamekeepers of which we read so much are the regretable but easily-traceable measure of retaliation for a system which takes a baby child to work in the fields soon after six years of age, which trains all his worst propensities and deadens and degrades his better faculties, which keeps him in constant wretchedness, and tantalizes him with the sight of hundreds of acres on which game runs and flies well-fed, under his very nose, while he limps ill-fed along the muddy lane which skirts the preserve--game, which is at liberty to come out of its covert and eat and destroy the farmer's crop, but which is even then made sacred by the law, and fenced round by covenants, as in a leitrim lease. the game laws must go; they starve our population by using land which might be golden to the autumn sun with the waving crop of wheat, barley, and rye; they feed our prisons, and rear a criminal class in our midst, who have to be prosecuted and guarded at great cost, and all because hares and pheasants are higher in the landowners' eyes than human beings. . any person holding more than, say, , acres of land, should be taxed at a far heavier rate than those having smaller holdings. that is, presuming, in order to take a figure as basis, the land-tax on , acres to be at the rate of s. per acre, then on every acre above that quantity it should be s. per acre up to , acres, and from thence s. per acre up to , acres, and from thence s. per acre up to , acres, so as to discourage all extravagantly large holdings. . the law of primogeniture should be repealed; the settlement of property, except for a widow and her children, be entirely prohibited and some limitation should be put on the power of devise, so as to prevent, say, the marquis of westminster from leaving the bulk of his property to his eldest son, while the younger ones are left as noble paupers, to be provided with places and pensions by the nation. land should be made as easily and as cheaply transferable as any personal chattel. the present land monopoly must be broken by legislation, or it will be destroyed by revolution. a grammar of freethought. by chapman cohen. (_issued by the secular society, ltd._) london: the pioneer press, farringdon street, e.c. . . _the publishers wish to express their obligation to mr. h. cutner for the very tasteful design which adorns the cover of this book._ contents. chapter page i.--outgrowing the gods ii.--life and mind iii.--what is freethought? iv.--rebellion and reform v.--the struggle for the child vi.--the nature of religion vii.--the utility of religion viii.--freethought and god ix.--freethought and death x.--this world and the next xi.--evolution xii.--darwinism and design xiii.--ancient and modern xiv.--morality without god.--i. xv.--morality without god.--ii. xvi.--christianity and morality xvii.--religion and persecution xviii.--what is to follow religion? preface. it must be left for those who read the following pages to decide how far this book lives up to its title. that it leaves many aspects of life untouched is quite clear, but there must be a limit to everything, even to the size and scope of a book; moreover, the work does not aim at being an encyclopædia, but only an outline of what may fairly be regarded as the freethought position. freethought, again, is too fluid a term to permit its teachings being summarized in a set creed, but it does stand for a certain definite attitude of mind in relation to those problems of life with which thoughtful men and women concern themselves. it is that mental attitude which i aim at depicting. to those who are not directly concerned with the attack on supernaturalism it may also be a matter of regret that so much of this work is concerned with a criticism of religious beliefs. but that is an accident of the situation. we have not yet reached that stage in affairs when we can afford to let religion alone, and one may readily be excused the suspicion that those who, without believing in it, profess to do so, are more concerned with avoiding a difficult, if not dangerous, subject, than they are with the problem of developing sane and sound methods of thinking. and while some who stand forward as leaders of popular thought fail to do their part in the work of attacking supernaturalistic beliefs, others are perforce compelled to devote more time than they would otherwise to the task. that, in brief, is my apology for concerning myself so largely with religious topics, and leaving almost untouched other fields where the freethought attitude would prove equally fruitful of results. after all, it is the mental attitude with which one approaches a problem that really matters. the man or woman who has not learned to set mere authority on one side in dealing with any question will never be more than a mere echo, and what the world needs, now as ever, is not echoes but voices. information, knowledge, is essential to the helpful consideration of any subject; but all the knowledge in the world will be of very little real help if it is not under the control of a right method. what is called scientific knowledge is, to-day, the commonest of acquisitions, and what most people appear to understand by that is the accumulation of a large number of positive facts which do, indeed, form the raw material of science. but the getting of mere facts is like the getting of money. the value of its accumulation depends upon the use made thereof. it is the power of generalization, the perception and application of principles that is all-important, and to this the grasp of a right method of investigation, the existence of a right mental attitude, is essential. the world needs knowledge, but still more imperatively it needs the right use of the knowledge that is at its disposal. for this reason i have been mainly concerned in these pages with indicating what i consider to be the right mental attitude with which to approach certain fundamental questions. for, in a world so distracted by conflicting teachings as is ours, the value of a right method is almost incalculable. scepticism, said buckle, is not the result, but the condition of progress, and the same may be said of freethought. the condition of social development is the realization that no institution and no teaching is beyond criticism. criticism, rejection and modification are the means by which social progress is achieved. it is by criticism of existing ideas and institutions, by the rejection of what is incapable of improvement, and by the modification of what permits of betterment, that we show ourselves worthy of the better traditions of the past, and profitable servants of the present and the future. c. c. a grammar of freethought. chapter i. outgrowing the gods. one of the largest facts in the history of man is religion. if it were otherwise the justification for writing the following pages, and for attempting the proof that, so far as man's history is concerned with religion, it is little better than a colossal blunder, would not be nearly so complete. moreover, it is a generalization upon which religionists of all classes love to dwell, or even to parade as one of the strongest evidences in their favour; and it is always pleasant to be able to give your opponent all for which he asks--feeling, meanwhile, that you lose nothing in the giving. universality of belief in religion really proves no more than the universality of telling lies. "all men are liars" is as true, or as false, as "all men are religious." for some men are not liars, and some men are not religious. all the generalization means is that some of both are found in every age and in every country, and that is true whether we are dealing with the liar or with the religious person. what is ignored is the consideration that while at one stage of culture religious belief is the widest and most embracing of all beliefs it subsequently weakens, not quite in direct proportion to the advance of culture, but yet in such a way that one can say there is an actual relation between a preponderance of the one and a weakening of the other. in very primitive communities gods are born and flourish with all the rank exuberance of a tropical vegetation. in less primitive times their number diminishes, and their sphere of influence becomes more and more sharply defined. the gods are still credited with the ability to do certain things, but there are other things which do somehow get done without them. how that discovery and that division are made need not detain us for the moment, but the fact is patent. advancing civilization sees the process continued and quickened, nay, that is civilization; for until nature is rid of her "haughty lords" and man realizes that there are at least some natural forces that come within the control of his intelligence, civilization cannot really be said to have commenced. continued advance sees the gods so diminished in power and so weakened in numbers that their very impotency is apt to breed for them the kind of pity that one feels for a millionaire who becomes a pauper, or for an autocratic monarch reduced to the level of a voteless citizen. the truth is that all the gods, like their human creators, have in their birth the promise of death. the nature of their birth gives them life, but cannot promise them immortality. however much man commences by worshipping gods, he sooner or later turns his back upon them. like the biblical deity he may look at his creation and declare it good, but he also resembles this deity in presently feeling the impulse to destroy what he has made. to the products of his mind man can no more give immortality than he can to the work of his hands. in many cases the work of his hands actually outlives that of his mind, for we have to-day the remains of structures that were built in the honour of gods whose very names are forgotten. and to bury his gods is, after all, the only real apology that man can offer for having created them. this outgrowing of religion is no new thing in human history. thoughtful observers have always been struck by the mortality among the gods, although their demise has usually been chronicled in terms of exultation by rival worshippers. but here and there a keener observer has brought to bear on the matter a breadth of thought which robbed the phenomenon of its local character and gave it a universal application. thus, in one of his wonderfully modern dialogues lucian depicts the olympian deities discussing, much in the spirit of a modern church congress, the prevalence of unbelief among men. the gods are disturbed at finding that men are reaching the stage of either not believing, or not troubling about them. there is a great deal of talk, and finally one of the minor deities treats them to a little plain truth--which appears to be as rare, and as unwelcome in heaven as on earth. he says--i quote from froude's translation:-- what other conclusion could they arrive at when they saw the confusion around them? good men neglected, perishing in penury and slavery, and profligate wretches wealthy, honoured and powerful. sacrilegious temple robbers undiscovered and unpunished; devotees and saints beaten and crucified. with such phenomena before them, of course men have doubted our existence.... we affect surprise that men who are not fools decline to put their faith in us. we ought rather to be pleased that there is a man left to say his prayers. we are among ourselves with no strangers present. tell us, then, zeus, have you ever really taken pains to distinguish between good men and bad? theseus, not you, destroyed the robbers in attica. as far as providence was concerned, sciron and pity-o-campus might have murdered and plundered to the end of time. if eurystheus had not looked into matters, and sent hercules upon his labours little would you have troubled yourself with the hydras and centaurs. let us be candid. all that we have really cared for has been a steady altar service. everything else has been left to chance. and now men are opening their eyes. they perceive that whether they pray or don't pray, go to church or don't go to church, makes no difference to them. and we are receiving our deserts. the case could hardly be put more effectively. it is the appeal to experience with a vengeance, a form of argument of which religionists in general are very fond. of course, the argument does not touch the question of the mere existence of a god, but it does set forth the revolt of awakened common sense against the worship of a "moral governor of the universe." we can say of our day, as lucian said of his, that men are opening their eyes, and as a consequence the gods are receiving their deserts. generally speaking, it is not difficult to see the various steps by which man outgrew the conception of the government of the world by intelligent forces. from what we know of primitive thought we may say that at first the gods dominated all. from the fall of a rain-drop to the movement of a planet all was the work of gods. merely to question their power was the wildest of errors and the gravest of crimes. bit by bit this vast territory was reclaimed--a task at the side of which the conquest of the fever-stricken tropics or the frozen north is mere child's play. it is quite needless to enter into an elaborate speculation as to the exact steps by which this process of deanthropomorphization--to use a word of the late john fiske's--was accomplished, but one can picture the main line by what we see taking place at later stages of development. and there is no exception to the rule that so soon as any group of phenomena is brought within the conception of law the notion of deity in connection with those phenomena tends to die out. and the sum of the process is seen in the work of the great law givers of science, copernicus, galileo, kepler, newton, laplace, lyell, dalton, darwin, etc., who between them have presented us with a universe in which the conception of deity simply has no place. apologies apart, the idea of deity is foreign to the spirit and method of modern science. in the region of the purely physical sciences this process may be regarded as complete. in morals and sociology, purely on account of the greater complexity of the subjects, mystical and semi-supernatural conceptions still linger, but it is only a question of time for these branches of knowledge to follow the same course as the physical sciences. in morals we are able to trace, more or less completely, the development of the moral sense from its first beginnings in the animal world to its highest developments in man. what is called the "mystery of morality" simply has no existence to anyone who is not a mystery-monger by profession or inclination. and here, too, the gods have been receiving their deserts. for it is now clear that instead of being a help to morals there has been no greater obstacle to a healthy morality than the play of religious ideas. in the name of god vices have been declared virtues and virtues branded as vices. belief in god has been an unending source of moral perversion, and it lies upon the face of historical development that an intelligent morality, one that is capable of adapting itself to the changing circumstances of human nature, has only become possible with the breaking down of religious authority. exactly the same phenomenon faces us in connection with social life. we have to go back but a little way in human history to come to a time when the existence of a state without a religion would have seemed to people impossible. much as christians have quarrelled about other things, they have been in agreement on this point. the historic fight between the established church and the nonconformists has never really been for the disestablishment of all religion, and the confining of the state to the discharge of purely secular functions, but mainly as to _which_ religion the state shall uphold. to-day, the central issue is whether the state shall teach any religion, whether that does not lie right outside its legitimate functions. and this marks an enormous advance. it is a plain recognition of the truth that the gods have nothing to contribute of any value to the development of our social life. it marks the beginning of the end, and registers the truth that man must be his own saviour here as elsewhere. as in lucian's day we are beginning to realize that whether we pray or don't pray, go to church or don't go to church, believe in the gods or don't believe in them, makes no real or substantial difference to natural happenings. now as then we see good men punished and bad ones rewarded, and they who are not fools and have the courage to look facts in the face, decline to put their faith in a deity who is incapable of doing all things right or too careless to exert his power. it is not that the fight is over, or that there is to-day little need to fight the forces of superstition. if that were so, there would be no need to write what is here written. much as has been done, there is much yet to do. the revolt against specific beliefs only serves to illustrate a fight that is of much greater importance. for there is little real social gain if one merely exchanges one superstition for another. and, unfortunately, the gentleman who declared that he had given up the errors of the church of rome in order to embrace those of the church of england represents a fairly common type. it is the prevalence of a particular type of mind in society that constitutes a danger, and it is against this that our aim is ultimately directed. great as is the amount of organized superstition that exists, the amount of unorganized superstition is still greater, and probably more dangerous. one of the revelations of the late war was the evidence it presented of the tremendous amount of raw credulity, of the low type of intelligence that was still current, and the small amount of critical ability the mass of people bring to bear upon life. the legends that gained currency--the army of russians crossing england, the number of mutilated belgian babies that were seen, the story of the germans boiling down their dead to extract the fat, a story that for obscene stupidity beats everything else, the mons angels, the craze for mascots--all bore witness to the prevalence of a frame of mind that bodes ill for progress. the truth is, as sir james frazer reminds us, that modern society is honeycombed with superstitions that are not in themselves a whit more intellectually respectable than those which dominate the minds of savages. "the smooth surface of cultured society is sapped and mined by superstition." now and again these hidden mines explode noisily, but the superstition is always there, to be exploited by those who have the wit to use it. from this point of view christianity is no more than a symptom of a source of great social weakness, a manifestation of a weakness that may find expression in strange and unexpected but always more or less dangerous ways. it is against the prevalence of this type of mind that the freethinker is really fighting. freethinkers realize--apparently they are the only ones that do realize--that the creation of a better type of society is finally dependent upon the existence of a sanely educated intelligence, and that will never exist while there are large bodies of people who can persuade themselves that human welfare is in some way dependent upon, or furthered by, practices and beliefs that are not a bit more intellectually respectable than those of the cave men. if christianity, as a mere system of beliefs, were destroyed, we should only have cleared the way for the final fight. thousands of generations of superstitious beliefs and practices that have embodied themselves in our laws, our customs, our language, and our institutions, are not to be easily destroyed. it is comparatively simple to destroy a particular manifestation of this disastrous heritage, but the type of mind to which it has given birth is not so easily removed. the fight is not over, but it is being fought from a new vantage ground, and with better weapons than have ever before been employed. history, anthropology, and psychology have combined to place in the hands of the modern freethinker more deadly weapons than those of previous generations were able to employ. before these weapons the defences of the faith crumble like wooden forts before modern artillery. it is no longer a question of debating whether religious beliefs are true. so long as we give a straightforward and honest meaning to those beliefs we know that they are not true. it is, to-day, mainly a question of making plain the nature of the forces which led men and women to regard them as being true. we know that the history of religion is the history of a delusion, and the task of the student is to recover those conditions which gave to this delusion an appearance of truth and reality. that is becoming more and more evident to all serious and informed students of the subject. the challenge of freethought to religion constitutes one of the oldest struggles in human history. it must have had its beginning in the first glimmer of doubt concerning a tribal deity which crossed the mind of some more than usually thoughtful savage. under various forms and in many ways it has gone on ever since. it has had many variations of fortune, often apparently completely crushed, only to rise again stronger and more daring than ever. to-day, freethought is the accepted mental attitude of a growing number of men and women whose intelligence admits of no question. it has taken a recognized place in the intellectual world, and its hold on the educated intelligence is rapidly increasing. it may well be that in one form or another the antagonism between critical freethought and accepted teaching, whether secular or religious, will continue as one of the permanent aspects of social conflict. but so far as supernaturalism is concerned the final issue can be no longer in doubt. it is not by one voice or by one movement that supernaturalism is condemned. its condemnation is written in the best forms of art, science and literature. and that is only another way of saying that it is condemned by life. freethought holds the future in fee, and nothing but an entire reversal of the order of civilization can force it to forego its claims. chapter ii. life and mind. the outstanding feature of what may be called the natural history of associated life is the way in which biologic processes are gradually dominated by psychologic ones. whatever be the nature of mind, a question that in no way concerns us here, there is no denying the importance of the phenomena that come within that category. to speak of the first beginnings of mind is, in this connection, idle language. in science there are no real beginnings. things do not begin to be, they simply emerge, and their emergence is as imperceptible as the displacement of night by day, or the development of the chicken from the egg. but whatever the nature of the beginning of mind, its appearance in the evolutionary series marked an event of profound and revolutionary importance. life received a new impetus, and the struggle for existence a new significance, the importance of which is not, even to-day, generally recognized. the old formulæ might still be used, but they had given to them a new significance. the race was still to the swift and the battle to the strong, but swiftness and strength were manifested in new ways and by new means. cunning and intelligence began to do what was formerly done without their co-operation. a new force had appeared, arising out of the older forces as chemistry develops from physics and biology from both. and, as we should expect from analogy, we find the new force dominating the older ones, and even bending them to its needs. associated life meets us very early in the story of animal existence, and we may assume that it ranks as a genuine "survival quality." it enables some animals to survive the attacks of others that are individually stronger, and it may even be, as has been suggested, that associated life is the normal form, and that solitary animals represent a variation from the normal, or perhaps a case of degeneration. but one result of associated life is that it paves the way for the emergence of mind as an active force in social evolution. in his suggestive and important work on _mutual aid_, kropotkin has well shown how in the animal world the purely biologic form of the struggle for existence is checked and transformed by the factors of mutual aid, association and protection. his illustrations cover a very wide field; they include a great variety of animal forms, and he may fairly claim to have established the proposition that "an instinct has been slowly developed among animals and men in the course of an extremely long evolution ... which has taught animals and men alike the force they can borrow from mutual aid and support, and the joys they can find in social life." but there is, on the whole, a very sharp limit set to the development of mind in the animal world. one cause of this is the absence of a true "social medium," to use the admirable phrase of that versatile thinker, george henry lewes. in the case of man, speech and writing enable him to give to his advances and discoveries a cumulative force such as can never exist in their absence. on that subject more will be said later. at present we may note another very important consequence of the development of mind in evolution. in pre-human, or sub-human society, perfection in the struggle for existence takes the form of the creation or the perfecting of an organic tool. teeth or claws become stronger or larger, a limb is modified, sight becomes keener, or there is a new effect in coloration. the changes here, it will be observed, are all of an organic kind, they are a part of the animal and are inseparable from it, and they are only transmissible by biologic heredity. and the rate of development is, of necessity, slow. when we turn to man and note the way in which he overcomes the difficulties of his environment, we find them to be mainly of a different order. his instruments are not personal, in the sense of being a part of his organic structure. we may say they do not belong to him so much as they do to the race; while they are certainly transmitted from generation to generation irrespective of individuals. instead of achieving conquest of his environment by developing an organic structure, man creates an inorganic tool. in a sense he subdues and moulds the environment to his needs, rather than modifies his structure in order to cope with the environment. against extremes of temperature he fashions clothing and builds habitations. he discovers fire, probably the most important discovery ever made by mankind. he adds to his strength in defence and attack by inventing weapons. he guards himself from starvation by planting seeds, and so harnesses the productive forces of nature to his needs. he tames animals and so secures living engines of labour. later, he compensates for his bodily weaknesses by inventing instruments which aid sight, hearing, etc. inventions are multiplied, methods of locomotion and transportation are discovered, and the difficulties of space and time are steadily minimized. the net result of all this is that as a mere biologic phenomenon man's evolution is checked. the biologic modifications that still go on are of comparatively small importance, except, probably, in the case of evolution against disease. the developments that take place are mainly mental in form and are social in their incidence. now if the substantial truth of what has been said be admitted, and i do not see how it can be successfully challenged, there arise one or two considerations of supreme importance. the first of these is that social history becomes more and more a history of social psychology. in social life we are watching the play of social mind expressed through the medium of the individual. the story of civilization is the record of the piling of idea on idea, and the transforming power of the whole on the environment. for tools, from the flint chip of primitive man, down to the finished instrument of the modern mechanic, are all so many products of human mentality. from the primitive dug-out to the atlantic liner, from the stone spear-head to the modern rifle, in all the inventions of civilized life we are observing the application of mind to the conquest of time, space, and material conditions. our art, our inventions, our institutions, are all so many illustrations of the power of mind in transforming the environment. a history of civilization, as distinguished from a mere record of biologic growth, is necessarily a history of the growing power of mind. it is the cumulative ideas of the past expressed in inventions and institutions that form the driving power behind the man of to-day. these ideas form the most valuable part of man's heritage, make him what he is, and contain the promise of all that he may become. so long as we confine ourselves to biologic evolution, the way in which qualities are transmitted is plain. there is no need to go beyond the organism itself. but this heritage of ideas, peculiarly human as it is, requires a "carrier" of an equally unique kind. it is at this point that the significance of what we have called the "social medium" emerges. the full significance of this was first seen by g. h. lewes.[ ] writing so far back as he said:-- the distinguishing character of human psychology is that to the three great factors, organism, external medium, and heredity; it adds a fourth, namely, the relation to a social medium, with its product, the general mind.... while the mental functions are products of the individual organism, the product, mind, is more than an individual product. like its great instrument language, it is at once individual and social. each man speaks in virtue of the functions of vocal expression, but also in virtue of the social need of communication. the words spoken are not his creation, yet he, too, must appropriate them by what may be called a creative process before he can understand them. what his tribe speaks he repeats; but he does not simply echo their words, he rethinks them. in the same way he adopts their experiences when he assimilates them to his own.... further, the experiences come and go; they correct, enlarge, and destroy one another, leaving behind them a certain residual store, which condensed in intuitions and formulated in principles, direct and modify all future experiences.... men living in groups co-operate like the organs in an organism. their actions have a common impulse to a common end. their desires and opinions bear the common stamp of an impersonal direction. much of their life is common to all. the roads, market-places and temples are for each and all. customs arise and are formulated in laws, the restraint of all.... each generation is born in this social medium, and has to adapt itself to the established forms.... a nation, a tribe, a sect is the medium of the individual mind, as a sea, a river, or a pond, is the medium of a fish.[ ] [ ] it will ease my feelings if i am permitted to here make a protest against the shameless way in which this suggestive writer has been pillaged by others without the slightest acknowledgement. they have found him, as lamb said of some other writers, "damned good to steal from." his series of volumes, _problems of life and mind_, have been borrowed from wholesale without the slightest thanks or recognition. [ ] _study of psychology_, pp. , - . so again, a more recent writer says: "it is not man himself who thinks but his social community; the source of his thoughts is in the social medium in which he lives, the social atmosphere which he breathes.... the influence of environment upon the human mind has always been recognized by psychologists and philosophers, but it has been considered a secondary factor. on the contrary, the social medium which the child enters at birth, in which he lives, moves and has his being, is fundamental. toward this environment the individual from childhood to ripest old age is more or less receptive; rarely can the maturest minds so far succeed in emancipating themselves from this medium so far as to undertake independent reflection, while complete emancipation is impossible, for all the organs and modes of thought, all the organs for constructing thoughts have been moulded or at least thoroughly imbued by it" (l. gumplowicz, _outlines of sociology_, p. ). biologically, what man inherits is capacity for acquisition. but what he shall acquire, the direction in which his native capacity shall express itself, is a matter over which biologic forces have no control. this is determined by society and social life. given quite equal capacity in two individuals, the output will be very different if one is brought up in a remote spanish village and the other in paris or london. whether a man shouts long live king george or long live the kaiser is mainly a question of social surroundings, and but very little one of difference in native capacity. the child of parents living in the highest civilized society, if taken away while very young and brought up amid a people in a very primitive state of culture, would, on reaching maturity, differ but little from the people around him. he would think the thoughts that were common to the society in which he was living as he would speak their language and wear their dress. had shakespeare been born among savages he could never have written _hamlet_. for the work of the genius, as for that of the average man, society must provide the materials in the shape of language, ideas, institutions, and the thousand and one other things that go to make up the life of a group, and which may be seen reflected in the life of the individual. suppose, says dr. mcdougall:-- that throughout the period of half a century every child born to english parents was at once exchanged (by the power of a magician's wand) for an infant of the french, or other, european nation. soon after the close of this period the english nation would be composed of individuals of french extraction, and the french of individuals of english extraction. it is, i think, clear that, in spite of this complete exchange of innate characters between the two nations, there would be but little immediate change of national characteristics. the french people would still speak french, and the english would speak english, with all the local diversities to which we are accustomed and without perceptible change of pronunciation. the religion of the french would still be predominantly roman catholic, and the english people would still present the same diversity of protestant creeds. the course of political institutions would have suffered no profound change, the customs and habits of the two peoples would exhibit only such changes as might be attributed to the lapse of time, though an acute observer might notice an appreciable approximation of the two peoples towards one another in all these respects. the inhabitant of france would still be a frenchman and the inhabitant of england an englishman to all outward seeming, save that the physical appearance of the two peoples would be transposed. and we may go even further and assert that the same would hold good if a similar exchange of infants were effected between the english and any other less closely allied nation, say the turks or the japanese.[ ] [ ] _social psychology_, pp. - . the products of human capacity are the material of which civilization is built; these products constitute the inheritance which one generation receives from another. whether this inheritance be large or small, simple or complex, it is the chief determinant which shapes the personality of each individual. what each has by biological heredity is a given structure, that is, capacity. but the direction of that capacity, the command it enables one to acquire over his environment, is in turn determined by the society into which he happens to be born. it has already been said that the materials of civilization, whether they be tools, or institutions, or inventions, or discoveries, or religious or ethical teachings, are facts that can be directly described as psychological. an institution--the church, the crown, the magistracy--is not transmitted as a building or as so many sheets of paper, but as an idea or as a set of ideas. a piece of machinery is, in the same way, a mental fact, and is a physical one in only a subordinate sense. and if this be admitted, we reach the further truth that the environment to which man has to adapt himself is essentially, so far as it is a social environment, psychological. not alone are the outward marks of social life--the houses in which man lives, the machines he uses to do his bidding--products of his mental activity, but the more important features of his environment, to which he must adapt himself, and which so largely shape his character and determine his conduct, are of a wholly psychological character. in any society that is at all distinct from the animal, there exist a number of beliefs, ideas and institutions, traditions, and, in a later stage, a literature which play a very important part in determining the direction of man's mind. with increasing civilization, and the development of better means of intercourse, any single society finds itself brought into touch and under the influence of other social groups. the whole of these influences constitute a force which, surrounding an individual at birth, inevitably shapes character in this or that direction. they dominate the physical aspect of life, and represent the determining forces of social growth. eliminate the psychological forces of life and you eliminate all that can be properly called civilization. it is wholly the transforming power of mind on the environment that creates civilization, and it is only by a steady grasp of this fact that civilization can be properly understood. i have pointed out a distinction between biological and social, or psychological, heredity. but there is one instance in which the two agree. this is that we can only understand a thing by its history. we may catalogue the existing peculiarities of an animal form with no other material than that of the organism before us, but thoroughly to understand it we must know its history. similarly, existing institutions may have their justification in the present, but the causes of their existence lie buried in the past. a king may to-day be honoured on account of his personal worth, but the reason why there is a king to be honoured carries us back to that state of culture in which the primitive priest and magic worker inspires fear and awe. when we ring bells to call people to church we perpetuate the fact that our ancestors rang them to drive away evil spirits. we wear black at a funeral because our primitive ancestors wished to hide themselves from the dead man's ghost. we strew flowers on a grave because food and other things were once buried with the dead so that their spirits might accompany the dead to the next world. in short, with all human customs we are forced, if we wish to know the reason for their present existence, to seek it in the ideas that have dominated the minds of previous generations.[ ] [ ] "the tyranny exercised unconsciously on men's minds is the only real tyranny, because it cannot be fought against. tiberius, ghengis khan, and napoleon were assuredly redoubtable tyrants, but from the depths of their graves moses, buddha, jesus, and mahomet exerted on the human soul a far profounder tyranny. a conspiracy may overthrow a tyrant, but what can it avail against a firmly established belief? in its violent struggle with roman catholicism it is the french revolution that has been vanquished, and this in spite of the fact that the sympathy of the crowd was apparently on its side, and in spite of recourse to destructive measures as pitiless as those of the inquisition. the only real tyrants that humanity has known have always been the memories of its dead, or the illusions it has forged for itself" (gustave le bon, _the crowd_, p. ). no one who has studied, in even a cursory manner, the development of our social institutions can avoid recognition of the profound influence exerted by the primitive conceptions of life, death, and of the character of natural forces. every one of our social institutions was born in the shadow of superstition, and superstition acts as a powerful force in determining the form they assume. sir henry maine has shown to what a large extent the laws of inheritance are bound up with ancestor worship.[ ] spencer has done the same service for nearly all our institutions,[ ] and mr. elton says that "the oldest customs of inheritance in england and germany were, in their beginnings, connected with a domestic religion, and based upon a worship of ancestral spirits of which the hearthplace was essentially the altar."[ ] the same truth meets us in the study of almost any institution. in fact, it is not long before one who _thinks_ evolution, instead of merely knowing its formulæ, begins to realize the truth of the saying by a german sociologist that in dealing with social institutions we are concerned with the "mental creations of aggregates." they are dependent upon the persistence of a set of ideas, and so long as these ideas are unshaken they are substantially indestructible. to remove them the ideas upon which they rest must be shaken and robbed of their authority. that is the reason why at all times the fight for reform so largely resolves itself into a contest of ideas. motives of self-interest may enter into the defence of an institution, and in some case may be responsible for the attempt to plant an institution where it does not already exist, but in the main institutions persist because of their harmony with a frame of mind that is favourable to their being. [ ] see _early history of institutions_, and _early law and custom_. [ ] _principles of sociology_, vol. i. [ ] _origins of english history_, p. . a great deal of criticism has been directed against the conclusion of buckle that improvement in the state of mankind has chiefly resulted from an improvement in the intellectual outlook. and yet when stated with the necessary qualifications the generalization is as sound as it can well be. certainly, the belief held in some quarters, and stated with an air of scientific precision, that the material environment is the active force which is ever urging to new mental development will not fit the facts; for, as we have seen, the environment to which human nature must adapt itself is mainly mental in character, that is, it is made up in an increasing measure of the products of man's own mental activity. the theory of the sentimental religionist that the evil in the world results from the wickedness of man, or, as he is fond of putting it, from the hardness of man's heart, is grotesque in its ineffectiveness. soft heads have far more to do with the evil in the world than have hard hearts. indeed, one of the standing difficulties of the orthodox moralist is, not to explain the deeds of evil men, which explain themselves, but to account for the harm done by "good" men, and often as a consequence of their goodness. the moral monster is a rarity, and evil is rarely the outcome of a clear perception of its nature and a deliberate resolve to pursue it. paradoxical as it may sound, it demands a measure of moral strength to do wrong, consciously and deliberately, which the average man or woman does not possess. and the world has never found it a matter of great difficulty to deal with its "bad" characters; it is the "good" ones that present it with a constant problem. the point is worth stressing, and we may do it from more than one point of view. we may take, first of all, the familiar illustration of religious persecution, as exemplified in the quarrels of catholics and protestants. on the ground of moral distinction no line could be drawn between the two parties. each shuddered at the persecution inflicted by the other, and each regarded the teachings of the other with the same degree of moral aversion. and it has often been noted that the men who administered so infamous an institution as the inquisition were not, in even the majority of cases, bad men.[ ] a few may have had interested motives, but it would have been impossible to have maintained so brutal an institution in the absence of a general conviction of its rightness. in private life those who could deliver men, women, and even children over to torture were not worse husbands or parents than others. such differences as existed cannot be attributed to a lack of moral endeavour, or to a difference of "moral temperament." it was a difference of intellectual outlook, and given certain religious convictions persecution became a religious necessity. the moral output was poor because the intellectual standpoint was a wrong one. [ ] speaking of the inquisition, mr. h. c. lea, in his classic _history of the inquisition_, says, "there is no doubt that the people were as eager as their pastors to send the heretic to the stake. there is no doubt that men of the kindliest tempers, the profoundest aspirations, the purest zeal for righteousness, professing a religion founded on love and charity, were ruthless where heresy was concerned, and were ready to trample it out at any cost. dominic and francis, bonaventure and thomas aquinas, innocent iii. and st. louis, were types, in their several ways, of which humanity, in any age, might feel proud, and yet they were as unsparing of the heretic as ezzelin di romano was of his enemies. with such men it was not hope of gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or wanton exercise of power, but sense of duty, and they but represented what was universal public opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century." vol. i., p. . if we could once get over the delusion of thinking of human nature as being fundamentally different five hundred years ago from what it is to-day, we should escape a great many fallacies that are prevalent. the changes that have taken place in human nature during the historic period are so slight as to be practically negligible. the motives that animate men and women to-day are the motives that animated men and women a thousand or two thousand years ago. the change is in the direction and form of their manifestation only, and it is in the light of the human nature around us that we must study and interpret the human nature that has gone before us. from that point of view we may safely conclude that bad institutions were kept in being in the past for the same reason that they are kept alive to-day. the majority must be blind to their badness; and in any case it is a general perception of their badness which leads to their destruction. the subject of crime illustrates the same point. against crime as such, society is as set as ever. but our attitude toward the causation and cure of crime, and, above all, to the treatment of the criminal, has undergone a profound alteration. and the change that has taken place here has been away from the christian conception which brutalized the world for so long, towards the point of view taken up by the ancient greeks, that wrong doing is the outcome of ignorance. expressed in the modern manner we should say that crime is the result of an undeveloped nature, or of a pathological one, or of a reversion to an earlier predatory type, or the result of any or all of these factors in combination with defective social conditions. but this is only another way of saying that we have exchanged the old, brutal, and ineffective methods for more humane and effective ones because we look at the problem of crime from a different intellectual angle. a more exact knowledge of the causation of crime has led us to a more sensible and a more humane treatment of the criminal. and this, not alone in his own behalf, but in the interests of the society in which he lives. we may put it broadly that improvement comes from an enlightened way of looking at things. common observation shows that people will go on tolerating forms of brutality, year after year, without the least sense of their wrongness. familiarity, and the absence of any impetus to examine current practice from a new point of view seem to account for this. in the seventeenth century the same people who could watch, without any apparent hostility, the torture of an old woman on the fantastic charge of intercourse with satan, had their feelings outraged by hearing a secular song on sunday. imprisonment for "blasphemy," once regarded as a duty, has now become ridiculous to all reasonable people. at one and the same time, a little more than a hundred years ago in this country, the same people who could denounce cock-fighting on account of its brutality, could watch unmoved the murdering of little children in the factories of lancashire. not so long ago men in this country fought duels under a sense of moral compulsion, and the practice was only abandoned when a changed point of view made people realize the absurdity of trying to settle the justice of a cause by determining which of two people were the most proficient with sword or pistol. we have a continuation of the same absurdity in those larger duels fought by nations where the old verbal absurdities still retain their full force, and where we actually add another absurdity by retaining a number of professional duellists who must be ready to embark on a duel whether they have any personal feeling in the matter or not. and it seems fairly safe to say that when it is realized that the duel between nations as a means of settling differences is not a bit more intellectually respectable than was the ancient duello we shall not be far removed from seeing the end of one of the greatest dangers to which modern society is exposed. examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said to show what small reason there is for assuming that changes in institutions are brought about by the operation of some occult moral sense. it is the enlightenment of the moral sense by the growth of new ideas, by the impact of new knowledge leading to a revaluation of things that is mainly responsible for the change. the question of whether a man should or should not be burned for a difference in religious belief was never one that could be settled by weighing up the moral qualities of the two parties in the dispute. all the moral judgment that has ever existed, even if combined in the person of a single individual could never decide that issue. it was entirely a question of acquiring a new point of view from which to examine the subject. until that was done the whole force of the moral sense was on the side of the persecutor. to put the matter paradoxically, the better the man the worse persecutor he became. it was mental enlightenment that was needed, not moral enthusiasm. the question of progress thus becomes, in all directions, one of the impact of new ideas, in an environment suitable to their reception and growth. a society shut in on itself is always comparatively unprogressive, and but for the movement of classes within it would be completely so. the more closely the history of civilization is studied the more clearly does that fact emerge. civilization is a synthetic movement, and there can be no synthesis in the absence of dissolution and resolution. a fight of old ideas against new ones, a contest of clashing culture levels, a struggle to get old things looked at from a new point of view, these are the features that characterize all efforts after reform. it was said by some of the eighteenth century philosophers that society was held together by agreement in a bond. that is not quite correct. the truth is that society is held together, as is any phase of social life, by a bond of agreement. the agreement is not of the conscious, documentary order, but it is there, and it consists in sharing a common life created and maintained by having a common tradition, and a common stock of ideas and ideals. it is this that makes a man a member of one social group rather than of another--chinese, american, french, german, or choctaw. there is no discriminating feature in what is called the economic needs of people. the economic needs of human beings--food, clothing, and shelter, are of the same order the world over. and certainly the fact of a chinaman sharing in the economic life of britain, or an englishman sharing in the economic life of china, would not entitle either to be called genuine members of the group in which he happened to be living. membership only begins to be when those belonging to a group share in a common mental outfit. even within a society, and in relation to certain social groups, one can see illustrations of the same principle. a man is not really a member of a society of artists, lawyers, or doctors merely by payment of an annual subscription. he is that only when he becomes a participant in the mental life of the group.[ ] it is this common stock of mental facts which lies at the root of all collective ideas--an army, a church, or a nation. and ever the fight is by way of attack and defence of the psychologic fact.[ ] [ ] this seems to me to give the real significance of nationality. it has been argued by some that nationality is a pure myth, as unreal as the divinity of a king. the principal ground for this denial of nationality appears to be that so-called national characteristics are seen to undergo drastic transformation when their possessors are subject to a new set of influences. this may be quite true, but if nationality, in the sense of being a product of biological heredity, is ruled out, it does not follow that nationality is thereby destroyed. the fact may remain but it demands a different interpretation. and if what has been said above be true, it follows that nationality is not a personal fact, but an extra or super-personal one. it belongs to the group rather than to the individual, and is created by the possession of a common speech, a common literature, and a common group life. and quite naturally, when the individual is lifted out of this special social influence its power may well be weakened, and in the case of his children may be non-existent, or replaced by the special characteristics of the new group into which he is born. the discussion of nationality ought not, therefore, to move along the lines of acceptance or rejection of the conception of nationality, but of how far specific national characteristics admit of modification under the pressure of new conditions. [ ] it would take too long to elaborate, but it may be here noted that in the human group the impelling force is not so much needs as desires, and that fact raises the whole issue from the level of biology to that of psychology. so long as life is at a certain level man shares with the animal the mere need for food. but at another level there arises not merely the need for food, but a desire for certain kind of food, cooked in a particular manner, and served in a special style. and provided that we do not by hunger reduce man to the level of the beast again, the desire will be paramount and will determine whether food shall be eaten or not. so, again, with the fact of sex and marriage. at the animal level we have the crude fact of sex, and this is, indeed, inescapable at any stage. but the growth of civilization brings about the fact that the need for the gratification of the sexual appetite is regulated by the secondary qualities of grace of form, or of disposition, which are the immediate determinants of whether a particular man shall marry a particular woman or not. again, it is the _desire_ for power and distinction, not the _need_ for money that impels men to spend their lives in building up huge fortunes. and, finally, we have the fact that a great many of our present needs are transformed desires. the working man of to-day counts as needs, as do we all more or less, a number of things that began as pure desires. we say we need books, pictures, music, etc. but none of these things can be really brought under the category of things necessary to life. they are the creation of man's mental cravings. without them we say life would not be worth living, and it is well that we should all feel so. professor marshall rightly dwells upon this point by saying: "although it is man's wants in the early stages of development that give rise to his activities, yet afterwards each new step is to be regarded as the development of new activities giving rise to new wants, rather than of new wants giving rise to new activities."--(_principles of economics_, vol. i., p. .) to do the churches and other vested interests justice, they have never lost sight of this truth, and it would have been better for the race had others been equally alive to its importance. the churches have never ceased to fight for the control of those public organs that make for the formation of opinion. their struggle to control the press, the platform, and the school means just this. whatever they may have taught, self-interest forced upon them recognition of the truth that it was what men thought about things that mattered. they have always opposed the introduction of new ideas, and have fought for the retention of old ones. it was a necessity of their existence. it was also an admission of the truth that in order for reform to become a fact the power of traditional ideas must be broken. man is what he thinks, is far nearer the truth than the once famous saying, "man is what he eats." as a member of a social group man is dominated by his ideas of things, and any movement of reform must take cognisance of that fact if it is to cherish reasonable hopes of success. chapter iii. what is freethought? freedom of thought and freedom of speech stand to each other as the two halves of a pair of scissors. without freedom of speech freedom of thought is robbed of the better part of its utility, even if its existence is not threatened. the one reacts on the other. as thought provides the material for speech, so, in turn, it deteriorates when it is denied expression. speech is, in fact, one of the great factors in human progress. it is that which enables one generation to hand on to another the discoveries made, the inventions produced, the thoughts achieved, and so gives a degree of fixity to the progress attained. for progress, while expressed through the individual, is achieved by the race. individually, the man of to-day is not strikingly superior in form or capacity to the man of five or ten thousand years ago. but he knows more, can achieve more, and is in that sense stronger than was his ancestors. he is the heir of the ages, not as a figure of speech, but as the most sober of facts. he inherits what previous generations have acquired; the schoolboy of to-day starts with a capital of inherited knowledge that would have been an outfit for a philosopher a few thousand years ago. it is this that makes speech of so great importance to the fact of progress. without speech, written or verbal, it would be impossible to conserve the products of human achievement. each generation would have to start where its predecessor commenced, and it would finish at about the same point. it would be the fable of sisyphus illustrated in the passing of each generation of human beings. but speech implies communication. there is not very much pleasure in speaking to oneself. even the man who apologised for the practice on the ground that he liked to address a sensible assembly would soon grow tired of so restricted an audience. the function of speech is to transmit ideas, and it follows, therefore, that every embargo on the free exchange of ideas, every obstacle to complete freedom of speech, is a direct threat to the well-being of civilisation. as milton could say that a good book "is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up to a life beyond life," and that "he who destroys a good book kills reason itself," so we may say that he who strikes at freedom of thought and speech is aiming a blow at the very heart of human betterment. in theory, the truth of what has been said would be readily admitted, but in practice it has met, and still meets, with a vigorous opposition. governments have exhausted their powers to prevent freedom of intercourse between peoples, and every church and chapel has used its best endeavours to the same end. even to-day, when all are ready to pay lip-homage to freedom of thought, the obstacles in the way of a genuine freedom are still very great. under the best possible conditions there will probably always be some coercion of opinion, if only of that unconscious kind which society as a whole exerts upon its individual members. but to this we have to add the coercion that is consciously exerted to secure the formation of particular opinions, and which has the dual effect of inducing dissimulation in some and impotency in others. quite ignorantly parents commence the work when they force upon children their own views of religion and inculcate an exaggerated respect for authority. they create an initial bias that is in only too many cases fatal to real independence of thought. social pressure continues what a mistaken early training has commenced. when opinions are made the test of "good form," and one's social standing partly determined by the kind of opinions that one holds, there is developed on the one side hypocrisy, and on the other, because certain opinions are banned, thought in general is unhealthily freed from the sobering influence of enlightened criticism.[ ] [ ] it is a curious thing, as philip gilbert hamerton points out in one of his essays, that in england religious freedom appears to exist in inverse proportion to rank. the king has no freedom whatever in a choice of religion. his religion is part of the position. an english nobleman, speaking generally, has two religions from which to choose. he may be either a member of the established church or of the roman catholic. in the middle classes there is the choice of all sorts of religious sects, so long as they are christian. religious dissent is permitted so long as it does not travel beyond the limits of the chapel. and when we come to the better class working man, he has the greatest freedom of all. his social position does not depend upon his belonging to this or that church, and he may, to borrow a phrase from heine, go to hell in his own fashion. to-day the legal prohibition of religious dissent is practically ineffective, and is certainly far less demoralizing than the pressure that is exerted socially and unofficially. in all probability this has always been the case. for legal persecution must be open. part of its purpose is publicity, and that in itself is apt to rouse hostility. against open, legal persecution a man will make a stand, or if he gives way to the force arrayed against him may do so with no feeling of personal degradation. but the conformity that is secured by a threat of social boycott, the freedom of speech that is prevented by choking the avenues of intellectual intercourse, is far more deadly in its consequences, and far more demoralizing in its influence on character. to give way, as thousands do, not to the open application of force, which carries no greater personal reflection than does the soldier's surrender to superior numbers, but to the dread of financial loss, to the fear of losing a social status, that one may inwardly despise even while in the act of securing it, or from fear of offending those whom we may feel are not worthy of our respect, these are the things that cannot be done without eating into one's sense of self-respect, and inflicting upon one's character an irreparable injury. on this matter more will be said later. for the present i am concerned with the sense in which we are using the word "freethought." fortunately, little time need be wasted in discussing the once popular retort to the freethinker that if the principle of determinism be accepted "free" thought is impossible. it is surprising that such an argument should ever have secured a vogue, and is only now interesting as an indication of the mentality of the defender of orthodox religion. certainly no one who properly understands the meaning of the word would use such an argument. at best it is taking a word from sociology, a sphere in which the meaning is quite clear and intelligible, and applying it in the region of physical science where it has not, and is not intended to have, any meaning at all. in physical science a thing is what it does, and the business of science is to note the doings of forces and masses, their actions and reactions, and express them in terms of natural "law." from the point of view of physical science a thing is neither free nor unfree, and to discuss natural happenings in terms of freedom or bondage is equal to discussing smell in terms of sight or colour in terms of smell. but applied in a legitimate way the word "free" is not only justifiable, it is indispensible. the confusion arises when we take a word from a department in which its meaning is quite clear and apply it in a region where it has no application whatever. applied to opinion "free" has the same origin and the same application as the expressions "a free man," or a "free state," or "a free people." taking either of these expressions it is plain that they could have originated only in a state of affairs where some people are "free," and some are living in a state of bondage or restraint. there is no need to trace the history of this since so much is implied in the word itself. a free state is one in which those belonging to it determine their own laws without being coerced by an outside power. a free man is one who is permitted to act as his own nature prompts. the word "free" implies nothing as to the nature of moral or mental causation, that is a question of a wholly different order. the free man exists over against the one who is not free, the free state over against one that is held in some degree of subjection to another state. there is no other meaning to the word, and that meaning is quite clear and definite. now freethought has a precisely similar significance. it says nothing as to the nature of thought, the origin of thought, or the laws of thought. with none of these questions is it vitally concerned. it simply asserts that there are conditions under which thought is not "free," that is, where it is coerced to a foregone conclusion, and that these conditions are fatal to thought in its higher and more valuable aspects. freethought is that form of thinking that proceeds along lines of its own determining, rather than along lines that are laid down by authority. in actual practice it is immediately concerned with the expression of opinion rather than with its formation, since no authority can prevent the formation of opinion in any mind that is at all independent in its movements and forms opinions on the basis of observed facts and adequate reasoning. but its chief and primary significance lies in its repudiation of the right of authority to say what form the expression of opinion shall take. and it is also clear that such a term as "freethought" could only have come into general use and prominence in a society in which the free circulation of opinion was more or less impeded. it thus becomes specially significant that, merely as a matter of history, the first active manifestation of freethought should have occurred in connection with a revolt against religious teaching and authority. this was no accident, but was rather a case of necessity. for, in the first place, there is no other subject in which pure authority plays so large a part as it does in religion. all churches and all priesthoods, ancient and modern, fall back upon the principle of pure authority as a final method of enforcing their hold upon the people. that, it may be noted in passing, is one of the chief reasons why in all ages governments have found religion one of the most serviceable agencies in maintaining their sway. secondly, there seems to have been from the very earliest times a radically different frame of mind in the approach to secular and religious matters. so far as one can see there appears to be, even in primitive societies, no very strong opposition to the free discussion of matters that are of a purely secular nature. questions of ways and means concerning these are freely debated among savage tribes, and in all discussion differences of opinion must be taken for granted. it is when we approach religious subjects that a difference is seen. here the main concern is to determine the will of the gods, and all reasoning is thus out of place, if not a positive danger. the only thing is to discover "god's will," and when we have his, or his will given in "sacred" books the embargo on free thinking is complete. this feature continues to the end. we do not even to-day discuss religious matters in the same open spirit in which secular matters are debated. there is a bated breath, a timidity of criticism in discussing religious subjects that does not appear when we are discussing secular topics. with the thoroughly religious man it is solely a question of what god wishes him to do. in religion this affords the only latitude for discussion, and even that disappears largely when the will of god is placed before the people in the shape of "revealed" writings. fortunately for the world "inspired" writings have never been so clearly penned as to leave no room for doubt as to what they actually meant. clarity of meaning has never been one of the qualities of divine authorship. in this connection it is significant that the first form of democratic government of which we have any clear record should have been in freethinking, sceptical greece. equally notable is it that in both rome and greece the measure of mental toleration was greater than it has ever been in other countries before or since. in rome to the very end of the pagan domination there existed no legislation against opinions, as such. the holders of certain opinions might find themselves in uncomfortable positions now and then, but action against them had to rest on some ground other than that which was afterwards known as heresy. there existed no law in the roman empire against freedom of opinion, and those who are familiar with mr. h. c. lea's classic, _history of the inquisition_, will recall his account of the various tactics adopted by the christian church to introduce measures that would accustom the public mind to legislation which should establish the principle of persecution for opinion.[ ] in the end the church succeeded in effecting this, and its success was registered in the almost unbelievable degradation of the human intellect which was exhibited in the christian world for centuries. so complete was this demoralization that more than a thousand years later we find men announcing as a most daring principle a demand for freedom of discussion which in old greece and rome was never officially questioned. christianity not merely killed freedom wherever it established itself, but it came very near killing even the memory of it. [ ] see specially vol. i., chapters , , and . one is sorely tempted to engage in what would be a rather lengthy aside on the mental freedom enjoyed by the people of ancient greece, but considerations of cogency advise a shorter comment in this form. in the first place we have to note that neither the greeks nor the romans possessed anything in the shape of "sacred" books. that, as the history of mohammedanism and christianity shows, is one of the most disastrous things that can happen to any people. but apart from this there were several circumstances connected with the development of the greek peoples that made for freedom of opinion. there was no uniform theology to commence with, and the configuration of the country, while enough to maintain local independence, was not enough to prevent a certain amount of intercourse. and it would certainly seem that no people were ever so devoid of intolerance as were the ancient greeks. it is true that the history of greece was not without its examples of intolerance, but these were comparatively few, and, as professor bury says, persecution was never organized. the gods were criticized in both speeches and plays. theories of materialism and atheism were openly taught and were made the topic of public discussion. there was, indeed, a passion for the discussion of all sorts of subjects, and to discussion nothing is sacred. the best thought of rome owed its impetus to greece, and at a later date it was the recovered thought of greece which gave the impetus to mohammedan spain in its cultivation of science and philosophy, and so led to the partial recovery of europe from the disastrous control of the christian church. nor need it be assumed that the work of greece was due to the possession of a superior brain power. of that there is not the slightest vestige of proof. it is simply that the ancient greek lived in a freer mental atmosphere. the mind had less to hamper it in its operations; it had no organized and powerful church that from the cradle to the grave pursued its work of preventing free criticism and the play of enlightened opinion. for several centuries the world has been seeking to recover some of its lost liberties with only a very moderate success. but if one thinks of what the greeks were, and if one adds to what they had achieved a possible two thousand years of development, he will then have some notion of what the triumph of the christian church meant to the world. it was, therefore, inevitable that in the western world freethought should come into prominence in relation to the christian religion and its claims. in the christian church there existed an organization which not alone worked with the avowed intention of determining what men should think, but finally proceeded to what was, perhaps, the logical conclusion, to say what they should not think. no greater tyranny than the christian church has ever existed. and this applies, not to the roman church alone, but to every church within the limit of its opportunities. in the name and in the interests of religion the christian church took some of the worst passions of men and consecrated them. the killing of heretics became one of the most solemn duties and it was urged upon secular rulers as such. the greatest instrument of oppression ever formed, the inquisition, was fashioned for no other purpose than to root out opinions that were obnoxious to the church. it would have been bad enough had the attempts of the church to control opinion been limited to religion. but that was not the case. it aimed at taking under its control all sorts of teaching on all sorts of subjects. nothing would have surprised an inhabitant of ancient rome more, could he have revisited the earth some dozen centuries after the establishment of christianity, than to have found men being punished for criticising doctrines that were in his day openly laughed at. and nothing could have given an ancient athenian greater cause for wonder than to have found men being imprisoned and burned for teaching cosmical theories that were being debated in the schools of athens two thousand years before. well might they have wondered what had happened to the world, and well might they have come to the conclusion that it had been overtaken by an attack of universal insanity. and the explanation would not have been so very wide of the truth. in this matter of suppression of freedom of thinking there was little to choose between the churches. each aimed at controlling the thought of mankind, each was equally intolerant of any variation from the set line, and each employed the same weapon of coercion so far as circumstances permitted. at most the protestant churches substituted a dead book for a living church, and in the end it may be questioned, when all allowance is made for the changed circumstances in which protestantism operated, whether the rule of the new church was not more disastrous than the older one. it had certainly less excuse for its intolerance. the roman catholic church might urge that it never claimed to stand for freedom of opinion, and whatever its sins it was so far free from the offence of hypocrisy. but the protestant churches could set up no such plea; they professed to stand on freedom of conscience. and they thus added the quality of inconsistency and hypocrisy to an offence that was already grave enough in itself. but whatever opinion one may have on that point, it is certain that in practice the protestant leaders were as opposed to freedom of thought as were the roman catholics. and protestant bigotry left a mark on european history that deserves special recognition. for the first time it made the profession of christianity a definite part of the law of the secular state.[ ] hitherto there had been no law in any of the european states which made a profession of christianity necessary. there had been plenty of persecutions of non-christians, and the consequences of a rejection of christianity, if one lived in a christian state, were serious enough. but when the secular state punished the heretic it was a manifestation of good will towards the church and not the expression of a legal enactment. it was the direct influence of the church on the state. church and state were legally distinct during the mediæval period, however closely they may have been allied in practice. with the arrival of protestantism and the backing of the reformed religion given by certain of the princes, the machinery of intolerance, so to speak, was taken over by the state and became one of its functions. it became as much the duty of the secular officials to extirpate heresy, to secure uniformity of religious belief as it was to the interest of the church to see that it was destroyed. up to that time it was the aim of the church to make the state one of its departments. it had never legally succeeded in doing this, but it was not for the roman church to sink to the subordinate position of becoming a department of the state. it was left for protestantism to make the church a branch of the state and to give religious bigotry the full sanction of secular law. [ ] see on this point heeren's _historical treatises_, , pp. - . neither with catholic nor protestant could there be, therefore, any relaxation in the opposition offered to independent thinking. that still remained the cardinal offence to the religious mind. in the name of religion protestants opposed the physics of newton as bitterly as catholics opposed the physics of galileo. the geology of hutton and lyell, the chemistry of boyle and dalton, the biology of von baer, lamarck and darwin, with almost any other branch of science that one cares to select, tell the same tale. and when the desire for reform took a social turn there was the same influence to be fought. for while the roman catholic laid the chief insistence on obedience to the church, the protestant laid as strong insistence on obedience to the state, and made disobedience to its orders a matter of almost religious revolt. the whole force of religion was thus used to induce contentment with the existing order, instead of to the creation of an intelligent discontent which would lead to continuous improvement. in view of these circumstances it is not surprising that the word "freethought" should have lost in actual use its more general significance of a denial of the place of mere authority in matters of opinion, and have acquired a more definite and precise connotation. it could not, of course, lose its general meaning, but it gained a special application and became properly associated with a definitely anti-theological attitude. the growth in this direction was gradual but inevitable. when the term first came into general use, about the end of the seventeenth century, it was mainly used with reference to those deists who were then attacking christianity. in that sense it continued to be used for some time. but as deism lost ground, thanks partly to the christian attack, the clear and logical issue between theism and atheism became apparent, with the result that the definite anti-religious character of "freethought" became firmly established. and to-day it is mere affectation or timidity to pretend that the word has any other vital significance. to say that a man is a freethinker is to give, to ninety-nine people out of a hundred, the impression that he is anti-religious. and in this direction the popular sense of the word discloses what has been its important historic function. historically, the chief stronghold of mere authority has been religion. in science and in sociology, as well as in connection with supernaturalism proper, every movement in the direction of the free exercise of the intellect has met with the unceasing opposition of religion. that has always been at once the symbol and the instrument of oppression. to attack religion has been to attack the enemy in his capital. all else has been matter of outpost skirmishing. i have apparently gone a long way round to get at the meaning of the word "freethought," but it was necessary. for it is of very little use, in the case of an important word that has stood and stands for the name of a movement, to go to a dictionary, or to appeal to etymology. the latter has often a mere antiquarian interest, and the former merely registers current meanings, it does not make them. the use of a word must ultimately be determined by the ideas it conveys to those who hear it. and from what has been said the meaning of this particular word should be fairly clear. while standing historically for a reasoned protest against the imposition of opinion by authority, and, negatively, against such artificial conditions as prevent the free circulation of opinion, it to-day stands actually for a definitely anti-religious mental attitude. and this is what one would naturally expect. protests, after all, are protests against something in the concrete, even though they may embody the affirmation of an abstract principle. and nowadays the principle of pure authority has so few defenders that it would be sheer waste of time, unless the protest embodied a definite attitude with regard to specific questions. we may, then, put it that to us "freethought" stands for a reasoned and definite opposition to all forms of supernaturalism, it claims the right to subject all religious beliefs to the test of reason, and further claims that when so tested they break down hopelessly. it is from this point of view that these pages are written, and the warranty for so defining it should be apparent from what has been said in this and the preceding chapter. chapter iv. rebellion and reform. rebellion and reform are not exactly twins, but they are very closely related. for while all rebellion is not reform, yet in the widest sense of the word, there is no reform without rebellion. to fight for reform is to rebel against the existing order and is part of the eternal and fundamentally healthful struggle of the new against the old, and of the living present against the dead past. the rebel is thus at once a public danger and a benefactor. he threatens the existing order, but it is in the name of a larger and better social life. and because of this it is his usual lot to be crucified when living and deified when dead. so it has always been, so in its main features will it always be. if contemporaries were to recognize the reformer as such, they would destroy his essential function by making it useless. improvement would become an automatic process that would perfect itself without opposition. as it is, the function of the rebel is to act as an explosive force, and no society of average human beings likes explosions. they are noisy, and they are dangerous. for the reformer to complain at not being hailed as a deliverer is for him to mistake his part and place in social evolution. the rebel and the reformer is, again, always in minority. that follows from what has already been said. it follows, too, from what we know of development in general. darwinism rests on the supreme importance of the minority. it is an odd variation here and there that acts as the starting point for a new species--and it has against it the swamping influence of the rest of its kind that treads the old biological line. nature's choicest variations are of necessity with the few, and when that variation has established itself and become normal another has to appear before a new start can be made. whether we take biology or psychology the same condition appears. a new idea occurs to an individual and it is as strictly a variation from the normal as anything that occurs in the animal world. the idea may form the starting point of a new theory, or perhaps of a new social order. but to establish itself, to become the characteristic property of the group, it must run the gamut of persecution and the risk of suppression. and suppressed it often is--for a time. it is an idle maxim which teaches that truth always conquers, if by that is implied that it does so at once. that is not the truth. lies have been victorious over and over again. the roman catholic church, one of the greatest lies in the history of the human race, stood the conqueror for many centuries. the teaching of the rotundity of the earth and its revolution round the sun was suppressed for hundreds of years until it was revived in the th century. in the long run truth does emerge, but a lie may have a terribly lengthy innings. for the lie is accepted by the many, while the truth is seen only by the few. but it is the few to whom we turn when we look over the names of those who have made the world what is it. all the benefits to society come from the few, and society crucifies them to show its gratitude. one may put it that society lives on the usual, but flourishes on account of the exception. now there is something extremely significant in the christian religion tracing all the disasters of mankind to a primal act of disobedience. it is a fact which discloses in a flash the chief social function of religion in general and of christianity in particular. man's duty is summed up in the one word obedience, and the function of the (religiously) good man is to obey the commands of god, as that of the good citizen is to obey the commands of government. the two commands meet and supplement each other with the mutual advantage which results from the adjustment of the upper and lower jaws of a hyena. and it explains why the powers that be have always favoured the claims of religion. it enabled them to rally to their aid the tremendous and stupefying aid of religion and to place rebellion to their orders on the same level as rebellion against god. in christian theology satan is the arch-rebel; hell is full of rebellious angels and disobedient men and women. heaven is reserved for the timid, the tame, the obedient, the sheep-like. when the christ of the gospels divides the people into goats and sheep, it is the former that go to hell, and the latter to heaven. the church has not a rebel in its calendar, although it has not a few rogues and many fools. to the church rebellion is always a sin, save on those rare occasions when revolt is ordered in the interests of the church itself. in greek mythology prometheus steals fire from heaven for the benefit of man and suffers in consequence. the myth symbolizes the fact. always the man has had to win knowledge and happiness in the teeth of opposition from the gods. always the race has owed its progress to the daring of the rebel or of the rebellious few. often the freethinker is denounced because he is destructive or dangerous. what other is he expected to be? and would he be of much use if he were otherwise?? i would go further and say that he is the most destructive of all agencies because he is so intimately concerned with the handling of the most destructive of weapons--ideas. we waste a good deal of time in denouncing certain people as dangerous when they are in reality comparatively harmless. a man throws a bomb, or breaks into a house, or robs one of a purse, and a judge solemnly denounces him as a most "dangerous member of society." it is all wrong. these are comparatively harmless individuals. one man throws a bomb, kills a few people, damages some property, and there the matter ends. another man comes along and drops instead of a bomb a few ideas, and the whole country is in a state of eruption. charles peace pursues a career of piety and crime, gets himself comfortably and religiously hanged, and society congratulates itself on having got rid of a dangerous person, and then forgets all about it. karl marx visits england, prowls round london studying the life of rich and poor, and drops _das kapital_ on us. a quiet and outwardly inoffensive individual, one who never gave the police a moment's anxiety, spends years studying earthworms, and flowers, and horses and cats, and all sorts of moving things and presents society with _the origin of species_. organized society found itself able to easily guard itself against the attacks of men such as charles peace, it may with impunity extend its hospitality to the thrower of bombs, or robber of houses, but by what means can it protect itself against the "peaceful" marx or the "harmless" darwin? no society can afford to ignore in its midst a score of original or independent thinkers, or if society does ignore them they will not for long ignore society. the thinker is really destructive. he destroys because he creates; he creates because he destroys. the one is the obverse of the other. i am not making idle play with the word "destruction." it is literally true that in human society the most destructive and the most coercive forces at work are ideas. they strike at established institutions and demand either their modification or their removal. that is why the emergence of a new idea is always an event of social significance. whether it be a good idea or a bad one will not affect the truth of this statement. for over four years our political mediocrities and muddle headed militarists were acting as though the real problem before them was to establish the superiority of one armed group of men over another group. that was really a simple matter. the important issue which society had to face was the ideas that the shock of the war must give rise to. thinkers saw this; but thinkers do not get the public ear either as politicians or militarists. and now events are driving home the lesson. the ideas of bolshevism and sinn feinism proved far more "dangerous" than the german armies. the allied forces could handle the one, but they were powerless before the other. it is not a question of whether these particular ideas are good or bad, or whether we approve or disapprove of them, but entirely one that, being ideas, they represent a far more "destructive" power than either bomb or gun. they are at once the forces that act as the cement of society and those that may hurl it into chaotic fragments. whether an idea will survive or not must, in the end, be determined by circumstances, but in itself a new idea may be taken as the mental analogue of the variation which takes place in physical structures, and which forms the raw material of natural selection. and if that is so, it is evident that any attempt to prevent the play of new ideas on old institutions is striking at the very fact of progress. for if we are to encourage variation we must permit it in all directions, up as well as down, for evil as well as for good. you cannot check variation in one direction without checking it in all. you cannot prevent the appearance of a new idea that you do not want without threatening the appearance of a number of ideas that you would eagerly welcome. it is, therefore, always better to encourage the appearance of a bad idea than it is to risk the suppression of a good one. besides, it is not always that force applied to the suppression of ideas succeeds in its object. what it often does is to cause the persecuted idea to assume a more violent form, to ensure a more abrupt break with the past than would otherwise occur, with the risk of a period of reaction before orderly progress is resumed. the only way to silence an idea is to answer it. you cannot reply to a belief with bullets, or bayonet a theory into silence. history contains many lessons, but none that is plainer than this one, and none that religious and secular tyrannies learn with greater reluctance. the churches admit by their practice the truth of what has been said. they have always understood that the right way to keep society in a stationary position is to prevent the introduction of new ideas. it is thought against which they have warred, the thinker against whom they have directed their deadliest weapons. the christian church has been tolerant towards the criminal, and has always been intolerant towards the heretic and the freethinker. for the latter the naming _auto da fé_, for the former the moderate penance and the "go, and sin no more." the worst of its tortures were neither created for nor applied to the thief and the assassin, but were specially designed for the unbeliever. in this the church acted with a sure instinct. the thief threatens no institution, not even that of private property. "thou shalt not steal" is as much the law of a thieves' kitchen as it is of mayfair. but copernicus, galileo, newton, lyell, darwin, these are the men who convey a threat in all they write, who destroy and create with a splendour that smacks of the power with which christians have endowed their mythical deity. no aggregation of criminals has ever threatened the security of the church, or even disturbed its serenity. on the contrary, the worse, morally, the time, the greater the influence of christianity. it flourishes on human weakness and social vice as the bacilli of tuberculosis do in darkness and dirt. it is when weakness gives place to strength, and darkness to light that the church finds its power weakening. the church could forgive the men who instituted the black slave trade, she could forgive those who were responsible for the horrors of the english factory system, but she could never forgive the writer of the _age of reason_. she has always known how to distinguish her friends from her foes. right or wrong, then, the heretic, the freethinker, represents a figure of considerable social significance. his social value does not lie wholly in the fact of his opinions being sound or his judgment impeccable. mere revolt or heresy can never carry that assurance with it. the important thing about the rebel is that he represents a spirit, a temper, in the absence of which society would stagnate. it is bad when people revolt without cause, but it is infinitely better that a people should revolt without cause than that they should have cause for rebellion without possessing the courage of a kick. that man should have the courage to revolt against the thing which he believes to be wrong is of infinitely greater consequence than that he should be right in condemning the thing against which he revolts. whether the rebel is right or wrong time and consequence alone can tell, but nothing can make good the evil of a community reduced to sheep-like acquiescence in whatever may be imposed upon them. the "their's not to reason why" attitude, however admirable in an army, is intolerable and dangerous in social life. replying to those who shrieked about the "horrors" of the french revolution, and who preached the virtue of patriotic obedience to established authority, carlyle, with an eye on ireland, sarcastically admitted that the "horrors" were very bad indeed, but he added:-- what if history somewhere on this planet were to hear of a nation, the third soul of whom had not for thirty weeks of each year as many third-rate potatoes as would sustain him? history in that case, feels bound to consider that starvation is starvation; that starvation presupposes much; history ventures to assert that the french sansculotte of nine-three, who roused from a long death sleep, could rush at once to the frontiers and die fighting for an immortal hope and faith of deliverance for him and his, was but the second miserablest of men. and that same history, looking back through the ages, is bound to confess that it is to the great rebels, from satan onward, that the world mainly owes whatever of greatness or happiness it has achieved. one other quality of the rebel remains to be noted. in his revolt against established authority, in his determination to wreck cherished institutions for the realization of an ideal, the rebel is not the representative of an anti-social idea or of an anti-social force. he is the true representative of the strongest of social influences. the very revolt against the social institutions that exist is in the name and for the realization of a larger and a better social order that he hopes to create. a man who is ready to sacrifice his life in the pursuit of an ideal cannot, whatever else he may be accused of, be reasonably accused of selfishness or of a want of "social consciousness." he is a vital expression of the centuries of social life which have gone before and which have made us all what we are. were his social sense weaker he would risk less. were he selfish he would not trouble about the conversion of his fellows. the spirit of revolt represents an important factor in the process of social development, and they who are most strenuous in their denunciation of social control, are often, even though unconsciously, the strongest evidence of its overpowering influence. fed as we are with the mental food prepared by our churches and governments, to whose interests it is that the rebel and the freethinker should be decried and denounced, we are all too apt to overlook the significance of the rebel. yet he is invariably the one who voices what the many are afraid or unable to express. the masses suffer dumbly, and the persistence of their suffering breeds a sense of its inevitability. it is only when these dumb masses find a voice that they threaten the established order, and for this the man of ideas is essential. that is why all vested interests, religious and social, hate him so heartily. they recognize that of all the forces with which they deal an idea is the greatest and the most untamable. once in being it is the most difficult to suppress. it is more explosive than dynamite and more shattering in its effects. physical force may destroy a monarch, but it is only the force of an idea that can destroy a monarchy. you may destroy a church with cannon, but cannon are powerless against church doctrines. an idea comes as near realizing the quality of indestructibility as anything we know. you may quiet anything in the world with greater ease than you may reduce a strong thinker to silence, or subdue anything with greater facility than you may subdue the idea that is born of strenuous thought. fire may be extinguished and strife made to cease, ambition may be killed and the lust for power grow faint. the one thing that defies all and that finally conquers is the truth which strong men see and for which brave men fight. it is thus left for the philosophy of freethought, comprehensive here as elsewhere, to find a place for the rebel and to recognize the part he plays in the evolution of the race. for rebellion roots itself ultimately in the spirit of mental independence. and that whether a particular act of revolt may be justifiable or not. it is bred of the past, but it looks forward hopefully and fearlessly to the future, and it sees in the present the material out of which that better future may be carved. that the mass of people find in the rebel someone whom it is moved to suppress is in no wise surprising. new things are not at first always pleasant, even though they may be necessary. but the temper of mind from which rebellion springs is one that society can only suppress at its peril. chapter v. the struggle for the child. if the truth of what has been said above be admitted, it follows that civilization has two fundamental aspects. on the one side there is the environment, made up--so far as civilized humanity is concerned--of the ideas, the beliefs, the customs, and the stored up knowledge of preceding generations, and on the other side we have an organism which in virtue of its education responds to the environmental stimuli in a given manner. between the man of to-day and the man of an earlier generation the vital distinction is not that the present day one is, as an organism, better, that he has keener sight, or stronger muscles, or a brain of greater capacity, but that he has a truer perception of things, and in virtue of his enlarged knowledge is able to mould natural forces, including the impulses of his own nature, in a more desirable manner. and he can do this because, as i have already said, he inherits what previous generations have acquired, and so reaps the benefits of what they have done. we may illustrate this in a very simple manner. one of the most striking differences between the man of to-day and the man of the past is the attitude of the two in relation to natural phenomena. to the people of not so many generations ago an eclipse was a very serious thing, fraught with the promise of disaster to mankind. the appearance of a comet was no less ominous. john knox saw in comets an indication of the wrath of heaven, and in all countries the churches fought with all their might against the growth of the scientific view. away back in antiquity we meet with the same view. there is, for example, the classic case of the greek general nikias, who, when about to extricate his army from a dangerous position before syracuse, was told that an eclipse of the sun indicated that the gods wished him to stay where he was for three times nine days. nikias obeyed the oracles with the result that his army was captured. now it is certain that no general to-day would act in that manner, and if he did it is equally certain that he would be court-martialled. equally clear is it that comets and eclipses have ceased to infect the modern mind with terror, and are now only objects of study to the learned, and of curiosity to the unlearned. but the difference here is entirely one of knowledge. our ancestors reacted to the appearance of a comet or an eclipse in a particular manner because their knowledge of these things was of a certain kind. it was not at all a case of feeling, or of degree of feeling, or of having a better brain, but simply a matter of reacting to an environmental influence in terms of an understanding of certain things. had we the same conception of these things that our ancestors had we should react in the same manner. we act differently because our understanding of things is different. we may put it briefly that the kind of reaction which we make to the things around us is mainly determined by our knowledge concerning their nature. there is one other fact that brings into prominence the importance of the kind of reaction which we make to environmental stimuli. put briefly, we may say that an important distinction between the animal and man is that the animal passes its existence in a comparatively simple environment where the experiences are few in kind and often repeated, whereas with man the environment is very complex, the experiences are varied in character, and may be only repeated after long intervals. the consequence is that in order to get through life an animal needs a few simple instincts which automatically respond to frequently repeated experiences, while on the other hand there must be with man opportunity for the kind of response which goes under the name of intelligent action. it is this which gives us the reason, or the explanation, why of all animals the human being is born the most helpless, and why he remains helpless for a longer period than does any other. the prolonged infancy is the opportunity given to the human being to acquire the benefits of education and so to reap the full advantage of that social heritage which, as we have shown, raises him so far above the level of past generations. or we may express the matter with the late professor fiske, who was the first, i think, to dwell at length upon this phenomenon, that the distinction between man and the animal world is that in the one case we have developed instincts with small capacity for education, in the other few instincts with great capacity for education. it is often said that the churches have failed to pay attention to education, or have not taken it seriously. that is quite wrong. it may, indeed, be said that they have never failed to attend to education, and have always taken it seriously--with disastrous results to education and to social life. ever since the birth of the modern movement for education the church has fought hard to maintain its control of schools, and there is every reason why this should be so. survival in the animal world may be secured in two ways. on the one side we may have a continuance of a special sort of environment to which a given structure is properly adapted; on the other there may be a modification of the animal to meet the demands of a changing environment. applying this principle to the question of the churches and education the moral is clear. the human environment changes more than that of any other animal. the mere amassing of experience and its expression in the form of new institutions or in the modification of already existing ones, is enough to effect a change in the environment of successive generations. the christian church, or for the matter of that, any form of religion, has before it two possible courses. either it must maintain an environment that is as little as possible unchanged, or it must modify its body of teaching to meet the changed surroundings. as a mere matter of fact both processes go on side by side, but consciously the churches have usually followed the course of trying to maintain an unchanged environment. this is the real significance of the attempt of the more orthodox to boycott new, or heretical literature, or lectures, or to produce a "religious atmosphere" round the child. it is an attempt to create an environment to which the child's mind will respond in a manner that is favourable to the claims and teachings of the christian church. the church dare not openly and plainly throw overboard its body of doctrines to meet the needs of the modern mind; and the only thing remaining is to keep the modern mind as backward as possible in order that it may rest content with a teaching that is reminiscent of a past stage of civilization. in this connection it is interesting to note that the struggle for the child is essentially a modern phrase. so long as the teaching of religion is in, at least, a working harmony with current knowledge and the general body of the social forces the question of religious instruction does not emerge. life itself--social life that is--to a very considerable extent enforces religious teaching. at all events it does not violently contradict it. but as, owing to the accumulation of knowledge, views of the world and of man develop that are not in harmony with accepted religious teaching, the churches are forced to attempt the maintenance of an environment of a special religious kind to which their teaching is adapted. hence the growing prominence of the division of secular and sacred as things that have to do with religion and things that have not. hence, too, the importance to the churches of acquiring power over the child's mind before it is brought completely under the influence of an environment in which orthodox teachings can only present themselves as a gross anachronism. thus, one may say with absolute confidence that if in a modern environment a child was left free with regard to modern influences there is nothing that would lead to an acceptance of religion. our ancestors grew up familiar with the idea of the miraculous and the supernatural generally because there was nothing in the existing knowledge of the world that contradicted it. but what part is there in the general education of the child in modern society that would lead to that end? so far as it is taught anything about the world it learns to regard it in terms of causation and of positive knowledge. it finds itself surrounded with machinery, and inventions, and with a thousand and one mechanical and other inventions which do not in the very remotest degree suggest the supernatural. in other words, the response of a modern child in a modern environment is of a strictly non-religious kind. left alone it would no more become religious in the sense of believing in the religious teachings of any of the churches than it would pass through life looking for miracles or accepting fairy tales as sober statements of historic fact. it would no more express itself in terms of religion than it would describe an eclipse in the language of our ancestors of five hundred years ago. in self defence the churches are thus bound to make a fight for the possession of the child. they cannot wait, because that means allowing the child to grow to maturity and then dealing with it when it is able to examine religion with some regard to its historic evolution, and with a due appreciation of the hopelessly unscientific character of the conception of the supernatural. they must, so far as they can, protect the growing child from the influence of all those environmental forces that make for the disintegration of religious beliefs. the only way in which the churches can at all make sure of a supply of recruits is by impressing them before they are old enough to resist. as the germany of the kaiser is said to have militarized the nation by commencing with the schools, so the churches hope to keep the nations religious by commencing with the children. apart from these considerations there is no reason why religion could not wait, as other subjects wait, till the child is old enough to understand and appreciate it. but with the churches it is literally the child or nothing. from the point of view of citizenship the retention of religion in state schools is a manifest injustice. if ever religious instruction could be justified in any circumstances it is when the religion taught represents at least the professed beliefs of the whole of the people. but that is clearly not the case to-day. only a section of the people can be called, even formally, christian. large numbers are quite opposed to christianity, and large numbers deliberately reject all religion. how, then, can the state undertake the teaching of a religion without at the same time rousing resentment in and inflicting an injustice on a large number of its members? it cannot be done, and the crowning absurdity is that the state acknowledges the non-essential character of religion by permitting all who will to go without. in secular subjects it permits no such option. it says that all children shall receive certain tuition in certain subjects for a given period. it makes instruction in these subjects compulsory on the definite and intelligible ground that the education given is necessary to the intelligent discharge of the duties of citizenship. it does not do that in the case of religion, and it dare not do that. no government to-day would have the impudence to say that discharge of the duties of citizenship is dependent upon acceptance of the athanasian creed, or upon the belief in the bible, or in an after life. and not being able to say this it is driven to the absurd position of, on the one hand saying to the people, that religion shall be taught in the state schools, and on the other, if one doesn't care to have it he may leave it alone without suffering the slightest disqualification. indeed, it is impossible for instruction in religion to be genuinely called education at all. if i may be allowed to repeat what i have said elsewhere on this subject, one may well ask:-- what is it that the genuine educationalist aims at? the imparting of knowledge is, of course, essential. but, in the main, education consists in a wholesome training of mind and body, in forming habits of cleanliness, truthfulness, honesty, kindness, the development of a sense of duty and of justice. can it be said in truth that what is called religious instruction does these things, or that instruction in them is actually inseparable from religion? does the creation of a religious "atmosphere," the telling of stories of god or jesus or angels or devils--i omit hell--have any influence in the direction of cultivating a sound mind in a sound body? will anyone contend that the child has even a passing understanding of subjects over which all adults are more or less mystified? to confuse is not to instruct, to mystify is not to enlighten, the repetition of meaningless phrases can leave behind no healthy residuum in the mind. it is the development of capacity along right lines that is important, not the mere cramming of verbal formulæ. above all, it is the function of the true teacher to make his pupil independent of him. the aim of the priest is to keep one eternally dependent upon his ministrations. the final and fatal criticism upon religious instruction is that it is not education at all. it may be argued that a policy of creating sentiments in favour of certain things not wholly understood by the child is followed in connection with matters other than religion. we do not wait until a child is old enough to appreciate the intellectual justification of ethics to train it in morals. and in many directions we seek to develop some tendencies and to suppress others in accordance with an accepted standard. all this may be admitted as quite true, but it may be said in reply that these are things for which an adequate reason _can_ be given, and we are sure of the child's approbation when it is old enough to appreciate what has been done. but in the case of religion the situation is altogether different. we are here forcing upon the child as true, as of the same admitted value as ordinary ethical teaching, certain religious doctrines about which adults themselves dispute with the greatest acrimony. and there is clearly a wide and vital distinction between cultivating in a child sentiments the validity of which may at any time be demonstrated, or teachings upon the truth of which practically all adults are agreed, and impressing upon it teachings which all agree may be false. we are exploiting the child in the interests of a church. parents are allowing themselves to be made the catspaws of priests; and it is not the least formidable of the counts against the church's influence that it converts into active enemies of children those who should stand as their chief protectors. it is religion which makes it true that "a _child's_ foes shall be those of his own household."[ ] [ ] _religion and the child_, pioneer press. where the claim to force religion upon the child breaks down on such grounds as those outlined above it is quite certain that it cannot be made good upon any other ground. historically, it is also clear that we do not find that conduct was better in those ages when the christian religion was held most unquestioningly, but rather the reverse. the moralization of the world has, as a matter of historic fact, kept pace with the secularizing of life. this is true both as regards theory and fact. the application of scientific methods to ethical problems has taught us more of the nature of morality in the short space of three or four generations than christian teaching did in a thousand years. and it is not with an expansion of the power and influence of religion that conduct has undergone an improvement, but with the bringing of people together in terms of secular relationships and reducing their religious beliefs to the level of speculative ideas which men may hold or reject as they think fit, so long as they do not allow them to influence their relations to one another. on all grounds it is urgent that the child should be rescued from the clutches of the priest. it is unfair to the child to so take advantage of its trust, its innocence, and its ignorance, and to force upon it as true teachings that which we must all admit may be false, and which, in a growing number of cases, the child when it grows up either rejects absolutely or considerably modifies. it is unjust to the principle upon which the modern state rests, because it is teaching the speculative beliefs of a few with money raised from the taxation of all. the whole tendency of life in the modern state is in the direction of secularization--confining the duties and activities of the state to those actions which have their meaning and application to this life. every argument that is valid against the state forcing religion upon the adult is valid also against the state forcing religion upon the child. and, on the other hand, it is really absurd to say that religion must be forced upon the child, but we are outraging the rights of the individual and perpetuating an intolerable wrong if we force it upon the adult. surely the dawning and developing individuality of the child has claims on the community that are not less urgent than those of the adult. finally, the resolve to rescue the child from the clutches of the priest is in the interest of civilization itself. all human experience shows that a civilization that is under the control of a priesthood is doomed. from the days of ancient egypt there is no exception to this rule. and sooner or later a people, if they are to progress, are compelled to attempt to limit the control of the priest over life. the whole of the struggle of the reformation was fundamentally for the control of the secular power--whether life should or should not be under the control of the church. in that contest, over a large part of europe, the roman church lost. but the victory was only a very partial one. it was never complete. the old priest was driven out, but the new presbyter remained, and he was but the old tyrant in another form. ever since then the fight has gone on, and ever since, the protestant minister, equally with the catholic priest, has striven for the control of education and so to dominate the mind of the rising generation. the fight for the liberation of the child is thus a fight for the control or the directing of civilization. it is a question of whether we are to permit the priest to hold the future to ransom by permitting this control of the child, or whether we are to leave religious beliefs, as we leave other beliefs of a speculative character, to such a time as the child is old enough to understand them. it is a fight for the future of civilization. chapter vi. the nature of religion. it is no mere paradox to say that religion is most interesting to those who have ceased to believe in it. the reason for this is not far to seek. religious beliefs play so large a part in the early history of society, and are so influential in social history generally, that it is impossible to leave religion alone without forfeiting an adequate comprehension of a large part of social evolution. human development forms a continuous record; our institutions, whatever be their nature, have their roots in the far past, and often, even when modified in form, retain their essential characteristics. no student of social history can travel far or dig deeply without finding himself in contact with religion in some form. and the mass of mankind are not yet so far removed from "primitive" humanity as to give to the study of religion an exclusively archæological interest. where so much is discord it is well, if it be possible, to start with a basis of agreement. and on one point, at least, there is substantial unity among critics. there is a general agreement among students of folk lore, comparative mythology, and anthropology, that religious ideas rest ultimately upon an interpretation of nature that is now generally discarded. differing as they do on details, there is consent upon this point. it is the world of the savage that originates the religion of the savage, and upon that rests the religions of civilized man as surely as his physical structure goes back to the animal world for its beginning. and in giving birth to a religious explanation of his world the savage was only pursuing the normal path of human development. mankind progresses through trial and error; doubtful and erroneous theories are framed before more reliable ones are established, and while truth may crown our endeavours it seldom meets us at the outset. religious beliefs thus form man's earliest interpretation of nature. on this there is, as i have said, general agreement, and it is as well not to permit ourselves to lose sight of that in the discussion of the various theories that are put forward as to the exact nature of the stages of religious development. in many directions the less accurate theories of things are replaced gradually and smoothly by more reliable explanations. but in religion this is not so. for many reasons, with which we are not now immediately concerned, religious beliefs are not outgrown without considerable "growing pains." and a long time after the point of view from which religious beliefs sprang has been given up, the conclusions that were based on that point of view are held to most tenaciously. and yet if one accepts the scientific story of the origins of religious ideas there seems no justification whatever for this. religion cannot transcend its origin. multiply nothing to infinity and the result is still nothing. illusion can beget nothing but illusion, even though in its pursuit we may stumble on reality. and no amount of ingenuity can extract truth from falsehood. one's surprise at the perpetuation of this particular delusion is diminished by the reflection that the period during which we have possessed anything like an exact knowledge of the character and operations of natural forces is, after all, but an infinitesimal portion of the time the race has been in existence. three or four centuries at most cover the period during which such knowledge has been at our command, and small as this is in relation to the thousands of generations wherein superstition has reigned unchallenged, a knowledge of the laws of mental life belongs only to the latter portion. and even then the knowledge available has been till recently the possession of a class, while to-day, large masses of the population are under the domination of the crudest of superstitions. the belief that thirteen is an unlucky number, that a horse-shoe brings luck, the extent to which palmistry and astrology flourishes, the cases of witchcraft that crop up every now and again, all bear testimony to the vast mass of superstition that is still with us. the primitive mind is still alive and active, disguised though it may be by a veneer of civilization and a terribly superficial education. and when one reflects upon all the facts there is cause for astonishment that in the face of so great a dead weight of custom and tradition against a rational interpretation of the universe so much has been done and in so short a time. in discussing religion very much turns upon the meaning of the word, and unfortunately "religion" is to-day used in so many differing and conflicting senses that without the most careful definition no one is quite sure what is meant by it. the curious disinclination of so many to avow themselves as being without a religion must also be noted. to be without a religion, or rather to be known as one who is without a religion, would seem to mark one off as apart from the rest of one's kind, and to infringe all the tribal taboos at one sweep. and very few seem to have the courage to stand alone. mr. augustine birrell once said, in introducing to the house of commons an education bill, that children would rather be wicked than singular. that is quite true, and it is almost as true of adults as it is of children. there is no great objection to having a religion different from that of other people, because the religions of the world are already of so varied a character that there is always companionship in difference. but to be without a religion altogether is a degree of isolation that few can stand. the consequence is that although vast numbers have given up everything that is really religious they still cling to the name. they have left the service, but they show a curious attachment to the uniform. thus it happens that we have a religion of socialism, a religion of ethics, etc., and i should not be surprised to find one day a religion of atheism--if that has not already appeared. but all this is a mistake, and a very serious mistake. the freethinker, or socialist, who calls his theory of life a religion is not causing the religionist to think more highly of him, he is making his opponent think more highly of his own opinions. imitation becomes in such a case not alone flattery, but confirmation. the goddite does not think more highly of freethought because it is labelled religion, he merely becomes the more convinced of the supreme value of his own faith, and still hopes for the freethinker's return to the fold. if freethinkers are to command the respect of the religious world they must show not only that they can get along without religion, but that they can dispense with the name also. if strength does not command respect weakness will certainly fail to secure it. and those of us who are genuinely anxious that the world should be done with false ideas and mischievous frames of mind ought to at least take care that our own speech and thought are as free from ambiguity as is possible. there is another and deeper aspect of the matter. as i have already said, language not alone expresses thought, it also governs and directs it. locke expressed this truth when he said, "it is impossible that men should ever truly seek, or certainly discover, the disagreement of ideas themselves whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only on sounds of doubtful and uncertain significance." quite a number of theological and metaphysical conundrums would lose their significance if it were only realized that the words used are not alone of doubtful and uncertain significance, but often of no possible significance whatever. they are like counterfeit coins, which retain their value only so long as they are not tested by a proper standard. and the evil of these counterfeits is that they deceive both those who tender and those who accept them. for even though slovenliness of speech is not always the product of slovenly thought, in the long run it tends to induce it, and those who realize this need to be specially on their guard against using language which can only further confuse an already sufficiently confused public opinion, and strengthen superstitions that are already sufficiently strong without our clandestine or unintended assistance.[ ] [ ] of the evil of an incautious use of current words we have an example in the case of darwin. neither his expressions of regret at having "truckled to public opinion" at having used the term "creator," nor his explicit declaration that the word was to him only a synonym of ignorance, prevented religious apologists from citing him as a believer in deity on the strength of his having used the word. unfortunately, it remains a favourite policy with many writers to use and define the word religion, not in accordance with a comprehensive survey of facts, but in a way that will harmonize with existing pre-possessions. to this class belongs matthew arnold's famous definition of religion as "morality touched with emotion," professor seeley's statement that we are entitled to call religion "any habitual and permanent admiration," or the common description of religion as consisting in devotion to an ideal. all such definitions may be set on one side as historically worthless, and as not harmonizing with the facts. arnold's definition is in the highest degree superficial, since there exists no morality that is not touched with emotion, and on the other hand there exist phases of religion that have not any connection with morality, however slight. professor leuba properly rules definitions of this class out of order in the comment that, as it is "the function of words to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of language by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all precision and unity of meaning."[ ] a definition that includes everything may as well, for all the use it is, not cover anything. [ ] _the psychological origin and nature of religion_, p. . equally faulty are those definitions that are based upon an assumed conscious effort to explain the mysteries of existence. no stranger lapse ever overtook a great thinker than occurred to herbert spencer when he described religion as consisting in a worship of the unknowable, and as due to the desire to explain a mystery ever pressing for interpretation. granting the existence of an unknowable, the sense of its presence belongs to the later stages of mental evolution, not to the earlier ones. metaphysical and mystical theories of religion are indications of its disintegration, not of its beginnings. primitive man began to believe in ghosts and gods for the same reasons that he believed in other things; he worshipped his gods for very concrete considerations. even the distinction between "spiritual" and material existence is quite foreign to his mind. such distinctions arise gradually with the progress of knowledge and its disintegrating influence on inherited beliefs. if primitive man may be credited with a philosophy, and if one may use the word in a purely convenient sense, then one may say that he is neither a dualist, nor a pluralist, but a monist. the soul or double he believes in is similar to the body he sees; the unseen forces he credits with various activities are of the same kind as those with which he is acquainted. to read our conceptions into the mind of primitive man because we use our words to explain his thoughts is a procedure that is bound to end in confusion. man's earliest conception of things is vague and indefinite. later, he distinguishes differences, qualitative and quantitative, his conception of things becomes more definite, and distinctions are set up that lay the foundations of science and philosophy, and which mark their separation from religion. so far as one can see there are only two causes why people should continue to use the word religion after giving up all for which it properly stands. one is sheer conservatism. when, for instance, thomas paine said, "to do good is my religion," he had at least the justification of believing in a deity, but apart from this the only cause for his calling the desire to do good a religion is that there had grown up the fashion of calling one's rule of life a religion. the other cause is the ill-repute that has been attached to those who avow themselves as being without religion. orthodoxy saw to it that they were treated as pariahs without social status, and, in many cases, legal rights. once upon a time it was useless unless one believed in the _right_ religion. nowadays, any religion will do, or anything that one cares to call a religion. but not to have any religion at all still puts one outside the pale of respectability, and there seem to be few who can stand that. and supernatural religion--the only genuine article--being impossible with many, these may still, if they care to, save their face by professing to use the name, even if they have not the thing. orthodoxy is very accommodating nowadays. leaving for a time the question of how religion actually does arise, we may turn to those writers who define religion in terms of ethics. it may be admitted that so far as the later stages of religion are concerned considerable emphasis is laid upon ethics. but we can only make religion a part of ethics by expanding the term morality so as to include everything, or by contracting it so as to exclude all the lower forms of religious belief. and any definition of religion that does not embrace all its forms is obviously inaccurate. it is not at all a question of defining the higher in terms of the lower, or the lower in terms of the higher, it is simply the need of so defining religion that our definition will cover all religions, high and low, and thus deal with their essential characteristics. the only sense in which ethics may be said to be included in religion lies in the fact that in primitive times religion includes everything. the fear of unseen intelligences is one of the most powerful factors of which early humanity is conscious, and the necessity for conciliating them is always present. the religious ceremonies connected with eating and drinking, with lying down and rising up, with sowing and reaping, with disease, hunting, and almost every circumstance of primitive life prove this. differentiation and discrimination arise very slowly, but one after another the various departments of life do shake off the controlling influence of religion. ethics may, therefore, be said to originate in the shadow of religion--as do most other things--but in no sense can morality be said to owe its origin to religion. its origin is deeper and more fundamental than religion. as a matter of practice morality is independent of religious belief and moral theory, and as a matter of theory the formulation of definite moral rules is substantially independent of religion and is an assertion of its independence. indeed, the conflict between a growing moral sense and religion is almost as large a fact in the social sphere as the conflict between religion and science is in the intellectual one. in all its earlier stages religion is at best non-moral. it becomes otherwise later only because of the reaction of a socialized morality on religious beliefs. early religion is never concerned with the morality of its teaching, nor are the worshippers concerned with the morality of their gods. the sole question is what the gods desire and how best to satisfy them. we cannot even conceive man ascribing ethical qualities to his gods until he has first of all conceived them in regard to his fellow men. the savage has no _moral_ reverence for his gods; they are magnified men, but not perfect ones. he worships not because he admires, but because he fears. fear is, indeed, one of the root causes of religious belief. professor leuba quite admits the origin of religion is fear, but he reserves the possibility of man being occasionally placed under such favourable conditions that fear may be absent. we admit the possibility, but at present it remains a possibility only. at present all the evidence goes to prove the words of ribot that, "the religious sentiment is composed first of all of the emotion of fear in its different degrees, from profound terror to vague uneasiness, due to faith in an unknown mysterious and impalpable power." and if that be admitted, we can scarcely find here the origin of morality. what is here overlooked is the important fact that while religion, as such, commences in a reasoned process, morality is firmly established before mankind is even aware of its existence. a formulated religion is essentially of the nature of a theory set forth to explain or to deal with certain experiences. morality, on the other hand, takes its rise in those feelings and instincts that are developed in animal and human societies under the pressure of natural selection. the affection of the animal for its young, of the human mother for its child, the attraction of male and female, the sympathetic feelings that bind members of the same species together, these do not depend upon theory, or even upon an intellectual perception of their value. theory tries to account for their existence, and reason justifies their being, but they are fundamentally the product of associated life. and it is precisely because morality is the inevitable condition of associated life that it has upon religion the effect of modifying it until it is at least not too great an outrage upon the conditions of social well-being. all along we can, if we will, see how the developing moral sense forces a change in religious teaching. at one time there is nothing revolting in the christian doctrine of election which dooms one to heaven and another to hell without the slightest regard to personal merit. at another the doctrine of eternal damnation is rejected as a matter of course. heresy hunting and heretic burning, practised as a matter of course by one generation become highly repulsive to another. in every direction we see religious beliefs undergoing a modification under the influence of moral and social growth. it is always man who moralizes his gods; never by any chance is it the gods who moralize man. if we are to arrive at a proper understanding of religion we can, therefore, no more assume morals to be an integral part of religion than we can assume medicine or any of the special arts, all of which may be associated with religion. it will not even do to define religion with mr. w. h. mallock[ ] as a belief that the world "has been made and is sustained by an intelligence external to and essentially independent of it." that may pass as a definition of theism, but theism is only one of the phases of religion, and the idea of a creator independent of the universe is one that is quite alien to the earlier stages of religion. and to deny the name of religion to primitive beliefs is to put oneself on the level of the type of christian who declines to call any superstition but his own religion. it is for this reason impossible to agree with professor leuba when he says that "the idea of a creator must take precedence of ghosts and nature beings in the making of a religion." if by precedence the order of importance, from the standpoint of later and comparatively modern forms of religion, is intended, the statement may pass. but if the precedence claimed is a time order, the reply is that, instead of the idea of a creator taking precedence of ghosts and nature beings, it is from these that the idea of a creator is evolved. it is quite true professor leuba holds that "belief in the existence of unseen anthropopathic beings is not religion. it is only when man enters into relation with them that religion comes into existence," but so soon as man believes in the existence of them he believes himself to be in relation with them, and a large part of his efforts is expended in making these relations of an amicable and profitable character. [ ] _religion as a credible doctrine_, p. . a further definition of religion, first given, i think, by the late professor fiske, but since widely used, as a craving for "fulness of life," must be dismissed as equally faulty. for if by fulness of life is meant the desire to make it morally and intellectually richer, the answer is that this desire is plainly the product of a progressive social life, of which much that now passes for religion is the adulterated expression. apologetically, it is an attempt so to state religion that it may evade criticism of its essential character. from one point of view this may be gratifying enough, but it is no help to an understanding of the nature of religion. and how little religion does help to a fuller life will be seen by anyone who knows the part played by organized religion in mental development and how blindly obstructive it is to new ideas in all departments of life. all these attempts to define religion in terms of ethics, of metaphysics, or as the craving after an ideal are wholly misleading. it is reading history backwards, and attributing to primitive human nature feelings and conceptions which it does not and cannot possess. in another work[ ] i have traced the origin of the belief in god to the mental state of primitive mankind, and there is no need to go over the same ground here at any length. commencing with the indisputable fact that religion is something that is acquired, an examination of the state of mind in which primitive mankind faced, and still faces, the world, led to the conclusion that the idea of god begins in the personification of natural forces by the savage. the growth of the idea of god was there traced back to the ghost, not to the exclusion of other methods of god making, but certainly as one of its prominent causes. i must refer readers to that work who desire a more extended treatment of the god-idea. [ ] _theism or atheism_, chapter . what remains to be traced here, in order to understand the other factor that is common to religions, is the belief in a continued state of existence after death, or at least of a soul. it has been shown to the point of demonstration by writers such as spencer, tylor, and frazer, that the idea of a double is suggested to man by his experience of dreams, swoons, and allied normal and abnormal experiences. even in the absence of evidence coming to us from the beliefs of existing tribes of savages, the fact that the ghost is always depicted as identical in appearance with the living person would be enough to suggest its dream origin. but there are other considerations that carry the proof further. the savage sees in his dreams the figures of dead men and assumes that there is a double that can get out of the body during sleep. but he also dreams of dead men, and this is also proof that the dead man still exists. death does not, then, involve the death of the ghost, but only its removal to some other sphere of existence. further, the likeness of sleep itself to death is so obvious and so striking that it has formed one of the most insistent features of human thought and speech. with primitive man it is far more than a figure of speech. the melanesians put this point of view when they say, "the soul goes out of the body in some dreams, and if for some reason it does not come back the man is found dead in the morning." death and dreaming have, therefore, this in common, they are both due to the withdrawal of the double. hence we find a whole series of ceremonies designed to avert death or to facilitate the return of the double. the lingering of this practice is well illustrated by sir frederick treves in his book, _the other side of the lantern_. he there tells how he saw a chinese mother, with the tears streaming down her face, waving at the door of the house the clothing of a recently deceased child in order to bring back the departed spirit. death is thus the separation of the double from the body; but if it may return, its return is not always a matter of rejoicing, for we find customs that are plainly intended to prevent the ghost recognizing the living or to find its way back to its old haunts. thus frazer has shown that the wearing of black is really a form of disguise. it is a method taken to disguise the living from the attentions of the dead. it is in order to avoid recognition by spirits who wish to injure them that the tongans change their war costume at every battle. the chinese call their best beloved children by worthless names in order to delude evil spirits. in egypt, too, the children who were most thought of were the worst clad. in some places the corpse is never carried out through the door, but by a hole in the side of the hut, which is afterwards closed so that the ghost may not find its way back. the ghost being conceived as at all points identical with living beings, it demands attention after death. it needs food, weapons, servants, wives. in this way there originates a whole group of burial customs, performed partly from fear of what the ghost may do if its wants are neglected. the custom of burying food and weapons with the dead thus receives a simple explanation. these things are buried with the dead man in order that their spirit may accompany his to the next world and serve the same uses there that they did here. the modern custom of scattering flowers over a grave is unquestionably a survival of this primitive belief. the killing of a wife on the husband's grave has the same origin. her spirit goes to attend the husband in the ghost-land. in the case of a chief we have the killing of servants for the same reason. when leonidas says, "bury me on my shield, i will enter even hades as a lacedæmonian," he was exhibiting the persistence of this belief in classical times. the chinese offer a further example by making little paper houses, filling them with paper models of the things used by the dead person, and burning them on the grave. all over the world we have the same class of customs developing from the same beliefs, and the same beliefs projected by the human mind when brought face to face with the same class of phenomena. as the ghost is pictured as like the physical man, so the next world is more or less a replica of this. the chief distinction is that there is a greater abundance of desirable things. hunting tribes have elysiums where there is an abundance of game. the old norse heaven was a place where there was unlimited fighting. the gold and diamonds and rubies of the christian heaven represent a stage of civilization where these things had acquired a special value. social distinctions, too, are often maintained. the caribs believe that every time they secure an enemy's head they have gained a servant in the next world. and all know the story of the french aristocrat who, when threatened with hell, replied, "god will think twice before damning a person of my quality." several other consequences of this service paid to the dead may be noted. the ghost being drawn to the place where the body is buried, the desire to preserve the corpse probably led to the practice of embalming. the grave becomes a place of sanctity, of pilgrimage, and of religious observance, and it has been maintained by many writers, notably by mr. w. simpson in his _worship of death_, that the service round the grave gives us the beginning of all temple worship. but from this brief view of the beginnings of religion we are able to see how completely fallacious are all those efforts to derive religion from an attempt to achieve an ideal, from a desire to solve certain philosophical problems, or from any of the other sources that are paraded by modern apologists. the origin and nature of religion is comparatively simple to understand, once we have cleared our minds of all these fallacies and carefully examine the facts. religion is no more than the explanation which the primitive mind gives of the experiences which it has of the world. and, therefore, the only definition that covers all the facts, and which stresses the essence of all religions, high and low, savage and civilized, is that given by tylor, namely, the belief in supernatural beings. it is the one definition that expresses the feature common to all religions, and with that definition before us we are able to use language with a precision that is impossible so long as we attempt to read into religion something that is absent from all its earlier forms, and which is only introduced when advanced thought makes the belief in the supernatural more and more difficult to retain its hold over the human mind. chapter vii. the utility of religion. the real nature of religion being as stated, it having originated in an utterly erroneous view of things, it would seem that nothing more can be needed to justify its rejection. but the conclusion would not be correct, at least so far as the mass of believers or quasi-believers are concerned. here the conviction still obtains that religion, no matter what its origin, still wields an enormous influence for good. the curious thing is that when one enquires "what religion is it that has exerted this beneficent influence?" the replies effectually cancel one another. each means by religion his own religion, and each accuses the religion of the other man of all the faults with which the freethinker accuses the whole. the avowed object of our widespread missionary activity is to save the "heathen" from the evil effects of their religion; and there is not the least doubt that if the heathen had the brute force at their command, and the impudence that we have, they would cordially reciprocate. and the efforts of the various christian sects to convert each other is too well known to need mention. so that the only logical inference from all this is that, while all religions are, when taken singly, injurious, taken in the bulk they are sources of profound benefit. it is not alone the common or garden order of religionist who takes up this curious position, nor is it even the better educated believer; it is not uncommon to find those who have rejected all the formal religions of the world yet seeking to discover some good that religion has done or is doing. as an illustration of this we may cite an example from sir james frazer, than whom no one has done more to bring home to students a knowledge of the real nature of religious beliefs. it is the more surprising to find him putting in a plea for the good done by religion, not in the present, but in the past. and such an instance, if it does nothing else, may at least serve to mitigate our ferocity towards the common type of religionist. in an address delivered in , entitled "psyche's task: a discourse concerning the influence of superstition on the growth of institutions," he puts in a plea for the consideration of superstition (religion) at various stages of culture. of its effects generally, he says:-- that it has done much harm in the world cannot be denied. it has sacrificed countless lives, wasted untold treasures, embroiled nations, severed friends, parted husbands and wives, parents and children, putting swords and worse than swords between them; it has filled gaols and madhouses with its deluded victims; it has broken many hearts, embittered the whole of many a life, and not content with persecuting the living it has pursued the dead into the grave and beyond it, gloating over the horrors which its foul imagination has conjured up to appal and torture the survivors. it has done all this and more. now this is a severe indictment, and one is a little surprised to find following that a plea on behalf of this same superstition to the effect that it has "among certain races and at certain times strengthened the respect for government, property, marriage, and human life." in support of this proposition he cites a large number of instances from various races of people, all of which prove, not what sir james sets out to prove, but only that religious observances and beliefs have been connected with certain institutions that are in themselves admirable enough. and on this point there is not, nor can there be, any serious dispute. one can find many similar instances among ourselves to-day. but the real question at issue is a deeper one than that. it is not enough for the religionist to show that religion has often been associated with good things and has given them its sanction. the reply to this would be that if it had been otherwise religion would long since have disappeared. the essential question here is, have the institutions named a basis in secular and social life, and would they have developed in the absence of superstition as they have developed with superstition in the field? now i do not see that sir james frazer proves either that these institutions have not a sufficient basis in secular life--he would, i imagine, admit that they have; or that they would not have developed as well in the absence of superstition as they have done with it. in fact, the whole plea that good has been done by superstition seems to be destroyed in the statements that although certain institutions "have been based partly on superstitions, it by no means follows that even among these races they have never been based on anything else," and that whenever institutions have proved themselves stable and permanent "there is a strong presumption that they rest on something more solid than superstition." so that, after all, it may well be that superstition is all the time taking credit for the working of forces that are not of its kind or nature. let us take the example given of the respect for human life as a crucial test. admitting that religions have taught that to take life was a sinful act, one might well interpose with the query as to whether it was ever necessary to teach man that homicide within certain limits was a wrong thing. pre-evolutionary sociology, which sometimes taught that man originally led an existence in which his hand was against every other man, and who, therefore, fought the battle of life strictly off his own bat, may have favoured that assumption. but that we now know is quite wrong. we know that man slowly emerged from a pre-human gregarious stage, and that in all group life there is an organic restraint on mutual slaughter. the essential condition of group life is that the nature of the individual shall be normally devoid of the desire for the indiscriminate slaughter of his fellows. and if that is true of animals, it is certainly true of man. primitive human society does not and cannot represent a group of beings each of whom must be restrained by direct coercion from murdering the other. in this case, therefore, we have to reckon with both biological and sociological forces, and i do not see that it needs more than this to explain all there is to explain. human life is always associated life, and this means not alone a basis of mutual forbearance and co-operation, but a development of the sympathetic feelings which tends to increase as society develops, they being, as a matter of fact, the conditions of its growth. and whatever competition existed between tribes would still further emphasize the value of those feelings that led to effective co-operation. the question, then, whether the anti-homicidal feeling is at all dependent upon religion is answered in the negative by the fact that it ante-dates what we may term the era of conscious social organization. that of whether religion strengthens this feeling still remains, although even that has been answered by implication. and the first thing to be noted here is that whatever may be the value of the superstitious safeguard against homicide it certainly has no value as against people outside the tribe. in fact, when a savage desires to kill an enemy he finds in superstition a fancied source of strength, and often of encouragement. westermarck points out that "savages carefully distinguish between an act of homicide committed in their own community and one where the victim is a stranger. whilst the former is under ordinary circumstances disapproved of, the latter is in most cases allowed and often regarded as praiseworthy." and frazer himself points out that the belief in immortality plays no small part in encouraging war among primitive peoples,[ ] while if we add the facts of the killing of children, of old men and women, and wives, together with the practice of human sacrifice, we shall see little cause to attribute the development of the feeling against homicide to religious beliefs. [ ] the state of war which normally exists between many, if not most, neighbouring savage tribes, springs in large measure directly from their belief in immortality; since one of the commonest motives to hostility is a desire to appease the angry ghosts of friends who are supposed to have perished by baleful arts of sorcerers in another tribe, and who, if vengeance is not inflicted on their real or imaginary murderers, will wreak their fury on their undutiful fellow-tribesmen.--_the belief in immortality_, vol. i., p. . in one passage in his address sir james does show himself quite alive to the evil influence of the belief in immortality. he says:-- it might with some show of reason be maintained that no belief has done so much to retard the economic and thereby the social progress of mankind as the belief in the immortality of the soul; for this belief has led race after race, generation after generation, to sacrifice the real wants of the living to the imaginary wants of the dead. the waste and destruction of life and property which this faith has entailed has been enormous and incalculable. but i am not here concerned with the disastrous and deplorable consequences, the unspeakable follies and crimes and miseries which have flowed in practice from the theory of a future life. my business at present is with the more cheerful side of a gloomy subject. every author has, of course, the fullest right to select whichever aspect of a subject he thinks deserves treatment, but all the same one may point out that it is this dwelling on the "cheerful side" of these beliefs that encourages the religionist to put forward claims on behalf of present day religion that sir james himself would be the first to challenge. there is surely greater need to emphasize the darker side of a creed that has thousands of paid advocates presenting an imaginary bright side to the public gaze. but what has been said of the relation of the feeling against homicide applies with no more than a variation of terms to the other instances given by sir james frazer. either these institutions have a basis in utility or they have not. if they have not, then religion can claim no social credit for their preservation. if they have a basis in utility, then the reason for their preservation is to be found in social selection, although the precise local form in which an institution appears may be determined by other circumstances. and when sir james says that the task of government has been facilitated by the superstition that the governors belonged to a superior class of beings, one may safely assume that the statement holds good only of individual governors, or of particular forms of government. it may well be that when a people are led to believe that a certain individual possesses supernatural powers, or that a particular government enjoys the favour of supernatural beings, there will be less inclination to resentment against orders than there would be otherwise. but government and governors, in other words, a general body of rules for the government of the tribe, and the admitted leadership of certain favoured individuals, would remain natural facts in the absence of superstition, and their development or suppression would remain subject to the operation of social or natural selection. so, again, with the desire for private property. the desire to retain certain things as belonging to oneself is not altogether unnoticeable among animals. a dog will fight for its bone, monkeys secrete things which they desire to retain for their own use, etc., and so far as the custom possesses advantages, we may certainly credit savages with enough common-sense to be aware of the fact. but the curious thing is that the institution of private property is not nearly so powerful among primitive peoples as it is among those more advanced. so that we are faced with this curious comment upon sir james's thesis. granting that the institution of private property has been strengthened by superstition we have the strange circumstance that that institution is weakest where superstition is strongest and strongest where superstition is weakest. the truth is that sir james frazer seems here to have fallen into the same error as the late walter bagehot, and to have formed the belief that primitive man required breaking in to the "social yoke." the truth is that the great need of primitive mankind is not to be broken in but to acquire the courage and determination to break out. this error may have originated in the disinclination of the savage to obey _our_ rules, or it may have been a heritage from the eighteenth century philosophy of the existence of an idyllic primitive social state. the truth is, however, that there is no one so fettered by custom as is the savage. the restrictions set by a savage society on its members would be positively intolerable to civilized beings. and if it be said that these customs required formation, the reply is that inheriting the imitability of the pre-human gregarious animal, this would form the basis on which the tyrannizing custom of primitive life is built. there was, however, another generalization of bagehot's that was unquestionably sound. assuming that the first step necessary to primitive mankind was to frame a custom as the means of his being "broken in," the next step in progress was to break it, and that was a far more difficult matter. progress was impossible until this was done, and how difficult it is to get this step taken observation of the people living in civilized countries will show. but it is in relation to this second and all important step that one can clearly trace the influence of religion. and its influence is completely the reverse of being helpful. for of all the hindrances to a change of custom there is none that act with such force as does religion. this is the case with those customs with which vested interest has no direct connection, but it operates with tenfold force where this exists. once a custom is established in a primitive community the conditions of social life surround it with religious beliefs, and thereafter to break it means a breach in the wall of religious observances with which the savage is surrounded. and so soon as we reach the stage of the establishment of a regular priesthood, we have to reckon with the operation of a vested interest that has always been keenly alive to anything which affected its profit or prestige. it would not be right to dismiss the discussion of a subject connected with so well-respected a name as that of sir james frazer and leave the reader with the impression that he is putting in a plea for current religion. he is not. he hints pretty plainly that his argument that religion has been of some use to the race applies to savage times only. we see this in such sentences as the following: "more and more, as time goes on, morality shifts its grounds from the sands of superstition to the rock of reason, from the imaginary to the real, from the supernatural to the natural.... the state has found a better reason than these old wives' fables for guarding with the flaming sword of justice the approach to the tree of life," and also in saying that, "if it can be proved that in certain races and at certain times the institutions in question have been based partly on superstition, it by no means follows that even among these races they have never been based on anything else. on the contrary ... there is a strong presumption that they rest mainly on something much more solid than superstition." in modern times no such argument as the one i have been discussing has the least claim to logical force. but that, as we all know, does not prevent its being used by full-blown religionists, and by those whose minds are only partly liberated from a great historic superstition. it will be observed that the plea of frazer's we have been examining argues that the function of religion in social life is of a conservative character. and so far he is correct, he is only wrong in assuming it to have been of a beneficial nature. the main function of religion in sociology is conservative, not the wise conservatism which supports an institution or a custom because of its approved value, but of the kind that sees in an established custom a reason for its continuance. urged, in the first instance, by the belief that innumerable spirits are forever on the watch, punishing the slightest infraction of their wishes, opposition to reform or to new ideas receives definite shape and increased strength by the rise of a priesthood. henceforth economic interest goes hand in hand with superstitious fears. whichever way man turns he finds artificial obstacles erected. every deviation from the prescribed path is threatened with penalties in this world and the next. the history of every race and of every science tells the same story, and the amount of time and energy that mankind has spent in fighting these ghosts of its own savage past is the measure of the degree to which religion has kept the race in a state of relative barbarism. this function of unreasoning conservatism is not, it must be remembered, accidental. it belongs to the very nature of religion. dependent upon the maintenance of certain primitive conceptions of the world and of man, religion dare not encourage new ideas lest it sap its own foundations. spencer has reminded us that religion is, under the conditions of its origin, perfectly rational. that is quite true.[ ] religion meets science, when the stage of conflict arises, as an opposing interpretation of certain classes of facts. the one interpretation can only grow at the expense of the other. while religion is committed to the explanation of the world in terms of vital force, science is committed to that of non-conscious mechanism. opposition is thus present at the outset, and it must continue to the end. the old cannot be maintained without anathematizing the new; the new cannot be established without displacing the old. the conflict is inevitable; the antagonism is irreconcilable. [ ] it may with equal truth be said that all beliefs are with a similar qualification quite rational. the attempt to divide people into "rationalists" and "irrationalists" is quite fallacious and is philosophically absurd. reason is used in the formation of religious as in the formation of non-religious beliefs. the distinction between the man who is religious and one who is not, or, if it be preferred, one who is superstitious and one who is not, is not that the one reasons and the other does not. both reason. indeed, the reasoning of the superstitionist is often of the most elaborate kind. the distinction is that of one having false premises, or drawing unwarrantable conclusions from sound premises. the only ultimate distinctions are those of religionist and non-religionist, supernaturalist and non-supernaturalist, theist or atheist. all else are mere matters of compromise, exhibitions of timidity, or illustrations of that confused thinking which itself gives rise to religion in all its forms. it lies, therefore, in the very nature of the case that religion, as religion, can give no real help to man in the understanding of himself and the world. whatever good religion may appear to do is properly to be attributed to the non-religious forces with which it is associated. but religion, being properly concerned with the relations between man and mythical supernatural beings, can exert no real influence for good on human affairs. far from that being the case, it can easily be shown to have had quite an opposite effect. there is not merely the waste of energy in the direction above indicated, but in many other ways. if we confine ourselves to christianity some conception of the nature of its influence may be formed if we think what the state of the world might have been to-day had the work of enlightenment continued from the point it had reached under the old greek and roman civilizations. bacon and galileo in their prisons, bruno and vanini at the stake are illustrations of the disservice that christianity has done the cause of civilization, and the obstruction it has offered to human well-being. again, consider the incubus placed on human progress by the institution of a priesthood devoted to the service of supernatural beings. in the fullest and truest sense of the word a priesthood represents a parasitic growth on the social body. i am not referring to individual members of the priesthood in their capacity as private citizens, but as priests, as agents or representatives of the supernatural. and here the truth is that of all the inventions and discoveries that have helped to build up civilization not one of them is owing to the priesthood, as such. one may confidently say that if all the energies of all the priests in the whole world were concentrated on a single community, and all their prayers, formulæ, and doctrines devoted to the one end, the well-being of that community would not be advanced thereby a single iota. far and away, the priesthood is the greatest parasitic class the world has known. all over the world, in both savage and civilized times, we see the priesthoods of the world enthroned, we see them enjoying a subsistence wrung from toil through credulity, and from wealth through self-interest. from the savage medicine hut up to the modern cathedral we see the earth covered with useless edifices devoted to the foolish service of imaginary deities. we see the priesthood endowed with special privileges, their buildings relieved from the taxes which all citizens are compelled to pay, and even special taxes levied upon the public for their maintenance. the gods may no longer demand the sacrifice of the first born, but they still demand the sacrifice of time, energy, and money that might well be applied elsewhere. and the people in every country, out of their stupidity, continue to maintain a large body of men who, by their whole training and interest, are compelled to act as the enemies of liberty and progress. it is useless arguing that the evils that follow religion are not produced by it, that they are casual, and will disappear with a truer understanding of what religion is. it is not true, and the man who argues in that way shows that he does not yet understand what religion is. the evils that follow religion are deeply imbedded in the nature of religion itself. all religion takes its rise in error, and vested error threatened with destruction instinctively resorts to force, fraud, and imposture, in self defence. the universality of the evils that accompany religion would alone prove that there is more than a mere accident in the association. the whole history of religion is, on the purely intellectual side, the history of a delusion. happily this delusion is losing its hold on the human mind. year by year its intellectual and moral worthlessness is being more generally recognized. religion explains nothing, and it does nothing that is useful. yet in its name millions of pounds are annually squandered and many thousands of men withdrawn from useful labour, and saddled on the rest of the community for maintenance. but here, again, economic and intellectual forces are combining for the liberation of the race from its historic incubus. complete emancipation will not come in a day, but it will come, and its arrival will mark the close of the greatest revolution that has taken place in the history of the race. chapter viii. freethought and god. why do people believe in god? if one turns to the pleas of professional theologians there is no lack of answers to the question. these answers are both numerous and elaborate, and if quantity and repetition were enough, the freethinker would find himself hopelessly "snowed under." but on examination all these replies suffer from one defect. they should ante-date the belief, whereas they post-date it. they cannot be the cause of belief for the reason that the belief was here long before the arguments came into existence. neither singly nor collectively do these so-called reasons correspond to the causes that have ever led a single person, at any time or at any place, to believe in a god. if they already believed, the arguments were enough to provide them with sufficient justification to go on believing. if they did not already believe, the arguments were powerless. and never, by any chance, do they describe the causes that led to the existence of the belief in god, either historically or individually. they are, in truth, no more than excuses for continuing to believe. they are never the causes of belief. the evidence for the truth of this is at hand in the person of all who believe. let one consider, on the one hand, the various arguments for the existence of god--the argument from causation, from design, from necessary existence, etc., then put on the other side the age at which men and women began to believe in deity, and their grasp of arguments of the kind mentioned. there is clearly no relation between the two. leaving on one side the question of culture, it is at once apparent that long before the individual is old enough to appreciate in the slightest degree the nature of the arguments advanced he is already a believer. and if he is not a believer in his early years, he is never one when he reaches maturity, certainly not in a civilized society. and when we turn from the individual goddite to goddites in the mass, the assumption that they owe their belief to the philosophical arguments advanced becomes grotesque in its absurdity. to assume that the average theist, whose philosophy is taken from the daily newspaper and the weekly sermon, derives his conviction from a series of abstruse philosophical arguments is simply ridiculous. those who are honest to themselves will admit that they were taught the belief long before they were old enough to bring any real criticism to bear upon it. it was the product of their early education, impressed upon them by their parents, and all the "reasons" that are afterwards alleged in justification are only pleas why they should not be disturbed in their belief. are we in any better position if we turn from the individual to the race? is the belief in god similar to, say, the belief in gravitation, which, discovered by a genius, and resting upon considerations which the ordinary person finds too abstruse to thoroughly understand, becomes a part of our education, and is accepted upon well established authority? again, the facts are dead against such an assumption. it is with the race as with the individual. science and philosophy do not precede the belief in god and provide the foundation for it, they succeed it and lead to its modification and rejection. we are, in this respect, upon very solid ground. in some form or another the belief in god, or gods, belongs to very early states of human society. savages have it long before they have the slightest inkling of what we moderns would call a scientific conception of the world. and to assume that the savage, as we know him, began to believe in his gods because of a number of scientific reasons, such as the belief in universal causation, or any of the other profound speculations with which the modern theologian beclouds the issue, is as absurd as to attribute the belief of the salvation army preacher to philosophical speculations. added to which we may note that the savage is a severely practical person. he is not at all interested in metaphysics, and his contributions to the discussions of a philosophical society would be of a very meagre character. his problem is to deal with the concrete difficulties of his everyday life, and when he is able to do this he is content. but, on the other hand, we know that our own belief in god is descended from his belief. we know that we can trace it back without a break through generations of social culture, until we reach the savage stage of social existence. it is he who, so to speak, discovers god, he establishes it as a part of the social institutions that govern the lives of every member of the group; we find it in our immaturity established as one of those many thought-forms which determine so powerfully our intellectual development. the belief in god meets each newcomer into the social arena. it is impressed upon each in a thousand and one different ways, and it is only when the belief is challenged by an opposing system of thought that philosophical theories are elaborated in its defence. the possibility of deriving the idea of god from scientific and philosophic thought being ruled out, what remains? the enquiry from being philosophical becomes historical. that is, instead of discussing whether there are sufficient reasons for justifying the belief in god, we are left with the question of determining the causes that led people to ever regard the belief as being solidly based upon fact. it is a question of history, or rather, one may say, of anthropology of the mental history of man. when we read of some poor old woman who has been persecuted for bewitching someone's cattle or children we no longer settle down to discuss whether witchcraft rests upon fact or not; we know it does not, and our sole concern is to discover the conditions, mental and social, which enabled so strange a belief to flourish. the examination of evidence--the legal aspect--thus gives place to the historical, and the historical finally resolves itself into the psychological. for what we are really concerned with in an examination of the idea of god is the discovery and reconstruction of those states of mind which gave the belief birth. and that search is far easier and the results far more conclusive than many imagine. in outlining this evidence it will only be necessary to present its general features. this for two reasons. first, because a multiplicity of detail is apt to hide from the general reader many of the essential features of the truth; secondly, the fact of a difference of opinion concerning the time order of certain stages in the history of the god-idea is likely to obscure the fact of the unanimity which exists among all those qualified to express an authoritative opinion as to the nature of the conditions that have given the idea birth. the various theories of the sequence of the different phases of the religious idea should no more blind us to the fact that there exists a substantial agreement that the belief in gods has its roots in the fear and ignorance of uncivilized mankind, than the circumstance that there is going on among biologists a discussion as to the machinery of evolution should overshadow the fact that evolution itself is a demonstrated truth which no competent observer questions. in an earlier chapter we have already indicated the essential conditions which lead to the origin of religious beliefs, and there is no need again to go over that ground. what is necessary at present is to sketch as briefly as is consistent with lucidity those frames of mind to which the belief in god owes its existence. to realize this no very recondite instrument of research is required. we need nothing more elaborate than the method by which we are hourly in the habit of estimating each other's thoughts, and of gauging one another's motives. when i see a man laugh i assume that he is pleased; when he frowns i assume that he is angry. there is here only an application of the generally accepted maxim that when we see identical results we are warranted in assuming identical causes. in this way we can either argue from causes to effects or from effects to causes. a further statement of the same principle is that when we are dealing with biological facts we may assume that identical structures imply identical functions. the structure of a dead animal will tell us what its functions were when living as certainly as though we had the living animal in front of us. we may relate function to structure or structure to function. and in this we are using nothing more uncommon than the accepted principle of universal causation. now, in all thinking there are two factors. there is the animal or human brain, the organ of thought, and there is the material for thought as represented by the existing knowledge of the world. if we had an exact knowledge of the kind of brain that functioned, and the exact quantity and quality of the knowledge existing, the question as to the ideas which would result would be little more than a problem in mathematics. we could make the calculation with the same assurance that an astronomer can estimate the position of a planet a century hence. in the case of primitive mankind we do not possess anything like the exact knowledge one would wish, but we do know enough to say in rather more than a general way the kind of thinking of which our earliest ancestors were capable, and what were its products. we can get at the machinery of the primitive brain, and can estimate its actions, and that without going further than we do when we assume that primitive man was hungry and thirsty, was pleased and angry, loved and feared. and, indeed, it was because he experienced fear and pleasure and love and hate that the gods came into existence. of the factors which determine the kind of thinking one does, we know enough to say that there were two things certain of early mankind. we know the kind of thinking of which he was capable, and we have a general notion of the material existing for thinking. speaking of one of these early ancestors of ours, professor arthur keith says, "piltdown man saw, heard, felt, thought and dreamt much as we do," that is, there was the same _kind_ of brain at work that is at work now. and that much we could be sure of by going no farther back than the savages of to-day. but as size of brain is not everything, we are warranted in saying that the brain was of a relatively simple type, while the knowledge of the world which existed, and which gives us the material for thinking, was of a very imperfect and elementary character. there was great ignorance, and there was great fear. from these two conditions, ignorance and fear, sprang the gods. of that there is no doubt whatever. there is scarcely a work which deals with the life of primitive peoples to-day that does not emphasize that fact. consciously or unconsciously it cannot avoid doing so. long ago a latin writer hit on this truth in the well-known saying, "fear made the gods," and aristotle expressed the same thing in a more comprehensive form by saying that fear first set man philosophizing. the undeveloped mind troubles little about things so long as they are going smoothly and comfortably. it is when something painful happens that concern is awakened. and all the gods of primitive life bear this primal stamp of fear. that is why religion, with its persistent harking back to the primitive, with its response to the "call of the wild" still dwells upon the fear of the lord as a means of arousing a due sense of piety. the gods fatten on fear as a usurer does upon the folly of his clients, and in both cases the interest demanded far outweighs the value of the services rendered. at a later stage man faces his gods in a different spirit; he loses his fear and examines them; and gods that are not feared are but poor things. they exist mainly as indisputable records of their own deterioration. now to primitive man, struggling along in a world of which he was so completely ignorant, the one certain thing was that the world was alive. the wind that roared, the thunder that growled, the disease that left him so mysteriously stricken, were all so many living things. the division of these living forces into good and bad followed naturally from this first conception of their nature. and whatever be the stages of that process the main lines admit of no question, nor is there any question as to the nature of the conditions that brought the gods into existence. on any scientific theory of religion the gods represent no more than the personified ignorance and fear of primitive humanity. however much anthropologists may differ as to whether the god always originates from the ghost or not, whether animism is first and the worship of the ghost secondary or not, there is agreement on that point. whichever theory we care to embrace, the broad fact is generally admitted that the gods are the products of ignorance and fear. man fears the gods as children and even animals fear the unknown and the dangerous. and as the gods are born of conditions such as those outlined, as man reads his own feelings and passions and desires into nature, so we find that the early gods are frankly, obtrusively, man-like. the gods are copies of their worshippers, faithful reflections of those who fear them. this, indeed, remains true to the end. when the stage is reached that the idea of god as a physical counterpart of man becomes repulsive, it is still unable to shake off this anthropomorphic element. to the modern worshipper god must not possess a body, but he must have love, and intelligence--as though the mental qualities of man are less human than the bodily ones! they are as human as arms or legs. and every reason that will justify the rejection of the conception of the universe being ruled over by a being who is like man in his physical aspects is equally conclusive against believing the universe to be ruled over by a being who resembles man in his mental characteristics. the one belief is a survival of the other; and the one would not now be accepted had not the other been believed in beforehand. i have deliberately refrained from discussing the various arguments put forward to justify the belief in god in order that attention should not be diverted from the main point, which is that the belief in deity owes its existence to the ignorant interpretation of natural happenings by early or uncivilized mankind. everything here turns logically on the question of origin. if the belief in god began in the way i have outlined, the question of veracity may be dismissed. the question is one of origin only. it is not a question of man first seeing a thing but dimly and then getting a clearer vision as his knowledge becomes more thorough. it is a question of a radical misunderstanding of certain experiences, the vogue of an altogether wrong interpretation, and its displacement by an interpretation of a quite different nature. the god of the savage was in the nature of an inference drawn from the world of the savage. there was the admitted premiss and there was the obvious conclusion. but with us the premiss no longer exists. we deliberately reject it as being altogether unwarrantable. and we cannot reject the premiss while retaining the conclusion. logically, the god of the savage goes with the world of the savage; it should have no place in the mind of the really civilized human being. it is for this reason that i am leaving on one side all those semi-metaphysical and pseudo-philosophical arguments that are put forward to justify the belief in god. as i have already said, they are merely excuses for continuing a belief that has no real warranty in fact. no living man or woman believes in god because of any such argument. we have the belief in god with us to-day for the same reason that we have in our bodies a number of rudimentary structures. as the one is reminiscent of an earlier stage of existence so is the other. to use the expressive phrase of winwood reade's, we have tailed minds as well as tailed bodies. the belief in god meets each newcomer to the social sphere. it is forced upon them before they are old enough to offer effective resistance in the shape of acquired knowledge that would render its lodgement in the mind impossible. afterwards, the dice of social power and prestige are loaded in its favour, while the mental inertia of some, and the self-interest of others, give force to the arguments which i have called mere mental subterfuges for perpetuating the belief in god. only one other remark need be made. in the beginning the gods exist as the apotheosis of ignorance. the reason the savage had for believing in god was that he did not know the real causes of the phenomena around him. and that remains the reason why people believe in deity to-day. under whatever guise the belief is presented, analysis brings it ultimately to that. the whole history of the human mind, in relation to the idea of god, shows that so soon as man discovers the natural causes of any phenomenon or group of phenomena the idea of god dies out in connection therewith. god is only conceived as a cause or as an explanation so long as no other cause or explanation is forthcoming. in common speech and in ordinary thought we only bring in the name of god where uncertainty exists, never where knowledge is obtainable. we pray to god to cure a fever, but never to put on again a severed limb. we associate god with the production of a good harvest, but not with a better coal output. we use "god only knows" as the equivalent of our own ignorance, and call on god for help only where our own helplessness is manifest. the idea remains true to itself throughout. born in ignorance and cradled in fear, it makes its appeal to the same elements to the end. and if it apes the language of philosophy, it does so only as do those who purchase a ready-made pedigree in order to hide the obscurity of their origin. chapter ix. freethought and death. in the early months of the european war a mortally wounded british soldier was picked up between the lines, after lying there unattended for two days. he died soon after he was brought in, and one of his last requests was that a copy of ruskin's _crown of wild olive_ should be buried with him. he said the book had been with him all the time he had been in france, it had given him great comfort, and he wished it to be buried with him. needless to say, his wish was carried out, and "somewhere in france" there lies a soldier with a copy of the _crown of wild olive_ clasped to his breast. there is another story, of a commoner character, which, although different in form, is wholly similar in substance. this tells of the soldier who in his last moments asks to see a priest, accepts his ministrations with thankfulness, and dies comforted with the repetition of familiar formulæ and customary prayers. in the one case a bible and a priest; in the other a volume of lectures by one of the masters of english prose. the difference is, at first, striking, but there is an underlying agreement, and they may be used together to illustrate a single psychological principle. freethinker and christian read the record of both cases, but it is the freethinker alone whose philosophy of life is wide enough to explain both. the freethinker knows that the feeling of comfort and the fact of truth are two distinct things. they may coalesce, but they may be as far asunder as the poles. a delusion may be as consoling as a reality provided it be accepted as genuine. the soldier with his copy of ruskin does not prove the truth of the teachings of the _crown of wild olive_, does not prove that ruskin said the last word or even the truest word on the subjects dealt with therein. neither does the consolation which religion gives some people prove the truth of its teachings. the comfort which religion brings is a product of the belief in religion. the consolation that comes from reading a volume of essays is a product of the conviction of the truth of the message delivered, or a sense of the beauty of the language in which the book is written. both cases illustrate the power of belief, and that no freethinker was ever stupid enough to question. the finest literature in the world would bring small comfort to a man who was convinced that he stood in deadly need of a priest, and the presence of a priest would be quite useless to a man who believed that all the religions of the world were so many geographical absurdities. comfort does not produce conviction, it follows it. the truth and the social value of convictions are quite distinct questions. there is here a confusion of values, and for this we have to thank the influence of the churches. because the service of the priest is sought by some we are asked to believe that it is necessary to all. but the essential value of a thing is shown, not by the number of people who get on with it, but by the number that can get on without it. the canon of agreement and difference is applicable whether we are dealing with human nature or conducting an ordinary scientific experiment. thus, the indispensability of meat-eating is not shown by the number of people who swear that they cannot work without it, but by noting how people fare in its absence. the drinker does not confound the abstainer; it is the other way about. in the same way there is nothing of evidential value in the protests of those who say that human nature cannot get along without religion. we have to test the statement by the cases where religion is absent. and here, it is not the christian that confounds the freethinker, it is the freethinker who confounds the christian. if the religious view of life is correct the freethinker should be a very rare bird indeed; he should be clearly recognizable as a departure from the normal type, and, in fact, he was always so represented in religious literature until he disproved the legend by multiplying himself with confusing rapidity. now it is the freethinker who will not fit into the christian scheme of things. it is puzzling to see what can be done with a man who repudiates the religious idea in theory and fact, root and branch, and yet appears to be getting on quite well in its absence. that is the awkward fact that will not fit in with the religious theory. and, other things equal, one man without religion is greater evidential value than five hundred with it. all the five hundred prove at the most is that human nature can get on with religion, but the one case proves that human nature can get on without it, and that challenges the whole religious position. and unless we take up the rather absurd position that the non-religious man is a sheer abnormality, this consideration at once reduces religion from a necessity to a luxury or a dissipation. the bearing of this on our attitude towards such a fact as death should be obvious. during the european war death from being an ever-present fact became an obtrusive one. day after day we received news of the death of friend or relative, and those who escaped that degree of intimacy with the unpleasant visitor, met him in the columns of the daily press. and the christian clergy would have been untrue to their traditions and to their interests--and there is no corporate body more alert in these directions--if they had not tried to exploit the situation to the utmost. there was nothing new in the tactics employed, it was the special circumstances that gave them a little more force than was usual. the following, for example, may be accepted as typical:-- the weight of our sorrow is immensely lightened if we can feel sure that one whom we have loved and lost has but ascended to spheres of further development, education, service, achievement, where, by and by, we shall rejoin him. quite a common statement, and one which by long usage has become almost immune from criticism. and yet it has about as much relation to fact as have the stories of death-bed conversions, or of people dying and shrieking for jesus to save them. one may, indeed, apply a rough and ready test by an appeal to facts. how many cases has the reader of these lines come across in which religion has made people calmer and more resigned in the presence of death than others have been who were quite destitute of belief in religion? of course, religious folk will repeat religious phrases, they will attend church, they will listen to the ministrations of their favourite clergyman, and they will say that their religion brings them comfort. but if one gets below the stereotyped phraseology and puts on one side also the sophisticated attitude in relation to religion, one quite fails to detect any respect in which the freethinking parent differs from the christian one. does the religious parent grieve less? does he bear the blow with greater fortitude? is his grief of shorter duration? to anyone who will open his eyes the talk of the comfort of religion will appear to be largely cant. there are differences due to character, to temperament, to training; there is a use of traditional phrases in the one case that is absent in the other, but the incidence of a deep sorrow only serves to show how superficial are the vapourings of religion to a civilized mind, and how each one of us is thrown back upon those deeper feelings that are inseparable from a common humanity. the thought of an only son who is living with the angels brings no real solace to a parent's mind. whatever genuine comfort is available must come from the thought of a life that has been well lived, from the sympathetic presence of friends, from the silent handclasp, which on such occasions is so often more eloquent than speech--in a word, from those healing currents that are part and parcel of the life of the race. a freethinker can easily appreciate the readiness of a clergyman to help a mind that is suffering from a great sorrow, but it is the deliberate exploitation of human grief in the name and in the interests of religion, the manufacturing of cases of death-bed consolation and repentance, the citation of evidence to which the experience of all gives the lie, that fill one with a feeling akin to disgust. the writer from whom i have quoted says:-- it is, indeed, possible for people who are agnostic or unbelieving with regard to immortality to give themselves wholly to the pursuit of truth and to the service of their fellowmen, in moral earnestness and heroic endeavour; they may endure pain and sorrow with calm resignation, and toil on in patience and perseverance. the best of the ancient stoics did so, and many a modern agnostic is doing so to-day. the significance of such a statement is in no wise diminished by the accompanying qualification that freethinkers are "missing a joy which would have been to them a well-spring of courage and strength." that is a pure assumption. they who are without religious belief are conscious of no lack of courage, and they are oppressed by no feeling of despair. on this their own statement must be taken as final. moreover, they are speaking as, in the main, those who are fully acquainted with the christian position, having once occupied it. they are able to measure the relative value of the two positions. the christian has no such experience to guide him. in the crises of life the behaviour of the freethinker is at least as calm and as courageous as that of the christian. and it may certainly be argued that a serene resignation in the presence of death is quite as valuable as the hectic emotionalism of cultivated religious belief. what, after all, is there in the fact of natural death that should breed irresolution, rob us of courage, or fill us with fear? experience proves there are many things that people dread more than death, and will even seek death rather than face, or, again, there are a hundred and one things to obtain which men and women will face death without fear. and this readiness to face or seek death does not seem to be at all determined by religious belief. the millions of men who faced death during the war were not determined in their attitude by their faith in religious dogmas. if questioned they might, in the majority of cases, say that they believed in a future life, and also that they found it a source of strength, but it would need little reflection to assess the reply at its true value. and as a racial fact, the fear of death is a negative quality. the positive aspect is the will to live, and that may be seen in operation in the animal world as well as in the world of man. but this has no reference, not even the remotest, to a belief in a future life. there are no "intimations of immortality" here. there is simply one of the conditions of animal survival, developed in man to the point at which its further strengthening would become a threat to the welfare of the species. the desire to live is one of the conditions that secures the struggle to live, and a species of animals in which this did not exist would soon go under before a more virile type. and it is one of the peculiarities of religious reasoning that a will to live here should be taken as clear proof of a desire to live somewhere else. the fear of death could never be a powerful factor in life; existence would be next to impossible if it were. it would rob the organism of its daring, its tenacity, and ultimately divest life itself of value. against that danger we have an efficient guard in the operation of natural selection. in the animal world there is no fear of death, there is, in fact, no reason to assume that there exists even a consciousness of death. and with man, when reflection and knowledge give birth to that consciousness, there arises a strong other regarding instinct which effectively prevents it assuming a too positive or a too dangerous form. fear of death is, in brief, part of the jargon of priestcraft. the priest has taught it the people because it was to his interest to do so. and the jargon retains a certain currency because it is only the minority that rise above the parrot-like capacity to repeat current phrases, or who ever make an attempt to analyse their meaning and challenge their veracity. the positive fear of death is largely an acquired mental attitude. in its origin it is largely motived by religion. generally speaking there is no very great fear of death among savages, and among the pagans of old greece and rome there was none of that abject fear of death that became so common with the establishment of christianity. to the pagan, death was a natural fact, sad enough, but not of necessity terrible. of the greek sculptures representing death professor mahaffy says: "they are simple pictures of the grief of parting, of the recollection of pleasant days of love and friendship, of the gloom of an unknown future. but there is no exaggeration in the picture." throughout roman literature also there runs the conception of death as the necessary complement of life. pliny puts this clearly in the following: "unto all, the state of being after the last day is the same as it was before the first day of life; neither is there any more variation of it in either body or soul after death than there was before death." among the uneducated there does appear to have been some fear of death, and one may assume that with some of even of the educated this was not altogether absent. it may also be assumed that it was to this type of mind that christianity made its first appeal, and upon which it rested its nightmare-like conception of death and the after-life. on this matter the modern mind can well appreciate the attitude of lucretius, who saw the great danger in front of the race and sought to guard men against it by pointing out the artificiality of the fear of death and the cleansing effect of genuine knowledge. so shalt thou feed on death who feeds on men, and death once dead there's no more dying then. the policy of christianity was the belittling of this life and an exaggeration of the life after death, with a boundless exaggeration of the terrors that awaited the unwary and the unfaithful. the state of knowledge under christian auspices made this task easy enough. of the mediæval period mr. lionel cust, in his _history of engraving during the fifteenth century_, says:-- the keys of knowledge, as of salvation, were entirely in the hands of the church, and the lay public, both high and low, were, generally speaking, ignorant and illiterate. one of the secrets of the great power exercised by the church lay in its ability to represent the life of man as environed from the outset by legions of horrible and insidious demons, who beset his path throughout life at every stage up to his very last breath, and are eminently active and often triumphant when man's fortitude is undermined by sickness, suffering, and the prospect of dissolution. f. parkes weber also points out that, "it was in mediæval europe, under the auspices of the catholic church, that descriptions of hell began to take on their most horrible aspects."[ ] so, again, we have sir james frazer pointing out that the fear of death is not common to the lower races, and "among the causes which thus tend to make us cowards may be numbered the spread of luxury and the doctrines of a gloomy theology, which by proclaiming the eternal damnation and excruciating torments of the vast majority of mankind has added incalculably to the dread and horror of death."[ ] [ ] _aspects of death in art and epigram_, p. . [ ] _golden bough_, vol. iv., p. . no religion has emphasized the terror of death as christianity has done, and in the truest sense, no religion has so served to make men such cowards in its presence. upon that fear a large part of the power of the christian church has been built, and men having become so obsessed with the fear of death and what lay beyond, it is not surprising that they should turn to the church for some measure of relief. the poisoner thus did a lucrative trade by selling a doubtful remedy for his own toxic preparation. more than anything else the fear of death and hell laid the foundation of the wealth and power of the christian church. if it drew its authority from god, it derived its profit from the devil. the two truths that emerge from a sober and impartial study of christian history are that the power of the church was rooted in death and that it flourished in dishonour. it was christianity, and christianity alone that made death so abiding a terror to the european mind. and society once christianized, the uneducated could find no adequate corrective from the more educated. the baser elements which existed in the pagan world were eagerly seized upon by the christian writers and developed to their fullest extent. some of the pagan writers had speculated, in a more or less fanciful spirit, on a hell of a thousand years. christianity stretched it to eternity. pre-christianity had reserved the miseries of the after-life for adults. christian writers paved the floor of hell with infants, "scarce a span long." plutarch and other pagan moralists had poured discredit upon the popular notions of a future life. christianity reaffirmed them with all the exaggerations of a diseased imagination. the pagans held that death was as normal and as natural as life. christianity returned to the conception current among savages and depicted death as a penal infliction. the pagan art of living was superseded by the christian art of dying. human ingenuity exhausted itself in depicting the terrors of the future life, and when one remembers the powers of the church, and the murderous manner in which it exercised them, there is small wonder that under the auspices of the church the fear of death gained a strength it had never before attained. small wonder, then, that we still have with us the talk of the comfort that christianity brings in the face of death. where the belief in the christian after-life really exists, the retention of a conviction of the saving power of christianity is a condition of sanity. where the belief does not really exist, we are fronted with nothing but a parrot-like repetition of familiar phrases. the christian talk of comfort is thus, on either count, no more than a product of christian education. christianity does not make men brave in the presence of death, that is no more than a popular superstition. what it does is to cover a natural fact with supernatural terrors, and then exploit a frame of mind that it has created. the comfort is only necessary so long as the special belief is present. remove that belief and death takes its place as one of the inevitable facts of existence, surrounded with all the sadness of a last farewell, but rid of all the terror that has been created by religion. our dying soldier, asking for a copy of the _crown of wild olive_ to be buried with him, and the other who calls for priestly ministrations, represent, ultimately, two different educational results. the one is a product of an educational process applied during the darkest periods of european history, and perpetuated by a training that has been mainly directed by the self-interest of a class. the other represents an educational product which stands as the triumph of the pressure of life over artificial dogmas. the freethinker, because he is a freethinker, needs none of those artificial stimulants for which the christian craves. and he pays him the compliment--in spite of his protests--of believing that without his religion the christian would display as much manliness in the face of death as he does himself. he believes there is plenty of healthy human nature in the average christian, and the freethinker merely begs him to give it a chance of finding expression. in this matter, it must be observed, the freethinker makes no claim to superiority over the christian; it is the christian who forces that claim upon him. the freethinker does not assume that the difference between himself and the christian is nearly so great as the latter would have him believe. he believes that what is dispensable by the one, without loss, is dispensable by the other. if freethinkers can devote themselves to "the pursuit of truth and the service of their fellow men," if they can "endure pain and sorrow with calm resignation," if they live with honour and face death without fear, i see no reason why the christian should not be able to reach the same level of development. it is paying the freethinker a "violent compliment," to use an expression of john wesley's, to place him upon a level of excellence that is apparently so far above that of the average christian. as a freethinker, i decline to accept it. i believe that what the freethinker is, the christian may well become. he, too, may learn to do his duty without the fear of hell or the hope of heaven. all that is required is that he shall give his healthier instincts an opportunity for expression. chapter x. this world and the next. in the preceding chapter i have only discussed the fact of death in relation to a certain attitude of mind. the question of the survival of the human personality after death is a distinct question and calls for separate treatment. nor is the present work one in which that topic can be treated at adequate length. the most that can now be attempted is a bird's eye view of a large field of controversy, although it may be possible in the course of that survey to say something on the more important aspects of the subject. and first we may notice the curious assumption that the man who argues for immortality is taking a lofty view of human nature, while he who argues against it is taking a low one. in sober truth it is the other way about. consider the position. it is tacitly admitted that if human motive, considered with reference to this world alone, is adequate as an incentive to action, and the consequences of actions, again considered with reference to this world, are an adequate reward for endeavour, then it is agreed that the main argument for the belief in immortality breaks down. to support or to establish the argument it is necessary to show that life divorced from the conception of a future life can never reach the highest possible level. natural human society is powerless in itself to realize its highest possibilities. it remains barren of what it might be, a thing that may frame ideals, but can never realize them. now that is quite an intelligible, and, therefore, an arguable proposition. but whether true or not, there should be no question that it involves a lower view of human nature than the one taken by the freethinker. he does at least pay human nature the compliment of believing it capable, not alone of framing high ideals, but also of realizing them. he says that by itself it is capable of realizing all that may be legitimately demanded from it. he does not believe that supernatural hopes or fears are necessary to induce man to live cleanly, or die serenely, or to carry out properly his duties to his fellows. the religionist denies this, and asserts that some form of supernaturalism is essential to the moral health of men and women. if the freethinker is wrong, it is plain that his fault consists in taking a too optimistic view of human nature. his mistake consists in taking not a low view of human nature, but a lofty one. substantially, the difference between the two positions is the difference between the man who is honest from a conviction of the value of honesty, and the one who refrains from stealing because he feels certain of detection, or because he is afraid of losing something that he might otherwise gain. thus, we are told by one writer that:-- if human life is but a by-product of the unconscious play of physical force, like a candle flame soon to be blown out or burnt out, what a paltry thing it is! but the questions of where human life came from, or where it will end, are quite apart from the question of the value and capabilities of human life now. that there are immense possibilities in this life none but a fool will deny. the world is full of strange and curious things, and its pleasures undoubtedly outweigh its pains in the experience of normal man or woman. but the relations between ourselves and others remain completely unaffected by the termination of existence at the grave, or its continuation beyond. it is quite a defensible proposition that life is not worth living. so is the reverse of the proposition. but it is nonsense to say that life is a "paltry thing" merely because it ends at the grave. it is unrestricted egotism manifesting itself in the form of religious conviction. one might as well argue that a sunset ceases to be beautiful because it does not continue all night. if i cannot live for ever, then is the universe a failure! that is really all that the religious argument amounts to. and so to state it, to reduce it to plain terms, and divest it of its disguising verbiage, almost removes the need for further refutation. but it is seldom stated in so plain and so unequivocal a manner. it is accompanied with much talk of growth, of an evolutionary purpose, of ruined lives made good, thus: seeing that man is the goal towards which everything has tended from the beginning, seeing that the same eternal and infinite energy has laboured through the ages at the production of man, and man is the heir of the ages, nothing conceivable seems too great or glorious to believe concerning his destiny.... if there is no limit to human growth in knowledge and wisdom, in love and constructive power, in beauty and joy, we are invested with a magnificent worth and dignity. so fallacy and folly run on. what, for example, does anyone mean by man as the goal towards which everything has tended since the beginning? whatever truth there is in the statement applies to all things without exception. it is as true of the microbe as it is of man. if the "infinite and eternal energy" laboured to produce man, it laboured also to produce the microbe which destroys him. the one is here as well as the other; and one can conceive a religious microbe thanking an almighty one for having created it, and declaring that unless it is to live for ever in some microbic heaven, with a proper supply of human beings for its nourishment, the whole scheme of creation is a failure. it is quite a question of the point of view. as a matter of fact there are no "ends" in nature. there are only results, and each result becomes a factor in some further result. it is human folly and ignorance which makes an end of a consequence. after all, what reason is there for anyone assuming that the survival of man beyond the grave is even probably true? we do not know man as a "soul" first and a body afterwards. neither do we know him as a detached "mind" which afterwards takes possession of a body. our knowledge of man commences with him, as does our knowledge of any animal, as a body possessing certain definite functions of which we call one group mental. and the two things are so indissolubly linked that we cannot even think of them as separate. if anyone doubts this let him try and picture to himself what a man is like in the absence of a body. he will find the thing simply inconceivable. in the absence of the material organism, to which the mind unquestionably stands in the relation of function to organ, what remains is a mere blank. to the informed mind, that is. to the intelligence of the savage, who is led, owing to his erroneous conception of things, to think of something inside the body which leaves it during sleep, wanders about, and then returns on awakening, and who because of this affiliates sleep to death, the case may be different. but to a modern mind, one which is acquainted with something of what science has to say on the subject, the conception of a mind existing apart from organization is simply unthinkable. all our knowledge is against it. the development of mind side by side with the development of the brain and the nervous system is one of the commonplaces of scientific knowledge. the treatment of states of mind as functions of the brain and the nervous system is a common-place of medical practice. and the fact that diet, temperature, health and disease, accidents and old age, all have their effects on mental manifestations is matter of everyday observation. the whole range of positive science may safely be challenged to produce a single indisputable fact in favour of the assumption that there exists anything about man independent of the material organism. all that can be urged in favour of such a belief is that there are still many obscure facts which we are not altogether able to explain on a purely mechanistic theory. but that is a confession of ignorance, not an affirmation of knowledge. at any rate, there does not exist a single fact against the functional theory of mind. all we _know_ is decidedly in its favour, and a theory must be tested by what we know and by what it explains, not by what we do not know or by what it cannot explain. and there is here the additional truth that the only ground upon which the theory can be opposed is upon certain metaphysical assumptions which are made in order to bolster up an already existing belief. if the belief in survival had not been already in existence these assumptions would never have been made. they are not suggested by the facts, they are invented to support an already established theory, which can no longer appeal to the circumstances which gave it birth. and about those circumstance there is no longer the slightest reason for justifiable doubt. we can trace the belief in survival after death until we see it commencing in the savage belief in a double that takes its origin in the phenomena of dreaming and unusual mental states. it is from that starting point that the belief in survival takes its place as an invariable element in the religions of the world. and as we trace the evolution of knowledge we see every fact upon which was built the belief in a double that survived death gradually losing its hold on the human intelligence, owing to the fact that the experiences that gave it birth are interpreted in a manner which allows no room for the religious theory. the fatal fact about the belief in survival is its history. that history shows us how it began, as surely as the course of its evolution indicates the way in which it will end. so, as with the idea of god, what we have left in modern times are not the reasons why such a belief is held, but only excuses why those who hold it should not be disturbed. that and a number of arguments which only present an air of plausibility because they succeed in jumbling together things that have no connection with each other. as an example of this we may take the favourite modern plea that a future life is required to permit the growth and development of the individual. we find this expressed in the quotation above given in the sentence "if there is no limit to human growth, etc.," the inference being that unless there is a future life there is a very sharp limit set to human growth, and one that makes this life a mockery. this plea is presented in so many forms that it is worth while analysing it a little, if only to bring out more clearly the distinction between the religious and the freethought view of life. what now is meant by there being no limit to human growth? if by it is meant individual growth, the reply is that there is actually a very sharp limit set to growth, much sharper than the average person seems to be aware of. it is quite clear that the individual is not capable of unlimited growth in this world. there are degrees of capacity in different individuals which will determine what amount of development each is capable of. capacity is not an acquired thing, it is an endowment, and the child born with the brain capacity of a fool will remain a fool to the end, however much his folly may be disguised or lost amid the folly of others. and with each one, whether he be fool or genius, acquisitions are made more easily and more rapidly in youth, the power of mental adaptation is much greater in early than in later life, while in old age the capacities of adaptation and acquisition become negligible quantities. and provided one lives long enough, the last stage sees, not a promise of further progress if life were continued, but a process of degradation. the old saying that one can't put a quart into a pint pot is strictly applicable here. growth assumes acquisition; acquisition is determined by capacity, and this while an indefinite quantity (indefinite here is strictly referable to our ignorance, not to the actual fact) is certainly not an unlimited one. life, then, so far as the individual is concerned, does not point to unlimited growth. it indicates, so far as it indicates anything at all, that there is a limit to growth as to all other things. well, but suppose we say that man is capable of indefinite growth, what do we mean? let us also bear in mind at this point that we are strictly concerned with the individual. for if man survives death he must do it as an individual. to merely survive as a part of the chemical and other elements of the world, or, to follow some mystical theologians, as an indistinguishable part of a "world-soul," is not what people mean when they talk of living beyond the grave. here, again, it will be found that we have confused two quite distinct things, even though the one thing borrows its meaning from the other. when we compare the individual, as such, with the individual of three or four thousand years ago, can we say with truth that the man of to-day is actually superior to the man of the earlier date? to test the question let us put it in this way. does the man of to-day do anything or think anything that is beyond the capacity of an ancient egyptian or an ancient greek, if it were possible to suddenly revive one and to enable him to pass through the same education that each one of us passes through? i do not think that anyone will answer that question in the affirmative. reverse the process. suppose that a modern man, with exactly the same capacity that he now has had lived in the days of the ancient egyptians or the ancient greeks, can we say that his capacity is so much greater than theirs, that he would have done better than they did? i do not think that anyone will answer that question in the affirmative either. is the soldier of to-day a better soldier, or the sailor a better sailor than those who lived three thousand years ago? once more the answer will not be in the affirmative. and yet there are certain things that are obvious. it is plain that we all know more than did the people of long ago, we can do more, we understand the past better, and we can see farther into the future. a schoolboy to-day carries in his head what would have been a philosopher's outfit once upon a time. our soldiers and sailors utilize, single-handed, forces greater than a whole army or navy wielded in the far-off days of the ptolemies. we call ourselves greater, we think ourselves greater, and in a sense we are greater than the people of old. what, then, is the explanation of the apparent paradox? the explanation lies in the simple fact that progress is not a phenomenon of individual life at all. it is a phenomenon of social existence. if each generation had to commence at the exact point at which its predecessors started it would get no farther than they got. it would be an eternal round, with each generation starting from and reaching the same point, and progress would be an inconceivable thing. but that we know is not the case. instead of each generation starting from precisely the same point, one inherits at least something of the labours and discoveries of its predecessors. a thing discovered by the individual is discovered for the race. a thought struck out by the individual is a thought for the race. by language, by tradition, and by institutions the advances of each generation are conserved, handed on, and made part of our racial possessions. the strength, the knowledge, of the modern is thus due not to any innate superiority over the ancient, but because one is modern and the other ancient. if we could have surrounded the ancient assyrians with all the inventions, and given them all the knowledge that we possess, they would have used that knowledge and those inventions as wisely, or as unwisely as we use them. progress is thus not a fact of individual but of racial life. the individual inherits more than he creates, and it is in virtue of this racial inheritance that he is what he is. it is a mere trick of the imagination that converts this fact of social growth into an essential characteristic of individual life. we speak of "man" without clearly distinguishing between man as a biological unit and man as a member of a social group developing in correspondence with a true social medium. but if that is so, it follows that this capacity for growth is, so to speak, a function of the social medium. it is conditioned by it, it has relevance only in relation to it. our feelings, our sentiments, even our desires, have reference to this life, and in a far deeper sense than is usually imagined. and removed from its relation to this life human nature would be without meaning or value. there is nothing in any of the functions of man, in any of his capacities, or in any of his properly understood desires that has the slightest reference to any life but this. it is unthinkable that there should be. an organ or an organism develops in relation to a special medium, not in relation to one that--even though it exists--is not also in relation with it. this is quite an obvious truth in regard to structures, but it is not always so clearly recognized, or so carefully borne in mind, that it is equally true of every feeling and desire. for these are developed in relation to their special medium, in this case, the existence of fellow beings with their actions and reactions on each other. and man is not only a member of a social group, that much is an obvious fact; but he is a product of the group in the sense that all his characteristic human qualities have resulted from the interactions of group life. take man out of relation to that fact, and he is an enigma, presenting fit opportunities for the wild theorizing of religious philosophers. take him in connection with it, and his whole nature becomes susceptible of understanding in relation to the only existence he knows and desires. the twin facts of growth and progress, upon which so much of the argument for a future life turns nowadays, have not the slightest possible reference to a life beyond the grave. they are fundamentally not even personal, but social. it is the race that grows, not the individual, he becomes more powerful precisely because the products of racial acquisition are inherited by him. remove, if only in thought, the individual from all association with his fellows, strip him of all that he inherits from association with them, and he loses all the qualities we indicate when we speak of him as a civilized being. remove him, in fact, from that association, as when a man is marooned on a desert island, and the more civilized qualities of his character begin to weaken and in time disappear. man, as an individual, becomes more powerful with the passing of each generation, precisely because he is thus dependent upon the life of the race. the secret of his weakness is at the same time the source of his strength. we are what we are because of the generations of men and women who lived and toiled and died before we were born. we inherit the fruits of their labours, as those who come after us will inherit the fruits of our struggles and conquests. it is thus in the life of the race that man achieves immortality. none other is possible, or conceivable. and to those whose minds are not distorted by religious teaching, and who have taken the trouble to analyse and understand their own mental states, it may be said that none other is even desirable. chapter xi. evolution. language, we have said above, is one of the prime conditions of human greatness and progress. it is the principal means by which man conserves his victories over the forces of his environment, and transmits them to his descendants. but it is, nevertheless, not without its dangers, and may exert an influence fatal to exact thought. there is a sense in which language necessarily lags behind thought. for words are coined to express the ideas of those who fashion them; and as the knowledge of the next generation alters, and some modification of existing conceptions is found necessary, there is nothing but the existing array of words in which to express them. the consequence is that there are nearly always subtle shades of meaning in the words used differing from the exact meaning which the new thought is trying to express. thought drives us to seek new or improved verbal tools, but until we get them we must go on using the old ones, with all their old implications. and by the time the new words arrive thought has made a still further advance, and the general position remains. it is an eternal chase in which the pursued is always being captured, but is never caught. another way in which language holds a danger is that with many words, especially when they assume the character of a formula, they tend to usurp the place of thinking. the old lady who found so much consolation in the "blessed" word mesopotamia, is not alone in using that method of consolation. it does not meet us only in connection with religion, it is encountered over the whole field of sociology, and even of science. a conception in science or sociology is established after a hard fight. it is accepted generally, and thereafter takes its place as one of the many established truths. and then the danger shows itself. it is repeated as though it had some magical virtue in itself; it means nothing to very many of those who use it, they simply hand over their mental difficulties to its care, much as the penitent in the confessional hands over his moral troubles to the priest, and there the matter ends. but in such cases the words used do not express thought, they simply blind people to its absence. and not only that, but in the name of these sacred words, any number of foolish inferences are drawn and receive general assent. a striking illustration of this is to be found in such a word as "evolution." one may say of it that while it began as a formula, it continues as a fiat. some invoke it with all the expectancy of a mediæval magician commanding the attendance of his favourite spirits. others approach it with a hushed reverence that is reminiscent of a catholic devotee before his favourite shrine. in a little more than half a century it has acquired the characteristics of the kismet of the mohammedan, the beelzebub of the pious christian, and the power of a phrase that gives inspiration to a born soldier. it is used as often to dispel doubt as it is to awaken curiosity. it may express comprehension or merely indicate vacuity. decisions are pronounced in its name with all the solemnity of a "thus saith the lord." we are not sure that even to talk about evolution in this way may not be considered wrong. for there are crowds of folk who cannot distinguish profundity from solemnity, and who mistake a long face for the sure indication of a well-stored brain. the truth here is that what a man understands thoroughly he can deal with easily; and that he laughs at a difficulty is not necessarily a sign that he fails to appreciate it, he may laugh because he has taken its measure. and why people do not laugh at such a thing as religion is partly because they have not taken its measure, partly from a perception that religion cannot stand it. everywhere the priest maintains his hold as a consequence of the narcotizing influence of ill-understood phrases, and in this he is matched by the pseudo-philosopher whose pompous use of imperfectly appreciated formulæ disguises from the crowd the mistiness of his understanding. a glance over the various uses to which the word "evolution" is put will well illustrate the truth of what has been said. these make one wonder what, in the opinion of some people, evolution stands for. one of these uses of evolution is to give it a certain moral implication to which it has not the slightest claim. a certain school of non-theists are, in this matter, if not the greatest offenders, certainly those with the least excuse for committing the blunder. by these evolution is identified with progress, or advancement, or a gradual "levelling up" of society, and is even acclaimed as presenting a more "moral" view of the universe than is the theistic conception. now, primarily, this ascription of what one may call a moral element to evolution is no more than a carrying over into science of a frame of mind that properly belongs to theism. quite naturally the theist was driven to try and find some moral purpose in the universe, and to prove that its working did not grate on our moral sense. that was quite understandable, and even legitimate. the world, from the point of view of the goddite, was god's world, he made it; and we are ultimately compelled to judge the character of god from his workmanship. an attack on the moral character of the world is, therefore, an attack on the character of its maker. and the theist proceeded to find a moral justification for all that god had done. so far all is clear. but now comes a certain kind of non-theist. and he, always rejecting a formal theism and substituting evolution, proceeds to claim for his formula all that the theist claimed for his. he also strives to show that the idea of cosmic evolution involves conceptions of nobility, justice, morality, etc. there is no wonder that some christians round on him, and tell him that he still believes in a god. substantially he does. that is, he carries over into his new camp the same anthropomorphic conception of the workings of nature, and uses the same pseudo-scientific reasoning that is characteristic of the theist. he has formally given up god, but he goes about uncomfortably burdened with his ghost. now, evolution is not a fiat, but a formula. it has nothing whatever to do with progress, as such, nor with morality, as such, nor with a levelling up, nor a levelling down. it is really no more than a special application of the principle of causation, and whether the working out of that principle has a good effect or a bad one, a moralizing, or a demoralizing, a progressive, or a retrogressive consequence is not "given" in the principle itself. fundamentally, all cosmic phenomena present us with two aspects--difference and change--and that is so because it is the fundamental condition of our knowing anything at all. but the law of evolution is no more, is nothing more serious or more profound than an attempt to express those movements of change and difference in a more or less precise formula. it aims at doing for phenomena in general exactly what a particular scientific law aims at doing for some special department. but it has no more a moral implication, or a progressive implication than has the law of gravitation or of chemical affinity. the sum of those changes that are expressed in the law of evolution may result in one or the other; it has resulted in one or the other. at one time we call its consequences moral or progressive, at another time we call them immoral or retrogressive, but these are some of the distinctions which the human mind creates for its own convenience, they have no validity in any other sense. and when we mistake these quite legitimate distinctions, made for our own convenience, and argue as though they had an actual independent existence, we are reproducing exactly the same mental confusion that keeps theism alive. the two aspects that difference and change resolve themselves into when expressed in an evolutionary formula are, in the inorganic world, equilibrium, and, in the organic world, adaptation. of course, equilibrium also applies to the organic world, i merely put it this way for the purpose of clarity. now, if we confine our attention to the world of animal forms, what we have expressed, primarily, is the fact of adaptation. if an animal is to live it must be adapted to its surroundings to at least the extent of being able to overcome or to neutralize the forces that threaten its existence. that is quite a common-place, since all it says is that to live an animal must be fit to live, but all great truths are common-places--when one sees them. still, if there were only adaptations to consider, and if the environment to which adaptation is to be secured, remained constant, all we should have would be the deaths of those not able to live, with the survival of those more fortunately endowed. there would be nothing that we could call, even to please ourselves, either progress or its reverse. movement up or down (both human landmarks) occurs because the environment itself undergoes a change. either the material conditions change, or the pressure of numbers initiates a contest for survival, although more commonly one may imagine both causes in operation at the same time. but the consequence is the introduction of a new quality into the struggle for existence. it becomes a question of a greater endowment of the qualities that spell survival. and that paves the way to progress--or the reverse. but one must bear in mind that, whether the movement be in one direction or the other, it is still the same process that is at work. evolution levels neither "up" nor "down." up and down is as relative in biology as it is in astronomy. in nature there is neither better nor worse, neither high nor low, neither good nor bad, there are only differences, and if that had been properly appreciated by all, very few of the apologies for theism would ever have seen the light. there is not the slightest warranty for speaking of evolution as being a "progressive force," it is, indeed, not a force at all, but only a descriptive term on all fours with any other descriptive term as expressed in a natural law. it neither, of necessity, levels up nor levels down. in the animal world it illustrates adaptation only, but whether that adaptation involves what we choose to call progression or retrogression is a matter of indifference. on the one hand we have aquatic life giving rise to mammalian life, and on the other hand, we have mammalian life reverting to an aquatic form of existence. in one place we have a "lower" form of life giving place to a "higher" form. in another place we can see the reverse process taking place. and the "lower" forms are often more persistent than the "higher" ones, while, as the course of epidemical and other diseases shows certain lowly forms of life may make the existence of the higher forms impossible. the theistic attempt to disprove the mechanistic conception of nature by insisting that evolution is a law of progress, that it implies an end, and indicates a goal, is wholly fallacious. from a scientific point of view it is meaningless chatter. science knows nothing of a plan, or an end in nature, or even progress. all these are conceptions which we humans create for our own convenience. they are so many standards of measurement, of exactly the same nature as our agreement that a certain length of space shall be called a yard, or a certain quantity of liquid shall be called a pint. to think otherwise is pure anthropomorphism. it is the ghost of god imported into science. so far, then, it is clear that the universal fact in nature is change. the most general aspect of nature which meets us is that expressed in the law of evolution. and proceeding from the more general to the less general, in the world of living beings this change meets us in the form of adaptation to environment. but what constitutes adaptation must be determined by the nature of the environment. that will determine what qualities are of value in the struggle for existence, which is not necessarily a struggle against other animals, but may be no more than the animal's own endeavours to persist in being. it is, however, in relation to the environment that we must measure the value of qualities. whatever be the nature of the environment that principle remains true. ideally, one quality may be more desirable than another, but if it does not secure a greater degree of adaptation to the environment it brings no advantage to its possessor. it may even bring a positive disadvantage. in a thieves' kitchen the honest man is handicapped. in a circle of upright men the dishonest man is at a discount. in the existing political world a perfectly truthful man would be a parliamentary failure. in the pulpit a preacher who knew the truth about christianity and preached it would soon be out of the church. adaptation is not, as such, a question of moral goodness or badness, it is simply adaptation. a precautionary word needs be said on the matter of environment. if we conceive the environment as made up only of the material surroundings we shall not be long before we find ourselves falling into gross error. for that conception of environment will only hold of the very lowest organisms. a little higher, and the nature of the organism begins to have a modifying effect on the material environment, and when we come to animals living in groups the environment of the individual animal becomes partly the habits and instincts of the other animals with which it lives. finally, when we reach man this transformation of the nature of the environment becomes greatest. here it is not merely the existence of other members of the same species, with all their developed feelings and ideas to which each must become adapted to live, but in virtue of what we have described above as the social medium, certain "thought forms" such as institutions, conceptions of right and wrong, ideals of duty, loyalty, the relation of one human group to other human groups, not merely those that are now living, but also those that are dead, are all part of the environment to which adjustment must be made. and in the higher stages of social life these aspects of the environment become of even greater consequence than the facts of a climatic, geographic, or geologic nature. in other words, the environment which exerts a predominating influence on civilized mankind is an environment that has been very largely created by social life and growth. if we keep these two considerations firmly in mind we shall be well guarded against a whole host of fallacies and false analogies that are placed before us as though they were unquestioned and unquestionable truths. there is, for instance, the misreading of evolution which asserts that inasmuch as what is called moral progress takes place, therefore evolution involves a moral purpose. we find this view put forward not only by avowed theists, but by those who, while formally disavowing theism, appear to have imported into ethics all the false sentiment and fallacious reasoning that formerly did duty in bolstering up the idea of god. evolution, as such, is no more concerned with an ideal morality than it is concerned with the development of an ideal apple dumpling. in the universal process morality is no more than a special illustration of the principle of adaptation. the morality of man is a summary of the relations between human beings that must be maintained if the two-fold end of racial preservation and individual development are to be secured. fundamentally morality is the formulation in either theory or practice of rules or actions that make group-life possible. and the man who sees in the existence or growth of morality proof of a "plan" or an "end" is on all fours with the mentality of the curate who saw the hand of providence in the fact that death came at the end of life instead of in the middle of it. what we are dealing with here is the fact of adaptation, although in the case of the human group the traditions and customs and ideals of the group form a very important part of the environment to which adaptation must be made and have, therefore, a distinct survival value. the moral mystery-monger is only a shade less objectionable than the religious mystery-monger, of whom he is the ethical equivalent. a right conception of the nature of environment and the meaning of evolution will also protect us against a fallacy that is met with in connection with social growth. human nature, we are often told, is always the same. to secure a desired reform, we are assured, you must first of all change human nature, and the assumption is that as human nature cannot be changed the proposed reform is quite impossible. now there is a sense in which human nature is the same, generation after generation. but there is another sense in which human nature is undergoing constant alteration, and, indeed, it is one of the outstanding features of social life that it should be so. so far as can be seen there exists no difference between the fundamental capacities possessed by man during at least the historic period. there are differences in people between the relative strengths of the various capacities, but that is all. an ancient assyrian possessed all the capacities of a modern englishman, and in the main one would feel inclined to say the same of them in their quantitative aspect as well as in their qualitative one. for when one looks at the matter closely it is seen that the main difference between the ancient and the modern man is in expression. civilization does not so much change the man so much as it gives a new direction to the existing qualities. whether particular qualities are expressed in an ideally good direction or the reverse depends upon the environment to which they react. to take an example. the fundamental evil of war in a modern state is that it expends energy in a harmful direction. but war itself, the expression of the war-like character, is the outcome of pugnacity and the love of adventure without which human nature would be decidedly the poorer, and would be comparatively ineffective. it is fundamentally an expression of these qualities that lead to the quite healthy taste for exploration, discovery, and in intellectual pursuits to that contest of ideas which lies at the root of most of our progress. and what war means in the modern state is that the love of competition and adventure, the pugnacity which leads a man to fight in defence of a right or to redress a wrong, and without which human nature would be a poor thing, are expended in the way of sheer destruction instead of through channels of adventure and healthy intellectual contest. sympathies are narrowed instead of widened, and hatred of the stranger and the outsider, of which a growing number of people in a civilized country are becoming ashamed, assumes the rank of a virtue. in other words, a state of war creates an environment--fortunately for only a brief period--which gives a survival value to such expressions of human capacity as indicate a reversion to a lower state of culture. we may put the matter thus. while conduct is a function of the organism, and while the _kind_ of reaction is determined by structure, the _form_ taken by the reaction is a matter of response to environmental influences. it is this fact which explains why the capacities of man remain fairly constant, while there is a continuous redirecting of these capacities into new channels suitable to a developing social life. we are only outlining here a view of evolution that would require a volume to discuss and illustrate adequately, but enough has been said to indicate the enormous importance of the educative power of the environment. we cannot alter the capacities of the individual for they are a natural endowment. but we can, in virtue of an increased emphasis, determine whether they shall be expressed in this or that direction. the love of adventure may, for example, be exhausted in the pursuit of some piratical enterprise, or it may be guided into channels of some useful form of social effort. it lies with society itself to see that the environment is such as to exercise a determining influence with regard to expressions of activity that are beneficial to the whole of the group. to sum up. evolution is no more than a formula that expresses the way in which a moving balance of forces is brought about by purely mechanical means. so far as animal life is concerned this balance is expressed by the phrase "adaptation to environment." but in human society the environment is in a growing measure made up of ideas, customs, traditions, ideals, and beliefs; in a word, of factors which are themselves products of human activities. and it is for this reason that the game of civilization is very largely in our own hands. if we maintain an environment in which it is either costly or dangerous to be honest and fearless in the expression of opinion, we shall be doing our best to develop mental cowardice and hypocrisy. if we bring up the young with the successful soldier or money-maker before them as examples, while we continue to treat the scientist as a crank, and the reformer as a dangerous criminal, we shall be continuing the policy of forcing the expression of human capacity on a lower level than would otherwise be the case. if we encourage the dominance of a religion which while making a profession of disinterested loftiness continues to irradiate a narrow egotism and a pessimistic view of life, we are doing our best to perpetuate an environment which emphasizes only the poorer aspects of human motive. two centuries of ceaseless scientific activity have taught us something of the rules of the game which we are all playing with nature whether we will or no. to-day we have a good many of the winning cards in our hands, if we will only learn to play them wisely. it is not correct to say that evolution necessarily involves progress, but it does indicate that wisdom and foresight may so control the social forces as to turn that ceaseless change which is indicated by the law of evolution into channels that make for happiness and prosperity. chapter xii. darwinism and design. the influence of the hypothesis of evolution on religion was not long in making itself felt. professor huxley explained the rapid success of darwinism by saying that the scientific world was ready for it. and much the same thing may be said of the better representatives of the intellectual world with regard to the bearing of evolution on religion. in many directions the cultivated mind had for more than half a century been getting familiar with the general conception of growth in human life and thought. where earlier generations had seen no more than a pattern to unravel there had developed a conviction that there was a history to trace and to understand. distant parts of the world had been brought together during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, readers and students were getting familiarized with the mass of customs and religious ideas that were possessed by these peoples, and it was perceived that beneath the bewildering variety of man's mental output there were certain features which they had in common, and which might hold in solution some common principle or principles. this common principle was found in the conception of evolution. it was the one thing which, if true, and apart from the impossible idea of a revelation, nicely graduated to the capacities of different races, offered an explanation of the religions of the world in terms more satisfactory than those of deliberate invention or imposture. once it was accepted, if only as an instrument of investigation, its use was soon justified. and the thorough-going nature of the conquest achieved is in no wise more clearly manifested than in the fact that the conception of growth is, to-day, not merely an accepted principle with scientific investigators, it has sunk deeply into all our literature and forms an unconscious part of popular thought. one aspect of the influence of evolution on religious ideas has already been noted. it made the religious idea but one of the many forms that were assumed by man's attempt to reduce his experience of the world to something like an orderly theory. but that carried with it, for religion, the danger of reducing it to no more than one of the many theories of things which man forms, with the prospect of its rejection as a better knowledge of the world develops. evolution certainly divested religion of any authority save such as it might contain in itself, and that is a position a religious mind can never contemplate with equanimity. but so far as the theory of darwinism is concerned it exerted a marked and rapid influence on the popular religious theory of design in nature. this is one of the oldest arguments in favour of a reasoned belief in god, and it is the one which was, and is still in one form or another, held in the greatest popular esteem. to the popular mind--and religion in a civilized country is not seriously concerned about its failing grip on the cultured intelligence so long as it keeps control of the ordinary man and woman--to the popular mind the argument from design appealed with peculiar force. anyone is capable of admiring the wonders of nature, and in the earlier developments of popular science the marvels of plant and animal structures served only to deepen the theist's admiration of the "divine wisdom." the examples of complexity of structure, of the interdependence of parts, and of the thousand and one cunning devices by which animal life maintains itself in the face of a hostile environment were there for all to see and admire. and when man compared these with his own conscious attempts to adapt means to ends, there seemed as strong proof here as anywhere of some scheming intelligence behind the natural process. but the strength of the case was more apparent than real. it was weakest at the very point where it should have been strongest. in the case of a human product we know the purpose and can measure the extent of its realization in the nature of the result. in the case of a natural product we have no means of knowing what the purpose was, or even if any purpose at all lies behind the product. the important element in the argument from design--that of purpose--is thus pure assumption. in the case of human productions we argue from purpose to production. in the case of a natural object we are arguing from production to an assumed purpose. the analogy breaks down just where it should be strongest and clearest. now it is undeniable that to a very large number of the more thoughtful the old form of the argument from design received its death blow from the darwinian doctrine of natural selection. in the light of this theory there was no greater need to argue that intelligence was necessary to produce animal adaptations than there was to assume intelligence for the sifting of sand by the wind. as the lighter grains are carried farthest because they are lightest, so natural selection, operating upon organic variations, favoured the better adapted specimens by killing off the less favoured ones. the fittest is not created, it survives. the world is not what it is because the animal is what it is, the animal is what it is because the world is as it is. it cannot be any different and live--a truth demonstrated by the destruction of myriads of animal forms, and by the disappearance of whole species. the case was so plain, the evidence so conclusive, that the clearer headed religionists dropped the old form of the argument from design as no longer tenable. but the gentleman who exchanged the errors of the church of rome for those of the church of england is always with us. and the believer in deity having dropped the argument from design in one form immediately proceeded to revive it in another. this was, perhaps, inevitable. after all, man lives in this world, and if proof of the existence of deity is to be gathered from his works, it must be derived from the world we know. so design _must_ be found somewhere, and it must be found here. only one chance was left. the general hypothesis of evolution--either darwinism alone, or darwinism plus other factors--explained the development of animal life. but that was _within_ the natural process. what, then, of the process as a whole? if the hand of god could not be seen in the particular adaptations of animal life, might it not be that the whole of the process, in virtue of which these particular adaptations occurred, might be the expression of the divine intelligence? god did not create the particular parts directly, but may he not have created the whole, leaving it for the forces he had set in motion to work out his "plan." the suggestion was attractive. it relieved religion from resting its case in a region where proof and disproof are possible, and removed it to a region where they are difficult, if not impossible. so, as it was not possible to uphold the old teleology, one began to hear a great deal of the "wider teleology," which meant that the theist was thinking vaguely when he imagined he was thinking comprehensively, and that, because he had reached a region where the laws of logic could not be applied, he concluded that he had achieved demonstration. and, indeed, when one gets outside the region of verification there is nothing to stop one theorizing--save a dose of common-sense and a gracious gift of humour. in another work (_theism or atheism_) i have dealt at length with the argument from design. at present my aim is to take the presentation of this "wider teleology" as given by a well-known writer on philosophical subjects, mr. f. c. s. schiller, in a volume published a few years ago entitled _humanism: philosophical essays_. and in doing so, it is certain that the theologian will lose nothing by leaving himself in the hands of so able a representative. mr. schiller naturally accepts darwinism as at least an important factor in organic evolution, but he does not believe that it excludes design, and he does believe that "our attitude towards life will be very different, according as we believe it to be inspired and guided by intelligence or hold it to be the fortuitous product of blind mechanisms, whose working our helpless human intelligence can observe, but cannot control." now within its scope darwinism certainly does exclude design, and even though the forces represented by natural selection may be directed towards the end produced, yet so far as the play of these forces is concerned they are really self-directing, or self-contained. the argument really seems to be just mere theology masquerading as philosophy. theories do play some part in the determination of the individual attitude towards life, but they do not play the important part that mr. schiller assumes they play. it is easily observable that the same theory of life held by a christian in england and by another christian in asia minor has, so far as it affects conduct, different results. and if it be said that even though the results be different they are still there, the reply is that they differ because the facts of life compel an adjustment in terms of the general environment. mr. schiller admits that the "prevalent conduct and that adapted to the conditions of life must coincide," and the admission is fatal to his position. the truth of the matter is that the conditions of life being what they are, and the consequences of conduct being also what they are, speculative theories of life cannot, in the nature of the case, affect life beyond a certain point; that is, if life is to continue. that is why in the history of belief religious teachings have sooner or later to accommodate themselves to persistent facts. mr. schiller brings forward two arguments in favour of reconciling darwinism and design, both of them ingenious, but neither of them conclusive. with both of these i will deal later; but it is first necessary to notice one or two of his arguments against a non-theistic darwinism. the denial of the argument from design, he says, leads farther than most people imagine:-- a complete denial of design in nature must deny the efficacy of all intelligence as such. a consistently mechanical view has to regard all intelligence as otiose, as an "epi-phenomenal by-product" or fifth wheel to the cart, in the absence of which the given results would no less have occurred. and so, if this view were the truth, we should have to renounce all effort to direct our fated and ill-fated course down the stream of time. our consciousness would be an unmeaning accident. a complete reply to this would involve an examination of the meaning that is and ought to be attached to "intelligence," and that is too lengthy an enquiry to be attempted here. it is, perhaps, enough to point out that mr. schiller's argument clearly moves on the assumption that intelligence is a _thing_ or a quality which exists, so to speak, in its own right and which interferes with the course of events as something from without. it is quite probable that he would repudiate this construction being placed on his words, but if he does not mean that, then i fail to see what he does mean, or what force there is in his argument. and it is enough for my purpose to point out that "intelligence" or mind is not a thing, but a relation. it asserts of a certain class of actions exactly what "gravitation" asserts of a certain class of motion, and "thingness" is no more asserted in the one case than it is in the other. intelligence, as a name given to a special class of facts or actions, remains, whatever view we take of its nature, and it is puzzling to see why the denial of extra natural intelligence--that is, intelligence separated from all the conditions under which we know the phenomenon of intelligence--should be taken as involving the denial of the existence of intelligence as we know it. intelligence as connoting purposive action remains as much a fact as gravity or chemical attraction, and continues valid concerning the phenomena it is intended to cover. all that the evolutionist is committed to is the statement that it is as much a product of evolution as is the shape or colouring of animals. it is not at all a question of self-dependence. every force in nature must be taken for what it is worth, intelligence among them. why, then, does the view that intelligence is both a product of evolution and a cause of another phase of evolution land us in self-contradiction, or make the existence of itself meaningless? the truth is that intelligence determines results exactly as every other force in nature determines results, by acting as a link in an unending sequential chain. and the question as to what intelligence is _per se_ is as meaningless as what gravitation is _per se_. these are names which we give to groups of phenomena displaying particular and differential characteristics, and their purpose is served when they enable us to cognize and recognize these phenomena and to give them their place and describe their function in the series of changes that make up our world. mr. schiller's reply to this line of criticism is the familiar one that it reduces human beings to automata. he says:-- the ease with which the darwinian argument dispenses with intelligence as a factor in survival excites suspicion. it is proving too much to show that adaptation might equally well have arisen in automata. for we ourselves are strongly persuaded that we are not automata and strive hard to adapt ourselves. in us at least, therefore, intelligence _is_ a source of adaptation.... intelligence therefore is a _vera causa_ as a source of adaptations at least co-ordinate with natural selection, and this can be denied only if it is declared inefficacious _everywhere_; if all living beings, including ourselves, are declared to be automata. one is compelled again to point out that darwinism does not dispense with intelligence as a factor in survival, except so far as the intelligence which determines survival is declared to be operating apart from the organisms which survive. the conduct of one of the lower animals which reacts only to the immediate promptings of its environment is of one order, but the response of another animal not merely to the immediate promptings of the environment, but to remote conditions, as in the selection of food or the building of a home of some sort, or to the fashioning of a tool, does obviously give to the intelligence displayed a distinct survival value. and that effectively replies to the triumphant conclusion, "if intelligence has no efficacy in promoting adaptations, _i.e._, if it has no survival value, how comes it to be developed at all?" darwinism would never have been able to dispense with intelligence in the way it did but for the fact that the opposite theory never stood for more than a mere collection of words. that species are or were produced by the operations of "divine intelligence" is merely a grandiloquent way of saying nothing at all. it is absurd to pretend that such a formula ever had any scientific value. it explains nothing. and it is quite obvious that some adaptations do, so far as we know, arise without intelligence, and are, therefore, to use mr. schiller's expression, automata. (i do not like the word, since it conveys too much the notion of someone behind the scenes pulling strings.) and it is on his theory that animals actually are automata. for if there be a "divine mind" which stands as the active cause of the adaptations that meet us in the animal world, and who arranges forces so that they shall work to their pre-destined end, what is that but converting the whole of the animal world into so many automata. one does not escape determinism in this way; it is only getting rid of it in one direction in order to reintroduce it in another. and one would like to know what our conviction that we are not automata has to do with it. whether the most rigid determinism is true or not is a matter to be settled by an examination of the facts and a careful reflection as to their real significance. no one questions that there is a persuasion to the contrary; if there were not there would be nothing around which controversy could gather. but it is the conviction that is challenged, and it is idle to reply to the challenge by asserting a conviction to the contrary. the whole history of human thought is the record of a challenge and a reversal of such convictions. there never was a conviction which was held more strenuously than that the earth was flat. the experience of all men in every hour of their lives seemed to prove it. and yet to-day no one believes it. the affirmation that we are "free" rests, as spinoza said, ultimately on the fact that all men know their actions and but few know the causes thereof. a feather endowed with consciousness, falling to the ground in a zigzag manner, might be equally convinced that it determined the exact spot on which it would rest, yet its persuasion would be of no more value than the "vulgar" conviction that we independently adapt ourselves to our environment. mr. schiller's positive arguments in favour of reconciling darwinism with design--one of them is really negative;--are concerned with ( ) the question of variation, and ( ) with the existence of progress. on the first question it is pointed out that while natural selection operates by way of favouring certain variations, the origin or cause of these variations remains unknown. and although mr. schiller does not say so in as many words, there is the implication, if i rightly discern his drift, that there is room here for a directing intelligence, inasmuch as science is at present quite unable to fully explain the causes of variations. we are told that darwin assumed for the purpose of his theory that variations were indefinite both as to character and extent, and it is upon these variations that natural selection depends. this indefinite variation mr. schiller asserts to be a methodological device, that is, it is something assumed as the groundwork of a theory, but without any subsequent verification, and it is in virtue of this assumption that intelligence is ruled out of evolution. and inasmuch as mr. schiller sees no reason for believing that variations are of this indefinite character, he asserts that there is in evolution room for a teleological factor, in other words, "a purposive direction of variations." now it hardly needs pointing out to students of darwinism that indefinite variation is the equivalent of "a variation to which no exact limits can be placed," and in this sense the assumption is a perfectly sound one. from one point of view the variations must be definite, that is, they can only occur within certain limits. an elephant will not vary in the direction of wings, nor will a bird in the direction of a rose bush. but so long as we cannot fix the exact limits of variation we are quite warranted in speaking of them as indefinite. that this is a methodological device no one denies, but so are most of the other distinctions that we frame. scientific generalizations consist of abstractions, and mr. schiller himself of necessity employs the same device. mr. schiller argues, quite properly, that while natural selection states the conditions under which animal life evolves, it does not state any reason why it should evolve. selection may keep a species stationary or it may even cause it to degenerate. both are fairly common phenomena in the animal and plant world. moreover, if there are an indefinite number of variations, and if they tend in an indefinite number of directions, then the variation in any one direction can never be more than an infinitesimal portion of the whole, and that this one should persist supplies a still further reason for belief in "a purposive direction of variations." mr. schiller overlooks an important point here, but a very simple one. it is true that any one variation is small in relation to the whole of the possible or actual number of variations. but it is not in relation to quantity but quality that survival takes place, and in proportion to the keenness of the struggle the variation that gives its possessor an advantage need only be of the smaller kind. in a struggle of endurance between two athletes it is the one capable of holding out for an extra minute who carries off the prize. further, as mr. schiller afterwards admits, the very smallness of the number of successful variations makes against intelligence rather than for it, and he practically surrenders his position in the statement, "the teleological and anti-teleological interpretation of events will ever decide their conflict by appealing to the facts; for in the facts each finds what it wills and comes prepared to see." after this lame conclusion it is difficult to see what value there is in mr. schiller's own examination of the "facts." not that it is strictly correct to say that the facts bear each view out equally. they do not, and mr. schiller only justifies his statement by converting the darwinian position, which is teleologically negative, into an affirmative. the darwinian, he says, denies intelligence as a cause of evolution. what the darwinian does is to deny the validity of the evidence which the teleologist brings to prove his case. the theist asserts mind as a cause of evolution. the darwinian simply points out that the facts may be explained in quite another way and without the appeal to a quite unknown factor. and here one might reasonably ask, why, if there is a directive mind at work, are there variations at all? why should the "directive intelligence" not get earlier to work, and instead of waiting until a large number of specimens have been produced and then looking them over with a view to "directing" the preservation of the better specimens, why should it not set to work at the beginning and see that only the desirable ones make their appearance? certainly that is what a mere human intelligence would do if it could. but it is characteristic of the "divine intelligence" of the theist that it never seems to operate with a tenth part of the intelligence of an ordinary human being. moreover, mr. schiller writes quite ignoring the fact that the "directive intelligence" does not direct the preservation of the better specimens. what it does, if it does anything at all, is to kill off the less favoured ones. natural selection--the point is generally overlooked by the theistic sentimentality of most of our writers--does not preserve anything. its positive action is not to keep alive but to kill. it does not take the better ones in hand and help them. it seizes on all it can and kills them. it is the difference between a local council that tried to raise the standard of health by a general improvement of the conditions of life, and one that aimed at the same end by killing off all children that failed to come up to a certain standard. the actual preservation of a better type is, so far as natural selection is concerned, quite accidental. so far as natural selection operates it does so by elimination, not by preservation. mr. schiller's other plea in favour of design is concerned with the conception of progress. he points out that while degeneration and stagnation both occur in nature, yet-- life has been on the whole progressive; but progress and retrogression have both been effected under the same law of natural selection. how, then, can the credit of that result be ascribed to natural selection? natural selection is equally ready to bring about degeneration or to leave things unchanged. how, then, can it be that which determines which of the three possible (and actual) cases shall be realized?... it cannot be natural selection that causes one species to remain stationary, another to degenerate, a third to develop into a higher form.... some variable factor must be added to natural selection. but why? evolution, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, makes for adaptation in terms of animal preservation. if the adaptation of an animal to its environment is secured by "degenerating" or "developing" or by remaining stationary, it will do one of the three. that is the normal consequence of natural selection, and it is surprising that mr. schiller does not see this. he is actually accusing natural selection of not being able to do what it does on his own showing. the proof he himself gives of this operation of natural selection in the examples he cites of its ineffectiveness. if natural selection could not make for degeneration or development, in what way would it be able to establish an equilibrium between an animal and its surroundings? really, there is nothing that so strengthens one's conviction of the truth of the freethought position so much as a study of the arguments that are brought against it. mr. schiller is really misled, and so misleads his readers by an unjustifiable use of the word "progress." he says that evolution has been, on the whole, progressive, and appeals to "progress" as though it were some objective fact. but that is not the case. there is no "progress" in the animal world, there is only change. we have dealt with this in a previous chapter, and there is no need to again labour the point. "progress" is a conception which we ourselves frame, and we measure a movement towards or away from this arbitrary standard of ours in terms of better or worse, higher or lower. but nature knows nothing of a higher or a lower, it knows only of changing forms more or less fitted to live in the existing environment. scientifically, life has not progressed, it has persisted, and a _sine qua non_ of its persistence has been adaptation to environment. progress, then, is not a "natural" fact, but a methodological one. it is a useful word and a valuable ideal. i am not protesting against its use, only against its misuse. it is one of the many abstractions created by thinkers, and then worshipped as a reality by those who forget the origin and purpose of its existence. and in this we can see one of the fatal legacies we have inherited from theistic methods of thinking. the belief that things are designed to be as they are comes to us from those primitive methods of thinking which personify and vitalize all natural phenomena. we have outgrown the crude frame of mind which saw direct volitional action in a storm or in the movements of natural forces. the development of civilized and scientific thinking has removed these conceptions from the minds of educated men and women, but it has left behind it as a residuum the habit of looking for purpose where none exists, and of reading into nature as objective facts our own generalizations and abstractions. and so long as we have not outgrown that habit we are retaining a fatal bar to exact scientific thinking. finally, and this consideration is fatal to any theory of design such as mr. schiller champions, adaptation is not a special quality of one form of existence, but a universal quality of all. there is not a greater degree of adaptation here and a less degree there, but the same degree in every case. there is no other meaning to adaptation except that of adjustment to surroundings. but whether an animal lives or dies, whether it is higher or lower, deformed or perfect, the adjustment is the same. that is, every form of existence represents the product of forces that have made it what it is, and the same forces could not have produced anything different. every body in existence, organic or inorganic, constitutes in ultimate analysis a balance of the forces represented by it. it is not possible, therefore, for the theist to say that design is evidenced by adaptation in one case and its absence in another. there is adaptation in every case, even though it may not be the adaptation we should like to see. it is not possible for the theist to say that the _degree_ of adaptation is greater in the one case than in the other, for _that_ is the same in every case. what needs to be done if design is to be established is to prove that the forces we see at work could not have produced the results that emerge without the introduction of a factor not already given in our experience. anything else is mere waste of time. chapter xiii. ancient and modern. in the preceding chapters we have, without saying it in so many words, been emphasizing the modern as against the ancient point of view. the distinction may not at first glance appear to be of great moment, and yet reflection will prove it to be of vital significance. it expresses, in a sentence, the essence of the distinction between the freethinker and the religionist. objectively, the world in which we are living is the same as that in which our ancestors lived. the same stars that looked down upon them look down upon us. natural forces affected them as they affect us. even the play of human passion and desire was the same with them as with us. hunger and thirst, love and hatred, cowardice and courage, generosity and greed operate now as always. the world remains the same in all its essential features; what alters is our conception of it--in other words, the point of view. the question thus resolves itself into one of interpretation. freethinker and religionist are each living in the same world, they are each fed with the same foods and killed with the same poisons. the same feelings move both and the same problems face both. their differences are constituted by the canon of interpretation applied. it is on this issue that the conflict between religion and science arises. for religion is not, as some have argued, something that is supplementary or complementary to science, nor does it deal with matters on which science is incompetent to express an opinion. religion and science face each other as rival interpretations of the same set of facts, precisely as the copernican and the ptolemaic systems once faced each other as rival interpretations of astronomical phenomena. if the one is true the other is false. you may reject the religious or the scientific explanation of phenomena, but you cannot logically accept both. as dr. johnson said, "two contradictory ideas may inhere in the same mind, but they cannot both be correct." now while it is true that in order to understand the present we must know the past, and that because the present is a product of the past, it is also true that a condition of understanding is to interpret the past by the present. in ordinary affairs this is not questioned. when geologists set out to explain the causes of changes in the earth's surface, they utilize the present-day knowledge of existing forces, and by prolonging their action backward explain the features of the period they are studying. when historians seek to explain the conduct of, say henry the eighth, they take their knowledge of the motives animating existing human nature, and by placing that in a sixteenth century setting manage to present us with a picture of the period. so, again, when the thirteenth century monkish historian gravely informs us that a particular epidemic was due to the anger of god against the wickedness of the people, we put that interpretation on one side and use our own knowledge to find in defective social and sanitary conditions the cause of what occurred. illustrations to the same end may be found in every direction. it is, indeed, not something that one may accept or reject as one may take or leave a political theory, it is an indispensible condition of rational thinking on any subject whatsoever. accepted everywhere else, it is in connection with religion that one finds this principle, not openly challenged, for there are degrees of absurdity to which even the most ardent religionist dare not go, but it is quietly set on one side and a method adopted which is its practical negation. either the procedure is inverted and the present is interpreted by the past, as when it is assumed that because god did certain things in the past therefore he will continue to do the same things in the present, or it is assumed that the past was unlike the present, and, therefore, the same method of interpretation cannot be applied to both cases. both plans have the effect of landing us, if not in lunacy, at least well on the way to it. it is indispensible to the religionist to ignore the principle above laid down. for if it is admitted that human nature is always and everywhere the same, and that natural forces always and everywhere act in the same manner, religious beliefs are brought to the test of their conformity with present day knowledge of things and all claim to objective validity must be abandoned. yet the principle is quite clear. the claim of the prophets of old to be inspired must be tested by what we know of the conditions of "inspiration" to-day, and not by what unenlightened people thought of its nature centuries ago. whether the story of the virgin birth is credible or not must be settled by an appeal to what we know of the nature of animal procreation, and not by whether our faith urges us to accept the statement as true. to act otherwise is to raise an altogether false issue, the question of evidence is argued when what is really at issue is that of credibility. it is not at all a matter of whether there is evidence enough to establish the reality of a particular recorded event, but whether our actual knowledge of natural happenings is not enough for us to rule it out as objectively untrue, and to describe the conditions which led to its being accepted as true. let us take as an illustration of this the general question of miracles. the _oxford dictionary_ defines a miracle as "a marvellous event occurring within human experience which cannot have been brought about by human power or by the operation of any natural agency, and must, therefore, be ascribed to the special intervention of the deity or some supernatural being." that is a good enough definition, and is certainly what people have had in mind when they have professed a belief in miracles. a miracle must be something marvellous, that is, it must be unusual, and it must not be even conceivably explainable in terms of the operation of natural forces. if it is admitted that what is claimed as a miracle might be explained as the result of natural forces provided our knowledge was extensive enough and exact enough, it is confessed that miracle and ignorance are convertible terms. and while that may be true enough as a matter of fact, it would never suit the religious case to admit it in so many words. nor would it make the case any better to argue that the alleged miracle has been brought about by some superior being with a much greater knowledge of nature than man possesses, but which the latter may one day acquire. that is placing a miracle on the same level as a performance given by a clever conjuror, which puzzles the onlooker because he lacks the technical knowledge requisite to understand the methods employed. a miracle to be a miracle must not be in accordance with natural laws, known or unknown, it must contravene them or suspend their operation. on the other hand, the demand made by some critics of the miraculous, namely, that the alleged miracle shall be performed under test conditions, is absurd, and shows that they have not grasped the essential point at issue. the believer's reply to such a demand is plain and obvious. he says, a miracle is by its nature a rare event, it is performed under special circumstances to serve a special purpose. where, then, is the reason in asking that this miracle shall be re-performed in order to convince certain people that it has already occurred? to arrange for the performance of a miracle is an absurdity. for it to become common is to destroy both its character as a miracle and the justification for its existence. a miracle must carry its own evidence or it fails of its purpose and ceases to be a miracle at all. discussion on these lines ends, at best, in a stalemate. it is just as wide of the mark to discuss miracles as though it were a question of evidence. what possible evidence could there be, for example, that jesus fed five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, and had basketfuls left at the end of the repast? suppose it were possible to produce the sworn testimony of the five thousand themselves that they had been so fed. would that produce conviction? would it do any more than prove that they believed the food had been so expanded or multiplied that it was enough for them all? it would be convincing, perhaps, as proof of an act of belief. but would it prove any more than that? would it prove that these five thousand were not the victims of some act of deception or of some delusion? a belief in a miracle, whether the belief dates from two thousand years since or from last week, proves only--belief. and the testimony of a salvation army convert as to the truth of the resurrection of jesus christ is as good, as evidence, as though we had the sworn testimony of the twelve apostles, with that of the grave-diggers thrown in. the truth is that the question of belief in the miraculous has nothing whatever to do with evidence. miracles are never established by evidence, nor are they disproved by evidence, that is, so long as we use the term evidence with any regard to its judicial significance. what amount or what kind of evidence did the early christians require to prove the miracles of christianity? or what evidence did our ancestors require to prove to them that old women flew through the air on broomsticks, or bewitched cows, or raised storms? testimony in volumes was forthcoming, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting its genuineness. but what amount or kind of evidence was required to establish the belief? was it evidence to which anyone to-day would pay the slightest regard? the slightest study of the available records is enough to show that the question of evidence had nothing whatever to do with the production of the belief. and, on the other hand, how many people have given up the belief in miracles as a result of a careful study of the evidence against them? i have never heard of any such case, although once a man disbelieves in miracles he may be ready enough to produce reasons to justify his disbelief in them. the man who begins to weigh evidence for and against miracles has already begun to disbelieve them. the attitude of children in relation to the belief in fairies may well be taken to illustrate the attitude of the adult mind in face of the miraculous. no evidence is produced to induce the belief in fairies, and none is ever brought forward to induce them to give it up. at one stage of life it is there, at another it is gone. it is not reasoned out or evidenced out, it is simply outgrown. in infancy the child's conception of life is so inchoate that there is room for all kinds of fantastic beliefs. in more mature years certain beliefs are automatically ruled out by the growth of a conception of things which leaves no room for beliefs that during childhood seemed perfectly reasonable. now this is quite on all-fours with the question of miracles. the issue is essentially one of psychology. belief or disbelief is here mainly determined by the psychological medium in which one lives and moves. given a psychological medium which is, scientifically, at its lowest, and the belief in the miraculous flourishes. at the other extreme miracles languish and decay. tell a savage that the air is alive with good and bad spirits and he will readily believe you. tell it to a man with a genuine scientific mind and he will laugh at you. tell a peasant in some parts of the country that someone is a witch and he will at once believe it. tell it to a city dweller and it will provide only occasion for ridicule. people who accept miracles believe them before they happen. the expressed belief merely registers the fact. miracles never happen to those who do not believe in them; as has been said, they never occur to a critic. those who reject miracles do so because their acceptance would conflict with their whole conception of nature. that is the sum and substance of the matter. a further illustration may be offered in the case of the once much debated question of the authenticity of the books of the new testament and the historicity of the figure of jesus. it appears to have been assumed that if it could be shown that the books of the new testament were not contemporary records the case against the divinity of jesus was strengthened. on the other hand it was assumed that if these writings represented the narratives of contemporaries the case for the truth of the narratives was practically proven. in reality this was not the vital issue at all. it would be, of course, interesting if it could be shown that there once existed an actual personage around whom these stories gathered, but it would make as little difference to the real question at issue as the demonstration of the baconian authorship of _hamlet_ would make in the psychological value of the play. suppose then it were proven that a person named jesus actually existed at a certain date in judea, and that this person is the jesus of the new testament. suppose it be further proven, or admitted, that the followers whom this person gathered around him believed that he was born of a virgin, performed a number of miracles, was crucified, and then rose from the dead, and that the new testament represents their written memoirs. suppose all this to be proven or granted, what has been established? simply this. that a number of people believed these things of someone whom they had known. but no freethinker need seriously concern himself to disprove this. he may, indeed, take it as the data of the problem which he sets out to solve. the scientific enquirer is not really concerned with the new testament as a narrative of fact any more than he is concerned with cotton mather's _invisible world displayed_ as a narrative of actual fact. what he is concerned with is the frame of mind to which these stories seemed true, and the social medium which gave such a frame of mind a vogue. it is not at all a question of historical evidence, but of historical psychology. it is not a question of the honesty of the witnesses, but of their ability, not whether they wished to tell the truth, or intended to tell the truth, but whether they were in a position to know what the truth was. we have not to discuss whether these events occurred, such a proposition is an insult to a civilized intelligence, the matter for discussion is the conditions that bring such beliefs into existence and the conditions that perpetuate them. the development of social life and of education thus shifts the point of view from the past to the present. to understand the past we do not ask what was it that people believed concerning the events around them, but what do we know of the causes which produce beliefs of a certain kind. thus, we do not really reject the story of jesus turning water into wine because we are without legal evidence that he ever did anything of the kind, but because, knowing the chemical constituents of both water and wine we know that such a thing is impossible. it is only possible to an uninstructed mind to which water and wine differ only in taste or appearance. we do not reject the story of the demoniacs in the new testament because we have no evidence that these men were possessed of devils, or that jesus cast them out, but because we have exactly the same phenomena with us to-day and know that it comes within the province of the physician and not of the miracle worker. it is not a matter of evidence whether a man rose from the dead or not, or whether he was born of a virgin or not, but solely a question of examining these and similar stories in the light of present day knowledge. the "evidence" offered is proof only of belief, and no one ever questioned the existence of that. and if the proof of belief is required there is no need to go back a couple of thousand years or to consult ancient records. the testimony of a present day believer, and the account of a revival meeting such as one may find in any religious newspaper will serve equally well. as is so often the case, the evidence offered is not merely inadequate, it is absolutely irrelevant. past events must be judged in the light of present knowledge. that is the golden rule of guidance in judging the world's religious legends. and that canon is fatal to their pretensions. on the one hand we see in the life of contemporary savages and in that of semi-civilized peoples all the conditions and the beliefs that meet us in the bible and among the early christians. and with our wider and more exact knowledge we are able to take exactly the same phenomena that impressed those of an earlier generation and explain them without the slightest reference to supernatural powers or beings. the modern mind is really not looking round for evidence to disprove the truth of christian legends. it knows they are not true. there is no greater need to prove that the miracles of christianity never occurred, than there is to prove that an old woman never raised a storm to wreck one of the kings of england. the issue has been changed from one of history to one of psychology. it is the present that of necessity sits in judgment on the past, and it is in the light of the knowledge of the present that the religions of the past stand condemned. chapter xiv. morality without god. the mystery-monger flourishes almost as well in ethics as he does in theology. indeed, in some respects he seems to have forsaken one field of exercise only to find renewed scope in the other. he approaches the consideration of moral questions with the same hushed voice and "reverential" air that is so usual in theology, and talks of the mystery of morality with the same facility that he once talked about the mystery of godliness--and with about an equal amount of enlightenment to his hearers or readers. but the mystery of morality is nearly all of our own making. essentially there is no more mystery in morality than there is in any other question that may engage the attention of mankind. there are, of course, problems in the moral world as there are in the physical one, and he would be a fool who pretended to the ability to satisfactorily solve them all. the nature of morality, the causes that led to the development of moral "laws," and still more to the development of a sense of morality, all these are questions upon which there is ample room for research and speculation. but the talk of a mystery is misleading and mystifying. it is the chatter of the charlatan, or of the theologian, or of the partly liberated mind that is still under the thraldom of theology. in ethics we have exactly the same kind of problem that meets us in any of the sciences. we have a fact, or a series of facts, and we seek some explanation of them. we may fail in our search, but that is not evidence of a "mystery," it is proof only of inadequate knowledge, of limitations that we may hope the future will enable us to overcome. for the sake of clarity it will be better to let the meaning of morality emerge from the discussion rather than to commence with it. and one of the first things to help to clear the mind of confusion is to get rid of the notion that there is any such thing as moral "laws" which correspond in their nature to law as the term is used in science. in one sense morality is not part of physical nature at all. it is characteristic of that part of nature which is covered by the human--at most by the higher animal--world. nature can only, therefore, be said to be moral in the sense that the term "nature" includes all that is. in any other sense nature is non-moral. the sense of values, which is, as we shall see, of the essence of the conception of morality, nature knows nothing of. to speak of nature punishing us for _bad_ actions or rewarding us for _good_ ones is absurd. nature neither punishes nor rewards. she meets actions with consequences, and is quite indifferent to any moral consideration. if i am weakly, and go out on a cold, wet night to help someone in distress, nature does not act differently than it would if i had gone out to commit a murder. i stand exactly the same chances in either case of contracting a deadly chill. it is not the moral value of an action with which natural forces are concerned, but merely with the action, and in that respect nature never discriminates between the good man and the bad, between the sinner and the saint. there is another sense in which moral laws differ from natural laws. we can break the former but not the latter. the expression so often used, "he broke a law of nature," is absurd. you cannot break a law of nature. you do not break the law of gravitation when you prevent a stone falling to the ground; the force required to hold it in the air is an illustration of the law. it is, indeed, one of the proofs that our generalization does represent a law of nature that it cannot be "broken." for broken is here only another word for inoperative, and a law of nature that is inoperative is non-existent. but in the moral sphere we are in a different world. we not only can break moral laws, we do break them; that is one of the problems with which our teachers and moralisers have constantly to deal. every time we steal we break the law "thou shalt not steal." every time we murder we break the law "thou shalt not kill." we may keep moral laws, we ought to keep them, but we can, quite clearly, break them. between a moral law and a law of nature there is plainly a very radical distinction. the discovery of that distinction will, i think, bring us to the heart of the subject. considering man as merely a natural object, or as a mere animal, there is only one quality that nature demands of him. this is efficiency. nature's sole law is here "be strong." how that strength and efficiency is secured and maintained is of no consequence whatever. the heat he requires, the food he needs may be stolen from others, but it will serve. the food will not nourish the less, the fire will not warm the less. so long as efficiency is acquired it is a matter of absolute indifference how it is secured. considered as a mere animal object it is difficult to see that morality has any meaning at all for man. it is when we come to regard him in his relation to others that we begin to see the meaning and significance of morality emerge. now one of the first things that strike us in connection with moral laws or rules is that they are all statements of relation. such moral commands as "thou shalt not steal," "thou shalt not kill," the commands to be truthful, kind, dutiful, etc., all imply a relation to others. apart from this relation moral rules have simply no meaning whatever. by himself a man could neither steal, nor lie, nor do any of the things that we habitually characterize as immoral. a man living by himself on some island would be absolved from all moral law; it would have no meaning whatever for him. he would be neither moral nor immoral, he would simply be without the conditions that make morality possible. but once bring him into relations with his kind and his behaviour begins to have a new and peculiar significance, not alone to these others, but also to himself. what he does affects them, and also affects himself so far as they determine the character of his relations to these others. he must, for example, either work with them or apart from them. he must either be on his guard against their securing their own efficiency at his expense, or rest content that a mutual forbearance and trust will govern their association. to ignore them is an impossibility. he must reckon with these others in a thousand and one different ways, and this reckoning will have its effect on the moulding of his nature and upon theirs. morality, then, whatever else it may be, is primarily the expression of a relation. and the laws of morality are, consequently, a summary or description of those relations. from this point of view they stand upon exactly the same level as any of the arts or sciences. moral actions are the subject matter of observation, and the determination of their essential quality or character is by the same methods as we determine the essential quality of the "facts" in chemistry or biology. the task before the scientific enquirer is, therefore, to determine the conditions which give to moral rules or "laws" their meaning and validity. one of the conditions of a moral action has already been pointed out. this is that all moral rules imply a relation to beings of a similar nature. a second feature is that conduct represents a form of efficiency, it is a special feature of the universal biological fact of adaptation. and the question of why man has a "moral sense" is really on all fours with, and presents no greater mystery than is involved in, the question of why man has digestive organs, and prefers some kinds of food to others. substantially, the question of why man should prefer a diet of meat and potatoes to one of prussic acid is exactly the question of why society should discourage certain actions and encourage others, or why man's moral taste should prefer some forms of conduct to other forms. the answer to both questions, while differing in form, is the same in substance. man as we know him is always found as a member of a group, and his capacities, his feelings, and tastes must always be considered in relation to that fact. but considering man merely as an animal, and his conduct as merely a form of adaptation to environment, the plain consideration which emerges is that even as an individual organism he is compelled, in order to live, to avoid certain actions and to perform others, to develop certain tastes and to form certain distastes. to take our previous illustration it would be impossible for man to develop a liking for life-destroying foods. it is one of the conditions of living that he shall eat only that food which sustains life, or that he shall abstain from eating substances which destroy it. but conduct at that stage is not of the kind which considers the reasons for acting; indeed, life cannot be based upon considered action, however much reason may justify the actions taken. further, as all conscious action is prompted by the impulse to do what is pleasant and to avoid what is unpleasant, it follows, as spencer pointed out, that the course of evolution sets up a close relation between actions that are pleasurable in the performance and actions that are life preserving. it is one of the conditions of the maintenance of life that the pleasurable and the beneficial shall in the long run coincide. when we take man as a member of a group we have the same principle in operation, even though the form of its expression undergoes alteration. to begin with, the mere fact of living in a group implies the growth of a certain restraint in one's relations to, and of reciprocity in dealing with, others. men can no more live together without some amount of trust and confidence in each other, or without a crude sense of justice in their dealings with each other, than an individual man can maintain his life by eating deadly poisons. there must be a respect for the rights of others, of justice in dealing with others, and of confidence in associating with others, at least to the extent of not threatening the possibility of group life. there are rules in the game of social life that must be observed, and in its own defence society is bound to suppress those of its members who exhibit strong anti-social tendencies. no society can, for example, tolerate homicide as an admitted practice. there is, thus, from the earliest times, a certain form of elimination of the anti-social character which results in the gradual formation of an emotional and mental disposition that habitually and instinctively falls into line with the requirements of the social whole. to use an expression of sir leslie stephen's, man as a member of the group becomes a cell in the social tissue, and his fitness to survive is dependent upon, positively, his readiness to perform such actions as the welfare of the group require, and, negatively, upon his refraining from doing those things that are inimical to social welfare.[ ] moreover, there is the additional fact that the group itself is, as a whole, brought into contact with other groups, and the survival of one group as against another is determined by the quality and the degree of cohesion of its units. from this point of view, participation in the life of the group means more than refraining from acts that are injurious to the group, it involves some degree of positive contribution to social welfare. [ ] the question of what are the things that are essential to the welfare of the group, and the fact that individuals are often suppressed for doing what they believe is beneficial to the group, with the kindred fact that there may exist grave differences of opinion on the matter, does not alter the essential point, which is that there must exist sufficient conformity between conduct and group welfare to secure survival. but the main thing to note is that from the very dawn of animal life the organism is more or less under the pressure of a certain discipline that tends to establish an identity between actions which there is a tendency to perform and those that are beneficial to the organism. in the social state we simply have this principle expressed in another way, and it gives a degree of conscious adaptation that is absent from the pre-social or even the lower forms of the social state. it is in the truly social state also that we get the full influence of what may be called the characteristically human environment, that is, the operation of ideas and ideals. the importance of this psychological factor in the life of man has been stressed in an earlier chapter. it is enough now to point out that from the earliest moment the young human being is, by a process of training, imbued with certain ideals of truthfulness, loyalty, duty, etc., all of which play their part in the moulding of his character. however much these ideals may vary in different societies, the fact of the part played by them in moulding character is plain. they are the dominant forces in moulding the individual to the social state, even while the expressions of the social life may be in turn checked by the fact that social conduct cannot persist if it threatens those conditions upon which the persistence of life ultimately depends. there is one other consideration that must be noted. one very pregnant fact in life is that nature seldom creates a new organ. what it usually does is to refashion an old one, or to devote an old one to new uses. this principle may be seen clearly in operation in connection with moral evolution. on the one hand the various forces that play upon human nature drive the moral feelings deeper into it. on the other hand it develops them by their steady expansion over a wider area. whether it is an actual fact or not--i do not stress it because the point is the subject of discussion--it is at least possible that the earliest human group is the family. and so long as that was the case such feelings of right and wrong as then existed will have been confined to the family. but when a group of families combine and form the tribe, all those feelings of confidence, justice, etc., which were formerly characteristic of the smaller group are expanded to cover the larger one. with the expansion of the tribe to the nation we have a further development of the same phenomenon. there is no new creation, there is nothing more than expansion and development. the process does not and cannot, obviously, stop here. from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to the collection of nations which we call an empire, and from the empire to the whole of humanity. that seems the inevitable direction of the process, and there does not require profound insight to see it already on the way. development of national life involves a growing interdependence of the world of humankind. of hardly any nation can it be said to-day that it is self-supporting or self-contained or independent. there is nothing national or sectarian in science, and it is to science that we have to look for our principal help. all over the world we utilize each other's discoveries and profit by each other's knowledge. even economic interdependence carries with it the same lesson. the human environment gets gradually broader and wider, and the feelings that have hitherto been expanded over the narrower area have now to be expanded over the wider one. it is the gradual development of a human nature that is becoming adapted to a conception of mankind as an organic unit. naturally, in the process of adaptation there is conflict between the narrower ideals, conserved in our educational influences, and the wider ones. there are still large numbers of those who, unable to picture the true nature of the evolutionary process owing to their own defective education, yet think of the world in terms of a few centuries ago, and still wave the flag of a political nationalism as though that were the end of social growth, instead of its being an early and transient expression of it. but this conflict is inevitable, and the persistence of that type can no more ensure its permanent domination than the persistence of the medicine man in the person of the existing clergyman can give permanence to the religious idea. there is, then, no mystery about the fact of morality. it is no more of a mystery than is the compilation of the multiplication table, and it has no greater need of a supernatural sanction than has the law of gravitation. morality is a natural fact, and its enforcement and growth are brought about by natural means. in its lower form, morality is no more than an expression of those conditions under which social life is possible, and in its higher one, an expression of those ideal conditions under which corporate life is desirable. in studying morality we are really studying the physiology of associated life, and that study aims at the determination of the conditions under which the best form of living is possible. it is thus that here, as elsewhere, man is thrown back upon himself for enlightenment and help. and if the process is a slow one we may at least console ourselves with the reflection that the labours of each generation are making the weapons which we bring to the fight keener and better able to do their work. chapter xv. morality without god. (_continued._) in the preceding chapter i have been concerned with providing the most meagre of skeleton outlines of the way in which our moral laws and our moral sense have come into existence. to make this as clear as possible the chapter was restricted to exposition. controversial points were avoided. and as a matter of fact there are many religionists who might concede the truth of what has been said concerning the way in which morality has arisen, and the nature of the forces that have assisted in its development. but they would proceed to argue, as men like mr. balfour and mr. benjamin kidd, with others of the like, have argued, that a natural morality lacks all coercive power. the freethought explanation of morality, they say, is plausible enough, and may be correct, but in conduct we have to deal not merely with the correctness of things but with sanctions and motives that exercise a compulsive influence on men and women. the religionist, it is argued, has such a compulsive force in the belief in god and in the effect on our future life of our obedience or disobedience to his commands. but what kind of coercion can a purely naturalistic system of morals exert? if a man is content to obey the naturalistic command to practise certain virtues and to abstain from certain vices, well and good. but suppose he chooses to disregard it. what then? above all, on what compulsion is a man to disregard his own inclinations to act as seems desirable to himself, and not in conformity with the general welfare? we disregard the religious appeal as pure sentimentalism, or worse, and we at once institute an ethical sentimentalism which is, in practice, foredoomed to failure. or to put the same point in another way. each individual, we say, should so act as to promote the general welfare. freethinker and religionist are in agreement here. and so long as one's inclinations jump with the advice no difficulty presents itself. but suppose a man's inclinations do not run in the desired direction? you tell him that he must act so as to promote the general well-being, and he replies that he is not concerned with the promotion of the public welfare. you say that he _ought_ to act differently, and he replies, "my happiness must consist in what i regard as such, not in other people's conception of what it should be." you proceed to point out that by persisting in his present line of conduct he is laying up trouble for the future, and he retorts, "i am willing to take the risk." what is to be done with him? can naturalism show that in acting in that way a man is behaving unreasonably, that is, in the sense that he can be shown to be really acting against his own interests, and that if he knew better he would act differently? now before attempting a reply to this it is worth while pointing out that whatever strength there may be in this criticism when directed against naturalism, it is equally strong when directed against supernaturalism. we can see this at once if we merely vary the terms. you tell a man to act in this or that way "in the name of god." he replies, "i do not believe in god," and your injunction loses all force. or, if he believes in god, and you threaten him with the pains and penalties of a future life, he may reply, "i am quite willing to risk a probable punishment hereafter for a certain pleasure here." and it is certain that many do take the risk, whether they express their determination to do so in as many words or not. what is a supernaturalist compelled to do in this case? his method of procedure is bound to be something like the following. first of all he will seek to create assent to a particular proposition such as "god exists, and also that a belief in his existence creates an obligation to act in this or that manner in accordance with what is believed to be his will." that proposition once established, his next business will be to bring the subject's inclinations into line with a prescribed course of action. he is thus acting in precisely the same manner as is the naturalist who starts from an altogether different set of premises. and both are resting their teaching of morals upon an intellectual proposition to which assent is either implied or expressed. and that lies at the basis of all ethical teaching--not ethical practice, be it observed, but teaching. the precise form in which this intellectual proposition is cast matters little. it may be the existence of god, or it may be a particular view of human nature or of human evolution, but it is there, and in either case the authoritative character of moral precepts exists for such as accept it, and for none other. moral practice is rooted in life, but moral theory is a different matter. so far, then, it is clear that the complaint that freethought ethics has nothing about it of a compulsive or authoritative character is either a begging of the question or it is absurd. naturalistic ethics really assert three things. the first is that the continuance of life ensures the performance of a certain level of conduct, conduct being merely one of the means by which human beings react to the necessities of their environment. second, it asserts that a proper understanding of the conditions of existence will in the normally constituted mind strengthen the development of a feeling of obligation to act in such and such a manner; and that while all non-reasonable conduct is not immoral, all immoral conduct is fundamentally irrational. third, there is the further assumption that at bottom individual and general welfare are not contradictory, but two aspects of the same thing. concerning the second point, sir leslie stephen warns us (_science of ethics_, p. ) that every attempt so to state the ethical principle that disobedience will be "unreasonable" is "doomed to failure in a world which is not made up of working syllogisms." and for the other two points professor sorley (_ethics of naturalism_, p. ) tells us that "it is difficult ... to offer any consideration fitted to convince the individual that it is reasonable for him to seek the happiness of the community rather than his own"; while mr. benjamin kidd asserts that "the interests of the individual and those of the social organism are not either identical or capable of being reconciled, as has been necessarily assumed in all those systems of ethics which have sought to establish a naturalistic basis of conduct. the two are fundamentally and inherently irreconcilable, and a large proportion of the existing individuals at any time have ... no personal interest whatever in the progress of the race, or in the social development we are undergoing." it has already been said that however difficult it may be to establish the precise relationship between reason and ethical commands, such a connection must be assumed, whether we base our ethics on naturalistic or supernaturalistic considerations. and it cannot be denied by anyone to-day that a causal relation must exist between actions and their consequences, whether those causal consequences be of the natural and non-moral kind, or of the more definitely moral order such as exists in the shape of social approval and disapproval. and if we once grant that, then it seems quite allowable to assume that provided a man perceives the reason underlying moral judgments, and also the justification for the sense of approval and disapproval expressed, we have as much reason for calling his conduct reasonable or unreasonable as we have for applying the same terms to a man's behaviour in dressing in view of the variations of the temperature. consequently, while i agree that _in the present state of knowledge_ it is impossible in all cases to demonstrate that immoral conduct is irrational in the sense that it would be unreasonable to refuse assent to a mathematical proposition, there seems no justification for regarding such a state of things as of necessity permanent. if a scientific system of ethics consists in formulating rules for the profitable guidance of life, not only does their formulation presuppose a certain constancy in the laws of human nature and of the world in general, but the assumption is also involved that one day it may be possible to give to moral laws the same precision that now is attached to physiological laws and to label departure from them as "unreasonable" in a very real sense of the word. the other objection that it is impossible to establish a "reasonable" relation between individual and social well-being arises from a dual confusion as to what is the proper sphere of ethics, and of the mutual relation of the individual and society. to take an individual and ask, "why should he act so as to promote the general welfare?" is to imply that ethical rules may have an application to man out of relation with his fellows. that, we have already seen, is quite wrong, since moral rules fail to be intelligible once we separate man from his fellows. discussing ethics while leaving out social life is like discussing the functions of the lungs and leaving out of account the existence of an atmosphere. if, then, instead of treating the individual and society as two distinct things, either of which may profit at the expense of the other, we treat them as two sides of the same thing, each an abstraction when treated alone, the problem is simplified, and the solution becomes appreciably easier. for the essential truth here is that just as there is no such thing as a society in the absence of the individuals composing it, so the individual, as we know him, disappears when we strip him of all that he is in virtue of his being a part of the social structure. every one of the characteristic human qualities has been developed in response to the requirements of the social medium. it is in virtue of this that morality has anything of an imperative nature connected with it, for if man is, to use sir leslie stephen's phrase, a cell in the social tissue, receiving injury as the body social is injured, and benefitting as it is benefitted, then the refusal of a man to act so that he may promote the general welfare can be shown to be unreasonable, and also unprofitable to the individual himself. in other words, our efficiency as an individual must be measured in terms of our fitness to form part of the social structure, and consequently the antithesis between social and personal well-being is only on the surface. deeper knowledge and a more exact understanding reveals them as two sides of the same fact. it may be granted to mr. kidd that "a large proportion of the existing individuals at any time" have no _conscious_ interest in "the progress of the race or in the development we are undergoing," and that is only what one would expect, but it would be absurd to therefore come to the conclusion that no such identity of interest exists. molière's character, who all his life had been talking prose without knowing it, is only a type of the majority of folk who all their lives are acting in accordance with principles of which they are ignorant, and which they may even repudiate when they are explained to them. from one point of view the whole object of a scientific morality is to awaken a conscious recognition of the principles underlying conduct, and by this means to strengthen the disposition to right action. we make explicit in language what has hitherto been implicit in action, and thus bring conscious effort to the aid of non-conscious or semi-conscious behaviour. in the light of the above consideration the long and wordy contest that has been waged between "altruists" and "egoists" is seen to be very largely a waste of time and a splutter of words. if it can be shown on the one hand that all men are not animated by the desire to benefit self, it is as easy to demonstrate that so long as human nature is human nature, all conduct must be an expression of individual character, and that even the morality of self-sacrifice is self-regarding viewed from the personal feelings of the agent. and it being clear that the position of egoist and altruist, while each expressing a truth, is neither expressing the whole truth, and that each does in fact embody a definite error, it seems probable that here, as in so many other cases, the truth lies between the two extremes, and that a reconciliation may be effected along these lines. taking animal life as a whole it is at least clear that what are called the self-regarding feelings must come first in order of development. even with the lower races of human beings there is less concern shown with the feelings and welfare of others than is the case with the higher races of men. or, again, with children we have these feelings strongest in childhood and undergoing a gradual expansion as maturity is reached. this is brought about, as was shown in the last chapter, not by the destruction of existing feelings, but by their extension to an ever widening area. there is a transformation, or an elaboration of existing feelings under the pressure of social growth. one may say that ethical development does not proceed by the destruction of the feeling of self-interest, so much as by its extension to a wider field. ethical growth is thus on all fours with biological growth. in biology we are all familiar with the truth that maintenance of life is dependent upon the existence of harmonious relations between an organism and its environment. yet it is not always recognized that this principle is as true of the moral self as it is of the physical structure, nor that in human evolution the existence of others becomes of increasing importance and significance. for not only do i have to adapt myself, mentally and morally, to the society now existing, but also to societies that have long since passed away and have left their contribution to the building up of _my_ environment in the shape of institutions and beliefs and literature. we have in this one more illustration that while the environment of the animal is overwhelmingly physical in character, that of man tends to become overwhelmingly social or psychological. desires are created that can only be gratified by the presence and the labour of others. feelings arise that have direct reference to others, and in numerous ways a body of "altruistic" feeling is created. so by social growth first, and afterwards by reflection, man is taught that the only life that is enjoyable to himself is one that is lived in the companionship and by the co-operation of others. as professor ziegler well puts the process:-- not only on the one hand does it concern the interests of the general welfare that every individual should take care of himself outwardly and inwardly; maintain his health; cultivate his faculties and powers; sustain his position, honour, and worth, and so his own welfare being secured, diffuse around him happiness and comfort; but also, on the other hand, it concerns the personal, well understood interests of the individual himself that he should promote the interests of others, contribute to their happiness, serve their interests, and even make sacrifices for them. just as one forgoes a momentary pleasure in order to secure a lasting and greater enjoyment, so the individual willingly sacrifices his personal welfare and comfort for the sake of society in order to share in the welfare of this society; he buries his individual well-being in order that he may see it rise in richer and fuller abundance in the welfare and happiness of the whole community (_social ethics_, pp. - ). these motives are not of necessity conscious ones. no one imagines that before performing a social action each one sits down and goes through a more or less elaborate calculation. all that has been written on this head concerning a "utilitarian calculus" is poor fun and quite beside the mark. in this matter, as in so many others, it is the evolutionary process which demands consideration, and generations of social struggle, by weeding out individuals whose inclinations were of a pronounced anti-social kind, and tribes in which the cohesion between its members was weak, have resulted in bringing about more or less of an identification between individual desires and the general welfare. it is not a question of conscious evolution so much as of our becoming conscious of an evolution that is taking place, and in discussing the nature of morals one is bound to go beyond the expressed reasons for conduct--more often wrong than right--and discover the deeper and truer causes of instincts and actions. when this is done it will be found that while it is absolutely impossible to destroy the connection between conduct and self-regarding actions, there is proceeding a growing identity between the gratification of desire and the well-being of the whole. this will be, not because of some fantastical or ascetic teaching of self-sacrifice, but because man being an expression of social life is bound to find in activities that have a social reference the beginning and end of his conduct. the fears of a morality without god are, therefore, quite unfounded. if what has been said be granted, it follows that all ethical rules are primarily on the same level as a generalization in any of the sciences. just as the "laws" of astronomy or of biology reduce to order the apparently chaotic phenomena of their respective departments, so ethical laws seek to reduce to an intelligible order the conditions of individual and social betterment. there can be no ultimate antithesis between individual reason and the highest form of social conduct, although there may exist an apparent conflict between the two, chiefly owing to the fact that we are often unable to trace the remote effects of conduct on self and society. nor can there be an ultimate or permanent conflict between the true interests of the individual and of society at large. that such an opposition does exist in the minds of many is true, but it is here worthy of note that the clearest and most profound thinkers have always found in the field of social effort the best sphere for the gratification of their desires. and here again we may confidently hope that an increased and more accurate appreciation of the causes that determine human welfare will do much to diminish this antagonism. at any rate it is clear that human nature has been moulded in accordance with the reactions of self and society in such a way that even the self has become an expression of social life, and with this dual aspect before us there is no reason why emphasis should be laid on one factor rather than on the other. to sum up. eliminating the form of coercion that is represented by a policeman, earthly or otherwise, we may safely say that a naturalistic ethics has all the coercive force that can be possessed by any system. and it has this advantage over the coercive force of the supernaturalist, that while the latter tends to weaken with the advance of intelligence, the former gains strength as men and women begin to more clearly appreciate the true conditions of social life and development. it is in this way that there is finally established a connection between what is "reasonable" and what is right. in this case it is the function of reason to discover the forces that have made for the moralization--really the socialization--of man, and so strengthen man's moral nature by demonstrating the fundamental identity between his own welfare and that of the group to which he belongs. that the coercion may in some cases be quite ineffective must be admitted. there will always, one fancies, be cases where the personal character refuses to adapt itself to the current social state. that is a form of mal-adaptation which society will always have to face, exactly as it has to face cases of atavism in other directions. but the socializing and moralizing process continues. and however much this may be, in its earlier stages, entangled with conceptions of the supernatural, it is certain that growth will involve the disappearance of that factor here as it has done elsewhere. chapter xvi. christianity and morality. the association of religion with morality is a very ancient one. this is not because the one is impossible without the other, we have already shown that this is not the case. the reason is that unless religious beliefs are associated with certain essential social activities their continuance is almost impossible. thus it happens in the course of social evolution that just in proportion as man learns to rely upon the purely social activities to that extent religion is driven to dwell more upon them and to claim kinship with them. while this is true of religions in general, it applies with peculiar force to christianity. and in the last two or three centuries we have seen the emphasis gradually shifted from a set of doctrines, upon the acceptance of which man's eternal salvation depends, to a number of ethical and social teachings with which christianity, as such, has no vital concern. the present generation of christian believers has had what is called the moral aspect of christianity so constantly impressed upon them, and the essential and doctrinal aspect so slurred over, that many of them have come to accept the moral teaching associated with christianity as its most important aspect. more than that, they have come to regard the immense superiority of christianity as one of those statements the truth of which can be doubted by none but the most obtuse. to have this alleged superiority of christian ethical teaching questioned appears to them proof of some lack of moral development on the part of the questioner. to this type of believer it will come with something of a shock to be told quite plainly and without either circumlocution or apology that his religion is of an intensely selfish and egoistic character, and that its ethical influence is of a kind that is far from admirable. it will shock him because he has for so long been told that his religion is the very quintessence of unselfishness, he has for so long been telling it to others, and he has been able for so many generations to make it uncomfortable for all those who took an opposite view, that he has camouflaged both the nature of his own motives and the tendency of his religion. from one point of view this is part of the general scheme in virtue of which the christian church has given currency to the legend that the doctrines taught by it represented a tremendous advance in the development of the race. in sober truth it represented nothing of the kind. that the elements of christian religious teaching existed long before christianity as a religious system was known to the world is now a commonplace with all students of comparative religions, and is admitted by most christian writers of repute. even in form the christian doctrines represented but a small advance upon their pagan prototypes, but it is only when one bears in mind the fact that the best minds of antiquity were rapidly throwing off these superstitions and leading the world to a more enlightened view of things, we realize that in the main christianity represented a step backward in the intellectual evolution of the race. what we then see is christianity reaffirming and re-establishing most of the old superstitions in forms in which only the more ignorant classes of antiquity accepted them. we have an assertion of demonism in its crudest forms, an affirmation of the miraculous that the educated in the roman world had learned to laugh at, and which is to-day found among the savage people of the earth, while every form of scientific thought was looked upon as an act of impiety. the scientific eclipse that overtook the old pagan civilization was one of the inevitable consequences of the triumph of christianity. from the point of view of general culture the retrogressive nature of christianity is unmistakable. it has yet to be recognized that the same statement holds good in relation even to religion. one day the world will appreciate the fact that no greater disaster ever overtook the world than the triumph of the christian church. for the moment, however, we are only concerned with the relation of christianity to morality. and here my thesis is that christianity is an essentially selfish creed masking its egoistic impulses under a cover of unselfishness and self-sacrifice. to that it will probably be said that the charge breaks down on the fact that christian teaching is full of the exhortation that this world is of no moment, that we gain salvation by learning to ignore its temptations and to forgo its pleasures, and that it is, above all other faiths, the religion of personal sacrifice. and that this teaching is there it would be stupid to deny. but this does not disprove what has been said, indeed, analysis only serves to make the truth still plainer. that many christians have given up the prizes of the world is too plain to be denied; that they have forsaken all that many struggle to possess is also plain. but when this has been admitted there still remains the truth that there is a vital distinction in the consideration of whether a man gives up the world in order to save his own soul, or whether he saves his soul as a consequence of losing the world. in this matter it is the aim that is important, not only to the outsider who may be passing judgment, but more importantly to the agent himself. it is the effect of the motive on character with its subsequent flowering in social life that must be considered. the first count in the indictment here is that the christian appeal is essentially a selfish one. the aim is not the saving of others but of one's self. if other people must be saved it is because their salvation is believed to be essential to the saving of one's own soul. that this involves, or may involve, a surrender of one's worldly possessions or comfort, is of no moment. men will forgo many pleasures and give up much when they have what they believe to be a greater purpose in view. we see this in directions quite unconnected with religion. politics will show us examples of men who have forsaken many of what are to others the comforts of life in the hopes of gaining power and fame. others will deny themselves many pleasures in the prospect of achieving some end which to them is of far greater value than the things they are renouncing. and it is the same principle that operates in the case of religious devotees. there is no reason to doubt but that when a young woman forsakes the world and goes into a cloister she is surrendering much that has considerable attractions for her. but what she gives is to her of small importance to what she gains in return. and if one believed in christianity, in immortal damnation, with the intensity of the great christian types of character, it would be foolish not to surrender things of so little value for others of so great and transcendent importance. to do christians justice they have not usually made a secret of their aim. right through christian literature there runs the teaching that it is the desire of personal and immortal salvation that inspires them, and they have affirmed over and over again that but for the prospect of being paid back with tremendous interest in the next world they could see no reason for being good in this one. that is emphatically the teaching of the new testament and of the greatest of christian characters. you are to give in secret that you may be rewarded openly, to cast your bread upon the waters that it may be returned to you, and paul's counsel is that if there be no resurrection from the dead then we may eat, drink, and be merry for death only is before us. thus, what you do is in the nature of a deliberate and conscious investment on which you will receive a handsome dividend in the next world. and your readiness to invest will be exactly proportionate to your conviction of the soundness of the security. but there is in all this no perception of the truly ethical basis of conduct, no indication of the inevitable consequences of conduct on character. what is good is determined by what it is believed will save one's own soul and increase the dividend in the next world. what is bad is anything that will imperil the security. it is essentially an appeal to what is grasping and selfish in human nature, and while you may hide the true character of a thing by the lavish use of attractive phrases, you cannot hinder it working out its consequences in actual life. and the consequence of this has been that while christian teaching has been lavish in the use of attractive phrases its actual result has been to create a type of character that has been not so much immoral as _a_moral. and with that type the good that has been done on the one side has been more than counterbalanced by the evil done on the other. what the typical christian character had in mind in all that he did was neither the removal of suffering nor of injustice, but the salvation of his own soul. that justified everything so long as it was believed to contribute to that end. the social consequences of what was done simply did not count. and if, instead of taking mere phrases from the principal christian writers, we carefully examine their meaning we shall see that they were strangely devoid of what is now understood by the expression "moral incentive." the more impressive the outbreak of christian piety the clearer does this become. no one could have illustrated the christian ideal of self-sacrifice better than did the saints and monks of the earlier christian centuries. such a character as the famous st. simon stylites, living for years on his pillar, filthy and verminous, and yet the admired of christendom, with the lives of numerous other saints, whose sole claim to be remembered is that they lived the lives of worse than animals in the selfish endeavours to save their shrunken souls, will well illustrate this point. if it entered the diseased imagination of these men that the road to salvation lay through attending to the sick and the needy, they were quite ready to labour in that direction; but of any desire to remove the horrible social conditions that prevailed, or to remedy the injustice of which their clients were the victims, there is seldom a trace. and, on the other hand, if they believed that their salvation involved getting away from human society altogether and leading the life of a hermit, they were as ready to do that. if it meant the forsaking of husband or wife or parent or child, these were left without compunction, and their desertion was counted as proof of righteousness. the lives of the saints are full of illustrations of this. professor william james well remarks, in his _varieties of religious experience_, that "in gentle characters, where devoutness is intense and the intellect feeble, we have an imaginative absorption in the love of god to the exclusion of all practical human interests.... when the love of god takes possession of such a mind it expels all human loves and human uses." of the blessed st. mary alacoque, her biographer points out that as she became absorbed in the love of christ she became increasingly useless to the practical life of the convent. of st. teresa, james remarks that although a woman of strong intellect his impression of her was a feeling of pity that so much vitality of soul should have found such poor employment. and of so famous a character as st. augustine a christian writer, mr. a. c. benson, remarks:-- i was much interested in reading st. augustine's _confessions_ lately to recognize how small a part, after his conversion, any aspirations for the welfare of humanity seem to play in his mind compared with the consciousness of his own personal relations with god. it was this which gave him his exuberant sense of joy and peace, and his impulse was rather the impulse of sharing a wonderful and beautiful secret with others than an immediate desire for their welfare, forced out of him, so to speak, by his own exultation rather than drawn out of him by compassion for the needs of others. that is one of the most constant features which emerges from a careful study of the character of christian types. st. francis commenced his career by leaving his parents. john fox did the same. in that puritan classic, _the pilgrim's progress_, one of the outstanding features is the striking absence of emphasis on the value of the social and domestic virtues, and the rev. principal donaldson notes this as one of the features of early christian literature in general. christian preaching was for centuries full of contemptuous references to "filthy rags of righteousness," "mere morality," etc. the aim of the saints was a purely selfish and personal one. it was not even a refined or a metaphysical selfishness. it was a simple teaching that the one thing essential was to save one's own soul, and that the main reason for doing good in this world was to reap a benefit from it in the world to come. if it can properly be called morality, it was conduct placed out at the highest rate of interest. christianity may often have used a naturally lofty character, it was next to impossible for it to create one. if one examines the attack made by christians upon freethought morality, it is surprising how often the truth of what has been said is implied. for the complaint here is, in the main, not that naturalism fails to give an adequate account of the nature and development of morality, but that it will not satisfy mankind, and so fails to act as an adequate motive to right conduct. when we enquire precisely what is meant by this, we learn that if there is no belief in god, and if there is no expectation of a future state in which rewards and punishments will be dispensed, there remains no inducement to the average man or woman to do right. it is the moral teaching of st. paul over again. we are in the region of morality as a deliberate investment, and we have the threat that if the interest is not high enough or certain enough to satisfy the dividend hunting appetite of the true believer, then the investment will be withdrawn. really this is a complaint, not that the morality which ignores christianity is too low but that it is too high. it is doubted whether human nature, particularly christian human nature, can rise to such a level, and whether, unless you can guarantee a christian a suitable reward for not starving his family or for not robbing his neighbour, he will continue to place any value on decency or honesty. so to state the case makes the absurdity of the argument apparent, but unless that is what is meant it is difficult to make it intelligible. to reply that christians do not require these inducements to behave with a tolerable amount of decency is not a statement that i should dispute; on the contrary, i would affirm it. it is the christian defender who makes himself and his fellow believers worse than the freethinker believes them to be. for it is part of the case of the freethinker that the morality of the christian has really no connection with his religion, and that the net influence of his creed is to confuse and distort his moral sense instead of developing it. it is the argument of the christian that makes the freethinker superior to the christian; it is the freethinker who declines the compliment and who asserts that the social forces are adequate to guarantee the continuance of morality in the complete absence of religious belief. how little the christian religion appreciates the nature of morality is seen by the favourite expression of christian apologists that the tendency of non-religion is to remove all moral "restraints." the use of the word is illuminating. to the christian morality is no more than a system of restraints which aim at preventing a man gratifying his appetite in certain directions. it forbids him certain enjoyments here, and promises him as a reward for his abstention a greater benefit hereafter. and on that assumption he argues, quite naturally, that if there be no after life then there seems no reason why man should undergo the "restraints" which moral rules impose. on this scheme man is a born criminal and god an almighty policeman. that is the sum of orthodox christian morality. to assume that this conception of conduct can have a really elevating effect on life is to misunderstand the nature of the whole of the ethical and social problem. what has been said may go some distance towards suggesting an answer to the question so often asked as to the reason for the moral failure of christianity. for that it has been a moral failure no one can doubt. nay, it is an assertion made very generally by christians themselves. right from new testament times the complaint that the conduct of believers has fallen far short of what it should have been is constantly met with. and there is not a single direction in which christians can claim a moral superiority over other and non-christian peoples. they are neither kinder, more tolerant, more sober, more chaste, nor more truthful than are non-christian people. nor is it quite without significance that those nations that pride themselves most upon their christianity are what they are. their state reflects the ethical spirit i have been trying to describe. for when we wipe out the disguising phrases which we use to deceive ourselves--and it is almost impossible to continually deceive others unless we do manage to deceive ourselves--when we put on one side the "rationalizing" phrases about imperial races, carrying civilization to the dark places of the earth, bearing the white man's burden, peopling the waste places of the earth, etc., we may well ask what for centuries have the christian nations of the world been but so many gangs of freebooters engaged in world-wide piracy? all over the world they have gone, fighting, stealing, killing, lying, annexing, in a steadily rising crescendo. to be possessed of natural wealth, without the means of resisting aggression, has for four centuries been to invite the depredations of some one or more of the christian powers. it is the christian powers that have militarized the world in the name of the prince of peace, and made piracy a national occupation in the name of civilization. everywhere they have done these things under the shelter of their religion and with the sanction of their creed. christianity has offered no effective check to the cupidity of man, its chief work has been to find an outlet for it in a disguised form. to borrow a term from the psycho-analysts, the task of christianity has been to "rationalize" certain ugly impulses, and so provide the opportunity for their continuous expression. the world of to-day is beginning to recognize the intellectual weakness of christianity; what it has next to learn is that its moral bankruptcy is no less assured. one of the great obstacles in the way of this is the sentimentalism of many who have given up all intellectual adherence to the christian creed. the power of the christian church has been so great, it has for so long had control of the machinery of public education and information, that many find it almost impossible to conclude that the ethical spirit of christianity is as alien to real progress as are its cosmical teachings. the very hugeness of this century-old imposture blinds many to its inherent defects. and yet the continuous and world-wide moral failure of christianity can only be accounted for on the ground that it had a fatal moral defect from the start. i have suggested above what is the nature of that defect. it has never regarded morality as a natural social growth, but only as something imposed upon man from without. it has had no other reason for its existence than the fear of punishment and the hope of reward. christian morality is the morality of the stock exchange _plus_ the intellectual outlook of the savage. and with that in control of national destinies our surprise should be, not that things are as they are, but rather that with so great a handicap the world has contrived to reach its present moderate degree of development. chapter xvii. religion and persecution. intolerance is one of the most general of what we may call the mental vices. it is so general that few people seem to look upon it as a fault, and not a few are prepared to defend it as a virtue. when it assumes an extreme form, and its consequences are unpleasantly obvious, it may meet with condemnation, but usually its nature is disguised under a show of earnestness and sincere conviction. and, indeed, no one need feel called upon to dispute the sincerity and the earnestness of the bigot. as we have already pointed out, that may easily be seen and admitted. all that one need remark is that sincerity is no guarantee of accuracy, and earnestness naturally goes with a conviction strongly held, whether the conviction be grounded on fact or fancy. the essential question is not whether a man holds an opinion strongly, but whether he has taken sufficient trouble to say that he has a right to have that opinion. has he taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the facts upon which the expressed opinion is professedly based? has he made a due allowance for possible error, and for the possibility of others seeing the matter from another and a different point of view? if these questions were frankly and truthfully answered, it would be found that what we have to face in the world is not so much opinion as prejudice. some advance in human affairs is indicated when it is found necessary to apologise for persecution, and a still greater one when men and women feel ashamed of it. it is some of these apologies at which we have now to glance, and also to determine, if possible, the probable causes of the change in opinion that has occurred in relation to the subject of persecution. a favourite argument with the modern religionist is that the element of persecution, which it is admitted, has hitherto been found in association with religion, is not due to religion as such, but results from its connection with the secular power. often, it is argued, the state for its own purposes has seen fit to ally itself with the church, and when that has taken place the representatives of the favoured church have not been strong enough to withstand the temptation to use physical force in the maintenance of their position. hence the generalization that a state church is always a persecuting church, with the corollary that a church, as such, has nothing to do with so secular a thing as persecution. the generalization has all the attractiveness which appeals to those who are not in the habit of looking beneath the surface, and in particular to those whose minds are still in thraldom to religious beliefs. it is quite true that state churches have always persecuted, and it is equally true that persecution on a general scale could not have been carried on without the assistance of the state. on the other hand, it is just as true that all churches have persecuted within the limits of their opportunity. there is no exception to this rule in any age or country. on a wider survey it is also clear that all forms of religious belief carry with them a tendency to persecution more or less marked. a close examination of the facts will show that it is the tendency to toleration that is developed by the secular power, and the opposite tendency manifested by religion. it is also argued that intolerance is not a special quality of religion; it is rather a fault of human nature. there is more truth in this than in the previous plea, but it slurs over the indictment rather than meets it. at any rate, it is the same human nature that meets us in religion that fronts us in other matters, and there is no mistaking the fact that intolerance is far more pronounced in relation to religion than to any other subject. in secular matters--politics, science, literature, or art--opinions may differ, feelings run high, and a degree of intolerance be exhibited, but the right to differ remains unquestioned. moreover, the settlement of opinion by discussion is recognized. in religion it is the very right of difference that is challenged, it is the right of discussion that is denied. and it is in connection with religion alone that intolerance is raised to the level of a virtue. refusal to discuss the validity of a religious opinion will be taken as the sign of a highly developed spiritual nature, and a tolerance of diverging opinions as an indication of unbelief. if a political leader refused to stand upon the same platform with political opponents, on non-political questions, nearly everyone would say that such conduct was intolerable. but how many religious people are there who would see anything wrong in the archbishop of canterbury refusing to stand upon the same platform as a well-known atheist? we are here approaching the very heart of the subject, and in what follows i hope to make clear the truth of the following propositions: ( ) that the great culture ground of intolerance is religion; ( ) that the natural tendency of secular affairs is to breed tolerance; ( ) that the alliance of religion with the state has fostered persecution by the state, the restraining influences coming from the secular half of the partnership; ( ) that the decline of persecution is due to causes that are quite unconnected with religious beliefs. the first three points can really be taken together. so far as can be seen there is no disinclination among primitive peoples to discuss the pros and cons of matters that are unconnected with religious beliefs. so soon as we get people at a culture stage where the course of events is seen to be decided by human action, there goes on a tolerance of conflicting opinions that is in striking contrast with what occurs with such matters as are believed to directly involve the action of deity. one could not expect things to be otherwise. in the carrying on of warfare, as with many other tribal activities, so many of the circumstances are of a determinable character, and are clearly to be settled by an appeal to judgment and experience, that very early in social history they must have presented themselves as a legitimate field for discussion, and to discussion, as bagehot says, nothing is sacred. and as a matter of fact we have a survival of this to-day. however intolerant the character, so long as we are dealing with secular matters it is admitted that differences of opinion must be tolerated, and are, indeed, necessary if we are to arrive at the wisest conclusion. the most autocratic of monarchs will call upon his advisers and take their dissension from his own views as a matter of course. but when we get to the field of religion, it is no longer a question of the legitimacy of difference, but of its wrongness. for a religious man to admit a discussion as to whether his religious belief is founded on fact or not is to imply a doubt, and no thoroughly religious man ever encourages that. what we have is prayers to be saved from doubt, and deliberate efforts to keep away from such conditions and circumstances as may suggest the possibility of wrong. the ideal religious character is the one who never doubts. it may also be noted, in passing, that in connection with religion there is nothing to check intolerance at any stage. in relation to secular matters an opinion is avowedly based upon verifiable facts and has no value apart from those facts. the facts are common property, open to all, and may be examined by all. in religion facts of a common and verifiable kind are almost wanting. the facts of the religious life are mainly of an esoteric character--visions, intuitions, etc. and while on the secular side discussion is justified because of the agreement which results from it, on the religious side the value of discussion is discounted because it never does lead to agreement. the more people discuss religion the more pronounced the disagreement. that is one reason why the world over the only method by which people have been brought to a state of agreement in religious doctrines is by excluding all who disagreed. it is harmony in isolation. now if we turn to religion we can see that from the very beginning the whole tendency here was to stifle difference of opinion, and so establish intolerance as a religious duty. the biblical story of jonah is a case that well illustrates the point. god was not angry with the rest of the ship's inhabitants, it was jonah only who had given offence. but to punish jonah a storm was sent and the whole crew was in danger of shipwreck. in their own defence the sailors were driven to throw jonah overboard. jonah's disobedience was not, therefore, his concern alone. all with him were involved; god was ready to punish the whole for the offence of one. now if for the ship we take a primitive tribe, and for jonah a primitive heretic, or one who for some reason or other has omitted a service to the gods, we have an exact picture of what actually takes place. in primitive societies rights are not so much individual as they are social. every member of the tribe is responsible to the members of other tribes for any injury that may have been done. and as with the members of another tribe, so with the relation of the tribe to the gods. if an individual offends them the whole of the tribe may suffer. there is a splendid impartiality about the whole arrangement, although it lacks all that we moderns understand by justice. but the point here is that it makes the heretic not merely a mistaken person, but a dangerous character. his heresy involves treason to the tribe, and in its own defence it is felt that the heretic must be suppressed. how this feeling lingers in relation to religion is well seen in the fact that there are still with us large numbers of very pious people who are ready to see in a bad harvest, a war, or an epidemic, a judgment of god on the whole of the people for the sins of a few. it is this element that has always given to religious persecutions the air of a solemn duty. to suppress the heretic is something that is done in the interests of the whole of the people. persecution becomes both a religious and a social duty. the pedigree of religious persecution is thus clear. it is inherent in religious belief, and to whatever extent human nature is prone to intolerance, the tendency has been fostered and raised to the status of a virtue by religious teaching and practice. religion has served to confuse man's sense of right here as elsewhere. we have thus two currents at work. on the one hand, there is the influence of the secular side of life, which makes normally for a greater tolerance of opinion, on the other side there is religion which can only tolerate a difference of opinion to the extent that religious doctrines assume a position of comparative unimportance. instead of it being the case that the church has been encouraged to persecute by the state, the truth is the other way about. i know all that may be said as to the persecutions that have been set on foot by vested interests and by governments, but putting on one side the consideration that this begs the question of how far it has been the consequence of the early influence of religion, there are obvious limits beyond which a secular persecution cannot go. a government cannot destroy its subjects, or if it does the government itself disappears. and the most thorough scheme of exploitation must leave its victims enough on which to live. there are numerous considerations which weigh with a secular government and which have little weight with a church. it may safely be said, for example, that no government in the world, in the absence of religious considerations would have committed the suicidal act which drove the moors and the jews from spain.[ ] as a matter of fact, the landed aristocracy of spain resisted suggestions for expulsions for nearly a century because of the financial ruin they saw would follow. it was the driving power of religious belief that finally brought about the expulsion. religion alone could preach that it was better for the monarch to reign over a wilderness than over a nation of jews and unbelievers. the same thing was repeated a century later in the case of the expulsion of the huguenots from france. here again the crown resisted the suggestions of the church, and for the same reason. and it is significant that when governments have desired to persecute in their own interests they have nearly always found it advantageous to do so under the guise of religion. so far, and in these instances, it may be true that the state has used religion for its own purpose of persecution, but this does not touch the important fact that, given the sanction of religion, intolerance and persecution assume the status of virtues. and to the credit of the state it must be pointed out that it has over and over again had to exert a restraining influence in the quarrels of sects. it will be questioned by few that if the regulative influence of the state had not been exerted the quarrels of the sects would have made a settled and orderly life next to impossible. [ ] for this, as well as for the general consequences of persecution on racial welfare, see my pamphlet _creed and character_. so far as christianity is concerned it would puzzle the most zealous of its defenders to indicate a single direction in which it did anything to encourage the slightest modification of the spirit of intolerance. mohammedans can at least point to a time when, while their religion was dominant, a considerable amount of religious freedom was allowed to those living under its control. in the palmy days of the mohammedan rule in spain both jews and christians were allowed to practise their religion with only trifling inconveniences, certainly without being exposed to the fiendish punishments that characterized christianity all over the world. moreover, it must never be overlooked that in europe all laws against heresy are of christian origin. in the old roman empire liberty of worship was universal. so long as the state religion was treated with a moderate amount of respect one might worship whatever god one pleased, and the number was sufficient to provide for the most varied tastes. when christians were proceeded against it was under laws that did not aim primarily to shackle liberty of worship or of opinion. the procedure was in every case formal, the trial public, time was given for the preparation of the defence, and many of the judges showed their dislike to the prosecutions.[ ] but with the christians, instead of persecution being spasmodic it was persistent. it was not taken up by the authorities with reluctance, but with eagerness, and it was counted as the most sacred of duties. nor was it directed against a sectarian movement that threatened the welfare of the state. the worst periods of christian persecution were those when the state had the least to fear from internal dissension. the persecuted were not those who were guilty of neglect of social duty. on the contrary they were serving the state by the encouragement of literature, science, philosophy, and commerce. one of the pagan emperors, the great trajan, had advised the magistrates not to search for christians, and to treat anonymous accusations with contempt. christians carried the search for heresy into a man's own household. it used the child to obtain evidence against its own parents, the wife to secure evidence against the husband; it tortured to provide dictated confessions, and placed boxes at church doors to receive anonymous accusations. it established an index of forbidden books, an institution absolutely unknown to the pagan world. the roman trial was open, the accused could hear the charge and cite witnesses for the defence. the christian trial was in secret; special forms were used and no witnesses for the defence were permitted. persecution was raised to a fine art. under christian auspices it assumed the most damnable form known in the history of the world. "there are no wild beasts so ferocious as christians" was the amazed comment of the pagans on the behaviour of christians towards each other, and the subsequent history of christianity showed that the pagans were but amateurs in the art of punishing for a difference of opinion. [ ] i am taking the story of the persecutions of the early christians for granted, although the whole question is surrounded with the greatest suspicion. as a matter of fact the accounts are grossly exaggerated, and some of the alleged persecutions never occurred. the story of the persecutions is so foreign to the temper of the roman government as to throw doubt on the whole account. the story of there being ten persecutions is clearly false, the number being avowedly based upon the legend of the ten plagues of egypt. up to a comparatively recent time there existed a practically unanimous opinion among christians as to the desirability of forcibly suppressing heretical opinions. whatever the fortunes of christianity, and whatever the differences of opinion that gradually developed among christians there was complete unanimity on this point. whatever changes the protestant reformation effected it left this matter untouched. in his _history of rationalism_ lecky has brought forward a mass of evidence in support of this, and i must refer to that work readers who are not already acquainted with the details. luther, in the very act of pleading for toleration, excepted "such as deny the common principles of the christian religion, and advised that the jews should be confined as madmen, their synagogues burned and their books destroyed." the intolerance of calvin has became a byword; his very apology for the burning of servetus, entitled _a defence of the orthodox faith_, bore upon its title page the significant sentence "in which it is proved that heretics may justly be coerced with the sword." his follower, knox, was only carrying out the teaching of the master in declaring that "provoking the people to idolatry ought not to be exempt from the penalty of death," and that "magistrates and people are bound to do so (inflict the death penalty) unless they will provoke the wrath of god against themselves." in every protestant country laws against heresy were enacted. in switzerland, geneva, sweden, england, germany, scotland, nowhere could one differ from the established faith without running the risk of torture and death. even in america, with the exception of maryland,[ ] the same state of things prevailed. in some states catholic priests were subject to imprisonment for life, quaker women were whipped through the streets at the cart's tail, old men of the same denomination were pressed to death between stones. at a later date (about ) laws against heresy were general. "anyone," says fiske,-- who should dare to speculate too freely about the nature of christ, or the philosophy of the plan of salvation, or to express a doubt as to the plenary inspiration of every word between the two covers of the bible, was subject to fine and imprisonment. the tithing man still arrested the sabbath-breakers, and shut them up in the town cage in the market-place; he stopped all unnecessary riding or driving on sunday, and haled people off to the meeting-house whether they would or no.[ ] [ ] the case of maryland is peculiar. but the reason for the toleration there seems to have been due to the desire to give catholics a measure of freedom they could not have elsewhere in protestant countries. [ ] for a good sketch of the puritan sunday in new england see _the sabbath in puritan new england_, by alice morse earle. for an account of religious intolerance see the account of the blue laws of connecticut as contained in hart's _american history told by contemporaries_, vol. i. and we have to remember that the intolerance shown in america was manifested by men who had left their own country on the ostensible ground of freedom of conscience. as a matter of fact, in christian society genuine freedom of conscience was practically unknown. what was meant by the expression was the right to express one's own religious opinions, with the privilege of oppressing all with whom one happened to disagree. the majority of christians would have as indignantly repudiated the assertion that they desired to tolerate non-christian or anti-christian opinions as they would the charge of themselves holding atheistic ones. how deeply ingrained was the principle that the established religion was justified in suppressing all others may be seen from a reading of such works as locke's _letters on toleration_, and milton's _areopagitica_, which stand in the forefront of the world's writings in favour of liberty of thought and speech. yet locke was of opinion that "those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a god. promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. the taking away of god, though but even in thought, dissolves all." and milton, while holding that it was more prudent and wholesome that many be tolerated rather than all compelled, yet hastened to add "i mean not tolerated popery and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies so should itself be extirpated." in short, intolerance had become so established a part of a society saturated in religion that not even the most liberal could conceive a state of being in which all opinions should be placed upon an equal footing. yet a change was all the time taking place in men's opinions on this matter, a change which has in recent years culminated in the affirmation of the principle that the coercion of opinion is of all things the least desirable and the least beneficial to society at large. and as in so many other cases, it was not the gradual maturing of that principle that attracted attention so much as its statement in something like a complete and logical form. the tracing of the conditions which have led to this tremendous revolution in public opinion will complete our survey of the subject. it has already been pointed out that in primitive societies a very important fact is that the relation of the individual to the community is of a different nature from that which exists in a later stage of culture. the whole is responsible for the part in a very literal sense, and especially so in regard to religious beliefs. individual rights and responsibilities have but a precarious existence at best. the individual exists far more for the benefit of the tribe than the tribe can be said to exist for the benefit of the individual. the sense of corporate responsibility is strong, and even in secular affairs we see this constantly manifested. when a member of one tribe inflicts an injury upon a member of another tribe, retaliation on any one of the group to which the offending person belongs will suffice. we see the remnants of this primitive view of life in the feuds of schoolboys, and it is also manifested in the relations of nations, which move upon a lower ethical level than do individuals. most wars are ostensibly waged because in some obscure way the nation is held responsible for the offences of one or more individuals. and an instance of the same feeling is seen in the now obsolete practice of punishing the members of a man's family when the parents happen to have committed certain offences. in religion, as we have already pointed out, the sense of corporate responsibility completely governs primitive man's sense of his relation to the tribal gods. in the development of the tribal chief into the tribal god the ghost is credited with much the same powers as the man, with the added terror of having more subtle and terrible ways of inflicting punishment. the man who offends the ghost or the god is a standing danger to the whole of the tribe. the whole of the tribe becomes responsible for the offence committed, and the tribe in self protection must not alone take measures to punish the offender, but must also guard itself against even the possibility of the offence being perpetrated. the consequence is that there is not a religion in which one can fail to trace the presence of this primitive conception of personal and social responsibility, and consequently, where we cannot find persecution, more or less severe, and also more or less organized, in the interest of what is believed to be social welfare. in the case of the failure of the spanish armada to effect the conquest of england, the spanish monarch was convinced that its non-success was partly due to his not having weeded out the heretics from his own dominion before troubling about the heretics abroad. and right down to our own day there has not been a national calamity the cause of which has not been found by numbers of religious people to lie in the fact that some members of the suffering nation have offended god. the heretic becomes, as we have already said, a social danger of the gravest description. society must be guarded against his presence just as we learn to-day to protect ourselves against the presence of a death-dealing germ. the suppression of heresy thus becomes a social duty, because it protects society from the anger of the gods. the destruction of the heretic is substantially an act of social sanitation. given the primitive conception of religion, affiliated to the existing conception of corporate responsibility, and persecution becomes one of the most important of social duties. this, i believe, is not alone the root of persecution, but it serves to explain as nothing else can its persistence in social life and the fact of its having became almost a general mental characteristic. to realize this one need only bear in mind the overpowering part played by religious conceptions in early communities. there is nothing done that is not more or less under the assumed control of supernatural agencies. fear is the dominant emotion in relation to the gods, and experience daily proves that there is nothing that can make men so brutal and so callous to the sufferings of others as can religious belief. and while there has all along been a growing liberation of the mind from the control of religion, the process has been so slow that this particular product of religious rule has had time to root itself very deeply in human nature. and it is in accordance with all that we know of the order of development that the special qualities engendered by a particular set of conditions should persist long after the conditions themselves have passed away. the conditions that co-operate in the final breaking down of the conviction of the morality of persecution are many and various. primarily, there is the change from the social state in which the conception of corporate responsibility is dominant to one in which there is a more or less clearly marked line between what concerns the individual alone and what concerns society as a whole. this is illustrated in the growth from what spencer called the military type of society to an industrial one. in the case of a militant type of society, to which the religious organization is so closely affiliated, a state is more self contained, and the governing principle is, to use a generalization of sir henry maine's, status rather than contract. with the growth of commerce and industrialism there is developed a greater amount of individual initiative, a growing consideration for personal responsibility, and also the development of a sense of interdependence between societies. and the social developments that go on teach people, even though the lesson may be unconsciously learned, to value each other in terms of social utility rather than in terms of belief in expressed dogmas. they are brought daily into contact with men of widely differing forms of opinion; they find themselves working in the same movements, and participating in the same triumphs or sharing the same defeats. insensibly the standard of judgment alters; the strength of the purely social feelings overpowers the consciousness of theological differences, and thus serves to weaken the frame of mind from which persecution springs. the growing complexity of life leads to the same end. where the conditions of life are simple, and the experiences through which people pass are often repeated, and where, moreover, the amount of positive knowledge current is small, conclusions are reached rapidly, and the feeling of confidence in one's own opinions is not checked by seeing others draw different conclusions from the same premises. under such conditions an opinion once formed is not easily or quickly changed. experience which makes for wider knowledge makes also for greater caution in forming opinions and a greater readiness to tolerate conclusions of an opposite character at which others may have arrived. finally, on the purely intellectual side one must reckon with the growth of new ideas, and of knowledge that is in itself quite inconsistent with the established creed. if the primary reason for killing the heretic is that he is a social danger, one who will draw down on the tribe the vengeance of the gods, the strength of that feeling against the heretic must be weakened by every change that lessens men's belief in the power of their deity. and one must assume that every time a fresh piece of definite knowledge was acquired towards the splendid structure that now meets us in the shape of modern science there was accomplished something that involved an ultimate weakening of the belief in the supremacy of the gods. the effect is cumulative, and in time it is bound to make itself felt. religious opinion after religious opinion finds itself attacked and its power weakened. things that were thought to be solely due to the action of the gods are found to occur without their being invoked, while invocation does not make the slightest difference to the production of given results. scientific generalizations in astronomy, in physics, in biology, etc., follow one another, each helping to enforce the lesson that it really does not matter what opinions a man may hold about the gods provided his opinions about the world in which he is living and the forces with which he _must_ deal are sound and solidly based. in a world where opinion is in a healthy state of flux it is impossible for even religion to remain altogether unchanged. so we have first a change in the rigidity of religious conceptions, then a greater readiness to admit the possibility of error, and, finally, the impossibility of preventing the growth and expression of definitely non-religious and anti-religious opinions in a community where all sorts of opinions cannot but arise. with the social consequences of religious persecution, and particularly of christian persecution, i have dealt elsewhere, and there is no need to repeat the story here. i have been here concerned with making plain the fact that persecution does not arise with a misunderstanding of religion, or with a decline of what is vaguely called "true religion," nor does it originate in the alliance of some church with the secular state. it lies imbedded in the very nature of religion itself. with polytheism there is a certain measure of toleration to gods outside the tribe, because here the admitted existence of a number of gods is part of the order of things. but this tendency to toleration disappears when we come to the monotheistic stage which inevitably treats the claim to existence of other gods in the same spirit as an ardent royalist treats the appearance of a pretender to the throne. to tolerate such is a crime against the legitimate ruler. and when we get the christian doctrine of eternal damnation and salvation tacked on to the religious idea we have all the material necessary to give the persecutor the feeling of moral obligation, and to make him feel that he is playing the part of a real saviour to society. at bottom that is one of the chief injuries that a religion such as christianity inflicts on the race; it throws human feeling into some of the most objectionable forms, and provides a religious and moral justification for their expression. the very desire to benefit one's fellows, normally and naturally healthy, thus becomes under christian influences an instrument of oppression and racial degradation. the christian persecutor does not see himself for what he is, he pictures himself as a saviour of men's souls by suppressing the unbeliever who would corrupt them. and if christianity be true he is correct in thinking himself such. i have no hesitation in saying that if christianity be true persecution becomes the most important of duties. a community that is thoroughly christian is bound to persecute, and as a mere matter of historic fact every wholly christian community has persecuted. the community which says that a man may take any religion he pleases, or go without one altogether if he so chooses, proclaims its disbelief in the importance of religion. the measure of religious freedom is also the measure of religious indifference. there are some experiences through which a human being may pass the effects of which he never completely outgrows. usually he may appear to have put them quite out of his mind, but there are times when he is lifted a little out of the normal, and then the recollection of what he has passed through comes back with terrifying force. and acute observers may also be able to perceive that even in normal circumstances what he has passed through manifests itself for the worse in his everyday behaviour. so with religion and the life history of the race. for thousands of generations the race has been under the influence of a teaching that social welfare depended upon a right belief about the gods. the consequence of this has been that persecution became deeply ingrained in human nature and in the social traditions which play so large a part in the character building of each new generation. we have as yet hardly got beyond the tradition that lack of religion robs a man of social rights and dispenses with the necessity for courteous and considered treatment. and there is, therefore, small cause for wonder that the element of intolerance should still manifest itself in connection with non-religious aspects of life. but the certain thing is that throughout the whole of our social history it is religion that has been responsible for the maintenance of persecution as a social duty. something has been done in more recent times to weaken its force, the growth of science, the rationalizing of one institution after another--in a word, the secularizing of life--is slowly creating more tolerant relations between people. but the poison is deep in the blood, and will not be eradicated in a generation. religion is still here, and so long as it remains it will never cease--under the guise of an appeal to the higher sentiments of man--to make its most effective appeals to passions of which the best among us are most heartily ashamed. chapter xviii. what is to follow religion? books on the future of religion are numerous, and to one blessed with a sense of humour, full of entertainment. they are also not without instruction of a psychological kind. reliable information as to what the future will be like they certainly do not give, but they do unlock the innermost desires of the writers thereof. they express what the writers of the prophecies would like the future to be. and they create the future state on earth exactly as devout believers have built up the character of their heaven beyond the clouds. every form of faith which they disagree with is rejected as not possessing the element of vitality, with the result that there is only their own form left. and that, they triumphantly proclaim, is the religion of the future. but the future has an old-fashioned and disconcerting habit of disappointing expectations. the factors that govern human nature are so many and so complex, their transmutations and combinations are so numerous, that it is as well to tread cautiously, and to a very considerable extent leave the future to take care of itself. at the utmost all that we can do with safety is to detect tendencies, and to hasten or retard their development as we think them good or bad. the factors that make up a science of human nature are not to-day so well-known and so well understood that we can depict the state of society a century hence with the same certainty that we can foretell the position of the planet venus in the year . my aim in this chapter is, therefore, not to describe precisely what will be the state of society when religious belief has ceased to exist. it is rather to offer a general reply to those gloomy individuals who declare that when the aims of the freethinker are fully realized we shall find that in destroying religion we have destroyed pretty much all that makes human life worth living. we have managed to empty the baby out with the bath. the most general form of this fear is expressed in calling freethought a creed of negation, or a policy of destruction, and assuring the world that mankind can never rest content with such things. that may be quite true, but we fail to see in what way it touches freethought. a freethought that is wholly destructive, that is a mere negation, is a creation of the pulpit, and belongs to the same class of imaginative efforts as the pietistic outbursts of famous unbelievers on their death-beds. that such things could have obtained so wide a currency, and be looked upon as quite natural occurrences, offers demonstrative evidence of the paralyzing power of christian belief on the human mind. as a matter of fact, neither reformers in general nor freethinkers in particular deserve the charge of being mere destructionists. they are both far more interested in building up than they are in pulling down, and it is sheer lack of understanding that fixes the eyes of so many on one aspect of the reformer's task and so steadily ignores the other one. of course, the phenomenon is not an unusual one. in a revolution it is the noise, the street fighting, the breaking of old rules and the shattering of established institutions that attract the most attention. the deeper aims of the revolutionists, the hidden social forces of which the revolution is the expression, the work of reconstruction that is attempted, escape notice. the old order shrieks its loudest at the threat of dissolution, the new can hardly make its voice heard. carlyle's division of the people into the shrieking thousands and the dumb millions is eternally true. and even the millions are impressed with the importance of the thousands because of the noise they are able to make. actually the charge to which reformers in general are open is that of a too great zeal for reconstruction, a belittling of the difficulties that stand in the way of a radical change. they are apt to make too small an allowance for the occurrence of the unexpected and the incalculable, both of which are likely to interfere with the fruition of the most logical of schemes. and they are so obsessed with reconstruction that destruction seems no more than an incident by the way. a little less eagerness for reconstruction might easily result in a greater concern for what is being pulled down. the two greatest "destructive" movements of modern times--the french revolution of and the russian revolution--both illustrate this point. in both movements the leading figures were men who were obsessed with the idea of building a new world. they saw this new world so clearly that the old one was almost ignored. and this is equally true of the literature that precedes and is the mouthpiece of such movements. the leading appeal is always to what is to be, what existed is only used as a means of enforcing the desirability of the new order. it is, in short, the mania for reconstruction that is chiefly responsible for the destruction which so horrifies those whose vision can never see anything but the world to which they have become accustomed. in parenthesis it may be remarked that it is a tactical blunder to make one's attack upon an existing institution or idea depend upon the attractiveness of the ideal state depicted. it enables critics to fix attention on the precise value of the proposed remedy instead of discussing whether the suggested reform is necessary. the attacker is thus placed in the position of the defender and the point at issue obscured. this is, that a certain institution or idea has outgrown its usefulness and its removal is necessary to healthy growth. and it may well be that its removal is all that is required to enable the social organism to function naturally and healthily. the outworn institution is often the grit in the machine that prevents it running smoothly. this by the way. the fact remains that some of our best teachers have shown themselves apt to stumble in the matter. without belief in religion they have too often assumed that its removal would leave a serious gap in life, and so would necessitate the creation of a number of substitutes to "take the place of religion." thus, no less profound a thinker than herbert spencer remarks in the preface to his _data of ethics_:-- few things can happen more disastrous than the death and decay of a regulative system no longer fit, before another and a better regulative system has grown up to replace it. most of those who reject the current creed appear to assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may safely be thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other controlling agency. had spencer first of all set himself to answer the question, "what is it that the freethinker sets himself to remove?" or even the question, "what is the actual control exerted by religion?" one imagines that the passage above given would either never have been written or would have been differently worded. and when a man such as spencer permits himself to put the matter in this form one need not be surprised at the ordinary believer assuming that he has put an unanswerable question to the freethinker when he asks what it is that we propose to put in the place of religion, with the assumption that the question is on all fours with the enquiry as to what substitutes we have for soap and coal if we destroy all stocks of these articles. the question assumes more than any scientific freethinker would ever grant. it takes for granted the statement that religion does at present perform some useful function in the state. and that is the very statement that is challenged. nor does the freethinker deny that some "controlling agency" is desirable. what he does say is that in the modern state, at least, religion exerts no control for good, that its activities make for stagnation or retrogression, that its removal will make for the healthier operation of other agencies, and that to these other and non-religious agencies belongs the credit which is at present given to religion. moreover, spencer should not have needed reminding that systems of thought while they have any vital relation to life will successfully defy all attempts at eradication. the main cause of the decay of religion is not the attack made upon it by the forces of reasoned unbelief. that attack is largely the conscious expression of a revolt against a system that has long lost all touch with reality, and so has ceased to derive support from current life and thought. from this point of view the reformer is what he is because he is alive to the drift of events, susceptible to those social influences which affect all more or less, and his strength is derived from the thousand and one subtle influences that extend from generation to generation and express themselves in what we are pleased to call the story of civilization. but the quotation given does represent a fairly common point of view, and it is put in a form that is most favourable to religious pretensions. for it assumes that religion does really in our modern lives perform a function so useful that it would be the height of folly to remove it before we had something equally useful to take its place. but something in the place of religion is a thing that no scientific freethinker desires. it is not a new religion, or another religion that the world needs, but the removal of religion from the control of life, and a restatement of those social qualities that have hitherto been expressed in a religious form so that their real nature will be apparent to all. then we shall at last begin to make progress with small chance of getting a serious set-back. this does not, of course, deny that there are many things associated with religion for the absence of which society would have cause for regret. it is part of the freethought case that this is so. and it may also be admitted that large numbers of people honestly believe that their religious beliefs serve as motives to the expression of their better qualities. that, again, is part of the delusion we are fighting. we cannot agree that religion, as such, contains anything that is essentially useful to the race. it has maintained its power chiefly because of its association with serviceable social qualities, and it is part of the work of freethought to distinguish between what properly belongs to religion and what has become associated with it during its long history. at present the confusion exists and the fact need cause no surprise. at best the instincts of man are deep-laid, the motives to conduct are mostly of an obscure kind, and it would be cause for surprise if, seeing how closely religion is associated with every phase of primitive life, and how persistent are primitive modes of thinking, there were not this confusion between the actual part played by religion in life and the part assigned it by tradition. at any rate, it is idle to argue as though human conduct was governed by a single idea--that of religion. at the most religious beliefs represent no more than a part of the vast mass of influences that determine human effort. and when we see how largely religious beliefs are dependent upon constant stimulation and protection for their existence, it seems extremely unlikely that they can hold a very vital relation to life. the impotency of religion in matters of conduct is, too, decisively shown in the fact that it is quite impossible to arrange men and women in a scale of values that shall correspond with the kind or the fervency of their religious beliefs. a religious person may be a useful member of society or he may be a quite useless one. a profound religious conviction may be accompanied by the loftiest of ideals or by the meanest of aims. the unbeliever may be, and often is, a better man than the believer. no business man would ever think of making a man's religion the condition of taking one into his service, or if he did the general opinion would be that it indicated bigotry and not shrewdness. we find it quite impossible to determine the nature of religious belief by watching the way people behave. in no stage of social life does religion provide us with anything in the nature of a differentiating factor. it was argued by the late sir james fitzjames stephen, himself a freethinker, that as men have for a long time been in the habit of associating moral feelings with the belief in god, a severance of the two may entail moral disaster. it is, of course, hard to say what may not happen in certain cases, but it is quite certain that such a consequence could not follow on any general scale. one has only to bring a statement of this kind down from the region of mere theory to that of definite fact to see how idle the fear is. if, instead of asserting in a vague way that the moral life is in some way bound up with religious beliefs we ask what moral action or moral disposition is so connected, we realize the absurdity of the statement. professor leuba well says:-- our alleged essential dependence upon transcendental beliefs is belied by the most common experiences of daily life. who does not feel the absurdity of the opinion that the lavish care for a sick child by a mother is given because of a belief in god and immortality? are love of father and mother on the part of children, affection and serviceableness between brothers and sisters, straightforwardness and truthfulness between business men essentially dependent upon these beliefs? what sort of person would be the father who would announce divine punishment or reward in order to obtain the love and respect of his children? and if there are business men preserved from unrighteousness by the fear of future punishment, they are far more numerous who are deterred by the threat of human law. most of them would take their chances with heaven a hundred times before they would once with society, or perchance with the imperative voice of humanity heard in the conscience (_the belief in god and immortality_, p. ). and in whatever degree the fear may be justified in special cases, it applies to any attempt whatever that may be made to disturb existing conventions. luther complained that some of his own converts were behaving worse as protestants than they behaved as catholics, and even in the new testament we have the same unfavourable comparison made of many of christ's followers when compared with the pagans around them. a transference of allegiance may easily result in certain ill-balanced minds kicking over the traces, but in the long run, and with the mass, the deeper social needs are paramount. there was the same fear expressed concerning man's political and social duties when the relations of church and state were first challenged. yet the connection between the two has been quite severed in some countries, and very much weakened in many more, without society in the least suffering from the change. on the contrary, one may say that man's duties towards the state have been more intelligently perceived and more efficiently discharged in proportion as those religious considerations that once ruled have been set on one side. the reply of the freethinker to the question of "what is to follow religion?" may, therefore, easily be seen. in effect it is, "nothing at all." in any study of social evolution the properly equipped student commences his task with the full conviction that whatever the future may be like its germs are already with us. if nature does not "abhor a vacuum" it has at least an intense dislike to absolute beginnings. the future will be an elaboration of the present as the present is an elaboration of the past. for good or evil that principle remains unimpeachable. the essential question is not, what is to follow religion? but rather what will the disappearance of religion affect that is of real value to the world. the moment the question is raised in this unambiguous manner the answer suggests itself. for assume that by some strange and unexpected happening there set in a raging epidemic of common sense. assume that as a consequence of this the world was to awake with its mind completely cleared of all belief in religion. what would be the effect of the transformation? it is quite clear that it would not affect any of the fundamental processes of life. the tragi-comedy of life would still be performed, it would run through the same number of acts, and it would end in the same happy or unhappy manner. human beings would still get born, they would grow up, they would fall in love, they would marry, they would beget their kind, and they would in turn pass away to make room for another generation. birth and death, with all their accompanying feelings, would remain. human society would continue, all the glories of art, the greatness of science, all the marvels and wonders of the universe would be there whether we believed in a god or not. the only difference would be that we should no longer associate these things with the existence of a god. and in that respect we should be following the same course of development that has been followed in many other departments of life. we do not nowadays associate the existence of spirits with a good or a bad harvest, the anger of god with an epidemic, or the good-will of deity with a spell of fine weather. yet in each case there was once the same assumed association between these things, and the same fears of what would happen if that association was discarded. we are only carrying the process a step further; all that is required is a little courage to take the step. in short, there is not a single useful or worthy quality, intellectual or moral, that can possibly suffer from the disappearance of religion. on this point we may again quote from professor leuba:-- the heroism of religious martyrs is often flaunted as marvellous instances of the unique sustaining strength derived from the belief in a personal god and the anticipation of heaven. and yet for every martyr of this sort there has been one or more heroes who has risked his life for a noble cause, without the comfort which transcendental beliefs may bring. the very present offers almost countless instances of martyrs to the cause of humanity, who are strangers to the idea of god and immortality. how many men and women in the past decade gladly offered and not infrequently lost their lives in the cause of freedom, or justice, or science? in the monstrous war we are now witnessing, is there a less heroic defence of home and nation, and less conscious self-renunciation among the non-believers than among the professed christians? have modern nations shown a more intense or a purer patriotism than ancient greece and rome, where men did not pretend to derive inspiration for their deeds of devotion in the thoughts of their gods.... the fruitful deeds of heroism are at bottom inspired not by the thought of god or a future life, but by innate tendencies or promptings that have reference to humanity. self sacrifice, generosity, is rooted in nothing less superficial and accidental than social instincts older than the human race, for they are already present in a rudimentary form in the higher animals. these are quite familiar statements to all freethinkers, but to a great many christians they may come with all the force of a new revelation. in the earlier pages of this work i have given what i conceive solid reasons for believing that every one of the social and individual virtues is born of human intercourse and can never be seriously deranged for any length of time, so long as human society endures. the scale of values may well undergo a change with the decay of religion, but that is something which is taking place all the time, provided society is not in a state of absolute stagnation. there is not any change that takes place in society that does not affect our view of the relative value of particular qualities. the value we place upon personal loyalty to a king is not what it once was. at one stage a man is ready to place the whole of his fortune at the disposal of a monarch merely because he happens to be his "anointed" king. to-day, the man who had no better reason for doing that would be looked upon as an idiot. unquestioning obedience to established authority, which once played so high a part in the education of children, is now ranked very low by all who understand what genuine education means. from generation to generation we go on revising our estimate of the value of particular qualities, and the world is the better for the revision. and that is what we may assume will occur with the decay of religious belief. we shall place a higher value upon certain qualities than we do at present and a lower value upon others. but there will be no discarding the old qualities and creation of new ones. human nature will be the same then as now, as it has been for thousands of years. the nature of human qualities will be more directly conceived and more intelligently applied, and that will be an undesirable development only for those who live by exploiting the ignorance and the folly of mankind. thus, if one may venture upon a prophecy with regard to the non-religious society of the future it may be said with confidence that what are known as the ascetic qualities are not likely to increase in value. the cant of christianity has always placed an excessive value upon what is called self-sacrifice. but there is no value in self-sacrifice, as such. at best it is only of value in exceptional circumstances, as an end it is worse than useless, and it may easily degenerate from a virtue to a vice. it assumed high rank with christian teachers for various reasons. first, it was an expression of that asceticism which lies at the root of christianity, second, because christianity pictured this world as no more than a preparation for another, and taught that the deprivations and sufferings of the present life would be placed to a credit account in the next one, and third, because it helped men and women to tolerate injustice in this world and so helped the political game that governments and the christian church have together played. a really enlightened society would rank comparatively low the virtue of asceticism. its principle would be not self-sacrifice but self-development. what must result from this is an enlargement of our conception of justice and also of social reform. both of these things occupy a very low place in the christian scale of virtues. social reform it has never bothered seriously about, and in its earlier years simply ignored. a people who were looking for the end of the world, whose teaching was that it was for man's spiritual good to suffer, and who looked for all help to supernatural intervention, could never have had seriously in their minds what we understand by social reform. and so with the conception of justice. there is much of this in pre-christian literature, and its entrance into the life and thought of modern europe can be traced directly back to greek and roman sources. but the work of the christian, while it may have been to heal wounds, was not to prevent their infliction. it was to minister to poverty, not to remove those conditions that made poverty inevitable. a spanish writer has put this point so well that i cannot do better than quote him. he says:-- the notion of justice is as entirely foreign to the spirit of christianity as is that of intellectual honesty. it lies wholly outside the field of its ethical vision. christianity--i am not referring to interpretations disclaimed as corruptions or applications which may be set down to frailty and error, but to the most idealized conceptions of its substance and the most exalted manifestations of its spirit--christianity has offered consolation and comfort to men who suffered under injustice, but of that injustice itself it has remained absolutely incognizant. it has called upon the weary and heavy laden, upon the suffering and the afflicted, it has proclaimed to them the law of love, the duty of mercy and forgiveness, the fatherhood of god; but in that torment of religious and ethical emotion which has impressed men as the summit of the sublime, and been held to transcend all other ethical ideals, common justice, common honesty have no place. the ideal christian is seen in the saint who is seen descending like an angel from heaven amid the welter of human misery, among the victims of ruthless oppression and injustice ... but the cause of that misery lies wholly outside the range of his consciousness; no glimmer of right or wrong enters into his view of it. it is the established order of things, the divinely appointed government of the world, the trial laid upon sinners by divine ordinance. st. vincent de paul visits the hell of the french galleys; he proclaims the message of love and calls sinners to repentance; but to the iniquity which creates and maintains that hell he remains absolutely indifferent. he is appointed grand almoner to his most christian majesty. the world might groan in misery under the despotism of oppressors, men's lives and men's minds might be enslaved, crushed and blighted; the spirit of christianity would go forth and _comfort_ them, but it would never occur to it to redress a single one of those wrongs. it has remained unconscious of them. to those wrongs, to men's right to be delivered from them, it was by nature completely blind. in respect to justice, to right and wrong, the spirit of christianity is not so much immoral as amoral. the notion was as alien to it as the notion of truth. included in its code was, it might be controversially alleged, an old formula, "the golden rule," a commonplace of most literature, which was popular in the east from china to asia minor; but that isolated precept was never interpreted in the sense of justice. it meant forgiveness, forbearing, kindness, but never mere justice, common equity; those virtues were far too unemotional in aspect to appeal to the religious enthusiast. the renunciation of life and all its vanities, the casting overboard of all sordid cares for its maintenance, the suppression of desire, prodigal almsgiving, the consecration of a life, the value of which had disappeared in his eyes, to charity and love, non-resistance, passive obedience, the turning of the other cheek to an enemy, the whole riot of these hyperbolic ethical emotions could fire the christian consciousness, while it remained utterly unmoved by every form of wrong, iniquity and injustice (dr. falta de gracia. cited by dr. r. briffault, _the making of humanity_, pp. - .) that, we may assume, will be one of the most striking consequences of the displacement of christianity in the social economy. there will be less time wasted on what is called philanthropic work--which is often the most harmful of all social labours--and more attention to the removal of those conditions that have made the display of philanthropy necessary. there will not be less feeling for the distressed or the unfortunate, but it will be emotion under the guidance of the intellect, and the dominant feeling will be that of indignation against the conditions that make human suffering and degradation inevitable, rather than a mere gratification of purely egoistic feeling which leaves the source of the evil untouched. that will mean a rise in the scale of values of what one may call the intellectual virtues--the duty of truthseeking and truth speaking. hitherto the type of character held up for admiration by christianity has been that of the blind believer who allowed nothing to stand in the way of his belief, who required no proofs of its truth and allowed no disproofs to enter his mind. a society in which religion does not hold a controlling place is not likely to place a very high value upon such precepts as "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," or "though he slay me yet will i trust him." but a very high value will be placed upon the duty of investigation and the right of criticism. and one cannot easily over-estimate the consequences of a generation or two brought up in an atmosphere where such teachings obtain. it would mean a receptiveness to new ideas, a readiness to overhaul old institutions, a toleration of criticism such as would rapidly transform the whole mental atmosphere and with it enormously accentuate the capacity for, and the rapidity of, social progress. there is also to be borne in mind the effect of the liberation of the enormous amount of energy at present expended in the service of religion. stupid religious controversialists often assume that it is part of the freethinker's case that religion enlists in its service bad men, and much time is spent in proving that religious people are mostly worthy ones. that could hardly be otherwise in a society where the overwhelming majority of men and women profess a religion of some sort. but that is, indeed, not the freethinker's case at all, and if the badness of some religious people is cited it is only in answer to the foolish argument that religionists are better than others. the real complaint against religion is of a different kind altogether. just as the worst thing that one can say about a clergyman intellectually is, not that he does not believe in what he preaches, but that he does, so the most serious indictment of current religion is not that it enlists in its service bad characters, but that it dissipates the energy of good men and women in a perfectly useless manner. the dissipation of christian belief means the liberating of a store of energy for service that is at present being expended on ends that are without the least social value. a world without religion would thus be a world in which the sole ends of endeavour would be those of human betterment or human enlightenment, and probably in the end the two are one. for there is no real betterment without enlightenment, even though there may come for a time enlightenment without betterment. it would leave the world with all the means of intellectual and æsthetic and social enjoyment that exist now, and one may reasonably hope that it will lead to their cultivation and diffusion over the whole of society. _printed and published by_ the pioneer press (g. w. foote & co., ltd.), _ farringdon street, london, e.c. _. announcements. the secular society, 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"slave to no sect, who takes no private read, but looks through nature up to nature's god; "and knows where faith, law, morals, all began, all end in love of god, and love of man." pope london printed & published by r. carlile, , fleet street. translator's preface. in this philosophic age, when nature, reason, and the rights of man have resumed their empire; when the genius of a great, generous, and brave people is giving the last blow to superstition and despotism, the publication of a work which has greatly contributed to these glorious events, must be highly acceptable, not only to the literary world, but even to the community at large, who eagerly seek after instruction, the moment they believe it necessary for their happiness. this publication bears a conspicuous rank among those works whose free and independent sentiments have introduced a happy change in the public mind, and concurred with the writings of rousseau, mably, raynal, and voltaire, in bringing forward the french revolution: a revolution which will probably prove the harbinger of the complete triumph of reason. persecutions and wars will then cease for ever throughout the civilized world. in offering this translation to the public, i pay a tribute that every member of society owes to his fellow-citizens, that of endeavouring to acquaint them with their true rights and duties, and, consequently, the means most conducive to their happiness. new york, . letter from the author to a friend. i receive, sir, with gratitude, the remarks which you send me upon my work. if i am sensible to the praises you condescend to give it, i am too fond of truth to be displeased with the frankness with which you propose your objections. i find them sufficiently weighty to merit all my attention. he but ill deserves the title of philosopher, who has not the courage to hear his opinions contradicted. we are not divines; our disputes are of a nature to terminate amicably; they in no way resemble those of the apostles of superstition, who endeavour to overreach each other by captious arguments, and who, at the expence of good faith, contend only to advocate the cause of their vanity and their prejudices. we both desire the happiness of mankind, we both search after truth; this being the case, we cannot disagree. you begin by admitting the necessity of examining religion, and submitting opinions to the decision of reason. you acknowledge that christianity cannot sustain this trial, and that in the eye of good sense it can never appear to be any thing but a tissue of absurdities, of unconnected fables, senseless dogmas, puerile ceremonies, and notions borrowed from the chaldeans, egyptians, phenicians, grecians, and romans. in one word, you confess that this religious system is only, the deformed offspring of almost all ancient superstitions, begotten by oriental fanaticism, and diversely modified by the circumstances and prejudices of those who have since pretended to be the inspired ambassadors of god, and the interpreters of his will. you tremble at the horrors which the intolerant spirit of christians has caused them to commit, whenever they had power to do it; you feel that a religion founded on a sanguinary deity must be a religion of blood. you lament that phrenzy, which in infancy takes possession of princes and people, and renders them equally the slaves of superstition and her priests; which prevents their acquaintance with their true interests, renders them deaf to reason, and turns them aside from the great objects by which they ought to be occupied. you confess that a religion founded upon enthusiasm or imposture can have no sure principles; that it must prove an eternal source of disputes, and always end in causing troubles, persecutions, and ravages; especially when political power conceives itself indispensibly obliged to enter into its quarrels. in fine, you go so far as to agree that a good christian who follows literally the conduct prescribed to him as the most perfect by the gospel, knows not in this world any thing of those duties on which true morality is founded; and that if he wants energy he must prove an useless misanthrope, or if his temper be warm a turbulent fanatic. after acknowledging all this, how could it happen that you should pronounce my work a dangerous one! you tell me that a-wise man ought to think only for himself; that to the populace a religion is necessary, be it good or bad; that it is a restraint necessary to gross and ignorant minds, which, without it, would have no longer any motive for abstaining from vice. you look upon a reform of religious prejudices as impossible, because it is the interest of many of those persons who alone can effect it, to continue mankind in that ignorance of which themselves reap the advantage. these, if i mistake not, are the weightiest of your objections. i will endeavour to remove them. books are generally written for that part of a nation whose circumstances, education, and sentiments, place them above the commission of crimes. this enlightened portion of society, which governs the other, reads and judges of writings; if they contain maxims false or injurious, they are soon either condemned to oblivion, or held up to public execration; if they contain only truth, they are not in danger. fanatics and ignorant people are the disturbers of society. sensible, enlightened, and disinterested persons are ever the friends of peace. you are not, sir, of the number of pusillanimous thinkers, who believe that truth is capable of doing harm. it does harm to those only who deceive mankind, and to the rest of the human species it will always be useful. you ought long to have been convinced that the evils with which mankind are afflicted, arise only from our errors, our prejudices, our interests misunderstood, and the false ideas we attach to objects. in fine, it is easy to see that the policy and morality of man have been particularly corrupted by their religious prejudices. was it not religious and supernatural ideas which caused sovereigns to be looked upon as gods? it is then religion which raised up tyrants and despots; tyrants and despots made wicked laws; their example corrupted the great, the great corrupted the lower classes of mankind; these vitiated beings became unhappy slaves, employed either in injuring themselves, flattering the great, or struggling to get clear of their misery. kings were styled images of god: they were absolute like him they created justice and injustice; their wills often sanctified oppression, violence, and rapine. the means of obtaining their favours were vice and meanness. thus nations became filled with perverted citizens, who, under leaders corrupted by religious notions, made continually a war, either open or clandestine, and were left destitute of any motive for practising virtue. has this religion influenced the manners of sovereigns, who derive their divine power from it? do we not behold princes, overflowing with faith, continually undertaking the most unjust wars; wasting the blood and treasure of their subjects; wrenching the bread from the hands of the poor; permitting and even commanding every species of injustice? does this religion, considered by so many sovereigns as the support of their thrones, render them more humane, temperate, chaste, or faithful to their oaths? alas! when we consult history, we there find sovereigns who were orthodox, zealous, and religious to a scruple, and at the same time guilty of perjury, usurpation, adultery, robbery, and murder; men who, in fine, behaved as if they feared not the god whom they honoured with their mouths. among the courtiers who surrounded them, we see a continual alliance of christianity and vice, devotion and iniquity, religion and treason. among the priests of a poor and crucified god, who found their existence upon religion, and pretend that without it there could be no morality, do we not see reigning amongst them, pride, avarice, wantonness, and revenge? amongst us, education is very little attended to by the government, which shews the most profound indifference concerning an object the most essential to the happiness of states. with most modern nations public education is confined to teaching of languages, useless to most who learn them. christians, instead of morality, inculcate the marvellous fables and incomprehensible dogmas of a religion extremely repugnant to right reason. at the first step a young man makes in his studies, he is taught that he ought to renounce the testimony of his senses, to reject his reason as an unfaithful guide, and blindly conform himself to the dictates of his masters? but who are these masters? priests, whose interest it is to continue mankind in errors, of which they alone reap the advantage. can the abject and isolated mind of these mercenary pedagogues be capable of instructing their pupils in that of which themselves are ignorant? will they teach then to love the public good, to serve their country, to know the duties of the man and citizen? certainly not; we can expect nothing from the hands of such teachers but ignorant and superstitious pupils, who, if they have profited of the lessons they have received, are unacquainted with every thing necessary in society, of which they must consequently become useless members. on whatever side we cast our eyes, we see the study of the object most important to man totally neglected. morality, in which i also comprehend policy, is considered of very little importance in european education. the only morality taught by christians is, the enthusiastic, impracticable, contradictory, and uncertain morality contained in the gospel. this is calculated only to degrade the mind, to render virtue odious, to form abject slaves, and break the spring of the soul; or, if it is sown in warm and active minds, to produce turbulent fanatics, capable of shaking the foundations of society. notwithstanding the inutility and perversity of the morality which christianity teaches mankind, its partisans presume to tell us, that without this religion we cannot have morals. but what is it to have morals, in; the language of christians? it is to pray without ceasing, to frequent churches, to do penance, and to: abstain from pleasure; it is to live in selfishness and solitude. what good results to society from these practices, all of which may be observed by a man who has not the shadow of virtue? if such morals lead to heaven, they are very useless on earth. but certain it is, that a man may be a faithful observer of all that christianity enjoins, without possessing any of the virtues which reason shews to be necessary to the support of political society. it is necessary, then, to carefully distinguish christian morality from political morality; the former makes saints, the latter citizens: one makes men useless, or even hurtful to the world; the other has for its object the formation of members useful to society; men active and vigorous, who are capable of serving it, who fulfil the duties of husbands, fathers, friends, and companions, whatever may be their metaphysical opinions, which, let theologists say what they will, are much less sure than the invariable rules of good sense. in fact, it is certain, that man is a social being, who in all things seeks his own happiness; that he does good when he finds it his interest; that he is not commonly bad, because that would be contrary to his welfare. this being premised, let education teach men to know the relations which exist among themselves, and the duties arising from those relations; let governments, calling to their aid laws, rewards, and punishments, confirm the lessons given by education; let happiness accompany useful and virtuous actions, let shame, contempt, and chastisement be the rewards of vice. then would mankind have a true morality, founded in their own nature upon their mutual wants, and the interest of nations at large. this morality, independent of the sublime notions of theology, might perhaps have very little in common with christian morality; but society has nothing to lose from this circumstance, as has already been proved. when the people receive a proper education, which, by inspiring them early in life with virtuous principles, will habituate them to do homage to virtue, detest crimes, contemn vice, and shrink from infamy; such an education cannot be vain, when continual example shall prove to the citizens that talents and virtue are the only means of arriving at honour, fortune, distinction, consideration, and favour; and that vice conducts only to contempt and ignominy. if the clergy have usurped from the sovereign power the right of instructing the people, let the latter re-assume its rights, or at least not suffer the former to enjoy the exclusive liberty of governing the manners of mankind, and dictating their morality. let them teach, if they please, that their god transforms himself into bread, but let them never teach that we ought to hate or destroy those who refuse to believe this ineffable mystery. let no individual in society have the power of exciting citizens to rebellion, of sowing discord, breaking the bands which unite the people amongst one another, and disturbing the public tranquillity for the sake of opinions. if it be said that all governments think it their interest to support religious prejudices, and manage the clergy through policy, although they themselves are undeceived; i answer, that it is easy to convince enlightened government, that it is their true interest to govern a happy people; that upon the happiness it procures the nation, depends the stability and safety of the government; in one word, that a nation composed of wise and virtuous citizens, are much more powerful than a troop of ignorant and corrupted slaves, whom the government is forced to deceive in order to satisfy, and to deluge with impositions that it may succeed in any enterprise. thus let us not despair, that truth will one day force its way even to thrones. if the light of reason and science reaches princes with so much difficulty, it is because interested priests and starveling courtiers endeavour, to keep them in a perpetual infancy, point out to them chimerical prospects of power and grandeur, and thus turn away their attention from objects necessary to their true happiness. every government must feel that their power will always be tottering and precarious, so long as it depends for support on the phantoms of religion, the errors of the people, and the caprices of the priesthood. it must feel the inconveniencies resulting from fanatic administrations, which have hitherto produced nothing but ignorance and presumption, nothing but obstinate, weak citizens, incapable of doing service to-the state, and ready to receive the false impressions of guides who would lead them astray.. it must perceive what immense resources might be derived from the wealth, which has been accumulated by a body of useless men, who, under pretensions of teaching the nation, cheat and devour it. upon this foundation (which to the shame of mankind be it said, has hitherto served only to support sacerdotal pride) a wise government might raise establishments which would become useful to the state in forming the youth, cherishing talents, rewarding virtuous services, and comforting the people. i flatter myself, sir, that these reflections will exculpate me in your eyes. i do not hope for the suffrages of those who feel themselves, interested in the continuance of the evils suffered by their fellow-citizens; it is not such whom i aim to convince nothing can be made to appear evident to vicious and unreasonable men. but i presume to hope, that you will cease to look upon my book as dangerous, and my expectations as altogether chimerical. many immoral men have attacked the christian religion, because it opposed their propensities; many wise men: have despised it, because to them it appeared, ridiculous; many persons have looked upon it with indifference, because they did not feel its real inconveniencies. i attack it as a citizen, because it appears to me to be injurious to the welfare of the state, an enemy to the progress, of the human, mind, and opposed to the principles of true morality, from which political interests can never be separated. it remains only for me to say, with a poet, who was, like myself, an enemy, to superstition: .........si tibi vera videtur dede menus, et si falsa est, accingere contra. i am, &c. some have thought that the clergy might one day serve as a barrier against despotism, but experience sufficiently proves that this body always stipulates for itself alone. christianity unveiled chap. i.--introduction. of the necessity of an inquiry respecting religion, and the obstacles which are met in pursuing this inquiry. a reasonable being ought in all his actions to aim at his own happiness and that of his fellow-creatures. religion, which is held up as an object most important to our temporal and eternal felicity, can be advantageous to us only so far as it renders our existence happy in this world, or as we are assured that it will fulfil the flattering promises which it makes us respecting another. our duty towards god, whom we look upon as the ruler of our destinies, can be founded, it is said, only on the evils which we fear on his part. it is then necessary that man should examine the grounds of his fears. he ought, for this purpose, to consult experience and reason, which are the only guides to truth. by the benefits which he derives from religion in the visible world which he inhabits, he may judge of the reality of those blessings for which it leads him to hope in that invisible world, to which it commands him to turn his views. mankind, for the most part, hold to their religion through habit. they have never seriously examined the reasons why they are attached to it, the motives of their conduct, or the foundations of their opinions. thus, what has ever been considered as most important to all, has been of all things least subjected to scrutiny. men blindly follow on in the paths which their fathers trod; they believe, because in infancy they were told they must believe; they hope, because their progenitors hoped; and they tremble, because they trembled. scarcely ever have they deigned to render an account of the motives of their belief. very few men have leisure to examine, or fortitude to analyse, the objects of their habitual veneration, their blind attachment, or their traditional fears. nations are carried away in the torrent of habit, example, and prejudice. education habituates the mind to opinions the most monstrous, as it accustoms the body to attitudes the most uneasy. all that has long existed appears sacred to the eyes of man; they think it sacrilege to examine things stamped with the seal of antiquity. prepossessed in favour of the wisdom of their fathers, they have not the presumption to investigate what has received their sanction. they see not that man has ever been the dupe of his prejudices, his hopes, and his fears; and that the same reasons have almost al ways rendered this enquiry equally impracticable. the vulgar, busied in the labours necessary to their subsistence, place a blind confidence in those who pretend to guide them, give up to them the right of thinking, and submit without murmuring to all they prescribe. they believe they shall offend god, if they doubt, for a moment, the veracity of those who speak to them in his name. the great, the rich, the men of the world, even when they are more enlightened than the vulgar, have found it their interest to conform to received prejudices, and even to maintain them; or, swallowed up in dissipation, pleasure, and effeminacy, they have no time to bestow on a religion, which they easily accommodate to their passions, propensities, and fondness for amusement. in childhood, we receive all the impressions others wish to make upon us; we have neither the capacity, experience, or courage, necessary to examine what is taught us by those, on whom our weakness renders us dependent. in youth, the ardour of our passions, and the continual ebriety of our senses, prevent our thinking seriously of a religion, too austere and gloomy to please; if by chance a young man examines it, he does it with partiality, or without perseverance; he is often disgusted with a single glance of the eye on an object so disgusting. in riper age, new passions and cares, ideas of ambition, greatness, power, the desire of riches, and the hurry of business, absorb the whole attention of man, or leave him but few moments to think of religion, which he never has the leisure to scrutinize. in old age, the faculties are blunted, habits become incorporated with the machine, and the senses are debilitated by time and infirmity; and we are no longer able to penetrate back to the source of our opinions; besides, the fear of death then renders an examination, over which terror commonly presides, very liable to suspicion. thus, religious opinions, once received, maintain their ground, through a long succession of ages; thus nations transmit from generation to generation ideas which they have never examined: they imagine their welfare to be attached to institutions in which, were the truth known, they would behold the source of the greater part of their misfortunes. civil authority also flies to the support of the prejudices of mankind, compels them to ignorance by forbidding inquiry, and holds itself in continual readiness to punish all who attempt to undeceive themselves. let us not be surprised, then, if we see error almost inextricably interwoven with human nature. all things seem to concur to perpetuate our blindness, and hide the truth from us. tyrants detest and oppress truth, because it dares to dispute their unjust and, chimerical titles; it is opposed by the priesthood because it annihilates their superstitions. ignorance, indolence, and passion render the great part of mankind accomplices of those who strive to deceive them, in order to keep their necks beneath the yoke, and profit by their miseries. hence nations groan under hereditary evils, thoughtless of a remedy; being either ignorant of the cause, or so long accustomed to disease, that they have lost even the desire of health. if religion be the object most important to mankind, if it extends its influences not only over our conduct in this life, but also over our eternal happiness, nothing can demand from us a more serious examination. yet it is of all things, that, respecting which, mankind exercise the most implicit credulity. the same man, who examines with scrupulous nicety things of little moment to his welfare, wholly neglects inquiry concerning the motives which determine him to believe and perform things, on which, according to his own confession, depend both his temporal and eternal felicity. he blindly abandons himself to those whom chance has given him for guides; he confides to them the care of thinking for him, and even makes a merit of his own indolence and credulity. in matters of religion, infancy and barbarity seem to be the boast of the greater part of the human race. nevertheless, men have in all ages appeared, who, shaking off the prejudices of their fellows, have dared to lift before their eyes the light of truth. but what could their feeble voice effect against errors imbibed at the breast, confirmed by habit, authorised by example, and fortified by a policy, which often became the accomplice of its own ruin? the stentorian clamours of imposture soon overwhelm the calm exhortations of the advocates of reason. in vain shall the philosopher endeavour to inspire mankind with courage, so long as they tremble beneath the rod of priests and kings. the surest means of deceiving mankind, and perpetuating their errors, is to deceive them in infancy. amongst many nations at the present day, education seems designed only to form fanatics, devotees, and monks; that is to say, men either useless or injurious to society. few are the places in which it is calculated to form good citizens. princes, to whom a great part of the earth is at present unhappily subjected, are commonly the victims of a superstitious education, and remain all their lives in the profoundest ignorance of their own duties, and the truest interests of the states which they govern. religion seems to have been invented only to render both kings and people equally the slaves of the priesthood. the latter is continually busied in raising obstacles to the felicity of nations. wherever this reigns, other governments have but a precarious power; and citizens become indolent, ignorant, destitute of greatness of soul, and, in short, of every quality necessary to the happiness of society. if, in a state where the christian religion is professed, we find some activity, some science, and an approach to social manners; it is, because nature, whenever it is in her power, restores mankind to reason, and obliges them to labour for their own felicity. were all christian nations exactly conformed to their principles, they must be plunged into the most profound inactivity. our countries would be inhabited by a small number of pious savages, who would meet only to destroy each other. for why should a man mingle with the affairs of a world, which his religion informs him is only a place of passage? what can be the industry of that people, who believe themselves commanded by their god to live in continual fear, to pray, to groan, and afflict themselves incessantly? how can a society exist which is composed of men who are convinced that, in their zeal for religion, they ought to hate and destroy all whose opinions differ from their own? how can we expect to find humanity, justice, or any virtue, amongst a horde of fanatics, who copy in their conduct a cruel, dissembling, and dishonest god? a god who delights in the tears of his unhappy creatures, who sets for them the ambush, and then punishes them for having fallen into it? a god who himself ordains robbery, persecution, and carnage? such, however, are the traits with which the christian religion represents the god which it has inherited from the jews. this god was a sultan, a despot, a tyrant, to whom all things were lawful. yet he is held up to us as a model of perfection. crimes, at which human nature revolts, have been committed in his name; and the greatest villanies have been justified by the pretence of their being committed, either by his command, or to merit his favour. thus the christian religion, which boasts of being the only true support of morality, and of furnishing mankind with the strongest motives for the practice of virtue, has proved to them a source of divisions, oppressions, and the blackest crimes. under the pretext of bringing peace on earth, it has overwhelmed it with hate, discord, and war. it furnishes the human race with a thousand ingenious means of tormenting themselves, and scatters amongst them scourges unknown before. the christian, possessed of common sense, must bitterly regret the tranquil ignorance of his idolatrous ancestors. if the manners of nations have gained nothing by the christian religion, governments, of which it has pretended to be the support, have drawn from it advantages equally small. it establishes to itself in every state a separate power, and becomes the tyrant or the enemy of every other power. kings were always the slaves of priests; or if they refused to bow the knee, they were proscribed, stripped of their privileges, and exterminated either by subjects whom religion had excited to revolt, or assassins whose hands she had armed with her sacred poignard. before the introduction of the christian religion, those who governed the state, commonly governed the priesthood; since that period, sovereigns have dwindled into the first slaves of the priesthood, the mere executors of its vengeance and its decrees. let us then conclude, that the christian religion has no right to boast of procuring advantages either by policy or morality. let us tear aside the veil with which it envelopes itself. let us penetrate back to its source. let us pursue it in its course, we shall find that, founded on imposture, ignorance, and credulity, it can never be useful but to men who wish to deceive their fellow-creatures. we shall find, that it will never cease to generate the greatest evils among mankind, and that instead of producing the felicity it promises, it is formed to cover the earth with outrages, and deluge it in blood; that it will plunge the human race in delirium and vice, and blind their eyes to their truest interests and their plainest duties. chap. ii.--sketch of the history of the jews. in a small country, almost unknown to others, lived a nation, the founders of which having too long been slaves among the egyptians, were delivered, from their servitude by a priest of heliopolis, who, by means of his superior genius and knowledge, gained the ascendancy over them. this man, known by the name of diodorus siculus also relates the history of moses--vide translation of abbe terrasson. maneton and cheremon, egyptian historians, respecting whom testimonies have been transmitted to us by joseph the jew, inform us that a multitude of lepers were drawn out of egypt by king amenophis; and that these exiles elected for their leader a priest of heliopolis whose name was moses, and who formed for them a religion and a code of laws. joseph contre appion. liv. i. chap. ix. ii, . be this as it may, moses, by the confession of the bible itself, began his career by assassinating an egyptian, who was quarrelling with an hebrew; after which he fled into arabia, and married the daughter of an idolatrous priest, by whom he was often reproached for his cruelty. thence he returned into egypt, and placed himself at the head of his nation, which was dissatisfied with king pharaoh. moses reigned very tyrannically; the examples of korah, dathan, and abirain, prove to what kind of people he had an aversion. he at last disappeared like romulus, no one being able to find his body, or the place of his sepulture. moses, being educated in the mysteries of a religion, which was fertile in prodigies, and the mother of superstitions, placed himself at the head of a band of fugitives, whom he persuaded that he was an interpreter of the will of their god, whose immediate commands he pretended to receive. he proved his mission, it is said, by works which appeared supernatural to men ignorant of the operations of nature, and the resources of art. the first command that he gave them on the part of his god was to rob their masters, whom they were about to desert. when he had thus enriched them with the spoils of egypt, being sure of their confidence, he conducted them into a desert, where, during forty years, he accustomed them to the blindest obedience, he taught them the will of heaven, the marvellous fables of their forefathers, and the ridiculous ceremonies to which he pretended the most high attached his favours. he was particularly careful to inspire them with the most envenomed hatred against the gods of other nations, and the most refined cruelty to those who adored them. by means of carnage and severity, he rendered them a nation of slaves, obsequious to his will, ready to second his passions, and sacrifice themselves to gratify his ambitious views. in one word, he made the hebrews monsters of phrenzy and ferocity. after having thus animated them with the spirit of destruction, he shewed them the lands and possessions of their neighbours, as an inheritance assigned them by god himself. proud of the protection of jehovah, the hebrews marched forth to victory. heaven authorised in them knavery and cruelty. religion, united to avidity, rendered them deaf to the cries of nature; and, under the conduct of inhuman chiefs, they destroyed the canaanitish nations with a barbarity, at which every man must revolt, whose reason is not wholly annihilated by superstition. their fury destroyed every thing, even infants at the breast, in those cities whither these monsters carried their victorious arms. by the commands of their god, or his prophets, good faith was violated, justice outraged, and cruelty exercised. this nation of robbers, usurpers, and murderers, at length established themselves in a country, not indeed very fertile, but which they found delicious in comparison with the desert in which they had so long wandered. here, under the authority of the visible priests of their hidden god, they founded a state, detestable to its neighbours, and at all times the object of their contempt or their hatred. the priesthood, under the title of a theocracy, for a long time governed this blind and ferocious people. they were persuaded that in obeying their priests they obeyed god himself. notwithstanding their superstition, the hebrews at length, forced by circumstances, or perhaps weary of the yoke of priesthood, determined to have a king, according to the example of other nations. but in the choice of their monarch they thought themselves obliged to have recourse to a prophet. thus began the monarchy of the hebrews. their princes, however, were always crossed in their enterprises by inspired priests and ambitious prophets, who continually laid obstacles in the way of every sovereign whom they did not find sufficiently submissive to their own wills. the history of the jews at all times shews us nothing but kings blindly obedient to the priesthood, or at war with it, and perishing under its blows. the ferocious and ridiculous superstitions of the jews rendered them at once the natural enemies of mankind, and the object of their contempt. they were always treated with great severity by those who made inroads upon their territory. successively enslaved by the egyptians, the babylonians, and the grecians, they experienced from their masters the bitterest treatment, which was indeed but too well deserved. often disobedient to their god, whose own cruelty, as well as the tyranny of his priests frequently disgusted them, they were never faithful to their princes. in vain were they crushed beneath sceptres of iron; it was impossible to render them loyal subjects. the jews were always the dupes of their prophets, and in their greatest distresses their obstinate fanaticism, ridiculous hopes, and indefatigable credulity, supported them against the blows of fortune. at last, conquered with the rest of the earth, judah submitted to the roman yoke. despised by their new masters, the jews were treated hardly, and with great haughtiness; for their laws, as well as their conduct, had inspired the hearts of their conquerors with the liveliest detestation. soured by misfortune, they became more blind, fanatic, and seditious. exalted by the pretended promises of their god; full of confidence in oracles, which have always announced to them a felicity which they have never tasted; encouraged by enthusiasts, or by impostors, who successively profit by their credulity; the jews have, to this day, expected the coming of a messiah, a monarch, a deliverer, who shall free them from the yokes beneath which they groan, and cause their nation to reign over all other nations in the universe. chap. iii.--sketch of the history of the christian religion. in the midst of this nation, thus disposed to feed on hope and chimera, a new prophet arose, whose sectaries in process of time have changed the face of the earth. a poor jew, who pretended to be descended from the royal house of david, after being long unknown in his own country, emerges from obscurity, and goes forth to make proselytes. he succeeded amongst some of the most ignorant part of the populace. to them he preached his doctrines, and taught them that he was the son of god, the deliverer of his oppressed nation, and the messiah announced by the prophets. his disciples, being either impostors, or themselves deceived, rendered a clamorous testimony of his power, and declared that his mission had been proved by miracles without number. the only prodigy which he was incapable of effecting, was that of convincing the jews, who, far from being touched with his beneficent and marvellous works, caused him to suffer an ignominious death. thus the son of god died in the sight of all jerusalem; but his followers declare that he was secretly resuscitated three days after his death. visible to them alone, and invisible to the nation which he came to enlighten and convert to his doctrine, jesus, after his resurrection, say they, conversed some time with his disciples, and then ascended into heaven, where, having again become equal to god the father, he shares with him the adorations and homages of the sectaries of his law. these sectaries, by accumulating superstitions, inventing impostures, and fabricating dogmas and mysteries, have, by little and little, heaped up a distorted and unconnected system of religion which is called christianity, after the name of christ its founder. the jews say that jesus was the son of one pandira, or panther, who had seduced his mother mary, a milliner, the wife of jochanan. according to others, pandira, by some artifice, enjoyed her several times, while she thought him her husband; after which, she becoming pregnant, her husband, suspicious of her fidelity, retired into babylon. some say that jesus was taught magic in egypt, from whence he went and exercised his art in galilee, where he was put to death.--vide peiffer, theol. jud. and mahom. &c. principia. lypsiae, . the different nations, to which the jews were successively subjected, had infected them with a multitude of pagan dogmas. thus the jewish religion, egyptian in its origin, adopted many of the rites and opinions of the people, with whom the jews conversed. we need not then be surprised, if we see the jews, and the christians their successors, filled with notions borrowed of the phenicians, the magi or persians, the greeks, and the romans. the errors of mankind respecting religion have a general resemblance; they appear to differ only by their combinations. the commerce of the jews and christians with the grecians made them acquainted with the philosophy of plato, so analogous to the romantic spirit of the orientals, and so conformable to the genius of a religion which boasts in being inaccessible to reason. paul, the most ambitious and enthusiastic of the apostles, carried his doctrines, seasoned with the sublime and marvellous, among the people of greece and asia, and even the inhabitants of rome. he gained proselytes, as every man who addresses himself to the imagination of ignorant people may do; and he may be justly styled the principal founder of a religion, which, without him, could never have spread far; for the rest of its followers were ignorant men, from whom he soon separated himself to become the leader of his own sect. origen says, that celsus reproached christ with having borrowed many of his maxims from plato. see origen contra cel. chap. i. . augustin confesses, that he found the beginning of the gospel of john, in plato. see s. aug. conf. i. vii. ch. , , . the notion of the word is evidently taken from plato; the church has since found means of transplanting a great part of plato, as we shall hereafter prove. the ebionites, or first christians, looked upon st. paul as an apostate and an heretic, because he wholly rejected the law of moses, which the other apostles wished only to reform. the conquests of the christian religion were, in its infancy, generally limited to the vulgar and ignorant. it was embraced only by the most abject amongst the jews and pagans. it is over men of this description that the marvellous has the greatest influence. an unfortunate god, the innocent victim of wickedness and cruelty, and an enemy to riches and the great, must have been an object of consolation to the wretched. the austerity, contempt of riches, and apparently disinterested cares of the first preachers of the gospel, whose ambition was limited to the government of souls; the equality of rank and property enjoined by their religion, and the mutual succours interchanged by its followers; these were objects well calculated to excite the desires of the poor, and multiply christians. the union, concord, and reciprocal affection, recommended to the first christians, must have been seductive to ingenious minds: their submissive temper, their patience in indigence, obscurity, and distress, caused their infant sect to be looked upon as little dangerous in a government accustomed to tolerate all sects. thus, the founders of christianity had many adherents among the people, and their opposers and enemies consisted chiefly of some idolatrous priests and jews, whose interest it was to support the religion previously established. by little and little, this new system, covered with the clouds of mystery, took deep root, and became too strong and extensive to be suppressed. the roman government saw too late the progress of an association it had despised. the christians now become numerous, dared to brave the pagan gods, even in their temples. the emperors and magistrates, disquieted at such proceedings, endeavoured to extinguish the sect which gave them umbrage. they persecuted such as they could not reclaim by milder means, and whom their fanaticism had rendered obstinate. the feelings of mankind are ever interested in favour of distress; and this persecution only served to increase the number of the friends of the christians. the fortitude and constancy with which they suffered torment, appeared supernatural and divine in the eyes of those who were witnesses to it; their enthusiasm communicated itself, and produced new advocates for the sect, whose destruction was attempted. the first christians were, by way of contempt, called ebionites, which signifies beggars or mendicants. see origen contra celsum, lib. ii. et euseb. hist. eccles. lib. iii. c. . ebion, in hebrew, signifies poor. the word ebion has since been personified into the meaning of an heretic, or the leader of a sect, who were excluded from sacred things, and scarcely considered as men. it promised them that they should one day have their turn, and that, in the other life, they should be happier than their masters. le peuple. after this explanation, let christians no longer boast the marvellous progress of their religion. it was the religion of poverty; it announced a god who was poor. it was preached by the poor, to the poor and ignorant. it gave them consolation in their misery. even its gloomy ideas were analogous to the disposition of indigent and unhappy men. the union and concord so much admired in the earlier christians, is by no means surprising. an infant and oppressed sect naturally remain united, and dread a separation of interests. it is astonishing that, in those early days, men who were themselves persecuted and treated as malcontents, should presume to preach intolerance and persecution. the tyranny exercised against them wrought no change in their sentiments. tyranny only irritates the human mind, which is always invincible, when those opinions are attacked to which it has attached its welfare. such is the inevitable effect of persecution. yet christians, who ought to be undeceived by the example of their own sect, have to this day been incapable of divesting themselves of the fury of persecution. the roman emperors, having themselves become christians, that is to say, carried away by a general torrent, which obliged them to avail themselves of the support of a powerful sect, seated religion on the throne. they protected the church and its ministers, and endeavoured to inspire their courtiers with their own ideas. they beheld with a jealous eye those who retained their attachment to the ancient religion. they, at length, interdicted the exercise of it, and finished by forbidding it under the pain of death. they persecuted without measure those who held to the worship of their ancestors. the christians now repaid the pagans, with interest, the evils which they had before suffered from them. the roman empire was shaken with convulsions, caused by the unbridled zeal of sovereigns and those pacific priests, who had just before preached nothing but mildness and toleration. the emperors, either from policy or superstition, loaded the priesthood with gifts and benefactions, which indeed were seldom repaid with gratitude. they established the authority of the latter; and at length respected as divine what they had themselves created. priests were relieved from all civil functions, that nothing might divert their minds from their sacred ministry. thus the leaders of a once insignificant and oppressed sect became independent. being at last more powerful than kings, they soon arrogated to themselves the right of commanding them. these priests of a god of peace, almost continually at variance with each other, communicated the fury of their passions to their followers; and mankind were astonished to behold quarrels and miseries engendered, under the law of grace, which they had never experienced under the peaceful reign of the divinities, who had formerly shared without dispute the adoration of mortals. such was the progress of a superstition, innocent in its origin, but which, in its course, far from producing happiness among mankind, became a bone of contention, and a fruitful source of calamities. _peace upon earth, and good will towards men._ thus is the gospel announced, which has cost the human race more blood than all other religions of the earth taken collectively. see tillemont's life of constantine. vol. iv. art. . _love the lord thy god with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself._ this, according to the god and legislator of the christians, is the sum of their duties. yet we see it is impossible for christians to love that severe and capricious god whom they worship. on the other hand, we see them eternally busied in tormenting, persecuting, and destroying their neighbours and brethren. to find an explanation of these contradictions, it is sufficient to cast our eyes upon the god which the christians inherited from the jews. not contented with the shocking colours in which he was painted, the christians have still more disfigured his portrait. the legislator of the hebrews speaks only of the transient punishments of this life; the christian represents his god as pouring out unbounded vengeance to all eternity. in one word, christian fanaticism feeds itself with the idea of an hell, where its god, transformed into a ferocious executioner, as unjust as implacable, shall bathe himself in the tears of his wretched creatures, and perpetuate their existence, to render them eternally miserable. there, clothed in vengeance, he shall mock at the torments of sinners, and listen with rapture to the groans with which they shall make the brazen roofs of their prisons resound; not the smallest hope of some distant termination of their pains shall give them an interval of imaginary relief. the christians in adopting the terrible god of the jews, have sublimed his cruelty. they represent him as the most capricious, wicked, and cruel tyrant which the human mind can conceive, and suppose him to treat his subjects with a barbarity and injustice truly worthy of a demon. in order to be convinced of this truth, let us contemplate, for a moment, a picture of the jewish mythology, adopted and rendered still more extravagant by the christians. chap. iv.--of the christian mythology, or the ideas of god, and his conduct, given us by the christian religion. god, by an inconceivable act of his omnipotence, created the universe out of nothing. he made the earth for the residence of man, whom he created in his own image. scarcely had this man, the prime object of the labours of his god, seen the light, when his creator set a snare for him, into which he undoubtedly knew that he must fall. a serpent, who speaks, seduces a woman, who is not at all surprised at the phenomenon. she, being persuaded by the serpent, solicits her husband to eat of a fruit forbidden by god himself. adam, the father of the human race, by this light fault, draws upon himself and his innocent posterity innumerable evils, which are followed, but not terminated by death. by the offence of only one man, the whole human race incurs the wrath of god, and they are at length punished for involuntary faults with an universal deluge. god repents having peopled the earth, and he finds it easier to drown and destroy the human race, than to change their hearts. a small number of the just, however, escaped this destructive flood; but the deluged earth, and the destruction of mankind, did not satiate the implacable vengeance of their creator. a new generation appeared, these, although descended from the friends of god, whom he had preserved in the general shipwreck of the world, incense him by new crimes. the almighty is represented as having been incapable of rendering his creature such as he desired him. a new torrent of corruption carries away mankind; and wrath is again excited in the bosom of jehovah. ex nihilo nihil fit, was considered as an axiom by ancient philosophers. the creation, as admitted by the christians of the present day, that is to say, the eduction of all things from nothing, is a theological invention, not, indeed, of very remote date. the word barah, which is used in genesis, signifies to compote, arranges to dispose matter already existing. partial in his affections and his preferences, he, at length, casts his eyes on an idolatrous assyrian. he enters into an alliance with this man, and covenants that his posterity shall be multiplied to the number of the stars of heaven, or the sands of the sea, and that they shall for ever enjoy the favour of god. to this chosen race he reveals his will; for them, unmindful of his justice, he destroys whole nations. nevertheless, this favoured race is not the more happy or the more attached to their god. they fly to strange gods, from whom they seek succours, which are refused to them by their own. they frequently insult the god who is able to exterminate them. sometimes he punishes, sometimes consoles them; one while he hates them without cause, and another caresses them with as little reason. at last, finding it impossible to reclaim this perverse people, for whom he continues to feel the warmest tenderness, he sends amongst them his own son. to this son they will not listen. what do i say? this beloved son, equal to god his father, is put to an ignominious death by his favourite nation. his father, at the same time, finds it impossible to save the human race, without the sacrifice of his own son. thus an innocent god becomes the victim of a just god, by whom he is beloved. both consent to this strange sacrifice, judged necessary by a god, who knows that it will be useless to an hardened nation, which nothing can reclaim. we should expect that the death of this god, being useless to israel, must serve, at least, to expiate the sins of the rest of the human race. notwithstanding the eternal alliance with the hebrews, solemnly sworn to by the most high, and so many times renewed, that favourite nation find themselves at last deserted by their god, who could not reduce them to obedience. the merits of the sufferings and death of his son, are applied to the nations before excluded from his bounty. these are reconciled to heaven, now become more just in regard to them, and return to grace. yet, in spite of all the efforts of god, his favours are lavished in vain. mankind continued to sin, enkindle the divine wrath, and render themselves worthy of the eternal punishments, previously prepared and destined for the greater part of the human race. such is the faithful history of the god, on whom the foundation of the christian religion is laid. his conduct being so strange, cruel, and opposite to all reason, is it surprising to see the worshippers of this god ignorant of their duties, destitute of humanity and justice, and striving to assimilate themselves to the model of that barbarous divinity which they adore? what indulgence have mankind a right to expect from a god, who spared not even his own son? what indulgence can the christian, who believes this fable, shew to his fellow-creature? ought he not to imagine that the surest means of pleasing his god, is to imitate his ferocity and cruelty? the sacrifice of the son of god is mentioned as a proof of his benevolence. is it not rather a proof of his ferocity, cruelty, and implacable vengeance? a good christian, on his death-bed said, "he had never been able to conceive how a good god could put an innocent god to death, to appease a just god." it is at least evident, that the sectaries of such a god must have a precarious morality, founded on principles destitute of all firmness. this god, in fact, is not always unjust and cruel; his conduct varies. sometimes he appears to have created all nature for man alone; at others, he seems to have created man only as an object, whereon to exercise his arbitrary rage. sometimes they are cherished by him, notwithstanding all their faults; at others, the whole species is condemned to eternal misery for an apple. this unchangeable god is alternately agitated by anger and love, revenge and pity, benevolence and fury. his conduct is continually destitute of that uniformity which characterises wisdom. partial in his affections, he makes it the duty of his favourite people to commit deliberately the most atrocious crimes. he commands them to violate good faith, and contemn the rights of nations. he enjoins upon them the commission of robbery and murder. on other occasions, we see him forbidding the same crimes, ordaining justice, and prescribing to mankind abstinence from whatever disturbs the good order of society. this god, who is in turn styled the god of vengeance, the god of mercies, the god of arms, and the god of peace, is ever at variance with himself. his subjects are consequently each one at liberty to copy that part of his conduct which he finds most congenial to his humour. hence their morality becomes arbitrary. it is surprising, that christians have never yet been able to agree amongst themselves, whether it would be most pleasing to their god to tolerate the various opinions of mankind, or to exterminate all who differ from themselves. it is, in fact, a problem with them, whether it be most expedient to persecute and assassinate those who think not as they do, or to treat them with humanity, and suffer them to live in peace. christians, however, do not fail to justify the strange and often iniquitous conduct attributed to their god in the scriptures. this god, say they, being of right the absolute master of his creatures, can dispose, of them at his pleasure, and for this no one can accuse him of injustice, or demand an account of his conduct. his justice is not the justice of mankind, and they have no right to censure any of his actions. it is easy to perceive the insufficiency of this answer. mankind in making justice an attribute of their god, can have no idea of this virtue, but by supposing that it resembles the justice of their fellow-creatures. if god have a justice, which in its essence differs from that of man, we know not what it is, and we attribute to him a quality of which we have no idea. if it be said, that god owes nothing to his creatures, he is supposed to be a tyrant, whose conduct has no rule but his own caprice, and who cannot continue to be a model for us, having no longer any relation with us, seeing all relations must be reciprocal. if nothing be due from god to his creatures, how can any thing be due from them to him? if, as we are continually told, men are to god, as the clay in the hands of the potter, no moral relation can exist between them. it is, nevertheless, upon those relations that all religion is founded. therefore, to say that god has no duty towards his creatures, and that his justice is different from that of mankind, is to sap the foundations of all religion and justice, which necessarily suppose that punish them for doing evil. in fine, how can the followers of the christian system reconcile that barbarous conduct, and those sanguinary commands, attributed to him in the scriptures, with his goodness or his wisdom? and how can goodness be an attribute of a god, who has created most of the human race only to damn them eternally? god ought to reward mankind for doing good. here we shall be told that the conduct of god is, to us, an impenetrable mystery, that we have no right to scrutinize it, and that our feeble reason must be lost whenever it attempts to sound the depth of divine wisdom. we are informed that we must adore in silence, and tremblingly submit to the oracles of a god, who has himself sufficiently made known his will in his holy scriptures. this is what they call revelation, to which we proceed in the next chapter. chap. v.--of revelation. how can we know, without the aid of reason, that god hath spoken? but, on the other side, is not reason proscribed by the christian religion? is not the use of reason forbidden, in the examination of the marvellous dogmas with which we are presented by this religion? does it not continually exclaim against a profane reason, which it accuses of insufficiency, and often regards as rebellious to heaven? in order to be capable of judging of divine revelation, we must have a just idea of the divinity. but seeing human reason is too weak and grovelling to exalt itself to an acquaintance with the supreme being, from what source shall we derive that idea, beside revelation itself? thus revelation itself is to become the proof of the authority of revelation. let us pass on from this conjuror's circle, and open the sacred books, destined to enlighten mankind, and before which reason must fall prostrate. do they exhibit any precise ideas of the god, whose oracles they announce? can we draw from them any just conceptions of its attributes? is not this god represented as a mass of extraordinary qualities, which form an inexplicable enigma? if this revelation be, as is supposed, an emanation from god himself, who can confide in him? does he not paint himself as false, unjust, deceitful, and cruel; as setting snares for mankind; seducing, hardening, and leading them astray? by the scriptures and the fathers of the church, god is always represented as a seducer. he permits eve to be seduced by a serpent. he hardens the heart of pharaoh. christ himself is a stone of stumbling. such are the points of view under which the divinity is exhibited to us. thus the man, desirous of being assured of the truth of christian revelation, finds himself, at the first step of enquiry, plunged into distrust and perplexity, which is increased by the indeterminable disputes of his sacred guides, who have never been able to agree upon the manner of understanding the oracles of a divinity which they say has revealed itself. the hesitation and fear of the man who honestly examines the revelation adopted by christians, must redouble, when he sees their god represented as revealing himself only to a few favourites of the human race, while he carefully conceals himself from the remainder, to whom, notwithstanding this, revelation is equally necessary. he must be uncertain whether or not he is of the number, to whom this partial god deigns to make himself known. must not his heart be troubled at the sight of a god, who vouchsafes to discover himself, and announce his decrees, only to a number of men, inconsiderable in comparison with the whole human race? is he not tempted to accuse this god of a malevolence too dark, when he finds that for want of revealing himself to so many millions of mankind, he has caused their inevitable misery through an endless succession of ages? what ideas must he form to himself of a god who inflicts this punishment upon them for their ignorance of secret laws, which he has published by stealth in an obscure and unknown corner of asia? thus christians, even when they consult the scriptures, find all things conspiring to put them on their guard against the god exhibited therein. every thing inspires distrust of his moral character. all things float in an uncertainty. this god, in concert with the pretended interpreters of his will, seems to have formed the design of redoubling the darkness of his ignorance. he is, however, told, in order to appease his doubts, that the revealed will of god consists of mysteries; that is to say, things inaccessible to human understanding. in this case what need was there of having spoken? ought a god to reveal himself to mankind for the sole purpose of not being comprehended? is not such conduct as ridiculous as it is unreasonable? to say that god has revealed himself only to announce mysteries, is to say that he has revealed himself in order to remain unknown, to conceal from us his views, embarrass our understandings, and augment our ignorance and uncertainty. a true revelation, proceeding from a just and good god, and necessary to all mankind, ought to be clear enough to be understood by all the human race. but will the revelation, upon which judaism and christianity are founded, bear the test of this criterion? the elements of euclid are intelligible to all who endeavour to understand them. this work excites no dispute among geometricians. is it so with the bible? and do its revealed truths occasion no disputes among divines? by what fatality have writings revealed by god himself still need of commentaries? and why do they demand additional lights from on high, before they can be believed or understood? is it not astonishing, that what was intended as a guide for mankind, should be wholly above their comprehending? is it not cruel, that what is of most importance to them should be least known? all is mystery, darkness, uncertainty, and matter of dispute, in a religion intended by the most high to enlighten the human race. far from contenting themselves with the pretended mysteries contained in the scriptures, the priests of the christian religion have, from age to age, invented new ones, which, though never mentioned by their god, their disciples are forced to believe. no christian can entertain a doubt concerning the mysteries of the trinity, the incarnation, and the efficacy of sacraments; and yet christ never explained these subjects. among christians every thing seems to be abandoned to the imagination, caprice, and arbitrary decision of priests, who arrogate to themselves the right of fabricating mysteries and articles of faith, as their interests occasionally require. thus, this revelation perpetuates itself by means of the church, which pretends to be inspired by god, and which, far from enlightening the minds of her children, delights to confound, and plunges them in a sea of uncertainty! such are the effects of this revelation, which forms the basis of the christian religion, and of the reality of which we are not permitted to doubt. god, it is said, has spoken to mankind. but when has he spoken? thousands of years ago, by prophets and inspired men, whom he has chosen as organs of communication with mankind. but how can it be proved to have been god himself who spoke, except by having recourse to the testimony of the very persons who pretend to have received his commands? these interpreters of the divine will were then men; and are not men liable to be deceived themselves, and prone to deceive others? how then can we discover what confidence is due to the testimony which these organs of heaven give in favour of their own mission? how shall we be made sure that they have not been the dupes of some illusion, or an overheated imagination? at this remote period, how can we be certain that moses conversed with god, and received from him the law which he communicated to the hebrews? what was the temperament of this moses? was he phlegmatic or enthusiastic, honest or knavish, ambitious or disinterested, a practiser of truths or of falsehood? what confidence can be placed in the testimony of a man, who, after pretending to have performed so many miracles, could not convert his people from idolatry; and who, after having caused forty-seven thousand israelites to perish by the sword, has the effrontery to assume the title of the meekest of mankind? is it certain that the books which are attributed to moses, and report so many miraculous circumstances, are perfectly authentic? in fine, what proof have we of his mission, except the testimony of a number of superstitious, ignorant, and credulous israelites, who were probably the dupes of a ferocious legislator? what proofs does the christian religion give us of the mission of jesus christ? are we acquainted with his character and temperament? what degree of confidence can we place in the testimony of his disciples, who, by their own confession, were ignorant and unlearned men, and, consequently, liable to be imposed upon by the artifices of a dexterous impostor? ought not the testimony of the most learned in jerusalem to have greater weight with us, than that of the lowest vulgar, whose ignorance always renders them the dupes of those who endeavour to deceive them? these enquiries bring us to an examination of the proofs which are adduced in support of the christian religion. chap. vi.--of the proofs of the christian religion. miracles, prophecies, and martyrs. we have seen, in the preceding chapters, what just reasons there are to doubt the authenticity of the revelation of the jews and christians. and further, relative to this article, christianity has no advantage over any other religion. all the religions on earth, notwithstanding their discordance, declare that they have emanated from god, and pretend to possess an exclusive right to his favours. the indian asserts, that the brama himself is the author of his worship. the scandinavian derives his from the awful odin. if the jew and the christian have received theirs from jehovah by the ministry of moses and jesus, the mahometan affirms, that he has received his from his prophet, inspired by the same god. thus, all religions pretend to a divine origin; and they all interdict the use of reason in the examination of their sacred titles. each pretends to be the only true one, to the exclusion of all others. all menace with the wrath of heaven those who refuse to submit to their authority, and all acquire the character of falsehood by the palpable contradictions with which they are filled; by the mis-shapen, obscure, and often odious ideas which they give of the godhead; by the whimsical laws which they attribute to him, and by the disputes which they generate among their sectaries. in fine, they all appear to be a mass of impostures and reveries, equally disgusting to reason. thus, on the score of pretensions, the christian religion has no advantage over the other superstitions with which the world is infected; and its divine origin is contested by all others with as much propriety as theirs is denied by it. how then shall we decide in its favour? how prove the validity of its pretensions? has it any superior qualities, by which it merits the preference? and if so, what are they? does it, better than any other, make us acquainted with the nature and essence of god? alas! it only renders them more incomprehensible. it represents him as a capricious tyrant, whose whimsies are sometimes favourable, but more commonly injurious to mankind. does it render mankind better? alas! it arms them against each other, renders them intolerant, and forces them to butcher their brethren. does it render empires flourishing and powerful? wherever it reigns, do we not see the people debased, destitute of energy, and ignorant of true morality? what then are the proofs which are to establish the superiority of the christian religion over all others? we are answered, "miracles, prophecies, and martyrs." but these are to be found in all religions of the earth. there are in all nations men, who, being superior to the vulgar in science and cunning, deceive them with imposture, and dazzle them with performances which are judged to be supernatural, by men ignorant of the secrets of nature and the resources of art. if the jew cite the miracles of moses, i see them performed before a people most ignorant, abject, and credulous, whose testimony has no weight with me. i may, also, suspect that these pretended miracles have been inserted in the sacred books of the hebrews long after the death of those who might have testified the truth concerning them. if the christians cite jerusalem, and the testimony of gallilee, to prove the miracles of christ, i see them attested only by an ignorant populace; or i demand how it could be possible that an entire people, who had been witnesses to the miracles of christ, should consent to his death, and even earnestly demand it? would the people of london, or paris, suffer a man who had raised the dead, restored the blind to sight, and healed the lame and paralytic, to be put to death before their eyes? if the jews demanded the death of jesus, all his miracles are at once annihilated in the mind of every unprejudiced person. may not we, also, oppose to the miracles of moses, and christ, those performed by mahomet in presence of all mecca and arabia assembled? the effect of his miracles was, at least, to convince the arabians that he was a divine person. the miracles of jesus convinced nobody of his mission. saint paul himself, who afterwards became the most ardent of his disciples, was not convinced by the miracles, of which, in his time, there existed so many witnesses. a new one was necessary for his conviction. and by what right do they at this day demand belief of miracles; which could not convince even in the time of the apostles; that is to say, a short time after they were wrought? let it not be said that the miracles of christ are as well attested as any fact in profane history, and that to doubt them is as ridiculous as to doubt the existence, of scipio or cæsar, which we believe only on the report of the historians by whom they are mentioned. the existence of a man, of the general of an army, or an hero, is not improbable; neither is it a miracle. we believe the probable facts, whilst we reject, with contempt, the miracles recounted by titus livius. the most stupid credulity is often joined to the most distinguished talents. of this, the christian religion furnishes us with innumerable examples. in matters of religion, all testimony is liable to suspicion. the most enlightened men see but ill, when they are intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled by the chimeras of a wild imagination. a miracle is a thing impossible in the order of nature. if this be changed by god, he is not immutable. it will probably be said, that, without changing, the order of things, god and his favourites could not find resources in nature unknown to mankind in general. but then their works would no longer be supernatural, and would have nothing of the marvellous. a miracle is an effect contrary to the established laws of nature. god himself, therefore, cannot perform miracles without counteracting the institutions, of his own wisdom a wise man, having seen a miracle, might with propriety doubt the evidence of his own senses. he ought carefully to examine, whether, the extraordinary effect, which he does not comprehend, proceeds not from some natural cause, whose manner of acting he does not understand. a supernatural event requires, in order to be believed, much stronger proofs than a fact in no-wise contradictory to probability. it is easy to believe, upon the testimony of philostrates, that appollonius existed, because his existence has nothing in it that shocks reason; but i will not believe philostrates, when he tells me, that appollonius performed miracles. i believe that jesus christ died; but i do not believe that he arose from the dead. but let us suppose, for a moment, that miracles may exist, and that those of christ were real, or, at least, that they were inserted in the gospels by persons who imagined they had seen them. are the witnesses who transmitted, or the apostles who saw them, extremely deserving of credit? and have we not a right to refuse their testimonies? were those witnesses very deserving men? by the confession of the christians themselves they were ignorant men, taken from the dregs of the people, and consequently credulous and incapable of investigation. were those witnesses disinterested? no; it was, undoubtedly, their chief interest to support those miracles, upon which were suspended the divinity of their master, and the truth of the religion they were endeavouring to establish. are those miracles confirmed by the testimony of cotemporary historians? not one of them has mentioned those extraordinary facts. we find not a single jew or pagan in the superstitious city of jerusalem who heard even a word of the most marvellous facts that ever were recorded, and facts which happened in the midst of them. the miracles of christ were ever attested by christians only. we are requested to believe that, at the death of the son of god, the earth quaked, the sun was darkened, and the dead arose. how does it happen that such extraordinary events have been noticed only by a handful of christians? were they the only persons who perceived them? we are told, also, that christ arose from the dead; to prove which, they appeal to the testimony of his apostles and followers. would not one solemn apparition, in some public place, have been more decisive than all those clandestine ones, made to persons interested in the formation of a new sect? the christian faith, according to st. paul, is founded on the resurrection of christ. this, then, ought to have been demonstrated to mankind, in the clearest and most indisputable manner. the barilidians and corinthians, heretics who lived in the infancy of christianity, maintained that jesus was not dead, and that simon the cyrenian was crucified in his place. see epiph. haer. c. . thus, there were men, from the birth of the church, who doubted the crucifixion, and, consequently, the resurrection of christ; and yet we are exhorted to believe them at the present day. have we not room to accuse the saviour of the world with want of benevolence, in shewing himself only to his disciples and favourites? it seems that he did not desire that all the world should believe in him. the jews, it is said, deserve to be blinded for putting christ to death. but, if this be the case, why did the apostles preach to them the gospel? could it be expected that the jews would believe the report of the apostles, rather than their own eyes? miracles appear to have been invented to supply the want of good reasons. truth and evidence have no need of miracles to ensure their reception. is it not very astonishing that god almighty should find it easier to derange the order of nature, than to convince mankind of truths the most evident, and calculated to force their assent? miracles were made to prove things which it is impossible to believe. there is no need of miracles when we talk of reason. things incredible are here adduced in proof of incredible things. almost all impostors who have fabricated religions, have announced incredibilities to mankind. they have afterwards fabricated miracles in proof of those incredibilities. "you cannot comprehend," said they, "what i tell you; but i will clearly prove to you that i tell the truth, by doing things that you cannot comprehend." people have in all ages been overcome by this brilliant reasoning. a passion for the marvellous has prevented enquiry. mankind have not perceived that miracles could neither prove impossibilities, nor change the essence of truth. whatever wonders a man, or, if you please, a god may perform, they can never prove that two and two are not four, or that three are no more than one. they cannot prove that an immaterial being, destitute of organs, has spoken to man; or that a good, wise, and just being has commanded the execution of injustice, folly, and cruelty. it appears, therefore, that miracles prove nothing, unless it be the address and impostures of those who are desirous of profiting by the stupid credulity of mankind, and endeavour to seduce them into a belief of the most extravagant falsehoods. such men have always began by falsely pretending to have an intimate commerce with god, in order to prove which, they have performed wonders that they attribute to the being by whom they say they were commissioned. every man, who performs miracles, endeavours to establish, not truth, but falsehood. truth is simple and evident; the marvellous is ever to be suspected. nature is always true to herself; she acts by unvarying laws. to say that god performs miracles, is to say that he contradicts himself, and violates the laws which he has prescribed to nature. it is to say, that he renders useless human reason, of which he is the author. impostors alone can pronounce it necessary to discredit experience and reject reason. thus, the pretended miracles of the christian, as well as all other religions, have no foundation, but the ignorance, credulity, and enthusiasm of mankind, and the cunning of impostors. the same may be said of prophecies. mankind are ever anxious to pry into futurity; and there are always some kind individuals disposed to aid them in the gratification of this desire. there have been enchanters, diviners, and prophets, in all the nations of the earth. the jews have not been happier, in this respect, than others. tartars, negroes, and indians have their share of impostors, all societies will find deceivers enough, so long as they are willing to pay for deception. these inspired men have not been ignorant, that their prophecies ought to be extremely vague and ambiguous, in order that they might not, in process of time, appear to have been falsehoods. we need not, therefore, be surprised, that the jewish prophecies are very dark, and of such a nature, that any thing may be found in them which interpreters think proper to seek. those which are attributed to christ, by his followers, are not considered in the same light by the jews, who still expect the messiah, whom the former believe to have been on earth eighteen centuries ago. the jewish prophecies uniformly announce the deliverer of a discontented and oppressed nation. such a one was also expected by the romans, and almost all the nations of the earth. all mankind have a natural propensity to hope for a termination of the evils they suffer, and believe that providence cannot, in justice, fail to render them, one day, happy. the jews, the most superstitious nation on earth, building upon the supposed promise of their god, have always expected the coming of a monarch or conqueror, who is to elevate them from disgrace, and crown them with triumph. it was impossible for them to see this deliverer in the person of jesus, who, instead of being the restorer of the hebrew nation, was its destroyer; and since whose coming, they seem to have lost all favour with god. it is asserted, that the destruction of the jewish nation, and the dispersion of the jews, were themselves foretold, and that they furnish a convincing proof of the truth of christian prophecy. to this i answer, it was easy to foretel the dispersion and destruction of a restless, turbulent, and rebellious people, continually torn and convulsed by intestine divisions. besides, this people was often conquered and dispersed. the temple destroyed by titus, had previously suffered the same fate from nebuchadnezzar, who carried the captive tribes into assyria, and spread them through his territories. the dispersion of the jews is more perceptible than that of other conquered nations, because they have generally, after a certain time, become confounded with their conquerors; whereas the jews refuse to intermingle, by domestic connections, with the nations where they reside, and have religiously maintained this distinction. it is not the same with the cuebres or parsis, of persia and indostan, as well as the armenians, who dwell in mahometan countries. the jews remain dispersed, because they are unsocial, intolerant, and blindly attached to their superstitions. thus christians have no reason to boast of the prophecies contained in the books of the jews, nor to make invidious applications of them to that nation, because they detest its religion. judea was always subjected to priests, who had great influence over affairs of state. they were always meddling with politics, and undertook to foretel the events, fortunate or unfortunate, which were to befal the nation. no country was ever more fertile in prophets. this description of men instituted schools, where they initiated into the mysteries of their art those who proved themselves worthy of that honour, by discovering a wish to deceive a credulous people, and by such honest means acquire riches and respect. the art of prophesying was then an actual profession, or an useful and profitable branch of commerce in that miserable nation, which believed god to be incessantly busied in their affairs. the great gains resulting from this traffic of imposture must have caused divisions among the jewish prophets. accordingly, we find them crying down each other. each one treated his rivals as false prophets, inspired by evil spirits. there have always been quarrels among impostors, to decide who should have the exclusive right of deceiving mankind. the acts of the apostles evidently prove, that, even before the time of jesus, the jews began to be dispersed. jews came from greece, persia, arabia, &c. to the feast of pentecost. acts, c. ii. . so that, after jesus, the inhabitants of judea only were dispersed by the romans. saint jerome says, that the sadducees did not adopt the prophets, but contented themselves with believing the five books of moses. dodwell, de jure laicorum, asserts, that the prophets prepared themselves to prophesy by drinking wine. see page . it seems they were jugglers, poets, and musicians, who had made themselves masters of their trades, and knew how to exercise them profitably. if we examine the conduct of the boasted prophets of the old testament, we shall find them far from being virtuous persons. we see arrogant priests continually meddling with affairs of state, and interweaving them with religion. we see in them seditious subjects, incessantly caballing against all sovereigns, who were not sufficiently submissive to them. they cross their projects, excite their subjects to rebellion, effect their destruction, and thus accomplish the fatal predictions, which they had before made against them. such is the character of most of the prophets, who have played a part in the history of the jews. the studied obscurity of the prophecies is such, that those which are commonly applied to the messiah, or the deliverer of israel, are equally applicable to every enthusiast or prophet that appeared in jerusalem or judea. christians, heated with the idea of christ, think they meet him in all places, and pretend to see him in the darkest passages of the old testament. deluding themselves by force of allegories, subtilties, commentaries, and forced interpretations, they have discovered the most formal predictions in all the vague oracles and nonsensical trash of the prophets. the prophet samuel, displeased with saul, who refused to second his cruelty, declared that he had forfeited the crown, and raised up a rival to him in the person of david. elias appears to have been a seditious subject, who, finding himself unable to succeed in his rebellious designs, thought proper to escape due punishment by flight. jeremiah himself gives us to understand that he conspired with the assyrians against his besieged country. he seems to have employed himself in depriving: his fellow-citizens of both the will and the courage to defend themselves. he purchased a field of his relations, at the very time when he informed his countrymen that they were about to be dispersed, and led away in captivity. the king of assyria recommends this prophet to his general, nebuzaradan, whom he commands to take great care of him.--see jeremiah. any thing may be found in the bible, if it be read with the imagination of saint augustine, who pretended to see all the new testament in the old. according to him, the death of abel is a type of that of christ; the two wives of abraham are the synagogue and the church; a piece of red cloth held up by an harlot, who betrayed jericho, signifies the blood of christ; the lamb, goat, and lion, are figures of jesus christ; the brazen serpent represents the sacrifice on the cross. even the mysteries of the christian religion are announced in the old testament. manna represents the eucharist, &c. see s. aug. serm. . and ep. . how can a man, in his senses, see, in the immanuel announced by isaiah, the messiah, whose name is jesus? isaiah c. vii. v. . how discover, in an obscure and crucified jew, a leader who shall govern israel? how see a royal deliverer and restorer of the jews, in one, who, far from delivering his nation, came only to destroy their laws; and after whose coming their land was desolated by the romans? a man must be sharp-sighted indeed to find the messiah in their predictions. jesus himself does not seem to have been more clear, or happy, in his prophecies. in the gospel of luke, chap. xxi. he speaks of the last judgment: he mentions angels, who, at the sound of the trumpet, assemble mankind together before him. he adds, "verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, until these things are accomplished." the world, however, still stands, and christians have been expecting the last judgment for eighteen hundred years. men are not scrupulous respecting things which accord with their desires. when we examine, without prejudice, the prophecies of the hebrews, we find them to be a mis-shapen mass of rhapsodies, the offspring of fanaticism and delirium. we find them obscure and enigmatical, like the oracles of the pagans. in fine, it is evident that these pretended divine oracles are the vagaries and impostures of men, who imposed on the credulity of a superstitious nation which believes in dreams, visions, apparitions, and sorceries, and received with avidity any deception, provided it were sufficiently decorated with the marvellous. wherever mankind are ignorant, there will be found prophets and workers of miracles, and these two branches of commerce will always decay in the same proportion as mankind become enlightened. among the proofs of the authenticity of their religion, christians enumerate a multitude of martyrs, who have sealed with their blood their belief of the opinions they had embraced. there is no religion destitute of ardent defenders, who would sacrifice their lives for the opinions to which they believe their eternal happiness attached. superstitious and ignorant men are obstinate in their prejudices. their credulity prevents them from suspecting any deception in their spiritual guides. their vanity persuades them that they are incapable of wavering; and if, in fine, their imaginations be strong enough to see the heavens open, and a recompense prepared therein for their courage, there is no torment they will not brave and endure. in their intoxication they will despise all torments of short duration; they will smile upon their executioners; and their souls, alienated from earthly things, will become insensible to pain. in such scenes, the hearts of spectators are softened; they admire the astonishing firmness of the martyr; they catch his enthusiasm, and believe his cause just. his courage appearing to them supernatural and divine, becomes an indubitable proof of the truth of his opinions. thus, by a sort of contagion, enthusiasm communicates itself. men are always interested in the fate of those who shew the greatest firmness; and tyranny always multiplies the friends of those whom it persecutes. the constancy of the first christians must, therefore, have produced proselytes, by a natural effect of their conduct. martyrs prove nothing, unless it be the strength of the enthusiasm, error, and obstinacy produced by superstition, and the barbarous folly of those who persecute their fellow-creatures for religious opinions. every violent passion has its martyrs. pride, vanity, prejudice, love, patriotism, and even vice itself, produces martyrs; or, at least, a contempt of every kind of danger. is it, then, surprising, that enthusiasm and fanaticism, the strongest passions of mankind, have so often enabled men, inspired with the hopes they give, to face and despise death? besides, if christians can boast a catalogue of martyrs, jews can do the same. the unfortunate jews, condemned to the flames by the inquisition, were martyrs to their religion; and their fortitude proves as much in its favour, as that of the christians can do in favour of christianity. if martyrs demonstrate the truth of a religion, there is no religion or sect which may not be looked upon as true. in fine, among the perhaps exaggerated number of martyrs, boasted by christians, many were rather the victims of an inconsiderate zeal, a turbulent and seditious spirit, than a real love of religion. the church itself does not presume to justify some, who, transported by a volcanic zeal, have troubled the peace of the earth, and poured out flaming destruction on all who differed in opinion from themselves; until mankind, consulting their own tranquillity and safety, have destroyed them. if men of this description were to be considered as martyrs, every disturber of society, when punished, would acquire a right to this title. chap. vii.--of the mysteries of the christian religion. to reveal any thing to a man, is to discover to him secrets of which he was before ignorant. if we ask christians what the secrets were, the importance of which rendered it necessary that they should be revealed by god himself, we shall be told that the greatest of those secrets, and the one most necessary to mankind, is the unity of the godhead; a secret which, say they, human wisdom could never have discovered, of itself. but are we not at liberty to doubt the truth of this assertion? moses, undoubtedly, declared an only god to the hebrews, and did all in his power to render them enemies to the idolatry and polytheism of other surrounding nations, whose belief and whose modes of worship he represented as abominable in the eyes of the celestial monarch, who had brought them out of the land of egypt. but have not many wise men among the heathens discovered, without the assistance of the jewish revelation, one supreme god, superior to all others? moreover, was not fate, to which all the other gods of the heathens were subordinate, an only god, to whose sovereign law all nature was subject? as to the colours in which moses paints his godhead, neither jews nor christians have a right to pride themselves therein. he is represented as a capricious and irascible despot, full of cruelty, injustice, partiality, and malignity. what kind of being shall we contemplate, when we add to this the ineffable attributes ascribed to him in the christian theology? is the godhead described when it is said that it is a spirit, an immaterial being, which resembles nothing presented to us by our senses? is not human understanding confounded with the negative attributes of infinity, immensity, eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience, with which he has been decorated, only to render him still more incomprehensible? how can the wisdom, the goodness, justice, and other moral qualities of this god, be reconciled with that strange and often atrocious conduct, which are attributed to him in almost every page of the old and new testament? would it not have been better to have left mankind in entire ignorance of the godhead, than to reveal to him a god made up of contradictions, which lead to eternal dispute, and serve only to trouble his repose? to reveal such a god to mankind, is only to discover to them the means to embarrass and render themselves wretched, and quarrel with and injure one another. but, be this as it may, is it true that christianity admits but one god, the same which was revealed by moses? do we not see christians adore a threefold divinity, under the name of the trinity? the supreme god begat from all eternity a son equal to himself; from these two proceeds a third equal to the two first; these three gods, equal in perfection, divinity, and power, form, nevertheless, only one god. to overturn this system, it seems sufficient only to shew its absurdity. is it but to reveal such mysteries as these that the godhead has taken pains to instruct mankind? have opinions more absurd and contrary to reason ever existed among the most ignorant and savage nations?l in the mean time, however, the writings of moses contain nothing that could authorise the construction of a system so wild. it is only by having recourse to the most forced explanations, that the doctrine of the trinity is pretended to be found in the bible. as to the jews, contented with the only god which their legislator has declared to them, they have never attempted to create a threefold one. the dogma of the trinity is evidently borrowed from the reveries of plato, or from the allegories under which that romantic philosopher chose to conceal his doctrine. it appears that to him the christian religion is indebted for the greater part of its dogmas. plato admitted three hypostases, or modes of being in the divinity. the first constituted the supreme god; the second the logos, word, or divine intelligence proceeding from the first; the third is the spirit, or soul of the world. the early teachers of the christian religion appear to have been platonics; their enthusiasm probably found in plato a doctrine analogous to their feelings; had they been grateful, they would have recorded him as a prophet, or, at least, as one of the fathers of the church. the jesuitical missionaries found a divinity, nearly similar to that of the christians, at thibet. among the tartars, god is called kon-cio-cik, the only god, and kon-cio-sum, the threefold god. they also give him the titles on, ha, hum, intelligence, might, power or words, heart, love. the number three was always revered among the ancients; because salom, which in the oriental languages signifies three, signifies also health, safety, salvation. the second of these gods, or, according to the christians, the second person of the trinity, having clad himself with human nature, and become incarnate in the womb of a virgin, he submitted himself to the infirmities of our species, and even suffered an ignominious death to expiate the sins of the earth. this is what christians call the mystery of incarnation. he must be indeed blind, who cannot see these absurd notions are borrowed from the egyptians, indians, and grecians, whose ridiculous mythologies describe gods as possessing human forms, and subject to infirmities, like mankind. the egyptians appear to have been the first who pretended that their gods had assumed material bodies. foe, the god of the chinese, was born of a virgin, who was fecundated by a ray of the sun. in indostan nobody doubts the incarnations of vistnou. it seems that theologists of all nations, despairing to exalt themselves to a level with god, have endeavoured to debase him to a level with themselves. thus, we are commanded by christianity to believe that a god having become man without doing injury to his divine nature, has suffered, died, and offered himself a sacrifice to himself; and all this was absolutely and indispensibly necessary to appease his own wrath. this is what christians denominate the mystery of the redemption of the human race. this dead god, however, was resuscitated. thus the adonis of the phenicians, the osiris of the egyptians, and the atys of the phrygians, are represented as periodically resigning and re-assuming life. the god of the christians rises again, re-animated, and bursts the tomb, triumphant. such are the wondrous secrets, or sublime mysteries, that the christian religion unfolds to its disciples. so great, so abject, and so ever incomprehensible are the ideas it gives us of the divine being. such is the illumination our minds receive from revelation! a revelation which only serves to render still more impenetrable the clouds which veil the divine essence from human eyes. god, we are told, is willing to render himself inconsistent and ridiculous, to confound the curiosity of those whom, we are at the same time informed, he desires to enlighten by his special grace. what must we think of a revelation which, far from teaching us any thing, is calculated to darken and puzzle the clearest ideas? thus, notwithstanding the boasted revelation of the christians, they know nothing of that being whom they make the basis of their religion. on the contrary, it only serves to obscure all the notions which might otherwise be formed of him. in holy writ he is called an hidden god. david tells us, that he places his dwelling in darkness, that clouds and troubled waters form the pavilion with which he is covered. in fine, christians, although enlightened, as they say, by god himself, have only ridiculous and inconsistent ideas of him, which render his existence doubtful, or even impossible, in the eyes of every man who consults his reason. what notions, indeed, can we form of a god, who, after having created the world solely for the happiness of mankind, nevertheless suffers the greater part of the human race to be miserable both in this world and that which is to come? how can a god, who enjoys a supreme felicity, be offended with the actions of his creatures? this god is then susceptible of grief; his happiness can be disturbed; he is then dependent on man, who can, at pleasure, delight or afflict him! how can a benevolent god bestow on his creatures a fatal liberty by the abuse of which they may incur his anger, and their own destruction? how can that being, who is himself the author of life and nature, suffer death? how can an only god become triple without injuring his unity? we shall be answered, that all these matters are mysteries; but such mysteries destroy even the existence of god. it would be more reasonable to admit, with zoroaster, or manes, two principles or opposite powers in nature, than to believe, with christians, that there is an omnipotent god, who cannot prevent the existence of evil; a god who is just, and yet partial; a god all-merciful, and yet so implacable, that he will punish through an eternity the crimes of a moment; an only god, who is threefold; a god, the chief of beings, who consents to die, being unable to satisfy by any other means his divine justice. if, in the same subject, contraries cannot subsist at the same time, either the existence of the god of the jews, or that of the christians, must undoubtedly be impossible. whence we are forced to conclude, that the teachers of christianity, by means of the attributes with which they have decorated, or rather disfigured their godhead, have, in fact, annihilated the god of the jews, or, at least, so transformed him, that he is no longer the same. thus, revelation, with all its fables and mysteries, has only embarrassed the reason of mankind, and rendered uncertain the simple notions which they might form to themselves of that necessary being, who governs the universe with immutable laws. though the existence of a god cannot be denied, it is yet certain that reason cannot admit the existence of the one which the christians adore, and whose conduct, commands, and qualities, their religion pretends to reveal. if they are atheists, who have no ideas of the supreme being, the christian theology must be looked upon as a project invented to destroy his existence. divines have always disagreed among themselves respecting the proofs of the existence of a god. they mutually style each other atheists, because their demonstrations have never been the same. few christians have written on the existence of god, without drawing upon themselves an accusation of atheism. descartes, clarke, pascal, arnauld; and nicole, have been considered as atheists. the reason is plain. it is impossible to prove the existence of a being so inconsistent as the god of the christians. we shall be told that men have no means for judging of the divinity, and that our understandings are too narrow to form any idea of him. why then do they dispute incessantly concerning him? why assign to him qualities which destroy each other? why recount fables concerning him? why quarrel and cut each others throats, because they are differently interpreted by different persons? chap. viii.--mysteries and dogmas of christianity. not content with having enveloped their god in mysterious clouds and judaic fables, the teachers of christianity seen to be still busied in the multiplication of mysteries, and embarrassing more and more the reason of their disciples. religion, designed to enlighten mankind, is only a tissue of enigmas; a labyrinth which sound sense can never explore. that which ancient superstitions found most incomprehensible, seems not unaptly to be interwoven with a religious system, which imposes eternal silence on reason. the fatalism of the grecians has been transformed, in the hands of christian priests, into predestination. according to this tyrannic dogma, the god of mercies has destined the greatest part of mankind to eternal torments. he places them in this world that they, by the abuse of their faculties and liberty, may render themselves worthy of the implacable wrath of their creator. a benevolent and prescient god gives to mankind a free will, of which he knows they will make so perverse an use, as to merit eternal damnation. thus, instead of furnishing them with the propensities necessary to their happiness, he permits them to act, only that he may have the pleasure of plunging them into hell. nothing can be more horrid than the description given us by christians of this place, destined to be the future residence of almost all mankind. there a merciful god will, throughout an eternity, bathe himself in the tears of wretches, whom he created for misery. sinners, shut up in this awful dungeon, will be delivered up for ever to devouring flames. there shall be heard weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. the torments of this place shall, at the end of millions of years, have only begun. the consoling hope of a distant mitigation of pain shall be unknown. in one word, god, by an act of his omnipotence, shall render man capable of miseries uninterrupted, and interminable. his justice will punish finite crimes, the effects of which are limited by time, by torments infinite in degree and duration. such is the idea a christian forms of the god that demands his love. this tyrant, creates him only to render him miserable; he gives him reason to deceive him, and propensities to lead him astray. he gives him liberty, that he may incur eternal ruin. he gives him advantages above the beasts, that he may be subjected to torments, which beasts, like inanimate substances, are incapable of suffering. the dogma of predestination represents the lot of man as worse than that of brutes and stones. the doctrine of predestination was also a tenet of the jews. in the writings of moses, a god is exhibited, who, in his decrees, is partially fond of a chosen people, and unjust to all others. the theology and history of the greeks represent men as punished for necessary crimes, foretold by oracles. of this orestes, oedipus, ajax, &c. are examples. mankind have always described god as the most unjust of all beings. according to the jansenists, god bestows his grace on whom he pleases, without any regard to merit. this is much more conformable to the christian, pagan, and jewish fatalism, than the doctrine of the molinists, who say that god grants his grace to all who ask and deserve it. it is certain that christians in general are true fatalists. they evade this accusation, by declaring that the designs of god are mysteries. if so, why do they eternally dispute about them? it is true, the christian religion promises a blissful residence to those whom god shall have chosen to be objects of his love. but this place is reserved only for a small number of elect, who, without any merit in themselves, shall, nevertheless, have unbounded claims upon the grace of god. thus, the tartarus and elysium of the heathen mythology, invented by impostors to awe and seduce mankind, have been transplanted into the system of the christians, who have given them the new appellation of heaven and hell. the followers of the christian religion believe in a race of invisible beings, different from man and subordinate to god, part of whom is employed in executing the wrath of god upon offenders; and part in watching over his works, and particularly the preservation of man. the former, being malevolent spirits, are called devils, demons, &c. the latter, being benevolent spirits, are called angels. they are supposed to have the faculty of rendering themselves sensible, and taking the human form. good angels are, in the imagination of christians, what the nymphs, lares, and penates, were imagined to be by the heathens, and what the fairies were with writers of romances. the sacred books of the jews and christians are replete with these marvellous beings, whom god has sent to his favourites to be their guides, protectors, and tutelar deities. devils are considered as the enemies and seducers of the human race, and perpetually busied in drawing them into sin. a power is attributed to them of performing miracles, similar to those wrought by the most high; and, above, a power that counteracts his, and renders all his projects abortive. in fact, the christian religion does not formally allow the same power to the devil as to god; nevertheless, it supposes that malevolent being prevents mankind from entering into the enjoyment of the felicity destined them by the goodness of god, and leads most of them into eternal perdition. christians, however, do virtually attribute to the devil an empire much more extensive than that of the supreme being. the latter, with difficulty, saves a few elect; while the former carries off, in spite of him, the greater part of mankind, who listen to his destructive temptations, rather than the absolute commands of god. this satan, the cause of so much terror to christians, was evidently borrowed from the doctrine of two principles, formerly admitted in egypt and all the east. the osyris and typhon of the egyptians, the orosmades and aharimanes of the persians and chaldeans, have undoubtedly given birth to the continual war between the god of christians and his formidable adversary. by this system mankind have endeavoured to account for all the good and evil with which life is chequered. an almighty devil serves to justify the supreme being with respect to all necessary and unremitted evils which afflict the human race. such are the dreadful and mysterious doctrines upon which christians in general are agreed. there are many others which are peculiar to different sects. thus, a numerous sect of christians admit an intermediate state between heaven and hell, where souls, too sinful for the former and too innocent for the latter, are subjected for a time, in order to expiate by their sufferings the sin they commit in this life; after undergoing this punishment, they are received into the abodes of eternal felicity. this doctrine, which was evidently drawn from the reveries of plato, has, in the hands of the roman priests, been converted into an inexhaustible source of riches. they have arrogated to themselves the power of opening the gates of purgatory, and pretend that, by their prayers, they can mitigate the rigour of the divine decrees, and abridge the torments of the souls, condemned to this place by a just god. it is evident that the roman catholics are indebted to plato for their purgatory. that great philosopher divided souls into three classes: the pure, the curable, and the incurable. the first returned, by refusion, to the universal soul of the world, or the divinity, from which they had emanated; the second went to hell, where they passed in review every year before the judges of that dark empire, who suffered them to return to light when they had sufficiently expiated their faults; the incurables remained in tartarus, where they were to suffer eternal torment. plato, as well as, christian casuists, described the crimes, faults, &c. which merit those different degrees of punishment. protestant divines, jealous probably of the riches of the catholic clergy, have imprudently rejected the doctrine of a purgatory, whereby they have much diminished their own credit. it would, perhaps, have been wiser to have rejected the doctrine of an hell, whence souls can never be released, than that of purgatory, which is more reasonable, and from which the clergy can deliver souls by means of that all-powerful agent, money. the preceding remarks shew, that the christian religion has been often inculcated and spread by dint of terror. by striking mankind with horror they render them submissive, and remove all his dependence on his reason. mahomet perceived, as well as christian divines, the necessity of frightening mankind, in order to govern them. "those," says the koran, "who do not believe, shall be clothed in a garment of fire; boiling water shall be poured on their heads; their skins and their entrails shall be smitten with rods of iron. whenever they shall strive to escape from hell, and avoid its torments, they shall be thrust again into it; and the devils say unto them, 'taste the pain of burning'." see alcoran, ch. viii. chap. ix.--of the rites and mysterious ceremonies or theurgy of the christians. if the doctrines of the christian religion be mysteries inaccessible to reason; if the god it announces be inconceivable, we ought not to be surprised at seeing the rites and ceremonies of this religion mysterious and unintelligible. concerning a god, who hath revealed himself only to confound human reason, all things must necessarily be incomprehensible and unreasonable. the most important ceremony of the christian religion is called baptism. without this, no man, it is held, can be saved. it consists in pouring water on the infant or adult, with an invocation on the name of the trinity. by the mysterious virtue of this water, and the words by which it is accompanied, the person is spiritually regenerated. he is cleansed from the stains, transmitted through successive generations, from the father of the human race. in a word, he becomes a child of god, and is prepared to enter into his glory at death. now, it is said, that the death of man is the effect of the sin of adam; and if, by baptism, sin be effaced, why is man still subject to death? but here we are told, it is from the spiritual, not bodily death, that christ has delivered mankind. yet this spiritual death is only the death of sinfulness. in this case, how does it happen that christians continue to sin, as if they had never been redeemed and delivered from sin? whence it results, that baptism is a mystery impenetrable to reason; and its efficacy is disproved by experience. in some christian sects, a bishop or pontiff, by pronouncing a few words, and applying a few drops of oil to the forehead, causes the spirit to descend upon whom he pleases. by this ceremony the christian is confirmed in the faith, and receives invisibly a profusion of graces from the most high. those who wandering farthest from reason, have entered most deeply into the spirit of the christian religion, not contented with the dark mysteries common to other sects, have invented one still darker and more astonishing, which they denominate transubstantiation. at the all-powerful command of a priest, the god of the universe is forced to descend from the habitation of his glory, and transform himself into a piece of bread. this bread is afterwards worshipped by a people, who boast their detestation of idolatry. the ceremony of baptism was practised in the mysteries of mythias, and those initiated were thereby regenerated. this mythias was also a mediator. although christian divines consider baptism necessary to salvation, we find paul would not suffer the corinthians to be baptised. we also learn that he circumcised timotheos. the bramas of indostan distribute a kind of grain in their pagodas: this distribution is called prajadnn, or eucharist. the mexicans believe in a kind of transubstantiation, which is mentioned by father acosta. see his travels, chap. xxiv. the protestants have had the courage to reject transubstantiation, although it is formally established by christ, who says, "take, eat; this is my body." averoes said, "anima mea fit cum philosophie, non vero cum christianis, gente stolidissima, qui deuni faciunt et comedunt." the peruvians have a religious ceremony, in which after sacrificing a lamb, they mingle his blood with flour, and distribute it amongst the people.-- aluetanae quest, lib. ii. cap. . in the puerile ceremonies, so highly valued by christians, we cannot avoid seeing the plainest traces of the theurgy practised among the orientals, where the divine being, compelled by the magic power of certain words and ceremonies uttered, by priests, or other persons initiated into the necessary secret, descends to earth and performs miracles. this sort of magic is also exercised among christian priests. they persuade their disciples that, by certain arbitrary actions, and certain movements of the body, they can oblige the god of nature to suspend his laws, give himself up to their desires, and load them with every favour they choose to demand. thus, in this religion, the priest assumes the right of commanding god himself. on this empire over their god, this real theurgy, or mysterious commerce with heaven, are founded those puerile and ridiculous ceremonies which christians call sacraments. we have already seen this theurgy in baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist. we find it, also, in penitence, or the power which the priests of some sects arrogate to themselves, of remitting, in the name of heaven, all sins confessed to them. it is seen in orders, that is to say, in the ceremony which impresses on certain men a sacred character, by which they are ever after distinguished from profane mortals. it is seen in the rites and functions which torture the last moments of the dying. it is seen in marriage, which natural union, it is supposed, cannot meet with the approbation of heaven, unless the ceremony of a priest render it valid, and procure it the sanction of the most high. the number of roman catholic sacraments, seven; a cabalistic, magic, and mysterious number. we see this theurgy, or white magic, in the prayers, forms, liturgies, and, in short, in all the ceremonies of the christians. we find it in their opinion, that words disposed in a certain manner can influence the will of god, and oblige him to change his immutable decrees. its efficacy is seen in exorcisms, that is, ceremonies, in which, by means of a magic water and some mysterious words, it is pretended that evil spirits which infest mankind can be expelled. holy water, which has taken the place of the _aqua lustralis_ of the romans, is believed by certain christians to possess astonishing virtues. it renders sacred, places and things which were profane. in fine, the christian theurgy being employed by a pontiff in the consecration of a king, renders him more respectable in the eyes of men, and stamps him with a divine character. thus all is magic and mystery, all is incomprehensible, in a religion revealed by god himself, to enlighten the darkened understanding of mankind. chap. x.--of the inspired writings of the christians. christians endeavour to prove the divine origin of their religion by certain writings, which they believe to be sacred, and to have been inspired by god himself. let us then see if these writings do really exhibit marks of that wisdom, omniscience, and perfection which we attribute to the divinity. the bible, every word of which christians believe to have been dictated by inspiration, is composed of an incongruous collection of the sacred writings of the hebrews, called the old testament; to which are added, a number of works, more recent indeed, but of equal inspiration, known by the name of the new testament. at the head of this collection are five books which are attributed to moses, who was, it is said, in writing them, the secretary of god. he therein goes back to the origin of things. he attempts to initiate us into the mystery of the creation of the world, of which he has only the most vague and confused ideas. he betrays at every word a profound ignorance of the laws of nature. god, according to moses, created the sun, which, in our planetary system, is the source of light, several days after he had created the light. god, who can be represented by no image, created man in his own image. he creates him male and female; but, soon forgetting what he had done, he creates woman from one of the ribs of the man. in one word, we see, at the very entrance of the bible, nothing but ignorance and contradiction. it appears, at once, that the cosmogony of the hebrews is only a tissue of fables and allegories, incapable of giving any true idea of things, and calculated to please only a savage and ignorant people, destitute of science, and unqualified for reasoning. in the rest of the writings of moses, we see little but a string of marvellous and improbable stories, and a mass of ridiculous and arbitrary laws. the author concludes with giving an account of his own death. the books posterior to moses exhibit equal ignorance. joshua stops the sun, which did not move. sampson, the jewish hercules, has strength to overthrow a temple.--but we should never finish the enumeration of the fables and falsehoods of these books, which are audaciously attributed to the holy ghost. the story of the hebrews presents us only with a mass of tales, unworthy the gravity of history and the majesty of divinity ridiculous to reason, it appears to have been invented only to amuse the credulity of a stupid and infant people. st. augustin confesses that there is no way of preserving the true sense of the three first chapters of genesis without wronging religion and attributing things to god which are unworthy of him; and declares, that recourse must be had to allegory. aug. de genesi, contra machineos. origen, also, grants, if we take the history of the bible literally, it is absurd and contradictory.--philos. p. . this strange compilation is intermingled with obscure, and unconnected oracles, with which different prophets have, from time to time, enriched jewish superstition. every thing in the old testament breathes enthusiasm, fanaticism, and delirium, often decorated with pompous language. there, every thing is to be found, except good sense, good logic, and reason, which seems to be absolutely excluded from the books which guide the conduct of the hebrews and christians. we have already mentioned the abject, and often absurd ideas of god, which are exhibited in the bible. in this book, all his conduct appears ridiculous. he blows hot and cold, and contradicts himself every moment. he acts imprudently, and then repents of what he had done. he supports with one hand, and destroys with the other. after having punished all the human race with death, for the sins of man, he declares, by ezekiel, that he is just, and will not render children responsible for the iniquities of their fathers. he commands the hebrews, by the mouth of moses, to rob the egyptians. in the decalogue, published by moses, theft and murder are forbidden. in short, jehovah, ever in contradiction with himself, varies with circumstances, preserves no uniformity of conduct, and is represented in the books, said to be inspired by his spirit, as a tyrant, which the most decided villain would blush to be. when we cast our eyes over the new testament, there, also, we see nothing characteristic of that spirit of truth which is said to have dictated this work. four historians, or fabulists, have written the marvellous history of the messiah. seldom agreeing with respect to the circumstances of his life, they sometimes contradict each other in the most palpable manner. the genealogy of christ, given us by matthew, differs widely from that given us by luke. one of the evangelists says, that christ was carried into egypt; whilst, by another, this event is not even hinted at. one makes the duration of his mission three years, while another represents it as only as many months. we do not find them at all better accord respecting the facts in general which they report. mark says that christ died at the third hour, that is to say, nine o'clock in the morning: john says that he died at the sixth hour, that is, at noon. according to matthew and mark, the women who, after the death of jesus, went to his sepulchre, saw only one angel; whereas, according to luke and john, they saw two. these angels were, by some, said to be within the tomb; by others, without. several of the miracles of jesus are also differently reported by the evangelists. this is likewise the case with his appearances after his resurrection. ought not all these things to excite a doubt of the infallibility of the evangelists, and the reality of their divine inspirations? what shall we say of the false and forged prophecies, applied to christ in the gospel? matthew pretends that jeremy foretold that christ should be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver; yet no such prophecy is to be found in jeremiah. nothing is more singular than the manner in which christian divines evade these difficulties. their solutions are calculated to satisfy only those who conceive it their duty to remain in blindness. jerome himself says, that the quotations of matthew do not agree with the greek version of the bible. erasmus is obliged to confess that the holy spirit permitted the apostles to go astray. every man of sense must feel, that all the industry and sophism on earth can never reconcile such palpable contradictions; and the efforts of interpreters serve only to shew the weakness of their cause. is it, then by subterfuges, subtilties, and falsehoods, that we are to render service to god? we find equal errors and contradictions in the pompous gasconade and declamatory bombast of st. paul. the epistles and harangues of this man, inspired by the spirit of god, appear to be the enthusiastic ravings of a madman. the most laboured commentaries have, in vain, endeavoured to reconcile the contradictions with which his work are filled, and the inconsistency of his conduct, which sometimes favoured and sometimes opposed judaism. we do not find ourselves more enlightened by the works attributed to the other apostles. it seems as if these persons, inspired by the holy ghost, came on the earth only to prevent their disciples from comprehending what they had been sent to teach them. st. paul himself informs us, that he was ravished up to the third heaven. why was he transported thither, and what did he learn by his journey? things unspeakable, which no man could, comprehend. what advantage are mankind to derive from all this? st. paul, in the acts of the apostles, is guilty of a falsehood, in saying before the high-priest, that he is persecuted, because he is a pharisee, and on account of the resurrection. here: are two untruths. first, because paul was, at that time, the most zealous apostle of the christian religion, and consequently a christian. secondly, because the accusations brought against him did not refer to his opinion on resurrection. if we know that the apostles sometimes wandered from the truth, how shall we believe them at others? further, we see this great apostle continually changing his counsels and conduct. at jerusalem, he point-blank opposes peter, who favoured judaism; whereas he himself afterwards complied with jewish rites. in fine, he always accommodates himself to the circumstances of the time, and becomes all things to all men. he seems to have set an example to the jesuits, of their conduct in the indies, with which they are reproached, where they unite the worship of the pagans to that of christ. at the foot of the collection, which forms the new testament, we find the mystic work known by the name of the revelation of st. john. this is an unintelligible thing, in which the author has endeavoured to collect and concentrate all the gloomy and dreadful ideas contained in the rest of the bible. it exhibits to the wretched race of man the awful and approaching end of a perishing world. it is filled with horrid pictures, by gazing on which, the trembling christian becomes petrified with fear and wonder, indifferent to life, and useless, or an incumbrance to society. thus, in a manner not unworthy of itself, terminates this compilation, so inestimable and adorable to christians, so ridiculous and contemptible to the man of reason, so unworthy of a good and bounteous god; so detestable to him who contemplates the unparalleled evils it has occasioned on the earth. having taken for the rule of their conduct and opinions a book so full of blasphemous fables and striking, contradictions concerning god, christians have never agreed in the interpretation of his will, or precisely known what he exacted from them. thus they have made this obscure work a bone of contention, an inexhaustible source of quarrels, a common arsenal, where all contending parties have supplied themselves with arms for mutual destruction. geometricians dispute not concerning the fundamental principles of their science. by what fatality does it happen that christian revelation, the foundation of a religion on which depends the eternal felicity of man, should be unintelligible, subject to disputes, and often deluge the earth with blood? to judge by effects, such a revelation ought rather to be thought the work of a malign spirit, a genius of darkness and falsehood, than of a god desirous to preserve, enlighten, and beautify mankind. chap. xi.--of christian morality. were we to believe christians, there could have been no true morality on earth before the coming of the founder of their sect. they represent the world is having been plunged in darkness and vice at all times and places where christ was unknown. yet morality was always necessary to mankind; for, without it, no society can exist. we find, that before the time of christ, there were flourishing and virtuous nations, and enlightened philosophers, who continually reminded mankind of their duties. the precepts of socrates, confucius, and the gymnosophists of india, are by no means inferior to those of the messiah of the christians. we find, amongst heathens, innumerable instances of equity, humanity, temperance, disinterestedness, patience, and meekness, which flatly contradict the pretensions of the christians, and prove that, before christ was known on earth, virtues flourished, which were for more real than those he came to teach to men. was a supernatural revelation necessary to inform mankind that society cannot exist without virtue, and that, by the admission of vice, societies consent to their own destruction? was it necessary that a god should speak, to shew that they have need of mutual aid and mutual love? was assistance from on high necessary to discover that revenge is an evil, and an outrage upon the laws, which, when they are just, assume to themselves the right of retribution? is not the forgiveness of injuries connected with this principle? and is not hatred eternalized where implacable revenge is exercised? is not the pardoning of our enemies a greatness of soul, which gives us an advantage over those who offend us? when we do good to our enemies does it not give us a superiority over them? is not such conduct calculated to multiply our friends? does not every man, who is desirous to live, perceive that vice, intemperance, and voluptuousness must shorten the period of life? has not experience demonstrated to every thinking being, that vice is injurious and detestable, even to those who are not free from its empire, and that the practice of virtue is the only means, of acquiring real esteem and love? however little mankind may reflect on what they themselves, their true interests, and the end of society are, they must feel what they ought to be to each other. good laws will render them good; and where these exist, there is no need of flying to heaven for rules for the preservation and happiness of society. reason is sufficient to teach us our duties to our fellow-creatures. what assistance can it receive from a religion by which it is continually contradicted and degraded? it is said, that christianity, far from counteracting morality, is its chief support, and renders its obligations more sacred, by giving them the sanction of god. in my opinion, however, the christian religion, instead of supporting morality renders it weak and precarious. it cannot possibly have any solid foundation on the commands of a god, who is changing, partial, and capricious; and ordains with the same mouth, justice and injustice, concord and carnage, toleration and persecution. it is impossible to follow the precepts of a rational morality, under the empire of a religion, which makes a merit of the most destructive zeal, enthusiasm, and fanaticism. a religion, which commands us to imitate the conduct of a despot who delights to ensnare his creatures, who is implacable in his vengeance, and devotes to flaming destruction all who have the misfortune to displease him, is incompatible with all morality. the innumerable crimes with which the christian, more than any other religion, has stained itself, have always been committed under the pretext of pleasing the ferocious god whom the christians have inherited from the jews. the moral character of this god, must, of necessity, govern the moral conduct of those who adore him. hence arises the uncertainty of christians, whether it be most conformable to the spirit of their religion to tolerate, or to persecute, those who differ from them in opinion. the two parties find themselves equally authorised in modes of conduct which are diametrically opposite. at one time, jehovah declares his detestation of idolaters, and makes it a duty to exterminate them; at another time moses forbids his people to speak ill of the god of nations. the son of god forbids persecution, after having said that men must be constrained to enter into his kingdom. yet, as the idea of a severe and cruel god makes a much deeper impression than that of a bounteous one, true christians have generally thought it their duty to exert their zeal against those whom they have supposed to be enemies to their god. they have imagined it impossible to offend him by espousing his cause with too much ardour. toleration has seldom been practised, except by indolent and phlegmatic christians, of a temperament little analogous to that of the god whom they serve. must not a true christian, to whose imitation the example of the saints and heroes of the old testament are proposed, become ferocious and sanguinary? will he not find motives for cruelty in the conduct of moses, who twice caused the blood of israel to stream, and immolated to his god more than forty thousand victims? to justify his own, will he not appeal to the perfidious cruelty of phineas, jabel, and judith? will he not see david to be a monster of barbarity, adultery, and rebellion, which nevertheless does not prevent his being a man after god's own heart? in short, the whole bible informs the christian that his god is delighted with a furious zeal in his service; and this zeal is sufficient to close his eyes on every species of crime. let us not, then, be surprised to see christians incessantly persecuting each other. if they are at any time tolerant, it is only when they are themselves persecuted, or too weak to persecute others. whenever they have power they become the terror and destruction of each other. since christianity first appeared on earth, its different sects have incessantly quarrelled. they have mutually exercised the most refined cruelty. sovereigns, in imitation of david, have espoused the quarrels of discordant priests, and served god by fire and sword. kings themselves have often perished the victims of religious fanaticism, which tramples on every moral duty in obedience to its god. in a word, the religion, which boasts of having brought peace on earth, and good will towards men, has for eighteen centuries caused more ravages, and greater effusions of blood, than all the superstitions of heathenism. it has raised walls of separation between the citizens of the same state. it has abandoned concord and affection from families. it has made a duty of injustice and inhumanity. the followers of a god, who was unjustly offended at mankind, became as unjust as he. the servants of a jealous and vindictive god, conceived it their duty to enter into his quarrels and avenge his injuries. under a god of cruelty, it was judged meritorious to cause the earth to echo with groans, and float in blood. such are the important services which the christian religion has rendered to morality. let it not be said, that it is through a shameful abuse of this religion, that these horrors have happened. a spirit of persecution and intolerance is the spirit of a religion ordained by a god, jealous of his power, a god who has formally commanded the commission of murder; a god, who, in the excess of his anger, has not spared even his own son! the servant of such a god is much surer to please him by exterminating his enemies, than by permitting them to offend him in peace. such a god must necessarily serve as a pretext to the most destructive excesses. a zeal for his glory is used as a veil to conceal the passions of all impostors and fanatics who pretend to be interpreters of the will of heaven; and the enthusiastic hopes to wash away the greatest crimes by bathing his hands in the blood of the enemies of his god. by a natural consequence of the same principles, an intolerant religion can be only conditionally submissive to the authority of temporal sovereigns. jews and christians cannot be obedient to a temporal government, unless its laws be conformed to the arbitrary and often ridiculous commands of their god. but who shall decide whether the laws, most advantageous to society, are conformed to the will of this god? without doubt, his ministers, the confidants of his secrets and interpreters of his oracles. thus, in a christian state, the citizens must be subject rather to spiritual than temporal government, to the priest rather than the magistrate. hence must arise civil war, bloodshed, proscription, and all that inspires the human breast with horror. such is the support afforded to morality by a religion, the first principle of which is to admit the god of the jews, that is, a tyrant, whose fantastic commands annihilate every rule necessary to the tranquil existence of society. this god creates justice and injustice, his supreme will changes good into bad, and vice into virtue. his caprice overturns the laws which he himself had given to nature. he destroys at his pleasure the moral relations among mankind. in his own conduct he dispenses with all duties towards his creatures. he seems to authorise them to follow no certain laws, except those prescribed to them, in different circumstances, by the voice of his ministers and prophets. these, when in power, preach nothing but submission. if an attempt be made to abridge that power, they preach arms and rebellion. are they weak? they preach toleration, patience, and meekness. are they strong? they preach persecution, revenge, rapine, and cruelty. they always find in holy writ arguments to authorise these different modes of conduct, they find in the oracles of their just and immutable god, arguments amply sufficient to justify actions diametrically opposite in their nature and offence. to lay the foundation of morality on such a god, or open books which contain laws so contradictory, is to give it an unstable base; it is to found it on the caprice of those who speak in the name of god; it is to found it on the temperament of each one of his adorers. morality should be founded upon invariable rules. a god who destroys these rules destroys his own work. if god be the creator of man, if he intends their happiness and preservation, he would have them to be just, humane, and benevolent, and averse to injustice, fanaticism, and cruelty. from what has been said, we may see what we ought to think of those divines who pretend that, without the christian religion there could be neither morality nor virtue among mankind. the converse of this proposition would much higher approach the truth; and it might be maintained, that every christian who imitates his god, and practises all his commands, must necessarily be an immoral person. if it be said, that those commands are not always unjust, and that the scriptures often breathe benevolence, harmony, and equity, i answer, christians must have an inconstant morality, sometimes good and sometimes bad, according to interest and individuals. it appears that christians must either be wholly destitute of true morality, or vibrate continually from virtue to vice, and from vice to virtue. the christian religion is but a rotten prop to morality. it will not bear examination, and every man who discovers its defects will be ready to believe that the morality founded on such a basis can be only a chimera. thus we often behold men, who have couched the neck beneath the yoke of religion, break loose at once and abandon themselves to debauchery, intemperance, and every kind of vice. escaping from the slavery of superstition, they fly to complete anarchy, and disbelieve the existence of all moral duties, because they have found religion to be but a fable. hence, among christians, the words infidel and libertine have become synonymous. all these inconveniences would be avoided if mankind, instead of being taught a theological, were taught a natural morality. instead of interdicting intemperance and vice, because they are offensive to god and religion, they should be prevented, by convincing man that they are destructive to his existence, and render him contemptible in society: that they are disapproved and forbidden by reason and nature, who aim at his preservation, and direct him to take the path that leads to permanent felicity. whatever may be the will of god, and independently of the future rewards and punishments announced by religion, it is easy to prove to every man that it is, in this world, his interest to preserve his health, to respect virtue, acquire the esteem of his fellow-creatures, and, in fine, to be chaste, temperate, and virtuous. those whose passions will not suffer them to attend to principles so clear and reasonable, will not be more docile to the voice of a religion, which they will cease to believe the moment it opposes their misguiding propensities. let, then, the pretended advantages which the christian religion lends morality be no longer boasted. the principles drawn from revelation tend to its destruction. we have frequent examples of christian nations, whose morals are far more corrupted than those of people whom they style infidels and heathens. the former are, at least, most subject to religious fanaticism, a passion calculated to banish justice and all the social virtues from society. christianity creates intolerants and persecutors, who are much more injurious to society than the most abandoned debauchees. it is, at least, certain, that the most christian nations of europe, are not those where true morality is most felt and practised. in spain, portugal, and italy, where the most superstitious sect of christians has fixed its residence, people live in the most shameful ignorance of their duties. robbery, assassination, debauchery, and persecution, are there carried to their worst extreme; and yet all men are full of religion. few virtuous men exist in those countries. religion itself there becomes an accomplice to vice, furnishes criminals with an asylum, and procures to them easy means of reconciliation with god. presents, prayers, and ceremonies, there furnish mankind with a dispensation from the practice of virtue. amongst nations, who boast of possessing christianity in all its purity, religion has so entirely absorbed the attention of its sectaries, that morality enters not into their thought; and they think they fulfil all their duties by a scrupulous observation of the minutiae of superstitious ceremonies, whilst they are strangers to all social affections, and labour for the destruction of human happiness. chap. xii.--of the christian virtues. what has been said is sufficient to shew what we ought to think of christian morality. if we examine the virtues recommended in the christian religion, we find them but ill calculated for mankind. they lift him above his sphere, are useless to society, and often of dangerous consequence. in the boasted precepts, which jesus christ came to give mankind, we find little but extravagant maxims, the practice of which is impossible, and rules which, literally followed, must prove injurious to society. in those of his precepts that are practicable, we find nothing which was not as well or better known to the sages of antiquity, without the aid of revelation. according to the messiah, the whole duty of man consists in loving god above all things, and his neighbour as himself. is it possible to obey this precept? can man love a god above all things, who is represented as wrathful, capricious, unjust, and implacable? who is said to be cruel enough to damn his creatures eternally? can man love, above all things, an object the most dreadful that human imagination could ever conceive? can such an object excite in the human heart a sentiment of love? how can we love that which we dread? how can we delight in the god under whose rod we tremble? do we not deceive ourselves, when we think we love a being so terrible, and so calculated to excite nothing but horror? seneca says, with much truth, that a man of sense cannot fear the gods, because no man can love what he fears. de benef. . the bible says, the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. i think it rather the beginning of folly. is it even practicable for mankind to love their neighbours as themselves? every man naturally loves himself in preference to all others. he loves his fellow-creatures only in proportion as they contribute to his happiness. he exercises virtue in doing good to his neighbour. he acts generously when he sacrifices his self love to his love for another. yet he will never love his fellow creatures but for the useful qualities he finds in them. he can love them no farther than they are known to him, and his love for them must ever be governed by the good he receives from them. to love one's enemies is then impossible. a man may abstain from doing evil to the person by whom he is injured; but love is an affection which can be excited in our hearts only by an object which we supposed friendly to us. politic nations, who have enacted just and wise laws, have always forbidden individual to revenge, or do justice to themselves, a sentiment of generosity, of greatness of soul, or heroism, may induce mankind to do good to those from whom they suffer injuries. by such means they exalt themselves above their enemies, and may even change the disposition of their hearts. thus, without having recourse to a supernatural morality, we feel that it is our interest to stifle in our hearts the lust of revenge. christians may, therefore, cease to boast the forgiveness of injuries, as a precept that could be given only by their god, and which proves the divine origin of their morality. pythagoras, long before the time of christ, had said, let men revenge themselves upon their enemies, only by labouring to convert them into friends. socrates taught that it was not lawful for a man, who had received an injury, to revenge it by doing another injury. christ must have forgotten that he spoke to men, when, in order to conduct them to perfection, he commanded them to abandon their possessions to the avidity of the first who should demand them; to turn the other cheek to receive a new insult; to oppose no resistance to the most outrageous violence; to renounce the perishable riches of this world; to forsake houses, possessions, relations, and friends to follow him; and to reject even the most innocent pleasures. who does not see, in these sublime precepts, the language of enthusiasm and hyperbole? are not they calculated to discourage man, and throw him into despair? if literally practised, would they not prove ruinous to society? what shall we say of the morality, which commands the human heart to detach itself from objects which reason commands it to love? when we refuse the blessings offered us by nature, do we not despise the benefactions of the one supreme? what real good can result to society from the melancholy and ferocious virtues which christians consider indispensible? can a man continue useful to society, when his mind is perpetually agitated with imaginary terrors, gloomy ideas, and black inquietudes, which incapacitate him for the performance of his duties to his family, his country, and mankind? if the christian adhere strictly to the gloomy principles of his religion, must he not become equally insupportable to himself, and those by whom he is surrounded? it cannot be said, that, in general, fanaticism and enthusiasm are the bases of the morality of christ. the virtues which he recommends tend to render men unsocial, to plunge them into melancholy, and often to render them injurious to their fellow-creatures. among human beings, human virtues are necessary; christian virtues are not calculated on the scale of real life. society has need of real virtues, from which it may derive energy, activity, and support. vigilance, labour, and affection, are necessary to families. a desire of enjoying lawful pleasures, and augmenting the sum of their happiness, is necessary to all mankind. the christian religion is perpetually busied in degrading mankind by threatening them with dismaying terrors, or diverting them with frivolous hopes; sentiments equally proper to turn them from their true duties. if the christian literally obey the precepts of his legislator, he will ever be either an useless or injurious member of society. notwithstanding the eulogies lavished by christians on the precepts of their divine master, some of them are wholly contrary to equity and right reason. when jesus says, make to yourselves friends in heaven with the mammon of unrighteousness, does he not plainly insinuate, that we may take from others wherewithal to give alms to the poor? divines will say that he spoke in parables; these parables are, however, easily unfolded. in the mean time, this precept is but too well followed. many christians cheat and swindle during all their lives, to have the pleasure of making donations at their death to churches, monasteries, &c. the messiah, at another time, treated his mother, who with parental solicitude was seeking him, extremely ill. he commands his disciples to steal an ass. he drowns an herd of swine, &c. it must be confessed, these things do not agree extremely well with good morality. what real advantage can mankind derive from those ideal virtues, which christians style evangelic, divine, &c. and which they prefer to the social, humane, and substantial virtues, and without which they pretend no man can please god, or enter into his glory? let us examine those boasted virtues in detail. let us see of what utility they are to society, and whether they truly merit the preference which is given them, to those which are pointed out by reason as necessary to the welfare of mankind. the first of the christian virtues is faith, which serves as a foundation for all the others. it consists in an impossible conviction of the revealed doctrines and absurd fables which the christian religion commands its disciples to believe. hence it appears that this virtue exacts a total renunciation of reason, and impracticable assent to improbable facts; and a blind submission to the authority of priests, who are the only guarantees of the truth of the doctrines and miracles that every christian must believe under penalty of damnation. this virtue, although necessary to all mankind, is nevertheless, a gift of heaven, and the effect of a special grace. it forbids all doubt and enquiry; and it deprives man of the liberty of exercising his reason and reflection. it reduces him to the passive acquiescence of beasts in matters which he is, at the same time, told are of all things the most important to his happiness. hence it is plain, that faith is a virtue invented by men, who, shrinking from the light of reason, deceived their fellow-creatures, to subject them to their own authority, and degraded them that they might exercise an empire over them. if faith be a virtue, it is certainly useful only to the spiritual guides of the christians, for they alone gather its fruits. it cannot but be injurious to other men, who are taught by it to despise that reason, which distinguishes them from brutes, and is their only faithful guide in this world. christians, however, represent this reason as perverted, and as unfaithful guide; by which they seem to intimate that it was not made for reasonable beings. may we not, however, ask them how far this renunciation of reason ought to be carried? do not they themselves, in certain cases, have recourse to reason? do they not appeal to reason, when they endeavour to prove the existence of their god? be this as it may, it is an absurdity to say we believe that of which we have no conception. what, then, are the motives of the christian, for pretending to such a belief? his confidence in his spiritual guides. but what is the foundation of this confidence? revelation. on what, then, is revelation itself founded? on the authority of spiritual guides. such is the manner in which christians reason. their arguments in favour of faith are comprised in the following sentence. to believe our religion it is necessary to have faith, and to have faith you must believe in our religion. or, it is necessary to have faith already, in order to believe in the necessity of faith. many divines have maintained, that faith without works is sufficient for salvation. this is the virtue which is, in general, most cried up by them. it is, at least, the one most necessary to their existence. it is not, therefore, surprising that they have endeavoured to establish it by fire and sword, it was for the support of faith that the inquisition burned heretics and jews. kings and priests persecute for the establishment of faith. christians have destroyed those who were destitute of faith, in order to demonstrate to them their error. o wondrous virtue, and worthy of the god of mercies! his ministers punish mankind, when he refuses them his grace!!! the phantom faith vanishes at the approach of the sun of reason. it can never sustain a calm examination. hence it arises, that certain christian divines are so much at enmity with science. the founder of their religion declared, that his law was made for ignorant men and children. faith is the effect of a grace which god seldom grants to enlightened persons, who are accustomed to consult their reason. it is adapted only to the minds of men who are incapable of reflection, tendered insane by enthusiasm, or invincibly attached to the prejudices of childhood. science must ever be at enmity with this religion; for in proportion as either of them gains ground, the other must lose. another christian virtue, proceeding from the former, is hope. founded on the flattering promises given by this religion to those who render themselves wretched in this life, it feeds their enthusiasm. it induces them firmly to believe that god will reward, in heaven, their gloominess, inutility, indolence, prayers, and detestation of pleasures on earth. how can a man, who, being intoxicated with these pompous hopes, becomes indifferent to his own happiness, concern himself with that of his fellow-creatures? the christian believes that he pleases his god by rendering himself miserable in this life; and however flattering his hopes may be for the future, they are here empoisoned by the idea of a jealous god, who commands him to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, and who will plunge him into eternal torture, if he for a moment has the weakness to be a man. another of the christian virtues is charity. it consists in loving god and our neighbour. we have always seen how difficult, not to say impossible, it is to feel sentiments of tenderness for any being whom we fear. it will, undoubtedly, be said, that the fear of christians is a filial fear. but words cannot change the essence of things. fear is a passion totally opposite to love. a son, who fears the anger, and dreads the caprices of a father, can never love him sincerely. the love, therefore, of a christian to his god can never be true. in vain he endeavours to feel sentiments of tenderness for a rigorous master, at whose idea his heart shrinks back in terror. he can never love him but as a tyrant, to whom his mouth renders the homage that his heart refuses. the devotee is not honest to himself, when he pretends to love his god. his affection is a dissembled homage, like that which men are forced to render to certain inhuman despots, who, while they tread their subjects in the dust, demand from them the exterior marks of attachment. if some tender minds, by force of illusion, feel sentiments of divine love, it is then a mystic and romantic passion, produced by a warm temperament, and an ardent imagination, which present their god to them dressed in smiles, with all his imputed faults concealed. the love of god is not the least incomprehensible mystery of this religion. it is an ardent and tender temperament that produces mystic devotion. hysterical women are those who commonly love god with most vivacity, they love him to distraction, as they would love a man. in monasteries, particularly ste. therese, madeleine de pazzy, marie a la coque, most of the devotees are of this description. their imagination grows wild, and they give to their god, whom they paint in the most captivating colours, that tenderness which they are not permitted to bestow on beings of their own species. it requires a strong imagination to be smitten with an object unknown. charity, considered as the love of mankind, is a virtuous and necessary disposition. it then becomes no more than that tender humanity which attaches us to our fellows, and inclines us to love and assist them. but how shall we reconcile this attachment with the commands of a jealous god, who would have us to love none but himself, and who came to separate the friend from the friend, and the son from the father? according to the precepts of the gospel, it would be criminal to offer god a heart shared by an earthly object. it would be idolatry thus to confound the creature with the creator. and further, how can the christian love beings who continually offend his god? beings who would continually betray himself into offence? how can he love sinners? experience, teaches us that the devout, obliged by principle to hate themselves, have very little more affection for others. if this be not the case, they have not arrived, at the perfection of divine love. we do not find that those who are supposed to love the creator most ardently, shew much affection for his creatures. on the contrary, we see them fill with bitterness all who surround them; they criticise with severity the faults of others, and make it a crime to speak of human frailty with indulgence. a sincere love for god must be accompanied with zeal. a true christian must be enraged when he sees his god offended. he must aim himself with a just and holy severity to repress the offenders. he must have an ardent desire to extend the empire of his religion. a zeal, originating in this divine love, has been the source of the terrible persecutions of which christians have so often been guilty. zeal produces murderers as well as martyrs. it is this zeal that prompts intolerant man to wrest the thunder from the hand of the most high to avenge him of his enemies. it is this zeal that causes members of the same state, and the same family, to detest and torment each other for opinions, and puerile ceremonies, which they are led to esteem as of the last importance. it is this zeal that has a thousand times, kindled those religious wars so remarkable for their atrocity. finally, it is this zeal for religion which justifies calumny, treason, carnage, and, in short, the disorders most fatal to society. it has always been considered as lawful to employ artifice, falsehood, and force, in support of the cause of god. the most choleric and corrupted men are commonly the most zealous. they hope that, for the sake of their zeal, heaven will pardon the depravity of their manners, be it ever so excessive. devotees are generally considered as scourges of society. a devout woman has seldom the talent of conciliating the love of her husband and his domestics. a gloomy and melancholy religion cannot render its disciples very amiable. a sad and sullen monarch must have sad and sullen subjects: christians have judiciously remarked, that jesus christ wept, but never smiled. it is from an effect of the same zeal that enthusiastic christians fly over every sea, and continent to extend the empire of their god and make new proselytes. stimulated by this zeal, missionaries go to trouble the repose of what they call heathen nations, whilst they would be astonished and enraged to find missionaries from those nations endeavouring to propagate a new religion in their country. when these propagators of the faith have had power in their hands, they have excited the most horrid rebellions; and have, in conquered countries, exercised cruelties calculated only to render the god detestable whom they pretended to serve. they have thought that men who have so long been strangers to their god could be little better than beasts; and, therefore, judged it lawful to exercise every kind of violence over them. in the eyes of a christian, an infidel is seldom worthier than a dog. it is apparently in imitation of the jews that christian nations have usurped the possessions of the inhabitants of the new world. the castilians and portuguese had the same right to the possession of america and africa, that the hebrews had to make themselves masters of the land of canaan, and exterminate its inhabitants, or reduce them to slavery. have not popes arrogated the right of disposing of distant empires to their favourite monarchs in europe? these manifest violations of the law of nature and of nations appeared just to those christian princes, in favour of whom religion sanctified avarice, cruelty, and usurpation. kambi, emperor of china, asked the jesuit missionaries at pekin, what they would say, if he should send missionaries to their nation. the revolts excited by the jesuits in japan and ethiopia are well known. a holy missionary has been heard to say, that without muskets, missionaries could never make proselytes. st. augustin says, that of right divine, all things belong to the just. a maxim which is founded on a passage in the psalms, which says, the just shall eat the fruit of the labour of the unrighteous. it is known that the pope, by a bull given in favour of the kings of castile, arragon, and portugal, fixed the line of demarcation which was to rule the conquests which each had gained over the infidels. after such principles, is not the whole earth to become a prey to christian rapacity? humility is, also, considered by christians as a sublime virtue, and of inestimable value. no super-natural and divine revelations are necessary to teach us that pride does not become man, and that it renders him disagreeable to others. all must be convinced, on a moment's reflection, that arrogance, presumption, and vanity, are disgusting and contemptible qualities. but christian humility is carried to a more refined extreme. the christian must renounce his reason, mistrust his virtues, refuse to do justice to his own good actions, and repress all self-esteem, however well merited. whence it appears, that this pretended virtue only degrades and debases man in his own eyes, deprives him of all energy, and stifles in him every desire of rendering himself useful to society. to forbid mankind to esteem themselves and merit the esteem of others, is to break the only powerful string that inclines them to study, industry, and noble actions. this christian virtue is calculated only to render them abject slaves, wholly useless to the world, and make all virtue give place in them, to a blind submission to their spiritual guides. let us not be surprised, that a religion which boasts of being supernatural should endeavour to unnaturalize man. this religion, in the delirium of its enthusiasm, forbids mankind to love themselves. it commands them to hate pleasures and court grief. it makes a merit of all voluntary evils they do unto themselves. hence those austerities and penances so destructive to health; those extravagant mortifications, cruel privations, and gradual suicides, by which fanatic christians think they merit heaven. it must be confessed, all christians do not feel themselves capable of such marvellous perfections, but all believe themselves more or less obliged to mortify the flesh, and renounce the blessings prepared for them by a bounteous god, who, they suppose, offers his good things only that they may be refused, and would be offended should his creatures presume to touch them. reason cannot approve virtues which are destructive to ourselves, nor admit a god who is delighted when mankind render themselves miserable, and voluntarily submit to torments. reason and experience, without the aid of superstition, are sufficient to prove, that passions and pleasures, pushed to excess, destroy us; and that the abuse of the best things becomes a real evil. nature herself inculcates upon us the privation of things which prove injurious to us. a being, solicitous for his own preservation, must restrain irregular propensities, and fly whatever tends to his destruction. it is plain, that by the christian religion, suicide is, at least, indirectly authorised. it was in consequence of these fanatical ideas that, in the earliest ages of christianity, the forests and deserts were peopled with perfect christians, who by flying from the world, left their families destitute of support, and their country of citizens, to abandon themselves to an idle and contemplative life. hence those legions of monks and cenobites, who, under the standards of different enthusiasts, have enrolled themselves into a militia, burthensome and injurious to society. they thought to merit heaven, by burying talents, which might be serviceable to their fellow-citizens, and vowing a life of indolence and celibacy. thus, in nations which are the most faithful to christianity, a multitude of men render themselves useless and wretched all their lives. what heart is so hard as to refuse a tear to the lot of the hapless victims taken from that enchanting sex which was destined to give happiness to our own! unfortunate dupes of youthful enthusiasm, or sacrificed to the ambitious views of imperious families, they are for ever exiled from the world! they are bound by rash oaths to unending slavery and misery. engagements, contradicted by every precept of nature, force them to perpetual virginity. it is in vain that riper feelings, sooner or later, warm their breasts, and make them groan under the weight of their imprudent vows. they regret their voluntary sterility, and find themselves forgotten in society. cut off from their families, and subjected to troublesome and despotic gaolers, they sink into a life of disgust, of bitterness, and tears. in fine, thus exiled from society, thus unrelated and unbeloved, there only remains for them the shocking consolation of seducing other victims to share with them the torments of their solitude and mortifications. the christian religion seems to have undertaken to combat nature and reason in every thing. if it admits some virtues, approved by reason, it always carries them to a vicious excess. it never observes that just mean, which is the point of perfection. all illicit and shameful pleasures will be avoided by every man, who is desirous of his own preservation, and the esteem of his fellow-creatures. the heathens knew and taught this truth, notwithstanding the depravity of morals with which they are reproached by christians. the church even recommends celibacy as a state of perfection, and considers the natural tie of marriage as an approach to sin. god, however, declares in genesis, that it is not good for man to be alone. he also formally commanded all creatures to increase and multiply. his son, in the gospel, comes to annul those laws. he teaches that, to attain to perfection, it is necessary to avoid marriage, and resist the strongest desire with which the breast of man is inspired--that of perpetuating his existence by a posterity, and providing supports for his old age and infirmities. aristotle and epictetus recommend chastity of speech. menander said, that a good man could never consent to debauch a virgin or commit adultery. tibullus said, casta placent superis. mark anthony thanks the gods, that he had preserved his chastity in his youth. the romans made laws against adultery. father tachard informs us, that the siamans forbid not only dishonest actions, but also impure thoughts and desires. whence it appears, that chastity and purity of manners were esteemed even before the christian religion existed. if we consult reason, we find, that the pleasures of love are always injurious when taken in excess; and that they are always criminal when they prove injurious. we shall perceive, that to debauch a woman is to condemn her to distress and infamy, and annihilate to her all the advantages of society; that adultery is destructive to the greatest felicity of human life, conjugal union. hence we shall be convinced, that marriage, being the only means of satisfying our desire of increasing the species and providing filial supports, is a state far more respectable and sacred, than the destructive celibacy and voluntary castration recommended as a virtue by the christian religion. nature, or its author, invites man, by the attraction of pleasure, to multiply himself. he has unequivocally declared, that women are necessary to men. experience shews, that they are formed for society, not solely for the purpose of a transient pleasure, but to give mutual assistance in the misfortunes of life, to produce and educate children, form them into citizens, and provide in them support for themselves in old age. in giving man superior strength, nature has pointed out his duty of labouring for the support of his family; the weaker organs of his companion are destined to functions less violent, but not less necessary. in giving her a soul more soft and sensible, nature has, by a tender sentiment, attached her more particularly to her children. such are the sure bands which the christian religion would tear asunder. such the blessings it would wrest from man, while it substitutes in their place an unnatural celibacy, which renders man selfish and useless, depopulates society, and which can be advantageous only to the odious policy of some christian priests, who, separating from their fellow-citizens, have formed a destructive body, which eternalizes itself without posterity. _gens oterna in qua nemo nascitur._ if this religion has permitted marriage to some sects, who have not the temerity to soar to the highest pinnacle of perfection, it seems to have sufficiently punished them for this indulgence, by the unnatural shackles it has fixed on the connubial state. thus, among them, we see divorce forbidden, and the most wretched unions indissoluble. persons once married, are forced to groan under the weight of wedlock, even when affection and esteem are dead, and the place of these essentials to conjugal happiness is supplied by hatred and contempt. temporal laws also conspiring with religion, forbid the wretched prisoners to break their chains. it seems as if the christian religion exerted all its powers to make us view marriage with disgust, and give the preference to a celibacy which is pregnant with debauchery, adultery, and dissolution. yet the god of the hebrews made divorce lawful, and i know not by what right his son, who came to accomplish the law of moses, revoked an indulgence so reasonable. such are the perfections which christianity inculcates on her children, and such the virtues she prefers to those which are contemptuously styled human virtues. she even rejects these, and calls them false and sinful, because their possessors are, forsooth, not filled with faith. what! the virtues of greece and rome, so amiable, and so heroic, were they not true virtues? if justice, humanity, generosity, temperance, and patience be not virtues, to what can the name be given? and are the virtues less because professed by heathens? are not the virtues of socrates, cato, epictetus, and antonine, real and preferable to the zeal of the cyrills, the obstinacy of athanasius, the uselessness of anthony, the rebellion of chrysostom, the ferocity of dominic, and the meanness of francis? all the virtues admitted by christians, are either overstrained and fanatic, tending to render man useless, abject, and miserable; or obstinate, haughty, cruel, and destructive to society. such are the effects of a religion, which contemning the earth, hesitates not to overwhelm it with trouble, provided it thereby heightens the triumph of its god over his enemies. no true morality can ever be compatible with such a religion. chap. xiii.--of the practice and duties of the christian religion. if the christian virtues be destitute of solidity, and produce no effect which reason can approve, we shall find nothing more estimable in a multitude of incommodious, useless, and often dangerous practices, which christians consider as their sacred duties, and by means of which they are confident of obtaining the pardon and favour of god, and an eternal abode with him in unspeakable glory and felicity. the first and most essential duty of christians is prayer. to continual prayer their religion attaches its felicity. their god, whom they suppose to be overflowing with bounty, refuses to bestow his blessings unsolicited. he grants them only to importunity. sensible to flattery, like the kings of the earth, he exacts an etiquette, and hears no petitions unless they are presented in a certain form. what should we say of a father who, knowing the wants of his children, should refuse to give them necessary food, until wearied out with fervent supplications? but in another view, does not it imply mistrust of the wisdom of god to prescribe rules for his conduct? does it not imply a doubt of his immutability, to believe he can be prevailed on by his creatures to alter his designs? if he knows all things, what need is there of continually informing him what are the dispositions and desires of his subjects? if he is almighty, how can he be flattered with the submissions, adorations, and formalities with which christians prostrate themselves before him? in one word, prayer supposes a capricious god, deficient in memory, voracious of praise, fond of seeing his creatures abased in the dust, and anxious to receive at every instant the most abject marks of their submission. can these ideas, borrowed from earthly princes, be with propriety applied to an omnipotent being, who created the universe for man, and desires only that he should be happy? can it be supposed that such a being, without equal and without rival, should be jealous of his glory? can the prayers of man add glory to a being beyond comparison superior to all others? cannot christians see, that, in endeavouring to honour and exalt their god, they only degrade and debase him? it is also the opinion of christians, that the prayers of one man may be serviceable to others. partial to his favourites, god hears petitions only from their lips. he listens not to his people, unless their prayers be offered up to him through his ministers. he becomes a sultan, accessible only to his ministers, vizirs, eunuchs, and the women of his seraglio. hence the millions of priests and cenobites, who have no business on earth but to raise their idle hands to heaven, and pray night and day for its blessings on society. nations pay dearly for these important services, and these pious impostors live in splendour and ease, while real merit, labour, and industry languish in misery. under the pretence of devoting himself to prayer and other ceremonies of his worship, the christian, particularly in some of the more superstitious sects, is obliged to remain idle, and stand with arms across during a great part of the year. he is persuaded that he honours god by his inutility. feasts and fasts, multiplied by the interests of priests and the credulity of the people, often suspended for long intervals the labours necessary to the subsistence of society. men fly to temples to pray when they should stay at home and cultivate their fields. there their eyes are fed with childish ceremonies, and their ears are filled with fables and doctrines, of which they can comprehend nothing. this tyrannical religion makes it a crime for the poor labourer to endeavour, during consecrated days, to procure subsistence for a numerous and indigent family. and civil authority, in concert with religion, punishes those who have the audacity to earn bread, instead of praying or being idle. can reason subscribe to the ridiculous obligation of abstaining from certain aliments and meats which is imposed by some sects of christians? in consequence of these laws, people, who live by their labour, are forced to content themselves, during long intervals', with dear and unwholesome provisions, more proper to generate disease than repair strength. what abject and ridiculous ideas must they entertain of god, who believe he can be offended by the quality of the food that enters into the stomachs of his creatures! heaven, however, for a certain sum of money becomes sometimes more accommodating. priests have been continually busied in straitening the path of their sectaries, that they might transgress more frequently; and that the revenue arising from their transgressions might thus become more ample. all things, even sin itself, among christians, contribute to the profit of the priests. no religion ever placed its sectaries in more complete and continual dependance on priests, than the christian. those harpies never lose sight of their prey. they take infallible measures for subjecting mankind, and making all contribute to their power, riches, and dominion. having assumed the office of mediator between the heavenly monarch and his subjects, these priests were looked upon as courtiers in favour, ministers commissioned to exercise power in his name, and favourites to whom he could refuse nothing. thus they became absolute masters of the destiny of the christians. they gained establishments and rendered themselves necessary by the introduction of innumerable practices and duties, which, though puerile and ridiculous, they had the address to make their flocks look upon as indispensibly necessary to their salvation. they represented the omission of these pretended duties as a crime infinitely greater than an open violation of all the laws of morality and reason. let us not then be surprized, that, in the most zealous, that is to say the most superstitious sects, we see mankind perpetually infested with priests. scarcely are they born, when, under the pretext of washing away original sin, their priests impose on them a mercenary baptism, and pretend to reconcile them with a god whom they have as yet been unable to offend. by means of a few words and magical ceremonies they are thus snatched from the dominion of satan. from the tenderest infancy their education is frequently entrusted to priests, whose principal care is to instil into them early the prejudices as necessary to the views of the church. terrors are now introduced into their minds which increase during their whole lives. they are instructed in the fables, absurd doctrines, and incomprehensible mysteries of a marvellous religion. in one word, they are formed into superstitious christians, and rendered incapable of being useful citizens or enlightened men. only one thing is represented to them as necessary, which is to be in all things devoutly submissive to his religion. "be devout," say his teachers, "be blind, despise thy reason, attend to heaven, and neglect earth; this is all thy god demands to conduct thee to eternal felicity." to maintain the abject and fanatic ideas with which the priest has filled his pupils in their childhood, he commands them to come frequently, and deposit in his bosom their hidden faults, their most secret actions and thoughts. he obliges them to humiliate themselves at his feet, and render homage to his power. he frightens the criminals, and afterwards, if they are judged worthy, he reconciles them to god, who on the command of his ministers remits their sins. the christian sects that admit this practice, boast of it as extremely useful in regulating the manners and restraining the passions of men; but experience proves, that the countries in which this usage is most faithfully observed, are distinguished rather for the dissolution than the purity of their manners. by such easy expiations they are only emboldened in vice. the lives of christians are circles of successive offences and concessions. the priesthood reap the profit of this practice, by means of which they exercise an absolute dominion over the consciences of mankind. how great must be the power of an order of men, who possess all the secrets of families, can kindle at pleasure the destructive flame of fanaticism, and open or shut the gates of heaven! without the consent of his priests, the christian cannot participate in the knowledge of the mysteries of his religion, from which they have a right to exclude him entirely. this privation, however, he has no great reason to lament. but the anathemas or excommunications of the priests generally do a real mischief to mankind. these spiritual punishments produce temporal effects, and every citizen who incurs the disgrace of the church is in danger of that of the government, and becomes odious to his fellow-citizens. we have already remarked that priests have taken upon themselves the management of marriages. without their consent, a christian cannot, become a father. he must first submit to the capricious formalities of his religion, without which his children must be excluded from the rank of citizens. during all his life, the christian is obliged to assist in the ceremonies of worship under the direction of his priests. when he has performed this important duty, he esteems himself the favourite of god, and persuades himself that he no longer owes any thing to society. thus frivolous practices take place of morality, which is always rendered subordinate to religion. when death approaches, the christian, stretched in agony on his bed, is still assailed in those distressful moments by priests. in some sects religion seems to have been invented to render the bitter death of man ten thousand times more bitter. a malicious priest comes to the couch of the dying man, and holds before him the spectacle of his approaching end, arrayed in more than all its terrors. although this custom is destructive to citizens, it is extremely profitable to the priesthood, who owe much of their riches to legacies procured by it. morality is not quite so highly advantaged by it. experience proves, that most christians live in security and postpone till death their reconciliation with god. by means of a late repentance, and largesses to the priesthood, their faults are expiated, and they are permitted to hope that heaven will forget the accumulated crimes of a long and wicked life. in catholic countries. death itself does not terminate the empire of the priesthood in certain sects, which finds means to make money even out of the dead bodies of their followers. these, for a sufficient sum, are permitted to be deposited in temples, where they have the privilege of spreading infection and disease. the sacerdotal power extends still further. the prayers of the church are purchased at a dear rate, to deliver the souls of the dead from their pretended torments in the other world, inflicted for their purification. happy they who are rich in a religion, whose priests being favourites with god, can be hired to prevail on him to remit the punishments which his immutable justice had intended to inflict! such are the principal duties recommended by the christians; and upon the observation of these they believe their salvation to depend. such are the arbitrary, ridiculous, and hurtful practices substituted for the real duties of morality. we shall not combat the different superstitious practices, admitted by some sects and rejected by others; such as the honours rendered to the memory of those pious fanatics and obscure contemplators whom roman pontiffs have ranked among the saints. we say nothing of those pilgrimages which superstition has so often produced, nor those indulgences by means of which sins are remitted. we shall only observe, that these things are commonly' more respected where they are admitted, than the duties of morality, which in those places frequently, are wholly unknown. mankind find their natural propensities much less thwarted by such rites, ceremonies, and practices, than by being virtuous. a good christian is a man who conforms exactly to all that his priests exact from him; these substitute blindness and submission in the place of all virtues. chap. xiv.--of the political effects of the christian religion. after having seen the inutility and even danger of the perfections, virtues, and duties proposed by the christian religion, let us enquire whether its political influences be more happy, and whether it can in reality promote the welfare of nations among whom it is established and faithfully observed. we at once find, that wherever this religion is admitted, two opposite legislations, ever at variance with each other, establish themselves. although this religion preaches love and peace, it soon annihilates the effects of those precepts by the divisions which it necessarily sows among its sectaries, who unavoidably interpret diversely the ambiguous oracles announced in holy writ. we find, that from the infancy of religion the most acrimonious disputes have continually taken place among divines. the successive ages of christianity have been stained with schisms, heresies, persecutions, and contests, widely discordant from its boasted spirit of peace and concord; which is in fact incompatible with a religion whose precepts are so dark and equivocal. in all religious disputes, each party believes that god is on its side, and consequently they are obstinate. indeed, how can it be otherwise, when they confound the cause of god with that of their own vanity? thus, mutually averse to concession, they quarrel and fight until force has decided a contest in which they never appeal to reason, in fact, political authorities have ever been forced to interfere in all the dissensions which have arisen among christians. governments have always taken in the frivolous disputes of priests, and foolishly considered them as objects of the last importance. they have conceived, that in a religion established by god himself there could be nothing of a trifling nature. thus, princes have armed themselves against their own subjects, whose opinions differed from theirs. the way of thinking at court has decided the creed and the faith of subjects. opinions supported by kings and priests have been the only true ones. their creatures have been the guardians of orthodoxy, and were commissioned to exterminate all whom they chose to denominate heretics and rebels. the prejudices of princes or their false policy, have caused them to look upon those of their subjects, who differ from themselves in religious opinions, as bad citizens, dangerous to the state, and enemies to their power. if, leaving to priests the business of finishing their own impertinent disputes, they had not assisted their quarrels and persecutions, they would have died away of themselves, and never have disturbed the peace of nations. if those kings had impartially recompensed the good and punished the bad, without regard to their worship, ceremonies, and speculative opinions, they would not have made many of their subjects such enemies to that power, by which they found themselves oppressed. christians have always attempted to reclaim heretics by injustice, violence, and persecution. ought not they to have perceived, that this conduct was calculated only to produce hypocrites and hidden enemies, of open rebellions? but these reflections are not designed for princes, who from their infancy, have been filled with fanaticism and prejudices; they, instead of being actuated by virtuous motives, have formed obstinate attachments to frivolities, and impetuous ardour for doctrines foreign to the welfare of their states, and a boundless wrath against all who refuse to bend to their despotic opinions. such sovereigns find it a shorter way to destroy mankind than reclaim them by mild means. their haughty despotism will not condescend to reason. religion assures them that tyranny is lawful, and cruelty meritorious when they are employed in the cause of heaven. the christian religion, in fact, always makes despots and tyrants of all the sovereigns by whom it is adopted. it represents them as gods upon earth; it causes their very caprices to be respected as the will of heaven itself. it delivers mankind into their hands as an herd of slaves, of whom they may dispose at their pleasure. in return for their zeal for religion, all the outrages upon justice that they can commit are forgiven, and their subjects are commanded, under pain of the wrath of the most high, to submit without a murmur to the sword that strikes instead of protecting themselves. it is not, therefore, matter of surprise, that since the establishment of this religion, we see so many nations groaning under devout tyrants, who, although obstinately attached to religion, have been unjust, licentious, and cruel. whatever were the oppressions and ravages of these religious or hypocritical princes, the priests have not failed to preach submission to their subjects: on the other hand, let us not be surprised to see so many weak and wicked princes, support in their turns the interest of a religion, which their false policy judged necessary to the maintenance of their authority. if kings were enlightened, just and virtuous, and knew and practised their real duties, they would have had no need of the aid of superstition in governing nations. but as it is more easy to conform to rites than to acquire talents or practise virtue, this religion has, in princes, too often found support for itself, and destruction for its enemies. the ministers of religion have not had the same complaisance for princes, who refused to make a common cause with them, espouse their quarrels, and become subservient to their passions. they have arisen against those who have thwarted their views, punished their excesses, touched their immunities, endeavoured to subject them to reason, or repress their ambitious designs. the priests on such occasions, cry out, impiety! sacrilege! then they pretend that the sovereign puts his hand to the censor, and usurps the rights granted them by god himself. then they endeavour to excite nations to rebellion. they arm fanatics against sovereigns, whom they declare tyrants, for having been wanting in submission to the church. heaven is always ready to revenge any injustice done to its ministers. they are themselves submissive, and preach submission to others, only when they are permitted to share the authority, or are too feeble to resist it. this is the reason why the apostles, in the infancy of christianity, being destitute of power, preached subordination. no sooner had this religion gained sufficient strength, than it preached resistance and rebellion; dethroning some kings and assassinating others. in every political body, where this religion is established, there are two rival powers, which, by incessant contention, convulse and wound the state. the citizens divide into opposite parties, each of which fights, or thinks it fights, for god. these contests at different times terminate differently, but the triumphant party is always in the right. by attentive examination of such events, we shall escape the dominion of fanaticism. it is by stimulating mankind to enquiry, that they must be freed from the shackles of superstition. let mankind think till they have thrown aside their prejudices, and they will think justly. the reign of the priesthood will cease when men cease to be ignorant and credulous. credulity is the offspring of ignorance, and superstition is the child of credulity. but most kings dread that mankind should be enlightened. accomplices with the priesthood, they have formed a league with them to stifle reason, and persecute all who confide in its guidance. blind to their own interests, and those of their subjects, they wish only to command slaves, forgetting those slaves are always at the disposal of the priests. thus we see science neglected, and ignorance triumphant, in those countries where this religion holds the most absolute dominion. arts and sciences are the children of liberty, and separated from their parent they languish and die. among christian nations, the least superstitious are the most free, powerful, and happy. in countries where spiritual and temporal despotism are leagued, the people grovel in the most shameful ignorance and lethargic inactivity. the european nations, who boast of possessing the purest faith, are not surely the most flourishing and powerful. their kings, enslaved themselves by priests, have not energy and courage enough to make a single struggle for their own welfare or that of their subjects. priests, in such states, are the only order of men who are rich; other citizens languish in' the deepest indigence. but of what importance are the power and happiness of nations to the sectaries of a religion who seek not for happiness in this world, who believe riches injurious, preach a god of poverty, and recommend abasement to the soul, and mortification of the flesh? it is without doubt to oblige people to practise these maxims, that the clergy, in many christian states, have taken possession of most of the riches, and live in splendour, while their fellow-citizens are set forward in the road to heaven, unincumbered with any burthen of earthly wealth. such are the advantages political society derives from the christian religion. it forms an independent state within a state. it renders the people slaves. when sovereigns are obedient to it, it favours their tyranny. when they are disobedient, it renders their subjects fanatic and rebellious. when it accords with political power, it convulses, debases, and impoverishes nations; when not, it makes citizens unsocial, turbulent, intolerant, and mutinous. if we examine in detail the precepts of this religion, and the maxims which flow from its principles, we shall find it interdicts every thing that can make a nation flourish. we have already seen the ideas of imperfection that it attaches to marriage, and its esteem of celibacy. these notions are highly unfavourable to population, which is, incontrovertibly, the first source of power in a state. commerce is not less contradictory to the spirit of a religion, the founder of which pronounced an anathema against riches, and excluded them from his kingdom. all industry is interdicted to perfect christians; they live a provisory life on earth, and never concern themselves with the morrow. must it not be a great temerity and sin for a christian to serve in war? is not the man, who has never the right to believe himself absolutely in a state of grace, extremely rash when he exposes himself to eternal damnation? is not the christian, who ought to have charity for all men, and love even his enemies, guilty of an enormous crime, when he kills a man of whose dispositions he is ignorant, and whom he, perhaps, precipitates at once into hell? a christian soldier is a monster; unless, indeed, he fights in the cause of religion. then, if he dies, "he dies a blessed martyr." the christian religion has always declared war against science and all human knowledge. these have been looked upon as obstacles to salvation. neither reason nor study are necessary to men, who are to submit their reason to the yoke of faith. from the confession of christians themselves, the founders of their religion were simple and ignorant men. their disciples must be as little enlightened as they were to admit the fables and reveries they have received from them. it has always been remarked, that the most enlightened men seldom make the best christians. science is apt to embarrass faith; and it moreover turns the attention from the great work of salvation, which is represented as the only necessary one. if science be serviceable to political society, ignorance is much more so to religion and its ministers.. those ages, destitute of science and industry, were the garden age of the church of christ. then were kings dutifully submissive to priests; then the coffers of priests held all the riches of society. the priests of a very numerous sect have kept from the eyes of their followers even the sacred pages which contain the laws of their religion. this conduct is, undoubtedly, very discreet. reading the bible is the surest of all means to prevent its being respected. in one word, if the maxims of the christian religion were rigorously and universally followed, no political society could subsist. if this assertion be doubted, listen to what was said by the earliest doctors of the church, and it will be acknowledged, that their precepts are wholly incompatible with the power and preservation of states. according to lactantius, no christian can become a soldier. according, to st. justin, no christian can be a magistrate. according to st. chrysostom, no christian can meddle with commerce. and, according to a great number, no man ought to study. in fine, join these maxims to those of christ, apply them in practice, and the result will be a perfect christian, useless to his family, his country, and mankind; an idle contemplator, unconcerned in the interests of this world, and occupied entirely with the other, whither it is his most important business to go. let us look into eusebius, and see if the christian be not a real fanatic, from whom society can derive no advantage. "the manner of life," says he, "in the christian church, surpasses our present nature, and the ordinary life of man. there they seek neither marriages, children, nor riches. in fact, it is wholly foreign to the human manner of living. the church is given up to an immense love of heavenly things. the members, detached from earthly existence, and leaving only their bodies below, transfer their souls to heaven, where they already dwell as pure and celestial intelligences, and despise the life of other men." a man strongly persuaded of the truth of christianity cannot, in fact, attach himself to any thing below. every thing here is to him a cause of stumbling, and calls away his attention from the great work of his salvation. if christians were not, fortunately, inconsistent with themselves, and wandered not incessantly from their fanatical perfections and sublime speculations, no christian society could subsist, and the nations illuminated by the gospel would return to their pristine barbarity. we should see only wild beings, broken loose from every social tie, and wandering in solitude through this vale of tears, whose only employment would be to groan, to weep, and pray, and render themselves and others wretched, in order to merit heaven. in fine, a religion whose maxims tend to render mankind in general intolerant, to make kings persecutors, and their subjects slaves or rebels; a religion, the obscure doctrines of which give birth to eternal disputes; a religion which debases mankind, and turns them aside from their true interests; such a religion, i say, is destructive to every society. chap. xv.--of the christian church, or priesthood. there have been, in all ages, men who know how to profit by the errors of mankind. priests of all religions, have laid the foundations of their greatness, power, and riches, on the fears of the vulgar. no religion has, however, had so many reasons as the christian, for subjecting people to the priesthood. the first preachers of the gospel, the apostles, are represented as divine men, inspired by god, and sharing his omnipotence. if each individual among their successors has not enjoyed the same privileges in the opinion of all christians, yet the body of priests, or church, is never abandoned by the holy ghost, but always illuminated thereby. they collectively, at all times, possess infallibility, and consequently their decisions become perpetual revelations, equally sacred with those of god himself. such being the attributes of the priesthood, this body must in virtue of the prerogatives they hold from christ himself have a right to unconditional submission from men and nations. the enormous power they have so long exercised is not, therefore, surprising. it should be unlimited, since it is founded on the authority of the almighty. it should be despotic, because men have no right to resist divine power. it must degenerate into abuse, for the priesthood is exercised by men whom impunity always renders licentious and corrupt. in the infancy of christianity, the apostles, commissioned by jesus christ, preached the gospel to jews and gentiles. the novelty of their doctrine, as we have already seen, procured them many proselytes among the vulgar. the new christians, inflamed with ardour for their new opinions, formed in every city particular congregations, under the government of men appointed by the apostles. the latter having received the faith at first hand, retained the inspection and direction of the different christian societies they had formed. such appears to have been the origin of bishops or inspectors, which are perpetuated in the church to this day; an origin in which the princes of modern christianity sufficiently pride themselves. it is known that, in this infant sect, the associates held, their goods in common. this duty appears to have been rigorously exacted; for, by the command of st. peter, two new christians were smitten to death, for having withheld some part of their own property. the funds resulting from this practice, were at the disposal of the apostles; to this, commission the bishops, inspectors, or priests succeeded, when they became successors of the apostles; and as the priests must live by the altar, we may suppose that they paid themselves, and not illiberally, for their instructions, out of the public treasury. those who attempted new spiritual conquests were, probably, obliged to content themselves with the voluntary contributions of their converts. however this may be, the treasures accumulated, through the credulous piety of the faithful, became an object of the avarice of priests, and begat discord among them. each one wished to govern, and have the disposal of the riches of the community. hence the cabals and factions which we find growing up with the church of god. the priests were always first to wander from the principles of their religion. their own ambition and avarice always contradict the disinterested maxims they teach to others. saint jerome highly disapproved the distinction of bishops and priests or curates. he pretends, that priests and bishops were according to st. paul, the same thing, before, says he, by the instigation of the devil, there were destinations in religion. at this day, bishops, who do nothing, enjoy great revenues; while innumerable curates, who labour, are dying with hunger. so long as the christian: religion was much depressed and persecuted, discordant bishops and priests combated in secret, and the noise of their quarrels did not spread far abroad. but when constantine wished to secure to himself a party, the obscurity of which had favoured its increase, until now become very numerous, the face of every thing in the church was changed. christian leaders, transformed to courtiers; and seduced by authority, fought openly. they engaged sovereigns in their quarrels, and persecuted their rivals. laden by degrees with riches and honours; they would no longer be recognized as the successors of the poor and humble apostles, sent by christ to preach his doctrine.. they became princes, and, supported, by the strongest arms, opinions, they found themselves able to give laws to nations, and put the world in confusion. under constantine the pontificate had been by a shameful imprudence separated from the empire. the emperors soon found they had cause to repent this oversight. the bishop of rome, that former mistress of the world, whose name still sounded awful in the ears of nations, knew how to make a skilful advantage of the troubles of the empire, invaded by barbarians, and the weakness of emperors, too remote to watch over his conduct. by dint of plots and intrigues, the roman pontiff at length seated himself on the throne of the cæsars. it was for him that emilius and scipio had fought. he was, in fine, looked upon in the west, as the monarch of the church, the universal bishop, the vicar of jesus. christ upon earth, and the infallible organ of god. although these haughty titles were rejected in the east, the roman, pontiff reigned, without contest, in the greater part of the christian world. he was a god upon earth; through the imbecility of kings, he became arbiter of their destinies, and founded a theocracy or divine government, of which himself was chief, and they were his lieutenants. when they had the audacity to become disobedient to him, he dethroned them, or excited their subjects to rebellion. in a word, his spiritual arms were, through a long succession of ages, stronger than the temporal ones of his opponents. nations had the stupidity to obey him, and the distribution of crowns was in his power. to secure his dominion over princes, he sowed divisions among them; and his empire would still retain its extent and vigour, if a gradual increase of knowledge had not, in spite of religious opposition, made its way among mankind, and kings, acting inconsistently with their religion, listened to ambition rather than duty. if the ministers of the church have received their power from christ himself, to resist these his representatives is, in feet, to revolt against him. kings, as well as subjects, cannot throw off allegiance to god without a crime. the spiritual authority proceeding from god, must, of right, have jurisdiction over temporal authority proceeding from man. a prince, who is a true christian, must become a servant of the church, and, at best, the first slave of the clergy. let us not, then, be surprized, that, in the ages of ignorance, priests, being most readily obeyed by people, more attached to heavenly than earthly interests, were more powerful than kings. among superstitious nations the pretended voice of god and his interests is more listened to than that of duty, justice, and reason. a good christian, piously submissive to the church, must be blind and unreasonable, whenever the church commands him to be so. the power that has a right to render us absurd, has the right to render us criminal. besides, those that derive their power from god can be subject to no other power. thus, the independence of the christian clergy is founded upon the principles of their religion. of this circumstance, they have taken care to profit, and impressed with this idea, they, after being enriched by the generosity of kings and people, have always proved ungrateful to the true sources of their own opulence and privileges. what had been given this body, through surprize or impudence, it was found impossible to recover from their hands. they foresaw, that future generations, breaking loose from the fetters of prejudice, might tear from them the donations they had gained by the extortions of terror, and the evils of imposture. they, therefore, persuaded mankind that they held from god alone what had been given them by their fellow-mortals: and by a miracle of credulity, they were believed on their word. thus the interests of the clergy became separated from those of society. men devoted to god, and chosen to be his ministers, were no longer confounded with the profane. laws and civil tribunals renounced all power over them. they could be judged only by members of their own body. hence the greatest excesses were often committed by them with impunity; and their persons, at the disposal of god alone, were sacred and inviolable. their possessions, although they contributed nothing to public charges, or, at least, no more than they pleased; were defended and enlarged by fanatic sovereigns, who hoped thereby to conciliate the favour of heaven. in fact, those reverend wolves in shepherds' clothing, under pretence of feeding with instruction, devoured with avarice, and, secure in their disguise, fattened on the blood of their flocks, unpunished and unsuspected. from their instructions for eighteen hundred years past, what advantages have nations derived? have these infallible men found it possible to agree among themselves, on the most essential points of a religion, revealed by god himself? strange, indeed, is that revelation, which needs continual commentaries, and interpretations. what must be thought of these divine writings, which every sect understands so differently? those who are incessantly fed with the gospel, do not understand these matters better, nor are they more virtuous than others. they are commanded to obey the church, and the church is never at accord with itself. she is eternally busied in reforming, explaining, pulling down, and building up her holy doctrines. her ministers have, at will, created new doctrines unknown to christ and the apostles. every age has brought forth new mysteries, new ceremonies, and new articles of faith. notwithstanding the inspirations of the holy ghost, this religion has never attained to that clearness, simplicity, and consistency, which are the only indubitable proofs of a good system. neither councils, nor canons, nor the mass of decrees and laws, which form the code of the church, have ever yet been able to fix the objects of her belief. were a sensible heathen desirous of embracing christianity, he would be, at the first step, thrown into perplexity, at the sight of the numerous variety of sects, each of which pretends to conform precisely to the word of god, and travel in the only sure road to salvation. when he finds that these different-sects regard each other with horror that they all deal out damnation: to all whose opinions differ from their own; that they all unite their efforts to banish peace-from society; that always, when power is in their hands, they persecute and inflict the most refined cruelties on each other, for which shall he determine? for, let us not be deceived--christians, not satisfied with enforcing by violence an exterior submission to the ceremonies of their religion, have invented an art unknown to heathen superstitions, that of tormenting the conscience, and exercising a tyranny over the mind itself. the zeal of the ministers of the church is not limited to exteriors; they steal into the foldings of the heart, and insolently violate the most secret sanctuaries of thought. and-for this sacrilege, their justification is a pretended interest in the salvation of souls. spoken of the romish clergy. such are the effects which necessarily result from the principles of a religion, which teaches mankind that involuntary error is a crime that merits the wrath of god. it is in consequence of such ideas, that in certain countries, priests, with the permission of the civil governments, pretend to a commission for maintaining the faith in its purity. judges in their own cause, they condemn to the flames all whose opinions appear to them dangerous. served by innumerable spies, they watch the minutest actions of the people, and inhumanly sacrifice all that have the misfortune to give them the smallest umbrage. to excite suspicions in their minds, is to rush upon inevitable destruction. such are the blessings which the holy inquisition, all mild and gentle, pours upon mankind. civil tribunals, when they are just, have a maxim to look for every thing that can contribute to the defence of the accused. in the inquisition a method directly opposite has been adopted. the accused is neither told the cause of his detention nor confronted with his accuser. he is ignorant of his crime, yet he is commanded to confess. such are the maxims of christian priests. the inquisition, however, condemns nobody to die. priests cannot themselves shed blood. that function is reserved for the secular arm; and they have even the effrontery to intercede for criminals, sure, however, of not being heard. indeed, it is probable, they would make no small clamour, should the magistrate take them at their word. this conduct becomes men in whom almighty interest stifles humanity, sincerity, and modesty. such are the principles of this sanguinary tribunal which perpetuates the ignorance and infatuation of the people wherever the false policy of governments permits its horrors to be exercised. the disputes between christian priests have been sources of animosity, hatred, and heresy. we find these to have existed from the infancy of the church. a religion founded on wonders, fables, and obscure oracles, could only be a fruitful source of quarrels. priests attended to ridiculous doctrines instead of useful knowledge; and when they should have studied true morality, and taught mankind their real duties, they only strove to gain adherents. they busied themselves in useless speculations in a barbarous and enigmatical science, which, under the pompous title of the science of god, or theology, excited in the vulgar a reverential awe. they invented a system, bigoted, presumptuous, ridiculous, and as incomprehensible as the god whom they affected to worship. hence arose disputes on disputes concerning puerile subtilties, odious questions, and arbitrary opinions, which far from being useful, only served to poison the peace of society. in these bickerings we find profound geniuses busied; and we are forced to reject the prostitution of talents worthy a better cause. the vulgar, ever fond of riot, entered into quarrels they could not understand. princes undertook the defence of the priests they wished to favour, and orthodoxy was decided by the longest sword. their assistance the church never hesitated to receive in time of danger; for on such occasions the church relies rather on human assistance than the promise of god, who declared that the sceptre of the wicked should not rest upon the lot of the righteous. the heroes, found in the annals of the church, have been obstinate fanatics, factious rebels, or furious persecutors. they were monsters of madness, faction, and cruelty. the world in the days of our ancestors, was depopulated in defence of extravagancies which excite laughter in a posterity, not indeed much wiser than they were. in almost all ages complaints have been made of abuses in the church, and reformation has been talked of. notwithstanding this pretended reform, in the head, and in the members of the church, it has always been corrupted. avaricious, turbulent, and seditious priests have made nations to groan under the weight of their vices, while princes were too weak to reclaim them to reason. the divisions and quarrels which took place among those ecclesiastical tyrants did indeed at length diminish the weight of the yoke they had imposed on kings and nations. the empire of the roman pontiff, which endured many ages, was at last shaken by irritated enthusiasts, and rebellious subjects, who presumed to examine the rights of this formidable despot. some princes, weary of their slavery and poverty, readily embraced opinions which would authorise them to enrich themselves with the spoils of the clergy. thus the unity of the church was destroyed, sects were multiplied, and each fought for the defence of his own system. these founders of these new sects were treated by the roman pontiff as innovators, heretics, and blasphemers. they, it is true, renounced some of their old opinions; but content with having made a few steps towards reason, they dared not to shake off entirely the yoke of superstition. they continued to respect the sacred writ of the christian, which they still looked upon as the only faithful guide. upon them they pretended to found all their opinions. in fine, these books, in which every man may find what he pleases, as they became more common from time to time, produced new sects. men were lost in a dark labyrinth, where each one groped his way in error, and yet judged all but himself to be wrong. the leaders of these sects, the pretended reformers of the church, gained but a glimpse at the truth, and attended to nothing but minutiae. they continued to respect the sacred oracles of the christians, and believe in their cruel and capricious god. they admitted their extravagant mythology, and most of their unreasonable doctrines. in fine, although they rejected some mysteries that were incomprehensible, they admitted others not less so. let us not be surprized, therefore, that, notwithstanding these reforms, fanaticism, controversy, persecution, and war, continued to rage throughout europe. the reveries of innovators only served to plunge nations into new misfortunes. blood continued to stream, and people grew neither more reasonable nor more happy. priests of all sects have ever wished to govern mankind and impose on them their decisions as infallible and sacred. they were always persecutors when in power, involved nations in their fury, and shook the world by their fatal opinions. the spirit of intolerance and persecution will ever be the essence of every sect founded on the bible. a mild and humane religion can never belong to a partial and cruel god? whom the opinion of men can fill with wrath. wherever christian sects exist, priests will exercise a power which may prove fatal to the state, and bodies of fanatical enthusiasts will be formed, always ready to rush to slaughter, when their spiritual guides cry, the church or the cause of god is in danger. thus, in christian countries, we see the temporal power servilely submissive to the clergy, executing their commands, exterminating their enemies, and supporting their rights, riches, and immunities. in almost all nations where the church prevails, the most idle, useless, seditious, and dangerous men are most liberally honoured and rewarded. superstition thinks she can never do enough for the ministers of her gods. these sentiments are the same in all sects. priests every where endeavour to instil them into kings, and to make policy bend to religion, in doing which they often oppose the best institutions. they in all places aim at the superintendance of education, and they fill their adherents with their fatal prejudices from their infancy. except the quaker. it is, however, in places that remained subject to the roman pontiff, that the clergy have wallowed in the greatest profusion of riches and power. credulity has even enlisted kings among their subjects, and debased them into mere executioners of their will. they were in readiness to unsheath the sword whenever the priest commanded it. the monarchs of the roman sect, blinder than all others, had an unbounded confidence in the clergy of their church that generally rendered them mere tools of that body. this sect, by means of furious intoleration and atrocious persecutions, became more numerous than any other one; and their turbulent and cruel temper has justly rendered them odious to the most reasonable, that is to say, least christian nations. the romish system was, in fact, invented to throw all the power into the hands of the clergy. its priests have had the address to identify themselves with god. their cause was always his; their glory became the glory of god. their decisions were divine oracles; their possessions appertained to the kingdom of heaven. their pride, avarice, and cruelty, were rendered lawful, because they were never actuated by other motives than the interest of their heavenly master. in this sect, the priest saw his king at his feet, humbly confessing his sins, and beseeching the holy man that he might be reconciled to his god. seldom was the priest known to render his sacred ministry subservient to the good of mankind. he thought not of reproaching monarchs with the abuse of their power, the misery of their subjects, and the tears of the oppressed. too timid, or too much of a courtier to thunder truth in their ears, he mentioned not to them the insupportable oppressions, the galling tyranny, and useless wars under which their subjects groaned. but such objects never interest the church, which might indeed be of some utility, if its influence were exercised in bridling the excesses of superstitious tyrants. the terrors of the other world would not be unpardonable falsehoods, could they make the herd of wicked kings to tremble. this, however, has not been the object of the ministers of religion. they never stickled for the interest of mankind. they always burned incense at the altar of tyranny, looked upon its crimes with indulgence, and devised for them easy means of expiation. tyrants were sure of the pardon and favour of heaven, if they entered warmly into the quarrels of the clergy. thus, among the catholics, priests governed kings, and consequently all their subjects. superstition and despotism formed an internal alliance, and united their efforts, to plunge mankind into slavery and wretchedness. priests frightened nations with religious terror, that they might be preyed upon by their sovereigns at leisure; and, in return, those sovereigns loaded the priests with opulence and power, and undertook, from time to time, to exterminate their enemies. what shall we say of those subtle geniuses which christians call casuists, those pretended moralists who have computed the number of sins against god which a man can commit without risking his salvation? these men of profound wisdom have enriched christian morality with a ridiculous tarif of sins; they know precisely the degree of wrath which each excites in the breast of the almighty. true morality has but one criterion for judging the sins of man; the greatest are those that injure society most. the conduct which injures ourselves is imprudent and unreasonable. that which injures others is unjust and criminal. every thing, even to idleness itself, is rewarded in christian priests. multitudes of these drones are maintained in ease and affluence, while, instead of serving society, they only prey upon it. they are paid with profusion for useless prayers which they make with negligence. and while monks and lazy priests, those blood-suckers of society, wallow in an abundance shameful to the states by whom they are tolerated, the man of talents, the man of science, and the brave soldier are suffered to languish in indigence, and poorly exist on the mere necessaries of life. in a word, christianity makes nations accomplices in all the evils which are heaped upon them by the clergy. neither the uselessness of their prayers demonstrated by the experience of so many ages, the bloody effects of their fatal controversies, nor even their licentious excesses, have yet been sufficient to convince mankind how shamefully they are duped by that infallible church, to the existence of which, they have had the simplicity to believe, their salvation. chap. xvi.--conclusion. all which has hitherto been said, demonstrates, in the clearest manner, that the christian religion is contrary to true policy, and the welfare of mankind. it can be advantageous only to ignorant and vicious princes, who are desirous to reign over slaves, and who, in order to strip and tyrannize over them with impunity, form a league with the priesthood, whose function it has ever been to deceive in the name of heaven. but such imprudent princes should remember, that, in order to succeed in their projects, they must themselves become the slaves of the priesthood, who (should the former fail in due submission, or refuse to be subservient to their passions) will infallibly turn their sacred arms against their royal heads. we have seen, above, that the christian religion is not, on account of its fanatic virtues, blind zeal, and pretended perfections, the less injurious to sound morality, right reason, the happiness of individuals, and domestic harmony. it is easy to perceive that a christian, who proposes to himself as a model, a gloomy and suffering god, must take pains to afflict and render himself wretched. if this world be only a passage, if this life be only a pilgrimage, it must be ridiculous for a man to attach himself to any thing here below. if his god be offended with either the actions or opinions of his fellow-creatures, he must do every thing in his power to punish them with severity, or be wanting in zeal and affection to his god. a good christian must fly the world, or become a torment to himself and others. these reflections are sufficient to answer those who pretend that the christian religion is the foundation of true policy and morality, and that where it is not professed, there can be neither good men nor good citizens. the converse of this proposition is undoubtedly much truer; for we may assert, that a perfect christian, who conforms to all the principles of his religion, who faithfully imitates the divine men proposed to him as a model, and practises their austerities in solitude, or carries their fanatic enthusiasm and bigotry into society, must be either useless to mankind, or a troublesome and dangerous citizen. the clergy incessantly cry out against unbelievers and philosophers, whom they style dangerous subjects. yet, if we open history, we do not find that philosophers are those who have embroiled states and empires; but that such events' have generally been produced by the religious. the dominican, who poisoned the emperor henry xi. james clement, and ruvaillac, were not unbelievers. they were not philosophers, but fanatic christians. were we to believe the advocates of the christian religion, it would appear, that no morality can exist where this religion is not established. yet we may perceive, at a single glance, that there are virtues in every corner of the earth. no political society could exist without them. among the chinese, the indians, and the mahometans, there are, undoubtedly, good citizens, tender fathers, affectionate husbands, and dutiful children. and good people there, as well as with us, would be more numerous, if they were governed by a wise policy, which, instead of causing children to be taught a senseless religion, should give them equitable laws, teach them a pure morality uncontaminated with fanaticism, deter them from vice by suitable punishments, and invite them to the practice of virtue by proper rewards. in truth, it seems (i repeat it) that religion has been invented to relieve governments from the care of being just, and reigning over equitable laws. religion is the art of inspiring mankind with an enthusiasm, which is designed to divert their attention from the evils with which they are overwhelmed by those who govern them. by means of the invisible powers with which they are threatened, they are forced to suffer in silence the miseries with which they are afflicted by visible ones. they are taught to hope that, if they consent to become miserable in this world, they will for that reason be happy in the next. thus religion has become the most powerful support of a shameful and iniquitous policy, which holds it necessary to deceive mankind, that they may the more easily be governed. far from enlightened and virtuous governments be resources so base! let them learn their true interests, and know that these cannot be separated from that of the people. let them know that no state can be truly potent, except the citizens who compose it be courageous, active, industrious, virtuous, and attached to their government. let governments know, that the attachment of their constituents can have no other foundation than the happiness which the former procures the latter. if governments were penetrated with these important truths, they would need the aid of neither religion nor priests. let them be just and equitable---let them be careful to reward talents and virtue, to discourage inutility and punish vice, and their states will soon be filled with worthy and sensible citizens, who will feel it their own interest to serve and defend their country, and support the government which is the instrument of their felicity. they will do their duties, without the influence of revelation, or mysteries of paradise or hell. morality will be preached in vain, if it is not supported by the example of influential characters. it belongs to magistrates to teach morality, by practising it, by inciting to virtue, and repressing vice in every form. their power is weakened the moment they suffer a power to arise, in the state, whose influence is exerted to render morality subservient to superstition and fanaticism. in states where education is entrusted to a fanatic, enthusiastic clergy, we find citizens overwhelmed with superstition, and destitute of every virtue, except a blind faith, a ferocious zeal, a ridiculous submission to puerile ceremonies, and, in one word, fantastic notions, which never render them better men. notwithstanding the happy influences attributed to the christian religion, do we find more virtues in those who profess it, than in those who are strangers to it? are the men, redeemed by the blood of even a deity, more honest than others? among christians, impressed with their religion, one would imagine we should search in vain for rapine, fornication, adultery, and oppression. among the orthodox courtiers, who surround christian thrones, do we see intrigues, calumny, or perfidy? among the clergy, who announce to others such redoubtable dogmas, and such terrible chastisements, do we find crimes that shun the day, and every species of iniquity? all these men are christians, who, unbridled by their religion, continually violate the plainest duties of morality, and knowingly offend a god, whom they are conscious of having irritated. yet they flatter themselves that they shall be able, by a tardy repentance at death, to appease that divine justice which they have insulted during the whole course of their lives. in the mean time, we shall not deny, that the christian religion sometimes proves a restraint to timorous minds, which are incapable of that fanaticism, and destitute of that destructive energy, which lead to the commission of great crimes. but such minds would have been honest and harmless without this restraint. the fear of rendering themselves odious to mankind, of incurring contempt, and losing their reputation, would have been a chain of equal strength, on the actions of such men. those who are so blind as to tread these considerations under foot, would never be deterred from it by the menaces of religion. every man, who has received a proper education, experiences within himself a painful sentiment of mingled shame and fear, whenever he soils himself with the guilt of a dishonest action. he even condemns himself frequently, with greater severity than others do. he dreads, and shuns the eyes of his fellow-creatures; he even wishes to fly from himself. this is what constitutes remorse. in a word, christianity puts no restraint upon the passions of mankind, which might not be more efficaciously applied to them by reason, education, and sound morality. if the wicked were sure of being punished, as often as they think of committing dishonest actions, they would be forced to desist. in a society well constituted, contempt will always follow vice, and crimes will produce punishment. education, guided only by the good of society, ought ever to teach mankind to esteem themselves, to dread the contempt of others, and fear infamy more than death itself. but this kind of morality can never be consistent with a religion which commands men to despise themselves, avoid the esteem of others, and attempt to please only a god, whose conduct is inexplicable. in fine, if the christian religion be, as is pretended, a restraint to the crimes of men, if it produces salutary effects on some individuals; can these advantages, so rare, so weak and doubtful, be compared with the evident and immense evils which this religion has produced on the earth? can some few trifling crimes prevented, some conversions useless to society, some sterile and tardy repentances, enter into the balance against the continual dissensions, bloody wars, horrid massacres, persecutions, and cruelties, of which the christian religion has been a continual cause and pretext? for one secret sinful thought suppressed by it, there are even whole nations armed for reciprocal destruction; the hearts of millions of fanatics are inflamed; families and states are plunged into confusion; and the earth is bedewed with tears and blood. after this, let common sense decide the magnitude of the advantages which mankind derive; from the glad tidings which christians pretend to have received from their god. witness, even in this enlightened age, the holy crusade against france, for the purpose of restoring the christian religion. many honest people, although not ignorant of the ills produced among mankind by this religion, nevertheless consider it a necessary evil, and think it dangerous to attempt to uproot it. mankind, say they, are naturally superstitious; they must be amused, with chimeras, and become outrageous when deprived of them. but, i answer, mankind are superstitious only because, in infancy, every thing contributes to render them so. he is led to expect his happiness, from, chimeras, because he is forbidden to seek for it from realities. in fine, it is for philosophers and for magistrates to conduct mankind back, to reason. the former will obtain the confidence and love of the latter, when they endeavour to promote the public good. undeceived themselves, they may undeceive others by degrees. governments will prevent superstition from doing harm, when they despise it and stand aloof from its ridiculous disputes. when they tolerate all sects, and side with none, those sects, after quarrelling awhile, will drop their masks, and become contemptible even to themselves. superstition falls beneath its own weight when, freedom of conscience being restored to mankind, reason is at liberty to attack their follies. true toleration and freedom of thought are the most proper instruments for the destruction of religious fanaticism. imposture is in nature timid, and when she finds herself confronted with truth, her arms fall from her hands. if a criminal and undiscerning policy has, hitherto, in almost all parts of the earth, had recourse to the aid of religion, to enslave mankind and render them miserable, let a virtuous and more enlightened policy hereafter destroy it by little and little to render them happy. if education has hitherto formed enthusiasts and fanatics, let it be hereafter calculated to form good citizens. if a morality founded on miracles, and looking to futurity, has been unable to restrain the passions of mankind, let a morality established upon their present and real wants demonstrate that, in a well constituted society, happiness is always the reward of virtue: shame, contempt, and punishment the companions of vice, and the wages of sin. if error be an evil, to it let truth be opposed. if enthusiasm produce disorders in society, let it be suppressed. let us leave to asia a religion begotten by the ardent imaginations of the orientals. let our milder climates be more reasonable, more free, and more happy. let us make them the residence of honesty, activity, industry, social affections, and exalted minds. may not reason be permitted to hope, that she shall one day re-assume the power so long usurped from her by error, illusion, and deceit? when will nations renounce chimerical hopes, to contemplate their true interests? will they never shake off the yokes of those hypocritical tyrants, who are interested only in the errors of mankind? let us hope it. truth must at last triumph over falsehood.--mankind, fatigued with their own credulity, will return to her arms.--reason will break their chains--reason, which was created to reign, with undivided empire, over all intelligent beings. amen. the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate." in twelve volumes, volume x. legal dresden edition contents of volume x. address to the jury in the munn trial. demoralization caused by alcohol--note from the chicago _times_--prejudice--review of the testimony of jacob rehm--perjury characterized--the defendant and the offence charged (p. )--testimony of golsen reviewed--rehm's testimony before the grand jury--good character (p. )--suspicion not evidence. closing address to the jury in the first star route trial. note from the washington _capital_--the assertion denied that we are a demoralized country and that our country is distinguished among the nations only for corruption--duties of jurors and duties of lawyers--section under which the indictment is found--cases cited to show that overt acts charged and also the crime itself must be proved as described--routes upon which indictments are based and overt acts charged (pp. - )--routes on which the making of false claims is alleged--authorities on proofs of conspiracy (pp. - )--examination of the evidence against stephen w. and john w. dorsey (pp. - )--the corpus delicti in a case of conspiracy and the acts necessary to be done in order to establish conspiracy (pp. - )--testimony of walsh and the confession of rerdell--extravagance in mail carrying (p. )--productiveness of mail routes (p. )--hypothesis of guilt and law of evidence--dangerous influence of suspicion--terrorizing the jury--the woman at her husband's side. opening address to the jury in the second star route trial. juries the bulwark of civil liberty--suspicion not evidence--brief statement of the case--john m. peck, john w. dorsey, stephen w. dorsey, john r. miner, mr. (a. e. ) boone (p.p. - )--the clendenning bonds--miner's, peck's, and dorsey's bids--why they bid on cheap routes--number of routes upon which there are indictments--the arrangement between stephen w. dorsey and john r. miner--appearance of mr. vaile in the contracts--partnership formed--the routes divided--senator dorsey's course after getting the routes--his routes turned over to james w. bosler--profits of the business (p. )--the petitions for more mails--productive and unproductive post-offices--men who add to the wealth of the world--where the idea of the productiveness of post routes was hatched--cost of letters to recipients in --the overland mail (p. )--loss in distributing the mail in the district of columbia and other territories--post-office the only evidence of national beneficence--profit and loss of mail carrying--orders antedated, and why--routes increased and expedited--additional bonds for additional trips--the charge that pay was received when the mail was not carried--fining on shares--subcontracts for less than the original contracts--pay on discontinued routes--alleged false affidavits--right of petition--reviewing the ground. closing address to the jury in the second star route trial. scheme of the indictment--story of the case--what constitutes fraudulent bidding--how a conspiracy must be proved--the hypothesis of guilt and law of evidence--conversation unsatisfactory evidence--fallibility of memory--proposition to produce mr. dorsey's books--interruption of the court to decide that primary evidence, having once been refused, can not afterwards be introduced to contradict secondary evidence--a defendant may not be presumed into the penitentiary--a decision by justice field--the right of petition--was there a conspiracy?--dorsey's benevolence (p. )--the chico springs letter--evidence of moore reviewed--mr. ker's defective memory--the informer system--testimony of rerdell reviewed--his letter to dorsey (p. )--the affidavit of rerdell and dorsey--petitions for faster time--uncertainty regarding handwriting--government should be incapable of deceit--rerdell's withdrawal of the plea of not guilty (p. )--informers, their immunity and evidence--nailing down the lid of rerdell's coffin--mistakes of messrs. ker and merrick and the court--letter of h. m. vaile to the sixth auditor--miner's letter to carey--miner, peck & co. to frank a. tuttle--answering points raised by mr. bliss ( et seq.)--evidence regarding the payment of money by dorsey to brady--a. e. boone's testimony reviewed--secrecy of contractors regarding the amount of their bids--boone's partnership agreement with dorsey--explanation of bids in different names--omission of instructions from proposals (p. )--accusation that senator mitchell was the paid agent of the defendants--alleged sneers at things held sacred--what is a conspiracy?--the theory that there was a conspiracy--dorsey's alleged interest--the two affidavits in evidence--inquiry of general miles--why the defendant's books were not produced--tames w. bosler's testimony read (p. )--the court shown to be mistaken regarding a decision previously made (pp. - )--no logic in abuse--charges against john w. miner--testimony of a. w. moore reviewed-the verdict predicted--the defendants in the case--what is left for the jury to say--remarks of messrs. henkle and davidge--the verdict. address to the jury in the davis will case. note from the anaconda _standard_--senator sander's warning to the jury not to be enticed by sinners--evidence, based on quality of handwriting, that davis did not write the will--evidence of the spelling--assertion that the will was forged--peculiarities of eddy's handwriting--holes in sconce's signature and reputation--his memory--business sagacity of davis--his alleged children--date of his death--testimony of mr. knight--ink used in writing the will--expert evidence--speechlessness of john a. davis--eddy's failure to take the stand--testimony of carruthers--relatives of sconce--mary ann davis's connections--the family tree--the signature of the will--what the evidence shows--duty and opportunity of the jury. argument before the vice-chancellor in the russell case. antenuptial waiving of dower by women--a case from illinois--at what age men and women cease to feel the tender flame--russell's bargain with mrs. russell--antenuptial contract and parole agreement--definition of "liberal provision "--the woman not bound by a contract made in ignorance of the facts--contract destroyed by deception. address to the jury in the munn trial. * the united states vs. daniel w. munn, deputy supervisor of internal revenue, who was indicted under section of the revised statutes of the united states. there was an unusual rush to obtain admission to the united states district courtroom yesterday to listen to the closing arguments of counsel in the munn whiskey conspiracy trial which has attracted so much attention during the past ten days. the stalwart deputy who guards the entrance to this judicial precinct was compelled to employ his entire strength and power of persuasion to keep the eager, anxious crowd from trespassing on the convenience and dignity of the court. about ten o'clock the court took the bench, and col. ingersoll walked into the room, took off a broad-brimmed felt hat, which gives the barrister, while he has it on, somewhat the appearance of a full-grown, well-developed quaker in good standing in the society to which he belongs. when he has the hat removed, however, the counsellor's appearance undergoes a marked change. he then looks like the crop-haired follower of the house of montague in the shakespearean play. he sat down on a crazy old chair which threatened every moment to break down beneath his weight, and listened to the remarks of judge doolittle for the remainder of the morning, until it came his time to talk. colonel ingersoll never troubles himself to take notes of anything. what he cannot recollect he does not have any use for. judge doolittle occupied the morning session until the time for adjournment at one o'clock, with a review of the case on the side of the defence. he was followed by mr. ingersoll in the afternoon. at two o' clock the court-room was more crowded than before, and at that hour mr. ingersoll appeared in the forum and delivered his speech in behalf of the defendant.--the times, chicago, ills., may , . if the court please and the gentlemen of the jury: out of an abundance of caution and, as it were, an extravagance of prudence, i propose to make a few remarks to you in this case. the evidence has been gone over by my associates, and arguments have been submitted to you which, in my judgment, are perfectly convincing as far as the innocence of this defendant is concerned. i am aware, however, that there is a prejudice against a case of this character. i am aware that there is a prejudice against any man engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. i know there is a prejudice against a case of this kind; and there is a very good reason for it. i believe to a certain degree with the district attorney in this case, who has said that every man who makes whiskey is demoralized. i believe, gentlemen, to a certain degree, it demoralizes those who make it, those who sell it, and those who drink it. i believe from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm of the distillery, until it empties into the hell of crime, dishonor, and death, that it demoralizes everybody that touches it. i do not believe anybody can contemplate the subject without becoming prejudiced against this liquid crime. all we have to do, gentlemen, is to think of the wrecks upon either bank of the stream of death--of the suicides, of the insanity, of the poverty, of the ignorance, of the distress, of the little children tugging at the faded dresses of weeping and despairing wives, asking for bread; of the men of genius it has wrecked; the millions struggling with imaginary serpents produced by this devilish thing. and when you think of the jails, of the almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, of the scaffolds upon either bank--i do not wonder that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against the damned stuff called alcohol. and i know that we, to a certain degree, have to fight that prejudice in this case; and so i say, for this reason among others, i deem it proper that i should submit to you, gentlemen, the ideas that occur to my mind upon this subject. it may be proper for me to say here that i thank you, one and all, for the patience you have shown during this trial. you have patiently heard this testimony; you have patiently given your attention, i believe, to every word that has fallen from the lips of these witnesses, and for one i am grateful to you for it. now, gentlemen, understanding that there is this prejudice, knowing at the time the case commenced that it existed, i asked each one of you if there was any prejudice in your minds which in your judgment would prevent your giving a fair and candid verdict in this case, and you all, honestly, i know, replied that there was not. the district attorney, judge bangs, stated to you in the opening of this case, for the purpose of preparing your minds for the examination of this testimony, that you must, first of all, divest your minds of sympathy. i do not say that, gentlemen, neither would i say it were i the attorney of the government of the united states, but i do say this: divest yourselves of prejudice if you have it, but do not, gentlemen, divest yourselves of sympathy. what is the great distinguishing characteristic of man? what is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals--from the beasts? more, i say, than anything else, human sympathy--human sympathy. were it not for sympathy, gentlemen, the idea of justice never would have entered the human brain. this thing called sympathy is the mother of justice, and although justice has been painted blind, never has she been represented as heartless until so represented by the district attorney in this case. i tell you there is no more sacred, no more holy, and no purer thing than what you and i call sympathy; and the man who is unsympathetic is not a man. gentlemen, the white breast of the lily is filthy as compared to the human heart perfumed with love and sympathy. i do not want you to divest yourselves of sympathy, neither do i want you to try the case entirely upon sympathy, but i want you sympathetic enough to put yourselves honestly in the place of this defendant. now, gentlemen, as a matter of fact, this case resolves itself into simply one point; all the rest is nothing; all the rest is the merest fog that can be brushed from the mind with a wave of the hand, and it is all resolved down to simply one point, and that is: is jacob rehin worthy of credit? has jacob rehm told against this defendant a true story? now, that is all there is in this case. the other points that they raise, and which i shall allude to before i get through, are valuable only as they cast a certain amount of suspicion upon the defendant, but the real point is, and the attorneys for the government know it, is mr. jacob rehm's story worthy of credit? did he tell the truth? judge bangs felt that was the only question, and for that reason, in advance, he defended the reputation of jacob rehm for truth and veracity; and he made to the jury this remarkable statement: "the reputation of jacob rehm for truth and veracity is good. it spreads all over the city of chicago like sunlight." that was the statement made by the district attorney of the united states. i do not believe that he would swear to that part of his speech. it was an insult to every person on this jury. it was an insult to this court; it was an insult to the intelligence of every bystander, that the reputation of jacob rehm spread like sunlight all over the city of chicago! my god! what kind of sunlight do you mean? think of it! now, then, gentlemen, he knew it was necessary to defend the character of mr. rehm; he knew it was necessary to defend that statement. he knew that the testimony of mr. rehm was the only nail upon which the jury could possibly hang a verdict of guilty in this case. and now i propose to examine a little the testimony of mr. jacob rehm. i believe it was stated by judge bangs that one of the best tests of truth was that a lie was at war with all the facts in the universe, and that every fact standing, as it were, on guard, was a member of the police of the universe to arrest all lies. let me state another truth. every fact in the universe will fit every other fact in the universe. a lie never did, never will, fit anything but another lie made to fit it. never, never! a lie is unnatural. a lie, in the nature of things, is a monstrosity. a lie is no part of the great circle, including the universe within its grasp, and consequently, as i said before, will fit nothing except another lie. now, then, to examine the testimony of a witness, you examine into its naturalness, into its probability, because you expect another man to act something as you would under the same circumstances. we have no other way to judge other people except by our own experience and an authenticated record of the experience of others, consequently, when a man is telling a story, you have to apply to it the test of your own experience, and as i say the recorded tests of other honest men. now, let us suppose just for a moment that the testimony of mr. jacob rehm is true. let us suppose it. it has been stated to you, and admirably stated, by judge doolittle,--admirably stated,--that it was the height of absurdity to suppose that a man would do as he did for nothing. but let me put it in another light somewhat. according to the testimony of mr. jacob rehm, he first tried to stop this stealing. nobody offered him any money to stop it, but he simply went to the collector, irwin, and said they were stealing, and that it must be stopped; and thereupon collector irwin changed the gaugers for the purpose of stopping the stealing. a few days thereafter, somebody came to him and wanted the stealing to commence, and he told them they would have to pay for it, and the amount they would have to pay for it, and he then went to collector irwin, whom he supposed at that time to be a perfectly honest and upright man, and told him, in short, that they wanted to steal, and would give five hundred dollars a month. irwin said, "go ahead." he admits that they did steal. he admits that they made a bargain with him. he admits that that happened, and he assigned all these gaugers and store-keepers. he admits that he did that for two years. he admits that he received at least one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of this money. he admits that in order to carry out this scheme he knew that every distiller would have to sign a lie every time he made a report to the government. he admits that he knew every gauger would have to swear to a lie at the end of every month in his report of the transactions of each day. he admits that every store-keeper would be guilty of perjury every time he made a report. he admits that he knew that the thing that he was committing for two years was a daily penitentiary offence. he admits that he put himself in the power of all these gaugers and all these store-keepers, and all these distillers and rectifiers,--put it in their power to have him arrested for a penitentiary offence at any moment during the whole two years, and yet he tells you that he did this absolutely for nothing! he tells you every cent he received he divided and paid over; that he never kept a solitary dollar, except it may be for a box of cigars. i want the attorney for the government to tell this jury that he believes that story. and if he does tell you so, gentlemen, i will give you notice now that you need not believe any other word mr. ayer says--if he says he believes that. now, then, what more? he knew that all these men were committing these penitentiary offences, and that he was putting himself in the power of all these men; and what was his motive? what, gentlemen, was his object? it is impossible for me to imagine. if he got no money, if he made nothing out of this transaction, it is impossible for me to imagine why he embarked in such a course of crime. why then did he say to you, gentlemen, that he paid all this money over? it was to build up a reputation with you. it was to make you think that whereas he paid this all over, that whereas he did all this business simply to accommodate his friends, that he was worthy of credit in his statement of this case. he told you that he did not keep a dollar simply to make a reputation with you. what did he want a reputation with you for? so that he would be believed. and what did he want to be believed for? so that he could send munn to the penitentiary and, as the price of munn's incarceration, get his own liberty. that is the reason he swore it, and there is no other reason in the world. is it probable a man would commit all these crimes for nothing? is it possible that he would hire and bribe other men to commit these crimes for nothing? i ask you; i ask your common sense; i appeal to your brains: is it probable that he would do all that absolutely for nothing? is it probable he would lay himself liable to the penitentiary every hour in the day for two years for nothing? there is and can be but one answer to such a question as that. why, gentlemen, if his statement is true that he did all this for nothing, he is the most disinterested villain, the most self-sacrificing and self-denying thief of which the history of the world gives any record. is it possible? is it possible, i say, that a man would make himself the sewer of all the official rot in this city, in which was deposited the excrement of frauds? is it possible he would turn himself into a scavenger cart into which should be thrown all the moral offal of the city of chicago for nothing? whoever answers that question in the affirmative is, in my judgment, an idiot. nobody can. nobody has a mind so constructed that it can lodge an affirmative answer to that question within its brain. what next? he tells you that munn was in this plot; and that he, mr. rehm, at the same time was selling protection to these distillers. no distillers--and you know it--would have given him ten dollars a barrel unless they expected protection. he then was engaged in the sale of protection, was he not? did you ever know of a vender crying down his own wares? did you ever hear of a merchant crying down the quality of the cloth he wished to sell? did you ever hear of a grocery man endeavoring to cry down that which he wished you to buy? jacob rehm was selling protection at ten dollars a barrel, and sometimes asking twelve dollars and fifty cents. was it not natural for him to endeavor to convince distillers that he had plenty of protection to sell? was it not natural for him to make the distillers believe, "if you will give me ten dollars a barrel you will have perfect protection"? would it be natural for him to say, "i will protect you for ten dollars a barrel, and yet i have none of the officers in my pay"? they would say, "what kind of protection have you got, sir?" would it not be natural for him to make out his protection as good as he possibly could? would it not be natural for him to tell you, "i have got all these officers on my side, from the lowest gauger to the gentleman who presides over the internal revenue department at the city of washington"? the more protection he had the more money he could get, and consequently it would not be natural for him to cry down his own protection. if mr. munn was in it, and if mr. munn at that time was the superior officer of the collector, and this man had protection to sell, would he not have said that munn was also in the ring? when he was trying to sell protection to george burrows at ten dollars a barrel, george burrows asked him if munn was in the ring and he said he was not. if mr. munn had been why didn't he say that munn was? for the reason that that would make his protection appear to be of a better quality, and he could have sold it at a better price. but he said "no," and that they did not need him, because they could manage him, and fool him through this man bridges, and you will recollect that bridges was appointed directly by the government and not by munn; and bridges reported directly to the government and not to munn. he had nothing to do with him one way or the other, except that they were both in the revenue department. now, i say if it is possible that a man can cry down his own wares that he wishes to sell, then you may say that the statement of rehm is natural. now, gentlemen, why should he inform burrows that munn was about to make a visit here? in order that burrows might have an opportunity to have his house put in order. why should he have sent notices to other distillers that munn was coming? why should he tell them to put their houses in order? so as to be ready for a visit from mr. munn. it may be that the counsel for the government will say, "this shows the infinite fidelity of this infinite rascal." now, i will come to this part of my argument again, but the next thing i will speak of is his story, where he says that he actually paid the money to munn himself, and if there is anything left of that after i get through with it you are at perfect liberty to find the defendant guilty. you must recollect that he had a bargain. now, according to his story, he paid this money to bridges. you must recollect, according to his story, that munn at that time was one of the conspirators, had been receiving money--a half of thirty-five thousand dollars or forty-five thousand dollars having gone into his pocket. recollect that. he goes over one day to the rectifying-house of roelle & junker, and there are some barrels found, the stamps of which had not been scratched. mr. munn was assured by roelle that there was no fraud. roelle still swears that there was no fraud. he was afterward assured by junker that there was no fraud. junker still swears that there was no fraud. now, what does rehm come in to swear? rehm says that bridges came to him and told him that munn was going to make trouble--going to make trouble about these barrels that had the stamps on that were not scratched off. why did not rehm say to him, "how is he going to make a fuss? he has got twenty thousand dollars of money already. he is in the conspiracy. he is a nice man to make a fuss! what is he going to make a fuss about?" would it not have been just as likely that bridges should have made a fuss as that munn should have made it? bridges, according to the testimony of your immaculate witness, was in this no more than munn--not one particle. and why was munn going to make trouble? mr. rehm has endeavored to answer that question. mr. rehm then goes to munn, sent there by bridges--it would be very hard to find out why he did not give the money to bridges,--but he went to munn and says: "you are going to make some trouble about what you found at roelle & junker's?" "yes." "why?" "because," he says, "the men at work there--the persons employed there--will make a fuss about it, but they will see it and say that it is overlooked." now, that is the reason that rehm puts in the mouth of the defendant. afterward he goes himself to junker and advises him to give him five hundred dollars, and junker proposes one thousand dollars, and gives him one thousand dollars, and then he sends for munn and he comes to his office, and he hands him one thousand dollars. now, gentlemen, the reason munn gave was that the men there would notice it and make a disturbance about it. well, then, why not pay the men? what is the use of paying munn? if this was done to prevent the men working at the rectifying-house from making trouble, why not pay the men? why not pay the men who were going to make the trouble? why give an extra thousand dollars to a conspirator to whom you had already given twenty thousand dollars, and who, at that time, according to the testimony of rehm, was officially rotten? why not give the money to men who were going to make the trouble? and the next question is this--and if you will recollect the testimony of roelle, he swears that when the defendant came to the rectifying-house, he (roelle) was alone. he swears that he was alone. he swears that all the rest had gone to dinner, and according to roelle's testimony there was nobody there but himself. where were the men that were going to make this disturbance? where were the men that were going to notice this oversight? where were the men that were going to stir up difficulties at washington or any other place? according to the testimony of roelle those people were at dinner, and where, gentlemen, is the philosophy of that lie which they have told? where is it? why should he have paid munn money? why didn't he pay it to bridges? if it was for the purpose of stopping the men from making trouble, why not pay it to the men they wished to stop? i ask the gentlemen to answer that question. i ask the gentlemen to tell us what men were in danger of making this trouble? was it the gauger who received six hundred dollars a month for being a liar and a thief? was it the book-keeper who, every report that he made, swore to a lie? was there any danger of these liars and of these thieves making a fuss on their own account? was there any danger of that gauger stopping his own pay? was there any danger of that book-keeper trying to throw himself out of employment? was there any danger of any thief or of any conspirator saying anything calculated to bring this rascality to the surface? if a bribed gauger would not tell it; if a bribed book-keeper would not tell it, i ask the attorney-general for the government, would munn tell it, who had received, according to your evidence, over twenty thousand dollars of fraudulent money? was there any danger of munn turning state's evidence against himself? was there not just as much danger of bridges making a fuss as munn? was there not, according to their testimony, the same danger of rehm himself going to washington as there would be of a bribed gauger, and of a lying book-keeper? gentlemen, your story won't hang together. there is no philosophy in it, and it will not fit anything except another lie made on purpose to fit it; and it has got to be made by a better mechanic than jacob rehm. now, then, gentlemen, what more? the district attorney told you, and i was astonished when he told it--i was astonished--he said that the testimony of jacob rehm was not impeached; that, on the contrary, it was sustained by these other witnesses. had he made such a statement under oath i am afraid an indictment for perjury would lie. he said that the testimony had been sustained rather than impeached. how sustained? "mr. rehm, did you ever give mr. burroughs notice that mr. munn was coming in order that he might put his house in order?" mr. rehm says, "no." we then asked mr. burroughs, "did mr. rehm ever give you such notice?" and he corroborates mr. rehm by saying "yes," if that is what you call corroboration. "did you tell mr. hesing that munn was not in it?" "i did not." "mr. hesing, did mr. rehm tell you that munn was not in it." "he did." that is another instance of the attorney's idea of corroboration. "did you tell hesing that hoyt was innocent?" "i did not." "mr. hesing, did mr. rehm tell you that hoyt was innocent?" "he did." another corroboration. "did you tell him that munn never was in it--that munn was innocent?" "no." we then asked him, "did he tell you that?" "he did." we say to burroughs, "in , in , in , did rehm tell you that munn was not in it?" "he did." that is another idea i suppose of corroboration. q. mr. rehm, how much money did the house of dickenson &c leach give you? a. twenty-five thousand dollars. q. will you swear they did not give you thirty? a. i will. mr. leach on the stand: q. how much money did your house give rehm? a. between forty thousand and fifty thousand dollars. another instance of corroboration. we then called mr. burroughs upon the stand. he belonged to the same house: q. how much money did you give jacob rehm? a. fifty-two thousand dollars. another instance of corroboration. q. mr. rehm, did mr. abel ever give you any money? a. yes, sir. q. how many times? a. once. q. how much? a. five hundred dollars. q. will you swear it was not a thousand? a. yes. mr. abel take the stand. q. did you ever pay jacob rehm any money? a. yes. q. how often? a. once. q. how much? a. two thousand dollars. and that is another instance of the corroboration of jacob rehm. and when a man is thus corroborated, gentlemen, his reputation for truth and veracity "spreads like sunlight all over the city of chicago." there was not a circumstance, there was not a statement made by mr. rehm except it was made in the presence of bridges, who is in canada; of irwin, who is in his grave, or in the presence of the defendant, who stands here with his mouth closed--not one solitary circumstance, with those exceptions, that has not been contradicted. can you believe this man? can you believe this man who has been contradicted by every one brought upon the stand? can you take his word after he has sworn as he has? i tell you, gentlemen, you cannot do it, and as judge doolittle told you, if there is an infamous crime in the world, it is the crime of perjury. all the sneaking instincts; all the groveling, crawling instincts unite and blend in this one crime called perjury. it clothes itself, gentlemen, in the shining vestments of an oath in order that it may tell a lie. perjury poisons the wells of truth, the sources of justice. perjury leaps from the hedges of circumstance, from the walls of fact, to assassinate justice and innocence. perjury is the basest and meanest and most cowardly of crimes. what can it do? perjury can change the common air that we breathe into the axe of an executioner. perjury out of this air can forge manacles for free hands. perjury out of a single word can make a hangman's rope and noose. perjury out of a word can build a scaffold upon which the great and noble must suffer. it was told during the middle ages and in the time of the inquisition, that the inquisitors had a statue of the virgin mary, and when a man was brave enough to think his own thoughts he was brought before this tribunal and before this beautiful statue, robed in gorgeous robes and decked with jewels, and as a punishment he was made to embrace it. the inquisitor touched a hidden spring; the arms of the statue clutched the victim and drew him to a breast filled with daggers. such, gentlemen, is perjury, and if you take into consideration the evidence of this witness when you retire to the jury-room, you, in my judgment, will commit an outrage. every man here should spurn that man from the threshold of his conscience as he would a rabid cur from the threshold of his house. is there any safety in the world if you take the testimony of these men, especially when character avails nothing? is there any safety in human society if you will take the testimony of a perjured man? is there any safety in living among mankind if this is the law,--if the statement of a confessed conspirator makes the character of a great and good man worthless? for one i had rather flee to the woods and live with wild beasts and savage nature. gentlemen, i know that you will pay no attention to that kind of testimony. i know it. i know that you cannot do it. and why? you know that that man is swearing a lie for the purpose of protection. you know that that man is swearing a lie under the smile of the government of the united states. you know it. you know he expects a benefit from it. you know it. when the other witnesses, burroughs and hesing, that swear here--understand that they are swearing beneath a frown. understand that they know that no mercy will be extended to them by the attorneys that they have offended. understand that, and when you understand that a man is swearing to protect himself, and when he is a man that will swear to a lie for money, of course he will swear to a lie to keep himself out of the penitentiary, or to shorten his time--i say, when you know a man is placed in that condition, you have no right to give the least weight to his testimony, not one particle. what more, gentlemen. why, they have another witness, and he has sworn nothing. he has sworn nothing that has anything to do with this conspiracy one way or the other. nothing! the only evidence against the defendant, i tell you, is the evidence of mr. jacob rehm. the defendant, gentlemen, was an officer of the revenue for several years. when he came to chicago, in , the district attorney said the distillers were here in full blast making illicit whiskey. if he had read the evidence he knew better; if he had not, he had no business to make any statement about it. in , when the defendant came here, according to the testimony of all these men, the distilleries were running straight, and the rascality did not commence until the fall of , when jacob rehm sold protection to these distillers. the defendant had been here a year before any frauds were committed. he was then supervisor of internal revenue up to may, . during that time he did many official acts; during that time he wrote hundreds and thousands of letters; during that time he made hundreds and hundreds of visits to all these establishments. they have searched the records; they have had every nook and cranny looked at by a hired detective, and all that they can possibly bring forward is the beggarly account presented in this case: first, that there were four or five barrels of rum without the ten cent stamps, and that, you know, is a thing that ought to send a man to the penitentiary; next, twenty-five barrels of which the stamps had not been scratched, but about which there was no fraud. ought a man to be sent to the penitentiary because he does not seize a house when there has been a technical violation without any fraud? a supervisor that will do it ought to be kicked out of office; he ought to be kicked out of the society of honest and decent men, and if this defendant was satisfied from the story of roelle and junker that there had been no fraud committed by leaving the stamps on the twenty-five barrels unscratched, and had seized that house, that would have been an act of meanness, an act of oppression, which i do not believe even a government attorney would uphold unless he was hired in the case. now, what next did he do? the next thing he did he went to golsen & eastman. gentlemen, i do not care to speak much of golsen. if there ever was a man utterly devoid of such a thing as principle, if there ever was a man that would read the statute against stealing, and stand in perfect amazement that anybody ever thought of making such a statute, it certainly must be golsen. you heard him, and he is the man that said he told lies in business; he is the man that said he did not think it was wrong to swear lies in business, and his business now is to keep out of the penitentiary; that is his principal business, that is one of the gentlemen they have hired, that is one of the gentlemen they have brought forward here to offend the nostrils of decent men. now, then, he went to golsen & eastman. judge bangs told you in his speech that golsen then and there explained his infamy to munn. if there is anything which makes my blood boil it is to have the evidence misstated for the purpose of putting a man in the penitentiary. i never will make a misstatement to add to my reputation. i recollect that evidence so perfectly. i recollected it so clearly that it shocked me when he stated that the man golsen explained all his rascality and villainy to munn. why, i never heard of such evidence. what was it? it was said by mr. ayer in the opening that in the presence of munn, golsen said to bridges, "it is not now all right," or something like that, "but i can make it right," or that he said in the presence of munn, to bridges, something that should have put munn on his guard. i heard that, and i heard golsen, when he came on the stand, say that he said that to bridges, and you will bear me out when i say that i asked him in his cross-examination, "did munn hear it? did you say it thinking that munn did hear it?" and he did not pretend any such thing. he did not pretend it, and i tell you i was hurt, i was touched, i admit it, when judge bangs made the statement. i have an interest in this case. i am not only an attorney in this case, but, gentlemen, i am proud to say i am the defendant's friend. i am more than his attorney; i am his friend, and when an attorney makes a statement like that i must say it shocks me. golsen did not swear that he explained his villainy to munn--not a word of that kind or character. on the contrary he simply said he told this to bridges, not to munn, and that munn did not hear it. what more? col. eastman was there at the same time. col. eastman says he did everything he could to impress upon mr. munn that it was an honest transaction. what more? then he went through the rectifying-house like an honest man. how did he act? like an honest man. did he act like somebody trying to cover up a fraud? no, he acted like an honest man, and i tell you up to that time mr. eastman had borne a good reputation--a good character in the state of illinois. munn believed what he said. he believed there had been an accident. munn believed they made the charge in the books not for the purpose of covering up a fraud, but for the purpose of making the books agree with the facts. so much for that. i do not recollect any others. i do not recollect any others that amount to anything--that can throw the slightest suspicion on this defendant. if he were upon trial now for failing to make a report; if he were on trial now for malfeasance or non-feasance or negligence as an officer, it would be proper to bring all these things before this jury, but that is not the case. he is here for entering into a conspiracy to defraud the government, and these things that they have shown outside,--and it is perfectly amazing to me they have not shown more,--it is perfectly amazing to me that a man could be in that position the years he was without making more mistakes--i say, all they prove in the world is (give them their very worst construction), that he was guilty of some negligence as an officer, but they do not attempt to prove that he was in a conspiracy with mr. jacob rehm to steal. the next point, gentlemen, to which i wish to call your attention is the testimony of mr. rehm before the grand jury. you recollect when we put on mr. ward to show what rehm testified to before the grand jury, that mr. ayer suggested that we had better have the notes. i saw then that he was extremely anxious for schlichter to get on the stand. then we introduced mr. oleson, and he still spoke about having the notes. i understood that it was a part of his case to have schlichter brought on the stand in some way. now, then, it does not make any difference to me whether schlichter swore to the truth or not. not a particle, not a particle, but i think he did. but if he did swear a lie, and he will swear a lie every chance he gets, in the course of time he will get such a character and such a reputation that a district attorney of the united states will stand up and say: "schlichter's reputation is good; it spreads like sunlight all over the city of chicago." now, then, you have been told by judge doolittle all the men who swore that he did swear before the grand jury, that he did not know of any crookedness. you have heard the testimony of men who swear that he did swear before the grand jury that he knew of no fraud. if he did so swear he perjured himself or he has perjured himself now. but what more? whether he swore that or not, he swore this according to their own statements: q. at the time you burned your books had you any knowledge that they contained any evidence of fraud against the government? a. no, sir. now, he knew the distillers used a certain amount of malt to make a certain amount of high-wines, and he knew the more malt they used the more high-wines they would have to account for, and if they bought twice as much malt as was necessary to make the whiskey upon which they paid the tax, he knew that that was evidence that they had been running without paying the tax. if it takes a certain amount of malt for a gallon of high-wines, and his books would show they had used twice as much malt as they had paid taxes, according to gallons, then he did know that his books did contain evidence showing that they had committed fraud. and when he said his books did not, he told what he knew was a deliberate lie. what more does he say? he says these books were burned up about the first of may just to get them out of the way,--for no earthly object except simply to get them out of the way,--and he swears that he sold to nearly all these distillers malt, and he knew that the amount of malt sold to each of these distilleries would determine the amount of whiskey they had made, that is, not into a barrel or into a gallon, but approximately, and he knew the more malt they used the more tax they would have to show that they had paid. and he knew that his books would be evidence against every distiller in the city. he knew that, and yet he swears here, squarely and fairly, that at the time he burned his books he did not know that they were of any value as evidence against these distillers. now, gentlemen, i want to call your attention to another thing. when i asked him, when he was called here on the stand, if he was not asked about crookedness, whether he was not asked about fraud, at first he stumbled into telling the truth, as far as that was concerned, as far as being asked was concerned, and then told a lie as to how he answered it. now, let me read it to you; you may have forgotten it. there is nothing like having these things printed: q. were you sworn before that grand jury by anybody? a. yes, sir. q. were you asked any question about this whiskey business? a. yes, sir. q. were you asked by one of the grand jurors whether you knew of any illicit whiskey being made in this city by any of those distilleries? a. no, sir. q. i ask you in regard to your answer to that, if you did not say you did not? a. i did not. q. what did you say? a. the question was not asked in that way. q. well, wait until i ask you, and then you can tell. were you not asked if you knew of any crookedness about whiskey, and didn't you reply "no"? a. no; i answered "yes." there is his testimony. he was afraid then that he was caught, and he was going to swear deliberately that he swore before the grand jury, that he did know of crookedness. then he changed his idea, and says afterward that it is about the one hundred and fifty barrels. he says now, "put your question." then i put this question--"put your question." [question repeated.] "a. the question was not put to me in that way." now, he gets out of it and says it was the one hundred and fifty barrels he talked about; but i asked him then if he was not asked if he did not know about any crookedness here and how he answered it, and he says that he answered it "yes." that is, before he found out that it was necessary to change his answer or to change his mind upon that question. that is what he says. and it is utterly impossible, gentlemen, to get out of the fact that he did, before that grand jury, swear that he knew of no crookedness. you can not get out upon mr. roelle's testimony. you can not get out upon the idea that schlichter put it in. schlichter did not put it into the memory of the old man samson. schlichter did not write it in the memory of mr. hoag. schlichter did not write it in the consciousness of mr. oleson. schlichter did not write it in short-hand in the head of j. d. ward. schlichter, i tell you, by his short-hand necromancy, has not changed six or seven men into liars whether he put that in the second line from the top or not. he cannot do that with his short-hand, gentlemen. he could not make old mr. samson come here and say, "i asked that question myself; i thought that when he was there he was the head centre of all the rascality. and so just before he went out i put one of those general, pinching questions as to whether he knew anything. it was a kind of conscience scraper." the old man put that question just as these witnesses were going out: "do you know anything about any fraud? do you know anything about any crookedness?" it was a kind of a last question that would cover the case, and the old man recollects that he put it to jacob rehm and he recollects why he put it to him, because he believed at that time that he was the head centre of the villainy. mr. hoag says the same thing. mr. hoag says that he looked upon him as the great rascal in the business; and he recollects distinctly that he asked him that question; and he recollects as distinctly how he answered it. j. d. ward was the attorney of the united states, and he swears to it that he recollects it perfectly. oleson was an attorney of the united states. he says that he recollects it perfectly. and yet is this all to be accounted for, gentlemen, by saying that mr. schlichter inserted it in his notes and that all these other gentlemen are mistaken? the fact is, gentlemen, that mr. rehm, when he was there, had not made up his mind to vomit; he had not yet made up his mind that he could make a bargain with the united states to get out of punishment. he did not know at that time that he need not go to the penitentiary if he would furnish a substitute. he did not know, gentlemen, at that time that he could have any understanding with anybody; if he would bring better blood than his they would deal lightly with him. he did not know at that time that two owls could be traded off for an eagle. he did not know at that time that two snakes could be traded off for a decent man. as soon as he found that out, then, instead of saying that he did not know anything about any crookedness; instead of saying that he did not know anything about any fraud, he said, gentlemen, "i know all about it. i know all of them; every one of them." now, gentlemen, i want you to put against that man's testimony the lies he swore to himself. i want you to put against that man's testimony the improbability that he would commit numberless crimes for nothing. i want you to put against that man's testimony the testimony of every one who has contradicted and disputed him. i want you to put against that man's testimony the idea and the fact that he warned these other men against the approach of munn. i want you to put against that man's testimony all the circumstances of the lies he has sworn; and i want you, in addition to that, to put against that man's testimony the evidence of this defendant. you have been told by the district attorney--and if i have said anything too strong in the warmth of this discussion i beg his pardon. i have known judge bangs a long time, i have been his friend, i respect him; but i must say i felt a little outraged at what he said, because he said he had sympathy with this defendant. he got up here and said that the defendant bore a most excellent reputation. he got up and said that he sympathized with him, and all at once i saw his sympathy was a cloak under which he concealed a dagger to stab him. now, then, he says good character is nothing. good character is nothing! good character, gentlemen, is not made in a day. it is the work of a life. the walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life. all the good deeds, all the good words, everything right and true and honest that he does, goes into this edifice, and it is domed and pinnacled with lofty aspirations and grand ambitions. it is not made in a day, neither can it be crumbled into blackened dust by a word from the putrid mouth of a perjurer. let these snakes writhe and hiss about it. let the bats fly in at its windows if they can. they cannot destroy it; but above them all rises the grand dome of a good character, not with the bats and snakes, but up, gentlemen, with eagles in the sunlight. they cannot prevail against a good character. is it worth anything? if ever i am indicted for any offence and stand before a jury, i hope that i shall be able to prove as unsullied a reputation as daniel w. munn has proved. and when i read those letters, not only saying that his character was good, but adding "above reproach," it thrilled me and i thought to myself then, "if ever you get in trouble will anybody certify as splendidly and as grandly to your reputation?" there is not a man of this jury that can prove a better reputation. there is not a judge on the bench in the united states that can prove a better reputation. there never was and there never will be an attorney at this bar that can prove a better reputation. there is not one in this audience that can prove a better reputation. and yet we are told that that splendid fabric called a good character cannot stand for a moment against a word from a gratuitous villain--not one moment. such, gentlemen, is not the law of this country. such, gentlemen, never will be the law of this land or of any other. i deny it, and i hurl it back with scorn. a good character will stand against the testimony of all the thieves on earth. a good character, like a gibraltar, will stand against the testimony of all the rascals in the universe, no matter how they assail it. it will stand, and it will stand firmer and grander the more it is assaulted. what is the use of doing honestly? what is the use of working and toiling? what is the use of taking care of your wife and your children? where is the use, i say, of being honest in your business? what is the use of always paying your debts as you agree? what is the use of living for others? character is made of duty and love and sympathy, and, above all, of living and working for others. what is the use of being true to principle? what is the use of taking a sublime stand in favor of the right with the world against you? what is the use of being true to yourself? what is the use, i say, if all this character, if all this noble action, if all this efflorescence of soul can be blasted and blown from the world simply by a word from the mouth of a confessed felon? and yet we are assured here in this august tribunal, in a federal court of the united states, where the defendant stands under the protection of the the constitution of his country, that his character is absolutely worthless. they say, "why don't you bring somebody to impeach mr. jacob rehm?" why? because he has impeached himself. to impeach a man is the last method. if he tells an improbable story, that impeaches him. if he tells an unnatural story, that impeaches him. if you prove he has sworn a different way, that impeaches him. if you show he has stated a different way, that impeaches him. what is the use of impeaching him any more? that would be a waste of time. now, gentlemen, i say to you, and i say to you once for all, i want you to get out of your minds and out of your hearts any prejudice against this man on account of these times. i understand now that in every man's pathway hiss and writhe the serpents of suspicion. i understand now that every man in high place can be pointed at with the dirty finger of a scurvy rascal. i understand that. i understand that no matter how high his position is, that any man, no matter how low, how leprous he may be, what a cancerous heart he may have, he can point his finger at the man high up on the ladder of fame, and the man has to come down and explain to the wretched villain. i understand that; but these prejudices i want out of your mind. i want you to try this case according to the evidence and nothing else. i want you to say whether you believe the testimony of these conspirators and scoundrels. i want you to say whether you are going to take the testimony of that man, and if you bring in a verdict of guilty i want you to be able to defend yourselves when you go to the defendant and tell him: "we found you guilty upon a man's testimony who admitted that he was a thief: who admitted that he was a perjurer; who admitted that he hired others to swear lies, and who committed crimes without number year after year." i want you to say whether that is an excuse to give to him. is it an excuse to give to his pallid, invalid wife? is it an excuse to give to his father eighty years old, trembling upon the verge of the grave: "i sent your son to the penitentiary upon the evidence of a convicted thief"? i say is it an excuse to give to his weeping wife? is it an excuse to give to his child: "i sent your father to the penitentiary upon the evidence of jacob rehm"? there is not one of you can go to the child, or to the sick wife, or to the old man, or to the defendant himself, and without the blush of shame say: "i sent you to the penitentiary upon the evidence of jacob rehm." you cannot do it. it is not in human nature to do it. now, gentlemen, there is one other thing i want to say. suspicion is not evidence. suspicious circumstances are not evidence. all the suspicion in the world, all the suspicious circumstances in the world, amount not to evidence. i want to say one more thing. they say that the testimony of a thief ought to be corroborated. by whom? another thief? no. because that other thief wants corroboration, and that other thief would want corroboration, and so on until thieves ran out, which i think would be a long time in this particular community at this particular time. understand that whatever one thief swears, that it is not corroborated because another thief swears to the same thing, and upon the point upon which judge doolittle dwelt so splendidly he must be corroborated upon the exact point. for instance, mr. munn went to his house, mr. munn went to his office, and another man says, i saw him there. that is not corroboration. he must be corroborated in the fact that he gave him the money, not that munn went to his house--not that he had an opportunity to give him the money--not that he was there, but he must be corroborated as to the exact, identical point that makes the guilt. now, gentlemen, i am going to leave this case with you. i feel a great interest in it. the defendant feels an infinite interest in it, infinite, i tell you. it is all he has on earth, all he has is with you. you are going to take his hopes; you are going to take his aspirations; you are going to take his ambition; you are going to take his family; you are going to take his child; you are going to take everything he has in this world into your power. it is a fearful thing to take this responsibility. i know it. but you are going to take it--his future, everything he has dreamed and hoped for, everything that he has expected to attain--his character, everything he has that is dear to him, and you are going to say "not guilty," or you are going to cover him with the mantle of infamy and shame forever; you are going to disgrace his blood; you are going to bring those that love him down with sorrow to their graves; you are either going to do that or you are going to say, "we will not believe the testimony of self-convicted robbers and thieves." and, gentlemen, i ask you, i implore you, i beseech you, more than that, i demand of you that you find in this case a verdict of "not guilty." put yourself in his place. do you want to be convicted on that kind of testimony? do you want to go to the penitentiary with that kind of witnesses against you? do you want to be locked up on that kind of testimony? do you want to be separated from your wife or your child on that kind of evidence? do you want to be rendered infamous during your life upon the testimony of such men as golsen and conklin and rehm? do you? do you? do you? does any man in the world imagine that twelve honest men can be found that can rob another of his citizenship, of his honor, of his character, of his home, and of his entire fortune, simply upon the testimony of such scoundrels? no, gentlemen. for myself, for this defendant, i have no fear. all i ask is that you will give to this evidence the weight that it deserves. all i ask of the prosecuting attorney in this case is that he do his duty. all i ask of him is to state just as nearly as he can, as i have no doubt he will, the evidence in the case. all i ask of him is that he give to all these circumstances their due weight, and no more. i ask him to fight for justice and not for his reputation. i ask him to fight for the honor of the government. i ask him to fight for the complete doing of justice, if he can, but i hope he will leave out of the case all idea that he must win a case or that i must lose a case. we are contending for too great a stake. personally, i care nothing about it, whether i make or lose what you please to call reputation in this affair. i care everything for my client. i care everything for his honor, and more than that, gentlemen, i love the united states of america. i love this government, i love this form of government, and i do not want to see the sources of government poisoned. i do not want to see a state of things in the united states of america whereby a man can be consigned to a dungeon upon the testimony of a robber and thief, simply upon a political issue, simply by the testimony of some man who wishes to purchase immunity at the price of another's liberty and honor. one more point, and i have done. i had forgotten it, or i should have mentioned it before. they have appealed to you all along to say that the fact that high-wines were so cheap during all this time put mr. munn upon his information, so to speak, that there were frauds. let me take those books and let us see. on the th day of june, , the tax on spirits was seventy cents, and the price was ninety-four cents. that made them get twenty-four cents a gallon for the whiskey. understand, the tax was seventy, the price was ninety-four. that made them get twenty-four cents for the whiskey. now, then, on the th of june it was ninety-six and a half cents. that made twenty-six and a half for the whiskey. on the th of june, , twenty-six and a half they got for the whiskey. february , , ninety-six cents, which made twenty-six cents; and so it went on in that way, until what? until the tax was raised from seventy cents to ninety cents, and what is it now? the tax on whiskey, gentlemen, is ninety cents, and the price on the th day of may, , is one dollar and seven cents; so that the price of whiskey now is only seventeen cents above the tax, and at the time that mr. munn ought to have known that everybody was a thief and rascal, the price was twenty-six cents above the tax, ten cents more than now. from these figures, gentlemen, you will see it, and how high did it go? the day mr. munn was turned out of office--gentlemen, on the tenth day of may, ,--the tax then being ninety cents, whiskey was worth one dollar and fifteen cents. the day he was turned out. it was nine cents more than it is today. you are welcome to all you can make out of that argument. it was worth nine cents more a gallon above the tax the day he was turned out than it is to-day, and if mr. munn was bound to take judicial notice that there was nothing but frauds in the district, and every distillery was running crooked, i say that the officers of the government are bound to take that notice to-day, and you must recollect, gentlemen, that it was admitted in this case that there were frauds all over the country, that there were distilleries running in st. louis, in san francisco, in milwaukee, in peoria or pekin, in peoria, i believe, in my town, not a sound has been heard, and not a solitary man, i believe, charged with fraud--in st. louis, in louisville, in cincinnati, in all these towns. now, where was the whiskey being made that was crooked? nobody could tell. if there was a vast amount being made in cincinnati it would lessen the price in chicago, no matter whether the chicago distillers were running honestly or not. if there was a vast amount being made in st. louis it would lessen the price, no matter whether the other distilleries were running honestly or not, consequently it was impossible for the supervisor to tell it. there is another thing i forgot. during all the time jacob rehm was doing this gratuitous rascality he was one of the bondsmen on the official bond of hoyt. he was not only helping hoyt steal and giving him all the money, but he was making himself responsible for the money he stole, and he did not charge any commission on it. he did not charge for any shrinkage or shortage or anything in the world, but made himself liable for the uttermost farthing. he was on the bond of collector irwin, called the stamp bond, and so do not forget that he did not only not take any money, but he went on the acknowledgments of the thieves that stole it. he not only did not take any himself, but he made himself liable as a bondsman for what he gave to them. do not forget these things. now, gentlemen, i believe i have said about all i wish to say to you; the rest is for you. you must take the case, and, as i said, you do not want to go off on any prejudice against the kind or the character of the case. you do not want to go off on the idea that the air is full of rascality because some of us are to be tried next. we don't know. let us try this case fairly and squarely on the evidence, and the next time i meet you, gentlemen, every one of you will be glad that you found this defendant not guilty, as you cannot avoid doing. [the jury rendered a verdict of "not guilty."] closing address to the jury in the first star route trial. * the most characteristic feature of the star-route trial, which has been the central point of interest in our city for the past three months, was the marvelously powerful speech of colonel robert g. ingersoll before the jury and the judge last week. people who knew this gifted gentleman only superficially, had supposed that he was merely superficial as a lawyer. while acknowledging his remarkable ability as an orator and his vast accomplishments as a speaker, they doubted the depth of his power. they heard him, and the doubt ceased. it can be said of ingersoll, as was written of castelar, that his eloquent utterances are as the finely-fashioned ornamental designs upon the damascus blade--the blade cuts as keenly and the embellishments beautify without retarding its power. the following is colonel ingersoll's speech. its swift incisiveness, keen and comprehensive logic and apt deductions from proper premises are only equaled by the grand manner of its delivery, and under the circumstances incidental to the case and the routes to be traversed, by its expedition of action and brevity.--washington, d. c., the capital, sept. th, . may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury: let us understand each other at the very threshold. for one i am as much opposed to official dishonesty as any man in this world. the taxes in this country are paid by labor and by industry, and they should be collected and disbursed by integrity. the man that is untrue to his official oath, the man that is untrue to the position the people have honored him with, ought to be punished. i have not one word to say in defence of any man who i believe has robbed the treasury of the united states. i want it understood in the first place that we are not defending; that we are not excusing; that we are not endeavoring to palliate in the slightest degree dishonesty in any government official. i will go still further: i will not defend any citizen who has committed what i believe to be a fraud upon the treasury of this government. let us understand each other at the commencement. you have been told that we are a demoralized people; that the tide of dishonesty is rising ready to sweep from one shore of our country to the other. you have been appealed to to find innocent men guilty in order that that tide may be successfully resisted. you have been told--and i have heard the story a thousand times--that this country was demoralized by what the gentlemen are pleased to call the war, and that owing to the demoralization of the war it is necessary to make an example of somebody that the country may take finally the road to honesty. we were in a war lasting four years, but i take this occasion to deny that that war demoralized the people of the united states. whoever fights for the right, or whoever fights for what he believes to be right, does not demoralize himself. he ennobles himself. the war through which we passed did not demoralize the people. it was not a demoralization; it was a reformation. it was a period of moral enthusiasm, during which the people of the united states became a thousand times grander and nobler than they had ever been before. the effect of that war has been good, and only good. we were not demoralized by it. when we broke the shackles from four millions of men, women and children it did not demoralize us. when we changed the hut of the slave into the castle of the freeman it did not demoralize us. when we put the protecting arm of the law about that hut and the flag of this nation above it, it was not very demoralizing. when we stopped stealing babes the country did not suddenly become corrupted. that war was the noblest affirmation of humanity in the history of this world. we are a greater people, we are a grander people, than we were before that war. that war repealed statutes that had been made by robbery and theft. it made this country the home of man. we were not demoralized. there is another thing you have been told in order that you might find somebody guilty. you have been told that our country is distinguished among the nations of the world only for corruption. that is what you have been told. i care not who said it first. it makes no difference to me that it was quoted from a republican senator. i deny it. this country is not distinguished for corruption. no true patriot believes it. this country is distinguished for something else. the credit of the united states is perfect. its bonds are the highest in the world. its promise is absolute pure gold. is that the result of being distinguished for corruption? i have heard that nonsense, that intellectual rot all my life, that the people used to be honest, but at present they are exceedingly bad. it is the capital stock of every prosecuting lawyer; but in it there is not one word of truth. is this country distinguished only for its corruption throughout europe? no. it is respected by every prince and by every king; it is loved by every peasant. is it because we have such a reputation for corruption that a million people from foreign lands sought homes under our flag last year? is corruption all we are distinguished for? is it because we are a nation of rascals that the word america sheds light in every hut and in every tenement in europe? is it because we are distinguished for corruption that that one word, america, is the dawn of a career to every poor man in the old world? i always supposed that we were distinguished for free schools, for free speech, for just laws; not for corruption. a country covered with schoolhouses, where the children of the poor are put upon an exact equality with those of the rich, is not distinguished for corruption. and yet in the name of this universal corruption you are appealed to to become also corrupt. this nation is substantially a hundred years old, and to-day the assessed property of the united states is valued at $ , , , . is that the result of corruption, or is it the result of labor, of integrity and of virtue? i deny that my country is distinguished for corruption. i assert that it rises above the other nations distinguished for humanity as high as chimborazo above the plains. never will i put a stain upon the forehead of my country in order that i may win some case, and in order that i may consign some honest man to the penitentiary. i stand here to deny that this is a corrupt country. let me say that the only tribute that i ever heard paid to corruption was indirectly paid by mr. merrick himself. he told you that official corruption destroyed the french empire, and upon the ruins of that empire arose the french republic. he makes official corruption the father of french liberty. if it works that way i hope they will have it in every monarchy on the globe. napoleon stole something besides money; he stole liberty, and the french people finally got to that condition of mind where they preferred to be trampled on by germany rather than to have their liberty devoured by napoleon. from that splendid sentiment sprang the french republic. this country is the land not of slavery, but of liberty, not of unpaid toil, but of successful industry. there is not a poor man to-day in all europe or a poor boy who does not think about america. i recollect one time in ireland that i met with a little fellow about ten years old with a couple of rags for pantaloons and a string for a suspender. i said, "my little man, what are you going to do when you grow up?" "_going to america_." it is the dream of every peasant in germany. he will go to america; not because it is the land of corruption, but because it is the land of plenty, the land of free schools, the land where humanity is respected. there is another thing about this country. we have a king here, and that king is the law. that king is the legally expressed will of a majority, and that law is your sovereign and mine. you have no right to violate one law to carry out another. we all stand equal before that law, and the law must be upheld as an entirety, and in no other way. if in this case you believe these defendants beyond a doubt to be guilty, it is your duty to find them so, and you must find them so in order to preserve your own respect. i do not agree with this prosecution in the idea that the perpetuity of the republic depends upon this verdict. decide as badly as you please, as horribly as you can, the republic will stand. the republic will stand in spite of this verdict, and the republic will stand until people lose confidence in verdicts--until they lose confidence in legal redress. when the time comes that we have no confidence in courts and no confidence in juries, then the great temple will lean to its fall, and not until then. as long as we can get redress in the courts, as long as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced and the law will be respected. but so far as my clients are concerned, everything they have, everything they love, everything for which they hope, home, friends, wife, children, and that priceless something called reputation, without which a man is simply living clay, everything they have is at stake, and everything depends upon your verdict. i want you to understand that everything depends upon your decision, and yet my clients with their world at stake, home, everything, _everything_, ask only at your hands the mercy of an honest verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. that is all we ask, and that we expect. by an honest verdict i mean a verdict in accordance with the testimony and in accordance with the law, a verdict that is a true and honest transcript of each juror's mind, a verdict that is the honest result of this evidence. whoever takes into consideration the desire, or the supposed desire, of the outside public is bribed. whoever finds a verdict to please power, whoever violates his conscience that he may be in accord, or in supposed accord, with an administration or with the government, is bribed. whoever finds a verdict that he may increase his own reputation is bribed. whoever finds a verdict for fear he will lose his reputation is bribed. whoever bends to the public judgment, whoever bows before the public press, is bribed. fear, prejudice, malice, and the love of approbation bribe a thousand men where gold bribes one. an honest verdict is the result not of fear, but of courage; not of prejudice, but of candor; not of malice, but of kindness. above all, it is the result of a love of justice. allow me to say right here that i believe every solitary man on this jury wishes to give a verdict exactly in accordance with this testimony and exactly in accordance with the law. every man on this jury wishes to preserve his own manhood. every man on this jury wishes to give an honest verdict. there are no words sufficiently base to describe a man who will knowingly give a dishonest verdict. i believe every man upon this jury to be absolutely honest in this case. the mind of every juror, like the needle to the pole, should be governed simply by the evidence. that needle is not disturbed by wind or wave, and the mind of the honest juror never should be disturbed by clamor, nor by prejudice, nor by suspicion. your minds should not be affected by the fume, by the froth, by the fiction, or by the fury of this prosecution. you should pay attention simply to the evidence, and to use the language of one of my clients, you should be governed by the frozen facts. that is all you have any right to think of and all you have any right to examine. having now said thus much about the duties of jurors, let me say one word about the duties of lawyers. i believe it is the duty of a lawyer, no matter whether prosecuting or defending, to make the testimony as clear as he can. if there is anything contradictory it is his business if he possibly can to make it clear. if there is any question of law about which there is a doubt, it is his right and it is his duty to give to the court the result of his study and of his thoughts, for the purpose of enlightening the court upon that particular branch of law. no matter if he may believe the court understands it, if there is the slightest fear that the court does not or has forgotten it, it is his duty to bring the attention of the court to that law. it is not his duty to abuse anybody. it is not my duty to abuse anybody. there is no logic in abuse; not the slightest; and when a lawyer, under the pretext of explaining the evidence to the jury, calls a defendant a thief and a robber, he steps beyond the line of duty and, in my judgment, beyond the line of his privilege. what light does that throw upon the case? in his effort to explain the law to the court what cloud does it remove from the intellectual horizon of his honor for the attorney to call the defendant a robber, a thief, or a pickpocket? i shall in this case give you what i believe to be the facts. i shall call your attention to the testimony. i shall endeavor to throw what light i am capable of throwing upon this entire question. i shall not deal in personalities. they are beneath me. i shall not deal in epithets. nobody worth convincing can be convinced in that way. now, let us see what the law is, and let us see what our facts are. in the beginning of this dusty branch i shall ask the pardon of every juror in advance for going over these facts once again. you see they strike every man in a peculiar way. no two minds are exactly alike. no pair of eyes distinguish exactly the same object or the same peculiarities of the objects. this is an indictment under section of the revised statutes, and there must not only be a conspiracy to defraud, but there must be an overt act done in pursuance of that conspiracy for the purpose of effecting the object of it. now, then, how must these overt acts be stated in this indictment? is the overt act a part of the crime, and must it, be described with the same particularity that you describe the offence? which of the overt acts set out in this indictment is the overt act depended upon, together with the act of conspiring, to make this offence? i hold, may it please your honor, that every overt act set out in the indictment must be proved exactly as it is alleged, no matter whether the description was necessary to be put in the indictment or not. no matter how foolish, how unnecessary the description, it must be substantiated, and it must be proven precisely as it is charged. no matter whether the particular thing described is of importance or not, no matter how infinitely unnecessary it was to speak of it, still, if it is a matter of description, it must be proven precisely as it is charged. upon that subject i wish to call the attention of the court to some authorities, and it will take me but a few moments. i will call the attention of the court first to the case of the state against noble, maine, . here a man was indicted for fraudulently and willfully taking from the river and converting to his own use certain logs. these logs were described as marked "w" with a cross, and "h" with another cross, and with a girdle. now, it seems that a part of this mark was not found, according to the testimony upon the logs taken: "the description of these logs in the indictment is the only way the logs could be distinguished and could not be rejected as surplusage. it has been settled that if a man be indicted for stealing a black horse, and the evidence be that he stole a white one, he cannot be convicted. the description of a log by the mark is more essential than that of a horse by its color. if it was not necessary to describe the log so particularly by the mark, yet so having stated it, there can be no conviction without proof of it." now, the court, in deciding this, says: "it may be regarded as a general rule, both in criminal prosecutions and in civil actions, that an unnecessary averment may be rejected where enough remains to show that an offence has been committed, or that a cause of action exists. in ricketts vs. solway, barn., & aid., , abbott, c. j., says: 'there is one exception, however, to this rule, which is, where the allegation contains matter of description. then, if the proof given be different from the statement, the variance is fatal.' as an illustration of this exception, starkie puts the case of a man charged with stealing a black horse. the allegation of color is unnecessary, yet as it is descriptive of that, which is the subject-matter of the charge, it cannot be rejected as surplusage, and the man convicted of stealing a white horse. the color is not essential to the offence of larceny, but it is made material to fix the identity of that, which the accused is charged with stealing." stark., . "in the case before us the subject-matter is a pine log marked in a particular manner described. the marks determine the identity, and are, therefore, matter purely of description. it would not be easy to adduce a stronger case of this character. it' might have been sufficient to have stated that the defendant took a log merely, in the words of the statute. but under the charge of taking a pine log we are quite clear that the defendant could not be convicted of taking an oak or a birch log. the offence would be the same; but the charge to which the party was called to answer, and which it was incumbent on him to meet, is for taking a log of an entirely different description. the kind of timber and the artificial marks by which it was distinguished are descriptive parts of the subject-matter of the charge which cannot be disregarded, although they may have been unnecessarily introduced. the log proved to have been taken was a different one from that charged in the indictment; and the defendant could be legally called upon to answer only for taking the log there described. in our judgment, therefore, the jury were erroneously instructed that the marks might be rejected as surplusage; and the exceptions are accordingly sustained." i also cite the case of the state against clark, foster, new hampshire, : "indictment for fraudulently altering the assignment of a mortgage. the indictment set forth the mortgage, and also the assignment, as it was alleged to have been originally made from miles burnham to noah clark, the respondent; and alleged that the assignment was signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed by two witnesses, and duly and legally recorded at length, in the registry of deeds of rockingham county, on the th of september, . it then alleged that this assignment was fraudulently altered on the th of june, , by inserting the letter 's' in two places, between the words 'noah' and 'clark,' so that the assignment originally made to noah clark, after the alteration appeared as if it were made to noah s. clark. "on trial the records of deeds were produced, and there was found a record of the assignment purporting to be made to noah s. clark, the record bearing date september , , but there was no record of any assignment to noah clark. the respondent's counsel objected that this evidence did not support the allegations of the indictment. the forgery was alleged to have been committed on the th of june, , and the court admitted evidence that miles burnham, who executed the assignment, being applied to about the th of july, , for a loan of money upon a mortgage of the same property, declined to make the loan unless he was satisfied there was no mortgage of conveyance of the land by noah clark, and the person who drew the assignment searched the records with burnham, and found no such deed on record. this evidence was objected to, but was understood to be introductory to other material and pertinent evidence, and was therefore admitted; but no such other evidence, to which it was introductory, was offered. "the jury found a verdict of guilty, which the defendant moved to set aside." upon that the court says: "we are not able to look upon this statement that the deed was duly recorded as well as witnessed and acknowledged according to the statute, in any other light than as part of the description of the deed and conveyance which the defendant was charged with altering. we are, therefore, of opinion that the evidence upon this point did not sustain the indictment." now, if the statement that the mortgage was recorded was such a material part of the description that a failure to prove the record as charged was fatal, so, i say, in these overt acts, if they charge that a thing was done or a paper filed on a certain day and it turns out not to be so, that is a fatal variance, and under that description in the indictment the charge cannot be substantiated. i refer to the case against northumberland, new hampshire, , and also to the king against wennard, carrington & paine, . clark vs. commonwealth, b., monroe, : "the doctrine seems to have been well settled in england and this country, that in criminal cases, although words merely formal in their character may be treated as surplusage and rejected as such, a descriptive averment in an indictment must be proved as laid, and no allegation, whether it be necessary or unnecessary, more or less particular, which is descriptive of the identity of what is legally essential to the charge in the indictment, can be rejected as surplusage." and in this case i cite dorsett's case, th roger's record, : "on an indictment for coining there was an alleged possession of a die made of iron and steel, when, in fact, it was made of zinc and antimony. the variance was deemed fatal." and yet it was not necessary to state of what the die was made. if the indictment had simply said he had in his possession this die, it would have been enough, but the pleader went on and described it, saying it was made of iron and steel. it turned out upon the trial that it was made of zinc and antimony, and the variance was held to be fatal. so i cite the court to wharton's american crim. law, rd edition, page , and to roscoe on criminal evidence, . now i cite the case of the united states against foye, st curtis's circuit court reports, , and i do not think it will be easy to find a case going any further than this. it goes to the end of the road: "a letter containing money deposited in the mail for the purpose of ascertaining whether its contents were stolen on a particular route and actually sent on a post-route, is a letter intended to be sent by post within the meaning of the post-office act." this i understand was a decoy letter. "the description of the termini between which the letter was intended to be sent by post cannot be rejected as surplusage, but must be proved as laid." upon that the court says: "but a far more difficult question arises under the other part of the objection. the indictment alleges, not only that this letter was intended to be conveyed by post, but describes where it was to be conveyed; it fixes the termini as georgetown and ipswich. the allegation is, in substance, that the letter was intended to be conveyed by post from georgetown to ipswich. the question is, whether the words from georgetown to ipswich can be treated as surplusage. it was necessary to allege that the letter was intended to be conveyed by post. the words from georgetown to ipswich are descriptive of this intent. they describe, more particularly, that intent which it was necessary to allege. in united states vs. howard, sumner, , mr. justice story lays down the following rule, which we consider to be correct: 'no allegation, whether it be necessary or unnecessary, whether it be more or less particular, which is descriptive of the identity of that which is legally essential to the charge in the indictment, can ever be rejected as surplusage.' apply that rule to this case. it is legally essential to the charge to allege some intent to have the letter conveyed somewhere by post. suppose the indictment had alleged an intent to have it conveyed between two places where no post-office existed, and over a post-route where no postroad was established by law. inasmuch as the court must take notice of the laws establishing post-offices and post-roads, the indictment would then have been bad; because this necessary allegation would, on its face, have been false. words, therefore, which describe the termini and the route, and thus show what in particular was intended, do identify the intent, and show it to be such an intent as was capable, in point of law, of existing. "and we are obliged to conclude that they cannot be treated as surplusage, and must be proved, substantially, as laid. we are of opinion, therefore, that there was a variance between the indictment and the proof; and that, for this cause, a new trial should be granted." so i refer to the state vs. langley, th new hampshire, . the court. i think, colonel ingersoll, there is no doubt about this doctrine. mr. ingersoll. i do not want any doubt about it. the court. there cannot be. mr. ingersoll. well, i will just read this because i do not want any doubt about it in anybody's mind. the court. i have no doubt about it. mr. ingersoll. very well: "if a recovery is to be had, it must be _secundum allegata et probata_; and the rule is one of entire inflexibility in respect to all such descriptive averments of material matters. the cases upon this point, many of which are collected in the case of state vs. copp, n. h., f , are quite uniform." now, if the court please, i not only read this with regard to the overt acts, but with regard to the description of the crime itself--the conspiracy. i will then refer to state against copp, th new hampshire. i will also refer to the case of rex against whelpley, th carrington & payne, ; to d starkie on evidence, sections to , inclusive; also to the united states against denee and others, d wood, page , and a case under this exact section, : "it seems clear that the statute upon which this indictment is based is not intended to relieve the pleader from any supposed necessity of setting out the means agreed upon to carry out the conspiracy by requiring him to aver some overt act done in pursuance of the conspiracy and make such act a necessary ingredient of the offence." the court then refers to the commonwealth against shed, th cushing, , and continues--in that case it was different: "that difficulty does not exist here, for the overt act is part of the offence, and must be proved as laid in the indictment." so i find that the court passed upon this very question, and i wish to call the attention of the court again to one line on page of the record in this case: "but in all cases the principle is simply this: that where the act which was done in pursuance of the conspiracy is described in the indictment it must be described with accuracy and completeness, and if there is a variance in the proof it is fatal to the prosecution." when i come to that part as to the necessity of describing offences then i will cite the court to some other authorities in connection with these. now, then, we have got it established, gentlemen of the jury. there is no longer any doubt about that law, and the court will so instruct you, that wherever they set out in the indictment that we did a certain thing in pursuance of the conspiracy, they must prove that thing precisely as charged, no matter whether the description was necessary or unnecessary. they must prove precisely as they state. they wrote the indictment, and they wrote it knowing they must prove it, and if they wrote it badly it is not the business of this jury to help them out of that dilemma. now, as i say, we come to the dust and ashes of this case, the overt acts, and i take up these routes precisely in the order in which they were proved by the prosecution. first. i take up route . now, let us see where we are. the first charge is that we filed false and altered petitions by peck, miner, vaile, and rerdell. when did we file them? the indictment charges that we filed them on the th day of july, . when did the evidence show they were filed? on the d day of april, . that is a fatal variance, and that is the end eternal, everlasting, of that overt act. without taking into consideration the fact that every petition was true and genuine, the petitions were not sent by the persons as charged. it was presented by senator saunders, and that is the absolute end of that overt act, and you have no right to take it into consideration any more than if nothing had been said upon the subject. second. that on the th of july a false oath was placed upon the records. now, that is an overt act, and you know as well as i do that the description of that must be perfect. if they say it is of one date and the evidence shows that it is of another, it is of no use. it is gone. they say, then, that a false oath was filed. when? on the th day of july. suppose the oath to have been false. when was it filed? the evidence says april , . that is the end of the false oath, no matter whether that oath is good or bad. no matter whether they committed perjury or wrote it with perfect and absolute honesty, it is utterly and entirely worthless as an overt act. third. an order for expedition july , , alleged to have been made by brady. as a matter of fact the order was signed by french. there is a misdescription. no matter if brady told him to sign it, it was not as a matter of fact signed by brady--it was signed by french. they described it as an order signed by brady. it is an order signed by french, and the misdescription of variance is absolutely fatal, and you have no more right to consider it than you have the decree of some empire long since vanished from the earth. now, this is all the evidence on this route. that is all of it with the exception of who received the money, and i will come to that after awhile. that is route . according to their statement in the indictment, holding them by that, there is not the slightest testimony. we can consider that route out. we have only eighteen now to look after. that is the end of that. it has not a solitary prop; upon the roof of that route not a shingle is left--not one. let us take the next route, . what do we do in that according to the indictment? and now, gentlemen, recollect, they wrote this indictment. you would think we did, but we didn't. they wrote it, and they are bound by it. but if i had been employed on behalf of the defendants to write it i should have written it just in that way. first. sending and filing a false oath. when did we send it; when did we file it? on the th day of june. that is what the indictment says. what does the evidence say? april , . now, that is the end of that. it was a true oath, but that does not make any difference. that oath is gone. that has been sworn out of the case, and dated out of the case. what is the next? second. filing false petitions. when did we file them? the th day of june, . the last petition was filed the th of may, , and it does not make one particle of difference whether these dates were before or after the conspiracy as set forth, but as a matter of fact, every one of the petitions was true. that charge is gone, a fatal variance. what is the next fraudulent order? that of june . there was never the slightest evidence introduced to show that it was a fraudulent order--not the slightest. and what is the next charge? fraudulently filing a subcontract. and right here i stop to ask the court, of course not expecting an answer now, but in the charge to the jury, is it possible to defraud the government of the united states by filing a subcontract? now, gentlemen, i want you to think of it. how would you go to work to defraud the government by filing a subcontract? if the subcontract provides for a greater amount of pay than the government is giving the original contractor, the government will not pay it; it will only pay up to the amount that it agreed to pay the contractor. it is like a giving an order on b to pay c what a owes b. he need not pay him any more. that is all. and if the ingenuity of malice can think of a way by which the government could be defrauded by the filing of a subcontract i will abandon the case. it is an impossible, absurd charge, something that never happened and never will happen. well, that is the end of this route with one exception. this is the agate route. this is the route where thirty dollars it is claimed has been taken from the government. it is that route. you remember the productiveness of that post-office. they established an office and nobody found it out except the fellow that was postmaster, and in his lonely grandeur i think he remained about eighteen months and never sold a stamp. that is all that is left in that route, that order putting agate upon the route and taking it off, and then giving one month's extra pay. that is all--another child washed-- --that is all there is to that route; no evidence except epithets, no testimony except abuse. if anything is left under that it is simply "robber, thief, pickpocket." that is all. now we come to another route, and i again beg pardon for calling attention to these little things. the government has forced us to do it. it is like a lawsuit among neighbors. each is so anxious to beat the other they begin to charge for things that they never dreamed of at the time they were delivered. they will charge for neighborly acts, time lost in attending the funeral of members of each other's family before they get through the lawsuit. so the government started out in this case, and not finding a great point had to put in little ones, and we have to answer the kind of points they make. . overt acts. first. filing a false oath. when did we file it? the th day of june, the indictment says. who filed it? peck and miner. well, when was it filed or when was it transmitted? according to their story, june , . this oath is marked c, and an effort was made to prove by a man by the name of blois that it was a forgery. that was objected to, first, that it was not charged to be forged in the indictment; and second, that a notary public had already sworn that it was genuine, and that he could not be impeached in that way, and thereupon that oath was withdrawn, and you will never hear of it any more. i do not know whether it is true or not. that is found on record, page . now, recollect that oath was withdrawn. that is the end of it. second. filing false petitions. when were they filed? july , , and it turned out that that charge was true, with two exceptions: first, that they were not filed at that time; and, second, that all the petitions were true. that is the only harm about that charge. third. a fraudulent order made by brady, july th. now let us see what the fraud consists in. the fraud is claimed to be in expediting to thirty-three hours when the petition only called for forty-eight. you remember the charge expediting to thirty-three hours, when the petition only called for forty-eight. now, let us see. it is claimed that to grant more than the petitions ask is a crime; certainly it must be admitted that to grant less is equally a crime. the only evidence now of fraud in this is that he was asked to expedite the forty-eight hours, but he expedited to thirty-three. that is to say, he violated the petitions, and if that is good doctrine, then the petitions must settle whether expedition is to be granted or not. if that is good doctrine there is no appeal from the petition. i do not believe that doctrine, gentlemen. i believe it is the business of the post-office department to grant all the facilities to the people of the united states that the people need. he must get his information from the people, and from the representatives of the people; and while he is not bound to give all they ask, if he does give what the people want, and what their representatives indorse, you cannot twist or torture it into a crime. that is what i insist. now, the only charge is here, and while they ask for forty-eight hours he gave thirty-three. that is the only crime. did he pay too much for it? there is no evidence of it. before i get through i will show you that there is no evidence that he ever paid a dollar too much for any service whatever. now, then, if the doctrine contended for by the government is correct, then a petition is the standard of duty and the warrant of action, and if they gain upon this route they lose upon every other route. let us examine. there are three charges. first, false petitions. they were all true. second, false oaths. they offered to prove it, and then withdrew it. third, that while the petitions called for forty-eight hours he granted thirty-three, and before you can find that that was fraudulent you must understand the precise connections that this mail made with all others, and it was incumbent upon them to prove, not an inference, but a fact, that there was not only reason, but reason in money--sound reason for expediting it instead of forty-eight to thirty-three. that is the end of that route. there is not a jury on earth, let it be summoned by prejudice and presided over by ignorance, that would find a verdict of guilty upon the testimony in that route. it is impossible. another child gone. . let us see what we get there, and i have not got to my client yet. first, filing false petitions, by peck, miner, vaile and rerdell. when? on the th of june, . were they false? let us see. mr. bliss, speaking of these petitions contained in a jacket held in his hand, dated the th of june, , record, page , said: "we do not attack the genuineness of these petitions." that is the end of that. so much for that. second. a fraudulent order increasing service, and yet all the petitions are admitted to be genuine, and the order was in accordance with the petitions on the route. before the order was fraudulent because it was not in accordance with the petitions, and in this route it is a fraud because it is in accordance with the petitions. now, just take it. here is the route. every petition is genuine, the oath is true, not a petition attacked, the order in accordance therewith, and the only evidence that the order is a fraud is that it was in accordance with genuine petitions recommended by the people and by the representatives of the people. that is all. let me tell you another thing. expedition had been granted on the route long before, and this was simply an increase of trips, and no charge was made that the order granting the expedition ever was a fraud. third. another fraudulent order by brady, of april , , and it turns out that this order was in fact made by french. that was the only evidence that it was fraudulent, but the mere fact that french made it takes it out of this case, and you have no more right to consider it than you would an order made in the treasury department. the only objection to this order now is what? that it was in violation of the petitions. how? that it took off one or two of the trips. that was the fraud of the order of april , . the fraud consisted in taking off two or three trips that had been put on. now, let us see. the next fraudulent order was july , . what was that for? for putting the service back precisely as it was. now, i want you, gentlemen, to understand that, every one of you. here is a charge in the indictment of a fraudulent order that took off, say, two trips from the service. that is a fraud they say. then the next order put those two trips back, and that they say is another fraud. it would have been very hard to have made an order in that case to have satisfied the government; it was an order to decrease it; it was an order to put it back where it was; that is, it was a fraud, consequently it was a fraud to do anything about it. that is all there is in that case. let us boil it down. false petitions. that is the charge. the evidence is that the petitions are all true. a false oath is the charge. the evidence is that the oath is true. a fraudulent order decreasing the service, another fraudulent order increasing the service, that is, leaving it just where he found it. in other words, according to this indictment, brady committed a fraud in reducing the trips, and another fraud by putting the trips back. i think it was only one trip that he reduced. now, that is all there is in that case. people may talk about it one day or one year. that is all there is, and that is nothing. . fraudulently filing what? a subcontract with j. l. sanderson. i say you cannot fraudulently file a subcontract against the government. it is an impossibility. besides all that, mr. sanderson filed his own subcontract. there is no evidence that anybody else did file it or present it for filing. it was not our contract; it was sanderson's subcontract. how comes that in his indictment? let me tell you. in the first indictment they had sanderson; and when they copied that first indictment, with certain variations to make this, they forgot this part and put in the fraudulent filing of sanderson's contract. it never should have been in this case. it has not the slightest relationship. the real charge of fraud in this route is that a retrospective order was made, and this order bore date february , , and was retrospective in this: that it was to take effect from the th of january, ; but understand me, this was sanderson's route. he received that money, and it has nothing to do with us. still i will answer it. that retrospective order gave pay from the th of january, . now, it seems that before the order of february , an order had been made by telegraph, dated th of january, , to sanderson, and this telegraphic order was for daily service on eighty-nine miles. the jacket order of february , , was for daily service on the whole route from january , . if that order had been carried out he would have received pay for daily service on the whole route, instead of for daily service on the eighty-nine miles to which he was entitled. it turned out that the order of february , , was signed by postmaster-general maynard. the only possible charge is that sanderson received pay for a daily service on the whole route from january , , to february , , instead of eighty-nine miles. but we find in the table of payments introduced by the government, that for that quarter a deduction was made of three thousand four hundred and twenty-two dollars and nineteen cents, showing that the department could only have paid for the daily service on the eighty-nine miles, and that is exactly what the daily service would come to on the balance of the route. that ends that route. we had nothing to do with it anyway. it was sanderson. he filed his own contract, he got his own orders, he collected his own money and settled with the department. we have nothing to do with it and we will bid it farewell. the next is no. . first, filing false oath june , . the oath was filed may , .. that is the end of that. i do not care whether it is true or false, that is, so far as this verdict is concerned. i care whether it is true or false, so far as my clients are concerned, but so far as this verdict is concerned, it makes no difference. there is a fatal variance. second, it is alleged that brady made a fraudulent order june , . the order of june , , was made by french. there is another fatal variance. you have no right to take it into consideration. french is not one of the parties here. third, sending a subcontract of dorsey and filing it. as i told you before, you cannot by any possibility thus defraud the government; not even if you set up nights to think about it. there is no proof that the subcontract was a fraud. let us have some sense. it is an absolute impossibility to commit this offence, and therefore we will talk no more about it. fourth, the fraudulent order of brady increasing the distance four miles. this was done on the th of december, . that is the only real charge in this route. i turn to the record and find from the evidence, on page , that the distance was from five to six miles, according to the government's own proof. beside all that, the order of which they complain is not in the record. it was never proved by the government and never offered by the government, so far as i can find. that is the end of that route. the only charge in it is that they increased the distance four miles, and the evidence of the government is that it was from five to six. the next is . overt acts: filing a false oath by everybody june , . the evidence shows it was filed april , . that is the end of that. no matter whether it is true or false, it is gone. second, the fraudulent filing of a subcontract. well, i have shown you that that cannot be fraudulent. the subcontract of vaile shows that vaile was to receive one hundred per cent. it was executed april , , in consequence, as my friend general henkle explained, of a conspiracy made on the d of may following. the service commenced july , . there could have been no fraud in it. it was filed as a matter of fact may , , and not june . even if it had been a fraud, which is an impossibility, the description is wrong and the variance is fatal. there is no evidence that any order was fraudulent. every one in this case is supported by petitions, and every petition is admitted to be honest, or proved to be honest and genuine. there is no proof at all, and not the slightest attempt on the part of the government to prove that there was any fraud on this route. so much for that. no. . let us see just where we are. first, filing false and forged petitions. when? july , . by whom? by peck, dorsey, and rerdell. now, after they had solemnly written that in the indictment, and after it had been solemnly found to be a fact by the grand jury, the attorneys for the government come into court and admit during the trial that all the petitions upon this route were genuine; every one. it was admitted, i say, that every petition was genuine. read from page of the record and there you will find what the court said about these very petitions: "i shall take the responsibility of dispensing with the reading of petitions when there is no point made with regard to them." the petitions were so good, they were so honest, they were so genuine, they were so sensible, that the curiosity of the court was aroused to find what on earth they were being read for on the part of the prosecution. you remember it. every one genuine, honor bright, from the first line to the last. in reply to the court at that time mr. bliss said: "there is no point made as to the increase of trips. these--" meaning the petitions--"relate to the increase of trips. there is no point made there." it is thus admitted that every petition was genuine. second, a fraudulent order increasing one trip. this order was never proved by the government. it was not even offered by the government, so that the route stands in this way: first, a charge of false petitions; second, an admission that the petitions were all genuine; third, a charge that a fraudulent order was made; fourth, no proof that the order was made. that is all there is to that. and that is the end of it. no. . first, sending false and fraudulent petitions, and filing the same. when? july , . on page of the record i find the following: "mr. bliss. the petitions under your honor's ruling i am not going to offer." why? because they were all genuine. the court had mildly suggested the impropriety of the government proving its case by reading honest petitions. consequently, when it came to this, the next route, he said: "the petitions under your honor's ruling i am not going to offer." why? because they are all honest, and under a charge in the indictment that they are all fraudulent he did not see the propriety of reading them. that is what he meant. this remark was made because the government admitted these petitions to be honest. when were these petitions filed? the indictment says july . the evidence says may . so that if every petition had been a forgery you could not take them into consideration on this route. it is charged that miner & co. signed and placed in brady's office a false oath on july . on record, page , it appears that it was filed may , , and not as described in the indictment. the pleader has the privilege of describing it right or describing it wrong. if he describes it right it can go in evidence. if he describes it wrong it cannot go in evidence, and they have no right to complain if you throw out evidence that they make it impossible for you to receive. it has been charged with regard to this affidavit that dorsey was not at that time contractor, and therefore had no right to make the affidavit. the affidavit was made april , , and the regulation that such affidavits must be made by the contractors was made july , . that is a sufficient answer. the next charge is a fraudulent order made by brady, july . the petitions were all admitted to be genuine. there was no evidence that the order was not asked for by the petitions. there was no evidence that the order in and of itself was fraudulent; not the slightest. there is nothing like taking these things up as we go and seeing what the government has established. i know that you want to know exactly what has been done in this case and you want to find a verdict in accordance with the evidence. route . overt acts: first, making, sending, and filing false petitions. when were they made and sent? the d day of may, . there were some petitions filed may , , and there was a letter of the same date. they are misdescribed. they are all genuine but they are out of the case as far as this is concerned. i will tell you after awhile where they are applicable in this case. a letter of belford, of april , , and a letter of senator chaffee, of april , , we have, while the indictment charges that they were all filed may , . there is an absolute and a fatal variance. all these petitions, however, are admitted to be genuine and honest. see record, pages - . the charge in the indictment is that they were forged, false, and altered. the admission in open court, by the representatives of the government, is, that they were genuine and honest. there is the difference between an indictment and testimony. there is the difference between public rumor and fact. there is the difference between the press and the evidence. the next is that a false oath was filed by john w. dorsey on the d of may, . when was that oath filed? april , . a fatal variance. yet the man who wrote the indictment had the affidavit before him. why did he not put in the true date? i will tell you after awhile. did he know it was not true when he put it in the indictment? he did, undoubtedly. third. fraudulent order of may ; reducing the time from nineteen and three-quarter hours to twelve hours. as a matter of fact, no order was made on the d of may upon this route. it is charged in the indictment that it was made on the d of may. the evidence shows that it was on the th of may. there is a fatal variance, and that order cannot be considered by this jury as to this branch of the case. here is an order of which they complain. they charge that it was made on the d day of may, the same day the conspiracy was entered into. as a matter of fact, it was made on the th of may. on this description it goes out, and it goes out on a still higher principle: that an order could not have been made on the th of may in pursuance of a conspiracy made on the d of that month. but i am speaking now simply as to the description of this offence. fourth. a subcontract was fraudulently filed. i have shown you it is impossible to fraudulently file a contract; utterly impossible. all the agreements imaginable between the contractor and subcontractor cannot even tend to defraud the government of a solitary dollar. i make a bid and the contract is awarded to me at so much. the mail has to be carried. the government pays, say five thousand dollars a year, it makes no difference to the government who carries the mail under that contract, so long as it is carried. it is utterly impossible to defraud the government by contracting with a, b, c, or d. that is the end of that route. the order itself is misdescribed, and that is all there is in it. when the order is gone everything is gone. no. . overt acts: fraudulently filing a subcontract. we do not need to talk about that any more. second, brady fraudulently made an order for increase of trips. the evidence is that an increase was asked for by a great many officers, a great many representatives, and by hundreds of citizens, and that the increase was insisted upon not only by the officers who were upon the ground, but by general sherman himself. i do not know how it is with you, but with me general sherman's opinion would have great weight. he is a man capable of controlling hundreds of thousands of men in the field--a man with the genius, with the talent, with the courage, and with the intrepidity to win the greatest victories, and to carry on the greatest possible military operations. i would have nearly as much confidence in his opinion as i would in the guess of this prosecution. in my judgment, i would think as much of his opinion given freely as i would of the opinion of a lawyer who was paid for giving it. general sherman has been spoken of slightingly in this case; but he will be remembered a long time after this case is forgotten, after all engaged in it are forgotten, and even after this indictment shall have passed from the memory of man. no. . overt acts: fraudulent orders of august , , discontinuing the service and allowing a month's extra pay for the service discontinued. that is all. may it please your honor, in this route the only point is, had the postmaster general the right to discontinue the service? and if he did discontinue it, was he under any obligation to allow a month's extra pay? it is the only question. i call your honor's attention to the case of the united states against reeside, wallace, ; fullenwider against the united states, court of claims, ; and garfielde against the united states, otto, . in those cases it is decided not only that the postmaster-general has the right to allow this month's extra pay, but he must do it. that is in full settlement of all the damages that the contractor may have sustained. the court can see the very foundation of that law. for illustration, i bid upon a route of one thousand miles. i am supposed to get ready to carry the mail. five hundred miles are taken from that route. the law steps in and says that for that damage i shall have one month's extra pay on the portion of the route discontinued. it makes no difference whether i have made any preparation or not. the law gives me that and no more. if i should go into the supreme court and say that my preparations had cost me fifty thousand dollars, and the month's extra pay was only five thousand dollars, i have no redress for the other forty-five thousand dollars. that is all that is charged in this instance. and if the second assistant postmaster-general or any one else had done differently he would have acted contrary to law. he is indicted for doing in this case exactly what is in accordance with the law. let us get to the next route. that is all there is in this. no. . overt acts: sending a false oath. when? may . the evidence shows that on may it was sent, on may it was filed. a fatal variance, no matter whether it is true or false. that oath is gone. that is the end of it. what else? they did not show that the oath was false. first, it is misdescribed in the indictment as to the date it is filed; second, the evidence shows that it is honest and genuine, which is also fatal. that is the end of this route, as far as the indictment is concerned. second, that dorsey made and rerdell filed false petitions. there is no proof that any of the petitions were false, no proof that any were forged, and no proof that john w. dorsey or m. c. rerdell had anything to do with that route one way or the other. all the petitions on record, page , are admitted to be genuine except one. one petition asking for a ten-hour schedule was attacked and only one. but this petition was filed may , , and that is out so far as the indictment is concerned. the court. what is the date of the indictment? mr. ingersoll. the d day of may. the indictment says that this was filed july , ; the evidence says may , . a fatal variance. it is not the same one they were talking about. they did not find the petition they described. it is their misfortune. now, here is only one petition attacked. who attacked it? mr. shaw. see page . they were going to show that that was a forgery, and they were going to show it by shaw. that was the only one they attacked. what does shaw say? "i signed a petition for increase of service and expedition upon that route, but i did not read the petition. if i had, i should have discovered a ten-hour schedule." he would not have discovered it if it had not been there, would he? that shows it was there. "i would not have recommended a ten-hour schedule on a seventy-mile route." he was the man that was going to prove that ten hours was not there. but it shows that he was not able to do it, because he first swore that he never read it, and second, that he would not have signed it if he had. good by, mr. shaw. that is all there is as to that matter. the court will understand i am going now upon what is in the indictment, and not what has been thrown in from the outside. the court. i understand that. mr. ingersoll. i am going according to the strict letter of this indictment. i am holding these gentlemen to the law. that is what the law is for. you cannot come into this court and throw seven or eight cords of paper at a man and say, "you are guilty." they have managed this case after that fashion, but i propose to bring them back to the law. route . first. signing, sending and filing false petitions. when? august , . there is no evidence of any petitions being filed on that day--none whatever. the only thing near it is a letter of frederick billings, on record, page . this letter was dated july , . under the charge of signing, sending and filing false petitions, the only evidence is that a man by the name of billings wrote a letter, and there is not the slightest testimony to show that a solitary word in that letter was false--not one. nothing to connect it with mr. billings; no evidence that he ever spoke to him on the subject; no evidence that billings knew who was carrying the mail; no evidence that he ever knew or did a thing except to write that letter, and he was interested, i believe, in the northern pacific railroad. now, that is everything there is there; that is all there is in that case. nobody has tried to show that the letter of billings was not true. what else? a fraudulent order of august, . who made it? the indictment says brady made it. the evidence says it was signed by french, and it was in accordance with billings' letter. is there any fraud now in that route? let us be honest. false petitions: not one filed. false oath: not one attacked. simply a letter that we did not write, and that there is no evidence that we ever asked to have written. that is the end of that. but they cannot even get the letter in, gentlemen. they did not describe it right. the next route is . overfacts: first. fraudulently filing a subcontract. that you cannot do. when did we file it? july. , , the indictment says. what does the evidence say? may , . first, we could not commit the offence; secondly, you could not prove it under this description. second. filing a false oath. when did we file it? july . that is what the indictment says. what does the evidence say? november , . a fatal variance. see record, page . that is the end of that. the indictment is for something. you have got to follow it, and it certainly is not as hard work to write an offence against a man as it is to prove it. if they cannot write an offence, you certainly ought not to find the man guilty. besides all that, that oath was not even impeached, it was not ever attacked. there was not a word said upon the subject except in the indictment. it was charged to be false, and not one word of evidence was offered to this jury to show that it was false. third. an alleged fraudulent order of increase by brady, july , . brady never signed any such order. it was signed by french. that is the end of it, no matter whether it was good or bad, honest or dishonest. that is the end of it, and yet there is not a particle of evidence to show that it was dishonest, but you must hold them to their own case as they have written it, and not as they wish it was now. fourth. a fraudulent order of april , , allowing one month's extra pay on the service reduced. this order was not even proved by the government. as a matter of fact, it was not offered by the government; and if it had been offered, and if it had been proved, it would have only established the fact that mr. brady acted in accordance with law. now, we come to some more. . first, filing false petitions. when did we file them? july , . the proof is that they were filed long before that time the proof is that peck, dorsey and rerdell had nothing to do with this route after the st of april, , and the petition claimed to be signed by utah people and claimed to be fraudulent in the petition marked q. it was filed on the th day of may, . that is a fatal variance. this indictment charges it was filed july , . the petition cannot be considered. there is another petition marked q, claimed to have been written by miner, upon which the name of hall is said to have been forged. it has no file mark whatever, and consequently cannot be the petition referred to in the indictment. that was filed. that, however, has been explained by general henkle fully. this petition was identified by mcbean, and was signed by him, and he recognized the signatures of many of the citizens of canyon city. mr. merrick admitted that the petition, q, was never acted upon. as a matter of fact, orders had been made before the petition was received, which shows conclusively that they were not acted upon. the petition marked q, to which hall's name was, as is claimed, forged, was never filed, and was consequently never acted upon. this charge stands as follows: two petitions, one being filed may , --a fatal variance--and the other not filed--another fatal variance. these petitions are both described as having been filed july , . the variance is absolutely fatal, and these petitions cannot be considered. besides, the order was made before the petition q was filed. second. the fraudulent order by brady for increase of trips, july , . the only objection to this route is that the expedition was made before service was put on. this was in the power of the postmaster-general. it has been done many times, and is still being done by the postoffice department, and the fact that it was done in this case does not even tend to show that any fraud was committed or intended. that is all there is in that case. the petitions were never acted upon. one was never filed, and the other is not described, or rather is misdescribed. route . overt acts: a fraudulent order by brady reducing service to three trips a week, and allowing a month's pay on service dispensed with july , . this point, gentlemen, i have already argued. whenever the post-office department dispenses with any service it is bound to give one month's extra pay any time after the contract has been made and any time after the bid has been accepted. it is bound to give the month's extra pay on the service dispensed with, and this question, as you heard me say a little while ago, has been decided by the supreme court in garfield's case. this route was operated by sanderson. he was the subcontractor, and, according to the subcontract filed and presented here in evidence, he received every cent of the pay. we could have had no interest in perpetrating any fraud upon that route. why? because another man, j. l. sanderson, received every dollar, and we not one cent. another fraudulent order of increase, august , from powderhorn to barnum, seven miles. no fraud was shown, but the order in fact, was made for the benefit of sanderson and not for the benefit of any of the defendants in this case. in other words, it was made for the benefit of the people, it was made because they wished to reach another post-office. another charge is that the subcontract made by sanderson was filed september , . recollect the charge is about filing this subcontract. the fact is it was filed in to take effect from july , . see record, page . on this very route the subcontract took effect the st of july, , with sanderson, and from that moment until now he has received every dollar. this route, as a matter of fact, is out of the scheme. sanderson carried the mail from the st of july, , until the end of that contract, the last day of june, . so much for that route. it is gone. nobody can get it back, either, in this scheme. route . overt acts: filing of a false oath. when? june , . when was it filed? may , . that oath is gone. was it false? they did not attack it. they never impeached it. good. second. false petitions filed. when? june , . all the petitions were filed prior to may , . they are gone. one was filed may , but none was filed as alleged on june . they are gone. a magnificently written instrument. a fatal variance as to every petition. and yet not a solitary petition was attacked. every petition was genuine and honest. third. a fraudulent order by brady for increase and expedition. this order was asked for by the petitions. no fraud was established. see record, page on this route; also page . fourth. they also charge that brady made a fraudulent order on the th of january, . but the government never proved that order, never offered any order of that date. that is the end of that order. fifth. a fraudulent order of february , . this was not offered by the government, and no evidence was offered as to the existence of the order, neither the jacket, nor the order, nor the petitions, so far as i can find. that is the end of that. every overt act so far, except some of the orders, wrong. the overt acts charged were filing fraudulent petitions. when? may , . these are the petitions said to have been gotten up by wilcox. mr. wilcox was a government witness and he swore that every petition was honest, that every name was genuine, and that in order to get the names he did not circulate a falsehood, he circulated only the truth. to use his own language, "i did only straightforward, honest work." that is all there is on that. is the number of this route, and this evidence is on record, page , and in regard to getting up these petitions you will recollect the language used by the court. his honor said in effect clearly, "every man carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. he has the right to get up petitions. he has the right to call the attention of the people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. he has the right to do it; and the fact that he does it is not the slightest evidence that he has conspired with any human being." deny me the right to attend to my own affairs? if i have taken the route from the government, and contract to carry the mail, tell me that i cannot suggest to my fellow-citizens that they ought to have a daily mail instead of a weekly? tell me that i have not the right to talk it on the corners, in every postoffice for which i start, and that if i do i am liable to be pursued and convicted of an infamous offence? every man has the right to attend to his own affairs, and he has the right to get all the people he can to help him. he has no right to go around lying about it, but he has the right to call their attention to the facts the same as you would have the right to get a road by your house; just exactly the same as you would have the right to get a school-house built in your district, no matter if you were to have the contract for making the brick. you have a right to say what you please in favor of education, no matter if you are an architect and expect to be employed to build the schoolhouse, and any other doctrine is infinitely absurd. there is another charge: that a false oath was filed on the th of may. the affidavit was made by mr. peck, and i believe it has been admitted that mr. peck never did anything wrong. then there is alleged to be a fraudulent order for increase, signed june , and they never introduced the slightest evidence tending to show that there was fraud in the order. it was made in accordance with the petitions. it was made in accordance with what we believed to be the policy of the post-office department. and allow me to say to your honor that i think that the general policy of the post-office department, as disclosed in the documents that have been presented in the reports made to congress that have become a part of this case, i think even from that evidence i have the right to draw an inference as to what the policy of the department was. the court. i have no doubt in the world as to the views of the post-office department in regard to that subject. the court refused to receive evidence on that subject in defence, for the simple reason that the court was of opinion that no second assistant postmaster-general had the authority to establish any policy for this government or for any branch of this government. the policy of the government is to be found in its laws, and the court was unwilling to allow a second assistant postmaster-general to set up his policy in his defence against a charge in this court. he had no right to have a policy. mr. ingersoll. we never set up the policy of the second assistant. we never asked to be allowed to prove the policy of the second assistant. we never imagined it, nor dreamed of it, nor heard of it until this moment. what we wanted to show was the policy, not of the second assistant, but of the postmaster-general. but i am not speaking now upon that branch. the court. the postmaster-general by law is the head of the department of course. but several assistants were given him by law, and he had the authority to apportion out the business of the department amongst those several assistants. the particular business of the department pertaining to the increase of service and expedition of routes belonged under this apportionment to the second assistant postmaster-general. his acts, therefore, are to be looked to. mr. ingersoll. i do not claim, if the court please, that his policy had anything to do with it. i simply claim that from the orders that have been introduced, not of the second assistant, from the books that have been introduced, showing the views of the postmaster-general, not of the second assistant. i also admit that if the postmaster-general had ordered by direct order the second assistant postmaster-general to expedite every one of these routes, even then there could have been such a thing as a conspiracy to expedite them too greatly, and to receive money from every man for whom they were expedited. i understand that. but in the absence of any proof that it is so, all i have ever insisted was that the general policy of the head of the department might be followed by any subordinate officer without laying himself open to the charge that he had been purchased. that is all. now, gentlemen, all these things had been asked. they had been earnestly solicited by hundreds of congressmen, by senators, by judges, by governors, by cabinet officers and by hundreds and hundreds of citizens. now, let me recapitulate all the overt acts--and i have gone over them all now excepting one, and i will come to that presently. in the indictment there are twelve charges as to filing false petitions. there are ten charges as to false oaths. there are seven charges as to fraudulently filing subcontracts; and the evidence is that the ten oaths are substantially true; that it is impossible to fraudulently file a subcontract; and as to the petitions, that every one is absolutely genuine and honest with the exception of three. they prove that the words "schedule, thirteen hours," were inserted; that is, they tried to prove that by mr. blois, who is an expert on handwriting, as has been demonstrated to you. one with thirteen hours inserted in it, and the very next paragraph in that same petition begs for faster time. i have not the slightest idea that that ever was inserted by anybody. i believe it was in there when it was signed. and why? there would have teen, there could have been, there can be, no earthly reason for inserting those words. you cannot imagine a reason for it. now, that is thirteen hours. then there is another one they say had some names of persons living in utah, and we say that that is not described properly; not only that, but that it was never acted upon, and in my judgment that whole thing is a mistake and not a crime, because there were plenty of petitions without that. there was no need of it. all the other petitions have either been proved, or have been admitted to be absolutely genuine. now, i have gone over every overt act except payments, and when it was said here in court, or when the objection was made to these being proved as overt acts, the court will remember that again and again and again, the prosecution denied that they were offered as overt acts. the court. i never understood them as being offered as overt acts. mr. ingersoll. at that time the court made just the remark that your honor has made now. he said: "but what are the payments?" now, i will take up the payments, and we will see whether there are any overt acts in the payments, gentlemen. now, let me call your attention to that magnificent rule that has been laid down by the court. when you describe an offence you are held by the description. when it is said that i made a false claim against the government in a conspiracy case, for instance, that i conspired to defraud the government, that i presented a false claim, it may be that the laxity or lenity of pleading might go the extent of saying that the pleader need not state the amount of that false claim, but if the pleader does state the amount of that false claim he is bound by that statement. now, that is my doctrine. the court. what i understood in regard to the evidence of the payments is this: the charge was a conspiracy to defraud and the averment was that the fraud had been completed, and this evidence of payments was to show that the fraud had been carried out. mr. ingersoll. that is all. now, let us see if this can be tortured into an overt act. i now come to the presentation of false claims charged to have been presented and collected by these defendants. it is a short business. on the route from kearney to kent the charge is that peck and vaile presented false claims on the third quarter of for five hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-two cents. the entire pay for that quarter, three trips and expedition, was seven hundred and ninety-five dollars and seventy-eight cents. and there is no charge that the increase of trips was fraudulent. only the expedition was attacked. the three trips, according to the old schedule price, came to seven hundred and thirty-five dollars and eighty-one cents, all of which was honestly carried, honestly earned. now, deducting from the pay seven hundred and ninety-five dollars and seventy-eight cents, the amount of the three trips on the old schedule honestly performed, seven hundred and thirty-five dollars and eighteen cents, if the expedition was fraudulent, we have a fraudulent claim of sixty dollars and sixteen cents. and yet the government charges that we made a claim of five hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-two cents. not one cent is allowed for carrying the two additional trips without expedition. there is another trouble about this. it is charged that peck and vaile presented this claim for their benefit. the record, page , shows that peck did not present this claim; that it was presented by h. m. vaile; that h. m. vaile received the warrant for the full amount; that he held a subcontract at that time for every dollar. this is another fatal variance, and the evidence of vaile is that every dollar belonged to him; that not a dollar of that money was ever paid to any other one of the defendants; that he paid all the expenses; that he paid the debts, and that there never went a solitary cent to any government official. so much for that payment. the next charge is that on route , from toquerville to adairville, peck presented a false claim for the third quarter of for two thousand four hundred and sixty dollars and fourteen cents. the pay for that quarter was three thousand six hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fourteen cents for seven trips and expedition. the pay for the three trips on the old schedule was eight hundred and seventy-six dollars, a difference of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars and fourteen cents. and yet the government charges that the false claim presented was two thousand four hundred and sixty dollars and fourteen cents. if they give the figures they must give them correctly. if i am charged with presenting a claim against the government for two thousand four hundred and sixty dollars, that is not substantiated by showing that i presented a claim for two thousand seven hundred dollars. if you give the figures you must stand by the figures, and you are bound by them. you cannot charge one thing and prove something else. this is a fatal variance. in addition to this fact, we find the deductions for failures in that very quarter amounted to five hundred and forty dollars and forty-two cents, and this deducted from the other amount leaves two thousand, two hundred and eleven dollars and seventy-two cents. so that in both cases the variance is absolutely fatal. i am showing you these things, gentlemen, so that you may see that there is in this case no evidence to fit the charges in this indictment. , eugene city to bridge creek. it is charged that peck and dorsey presented a false account for the third quarter of for four thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and ninety-nine cents. the pay for three trips with expedition was four thousand, six hundred and eighty-nine dollars and twenty-two cents; the pay for one trip on the old schedule was six hundred and seventeen dollars, a difference of four thousand and seventy-two dollars and twenty-two cents. the government says the difference was four thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and ninety-nine cents, an absolutely fatal variance. now, as a matter of fact, there were deductions in that quarter of one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two dollars and eighty-three cents, and this is deducted from the entire pay, leaving only as a claim three thousand seven hundred and sixty-six dollars and thirty-nine cents. and yet the government charges that we presented a false claim for four thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and forty-nine cents. it will not do. it is a fatal variance. but when we take into consideration that there is no claim that the increase of trips was fraudulent, only the expedition, and that by the old schedule one trip came to six hundred and seventeen dollars, that three trips came to one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one dollars, and that added to deductions would make three thousand seven hundred and seventy-three dollars and eighty-three cents, to be deducted from four thousand six hundred and eighty-nine dollars and twenty-two cents, it would leave as a fraudulent claim, even if their claim was true, nine hundred and fifteen dollars and thirty-nine cents. now, the next is , the dalles to baker city. the false claim was eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-six dollars, by peck. the pay per quarter was sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars and nine cents. the pay for three trips and expedition was seven thousand seven hundred and seventy dollars--a difference of eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-six dollars and nine cents. but there were deductions, ninety-nine dollars and thirty-four cents, leaving eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-five cents. but by making this claim the government concedes that the expedition was legal, and another trouble is that the payment on this route was made to vaile, not to peck or miner. it was made to vaile, who was the subcontractor for the full amount, and this is another fatal variance. now, route , julian to colton. the charge is that peck and vaile presented a fraudulent claim for the third quarter of , for one thousand six hundred and fifty seven dollars and seventy-one cents. the pay for three trips and expedition is one thousand nine hundred and fifty-four dollars and seventy-one cents. for three trips on the old schedule it was eight hundred and ninety-one dollars, a difference of one thousand and sixty-three dollars and seventy-three cents. a fatal variance. besides it was not peck and vaile. vaile was the subcontractor at full rates on this route. he presented the claim. he received the entire pay. another variance. route , canyon city to camp mcdermitt. the charge is that peck and vaile presented a false account for the fourth quarter of , for eleven thousand eight hundred and nineteen dollars and sixty-six cents. it is charged in the indictment that this was paid in pursuance of the order set out in the indictment, and we find on page sixty-four that the order was dated july , . that was the order. no such payment was made in pursuance of that order for the reason that an order was made nearly a year afterwards, and the order of july , , as set out in the indictment, was not retrospective, a fatal mistake in their indictment. as a matter of fact, the pay for the fourth quarter of was five thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars. there were deductions to the amount of three hundred and fifty-two dollars and seventy-two cents and the balance was five thousand and twenty-two dollars and twenty-eight cents, instead of eleven thousand eight hundred and nineteen dollars and sixty-six cents. and this was paid to vaile, who was a subcontractor at full rates, and the variance in the case is absurd and fatal. route , redding to alturas. the charge is that peck and dorsey filed a fraudulent account for the third quarter of for seven thousand four hundred and eighty-five dollars and six cents. this was in pursuance of the order set out in the indictment, and the only order set out in the indictment is dated february , . that is another fatal variance. the next route is , bismarck to miles city. the charge is that miner and vaile presented a false account for the fourth quarter of , for fourteen thousand one hundred. the pay for the quarter for six trips was seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. for three trips under the old order the pay was eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, leaving eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars as the outside sum that could have been fraudulent, and yet the government charges fourteen thousand one hundred dollars, an absolutely fatal variance. besides that, there were deductions in that very quarter of four thousand five hundred and three dollars. this amount deducted from eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars leaves four thousand two hundred and fifty-six dollars and eleven cents as the greatest amount that could by any possibility have been fraudulent. three routes are lumped together next in the indictment, , , , , pueblo to rosita; , pueblo to greenhorn; and , , trinidad to madison. the charge here is on page eighty-one of the indictment that miner presented a fraudulent account for the fourth quarter of on routes amounting to two thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-seven cents. the greatest possible difference that could be made on route is seven hundred and sixty-seven dollars and twenty cents. the greatest difference that could be made on route is one thousand nine hundred and forty dollars. the greatest difference that could be made on route is six hundred and eighty-nine dollars and fifty-one cents. these three differences added together do not make what is charged in the indictment, three thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-seven cents, but as a matter of fact they amount to three thousand three hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-one cents. this cannot be the fraudulent claim described in the indictment. but i find that on the first route there was a reduction of twelve dollars and sixty cents, on the second route of one hundred and fifty-four dollars and thirty-eight cents, and on the third of thirty-eight dollars and two cents, and these deductions added together make two hundred and five dollars and ninety cents, and deducted from the three thousand three hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-one cents leaves three thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and eighty-one cents. and yet the government charges that the fraudulent claim was two thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-seven cents. it is impossible that the amount of the claim said to be fraudulent by the government can be correct; but, as a matter of fact, according to the evidence, there was no fraud upon any claim in that route. the next is route , saguache to lake city. the charge is that miner presented a false account for two thousand two hundred and two dollars and seventy-seven cents, and that he did this in pursuance of the order set out in the indictment, and the only order set out is dated august , . that is an absolutely fatal variance. as a matter of fact, sanderson was a subcontractor on this route from july , , at full rates, and he carried the mail from july , . the route was expedited on his oath and for his benefit. no point was made during the trial that the oath was not true. and the pay was calculated upon sanderson's oath, and the money paid to him. the only claim is that there was an error in the order of four thousand five hundred and sixty-eight dollars per year, and it is admitted that the mistake was afterwards corrected and the money refunded. you remember it, gentlemen. mr. turner, in making up the account showing how much the expedition would come to--and you understand the way in which they make up that expedition--made a mistake and added to the expedition and the then schedule the amount of the then schedule, four thousand and odd dollars. he made the mistake and it was honestly made. no man would dishonestly do it because it was so easy of detection, and that was his only fault, gentlemen. the only crime he ever committed in this case was to make that mistake. that mistake was afterwards discovered, and the money was paid back by mr. sanderson; and, yet, that man has been indicted, has been taken from his home charged with a crime. he has been pursued as though he were a wild beast. he made one mistake. they could not prove the slightest thing against him. there was no evidence touching him. there was only one way for them, and that was to dismiss him with an insult. you remember the case. not one thing against that man--not one single thing. he stands as clear of any charge in this indictment as any one upon this jury. he is an honest man. it is admitted now there was no conspiracy on this route either. it is sanderson's route, not ours. not only that, but the government says that it was not one of the routes with which vaile had anything to do, or in which vaile had any possible interest. the failure here is fatal to the indictment, and i shall endeavor to show that it is fatal to the entire case. the next route is , vermillion to sioux falls. it is charged that vaile and dorsey presented a false account for the third quarter of , for eight hundred and eighty-one dollars and fourteen cents. the pay for six trips and expedition was one thousand and eighty-five dollars and fifty-eight cents. the pay for two trips on the old schedule was two hundred and four dollars and forty-four cents, showing a balance for once, as stated in the indictment--it being the only time--of eight hundred and eighty-one dollars and fourteen cents. parties are entitled to pay for the extra trips, and the number of men and horses has nothing to do with the value of an extra trip. you understand that. if i agree to carry the mail once a week for five thousand dollars a quarter, and you wanted me to carry it twice a week, then i get ten thousand dollars a quarter, no matter if i do it with the same horses and the same men. that is not the government's business. you all understand that, do you not? every time you increase a trip you increase the pay to the exact extent of that trip, no matter whether it takes more horses or not. if i agree to carry the mail once a month for five thousand dollars a year, and you want me to carry it once a week i am entitled to twenty thousand dollars, no matter if i do it with all the same men and same horses. it is nobody's business. but, if the government wants the mail carried faster, then i am entitled to pay according to the men and animals required at a more rapid rate. you all understand that. but as a matter of fact, upon this route, vaile was the subcontractor at full rates, was so recognized by the government and received every dollar himself, and, consequently, the charge that it was paid to john w. dorsey is not true, and is a fatal variance. the government proved it was paid to vaile. next we have two routes, , ojo caliente to parrot city, and , silverton to parrot city. these routes are put together in the indictment. it is charged that a false account was presented of six thousand and four dollars and seventeen cents, and that this was done in pursuance of an order set out in the indictment. the order set out is on page forty-seven. it is in relation to route . the order was made not in relation to the other route. no order as to the other route was made. this was made february , , consequently the claim presented for the third quarter of could not by any possibility have been in pursuance of that order. that order was made in . the payment for the third quarter of could not by any possibility have been made in pursuance of that order. the evidence shows that it was paid before, and consequently there is a fatal variance. routes , mineral park to pioche, and , wilcox to clifton--two routes put together. the charge is a fraudulent presentation for the third quarter of , of seven thousand and sixty-four dollars and seventy-two cents. the pay on the first route was ten thousand five hundred and three dollars and sixty-two cents, on the second route three thousand five hundred and twenty-eight dollars. no proof has been offered that the expedition was fraudulent. not a witness was called on route . not a solitary petition was objected to, the truth of no oath was called in question, the honesty of no order was attacked, and how can you say that the claim was fraudulent? no order attacked, no oath questioned, no petition impeached. the only evidence upon these two routes was something read in regard to productiveness and the size of the mail, and that is all. route , rawlins to white river. the charge is that john w. dorsey and rerdell presented a false account for the third quarter of for two thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars. the order set out in the indictment was made march , , consequently the variance is absolutely fatal, and there is no allegation in the indictment that the expedition was fraudulent. now i have gone through every route with the payments. as to the general allegation of the amount of money fraudulently claimed and received, the allegation in the indictment is that j. w. dorsey received, by virtue of these fraudulent orders, made in pursuance of the conspiracy, brought to perfection by these overt acts, for the year ending the th day of june, , one hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars. good. the evidence shows that there was paid on the seven dorsey routes in all sixty-two thousand eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and forty-six cents. that is fatal as to that. but we will go further. one of these routes was turned over to vaile by dorsey, route , and the amount paid to vaile was two thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars and sixteen cents. so that the amount paid on the dorsey routes, instead of being one hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars, was in truth and in fact fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and ninety-four dollars and thirty cents. now, the charge is that this was all received by john w. dorsey, whereas the evidence shows that john w. dorsey received three warrants, two for eighty-seven dollars each, both of which were recouped, and one warrant for three hundred and ninety-two dollars, and that is every cent he ever received, according to the evidence in this case. there is what you might call a discrepancy. the indictment says he got one hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars. the evidence shows that he got three hundred and ninety-two dollars and not another copper. i shall insist that that is a variance. if it is not a variance, i will take my oath it is a difference. the second claim is that john r. miner received upon the routes awarded to him, and claimed to be his in the indictment, ninety-three thousand and sixty-seven dollars for the fiscal year ending june , . the evidence is that as a matter of fact on all these routes the money was paid to assignees and subcontractors, and that john r. miner as a fact, received not one cent from the government. the third charge is that peck received for the same fiscal year one hundred and eight-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-eight dollars. the evidence shows that he received nothing. there is another difference. thus it will be seen that every link in the chain in this indictment is either a mistake or a falsehood. every other one is a mistake and then every other one is a falsehood, and this indictment was made by adding mistakes to falsehoods, and what the indictment weaves the evidence reveals. now, why were these dates put in this indictment, gentlemen? we have now gone over every overt act charged in this indictment. the result is that not one of the charges set forth has really been sustained. hereafter i will notice some things that have been proved outside of the indictment. nearly every petition and letter is admitted to have been honest and genuine. those that have been attacked were misdescribed in the indictment and the evidence has shown that they were substantially true. there is a fatal variance between the allegation and the proof so far as these charges in the indictment are concerned, and they are left absolutely without a prop. the dates attached to the overt acts are false. there is only one of the routes in which the petitions are properly described, and that is route , where the petitions are alleged to have been and were filed on the d of may, and every one was proved to have been genuine and honest. the dates in the indictment were false. now, why? let me tell you, gentlemen. they had to deceive the grand jury. it would not do to tell the grand jury these men conspired on the d of may, and in pursuance to that conspiracy filed some affidavits on the third day preceding. they had first to deceive the grand jury and put in false dates for the filing of petitions, for the filing of subcontracts and for the drawing of money. what else did they want these false dates for? to deceive the circuit court, or rather the supreme court--to deceive his honor, because if the date of these petitions, the date of these oaths, had been set forth in the indictment it would have been bad. the court would have instantly said, you cannot prove a conspiracy on the d of may by showing acts in april previous. so these false dates were put in, in the first place, to fool the grand jury, and in the next place to keep this court in the dark. it was necessary to have a good charge on paper, and why? did they expect to win this case on that indictment? no; but they could keep it in court long enough to allow them to attack and malign the character of these defendants; they could keep it in court long enough to vent their venom and spleen upon good and honest men, and justify in part the commencement of this prosecution. this forenoon i tried to strip the green leaves off the tree of this indictment. now i propose to attack the principal limbs and trunk. what is the scheme of this indictment? i insist that the law is precisely the same as to the scheme of the conspiracy in its description that it is as to the description of an overt act. now, what is the scheme of this indictment? that is to say, the scheme of this conspiracy? we want to know what we are doing. it is the great bulwark of human liberty that the charge against a man must be in writing, and must be truthfully described. first. for the defendants, with the exception of the officers brady and turner, to write, and procure the writing of, fraudulent letters, communications, and applications. now, let us be honest. is there the slightest evidence that a fraudulent letter was ever written? is there the slightest evidence that a fraudulent communication was ever sent to the department? not the slightest evidence. second. to attach to said petitions and applications forged names. is there any evidence of that except in one case, and the evidence in that case is that the order was made before the petition was received and that the petition was never acted upon. more than that, is there any evidence as to who forged any names to any petitions? not the slightest. which of these defendants are you going to find guilty upon that petition when there is not the slightest evidence as to who wrote it? what next? to have these petitions signed by fictitious names or with the names of persons not residing upon the routes. is there any evidence of that kind? is there any evidence that the signatures of real persons were attached, and the real persons did not live upon the routes? i leave it to you, gentlemen. fourth. to make and procure false oaths, declarations, and statements. those i shall examine. fifth. for william h. turner falsely to indorse on the back of these jackets false brief statements of the contents of genuine petitions. you know what has become of that charge, gentlemen. this indictment against turner has been changed into a certificate of good moral character. that is the end of the indictment, so far as he is concerned, and i am glad of it. he is a man who fought to keep the flag of my country in the air, and who lay upon the field of gettysburg sixteen days with the lead of the enemy in his body, and i am glad to have the evidence show that he was not only a patriot, but an honest man with a spotless reputation. i do not think that, in order to be a great man, you have got to be as cold as an icicle. i do not think that if you wish to be like god (if there is one) it is necessary to be heartless. that is not my judgment. when i find that a man is honest i am glad of it. when i find that a patriot has been sustained my heart throbs in unison with his. what is the next? that brady, for the benefit, gain, and profit of all the defendants--and i emphasize the word all because upon that i am going to cite to the court a little law--made fraudulent orders; that is, for the benefit of turner, brady, and everybody else. eighth. that he caused these fraudulent orders to be certified to the auditor of the treasury for the post-office department. ninth. that brady refused to enter fines against these contractors when they failed to perform their service; that he fraudulently refused to impose these fines. what is the evidence? the evidence is that the whole amount of fines imposed by brady was one hundred and twenty-six thousand eight hundred and sixty-five dollars and eighty cents. that evidence is given in support of the charge that he refused to impose them, yet the imposition amounts to one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars. how much of that vast sum did he relieve the contractors from upon the evidence? twenty-three thousand dollars, leaving standing of fines that were paid, one hundred and three thousand six hundred and seventy dollars and twelve cents. that evidence is offered to show that he conspired not to impose the fines. one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars imposed in fines, and only twenty-three thousand dollars remitted. yet the charge was, and an argument has been made upon it before this jury, that the contractors agreed that he was to have fifty per cent, of all fines that he took off. think of a man making that contract with aman having power to impose the fines. "now, all you will take off i will give you fifty per cent. of." there is an old story that a friend of a man who was bitten by a dog said to him, "if you will take some bread and sop it in the blood and give it to the dog it will cure the bite." "yes," he says; "but, my god, suppose the other dogs should hear of it?" think of putting yourself in the power of a man who has the right to fine you. and yet that is a part of the logic of this prosecution. the next charge is of fraudulently cutting off service and then fraudulently starting it and allowing a month's extra pay. that happened, i believe, in two cases--thirty dollars in one case and something more in the other. the court. thirty-nine dollars. mr. ingersoll. then the case is nine dollars better than i thought. twelfth. by the defendants fraudulently filing, subcontracts. that i have already shown is an impossible offence. all these things were done for the purpose of deceiving the postmaster-general. now, the court has already intimated that we have no right to say that the postmaster-general would be a good witness to show whether he was deceived or not, and that it may be that his eyes were sealed so tightly that he has not got them open yet. but whether they can prove it by him or by somebody else they have got to prove it in order to make out this case. that is the scheme of this indictment. it makes no difference whether the postmaster-general has found out that he was deceived or not. the jury have got to find it out before they find a verdict against the defendants. it is possible that the postmaster-general thinks he was not deceived or that he was; i do not know what his opinion is and do not care. they have got to prove it by somebody. i do not say they can prove it by him. i do not know. this is the scheme, and what i insist is that this scheme must be substantiated and must be proved precisely as it has been laid without the variation of a hair. you must prove it as you have charged it, and you must charge it as you prove it. it is simply a double statement. i wish to submit some authorities to the court upon this question: must the exact scheme be proved? first, i will refer the court to the tenth edition of starkie, page . * * * "it is a most general rule that no allegation which is descriptive of the identity of that which is legally essential to the claim or charge can ever be rejected. * * * as an absolute and natural identity of the claim or charge alleged with that proved consists in the agreement between them in all particulars, so their legal identity consists in their agreement in all the particulars legally essential to support the charge or claim, and the identity of those particulars depends wholly upon the proof of the allegation and circumstances by which they are ascertained, limited and described." no matter whether the description was necessary or unnecessary: "to reject any allegation descriptive of that which is essential to a charge or a claim would obviously tend to mislead the adversary. * * * it seems, indeed, to be a universal rule that a plaintiff or prosecutor shall in no case be allowed to transgress those limits which in point of description, limitation, and extent he has prescribed for himself; he selects his own terms in order to express the nature and extent of his charge or claim, he cannot therefore justly complain that he is limited by them. * * * as no allegation therefore which is descriptive of any fact or matter which is legally essential to the claim or charge can be rejected altogether, inasmuch as the variance destroys the legal identity of the claim or charge alleged with that which is proved, upon the same principle no allegation can be proved partially in respect to the extent or magnitude where the precise extent or magnitude is in its nature descriptive of the charge or claim." nothing can be plainer than that. i refer also to starkie on evidence, th american edition, vol. , page . there he says: "in the next place it is clear that no averment of any matter essential to the claim or charge can ever be rejected, and this position extends to all allegations which operate by way of description or limitation of that which is material." i also cite russell on crimes, th american edition, vol. , page , and roscoe's criminal evidence, th edition, page . i now call the attention of the court to the case of rex vs. pollman and others, campbell, . i may say before reading this decision that, in my judgment, so far as the scheme of this indictment is concerned, it should end this case: "this was an indictment against the defendants which charged that they unlawfully and corruptly did meet, combine, conspire, consult, consent and agree among themselves and together, with divers other evil-disposed persons, to the jurors unknown, unlawfully and corruptly to procure, obtain, receive, have and take, namely, to the use of them, the said f. p., j. k. and s. h., and of certain other persons to the jurors likewise unknown, large sums of money, namely, the sum of two thousand pounds, as a compensation and reward for an appointment to be made by the lord's commissioners of the treasury of our lord the king of some person to a certain office, touching and concerning his majesty's customs, to wit, the office of a coast waiter in the port of london, through the corrupt means and procurement of them, the said f. p., j. k. and s. h., and of certain other persons to the jurors unknown, the said office then and there being an office of public trust, touching the landing and shipping coastwise of divers goods liable to certain duties of custom." the indictment went on and stated various overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. "there were several other counts which all laid the conspiracy in the same way." now i come to the part of the case which, in my judgment, affects this: "it appears that the defendants pollman, keylock and harvey had entered into a negotiation with one hesse to procure him the office mentioned in the indictment for the sum of two thousand pounds, which they had agreed to share among themselves in certain stipulated proportions; but although this money was lodged at the banking house of steyks, snaith & co, in which the defendant watson was a partner, and he knew it was to be paid to pollman and keylock upon hesse's appointment, there was no evidence to show that he knew that sarah harvey was to have a part of it, or that she was at all implicated in the transaction." he was a co-conspirator, and he knew that the money was to be deposited at this place. he knew that, but he did not know that sarah harvey was to have a part of it. "lord ellenborough threw out a doubt whether as to watson the indictment was supported by the evidence." the evidence being that watson did not know that it was to be divided in the precise way stated in the indictment. manifestly, they need not have stated in the indictment how it was to be divided; but having stated it, the question is: are they bound by the statement? let us see: "the attorney-general contended that the words in italics coming under a _videlicet_ might be entirely rejected. the sense would be complete without them. the indictment would then run that the defendants conspired together to obtain a large sum of money as a consideration and reward for appointment to be made by the lord's commissioners of the treasury. this was the corpus delicti. the use to which the money might be applied was wholly immaterial. the offence of conspiring together would be complete however the money might be disposed of." true. "there was no occasion to state this, and the averment might be treated as surplusage. suppose the manner in which the money was to be disposed of had been unknown. would it have been impossible to convict those engaged in the conspiracy? but, without rejecting the words, the variance was immaterial. the charge in the indictment had been substantially made out as laid. "dallas and walton, of counsel for watson, denied that the words could be rejected, though laid under a videlicet, as they were material, and they were not repugnant to anything that went before. the application of the money might be of the very essence of the offence. suppose it had been obtained for the use of the lords of the treasury, who would make the appointment: would not this be a much greater crime than if the money had been obtained for the benefit of a public charity?" i think that reasoning is bad. i think the crime is exactly the same. "but if the words were rejected then the variance was more palpable. in that case, there being no mention of any persons to whose use the money was obtained, the necessary presumption was that it was obtained to the use of the defendants themselves." that is good sense. "the evidence shows, however, that watson was to have no part of it, and that he was utterly ignorant of the manner in which it was to be distributed. "lord ellenborough. there can be no doubt that the indictment might have been so drawn as to include watson in the conspiracy. even if the manner the money to be applied was unknown, this might have been stated on the face of the indictment, and then no evidence of its application would have been required. the question is, whether the conspiracy as actually laid be proved by the evidence?" that is the question: have they made out a case according to the scheme of the indictment? has the conspiracy as laid been proved by the evidence? "i think that as to watson it is not. he is charged with conspiring to procure this appointment through the medium of mrs. harvey, of whose existence for aught that appears he was utterly ignorant. when a conspiracy is charged it must be charged truly." he did not know that mrs. harvey was to have a portion of the money, and yet she was a member of the conspiracy. the evidence showed that she was to have a portion of it, and lord ellenborough says that they did not prove the charge as laid, and that it cannot include watson. "garrow submitted that it was unnecessary to prove that each of the defendants knew how the money was to be disposed of, and that it was enough to show that the destination of the money was as stated in the indictment. a fact of which all those engaged in the conspiracy must be taken to be cognizant. watson by engaging with the other conspirators to gain the same end, had adopted the means by which the end was to be accomplished." that is what the attorney for the government says. lord ellenborough replies: "you must prove that all the defendants were cognizant of the object of the conspiracy and the mode stated in the indictment by which it was to be carried into effect. a contrary doctrine would be extremely dangerous. the defendant watson must be acquitted." now let us apply that case to this. in the first place, they must not only prove this indictment according to the scheme, but they must prove that every defendant understood that scheme, knew the scheme, how it was to be accomplished and what was done with the money. the court. in that case watson was acquitted. what was done with the others? mr. ingersoll. they, of course, were found guilty, because they were guilty, as the indictment charged. they knew the exact scheme set forth in the indictment. they were guilty exactly as the indictment said. they divided the money exactly as the indictment charged they divided the money, and they were cognizant of every fact set forth in the indictment. but watson, although a co-conspirator, did not know what was to be done with the money, and consequently was to be discharged. why? because they did not prove the conspiracy as to him as charged. they need not have set forth in the indictment what was to be done with the money, but they did set it forth, and then they had to prove it. they need not have said that every man knew what was done with the money, but they did say that every man knew, and they failed to prove it, and when they failed to prove it as to watson he was discharged. now, gentlemen of the jury, what i insist upon and what i shall ask the court to instruct you is that the government, no matter how guilty the defendant may be, no matter if he has robbed this government of hundreds of millions, is to be tried by this indictment, is to be guilty of this charge as written in this indictment and nowhere else; and he has got to understand it. they say he understood it, and they have got to prove that he understood it. now, upon that same subject they say that the money was to be divided between all these parties--between rerdell, turner and everybody. i think it was mr. bliss who said there was no evidence that rerdell ever had any of the money. certainly they do not think that turner obtained any of the money. is there any evidence of it? not the slightest. is there evidence that there ever was any division, any evidence that there was ever any money divided upon a solitary route mentioned in this indictment? not one particle. if you say there is evidence, when was the division made? the court. the question is not what was done. the question is with what view the conspiracy was entered into. mr. ingersoll. certainly. the court. 'the object of the conspiracy may have failed, and this money might not have been divided as they intended, but still the conspiracy would be here. mr. ingersoll. good, perfectly. but if they set forth in this indictment that the money was divided, that statement is not worth a last year's dead leaf unless they prove it. that is all i insist upon. you cannot find anybody guilty of charges in an indictment unless you prove them. unless you prove them they amount to no more than charges written in water, than characters engraved on fog or written on clouds. you have got to prove them. now, upon this same point i say that if the scheme has not been established by the evidence, the case fails, no matter what the proof. the offence must not only be proved as charged, but it must be charged as proved, doubling the statement for the sake of doubling the idea of accuracy. that is in archibald's criminal pleadings, american edition, page . the same thing is held in first chitty's criminal law, . i also refer to the case of king against walker, d campbell, ; king vs. robinson, st hope's nisi prius reports, . i have the books here, but i will not take up the time of this court in reading them. now, if i am right, that is the language of that indictment. the overt acts with the leaves are gone; the scheme with the branch and trunk are gone. they prove no such scheme, they prove no such division. i will now proceed to examine the alleged evidence against my clients, stephen w. and john w. dorsey, and i want to say right in the commencement that suspicion is not evidence. you charge that a couple of persons conspired. that they met about nine o'clock on the shadowy side of the street. _a suspicious circumstance_. why did they not get _under the lamp?_ they were seen together once more, and the moment a man came up they walked off. guilty. they ran. and out of these idiotic suspicions that never would have entered the mind, except for the reason that the persons were charged, hundreds of people begin to say, "there is something in it. they met four or five times. one of them wrote a letter to the other, and so help me god it was not dated." another suspicious circumstance. "there was a heading on the paper. it was not the number of his office." so they work it up, and ignorance begins to stare, and wonder to open its mouth, and finally prejudice finds a verdict. suspicion, gentlemen, is not evidence. you want to go at this with this idea. whatever a man does, the presumption is it is an honest act until the contrary is shown. these men wrote letters. they had a right to do it. they met. they had a right to meet. they entered into contracts. they had a right to do it, no matter whether they were dated or not dated. one of the greatest judges of england said if you let out of the greatest man's brains all the suspicions, all the rumors, all the mistakes, and all the nonsense, the amount of pure knowledge left would be extremely small. if you take out of this case all the suspicions, all the guesses, all the rumors, all the epithets, all the arrogant declarations, the amount of real evidence would be surprisingly small. now, i want to try this case that way. i do not want to try it by prejudice. prejudice is born of ignorance and malice. one of the greatest men of this country said prejudice is the spider of the mind. it weaves its web over every window and over every crevice where light can enter, and then disputes the existence of the light that it has excluded. that is prejudice. prejudice will give the lie to all the other senses. it will swear the northern star out of the sky of truth. you must avoid it. it is the womb of injustice, and a man who cannot rise above prejudice is not a civilized man; he is simply a barbarian. i do not want this case tried on prejudice. prejudice will shut its eyes against the light. i want you to try it without that. and right here, although it is a subject about which most courts are a little tender, the question arises as to the jury being judges of the law and fact. one of the attorneys for the government, mr. merrick, told us that at one time he insisted that the jury was the judge of the law, and made this remarkable declaration: "but even at the time i spoke the words to the jury i did not believe them to be indicative of safe and true principles of law." was he candid then? is he candid now? i do not know. but his doctrine appears to be this: "when i am afraid of the court i insist on the jury judging the law. when i am afraid of the jury i turn the law over to the court. but in this case, having confidence in both judge and jury, it is wholly immaterial to me how the question is decided." now, if it please the court, i believe the law to be simply this: i believe the jury to be absolute judges of the facts, and yet if on the facts they find a man guilty whom the court thinks is not guilty, the court will grant a new trial. the court has the power to set aside a verdict because the jury find contrary to the evidence. the court cannot do it, however, when the jury finds a verdict of not guilty. i do not believe that the jury have a right to disregard the law from the court unless a juryman upon his oath can say that he believes, he knows, or is satisfied that is not the law; and he must be honest in that, and he must not be acting upon caprice. he must be absolutely honest. he must be in that condition of mind that to follow the law pointed out by the court would trample upon his conscience, and that he has not the right to do. that is all the distance i go. the history of the world will show that some of the grandest advances made in law have been made by juries who would not allow their consciences to be trampled into the earth by tyrannical judges. i am not saying that for this case. i am simply saying that as a fact. there was a time in this country when they used to try a man who helped another to gain his liberty, and there was now and then a man on the jury who had sense enough, and heart enough, and conscience enough to say, "i will die before i carry out that kind of law." they did not carry it out either, and finally the law became so contemptible, so execrable, that everybody despised it. all i ask this jury to do is just to be governed by the evidence and by the law as the court will give it to them, honestly and fairly. now, i am coming to the evidence against john w. dorsey. i am traveling through this case now we have started it. as you have heard very little about it, gentlemen, and there is nothing in the world like speaking on a fresh subject. i feel-an interest in john w. dorsey. he is my client. i believe him to be an absolutely honest man. he is willing to take the effect of all his acts. he is no sneak, no skulk. he will take it as it is. let us see what he has done. the first witness is mr. boone. mr. boone swears that john w. dorsey was one of the original partners. well, that is so. it is claimed that the conspiracy was entered into before there was any bidding. well, boone does not uphold that view. now, if boone and miner and john w. dorsey and peck had an arrangement with brady whereby they were to bid and then have expedition and increase, i want to ask you why did boone write to all the postmasters to find out about the roads and the cost of provender, and the kind of weather they had in the winter in order to ascertain what bid to make? if he had had an arrangement with the second assistant postmaster-general to expedite the route he would have simply made up his mind to bid lower than anybody else, and he would not have cared a cent what kind of roads they had there, or what kind of weather they had in the winter, or how much horse provender cost, and yet he sent out thousands of circulars to find out these facts. for what? to make bids. what for? according to the government these were routes on which they had already conspired for expedition and increase without the slightest reference to the horses and men, and of course, if that theory is true, boone is one of the conspirators. but i will come to that hereafter. more routes, according to boone's testimony, were awarded than they anticipated. they got, i think, one hundred and twenty-six. they had no money to stock the routes. they got more than they expected. well, that was not a crime. boone left in august, , and mr. merrick takes the ground that boone had done the work, manipulated all the machinery, and yet could not be trusted with the secret. boone had gathered all the information, he had done the entire business, and yet the secret up to that time had been successfully kept from him. do you believe that? now, vaile came, and another partnership was formed, and the second partnership remained in force, i think, till the st of april, , or the last day of march, and then the routes were divided. now, then, john w. dorsey is charged with conspiracy as to these routes, and these routes were afterwards assigned to s. w. dorsey to secure advances and indorsements that were made. now, of the routes mentioned in the indictment, john w. dorsey was interested in seven at the time of the division. from vermillion to sioux falls, from white river to rawlins, from garland to parrott city, from ouray to los pinos, from silverton to parrott city, from mineral park to pioche, and from tres alamos to clifton. how much money did he get on all these routes? i have already shown you. he received two warrants for eighty-seven dollars and they recouped them both. he received another warrant for three hundred and ninety-two dollars and succeeded in keeping it. that is all the money he got in these seven routes. now, the testimony of mr. vaile shows, if it shows anything, that after april, , he took those routes and kept them and never paid a dollar to any official in the world, and he also swears that no matter how much he got, it made no difference as to the routes that had been given to john w. dorsey and peck. it could not in any way affect their amount, and that no person in the world except themselves had any interest in them. now, it is charged that false affidavits were made by john w. dorsey, and that the making of these false affidavits was the result of conspiracy. let us see. it has been shown by the evidence, and i have already shown it, and conclusively shown it, that the affidavit was substantially correct, so far as the proportion was concerned. now, let me explain what i mean by proportion. for instance, i am getting five thousand dollars a year on a route, and it takes five men and ten horses. that is an aggregate of fifteen. now, suppose i simply expedite it a certain number of miles an hour, and say it will take fifteen men and thirty horses. that makes an aggregate of forty-five, does it not? then the government gives me three times as much for the expedited service as for the then service. now, suppose i am getting a thousand dollars, and it only takes one man and one horse, and i make an affidavit that it takes one hundred men and one hundred horses, and if it is expedited it will take two hundred men and two hundred horses, how much more do i get? i get just double, and the result of the affidavit is exactly the same as though i said the one man and one horse that it then took, and it would require two men and two horses. if you keep the proportion you cannot by any possibility commit a fraud against the government. now we understand that. now let us see. when you make an affidavit, what do you do? when you make an affidavit of how many horses it will take, you take into consideration the length of the term, three or four years. you take into consideration the life of a horse. you take into consideration the roads and the weather. you take into consideration every risk, and find it is only a matter of judgment, only a matter of opinion, and the fact that men differ as to their judgment upon those points accounts for the fact that they make different affidavits. if everybody made the same calculation as to food, as to weather, as to roads, as to disease, everybody would make substantially the same bid, but on the same route they differ thousands of dollars a year, because they differ in judgment as to the number of horses it will require and as to the number of men. and then there is another thing. some men will make a horse do twice as much as others. some men are hard and fierce and merciless. some men are like they ask you to be in this case--icicles. some men resemble the gods so far that they will make a horse do five times the work they should, and other men are merciful to the dumb beast. so they differ in judgment. one man says he can go twenty-five miles every day, and another man says he can only go fifteen. one man says stations ought to be built twenty-five miles apart; another says they should be built ten miles apart. they differ, and for that reason, gentlemen, the bids differ, and for that reason the affidavits differ. i shall not speak of all these affidavits, but i shall speak of the ones that have been attacked. mr. merrick called mr dorsey a perjurer because he made two affidavits on route . now, no such charge is made in the indictment, but i will answer it. now, then, as to the two indictments--the court. two affidavits. mr. ingersoll. two affidavits. well, there ought to have been two indictments to cover both cases. now, this is on route , garland to parrott city. now, there were two affidavits made on , as is set forth in the evidence, but it is not in the indictment. the first affidavit was sworn to march , , in vermont, and filed april , . neither could come in under this conspiracy anyway. the second was made in washington, april , , and filed the same day, which is a suspicious circumstance. the letter dated april , , according to the prosecution, purports to transmit an affidavit made on the . there is no evidence that the affidavit dated the was inclosed in the letter dated the . the affidavit set forth the number of men and animals required to run the route on a schedule of fifty hours, three trips a week. there is no evidence as to the character of the paper transmitted, if any was transmitted, nor in fact, is there any evidence that any paper was transmitted with that letter. now, on page of the record, mr. bliss submitted two papers to mr. mcsweeney, a witness, saying, "i show you two papers pinned together." who pinned them? i do not know. "one dated april , , and the other dated april , ." the paper dated april is indorsed in the handwriting of william h. turner. the indorsement on the paper dated april is in the handwriting of byron c. coon. this fact shows that the papers that were read by mr. bliss as one paper and marked e, were treated by the department as two separate papers received on separate dates, and so marked and so filed, and they were marked at the time they were identified as numbers and . now, the only question is whether the last affidavit was made for the purpose of committing a fraud upon the government and whether the change in the figures in the last affidavit were intended to or could in any way defraud the government of the united states. now, let us see what it is. mr. merrick charges that the second oath was willful perjury. in order to show that this was an honest transaction, and that mr. dorsey should be praised instead of blamed, i will call your intention now to the exact state of facts. now, if i do not make out from this that it was a praiseworthy action instead of perjury, a good, honest action, i will abandon the case. in the first affidavit dorsey swore that it would require three men and seven animals as the schedule then was, and that for the proposed schedule it would take eleven men and twenty-six animals. now, three men and seven animals make ten, and eleven men and twenty-six animals make thirty-seven. so that by the first affidavit he swore that it would take three and seven-tenths more animals to carry the mail on the expedited schedule than on the schedule as it then was, did he not? three men and seven animals as against eleven men and twenty-six animals it would take three and seven-tenths more animals, consequently you would get for that three and seven-tenths more pay. now, let us understand that. that is an increase in the ratio of ten to thirty-seven, and if his pay had been calculated on that first affidavit it would have been thirteen thousand four hundred and thirty-three dollars and four cents. but it was not calculated on that. he made another affidavit. now, the second affidavit said that it would take twenty men and animals instead of ten, as it then was, and for the expedition fifty-four men and animals. now, the ratio between twenty and fifty-four was two and seven-tenths instead of three and seven-tenths, so that under that second affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he would only get eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars, and the change of that affidavit, if the amount had been calculated on the first instead of the second, would have cost him for the three years yet remaining of his term fourteen thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars and sixty cents, and that change saved, exactly as if they had made the calculation on the other affidavit, about fifteen thousand dollars, and yet they tell me that that was willful and corrupt perjury. there has nothing been shown in the case more perfectly honorable. nothing shown calculated to put john w. dorsey in a fairer, in a grander light, than this very affidavit that is charged to have been willful perjury. do you see? he made the first affidavit, and in it he made a mistake against the government of fourteen thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars, and, then, like an honest man, he corrected it, and for that honest correction he is held up as a perjured scoundrel. it will not do, my friends. but, as a matter of fact, not one of these affidavits is set out in the indictment, not one charged in the indictment. they are wandering tramps that were picked up as they went along with this case, and have no business here. in route he made no affidavit. in route there is no charge in the indictment that he made any affidavit. in the route the affidavit was not false. it was charged and was not successfully impeached. in route the affidavit was never disputed and it was never attacked. in route the affidavit was not attacked, not a solitary witness was examined. in route no affidavit was made by dorsey. in route there are two more affidavits. now let us see. here is some more fraud. put it down, --two affidavits--a great fraud. the first affidavit said three men and twelve animals. that made fifteen; that for the expedition it would take seven men and thirty-eight animals. that made forty-five. in other words the proportion was fifteen to forty-five, just three times as much. three times fifteen make forty-five. then he made a second affidavit, filed with a purpose to defraud the government. let us see. in the second affidavit he said that it took two men and six animals. that makes eight. that on the expedition it would take six men and eighteen animals. that makes twenty-four. the proportion was eight to twenty-four. three times eight make twenty-four; and three times fifteen make forty-five. so that the amount was raised exactly the same to a cent, under the second affidavit that it was under the first, and consequently could not have been made for the purpose of defrauding anybody. impossible. the proportion of course is the material thing in every affidavit, and it is only by that proportion that you can tell whether they are trying to defraud this government or not. suppose that second affidavit had changed the proportion so that he was not to get just the amount of money, then you might say it was a fraud. but it did not change the proportion. on route another affidavit is filed and not successfully impeached. i went over that. i have got through with that. that is all there is to it. that is all, that is everything--everything--everything. there is no evidence tending to show that john w. dorsey ever spoke to thomas j. brady. there is no evidence to show that he ever saw him. there is no evidence to show that he was ever seen in his company; no evidence to show that he ever saw turner; that he ever heard of turner; that he ever spoke to turner; that he ever received a letter from turner; that he ever wrote anything to him; no evidence as a matter of fact that he ever exchanged a word with these men; no evidence that he ever saw harvey m. vaile; that he ever spoke to him. certainly there is no evidence that he ever conspired with him. no evidence that he ever made an agreement with thomas j. brady or with mr. turner or with any officer--no agreement of any sort, kind, character, or description at any place, upon any subject, or for any purpose, not the slightest; no evidence that he conspired with anybody; no evidence that he ever received from the united states a solitary dollar, with the exception of three hundred and ninety-two dollars--not the slightest. there is no evidence that he ever wrote a false communication to the department--nothing of it. there is no evidence that he ever wrote a petition; no evidence that he ever forged one; no evidence that he ever signed anybody's name to one; no evidence that he did anything of the kind or that he ever changed one; no evidence that he ever put a man's name to it that did not live on the route; no evidence that he ever put in a fictitious name; no evidence that he helped to deceive the postmaster-general--not the slightest. if there is i want somebody just to put their finger upon the evidence. there is no evidence that he ever made false statements at any time. there is no evidence that he ever paid, as i say, a dollar to any official, and no evidence that he ever promised to pay it. all the evidence is that he got three hundred and ninety-two dollars. he made the affidavits in accordance with what he believed to be the truth. the evidence shows that when he made the affidavits on those routes he had no personal interest, that he received not a dollar for making them. he made them because he supposed the contractor or subcontractor had to make them. he made them because he believed them to be true. he was guided by the little experience he had himself and by the statements made to him by others; and in all this evidence there is not a word, not a line, not a letter tending to show he did a dishonest act, and the jury will bear me out that in the affidavits attacked he was substantially right, while in the first instance he was too high; in others he was too low. but there is no evidence that he deliberately swore to what he believed to be untrue. the proportion sworn to by him has always been substantially correct. in other words, gentlemen, the testimony shows that john w. dorsey is an honest man, and there is no jury, there never was, there never will be, that will find a man like that guilty upon evidence like this. it never happened; it never will happen. now, i come to my other client, stephen w. dorsey, and i feel an interest in him. he is my friend. i like him. he is a good man. he has good sense. he is not simply a politician, he is a statesman; and i want you to understand that he never did an act in this case that he did not thoroughly understand as well as any lawyer in this prosecution ever will understand; or as well as any lawyer of the defence ever will understand. he knew exactly his liabilities. he knew exactly his responsibility. he knew exactly what he did and he knew he did only what was right. in the opening of this case mr. mcsweeney made a statement. he told you the exact connection of dorsey with this matter. he not only told you that, but he told you that dorsey had lost money on these routes, and that he had never been repaid the money he had advanced, and in that connection he said that he had turned the routes over to james w. bosler, and the department knew of james w. bosler because they introduced testimony here that the warrants were paid to james w. bosler. mr. mcsweeney stated that bosler controlled the business, and now we are asked by the prosecution, "why did you not bring james w. bosler on the stand and show that you had lost money?" i return the compliment and say to them, why did you not bring james w. bosler on the stand and show that it was not true that we had lost money, as he kept the books? i ask them that. why did they not bring james w. bosler? mr. merrick. if your honor please, there is no evidence whatever as to whether s. w. dorsey lost money on those routes, and the statement of counsel made in the opening, i respectfully submit, cannot be used as evidence by the counsel in the case. the court. of course it is impossible for me to say after so long a time spent in receiving evidence what evidence has been given on a disputed question. i cannot say from recollection what evidence has been given on this subject, but i understand the remarks now made are not made upon evidence in the case, but in reply to remarks made in the opening in the case. mr. ingersoll. partially so. mr. merrick. the opening by their counsel. the court. by their counsel. mr. merrick. by their counsel, mr. mcsweeney. mr. ingersoll. let me just state it, and the court will understand it perfectly. mr. mcsweeney, in his opening, said that these routes had been turned over to james w. bosler; that he received the money and paid it out, and that s. w. dorsey on these very routes had not made money, but lost money. very well. but that statement was simply a statement. it was never proved afterwards. the government said to us, "why did you not bring james w. bosler to prove that?" the court. where did they say that? mr. ingersoll. they said it in their speeches. mr. merrick said it. mr. merrick. not to prove as to the money. mr. ingersoll. ay, "why did you not bring james w. bosler?" mr. merrick. yes, but not as to proof of money; but as to other questions in reference to the distribution of routes and the loaning of money by dorsey, and by bosler to dorsey, and dorsey's transfer of the routes to bosler as security for the loan as appeared in vaile's testimony. the court. i shall not interfere. mr. merrick. i shall not attempt to arrest the course of counsel unless there is ground for it, and i ask the court that, there being no evidence of this fact, that the counsel shall not--mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] i am going to show there is some evidence. the court. i understand it is a remark in reply to an observation of your own. mr. ingersoll. that is principally it. now, they introduced the warrants that had been drawn by the contractors and subcontractors from the post-office department; they proved that these warrants had been paid to james w. bosler, and that one after the other, hundreds had been assigned to james w. bosler. now, then, i say, they say to us, "why do you not bring in james w. bosler and prove your innocence?" i say why did you not bring in james w. bosler and prove our guilt? we opened the door. we told you the name of the witness. we told you that he had taken the routes; that he kept the books; that he disbursed the money, and that we had lost money. instead of robbing the government the government has robbed us; and they say, "why did you not bring bosler?" and i say to them, why did you not bring him? they know him, and they know he is a reputable man. now, there is another point. i ask you all to remember what was said in the opening, and i understand that a defence is bound by its opening, bound by what it says to the jury. the question is, has any fact been substantiated in this case that contradicts a statement made in the opening? the court. the defence has no right to avail itself of--mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] of what it says. the court. of what it says in its opening unless it is followed by evidence. mr. ingersoll. certainly not, but it has a right to show that no evidence has been introduced by the government that touches that opening statement. it has the right to do that, surely. now, then, mr. boone was the witness for the government--a smart man. he swore who were interested in the bidding. he told and he positively swore that dorsey was not interested in these routes. he gave the names of the persons interested, and he swore positively that he was not. dorsey then, i say, had not the slightest interest. he loaned money, he went security, he assisted in getting sureties on bonds, and you recollect the trouble that they have made about some bonds. has there any evidence been introduced to show that there was a bad bond? has any evidence been introduced to show that the name of an insolvent man was put upon any bond as security? has there been any evidence to show that any action was ever commenced on any of these bonds; any evidence tending to show that every bond was not absolutely good? as a matter of fact, the government waived all of that. in offering the contract on route , mr. merrick made this remark: "it is offered for the purpose of showing the contract made. the contract itself is not an overt act. that is all right. there is nothing criminal about that." good! nothing criminal about any contract, gentlemen. you will all admit they had to make the bids, and if they were the lowest bidders it was the duty of the government to accept the bids and afterwards to make the contracts in accordance with them. there was nothing wrong in that. that is dorsey's first step. his first step really was an act of kindness. what was the second step? he was unable to advance any more money. mr. peck, mr. miner, mr. dorsey, and mr. boone were unable to advance the money, so mr. boone went out and mr. vaile came in, and the new partnership agreed to refund this money that had been advanced; that is, the money advanced by the other parties. what one gets another to advance is really advanced by him as long as he is liable for it. mr. vaile, a man of large experience and means, was taken in boone's place. is there anything suspicious up to this time? that is the only test of this whole question. is it natural? if it is natural there is no chance for suspicion. after mr. vaile came in, a written contract was made on august , . there is no conspiracy up to that time. not the slightest evidence of it; no arrangement with any officers up to that time. now, under the august contract, mr. vaile took the entire business in charge, and he ran it, as i understand, until the first day of april, . no officer had any interest in it then. there was no conspiracy then. vaile received all the money and paid it out. here we stand on the first day of april, . now, what is the history up to this time? that john w. dorsey, peck, miner, and boone were bidders; that certain routes had been awarded, they had not the money to stock the routes, and that s. w. dorsey advanced some money and went security; that afterwards boone went out and vaile came in, and the contract was made by virtue of which vaile became the treasurer and knew everybody, and ran the business to the first day of april, . he swears positively that he made no arrangement and that he paid no money. it is also in evidence that in december, , stephen w. dorsey and vaile met for the first time, and met in the german-american bank for the purpose of settling the claim upon which dorsey was security, and replacing the notes upon which dorsey was, by notes of vaile, miner & co. afterwards these notes were paid by vaile and the security of dorsey released. now, in april, , a division is made. the contract of august, , was done away with and a division 'of the routes was made, seventy per cent, being taken by vaile and miner and thirty per cent, by john w. dorsey and peck. in april, , the parties divided instead of coming together. they do not conspire. they separate. they do not unite. they go asunder. from that moment they agree to have nothing in common. each man takes his own, and each man attends to his own and does not help anybody else except when they insist that a contractor or subcontractor shall make the affidavit. they made affidavits on the routes on which they were contractors. that is all there is to it up to that time. then these routes were assigned to dorsey for the purpose of securing him. now, i go to the overt acts charged against stephen w. dorsey. do you know i am delighted to get right to that page of my notes. i am delighted that i now have the opportunity to answer and to answer forever all the infamous things that have been charged against this man. here we are, before this jury, a jury of his fellow-citizens, a jury that has the courage to do right. i have finally the chance of telling here before men who know whether i am speaking the truth or not, what has been charged against stephen w. dorsey and what has been proved against him. let us examine the overt acts charged. on route it is charged that miner, rerdell and s. w. dorsey transmitted a false affidavit. the evidence is that the affidavit was made by miner, not by dorsey, transmitted by miner, not by dorsey, and that it was not transmitted as charged in the indictment, but transmitted on the th day of april, . there is no evidence that dorsey even heard of that affidavit, that he ever made it, that he ever transmitted it, that he ever saw it, that he ever knew of its existence. that is the first charge. there is not one particle of evidence to show that he ever knew there was such a paper. upon that written lie, upon that mistake these infamous charges affecting the character of this man have been circulated over the united states. what is the next? that he with others filed false petitions. i am telling you now all the charges; every one of them. what is the evidence? oh, it is splendid to get to the facts. the evidence is that every petition is shown to have been genuine. there is no evidence that he ever filed one or sent one, or asked to have one sent on that route; and every petition is genuine and no charge made except as to one. in one they said the words "quicker time" were inserted; but the very next paragraph asked for quicker time, and nobody pretended that had been inserted. besides that, it was charged in the indictment to have been filed on the th day of june. as a matter of fact, it was filed on the th day of may. it was never filed by stephen w. dorsey; it was never gotten up by stephen w. dorsey. there is no evidence that he ever knew of it or heard of it. third, that he fraudulently filed a subcontract. two mistakes and an impossible offence. that ends that route. that is everything on earth in it. i defy any man to make anything more out of it than i have. i have told every word. the next route is no. . it is charged that stephen w. dorsey with others transmitted a false oath. the evidence is that the oath was made by peck, and it was transmitted by peck and not by stephen w. dorsey. what else? that it is true. there are three mistakes in that charge. they say dorsey made it. peck made it they say dorsey transmitted it. peck transmitted it. they say it was false. the evidence shows it true. thai is all there is to that route. it is the only charge on that route. no petitions were claimed to be false. now we come to route . let us see if we can do any better on that. the first charge is, that stephen w. dorsey fraudulently filed a subcontract. the subcontract was made with sanderson, sanderson got his own contract filed. this charge was copied from the old indictment. it is a mistake and that is all there is to it. these are the charges that have carried sorrow to many hearts. these are the charges that have darkened homes. these are the charges that have filled nights with grief and horror; every one of them a lie. the next route is . the first charge is that he transmitted a false oath. the oath was made by john w. dorsey, and is true. the second charge is of fraudulently filing a subcontract, an impossible offence. that is everything on that route. absolutely untrue. now we come to the next, no. . the charge is filing base petitions. the evidence is that every petition was genuine. every one. mr. bliss said--"we make no point about increase of trips on this route." every petition was for increase of trips. you will see that on record, page . that is the only charge on that route, gentlemen. utterly false! come now to route . charge: filing false and forged petitions. evidence: all the petitions genuine. second charge: transmitting a false oath and making it. evidence: oath made by john w. dorsey, and true. that is all there is to that route. if they can rake up any more i want to see it. i have been through this record. route . charge: fraudulently filing a subcontract. that is all. you cannot fraudulently file a subcontract. route . charge: filing false and forged petitions. evidence: every petition admitted by the government to be genuine. good. second: transmitting a false oath. evidence: oath made by john w. dorsey, and the government introduced no witness to show that it was false. see how these charges fall. see how they bite the ground. that is all. i have told you every one in this indictment; every one. you will hardly believe it. now let me give you the recapitulation. s. w. dorsey is charged on eight routes with having transmitted four false oaths. the evidence is he never made one nor transmitted one, and that the four oaths were all true. on five routes he is charged with having filed false petitions. the evidence is that all the petitions were genuine. none of the petitions charged in the indictment to have been transmitted by him were transmitted by him. he is charged with filing fraudulent subcontracts, and the evidence is that the subcontracts were genuine, and besides that, as i have said a dozen times, it is utterly impossible to fraudulently file a subcontract. not a single, solitary charge in this indictment against stephen w. dorsey has been substantiated. not one. he has been called a robber, he has been called a thief, but the evidence shows he is an honest man. not one single thing alleged in that indictment has been substantiated against him, and i defy any human being to point to the evidence that does it. now think of it. all this charge has been made against that man upon that evidence; no other evidence; not another line so far as the indictment is concerned. what is outside of the indictment? that he wrote two letters, taking possession of routes that had been turned over to him as security, which he had a right to do. what else? that he got up some petitions, or had them gotten up, in the state of oregon. the man who got them up was brought here as a witness. i believe his name was wilcox. he swore that everything he did was honest, and that every name to every petition was genuine. now let us see. another point has been made upon s. w. dorsey. i want to read it to you. this is from the argument of mr. merrick: "peck, john w. dorsey and miner, or some other one of stephen w. dorsey's friends. who was making up this conspiracy? who was gathering around him arms and hands to reach into the public treasury for his benefit, while his own were apparently unoccupied with pelf? s. w. dorsey. 'my brother and brother-in-law will go in, and miner, or if not miner, then one of my other friends.'" this is quoted. "one-of s. w. dorsey's other facile friends. that was in , gentlemen, the morning of this day of fraud and criminality. in that room where boone and s. w. dorsey sat arose the sun, and there was marked his course. there was fashioned the duration and the business of that criminal day." now, let us see what the evidence is. the object of that speech is to convince you that dorsey said to boone. "i will either put in miner or one of my friends." do you know that there is not money enough in the treasury of the united states, there is not gold and silver enough in the veins of this earth to tempt me to misstate evidence when a man is on trial for his liberty or his life. let us see what the evidence is: "q. who else besides his brother-in-law and brother?--a. i could not say positively whether mr. miner's name was mentioned. he either mentioned his name or a friend of his from sandusky, ohio." now, i submit to you, gentlemen, what does that mean? mr. boone, in effect, says, "he told me either it was miner or a friend of his from sandusky. that is, he either described miner by his name or he described him as a friend of his from sandusky." then there was objection made, and after that comes another question: "q. was anything said of mr. miner's coming to washington?--a. i could not say whether his name was mentioned or a friend of his; a personal friend." what does that mean? boone cannot remember whether he called him miner or called him a friend of his from sandusky. what else? "a. there was to be nobody that i understood outside of the parties i spoke of. "q. you and john w. dorsey and peck?--a. and mr. miner." "q. or one of his friends?--a. or mr. dorsey's friend. the arrangement made was not made until they came here. it was only to prepare the necessary blanks and papers pending their coming because the time was getting short, and it was necessary to get the information to bid upon. nothing was said about any interest at all until after they came here, and then there was a partnership entered into." now, i ask you, gentlemen of the jury, what is the meaning of that testimony. the meaning is simply this: boone could not remember whether he mentioned miner's name or called him a friend of his from sandusky, yet the object has been to make you believe that the testimony was that s. w. dorsey said, "i will either have miner or i will get another friend of mine." dorsey had no interest in it, not the interest of one cent, not the interest of one dollar, directly, indirectly, or any other way. he had no interest in having a friend of his. all that mr. boone said is that mr. dorsey either called this man miner or described him as a friend from sandusky, ohio. the evidence is that mr. miner did come, and the evidence is that the arrangement was made. what else is there outside in this case against stephen w. dorsey? i ask you to put your hand upon it. i ask anybody to point it out. what other suspicious circumstance is there? i want you to understand that all the suspicious circumstances in the world are good for nothing. all the evidence on earth tending to show a thing does not show it. anything that only tends that way never gets there; never. you cannot infer a conspiracy. unless you have the facts proved, you cannot infer the fact and then infer the conspiracy. there has not been--i want to say it again--there has not been a solitary fraudulent act proven against stephen w. dorsey. they have not done it and they cannot do it. all i ask of you, gentlemen, is to find a verdict in accordance with this testimony. may it please the court, it appears from the evidence in this case, i think the evidence of mr. james, that stephen w. dorsey at one time, about sixteen or seventeen months ago, made a statement in writing of his connection with all these routes. that statement he gave to the attorney-general and the postmaster-general. there is no evidence of what was in that statement. the only evidence is that such a statement was made, embracing his connection with these routes. the court. you offered to prove that. mr. ingersoll. oh, no. the reason it was established was i wanted to show whether that statement was made before or after mr. rerdell made a statement. the fact simply appears that he made a statement. the court. you offered to prove the fact. mr. ingersoll. i do not remember offering to prove it. i proved it. the court. if it was not proven--mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] i did prove it as a fact. the court. that he made a statement. mr. ingersoll. yes, sir. right here it is [taking up the record]. the court. oh, well, you cannot base any remarks upon that. mr. ingersoll. let me read what the evidence says: "q. was this statement of rerdell's made to you after you had received the statements of s. w. dorsey as to his connection with all these entire routes or with this entire business? "the witness. to what statement do you refer? "mr. ingersoll. to the statement that was made in writing and given to you and the attorney-general by ex-senator s. w. dorsey? "a. it must have been after that. "q. you mean rerdell's statement was after that?--a. yes, sir. "q. did you ever see that statement made by senator dorsey?--a. it was referred to the attorney-general. "q. did you ever see it?--a. certainly. "q. do you know where it now is?--a. i do not." i am not going to say a word about what was in that statement, but the court will see that that has a direct bearing upon their action with regard to rerdell's statement whether it was made before or after, which i will endeavor to show, and the only point that i wanted to make upon that statement now, was that the government has not endeavored to prove that anything in that statement was inconsistent with the evidence in this case. i am not going to say what the statement was; simply that he made a statement, and it follows as naturally as night follows morning, and morning follows night, that if that statement had been incorrect it would have been brought forward. that is all. the court. for anything the court knows it might have been a confession. we do not know anything about it. mr. ingersoll. if it had been a confession it would have been here. that is the point i make. if there had been in that anything inconsistent with the testimony it would have been here. the court. probably it would. mr. ingersoll. yes, sir; that is my point. the court. when a man is charged with crime no man has a right to say that because he did not deny it that is evidence of his guilt. mr. ingersoll. no, sir; and no man has a right to say that because he did deny it is evidence of his innocence. the court. it is not evidence either way. mr. ingersoll. it is not evidence either way, and if i am charged with a crime and i make a written statement to the government of my entire connection with that thing, and they go on and examine it for one year and finally finish the trial without showing that that statement was incorrect, it is a moral demonstration that my statement agreed with the testimony. the court. on the principle, i suppose, of an account rendered and no objection made? mr. ingersoll. good. that is a good idea. the court. i do not see anything in that. mr. ingersoll. i see a great deal in it, and it is a question whether the jury can see anything in it. the court. it is a question whether the court too---- mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] very well. the court. [continuing.] whether the court is going to allow an argument to be based upon a mere vacuum--wind, nothing. mr. ingersoll. that would seem to be stealing the foundation of this case. [laughter, and cries of "silence" from the bailiffs.] we will consider the argument made to the court, and not to the jury. the next question, then, is what is the _corpus delicti_; that is, in a case of conspiracy? i do not believe the combination to be the corpus delicti--the mere association. it may be the corpus, but it is not the delicti, and under the law there must not only be a conspiracy, as i understand it, but also an overt act done by one of the conspirators to accomplish the object of the conspiracy. so that the conspiracy with the fraudulent purpose and the overt act constitute the corpus delicti. now, i read from best on presumptions, page : "the corpus delicti, the body of an offence, is the fact of its actually having been committed." the dead body in a murder case is not the corpus delicti. it is the corpse and nothing more. it must be followed by evidence that murder was committed. "the corpus delicti is the body, substance or foundation of the offence. it is the substantial and fundamental fact of its having been committed." haggard, , opinion by lord stowell. i now refer you to peoples vs. powell, , n. y., page . it seems that the defendants in this case were commissioners of charities of the county of kings, and they were indicted for conspiring together to buy supplies contrary to law and without duly advertising. their defence was that they were not aware that such a law existed; that they were ignorant of the law. the court below thought that made no difference. the court above said before they could be guilty of this crime there must be the intention to commit the crime, and this language is used: "the agreement must have been entered into with an evil purpose, as distinguished from a purpose simply to do the act prohibited in ignorance of the prohibition. this is implied in the meaning of the word conspiracy. mere concert is not conspiracy." so combination is not conspiracy; partnership is not conspiracy; neither is it the corpus delicti of conspiracy. there must be the evil intent; there must be the wicked conspiracy not only, but there must be one at least overt act done in pursuance of it before the corpus delicti can be established. "the actual criminal intention belongs to the definition of the offence and must be shown to justify a conviction for conspiracy. the offence originally consisted in a combination to convict an innocent person by perversion of the law. it has since been greatly extended, but i am of opinion that proof that the defendants agreed to do an act prohibited by statute, followed by overt acts in furtherance of the agreed purpose, did not conclusively establish that they were guilty of the crime of conspiracy." it would be hard to find a stronger case, in my judgment, than that. although they agreed to violate a statute--they agreed to buy supplies without complying with the statute by advertising--they claimed they were in ignorance of it, and the question was whether they were guilty of conspiracy, having no intent to do an illegal act, and the court of appeals decided that that verdict could not stand. the court. because the court below had instructed the jury that whether what they did was done in ignorance or with knowledge it made no difference. mr. ingersoll. certainly; it made no difference. everybody is supposed to know the law. now, the next point is, and great weight has been put upon it, gentlemen, that concurrence of action establishes conspiracy; that if one does a part and another another part and finally the culmination comes, that is absolute evidence, or in other words, an inference. admitting, now, that they were perfectly honest, if any of these parties made a bid, that bid had to be accepted by the government. they had to act together. the department and the man had to act together to have the bid accepted. the department and the man had to act together to make the contract. the department and the man had to act together to get the pay, and no matter how perfectly honest the transaction was they had to act together from the first step to the payment of the last dollar. now, in a business where they do have to act together, where one necessarily does one thing, and the other necessarily does another, the fact that that happens does not even tend to prove that there is any fraud. upon this concurrence of action i refer to the case of metcalfe against o'connor and wife, in little's select cases, . one of the men confessed that a large party went to the house where there was a disturbance and where they tried to take by force a boy from the custody of a man and woman. now, the fact that these men did go the house, the fact that they were there at the time this happened, and the fact that one of the conspirators or one of the trespassers had confessed that he went there and that the other went with him for that purpose, the court decides that you cannot infer the purpose of these men from the statement of the other; neither can you infer it from the fact that they were there. you must find out for what purpose they were there by ascertaining what they did and when they were there, and that concurrence in actions shows nothing. the court. did you not say that the decision there was that the conspiracy might be inferred from the combination to do the act? mr. ingersoll. i will just read it and then there will be no guessing about it: "this is a writ of error prosecuted by the defendants to a judgment for the plaintiffs in an action of trespass for an assault and battery alleged to have been committed upon the plaintiff ann, the wife of the other plaintiff. "we are of the opinion that the circuit court erred in refusing to instruct the jury, at the instance of the defendants, to find for all of them, except the defendant metcalfe. he is the only one of the defendants proven to have touched the defendant ann, and against the other defendants there is no evidence conducing in the slightest degree to prove them guilty of committing any assault or battery upon her, or of any intention to do so. "it is true that it was proved that the other defendants confessed that they were at the house of connor when the assault and battery charged is alleged to have been committed, and it was also proved that metcalfe confessed that he and the other defendants had gone there for the purpose of taking from connor by force an idiot boy whom he had in his custody. but the circumstances of the other defendants being at connor's house, there is no evidence they were there for any unlawful purpose; nor can it of itself be sufficient to render them responsible for any act done by metcalfe in which they did not participate; and the confessions of metcalfe are certainly not legitimate evidence against the others to prove the unlawful purpose with which they went to connor's, and thereby to charge them with the consequences of his act." now, to all appearances, they went there together; to all appearances, they went there for the one purpose, and metcalfe, the man who really did the mischief, confessed that they all went there for the one purpose, but the court held that that was not sufficient. "where several agree or conspire to commit a trespass, or for any other unlawful purpose, they will, no doubt, all be liable for the act of any one of them done in execution of the unlawful purpose; and when the agreement or conspiracy is first proved by other evidence, the confession of one of them will be admissible evidence against the others. but it is well settled that the confessions of one person cannot be admitted against the others to prove that they had conspired with him for an unlawful purpose." now, the next evidence that i wish to allude to, gentlemen, is the evidence of mr. walsh, and i will only say a few words, because it has been examined and it has been ground to powder. everything in this world is true in proportion that it agrees with human experience; and you can safely say that everything is false or the probability is that it is false in proportion that it is not in accordance with human experience. other things being equal, we act substantially alike. now, when anything really happens everything else that ever happened will fit it. you take a spar crystal, i do not care how far north you get it, and another spar crystal, no matter how far south you get it, and put them together and they will exactly fit each other--exactly. the slope is precisely the same. and it is so with facts. every fact in this world will fit every other fact--just exactly. not a hair's difference. but a lie will not fit anything but another lie made for the purpose--never. it never did. and finally, there has to come a place where this lie, or the lie made for the sake of it, has to join some truth, and there is a bad joint always. and that is the only way to examine testimony. is it natural? does it accord with what we know? does it accord with our experience? now, take the testimony of mr. walsh, and i find some improbabilities in it. just let me read you a few: . bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, loan money without taking at least a note. that is my experience. and the poorer this broker is, the less money he has, the more security he wants. he not only wants an indorser but he would like to have a mortgage on your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. that is the first improbability. . bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, take notes that bear no interest, or in which the interest is not stated. people who live on interest find it always to their interest to have the interest mentioned--always. i never got a cent of a banker that i did not pay interest, and generally in advance. . bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, take notes payable on demand, because such notes are not negotiable. . it is hardly probable that when a banker and broker holds the note of another for twelve thousand dollars--the note being unpaid--he would loan thirteen thousand five hundred dollars more, taking another note on demand in which the rate of interest was not stated. . it is still more improbable that the same banker and broker, with a note for twelve thousand dollars and one for thirteen thousand five hundred dollars, being unpaid, would loan five thousand four hundred dollars more without taking any note or asking any security. . when such banker and broker called upon his debtor for a settlement, and exhibited the two notes, and thereupon his debtor took the two notes and put them in his pocket, it is highly improbable that the banker and broker would submit to such treatment. . it is improbable that such banker and broker would afterwards commence suit to recover the money, without mentioning to his attorney, in fact, that the notes had been taken away from him. . it is also improbable that the banker and broker would commence another suit for the same subject-matter and still keep the fact that the notes had been taken from him by violence, a secret from his attorney. . if mr. brady took the notes by force, it is improbable that he would immediately put himself in the power of the man he had robbed, by stating to him that he, brady, was in the habit of taking bribes. . it is impossible that mr. brady could, in fact, have done this, which amounted to saying this: "i have taken twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars from you; of course, you are my enemy; of course, you will endeavor to be revenged, and i now point out the way in which you can have your revenge. i am second assistant postmaster-general; i award contracts, increases, and expedition, and upon these i receive twenty per cent, as a bribe. i am a bribe-taker; i am a thief; make the most of it. i give you these tacts in order that i may put a weapon in your hands with which you can obtain your revenge." there are also other improbabilities connected with this testimony. if mr. brady was receiving twenty per cent, of all increases and expeditions, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum, it is not easy to see why he would be borrowing money from mr. walsh. now, if that story is true, boil it down and it is this, because if he got this twenty per cent, from everybody he had oceans of money--boil it all down and it is this: a rich man borrows without necessity and a poor banker loans without security. these twin improbabilities would breed suspicion in credulity itself. no man ever believed that story, no man ever will. there is something wrong about it somewhere, unnatural, improbable, and it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether it is true or not, not for me. what is the effect of that testimony? so far as my clients are concerned it is admitted, i believe, by the prosecution--it was so stated, i believe, by his honor from the bench--that it could not by any possibility affect any defendant except mr. brady, and the question now is, can it even affect him? i call the attention of the court to th n. y., page . i give the page from which i read: "to make such admissions or declarations competent evidence, it must stand as a fact in the cause, admitted or proved, that the assignor or assignees were in a conspiracy to defraud the creditors. if that fact exist, then the acts and declarations of either, made in execution of the common purpose, and in aid of its fulfillment, are competent against either of them. the principle of its admissibility assumes that fact." that the conspiracy has been established. "in case of conspiracy, where the combination is proved, the acts and declarations of the conspirators are not received as evidence of that fact, but to show what was done, the means employed, the particular design in respect to the parties to be affected or wronged, and generally those details which, assuming the combination and the illegal purpose, unfold its extent, scope, and influence either upon the public or the individuals who suffer from the wrong, or show the execution of the illegal design. but when the issue is simply and only, was there a conspiracy to defraud, these declarations do not become evidence to establish it." "so far then, as the admission of the evidence in this case, of declarations, subsequent to the assignment, is sought to be sustained as evidence of the common fraud, on the ground of conspiracy, the argument wholly fails. a conspiracy cannot be proved against three by evidence that one admitted it, nor against assignees by proof that the assignor admitted it; it is a fact that must be proved by evidence, the competency of which does not depend upon an assumption that it exists." so to the same point is the case of cowles against coe, st connecticut, . i will read that portion of the syllabus that conveys the idea: "to prove the alleged conspiracy between the defendant and g., the plaintiff offered the deposition of r., stating declarations made by g. to r., while g. was engaged in purchasing goods of him, on credit, and relative to g.'s responsibility and means of obtaining money through the defendant's aid; these declarations were objected to, not on the ground that the conspiracy had not been sufficiently proved, but because the defendant was not present when they were made; it was held that they were admissible, within the rule regarding declarations made by a conspirator in furtherance of the common object." now, let us see what the court says about it: "the remaining question is, whether the declarations of gale to edmund curtiss and william ives were properly received. these declarations were not offered as in any way tending to prove the combination claimed. the motion shows that they were offered and received after the plaintiff's evidence on that subject had been introduced. had they been admitted for that purpose, or if, under the circumstances, they could have had any influence with the jury on that point, we should feel bound to advise a new trial on this account." all that i have said in respect to walsh applies to what is known or what is called the confession of rerdell. it was admitted by the prosecution that not one word said by him could bind any other defendant in the case. but, gentlemen, is there enough even to bind him? did he confess that he was guilty of the conspiracy set forth in this indictment? and i want to make one other point. in this case there must be not only a conspiracy, but an overt act, and no man can confess himself into it without confessing that he was a conspirator, and that he knew that an overt act was to be done; because it takes that conspiracy and the overt act to 'make the offence. what overt act did rerdell confess that he was guilty of--what overt act charged in this indictment? one. filing a subcontract; and by no earthly method, by no earthly reasoning can you come to the conclusion that that could carry it into conspiracy. he must have confessed that he was guilty according to the scheme, according to the indictment set forth, and in no other way. that indictment says that the money was to be divided, that it was for the mutual benefit of certain persons. unless that has been substantiated this case falls. according to the case of the king against pomall the scheme of the indictment must be established, otherwise the case goes. in that case they charged it was one way, and they proved it was that way, and one of the defendants did not understand it that way and he was acquitted. now, suppose they had not proved the scheme as they charged it, then all would have been acquitted, and unless the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt, from the evidence that the scheme set forth in the indictment here was the scheme, then they must find everybody not guilty. there is no other way. what is the next argument? the next argument is extravagance. what is extravagance? if i pay more for a thing than it is worth that is extravagance. if i buy a thing that i do not want, that is extravagance, and if i do this knowing it to be wrong, if i do this understanding that i am to have a part of the price, that is bribery, that is corruption, that is rascality. nobody disputes that. how do you know that a thing is extravagant unless you know the price of it? for instance, an army officer is charged with extravagance in buying corn upon the plains at five dollars a bushel. how do you prove it is extravagance? you must prove that he could have obtained it for less or that there was a cheaper substitute that he should have obtained. how are you going to prove that too much was paid for carrying the mail upon these routes? only by showing that it could have been carried for less. what witness was before this jury fixing the price? how are we to establish the fact that it was extravagance? we must show that it could have been obtained for less money. what witness came here and swore that he would carry it for less? and would it be fair to have the entire case decided upon one route when it is in evidence that my clients had thirty per cent, of one hundred and twenty-six routes? would it be fair to decide the question whether they had made or lost money on one route? your experience tells you that upon one route they might make a large sum of money and upon several other routes lose largely. a man who has bid for one hundred routes takes into view the average and says "upon some i shall lose and upon others i shall make." how are you to find that this was extravagance unless you know what it could have been done for? they may say that they subcontracted some of the routes for much less. yes; but what did they do with the rest of them? i might take a contract to build a dozen houses in this city, and on the first house make ten thousand dollars clear, and on the balance i might lose twenty-five thousand dollars. you have a right to take these things and to average them. when a man takes a contract he takes into consideration the chances that he must run in that new and wild country. it takes work to carry this mail. you ought to be there sometimes in the winter when the wind comes down with an unbroken sweep of three or four thousand miles, and then tell me what you think it is worth to carry the mail. all these things must be taken into consideration. another thing: you must remember that every one of these routes was established by congress. congress first said, "here shall be a route; here the mail shall be carried." it was the business then, i believe, of the first assistant postmaster-general to name the offices, and the second assistant to put on the service. take that into consideration. every one of these routes was established by congress. take another thing into consideration: that the increase of service and expedition was asked for, petitioned for, begged for, and urged by the members of both houses of congress, and according to that book, which i believe is in evidence, a majority of both houses of congress asked, recommended, and urged increase of service and expedition upon some of the nineteen routes in this indictment. the court. what evidence do you refer to? mr. ingersoll. i refer to the star route investigation in congress. the court. that record is not in evidence. mr. ingersoll. i thought that was in evidence. the court. no, sir. mr. ingersoll. it was used as if it was in evidence. i saw people reading from it, and supposed it was in evidence. the court. it is not in evidence. mr. ingersoll. well, we will leave that out. now, upon these nineteen routes--this is in evidence--increase and expedition of service were recommended by such senators as booth, farley, slater, grover, chaffee, chilcott, saunders, and by the present secretary of the interior, henry m. teller, and by such members of congress as whiteaker, page, luttrell, pacheco, berry, belford, bingham, chairman of the postoffice committee, by stevens of arizona, a delegate, and by maginnis of montana, and kidder of dakota, by generals sherman, terry, miles, hatch and wilcox in addition to these, recommendations were made and read by judges of courts, by district attorneys, by governors of territories, by governors of states, and by members of state legislatures, by colonels, by majors, by captains, and by hundreds and hundreds of good, reputable, honest citizens. they were the ones to decide as a matter of fact whether this increase was or was not necessary. i believe in carrying the mails. i believe in the diffusion of intelligence. i believe the men in colorado or wyoming, or any other territory, that are engaged in digging gold or silver from the earth, or any other pursuits, have just as much right, in the language of henry m. teller, to their mail as any gentleman has to his in the city of new york. we are a nation that believes in intelligence. we believe in daily mail. that is about the only blessing we get from the general government, excepting the privilege of paying taxes. free mail, substantially free, is a blessing. now, there is another argument which has been used: productiveness; but that has been so perfectly answered that i allude to it only for one purpose. how would the attorneys for the government in this case like to have their fees settled upon that basis? productiveness. is it possible that this government cannot afford to carry the mail? is it possible that the pioneer can get beyond the government? is is possible that we are not willing to carry letters and papers to the men that make new territories and new states and put new stars upon our flag? i have heard all i wish on the subject of productiveness. now, gentlemen, that is all the evidence there is in this case, that i have heard. what kind of evidence must we have in a conspiracy case? you have been told during this trial that it is very hard to get evidence in a conspiracy case, and therefore you must be economical enough to put up with a little. they tell you that this is a very peculiar offence, and people are very secret about it. well, they are secret about most offences. very few people steal in public. very few commit offences who expect to be discovered. i know of no difference between this offence and any other. you have got to prove it. no matter how hard it is to prove you must prove it. it is harder to convict a man without testimony, or should be, than to produce testimony to prove it if he is guilty. all these crimes, of course, are committed in secret. that is always the way. but you must prove them. there is no pretence here that there is any direct evidence, any evidence of a meeting, any evidence of agreement, any evidence of an understanding. it is all circumstantial. i lay down these two propositions: "the hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved, and be consistent, not with some of the facts, not with a majority of the facts, but with every fact." let me read that again: "_the hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved, and must be consistent with them; not some of them, not the majority of them, but all of them_." the second proposition is: "the evidence must be such as to exclude every single reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of the defendant. in other words, all the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but every fact must be inconsistent with their innocence." that is the law, and has been since man spoke anglo-saxon. let me read you that last proposition again. i like to read it: "the evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of the defendants. in other words, all the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but they must be inconsistent, and every fact must be inconsistent with their innocence." now, just apply that law to the case of john w. dorsey. apply that law to the case of stephen w. dorsey. let me read further. i read now from bishop's criminal procedure, paragraph . "it matters not how clearly the circumstances point to guilt, still, if they are reasonably explainable on a theory which excludes guilt, they cannot satisfy the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants are guilty, and hence they will be insufficient." just apply that to the case of stephen w. dorsey and john w. dorsey. i would be willing that this jury should render a verdict with that changed. change it. you are to find guilty if you have the slightest doubt of innocence. even under that rule you could not find a verdict of guilty against john w. or stephen w. dorsey. if the rule were that you are to find guilty if you have a doubt as to innocence you could not do it; how much less when the rule is that you must have no doubt as to their guilt. the proposition is preposterous and i will not insult your intelligence by arguing it any further. now, then, there is another thing i want to keep before you. when a man has a little suspicion in his mind he tortures everything; he tortures the most innocent actions into the evidence of crime. suspicion is a kind of intellectual dye that colors every thought that comes in contact with it. i remember i once had a conversation with surgeon-general hammond, in which he went on to state that he thought many people were confined in asylums, charged with insanity, who were perfectly sane. i asked him how he accounted for it. said he, "physicians are sent for to examine the man, and they are told before they get to him that he is crazy; therefore, the moment they look upon him they are hunting for insane acts and not sane acts; they are looking not to see how naturally he acts, but how unnaturally he acts." they are poisoned with the suspicion that he is insane, and if he coughs twice, or if he gets up and walks about uneasily--his mind is a little unsettled; something wrong! if he suddenly gets angry--sure thing! when a man believes himself to be or knows himself to be sane, and is charged with insanity, the very warmth, the very heat of his denial will convince thousands of people that he is insane. he suddenly finds himself insecure, and the very insecurity that he feels makes him act strangely. he finds in a moment that explanation only complicates. he finds that his denial is worthless; that his friends are suspicious, and that under pretence of his own good he is to be seized and incarcerated. many a man as sane as you or i has under such circumstances gone to madness. it is a hard thing to explain. the more you talk about it the more outsiders having a suspicion are convinced that you are insane. it is much the same way when a man is charged with crime. it is heralded through all the papers, "this man is a robber and a thief." why do they put it in the papers? put anything good in a paper about mr. smith, and mr. smith is the only man who will buy it. put in something bad about mr. smith and they will have to run the press nights to supply his neighbors with copies. the bad sells. the good does not. then you must remember another thing: that these papers are large; some of them several hundred columns, for all i know--sixty or a hundred. just imagine the pains it would take and the money it would cost to get facts enough to fill a paper like that. economy will not permit of it. they publish what they imagine they can sell. as a rule, people would rather heaf-something bad than something good. it is a splendid certificate to our race that rascality is still considered news. if they only put in honest actions as news it would be a certificate that honesty was rare; but as long as they publish the bad as news it is a certificate that the majority of mankind is still good. now, to be charged with a crime and to be suddenly deserted by your friends, and to know that you are absolutely innocent, is almost enough to drive the sanest man mad. i want you to think what these defendants have suffered in these long months. if the men who started this prosecution, if the men who originally poisoned the press of the country, feel that they have been rewarded simply because innocent men have suffered agony, let them so feel. i do not envy them their feelings. there is another thing, gentlemen: the prosecution have endeavored to terrorize this jury. the effort has been deliberately made to terrorize you and every one of you. it was plainly intimated by mr. ker that this jury had been touched, and that if you failed to convict, you would be suspected of having been bribed. that was an effort to terrorize you, and the foundation of that argument was a belief in your moral cowardice. no man would have made it to you unless he believed at heart you were cowards. what does that argument mean? i cannot say whether you will be suspected or not; but, in my opinion, a juror in the discharge of his duty has no right to think of any consequence personal to himself. that is the beauty of doing right. you need not think of anything else. the future will take care of itself. i do not agree with the suggestion that it is better that you should be applauded for a crime than blamed for a virtue. suppose you should gain the applause of the whole united states by giving a false verdict; how would the echo of that applause strike your heart? i do not believe that it is wiser to preserve the appearance of being honest than to be honest with the appearance against you. i would rather be absolutely honest, and have everybody in the world think i was dishonest, than to be dishonest and have the whole world believe in my honesty. you see you have got to stay with yourself all the time. you have to be your own company, and to be compelled to know that your company is dishonest, that your company is infamous, is not pleasant. i would rather know i was honest and have the whole world put upon the forehead of my reputation the brand of rascality. you were also told that the people generally have anticipated your verdict. that is simply an effort to terrorize you, so that you will say, "if the people think that way, of course we must think that way. no matter about the evidence. no matter if we have sworn to do justice. we will all try and be popular." you were told in effect that the people were expecting a conviction, and the only inference is that you ought not to disappoint the public, and that it is your duty to piece and patch the testimony and violate your oath, rather than to disappoint the general expectation. mr. merrick told you you were trying these defendants, but that the people of the whole country were trying you. what was the object of that statement? simply to terrorize this jury. what was the basis of that statement? why, that not one of you have got the pluck to do right. it was not a compliment, gentlemen. it was intended for one, no doubt, but when you see where it was born, it becomes an insult. i do not believe you are going to care what the people say, or whether the people expect a verdict of guilty, or not. you have been told that they do. i might with equal propriety tell you that they do not. i might with equal propriety say there is not a man in this court-house who expects a verdict of guilty. with equal propriety i might say, and will say, that there is not a man on this jury who expects there will be a verdict of guilty. but what has that to do with us? try this case according to the evidence; and if you know that every man, woman, and child in the united states want an acquittal, and you are satisfied of the guilt of the defendants, it is your duty to find them guilty. if i were on the jury i would, in the language of the greatest man that ever trod this earth-- strip myself to death, as to a bed that longing have been sick for, before i would give a false verdict. again, mr. merrick said, after having stated in effect that a majority of the people were convinced of the guilt of the defendants, that the majority of the men of the united states do not often think wrong. what was the object? to terrorize you. that is all. this verdict is to be carried by universal suffrage; you are to let the men who are not on oath decide for the men who are; to let the men who have not heard the testimony give the verdict of the men who have heard the testimony. what else? again the same gentleman said: "there is to be a verdict, a verdict of the people for or against us." what is the object? to frighten you. let the people have their verdict; you must have yours. if your verdict is founded on the evidence it will be upheld by every honest man in the world who knows the evidence. you need certainly to place very little value upon the opinion of those who do not know the evidence. mr. merrick also suggested--i will hardly put it that way--he was brave enough to hope that you have not been bribed. brave enough to hope that! all this, gentlemen, is done simply for the purpose of terrorizing you. i tell you to find a verdict according to the evidence, no matter whom it hits, no matter whom it destroys, no matter whom it kills. save your own consciences alive. your verdict must rest on the evidence that has been introduced, and all else must be thrown aside, disregarded, like forgotten dreams. all that you have read, all the press has printed, must find no lodgment in your brains. you must regard them no more than you would the noises of animals made in sleep. you must stand by the testimony. you must stand by the law that the court gives you. that is all we ask. these articles in the newspapers were not printed in the hope that justice might be done. they were printed in the hope that you may be influenced to disregard the evidence, in the hope that finally slander might be justified by your verdict. gentlemen, you ought to remember that in this case you are absolutely supreme. you have nothing to do with the supposed desires of any men, or the supposed desires of any department, or the supposed desires of any government, or the supposed desires of any president, or the supposed desires of the public. you have nothing to do with those things. you have to do only with the evidence. here all power is powerless except your own. position is naught. if the defendants are guilty, and the evidence convinces you that they are, your verdict must be in accordance with the evidence. you have no right to take into consideration the consequences. when you are asked to find a verdict contrary to the evidence, when you are asked to piece out the testimony with your suspicions, then you are bound to take into consideration all the consequences. when appeals are made to your prejudice and to your fears, then the consequences should rise like mountains before you. then you should think of the lives you are asked to wreck, of the homes your verdict would darken, of the hearts it would desolate, of the cheeks it would wet with tears, and of the reputations it would blast and blacken, of the wives it would worse than widow, and of the children it would more than orphan. when you are asked to find a false verdict think of these consesequences. when you are asked to please the public think of these consequences. when you are asked to please the press think of these consequences. when you are asked to act from fear, hatred, prejudice, malice, or cowardice think then of these consequences. but whenever you do right, consequences are nothing to you, because you are not responsible for them. whoever does right clothes himself in a suit of armor that the arrows of consequences can never penetrate. when you do wrong you are responsible for all the consequences, to the last sigh and the last tear. if you do right nature is responsible. if you do wrong you are responsible. you were told, too, by mr. merrick that you should have no sympathy; that you should be like icicles; that you should be godlike. a cool conception of deity! in that connection this heartless language, as it appears to me, was used: "man when he undertakes to judge his brother-man undertakes to perform the highest duty given to humanity." good! he should perform that duty without fear, without prejudice, without hatred, and without malice. he should perform that duty honestly, grandly, nobly. i read on: "inclosed within the jury-box or on the bench he is separated from the great mass of mankind--" then you should not pay any attention to the opinion of the public. if you are separated you should not be dominated by the press. if you are separated you should not be disturbed by the desires of anybody. but he continues: "and sentiments of brotherhood die away." about that time you would be nice men: "standing above humanity and nearest god he looks down upon his fellow, and judges them without any reference to the sorrow his judgment may bring." that is not my doctrine. the higher you get in the scale of being, the grander, the nobler, and the tenderer you will become. kindness is always an evidence of greatness. malice is the property of small souls. whoever allows the feeling of brotherhood to die in his heart becomes a wild beast. you know it and so do i: "not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, become them with one-half so good a grace as mercy does." and yet the only mercy we ask in this case, gentlemen, is the mercy of an honest verdict. that is all. i appeal to you for my clients, because the evidence shows that they are honest men. i appeal to you for my client, stephen w. dorsey, because the evidence shows that he is a man, a man with an intellectual horizon and a mental sky, a man of genius, generous, and honest. and yet this prosecution, this government, these attorneys representing the majesty of the republic, representing the only real republic that ever existed, have asked you, gentlemen of the jury, not only to violate the law of the land, they have asked you to violate the law of nature. they have maligned mercy. they have laughed at mercy. they have trampled upon the holiest human ties, and they have even made light of the fact that a wife in this trial has sat by her husband's side. think of it. there is a painting in the louvre, a painting of desolation, of despair and love. it represents the night of the crucifixion. the world is represented in shadow. the stars are dead, and yet in the darkness is seen a kneeling form. it is mary magdalene with loving lips and hands pressed against the bleeding feet of christ. the skies were never dark enough nor starless enough; the storm was never fierce enough nor wild enough, the quick bolts of heaven were never lurid enough, and arrows of slander never flew thick enough to drive a noble woman from her husband's side. and so it is in all of human speech, the _holiest word is wife_. and now, gentlemen, i have examined this testimony, i have examined every charge in the indictment against my clients not only, but every charge made outside of the indictment. i have shown you that the indictment is one thing and the evidence another. i have shown you that not one single charge has been substantiated against john w. dorsey. i have demonstrated to you that not one solitary charge has been established against stephen w. dorsey--not one. i believe that i have shown to you that there is no foundation for a verdict of guilty against any defendant in this case. i have spoken now, gentlemen, the last words that will be spoken in public for my clients, the last words that will be spoken in public for any of these defendants, the last words that will be heard in their favor until i hear from the lips of this foreman two eloquent words--_not guilty_. and now thanking the court for many acts of personal kindness, and you, gentlemen of the jury, for your almost infinite patience, i leave my clients with all they have and with all they love and with all who love them in your hands. opening address to the jury in the second star route trial. washington, d. c., dec. , . may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury: we consider that the right to be tried by jury is the right preservative of all other rights. the right to be tried by our peers, by men taken from the body of the county, by men whose minds have not been saturated with prejudice, by men who have no hatred, no malice to gratify, no revenge to wreak, no debts to pay, we consider an inestimable right, regarding the jury as the bulwark of civil liberty. take that right from the defendants in any case and they are left at the mercy of power, at the mercy of prejudice. the experience of thousands of years, the experience of the english-speaking people, of the anglo-saxon people, the only people now upon the globe with a genius for law, is that the jury is a breastwork behind which an honest man is safe from the attack of an entire nation. we esteem it, i say, a privilege, a great and invaluable right, that we have you twelve men to stand between us and the prejudice of the hour. we believe that you will hear this case without passion, without hatred, and that you will decide it absolutely in accordance with the law and with the evidence. this is the tribunal absolutely supreme. in a case of this character, gentlemen, you are the judges of what is the law; you are the judges of what are the facts; you are the absolute judges of the worth of testimony; and you have not only the right, but it is your duty to utterly disregard the testimony of any man that you do not believe to be true. you, i say, are the exclusive judges, and for that reason we ask, we beg you, to hear all this testimony, to pay heed to every word, and then decide, not as somebody else desires, but as your judgment dictates, and as your conscience demands. here before this jury all letters of attorneys-general, all desires of presidents, all popular clamor, all prejudice, no matter from what source, is turned simply to dust and ashes, and you are to regard them all simply as though they never had been. there is one other thing. some people are naturally suspicious. it is an infinitely mean trait in human nature. suspicion is only another form of cowardice. the man who suspects constantly suspects because he is afraid. whenever you find a man with a free, frank, generous, brave nature, you will find that man without suspicion. suspicion is the soil in which prejudice grows, and prejudice is the upas tree in whose shade reason fails and justice dies. and allow me to say that no amount of suspicion amounts to evidence. no case is to be tried upon suspicion. no case is to be tried upon suspicious facts. no case is to be tried on scraps, and patches, and shreds, and ravelings. there must be evidence; there must be absolute, solid testimony. a case is tried according to the rocks of fact and not according to the clouds and fogs of suspicion. no juror has a right to make a decision until he feels his feet firmly fixed upon the bed-rock of truth. so i say, gentlemen, that we are glad of the opportunity to make a statement of this case to you, and to tell you exactly the manner in which my clients became interested in what is known as the star-route service. you have to be guided in this case by the indictment. that is the star and compass of this trial. you cannot go outside of it. the evidence must be confined to the charges contained in that instrument. if you find us guilty of a conspiracy, it must be such a conspiracy as is set forth in that indictment. that indictment is the charter of your authority, and you have no right to find us guilty of anything in the world except that which is therein charged. now, let me give you an exceedingly brief statement of what we are here for. it is charged in that indictment that all these defendants, including one who has been discharged by a jury, who has been found not guilty, mr. turner, including another who is dead, mr. peck, conspired together for the purpose of defrauding the united states, and we are met at the threshold with the statement that conspiracy is very hard to prove. it is like any other offence, gentlemen. they say conspirators generally meet in secret. my reply to that is that people generally steal in secret, and the fact that they stole in secret was never deemed an excuse for not proving the offence before they were found guilty. you can see that this is precisely like any other offence in the world. men when they commit crimes endeavor to get away from the public eye. they are in love with darkness. they do not carry torches in front of them. and it is so in every crime. but whether conspiracy is difficult to prove or not, it must be established before you can find the defendants guilty. that is a difficulty that the government must overcome by testimony. the jury must not endeavor to overcome it by a verdict. and i say here to-day that the same rule of evidence applies to this case as to any other, and you must be satisfied by the testimony the government will offer that these men conspired together; that they entered into an arrangement wherein the part of each was marked out, and that that arrangement was contrary to law; and that the object of that arrangement was to defraud the government of the united states. this indictment is kind enough to tell us the means that were employed to carry out that conspiracy. how did they find these means, gentlemen? they must have had some evidence on which they relied. if they had evidence enough to convince them, they must introduce that evidence here, and if that evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that these men conspired, then you will find them guilty; otherwise not. the difficulty of establishing it is something with which you have nothing to do. how did they conspire? what were the means they had agreed to use? let us see. thomas j. brady was the second assistant postmaster-general. the postmaster-general was not included in the scheme, consequently they must deceive him. the sixth auditor was not included in this conspiracy, and as by virtue of his office it was his duty to go over all of these accounts and pass upon the legality of each item, it was necessary to deceive him. according to the indictment mr. turner was a clerk in the department, and his part of the rascality was, on the jackets inclosing petitions, to make false statements in regard to the contents of the petitions inclosed. the object of that being that when the second assistant postmaster-general, mr. brady, exhibited these jackets to the postmaster-general, it being considered that he would not have time to read the petition, he would be misled by the false statements on the cover touching the contents. the next step was for the contractors to get up false petitions; that is, petitions to be signed by persons who did not live along the route upon which the mail was to be carried. these petitions also to be forged; that is to say, the names of persons put there by another, or the names of fictitious persons written, when in fact no such persons existed. the next thing to do was to write false and fraudulent letters; to induce others to write such letters; the next thing, to make false affidavits; and the next thing, to make false orders--those to be made by mr. brady--and these false orders were to have, as a false foundation, false petitions, false letters, false communications, false affidavits, and fraudulently written representations. that is the indictment. that is the scheme said to have been entered into by my clients with all of these defendants, and the object being to defraud the government of the united states. now, in order to establish that scheme, it would be necessary for the government to prove it. not to assert it. neither have you the right to infer it. no man can be inferred out of his liberty. no man can be inferred into the penitentiary. that is not the way to deprive a man of his reputation and of liberty--by inference. they must prove it. they must prove that the petitions were false. they must prove that the letters were fraudulent. they must prove that the orders rested upon those false and fraudulent petitions, letters, and affidavits; and they must prove that mr. brady knew them to be false. it is also stated in this indictment that service was to be paid for when it was not performed; that service was discontinued and a month's extra pay allowed; that fines were imposed and afterwards set aside because the contractors agreed to pay fifty per cent, of such fines to general brady. i will speak of them when i come to them. now, there is a clear statement. what part, then, did my clients play in this scheme? i will tell you. it is charged in the indictment that john m. peck was in this scheme, and, although he is dead, whatever he did, i imagine, can be established by the government. a man can be found guilty, i understand, of having entered into a conspiracy with another, although the other be dead, and the living man can be convicted. now, it is stated in the outset that my clients never had been engaged in carrying the mail and that is regarded as an exceedingly suspicious circumstance. a man has got to commence some time, if he ever goes into the business, and if this doctrine be true, the first bid that a man ever makes is evidence that he has entered into a conspiracy. suppose, on the other hand, my clients have long been engaged in this business. what would the government counsel then have said? they would have said, gentlemen, that they had been engaged for years in the business. they knew all the tricks that were played, and consequently they were the very persons to form a conspiracy. and that is the wonderful thing about suspicion. it changes every fact. it colors every word it reads and every paper at which it looks; and no matter what are the facts, the moment they are regarded with a suspicious mind they prove what the man suspects. so, then, the first charge is that we had never been in the business, and consequently our going into the business must have been the result of a conspiracy. gentlemen, if the doctrine be laid down that it is dangerous for a man to make a bid the result of that doctrine will be to double the expenses of the government in carrying the mails. all that will be necessary, then, is for the old bidders to combine. they will know that there is no danger of any new men interfering with them, because the new men will be immediately indicted for conspiracy and the old men will have the field to themselves. you can see that this is infinitely absurd. there is only one step beyond such absurdity, and that is annihilation. no man can possess his faculties and get beyond that absurdity, if it is evidence of conspiracy, because it is the first thing. as a matter of fact, however, john m. peck had been engaged in the mail business. he was engaged in the business before . he had been interested with others before that time. he was interested in several important routes from to . it was in the fall of that he made arrangements to bid at the next letting. he was a business man. he was not an adventurer. he was secretary at that time of the arkansas central railroad. he had been, i believe, for two sessions a member of the ar-kansas legislature. he was in good standing, solvent, and regarded as an honest man. in he was interested in the bids and, as i said, was engaged in carrying the mails at the time these contracts were entered into. he became acquainted with john w. dorsey, i believe, in . when he made up his mind to put in more bids for the letting of he went after john w. dorsey, and they met together in the city of new york, i believe, in the month of september, and agreed that they would put in some bids for the letting of . peck was acquainted with john r. miner and had been acquainted with him for a considerable time. mr. miner wanted to go into some other business than that in which he was then engaged, and those three men made up their minds to bid. was there anything criminal in that? nothing. any men anywhere have the right to combine; the right to form a partnership; the right to come together for the purpose of making proposals for carrying the united states mails. of course you will all admit that. now, that is what they did. there was nothing criminal, nothing secret, nothing underhanded. everything was above board, open, and in the daylight. there is no conspiracy yet, and we will show that. john m. peck had been troubled with a lung disease. he had gotten much better in september, and thought that he was almost well. later in the fall he took a severe cold and got much worse, and from that difficulty, i believe, he never wholly recovered. he went, however, to colorado and new mexico, and finally died. now, let us see about john w. dorsey. i believe that great pains have been taken to say that he was a tinsmith, which is a suspicious circumstance. why? is there any law against a tinsmith bidding to carry the mails? is there any such provision in the statute? and yet that has been lugged forward as one of the evidences of a conspiracy in this case, and it has been lugged forward in a way to cast some disgrace upon this man--simply because he was a tinsmith. well, do you know i have as much respect for a good tinsmith as for a good anything. what is the difference? sometimes i have thought i had more respect for a good tinsmith than a poor professional man--sometimes. in this country of all others labor is held to be absolutely honorable, and i think a thousand times more of a man who works in the street and takes care of his wife and children than i do of somebody else who dresses well and lives on the labor of others, and then is impudent enough to endeavor to disgrace the source of his own bread. i think the man who eats the bread of idleness is under a certain obligation to speak well of labor. and yet we have the spectacle in this very court of the attorney general of the united states endeavoring to cast a little stain upon this man. as a matter of fact, and i am almost sorry to say it, john w. dorsey is not a tinsmith. i am almost sorry to make the admission. he happened to be a merchant, which is no more honorable but somewhat easier. he dealt in stoves and tinware. that, gentlemen, is his crime, and upon that rests the terrible suspicion that he is a conspirator. and i want to say more, that his reputation for honesty, his reputation for fair dealing, is as good as that of any other man in the state in which he resides. he made up his mind to cast his fortunes with john m. peck and with john r. miner and make some bids for carrying the mails of the united states. that is all there is about it. there is, however, another suspicious circumstance, and that is that john w. dorsey was the brother of stephen w. dorsey, and stephen w. dorsey at that time was a senator of the united states. that is another suspicious circumstance. whenever you find a man with a senator for a brother, put him down as a conspirator. another suspicious circumstance, john m. peck was the brother-in law of s. w. dorsey, absolutely married a sister of mrs. dorsey, and that was the beginning of this hellish conspiracy. it was suspicious. he intended to rob the government when he was courting that girl. now, we come to another man, mr. john r. miner, and the suspicious thing about miner is that he lives in sandusky. but that of itself would be nothing. dorsey lived there once, too. now, do you not see how they moved to that town with the diabolical purpose of swindling this great government? miner was not in very good health--do you not see--pretended to be sick so that he could leave sandusky; and in some way miner and dorsey were excellent friends--another suspicious circumstance; and for several years whenever john r. miner visited washington he laid the foundations of this conspiracy by always stopping at the house of senator dorsey--another suspicious thing. and do you not recollect the delight, the abandon with which mr. bliss emphasized the word house, when he said that they met at dorsey's house? i had a great notion to get up and plead guilty on that emphasis.. miner came here. he and peck were acquainted; and wherever you find four men acquainted, gentlemen, look out, there is trouble. when miner came here he went directly to the house of senator dorsey. i admit it with all the damning consequences that flow from that admission. he did not even go to a hotel. he went directly to dorsey's house. i want that in all your minds, because the prosecution regards that as one of the foundation facts in this conspiracy, and while admitting it, do you not see how much i save them in the way of evidence. and there is another damning fact connected with this case. dorsey in the top of his house had set apart one room for an office. it was up two or three pair of stairs. i think he established his office there to shield himself a little from the people who usually call on a senator in the city of washington. but he found that he put himself to more trouble than he did them, so he moved his office to the lower part of the building, and when john miner got to that house he occupied a room right next to that office upstairs, and sometimes he went in there and wrote. now, you see, gentlemen, how that conspiracy was planted; how the branches sprang out of the windows of that room and covered all the territory of the united states. i might as well admit that frightful fact. i do not know that they know that, but i might as well admit it, because we want the worst to come first. before miner came here he wrote a letter. there is another place to put a pin of suspicion. he wrote a letter to s. w. dorsey; that is, it was miner or peck, i have forgotten which, and may be that very forgetfulness of mine is another evidence of conspiracy. a letter was written either by miner or peck to stephen w. dorsey, saying that they were going to bid; that peck was not well enough to be here at that particular time, and would he be kind enough to hand that letter to some man in whom he had confidence and let that man get such information as he could with regard to the routes upon which they expected to bid--all these western star routes. now, what did s. w. dorsey do? there was a man in town by the name of boone. he sent for mr. boone, and i believe that mr. boone went to mr. dorsey's house, and that dorsey handed him that letter in his house. and what was the object of the letter? for boone to get information regarding these routes. well, now, what did boone do? boone made up a circular which he sent to all the postmasters, or most of them, through oregon, washington territory, colorado, new mexico, nevada, california, kansas, nebraska; that is to say, the western states and territories; and in this circular a certain number of questions were propounded to each postmaster. first, the distance from that post-office to the next, and from the next to the next, and so through the route. second, the condition of the roads, whether hilly or level. third, about the snows in winter and the floods in spring. fourth, the cost of hay and corn and oats. fifth, the wages that would have to be paid to the man or men; and it may be some other questions in addition. now, these circulars were sent by boone to all the postmasters in consequence of a letter that he received in dorsey's house. what for? so that by the time that miner and peck and john w. dorsey came they could sit down and bid intelligently upon these routes; so that they would have some information that would guide them; in other words, that they would not be compelled to bid at random. now, we will show, gentlemen, that that was done, and if at that time there had been a conspiracy, certainly such information was of no particular value. now, that is what mr. boone did, and i believe that is about all he did at that time. there is no conspiracy yet, no fraud yet. it is utterly impossible to defraud the government by getting information from postmasters as to the condition of the roads, and as to the distance from one post-office to another. there is no fraud yet, no conspiracy up to this point. in a little while mr. miner and mr. john w. dorsey appeared. ah, but they say stephen w. dorsey was at that time a senator of the united states yes, he was, and i believe he remained senator until the th of march, . when his brother came we will show to you that stephen w. dorsey said to his brother, "i would rather you would not bid; i would much rather that you would keep out of this business, because i am a senator and somebody may find fault. somebody may suspect, and consequently i would much rather you would get out of the business." john w. dorsey did not agree with him. he said he did not see how that could interfere with him, and that he believed he could do well in that business, and the consequence was he went on. there is nothing suspicious so far as i can see in that. that is what we will show. this man being a member of the united states senate did what he did out of pure friendship; did what he did for his brother, what he did for mr. peck, and what he did for mr. miner from pure friendship. i know it is very difficult for some people to imagine that any man does anything for friendship. they put behind every decent action the crawling snake of a mean and selfish motive. my opinion of human nature is somewhat different. i have known thousands and thousands of men capable of disinterested actions, thousands of men that would help a brother, a brother-in-law, or a friend, and help them to the extent of their fortune. i have known such men and i never supposed such acts could be tortured into evidence of meanness. the first charge against stephen w. dorsey is that he sent some bonds and proposals for bids to a postmaster by the name of clendenning, in the state of arkansas. the trouble with these bonds, as i understand it, was that the amount of the bid was not put in the blank in the printed proposal. it is claimed by the prosecution that according to the law the postmaster has no right to certify to the solvency of the security until that blank is filled. i want to explain this so that you will understand it. i think i have one of the bonds and proposals here. i would like to have the court see exactly the scope of it. [exhibiting blank form of proposal and bond.] the proposal is that the undersigned,-------- whose post-office address is--------, of the county of--------, and state of--------, proposes to carry the mails of the united states from july , such a date, to june of such a date, being four years, between such and such a place, under the advertisement of the postmaster-general, for the sum of--------dollars per annum. now, if i understand the matter of the clendenning bonds, they were filled up with the exception of the blank in which the amount of the bid was to be written. that is the charge, as i understand it. whenever a man makes a proposal to carry the mail for four years on a certain route, that proposal must be accompanied with a bond in a certain amount, and certain men must sign that bond as sureties, and then a certain postmaster must certify to the solvency of the sureties, the sureties having made oath as to the value of their property. now, understand that perfectly. it is not the bond that a man gives after his bid has been accepted. it is a bond that he gives to show that his bid is in good faith. that bond is conditioned that if the contract is awarded to him he will give another and sufficient bond not only, but i believe it is also conditioned that he will carry the mail. the charge is--and let us get at it just exactly--that some bonds were sent to a man by the name of clendenning, who was a postmaster, and this blank was not filled. let me tell you why. it was the custom--and i want your honor to understand that perfectly, because so much was made of it before in talk--to leave that blank unfilled. it is the blank for the amount of the bid. in the advertisement of the government the penalty of the bond is stated, so that the amount of the bid has nothing to do with the penalty in the bond. understand me now. if the bond was for ten thousand dollars, it was because that amount had been put in the advertisement by the government. it did not depend upon the amount of the bid. it had nothing to do with it. the amount of the bid threw no light upon the amount of the bond. the penalty of the bond was fixed by the government before the bid was made and inserted in the advertisement published by the government. why then did they not wish to fill up this blank? this blank, gentlemen, told the amount of the bid. where there are many bidders, and an important route, if you let the postmaster who has to certify to the sureties know the amount of the bid he might sell you. he could go and tell somebody else "i have certified to all the sureties on this route, and the lowest bid up to this time is fifteen thousand dollars," and the person whom he told might go and bid fourteen thousand nine, hundred and ninety-nine dollars and take the route. ah, but they say the postmaster is not allowed to tell the amount of the bid. no. what was the penalty if he did? he would lose his office. now, here is a postmaster holding an office worth, perhaps, a hundred dollars a century, or, perhaps, fifty dollars a year, and by selling information as to one bid he might make ten thousand dollars. i do not know what he could have made. certainly the bidders did not feel like trusting the secret of their bids to the postmaster who certified to the sureties. as a consequence the bond was filled up with the penalty according to the advertisement, but the blank in which the amount of the bid was to be written was not filled, because they wanted the postmaster's mind left a blank upon that subject. in other words, that blank was left unfilled, not to defraud the government, but to prevent other people from defrauding the bidder. that is all there is about it. that is everything about the cleudenning bonds. but it may be well enough to state, gentlemen, that those clendenning bonds were never used on a solitary route in this indictment, and i believe never anywhere; that no contract was ever awarded upon any one of those proposals. the only rascality in the transaction, gentlemen, was the failure to fill a blank; and the reason they failed to fill that blank was because they did not want the postmaster to know the amount of the bid. let us come right down to practical matters and things. for instance, suppose one of this jury is in the stone-cutting business, and the government should issue an advertisement calling for proposals to furnish dressed granite, and specify that every man who bid must file a bond in a penalty of five thousand dollars to carry out his contract, and that that bond must be approved by the postmaster here. suppose it was a contract of great proportions. would the man who bid be willing that the amount of the bid should be inserted in the blank to be passed upon by the postmaster? no. why? he would not want the postmaster to know it. who else would he not want to know it? he would not want his sureties to know it. a man might be standing by while the bond was being approved and read the amount of the bid. the bidder would be afraid somebody would get at those figures and go and underbid him. every man of common, ordinary sense knows that. if you made a bid you would not let your sureties know the amount and you would not give the amount to the keeping of a postmaster, neither would you leave it to chance or accident. you would say, "i will leave the amount a blank. i will keep it in my mind, and when the paper comes into my hands for the last time i will write, it in there and fold it and seal it and give it to the government." that is what every sensible and prudent man would do, and what has been done for years. and yet that act is brought forward as something to stain the reputation of an honest man; something to strike down as with a sword the character of an ex-senator. they even say he wrote upon paper that had the mark of the united states senate chamber upon it. that is only another evidence that there was nothing wrong in it. it was stated, too, in the opening of this case, that an affidavit was made upon paper that bore the mark of the national hotel of this city. think of such a damning circumstance as that! well, gentlemen, so much for the clendenning bonds. we will prove that the blank was left unfilled on purpose, not to defraud the government, but to prevent other people from defrauding us. let me say in that connection that there was an investigation in upon this very question. the clendenning bonds were brought up. testimony was heard, and we will be able to show you the facts that i have stated. then, if i am right, gentlemen, there is nothing in it; and when the opening statement was made the government knew, just as well as i know, that there was nothing in it; at least they ought to have known it. probably it is not proper for me to say they knew it, because men get so prejudiced, so warped, so twisted that it is hard to tell what they know or what they do not know. but that has nothing to do with this case and, in my judgment, will never be admitted by the court. if it is admitted by the court we will establish exactly what i have told you. so much for the clendenning bonds. do not forget that the penalty of the bond was put in by the government. do not forget that the amount of the bid was left blank simply to protect ourselves. do not forget another thing: that leaving that blank unfilled could not by any possible peradventure injure the government. the bond was just as good with that proposal unfilled at the time the sureties signed it as though it had been filled. it had to be filled before it was finally given to the government or else there would be no bid. if there was no bid, then no obligation rested upon the sureties. certainly they could not be harmed, and if there was no bid certainly the government could not be harmed; unless the bid should have happened to be lower than any received; and yet out of that nothing, out of that one bramble, a forest of rascality has been manufactured. gentlemen, that is the result of suspicion when it is hoed by malice and watered by hatred. the next suspicious circumstance, gentlemen, is that we bid. that is a suspicious circumstance. miner bid, peck bid, and john w. dorsey bid. and the suspicious circumstance is that they did not bid against each other. why should they? i was at an auction the other day and unconsciously bid against myself, but i did not think it any evidence of rascality on my part; i thought it tended to show that i was not attending strictly to business, and yet it is brought forward as a suspicious circumstance that these gentlemen did not bid against themselves. another suspicious circumstance is that they bid in their individual names. that is the way all the bidding is done, i believe. i believe every bond has to be signed by the individuals and not by any partnership. that i believe to be one of the regulations of the department. well, there is no rascality yet, as far as i can see. now, when the contract is accepted--i will come to the bidding question again--the contractor has to give a bond. one of those bonds will be put in evidence in this case. you will see what the contractor is bound to do. then it can be subcontracted. you will find that the contract given by the subcontractor to the department is not a hundredth part as severe as the bond the contractor gives to the government. in the contract that we give to the government certain things are provided. you will find that a copy of it will be intro duced. the contractor is left to the mercy of discretion-i believe that is the word--of the postmaster-general you will find that if he fails to carry the mail one trip, no matter by what he may be prevented, by flood or storm or fire, he is not to be paid for it. although he is there ready with his men and horses, if he is prevented by the elements he has no pay. if the postmaster-general thinks he ought to have carried it when he did not, he can take from his pay three times the value of the trip. he can take from him one quarter's pay. he reserves in his own breast the power to declare that contract null and void, because in his judgment the contractor has not done his duty. everything is left to him. the man who signs that contract gives a mortgage on his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. he has no redress. i simply call your attention to this to show you the obligation that a contractor takes upon himself. we will show you that he is under obligation to discharge any carrier that the government does not like; that he has no right to carry any package or any letter that can go by mail; that he is to forfeit a trip when it is not run, or not to exceed three times the pay of a trip; that he is to forfeit one-quarter of a trip if the running time is so far behind that he fails to make connection with the next mail; that if he violates any of these provisions he forfeits a penalty equal to a quarter's pay, or if he violates any other provision touching the carriage of the mail and the time and manner thereof, without a satisfactory explanation in due time to the postmaster-general, he can visit a penalty in his discretion, and the forfeitures may be increased in the penalty to a higher amount, in the discretion of the postmaster-general, according to the nature or frequency of the failure and the importance of the mail. provided that, except as specified, and except as provided by law, no penalty shall exceed three times the pay of a trip in each case. it is also agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the postmaster-general may annul the contract for repeated failures; for violating the postal laws; for disobeying the instructions of the post-office department; for refusing to discharge a carrier when required by the department; for transmitting commercial intelligence or matter which should go by mail; for transporting persons so engaged as aforesaid; whenever the contractor shall become a postmaster, &c. it is further stipulated and agreed that such annulment shall not impair the right to claim damages from said contractor and his sureties under this contract; but such damages may, for the purpose of set-off or counter-claim in the settlement of any claim of said contractor or his sureties against the united states, whether arising under this contract or otherwise, be assessed and liquidated by the auditor of the treasury for the post-office department. and it is further stipulated and agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the contract may, in the discretion of the postmaster-general, be continued in force beyond its express terms for a period not exceeding six months. you will see, gentlemen, how perfectly, how absolutely, the contractor is in the power of the department. the government enforces its contracts. no matter how many years may elapse they are still after the sureties and are still after the principal. nothing relieves a man but, death. only a little while ago a case was decided in the supreme court of which i will speak to you. an importer of sugar gave the importers' bond to pay the duty upon that sugar. by the custom of trade, sugar is sold in bond. the importer sold to a third person and the third person went to get the sugar. by law he could only take it after paying the tax; and yet one of the officers of the government, contrary to law, allowed him to take the sugar without paying the tax. the supreme court has just held that the original importer and his sureties are liable to pay that tax--the man who took the sugar out having become bankrupt--although the sugar was given to the second party simply by a violation of law, and that law was violated by one of the officers of the custom-house without the knowledge or consent of the original importer. i tell you, gentlemen, whenever a man gives a bond to this government the government stays with him. the government does not die; the government does not get tired; the government does not get weary. the government can afford to wait, and the poor man with the bond hanging over him cannot go into business, cannot get credit, but just lingers out a life of expectation, of hope, and of disappointment. i trust none of you will ever sign a bond to the government. there is another thing, gentlemen. if you bid on a hundred routes and they are given to you and you put the service on ninety-nine of the routes and carry it in accordance with the contract, and yet fail on the hundredth route, the postmaster-general has a right to declare you a failing contractor. a failing contractor on the hundredth route? yes. on any more? yes; on every one. and whoever is declared a failing contractor on one route is by virtue of that declaration a failing contractor on all. they are all taken from him. so that when a man bids for more than one route, for instance, a hundred or a thousand, and gets them and carries them all absolutely according to his contract but one, he can be declared a failing contractor on all. what does that mean? it means not simply ruin to him, but ruin to every one of his sureties, unless they are in a condition to go on and carry the mail. i want you to understand something of the obligation of a contractor with the government of the united states. now, i come to the bidding. these bids were made with a full understanding of the obligation of a bidder. messrs. miner, peck, and john w. dorsey bid, i believe, on about twelve hundred routes. you see you are in great luck in bidding if you get one route in fifty that you bid upon. in the first place, there are about ten thousand star routes. i do not know that it is too much to say that the number of bids runs up into the hundreds of thousands; somewhere in that neighborhood. hundreds of men often bid on one route. consequently, nobody who bids expects to get more than a few of the routes for which they bid. now, is there the slightest evidence in the statement of the government as to the frauds in this bidding? let me tell you how some frauds have been committed. suppose, for instance, this was a fraudulent business, and miner, peck, and dorsey were bidding. let me explain it to you. i want you to know it. all there is in this case is simply to have you understand it. that is all there is. and if you do not agree with me when we get through the case i shall simply think that you have not comprehended it. say that four men bid on the same route, one man four thousand dol-ars, another man three thousand dollars, another man two thousand dollars, and another man one thousand dollars. now, the man who bids one thousand dollars is of no account, has not a dollar in the world, and so when the bid is given to him he does not want it. he is what they call a straw man. the law provides then that the next man may have it. the law does not provide that he must take it. he may have it if he wants to, but you cannot force him to take it, because he is not the lowest bidder. he is the two thousand dollar man. he is another straw gentleman. he does not want it. then the government offers it to the next man at three thousand dollars. he is another chap made of hay. he says he doesn't want it. understand the government cannot force these straw and hay men to take it. then they go to the fourth fellow, who bid four thousand dollars. it is a good thing at four thousand, and he says, "yes; i will take it." that is what they call fraudulent bidding. if you had found dorsey and miner and peck bidding on the same route and one of them failing and another one taking it, you would not only have suspected fraud, but you would have known it. now, if it is a badge of fraud for them to bid upon the same route and apparently against each other, i will ask you if it is not a badge of fair dealing that they were not found bidding against each other. they bid on about twelve hundred routes, and much to their astonishment they got one hundred and thirty-four contracts. you have heard here a great deal of talk about the number of men and horses. we will show you all about it. men differ upon this subject. if men did not differ upon it at all these bids would be alike. instead of being a dozen bids, all different, and differing sometimes as much as ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or a hundred dollars or more, they would bid the same. if they all agreed on the number of horses and men it would take, and about what it would cost, they would bid about alike, wouldn't they? but when they are bidding they honestly differ. one man says it would take twenty horses, and another says "no, it will take forty." do you not know that the number of horses depends a great deal upon the kind of man who makes the estimate. here is a man who is hard and brutal, and he says a horse can do so much work. he says it is cheaper to buy him and wear him out than it is to feed him decently. you have known men who were perfectly willing to make fortunes out of a horse's agony, and out of animal pain. there are hundreds of them in the world. now, take it on horse railroads, and with freighters, and teamsters. whenever you find a mean, infamous man, if he cannot whip his wife, he will take his spite out on his horse. if a man is a good, broad, generous, free fellow he will say, "i don't want to work that horse to death; i think it will take four horses. i am going to keep my horses fat, and i am going to treat them as a gentleman should." another man, a wretch, will come up and swear it would not take more than fifteen horses. when his horses are through the service you will simply see a pile of bones wrapped in a lamentable hide. you understand that. well, these men made twelve hundred bids and got one hundred and thirty-four contracts. ah, but they say, here is another badge of fraud, another badge. ah, they bid on small routes, on cheap routes, on routes where the mail was carried infrequently and on slow time. if it is a badge of fraud to bid on such routes the government can never let out any more. most of these routes were cheap routes. now, i owe it to you to give you the reason for this. we will prove in the first place that these men were not rich men. if they had been very rich they probably would not have gone into the business at all. they would have gone into that perfectly respectable business of buying government bonds. they would have bought government bonds and made other fellows pay the interest, and twice a year they would have formed a partnership with a pair of shears, and thus in the sweat of their faces they would clip their coupons. they bid on poor routes. why? they were poor, comparatively speaking. they had not the money to stock the expensive routes where four horse coaches were run. they preferred to take the cheaper lines. why? because they could stock them. they would have been able to have stocked the routes if they had only obtained the number they expected. but as i told you, they got many more routes than they expected. was that for the benefit of the government? how did these men come to bid so cheaply on some of these routes? i will tell you. because they had the information, because they had received the facts from all the postmasters on the routes, and consequently they made a good close calculation, and the result was that their bids were below others, and the fact that their bids were accepted saved the government hundreds of thousands of dollars. when they found themselves with all these contracts, the first hard work they did was to give away all they could. that was the first hard work. they had contracts, not for sale, but just to give, and they succeeded in giving away several of them. i believe they sold two of these children of conspiracy for the enormous sum of one hundred dollars each. that was the highest sale they made at that time. afterwards another route was sold which i will explain when i come to it. now there is no rascality yet. no fraud yet. no conspiracy yet. well, they then went to work to get their bonds. but first let me say that there was another reason for bidding on cheap routes. whenever the bid is above five thousand dollars, then the man who bids must, at the time he bids, put up a check for five per cent, of the amount. a check certified by a national bank. for instance, if it all comes to a hundred thousand dollars he has got to put in a certified check for five thousand dollars. even in the little bids we made we had to deposit with the government some twenty-six or twenty-eight thousand dollars, and i do not know but more, in cash, or what is the same as cash, for the bank certifies that the money is there. that is another reason they bid on smaller routes. what is the next? the government asks such frightful bonds, such terrible amounts, that a man must be almost a millionaire, or else there must be a confidence in him that is universal, before he can give these bonds. there was one route at this very bidding where they had to give bonds for six hundred and forty thousand dollars, and the sureties upon these bonds under oath had to testify that they had real estate to the value of six hundred and forty thousand dollars, exclusive of all debts, dues, and demands. so there was another reason for bidding upon small routes. where the amount was under five thousand dollars no certified check had to be deposited, and the smaller the route of course the smaller the bond. now, i have endeavored to show you the reasons that we bid upon these routes instead of upon the larger ones. the reasons as stated by the government are that we took these routes where the service was once a week, so that we could have the service increased; that we took those routes where the time was long so that we could have it shortened, that is to say, expedited. but i tell you that when a perfectly good reason lies at the very threshold of the question you have no right to go further. the reasons i have given to you it seems to me are perfect and you need no more. now, then, we got, i say, about one hundred and thirty-four routes. of these, one hundred and fifteen are without complaint. there is not a word about the other one hundred and fifteen. recollect it. we got one hundred and thirty-four routes. in this indictment are nineteen; one hundred and fifteen appear to be perfectly satisfactory to this great government. there is not a word as to those routes, not one word, i say, as to one hundred and fifteen routes, and they want you to believe that these defendants deliberately selected nineteen routes out of one hundred and thirty-four about which to make a conspiracy, and that they left one hundred and fifteen to go honestly along, but picked out nineteen for the purpose of defrauding the government. now, then, when these gentlemen found themselves with these routes, the next thing was to put the stock and the carriers upon them. as i told you, a good many more had been awarded to them than they anticipated. they had not the money. so, in putting the stock upon several of the routes, they found it necessary to borrow some money, and here comes another suspicious circumstance. mr. miner borrowed some money of stephen w. dorsey, and everybody is astonished that any man would be mean enough to loan money to another; that any man could so far forget the dignity of the office that he held as to help a friend. their idea of a senator is of such a lofty and dignified character that he ceases to take interest in anything except national affairs; that after he has been sworn in he forgets all the relationships and friendships of the world, and the idea of asking him to loan money seems, to the prosecution, to be the height of unconstitutionality. but as a matter of fact he did loan some money, and we will show you how that loan was treated, showing you that at that time he had not the slightest interest in it. he loaned some money, and kept loaning money until, i believe, he had given them about sixteen thousand dollars to get these routes on. then he, being on his way to new mexico, met in the city of saint louis john r. miner, who at that time was coming back, i think, from montana or dakota, where he had been putting stock on a route. miner saw dorsey in saint louis, and said to him, "we have got to have a little more money, and i want you to indorse my note or to loan me your note and i can get it discounted in the german-american bank in washington." finally, dorsey said to him, "you have already obtained from me about sixteen thousand dollars: i will give you the note you ask, or indorse your note upon one condition, and that is that you shall give me orders"--what are called post-office drafts--"not only for the amount of this note, but for the amount of the sixteen thousand dollars." we shall insist, gentlemen, that that evidence shows exactly our position, and that you are entitled not only to draw from it, but that you must draw from it the inference, the fact, that we had no interest in those routes. finally that was agreed to. now, understand it, at that time a contractor with the government who had agreed to carry the mail for a certain time could give what are called post-office drafts or orders--you know, orders on his quarterly pay--and they would be taken to the proper officer in the post-office department and they would be accepted, not for the full amount, understand, but for any amount that might be due that contractor. for instance, he might fail to carry the mail, he might be fined, and consequently the amount of that draft might not be there, so that the only thing the post-office department agreed to do was to pay upon that order or draft anything that was due to the contractor. that was done at that time, and why? because there was no way other than that to secure these advances. so he gave these drafts. he came on to washington. the note was put into the german-american bank. the orders on the post-office department were filed with it, and the money advanced by the bank and charged to stephen w. dorsey. that made, then, at that time about twenty-five thousand dollars that dorsey had advanced. that being done he went on about his business. now, i will show you what happened after that. i think the note in the german-american bank was nine thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars, i have forgotten which. dorsey then went on to new mexico from saint louis, and remained there, i believe, until december, . now, i want you to understand this, because here turns a very important question, and a very important point. now, you recollect the information about these bids was collected in the autumn and winter of . the last bid was to be put in, i think, february , . now, this was in the august of that year, . still being pressed for money, miner, peck, and j. w. dorsey were in danger of being declared failing contractors. now, recollect it. we will show that at that time brady, who, according to the government, was a co-conspirator, threatened to declare dorsey, peck, and miner failing contractors, and if he had declared them failing contractors even on one route that was the end of all. at that time miner and john w. dorsey sought out mr. harvey m. vaile, and let me say that is the first appearance of mr. vaile in these contracts. he knew nothing about the bidding, was not in dorsey's house, knew nothing about the letting. that is his first appearance in these contracts, august, . now let us see what he did. he was a man of means. he had some money; had been, i believe, for a long time engaged in carrying the mails; understood the business. they will tell you that is a suspicious circumstance as to him, and that the fact that that was john dorsey's first experience is a suspicious circumstance as to him. really to avoid suspicion you would have to have a man that had been in it a long time but never had anything to do with it. they got him, and offered what? to give him a third interest in this entire business. i think that was it. they were to give him a third interest in this entire business, a business that had been born of conspiracy, a business that had as a silent partner the man who fixed the amount of money to be paid. think of that. according to the statement of the government, here was a conspiracy full-fledged, perfect in its every part, flanked by the second assistant postmaster-general, buttressed by all the clerks they desired, and yet that conspiracy got so hard up that in august, , nine or ten months after its creation, it was willing to give a third to anybody who would advance a little money to carry the thing on. so mr. vaile came in. now, then, they had to secure vaile against any loss, and it seems that on july , i believe, of that year, the law allowed the subcontract to be filed. it was a little while before that that a law had been passed for the protection of subcontractors. that was all explained to you yesterday. you know it is something like a mechanic's lien; that if the subcontractor would only file his subcontract in the post-office department and let that department know the terms of it they would not pay the original contractor until this subcontractor was paid. now, that law had gone into effect a little while before august, , and the effect of that law, if anybody filed a subcontract on these routes, was to cut out all those post-office orders that miner had given to secure dorsey. you understand me now, do you not? it was when he met him in saint louis that it was agreed that these post-office orders were to be given and filed with the german-american bank in this city. now, then, the law passed for the protection of subcontractors, and subsequently the filing of subcontracts on those very routes, would render those post-office orders absolutely worthless. very well. when they made the contract with mr. vaile they agreed to file the subcontracts with the department to protect vaile and that rendered s. w. dorsey's security absolutely nothing. that cut out all other claims, drafts, and everything else, and at that time mr. miner was fully authorized by power of attorney from j. w. dorsey and from john m. peck, who was at that time in new mexico, to make this transfer to vaile. now, see where we are on august , . on dorsey's return in december, --he had not been here from that time, and do you not see he had nothing to do with it--he found that these subcontracts had been filed. he found that the note in the german-american bank had been protested, and he found that his collateral security was not worth a dollar, that it was all gone. thereupon he demanded a settlement. the matter drifted along for a little while, and a settlement was made with the bank; and mr. vaile, holding the subcontract, undertook to pay that dorsey note, and he did pay it. he took it up, and gave, i believe, his own instead, and that was finally paid. but the money due dorsey, the sixteen thousand dollars that at that time amounted to something more by virtue of interest, was not provided for. the money that had been expended by john w. dorsey was not provided for. the money expended by peck was not provided for. now, i want you to see exactly how that matter stood at that time. we have got it up to that time and here it stands, and the chief conspirator out sixteen thousand dollars and without any interest in one of the routes. there is where he was at that time, and that is what we will show. the brother of the chief conspirator ten thousand dollars out, and not the interest of one cent in any route. the brother-in-law of the conspirator about ten thousand dollars out, and not a cent in. that was the condition of this conspiracy at this time, and when vaile took these routes brady telegraphed him and asked him, "what routes of miner, dorsey, and peck, are you going to put the stock on? this thing can be continued no longer. the stock must go on." we will show it. now, having got to that point, we will take another step. there is nothing like understanding things as we go along. now, from the time mr. vaile took the route, to the settlement in , to which i will call your attention in a little while, mr. vaile had the absolute control. neither peck nor s. w. dorsey had the slightest thing to do with one of those routes until the final settlement, and i say to these gentlemen of the prosecution now, that in that time they can find no line, no word from stephen w. dorsey upon the subject. they cannot find that he wrote a word to any official, that he sent a petition to anybody, that he wrote a letter to any human being upon the subject, or that he took any more interest in it than in the ashes of sodom and gomorrah. it went right along. now, then, up to this time, stephen w. dorsey had made nothing. he was only out about sixteen thousand dollars or eighteen thousand dollars. john w. dorsey was in the same healthy financial condition. john m. peck had reaped the same rich harvest of ten thousand dollars lost, and all the things had been turned over to mr. vaile; john w. dorsey put out--left out--with nothing to show. that is the first chapter in this conspiracy. [resuming.] i believe when i stopped, the principal conspirators were substantially "broke." the head and front was out sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars, and the other two ten thousand dollars each. now, a contract was made, and i propose to prove that contract in the course of this trial. when that contract comes to be shown, it will be about this: that, on the th day of august, , h. m. vaile, john r. miner, john m. peck, and john w. dorsey made an agreement that agreement made a partnership, and we will show that a partnership was formed by and between miner, vaile, peck, and dorsey on the th day of august, . we will show by the articles of that partnership that h. m. vaile was made treasurer, and that all the other partners agreed, by suitable powers of attorney, to put the collection of all the money from the government absolutely in his hands. when he got the money he agreed, first, to pay all the subcontractors; second, the expenses necessary and incident to the proper conduct of the business; third, to divide the profits remain-, ing among the parties as provided in that contract. the profits were to be divided as follows: from routes in indian territory, kansas, nebraska, and dakota, to h. m. vaile, one-third; to john r. miner, one-sixth; to john m. peck, one-sixth; and to john w. dorsey, one-third. from routes in montana, wyoming, colorado, new mexico, arizona, utah, idaho, washington territory, oregon, nevada, and california, to h. m. vaile, one-third; to john r. miner, one-third, and to john m. peck, one-third. before any division of profits was to be made, the sums which before that time had been advanced were to be paid to the parties so advancing such sums; and if the profits were not sufficient to repay the entire sums so advanced, they were to be paid from time to time during the existence of the life of these contracts. now, you will find that such contract was made on the th day of august, , and that mr. h. m. vaile then took absolute and complete control of every one of these routes, and the only thing they asked of him was to repay the money that had been advanced, which, as you know, and as i have told you, was the sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars by s. w. dorsey, the ten thousand dollars by peck, and about the same amount by john w. dorsey. now that is understood. at that time certain papers were executed by all the parties. i told you that a law had been passed by virtue of which a man could make a subcontract and have that subcontract put on file, and thereupon he could be protected by the government. now, when h. m. vaile took these routes, and they were to be managed by him, subcontracts were made by the other parties to mr. vaile, and mr. vaile put those subcontracts on record. now you can see that they gave him the absolute and entire control of every route. that was the condition. i have explained to you the the liability of a contractor. he cannot put it off on a subcontractor. he is the man primarily responsible to the government during the life of that contract, and for six months thereafter. whenever a contract is awarded to any person, he is regarded as the original contractor, and his name is kept upon the books of the department during the life of that contract. no matter how many subcontracts may be made, he is looked to primarily if there is a failure of a a trip, or if there is a failure of the service, and he is responsible for its complete performance. if there comes some great storm and the road is obstructed by snow, or if the bridges are all carried away by flood, and the subcontractor throws down the contract, the original contractor must be ready to take it up; and if he fail to do so, he can be fined three times what he has received for each trip. there is one case in one of these nineteen routes, gentlemen, where the fines exceeded the entire pay simply because they did not carry the mail according to the contract. now, then, these parties finally made a settlement and they divided these routes. they divided them. they ceased to have any interest in common. recollect, that was in april, . i want you to know it because this entire case depends on your knowing it. this entire case, gentlemen of the jury, depends on your understanding it. in april, , mr. vaile having had possession of these routes for several months, a division was made of them, and all interest in common was at that moment severed. at this time, i say, these routes were divided, and all partnership and all partnership interest was absolutely destroyed. i want to tell you why. when dorsey returned from new mexico and found that his orders on the post-office department had been superseded by subcontracts and that his collateral security was worthless he was indignant, and at that time he and mr. vaile had a quarrel. he did not think he had been properly treated, and for that reason the moment he got the note at the german-american bank provided for, the moment he induced mr. vaile to assume the payment of that note, he gave evidence that he wanted a settlement. not that he wanted the routes divided at that time, because he did not dream of such a thing. he wanted the settlement. he wanted his money. the arrangement that had been made with mr. vaile was unknown to mr. dorsey, who at that time was in new mexico; and, as i told you before, when he returned and found that the note that had been given to the german-american national bank was protested, and found, as i told you twice, his collateral security was worthless, he wanted a settlement. he wanted his money refunded to him. they said to him, "we haven't the money. we have just got the stock really upon these routes. we have just got under way, and we cannot pay out the money." "very well," said he, "what will you give me?" i want you all to see that this was a simple, natural, ordinary proceeding. said he, "i want my money." said vaile to him, "we haven't the money, but i will tell you what we will do. we will divide the routes with you." now, recollect at that time that they had a hundred and thirty-four routes, and had given some of them away. at that time they agreed upon a division, and they agreed how that division should be made. we will prove the agreement to you. the agreement was that mr. vaile should choose first, taking the route he wanted--he and miner being together at that time--that mr. dorsey should choose the next, and mr. miner should choose the third route; and then that mr. vaile should choose the fourth, stephen w. dorsey the fifth route, mr. miner the sixth route, mr. vaile the seventh route, and so on. they finally concluded it would be fair for mr. vaile to take the best route, dorsey the next best, and miner the next best, and then again vaile the best, dorsey the next best, and miner the next best, and that that would be an average that would do justice to each. in that way, gentlemen, they divided these routes. there was no conspiracy; nothing secret. this division was made on the th day of april, , not only after dorsey had gone out of the senate, but after he had advanced this money, after they had failed to repay him, after he had failed to collect it, and when he finally had said, "i must have some settlement that recognizes my claim." gentlemen, i want you to know that. in this case that fact will be one of the great central facts. on the th day of april, , these routes were absolutely divided, and after that they had nothing in common. but you recollect that these routes were divided by chance. mr. vaile chose the first route. he might choose a route that had been bid off by peck, or he might choose a route that had been bid off by john w. dorsey. stephen w. dorsey took the next route, and that might have been a route that had originally been awarded to his brother, or to peck, or to miner. you can see how that is. the division was here complete. mr. miner did not have the routes he had bid off and that had been given to him by the government. mr. vaile came in, and as mr. vaile was not an original bidder he took routes that had been awarded to miner and to peck and to john w. dorsey. by the division stephen w. dorsey came into possession of routes that he never had bid off, because he never bid for one. consequently as he went along with those routes, he needed and he had oftentimes the affidavit or the certificate of the original contractor. that was a necessity. otherwise the division could not have been carried out. anything that arises from the necessity of the case does not tend to show any conspiracy or any illegal partnership. i hope you understand perfectly that on the th day of april, , these routes were divided and stephen w. dorsey took his share because they at that time owed him between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. what more did he do, gentlemen? he agreed at that time that he would refund to john w. dorsey all the money he had expended. that amount was about ten thousand dollars. it was nine thousand and something. he also agreed that he would refund to john m. peck, who is now dead, the money he had expended, which was between nine and ten thousand dollars. he also agreed that he would take the routes for the money he had expended, and that was between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. so, when those routes were turned over to him they were taken in full of over sixteen thousand dollars advanced by him, ten thousand dollars that he was to give to his brother, and ten thousand dollars that he was to give to john m. peck--in the neighborhood of thirty-eight thousand dollars in all. speaking of the sum without interest it amounted to thirty-six thousand dollars. those routes were turned over to him. gentlemen, it was not done in secret. when that division was made, the law having provided no way for a to assign a contract to b, that assignment had to be accomplished by a subcontract, and consequently subcontracts had to be given to vaile, subcontracts to john r. miner, and subcontracts to s. w. dorsey, and yet the original contractor was still held by the government. when the subcontract was made, it was for the entire amount of the pay; not one dollar remained for the original contractor. now, i want to state to you what we are going to prove about that. after the division was made, to show you the interest taken by the arch-conspirator, we will prove these facts: that when the routes awarded to him by chance, on the th day of april, , had been awarded, he left the city of washington in a few days, and went to new mexico; that he returned here on the th or th of may; that he left again on the th of may, and went to arkansas; that from arkansas he went to new mexico, and returned to washington on the st day of june, and that on the th of june he left for new mexico. the next time he visited washington was in july of the following year, . he remained here one day, left and returned again to witness the inauguration of general garfield. from june , , up to the present hour i challenge these gentlemen to show that stephen w. dorsey ever wrote one line, one word, one letter, to any officer of the post-office department. i challenge them to show that he ever took the slightest interest in any star route, or said one word to any human being about that business, except in explanation when attacked by the government or in the newspapers. now, gentlemen, after the division of these routes what did stephen w. dorsey do? this is a story, complicated, it may seem, perfectly plain when you understand the surroundings. it is a story necessary for you to know. after he got these routes what did he do? did he want them? did he want to engage in carrying the mail of the united states? was that his business? at that time he had a ranch in new mexico where he was raising cattle. that was his business, and is up to to-day. did he want to stay here? did he want to attend to these contracts? that is for you to determine. did he want to enter into some partnership by which the government was to be fleeced? that is for you to say. i tell you he had another business. i tell you he had a ranch in new mexico, and we will prove it to you, and that ranch was of more importance to him than all the star routes in the united states. we will show you that at that time he could not have afforded to waste his time on these routes; that the business he was then engaged in was too profitable to waste any time in the mail business. profitable as these gentlemen appear to think it was, what did he do? just as soon as he could make the arrangement he went to a gentleman living in pennsylvania by the name of james w. bosler. who is bosler? he is a man well acquainted with the business of contracting with the government. he has been in that business for years and years. he is a man of ample fortune, excellent reputation, considered by his friends and neighbors to be a gentleman and an honest man. he went to him. that we will show you. he said to mr. bosler, "i have advanced money by the indorsement of a note. i am in a business that i do not understand. we have had to divide the routes in order for me to have security for my debt. i want to turn these routes over to you. i am not acquainted with the business of carrying the mail. i know absolutely nothing about it. i want you to take it." how did he turn it over? we will show. he said to mr. bosler, "you take all the routes that have been given to me; every one. you run them and you pay me back my money, and then we will divide the profit." mr. bosler said he was not very well acquainted with post-office business, but he understood how to transact any ordinary business, and he would take them. that is all there is to it. he took the routes; every one. i believe that he took absolute control within a few months of the th day of april. i do not know but the warrants for the first quarter were paid or came in some way to s. w. dorsey. but for the second quarter mr. bosler took them, and from that day to this mr. bosler has controlled those routes. he has carried every mail or has contracted with the man who did carry it. every solitary thing that has been done from that day to this has been done by him. every dollar has been collected by mr. bosler, and every dollar has been disbursed by mr. bosler. and before we get through i am going to tell you how all the routes that were given to mr. s. w. dorsey came out. let me tell you how they came out. mr. bosler has carried the mail, paid the expenses, kept the accounts, and, gentlemen, i am going to tell you how much he made out of this vast conspiracy that has convulsed that part of the moral world that has been hired and paid to be convulsed. i am going to tell you exactly how we came out on all this business. i will give you the product of all this rascality, of all this conspiracy, of all the written and spoken lies; i will tell you our joint profit on this entire business; a business that promised to change the administration of this government; a business about which reputations have been lost, and no reputations will be won; counting it all, every dollar, and taking into consideration the midnight meetings, the whisperings in alleys, the strange grips and signs that we have had to invent and practice, you will wonder at the amount. i will give it to you all. mr. bosler has kept the books, has expended every dollar, collected every warrant, and i say to you to-day that the entire profit has been less than ten thousand dollars, not enough to pay ten witnesses of the government. our profits have not been one-fiftieth of the expense of the government in this prosecution--not one-fiftieth, and i say this, gentlemen, knowing what i am saying. it is charged by the government that these gentlemen were conspirators; that they dragged the robes of office in the mire of rascality; that they swore lies; that they made false petitions; that they forged the names of citizens; that they did all this for the paltry profit of ten thousand dollars. that is what we will show you. and the moment this reform administration swept into power they cut down the service on these routes. they not only did that, but they refused to pay the month's extra pay, and they committed all this villainy in the name of reform. and do you know some of the meanest things in this world have been done in the name of reform? they used to say that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel. i think reform is. and whenever i hear a small politician talking about reform, borrowing soap to wash his official hands, with his mouth full and his memory glutted with the rascality of somebody else i begin to suspect him; i begin to think that that gentleman is preparing to steal something. so much, then, for the conspiracy up to this point, up to the division of these routes in . now recollect it. now, the next charge that is made against us, and it is a terrific one, is that these defendants, my clients, have filled the post-office department with petitions--false petitions; forged petitions. i want to tell you here to-day that these gentlemen will never present any petitions upon any route upon which my clients are interested that they will claim was forged--not one. have we not the right, gentlemen, to petition? has not the humblest man in the united states a right to send a petition to congress? has not the smallest man--i will go further--has not the meanest man the right to petition congress? why, it is considered one of our constitutional rights not only, but a right back of the constitution, to make known your grievances to the governing power. every man always had a right to petition the king. there is no government so absolutely devoid of the spirit of liberty that the meanest subject in it has not the right to express his opinion to the king--to the czar. upon what meat do these officers feed that they are grown so great that an ordinary citizen may not address a petition to one of them? now, i ask you, if you were living in colorado and could get a mail once a week, have you not the right to petition your member of congress to have it three times a week? do you not know that every member of congress from every state, every delegate from every territory, is judged by his constitutents by the standard of what he does. by what he does for whom? by what he does for them. they send a man to congress to help them, and they expect that man to get them a mail just as often as any other member of congress gets his people a mail, do they not? and if he cannot do that they will leave that young gentleman at home. they will find another man. it is the boast of a member of congress when he returns to his constitutents, "i have done something for you. you only had a mail here once a week. i have got it four times a week, gentlemen." "here is a river that was navigable. i have got a custom house." "here is a great district in which the united states holds a court and i have an appropriation for a court-house." up will go the caps; they will say, "he is the man we want to represent us next session." but if he sneaks back and says, "gentlemen, you do not need a court-house, you have mails often enough," the reply of the people is, "and you have been to congress often enough." that is nature, and no matter how highly we are civilized when you scratch through the varnish you find a natural man. now, then, every member of congress felt it was his duty, his privilege, and his leverage, to have the mails established, and when the people got up petitions he would indorse them. he would look at the petitions. there was the principal man, you know, in his town. he would look down a little farther. there was a fellow that had an idea of running against him. he would look down a little farther, and there was the man who presented his name at the last convention; there is the fellow who subscribed three hundred dollars towards the expenses of the campaign. that is enough. he turns it right over--"i most earnestly recommend that this petition be granted. so and so, m. c." then he would put it in his coat-pocket, and he would march down to general brady with a smile on his face as broad as the horizon of his countenance. he would just explain to the gentleman that there are miner's camps springing up all over that country, towns growing in a night like mushrooms, providence just throwing prosperity away in that valley; that they have to have a daily mail then and there, and he would show this petition. in three weeks more there would come fifty others, and it would be granted. why, even the counsel for the prosecution would have done the same, strange as it may appear. they would have done just the same--maybe worse, maybe better. the post-office officials might have granted more to them. now, i have always had the idea that it was one of my rights to sign a petition; that no man in this country could grow so great that i had not the right just to hand the gentleman a paper with my opinion on it. do you know i do not think anybody can get so big that an american citizen cannot send a letter to him if he pays the postage, and in that letter he can give him his opinion. there is no fraud about that; not the slightest. these men all out through the mountains, men that went out there, you know, to hunt for silver and for gold, live in little camps of not more than twenty or thirty, maybe, but they wanted to hear from home just as bad as though there had been five hundred in that very place. and a fellow that had dug in the ground about eleven feet and had found some rock with a little stain on it and had had the stain assayed, wanted to hear from home right off. he stayed there and dreamed about fortune, palaces, pictures, carriages, statues, and the whole future was simply an avenue of joy upon which he and his wife and the children would ride up and down. he wanted to write a letter right off. he wanted to tell the folks how he felt. do you think that man would not sign a petition for another mail? do you think that fellow would vote to send a stupid man to congress who could not get another mail? he felt rich; he was sleeping right over a hole that had millions in it, and he had not much respect for a government that could not afford to send a millionaire a letter. now, mr. bliss tells you that we forged petitions, and in only a few moments, as the court will remember, he had the kindness to say that anybody in the world would sign a petition for anything, and the question arises if people are so glad to sign petitions why should we forge their names. do you not see that doctrine kind of swallows itself. you certainly would not forge the name of a man to a note who was hunting you up to sign it. and yet the doctrine of the government is that while the whole west rose en masse, each man with a pen in his hand and inquiring for a petition, these defendants deliberately went to work and forged it. it won't do, gentlemen. oh, my lord, what a thing a little common sense is when you come to think about it, when you come to place it before your mind. now, the next great trouble in this case, gentlemen, is that we bid on routes that were not productive. when you remember that congress made all these routes--now congress did it; we did not do it--you will protect us. we did not make a solitary route upon which we bid, strange as it may appear. congress, with the map of the territories and the states of the union before it, marked out all the routes. congress determined where these routes should run. and yet this case has been tried as though in reality we were the parties who determined it. now, let me say something right here. it is for congress to determine first of all on what routes the mail shall be carried. i want you to understand that, to get it into your heads, way in, that congress determined that question, and that there has to be a law passed that the mail shall be carried from toquerville to adairville, from rawlins to white river. that law has to be passed first, and congress has to say that that route shall be established. now, get that in your minds. i give you my word we never established a mail on the earth. that was done by congress, and the moment congress establishes a route it becomes the duty of the second assistant postmaster-general to put the service upon that route, and the duty of the first assistant postmaster-general to name the offices on that route. is not that true? that is the doctrine. now, that had all been done before we entered into a conspiracy. these routes had not only been established, but the government had advertised for service on these routes, and we bid. that was our crime. these gentlemen said, i believe, at one time, that they were about to lift a little of the curtain, to expose the action of congress. you see this suit has threatened the whole government. if the constitution weathers this storm it will be in luck. they were going to raise the curtain. they were going to be like children hanging around a circus tent. one lifts it up and hallooes to another, "come quick, i see a horse's foot." they said that they were going to show the rascality of congress. they have never done it. i suppose the reason may be that their pay depends upon an act of congress, but they let that alone. now, they say that congress committed a great mistake. why, they say they were routes that were not productive, and we knew it, and that when the people asked for expedition and increase on a route that was not productive we were guilty of fraud. now, gentlemen, let us see: there are not a great many productive post-offices in the united states. they say that a post-office that is not productive should be wiped out. let me say to you, you cut off the post-offices that are not productive and you will have thousands the next day that are not productive. it is the unproductive offices that make others productive. you cut off those that are not productive and you will have double the number that are not productive. you cut off all those that are unproductive and you will have nothing left but the mail line. you might say that there is not a spring that flows into the mississippi that is navigable. let us cut off the springs. then what becomes of the mississippi? that is not navigable either. it is on account of the streams not navigable, emptying into one, that the one into which they empty, becomes navigable. and yet, these gentlemen say in the interest of navigation, "let us stop the springs because you cannot run a boat up them." that is their doctrine. there is no sense in that. you have got to treat this country as one country. you have got to treat the post-offices business as a unit for an entire country. you have got to say that wherever the flag floats the mail shall be carried, wherever american citizens live they shall be visited with the intelligence of the nineteenth century. that is what you have got to say. you have got to get up on a good high plane, and you have got to run a great government like this that dominates the fortune of a continent, and you have got to run it like great men. there has got to be some genius in this thing and not little bits of suspicion. productiveness! let us see. we are informed by mr. bliss, who is paid for saying it, otherwise he would not, that the west is perfectly willing to have mail facilities at the expense of the east. i do not think the gentleman comprehends the west. there is nothing so laughable, and sometimes there is nothing so contemptible, as the egotism of a little fellow who lives in a big town. some people really think that new york supports this country, and probably it never entered the mind of mr. bliss that this country supported new york. but it does. all the clerks in that city do not make anything, they do not manufacture anything, they do not add to the wealth of this world. i tell you, the men who add to the wealth of this world are the men who dig in the ground. the men who walk between the rows of corn, the men who delve in the mines, the men who wrestle with the winds and waves of the wide sea, the men on whose faces you find the glare of forges and furnaces, the men who get something out of the ground, and the men who take something rude and raw in nature and fashion it into form for the use and convenience of men, are the men who add to the wealth of this world. all the merchants in this world would not support this country. my lord! you could not get lawyers enough on a continent to run one town. and yet, mr. bliss talks as though he thought that all the mutton and beef of the united states were raised in central park, as though we got all our wool from shearing lambs in wall street. it won't do, gentlemen. there is a great deal produced in the western country. i was out there a few years ago, and found a little town like minneapolis with fifteen thousand people, and everybody dead-broke. i went there the other day and found eighty thousand people, and visited one man who grinds five thousand bushels of flour each day. i found there the falls of saint anthony doing work for a continent without having any back to ache, grinding thirty thousand bushels of flour daily. just think of the immense power it is. millions of feet of lumber in this very country, and dakota, over which some of these routes run, yielding a hundred million bushels of wheat. only a few years ago i was there and passed over an absolute desert, a wilderness, and on this second visit found towns of five and six and seven thousand inhabitants. there is not a man on this jury, there is not a man in this house with imagination enough to prophesy the growth of the great west, and before i get through i will show you that we have helped to do something for that great country. productiveness! let me tell you where that idea of productiveness was hatched, where it was born, the egg out of which it came. it was by the act of march , , just after the revolution, and just after our forefathers had refused to pay their debts, just after they had repudiated the debt of the confederation, just after they had allowed money to turn to ashes in the pockets of the hero of yorktown, or had allowed it to become worthless in the hand of the widow and the orphan. in , the time when economy trod upon the heels almost of larceny, our congress provided that the postmaster-general should report to congress after the second year of its establishment every post-road which should not have produced one-third the expense of carrying the mail. recollect it, and i want you to recollect in this connection that we never established a post-route in the world. we will show that, anyway, if we show nothing else. by the act of a route was discontinued within three years that did not produce a fourth of the expenses. now, when those laws were in force the postage was collected at the place of delivery. but in old times, gentlemen, in illinois, in , it was considered a misfortune to receive a letter. the neighbors sympathized with a man who got a letter. he had to pay twenty-five cents for it. it took five bushels of corn at that time, five bushels of oats, four bushels of potatoes, ten dozen eggs to get one letter. i have myself seen a farmer in a perturbed state of mind, going from neighbor to neighbor telling of his distress because there was a letter in the post-office for him. in the postage was reduced to three cents when it was prepaid, and the law provided that the diminution of income should not discontinue any route, neither should it affect the establishment of new routes, and for the first time in the history of our government the idea of productiveness was abandoned. it was not a question of whether we would make money by it or not; the question was, did the people deserve a mail and was it to the interest of the government to carry that mail? i am a believer in the diffusion of intelligence. i believe in frequent mails. i believe in keeping every part of this vast republic together by a knowledge of the same ideas, by a knowledge of the same facts, by becoming acquainted with the same thoughts. if there is anything that is to perpetuate this republic it is the distribution of intelligence from one end to the other. just as soon as you stop that we grow provincial; we get little, mean, narrow prejudices; we begin to hate people because we do not know them; we begin to ascribe all our faults to other folks. i believe in the diffusion of intelligence everywhere. i want to give to every man and to every woman the opportunity to know what is happening in the world of thought. i want to carry the mail to the hut as well as to the palace. i want to carry the mail to the cabin of the white man or the colored man, no matter whether in georgia, alabama, or in the territories. i want to carry him the mail and hand it to him as i hand it to a vanderbilt or to a jay gould. that is my doctrine. the law of did away with your productiveness nonsense, and when the mails were first put upon railways in the year , the law made a limit, not on account of productiveness, but a limit of cost, and said the mail should not cost to exceed three hundred dollars a mile. let me correct myself. in a law was passed that the mails might be carried by railroad provided they did not cost in excess of twenty-five per cent, over the cost of mail coaches. in that law was repealed, and the law then provided that the pay on railways should be limited to three hundred dollars a mile. so you see how much productiveness has to do with this business. in congress provided for an overland mail. did they look out for productiveness? the overland mail in was a little golden thread by which the pacific and the atlantic could be united through the great war. just a mail, carrying now and then a letter in , and they were allowed, i think, twenty or thirty days to cross. was productiveness thought of? congress provided that they might pay for that service eight hundred thousand dollars a year. the mail did not exceed a thousand pounds. including everything. some letters that were carried from this side to the other cost the government three hundred dollars apiece. what was the object? it was simply that the hearts of the atlantic and the pacific might feel each other's throb through the great war. that is all. suppose some poor misguided attorney had stood up at that time and commenced talking about productiveness. in the presence of these great national objects the cost fades, sinks. it is absolutely lost. wherever our flag flies i want to see the mail under it. after awhile we established what is known as the free-delivery system. that was first established on the idea of productiveness. whenever you start a new idea, as a rule, you have to appeal to all the meanness that is in conservatism. before you can induce conservatives to do a decent action you have to prove to them that it will pay at least ten per cent. so they started that way. they said, "we will only have this free delivery system where it pays." we went on and found the system desirable, and that many people wanted it, and that the revenues of the post-office department were so great that we could afford it, and we commenced having it where it did not pay. right here in the city of washington, right here in the capital of the great republic, we have the free delivery system. is it productive? last year we lost twenty-one thousand dollars distributing letters to the attorneys for the prosecution and others. and yet now this district has the impudence to talk about productiveness. if anybody wants to find that fact it can be found on pages and of the postmaster-general's report. productiveness! we have now a railway service in the united states. i want to know if that is calculated upon the basis of productiveness. a car starts from the city of new york, and runs twelve hours ahead of the ordinary time to the city of chicago for the simple purpose of carrying the mail, stopping only where the engine needs water, only when the monster whose bones are steel and whose breath is flame, is tired. do you suppose that pays? you could scarcely put letters enough into the cars at three cents apiece to pay for the trip. at last we regard this whole country as a unit for this business. we say the american people are to be supplied. we do not care whether they live in new york or in durango; we do not care whether they are among the steeples of the east or the crags of the west; we do not care whether they live in the villages of new england or whether they are staked out on the plains of new mexico. for the purpose of the distribution of intelligence this great country is one. do you see what a big idea that is? when it gets into the heads of some people you have no idea how uncomfortable they feel. i have as much interest in this country as anybody, just exactly, and i am willing to subscribe my share to have this mail carried so that the man on the very western extreme, on the hem of the national garment, may have just as much as the man who lives here in the shadow of the capitol. you see whenever a man gets to the height where he does not want anything that he is not willing to give somebody else, then he first begins to appreciate what a gentleman is and what an american should be. productiveness! i say that all the state and territorial lines have been brushed aside. we do not carry the mail in a state because it pays. we carry it because there are people there; because there are american citizens there; not because it pays. the post-office is not a miser; it is a national benefactor. there are only seventeen states in this union where the income of the post-office department is equal to the outlay; only seventeen states in this union. there are twenty-one states in which the mail is carried at a loss. there are ten territories in which we receive substantially nothing in return for carrying the mail, and there is one district, the district of columbia. i do not know how many miles square this magnificent territory is; i guess about six. thirty-six square miles. how much is the loss in this district per annum? about one thousand five hundred dollars a square mile. the annual loss right here in this district is fifty-eight thousand dollars, and yet the citizens of this town are rascally enough to receive the mail, according to the prosecution. why is it not stopped? why is not the postmaster-general indicted for a conspiracy with some one? this little territory, six miles square has a loss of fifty-eight thousand dollars. if there was a corresponding loss in kansas, nebraska, california, dakota, and idaho, it would take more than the national debt to run the mail every year. and yet here in thirty-six square miles comes the wail of non-productiveness. it is almost a joke. we are carrying the mail in kansas at a loss of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and yet kansas has a hundred million bushels of wheat for sale. good! i am willing to send letters to such people. it is a vast and thriving country. it contains men who have laid the foundation of future empires. i want people big enough and broad enough and wide enough to understand that the valley of the mississippi will support five hundred millions of people. let us get some ideas, gentlemen. let us get some sense. there is nothing like it. we pay five hundred thousand dollars a year for the privilege of carrying the mail in nebraska. do you know i am willing to pay my share. any man who will go out to nebraska and just let the wind blow on him deserves to have plenty of mail. you do not know here what wind is. you have never felt anything but a zephyr. you have never felt anything but an atmospheric caress. go and try nebraska. the wind there will blow a hole out of the ground. go out there and try one blizzard, a fellow that robs the north pole and comes down on you, and you will be willing to carry the mail to any man that will stay there and plow a hundred and sixty acres of land. when i see a post-office clerk sitting in a good warm room and making a fuss about a chap in nebraska for not carrying the mail against a blizzard, i have my sentiments. i know what i think of the man. in the territory of utah we pay two hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year for the privilege of carrying the mails, and the males in that country are mostly polygamists. i want you to get an idea of this country. in the state of california, that state of gold, that state of wheat, the state that has added more to the metallic wealth of this nation than all others combined, an empire of magnificence, we pay five hundred thousand dollars a year for the privilege of distributing the mail. i am glad of it. i want the pioneer fostered. i want the pioneer to feel the throb of national generosity. i want him to feel that this is his country. you see the post-office is about the only blessing he has. every other visitor that comes from the general government wants taxes. the post-office department is the only evidence we possess of national beneficence. it is the only thing that comes from the general government that has not a warrant, that does not intend to arrest us. in texas, which is an empire of two hundred and seventy-three thousand square miles, a territory greater than the french empire, which at one time conquered europe, we pay four hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars for the privilege of distributing the mail. i am glad of it. it will not be long before that state will have millions of people and give us back millions of dollars each year, and with that surplus we will carry the mail to other territories. a man who has not pretty big ideas has no business in this country; not a bit. we pay one hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars for the sake of carrying letters and papers around arkansas; one hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars for the privilege of wandering up and down alabama; one hundred and seven thousand dollars in missouri; two hundred and forty thousand dollars in ohio; two hundred and eight thousand dollars in georgia; three hundred and twelve thousand dollars in old virginia. when i first went to illinois the government had to pay for the privilege of carrying the mail in that state. now illinois turns around and hands six hundred and sixty thousand dollars of profit to the united states each year. she says, "you carry the mail to the other fellows that cannot afford it just the same as you carried it for us. you rocked our cradle, and we will pay for rocking somebody else's cradle." that is sense. in other words, in seventeen states we have a profit of seven million dollars. in twenty-one states, ten territories, and the district of columbia we have a loss of five million dollars. when we regard the country as a unit, then we make money out of the whole business. that is good. we have in the united states about a hundred and ten thousand miles of railroad now, and we pay about two hundred dollars a mile for carrying the mail on those railroads. we have two hundred and twenty-seven thousand miles of star routes, and we pay on them between twenty and thirty dollars a mile. i want you to think about it. in looking over the post-master-general's report i accidentally came across this fact. you know, gentlemen, the present period is a paroxysmal period of reform. we are having what is known as a virtuous spasm. we have that every little while. it is a kind of fiscal mumps or whooping-cough. i find by this report that a mail averaging twenty pounds carried in a baggage-car from connellsville to uniontown, pennsylvania, is paid for at the rate of forty-two dollars and seventy-two cents a mile. under general brady the star routes cost between twenty and thirty dollars a mile. now, gentlemen, i have told you our connection with the star-route business. i have told it all to you freely, frankly, and fully. some charges have been made against us, and i want to speak to you about them. you understand that it often takes quite awhile to explain a charge that is made in only a few words. one man can say another did so and so. it is only a lie, and yet it may take pages for the accused man to make his explanation. the worst lie in the world is a lie which is partly true. you understand that. when you explain a lie that has a little circumstance going along with it, certifying to it, and attesting to its truth, it takes you a great deal longer to explain it than it did to tell it. the first great charge is that for us--and i limit myself to my clients--orders were antedated. that is one great charge. let me tell you just how that was. mr. bliss calls attention to the fact that mr. brady made orders relating back, and in one case he alleged that the order was made, for the benefit of my clients, to take effect six weeks prior to its being issued. i want to explain that. a railroad was being constructed along the line of one of these routes. it may be well enough for me to say that it was the denver and rio grande railroad. the points from which the mail was carried had to be changed as the road progressed. as it grew mr. brady increased the service on the route to seven times a week. he increased it from the end of the railroad, and he made it seven times a week because the mail on the railroad was seven times a week. we were to carry the mail from the end of the railroad, wherever that end might be. he increased the service on this route from the end of the railroad to the other terminal point; that is, he made it a daily mail so as to connect with the daily trains on the railroad. at the time the seven trips were to be put on, distance tables were sent out to postmasters at the terminal points to get the distances. let me tell you what a distance table is. the names of the post-offices are on a circular, and the post-office department sends that circular to the postmasters along the route and they are asked to return it with the distance from each station to every other marked upon it. now, until that table is returned it is impossible for the second assistant postmaster-general to tell how far they carry the mail. this railroad was progressing every month, and as the railroad advanced the distance from the end of the railroad to the other terminal point decreased. now, the postmaster-general or the second assistant cannot fix that pay until he has a return of the distance table. but before he has that return he can order the contractor to carry the mail, and after the distance table is returned then he can make up the formal order and have that order entered upon the records of the department. that is all he ever did. i want you to understand that perfectly. it might be four weeks after the contractor was ordered to carry the mail from the termination of the railroad, or it might be five or six weeks before the distance tables were returned and the distance calculated. but do you not see it made no difference? there was first an order either by telegraph or a short order, and after the distance tables were returned then the distance was calculated, the amount of money calculated, and the regular order written up and made of record, and a warrant drawn for payment. that is all there is to it. and yet this is what mr. bliss calls defrauding the government. we are charged on that kind of evidence with having defrauded the united states. we will show you that no order of that kind was made except when the distance was unknown; and that when the distance was ascertained, the formal order was made, another order having been made before that time. let me say right here that orders of a similar nature have been made in the post-office department since its establishment. since the construction of railways there has not a month passed in that department--certainly not a year--when such orders have not been made. and yet for the first time in the history of the government it is brought forward against us as an evidence of fraud. we will show that the order was made exactly as i have stated. the next badge of fraud that is charged is that after a route had been awarded to us it was increased or expedited, or both, before the stock was put on. well, i will tell you just how that is, because you want to know. this case, apparently complicated, is infinitely simple when it is understood. there are in the united states, i believe, some ten thousand of these star routes. they are all or nearly all in some way connected. one depends upon another. it is a web woven over the entire west, and how you run a mail here depends upon how one is run there, and the effort is to have all these mails connect in a certain harmony so that time will not be lost, and so that each letter will get to its destination in the shortest possible time, and it requires not only a great deal of experience, but it requires a great deal of ingenuity. it requires a great deal of study and strict attention for a man so to arrange the routes and the time in the united states that the letters can be gotten to their destination in the shortest possible time. and yet that is the object. you can see that. now, you may be looking at the route from a to b, and say that there is no sense in having it in that time; but if you will look at the time of other routes, if you see with what routes that connects you will say that it is sensible. now, you go on to another route, and, gentlemen, you see that every solitary route is touched, is compromised, is affected by every other route. that is what i want you to understand. now, then, mr. bliss says that it was a badge of fraud to increase the time and the service on a route before the stock was put on. now let me show you. here you have your scheme. here is the route, we will say, from a to e. you let that for a weekly route, once a week. how fast? a hundred hours. when you get the other routes and look at this business you see that that crosses several places where the mail is lost. that is where a day is lost, and you see, if instead of that being a hundred hours it were seventy-five hours the mail at many stations would save one day or two days. now, then, the law vests in you the power before a solitary horse or carriage goes upon that route to say to the man to whom the contract was awarded, "you must carry that in seventy-five hours instead of one hundred hours, and you must carry it four times a week instead of once a week." if you take that power from the postmaster-general and from the second assistant those offices become useless. it is impossible for any human intellect to take into consideration all the facts growing out of this service. there is another thing, gentlemen, which you must remember, and that is that these advertisements for this service are not made the day the service is wanted. these advertisements are put out six months before there is to be any such service. it is sometimes a year before that service is wanted, and if you know anything about the west you know that in one year the whole thing may change. that where there was not a city there may be a city, and where there was a city nothing but desolation. now, then, the law very wisely has vested the power in the second assistant and the postmaster-general to rectify all the mistakes made either by themselves or by time, and to call for faster time or for slower, that is, for less frequent trips. now, then, you see that that is no badge of fraud, do you not? if, before you put a man or a horse on that route, the government finds it wants twice as many trips there is no fraud in saying so, and if they find they want to go in fifty hours instead of a hundred hours there would be fraud in not saying so. that has been the practice since this was a government. now, what is the next? the next great charge against us, gentlemen, is that when they agreed to carry a greater number of trips, or any swifter time for money, mr. brady did not make us give an additional bond, and mr. bliss talked about that i should think about a day. nearly all the time i heard him he was on that subject. "why did they not when they were to carry additional trips give a new bond?" well, i will tell you why: because there is no law for it. there never was a law for it--never. and mr. brady had no right to demand a bond unless the statute provided for it. when i give a bond to carry the mail once a week, and the government finds that it wants it carried three times a week, the government cannot make me give an additional bond. why? because the statute does not provide for it, and mr. brady had not the power to enact new laws. that is all. why, there never was such a bond given, and any bond that is given under duress, by compulsion, not having the foundation of a statute, is absolutely null and void. everybody knows it that knows anything. and yet the gentleman comes before you and says it is a sign of fraud that we did not give an additional bond. there never was such a bond given in the history of this government--never; and in all probability never will be unless these gentlemen get into congress. you know the law prescribes every bond that the contractor must give, and it is bad enough without ever being increased during the contract term. so much now for that frightful badge of fraud. i want to make this statement so you will understand it. they have the unfairness, they have the lack of candor to tell you that it is one of the evidences that we are scoundrels, that we failed to give an additional bond, and when they made that statement they knew that by law we could not give an additional bond, and they knew that if we had given an additional bond it would not have been worth the paper upon which it was written. and yet they lack candor to that degree that they come into this court and tell you that that is one of the evidences that we have conspired against the united states. it won't do. what is the next badge of fraud? and i want to tell you this is a case of badges, and patches, and ravelings, and remnants, and rags. it is a kind of a mental garret, full of odd boots, and strange cats, thrown at us, and altogether it is called a case of conspiracy. another badge of fraud is that whenever we carried the mail one trip a week, and it was increased to two trips a week, brady was such a villain that he gave us double pay; and mr. bliss informed the jury that they knew just as well as he did that it did not cost twice as much to give two trips a week as it did to give one. well, who said it did? and yet they say that is an evidence of fraud. well, let us see. there is nothing like finding the evidence. now, when we come to this case we will introduce a bond that we gave at that time, and when the jury read that bond they will find this, or substantially this: it is hereby agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the postmaster-general may discontinue or extend this contract, change the schedule, alter, increase, or extend the service, he allowing not to exceed a pro rata increase of compensation for any additional service thereby required, or for increased speed if the employment of additional stock or carriers is rendered necessary, and in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance, as a full indemnity to said contractor, one month's extra pay on the account of service dispensed with, and not to exceed a pro rata compensation for the service retained: provided, however, that in case of increased expedition the contractor may, upon timely notice, relinquish his contract. now, it is in that provided that if they call on him for double service he is entitled to double pay. that is the law, and it has been the practice, gentlemen, since we have had a post-office department. and why? let me show you. here is a man who carries a mail from a to y. there are supposed to be some commercial transactions between those two places. it is supposed that now and then a human being goes from one of those places to the other, and the man who carries the mail, as a rule carries passengers and does the local business. now, do you suppose that he would agree with the government that he would carry the mail once a week for a thousand dollars a year, and that they might hire another man to carry it once a week for a thousand dollars a year, and maybe that other man take all his passengers and all his business. the understanding is that when i bid a thousand dollars a year for once a week, if you put it to three times a week i am to have three thousand dollars; four times a week, four thousand dollars; seven times a week, seven thousand dollars, and that has been the unbroken practice of this government from the establishment of the post-office department until to-day. you can see the absolute propriety of it, and you can see that any man would be almost crazy to take a contract on any other terms, and that contract is this: "i will carry for you so much a trip, and if you want more trips you can have them at the same price as that fixed." that is fair. that is what we did. so much for that badge of fraud. what is the next one? it is that the pay was increased twice as much by the increase, and, as i said, that is the law. now let us see what is the next great badge of fraud. that we received the pay when the mail was not carried. i deny it, and we will show in this case, gentlemen, that we never received pay except when the mail was carried. and how do i know? because general brady established a system of way-bills, so that a way-bill would accompany every pouch in which letters were, and they would put on that way-bill the time that it got to the post-office, and when that way-bill got to the terminal point it was sent here to washington and filed away, and at the end of every quarter a report was made, and if a mail was behind at any post-office you would find it on that way-bill, and if they had not made the trip then they were fined. that way-bill system was inaugurated by general brady, and under that way-bill system we carried the mail, and we could not get pay unless we had carried the mail. i call them way-bills. they are mail-bills that go with the pouch and give a history of each mail that is carried. that is all. now another great badge of fraud. the first was that he was to impose no fines when the mail was not carried. the next was that he was to impose fines and then take the fines off for half--fifty per cent. now, would not that be an intelligent contract? i carry the mails. you are the second assistant postmaster-general. i agree with you that if you fine me and then will take the fine off i will give you half of it. about how long would it take you to break me up? and yet that is honestly and solemnly put forward here as a fact in the case. they tell a story of a man who was bitten by a dog. another man said to him, "i'll tell you what to do. you just sop some bread in that blood and give it to the dog; it will cure you." "oh, my god!" says he, "if the other dogs hear of it they will eat me up." and here it is, without a smile, urged before this jury that we made a bargain that a fellow might fine us for the halves. well, there may be twelve men in this world who believe that. they are unfortunate. the next charge is that a subcontract was made for less than the original contract. well, that is where most of the money in this world is made. thousands and millions of men have made fortunes by buying corn at sixty cents a bushel to be delivered next february, and selling the same corn for seventy cents. there is where fortunes live. the difference between a contract and a subcontract is the territory of profit in which every american loves to settle. you make a contract with the government to furnish, say, a thousand horses of a certain kind for one hundred and fifty dollars apiece. you go and make a subcontract with some one to furnish you those same horses for one hundred and twenty-five dollars apiece. is that a fraud? you have taken upon yourself the responsibility and if your subcontractor fails you must make it good. there is no harm in that. suppose i agree with you to-morrow that if you will furnish me one thousand bushels of wheat on the first day of january, i will give you one thousand five hundred dollars, and i find out that you made a bargain with another fellow to do it for a thousand dollars. if i am an honest man i suppose i will jump the contract, won't i? not much. if i am an honest man i will say, "well, you made five hundred dollars; i am glad of it; good for you." but the idea of the prosecution is that the moment brady saw a subcontract for less than the original contract he should have had a moral spasm, and said, "i won't carry out the contract; i will swindle you, i will rob you, and i will do it in the name of virtue." and that is the meanest way a man ever did rob--in the name of virtue, reform. so much for that. but if you ever make a contract with this government and can make a subcontract at the same price you do it as quick as you can. the next is, that whenever he discontinued a route or any part of a route, rather, he gave us a month's extra pay; you heard that, did you not? he was on that subject about a half a day. how did he come to do that? i will tell you. there is nothing like looking: and in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance of service, as a full indemnity to said contractor one month's extra pay on the amount of service dispensed with. that is first the law, secondly the contract, and thirdly it was made in the interest of the united states. and why? suppose the united states made a contract with a man to carry a mail from new york to liverpool, and in consequence of that contract the man bought steamships to perform the service, and then the united states made up its mind not to carry the mail. that man might get damages to the amount of hundreds and thousands of dollars. therefore the united states endeavored to protect itself and say the limit of damage shall be one month's pay, and that has been the law for years, and that law has been passed upon by the supreme court of the united states. it was passed upon in the case of garfielde against the united states, where he claimed greater damages because he had all the steamships to carry the mail from san francisco to portland, and the supreme court said it made no difference what his expense had been. he was bound by the letter of the law and the contract, and could have only one month's extra pay as his entire damage. now, these gentlemen bring forward a law to protect the united states government, and they bring that forward as an evidence of conspiracy, as evidence of a fraud. nothing could be more unfair, nothing on earth could show a greater want of character. now, let us see what else. the next great charge is false affidavits. they tell you that we made lots of them; that we just had them for sale. false affidavits! and that mr. john w. dorsey made two false affidavits in two cases. the evidence will show that he did not. the evidence will show that he made only one in each case, when we come to it. but i want to call your attention to this fact, that in one case one affidavit was made where it said the number of men and horses then necessary was eight, that on the expedited schedule it would be twenty-four. three times eight are twenty-four. the second affidavit said the number of men and horses then was fifteen, and the number on expedition and increase would be forty-five. three times fifteen are forty-five. so that the amount taken from the government would be exactly the same on both affidavits. you understand that. for instance, if it took five horses and men to do the then business, and would require fifteen to do the expedited and increased business, then you would be entitled to three times the amount of pay. so in this case one affidavit said it took eight and would take twenty-four, the other affidavit said it took fifteen and would take forty-five. three times eight are twenty-four. three times fifteen are forty-five. so that the amount of money taken from the government would be exactly the same under each affidavit. now, that is all there is of that. in the next case, where he made two affidavits, i find that by the second affidavit it took, i think, thirteen thousand dollars less from the government, and yet they call the second affidavit a piece of perjury. and here is one thing that i want to impress upon all your minds. where you not only carry the mail but carry passengers, it is an exceedingly difficult problem to say just how many horses and men it requires to carry the mail, and then how many men and horses it requires to carry the passengers. it is hard to make the divide you understand--very hard. you can tell, for instance, the cost of mounting a railroad for a hundred miles, but it is very difficult to tell the cost of the bridges or what the spikes cost or what the deep cuts cost. you can take the whole together and say it cost so much a year. so in this case we can say it requires so many men and horses doing the business that we are doing, but it is almost impossible for the brain to separate exactly the passengers, the package business, from simply carrying the mail. as i said before, men will differ in opinion. some men will say it will take ten horses, others twenty, others twenty-five, and then the next question arises, and i want to call particular attention to that question, and that is, whether the law means only the horses absolutely carrying the mail; whether the law means by carriers only the men who ride the horses or drive the wagons. now, i will tell you what i mean. i undertake to carry the mail, we will say from omaha to san francisco. how many men will it take? now, i will count all the men who are driving the stages, all the men who are gathering forage, all the men who are attending to that business in any way, and if on the way i have blacksmiths' shops where my horses are shod i will count those men. if i have men engaged in drawing wood a hundred miles, i will count those men. in other words, i will count all the men i pay, no matter whether they are keeping books in new york or carrying the mail across the desert. i will count all the men i pay; so will you. what horses will you count? all the horses engaged in the business; those that are drawing corn for the others, as well as the rest, will you not? there is an old fable that a trumpeter was captured in the war and he said to his captor, "i am not a soldier, i never shot anybody." "ah," they said, "but you incited others to shoot, and you are as much a soldier as anybody; we want you." now, i say that we are entitled to count every man who carries the mail, and every man necessary to perform that service. so do you. now, there we divide. the government says we shall count simply the men carrying the mail, nobody else, and we shall count simply the horses in actual service. that is nonsense. for instance, you have got to have thirty horses. they are going all the time. do you depend on just that thirty? no, sir. if one gets lame you cannot carry the mail. you have got to have twenty or thirty horses in your corral, in the stables, so that if one of the others gives out you will have enough. that is one great question in this case, gentlemen. what i say to you now is that on every one of these routes in which my clients are interested, or, i may say, in which anybody is interested, the evidence will be that the affidavits were substantially correct. in many cases there was a far greater difference between the men and horses then used and the men and horses that were afterwards necessary. you must take another thing into consideration. in a country where there are indian depredations one man will not stay at a station by himself. he wants somebody with him; he wants two or three with him, and the more frightened he is the more men he will want. on that route from bismarck to tongue river, as to which it was sworn it would take a hundred and fifty men, the statement was made at a time when the men would not stay separately; that they wanted five or six together at one station; that they wanted men out on guard and watch. you will find before we get through, gentlemen, that the affidavits do not overstate the number. you will find in addition that these petitions were signed by the best men; that that service was asked for by the best men, not simply in the territories, but by some of the best men in the united states; by members of congress, by senators, by generals, by great and splendid men, men of national reputation. so when we come to that we will show to you that the affidavits made were substantially true. there is another charge that has been made, and that is that the affidavits in mr. peck's name were not made by him; that he never signed these affidavits. yet, gentlemen, we will prove to you as the government once proved by mr. taylor, a notary public in new mexico, that mr. peck appeared personally before him; that he was personally acquainted with mr. peck, and that he signed and swore to those affidavits in his presence. that we will substantiate in this trial as the government substantiated it in the other. these gentlemen, are among the charges that have been made against us. i say to you to-day they will not be able to show that we ever put upon the files of the post-office department a solitary letter, a solitary petition, a solitary communication that was not genuine and true. not one. they cannot do it. they never will do it. you will be astonished when you hear these petitions to find the government admitting that they are true. if they do not read them we will read them. that is all. now, i have stated to you a few of the charges made against my clients up to this point. i want to keep it in your mind. i want each man on this jury to understand exactly what i say. let us go over this ground a little. i want to be sure you remember it. in the first place, s. w. dorsey was not interested in these routes. all the bids were made by john w. dorsey, john m. peck, john r. miner, and a man by the name of boone. all the information was gathered by mr. boone by sending circulars to every postmaster on the routes. upon that information john w. dorsey, john m. peck, and john r. miner made their calculations and made their bids, numbering in all about twelve hundred. of that number they had awarded to them a hundred and thirty-four contracts. recollect that. after those contracts were awarded to them they were without the money to put the stock on all the routes, because more contracts were awarded than they expected. thereupon john r. miner borrowed some money from stephen w. dorsey and kept up that borrowing until the amount reached some sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars. don't forget it. after it got to that point mr. dorsey started for new mexico. at saint louis he met john r. miner, then coming from montana, and john r. miner said to him, "we have got to have some more money of you;" and dorsey replied, "i have no more money to give you." miner then said, "you give your note or indorse mine for nine or ten thousand dollars." dorsey replied, "if you will give me post-office orders and drafts, not only to secure the note i am about to indorse or make for you, but also to the amount of the money i have advanced for you, i will give the note." that was agreed upon. thereupon he gave the note. it was discounted in the german-american national bank, and mr. miner deposited with the note the orders on the post-office department, not only to secure the note, but the sixteen thousand dollars that dorsey had before that time advanced. dorsey went on to new mexico, and in may or july of that year another law was passed, allowing a subcontractor to put his subcontract on file. after he had advanced that money and indorsed or signed the note, they made the contract with mr. vaile, turning these routes over to him and giving him subcontracts on all these routes. when stephen w. dorsey came back from new mexico in december of that year he found that the note at the german-american national bank had been protested, and that his collateral security was at that time worthless, because the subcontracts had been filed and these subcontracts cut out the post-office orders or drafts. thereupon he wanted a settlement. matters drifted along until april, , and a settlement was made. i have told you that from the time the routes were given to mr. vaile until that time nobody had the slightest thing to do with them except mr. vaile; that in april, , the division was made; that mr. vaile paid the note at the german-american national bank; that the division was made, as i told you, by mr. vaile drawing one route, mr. dorsey one, and mr. miner one, and keeping that up until they were all drawn. i forgot to tell you before that mr. s. w. dorsey had sixteen thousand dollars, to which, if you add the interest, it would be about eighteen thousand dollars; that john w. dorsey had ten thousand dollars and john m. peck had ten thousand dollars, and when that division was made stephen w. dorsey agreed to pay john w. dorsey ten thousand dollars, and to pay john m. peck ten thousand dollars for his interest. gentlemen, he did pay john w. dorsey ten thousand dollars, and he did pay the same amount to peck, and from that day to this john w. dorsey has never had the interest of one solitary cent in any one of these routes. he was simply paid back the money that he expended. not another cent. john m. peck never made by this business one solitary dollar. he simply received back the money he had expended. after he had paid back that money to both of these men, stephen w. dorsey took these routes with a debt to him of between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. now, as to mr. rerdell. they say he was the private secretary of stephen w. dorsey. he never was; not for a moment, not for a single moment he attended to some of this business. i have no doubt that the government imagine they can debauch somebody in order to get information. i give them notice now--go on. there is no living man whose testimony we fear. there is no living lawyer who has the genius to make perjury do us harm. i want you to understand it. and i want them to understand that i know precisely what they are endeavoring to do. there is only one way for them to surprise me, and that is for them to do a kind thing. now, gentlemen, at that time--i want you to remember it; i do not want you to forget it--when these routes came to mr. dorsey, he, not understanding the business, turned it over to mr. james w. bosler. mr. bosler, as i told you before, is a man of wealth. but, say these gentlemen, "while these routes were in your possession, and while stephen w. dorsey had an interest in them he asked men to sign petitions in favor of an increase of trips and decrease of time." what if he did? suppose you have a house out here somewhere; you can petition to have a street opened, even if you have the contract for paving the street. you have a right to petition to have a schoolhouse located in your neighborhood even if you have children. there is no harm about that. you certainly can petition to have cows prevented from running at large even if there is no fence around your yard. i think you could do so without being indicted for conspiracy. i think a man might start a subscription for a church, even if he owned a brick-yard and expected to sell bricks to build it. now, suppose i had a contract to carry the mail through the state of california from one end to the other once a week, is there any harm in my asking the people of that country to petition to have it carried twice a week? do you not remember what i told you? all the members of congress out there, when they go home want to say to the people when they meet at the convention with all the delegates on hand. "why, gentlemen, you did not used to get the new york herald or new york times, or the sun, until it was two weeks old, and now it is only a week old. where you only had one mail i have given you three. i have got fifty thousand dollars to improve your harbor, and one hundred thousand dollars for a new custom-house. look at me, gentlemen, i am a candidate for re-election." that is natural. this court will instruct you that any man who is carrying a mail anywhere in the united states has the right to use his influence in getting up petitions for the increase of that service or the expedition of that time. they say dorsey did this. what of it? they say dorsey tried to manufacture public opinion. that is what these gentlemen of the prosecution have been doing for eighteen months, and now they object to the manufacture of public opinion. public opinion is their stock in trade. leaving that charge, every man who has a contract for carrying the mail has the right to call the attention of every editor in that country to the fact that they need more mail service. he has the right to send his agents there and if the people want to petition for more service, and if congress is willing to give them more service, no human being has a right to complain in this manner and in a criminal court. if any offence has been committed it is of a political nature. if a member of congress gets too much service his people can keep him at home. if he does too much for his locality they need not elect him the next time. it is a political offence for which there is a political punishment and a political remedy. so much for the right of petition. i am perfectly willing to tell all he did in regard to the increase of service and the expedition. while i am on that point i want you to distinctly understand what increase is and what expedition is. increase of service means more of the same kind. suppose i am to carry the mail from one place to another. we will call it from si-wash to oo-ray. if i am to carry that mail once a week for five hundred dollars and they want it twice a week, i have one thousand dollars, but do not carry it any faster. that is an increase. suppose i am carrying it in say two hundred hours and they want it carried in half that time. that is what they call expedition. now, the question is as to the difference in cost of carrying the mail at six miles an hour, or at two and a half, or two, or one and a half. if i carry it slowly, i can go at a reasonable rate in the day and can lie by at night. i want you to understand distinctly the difference between increase of service, which is more of the same kind, and expedition, which means the same kind at a faster rate. now, i can carry the mail twenty miles and back in a day and do that a great deal easier than if i were to make the distance in four or five hours. the difference is just about the same with a locomotive as with a horse. if a train runs twenty miles an hour and you want to increase its speed to thirty, it will cost altogether more than twice as much as it does to run it at twenty. if you want to increase it still further to forty or sixty, it will cost at sixty more than three times as much as at twenty. the cost increases in an increased proportion. i want you to understand that. now, we are charged with having done some frightful things on several of these routes, and for three days and a half your ears were filled with charges of the rascality we have perpetrated. we had some ten or eleven routes, and we are charged with having defrauded the government on those particular routes. let us see what my clients did. do not understand me as saying that because my clients have done nothing the other defendants have. i do not take that position. i take the position that according to the evidence in this case there is nothing against any of these defendants. leave out passion, prejudice, falsehood, and hatred and there is absolutely nothing left. if you will take from mr. bliss's speech all the mistakes he made in law and fact, there will be nothing left to answer; not a word. but i think it due to my client, gentlemen, my client who is not able to be in this court, my client who sits at home wrapped in darkness, that i should answer every allegation touching every route in which he was interested. i think it due to him. [resuming] i will call your attention to a few of the routes, possibly to all, in which my clients were interested. it will take but a short time. i want you to know whether or not these routes were important, whether it was proper to carry the mails as they were carried, whether it was proper that they should be carried from once to seven times a week, and whether it was proper that the speed should be expedited. now, you may think after hearing the evidence that there were some routes that never should have been established; but that does not establish a conspiracy. that simply establishes the fact that congress created routes where they were not absolutely necessary. you may come to the conclusion that general brady ordered more trips on some of these routes than he should have ordered. that does not establish a conspiracy. the most that it could establish would be extravagance, and extravagance is not a crime. if it were, the penitentiaries of the day would not be large enough--or rather would be large enough, and too large, to hold the honest men. you may say after you have heard the evidence that the time was faster than it need be; but you must take into consideration all the connecting routes, and even if you should so feel, it is for you to say whether that establishes any conspiracy. all these things must be taken into consideration. we will take first the route from garland to parrott city. *** now, i have gone over just a few of these charges. i have shown you that they are false; that they are without the slightest shadow of foundation in fact. now, gentlemen, after you hear all this evidence, it is for you to determine. it is for you to say whether these men entered into a conspiracy to defraud this government. it is for you to say whether our testimony is to be believed, or whether you are to decide this case upon the suspicions of the government. it is for you to say whether you will believe the contracts and the witnesses, or whether you will take the prejudice of the public press; whether you will take the opinion of the attorney-general; whether you will take the letter of some counselor at law, or whether you will be governed by the testimony in this case. it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether a man shall be found guilty on inference; whether a man shall be deprived of his liberty by prejudice. it is for you to say whether reputation shall be destroyed by malice and by ignorance. it is for you to say whether a man who fought to sustain this government shall not have the protection of the laws. it is for you [indicating a juror] and it is for you [indicating another juror] and you [indicating another juror] and you [indicating another juror] to say whether a man who fought to take the chains off your body shall have chains put upon his by your prejudice and by your ignorance. it is for you to say whether you will be guided by law, by evidence, by justice, and by reason, or whether you will be controlled by fear, by prejudice, and by official power. that, gentlemen, is all i wish to say in this opening. closing address in second star route trial closing address to the jury in the second star route trial. may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury: perhaps some of you, may be all of you, will remember that i made one of the opening speeches of this case, and that in that opening speech i endeavored to give you the scheme or plan of the indictment. i told you, i believe, at that time, that all these defendants were indicted for having conspired together to defraud the united states. in that indictment they were kind enough to tell us how we agreed to accomplish that object; that we went into partnership with the second assistant postmaster-general, he being one of these defendants, and that we then and there agreed to get up false petitions, to have them signed by persons who were not interested in the mail service, to sign fictitious names to these petitions, those names representing no actual, real, living persons; that we also agreed to have false and fraudulent letters written to the department urging this service; that in addition to all that we were to make and file false and fraudulent affidavits, in which we were to swear falsely as to the number of men and horses to be employed, and the number of men and horses then necessary; that in addition to that we were to file fraudulent subcontracts; that the second assistant postmaster-general was to make false and corrupt orders, and that all these things were to be done to deceive, mislead, and blindfold the postmaster-general. they also set out that these orders so corruptly made were to be corruptly certified to the auditor of the treasury for the post-office department in order that we might draw our pay. that is what is known as the general scheme or plan of this indictment. you have heard the testimony, and remember some of it. of course you do not remember it all. probably no man ever lived who could do such a thing. you have heard the testimony discussed, i believe, for about twenty days, so that i take it for granted you know something about it, or at least have an idea that you do. the story that we told you in the first place, and that we now tell you, is about this: in mr. peck, mr. miner, and john w. dorsey made up their minds to make bids and to go into the mail business. i want you to remember that there is not one word in this indictment about any false bid ever having been made. remember that. there is nothing in this indictment about a false bond having been given; not a thing. there is nothing in this indictment charging that any of the original contracts were false. i want you to remember that. there is no evidence that any person signing any one of those contracts as security was not perfectly solvent. there is no evidence, not one syllable, that any proposal was fraudulent, or that any bid was fraudulent. how is it possible for a bid to be fraudulent? i will tell you. if you make a bid, and make a contract or enter into an agreement at the same time with some of the post-office officials so that your bid will be accepted when it is not the lowest, there is a fraud, and there is a fraudulent bid. there is one other way, and that is to put in a bid to carry the mail at so many thousand dollars, and then have below that straw bidders, men not responsible, and when the time comes to accept the bid of those gentlemen they refuse to carry it out, and then the law is that it shall be given to the next highest, and he refuses, and the next, and he refuses, and the next highest, and he refuses, and so on until it comes to the highest bidder. there are such combinations and have been, i have no doubt, for many years in the post-office department. that is called straw bidding, and it is fraudulent bidding. there is no such charge as that in this case. every bid that was made was made in good faith, and every bid that was accepted was followed by a good and sufficient contract entered into by the party making the bid, and so that is the end of that. now, in , i say these men entered into an agreement among themselves that they would bid on certain routes, and mr. peck, or mr. miner, or john w. dorsey--they may have it as they choose--somebody, wrote a letter to stephen w. dorsey and in that letter told what they were going to do and requested him to get some man to obtain information in regard to these routes. you know that testimony. stephen w. dorsey was then in the united states senate. he sent for mr. boone and he showed him that letter. in consequence of that mr. boone sent out his circulars to the postmasters all over the country, or all over the portion as to which they were to bid, and asked them about the roads, about the price of oats and corn, about the price of labor, and about the winters; in other words, all the questions necessary for an intelligent man, after having received intelligent answers, to make up his mind as to the amount for which he could carry that mail. mr. boone, you remember, says that he was to have at that time a certain share. there is a conflict of testimony there. mr. dorsey says that he told boone that when john w. dorsey came here they could arrange that, and he had no doubt that they would be willing to give him a share; but that he did not give it to him. the circulars were sent out and the information in some instances, and i do not know but all, came back. then they agreed upon the amounts they were to bid. i believe mr. miner came here in december, and john w. dorsey, i think, in january, and in february the bids were made. all the amounts were put in the bidding-book issued by the government, by mr. miner and mr. boone; all with two exceptions, and those amounts had been placed there by them, but under the advice of stephen w. dorsey those amounts were lowered. i remember one was upon the tongue river route, the other route i have forgotten. mr. miner, mr. peck, and john w. dorsey were together. afterwards a partnership was formed between john w. dorsey and a. e. boone. stephen w. dorsey advanced some money. there is nothing criminal about that. it is often foolish to advance money, but it is not a crime. it is often foolish to indorse for another, and many a man has been convinced of that, but it is not a crime. he advanced until, i believe, he was responsible for some fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, and thereupon he declined to advance any more. he saw mr. miner in saint louis, and said to mr. miner, "this is the last i am going to advance." i think he gave him some notes that he hypothecated or discounted at the german-american national bank. he wanted security, and thereupon they gave him post-office drafts for the purpose of securing his debt. he would advance no more money and went away to new mexico. mr. miner had a power of attorney from john w. dorsey who was absent, and a power of attorney from john m. peck who was absent. i believe on the th of august, or about that time, mr. boone went out. why? they had not the money at the time to put on the service. why? a great many more bids had been accepted than they had anticipated, and instead of getting twenty or thirty routes they got, i believe, one hundred and thirty-four routes. the consequence was they did not have the money to stock the routes. there was another difficulty. there was an investigation by congress, and that delayed them a month or two, and the consequence was that when the st of july came, the day upon which the service should have been put on, it was not only not put on, but they had not the means to do it. then what happened? then it was that mr. miner took in mr. vaile, and an agreement was made which bears date the th day of august, . it was not finally signed by all the parties, i believe, until some time in september or october. under that contract, which you have all heard read, mr. vaile was given an interest in this business. more than that; subcontracts were given to mr. vaile, and under the subcontract law which was passed on the th day of may, , i believe, vaile could file his subcontract in the post-office department, and that rendered all post-office drafts or orders that had been given absolutely worthless. that was done. the subcontracts were given to vaile under the powers of attorney that miner held from peck and john w. dorsey, and of course he could act for himself. that was the situation. stephen w. dorsey was not here. when he returned he found that everything had been disposed of except his liability, and that he would have to pay the notes. his security was gone, and the subcontracts were filed. at that time he and mr. vaile had a quarrel. that is our story. in the meantime john w. dorsey was on the tongue river route. i believe he visited washington in november and left word that he would like to sell out all his interests in these routes, and i believe fixed the price. some time in november or december mr. vaile made up his mind to take the routes, and afterwards changed his mind. stephen w. dorsey was then in the senate. on the th of march, , his term expired. i believe on that very day, or about that day, he wrote a letter to brady calling his attention to these subcontracts that had been filed for the protection of vaile and denouncing them. that was the first thing he did. then a few days afterwards the parties met. in a little while afterwards they made a division of this entire business. you know how the division was made. stephen w. dorsey fell heir to about thirty of these routes, i think. in addition he had to pay ten thousand dollars to his brother and ten thousand dollars to peck. mr. vaile, i think, took forty per cent, and mr. miner thirty per cent. mr. vaile and mr. miner went into partnership and stephen w. dorsey took his routes, and that ended it. mr. peck was out and john w. dorsey was out. that is our story. when they divided those routes, in order to vest the property of those routes in the persons to whom they fell, it was necessary to execute subcontracts and give postoffice drafts and things of that character. all those necessary papers they then and there agreed to make. up to this point there is not one act established by the evidence not entirely consistent with perfect innocence; not an act. that is our story. after these routes fell to us we did what we had the right to do and what we could to make the routes of value. as business men we had the right to do it, and we did only what we had the right to do. the next question that arises, and which of course is at the very threshold of this case, is, did these parties conspire? that is the great question. in my judgment you should settle that the first thing when you go to the jury-room. after having heard the case as it will be presented by the government, and after having heard the charge of the court, the first thing for you to decide is, was there a conspiracy? how is a conspiracy proved? precisely as everything else is proved. you prove that men conspire precisely as you prove them guilty of larceny or murder or any other crime or misdemeanor. it has been suggested to you that as conspiracy is very hard to prove you should not require much evidence; that you should take into consideration the hardships of the government in proving a crime which in its nature is secret. nearly all crimes are secret. very few men steal publicly, with a band of music and with a torch in each hand. they generally need their hands for other purposes, if they are in that business. all crime loves darkness. we all know that. one of the troubles about proving that a man has committed a crime is that he tries to keep it as secret as possible. he does not carry a placard on his breast or on his back stating what he is about to do. the consequence is that it is nearly always difficult to prove men guilty as stated in the indictment. but that does not relieve the prosecution. that burden is taken by the government, and they must prove men guilty of conspiracy precisely as they prove anything else. is circumstantial evidence sufficient? certainly, certainly. circumstantial evidence will prove anything, provided the circumstances are right, and provided further that all the circumstances are right. a chain of circumstances is no stronger than the weakest circumstance, as a chain of iron is no stronger than the weakest link. where you establish or attempt to establish a fact by circumstances, each circumstance must be proved not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but each circumstance must be wholly inconsistent with the innocence of the defendants. now, let me call your attention to what i claim to be the law upon the subject, and i will call the attention of the court to it at the same time. i will take this as a kind of test: the hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved and must be consistent with them; not with some of them, not with the majority of them, but with all of them. in other words if they establish one hundred circumstances and ninety-nine point to guilt and one circumstance thoroughly established is inconsistent with guilt or perfectly consistent with innocence, that is the end of the case. it is as if you were building an arch. every stone that you put into the arch must fit with every other and must make that segment of the circle. if one stone does not fit, the arch is not complete. so with circumstantial evidence. every circumstance must fit every other. every solitary circumstance must be of the exact shape to fit its neighbor, and when they are all together the arch must be absolutely complete. otherwise you must find the defendants not guilty. the next sentence is: the evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt. in other words, all the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but they must be inconsistent, and every fact proved must be inconsistent, with their innocence. now, what does that mean? it means that every fact that is absolutely established in this case, must point to the guilt of the defendants. it means that if there is one established fact that is inconsistent with their guilt, that fact becomes instantly an impenetrable shield that no honest verdict can pierce. that is what it means. that being so--and the court in my judgment will instruct you that that is the law--let us talk a little about what has been established. in the first place, nearly all that has been established, or i will not say established, but nearly all that has been said, for the purpose of showing that our motives were corrupt, and that we actually conspired, rests upon evidence of what we call conversations. some witness had a conversation with somebody, three years ago, four years ago, or five years ago. the unsafest and the most unsatisfactory evidence in this world is evidence of conversation. words leave no trace. they leave no scar in the air, no footsteps. memory writes upon the secret tablet of the brain words that no human eye can see. no man can look into the brain of another and tell whether he is giving a true transcript of what is there. it is absolutely impossible for you to tell whether it is memory or imagination. no one can do it. another thing: probably there is not a man in the world whose memory makes an absolutely perfect record. the moment it is written it begins to fade, and as the days pass it grows dim, and as the years go by, no matter how deeply it may have been engraven, it is covered by the moss of forgetfulness. and yet you are asked to take from men their liberty, to take from citizens their reputation, to tear down roof-trees, on testimony about conversation that happened years and years ago, as to which the party testifying had not the slightest interest. as a rule, memory is the child of attention--memory is the child of interest. take the avaricious man. he sets down a debt in his brain, and he graves it as deep as graving upon stone. a man must have interest. his attention must be aroused. tell me that a man can remember a conversation of four or five years ago in which he had no interest. we have been in this trial i don't know how many years. i have seen you, gentlemen, gradually growing gray. you have, during this trial, heard argument after argument as to what some witness said, as to some line embodied in this library. [indicating record.] you have heard the counsel for the prosecution say one thing, the counsel for the defence another, and often his honor, holding the impartial scales of memory, differs from us both, and then we have turned to the record and found that all were mistaken. that has happened again and again, and yet when that witness was testifying every attorney for the defence was watching him, and every attorney for the prosecution was looking at him. how hard it would be for you, mr. juror, or for any one of you to tell what a witness has said in this case. yet men are brought here who had a casual conversation with one of the defendants five years ago about a matter in which no one of the witnesses was interested to the extent of one cent, and pretend to give that conversation entire. for ray part, were i upon the jury, i would pay no more attention to such evidence than i would to the idle wind. such men are not giving a true transcript of their brains. it is the result of imagination. they wish to say something. they recollect they had a conversation upon a certain subject, and then they fill it out to suit the prosecution. now, i am told another thing; that after getting through with conversations they then gave us notice that we must produce our books, our papers, our letters, our stubs, and our checks; that we must produce everything in which we have any interest, and hand them all over to this prosecution. they say they only want what pertains to the mail business, but who is to judge of that? they want to look at them to see if they do pertain to the mail business. they won't take our word. we must produce them all. it may be that with such a net they might bring in something that would be calculated to get somebody in trouble about something, no matter whether this business or not. they might find out something that would annoy somebody. they gave us a notice wide enough and broad enough to cover everything we had or were likely to have. what did they want with those things? may be one of their witnesses wanted to see them. may be he wanted to stake out his testimony. may be he did not entirely rely upon his memory and wanted to find whether he should swear as to check-books or a check-book, and whether he should swear as to one stub or as to many. may be he wanted to look them all over so that he could fortify the story he was going to tell. we did not give them the books. we would not do it. we took the consequences. but what did we offer? that is the only way to find out our motive. i believe that on page there is something upon that subject. i will read what i said: now, gentlemen, with regard to the books. as there has been a good deal said on that subject i make this proposition: mr. dorsey has books extending over a period of twenty years, or somewhere in that neighborhood. he has had accounts with a great many people on a great many subjects. he does not wish to bring those books into court, or to have those accounts gone over by this prosecution, not for reasons in this case, but for reasons entirely outside of the case. if the gentlemen on the other side will agree, or if the court will appoint any two men or any three men, we will present to those men all our books, every one that we ever had in the world, and allow them to go over every solitary item and report to this court every item pertaining to john w. dorsey & co., miner, peck & co., or vaile, miner & co., with regard to every dollar connected, directly or indirectly, with this entire business from november or december, , to the present moment, and report to this court exactly every item just as it is. i make that proposition. that proposition was refused. what else did i do? i offered to bring into court every check, including the time they said we drew money to pay brady. i offered to bring in every check on every bank in which we had one dollar deposited; every one. that was not admitted. and why? because the court distinctly said that it rests upon the oath of the defendant at last; he may have had money in banks that we know nothing about. to which i replied at the time that if we stated here in open court the name of every bank in which we did business, and there is any other bank knowing that we did do business with it, we will hear from it. so that we offered, gentlemen, in this case, every check on every bank but one. i did not know at that time that we had ever had an account with the german-american savings bank; i did not find that out until afterwards. but you will remember that mr. merrick held in his hand the account of dorsey with that bank; and mr. keyser, who, i believe, had charge of that bank, was here, and if there had been anything upon those books, certainly the government would have shown it. more than that; that bank went into the hands of a receiver, i think, eight months before any of these checks are said to have been given for money which was afterwards given to brady. now, they insist, that because we failed to bring the books into court, therefore the law presumes that the absolute evidence of our guilt is in those books. i believe they claim that as the law. if my memory serves me rightly, colonel bliss so claimed in his speech. in other words, that when they give us notice to produce a book, and we do not produce it, there is a presumption against us. that is not the law, gentlemen. when they give us notice to produce a book or letter and we do not produce it, what can they do? they can prove the contents of the book or letter. in other words, if we fail to produce what is called the best evidence, then the government can introduce secondary evidence. they can prove the contents by the memory of some witness, by some copy, no matter how; and that is the only possible consequence flowing from a refusal to produce the book or letter. and yet, in this case, gentlemen, mr. bliss wishes you to give a verdict based upon two things: first, upon what we failed to prove; secondly, on what the court would not let them prove. he tells you that they offered to prove so and so, but the court would not let them; he wants you to take that into consideration; and secondly, that there were certain things that we did not prove; and that those two make up a case. that is their idea. now, let us see if i am right about the law. the first case to which i will call the attention of the court is a very small one, but the principle is clear. it is the case of lawson and another, assignees of shiffner, vs. sherwood, and it is found in english common-law reports; starkie, . the court. colonel ingersoll, you cannot argue that question to the jury; you cannot cite an authority and discuss it to the jury. mr. ingersoll. then i will discuss it with the court; it is immaterial to me which way i turn when i am talking. i insist that the jury must at last decide the law in this case. i will read another case to the court, found in maryland, spring garden mutual insurance company, vs. evans. the court decides in this case that the only consequence of their refusal to produce the papers, they not denying that they had them, was to allow the opposite party to prove their contents. that is all; that it could not be patched out with a presumption. the court. but if afterwards they should attempt to contradict the secondary evidence the court would not have allowed them to do it. mr. ingersoll. it does not say so. the court. that is the law. mr. ingersoll. suppose, after the other side had proved the contents, there was an offer of the actual original papers. i can find plenty of authority that they must be received. the court. i have never seen such authority, but i have seen a great many to the contrary. mr. ingersoll. i have never seen an authority to the contrary that was very well reasoned. but, then, i will not argue about that, for that is not a point in this case. the court. if you have the papers, and have received notice to produce them, you are bound to produce them. if you do not produce them secondary evidence is admissible to prove their contents. but after the secondary evidence has been received, the court will not allow you then, after having first failed to produce the papers upon notice, to resort to the primary evidence which you ought to have produced upon the notice, for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence that was given. mr. ingersoll. now, let me give the court a case in point: in this very case that we are now trying, mr. rerdell in his statement to macveagh said there was a check for seven thousand dollars; that the money was drawn upon that check; that he and dorsey went together to the post-office department and that dorsey went into brady's room; that that money was drawn by dorsey. that was his statement to macveagh and james. the court. it was not his statement here. mr. ingersoll. yes, that was his statement here, as i will show hereafter. but let me state my point. he was coming upon the stand. the check, instead of being for seven thousand dollars, was for seven thousand five hundred dollars; instead of being drawn to the order of dorsey or to bearer, it was drawn to the order of rerdell himself; instead of being drawn at the bank by dorsey, it was drawn by rerdell in person and had his indorsement upon the back of it. we were asked to produce that. i preferred not to do it until i heard the testimony of mr. rerdell. why? because i wanted to put that little piece of dynamite under his testimony and see where the fragments went, and i did. that is my answer to that. now, i find another case in the first volume of curtis's circuit court reports, where it is said, on page , that--by the common law a notice to produce a paper--the court. [interposing.] before we part from what you were saying, i wish to say that i do not think that the other side gave you notice to produce the checks; that is my memory. mr. ingersoll. yes. let me state my memory to the court: i do not remember exactly every one of these four thousand pages of testimony; there are three or four that i may be a little dim about; but i do remember that a notice was given to us to produce everything in the universe, nearly, and that the court held that the scope was a little too broad. i have forgotten the page, but i will tell you where it comes in: it was where mr. rerdell swore about the stub-book. i find the notice, may it please your honor, on page , and it was dated the th of february. this is the notice, and it gave the same notice to all the defendants: you are hereby notified to produce forthwith in court, in the above entitled cause, all letters and communications, including all telegrams, of every kind and description, purporting to come from any one of said defendants and addressed to you or delivered to you, and all memoranda in which reference is made to any contract or contracts of any one of said defendants with the united states or with the postmaster-general for carrying the mail under the letting of on any route in the united states, or in any way referring to any contract or contracts for so carrying the mail, in which j. w. bosler or any one of said defendants had any interest, or in any way referring to any act, contract, or proceeding thereunder, or to any payment, draft, warrant, check, or bill, or note, or to any possible loss or profit in connection with such contract or contracts, or to the management or execution thereof, or referring to any possible gain or profit to be derived by any of said defendants from contracts for carrying the mail of the united states, or to any payments under such contract, or to the distribution of the proceeds made or to be made of said payment, or to the management of any enterprise or enterprises in connection with the transportation of the mail, or to gains, profits, or losses accruing or likely to accrue from such enterprises, or to the financial means for carrying on the same; and also to produce any and all books containing any entry or entries in regard to any of the subjects, matters, checks, drafts, or payments relating or having reference to the subjects, &c., hereinbefore referred to; and also any letter-book or letter-books containing letter-press copies of letters referring to the said subject or subjects. i believe just about that time, or a little after, another notice was given. mr. merrick. if the counsel will allow me, my impression is that that notice was deemed by the court to be too broad. the court. it was. mr. ingersoll. then another notice was given that specified all these things. curtis says in this case that--by the common law, a notice to produce a paper, merely enables the party to give parol evidence of its contents, if it be not produced. its non-production has no other legal consequence. i find too, that in the maryland case they make a reference to cooper vs. gibson, camp., . i also have another case, to which i will call the attention of the court, united states vs. chaffee, wallace, . i have not the book here, but i can state what it is. my recollection of the case is this: that an action was brought against some distillers; that by law distillers have to keep certain books in which certain entries by law have to be made. notice was served upon the defendants to produce those books. they refused so to do; and the question was whether any presumption arose against the defendants on account of that refusal. the court. i agree with you entirely that far in your law, that the mere fact of the failure to produce books or papers has no effect at all against the party declining to produce them. but it is a different question altogether, after secondary evidence has been given, in consequence of such refusal, to supply the place of the primary evidence. if the books and papers have an existence, and the party who has received the notice has refused to produce them, and the other party has given secondary evidence of the contents of such books and papers, that secondary evidence will have to stand, under those circumstances, as the proof in the case. mr. ingersoll. that is not the point. of course that will stand for what it is worth. i was arguing this point: can the jury hatch and putty and plaster the secondary evidence with a presumption born of the failure to produce the books and papers? the court. what i mean is just this: if you should fail to produce the primary evidence, and then the secondary evidence of the contents is not contradicted---- mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] it may not be contradicted, because it happens to be inherently improbable. mr. merrick. the government claims the law to be as your honor has intimated, and we have formulated it in one of our prayers. but that abstract proposition is hardly applicable in the present case, for the government claims the application of another and plainer proposition: that wherever a defendant himself takes the stand and has in his possession a certain paper which, when called upon on cross-examination to produce, he refuses, then a presumption unquestionably arises of such potency that it is difficult to resist. mr. ingersoll. there is no difference, so far as the law is concerned, whether the defendant, as a defendant, fails to produce the books and papers, or whether, in his capacity as a witness, he fails to produce the books and papers. the law, it seems to me, is exactly the same. now, in this case of the united states vs. chaffee et al. ( wall., ), justice field denounces that you should presume against the party because he fails to produce books and papers known to be in his possession. and why? i suppose a party can not be presumed out of his liberty; he cannot be presumed into the penitentiary; and you cannot make a prison out of a presumption any more than you can make a gibbet out of a suspicion. and again, the court instructed the jury that the law presumed that the defendants kept the accounts usual and necessary for the correct understanding of their large business and an accurate accounting between the partners, and that the books were in existence and accessible to the defendants unless the contrary were shown. that same thing has been claimed here. the court. no. mr. ingersoll. we have heard it very often that this was a large business. the court. you have not heard anything of that kind from the court. mr. ingersoll. i am not saying that. i said "claimed"; if i had referred to your honor i should have said "decided." here is another instruction of the court: if you believe the books were kept which contained the facts necessary to show the real amount of whiskey in the hands of the defendants in october, , and the amount which they had sold during the next ten months, or that the defendants, or either of them, could by their own oath resolve all doubts on this point; if you believe this, then the circumstances of this case seem to come fully within this most necessary and beneficent rule., he applied the word "beneficent" to a rule that put a man in the penitentiary on a presumption. the court. he was conservative. mr. ingersoll. he ought to read some work on the use and abuse of words. now, judge field says further: the purport of all this was to tell the jury that although the defendants must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet if the government had made out a _prima facie_ case against them, not one free from all doubt, but one which disclosed circumstances requiring explanation, and the defendants did not explain, the perplexing question of their guilt need not disturb the minds of the jurors. that is this case exactly: that is the exact claim of colonel bliss in this case. gentlemen, you have only to take into consideration, he says, what we offered to prove and what the court would not allow us, and what the defendants failed to prove. "why didn't they call bosler?" now, gentlemen, we claim the law to be this: that while notice is given us to produce books and papers and we fail to do it, the only legal consequence is that the government may then prove the contents of such books and papers, and that their proof of the contents must be passed upon by you. the next thing to which i call your attention is the crime laid at our door, that we exercised the right of petition. it is regarded as a very suspicious circumstance that petitions were circulated, signed, and sent to the office of the second assistant postmaster-general. why did these people petition? let me tell you. if you will look in every contract in this case you will find certain provisions relative to carrying the mail. among others you will find this: that no contractor has any right to carry any newspaper or any letter faster than the schedule time; that he has no right to carry any commercial news, or to carry any man who has any commercial news about his person, faster than the schedule time. no mail can be carried by anybody except the united states, and if a community wants more mail it has no right to establish an express that will carry the mail faster, because the united states has the monopoly. now, if you want more mail, what are you to do? you cannot start one yourself; the government will not allow it. what have you to do? you have to petition the government to carry the mail faster or to carry it more frequently; and the reason you have to ask the government to do this is because the government will not permit you to do it; consequently you have only one resort. what is that? petition. and in this very case i believe his honor used this language: every man carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. he has the right to get up petitions. he has the right to call the attention of the people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. he has the right to do it, and the fact that he does it is not the slightest evidence that he has conspired with any human being. now, if the man carrying the mail has the right to call the attention of the people to their needs, have not the people the right to do all that themselves? if the man carrying the mail has the right to get up a petition, surely the people have the right; and if the people have the right, surely the man has that right. that is the only way we can find out in this country what the people want--that is, to hear from them. they have the right to tell what they want. but these gentlemen say, "anybody will sign a petition." well, if that is true, there is no great necessity for forging one. very few people will steal what they can get for the asking. if a bank or a man offers you all the money you want, you would hardly go and forge a check to get it. i will come to that in a few moments. now, gentlemen, according to this evidence, you have got to determine, as i said in the outset, was there a conspiracy? the second question you have to determine is, when? in every crime in the world you have got to prove the four w's--who, when, what, where? who conspired? when? what about? where? now i want to ask you a few questions, and i want you to keep this evidence in mind. was there a conspiracy when dorsey received the letter from peck or miner? had the egg of this crime then been laid? had it been hatched at that time? is there any evidence of it? the object then was to make some bids. it is not necessary to conspire to make bids. you cannot conspire to make fraudulent bids unless you enter into an agreement that the lowest bid is not to be accepted, or agree upon some machinery by which the lowest bid is not received, or put in a bid with fraudulent and worthless security. will the government say that there was a conspiracy at the time peck or miner wrote to s. w. dorsey? what evidence have you that there was? none. what evidence have you that there was not? the evidence of miner and the evidence of s. w. dorsey. what else? boone had not been seen at that time. john w. dorsey was not here. peck was not here. peck or miner had written the letter. was there any conspiracy then? is there any evidence of it? is there enough to make a respectable suspicion even in the mind of jealousy? does it amount even to a "trifle light as air." was it when dorsey sent for boone? boone says no. he ought to know. s. w. dorsey says no. john w. dorsey was not here. miner had not arrived. the only suspicious thing up to that point is that dorsey lived "in his house;" that he received this letter "in his house," and that boone visited him "in his house." that is all. now, if there is a particle of evidence, i want the attorney for the government who closes this case to point it out, and to be fair. was it when miner got here in december, ? miner says no. boone says no. stephen w. dorsey says no. john w. dorsey was not yet here. all the direct evidence says no. all the indirect evidence says nothing. now, let us keep our old text in view. i want to ask you if there is a thing in all the evidence not consistent with innocence? was it not consistent with innocence that peck and miner and john w. dorsey should agree to bid? was it not consistent with innocence that john w. dorsey met peck at oberlin, and that he met miner in sandusky? was not that consistent with innocence? was it not consistent with innocence for peck to write s. w. dorsey a letter? was it not consistent with innocence for dorsey to open it and read it and then send for boone and give it to him? boone in the meantime proceeded to get information so that they could bid intelligently. was that consistent with innocence? perfectly. more than that, it was inconsistent with guilt. what next? may be this conspiracy was gotten up about the th of january, when john w. dorsey came here. dorsey says no; boone says no; miner says no; and s. w. dorsey says no. that is the direct evidence. where is the indirect evidence? there is none. ah, but they say, don't you remember those clendenning bonds? yes. is there anything in the indictment about them? no. was any contract granted upon those bonds or proposals? no. was the government ever defrauded out of a cent by them? no. is there any charge in this case relative to them? no. everybody says no. john w. dorsey entered into a partnership with a. e. boone after he came here. is that consistent with innocence? yes. no doubt many of the jury have been in partnership with people. there is nothing wrong about that. he also entered into partnership with miner and peck. there were two firms, john w. dorsey & co., which meant a. e. boone and john w. dorsey, and miner, peck & co., which meant miner, peck and john w. dorsey. is there anything criminal in that? no. they had a right to bid. they had a right to form an association, a partnership. there was nothing more suspicious in that than there would have been in evidence of their eating and sleeping. now, then, was this conspiracy entered into on august , , when boone went out? boone says no, and with charming frankness he says if there had been a conspiracy he would have staid. he said, "if i had even suspected one, i never would have gone out. if i had dreamed that they had a good thing, i should have staid in." he swears that at that time there was not any. miner swears to it and s. w. dorsey swears to it. everybody swears to it except the counsel for the prosecution. rerdell swears to it. that is the only suspicious thing about it. now, at that time, august , when boone went out, s. w. dorsey was not here and john w. dorsey was not here. who was? miner. what was the trouble? brady told him, "i want you to put on that service. if you don't i will declare you a failing contractor." a little while before that miner had met dorsey in saint louis, and dorsey had said, "this is the last money i will furnish. no matter whether i conspired or not, i am through. this magnificent conspiracy, silver-plated and gold-lined, i give up. there are millions in it, but i want no more. i am through." so mr. miner, using his power of attorney from john w. dorsey and peck, took in mr. vaile. i believe that mr. rerdell swears that the reason they took in vaile was that they wanted a man close to brady. according to the government they had already conspired with brady. they could not get much closer than that, could they? miner was a co-conspirator, and yet they wanted somebody to introduce him to brady. john w. dorsey and s. w. dorsey were in the same position. they were conspirators. the bargain was all made, signed, sealed, and delivered, and yet they went around hunting somebody that was close to brady. brady said, "i will declare you all failing contractors. i can't help it, though i have conspired with you. i give up all my millions. this service has got to be put on. the only way to stop it is for you to seek for a man that is close to me. you are not close enough." now, absurdity may go further than that, but i doubt it. you must recollect that that contract was signed as of the th of august. you remember its terms. at that time not a cent had been paid to s. w. dorsey. his post-office drafts had been cut out by the subcontracts. afterwards he had a quarrel with vaile. we will call it december, . was the conspiracy flagrant then? let us have some good judgment about this, gentlemen. you are to decide this question the same as you decide others, except that you are to take into consideration the gravity of the consequences flowing from the verdict. you must decide it with your faculties all about you, with your intellectual eyes wide open, without a bit of prejudice in your minds, and without a bit of fear. you must decide it like men. you must judge men as you know them. was there a conspiracy between these defendants in december, , when s. w. dorsey came back here and found out the security for his money was gone, and when he had the quarrel with mr vaile? is there the slightest scintilla of testimony to show that mr. vaile came into this business through any improper motive? i challenge the prosecution to point to one line of testimony that any reasonable man can believe even tending to show that mr. vaile was actuated by an improper motive. i defy them to show a line tending to prove that john r. miner was actuated by an improper motive when he asked vaile to assist him in this business. i defy them to show that brady was actuated by an improper motive when he told them, "you must put on that service or i will declare you all failing contractors." was there a conspiracy then? i ask you, mr. foreman, and i ask each of you, was there a conspiracy at that time? have the prosecution introduced one particle of testimony to show that there was? in march was there a conspiracy? will you call dividing, a conspiracy? will you call going apart, coming together? if you will, then there must have been a conspiracy in march. a conspiracy to do what? a conspiracy to separate; a conspiracy to have nothing in common from that day forward. mr. vaile entered into a conspiracy then that he would have no more business relations with s. w. dorsey. he swears that at that time nothing on earth would have tempted him to go on. that is what they call being in a conspiring frame of mind. not another step would he go. in march they separated, and each one went his way. it was finally fixed up, and finally settled in may. john w. dorsey was out with his ten thousand dollars, and peck was out with his ten thousand dollars. s. w. dorsey, for the first time became the owner of thirty routes, or something more, and miner and vaile of the balance, i think about ninety-six. according to that contract of august , john w. dorsey only had a third interest in the routes he had with boone, and not another cent. there was a division. if there was a conspiracy of such a magnitude, why should boone go out of it? why should john w. dorsey sell out for ten thousand dollars? why should john w. dorsey offer boone one-third of it? why was mr. a. w. moore offered one-quarter of it?--a gentleman who could be employed for one hundred and fifty dollars a month? i ask you these questions, gentlemen. i ask you to answer them all in your own minds. recollect, on the th of august there was a conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. in that conspiracy was the second assistant postmaster-general. they had the post-office department by the throat. they had the postmaster-general blindfolded. yet miner went to vaile and said, "now, just furnish a little money to put on these routes and you may have forty percent, of this conspiracy." he was giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars. is that the way people talk that conspire together? would not miner have gone to brady and said, "look here, what is the use of acting like a fool? what do you want me to give forty per cent, of this thing to vaile for? i had better give twenty per cent, more to you. that would allow me to keep twenty per cent, more too, and then there will be one less to keep the secret." he never thought of that. i want you to think of these things, gentlemen, all of you, and see how they will strike your mind. what did they want of boone? s. w. dorsey they say was the prime mover. he hatched this conspiracy. miner, his own brother, peck, and everybody else were simply his instruments, his tools. what did he want boone for? he had a magnificent conspiracy from which millions were to come. he told boone, "i will give you a third of it." what for? he told moore, "i will give you one-quarter." seven-twelfths gone already. t. j. b. thirty-three and one-third per cent. that is about all. then sixty-five per cent, more to the subcontractors. i want you to think about these things, gentlemen. if they had such a conspiracy what did they want of mr. moore? mr. ingersoll. [resuming.] gentlemen, was it natural for s. w. dorsey to get the money back that he had advanced, or some security for it? was that natural? when a man seeks to have a debt secured is that a suspicious circumstance? that is all he did. he was out several thousand dollars. he wanted to secure that debt and he took another debt of twenty thousand dollars upon him as a burden. if this had been a conspiracy he could have furnished this money that he had to pay to others to put the service on the route. i leave it to each one of you if that action to secure that debt was not perfectly natural. i will ask you another question. if he was the originator of the conspiracy would he have taken thirty per cent, burdened with a debt of twenty thousand dollars? the way to find out whether there is sense in anything or not is to ask yourself questions. put yourself in that place; you, the master of the situation; you, the author of the entire scheme. would you take one-third of what you yourself had produced, and that third burdened with twenty thousand dollars worth of debt, and then make your debt out of the proceeds? i want every one of you to ask yourself the question, because you have got to decide this case with your brains and with your intelligence; not somebody else, but you, yourself. we want your verdict; we want your individual opinion; not somebody else's. there is the safety of the jury trial. we are to have the opinions of twelve men, and those opinions agreeing. where twelve honest men agree, if they are also independent men, the rule is that the verdict is right. the opinion of an honest man is always valuable, if he is only honest, and if it is his opinion, it is valuable. it is valuable if he does not go to some mental second-hand store and buy cheap opinions from somebody else, or take cheap opinions. in this case i ask the individual opinion of each one of you. i want each one of you to pass upon this evidence; i want each one of you to say whether if dorsey had been the author and finisher of this conspiracy he would have taken thirty per cent., burdened with twenty thousand dollars of debt to others and fifteen thousand dollars of debt to himself? if you can answer that question in the affirmative you can do anything. after that nothing can be impossible to you, except a reasonable verdict. you cannot answer it that way. why should he have cared so much about fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars with a conspiracy worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? why run the risk of making the whole conspiracy public? why run the risk of his detection and its destruction? you cannot answer it. perhaps the prosecution can answer it. i hope they will try. mr. ker, on page , makes a very important admission. after they (meaning the defendants) had these contracts, there was a combination, an agreement between all these people, that they were to do certain things in order to get at the public treasury and get more money. what does that mean? that means that this conspiracy was entered into after the defendants obtained the contracts, so that mr. ker fixes the birth of this conspiracy after these contracts had been awarded to the defendants. that being so, all the bids, proposals, clendenning letter, haycock letter, proposals in blank, and bidders' names left out fade away. the chico letter i will come to after awhile. i will not be as afraid of it as were the counsel for the prosecution. i will not, like the levite, pass on by the other side of the chico letter. i will not treat it as if it were a leper, as if it had a contagious disease. when i get to it i will speak about it. all these things, then, under that admission, go for naught, and have nothing to do with the case, and consequently nobody need argue with regard to them any more, although incidentally i may allude to them again. there is no doubt, recollect, after this admission. there is no clause in the indictment saying that we endeavored to defraud this government by bids, by proposals, by bonds, or by contracts. not a word. that is all out; in my judgment it never should have been in the case at all. what is the next thing we did? it is alleged that the moment dorsey got these contracts he laid the foundation to defraud the government by a new form of subcontract. let me answer that fully, and let that put an end to it from this time on. until may , , the post-office department did not recognize subcontractors. after these contracts came into the possession of these defendants congress passed a law recognizing subcontractors. consequently the contracts of the subcontractors that were to be recognized by the government had to be somewhere near the same form as the contracts with the original contractors. the moment the contract of the subcontractor was to be recognized by the government then it was necessary and proper to put a clause in that subcontract for expedition and a clause in that subcontract for increase of service. why? so that the government should know, if the route was expedited, what percentage the subcontractor was entitled to. instead of that clause in the subcontract being evidence that mr. dorsey was endeavoring to swindle the government, the evidence is exactly the other way. it was put there for the purpose of protecting the subcontractor, so that if expedition was put upon the route the government would know what per cent, of the expedition to pay the subcontractor. if that clause had not been in that subcontract the government could not have told how much money to pay the subcontractor, and as a consequence the subcontract would have been worthless as security for the subcontractor. and yet a clause put in for the protection of the subcontractor is referred to in your presence as evidence that the man who suggested it was a thief and a robber. what more? they say to these witnesses, "did you ever see such a clause as that in a subcontract before?" no. why? the government never recognized a subcontractor before that time, and consequently there was no necessity for such a clause. think how they have endeavored to torture every circumstance, no matter how honest, no matter how innocent, no matter how sensible; how they have endeavored to twist it and turn it against these defendants. gentlemen, whenever you start out on the ground that a man is guilty, everything looks like it. if you hate a neighbor and anything happens to your lot you say he did it. if your horse is poisoned he is the man who did it. if your fence is torn down he is the fellow. you will go to work and get all the little circumstances that have nothing to do with the matter braided and woven into one string. everything will be accounted for as coming from that enemy, and as something he has done. they say another thing: that we defrauded the government by filing subcontracts. you cannot do it. when this case is being closed i want somebody to explain to the jury how it is possible for a man to defraud this government by filing a subcontract. i do not claim to have much ingenuity. i claim that i have not enough to decide that question or to answer it. i can lay down the proposition that it is an absolute, infinite, eternal impossibility to fraudulently file a subcontract as against the government. it cannot he done. oh, but they say, the subcontractor did not take the oath. there is no law that he should take an oath and there never was. there may be at some time, but there is not now. the law that everybody engaged in carrying the mail and every salaried officer of the department shall take an oath was passed before the law of the th of may, , allowing a subcontractor to file his subcontract. before that time the government had nothing to do with the subcontractor. if he actually carried the mail; if he actually took possession of the mail, he had to take the oath of the carrier. but i defy these gentlemen to find in the law any oath for a subcontractor. there never was such an oath. if there is one, find it. the law that every salaried officer and every carrier of the mail shall take the oath was passed years and years and years before the law was passed allowing subcontracts to be filed. what of it? suppose a man who is a subcontractor carries the mail and does not take any oath. that is as good as to take the oath and not carry the mail. what possible evidence is it of fraud? suppose it should turn out that the carrier did not take the oath, but carried the mail honestly. what of it? is it any evidence of fraud? if a man tells the truth without being sworn, is that evidence that he is a dishonest man? if a man carries the mail properly and in accordance with law without being sworn to do so, it seems to me that is evidence that he is an honest fellow, and you don't need to swear him. so when a subcontractor takes a subcontract and carries the mail according to law it does not make any difference whether he swears to do so or not. is there any evidence in this case that the subcontractors stole any letters on account of not having taken the oath? when they answer, let them point to the law that the subcontractor is to take an oath. there is no such law and never was. now, according to this admission of mr. ker, the conspiracy commenced after they got the contract. very well. i need not talk about anything back of that. i do not know whether the admission is binding upon the government or not. i believe the court holds that the government is not bound by the admission of any agent, and that the government only authorizes an agent to admit facts. may be he is mistaken. the government only authorizes an agent to admit the law. at any rate mr. ker did the very best he knew how, and he says this conspiracy commenced when they got the contracts, and so we need not go back of that unless the government is now willing to say that mr. ker has made a mistake. i lay down the proposition, gentlemen, that you need not go back of the division of these routes. then you must go forward. what was done after that? recollect the exact position of senator dorsey and the exact position of these other people. the next claim is, although there was no conspiracy until after they got the contracts, that senator dorsey was interested in these contracts while he was a senator of the united states. if they could establish that fact it would not tend to establish a conspiracy. there is nothing in this indictment about it. i admit that if he were a senator, and at the same time interested in mail contracts, he might be tried and his robes of office stripped from him, and that he could be rendered infamous. but that is not what he is being tried for. they say he was in the senate, and he was anxious to keep it secret. mr. ker says he was so anxious to keep it secret that he sent all these communications out west in senate envelopes, so they would think a senator had something to do with it. then it turned out that all the envelopes were in blank; just plain white envelopes, with nothing on them, and away went that theory. if he were in the senate and engaged in these routes also, and wished to keep it a profound secret, because if known it would blast his reputation forever, do you think he would have had all these circulars sent out in senate envelopes and on senate paper? if he did allow that to be done, it is absolutely conclusive evidence that he was not interested. suppose i was trying to keep it an absolute, profound, eternal, everlasting secret that i had anything to do with a certain matter, would i write letters about it? would i use paper that had my name, the number of my office, and the character of my business printed upon it? would i? to ask that question is to answer it. another thing: they claim that he was in the senate and infinitely anxious to keep it a secret, and yet he found mr. moore, a perfect stranger, and said to him in effect: "yes, mr. moore; i don't know you, but i want you to know me. i ama rascal. i am a member of the senate, but i am engaged in mail routes. i hope you will not tell anybody, because it would destroy me. i have great confidence in you, because i don't know you." that is the only way he could have had confidence in moore. he would have to have it the first time he saw him or it never would have come. to this perfect stranger he said, "here, i am in the senate, but i am interested in these routes. i am in a conspiracy. i want you to go out and attend to this business. i want you to do all these things, and the reason i tell you is because i am a senator and i want it kept a profound secret. that is the reason i tell you." that is what these gentlemen call probable. that is their idea of reasonableness and of what is natural. that may be true in a world where water always runs up hill. it can never be true in this world. it is not in accordance with your experience. not a man here has any experience in accordance with that testimony or that doctrine; not one. you never will have unless you become insane. if this trial lasts much longer you may have that experience. it is a wonder to me it has not happened already. there is another queer circumstance connected with this case. while dorsey told it all to moore he kept it a profound secret from boone. boone, you know, was in at the first. boone got up all this information. boone was interested in these bids, and yet he never told boone. he had known boone, you see, for several weeks. he told moore the first day, the first minute. he wished to relieve his stuffed bosom of that secret. moore was the first empty thing he found, and he poured it into him. it is astonishing to me that he succeeded in keeping that secret from boone, but he did. he even kept it from rerdell. rerdell never heard of it--a gentleman who picks up every scrap, who listens at the key-hole of an opportunity for the fragment of a sound. he never heard it. john w. dorsey did not even know anything about it. nobody but moore. now, i ask you, gentlemen, is there any sense in that story? i ask you. i ask you, also, if the testimony of stephen w. dorsey with regard to that transaction is not absolutely consistent with itself? did he not in every one of those transactions act like a reasonable, sensible, good man? oh, but they say it is not natural for a man to help his brother; certainly it is not natural for a man to help his brother-in-law, and nobody but a hardened scoundrel would help a friend, and dorsey is not that kind of a man. occasionally in a case an accident will happen, and from an unexpected quarter a side-light will be thrown upon the character of a man, sometimes for good, and sometimes for evil. sometimes a little circumstance will come out that will cover a man with infamy, something that nobody expected to prove, and that leaps out of the dark. then, again, sometimes by a similar accident a man will be covered with glory. in this case there was a little fact that came to the surface about stephen w. dorsey that made me proud that i was defending him. oh, he is not the man to help his brother; he is not the man to help his brother-in-law; he is not the man to help a friend; and yet, when torrey was upon the stand, he was asked if he was working for dorsey, and he said no, and was asked if dorsey paid him at a certain time, or if he owed him, and he said no. he was asked why, and he replied, "because only a little while before, when i was not working for him, and my boy was dead, he gave me a thousand dollars to put him beneath the sod." that is the kind of a man stephen w. dorsey is. i like such people. a man capable of doing that is capable of helping his brother, of helping his brother-in-law, and of helping his friend. a man capable of doing that is capable of any great and splendid action. is there any other man connected with this trial that ever did a more generous, nay, a more loving and lovely thing? how such a man can excite the hatred of the prosecution is more than i can understand. now, we have got to the division, and the question arises, was there a division? let us see. on page mr. bliss admits that vaile, immediately upon dorsey's coming out of the senate, came here for the purpose of settling up this business; that he made up his mind to have no more to do with dorsey. then mr. bliss makes this important admission, and i do not want any attorney for the government to deny it. he admits that in may there was a final division, and that that division was to take effect as from the st day of april, and that after that each party took the routes allotted to him, and they became the uncontrolled property of that person, no other person having the right to interfere. there is your admission, just as broad as it can be made. mr. bliss, after having made that admission, which virtually gives up the government's case, then threw a sheet-anchor to the windward and said, "but when they divided they made a bargain with each other that they would make the necessary papers." what for? to carry out the division. that is all. now, the only corner-stone for this conspiracy, the only pebble left in the entire foundation is the agreement to make the necessary papers after the division. that is all that is left. the rest has been dissolved or dug up and carted away by this admission. let us see what that agreement was. mr. bliss turned to the evidence of john w. dorsey, on page : q. at the time you sold out, was there any understanding about your making papers?--a. that was a part of the agreement. i was to sign all the necessary papers to carry on the business. when he sold out he agreed to sign all the necessary papers. it is like this: mr. bliss says on such a day, for instance, they divided. suppose, instead of being routes it was all land. they divided the land and then they agreed to make the deeds. that was the conspiracy; not in the land; not in the agreement about the land; not in the bargain, but in the execution of the papers in consequence of the bargain. that was the conspiracy. they agreed to make all the necessary papers. that was the agreement. then the court asked john w. dorsey a question. q. you agreed to sign what?--a. all the necessary papers to carry on the business. that is what he agreed to do. what else? what were those papers? first, they were to sign all the subcontracts that were necessary, all the post-office drafts necessary, and they were to sign letters like this: the post-office department, in regard to this route, will hereafter send all communications to the undersigned. in other words, the object was to let the person who fell heir to a given route in the division control that route. that was all. the man who was the contractor agreed that he would sign all the necessary papers. for what purpose? to allow each man who got a route to be the owner of it and control it and draw the money. that is all. and yet it is considered rascality. let me call your attention to another piece of evidence on this subject. on page , mr. bliss is talking about all these papers and these letters that were written and apparently signed by peck, but really signed by miner, saying, "i want you to send all communications in reference to such a route to post-office box no. so and so, john m. peck," sometimes with an m. under it and sometimes without. he did that in consideration of the agreement at the time he got the routes that had been originally allotted to peck. mr. bliss brought here a vast number of these papers, and then he continued, on page : all those, gentlemen, are orders, dated after the division, many of them coming away down into , and all of them relating to routes with which peck had no connection, because he severed his connection with all the routes prior to the st of april, or as of the st of april, . john w. dorsey tells you that he signed papers right along--of course he did. he agreed to--and i have here a series of them. many of them are orders not in blank. there are among the papers, orders signed in blank, but these are dated, and they are witnessed not always by the same person as indicating that they got together and signed a lot of orders at the time of the division. there is every indication that the dates are correct. the witnesses are different at different times. the court. these same orders would have been made if the division had been perfectly honest. that is what i say. that is what we all say, gentlemen. if the transaction then had been perfectly honest the papers would have been precisely as they are. from the papers being precisely as they are, do they tend to show that the transaction was dishonest, when it is admitted by everybody and decided by the court, that if the transaction had been perfectly honest the papers would have been just as they are? recollect my text. every fact when you are proving a circumstantial case has to point to the guilt of the defendants, and their guilt has to be found from all the facts in the case beyond a reasonable doubt. if there is one fact inconsistent with their guilt, the case is gone. there is another little admission to which i call your attention. nothing delights me so much as to have the prosecution in a moment of forgetfulness, or we will say on purpose, admit a fact. mr. bliss said, on page : you will bear in mind that the division took place some eight months previous to that. that was january , , however that may be, these papers are all papers which on their faces might be innocent and fair and proper. they are papers which, under ordinary circumstances, might be executed to enable others than the contractor to draw the pay and to be tiled with the department, though it appears, i think, by the evidence in this case that no draft could be filed except shortly prior to the quarter as to which it applied. as to these papers all that we have to say is this: they are papers on their face apparently innocent, papers calculated to go through in the ordinary practice as though there was nothing wrong about them. at the same time the evidence shows that they were papers executed by these several parties at the time of or in pursuance of the agreement of the division. i do not want anything better. that settles the papers. they were made at the time they agreed to make them. it was the only way in which they could give the party who got the route absolute control of the route. now, gentlemen, apart from these papers, i believe they have three witnesses, at least they are called witnesses, in this case. the first witness that i will call your attention to, and who figures about as early as anybody, is a. w. moore. i want to ask you a few questions about his testimony. i want you to understand exactly what he swears to and the circumstances. let us see. he swears first that he had a conversation with miner, in which he told miner that he would work for him for one hundred and fifty dollars a month and expenses, with permission to put on some of his own service, i think, in oregon and california, and that mr. miner accepted his terms, and employed him as the agent of miner, peck & co. recollect that, miner, peck & co. second, that miner told him to report at dorsey's house to get instructions. miner at that time was staying at dorsey's house. i do not know whether it was to get instructions from dorsey or from the house, or from miner. i take it, from miner. no matter. mr. moore then swears that he reported to dorsey and dorsey asked him his opinion about the service. moore had never been there and did not know one of the routes, but dorsey was anxious for his opinion. how did he know any more about the service than dorsey? there is no evidence that moore knew the price. there is no evidence that he knew the amount the government was to pay on a single route. he was a stranger. then he had another conversation with dorsey in which dorsey told him that they had bid on the long routes with slow time, because that was the way to make money. not satisfied with that, mr. dorsey showed him the subcontracts with the blanks and with the changes, and then he explained to him the descending scale, and he explained to him the percentage of expedition. he said dorsey told him forty per cent, of the expedition. boone swears it was sixty-five per cent. there is a little difference; not much. moore swears that he himself was to have twenty-five per cent, of the stealings. let us see how that is. boone swears that the subcontractor was to have sixty-five per cent. rerdell swears that brady was to have thirty-three and one-third per cent. that leaves one and two-third per cent, for the contractor. do you see? the subcontractor got sixty-five dollars out of one hundred dollars, and then brady got thirty-three dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents. that makes ninety-eight dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents, leaving the contractor one dollar and sixty-six and two-third cents. that was all he got. did you ever know of anybody on earth doing business at a smaller per cent, and paying for the trouble? now, mr. moore comes in with his statement. he says the subcontractor got forty per cent, and then he himself got twenty-five per cent. that makes sixty-five. then, according to rerdell, brady was to have thirty-three and one-third per cent. that makes ninety-eight and one-third. there is the most wonderful coincidence in this whole trial. rerdell and boone and moore agree exactly that the contractor gave up ninety-eight and one-third per cent, to others and took one and two-thirds himself. did you ever know as much humanity in a conspiracy as that? did you ever know such a streak of benevolence to strike anybody? it reminds me of a case of disinterested benevolence that happened in southern illinois. a young man there went to a lawyer and said to him, "i want to get a divorce, i was married at a time when i was drunk, and when i sobered up i didn't like the marriage. i want a divorce." the lawyer asked, "what do you want of a divorce?" "well," he said, "do you know the widow thompson?" "yes." "she has been a widow there for about forty years. do you know her boy? he is the biggest thief in this county. he went over the ohio river the other day and stole a set of harness and a mule." "what has that to do with this divorce case?" "well," he said, "i want to get a divorce and i want to marry that widow." "what for?" "i want to get control of that boy and see if i can't break him from stealing. i have got some humanity in me." here are s. w. dorsey, his brother, his brother-in-law, miner and vaile starting a charity conspiracy, and out of every hundred dollars that they steal they offer ninety-eight dollars and thirty-three cents upon the altar of disinterested friendship. you are asked to believe that. you will not do it. mr. moore also swears that he received some money by a check, but he does not know whether the check was payable to him or payable to miner, and he got a power of attorney signed by miner from john w. dorsey and john m. peck, and then he started, s. w. dorsey assuring him in the meantime that he could tell the people out there that the service would be increased and expedited in a few days. mr. moore is a peculiar man. he says that that suited him exactly. he was willing to steal what little he could; he was willing to steal for one hundred and fifty dollars a month if he couldn't get any more, or he was willing to steal for a part of the stealing. if he could not get that he would take an ordinary salary. i should think he was a good man from what he says. you heard him. they were wonderfully anxious to prove by moore that dorsey was the head and front of this whole business. that was the object, and so he swore as to the instructions. he said he was instructed to get up petitions so that they could be torn off and the names pasted on other petitions. he swore he carried out those instructions. he swore that major agreed to do it, and i think a man by the name of mcbeau was going to do it. yet, gentlemen, there never was such a petition gotten up. major swore here that he never heard of it; that he never dreamed of it, and never agreed to it; that it was a lie; that it was never suggested to him. moore went out west and came back as far as denver, and at denver met john r. miner, and then came here and saw dorsey. what did he do with dorsey? he swears that he went to stephen w. dorsey and settled with him, and that dorsey settled in a very generous and magnanimous way, and did not want to look at his account, and did not want to look at the book; had no anxiety or curiosity about the items. he just said, "how much is it?" it happened to be even dollars--two hundred and fifty dollars. when a man goes out west and has hotel bills and all that sort of thing, when he comes to render his expense account it is always even dollars. moore said two hundred and fifty dollars. dorsey gave it to him; never looked at the book at all. moore swears that he made that settlement with stephen w. dorsey on the th day of july, . dorsey was then in the senate. look at page . you see that moore had been smart; that is what people call smart. you know it is never smart to tell a lie. very few men have the brains to tell a good lie. it is an awfully awkward thing to deal with after you? have told it. you see it will not fit anything else except another lie that you make, and you have to start a factory in a short time to make lies enough to support that poor little bantling that you left on the door-step of your honesty. a man that is going to tell a lie should be ingenious and he should have an excellent memory. that man swore that he settled with dorsey to the th day of july, ; swore it for the purpose of convincing you that dorsey employed him; that dorsey gave him instructions; that dorsey was the head and front of the conspiracy. i then handed him a little paper, and asked him, "do you know anything about that? did you ever sign that?" and here it is: not july . that is the day he got the money of dorsey. july , . received of miner, peck & co., one hundred and sixty-six dollars, balance of salary and expenses in full to july , . a. w. moore. to when? to july ? no, sir; he settled with dorsey to july , . the gentlemen had forgotten that he gave that. if he had only had a little more brains he would have avoided the two hundred and fifty dollars, that even amount, and he would have said, "dorsey did look over my books, and we had a little dispute about some items, and we just jumped at two hundred and fifty dollars." but he swears that was the actual settlement, and then we bring in his receipt in writing, dated the th of july, , saying that he received one hundred and sixty-six dollars that day, and that it was in full of his salary and expenses, not up to that date, but up to the nth of july, . if his testimony is true, he stole that one hundred and sixty-six dollars. if his testimony is true, he settled with dorsey in full for two hundred and fifty dollars, and then he was mean enough to go and get one hundred and sixty-six dollars more for the same time. no, gentlemen, he was all right enough about it then; he told the falsehood here. now, what does dorsey swear? dorsey swears that he received an order from miner to give this man two hundred and fifty dollars. miner swears that if dorsey paid him anything it was on his, miner's, request. that is a v perfectly natural proceeding for mr. miner to request dorsey to pay this man two hundred and fifty dollars. the man came to dorsey's house. dorsey gave him two hundred and fifty dollars upon miner's order. he was trusting john r. miner for the money, and it was none of his business whether miner owed it or not, and consequently he did not look at his book. now, every fact is consistent with the truth of mr. dorsey's testimony; the fact is consistent with the truth of miner's testimony; and the receipt of this man given to miner on the th of july, , demonstrates that he did not tell the truth, under oath, in this court before you. that is the end of mr. moore; that is the end of him. you never need bother about him again as long as you live. why, they say, "why didn't you impeach him?" he impeached himself. "why didn't you call so-and-so?" because we had that receipt; that is why. no need of killing a man that is dead. you need not give poison to a corpse. when a thing is buried, let it go. when a man commits suicide, you need not murder him. when he destroys his own testimony, let it alone; it will not hurt you. i am not afraid of the testimony of mr. moore. if these gentlemen can galvanize it into the appearance of life, i should be very happy to see them do it. everything that he swore upon this stand that in any way touched the defendants is shown not to be true. why should dorsey have told him in to get up fraudulent petitions? even rerdell does not swear that in dorsey instructed him to get up fraudulent petitions, and certainly he would go to the limit of the truth. after he made his story out of a piece of true cloth there would be very few scraps left. he would certainly go clear to the line. and yet, even he does not swear that when he went west to make contracts, to get up petitions, he was instructed by mr. dorsey to get up a fraudulent petition--not once. and yet moore swears that in , when dorsey was in the senate, he told him to get up these fraudulent petitions. it will not do. mr. major swears that what he says about it is not true; mr. mcbean swears that what he says about it is not true; and then we have moore's own receipt showing that it is not true. on page mr. bliss says--moore stands before you, therefore, so far as all this testimony is concerned, wholly and absolutely uncontradicted. his testimony was that he was employed by dorsey; his testimony was that he was settled with by dorsey, and the testimony of the receipt that he signed is that he settled with miner and not with dorsey; the testimony of miner is that he was settled with by miner, and not with by dorsey; the testimony of dorsey is that he never had any conversation with him in the world except at the time he paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars. they say rerdell was present at the conversation. why did they not prove it by rerdell after dorsey had sworn to the contrary? and yet mr. bliss tells you that he is not contradicted--"utterly uncontradicted." mr. ker, it seems, has an opinion of this same witness, i believe. he says, on page : he says he started out and went to work, as these records show, and made the subcontracts according to his instructions, and got up the petitions according to his instructions. he swears he did not get up a petition at all, not one; he swears that he had not time. and yet these gentlemen say that he got up petitions according to his instructions, and he swears he did not. he swears he told major to, and that major signified his willingness to do it. major swears that that is a falsehood. he swears the same with reference to mcbean, and mcbean swears that it is a falsehood. now mr. ker goes on: he fixed them up and changed the language a little in some, and in some he did not take the trouble to change, but he fixed them all so that there was a space between the writing and the names, so that they could be cut off and pasted on other papers. he expressly denies that he ever fixed a petition in the world. mr. ker. what page? mr. ingersoll. you ask the page! talk to the jury seven days! i say that this man never fixed up a petition, and he never says that he fixed up a petition. where is the page on which he says it? he was willing to do it, but he had not the time. i will show you that language. there is what they say about this man. then he says he got a note from miner, and went to denver and met miner. that is right. then miner offered him a quarter interest in the routes in this vast conspiracy. let us find what moore thinks of himself. we find that on page . he is a good man, worthy of this case, according to the eternal fitness of things. i come to this quicker than i thought i would. it is page : q. did you get up any?--a. no, sir; i didn't have the time. there it is. now, of course, mr. ker forgot. i call your attention to this to show how little weight such evidence is entitled to in reference to a conversation five years ago, when mr. ker could not remember this with the book before him. mr. ker. i asked you for the page on which mr. mcbean's testimony appears. mr. ingersoll. mr. moore is the witness. mr. moore swears that he never got up such a petition. mr. ker says he did. he and mr. ker will have to settle their own difficulty. on last friday, in reply, i think, to a question of mr. ker, i stated that i thought mcbean swore that mr. moore did not make any arrangement with him to get up false petitions. in that i was mistaken. mr. moore swore that he made an arrangement with mcbean to get up petitions. he did not quite swear that mcbean agreed to get up false and fraudulent petitions. he just came to the edge of it and did not quite swear to it. afterwards mcbean was recalled by the government and the government did not ask mcbean whether he had ever agreed to get up any petitions or whether he had ever made any such arrangement with moore. they did not ask him and we did not ask him. i do not know why they did not ask him. they probably know. i also stated that moore swore that he got his instructions about these petitions from dorsey. the evidence is that he got his instructions not from dorsey but from miner; that miner so instructed him, and that thereupon he made the bargain to get up such petitions with a man by the name of major on the redding and alturas route. i make this correction because i do not want you or any one else to think that i wish any misstatement made in our favor. we do not need it and consequently there is no need of making it. you will remember that after moore swore that he made a bargain with major to get up false petitions, major swore that it was untrue. you will also remember that judge carpenter called for the petitions that were gotten up upon the routes that moore had something to do with, and i think he showed you on one route eleven or twelve petitions. mr. major swears that every petition was honest, that the statements in each petition were true, and that the signatures were genuine. all those petitions were shown to you. so that the result of the moore testimony is this: moore swears that miner told him to get up such petitions. he then swears that he made that bargain with major. major says it is not true. moore almost swears that he made the same bargain with mcbean. mcbean says nothing on the subject. then we bring here the petitions upon those very routes, and especially upon the redding and alturas route, and we find no such petitions as are described by moore. that is enough in regard to mr. moore upon that one point. there is one little piece of testimony to which i failed to call your attention on friday, and to which i will call your attention now. moore was the friend of boone. boone recommended him to miner. it was through boone that moore was employed. now, i ask you if it is not wonderful that moore never told boone that there was a conspiracy on foot? is it not wonderful that moore did not tell boone, his friend, the man to whom he was indebted for the employment, "there is a conspiracy in this case. senator dorsey as good as told me so. i know all about it." the fact is he never said one word, and the reason we know it, is that boone swears that when he went out on the th or th of august he never even suspected it. i cannot, it seems to me, make this point too plain. boone had been known by dorsey for a long time. they were very good friends. dorsey had enough confidence in him to select him as the man to get the necessary information after he had been requested so to do in the letter. boone was the man who attended to this business more than anybody else. boone was interested with john w. dorsey. boone had every reason to find out exactly what was happening. he was at dorsey's house, where miner was. he talked with miner day after day. he helped get up the bids. he did a great deal of mechanical work. he had the subcontracts printed. yet during all that time dorsey never let fall a chance expression that gave boone even the dimmest dawn of a hint that there was a conspiracy. nobody told boone. moore, his friend, never spoke of it. now, there is one other point with regard to mr. moore. mr. moore swears, on page , that miner offered him a fourth interest in these routes. that was the conversation in which he said mr. miner told him they were good affidavit men. according to moore's testimony he then knew there was a conspiracy, and he understood that he was part and parcel of it. let me ask you right here, is it probable that moore would have been offered a quarter interest at that time if a conspiracy existed, and if they had their plans laid to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if the profits had depended upon the affidavits alone? i ask you, as sensible, reasonable men, if he would have been offered a quarter interest under those circumstances? now conies in what i believe to be the falsehood. mr. moore says that the interest was offered to him by miner, but miner said it would have to be ratified by stephen w. dorsey. that is brought in for the purpose of having some evidence against dorsey. you must recollect, gentlemen, that this evidence was all purchased. this evidence was all bargained for in the open shamble. you must recollect that there are upon the records of this court some seven or ten indictments against a. e. boone. you must remember that moore was boone's friend. you must remember that moore was a part of the consideration that boone was giving to the government for immunity. mr. merrick. is there any proof of that? mr. ingersoll. i think there is. mr. moore swears as to the number of indictments against boone. he was his friend. the jury have a right to infer what motive prompts a witness. moore wished to swear enough, so that mr. boone would not be troubled. in my judgment, mr. boone, being under indictment, gave evidence in this case in order that the government would take its clutch from his throat. he swore under pressure. that is the system, gentlemen, that is dangerous in any country. whenever a government advertises for witnesses; whenever a government says to a guilty man, or to a man who is indicted, "all we ask of you is to help us convict somebody else;" whenever they advertise for a villain, they get him. that is the result of what they call the informer system--an infamous system. a court of justice, where justice is done between man and man, is the holiest place on earth. the informer system turns it into a den, into a cavern, into a dungeon, where crawl the slimy monsters of perjury and treachery. that is the informer system. it makes a court a den of wild beasts. what else does it do? under its brood and hatch come spies; spies to watch witnesses, spies to watch counsel, spies to follow jurymen, so that a juror cannot leave his house without the shadow of the spy falling upon his door-step. that is not the proper attitude of a government. the business of a government is to protect its citizens, not to spread nets. the business of a government is to throw its shield of power in front of the rights of every citizen. i hold in utter, infinite, and absolute contempt any government that calls for informers and spies. every trial should be in the free air. all the work should be done openly. these sinister motions in the dark, the crawling of these abnormal and slimy things, i abhor. now, to come back to moore. upon my word i think he was trying to help his friend. after mr. miner had offered him a quarter interest, then he came back to washington. he arrived here, according to his evidence, about the th day of july, i think. he went immediately to see stephen w. dorsey. recollect that. that was the time dorsey settled with him without looking at his books. after he settled with him and gave him two hundred and fifty dollars he asked him to telegraph to see if the service had been put on the dalles and baker city route. he waited here until he received an answer, and after that he talked with dorsey not only about that matter, but in that conversation dorsey said, according to moore, that it took a good deal of money to keep up their influence in the department. when i asked him when that conversation was, he said two or three days after the first conversation. according to the evidence in this case stephen w. dorsey left this city on the th of july. this man moore arrived on the nth, and he says two or three days after his arrival dorsey said it took money to keep up their influence here. when he swears that dorsey told him that, dorsey was in the city of oberlin, ohio. recollect these things. whoever tells stories of this character should have a most excellent memory. now, there is another thing. when did miner get back? he got back by the th of july, because on the th of july he settled with moore, and i believe then moore went west again. now, remember there was a contract made, as moore swears. he has not got it. nobody sees it. he says there was a contract made by which he had a fourth interest in something. he got back here i believe some time in november, and on the th of november he and miner settled. i will now look on page for that settlement. i want you to see how everything was situated at that time. i find on page that mr. miner settled for everybody with mr. a. w. moore. remember the situation. moore knew there was a conspiracy. all the service was on. you see, this was november , . vaile was in. they had a man who was close to brady. everything was running in magnificent style. mr. moore understood that there was a conspiracy. what more did he understand? that he had the claw of his avarice in the flesh of a united states senator and in the flesh of a second assistant postmaster-general. hundreds of thousands of dollars were to be made. he came back here and settled up and sold out his interest for how much? six hundred and eighty-two dollars. do you believe that? credulity would not believe it. nobody believes it, that is if the rest of the story is true. why did he settle with him for so little? he said mr. miner told him he hadn't a dollar. he did not reply to him, "when this conspiracy is completed you will have plenty. i can wait." no. miner said he hadn't anything and so moore settled for six hundred and eighty-two dollars. then i asked him, "you had a contract with dorsey, did you?" "yes; verbally." "did you ever say anything to dorsey about it?" "no." "did you ever claim anything from dorsey?" "no." "did you ever write to him?" "no." "did you ever say anything to anybody that you had any claim against dorsey?" "no." you saw mr. moore, gentlemen, here upon the stand. do you think he is the kind of man who would let such a chance slip? it is for you to judge. in my judgment that is the eternal end of moore's testimony. we can call him buried. we can put the sod over his grave. we can raise a stone to the memory of a. w. moore. let him rest in peace, or to use the initials only, let him r. i. p. that is the end of him. if the government wishes to dig up the corpse hereafter let them dig. mr. ker. i would like-- mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] i don't want to hear from you. the court. you do not know what he is going to say. mr. ingersoll. he may be intending to make a motion that the jury be instructed to find a verdict of not guilty. mr. ker. as mr. merrick will have to answer, he simply wants to know the page. mr. ingersoll. if mr. merrick wants to know the page he shall have the page, or anybody that wishes to answer. if counsel had simply asked me for the page, without getting up in such a solemn manner, i would have told him. on page , mr. moore says that he went to dorsey and got the money, and that then dorsey requested him to telegraph to the dalles, and that he did not see dorsey after he got the answer to his dispatch, i think, for two or three days. he reached washington, he says, about the th. on page , he speaks of telegraphing to the dalles by instructions from dorsey. now, gentlemen, i am going to call your attention for a little while to another witness, mr. rerdell. and in the commencement, i need not refresh your minds with regard to the part he has played. i need not, in the first instance, tell you about his affidavit of june, , nor his affidavit of july , , nor his pencil memorandum, nor his chico letter, nor his offer to pack the jury on behalf of the government, nor the signals he had agreed upon, nor the reports he made from day to day, nor the affidavit of september that he made for the government, nor of november nor of february. all these things you remember and remember perfectly. i will speak of them as i reach them, but i want you to keep in your minds who he is. i need not call any names. epithets would glance from his reputation like bird-shot from the turret of a monitor. the worst thing i can say about him is to call him mr. rerdell. all epithets become meaningless in comparison. the worst thing i can say after that would have the taint of flattery in it. you will remember when enobarbus was speaking to agrippa about cæsar, he says, "would you praise cæsar, say cæsar. go no further." and i can say, "if you wish to abuse this witness, say mr. rerdell. go no further." that is as far as i shall go. you will remember that mr. rerdell was in the employ of stephen w. dorsey, and had been for several years. he does not pretend that he was ever badly used; he does not say before you that mr. dorsey ever did to him an unkind act, ever said an unkind word. in all the record of the years that he was with him he finds no page blotted with an unjust act, not one. he has no complaint to make. under those circumstances he voluntarily goes to see a man by the name of clayton, i think an ex-senator from arkansas, known to him at that time to be an enemy of stephen w. dorsey, an enemy of his employer, an enemy of his friend--his friend, whose bread this witness had eaten for years, whose roof had protected him, who had trusted and treated him like a human being. yet he goes to this man clayton, and he says, in substance, "i want to sell out my friend to the government." he was not actuated exactly by patriotism, although he says he was. the promptings of virtue may have started him, but after he got started he said to himself, "i do not see that it hurts virtue to be rewarded." so he said, "i want some pay for this; i want a steamboat route reinstated; i want the jennings claim allowed. of course i am disinterested in what i am doing, but i might as well have something, if it is going." "what else do you want?" the disinterested patriot suggested that he would like to have a clerkship for his father-in-law. "anything else?" if you will read his letter of july , , which i will read to you before i get through, you will see that he says, "if i had remained with the government i have every reason to believe i would have had a good position by this time." so he must have demanded a clerkship for himself--good, honest man. at that time he did not know, but swore it afterwards and swore it here upon the stand, that dorsey had never done anything wrong; and yet he was willing to sell him to the government, believing that he had never done anything wrong. so he went and saw the postmaster-general. the postmaster-general did not appear to take any great interest in the matter. he turned him over to the attorney-general. he showed the postmaster-general what he had, and read him, i believe, or showed him some memoranda. then he went and saw the attorney-general. the postmaster-general did not seem to give him encouragement. then when he went to see macveagh he took with him a letter-book--i do not know but more than one--but we will say a letter-book. now, what was in that letter-book? and, gentlemen, the only way to find whether a man tells the truth is to take all the circumstances into consideration. what did he want to do? what was his object? and what were the means at his command? for instance, it is said that a man left his house with the intention of murdering another, and that he had on his table a loaded revolver, and also had on his table a small walking-stick, and he took with him the walking-stick. you would say he did not intend to commit the murder; that if he had so intended he would have taken the deadly weapon. in other words, you must believe that men, acting for the accomplishment of a certain object, use the natural means within their power. now, what did he have in that letter-book? he swears now that in that letter-book there was a copy of a letter from stephen w. dorsey to james w. bosler; that the original letter was written by stephen w. dorsey. that press-copy, of course, would show that the original letter was in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. what does he swear was in that letter? he swears that dorsey made a proposition to bosler to go into the business; told him the profits, and told him that he had to give thirty-three and one-third per cent, to t. j. b.; that he had already paid him, i think, twenty thousand dollars, and had more to pay him. according to the testimony of mr. rerdell, that was in the letter-book that he took to mr. macveagh. now, recollect that. why did he not show it? he had forgotten it. he showed him what he had. recollect now, that he had a tabular statement. i think the letter showed so much money to t. j. b., and the tabular statement thirty-three and one-third per cent, to t. j. b. he had that tabular statement, and that was in dorsey's handwriting. he says he had it. well, after that, the attorney-general must have told him, "that is not enough; i want some more." "well," he says, "i can let you have some more." "what more can you let us have?" well, then he told him about the red books; i do not know that he said they were red, but he told him about the books and that those books were in new york, and he would go over there and get them; that he was going to steal them; he says he went over to get them, and afterwards admitted, i believe that lie was stealing them. now, we must remember the position rerdell was in. he had been to clayton, to the postmaster-general in company with mr. woodward, and to the attorney-general in company with mr. woodward, and yet there was not enough. well, it was all he had. what more could he do? he suddenly found himself caught in his own trap. he had furnished enough to trouble him, but not enough to convict dorsey, and not enough to be promised immunity. now, what had he to do? he did exactly as he did with mr. woodward in september, when he made that affidavit, and when woodward said it was not enough; he said, "very well, i will make another," the same as he did when he made the affidavit of seventy pages in november and found it was a little weak. he made another, and he would have made them right along. he had a factory running night and day. now, he tells you that while he was talking with macveagh, just towards the last of the conversation, the idea flashed into his brain that he might save dorsey too. don't you remember that testimony? and as quick as he thought of that, he agreed to go to new york and steal the books. the very last thing that macveagh said to him, according to macveagh's testimony, and i believe according to his own, was to be sure and get the books; that they were all important. so he went, as he claims. now, did it occur to him that he would save dorsey in that way? did he think of saving dorsey by going and getting these books? that was the last thing, and he was going to get the books to be used as evidence against dorsey. in a few days he says he started for new york, and the question arises, why did rerdell go to new york at all? why did he want to see that the books were in new york? why did he pretend that he had any more evidence unless he had it? you see you have got to get at the philosophy of this man; you have got to find what actuated him; and although in many respects he is abnormal, unnatural, monstrous, and morally deformed, still it may be that we can find the philosophy upon which he acted. why did he say he was going to new york? because the attorney-general told him--he must have told him--that the evidence he then had was not sufficient. rerdell could not break down right there and say, "that is all i have got." that would give up the fight; that would tell him that he had endeavored to sell out his friend and nobody would buy the evidence; that would tell him that he had tried this and had failed; that he had simply succeeded in showing his own treachery without involving his friend. he could not stop there. you must recollect the evidence he had, and the evidence he wanted. let us see what he had. mr. bliss says, "why did he say the books were in new york? why did he not say they were in washington?" that would not have given him time, gentlemen. he would have been told, "go and get them." then he could not have produced them. consequently he put them in the possession of somebody else, so that if he failed to get them, then he could say that the other man destroyed them or had hid them; he could have said, "i have done my best; they did exist, but they have been destroyed, or they have been hidden, or they have been put out of the way." he wanted time, and knowing that no such books existed, he could not say, "i have them in washington," because then he could give no excuse for their non-production. he must state it in such a way that he could reasonably fail; that is to say, that he could give a reason for his failure. he could not say, "i have them in my house," because he would have been told to go and get them. so he put them in the possession of another man, so that, failing to get them, as fail he must, he could give a reasonable excuse for the failure. why did he go to new york? i will tell you what my philosophy is: he found that the government did not wish to purchase the evidence that he had. he found that, in the judgment of the expert of the department of justice, it was not sufficient. the next thing was to retrace his steps. he did not want to jump off of one boat into the sea and find no other boat to rescue him. he said: "i have been too hasty; i will go to new york." why? to find out whether dorsey had heard of this or not. that is what he went there for. the inferior man always imagines that the superior knows what he is doing, and knows what he has done. he found that he was about to fail with the government, and then the important question to him was: has dorsey found this out? can i go back to dorsey? or must i go on and be cast away by him and be refused by the government? now let me call another thing to your minds. i will come to it again, but it forces itself upon me at this place, and it seems to me it ought to be absolutely conclusive. he swears that on the day after he went to macveagh with that letter-book, in looking it over he found the press-copy of the original letter that dorsey wrote to bosler on the th of july, . says that the next day he found that copy in that copy-book. why did he not steal the book? conscientious scruples, gentlemen! you see he was going to new york to steal another. why not steal one that he already had possession of? and how much better that book would have been than the other that he was going to get. this was a copy of a letter in dorsey's handwriting, in which he admitted that he had paid twenty thousand dollars to t. j. b., and was going to pay him some more, while that book in new york was not in dorsey's handwriting--admitting, for the sake of the argument, that there was a book--but was in the handwriting of donnelly or rerdell. see? and right there he had the evidence, absolutely conclusive, in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey himself, and he did not even keep it, he did not even steal it, but he gave it back and went to new york to steal a book that dorsey did not write. he threw away primary evidence to get secondary evidence. he threw away that which would have convicted dorsey beyond a doubt, which would have made him a welcome recruit to the government. he threw that away and went to new york to get another, a line of which dorsey never wrote; and then he would have to establish, after he got that book, that "william smith" stood for thomas j. brady; he would have to prove after they got that book that "john smith" or "samuel jones" stood for turner. now, gentlemen, do you believe that that man, with his ideas of honor, with the kind of a conscience he has in his bosom, with the copy of a letter in dorsey's handwriting in his possession admitting that dorsey gave twenty thousand dollars to t. j. b., would give that up and then go to the city of new york to steal a book not in dorsey's handwriting, and that did not prove that dorsey had ever paid a cent to thomas j. brady, in which there was one charge to "william smith," and that would have to be eked out by the testimony of rerdell himself, when he had right there in his own grasp and clutch the press-copy of the original letter written by dorsey himself? do you believe it? there is not a man on that jury believes it; there is not a lawyer prosecuting this case who believes it. what else did he have? he had a letter that he himself, as he claims, wrote to bosler on the d of may, , after he, rerdell, had been summoned to appear before a committee of congress. he had, he says, those three sheets. what else did he have the morning after he was talking with macveagh? he had the tabular statement in the handwriting of stephen w. dorsey, and over the brady column, "t. j. b., thirty-three and one-third per cent." what more did that man have? he had the balance-sheets made out, as he swears, by donnelly, of those books. were the balance-sheets just as good as the books? now, just think what he had, according to his own testimony: a copy of the original letter, written by dorsey to bosler, in which he admitted his guilt; a copy of the tabular statement, written by dorsey, in which he put down thirty-three and one-third per cent, to t. j. b. what more? copy of the letter that he had written to bosler on the d of may, . he had all that, and he must have had this memorandum, though i will show you that he had not, and i think i will show you when he made it. and yet he was going to new york to get some more evidence. he was going to steal another book in new york that would simply create a suspicion, while he gave up a book that was absolute certainty. that is the theory. but they say, "oh, he did not do that quite." what did he do? he went and had that copied. he swears that he had copied that letter of may , , that dorsey wrote to bosler, in which he admitted that he gave twenty thousand dollars to brady. now, a copy would not show in whose handwriting the press-copy was, would it? that is a very important point. who copied it? i think he said miss nettie l. white copied it. we never hear of miss nettie l. white again, though. these gentlemen admit that you are not to believe mr. rerdell on any point that is not corroborated, and when he swears that miss nettie l. white copied the letter you are not bound to believe there was such a letter unless they bring miss white or account for her absence. they did not bring her. that is an extremely important point in their case, infinitely more important than whether the red books ever existed. did dorsey write a letter to bosler in which he admitted his guilt? this man says that he had complete and perfect evidence of it in his own hand; that he gave that up; that he had that copied by miss white. and they did not bring miss white. certainly he had no scruples about tearing it out. he says he tore out his letter to bosler of the d of may, . he had no scruples about that. he did not refuse to keep the book because it touched his honor, because in a day or two he was going to steal another not half as good as that one, not one-tenth part as good. just think. he gave up evidence that was absolute and complete, and went to steal evidence that was secondary and of the poorest character. you do not believe it. he would have kept that book if he had kept any. if he was going to steal any evidence, and had the best, he would have kept it. the trouble was that there was no such letter in that book. there was his letter of may , ; no doubt about that; and that man tore it out, and then he made up one in his own mind, and had it of that date; that is all. so he went to new york, and he swears that he went right up to the albemarle hotel; that it was early in the morning; that dorsey was not then up; and that he had a conversation with dorsey, in which dorsey charged him with having had something to do with the government, with having gone over to the government. dorsey had heard that there was something going on about that time, and i suppose he asked mr. rerdell about it. rerdell denied it; said there was no truth in it; that nothing of the kind, character, or sort had ever happened. now let us just see whether i can demonstrate to you that rerdell, in the conversation he had with dorsey at the albemarle hotel, denied that he had gone over to the government, or that he had done anything that was not perfectly honest, straightforward, and upright. i refer to it now, although i may come to it again. and, gentlemen, i am sorry for you; i pity every one of you, that you have to hear all that has to be said in this case. but you must put yourselves, for the moment, in our places. you must remember that these defendants have borne this agony, have been roofed and surrounded with disorder for two years. you must remember that the agents of the government have pursued them, they have watched over them and spied them night and day. you must remember that they have been slandered for years in the public press, although the tone of the public press is now changing, and changing in such a marked degree that one of the attorneys here for the prosecution claimed that we had bought up the correspondents. when you take into consideration what my clients have suffered, the position they are now in, fighting this great and powerful government, i know you will excuse us for inflicting upon you every thought and every argument that we think may be for our defence. i am doing for my clients what i would do for you, or any of you, if you were defendants, and i am doing for them what i would want them to do for me were i a defendant and they my counsel. now i am going to demonstrate this. when mr. rerdell got to jersey city he telegraphed back, according to the evidence of mr. dorsey: up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust. i believe rerdell swears that he did not send that. he had a memorandum-book which he took out of his pocket. i think a leaf was torn from it, and he ran his pencil through this line on the page on which he had taken a copy of this dispatch, "up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust," and says he did not send it. why did he put his pencil through that? because that line would not agree with the testimony he had given upon the stand. "up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust" was in that dispatch. i want to ask you if you believe that rerdell could have sent that dispatch to a man to whom he had admitted that very morning that he had gone over to the government? do you believe it? how perfectly natural it would have been for him to send a dispatch from jersey city that harmonized and accorded with his denial of that morning. just look at that [handing the paper to the foreman of the jury.] just read it. i want the jury to look at it. he rubbed it out of his memorandum-book. when? at the time? no, sir; when he found that he wanted something to harmonize with his evidence here. even he had not the brazen effrontery to swear that he had told dorsey that very morning that he (rerdell) had gone over to the government, and then that very afternoon to telegraph him--up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust. why, in comparison with that cheek brass is a liquid. what is the next sentence? the affidavit story is a lie. why did he leave that in? because technically that was true. he had not then made an affidavit, and there is nothing so pleases a man who has made up his mind to tell a lie as to have mixed with the mortar of that lie one hair of truth. it is delightful to smell the perfume of a fact in the hell-broth of his perjury. just look at that. these two things show that he had not admitted to dorsey that he had told the government anything against dorsey. he wanted dorsey to understand that he, rerdell, had not communicated with the government. now, if you admit his evidence to be true, at the time he sent that dispatch he had the stolen book under his arm, and you, gentlemen of the jury, are asked to believe a man who would do that thing. i would not. i would not convict the meanest, lowest wretch that ever crawled between heaven and earth upon such testimony. never. neither can you do it. a verdict must rest upon a fact. the fact must rest upon the testimony of a witness. that witness must be, or seem to be, an honest man. and unless a verdict is based upon the bed-rock of honesty, it is infinitely rotten, and the jury that will give a verdict not based upon honesty is corrupt. mr crane (foreman of the jury.) i notice that this dispatch seems to have been written with different pencils at different times. mr ingersoll--up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust--is written very dimly. the affidavit story is a lie, but confidence between us is gone--is in still a different hand. i resign my position and will turn everything over to any one you designate--is still another hand. three hands, three pencils, in the one memorandum. these papers have been manufactured, and when the government said, "this is not enough," another paragraph has been added. how hard it is to perpetrate a piece of rascality and do it well. there are an infinite number of things in this universe, and everything that is in it is related to everything else; and when you get a falsehood in it that does not belong to the family, it has not the family likeness; and when anybody sees it who is acquainted with the family, he says, "that is an adopted young one." mr. rerdell now says, i believe, that he did not send that line, "up to this moment," &c. dorsey swears that he did. rerdell then produces this book and this paper which i have shown to you. now, let us follow mr. rerdell from the albemarle hotel. i will show that he crosses himself on almost every fact that he endeavors to swear to. he swears that he went to dorsey's; that from dorsey's he went immediately to tor-rey's office; that he then went and got lunch and then went to jersey city. he also swears that he got his breakfast before he went to dorsey's. in the next examination he swears that he got his breakfast after he went to dorsey's, and after he got the book he went to jersey city, first walking up and down broadway for about an hour. he had forgotten about the lunch. there is nothing in it but a mass of contradiction. he swears that he went down to torrey's office. why did he not make it earlier, as soon as he got off the boat? because he did not have any key to the office. it would not do to swear that he broke into the office and that nobody ever heard of it, and so he had to put the time after the office would naturally be open. well, now we have got him as far as the office. he swears that he went in there and saw mr. torrey. after chatting a little with torrey, and telling him the object of his visit, torrey took him into the next room and took these books from a shelf or desk, or something of that kind, and handed them both to him, and he looked them over at his leisure, while mr. torrey went back to his business. he finally took the journal and left the ledger. why did he leave the ledger? i will tell you after a while. every lie, as well as every truth, has its philosophy. he took the journal and came along out with it under his arm, not wrapped up, not concealed. then he had another chat with torrey about the weather or something, and then he went on. why did he swear that he had a conversation with torrey in that office? i will tell you. when he was giving that testimony, torrey was in mid-ocean, between new york and liverpool. i guess mr. rerdell had heard that the man was away. he thought he would be absolutely and perfectly safe, and so he said he had a conversation with torrey. the moment he repeated that conversation with torrey, i said, "where is torrey?" we telegraphed to new york and we found that torrey had left for the old country. we sent a cablegram to queenstown and we intercepted him. i think he staid a day in the old country, and took the next ship and came back, arriving here in time to swear that rerdell never visited that office, that he never had that conversation with him, and that he never got that book from that office; more than that, that that book never was in that office. who are you going to believe, torrey or rerdell? another man was there on that very day, mr. mullins. he never had any recollection of seeing rerdell until he saw him here. all the books were kept in the safe except the books that torrey had in his desk. no such books were in the safe and no such books were in torrey's desk. gentlemen, no such books existed, and i will demonstrate it to you before i get through. no doubt the man had some little expense-books of his own. he has widened them, he has lengthened them, he has thickened them, he has colored them. he has refreshed other people. when the government tells a man, "you have got an office, haven't you?" "yes." "well, we want you to remember this." then he is refreshed on the subject. the words the government speaks are rain and dew and sunlight upon the dry grass of his memory and it springs up green. he says he has been refreshed. before i get through i will show you that these things were proved only by gentlemen who had been refreshed. now, why did rerdell say he took the journal and left the ledger? i will tell you. there is more in the shirt theory than you would think. he had a shirt in a paper, folded up just once over the bosom. unexpectedly lie met mr. james on the train. he was very much surprised to meet him, because james swears he was very much surprised to meet rerdell. james knew that he had gone over to new york to get those books, and he asked him, "did you get the books?" rerdell had that beggarly little package. he could not call that "books," because it was not large enough, and so he had to say he had a book. that was the reason he said journal and not ledger. he had too small a package for "books," and consequently he told james he had the "book," and he is sticking to it; only one book. another reason: he said to james, and it was very smart of him, "i don't want to show you what i have got in this package, because there is a fellow looking," and so the shirt, in unconscious innocence, reposed unseen. who was the fellow who was looking? chase andrews. you recollect him. he came into the depot at jersey city at the time rerdell was writing this virtuous dispatch, this certificate of his honor and of his faithfulness. he shook hands with rerdell. rerdell said he had a carpet-sack, but it was not big enough to get one of these books in. he wanted the jury to think it was a pretty big book. he hated to lose a chance of adding to the size of the book, and so he swore that it was too big to put in the carpet-sack. if he had only had sense enough to put it in the carpet-sack, and let it alone, we never could have proven anything about it by chase andrews. andrews would not have sworn that he looked through the carpet-sack. but rerdell in his anxiety to have that book a big book said he could not get it into the carpet-sack, and consequently must have held it in his hand. chase andrews saw him in the depot at jersey city, and rode in the next seat in the pullman car from jersey city to washington, and rerdell had no book. who will you believe, chase andrews or mr. rerdell? mr. ingersoll. [resuming.] may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury. it is also claimed by the prosecution that on the evening of the day on which rerdell was in new york and sent the telegram from jersey city. dorsey wrote a letter to rerdell in which he begged him for the sake of his family, for the sake of his children, and everything to go no further. i believe it is claimed that after mr. rerdell got back here to washington he showed that letter to his brother. it struck me as extremely wonderful that he did not show his brother the book; that was such an important thing, it being the thing that he went after, being something that was to decide his fate with the government. there was nothing about that. let me say right here: suppose his story is true that he told dorsey that he had been to the government. would dorsey write to that man a letter begging him for god's sake not to go further? would he not rather have sent some man to see him? he knew at that time that he was utterly dishonest, having received that very afternoon, according to rerdell's testimony, a telegram from rerdell, in which rerdell admitted that he had told a falsehood. would he then have put himself upon paper? would he have put himself in the power of that same man? i ask you, because you know there is about as much human nature in one person as in another, on the average, and the only way you can tell what another man will do is by thinking "what would i do under the circumstances?" i am going to demonstrate to you now with just one point that there were no such books. when rerdell came to make the affidavit of june , , dorsey knew that rerdell had talked with macveagh, james, and clayton. he also knew that rerdell, according to his statement, had promised to go to new york and get the red book. rerdell swears in the affidavit of june, , that he promised macveagh to go to new york and get those books. dorsey knew at that time whether such books existed or not. if he knew they did exist then he knew that rerdell went after them. why did not dorsey ask rerdell at the time he made that affidavit, "did you get a book in new york?" admitting, for the sake of the argument, that rerdell's story is true that the books were there and that dorsey knew it, would not dorsey have asked him, when he was making the affidavit of june , , "did you get a book in new york? what did you do with it, if you did?" rerdell swears that dorsey did not mention that subject; that it was not talked of between them. why? because both knew that no such books existed. that is the reason he did not ask him if he got it. he knew that he did not get it. why? because the book was not there to be obtained. can you explain that on any other hypothesis? dorsey knew at this time, according to the testimony of rerdell, that rerdell was dishonest; knew that rerdell had tried to sell him out to the government; knew that rerdell had promised macveagh he would go to new york and get those books; knew that rerdell had been to new york; knew that rerdell had gotten back, and yet did not ask him, "did you get a book?" would he not naturally have said, "i want that book that you got in new york. i want it now." it also appears in evidence that on the very day that rerdell was in new york and says he was in torrey's office, torrey in the afternoon went to the albemarle hotel to do some writing for mr. dorsey. is it conceivable that torrey would not in that conversation have told dorsey, "your clerk, rerdell, came to the office to-day and i gave him the mail book or one of those books"? not a word. that affidavit was made in june, , and was the affidavit in which rerdell disclosed what he had done with the government, and that he had agreed to get that very book, and yet dorsey did not take interest enough in the matter to ask him if he got a book. mr. merrick. is there any evidence of the conversation between torrey and dorsey? mr. ingersoll. no. the evidence is that torrey went there that evening. you claim that that was the topic of conversation, and that dorsey sent dispatches to rerdell that night and wrote a letter to rerdell. so, i say, under the circumstances, and with the excitement then prevailing, it is inconceivable that torrey should not have said, "your man rerdell has been at my office to-day, and got one of the books." i say it is inconceivable that he did not tell him, and therefore dorsey must have known it had it been a fact, and had it been a fact when rerdell made the affidavit of , dorsey would have said, "i want that book. i want the book you stole from my office." he did not even mention it. it was not the subject of conversation. yet, in that same affidavit, he said that he agreed to go and get it, and in that same affidavit he said that no such book ever existed. he swore to that affidavit from friendship. you see, gentlemen, about how much friendship that man is capable of. he swore for friendship that no such book existed; he now swears that it did. what is that for? you want to consider these things. nobody asked about that book. the matter drifted along. the summer wore away. autumn touched the woods with gold. nobody ever mentioned the book. winter came. that book was in a little carpet-sack hanging in a woodshed. a magnificent place to secrete property. the snows descended; the winds howled around that woodshed. the carpet-sack hung there with the book in it. nobody touched it. i think the next year, may be that summer, he wrote or telegraphed to mrs. cushman to get the book. it suddenly occurred to him that a woodshed was not a safe place for it. she got a book. she looked into it enough to find out it was about the mail business. she put it away; finally that book was brought from its hiding-place on the th of july, , when rerdell says he handed it over to dorsey, and there is not one syllable of evidence going to show that it was ever spoken of from the time he visited new york until he brought it to dorsey, as he claimed, at willard's hotel. what made him give it to him? dorsey was mad. dorsey threatened that he would have rerdell arrested for perjury, because rerdell had sworn that he, dorsey, was innocent. that is enough to excite the wrath of an ordinary man. dorsey was then on trial. the first trial was then going on. we were right in the midst of it. the year before that rerdell had solemnly taken his oath that dorsey was an innocent man, and here dorsey was in a court insisting that he was innocent. yet he threatened to have rerdell then and there punished for perjury because he had sworn that he was innocent. that frightened rerdell. i think it was calculated to frighten any man. why did dorsey allow rerdell to keep that book? there is only one possible explanation: the book never existed. that is all. torrey would have told about it if it had been taken from his office, because i believe the evidence shows that that affidavit was shortly afterwards published. nobody seemed to have taken any interest in that book. all interest faded away. now, mr. rerdell made that affidavit on the th of june, . i believe, on page , rerdell swears that when he made the affidavit of june , , he had the copies of the original journal and ledger at dorsey's office. afterwards he swears he had not. he swears that he then gave them to dorsey. afterwards he says they were sent to new york the year before. i will come to that after awhile. now, let us see what the position of affairs was on june , . at this time rerdell had furnished the government all the information he had, except the book. then they had said to him substantially, "the evidence is insufficient. we want more." rerdell agreed to furnish them the books, and went to new york to get the books. now, he had dorsey absolutely in his power, according to his account. what did he do? he had, according to his testimony, the copy of the letter dorsey had written to bosler on the th of may, , the copy having been made by miss nettie l. white. he had the tabular statement in dorsey's own handwriting, showing thirty-three and one-third per cent, to t. j. b. he had the letter that he himself wrote to bosler on the d of may, . he had the red book. according to his statement, on that day he had dorsey in his power. all he had to do was to take the next step and secure absolute safety for himself and crush his employer. what did he do? he then said, "i went to the government and played the detective." he retreated. he voluntarily put himself in a position a thousand times as perilous as he had been in before. he put himself in a place where he had to swear that what he told the government was a lie, and that he was simply endeavoring to find out the government's case and was acting as a detective. you must recollect that rerdell is a man who does nothing for money. he will make an affidavit for unadulterated friendship. he will make it also from fright. he will make it also, he says, in the interest of truth. at that time he made an affidavit, as he says, for friendship, and it is for the jury to determine how much a man like rerdell--because you know what he is just as well as i do--would do for friendship. you have seen him here day after day. you saw him sitting right at the door when mr. ker and mr. bliss were demonstrating to you that he was a guilty wretch, and you saw his face beaming with pleasure. he was absolutely delighted. yet when mr. wilson stood here and endeavored to show that the man was not as bad as he said he was, endeavored to show that his plea of guilty was absolutely false, he slunk away, covered with the shame of innocence. he did not want to hear that. he wanted it understood that he was guilty, and that it was the proudest moment of his life. now, it is for you to determine how much such a man would do for friendship. it is for you to determine how you can take advantage of his finer nature. he had dorsey in his power, according to his story, but instead of carrying out his original design he turned against the government. why did he do that? because of patriotism? no. why? he did it for his own benefit, gentlemen. he never acted from any other motive. why did he not stay with the government? because they would not give him his price for his evidence. why would they not give him his price for his evidence? because his evidence was not worth it. if he had had the copy of the letter from dorsey to bosler they would have given him his price. they would have followed him all over the united states to have given him his price. there was the absolute evidence against dorsey. there was the evidence against the man whom mr. macveagh wished to drag down. why did they not buy it? because the man did not have it. why did he desert the government? because the government would not give him his price. again i ask why would not the government give him his price? because he had not the goods; he had not the evidence. then what did he do? he sneaked back and asked protection of the man he had endeavored to betray. that is what he did. he again asked dorsey to stand by him. dorsey did not need this man. this man needed him, and he instantly deserted the government and went back to dorsey. for the sake of saving dorsey? no. for the purpose of saving himself. he had not the evidence. yet, according to this testimony of his, he did what i told you. what else did he have? he had the route-book. what was the route-book, gentlemen? from the evidence it appears that this man kept a route-book, and that in it he had the name of each route, the number of the route, where it started from, and where it went to, the name of the contractor, the amount per year, the name of the subcontractor, the amount per year, and then a column showing whether it had been increased, and, if so, how much, and whether it had been expedited, and, if so, how much. he had that book. he says he was subpoenaed to appear before the congressional committee. what book would that committee want? they would want the book that showed the original contracts, the subcontracts, the description of the routes, how much the government paid to the contractor, and how much the contractor paid to the subcontractor. that was the book they wanted, and that was the book to hide if any hiding was to be done. that was the book to have copied. that was the book in which figures should have been changed, if in any. and yet he never said one word about that route-book. he had it in his possession. why should he not expect the committee of congress to call for that book? he did not tell you. he did not have that book copied, and yet that was the book that had in it every particle of information that the congressional committee wanted. not a word on that subject. it appears, too, in the evidence, that mr. rerdell had in his possession certain notes that passed between him and mr. steele about the red books. why were not those notes produced in evidence? mr. steele was here on the subpoena of the government. why were not those notes produced in evidence? not a word about that. is it possible that those notes were about the route-book? why were they not produced? rerdell went before that congressional committee. he did not take any route-book. what did he take? he said that he had these books made up to take. did they contain the accounts of the subcontractors? no. donnelly swears there were not more than twelve accounts in the book. what was the use of taking that book, or those books, before the committee? another thing: he says that he went immediately and got those books copied. would he try to palm off the copies as originals? would not the committee ask him the very first thing, "in whose handwriting are these books?" he could not say, "they are in mine," because then he would be caught. he would have to say, "they are in mr. donnelly's handwriting." the next question would be, "where is mr. donnelly?" and the answer would be, "here in town." the committee would send for him and would ask, "mr. donnelly, did you write in those books?" "yes." "did you make the entries at the time they purport to have been made?" "no, sir; i copied them from another set of books that mr. rerdell gave to me." he would either say that or swear to a lie. then they would say, "mr. rerdell, we want the original books," and then he would be caught. you cannot imagine a more shallow device. more than that, the books would not have any information that the committee wanted, nothing about these contracts, and nothing about the amount paid the subcontractors. if the committee wanted anything they wanted to show that the government was paying a large price and the contractors were paying to the subcontractors a small price. rerdell says that when he was subpoenaed to bring his books he never thought of the route-book. he thought of the red books, and yet the route-book was the only book that had any information that the committee wanted. how was he to palm that off? is it possible to think of a reason having in it less probability, less weight, less human nature than the reason he gives for having those books copied? there is another question. if rerdell expected to palm off the copies as the originals, why did he keep the originals? for instance. i have a book here that i don't want congress to see, and so i have it copied. i am going to swear that that copy is the original; otherwise the device is good for nothing. why keep the original and run the perpetual danger of discovery? why not burn the original? why keep the evidence of my own guilt, liable to be found at any moment by accident, by a servant, by a stranger? that is not human nature, gentlemen. then there is another question: if he were going to have a book copied and then swear that the copy was the original, he would have copied it himself. if a man intends to swear to a lie the first thing he does is not to take somebody into the secret. why should he have put himself in the power of donnelly? he was the man to be the witness before the committee, and if his device worked he intended to swear before the committee that the copies were the originals; and yet, by going to donnelly to have the work done, he manufactured a witness that would always stand ready to prove that he, rerdell, had sworn to a falsehood. what men work in that way? when a man makes up his mind to swear to a lie does he take pains to go to one of his neighbors and say, "i am going to swear to a lie to-morrow and i want to give you the evidence of it. i am going to swear that a copy is an original. i want you to make the copy so that i can swear to it." would not the neighbor then say, "i will be a witness against you in that case. you had better copy it yourself." just see what he did. he took pains to have a witness so that if he swore falsely he could be contradicted and convicted. why did he not copy the books himself? after he got the originals copied why did he not burn up the originals so that nobody could ever find them in his possession? let us take another step. finally, he got before the committee. when he got before the committee what did he swear? he swore that he kept some expense-books showing how he stood with the contractors. i think that was the truth. i think that is what he did keep. he did not tell the committee about the route-book. not a word. that was the only book that he concealed in his testimony. he said he kept some expense-books and those were all that he kept. he did not tell about the route-book. that is the only book that he failed to mention. consequently, it seems to me, that was the only book he did not want to show. why? because he thought at that time they were going to make a great outcry about what was paid to the subcontractor and to the contractor and he had no advices from anybody, except from whom? except from mr. bosler. what did bosler tell him? bosler told him, "i see no reason why you should not exhibit your books and papers." now, according to rerdell's testimony, on the th of may the year before, dorsey had written a letter to bosler informing him that he had given twenty thousand dollars to t. j. b. bosler knew, if the testimony of rerdell is true, that that letter had been written, and bosler had that information. he knew if the letter had been copied, too, because every letter that one receives gives evidence whether it has been copied or not. and yet, knowing of that letter, he wrote to rerdell or telegraphed him that he saw no reason why he should not show all his books and papers. nobody believes that. nobody ever will believe it! the earth may revolve in its orbit for millions of years, and generations may come and go, countless as the leaves of all the forests, and there never will be found a man of average intelligence to believe that story. just think of it. bosler, according to the testimony of rerdell, had gone into partnership with dorsey knowing there was a conspiracy, knowing dorsey was paying to brady thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the profits, and thereupon the clerk who attended to the business writes or telegraphs to him, and says he has been subpoenaed to appear before the congressional committee with the books and papers, and mr. bosler knowing of the existence of the conspiracy, and knowing that brady is getting thirty-three and one-third per cent, writes or telegraphs back that he sees no reason why all the books and papers should not be presented to the committee. gentlemen, that is impossible; it never happened and it never will. ah, but they say these books did exist. why? because mr. donnelly copied them. let us see whether he did or not. there is nothing like examining these questions. mr. rerdell says that in his interview with brady, brady suggested to him that he had better have them copied. this, i believe, was on the st of may, . now he swears that in accordance with that view or suggestion that he received from brady he had the books copied by donnelly. when did he have it done? he had it done after the st day of may, . on page donnelly swears that he copied these books in the latter part of april or the forepart of may. on page , where he was asked if he had anything to do with copying a book of accounts for rerdell, he says that he had; and on being asked what kind of books they were, says they were a small set of books. donnelly swears that they related to the mail business, and seemed to be the books of a firm. at that time nobody was interested in the matter except s. w. dorsey. how did they appear to be the books of a firm? donnelly swears, on page , "there were not more than a dozen accounts in the book." let us see if these were the mail books. he says there was an account against s. w. dorsey; that is one. an account against john w. dorsey; that is two. against donnelly himself; that is three. m. c. rerdell; that is four. interest account; five. a mail account; six. an expense account; seven. a profit and loss account, eight; and an account with william smith, nine. that is all he gives. but he says they were not to exceed a dozen. on page gibbs says there was an account against colonel steele and mrs. steele. i take it they would be in one account. that makes ten. then there was an account against jennings, making eleven; and an account against perkins, making twelve. let us see if we can go a little further. mr. rerdell swears to a cash account; that is thirteen. also an account against j. h. mitchell; that is fourteen; and one against belford, making fifteen. you can deduct your jones and your smith and have one more account in the book then than donnelly swears was in it. he swears they were not to exceed a dozen. that was the book with all this mail business. we will follow it up a little. rerdell says he opened the books according to the memorandum, and swears consequently that there was a cash account and an account with j. h. mitchell. j. b. belford, i believe, he afterwards mentioned. now, according to gibb's testimony there was an account with perkins. understand i say that the only book he had, if he had any, was a private book in which he kept his own expense accounts and his own matters, and it was not a book with which stephen w. dorsey had any connection. i say that the william smith and samuel jones account he has added for the purpose of having something to sell to the government. that is my claim. i say they were his private books. there was an account with perkins. you have heard all the testimony, gentlemen. you know all the contracts in this case. you know all the subcontracts. there is not a single solitary account in this book with any subcontractor mentioned in any of these subcontracts except perkins and possibly jennings. who was perkins? perkins was a subcontractor on the route from rawlins to white river. that is the route that rerdell had an interest in himself. rerdell made the subcontract with perkins himself, and consequently he had an account with perkins in his own private book, and had not any account with the rest of the subcontractors. we also find, according to gibbs, that there was an account against jennings. who was jennings? that brings us to the jennings's claim. that is the claim that he told mr. woodward about, when he wanted to sell out in the first place, and that is the claim that he told mac-veagh and the postmaster-general about. strangely enough and wonderfully enough we find that claim in this very book. that shows whether this was a private book or whether it was a book kept for the accounts of dorsey. now, by looking at the post-office reports i find that nine hundred and ninety-four dollars was paid to rerdell for jennings on the th day of april, , and the question i ask is did he keep two sets of books at that time? he produced in court a book of his own, kept at that time with the jennings account in it. the book that was copied had the perkins account, and why? because it was a special account in which rerdell was interested. they have failed to prove that there was in that other book any account in which dorsey was necessarily interested, except the account kept with rerdell showing rerdell's transactions with dorsey. we now come to the testimony of mr. gibbs. mr. gibbs says his wife copied a journal between christmas, , and the st of march, . rerdell says that she copied the journal and ledger both. the witness, gibbs, gives the color of the book. he says it was not red; it was either brown or black. mr. gibbs remembers nothing about the smith account, whether it was large or whether it was small. he finally swears that he does not really recollect anything about it, except that rerdell brought the book there and said he wanted to get a copy made to send to dorsey in new york, and that he returned the book and the copy to rerdell. he swears that he remembers as names in this book smith, jones, and s. w. dorsey, and m. c. rerdell. those were all he could think of. he does not remember the name of john h. mitchell. on page , he says he believes that rerdell came to him and asked him during the trial if he recollected the name of william smith, and he swears that when rerdell asked him if he recollected the name of william smith, he distinctly told him that he did not. then he asked him if he recollected the name of jones, and he swears that he told rerdell when he asked him that question that he did not. i read from page : i tried not to remember anything of this. how can a man try not to remember? what mental muscle is it that he contracts when he tries not to remember? that is a metaphysical question that interested me greatly when the man was testifying, for he said he tried not to remember. why did he try not to remember? i didn't want to be called into court if i could possibly help it, and for quite a long time did not mention the fact that i knew anything of the books. but when i was called into court, i thought of all the circumstances connected with the time that i copied the books; and a few days ago, or a week or so ago, in going home one night, and thinking this thing over in my mind, and thinking of everything i could think of, my mind reverted to a conversation i had had at the time, laughing and looking over the books. it was not only one book, then. and i wrote a great many letters, and read a great many names--they must have been in the letter-books--and was laughing about the peculiarity of the names, and even made the remark, "there is even smith and jones in it." what a wonderful circumstance! in copying the books and making an index of the three letter-books he found smith and jones. the difficulty would have been not to find smith or jones. that is the evidence of that man. when rerdell first went to him, he told rerdell distinctly, "i remember no name of smith; i remember no name of jones." and then he waited until rerdell went on the stand and swore that he copied those books, and that the names of smith and jones were in them, and then his memory was refreshed, and he came here and swore that the names of smith and jones were there. all of a sudden it came to him, like a flash, and he subsequently had the conversation with his wife. gentlemen, you may believe it; i do not; not a word of it. he is mistaken. he has mistaken imagination for memory; he has mistaken what mr. rerdell told him now for something he thinks happened long ago. he took the letter-books, too. may be there is where he found some of his strange names. rerdell says, in swearing to the letter which he says was written by dorsey to bosler on the th of may, , that he (s. w. dorsey) took that book, all his own books that were not used for the mail business, and boxed them up. when? in . mr. kellogg swears that after they were boxed up they were sent to new york. when? in . and yet rerdell swears that between christmas and new year's, , those books were at the house of mr. gibbs to be indexed. it will not do. and rerdell swears that he had the letter-book containing the letter of may , here in , when he went to macveagh, and yet, according to his own testimony, that book was sent to new york in . and he swears that the three letter-books--and i will call your attention to them after a while--that he had here, commenced on the th of may, and ended, i think, in april or may, . he swears that the letter written by dorsey to bosler was written on the th of may, , and then he swears that the first letter in the three letter-books was dated the th of may, two days afterward. so he had not the book here. i knew he did not have it, because if he had had such a book with such a letter, he never would have gone to new york to steal a book; he would have stolen that one. torrey took charge of the books january , , and he kept them until the st of may, , in the boreel building, and then at that time moved to broadway, and kept them there until the last of april, . now, gentlemen, i will come to those red books again in a moment. here is a little piece of evidence about the books. you know it was the hardest thing in the world to find out how many books this man had, how many times they were copied, who copied them, and what he did with the copies; and he got us all mixed up--counsel for the prosecution, the court, counsel for the defence--none of us could understand it. "how many books did you have? what did you do with them?" "well, i took them to new york. no, i did not; i had some of them here." finally i manufactured out of my imagination a carpet-sack for him. i said, "didn't you take these books over to new york in a carpet-sack?" he said "yes," he did. he jumped at that carpet-sack like a trout at a fly. let me call your attention to some other evidence, on page , near the bottom. donnelly is testifying: q. was it an exact copy of the book?--a. it was not. q. in what did it differ from the book you were keeping?--there were some items left out. q. what accounts did you leave out?--a. i left the william smith account out. q. what did you do with that amount in order to balance the books? now, i want you to pay particular attention to this answer. a. my recollection is that i carried it to profit and loss. q. on the books or on the balance sheet?--a. on both. now, remember, these were the books made out to fool the committee. i suppose there are some book-keepers on this jury. i suppose mr. greene knows something about book-keeping, and mr. evans, and mr. crane, and mr. gill. i do not know but you all do. and you know that when you carry an amount to profit and loss you do not throw the name away; you keep the name. if you have charged against robert g. ingersoll five thousand dollars, which you never expect to get, and you want to charge it to profit and loss, you make the charge and you put my name against that. you put profit and loss against robert g. ingersoll's debt. everybody that ever kept a book knows that. if you carry an amount to profit and loss you rewrite the name of the person who owes the debt. so that when he says, "my recollection is that i carried it to profit and loss," there would be a name twice in the book instead of once. if it was simply in the book once it would be, "william smith, debtor, eighteen thousand dollars." but if you carry that to profit and loss you must credit profit and loss by this william smith amount, and consequently get the name in the book twice instead of once. and that is what they call covering it up. they were so afraid that somebody would see an account against william smith in one part of the book that they opened another account in the profit and loss business and put it in again. that would be twice. now, let us go on a little: q. were there any other accounts transferred in the same way?--a. i rather think there were, but i am not certain. q. did you make the books balance on your copy?--a. yes, sir. q. how long were you working on that copy?--a. i was working on it two evenings and all of one night. now, recollect, in the copy that he made, he carried the account of william smith--and may be jones, he does not remember--to profit and loss. now, let us take the next step. let us go to page . this is as good as a play. donnelly swears that when he made the first copy he carried the william smith account and some other to profit and loss. rerdell swears that acting upon the hint of general brady he got a man to do--what? to make another copy and leave out the items that had heretofore been charged to profit and loss. donnelly swears that he balanced the books, and he is the only man that ever did balance the books, according to the testimony. after rerdell had been subpoenaed to appear before the congressional committee, he got another man, whom he swears he put to work on the books, designating the entries to be left out by drawing a pencil mark through them; that he told him to make up a new set of books, leaving out those entries, but to leave the books so that they would balance, taking the entries that were stricken out, and also the same amount that had been carried to profit and loss, and leave them entirely out. rerdell swears that prior to that time these accounts had been carried to profit and loss, and that he struck out the credits to dorsey. then the evidence as it stands is this: rerdell swears that mrs. gibbs copied the journal and ledger. gibbs does not swear it, but rerdell does. that made four books. then he got donnelly to make another set of books with the william smith and dorsey accounts carried to profit and loss. that is six books. after he had been subpoenaed by the committee he got another man to make a new set of books and leave out the william smith and dorsey accounts and the profit and loss account, and that makes eight books. and there we are, so far as that is concerned. now, gentlemen, i have come to one other view of this case. i hope that you will not forget--because i do not want to speak of it all the time--that this man rerdell swears that he had the original letter-press copy of that letter which he says dorsey wrote to bosler. do not forget that. he says he had that before he went to new york to steal the red books; do not forget that. and that he gave that testimony away; do not forget that. that he says he had it copied by miss white, and they do not introduce miss white to show that she copied it; do not forget that. do not forget, too, that he had when he was there the tabular statement in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. mr. ingersoll. [resuming.] gentlemen, on page mr. rerdell gives the contents of a letter which he says dorsey wrote to him the night he, rerdell, left new york, and when he says he had the book with him. he swears, you remember, that afterwards dorsey tore the letter up. let me read you the letter as he says it was written: the letter started out by stating that he did not believe the report that had been brought to him in reference to myself, and that he also believed the affidavit story to be a lie. he plead in the letter for the sake of his wife and children and himself, and his social and business relations, and the friendship that had long existed between us not to do anything for his injury; for god's sake to reconsider everything that i had done and take no steps further until he could see me. it was in that strain, simply begging me not to do anything further until he could see me. now, let us analyze that letter, keeping in our minds what rerdell has sworn. rerdell has sworn that when he went to the albermarle hotel he told dorsey what he had done; that he had had the conversations with macveagh and james. let me call your attention to the dispatch from jersey city. first, dorsey wrote to rerdell that he did not believe the report that had been brought to him; _that had been brought to him_. he could not have used that word "brought" if rerdell had been the bringer. if rerdell had made the report to him in person he could not have written to rerdell, "i do not believe the report that has been brought to me." the use of the word "brought" shows that somebody else told him; not the person to whom he wrote. "the report." what report? there is only one answer. the report that rerdell had been in consultation with the government. he writes to rerdell, "i don't believe that report that has been brought to me," and yet when he wrote it, if rerdell's testimony is true, he knew that rerdell had given him that very report and he knew that rerdell would know that he, rerdell, had told dorsey that very thing. second, that he, dorsey'', believed the affidavit story to be a lie. there is again in this horizon of falsehood one little cloud of truth. rerdell had not made an affidavit. he had told james, macveagh, woodward, and clayton what you know, but he had not made any affidavit, and when he was charged, if he was, with having made an affidavit, it delighted him to have one little speck of truth, just one thing that he could honestly deny. that was the one thing. he had not yet made an affidavit. third, dorsey plead with him in the letter for the sake of his wife, his children, himself, his social and business relations, and the friendship that had long existed between them, not to do what? not to do anything further. according to rerdell, he told him in the letter he did not believe he had done anything. rerdell swears that he wrote to him in the letter that he did not believe the report; that is, that he had yet done anything, and then wound up the letter by begging him, for god's sake, not to do anything _further_. how came he to use the word "further"? "don't take any further steps. i know that you have not taken any step at all, but do not, i pray you, take any further steps." that letter will not hang together. dorsey swears he never wrote it. finally, the letter comes down to this: "i don't believe the report. i do not believe you have done anything. but, for god's sake, do not do anything more." it is like the old scotch verdict when a man was tried for larceny. the jury found him not guilty, but stated at the end of the verdict, "we hope the defendant will never do so again." the first part of this letter shows that dorsey did not believe that he had done anything. the last part of it shows that he did believe he had done something and that he must not go further. no one can tell why he introduced the word "further" into this letter upon any other hypothesis. now, i read to you, from page , what rerdell says happened at the albermarle hotel: he charged me with holding interviews with mr. james, the postmaster-general, and the attorney-general, and asked me what i meant by it. i told him my action was in his behalf; that i had been keeping up with the newspapers, and knowing the facts in regard to this mail business, what i had done was done in his behalf. that is, he did not deny that he had these conversations, did not deny the report, did not deny that he had met the attorney-general and the postmaster-general, but said: my action was in your behalf. and then, according to rerdell, after that dorsey wrote him a letter, in which he said, "i do not believe the report," although rerdell had made the report to him himself. may be that is the reason he did not believe it. now, let me read to you the conversation on his return from new york and see how it agrees with the letter. it is on page : mr. dorsey immediately brought up the conversation that we had had over in new york, and what i had done by going to mr. mac-veagh, and asked me if i intended to ruin him. i said no, i did not; it was not my intention to ruin him; it was my intention to help him out of what i thought to be a bad difficulty. q. what did he say?--a. he then asked me if i had done anything further since i had left him. yet in the letter that he wrote him from the albermarle hotel he said that he did not believe the report and did not believe that he had done anything against him. the first thing he asked him when he got here was, "have you done anything further against me?" i said no, i had not; i had not been near mr. macveagh. he then says, "well, how shall we get out of this?" i says. "mr. dorsey, i will do anything that i can except to commit perjury." a very natural remark for mr. rerdell to make. he would do anything but that. that testimony shows that dorsey never wrote the letter which rerdell says he did write from new york. that testimony shows that they did not have the conversation in new york that rerdell says they had. that testimony shows that they did have exactly the conversation which mr. dorsey swears they had. now, i come, gentlemen, to the affidavit of june , . i would like the letter of july , , which is on page . you understand this affidavit was made in consequence of the conversation, as he says, that he had with dorsey after dorsey came back from new york, in which he said he would do anything except commit perjury, and when dorsey told him, "damn it, what does that amount to when a friend is involved? i would not hesitate a moment." consequently he swears that he made up his mind for the sake of friendship to swear to a lie for mr. dorsey. that is what he says now. on the th of july, , while we were in the midst of the other trial, and when mr. rerdell, as he says, contemplated going over to the government, and when he would not put evidence in our hands against himself, he wrote this letter: july , . senator: what i am going to say here may surprise you, while, judging from certain circumstances that to me are easily to be seen, you may not be taken by surprise. to commence with this, it will be necessary to go back about a year to the time when, looking forward to the inevitable result of the star-route matters--i started to put myself in accord with the government. at that time i had no thought of being included in any prosecution or indictment, supposing that as an agent i could not be held criminally responsible. had i for one moment thought it possible nothing could have changed my mind, even anxious as i was to benefit you. the consequence was, i listened to bosler and did what i will ever regret. first, because of the unenviable notoriety given me in consequence of doing what he persuaded me to do. who persuaded him? mr. bosler. he writes that on the th of july, , when, as he said, he had made up his mind to go over to the government, and when he would not willingly put a club in our hands with which to dash out his brains. second, because, let this case go as it may, i am still left under a cloud--that is a pitiable statement. that man under a cloud!--both with your friends and acquaintances, and the public generally. here comes, gentlemen, the blossom and flower of this paragraph: and that, too, almost penniless. then the letter goes on: these are stern facts, and cannot be ignored, while had i continued acting with the government my reputation would have been clear, and no doubt been appointed to a good position. the government must have promised the gentleman an office when he went, in june, , to woodward and to clayton and to the attorney-general and to the postmaster-general. according to this letter, among other things he was to have an office, the steamboat route was to be reinstated, the jennings' claim was to be allowed, his father-in law was to get a clerkship, and according to this letter he also was to have a position. that is civil service reform! what does he say? at least i have every reason to believe such would have been the result. he would have had an office, he has every reason to believe. why? they must have promised it to him. this now brings us to the present time. i have an opportunity to redeem myself, and think it best to do so, as by so doing i can be entirely relieved of the indictment. the government then must have promised him in that the indictment should be dismissed as against him. is it possible that he would tell a lie, gentlemen? is it possible the prosecution will say that he lied on the th of july, , but in , having met with a change of heart, he told the truth? no. in taking this step let me say this: it is the result of much thought and also of preparation. i think so. the preparation of several papers. i have realized the fact that all you and bosler desired was to use me, and when no longer needed i could go to the devil. well, i think that is where he has gone. therefore i have concluded to be used no longer, and propose to look out for myself. to-day i am putting things in order, so as to commence right tomorrow. i regret this on your family's account, but i too have a family, and owe it to them to put myself right. you see, gentlemen, he wanted to leave an unspotted reputation to his children. i deem it as being due to you that i should give you notice of my intention. very truly, m. c. rerdell. now, gentlemen, he comes on the stand and swears that he made this affidavit, not being overpersuaded by bosler, but because dorsey with tears and groans besought him to make it. yet on the th of july, , he says he made it because he was overpersuaded by bosler, and he says, too, "had i remained with the government my reputation would have been clear, and i have every reason to believe i would have had a good position." he says, "i have another opportunity to be entirely relieved from the indictment." these gentlemen say he never was promised immunity. that simply shows you cannot believe mr. rerdell when he is not under oath, and what he has sworn to here shows you cannot believe him when he is under oath. now i come to the affidavit. i will not spend a great deal of time upon it. mr. rerdell, with extreme ease, without the slightest hesitation, went through that entire affidavit, picking out with all the facility imaginable, every paragraph written by dorsey and every paragraph written by himself. i was astonished at his exhibition of memory. i finally asked to look at the copy of the paper he had, and when i got that in my hand i found that every word that he swore was written by dorsey had been underscored with a blue pencil. that accounted for the facility with which he testified. i found afterwards that that paper had been given him by mr. woodward and that he had gone through and marked such portions as mr. dorsey wrote, according to his testimony, or had marked those that he wrote, leaving the others unmarked, so that at a glance he could tell which way to swear. before i get through with the papers in this case there is another thing to which i want to call your attention. all the papers as to which witnesses were called on the subject of handwriting are marked. i will show you that every one has a little secret mark upon it, so that the man who swore might know which way to swear simply by looking at the signature and at no other part. there has been a great deal of preparation in this case. now, rerdell swears as to the parts of the affidavit that dorsey wrote and the parts that he wrote. his object in swearing was to entirely relieve messrs. james and macveagh from having made any bargain with him to steal mr. dorsey's books, and to entirely relieve them from any suspicion, as well as to relieve every other official of the government from any suspicion of having promised him any pay in any shape or manner for the making of this affidavit. he swears in the first place, that dorsey wrote this: my story captured them completely, and i took occasion to refer to the steamboat route and the jennings' claim. mr. james remarked that he knew all about the jennings' matter, that jennings had been badly treated, and he ought to get the money, and should; that he would investigate the steamboat route and see if anything could be done; that that was the worst part, and his special agents had reported it; nevertheless he would see if something could not be done. on page , in his cross-examination, mr. rerdell swears that the words--mr. james remarked--were not written by dorsey, but were written by himself. on the same page he swears that the words--that jennings had been badly treated--were not written by mr. dorsey, but were written by himself. on his examination-in-chief he swore that these words were written by dorsey. on his examination-in-chief he swore that dorsey wrote this: and to further deceive them and learn their plans, carried the letter-book containing--and then he wrote--the much-talked of oregon correspondence. afterward, when cross-examined, he swears, i think upon the same page, , that he himself wrote the words: carried the letter-book containing. that dorsey did not write them. he also swears in his examination-in-chief that dorsey wrote these words: making only one mistake, or rather slip, by which mr. macveagh could, as a good lawyer, have detected me, and that was by stating that i had kept a set of books. on his examination-in-chief he swears that mr. dorsey wrote those words. on cross-examination he admits that dorsey did not write them and that he wrote them. on his examination-in-chief he swears that he wrote this himself: he said, "well, mr. rerdell, i am in a position where i cannot make promises, but if you will place yourself in full accord with the government, you shall not lose by it, and i would advise you not to receive any salary from dorsey this month. it will be all right." on cross-examination he takes it back, and swears, on page , that dorsey wrote the words: it will be all right. he was afraid those words might be given too wide a significance and might in some way touch the attorney-general, and consequently he swore that he swore wrong when he swore that he wrote them, and that as a matter of fact dorsey wrote them. then, on his examination-in-chief with the marked paper before him, and having plenty of time to manufacture his testimony, he swore that he wrote the words: he asked me--in his own handwriting, and that dorsey wrote these words--when i was going to new york to get those books. i replied, "on sunday night." he said, "don't put it off too long, as they are all-important." on his examination-in-chief he swore that dorsey wrote those words, and on cross-examination he admitted that he wrote every one of those words himself. when he was cross-examined he had not the paper before him. his memory was not refreshed by the blue pencil mark. so on his examination-in-chief he swore that he wrote these words: as i was about leaving he--meaning the attorney-general--said, "mr. rerdell, you have put yourself in full accord with us, and i have this to say, you shall be well taken care of and your matters shall be attended to." on cross-examination, on page , he swears that dorsey wrote the words: your matters shall be attended to. but he still admitted that he, rerdell, wrote the words and put them in the mouth of the attorney-general: you shall be well taken care of. he says in his letter of july , : if i had remained with the government i have every reason to believe i would have a good position. what next? mr. rerdell, in his examination-in-chief, swears that he himself wrote these words: the next evening i called on mr. woodward to see if he had anything more to say, and he told me a place had been found for my father-in-law, and to give the application to senator clayton; to make the application for the interior department, as it was best not to put him into the post-office department for fear of criticism; that the appointment should be made at once. it was all arranged. the next day i saw clayton, who said the same thing. on cross-examination, at page , he swears that dorsey wrote a part of this; that dorsey wrote the following words: as it was best not to put him into the post-office department for fear of criticism. when he testified on direct examination he had this marked paper before him; in the absence of the paper, on the cross-examination, he takes his solemn oath that he did not write it, but that senator dorsey did. what confidence can you put in that kind of testimony? i would like to have you, gentlemen, some time, or i would like to have anybody who has the slightest interest in the thing, read this affidavit and see whether it is the work of two or the work of one. you let two men write, one writing one paragraph and the other another paragraph, and then you read it; there is no man in the world accustomed to read books that cannot instantly detect the difference in style, the different mode of expression, the different use of language. nobody can see any difference in the writing; nobody can see the slightest difference in the mode of expression; the sharpest verbal mechanic that ever lived cannot see a joint between these paragraphs. they emanated from the same brain; they were written by the same hand; and if any man, who has ever read one book clear through, will read that, he will see that one person wrote it all. but mr. bliss tells you that here is a passage that shows the handiwork of s. w. dorsey, because dorsey was a politician: he also said that you, mr. president, had told mr. dorsey you could not interfere in this investigation and prosecution; that if you did, the public would say that the president and a secretary, who shall be nameless, but whose name i could guess, had taken the money of the star-route ring while they were in congress, or the postmaster-general and attorney-general had taken it since, and therefore he (dorsey) must look to the courts for vindication. that is the passage upon which mr. bliss relies, among others, to show that this was formed in the brain of s. w. dorsey; and yet rerdell swears that that passage he wrote himself. it will not do, gentlemen. now, in order that you may know just about how much force to give to that, let me read you a little from page ; and i read this for the purpose of letting you know the ideas that this man rerdell entertains of right and wrong. i want you to get at the moral nature of this man; i want you to thoroughly understand him. when you examine these affidavits, when you think of his testimony, i want you to know exactly the kind of nature he has, and i want you to remember that he came here upon this stand and swore in this case that he did not consider that it was wrong to interline petitions; that he did not think it was wrong to fill up affidavits; and that is the reason he made the affidavit of july , . although he then knew that these things had been done, still he did not regard them as wrong. you see it is worth something to get at a man, to get at his philosophy of right and wrong; it is worth something to know how he thinks; why he acts; and when you have found that out about a man, then you know whether to believe him or not. i believe the jury did look at this paper and saw all the parts that had been marked by blue pencil, and those parts, i believe, he said dorsey wrote. that is the paper he had before him at the time he testified in chief. but when he came to be cross-examined, not having the paper then before his eyes, he swore in very many important things exactly the other way. we were all astonished at the facility with which he remembered, he pretending to know what parts he wrote and what parts mr. dorsey wrote. i want you to understand this man, and before i get through with him, you will. i want you to know him. now we come to an exceedingly important thing in this case, in the eyes of the prosecution. it is the principal pillar supporting the testimony of mr. rerdell. without that pillar absolutely nothing is left, everything falls into perjured ruin. the first question that arises with regard to the pencil memorandum ( x) is who wrote it, and in order to ascertain who wrote it we must take into consideration all the facts and circumstances that have been established in this case. it is already in evidence, as you remember it, that rerdell kept a route-book. you will also remember that mr. dorsey had books of his own; that he had a bookkeeper of his own, mr. kellogg; that mr. kellogg swears that he kept those books and that nobody else ever made a scratch of the pen in them; that he kept them up till the fall of ; they were then sent to new york; that mr. torrey took possession of those books on the th of january, , and kept them continuously to the last of april, , and that nobody else ever put a mark in them. that is the evidence. the evidence also is that there was in those books a complete mail account. the evidence is also that in those books kept by mr. kellogg were the charges and credits growing out of the purchase of john w. dorsey's interest and peck's interest in the mail routes. mr. merrick. pardon me; point me to that evidence. mr. ingersoll. i will refer to it hereafter. i do not wonder, gentlemen, that they dislike this pencil memorandum. mr. merrick. no, sir; i only want to keep you within correct limits. mr. ingersoll. i understand that. i do not blame anybody for disliking that pencil memorandum. mr. merrick. you can convict rerdell as much as you like. mr. ingersoll. when you come to show that he is guilty his countenance will light up with the transfiguration of joy. there will be no more delighted auditor than mr. rerdell when his crimes are painted blackest. it shows you the moral nature of the man. now, as i say, the evidence is that there was a route-book kept; that that route book contained all the information that mr. dorsey or any one else would want about the routes themselves; consequently, that there was no propriety in keeping any other set of books. mr. rerdell could keep books for himself, but not for s. w. dorsey. dorsey had a set of books, and had another book-keeper. why should he have another set opened by rerdell? rerdell kept a route-book that gave him all the information that he could possibly desire. mr. wilson. rerdell did not handle the money. mr. ingersoll. of course not; there was no money at that time to handle; they had not got as far as the handle. now, there is another little point: why should dorsey voluntarily put himself in the power of rerdell by saying, "i have paid money to brady"? what was the necessity of it? what was the sense of it? rerdell was his clerk. why should he take pains to put himself, the employer, absolutely in the power of his clerk? why should he take pains to make himself the slave of the man he was hiring by the month? why did he wish not only to make mr. rerdell acquainted with his crime, but to put in the hands of rerdell evidence written by himself? see, gentlemen, you have got to look at everything from a natural standpoint. of what use was it to mr. dorsey to keep that account? dorsey at that time had no partner. dorsey at that time did not have to respond to anybody. of what use was it to him to put down in a book, "i paid brady eighteen thousand dollars"? was he afraid brady would forget it? was he afraid he would forget it? did he want his clerk to help him keep the secret, knowing that if the secret got wings it would render him infamous? let us have some sense. the government introduced it. they also introduced a witness to prove that it was in dorsey's writing. rerdell swore that it was. their next witness, boone, thought part of it might be and part might not be; it did not look right to him; he rather intimated that mr. rerdell wrote part of it. and right there the government dropped. no expert was brought. there were plenty of experts right over here at the bureau of engraving and printing, plenty of experts in philadelphia and new york, plenty of judges of handwriting. right up here in congress were twenty or thirty senators who sat for six years in the senate with stephen w. dorsey, served on the same committees with him and had seen him write every day; clerks of those committees who had copied page after page of his writing. not one of them was called. the government, with its almost infinite power, with everything at its command, brought no expert. that was the most important piece of paper in their case. and yet they allowed their own witness to discredit it; their own witness swore, in fact, that rerdell had manufactured the incriminating part of it. and yet they sent for no expert to swear to this writing. don't you believe that they talked with somebody? has not each one of you in his mind a reason why they did not bring the ones that they talked with? they left it right there without another word. now, why? simply because they could get no man to swear, except rerdell, that this is in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. that is the reason. you know that rerdell "kept this as a voucher." what for? was any money paid out on it? no. was it a receipt for any money? no. but he "kept it as a voucher." you see he was in a difficulty. how did he come to keep it all this time? it would hardly do for him to say that he did not try to keep it, that it had just been in the waste-basket of forgetfulness, and had suddenly come to life by a conspiracy of chance and awkwardness. it would not do for him to say that he made it. so that he had to say that he kept it, and then he had to give a reason for keeping it. what was the reason? he said he "kept it for a voucher." i suppose you [addressing mr. greene., a juror] have kept books. is that what you would call a voucher? yet that is the reason the poor man had to give. i pitied the man when he got to the point. i am of such a nature that i cannot entirely, absolutely, and perfectly hate anybody, and when i see the worst man in trouble i do not enjoy it much; at least i am soon satisfied, and would like to see him out of it. here he was swearing that he had this for a voucher. now, there are some little things about this to which i will call your attention. here is the name of j. h. mitchell. an account was opened with mitchell, but he does not tell him to charge mitchell with anything; there is nothing opposite mitchell's name. how would he open an account with mitchell without anything to be charged against him or to be credited? he put in the index of the book, "j. h. mitchell, page ." you turn over to page , and you find mitchell debtor to nothing, creditor the same--silence. not a cent opposite the name on either side. mitchell was not an employee. mitchell was not a fellow that they were to have an account with by the day. then john smith is rubbed out and samuel jones written under it. rerdell says he wrote samuel jones. i say he did not. i want you to look at it after awhile and see whether he wrote it or not. now, gentlemen, it so happened that when this pencil memorandum was introduced it struck me that the m. c. r. looked a great deal like rerdell's handwriting, and you will remember that i suggested it instantly, and said to the jury, "look at the m. c. r." now, gentlemen of the jury, i want you to look at that m. c. r.; i want you to see how the first line of the m. is brought around to the middle of the letter, and then i want you to see exactly how the c. and the r. are made. take it, mr. foreman, and look at it carefully. and, in connection with that pencil memorandum ( x), i will ask the jury also to look at this settlement with john w. dorsey, made in ( x), and compare the initials m. c. r. where they occur on both papers. m. c. r. occurs twice, i believe, on this ( x.) now look at the formation of the m. c. r. on both papers, mr. lowery, and do a good job of looking, too. now, gentlemen, this is one of the most valuable pieces of paper i have ever had in this case, and it is as good luck as ever happened. i want you to look at the j. w. d. on that paper, and then compare it with the j. w. d. on this paper; you cannot spend your time better. i did not suppose i would ever find one paper that would have everything on it. but, as if there had been a conspiracy as to this paper, there is an s. w. d. on this paper which is substantially the same as the s. w. d. on the other. the m. c. r., the s. w. d., and the j. w. d. on both these papers are all substantially the same, and i think when the jury have looked at it they will say they were written by the same hand. now, gentlemen, there was the testimony of mr. boone that he thinks the upper portion of this pencil memorandum ( x) was written by s. w. dorsey; that it looks like his handwriting down to and including "profit and loss," i believe; i may be mistaken; it may be down to "cash;" and then after "profit and loss" come the names of j. h. mitchell and j. w. d., exactly the same j. w. d. that appears on x. now, what paper is that x? that is an account of john w. dorsey against s. w. dorsey in . he had been out west to take care of some of the routes, and when he came back he settled, and mr. rerdell wrote up the account. that is x, and i proved that it was made in . i believe the prosecution thought at first that it was . that paper shows that it was manufactured by the one who wrote this paper, and by nobody else. now, as i said before, there is no account against j. h. mitchell. opposite william smith there are the figures eighteen thousand. and rerdell says that he wrote samuel jones himself at the suggestion of mr. dorsey. again i ask you, gentlemen, why would mr. dorsey give such a paper to rerdell? why would he give him this false name? why would he put himself in his power? it is very natural that he should give the amounts ten thousand five hundred dollars, ten thousand dollars for john w. dorsey and ten thousand dollars for peck, because the evidence shows that those transactions actually occurred. the evidence shows, not only in one place but in many, that the ten thousand dollars was paid to john w. dorsey, the ten thousand dollars was paid to peck, and that the ten thousand five hundred dollars was advanced at that time by s. w. dorsey. consequently that is natural; it is proper. but my opinion is that he never wrote one word, one line of the pencil memorandum. it was all made, every mark upon it, by mr. rerdell. he is the man that made it. did he have it when he went to macveagh? no. did he have it when he went to the postmaster-general? no. did he have it when he went to woodward? no. did he have it when he made his affidavit in july, ? no; or he would not have made it. did he have it when he went to mr. woodward in september? no; or else mr. woodward would have taken the stand and sworn to it. did he have it when he made his affidavit in november? i say no. who made it? rerdell manufactured it for this purpose: that he might have something to dispose of to this government; that he might have something to swap for immunity. he "kept it as a voucher." why did not these gentlemen bring senator mitchell to show that he had some account with senator dorsey in may, ? why did not the government bring mr. mitchell? they knew that their witness had to be corroborated. they knew that the law distinctly says that such a witness cannot be believed unless he is corroborated. they also know that the law is that unless such a witness is wholly corroborated he cannot be believed; that you are not allowed to pick the raisins of truth out of the pudding of his perjury. you must believe him all or not at all. he must be received entire by the jury, or with the foot of indignation he must be kicked from the threshold of belief. they know it. why did they not bring senator mitchell to show that he had some account with s. w. dorsey in ? but we heard not a word from them. what more? rerdell says that was either in april, before he went west, or in may, after his return; and at that time, according to his testimony--that is, according to this memorandum--eighteen thousand dollars had been paid to mr. brady for expedition. and then following, in the month of june, before the quarter ended, eighteen thousand dollars more. that makes thirty-six thousand dollars paid to brady. what else? ten thousand dollars to john w. dorsey; forty-six thousand dollars that makes. ten thousand dollars paid to peck; fifty-six thousand dollars that makes. he had also advanced himself ten thousand five hundred dollars; that makes sixty-six thousand five hundred dollars advanced, and not a dollar yet received from the government. and that by a man who gave away seventy per cent, of a magnificent conspiracy because he had not the money to go on. all you have to do is to think about this. just think of the situation of the parties at the time. i tell you i am going to stick to this subject until you understand it. mr. gibbs swears that the name of mitchell was not in the books when he saw them, and yet those books were opened from this memorandum. gibbs is the man who has such a control over his mind that he can "try not to remember." when i was a boy i used to hear a story of a man going around saying that nobody could control his mind for a minute; that nobody could think of one thing for a minute without thinking of something else. but there was one fellow who said, "i can; i can think of a thing a minute and not think of anything else." he was told, "if you do it, i will give you my horse, and he is the best riding-horse in the country; if you can say the first verse of 'mary had a little lamb,' and not think of anything else, i will give you my horse, and he is the best riding-horse in the country." the fellow says, "how will you tell?" "oh, i will take your word for it." so the fellow shut up his eyes and said: mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that-- "i suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?" mr. gibbs is the man who had such control of his mind, and he tells you that the name of j. h. mitchell was not in the book. mr. donnelly says he does not remember any such name as j. h. mitchell, and yet he holds an office. he has the poorest memory for any one under the present administration, i ever saw. he does not remember the name of j. h. mitchell. who does remember it? mr. rerdell. but mr. rerdell does not say what he had charged to j. h. mitchell; he does not say what was in the book as against j. h. mitchell; he fights clear of that charge. and why? he was afraid that john h. mitchell might testify. according, i think, to mr. rerdell, there was a charge against belford on those books. i do not know why belford's name did not appear on the memorandum, but i will come to belford afterwards. mr. bliss. mr. ingersoll, mr. donnelly does not mention in any way and is not asked on the subject of mr. mitchell. mr. ingersoll. i think he is. i will find it after awhile if i can, and if i cannot i will admit that you are right. i do not know where it is. i do not wish to be interrupted. mr. bliss. i claim the right. mr. ingersoll. well, go on; the poor man only had seven days in which to make his speech. mr. bliss. i have before me mr. donnelly's evidence, and he does not mention the name of mitchell in any manner, and is not asked about it, so far as i can see. i think when the statement is persisted in there should be some reference given to the page. mr. ingersoll. it is on page . mr. davidge. and at page , about two inches from the top. mr. ingersoll.--it is sufficient for my purpose, which is this: that he gave the names of all the accounts he could remember, and in that list of names he did not give the name of j. h. mitchell. so i think i can fairly say to you that that man did not remember any account against j. h. mitchell. mr. gibbs was asked directly whether there was any account against j. h. mitchell, and he did not remember any such. now, the only person that swears to it at all is mr. rerdell. then you come across this contradiction: why should the name of j. h. mitchell be there with nothing opposite to it? i do not know. the prosecution, of course, will be able to find writing of s. w. dorsey that will resemble some of the writing on this pencil memorandum. there is no doubt about that. if it was written by rerdell in imitation of dorsey's writing, it is not surprising that writing really written by dorsey can be found that looks like it. why? because it was written in imitation of his writing, and therefore you can find writing of dorsey's that looks like it; otherwise it would not be an imitation. the next question arises, can you find writing of rerdell's that looks like it? yes; x. the m. c. r., the s. w. d., and the j. w. d. are all exactly like it. now, is it not infinitely surprising that dorsey should imitate rerdell without trying and without an object? is it not perfectly wonderful that this memorandum should be in imitation of rerdell's writing, when it was written by dorsey? but if it was forged by rerdell, it is not wonderful that it looks like dorsey's writing. if dorsey wrote it without thinking of rerdell, i say the accident is infinitely wonderful that he imitated rerdell. which is the more probable--that dorsey imitated rerdell without design and without trying, or that rerdell imitated dorsey with a design, and when trying to do so? that is the way to put this argument, and i hope the gentlemen will answer it. the ingenuity that would be displayed in the answer would a thousand times pay me for the loss of the point. i want them to account for this, how dorsey's natural handwriting comes to look like rerdell's, and how it is that this looks precisely like rerdell's in many instances. why is it, gentlemen? i will tell you. mr. rerdell had written the initials j. w. d., s. w. d., and m. c. r. so often that when he came to put them upon this memorandum he forgot to disguise his hand. that is the reason. you find on x the j. w. d. precisely as it is on the pencil memorandum. you find the m. c. r. precisely as it is on the pencil memorandum. you see if you have done the same thing many times with your hand, the hand gets a mind of its own. it is in that way that you learn to play upon the piano. the hand becomes educated and follows the keys through all the mazes of melody without asking one question of the mind. you can write a name so often, you can make initials so often, that when you come to write them, no matter what your object is, the hand, educated with a mind of its own, pursues the old accustomed motions and paths. that is the reason that j. w. d. and s. w. d. and m. c. r. are exactly in the handwriting of rerdell in this pencil memorandum. according to that, dorsey had paid out in all, i think, about $ , , or something like that there is no truth in it, gentlemen. now, in order to prepare your mind for the next point i am going to make, and in order that you may know something about this man rerdell, i will give you some further information about him. i do not think you are sufficiently acquainted with his character, and any little points that i have i want to give to you. i want to paint his portrait in every lineament, every mark. i want to give you every hair in his head. remember that this witness is to be corroborated. he is to be propped and indorsed. everybody admits that he is the pewter of perjury and has to be plated with the silver of respectability gotten from somebody else. they all admit that. he is an empty bag. somebody has to fill him up before he can stand upright. they admit that. i want to call your attention to a few things as to which he lacked corroboration. on page , rerdell swears that miner told him that the amounts in the bids were filled in by s. w. dorsey. on page miner denies this, and says that he filled in the bids with only two exceptions. on page rerdell swears that the mail matter for j. w. dorsey, peck, and miner was handed him by s. w. dorsey, and that dorsey said that he was going to take the business out of boone's hands. on page , dorsey swears that he had no such conversation with rerdell. on page , rerdell swears that s. w. dorsey applied to him to go west. on page dorsey swears that he did not employ him to go west. on page , rerdell swears that he received instructions from s. w. dorsey as to what to do on the bismarck route. on page , s. w. dorsey swears that that is utterly untrue. on page , rerdell says that he was instructed to establish a _paper post-office_ sixty miles north of the route. what was that for? according to his testimony there was a mistake in the advertisement, and the route was too long, and this was a device to shorten it by adding sixty miles to it to make a post-office thirty miles off the route, or sixty altogether, so as to get pay for the increase of distance. if it was to be a fraud, why put the post-office off the route? why not have it on the route? where would the fraud be if they traveled the sixty miles except in having a postoffice where none was needed? they certainly would make nothing from the government by traveling the sixty miles. if they traveled the sixty miles they would be paid for that sixty miles, but if they wanted pay for the sixty miles without traveling that sixty miles, they would not have put the post-office so far off the route. they would have put it on the route, or very near to it, and pretended that it was off the route. gentlemen, it is infinitely absurd to suppose that stephen w. dorsey would have instructed that man to go out in that country and get up a false post-office. how long would a fraud like that last and live? how long could the money be drawn for that service in that country? they say no human being lived there. who was to be postmaster? who was to make the reports? how long, in your judgment, would it be before the department would find out that there was no such post-office, no postmaster, and no mail? no one could think of a more shallow device than that stephen w. dorsey, a man who is blest with as much brain as any man it is my pleasure to know, would never dream of such an idiotic device. and yet, that is the testimony of mr. rerdell. it may be that mr. rerdell when he got out there thought he could start a town and make money in some other way. but it will not do to say that stephen w. dorsey told him to get up a false and fraudulent post-office when mr. dorsey must have known that the mail could not have been carried to it but a few days before it would have become known that there was no such office. they would have to appoint a postmaster and he would have to live there in his loneliness a hermit of the plain, and would have to make a report like that from agate that gave such delight to mr. bliss to read. there was not a letter sent to that place; not one, nor would there be. mr. dorsey knew if there was a postmaster appointed he would have to report, and in three months from that time he would have to report, first, that there was no post-office; second, that there had never been any mail; and third, that he did not expect any. you see it is utterly absurd to lay such a charge at the door of stephen w. dorsey. on page dorsey swears that the statement is a falsehood--that he never did any such thing. he also denies it on page . on page rerdell swears that he gave pennell a petition for a post-office. on page joseph pennell swears that he never saw the petition; and on page that he never signed it, and that none was sent. on page rerdell swears that he was instructed by s. w. dorsey to build stations fifteen or sixteen miles apart, and use every third station. on page s. w. dorsey swears that no such instructions were given. on page j. w. dorsey swears that they started to build the stations about thirty miles apart, and that after he saw general miles and was told by that officer that there would be, and must be a daily mail, then he concluded to build stations between the stations that he had built going over. that is a sensible, straight story. when he went out they built the stations some thirty-odd miles apart, and when he talked with general miles, general miles told him that there must be a daily service, and then he determined to build intermediate stations as he went back. what was that testimony sworn to by rerdell for? to make you believe, gentlemen, that stephen w. dorsey when he sent rerdell out knew that there was to be expedition, and knew it because he was in conspiracy with the second assistant postmaster-general. the testimony of john w. dorsey lets the light in upon that story. the sun rises, and the mist goes. what is his story? "i went there and built the stations about thirty miles apart, and when i talked with general miles he assured me that there must be expedition and a daily mail, and then i built stations at the intermediate points as we went back." that is the story. it is consistent with itself. is it not wonderful that the government did not also prove by pennell that rerdell gave him instructions to build the ranches, and told him that he had been so instructed by s. w. dorsey? on page rerdell swears that miner told him that vaile was close to brady. on page , miner swears that it is not true; that he never had any such conversation. why did they want a man close to brady? as i explained to you before, gentlemen, they had already, according to their testimony, as they claim, proved that miner had conspired with brady, and yet he was going around trying to find a man close to brady. being a co-conspirator was not close enough. so mr. rerdell is corroborated there again by mr. miner who swears that what rerdell swears is a lie. on page rerdell swears that in november, , miner asked him to write certain words in a line on petition . on page , miner swears that he never asked him to interline any petition. on page rerdell swears he had a conversation with vaile and miner on the th of december, , at the national hotel, about his employment, and that he had a great many conversations there. on page , vaile swears that there never was any such conversation. on page , vaile also swears that he has no recollection of such a conversation then or at anytime. on page , miner swears that the talk was between rerdell and himself, and that vaile was not there. on page rerdell swears that vaile told him that the mail service they had ought to reach six hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand dollars. on page , vaile swears that he does not think he ever said any such thing--does not think it was possible that he ever said any such thing. on page miner swears that vaile never made any such statement in his presence. on page rerdell swears that at the instance of vaile and miner he went west, january , , to put service on the rawlins route. on vaile swears that rerdell did not go west at his instance; that miner gave him, rerdell, a subcontract for the entire pay, for the whole term, and that rerdell undertook it on his own behalf. on miner swears that he made the arrangements with rerdell himself. on page rerdell says that vaile and miner both told him that the service would be increased right away, and to make subcontracts with that in view. on page miner swears that he gave him no such directions, and that rerdell did all he did on his own responsibility, and that vaile did not give him any such authority. it is for you to say., gentlemen, which of these men you will believe. on page rerdell swears that in march, , had a conversation with vaile about an affidavit, and received instructions from vaile or miner. on page vaile swears that he recollects no such conversation and does not think he ever had it. on page rerdell swears that vaile said in the presence of miner that he could get brady to accept an affidavit from a subcontractor. on page vaile swears that he is very sure that he did not say so, and that he never asked brady any such question. on page miner swears that he never made any such statement in vaile's presence. on page rerdell swears that a day or two after vaile says he had seen brady, and that brady had agreed to accept an affidavit from a subcontractor. on page vaile denies this. on the same page, , rerdell swears that he was instructed by vaile and miner to write to perkins and get him to send his affidavit. on page vaile swears, "never!"--that he did not know perkins was a subcontractor. on page miner swears that he has no recollection of it, and that he never instructed rerdell to send any form of affidavit to mr. perkins. on page rerdell swears that miner wrote a form of affidavit. on page miner swears that he has no recollection of it, and that he never instructed rerdell to send any form to perkins. as a matter of fact the perkins affidavit is in the handwriting of rerdell. yet he tells you that miner wrote the form. it will not do. on page rerdell swears that he filled in blanks under the direction of s. w. dorsey--that is, of the perkins affidavit--and filed it under the direction of s. w. dorsey. on page dorsey swears that he never knew there was such an affidavit, and that he never gave such instructions; and more than that, that he never at any time or place gave rerdell authority to change any affidavit or any petition that was to be filed. on page rerdell swears he was instructed to make the subcontract without any reference to expedition; and that he, dorsey, would guarantee the payments if they were not filed. on page s. iv. dorsey swears that he gave him no such instructions. on page rerdell swears that affidavits of peck and dorsey were acknowledged in blank. on page miner swears that so far as he remembers they were filled in before they were signed. again, it may be proper for me to say here: why did not the government call j. s. taylor, the notary of new mexico, to prove that the affidavits were in blank when they were sworn to by john m. peck? why did they not? the law presumes that every officer has done his duty, and when we find at the foot of an affidavit the certificate of a notary public the law presumes that the paper above it was in the precise condition at the time the certificate was placed there in which it is then. that is the presumption of law, and there is only one way to overcome that presumption. you must prove to the contrary. one of the easiest ways on earth to do that is to bring the officer. they did not bring j. s. taylor here from new mexico, the man before whom peck acknowledged the affidavit in this case. it would have been easy to have him come, and to have asked him whether peck did not swear to all these affidavits in blank. they did not call him. they had him here once and that was enough. they did not call him this time. they did not call rufus wainwright, of middlebury, vermont. he is the officer before whom john w. dorsey swore to these affidavits. the gentlemen of the prosecution say the affidavits were in blank, and yet they dare not put upon the stand the notary before whom they were sworn to. it was not because they did not think of it. it was not because they had not the money. the government had money by the million and agents by the thousand. you recollect how they tried to prove the destruction of those dispatches in the western union office. you recollect how they brought here the superintendent, how they brought here agent after agent, how they brought here the man that went around and collected the dispatches, and the man that drove the wagon, and the man that owned the wagon, and the boys that received the dispatches on the street, and the man in the cellar that received them after they got there, and the man that bought them, and the book-keeper that made out the check to pay for them. they brought the man that receipted for them at the railroad, and they followed them from the railroad to holyoke, massachusetts, and brought the superintendent of the factory and the books of the railroad to show they had arrived. they followed those dispatches from paper to pulp and yet it never occurred to them to send to middlebury and get rufus wainwright. they never thought to have j. s. taylor subpoenaed from new mexico. they had all the conveniences of modern civilization at their command and yet they never thought of getting wainwright or taylor. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he never instructed rerdell to get any affidavits in blank. on pages , and , j. w. dorsey swears that he made none in blank; that he has no recollection of any such thing. on page , rerdell swears that he had a conversation with s. w. dorsey about getting blank affidavits. on page s. w. dorsey denies it. on page rerdell swears that s. w. dorsey instructed him to make up the affidavit on route and gave him the per cent, of the increase of pay. what does he say there? from one hundred and fifty to two hundred per cent. mr. merrick. that was afterwards corrected. mr. ingersoll. i thank you for the suggestion. that happened on friday. we adjourned until the next monday morning. he came in the next monday morning, and he said that he had made a mistake, and that it ought to be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty per cent. i immediately went and got the affidavits on the toquerville route, because i said the percentage must be over two hundred per cent, in that affidavit or he would not have changed. i found in the affidavit that it was two hundred and fifty-five per cent., and i found that was why he changed. i followed that out, and i found that was the same route upon which mr. rerdell stole nearly five thousand dollars, according to the testimony of s. w. dorsey, and rerdell did not deny it. so much for toquerville and adairville. we will come to it again perhaps. let me give the pages where all these matters are found. on page dorsey denies the conversation about the affidavits, and also on page . rerdell's, change of his evidence will be found on page . on page rerdell swears that while he was in jail s. w. dorsey had a key to what he called his, rerdell's, office. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he never had a key to rerdell's office, and that he never was in the office but twice, both times with rerdell, and that he never took a paper out of the office except what rerdell gave him. it will also be remembered that when rerdell was asked in his examination-in-chief whether anybody had a key to his office he replied that s. w. dorsey had a key to his office. he did not at that time state that his wife had a key. why? because he wanted it understood that s. w. dorsey was the only person that had a key, and that s. w. dorsey, while rerdell was in jail, went to that office and opened it and robbed it. on cross-examination i made him swear that his wife had a key, and we afterwards found that his wife went there. he knew she had a key. still, in his cross-examination, when asked who had a key, he said s. w. dorsey. what was that for, gentlemen? so that you would infer that s. w. dorsey was the only person who had a key, and that he went there and robbed that office, as i said before. on pages and mrs. cushman swears that she went to rerdell's office with mrs. rerdell. when? about six o'clock in the morning. and that they found the office open? no. they found the office locked, but found papers in a confused condition, and took away some papers. they were there about fifteen minutes. recollect this was the third morning that rerdell was in jail. rerdell went to jail monday evening. that made the visit of mrs. cushman and mrs. rerdell on thursday morning, and they went there at six o'clock. keep that in mind. rerdell got out of jail on friday. george a. calvert, the janitor, visited every room frequently. his testimony is on page . he swears he found the door of rerdell's room unlocked. when? the day before rerdell got out of jail. what time of day? in the morning. what morning was that? thursday morning. when did rerdell get out of jail? friday morning. when did mrs. rerdell and mrs. cushman visit the room? thursday morning. what time in the morning? six o'clock. when did calvert find the room open? that same morning. the women swear that when they went there the room was locked. now the question arises, who opened it? the women. that is all there is to that. mrs. rerdell, on page , swears she got the key on the second day after rerdell's incarceration, in the evening. that would be wednesday evening. she used it the next morning, thursday. on page rerdell swears that on the th of december, , vaile promised him a good salary. on page vaile swears that he has no recollection of any such promise. that is what they call corroboration. on page rerdell swears that in may, , s. w. dorsey said, "you know that john is a man of very little judgment. he does not know how to talk to these contractors." on page s. w. dorsey swears that there never was any such conversation. on page rerdell swears, "as secretary and manager, i kept the books for a short time." on page w. f. kellogg swears that he, kellogg had entire charge of dorsey's books from the summer of to the fall of , and that nobody else ever made a scratch of a pen in those books. on page rerdell swears that dorsey and bosler were having a settlement in new york and sent for the books, and that he took the original books over and left them there, and that he went over to new york in june, , and saw both books there and brought the journal over and left the ledger. on page dorsey swears that the first settlement he had with bosler was in december, , or january, . rerdell swears that the time he got the copy made of his journal by the gibbses, was between christmas, , and . dorsey swears there was not another settlement until november, . the first settlement being in , and rerdell swearing that he took the books over for a settlement, shows that he did not have them here in washington to be copied at the time he says and at the time other people swear that they copied them. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he never sent for any transcript, and that he, dorsey, referred to the route-book, and that rerdell never sent any such book or books as he claimed. on page rerdell swears that he gave copies of the journal to dorsey in june, . that was the time that he made the affidavit. his language by any natural interpretation means that lie handed those copies over to dorsey at the time he made the affidavit on the th of june, . on page dorsey swears that he did not, and on page he again swears that he never had them. on page he again swears that rerdell never brought any book to him except the route-book. on page rerdell swears that dorsey, on the th of may, , him to make up a statement of the routes showing the profits, and that he thinks he gave it to bosler. on page dorsey swears that he never made up any such statement by his direction, and that he never gave rerdell such an order. why should he? according to rerdell's own statement, in which there is not a particle of truth, dorsey, on the th of may, , that very day, had written a letter to bosler, in which he told him about the profits, about how much it had cost him, and about how much it would cost him, and about how much the profits would be, and how much he paid to brady. after writing such a letter to bosler, containing all the facts, why would he want rerdell to make up a statement that was already in the letter itself? nobody can answer. there is not genius enough in this world to make the answer. on page rerdell swears that he saw b, which is a petition, in , and that there were three words in his own handwriting that were not there when he first saw it, the three words being "and faster time." he also swears that he was instructed to put them in by s. w. dorsey. i now say that mr. rerdell never wrote those three words. on page it appears that b was filed april , . on page s. w. dorsey swears that rerdell's statement is false. i will now turn to the testimony of george sears about the petition, b, which mr. rerdell swears was altered by interlineation or the addition of three words, "and faster time." the page is . here comes a witness of the government, apparently a good and honest man, and he swears that the words "and faster time" were in that petition when he signed it. i will take his word for it. i will take his guess as against the other man's oath. on page rerdell swears that he altered b and b by instructions of s. w. dorsey. now, gentlemen, stephen w. dorsey got such a momentum of crime on him and got running at such a rate that he could not stop, and whenever a petition came in he had it altered without reading it. it did not make a bit of difference what the petition asked for. he just said to his clerk, "look and see if there is not any line you can add something to. i want something put in it, and i want it put in now." mr. rerdell says he did these things without any thought. he just made the changes as he was told, without considering whether it was right or wrong. he told you here on the stand that at one time he was requested to get a petition, and he had a lot of names on hand, and so he just wrote a petition and stuck the names to it. he could not even remember the route it was on. it was a matter of so little importance that he did not charge his memory with it. he was told to get a petition in the regular way, and instead of doing that he said he took some names that he had and just wrote a petition and stuck the names on, because that was easier; and it was a matter of so little importance he really did not remember. he was like the gentleman in texas who was tried for murder, but did not remember the name of the man he killed; he did not charge his mind with it. now for b: hon. d. m. key, postmaster-general: we, the undersigned, citizens of the state of colorado, residing near and getting our mail at muddy creek post-office, on route , from pueblo to greenhorn, respectfully represent--i never noticed before that the "p" is interlined in the word "represent." i have no doubt that was done by order of dorsey--that it is necessary that the service on said route should be increased from two trips per week to six trips per week, and a faster schedule. this section of the country is being rapidly settled by people of intelelgence, and we ask the increased service for the benefit of us who have already made our homes here, and also as an inducement to others to settle. we also request that the schedule time be reduced so as to run from pueblo to greenhorn in eight hours, so that citizens along the route may get their mail at a seasonable hour. i have read the petition as it was in the first place. the government tells you that after that petition came here, and after it had been submitted to stephen w. dorsey, he told his clerk to add in the first part of the words "on quicker time;" and yet if he had read the last paragraph he would have seen quicker time was there called for. rerdell says dorsey told him to insert the words "on quicker time," and when i read this last paragraph to him he was stuck. then what did he say? when he got into that little corner and was looking for a mouse-hole, he said he didn't read it and didn't know it was there. do you believe that a man like stephen w. dorsey would deliberately have a petition changed, would deliberately forge a petition, without knowing what was in it and without knowing whether the necessity existed for changing it or not? that falsehood has not even a fig-leaf to cover its absurdity. here is b. it would not have taken long to have read that. rerdell said dorsey had him put in the words "and a faster schedule." i will read the last paragraph to that: we also respectfully request and urge that the running time be reduced so as to run from pueblo to greenhorn in eight hours, so that citizens along the line may get their mails in a seasonable hour. he says stephen w. dorsey, a man of sense, got that petition, read it all over, and then told this fellow to put in "and a faster schedule" when right in the next paragraph it asked for eight hours. a man who will swear that way had rather tell a lie on ninety days' credit than tell the truth for cash. just look at it. that is what they call a corroboration. the more you look at this testimony the more absurdities you find. every truth has an infinite number of signs. every truth has to fit an infinite number of things. infinite wisdom could not manufacture a falsehood that would stand the test of investigation. on page rerdell says, speaking of the three petitions, b, b, and b, "we," meaning s. w. dorsey and himself, "had examined these petitions together, and he," meaning s. w. dorsey, "told me to put in the clause for expedition." now, b was filed april . that is the day he left for the west, and b were filed on the th of may. if they had them all at one time together, and if he and dorsey had talked about them, why were they not filed at the same time? why was one filed april th and the other two on the th of may? that testimony of rerdell's will not do. on page rerdell says that he found among dorsey's papers the tabular statement, about the middle of april, . the first column was the number of the route; in the second the termini; in the third the pay; in the fourth the anticipated pay by percentages, and in the fifth the percentage to t. j. b., thirty-three and one-third, with the figures carried out at the end of the column. he tells you that he had that tabular statement when he first went to macveagh. that tabular statement was in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. yet the attorney-general was not satisfied. he wanted that backed up by a book not in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. that will not do. rerdell also tells you that at the time he went to the attorney-general he not only had that tabular statement, but he had a letter-press copy of the original letter that dorsey wrote to bosler on the th day of may, . he had that letter, the original of which was in dorsey's handwriting, in which he admitted he had paid brady twenty thousand dollars. he had the tabular statement in dorsey's own handwriting in which he was to pay thirty-three and one-third per cent, to brady. yet the attorney-general did not think there was sufficient evidence, and said, "you had better go to new york and steal a book that dorsey never wrote a word in." oh, no; that will not do. on page rerdell swears that he lost that memorandum. i guess he did. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he never made any such memorandum. on page rerdell swears that he employed gibbs and wife to make a true and correct copy of the books in march, ; that he was directed by s. w. dorsey to send him a true transcript of the books in order to settle with bosler, and that gibbs and wife copied the journal and ledger, and that he sent the copy to new york. on page dorsey swears that he never heard of the employment of gibbs and wife, and that he never received any such books or transcripts. on page gibbs swears that his wife copied only the journal, not the ledger. yet rerdell swears that he copied the journal and the ledger. on page gibbs again swears that rerdell brought him one book. what color was it, red, brown, or black? rerdell says he took him two red books. gibbs swears he got one brown book or one black book. that is what they call corroboration. on page rerdell swears with regard to the paper a, that the words, "schedule thirteen hours" were written by miner. if those words, "schedule thirteen hours," were not written by rerdell, then--they were written by somebody else. [ a handed to mr. ingersoll.] i guess this is the petition that was fixed up. it looks as if it had been to a hospital. rerdell says miner wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours." just look at that word "thirteen," gentlemen. you have no idea how it affects your imagination and brain to be indicted seven times. on page boone swears with regard to this same paper and the same words, that there is nothing in the handwriting to indicate that it was written by miner; that it is a back-hand; a changed handwriting. on page miner swears that it is absolutely not true; that the words "schedule thirteen hours" are absolutely and positively not in his handwriting, and further that he never filed the petition. gentlemen, evidence of handwriting is very unsatisfactory necessarily. men do not always write the same. the same man does not always write the same hand. there is the difference of pen, the difference of ink, the difference of paper, the difference of position, and the difference, too, of the man's feelings. at one time he feels in splendid health and at another time he may be tired and worn out. the paper may not be in the same position. the slope of the desk may be different. countless reasons change the handwriting of a person, and when a man swears that certain handwriting is or is not another's handwriting he must swear on the general appearance; he must swear on the impression that it first makes upon him. i know mr. smith and i know mr. jones, but it may be that i could not describe the differences in the faces of the two men so that a stranger could afterwards tell them. yet i know them. it is the effect of all the features upon me. i cannot say it is because of the ear of one, or his nose, or his mouth. i know the combination. i remember the grouping of the features and the form, and that is all i remember. if i am shown a paper and asked, "is that mr. smith's handwriting?" i say it is, or i say no. why? because it looks like it or it does not look like it. i cannot recognize it because an "e" is made in a certain way or because a "d" is turned in a certain way, because the next day he may turn it the other way. you have got to go upon the general impression. on page rerdell swears that the oath on route , marked e, was filled in by s. w. dorsey; that the word "twelve" was written by him, rerdell, after it was filed, and was written because turner told him that the schedule must be twelve hours; that turner handed him the oath and he thereupon changed the "fifteen" to "twelve." on page turner swears that he has no knowledge of any alteration in any affidavit. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he did not know there was any such affidavit; and he also frequently swears that he never asked rerdell to change any affidavit that had been filed, and that he never gave any such orders. these gentlemen find one affidavit about which we did not ask mr. dorsey particularly and they say, "you have not contradicted that." when a man swears that he never gave an order about any affidavit, that covers every affidavit. on page rerdell swears that the oath marked f, on route , was filled in by him after it was signed, under the direction of s. w. dorsey. on page dorsey denies giving any such directions. on page rerdell swears that blanks in the oath f, the second oath, were filled in by s. w. dorsey, but will not say whether before or after execution. on page dorsey says he does not remember doing any such thing; but certainly there is no evidence that dorsey did this after the affidavit had been made. on page rerdell swears that the words "ninety-six" in the petition h, were written by miner. boone, on page , declines to say that miner wrote them. on page miner swears that the words are not in his handwriting, that he never wrote them. on page rerdell swears that he signed a check "s. w. dorsey by m. c. rerdell," and that he had that check at home. it may be that is one of the checks for june drawn upon middleton's bank that we could not find. on page rerdell says that the oath marked i, on route , was filled in by him in washington after it was signed and sworn to, under the direction of s. w. dorsey. on page s. w. dorsey denies that he gave any such directions. on page rerdell swears that s. w. dorsey signed the name of j. m. peck to the warrant g. i have forgotten the day that the draft was given, but i think it was the d day of august. it was paid on august , . all i have to say is that there was an abundance of time for that draft to go to new mexico and to be signed by john m. peck; there was thousands of time. it makes not the slightest difference who signed the name of john m. peck to that warrant. the question is, was that money coming to john m. peck? no. john m. peck had sold out his interest. he was not entitled to one dollar, and it made no difference who signed his name to the check. does it show that there was a conspiracy if dorsey signed his name after peck had sold out his interest in the routes? any draft coming to him came to him simply as the trustee and the draft was for the benefit of the person who bought him out. suppose mr. dorsey had signed his name. would that prove that there was any conspiracy? it would simply be in accordance with his right as the matter then stood. he was entitled to that draft and peck was not entitled to that draft. why? because he had bought him out and paid him ten thousand dollars for his interest. that was all. yet they would claim if that draft happened to be indorsed by mr. dorsey that it would be evidence of a conspiracy entered into in the fall of . on pages and rerdell says that figures were inserted in all affidavits given him by s. w. dorsey, except on route , and that dorsey told him, rerdell, to put them in the blanks. on page s. w. dorsey denies that. on page rerdell says that in august, , he had a talk with miner, who said that they could do nothing while boone was in the combination; that brady was hostile to boone, and that boone's place was to be taken by vaile; and that miner asked his opinion about vaile, and asked what rerdell thought about dorsey's approving it, adding that vaile was very close to brady. on page miner swears that he has no recollection of the conversation, and does not believe any such conversation ever occurred. ah, but they say that when a paper was handed to mr. miner, an affidavit, for instance, he could not give you the history of it; he could not tell you where he was when he wrote it; he could not tell you where he was when he filled it. i would not have believed his testimony if he could. he had to take care of some ninety-six routes. upon those routes there were numberless papers, notices from the department, notices of fines and deductions, of remissions, and everything of that kind. on each route there were probably a hundred papers, and may be more--petitions, affidavits, and papers of all descriptions. if a man should stand up here five years afterwards and pretend that he knew the history of each paper, i would know he had not the slightest regard for truth. mr. miner said when he was shown a paper, "i don't remember ever having seen that paper before; i don't remember when it was written." that was the truth. if he had wished to stain his heart with perjury he could have said, "yes, i remember it. i know absolutely the time i wrote it. i know i sent it to new mexico. i know it was filled up before it was sworn to"; but he was honest enough and he was brave enough to face the truth and say, "i don't remember," and i respected him for it when he did it. whenever you hear the truth, as a rule the first thought is, "may be it won't do." but if it is the truth, the longer you think about it the better it seems, while if it is a lie, the longer you think about it the worse it gets. it would have been, apparently, to mr. miner's interest to say, "i remember it perfectly," but the man had honor enough to tell the truth. and when you come to investigate his evidence it sounds much better than though he had pretended to remember time and place. i call your attention to page ; that is about the affidavit. on page rerdell speaks of the charges made to samuel jones and james b. belford for two thousand dollars. then mr. bliss in his speech, which i will come to after a while, says that mr. rerdell spoke about a charge to j. b. b. he never did, never. he said james b. belford. i started the j. b. b. business. i was the first one who ever said it, and mr. rerdell never swore j. b. b. then they sent out to denver to get a fellow who had the same initials. i will come to this man after a while. on pages and rerdell swears that he had two balance-sheets of the books, made by donnelly; that he showed them to macveagh and woodward. how does it happen that woodward was not sworn about it? nothing would have been of more importance, if they wished to prove the existence of the two red books, than to prove by woodward that mr. rerdell, in june, , showed him copies of those balance-sheets or the balance-sheets themselves. they did not bring mr. woodward on the stand. why? mr. woodward, in my judgment, had he come upon the stand, would have sworn to the truth. rerdell says, "i do not know where they are." then he paused. then i saw the working of his mind just as plainly as though his skull had been opened. he got himself together and swore that he gave them to dorsey in july, . he had to get them out of his hands some way. on page s. w. dorsey swears that he, rerdell, did not give him any balance sheets. on page rerdell swears as to the papers he gave to dorsey--the original journal, and copy of the oregon correspondence made by miss nettie l. white. miss white was not called. he gave these, he says, to dorsey, july , . on page dorsey swears that he did not give them to him, nor did he give a paper of any kind. on page rerdell is asked if he did not admit to judge carpenter, in january, , that he had a memorandum written by himself, which he showed to james and macveagh, and that he made it so much like dorsey's handwriting that he did not think anybody could tell it. what was his answer? "i may have done so." honest man! on page , in answer to the question, "did you not tell carpenter that you brought no book from new york?" the honest man answered: very likely i said i brought no book over from new york. on the same page, in answer to the question, "did you not tell french that you were trying to entrap james?" he admits that it is likely he was. on page he admits that he may have told french that he had learned to imitate the handwriting of dorsey so well that dorsey himself could not tell the imitation; and that he wrote that memorandum in pencil because he could the more easily deceive. honest man! mr. bliss holds s. w. dorsey up to scorn because he endeavored to turn two men out of the cabinet on the testimony of rerdell; and yet he is trying to put four men in the penitentiary on the same oath. do you not think that it is better to get a man out of the cabinet than to put another into the penitentiary? and do you not think it is better that a man be put out of office than that he be put into the penitentiary, his family destroyed, and his home left to ruin, upon the oath of a man who swears that the oath was a lie? dorsey was an awfully wicked man to try to get mr. macveagh out of office on rerdell's testimony. but now they turn around and want to put mr. vaile and mr. miner into the penitentiary on the same testimony. the other testimony was the best, because we did not promise him immunity. i will come to it after a while. on page rerdell swears that he did not have any pencil memorandum that he showed to macveagh, claiming that it was in the handwriting of dorsey, and was asked, "did you not tell bosler that you had?" what does he say? "possibly i did." "did you not tell bosler that you wrote it?" "possibly i did." s. w. dorsey swears on page that rerdell told bosler that it was in the waste-basket, and bosler took the pieces out and put them together. rerdell says he had written it, and in pencil, so that it would look more like dorsey's handwriting. why did you not ask bosler about it, gentlemen, when you had him on the stand to prove your letter? even mr. bliss, in his speech, asked, "why didn't they call bosler?" why didn't you have the fairness to tell all the circumstances? i will tell them all when i get to that part of it. why did you not tell them that you had looked all through mr. bosler's books? on page rerdell swears that he did not get that memorandum out of the waste-basket, but got a note from mac-veagh, and that dorsey was present. on page dorsey swears that it was a pencil memorandum imitating his (dorsey's) hand closely. on page rerdell admits that he very likely told bosler in june, , that he had no book on the train and brought none from new york. in answer to my question, he says, "possibly i did," or "probably i did," tell bosler. i cannot bring other witnesses to contradict him when he admits that he did. that is enough for me. on page he admits that he very likely told judge wilson about the affidavit; that if he told him anything, he told him that no such book existed, and that there was no necessity for any book except an expense book. on page rerdell swears that he had a copy of the day-book and ledger in june, , in dorsey's office; that dorsey took them that day, and that they had been there ever since they were made, to be carried to congress. then he began to gather his ideas, and he says: hold on. i am mistaken. these books were all sent over to new york before that, in the summer of , when i carried the originals over for the last settlement i was present at, between dorsey and bosler. there was no settlement in , the time he speaks of. mr. merrick then says: q. there were two sets of those copies? that would be four copies and two originals. a. no, sir. on page , s. w. dorsey swears that he had the first settlement with bosler in december, , or january, , and had no subsequent adjustment until november or december, ; no settlement between those dates. yet rerdell says that he took those books over in the summer of for a settlement, when there was no settlement, and at the same time carried the originals. a moment before he had sworn that the originals were there in the office in june, . on page rerdell swears that he did not give the books to dorsey in . on page he swears that he did not have the balance-sheet in new york; that he had it in the office in june, . on page , rerdell, in speaking of the pencil memorandum, was cornered, caught. he said, "i have kept it as a voucher." then finally he admits that it was not his property, but was the property of dorsey; and the last admission he made upon that subject was, "i stole it." he says that while he was in jail somebody got into the office and destroyed his papers. and yet, on page , he tells that the first time it ever occurred to him to use that pencil memorandum was after the first trial was over. can you believe that? he was trying to steal it on the th of july, ; was trying to go over to the government on the th day of july, , and did not think that he had that pencil memorandum! writing a letter on that day to dorsey; giving him notice that he was going to desert him; saying in that very letter that he had been persuaded by bosler to make the first affidavit; saying that he was making preparations to go to the government, was going to set himself right, and yet did not remember the pencil memorandum! why? because he manufactured it afterwards. he says that within a day or two after he was out of jail he found this paper a second time. he found it before, and laid it carefully away as a voucher. then he lost sight of it. then he was trying to sell it to the government, and he forgot it; trying to blackmail bosler and dorsey, and forgot it. when he got out of jail he found it. that will not do. how does he say it got to his house? his wife carried it from the office while he was in jail. and yet he would have us believe that dorsey broke into that office and stole all the papers. and yet he says that was in the office, and dorsey did not take it. it will not do. he manufactured that paper after that time. on page rerdell swears that he did not know that he had that paper at that time, at the time he says his wife got the papers. i say he did not; i say he made it afterwards. on page rerdell swears that he had those red books in the office at i street; that he never made any effort to conceal them. and yet kellogg never saw one of those books; never saw rerdell working upon them, and never saw them in the office. on page rerdell swears that he thinks kellogg did some work on those red books; that kellogg helped him (rerdell) make the first entries. on page kellogg swears not only that he did not help him to make those entries, but positively swears that he never even saw any such books. on page kellogg swears positively that rerdell did not keep any books, but a private expense-book and a route-book; and that he (kellogg) never saw any other books; that he never saw a ledger or journal in red leather, kept by rerdell. he swears that he himself kept the three books (the journal, ledger, and cash-book,) and that rerdell never made an entry in them. on page rerdell swears that he never imitated dorsey's handwriting, or tried to, in kellogg's presence. on page kellogg swears that he saw him do it. on the same page ( ) rerdell swears that he never signed dorsey's name to show kellogg that he could imitate it. on page kellogg swears that he did do it. i have just given you a few, gentlemen, of the corroborations of this man rerdell. recollect that you cannot believe him unless he is corroborated. if you believe him at all you have got to believe all, unless you believe he is mistaken. where a man comes on the stand as an informer--and i do not call him an informer--even in that capacity he has to be taken altogether or not at all. now, with all these contradictions upon his head, i will now come to the affidavit of july , . you will remember that i read you the letter of july , in which he says that bosler got him to make the affidavit of . at page rerdell gives an account of this affidavit. dorsey got him in willard's hotel, locked the door, and had him. now, he said to him, "mr. rerdell, i will tell you what i am going to do with you: i am going to have you prosecuted for perjury." let us imagine that conversation. rerdell replies, "what are you going to have me prosecuted for?" "for making the affidavit of june, ." "why," says rerdell, "in that affidavit i swore you were innocent." says dorsey, "don't you know you swore to a lie? do you think i would stand a lie of that kind, sir? do you think i will allow any man willfully, maliciously, and with malice aforethought, to swear that i am an innocent man? i will have you arrested to-night, sir." "well," says rerdell, "my good god, ain't there any way i can get out of this?" "yes; make another affidavit just like it. now, sir, you have perjured yourself and i will arrest you for perjury unless you do it again." "well," says rerdell, "when i get that done you will have two cases against me." "i can't help it," dorsey says. "is that the way you treat a friend? i swore to that lie from pure friendship. don't you remember you took me by both hands and begged me, for god's sake, and for your wife's sake and your children's sake, to make that affidavit? and now are you going to be such a perfect devil as to have me arrested for perjury for making that same affidavit?" dorsey says, "yes, sir; that is the kind of man i am." "well, but," says rerdell, "don't you know the trial is going on now? they are trying to prove, now, that you are guilty, and in that affidavit of mine i swore you are innocent, and how are you going to prove a man guilty when you swear that he is innocent?" dorsey says, "that is my business, not yours. i am going to have you arrested." "but," says rerdell, "you had better hold on, i tell you." "why?" "i have got the red book that i got in new york." dorsey says, "i don't care." rerdell says, "i have got the pencil memorandum that you made for me to open the books upon, and charge william smith with eighteen thousand dollars. and you wrote john smith first, and i changed it to sam jones, don't you recollect, as otherwise there would be two smiths? and there is the account against j. h. mitchell, and j. w. d., and cash, and profit and loss." dorsey says, "i don't care about that. i am not going to allow a man to commit perjury. i am going to have you arrested." rerdell says, "you had better not have me arrested." dorsey says, "why? what else have you got?" "i have got a copy of the letter that you wrote to bosler on the th of may, , which you say that you paid twenty thousand dollars to thomas j. brady. that copy was made by miss nettie l. white." "do you believe i care anything about that? you have perjured yourself, and it is no difference to me whether it was in my favor or not. justice must be done, and i am going to have you arrested." rerdell says, "you had better not. i have got a tabular statement in your handwriting, dorsey, where you had a column for the amount due and the amount received, and another column for thirty-three and one-third per cent, given to brady, and then at the top, in your handwriting, 't. j. b., thirty-three and one-third.'" dorsey says, "i don't care what you have got." rerdell says, "that ain't all i have got, dorsey. i tore out of your copy-book a copy of the letter i wrote to bosler on the st or d of may, , in which i told him that i had gone to brady, and that brady said you were a damn fool for keeping a set of books, and suggested to me to have some copies made, and i had the copies made, and i can prove the copies by gibbs if he does not try not to remember that he made them. now, go on with your rat-killing; go on with your perjury suit." dorsey had him already locked up there, don't you see? but dorsey was bent on having that man arrested for perjury because he had sworn that he (dorsey) was innocent. dorsey was implacable. what else did he do? he put his hand in his pocket and said, "do you see those letters to that woman?" then, sir, when he saw the handwriting he was like that other gentlemen that saw the handwriting on the wall, and he began to get weak in the knees, and says, "dorsey, i hope you are not going to have me arrested for perjury. i am willing to do it again right now, on the same subject." now, it turns out that at that time dorsey did not have those letters. dorsey swears that he never got those letters until after rerdell was put upon the stand. and after he swore that, the government had the woman to whom the letters were written subpoenaed. why did they not place her on the stand? that is for you to answer, gentlemen. that is the affidavit of july . recollect, there was a trial going on at that time in which dorsey was insisting that he was innocent, and although rerdell had sworn that he was, he was going to have him arrested right off. what else did he have against dorsey at that time? now, says rerdell, "dorsey, don't you have me arrested for perjury. i have got a memorandum of that mining stock that was to be given to mcgrew and tyner and turner and lilley for corrupt purposes." what else did he have? after he had agreed to make the affidavit, dorsey wrote out what he wanted him to swear to, in pencil, and gave it to him. and when he got his liberty, when he walked out of that room a free citizen, he had all the papers i have spoken of not only, but he had in his possession a draft, in dorsey's handwriting, of the affidavit dorsey wanted him to make. he made the first affidavit from friendship; the second from fright. you know he never took a dollar for an affidavit. he was not that kind of a man. you might get around him by talking friendship or you might scare him, but you could not bribe him; he wasn't that kind of a man. armed with all these papers he was frightened; so he made the affidavit of july -- now, let us see. he admits that--i will not say every word, but the principal things in the affidavit of june, , are false. he swore to them knowing them to be false. but he tried to get out by saying he did not write them all. writing is not the crime. the crime is swearing that they are true when they are not true. it does not make any difference who wrote it. for instance, you swear to an affidavit, and you afterwards say, "i did not write it." "did you know the contents?" "yes." "did you swear to it?" "yes." what difference does it make who wrote it? and yet he endeavors to get behind that breastwork and say, "i did not write all that affidavit; i only wrote part of it. what i wrote was true, but what i swore to was not." that will not do. so the affidavit of july, , he now swears was a lie. but he gives a reason for writing that, that you know is utterly, perfectly, completely false. you know that dorsey never threatened to have him arrested for perjury because he had sworn in favor of dorsey. you know it, and all the eloquence and all the genius of the world could not convince you that at that time rerdell was afraid that dorsey would have him arrested for perjury. no, sir. now, let us take the next step. mr. rerdell testified, on page , that this letter ( x) was received by him in due course of mail in . upon being asked whether he did not know that s. w. dorsey was here in washington at that time, he replied that he knew he was not. i will read it to you, gentlemen: chico springs, p. o. mountain spring ranch, colfax county, new mexico, "april , . "m. c. rerdell, i street: "dear rerdell: i wish you would get fullest information in regard to all the new post-office lettings and keep posted as to the schemes going on in the department. there are certain routes we want advertised and others we do not. i shall be in washington as soon as the th unless something unexpectedly happens, "faithfully, "dorsey." q. what dorsey was that?--a. that is s. w. dorsey's handwriting. q. and signature?--a. yes, sir. there is where he first speaks of it. at the time that letter was introduced, or in a little time, gentlemen, they also introduced the envelope. i do not know that i should have suspected the letter if they had not introduced the envelope. whenever there is an effort to make a thing too certain i always suspect it. when that morey letter was gotten up, what made me suspect it was that they had the envelope, and i said to myself, "why did they want the envelope if it was clearly in the handwriting of garfield? what difference did it make whether it was sent to morey or to somebody else? what difference did it make when it came from washington?" the only question was, "did garfield write it?" and upon that subject the envelope threw no light. when a man feels weak and thinks that other people will know what he does not want them to know, then it is that he wants to barricade and strengthen before the attack. so they got up this envelope, and when i looked at that it did not look to me as if that stamp had been through the mail. i noticed the handwriting of "chico springs, n. m.," and then i noticed the or the b on the postage stamp, and then i knew that the man who wrote "chico springs" never made the letter or figure on that stamp. it is utterly impossible for the man who wrote that "chico springs" to make that mark on the stamp. this stamp looked awfully clean, and i said, "well, i wouldn't wonder if that was an envelope used here in the city which has been got through the mail in some way." they had it stamped on the back and i said, "perhaps that was written in ." no. you see, if it was not written in it did not do any harm, because in dorsey was not a member of the senate. having gone out on the th of march, , that letter was dated in april, , why then there was no harm in his writing to mr. rerdell and telling him to look after the mail business. but if it was written on the d of april, , it went far to show that dorsey was personally interested at that time in mail routes. you will notice the printed date, april , . they introduced that letter. i noticed that that envelope was a funny looking thing, and that the writing on it did not correspond with the mark on the stamp. i noticed also that upon the back they had the stamp. i do not know how they got it. when the post-office department has possession of a paper they can put almost anything on it. when i said to mr. rerdell on cross-examination, not knowing anything about the letter, "was that not written in ?" he said, '"no, sir." said i, "don't you know, as a matter of fact, that dorsey was not here on the d of april, ?" he said, "as a matter of fact i know that he was here on the d of april, ." "don't you know, as a matter of fact, that he was here on the d of april, ?" he says, "i know as a matter of fact that he was not here on the d of april, ; he was at chico springs." he knew as a matter of fact that he was here in , and he swore that so as to preclude the possibility of his having written the letter in . and he swore to the positive fact that he was not here on the d of april, , so as to show that he wrote him that letter from chico springs. they wanted some letter from dorsey in , to show that he was personally interested in these routes while in the senate. they submitted that letter to mr. boone, who was their witness. he looks at it and he tells you that dorsey did not write that letter. a clear forgery. whom else do they bring now? they leave it right there, and by that admit that rerdell forged that letter. mr. boone, their witness, swears it. nobody swears to the contrary except rerdell. boone threw the letter from him contemptuously, and said, "that is not dorsey's handwriting," and they dare not bring another witness. the country is filled with experts, gentlemen, who know about handwriting; the united states had plenty of men and plenty of money, and they never brought a solitary man. now, gentlemen, do you want to know how this fellow got caught? i will tell you. there is the letter, and they dare not put a man on the stand to swear that it is in dorsey's handwriting. look it all over. but i want to tell you how rerdell got caught about dorsey being present on the d of april, , and i might as well tell you how i found it out. i do not want to pretend to be any more ingenious than i am. i found it out because i made the same mistake myself. i stumbled on that same root. i hit my toe of heedlessness on the same obstruction. i went up to look at the senate journal. i opened a book to see whether dorsey was here on the d of april, . you see at the bottom there of the title page, mr. foreman--washington: government printing office. . you know i was not looking for the book of , so i shut that book up. i then took the next book and opened it, and it said at just the same place: washington: government printing office. . i thought it was the book. so i looked over here, and i found that there was no session of the senate in april, and i said to myself, "is that possible that there was no session in april, ? why, there must have been." but the book said "no." i looked back here, and it still said . then i happened to look back to this book that said , and it said that the session commenced december d, , and consequently april d, would be found in the book marked on the title page. so i turned right over here and looked up at the top and saw the date, april d, . he was looking for the book, and that included april, , and when he got to april, , there was no session of the senate. so he came right in here and swore that dorsey was not here in , but that he was here in april, . i looked in that book and found that mr. dorsey, on the d of april, , was appointed by the vice-president on a committee of conferees, on the part of the senate, together with senators windoin and beck, and i saw exactly how mr. rerdell made his mistake. he opened the book, and at the bottom-of the title page it said . that was not what he was looking for. he was looking for . and the book that said showed that in april the senate was not in session. the book that said showed that in april the senate was in session on april d, . that man thought he was backed by the records of the senate, and thereupon he manufactured that letter. and that is the letter sworn by boone not to be in the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. now, gentlemen, there is nothing in this world that a man would be prevented from doing, for its baseness, who would do that. there is more evidence than this. i asked mr. rerdell, "when you got that letter did you understand it?" he said, "no." "did you do anything on account of it?" "no." "did you know what it meant?" "no." and yet he has the temerity to swear that he received that on the d of april, . how did he come to spell the name reddell? i will tell you. on page he had a letter to go by. that is the very page on which the government puts in that letter. this letter is a letter of introduction. when rerdell manufactured that letter he had this letter of introduction to go by: hon. j. l. routt, denver: my dear governor: i wish to introduce my friend, mr. m. c. reddell. it was written reddell in that letter, and when this man wanted to manufacture one he had one in his possession that dorsey wrote about that time (april , ), and he noticed that in that he spelled the name reddell. so when he wanted to get up a fraud he spelled the name reddell. that is the way. there is no pretence that dorsey wrote that letter, and they dare not bring an expert or another man on earth acquainted with the handwriting of dorsey and submit it to him and expect him to say that that is the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. so much for that. now, it is claimed that while torrey was writing up dorsey's books, having in his possession the check stubs, he was uncertain as to whether a charge was twenty-five dollars or twenty-five cents, and he thereupon sent to rerdell to ascertain the true state of the account, so that he might open his books. thereupon rerdell made the calculation in the evidence marked ( x,) and donnelly wrote under it that it was right. donnelly made that little certificate at the bottom. here is the important paper [submitting x to the jury], another piece manufactured out of whole cloth, not whole paper. now, i ask a few questions about this. in the first place, they knew that unless this was corroborated it was good for nothing, and we find on it: lewis johnson & co., note due th october, three thousand dollars. was that note at lewis johnson & co.'s? why did they not bring some of the officers of that bank, if there was such a note for three thousand dollars there? but no one was brought. and yet they knew that everything coming from rerdell must be corroborated. if rerdell had come to donnelly to find what the account was, how did it happen to be in rerdell's handwriting before it got to donnelly? donnelly wrote this certificate at the bottom. rerdell had written all the facts before. if he went to donnelly to get the facts, how did rerdell happen to write this before it got to donnelly? it is like me wanting to get some information from a man, and writing the information before going to him. now, if donnelly wrote that after rerdell had written, where did rerdell get the information? if donnelly had the books, donnelly should have given the information. if rerdell had the books, why did he want to go to donnelly for information? and if donnelly had the books, how did rerdell write the information before he went to donnelly? then if he wanted that information for torrey, why did he not send it to him? how does it happen that rerdell wrote out the information for donnelly, then got donnelly to certify it, because torrey had asked it? and then how does it happen that rerdell kept it? it seems to me that that ought to have been sent to torrey. torrey wrote to rerdell for information; rerdell wrote it all down, and then got mr. donnelly to say it was so. if donnelly had the books, donnelly should have given the information. if rerdell had the books, he did not have to go to donnelly for information. that is another manufactured paper. as i say, how does it happen to be in the possession of rerdell? they claim that it was for torrey's benefit. i believe when torrey was on the stand they asked him if there was not some dispute about thirty-five cents. now they bring that here to show that there was a dispute about twenty-five cents. was there any reason for supposing that it was twenty-five cents? no, except that it was in the dollar column, that is all. of what use was donnelly's statement after rerdell had made the calculation? nobody on earth can tell why that was given. why did they not bring some of the books or clerks from lewis johnson & co.'s bank to show that there was a note there in october for three thousand dollars. there is another little matter, a conversation between rerdell and brady. rerdell said he had a conversation with brady in which he told him about the congressional committee; that he was summoned to bring his books. brady was astonished that dorsey would be "damn fool enough to keep books," and suggested to have them copied. if this is true, brady at that time made a confident of rerdell. if it is true, brady at that time admitted to rerdell that he (brady) was a conspirator; that he had conspired with dorsey. and yet brady says that he never had but three or four conversations, i believe, with this man, and rerdell himself admits that he never had but four or five, and when he is pinned down on cross-examination he accounts for enough of these interviews, without any interviews on the subject of the books, to exceed all that he ever had. do you believe that he ever had any such conversation? do you believe that brady would make a confident of him? do you believe that brady would substantially admit in his presence that he had been bribed by dorsey? i do not. now, in order that you may know what this man is, i want you to have an idea of his character. so we will come to the next point. mr. rerdell admits that he sat with the defendants during the early part of this trial; that he was willing to make a bargain with the government; that he proposed to the government that he would sit with his co-defendants, and would challenge from the jury the friends of the defendants. did any man wearing the human form ever propose a more corrupt and infamous bargain? that proposition ought to have been written on the tanned hide of a tewksbury pauper. he went to the government and deliberately said, "gentlemen, i am willing to make a bargain with you. i am willing to sit with my co-defendants, pretending to be their friend, and while so pretending i will challenge their friends from the jury. i will so arrange it that their enemies may be upon the panel." "and why do you say that, mr. rerdell?" "in order to show my good faith towards the government." he made the first affidavit for friendship, the second for fear, and he made this proposition to show his good faith. there never was a meaner proposition made by a human being, under the circumstances, than that. he proposed to do it. mr. blackmar says that the proposition was rejected; but that does not affect mr. rerdell. he was willing to carry it out. what more does he swear? he swears that he tried to carry it out. in other words, that although it had been rejected, that made no difference to him. mr. blackmar says they would not do it. rerdell swears that he tried to: went right along and did his level best; and if the court had allowed him four challenges he would have challenged four friends of the defendants from the jury. what more does he admit? that when the court decided that all of us together only had four, he endeavored to challenge one. why? because he believed he was a friend of the defendants; because he believed he would be against the prosecution; and he wanted to get the friends of the defendants away. why? to the end that the defendants might be tried by an enemy. that is what he was trying to accomplish. let us take another step. that proposition reveals the entire man; that takes his hide off; that takes his flesh all off; that leaves his heart bare, naked; you can see what he is made of, and it shows the workings of his spirit, the motions of his mind; and you see in there a den of vipers; you see entangled, knotted adders. and yet that man is put upon the stand stamped by the seal of the department of justice, and that department says to twelve men, "here is a gentleman that you can believe; that gentleman proposes to sell out his co-defendants to us, but we would not buy; he is an honorable kind of gentleman, but we would not buy." mr. merrick. it should be interpolated there--if you will pardon me a moment--that the government refused to accept rerdell until he himself had pleaded guilty. mr. ingersoll. i understand that. i say now, mr. merrick, that i would not for anything in the world, on a subject of that kind, go the millionth part of an inch beyond the testimony. although you and i have not been very cordial friends during this trial, and neither have i and mr. bliss, yet if i know myself i would not for anything in this world put a stain upon your reputation, or upon the reputation of either of you, by misstating a word of this testimony. i would not do it. i am incapable of it. i admit that the evidence is that the proposition was rejected, but i also insist that the government knew the proposition had been made, otherwise it could not have been rejected. and so i say that after this man had made that proposition, infamous enough to put a blush upon the cheek of total depravity, the government put that witness upon the stand, sealed with the seal of the department of justice. now, we will go another step. he sat with us from day to day, gentlemen, as you know, went in and out with us, as one of the co-defendants. in the meantime--and there is a laughable side even to this infamy--he borrowed money from vaile. he went to him as a co-defendant, as a friend, and said, "i want a hundred and forty dollars; i want to buy bread and meat to give me strength to swear you into the penitentiary." and vaile gave him the money. would you believe a man like that? you cannot think of a man low enough, you cannot think of a defendant vile enough to be convicted on such testimony. now, we will go another step. he wanted to make that bargain with mr. blackmar. mr. blackmar swears that he told mr. merrick of it, and that mr. merrick rejected it; would have nothing to do with it. at that time mr. woodward had two affidavits of rerdell in his possession--an affidavit of rerdell, made in september, supplemented by another affidavit, i believe, of november, that he made in the city of hartford, covering seventy pages. when mr. woodward saw mr. rerdell sitting with the defendants, pretending to go with them, he (woodward) had those two affidavits of rerdell in his pocket. did the prosecution know that rerdell had made the two affidavits? i do not say they did, gentlemen. i only go right to the line of the evidence; there i stop. another thing: mr. blackmar swears that they had a signal to look at the clock, and that night rerdell would meet him at six or seven o'clock, i have forgotten the hour; but mr. blackmar could not sit in his room all the time waiting for him, and so he gave him a certain signal, so that he would know he was to wait that night. then what happened? then mr. rerdell came to mr. blackmar and gave to him written reports. of what? i do not know. he sat with the defendants; he gave to mr. blackmar written reports. what were they? i do not know. what did mr. blackmar do with them? he handed them to colonel bliss. what did he do with them? i do not know. did he read them? i do not know. did he know that they were in the handwriting of mr. rerdell? i do not know. that is for you. still another point: mr. bliss, after this jury had been impaneled, stood before them while rerdell was sitting with us as a defendant, and said: the ranks of the defendants are closed up, and he--rerdell--stands before you now as one of the defendants, whose testimony--meaning the confessions made to macveagh and to postmaster-general james--will be accepted by the court and by you, &c. the question arises, did mr. bliss know at that time that mr. woodward had in his pockets two affidavits made by rerdell, one made in september and the other in november? did he know at that time that rerdell had given his papers over to mr. woodward? did he know at that time that he had offered to challenge the friends of the defendants from the panel? and so knowing, did he give us to understand that rerdell had passed from the influence of the government and was now acting as one of the co-defendants? is it possible that mr. bliss would furnish rerdell with a mask behind which he could gather information from the defendants and sell it to the government for immunity? is it possible? those were the circumstances. i do not say that he knew. i do not know. gentlemen, i do not believe that it is the duty of a government to prosecute its citizens. i do not believe that it is the duty of a government to spread a net for one of the people whom it should protect. i do not believe in the spy and informer system. i believe that every government should exist for the purpose of doing justice as between man and man. the mission of a government is to protect and preserve its citizens from violence and fraud. the real object of a government is to enforce honest contracts, to protect the weak from the strong; not to combine against the one, not to offer rewards for treachery, not to show cold avarice in order that some citizen may have his liberty sworn away. the objects of a good government are the sublimest of which the imagination can conceive. the means employed should be as pure as the ends are noble and sacred. the government should represent the opinions, desires, and ideals of its greatest, its best, and its noblest citizens. every act of the government should be a flower springing from the very heart of honor. a government should be incapable of deceit. the department of justice should blow from the scales even the dust of prejudice. representing a supreme power, it should have the serenity and frankness of omnipotence. subterfuge is a confession of weakness. behind every pretence lurks cowardice. our government should be the incarnation of candor, of courage, and of conscience. that is my idea of a great and noble government. the next point to which i call your attention is the withdrawal of the plea of not guilty by mr. rerdell. you probably remember the occurrence. i will read to you what he said upon that occasion. i find it on page : after mature reflection and a full consideration of the whole subject, i have determined to abandon any further defence of myself in this case, and put myself at the mercy of the court and the government; and if desired to do so by the counsel for the government, to testify to all my knowledge of any facts with reference to any of the defendants either against or for them, myself included. therefore, i now in person ask leave to withdraw my plea of not guilty, heretofore interposed, and enter my plea of guilty, and in so doing put myself upon the mercy of the court i feel this to be a duty i owe to myself, my family, and to truth. i have arrived at this fixed determination upon my own reflections and responsibilities, and without any previous consultation with my counsel, who, i believe, would not have advised me to this course, and whom i now relieve from all and any responsibility for the course i have adopted. now, gentlemen, is it not wonderful that if mr. rerdell was about to tell the truth as a witness in this case, he could not even withdraw his plea of not guilty without misstating the facts? is it not wonderful that he felt called upon at that time to tell several falsehoods? he says that he took this step upon his own responsibility. he says that he did it without the advice of his counsel. he tells you that he believes if he had asked his counsel, his counsel would have been opposed to it. he says he is willing to be a witness for the government if the government desires it, leaving you to infer that at that time no arrangement had been made for him to be a witness; that it was all in the regions of uncertainty; that he had withdrawn into the recesses of his own mind, and consulting with himself and nobody else had made up his mind to throw himself upon the mercy of the government and the court, and took that step without even allowing his counsel to know what he was about to do. but he speaks further on the subject. i read from page . i was then examining him: q. how did you come to do it?--a. i finally made up my mind to what i would do. i talked it over the evening before with my counsel. he so states under oath; and yet when he stood up before this court and withdrew his plea of not guilty, he said he acted without the knowledge of his counsel--i read this to show you that the statement he made to the court at the time he withdrew his plea was absolutely false. what next? i will go on a little further. the same man rerdell, after he had made up his mind to go over to the government; after he had made up his mind to swear away, if it was within his power, the liberty of s. w. dorsey, admits, on page , that he endeavored to get five thousand dollars from mr. dorsey. on page mr. rerdell swears positively that he did not know that he was to be used as a witness for the government until he was called in court to take the stand. let us look at the evidence of mr. bliss on page . i will read you what he said: mr. bliss. your honor, we propose to show, in substance, that this witness, for reasons with which we have nothing to do, connected with his own views of his own safety, from an early period was desirous of being accepted by the government as a witness; that the counsel in the case refused to communicate with him or to have anything to do with him until, in the presence of his own counsel, he was brought to mr. merrick's office, and there the whole thing was explained; and that then for the first time the government accepted his willingness to be a witness; and they did it under circumstances which held out to him no inducement and which involved no training or anything of the kind by anybody representing the prosecution. now, let us go to the next step. i want to be perfectly fair. on page mr. merrick asked mr. rerdell this question: q. when did you first learn that you would be put upon the stand after pleading guilty?--a. it was the day before my plea was made in court. yet when he rose to withdraw the plea he expressed his willingness to go upon the stand for the government, leaving you to infer that no arrangement had been made, and he afterwards finally swore that he did not know that he was to be called until he was called. these things, gentlemen, you must remember. on page rerdell swears that on the sunday after he got out of jail he proposed to mr. lilley to have lilley act for him, and authorized lilley to say to the government that if the government would accept him he would go on the stand and rebut vaile. he told him that he had in his possession a letter or two of mr. vaile's. rerdell tells you that he made this proposition on the th or th of september, , which was after he made the affidavit of june, . on the same page he said it was just after vaile went off the stand. that is my recollection. in the last trial vaile testified on the th of august, . so about that time rerdell, according to his testimony, went to lilley and made a proposition to sell out then. when he made the affidavit of july , , the trial was then in progress. the very next month, august, while the trial was still going on, that same man, having made the affidavit of july , , went to his attorney, mr. lilley, and authorized him to say to the government that mr. rerdell would take the stand to swear against mr. vaile. remember another thing, gentlemen. the only thing he offered to do then to insure his own safety was to swear against vaile. he did not offer to swear against dorsey. he did not authorize mr. lilley to tell the government about the pencil memorandum and the tabular statement and his letter to bosler and doisey's letter to bosler and the chico letter. not a word. he simply went and wanted to sell some letters he had that had been written by vaile. why did he make that offer? because that was all he had. on page he says that nothing was said about pardon, but he says that lilley told him that he thought he could get him off. what does that mean? that means pardon. on page he swears that he saw woodward in november in hartford, and woodward and he wrote out the statement, covering, i believe, about seventy pages of legal cap. then mr. rerdell, on page , swears that he never made an affidavit after that. then he admits, on the same page, that the day before he came into court he met mr. woodward and made another affidavit. that was supplementary to the first. in the meantime he found some new papers. so we find, according to his testimony, these affidavits: on page we find that he made an affidavit in june, . remember, gentlemen, that he swore to that affidavit three or four times. he made another affidavit in july, , and another in september and november of the same year, and another in february, . and yet he swears that he was not to have immunity. now, gentlemen, one point more about his plea of guilty. after having withdrawn his plea of not guilty, after rising in court and solemnly saying that he was guilty, and that he was guilty as charged in the indictment, which says that rerdell conspired with brady and vaile and miner and john w. dorsey and s. w. dorsey and turner, that they all conspired, and that all the false affidavits and false petitions and false everything else mentioned in the indictment were made for the common benefit of all, then on page he solemnly swears that he never entered into any conspiracy or agreement with the defendants mentioned in the indictment or any of them for the purpose of defrauding the government. when i asked him, with whom did you conspire, when did you conspire, and what was the conspiracy? he could not tell; and yet he had stood up in court and admitted that he was guilty, and then on oath denied it. did he not swear himself that after the division was made in the routes stephen w. dorsey had not the interest of a cent in any route that went to vaile or miner? did he not also swear that vaile and miner had not the interest of one cent in any route that went to stephen w. dorsey? did he not swear that they were not mutually interested, and yet did he not stand up in court, and by a plea of guilty say that they were not only mutually interested, but he was one of the interested parties himself? it seems impossible for that man to tell the truth on any subject whatever. on page he swears he never made any agreement with vaile to defraud the united states. he stood up in court and admitted, that he had. he swore that he never made any agreement with john w. dorsey. he admitted that he had. he swore that he never made any agreement with s. w. dorsey, and yet stood up in court and admitted that he had. now let us see whether he expected immunity. he swears that he was taken to mr. merrick's office by mr. woodward and his counsel. what mr. merrick told him we find on page : q. and did i not say that, under the circumstances, the government would have nothing to do with you unless you pleaded guilty?--a. you did. q. and that if you pleaded guilty you had nothing to trust to but the mercy of the government and the court?--a. that is what you did, sir, exactly. now, on page : q. was it not arranged that mr. woodward was to come to your house and then take you to one of the attorneys for the prosecution, for the purpose of arranging the terms and conditions upon which you were to take the stand?--a. it was not. in another place he swears that it was, and that the arrangement was carried out. the next point i wish to make, if the court please, is that whenever what is called an accomplice or an informer turns what is called state's evidence, and whenever he is permitted by the court to be sworn as a witness in a case, there is then upon the part of the government an implied promise that if he tells the truth he shall not be punished. i read from the whiskey cases, otto, page . mr. justice clifford delivers the opinion of the court. courts of justice everywhere agree that the established usage is that an accomplice duly admitted as a witness in a criminal prosecution against his associates in guilt, if he testifies fully and fairly, will not be prosecuted for the same offence, and some of the decided cases and standard text-writers give very satisfactory explanations of the origin and scope of the usage in its ordinary application in actual practice. the court. what point are you now making to the court? mr. ingersoll. i am making this point: it appears from the evidence that mr. wilshire, the attorney of mr. rerdell told him at the time he was making up his mind whether he would go to the government or not, about the whiskey cases. i make the point that when an accomplice turns state's evidence the state cannot prosecute him after that if he testifies fully and fairly; that the usage is immemorial, and that there is not an exception in the records of all the cases in the books; consequently that when mr. merrick told him, "you must look simply to the government and to the court and you will have just exactly what the law gives you and no more," his remarks meant that the law gave him perfect immunity, provided he went upon the stand and swore truthfully. the court. you have demonstrated, as far as you have been able to, that he has not sworn truthfully. mr. ingersoll. he has not; he has not; and if the government will act fairly with him he will get no immunity. when he went to the government he understood the law to be that if he swore fully and fairly, or if he swore in such a way that they could not prove that he did not swear fully and fairly, he was to have immunity. he understood that the more he swore against the defendants the better was his chance for immunity. he knew that the government would never complain of any lie he swore against the defendants. now, the next question is what is the law of accomplices, of informers? there was a remark made by mr. bliss in his speech, that they had plenty of evidence in this case without the testimony of mr. walsh or mr. moore or mr. rerdell; plenty of evidence without the testimony of mr. rerdell. if that had been so then the government had no right to put mr. rerdell on the stand. there is but one excuse for using the testimony of a man who pleads guilty, and that is that without his testimony a conviction cannot, in all probability, be obtained. and upon that point i refer to pickering, , and to cowen, ; and not only upon that point, but upon the point i made at first, that whenever you put such a man upon the stand that of itself amounts to a promise of absolute immunity: the object of admitting the evidence of accomplices is in order to effect the discovery and punishment of crimes which cannot be proved against the offenders without the aid of an accomplice's testimony. in order to prevent this entire failure of justice recourse is had to the evidence of accomplices.--i phillips on evidence, . if, therefore, there be sufficient evidence to convict without his testimony, the court will refuse to admit him as a witness.--roscoe's criminal evidence, . neither do i believe that mr. rerdell had a right to go upon the stand until his case was finally disposed of. precisely the same language is used by wharton on criminal evidence, : an accomplice is used by the government because his evidence is necessary to a conviction. that is the opinion of mr. justice maclean, in maclean's circuit court reports, . mr. merrick. if not improper i may remark that all those cases refer to a condition of things prior to the trial in which the party appears as the witness. mr. ingersoll. the usual question is--and the court determines that question--whether a man shall be a witness or not. the court. how can the court determine that without passing upon the evidence in the case? that is not the duty of the court; it belongs to the jury. mr. ingersoll. the prosecuting attorney has to pass upon that himself when he makes up his mind to put him upon the stand; and he only has the right to do that when he believes that no conviction can be had without that testimony. the court. then it belongs to the prosecuting attorney. mr. ingersoll. i go further than that, and say that the prosecuting attorney cannot do that without consultation with the court, and without saying to the court that he believes no conviction can be had without that testimony. mr. merrick. may i be allowed to suggest a point which probably you would like to comment upon--that all these cases refer to accomplices prior to the trial. my own opinion in reference to the case was that i would not put rerdell upon the stand until he had pleaded guilty. the court. i do not see the ground for the distinction between the cases. undoubtedly, when an accomplice goes over to the government and offers his testimony, he does it always in the hope of pardon or immunity from prosecution. mr. ingersoll. that is all i want at present. i want it understood, if the court please, that i shall argue to the jury that at the time he made up his mind to go to the government, he understood that that meant immunity. the court. oh, well, of course it did. mr. ingersoll. the next point is that the court has to take all his story or none; and i read from the second volume of starkie on evidence, side-page : in judging of the credit due to the testimony of an accomplice, it seems to be a necessary principle that his testimony must be wholly received as that of a credible witness or wholly rejected. his evidence on points where he is confirmed by unimpeachable evidence is useless. the question is whether he is to be believed upon points where he received no confirmation. and of this the jury are to form their opinion from the nature of the testimony, his manner of delivering it, and the confirmation which it receives derived from other evidence which is unsuspected. if his character be established as a witness of truth, he is credible in matters where he is not corroborated. if, on the other hand, nothwithstanding the corroboration upon particular points, doubts and suspicions still remain as to his credit, his whole testimony becomes useless. that is the point i want to make. if they are only to take his evidence where it is corroborated, they might as well have had the corroboration in the first place without him. now, gentlemen, the evidence, in my judgment, shows, and shows beyond a doubt--and i believe it is now admitted--that at the time mr. rerdell made up his mind to go to the government he expected that he was to have absolute immunity. you must judge of his evidence in the light of that fact, in the light of that knowledge, in the light of what had been told him by his counsel. now, it is for you to say. you know something of this man. you have seen him from day to day. you saw his manner upon the stand. why, they tell you that at one time he was overcome with emotion, and that that is evidence that he was telling the truth. it may be that there is left in that man some little spark of goodness still. when he was swearing, or endeavoring to swear, away the liberty of the man who had been his friend, may be at that time the memory of the past did for a moment rush upon him. he may have remembered the thousand acts of kindness; he may have remembered the years of liberality; he may have remembered the days that he had spent beneath that hospitable roof; he may have remembered the wife and children; he may have remembered all these things, and for just that moment he may have realized what a wretch he was. in no other way can you account for his having emotion. but i am about through with that gentleman. i shall not take up your time in the remainder of my speech by commenting upon mr. rerdell. let us finish his testimony now; let us put him out of sight; let us put him in his coffin, close the lid, nail it down: first nail--affidavit of june , ; drive it in. second nail--the letter of july , , when he says that affidavit of was made by the persuasion of bosler; drive it in. third nail--affidavit of july , , where he swears that they were all perfectly innocent. fourth nail--the pencil memorandum; drive that in. fifth nail--the tabular statement that gave thirty-three and one-third per cent, to brady; drive it in. sixth nail--his pretended letter to bosler telling about the advice of brady; drive that in. seventh nail--the letter he pretends that dorsey, on the th of may, , wrote to bosler, the copies being made by miss white; drive that in. wind his corpse up in the balance-sheets from the red books made by donnelly. then you want a plate for his coffin. let us paste right on there the chico letter, april , . now, we want grave-stones. let us take the red books, put one at his head and one at his feet. and let his epitaph, written upon the red book placed at his head, be--up to this moment i have been faithful to every trust. my prayer to gabriel is, "when you pass over that grave don't blow." let him sleep. there are, there never were, there never will be twelve honest men who will deprive any citizen of his liberty upon the evidence of a man like mr. rerdell. it never happened; it never will. and now, gentlemen, it becomes my duty to answer a few points made by the gentlemen who have addressed you on behalf of the government. the first gentleman who addressed you was mr. ker, and he had something to say--considerable to say--about what are known as the clendenning bonds. they claim, gentlemen, first, that an immense fraud was in view when these proposals--i think they are proposals--with accompanying bonds and oaths of sureties were sent to mr. clendenning. i wish to give you, in the first place, my explanation of this paper. see if i understand it. if you sent this paper to that officer or to that gentleman as a form to guide him in making up the bonds, you would only fill up that portion of the bond in giving him a sample which you wanted him to fill up, and you would fill it up in order to show him exactly how he was to fill it up; and you would leave out that part which was already filled up in the bond. that is exactly what was done in this case. there was not one of those bonds that had an oath of the surety or the names of the sureties, because they were unknown. the names were unknown, and the amounts that the postmaster would certify to, and so all that was left in blank in the bond sent. but this being only a sample, it was sent to him so that he might know how to fill up the bonds that were sent. consequently that portion which was absolutely blank in the bond sent would be filled up as a guide to him, and that portion which was filled up in the bonds sent would be left blank in the guide, because he had nothing to do with that part. now, that is all there is to it. what was left out, as they claim? why they claim that the name of the bidder was left out and the amount of the bid. it makes no difference. that is not the slightest evidence of fraud, is it? what was the next thing? they were never used, never. no bond included in that bundle was ever accepted by the government. no bonds were ever made, no contract ever based upon them, not a solitary cent taken from the government by those papers. why, then, this secrecy? because when a man is in this business he does not want anybody else to know that he is bidding, in the first place; and, in the second place, he does not want anybody to know the amount of the bid. if the amount of the bid is put in, then the persons going security will know it, and they may tell. the postmaster who approves the security will know it, and he may tell. the object of the secrecy is not to defraud the government, but to prevent other people finding the amount of the bid and then underbidding. that is the object, and it is the only object. and yet this little, poor, dried-up bond, soaked in the water of suspicion, swells almost to bursting in the minds of the counsel for the prosecution. there is nothing of it. it was never worthy of mention, in the first place. you will never think of it when you retire. it will never enter your minds; but if it does, remember that the object of the secrecy was simply as a precaution against other bidders, and had nothing whatever to do with the government. there is one other point. i believe mr. dorsey did say, in his examination-in-chief, that he did not talk to anybody about it, and it afterwards occurred that he did go and ask mr. edmunds whether what he had asked clendenning to do was illegal or improper. to that contradiction you are welcome. mr. ker gives the date of boone's circular to postmasters asking for information, and says it was dated december , . thereupon mr. merrick corrects him, and says it was in . the court does the same. as a matter of fact, these circulars were dated december, . gentlemen, i just simply speak of this to show how easy it is for people to be mistaken. those circulars were gotten up for the purpose of getting information before bidding. all the bids were put in in february, . the circulars were sent out, i believe, in november and december, . and yet upon that one point mr. ker is mistaken two years. on page mr. ker states that miner, in april, , said to moore that it all depended upon affidavits of the contractors, and that "they were all good affidavit men." the object of this, if it had an object, was to show that this conspiracy was entered into with moore, and that s. w. dorsey was a part of it in april, . the evidence of moore is that the conversation took place, not in april, but in july, , at the city of denver. and yet mr. ker tells you that it was in april. . it is not, perhaps, a very material point, but it simply serves to show you the manner in which this evidence is repeated to you by the counsel for the prosecution. at page mr. ker says that before j. w. dorsey went west he made an arrangement with his brother to sell out his interest for ten thousand dollars; that he did this before he started west; that he did it before there was any service put on; and that these contracts were taken at such low figures; yet john w. dorsey had raised his interest up to ten thousand dollars. mr. ker tells you that the evidence shows that before any service was put on and before john w. dorsey went west he tried to sell out his interest for ten thousand dollars. now, what was the object in making this statement, unless it was pure forgetfulness? why it was to connect vaile with this business some time in april, . on pages and j. w. dorsey swears that he was here in washington in november, ; before that time he had gone to the tongue river route; he had come back from bismarck; and it was then, not in april; it was then, not before he went west; it was then, not before any service was put on, that he talked with vaile about selling out to him for ten thousand dollars; and it was in november that he left the instructions for his brother to sell to vaile. it was not in april; it was not before he went west; it was not before any service was put on. at page mr. ker states that--dorsey held thirty-three routes, and there was not one of them, i suppose, that was not expedited to the fullest extent. what evidence is there of that? is there any evidence that any route of dorsey's was expedited not mentioned in this indictment? did not mr. ker know whether the routes had been expedited or not? did not i offer in this court to prove what was done with every solitary route we had? i say to the gentleman that the other routes were not expedited. i say to the gentleman that only two other routes were, and we were not interested in them. and i say also that they know the record, and they knew the record when this statement was made; but they may have forgotten it. but is it fair, gentlemen, for a prosecuting officer to state to you that he supposed all the routes of dorsey were expedited? one of those in the indictment was not expedited; and not a route outside of the indictment belonging to dorsey, in which he had an interest, was expedited. so much for that statement. at page you are told by mr. ker that--nobody ever heard of expedition on a route before. we proved what form of contracts had been in the postoffice department for twenty years, and proved that in every one of them there was a clause for expedition. so much for that evidence, gentlemen. at page mr. ker tells us that j. w. dorsey testified--that the routes were taken so low as to cut out other people, but that they knew they were to be expedited, and they knew they were to be increased. j. w. dorsey testified upon that subject, and his testimony will be found at page : q. did you have an arrangement by which you should bid an extremely small amount on the routes, with the further understanding that the service was to be increased and expedited?--a. no, sir; i never thought of such a thing. and in his entire testimony in chief and cross, i believe there is not another question on that subject. on page , referring to the letter of john m. peck, which was in fact written by miner, mr. ker says: cedarville ought to have had as many mails as the other points between, according to the order, but they were going to supply it only once a week. . as a matter of fact, gentlemen, this letter was written on the d of october, , and at the time the letter was written the mail, according to the contract, was carried only once a week on that route, and consequently cedarville would have had exactly the same mail as any other point; that is to say, once a week. page of the record shows that three trips a week were put upon this route to loup city with a schedule of thirteen hours, but not until the th of july, , nine months after this letter was written. on page mr. ker, in commenting upon an affidavit on the toquerville and adairville route, reads from the evidence of john w. dorsey, citing page , and ends at this question and answer: q. it was done so entirely, was it not?--a. it ought to have been so. now, let me read you the balance: q. was it not so done?--a. no, sir. q it was not?--a. no, sir. q for whose benefit was it done?.--a. he--meaning rerdell--stole five thousand dollars on that route, or very nearly that--four thousand nine hundred dollars on that very route. q. when did he steal that five thousand dollars?--a. about a year ago or a year and a half; i do not remember the time. q. from whom?--a. from mr. bosler and myself. q. at what time?--a. i should think in february, . the question now arises, did mr. rerdell take this money as charged? read now from the record, at pages and , and you will find in the last line of the tabular statement introduced in this case that on this very route four thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents was paid to m. c. rerdell as subcontractor on that route. we also find that it was paid on the th of february, . this is the money that dorsey swears rerdell stole, and that gentleman never took the stand to deny it. at page , mr. ker, after going over all the evidence with regard to the affidavits as to the impossibility of the number of men and horses doing the service rendered necessary by the affidavit, comes to the following conclusion: that under the oath the proportion was, as nine to twenty-three; that under the oath of johnson the real proportion should have been, and was, eight to twenty-two. in other words, the real proportion, according to mr. ker's own statement, would have taken more money from the treasury than the wrong proportion made under the fraudulent affidavit, and that was nine to twenty-three. nine into twenty-three goes twice and five-ninths; that is, two hundred and fifty-five per cent, and a fraction. that is the fraudulent proportion. mr. ker says that the real proportion was not as nine into twenty-three, but as eight to twenty two. eight into twenty-two goes twice and six-eighths; that is to say, two and three-quarters; that is to say, two hundred and seventy-five per cent. the fraudulent proportion, according to his claim, only gave us two hundred and fifty-five per cent. the real proportion, which mr. ker admits was right, according to the evidence of johnson, would have given us two hundred and seventy-five per cent. in other words, we got twenty per cent, less under the fraud than we would under the evidence of johnson that mr. ker admits to be correct. finding that it is twenty per cent, less under the fraudulent affidavit than under johnson's estimate, he shouts fraud. on page mr. ker tells us that sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or i had." on page i find that mr. sanderson drew all the money on the route from saguache to lake city, i believe, with one exception--the third quarter of one year-- , it may be. he drew every dollar upon that route, anyhow, up to february , , except for one quarter. and yet mr. ker stood up before you and said that sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or i had." let us see if we have any more evidence. i find on page a subcontract executed on route , from saguache to lake city, by miner, peck & company to sanderson for the whole time until june , . i find that subcontract is signed by john r. miner and j. l. sanderson. this contract was to be from the st of july, , and was made the th of may, , and here it is in evidence. the evidence is that the contract was made between miner, peck & company and sanderson; the evidence also is that sanderson drew the pay. and yet mr. ker stands up before you and says that sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or i had." the subcontract, gentlemen, states that sanderson is to have the entire pay, and it was before the contract term began. so much for that. mr. ker. when was it filed? mr. wilson. that does not make any difference. mr. ingersoll. "when was it filed?" there was a trial in my town of a suit against the city, i believe, for allowing a culvert to get filled up and flood a man's cellar. they brought in evidence to prove, don't you see, that the culvert was not filled up, and one witness swore that the day before the rain he saw a dog go through there. one of the jurors got up and said that he would like to ask a question; he said, "what was the color of that dog?" on page mr. ker states that during the investigation by congress--contractors got out printed letters and sent them to every subcontractor upon every star route in the country, asking them to write to their members of congress urging their members of congress to vote for this appropriation. on page is rerdell's letter upon this very route, in which not one word is said about the contractor doing anything one way or the other. there is no evidence that any other letter was written on that route. i call your attention to it to show how the prosecution strained every possible point, and how they endeavored to patch and piece and putty and veneer this evidence. mr. miner wrote a letter (page ). i do not remember any other evidence upon this subject. and certainly it would be impossible to write a milder letter than mr. miner wrote. he did not ask the people to get up petitions against reduction, or ask for more service. here is what he says, and i will read you mr. miner's letter: it will be well for the people of your section to send to the member of congress from your district such petitions as will express their opinions on the subject of this reduction. truly, yours, jno. r. miner, ag't. could you write a milder letter than that, to save your life, and refer to the subject? could you write a fairer letter than that, to save your life? he does not say, "get up petitions against it." he does not say, "send those petitions to your member of congress and tell him to do what he can to prevent it." not one word of that kind. yet that is considered as evidence of fraud; that is considered as evidence of conspiracy. the next point made is that mr. ker states, at page , that brady endeavored to bribe the members of congress into making this appropriation by doubling every star route in the southern and middle states, and did so during the congressional investigation. what are the facts? the deficiency bill passed april , .. that appropriated money only for the purpose of carrying the mails up to june , . the regular appropriation bill was passed at the same session, and appropriated money to carry the mails from the st of july, . now let us see if brady doubled the trips in these southern and middle states during that investigation. on page brady says: practically on july , , we doubled up the entire service for all the southern and middle states. this was after the deficiency bill had passed; it was after the money appropriated by that bill had been expended; and it was paid for out of the regular appropriation for the post-office department. yet that was a bribe. it just shows that congress by the regular appropriation indorsed the policy of mr. key to have a daily mail to every place where there was a county-seat. at page , on the route from mineral park to pioche, there were two petitions, marked k and k. it is somewhat singular that the government brought no persons whose names are on these petitions to show that they had not authorized their names to be signed thereto, but they brought persons to show that the signatures were not genuine. on page the witness wright swears that the names are the same on both petitions. he is then asked if he knows the signatures of any other people, and he says "yes." he then says that the signature of john deland is not genuine. he swears that he knows nearly every one of the people. he is then asked whether these signatures are in the handwriting of the people, and he replies that he thinks not. then he is asked as to the signature of cornell, and he says; that is not in his handwriting. here is his cross-examination, gentlemen: * * * i asked him, "do you know these people;" made him swear that he knew mr. street; that he knew the signatures of many; that he knew these people. i proved where they were living; that they are living in the country now, good, respectable, honest people. and yet the government did not bring one man whose name had been written here to prove that he had not authorized it. why? because they could not. they knew by the testimony here that the petitions were absolutely and perfectly honest. and it is in that way that they seek to deprive men of their liberty. they did not call a man whose name appeared on those petitions to say that his signature was not genuine or not authorized. i proved that many of them are still living and first-rate men. now, gentlemen, you remember besides that, that mr. h. s. stevens, the delegate from that territory, recommended the same thing asked for by those petitions (pages , ), where it was admitted by counsel for the government that the letters of stevens were genuine. it is upon that same route that general fremont also wrote a letter (page ). and i will show you that the names are exactly or substantially the same on k as those found at pages and . mr. ker and mr. bliss both endeavored to show that there were no petitions on this route, and that it was simply done on a letter. if you will look at page you will find the evidence of mr. krider, who was postmaster at mineral park, in which he says there were petitions. in order to show that there was a conspiracy between these parties, or between dorsey and vaile, or dorsey, rerdell, and vaile, mr. ker called the attention of the jury to two letters, one written by rerdell to the sixth auditor, and one written by vaile. here is a letter dated the st of august, . it is introduced, of course, to show that there was a conspiracy at that time between mr. vaile and mr. dorsey. it was written by mr. rerdell to the sixth auditor: to the sixth auditor: sir: h. m. vaile was subcontractor on route during the first quarter of . in the first settlement for that quarter vaile was paid for certain expedited service--it was subsequently discovered that the expedition thus paid for was never performed--the department therefore, and very properly, too, charged back to the route the amount thus paid for expedition never performed, viz, some two thousand eight hundred dollars. meanwhile vaile, who alone was in fault, had ceased to have any connection with the route--the charging back, therefore, fell on the wrong man, the man who was in no way responsible for the non-performance of the expedition, except so far as he stood between the department and the subcontractor. it is true that this payment was made by the regular contractor to the subcontractor, but it is equally true that it was, in a measure, a compulsory payment. by the rules of the post-office department it is made obligatory on the regular contractor to pay the subcontractor before the department will settle with him--it is not, therefore, a payment as between two individuals. the receipt is on the form prescribed by the post-office department, and is witnessed by (the then) postmaster edmunds, as the rules prescribe. it is on file in the post-office department, and i maintain that our covenants were fulfilled when we put the receipt on file. if vaile had performed the service as he agreed he would do, and for doing which he received this money, we should have been reimbursed by a certificate of service from the contract office. now, will you permit vaile to take advantage of his own wrong, and thus enable him to defraud another man out of his money? i refrain from discussing the question as to what would be the duty of the department if vaile, who had received the money wrongfully, had ceased to have any connection with the department, because it is not pertinent to this issue; if it were, i could cite you to many authorities and precedents to the effect that even then it would be your duty to refund the money to me. but this is not necessary, because vaile is still doing business with the department. he is subcontractor on route for the full contract pay, which is twenty-two thousand dollars per annum, hence the department will have no difficulty in reimbursing itself for what was, in simple truth, an overpayment. i think you will agree with me when i ask that this money be refunded to the subcontractor on route and charged to route , because it is simply correcting an error. you have the same authority to charge it to one as you have to charge it to the other, and you have already charged it to me. the law-merchant would experience no difficulty in adjusting a matter of this sort. the merchant who would refuse to correct an error of this character would be justly called a lame duck, and would be scouted from "'change" vaile was erroneously paid for the performance of a service which he never did perform. therefore i ask that he be compelled to render unto caesar the things that he ceasers. respectfully, m. c. rerdell. acting for himself and for the regular contractor on route . that is to show also, gentlemen, that there was a conspiracy between vaile and rerdell. now, mr. vaile wrote a letter also to the same man. i will read it: washington, d. c., july , . hon. j. mcgrew: sir: in reply to yours of july th, relating to the jennings case, i would state that i did not receive the money in manner and form as stated by one m. c. rerdell, nor was the draft of j. w. dorsey, on said route , for the quarter named, to get an advance of money for myself or for my own use. at the time i receipted for my pay as subcontractor on said route i did not, in fact, receive any money, but did so receipt that j. w. dorsey might negotiate his draft on said route, and for no other purpose. although i was subcontractor of record on said route at the time named, i was not a subcontractor in my own behalf, but as trustee for j. w. dorsey, s. w. dorsey, isaac jennings, and others, to collect said money and pay it over as said parties should direct. i further state that all money that ever came into my hands from said route i did pay over to the parties named as trustee, as by them directed. acting as trustee of said jennings, and believing that he had performed the mail service on said route as by him agreed, and in accordance with the laws and regulations of the post-office department, i did pay said jennings, on the st day of april, , the sum of $ , . , a sum of money he was entitled to provided he had carried the mail three days per week on the schedule required, which i fully believed at that time he had done, and for a long time after. i further state that i am informed that said jennings is not responsible; that it would be utterly impossible for me to receive back the $ , , or any part thereof; that in fact this sum of money sought to be collected of me, if collected for said jennings's benefit, or go into his hands in addition to the sum he now has unlawfully, doubly remunerating him for his neglect of duty. i further state that all the money collected on said route not paid to said jennings was paid to liquidate the debts of j. w. dorsey, s. w. dorsey, and others previously contracted, and not one dollar ever remained in my hands. i further state i believe both j. w. dorsey and s. w. dorsey are irresponsible, and it would be impossible for me to collect any part of said money from them. as above stated, said money came into my hand only as their agent or trustee, and at once paid out as they directed; that my subcontract was put on file simply to enable j w. dorsey to negotiate his draft on said route, when in fact said jennings was the real subcontractor. said jennings agreed to perform the service on said route strictly in accordance with the laws and regulations of the department, for the annual sum of $ , . , the duplicate of which contract was delivered over to s. w. dorsey by myself, and which i believe is now in the hands of m. c. rerdell, and which, or a copy thereof, i demand shall be filed with you in this case, that you may see what said jennings agreed to do. this is certainly a strange claim. jennings agreed to perform mail service on said route. i believed he had done it, and paid him accordingly. it turns out long after he did not properly perform the service, but was attempting a swindle, and a deduction is ordered for not performing the service properly. then this man, the guilty party, having got money from me, as trustee, wrongfully, as well as from the government, and asks that the auditor compel me to pay him the sum of $ , . , when, as i am informed, he is seeking to get this same deduction remitted. surely if he succeeded in all this he will make a good thing out of his rascality and i a good victim without remedy. i state again i did not hypothecate said draft for myself, did not receive one cent as subcontractor, but became the payee of said draft that said j. w. dorsey might negotiate it, and i to dispose of the proceeds as he should direct, all of which i did. therefore i request you not to compel me to pay the sum of money asked, but if i am liable at all let the parties seek their redress at law, where all the facts can be obtained and justice rendered me. and it is also well known that i am a man of means, and any judgment rendered against me could and would be collected, dollar for dollar. i am, very respectfully, h. m. vaile. that was introduced to show that at the time vaile was in a conspiracy with s. w. dorsey. why did they introduce it? simply for one line in it in which he says he was acting as the trustee of s. w. dorsey. he was. how? dorsey had advanced money. the routes were liable, and the persons who held the routes had agreed to refund it. the subcontracts were made to vaile, and vaile agreed out of the proceeds of the route to pay the debt to s. w, dorsey. to that extent he was the trustee of s. w. dorsey. dorsey swears it. vaile admits it, and we all claim it to be true. and yet they introduced that letter simply because that line was there. now, gentlemen, i have read both of those letters, and i want you to remember them if you can, and tell me whether at that time vaile and dorsey were in a conspiracy together to defraud this government. and yet the government introduced this letter just to prove that one thing, and no more. on the julian and colton route there is this peculiarity: the government failed to prove the number of men and horses necessary on the original schedule for three-times-a-week service, and consequently we are left without any standard by which to judge; without any standard by which to measure. on page mr. ker calls attention to the fact that the proposal marked p, originally contained an offer to carry the mail at thirty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars additional, but he states that the thirty-six was rubbed out and twenty-six was put in its place. that is, they offered to carry it in thirty-six hours for seven thousand and odd dollars, and then afterwards fraudulently, of course, rubbed out the thirty-six and inserted twenty-six. but they did not change the sum for which they offered to carry it. they offered to carry it in thirty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, and afterwards they rubbed out the thirty-six and put in twenty-six, and then offered to carry it in twenty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars. the question arises, how did that hurt the government? the question arises, was that a fraud? if it had been originally twenty-six hours and they had rubbed out those figures and put in thirty-six hours, then you might say the intention was to defraud the government. but the proposition had to be accepted after that was done, and consequently in no event could the government be defrauded by the change of the proposal before the government accepted the proposal. i might say to a man, "i will let you have a house and lot for ten thousand dollars." he does not accept the proposal. have i not the right on the next day to charge him twelve thousand dollars for it? is that a fraud? if i tell him, "you may have it for ten thousand dollars," and he accepts, then, as an honorable man, i cannot change the proposal. but if i tell him he may have it for twelve thousand dollars and then afterwards tell him he may have it for ten thousand dollars, mr. ker calls that a fraud of two thousand dollars. if one of the jury should give me a contract to deliver one hundred horses for ten thousand dollars, and i should scratch out the one hundred and put in seventy-five, certainly you would not consider yourself defrauded. or if i agreed to carry the mail in thirty hours for the government for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, and then afterwards changed and said i would carry it in ten hours less time for the same price, can that be tortured into a fraud--unless i might be indicted for defrauding myself? on page mr. ker says that mr. farrish, who was the subcontractor says: i always carried the mail in from six to ten hours before expedition. i carried the mail from greenhorn to pueblo. i did not stop at saint charles. on page mr. farrish says he carried the mail for three months in . that is the only time farrish carried the mail. this route was expedited on the th day of june, , and yet mr. ker says that farrish carried the mail before it was expedited and carried it in from six to ten hours. mr. farrish did not carry the mail until about two years after it had been expedited. on page mr. ker, speaking of the two affidavits on the route from pueblo to rosita, laughs at the idea that the proportion was the same in both. now, what is the proportion in both? one affidavit says that on the then schedule it would take eight men and horses; that is, the horses and men added together make eight, and that on the proposed schedule it would take twenty-four. then they would be entitled to just three times the money they were receiving on the original schedule, because three times eight are twenty-four. let me explain here what i mean by proportion. if i am carrying the mail with, say, four horses and two men, making a total of six, and if then that service is increased so that it takes twelve men and horses, i get twice the original pay; if it takes eighteen men and horses, i get three times the original pay. you understand that there is always a relation between the pay and the number of men and horses used. if i am using one man and one horse and am getting a thousand dollars for the service, and if it is expedited so that i have to use two men and two horses, i would get two thousand dollars. in the first affidavit they had eight men and horses. if they put up the service to what they were going to, it would take twenty-four. three times eight are twenty-four. then they would get three times the original amount of money. in the second affidavit he swears that it takes fifteen men and animals on the present schedule, and on the proposed schedule it would take forty-five men and animals. three times fifteen are forty-five. three times eight are twenty-four. you see that on both affidavits you get the same amount of money to a cent, because the proportion is absolutely and exactly the same. yet mr. ker laughs at the idea of the proportion being the same. it took eight men and horses in the first affidavit on the present schedule, and twenty-four on the proposed schedule. there the contractor would be entitled to three times the original sum. in the next affidavit it took fifteen men and horses on the original schedule and forty-five men and horses on the proposed schedule. again, he would be entitled to three times the original sum. on page mr. ker says the oath was put in for three trips. by looking at page we find that it was for seven trips and not three. there is nothing like accuracy. on page ker says that brady had on the jacket before him the evidence that hansom was a subcontractor at three thousand one hundred dollars a year, and the contract gave the contractor a clear profit of five thousand and forty-eight dollars. the fact is, that brady's order was made on july , . that order is on page . hansom's subcontract was filed october , , about three month's after brady's order was made. and yet mr. ker tells you that on that jacket when brady made the order he had notice of hansom's subcontract. unless he had the gift of seeing into the future he knew nothing about it. he would have had to see into the future three months in order to have had it before him at that time. on page mr. ker says that the letter of j. w. dorsey, written april , , referred to the perkin's affidavit as not putting the number of men and animals high enough. let us see. another case of arithmetic. the letter refers to dorsey's statement transmitted with the letter. it could not be the way stated by mr. ker for the following reasons: the affidavit of perkins said three men and six animals one trip a week on the then time. that makes nine. on one trip a week with the reduction to eighty-four hours, eight men and twenty-four animals would be required. that makes thirty-two. the proportion then gives three and five-ninths or three hundred and fifty-five per cent, increase of pay. that is the affidavit, he says, that dorsey wrote out and said was not high enough, and then fixed up one that was. the affidavit that john w. dorsey sent in the letter says that it will require for three trips a week on the then time four men and twelve animals, making sixteen; on the proposed schedule for the same number of trips eleven men and thirty-two animals, making forty-three. as sixteen is to forty-three--that is, two hundred and sixty-nine per cent, increase of pay. now, that letter, he says, claims that the perkins affidavit did not put it high enough. i say that he did not refer to the perkins affidavit. he could not say that did not put it high enough, because that put it at three hundred and fifty-five per cent., and the affidavit he inclosed in the letter, put it at two hundred and sixty-nine per cent.--nearly one hundred per cent. less. according to mr. ker he was complaining that that affidavit was too low, and so he inclosed one, one hundred per cent, lower. that will not do. besides all that the affidavit of john w. dorsey is for forty-five hours, while the first affidavit, i believe, is for eighty-four hours. john w. dorsey offers to carry it in forty-five hours for two hundred and sixty-nine per cent., and the other affidavit on the basis of eighty-five hours calls for three hundred and fifty-five per cent. do you not see, gentlemen, it is utterly impossible to believe that? on page mr. ker again falls into mathematics. he says that mr. brady allowed on the bismarck route for three hundred men and three hundred horses. i tell you this prosecution ought to go into the stock business. one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses were called for by the affidavit. now, mr. ker says when brady doubled the trips he doubled the horses, and when he doubled the trips he doubled the men. that would make three hundred men and three hundred horses. if he had doubled the trips again he would have had six hundred men and six hundred horses, enough cavalry to have protected that entire frontier. yet after all the bismarck and tongue river business, mr. vaile comes in and swears, on page , that the loss on that route to vaile and miner was at least fifty thousand dollars; and mr. miner swears that the loss on the route was between forty and fifty thousand dollars. vaile says if he had known at that time of the clause in the contract by which he could have gotten out of it he would have abandoned the route, but that he had not read a contract for ten or twelve years. now, as a matter of fact, gentlemen, and it seems to me the prosecution ought to be perfectly fair, brady allowed only forty per cent, of the affidavit made in regard to the one hundred and fifty men and the one hundred and fifty horses, and yet according to mr. ker he allowed for three hundred men and three hundred horses; instead of allowing for forty per cent, of one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, he allowed for one hundred per cent. more. that would have run the pay up, i should think, to about a million dollars. mr. ker also says that mr. vaile swears that he induced brady to give an extension to august th, and thereupon mr. ker makes the remarkable statement that vaile did not do it; that boone did it; i am very thankful for the admission. from that it appears that boone was more potent with brady than vaile was. if he was, why did they have to get somebody close to brady? afterwards we are told by mr. ker that mr. boone was kicked out to make a place for vaile, so as to get a man close to brady. mr. ker. will you tell me what page it was i spoke about boone? mr. ingersoll. it was mr. bliss. it is mr. bliss's turn to explain now. the notes that i have were handed to me by another, and i supposed referred to mr. ker. mr. bliss said: this, i think, can leave no doubt in the minds of any one that the extension was obtained by mr. boone. mr. bliss says that on page , and so i will relieve mr. ker of that charge. mr. ker. i am glad to be relieved of something. mr. ingersoll. i do not want to do any injustice to mr. ker; between mr. bliss and mr. ker i am perfectly impartial. mr. ker attacks the affidavit made by vaile on the vermillion and sioux falls route. let us get at the facts. the route was let as fifty miles long. that is the distance that was given in the advertisement by the government. they wanted expedition on that route. the government asked for it. mr. vaile asked if he could make the affidavit, and he made it, supposing the route was fifty miles long. he never had been over it. it turned out that it was about seventy-three miles long, and consequently the affidavit provided for too fast time. the affidavit called for ten hours. that made over seven miles an hour; or, including the stoppages, i presume about ten miles an hour. the difficulty arose out of the mistake in the distance. vaile so swears, on page . he also swears that he went to the department and there saw mr. brewer, who was in charge of that bureau, or at least of that business, and it was brewer who suggested to him to make the affidavit. mr. vaile did not ask for any expedition on that route. mr. brewer spoke to him about it. mr. vaile swears that brewer spoke to him first. mr. vaile swears that he made the affidavit at the instigation of mr. brewer. mr. bliss says brewer is an honest man, and calls him honest brewer. why did he not call honest brewer to the stand and let him deny that he asked mr. vaile to make that affidavit? the court. yes. mr. ingersoll. [resuming]. if the court please, and gentlemen of the jury, on page there is the letter from miner to carey. john carey, esq., fort mcdermitt, nev. dear sir: one s. h. abbott, who was postmaster at alvord, i find, by accident, is writing to the department that you do not pay your bills, and that there is no need of anything more than a weekly mail. i wish you would see this man at once and satisfy him; pay him whatever is reasonable and report to r. c. williamson, at the dalles. i suppose that is what he is after. he knows nothing of the through mail, and probably a weekly is all he needs; but more likely he wants some money. he complained once before to the department that he had to make a special trip to camp mcdermitt to make his returns, and i sent him thirty dollars, and it was all right. now, i suppose, he wants a little more money. yours, &c., john r. miner. that letter was introduced to show that there was a conspiracy between miner and brady; and yet when that man complained that the service was not put on at the time it should have been, and that he was postmaster, was forced to carry his returns to the nearest post-office, and consequently spent about thirty dollars, miner sent him the money. why? because he and brady were not confederates; because they were not conspirators. for that reason he sent the man thirty dollars. the letter says, "the man that was postmaster." when this letter was written mr. abbott was not postmaster; he had ceased to be postmaster. yet they have endeavored to impress upon you the idea that when this letter was written to abbott he was then postmaster. he had written a letter, stating that a weekly mail was all that was wanted, and that mr. carey did not pay his bills. mr. miner wrote to carey on that account, "the man is trying to make trouble. he tried to make trouble once before, and we sent him thirty dollars. he is not postmaster now. he has no official position. go and see him. give him what is reasonable, and tell him to mind his own business." why? if he had been in a conspiracy with brady he would not care what mr. abbott wrote to the department. if he was absolutely certain there he would not care anything about it. but having no arrangement with the second assistant, having no arrangement of the kind set forth in the indictment, he did not want mr. abbott to write letters; he did not want mr. abbott to make trouble. that letter, instead of showing that there was a conspiracy, shows absolutely that there was not, and the letter was not written to him while he was an official. the man was not then postmaster. he simply had been. the next point made by mr. ker is a very powerful point, that mr. vaile came from independence, where the james boys came from, and where they steal horses. suppose i should say that mr. ker comes from philadelphia, the town that mr. phipps lives in, the man who stole the roof off of the poorhouse. would there be any argument in that? mr. ker says that j. w. dorsey wrote in his letter that the profits would be one hundred thousand dollars a year. that was a mistake. i turn to the letter and i find that it says one hundred thousand dollars in the life of the contract, and not one hundred thousand dollars a year. mr. bliss. your honor, i claim the right to call attention to the fact that mr. ker read the letter in full referring to the one hundred thousand dollars clear of expenses. he read it and then followed it by the statement of one hundred thousand dollars a year, which was obviously a mistake. mr. ingersoll. that only makes it worse. after he had read the letter to the jury, and while the echoes of the letter were still in the court-room, he then said one hundred thousand dollars a year, while the letter said one hundred thousand dollars within the life of the contract. upon such statements, gentlemen, they expect to strip a citizen of his liberty. [to counsel for the government.] you will have some work to do in a little while. it may be that mr. ker forgets these things. i do not say how it happened. mr. ker also tells you that miner wanted to cut out s. w. dorsey and j. w. dorsey and mr. peck. was that because he was a co-conspirator? he also tells you that miner deserted his friend s. w. dorsey. was he at that time a conspirator? mr. ker tells you that s. w. dorsey wanted to gratify his spite against vaile and that the first thing he did after he got out of the senate was to write that letter to the second assistant postmaster-general against the subcontracts. does that show they were co-conspirators? did he want to gratify his spite because he had made a bargain with them by which they were to realize hundreds of thousands of dollars? mr. ker also says that miner's letter to tuttle shows the conspiracy. it is perfectly wonderful, gentlemen, how suspicion changes and poisons everything. let me read you the letter from which mr. ker draws the inference that there was a conspiracy. it is on page : washington, d. c., august , . frank a. tuttle, box , pueblo, colo., dear sir: yours th received. we accept your proposition, provided (so that there shall be no conflict) that a friend of ours, who has recently gone to colorado, has not made different arrangements before we can get him word. the petition for expedition should be separate from the petition for increase of number of trips. we make no boast of being solid with anybody, but can get what is reasonable. yours, truly, miner, peck & co. you are told that is evidence of a conspiracy. suppose the letter had been this way: "we boast of being solid. we can get anything, whether reasonable or not." that probably would have been evidence of perfect innocence. he writes a letter and says: we make no boast of being solid with anybody, but can get what is reasonable. they say that is evidence of conspiracy. suppose he had written the opposite, "we do boast of being solid and we can get anything, whether it is reasonable or not." according to their logic that would have been evidence of absolute innocence. whenever you are suspicious you extract poison from the fairest and sweetest flowers. prejudice and suspicion turn every fact against a defendant. on page mr. ker tells us that vaile never saw peck, and yet had the impudence to write that his subcontract was signed by peck in person. the subcontract is in evidence here. nobody pretends that it was not signed by peck, and yet that is brought forward as a suspicious circumstance against mr. vaile, because there is no evidence that mr. vaile ever saw mr. peck. is there anything in a point like that? "my contract was signed by mr. peck in person." he does not mean by that that he saw him sign it. the evidence here is that it was signed by peck, and yet the fact that he says peck did sign it, and the fact that he had never seen peck, mr. ker endeavors to torture so that you will think he wrote what he knew to be untrue. on page mr. ker says that miner does not deny writing the letter marked e. this letter was dated the th day of may, , and was on one of the dorsey routes. miner swears that he never signed a paper, never touched pen to paper on any of the dorsey routes after the th day of may, . now, gentlemen, after having made all these statements to you, and i have only taken up a few of them, these misstatements, these mistakes, mr. ker winds up by telling you it is the safer plan to find a verdict of guilty, because if you find them guilty wrongfully the court will upset your verdict. gentlemen, you have sworn to try this case according to the law and the evidence. you are the supreme arbiters of this case. it is for you to decide upon this evidence, and for you alone. yet you are told by mr. ker to shirk that responsibility. you are told by him to violate your oaths and find against these defendants, for the sake of certainty, and then turn them over to the mercy of the court. that is not the law. these defendants are being tried before you. they have the right to your honest judgment. if you have any doubt as to their guilt you must find them not guilty or violate your oaths. you are told it is the safer way to find them guilty and then let them appeal to the court for mercy! that doctrine is monstrous. it is deformed. such a verdict would be the spawn of prejudice, and cowardice, and perjury. you cannot give such a verdict and retain your self-respect. you cannot give such a verdict and retain your manhood! if you have any doubt as to the guilt of these defendants you must say they are not guilty. you have no right to turn them over to the court, no matter whether the court is merciful or unmerciful. you must pass upon their guilt, and you must do it honestly. i never heard so preposterous, so cruel a sentiment uttered in a court of justice. it amounts to this, gentlemen: if you have any doubt of guilt resolve the doubt against the defendant. if the evidence is not quite sufficient, find against the defendants and turn them over to the mercy of the court. why should we have a jury at all? why should you sit here at all? why should you hear this evidence, if after all you are to shirk the responsibility and turn the defendants over to the court? you never will do it, gentlemen. now, gentlemen, i wish to call your attention to a few points made by colonel bliss. you must remember that colonel bliss has been very highly complimented by his associates as a kind of peripatetic index of this case, an encyclopedia of all the papers; that he never makes a mistake; that he recollects amounts with absolute certainty, and that he is infallible. keeping all these things in your mind, i wish to call your attention to some statements that he has made. first of all, i will refer to a little of his philosophy, or law, and that is, that in every affidavit you should state not the number necessary on the then schedule, but the actual number, and that there could be no doubt about the number of men and horses used at the time when an affidavit was made, and that consequently anybody making an affidavit should put in the number then actually used. let us see how that will work. he says the oaths are false because they do not state the actual number of men and horses employed in carrying the mail at the time they were made. he says that the person making the affidavit swore to the number actually employed, and that where that number was not employed that fact of itself shows the affidavits to be false. i say that is not the law. the law calls for the number necessary, not the number actually employed. let me show how easy it would be to cheat the government on the principle laid down by the gentleman. i will show you how infinitely silly that is. let me illustrate. here is a route one hundred and fifty miles long, once a week. you know it is possible for one man and one horse for a little while to carry that mail and to go one hundred and fifty miles one way and one hundred and fifty miles the other, making three hundred miles in a week. you can take a magnificent horse and a good, stout, tough man, and you can do it. the court. or a boy. mr. ingersoll. or a stout, tough boy. the court. a boy would be best. mr. ingersoll. you do not need any boy. just one man and one horse will answer. the man can ride the horse one hundred and fifty miles in three days, and then ride one hundred and fifty miles back in the next three days. all you have to swear to, according to mr. bliss, is the number actually used, and so you would come in and swear to two on this route. now, when you are making an affidavit as to the number to be used on a schedule to be made, you cannot swear to the number actually in use, because they are not then in use. you have to swear to the number necessary. you have to swear to the number required. now, see. on a mail route one hundred and fifty miles long i would only want a good smart horse, and one good active man or boy. i would not need to carry it more than one week, because i could make the affidavit for that week, and then the question would be how many men and horses would be required for a daily mail on the same route. i would put in a reasonable number, and the difference between the number then actually used and the reasonable number to use would be the standard by which to fix my pay. if you take the man and horse actually used, and then take the number that would reasonably be used, you would make a difference of a thousand per cent. and yet that is the doctrine laid down here to guide us as to these affidavits. let me tell you what the law is. it does not make any difference what you are really using at the time. you must swear to the number that would be reasonably necessary to carry the mail on the then schedule. you must swear to the number that would be reasonably necessary to carry the mail on the proposed schedule. in the first place, if you put a great deal of work on a man and horse, you must put the same proportion on man and horse in the second schedule. if you are easy on man and horse in the first schedule, you must be easy on man and horse in the second. the only object, gentlemen, is to keep the proportion, because you are to be paid according to the number of men and horses used. now, they say it would be necessary to go out there in order to tell how many men and horses would be necessary, and that the men who made these affidavits had never been on the routes. there was no need of being on the routes. i could give you the number required on any route two hundred or five hundred miles long. i could give you the number of men and horses reasonably required to carry the mail once, twice, three times, or seven times a week; and i could give you the number reasonably required to carry it at the rate of three miles an hour or five miles an hour or six miles an hour without going there. i need not go there for the purpose of the affidavit. i can take it for granted that the road is good and level, and i can keep exactly the same proportion and nobody can be defrauded. if you take the rule of colonel bliss it would be the easiest thing on earth to defraud the government. that would be by taking the actual number in use and then taking the number necessary. oil page mr. bliss makes the point that according to law the second assistant postmaster-general was not bound to allow according to the affidavits. he is right as to that. that is what mr. bliss says, and that is what john w. dorsey swore he thought, and that is what mr. thomas j. brady swore he did. he did not take the affidavit as a finality. mr. thomas j. brady said that he took it for granted that the man, when he made the affidavit, thought it was true, and that the man, when he made the affidavit, swore to the best of his knowledge and belief. but thomas j. brady never swore that he considered himself bound by the affidavit. on the contrary, he swore that he had a standard in his own mind, and that expedition was to cost thirty dollars a mile, or something of that kind. he went by that standard, and he gauged the affidavits by it. on page mr. bliss says that brady admitted that he made no inquiry as to the truth of affidavits, and that he accepted them as absolutely conclusive. on page mr. brady swears: i accepted their statement as conclusive so far as they knew. brady also swears that he had his standard in his own mind, as i said before, and that he had an opinion of his own, and that by that standard and opinion he was governed. on page mr. bliss charges that brady took the oath of perkins on route as the basis for the expedition. mr. turner's calculation on file shows that that affidavit was not the basis of the calculation. mr. bliss. your honor, allow me to say that subsequently i stated to the court and to the jury distinctly that while the indorsement on the jacket recited the perkins affidavit as being the one used, or the affidavit of the subcontractor, and while mr. brady transmitted to congress that perkins affidavit as the one upon which he acted, i still believed that the calculation showed that he used the other affidavit. mr. wilson. he never made that statement until he made it during the progress of my argument when i was discussing that very point. mr. bliss. you are mistaken. mr. merrick. he made it while i was here and i was not here during mr. wilson's argument. mr. ingersoll. if he has taken it back three times, that is enough. on page mr. bliss charges brady with having two affidavits on the pueblo and greenhorn route, from john w. dorsey, on the same day. mr. bliss. mr. henkle called my attention to the fact that it was not the greenhorn route, but the pueblo and rosita route, and i corrected it. mr. ingersoll. good enough. i did not know about his taking it back. i was not here at the time. the fact was, however, that only one affidavit was ever filed, and that was an affidavit, not by j. w. dorsey, but by john r. miner. mr. bliss. there were two on the pueblo and rosita route by john w. dorsey. mr. ingersoll. we will come to them. you will get tired of them before we get through with them. on page mr. bliss refers to two affidavits. the first affidavit, the one not used, calls for three men and seven animals on the then schedule. that makes ten. on the proposed schedule of eighty hours it called for nine men and twenty-seven animals. that makes thirty-six. the proportion then in this affidavit is . , that is, the pay would be . times the original pay. in the second affidavit five men and fifteen animals, twenty in all, are called for on the then schedule, and on the proposed schedule twelve men and forty-two animals. the proportion there is . . so that the affidavits, leaving out the fractions, which are substantially the same, stand in this way: by the first the contract price would have been multiplied by three and the contractor would have had three times the original pay, and by the second he would have had twice the original pay. substituting an affidavit at only double the pay is called a fraud, because they withdrew an affidavit for treble the pay. that is what mr. bliss calls a fraud. he says still that it is a fraud. now, then, there were two affidavits, and these two affidavits, gentlemen, mr. bliss well knew were filed on different schedules. the first affidavit was filed on a proposed schedule of eighty hours. the second affidavit was filed on a proposed schedule of fifty hours. the affidavit agreeing to carry the mail in fifty hours offered to do it at double the pay. the affidavit on eighty hours wanted three times the pay, or substantially that. one was . and the other was . . just think of trying to make that a fraud on the government. suppose they had filed a third affidavit and offered to carry it for nothing. that would have been carrying a fraud to the extreme. mr. bliss. your honor, with reference to that, i said, expressly referring to these two affidavits: it is not a question of proportion. the question is whether the mere existence of those double affidavits did not give brady conclusive notice that the man who could make those affidavits was not a reliable man, because no matter what the time was to which it was to be increased, he stated the number necessary on the then schedule, as so and so in one affidavit and in the other he stated the number differently. i referred to it solely in that connection, as the language shows on the page referred to. mr. ingersoll. for instance, a man writes, "you owe me five hundred dollars according to my books," and writes the next day, "i have made a mistake. you don't owe me anything." mr. bliss insists that the second letter would show that the man was not to be relied upon. that is his idea of honesty. if in the first letter he had written that i did not owe him anything, and in the second letter i did, that might be suspicious. but when in the first he writes that i owe him and in the second that i do not, there can be no suspicion as to his honesty. in the first affidavit this man stated so much, and in the second affidavit he put it one-third less. that simply shows the man was paying attention to it and wanted to make an honest offer. and yet everything in this case is poisoned with prejudice and suspicion. another point: mr. bliss, on page , says that on the pueblo and rosita route the number of trips was seven and that there was no increase. upon that statement he bases an argument of fraud. the argument is that there was no increase of trips. now, on page , the order shows that in the first place there was one trip a week and there were six trips added. that makes seven. the original pay was three hundred and eighty-eight dollars. six trips were added, and the value of the six trips, which gave two thousand three hundred and twenty-eight dollars of additional pay. yet mr. bliss tells you that there was no increase of trips. as a matter of fact, six trips were added, and that was all that could be added. mr. bliss. were they added coincidently with the affidavit for expedition? mr. ingersoll. you say they were not added; i say they were. mr. bliss. no, sir; i said at the time of the expedition there was no increase of trips and the affidavit was based upon the seven trips. mr. ingersoll. i say that at that time there was an increase. mr. bliss. your honor, the point is this: i think i am right in saying that the increase of trips took place after the expedition. that is my recollection about it. i have not referred to the record. i think colonel ingersoll will find that is so. mr. ingersoll. we will see whether you are right. at the time the affidavit was made there were just three trips, and afterward there were four trips added. let us get it exactly right. i read from page : date, july , . state, colorado. number of route, . termini of route, pueblo and rosita. length of route, fifty miles. number of trips per week, one. mr. bliss. i see you are right. the trips were increased. mr. ingersoll. when anybody gives it up i will stop. that is fair and that is honorable. now, the next point. on page mr. bliss says that the oath on the toquerville and adairville route was made for seven trips, although the order only gave them six trips, of course the inference being that they got as much pay for six trips as they were entitled to for seven trips. on page the original order was for one trip. two trips were added. look on page and you will find that more trips were added. the second order increased four trips, and that made seven in all; and yet mr. bliss makes the statement that there were only six. that is another mistake. another point. on page mr. bliss states that mr. rerdell spoke in his testimony about j. b. b. i have referred to that. i have referred before to the claim that rerdell was sustained by the testimony of mr. bissell. as a matter of fact, i do not remember that mr. rerdell ever said one word in his testimony as to charging anything to j. b. b. ninth point. at page mr. bliss states that dorsey admitted in his letter to anthony joseph that the average rate for mail service on star routes was only five dollars a mile. mr. dorsey says in his letter no such thing. he says the "average cost of horseback service"; he does not use the language employed by mr. bliss, "the average rate for mail service on star routes," but he says, "the average cost of horseback service." that is a small point, but it shows how anxious the gentlemen are to get the thing fully as big as it is. tenth point. at page mr. bliss says that brady cut off forty-nine thousand dollars of increase on the mineral park and pioche route on the d of january, , because the mail bills showed so little business. that is another mistake. the order cutting off the forty-nine thousand dollars was made on the d of january, , not . i mention this simply for the sake of accuracy. eleventh point. at page mr. bliss says that the mail bills on the silverton and parrott city route showed that brady ran the service up from seven hundred and forty-five dollars to fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars, and that the fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars was afterwards increased to thirty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents. the record shows nothing of the kind (see pages - ). the original pay was one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars (page ). the pay under the order of june , , was six thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents (page ). no other increase was ever made. on page is the increase and expedition, being in all fourteen thousand eight hundred and eight dollars and sixty three cents. the original pay was one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars. a little change was made in the route that brought it up to one thousand seven hundred and three dollars and sixty-five cents. that, together with the expedition, makes a total of sixteen thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents. and yet mr. bliss told you that it was thirty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents. so that this encyclopædia of the papers made a mistake, in one year, of fourteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and forty-eight cents. for the whole contract time it would be a mistake of forty-five thousand dollars. and yet, strange as it may appear, that mistake was made against the defendants. well, let us go on. twelfth point. on page , bottom line, mr. bliss says: they got so much in the way of offering petitions that mr. rerdell being told by stephen w. dorsey, upon this route from pueblo to greenhorn, to go to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time." as to this petition, b, in which are the words "and faster time," george sears swears, at pages and , that it is in the same condition now as when it was signed by him, he thinks. thereupon mr. bliss told you that he was mistaken in the paper. you must recollect these things. mr. bliss. are there not two petitions there altered? mr. ingersoll. that is on another route. there were b, b, and b. b was the written paper, and you introduced b and b. one said "quicker time," and one said "on faster schedule," and yet in the very next paragraph they asked to have it run in eight hours. mr. rerdell had to admit that he put in the words without knowing what the petition called for, and that dorsey instructed him to put them in. mr. bliss. your honor, in the very same paragraph, the very line, where i said "faster schedule," i called attention to the fact that the words were unnecessary. mr. ingersoll. that is not the only point. the point is, who wrote "faster time"? mr. bliss. that is not what i said. you have not given the whole sentence. mr. ingersoll. you cannot expect me to read your whole seven days' speech. that would be too much. this is what you said: they got so much in the way of altering petitions that mr. rerdell being told by stephen w. dorsey, upon this route from pueblo to greenhorn, to go to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time." that is it exactly. mr. bliss. then follows this: he inserted "and faster schedule," "on quicker time," though there was not any necessity for doing that, because if they had gone further down, after some argument in the petition, to the request for expedition, they would have seen that there was no necessity for that little forgery up there. mr. ingersoll. that is a magnificent admission. "there was no necessity for" putting that in. i am glad he admits that. he would ask you to believe that s. w. dorsey, a man of intelligence and brains, would ask to have a petition forged, altered, interlined, without knowing what was in that petition. it will not do, gentlemen. thirteenth point. at page , mr. bliss says that mcbean told moore, in reference to route no. , eugene city to bridge creek, "that he could carry all the mail in his pocket." now, as a matter of fact, mr. mcbean does not state any conversation with moore covering this route. that was another mistake. no matter. fourteenth point. at page , mr. bliss, in speaking of the ojo caliente route, says the service in fact never was performed in fifty hours; that the evidence of that is conclusive. now, let us see. here is a jacket on page , and that jacket shows that out of seventy-eight half trips, expedition was lost on twenty-three and made on fifty-five. yet mr. bliss tells you it never was made. the jacket on page shows that expedition was lost on twelve half trips and made on sixty-six. and yet mr. bliss says it was never made. the jacket on page shows that at the time they were carrying seven trips a week, nineteen expeditions were lost out of one hundred and ninety-two half trips. and yet mr. bliss says the fifty-hour schedule never was made. another mistake. mr. bliss. that is long after the time i was referring to. as to the other point, i simply repeat it. mr. ingersoll. it will not help it to repeat it. for every expedition lost on this route or any other the government did not pay. when the expedition was lost, the pay was deducted; when the expedition was made the pay was given, and not otherwise. you see, gentlemen, how they have endeavored to get the facts before you; what a struggle it has been over all these obstacles--lack of memory, the immensity of this record--how they have climbed the himalayas of difficulty; how they have gone over the andes and rocky mountains of trouble to get at the facts! fifteenth point. on page mr. bliss states that there could not have been legally allowed, on the evidence on the dalles route, on expedition over $ , . as a matter of fact, the evidence does not cover the whole route as to the number of men and horses used. the government never proved the number of men and horses necessary to carry the mail over the whole route, but only a part. mr. ker admits that the evidence is defective in that regard. when you have no standard, gentlemen, you cannot measure. sixteenth point. on page mr. bliss, in speaking of the route from eugene city to bridge creek, says that, taking the undisputed facts as they were, before and after the expedition, brady could not legally have allowed more than $ , . . the evidence is (page ) that wyckoff was the subcontractor from july, , to . powers first carried the mail in . the route was increased and expedited in june, . mr. powers never carried it from the expedition. mr. wyckoff was the only man who did that, and mr. wyckoff was not called. consequently there was no evidence as to the number of men and horses used on either schedule. that left the gentleman without a standard and without a measure. seventeenth point. on page mr. bliss says that on the silverton and parrott city route the oath was made for seven trips a week on the present schedule, when it ought to have been two trips on the old schedule and seven trips for the new schedule. as there is no evidence as to the number of men and horses used on the old schedule, of course there is no evidence in this record to impeach that oath; you cannot find it. eighteenth point. on page mr. bliss states that after the passage of the act of april , , there were two increases upon the white river route. the fact is there was just one after the passage of that law. of course a little mistake like that does not make much difference in a case of this magnitude. nineteenth point. on page mr. bliss states that raton was put on the trinidad route april , (page ). the office was embraced on the routes july , . the first order in reference to it was made june , . it was put on the route from july , , increasing the distance twenty-three miles. yet mr. bliss tells you that it was put on the route april , . mr. bliss. is not that the date of the order? mr. ingersoll. it may have been the date of your order. mr. bliss. is not that the date of the order in the case? mr. ingersoll. i do not know anything about that. i give you the exact facts. twentieth point. on page , mr. bliss, in speaking of the ojo caliente route, charges that by the order increasing the trips on this route in february, , there was paid from the treasury illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. as a matter of fact had we been paid for that entire quarter it would have amounted to seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents. the pay was not adjusted until april < (page ). the amount that was then paid was not seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents, but it was three thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars and twenty-two cents. it was not for the entire quarter, but simply for the actual service rendered. the quarterly pay for the preceding quarter, before the expedition, was three thousand three hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents; showing that we received only for that quarter an excess, on account of expedition, of three hundred and sixty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents. but he told you that we got illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. that is a small matter. twenty-first point. on page , mr. bliss says in effect that dorsey undertook to state that he kept no books; that he was doing a business amounting, i think he says, to six million dollars a year, and yet he kept no books. on the contrary, dorsey swore that he did keep books; on the contrary, he swore that kellogg was his book-keeper. kellogg swore that he did keep the books. torrey swore that he was his book-keeper, and kept the books. and yet mr. bliss stood up before this jury and said to you that mr. dorsey wanted you to believe, or stated that he kept no hooks of that immense business. it will not do. no books but the red books, i suppose, were kept. twenty-second point. at page , mr. bliss says that in regard to one of vaile and miner's routes (canyon city to fort mcdermitt) there were large profits, amounting to twenty thousand dollars a year. then he says eighty thousand dollars during the four years. and yet mr. bliss knew at that time that that expedition lasted only eleven months. trying to fool the jury about sixty-two thousand dollars. twenty-third point. on page mr. bliss states that the fines on the bismarck and tongue river route, during brady's administration, were only thirteen thousand dollars. if you will look at page of this record, where the table is put in evidence as to the fines, you will find that he deducted from the pay twenty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. mr. bliss made a mistake of sixteen thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. but in a case like this that is not important. gentlemen, you know you cannot always be accurate. mr. bliss is an accurate man, as a rule. he has been called the index of this business for the government. twenty-fourth point. on page mr. bliss says: the one fact of the evidence of the payment of money by dorsey to brady remains the same whether the books were put out of the way by dorsey or by rerdell. that is the great central point, so far as the books were concerned; and as to that the testimony is absolutely uncontradicted. mr. brady swears that dorsey never gave him a dollar. dorsey swears that he never had a money transaction with brady amounting to one cent. mr. rerdell does not pretend to swear that he knows of mr. dorsey having paid a dollar to mr. brady. he does not pretend to swear that he knows of any one of these defendants having paid one dollar to mr. brady. and yet mr. bliss will tell you that the fact that dorsey paid brady money is uncontradicted. mr. bliss. i did not intend that, colonel ingersoll. i do not think it is capable of that interpretation. mr. ingersoll. what did you mean? mr. bliss. as to the statement being in the books it is uncontradicted. mr. ingersoll. let me see. he now turns and says he did not mean the money, he meant the books. the evidence is overwhelming on our side that the books did not exist. when you deny the existence of the book i take it you deny the existence of any item in it. it is a question whether any such books ever existed, gentlemen. rerdell swore in the affidavit of june , , and he swore to that affidavit three times hand-running, that no such books existed. he swore substantially the same thing on the th of july, . he told mr. french that no such books ever existed. he told judge carpenter that no such books ever existed. he stated to bosler that no such books ever existed. and now this gentleman says the evidence is uncontradicted that brady was charged in those books. that is a good deal worse than the other. let us go on. twenty-fifth point. at page mr bliss says that mr. dorsey, according to his own statement--had brought rerdell up and led him to infamy. did dorsey make any such statement? did mr. dorsey, gentlemen, in your presence, swear that he had brought rerdell up? did he, in your presence, swear that he had led him to infamy? did he, in your presence, swear that he had done anything of the kind? i have got the exact words. who, according to his own statement, he, dorsey, had brought up, had led to infamy, and who, according to his own statement, had stated that macveagh had told a lie. a curious use of the english language. i believe it is in that connection, though, that he speaks about mr. dorsey having the impudence to go to the president of the united states. that is not a very impudent proceeding. in this country a president is not so far above the citizen. in this country we have not gotten to the sublimity of snobbery that a citizen cannot give his opinion to the president; especially a citizen who did all he could to make him president; especially a citizen in whom he had confidence. not much impudence in that. i do not think that during the campaign general garfield would have regarded it impudent on the part of mr. dorsey to speak to him. i do not believe in a man, the moment he is elected president, feeding upon meat that makes him so great that the man who helped put him there cannot approach him, and every man who voted for him helped to put him there. i am a believer in the doctrine that the president is a servant of the people. i have not yet reached that other refinement of snobbery. mr. bliss. in point of fact, colonel ingersoll, i made no such statement. now let me read the passage on the very page you refer to. patched up the affidavit of mr. rerdell, addressed it to the president, admittedly went to the president with it, and then had the impudence to come here and malign the character of general garfield by saying that upon that affidavit of an accused man, instead of seeking a trial, he would have removed two members of his cabinet. i meant nothing about the impudence of going to the president. mr. ingersoll. he had the impudence then to come here and malign garfield by saying that upon that statement he would have turned out two members of his cabinet. that is mr. bliss's idea of impudence; and yet, upon the testimony of the same man, he wants to put five men in the penitentiary. mr. bliss. not upon the sole testimony, i suppose. mr. ingersoll. not upon the soulless testimony. now, i think that mr. dorsey had a right to go and see mr. garfield. i think he had a right to take that affidavit with him. general garfield was told what this man had said concerning mr. dorsey. he had the right to take that affidavit of that man with him so that general garfield, or the then attorney-general rather, might know how much confidence to put in the statement of that man. he had a right to do that. if he found in this way that his attorney-general and his postmaster-general were seeking to have a man convicted by means not entirely honorable, then it was not only his privilege, but it was his duty to discharge them from his cabinet. but i am not saying anything in regard to them now, because they are not here to defend themselves. mr. bliss. i want to correct myself. further down on that page i see i did refer to the impudence of this man going to garfield. mr. ingersoll. well, as mr. bliss has been fair enough to state it, i will not follow up my advantage. on another page mr. bliss says that the idea that mr. vaile did what he did for miner out of any sympathy is "too thin." mr. bliss cannot believe that vaile became miner's friend so suddenly, but he thinks it highly probable that they conspired instantly. that is his view of human nature. friendship is of slow growth; conspiracy is a hot-house plant. gentlemen, is that your view of human nature, that a man cannot become the friend of another suddenly? whenever he does become his friend the friendship has to be formed suddenly, does it not? there is a first time to everything. a moment before it did not exist; a moment afterwards it is dead very suddenly. there was a boy came to town one morning and met an old friend. the old friend asked the boy, "how is your father?" he says, "pretty well, for him." "how is your mother?" "pretty well, for her." "well, how is your grandmother?" "she is dead." "well," says the old man, "she must have died suddenly." "well," said the boy, "pretty sudden, for her." whenever one man becomes the friend of another's, a moment before that he was not, and a moment after he was. it must be sudden. but i imagine that there was a friendship sprang up between vaile and miner, and i will tell you why. they have been partners ever since. you, gentlemen, have had the same experience a thousand times. it is not necessary to conspire with a man in order to like him. neither is it necessary to like him to conspire with him. men have conspired without friendship a thousand times more, probably, than they have formed friendships without conspiracy. mr. bliss says that because miner failed to produce the power of attorney that moore swore was given to him when he went west, the jury have a right to infer that instructions to get up false petitions were in writing and were included in that power of attorney. mr. moore did not swear to the contents of that power of attorney. do you think that it is within the realm of probability that a man ever gave a power of attorney to another and inserted in it: "you are hereby authorized to get up false petitions; you are further authorized to have them so written that you can tear them off and paste others on? "n. b. you will make such contracts with all contractors. "p. s. don't tell anybody." there was another witness in this case, mr. grimes (page ). not the one that wore the coat--all buttoned down before--but mr. grimes, postmaster at kearney. he came all the way here to swear that he stopped using mail bills on the route from kearney to kent because he was so ordered by a letter from the post-office department. then it was discovered that he did not have the letter with him; he went home to get the letter, but he never came back any more. we introduced spangler (page ) from the inspection division of the post-office department; i think he was in charge of that division. he swore, as a matter of fact, that there never were any mail bills on that route at all. mr. carpenter. he was in charge of the mail bills on that route. mr. ingersoll. the mail bills on that particular route. that man grimes was brought clear here to prove that he stopped using mail bills, and then we proved that there never were any mail bills used on that route for him to stop using. i do not suppose that that man was dishonest. these people just got around him and talked to him until he "remembered it." they just planted the seed in his mind, and then came the dew and the rain and the lightning until it began to sprout and in time blossomed and bore fruit--mail bills. when we come to find out that there never were any mail bills used, away went mr. grimes. on page mr. bliss says: they have not, up to this moment, dared to state under oath, i think, that those books are not in their possession. on page dorsey swears that he never received any such books. never saw any such books. he swore again and again that he never heard of any such books. mr. bliss. i stated distinctly that the defendants had not stated that in the form required to excuse them from the production. i stated that distinctly. mr. ingersoll. all right; away goes that. on page mr. bliss says: is it not an absurdity to suppose that dorsey would leave rerdell in charge of his business from july, , to august, , and then on from that time until the close of the contract term in august, ; leave all the business in that way, and then through bosler settle the accounts with mr. rerdell and have no knowledge in any way, not only of the entries contained in the books which rerdell kept, but have no knowledge that he kept any books whatever? is it not absurd to suppose any such thing? these ten routes represented an income of two hundred and fifty-odd thousand dollars a year, or a total business, including income and outgo, of five hundred thousand dollars a year, for three years, going no further than that. these ten routes alone represented transactions amounting to half a million dollars a year. there were one hundred and thirty routes and mr. dorsey took one-third in value if not in number. if the value was the same, mr. dorsey took not less than forty routes. as ten routes involved a business of one million five hundred thousand dollars in that period, the forty routes involved in that proportion transactions amounting to six million dollars. you made a calculation on the supposition that all the routes were expedited the same as those in the indictment, and when you made that calculation you knew they were not expedited. mr. bliss. i object, your honor, to his making any such statement as that. in the first place, it is not evidence; and in the second place, which is of more importance, it is not true. i did not know any such thing, and i do not know any such thing. mr. ingersoll. do you say now that the other routes of his, to the number you talked of, were expedited? mr. bliss. i am not on the stand to be cross-examined now. but i do say to your honor that there is no evidence of that in this case. and then i go beyond that, and say that i did not know those things then and i do not know them now. mr. ingersoll. very well; he made the argument on the supposition that all the routes were expedited. i say that not one of them was expedited in which mr. dorsey had an interest. mr. bliss. there is no evidence on that subject. mr. ingersoll. is there any evidence of what you say? mr. bliss. i put a supposititious case; you have stated a fact. mr. ingersoll. i will put another supposititious case, and mine is that the other routes were not expedited. the court. that is the right way to meet it. counsel ought not to turn to counsel on the other side and make an appeal to his knowledge in regard to matters not in evidence. mr. ingersoll. i know, but he said he did not know it. then i asked him, as a matter of fact, if he did not know-- the court. [interposing.] he stated his supposition, and you met that supposition-- mr. ingersoll. [interposing.] i am always glad to get information. now, then, i will go to another point, and that is the $ , check. mr. bliss speaks of that check at page , and he says: there is a question raised as to whether it was drawn in mr. rerdell's presence. i do not think there was. how could such a question be raised, gentlemen? the check was made payable to m. c. rerdell, or his order. on the back of the check is mr. rerdell's name, put there by himself. he is the only indorser. and yet mr. bliss tells you that there is a question raised as to whether the money was drawn in mr. rerdell's presence or not. the check shows, and the evidence is absolutely perfect, that the money was paid to rerdell in person. the question is this: whether it was drawn in mr. rerdell's presence. if it was paid to him in person, i imagine that he was in that neighborhood at that time. the check was written by him, everything except the signature of dorsey. it was drawn to mr. rerdell, or order, and indorsed by rerdell himself. there was no other indorser. so that it is absolutely certain that he drew the money in question. and yet mr. bliss says the question is whether it was drawn in rerdell's presence or not. mr. bliss continues and states that the money went to s. w. dorsey. did it? mr. dorsey, on page , states the circumstances. he was packing to go away. he had not the time to go to the bank himself. he had the check written payable to mr. rerdell, or order, and he signed it. rerdell went to the bank, got the money, brought it back and put it in his carpet-sack. that is the testimony. now, mr. bliss says: no evidence was given as to what stephen w. dorsey was wanting just at that time with seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills. according to mr. rerdell, he wanted that money to give to mr. brady. that is what mr. rerdell intended to swear. but when he found that that check was made payable to him, and indorsed by him, then they had to take another tack. they dare not say then, "that is the check." they dare not say then, "that is the money." rerdell had forgotten at the time he swore that that check was payable to his order. when he told his seven thousand dollar story to macveagh he forgot about that check. when he told it to the postmaster-general, if he did--i have forgotten whether he did or not--he forgot about that. now, gentlemen, i will call your attention to the part to which i really wish to direct your attention. it is an admission by the government, an admission by colonel bliss; it is in these words, on page , speaking of this very thing: however that may be, they themselves put in a check here for seven thousand five hundred dollars, drawn about the time mr. rerdell spoke of, the money upon which admittedly went to stephen w. dorsey, though there is a question raised as to whether it was drawn in mr. rerdell's presence or whether it was not drawn by him. but the money went to stephen w. dorsey, and there was a promise made to show you what was done with that seven thousand five hundred dollars. but, like many another promise in this case, it remains unfulfilled to-day. no evidence was given as to what stephen w. dorsey was wanting just at that time with seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills. mr. dorsey offered to tell you what he did with it, and you said you did not want it; you did not want to know when he was on the stand. he offered to tell you what he did with the money, and you would not take his statement. hear what he says: mr. dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to the west. how do you know? who ever told mr. bliss that he was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars to the west? he must have got that from mr. rerdell. may be that is the reason they would not allow dorsey to tell, because before that time they had been informed that he would swear that he took the seven thousand five hundred dollars to the west. how else did mr. bliss find this out? it is not in the evidence, not a line. somebody must have told him. who could have told him? nobody, i think, except mr. rerdell. is it possible, then, that mr. bliss was afraid that mr. dorsey would swear that he took it west? and was he afraid also that you would believe it? i do not know. he did not want him to state. now here is what i want to call your attention to: after all the talk about that evidence, all the talk about the seven thousand dollars, all the talk about the seven thousand five hundred dollar check, mr. bliss at least, admits to this jury: of course all that transaction might have occurred precisely as mr. rerdell testified, and there might have involved no corruption on mr. brady's part. if, then, it may have occurred exactly as rerdell swore, and involved no corruption, certainly it might have occurred as mr. s. w. dorsey swore and involved no corruption. i will go on now with a little more from mr. bliss: the drawing of the money and going to mr. brady's room might have been a mere accident, as a call there to attend to some other business. of course, that is reasonable. i might go the bank and draw five thousand dollars, and then i might stop in the treasury department, but that is no evidence that i am bribing the secretary of the treasury. i might step over to see the president; that would be no reason to believe that i bribed the executive. of course that is not conclusive. it is only a little straw in this case, as showing a transaction of that kind involved in connection with all the evidence you have in this case--a little straw evidence of mr. brady's acts, and particularly as at the time when that occurs evidence in connection with the large increases which mr. brady was then ordering; evidence in connection with the books, and the evidence they bear; evidence in connection with the declarations of brady to walsh--evidence all consistent. and then he adds this piece of gratuitous information: mr. dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to the west. how does he know? how did he find that out? and has it come to, this? has all the testimony upon that point--has the confession of rerdell to macveagh and james shrunk to this little measure--that it is "only a straw"? has it shrunk to this measure that mr. bliss admits that the whole thing might have been exactly as rerdell swears, and yet have been perfectly innocent? has it shrunk to this little measure? the government would not tell us--i presume the government will not tell us, what check it was, the proceeds of which were taken by mr. dorsey to mr. brady. neither will they say whether that sum was made up in one check or by adding together a number of checks; and, if so, what number? at page mr. bliss told you, in his opening speech, that rerdell had on one occasion gone with mr. stephen w. dorsey to the bank, and that seven thousand dollars had been drawn; that he had gone with dorsey to the door of the post-office department, or to brady's room, at the time--he would not undertake to say which--mr. dorsey stating to him that he intended to pay that money to mr. brady, and that he (mr. dorsey) then went in. but when they come to put this man on the stand he will not swear that dorsey ever told him that he intended to pay the money to brady. probably that part of the statement, that dorsey told him that he was going to pay that money to brady, can be found in the affidavit made before mr. woodward, in september, and repeated in the affidavit made at hartford in november. but it is not in evidence here. now, we brought all the checks that we had given on middleton's bank, with the exception of two, i believe, that amounted to some hundred and odd dollars. we gave the government counsel notice that there were two others. among those checks was this one for seven thousand five hundred dollars. there were many others. i asked the gentlemen to pick out their check; they would not do it. i asked the gentlemen to pick out the checks; they did not do it. and now if we had failed to produce checks that were important in this case, the government could have produced the books and clerks of middleton & company, and shown exactly the checks we drew upon that bank that month. they did not do it. as a matter of fact, i offered all the checks on all the banks i could think of that we had any business with in any way, except one, and that turned out to be the german-american savings bank, and it turned out that that went into bankruptcy eight months before this business; so there is no trouble about that. why did they not pick out the checks upon which they claimed that the money was drawn that was paid to brady? mr. rerdell, on page , in speaking of the money, swore that money was charged to brady on the stub. he says that dorsey told him, "you will find the amount on the stub of the check-book." the jury will notice that he speaks of the "amount," the "stub," and the "book," all in the singular. that was followed, i believe, by about six pages of discussion, and everybody who took part in that discussion, the court included, spoke of the sum of money as an "amount," upon a "stub," in a "checkbook." i call attention to -' -' -' -' -' . on all those pages it is spoken of as a stub of a check-book, or amount on a stub in a check-book. after the discussion was closed, then the witness began to talk about "books," "checks," "stubs," and "amounts." why did he do that? his object was to get the evidence broad enough--checks and check-books enough--to fit their notice, to the end that they might get possession of all the check-books, and of all the amounts on all the stubs. what more? the discussion convinced mr. rerdell that it would be far safer to say "stubs" than "stub"; that it would be far better to say "check-books" than "checkbook," and far better to say "amounts" than "amount"; because he would have a better chance in adding these up so as to make six thousand five hundred dollars, or seven thousand dollars, or six thousand dollars, than to be brought down to one check, one amount, and one stub-book. so he went off into the region of safety, into the domain of the plural. now, the last point--at least for this evening--so far as mr. bliss is concerned, i believe, is about the red books. mr. bliss tells you that mrs. cushman was telegraphed to from the far west. there was a little anxiety, i believe, on the part of rerdell about the book, and he telegraphed her. she found it there in the wood-shed, you know, hanging up, i think, in the old family carpet-sack--i have forgotten where she found it--and she put it away. now, there is a question i want to ask here, and i know that mr. merrick when he closes will answer it to his entire satisfaction; i do not know whether he will to yours or to mine: how does it happen that mrs. rerdell never saw that red book? how does it happen that mrs. rerdell, when she was put on the stand, never mentioned that red book? how does it happen that she never heard of it when her husband went to new york to get it; when everything he had in the world, according to his idea, was depending upon it; when it was his sheet-anchor; when it was the corner-stone of his safety? and yet his wife never heard of it, never saw it, did not know it was in the wood-shed, slept in that house night after night and did not even dream that her husband's safety depended on any book in a carpet-sack hanging in the wood-shed. she never said a word about it on the stand, not a word. gentlemen, nobody can answer that question except by admitting that the book was not there and did not exist. but perhaps i have said enough about the speeches of mr. ker and mr. bliss. of course, their business is to do what they can to convict. i do not know that i ought to take up much more time with them. i feel a good deal as that man did in pennsylvania who was offered one-quarter of a field of wheat if he would harvest it. he went out and looked at it. "well," he says, "i don't believe i will do it." the owner says, "why?" "well," he says, "there is a good deal of straw, and i don't think there is wheat enough to make a quarter." so now, gentlemen, if the court will permit, i would like to adjourn till to-morrow morning. now, gentlemen, the next witness to whose testimony i will invite your attention is mr. boone. mr. boone was relied upon by the government to show that this conspiracy was born in the brain of mr. dorsey; that these other men were simply tools and instrumentalities directed by him; that he was the man who devised this scheme to defraud the government, and that it was dorsey who suggested the fraudulent subcontracts. they brought mr. boone upon the stand for that purpose, and i do not think it is improper for me to say that mr. boone was swearing under great pressure. it is disclosed by his own testimony that he had eleven hundred routes, and that he had been declared a failing contractor by the department; and it also appeared in evidence that he had been indicted some seven or eight times. gentlemen, that man was swearing under great pressure. i told you once before that the hand of the government had him clutched by the throat, and the government relied upon his testimony to show how this conspiracy originated. now i propose to call your attention to the evidence of mr. boone upon this subject. on page mr. boone swears substantially that on his first meeting with stephen w. dorsey--that is, after they met at the house--he said to dorsey that he (boone) would be satisfied with a one-third interest. now, the testimony of boone is that mr. dorsey then and there agreed that he might have the one-third interest. mr. dorsey says it is not that way; that he told him that when the others came they would probably give him that interest, or something to that effect. mr. boone further swears that when j. w. dorsey did come there was a contract--or articles of agreement you may call them--handed to him by j. r. miner, purporting to be articles of partnership between john w. dorsey and himself, and that he signed these articles; that that, i believe, was on the th of january, , and that it was by virtue of that agreement that he had one-third. it was not by virtue of any talk he had with s. w. dorsey that he got an interest, and you will see how perfectly that harmonizes with the statement of stephen w. dorsey. mr. dorsey's statement is: "i cannot make the bargain with you, but when john w. dorsey comes i think he will, or they will." it turned out that when john w. dorsey did come in january he did enter into articles of partnership with a. e. boone, and did give him the one-third interest. so the fact stands out that he got the one-third interest from john w. dorsey and not from stephen w. dorsey. if the paper had been written and signed by stephen w. dorsey that would uphold the testimony of boone. if boone had said, "i made the bargain with stephen w. dorsey," and the articles of co-partnership were signed by him, i submit that that would have been a perfect corroboration of boone. stephen w. dorsey swears that the bargain was made with john w. dorsey, and you find that the agreement was signed by john w. dorsey, and not by stephen w. dorsey. i submit, therefore, that that is a perfect corroboration of the testimony of stephen w. dorsey. at page mr. boone says that, as a matter of fact, all contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other contractors. think of the talk we have heard about secrecy. if the bidders upon any of these routes did not want the whole world to know the amount they had bid, that secrecy was tortured into evidence of a criminal conspiracy. if john w. dorsey did not want the world to know what he was doing, if mr. boone wanted to keep a secret, these gentlemen say it is because they were engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the government, and crime loves the darkness. what does mr. boone say? as a matter of fact, that all contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other contractors where they feared rivalry. of course that is human nature. mr. boone further says that he never knew of one contractor admitting even that he was going to bid. he always pretended, don't you see, that he was not going to bid. he wanted to throw the other contractors off their guard. he did not want them to imagine that he was figuring upon that same route, because if they thought he was, they might put in a much lower bid. he wanted them to feel secure, so that they would put in a good high bid, and then if he put in a tolerably low bid he would get the route. that is simply human nature. boone further says that always when a letting came on he had his bids in; that contractors keep their bids secret from rival contractors, not for the purpose of defrauding the government, but for the purpose of taking care of their business. now, gentlemen, when men make these proposals and keep their business secret--as it turns out that in these cases they were keeping their business secret--the fact that they are so doing is not evidence going to show that they are keeping that business secret because they have conspired. have you not the right to draw the inference, and is it not the law that you must draw the inference, that they kept their business secret for the same reason that all honest men keep their business secret? at page , mr. boone, swearing again about his talk with mr. dorsey that night after the arrangement was concluded, says that he--dorsey--told me to be careful of elkins, because elkins was representing roots & kerens, large contractors, * * * the largest in the department, at that time, in the southwest. and yet that evidence has been alluded to as having in it the touch and taint of crime, because s. w. dorsey said to boone to say nothing to elkins. who was elkins? he, at that time, as appears from the evidence, was the attorney of roots & kerens; and who were they? among the largest, if not the largest contractors in the department; that is, the largest in the southwest. mr. boone stated that the letter of peck to s. w. dorsey requested him to get some man who knew the business to look after the bids or proposals. now, i want to ask you, gentlemen, and i want you to answer it like sensible men, if stephen w. dorsey got up a conspiracy himself, why was it that peck wrote to him asking him to get some competent man to collect the information about the bids--that is, about the country, about the routes, about the cost of living, about wages, the condition of the roads, and the topography of the country? if it was hatched in the brain of stephen w. dorsey, how is it possible, gentlemen, that a letter was written to him by peck asking him to get a competent man to gather that information? mr. boone swears that he had such a letter. mr. boone swears that dorsey showed the letter to him. mr. boone swears that, in consequence of that letter, he went to work to gather this information. did mr. dorsey do anything about gathering information? nothing. did he give any advice? none. did he ask any questions? not one. did he interfere with mr. boone in the business? never. you know that was a very suspicious circumstance. i believe there was a direction given that letters be sent to james h. kepuer. that was another suspicious circumstance. mr. boone swears that he was also in the mail business; that he did not want the letters to go some place; that he had to give at the department an address; that thereupon he chose the name of james h. kepner, his step-son, so that all the mail in regard to this particular business would go in one box, and not be mingled with the mail in reference to his individual business or the business represented by the firm to which he belonged. what more does he swear? that neither dorsey nor any one of these defendants ever suggested that name, or ever suggested that any such change be made; that it was made only as a matter of convenience; that it was not intended to and could not in any way defraud the government. now, mr. boone has cleared up a little of this. he has cleared up the letter; he has cleared up the charge of secrecy; he has cleared up the charge that we had the letters addressed to james h. kepner & co.; he has shown that everything done so far was perfectly natural, perfectly innocent, and in accordance with the habits of men engaged in that business. now i come to the next thing (page ). the next great circumstance in this case, the great suspicious circumstance, was that the amount of the bid was left blank in the proposals. the moment they saw those blanks in the bids they knew then that the government was to be defrauded, and they brought mr. boone here for the purpose of showing that that was done to lay the foundation for a fraud. what does boone swear? he swears that he always left that part of the proposal blank; always had done so; had been engaged in the mail business for years, and never filled that blank up in his life, in which the amount of the bid should be inserted. it was not left blank to defraud the government, but to prevent the postmasters and sureties, or any other persons, finding out the amount of the bid. away goes that suspicious circumstance. after the bids had been properly executed and came back into the hands of the contractors, from the time the figures were put into those routes, what does he say they did? we slept with them until we could get them to the department. he says they never allowed anybody to see them after the amount of the bid had been inserted; that they would not allow anybody to see the amount of the bids; that it was left out, however, only for self-protection, and for no other reason. that is the government's own witness. he is the man they brought to show that this blank in the bid was a suspicious circumstance. he is the man they brought here to show that because stephen w. dorsey had told him to say nothing to elkins, that injunction of secrecy was evidence of a conspiracy. at page , mr. boone, in speaking of these same things, says that however they were made, whether the name of the bidder or the route was put in, or whatever he did--that is, boone--he did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the government. they say to him, "don't you know that you left out not only the amount of the bid, but the name of the bidder?" he says, "whatever i did, whether i left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder, i did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the government; i had no such idea, no idea of defrauding the government by leaving any blank or any blanks." he did the work. stephen w. dorsey left no blank; a. e. boone left every blank; and yet they brought him forward to prove that that was the result of a conspiracy; and after he comes upon the stand he swears, "i left those blanks myself; i always left them in proposals exactly in that way; and whether i left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder, i did not do it to defraud the government; i did it simply to protect myself, as i had the right to do." so much for that. that is gone. so, speaking of these other proposals (the clendenning proposals) what does mr. boone say--the witness for the government, the very man who got up those proposals, the man who wrote them, the man who wrapped them up, and sealed them? what does he say? "those proposals were not gotten up for the purpose of defrauding the government; i did not send them to clendenning for that purpose." that is the end of that. no conspiracy there. the object, don't you see, gentlemen, was to show by boone that he acted under the direction of dorsey; that dorsey was responsible for everything that boone did; and that although boone was guilty of no crime in leaving the bid blank, still if he did it by authority of dorsey, dorsey had an ulterior motive of which boone was ignorant. let us see. at page , mr. boone swears that dorsey never told him at any time or any place that he wanted any blanks left. and yet they were endeavoring by that witness to saddle that upon s. w. dorsey. but that witness swears that dorsey never even told him that he wanted any blanks left in any paper, proposal, bid, or bond. he says that dorsey never at any time or place told him (boone) that he (dorsey) wanted any blanks left, or any proposals of any particular form printed, to the end that a fraud might be perpetrated upon the government--not a word. and, gentlemen, i am now in that space of time where they say this conspiracy was born. at page , before miner got here, mr. boone swears that dorsey told him that he would advance money for the other defendants, and mr. boone swears that after he got here he never asked dorsey for a dollar except through miner; that dorsey never gave a dollar except through miner. what more? this is the witness that is going to establish the guilt of stephen w. dorsey. stephen w. dorsey never told boone at any time that he had any interest whatever in those mail routes. boone never heard of it. dorsey never told him to print a proposal with a blank; never told him to leave a blank after it was printed; never told him to do anything for the purpose of defrauding the government in any way at any time. this is extremely good reading, gentlemen, when you take into consideration that this is the witness of the government, their main prop until the paragon of virtue made his appearance upon the stand. page . another great point: that in preparing the subcontracts, dorsey having it in his mind to conspire against the government, or really having conspired, according to their story, wanted a provision in a subcontract for increase and expedition. why, it strikes me, gentlemen, that that is evidence of honesty rather than dishonesty. if these subcontracts were to hold good during the contract term, and if in the contract given to the contractor by the government there was a clause for increase and expedition, why should not the subcontract provide for the same contingencies that the contract provided for with the government? that looks honest, doesn't it? it was advertising the subcontractor that the moment he signed his subcontract the trips were liable to be increased and the time was liable to be shortened, and that if the time was shortened or the trips increased the pay was to be correspondingly increased. but i will go on with the testimony. page : in preparing the subcontract mr. dorsey instructed boone to provide for an expedition clause. that was a suspicious circumstance. what for? to conform to the expedition clause in the contract with the government. if making it like the government contract is evidence of conspiracy, the fact that the government contracts have that clause is evidence that the government conspired with somebody. it is just as good one way as the other. the government made a contract with the contractor, the contractor made one with the subcontractor, and the contractor so far forgot his duties, so far forgot his moral obligations, that he made it just the same as his contract with the government. gentlemen, is there any depth of depravity below that? absolutely copying the contract that the government was going to make with him, and treating the subcontractor, so far as the contract was concerned, as the government had treated him, he (boone) prepared a clause which he thought filled the bill, and which he still thinks, i believe, would have been better to use than the other. when he showed that to stephen w. dorsey, dorsey suggested another form. it was the same thing exactly, but in different words. there was the testimony i have read to you, and now here is what mr. bliss states about it at page : but stephen w. dorsey, away back there, knew sufficient about expedition to appreciate the importance of keeping for the contractors thirty-five per cent, and giving to the men who were performing the service only sixty-five per cent. why not? is that a crime? suppose i agreed to carry the mail four years for $ , a year and i subcontract with another man. have i not the right to get it carried as cheaply as i can? i just ask you that as a business proposition. or has every mail to treat this government as though it was in its dotage? must you do business with the government as though you were contracting with an infant or an idiot? must you look at both sides of the contract? that is the question. the government, for instance, advertises for so much granite, and i put in a bid which is accepted; at the same time i know that i could furnish that granite for twenty-five per cent. less. is it my duty under such circumstances to go and notify the government that i have cheated it, and that i would like to have it put the contract down? there may be heights of morality that would see the propriety of such action, but it is not for every-day wear and tear. very few people have it; it scarcely ever comes into play in trading horses. must we treat the government as though it were imbecile? i say it was a simple business transaction. the government advertises for proposals to carry the mail; i make my bid for $ , , and we will say that my bid is accepted. now, i admit that i could carry it for $ , and make money. am i criminal if i go on and perform the contract as i agreed and draw the money? or suppose the people along the route do not want it expedited and increased, and so i talk to them about it; i go to mr. brown and say, "mr. brown, you are living in this smart, thriving town, and you need a daily mail." i go to the next village and i say, "why, gentlemen, you will never have a town here until you have a daily mail; i am the fellow now carrying the mail." and i keep talking about it, you know, and finally get a fellow to get up a petition, or i write one myself, and send it around, and say to them, "gentlemen, what you want is more mail, faster mail; the mail is the pioneer of civilization, gentlemen; have a daily mail, and along the line at once towns and villages and cities will spring up, and all the hillsides will be covered with farms, and school-houses will be here, and wealth will be universal." any crime about that. every railroad has been built just that way. every park has been laid out in every city by just such means. nearly every street that has been improved has been improved in that way, by men who had some interest in the property, by men who were to be benefited by it themselves, and who ought to be benefited. should the men that get the public attention in that direction be benefited, or the men who do nothing? i say that the men who give attention to the business have a right to be benefited by it. and yet here is the crime, gentlemen. and then we only gave these fellows sixty-five per cent, and took thirty-five ourselves, because we were bound to the government to fulfill the contract, as was explained to you so admirably, so perfectly, by judge wilson. the contract was to run for four years, and i believe in a certain contingency for six months thereafter. we had to carry out the contract, whether the subcontractor carried out his contract with us or not. now, this is what mr. bliss says: so, after a large mass of subcontracts had been struck from the press, which gave to the subcontractors all the increase--there never was a subcontract that gave to the subcontractors all the increase; there is no evidence that there ever was such a subcontract, he--that is, stephen w. dorsey--directed them to be put back on the press. i should think he would. if he found any subcontracts were printed that gave to the subcontractor all the increase, i do not wonder that he had them destroyed. here you get, we will say, a contract for ten thousand dollars for one trip, with the agreement that if there are two trips the compensation shall be twenty thousand dollars. thereupon you make a contract with a subcontractor, and you agree in that subcontract that he shall have all the increase. of course, you want that made over again; of course, you would not make that kind of a subcontract. he directed them to be put back on the press, and this provision giving the subcontractor his money struck out and this other clause put in. gentlemen, that is an entire and absolute mistake. there is no such evidence, there never was in this case, and i take it there never will be. the evidence was--and you remember it; and you remember it; and you remember it; and you [addressing different jurors]--that stephen w. dorsey allowed to the subcontractor sixty-five per cent, of the expedition, and that same subcontractor provided what he should have for one trip, and what he should have for two trips; that is to say, what he should have for increase; and it provided at the same time for sixty-five per cent, on expedition. mr. boone swears it; others swear it. not only that, but it is printed in the record again and again and again. why did stephen w. dorsey do that? i can tell you why: he did not. why did stephen w. dorsey do that, if it was not because his fertile imagination had already conceived the plan of defrauding the united states, and he was making an arrangement by which that fraud could be consummated? how would that help him consummate a fraud? suppose he struck out all the per cent, to the subcontractors; suppose he had not had any subcontract printed; suppose the subcontract was printed, and printed on purpose to deceive and defraud the subcontractors; how does that show that he was trying to defraud the united states? why, if it proves anything it proves the other, that he had not entered into a conspiracy by which he could get the money from the united states, but had endeavored to get it from the subcontractors. if it proves anything it proves that. but the reason it does not prove anything is because the statement is not correct. now, just see how a conspiracy can be built of that material. a man that can do that can make a cover for barnum's circus with one postage-stamp; he can make a suit of clothes out of a rabbit-skin; he can make a grain of mustard seed cover the whole air without growing. that is given as an evidence that dorsey had conspired. there is not a thing on the earth that he could have done that would not prove conspiracy just as well as that--just exactly--no other act. humph! that is the way they build a conspiracy. why not take another step? why not have a little bit of ordinary good hard sense? on the th day of may, i believe, , the act was passed allowing the subcontractor to put his subcontract on file. now, that contract ought to provide for all the contingencies of the service, so that if the trips were increased the government would know how much to pay that subcontractor; so that if the time was expedited the government would know how much to pay the subcontractor. the subcontract ought to have been made in that way, and it would be perfectly proper to make it in that way. i once went to see a friend of mine who had the erysipelas and who was a little crazy. i sat down by his bedside, and he said, "ingersoll, i have made a discovery; i just tell you i am going to be a millionaire." said i, "what is it?" he says, "i have found out that if four persons take hold of hands after they have had a hole made in the ground and put a piece of stove-pipe in it, and then run around it as hard as they can from left to right, a ball of butter will come out of the pipe." now, i think that is about as reasonable as the way conspiracies are made, according to mr. bliss. now, we come to mr. boone (page ). he says that the action he had taken was upon his own responsibility, and that at no time had any papers been gotten up with any view of defrauding the government. that was good. i am like the democrat who said, after hearing the returns from berks county, "that sounds good." then, here is a question asked him: q. i understood you to say that the contract was made between you and somebody, fixing your interest in all this business?--a. yes, sir. q. do you recollect about the date of that?--a. i think it is on the day john w. dorsey got here in washington. on page he swears that at the time boone made that contract with john w. dorsey he and dorsey had not conspired to defraud the government in any way, nor did they ever do so after that contract was made. when was that contract made? it was made on the th day of january, . who made it? john w. dorsey of the one part, and albert e. boone of the other. and they tell exactly what that contract was for. here is the contract, on page , and this shows that the statement of stephen w. dorsey, that the matter was deferred until john w dorsey should come, is absolutely correct: that the parties to this agreement shall share in all the profits, gains, and losses as follows: john w. dorsey shall have two-thirds and albert e. boone, share one-third. now, gentlemen, there was the original partnership agreement. let us see if that was ever dissolved. the next contract was made on the th of september, . now, therefore, in consideration of one dollar in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, i hereby, sell, assign, and transfer to albert e. boone all my said two-thirds interest in the routes in the name of said boone in the states of texas, louisiana arkansas, kansas, and nebraska, and in the name of said dorsey in the states of texas, louisiana, and arkansas. the reason he did that was because mr. miner had made a contract with boone to that effect; and probably i had better read that now so that you will have it exactly and know what we are doing. i read from page ; washington, d. c, august , . whereas a. e. boone has this day, for the purpose of saving a failure in the routes in the name of john r. miner, john m. peck, and john w. dorsey--"for the purpose of saving a failure," recollect. although stephen w. dorsey, according to the prosecution, was a conspirator, and although john w. dorsey was another, and peck was another, yet on the th day of august, , "for the purpose of saving a failure," they made this: assigned to john r. miner his one-third interest in the routes in their names, now, therefore, i, john r. miner, agree that john w. dorsey shall assign his interest in routes in the name of a. e. boone in kansas and nebraska, texas and louisiana, and arkansas; in the name of john w. dorsey, in texas, louisiana, and kansas. the latter clause not guaranteed. john r. miner. now, he said to mr. boone, "i have got to have another man come in; we haven't got the money to run these routes; i have got to get somebody with us; if you will go out, i will agree that john w. dorsey will assign to you his two-thirds interest in all the routes in kansas, nebraska, texas, louisiana, and arkansas. i will agree that john w. dorsey, although he has a two-thirds interest in all these routes, shall assign them to you, a. e. boone, and they shall thereupon become your property." that agreement was made on the th of august, ; and then, as i read you before, on the th day of september, miner made that promise good, and john w. dorsey did assign to boone his two-thirds interest in all the routes that miner said he would. then boone was out of it. he had no more to do with miner, peck & co., and no more to do with john w. dorsey; he went his road and they went theirs. he went out in consideration that john w. dorsey would give him (boone) two-thirds of all the routes that he before that time had one-third in. then miner took in mr. vaile, because he had the money to go on with the business. page , still talking about mr. boone. there is another very suspicious circumstance that was brought up by the prosecution. these bids were put in in different names, and that was looked at as a very suspicious circumstance. what does boone say about that? he says that the object in bidding in separate names was not to defraud the government, but was to have the service divided up and not to bid against each other. that was reasonable. the arrangement was simply to keep from injuring themselves; it was not made to defraud the government, but it was made so that they might not by accident injure each other. it was a common thing for members of a firm to bid in that way, and it is a common thing for persons to organize themselves for the purpose of bidding and running contracts, and when they thus bid they always bid in their individual names. the fact that we bid in our individual names was taken as a circumstance going to show that we had conspired to defraud the government, and a witness they bring forward to prove that fact swears that it has been the custom for all firms to bid in their individual names. away goes that suspicion. the coat-tail of that point horizontalizes in the dim distance. page . the point was made, gentlemen, that we bid on long routes with slow time, knowing--understand, knowing--that the service would be increased and that the time would be shortened. the only word i object to there is the word "knowing." that we bid on long routes with slow time thinking that the service would be increased and the time shortened was undoubtedly true. that we bid expecting that the service might be increased and the time shortened is undoubtedly true. that when we bid we took into consideration the probability of the service being increased and the time shortened is undoubtedly true. the only difference is the difference between thinking and knowing; between taking into account probabilities and making the bid because we had made a bargain with the second assistant postmaster-general. that is the difference. let us see what boone says about it. i read from page : on all service of three times a week and under there is a chance for improvement in getting it up to six or seven times a week. everybody who has ordinary common sense knows that! if i bid on service for once a week there is a great deal better chance for getting an increase of trips than if there were seven when i started. everybody knows that. there is about six times as good a chance. all contractors consider that--that chance--in their bids, and bid lower on one, two, and three times a week service than on a daily service--why?--because the chances are the route will be increased. boone swears on the same page that he always did that himself; that he always had done it. yet that is lugged in here as evidence of a conspiracy. there is a great deal better chance for expedition when a route is let at two or three miles an hour, than when it is let at six or seven. of course there is. the slower it is let the better chance of getting it expedited. the faster it is let the less chance of getting it expedited. there is no need of bringing a man here to show that. you know that. if you thought there was more money in expedition and increase than on the original schedule, you would, as i insist, bid on such routes as the advertisement showed the time was to be slow and the service infrequent upon. now, gentlemen, to take advantage of such a perfectly apparent thing as that will not do. you have heard a good deal about star routes, gentlemen. every one of you by this time ought to make a pretty good guess. postmaster-general; every one of you. if you do not know all about this subject, you never will. the foreman (mr. crane). we ought to be good lawyers, too. mr. ingersoll. you also ought to be good lawyers, at least on this subject! i do not know that you have all the testimony in your minds, as there have been so many misstatements made, but if you ever are to know anything on this subject you know something now; and if you, mr. foreman, or you mr renshaw, were to-morrow to go to work to bid on some star routes you would bid on the longest routes, on the slowest time, and with the most infrequent trips. you would do that. then would you say, "that is evidence that we have conspired"? has a man got to be so stupid that he will not take advantage of a perfectly plain thing in order to escape the charge of conspiracy? if you were to put your money in land in the western country you would not go where the country was settled up, and give one hundred dollars an acre for land. you would go where you could get laud for two, or three, or four, or five dollars an acre, and say, "there is a chance for land to rise." that is not conspiracy. so if you were going to bid on mail service you would bid where the time is slow, or the route long, and the service once a week. then you would say that the country might grow, that railroads might be built and that they might get the service up to seven trips a week; and that instead of going on two miles an hour may be they would want to make it seven miles an hour. that is the service to make money on. is it a crime to make money? is it a crime to make a good bargain with the government? i suppose these gentlemen of the prosecution made the best bargain they could with the government themselves. is it a crime? i say no. is a man to be regarded as a conspirator because some outsider thinks he got too good a bargain? that will not do. boone says he always did that. of course he did. he says another thing. these gentlemen say that we did not go above three trips, and that is another evidence of fraud. they say we did not bid on any route with more than three trips a week. mr. boone tells you, on page , that the department never advertised for four trips a week. that is the reason i think they did not bid on any of these. he also swears that they never advertised for five trips. that is a good reason for our not taking any routes with five trips, is it not? there were not any advertised. the government did not offer to let us have any. that is a good reason for not taking any of them. the government had not any of that kind. after you get beyond three trips boone swears that the next number is six or seven; never four, never five. don't you see? and yet it is a very suspicious circumstance that we did not bid on any four-trip routes, or any five-trip routes; that we stopped at three. why did we stop at three? because if we had not stopped at three we would have had to go to six. why did we not go to six? because at six trips a week we would have been obliged to put up too much money, and to put up too many certified checks. it required too many men to go on the bonds. that is the reason. gentlemen, if there had been a conspiracy it would have been just about as well for us to bid on six or seven trips to get the expedition of time. if there had been a conspiracy to make money, and it had been understood by the second assistant postmaster-general, he could have just as well given us routes with seven trips a week, and put the service up to seven, eight, nine, or ten miles an hour, and he could have done that in the thickly-populated parts of the country; if it had been the result of a conspiracy. let me read more from what mr. boone says on page : the proposals that i destroyed were upon routes of at least six times per week. how did he come to destroy them? another suspicious circumstance against dorsey! boone said when he went into the business he just took the bidding-book and commenced at a, and was going right straight through to x, y, and z, and make a bid, i believe, on every route that was in the book. i think that is his testimony. boone says: i was going on without instructions. i was going on without authority from anybody, working on the bids. he thinks it was the same day that miner got here, or the day afterwards, and he--i suppose meaning dorsey--came up to the room and saw what the witness was doing. he was making up bids for every route in the advertisement, going right along with big and little, when dorsey said there was a mistake. no proposals were to be made for over three times a week or for routes under fifty miles. when miner came into the room witness asked what was the reason of that. i say upon this point that stephen w. dorsey never said a word about it, and that boone is mistaken. but he says he asked miner the reason. what did miner say? did he say to him, "it is because we have got a conspiracy? we have got it fixed with the second assistant postmaster-general"? no. he said this, he said for fear of failure in getting bonds; that they could not get the bonds for all the service and could not get certified checks for all the service. boone was going clear through the book from preface to finis. they could not get bonds for all the service and could not get certified checks for all the service. you remember that for all the service over five thousand dollars they had to put up five per cent., i think, in certified checks. now, there was an immense volume, of three or four thousand routes and he was going to put in a bid on every one of them. that is what boone was going to do. he did not understand the conspiracy at that time. miner explained to him, "we cannot get the certified checks. we cannot get the bondsmen." he did not tell him, "good lord, my friend, you don't understand the terms of the conspiracy. we are taking no such service as that. we are taking none over three times a week, because, don't you see, we want the chance for increase. we want the lowest. if we can find any service where the horses agree to stand still, that is the service to take. you must look over the terms of the conspiracy and have some sense about it." boone says he was starting in, taking the advertisements, going right through the territory, all over that country, and bidding on every route, not missing one. he never saw stephen w. dorsey do any work on the bids. the proposals sent down to the postmasters in arkansas, including those to clendenning, he (boone) fixed himself and sealed them. gentlemen, there is no evidence that mr. dorsey, as i understand it, ever saw one of those papers, but simply the form that was written out by boone that was sent to clendenning with instructions what to do with the proposals. that i understand to be the evidence. they proved by boone that dorsey never saw them; never wrote them; never ordered them to be written; never ordered a blank to be left unfilled. and yet, gentlemen, he was the man whom they say had brooded over this conspiracy; the man that gave to it life and form. he is the man that used boone and john w. dorsey and peck and miner as instrumentalities and tools. what more? did boone take those bonds up to dorsey and show them to him? he says that he did not open them; that he did not show them to dorsey. that is what mr. boone swears. surely mr. boone is an honorable man, stamped with the seal of the department of justice. he did not even show them to dorsey. dorsey never saw anything except the form after boone had made it out. i showed you that form on yesterday, i think, marked x. that is the only thing that dorsey saw. he did not know what blanks were left in the bonds, or whether any were left. he never gave any orders about them, and never saw them. yet the prosecution want you to hold him responsible as a conspirator for those bonds. what more, gentlemen? those bonds were never used. nobody was ever defrauded. not a proposal was put in the post-office department. they never came to life. dead! no contract, says mr. boone, was ever awarded on those proposals, even the proposals sent back, unless it was a contract to him, boone. that is what he swears. and yet dorsey is to be held responsible. let us hurry along, gentlemen. see how dorsey came to do this. how did that arch-conspirator, as they claim him to be, happen to write that letter to clendenning? on page boone says that he suggested to dorsey that he had better send a note with the proposals to clendenning. boone suggested it. he was not a conspirator, but he suggested it. dorsey was the conspirator, but never dreamed of it. how fortunate for a conspirator to have an innocent man think of the means of carrying out a conspiracy; never thinking of crime, but having it all suggested by perfect innocence and then crime taking advantage of it. that is the position! he suggested that dorsey would better send a note with the proposals to clendenning. i will read from page : q. was there not danger that he would be declared a failing contractor? was it at that time the practice of the department if a man, for instance, had fifty contracts and failed on one to declare him a failing contractor on all?--a. no, sir; but they would declare him a failing contractor on that one route and suspend his pay until he paid up the loss to the government--just my case now, exactly. q. that was one of the reasons that you had. now, you were informed at that time that they had not the money to carry this on. when, as a matter of fact, did you go out of the concern?--a. the th day of august, . q. was s. w. dorsey then in washington?--a. no, sir; he was not. he had been gone ten or twelve days. now, then, we come to august , , the time that mr. boone went out. he did it for the purpose of saving a failure on the routes in the names of miner, peck, dorsey, and himself. that is what he went out for, and that is his only reason. on page mr. boone swears that so far as he knows neither john w. dorsey, john r. miner, john m. peck, nor stephen w. dorsey had any arrangement with the second assistant postmaster-general to increase the service; none whatever. boone went out on the th day of august, . s. w. dorsey was in new mexico. he did not return here until about the time congress assembled in december. boone swears that he then learned from s. w. dorsey that he, dorsey, did not know that boone was out of the concern; did not know that he had left on the th day of august, . now, gentlemen, if stephen w. dorsey was the main conspirator, if he was doing this entire business, is it possible that a. e. boone went out on the th day of august, that john w. dorsey assigned his interest in all the routes mentioned in the agreement, and john r. miner took in vaile, and the service was put on those routes by the money furnished by vaile, that all that was done and yet stephen w. dorsey never heard of it and did not even know that boone was out, did not even know that vaile was in? besides that, gentlemen, as i told you, dorsey was not here. he was in new mexico. he was in utter ignorance of this entire business, and yet they claim that he was the directing spirit. mr. boone further testifies, on page , that brady showed him a telegram from the postmistress at the dalles, saying that the service was down. when i read that i thought may be that was where moore got his hint to swear that he telegraphed to find out what was done with that service. boone further swears that brady said that it must be put on; that he said it could not be put on at the contract price, and that brady told him, "i advise you to telegraph and put it on at any price," and that unless all the service was on by the th day of august he would declare the contractor a failing contractor on every route the service was down upon. that is what brady told him. stephen w. dorsey was not here. according to the testimony of moore he knew when he went away that the service in oregon was not put on, but he abandoned it, and paid no attention to it. he happened to meet miner at saint louis, and told him, i believe, "there are my notes for eight thousand five hundred dollars. that is all i will do. i am through! i have already advanced thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. i will not advance another dollar." why did not miner tell him, "if you are not going on with this conspiracy i am going home"? why didn't miner tell him then, "what did you get up a conspiracy like this for, just to abandon it"? why did not miner say to him, "this is your child. i became a criminal at your suggestion. i entered into this conspiracy because you urged me to, and now after we have got the routes, you are going to abandon it"? why did he not say to him, "dorsey, if you are not going on with this conspiracy i am going back to sandusky"? did dorsey at saint louis treat it as his bantling? or did he say to miner, "this is all i will do"? did he mean for himself? no. "all i will do for you." certainly he would not have made the threat to miner that he would not do anything more for himself. he then said to miner, "i am through!" miner knew at that time that stephen w. dorsey had not the interest of one solitary dollar except the money he had advanced. stephen w. dorsey, according to the testimony of this prosecution, knew when he left this city that the routes were not in operation in eastern oregon. he went away knowing that j. w. dorsey and john r. miner and john m. peck were in danger of being declared failing contractors. yet he never even called on brady to see about it. he never asked to have the time extended a minute. he never took the least interest in the business. he started for new mexico, and went by way of oberlin, ohio. he happened to meet miner in saint louis, and for miner's sake, for peck's sake, for john w. dorsey's sake, and not for his own sake, he gave them some notes to the extent of eight thousand five hundred dollars that they could have discounted, and said to miner then and there. "that is the last dollar. that is the last cent." what more did he do? he abandoned the whole business. he went to new mexico. he never wrote about it; he never spoke about it; he never received a dispatch concerning it until the following december, when he came back to washington, and then for the first time found that boone had gone out and that vaile had come in. what more? although he was interested to the extent of thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars, he did not know until he came back in december that his security had been rendered worthless. he found that out then for the first time. that is a fine model of a conspirator. reading again from boone's testimony, on page : fully a month and a half of the time had been taken up by the congressional investigation, and we--that is to say, miner, peck, boone, and the rest--did not know what to do with the service. we dared not to move. we expected that the contracts would be taken from us. do you tell me that under such circumstances, if stephen w. dorsey had conceived this thing, he would have gone off and left it? do you tell me, with the entire business trembling in the balance, without the money to put the service on, at the mercy of thomas j. brady, that if stephen w. dorsey had gotten up that conspiracy, and also put in thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars, he would have gone away and left it, and told miner and the others, "i will have no more to do with it," and leave it so effectually and so perfectly that he did not even know that boone had gone out and vaile had come in until the following december, when he came here to take his seat in the senate? on page , again quoting from mr. boone: the fact--here is something that rises like the rock of gibraltar. it is one of those indications of truth that rascality never had ingenuity enough to invent: the fact that dorsey refused to advance any more money on account of this business was taken into consideration by me when i made up my mind to go out. do you want any better testimony than that, that dorsey did refuse to advance any more money? don't you see how everything fits together when you get at the facts? how naturally they all blend and harmonize when you get at the facts. now, here is some more from mr. boone: if i had not gone out the service would have undoubtedly failed, unless they got the money to put it on. when mr. dorsey declined to furnish any more money or to indorse any more notes, there was nothing else to do but for me to go out and let somebody else come in who had the money. that is a witness for the government, and yet at the time that happened they say there was a great conspiracy; that the second assistant postmaster-general was in it; that a senator of the united states was in it; and that these other men were simply tools. it will not do, gentlemen. if that had been the case stephen w. dorsey would have remained here. he would have gone to mr. brady and said, "i must have time," and mr. brady would have given him all the time he desired, because, according to this prosecution, it was their partnership business. brady had ten times as great an interest as stephen w. dorsey. according to the testimony of mr. rerdell, brady had an interest of thirty-three and one-third per cent., and according to the testimony of rerdell and boone, dorsey only had an interest of seven-eighths of one per cent. that means, as i understand it, according to their testimony, thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the gross expedition; not profits, but of the gross expedition. that is what they swear. when he gave on a route an expedition of, say, six thousand dollars, two thousand dollars would go to brady each year. in other words, thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the money paid for expedition went to brady. mr. walsh testified and gave the exact figures, and called the amount, if the court will recollect, sixty thousand dollars, and twenty per cent, he said of that is twelve thousand dollars. that had to run, he says, for three years, and that made thirty-six thousand dollars. that is the testimony in this case, gentlemen. if you should have a row of men as long as the row of kings that banquo saw, stretching out "to the crack of doom," and they should swear to it, i should still die an unbeliever; but that is their testimony. dorsey ran away and left his conspiracy and brady would not attend to his own business. now, i read again from boone: with regard to the preparation of circulars, the sending of them to postmasters, the printing of proposals, the printing of bonds and subcontracts, there was nothing done differently from what i had always done before. recollect that. he is a government witness. dorsey in a conspiracy got boone to help him, and in helping him boone did nothing different from what he had always done before. there is not much left of this case, gentlemen, but i will keep going on just the same. mr. boone swears that he followed the regular custom and practice of doing business. then, there is another suspicious circumstance. at the bottom of the contracts published by the government, for the purpose of informing contractors as to how the bonds or contracts are to be signed, and exactly what is to be done by each person, there are a lot of instructions. mr. carpenter. on the proposals. mr. ingersoll. on the proposals. when they got up the proposals of their own, they, understanding the business, left off all those directions that the government put upon its forms. why? those directions were put there for the benefit of men who did not understand the business. these men did understand the business, and consequently it was nonsense for them if they had to have the printing done, to put on the bottom of the contracts two or three paragraphs of directions to themselves. they understood exactly how to do it without the directions. who left them off? stephen w. dorsey? no. john w. dorsey? no. he had nothing to do with it. miner? no. he had nothing to do with it. who left them off? boone says he did. was he instructed to do it? no. did it take a conspiracy to leave them off? no. he left them off for two reasons, and good ones, too. one was to save the expense of printing. that was a good reason. there was no conspiracy needed for that. the other was, that knowing how to perfect the proposals, and understanding all those instructions, there was no need of having them printed for their benefit. next, on page . what instructions as a matter of fact did mr. boone receive from mr. dorsey, if he received any? the question arises, upon what subject? in reference to what particular point? boone says on this page that he received no instructions from dorsey in reference to the business except in regard to the subcontract blanks. that is the one subject on which he received any instructions from s. w. dorsey. i have shown you that those instructions were in the interests of honesty and fair dealing. those were the only instructions he received. on every other subject there is not a word. why? here boone gives the reason. "i did not require any." why? because he understood the business himself. what else? "i was to go ahead and do whatever was necessary to be done." he did it without consulting anybody. he did it in his own way. he did it as he thought best for all concerned. now, gentlemen, there will be an effort made to convince you that stephen w. dorsey did everything during all that period. if you are told that, when you are told it remember what i tell you now: that mr. boone swears that he did it himself; that he attended to the entire business, and that he was instructed by dorsey in no particular except as to that one blank, and that i have clearly demonstrated was in the interests of honesty and in the interests of the subcontractor, so that the subcontract might agree with or be similar to the contract made with the government. that is all. now we come to another point. you must recollect that mr. boone got out the circulars. mr. boone sent to all the postmasters to know about the roads and the price of grain and the price of labor, about the snow in winter and the rain in the spring. he got all that up. he went through the bidding-book originally and made the bids. he it was who prepared most of these proposals. he did all the work until miner came. s. w. dorsey did not do any of it. boone never saw him working upon or touching the proposals. what s. w. dorsey did he did at boone's request. what he did he did at miner's request. what he did he did simply because he was a friend. boone attended to it all. now, what does boone say on page ? he swears that so far as he knew there never was any conspiracy on the part of these defendants with him, with each other, or anybody else, in reference to these routes, or any route bid for and awarded to them during that time. there was no conspiracy to defraud the government in any way. that is what the government witness swears to--a man brought here to stain the reputation of stephen w. dorsey. that is what a government witness swears; swearing, too, under pressure; swearing, too, under circumstances where the post-office department could strip him of everything he had on earth; swearing under circumstances where if he did not please the government they could pursue him as they have pursued us. perhaps i had better read what he says. i read from page of my examination: now, then, so far as you know, mr. boone, was there any conspiracy on the part of any of these defendants with you, or with anybody else, to your knowledge, in respect of these routes mentioned in the indictment or of any routes bid for and awarded to them during that time--any conspiracy to defraud the government in any way? and he answered: no, sir. that was a government witness, acquainted with all the transactions during that time. he was swearing under the shadow of power, with the sword hanging over his head, and yet he swears he never knew or heard of any such thing. let us go on. on page he swears that mr. dorsey told him to fix the blanks and make them up and to write what he wanted done in arkansas, and that while he, boone, was engaged in so doing he said to dorsey, "had you not better write a note so that i can attach it to the blanks?" and dorsey did so. dorsey told him to fill up what he wanted in arkansas, and what was necessary to be executed there, and he did so. boone indicated exactly what he wanted put in. i showed you the clendenning bonds yesterday and showed you just what boone did. he filled up the blanks that he wanted to have filled down there. of course, the blanks that were already filled in he did not want interfered with. that is what he says. there is another part of his testimony. i want to call the attention of the gentlemen to it. "i hand you," said they, " x." mr. bliss did the handing. what was that? that was the chico letter. what did they want to introduce that for? to show that s. w. dorsey was interested personally in these routes in . that was a magnificent piece of testimony for them to show that dorsey in was writing to rerdell to watch the advertisement of these routes. so they introduced that letter. mr. boone looked at it. he was a government witness. the noose was around his neck and the other end of the rope was in the hands of mr. bliss. what did mr. boone say? "mr. dorsey never wrote that letter." then said mr. bliss to him, "that is not mr. dorsey's writing?" and mr. boone said "no, sir." and at the same time threw the forged scrap away contemptuously. what else? on april , , mr. dorsey was here. mr. merrick. was mr dorsey here at that time? witness. he was here, sir; and i was in communication with him on that very day. that is the evidence of a government witness; a man who was depended upon to show that not only my client, but that mr. miner entered into a conspiracy in the fall of to defraud this government. i want you to remember one thing which i was about to forget. mr. ker, i believe, spoke six or seven days and i do not remember of his having mentioned the chico letter. he acted as if it had a contagious disease. he was followed by mr. bliss in another week, but he did not mention the chico letter; at least i have never happened to read it in his speech. both of them are as dumb as oysters after a clap of thunder. not a word. they did not, either of them, have the courage to refer to it. they did not have the nerve to ask you to believe it. i tell you one thing, gentlemen, i would either admit that it was a forgery, or i would swear that it was genuine. i would do something with it. i would not allow that paper, blown by the wind, to scare me from the highway of the argument! i would do one thing or the other. i would either admit that mr. rerdell forged it, or i would insist that it was the handwriting of stephen w. dorsey. why was it left where it was, gentlemen? they could not get anybody to swear that it was dorsey's handwriting. that is all. now we will take the next step. they had so much confidence in that witness that they concluded they would prove the pencil memorandum by him. they had such a clutch on him. so they stuck that up to him. recollecting the position he was in, recollecting the danger, recollecting all that might probably follow speaking the truth, here is what he says: everything above "profit and loss" in that memorandum favors the handwriting of s. w. dorsey. what else? and everything below favors the handwriting of m. c. rerdell. fit conclusion for a government witness, brought here to show that stephen w. dorsey was the arch-conspirator. and they ended the witness; dismissed him from the stand, after he had shown that dorsey did not conspire; after he had shown that he himself fixed the subcontracts, with the exception of only one; after he had shown that he himself filled out the blanks to send to clendenning; after he had shown that he did everything without being advised by s. w. dorsey, and then he swore that their principal witness was a forger. then they dismissed him. that was the end of the government witness who was to brand the word "conspirator" upon the forehead of stephen w. dorsey's reputation. but instead of putting "conspirator" there, he put the word "forger" upon the principal witness for the government. magnificent exchange! now, gentlemen, you know as well as i do that mr. boone knew all that was happening during that entire time. you know as well as i do that he did not swear anything for the defence that he could help swearing. what else? mr. bliss, on page , says that: parties conspiring make an informal verbal agreement. when did we make that agreement? when does the testimony show that we made an informal verbal agreement? who were present at the time? where were we? do you recollect the number of the house? do you recollect the day of the month? has any one of you ever had in his mind which side of the street that was on? what town was it in? could you locate it if you had a good map? i do not care whether it is informal or formal. did we make one? in order to make a verbal agreement you have to use some words. is there any evidence as to the words we used? not a word that i have heard, not a word. what else? he says that this is necessarily secret and intended to be secret. the first thing done was that dorsey told it to moore. then, for fear it would get out, j. w. dorsey told it to pennell and to thirty fellows around the camp-fire out in dakota. and there was a suspicion in brady's mind that somebody might hear of it, and so he told rerdell. he says, "get the books copied; this is a secret thing." then dorsey wrote it to bosler, and he was so awfully afraid that it would get out that he kept a copy of the letter. you see, mr. bliss says the object was to keep it secret. then miner and vaile told it to rerdell for fear he would not believe it when brady told him. they were bound the thing should not get out. yes, sir. and then rerdell, just bursting with the importance of keeping that secret, told it to perkins and taylor; went away out there for that purpose. and then moore, he gave it away to major and mcbean for the purpose of keeping it secret. then miner told moore. from whom did they keep it secret? nobody in god's world but boone. he is the only fellow that nobody told. boone went through it all, saw all the plan and heard all the whispering, and he is the only man in the country, i think, that did not suspect it. and on the th day of august he left the concern because there was not a conspiracy, and admits to you that if he had had even a suspicion of it he would have staid--staid or died. now, was there ever a conspiracy published so widely, that one end of the country kept so secret from the other? was there ever a conspiracy like that, the news of which ran through the west like wild-fire, while the fellows at the east never heard of it? everybody knew it out on the plains. all you had to do was to subpoena a fellow that wanted to come to washington, and he would remember it. and yet that is the evidence that the prosecution desires you to believe. i do not believe it. i do not think i ever shall. but then they promised so much at the beginning, and they have done so little in many respects. something had to be said, and so mr. bliss, on page , in a little burst of confidence to the jury, says: at least one united states senator was the paid agent of these defendants. who was the senator? mr. bliss. did i say that, sir? mr. ingersoll. look at page and see whether you did. mr. bliss. read all that i said there. mr. ingersoll. i will do that. but we shall show to you that at least one united states senator, urging such increase, was the paid agent of these defendants. mr. bliss. i then went on and said we should show it if you put him on the stand. mr. ingersoll. yes, if we furnished you the evidence. mr. bliss. no, sir; that is not what i said. mr. ingersoll. why didn't you produce the senator? mr. bliss. why didn't you put him on the stand? mr. ingersoll. how did i know what senator you meant? mr. bliss. did you have two? mr. ingersoll. no, sir; and we did not have the one. if you could have proved it, it was your duty, as the attorney of the united states, to do it, and if you did not do it, you did not do your duty in this case. mr. bliss. whose name is expressed in the memorandum? mr. ingersoll. why did you not say that to the jury? you dared not do it. that is like what was said here the other day before this jury, and taken out of the record. we will come to it. these are the gentlemen who did not wish to stain the names of citizens. these are the gentlemen who did not wish to bring anybody into this case that had not been indicted. and yet mr. bliss, in his opening, said that he would show you at least one senator who was the paid agent of these defendants; and now, having failed to do it, he stands here before you and asks whose name was on the pencil memorandum, meaning that j. h. mitchell was the paid agent of these defendants. ah, gentlemen, i would not, for the sake of convicting any man on this earth, stain the reputation of another in a place and in a way where that other could not defend himself. i would not do it. i do not think there is any crime beyond that. it is as bad to stab the reputation as it is to stab the flesh; it is as bad to kill the honor of the man as to put a dagger into his heart. there are so many things in these papers that i would never get through, if i commented upon them all, if i talked forty years. i now refer to page . i have to change from one of these lawyers to the other. now, on this subject of subcontracts, showing how we are endeavoring to cheat and defraud the government, mr. ker says, at page : acting upon stephen w. dorsey's advice he put in this clause giving the subcontractors sixty-five per cent, of the increase. i want you to remember the sixty-five per cent., because i will show you some subcontracts with that amount in, but i do not want you to think for one moment that the subcontractors ever got a dollar out of it. gentlemen, the evidence is that the subcontractors were paid the amount mentioned in their subcontracts. i believe all of them are on file in this case, and on all that were filed in the department the money was paid directly to the subcontractor. and yet mr. ker tells you that he does not want you to think for a moment that the subcontractors ever got one dollar out of it. is it possible, gentlemen, that there is any necessity for resorting to such statements? can you conceive of any reason for doing it, except that they are actually mistaken, except for the fact that they know they have not the evidence to convict these defendants? we are not begging of you. we are not upon our knees before you. but we do want to be tried according to the evidence and according to the law. we do not want your mind, nor yours, nor yours [addressing different jurors] poisoned with a misstatement. we want to be tried, and we want the verdict rendered by you when every fact is as luminous in your mind as the sun at mid-day. we want every fact to stand out like stars in a perfect night, without a cloud of doubt between you and the fact. that is the kind of a verdict we want. we want a verdict that comes from a clear head and a brave heart. we do not want a verdict simply from sympathy. we want a verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. and when the verdict is given we want every one of you to say, "that is my verdict; i found it upon the evidence and upon the law; dig beneath it and you will not find used as the corner-stone a misstatement, or a mistake, or a falsehood; it stands upon the rock of fact, upon the foundation of absolute truth." do you know that if i were prosecuting a man, trying to take from him his liberty, trying to take from him his home, trying to rob his fireside and make it desolate, and if i should succeed and afterwards know that i had made a misstatement of the evidence to the jury, i could not sleep until i had done what was in my power to release that man; and after he was released, or even if he were not released, i would go to him when he was wearing the prison garb, and i would get down on my knees and beg him to forgive me. i would rather be sent to the penitentiary myself, i would rather wear the stripes of eternal degradation, than to send another man there by a misstatement or a mistake that i had made. that is my feeling. i may be wrong. it may be that i am guilty, according to colonel bliss, of sneering at everything that people hold sacred. but i do not sneer at justice. i believe that over all, justice sits the eternal queen, holding in her hand the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. i believe that it is my duty to make the world a little better, because i have lived in it. i believe in helping my fellow-men. i do no not sneer at charity; i do not sneer at justice, and i do not sneer at liberty. and why did he make that remark to you, gentlemen? is it possible that for a moment he dreamed that he might prejudice your minds against the case of my client, because, i, his attorney, am not what is called a believer? is it possible that he has so mean an opinion of a christian that a christian would violate his oath when upon the jury, simply to get even with a lawyer who happened to be an infidel? is that his idea of christianity? it is not mine; it is not mine. i stand before you to-day, gentlemen, as a man having the rights you have, and no more; and i am willing to work and toil and suffer to give you every right that i enjoy. and i know that not one of you will allow himself to be prejudiced against my client because you and i happen to disagree upon subjects about which none of us know anything for certain. i do not believe you will. and yet, that remark was made, gentlemen--i will not say that it was made, but may be it was--hoping that it would lodge the seed of prejudice in your minds, hoping that it might bring to life that little adder of hatred that sleeps unknown to us in nearly all of our bosoms. i have too much confidence in you, too much confidence in human nature to believe that can affect my client. now, gentlemen, there is no pretence, there is no evidence that every subcontractor did not get the per cent, mentioned in his subcontract, except one, and that was mr. french, on the route from kearney to kent; and the evidence there is that miner settled with him, i believe, and gave him a certain amount of money in lieu of expedition. that is the solitary exception. now, gentlemen, i come to a most interesting part of this discussion, and i hope we will live through it. in the first place, what is a conspiracy? well, in this case, they must establish that it was an agreement entered into between the persons mentioned in this indictment, or two of them, to defraud the government. how? by the means pointed out and described in the indictment. while it may not be absolutely necessary to describe the means, i hold that if they do describe them, tell how the conspiracy was to be accomplished, they are bound by their description; they must prove such a conspiracy as they describe. if a man is indicted for stealing a horse and the color of the horse is given, it will not do to prove a horse of another color. if they describe the offence they are bound by the description. now, this is a conspiracy entered into, as they claim, by the persons mentioned in the indictment, to do a certain thing. what is the object of the conspiracy? to defraud the government. and, gentlemen, i believe the court will instruct you that the conspiring is the crime. the object of the conspiracy is to defraud the united states. what are the means? according to this indictment false petitions, false oaths, false letters, false orders. what i insist on is that the means cannot take the place of the object; that the means cannot take the place of the conspiracy described. when you describe a conspiracy by certain means to defraud the government, and set out the means so that the second assistant postmaster-general is a necessity, then you cannot turn and shift your ground, and say that it was not the conspiracy set out in the indictment, but that it was a conspiracy to do some of the things recited as means in the indictment; you cannot say that it was not a conspiracy entered into with the second assistant postmaster-general, but was a conspiracy entered into with some others to make a false petition or a false affidavit. the ostrich of this prosecution will not be allowed to hide its head under the leaf of an affidavit. they must prove, in my judgment, the conspiracy that they describe in the indictment, and none other. now, what else? you must be prepared, gentlemen, when you make up a verdict, if you say that there was a conspiracy, to say when it was entered into and who entered into it. and i suppose when you retire, the first question for you to decide will be: was there a conspiracy? has any conspiracy been established beyond a reasonable doubt? if you say yes, then the next question for you to decide is, who conspired? who were the members of that conspiracy? after you do that there is one other thing you have to do: you have to find that one of the conspirators, for the purpose of carrying the conspiracy into effect, did something; that is called an overt act. you have to find, that at least one of them did something to effect the object of that conspiracy. you must remember, gentlemen, that the overt act must come after the conspiracy. in other words, you cannot commit an overt act and make a conspiracy to fit it; you must have the conspiracy first, and then do an overt act for the purpose of accomplishing the object of that conspiracy. the conspiracy must come first, and the overt act afterwards. you all understand that now. now, this indictment is so framed that the earliest time within the life of the statute of limitations for an overt act is the d day of may, . why? the indictment charges that as the day, the conspiracy was entered into. any overt act in consequence of that conspiracy must have been done after the d of may, . now, get that in your heads, level and square. the conspiracy, according to this, is not back of the d of may, , and any overt act done, in order to be considered an overt act, must be done after the date of that conspiracy. if they prove any act done before that time, it shows that it was not an overt act belonging to the conspiracy mentioned in the indictment. if it is an overt act at all, it is an overt act of another conspiracy entered into before the date mentioned in this indictment, and consequently will not do for an overt act in this case. now, i want you all to understand that. i forget how many overt acts are charged in this indictment; some sixty or seventy, i think. and understand me, now, gentlemen, no matter what date they fix to an overt act in the indictment, no matter whether there is any date to it or not in the indictment, if it turns out to have been done before the time fixed for the conspiracy it is dead as an overt act: it is good for nothing. the overt act is the fruit of the conspiracy; the conspiracy is not the result of the overt act. now let me make a statement to you, so that you will understand it. every petition, every letter, every affidavit, upon which orders for expedition were based, was filed before the d of may, , except on two routes--toquerville to adair-ville and eugene city to bridge creek. if that is true, then not a solitary petition filed in this case can be considered as an overt act; and a conspiracy without an overt act is nothing; it simply exists in the imagination; it is an agreement made of words and air, and never was vitalized with an act done by one of the conspirators for the purpose of giving it effect. recollect that every petition, every affidavit, every letter filed, was filed before the d day of may, with the two exceptions i have mentioned. that is the date when the conspiracy came into being. and consequently an overt act must be after that time. now,'when they came to write this indictment, why did they not tell the truth in it? i do not mean that in an offensive sense, because a man has the right to write in that indictment what he wants to. that is a matter of pleading. but why did they not tell the facts? why did they put in the indictment that a certain petition was filed on the th day of june, when they had the petition before them and knew that it was filed in april, ? why did they put in that indictment that a certain affidavit was filed on the th or th of may, i think it was, when they knew that it was filed in april or march? why? because if they had put that in the indictment the indictment would have been quashed, so far as their overt acts were concerned. the court would have said, "i cannot allow you to put on paper that a man entered into a conspiracy on the d of may, and then did an act to carry that conspiracy into effect in april before that time. i cannot allow you to do that, because that is infinitely absurd, and pleadings have to be reasonable on their face." but you see they stated that this was done after the conspiracy. they had to do it or they would be gone. i believe there is no dispute about this law that if they describe the overt act--and they must describe it, because it is a part of the offence--that is, the offence is not complete without it--they must prove it exactly as they describe it. if they describe it with infinite minuteness, they must prove it with infinite minuteness. if they set out that an affidavit was written on bark, they must produce a bark affidavit. if they were foolish enough to say it was written in red ink they must produce it in red ink. if they allege that an oath was sworn to twice before two notaries public they must produce an oath sworn to twice. they are bound to prove exactly what they charge, and if they were too particular about it that is their fault, not ours. i say that all these, with the exception of the two routes i have named, were filed too early to play any important part in this case. now, i will come to those routes. remember, that every overt act must be after the conspiracy. there are two exceptions, and those two exceptions include petitions and affidavits. and there is a splendid kind of justice in the way this thing is coming out, so far as that is concerned. the petitions filed on the toquerville route and on bridge creek route, i believe, are genuine; i believe the government admits that they are honest; and they were not attacked except upon one point, and that was that a daily mail did not mean seven times a week. the point made by the government was that a daily mail meant six trips a week--that is, where you have them every day. we took the ground that daily mail meant a mail every day, and that in the western country, as here, they have seven days in a week. we contended that you cannot have a daily mail without having seven trips a week. i think that was the only point made against these petitions--that they were for a daily mail, and that somebody put in a figure . no petition for increase of service alone was ever attacked by the government in this case, except l, on the dalles route, and h and h, on the canyon city route. l was filed april , . that was one month before the conspiracy had life. consequently that is mustered out of this case as an overt act. l was filed june , , and is in time, provided it had been a dishonest petition. and it is the only petition filed on the date alleged in the indictment, and it was not attacked. it was signed by the business men of baker city, and is set out, i believe, on page . h was filed may th. that is not in time. that is gone. h has no file mark, and never was proved. so that goes. all the allegations as to false petitions for increase of service--and by that i mean additional trips--are shown to have been genuine, honest, true petitions. there are but two affidavits, one correctly described. both were made by peck. mr. bliss admits that peck had nothing to do with any of these routes after april , , and both of them were made by peck, and were sworn to before that date. the affidavit on the toquerville route was filed by m. c. rerdell, who swears that he was not in any conspiracy to defraud the united states; that he was not in a conspiracy with vaile and miner and john w. dorsey, nor with anybody else. it was filed by the subcontractor of record, m. c. rerdell, and it is the same route on which mr. rerdell, by virtue of his subcontract, appropriated about five thousand dollars of money belonging to other people. the other exception is on the bridge creek route, and, strange as it may appear, that was also filed by mr. rerdell. and, strange as it may appear, it has not been successfully impeached as to the men and horses necessary under the existing and proposed schedule. the overt act is not proved, because the oath is not proved to be false, and because peck and rerdell, according to mr. bliss's admission and according to rerdell's oath, were not in the conspiracy, and the overt act has to be done by one of the conspirators, of course. the court. i understood--i do not know whether i have been under a delusion all this time or not--that the indictment charged that these affidavits and false petitions were the means by which the conspiracy was to be carried into execution; that they were not the overt acts. if they had been set out as overt acts in the indictment, the court would have seen that they antedated the time, and if an objection had been made to them the court would not have received them as overt acts. the reason why they have been admitted and regarded as in the case all along, to my mind, was that they were acts tending to prove, so far as they tended to prove anything, the nature of the combination between these parties anterior to the d of may. mr. ingersoll. before the conspiracy. the court. before the conspiracy. so that whatever character belonged to that association anterior to that time, if it was continued on after that time, carried out with overt acts done subsequently to that time, they were properly received as evidence going to establish the conspiracy--not as overt acts, but as means to show the character of the combination amongst the parties anterior to that date. mr. ingersoll. that saves me a great deal of argument. now, i understand, gentlemen, that the court will instruct you that you cannot take any petition, any letter, any oath, any paper of any kind that was filed or written or used prior to the d of may, , as an overt act; that all that that evidence is for is to show you the relation sustained by the parties before that time. the court. yes; you are right. mr. ingersoll. now, that saves a great deal of trouble. there are on the toquerville and adairville route, and on the eugene city and bridge creek route, petitions filed after the d of may, , set out in indictment as overt acts. i shall insist, if the court will allow me, that if there is no evidence that those petitions were dishonest, no evidence going to show that they were not genuine, those petitions cannot be used as overt acts for the reason that they are charged in the indictment as false and fraudulent petitions. so, gentlemen, i take that ground, that as to the petitions filed after the d day of may on the only two routes left for these gentlemen to find overt acts upon (eugene city to bridge creek, and toquerville to adairville), if those petitions have not been proved to be false they cannot be regarded as overt acts for the reason that they were described in the indictment itself as false and fraudulent petitions. it is perfectly clear, is it not? what else have we left? a couple of affidavits. who made them? mr. peck. when? before the st day of april, , and mr. bliss admits that from that time on he never had anything to do with this business. mr. rerdell filed them, and mr. rerdell swears that he was never in any conspiracy; and mr. bliss admits that peck, after the st of april, had nothing to do with this business. that substantially knocks the bottom out of that dish. now, they attacked the affidavit on the bridge creek route, but they did not succeed in showing that it was not an honest affidavit. now, gentlemen, after what the court has decided i want to call your attention to another thing. do not forget what the court has decided--that all these things are not overt acts, but that they simply show the relations of the parties. now, if you go and find vaile and miner getting up petitions on their routes, and you also find dorsey getting up petitions on his routes, then they claim that that is the result of an agreement between them. that is not the law. neither is there in that the scintilla of common sense. if i find you plowing in your field and your neighbor plowing in his field, i have no right to draw the conclusion that you have conspired to plow or to help each other. but if i find your neighbor and you plowing in your field, and i afterwards find you and your neighbor plowing in his field, i have the right to conclude that you have swapped work and that you have something in common. if i find you plowing in your field and your neighbor walking behind you sowing grain or dropping corn, and then i find you in the fall shucking out the corn together, and i find your neighbor taking half of it to his barn and you taking half of it to your barn, i make up my mind that you have had some dealings on the corn question. now, we find that on may , , these parties absolutely divided, and after that, when vaile and miner got up a petition on their route, dorsey did not help them; and when dorsey got up one on his, vaile and miner did not help him. that shows what the relations of the parties were. does that show that they were then in a conspiracy? does it show that they had any conspiracy before that time? they had separated their interest; they had ceased to act together; one did nothing for the other. if there had been a conspiracy before that time that conspiracy died on the th of may, ; and if it did, then there is no possibility of any conviction in this case, no matter what the evidence is--not the slightest. now, i want you to understand that ground exactly. i am not begging the question. i am not afraid to meet every point, every paper, every scratch, in this case. but i want you to understand it. all those things were allowed for the purpose of showing the relations of the parties, the relations that the defendants sustained to each other; and the evidence is that they sustained no relations to each other after ; that each went his own road to attend to his own business in his own way. that is the evidence. now comes the next point. what are the overt acts in the indictment? really they are the orders made by mr. brady, unless you take this poor little affidavit made by peck and filed by rerdell. then comes the next point. you cannot treat anything as an overt act unless it was made by one of the conspirators. is there any evidence in this case that mr. brady ever conspired with anybody? not the slightest. and unless he conspired with us, any other made by him cannot be regarded as an overt act in this case. i think everybody will admit that. unless brady conspired with us, and we with him, any order of his cannot be regarded as an overt act. i ask you, gentlemen, what evidence is there in this case that mr. brady ever conspired with any of these defendants? i will answer that question before i get through, and i think i will answer it to your entire satisfaction. i will go a step further in this case, and i may go a little further than the court will go. i say that when they state in that indictment that an order is made for the benefit of miner, vaile, and dorsey, and the evidence is that it was made for the benefit only of vaile and miner, that is a fatal variance, and it cannot be treated as an overt act for any conspiracy. and when the indictment charges that an order was made for the benefit of s. w. dorsey, and vaile, and miner, and it turns out that it was made for the sole benefit of s. w. dorsey, i claim that that is a fatal variance. gentlemen, i was going through all these overt acts and all these terrible false claims. but the decision of the court has utterly and entirely relieved me from that duty. so i will turn my attention to another person. the next defendant to whom i may call your attention is mr. john w. dorsey. it is claimed that john w. dorsey was one of the original conspirators; that he helped to hatch and plot this terrible design. let us see what interest john w. dorsey had. you have heard me read the agreement he made, have you not, with miner? now, let me read to you the agreement that he made on the th day of august, . now, we will find out what interest john w. dorsey had in all this conspiracy. on the th of august, , there was no reason for telling any lie about it. they could not get on the routes in august, ; they had not the money, and so they took in vaile. at that time, gentlemen, there was no reason for their writing anything in this paper that was not true, not the slightest. and i take it for granted that most people tell the truth when there is no possible object in telling anything else, if their memory is good: th. the profits accruing from the business shall be divided as follows: from routes in indian territory, kansas, nebraska, and dakota, to h. m. vaile, one-third. to john r. miner, one-sixth; to john m. peck, one-sixth; and to john w. dorsey, one-third. from routes in montana, wyoming, colorado, new mexico, arizona, utah, idaho, washington, oregon, nevada, and california, to h. m. vaile, one-third; to john r. miner, one-third; to john m. peck, one-third. [page .] and to john w. dorsey nothing. the entire interest of john w. dorsey in the whole business was one-third of the profits on routes in the indian territory, kansas, nebraska, and dakota. this was signed by h. m. vaile, john r. miner, john m. peck, and john w. dorsey, and i believe these are all admitted to be the genuine signatures of the parties. the only routes mentioned in this indictment in which john w. dorsey on the th day of august, , had any interest whatever were: kearney to kent in nebraska, vermillion to sioux falls in dakota, and bismarck to tongue river in dakota. remember that, gentlemen. that is very important. the evidence is that he sold out his interest in the following december, made a bargain for ten thousand dollars, and the evidence is that he received the money, and the evidence is that after that he never had any interest in the profits, no matter how much was made. and yet these gentlemen say that he was part and parcel of a conspiracy formed on the d of may, . long before that time he had sold out every dollar's interest he had, and had no more interest in it than though he had never existed. he got his ten thousand dollars; that was all. now let us see what he did when the routes were divided. mr. merrick. when did you say he sold out and got the money? mr. ingersoll. the bargain was made in december, and his brother wrote to him at first that vaile would not give it to him, and then that he would. don't you recollect the two letters you asked dorsey so much about? it had been agreed to once, and then after s. w. dorsey came out of the senate john w. dorsey was paid ten thousand dollars, and miner swears that the division was absolute, perfect, and complete; and that nothing was signed by one for the other after the th of may, . mr. bliss. miner does not say when. he swore that he, signed no papers after the th of may, . mr. ingersoll. he says that he signed no papers for the other side, and that the other side signed none for vaile and miner. mr. davidge. you are talking of two different things. mr. ingersoll. i will show you after awhile that you are wrong, as i always do. i never made a mistake on you yet. the only routes mentioned in this indictment in which john w. dorsey on the th day of august, , had any interest whatever were from kearney to kent, in nebraska; vermillion to sioux falls, in dakota; and bismarck to tongue river, in dakota. and i will say right here that if at any time i do injustice to mr. bliss or anybody else, if it is pointed out i will take it back cheerfully, and if it is not pointed out, and they show that i did it, i will get up and admit it and say that i was mistaken. mr. bliss. you will have a great deal to admit. mr. ingersoll. very well, i will do it, for i have the courage of conviction, and i have the courage to say that i am mistaken when i am. now, the evidence is that john w. dorsey sold out his interest for ten thousand dollars, and that he received the money, and that after that he had no interest in the profits when the three routes were divided, and the only three were the ones i have mentioned. on the first route, from vermillion to sioux falls, john w. dorsey was the subcontractor and he gave mr. vaile the entire pay for all increases and all expeditions. john w. dorsey had the right to subcontract, and mr. vaile had the right to make the contract. the statement on page shows simply that john w. dorsey never drew a dollar upon that route. that is one route fairly and squarely disposed of. understand, i cast no imputation upon mr. vaile for having the contract and for getting the money. when i come to it i will show you that he had a right to. the next route is from kearney to kent. john w. dorsey had an interest in that route, according to the agreement of august th, of one-third. you will see from page of the record that the first quarter john m. peck got the money, two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents. john w. dorsey was entitled to one-third of that, if it was profit. the next quarter was paid on the d of january, --that is, for the fourth quarter of , and that was paid to h. m. vaile. and never another solitary cent was paid to anybody in such a way that john w. dorsey was entitled to any part or portion of it. that gets that route out of trouble, so far as john w. dorsey was concerned, no matter what the increase may have been after that, no matter what the expedition was, no matter whether french carried it for nothing, no matter what happened to cedarville or that city of fitzalon; it was no interest to john w. dorsey, no matter whether the road ran direct from fitzalon to cedarville or not. he was entitled to one-third of the profits on one payment to peck, and that payment was two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents; whether he ever got it i do not know. let us see how he came out on the next route, from bismarck to tongue river. he went out there to build stations. i will come to that in a little while. now, i call attention to page . the third quarter from july to september , , was paid november , , to h. m. vaile. never a solitary dollar on the route was paid to john w. dorsey, according to this record, if you can rely on these books. that is the state of the case on these three routes. and yet it is solemnly averred in the indictment that all the orders on these routes were made for the joint benefit of john w. dorsey and others. now, before another payment was made the division of the routes had been completed, and john w. dorsey sold out his interest in these routes and all others for ten thousand dollars. so that he never received a dollar upon the bismarck route and the vermillion route except as it is included in the gross sum of ten thousand dollars which he received for his entire interest, and that entire interest is described perfectly in the contract of august , . now, it john w. dorsey had no interest in any route except as stated in the contract, of course nothing was done upon any other route for his benefit; nothing was done in which he, by any possibility, had the slightest pecuniary interest. how were the petitions filed for his benefit? how were the affidavits made for his benefit? how were the orders made for his benefit? he had no interest; he had parted with it, and had nothing more to do with it than the attorneys for the prosecution in this case. it is claimed by mr. bliss that when john w. dorsey sold out he agreed to make the necessary papers for the routes, and he tried to impress upon your minds the idea that the bargain was that john w. dorsey knew that for ten thousand dollars he had to commit perjury and forgery and several other cheerful crimes, from time to time, as he might be called upon by the gentlemen who had been his co-conspirators. j. w. dorsey frankly and cheerfully swore that he agreed to make the necessary papers. he did not swear that he agreed to commit any frauds, perjuries, or forgeries. nothing of the kind. he agreed to execute, of course, the necessary legal papers--the papers that, as contractor, were necessary for him to make to vest title of the route in the person to whom he had sold--just the necessary papers that would allow the man who had paid him for the route to draw the money from the government if he performed the service. now, what were the papers? i say right here, gentlemen, that under the law as it was then, under the law as it is now, it is impossible for a contractor to assign his contract so as to be relieved from responsibility to the government; the government will not permit it. the government will permit him to make a subcontract, and that is what john w. dorsey did; that is one of the things he agreed to do. in order to make that subcontract absolutely certain; in order to put it beyond his power to do anything with it, that subcontract was made for the entire pay, for the entire increase and expedition. and what more? in order to make that absolutely perfect, so they would not have a loop-hole anywhere, he signed blank drafts upon the post-office department for the entire pay of every quarter during the contract term. and then, if they were fined--and nobody knew how much they would be fined--they had the right to fill up that order for the amount due them from the post-office department after deducting fines. he sold out in march, . the regulation or order making it necessary for the contractor to make an oath as to additional stock and men was not in existence, was not a binding law or regulation, until the st day of july, . when he sold out in march, unless he were gifted with prophecy, he would not know what the regulation of the st of july following would be. now, there were two affidavits made by john w. dorsey on route , pueblo to rosita. around those affidavits mr. bliss hovered and mr. ker remained. john w. dorsey testifies that he received one of those affidavits in the morning and swore to it, and that it was filled up when he swore to it. mr. bliss and mr. ker, i believe, both say that it was not filled up. mr. bliss. where does mr. dorsey say that it was filled up when he swore to it? mr. ingersoll. i have not the page here, but i will give it to you. he swore that a dozen times, that he never swore to any blank affidavits. mr. bliss. i undertake to say that it cannot be found in his evidence. the court. he testified that he received them both by mail, and that the second one was contained in a letter which said that there was an error in the first, and the second was sent for the purpose of correcting that error. mr. ingersoll. there could not have been any error in the first unless it had been filled up. you cannot make an error in blank. on page , mr. rerdell swore that he left this city on the th or th of april for the west, and then he adds, "i think on the th." then the government brought the hotel-keepers from sydney, nebraska, and from denver, and from some other place, nearly as many witnesses as you had about the paper pulp. and they proved that rerdell was beyond the missouri river on the st of april. now see what mr. bliss says on page : and yet, gentlemen, it is beyond dispute that as early as the th of april, , mr. rerdell had left this city and gone west. why did he have it stated on the th, gentlemen? i will tell you. oh, i tell you the human mind is a queer thing when it gets to working. john w. dorsey was in middlebury, vermont; if a letter had been sent from here on the th, it certainly would have got up there before the st. so they wanted rerdell out of this town as early as possible, so that it would make it highly improbable that it would take a letter from that time to the st to get to middlebury. now, the evidence is that he left here, he thinks, on the th. when did the letter get up there? i think the th or st. mr. davidge. there was a sunday intervened. mr. ingersoll. they say, gentlemen, that there is no evidence that the blanks were filled, and yet john w. dorsey swears that he received a letter stating that the first affidavit was erroneous, and the second one was sent to him to correct it. how would you correct one affidavit in blank by another affidavit in blank? how did he ever get those affidavits? i will tell you. we will have that little matter settled. here is what rerdell swears on page : q. when did you return from that visit?--a. i returned about the th of may. q. state whether or not after you returned, you found blank affidavits among the papers connected with the business?--a. yes, sir. q. how many did you find?--a. well, there were several blank affidavits of john w. dorsey's and several of john m. peck's. i don't know how many there were. q. were they blank affidavits?--a. well, sir, they were blank affidavits similar to that one i sent, leaving out the number of men and animals in each case. q. did they purport to have been sworn to?--a. yes, sir. q. were those affidavits among the papers when you left here to go west?--a. some of them were. i think those of peck's were here, probably four or five, or half a dozen, and i had made out, before i left here, a lot of them and sent them to john w. dorsey. in the mean time, when i returned here, john w. dorsey was here. mr. rerdell swears that just before he went away he sent the affidavits to john w. dorsey, and the only question between them is, were they in blank, or were they filled. john w. dorsey swears that they were filled, because when he received the second he received a letter stating that there was an error in the first, and that error had been corrected in the second. the last nail in the coffin of that doctrine. mr. ingersoll. [resuming.] may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, before finishing what i am about to say in regard to the two affidavits of john w. dorsey i will now call your attention to a statement made by mr. bliss, on page , in his opening speech to you: mr. dorsey, while senator, was, i think, chairman of the committee on post-offices, and chairman of the subcommittee in charge of all the appropriations. that brought him, of course, directly in connection with the post-office department and its officials, and gave him, as we all understand, necessarily, from the nature of the case, the possession of some exceptional power over officials of the department--greater power than a senator would have when occupying som'-other position. that statement was made to you, gentlemen, for the purpose of making you believe that while senator dorsey was a member of the senate he was also chairman of the postoffice committee, and of the subcommittee having power over the appropriations, and that he not only took advantage of being a senator, but by virtue of being chairman of that committee had exceptional power over the officials of the post-office department. he was trying to convince you that, finding himself chairman of that committee, finding himself with this power, he thereupon entered into a conspiracy. what evidence did the government offer upon that point? nothing. did mr. bliss at that time suppose that mr. dorsey was chairman of that committee? the records were all here. the government had plenty of agents to ascertain what the fact was; and yet, without knowing the facts, mr. bliss stated to this jury that he believed that; that dorsey was chairman of the post-office committee and of the sub-committee; wanting to poison your minds with the idea that mr. dorsey had taken advantage of having held that position. now, the only evidence upon that point i find on page , and that is the evidence of mr. dorsey himself. he is asked, were you a member of the post-office committee in ? no. in ? no. or chairman of the subcommittee? here is what he says, that he had not been on that post-office committee "for nearly two years" prior to july , . and yet an attorney representing the united states, representing the greatness and honor, the grandeur and the glory of fifty millions of people, for the purpose of poisoning your minds, there made that statement without knowing anything about it or without caring anything about it. i thought i would clear that point up the first thing this morning. now we will go on with the affidavits. you know these terrible affidavits that were sworn to in vermont. it was stated that the first affidavit was wrong and that the second affidavit was substituted for the first. now, if the second affidavit took more money out of the treasury than the first affidavit you might say that there was a sinister motive, a dishonest motive in withdrawing the first and substituting the second, unless it appeared clearly that the second was true. but suppose it turns out that the substitution did not take an extra dollar from the united states? then what motive do you say they had in doing it? was it a motive to steal something, or was it a motive simply to be correct? what other motive could there have been? now, let us see. the first affidavit said three men and twelve animals; for the expedition, seven men and thirty-eight animals; and the proportion was exactly three hundred per cent--that is, three times as much. now, then, they put in another affidavit. the second affidavit says two men and six animals. that makes eight. and on the expedited schedule six men and eighteen animals, which makes twenty-four; and three times eight are twenty-four; exactly the same. three times fifteen are forty-five, and three times eight are twenty-four, and the amount of money drawn under the second affidavit is precisely the same that would have been drawn under the first affidavit. now, do you pretend to tell me that they took the trouble to withdraw the first affidavit and put in the second affidavit because they were trying to defraud somebody? on the contrary, they took that trouble because there was a mistake made in the first affidavit and they wanted to correct it, not for the purpose of getting more money, but for the purpose of getting a correct affidavit. mr. crane (foreman of the jury). was not that first affidavit interlined? mr. ingersoll. no, sir. if there had been any fraud about it, would they not have withdrawn the paper? they had a right to withdraw it. yet they left the paper there; they left it there as a witness. why? because it did not prove anything against them; it only proved they desired to be correct. my recollection is there were erasures in both affidavits. let us find them. before i get through i will endeavor to show you that every erasure and interlineation is an evidence of honesty instead of dishonesty. what are the numbers of these affidavits? [examining the papers.] they are number c and c. route . i will read them. hon. thomas j. brady, second assistant postmaster-general: sir: the number of men and animals necessary to carry the mail on route on the present schedule is three men and twelve animals. the number necessary on a schedule of ten hours, seven times a week, is seven men and thirty-eight animals. respectfully, john w. dorsey, subcontractor. there does not appear to be any erasure or interlineation or anything else in that affidavit. now, here is the other one: hon. thomas j. brady, second assistant postmaster-general: sir: the number of men and animals necessary to carry the mails on route on the present schedule, seven times a week, is two men and six animals. the number necessary on the schedule of ten hours, seven times a week, is six men and eighteen animals. respectfully, john w. dorsey, subcontractor. that is the second affidavit. the first was withdrawn. that is, they had permission to withdraw it, and in the second affidavit is the interlineation "seven times a week," isn't it? that is simply an interlineation, because there had been an omission to state the service that was then being performed or that was to be performed. mr. crane (foreman of the jury). that has puzzled me a good deal, to understand the motive of those two affidavits. mr. ingersoll. there certainly could not be any motive for putting in seven or three times a week, for this is simply to make it agree with the truth. if i give a note to a man for five hundred dollars and should happen to write in the word "hundred" and not the word "five," and then should take it back and write in the word "five" above it, that is not a sign of fraud. will somebody give me number k; i just happened to see something there which may be worth something, or may not. now, gentlemen, here is a petition marked a, that rerdell swears that the words "schedule thirteen hours" were written in by miner. in one of these papers i happened to see the word "schedule." just notice the word "schedule" on this paper [exhibiting to the jury,] and then have the kindness to look at the word "schedule" in this other one [exhibiting to the jury,] and see whether you think one man wrote them both. rerdell says he wrote the word "schedule" in that one [indicating,] and that miner wrote the word "schedule" in this other one [indicating.] now, gentlemen, there is another charge against john w. dorsey, on route , and upon that route he made two affidavits. in the first affidavit he swore it would require three men and seven animals on the schedule as it then was, and that makes ten; that with the proposed schedule it would take eleven men and twenty-six animals, making thirty-seven. now, if it took ten on the schedule as it then was, and thirty-seven on the proposed schedule, then the government, which accepted that affidavit, would have to pay him three times and seven-tenths as much, which is the relation between ten and thirty-seven. the proportion then is three and seven-tenths. on the first affidavit his pay would have been twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents a year. now i come to the second affidavit, which said that for the schedule as it then stood ijt would take twenty men and animals. on the proposed schedule he said it would take twelve men and forty-two animals, making fifty-four. now, the ratio of the second affidavit was as twenty is to fifty-four. the ratio in the first affidavit was as ten is to thirty-seven, so that under the second affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he got eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars a year instead of twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents. there were three years for the contract to run, and a little over. under the first affidavit he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents during the contract term more than he took under the second. an affidavit was put in there that he thought was erroneous. he withdrew that affidavit and put in a second one. if he had allowed the first to remain and they had calculated the amount on the first he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents more than he did under the second affidavit. but he withdrew the first and put in the second, and took from the treasury thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents less, and they charge that as a fraud, as an evidence of conspiracy and perjury. now, that is all there is against john w. dorsey. on page john w. dorsey swears that general miles wanted to know how far apart he (dorsey) was building the stations on the tongue river and bismarck route. let us turn to page . you know they were trying to prove that when john w. dorsey went out there and built the ranches that he was going to build them about fifteen or seventeen miles apart, because it was claimed that they knew there was to be increase and expedition. you remember that. now, when john w. dorsey came upon the stand he swore that when they went out there they started to build those stations, i believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five miles apart, as they could get water. then he swore that when he went himself over, i think, to miles city, where general miles was, that general miles asked him how far he was building his stations apart. john w. dorsey told him. then general miles gave him his advice. now, i want to read this to you. i asked him this question: q. when you got to fort keogh did you go to see general miles?--a. yes, sir. q. did you have any conversation with him in regard to this route, with regard to the needs of the country for mail service; and, if so, what was it? a. i told him all about the business generally. he seemed to understand it pretty well. he wanted to know how far apart we were building stations. i told him. he wanted to know how often the mails would run, and i told him it would be weekly service, i thought. "we have been pent up here two or three years," he says, "with mails from eighteen to twenty days apart, reaching us by the way of ogden and bozeman." and he says, "we can get it in seven or eight days over this line." and now i would like to say that he did not say that he knew there would be an increase, but he said he should like to have it increased to three trips a week, or daily, and fifty hours' time. i told him there was no use to try to get it at all; that it could not be done at present; that nobody knew the distance through that country; that we expected to have it measured; that it was claimed by everybody that it was a good deal more than two hundred and fifty and probably over three hundred miles, and nobody would undertake to carry it. said i, "if you extend it the contractor can throw up his contract and you will be without any mail." he said, "we are going to ask for what we want, but we will take what they will give us." "your stations are too far apart; you can't run any fast time with your stations so far apart; you want more stations, and nearer together." the result was that when i went back i met mr. pennell, who had built the stations thirty to thirty-five miles apart, and going back we put in intermediate stations. we only carried out lumber enough from bismarck to build eight or nine stations, for the windows, &c.; we did not think of building any more at that time. mr. pennell says the order was to build the stations seventeen to twenty miles apart in going out. that is no such thing. there was not a station built going out closer than thirty to thirty-five miles. q. what, if anything, did general miles say that convinced you that you ought to build stations nearer together? then he testifies that on account of what he said he did this, and that he had no instructions from washington. that is the testimony. mr. bliss endeavored to frighten the witness by stating in his presence that he (bliss) did not believe general miles would swear to any such thing, judging, of course, from the conversation that he (mr. bliss) had had with general miles. notwithstanding that threat, john w. dorsey, confident that he was telling the truth, knowing that he was telling the truth, told his story, and the government never brought general miles to contradict him. now, the next thing about john w. dorsey is the conversation that he had with some men in july or august out on the road, that i have spoken to you about before. nothing could be more perfectly improbable. it may be that he did tell some man that he was a brother of senator dorsey, and, perhaps, he did say that if he got into a tight place or hard up for money he could borrow money from his brother. i do not know what he may have said on that subject. but, gentlemen, there is not a man on this jury, not one of you, who has the slightest suspicion that john w. dorsey at that time told those men substantially that his brother was in a conspiracy with the second assistant postmaster-general, and that he, john w. dorsey, was also a conspirator. there is not one of you who believes that, not one, and you never will. why not? because it is so utterly and infinitely unreasonable and absurd. now, that is the evidence against john w. dorsey. my attention is called to one other point in his case, and so i will call your attention to it. mr. bliss, gentlemen, on page , in speaking of the two affidavits on the pueblo and rosita route, says: we find this extraordinary condition of things. on route , from pueblo to rosita, which, i think, is the same route upon which the obliging mr. john w. dorsey, as i have just stated to you, was allowed to make the affidavit instead of mr. miner. now, he goes on to describe these two affidavits, and then he says: those two affidavits were before mr. brady, made by john w. dorsey on the same day, and yet mr. brady chose to pick out one or the other of them and say, "i believe that as the absolutely conclusive statement of the number of men and animals that are now in use upon that route, and upon that affidavit i will make my order taking from the treasury thousands of dollars of money." you will see that the first affidavit made the number two men and six animals, making eight as the number of stock and carriers then in use; but the other one called for three men and twelve animals, making fifteen as the number then in use, and, therefore, according as he accepted one or the other, by the rule of three, to which i called your attention just now, there would be twice the amount of money allowed from the treasury under the one affidavit that there would be under the other. just think of that, gentlemen. the number of men and animals then in use has nothing to do with the number of men and animals stated in the other affidavit; those amounts bear no relation to each other. the number of men and animals in use in the first affidavit, and the number that would be necessary on the next schedule, do bear a relation to each other. the number of men and animals on the second affidavit on the then schedule bears relation to the proposed number on the proposed schedule, and not to the number on the other affidavit. and yet mr. bliss stood right before you, with those two affidavits that would take the same amount of money out of the treasury, to a fraction, precisely the same--not the difference of the billionth part of a farthing--and stated to you that one would take twice as much money from the treasury as the other. you will think that he is as defective in mathematics as in law. i say to you now that the amount that would be taken out of the treasury on those two affidavits is precisely the same. i did not think that anybody could excel mr. ker in mathematics, but mr. bliss bears off the palm. he bean, off the palm even in misstatement, and bears off the palm in mistake. the two affidavits would call for the same amount of money precisely, and yet mr. bliss stands up before you and says there is twice as much on one as the other. now, what is that for? that is to prejudice you: that is all. gentlemen, you saw john w. dorsey; you heard his testimony; you know whether he is a man to be believed. it is for you to judge whether he is honest or dishonest, and i leave his testimony with you. it was direct; it was to the point; and his manner on the stand was absolutely and perfectly honest. now, there is another point made. you know you have to think of these things as you can, and step on them and then go on. another point is made, and it was urged by mr. bliss day after day. and what is that? that mr. brady took the affidavits of all these men as absolutely true; that he allowed them to fix the limit of the money they would take out of the treasury; that he allowed interested men to make the affidavits, and then he took the affidavits as absolutely true; that he allowed the contractors themselves to fix the sum they would seize. now let us see what that is. mr. brady swears that he regarded the affidavit as the honest opinion of the man who made it, but not as necessarily true; that he had a standard of his own. your views upon all such questions, gentlemen, will depend upon which side of human nature you stand--whether you are a believer in total depravity, or whether you think there is a little virtue left in human nature. if you stand on the side of suspicion, if you allow the snake of prejudice to forever whisper in your ear, why, your idea will be that every man is a rascal; and whenever he does a decent action you will say, "this action is a little velvet in the paw for the purpose of covering the claw of some devilment that he has in store." if you judge from that side you can torture any act, no matter what it is, into evidence of guilt. but you may judge from the other side and say that men, as a rule, are decent; that they would rather do a kind act than a mean thing; that they would rather tell the truth than tell a lie. i tell you to-day that there is an immensity of good in human nature. there are hundreds and thousands and millions of men to-day who are honest, who would not for anything stain the whiteness of their souls with a lie. they are laboring-men, it may be, working by the day for a dollar or a dollar and a half, and only taking enough of it to keep life and strength in their bodies and giving the rest to wife and child. and there are battles as grand as were ever won by a celebrated general, and just as bravely fought, with poverty day after day; and the man who fights the battles gains the victory and goes down to the grave with his manhood untarnished. you know it, and so do i. and yet you are all the time told to suspect everything, no matter what it is. there is a flower there; ah, but there is a snake under it! always making that remark; accounting for every decent looking action by a base motive. that is not my view of human nature. now, mr. brady says that he had a standard of his own; that he let these men make their statements, and he took their statements as being what they believed to be the truth. and why not? suppose i say to a man, "what will you take for that horse?" and the man says, "that horse is worth a hundred dollars." suppose he goes and swears to it; that would not make any difference in the price i would give for the horse, not a bit. you see i am not buying an affidavit, i am buying a horse. so, when brady says to the contractor, "what will you carry the mail at six miles an hour for?" and the man says "twenty-five thousand dollars," and he swears to it, brady is not buying the affidavit; it is the service. if he does not believe the service is worth that much, he says, "i can't do it," and that is all. but they say "no; that is not what brady did." now, as a matter of fact, there are nineteen routes in this indictment, and i believe eighteen of them were expedited. i have made a calculation for the purpose of showing that the amount to be paid was a matter of bargain; that it was a matter talked over between the parties; that it was the result of agreement, and that mr. brady did not take the affidavit as the actual amount, and that they were not bound to take the amount that he actually said. now, i have deducted what was allowed from what could have been allowed on the affidavits, and i find that the price did not depend upon the affidavits. i find that there was a difference between the amount called for by the affidavits and the amount granted of over three hundred thousand dollars. and yet these gentlemen say to you that brady allowed the men who made the affidavits absolutely to fix the amount. gentlemen, that will not do. it was a matter of agreement, a matter of bargain, the same as any other agreement or any other bargain. now, gentlemen, suppose they had had a conspiracy and said, "we want to get all the money we can out of the treasury." they would have agreed upon a per cent.; they would have had all those affidavits showing substantially the same per cent., wouldn't they? because they would have wanted harmony in it. they would have said, "it won't do for you to make an affidavit on that route with one thousand two hundred per cent., on this route with five hundred, on that route with two hundred and twenty per cent., and on the other route with three hundred and forty per cent. that won't do; that is nonsense; we are in a conspiracy and we want all these things to agree and harmonize." and the result would have been that they would have had about the same per cent, in all those affidavits. and yet those affidavits vary in per cent, all the way from two hundred and twenty to one thousand two hundred. they say, "result of conspiracy." i do not look at it in that way. it is also claimed that the persons who sold out--that is to say, john m. peck and john w. dorsey--agreed to make the necessary papers that the other parties required. that being so, why should not affidavits have been made in blank? now, i ask you if the other parties were willing to swear to anything that these men would write, why were they made that way? why not avoid the suspicious circumstance of blanks and put the amount in at first, knowing that the men would not hesitate to swear? of what use was it, gentlemen, to have an affidavit suspiciously made, to have blanks suspiciously left, when the men were willing to swear to any numbers they would put in? why did not the parties who made the affidavits write in the amounts? does not that very fact, that blanks were left, show that they were to take the judgment of the men who were to do the swearing? why would they leave blanks? why did they not fill them up at the time and have them sworn to? why were they not continuously written? that is another point, if this was a conspiracy. guilt is always conscious that it is guilty. guilt is always suspecting detection. guilt is infinitely suspicious. guilt would make all the papers as nearly right as possible. guilt would look out for erasures. guilt would abhor blots. guilt would have avoided having blanks filled in with different colored inks. guilt would want everything fitting everything else, nothing to excite suspicion. innocence is negligent. the man with honest intentions is the one that does not care. but the guilty man does not travel in the snow. he wants no tracks left. now, another thing: the fact that no effort was made to have the affidavits in the same handwriting, no effort to have the blanks apparently filled at the same time, that they were interlined, that there were erasures--all those things tend to show that the parties were honest in what they did. it was just as easy to have one without an erasure as with it; ii was just as easy to have one continuously written as to have the blanks filled up; just as easy to have one without any interlineations as with it. and yet these parties, knowing that they were conspirators (according to these gentlemen), mr. brady occupying a high and responsible position, were so careless of their reputations, that they did not even endeavor to make the papers passable upon their face. another thing: these very routes were investigated by congress in --this very business. if the parties at that time had been conscious of guilt, why were any suspicious papers left on file? why were not others substituted that had no suspicious interlineations, no suspicious erasures, no suspicious blanks that had been filed? why were these very affidavits at that time reported to congress? the first investigation was in , and on account of that investigation the contractors for about a month and a half were left. then there was another investigation in . mr. merrick. is there any evidence that they were all reported to congress? mr. ingersoll. i think so; i think that is here in the record. i understand the evidence to be that it was all reported to congress. mr. merrick. the investigation of was general, and not as to these particular routes. mr. ingersoll. in there was a special investigation growing out of these clendenning bonds and out of the peck bids, and out of the connection that they said stephen w. dorsey had with this business. that is what it grew out of. now, in the light of that investigation, let us take it for granted for one moment that according to their statement the parties had conspired. if anything on earth would make them afraid about papers i think it would have been that investigation; and yet no effort was made to conceal one, not the slightest. then we will go another step. general brady was second assistant postmaster-general. all these papers were absolutely in his power. he could have called for them at any time. every suspicious paper could have been destroyed or an unsuspicious one substituted for it. now, i want to know if it is conceivable that general brady, under these charges, when the new administration came in, under the threat of the government, would voluntarily leave those papers upon the files if they had been dishonest and he knew it? take another step. so far as we have learned from the prosecution i believe there is one paper claimed by them to have been lost. they do claim that there was a second affidavit on the bismarck and tongue river route. one is gone and one remains. which remains? the affidavit for one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses. it seems to me absolutely capable of demonstration that we did not take the one that is gone. had we been going to take anything we would have taken the one for one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, and left the other. but the other, about which nobody ever did complain, was taken, and the one upon which they build their great argument of fraud upon that route was left. and then it turned out that general brady only allowed forty per cent, of that affidavit. now, this prosecution was not begun in a moment. it was talked about for weeks and months, i might almost say for years. talk, talk, talk in the papers everywhere. these men were not suddenly charged with this offence. they understood it; they knew it. i think i have been engaged in this suit, or suits growing out of this business, for two years. it was a matter of slow growth. mr. brady retired, i believe, some time in april, , knowing at that time that these charges had been made and that the charges were being pressed. mr. dorsey knew it at the same time. all these defendants knew it. now they say that at that time we were in conspiracy with mr. brady, and they say that at that time we were in conspiracy with mr. turner. we had the papers in our power. now, if mr. dorsey was wicked enough to conspire, if mr. brady was villainous enough to conspire, i ask you whether they would have left behind the evidence of their conspiracy? why were the papers left? because general brady never dreamed that one of them was dishonest. why did not vaile and miner, john w. dorsey and peck and stephen w. dorsey ask for the papers? because they believed every one to be honest, and they had no use for them. they were willing that the government should make out of them what it could. i ask again, is it conceivable that john r. miner, if he knew there was on the files of the department a petition that he had changed, that he had erased, that he had interlined or forged, is it conceivable, if he had been wicked enough to enter into the conspiracy, that he would have been foolish enough to leave the paper there? would he not have gone to brady and said to him, "i conspired; you know it; i changed the petition, and i want it; i erased a word in a petition, i want it; i signed a name to a petition, i want it"? and brady would have said, "yes, and you ought to have called for it long ago; you can have it." if s. w. dorsey had interlined an affidavit or had filled a blank, if s. w. dorsey had made an erasure or an interlineation, he, of course, must have known it, and if he conspired with brady he must have known it, and he must have gone to general brady and said, "i want that affidavit on such a route; we can write another, and i want that; i want that petition;" and it would have been given. you cannot conceive of such infinite stupidity as to say that those people knew that those papers were dishonest, and that they still left them on file as weapons for their enemies. you cannot do it. so much, gentlemen, for the affidavits, and so much for the papers. now, there is another question, and i have no doubt that you have asked it yourselves. it has been asked a great many times by the prosecution. that question is this: why did dorsey retain rerdell in his employ after the th of june, ? these gentleman tell you that it is evidence of guilt that he did it. i will tell you why he did it. at that time the public mind was almost infinitely excited on this question. at that time the public was ready to believe anything. it had its mouth wide open, like a young robin, ready for worms or shingle-nails--it made no difference--anything that dropped in. every newspaper was charging that these defendants were guilty, that stephen w. dorsey was a conspirator, that millions had been taken from the treasury, and there were nearly as many mistakes in the press then as in the speech of mr. bliss now. but i can excuse that, because it was before the evidence. now, what was mr. dorsey to do in the then state of the public mind? that man, no matter how bad he was, how base he was, had the power to have him indicted. that man could have gone before the grand jury and had mr. dorsey or any other public man indicted in the then state of excitement and feeling of the public. what was the result of his going even to james and macveagh? i believe mr. turner says that on account of the statement of this man rerdell, he (turner) was turned out of his office. that is the effect. what became of mcgrew? what became of lilley? what became of lake? what became of twenty or thirty other officials upon whose reputation this man had breathed the poison of slander? stephen w. dorsey at that time knew that that man in the then state of public excitement was powerful for mischief. that man made the affidavit of june, , at the request of james w. bosler, as he himself says, and swore that he went to the government simply to find out the government's secrets; swore that he was still upon the side of stephen w. dorsey; took back what he had said, and swore that it was a lie. the question then was what to do with him? stephen w. dorsey made up his mind not to do anything more, just to let him alone, just let him stay as he was. that was the wise course. it was the course that any wise man, in my judgment, would have pursued under the circumstances. what else could he do? let him alone. let him alone. he did not at that time expect that he would ever be indicted. he shrank from an indictment, as every sensitive man does, because when you have indicted a man you have put a stain upon him that even the verdict of not guilty does not altogether remove. he did not want that stain. he was a man of power; he was a man of position, a man of social and political standing, a man wielding as much influence as any other one man in the united states. he did not wish to be indicted. he did not wish his reputation to be soiled and stained. and so he allowed that man to stay where he was. he may have made a mistake, but whether mistake or not, that is what he did. there is another question. why did we fail to produce our books and papers? i will tell you. the notice to produce them was given to us on the th day of february. we had noticed curious motions. two days afterwards, mr. rerdell went on the stand. what did they want the books and papers for? for mr. rerdell to look at. why did he want to look at the books and papers? to stake out his testimony. he hated to depend upon his memory. we took the responsibility of letting the witness swear to the contents of the books and papers, and let them call that secondary evidence. we took that responsibility rather than to furnish the books and papers to be looked at by that man in order that he might make no mistakes in his testimony. what happened afterwards justified our course. if we had shown to him the books and papers, and checks, and stubs, do you think he would have made any mistake about that seven thousand five hundred dollar check? would he have said that he went with dorsey, and that dorsey drew the money, and that he looked over his shoulder, and that then he and dorsey walked down to the post-office department, if he had known that that check was drawn to his order? if he had known before he swore, that he indorsed that check, he would have said he went down and got the money himself; he would not have said that dorsey did. he would have made no mistakes there. he would not have been driven into the corner of saying "stub" or "stubs," "checkbook" or "check-books," "amount" or "amounts." no, sir. and that one thing justified absolutely the wisdom of our course. then the court decided that, having failed to produce our books on notice and allowed the other side to introduce secondary evidence of their contents, we would not be allowed then to produce them. i insisted that we had the right then to produce them, and the court decided that we had not. we took the responsibility of refusing, and we took that responsibility because we made up our minds that we would not allow that man to look over the books, checks, and stubs for the purpose of manufacturing his testimony. the court. where did you offer to produce the books? mr. merrick. where did you offer the production of the books? that is just what i was about to ask. mr. carpenter. the court said we could not. mr. merrick. where did you make the offer? the court. i want to know. mr. carpenter. mr. ingersoll did not say he made the offer. mr. merrick. i think he did. the court. i think he did. mr. carpenter. just read it, mr. stenographer. he says nothing of the kind. the stenographer, (reading) i insisted that we had the right then to produce them, and the court decided that we had not. mr. ingersoll. that is exactly what i say. the court. the court did not give any intimation at that time, but after that point in the trial had passed, several days, several weeks, i think, the attention of the court was called to this question, and the court remarked, in the course of the opinion, that it understood the law to be that after a party, upon whom notice had been given to produce books, had failed to produce the books, and the other side had given secondary evidence, then the court would not allow the party having the books to produce them for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence. mr. ingersoll. that is all i claim. the court. but there was no such offer made, so far as i recollect. mr. ingersoll. why should we make the offer after your honor had decided that we could not do it? mr. merrick. i will answer the question. because whether it would have been accepted or not was a question for the counsel for the government when the offer was made. and again, the learned counsel will recollect that after the notice was given, when s. w. dorsey was on the stand on cross-examination, i demanded those books and those stubs, and he asked leave to consult his counsel. the court denied that request, and then there was a peremptory refusal to produce any book or any paper. the court. oh, yes. mr. ingersoll and mr. davidge repeatedly announced to the court that they were not going to produce books to assist the prosecution. mr. ingersoll. yes; i said that twenty times, and the court, as i understood it, held that after we had refused to produce the books and driven the other party to secondary evidence, we could not then produce the books. the court. you made no offer to produce the books. mr. ingersoll. i resisted the opinion of the court and made the best argument i could, but the court said that was not the law. the court. the remark of the court arose upon an argument on the part of mr. ingersoll, and if i am not mistaken, upon the effect of the refusal to produce the books and papers, mr. ingersoll contending that there was no presumption against his client on account of the refusal to produce the books and papers, and that the jury ought to be instructed that the only effect of refusing to produce the books and papers was to leave the case upon the secondary evidence. mr. ingersoll. i am not referring to that discussion, nor to that decision of your honor; i am referring to the decision you made during the trial. the court. that was the only occasion since this trial began, in which the court referred to that rule of law which denied the right to introduce primary evidence for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence, after the primary evidence had been withheld in the first instance. mr. ingersoll. of course, i am not absolutely certain, i never am; but i will endeavor to find in the record exactly what you said on that subject. and now, in order that we may be perfectly correct, and in order to show, too, how easy it is to be mistaken, mr. merrick just said upon that very subject of the books and papers, that while mr. dorsey was upon the stand, he asked leave to consult his counsel. if mr. merrick will read the testimony he will find that mr. dorsey made that remark when he was asked about the affidavit of june , . mr. merrick. you are right. mr. ingersoll. that just shows how easy it is to make a mistake when it comes to a matter of recollection. mr. merrick. i think it was upon a question of the insertion of the change in the character of the affidavit--its being addressed to the president; and when i asked him if he had not made that change he asked leave to consult his counsel. for the moment i thought it was upon the books. but the substance still remains, that, on the question of the books, i asked him on his cross-examination--and the counsel will state his recollection to be the same--about the stubs and the books, and called upon him to produce them, and the counsel replied, "we will not." mr. ingersoll. i presume i did. i made that reply a good many times. mr. merrick. will the counsel be frank enough to state when that decision was made? mr. ingersoll. which decision? mr. merrick. when he was on the stand on cross-examination. mr. ingersoll. and i said we would not produce them? mr. merrick. after the testimony in chief and rerdell was gone. mr. ingersoll. then i said we would not produce them. and now i will say that the decision of the court was made before that time that we could not produce them, and if i do not show it then i will publicly take it back. the court. i do not think you can show it. mr. ingersoll. if i do not, then i will beg your honor's pardon, and if i do--if i do--now, i think what happened afterwards in this case with that very witness justifies the course that we pursued. he also stated at the time that we had, i believe, some twenty thousand pages of letters on all possible subjects to a great number of people. we knew that there was a spirit abroad--and some of it in a part of the prosecution--to find something against somebody else somewhere. we made up our minds that our private books and correspondence never should be ransacked by this department of justice. we took the consequences, and we are willing to take them. we say that the inference from our refusal is an inference of fact, and must be decided by the jury, and is not an inference of law. we have been asked a good many times why we did not put james w. bosler on the stand. the prosecution subpoenaed mr. bosler. they appeared to have an affection for him. they subpoenaed him, and he came here. afterwards they issued an attachment for him. they had him, arrested at midnight and brought here. he gave some testimony, and you will find it on page . mr. merrick. i do not know that there was an attachment. mr. ingersoll. you know you have a right to prove things by circumstances. now, it is said that he put the marshal out of the house; i think that is evidence tending to show that an attachment was issued. mr. ker. and kept him out with a club. the court. i understood also that mr. dorsey kicked somebody else out of his house about the same time. mr. ingersoll. oh, yes; it has been a very lively term of court. there were two very important things that they were to prove by mr. bosler, and they were patting him on the back here for weeks. friendship sprang up between them. it was a very young plant at first, but the bosler ivy grew upon the oak of the prosecution. i saw him sitting here, everything delightful. the prosecution, i hoped, began to flatter itself that mr. bosler was on their side; i hoped that was so. finally they put mr. bosler on the stand. what did they want to prove by him? that dorsey wrote a letter to him on the th of may, , telling how much money he had given to brady; that is one thing they wanted to prove by him. the second thing was that rerdell had written a letter to bosler, i believe, on the th of may or d of may, , stating that he (rerdell) had been subpoenaed to go before the congressional committee and take his books and papers; that he got very much frightened; that he had taken the advice of brady and got a very valuable suggestion from brady, which he was going to follow. they wanted to prove that by mr. bosler. rerdell had already sworn that dorsey sent a letter to bosler on the th of may, . rerdell had sworn to the contents of that letter; that the contents were that he had paid brady so much money, &c., which you remember, and then that he, in , had written a letter to mr. bosler, and i believe he pretended to have a copy of it. now, here comes bosler's testimony, on page . q. have you made a search among your papers to find a letter alleged to have been written to you by stephen w. dorsey, and dated on or about the th of may, ?--yes, sir. that is the letter that rerdell swore about. q. have you searched?--a. i have. q. did you find it?-a. no, sir. q. have you made search for a letter purporting to have been written by him to you, and dated on or about the d of may, ?--a. yes, sir. q. did you find that letter?--a. i did not. the court: was there ever such a letter? bosler replied: "there never was such a letter received by me." there is the testimony of mr. bosler, and on that testimony the two letters of may , , and may , , turn to dust and ashes. now, they say, "why didn't you put bosler on?" not much necessity of mr. bosler after that. and besides, gentlemen, i believe i will take you into my confidence just a little bit. the evidence of rerdell as to the affidavit of june , , and the affidavit of july , (an affidavit in which he swore that there was nothing against mr. bosler, an affidavit that was made apparently for the benefit of bosler), all that evidence, the evidence of mr. stephen w. dorsey upon those questions, advertised the prosecution that mr. bosler knew of many circumstances; that he was present a portion of the time, and i did not know but finally the prosecution would get so much confidence in mr. bosler that they would call him. i was hoping they would. they did not. it did not work quite as i expected. that is all there is about that. now, there is one further point to which i wish to call your attention. i want you to remember that a partnership is not a conspiracy, although all the facts about a partnership are consistent with the idea of a conspiracy up to a certain point; and all the facts about a conspiracy are consistent with a partnership up to a certain point. the fact that men act together does not show that they have conspired; does not show that they have a wicked design. the fact that they are engaged in the same business does not show that they have a wicked design or that they are there by conspiracy. in other words, i want your minds so that you will distinguish between a fact that may be innocent, and generally is innocent, and a fact that must be evidence of guilt. i want you to distinguish between the facts common to all partnerships, common to all agreements, and those facts that necessarily imply a criminal intent. if you wil do that gentlemen, you will have but little trouble. [at this point a volume of the report of the trial was handed up to the court by mr. ingersoll with a reference to a certain page]. the court. without looking at the book i take risk of saying that the court never announced its opinion on that question until the case referred to a few moments ago. mr. ingersoll. i just gave my memory on the subject. it does not make any great difference in this case, of course. mr. carpenter. this is during the cross-examination of rerdell. the court. yes, the court did state on that occasion: that is not the point here. if they are allowed to go on and cross-examine this way without the production of the books, they cannot contradict the witness afterwards by producing the books. i had forgotten that i had announced it twice. mr. ingersoll. if the court please, i did not want to bring this up, because i knew you had, and so i thought i would slip you the book and let you off easy. the court. i do not think it weakens the position at all that the same announcement has been made twice instead of once. mr. carpenter. we thought it made it stronger. the court. still, the books were not produced. mr. ingersoll. now, if the court please, i am not arguing-- the court. [interposing.] i will leave you to the jury. mr. ingersoll. your honor knows that i have always shown great modesty about trying to do anything against any decision. the court. i do not dispute that. mr. ingersoll. now, the next question, gentlemen, is what is meant by corroboration? if you tell a man that he is not a great painter, he does not get angry. he says he does not pretend to paint, or is not a great sculptor. but if you tell him he has no logic, he loses his temper. yet logic is perhaps the rarest quality of the human mind. there are thousands of painters and sculptors where there is one logician. a man swears, for instance, that he went down to a man's house in the morning at six o'clock, and that mr. thomas was standing just in front of the house, and when he went in the dog tried to bite him, and that after he got in he had such and such conversation. now, there are thousands of people who have brains of that quality that they think the fact that he did go there at six o'clock in the morning, and did see mr. thomas standing out in front of the house, and especially the fact that the dog did try to bite him, is a corroboration of the conversation that took place in the house. there are just such people. in this case, for instance, in mr. brady's matter, they say that the fact of walsh being in his house is important. suppose that he was, what of it? is that corroboration? corroboration must be on the very point in dispute. it must be the very hinge of the question. then it is corroboration, if the question is what did the man say. it is not corroboration to prove that the man was there unless the man swears that he was not there. then the inference is drawn that if he would lie about being there he might lie about what he said. now, understand me. they will say, for instance, "here is an affidavit, and these blanks have been filled up. rerdell says they were filled up, and he says they were filled up after they were sworn to." now, the fact that the affidavit is there and that the blanks are filled up is not corroboration, because the point to be corroborated is that it was done after it was sworn to. and so the existence of the affidavit, while it is necessary, is no corroboration; the filling up of the blank is no corroboration; its being on file is no corroboration. why? the point to be corroborated is not that the blanks were filled, but that they were filled after the paper had been sworn to! that is the point. and when they begin to talk to you about corroboration i want you to have it in your minds all the time that to be corroborated about an immaterial matter is nothing; it has nothing to do with the question; but there must be corroboration on the very heart of the point at issue! there is another thing, gentlemen. it does not make any difference what i say about this man, or that man, or the other man, unless there is reason in what i say. if i tell you that the evidence of a witness is not worthy of belief, i must tell you why. i must give you the reason. if i simply say the witness is a perjurer, that shows that i either underrate your sense, or have none of my own, because that is not calculated to convince any human mind one way or the other. you are not to take my statement; you are to take the evidence, and such reasons as i give, and only such as appeal to your good sense. if i say, "you must not believe that man," i must give you the reason why. if the reason i give is a good one, you will act upon it. if it is a bad one i cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. there is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet. and there is another thing. an attorney has a certain privilege; he is protected by the court. he is given almost absolute liberty of speech, and it is a privilege that he never should abuse. he should remember if he attacks a defendant, that the defendant cannot open his mouth. he should remember that it does not take as much courage to attack, as it does not to attack. he should remember, too, that by the use of epithets, by abuse, that he is appealing to the lowest and basest part of every juror's head and heart. it is on a low level. it is a fight with the club of a barbarian instead of with an intellectual cimeter. there is no logic in abuse. there is no argument in epithet. remember that. the weight and worth of an argument is the effect it has upon an unprejudiced mind, and that is all it is worth. therefore i do not want you, gentlemen, to be carried away by any assault that may be made--i do not say that any will be made--but any that may be made, that is not absolutely justified by the evidence. there has been one little thing said during this trial; that is, about the testimony of defendants. i believe mr. bliss takes the ground that you cannot believe a defendant; that defendants cannot be believed unless they are corroborated. mr. bliss has the kindness to put the defendants in this case on an equality with his witness rerdell. gentlemen, you cannot believe any witness unless his evidence is reasonable. every witness has to be corroborated by the naturalness of his story. every witness is to be corroborated by his manner upon the stand and by the thousand little indications that catch the eye of a juror or of a judge or of an attorney. congress has passed a law allowing defendants to swear when they are put upon trial. will you tell me that that law is a net, a snare, and a delusion, and the moment a defendant takes the stand the prosecution is to say, "of course he will lie"? why do they say that? because he is a defendant, and you cannot believe a word that he says; he is swearing in his own behalf. there is that same low, slimy view of human nature again, that a defendant who swears in his own behalf must swear falsely. i do not take that view. the defendant has the same right upon the stand that anybody else has, and if his character is not good his character can be attacked; it can be impeached by the prosecution precisely as you would impeach the reputation of any other witness. if he tells a story which is reasonable you will believe it, and you will believe it notwithstanding he is a defendant and notwithstanding he has an interest in the verdict. in old times they would not allow a man to swear at all if he had the interest of a cent in any civil suit. they would not allow him to testify when he was on trial for his own liberty and his own life. that was barbarism. the enemy--the man who hated him--he could tell his story, but the man attacked, the man defending his own liberty and his own life, his mouth was closed and sealed. we have gotten over that barbarism in nearly all the states of this union, and now we say, "let every man tell his story; don't allow any avenue to truth to be closed; let us hear all sides, and whatever is reasonable take as the truth, and what is unreasonable throw away." and, gentlemen, let me say here that it is not your business to go to work picking a witness's testimony all apart and saying, "well, i guess there is a little scrap now that there is some truth in," or "here is a line, and i guess that is so, but the next eleven lines i do not believe; the next sentence, i think, will do." that is not the way to do. if a witness is of that character you must throw his entire evidence to the winds, for it is tainted and the fountains of justice should not be tainted with such evidence, and a verdict should not be touched and corrupted with such testimony. you will take the evidence of these defendants as you would take that of any other man, and it is for you to say whether that evidence is true. it is for you to say that. if corroboration was so necessary why were not their witnesses corroborated? why didn't they call mr. bosler to corroborate their witness? now, one of the defendants in this case is mr. john r. miner, and i want you to think of the terrible things they have against him. one of the charges made against him is that he wrote a petition and wrote in six names attached to it. his explanation is, that if he did anything of that kind it was because he received a petition which was so worn that it could not be presented, and he copied it, and that the six names were found on that petition. there was no other way on earth for him to get those names, and we find them on the same route in, i believe, seven other petitions which were filed; we find that those very names are on the other petitions, and i think mr. hall's name--the one the most trouble was made about--was on three or four petitions of the other kind. mr. carpenter. he admitted that he wrote them. mr. ingersoll. yes; hall admitted that he wrote them. but i believe this petition was never filed in the department. i think mr. woodward said he found it among the papers at some other place. there is a petition called the utah petition that has some names in utah. i think mr. woodward swore that he tound it in room no. or . mr. merrick. in the case itself, in the department. mr. ingersoll. yes; but it has no file mark. mr. woodward says he does not now remember how it got in there. as i was about to remark, there was a petition called the utah petition with some names of persons living off the route, i believe--two or three sheets. the petition itself was genuine, and was indorsed, i believe, by senators slater and grover and by congressman whiteaker. now, then, how did these names come in there? the petition is ample without those names; large enough. i will tell you what i think. i think that it is a part of another petition, and that it was the result of an accident. i think it was done in the post-office department, not intentionally, but as an accident. the evidence is that they kept three routes in one pigeonhole, and that the papers sometimes got mixed; that is mr. brewer's testimony. a very strange thing happened to that petition. while it was before this jury it came apart again. and if some clerk not absolutely familiar with the papers had taken it up, he would have been just as liable to put it on the wrong petition as on the right one. my plan is to account for a thing in some way consistent with evidence, if i naturally can. i do not go out of my way hunting for evidence of crime. and when there was a petition, large enough, with a plenty of genuine names on it, i cannot imagine anybody would go and get names from any other petition and paste them on to that. but being in this same country, and the testimony being that they had three of these routes in one pigeon-hole, my idea is that the papers got mixed and mingled sometimes, and i say the probability is that it was an accident. that is the best way to account for it. if miner had known that that petition was there that he had made, would he have allowed it to stay there? why would he want to do such a thing if he was in a conspiracy with brady? why would he have to resort to perjury and interlineation in order to get brady to make orders that he, brady, had conspired to make? absurdity cannot go beyond that. here is the doctrine: "i have conspired with the second assistant postmaster-general. he will do anything for me that i want. now, i will go and forge some petitions." that seems to me perfectly idiotic. this petition was indorsed by senators grover and slater and congressman whiteaker. then, there is another petition; that one i showed you this morning, with the words "schedule thirteen hours," and the evidence was (that is, if you call what rerdell stated evidence) that miner wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours." i have shown you, this morning, those words, and without any other particle of argument i want to leave it to you who wrote those words--whether rerdell wrote them or miner. then, there is another wonderful thing about that petition. it is not on any of the routes in this indictment, and has no business here--i mean the ehrenberg petition. the one i spoke of was the kearney and kent. the next petition is the ehrenberg and mineral park. they say that there has been some word erased and another written in. nobody pretends that it is not a genuine petition. nobody pretends that it was not signed by every one of the persons by whom it purports to be signed. then, another peculiarity; it is not on any route in this indictment, and has no more to do with this case than the last leaf of the mormon bible; not the least. let us see if they have any more of these terrible things. here is petition a, on the kearney and kent route. that is the petition that has the words "schedule thirteen hours." that is the one indorsed by senator saunders. petition k, on the route from ehrenberg to mineral park, is not a route in this case. it turned out that the names on it are genuine, and the genuineness of the petition has not been challenged. the only point made is that the word "ehrenberg" has been written by somebody else. there is no evidence to show that the petition was not properly signed; that the persons on there did not sign their names or authorize somebody else to do it. the probability is there may have been some mistake in the name, or it may have been misspelled. there was some mistake made, and the word "ehrenberg" was written in. on page mr. miner swears positively that in regard to the petition a he never wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours." then, there is another petition, i think it is on page , the camp mcdermitt petition. there are the words "ninety-six hours." and they get that down there to a fine point. mr. boone swore that he did not know who wrote the word "ninety," but that miner wrote the word "six.." well, that is too fine a point, gentlemen, to put on handwriting. it seems there is an interlineation there of the words "ninety-six," and they say they do not know who wrote the word "ninety" and that miner wrote the word "six." but miner swears that he did not write it at all. now, then, you take away the evidence of mr. rerdell as to miner, and what is left? the evidence left is that of a. w. moore. and what is that? it is that miner instructed him to get up false petitions. this was the first time he ever went out. but moore swore that he made arrangements to do what miner instructed him to do; that he made such arrangements with major; but major swears he did not. moore swore that he made some arrangement with mcbean, and the government did not ask mcbean whether he did or not, but i will show that he did not. the testimony shows that on the first trip, at the time he saw major, he did not see mcbean. now, just see. he swore, in the first place, that he made that arrangement with major and mcbean. i find afterwards that his evidence shows that he did not see mcbean on the first trip, but he did see him on the second. on page we find that when moore went west the second time--when he left here and had made a bargain with dorsey for one-quarter interest in his route, and miner told him to go west and let dorsey's routes go to the devil, and he said he would, and never notified dorsey that he was going to do it--that man comes here now and swears that he made a contract with dorsey for one-quarter interest, and then started west and made a contract with miner, letting dorsey's routes go. he did not have the decency to even notify dorsey that he was going to do so. that is the man. on the first trip he did not agree with anybody about petitions. now, understand my point, because it kills mr. moore again. we have to keep killing these people--keep killing them. it is something like the boy who was found pounding a woodchuck. he was pounding him away in the road with all his might, and a man came along and said to him, "what are you pounding that woodchuck for?" he said, "oh, i am just pounding him." "but," the man said, "he is dead." "yes, i know it," said the boy, "but i am pounding him to show him that there is punishment after death." now, on page , we find that this man moore went to the west a second time. i have shown you that the first time, he swears that he did not see mcbean at all. he saw major and made the arrangement with him, he says. major swears that he did not. they do not put mcbean on the stand. now, he goes a second time. on the second trip, he says he had nothing to do with the petition business at all, and did not explain the petition business to anybody because he had not the time, and on the first trip did not see mcbean at all. and yet he swears that he made an arrangement with mcbean about these very petitions. the proof that he did not see mc-bean on his first trip is found on page . there is one other point about which we have heard an immensity of talk and upon which a great deal of air has been wasted, and that is, that there was a bargain that brady was to have fifty per cent, of all the fines that he remitted. in other words, that he made a bargain with his co-conspirators that if he fined them a thousand dollars and then remitted it, that he was to have five hundred dollars or one-half of that fine. that is a nice bargain; for me to put myself in the power of a man and say, "now, you fine me what you want to, and then if you will take it off, i will give you half of it." it seems to me that that would be quite an inducement for him to fine me. yet, here is a man who makes a bargain that brady may impose a fine upon them and that he may have half of it back--that is, upon their doctrine, although they have never proved it, but they state it just the same as though they had. but here are the facts. here are the fines and deductions on twelve routes. the fines amount to eighty-nine thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents and the remissions amount to seven thousand four hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-four cents; that is all. and yet they pretend that we had a bargain. now, come to the mail routes, and we find that the fines amounted to sixty-one thousand two hundred and thirty-two dollars and twenty cents and all that they could get their co-conspirators to take off of that (although according to the doctrine of the prosecution they were to have fifty per cent.) was thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars and sixteen cents. that was all they could get off. there are the figures. there has been talk enough on that subject, but all the air that wraps the earth could not answer those facts. words enough to wear out all human lips could not change those facts. fines eighty-nine thousand dollars, remissions seven thousand dollars; fines sixty-one thousand dollars, remissions thirteen thousand dollars. and yet they pretend that he had a bargain by which he had fifty per cent, of all he remitted. i need not make any more argument on that point. there have been one or two things in this trial that i have regretted, and one i find in mr. ker's speech. and i find frequent reference to it in other places, and that is the blindness of s. w. dorsey. affidavits were made by drs. marmion, bliss, and sowers that mr. dorsey had lost at least eleven-twelfths of his vision. and yet it has been constantly thrown out to you that it was a ruse, a device, and i believe mr. ker said in his speech that mr. dorsey saw a paper in mr. merrick's hand, mr. merrick, i believe, holding a balance-sheet from the german-american savings bank--a paper several feet wide or long--and because mr. dorsey said to him, "i believe you have it in your hand," why they said this man is pretending to be blind. his testimony was that he had been in a dark room for three months; that his eyes had not been visited by one ray of light for three months, and that for six months he had not read a solitary word. and yet the prosecution sneeringly pretended that there was nothing the matter with his eyes. they subpoenaed dr. marmion, but they dare not put him on the stand. they threw out hints and innuendoes that these doctors had sworn falsely, but they dare not put it to the test. it seems that nothing in the world can satisfy them about stephen w. dorsey except to see him convicted, except to have them put their feet upon his neck. gentlemen, you never will enjoy that pleasure. you never will while the world swings in its orbit find twelve honest men to convict stephen w. dorsey--never. this government may put forth its utmost power; it may spend every dollar in its treasury; it may hire all the ingenuity and brain of the country, and it can never find twelve men who will put stephen w. dorsey in the penitentiary--never, and you might as well give it up one time as another. try it year after year; poison the mind of the entire public with the newspapers; get all the informers you can; bring all the witnesses you can find; put all of those whom you call accomplices on the stand, and i give you notice that it never can be done, and i want you to know it. spend your millions, and you will end where you start. as long as the average man runs there will always be one or two honest men in a dozen; so you cannot convict one of these defendants. go on, but it will never be accomplished. there is one other thing which perhaps may be worth noticing. i believe that they proved by mr. dorsey that he wrote an account of his relation to this business, and published it in the _new york herald_. the only point with which mr. merrick quarreled in that entire paper was the statement that peck was a large contractor, and when dorsey was put on the stand he explained that while peck had not many routes in his own name, that he was the partner of a man named chidester. that is the only thing of which he complained, and yet that communication pretended to tell the relation that dorsey sustained to this entire business, and if that had not accorded precisely with dorsey's testimony on the stand every word of it would have been read to you again and again. and mr. ker says that letter was written for the purpose of poisoning public opinion. was the letter of the attorney-general of the united states, written just before this trial began, written to bias public opinion also? mr. merrick. is there any evidence of that letter in this trial? if not i object to any reference to it. the court, you cannot refer to that, because it is not in the case. mr. ingersoll. i take it back. was dickson indicted to bias public opinion? mr. merrick. i object to that also. he was indicted by the grand jury on competent testimony. the court. there is no evidence in this case that he was indicted. mr. ingersoll. i will take it back then. i would ask the court, however, after the attorney for the government has said that dorsey wrote that letter to bias public opinion, if i have not the right to say that he wrote that letter because letters had been written by others. mr. merrick. not unless those letters are in proof. the court. the fact that he wrote the letter is in evidence in the case. that of course makes it the proper subject of comment on either side. anything else not in evidence is not a subject of controversy. mr. ingersoll. i will take it for granted, however, that the jury understand what is going on in this case. mr. merrick. yes, they understand the evidence. mr. ingersoll. i understand that the jury, as members of this community, as citizens of the united states, have at least a vague idea of what the department of justice has done. it is also claimed, and has been claimed, and i have answered it again and again and again, that s. w. dorsey is the chief conspirator. why? is it possible that it is because he was the chief man politically? is it possible that any politician was envious of his place and power? is it possible that any politician was envious of the influence he had with president garfield? is it possible that he had interfered with the career of some piece of mediocrity? why is it that he is made the chief figure? these are questions that are asked and questions that you can answer. how does it happen that his name never figures in any division? that his name never figures in any paper made in regard to this business? how does it happen that when he was contending with the german-american national bank that he must be paid, how is it that it never occurred to miner or vaile to tell him, "why, this is a conspiracy of your own hatching. you advanced this money to give life to your own bantling, and you have got to wait until the conspiracy bears fruit, and if you are not willing to wait you can do the next worse thing, have it made public"? if at that time, when he was opposing and fighting vaile because he had cut out his security, vaile had known that dorsey was in the conspiracy, one word from him and stephen w. dorsey's mouth would have remained shut forever. but it did not occur to miner, it did not occur to vaile. that won't do. why didn't vaile say to him, "mr. dorsey, you are making a great deal of fuss about a few thousand dollars. you are in the senate; you are interested in these routes, and i want to hear no more from you"? why didn't he say it? because it was not true; that is why. now, gentlemen, if what the prosecution claims is true, not only stephen w. dorsey, not only thomas j. brady, not only john r. miner, not only h. m. vaile, and john w. dorsey are guilty of conspiracy, but hundreds and hundreds of other people. do you believe it is possible that all the persons who petitioned for an increase of service, who petitioned for expedition--do you believe they were in a conspiracy? do you believe they were dishonest men, and do you believe they asked for what they did not want? do you believe that these defendants had at their beck and call the representatives of the entire great northwest? do you believe that members of congress of the lower house and of the senate were their agents and tools? was senator hill a conspirator? was the present secretary of the interior a conspirator? were senator grover and senator slater also conspirators? were generals, judges, district attorneys, members of state and territorial legislatures--were they all conspirators? did they indorse false petitions for the purpose of putting money in the pockets of these defendants? let us be honest. do you believe that general miles was a conspirator, or that general sherman, whose title is next to that of the president, and whose name is one synonymous of victory, entered into a conspiracy? do you believe that he knows as much about the mail business as colonel bliss? do you believe that he knows as much about the wants of the great northwest as the gentlemen who are prosecuting this case? was he a conspirator with their representative in congress from oregon? was horace f. page a conspirator? these are questions, gentlemen, that you must answer. were all these men, these officers of the army, state officers, federal officers, and men of national reputation--were they all engaged in a conspiracy; were they endeavoring to assist these defendants in plundering the treasury of these united states? these are questions for you to ask and questions for you to answer. is it not wonderful that such a conspiracy should have existed in all the western states at one time? gentlemen, is it wonderful that all the people of the west want mails? do you not know, and do i not know, that the mail is the substantial benefit we get from the general government? don't you know that the mail is the pioneer of civilization? do you not know that there ought to be a mail wherever the flag floats? do you not know that the only way to keep a great country like this together, a vast territory of three million square miles--three million five hundred thousand square miles--is by the free distribution of the mail? if you are going to keep the people who populate that territory together, if you are going to keep them of one heart and one mind, if you are going to make them keep step to this union and to the progress of this nation, you must have frequent intercourse with them all. the telegraph must reach to the remotest hamlet; the little electric spark, freighted with intelligence and patriotism, must visit every home; and the newspaper and the letter, bearing words of love from home and news from abroad, must visit every house, so that every man, whether digging in the mine or working on the farm, may feel the throb and thrill of the great world, and be a citizen of a mighty nation instead of an ignorant provincial. i am in favor of frequent mails everywhere, all over the plains, all through the mountains, everywhere, wherever the flag flies, i want the man who sits under it to feel that the government has not forgotten him; that is what i want. i take pride in this country. i am one of the men who believe that there is only air enough in this entire continent to float one flag. i am one of the men who believe that it is the destiny of the united states to control every inch of soil from the arctic to the antarctic, and that when a nation loses its ambition to grow, increase, and expand it begins to die. and what right has a man who is carrying the mail to interfere with the policy of the post-office department? these are large questions, gentlemen of the jury, and i want you to deal with them in a large and splendid american spirit. i want you to feel that we are citizens of the greatest government on this globe. i want you to feel that here, to every man, no matter from what clime he may come, no matter of what people, no matter of what religion, the soil will give emolument, the sun will give its light and heat, the government will give its protection. i like to feel that way about the government. and yet, because the department adopted a splendid and generous policy, it is tortured into evidence of conspiracy. now let me speak just a moment about these people--the defendants in this case. first, there is stephen w. dorsey. i take a great interest in this case; i admit it. i would rather lose my right hand than have you convict stephen w. dorsey. i admit it. i admit that if he were convicted i would lose confidence in trial by jury; i would believe that there were no twelve men in the world that had the honor and the manhood to stand by what they believed to be the evidence and the law. i would feel as though trial by jury was a failure. i admit i have that interest in it--all that anybody can have in any case. you can only convict that man by the testimony of a. w. moore and m. c. rerdell. that testimony withdrawn from the record and there is not one word against him. i want you to know and i want you to remember what kind of a man he is. you have seen him; you know him; and you know something of him. it is for you to decide whether you will take the testimony of rerdell as against that man. it is for you to decide whether you will take the testimony of a. w. moore as against that man. these men who are prosecuting him seem to forget who he is and what he has been. yet men disgrace the position that stephen w. dorsey helped to give them, by attacking him. john w. dorsey can be convicted by the testimony of nobody. there is no testimony against him, except that of one man. he is an honest man. he told exactly what he did, and he told it like an honest man. he told why he did not put his money in the bank at middlebury, vermont, because they thought that he owed a debt which he did not think he owed. he need not have told it, but he is an honest man, and that is the reason he told it. the prosecution does not appreciate that kind of man, that is, they say they do not. the only witnesses against miner are rerdell and moore, and they being dead, that is the end of it. what evidence is there against harvey m. vaile? one witness, mr. rerdell. what did harvey m. vaile do? at the solicitation of mr. miner he advanced money to prevent his having a failing contract. what else did he do? he wrote a letter saying that he was trustee for s. w. dorsey, and he was, because the concern owed s. w. dorsey a few thousand dollars, and agreed out of the profits to repay stephen w. dorsey. that is all. that is all. you have seen mr. vaile here from day to day. you know that he is a man of mind. i think he is an honest man. i think he testified to the exact truth. he did what any other man had the right to do, he helped a man, not entirely from charity, but believing after all that it might be a good investment, as you have done if you have ever had the opportunity. and there is not the slightest scintilla of evidence against him, not the slightest. i believe every word that he testified, and so do you. and then they come to thomas j. brady, and they tell you that that man is to be convicted upon the testimony of whom? mr. walsh. and who else? mr. rerdell. you have some idea of human nature. you have a little and i have a little. here is mr. walsh, an athlete; a man who, had he lived in rome in ancient times, might have been a gladiator. he loans mr. brady twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand dollars. for some of this money he has notes, for other portions he has not. he sends word to brady that he would like to fix the interest. he goes there and brady takes these notes and puts them in his pocket and they part as philosophers. if we believe that, we must believe it as idiots. you do not believe it. you do not believe any man ever allowed another to take twenty-five thousand dollars in notes belonging to him and put them in his pocket and walk off, he taking off his hat at the door and you bowing and wishing him a happy voyage. my mind is so constructed that i cannot believe that; i cannot help it. i imagine your minds are built a little after the same model. i do not believe the story; you do not. who is the next witness against mr. brady? mr. rerdell. it is sufficient for me to speak the name. i need argue no further. that is enough. you saw mr. brady on the stand and you heard him give his testimony. no man could listen to it without knowing it to be true. i say now to each one of you that when you heard it you believed it, and every one of you believed it was the truth. take from this record the testimony of rerdell, walsh, and moore, and what is left? some papers, petitions, orders, affidavits, all made, signed and filed in the cloudless light of day. that is all that is left. where is your conspiracy? faded into thin air, nothing left. i presume it will be said by the prosecution that i spent about three days on mr. rerdell. i admit it. why? because i regarded rerdell as your case. because i made up my mind that when i killed rerdell the case had breathed its last. that is the reason. and had it been necessary to spend a few weeks more i should have done so. but it is not necessary. probably i wasted a great deal of time upon the subject, but if he is not dead i do not want it in the power of any human being to say that it was my fault. i went at him with intent to kill, and i kept at him after i knew that he was dead. i admit it. now, gentlemen, let us see what i have proved. let us see what up to this time i have substantiated in my judgment. first, i think i have shown that john w. dorsey, john m. peck, and john r. miner agreed in , to go into the mail business. that peck wrote a letter to stephen w. dorsey, who was then a united states senator, asking him to get some competent man to get reliable information as to the cost of service on routes in the western states and territories then advertised by the general government. that s. w. dorsey gave that letter to a. e. boone. that he told him to say nothing about it to other contractors. that boone sent out circulars for the purpose of getting the requisite information; that is, the cost of corn and oats and the wages of men. that john r. miner came to washington on the st of december, . that he went to the house of stephen w. dorsey, as had been the custom for several years. that he occupied a room in that house, and that he and mr. boone went on with the business of making proposals and getting up forms of contracts. that john w. dorsey came here in the early part of january, . that after his arrival the partnership was formed between him and a. e. boone, and that the partnership was dated the th day of january, . that s. w. dorsey, at the request of his brother and brother-in-law, advanced the amount of money necessary to pay incidental expenses. that he gave his advice whenever it was asked. that he assisted the parties all that he conveniently could. that the last bids or proposals were put in by these parties on the d of february, . that the awards were made on the th day of march of the same year. that miner, peck, dorsey, and boone received about five times as many awards as they had anticipated. thereupon another partnership was formed with the style of miner, peck & co., and that the partners in this firm were john r. miner, john m. peck, and john w. dorsey. that thereupon john w. dorsey and john r. miner went west for the purpose of subcontracting the routes. that john r. miner on his return from the west met stephen w. dorsey at saint louis about the th of july, . that stephen w. dorsey up to that time had advanced eight thousand or nine thousand dollars. that he then gave to mr. miner notes amounting to about eight thousand five hundred dollars to be by him discounted at the german-american national bank of washington. that stephen w. dorsey then told miner that he would advance no more and would indorse no more. that stephen w. dorsey went from saint louis to new mexico; that john r. miner came to the city of washington, arriving here about the th of july. that john r. miner then found that service in eastern oregon was not in operation, although it had been subcontracted; but he then applied to thomas j. brady for an extension of time. that brady refused to give it. that miner, peck & co. had not the money to stock the routes not then in operation, and that stephen w. dorsey had refused to advance further means. that john w. dorsey was then in the west and that john m. peck was then in new mexico. that thereupon mr. miner applied to harvey m. vaile, and that mr. vaile went to mr. brady and asked whether an extension of time could be given, provided he undertook to put the service on those routes. that brady then gave him until the th day of august, . that thereupon miner, under the authority of powers of attorney from john m. peck and john w. dorsey, agreed upon the terms on which h. m. vaile should advance the money necessary to put the service in operation. that the contract bears date the th day of august, , and was duly executed by all the parties on the last of september or first of october of that year. that the service was not in operation by the th of august, and that in august, brady telegraphed to h. m. vaile to know what routes he was going to put service on. that thereupon vaile replied that he would see that all the service of miner, peck, and dorsey was put in operation. that through the assistance of mr. vaile the service was put in operation. that before that time stephen w. dorsey had been secured by miner, peck, and john w. dorsey executing postoffice drafts upon the routes that had been awarded to them. that on the th day of may, , an act was passed by the congress of the united states allowing subcontractors to place their subcontracts on file. that after vaile came in and agreed to furnish the money necessary to put the service in operation, john r. miner having powers of attorney from peck and john w. dorsey, executed to h. m. vaile subcontracts for the purpose of securing him for the money he had advanced. that h. m. vaile put these subcontracts on file, thus cutting out and rendering worthless as security the postoffice drafts that had been given to s. w. dorsey for the purpose of securing him. that john w. dorsey returned from the bismarck and tongue river route in november, , and that he then offered to sell out his entire interest in the business to vaile for ten thousand dollars, and left instructions authorizing his brother, s. w. dorsey, to make such sale for such amount. that john w. dorsey then returned to the tongue river route. that stephen w. dorsey returned to washington in december, , and for the first time found that the subcontracts had been given to vaile. that he and mr. vaile had a quarrel with the german-american national bank on that question. that afterwards dorsey was to give ten thousand dollars to john w. dorsey, and ten thousand dollars to john m. peck. that he then concluded not to do so. that on the th day of march, when s. w. dorsey's senatorial term expired, he immediately wrote a letter to brady insisting that the subcontracts that had been filed by vaile were in fraud of his rights. that thereupon the parties in interest came together. that s. w. dorsey acting for peck, his brother, and himself agreed with vaile and miner to a division of the routes. that s. w. dorsey paid peck ten thousand dollars for his interest, paid john w. dorsey ten thousand dollars for his interest, and took substantially thirty per cent, of the routes and paid himself the money that was owing to him by miner, peck & co. that the parties at the time executed to each other subcontracts and such other papers as were necessary to vest, as far as they then under the law could vest, the routes so divided in the parties to whom they fell. that on the th of may, , the division was completed, and that from that time forward vaile and miner had no interest in the routes that fell to stephen w. dorsey, and that from that time forward stephen w. dorsey had no interest in the routes that fell to vaile and miner, and that john w. dorsey and john m. peck had no interest in any route from that date forward until the present moment. that s. w. dorsey took entire and absolute control of his routes, and that miner and vaile took entire control of their routes. that from that time until the present neither party interfered with the routes of the other. that vaile and miner made no paper of any sort, character, or kind for stephen w. dorsey after the th of may, , and that neither john w. dorsey, nor john m. peck, made any papers of any kind, sort or character for miner or vaile after that date, no matter what date papers bear that were made before that time. that s. w. dorsey made no papers for miner or vaile after that date. and that miner and vaile made no papers for s. w. dorsey after that date, may , . that all the papers bearing date after the th of may, were in fact signed by the parties at or before that time. that they were so signed for the purpose of making the division complete. that vaile and miner on their routes got up petitions that they had a right to do. that s. w. dorsey upon his routes got up petitions, as he had a right to do. that the routes were increased and expedited by the second assistant postmaster-general in accordance with the policy of the department and in accordance with the petitions filed and the affidavits made, as he had a right to do. that it was not for the contractors to settle the policy of the post-office department. that the evidence of a. w. moore is unworthy of belief, and that his statement that he settled with s. w. dorsey is demonstrated to be false by the receipts that he afterwards gave in final settlement to john r. miner, as admitted by himself. that his testimony as to the existence of a conspiracy is rendered worthless and absurd by the fact that he sold out not only his interest, but his services up to that time, for six hundred and eighty-two dollars. that his conversations with miner could not have taken place. that he never made or offered to make such contracts with major as he pretended he was instructed to make, and as he swore that he did make. that his conversation with s. w. dorsey never occurred. that the testimony of rerdell is utterly and infinitely unworthy of credit. that he is not only contradicted by all the evidence, but by himself, and how can you corroborate a man who tells no truth? there must be something to be corroborated. that the red books never existed. that the pencil memorandum was forged by himself. that the chico letter was written by him. and that the letter from dorsey to bosler, said to have been dated may , , was born of the imagination of mr. rerdell. that rerdell's letter to bosler of the d of may, , was never sent, was never received, and was never written until after this man made up his mind to become a witness for the government. that bosler never received that letter, or the letter pretended to have been written by dorsey on the th of may, . that the tabular statement in which thirty-three and one-third per cent, was allowed to brady never existed. that rerdell did not visit dorsey's office in new york in june, , and that he had no conversation with torrey. that rerdell was not there. that he did not have the conversation detailed by him with dorsey at the albermarle hotel. that dorsey did not write the letter of the th of june, . that rerdell swore in june, , that dorsey was entirely innocent. that he swore to three affidavits of the same kind. that he again swore to the same thing on the th of july, . that he admitted by his letter of july , , that s. w. dorsey did not even ask him to make the affidavit of june, , but that he was persuaded to do it by james w. bosler. that he was not locked up at willard's hotel. that he was not threatened with a prosecution for perjury. that he was not shown the letters he had written to a woman. that the whole story with regard to the making of that affidavit was utterly and unqualifiedly false. that he never had the conversation with thomas j. brady that he claimed. that brady never suggested to to him to have any books copied. that there were no books of dorsey's that needed to be copied. that he did not see s. w. dorsey draw any money at middleton's bank at the time he states. that he, rerdell, drew the money himself. and that his entire testimony is absurd, contradictory, and utterly unworthy of credit. let me say another thing to you, gentlemen, right here. it would be better a thousand times that all the defendants tried in the next hundred years should escape punishment than that one man should be convicted upon the evidence of a man like this--a man who offered to the government to make a bargain while the trial was in progress, that he would challenge from the jury all the friends of the defendants, and help the government to get the enemies of the defendants upon the jury. you never can afford to take the evidence of such a man. it turns a court-house into a den of wild beasts. you cannot do it. i have shown that the story of walsh is improbable, and that all that boone swears against these defendants cannot be believed. that walsh never loaned the money to brady that he claimed, and that brady never took from him the notes as he says. that brady never made in his presence the admissions that he swears to. think of it; brady robbing walsh, and at the same time saying to walsh, "i am a thief and public robber." i have shown to you, gentlemen, it seems to me, that no reasonable human being, taking all this evidence into consideration, can base upon it a verdict of guilty. it cannot be done. now, gentlemen, the responsibility is upon you, and what is that responsibility? you are to decide a question involving all that these defendants are. you are to decide a question involving all that these defendants hope to be. their fate is in your hands. everything they love, everything they hold dear, is in your power. with this fearful responsibility upon you, you have no right to listen to the whispers of suspicion. you have no right to be guided or influenced by prejudice. you have no right to act from fear. you must act with absolute and perfect honesty. you must beware of prejudice. you must beware of taking anything into consideration except the sworn testimony in this case. you must not be controlled by the last word instead of by the last argument! you must not be controlled by the last epithet instead of by the last fact. you must give to every argument, whether made by defendant or prosecution, its full and honest weight. you must put the evidence in the scales of your judgment, and your manhood must stand at the scales, and then you must have the courage to tell which side goes down and which side rises. that is all we ask. we ask the mercy of an honest verdict, and of your honest opinion. we ask the mercy of a verdict born of your courage, a verdict born of your sense of justice, a verdict born of your manhood, remembering that you are the peers of any in the world. and it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether these defendants are worthy to live among their fellow-citizens; whether they shall be taken from the sunshine and from the free air, and whether they are worthy to be men among men. it is for you to say whether they are to be taken from their homes, from their pursuits, from their wives, from their children. that responsibility rests upon you. it is for you to say whether they shall be clothed in dishonor, whether they shall be clad in shame, whether their day of life shall set without a star in all the future's sky; that is for you. it is for you to say whether stephen w. dorsey, john w. dorsey, john r. miner, thomas j. brady, and h. m. vaile shall be branded as criminals. it is for you to say, after they have suffered what they have, after they have been pursued by this government as no defendants were ever pursued before, whether they shall be branded as criminals. it is for you to say whether their homes shall be blasted and blackened by the lightning of a false verdict. it is for you to say whether there shall be left to these defendants and to those they love, a future of agony, of grief and tears. nothing beneath the stars of heaven is so profoundly sad as the wreck of a human being. nothing is so profoundly mournful as a home that has been covered with shame--a wife that is worse than widowed--children worse than orphaned. nothing in this world is so infinitely sad as a verdict that will cast a stain upon children yet unborn. it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether there shall be such a verdict, or whether there shall be a verdict in accordance with the evidence and in accordance with law. and let me say right here that i believe the attorneys for the prosecution, eager as they are in the chase, excited with the hunt, after the sober second thought, would be a thousand times better pleased with a verdict of not guilty. of course they want victory. they want to put in their cap the little feather of success, and they want you to give in the scales of your judgment greater weight to that feather than to the homes and wives and children of these defendants. do not do it. do not do it. i want a verdict in accordance with the evidence. i want a verdict in accordance with the law. i want a verdict that will relieve my clients from the agony of two years. i want a verdict that will drive the darkness from the heart of the wife. i want a verdict that will take the cloud of agony from the roof and the home. i want a verdict that will fill the coming days and nights with joy. i want a verdict that, like a splendid flower, will fill the future of their lives with a sense of thankfulness and gratitude to you, gentlemen, one and all. the court. let me inquire of the counsel for the defence if there are to be any other arguments upon their side? mr. henkle. may it please your honor, inasmuch as i alone represent two of the defendants, it is perhaps due to this jury and to myself to explain why i do not propose to argue the case. i had prepared myself, with a good deal of labor and painstaking, to submit an argument to the jury. but after the exhaustive and able argument of my brother wilson, i and my colleagues were of the opinion that there was room but for one more argument on the part of the defence, and with entire unanimity we selected our colleague, brother ingersoll, to make that argument. and how grandly he has justified the choice, the jury, your honor, and the spectators will determine. i saw some time ago a little paragraph in a paper in this city, which represents the interest of the government, in which it was said that the defendants' counsel were afraid to argue this case because they would come in collision with each other; that each would try to throw the conspiracy at the door of the others and exonerate himself, and that therefore they were afraid to argue the case. i want to say to your honor that so far from being afraid to argue the case, i should have been very happy to pursue the argument, so far as i am concerned. but out of tender consideration to the jury, who have been kept for six long months from their business and their interests, which i know are suffering, we have unanimously concluded that we would close the argument with that which your honor has just heard. and i simply want to say further, that i not only do not antagonize with anything that has been said by my brother wilson, or by my eloquent friend who has just concluded, but i indorse most fully and cordially every word that has been uttered. and so far as my clients are concerned, gentlemen of the jury, the case is with you. mr. davidge. may it please your honor, perhaps i ought to add a single word. it was understood among counsel when colonel ingersoll, as stated by general henkle, was unanimously selected to represent the defendants, that both colonel ingersoll and myself should have the privilege of addressing the jury if, in the judgment of either, it should be necessary. i have felt such a deep interest in the present case that i have almost hoped he might leave unoccupied some portion of the field of argument. i have listened to every word that has fallen from his lips. he has filled the whole area of the case with such matchless ability and eloquence that i have no ground upon which i could stand in making any further argument. he has so fully uncovered the origin of this so-called prosecution, its methods, and the character and weight of the evidence upon which a conviction is sought, that i can add nothing whatever to what he has said. i need not add that every syllable he has uttered receives my grateful indorsement, as well as that of all the defendants and their counsel in this case.* * twelve jury men decided this morning that the government had not legally established a case of conspiracy against the star route defendants. this verdict of absolute acquittal coming so unexpectedly has created a very marked sensation. the announcement in the court room of the verdict was followed by an uproarious scene of applause, tears, hysterics and cheers. every one expected the jury to disagree. judge wylie himself, a week or ten days ago, called up the counsel for the prosecution and said to them, "i do not think you are going to get a verdict out of that jury. i have watched it carefully, and i am certain that four of the best men on it are in doubt." last night an employee of the department of justice reported that the jury stood eleven to one for acquittal. this came from one of the bailiffs, who claimed to have overheard a vote. at any rate the prosecution had intended, if a disagreement was reported, to ask to have the jury dismissed, on the ground of the condition of juror vernon. had this been attempted, dr. sowers, who attended vernon yesterday would have testified that vernon was all right mentally, after he had braced him up with two drinks of brandy. the court room was crowded when the jurors took their places. every one of the defendants was there. dorsey sat by his wife, flushed and expectant. upon the left of mrs. dorsey was her sister mrs. peck. brady was just back of his special counsel. judge wilson, looking as hard and grim as ever. all of the counsel for the star route defendants were in their seats. colonel ingersoll's face showed great self- control, although he was evidently laboring under strong nervous excitement. he was flanked by his entire family. mr. farrell, mr. baker (colonel ingersoll's secretary), and the white-haired and white-bearded mr. bush, the hard working associate of colonel ingersoll, were also present. when the jurors took their places in the court room precisely at ten o'clock, judge wylie looked at them, and said in his slow hesitating way: "gentlemen, i have sent for you to learn--ahem--to learn if you have agreed--ahem-- upon a verdict." mr. crane the foreman said: "we have agreed." judge wylie gave a start of surprise and looked towards the seats for the counsel of the government. not one of them was present. this looked very ominous for the government's case, and indicated besides that the bailiffs must have betrayed the secrets of the jury room to the prosecution, as neither bliss nor merrick came to the court room at all. mr. ker, one of the counsel for the prosecution, came in and stood in the door as the judge said to the clerk, "receive this verdict." there was the usual silence as every one turned toward the foreman. mr. crane said very deliberately. "we find the defendants not guilty." then there followed a scene of great confusion and uproar, which the judge could not restrain. indeed he did not try. the triumph of such an unexpected success after two years of fighting in the face of the entire power of the government, made the humblest person connected in the most remote degree with the defence crazy with joy. when colonel ingersoll came out of the court house a crowd gathered in front of him, and then one stout-lunged, broad shouldered man cried out "three cheers for colonel ingersoll." there was a wild scene of tiger-like cheering from the excited crowd. this demonstration was a personal compliment to the colonel, for when the defendants passed out there was not the slightest sign of approval or disapproval beyond the congratulations of personal friends. colonel ingersoll stood on the broad steps of the court house and smiled with the benevolent air of a popular orator in front of a congenial crowd, and laughed outright when some over-euthusiastic admirer called, "speech, speech." the morning was clear and bright. colonel ingersoll watched the crowd a moment, himself a picture of radiant good nature, as he stood with his white straw hut encircled with a blue band, pushed back from his face. his short thin black coat was partially buttoned over a white duck waistcoat. he rested his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers. the request for "speech, speech" so amused him that he chuckled over it all the way to his open carriage, which came up a moment after. he was driven through pennsylvania avenue with his family. people called out to him from the sidewalk, and he was obliged to lift his hat so much that he finally sat bareheaded, like a conquering hero, waving his hands to the right and to the left. his house was thronged all day. mrs. blaine and her daughter margaret were among the first who called. there was a profession of people all day long who had no sympathy at all with the defendants, and who were perfectly indifferent whether they went to the penitentiary or not, but who were most heartily glad that their friend colonel ingersoll had accomplished such a great personal victory. now that the case is over, it is time to tell some facts about the prosecution which have been withheld until the case was closed. in the first place, the management of the prosecution has been equally scandalous with the crimes charged against the defendants. the district attorney here has always been allowed a five dollar fee for the prosecution of cases. attorney-generals who preceded mr. brewster ruled that this should be the official fee of special counsel. this was made up by allowing the payment of lump sums as retainers. when bliss and merrick were put upon the extravagant pay of one hundred and fifty dollars per day it was inevitable that they would prolong the case to the uttermost. bliss has, on top of all this pay, put in an extraordinary list of personal expenses, which have been allowed up to a very recent date. the amount of extra matter run into this case only to prolong it has resulted in so confusing the case as to materially aid the defence. then the reporting of the case has been turned into a huge job. the stenographers will clear between thirty and forty thousand dollars on their work. the other day i estimated from official sources, the cost of the star route trials at one million dollars. it will go above that. it will foot up near one million two hundred thousand dollars. this evening col. ingersoll was serenaded. there was a large gathering of friends of the star route defendants at colonel ingersoll's house to-night. indoors the acquitted men, their counsel, and a large number of their more intimate friends, many of them women, met to exchange mutual congratulations. and in the street a crowd had gathered, partly out of curiosity--and partly to express their sympathy with the defendants. they cheered ingersoll and the other counsel as well as the defendants and the jury, and called for speeches. colonel ingersoll and judges wilson and carpenter spoke briefly. col. ingersoll's speech was short and vigorous. he hailed the verdict of the jury as a victory for truth and justice, and as a notice to the administration that it could not terrorize a jury by indicting jurymen, and a warning to the president that he could not force a verdict by turning honest servants out of office. the sun, new york, june , . address to the jury in the davis will case. * the matchless eloquence of ingersoll! where will one look for the like of it? what other man living has the faculty of blending wit and humor, pathos and fact and logic with such exquisite grace, or with such impressive force? senator sanders this morning begged the jury to beware of the oratory of ingersoll as it transcended that of greece. sanders was not far amiss. in fierce and terrible invective ingersoll is not to be compared to demosthenes. but in no other respect is demosthenes his superior. to a modern audience, at least, demosthenes on the crown would seem a pretty poor sort of affair by the side of ingersoll on the davis will. it was a great effort, and its chief greatness lay in its extreme simplicity. ingersoll stepped up to the jurors as near as he could get and kept slowly walking up and down before them. at times he would single out a single juryman, stop in front of him, gaze steadily into his face and direct his remarks for a minute or two to that one man alone. again he would turn and address himself to senator sanders, judge dixon or somebody else of those interested in establishing the will as genuine, at times the gravity of the jury and the audience was so completely upset that judge mchatton had to rap for order, but presently the colonel would change his mood and the audience would be hushed into deepest silence. if the jury could have retired immediately upon the conclusion of ingersoll's argument, there is little doubt as to what the verdict would have been. if ingersoll himself is not absolutely convinced that the will is a forgery, he certainly had the art of making people believe that he was so convinced. he said he hoped he might never win a case that he ought not to win as a matter of right and justice. the idea which he sought to convey and which he did convey was that he believed he was right, no matter whether he could make others believe as he did or not. in that lies ingersoll's power. whether by accident or design the will got torn this morning. a piece in the form of a triangle was torn from one end. ingersoll made quite a point this afternoon by passing the pieces around among the jury, and asking each man of them to note that the ink at the torn edges had not sunk into, the paper. in doing this he adopted a conversational tone and kept pressing the point until the juror he was working upon nodded his head in approval. both judge dixon and senator sanders interrupted ingersoll early in his speech to take exception to certain of his remarks, but the colonel's dangerous repartee and delicate art in twisting anything they might say to his own advantage soon put a stop to the interruptions and the speaker had full sway during the rest of the time at his disposal. the crowd--it was as big as circumstances would permit, every available inch of space in the room and in the court house corridors being occupied--enjoyed ingersoll' a speech immensely, and only respect for the proprieties of the place prevented frequent bursts of applause as an accompaniment to the frequent bursts of eloquence.--anaconda standard, butte, montana, sept. , . may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, waiving congratulations, reminiscences and animadversions, i will proceed to the business in hand. there are two principal and important questions to be decided by you: first, is the will sought to be probated, the will of andrew j. davis? is it genuine? is it honest? and second, did andrew j. davis make a will after revoking all former wills, or were the provisions such that they were inconsistent with the provisions of the will of ? these are the questions, and as we examine them, other questions arise that have to be answered. the first question then is: who wrote the will of ? whose work is it? when, where and by whom was it done? and i don't want you, gentlemen, to pay any attention to what i say unless it appeals to your reason and to your good sense. don't be afraid of me because i am a sinner.* i admit that i am. i am not like the other gentleman who thanked god "that he was not as other men." * col. ingersoll when speaking of himself as a sinner in this address is referring to the remarks made by senator sanders, who in the preceding address said: "in an old book occur the words, 'my son if sinners entice thee consent thou not.' i will not apply this to you, gentlemen of the jury. but i have a right to demand of you that you hold your minds and hearts free from all influences calculated to swerve you until you have heard the last words in this case." the senator enjoined them not to be beguiled by the eloquence of a man who was famed for his eloquence over two continents and in the islands of the sea; a man whose eloquence fittingly transcended that of greece in the time of alexander. i have the faults and frailties common to the human race, but in spite of being a sinner i strive to be at least a good-natured one, and i am such a sinner that if there is any good in any other world i am willing to share it with all the children of men. to that extent at least i am a sinner; and i hope, gentlemen, that you will not be prejudiced against me on that account, or decide for the proponent simply upon the perfections of senator sanders. now, i say, the question is: who wrote this will? the testimony offered by the proponent is that it was written by job davis. we have heard a great deal, gentlemen, of the difference between fact and opinion. there is a difference between fact and opinion, but sometimes when we have to establish a fact by persons, we are hardly as certain that the fact ever existed as we are of the opinion, and although one swears that he saw a thing or heard a thing we all know that the accuracy of that statement must be decided by something besides his word. there is this beautiful peculiarity in nature--a lie never fits a fact, never. you only fit a lie with another lie, made for the express purpose, because you can change a lie but you can't change a fact, and after a while the time comes when the last lie you tell has to be fitted to a fact, and right there is a bad joint; consequently you must test the statements of people who say they saw, not by what they say but by other facts, by the surroundings, by what are called probabilities; by the naturalness of the statement. if we only had to hear what witnesses say, jurymen would need nothing but ears. their brains could be dispensed with; but after you hear what they say you call a council in your brain and make up your mind whether the statement, in view of all the circumstances, is true or false. did job davis write the will? i would be willing to risk this entire case on that one proposition. did job davis write this will? and i propose to demonstrate to you by the evidence on both sides that job davis did not write that will. why do i say so? first: the evidence of all the parties is that job davis wrote a very good hand; that his letters were even. he wrote a good hand; a kind of schoolmaster, copy-book hand. is this will written in that kind of hand? i ask judge woolworth to tell you whether that is written in a clerkly hand; whether it was written by a man who wrote an even hand; whether it was written by a man who closed his "a's" and "o's"; whether it was written by one who made his "h's" and "b's" different. job davis was a good scholar. no good penman ever wrote the body of that will. if there were nothing else i would be satisfied, and, in my judgment, you would be, that it is not the writing of job davis. it is the writing; of a poor penman; it is the writing of a careless penman, who, for that time, endeavored to write a little smaller than usual, and why? when people forge a will they write the names first on the blank paper. they will not write the body of the will and then forge the name to it, because if they are not successful in the forgery of the name they would have to write the whole business over again; so the first thing they would do would be to write the name and the next thing that they would do would be to write the will so as to bring it within the space that was left, and here they wrote it a little shorter even than was necessary and quit there [indicating on the will] and made these six or seven marks and then turned over, and on the other side they were a little crowded before they got to the name of a. j. davis. now, the next question is, was job davis a good speller? let us be honest about it. how delighted they would have been to show that he was an ignorant booby. but their witnesses and our witnesses both swear that he was the best speller in the neighborhood; and when they brought men from other communities to a spelling match, after all had fallen on the field, after the floor was covered with dead and wounded, job davis stood proudly up, not having missed a word. he was the best speller in that county, and not only so, but at sixteen years of age he wasn't simply studying arithmetic, he was in algebra; and not only so, after he had finished what you may call this common school education in salt creek township, he went to the normal school of iowa and prepared himself to be a teacher, and came back and taught a school. now, did job davis write this will? senator sanders says there are three or four misspelled words in this document, while the fact is there are twenty words in the document that are clearly and absolutely misspelled. and what kind of words are misspelled? some of the easiest and most common in the english language. will you say upon your oaths that job davis, having the reputation of the champion speller of the neighborhood--will you, upon your oaths, say that when he wrote this will (probably the only document of any importance, if he did write it, that he ever wrote) he spelled shall "shal" every time it occurs in the will? will you say that this champion speller spelled the word whether with two "r's," and made it "wherther," making two mistakes, first as to the word itself, and second, as to the spelling? will you say that this champion speller could not spell the word dispose, but wrote it "depose"? and will you say the ordinary word give was spelled by this educated young man "guive"? and it seems that colonel sanders has ransacked the misspelled world to find somebody idiotic enough to twist a "u" in the word give, and even in the century dictionary--i suppose they call it the century dictionary because they looked a hundred years to find that peculiarity of spelling--even there, although give is spelled four ways, besides the right way, no "u" is there. and will you say that job davis did not know the word administrators? now, let us be honest about this matter--let us be fair. it is not a personal quarrel between lawyers. i never quarrel with anybody; my philosophy being that everybody does as he must, and if he is in bad luck and does wrong, why, let us pity him, and if we happen to have good luck, and take the path where roses bloom, why, let us be joyful. that is my doctrine; no need of fighting about these little things. they are all over in a little while anyway. do you believe that job davis spelled sheet--a sheet of paper--"sheat"? that is the way he spells it in this document. now, let us be honor bright with each other, and do not let the lawyers on the other side treat you as if you were twelve imbeciles. you would better be misled by a sensible sinner than by the most pious absurdities that ever floated out from the lips of man. let us have some good, hard sense, as we would in ordinary business life. do you believe that job davis, the educated young man, the school teacher, the one who attended the normal school would put periods in the middle of sentences and none at the end? that he would put a period on one side of an "n" and then fearing the "n" might get away, put one on the other; and then when he got the sentence done, be out of periods, so that he could not put one there, and put so many periods in the writing that it looked as if it had broken out with some kind of punctuation measles? job davis, an educated man! and you are going to tell this jury that that man wrote that will! i think your cheeks will get a little red while you are doing it. this man, when he comes to this little word "is" in the middle of a sentence, his desire for equality is so great that he wishes to put that word on a level with others, and starts it with a capital, so that it will not be ashamed to appear with longer words. and yet the will was written by job davis, and sconce saw him write it, and mrs. downey saw him write it. if there were one million sconces, and a million mrs. downeys, and they held their hands up high and swore that they did, i know that they did not, unless all the witnesses who have testified to the education of job davis have testified lies. there is where i told you a little while ago that when a lie comes in contact with a fact it will not fit. these other people in salt creek township that have come here and sworn to that, did not know whether it was spelled right or wrong. they did not take that into consideration. it seems to me utterly, absolutely, infinitely impossible that this will was written by a good speller. i know it was not. so do you. there is not a man on the jury that does not know it was not written by a good speller--not a man. and you cannot, upon your oaths, say that you believe two things--first, that job davis was a good speller, and, secondly, that he wrote this will. utterly impossible. there is another word here, "wordly"--"all my wordly goods." "worldly" it ought to be; but this job davis, this scholar, did not know that there was such a word as worldly, he left out the "l" and called it wordly, "all my wordly goods," and they want you to find on your oath that it was written by a good speller. there are twenty words misspelled in this short will, and the most common words, some of them, in the english language. now, i say that these twenty misspelled words are twenty witnesses--twenty witnesses that tell the truth without being on their oath, and that you cannot mix by cross-examination. twenty witnesses! every misspelled word holds up its maimed and mutilated hand and swears that job davis did not write that will--every one. suppose witnesses had sworn that judge woolworth wrote this will. how many salt creekers do you think it would take to convince you that he was around spelling sheet "sheat"? mr. woolworth. i have done worse than that a great many times. mr. ingersoll. you have acted worse than that, but you have never spelled worse than that. now, this job davis died in . nobody has seen him write for twenty-three years, but everybody, their witnesses and ours, positively swears that he was a good speller. now, comes another question: who wrote this will? colonel sanders tells us that it is immaterial whether job davis wrote it or not. to me that is a very strange remark. if job davis did not write it, mr. sconce has sworn falsely. if job davis did not write it, then there was no will on the th of july, , and all the glasgows and quigleys and downeys and the rest are mistaken--not one word of truth in their testimony unless job davis wrote that will. and yet a learned counsel, who says that his object is to assist you in finding a correct verdict, says it don't make any difference whether job davis wrote the will or not. i don't think it will in this case. who wrote the will? i am going to tell you, and i am going to demonstrate it, so that you need not think anything about it--so that you will know it; that is to say, it will be a moral certainty. who wrote this will? i will tell you who, and i have not the slightest hesitation in saying it. james r. eddy wrote this will. and why do i say it? many witnesses have sworn that they were well acquainted with mr. eddy's handwriting--many. several of the witnesses here had the writing of eddy with them. that writing was handed to the counsel on the other side, so that they might frame questions for cross-examination. those witnesses founded their answers as to peculiarities upon the writings given to the other side, and not on the writing in this will--just on the writings of letters and documents they had in their possession, and that we handed to the opposite counsel. now, what do they say? every witness who has testified on that subject said that eddy had this peculiarity: first, that whenever a word ended with the letter "d," he made that "d" separate from the rest of the word. and, gentlemen, there are twenty-eight words in this short will ending with the letter "d"; clearly, unequivocally, in twenty-seven of the words ending in "d," the "d" is separate from the rest of the word. i do not include the twenty-eighth, because there is a little doubt about it. the testimony is unvarying, except the writing that eddy has done since he has been found out to be the forger of that will. nobody has sworn that he had a letter from him in which that is not the fact, unless that letter was written since the institution of this suit. twenty-seven of these words end with "d" and the "d" is made separate from the rest of the word. will judge woolworth please tell the jury whether any witness testified that job davis made these separate from the rest of the word? poor job, dead, and his tombstone is being ornamented with "guive," and he is now made to appear as an ignorant nobody. twenty-eight words ending with "d." now, if that were all, i would say that might be an accident--a coincidence, and that we could not build upon that as a rock. i would say we must go further, we must find whether any more peculiarities exist in eddy's writing that also exist in this will. we must be honest with him. now, let us see. he always had the peculiarity of terminating that "d" abruptly, down just above the line, or at the line, lifting his pen suddenly, making no mark to the right. every one of the "d's" in the will is made exactly that way. corroboration number two. these twenty-seven witnesses, the "d's," swear that eddy is their father, that they are the children of his hand, that he made them. another peculiarity: they say that eddy always made a double "l" in a peculiar manner. the last "l" came down to the line of the up stroke, and that "l" as a rule stopped there. it did not go on to the right--a peculiarity. now, let us see. in this will there are nine words that end with a double "l" (and i want you to look at that when you go out); each one is made exactly the same way--each one. nine more witnesses that take the stand and swear to the authorship of this will. has anybody shown that that was job davis's habit? poor, dead dust cannot swear; nobody has said that. another peculiarity is that eddy made a "p" without making any loop to the right in the middle of it. now and then he makes one with a loop, but his habit is to make one without. moses downey swore that job davis made a "p" with three loops, a loop at the top, a loop at the bottom and a loop in the middle. that is exactly what he swore, and he was the one who taught job to write; and he said he made his letters carefully, he closed his "a's" at the top, he made his "o's" round, he made his "h's" after the orthodox pattern, he was all right on the "b's"--your witness. now, gentlemen, you remember how that "p" looks, without any loop; and there are twenty-one "p's" that have no loop to the right--twenty-one in this will. twenty-one more witnesses, and every one of them is worth a hundred sconces, with his sheep and hogs floating in the air. twenty-one witnesses that swear to the paternity of this will. moses downey, your own witness, swears that job made a "p" with three loops. there is not a "p" in the will with three loops, and there are twenty-one without any, and the evidence of all the witnesses on our side was that it was his habit to make "p's" without any loop, and they were given the papers that they might cross-examine every one. now, do you see, we are getting along on the edge of demonstration. these things cannot conspire and happen. they may in omaha, but they can't in butte, or even in salt creek township. nature is substantially the same everywhere and i believe her laws are substantially the same everywhere, from a grain of sand to the blazing arcturus; everywhere the probabilities are the same. let us take another step. it is also sworn by intelligent men who have the writing of eddy in their possession, (writing shown to the other side) that it was his habit to use "a's," "o's" and "u's" indiscriminately. for instance, "thut" that, you all remember in the will. when you go out you will see it. he often uses an "o" where an "a" should be, an "a" where a "u" should be, a "u" where an "a" or "o" should be; in other words, he uses them interchangeably or indiscriminately. how many cases of that occur in this will? twenty-two--twenty-two instances in this will in which one of these vowels is used where another ought to have been used. twenty-two more witnesses that james r. eddy wrote this will. twenty-two more. they have taken the stand; they won't have to be sworn, because they can't lie. it would be splendid if all witnesses were under that disability--that they had to tell the truth. that cannot be answered by logwood ink. eddy made "p's" just the same, whether he used logwood or nigrosin, and he used his "a's" and "o's" and "u's" indiscriminately, no matter whether he was writing in ink, red, blue, brown, iron, carter's, arnold's, stafford's, or anybody else's. another witness testified that he used "r" where he ought to use "s," and that he used "s" where he ought to use "r," or that he made his "r's" and "s's" the same. many instances of that kind occur in this will, and every "r" says to eddy, "you are the man"--every one. every "s" swears that your will is a poor, ignorant, impudent forgery. that is what it is--the most ignorant forgery ever presented in a court of justice since the art of writing was invented. it comes in covered with the ear marks of fraud. and yet i am told that it requires audacity to say that it is a forgery. what on earth does it require to say that it is genuine? audacity, in comparison with what is essential to say that it is genuine, is rank meekness and cowardice. words lose their meaning. all swear that eddy scattered his periods with a liberal hand, like a farmer sowing his grain. now, we will take the twenty-third line of the will. "to their use (period) and (period) benefit (another period) forever (another period)"; twenty-fifth line: "davis (period) and (another period) job (another period) davis (another period) of (another period) davis (another period) county (another period)." what a spendthrift of punctuation this man was! and yet he was well educated, studying algebra, going to the normal school in iowa, champion speller of the neighborhood. every period certifies and swears that job davis did not write that will. he had studied grammar. punctuation is a part of grammar and no one but the most arrant, blundering, stumbling ignoramus, would think of putting six or eight periods along in a sentence, and then leaving the end of that sentence naked without anything. another peculiarity is, mr. eddy uses "b" and "h" interchangeably. he makes a "b" exactly like an "h," makes an "h" exactly like a "b." you can see that all through the will. there are several instances of it, and each one says that job davis did not write it. downey says he did not write that way, and each one says that mr. eddy did write it, and nobody else. i am not through yet. the testimony is that eddy was a poor speller. now, the learned counsel, mr. dixon, says that in this case we must be governed by the probable, by the natural, by the reasonable--three splendid words, and they should be in the mind of every juror when examining this testimony. is it natural, is it probable, is it reasonable? we have shown that eddy was the poorest speller in the business. whenever they went to a spelling match, at the first fire he dropped; never outlived, i think, the first volley. and one man by the name of sharp distinctly recollects that they gave out a sentence to be spelled: "give alms to the poor," and eddy had to spell the first word, give; and he lugged in his "u" with both ears--"guive," and he dropped dead the first fire. the man remembers it because it is such a curious spelling of give; and if i had heard anybody spell it with a "u" when i was six years old it would linger in my memory still. now, let us take judge dixon's test. it is a good one, well stated, and it is for you to decide whether the misspelled words were misspelled by a good speller or a poor speller. if you say job davis wrote it, then you are unnatural, unreasonable and improbable. isn't it altogether more natural, more reasonable, more probable, to say that a bad speller misspelled the words than that a good speller did? let us stick to his standard, and see if eddy spelled give "guive"--and, gentlemen, you cannot find in all the writing of james r. eddy, written before he was charged with this forgery, where the word give appears, that it is not written with a "u"--i defy you to find a line in the world where "given" is "guivin." now, let us go another step. everybody admits that he was a poor speller, and is it not more reasonable to say that he wrote the will on the spelling, than that the champion speller did? we have some more evidence on mr. eddy as good as anything i have stated. now, do not be misled because i am a sinner. let us stick to the facts. william h. davis testified to the spelling of eddy, and while he testified, held in his hand a will that he had seen james r. eddy write. in this will there were twenty words misspelled; shall, "shal" and in the james davis will, shall "shal." good! whether, in our will "wherther"; in the other will, "wherther"--just the same; sheet of paper, "sheat" in our will; "sheat" in the other will; in our will "guive," in that "guive." did job davis rise from the dead and write another will? was one copied from the other, and the copy so slavish that it was misspelled exactly the same? you cannot say it was entirely copied, for now and then a word, by accident, is right. judge dixon tells you that eddy did not disguise his spelling. good lord! how could he disguise his spelling? he spelled as he thought was right. no man of his education would think of disguising his spelling. he knows how to spell give; he believes it is with a "u" still there is a prejudice against "u" since he was charged with forgery, and so he has dropped it; but he thinks it is right, nevertheless. now, isn't it perfectly wonderful, is it not a miracle, that james r. eddy made exactly the same mistakes in spelling and writing one will that job davis did in writing another? isn't it wonderful beyond the circumference of belief, that a good speller and bad speller happened to misspell the same words? it won't do. there is something rotten about this will, and the rotten thing about it is that james r. eddy wrote it, and he wrote it about march, . that is when he wrote it, and he let the proponent in this case have it. we will get to that shortly. so, gentlemen, i tell you that every misspelled word is a witness in our favor. there is something more. eddy uses the character "&" in writing, instead of writing "and." the will is full of them; and it is stated that sometimes when he endeavors to write out the word "and" he only gets "an," and that peculiarity is in this will. "an" for "and"; that you will find in the seventeenth line in the last word of the line. colonel jacques swore that one of eddy's misspelled words was the word "judgment"; that he put in a superfluous "e," and in this case here is "judgement"--"shall give the annuity that in the judgement of the executors shall be final;" there is the superfluous "e"--judgement. now, there is another. their witnesses swore that as a rule he turns the bottom of his "y's" and "g's" to the left. now, you will find the same peculiarity in this will, and the amusing peculiarity that he turns the "g's" a little more than he does the "y's." i don't want these things answered by an essay on immutable justice. i want them to say how this is. another thing, how he makes a "t," with a little pot hook at the top, and that hook has caught mr. eddy. you will find them made in the will, exactly, where the "t" commences a word--where it is what we call the initial letter. and what else? when he makes a small "e" commencing a word, he always makes it like a capital "e," only smaller. that is the testimony, and that happens in this will and it happens in the papers and letters. now, i say, that all these peculiarities taken together, the same words misspelled, the same letters used interchangeably, the same mistakes in punctuation, the same mistakes in the words themselves--all these things amount to an absolute demonstration. so, i told you, he uses the capital "i" with the word "is" and that he does twice in this will. here are hundreds, almost, of witnesses that take the stand and swear that eddy is the author of that will. he wrote it--every word of it. he negotiated with john a. davis for it, and i will come to that after a little. and how do they support this will that has in it the internal evidence that it was written by james r. eddy? why do i say it is impossible that he should have written it, and the will should be genuine? because at the date of that will, or the date it purports to bear, eddy was only eight years old. and we don't know the real date, gentlemen, of that will yet. my opinion is that it was dated by mistake, so that it came on a date that davis was not there, or came on a day that was sunday, and then they folded up that will, and scratched it and rubbed it until the date is absolutely illegible, and nobody can say whether it is june, july, or january. there was a purpose. the day may have been sunday, or they may have afterward ascertained that he was not there. it is a suspicious circumstance that the day is left loose so they can have a month to play on, maybe more. now, they say, can you impeach sconce? every misspelled word in the will impeaches sconce, ever; period impeaches sconce, every "a" that is used as "o" impeaches him, and "o" as "u"; every "b" that is made like an "h" impeaches him, every "h" that is made like a "b" impeaches him. in other words, every peculiarity of james r. eddy that appears in that will impeaches j. c. sconce, sr.--captain sconce. there is a thing about this will which, to my mind, is a demonstration. it may be that it is because i am a sinner, but i find, and so do you find it in the second initial of sconce, in the letter "c." there are two punctures, and you will find that exactly where the punctures are there is a little spatter in the ink--a disturbance of the line, in the capital first; in the small "c" there is another puncture and another disturbance of the line. professor elwell says that these holes were made afterwards. let's see. there is a hole, and there is a splatter and a change of the line. there is another hole and there is another change. there is another hole and there is another change. what is natural? what is reasonable? what is probable? it is that the hole being there, interrupted the pen, and accounts for the diversion of the line, and for the spatter. that is natural, isn't it? but they take the unnatural side. they say that these holes were made after the writing. would it not be a miracle that just three holes should happen to strike just the three places where there had been a division of the line and a little spatter of the ink? take up your table of logarithms and figure away until you are blind, and such an accident could not happen in as many thousand, billion, trillion, quintillion years as you can express by figures. three holes by accident hitting just the three places where the pen was impeded and where the spatters were. never such a thing in the world. it might happen once. nobody could make me believe that it happened twice--that is, a hole might happen to get where the pen was interrupted once; as to the second hole, i would bet all i have on earth, as to the third hole, i know it did not. i just know it did not. and yet mr. elwell says that these holes were made afterwards, and he goes still further, and says that there is not any trouble in the line. if anybody will look at it, even with the natural eye, they can see that there is; and, in a kind of diversion, they called professor hagan, when he called attention to it, professor pin-holes and pin-hole expert. he might have replied that that was a pin-head objection. professor elwell accounts for all the dirt on this will by perspiration, all on one side and made by the thumb, and although there were four fingers under it at the same time, the fingers were so contrary they wouldn't perspire. this left the thumb to do all the sweating. i need not call him a professor of perspiration, for that throws no light on the subject; but i say to you, gentlemen, that those marks, those punctures, were in that paper when sconce wrote his name. sconce says they were not--he remembered. he has got a magnificent memory. i say that even that shows that he is not telling the facts. now, what else? we went around among the neighbors. he was charged with passing counterfeit money, with stealing sheep, with stealing hogs, with stealing cattle and with stealing harness. mr. woolworth. it was not proved that this man was accused of counterfeiting, of passing counterfeit money. mr. ingersoll. i tell you how i prove it. a man by the name of lanman was on the stand. he swore he was acquainted with sconce's reputation. colonel sanders asked him who he had ever heard say anything about it. he said lewis miller and abraham miller and a man by the name of hopkins and several others. what did they say? i asked them afterwards, and among other things i recollect he was charged with passing counterfeit money, stealing hogs, stealing sheep, stealing harness, killing another man's heifer in the woods. i don't think i am mistaken, but if i am i will take counterfeit money back. i won't try to pass counterfeit money myself, although a sinner. mr. woolworth. (interrupting): he was not charged with killing a heifer. mr. ingersoll. no, no; the heifer was there. i have a very good memory; i suppose it comes from the habit of taking no notes. lanman was the man, and while we are on sconce there is a thing almost too good to be passed. mr. jackson was on the stand, senator sanders asked him, "whoever told you anything against him?" "well," jackson answered, "i asked hopkins--" "who else?" "well," he said, "i had a private conversation, i don't like to tell." "you have got to tell." mr. jackson said to the court: "must i tell; it was a private conversation." "you must tell." "well," he said, "it was with mr. carruthers, one of the counsel for proponent;" and he said that what mr. carruthers said had more influence upon him than anything else, because carruthers was in a position to know. mr. sanders. (interrupting). were those his exact words? mr. ingersoll. yes, that he was an attorney. i tell you that was a death-blow; that came like thunder out of a clear sky, when you haven't seen a cloud for a month. besides that he was impeached in open court. what else? the witnesses that came to the rescue of sconce; how did they rescue him? they lived down there and never heard anything against him. all these rumors, thick in the air, the bleating of sheep following him wherever lie went; the low of cattle and yet these people never heard it. tried for stealing harness, they never heard of it they were not acquainted with him. they said that they had some personal dealings with him and he was all right and one man endeavored to draw a distinction between truth and honesty. a man could be a very truthful man and a very dishonest man. just think of that distinction, a man of truth but dishonest. that won't do. even senator sanders said: "some accusations, probably a dozen," to use his excellent language--what memories we have! let me read the exact words: "some accusations; probably a dozen or more, of stealing sheep and hogs _lit on_ sconce." mr. sanders: i didn't say that. mr. ingersoll. i don't insist; but those are the exact words i remember. and don't you remember that he went into a kind of homily on neighborhood gossip, that hardly anybody escaped? i believe a good many of this jury have escaped and a good many in this audience have escaped. you can pick out a great many men that a dozen accusations of stealing hogs and sheep and heifers have not lit on. then, there is another thing about sconce that i don't like, gentlemen. sconce, in giving the history of the affair in arkansas, was asked if he didn't say, "did i say that davis' name was on it when i signed it?" and right there he skulked and stated under oath that when he said that he alluded to the photograph. could he by any possibility have alluded to the photograph when he said: "did i say that davis's name was on it when i signed it?" did he ever sign the photograph? no; he never signed the photograph. davis never signed the photograph, and if he ever said those words he said them with reference to the original will, and he knows it. and yet, in your presence, under oath, he pretended that when he made that remark he alluded to the photograph. i wish somebody would reply to that and tell us whether, as a matter of fact, he alluded to the photograph. now, mr. sconce, as you know, has the most peculiar memory in the world. he remembers things that had nothing whatever to do with the subject, photographed in all details, everywhere; and yet, gentlemen, your knowledge of human nature is sufficient to tell you that that kind of memory is not the possession of any human being. thousands of people imagine that detail in memory is evidence of truth. i don't think it; if there is something in the details that is striking, then there is; but naturalness, and, above all, probability, is the test of truth. probability is the torch that every juryman should hold, and by the light of that torch he should march to his verdict. probability! now, let us take that for a text. probability is the test of truth. let us follow the natural, let us follow the reasonable. at the time they say this will was made, andrew j. davis had removed from iowa years before; had settled, i believe, in gallatin county. his interests in iowa were nothing compared with his interests in this territory at that time. from the time he left iowa he began to make money; i mean money of some account. he began to amass wealth. he was, i think, a sagacious man. judge dixon says that he was a man of great business sagacity. i am thankful for that admission. in a little while he became worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars. afterwards he acquired millions. now, during all that time, from the th of july, , up to the day of his death, he never inquired after the james davis will. it is a little curious he never wrote a letter to james davis and said, "where is the will, have you got it?" not once. they have not shown a letter of that kind, not a word. threw it in the waste-basket of forgetfulness and turned his face to montana. years rolled by, he never wrote about it, never inquired after it. they have brought no witnesses to show that a. j. davis ever spoke of the will; not a word. gentlemen, let us be controlled by the natural, by the reasonable, by the probable. in one of the executors died--job davis. i think colonel sanders said that if a man of judge davis's intelligence, knowing what a difficult thing a will is to write, should have allowed mr. knight, a kentucky lawyer, to draw his will, who had not had much practice, why, he is astonished at that, and in the next breath tells you that andrew j. davis employed a twenty-two year old boy who could not spell "give" to draw up his will in . isn't it wonderful what strange things people can swallow and then find fault with others! now, remember: in job davis died; then there was only one executor to that will. a. j. davis went on piling up his money, thousands on thousands. greed grew with age, as it generally does. gold is spurned by the young and loved by the old. there is something magnificent after all about the extravagance of youth, and there is something pitiful about the greed of old age. but he kept getting money, more and more, and in ' he had sold the lexington mine. he was then a millionaire. in ' , i think. they say he sold that mine in ' , maybe he was then a millionaire. there was the will of ' down in salt creek township, used as a model for other wills, for the purpose of teaching the neighbors spelling and elocution, to say nothing of punctuation. they got up little will soirees down there--will parties--and all the neighbors came in and mrs. downey read it aloud and wept when she thought it was the writing of her brother job. that accounts for the tear drops, i suppose; the round spots on the will. ; andrew j. davis worth millions. then what happened? then james davis, the other executor, died. then there was a will floating around down in salt creek township, sometimes in a trunk, sometimes in a box, other times in an old envelope, other times in a wrapper, and when i think of the shadowy adventures of that document it makes me lonesome. james is dead, poor job nothing but dust; a will down there with no executors at all; and a. j. davis did not know in whose possession it was, and never wrote to find out. let us be governed by the natural, gentlemen, by the probable. never found out, never inquired, and after james davis died he lived four years more. i think james davis died on the th of december, , then he lived a little more than three years after he knew that both executors were dead and did not know whether the will existed or not. judge dixon tells us perhaps if he had made a will before he died it would have been different from this. i think perhaps it would. what makes him think that it would have been different? if that will existed in salt creek township he knew it, and he knew it in , , , , , and when death touched with his icy finger his heart he knew it then, and if he made that will in ' , it was his will when he died unless it had been revoked. he knew what he was doing. i tell you there was no will down in salt creek township at all; there wasn't any here. there have been a good many since. now, where is the evidence that he ever thought of this will, that he ever spoke of it? what else? he appointed three executors of his will, that is, in ' , if he made it, and in that he provided that a like maintenance should be given to thomas jefferson, pet davis and miss bergett, all three of van buren county, state of iowa. what else did he say? that the executors should have the right of fixing that amount, and whatever amount in their judgment should be fixed should be final. what is the legal effect of that? the legal effect of that is that the estate could not have passed to john a. davis until the last who had a life interest was dead. the proceeds could have been taken, every cent of them, from that estate and given to the three persons for life maintenance, and the youngest of those persons was four years old. john a. davis would have had to wait seventeen years. and do you think that a. j. davis ever made a will like that, putting it into the power of two executors to divert the entire income to certain persons and that there could be no division until they were all dead. now, another improbability. recollect, all the time, that we are to be governed by reason and naturalness. now, then, it was claimed that judge davis held certain relations with a certain miss caroline bergett. it was claimed that a daughter known as pet davis was his. it was also claimed that a boy, thomas jefferson davis, was his son. nobody tells the truth in this will although it has been alluded to and argued as well, i think, as could be. there is this trouble in the will that though the boy jeff was never in van buren county until he was twelve years old--was never there until six years after the will was dated, yet his supposed father describes him as of van buren county. next, miss caroline bergett had married a man by the name of w. v. smith in , and in , w. v. smith took his wife and children and moved to texas--eight years before this will was made, and yet a. j. davis forgot her name, forgot her residence, forgot the residence of the boy that was imputed to him; that of itself is enough to show that he was not present when the will was made. if there is anything on earth that he would remember this is it, and you know it. although mrs. downey could not remember when she was married or when her first child was born, she does remember the time it took her to dust the room where there was a clothes-press, a table and three or four chairs. she recollects that. another improbability: john a. davis, the proponent, had charge of the davis farm down in iowa and stayed there for six years after this alleged will was made, and although he was acquainted with the quigleys, the henshaws, the sconces, and all the aristocracy of the neighborhood, he says he never heard of the existence of this will which so many people of that section talked about. what a place for keeping secrets! senator sanders says that the reason judge davis made his will in salt creek township was because in that township they knew about this woman or these women and these children, and he didn't want to go into any other community and make his will. any need of publishing his will? any need of reading any more than the attesting clause to the attesting witnesses? any need to divulge a line? none. ah, but senator sanders said that he wanted to keep the secret. that is the reason he left the will upon that table and rode away in a debonnair kind of style on his roan horse with the bobtail, leaving a congregation of salt creek loafers to read his will. he wanted to keep it secret; hoped that it would never get out. imagine the scene, job davis writing the will; mrs. downey with a duster tucked under her arm like the soubrette in a theatre. well, when he was writing the will she was looking over his shoulder and read the will as fast as he wrote it. that makes me think of the fellow who was writing a letter and there was a man looking over his shoulder, so he said: "i would write more but there is a dirty dog looking over my shoulder," and the fellow said: "you are a liar." everybody read it. mrs. downey read it; she read it as job wrote it; then he read it aloud; and then he went and got sconce and read it again; then in comes glasgow and he read it. i think mrs. downey must have read this will ten or twelve times. mr. myers. she said twenty-five. mr. ingersoll. oh, yes; twenty-five, because it was in job's handwriting; and whenever the twilight crept around the farm bringing a little sadness, a little pathetic feeling, she would light a candle and hunt the will, and read it just to think about job. she would see the words "guive" and "wherther" and all that brought back job, and she used to wonder "wherther" he was in paradise or not. now, john a. lived down there and knew all these people and never heard of that will. what do you think of that? why is it that john never got any information from sconce? sconce, who saw the will written and who was one of the attesting witnesses. why didn't he hear of it from old downey? why didn't he hear of it from the quigleys or the dotsons? why didn't he hear of it in salt creek township, when it was seen and read and read and read again until i think many of them knew it by heart? and yet the only person really interested was walking around unconscious of his great good fortune, and nobody ever told him. there is another thing: for four months after andrew j. davis died nobody told john about the will. nearly four months passed away; i think he died on the th of march, , and this will came to john on the first day of july. all the neighbors knew it. just as soon as a. j. died, they all said: "john is coming right into the fortune now" only nobody told john; and the first man we find with the will is james r. eddy, and the next man we find with the will is john a. davis, the proponent. when john a. davis saw this will, leaving him four or five million dollars, it did not take much to convince him that the signature was genuine. human nature is made that way. if it was leaving four or five millions to either of us, including the sinner who addresses you, the probability is that i would say, "well, that looks pretty genuine--pretty genuine." and then if i could get a few other fellows to swear that it was, i would feel certain, and say, "that is my money." now, another improbability. all the evidence shows that judge davis was a business-like, quiet, methodical, careful, suspicious man, secretive, keeping his business to himself, keeper of his own counsels; and when he did make a will it was sealed; it was given to one of his friends to put away, and to keep. it did not become the common property of the neighborhood. he did not mount his roan horse and ask the people of the community to look at it. he was a methodical, business-like man, and i suppose many of you, gentlemen of the jury, knew him; and i shall rely somewhat on your knowledge of a. j. davis, for you to say whether he made this will, whether in he left his old father naked to the world; whether he cared nothing for brothers and sisters; whether he cared nothing for the children of the sister that raised him. i leave it for you to say. you probably know something about this matter. andrew j. davis, when he was a child, when all the children were gathered around the same knee, the children that had been nourished at the same tender and holy breast, he would not have done this then. if some good fortune came to one, it was divided. how beautiful the generosity, the hospitality of childhood! but as they grow old there comes the love of gold, and the love of gold seems to have the same effect upon the heart that it does upon the country where it is found. all the roses fade, the beautiful green trees lose their leaves, and there is nothing in the heart but sage brush. and so it is with the land that holds within the miserly grip of rocks what we call the precious metals. the next question in the case is the knight will. was any such will made? and i say here to-day, knowing what i am saying, i never saw upon the witness stand a man who appeared to be more candid, more anxious and desirous of telling the exact truth than e. w. knight, and from what i have heard there is not a man in montana with a better reputation. he has no interest in this business, not one penny; and it was months and months after the death of judge davis that we knew such a will ever existed--that is, on our side. either mr. knight was telling what he believed to be true, or he was perjuring himself. no ifs and ands about it. he is a man of intelligence and knows what he is saying. he swears that a. j. davis made a will. and what else does he swear to? that there was also the draft of a will, which gave away the mine or provided for its working, and then at the end of that draft, provided that the rest of the property should be divided in accordance with the statute. thereupon mr. knight told him: "your heirs would interfere by injunction, and you had better bequeath your whole property and fix the amount to be expended in the development of the mine." thereupon he made another will, and that will was signed. now, mr. knight knows whether it was signed or not. the will was signed or mr knight committed perjury knowingly, willfully and corruptly. what does he say? that it was signed. what else? that it was attested. then these gentlemen came forward with mr. talbot, who says that knight said that when davis came to the bank to get the will he thought he was going to execute it. that is, the idea being, it was not signed. what was it attested for if it was not signed? that is absurd to the verge of idiocy. but they say that mr. knight is not corroborated. let us see. he says that andrew j. davis made a will. mr. keith swears that a. j. davis made a will. knight says that davis went out and brought keith in, and keith swears that he lived next door and a. j. davis did come in there and get him and he knows the time on account of the sickness of his child. corroboration number two. knight swears that davis then went for another man. keith says that he did go and get caleb irvine. corroboration number three. knight said one of the men who signed the will was in his working clothes. corroboration number four. knight swears that davis read the attesting clause. keith swears the same. keith swears that davis signed it, that he signed it, and then irvine signed it. what more? he swears that knight wrote it, and he was writing it when he went in. and yet they have--and i will use an expression of one of the learned counsel--the audacity to say that mr. knight has not been corroborated. and they would have you believe that knight took that will over to helena and put it in the safe when it was not signed by a. j. davis, and they would make you think besides that, that it was attested by two witnesses, and that two witnesses had to say that they saw a. j. davis sign it, that he signed it in their presence, and that they attested his signature in his presence and in the presence of each other. they proved a little too much, gentlemen. they proved that by talbot. they proved that by andrew j. davis, jr., who expects to fall heir to all that is taken, and they proved it also by john a. davis, the proponent. recess. may it please the court and gentlemen: when we adjourned i was talking about the testimony of mr. knight, and the making of the knight will. the evidence is, the way that will came to be made, or what started it, is, as follows: a. j. davis borrowed of the first national bank of helena forty thousand dollars to put in the mines, and governor hauser remarked when he got the money: "another old man going to fool with mines until he gets broke." and that it seems piqued a. j. davis, touched his vanity a little, and then he said: "that mine shall be developed whether i live or die. i am satisfied that it is a good mine, and i am going to make a will and i am going to provide in that will for the mine being developed." and thereupon he talked with mr. knight. and finally knight drew up a draft of a will, according to his testimony, providing for the working of that mine. and what did he say when he got through with it? "now as to the balance of the property, let it be divided according to law. that makes a good will." that is what he said. then mr. knight said to him: "if you make the will that way it may be that the heirs will come in and enjoin the working of the mine on the ground that it is a waste of money. you had better make a full will and dispose of all your property as you may desire, and fix the amount to be used in the devolopment of that mine." now, this is either true or false. it is true if mr. knight can be believed; and he can be believed if any gentleman can be trusted. what more? knight says that a. j. davis made the memoranda from which to draw that will, had his manager come, and in that will it told how the shafts should be run, how much work should be done, and charged his trustees to do development work up to a certain amount. is that all born of the fancy of this gentleman? and can you believe that a man like mr. knight, who has run the largest bank in montana for twenty-five years--can you believe that such a man, who is not in any necessity, who is not in need of money, comes here and swears to what he knows to be a lie, and makes this all out of his own head, carves it out of his imagination? the second will was made, the second will was signed, the second will was attested, the second will was given mr. knight to keep. they say it was not signed, and yet mr. knight swears he told one man about it. he told mr. kleinschmidt, so that if anything happened to him, knight, he would know that knight had in that vault the will of andrew j. davis. do you think he would have done that if the will had not been signed, if it were worth only waste paper? and yet they are driven to that absurdity for the purpose of attacking the evidence of this man. it will not do. judge knowles said that in a conversation at garrison, he said that in the will the mine was left to erwin davis, and the reason given for it was that erwin davis was a business man. now, the only way that can be explained, is one of two ways. one is that judge knowles has gotten two matters mixed; the other is that he is absolutely mistaken. judge knowles, the president of the first national bank of butte--judge knowles, who has been the attorney of andrew j. davis, jr.--judge knowles had this conversation, or some conversation, with knight; and why would knight have taken pains to tell him a deliberate falsehood? there is something more. after all this occurred, andrew j. davis, jr. went to mr. knight and asked him to write out what he remembered about that will, and knight dictated it on the spot and sent it to him. where is that letter? here it is. i want to read that letter to this jury. that was a letter written long ago. a letter written before this will was filed in this court. a letter written before mr. knight knew that a. j. davis, jr. had any will. a letter written before knight imagined there could ever be a lawsuit on the subject. andrew j. davis jr. went to him and asked him to write out what he knew about that will, and he turned, according to his own testimony, and dictated it, and sent it to him, like a frank, candid, honest man; and before i get through i will read that letter, and when it is read i want you to see how it harmonizes absolutely and perfectly with his testimony here on the stand. i will draw another distinction. mr. knight gave two depositions in this case. these depositions have not been suppressed like the deposition taken of sconce. not suppressed. why? because we are willing that the jury should read the two depositions and hear his testimony besides, and there is not the slightest contradiction in the depositions themselves, or between the depositions or either one of them and his evidence that he gave here--except two that they claim; and think what immense contradictions they are. in one deposition he says that a. j. davis left some bequests to some aunts. mr. knight swears on the stand that he never said aunts, he said sisters, but if he did say aunts he meant sisters, because he never heard of his having any aunts, and yet that is held up as a contradiction, and to such an extent that you are to throw away the testimony of this man. now, here is the letter. this will was filed july , , and when he wrote this letter he did not know that a. j. davis jr. knew of a will, or that john a. davis knew of a will. and this is what he writes: helena, montana, july , . i beg to say that some time in or , i made a draft of a will for your uncle andrew j. davis, which he duly executed, and left the same on file with me, as a special deposit for two or three years, when the same was canceled and destroyed; when i was led to believe and to conclude that he had made and executed a will to supersede and take the place of that. that explains talbot's testimony. instead of saying to talbot that a. j. davis came there, as he thought, to execute the will, and destroyed that will, it not being signed, what he said was that he destroyed the will, but from the way he acted he thought he was going to make another, that he was going to execute a will; and this is exactly what mr. talbot said. to execute a will, and it took a re-direct examination to swap the "a" for "the." i cannot satisfactorily recall the considerations and provisions of said will drawn by me, but the main burden and desire was that the work on the mine known as the lexington, should be continued to a certain amount of development, and that the mill should be carried on under a certain management, and after providing for the payment of his just debts, he made certain bequests naming certain nephews and nieces, running from ten thousand to fifteen thousand dollars each, and you are especially named for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, and if the estate exceeded in value the net sum of five hundred thousand dollars, then those bequests were to be increased; and if in excess of one million dollars, the further increase was named and specified. that is the letter he wrote before he ever knew there would be this suit; before he knew of the existence of this will. a certain boy named jefferson--claimed to be his son--was given the sum of twenty thousand dollars to be paid to him in yearly sums of five thousand dollars for four years, and the same provision as to a certain girl, claimed to be his child. is that not exactly what he swore to on this stand? certain executors named e. w. knight, s. t. hauser, and w. w. dixon, each to receive the sum of ten thousand dollars for services. yours truly, e. w. knight. now, gentlemen, they were informed of the existence of that will and of its destruction, and were so informed before john a. davis filed this will. and when we pleaded this will, john a. davis pleaded that it had been republished, and yet no evidence was given in of any republication. they knew that under the statute of montana, when a man makes will number one, and afterwards makes will number two, and afterwards destroys will number two, that will number one is not revived; that the making of the second will kills the first, and the destruction of the second kills that, and leaves the man intestate and without any will. now, there is the letter of mr. knight--full, free, frank, candid, honorable, like the man himself. he says there that he does not remember all the provisions, but he does remember that he provided for some nephews and nieces, and provided for andrew j. davis, jr., twenty-five thousand dollars, for one jefferson twenty thousand, for the girl about the same, and that he provided also for the executors of the will, and appointed knight, hauser, and dixon as his executors. that is exactly what he says here. now, was that will made? have they impeached mr. keith? i tell them now that they cannot impeach him. he has sworn to the making of that will, apart and separate from mr. knight. oh, they say, why didn't they bring knight in, and prove by him that he then recollected mr. keith? what has that to do with it? mr. keith recollected mr. knight, swore that he wrote the will, and that he was writing it when he came in, and swore that he attested it, that davis signed it, and irvine also signed it. what more do we want on that will? i say, gentlemen, that the will of ends this case. there is not ingenuity enough in the world to get around it, and there was and never will be enough brains crammed into one head to dodge it. that will was made, and every man on the jury knows it. that will was executed by andrew j. davis, every man of you knows it, and the will was afterwards destroyed. now, the question is, did that second will revoke the first will? had it a revoking clause in it? e. w. knight swears it had, and he swears that he copied it from a will made by an uncle of his named john knight, and he had that will in his possession here and in that will there are two revocation clauses, and knight swears that he copied those clauses, and right here it may be well enough to make another remark. when he read the will to a. j. davis, and the passage "hereby revoking all wills," davis said: "there is no need of putting that in. i never made any other will. this is the first." knight said to him, "well, that is the way, that is the form, and i think it is safer to have it that way." and davis said: "all right; let it go." how do you fix that? there is no way out of it, that the will was made in , revoking all former wills. what else? the conditions of the will of , with regard to working the mine, with regard to bequests to nephews, with regard to bequests to others, with regard to the twenty thousand dollars given to jeff davis, and the twenty thousand dollars given to the girl; these provisions are absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of this will of . so on both grounds the will of destroys, cancels, and forever renders null and void the will of , even if it had been the genuine will of a. j. davis, and the court will instruct you to that effect. and after mr. keith had testified, the proponents in this case subpoenaed mr. knight, and if they thought that knight would swear that keith was not the man, why did they not put him on the stand? they ran no risk. he is an honest man. he would tell the truth. i never had the slightest fear in bringing an honest man on the stand. never. i want facts, and i hope as long as i live that i shall never win a case that i ought not to win on the facts. no man should wish or endeavor to win a case that he knows is wrong. i say there is not a man on this jury but believes in his heart and soul this minute that this will was made. you have to throw aside the testimony of a perfectly good man, and no matter whether what he said about erwin davis to judge knowles was true or not--and i must say that i never saw a witness on the stand in my life more eager to tell his story than judge knowles was. never. he was bound to get it in or die. he answered questions over objections before the court was allowed to pass upon the objections. why? because he is the president of the first national bank. now, without saying that he was dishonest about it, i say he was mistaken. knight never said one word of that kind to him. it was impossible that he could have said it. so is mr. talbot mistaken. so is andrew j. davis, jr. mistaken, and so is john a. davis mistaken. think of the idiotic idea that a will, not signed, was given to knight to keep, attested by two witnesses, and not signed by the testator. idiotic! now, as i understand it, gentlemen, you will have to find that that will was made. now, what is the next great question in this case, and the question that will be argued at some length, probably, by the other side? and why? because it is the first and only point, so far as facts are concerned, that they have won in this case. just one. and what is that? our experts said that they thought that the ink was nigrosin ink, and the fact that they wanted a test proves that they were sincere. their witnesses said they did not think it was nigrosin ink. mr. hodges said it had too much lustre, but that there was only one way in which it could be absolutely determined and that was by a chemical test. but, say these gentlemen, or rather said judge dixon, "the moment that ink turned red the whole case of the contestants was wrecked." let us see. if there had been no logwood ink in existence--not a particle--after the th day of july, ; if, on the night of the th of july, , all the logwood ink on earth had been destroyed and then this ink had turned out to be logwood, why, of course, it would have been a demonstration that this paper was written as far back as the th of july, . if it had turned out that it was written in nigrosin ink and that that had only been invented in , it would have been a demonstration that the will was a forgery. but you must recollect the fact that it is written in logwood ink is not only consistent with its genuineness, but consistent with its being a forgery. why? there was logwood ink in existence in , plenty of it, and if mr. eddy wrote this will in , he could have written it in logwood ink; and the fact that it is written in logwood ink does not show that it was written in . why? because there was logwood ink in existence every year since , till now. suppose i said that the paper was only ten years old and it turned out that it was forty, is that a demonstration in favor of the other side? if it turned out to be ten, it is a demonstration on our side. but if it turned out to be forty, is not that consistent with the genuineness of the instrument, and also with the spuriousness of the same instrument? you can see that. nobody's smart enough to fool you on that. nobody. take the whole question of ink out and the question is still whether eddy wrote it or not. take the ink all out and it is still the question whether job davis wrote it or not. absolutely, and all the test proved was, that our experts--some of them--were mistaken about its being nigrosin ink. mr. tolman stated that it was impossible to tell without a chemical test; that it looked like nigrosin ink and from the manner in which it seemed to run he thought it was nigrosin ink, but that it was impossible to tell without a test. mr. hodges, their expert, said it looked to him like logwood ink; that it had too much lustre for nigrosin, but he added that it was impossible to tell without a chemical test. that is what he said. mr. ames said the same thing, and i appeal to you, gentlemen, if mr. ames did not have the appearance of an honest, of a candid, and of a fair man. professor hagan said that it was nigrosin ink, but he admitted that the only way to know was to test it. and what else? their own expert, mr. hodges, said that logwood ink penetrates the paper. if this ink has been on here twenty-five years it penetrates the paper. sometimes an accident happens in our favor; a piece of that will was torn off this morning. you see the edge there torn off slanting. you see that "o-f"; how much that ink has sunk into that paper. not the millionth part of a hair. it lies dead upon the top. just see how the ink went in there--not a particle. it lies right on top. i would call that "float." there is the other edge. there is where the ink stops. it has not entered a particle. and when you go to your room i want you to look at it. that ink has not penetrated a particle. and let us see what this witness hodges says: "logwood ink penetrates the paper." there it is, "to determine the nature of the ink, use hydrochloric acid." what else? "i think this will was written with reimal's ink, and that was made in germany in the neighborhood of . reimal's ink penetrates the paper." and then they say that we endeavored to draw a distinction between modern and ancient. this is what mr. hodges says about it. on the addition of hydrochloric acid to logwood ink it will turn to a bright red. the old-fashioned ink was manufactured by mixing a decoction of logwood with chromide of potash and formed a blue black solution. logwood inks as made to-day differ from those, in that the modern logwood inks contain another sort of chrome than chromide of potash; they contain chromium in the form of an acetate or a chlorine. hodges was the man that talked about ancient and modern logwood inks; and he, before the test was made, said that the old logwood ink would turn a bright red, modern logwood not so bright. and after the evidence was all in, professor elwell came smilingly to the post and said, "they have got it exactly wrong end to; the older the duller and the newer the brighter." and after a moment said, "this was kind of dull." before the test was made, mr. tolman swore, "i agree with professor hodges that if it is an old logwood ink it will turn a bright, scarlet red. in the case of modern logwood inks i don't agree with him, but to that extent i think his tests are good," and he drew that distinction before the test was made. gentlemen, you saw this will. i want to call your attention to it again. you see that "j" in sconce's name, that is pretty red. not so awfully scarlet, though, that it would affect a turkey gobbler. you see it in "job"; you see it in "james davis," but there it is brown, and not red, and not scarlet, and no flame in it, and professor hodges himself said that although both were logwood inks, he would not swear that job davis and james davis were written with the same ink. do you see the red in that "job"? now find the red on that "s" of "james." he said he would not swear that they were written in the same ink, but both in logwood ink, that is to say, they might have been different inks. while i would not swear that they were the same inks, i would swear that both inks contained logwood. and that is all he swore to, and i must say that i believe he was a perfectly honest, fair gentleman. now, all that the ink test proves on earth is that it is logwood instead of nigrosin, and that does not prove that eddy did not write the will, because there was plenty of logwood ink when he did write it. that is the kind of ink he used. and it has no more bearing--the fact that it turned out to be logwood--to show that it is a genuine will than though it had turned out to be iron ink. suppose the experts had been wrong on both sides, and it had turned out to be iron ink, what would have happened then? is it a genuine will? nothing can be more absurd than to argue that that test settled the genuineness of this will. hodges says another thing; that perhaps the pen went to the bottom of the ink bottle and got a little of the settlings of the ink on it, when he wrote "james davis," and consequently that has a different color. well, if the pen had gotten some of this sediment on it, the more sediment the more logwood, and the more logwood the brighter the color. instead of that, it is dull. there is another trouble: with regard to the experts, while undoubtedly there are some men who do not swear to the exact truth, whether paid or not, undoubtedly some men swear truthfully who are paid. i do not believe that you doubt the testimony of hodges simply because you paid him so much a day. i don't. and certainly we have found no men philanthropic enough to go around the country swearing for nothing. i judge of the man's oath, not by what he is paid, but by the manner in which he gives his testimony--by the reason there is behind it. that is the way i judge and yet senator sanders judges otherwise, as he told you in a burst of montana zeal. * * * i like montana, too, and i believe the montana people are big enough and broad enough not to have prejudice against a man because he comes from another state. every state in this union is represented in montana, and the people who left the old settled states and came out to the new territories, dropped their prejudices on the way--and sometimes i have thought that that is what killed the grass. i like a good, brave, free, candid, chivalric people. i don't care where you come from--i don't care where you were born. we are all men, and we all have our rights; and as long as the old flag floats over me, i have just as many rights in montana as i have in new york. and when you come to new york i will see that you have as many rights, if you are in my neighborhood, as you have in montana. that is the kind of nationality i believe in. i hate this little, provincial prejudice; and yet senator sanders invoked that prejudice. that insults you. we did not insult you when we asked you when you went on the jury, if you cared whether the money stayed in butte or not, or whether you were interested or not, or related or not. those were the questions asked every juror, and we relied absolutely on your answers when you said that you were unprejudiced, and that you would give us a fair trial; and we believe you will. now, then, with regard to these experts, you have got to judge each one by his testimony; and it is foolish it seems to me, to call them vipers and pirates, as senator sanders did. a very strong expression--"vipers, pirates" living off, he said, the substance of others; and yet he had an expert on the stand, mr. dickinson; he had another, mr. elwell; he had another, mr. hodges; and after that he rises up before this jury and calls them "three vipers" and "three pirates." i never will do that, if i ask a man to swear for me, and he does the best he can, i will leave the "pirate" out. i will drop the "viper," and i will stand by him, if i think he is telling the truth; and if he is not i won't say much about him; i don't want to hurt his feelings. but i want to call your attention again to the fact that every expert on our side swore, knowing that they had three experts on the other side, and that if we made a mistake they could catch us in it; and we did make a mistake in that ink; and the test showed that we made a mistake, and that is all the test did show; but it did not show that the will is genuine any more than if it had turned out to be carbon ink; then both sides would have been mistaken. and yet after all it did turn out to be modern logwood ink, and it did turn out not to be reimal's logwood ink, made of the chromate of potassium; did turn out not to be that, and i say on this will that there is an absolute, decided and distinct difference between the color on the name job davis and the name james davis. and right here, i might as well say that that man jackson, who came here from butler, mo.--and when i said butler was a pretty tough place, rose up in his wrath and said it was as good as new york any day--that man says that when he saw the will he does not remember of seeing the names of james davis and sconce in it, but he did remember of seeing the name of job davis. i don't think he saw any of it. now, there is another question here--because i have said enough about ink, at least enough to give you an inkling of my views. there is another question. why didn't john a. davis take the stand? that is a serious question. john a. davis had sworn, on the th of march, , that his brother died without a will. john a. davis, on the th day of july, , filed a will in which he was the legatee. that will came into his possession under suspicious circumstances. what would a perfectly frank and candid man have done? what would you have done? you would not have allowed yourself to remain under suspicion one moment. you would have said, "i got that will so and so." you would have let in the light, "i obtained it in such a place, it is an honest, genuine will, and here it is, and here are the witnesses to that will." but instead of that, john a. davis never opened his mouth, except to file a petition swearing that it came into his possession on the first day of july. he knew that he was suspected, didn't he? he knew that the men in whose veins his blood flowed believed that the will was a forgery--knew that good men and women believed that he was a robber, and that he was endeavoring to steal their portion. he knew that, and any man that loves his own reputation and any man that ever felt the glow of honor in his heart one moment, would not have been willing to rest under such a suspicion or under such an imputation. he would have said: "here is its history, here is where i got it, it is not a forged will. it is genuine. here are the witnesses that know all about it. here is how i came into possession of it." no, sir. not a word. speechless--tongueless. and he comes into this court and comes on to this stand to be a witness, and is asked about a conversation he had with burchett, and then we asked him, "how did you come into the possession of that will?" all his lawyers leaped between him and the answer to that question. they objected. if he came by that will honestly he would have said, "i am going to tell the whole story." he wants you to believe that he came by it honestly, doesn't he? he wants you to believe it. he not only wants you to believe it, gentlemen, but he asks twelve men--you--to swear that he came by it honestly, doesn't he? if you give your verdict that that is a genuine will, then you give your oath that john a. davis came by it honestly; and he wants you twelve men to swear it. and yet he dare not swear it himself. he wants you to do his swearing. he is afraid to stand in your presence and tell the history of that will. he is afraid to tell the name of the man from whom he received it. he is afraid to tell how much he gave for it; afraid to tell how much he promised. he is afraid to tell how they obtained witnesses to substantiate it in the way they have. well, now, ought not you to let him tell his own story, ought not you, gentlemen, to be clever enough to let him do his own swearing? now, i will ask you again if he came by that will honestly, fairly, above board, would he not be glad to tell you the story? would he not be glad to make it plain to you? if that was a perfectly honest will and came to him through perfectly pure channels, would he not want you to know it? would he not want every man and woman in this city to know it? would he not want all his neighbors to know it? and yet, he is willing, when this case is being tried, and when he is on the stand, and asked how he got the will--he is willing to close his mouth--willing to admit that he is afraid to tell; and i tell you to-day, gentlemen, that the silence of john a. davis is a confession of guilt, and he knows it, and his attorneys know it. a client afraid to swear that he did not forge a will, or have it forged, and then want to hire a man to defend him and call him honest! well, he would have to hire him; he would not get anybody for nothing. and yet he is asking you to do it. if john a. davis came properly by it, let him say so under oath. don't you swear to it for him, not one of you. now, there is another question. why did not james r. eddy take the stand? we charged him with forging the will. we made an affidavit setting forth that he did forge the will, and in this very court mr. dixon arose and said he was glad that the charge had been fixed, and the man had been designated. judge dixon said here, before this jury, when this case was opened, "the man who was charged with forging this will will be here. he will stand before this jury face to face; and he will explain his connections with the will to your satisfaction." that is what judge dixon said. where is your witness? where is james r. eddy? why did you not bring him forward? i know he is here now--delighted with the notoriety that this charge of forgery gives him--with a moral nature that is an abyss of shallowness,--delighted to be charged with it, and he will probably be my friend as long as he lives, because i have added to his notoriety by saying he is a forger. why did they not bring him on the stand? mr. dixon gives one reason. because the jury would not believe him. and that is the man who is first found in possession of this will. that is the man in whose hands it is, and it is from that man that john a. davis received it. and the reason that he is not put on the stand is that it is the deliberate opinion of the learned counsel in this case that no jury would believe him. how does that work with you? james r. eddy here--his deposition here--and they could not read his deposition because he was here--and they had him here and kept him here, so that we could not read his deposition. they were bound that he should not go on the stand. why? because the moment he got there he could be asked, where did you find the will? who was present when you found it? when did you first tell anybody about it? when did you first show it to john a. davis? how much did he agree to give you for it? what witnesses have you talked to in this case? what witnesses have you written to in this case? what work have you done in this case? what affidavits have you made in this case? and what have you done with the other three wills that you have in this case? such questions might be asked him, and they were afraid to put him on the stand. every letter that he had written would have been identified by him if he had been put on the stand. maybe he would have been compelled to write in the presence of the jury, to see whether he would spell words correctly. they knew that the moment he went on the stand their case was as dead as julius cæsar. they knew it and kept him off. now, there is only one way for them to win this case. and that is to keep out the evidence. only one way to win the case--suppress john a. davis. keep your mouth closed or defeat will leap out of it. eddy, keep still. don't let anything be seen that will throw any light upon this. i ask you, gentlemen of the jury, to take cognizance of what has been done in this case. who is it that has tried to get the light? who is it that has tried to get the evidence? who is it that has objected? who is it that wants you to try this case in the dark? who is it that wants you to guess on your oaths? the failure of eddy to testify is a confession of guilt. they dare not put him on the stand--dare not. now, gentlemen, there is a little more evidence in this case to which i am going to call your attention. something has been said about a conversation in march, . sconce had his deposition taken in bloomfield, iowa. that deposition has been suppressed. john a. davis was there at the time it was taken. john a. davis and sconce went into the passage leading up to the office of carruthers. mr. burchett, sheriff of the county, a man having no possible earthly or heavenly interest in this business, happened to stop at the corner to read his paper--looked at it as he opened it--and he then and there heard john a. davis say, "stick to that story and i will see that you get all the money you have been promised," and thereupon sconce replied, "all right i'll do it." sconce denies it, and that denial is not worth the breath that he wasted in forming the denial. john a. davis denies it. of course he denies it. but he dare not tell where he got that will. he dare not do it. he wants you to do that for him. he wants you to lift him out of the gutter and wash the mud off him. he is afraid to do it himself. i want to call your attention to that conversation, and that of itself is enough to impeach sconce. that is enough of itself to show that john a. davis was entering into a conspiracy or rather had entered into one with mr. sconce. now, gentlemen, there is another thing, and we must not forget it. curious people down in salt creek township, on the other side; of course there are plenty of good men there or the township could not exist, and we had a good many of them here--good, straight, honest, intelligent looking men. but the other side had some--all in the family--all of them. swaim, he was not in the family, but he is a clerk in trimble's bank, where wallace is the cashier, where they suppress depositions; say they are not finished when they are signed by the person who swears to them. john c. sconce, the only living witness, whose "ancient but ignoble blood has crept through rascals ever since the flood," cousin to james davis, cousin to job davis, cousin to mrs. downey, cousin to eddy, cousin to dr. downey by marriage, brother to t. j. sconce, jr., brother-in-law to abe wilkinson, cousin to tom glasgow and sam, cousin to moses davis, cousin to alex. davis, uncle to henshaw's daughter, and father-in-law of george quigley. every one of them united. blood is thicker than water. eddy stuck to his family. james r. eddy--cousin to sconce, son of mrs. downey, (mrs. downey, the duster lady, who remembers that davis asked her to remain, but didn't ask her advice, didn't have her sign the will, didn't give her any bequest, but there she was with her duster), grandson of james davis, nephew of job davis, and related by blood or marriage to both the glasgows, moses and alexander davis, to t. j. scotice and j. c. sconce, jr., abe wilkinson, george quigley, s m. henshaw, (the celebrated lawyer). j. l. hughes, and eli dye, brother-in-law to c. o. hughes, and foster brother to john lisle, and mrs. a. s. bishop. and it is just lovely about john lisle. john lisle is one of the fellows that saw this will. "how did you come to see it, john?" "james davis," he says, "was my guardian and he had to give a bond, and so one day when james davis was away from home, i thought i would go and see the bond." of course he thought james davis kept the bond that he gave to somebody else--to the county judge; but mr. lisle pretends that he thought the bond would be in the possession of the man who gave it. and so he sneaked in to look among the papers. now, do you believe such a story--that he thought that man had the bond? didn't he know that the bond was given to somebody else? foolish! bishop swears the same thing; james davis was guardian for his wife, and he was looking to see if james had the bond; and another fellow by the name of sconce, was looking for a note, and when he opened this double sheet of paper folded four times and happened to see sconce's name he said: "here it is--a promissory note." mary ann davis--that is to say, mrs. eddy, that is to say, mrs. downey, is the mother of j. r. eddy, daughter of james davis, sister to job, second cousin to sconce, wife of downey, and related by blood or marriage to tom and sam glasgow, moses and alexander davis, abe wilkinson, s. m. henshaw, j. c. sconce, jr., t. j. sconce, george quigley and c. o. hughes. all right in there, woven together. e. h. downey--son-in-law of james davis, brother-in-law of job, husband of mary ann davis-eddy-downey, and step-father of mr. eddy. j. c. sconce. jr.--cousin to eddy, nephew of j. c. sconce, sr., cousin to mrs. downey, cousin of e. h. downey, son-in-law of henshaw, cousin to george quigley, related to tom and sam glasgow, abe wilkinson and moses and alex. davis. george quigley--son-in-law of sconce. sam glasgow--cousin of sconce, son-in-law of dye, brother to tom glasgow, brother-in-law to moses and alex. davis, cousin to abe wilkinson, and related by marriage to j. r. eddy. here they are, same blood. all have the same kind of memory; runs in the blood. henshaw--father-in-law to j. c. sconce, jr. lisle--adopted son of james davis, and his ward, and foster brother to eddy. a. s. bishop--married to allie lisle, ward of james davis, foster sister of james r. eddy. t. j. sconce--eddy's cousin, j. r. sconce's brother, brother-in-law and cousin to the glasgows, cousin to alex, and moses davis, brother-in-law to abe wilkinson and uncle to j. c. sconce, jr. moses davis--cousin of sconce, brother-in-law to the glasgows, cousin to abe wilkinson, brother of alex. davis, and related to eddy and arthur quigley. alexander davis--cousin to sconce, brother of moses davis, brother-in-law to the glasgows, cousin to wilkinson and related by marriage to arthur quigley. abe wilkinson--brother-in-law to sconce, cousin to alex, and moses davis, and cousin to the glasgows. tom glasgow--cousin to sconce, and abe wilkinson, and a brother-in-law of moses davis, and a brother to sam glasgow, and related by marriage to eddy. arthur quigley--brother-in-law to alex. davis, and brother to george quigley, who is a son-in-law of sconce. john l. hughes--his nephew married eddy's wife's sister. eli dye--father-in-law of sam glasgow. there they are, all of them related except swaim and duckworth and taylor; and duckworth, he is in the tie business along with eddy. there is the family tree. all growing on the same tree, and there is a wonderful likeness in the fruit. why, that glasgow has as good a memory as sconce. he remembers that this is the same will he saw--paper like that, and he swears--i think it is sam glasgow--that he did not read the contents or see a signature. and yet he comes here, twenty-five years afterwards, and swears it is the same paper. and then the paper was clean and now it is covered with all kinds and sorts of stains. now, gentlemen, take the signature of a. j. davis, and i want you all to look at it. i say it is made of pieces. i say it is a patchwork. it is a dead signature. it has no personality--no vitality in it, and i want you to look at it, and look at it carefully. i say it is made of pieces. of course every counterfeit that is worth anything, looks like the original, and the nearer it looks like the original the better the counterfeit. all the witnesses on the side of the proponent who have sworn that it is his signature, also swear that he wrote a rapid, firm hand--nervous, bold, free, and that he scarcely ever took his pen from the paper from the time he commenced his name until he finished; and i want you to look at that name. i will risk your sense; i will risk your judgment--honest, fair and free--whether that is a made signature, or whether it is the honest signature of any human being. and now, gentlemen, one word more. i contend, first, that the evidence shows beyond all doubt that job davis did not write this will. second, that it is shown beyond all doubt, that james r. eddy did write this will, and that that evidence amounts to a demonstration. i claim that the will of was made precisely as e. w. knight and mr. keith swear; that that will was utterly inconsistent with the will of , even if that had been genuine; that it revokes that will, that its provisions were inconsistent, and that afterwards that will was destroyed, and that there is not one particle of evidence beneath the canopy of heaven to show that it was not made and to show that it was not destroyed. and the court will instruct you that the will of , even if genuine, is not revived. this is the end of the case. so i claim that the probabilities, the reason, the naturalness, are all on the side of the contestants in this case--all. and i tell you, that if the evidence can be depended on at all, a. j. davis went to his grave with the idea that the law made a will good enough for him. do you believe, if he were here, if he had a voice, that he would take this property and give it to john a. davis; that he would leave out the children of the very woman who raised him; that he would leave out his other sisters, that he would leave out the children of his sisters and brothers? do you believe it? i know that not one man on that jury believes it. this case is in your hands. that property is in your hands. all the millions, however many there may be, are in your hands; they are to be disposed of by you under instructions from the court as to the law. you are to do it. and, do you know, there is no prouder position in the world, there is no more splendid thing, than to be in a place where you can do justice. above everybody and above everything should be the idea of justice; and whenever a man happens to sit on a jury in a case like this, or in any other important case, he ought to congratulate himself that he has the opportunity of showing, first, that he is a man, and second, of doing what in his judgment ought to be done, and there will never be a prouder recollection come to you hereafter than that you did your honest duty in this case. say to this proponent: "if you wanted to show us that you got this will honestly, why didn't you swear it; if you wanted us to believe it was a genuine will, why didn't you have the nerve to take your oath that it is a genuine will?" now, you have the opportunity, gentlemen, of doing what is right. your prejudice has been appealed to, but i say that you have the manhood, that you have the intelligence, and that you have the honesty to do exactly what you believe to be right; and whether you agree with me or not, i shall not call in question your integrity or your manhood. i am generous enough to allow for differences of opinion. but when you come to make up your verdict, i implore you to demand of yourselves the reasons; to be guided by what is natural; to be guided by what is reasonable. i want you to find that this will was found in the possession of eddy in april or march, next in the hands of john a. davis; and that john a. davis dare not tell how he came in possession of it. john a. davis, on the edge of the grave--for this world but a few days, and according to the law without that will he could have had an income of over fifty thousand a year. he was not satisfied with that. he wanted to take from his own brothers and sisters, wanted to leave his own blood in beggary. he never saw the time in his life that he could earn five thousand a year--never. and he was not satisfied with fifty thousand--he wanted four and a half millions for himself. . gentlemen, i want you to do justice between all these heirs. i want you to show to the united states that you have the manhood, that you are free from prejudice, that you are influenced only by the facts, only by the evidence, and that being so influenced, you give a perfectly fair verdict--a verdict that you will be proud of as long as you live. how would you feel, to find a verdict here that this is a good will, and afterwards have it turn out to be what it is--an impudent, ignorant forgery? now, all i ask of you is to take this evidence into consideration. don't be misled even by a christian, or by a sinner, for that matter. let us be absolutely honest with each other. we have been together for several weeks. we have gotten tolerably well acquainted. i have tried to treat everybody fairly and kindly, and i have tried to do so in this address. i have had hard work to keep within certain limits. there would words get into my mouth and insist on coming out, but i said: "go away; go away." i don't want to hurt people's feelings if i can help it. i don't want anyone unnecessarily humiliated, but i say whatever stands between you and justice must give way; and if you have to walk over reputations--and if they become pavement you cannot help it. you must do exactly what is right, and let those who have done wrong bear the consequences. now, gentlemen, i have confidence in you. i have confidence in this verdict. i think i know what it will be. it will be that the will is spurious, and that the will of revoked it, whether spurious or not. that is my judgment, and i don't think there is any man in the world smart enough or ingenious enough to get any other verdict from you as long as john a. davis was afraid to swear that it was an honest will; as long as james r. eddy, the forger, dare not take the stand; and they will never get a verdict in this world without taking the stand, and if they do take it, that is the end. there is where they are. now, all i ask in the world, as i said, is a fair, honest, impartial verdict at your hands. that i expect. more than that i do not ask. and now, gentlemen, i may never see you again after this trial is over--separated we may be forever--but i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the attention you have paid to the evidence in this case and for the patient hearing you have given me. note: the jury disagreed and the case was compromised. argument before the vice-chancellor in the russell case. * russell vs. russell, before martin p. grey. v. c., camden, n. j., june , . this was colonel ingersoll's last appearance in public. the report of this argument has been made from the stenographer's notes and therefore of necessity incomplete. it was delivered without notes and the proofs were not seen or corrected by the author. no decision in this case has as yet been rendered, august , if your honor please: i agree with mr. pancoast at least in one remark that he made--i think about the only one--that john russell is dead. i think there is no controversy about that. but as to the other remarks made and the positions taken by him, i fail to agree. in the first place, for several hundred years the courts of england, and for more than a hundred years the courts of this country, have very jealously guarded the right of dower; and wherever a woman has by antenuptial agreement given up her right of dower, all the courts have decided--and i know of no exception, and mr. pancoast has brought forward none--that at the time she made the contract waiving her dower she must have been in the possession of all of the facts, so that she could act with absolutely full knowledge. and where a man seeks to make an agreement by virtue of which the wife, or the supposed wife, shall waive her dower, decision after decision says that he must tell the truth, and the whole truth, and that it is just as fraudulent to suppress a fact as to manufacture one. he must tell the absolute truth. the relation of the parties is such, and the dower right is such, that the courts will not take the right away from the woman unless she gives it freely, and, at the time she gives it, knows all the facts bearing upon the question as to whether she should or should not release or waive her dower. now, on that same line the courts have taken another step. they do not put upon the wife the burden of showing that the husband was guilty of fraud directly; they simply put the burden upon the wife of showing what his property was and what the consideration was in the agreement; and then the court steps forward and says that if the amount is disproportionate when you take into consideration his wealth, then the burden is immediately shifted, and the person seeking something under his will, or seeking his property, must show that when the woman signed the antenuptial agreement she had been put in possession of all the facts; that she then knew, and knew from him, what he was worth; and that if she did not and the amount in the agreement is disproportionate to his estate, the agreement is null and void. then gentlemen who represented the heirs of the testator, or the legatees, said: "well, it was generally known that he was a rich man; that was his reputation in the neighborhood; and she, if she had taken any pains or acted with reasonable discretion, could have ascertained the fact." the court then took another step in advance and said that it was not her duty; she was not bound to inquire as to his wealth; and yet mr. pancoast talks as though the maxim of caveat emptor applies in this business--as though it had been a bargain between two sharpers, she making what she could out of his admiration, and he cheapening her to the extent of his power, driving the best possible bargain, saying that she should have looked out for her rights; that she should have investigated and found out about his property; that she should have called in a detective to ascertain what it was, and that the courtship should have been carried on in that commercial spirit. but the law says: no; she is not obliged to ask a question. she is not obliged to take into consideration any thing that is said in the neighborhood. she relies upon one source for her information, and that is the man whom she is going to marry. and the law says he shall meet her with perfect candor, and there shall pass from his lips nothing but words of truth; and then if, being in full possession of all the truth, she makes the contract, that contract shall stand; otherwise, that it shall not. there is no use of my quoting these decisions--there is no decision any other way. the first question that arises is as to the condition of this contract under evidence--this antenuptial contract. is the amount disproportionate to his estate? if we are to try this case relying on the notions of mr. russell, and say that his opinion shall govern, why, it may be said that russell imagined that he was generous. that would be astonishing, but hardly as astonishing as the fact that mr. pancoast thinks he is generous. mr. pancoast: you don't know me very well. mr. ingersoll: i don't think you would do so badly as that. it may be that russell imagined that one thousand dollars in stock of some bank was a liberal provision in his will. i don't know whether he did, and i do not care whether he did or not. the question is not for mr. russell; it is not a question for mr. pancoast, and it is not a question for myself; it is for your honor to decide. is the amount mentioned in this antenuptial contract, taken together, if you please, with the fifteen hundred dollars in the will--is the amount made by the addition of the two amounts--disproportionate to this estate? there is a case here from illinois, achilles vs. achilles (which ought to be a strong case), in which i believe the man was worth seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars; and my recollection is that he provided an annuity of three hundred dollars for his wife, with rent free of a house; also rent free of a vacant lot for a garden. that is what he gave her--what would be about four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a year; and he had eighteen thousand dollars. the supreme court of illinois thought that amount so disproportionate to the value of the estate that the provision was set aside. now, in this case, five thousand dollars or six thousand dollars--we will say five thousand anyhow--is the amount; and there is an estate worth a quarter of a million or, to come even within their own testimony, worth two hundred thousand dollars. the first question for your honor to decide is whether that amount is so disproportionate to his estate that--unless the other side show that she was put in possession of all the facts--it must be set aside. the defendants in this case have not endeavored to show that mr. russell ever informed the complainant what he was worth. the only evidence we have on that point is what he said with regard to his poverty--not one word about how much he had, and as to his poverty, only indirectly. and here is the way the old man's mind worked: they were first engaged to be married. mr. pancoast believes, or at least he has expressed himself as though he thought, that a man of seventy-five could not be in love (i do not know what his experience is, but i hope no fate like that will overtake me), and that a woman of fifty could not feel the tender flame. i do not know enough about biology to state with accuracy how that is, but i heard a story once about a colored woman having lived to be one hundred and twenty-five, and a man interested in the question that mr. pancoast has raised asked this aged lady how old a woman had to be before she ceased to have thoughts about love? and the old woman said: "i don't know, honey; you will have to ask somebody older than i is." and i guess that is about the experience of the race. mr. russell said to this woman: "i want to make a contract with you, and i will give you fifteen thousand dollars." she said that was satisfactory, and russell--having a little semitic blood in his veins, i guess--said to himself, "i must have offered too much, she accepted so readily." so the next time he saw her he said, "i do not think i can make it more than ten thousand dollars." "well," she said, "all right; ten thousand dollars will do." in the meantime he was getting a little older, and the last time he came he said he could not make it more than five thousand dollars, because his estate was so entangled that he did not know that he would be able to pay it--that it would be a pretty difficult job to pay that amount within six months. well, she accepted, and in order that she should accept it, he said that, in addition, he would provide well for her in his will--that he would make a liberal provision. there is the contract. no evidence in the world that he told her what he was worth; the only evidence is that he pleaded poverty. and right at this point, i say that all the decisions i know of declare the contract void unless the defence, on their part, show that she was put in full possession of all the facts; and that the defence in this case did not do. now, so far as this contract is concerned, on the evidence it is void, and void notwithstanding the fact that the trustees paid her five hundred dollars; and mr. pancoast, according to my recollection, is mistaken when he says that she demanded the balance. he offered her the balance, and she stated that she had been informed that she had some rights against the estate, and therefore refused to receive it. that is the fact about it. he sent her five hundred dollars, and wanted to send her the balance, but she would not have it. then he asked her to take it, and showed her a receipt to be signed, in which she waived everything, and she refused to sign it. under those circumstances i do not think it is possible for your honor to say that she has been estopped. the next point raised by mr. pancoast is that the oral agreement to provide well for her in the will is void under the statute of frauds. well, i am free to say that i do not know how it is in new jersey, but in every other state in which i am acquainted with the law, the statute of frauds, to be operative, must always be pleaded. i do not know how it is here. that statute has not been pleaded in this case, and i never heard of it until the argument to-day. if it is to be pleaded before it can be invoked, it is too late to cite it now. but let us go on the supposition that he is right, that the antenuptial contract is void, and that the other contract to provide for her in the will is also void. then where does that leave us? that leaves us exactly as though no contract had been made. that leaves us without any antenuptial contract, without any agreement to provide liberally for her in the will. then what is our condition? then the wife is entitled to her dower in the real estate; that follows as a necessity. she loses her interest in the personalty, because that is given away by the will, but if the antenuptial contract and parole agreement are both dead--one because disproportionate to the estate and because of the fraud of russell, and the other on account of the statute of frauds, then she is left with her dower in the real estate. it is impossible, it seems to me, to arrive at any other conclusion. it certainly would be inequitable to say that she had been estopped on account of what was done with the five thousand dollars in the hands of the trustees. there is another view of it. there has been, if the contracts are good, a partial performance; and that of itself would take it out of the statute of frauds. then the question is, if it is out of the statute of frauds, and if it is out because the contract has been partially performed, the next question, and, it seems to me, the only question that arises, is, has a court of equity the right to determine what the words "you shall be well provided for," "i will provide for you liberally in my will," or "i will make a liberal provision for you in my will"--what those words mean? according to the idea of counsel on the other side, the court is bound to decide according to the meaning that was in the mind of mr. russell. but there comes in here another principle. the only way we can find the meaning in his mind is by finding the words that he used; and we are not to import his meanness into the words, if he had meanness; neither would we import his generosity, if he had generosity. we would give to those words their natural meaning, apart from the thought of the one who used them, and apart from the thought of the one who heard them, because the words are known, their meaning is known and can be ascertained by the court. now, the word "reasonable" is about as hard a word to define as a court was ever called upon to define, and yet courts of law and courts of equity, in hundreds and thousands of instances, have passed upon the meaning of the word "reasonable," and have not only passed upon its meaning, but have given it from time to time definitions. a man must give reasonable care to the property of another given into his keeping. well, what is reasonable care? is it reasonable for him to take such care of it as he does of his own? not if he is unreasonably careless of his own. and the law takes another step, and says you must take such care of it as is reasonable, as a reasonable man would, and the courts then go on to define what a reasonable man under the circumstances would do. now, there is no word in the language that courts have been called upon to define that is vaguer--where the line between dawn and dusk, between light and dawn, has to be drawn with greater care or greater intelligence--than that word "reasonable." the word "appropriate" has been decided again and again. the word "necessary," the word "convenient," the word "suitable"--"suitable to his or her condition in life"--"suitable to the condition of the party"--all these words have been given judicial meaning hundreds and thousands of times. and now we come to the word "liberal," is that a hard word to define? everybody in the world has his notion of what liberal means. given the circumstances and the actions of the man, and everyone you meet is ready to decide whether he is liberal or illiberal. a man loses his pocketbook; five thousand dollars in it; a boy finds it, returns it to him, and he gives the boy five cents. there is not a man in the world, no matter whether he is a judge or not, who would say that was liberal--nobody. if there was only a dollar in the pocketbook and he gave him half of it, you would say that was liberal. you would have to take the circumstances into consideration. you also take into consideration the circumstances of the man who found it. if he is a poor man you can not be liberal unless you give him more than you would give the man who did not need it. what is a liberal provision for a wife that has no means of making her own living? if the man is able, nothing less than a sufficient sum to take care of her. suppose mr. vanderbilt, who is worth two or three hundred millions--i do not know what he is worth, and i do not care, but i suppose he is worth a hundred millions--should agree to make a liberal provision for his wife, and make it so that he gets away from the statute of frauds, and thereupon leaves her twenty-five hundred dollars. nobody would say that was liberal. why? because that word is capable of a clear and reasonably exact definition. to be liberal, he would have to leave her enough to live in the same style that she has been living in with him, and enough to keep her during her life. anything less than that would be illiberal, mean, contemptible. so i might go through all the actions of men in regard to contracts, payments, divisions. we all know what liberal means, and it always means a little more than the law could compel you to do. if a man hires another and says, "i will give you five dollars a day," and the other works twenty days, and he gives him one hundred dollars; nobody says he is liberal, and nobody says he is mean. but when the man goes further and says, "you have worked well; i am very much pleased with what you have done; there is fifty dollars (or twenty-five dollars) as a present," everybody says, "why, that is liberal, that is generous." but no man ever yet got the reputation of being generous by doing exactly what he was bound to do. he may have the reputation of being just, honest, of keeping his contracts, of being a good, fair, square man, but he never got the reputation of being generous, and he never got the reputation of being liberal, by simply doing what the law compelled him to do, or what his contract compelled him to do, or what he did in consideration of that for which he had received value. in this case russell said, "i will make a liberal provision for you in my will." if he had made no will the law would have given her one-third of his personal property. that would not have been liberal. that would simply have been the law. that is the law, and that is what the law has said is just. whether the law is right or not, i do not know, but that is what the law says. that is just, and no man can be liberal unless he goes just a little beyond justness--just a little. so when he says, "i will provide for you liberally in my will," in order to comply with that agreement he has got to go somewhat beyond the law, and the law says one-third; it is impossible for him to be liberal without going a little beyond one-third, and then he is only liberal to the extent that he does go beyond what the law fixes. now, it seems to me that there is no escape from that. neither does it seem to me that there is the slightest difficulty in your honor fixing what is liberal--no more difficulty than you would have in saying what is right; and we have hundreds of cases where a man has said, "if you will do so and so i will do what is right," and it has been enforced--has been enforced thousands and thousands of times. "i will do what is right," "i will do what is just," "i will do what is liberal," "i will do what is necessary and proper"--all these words have been judicially determined and their meaning fixed by hundreds and thousands of decisions. i do not see the slightest trouble in that. so, in this case, looking at the parole contract as bad--and it is bad--the woman is at the very least entitled to her dower; and the only way that she can be robbed of it is by holding that a contract is good which was made by her without any knowledge of the value of the property that he held. but every decision says that makes the contract void, and that she is not bound to make examination herself; he is bound to give her that information. the law says that when two hearts come together in that way, and there is supposed to be affection, they must be candid. he must conceal nothing. his hands must be open; not only must what he says be the truth, but he must tell it all, and she cannot be bound by any contract that she does not make in the full blaze of all the facts. she must have them all, and if he keeps back any, if he makes himself poorer than he is, he destroys the contract. if he tries to take advantage of her the law says he only takes advantage of himself. the court is her attorney; the court appears for her for the preservation of her dower right; and the court will not allow a man to take advantage of any misstatement, of any suppression, of any fraud, no matter whether active fraud, or a fraud that rests in non-action. the court is her attorney and says the contract is bad, and if you try to deceive her you deceive yourself; and if you fail to put her in possession of all the facts the consideration of the contract fails and it is dead and done. if these decisions have any meaning, that is the law, and if there is a decision on the other side, i should like to hear it. i haven't found one, not one; and in all the cases where applications have been made to set aside an antenuptial contract, i have not found one where the disproportion was as great as it appears in this case. the difference is between six thousand five hundred dollars and an estate of a quarter of a million. i have not found one that had anywhere near that disproportion, and yet case after case is set aside on the disproportion of about four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a year and the fortune of eighteen thousand dollars--one where it is thirty thousand and she gets about five hundred dollars. i do not know of a solitary case where the deception was as great as in this. i do not say that he intentionally deceived, because i do not know, and, as mr. pancoast remarked, he is dead. we simply go on the facts that are shown. now, as to the value of the property, i do not think there is any real dispute about that. mr. russell is one of the executors, and when he went over the real estate here on the stand he had in his hand a list of all that real estate, with the values put upon it by our two witnesses; and he was asked the value, and he looked at the parcel, and he looked at the amount, and i tried it here myself, just to see if i could guess what his answer would be. i deducted in my own mind fifty per cent, sometimes, sometimes thirty per cent., sometimes forty per cent., and i hit it within five dollars in fifteen cases, just guessing by myself what he would say, because i knew that he was going by the figures without the slightest reference, in many cases, to what the property was worth. he estimated one parcel at two thousand two hundred dollars; i think it was worth about five thousand dollars. he fixed another at three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars; i think it is worth about five thousand dollars. he fixed a third at four hundred dollars; i think it is worth about six hundred dollars. when he was asked about those same parcels, without the figures he sometimes went beyond the price that our experts had fixed; sometimes he doubled his own price, and sometimes he fell below his price. i think in one or two instances he even fell below; but that at the time he had in his mind, any knowledge apart from the figures that had been made by the experts, i do not believe. the vice chancellor: is it of any significance? if your argument is right the disproportion is so great that it makes no difference. mr. ingersoll: perhaps not. then his co-executor was not called at all. so i take it that we can safely say that the property was worth in all two hundred thousand dollars, taking it according to their own estimate. the estimate of the man who fixed it on account of the inheritance tax, i do not think is of any weight. he did not go over it all and did not see it. i say the disproportion is so great--they having failed to show that the knowledge was in her possession, put there by him--that the contract must be set aside. that we insist upon. one of two things has to be done, it seems to me: both those contracts set aside and her dower in the real estate given to her, or both contracts allowed to stand and the court to fix what is a liberal provision in the will--and in that, for one, i see no difficulty. "liberal" is a word as easily understood at least as the word "reasonable"--certainly as the word "necessary," certainly as the word "convenient," certainly as the word "suitable," and in fact i might say as almost any other word except some scientific term that limits its own definition. now, we have already said that a liberal provision could not be less than the law gives us. in that view of the case, she should have, in lieu of her dower, the five thousand dollars, and, on account of the will she should have at least whatever one-third of the personal property is worth. it seems to me that one of those two courses must be pursued. here is an old man who wants to get a woman some twenty-five years younger than he is. just think how mr. pancoast's blood would throb at a woman twenty-five years younger than he. think what visions would haunt his brain. think of the cupids that, with outstretched wings, would follow in the darkness of the night as he contemplated his happiness. here was a man of that age who wanted this woman, and taking into consideration his ideas of money--a man that considered a thousand dollars a liberal provision; one worth two hundred and thirty thousand dollars or two hundred and forty thousand dollars, offering her five thousand dollars--he wanted her badly. you can hardly think of a more wonderful thought visiting his brain than that of giving all that money for a woman nearly twenty-five years younger than himself. i want to be kind to mr. russell; i want to say that he was honestly in love with this woman. i want to be respectful to her by saying that the affection was reciprocated, and that on her part it was absolutely honest. but i do say that mr. russell withheld from her the information as to his property. mr. russell endeavored to drive the best bargain he could, and i say that by keeping back the facts that he was bound to make known to her, he defeated himself--that while he did deceive her, he destroyed his contract. now, by no way of reasoning i can think of can you arrive at any different conclusion. all matters of this kind, of course, should be dealt with from a high standard, the highest standard we have, the very highest. the affection that man has for woman is, in my judgment, the holiest and the most beautiful thing in nature; the affection that woman has for man--that affection, that something that we call love--has done all there is of value in the world. it has civilized mankind; made all the poems, painted all the pictures, and composed all the music. take it from the world and we shall be simply wild beasts--far worse than wild beasts, for they have affection for each other and for their young. so i say this should be treated from the highest possible standpoint, and treating it in that way your honor must say that a woman must act with a full knowledge of every fact that had any bearing upon the question to be decided by her; and if she was not put in possession of all of these facts, by the man who said he loved her, then the contract is void. on the other hand, if the contract is held valid, and with it the agreement to provide liberally for her in his will, then i say that there can be no liberality that does not go beyond the law. in the one case she is entitled to five thousand dollars and one-third of the personalty, and in the other case she is entitled to her dower. instructions: this is a multi volume index file the index has links to all volumes. follow these instructions if you would like to have your own copy of this index and all the volumes of the pg freethinkers, on your hard disk. doing so will allow this index to be used with all the many links to the volumes and chapters when you are not connected to the internet: . go to your download directory and double-click on the downloaded file ( -h.zip), and move the directory -h to this or any other directory you would like. then double-click on -h; you will see several directories: you may rename the directory named files to any name you wish, such as freethinkers. you may move this file to any directory on your computer. . in the newly named directory containing all the ebooks in this set you will find a file named index; this may be moved toany directory on your computer. this index file or its shorcut allows you to open all of the off-line files, chapters and illustrations in this set now on your hard disk. the name of the shortcut may of course be renamed as you wish, for example: freethinkers index. when using the index or any of the files you may use the back button to return from any link. . this archive of project gutenberg ebooks in the files directory (see instruction # ) also includes, in addition to the usual html files for your computer, two sets of mobile viewer files for kindles, nooks and others which use .mobi or .epub formats. there is no index for these as after you download them to your mobile viewer it will automatially list the new title names in the usual place. the directories are named: "epub" and "mobi". double click on the directory which applies to your mobile viewer and move all the enclosed files to your device using the same connection technique you are familiar with when you have downloaded any commercial ebooks from your computer. the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "my creed is this: happiness is the only good. the place to be happy is here. the time to be happy is now. the way to be happy is to help make others so." in twelve volumes, volume xii. miscellany dresden edition prof. van buren denslow's "modern thinkers." if others who read this book get as much information as i did from the advance sheets, they will feel repaid a hundred times. it is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. such men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their own. while this book will greatly add to the information of all who read it, it may not increase the happiness of some to find that swedenborg was really insane. but when they remember that he was raised by a bishop, and disappointed in love, they will cease to wonder at his mental condition. certainly an admixture of theology and "dis-prized love" is often sufficient to compel reason to abdicate the throne of the mightiest soul. the trouble with swedenborg was that he changed realities into dreams, and then out of the dreams made facts upon which he built, and with which he constructed his system. he regarded all realities as shadows cast by ideas. to him the material was the unreal, and things were definitions of the ideas of god. he seemed to think that he had made a discovery when he found that ideas were back of words, and that language had a subjective as well as an objective origin; that is that the interior meaning had been clothed upon. of course, a man capable of drawing the conclusion that natural reason cannot harmonize with spiritual truth because in a dream, he had seen a beetle that could not use its feet, is capable of any absurdity of which the imagination can conceive. the fact is, that swedenborg believed the bible. that was his misfortune. his mind had been overpowered by the bishop, but the woman had not utterly destroyed his heart. he was shocked by the liberal interpretation of the scriptures, and sought to avoid the difficulty by giving new meanings consistent with the decency and goodness of god. he pointed out a way to preserve the old bible with a new interpretation. in this way infidelity could be avoided; and, in his day, that was almost a necessity. had swedenborg taken the ground that the bible was not inspired, the ears of the world would have been stopped. his readers believed in the dogma of inspiration, and asked, not how to destroy the scriptures, but for some way in which they might be preserved. he and his followers unconsciously rendered immense service to the cause of intellectual enfranchisement by their efforts to show the necessity of giving new meanings to the barbarous laws, and cruel orders of jehovah. for this purpose they attacked with great fury the literal text, taking the ground that if the old interpretation was right, the bible was the work of savage men. they heightened in every way the absurdities, cruelties and contradictions of the scriptures for the purpose of showing that a new interpretation must be found, and that the way pointed out by swedenborg was the only one by which the bible could be saved. great men are, after all the instrumentalities of their time. the heart of the civilized world was beginning to revolt at the cruelties ascribed to god, and was seeking for some interpretation of the bible that kind and loving people could accept. the method of interpretation found by swedenborg was suitable for all. each was permitted to construct his own "science of correspondence" and gather such fruits as he might prefer. in this way the ravings of revenge can instantly be changed to mercy's melting tones, and murder's dagger to a smile of love. in this way and in no other, can we explain the numberless mistakes and crimes ascribed to god. thousands of most excellent people, afraid to throw away the idea of inspiration, hailed with joy a discovery that allowed them to write a bible for themselves. but, whether swedenborg was right or not, every man who reads a book, necessarily gets from that book all that he is capable of receiving. every man who walks in the forest, or gathers a flower, or looks at a picture, or stands by the sea, gets all the intellectual wealth he is capable of receiving. what the forest, the flower, the picture or the sea is to him, depends upon his mind, and upon the stage of development he has reached. so that after all, the bible must be a different book to each person who reads it, as the revelations of nature depend upon the individual to whom they are revealed, or by whom they are discovered. and the extent of the revelation or discovery depends absolutely upon the intellectual and moral development of the person to whom, or by whom, the revelation or discovery is made. so that the bible cannot be the same to any two people, but each one must necessarily interpret it for himself. now, the moment the doctrine is established that we can give to this book such meanings as are consistent with our highest ideals; that we can treat the old words as purses or old stockings in which to put our gold, then, each one will, in effect, make a new inspired bible for himself, and throw the old away. if his mind is narrow, if he has been raised by ignorance and nursed by fear, he will believe in the literal truth of what he reads. if he has a little courage he will doubt, and the doubt will with new interpretations modify the literal text; but if his soul is free he will with scorn reject it all. swedenborg did one thing for which i feel almost grateful. he gave an account of having met john calvin in hell. nothing connected with the supernatural could be more perfectly natural than this. the only thing detracting from the value of this report is, that if there is a hell, we know without visiting the place that john calvin must be there. all honest founders of religions have been the dreamers of dreams, the sport of insanity, the prey of visions, the deceivers of others and of themselves. all will admit that swedenborg was a man of great intellect, of vast acquirements and of honest intentions; and i think it equally clear that upon one subject, at least, his mind was touched, shattered and shaken. misled by analogies, imposed upon by the bishop, deceived by the woman, borne to other worlds upon the wings of dreams, living in the twilight of reason and the dawn of insanity, he regarded every fact as a patched and ragged garment with a lining of the costliest silk, and insisted that the wrong side, even of the silk, was far more beautiful than the right. herbert spencer is almost the opposite of swedenborg. he relies upon evidence, upon demonstration, upon experience, and occupies himself with one world at a time. he perceives that there is a mental horizon that we cannot pierce, and that beyond that is the unknown--possibly the unknowable. he endeavors to examine only that which is capable of being examined, and considers the theological method as not only useless, but hurtful. after all, god is but a guess, throned and established by arrogance and assertion. turning his attention to those things that have in some way affected the condition of mankind, spencer leaves the unknowable to priests and to the believers in the "moral government" of the world. he sees only natural causes and natural results, and seeks to induce man to give up gazing into void and empty space, that he may give his entire attention to the world in which he lives. he sees that right and wrong do not depend upon the arbitrary will of even an infinite being, but upon the nature of things; that they are relations, not entities, and that they cannot exist, so far as we know, apart from human experience. it may be that men will finally see that selfishness and self-sacrifice are both mistakes; that the first devours itself; that the second is not demanded by the good, and that the bad are unworthy of it. it may be that our race has never been, and never will be, deserving of a martyr. sometime we may see that justice is the highest possible form of mercy and love, and that all should not only be allowed, but compelled to reap exactly what they sow; that industry should not support idleness, and that they who waste the spring and summer and autumn of their lives should bear the winter when it comes. the fortunate should assist the victims of accident; the strong should defend the weak, and the intellectual should lead, with loving hands, the mental poor; but justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate. mr. spencer is wise enough to declare that "acts are called good or bad according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends;" and he might have added, that ends are good or bad according as they affect the happiness of mankind. it would be hard to over-estimate the influence of this great man. from an immense intellectual elevation he has surveyed the world of thought. he has rendered absurd the idea of special providence, born of the egotism of savagery. he has shown that the "will of god" is not a rule for human conduct; that morality is not a cold and heartless tyrant; that by the destruction of the individual will, a higher life cannot be reached, and that after all, an intelligent love of self extends the hand of help and kindness to all the human race. but had it not been for such men as thomas paine, herbert spencer could not have existed for a century to come. some one had to lead the way, to raise the standard of revolt, and draw the sword of war. thomas paine was a natural revolutionist. he was opposed to every government existing in his day. next to establishing a wise and just republic based upon the equal rights of man, the best thing that can be done is to destroy a monarchy. paine had a sense of justice, and had imagination enough to put himself in the place of the oppressed. he had, also, what in these pages is so felicitously expressed, "a haughty intellectual pride, and a willingness to pit his individual thought against the clamor of a world." i cannot believe that he wrote the letters of "junius," although the two critiques combined in this volume, entitled "paine" and "junius," make by far the best argument upon that subject i have ever read. first, paine could have had no personal hatred against the men so bitterly assailed by junius. second, he knew, at that time, but little of english politicians, and certainly had never associated with men occupying the highest positions, and could not have been personally acquainted with the leading statesmen of england. third., he was not an unjust man. he was neither a coward, a calumniator, nor a sneak. all these delightful qualities must have lovingly united in the character of junius. fourth, paine could have had no reason for keeping the secret after coming to america. i have always believed that junius, after having written his letters, accepted office from the very men he had maligned, and at last became a pensioner of the victims of his slander. "had he as many mouths as hydra, such a course must have closed them all." certainly the author must have kept the secret to prevent the loss of his reputation. it cannot be denied that the style of junius is much like that of paine. should it be established that paine wrote the letters of junius, it would not, in my judgment, add to his reputation as a writer. regarded as literary efforts they cannot be compared with "common sense," "the crisis," or "the rights of man." the claim that paine was the real author of the declaration of independence is much better founded. i am inclined to think that he actually wrote it; but whether this is true or not, every idea contained in it had been written by him long before. it is now claimed that the original document is in paine's handwriting. it certainly is not in jefferson's. certain it is, that jefferson could not have written anything so manly, so striking, so comprehensive, so clear, so convincing, and so faultless in rhetoric and rhythm as the declaration of independence. paine was the first man to write these words, "the united states of america." he was the first great champion of absolute separation from england. he was the first to urge the adoption of a federal constitution; and, more clearly than any other man of his time, he perceived the future greatness of this country. he has been blamed for his attack on washington. the truth is, he was in prison in france. he had committed the crime of voting, against the execution of the king it was the grandest act of his life, but at that time to be merciful was criminal. paine; being an american citizen, asked washington, then president, to say a word to robespierre in his behalf. washington remained silent. in the calmness of power, the serenity, of fortune, washington the president, read the request of paine, the prisoner, and with the complacency of assured fame, consigned to the wastebasket of forgetfulness the patriot's cry for help. "time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster of ingratitudes. those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd as fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done." in this controversy, my sympathies are with the prisoner. paine did more to free the mind, to destroy the power of ministers and priests in the new world, than any other man. in order to answer his arguments, the churches found it necessary to attack his character. there was a general resort to falsehood. in trying to destroy the reputation of paine, the churches have demoralized themselves. nearly every minister has been a willing witness against the truth. upon the grave of thomas paine, the churches of america have sacrificed their honor. the influence of the hero author increases every day, and there are more copies of the "age of reason" sold in the united states, than of any work written in defence of the christian religion. hypocrisy, with its forked tongue, its envious and malignant heart, lies coiled upon the memory of paine, ready to fasten its poisonous fangs in the reputation of any man who dares defend the great and generous dead. leaving the dust and glory of revolutions, let us spend a moment of quiet with adam smith. i was glad to find that a man's ideas upon the subject of protection and free trade depend almost entirely upon the country in which he lives, or the business in which he happens to be engaged, and that, after all, each man regards the universe as a circumference of which he is the center. it gratified me to learn that even adam smith was no exception to this rule, and that he regarded all "protection as a hurtful and ignorant interference," except when exercised for the good of great britain. owing to the fact that his nationality quarreled with his philosophy, he succeeded in writing a book that is quoted with equal satisfaction by both parties. the protectionists rely upon the exceptions he made for england, and the free traders upon the doctrines laid down for other countries. he seems to have reasoned upon the question of money precisely as we have, of late years, in the united states; and he has argued both sides equally well. poverty asks for inflation. wealth is conservative, and always says there is money enough. upon the question of money, this volume contains the best thing i have ever read: "the only mode of procuring the service of others, on any large scale, in the absence of money, is by force, which is slavery. money, by constituting a medium in which the smallest services can be paid for, substitutes wages for the lash, and renders the liberty of the individual consistent with the maintenance and support of society." there is more philosophy in that one paragraph than adam smith expresses in his whole work. it may truthfully be said, that without money, liberty is impossible. no one, whatever his views may be, can read the article on adam smith without profit and delight. the discussion of the money question is in every respect admirable, and is as candid as able. the world will sooner or later learn that there is nothing miraculous in finance; that money is a real and tangible thing, a product of labor, serving not merely as a medium of exchange but as a basis of credit as well; that it cannot be created by an act of the legislature; that dreams cannot be coined, and that only labor, in some form, can put, upon the hand of want, alladin's magic ring. adam smith wrote upon the wealth of nations, while charles fourier labored for the happiness of mankind. in this country, few seem to understand communism. while here, it may be regarded as vicious idleness, armed with the assassin's knife and the incendiary's torch, in europe, it is a different thing. there, it is a reaction from feudalism. nobility is communism in its worst possible form. nothing can be worse than for idleness to eat the bread of industry. communism in europe is not the "stand and deliver" of the robber, but the protest of the robbed. centuries ago, kings and priests, that is to say, thieves and hypocrites, divided europe among themselves. under this arrangement, the few were masters and the many slaves. nearly every government in the old world rests upon simple brute force. it is hard for the many to understand why the few should own the soil. neither can they clearly see why they should give their brain and blood to those who steal their birthright and their bread. it has occurred to them that they who do the most should not receive the least, and that, after all, an industrious peasant is of far more value to the world than a vain and idle king. the communists of france, blinded as they were, made the republic possible. had they joined with their countrymen, the invaders would have been repelled, and some napoleon would still have occupied the throne. socialism perceives that germany has been enslaved by victory, while france found liberty in defeat. in russia the nihilists prefer chaos to the government of the bayonet, siberia and the knout, and these intrepid men have kept upon the coast of despotism one beacon fire of hope. as a matter of fact, every society is a species of communism--a kind of co-operation in which selfishness, in spite of itself, benefits the community. every industrious man adds to the wealth, not only of his nation, but to that of the world. every inventor increases human power, and every sculptor, painter and poet adds to the value of human life. fourier, touched by the sufferings of the poor as well as by the barren joys of hoarded wealth, and discovering the vast advantages of combined effort, and the immense economy of co-operation, sought to find some way for men to help themselves by helping each other. he endeavored to do away with monopoly and competition, and to ascertain some method by which the sensuous, the moral, and the intellectual passions of man could be gratified. for my part i can place no confidence in any system that does away, or tends to do away, with the institution of marriage. i can conceive of no civilization of which the family must not be the unit. societies cannot be made; they must grow. philosophers may predict, but they cannot create. they may point out as many ways as they please; but after all, humanity will travel in paths of its own. fourier sustained about the same relation to this world that swedenborg did to the other. there must be something wrong about the brain of one who solemnly asserts that, "the elephant, the ox and the diamond, were created by the sun; the horse, the lily and the ruby, by saturn; the cow, the jonquil and the topaz by jupiter; and the dog, the violet and the opal stones by the earth itself." and yet, forgetting these aberrations of the mind, this lunacy of a great and loving soul, for one, i hold in tender-est regard the memory of charles fourier, one of the best and noblest of our race. while fourier was in his cradle, jeremy bentham, who read history when three years old, played on the violin at five, "and at fifteen detected the fallacies of blackstone," was demonstrating that the good was the useful; that a thing was right because it paid in the highest and best sense; that utility was the basis of morals; that without allowing interest to be paid upon money commerce could not exist; and that the object of all human governments should be to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number. he read hume and helvetius, threw away the thirty-nine articles, and endeavored to impress upon the english law the fact that its ancestor was a feudal savage. he held the past in contempt, hated westminster and despised oxford. he combated the idea that governments were originally founded on contract. locke and blackstone talked as though men originally lived apart, and formed societies by agreement. these writers probably imagined that at one time the trees were separated like telegraph poles, and finally came together and made groves by agreement. i believe that it was pufendorf who said that slavery was originally founded on contract. to which voltaire replied:--"if my lord pufendorf will produce the original contract _signed by the party who was to be the slave_, i will admit the truth of his statement." a contract back of society is a myth manufactured by those in power to serve as a title to place, and to impress the multitude with the idea that they are, in some mysterious way, bound, fettered, and even benefited by its terms. the glory of bentham is, that he gave the true basis of morals, and furnished statesmen with the star and compass of this sentence:--"the greatest happiness of the greatest number." most scientists have deferred to the theologians. they have admitted that some questions could not, at present, be solved. these admissions have been thankfully received by the clergy, who have always begged for some curtain to be left, behind which their god could still exist. men calling themselves "scientific" have tried to harmonize the "apparent" discrepancies between the bible and the _other_ works of jehovah. in this way they have made reputations. they were at once quoted by the ministers as wonderful examples of piety and learning. these men discounted the future that they might enjoy the ignorant praise of the present. agassiz preferred the applause of boston, while he lived, to the reverence of a world after he was dead. small men appear great only when they agree with the multitude. the last scientific congress in america was opened with prayer. think of a science that depends upon the efficacy of words addressed to the unknown and unknowable! in our country, most of the so-called scientists are professors in sectarian colleges, in which moses is considered a geologist, and joshua an astronomer. for the most part their salaries depend upon the ingenuity with which they can explain away facts and dodge demonstration. the situation is about the same in england. when mr. huxley saw fit to attack the mosaic account of the creation, he did not deem it advisable to say plainly what he meant. he attacked the account of creation as given by milton, although he knew that the mosaic and miltonic were substantially the same. science has acted like a guest without a wedding garment, and has continually apologized for existing. in the presence of arrogant absurdity, overawed by the patronizing airs of a successful charlatan, it has played the role of a "poor relation," and accepted, while sitting below the salt, insults as honors. there can be no more pitiable sight than a scientist in the employ of superstition dishonoring himself without assisting his master. but there are a multitude of brave and tender men who give their honest thoughts, who are true to nature, who give the facts and let consequences shirk for themselves, who know the value and meaning of a truth, and who have bravely tried the creeds by scientific tests. among the bravest, side by side with the greatest of the world, in germany, the land of science, stands ernst haeckel, who may be said to have not only demonstrated the theories of darwin, but the monistic conception of the world. rejecting all the puerile ideas of a personal creator, he has had the courage to adopt the noble words of bruno:--"a spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but it contains a part of the divine substance within itself, by which it is animated." he has endeavored--and i think with complete success--to show that there is not, and never was, and never can be the _creator_ of anything. there is no more a personal creator than there is a personal destroyer. matter and force must have existed from eternity, all generation must have been spontaneous, and the simplest organisms must have been the ancestors of the most perfect and complex. haeckel is one of the bitterest enemies of the church, and is, therefore, one of the bravest friends of man. catholicism was, at one time, the friend of education--of an education sufficient to make a catholic out of a barbarian. protestantism was also in favor of education--of an education sufficient to make a protestant out of a catholic. but now, it having been demonstrated that real education will make freethinkers, catholics and protestants both are the enemies of true learning. in all countries where human beings are held in bondage, it is a crime to teach a slave to read and write. masters know that education is an abolitionist, and theologians know that science is the deadly foe of every creed in christendom. in the age of faith, a personal god stood at the head of every department of ignorance, and was supposed to be the king of kings, the rewarder and punisher of individuals, and the governor of nations. the worshipers of this god have always regarded the men in love with simple facts, as atheists in disguise. and it must be admitted that nothing is more atheistic than a fact. pure science is necessarily godless, it is incapable of worship. it investigates, and cannot afford to shut its eyes even long enough to pray. there was a time when those who disputed the divine right of kings were denounced as blasphemous; but the time came when liberty demanded that a personal god should be retired from politics. in our country this was substantially done in , when our fathers declared that all power to govern came from the consent of the governed. the cloud-theory was abandoned, and one government has been established for the benefit of mankind. our fathers did not keep god out of the constitution from principle, but from jealousy. each church, in colonial times, preferred to live in single blessedness rather than see some rival wedded to the state. mutual hatred planted our tree of religious liberty. a constitution without a god has at last given us a nation without a slave. a personal god sustains the same relation to religion as to politics. the deity is a master, and man a serf; and this relation is inconsistent with true progress. the universe ought to be a pure democracy--an infinite republic without a tyrant and without a chain. auguste comte endeavored to put humanity in the place of jehovah, and no conceivable change can be more desirable than this. this great man did not, like some of his followers, put a mysterious something called law in the place of god, which is simply giving the old master a new name. law is this side of phenomena, not the other. it is not the cause, neither is it the result of phenomena. the fact of succession and resemblance, that is to say, the same thing happening under the same conditions, is all we mean by law. no one can conceive of a law existing apart from matter, or controlling matter, any more than he can understand the eternal procession of the holy ghost, or motion apart from substance. we are beginning to see that law does not, and cannot exist as an entity, but that it is only a conception of the mind to express the fact that the same entities, under the same conditions, produce the same results. law does not produce the entities, the conditions, or the results, or even the sameness of the results. neither does it affect the relations of entities, nor the result of such relations, but it stands simply for the fact that the same causes, under the same conditions, eternally have produced and eternally will produce the same results. the metaphysicians are always giving us explanations of phenomena which are as difficult to understand as the phenomena they seek to explain; and the believers in god establish their dogmas by miracles, and then substantiate the miracles by assertion. the designer of the teleologist, the first cause of the religious philosopher, the vital force of the biologist, and the law of the half-orthodox scientist, are all the shadowy children of ignorance and fear. the universe is all there is. it is both subject and object; contemplator and contemplated; creator and created; destroyer and destroyed; preserver and preserved; and within itself are all causes, modes, motions and effects. unable in some things to rise above the superstitions of his day, comte adopted not only the machinery, but some of the prejudices, of catholicism. he made the mistake of luther. he tried to reform the church of rome. destruction is the only reformation of which that church is capable. every religion is based upon a misconception, not only of the cause of phenomena, but of the real object of life; that is to say, upon falsehood; and the moment the truth is known and understood, these religions must fall. in the field of thought, they are briers, thorns, and noxious weeds; on the shores of intellectual discovery, they are sirens, and in the forests that the brave thinkers are now penetrating, they are the wild beasts, fanged and monstrous. you cannot reform these weeds. sirens cannot be changed into good citizens; and such wild beasts, even when tamed, are of no possible use. destruction is the only remedy. reformation is a hospital where the new philosophy exhausts its strength nursing the old religion. there was, in the brain of the great frenchman, the dawn of that happy day in which humanity will be the only religion, good the only god, happiness the only object, restitution the only atonement, mistake the only sin, and affection, guided by intelligence, the only savior of mankind. this dawn enriched his poverty, illuminated the darkness of his life, peopled his loneliness with the happy millions yet to be, and filled his eyes with proud and tender tears. a few years ago i asked the superintendent of pere la chaise if he knew where i could find the tomb of auguste comte. he had never heard even the name of the author of the "positive philosophy." i asked him if he had ever heard of napoleon bonaparte. in a half-insulted tone, he replied, "of course i have, why do you ask me such a question?" "simply," was my answer, "that i might have the opportunity of saying, that when everything connected with napoleon, except his crimes, shall have been forgotten, auguste comte will be lovingly remembered as a benefactor of the human race." the jewish god must be dethroned! a personal deity must go back to the darkness of barbarism from whence he came. the theologians must abdicate, and popes, priests, and clergymen, labeled as "extinct species," must occupy the mental museums of the future. in my judgment, this book, filled with original thought, will hasten the coming of that blessed time. washington, d. c., nov. , . preface to dr. edgar c. beall's "the brain and the bible." this book, written by a brave and honest man, is filled with brave and honest thoughts. the arguments it presents can not be answered by all the theologians in the world. the author is convinced that the universe is natural, that man is naturally produced, and that there is a necessary relation between character and brain. he sees, and clearly sees, that the theological explanation of phenomena is only a plausible absurdity, and, at best, as great a mystery as it tries to solve. i thank the man who breaks, or tries to break, the chains of custom, creed, and church, and gives in plain, courageous words, the product of his brain. it is almost impossible to investigate any subject without somewhere touching the religious prejudices of ourselves or others. most people judge of the truth of a proposition by the consequences upon some preconceived opinion. certain things they take as truths, and with this little standard in their minds, they measure all other theories. if the new facts do not agree with the standard, they are instantly thrown away, because it is much easier to dispose of the new facts than to reconstruct an entire philosophy. a few years ago, when men began to say that character could be determined by the form, quantity, and quality of the brain, the religious world rushed to the conclusion that this fact might destroy what they were pleased to call the free moral agency of man. they admitted that all things in the physical world were links in the infinite chain of causes and effects, and that not one atom of the material universe could, by any possibility, be entirely exempt from the action of every other. they insisted that, if the motions of the spirit--the thoughts, dreams, and conclusions of the brain, were as necessarily produced as stones and stars, virtue became necessity, and morality the result of forces capable of mathematical calculation. in other words, they insisted that, while there were causes for all material phenomena, a something called the will sat enthroned above all law, and dominated the phenomena of the intellectual world. they insisted that man was free; that he controlled his brain; that he was responsible for thought as well as action; that the intellectual world of each man was a universe in which his will was king. they were afraid that phrenology might, in some way, interfere with the scheme of salvation, or prevent the eternal torment of some erring soul. it is insisted that man is free, and is responsible, because he knows right from wrong. but the compass does not navigate the ship; neither does it, in any way, of itself, determine the direction that is taken. when winds and waves are too powerful, the compass is of no importance. the pilot may read it correctly, and may know the direction the ship ought to take, but the compass is not a force. so men, blown by the tempests of passion, may have the intellectual conviction that they should go another way; but, of what use, of what force, is the conviction? thousands of persons have gathered curious statistics for the purpose of showing that man is absolutely dominated by his surroundings. by these statistics is discovered what is called "the law of average." they show that there are about so many suicides in london every year, so many letters misdirected at paris, so many men uniting themselves in marriage with women older than themselves in belgium, so many burglaries to one murder in france, or so many persons driven insane by religion in the united states. it is asserted that these facts conclusively show that man is acted upon; that behind each thought, each dream, is the efficient cause, and that the doctrine of moral responsibility has been destroyed by statistics. but, does the fact that about so many crimes are committed on the average, in a given population, or that so many any things are done, prove that there is no freedom in human action? suppose a population of ten thousand persons; and suppose, further, that they are free, and that they have the usual wants of mankind. is it not reasonable to say that they would act in some way? they certainly would take measures to obtain food, clothing, and shelter. if these people differed in intellect, in surroundings, in temperament, in strength, it is reasonable to suppose that all would not be equally successful. under such circumstances, may we not safely infer that, in a little while, if the statistics were properly taken, a law of average would appear? in other words, free people would act; and, being different in mind, body, and circumstances, would not all act exactly alike. all would not be alike acted upon. the deviations from what might be thought wise, or right, would sustain such a relation to time and numbers that they could be expressed by a law of average. if this is true, the law of average does not establish necessity. but, in my supposed case, the people, after all, are not free. they have wants. they are under the necessity of feeding, clothing, and sheltering themselves. to the extent of their actual wants, they are not free. every limitation is a master. every finite being is a prisoner, and no man has ever yet looked above or beyond the prison walls. our highest conception of liberty is to be free from the dictation of fellow prisoners. to the extent that we have wants, we are not free. to the extent that we do not have wants, we do not act. if we are responsible for our thoughts, we ought not only to know how they are formed, but we ought to form them. if we are the masters of our own minds, we ought to be able to tell what we are going to think at any future time. evidently, the food of thought--its very warp and woof--is furnished through the medium of the senses. if we open our eyes, we cannot help seeing. if we do not stop our ears, we cannot help hearing. if anything touches us, we feel it. the heart beats in spite of us. the lungs supply themselves with air without our knowledge. the blood pursues its old accustomed rounds, and all our senses act without our leave. as the heart beats, so the brain thinks. the will is not its king. as the blood flows, as the lungs expand, as the eyes see, as the ears hear, as the flesh is sensitive to touch, so the brain thinks. i had a dream, in which i debated a question with a friend. i thought to myself: "this is a dream, and yet i can not tell what my opponent is going to say. yet, if it is a dream, i am doing the thinking for both sides, and therefore ought to know in advance what my friend will urge." but, in a dream, there is some one who seems to talk to us. our own brain tells us news, and presents an unexpected thought. is it not possible that each brain is a field where all the senses sow the seeds of thought? some of these fields are mostly barren, poor, and hard, producing only worthless weeds; and some grow sturdy oaks and stately palms; and some are like the tropic world, where plants and trees and vines seem royal children of the soil and sun. nothing seems more certain than that the capacity of a human being depends, other things being equal, upon the amount, form, and quality of his brain. we also know that health, disposition, temperament, occupation, food, surroundings, ancestors, quality, form, and texture of the brain, determine what we call character. man is, collectively and individually, what his surroundings have made him. nations differ from each other as greatly as individuals in the same nation. nations depend upon soil, climate, geographical position, and countless other facts. shakespeare would have been impossible without the climate of england. there is a direct relation between hamlet and the gulf stream. dr. draper has shown that the great desert of sahara made negroes possible in africa. if the caribbean sea had been a desert, negroes might have been produced in america. are the effects of climate upon man necessary effects? is it possible for man to escape them? is he responsible for what he does as a consequence of his surroundings? is the mind dependent upon causes? does it act without cause? is every thought a necessity? can man choose without reference to any quality in the thing chosen? no one will blame mr. brown or mr. jones for not writing like shakespeare. should they be blamed for not acting like christ? we say that a great painter has genius. is it not possible that a certain genius is required to be what is called "good"? all men cannot be great. all men cannot be successful. can all men be kind? can all men be honest? it may be that a crime appears terrible in proportion as we realize its consequences. if this is true, morality may depend largely upon the imagination. man cannot have imagination at will; that, certainly, is a natural product. and yet, a man's action may depend largely upon the want of imagination. one man may feel that he really wishes to kill another. he may make preparations to commit the deed; and yet, his imagination may present such pictures of horror and despair; he may so vividly see the widow clasping the mangled corpse; he may so plainly hear the cries and sobs of orphans, while the clods fall upon the coffin, that his hand is stayed. another, lacking imagination, thirsting only for revenge, seeing nothing beyond the accomplishment of the deed, buries, with blind-and thoughtless hate, the dagger in his victim's heart. morality, for the most part, is the verdict of the majority. this verdict depends upon the intelligence of the people; and the intelligence depends upon the amount, form, and quality of the average brain. if the mind depends upon certain organs for the expression of its thought, does it have thought independently of those organs? is there any mind without brain? does the mind think apart from the brain, and then express its thought through the instrumentality of the brain? theologians tell us that insanity is not a disease of the soul, but of the brain; that the soul is perfectly untouched; but that the instrument with which, and through which, it manifests itself, is impaired. the fact, however, seems to be, that the mind, the something that is the man, is unconscious of the fact that anything is out of order in the brain. insane people insist that they are sane. if we should find a locomotive off the track, and the engineer using the proper appliances to put it back, we would say that the machine is out of order, but the engineer is not. but, if we found the locomotive upside down, with wheels in air, and the engineer insisting that it was on the track, and never running better, we would then conclude that something was wrong, not only with the locomotive, but with the engineer. we are told in medical books of a girl, who, at about the age of nine years, was attacked with some cerebral disease. when she recovered, she had forgotten all she ever knew, and had to relearn the alphabet, and the names of her parents and kindred. in this abnormal state, she was not a good girl; in the normal state, she was. after having lived in the second state for several years, she went back to the first; and all she had learned in the second state was forgotten, and all she had learned in the first was remembered. i believe she changed once more, and died in the abnormal state. in which of these states was she responsible? were her thoughts and actions as free in one as in the other? it may be contended that, in her diseased state, the mind or soul could not correctly express itself. if this is so, it follows that, as no one is perfectly healthy, and as no one has a perfect brain, it is impossible that the soul should ever correctly express itself. is the soul responsible for the defects of the brain? is it not altogether more rational to say, that what we call mind depends upon the brain, and that the child--mind, inherits the defects of its parent--brain? are certain physical conditions necessary to the production of what we call virtuous actions? is it possible for anything to be produced without what we call cause, and, if the cause was sufficient, was it not necessarily produced? do not most people mistake for freedom the right to examine their own chains? if morality depends upon conditions, should it not be the task of the great and good to discover such conditions? may it not be possible so to understand the brain that we can stop producing criminals? it may be insisted that there is something produced by the brain besides thought--a something that takes cognizance of thoughts--a something that weighs, compares, reflects and pronounces judgment. this something cannot find the origin of itself. does it exist independently of the brain? is it merely a looker-on? if it is a product of the brain, then its power, perception, and judgment depend upon the quantity, form, and quality of the brain. man, including all his attributes, must have been necessarily produced, and the product was the child of conditions. most reformers have infinite confidence in creeds, resolutions, and laws. they think of the common people as raw material, out of which they propose to construct institutions and governments, like mechanical contrivances, where each person will stand for a cog, rope, wheel, pulley, bolt, or fuel, and the reformers will be the managers and directors. they forget that these cogs and wheels have opinions of their own; that they fall out with other cogs, and refuse to turn with other wheels; that the pulleys and ropes have ideas peculiar to themselves, and delight in mutiny and revolution. these reformers have theories that can only be realized when other people have none. some time, it will be found that people can be changed only by changing their surroundings. it is alleged that, at least ninety-five per cent. of the criminals transported from england to australia and other penal colonies, became good and useful citizens in a new world. free from former associates and associations, from the necessities of a hard, cruel, and competitive civilization, they became, for the most part, honest people. this immense fact throws more light upon social questions than all the theories of the world. all people are not able to support themselves. they lack intelligence, industry, cunning--in short, capacity. they are continually falling by the way. in the midst of plenty, they are hungry. larceny is born of want and opportunity. in passion's storm, the will is wrecked upon the reefs and rocks of crime. the complex, tangled web of thought and dream, of perception and memory, of imagination and judgment, of wish and will and want--the woven wonder of a life--has never yet been raveled back to simple threads. shall we not become charitable and just, when we know that every act is but condition's fruit; that nature, with her countless hands, scatters the seeds of tears and crimes--of every virtue and of every joy; that all the base and vile are victims of the blind, and that the good and great have, in the lottery of life, by chance or fate, drawn heart and brain? washington, december , . preface to "men, women and gods." nothing gives me more pleasure, nothing gives greater promise for the future, than the fact that woman is achieving intellectual and physical liberty. it is refreshing to know that here, in our country, there are thousands of women who think, and express their thoughts--who are thoroughly free and thoroughly conscientious--who have neither been narrowed nor corrupted by a heartless creed--who do not worship a being in heaven whom they would shudderingly loathe on earth--women who do not stand before the altar of a cruel faith, with downcast eyes of timid acquiescence, and pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtless yes. they are no longer satisfied with being told. they examine for themselves. they have ceased to be the prisoners of society--the satisfied serfs of husbands, or the echoes of priests. they demand the rights that naturally belong to intelligent human beings. if wives, they wish to be the equals of husbands. if mothers, they wish to rear their children in the atmosphere of love, liberty and philosophy. they believe that woman can discharge all her duties without the aid of superstition, and preserve all that is true, pure, and tender, without sacrificing in the temple of absurdity the convictions of the soul. woman is not the intellectual inferior of man. she has lacked, not mind, but opportunity. in the long night of barbarism, physical strength and the cruelty to use it, were the badges of superiority. muscle was more than mind. in the ignorant age of faith, the loving nature of woman was abused. her conscience was rendered morbid and diseased. it might almost be said that she was betrayed by her own virtues. at best she secured, not opportunity, but flattery--the preface to degradation. she was deprived of liberty, and without that, nothing is worth the having. she was taught to obey without question, and to believe without thought. there were universities for men before the alphabet had been taught to women. at the intellectual feast, there were no places for wives and mothers. even now they sit at the second table and eat the crusts and crumbs. the schools for women, at the present time, are just far enough behind those for men, to fall heirs to the discarded; on the same principle that when a doctrine becomes too absurd for the pulpit, it is given to the sunday-school. the ages of muscle and miracle--of fists and faith--are passing away. minerva occupies at last a higher niche than hercules. now a word is stronger than a blow. at last we see women who depend upon themselves--who stand, self poised, the shocks of this sad world, without leaning for support against a church--who do not go to the literature of barbarism for consolation, or use the falsehoods and mistakes of the past for the foundation of their hope--women brave enough and tender enough to meet and bear the facts and fortunes of this world. the men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do not, and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their declaration. yet, i must admit that there are thousands of wives who still have faith in the saving power of superstition--who still insist on attending church while husbands prefer the shores, the woods, or the fields. in this way, families are divided. parents grow apart, and unconsciously the pearl of greatest price is thrown away. the wife ceases to be the intellectual companion of the husband. she reads _the christian register_, sermons in the monday papers, and a little gossip about folks and fashions, while he studies the works of darwin, haeckel, and humboldt. their sympathies become estranged. they are no longer mental friends. the husband smiles at the follies of the wife, and she weeps for the supposed sins of the husband. such wives should read this book. they should not be satisfied to remain forever in the cradle of thought, amused with the toys of superstition. the parasite of woman is the priest. it must also be admitted that there are thousands of men who believe that superstition is good for women and children--who regard falsehood as the fortress of virtue, and feel indebted to ignorance for the purity of daughters and the fidelity of wives. these men think of priests as detectives in disguise, and regard god as a policeman who prevents elopements. their opinions about religion are as correct as their estimate of woman. the church furnishes but little food for the mind. people of intelligence are growing tired of the platitudes of the pulpit--the iterations of the itinerants. the average sermon is "as tedious as a twice told tale vexing the ears of a drowsy man." one sunday a gentleman, who is a great inventor, called at my house. only a few words had passed between us, when he arose, saying that he must go as it was time for church. wondering that a man of his mental wealth could enjoy the intellectual poverty of the pulpit, i asked for an explanation, and he gave me the following: "you know that i am an inventor. well, the moment my mind becomes absorbed in some difficult problem, i am afraid that something may happen to distract my attention. now, i know that i can sit in church for an hour without the slightest danger of having the current of my thought disturbed." most women cling to the bible because they have been taught that to give up that book is to give up all hope of another life--of ever meeting again the loved and lost. they have also been taught that the bible is their friend, their defender, and the real civilizer of man. now, if they will only read this book--these three lectures, without fear, and then read the bible, they will see that the truth or falsity of the dogma of inspiration has nothing to do with the question of immortality. certainly the old testament does not teach us that there is another life, and upon that question even the new is obscure and vague. the hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs. there is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. united with the idea of immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. a prophecy that depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy the brain or heart. there are but few who do not long for a dawn beyond the night. and this longing is born of and nourished by the heart. love wrapped in shadow--bending with tear-filled eyes above its dead, convulsively clasps the outstretched hand of hope. i had the pleasure of introducing miss gardener to her first audience, and in that introduction said a few words that i will repeat. "we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings the rapture of love to every one. "under the seven-hued arch of hope let the dead sleep." they will also discover, as they read the "sacred volume," that it is not the friend of woman. they will find that the writers of that book, for the most part, speak of woman as a poor beast of burden, a serf, a drudge, a kind of necessary evil--as mere property. surely, a book that upholds polygamy is not the friend of wife and mother. even christ did not place woman on an equality with man. he said not one word about the sacredness of home, the duties of the husband to the wife--nothing calculated to lighten the hearts of those who bear the saddest burdens of this life. they will also find that the bible has not civilized mankind. a book that establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to soften the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of god. a book that not only permits, but commands, religious persecution, has not, in my judgment, developed the affectional nature of man. its influence has been bad and bad only. it has filled the world with bitterness, revenge and crime, and retarded in countless ways the progress of our race. the writer of this volume has read the bible with open eyes. the mist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision. she has had the courage to tell the result of her investigations. she has been quick to discover contradictions. she appreciates the humorous side of the stupidly solemn. her heart protests against the cruel, and her brain rejects the childish, the unnatural and absurd. there is no misunderstanding between her head and heart. she says what she thinks, and feels what she says. no human being can answer her arguments. there is no answer. all the priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. there is no explanation. they should remain dumb, unless they can show that the impossible is the probable--that slavery is better than freedom--that polygamy is the friend of woman--that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love and worship. wives who cease to learn--who simply forget and believe--will fill the evening of their lives with barren sighs and bitter tears. the mind should outlast youth. if when beauty fades, thought, the deft and unseen sculptor, hath not left his subtle lines upon the face, then all is lost. no charm is left. the light is out. there is no flame within to glorify the wrinkled clay. hoffman house, new york, july, , . preface to "for her daily bread." i have read, this story, this fragment of a life mingled with fragments of other lives, and have been pleased, interested, and instructed. it is filled with the pathos of truth, and has in it the humor that accompanies actual experience. it has but little to do with the world of imagination; certain feelings are not attributed to persons born of fancy, but it is the history of a heart and brain interested in the common things of life. there are no kings, no lords, no titled ladies, but there are real people, the people of the shop and street whom every reader knows, and there are lines intense and beautiful, and scenes that touch the heart. you will find no theories of government, no hazy outlines of reform, nothing but facts and folks, as they have been, as they are, and probably will be for many centuries to come. if you read this book you will be convinced that men and women are good or bad, charitable or heartless, by reason of something within, and not by virtue of any name they bear, or any trade or profession they follow, or of any creed they may accept. you will also find that men sometimes are honest and mean; that women may be very virtuous and very cruel; that good, generous and sympathetic men are often disreputable, and that some exceedingly worthy citizens are extremely mean and uncomfortable neighbors. it takes a great deal of genius and a good deal of selfdenial to be very bad or to be very good. few people understand the amount of energy, industry, and self-denial it requires to be consistently vicious. people who have a pride in being good and fail, and those who have a pride in being bad and fail, in order to make their records consistent generally rely upon hypocrisy. the people that live and hope and fear in this book, are much like the people who live and hope and fear in the actual world. the professor is much like the professor in the ordinary college. you will find the conscientious, half-paid teacher, the hopeful poor, the anxious rich, the true lover, the stingy philanthropist, who cares for people only in the aggregate,--the individual atom being too small to attract his notice or to enlist his heart; the sympathetic man who loves himself, and gives, not for the sake of the beggar, but for the sake of getting rid of the beggar, and you will also find the man generous to a fault--with the money of others. and the reader will find these people described naturally, truthfully and without exaggeration, and he will feel certain that all these people have really lived. the reader of this story will get some idea as to what is encountered by a girl in an honest effort to gain her daily bread. he will find how steep, how devious and how difficult is the path she treads. there are so few occupations open to woman, so few things in which she can hope for independence, that to be thrown upon her own resources is almost equivalent to being cast away. besides, she is an object of continual suspicion, watched not only by men but by women. if she does anything that other women are not doing, she is at once suspected, her reputation is touched, and other women, for fear of being stained themselves, withdraw not only the hand of help, but the smile of recognition. a young woman cannot defend herself without telling the charge that has been made against her. this, of itself, gives a kind of currency to slander. to speak of the suspicion that has crawled across her path, is to plant the seeds of doubt in other minds; to even deny it, admits that it exists. to be suspected, that is enough. there is no way of destroying this suspicion. there is no court in which suspicions are tried; no juries that can render verdicts of not guilty. most women are driven at last to the needle, and this does not allow them to live; it simply keeps them from dying. it is hard to appreciate the dangers and difficulties that lie in wait for woman. even in this christian country of ours, no girl is safe in the streets of any city after the sun has gone down. after all, the sun is the only god that has ever protected woman. in the darkness she has been the prey of the wild beast in man. nearly all charitable people, so-called, imagine that nothing is easier than to obtain work. they really feel that anybody, no matter what his circumstances may be, can get work enough to do if he is only willing to do the work. they cannot understand why any healthy human being should lack food or clothes. meeting the unfortunate and the wretched in the streets of the great city, they ask them in a kind of wondering way, why they do not go to the west, why they do not cultivate the soil, and why they are so foolish, stupid, and reckless as to remain in the town. it would be just as sensible to ask a beggar why he does not start a bank or a line of steamships, as to ask him why he does not cultivate the soil, or why he does not go to the west. the man has no money to pay his fare, and if his fare were paid he would be, when he landed in the west, in precisely the same condition as he was when he left the east. societies and institutions and individuals supply the immediate wants of the hungry and the ragged, but they afford only the relief of the moment. articles by the thousand have been written for the purpose of showing that women should become servants in houses, and the writers of these articles are filled with astonishment that any girl should hesitate to enter domestic service. they tell us that nearly every family needs a good cook, a good chambermaid, a good sweeper of floors and washer of dishes, a good stout girl to carry the baby and draw the wagon, and these good people express the greatest astonishment that all girls are not anxious to become domestics. they tell them that they will be supplied with good food, that they will have comfortable beds and warm clothing, and they ask, "what more do you want?" these people have not, however, solved the problem. if girls, as a rule, keep away from kitchens and chambers, if they hate to be controlled by other women, there must be a reason. when we see a young woman prefer a clerkship in a store,--a business which keeps her upon her feet all day, and sends her to her lonely room, filled with weariness and despair, and when we see other girls who are willing to sew for a few cents a day rather than become the maid of "my lady," there must be some reason, and this reason must be deemed sufficient by the persons who are actuated by it. what is it? every human being imagines that the future has something in store for him. it is natural to build these castles in spain. it is natural for a girl to dream of being loved by the noble, by the superb, and it is natural for the young man to dream of success, of a home, of a good, a beautiful and loving wife. these dreams are the solace of poverty; they keep back the tears in the eyes of the young and the hungry. to engage in any labor that degrades, in any work that leaves a stain, in any business the mention of which is liable to redden the cheek, seems to be a destruction of the foundation of hope, a destruction of the future; it seems to be a crucifixion of his or her better self. it assassinates the ideal. it may be said that labor is noble, that work is a kind of religion, and whoever says this tells the truth, but after all, what has the truth to do with this question? what is the opinion of society?--what is the result? it cures no wound to say that it was wrongfully inflicted. the opinion of sensible people is one way, the action of society is inconsistent with that opinion. domestic servants are treated as though their employment was and is a degradation. bankers, merchants, professional men, ministers of the gospel, do not want their sons to become the husbands of chambermaids and cooks. small hands are beautiful; they do not tell of labor. i have given one reason; there is another. the work of a domestic is never done. she is liable to be called at any moment, day or night. she has no time that she can call her own. a woman who works by the piece can take a little rest; if she is a clerk she has certain hours of labor and the rest of the day is her own. and there is still another reason that i almost hate to give, and that is this: as a rule, woman is exacting with woman. as a rule, woman does not treat woman as well as man treats man, or as well as man treats woman. there are many other reasons, but i have given enough. for many years, women have been seeking employment other than that of domestic service. they have so hated this occupation, that they have sought in every possible direction for other ways to win their bread. at last hundreds of employments are open to them, and, as a consequence, domestic servants are those who can get nothing else to do. in the olden time, servants sat at the table with the family; they were treated something like human beings, harshly enough to be sure, but in many cases almost as equals. now the kitchen is far away from the parlor. it is another world, occupied by individuals of a different race. there is no bond of sympathy--no common ground. this is especially true in a republic. in the old world, people occupying menial places account for their positions by calling attention to the laws--to the hereditary nobility and the universal spirit of caste. here, there are no such excuses. all are supposed to have equal opportunities, and those who are compelled to labor for their daily bread, in avocations that require only bodily strength, are regarded as failures. it is this fact that stabs like a knife. and yet in the conclusion drawn, there is but little truth. some of the noblest and best pass their lives in daily drudgery and unremunerative toil--while many of the mean, vicious and stupid reach place and power. this story is filled with sympathy for the destitute, for the struggling, and tends to keep the star of hope above the horizon of the unfortunate. after all, we know but little of the world, and have but a faint conception of the burdens that are borne, and of the courage and heroism displayed by the unregarded poor. let the rich read these pages; they will have a kinder feeling toward those who toil; let the workers read them, and they will think better of themselves. preface to "agnosticism and other essays." i. edgar fawcett--a great poet, a metaphysician and logician--has been for years engaged in exploring that strange world wherein are supposed to be the springs of human action. he has sought for something back of motives, reasons, fancies, passions, prejudices, and the countless tides and tendencies that constitute the life of man. he has found some of the limitations of mind, and knows that beginning at that luminous centre called consciousness, a few short steps bring us to the prison wall where vision fails and all light dies. beyond this wall the eternal darkness broods. this gloom is "the other world" of the supernaturalist. with him, real vision begins where the sight fails. he reverses the order of nature. facts become illusions, and illusions the only realities. he believes that the cause of the image, the reality, is behind the mirror. a few centuries ago the priests said to their followers: the other world is above you; it is just beyond where you see. afterward, the astronomer with his telescope looked, and asked the priests: where is the world of which you speak? and the priests replied: it has receded--it is just beyond where you see. as long as there is "a beyond," there is room for the priests' world. theology is the geography of this beyond. between the christian and the agnostic there is the difference of assertion and question--between "there is a god" and "is there a god?" the agnostic has the arrogance to admit his ignorance, while the christian from the depths of humility impudently insists that he knows. mr. fawcett has shown that at the root of religion lies the coiled serpent of fear, and that ceremony, prayer, and worship are ways and means to gain the assistance or soften the heart of a supposed deity. he also shows that as man advances in knowledge he loses confidence in the watchfulness of providence and in the efficacy of prayer. ii. science. the savage is certain of those things that cannot be known. he is acquainted with origin and destiny, and knows everything except that which is useful. the civilized man, having outgrown the ignorance, the arrogance, and the provincialism of savagery, abandons the vain search for final causes, for the nature and origin of things. in nearly every department of science man is allowed to investigate, and the discovery of a new fact is welcomed, unless it threatens some creed. of course there can be no advance in a religion established by infinite wisdom. the only progress possible is in the comprehension of this religion. for many generations, what is known under a vast number of disguises and behind many masks as the christian religion, has been propagated and preserved by the sword and bayonet--that is to say, by force. the credulity of man has been bribed and his reason punished. those who believed without the slightest question, and whose faith held evidence in contempt, were saints; those who investigated were dangerous, and those who denied were destroyed. every attack upon this religion has been made in the shadow of human and divine hatred--in defiance of earth and heaven. at one time christendom was beneath the ignorant feet of one man, and those who denied his infallibility were heretics and atheists. at last, a protest was uttered. the right of conscience was proclaimed, to the extent of making a choice between the infallible man and the infallible book. those who rejected the man and accepted the book became in their turn as merciless, as tyrannical and heartless, as the followers of the infallible man. the protestants insisted that an infinitely wise and good god would not allow criminals and wretches to act as his infallible agents. afterward, a few protested against the infallibility of the book, using the same arguments against the book that had formerly been used against the pope. they said that an infinitely wise and good god could not be the author of a cruel and ignorant book. but those who protested against the book fell into substantially the same error that had been fallen into by those who had protested against the man. while they denounced the book, and insisted that an infinitely wise and good being could not have been its author, they took the ground that an infinitely wise and good being was the creator and governor of the world. then was used against them the same argument that had been used by the protestants against the pope and by the deists against the protestants. attention was called to the fact that nature is as cruel as any pope or any book--that it is just as easy to account for the destruction of the canaanites consistently with the goodness of jehovah as to account for pestilence, earthquake, and flood consistently with the goodness of the god of nature. the protestant and deist both used arguments against the catholic that could in turn be used with equal force against themselves. so that there is no question among intelligent people as to the infallibility of the pope, as to the inspiration of the book, or as to the existence of the christian's god--for the conclusion has been reached that the human mind is incapable of deciding as to the origin and destiny of the universe. for many generations the mind of man has been traveling in a circle. it accepted without question the dogma of a first cause--of the existence of a creator--of an infinite mind back of matter, and sought in many ways to define its ignorance in this behalf. the most sincere worshipers have declared that this being is incomprehensible,--that he is "without body, parts, or passions"--that he is infinitely beyond their grasp, and at the same time have insisted that it was necessary for man not only to believe in the existence of this being, but to love him with all his heart. christianity having always been in partnership with the state,--having controlled kings and nobles, judges and legislators--having been in partnership with armies and with every form of organized destruction,--it was dangerous to discuss the foundation of its authority. to speak lightly of any dogma was a crime punishable by death. every absurdity has been bastioned and barricaded by the power of the state. it has been protected by fist, by club, by sword and cannon. for many years christianity succeeded in substantially closing the mouths of its enemies, and lived and flourished only where investigation and discussion were prevented by hypocrisy and bigotry. the church still talks about "evidence," about "reason," about "freedom of conscience" and the "liberty of speech," and yet denounces those who ask for evidence, who appeal to reason, and who honestly express their thoughts. to-day we know that the miracles of christianity are as puerile and false as those ascribed to the medicine-men of central africa or the fiji islanders, and that the "sacred scriptures" have the same claim to inspiration that the koran has, or the book of mormon--no less, no more. these questions have been settled and laid aside by free and intelligent people. they have ceased to excite interest; and the man who now really believes in the truth of the old testament is regarded with a smile-- looked upon as an aged child--still satisfied with the lullabys and toys of the cradle. iii. morality. it is contended that without religion--that is to say, without christianity--all ideas of morality must of necessity perish, and that spirituality and reverence will be lost. what is morality? is it to obey without question, or is it to act in accordance with perceived obligation? is it something with which intelligence has nothing to do? must the ignorant child carry out the command of the wise father--the rude peasant rush to death at the request of the prince? is it impossible for morality to exist where the brain and heart are in partnership? is there no foundation for morality except punishment threatened or reward promised by a superior to an inferior? if this be true, how can the superior be virtuous? cannot the reward and the threat be in the nature of things? can they not rest in consequences perceived by the intellect? how can the existence or non-existence of a deity change my obligation to keep my hands out of the fire? the results of all actions are equally certain, but not equally known, not equally perceived. if all men knew with perfect certainty that to steal from another was to rob themselves, larceny would cease. it cannot be said too often that actions are good or bad in the light of consequences, and that a clear perception of consequences would control actions. that which increases the sum of human happiness is moral; and that which diminishes the sum of human happiness is immoral. blind, unreasoning obedience is the enemy of morality. slavery is not the friend of virtue. actions are neither right nor wrong by virtue of what men or gods can say--the right or wrong lives in results--in the nature of things, growing out of relations violated or caused. accountability lives in the nature of consequences--in their absolute certainty--in the fact that they cannot be placated, avoided, or bribed. the relations of human life are too complicated to be accurately and clearly understood, and, as a consequence, rules of action vary from age to age. the ideas of right and wrong change with the experience of the race, and this change is wrought by the gradual ascertaining of consequences--of results. for this reason the religion of one age fails to meet the standard of another, precisely as the laws that satisfied our ancestors are repealed by us; so that, in spite of all efforts, religion itself is subject to gradual and perpetual change. the miraculous is no longer the basis of morals. man is a sentient being--he suffers and enjoys. in order to be happy he must preserve the conditions of well-being--must live in accordance with certain facts by which he is surrounded. if he violates these conditions the result is unhappiness, failure, disease, misery. man must have food, roof, raiment, fireside, friends--that is to say, prosperity; and this he must earn--this he must deserve. he is no longer satisfied with being a slave, even of the infinite. he wishes to perceive for himself, to understand, to investigate, to experiment; and he has at last the courage to bear the consequences that he brings upon himself. he has also found that those who are the most religious are not always the kindest, and that those who have been and are the worshipers of god enslave their fellow-men. he has found that there is no necessary connection between religion and morality. morality needs no supernatural assistance--needs neither miracle nor pretence. it has nothing to do with awe, reverence, credulity, or blind, unreasoning faith. morality is the highway perceived by the soul, the direct road, leading to success, honor, and happiness. the best thing to do under the circumstances is moral. the highest possible standard is human. we put ourselves in the places of others. we are made happy by the kindness of others, and we feel that a fair exchange of good actions is the wisest and best commerce. we know that others can make us miserable by acts of hatred and injustice, and we shrink from inflicting the pain upon others that we have felt ourselves; this is the foundation of conscience. if man could not suffer, the words right and wrong could never have been spoken. the agnostic, the infidel, clearly perceives the true basis of morals, and, so perceiving, he knows that the religious man, the superstitious man, caring more for god than for his fellows, will sacrifice his fellows, either at the supposed command of his god, or to win his approbation. he also knows that the religionist has no basis for morals except these supposed commands. the basis of morality with him lies not in the nature of things, but in the caprice of some deity. he seems to think that, had it not been for the ten commandments, larceny and murder might have been virtues. iv. spirituality. what is it to be spiritual? is this fine quality of the mind destroyed by the development of the brain? as the domain wrested by science from ignorance increases--as island after island and continent after continent are discovered--as star after star and constellation after constellation in the intellectual world burst upon the midnight of ignorance, does the spirituality of the mind grow less and less? like morality, is it only found in the company of ignorance and superstition? is the spiritual man honest, kind, candid?--or dishonest, cruel and hypocritical? does he say what he thinks? is he guided by reason? is he the friend of the right?--the champion of the truth? must this splendid quality called spirituality be retained through the loss of candor? can we not truthfully say that absolute candor is the beginning of wisdom? to recognize the finer harmonies of conduct--to live to the ideal--to separate the incidental, the evanescent, from the perpetual--to be enchanted with the perfect melody of truth--open to the influences of the artistic, the beautiful, the heroic--to shed kindness as the sun sheds light--to recognize the good in others, and to include the world in the idea of self--this is to be spiritual. there is nothing spiritual in the worship of the unknown and unknowable, in the self-denial of a slave at the command of a master whom he fears. fastings, prayings, mutilations, kneelings, and mortifications are either the results of, or result in, insanity. this is the spirituality of bedlam, and is of no kindred with the soul that finds its greatest joy in the discharge of obligation perceived. v. reverence. what is reverence? it is the feeling produced when we stand in the presence of our ideal, or of that which most nearly approaches it--that which is produced by what we consider the highest degree of excellence. the highest is reverenced, praised, and admired without qualification. each man reverences according to his nature, his experience, his intellectual development. he may reverence' nero or marcus aurelius, jehovah or buddha, the author of leviticus or shakespeare. thousands of men reverence john calvin, torquemada, and the puritan fathers; and some have greater respect for jonathan edwards than for captain kidd. a vast number of people have great reverence for anything that is covered by mould, or moss, or mildew. they bow low before rot and rust, and adore the worthless things that have been saved by the negligence of oblivion. they are enchanted with the dull and fading daubs of the old masters, and hold in contempt those miracles of art, the paintings of to-day. they worship the ancient, the shadowy, the mysterious, the wonderful. they doubt the value of anything that they understand. the creed of christendom is the enemy of morality. it teaches that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, that consequences can be avoided by repentance, and that in the world of mind the great fact known as cause and effect does not apply. it is the enemy of spirituality, because it teaches that credulity is of more value than conduct, and because it pours contempt upon human love by raising far above it the adoration of a phantom. it is the enemy of reverence. it makes ignorance the foundation of virtue. it belittles the useful, and cheapens the noblest of! the virtues. it teaches man to live on mental alms, and glorifies the intellectual pauper. it holds candor in contempt, and is the malignant foe of mental manhood. vi. existence of god. mr. fawcett has shown conclusively that it is no easier to establish the existence of an infinitely wise and good being by the existence of what we call "good" than to establish the existence of an infinitely bad being by what we call "bad." nothing can be surer than that the history of this world furnishes no foundation on which to base an inference that it has been governed by infinite wisdom and goodness. so terrible has been the condition of man, that religionists in all ages have endeavored to excuse god by accounting for the evils of the world by the wickedness of men. and the fathers of the christian church were forced to take the ground that this world had been filled with briers and thorns, with deadly serpents and with poisonous weeds, with disease and crime and earthquake and pestilence and storm, by the curse of god. the probability is that no god has cursed, and that no god will bless, this earth. man suffers and enjoys according to conditions. the sun shines without love, and the lightning blasts without hate. man is the providence of man. nature gives to our eyes all they can see, to our ears all they can hear, and to the mind what it can comprehend. the human race reaps the fruit of every victory won on the fields of intellectual or physical conflict. we have no right to expect something for nothing. man will reap no harvest the seeds of which he has not sown. the race must be guided by intelligence, must be free to investigate, and must have the courage and the candor not only to state what is known, but to cheerfully admit the limitations of the mind. no intelligent, honest man can read what mr. fawcett has written and then say that he knows the origin and destiny of things--that he knows whether an infinite being exists or not, and that he knows whether the soul of man is or is not immortal. in the land of--------, the geography of which is not certainly known, there was for many years a great dispute among the inhabitants as to which road led to the city of miragia, the capital of their country, and known to be the most delightful city on the earth. for fifty generations the discussion as to which road led to the city had been carried on with the greatest bitterness, until finally the people were divided into a great number of parties, each party claiming that the road leading to the city had been miraculously made known to the founder of that particular sect. the various parties spent most of their time putting up guide-boards on these roads and tearing down the guide-boards of others. hundreds of thousands had been killed, prisons were filled, and the fields had been ravaged by the hosts of war. one day, a wise man, a patriot, wishing to bring peace to his country, met the leaders of the various sects and asked them whether it was absolutely certain that the city of miragia existed. he called their attention to the facts that no resident of that city had ever visited them and that none of their fellow-men who had started for the capital had ever returned, and modestly asked whether it would not be better to satisfy themselves beyond a doubt that there was such a city, adding that the location of the city would determine which of all the roads was the right one. the leaders heard these words with amazement. they denounced the speaker as a wretch without morality, spirituality, or reverence, and thereupon he was torn in pieces. preface to "faith or fact." i like to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of an honest, intelligent man; candor is always charming, and it is a delight to feel that you have become acquainted with a sincere soul. i have read this book with great pleasure, not only because i know, and greatly esteem the author, not only because he is my unwavering friend, but because it is full of good sense, of accurate statement, of sound logic, of exalted thoughts happily expressed, and for the further reason that it is against tyranny, superstition, bigotry, and every form of injustice, and in favor of every virtue. henry m. taber, the author, has for many years taken great interest in religious questions. he was raised in an orthodox atmosphere, was acquainted with many eminent clergymen from whom he endeavored to find out what christianity is--and the facts and evidence relied on to establish the truth of the creeds. he found that the clergy of even the same denomination did not agree--that some of them preached one way and talked another, and that many of them seemed to regard the creed as something to be accepted whether it was believed or not. he found that each one gave his own construction to the dogmas that seemed heartless or unreasonable. while some insisted that the bible was absolutely true and the creed without error, others admitted that there were mistakes in the sacred volume and that the creed ought to be revised. finding these differences among the ministers, the shepherds, and also finding that no one pretended to have any evidence except faith, or any facts but assertions, he concluded to investigate the claims of christianity for himself. for half a century he has watched the ebb and flow of public opinion, the growth of science, the crumbling of creeds--the decay of the theological spirit, the waning influence of the orthodox pulpit, the loss of confidence in special providence and the efficacy of prayer. he has lived to see the church on the defensive--to hear faith asking for facts--and to see the shot and shell of science batter into shapelessness the fortresses of superstition. he has lived to see infidels, blasphemers and agnostics the leaders of the intellectual world. in his time the supernaturalists have lost the sceptre and have taken their places in the abject rear. fifty years ago the orthodox christians believed their creeds. to them the bible was an actual revelation from god. every word was true. moses and joshua were regarded as philosophers and scientists. all the miracles and impossibilities recorded in the bible were accepted as facts. credulity was the greatest of virtues. everything, except the reasonable, was believed, and it was considered wickedly presumptuous to doubt anything except facts. the reasonable things in the bible could safely be doubted, but to deny the miracles was like the sin against the holy ghost. in those days the preachers were at the helm. they spoke with authority. they knew the origin and destiny of the soul. they were on familiar terms with the trinity--the three-headed god. they knew the narrow path that led to heaven and the great highway along which the multitude were traveling to the prison of pain. while these reverend gentlemen were busy trying to prevent the development of the brain and to convince the people that the good in this life were miserable, that virtue wore a crown of thorns and carried a cross, while the wicked and ungodly walked in the sunshine of joy, yet that after death the wicked would be eternally tortured and the good eternally rewarded. according to the pious philosophy the good god punished virtue, and rewarded vice, in this world--and in the next, rewarded virtue and punished vice. these divine truths filled their hearts with holy peace--with pious resignation. it would be difficult to determine which gave them the greater joy--the hope of heaven for themselves, or the certainty of hell for their enemies. for the grace of god they were fairly thankful, but for his "justice" their gratitude was boundless. from the heights of heaven they expected to witness the eternal tragedy in hell. while these good divines, these doctors of divinity, were busy misinterpreting the scriptures, denying facts and describing the glories and agonies of eternity, a good many other people were trying to find out something about this world. they were busy with retort and crucible, searching the heavens with the telescope, examining rocks and craters, reefs and islands, studying plant and animal life, inventing ways to use the forces of nature for the benefit of man, and in every direction searching for the truth. they were not trying to destroy religion or to injure the clergy. many of them were members of churches and believed the creeds. the facts they found were honestly given to the world. of course all facts are the enemies of superstition. the clergy, acting according to the instinct of self-preservation, denounced these "facts" as dangerous and the persons who found and published them, as infidels and scoffers. theology was arrogant and bold. science was timid. for some time the churches seemed to have the best of the controversy. many of the scientists surrendered and did their best to belittle the facts and patch up a cowardly compromise between nature and revelation--that is, between the true and the false. day by day more facts were found that could not be reconciled with the scriptures, or the creeds. neither was it possible to annihilate facts by denial. the man who believed the bible could not accept the facts, and the man who believed the facts could not accept the bible. at first, the bible was the standard, and all facts inconsistent with that standard were denied. but in a little while science became the standard, and the passages in the bible contrary to the standard had to be explained or given up. great efforts were made to harmonize the mistakes in the bible with the demonstrations of science. it was difficult to be ingenious enough to defend them both. the pious professors twisted and turned but found it hard to reconcile the creation of adam with the slow development of man from lower forms. they were greatly troubled about the age of the universe. it seemed incredible that until about six thousand years ago there was nothing in existence but god--and nothing. and yet they tried to save the bible by giving new meanings to the inspired texts, and casting a little suspicion on the facts. this course has mostly been abandoned, although a few survivals, like mr. gladstone, still insist there is no conflict between revelation and science. but these champions of holy writ succeed only in causing the laughter of the intelligent and the amazement of the honest. the more intelligent theologians confessed that the inspired writers could not be implicitly believed. as they personally know nothing of astronomy or geology and were forced to rely entirely on inspiration, it is wonderful that more mistakes were not made. so it was claimed that jehovah cared nothing about science, and allowed the blunders and mistakes of the ignorant people concerning everything except religion, to appear in his supernatural book as inspired truths. the bible, they said, was written to teach religion in its highest and purest form--to make mankind fit to associate with god and his angels. true, polygamy was tolerated and slavery established, yet jehovah believed in neither, but on account of the wickedness of the jews was in favor of both. at the same time quite a number of real scholars were investigating other religions, and in a little while they were enabled to show that these religions had been manufactured by men--that their christs and apostles were myths and that all their sacred books were false and foolish. this pleased the christians. they knew that theirs was the only true religion and that their bible was the only inspired book. the fact that there is nothing original in christianity, that all the dogmas, ceremonies and festivals had been borrowed, together with some mouldy miracles used as witnesses, weakened the faith of some and sowed the seeds of doubt in many minds. but the pious petrifactions, the fossils of faith, still clung to their book and creed. while they were quick to see the absurdities in other sacred books, they were either unconsciously blind or maliciously shut their eyes to the same absurdities in the bible. they knew that mohammed was an impostor, because the citizens of mecca, who knew him, said he was, and they knew that christ was not an impostor, because the people of jerusalem who knew him, said he was. the same fact was made to do double duty. when they attacked other religions it was a sword and when their religion was attacked it became a shield. the men who had investigated other religions turned their attention to christianity. they read our bible as they had read other sacred books. they were not blinded by faith or paralyzed by fear, and they found that the same arguments they had used against other religions destroyed our own. but the real old-fashioned orthodox ministers denounced the investigators as infidels and denied every fact that was inconsistent with the creed. they wanted to protect the young and feeble minded. they were anxious about the souls of the "thoughtless." some ministers changed their views just a little, not enough to be driven from their pulpits--but just enough to keep sensible people from thinking them idiotic. these preachers talked about the "higher criticism" and contended that it was not necessary to believe every word in the bible, that some of the miracles might be given up and some of the books discarded. but the stupid doctors of divinity had the bible and the creeds on their side and the machinery of the churches was in their control. they brought some of the offending clergymen to the bar, and had them tried for heresy, made some recant and closed the mouths of others. still, it was not easy to put the heretics down. the congregations of ministers found guilty, often followed the shepherds. heresy grew popular, the liberal preachers had good audiences, while the orthodox addressed a few bonnets, bibs and benches. for many years the pulpit has been losing influence and the sacred calling no longer offers a career to young men of talent and ambition. when people believed in "special providence," they also believed that preachers had great influence with god. they were regarded as celestial lobbyists and they were respected and feared because of their supposed power. now no one who has the capacity to think, believes in special providence. of course there are some pious imbeciles who think that pestilence and famine, cyclone and earthquake, flood and fire are the weapons of god, the tools of his trade, and that with these weapons, these tools, he kills and starves, rends and devours, drowns and burns countless thousands of the human race. if god governs this world, if he builds and destroys, if back of every event is his will, then he is neither good nor wise, he is ignorant and malicious. a few days ago, in paris, men and women had gathered together in the name of charity. the building in which they, were assembled took fire and many of these men and women perished in the flames. a french priest called this horror an act of god. is it not strange that christians speak of their god as an assassin? how can they love and worship this monster who murders, his children? intelligence seems to be leaving the orthodox church. the great divines are growing smaller, weaker, day by day. since the death of henry ward beecher no man of genius has stood in the orthodox pulpit. the ministers of intelligence are found in the liberal churches where they are allowed to express their thoughts and preserve their manhood. some of these preachers keep their faces toward the east and sincerely welcome the light, while their orthodox brethren stand with their backs to the sunrise and worship the sunset of the day before. during these years of change, of decay and growth, the author of this book looked and listened, became familiar with the questions raised, the arguments offered and the results obtained. for his work a better man could not have been found. he has no prejudice, no hatred. he is by nature candid, conservative, kind and just. he does not attack persons. he knows the difference between exchanging epithets and thoughts. he gives the facts as they appear to him and draws the logical conclusions. he charges and proves that christianity has not always been the friend of morality, of civil liberty, of wives and mothers, of free though and honest speech. he shows that intolerance is its nature, that it always has, and always will persecute to the extent of its power, and that christianity will always despise the doubter. yet we know that doubt must inhabit every finite mind. we know that doubt is as natural as hope, and that man is no more responsible for his doubts than for the beating of his heart. every human being who knows the nature of evidence, the limitations of the mind, must have "doubts" about gods and devils, about heavens and hells, and must know that there is not the slightest evidence tending to show that gods and devils ever existed. god is a guess. an undesigned designer, an uncaused cause, is as incomprehensible to the human mind as a circle without a diameter. the dogma of the trinity multiplies the difficulty by three. theologians do not, and cannot believe that the authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed. they regard god as the monarch, and themselves as his agents. they always have been the enemies of liberty. they claim to have a revelation from their god, a revelation that is the rightful master of reason. as long as they believe this, they must be the enemies of mental freedom. they do not ask man to think, but command him to obey. if the claims of the theologians are admitted, the church becomes the ruler of the world, and to support and obey priests will be the business of mankind. all these theologians claim to have a revelation from their god, and yet they cannot agree as to what the revelation reveals. the other day, looking from my window at the bay of new york, i saw many vessels going in many directions, and yet all were moved by the same wind. the direction in which they were going did not depend on the direction of the breeze, but on the set of the sails. in this way the same bible furnishes creeds for all the christian sects. but what would we say if the captains of the boats i saw, should each swear that his boat was the only one that moved in the same direction the wind was blowing? i agree with mr. taber that all religions are founded on mistakes, misconceptions and falsehoods, and that superstition is the warp and woof of every creed. this book will do great good. it will furnish arguments and facts against the supernatural and absurd. it will drive phantoms from the brain, fear from the heart, and many who read these pages will be emancipated, enlightened and ennobled. christianity, with its ignorant and jealous god--its loving and revengeful christ--its childish legends--its grotesque miracles--its "fall of man"--its atonement--its salvation by faith--its heaven for stupidity and its hell for genius, does not and cannot satisfy the free brain and the good heart. the grant banquet. chicago, november , . twelfth toast. * the meteoric display predicted to take place last thursday night did not occur, but there did occur on that evening a display of oratorical brilliancy at chicago seldom if ever surpassed. the speeches at the banquet of the army of the tennessee, taken together, constitute one of the most remarkable collections of extemporaneous eloquence on record. the principal speakers of the evening were gen. u. s. grant, gen. john a. logan col. win, f. vilas, gen. stewart l. woodford, general pope, col. r. g. ingersoll, gen. j. h. wilson, and "mark twain." in an oratorical tournament general grant is, of course, better as a listener than as a talker; he is a man of deeds rather than of words. the same might be said of general sherman, though, as presiding officer and toast-master of the occasion, his impromptu remarks were always pertinent and keen. his advice to speakers not to talk longer than they could hold their audience, and to the auditors not to drag out their applause or to drawl out their laughter, would serve as a good standing rule for all similar occasions colonel ingersoll responded to the twelfth toast, "the volunteer soldiers of the union army, whose valor and patriotism saved to the world a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." colonel ingersoll's position was a difficult one. his reputation as the first orator in america caused the distinguished audience to expect a wonderful display of oratory from him. he proved fully equal to the occasion and delivered a speech of wonderful eloquence, brilliancy and power. to say it was one of the best he ever delivered is equivalent to saying it was one of the best ever delivered by any man, for few greater orators have ever lived than colonel ingersoll. the speech is both an oration and a poem. it bristles with ideas and sparkles with epigrammatic expressions. it is full of thoughts that breathe and words that burn. the closing sentences read like blank verse. it is wonderful oratory, marvelous eloquence. colonel ingersoll fully sustained his reputation as the finest orator in america. editorial from the journal indianapolis, ind., november , . the inter-ocean remarked yesterday that the gathering and exercises at the palmer house banquet on thursday evening constituted one of the most remarkable occasions known in the history of this country. this was not alone because of the distinguished men who lent their presence to the scone; they were indeed illustrious; but they only formed a part of the grand picture that must endure while the memory of our great conflict survives. to the eminent men assembled may be traced the signal success of the affair, for they gave inspiration to the minds and the tongues of others; but it was the fruit of that inspiration that rolled like a glad surprise across the banqueting sky, and made the th of november renowned in the calendar of days... when robert g. ingersoll rose after the speech of general pope, to respond to the toast, "the volunteer soldiers," a large part of the audience rose with him, and the cheering was long and loud. colonel ingersoll may fairly be regarded as the foremost orator of america, and there was the keenest interest to hear him after all the brilliant speeches that had preceded; and this interest was not unnmixed with a fear that he would not be able to successfully strive against both his own great reputation and the fresh competitors who had leaped suddenly into the oratorical arena like mighty gladiators and astonished the audience by their unexpected eloquence. but ingersoll had not proceeded far when the old fire broke out, and flashing metaphor, bold denunciation, and all the rich imagery and poetical beauty which mark his great efforts stood revealed before the delighted listeners: long before the last word was uttered, all doubt as to the ability of the great orator to sustain himself had departed, and rising to their feet, the audience cheered till the hall rang with shouts. like henry, "the forest-born demosthenes, whose thunder shook the philip of the seas," ingersoll still held the crown within his grasp. editorial from the inter-ocean, chicago, november , . the volunteer soldiers of the union army, whose valor and patriotism saved to the world "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." when the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our country, the question "will the great republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. the north, filled with intelligence and wealth--children of liberty--marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. from civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last demand: "unconditional and immediate surrender." from that 'moment' the end was known. that utterance was the first real declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion. the soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. they were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. they fought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that their children might have peace. they were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time. they finished what the soldiers of the revolution commenced. they re-lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light. they blotted from the statute-book laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the constitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their fellow-men. they made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for politicians to be honest. they broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the northern brain. they kept our country on the map of the world, and our flag in heaven. they rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments--nationality and liberty. the soldiers were the saviors of the nation; they were the liberators of men. in writing the proclamation of emancipation, lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers, sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied with the pen what grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords. grander than the greek, nobler than the roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for the rights of others, for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring states, but a nation, sovereign, great, and free. blood was water, money was leaves, and life, was only common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave. and then was asked the question: "will a free, people tax themselves to pay a nation's debt?" the soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved--they went back-to the fields, the shops, and mines. they had not been demoralized. they had been ennobled. they were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. they said: "we saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" they worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the nation gave might be redeemed. and their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship--a girdle of clasped and happy hands--around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold. there is another question still:--will all the wounds of war be healed? i answer, yes. the southern people must submit,--not to the dictation of the north, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. they were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes. the soldiers of the union saved the south as well as the north. they made us a nation. their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcanoes' lips. and now let us drink to the volunteers--to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left--of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want; to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue; to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives; to all the living and to all the dead,--to sherman, to sheridan, and to grant, the laureled soldier of the world, and last, to lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war. thirteen club dinner. * response of col. r. g. ingersoll to the sentiment "the superstitions of public men," at the regular monthly dinner of the thirteen club. monday evening, december , . new york, december , , the superstitions of public men, mr. chief ruler-and gentlemen: i suppose that the superstition most prevalent with public men, is the idea that they are of great importance to the public. as a matter of fact, public men,--that is to say, men in office,--reflect the average intelligence of the people, and no more. a public man, to be successful, must not assert anything unless it is exceedingly popular. and he need not deny anything unless everybody is against it. usually he has to be like the center of the earth,--draw all things his way, without weighing anything himself. one of the difficulties, or rather, one of the objections, to a government republican in form, is this: everybody imagines that he is everybody's: master. and the result has been to make most of our public men exceedingly conservative in the expression of their real opinions. a man, wishing to be elected to an office, generally agrees with 'most everybody he meets. if he meets a prohibitionist, he says: "of course i am a temperance man. i am opposed to all excesses; my dear friend, and no one knows better than myself the evils that have been caused by intemperance." the next man happens to keep a saloon, and happens to be quite influential in that part of the district, and the candidate immediately says to him:--"the idea that these prohibitionists can take away the personal liberty of the citizen is simply monstrous!" in a moment after, he is greeted by a methodist, and he hastens to say, that while he does not belong to that church himself, his wife does; that he would gladly be a member, but does not feel that he is good enough. he tells a presbyterian that his grandfather was of that faith, and that he was a most excellent man, and laments from the bottom of his heart that he himself is not within that fold. a few moments after, on meeting a skeptic, he declares, with the greatest fervor, that reason is the only guide, and that he looks forward to the time when superstition will be dethroned. in other words, the greatest superstition now entertained by public men is, that hypocrisy is the royal road to success. of course, there are many other superstitions, and one is, that the democratic party has not outlived its usefulness. another is, that the republican party should have power for what it has done, instead of what it proposes to do. in my judgment, these statesmen are mistaken. the people of the united states, after all, admire intellectual honesty and have respect for moral courage. the time has come for the old ideas and superstitions in politics to be thrown away--not in phrase, not in pretence, but in fact; and the time has come when a man can safely rely on the intelligence and courage of the american people. the most significant fact in this world to-day, is, that in nearly every village under the american flag the school-house is larger than the church. people are beginning to have a little confidence in intelligence and in facts. every public man and every private man, who is actuated in his life by a belief in something that no one can prove,--that no one can demonstrate,--is, to that extent, a superstitious man. it may be that i go further than most of you, because if i have any superstition, it is a superstition against superstition. it seems to me that the first things for every man, whether in or out of office, to believe in,--the first things to rely on, are demonstrated facts. these are the corner stones,--these are the columns that nothing can move,--these are the stars that no darkness can hide,--these are the true and only foundations of belief. beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the probable, and in the world of the probable every man has the right to guess for himself. beyond the region of the probable is the possible, and beyond the possible is the impossible, and beyond the impossible are the religions of this world. my idea is this: any man who acts in view of the improbable or of the impossible--that is to say of the supernatural--is a superstitious man. any man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. any man who imagines that he can make some god happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. any one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellow-men in this, is simply superstitious. any man who believes in a being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet belives that that being has peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. any man who believes that an infinitely wise and good god would take pains to make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. in other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here, is superstitious. i have known a great many private men who were not men of genius. i have known some men of genius about whom it was kept private, and i have known many public men, and my wonder increased the better i knew them, that they occupied positions of trust and honor. but, after all, it is the people's fault. they who demand hypocrisy must be satisfied with mediocrity... our public men will be better and greater, and less superstitious, when the people become greater and better and less superstitious. there is an old story, that we have all heard, about senator nesmith. he was elected a senator from oregon. when he had been in washington a little while, one of the other senators said to him: "how did you feel when you found yourself sitting here in the united states senate?" he replied: "for the first two months, i just sat and wondered how a damned fool like me ever, broke into the senate. since that, i have done nothing but wonder how the other fools got here." to-day the need of our civilization is public men who have the courage to speak as they think. we need a man for president who will not publicly thank god for earthquakes. we need somebody with the courage to say that all that happens in nature happens without design, and without reference to man; somebody who will say that the men and women killed are not murdered by supernatural beings, and that everything that happens in nature, happens without malice and without mercy. we want somebody who will have courage enough not to charge, an infinitely good and wise being with all the cruelties and agonies and sufferings of this world. we want such men in public places,--men who will appeal to the reason of their fellows, to the highest intelligence of the people; men who will have courage enough, in this the nineteenth century, to agree with the conclusions of science. we want some man who will not pretend to believe, and who does not in fact believe, the stories that superstition has told to credulity. the most important thing in this world is the destruction of superstition. superstition interferes with the happiness of mankind. superstition is a terrible serpent, reaching in frightful coils from heaven to earth and thrusting its poisoned fangs into the hearts of men. while i live, i am going to do what little i can for the destruction of this monster. whatever may happen in another world--and i will take my chances there,--i am opposed to superstition in this. and if, when i reach that other world, it needs reforming, i shall do what little i can there for the destruction of the false. let me tell you one thing more, and i am done. the only way to have brave, honest, intelligent, conscientious public men, men without superstition, is to do what we can to make the average citizen brave, conscientious and intelligent. if you wish to see courage in the presidential chair, conscience upon the bench, intelligence of the highest order in congress; if you expect public men to be great enough to reflect honor upon the republic, private citizens must have the courage and the intelligence to elect, and to sustain, such men. i have said, and i say it again, that never while i live will i vote for any man to be president of the united states, no matter if he does belong to my party, who has not won his spurs on some field of intellectual conflict. we have had enough mediocrity, enough policy, enough superstition, enough prejudice, enough provincialism, and the time has come for the american citizen to say: "hereafter i will be represented by men who are worthy, not only of the great republic, but of the nineteenth century." robson and crane dinner. new york, november , . * the theatre party and supper given by charles p. palmer, brother of courtlandt palmer, on monday evening were unusually attractive in many ways. mr palmer has recently returned from europe, and took this opportunity to gather around him his old club associates and friends, and to show his admiration of the acting of messrs. robson and crane. the appearance of mr. palmer's fifty guests in the theatre excited much interest in all parts of the house. it is not often that theatre-goers have the opportunity of seeing in a single row, channcey m. depew, gen. william t. sherman, gen. horace porter and robert g. ingersoll, with leonard jerome and his brother lawrence, murat halstead and other well- known men in close proximity the supper table at delmonico's was decorated with a lavish profusion of flowers rarely approached even at that famous restaurant. mr. palmer was a charming host, full of humor, jollity and attention to every guest. he opened the speaking with a few apt words. then stuart rodson made some witty remarks, and called upon william h. crane, whose well-rounded speech was heartily applauded general sherman, chauncey m. depew, general porter, lawrence jerome and colonel ingersoll were all in their best moods, and the sallies of wit and the abundance of genuine humor in their informal addresses kept their hearers in almost continuous laughter. lawrence jerome was in especially fine form. he sang songs, told stories and said: "depew and ingersoll know so much that intelligence has become a drag in the market, and it's no use to tell you what a good speech i would have made." j. seaver page made an uncommonly witty and effective speech. murat halstead related some reminiscences of his last european tour and of his experiences in london with lawrence and leonard jerome, which were received with shouts of laughter. altogether the supper was one to be long remembered by all present.--the tribune, new york, november , ; toast: comedy and tragedy. i believe in the medicine of mirth, and in what i might call the longevity of laughter. every man who has caused real, true, honest mirth, has been a benefactor of the human race. in a world like this, where there is so much trouble--a world gotten up on such a poor plan--where sometimes one is almost inclined to think that the deity, if there be one, played a practical joke--to find, i say, in such a world, something that for the moment allows laughter to triumph over sorrow, is a great piece of good fortune. i like the stage, not only because general sherman likes it--and i do not think i was ever at the theatre in my life but i saw him--i not only like it because general washington liked it, but because the greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and tear we call the world, wrote for the stage, and poured out a very mississippi of philosophy and pathos and humor, and everything calculated to raise and ennoble mankind. i like to see the stage honored, because actors are the ministers, the apostles, of the greatest man who ever lived, and because they put flesh upon and blood and passion within the greatest characters that the greatest man drew. this is the reason i like the stage. it makes us human. a rascal never gained applause on the stage. a hypocrite never commanded admiration, not even when he was acting a clergyman--except for the naturalness of the acting. no one has ever yet seen any play in which, in his heart, he did not applaud honesty, heroism, sincerity, fidelity, courage, and self-denial. never. no man ever heard a great play who did not get up a better, wiser, and more humane man; and no man ever went to the theatre and heard robson and crane, who did not go home better-natured, and treat his family that night a little better than on a night when he had not heard these actors. i enjoy the stage; i always did enjoy it. i love the humanity of it. i hate solemnity; it is the brother of stupidity--always. you never knew a solemn man who was not stupid, and you never will. there never was a man of true genius who had not the simplicity of a child, and over whose lips had not rippled the river of laughter--never, and there never will be. i like, i say, the stage for its wit and for its humor. i do not like sarcasm; i do not like mean humor. there is as much difference between humor and malicious wit as there is between a bee's honey and a bee's sting, and the reason i like robson and crane is that they have the honey without the sting. another thing that makes me glad is, that i live in an age and generation and day that has sense enough to appreciate the stage; sense enough to appreciate music; sense enough to appreciate everything that lightens the burdens of this life. only a few years ago our dear ancestors looked upon the theatre as the vestibule of hell; and every actor was going "the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." in those good old days, our fathers, for the sake of relaxation, talked about death and graves and epitaphs and worms and shrouds and dust and hell. in those days, too, they despised music, cared nothing for art; and yet i have lived long enough to hear the world--that is, the civilized world--say that shakespeare wrote the greatest book that man has ever read. i have lived long enough to see men like beethoven and wagner put side by side with the world's greatest men--great in imagination--and we must remember that imagination makes the great difference between men. i have lived long enough to see actors placed with the grandest and noblest, side by side with the greatest benefactors of the human race. there is one thing in which i cannot quite agree with what has been said. i like tragedy, because tragedy is only the other side of the shield and i like both sides. i love to spend an evening on the twilight boundary line between tears and smiles. there is nothing that pleases me better than some scene, some act, where the smile catches the tears in the eyes; where the eyes are almost surprised by the smile, and the smile touched and softened by the tears. i like that. and the greatest comedians and the greatest tragedians have that power; and, in conclusion, let me say, that it gives me more than pleasure to acknowledge the debt of gratitude i owe, not only to the stage, but to the actors whose health we drink to-night. the police captains' dinner. new york, january , . toast: duties and privileges of the press. only a little while ago, the nations of the world were ignorant and provincial. between these nations there were the walls and barriers of language, of prejudice, of custom, of race and of religion. each little nation had the only perfect form of government--the only genuine religion--all others being adulterations or counterfeits. these nations met only as enemies. they had nothing to exchange but blows--nothing to give and take but wounds. movable type was invented, and "civilization was thrust into the brain of europe on the point of a moorish lance." the moors gave to our ancestors paper, and nearly all valuable inventions that were made for a thousand years. in a little while, books began to be printed--the nations began to exchange thoughts instead of blows. the classics were translated. these were read, and those who read them began to imitate them--began to write themselves; and in this way there was produced in each nation a local literature. there came to be an exchange of facts, of theories, of ideas. for many years this was accomplished by books, but after a time the newspaper was invented, and the exchange increased. before this, every peasant thought his king the greatest being in the world. he compared this king--his splendor, his palace--with the peasant neighbor, with his rags and with his hut. all his thoughts were provincial, all his knowledge confined to his own neighborhood--the great world was to him an unknown land. long after papers were published, the circulation was small, the means of intercommunication slow, painful, few and costly. the same was true in our own country, and here, too, was in a great degree, the provincialism of the old world. finally, the means of intercommunication increased, and they became plentiful and cheap. then the peasant found that he must compare his king with the kings of other nations--the statesmen of his country with the statesmen of others--and these comparisons were not always favorable to the men of his own country. this enlarged his knowledge and his vision, and the tendency of this was to make him a citizen of the world. here in our own country, a little while ago, the citizen of each state regarded his state as the best of all. to love that state more than all others, was considered the highest evidence of patriotism. the press finally informed him of the condition of other states. he found that other states were superior to his in many ways--in climate, in production, in men, in invention, in commerce and in influence. slowly he transferred the love of state, the prejudice of locality--what i call mud patriotism--to the nation, and he became an american in the best and highest sense. this, then, is one of the greatest things to be accomplished by the press in america--namely, the unification of the country--the destruction of provincialism, and the creation of a patriotism broad as the territory covered by our flag. the same ideas, the same events, the same news, are carried to millions of homes every day. the result of this is to fix the attention of all upon the same things, the same thoughts and theories, the same facts--and the result is to get the best judgment of a nation. this is a great and splendid object, but not the greatest. in europe the same thing is taking place. the nations are becoming acquainted with each other. the old prejudices are dying out. the people cf each nation are beginning to find that they are not the enemies of any other. they are also beginning to suspect that where they have no cause of quarrel, they should neither be called upon to fight, nor to pay the expenses of war. another thing: the kings and statesmen no longer act as they formerly did. once they were responsible only to their poor and wretched-subjects, whose obedience they compelled at the point of the bayonet. now a king knows, and his minister knows, that they must give account for what they do to the civilized world. they know that kings and rulers must be tried before the great bar of public opinion--a public opinion that has been formed by the facts given to them in the press of the world. they do not wish to be condemned at that great bar. they seek not only not to be condemned--not only to be acquitted--but they seek to be crowned. they seek the applause, not simply of their own nation, but of the civilized world. there was for uncounted centuries a conflict between civilization and barbarism. barbarism was almost universal, civilization local. the torch of progress was then held by feeble hands, and barbarism extinguished it in the blood of its founders. but civilizations arose, and kept rising, one after another, until now the great republic holds and is able to hold that torch against a hostile world. by its invention, by its weapons of war, by its intelligence, civilization became capable of protecting itself, and there came a time when in the struggle between civilization and barbarism the world passed midnight. then came another struggle,--the struggle between the people and their rulers. most peoples sacrificed their liberty through gratitude to some great soldier who rescued them from the arms of the barbarian. but there came a time when the people said: "we have a right to govern ourselves." and that conflict has been waged for centuries. and i say, protected and corroborated by the flag of the greatest of all republics, that in that conflict the world has passed midnight. despotisms were softened by parliaments, by congresses--but at last the world is beginning to say: "the right to govern rests upon the consent of the governed. the power comes from the people--not from kings. it belongs to man, and should be exercised by man." in this conflict we have passed midnight. the world is destined to be republican. those who obey the laws will make the laws. our country--the united states--the great republic--owns the fairest portion of half the world. we have now sixty millions of free people. look upon the map of our country. look upon the great valley of the mississippi--stretching from the alleghenies to the rockies. see the great basin drained by that mighty river. there you will see a territory large enough to feed and clothe and educate five hundred millions of human beings. this country is destined to remain as one. the mississippi river is nature's protest against secession and against division. we call that nation civilized when its subjects submit their differences of opinion, in accordance with the forms of law, to fellow-citizens who are disinterested and who accept the decision as final. the nations, however, sustain no such relation to each other. each nation concludes for itself. each nation defines its rights and its obligations; and nations will not be civilized in respect of their relations to each other, until there shall have been established a national court to decide differences between nations, to the judgment of which all shall bow. it is for the press--the press that photographs the human activities of every day--the press that gives the news of the world to each individual--to bend its mighty energies to the unification and the civilization of mankind; to the destruction of provincialism, of prejudice--to the extirpation of ignorance and to the creation of a great and splendid patriotism that embraces the human race. the press presents the daily thoughts of men. it marks the progress of each hour, and renders a relapse into ignorance and barbarism impossible. no catastrophe can be great enough, no ruin wide-spread enough, to engulf or blot out the wisdom of the world. feeling that it is called to this high destiny, the press should appeal only to the highest and to the noblest in the human heart. it should not be the bat of suspicion, a raven, hoarse with croaking disaster, a chattering jay of gossip, or a vampire fattening on the reputations of men. it should remain the eagle, rising and soaring high in the cloudless blue, above all mean and sordid things, and grasping only the bolts and arrows of justice. let the press have the courage always to defend the right, always to defend the people--and let it always have the power to clutch and strangle any combination of men, however intellectual or cunning or rich, that feeds and fattens on the flesh and blood of honest men. in a little while, under our flag there will be five hundred millions of people. the great republic will then dictate to the world--that is to say, it will succor the oppressed--it will see that justice is done--it will say to the great nations that wish to trample upon the weak: "you must not--you shall not--strike." it will be obeyed. all i ask is--all i hope is--that the press will always be worthy of the great republic. general grant's birthday dinner new york, april , . * the tribute at delmonico's last night was to the man grant as a supreme type of the confidence of the american republic in its own strength and destiny. soldiers over whose lost cause the wheels of a thousand cannons rolled, and whose doctrines were ground to dust under the heels of conquering legions, poured out their souls at the feet of the great commander. magnanimity, mercy, faith--these were the themes of every orator. christian and infidel, blue and gray, republican and democrat talked of grant almost as men have come to talk of washington. and, alas! in the midst of it all, with its soft glow of lights, its sweet breath of flowers, its throb of music and bewildering radiance of banners, there was a vacant chair. upon it hung a wreath of green, tied with a knot of white ribbon. soldier and statesman and orator walked past that chair and seemed to reverence it. it was the seat intended for the trumpet tongued advocate of grant in war, grant in victory, grant in peace, grant in adversity--the seat of roscoe conkling. a little later and a clergyman jostled into the vacant chair and brushed the green circlet to the floor. gray and grim old general sherman presided. about the nine round, flower heaped tables were grouped the long list of distinguisned men from every walk or life and from every section of the country. among the speakers was ex-minister edwards pierrepont who was one of grant's cabinet and who made a long speech, part of which was devoted to explaining the court etiquette of dukes and earls and ministers in england, and how an ex- president of the united states ranks in europe when an american minister helps him out. the rest of the speech seemed to be an attempt to get up a presidential boom for the prince of wales. when mr. pierrepont sat down, general sherman explained that col. robert ingersoll did not want to speak, but a group of gentlemen lifted the orator up and carried him forward by main force.--new york herald, april , . toast: general grant gen. sherman and gentlemen: i firmly believe that any nation great enough to produce and appreciate a great and splendid man is great enough to keep his memory green. no man admires more than i do men who have struggled and fought for what they believed to be right. i admire general grant, as well as every soldier who fought in the ranks of the union,--not simply because they were fighters, not simply because they were willing to march to the mouth of the guns, but because they fought for the greatest cause that can be expressed in human language--the liberty of man. and to-night while general mahone was speaking, i could not but think that the north was just as responsible for the war as the south. the south upheld and maintained what is known as human slavery, and the north did the same; and do you know, i have always found in my heart a greater excuse for the man who held the slave, and lived on his labor, and profited by the rascality, than i did for a northern man that went into partnership with him with a distinct understanding that he was to have none of the profits and half of the disgrace. so i say, that, in a larger sense--that is, when we view the question from a philosophic height--the north was as responsible as the south; and when i remember that in this very city, _in this very city_, men were mobbed simply for advocating the abolition of slavery, i cannot find it in my heart to lay a greater blame upon the south than upon the north. if this had been a war of conquest, a war simply for national aggrandizement, then i should not place general grant side by side with or in advance of the greatest commanders of the world. but when i remember that every blow was to break a chain, when i remember that the white man was to be civilized at the same time the black man was made free, when i remember that this country was to be made absolutely free, and the flag left without a stain, then i say that the great general who commanded the greatest army ever marshaled in the defence of human rights, stands at the head of the commanders of this world. there is one other idea,--and it was touched upon and beautifully illustrated by mr. depew. i do not believe that a more merciful general than grant ever drew his sword. all greatness is merciful. all greatness longs to forgive. all true grandeur and nobility is capable of shedding the divine tear of pity. let me say one more word in that direction. the man in the wrong defeated, and who sees the justice of his defeat, is a victor; and in this view--and i say it understanding my words fully--the south was as victorious as the north. no man, in my judgment, is more willing to do justice to all parts of this country than i; but, after all, i have a little sentiment--a little. i admire great and splendid deeds, the dramatic effect of great victories; but even more than that i admire that "touch of nature which makes the whole world kin." i know the names of grant's victories. i know that they shine like stars in the heaven of his fame. i know them all. but there is one thing in the history of that great soldier that touched me nearer and more deeply than any victory he ever won, and that is this: when about to die, he insisted that his dust should be laid in no spot where his wife, when she sleeps in death, could not lie by his side. that tribute to the great and splendid institution that rises above all others, the institution of the family, touched me even more than the glories won upon the fields of war. and now let me say, general sherman, as the years go by, in america, as long as her people are great, as long as her people are free, as long as they admire patriotism and courage, as long as they admire deeds of self-denial, as long as they can remember the sacred blood shed for the good of the whole nation, the birthday of general grant will be celebrated. and allow me to say, gentlemen, that there is another with us to-night whose birthday will be celebrated. americans of the future, when they read the history of general sherman, will feel the throb and thrill that all men feel in the presence of the patriotic and heroic. one word more--when general grant went to england, when he sat down at the table with the ministers of her britannic majesty, he conferred honor upon them. there is one change i wish to see in the diplomatic service--and i want the example to be set by the great republic--i want precedence given here in washington to the representatives of republics. let us have some backbone ourselves. let the representatives of republics come first and the ambassadors of despots come in next day. in other words, let america be proud of american institutions, proud of a government by the people. we at last have a history, we at last are a civilized people, and on the pages of our annals are found as glorious names as have been written in any language. lotos club dinner, twentieth anniversary. new york, march , . you have talked so much of old age and gray hairs and thin locks, so much about the past, that i feel sad. now, i want to destroy the impression that baldness is a sign of age. the very youngest people i ever saw were bald. sometimes i think, and especially when i am at a meeting where they have what they call reminiscences, that a world with death in it is a mistake. what would you think of a man who built a railroad, knowing that every passenger was to be killed--knowing that there was no escape? what would you think of the cheerfulness of the passengers if every one knew that at some station, the name of which had not been called out, there was a hearse waiting for him; backed up there, horses fighting flies, driver whistling, waiting for you? is it not wonderful that the passengers on that train really enjoy themselves? is it not magnificent that every one of them, under perpetual sentence of death, after all, can dimple their cheeks with laughter; that we, every one doomed to become dust, can yet meet around this table as full of joy as spring is full of life, as full of hope as the heavens are full of stars? i tell you we have got a good deal of pluck. and yet, after all, what would this world be without death? it may be from the fact that we are all victims, from the fact that we are all bound by common fate; it may be that friendship and love are born of that fact; but whatever the fact is, i am perfectly satisfied that the highest possible philosophy is to enjoy to-day, not regretting yesterday, and not fearing to-morrow. so, let us suck this orange of life dry, so that when death does come, we can politely say to him, "you are welcome to the peelings. what little there was we have enjoyed." but there is one splendid thing about the play called life. suppose that when you die, that is the end. the last thing that you will know is that you are alive, and the last thing that will happen to you is the curtain, not falling, but the curtain rising on another thought, so that as far as your consciousness is concerned you will and must live forever. no man can remember when he commenced, and no man can remember when he ends. as far as we are concerned we live both eternities, the one past and the one to come, and it is a delight to me to feel satisfied, and to feel in my own heart, that i can never be certain that i have seen the faces i love for the last time. when i am at such a gathering as this, i almost wish i had had the making of the world. what a world i would have made! in that world unhappiness would have been the only sin; melancholy the only crime; joy the only virtue. and whether there is another world, nobody knows. nobody can affirm it; nobody can deny it. nobody can collect tolls from me, claiming that he owns a turnpike, and nobody can certainly say that the crooked path that i follow, beside which many roses are growing, does not lead to that place. he doesn't know. but if there is such a place, i hope that all good fellows will be welcome. manhattan athletic club dinner. new york, december , . toast: athletics among the ancients. the first record of public games is found in the twentythird book of the iliad. these games were performed at the funeral of patroclus, and there were: first. a chariot race, and the first prize was: "a woman fair, well skilled in household care." second. there was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize, appropriately enough, was a mule. it gave me great pleasure to find that homer did not hold in high esteem the victor. i have reached this conclusion, because the poet put these words in the mouth of eppius, the great boxer winding up with the following refined declaration concerning his opponent: "i mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones." after the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. he spit forth clotted gore. his head rolled from side to side, until he fell unconscious. third, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth, throwing the iron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing the javelin. all of these games were in honor of patroclus. this is the same patroclus who, according to shakespeare, addressed achilles in these words: "in the battle-field i claim no special praise; 'tis not for man in all things to excel--" "rouse yourself, and the weak wanton cupid shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, and, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, be shook to air." these games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. the chariot was used in war. man should know the use of his hands, to the end that he may repel assault. he should know the use of the sword, to the end that he may strike down his enemy. he should be skillful with the arrow, to the same end. if overpowered, he seeks safety in flight--he should therefore know how to run. so, too, he could preserve himself by the skillful throwing of the javelin, and in the close encounter a knowledge of wrestling might save his life. man has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-defence is nearly as important now as ever--and will be, until man rises to that supreme height from which he will be able to see that no one can commit a crime against another without injuring himself. the greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the soul--that the better the body--other things being equal--the greater the mind. they also knew that the body could be developed, and that such development would give or add to the health, the courage, the endurance, the self-confidence, the independence and the morality of the human race. they knew, too, that health was the foundation, the corner-stone, of happiness. they knew that human beings should know something about themselves, something of the capacities of body and mind, to the end that they might ascertain the relation between conduct and happiness, between temperance and health. it is needless to say that the greeks were the most intellectual of all races, and that they were in love with beauty, with proportion, with the splendor of the body and of mind; and so great was their admiration for the harmoniously developed, that sophocles had the honor of walking naked at the head of a great procession. the greeks, through their love of physical and mental development, gave us the statues--the most precious of all inanimate things--of far more worth than all the diamonds and rubies and pearls that ever glittered in crowns and tiaras, on altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on woman's billowed breast. in these marbles we find the highest types of life, of superb endeavor and supreme repose. in looking at them we feel that blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. these miracles of art are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race. the nations in love with life, have games. to them existence is exultation. they are fond of nature. they, seek the woods and streams. they love the winds and waves of the sea. they enjoy the poem of the day, the drama of the year. our puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite responsibility. they were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought of sport, except the flogging of; quakers, than shipwrecked wretches huddled on a raft would turn their attention to amateur theatricals. for many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying; casket, in which had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer rotten the casket the more brilliant the jewel. in those blessed days, the diseased were sainted and insanity born of fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked upon as evidence of inspiration. cleanliness was not next to godliness--it was the opposite; and in those days, what was known as "the odor of sanctity" had a substantial foundation. diseased bodies produced all kinds of mental maladies. there is a direct relation between sickness and superstition. everybody knows that calvinism was the child of indigestion. spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased, as vultures sail above the dead. our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual, and that good health was inconsistent with the highest forms of piety. this heresy crept into the minds even of secular writers, and the novelists described their heroines as weak and languishing, pale as lilies, and in the place of health's brave flag they put the hectic flush. weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of all. nothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store attachment. people became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the evidences of labor. they avoided "sun-burnt mirth"--were proud of pallor, and regarded small, white hands as proof that they had noble blood within their veins. it was a joy to be too weak to work, too languishing to labor. the tide has turned. people are becoming sensible enough to desire health, to admire physical development, symmetry of form, and we now know that a race with little feet and hands has passed the climax and is traveling toward the eternal night. when the central force is strong, men and women are full of life to the finger tips. when the fires burn low, they begin to shrivel at the extremities--the hands and feet grow small, and the mental flame wavers and wanes. to be self-respecting we must be self-supporting. nobility is a question of character, not of birth. honor cannot be received as alms--it must be earned. it is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green. all exercise should be for the sake of development--that is to say, for the sake of health, and for the sake of the mind--all to the end that the person may become better, greater, more useful. the gymnast or the athelete should seek for health as the student should seek for truth; but when athletics degenerate into mere personal contests, they become dangerous, because the contestants lose sight of health, as in the excitement of debate the students prefer personal victory to the ascertainment of truth. there is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs, and that is, anything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the finer feelings. nothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than pugilism--nothing more demoralizing than an exhibition of strength united with ferocity, and where the very body developed by exercise is mutilated and disfigured. sports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the unfeeling, the hardened and the really brainless, should be avoided. no gentleman should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting of dogs, the shooting of pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill. all these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize not only the actors, but the lookers on. such sports are savage, fit only to be participated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of central africa or the anthropoid apes. find what a man enjoys--what he laughs at--what he calls diversion--and you know what he is. think of a man calling himself civilized, who is in raptures at a bull fight--who smiles when he sees the hounds pursue and catch and tear in pieces the timid hare, and who roars with laughter when he watches the pugilists pound each other's faces, closing each other's eyes, breaking jaws and smashing noses. such men are beneath the animals they torture--on a level with the pugilists they applaud. gentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable contempt. no man finds pleasure in inflicting pain. in every public school there should be a gymnasium. it is useless to cram minds and deform bodies. hands should be educated as well as heads. all should be taught the sports and games that require mind, muscle, nerve and judgment. even those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the whole body may be developed. those who work at one employment become deformed. proportion is lost. but where harmony is preserved by the proper exercise, even old age is beautiful. to the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich, obstacles small, and success easy. they laugh at cold and storm. whatever the season may be their hearts are filled with summer. millions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what it is to live. they simply succeed in postponing death. without appetites, without passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in a waveless pool. they never know the glory of success, the rapture of the fight. to become effeminate is to invite misery. in the most delicate bodies may be found the most degraded souls. it was the duchess josiane whose pampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought of hell as a place where people were compelled to sleep between coarse sheets. we need the open air--we need the experience of heat and cold. we need not only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline of our mother nature. life is not all sunshine, neither is it all storm, but man should be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand the other. i believe in the religion of the body--of physical development--in devotional exercise--in the beatitudes of cheerfulness, good health, good food, good clothes, comradeship, generosity, and above all, in happiness. i believe in salvation here and now. salvation from deformity and disease--from weakness and pain--from ennui and insanity. i believe in heaven here and now--the heaven of health and good digestion--of strength and long life--of usefulness and joy. i believe in the builders and defenders of homes. the gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work. to their energy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the grandest athletic clubhouse in the world. let these clubs multiply. let the example be followed, until our country is filled with physical and intellectual athletes--superb fathers, perfect mothers, and every child an heir to health and joy. the liederkranz club, seidl-stanton banquet. new york, april , toast: music, noblest of the arts. it is probable that i was selected to speak about music, because, not knowing one note from another, i have no prejudice on the subject. all i can say is, that i know what i like, and, to tell the truth, i like every kind, enjoy it all, from the hand organ to the orchestra. knowing nothing of the science of music, i am not always looking for defects, or listening for discords. as the young robin cheerfully swallows whatever comes, i hear with gladness all that is played. music has been, i suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law of evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of theology, has been and is under this law. music may be divided into three kinds: first, the music of simple time, without any particular emphasis--and this may be called the music of the heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is the eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in accordance with our feelings, with our emotions--and this may be called the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. this may be called the music of the head,--the music of the brain. music expresses feeling and thought, without language. it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. beneath the waves is the sea--above the clouds is the sky. before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones. of one thing, however, i am certain, and that is, that music was born of love. had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music. possibly some mother, looking in the eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air. language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. music is the sunshine--the climate--of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect june. i am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvelous mingling of love and death. love is the greatest of all passions, and death is its shadow. death gets all its terror from love, and love gets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture, from the darkness of death. love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave. the old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling-, through time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. most of the old operas consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. there should be no unmeaning music. it is as though a writer should suddenly leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a repetition of one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if." "if," varying the repetition of these words, but without meaning,--and then resume the subject of his article. i am not saying that great music was not produced before wagner, but i am simply endeavoring to show-the steps that have been taken. it was necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the greatest might be produced. the same is true of the drama, thousands and thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions prepared the way for the supreme composer. when i read shakespeare, i am astonished that he has expressed so much with common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when i hear wagner, i exclaim: is it possible that all this is done with common air? in wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the infinite. the melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer clouds, and weird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought by fitful winds, and others moan like waves on desolate shores, and mingled with these, are shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and ripples of laughter, and the wondrous voices of eternal love. wagner is the shakespeare of music. the funeral march for siegfried is the funeral music for all the dead; should all the gods die, this music would be perfectly appropriate. it is elemental, universal, eternal. the love-music in tristan and isolde is, like romeo and juliet, an expression of the human heart for all time. so the love-duet in the flying dutchman has in it the consecration, the infinite self-denial, of love. the whole heart is given; every note has wings, and rises and poises like an eagle in the heaven of sound. when i listen to the music of wagner, i see pictures, forms, glimpses of the perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast, the glance of an eye. i am in the midst of great galleries. before me are passing, the endless panoramas. i see vast landscapes with valleys of verdure and vine, with soaring crags, snow-crowned. i am on the wide seas, where countless billows burst into the white caps of joy. i am in the depths of caverns roofed with mighty crags, while through some rent i see the eternal stars. in a moment the music, becomes a river of melody, flowing through some wondrous land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the mighty cataract is changed to seven-hued foam. . great music is always sad, because it tells us of the perfect; and such is the difference between what we are and that which music suggests, that even in the vase of joy we find some tears. the music of wagner has color, and when i hear the violins, the morning seems to slowly come. a horn puts a star above the horizon. the night, in the purple hum of the bass, wanders away like some enormous bee across wide fields of dead clover. the light grows whiter as the violins increase. colors come from other instruments, and then the full orchestra floods the world with day. wagner seems not only to have given us new tones, new combinations, but the moment the orchestra begins to play his music, all the instruments are transfigured. they seem to utter the sounds that they have been longing to utter. the horns run riot; the drums and cymbals join in the general joy; the old bass viols are alive with passion; the 'cellos throb with love; the violins are seized with a divine fury, and the notes rush out as eager for the air as pardoned prisoners for the roads and fields. the music of wagner is filled with landscapes. there are some strains, like midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like islands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. his music satisfies the heart and brain. it is not only for memory; not only for the present, but for prophecy. wagner was a sculptor, a painter, in sound. when he died, the greatest fountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. his music will instruct and refine forever. all that i know about the operas of wagner i have learned from anton seidl. i believe that he is the noblest, tenderest and the most artistic interpreter of the great composer that has ever lived. the frank b. carpenter dinner. new york, december , * there was a notable gathering of leading artists, authors, scientists, journalists, lawyer, clergymen and other professional men at sherry's last evening. the occasion was a dinner tendered to mr. f. b. carpenter, the famous portrait and portrait group artist, by his immediate friends to celebrate the completion of his new historical painting, entitled "international arbitration," which is to be sent to queen victoria next week as the gift of a wealthy american lady. no such tribute has ever been paid before to an artist of-this country. let us hope that the extraordinary attention thus paid to mr. carpenter will give our "english cousins" some idea of how he is prized and his work indorsed at home. the dinner to mr. carpenter was a great success-- most enjoyable in every way. the table was laid in the form ol a horse shoe with a train of smilax, and sweet flowers extending the entire length of the table, amid pots of chrysanthemums and roses. ex-minister andrew d white presided in the absence of john russell young..........mr. white said: "during the entire course of these proceedings we have been endeavoring to find a representative of the great fourth estate who would present its claims in relation to arbitration on this occasion. there are present men whose names are household words in connection with the press throughout this land. there is certainly one distinguished as orator: there is another distinguished as a scholar. but they prefer to be silent. we will therefore consider that the toast of 'the press in connection with war and peace' has been duly honored although it has not been responded to, and now there is one subject which i think you will consider as coming strangely at this late hour. it is a renewal of the subject with which we began, and i am to ask to speak to it a man who is admired and feared throughout the country. at one moment he smashes the most cherished convictions of the country, and at another he raises our highest aspirations for the future of humanity. "it happened several years ago that i was crossing the atlantic, and when i had sufficiently recovered from seasickness to sit out on the deck i came across colonel ingersoll, and of all subjects of discussion you can imagine we fell upon the subject of art, and we went at it hot and heavy. so i said to him to-night that i had a rod in pickle for him and that he was not to know anything about it until it was displayed. "i now call upon him to talk to us about art, and if he talks now as he talked on the deck of the steamer i do not know whether it would clear the room, but it would make a sensation in this state and country. i have great pleasure in announcing colonel ingersoll, to speak on the subject of art--or on any other subject, for no matter upon what he speaks his words are always welcome." new york press, december , . toast: art. i presume i take about as much interest in what that picture represents as anybody else. i believe that it has been said this evening that the world will never be civilized so long as differences between nations are settled by gun or cannon or sword. barbarians still settle their personal differences with clubs or arms, and finally, when they agree to submit their differences to their peers, to a court, we call them civilized. now, nations sustain the same relations to each other that barbarians sustain; that is, they settle their differences by force; each nation being the judge of the righteousness of its cause, and its judgment depending entirely--or for the most part--on its strength; and the strongest nation is the nearest right. now, until nations submit their differences to an international court--a court with the power to carry its judgment into effect by having the armies and navies of all the rest of the world pledged to support it--the world will not be civilized. our differences will not be settled by arbitration until more of the great nations set the example, and until that is done, i am in favor of the united states being armed. until that is done it will give me joy to know that another magnificent man-of-war has been launched upon our waters. and i will tell you why. look again at that picture. there is another face; it is not painted there, and yet without it that picture would not have been painted, and that is the face of u. s. grant. the olive branch, to be of any force, to be of any beneficent power, must be offered by the mailed hand. it must be offered by a nation which has back of the olive branch the force. it cannot be offered by weakness, because then it will excite only ridicule. the powerful, the imperial, must offer that branch. then it will be accepted in the true spirit; otherwise not. so, until the world is a little more civilized i am in favor of the largest guns that can be made and the best navy that floats. i do not want any navy unless we have the best, because if you have a poor one you will simply make a present of it to the enemy as soon as war opens. we should be ready to defend ourselves against the world. not that i think there is going to be any war, but because i think that is the best way to prevent it. until the whole world shall have entered into the same spirit as the artist when he painted that picture, until that spirit becomes general we have got to be prepared for war. and we cannot depend upon war suasion. if a fleet of men-of-war should sail into our harbor, talk would not be of any good; we must be ready to answer them in their own way. i suppose i have been selected to speak on art because i can speak on that subject without prejudice, knowing nothing about it. i have on this subject no hobbies, no pet theories, and consequently will give you not what i know, but what i think. i am an agnostic in many things, and the way i understand art is this: in the first place we are all invisible to each other. there is something called soul; something that thinks and hopes and loves. it is never seen. it occupies a world that we call the brain, and is forever, so far as we know, invisible. each soul lives in a world of its own, and it endeavors to communicate with another soul living in a world of its own, each invisible to the other, and it does this in a variety of ways. that is the noblest art which expresses the noblest thought, that gives to another the noblest emotions that this unseen soul has. in order to do this we have to seize upon the seen, the visible. in other words, nature is a vast dictionary that we use simply to convey from one invisible world to another what happens in our invisible world. the man that lives in the greatest world and succeeds in letting other worlds know what happens in his world, is the greatest artist. i believe that all arts have the same father and the same mother, and no matter whether you express what happens in these unseen worlds in mere words--because nearly all pictures have been made with words--or whether you express it in marble, or form and color in what we call painting, it is to carry on that commerce between these invisible worlds, and he is the greatest artist who expresses the tenderest, noblest thoughts to the unseen worlds about him. so that all art consists in this commerce, every soul being an artist and every brain that is worth talking about being an art gallery, and there is no gallery in this world, not in the vatican or the louvre or any other place, comparable with the gallery in every great brain. the millions of pictures that are in every brain to-night; the landscapes, the faces, the groups, the millions of millions of millions of things that are now living here in every brain, all unseen, all invisible forever! yet we communicate with each other by showing each other these pictures, these studies, and by inviting others into our galleries and showing them what we have, and the greatest artist is he who has the most pictures to show to other artists. i love anything in art that suggests the tender, the beautiful. what is beauty? of course there is no absolute beauty. all beauty is relative. probably the most beautiful thing to a frog is the speckled belly of another frog, or to a snake the markings of another snake. so there is no such thing as absolute beauty. but what i call beauty is what suggests to me the highest and the tenderest thought; something that answers to something in my world. so every work of art has to be born in some brain, and it must be made by the unseen artist we call the soul. now, if a man simply copies what he sees, he is nothing but a copyist. that does not require genius. that requires industry and the habit of observation. but it is not genius; it is not art. those little daubs and shreds and patches we get by copying, are pieces of iron that need to be put into the flame of genius to be molten and then cast in noble forms; otherwise there is no genius. the great picture should have, not only the technical part of art, which is neither moral nor immoral, but in addition some great thought, some great event. it should contain not only a history but a prophecy. there should be in it soul, feeling, thought i love those little pictures of the home, of the fireside, of the old lady, boiling the kettle, the vine running over the cottage door, scenes suggesting to me happiness, contentment. i think more of them than of the great war pieces, and i hope i shall have a few years in some such scenes, during which i shall not care what time it is, what day of the week or month it is. just that feeling of content when it is enough to live, to breathe, to have the blue sky above you and to hear the music of the water. all art that gives us that content, that delight, enriches this world and makes life better and holier. that, in a general kind of way, as i said before, is my idea of art, and i hope that the artists of america--and they ought to be as good here as in any place on earth--will grow day by day and year by year independent of all other art in the world, and be true to the american or republican spirit always. as to this picture, it is representative, it is american. there is one word mr. daniel dougherty said to which i would like to refer. i have never said very much in my life in defence of england, at the same time i have never blamed england for being against us during our war, and i will tell you why. we had been a nation of hypocrites. we pretended to be in favor of liberty and yet we had four or five millions of our people enslaved. that was a very awkward position. we had bloodhounds to hunt human beings and the apostles setting them on; and while this was going on these poor wretches sought and found liberty on british soil. now, why not be honest about it? we were rather a contemptible people, though mr. dougherty thinks the english were wholly at fault. but england abolished the slave-trade in ; she abolished slavery in her colonies in . we were lagging behind. that is all there is about it. no matter why, we put ourselves in the position of pretending to be a free people while we had millions of slaves, and it was only natural that england should dislike it. i think the chairman said that there had been no great historic picture of the signing of the constitution. there never should be, never! it was fit, it was proper, to have a picture of the signing of the declaration of independence. that was an honest document. our people wanted to give a good reason for fighting great britain, and in order to do that they had to dig down to the bed-rock of human rights, and then they said all men are created equal. but just as soon as we got our independence we made a constitution that gave the lie to the declaration of independence, and that is why the signing of the constitution never ought to be painted. we put in that constitution a clause that the slave-trade should not be interfered with for years, and another clause that this entire government was pledged to hand back to slavery any poor woman with a child at her breast, seeking freedom by flight. it was a very poor document. a little while ago they celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of that business and talked about the constitution being such a wonderful thing; yet what was in that constitution brought on the most terrible civil war ever known, and during that war they said: "give us the constitution as it is and the union as it was." and i said then: "curse the constitution as it is and the union as it was. don't talk to me about fighting for a constitution that has brought on a war like this; let us make a new one." no, i am in favor of a painting that would celebrate the adoption of the amendment to the constitution that declares that there shall be no more slavery on this soil. i believe that we are getting a little more free every day--a little more sensible all the time. a few years ago a woman in germany made a speech, in which she asked: "why should the german mother in pain and agony give birth to a child and rear that child through industry and poverty, and teach him that when he arrives at the age of twenty-one it will be his duty to kill the child of the french mother? and why should the french mother teach her son, that it will be his duty sometime to kill the child of the german mother?" there is more sense in that than in all the diplomacy i ever read, and i think the time is coming when that question will be asked by every mother--why should she raise a child to kill the child of another mother? the time is coming when we will do away with all this. man has been taught that he ought to fight for the country where he was born; no matter about that country being wrong, whether it supported him or not, whether it enslaved him and trampled on every right he had, still it was his duty to march up in support of that country. the time will come when the man will make up his mind himself whether the country is worth while fighting for, and he is the greatest patriot who seeks to make his country worth fighting for, and not he who says, i am for it anyhow, whether it is right or not. these patriots will be the force mr. george was speaking about. if war between this country and great britain were declared, and there were men in both countries sufficient to take a right view of it, that would be the end of war. the thing would be settled by arbitration--settled by some court--and no one would dream of rushing to the field of battle. so, that is my hope for the world; more policy, more good, solid, sound sense and less mud patriotism. i think that this country is going to grow. i think it will take in mr. wiman's country. i do not mean that we are going to take any country. i mean that they are going to come to us. i do not believe in conquest. canada will come just as soon as it is to her interest to come, and i think she will come or be a great country to herself. i do not believe in those people, intelligent as they are, sending three thousand miles for information they have at home. i do not believe in their being governed by anybody except themselves. so if they come we shall be glad to have them, if they don't want to come i don't want them. yes, we are growing. i don't know how many millions of people we have now, probably over sixty-two if they all get counted; and they are still coming. i expect to live to see one hundred millions here. i know some say that we are getting too many foreigners, but i say the more that come the better. we have got to have somebody to take the places of the sons of our rich people. so i say let them come. there is plenty of land here, everywhere. i say to the people of every country, come; do your work here, and we will protect you against other countries. we will give you all the work to supply yourselves and your neighbors. then if we have differences with another country we shall have a strong navy, big ships, big guns, magnificent men and plenty of them, and if we put out the hand of fellowship and friendship they will know there is no foolishness about it. they will know we are not asking any favor. we will just say: we want peace, and we tell you over the glistening leaves of this olive branch that if you don't compromise we will mop the earth with you. that is the sort of arbitration i believe in, and it is the only sort, in my judgment, that will be effectual for all time. and i hope that we may still grow, and grow more and more artistic, and more and more in favor of peace, and i pray that we may finally arrive at being absolutely worthy of having presented that picture, with all that it implies, to the most warlike nation in the world--to the nation that first sends the gospel and then the musket immediately after, and says: you have got to be civilized, and the only evidence of civilization that you can give is to buy our goods and to buy them now, and to pay for them. i wish us to be worthy of the picture presented to such a nation, and my prayer is that america may be worthy to have sent such a token in such a spirit, and my second prayer is that england may be worthy to receive it and to keep it, and that she may receive it in the same spirit that it is sent. i am glad that it is to be sent by a woman. the gentleman who spoke to the toast, "woman as a peacemaker," seemed to believe that woman brought all the sorrows that ever happened, not only of war, but troubles of every kind. i want to say to him that i would rather live with the woman i love in a world of war, in a world full of troubles and sorrows, than to live in heaven with nobody but men. i believe that woman is a peacemaker, and so i am glad that a woman presents this token to another woman; and woman is a far higher title than queen, in my judgment; far higher. there are no higher titles than woman, mother, wife, sister, and when they come to calling them countesses and duchesses and queens, that is all rot. that adds nothing to that unseen artist who inhabits the world called the brain. that unseen artist is great by nature and cannot be made greater by the addition of titles. and so one woman gives to another woman the picture that prophesies war is finally to cease, and the civilized nations of the world will henceforth arbitrate their differences and no longer strew the plains with corpses of brethren. that is the supreme lesson that is taught by this picture, and i congratulate mr. carpenter that his name is associated with it and also with the "proclamation of emancipation." in the latter work he has associated his name with that of lincoln, which is the greatest name in history, and the gentlest memory in this world. mr. carpenter has associated his name with that and with this and with that of general grant, for i say that this picture would never have been possible had there not been behind it grant; if there had not been behind it the victorious armies of the north and the great armies of the south, that would have united instantly to repel any foreign foe. unitarian club dinner. new york, january , . toast: the ideal. mr. president, ladies and gentlemen: in the first place, i wish to tender my thanks to this club for having generosity and sense enough to invite me to speak this evening. it is probably the best thing the club has ever done. you have shown that you are not afraid of a man simply because he does not happen to agree entirely with you, although in a very general way it may be said that i come within one of you. so i think, not only that you have honored me--that, i most cheerfully and gratefully admit--but, upon my word, i think that you have honored yourselves. and imagine the distance the religious world has traveled in the last few years to make a thing of this kind possible! you know--i presume every one of you knows--that i have no religion--not enough to last a minute--none whatever--that is, in the ordinary sense of that word. and yet you have become so nearly civilized that you are willing to hear what i have to say; and i have become so nearly civilized that i am willing to say what i think. and, in the second place, let me say that i have great respect for the unitarian church. i have great respect for the memory of theodore parker. i have great respect for every man who has assisted in reaving the heavens of an infinite monster. i have great respect for every man who has helped to put out the fires of hell. in other words, i have great respect for every man who has tried to civilize my race. the unitarian church has done more than any other church--and may be more than all other churches--to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe. and whether there be one god or a million, i am perfectly satisfied that every duty that devolves upon me is within my reach; it is something that i can do myself, without the help of anybody else, either in this world or any other. now, in order to make myself plain on this subject--i think i was to speak about the ideal--i want to thank the unitarian church for what it has done; and i want to thank the universalist church, too. they at least believe in a god who is a gentleman; and that is much more than was ever done by an orthodox church. they believe, at least, in a heavenly father who will leave the latch string out until the last child gets home; and as that lets me in--especially in reference to the "last"--i have great respect for that church. but now i am coming to the ideal; and in what i may say you may not all agree. i hope you won't, because that would be to me evidence that i am wrong. you cannot expect everybody to agree in the right, and i cannot expect to be always in the right myself. i have to judge with the standard called my reason, and i do not know whether it is right or not; i will admit that. but as opposed to any other man's, i will bet on mine. that is to say, for home use. in the first place, i think it is said in some book--and if i am wrong there are plenty here to correct me--that "the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom." i think a knowledge of the limitations of the human mind is the beginning of wisdom, and, i may almost say, the end of it--really to understand yourself. now, let me lay down this proposition. the imagination of man has the horizon of experience; and beyond experience or nature man cannot go, even in imagination. man is not a creator. he combines; he adds together; he divides; he subtracts; he does not create, even in the world of imagination. let me make myself a little plainer: not one here--not one in the wide, wide world can think of a color that he never saw. no human being can imagine a sound that he has not heard, and no one can think of a taste that he has not experienced. he can add to--that is add together--combine; but he cannot, by any possibility, create. man originally, we will say--go back to the age of barbarism, and you will not have to go far; our own childhood, probably, is as far as is necessary--but go back to what is called the age of savagery; every man was an idealist, as every man is to-day an idealist. every man in savage or civilized time, commencing with the first that ever crawled out of a cave and pushed the hair back from his forehead to look at the sun--commence with him and end with judge wright--the last expression on the god question--and from that cave to the soul that lives in this temple, everyone has been an idealist and has endeavored to account in some way for what he saw and for what he felt; in other words, for the phenomena of nature. the easiest way to account for it by the rudest savage, is the way it has been accounted for to-night. what makes the river run? there's a god in it. what makes the tree grow? there's a god in it. what makes the star shine? there's a god in it. what makes the sun rise? why, he is a god himself. and what makes the nightingale sing until the air is faint with melody? there's a god in it. they commenced making gods to account for everything that happens; gods of dreams and gods of love and friendship, and heroism and courage. splendid! they kept making more and more. the more they found out in nature, up to a certain point, the more gods they needed; and they kept on making gods until almost every wave of the sea bore a god. gods on every mountain, and in every vale and field, and by every stream! gods in flowers, gods in grass; gods everywhere! all accounting for this world and for what happened in this world. then, when they had got about to the top, when their ingenuity had been exhausted, they had not produced anything, and they did not produce anything beyond their own experience. we are told that they were idolaters. that is a mistake, except in the sense that we are all idolaters. they said, "here is a god; let us express our idea of him. he is stronger than a man; let us give him the body of a lion. he is swifter than a man; let us give him the wings of an eagle. he is wiser than a man"--and when a man was very savage he said, "let us give him the head of a serpent;" a serpent is wonderfully wise; he travels without feet; he climbs without claws; he lives without food, and he is of the simplest conceivable form. and that was simply to represent their idea of power, of swiftness, of wisdom. and yet this impossible monster was simply made of what man had seen in nature, and he put the various attributes or parts together by his imagination. he created nothing. he simply took these parts of certain beasts, when beasts were supposed to be superior to man in some particulars, and in that way expressed his thought. you go into the territory of arizona to-day, and you will find there pictures of god. he was clothed in stone, through which no arrow could pierce, and so they called god the stone-shirted whom no indian could kill. that was for the simple and only reason that it was impossible to get an arrow through his armor. they got the idea from the armadillo. now, i am simply saying this to show that they were making gods for all these centuries, and making them out of something they found in nature. then, after they got through with the beast business, they made gods after the image of man; and they are the best gods, so far as i know, that have been made. the gods that were first made after the image of man were not made after the pattern of very good men; but they were good men according to the standard of that time, because, as i will show you in a moment, all these things are relative. the qualities or things that we call mercy, justice, charity and religion are all relative. there was a time when the victor on the field of battle was exceedingly merciful if he failed to eat his prisoner; he was regarded as a very charitable gentleman if he refused to eat the man he had captured in battle. afterward he was regarded as an exceedingly benevolent person if he would spare a prisoner's life and make him a slave. so that--but you all know it as well as i do or you would not be unitarians--all this has been simply a growth from year to year, from generation to generation, from age to age. and let me tell you the first thing about these gods that they made after the image of men. after a time there were men on the earth who were better than these gods in heaven. then those gods began to die, one after another, and dropped from their thrones. the time will probably come in the history of this world when an insurance company can calculate the average life of gods as well as they do now of men; because all these gods have been made by folks. and, let me say right here, the folks did the best they could. i do not blame them. everybody in the business has always done his best. i admit it. i admit that man has traveled from the first conception up to unitarianism by a necessary road. under the conditions he could have come up in no other way. i admit all that. i blame nobody. but i am simply trying to tell, in a very feeble manner, how it is. now, in a little while, i say, men got better than their gods. then the gods began to die. then we began to find out a few things in nature, and we found out that we were supporting more gods than were necessary--that fewer gods could do the business--and that, from an economical point of view, expenses ought to be cut down. there were too many temples, too many priests, and you always had to give tithes of something to each one, and these gods were about to eat up the substance of the world. and there came a time when it got to that point that either the gods would eat up the people or the people must destroy some gods, and of course they destroyed the gods--one by one and in their places they put forces of nature to do the business--forces of nature that needed no church, that needed no theologians; forces of nature that you are under no obligation to; that you do not have to pay anything to keep working. we found that the attraction of gravitation would attend to its business, night and day, at its own expense. there was a great saving. i wish it were the same with all kinds of law, so that we could all go into some useful business, including myself. so day by day, they dispensed with this expense of deities; and the world got along just as well--a good deal better. they used to think--a community thought--that if a man was allowed to say a word against a deity, the god would visit his vengeance upon the entire nation. but they found out, after a while, that no harm came of it; so they went on destroying the gods. now, all these things are relative; and they made gods a little better all the time--i admit that--till we struck the presbyterian, which is probably the worst ever made. the presbyterians seem to have bred back. but no matter. as man became more just, or nearer just, as he became more charitable, or nearer charitable, his god grew to be a little better and a little better. he was very bad in geneva--the three that we then had. they were very bad in scotland--horrible! very bad in new england--infamous! i might as well tell the truth about it--very bad! and then men went to work, finally, to civilize their gods, to civilize heaven, to give heaven the benefit of the freedom of this brave world. that's what we did. we wanted to civilize religion--civilize what is known as christianity. and nothing on earth needed civilization more; and nothing needs it more than that to-night. civilization! i am not so much for the freedom of religion as i am for the religion of freedom. now, there was a time when our ancestors--good people, away back, all dead, no great regret expressed at this meeting on that account--there was a time when our ancestors were happy in their belief that nearly everybody was to be lost, and that a few, including themselves, were to be saved. that religion, i say, fitted that time. it fitted their geology. it was a very good running mate for their astronomy. it was a good match for their chemistry. in other words, they were about equal in every department of human ignorance. and they insisted that there lived up there somewhere--generally up--exactly where nobody has, i believe, yet said--a being, an infinite person "without body, parts, or passions," and yet without passions he was angry at the wicked every day; without body he inhabited a certain place; and without parts he was, after all, in some strange and miraculous manner, organized so that he thought. and i don't know that it is possible for anyone here--i don't know that anyone here is gifted with imagination enough--to conceive of such a being. our fathers had not imagination enough to do so, at least, and so they said of this god, that he loves and he hates; he punishes and he rewards; and that religion has been described perfectly tonight by judge wright as really making god a monster, and men poor, helpless victims. and the highest possible conception of the orthodox man was, finally, to be a good servant--just lucky enough to get in--feathers somewhat singed, but enough left to fly. that was the idea of our fathers. and then came these divisions, simply because men began to think. and why did they begin to think? because in every direction, in all departments, they were getting more and more information. and then the religion did not fit. when they found out something of the history of this globe they found out that the scriptures were not true. i will not say not inspired, because i do not know whether they are inspired or not. it is a question, to me, of no possible importance, whether they are inspired or not. the question is: are they true? if they are true, they do not need inspiration; and if they are not true, inspiration will not help them. so that is a matter that i care nothing about. on every hand, i say, they studied and thought. they began to grow--to have new ideas of mercy, kindness, justice; new ideas of duty--new ideas of life. the old gods, after we got past the civilization of the greeks, past their mythology--and it is the best mythology that man has ever made--after we got past that, i say, the gods cared very little about women. women occupied no place in the state--no place by the hearth, except one of subordination, and almost of slavery. so the early churches made god after that image who held women in contempt. it was only natural--i am not blaming anybody--they had to do it, it was part of the _must!_ now, i say that we have advanced up to the point that we demand not only intelligence, but justice and mercy, in the sky; we demand that--that idea of god. then comes my trouble. i want to be honest about it. here is my trouble--and i want it also understood that if i should see a man praying to a stone image or to a stuffed serpent, with that man's wife or daughter or son lying at the point of death, and that poor savage on his knees imploring that image or that stuffed serpent to save his child or his wife, there is nothing in my heart that could suggest the slightest scorn, or any other feeling than that of sympathy; any other feeling than that of grief that the stuffed serpent could not answer the prayer and that the stone image did not feel; i want that understood. and wherever man prays for the right--no matter to whom or to what he prays; where he prays for strength to conquer the wrong, i hope his prayer may be heard; and if i think there is no one else to hear it i will hear it, and i am willing to help answer it to the extent of my power. so i want it distinctly understood that that is my feeling. but here is my trouble: i find this world made on a very cruel plan. i do not say it is wrong--i just say that that is the way it seems to me. i may be wrong myself, because this is the only world i was ever in; i am provincial. this grain of sand and tear they call the earth is the only world i have ever lived in. and you have no idea how little i know about the rest of this universe; you never will know how little i know about it until you examine your own minds on the same subject. the plan is this: life feeds on life. justice does not always triumph: innocence is not a perfect shield. there is my trouble. no matter now, whether you agree with me or not; i beg of you to be honest and fair with me in your thought, as i am toward you in mine. i hope, as devoutly as you, that there is a power somewhere in this universe that will finally bring everything as it should be. i take a little consolation in the "perhaps"--in the guess that this is only one scene of a great drama, and that when the curtain rises on the fifth act, if i live that long, i may see the coherence and the relation of things. but up to the present writing--or speaking--i do not. i do not understand it--a god that has life feed on life; every joy in the world born of some agony! i do not understand why in this world, over the niagara of cruelty, should run this ocean of blood. i do not understand it. and, then, why does not justice always triumph? why is not innocence a perfect shield? these are my troubles. suppose a man had control of the atmosphere, knew enough of the secrets of nature, had read enough in "nature's infinite book of secrecy" so that he could control the wind and rain; suppose a man had that power, and suppose that last year he kept the rain from russia and did not allow the crops to ripen when hundreds of thousands were famishing and when little babes were found with their lips on the breasts of dead mothers! what would you think of such a man? now, there is my trouble. if there be a god he understood this. he knew when he withheld his rain that the famine would come. he saw the dead mothers, he saw the empty breasts of death, and he saw the helpless babes. there is my trouble. i am perfectly frank with you and honest. that is my trouble. now, understand me! i do not say there is no god. i do not know. as i told you before, i have traveled but very little--only in this world. i want it understood that i do not pretend to know. i say i think. and in my mind the idea expressed by judge wright so eloquently and so beautifully is not exactly true. i cannot conceive of the god he endeavors to describe, because he gives to that god will, purpose, achievement, benevolence, love, and no form--no organization--no wants. there's the trouble. no wants. and let me say why that is a trouble. man acts only because he wants. you civilize man by increasing his wants, or, as his wants increase he becomes civilized. you find a lazy savage who would not hunt an elephant tusk to save your life. but let him have a few tastes of whiskey and tobacco, and he will run his legs off for tusks. you have given him another want and he is willing to work. and they nearly all started on the road toward unitarianism--that is to say, toward civilization--in that way. you must increase their wants. the question arises: can an infinite being want anything? if he does and cannot get it, he is not happy. if he does not want anything, i cannot help him. i am under no obligation to do anything for anybody who does not need anything and who does not want anything. now, there is my trouble. i may be wrong, and i may get paid for it some time, but that is my trouble. i do not see--admitting that all is true that has been said about the existence of god--i do not see what i can do for him; and i do not see either what he can do for me, judging by what he has done for others. and then i come to the other point, that religion so-called, explains our duties to this supposed being, when we do not even know that he exists; and no human being has got imagination enough to describe him, or to use such words that you understand what he is trying to say. i have listened with great pleasure to judge wright this evening, and i have heard a great many other beautiful things on the same subject--none better than his. but i never understood them--never. now, then, what is religion? i say, religion is all here in this world--right here--and that all our duties are right here to our fellow-men; that the man that builds a home; marries the girl that he loves; takes good care of her; likes the family; stays home nights, as a general thing; pays his debts; tries to find out what he can; gets all the ideas and beautiful things that his mind will hold; turns a part of his brain into a gallery of fine arts; has a host of paintings and statues there; then has another niche devoted to music--a magnificent dome, filled with winged notes that rise to glory--now, the man who does that gets all he can from the great ones dead; swaps all the thoughts he can with the ones that are alive; true to the ideal that he has here in his brain--he is what i call a religious man, because he makes the world better, happier; he puts the dimples of joy in the cheeks of the ones he loves, and he lets the gods run heaven to suit themselves. and i am not saying that he is right; i do not know. this is all the religion that i have; to make somebody else happier if i can. i divide this world into two classes--the cruel and the kind; and i think a thousand times more of a kind man than i do of an intelligent man. i think more of kindness than i do of genius, i think more of real, good, human nature in that way--of one who is willing to lend a helping hand and who goes through the world with a face that looks as if its owner were willing to answer a decent question--i think a thousand times more of that than i do of being theologically right; because i do not care whether i am theologically right or not. it is something that is not worth talking about, because it is something that i never, never, never shall understand; and every one of you will die and you won't understand it either--until after you die at any rate. i do not know what will happen then. i am not denying anything. there is another ideal, and it is a beautiful ideal. it is the greatest dream that ever entered the heart or brain of man--the dream of immortality. it was born of human affection. it did not come to us from heaven. it was born of the human heart. and when he who loved, kissed the lips of her who was dead, there came into his heart the dream: we may meet again. and, let me tell you, that hope of immortality never came from any religion. that hope of immortality has helped make religion. it has been the great oak around which have climbed the poisonous vines of superstition--that hope of immortality is the great oak. and yet the moment a man expresses a doubt about the truth of joshua or jonah or the other three fellows in a furnace, up hops some poor little wretch and says, "why, he doesn't want to live any more; he wants to die and go down like a dog, and that is the end of him and his wife and children." they really seem to think that the moment a man is what they call an infidel he has no affections, no heart, no feeling, no hope--nothing--nothing. just anxious to be annihilated! but, if the orthodox creed be true, i make my choice to-night. i take hell. and if it is between hell and annihilation, i take annihilation. i will tell you why i take hell in making the first choice. we have heard from both of those places--heaven and hell. according to the new testament there was a rich man in hell, and a poor man, lazarus, in heaven. and there was another gentleman by the name of abraham. the rich man in hell was in flames, and he called for water, and they told him they couldn't give him any. no bridge! but they did not express the slightest regret that they could not give him any water. mr. abraham was not decent enough to say he would if he could; no, sir; nothing. it did not make any difference to him. but this rich man in hell--in torment--his heart was all right, for he remembered his brothers; and he said to this abraham, "if you cannot go, why, send a man to my five brethren, so that they will not come to this place!" good fellow, to think of his five brothers when he was burning up. good fellow. best fellow we ever heard from on the other side--in either world. so, i say there is my place. and, incidentally, abraham at that time gave his judgment as to the value of miracles. he said, "though one should arise from the dead he wouldn't help your five brethren!" "there are moses and the prophets." no need of raising people from the dead. that is my idea, in a general way, about religion; and i want the imagination to go to work upon it, taking the perfections of one church, of one school, of one system, and putting them together, just as the sculptor makes a great statue by taking the eyes from one, the nose from another, the limbs from another, and so on; just as they make a great painting from a landscape by putting a river in this place, instead of over there, changing the location of a tree and improving on what they call nature--that is to say, simply by adding to, taking from; that is all we can do. but let us go on doing that until there shall be a church in sympathy with the best human heart and in harmony with the best human brain. and, what is more, let us have that religion for the world we live in. right here! let us have that religion until it cannot be said that they who do the most work have the least to eat. let us have that religion here until hundreds and thousands of women are not compelled to make a living with the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor," and to live in tenements, in filth, where modesty is impossible. i say, let us preach that religion here until men will be ashamed to have forty or fifty millions, or any more than they need, while their brethren lack bread--while their sisters die from want. let us preach that religion here until man will have more ambition to become wise and good than to become rich and powerful. let us preach that religion here among ourselves until there are no abused and beaten wives. let us preach that religion until children are no longer afraid of their own parents and until there is no back of a child bearing the scars of a father's lash. let us preach it, i say, until we understand and know that every man does as he must, and that, if we want better men and women, we must have better conditions. let us preach this grand religion until everywhere, the world over, men are just and kind to each other. and then, if there be another world, we shall be prepared for it. and if i come into the presence of an infinite, good, and wise being, he will say, "well, you did the best you could. you did very well, indeed. there is plenty of work for you to do here. try and get a little higher than you were before." let us preach that one drop of restitution is worth an ocean of repentance. and if there is a life of eternal progress before us, i shall be as glad as any other angel to find that out. but i will not sacrifice the world i have for one i know not of. i will not live here in fear, when i do not know that that which i fear lives. i am going to live a perfectly free man. i am going to reap the harvest of my mind, no matter how poor it is, whether it is wheat or corn or worthless weeds. and i am going to scatter it. some may "fall on stony ground." but i think i have struck good soil to-night. and so, ladies and gentlemen, i thank you a thousand times for your attention. i beg that you will forgive the time that i have taken, and allow me to say, once more, that this event marks an epoch in religious liberty in the united states. western society of the army of the potomac banquet. chicago, january , . * every soldier of the army of the potomac: remembers, the colors that for two years floated over the headquarters of gen. meade. last night when one hundred and fifty men who fought in that army gathered around the banquet board at the grand pacific hotel a fac-simile of that flag floated over them. it was a handsome guidon, on one side a field of solferino red bearing a life-sized golden eagle surrounded by a silver wreath of laurel; on the other were the national colors with the names of the corps of the army. the fifth annual banquet of the western society of the army of the potomac will be remembered on account of the presence of many distinguished men. the cigars had not been lighted when col. robert g. ingersoll, escorted by gen. newberry and col. burbanks, came in. the bald head and sparse gray hair of the famous orator were recognized by all, and he was given a mighty welcome. save for the emblems of the union and the fac-simile of gen. meade's flag the decorations were simple. there were no flowers, but the soldiers could read on little signs stuck up around the tables such names as "petersburg," "white oak," "mine run," "cold harbor," "fair oaks" and "south mountain." the exercises began and ended with bugle call and military song, and the heroes of the potomac showed that they still remembered the words of the songs sung in camp. col. freeman connor, the retiring president, acted as toastmaster. seated near him were maj.-gen. nelson miles, united states army; gen. newberry, col. ingersoll, thomas b. bryan, col. james a.. sexton, maj. e. a. blodgett, fred w. spink, col. williston and maj. heyle. the exercises began with the singing of "america" by all col. conner made a few remarks and then col. c. s. mcentee presented the new-comer to the society. when colonel ingersoll was introduced, the veterans jumped up on chairs, waved their handkerchiefs and greeted him with a mighty shout. the colonel spoke only fifteen minutes. at the conclusion of colonel ingersoll's speech he was again cheered for several minutes. a motion was made to make him an honorary member of the western society of the army of the potomac. the toastmaster in putting the question said: "all who are in favor will rise and yell," and every comrade yelled. --chicago record, february , . first of all, i wish to thank you for allowing me to be present. next, i wish to congratulate you that you are all alive. i congratulate you that you were born in this century, the greatest century in the world's history, the greatest century of intellectual genius and of physical, mental and moral progress that the world ever knew. i congratulate you all that you are members of the army of the potomac. i believe that no better army ever marched under the flag of any nation. there was no difficulty that discouraged you; no defeat that disheartened you. for years you bore the heat and burden of battle; for years you saw your comrades torn by shot and shell, but wiping the tears, from your cheeks you marched on with greater determination than ever to fight to the end. to the army of the potomac belongs the eternal honor of having obtained finally the sword of rebellion. i congratulate you because you fought for the republic, and i thank you for your courage. for by you the united states was kept on the map of the world, and our flag was kept floating. if not for your work, neither would have been there. you removed from it the only stain that was ever on it. you fought not only the battle of the union, but of the whole world. i congratulate you that you live in a period when the north has attained a higher moral altitude than was ever attained by any nation. you now live in a country which believes in absolute freedom for all. in this country any man may reap what he sows and may give his honest thought to his fellow-men. it is wonderful to think what this nation was before the army of the potomac came into existence. it believed in liberty as the convict believes in liberty. it was a country where men that had honest thoughts were ostracized. i thank you and your courage for what we are. nothing ennobles a man so much as fighting for the right. whoever fights for the wrong wounds himself. i believe that every man who fought in the union army came out a stronger and a better and a nobler man. i believe in this country. i am so young and so full of enthusiasm that i am a believer in national growth. i want this country to be territorial and to become larger than it is. i want a country worthy of chicago. i want to pick up the west indies, take in the bermudas, the bahamas and barbadoes. they are our islands. they belong to this continent and it is a piece of impudence for any other nation to think of owning them. we want to grow. such is the extravagance of my ambition that i even want the sandwich islands. they say that these islands are too far away from us; that they are two thousand miles from our shores. but they are nearer to our shores than to any other. i want them. i want a naval station there. i want america to be mistress of the pacific. then there is another thing in my mind. i want to grow north and south. i want canada--good people--good land. i want that country. i do not want to steal it, but i want it. i want to go south with this nation. my idea is this: there is only air enough between the isthmus of panama and the north pole for one flag. a country that guarantees liberty to all cannot be too large. if any of these people are ignorant, we will educate them; give them the benefit of our free schools. another thing--i might as well sow a few seeds for next fall. i have heard many reasons why the south failed in the rebellion, and why with the help of northern dissensions and a european hatred the south did not succeed. i will tell you. in my judgment, the south failed, not on account of its army, but from other conditions. luckily for us, the south had always been in favor of free trade. secondly--the south raised and sold raw material, and when the war came it had no foundries, no factories, and no looms to weave the cloth for uniforms; no shops to make munitions of war, and it had to get what supplies it could by running the blockade. we of the north had the cloth to clothe our soldiers, shops to make our bayonets; we had all the curious wheels that invention had produced, and had labor and genius, the power of steam, and the water to make what we needed, and we did not require anything from any other country. suppose this whole country raised raw material and shipped it out, we would be in the condition that the south was. we want this nation to be independent of the whole world. a nation to be ready to settle questions of dispute by war should be in a condition of absolute independence. for that reason i want all the wheels turning in this country, all the chimneys full of fire, all the looms running, the iron red hot everywhere. i want to see all mechanics having plenty of work with good wages and good homes for their families, good food, schools for their children, plenty of clothes, and enough to take care of a child if it happens to take sick. i am for the independence of america, the growth of america physically, mentally, and every other way. the time will come when all nations combined cannot take that flag out of the sky. i want to see this country so that if a deluge sweeps every other nation from the face of the globe we would have all we want made right here by our factories, by american brain and hand. i thank you that the republic still lives. i thank you that we are all lovers of freedom. i thank you for having helped establish a government where every child has an opportunity, and where every avenue of advancement if open to all. lotos club dinner in honor of anton seidl. new york, february , . mr. president, mr. anton seidl, and gentlemen: i was enjoying myself with music and song; why i should be troubled, why i should be called upon to trouble you, is a question i can hardly answer. still, as the president has remarked, the american people like to hear speeches. why, i don't know. it has always been a matter of amazement that anybody wanted to hear me. talking is so universal; with few exceptions--the deaf and dumb--everybody seems to be in the business. why they should be so anxious to hear a rival i never could understand. but, gentlemen, we are all pupils of nature; we are taught by the countless things that touch us on every side; by field and flower and star and cloud and river and sea, where the waves break into whitecaps, and by the prairie, and by the mountain that lifts its granite forehead to the sun; all things in nature touch us, educate us, sharpen us, cause the heart to bud, to burst, it may be, into blossom; to produce fruit. in common with the rest of the world i have been educated a little that way; by the things i have seen and by the things i have heard and by the people i have met. but there are a few things that stand out in my recollection as having touched me more deeply than others, a few men to whom i feel indebted for the little i know, and for the little i happen to be. those men, those things, are forever present in my mind. but i want to tell you to-night that the first man that let up the curtain in my mind, that ever opened a blind, that ever allowed a little sunshine to straggle in, was robert burns. i went to get my shoes mended, and i had to go with them. and i had to wait till they were done. i was like the fellow standing by the stream naked washing his shirt. a lady and gentleman were riding by in a carriage, and upon seeing him the man indignantly shouted, "why don't you put on another shirt when you are washing one?" the fellow said, "i suppose you think i've got a hundred shirts!" when i went into the shop of the old scotch shoemaker he was reading a book, and when he took my shoes in hand i took his book, which was "robert burns." in a few days i had a copy; and, indeed, gentlemen, from that time if "burns" had been destroyed i could have restored more than half of it. it was in my mind day and night. burns you know is a little valley, not very wide, but full of sunshine; a little stream runs down making music over the rocks, and children play upon the banks; narrow roads overrun with vines, covered with blossoms, happy children, the hum of bees, and little birds pour out their hearts and enrich the air. that is burns. then, you must know that i was raised respectably. certain books were not thought to be good for the young person; only such books as would start you in the narrow road for the new jerusalem. but one night i stopped at a little hotel in illinois, many years ago, when we were not quite civilized, when the footsteps of the red man were still in the prairies. while i was waiting for supper an old man was reading from a book, and among others who were listening was myself. i was filled with wonder. i had never heard anything like it. i was ashamed to ask him what he was reading; i supposed that an intelligent boy ought to know. so i waited, and when the little bell rang for supper i hung back and they went out. i picked up the book; it was sam johnson's edition of shakespeare. the next day i bought a copy for four dollars. my god! more than the national debt. you talk about the present straits of the treasury! for days, for nights, for months, for years, i read those books, two volumes, and i commenced with the introduction. i haven't read that introduction for nearly fifty years, certainly forty-five, but i remember it still. other writers are like a garden diligently planted and watered, but shakespeare a forest where the oaks and elms toss their branches to the storm, where the pine towers, where the vine bursts into blossom at its foot. that book opened to me a new world, another nature. while burns was the valley, here was a range of mountains with thousands of such valleys; while burns was as sweet a star as ever rose into the horizon, here was a heaven filled with constellations. that book has been a source of perpetual joy to me from that day to this; and whenever i read shakespeare--if it ever happens that i fail to find some new beauty, some new presentation of some wonderful truth, or another word that bursts into blossom, i shall make up my mind that my mental faculties are failing, that it is not the fault of the book. those, then, are two things that helped to educate me a little. afterward i saw a few paintings by rembrandt, and all at once i was overwhelmed with the genius of the man that could convey so much thought in form and color. then i saw a few landscapes by corot, and i began to think i knew something about art. during all my life, of course, like other people, i had heard what they call music, and i had my favorite pieces, most of those favorite pieces being favorites on account of association; and nine-tenths of the music that is beautiful to the world is beautiful because of the association, not because the music is good, but because of association.. we cannot write a very poetic thing about a pump or about water works; they are not old enough. we can write a poetic thing about a well and a sweep and an old moss-covered bucket, and you can write a poem about a spring, because a spring seems a gift of nature, something that cost no trouble and no work, something that will sing of nature under the quiet stars of june. so, it is poetic on account of association. the stage coach is more poetic than the car, but the time will come when cars will be poetic, because human feelings, love's remembrances, will twine around them, and consequently they will become beautiful. there are two pieces of music, "the last rose of summer," and "home sweet home," with the music a little weak in the back; but association makes them both beautiful. so, in the "marseillaise" is the french revolution, that whirlwind and flame of war, of heroism the highest possible, of generosity, of self-denial, of cruelty, of all of which the human heart and brain are capable; so that music now sounds as though its notes were made of stars, and it is beautiful mostly by association. now, i always felt that there must be some greater music somewhere, somehow. you know this little music that comes back with recurring emphasis every two inches or every three-and-a-half inches; i thought there ought to be music somewhere with a great sweep from horizon to horizon, and that could fill the great dome of sound with winged notes like the eagle; if there was not such music, somebody, sometime, would make it, and i was waiting for it. one day i heard it, and i said, "what music is that?" "who wrote that?" i felt it everywhere. i was cold. i was almost hysterical. it answered to my brain, to my heart; not only to association, but to all there was of hope and aspiration, all my future; and they said this is the music of wagner. i never knew one note from another--of course i would know it from a promissory note--and was utterly and absolutely ignorant of music until i heard wagner interpreted by the greatest leader, in my judgment, in the world--anton seidl. he not only understands wagner in the brain, but he feels him in the heart, and there is in his blood the same kind of wild and splendid independence that was in the brain of wagner. i want to say to-night, because there are so many heresies, mr. president, creeping into this world, i want to say and say it with all my might, that robert burns was not scotch. he was far wider than scotland: he had in him the universal tide, and wherever it touches the shore of a human being it finds access. not scotch, gentlemen, but a man, a man! i can swear to it, or rather affirm, that shakespeare was not english, but another man, kindred of all, of all races and peoples, and who understood the universal brain and heart of the human race, and who had imagination enough to put himself in the place of all. and so i want to say to-night, because i want to be consistent, richard wagner was not a german, and his music is not german; and why? germany would not have it. germany denied that it was music. the great german critics said it was nothing in the world but noise. the best interpreter of wagner in the world is not german, and no man has to be german to understand richard wagner. in the heart of nearly every man is an �olian harp, and when the breath of true genius touches that harp, every man that has one, or that knows what music is or has the depth and height of feeling necessary to appreciate it, appreciates richard wagner. to understand that music, to hear it as interpreted by this great leader, is an education. it develops the brain; it gives to the imagination wings; the little earth grows larger; the people grow important; and not only that, it civilizes the heart; and the man who understands that music can love better and with greater intensity than he ever did before. the man who understands and appreciates that music, becomes in the highest sense spiritual--and i don't mean by spiritual, worshiping some phantom, or dwelling upon what is going to happen to some of us--i mean spiritual in the highest sense; when a perfume arises from the heart in gratitude, and when you feel that you know what there is of beauty, of sublimity, of heroism and honor and love in the human heart. this is what i mean by being spiritual. i don't mean denying yourself here and living on a crust with the expectation of eternal joy--that is not what i mean. by spiritual i mean a man that has an ideal, a great ideal, and who is splendid enough to live to that ideal; that is what i mean by spiritual. and the man who has heard the music of wagner, that music of love and death, the greatest music, in my judgment, that ever issued from the human brain, the man who has heard that and understands it has been civilized. another man to whom i feel under obligation whose name i do not know--i know burns, shakespeare, rembrandt and wagner, but there are some other fellows whose names i do not know--is he who chiseled the venus de milo. this man helped to civilize the world; and there is nothing under the sun so pathetic as the perfect. whoever creates the perfect has thought and labored and suffered; and no perfect thing has ever been done except through suffering and except through the highest and holiest thought, and among this class of men is wagner. let me tell you something more. you know i am a great believer. there is no man in the world who believes more in human nature than i do. no man believes more in the nobility and splendor of humanity than i do; no man feels more grateful than i to the self-denying, heroic, splendid souls who have made this world fit for ladies and gentlemen to live in. but i believe that the human mind has reached its top in three departments. i don't believe the human race--no matter if it lives millions of years more upon this wheeling world--i don't believe the human race will ever produce in the world anything greater, sublimer, than the marbles of the greeks. i do not believe it. i believe they reach absolutely the perfection of form and the expression of force and passion in stone. the greeks made marble as sensitive as flesh and as passionate as blood. i don't believe that any human being of any coming race--no matter how many suns may rise and set, or how many religions may rise and fall, or how many languages be born and decay--i don't believe any human being will ever excel the dramas of shakespeare. neither do i believe that the time will ever come when any man with such instruments of music as we now have, and having nothing but the common air that we now breathe, will ever produce greater pictures in sound, greater music, than wagner. never! never! and i don't believe he will ever have a better interpreter than anton seidl. seidl is a poet in sound, a sculptor in sound. he is what you might call an orchestral orator, and as such he expresses the deepest feelings, the highest aspirations and the in-tensest and truest love of which the brain and heart of man are capable. now, i am glad, i am delighted, that the people here in this city and in various other cities of our great country are becoming civilized enough to appreciate these harmonies; i am glad they are civilized at last enough to know that the home of music is tone, not tune; that the home of music is in harmonies where you braid them like rainbows; i am glad they are great enough and civilized enough to appreciate the music of wagner, the greatest music in this world. wagner sustains the same relation to other composers that shakespeare does to other dramatists, and any other dramatist compared with shakespeare is like one tree compared with an immeasurable forest, or rather like one leaf compared with a forest; and all the other composers of the world are embraced in the music of wagner. "nobody has written anything more tender than he, nobody anything sublimer than he. whether it is the song of the deep, or the warble of the mated bird, nobody has excelled wagner; he has expressed all that the human heart is capable of appreciating. and now, gentlemen, having troubled you long enough, and saying long live anton seidl, i bid you good-night." lotos club dinner in honor of rear admiral schley. new york, november , . * the lotos club did honor to rear admiral winfield scott schley, and incidentally, to the united states, at its clubhouse in fifth avenue last night. all day long the square, blue pennant, blazoned with the two stars of a rear admiral, snapped in the wind, signifying to all who saw it that the lotos clubhouse was for the time being the flagship of the erstwhile flying squadron. within the home of the club were gathered men who like the guest of the evening were prominent in the war with spain, the navy was represented by capt. charles d. sigs-dee, capt. a. t. mahan and captain goodrich. from the army there was brig. gen. w f. randolph, and from civil life many men prominent in the business, professional and social life of the city. the one impulse that led these men to brave the storm was their desire to pay their respects to one of the men who had done so much to win laurels for the american arms. the parlors and dining rooms of the clubhouse wore thrown into one in order to accommodate the three hundred men present fit the dinner. smilax covered the walls, save hero and there where the american flag was draped in graceful folds. from the archway under which the table of honor was spread, hung a large national ensign and a rear admiral's pennant. the menu was unique. etched on a cream-tinted paper appeared an open nook, and on the tops of the pages was inscribed, "logge of the goode ship lotos." "dinner to rear admiral winfield scott schley, given in the cabin of ye shippe, nov. , l , lat. degrees minutes seconds north; longitude, degrees seconds west." on each side of the menu was stretched a string of signal flags, giving the orders made famous by admiral schley in the naval engagement of july , . on the second page of the menu was a fine etching of the brooklyn, admiral schley's flagship. the souvenir menu was inclosed in blue paper, upon which were two white stars, the whole representing rear admiral schley's pennant. mr.president, gentlemen of the club--boys: i congratulate all of you and i congratulate myself, and i will tell you why. in the first place, we were well born, and we were all born rich, all of us. we belong to a great race. that is something; that is having a start, to feel that in your veins flows heroic blood, blood that has accomplished great things and has planted the flag of victory on the field of war. it is a great thing to belong to a great race. i congratulate you and myself on another thing; we were born in a great nation, and you can't be much of a man without having a nation behind you, with you; just think about it! what would shakespeare have been, if he had been born in labrador? i used to know an old lawyer in southern illinois, a smart old chap, who mourned his unfortunate surroundings. he lived in pinkneyville, and occasionally drank a little too freely of illinois wine; and when in his cups he sometimes grew philosophic and egotistic. he said one day, "boys, i have got more brains than you have, i have, but i have never had a chance. i want you just to think of it. what would daniel webster have been, by god, if he had settled in pinkneyville?" so i congratulate you all that you were born in a great nation, born rich; and why do i say rich? because you fell heir to a great, expressive, flexible language; that is one thing. what could a man do who speaks a poor language, a language of a few words that you could almost count on your fingers? what could he do? you were born heirs to a great literature, the greatest in the world--in all the world. all the literature of greece and rome would not make one act of "hamlet." all the literature of the ancient world added to all of the modern world, except england, would not equal the literature that we have. we were born to it, heirs to that vast intellectual possession. so i say you were all born rich, all. and then you were very fortunate in being born in this country, where people have some rights, not as many as they should have, not as many as they would have if it were not for the preachers, may be, but where we have some; and no man yet was ever great unless a great drama was being played on some great stage and he got a part. nature deals you a hand, and all she asks is for you to have the sense to play it. if no hand is dealt to you, you win no money. you must have the opportunity, must be on the stage, and some great drama must be there. take it in our own country. the revolutionary war was a drama, and a few great actors appeared; the war of was another, and a few appeared; the civil war another. where would have been the heroes whose brows we have crowned with laurel had there been no civil war? what would have become of lincoln, a lawyer in a country town? what would have become of grant? he would have been covered with the mantle of absolute obscurity, tucked in at all the edges, his name never heard of by any human being not related to him. now, you have got to have the chance, and you cannot create it. i heard a gentleman say here a few minutes ago that this war could have been averted. that is not true. i am not doubting his veracity, but rather his philosophy. nothing ever happened beneath the dome of heaven that could have been avoided. everything that is possible happens. that may not suit all the creeds, but it is true. and everything that is possible will continue to happen. the war could not have been averted, and the thing that makes me glad and proud is that it was not averted. i will tell you why. it was the first war in the history of this world that was waged unselfishly for the good of others; the first war. almost anybody will fight for himself; a great many people will fight for their country, their fellow-men, their fellow-citizens; but it requires something besides courage to fight for the rights of aliens; it requires not only courage, but principle and the highest morality. this war was waged to compel spain to take her bloody hands from the throat of cuba. that is exactly what it was waged for. another great drama was put upon the boards, another play was advertised, and the actors had their opportunity. had there been no such war, many of the actors would never have been heard of. but the thing is to take advantage of the occasion when it arrives. in this war we added to the greatness and the glory of our history. that is another thing that we all fell heirs to--the history of our people, the history of our nation. we fell heirs to all the great and grand things that had been accomplished, to all the great deeds, to the splendid achievements either in the realm of mind or on the field of battle. then there was another great drama. the first thing we knew, a man in the far pacific, a gentleman from vermont, sailed one may morning into the bay of manila, and the next news was that the spanish fleet had been beached, burned, destroyed, and nothing had happened to him. i have read a little history, not much, and a good deal that i have read was not true. i have read something about our own navy, not much. i recollect when i was a boy my hero was john paul jones; he covered the ocean; and afterward i knew of hull and perry and decatur and bainbridge and a good many others that i don't remember now. and then came the civil war, and i remember a little about farragut, a great admiral, as great as ever trod a deck, in my judgment. and i have also read about other admirals and sailors of the world. i knew something of drake and i have read the "life of nelson" and several other sea dogs; but when i got the news from manila i said, "there is the most wonderful victory ever won upon the sea;" and i did not think it would ever be paralleled. i thought such things come one in a box. but a little while afterward another of spain's fleets was heard from. oh, those spaniards! they have got the courage of passion, but that is not the highest courage. they have got plenty of that; but it is necessary to be coolly courageous, and to have the brain working with the accuracy of an engine--courageous, i don't care how mad you get, but there must not be a cloud in the heaven of your judgment. that is anglo-saxon courage, and there is no higher type. the spaniards sprinkled the holy water on their guns, then banged away and left it to the holy ghost to direct the rest. another fleet, at santiago, ventured out one day, and another great victory was won by the american navy. i don't know which victory was the more wonderful, that at manila bay or that at santiago. the spanish ships were, some of them, of the best class and type, and had fine guns, yet in a few moments they were wrecks on the shore of defeat, gone, lost. now, when i used to read about these things in the olden times, what ideas i had of the hero! i never expected to see one; and yet to-night i have the happiness of dining with one, with one whose name is associated with as great a victory, in my judgment, as was ever won; a victory that required courage, intelligence, that power of will that holds itself firm until the thing sought has been accomplished; and that has my greatest admiration. i thank admiral schley for having enriched my country, for having added a little to my own height, to my own pride, so that i utter the word america with a little more unction than i ever did before, and the old flag looks a little brighter, better, and has an added glory. when i see it now, it looks as if the air had burst into blossom, and it stands for all that he has accomplished. admiral schley has added not only to our wealth, but to the wealth of the children yet unborn that are going to come into the great heritage not only of wealth, but of the highest possible riches, glory, honor, achievement. that is the reason i congratulate you to-night. and i congratulate you on another thing, that this country has entered upon the great highway, i believe, of progress. i believe that the great nation has the sentiment, the feeling of growth. the successful farmer wants to buy the land adjoining him; the great nation loves to see its territory increase. and what has been our history? why, when we bought louisiana from napoleon, in , thousands of people were opposed to "imperialism," to expansion; the poor old moss-backs were opposed to it. when we bought florida, it was the same. when we took the vast west from mexico in it was the same. when we took alaska it was the same. now, is anybody in favor of modifying that sentiment? we have annexed hawaii, and we have got the biggest volcano in the business. a man i know visited that volcano some years ago and came back and told me about his visit. he said that at the little hotel they had a guest-book in which the people wrote their feelings on seeing the volcano in action. "now," he said, "i will tell you this so that you may know how you are spreading out yourself. one man had written in that book, 'if bob ingersoll were here, i think he would change his mind about hell.'" i want that volcano. i want the philippines. it would be simply infamous to hand those people back to the brutality of spain. spain has been christianizing them for about four hundred years. the first thing the poor devils did was to sign a petition asking for the expulsion of the priests. that was their idea of the commencement of liberty. they are not quite so savage as some people imagine. i want those islands; i want all of them, and i don't know that i disagree with the rev. mr. slicer as to the use we can put them to. i don't know that they will be of any use, but i want them; they might come handy. and i wanted to pick up the small change, the ladrones and the carolines. i am glad we have got porto rico. i don't know as it will be of any use, but there's no harm in having the title. i want cuba whenever cuba wants us, and i favor the idea of getting her in the notion of wanting us. i want it in the interest, as i believe, of humanity, of progress; in other words, of human liberty. that is what the war was waged for, and the fact that it was waged for that, gives an additional glory to these naval officers and to the officers in the army. they fought in the first righteous war; i mean righteous in the sense that we fought for the liberty of others. now, gentlemen, i feel that we have all honored ourselves to-night by honoring rear admiral schley. i want you to know that long after we are dead and long after the admiral has ceased to sail, he will be remembered, and in the constellation of glory one of the brightest stars will stand for the name of winfield scott schley, as brave an officer as ever sailed a ship. i am glad i am here to-night, and again, gentlemen, i congratulate you all upon being here. i congratulate you that you belong to this race, to this nation, and that you are equal heirs in the glory of the great republic. address to the actors' fund of america. new york, june , . mr. president, ladies and gentlemen: i have addressed, or annoyed, a great many audiences in my life and i have not the slightest doubt that i stand now before more ability, a greater variety of talent, and more real genius than i ever addressed in my life. i know all about respectable stupidity, and i am perfectly acquainted with the brainless wealth and success of this life, and i know, after all, how poor the world would be without that divine thing that we call genius--what a worthless habitation, if you take from it all that genius has given. i know also that all joy springs from a love of nature. i know that all joy is what i call pagan. the natural man takes delight in everything that grows, in everything that shines, in everything that enjoys--he has an immense sympathy with the whole human race. of that feeling, of that spirit, the drama is born. people must first be in love with life before they can think it worth representing. they must have sympathy with their fellows before they can enter into their feelings and know what their heart throbs about. so, i say, back of the drama is this love of life, this love of nature. and whenever a country becomes prosperous--and this has been pointed cut many times--when a wave of wealth runs over a land,--behind it you will see all the sons and daughters of genius. when a man becomes of some account he is worth painting. when by success and prosperity he gets the pose of a victor, the sculptor is inspired; and when love is really in his heart, words burst into blossom and the poet is born. when great virtues appear, when magnificent things are done by heroines and heroes, then the stage is built, and the life of a nation is compressed into a few hours, or--to use the language of the greatest--"turning the accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass"; the stage is born, and we love it because we love life--and he who loves the stage has a kind of double life. the drama is a crystallization of history, an epitome of the human heart. the past is lived again and again, and we see upon the stage, love, sacrifice, fidelity, courage--all the virtues mingled with all the follies. and what is the great thing that the stage does? it cultivates the imagination. and let me say now, that the imagination constitutes the great difference between human beings. the imagination is the mother of pity, the mother of generosity, the mother of every possible virtue. it is by the imagination that you are enabled to put yourself in the place of another. every dollar that has been paid into your treasury came from an imagination vivid enough to imagine himself or herself lying upon the lonely bed of pain, or as having fallen by the wayside of life, dying alone. it is this imagination that makes the difference in men. do you believe that a man would plunge the dagger into the heart of another if he had imagination enough to see him dead--imagination enough to see his widow throw her arms about the corpse and cover his face with sacred tears--imagination enough to see them digging his grave, and to see the funeral and to hear the clods fall upon the coffin and the sobs of those who stood about--do you believe he would commit the crime? would any man be false who had imagination enough to see the woman that he once loved, in the darkness of night, when the black clouds were floating through the sky hurried by the blast as thoughts and memories were hurrying through her poor brain--if he could see the white flutter of her garment as she leaped to the eternal, blessed sleep of death--do you believe that he would be false to her? i tell you that he would be true. so that, in my judgment, the great mission of the stage is to cultivate the human imagination. that is the reason fiction has done so much good. compared with the stupid lies-called history, how beautiful are the imagined things with painted wings. everybody detests a thing that pretends to be true and is not; but when it says, "i am about to create," then it is beautiful in the proportion that it is artistic, in the proportion that it is a success. imagination is the mother of enthusiasm. imagination fans the little spark into a flame great enough to warm the human race; and enthusiasm is to the mind what spring is to the world. . now i am going to say a few words because i want to, and because i have the chance. what is known as "orthodox religion" has always been the enemy of the theatre. it has been the enemy of every possible comfort, of every rational joy--that is to say, of amusement. and there is a reason for this. because, if that religion be true, there should be no amusement. if you believe that in every moment is the peril of eternal pain--do not amuse yourself. stop the orchestra, ring down the curtain, and be as miserable as you can. that idea puts an infinite responsibility upon the soul--an infinite responsibility--and how can there be any art, how can there be any joy, after that? you might as well pile all the alps on one unfortunate ant, and then say, "why don't you play? enjoy yourself." if that doctrine be true, every one should regard time as a kind of dock, a pier running out into the ocean of eternity, on which you sit on your trunk and wait for the ship of death--solemn, lugubrious, melancholy to the last degree. and that is why i have said joy is pagan. it comes from a love of nature, from a love of this world, from a love of this life. according to the idea of some good people, life is a kind of green-room, where you are getting ready for a "play" in some other country. you all remember the story of "great expectations," and i presume you have all had them. that is another thing about this profession of acting that i like--you do not know how it is coming out--and there is this delightful uncertainty. you have all read the book called "great expectations," written, in my judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote the english language--the man who created a vast realm of joy. i love the joy-makers--not the solemn, mournful wretches. and when i think of the church asking something of the theatre, i remember that story of "great expectations." you remember miss haversham--she was to have been married some fifty or sixty years before that time--sitting there in the darkness, in all of her wedding finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old wedding cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial residence--you remember that she sent for that poor little boy pip, and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she looked at him and said, "pip, play!" and if their doctrine be true, every actor is in that situation. i have always loved the theatre--loved the stage, simply because it has added to the happiness of this life. "oh, but," they say, "is it moral?" a superstitious man suspects everything that is pleasant. it seems inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most people. you let such a man pull up a little weed and taste it, and if it is sweet and good, he says, "i'll bet it is poison." but if it tastes awful, so that his face becomes a mask of disgust, he says, "i'll bet you that it is good medicine." now, i believe that everything in the world that tends to make man happy, is moral. that is my definition of morality. anything that bursts into bud and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is moral. some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire--by a kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want anything, you will not want anything bad. in other words, you will be good and moral if you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn all your energies in the direction of repression, and if from the tree of life you pull every leaf, and then every bud--and if an apple happens to get ripe in spite of you, don't touch it--snakes! i insist that happiness is the end--virtue the means--and anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. everything that gives laughter to the world--laughter springing from good nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the ears of man. and let me say that nothing can be more immoral than to waste your own life, and sour that of others. is the theatre moral? i suppose you have had an election to-day. they had an election at the metropolitan opera house for bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was over, i suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn tone: "is the theatre moral?" at last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the theatre is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the well-being of man. but only a few years ago our fathers were poor barbarians. they only wanted the essentials of life, and through nearly all the centuries genius was a vagabond--art was a servant. he was the companion of the clown. writers, poets, actors, either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit," and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs, and they had less than the crumbs of respect. the painter had to have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the patron's wife for venus--and the man, he was the apollo! so the writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him in a preface of obsequious lies. the writer had no courage. the painter, the sculptor--poor wretches--had "patrons." some of the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they were the real kings of the human race. now the public is the patron. the public has the intelligence to see what it wants. the stage does not have to flatter any man. the actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or lord. he has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any other walk of life. and these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy vagrants" of the old law--and let me say one thing right here: i do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere--just a little touch of chaos--that is to say, he must have generosity enough now and then absolutely to forget himself--he must be generous to that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and without caring for the sea--and that is that touch of chaos. and yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread. imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. the men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given. now, just think what would happen, what we would be, if you could blot from this world what these men have done. if you could take from the walls the pictures; from the niches the statues; from the memory of man the songs that have been sung by "the plowman"--take from the memory of the world what has been done by the actors and play-writers, and this great globe would be like a vast skull emptied of all thought. and let me say one word more, and that is as to the dignity of your profession. the greatest genius of this world has produced your literature. i am not now alluding simply to one--but there has been more genius lavished upon the stage--more real genius, more creative talent, than upon any other department of human effort. and when men and women belong to a profession that can count shakespeare in its number, they should feel nothing but pride. nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of shakespeare--shakespeare, in whose brain were the fruits of all thoughts past, the seeds of all to be--shakespeare, an intellectual ocean toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain. a profession that can boast that shakespeare was one of its members, and that from his brain poured out that mighty intellectual cataract--that mississippi that will enrich all coming generations--the man that belongs to that profession--should feel that no other man by reason of belonging to some other, can be his superior. and such a man, when he dies--or the friend of such a man, when that man dies--should not imagine that it is a very generous and liberal thing for some minister to say a few words above the corpse--and i do not want to see this profession cringe before any other. one word more. i hope that you will sustain this splendid charity. i do not believe that more generous people exist than actors. i hope you will sustain this charity. and yet, there was one little thing i saw in your report of last year, that i want to call attention to. you had "benefits" all over this country, and of the amount raised, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars were given to religious societies and twelve thousand dollars to the actors' fund--and yet they say actors are not christians! do you not love your enemies? after this, i hope that you will also love your friends. the children of the stage. new york, march , . * col. robert g. ingersoll was the special star among stars at the benefit given yesterday afternoon at the fifth avenue theatre for the actors' fund. there were a great many other stars and a very long programme. the consequence was that the performance began before one o'clock and was not over until almost dinner time. usually in such cases the least important performers are placed at the beginning and the audience straggles in leisurely without worrying a great deal over what it has missed. yesterday, however, it had been announced in advance that col. ingersoll would start the ball a-rolling and the result was that before the overture was finished the house was packed to the doors. col. ingersoll's contribution was a short address delivered in his characteristic style of florid eloquence.--the world, new york, march , . disguise it as we may, we live in a frightful world, with evils, with enemies, on every side. from the hedges along the path of life, leap the bandits that murder and destroy; and every human being, no matter how often he escapes, at last will fall beneath the assassin's knife. to change the figure: we are all passengers on the train of life. the tickets give the names of the stations where we boarded the car, but the destination is unknown. at every station some passengers, pallid, breathless, dead, are put away, and some with the light of morning in their eyes, get on. to change the figure again: on the wide sea of life we are all on ships or rafts or spars, and some by friendly winds are borne to the fortunate isles, and some by storms are wrecked on the cruel rocks. and yet upon the isles the same as upon the rocks, death waits for all. and death alone can truly say, "all things come to him who waits." and yet, strangely enough, there is in this world of misery, of misfortune and of death, the blessed spirit of mirth. the travelers on the path, on the train, on the ships, the rafts and spars, sometimes forget their perils and their doom. all blessings on the man whose face was first illuminated by a smile! all blessings on the man who first gave to the common air the music of laughter--the music that for the moment drove fears from the heart, tears from the eyes, and dimpled cheeks with joy! all blessings on the man who sowed with merry hands the seeds of humor, and at the lipless skull of death snapped the reckless fingers of disdain! laughter is the blessed boundary line between the brute and man. who are the friends of the human race? they who hide with vine and flower the cruel rocks of fate--the children of genius, the sons and daughters of mirth and laughter, of imagination, those whose thoughts, like moths with painted wings, fill the heaven of the mind. among these sons and daughters are the children of the stage, the citizens of the mimic world--the world enriched by all the wealth of genius--enriched by painter, orator, composer and poet. the world of which shakespeare, the greatest of human beings, is still the unchallenged emperor. these children of the stage have delighted the weary travelers on the thorny path, amused the passengers on the fated train, and filled with joy the hearts of the clingers to spars, and the floaters on rafts. these, children of the stage, with fancy's wand rebuild the past. the dead are brought to life and made to act again the parts they played. the hearts and lips that long ago were dust, are made to beat and speak again. the dead kings are crowned once more, and from the shadows of the past emerge the queens, jeweled and sceptred as of yore. lovers leave their graves and breathe again their burning vows; and again the white breasts rise and fall in passion's storm. the laughter that died away beneath the touch of death is heard again and lips that fell to ashes long ago are curved once more with mirth. again the hero bares his breast to death; again the patriot falls, and again the scaffold, stained with noble blood, becomes a shrine. the citizens of the real world gain joy and comfort from the stage. the broker, the speculator ruined by rumor, the lawyer baffled by the intelligence of a jury or the stupidity of a judge, the doctor who lost his patience because he lost his patients, the merchant in the dark days of depression, and all the children of misfortune, the victims of hope deferred, forget their troubles for a little while when looking on the mimic world. when the shaft of wit flies like the arrow of ulysses through all the rings and strikes the centre; when words of wisdom mingle with the clown's conceits; when folly laughing shows her pearls, and mirth holds carnival; when the villain fails and the right triumphs, the trials and the griefs of life for the moment fade away. and so the maiden longing to be loved, the young man waiting for the "yes" deferred; the unloved wife, hear the old, old story told again,--and again within their hearts is the ecstasy of requited love. the stage brings solace to the wounded, peace to the troubled, and with the wizard's wand touches the tears of grief and they are changed to the smiles of joy. the stage has ever been the altar, the pulpit, the cathedral of the heart. there the enslaved and the oppressed, the erring, the fallen, even the outcast, find sympathy, and pity gives them all her tears--and there, in spite of wealth and power, in spite of caste and cruel pride, true love has ever triumphed over all. the stage has taught the noblest lesson, the highest truth, and that is this: it is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving. as a matter of fact, it is better to be the victim of villainy than to be a villain. better to be stolen from than to be a thief, and in the last analysis the oppressed, the slave, is less unfortunate than the oppressor, the master. the children of the stage, these citizens of the mimic world, are not the grasping, shrewd and prudent people of the mart; they are improvident enough to enjoy the present and credulous enough to believe the promises of the universal liar known as hope. their hearts and hands are open. as a rule genius is generous, luxurious, lavish, reckless and royal. and so, when they have reached the ladder's topmost round, they think the world is theirs and that the heaven of the future can have no cloud. but from the ranks of youth the rival steps. upon the veteran brows the wreaths begin to fade, the leaves to fall; and failure sadly sups on memory. they tread the stage no more. they leave the mimic world, fair fancy's realm; they leave their palaces and thrones; their crowns are gone, and from their hands the sceptres fall. at last, in age and want, in lodgings small and bare, they wait the prompter's call; and when the end is reached, maybe a vision glorifies the closing scene. again they are on the stage; again their hearts throb high; again they utter perfect words; again the flowers fall about their feet; and as the curtain falls, the last sound that greets their ears, is the music of applause, the "bravos" for an encore. and then the silence falls on darkness. some loving hands should close their eyes, some loving lips should leave upon their pallid brows a kiss; some friends should lay the breathless forms away, and on the graves drop blossoms jeweled with the tears of love. this is the work of the generous men and women who contribute to the actors' fund. this is charity; and these generous men and women have taught, and are teaching, a lesson that all the world should learn, and that is this: the hands that help are holier than the lips that pray. address to the press club. new orleans, february , . ladies and gentlemen of the new orleans press club: i do not remember to have agreed or consented to make any remarks about the press or anything else on the present occasion, but i am glad of this opportunity to say a word or two. of course, i have the very greatest respect for this profession, the profession of the press, knowing it, as i do, to be one of the greatest civilizers of the world. above all other institutions and all other influences, it is the greatest agency in breaking down the hedges of provincialism. in olden times one nation had no knowledge or understanding of another nation, and no insight or understanding into its life; and, indeed, various parts of one nation held the other parts of it somewhat in the attitude of hostility, because of a lack of more thorough knowledge; and, curiously enough, we are prone to look upon strangers more or less in the light of enemies. indeed, enemy and stranger in the old vocabularies are pretty much of the same significance. a stranger was an enemy. i think it is darwin who alludes to the instinctive fear a child has of a stranger as one of the heritages of centuries of instinctive cultivation, the handed-down instinct of years ago. and even now it is a fact that we have very little sympathy with people of a different country, even people speaking the same language, having the same god with a different name, or another god with the same name, recognizing the same principles of right and wrong. but the moment people began to trade with each other, the moment they began to enjoy the results of each other's industry and brain, the moment that, through this medium, they began to get an insight into each other's life, people began to see each other as they were; and so commerce became the greatest of all missionaries of civilization, because, like the press, it tended to do away with provincialism. you know there is no one else in the world so egotistic as the man who knows nothing. no man is more certain than the man who knows nothing. the savage knows everything. the moment man begins to be civilized he begins to appreciate how little he knows, how very circumscribed in its very nature human knowledge is. now, after commerce came the press. from the moors, i believe, we learned the first rudiments of that art which has civilized the world. with the invention of movable type came an easy and cheap method of preserving the thoughts and history of one generation to another and transmitting the life of one nation to another. facts became immortal, and from that day to this the intelligence of the world has rapidly and steadily increased. and now, if we are provincial, it is our own fault, and if we are hateful and odious and circumscribed and narrow and peevish and limited in the light we get from the known universe, it is our own fault. day by day the world is growing smaller and men larger. but a few years ago the state of new york was as large as the united states is to-day. it required as much time to reach albany from new york as it now requires to reach san francisco from the same city, and so far as the transmission of thought goes the world is but a hamlet. i count as one of the great good things of the modern press--as one of the specific good things--that the same news, the same direction of thought is transmitted to many millions of people each day. so that the thoughts of multitudes of men are substantially tending at the same time along the same direction. it tends more and more to make us citizens in the highest sense of the term, and that is the reason that i have so much respect for the press. of course i know that the news and opinions are written by folks liable to the same percentage of error as characterizes all mankind. no one makes no mistakes but the man who knows everything--no one makes no mistakes but the hypocrite. i must confess, however, that there are things about the press of to-day that i would have changed--that i do not like. i hate to see brain the slave of the material god. i hate to see money own genius. so i think that every writer on every paper should be compelled to sign his name to everything he writes. there are many reasons why he has a right to the reputation he makes. his reputation is his property, his capital, his stock in trade, and it is not just or fair or right that it should be absorbed by the corporation which employs him. after giving great thoughts to the world, after millions of people have read his thoughts with delight, no one knows this lonely man or his solitary name. if he loses the good will of his employer, he loses his place and with it all that his labor and time and brain have earned for himself as his own inalienable property, and his corporation or employer reaps the benefit of it. there is another reason establishing the absolute equity of this proposition, a reason pointing in other directions than to the writer and his rights. it is no more than right to the reader that the opinion or the narrative should be that of mr. smith or mr. brown or mr. so and so, and not that of, say, the _picayune_. that is too impersonal. it is no more than right that a single man should have his honor at stake for what is said, and not an impersonal something. i know that we are all liable to believe it if the _picayune_ says it, and yet, after all, it is the individual man who is saying it and it is in the interest of justice that the reader be apprised of the fact. i believe i have just a little fault to find with the tendency of the modern press to go into personal affairs--into so-called private affairs. in saying this, i have no complaint to lodge on my own behalf, for i have no private affairs. i am not so much opposed to what is called sensationalism, for that must exist as long as crime is considered news, and believe me, when virtue becomes news it can only be when this will have become an exceedingly bad world. at the same time i think that the publication of crime may have more or less the tendency of increasing it. i read not long ago that if some heavy piece of furniture were dropped in a room in which there was a string instrument, the strings in harmony with the vibrations of the air made by that noise would take up the sound. now a man with a tendency to crime would pick up that criminal feeling inspiring the act which he sees blazoned forth in all its detail in the press. in that view of the matter it seems to me better not to give details of all offences. now, as to the matter of being too personal, i think that one of the results of that sort of journalism is to drive a great many capable and excellent men out of public life. i heard a little story quite recently of a man who was being urged for the legislature, and yet hesitated because of his fear of newspaper criticism of this character. "i don't want to run," said he to his wife, who urged that this was an opportunity to do himself and his friends honor, and that it was a sort of duty in him. "i would if i were you," said his wife. "well, but there is no saying," he responded, "what the newspapers might print about me." "why, your life has always been honorable," said she; "they could not say anything to your disparagement." "but they might attack my father." "well, there was nothing in his career of which any one might feel ashamed. he was as irreproachable as you." "ay, but they might attack you and tell of some devilment you went into before we were married." "then you better not run," said his wife promptly. i think this fear on the part of husband and wife is identical with that which keeps many a great man out of public service. now, there is another thing which every one ought to abhor. all men and newspapers are entirely too apt to criticise the motives of men. it is a fault common to all good men--except the clergy, of course--this habit of attacking motives. and whenever we see a man do something which is great and praiseworthy, let us talk about the act itself and not go into a speculation or an attack upon the motive which prompted the act. attack what a man actually does. but these are only small matters. the press is the most powerful of all agencies for the dissemination of intelligence, and as such i hail it always. it has nearly always been very friendly and kind to me and certainly i have received at the hands of the new orleans press a treatment i shall never forget. our sunday newspapers, to my mind, rank among the greatest institutions of the present day. one finds in them matter that could not be found in several hundreds of books,--beautiful thoughts, broad intelligence, a range of information perfectly startling in its usefulness and perfectly charming in its entertainment. contrast, please, how we are enabled by their good offices to spend the sabbath, with the descriptions of hell with all its terrors and all the gloom characterizing the sabbaths our forefathers had to spend. the sunday newspaper is an absolute blessing to the american people, a picture gallery, short stories, little poems, a symposium of brain and intelligence and refinement and--divorce proceedings. as i have said, the good will and the fair treatment of the american press have nearly always been my lot. there have been some misguided people who have said harsh things, but when i remember all the misguided things i have done, i am inclined to be charitable for their shortcomings. i do not know that i have anything else to say, except that i wish you all good luck and sunshine and prosperity, and enough of it to last you through a long life. the circulation of obscene literature. * from "ingersoll as he is," by e. m. macdonald. "one of the charges most persistently made against colonel ingersoll is that during and after the trial of d. m. bennett, persecuted by anthony comstock, the colonel endeavored to have the law against sending obscene literature through the mail repealed. that the charge is maliciously false is fully shown by the following brief history of events connected with the prosecution of d. m. bennett, and mr. ingersoll's efforts in his behalf.... "after mr. bennett's arrest in , he printed a petition to congress, written by t. b. wakeman, asking for the _repeal or modification_ of comstock's law by which he expected to stamp out the publications of freethinkers.... "the connection of mr. ingersoll with this petition is soon explained. mr. ingersoll knew of comstock's attempts to suppress heresy by means of this law, and when called upon by the washington committee in charge of the petition, he allowed his name to go on the petition for modification, but he told them distinctly and plainly that he was _not_ in favor of the _repeal_ of the law, as he was willing and anxious that obscenity should be suppressed by all legal means. his sentiments are best expressed by himself in a letter to the _boston journal_. he says: "'washington, march , . "'to the editor of the boston journal: "'my attention has been called to the following article that recently appeared in your paper: "'col. robert g. ingersoll, and others, feel aggrieved because congress, in , enacted a law for the suppression of obscene literature, and, believing it an infringement of the rights of certain citizens, and an effort to muzzle the press and conscience, petition for its repeal. when a man's conscience permits him to spread broadcast obscene literature, it is time that conscience was muzzled. the law is a terror only to evil-doers." "'no one wishes the repeal of any law for the suppression of obscene literature. for my part, i wish all such laws rigidly enforced. the only objection i have to the law of is, that it has been construed to include books and pamphlets written against the religion of the day, although containing nothing that can be called obscene or impure. certain religious fanatics, taking advantage of the word "immoral" in the law, have claimed that all writings against what they are pleased to call orthodox religion are immoral, and such books have been seized and their authors arrested. to this, and this only, i object. "'your article does me great injustice, and i ask that you will have the kindness to publish this note. "'from the bottom of my heart i despise the publishers of obscene literature. below them there is no depth of filth. and i also despise those, who, under the pretence of suppressing obscene literature, endeavor to prevent honest and pure men from writing and publishing honest and pure thoughts. yours truly. "'r. g. ingersoll.' "this is sufficiently easy of comprehension even for ministers, but of course they misrepresented and lied about the writer. from that day to this he has been accused of favoring the dissemination of obscene literature. that the friends of colonel ingersoll may know just how infamous this is, we will give a brief history of the repeal or modification movement.... "on october , the national liberal league held its congress in syracuse. at this congress the league left the matter of repeal or modification of the laws open, taking no action as an organization, either way, but elected officers known to be in favor of repeal. on december , mr. bennett was again arrested. he was tried, and found guilty; he appealed, the conviction was affirmed, and he was sentenced to thirteen months' imprisonment at hard labor. "after the trial colonel ingersoll interposed, and endeavored to get a pardon for mr. bennett, who was held in ludlow street jail pending president hayes's reply. the man who occupied the president's office promised to pardon the infidel editor; then he went back on his word, and mr. bennett served his term of imprisonment. "then preachers opened the sluiceways of vituperation and billingsgate upon colonel ingersoll for having interceded for a man convicted of mailing obscene literature. the charges were as infamously false then as they are now, and to show it, it is only necessary to quote colonel ingersoll's words during the year or two succeeding, when the freethinkers and the christians were not only opposing each other vigorously, but the freethinkers themselves were divided on the question. in , while mr. bennett was in prison, a correspondent of the nashville, tenn., _banner_ said that the national liberal league and colonel ingersoll were in favor of disseminating obscene literature. to this colonel ingersoll replied in a letter to a friend: " g st., washington, aug. , . "'my dear sir: the article in the nashville _banner_ by "j. l." is utterly and maliciously false. "'a petition was sent to congress praying for the repeal or modification of certain postal laws, to the end that the freedom of conscience and of the press should not be abridged. "'nobody holds in greater contempt than i the writers, publishers, or dealers in obscene literature. one of my objections to the bible is that it contains hundreds of grossly obscene passages not fit to be read by any decent man, thousands of passages, in my judgment, calculated to corrupt the minds of youth. i hope the time will soon come when the good sense of the american people will demand a bible with all obscene passages left out. "'the only reason a modification of the postal laws is necessary is that at present, under color of those laws, books and pamphlets are excluded from the mails simply because they are considered heterodox and blasphemous. in other words, every man should be allowed to write, publish, and send through the mails his thoughts upon any subject, expressed in a decent and becoming manner. as to the propriety of giving anybody authority to overhaul mails, break seals, and read private correspondence, that is another question. "'every minister and every layman who charges me with directly or indirectly favoring the dissemination of anything that is impure, retails what he knows to be a wilful and malicious lie. i remain, yours truly, "'r. g. ingersoll.' "three weeks after this letter was written the national liberal league held its third annual congress at cincinnati. colonel ingersoll was chairman of the committee on resolutions and platform and unfinished business of the league. one of the subjects to be dealt with was these comstock laws. the following are colonel ingersoll's remarks and the resolutions he presented: "'it may be proper, before presenting the resolutions of the committee, to say a word in explanation. the committee were charged with the consideration of the unfinished business of the league. it seems that at syracuse there was a division as to what course should be taken in regard to the postal laws of the united states. these laws were used as an engine of oppression against the free circulation of what we understand to be scientific literature. every honest man in this country is in favor of allowing every other human being every right that he claims for himself. the majority at syracuse were at that time simply in favor of the absolute repeal of those laws, believing them to be unconstitutional--not because they were in favor of anything obscene, but because they were opposed to the mails of the united states being under the espionage and bigotry of the church. they therefore demanded an absolute repeal of the law. others, feeling that they might be misunderstood, and knowing that theology can coin the meanest words to act as the vehicle of the lowest lies, were afraid of being misunderstood, and therefore they said, let us amend these laws so that our literature shall be upon an equality with that of theology. i know that there is not a liberal here, or in the united states, that is in favor of the dissemination of obscene literature. one of the objections which we have to the book said to be written by god is that it is obscene. "'the liberals of this country believe in purity, and they believe that every fact in nature and in science is as pure as a star. we do not need to ask for any more than we want. we simply want the laws of our country so framed that we are not discriminated against. so, taking that view of the vexed question, we want to put the boot upon the other foot. we want to put the charge of obscenity where it belongs, and the committee, of which i have the honor to be one of the members, have endeavored to do just that thing. men have no right to talk to me about obscenity who regard the story of lot and his daughters as a fit thing for men, women, and children to read, and who worship a god in whom the violation of [_cheers drowned the conclusion of this sentence so the reporters could not hear it._] such a god i hold in infinite contempt. "'now i will read you the resolutions recommended by the committee. "'resolutions. "'your committee have the honor to submit the following report: "'first, as to the unfinished business of the league, your committee submits the following resolutions: "'resolved., that we are in favor of such postal laws as will allow the free transportation through the mails of the united states of all books, pamphlets, and papers, irrespective of the religious, irreligious, political, and scientific views they may contain, so that the literature of science may be placed upon an equality with that of superstition. "'resolved, that we are utterly opposed to the dissemination, through the mails, or by any other means, of obscene literature, whether "inspired" or uninspired, and hold in measureless contempt its authors and disseminators. "'resolved, that we call upon the christian world to expunge from the so-called "sacred" bible every passage that cannot be read without covering the cheek of modesty with the blush of shame; and until such passages are expunged, we demand that the laws against the dissemination of obscene literature be impartially enforced. '... "we believe that lotteries and obscenity should be dealt with by state and municipal legislation, and offenders punished in the county in which they commit their offence. so in those days we argued for the repeal of the comstock laws, as did dozens of others--james parton, elizur wright, o. b. frothingham, t. c. leland, courtlandt palmer, and many more whose names we do not recall. but colonel ingersoll did not, and when the national liberal league met the next year at chicago (september , ), he was opposed to the league's making a pledge to defend every case under the comstock laws, and he was opposed to a resolution demanding a repeal of those laws. the following is what colonel ingersoll said upon the subject: "'mr. chairman, i wish to offer the following resolution in place and instead of resolutions numbered and : "'resolved, that the committee of defence, whenever a person has been indicted for what he claims to have been an honest exercise of the freedom of thought and expression, shall investigate the case, and if it appears that such person has been guilty of no offence, then it shall be the duty of said committee to defend such person if he is unable to defend himself.' "'now, allow me one moment to state my reasons. i do not, i have not, i never shall, accuse or suspect a solitary member of the liberal league of the united states of being in favor of doing any act under heaven that he is not thoroughly convinced is right. we all claim freedom of speech, and it is the gem of the human soul. we all claim a right to express our honest thoughts. did it ever occur to any liberal that he wished to express any thought honestly, truly, and legally that he considered immoral? how does it happen that _we_ have any interest in what is known as immoral literature? i deny that the league has any interest in that kind of literature. whenever we mention it, whenever we speak of it, we put ourselves in a false position. what do we want? we want to see to it that the church party shall not smother the literature of liberalism. we want to see to it that the viper of intellectual slavery shall not sting our cause. we want it so that every honest man, so that every honest woman, can express his or her honest thought upon any subject in the world. and the question, and the only question, as to whether they are amenable to the law, in my mind, is, were they honest? was their effort to benefit mankind? was that their intention? and no man, no woman, should be convicted of any offence that that man or woman did not intend to commit. now, then, suppose some person is arrested, and it is claimed that a work written by him is immoral, is illegal. then, i say, let our committee of defence examine that case, and if our enemies are seeking to trample out freethought under the name of immorality, and under the cover and shield of our criminal law, then let us defend that man to the last dollar we have. but we do not wish to put ourselves in the position of general defenders of all the slush that may be written in this or any other country. you cannot afford to do it. you cannot afford to put into the mouth of theology a perpetual and continual slur. you cannot afford to do it. and this meeting is not the time to go into the question of what authority the united states may have over the mails. it is a very wide question. it embraces many others. has the government a right to say what shall go into the mails? why, in one sense, assuredly. certainly they have a right to say you shall not send a horse and wagon by mail. they have a right to fix some limit; and the only thing we want is that the literature of liberty, the literature of real freethought, shall not be discriminated against. and we know now as well as if it had been perfectly and absolutely demonstrated, that the literature of freethought will be absolutely pure. we know it, we call upon the christian world to expunge obscenity from their book, and until that is expunged we demand that the laws against obscene literature shall be executed. and how can we, in the next resolution, say those laws ought all to be repealed? we cannot do that. i have always been in favor of such an amendment of the law that by no trick, by no device, by no judicial discretion, an honest, high, pure-minded man should be subjected to punishment simply for giving his best and his honest thought. what more do we need? what more can we ask? i am as much opposed as my friend mr. wakeman can be to the assumption of the church that it is the guardian of morality. if our morality is to be guarded by that sentiment alone, then is the end come. the natural instinct of self-defence in mankind and in all organized society is the fortress of the morality in mankind. the church itself was at one time the outgrowth of that same feeling, but now the feeling has outgrown the church. now, then, we will have a committee of defence. that committee will examine every case. suppose some man has been indicted, and suppose he is guilty. suppose he has endeavored to soil the human mind. suppose he has been willing to make money by pandering to the lowest passions in the human breast. what will that committee do with him then? we will say, "go on; let the law take its course." but if, upon reading his book, we find that he is all wrong, horribly wrong, idiotically wrong, but make up our minds that he was honest in his error, i will give as much as any other living man of my means to defend that man. and i believe you will all bear me witness when i say that i have the cause of intellectual liberty at heart as much as i am capable of having anything at heart. and i know hundreds of others here just the same. i understand that. i understand their motive. i believe it to be perfectly good, but i truly and honestly think they are mistaken. if we have an interest in the business, i would fight for it. if our cause were assailed by law, then i say fight; and our cause is assailed, and i say fight. they will not allow me, in many states of this union, to testify. i say fight until every one of those laws is repealed. they discriminate against a man simply because he is honest. repeal such laws. the church, if it had the power to-day, would trample out every particle of free literature in this land. and when they endeavor to do that, i say fight. but there is a distinction wide as the mississippi--yes, wider than the atlantic, wider than all the oceans--between the literature of immorality and the literature of freethought. one is a crawling, slimy lizard, and the other an angel with wings of light. now, let us draw this distinction, let us understand ourselves, and do not give to the common enemy a word covered with mire, a word stained with cloaca, to throw at us. we thought we had settled that question a year ago. we buried it then, and i say let it rot. "'this question is of great importance. it is the most important one we have here. i have fought this question; i am ever going to do so, and i will not allow anybody to put a stain upon me. this question must be understood if it takes all summer. here is a case in point. some lady has written a work which, i am informed, is a good work, and that has nothing wrong about it. her opinions may be foolish or wise. let this committee examine that case. if they find that she is a good woman, that she had good intentions, no matter how terrible the work may be, if her intentions are good, she has committed no crime. i want the honest thought. i think i have always been in favor of it. but we haven't the time to go into all these questions. "'then comes the question for this house to decide in a moment whether these cases should have been tried in the state or federal court. i want it understood that i have confidence in the federal courts of the nation. there may be some bad judges, there may be some idiotic jurors. i think there was in that case [of mr. bennett]. but the committee of defence, if i understand it, supplied means, for the defence of that man. they did, but are we ready now to decide in a moment what courts shall have jurisdiction? are we ready to say that the federal courts shall be denied jurisdiction in any case arising about the mails? suppose somebody robs the mails? before whom shall we try the robber? try him before a federal judge. why? because he has violated a federal law. we have not any time for such an investigation as this. what we want to do is to defend free speech everywhere. what we want to do is to defend the expression of thought in papers, in pamphlets, in books. what we want to do is to see to it that these books, papers, and pamphlets are on an equality with all other books, papers, and pamphlets in the united states mails. and then the next step we want to take, if any man is indicted under the pretence that he is publishing immoral books, is to have our committee of defence well examine the case; and if we believe the man to be innocent we will help defend him if he is unable to defend himself; and if we find that the law is wrong in that particular, we will go for the amendment of that law. i beg of you to have some sense in this matter. we must have it. if we don't, upon that rock we shall split--upon that rock we shall again divide. let us not do it. the cause of intellectual liberty is the highest to the human mind. let us stand by it, and we can help all these people by this resolution. we can do justice everywhere with it, while if we agree to the fifth and sixth resolutions that have been offered i say we lay ourselves open to the charge, and it will be hurled against us, no matter how unjustly, that we are in favor of widespread immorality. "'mr. clarke: we are not afraid of it. "'colonel ingersoll: you may say we are not afraid. i am not afraid. he only is a fool who rushes into unnecessary danger. "'mr. clarke: what are you talking about, anyway? "'colonel ingersoll: i am talking with endeavor to put a little sense into such men as you. your very question shows that it was necessary that i should talk. and now i move that my resolution be adopted. "'mr. wakeman moved that it be added to that portion of the sixth resolution which recommended the constitution of the committee of defence. "'col. ingersoll: i cannot agree to the sixth resolution. i think nearly every word of it is wrong in principle. i think it binds us to a course of action that we shall not be willing to follow; and my resolution covers every possible case. my resolution binds us to defend every honest man in the exercise of his right. i can't be bound to say that the government hasn't control of its morals--that we cannot trust the federal courts--that, under any circumstances, at any time, i am bound to defend, either by word or money, any man who violates the laws of this country. "'mr. wakeman: we do not say that. "'colonel ingersoll: i beg of you, i beseech you, not to pass the sixth resolution. if you do, i wouldn't give that [snapping his fingers] for the platform. a part of the comstock law authorizes the vilest possible trick. we are all opposed to that. "'mr. leland: what is the question? "'colonel ingersoll: don't let us be silly. don't let us say we are opposed to what we are not opposed to. if any man here is opposed to putting down the vilest of all possible trash he ought to go home. we are opposed to only a part of the law--opposed to it whenever they endeavor to trample freethought under foot in the name of immorality. afterward, at the same session of the congress, the following colloquy took place between colonel ingersoll and t. b. wakeman: "'colonel ingersoll: you know as well as i that there are certain books not fit to go through the mails--books and pictures not fit to be delivered. "'mr. wakeman: that is so. "'colonel ingersoll: there is not a man here who is not in favor, when these books and pictures come into the control of the united states, of burning them up when they are manifestly obscene. you don't want any grand jury there. "'mr. wakeman: yes, we do. "'colonel ingersoll: no, we don't. when they are manifestly obscene, burn them up. "'a delegate: who is to be judge of that? "'colonel ingersoll: there are books that nobody differs about. there are certain things about which we can use discretion. if that discretion is abused, a man has his remedy. we stand for the free thought of this country. we stand for the progressive spirit of the united states. we can't afford to say that all these laws should be repealed. if we had time to investigate them we could say in what they should be amended. don't tie us to this nonsense--to the idea that we have an interest in immoral literature. let us remember that mr. wakeman is sore. he had a case before the federal courts, and he imagines, having lost that case, you cannot depend on them. i have lost hundreds of cases. i have as much confidence in the federal courts as in the state courts. i am not to be a party to throwing a slur upon the federal judiciary. all we want is fair play. we want the same chance for our doctrines that others have for theirs. and how this infernal question of obscenity ever got into the liberal league i could never understand. if an innocent man is convicted of larceny, should we repeal all the laws on the subject? i don't pretend to be better than other people. it is easy to talk right--so easy to be right that i never care to have the luxury of being wrong. i am advocating something that we can stand upon. i do not misunderstand mr. wakeman's motives. i believe they are perfectly good--that he is thoroughly honest. why not just say we will stand by freedom of thought and its expression? why not say that we are in favor of amending any law that is wrong? but do not make the wholesale statement that all these laws ought to be repealed. they ought not to be repealed. some of them are good." the law against sending instruments of vice in the mails is good, as is the law against sending obscene books and pictures, and the law against letting ignorant hyenas prey upon sick people, and the law which prevents the getters up of bogus lotteries sending their letters through the mail.' "at the evening session of the congress, on the same day, mr. ingersoll made this speech in opposition to the resolution demanding the repeal of the comstock laws: "'i am not in favor of the repeal of those laws. i have never been, and i never expect to be. but i do wish that every law providing for the punishment of a criminal offence should distinctly define the offence. that is the objection to this law, that it does not define the offence, so that an american citizen can readily know when he is about to violate it and consequently the law ought in all probability to be modified in that regard. i am in favor of every law defining with perfect distinctness the offence to be punished, but i cannot say by wholesale these laws should be repealed. i have the cause of freethought too much at heart. neither will i consent to the repeal simply because the church is in favor of those laws. in so far as the church agrees with me, i congratulate the church. in so far as superstition is willing to help me, good! i am willing to accept it. i believe, also, that this league is upon a secular basis, and there should be nothing in our platform that would prevent any christian from acting with us. what is our platform?--and we ought to leave it as it is. it needs no amendment. our platform is for a secular government. is it improper in a secular government to endeavor to prevent the spread of obscene literature? it is the business of a secular government to do it, but if that government attempts to stamp out freethought in the name of obscenity, it is then for the friends of freethought to call for a definition of the word, and such a definition as will allow freethought to go everywhere through all the mails of the united states. we are also in favor of secular schools. good! we are in favor of doing away with every law that discriminates against a man on account of his belief. good! we are in favor of universal education. good! we are in favor of the taxation of church property. good!--because the experience of the world shows that where you allow superstition to own property without taxing it, it will absorb the net profits. is it time now that we should throw into the scale, against all these splendid purposes, an effort to repeal some postal laws against obscenity? as well might we turn the league into an engine to do away with all laws against the sale of stale eggs. "'what have we to do with those things? is it possible that freethought can be charged with being obscene? is it possible that, if the charge is made, it can be substantiated? can you not attack any superstition in the world in perfectly pure language? can you not attack anything you please in perfectly pure language? and where a man intends right, no law should find him guilty; and if the law is weak in that respect, let it be modified. but i say to you that i cannot go with any body of men who demand the unconditional repeal of these laws. i believe in liberty as much as any man that breathes. i will do as much, according to my ability, as any other man to make this an absolutely free and secular government i will do as much as any other man of my strength and of my intellectual power to give every human being every right that i claim for myself. but this obscene law business is a stumbling block. had it not been for this, instead of the few people voting here--less than one hundred--we would have had a congress numbered by thousands. had it not been for this business, the liberal league of the united states would to-night hold in its hand the political destiny of the united states. instead of that, we have thrown away our power upon a question in which we are not interested. instead of that, we have wasted our resources and our brain for the repeal of a law that we don't want repealed. if we want anything, we simply want a modification. now, then, don't stain this cause by such a course. and don't understand that i am pretending, or am insinuating, that anyone here is in favor of obscene literature. it is a question, not of principle, but of means, and i beg pardon of this convention if i have done anything so horrible as has been described by mr. pillsbury. i regret it if i have ever endeavored to trample upon the rights of this convention. "'there is one thing i have not done--i have not endeavored to cast five votes when i didn't have a solitary vote. let us be fair; let us be fair. i have simply given my vote. i wish to trample upon the rights of no one; and when mr. pillsbury gave those votes he supposed he had a right to give them; and if he had a right, the votes would have been counted. i attribute nothing wrong to him, but i say this: i have the right to make a motion in this congress, i have the right to argue that motion, but i have no more rights than any other member, and i claim none. but i want to say to you--and i want you to know and feel it--that i want to act with every liberal man and woman in this world. i want you to know and feel it that i want to do everything i can to get every one of these statutes off our books that discriminates against a man because of his religious belief--that i am in favor of a secular government, and of all these rights. but i cannot, and i will not, operate with any organization that asks for the unconditional repeal of those laws. i will stand alone, and i have stood alone. i can tell my thoughts to my countrymen, and i will do it, and whatever position you take, whether i am with you or not, you will find me battling everywhere for the absolute freedom of the human mind. you will find me battling everywhere to make this world better and grander; and whatever my personal conduct may be, i shall endeavor to keep my theories right. i beg of you, i implore you, do not pass the resolution no. . it is not for our interest; it will do us no good. it will lose us hosts of honest, splendid friends. do not do it; it will be a mistake; and the only reason i offered the motion was to give the members time to think this over. i am not pretending to know more than other people. i am perfectly willing to say that in many things i know less. but upon this subject i want you to think. no matter whether you are afraid of your sons, your daughters, your wives, or your husbands, that isn't it--i don't want the splendid prospects of this league put in jeopardy upon such an issue as this. i have no more to say. but if that resolution is passed, all i have to say is that, while i shall be for liberty everywhere, i cannot act with this organization, and i will not.' "the resolution was finally adopted, and colonel ingersoll resigned his office of vice-president in the league, and never acted with it again until the league dropped all side issues, and came back to first principles--the enforcement of the nine demands of liberalism." in , writing upon this subject in answer to a minister who had repeated these absurd charges, colonel ingersoll made this offer: "i will pay a premium of one thousand dollars a word for each and every word i ever said or wrote in favor of sending obscene publications through the mails." convention of the national liberal league. cincinnati, o., september . . ladies and gentlemen: allow me to say that the cause nearest my heart, and to which i am willing to devote the remainder of my life, is the absolute, the _absolute_, enfranchisement of the human mind. i believe that the family is the unit of good government, and that every good government is simply an aggregation of good families. i therefore not only believe in perfect civil and religious liberty, but i believe in the one man loving the one woman. i believe the real temple of the human heart is the hearthstone, and that there is where the sacrifice of life should be made; and just in proportion as we have that idea in this country, just in that proportion we shall advance and become a great, glorious and splendid nation. i do not want the church or the state to come between the man and wife. i want to do what little i can while i live to strengthen and render still more sacred the family relation. i am also in favor of granting every right to every other human being that i claim for myself; and when i look about upon the world and see how the children that are born to-day, or this year, or this age, came into a world that has nearly all been taken up before their arrival; when i see that they have not even an opportunity to labor for bread; when i see that in our splendid country some who do the most have the least, and others who do the least have the most; i say to myself there is something wrong somewhere, and i hope the time will come when every child that nature has invited to our feast will have an equal right with all the others. there is only one way, in my judgment, to bring that about; and that is, first, not simply by the education of the head, but by the universal education of the heart. the time will come when a man with millions in his possession will not be respected unless with those millions he improves the condition of his fellow-men. the time will come when it will be utterly impossible for a man to go down to death, grasping millions in the clutch of avarice. the time will come when it will be impossible for such a man to exist, for he will be followed by the scorn and execration of mankind. the time will come when such a man when stricken by death, cannot purchase the favor of posterity by leaving a portion of the gains which he has wrung from the poor, to some church or bible society for the glory of god. now, let me say that we have met together as a liberal league. we have passed the same platform again; but if you will read that platform you will see that it covers nearly every word that i have spoken--universal education--the laws of science included, not the guesses of superstition--universal education, not for the next world but for this--happiness, not so much for an unknown land beyond the clouds as for this life in this world. i do not say that there is not another life. if there is any god who has allowed his children to be oppressed in this world he certainly needs another life to reform the blunders he has made in this. now, let us all agree that we will stand by each other splendidly, grandly; and when we come into convention let us pass resolutions that are broad, kind, and genial, because, if you are true liberals, you will hold in a kind of tender pity the most outrageous superstitions in the world. i have said some things in my time that were not altogether charitable; but, after all, when i think it over, i see that men are as they are, because they are the result of every thing that has ever been. sometimes i think the clergy a necessary evil; but i say, let us be genial and kind, and let us know that every other person has the same right to be a catholic or a presbyterian, and gather consolation from the doctrine of reprobation, that he has the same right to be a methodist or a christian disciple or a baptist; the same right to believe these phantasies and follies and superstitions--[_a voice--"and to burn heretics?"_] no--the same right that we have to believe that it is all superstition. but when that catholic or baptist or methodist endeavors to put chains on the bodies or intellects of men, it is then the duty of every liberal to prevent it at all hazards. if we can do any good in our day and generation, let us do it. there is no office i want in this world. i will make up my mind as to the next when i get there, because my motto is--and with that motto i will close what i have to say--my motto is: one world at a time! convention of the american secular union. albany, n. y., september , . ladies and gentlemen: while i have never sought any place in any organization, and while i never intended to accept any place in any organization, yet as you have done me the honor to elect me president of the american secular union, i not only accept the place, but tender to you each and all my sincere thanks. this is a position that a man cannot obtain by repressing his honest thought. nearly all other positions he obtains in that way. but i am glad that the time has come when men can afford to preserve their manhood in this country. maybe they cannot be elected to the legislature, cannot become errand boys in congress, cannot be placed as weather-vanes in the presidential chair, but the time has come when a man can express his honest thought and be treated like a gentleman in the united states. we have arrived at a point where priests do not govern, and have reached that stage of our journey where we, as harriet martineau expressed it, are "free rovers on the breezy common of the universe." day by day we are getting rid of the aristocracy of the air. we have been the slaves of phantoms long enough, and a new day, a day of glory, has dawned upon this new world--this new world which is far beyond the old in the real freedom of thought. in the selection of your officers, without referring to myself, i think you have shown great good sense. the first man chosen as vice-president, mr. charles watts, is a gentleman of sound, logical mind; one who knows what he wants to say and how to say it; who is familiar with the organization of secular societies, knows what we wish to accomplish and the means to attain it. i am glad that he is about to make this country his home, and i know of no man who, in my judgment, can do more for the cause of intellectual liberty. the next vice-president, mr. remsburg, has done splendid work all over the country. he is an absolutely fearless man, and tells really and truly what his mind produces. we need such men everywhere. you know it is almost a rule, or at any rate the practice, in political parties and in organizations generally, to be so anxious for success that all the offices and places of honor are given to those who will come in at the eleventh hour. the rule is to hold out these honors as bribes for newcomers instead of conferring them upon those who have borne the heat and burden of the day. i hope that the american secular union will not be guilty of any such injustice. bestow your honors upon the men who stood by you when you had few friends, the men who enlisted for the war when the cause needed soldiers. give your places to them, and if others want to join your ranks, welcome them heartily to the places of honor in the rear and let them learn how to keep step. in this particular, leaving out myself as i have said, you have done magnificently well. mrs. mattie krekel, another vice-president, is a woman who has the courage to express her opinions, and she is all the more to be commended because, as you know, women have to suffer a little more punishment than men, being amenable to social laws that are more exacting and tyrannical than those passed by legislatures. of mr. wakeman it is not necessary to speak. you all know him to be an able, thoughtful, and experienced man, capable in every respect; one who has been in this organization from the beginning, and who is now president of the new york society. elizur wright, one of the patriarchs of freethought, who was battling for liberty before i was born, and who will be found in the front rank until he ceases to be. you have honored yourselves by electing james parton, a thoughtful man, a scholar, a philosopher, and a philanthropist--honest, courageous, and logical--with a mind as clear as a cloudless sky. parker pillsbury, who has always been on the side of liberty, always willing, if need be, to stand alone--a man who has been mobbed many times because he had the goodness and courage to denounce the institution of slavery--a man possessed of the true martyr spirit. messrs. algie and adams, our friends from canada, men of the highest character, worthy of our fullest confidence and esteem--conscientious, upright, and faithful. and permit me to say that i know of no man of kinder heart, of gentler disposition, with more real, good human feeling toward all the world, with a more forgiving and tender spirit, than horace seaver. he and mr. mendum are the editors of the _investigator_, the first infidel paper i ever saw, and i guess the first that any one of you ever saw--a paper once edited by abner kneeland, who was put in prison for saying, "the universalists believe in a god which i do not." the court decided that he had denied the existence of a supreme being, and at that time it was not thought safe to allow a remark of that kind to be made, and so, for the purpose of keeping an infinite god from tumbling off his throne, mr. kneeland was put in jail. but horace seaver and mr. mendum went on with his work. they are pioneers in this cause, and they have been absolutely true to the principles of freethought from the first day until now. if there is anybody belonging to our secular union more enthusiastic and better calculated to impart something of his enthusiasm to others than samuel p. putnam, our secretary, i do not know him. courtlandt palmer, your treasurer, you all know, and you will presently know him better when you hear the speech he is about to make, and that speech will speak better for him than i possibly can. wait until you hear him, as he is now waiting for me to get through that you may hear him. he will give you the definition of the true gentleman, and that definition will be a truthful description of himself. mr. reynolds is on our side if anybody is or ever was, and mr. macdonald, editor of _the truth seeker_, aiming not only to seek the truth but to expose error, has done and is doing incalculable good in the cause of mental freedom. all these men and women are men and women of character, of high purpose; in favor of freethought not as a peculiarity or as an eccentricity of the hour, but with all their hearts, through and through, to the very center and core of conviction, life, and purpose. and so i can congratulate you on your choice, and believe that you have entered upon the most prosperous year of your existence. i believe that you will do all you can to have every law repealed that puts a hypocrite above an honest mail. we know that no man is thoroughly honest who does not tell his honest thought. we want the sabbath day for ourselves and our families. let the gods have the heavens. give us the earth. if the gods want to stay at home sundays and look solemn, let them do it; let us have a little wholesome recreation and pleasure. if the gods wish to go out with their wives and children, let them go. if they want to play billiards with the stars, so they don't carom on us, let them play. we want to do what we can to compel every church to pay taxes on its property as other people pay on theirs. do you know that if church property is allowed to go without taxation, it is only a question of time when they will own a large per cent, of the property of the civilized world? it is the same as compound interest; only give it time. if you allow it to increase without taxing it for its protection, its growth can only be measured by the time in which it has to grow. the church builds an edifice in some small town, gets several acres of land. in time a city rises around it. the labor of others has added to the value of this property, until it is worth millions. if this property is not taxed, the churches will have so much in their hands that they will again become dangerous to the liberties of mankind. there never will be real liberty in this country until all property is put upon a perfect equality. if you want to build a joss house, pay taxes. if you want to build churches, pay taxes. if you want to build a hall or temple in which freethought and science are to be taught, pay taxes. let there be no property untaxed. when you fail to tax any species of property, you increase the tax of other people owning the rest. to that extent, you unite church and state. you compel the infidel to support the catholic. i do not want to support the catholic church. it is not worth supporting. it is an unadulterated evil. neither do i want to reform the catholic church. the only reformation of which that church or any orthodox church is capable, is destruction. i want to spend no more money on superstition. neither should our money be taken to support sectarian schools. we do not wish to employ any chaplains in the navy, or in the army, or in the legislatures, or in congress. it is useless to ask god to help the political party that happens to be in power. we want no president, no governor "clothed with a little brief authority," to issue a proclamation as though he were an agent of god, authorized to tell all his loving subjects to fast on a certain day, or to enter their churches and pray for the accomplishment of a certain object. it is none of his business. when they called on thomas jefferson to issue a proclamation, he said he had no right to do it, that religion was a personal, individual matter, and that the state had no right, no power, to interfere. i now have the pleasure of introducing mr. courtlandt palmer, who will speak to you on the "aristocracy of freethought," in my judgment the aristocracy not only of the present, but the aristocracy of the future. the religious belief of abraham lincoln. new york, may , . my dear mr. seip: i have carefully read your article on the religious belief of abraham lincoln, and in accordance with your request i will not only give you my opinion of the evidence upon which you rely, as set out in your article, but my belief as to the religious opinions of mr. lincoln, and the facts on which my belief rests. you speak of a controversy between myself and general collis upon this subject. a few years ago i delivered a lecture on mr. lincoln, in this city, and in that lecture said that lincoln, so far as his religious opinions were concerned, substantially agreed with franklin, jefferson, paine and voltaire. thereupon general collis wrote me a note contradicting what i had said and asserting that "lincoln invoked the power of almighty god, not the deist god, but the god whom he worshiped under the forms of the christian church of which he was a member." to this i replied saying that voltaire and paine both believed in god, and that lincoln was never a member of any christian church. general collis wrote another letter to which, i think, i made no reply, for the reason that the general had demonstrated that he knew nothing whatever on the subject. it was evident that he had never read the life of lincoln, because if he had, he would not have said that he was a member of a church. it was also evident that he knew nothing about the religious opinions of franklin, voltaire or paine, or he would have known that they were believers in the existence of a supreme being. it did not seem to me that his letter was worthy of a reply. now as to your article: i find in what you have written very little that is new. i do not remember ever to have seen anything about the statement of the daughter of the rev. mr. gurley in regard to lincoln's letters. the daughter, however, does not pretend to know the contents of the letters and says that they were destroyed by fire; consequently these letters, so far as this question is concerned, are of no possible importance. the only thing in your article tending to show that lincoln was a christian is the following: "i think i can say with sincerity that i hope i am a christian. i had lived until my willie died without fully realizing these things. that blow overwhelmed me. it showed me my weakness as i had never felt it before, and i think i can safely say that i know something of a change of heart, and i will further add that it has been my intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, to make a public religious profession." now, if you had given the name of the person to whom this was said, and if that person had told you that lincoln did utter these words, then the evidence would have been good; but you are forced to say that this was said to an eminent christian lady. you do not give this lady's name. i take it for granted that her name is unknown, and that the name of the person to whom she told the story is also unknown, and that the name of the man who gave the story to the world is unknown. this falsehood, according to your own showing, is an orphan, a lonely lie without father or mother. such testimony cannot be accepted. it is not even good hearsay. in the next point you make, you also bring forward the remarks claimed to have been made by mr. lincoln when some colored people of baltimore presented him with a bible. you say that he said that the bible was god's best gift to man, and but for the bible we could not know right from wrong. it is impossible that lincoln should have uttered these words. he certainly would not have said to some colored people that the book that instituted human slavery was god's best gift to man; neither could he have said that but for this book we could not know right from wrong. if he said these things he was temporarily insane. mr. lincoln was familiar with the lives of socrates, epictetus, epicurus, zeno, confucius, zoroaster and buddha, not one of whom ever heard of the bible. certainly these men knew right from wrong. in my judgment they would compare favorably with abraham, isaac, jacob, david and the jews that crucified christ. these pretended remarks must be thrown away; they could have been uttered only by an ignorant and thoughtless zealot, not by a sensible, thoughtful man. neither can we rely on any new evidence given by the rev. mr. gurley. if mr. gurley at any time claimed that lincoln was a christian, such claim was born of an afterthought. mr. gurley preached a funeral sermon over the body of lincoln at the white house, and in that sermon he did not claim that mr. lincoln was in any sense a christian. he said nothing about christ. so, the testimony of the rev. mr. sunderland amounts to nothing. lincoln did not tell him that he was a christian or that he believed in christ. not one of the ministers that claim that lincoln was a christian, not one, testifies that lincoln so said in his hearing. so, the lives that have been written of lincoln by holland and arnold are of no possible authority. holland knew nothing about lincoln; he relied on gossip, and was exceedingly anxious to make lincoln a christian so that his life would sell. as a matter of fact, mr. arnold knew little of lincoln, and knew no more of his religious opinions than he seems to have known about the opinions of washington. i find also in your article a claim that lincoln said to somebody that under certain conditions, that is to say, if a church had the golden rule for its creed, he would join that church; but you do not give the name of the friend to whom lincoln made this declaration. still, if he made it, it does not tend to show that he was a christian. a church founded on the golden rule, "do unto others as you would that others should do unto you," would not in any sense be a christian church. it would be an ethical society. the testimony of mr. bateman has been changed by himself, he having admitted that it was colored, that he was not properly reported; so the night-walking scene given by james e. murdoch, does not even tend to show that lincoln was a christian. according to mr. murdoch he was praying to the god of solomon and he never mentioned the name of christ. i think, however, mr. murdoch's story is too theatrical, and my own opinion is that it was a waking dream. i think lincoln was a man of too much sense, too much tact, to have said anything to god about solomon. lincoln knew that what god did for solomon ended in failure, and if he wanted god to do something for him (lincoln) he would not have called attention to the other case. so bishop simpson, in his oration or funeral sermon, said nothing about lincoln's having been a christian. now, what is the testimony that you present that lincoln was a christian? first, several of your witnesses say that he believed in god. second, some say that he believed in the efficacy of prayer. third, some say that he was a believer in providence. fourth, an unknown person says that he said to another unknown person that he was a christian. fifth, you also claim that he said the bible was the best gift of god to man, and that without it we could not have known right from wrong. the anonymous testimony has to be thrown away, so nothing is left except the remarks claimed to have been made when the bible was presented by the colored people, and these remarks destroy themselves. it is absolutely impossible that lincoln could have uttered the words attributed to him on that occasion. i know of no one who heard the words, i know of no witness who says he heard them or that he knows anybody who did. these remarks were not even heard by an "eminent christian lady," and we are driven to say that if lincoln was a christian he took great pains to keep it a secret. i believe that i am familiar with the material facts bearing upon the religious belief of mr. lincoln, and that i know what he thought of orthodox christianity. i was somewhat acquainted with him and well acquainted with many of his associates and friends, and i am familiar with mr. lincoln's public utterances. orthodox christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. as soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a christian--possibly to a saint. all this happened in mr. lincoln's case. many pious falsehoods were told, conversations were manufactured, and suddenly the church claimed that the great president was an orthodox christian. the truth is that lincoln in his religious views agreed with franklin, jefferson, and voltaire. he did not believe in the inspiration of the bible or the divinity of christ or the scheme of salvation, and he utterly repudiated the dogma of eternal pain. in making up my mind as to what mr. lincoln really believed, i do not take into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of anonymous letters; i take the testimony of those who knew and loved him, of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom of perfect confidence. mr. herndon was his friend and partner for many years. i knew mr. herndon well. i know that lincoln never had a better, warmer, truer friend. herndon was an honest, thoughtful, able, studious man, respected by all who knew him. he was as natural and sincere as lincoln himself. on several occasions mr. herndon told me what lincoln believed and what he rejected in the realm of religion. he told me again and again that mr. lincoln did not believe in the inspiration of the bible, the divinity of christ, or in the existence of a personal god. there was no possible reason for mr. herndon to make a mistake or to color the facts. justice david davis was a life-long friend and associate of mr. lincoln, and judge davis knew lincoln's religious opinions and knew lincoln as well as anybody did. judge davis told me that lincoln was a freethinker, that he denied the inspiration of the bible, the divinity of christ, and all miracles. davis also told me that he had talked with lincoln on these subjects hundreds of times. i was well acquainted with col. ward h. lamon and had many conversations with him about mr. lincoln's religious belief, before and after he wrote his life of lincoln. he told me that he had told the exact truth in his life of lincoln, that lincoln never did believe in the bible, or in the divinity of christ, or in the dogma of eternal pain; that lincoln was a freethinker. for many years i was well acquainted with the hon. jesse w. fell, one of lincoln's warmest friends. mr. fell often came to my house and we had many talks about the religious belief of mr. lincoln. mr. fell told me that lincoln did not believe in the inspiration of the scriptures, and that he denied the divinity of jesus christ. mr. fell was very liberal in his own ideas, a great admirer of theodore parker and a perfectly sincere and honorable man. for several years i was well acquainted with william g. green, who was a clerk with lincoln at new salem in the early days, and who admired and loved lincoln with all his heart. green told me that lincoln was always an infidel, and that he had heard him argue against the bible hundreds of times. mr. green knew lincoln, and knew him well, up to the time of lincoln's death. the hon. james tuttle of illinois was a great friend of lincoln, and he is, if living, a friend of mine, and i am a friend of his. he knew lincoln well for many years, and he told me again and again that lincoln was an infidel. mr. tuttle is a freethinker himself and has always enjoyed the respect of his neighbors. a man with purer motives does not live. so i place great reliance on the testimony of col. john g. nicolay. six weeks after mr. lincoln's death colonel nicolay said that he did not in any way change his religious ideas, opinions or belief from the time he left springfield until the day of his death. in addition to all said by the persons i have mentioned, mrs. lincoln said that her husband _was not a christian_. there are many other witnesses upon this question whose testimony can be found in a book entitled "abraham lincoln, was he a christian?" written by john e. remsburg, and published in . in that book will be found all the evidence on both sides. mr. remsburg states the case with great clearness and demonstrates that lincoln was not a christian. now, what is a christian? first. he is a believer in the existence of god, the creator and governor of the universe. second. he believes in the inspiration of the old and new testaments. third. he believes in the miraculous birth of jesus christ; that the holy ghost was his father. fourth. he believes that this christ was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men, that he was crucified, dead and buried, that he arose from the dead and that he ascended into heaven. fifth. he believes in the "fall of man," in the scheme of redemption through the atonement. sixth. he believes in salvation by faith, that the few are to be eternally happy, and that the many are to be eternally damned. seventh. he believes in the trinity, in god the father, god the son and god the holy ghost. now, is there the slightest evidence to show that lincoln believed in the inspiration of the old and new testaments? has anybody said that he was heard to say that he so believed? does anybody testify that lincoln believed in the miraculous birth of jesus christ, that the holy ghost was the father or that christ was or is god? has anybody testified that lincoln believed that christ was raised from the dead? did anyone ever hear him say that he believed in the ascension of jesus christ? did anyone ever hear him assert that he believed in the forgiveness of sins, or in salvation by faith, or that belief was a virtue and investigation a crime? where, then, is the evidence that he was a christian? there is another reason for thinking that lincoln never became a christian. all will admit that he was an honest man, that he discharged all obligations perceived, and did what he believed to be his duty. if he had become a christian it was his duty publicly to say so. he was president; he had the ear of the nation; every citizen, had he spoken, would have listened. it was his duty to make a clear, explicit statement of his conversion, and it was his duty to join some orthodox church, and he should have given his reasons. he should have endeavored to reach the heart and brain of the republic. it was unmanly for him to keep his "second birth" a secret and sneak into heaven leaving his old friends to travel the road to hell. great pains have been taken to show that mr. lincoln believed in, and worshiped the one true god. this by many is held to have been his greatest virtue, the foundation of his character, and yet, the god he worshiped, the god to whom he prayed, allowed him to be assassinated. is it possible that god will not protect his friends? organized charities. i have no great confidence in organized charities. money is left and buildings are erected and sinecures provided for a good many worthless people. those in immediate control are almost, or when they were appointed were almost, in want themselves, and they naturally hate other beggars. they regard persons who ask assistance as their enemies. there is an old story of a tramp who begged a breakfast. after breakfast another tramp came to the same place to beg his breakfast, and the first tramp with blows and curses drove him away, saying at the same time: "i expect to get dinner here myself." this is the general attitude of beggar toward beggar. another trouble with organized charities is the machinery, the various methods they have adopted to prevent what they call fraud. they are exceedingly anxious that the needy, that those who ask help, who have been without fault, shall be attended to, their rule apparently being to assist only the unfortunate perfect. the trouble is that nature produces very few specimens of that kind. as a rule, men come to want on account of their imperfections, on account of their ignorance, on account of their vices, and their vices are born of their lack of capacity, of their want of brain. in other words, they are failures of nature, and the fact that they need help is not their own fault, but the fault of their construction, their surroundings. very few people have the opportunity of selecting their parents, and it is exceedingly difficult in the matter of grandparents. consequently, i do not hold people responsible for hereditary tendencies, traits and vices. neither do i praise them for having hereditary virtues. a man going to one of these various charitable establishments is cross-examined. he must give his biography. and after he has answered all the supercilious, impudent questions, he is asked for references. then the people referred to are sought out, to find whether the statements made by the applicant are true. by the time the thing is settled the man who asked aid has either gotten it somewhere else or has, in the language of the spiritualists, "passed over to the other side." of course this does not trouble the persons in charge of the organized charities, because their salaries are going on. as a rule, these charities were commenced by the best of people. some generous, philanthropic man or woman gave a life to establish a "home," it may be, for aged women, for orphans, for the waifs of the pavements. these generous people, filled with the spirit of charity, raised a little money, succeeded in hiring or erecting a humble building, and the money they collected, so honestly given, they honestly used to bind up the wounds and wipe away the tears of the unfortunate, and to save, if possible, some who had been wrecked on the rocks and reefs of crime. then some very rich man dies who had no charity and who would not have left a dollar could he have taken his money with him. this rich man, who hated his relatives and the people he actually knew, gives a large sum of money to some particular charity--not that he had any charity, but because he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist. then the organized charity becomes rich, and the richer the meaner, the richer the harder of heart and the closer of fist. now, i believe that trinity church, in this city, would be called an organized charity. the church was started to save, if possible, a few souls from eternal torment, and on the plea of saving these souls money was given to the church. finally the church became rich. it is now a landlord--has many buildings to rent. and if what i hear is true there is no harder landlord in the city of new york. so, i have heard it said of dublin university, that it is about the hardest landlord in ireland. i think you will find that all such institutions try to collect the very last cent, and, in the name of pity, drive pity from their hearts. i think it is shakespeare who says, "pity drives out pity," and he must have had organized charities in his mind when he uttered this remark. of course a great many really good and philanthropic people leave vast sums of money to charities. i find that it is sometimes very difficult to get an injured man, or one seized with some sudden illness, taken into a city hospital. there are so many rules and so many regulations, so many things necessary to be done, that while the rules are being complied with the soul of the sick or injured man, weary of the waiting, takes its flight. and after the man is dead, the doctors are kind enough to certify that he died of heart failure. so--in a general way--i speak of all the asylums, of all the homes for orphans. when i see one of those buildings i feel that it is full of petty tyranny, of what might be called pious meanness, devout deviltry, where the object is to break the will of every recipient of public favor. i may be all wrong. i hope i am. at the same time i fear that i am somewhere near right. you may take our prisons; the treatment of prisoners is often infamous. the elmira reformatory is a worthy successor of the inquisition, a disgrace, in my judgment, to the state of new york, to the civilization of our day. every little while something comes to light showing the cruelty, the tyranny, the meanness, of these professional distributers of public charity--of these professed reformers. i know that they are visited now and then by committees from the legislature, and i know that the keepers of these places know when the "committee" may be expected. i know that everything is scoured and swept and burnished for the occasion; and i know that the poor devils that have been abused or whipped or starved, fear to open their mouths, knowing that if they do they may not be believed and that they will be treated afterward as though they were wild beasts. i think these public institutions ought to be open to inspection at all times. i think the very best men ought to be put in control of them. i think only those doctors who have passed, and recently passed, examinations as to their fitness, as to their intelligence and professional acquirements, ought to be put in charge. i do not think that hospitals should be places for young doctors to practice sawing off the arms and legs of paupers or hunting in the stomachs of old women for tumors. i think only the skillful, the experienced, should be employed in such places. neither do i think hospitals should be places where medicine is distributed by students to the poor. ignorance is a poor doctor, even for the poor, and if we pretend to be charitable we ought to carry it out. i would like to see tyranny done away with in prisons, in the reformatories, and in all places under the government or supervision of the state. i would like to have all corporal punishment abolished, and i would also like to see the money that is given to charity distributed by charity and by intelligence. i hope all these institutions will be overhauled. i hope all places where people are pretending to take care of the poor and for which they collect money from the public, will be visited, and will be visited unexpectedly and the truth told. in my judgment there is some better way. i think every hospital, every asylum, every home for waifs and orphans should be supported by taxation, not by charity; should be under the care and control of the state absolutely. i do not believe in these institutions being managed by any individual or by any society, religious or secular, but by the state. i would no more have hospitals and asylums depend on charity than i would have the public school depend on voluntary contributions. i want the schools supported by taxation and to be controlled by the state, and i want the hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions founded and controlled and carried on in the same way. let the property of the state do it. let those pay the taxes who are able. and let us do away forever with the idea that to take care of the sick, of the helpless, is a charity. it is not a charity. it is a duty. it is something to be done for our own sakes. it is no more a charity than it is to pave or light the streets, no more a charity than it is to have a system of sewers. it is all for the purpose of protecting society and of civilizing ourselves. spain and the spaniards. spain has always been exceedingly religious and exceedingly cruel. that country had an unfortunate experience. the spaniards fought the moors for about seven hundred or eight hundred years, and during that time catholicism and patriotism became synonymous. they were fighting the moslems. it was a religious war. for this reason they became intense in their catholicism, and they were fearful that if they should grant the least concession to the moor, god would destroy them. their idea was that the only way to secure divine aid was to have absolute faith, and this faith was proved by their hatred of all ideas inconsistent with their own. spain has been and is the victim of superstition. the spaniards expelled the jews, who at that time represented a good deal of wealth and considerable intelligence. this expulsion was characterized by infinite brutality and by cruelties that words can not express. they drove out the moors at last. not satisfied with this, they drove out the moriscoes. these were moors who had been converted to catholicism. the spaniards, however, had no confidence in the honesty of the conversion, and for the purpose of gaining the good will of god, they drove them out. they had succeeded in getting rid of jews, moors and moriscoes; that is to say, of the intelligence and industry of spain. nothing was left but spaniards; that is to say, indolence, pride, cruelty and infinite superstition. so spain destroyed all freedom of thought through the inquisition, and for many years the sky was livid with the flames of the _auto da fe_; spain was busy carrying fagots to the feet of philosophy, busy in burning people for thinking, for investigating, for expressing honest opinions. the result was that a great darkness settled over spain, pierced by no star and shone upon by no rising sun. at one time spain was the greatest of powers, owner of half the world, and now she has only a few islands, the small change of her great fortune, the few pennies in the almost empty purse, souvenirs of departed wealth, of vanished greatness. now spain is bankrupt, bankrupt not only in purse, but in the higher faculties of the mind, a nation without progress, without thought; still devoted to bull fights and superstition, still trying to affright contagious diseases by religious processions. spain is a part of the mediæval ages, belongs to an ancient generation. it really has no place in the nineteenth century. spain has always been cruel. s. s. prentice, many years ago, speaking of spain said: "on the shore of discovery it leaped an armed robber, and sought for gold even in the throats of its victims." the bloodiest pages in the history of this world have been written by spain. spain in peru, in mexico, spain in the low countries--all possible cruelties come back to the mind when we say philip ii., when we say the duke of alva, when we pronounce the names of ferdinand and isabella. spain has inflicted every torture, has practiced every cruelty, has been guilty of every possible outrage. there has been no break between torquemada and weyler, between the inquisition and the infamies committed in cuba. when columbus found cuba, the original inhabitants were the kindest and gentlest of people. they practiced no inhuman rites, they were good, contented people. the spaniards enslaved them or sought to enslave them. the people rising, they were hunted with dogs, they were tortured, they were murdered, and finally exterminated. this was the commencement of spanish rule on the island of cuba. the same spirit is in spain to-day that was in spain then. the idea is not to conciliate, but to coerce, not to treat justly, but to rob and enslave. no spaniard regards a cuban as having equal rights with himself. he looks upon the island as property, and upon the people as a part of that property, both equally belonging to spain. spain has kept no promises made to the cubans and never will. at last the cubans know exactly what spain is, and they have made up their minds to be free or to be exterminated. there is nothing in history to equal the atrocities and outrages that have been perpetrated by spain upon cuba. what spain does now, all know is only a repetition of what spain has done, and this is a prophecy of what spain will do if she has the power. so far as i am concerned, i have no idea that there is to be any war between spain and the united states. a country that can't conquer cuba, certainly has no very flattering chance of overwhelming the united states. a man that cannot whip one of his own boys is foolish when he threatens to clean out the whole neighborhood. of course, there is some wisdom even in spain, and the spaniards who know anything of this country know that it would be absolute madness and the utmost extreme of folly to attack us. i believe in treating even spain with perfect fairness. i feel about the country as burns did about the devil: "o wad ye tak' a thought an' mend!" i know that nations, like people, do as they must, and i regard spain as the victim and result of conditions, the fruit of a tree that was planted by ignorance and watered by superstition. i believe that cuba is to be free, and i want that island to give a new flag to the air, whether it ever becomes a part of the united states or not. my sympathies are all with those who are struggling for their rights, trying to get the clutch of tyranny from their throats; for those who are defending their homes, their firesides, against tyrants and robbers. whether the maine was blown up by the spaniards is still a question. i suppose it will soon be decided. in my own opinion, the disaster came from the outside, but i do not know, and not knowing, i am willing to wait for the sake of human nature. i sincerely hope that it was an accident. i hate to think that there are people base and cruel enough to commit such an act. still, i think that all these matters will be settled without war. i am in favor of an international court, the members to be selected by the ruling nations of the world; and before this court i think all questions between nations should be decided, and the only army and the only navy should be under its direction, and used only for the purpose of enforcing its decrees. were there such a court now, before which cuba could appear and tell the story of her wrongs, of the murders, the assassinations, the treachery, the starvings, the cruelty, i think that the decision would instantly be in her favor and that spain would be driven from the island. until there is such a court there is no need of talking about the world being civilized. i am not a christian, but i do believe in the religion of justice, of kindness. i believe in humanity. i do believe that usefulness is the highest possible form of worship. the useful man is the good man, the useful man is the real saint. i care nothing about supernatural myths and mysteries, but i do care for human beings. i have a little short creed of my own, not very hard to understand, that has in it no contradictions, and it is this: happiness is the only good. the time to be happy is now. the place to be happy is here. the way to be happy is to make others so. i think this creed if adopted, would do away with war. i think it would destroy superstition, and i think it would civilize even spain. our new possessions. as i understand it, the united states went into this war against spain in the cause of freedom. for three years spain has been endeavoring to conquer these people. the means employed were savage. hundreds of thousands were starved. yet the cubans, with great heroism, were continuing the struggle. in spite of their burned homes, their wasted fields, their dead comrades, the cubans were not conquered and still waged war. under those circumstances we said to spain, "you must withdraw from the western world. the cubans have the right to be free!" they have been robbed and enslaved by spanish officers and soldiers. undoubtedly they were savages when first found, and undoubtedly they are worse now than when discovered--more barbarous. they wouldn't make very good citizens of the united states; they are probably incapable of self-government, but no people can be ignorant enough to be justly robbed or savage enough to be rightly enslaved. i think that we should keep the islands, not for our own sake, but for the sake of these people. it was understood and declared at the time, that we were not waging war for the sake of territory, that we were not trying to annex cuba, but that we were moved by compassion--a compassion that became as stern as justice. i did not think at the time there would be war. i supposed that the spanish people had some sense, that they knew their own condition and the condition of this republic. but the improbable happened, and now, after the successes we have had, the end of the war appears to be in sight, and the question arises: what shall we do with the spanish islands that we have taken already, or that we may take before peace comes? of course, we could not, without stultifying ourselves and committing the greatest of crimes, hand back cuba to spain. but to do that would be no more criminal, no more infamous, than to hand back the philippines. in those islands there are from eight to ten millions of people. as far as the philippines are concerned, i think that we should endeavor to civilize them, and to do this we should send teachers, not preachers. we should not endeavor to give them our superstition in place of spanish superstition. they have had superstition enough. they don't need churches, they need schools. we should teach them our arts; how to cultivate the soil, how to manufacture the things they need. in other words, we should deal honestly with them, and try our best to make them a self-supporting and a self-governing people. the eagle should spread its wings over those islands for that and for no other purpose. we can not afford to give them to other nations or to throw fragments of them to the wild beasts of europe. we can not say to russia, "you may have a part," and to germany, "you may have a share," and to france, "you take something," and so divide out these people as thieves divide plunder. that we will never do. there is, moreover, in my mind, a little sentiment mixed with this matter. manila bay has been filled with american glory. there was won one of our greatest triumphs, one of the greatest naval victories of the world--won by american courage and genius. we can not allow any other nation to become the owner of the stage on which this american drama was played. i know that we can be of great assistance to the inhabitants of the philippines. i know that we can be an unmixed blessing to them, and that is the only ambition i have in regard to those islands. i would no more think of handing them back to spain than i would of butchering the entire population in cold blood. spain is unfit to govern. spain has always been a robber. she has never made an effort to civilize a human being. the history of spain, i think, is the darkest page in the history of the world. at the same time i have a kind of pity for the spanish people. i feel that they have been victims--victims of superstition. their blood has been sucked, their energies have been wasted and misdirected, and they excite my sympathies. of course, there are many good spaniards, good men, good women. cervera appears to be a civilized man, a gentleman, and i feel obliged to him for his treatment of hobson. the great mass of the spaniards, however, must be exceedingly ignorant. their so-called leaders dare not tell them the truth about the progress of this war. they seem to be afraid to state the facts. they always commence with a lie, then change it a little, then change it a little more, and may be at last tell the truth. they never seem to dare to tell the truth at first, if the truth is bad. they put me in mind of the story of a man telegraphing to a wife about the condition of her husband. the first dispatch was, "your husband is well, never better." the second was, "your husband is sick, but not very." the third was, "your husband is much worse, but we still have hope." the fourth was, "you may as well know the truth--we buried your husband yesterday." that is about the way the spanish people get their war news. that is why it may be incorrect to assume that peace is coming quickly. if the spaniards were a normal people, who acted as other folks do, we might prophesy a speedy peace, but nobody has prophetic vision enough to tell what such a people will do. in spite of all appearances, and all our successes, and of all sense, the war may drag on. but i hope not, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the spaniards themselves. i can't help thinking of the poor peasants who will be killed, neither can i help thinking of the poor peasants who will have to toil for many years on the melancholy fields of spain to pay the cost of this war. i am sorry for them, and i am sorry also for the widows and orphans, and no one will be more delighted when peace comes. the argument has been advanced in the national senate and elsewhere, that the federal constitution makes no provision for the holding of colonies or dependencies, such as the philippines would be; that we can only acquire them as territories, and eventually must take them in as states, with their population of mixed and inferior races. that is hardly an effective argument. when this country was an infant, still in its cradle, george washington gave the child some very good advice; told him to beware of entangling alliances, to stay at home and attend to his own business. under the circumstances this was all very good. but the infant has been growing, and the republic is now one of the most powerful nations in the world, and yet, from its infant days until now, good, conservative people have been repeating the advice of washington. it was repeated again and again when we were talking about purchasing louisiana, and many senators and congressmen became hysterical and predicted the fall of the republic if that was done. the same thing took place when we purchased florida, and again when we got one million square miles from mexico, and still again when we bought alaska. these ideas about violating the constitution and wrecking the republic were promulgated by our great and wise statesmen on all these previous occasions, but, after all, the constitution seems to have borne the strain. there seems to be as much liberty now as there was then, and, in fact, a great deal more. our territories have given us no trouble, while they have greatly added to our population and vastly increased our wealth. beside this, the statesmen of the olden time, the wise men with whom wisdom was supposed to have perished, could not and did not imagine the improvements that would take place after they were gone. in their time, practically speaking, it was farther from new york to buffalo than it is now from new york to san francisco, and so far as the transportation of intelligence is concerned, san francisco is as near new york as it would have been in their day had it been just across the harlem river. taking into consideration the railways, the telegraphs and the telephones, this country now, with its area of three million five hundred thousand square miles, is not so large as the thirteen original colonies were; that is to say, the distances are more easily traveled and more easily overcome. in those days it required months and months to cross the continent. now it is the work of four or five days. yet, when we came to talk about annexing the hawaiian islands, the advice of george washington was again repeated, and the older the senator the fonder he was of this advice. these senators had the idea that the constitution, having nothing in favor of it, must contain something, at least in spirit, against it. of course, our fathers had no idea of the growth of the republic. we have, because with us it is a matter of experience. i don't see that alaska has imperiled any of the liberties of new york. we need not admit alaska as a state unless it has a population entitling it to admission, and we are not bound to take in the sandwich islands until the people are civilized, until they are fit companions of free men and free women. it may be that a good many of our citizens will go to the sandwich islands, and that, in a short time, the people there will be ready to be admitted as a state. all this the constitution can stand, and in it there is no danger of imperialism. i believe in national growth. as a rule, the prosperous farmer wants to buy the land that adjoins him, and i think a prosperous nation has the ambition of growth. it is better to expand than to shrivel; and, if our constitution is too narrow to spread over the territory that we have the courage to acquire, why we can make a broader one. it is a very easy matter to make a constitution, and no human happiness, no prosperity, no progress should be sacrificed for the sake of a piece of paper with writing on it; because there is plenty of paper and plenty of men to do the writing, and plenty of people to say what the writing should be. i take more interest in people than i do in constitutions. i regard constitutions as secondary; they are means to an end, but the dear, old, conservative gentlemen seem to regard constitutions as ends in themselves. i have read what ex-president cleveland had to say on this important subject, and i am happy to say that i entirely disagree with him. so, too, i disagree with senator edmunds, and with mr. bryan, and with senator hoar, and with all the other gentlemen who wish to stop the growth of the republic. i want it to grow. as to the final destiny of the island possessions won from spain, my idea is that the philippine islands will finally be free, protected, it may be for a long time, by the united states. i think cuba will come to us for protection, naturally, and, so far as i am concerned, i want cuba only when cuba wants us. i think that porto rico and some of those islands will belong permanently to the united states, and i believe cuba will finally become a part of our republic. when the opponents of progress found that they couldn't make the american people take the back track by holding up their hands over the constitution, they dragged in the monroe doctrine. when we concluded not to allow spain any longer to enslave her colonists, or the people who had been her colonists, in the new world, that was a very humane and wise resolve, and it was strictly in accord with the monroe doctrine. for the purpose of conquering spain, we attacked her fleet in manila bay, and destroyed it. i can not conceive how that action of ours can be twisted into a violation of the monroe doctrine. the most that can be said is, that it is an extension of that doctrine, and that we are now saying to spain, "you shall not enslave, you shall not rob, anywhere that we have the power to prevent it." having taken the philippines, the same humanity that dictated the declaration of what is called the monroe doctrine, will force us to act there in accordance with the spirit of that doctrine. the other day i saw in the paper an extract, i think, from goldwin smith, in which he says that if we were to bombard cadiz we would give up the monroe doctrine. i do not see the application. we are at war with spain, and we have a right to invade that country, and the invasion would have nothing whatever to do with the monroe doctrine. war being declared, we have the right to do anything consistent with civilized warfare to gain the victory. the bombardment of cadiz would have no more to do with the monroe doctrine than with the attraction of gravitation. if, by the monroe doctrine is meant that we have agreed to stay in this hemisphere, and to prevent other nations from interfering with any people on this hemisphere, and if it is said that, growing out of this, is another doctrine, namely, that we are pledged not to interfere with any people living on the other hemisphere, then it might be called a violation of the monroe doctrine for us to bombard cadiz. but such is not the monroe doctrine. if, we being at war with england, she should bombard the city of new york, or we should bombard some city of england, would anybody say that either nation had violated the monroe doctrine? i do not see how that doctrine is involved, whether we fight at sea or on the territory of the enemy. this is the first war, so far as i know, in the history of the world that has been waged absolutely in the interest of humanity; the only war born of pity, of sympathy; and for that reason i have taken a deep interest in it, and i must say that i was greatly astonished by the victory of admiral dewey in manila bay. i think it one of the most wonderful in the history of the world, and i think all that dewey has done shows clearly that he is a man of thought, of courage and of genius. so, too, the victory over the fleet of cervera by commodore schley, is one of the most marvelous and the most brilliant in all the annals of the world. the marksmanship, the courage, the absolute precision with which everything was done, is to my mind astonishing. neither should we forget wainwright's heroic exploit, as commander of the gloucester, by which he demonstrated that torpedo destroyers have no terrors for a yacht manned by american pluck. manila bay and santiago both are surpassingly wonderful. there are no words with which to describe such deeds--deeds that leap like flames above the clouds and glorify the whole heavens. the spanish have shown in this contest that they possess courage, and they have displayed what you might call the heroism of desperation, but the anglo-saxon has courage and coolness--courage not blinded by passion, courage that is the absolute servant of intelligence. the anglo-saxon has a fixedness of purpose that is never interfered with by feeling; he does not become enraged--he becomes firm, unyielding, his mind is absolutely made up, clasped, locked, and he carries out his will. with the spaniard it is excitement, nervousness; he becomes frantic. i think this war has shown the superiority, not simply of our ships, or our armor, or our guns, but the superiority of our men, of our officers, of our gunners. the courage of our army about santiago was splendid, the steadiness and bravery of the volunteers magnificent. i think that what has already been done has given us the admiration of the civilized world. i know, of course, that some countries hate us. germany is filled with malice, and has been just on the crumbling edge of meanness for months, wishing but not daring to interfere; hateful, hostile, but keeping just within the overt act. we could teach germany a lesson and her ships would go down before ours just the same as the spanish ships have done. sometimes i have almost wished that a hostile german shot might be fired. but i think we will get even with germany and with france--at least i hope so. and there is another thing i hope--that the good feeling now existing between england and the united states may be eternal. in other words, i hope it will be to the interests of both to be friends. i think the english-speaking peoples are to rule this world. they are the kings of invention, of manufactures, of commerce, of administration, and they have a higher conception of human liberty than any other people. of course, they are not entirely free; they still have some of the rags and tatters and ravelings of superstition; but they are tatters and they are rags and they are ravelings, and the people know it. and, besides all this, the english language holds the greatest literature of the world. a few fragments on expansion. a nation rises from infancy to manhood and sinks from dotage to death. i think that the great republic is in the morning of her life--the sun just above the horizon--the grass still wet with dew. our country has the courage and enthusiasm of youth--her blood flows full--her heart beats strong and her brow is fair. we stand on the threshold of a great, a sublime career. all the conditions are favorable--the environment kind. the best part of this hemisphere is ours. we have a thousand million acres of fertile land, vast forests, whole states underlaid with coal; ranges of mountains filled with iron, silver and gold, and we have seventy-five millions of the most energetic, active, inventive, progressive and practical people in the world. the great republic is a happy combination of mind and muscle, of head and heart, of courage and good nature. we are growing. we have the instinct of expansion. we are full of life and health. we are about to take our rightful place at the head of the nations. the great powers have been struggling to obtain markets. they are fighting for the trade of the east. they are contending for china. we watched, but we did not act. they paid no attention to us or we to them. conditions have changed. we own the hawaiian islands. we will own the philippines. japan and china will be our neighbors--our customers. our interests must be protected. in china we want the "open door," and we will see to it that the door is kept open. the nation that tries to shut it, will get its fingers pinched. we have taught the old world that the republic must be consulted. we have entered on the great highway, and we are destined to become the most powerful, the most successful and the most generous of nations. i am for expansion. the more people beneath the flag the better. let the republic grow.. i believe in growth. of course there are many moss-back conservatives who fear expansion. thousands opposed the purchase of louisiana from napoleon, thousands were against the acquisition of florida and of the vast territory we obtained from mexico. so, thousands were against the purchase of alaska, and some dear old mummies opposed the annexation of the sandwich islands, and yet, i do not believe that there is an intelligent american who would like to part with one acre that has been acquired by the government. now, there are some timid, withered statesmen who do not want porto rico--who beg us in a trembling, patriotic voice not to keep the philippines. but the sensible people feel exactly the other way. they love to see our borders extended. they love to see the flag floating over the islands of the tropics,--showering its blessings upon the poor people who have been robbed and tortured by the spanish. let the republic grow! let us spread the gospel of freedom! in a few years i hope that canada will be ours--i want mexico--in other words, i want all of north america. i want to see our flag waving from the north pole. i think it was a mistake to appoint a peace commission. the president should have demanded the unconditional surrender of cuba, porto rico and the philippines. spain was helpless. the war would have ended on our terms, and all this commission nonsense would have been saved. still, i make no complaint. it will probably come out right, though it would have been far better to have ended the business when we could--when spain was prostrate. it was foolish to let her get up and catch her breath and hunt for friends. only a few days ago our president, by proclamation, thanked god for giving us the victory at santiago. he did not thank him for sending the yellow fever. to be consistent the president should have thanked him equally for both. man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine; he should reason. the man who cannot think is less than man; the man who will not think is a traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is superstition's slave. i do not thank god for the splendid victory in manila bay. i don't know whether he had anything to do with it; if i find out that he did i will thank him readily. meanwhile, i will thank admiral george dewey and the brave fellows who were with him. i do not thank god for the destruction of cervera's fleet at santiago. no, i thank schley and the men with the trained eyes and the nerves of steel, who stood behind the guns. i do not thank god because we won the battle of santiago. i thank the regular army, black and white--the volunteers--the rough riders, and all the men who made the grand charge at san juan hill. i have asked, "why should god help us to whip spain?" and have been answered: "for the sake of the cubans, who have been crushed and ill-treated by their spanish masters." then why did not god help the cubans long before? certainly, they were fighting long enough and needed his help badly enough. but, i am told, god's ways are inscrutable. suppose spain had whipped us; would the christians then say that god did it? very likely they would, and would have as an excuse, that we broke the sabbath with our base-ball, our bicycles and bloomers. is it ever right for husband or wife to kill rival? how far should a husband or wife go in defending the sanctity of home? is it right for the husband to kill the paramour of his wife? is it right for the wife to kill the paramour of her husband? these three questions are in substance one, and one answer will be sufficient for all. in the first place, we should have an understanding of the real relation that exists, or should exist, between husband and wife. the real good orthodox people, those who admire st. paul, look upon the wife as the property of the husband. he owns, not only her body, but her very soul. this being the case, no other man has the right to steal or try to steal this property. the owner has the right to defend his possession, even to the death. in the olden time the husband was never regarded as the property of the wife. she had a claim on him for support, and there was usually some way to enforce the claim. if the husband deserted the wife for the sake of some other woman, or transferred his affections to another, the wife, as a rule, suffered in silence. sometimes she took her revenge on the woman, but generally she did nothing. men killed the "destroyers" of their homes, but the women, having no homes, being only wives, nothing but mothers--bearers of babes for masters--allowed their destroyers to live. in recent years women have advanced. they have stepped to the front. wives are no longer slaves. they are the equals of husbands. they have homes to defend, husbands to protect and "destroyers" to kill. the rights of husbands and wives are now equal. they live under the same moral code. their obligations to each other are mutual. both are bound, and equally bound, to live virtuous lives. now, if a falls in love with the wife of b, and she returns his love, has b the right to kill him? or if a falls in love with the husband of b, and he returns her love, has b the right to kill her? if the wronged husband has the right to kill, so has the wronged wife. suppose that a young man and woman are engaged to be married, and that she falls in love with another and marries him, has the first lover a right to kill the last? this leads me to another question: what is marriage? men and women cannot truly be married by any set or form of words, or by any ceremonies however solemn, or by contract signed, sealed and witnessed, or by the words or declarations of priests or judges. all these put together do not constitute marriage. at the very best they are only evidences of the fact of marriage--something that really happened between the parties. without pure, honest, mutual love there can be no real marriage. marriage without love is only a form of prostitution. marriage for the sake of position or wealth is immoral. no good, sensible man wants to marry a woman whose heart is not absolutely his, and no good, sensible woman wants to marry a man whose heart is not absolutely hers. now, if there can be no real marriage without mutual love, does the marriage outlast the love? if it is immoral for a woman to marry a man without loving him, is it moral for her to live as the wife of a man whom she has ceased to love? is she bound by the words, by the ceremony, after the real marriage is dead? is she so bound that the man she hates has the right to be the father of her babes? if a girl is engaged and afterward meets her ideal, a young man whose presence is joy, whose touch is ecstasy, is it her duty to fulfill her engagement? would it not be a thousand times nobler and purer for her to say to the first lover: "i thought i loved you; i was mistaken. i belong heart and soul to another, and if i married you i could not be yours." so, if a young man is engaged and finds that he has made a mistake, is it honorable for him to keep his contract? would it not be far nobler for him to tell her the truth? the civilized man loves a woman not only for his own sake, but for her sake. he longs to make her happy--to fill her life with joy. he is willing to make sacrifices for her, but he does not want her to sacrifice herself for him. the civilized husband wants his wife to be free--wants the love that she cannot help giving him. he does not want her, from a sense of duty, or because of the contract or ceremony, to act as though she loved him, when in fact her heart is far away. he does not want her to pollute her soul and live a lie for his sake. the civilized husband places the happiness of his wife above his own. her love is the wealth of his heart, and to guard her from evil is the business of his life. but the civilized husband knows when his wife ceases to love him that the real marriage has also ceased. he knows that it is then infamous for him to compel her to remain his wife. he knows that it is her right to be free--that her body belongs to her, that her soul is her own. he knows, too, if he knows anything, that her affection is not the slave of her will. in a case like this, the civilized husband would, so far as he had the power, release his wife from the contract of marriage, divide his property fairly with her and do what he could for her welfare. civilized love never turns to hatred. suppose he should find that there was a man in the case, that another had won her love, or that she had given her love to another, would it then be his right or duty to kill that man? would the killing do any good? would it bring back her love? would it reunite the family? would it annihilate the disgrace or the memory of the shame? would it lessen the husband's loss? society says that the husband should kill the man because he led the woman astray. how do we know that he betrayed the woman? mrs. potiphar left many daughters, and joseph certainly had but few sons. how do we know that it was not the husband's fault? she may for years have shivered in the winter of his neglect. she may have borne his cruelties of word and deed until her love w'as dead and buried side by side with hope. another man comes into her life. he pities her. she looks and loves. he lifts her from the grave. again she really lives, and her poor heart is rich with love's red blood. ought this man to be killed? he has robbed no husband, wronged no man. he has rescued a victim, released an innocent prisoner and made a life worth living. but the brutal husband says that the wife has been led astray; that he has been wronged and dishonored, and that it is his right, his duty, to shed the seducer's blood. he finds the facts himself. he is witness, jury, judge and executioner. he forgets his neglect, his cruelties, his faithlessness; forgets that he drove her from his heart, remembers only that she loves another, and then in the name of justice he takes the life of the one she loves. a husband deserts his wife, leaves her without money, without the means to live, with his babes in her arms. she cannot get a divorce; she must wait, and in the meantime she must live. a man falls in love with her and she with him. he takes care of her and the deserted children. the "wronged" husband returns and kills the "betrayer" of his wife. he believes in the sacredness of marriage, the holiness of home. it may be admitted that the deserted wife did wrong, and that the man who cared for her and her worse than fatherless children also did wrong, but certainly he had done nothing for which he deserved to be murdered. a woman finds that her husband is in love with another woman, that he is false, and the question is whether it is her right to kill the other woman. the wronged husband has always claimed that the man led his wife astray, that he had crept and crawled into his eden, but now the wronged wife claims that the woman seduced her husband, that she spread the net, wove the web and baited the trap in which the innocent husband was caught. thereupon she kills the other woman. in the first place, how can she be sure of the facts? how does she know whose fault it was? possibly she was to blame herself. but what good has the killing done? it will not give her back her husband's love. it will not cool the fervor of her jealousy. it will not give her better sleep or happier dreams. it would have been far better if she had said to her husband: "go with the woman you love. i do not want your body without your heart, your presence without your love." so, it would be better for the wronged husband to say to the unfaithful wife: "go with the man you love. your heart is his, i am not your master. you are free." after all, murder is a poor remedy. if you kill a man for one wrong, why not for another? if you take the law into your own hands and kill a man because he loves your wife and your wife loves him, why not kill him for any injury he may inflict on you or yours?... in a civilized nation the people are governed by law. they do not redress their own wrongs. they submit their differences to courts. if they are wronged they appeal to the law. savages redress what they call their wrongs. they appeal to knife or gun. they kill, they assassinate, they murder; and they do this to preserve their honor. admit that the seducer of the wife deserves death, that the woman who leads the husband astray deserves death, admit that both have justly forfeited their lives, the question yet remains whether the wronged husband and the wronged wife have the right to commit murder. if they have this right, then there ought to be some way provided for ascertaining the facts. before the husband kills the "betrayer," the fact that the wife was really led astray should be established, and the "wronged" husband who claims the right to kill, should show that he had been a good, loving and true husband. as a rule, the wives of good and generous men are true and faithful. they love their homes, they adore their children. in poverty and disaster they cling the closer. but when husbands are indolent and mean, when they are cruel and selfish, when they make a hell of home, why should we insist that their wives should love them still? when the civilized man finds that his wife loves another he does not kill, he does not murder. he says to his wife, "you are free." when the civilized woman finds that her husband loves another she does not kill, she does not murder. she says to her husband, "i am free." this, in my judgment, is the better way. it is in accordance with a far higher philosophy of life, of the real rights of others. the civilized man is governed by his reason, his intelligence; the savage by his passions. the civilized, man seeks for the right, regardless of himself; the savage for revenge, regardless of the rights of others. i do not believe that murder guards the sacredness of home, the purity of the fireside. i do not believe that crime wins victories for virtue. i believe in liberty and i believe in law. that country is free where the people make and honestly uphold the law. i am opposed to a redress of grievances or the punishment of criminals by mobs and i am equally opposed to giving the "wronged" husbands and the "wronged" wives the right to kill the men and women they suspect. in other words, i believe in civilization. a few years ago a merchant living in the west suspected that his wife and bookkeeper were in love. one morning he started for a distant city, pretending that he would be absent for a couple of weeks. he came back that night and found the lovers occupying the same room. he did not kill the man, but said to him: "take her; she is yours. treat her well and you will not be troubled. abuse or desert her and i will be her avenger." he did not kill his wife, but said: "we part forever. you are entitled to one-half of the property we have accumulated. you shall have it. farewell!" the merchant was a civilized man--a philosopher. professor briggs. to the study of the bible he has given the best years of his life. when he commenced this study he was probably a devout believer in the plenary inspiration of the scripture--thought that the bible was without an error; that all the so-called contradictions could be easily explained. he had been educated by presbyterians and had confidence in his teachers. in spite of his early training, in spite of his prejudices, he was led, in some mysterious way, to rely a little on his own reason. this was a dangerous thing to do. the moment a man talks about reason he is on dangerous ground. he is liable to contradict the "word of god." then he loses spirituality and begins to think more of truth than creed. this is a step toward heresy--toward infidelity. professor briggs began to have doubts about some of the miracles. these doubts, like rats, began to gnaw the foundations of his faith. he examined these wonderful stories in the light of what is known to have happened, and in the light of like miracles found in the other sacred books of the world. and he concluded that they were not quite true. he was not ready to say that they were actually false; that would be too brutally candid. i once read of an english lord who had a very polite gamekeeper. the lord wishing to show his skill with the rifle fired at a target. he and the gamekeeper went to see where the bullet had struck. the gamekeeper was first at the target, and the lord cried out: "did i miss it?" "i would not," said the gamekeeper, "go so far as to say that your lordship missed it, but--but--you didn't hit it." professor briggs saw clearly that the bible was the product, the growth of many centuries; that legends and facts, mistakes, contradictions, miracles, myths and history, interpolations, prophecies and dreams, wisdom, foolishness, justice, cruelty, poetry and bathos were mixed, mingled and interwoven. in other words, that the gold of truth was surrounded by meaner metals and worthless stones. he saw that it was necessary to construct what might be called a sacred smelter to divide the true from the false. undoubtedly he reached this conclusion in the interest of what he believed to be the truth. he had the mistaken but honest idea that a christian should really think. of course, we know that all heresy has been the result of thought. it has always been dangerous to grow. shrinking is safe. studying the bible was the first mistake that professor briggs made, reasoning was the second, and publishing his conclusions was the third. if he had read without studying, if he had believed without reasoning, he would have remained a good, orthodox presbyterian. he probably read the works of humboldt, darwin and haeckel, and found that the author of genesis was not a geologist, not a scientist. he seems to have his doubts about the truth of the story of the deluge. should he be blamed for this? is there a sensible man in the wide world who really believes in the flood? this flood business puts jehovah in such an idiotic light. of course, he must have known, after the "fall" of adam and eve, that he would have to drown their descendants. certainly it would have been more merciful to have killed adam and eve, made a new pair and kept the serpent out of the garden of eden. if jehovah had been an intelligent god he never would have created the serpent. then there would have been no fall, no flood, no atonement, no hell. think of a god who drowned a world! what a merciless monster! the cruelty of the flood is exceeded only by its stupidity. thousands of little theologians have tried to explain this miracle. this is the very top of absurdity. to explain a miracle is to destroy it. some have said that the flood was local. how could water that rose over the mountains remain local? why should we expect mercy from a god who drowned millions of men, women and babes? i would no more think of softening the heart of such a god by prayer than of protecting myself from a hungry tiger by repeating poetry. professor briggs has sense enough to see that the story of the flood is but an ignorant legend. he is trying to rescue jehovah from the frightful slander. after all, why should we believe the unreasonable? must we be foolish to be virtuous? the rain fell for forty days; this caused the flood. the water was at least thirty thousand feet in depth. seven hundred and fifty feet a day--more than thirty feet an hour, six inches a minute; the rain fell for forty days. does any man with sense enough to eat and breathe believe this idiotic lie? professor briggs knows that the jews got the story of the flood from the babylonians, and that it is no more inspired than the history of "peter wilkins and his flying wife." the destruction of sodom and gomorrah is another legend. if those cities were destroyed sensible people believe the phenomenon was as natural as the destruction of herculaneum and pompeii. they do not believe that in either case it was the result of the wickedness of the people. neither does any thinking man believe that the wife of lot was changed or turned into a pillar of salt as a punishment for having looked back at her burning home. how could flesh, bones and blood be changed to salt? this presupposes two miracles. first, the annihilation of the woman, and second, the creation of salt. a god cannot annihilate or create matter. annihilation and creation are both impossible--unthinkable. a grain of sand can defy all the gods. what was mrs. lot turned to salt for? what good was achieved? what useful lesson taught? what man with a head fertile enough to raise one hair can believe a story like this? does a man who denies the truth of this childish absurdity weaken the foundation of virtue? does he discourage truth-telling by denouncing lies? should a man be true to himself? if reason is not the standard, what is? can a man think one way and believe another? of course he can talk one way and think another. if a man should be honest with himself he should be honest with others. a man who conceals his doubts lives a dishonest life. he defiles his own soul. when a truth-loving man reads about the plagues of egypt, should he reason as he reads? should he take into consideration the fact that like stories have been told and believed by savages for thousands of years? should he ask himself whether jehovah in his efforts to induce the egyptian king to free the hebrews acted like a sensible god? should he ask himself whether a good god would kill the babes of the people on account of the sins of the king? whether he would torture, mangle and kill innocent cattle to get even with a monarch? is it better to believe without thinking than to think without believing? if there be a god can we please him by believing that he acted like a fiend? probably professor briggs has a higher conception of god than the author of exodus. the writer of that book was a barbarian--an honest barbarian, and he wrote what he supposed was the truth. i do not blame him for having written falsehoods. neither do i blame professor briggs for having detected these falsehoods. in our day no man capable of reasoning believes the miracles wrought for the hebrews in their flight through the wilderness. the opening of the sea, the cloud and pillar, the quails, the manna, the serpents and hornets are no more believed than the miracles of the mormons when they crossed the plains. the probability is that the hebrews never were in egypt. in the hebrew language there are no egyptian words, and in the egyptian no hebrew. this proves that the hebrews could not have mingled with the egyptians for four hundred and thirty years. as a matter of fact, moses is a myth. the enslavement of the hebrews, the flight, the journey through the wilderness existed only in the imagination of ignorance. so professor briggs has his doubts about the sun and moon having been stopped for a day in order that gen. joshua might kill more heathen. theologians have gathered around this miracle like moths around a flame. they have done their best to make it reasonable. they have talked about refraction and reflection, about the nature of the air having been changed so that the sun was visible all night. they have even gone so far as to say that joshua and his soldiers killed so many that afterward, when thinking about it, they concluded that it must have taken them at least two days. this miracle can be accounted for only in one way. jehovah must have stopped the earth. the earth, turning over at about one thousand miles an hour--weighing trillions of tons--had to be stopped. now we know that all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. it has been calculated that to stop the earth would cause as much heat as could be produced by burning three lumps of coal, each lump as large as this world. now, is it possible that a god in his right mind would waste all that force? the bible also tells us that at the same time god cast hailstones from heaven on the poor heathen. if the writer had known something of astronomy he would have had more hailstones and said nothing about the sun and moon. is it wise for ministers to ask their congregations to believe this story? is it wise for congregations to ask their ministers to believe this story? if jehovah performed this miracle he must have been insane. there should be some relation, some proportion, between means and ends. no sane general would call into the field a million soldiers and a hundred batteries to kill one insect. and yet the disproportion of means to the end sought would be reasonable when compared with what jehovah is claimed to have done. if jehovah existed let us admit that he had some sense. if it should be demonstrated that the book of joshua is all false, what harm could follow? there would remain the same reasons for living a useful and virtuous life; the same reasons against theft and murder. virtue would lose no prop and vice would gain no crutch. take all the miracles from the old testament and the book would be improved. throw away all its cruelties and absurdities and its influence would be far better. professor briggs seems to have doubts about the inspiration of ruth. is there any harm in that? what difference does it make whether the story of ruth is fact or fiction; history or poetry? its value is just the same. who cares whether hamlet or lear lived? who cares whether imogen and perdita were real women or the creation of shakespeare's imagination? the book of esther is absurd and cruel. it has no ethical value. there is not a line, a word in it calculated to make a human being better. the king issued a decree to kill the jews. esther succeeded in getting this decree set aside, and induced the king to issue another decree that the jews should kill the other folks, and so the jews killed some seventy-five thousand of the king's subjects. is it really important to believe that the book of esther is inspired? is it possible that jehovah is proud of having written this book? does he guard his copyright with the fires of hell? why should the facts be kept from the people? every intelligent minister knows that moses did not write the pentateuch; that david did not write the psalms, and that solomon was not the author of the song or the book of ecclesiastes. why not say so? no intelligent minister believes the story of daniel in the lion's den, or of the three men who were cast into the furnace, or the story of jonah. these miracles seem to have done no good--seem to have convinced nobody and to have had no consequences. daniel w'as miraculously saved from the lions, and then the king sent for the men who had accused daniel, for their wives and their children, and threw them all into the den of lions and they were devoured by beasts almost as cruel as jehovah. what a beautiful story! how can any man be wicked enough to doubt its truth? god told jonah to go to nineveh. jonah ran away, took a boat for another place. god raised a storm, the sailors became frightened, threw jonah overboard, and the poor wretch was swallowed and carried ashore by a fish that god had prepared. then he made his proclamation in nineveh. then the people repented and jonah was disappointed. then he became malicious and found fault with god. then comes the story of the gourd, the worm and the east wind, and the effect of the sun on a bald-headed prophet. would not this story be just as beautiful with the storm and fish left out? could we not dispense with the gourd, the worm and the east wind? professor briggs does not believe this story. he does not reject it because he is wicked or because he wishes to destroy religion, but because, in his judgment, it is not true. this may not be religious, but it is honest. it may not become a minister, but it certainly becomes a man. professor briggs wishes to free the old testament from interpolations, from excrescences, from fungus growths, from mistakes and falsehoods. i am satisfied that he is sincere, actuated by the noblest motives. suppose that all the interpolations in the bible should be found and the original be perfectly restored, what evidence would we have that it was written by inspired men? how can the fact of inspiration be established? when was it established? did jehovah furnish anybody with a list of books he had inspired? does anybody know that he ever said that he had inspired anybody? did the writer of genesis claim that he was inspired? did any writer of any part of the pentateuch make the claim? did the authors of joshua, judges, kings or chronicles pretend that they had obtained their facts from jehovah? does the author of job or of the psalms pretend to have received assistance from god? there is not the slightest reference to god in esther or in solomon's song. why should theologians say that those books were inspired? the dogma of inspiration rests on no established fact. it rests only on assertion--the assertion of those who have no knowledge on the subject. professor briggs calls the bible a "holy" book. he seems to think that much of it was inspired; that it is in some sense a message from god. the reasons he has for thinking so i cannot even guess. he seems also to have his doubts about certain parts of the new testament. he is not certain that the angel who appeared to joseph in a dream was entirely truthful, or he is not certain that joseph had the dream. it seems clear that when the gospel according to matthew was first written the writer believed that christ was a lineal descendant of david, through his father, joseph. the genealogy is given for the purpose of showing that the blood of david flowed in the veins of christ. the man who wrote that genealogy had never heard that the holy ghost was the father of christ. that was an afterthought. how is it possible to prove that the holy ghost was the father of christ? the holy ghost said nothing on the subject. mary wrote nothing and we have no evidence that joseph had a dream. the divinity of christ rests upon a dream that somebody said joseph had. according to the new testament, mary herself called joseph the father of christ. she told christ that joseph, his father, had been looking for him. her statement is better evidence than joseph's dream--if he really had it. if there are legends in holy scripture, as professor briggs declares, certainly the divine parentage of christ is one of them. the story lacks even originality. among the greeks many persons had gods for fathers. among hindoos and egyptians these god-men were common. so in many other countries the blood of gods was in the veins of men. such wonders, told in sanscrit, are just as reasonable as when told in hebrew--just as reasonable in india as in palestine. of course, there is no evidence that any human being had a god for a father, or a goddess for a mother. intelligent people have outgrown these myths. centaurs, satyrs, nymphs and god-men have faded away. science murdered them all. there are many contradictions in the gospels. they differ not only on questions of fact, but as to christianity itself. according to matthew, mark and luke, if you will forgive others god will forgive you. this is the one condition of salvation. but in john we find an entirely different religion. according to john you must be born again and believe in jesus christ. there you find for the first time about the atonement--that christ died to save sinners. the gospel of john discloses a regular theological system--a new one. to forgive others is not enough. you must have faith. you must be born again. the four gospels cannot be harmonized. if john is true the others are false. if the others are true john is false. from this there is no escape. i do not for a moment suppose that professor briggs agrees with me on these questions. he probably regards me as a very bad and wicked man, and my opinions as blasphemies. i find no fault with him for that. i believe him to be an honest man; right in some things and wrong in many. he seems to be true to his thought and i honor him for that. he would like to get all the stumbling-blocks out of the bible, so that a really thoughtful man can "believe." if theologians cling to the miracles recorded in the new testament the entire book will be disparaged and denied. the "gospel ship" is overloaded. somethings must be thrown overboard or the boat will go down. if the churches try to save all they will lose all. they must throw the miracles away. they must admit that christ did not cast devils out of the bodies of men and women--that he did not cure diseases with a word, or blindness with spittle and clay; that he had no power over winds and waves; that he did not raise the dead; that he was not raised from the dead himself, and that he did not ascend bodily to heaven. these absurdities must be given up, or in a little while the orthodox ministers will be preaching the "tidings of great joy" to benches, bonnets and bibs. professor briggs, as i understand him, is willing to give up the absurdest absurdities, but wishes to keep all the miracles that can possibly be believed. he is anxious to preserve the important miracles--the great central falsehoods--but the little lies that were told just to embellish the story--to furnish vines for the columns--he is willing to cast aside. but professor briggs was honest enough to say that we do not know the authors of most of the books in the bible; that we do not know who wrote the psalms or job or proverbs or the song of songs or ecclesiastes or the epistle to the hebrews. he also said that no translation can ever take the place of the original scriptures, because a translation is at best the work of men. in other words, that god has not revealed to us the names of the inspired books. that this must be determined by us. professor briggs puts reason above revelation. by reason we are to decide what books are inspired. by reason we are to decide whether anything has been improperly added to those books. by reason we are to decide the real meaning of those books. it therefore follows that if the books are unreasonable they are uninspired. it seems to me that this position is absolutely correct. there is no other that can be defended. the presbyterians who pretend to answer professor briggs seem to be actuated by hatred. dr. da costa answers with vituperation and epithet. he answers no argument; brings forward no fact; points out no mistake. he simply attacks the man. he exhibits the ordinary malice of those who love their enemies. president patton, of princeton, is a despiser of reason; a hater of thought. progress is the only thing that he fears. he knows that the bible is absolutely true. he knows that every word is inspired. according to him, all questions have been settled, and criticism said its last word when the king james bible was printed. the presbyterian church is infallible, and whoever doubts or denies will be damned. morality is worthless without the creed. this, is the religion, the philosophy, of dr. patton. he fights with the ancient weapons, with stone and club. he is a private in captain calvin's company, and he marches to defeat with the courage of invincible ignorance. i do not blame the presbyterian church for closing the mouth of professor briggs. that church believes the bible--all of it--and the members did not feel like paying a man for showing that it was not all inspired. long ago the presbyterians stopped growing. they have been petrified for many years. professor briggs had been growing. he had to leave the church or shrink. he left. then he joined the episcopal church. he probably supposed that that church preferred the living to the dead. he knew about colenso, stanley, temple, heber newton, dr. rainsford and farrar, and thought that the finger and thumb of authority would not insist on plucking from the mind the buds of thought. whether he was mistaken or not remains to be seen. the episcopal church may refuse to ordain him, and by such refusal put the bigot brand upon its brow. the refusal cannot injure professor briggs. it will leave him where it found him--with too much science for a churchman and too much superstition for a scientist; with his feet in the gutter and his head in the clouds. i admire every man who is true to himself, to his highest ideal, and who preserves unstained the veracity of his soul. i believe in growth. i prefer the living to the dead. men are superior to mummies. cradles are more beautiful than coffins. development is grander than decay. i do not agree with professor briggs. i do not believe in inspired books, or in the holy ghost, or that any god has ever appeared to man. i deny the existence of the supernatural. i know of no religion that is founded on facts. but i cheerfully admit that professor briggs appears to be candid, good tempered and conscientious--the opposite of those who attack him. he is not a freethinker, but he honestly thinks that he is free. fragments. clover. * a letter written to col. thomas donaldson, of philadelphia, declining an invitation to be a guest of the clover club of that city. i regret that i cannot be "in clover" with you on the th instant. a wonderful thing is clover! it means honey and cream,--that is to say, industry and contentment,--that is to say, the happy bees in perfumed fields, and at the cottage gate "bos" the bountiful serenely chewing satisfaction's cud, in that blessed twilight pause that like a benediction falls between all toil and sleep. this clover makes me dream of happy hours; of childhood's rosy cheeks; of dimpled babes; of wholesome, loving wives; of honest men; of springs and brooks and violets and all there is of stainless joy in peaceful human life. a wonderful word is "clover"! drop the "c," and you have the happiest of mankind. drop the "r," and "c," and you have left the only thing that makes a heaven of this dull and barren earth. drop the "r," and there remains a warm, deceitful bud that sweetens breath and keeps the peace in countless homes whose masters frequent clubs. after all, bottom was right: "good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow." yours sincerely and regretfully, r. g. ingersoll. washington, d. c., january , . ***** superstition puts belief above goodness--credulity above virtue. here are two men. one is industrious, frugal, honest, generous. he has a happy home--loves his wife and children--fills their lives with sunshine. he enjoys study, thoughts, music, and all the subtleties of art--but he does not believe the creed--cares nothing for sacred books, worships no god and fears no devil. the other is ignorant, coarse, brutal, beats his wife and children--but he believes--regards the bible as inspired--bows to the priests, counts his beads, says his prayers, confesses and contributes, and the catholic church declares and the protestant churches declare that he is the better man. the ignorant believer, coarse and brutal as he is, is going to heaven. he will be washed in the blood of the lamb. he will have wings--a harp and a halo. the intelligent and generous man who loves his fellow-men--who develops his brain, who enjoys the beautiful, is going to hell--to the eternal prison. such is the justice of god--the mercy of christ. ***** while reading the accounts of the coronation of the czar, of the pageants, processions and feasts, of the pomp and parade, of the barbaric splendor, of cloth of gold and glittering gems, i could not help thinking of the poor and melancholy peasants, of the toiling, half-fed millions, of the sad and ignorant multitudes who belong body and soul to this czar. i thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of the thousands in prisons for having dared to say a whispered word for freedom, of the great multitude who had been driven like cattle along the weary roads that lead to the hell of siberia. the cannon at moscow were not loud enough, nor the clang of the bells, nor the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of the captives. i thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and children for the crime of speaking like men. and when the priests spoke of the czar as the "god-selected man," the "god-adorned man," my blood grew warm. when i read of the coronation of the czarina i thought of siberia. i thought of girls working in the mines, hauling ore from the pits with chains about their waists; young girls, almost naked, at the mercy of brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning their lives away because between their pure lips the word liberty had burst into blossom. yet law neglects, forgets them, and crowns the czarina. the injustice, the agony and horror in this poor world are enough to make mankind insane. ignorance and superstition crown impudence and tyranny. millions of money squandered for the humiliation of man, to dishonor the people. back of the coronation, back of all the ceremonies, back of all the hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie. it is not true that god "selected" this czar to rule and rob a hundred millions of human beings. it is all an ignorant, barbaric, superstitious lie--a lie that pomp and pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and swinging censers, cannot change to truth. those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at moscow see millions of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of weeping mothers, whose children have been stolen by the czar; see thousands of villages without schools, millions of houses without books, millions and millions of men, women and children in whose future there is no star and whose only friend is death. the coronation is an insult to the nineteenth century. long live the people of russia! ***** music.--the savage enjoys noises--explosion--the imitation of thunder. this noise expresses his feeling. he enjoys concussion. his ear and brain are in harmony. so, he takes cognizance of but few colors. the neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. he appreciates the flames of red and yellow. that is to say, there is a harmony between his brain and eye. as he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other sounds, his eye other colors. he becomes a complex being, and there has entered into his mind the idea of proportion. the music of the drum no longer satisfies him. he sees that there is as much difference between noises and melodies as between stones and statues. the strings in corti's harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed. the eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight increase from age to age. the first idea of music is the keeping of time--a recurring emphasis at intervals of equal length or duration. this is afterward modified--the music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of sorrow slow. after all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and muscles. there is a rise and fall under excitement of both. in joy the heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick. in grief--in sadness, the blood is delayed. in music the broad division is one of time. in language, words of joy are born of light--that which shines--words of grief of darkness and gloom. there is still another division: the language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of sadness from cold. these ideas or divisions are universal. in all art are the light and shadow--the heat and cold. ***** of course england has no love for america. by england i mean the governing class. why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with democracy? the monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from what he is pleased to call the will of god, whereas in a republic the sovereign authority is the will of the people. it is impossible that there should be any real friendship between the two forms of government. we must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an england within england--an england that does not belong to the titled classes--an england that has not been bribed or demoralized by those in authority; and that england has always been our friend, because that england is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. but the lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of the titled, those who are willing to crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of the great republic. it is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the highest and lowest are generally friends. there may be a foundation for this friendship in the fact that both are parasites--both live on the labor of honest men. after all, there is a kinship between the prince and the pauper. both extend the hand for alms, and the fact that one is jeweled and the other extremely dirty makes no difference in principle--and the owners of these hands have always been fast friends, and, in accordance with the great law of ingratitude, both have held in contempt the people who supported them. one thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people of england are our friends. the best writers, the best thinkers are on our side. it is only natural that all who visit america should find some fault. we find fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is almost a plea of guilty. for my part, i have no doubt about the future of america. it not only is, but is to be for many, many generations, the greatest nation of the world. i do not care so much where, as with whom, i live. if the right folks are with me i can manage to get a good deal of happiness in the city or in the country. cats love places and become attached to chimney-corners and all sorts of nooks--but i have but little of the cat in me, and am not particularly in love with places. after all, a palace without affection is a poor hovel, and the meanest hut with love in it is a palace for the soul. if the time comes when poverty and want cease for the most part to exist, then the city will be far better than the country. people are always talking about the beauties of nature and the delights of solitude, but to me some people are more interesting than rocks and trees. as to city and country life i think that i substantially agree with touchstone: "in respect that it is solitary i like it very well; but in respect that it is private it is a very vile life. now, in respect it is in the fields it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court it is tedious." ***** what do i think of the lynchings in georgia? i suppose these outrages--these frightful crimes--make the same impression on my mind that they do on the minds of all civilized people. i know of no words strong enough, bitter enough, to express my indignation and horror. men who belong to the "superior" race take a negro--a criminal, a supposed murderer, one alleged to have assaulted a white woman--chain him to a tree, saturate his clothing with kerosene, pile fagots about his feet. this is the preparation for the festival. the people flock in from the neighborhood--come in special trains from the towns. they are going to enjoy themselves. laughing and cursing they gather about the victim. a man steps from the crowd--a man who hates crime and loves virtue. he draws his knife, and in a spirit of merry sport cuts off one of the victim's ears. this he keeps for a trophy--a souvenir. another gentlemen fond of a jest cuts off the other ear. another cuts off the nose of the chained and helpless wretch. the victim suffered in silence. he uttered no groan, no word--the one man of the two thousand who had courage. other white heroes cut and slashed his flesh. the crowd cheered. the people were intoxicated with joy. then the fagots were lighted and the bleeding and mutilated man was clothed in flame. the people were wild with hideous delight. with greedy eyes they watched him burn; with hungry ears they listened for his shrieks--for the music of his moans and cries. he did not shriek. the festival was not quite perfect. but they had their revenge. they trampled on the charred and burning corpse. they divided among themselves the broken bones. they wanted mementos--keepsakes that they could give to their loving wives and gentle babes. these horrors were perpetrated in the name of justice. the savages who did these things belong to the superior race. they are citizens of the great republic. and yet, it does not seem possible that such fiends are human beings. they are a disgrace to our country, our century and the human race. ex-governor atkinson protested against this savagery. he was threatened with death. the good people were helpless. while these lynchers murder the blacks they will destroy their own country. no civilized man wishes to live where the mob is supreme. he does not wish to be governed by murderers. let me say that what i have said is flattery compared with what i feel. when i think of the other lynching--of the poor man mutilated and hanged without the slightest evidence, of the negro who said that these murders would be avenged, and who was brutally murdered for the utterance of a natural feeling--i am utterly at a loss for words. are the white people insane? has mercy fled to beasts? has the united states no power to protect a citizen? a nation that cannot or will not protect its citizens in time of peace has no right to ask its citizens to protect it in time of war. ***** our country.--our country is all we hope for--all we are. it is the grave of our father, of our mother, of each and every one of the sacred dead. it is every glorious memory of our race. every heroic deed. every act of self-sacrifice done by our blood. it is all the accomplishments of the past--all the wise things said--all the kind things done--all the poems written and all the poems lived--all the defeats sustained--all the victories won--the girls we love--the wives we adore--the children we carry in our hearts--all the firesides of home--all the quiet springs, the babbling brooks, the rushing rivers, the mountains, plains and woods--the dells and dales and vines and vales. ***** gift giving.--i believe in the festival called christmas--not in the celebration of the birth of any man, but to celebrate the triumph of light over darkness--the victory of the sun. i believe in giving gifts on that day, and a real gift should be given to those who cannot return it; gifts from the rich to the poor, from the prosperous to the unfortunate, from parents to children. there is no need of giving water to the sea or light to the sun. let us give to those who need, neither asking nor expecting return, not even asking gratitude, only asking that the gift shall make the receiver happy--and he who gives in that way increases his own joy. ***** we have no right to enslave our children. we have no right to bequeath chains and manacles to our heirs. we have no right to leave a legacy of mental degradation. liberty is the birthright of all. parents should not deprive their children of the great gifts of nature. we cannot all leave lands and gold to those we love; but we can leave liberty, and that is of more value than all the wealth of india. the dead have no right to enslave the living. to worship ancestors is to curse posterity. he who bows to the past insults the future; and allows, so to speak, the dead to rob the unborn. the coffin is good enough in its way, but the cradle is far better. with the bones of the fathers they beat out the brains of the children. ***** random thoughts.--the road is short to anything we fear. joy lives in the house beyond the one we reach. in youth the time is halting, slow and lame. in age the time is winged and eager as a flame. the sea seems narrow as we near the farther shore. youth goes hand in hand with hope--old age with fear. . youth has a wish--old age a dread. in youth the leaves and buds seem loath to grow. youth shakes the glass to speed the lingering sands. youth says to time: o crutched and limping laggard, get thee wings. the dawn comes slowly, but the westering day leaps like a lover to the dusky bosom of the ethiop night. ***** i think that all days are substantially alike in the long run. it is no worse to drink on sunday than on monday. the idea that one day in the week is holy is wholly idiotic. besides, these closing laws do no good. laws are not locks and keys. saloon doors care nothing about laws. law or no law, people will slip in, and then, having had so much trouble getting there, they will stay until they stagger out. these nasty, meddlesome, pharisaic, hypocritical laws make sneaks and hypocrites. the children of these laws are like the fathers of the laws. ever since i can remember, people have been trying to make other people temperate by intemperate laws. i have never known of the slightest success. it is a pity that christ manufactured wine, a pity that paul took heart and thanked god when he saw the sign of the three taverns; a pity that jehovah put alcohol in almost everything that grows; a great pity that prayer-meetings are not more popular than saloons; a pity that our workingmen do not amuse themselves reading religious papers and the genealogies in the old testament. rum has caused many quarrels and many murders. religion has caused many wars and covered countless fields with dead. of course, all men should be temperate,--should avoid excess--should keep the golden path between extremes--should gather roses, not thorns. the only way to make men temperate is to develop the brain. when passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are servants, men are civilized. the people need education--facts--philosophy. drunkenness is one form of intemperance, prohibition is another form. another trouble is that these little laws and ordinances can not be enforced. both parties want votes, and to get votes they will allow unpopular laws to sleep, neglected, and finally refuse to enforce them. these spasms of virtue, these convulsions of conscience are soon over, and then comes a long period of neglectful rest. ***** the old and new year.--for countless ages the old earth has been making, in alternating light and shade, in gleam and gloom, the whirling circuit of the sun, leaving the record of its flight in many forms--in leaves of stone, in growth of tree and vine and flower, in glittering gems of many hues, in curious forms of monstrous life, in ravages of flood and flame, in fossil fragments stolen from decay by chance, in molten masses hurled from lips of fire, in gorges worn by waveless, foamless cataracts of ice, in coast lines beaten back by the imprisoned sea, in mountain ranges and in ocean reefs, in islands lifted from the underworld--in continents submerged and given back to light and life. another year has joined his shadowy fellows in the wide and voiceless desert of the past, where, from the eternal hour-glass forever fall the sands of time. another year, with all its joy and grief, of birth and death, of failure and success--of love and hate. and now, the first day of the new o'er arches all. standing between the buried and the babe, we cry, "farewell and hail!"--january , . ***** knowledge consists in the perception of facts, their relations--conditions, modes and results of action. experience is the foundation of knowledge--without experience it is impossible to know. it may be that experience can be transmitted--inherited. suppose that an infinite being existed in infinite space. he being the only existence, what knowledge could he gain by experience? he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. he would have no use for what we call the senses. could he use what we call the faculties of the mind? he could not compare, remember, hope or fear. he could not reason. how could he know that he existed? how could he use force? there was in the universe nothing that would resist--nothing. ***** most men are economical when dealing with abundance, hoarding gold and wasting time--throwing away the sunshine of life--the few remaining hours, and hugging to their shriveled hearts that which they do not and cannot even expect to use. old age should enjoy the luxury of giving. how divine to live in the atmosphere, the climate of gratitude! the men who clutch and fiercely hold and look at wife and children with eyes dimmed by age and darkened by suspicion, giving naught until the end, then give to death the gratitude that should have been their own. ***** death of the aged. * from a letter of condolence written to a friend on the death of his mother. after all, there is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of the old. nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the strong. but when the duties of life have all been nobly done; when the sun touches the horizon; when the purple twilight falls upon the past, the present, and the future; when memory, with dim eyes, can scarcely spell the blurred and faded records of the vanished days--then, surrounded by kindred and by friends, death comes like a strain of music. the day has been long, the road weary, and the traveler gladly stops at the welcome inn. nearly forty-eight years ago, under the snow, in the little town of cazenovia, my poor mother was buried. i was but two years old. i remember her as she looked in death. that sweet, cold face has kept my heart warm through all the changing years. ***** there is no cunning art to trace in any feature, form or face, or wrinkled palm, with criss-cross lines the good or bad in peoples' minds. nor can we guess men's thoughts or aims by seeing how they write their names. we could as well foretell their acts by getting outlines of their tracks. ourselves we do not know--how then can we find out our fellow-men? and yet--although the reason laughs-- we like to look at autographs-- and almost think that we can guess what lines and dots of ink express. * from the autograph collection of miss eva ingersoll farrell. august , . r. g. ingersoll. ***** the world is growing poor.--darwin the naturalist, the observer, the philosopher, is dead. wagner the greatest composer the world has produced, is silent. hugo the poet, patriot and philanthropist, is at rest. three mighty rivers have ceased to flow. the smallest insect was made interesting by darwin's glance; the poor blind worm became the farmer's friend--the maker of the farm,--and even weeds began to dream and hope. ***** but if we live beyond life's day and reach the dusk, and slowly travel in the shadows of the night, the way seems long, and being weary we ask for rest, and then, as in our youth, we chide the loitering hours. when eyes are dim and memory fails to keep a record of events; when ears are dull and muscles fail to obey the will; when the pulse is low and the tired heart is weak, and the poor brain has hardly power to think, then comes the dream, the hope of rest, the longing for the peace of dreamless sleep. ***** saints.--the saints have poisoned life with piety. they have soured the mother's milk. they have insisted that joy is crime--that beauty is a bait with which the devil captures the souls of men--that laughter leads to sin--that pleasure, in its every form, degrades, and that love itself is but the loathsome serpent of unclean desire. they have tried to compel men to love shadows rather than women--phantoms rather than people. the saints have been the assassins of sunshine,--the skeletons at feasts. they have been the enemies of happiness. they have hated the singing birds, the blossoming plants. they have loved the barren and the desolate--the croaking raven and the hooting owl--tombstones, rather than statues. and yet, with a strange inconsistency, happiness was to be enjoyed forever, in another world. there, pleasure, with all its corrupting influences, was to be eternal. no one pretended that heaven was to be filled with self-denial, with fastings and scourgings, with weepings and regrets, with solemn and emaciated angels, with sad-eyed seraphim, with lonely parsons, with mumbling monks, with shriveled nuns, with days of penance and with nights of prayer. yet all this self-denial on the part of the saints was founded in the purest selfishness. they were to be paid for all their sufferings in another world. they were "laying up treasures in heaven." they had made a bargain with god. he had offered eternal joy to those who would make themselves miserable here. the saints gladly and cheerfully accepted the terms. they expected pay for every pang of hunger, for every groan, for every tear, for every temptation resisted; and this pay was to bean eternity of joy. the selfishness of the saints was equaled only by the stupidity of the saints. it is not true that character is the aim of life. happiness should be the aim--and as a matter of fact is and always has been the aim, not only of sinners, but of saints. the saints seemed to think that happiness was better in another world than here, and they expected this happiness beyond the clouds. they looked upon the sinner as foolish to enjoy himself for the moment here, and in consequence thereof to suffer forever. character is not an end, it is a means to an end. the object of the saint is happiness hereafter--the means, to make himself miserable here. the object of the philosopher is happiness here and now, and hereafter,--if there be another world. if struggle and temptation, misery and misfortune, are essential to the formation of what you call character, how do you account for the perfection of your angels, or for the goodness of your god? were the angels perfected through misfortune? if happiness is the only good in heaven, why should it not be considered the only good here? in order to be happy, we must be in harmony with the conditions of happiness. it cannot be obtained by prayer,--it does not come from heaven--it must be found here, and nothing should be done, or left undone, for the sake of any supernatural being, but for the sake of ourselves and other natural beings. the early christians were preparing for the end of the world. in their view, life was of no importance except as it gave them time to prepare for "the second coming." they were crazed by fear. since that time, the world not coming to the expected end, they have been preparing for "the day of judgment," and have, to the extent of their ability, filled the world with horror. for centuries, it was, and still is, their business to destroy the pleasures of this life. in the midst of prosperity they have prophesied disaster. at every feast they have spoken of famine, and over the cradle they have talked of death. they have held skulls before the faces of terrified babes. on the cheeks of health they see the worms of the grave, and in their eyes the white breasts of love are naught but corruption and decay. ***** the waste forces of nature.--for countless years the great cataracts, as for instance, niagara, have been singing their solemn songs, filling the savage with terror, the civilized with awe; recording its achievements in books of stone--useless and sublime; inspiring beholders with the majesty of purposeless force and the wastefulness of nature. force great enough to turn the wheels of the world, lost, useless. so with the great tides that rise and fall on all the shores of the world--lost forces. and yet man is compelled to use to exhaustion's point the little strength he has. this will be changed. the great cataracts and the great tides will submit to the genius of man. they are to be for use. niagara will not be allowed to remain a barren roar. it must become the servant of man. it will weave robes for men and women. it will fashion implements for the farmer and the mechanic. it will propel coaches for rich and poor. it will fill streets and homes with light, and the old barren roar will be changed to songs of success, to the voices of love and content and joy. science at last has found that all forces are convertible into each other, and that all are only different aspects of one fact. so the flood is still a terror, but, in my judgment, the time will come when the floods will be controlled by the genius of man, when the tributaries of the great rivers and their tributaries will be dammed in such a way as to collect the waters of every flood and give them out gradually through all the year, maintaining an equal current at all times in the great rivers. we have at last found that force occupies a circle, that niagara is a child of the sun--that the sun shines, the mist rises, clouds form, the rain falls, the rivers flow to the lakes, and niagara fills the heavens with its song. man will arrest the falling flood; he will change its force to electricity; that is to say, to light, and then force will have made the circuit from light to light. ***** are men's characters fully determined at the age of thirty? it depends, first, on what their opportunities have been--that is to say, on their surroundings, their education, their advantages; second, on the shape, quality and quantity of brain they happen to possess; third, on their mental and moral courage; and, fourth, on the character of the people among whom they live. the natural man continues to grow. the longer he lives, the more he ought to know, and the more he knows, the more he changes the views and opinions held by him in his youth. every new fact results in a change of views more or less radical. this growth of the mind may be hindered by the "tyrannous north wind" of public opinion; by the bigotry of his associates; by the fear that he cannot make a living if he becomes unpopular; and it is to some extent affected by the ambition of the person; that is to say, if he wishes to hold office the tendency is to agree with his neighbor, or at least to round off and smooth the corners and angles of difference. if a man wishes to ascertain the truth, regardless of the opinions of his fellow-citizens, the probability is that he will change from day to day and from year to year--that is, his intellectual horizon will widen--and that what he once deemed of great importance will be regarded as an exceedingly small segment of a greater circle. growth means change. if a man grows after thirty years he must necessarily change. many men probably reach their intellectual height long before they have lived thirty years, and spend the balance of their lives in defending the mistakes of their youth. a great man continues to grow until his death, and growth--as i said before--means change. darwin was continually finding new facts, and kept his mind as open to a new truth as the east is to the rising of another sun. humboldt at the age of ninety maintained the attitude of a pupil, and was, until the moment of his death, willing to learn. the more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. the less a man knows, the more positive, a? is that he knows everything. the smallest minds mature the earliest. the less there is to a man the quicker he attains his growth. i have known many people who reached their intellectual height while in their mother's arms. i have known people who were exceedingly smart babies to become excessively stupid people. it is with men as with other things. the mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived. small people delight in what they call consistency--that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. this simply amounts to a certificate that they have not grown--that they have not developed--and that they know just as little now as they ever did. the highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of to-day, without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago. there is another view of this subject. few men have settled opinions before or at thirty. of course, i do not include persons of genius. at thirty the passions have, as a rule, too much influence; the intellect is not the pilot. at thirty most men have prejudices rather than opinions--that is to say, rather than judgments--and few men have lived to be sixty without materially modifying the opinions they held at thirty. as i said in the first place, much depends on the shape, quality and quantity of brain; much depends on mental and moral courage. there are many people with great physical courage who are afraid to express their opinions; men who will meet death without a tremor and will yet hesitate to express their views. so, much depends on the character of the people among whom we live. a man in the old times living in new england thought several times before he expressed any opinion contrary to the views of the majority. but if the people have intellectual hospitality, then men express their views--and it may be that we change somewhat in proportion to the decency of our neighbors. in the old times it was thought that god was opposed to any change of opinion, and that nothing so excited the auger of the deity as the expression of a new thought. that idea is fading away. the real truth is that men change their opinions as long as they grow, and only those remain of the same opinion still who have reached the intellectual autumn of their lives; who have gone to seed, and who are simply waiting for the winter of death. now and then there is a brain in which there is the climate of perpetual spring--men who never grow old--and when such a one is found we say, "here is a genius." talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death. but there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls. genius has the climate of perpetual growth. ***** the moiety system.--the secretary of the treasury recommends a revival of the moiety system. against this infamous step every honest citizen ought to protest. in this country, taxes cannot be collected through such instrumentalities. an _informer_ is not indigenous to our soil. he always has been and always will be held in merited contempt. every inducement, by this system, is held out to the informer to become a liar. the spy becomes an officer of the government. he soon becomes the terror of his superior. he is a sword without a hilt and without a scabbard. every taxpayer becomes the lawful prey of a detective whose property depends upon the destruction of his prey. these informers and spies are corrupters of public morals. they resort to all known dishonest means for the accomplishment of what they pretend to be an honest object. with them perjury becomes a fine art. their words are a commodity bought and sold in courts of justice. this is the first phase. in a little while juries will refuse to believe them, and every suit in which they are introduced will be lost by the government. of this the real thieves will be quick to take advantage. so many honest men will have been falsely charged by perjured informers and moiety miscreants, that to convict the guilty will become impossible. if the government wishes to collect the taxes it must set an honorable example. it must deal kindly and honestly with the people. it must not inaugurate a vampire system of espionage. it must not take it for granted that every manufacturer and importer is a thief, and that all spies and informers are honest men. the revenues of this country are as honestly paid as they are expended. there has been as much fair dealing outside as inside of the treasury department. but, however that may be, the informer system will not make them honest men, but will in all probability produce exactly the opposite result. if our system of taxation is so unpopular that the revenues cannot be collected without bribing men to tell the truth; if our officers must be offered rewards beyond their salaries to state the facts; if it is impossible to employ men to discharge their duties honestly, then let us change the system. the moiety system makes the treasury department a vast vampire sucking the blood of the people upon shares. americans detest informers, spies, detectives, turners of state's evidence, eavesdroppers, paid listeners, hypocrites, public smellers, trackers, human hounds and ferrets. they despise men who "suspect" for a living; they hate legal lyers-in-wait and the highwaymen of the law. they abhor the betrayers of friends and those who lead and tempt others to commit a crime in order that they may detect it. in a monarchy, the detective system is a necessity. the great thief has to be sustained by smaller ones.--december , . ***** language.--most people imagine that men have always talked; that language is as old as the race; and it is supposed that some language was taught by some mythological god to the first pair. but we now know, if we know anything, that language is a growth; that every word had to be created by man, and that back of every word is some want, some wish, some necessity of the body or mind, and also a genius to embody that want or that wish, to express that thought in some sound that we call a word. at first, the probability is that men uttered sounds of fear, of content, of anger, or happiness. and the probability is that the first sounds or cries expressed such feelings, and these sounds were nouns, adjectives, and verbs. after a time, man began to give his ideas to others by rude pictures, drawings of animals and trees and the various other things with which he could give rude thoughts. at first he would make a picture of the whole animal. afterward some part of the animal would stand for the whole, and in some of the old picture-writings the curve of the nostril of a horse stands for the animal. this was the shorthand of picture-writing. but it was a long journey to where marks would stand, not for pictures, but for sounds. and then think of the distance still to the alphabet. then to writing, so that marks took entirely the place of pictures. then the invention of movable type, and then the press, making it possible to save the wealth of the brain; making it possible for a man to leave not simply his property to his fellow-man, not houses and lands and dollars, but his ideas, his thoughts, his theories, his dreams, the poetry and pathos of his soul. now each generation is heir to all the past. if we had free thought, then we could collect the wealth of the intellectual world. in the physical world, springs make the creeks and brooks, and they the rivers, and the rivers empty into the great sea. so each brain should add to the sum of human knowledge. if we deny freedom of thought, the springs cease to gurgle, the rivers to run, and the great ocean of knowledge becomes a desert of barren, ignorant sand. ***** this is an age of money-getting, of materialism, of cold, unfeeling science. the question arises, is the world growing less generous, less heroic, less chivalric? let us answer this. the experience of the individual is much like the experience of a generation, or of a race. an old man imagines that everything was better when he was young; that the weather could then be depended on; that sudden changes are recent inventions. so he will tell you that people used to be honest; that the grocers gave full weight and the merchants full measure, and that the bank cashier did not spend the evening of his days in canada. he will also tell you that the women were handsome and virtuous. there were no scandals then, no divorces, and that in religion all were orthodox--no infidels. before he gets through, he will probably tell you that the art of cooking has been lost--that nobody can make biscuit now, and that he never expects to eat another slice of good bread. he mistakes the twilight of his own life for the coming of the night of universal decay and death. he imagines that that has happened to the world, which has only happened to him. it does not occur to him that millions at the moment he is talking are undergoing the experience of his youth, and that when they become old they will praise the very days that he denounces. the garden of eden has always been behind us. the golden age, after all, is the memory of youth--it is the result of remembered pleasure in the midst of present pain. to old age youth is divine, and the morning of life cloudless. so now thousands and millions of people suppose that the age of true chivalry has gone by and that honesty has about concluded to leave the world. as a matter of fact, the age known as the age of chivalry was the age of tyranny, of arrogance and cowardice. men clad in complete armor cut down the peasants that were covered with leather, and these soldiers of the chivalric age armored themselves to that degree that if they fell in battle they could not rise, held to the earth by the weight of iron that their bravery had got itself entrenched within. compare the difference in courage between going to war in coats of mail against sword and spear, and charging a battery of krupp guns! the ideas of justice have grown larger and nobler. charity now does, without a thought, what the average man a few centuries ago was incapable of imagining. in the old times slavery was upheld, and imprisonment for debt. hundreds of crimes--or rather misdemeanors--were punishable by death. prisons were loathsome beyond description. thousands and thousands died in chains. the insane were treated like wild beasts; no respect was paid to sex or age. women were burned and beheaded and torn asunder as though they had been hyenas, and children were butchered with the greatest possible cheerfulness. so it seems to me that the world is more chivalric, more generous, nearer just and fair, more charitable, than ever before. ***** the colored man is doing well. he is hungry for knowledge. their children are going to school. colored boys are taking prizes in the colleges. a colored man was the orator of harvard. they are industrious, and in the south many are becoming rich. as the people, black and white, become educated they become better friends. the old prejudice is the child of ignorance. the colored man will succeed if the south succeeds. the south is richer to-day than ever before, more prosperous, and both races are really improving. the greatest danger in the south, and for that matter all over the country, is the mob. it is the duty of every good citizen to denounce the mob. down with the mob. ***** freedom of religion is the destruction of religion. in rome, after people were allowed to worship their own gods, all gods fell into disrepute. it will be so in america. here is freedom of religion, and all devotees find that the gods of other devotees are just as good as theirs. they find that the prayers of others are answered precisely as their prayers are answered. the protestant god is no better than the catholic, and the catholic is no better than the mormon, and the mormon is no better than nature for answering prayers. in other words, all prayers die in the air which they uselessly agitate. there is undoubtedly a tendency among the protestant denominations to unite. this tendency is born of weakness, not of strength. in a few years, if all should unite, they would hardly have power enough to obstruct, for any considerable time, the march of the intellectual host destined to conquer the world. but let us all be good natured; let us give to others all the rights that we claim for ourselves. the future, i believe, has both hands full of blessings for the human race. ***** the deists and nature.--we who deny the supernatural origin of the bible, must admit not only that it exists, but that it was naturally produced. if it is not supernatural, it is natural. it will hardly do for the worshipers of nature to hold the bible in contempt, simply because it is not a supernatural book. the deists of the last century made a mistake. they proceeded to show that the bible is immoral, untrue, cruel and absurd, and therefore came to the conclusion that it could not have been written by a being of infinite wisdom and goodness,--the being whom they believed to be the author of nature. could not infinite wisdom and goodness just as easily command crime as to permit it? is it really any worse to order the strong to slay the weak, than to stand by and refuse to protect the weak? after all, is nature, taken together, any better than the bible? if god did not command the jews to murder the canaanites, nature, to say the least, did not prevent it. if god did not uphold the practice of polygamy, nature did. the moment we deny the supernatural origin of the bible, we declare that nature wrote its every word, commanded all its cruelties, told all its falsehoods. the bible is, like nature, a mixture of what we call "good" and "bad,"--of what appears, and of what in reality is. the bible must have been a perfectly natural production not only, but a necessary one. there was, and is, no power in the universe that could have changed one word. all the mistakes in translation were necessarily made, and not one, by any possibility, could have been avoided. that book, like all other facts in nature, could not have been otherwise than it is. the fact being that nature has produced all superstitions, all persecution, all slavery, and every crime, ought to be sufficient to deter the average man from imagining that this power, whatever it may be, is worthy of worship. there is good in nature. it is the nature in us that perceives the evil, that pursues the right. in man, nature not only contemplates herself, but approves or condemns her actions. of course, "good" and "bad" are relative terms, and things are "good" or "bad" as they affect man well or ill. infidels, skeptics,--that is to say, freethinkers, have opposed the bible on account of the bad things in it, and christians have upheld it, not on account of the bad, but on account of the good. throw away the doctrine of inspiration, and the bible will be more powerful for good and far less for evil. only a few years ago, christians looked upon the bible as the bulwark of human slavery. it was the word of god, and for that reason was superior to the reason of uninspired man. had it been considered simply as the work of man, it would not have been quoted to establish that which the man of this age condemns. throw away the idea of inspiration, and all passages in conflict with liberty, with science, with the experience of the intelligent part of the human race, instantly become harmless. they are no longer guides for man. they are simply the opinions of dead barbarians. the good passages not only remain, but their influence is increased, because they are relieved of a burden. no one cares whether the truth is inspired or not. the truth is independent of man, not only, but of god. and by truth i do not mean the absolute, i mean this: truth is the relation between things and thoughts, and between thoughts and thoughts. the perception of this relation bears the same relation to the logical faculty in man, that music does to some portion of the brain--that is to say, it is a mental melody. this sublime strain has been heard by a few, and i am enthusiastic enough to believe that it will be the music of the future. for the good and for the true in the old and new testaments i have the same regard that i have for the good and true, no matter where they may be found. we who know how false the history of to-day is; we who know the almost numberless mistakes that men make who are endeavoring to tell the truth; we who know how hard it is, with all the facilities we now have--with the daily press, the telegraph, the fact that nearly all can read and write--to get a truthful report of the simplest occurrence, must see that nothing short of inspiration (admitting for the moment the possibility of such a thing,) could have prevented the scriptures from being filled with error. ***** at last, the schoolhouse is larger than the church. the common people have, through education, become uncommon. they now know how little is really known by kings, presidents, legislators, and professors. at last, they are capable of not only understanding a few questions, but they have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands. with the facility of the cultured, they can now hide behind phrases and make barricades of statistics. they understand the sophistries of the upper classes; and while the cultured have been turning their attention to the classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas that they contain,--while they have been giving their attention to ceramics, artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have been compelled to learn the practical things. they are acquainted with facts, because they have done the work of the world. ***** cruelty.--sometimes it has seemed to me that cruelty is the climate of crime, and that generosity is the spring, summer and autumn of virtue. every form of wickedness, of meanness, springs from selfishness, that is to say, from cruelty. every good man hates and despises the wretch who abuses wife and child--who rules by curses and blows and makes his home a kind of hell. so, no generous man wishes to associate with one who overworks his horse and feeds the lean and fainting beast with blows. the barbarian delights in inflicting pain. he loves to see his victim bleed,--but the civilized man staunches blood, binds up wounds and decreases pain. he pities the suffering animal as well as the suffering man. he would no more inflict wanton wounds upon a dog than on a man. the heart of the civilized man speaks for the dumb and helpless. a good man would no more think of flaying a living animal than of murdering his mother. the man who cuts a hoof from the leg of a horse is capable of committing any crime that does not require courage. such an experiment can be of no use. under no circumstances are hoofs taken from horses for the good of the horses any more than their heads would be cut off. think of the pain inflicted by separating the hoof of a living horse from the flesh! if the poor beast could speak what would he say? the same knowledge could be obtained by cutting away the hoof of a dead horse. knowledge of every bone, ligament, artery and vein, of every cartilage and joint can be obtained by the dissection of the dead. "but," says the biologist, "we must dissect the living." well, millions of living animals have been cut in pieces; millions of experiments have been tried; all the nerves have been touched; every possible agony has been inflicted that ingenuity could invent and cruelty accomplish. many volumes have been published filled with accounts of these experiments, giving all the details and the results. people who are curious about such things can read these reports. there is no need of repeating these savage experiments. it is now known how long a dog can live with all the pores of his skin closed, how long he can survive the loss of his skin, or one lobe of his brain, or both of his kidneys, or part of his intestines, or without his liver, and there is no necessity of mutilating and mangling thousands of other dogs to substantiate what is already known. of what possible use is it to know just how long an animal can live without water--at what time he becomes insane from thirst, or blind or deaf? ***** the world's fair will do great good. a great many thousand people of the old world will for the first time understand the new; will for the first time appreciate what a free people can do. for the first time they will know the value of free institutions, of individual independence, of a country where people express their thoughts, are not afraid of each other, not afraid to try--a people so accustomed to success that disaster is not taken into calculation. of course, we have great advantages. we have a new half of the world. we have soil better than is found in other countries, and the soil is new and generous and anxious to be cultivated. so we have everything in hill and mountain that man can need--silver, and gold, and iron beyond computation--and, in addition to all that, our people are the most inventive. we sustain about the same relation to invention that italy in her palmy days did to art, or that spain did to superstition. and right here it may be well enough to say that i think it was exceedingly unfortunate that this country was discovered under the auspices of spain. ferdinand and isabella were a couple of wretches. the same year that columbus discovered america, these sovereigns expelled the jews from spain, and the expulsion was accompanied by every outrage, by every atrocity to which man--that is to say, savage man--that is to say, the superstitious savage--is capable of inflicting. the spaniards came to america and destroyed two civilizations far better than their own. they were natural robbers, buccaneers, and thought nothing of murdering thousands for gold. i am perfectly willing to celebrate the fact of discovery, but for the sovereigns of spain i am not willing to celebrate, except, perhaps their deaths. there is at least some joy to be extracted from that. in spite of the untoward circumstances under which the continent was discovered and settled, there is one thing that counteracted to a certain degree the influence of the old world in the new. possibly we owe our liberty to the indians. if there had been no hostile savages on this continent, the kings and princes of the old world would have taken possession and would have divided it out among their favorites. they tried to do that, but their favorites could not take possession. they had to fight for the soil and in the conflict of centuries they found that a good fighter was a good citizen, and the ideas of caste were slowly lost. then another thing was of benefit to us. the settlers felt that they had earned the soil; that they had fought for it, gained it by their sufferings, their courage, their selfdenial, and their labor; and the idea crept into their heads that the kings in europe, who had done nothing, had no right to dictate to them. thus at first the spirit of caste was destroyed by respectability resting on usefulness. the spirit of subserviency to the old world also died, and the people who had rescued the land made up their minds not only to own it, but to control it. they were also firmly convinced that the profits belonged to them. in this way manhood was recognized in the new world. in this way grew up the feeling of nationality here. what i wish to see celebrated in this great exposition are the triumphs that have been achieved in this new world. these i wish to see above all. at the same time i want the best that labor and thought have produced in all countries. it seems to me that in the presence of the wonderful machines, of those marvelous mechanical contrivances by which we take advantage of the forces of nature, by which we make servants of the elemental powers--in the presence, i say, of these, it seems to me respect for labor must be born. we shall begin to appreciate the men of use instead of those who have posed as decorations. all the beautiful things, all the useful things, come from labor, and it is labor that has made the world a fit habitation for the human race. take from the world's fair what labor has produced--the work of the great artists--and nothing will be left. what have the great conquerors to show in this great exhibition? what shall we get from the caesars and the napoleons? what shall we get from popes and cardinals? what shall we get from the nobility? from princes and lords and dukes? what excuse have they for having existence and for having lived on the bread earned by honest men? they stand in the show-windows of history, lay figures, on which fine goods are shown, but inside the raiment there is nothing, and never was. this exposition will be the apotheosis of labor. no man can attend it without losing, if he has any sense at all, the spirit of caste; or, if he still maintains it, he will put the useful in the highest class, and the useless, whether carrying sceptres or dishes for alms, in the lowest.--october, . ***** the savage made of the river, the tree, the mountain, a fetich. he put within, or behind these things, a spirit--according to mr. spencer, the spirit of a dead ancestor. this is considered by the modern christian, and in fact by the modern philosopher, as the lowest possible phase of the religious idea. to put behind the river or the tree, or within them, a spirit, a something, is considered the religion of savagery; but to put behind the universe, or within it, the same kind of fetich, is considered the height of philosophy. for my part, i see no possible distinction in these systems, except that the view of the savage is altogether the more poetic. the _fetich_ of the savage is the _noumenon_ of the greek, the _god_ of the theologian, the _first cause_ of the metaphysician, the _unknowable_ of spencer. ***** the unthinkable.--it is admitted by all who have thought upon the question that a first cause is unthinkable--that a creative power is beyond the reach of human thought. it therefore follows that the miraculous is unthinkable. there is no possible way in which the human mind can even think of a miracle. it is infinitely beyond our power of conception. we can conceive of the statement, but not of the thing. it is impossible for the intellect to conceive of a clay pot producing oil. it is impossible to conceive even, of human life being perpetuated in the midst of fire. this is just as unthinkable as that twice two are twenty-seven. a man can say that three times three are two, but it is impossible to think of any such thing--that is, to think of such a statement as true. a man may say that he heard a stone sing a song and heard it afterward repeat a part of milton's "paradise lost." now, i can conceive of a man telling such a falsehood, but i cannot conceive of the thing having happened. ***** can human testimony overcome the apparently impossible without explanation?--it can only be believed by a philosophic mind when explained--that is to say, by being destroyed as a miracle, and persisting simply as a fact. now, i say that a miracle is unthinkable because a power above nature, a power that created nature, is unthinkable. and if a power above nature be unthinkable, the miracles claiming to be supernatural are unthinkable. in other words, all consequences flowing from a belief in an infinite creator are necessarily unthinkable. ***** edouard remenyi.--this week the great violinist, edouard remenyi, as my guest, visited the bass rocks house, cape ann, mass., and for three days delighted and entranced the fortunate idlers of the beach. he played nearly all the time, night and day, seemingly carried away with his own music. among the many selections given, were the andante from the tenth sonata in e flat, also from the twelfth sonata in g minor, by mozart. nothing could exceed the wonderful playing of the selections from the twelfth sonata. a hush as of death fell upon the audience, and when he ceased, tears fell upon applauding hands. then followed the elegie from ernst; then "the ideal dance" composed by himself--a fairy piece, full of wings and glancing feet, moonlight and melody, where fountains fall in showers of pearl, and waves of music die on sands of gold--then came the "barcarole" by schubert, and he played this with infinite spirit, in a kind of inspired frenzy, as though music itself were mad with joy; then the grand sonata in g, in three movements, by beethoven.--august, . remenyi's playing.--in my mind the old tones are still rising and falling--still throbbing, pleading, beseeching, imploring, wailing like the lost--rising winged and triumphant, superb and victorious--then caressing, whispering every thought of love--intoxicated, delirious with joy--panting with passion--fading to silence as softly and imperceptibly as consciousness is lost in sleep. ***** the kindergarten is perfectly adapted to the natural needs and desires of children. most children dislike the old system and go "unwillingly to school." they feel imprisoned and wait impatiently for their liberty. they learn without understanding and take no interest in their lessons. in the kindergarten there is perfect liberty, and study is transformed into play. to learn is a pleasure. there are no wearisome tasks--no mental drudgery--nothing but enjoyment,--the enjoyment of natural development in natural ways. children do not have to be driven to the kindergarten. to be kept away is a punishment. the experience in many towns and cities justifies our belief that the kindergarten is the only valuable school for little children. they are brought in contact with actual things--with forms and colors--things that can be seen and touched, and they are taught to use their hands and senses--to understand qualities and relations, and all is done under the guise of play. we agree with froebel who said: "let us live for our children." ***** the methodist church statistics.--first. in , a resolution in favor of gradual emancipation was defeated. second. in , resolutions passed requiring ministers to exhort slaves to be obedient to their masters. third. in , everything about laymen owning slaves stricken out. fourth. in , a resolution that ministers should not hold slaves was defeated. fifth. in , a resolution passed that the methodist church opposed, abolition of slavery--one hundred and twenty to fourteen. sixth. in - , the methodist church divided--bishop andrews owned slaves. seventh. as late as there were over ten thousand methodists who were slaveholders in the m. e. church, north. ***** east st str., n. y. * response to an invitation to a dinner and a billiard tournament at the manhattan athletic club, new york city. feby. , . my dear dr. ranney: i go to boston to-morrow. so, you see it is impossible for me to be with you on the d inst. i would like to make a few remarks on "orthodox billiards." the fact is that the whole world is a table, we are the balls and fate plays the game. we are knocked and whacked against each other,--followed and drawn--whirled and twisted, pocketed and spotted, and all the time we think that we are doing the playing. but no matter, we feel that we are in the game, and a real good illusion is, after all, it may be, the only reality that we know. at the same time, i feel that fate is a careless player--that he is always a little nervous and generally forgets to chalk his cue. i know that he has made lots of mistakes with me--lots of misses. with many thanks, i remain, yours always. r. g. ingersoll. ***** thoughts on christmas, .--it is beautiful to give one day to the ideal--to have one day apart; one day for generous deeds, for good will, for gladness; one day to forget the shadows, the rains, the storms of life; to remember the sunshine, the happiness of youth and health; one day to forget the briers and thorns of the winding path, to remember the fruits and flowers; one day in which to feed the hungry, to salute the poor and lowly; one day to feel the brotherhood of man; one day to remember the heroic and loving deeds of the dead; one day to get acquainted with children, to remember the old, the unfortunate and the imprisoned; one day in which to forget yourself and think lovingly of others; one day for the family, for the fireside, for wife and children, for the love and laughter, the joy and rapture, of home; one day in which bonds and stocks and deeds and notes and interest and mortgages and all kinds of business and trade are forgotten, and all stores and shops and factories and offices and banks and ledgers and accounts and lawsuits are cast aside, put away and locked up, and the weary heart and brain are given a voyage to fairyland. let us hope that such a day is a prophecy of what all days will be. ***** the orthodox preachers are several centuries in the rear. they all love the absurd, and glory in believing the impossible. they are also as conservative as though they were dead--good people--the leaders of those who are going backward. ***** the man who builds a home erects a temple. the flame upon the hearth is the sacred fire. he who loves wife and children is the true worshiper. forms and ceremonies, kneelings and fastings are born of selfish fear. a good deed is the best prayer. a loving life is the best religion. no one knows whether the unknown is worthy of worship or not. ***** we two, the doubting brain and hoping heart, with somber thought and radiant wish, in dusk and dawn, in light and shade 'neath star and sun, together journeying toward the night. and then the end, sighs the doubting brain--but there is no end, says the hoping heart. o brain! if you knew, you would not doubt. o heart! if you knew, you would not hope. ***** rights and duties spring from the same source. he who has no rights has no duties. without liberty there can be no responsibility and no conscience. man calls himself to an account for the use of his power, and passes judgment upon himself. the standard of such judgment we call conscience. in the proportion that man uses his liberty, his power, for the good of all, he advances, becomes civilized. civilization does not consist merely in invention, discovery, material advancement, but in doing justice. by civilization is meant all discoveries, facts, theories, agencies, that add to the happiness of man. ***** at bay.--sometimes in the darkness of night i feel as though surrounded by the great armies of effacement--that the horizon is growing smaller every moment--that the final surrender is only postponed--that everything is taking something from me--that nature robs me with her countless hands--that my heart grows weaker with every beat--that even kisses wear me away, and that every thought takes toll of my brief life. ***** the first anniversary.*--one year of perfect health--of countless smiles--of wonder and surprise--of growing thought and love--was duly celebrated on this day, and all paid tribute to the infant queen. there were whirling things that scattered music as they turned--and boxes filled with tunes--and curious animals of whittled wood--and ivory rings with tinkling bells--and little dishes for a fairy-feast--horses that rocked, and bleating sheep and monstrous elephants of painted tin. a baby-tender, for a tender babe, garments of silk and cushions wrought with flowers, and pictures of her mother when a babe--and silver dishes for another year--and coach and four and train of cars--and bric-a-brac for a baby's house--and last of all, a pearl, to mark her first round year of life and love. * written on the first anniversary of his grandchild, eva ingersoll-brown, august , . ***** shelley.--the light of morn beyond the purple hills--a palm that lifts its coronet of leaves above the desert's sands--an isle of green in some far sea--a spring that waits for lips of thirst--a strain of music heard within some palace wrought of dreams--a cloud of gold above a setting sun--a fragrance wafted from some unseen shore. ***** fate.--never hurried, never delayed, passionless, pitiless, patient, keeping the tryst--neither early nor late--there, on the very stroke and center of the instant fixed. ***** quiet, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. toward evening the mind grows satisfied and still. the flare and flicker of youth are gone, and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where the air is at rest. age discards the superfluous, the immaterial, the straw and chaff, and hoards the golden grain. the highway is known, and the paths no longer mislead. clouds are not mistaken for mountains. ***** the old man has been long at the fair. he is acquainted with the jugglers at the booths. his curiosity has been satisfied. he no longer cares for the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and deformed. he looks through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and gloss, not only of things, but of conduct, of manners, theories, religions and philosophies. he sees clearer. the light no longer shines in his eyes. ***** the time will come when even selfishness will be charitable for its own sake, because at that time the man will have grown and developed to that degree that selfishness demands generosity and kindness and justice. the self becomes so noble that selfishness is a virtue. the lowest form of selfishness is when one is willing to be happy, or wishes to be happy, at the expense or the misery of another. the highest form of selfishness is when a man becomes so noble that he finds his happiness in making others so. this is the nobility of selfishness. ***** cuba fell upon her knees--stretched her thin hands toward the great republic. we saw her tear-filled eyes--her withered breasts--her dead babes--her dying--her buried and unburied dead. we heard her voice, and pity, roused to action by her grief, became as stern as justice, and the great republic cried to spain: "sheathe the dagger of assassination; take your bloody hand from the throat of the helpless; and take your flag from the heaven of the western world." ***** perhaps i have reached the years of discretion. but it may be that discretion is the enemy of happiness. if the buds had discretion there might be no fruit. so it may be that the follies committed in the spring give autumn the harvest.--august , . ***** dickens wrote for homes--thackeray for clubs. byron did not care for the fireside--for the prattle of babes--for the smiles and tears of humble life. he was touched by grandeur rather than goodness,--loved storm and crag and the wild sea. but burns lived in the valley, touched by the joys and griefs of lowly lives. imagine amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals mingled as liquids--then imagine these marvelous glories of light and color changed to a tone, and you have the wondrous, the incomparable voice of scalchi. ***** the organ.--the beginnings--the timidities--the half thoughts--blushes--suggestions--a phrase of grace and feeling--a sustained note--the wing on the wind--confidence--the flight--rising with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous swell--in the passionate tremor--rising still higher--flooding the great dome with the soul of enraptured sound. ***** new mexico is a most wonderful country. it is a ragged miser with billions of buried treasure. it looks as if nature had guarded her silver and gold with enough desolation to deter all but the brave. ***** why should the indian summer of a life be lost--the long, serene, and tender days when earth and sky are friends? the falling leaves disclose the ripened fruit--and so the flight of youth with dreams and fancies should show the wealth of bending bough. ***** give milk to babes, and wine to youth. but for old age, when ghosts of more than two-score years are wandering on the traveled road, the fragrant tea, that loosens gossip's tongue, is best.--december , . [from a letter thanking a friend for a christmas present of a chest of tea.] ***** on memorial day our hearts blossom in gratitude as we lovingly remember the brave men upon whose brows death, with fleshless hands, placed the laurel wreath of fame. ***** the soul is an architect--it builds a habitation for itself--and as the soul is, is the habitation. some live in dens and caves, and some in lowly homes made rich with love, and overrun with vine and flower. ***** science at last holds with honest hand the scales wherein are weighed the facts and fictions of the world. she neither kneels nor prays, she stands erect and thinks. her tongue is not a traitor to her brain. her thought and speech agree. ***** the negro who can pass me in the race of life will receive my admiration, and he can count on my friendship. no man ever lived who proved his superiority by trampling on the weak. ***** religion is like a palm tree--it grows at the top. the dead leaves are all orthodox, while the new ones and the buds are all heretics. ***** memory is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift. ***** hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. ***** the fires of the next world sustain the same relation to churches that those in this world sustain to insurance companies. ***** now and then there arises a man who on peril's edge draws from the scabbard of despair the sword of victory. ***** the falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. ***** vice lives either before love is born, or after love is dead. ***** intellectual freedom is only the right to be honest. ***** i believe that finally man will go through the phase of religion before birth. ***** when shrill chanticleer pierces the dull ear of morn. ***** orthodoxy is the refuge of mediocrity. ***** the ocean is the womb of all that will be, the tomb of all that has been. ***** jealousy never knows the value of a fact. envy cannot reason, malice cannot prophesy. ***** love has a kind of second sight. ***** i have never given to any one a sketch of my life. according to my idea a life should not be written until it has been lived.--july , . effect of the world's fair on the human race. the great fair should be for the intellectual, mechanical, artistic, political and social advancement of the world. nations, like small communities, are in danger of becoming provincial, and must become so, unless they exchange commodities, theories, thoughts, and ideals. isolation is the soil of ignorance, and ignorance is the soil of egotism; and nations, like individuals who live apart, mistake provincialism for perfection, and hatred of all other nations for patriotism. with most people, strangers are not only enemies, but inferiors. they imagine that they are progressive because they know little of others, and compare their present, not with the present of other nations, but with their own past. few people have imagination enough to sympathize with those of a different complexion, with those professing another religion or speaking another language, or even wearing garments unlike their own. most people regard every difference between themselves and others as an evidence of the inferiority of the others. they have not intelligence enough to put themselves in the place of another if that other happens to be outwardly unlike themselves. countless agencies have been at work for many years destroying the hedges of thorn that have so long divided nations, and we at last are beginning to see that other people do not differ from us, except in the same particulars that we differ from them. at last, nations are becoming acquainted with each other, and they now know that people everywhere are substantially the same. we now know that while nations differ outwardly in form and feature, somewhat in theory, philosophy and creed, still, inwardly--that is to say, so far as hopes and passions are concerned--they are much the same, having the same fears, experiencing the same joys and sorrows. so we are beginning to find that the virtues belong exclusively to no race, to no creed, and to no religion; that the humanities dwell in the hearts of men, whomever and whatever they may happen to worship. we have at last found that every creed is of necessity a provincialism, destined to be lost in the universal. at last, science extends an invitation to all nations, and places at their disposal its ships and its cars; and when these people meet--or rather, the representatives of these people--they will find that, in spite of the accidents of birth, they are, after all, about the same; that their sympathies, their ideas' of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, of heroism and honor, are substantially alike. they will find that in every land honesty is honored, truth respected and admired, and that generosity and charity touch all hearts. so it is of the greatest importance that the inventions of the world should be brought beneath one roof. these inventions, in my judgment, are destined to be the liberators of mankind. they enslave forces and compel the energies of nature to work for man. these forces have no backs to feel the lash, no tears to shed, no hearts to break. the history of the world demonstrates that man becomes what we call civilized by increasing his wants. as his necessities increase, he becomes industrious and energetic. if his heart does not keep pace with his brain, he is cruel, and the physically or mentally strong enslave the physically or mentally weak. at present these inventions, while they have greatly increased the countless articles needed by man, have to a certain extent enslaved mankind. in a savage state there are few failures. almost any one succeeds in hunting and fishing. the wants are few, and easily supplied. as man becomes civilized, wants increase; or rather as wants increase, man becomes civilized. then the struggle for existence becomes complex; failures increase. the first result of the invention of machinery has been to increase the wealth of the few. the hope of the world is that through invention man can finally take such advantage of these forces of nature, of the weight of water, of the force of wind, of steam, of electricity, that they will do the work of the world; and it is the hope of the really civilized that these inventions will finally cease to be the property of the few, to the end that they may do the work of all for all. when those who do the work own the machines, when those who toil control the invention, then, and not till then, can the world be civilized or free. when these forces shall do the bidding of the individual, when they become the property of the mechanic instead of the monopoly, when they belong to labor instead of what is called capital, when these great powers are as free to the individual laborer as the air and light are now free to all, then, and not until then, the individual will be restored and all forms of slavery will disappear. another great benefit will come from the fair. other nations in some directions are more artistic than we, but no other nation has made the common as beautiful as we have. we have given beauty of form to machines, to common utensils, to the things of every day, and have thus laid the foundation for producing the artistic in its highest possible forms. it will be of great benefit to us to look upon the paintings and marbles of the old world. to see them is an education. the great republic has lived a greater poem than the brain and heart of man have as yet produced, and we have supplied material for artists and poets yet unborn; material for form and color and song. the republic is to-day art's greatest market. nothing else is so well calculated to make friends of all nations as really to become acquainted with the best that each has produced. the nation that has produced a great poet, a great artist, a great statesman, a great thinker, takes its place on an equality with other nations of the world, and transfers to all of its citizens some of the genius of its most illustrious men. this great fair will be an object lesson to other nations. they will see the result of a government, republican in form, where the people are the source of authority, where governors and presidents are servants--not rulers. we want all nations to see the great republic as it is, to study and understand its growth, development and destiny. we want them to know that here, under our flag, are sixty-five millions of people and that they are the best fed, the best clothed and the best housed in the world. we want them to know that we are solving the great social problems, and that we are going to demonstrate the right and power of man to govern himself. we want the subjects of other nations to see aland filled with citizens--not subjects; aland in which the pew is above the pulpit; where the people are superior to the state; where legislators are representatives and where authority means simply the duty to enforce the people's will. let us hope above all things that this fair will bind the nations together closer and stronger; and let us hope that this will result in the settlement of all national difficulties by arbitration instead of war. in a savage state, individuals settle their own difficulties by an appeal to force. after a time these individuals agree that their difficulties shall be settled by others. this is the first great step toward civilization. the result is the establishment of courts. nations at present sustain to each other the same relation that savage does to savage. each nation is left to decide for itself, and it generally decides according to its strength--not the strength of its side of the case, but the strength of its army. the consequence is that what is called "the law of nations" is a savage code. the world will never be civilized until there is an international court. savages begin to be civilized when they submit their difficulties to their peers. nations will become civilized when they submit their difficulties to a great court, the judgments of which can be carried out, all nations pledging the co-operation of their armies and their navies for that purpose. if the holding of the great fair shall result in hastening the coming of that time it will be a blessing to the whole world. and here let me prophesy: the fair will be worthy of chicago, the most wonderful city of the world--of illinois, the best state in the union--of the united states, the best country on the earth. it will eclipse all predecessors in every department. it will represent the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. beneath its ample roofs will be gathered the treasures of art, and the accomplishments of science. at the feet of the republic will be laid the triumphs of our race, the best of every land.--the illustrated world's fair, chicago, november, . sabbath superstition. the idea that one day in the week is better than the others and should be set apart for religious purposes; that it should be considered holy; that no useful work should be done on that day; that it should be given over to pious idleness and sad ceremonies connected with the worship of a supposed being, seems to have been originated by the jews. according to the old testament, the sabbath was marvelously sacred for two reasons; the first being, that jehovah created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh: and the second, because the jews had been delivered from the egyptians. the first of these reasons we now know to be false; and the second has nothing, so far as we are concerned, to do with the question. there is no reason for our keeping the seventh day because the hebrews were delivered from the egyptians. the sabbath was a jewish institution, and, according to the bible, only the jews were commanded to keep that day. jehovah said nothing to the egyptians on that subject; nothing to the philistines, nothing to the gentiles. the jews kept that day with infinite strictness, and with them this space of time known as the sabbath became so holy that he who violated it by working was put to death. sabbath-breaking and murder were equal crimes. on the sabbath the pious jew would not build a fire in his house. he ate cold victuals and thanked god. the gates of the city were closed. no business was done, and the traveler who arrived at the city on that day remained outside until evening. if he happened to fall, he remained where he fell until the sun had gone done. the early christians did not hold the seventh day in such veneration. as a matter of fact, they ceased to regard it as holy, and changed the sacred day from the seventh to the first. this change was really made by constantine, because the first day of the week was the sunday of the pagans; and this day had been given to pleasure and recreation and to religious ceremonies for many centuries. after constantine designated the first day to be kept and observed by christians, our sunday became the sacred time. the early christians, however, kept the day much as it had been kept by the pagans. they attended church in the morning, and in the afternoon enjoyed themselves as best they could.. the catholic church fell in with the prevailing customs, and to accommodate itself to pagan ways and superstitions, it agreed, as far as it could, with the ideas of the pagan. up to the time of the reformation, sunday had been divided between the discharge of religious duties and recreation. luther did not believe in the sacredness of the sabbath. after church he enjoyed himself by playing games, and wanted others to do the same. even john calvin, whose view had been blurred by the "five points," allowed the people to enjoy themselves on sunday afternoon. the reformers on the continent never had the jewish idea of the sacredness of the sabbath. in geneva, germany and france, all kinds of innocent amusement were allowed on that day; and i believe the same was true of holland. but in scotland the jewish idea was adopted to the fullest extent. there sabbath-breaking was one of the blackest and one of the most terrible crimes. nothing was considered quite as sacred as the sabbath. the scotch went so far as to take the ground that it was wrong to save people who were drowning on sunday, the drowning being a punishment inflicted by god. upon the question of keeping the sabbath most of the scottish people became insane. the same notions about the holy day were adopted by the dissenters in england, and it became the principal tenet in their creed. the puritans and pilgrims were substantially crazy about the sacredness of sunday. with them the first day of the week was set apart for preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible and studying the catechism. walking, riding, playing on musical instruments, boating, swimming and courting, were all crimes. no one had the right to be happy on that blessed day. it was a time of gloom, sacred, solemn and religiously stupid. they did their best to strip their religion of every redeeming feature. they hated art and music--everything calculated to produce joy. they despised everything except the bible, the church, god, sunday and the creed. the influence of these people has been felt in every part of our country. the sabbath superstition became almost universal. no laughter, no smiles on that day; no games, no recreation, no riding, no walking through the perfumed fields or by the winding streams or the shore of the sea. no communion with the subtile beauties of nature; no wandering in the woods with wife and children, no reading of poetry and fiction; nothing but solemnity and gloom, listening to sermons, thinking about sin, death, graves, coffins, shrouds, epitaphs and ceremonies and the marvelous truths of sectarian religion, and the weaknesses of those who were natural enough and sensible enough to enjoy themselves on the sabbath day. so universal became the sabbath superstition that the legislatures of all the states, or nearly all, passed laws to prevent work and enjoyment on that day, and declared all contracts void relating to business entered into on sunday. the germans gave us the first valuable lesson on this subject. they came to this country in great numbers; they did not keep the american sabbath. they listened to music and they drank beer on that holy day. they took their wives and children with them and enjoyed themselves; yet they were good, kind, industrious people. they paid their debts and their credit was the best. our people saw that men could be good and women virtuous without "keeping" the sabbath. this did us great good, and changed the opinions of hundreds of thousands of americans. but the churches insisted on the old way. gradually our people began to appreciate the fact that one-seventh of the time was being stolen by superstition. they began to ask for the opening of libraries, for music in the parks and to be allowed to visit museums and public places on the sabbath. in several states these demands were granted, and the privileges have never been abused. the people were orderly, polite to officials and to each other. in , when the centennial was held at philadelphia, the sabbatarians had control. philadelphia was a sunday city, and so the gates of the centennial were closed on that day. this was in philadelphia where the sabbath superstition had been so virulent that chains had been put across the streets to prevent stages and carriages from passing at that holy time. at that time millions of americans felt that a great wrong was done by closing the centennial to the laboring people; but the managers--most of them being politicians--took care of themselves and kept the gates closed. in the sabbatarians triumphed, and when it was determined to hold a world's fair at chicago they made up their minds that no one should look upon the world's wonders on the sabbath day. to accomplish this pious and foolish purpose committees were appointed all over the country; money was raised to make a campaign; persons were employed to go about and arouse the enthusiasm of religious people; petitions by the thousand were sent to congress and to the officers of the world's fair, signed by thousands of people who never saw them; resolutions were passed in favor of sunday closing by conventions, presbyteries, councils and associations. lobbyists were employed to influence members of congress. great bodies of christians threatened to boycott the fair and yet the world's fair is open on sunday. what is the meaning of this? let me tell you. it means that in this country the scotch new england sabbath has ceased to be; it means that it is dead. the last great effort for its salvation has been put forth, and has failed. it belonged to the creed of jonathan edwards and the belief of the witch-burners, and in this age it is out of place. there was a time when the minister and priest were regarded as the foundation of wisdom; when information came from the altar, from the pulpit; and when the sheep were the property of the shepherd. that day in intelligent communities has passed. we no longer go to the minister or the church for information. the orthodox minister is losing his power, and the sabbath is now regarded as a day of rest, of recreation and of pleasure. the church must keep up with the people. the minister must take another step. the multitude care but little about controversies in churches, but they do care about the practical questions that directly affect their daily lives. must we waste one day in seven; must we make ourselves unhappy or melancholy one-seventh of the time? these are important questions and for many years the church in our country has answered them both in the affirmative, and a vast number of people not christians have also said "yes" because they wanted votes, or because they feared to incite the hatred of the church. now in this year of a world's fair answered this question in the negative, and a large majority of the citizens of the republic say that the officers of the fair have done right. this marks an epoch in the history of the sabbath. it is to be sacred in a religious sense in this country no longer. henceforth in the united states the sabbath is for the use of man. many of those who labored for the closing of the fair on sunday took the ground that if the gates were opened, god would visit this nation with famine, flood and fire. it hardly seems possible that god will destroy thousands of women and children who had nothing to do with the opening of the fair; still, if he is the same god described in the christian bible, he may destroy our babes as he did those of the egyptians. it is a little hard to tell in advance what a god of that kind will do. it was believed for many centuries that god punished the sabbath-breaking individual and the sabbath-breaking nation. of course facts never had anything to do with this belief, and the prophecies of the pulpit were never fulfilled. people who were drowned on sunday, according to the church, lost their lives by the will of god. those drowned on other days were the victims of storm or accident. the nations that kept the sabbath were no more prosperous than those that broke the sacred day. certainly france is as prosperous as scotland. let us hope, however, that these zealous gentlemen who have predicted calamities were mistaken; let us be glad that hundreds of thousands of workingmen and women will be delighted and refined by looking at the statues, the paintings, the machinery, and the countless articles of use and beauty gathered together at the great fair, and let us be glad that on the one day that they can spare from toil, the gates will be open to them. a tribute to george jacob holyoake. two articles have recently appeared attacking the motives of george jacob holyoake. he is spoken of as a man governed by a desire to please the rich and powerful, as one afraid of public opinion and who in the perilous hour denies or conceals his convictions. in these attacks there is not one word of truth. they are based upon mistakes and misconceptions. there is not in this world a nobler, braver man. in england he has done more for the great cause of intellectual liberty than any other man of this generation. he has done more for the poor, for the children of toil, for the homeless and wretched than any other living man. he has attacked all abuses, all tyranny and all forms of hypocrisy. his weapons have been reason, logic, facts, kindness, and above all, example. he has lived his creed. he has won the admiration and respect of his bitterest antagonists. he has the simplicity of childhood, the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of age. he is not abusive, but he is clear and conclusive.. he is intense without violence--firm without anger. he has the strength of perfect kindness. he does not hate--he pities. he does not attack men and women, but dogmas and creeds. and he does not attack them to get the better of people, but to enable people to get the better of them. he gives the light he has. he shares his intellectual wealth with the orthodox poor. he assists without insulting, guides without arrogance, and enlightens without outrage. besides, he is eminent for the exercise of plain common sense. he knows that there are wrongs besides those born of superstition--that people are not necessarily happy because they have renounced the thirty-nine articles--and that the priest is not the only enemy of mankind. he has for forty years been preaching and practicing industry, economy, self-reliance, and kindness. he has done all within his power to give the workingman a better home, better food, better wages, and better opportunities for the education of his children. he has demonstrated the success of co-operation--of intelligent combination for the common good. as a rule, his methods have been perfectly legal. in some instances he has knowingly violated the law, and did so with the intention to take the consequences. he would neither ask nor accept a pardon, because to receive a pardon carries with it the implied promise to keep the law, and an admission that you were in the wrong. he would not agree to desist from doing what he believed ought to be done, neither would he stain his past to brighten his future, nor imprison his soul to free his body. he has that happy mingling of gentleness and firmness found only in the highest type of moral heroes. he is an absolutely just man, and will never do an act that he would condemn in another. he admits that the most bigoted churchman has a perfect right to express his opinions not only, but that he must be met with argument couched in kind and candid terms. mr. holyoake is not only the enemy of a theological hierarchy, but he is also opposed to mental mobs. he will not use the bludgeon of epithet. perfect fairness is regarded by many as weakness. some people have altogether more confidence in their beliefs than in their own arguments. they resort to assertion. if what they assert be denied, the "debate" becomes a question of veracity. on both sides of most questions there are plenty of persons who imagine that logic dwells only in adjectives, and that to speak kindly of an opponent is a virtual surrender. mr. holyoake attacks the church because it has been, is, and ever will be the enemy of mental freedom, but he does not wish to deprive the church even of its freedom to express its opinion against freedom. he is true to his own creed, knowing that when we have freedom we can take care of all its enemies. in one of the articles to which i have referred it is charged that mr. holyoake refused to sign a petition for the pardon of persons convicted of blasphemy. if this is true, he undoubtedly had a reason satisfactory to himself. you will find that his action, or his refusal to act, rests upon a principle that he would not violate in his own behalf. why should we suspect the motives of this man who has given his life for the good of others? i know of no one who is his mental or moral superior. he is the most disinterested of men. his name is a synonym of candor. he is a natural logician--an intellectual marksman. like an unerring arrow his thought flies to the heart and center. he is governed by principle, and makes no exception in his own favor. he is intellectually honest. he shows you the cracks and flaws in his own wares. he calls attention to the open joints and to the weakest links. he does not want a victory for himself, but for truth. he wishes to expose and oppose, not men, but error. he is blessed with that cloudless mental vision that appearances cannot deceive, that interest cannot darken, and that even ingratitude cannot blur. friends cannot induce and enemies cannot drive this man to do an act that his heart and brain would not applaud. that such a character was formed without the aid of the church, without the hope of harp or fear of flame, is a demonstration against the necessity of superstition. whoever is opposed to mental bondage, to the shackles wrought by cruelty and worn by fear, should be the friend of this heroic and unselfish man. i know something of his life--something of what he has suffered--of what he has accomplished for his fellow-men. he has been maligned, imprisoned and impoverished. "he bore the heat and burden of the unregarded day" and "remembered the misery of the many." for years his only recompense was ingratitude. at last he was understood. he was recognized as an earnest, honest, gifted, generous, sterling man, loving his country, sympathizing with the poor, honoring the useful, and holding in supreme abhorrence tyranny and falsehood in all their forms. the idea that this man could for a moment be controlled by any selfish motive, by the hope of preferment, by the fear of losing a supposed annuity, is simply absurd. the authors of these attacks are not acquainted with mr. holyoake. whoever dislikes him does not know him. read his "trial of theism"--his history of "co-operation in england"--if you wish to know his heart--to discover the motives of his life--the depth and tenderness of his sympathy--the nobleness of his nature--the subtlety of his thought--the beauty of his spirit--the force and volume of his brain--the extent of his information--his candor, his kindness, his genius, and the perfect integrity of his stainless soul. there is no man for whom i have greater respect, greater reverence, greater love, than george jacob holyoake.-- august , . at the grave of benjamin w. parker. * this was the first tribute ever delivered by colonel ingersoll at a grave. mr. parker himself was an agnostic, was the father of mrs. ingersoll, and was always a devoted friend and admirer of the colonel even before the latter's marriage with his daughter. peoria, ill., may , . friends and neighbors: to fulfill a promise made many years ago, i wish to say a word. he whom we are about to lay in the earth, was gentle, kind and loving in his life. he was ambitious only to live with those he loved. he was hospitable, generous, and sincere. he loved his friends, and the friends of his friends. he returned good for good. he lived the life of a child, and died without leaving in the memory of his family the record of an unkind act. without assurance, and without fear, we give him back to nature, the source and mother of us all. with morn, with noon, with night; with changing clouds and changeless stars; with grass and trees and birds, with leaf and bud, with flower and blossoming vine,--with all the sweet influences of nature, we leave our dead. husband, father, friend, farewell. a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll washington, d. c., may , . * the funeral of the hon. e. c. ingersoll took place yesterday afternoon at four o'clock, from his late residence, k street the only ceremony at the house, other than the viewing of the remains, was a most affecting pathetic, and touching address by col. robert g. ingersoll, brother of the deceased. not only the speaker, but every one of his hearers were deeply affected. when he began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead man his eyes at once filled with tears. he tried to hide them, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief it was only after some delay, and the greatest efforts a self-mastery, that colonel ingersoll was able to finish reading his address. when he had ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved family approached the casket and looked upon the form which it contained, for the last time. the scene was heartrending. the devotion of all connected with the household excited the sympathy of all and there was not a dry eye to be seen. the pall-bearers--senator william b. allison, senator james g. blaine, senator david davis, senator daniel w voorhees. representative james a. garfield, senator a. s paddock, representative thomas q. boyd of illinois, the hon. ward h. lermon, ex-congressman jere wilson, and representative adlai e. stevenson of illinois--then bore the remains to the hearse, and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the oak hill cemetery, where the remains were interred, in the presence of the family and friends, without further ceremony.-- national republican, washington, d. c., june , . dear friends: i am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. the loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. he had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. while yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. for whether in mid-sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. and every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. this brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. he was the friend of all heroic souls. he climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day. he loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. he sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. with loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. he was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. a thousand times i have heard him quote these words: "_for justice all place a temple, and all season, summer_." he believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. he added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers. life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. we strive in vain to look beyond the heights. we cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. from the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. he who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "i am better now." let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. the record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. and now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. speech cannot contain our love. there was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man. a tribute to the rev. alexander clark. washington, d. c. july , . upon the grave of the reverend alexander clark i wish to place one flower. utterly destitute of cold, dogmatic pride, that often passes for the love of god; without the arrogance of the "elect;" simple, free, and kind--this earnest man made me his friend by being mine. i forgot that he was a christian, and he seemed to forget that i was not, while each remembered that the other was at least a man. frank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked with the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. he believed in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the hideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure. giving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never occurred to him that his god hated a brave and honest unbeliever. he remembered that even an infidel had rights that love respects; that hatred has no saving power, and that in order to be a christian it is not necessary to become less than a human being. he knew that no one can be maligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are not arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points toward heaven. with the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest liberty of thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a chain is but a curse. for this man i felt the greatest possible regard. in spite of the taunts and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would treat infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to convince them by argument and win them with love. he insisted that the god he worshiped loved the well-being even of an atheist. in this grand position he stood almost alone. tender, just, and loving where others were harsh, vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the admiration of every honest man. a few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and render the pulpit worthy of esteem. the heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can never be excelled. he admitted that i had not lost, and could not lose, a single right by the expression of my honest thought. neither did he believe that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by persecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive. while this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having treated me with fairness. but, i trust, now that he has left the shore touched by the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the image of a homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who still remain to preach the love of god. his sympathies were not confined within the prison, of a creed, but ran out and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted bars with leaf and flower. he could not echo with his heart the fiendish sentence of eternal fire. in spite of book and creed, he read "between the lines" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the world.. above, beyond, the dogmas of his church--humane even to the verge of heresy--causing some to doubt his love of god because he failed to hate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind and to his work gave up his life with all his heart. at a child's grave. washington, d. c., january , . my friends: i know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet i wish to take from every grave its fear. here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. the future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. from the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side. why should we fear that which will come to all that is? we cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing--life or death. we cannot say that death is not a good. we do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. neither can we tell which is the more fortunate--the child dying in its mother's arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch. every cradle asks us "whence?" and every coffin "whither?" the poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. the tearful ignorance of the one, is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. no man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears. may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. if those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. may be this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. and i had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. another life is nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here. they who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. the larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. we know that through the common wants of life--the needs and duties of each hour--their grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace--almost of joy. there is for them this consolation: the dead do not suffer. if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. we have no fear. we are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. we, too, have our religion, and it is this: help for the living--hope for the dead. a tribute to john g. mills. washington, d. c., april , . my friends: again we are face to face with the great mystery that shrouds this world. we question, but there is no reply. out on the wide waste seas, there drifts no spar. over the desert of death the sphinx gazes forever, but never speaks. in the very may of life another heart has ceased to beat. night has fallen upon noon. but he lived, he loved, he was loved. wife and children pressed their kisses on his lips. this is enough. the longest life contains no more. this fills the vase of joy. he who lies here, clothed with the perfect peace of death, was a kind and loving husband, a good father, a generous neighbor, an honest man,--and these words build a monument of glory above the humblest grave. he was always a child, sincere and frank, as full of hope as spring. he divided all time into to-day and to-morrow. to-morrow was without a cloud, and of to-morrow he borrowed sunshine for to-day. he was my friend. he will remain so. the living oft become estranged; the dead are true. he was not a christian. in the eden of his hope there did not crawl and coil the serpent of eternal pain. in many languages he sought the thoughts of men, and for himself he solved the problems of the world. he accepted the philosophy of auguste comte. humanity was his god; the human race was his supreme being. in that supreme being he put his trust. he believed that we are indebted for what we enjoy to the labor, the self-denial, the heroism of the human race, and that as we have plucked the fruit of what others planted, we in thankfulness should plant for others yet to be. with him immortality was the eternal consequences of his own acts. he believed that every pure thought, every disinterested deed, hastens the harvest of universal good. this is a religion that enriches poverty; that enables us to bear the sorrows of the saddest life; that peoples even solitude with the happy millions yet to live,--a religion born not of selfishness and fear, but of love, of gratitude, and hope,--a religion that digs wells to slake the thirst of others, and gladly bears the burdens of the unborn. but in the presence of death, how beliefs and dogmas wither and decay! how loving words and deeds burst into blossom! pluck from the tree of any life these flowers, and there remain but the barren thorns of bigotry and creed. all wish for happiness beyond this life. all hope to meet again the loved and lost. in every heart there grows this sacred flower. immortality is a word that hope through all the ages has been whispering to love. the miracle of thought we cannot understand. the mystery of life and death we cannot comprehend. this chaos called the world has never been explained. the golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. beyond this we do not know. fate is speechless, destiny is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been told. we love; we wait; we hope. the more we love, the more we fear. upon the tenderest heart the deepest shadows fall. all paths, whether filled with thorns or flowers, end here. here success and failure are the same. the rag of wretchedness and the purple robe of power all difference and distinction lose in this democracy of death. character survives; goodness lives; love is immortal. and yet to all a time may come when the fevered lips of life will long for the cool, delicious kiss of death--when tired of the dust and glare of day we all shall hear with joy the rustling garments of the night. what can we say of death? what can we say of the dead? where they have gone, reason cannot go, and from thence revelation has not come. but let us believe that over the cradle nature bends and smiles, and lovingly above the dead in benediction holds her outstretched hands. a tribute to elizur wright. new york. december , . another hero has fallen asleep--one who enriched the world with an honest life. elizur wright was one of the titans who attacked the monsters, the gods, of his time--one of the few whose confidence in liberty was never shaken, and who, with undimmed eyes, saw the atrocities and barbarisms of his day and the glories of the future. when new york was degraded enough to mob arthur tappan, the noblest of her citizens; when boston was sufficiently infamous to howl and hoot at harriet martineau, the grandest englishwoman that ever touched our soil; when the north was dominated by theology and trade, by piety and piracy; when we received our morals from merchants, and made merchandise of our morals, elizur wright held principle above profit, and preserved his manhood at the peril of his life. when the rich, the cultured, and the respectable,--when church members and ministers, who had been "called" to preach the "glad tidings," and when statesmen like webster joined with bloodhounds, and in the name of god hunted men and mothers, this man rescued the fugitives and gave asylum to the oppressed. during those infamous years--years of cruelty and national degradation--years of hypocrisy and greed and meanness beneath the reach of any english word, elizur wright became acquainted with the orthodox church. he found that a majority of christians were willing to enslave men and women for whom they said that christ had died--that they would steal the babe of a christian mother, although they believed that the mother would be their equal in heaven forever. he found that those who loved their enemies would enslave their friends--that people who when smitten on one cheek turned the other, were ready, willing and anxious to mob and murder those who simply said: "the laborer is worthy of his hire." in those days the church was in favor of slavery, not only of the body but of the mind. according to the creeds, god himself was an infinite master and all his children serfs. he ruled with whip and chain, with pestilence and fire. devils were his bloodhounds, and hell his place of eternal torture. elizur wright said to himself, why should we take chains from bodies and enslave minds--why fight to free the cage and leave the bird a prisoner? he became an enemy of orthodox religion--that is to say, a friend of intellectual liberty. he lived to see the destruction of legalized larceny; to read the proclamation of emancipation; to see a country without a slave, a flag without a stain. he lived long enough to reap the reward for having been an honest man; long enough for his "disgrace" to become a crown of glory; long enough to see his views adopted and his course applauded by the civilized world; long enough for the hated word "abolitionist" to become a title of nobility, a certificate of manhood, courage and true patriotism. only a few years ago, the heretic was regarded as an enemy of the human race. the man who denied the inspiration of the jewish scriptures was looked upon as a moral leper, and the atheist as the worst of criminals. even in that day, elizur wright was grand enough to speak his honest thought, to deny the inspiration of the bible; brave enough to defy the god of the orthodox church--the jehovah of the old testament, the eternal jailer, the everlasting inquisitor. he contended that a good god would not have upheld slavery and polygamy; that a loving father would not assist some of his children to enslave or exterminate their brethren; that an infinite being would not be unjust, irritable, jealous, revengeful, ignorant, and cruel. and it was his great good fortune to live long enough to find the intellectual world on his side; long enough to know that the greatest' naturalists, philosophers, and scientists agreed with him; long enough to see certain words change places, so that "heretic" was honorable and "orthodox" an epithet. to-day, the heretic is known to be a man of principle and courage--one blest with enough mental independence to tell his thought. to-day, the thoroughly orthodox means the thoroughly stupid. only a few years ago it was taken for granted that an "unbeliever" could not be a moral man; that one who disputed the inspiration of the legends of judea could not be sympathetic and humane, and could not really love his fellow-men. had we no other evidence upon this subject, the noble life of elizur wright would demonstrate the utter baselessness of these views. his life was spent in doing good--in attacking the hurtful, in defending what he believed to be the truth. generous beyond his means; helping others to help themselves; always hopeful, busy, just, cheerful; filled with the spirit of reform; a model citizen--always thinking of the public good, devising ways and means to save something for posterity, feeling that what he had he held in trust; loving nature, familiar with the poetic side of things, touched to enthusiasm by the beautiful thought, the brave word, and the generous deed; friendly in manner, candid and kind in speech, modest but persistent; enjoying leisure as only the industrious can; loving and gentle in his family; hospitable,--judging men and women regardless of wealth, position or public clamor; physically fearless, intellectually honest, thoroughly informed; unselfish, sincere, and reliable as the attraction of gravitation. such was elizur wright,--one of the staunchest soldiers that ever faced and braved for freedom's sake the wrath and scorn and lies of place and power. a few days ago i met this genuine man. his interest in all human things was just as deep and keen, his hatred of oppression, his love of freedom, just as intense, just as fervid, as on the day i met him first. true, his body was old, but his mind was young, and his heart, like a spring in the desert, bubbled over as joyously as though it had the secret of eternal youth. but it has ceased to beat, and the mysterious veil that hangs where sight and blindness are the same--the veil that revelation has not drawn aside--that science cannot lift, has fallen once again between the living and the dead. and yet we hope and dream. may be the longing for another life is but the prophecy forever warm from nature's lips, that love, disguised as death, alone fulfills. we cannot tell. and yet perhaps this hope is but an antic, following the fortunes of an uncrowned king, beguiling grief with jest and satisfying loss with pictured gain. we do not know. but from the christian's cruel hell, and from his heaven more heartless still, the free and noble soul, if forced to choose, should loathing turn, and cling with rapture to the thought of endless sleep. but this we know: good deeds are never childless. a noble life is never lost. a virtuous action does not die. elizur wright scattered with generous hand the priceless seeds, and we shall reap the golden grain. his words and acts are ours, and all he nobly did is living still. farewell, brave soul! upon thy grave i lay this tribute of respect and love. when last our hands were joined, i said these parting words: "long life!" and i repeat them now. a tribute to mrs. ida whiting knowles. new york, dec, , . my friends: again we stand in the shadow of the great mystery--a shadow as deep and dark as when the tears of the first mother fell upon the pallid face of her lifeless babe--a mystery that has never yet been solved. we have met in the presence of the sacred dead, to speak a word of praise, of hope, of consolation. another life of love is now a blessed memory--a lingering strain of music. the loving daughter, the pure and consecrated wife, the sincere friend, who with tender faithfulness discharged the duties of a life, has reached her journey's end. a braver, a more serene, a more chivalric spirit--clasping the loved and by them clasped--never passed from life to enrich the realm of death. no field of war ever witnessed greater fortitude, more perfect, smiling courage, than this poor, weak and helpless woman displayed upon the bed of pain and death. her life was gentle and her death sublime. she loved the good and all the good loved her. there is this consolation: she can never suffer more; never feel again the chill of death; never part again from those she loves. her heart can break no more. she has shed her last tear, and upon her stainless brow has been set the wondrous seal of everlasting peace. when the angel of death--the masked and voiceless--enters the door of home, there come with her all the daughters of compassion, and of these love and hope remain forever. you are about to take this dear dust home--to the home of her girlhood, and to the place that was once my home. you will lay her with neighbors whom i have loved, and who are now at rest. you will lay her where my father sleeps. "lay her i' the earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring." i never knew, i never met, a braver spirit than the one that once inhabited this silent form of dreamless clay. a tribute to henry ward beecher. new york, june , . henry ward beecher was born in a puritan penitentiary, of which his father was one of the wardens--a prison with very narrow and closely-grated windows. under its walls were the rayless, hopeless and measureless dungeons of the damned, and on its roof fell the shadow of god's eternal frown. in this prison the creed and catechism were primers for children, and from a pure sense of duty their loving hearts were stained and scarred with the religion of john calvin. in those days the home of an orthodox minister was an inquisition in which babes were tortured for the good of their souls. children then, as now, rebelled against the infamous absurdities and cruelties of the creed. no calvinist was ever able, unless with blows, to answer the questions of his child. children were raised in what was called "the nurture and admonition of the lord"--that is to say, their wills were broken or subdued, their natures were deformed and dwarfed, their desires defeated or destroyed, and their development arrested or perverted. life was robbed of its spring, its summer and its autumn. children stepped from the cradle into the snow. no laughter, no sunshine, no joyous, free, unburdened days. god, an infinite detective, watched them from above, and satan, with malicious leer, was waiting for their souls below. between these monsters life was passed. infinite consequences were predicated of the smallest action, and a burden greater than a god could bear was placed upon the heart and brain of every child. to think, to ask questions, to doubt, to investigate, were acts of rebellion. to express pity for the lost, writhing in the dungeons below, was simply to give evidence that the enemy of souls had been at work within their hearts. among all the religions of this world--from the creed of cannibals who devoured flesh, to that of calvinists who polluted souls--there is none, there has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless and inhuman than was the orthodox congregationalism of new england in the year of grace . it despised every natural joy, hated pictures, abhorred statues as lewd and lustful things, execrated music, regarded nature as fallen and corrupt, man as totally depraved and woman as somewhat worse. the theatre was the vestibule of perdition, actors the servants of satan, and shakespeare a trifling wretch whose words were seeds of death. and yet the virtues found a welcome, cordial and sincere; duty was done as understood; obligations were discharged; truth was told; self-denial was practiced for the sake of others, and many hearts were good and true in spite of book and creed. in this atmosphere of theological miasma, in this hideous dream of superstition, in this penitentiary, moral and austere, this babe first saw the imprisoned gloom. the natural desires ungratified, the laughter suppressed, the logic brow-beaten by authority, the humor frozen by fear--of many generations--were in this child, a child destined to rend and wreck the prison's walls. through the grated windows of his cell, this child, this boy, this man, caught glimpses of the outer world, of fields and skies. new thoughts were in his brain, new hopes within his heart. another heaven bent above his life. there came a revelation of the beautiful and real. theology grew mean and small. nature wooed and won and saved this mighty soul. her countless hands were sowing seeds within his tropic brain. all sights and sounds--all colors, forms and fragments--were stored within the treasury of his mind. his thoughts were moulded by the graceful curves of streams, by winding paths in woods, the charm of quiet country roads, and lanes grown indistinct with weeds and grass--by vines that cling and hide with leaf and flower the crumbling wall's decay--by cattle standing in the summer pools like statues of content. there was within his words the subtle spirit of the season's change--of everything that is, of everything that lies between the slumbering seeds that, half awakened by the april rain, have dreams of heaven's blue, and feel the amorous kisses of the sun, and that strange tomb wherein the alchemist doth give to death's cold dust the throb and thrill of life again. he saw with loving eyes the willows of the meadow-streams grow red beneath the glance of spring--the grass along the marsh's edge--the stir of life beneath the withered leaves--the moss below the drip of snow--the flowers that give their bosoms to the first south wind that wooes--the sad and timid violets that only bear the gaze of love from eyes half closed--the ferns, where fancy gives a thousand forms with but a single plan--the green and sunny slopes enriched with daisy's silver and the cowslip's gold. as in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt poet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow-men. all there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect life, and all the winged and happy children of the air that summer holds beneath her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. he loved the yellow autumn fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the orchard's bending boughs, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples with transfigured leaves, the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous harmonies of brown and gold--the vines where hang the clustered spheres of wit and mirth. he loved the winter days, the whirl and drift of snow--all forms of frost--the rage and fury of the storm, when in the forest, desolate and stripped, the brave old pine towers green and grand--a prophecy of spring. he heard the rhythmic sounds of nature's busy strife, the hum of bees, the songs of birds, the eagle's cry, the murmur of the streams, the sighs and lamentations of the winds, and all the voices of the sea. he loved the shores, the vales, the crags and cliffs, the city's busy streets, the introspective, silent plain, the solemn splendors of the night, the silver sea of dawn, and evening's clouds of molten gold. the love of nature freed this loving man. one by one the fetters fell; the gratings disappeared, the sunshine smote the roof, and on the floors of stone, light streamed from open doors. he realized the darkness and despair, the cruelty and hate, the starless blackness of the old, malignant creed. the flower of pity grew and blossomed in his heart. the selfish "consolation" filled his eyes with tears. he saw that what is called the christian's hope is, that, among the countless billions wrecked and lost, a meagre few perhaps may reach the eternal shore--a hope that, like the desert rain, gives neither leaf nor bud--a hope that gives no joy, no peace, to any great and loving soul. it is the dust on which the serpent feeds that coils in heartless breasts. day by day the wrath and vengeance faded from the sky--the jewish god grew vague and dint--the threats of torture and eternal pain grew vulgar and absurd, and all the miracles seemed strangely out of place. they clad the infinite in motley garb, and gave to aureoled heads the cap and bells. touched by the pathos of all human life, knowing the shadows that fall on every heart--the thorns in every path, the sighs, the sorrows, and the tears that lie between a mother's arms and death's embrace--this great and gifted man denounced, denied, and damned with all his heart the fanged and frightful dogma that souls were made to feed the eternal hunger--ravenous as famine--of a god's revenge. take out this fearful, fiendish, heartless lie--compared with which all other lies are true--and the great arch of orthodox religion crumbling falls. to the average man the christian hell and heaven are only words. he has no scope of thought. he lives but in a dim, impoverished now. to him the past is dead--the future still unborn. he occupies with downcast eyes that narrow line of barren, shifting sand that lies between the flowing seas. but genius knows all time. for him the dead all live and breathe, and act their countless parts again. all human life is in his now, and every moment feels the thrill of all to be. no one can overestimate the good accomplished by this marvelous, many-sided man. he helped to slay the heart-devouring monster of the christian world. he tried to civilize the church, to humanize the creeds, to soften pious breasts of stone, to take the fear from mothers' hearts, the chains of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope in every sky and over every grave. attacked on every side, maligned by those who preached the law of love, he wavered not, but fought whole-hearted to the end. obstruction is but virtue's foil. from thwarted light leaps color's flame. the stream impeded has a song. he passed from harsh and cruel creeds to that serene philosophy that has no place for pride or hate, that threatens no revenge, that looks on sin as stumblings of the blind and pities those who fall, knowing that in the souls of all there is a sacred yearning for the light. he ceased to think of man as something thrust upon the world--an exile from some other sphere. he felt at last that men are part of nature's self--kindred of all life--the gradual growth of countless years; that all the sacred books were helps until outgrown, and all religions rough and devious paths that man has worn with weary feet in sad and painful search for truth and peace. to him these paths were wrong, and yet all gave the promise of success. he knew that all the streams, no matter how they wander, turn and curve amid the hills or rocks, or linger in the lakes and pools, must some time reach the sea. these views enlarged his soul and made him patient with the world, and while the wintry snows of age were falling on his head, spring, with all her wealth of bloom, was in his heart. the memory of this ample man is now a part of nature's wealth. he battled for the rights of men. his heart was with the slave. he stood against the selfish greed of millions banded to protect the pirate's trade. his voice was for the right when freedom's friends were few. he taught the church to think and doubt. he did not fear to stand alone. his brain took counsel of his heart. to every foe he offered reconciliation's hand. he loved this land of ours, and added to its glory through the world. he was the greatest orator that stood within the pulpit's narrow curve. he loved the liberty of speech. there was no trace of bigot in his blood. he was a brave and generous man. with reverent hands, i place this tribute on his tomb. a tribute to roscoe conkling. delivered before the new york state legislature, at albany, n. y, may , . roscoe conkling--a great man, an orator, a statesman, a lawyer, a distinguished citizen of the republic, in the zenith of his fame and power has reached his journey's end; and we are met, here in the city of his birth, to pay our tribute to his worth and work. he earned and held a proud position in the public thought. he stood for independence, for courage, and above all for absolute integrity, and his name was known and honored by many millions of his fellow-men. the literature of many lands is rich with the tributes that gratitude, admiration and love have paid to the great and honored dead. these tributes disclose the character of nations, the ideals of the human race. in them we find the estimates of greatness--the deeds and lives that challenged praise and thrilled the hearts of men. in the presence of death, the good man judges as he would be judged. he knows that men are only fragments--that the greatest walk in shadow, and that faults and failures mingle with the lives of all. in the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of conflict. charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. peculiarities, traits born of locality and surroundings--these are but the dust of the race--these are accidents, drapery, clothes, fashions, that have nothing to do with the man except to hide his character. they are the clouds that cling to mountains. time gives us clearer vision. that which was merely local fades away. the words of envy are forgotten, and all there is of sterling worth remains. he who was called a partisan is a patriot. the revolutionist and the outlaw are the founders of nations, and he who was regarded as a scheming, selfish politician becomes a statesman, a philosopher, whose words and deeds shed light. fortunate is that nation great enough to know the great. when a great man dies--one who has nobly fought the battle of a life, who has been faithful to every trust, and has uttered his highest, noblest thought--one who has stood proudly by the right in spite of jeer and taunt, neither stopped by foe nor swerved by friend--in honoring him, in speaking words of praise and love above his dust, we pay a tribute to ourselves. how poor this world would be without its graves, without the memories of its mighty dead. only the voiceless speak forever. intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the state. above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and independent man--the man of stainless integrity, of will and intellectual force. such men are the atlases on whose mighty shoulders rest the great fabric of the republic. flatterers, cringers, crawlers, time-servers are the dangerous citizens of a democracy. they who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude, are the enemies of liberty. when the intelligent submit to the clamor of the many, anarchy begins and the republic reaches the edge of chaos. mediocrity, touched with ambition, flatters the base and calumniates the great, while the true patriot, who will do neither, is often sacrificed. in a government of the people a leader should be a teacher--he should carry the torch of truth. most people are the slaves of habit--followers of custom--believers in the wisdom of the past--and were it not for brave and splendid souls, "the dust of antique time would lie unswept, and mountainous error be too highly heaped for truth to overpeer." custom is a prison, locked and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the keeping of the dead. nothing is grander than when a strong, intrepid man breaks chains, levels walls and breasts the many-headed mob like some great cliff that meets and mocks the innumerable billows of the sea. the politician hastens to agree with the majority--insists that their prejudice is patriotism, that their ignorance is wisdom;--not that he loves them, but because he loves himself. the statesman, the real reformer, points out the mistakes of the multitude, attacks the prejudices of his countrymen, laughs at their follies, denounces their cruelties, enlightens and enlarges their minds and educates the conscience--not because he loves himself, but because he loves and serves the right and wishes to make his country great and free. with him defeat is but a spur to further effort. he who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success, or the fear of failure--who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor. nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling,--position by cringing. when real history shall be written by the truthful and the wise, these men, these kneelers at the shrines of chance and fraud, these brazen idols worshiped once as gods, will be the very food of scorn, while those who bore the burden of defeat, who earned and kept their self-respect, who would not bow to man or men for place or power, will wear upon their brows the laurel mingled with the oak. roscoe conkling was a man of superb courage. he not only acted without fear, but he had that fortitude of soul that bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint. he was charged with being proud. the charge was true--he was proud. his knees were as inflexible as the "unwedgeable and gnarled oak," but he was not vain. vanity rests on the opinion of others--pride, on our own. the source of vanity is from without--of pride, from within. vanity is a vane that turns, a willow that bends, with every breeze--pride is the oak that defies the storm. one is cloud--the other rock. one is weakness--the other strength. this imperious man entered public life in the dawn of the reformation--at a time when the country needed men of pride, of principle and courage. the institution of slavery had poisoned all the springs of power. before this crime ambition fell upon its knees,--politicians, judges, clergymen, and merchant-princes bowed low and humbly, with their hats in their hands. the real friend of man was denounced as the enemy of his country--the real enemy of the human race was called a statesman and a patriot. slavery was the bond and pledge of peace, of union, and national greatness. the temple of american liberty was finished--the auction-block was the corner-stone. it is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable declaration of independence with the fugitive slave law. think of the honored statesmen of that ignoble time who wallowed in this mire and who, decorated with dripping filth, received the plaudits of their fellow-men. the noble, the really patriotic, were the victims of mobs, and the shameless were clad in the robes of office. but let us speak no word of blame--let us feel that each one acted according to his light--according to his darkness. at last the conflict came. the hosts of light and darkness prepared to meet upon the fields of war. the question was presented: shall the republic be slave or free? the republican party had triumphed at the polls. the greatest man in our history was president elect. the victors were appalled--they shrank from the great responsibility of success. in the presence of rebellion they hesitated--they offered to return the fruits of victory. hoping to avert war they were willing that slavery should become immortal. an amendment to the constitution was proposed, to the effect that no subsequent amendment should ever be made that in anyway should interfere with the right of man to steal his fellow-men. this, the most marvelous proposition ever submitted to a congress of civilized men, received in the house an overwhelming majority, and the necessary two-thirds in the senate. the republican party, in the moment of its triumph, deserted every principle for which it had so gallantly contended, and with the trembling hands of fear laid its convictions on the altar of compromise. the old guard, numbering but sixty-five in the house, stood as firm as the three hundred at thermopylae. thad-deus stevens--as maliciously right as any other man was ever wrong--refused to kneel. owen lovejoy, remembering his brother's noble blood, refused to surrender, and on the edge of disunion, in the shadow of civil war, with the air filled with sounds of dreadful preparation, while the republican party was retracing its steps, roscoe conkling voted no. this puts a wreath of glory on his tomb. from that vote to the last moment of his life he was a champion of equal rights, staunch and stalwart. from that moment he stood in the front rank. he never wavered and he never swerved. by his devotion to principle--his courage, the splendor of his diction,--by his varied and profound knowledge, his conscientious devotion to the great cause, and by his intellectual scope and grasp, he won and held the admiration of his fellow-men. disasters in the field, reverses at the polls, did not and could not shake his courage or his faith. he knew the ghastly meaning of defeat. he knew that the great ship that slavery sought to strand and wreck was freighted with the world's sublimest hope. he battled for a nation's life--for the rights of slaves--the dignity of labor, and the liberty of all. he guarded with a father's care the rights of the hunted, the hated and despised. he attacked the savage statutes of the reconstructed states with a torrent of invective, scorn and execration. he was not satisfied until the freedman was an american citizen--clothed with every civil right--until the constitution was his shield--until the ballot was his sword. and long after we are dead, the colored man in this and other lands will speak his name in reverence and love. others wavered, but he stood firm; some were false, but he was proudly true--fearlessly faithful unto death. he gladly, proudly grasped the hands of colored men who stood with him as makers of our laws, and treated them as equals and as friends. the cry of "social equality" coined and uttered by the cruel and the base, was to him the expression of a great and splendid truth. he knew that no man can be the equal of the one he robs--that the intelligent and unjust are not the superiors of the ignorant and honest--and he also felt, and proudly felt, that if he were not too great to reach the hand of help and recognition to the slave, no other senator could rightfully refuse. we rise by raising others--and he who stoops above the fallen, stands erect. nothing can be grander than to sow the seeds of noble thoughts and virtuous deeds--to liberate the bodies and the souls of men--to earn the grateful homage of a race--and then, in life's last shadowy hour, to know that the historian of liberty will be compelled to write your name. there are no words intense enough,--with heart enough--to express my admiration for the great and gallant souls who have in every age and every land upheld the right, and who have lived and died for freedom's sake. in our lives have been the grandest years that man has lived, that time has measured by the flight of worlds. the history of that great party that let the oppressed go free--that lifted our nation from the depths of savagery to freedom's cloudless heights, and tore with holy hands from every law the words that sanctified the cruelty of man, is the most glorious in the annals of our race. never before was there such a moral exaltation--never a party with a purpose so pure and high. it was the embodied conscience of a nation, the enthusiasm of a people guided by wisdom, the impersonation of justice; and the sublime victory achieved loaded even the conquered with all the rights that freedom can bestow. roscoe conkling was an absolutely honest man. honesty is the oak around which all other virtues cling. without that they fall, and groveling die in weeds and dust. he believed that a nation should discharge its obligations. he knew that a promise could not be made often enough, or emphatic enough, to take the place of payment. he felt that the promise of the government was the promise of every citizen--that a national obligation was a personal debt, and that no possible combination of words and pictures could take the place of coin. he uttered the splendid truth that "the higher obligations among men are not set down in writing signed and sealed, but reside in honor." he knew that repudiation was the sacrifice of honor--the death of the national soul. he knew that without character, without integrity, there is no wealth, and that below poverty, below bankruptcy, is the rayless abyss of repudiation. he upheld the sacredness of contracts, of plighted national faith, and helped to save and keep the honor of his native land. this adds another laurel to his brow. he was the ideal representative, faithful and incorruptible. he believed that his constituents and his country were entitled to the fruit of his experience, to his best and highest thought. no man ever held the standard of responsibility higher than he. he voted according to his judgment, his conscience. he made no bargains--he neither bought nor sold. to correct evils, abolish abuses and inaugurate reforms, he believed was not only the duty, but the privilege, of a legislator. he neither sold nor mortgaged himself. he was in congress during the years of vast expenditure, of war and waste--when the credit of the nation was loaned to individuals--when claims were thick as leaves in june, when the amendment of a statute, the change of a single word, meant millions, and when empires were given to corporations. he stood at the summit of his power--peer of the greatest--a leader tried and trusted. he had the tastes of a prince, the fortune of a peasant, and yet he never swerved. no corporation was great enough or rich enough to purchase him. his vote could not be bought "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide." his hand was never touched by any bribe, and on his soul there never was a sordid stain. poverty was his priceless crown. above his marvelous intellectual gifts--above all place he ever reached,--above the ermine he refused,--rises his integrity like some great mountain peak--and there it stands, firm as the earth beneath, pure as the stars above. he was a great lawyer. he understood the frame-work, the anatomy, the foundations of law; was familiar with the great streams and currents and tides of authority. he knew the history of legislation--the principles that have been settled upon the fields of war. he knew the maxims,--those crystallizations of common sense, those hand-grenades of argument. he was not a case-lawyer--a decision index, or an echo; he was original, thoughtful and profound. he had breadth and scope, resource, learning, logic, and above all, a sense of justice. he was painstaking and conscientious--anxious to know the facts--preparing for every attack, ready for every defence. he rested only when the end was reached. during the contest, he neither sent nor received a flag of truce. he was true to his clients--making their case his. feeling responsibility, he listened patiently to details, and to his industry there were only the limits of time and strength. he was a student of the constitution. he knew the boundaries of state and federal jurisdiction, and no man was more familiar with those great decisions that are the peaks and promontories, the headlands and the beacons, of the law. he was an orator,--logical, earnest, intense and picturesque. he laid the foundation with care, with accuracy and skill, and rose by "cold gradation and well balanced form" from the corner-stone of statement to the domed conclusion. he filled the stage. he satisfied the eye--the audience was his. he had that indefinable thing called presence. tall, commanding, erect--ample in speech, graceful in compliment, titanic in denunciation, rich in illustration, prodigal of comparison and metaphor--and his sentences, measured and rhythmical, fell like music on the enraptured throng. he abhorred the pharisee, and loathed all conscientious fraud. he had a profound aversion for those who insist on putting base motives back of the good deeds of others. he wore no mask. he knew his friends--his enemies knew him. he had no patience with pretence--with patriotic reasons for unmanly acts. he did his work and bravely spoke his thought. sensitive to the last degree, he keenly felt the blows and stabs of the envious and obscure--of the smallest, of the weakest--but the greatest could not drive him from conviction's field. he would not stoop to ask or give an explanation. he left his words and deeds to justify themselves. he held in light esteem a friend who heard with half-believing ears the slander of a foe. he walked a highway of his own, and kept the company of his self-respect. he would not turn aside to avoid a foe--to greet or gain a friend. in his nature there was no compromise. to him there were but two paths--the right and wrong. he was maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood--but he would not answer. he knew that character speaks louder far than any words. he was as silent then as he is now--and his silence, better than any form of speech, refuted every charge. he was an american--proud of his country, that was and ever will be proud of him. he did not find perfection only in other lands. he did not grow small and shrunken, withered and apologetic, in the presence of those upon whom greatness had been thrust by chance. he could not be overawed by dukes or lords, nor flattered into vertebrate-less subserviency by the patronizing smiles of kings. in the midst of conventionalities he had the feeling of suffocation. he believed in the royalty of man, in the sovereignty of the citizen, and in the matchless greatness of this republic. he was of the classic mould--a figure from the antique world. he had the pose of the great statues--the pride and bearing of the intellectual greek, of the conquering roman, and he stood in the wide free air as though within his veins there flowed the blood of a hundred kings. and as he lived he died. proudly he entered the darkness--or the dawn--that we call death. unshrinkingly he passed beyond our horizon, beyond the twilight's purple hills, beyond the utmost reach of human harm or help--to that vast realm of silence or of joy where the innumerable dwell, and he has left with us his wealth of thought and deed--the memory of a brave, imperious, honest man, who bowed alone to death. a tribute to richard h. whiting. new york, may ., . my friends: the river of another life has reached the sea. again we are in the presence of that eternal peace that we call death. my life has been rich in friends, but i never had a better or a truer one than he who lies in silence here. he was as steadfast, as faithful, as the stars. richard h. whiting was an absolutely honest man. his word was gold--his promise was fulfillment--and there never has been, there never will be, on this poor earth, any thing nobler than an honest, loving soul. this man was as reliable as the attraction of gravitation--he knew no shadow of turning. he was as generous as autumn, as hospitable as summer, and as tender as a perfect day in june. he forgot only himself, and asked favors only for others. he begged for the opportunity to do good--to stand by a friend, to support a cause, to defend what he believed to be right. he was a lover of nature--of the woods, the fields and flowers. he was a home-builder. he believed in the family and the fireside--in the sacredness of the hearth. he was a believer in the religion of deed, and his creed was to do good. no man has ever slept in death who nearer lived his creed. i have known him for many years, and have yet to hear a word spoken of him except in praise. his life was full of honor, of kindness and of helpful deeds. besides all, his soul was free. he feared nothing, except to do wrong. he was a believer in the gospel of help and hope. he knew how much better, how much more sacred, a kind act is than any theory the brain has wrought. the good are the noble. his life filled the lives of others with sunshine. he has left a legacy of glory to his children. they can truthfully say that within their veins is right royal blood--the blood of an honest, generous man, of a steadfast friend, of one who was true to the very gates of death. if there be another world, another life beyond the shore of this,--if the great and good who died upon this orb are there,--then the noblest and the best, with eager hands, have welcomed him--the equal in honor, in generosity, of any one that ever passed beyond the veil. to me this world is growing poor. new friends can never fill the places of the old. farewell! if this is the end, then you have left to us the sacred memory of a noble life. if this is not the end, there is no world in which you, my friend, will not be loved and welcomed. farewell! a tribute to courtlandt palmer. new york, july , . my friends: a thinker of pure thoughts, a speaker of brave words, a doer of generous deeds has reached the silent haven that all the dead have reached, and where the voyage of every life must end; and we, his friends, who even now are hastening after him, are met to do the last kind acts that man may do for man--to tell his virtues and to lay with tenderness and tears lay ashes in the sacred place of rest and peace. some one has said, that in the open hands of death we find only what they gave away. let us believe that pure thoughts, brave words and generous deeds can never die. let us believe that they bear fruit and add forever to the well-being of the human race. let us believe that a noble, self-denying life increases the moral wealth of man, and gives assurance that the future will be grander than the past. in the monotony of subservience, in the multitude of blind followers, nothing is more inspiring than a free and independent man--one who gives and asks reasons; one who demands freedom and gives what he demands; one who refuses to be slave or master. such a man was courtlandt palmer, to whom we pay the tribute of respect and love. he was an honest man--he gave the rights he claimed. this was the foundation on which he built. to think for himself--to give his thought to others; this was to him not only a privilege, not only a right, but a duty. he believed in self-preservation--in personal independence--that is to say, in manhood. he preserved the realm of mind from the invasion of brute force, and protected the children of the brain from the herod of authority. he investigated for himself the questions, the problems and the mysteries of life. majorities were nothing to him. no error could be old enough--popular, plausible or profitable enough--to bribe his judgment or to keep his conscience still. he knew that, next to finding truth, the greatest joy is honest search. he was a believer in intellectual hospitality, in the fair exchange of thought, in good mental manners, in the amenities of the soul, in the chivalry of discussion. he insisted that those who speak should hear; that those who question should answer; that each should strive not for a victory over others, but for the discovery of truth, and that truth when found should be welcomed by every human soul. he knew that truth has no fear of investigation--of being understood. he knew that truth loves the day--that its enemies are ignorance, prejudice, egotism, bigotry, hypocrisy, fear and darkness, and that intelligence, candor, honesty, love and light are its eternal friends. he believed in the morality of the useful--that the virtues are the friends of man--the seeds of joy. he knew that consequences determine the quality of actions, and "that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." in the positive philosophy of auguste comte he found the framework of his creed. in the conclusions of that great, sublime and tender soul he found the rest, the serenity and the certainty he sought. the clouds had fallen from his life. he saw that the old faiths were but phases in the growth of man--that out from the darkness, up from the depths, the human race through countless ages and in every land had struggled toward the ever-growing light. he felt that the living are indebted to the noble dead, and that each should pay his debt; that he should pay it by preserving to the extent of his power the good he has, by destroying the hurtful, by adding to the knowledge of the world, by giving better than he had received; and that each should be the bearer of a torch, a giver of light for all that is, for all to be. this was the religion of duty perceived, of duty within the reach of man, within the circumference of the known--a religion without mystery, with experience for the foundation of belief--a religion understood by the head and approved by the heart--a religion that appealed to reason with a definite end in view--the civilization and development of the human race by legitimate, adequate and natural means--that is to say, by ascertaining the conditions of progress and by teaching each to be noble enough to live for all. this is the gospel of man; this is the gospel of this world; this is the religion of humanity; this is a philosophy that comtemplates not with scorn, but with pity, with admiration and with love all that man has done, regarding, as it does, the past with all its faults and virtues, its sufferings, its cruelties and crimes, as the only road by which the perfect could be reached. he denied the supernatural--the phantoms and the ghosts that fill the twilight-land of fear. to him and for him there was but one religion--the religion of pure thoughts, of noble words, of self-denying deeds, of honest work for all the world--the religion of help and hope. facts were the foundation of his faith; history was his prophet; reason his guide; duty his deity; happiness the end; intelligence the means. he knew that man must be the providence of man. he did not believe in religion and science, but in the religion of science--that is to say, wisdom glorified by love, the savior of our race--the religion that conquers prejudice and hatred, that drives all superstition from the mind, that ennobles, lengthens and enriches life, that drives from every home the wolves of want, from every heart the fiends of selfishness and fear, and from every brain the monsters of the night. he lived and labored for his fellow-men. he sided with the weak and poor against the strong and rich. he welcomed light. his face was ever toward the east. according to his light he lived. "the world was his country--to do good his religion." there is no language to express a nobler creed than this; nothing can be grander, more comprehensive, nearer perfect. this was the creed that glorified his life and made his death sublime. he was afraid to do wrong, and for that reason was not afraid to die. he knew that the end was near. he knew that his work was done. he stood within the twilight, within the deepening gloom, knowing that for the last time the gold was fading from the west and that there could not fall again within his eyes the trembling lustre of another dawn. he knew that night had come, and yet his soul was filled with light, for in that night the memory of his generous deeds shone out like stars. what can we say? what words can solve the mystery of life, the mystery of death? what words can justly pay a tribute to the man who lived to his ideal, who spoke his honest thought, and who was turned aside neither by envy, nor hatred, nor contumely, nor slander, nor scorn, nor fear? what words will do that life the justice that we know and feel? a heart breaks, a man dies, a leaf falls in the far forest, a babe is born, and the great world sweeps on. by the grave of man stands the angel of silence. no one can tell which is better--life with its gleams and shadows, its thrills and pangs, its ecstasy and tears, its wreaths and thorns, its crowns, its glories and golgothas, or death, with its peace, its rest, its cool and placid brow that hath within no memory or fear of grief or pain. farewell, dear friend. the world is better for your life--the world is braver for your death. farewell! we loved you living, and we love you now. a tribute to mrs. mary h. fiske. at scottish rite hall, new york, february , . my friends: in the presence of the two great mysteries, life and death, we are met to say above this still, unconscious house of clay, a few words of kindness, of regret, of love, and hope. in this presence, let us speak of the goodness, the charity, the generosity and the genius of the dead. only flowers should be laid upon the tomb. in life's last pillow there should be no thorns. mary fiske was like herself--she patterned after none. she was a genius, and put her soul in all she did and wrote. she cared nothing for roads, nothing for beaten paths, nothing for the footsteps of others--she went across the fields and through the woods and by the winding streams, and down the vales, or over crags, wherever fancy led. she wrote lines that leaped with laughter and words that were wet with tears. she gave us quaint thoughts, and sayings filled with the "pert and nimble spirit of mirth." her pages were flecked with sunshine and shadow, and in every word were the pulse and breath of life. her heart went out to all the wretched in this weary world--and yet she seemed as joyous as though grief and death were nought but words. she wept where others wept, but in her own misfortunes found the food of hope. she cared for the to-morrow of others, but not for her own. she lived for to-day. some hearts are like a waveless pool, satisfied to hold the image of a wondrous star--but hers was full of motion, life and light and storm. she longed for freedom. every limitation was a prison's wall. rules were shackles, and forms were made for serfs and slaves. she gave her utmost thought. she praised all generous deeds; applauded the struggling and even those who failed. she pitied the poor, the forsaken, the friendless. no one could fall below her pity, no one could wander beyond the circumference of her sympathy. to her there were no outcasts--they were victims. she knew that the inhabitants of palaces and penitentiaries might change places without adding to the injustice of the world. she knew that circumstances and conditions determine character--that the lowest and the worst of our race were children once, as pure as light, whose cheeks dimpled with smiles beneath the heaven of a mother's eyes. she thought of the road they had traveled, of the thorns that had pierced their feet, of the deserts they had crossed, and so, instead of words of scorn she gave the eager hand of help. no one appealed to her in vain. she listened to the story of the poor, and all she had she gave. a god could do no more. the destitute and suffering turned naturally to her. the maimed and hurt sought for her open door, and the helpless put their hands in hers. she shielded the weak--she attacked the strong. her heart was open as the gates of day. she shed kindness as the sun sheds light. if all her deeds were flowers, the air would be faint with perfume. if all her charities could change to melodies, a symphony would fill the sky. mary fiske had within her brain the divine fire called genius, and in her heart the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin." she wrote as a stream runs, that winds and babbles through the shadowy fields, that falls in foam of flight and haste and laughing joins the sea. a little while ago a babe was found--one that had been abandoned by its mother--left as a legacy to chance or fate. the warm heart of mary fiske, now cold in death, was touched. she took the waif and held it lovingly to her breast and made the child her own. we pray thee, mother nature, that thou wilt take this woman and hold her as tenderly in thy arms, as she held and pressed against her generous, throbbing heart, the abandoned babe. we ask no more. in this presence, let us remember our faults, our frailties, and the generous, helpful, self-denying, loving deeds of mary fiske. a tribute to horace seaver. at paine hall, boston, august , . * the eulogy pronounced at the funeral of horace shaver in paine hall last sunday was the tribute of one great man to another. to have robert g. ingersoll speak words of praise above the silent form is fame; to deserve these words is immortality.--the boston investigator, august , . horace seaver was a pioneer, a torch-bearer, a toiler in that great field we call the world--a worker for his fellow-men. at the end of his task he has fallen asleep, and we are met to tell the story of his long and useful life--to pay our tribute to his work and worth. he was one who saw the dawn while others lived in night. he kept his face toward the "purpling east" and watched the coming of the blessed day. he always sought for light. his object was to know--to find a reason for his faith--a fact on which to build. in superstition's sands he sought the gems of truth; in superstition's night he looked for stars. born in new england--reared amidst the cruel superstitions of his age and time, he had the manhood and the courage to investigate, and he had the goodness and the courage to tell his honest thoughts. he was always kind, and sought to win the confidence of men by sympathy and love. there was no taint or touch of malice in his blood. to him his fellows did not seem depraved--they were not wholly bad--there was within the heart of each the seeds of good. he knew that back of every thought and act were forces uncontrolled. he wisely said: "circumstances furnish the seeds of good and evil, and man is but the soil in which they grow." horace seaver was crowned with the wreath of his own deeds, woven by the generous hand of a noble friend. he fought the creed, and loved the man. he pitied those who feared and shuddered at the thought of death--who dwelt in darkness and in dread. the religion of his day filled his heart with horror. he was kind, compassionate, and tender, and could not fall upon his knees before a cruel and revengeful god--he could not bow to one who slew with famine, sword and fire--to one pitiless as pestilence, relentless as the lightning stroke. jehovah had no attribute that he could love. he attacked the creed of new england--a creed that had within it the ferocity of knox, the malice of calvin, the cruelty of jonathan edwards--a religion that had a monster for a god--a religion whose dogmas would have shocked cannibals feasting upon babes. horace seaver followed the light of his brain--the impulse of his heart. he was attacked, but he answered the insulter with a smile; and even he who coined malignant lies was treated as a friend misled. he did not ask god to forgive his enemies--he forgave them himself. he was sincere. sincerity is the true and perfect mirror of the mind. it reflects the honest thought. it is the foundation of character, and without it there is no moral grandeur. sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth. over all wealth, above all station, above the noble, the robed and crowned, rises the sincere man. happy is the man who neither paints nor patches, veils nor veneers. blessed is he who wears no mask. the man who lies before us wrapped in perfect peace, practiced no art to hide or half conceal his thought. he did not write or speak the double words that might be useful in retreat. he gave a truthful transcript of his mind, and sought to make his meaning clear as light. to use his own words, he had "the courage which impels a man to do his duty, to hold fast his integrity, to maintain a conscience void of offence, at every hazard and at every sacrifice, in defiance of the world." he lived to his ideal. he sought the approbation of himself. he did not build his character upon the opinions of others, and it was out of the very depths of his nature that he asked this profound question: "what is there in other men that makes us desire their approbation, and fear their censure more than our own?" horace seaver was a good and loyal citizen of the mental republic--a believer in, intellectual hospitality, one who knew that bigotry is born of ignorance and fear--the provincialisms of the brain. he did not belong to the tribe, or to the nation, but to the human race. his sympathy was wide as want, and, like the sky, bent above the suffering world. this man had that superb thing called moral courage--courage in its highest form. he knew that his thoughts were not the thoughts of others--that he was with the few, and that where one would take his side, thousands would be his eager foes. he knew that wealth would scorn and cultured ignorance deride, and that believers in the creeds, buttressed by law and custom, would hurl the missiles of revenge and hate. he knew that lies, like snakes, would fill the pathway of his life--and yet he told his honest thought--told it without hatred and without contempt--told it as it really was. and so, through all his days, his heart was sound and stainless to the core. when he enlisted in the army whose banner is light, the honest investigator was looked upon as lost and cursed, and even christian criminals held him in contempt. the believing embezzler, the orthodox wife-beater, even the murderer, lifted his bloody hands and thanked god that on his soul there was no stain of unbelief. in nearly every state of our republic, the man who denied the absurdities and impossibilities lying at the foundation of what is called orthodox religion, was denied his civil rights. he was not canopied by the ægis of the law. he stood beyond the reach of sympathy. he was not allowed to testify against the invader of his home, the seeker for his life--his lips were closed. he was declared dishonorable, because he was honest. his unbelief made him a social leper, a pariah, an outcast. he was the victim of religious hate and scorn. arrayed against him were all the prejudices and all the forces and hypocrisies of society. all mistakes and lies were his enemies. even the theist was denounced as a disturber of the peace, although he told his thoughts in kind and candid words. he was called a blasphemer, because he sought to rescue the reputation of his god from the slanders of orthodox priests. such was the bigotry of the time, that natural love was lost. the unbelieving son was hated by his pious sire, and even the mother's heart was by her creed turned into stone. horace seaver pursued his way. he worked and wrought as best he could, in solitude and want. he knew the day would come. he lived to be rewarded for his toil--to see most of the laws repealed that had made outcasts of the noblest, the wisest, and the best. he lived to see the foremost preachers of the world attack the sacred creeds. he lived to see the sciences released from superstition's clutch. he lived to see the orthodox theologian take his place with the professor of the black art, the fortune-teller, and the astrologer. he lived to see the greatest of the world accept his thought--to see the theologian displaced by the true priests of nature--by humboldt and darwin, by huxley and haeckel. within the narrow compass of his life the world was changed. the railway, the steamship, and the telegraph made all nations neighbors. countless inventions have made the luxuries of the past the necessities of to-day. life has been enriched, and man ennobled. the geologist has read the records of frost and flame, of wind and wave--the astronomer has told the story of the stars--the biologist has sought the germ of life, and in every department of knowledge the torch of science sheds its sacred light. the ancient creeds have grown absurd. the miracles are small and mean. the inspired book is filled with fables told to please a childish world, and the dogma of eternal pain now shocks the heart and brain. he lived to see a monument unveiled to bruno in the city of rome--to giordano bruno--that great man who two hundred and eighty-nine years ago suffered death for having proclaimed the truths that since have filled the world with joy. he lived to see the victim of the church a victor--lived to see his memory honored by a nation freed from papal chains. he worked knowing what the end must be--expecting little while he lived--but knowing that every fact in the wide universe was on his side. he knew that truth can wait, and so he worked patient as eternity. he had the brain of a philosopher and the heart of a child. horace seaver was a man of common sense. by that i mean, one who knows the law of average. he denied the bible, not on account of what has been discovered in astronomy, or the length of time it took to form the delta of the nile--but he compared the things he found with what he knew. he knew that antiquity added nothing to probability--that lapse of time can never take the place of cause, and that the dust can never gather thick enough upon mistakes to make them equal with the truth. he knew that the old, by no possibility, could have been more wonderful than the new, and that the present is a perpetual torch by which we know the past. to him all miracles were mistakes, whose parents were cunning and credulity. he knew that miracles were not, because they are not. he believed in the sublime, unbroken, and eternal march of causes and effects--denying the chaos of chance, and the caprice of power. he tested the past by the now, and judged of all the men and races of the world by those he knew. he believed in the religion of free thought and good deed--of character, of sincerity, of honest endeavor, of cheerful help--and above all, in the religion of love and liberty--in a religion for every day--for the world in which we live--for the present--the religion of roof and raiment, of food, of intelligence, of intellectual hospitality--the religion that gives health and happiness, freedom and content--in the religion of work, and in the ceremonies of honest labor. he lived for this world; if there be another, he will live for that. he did what he could for the destruction of fear--the destruction of the imaginary monster who rewards the few in heaven--the monster who tortures the many in perdition. he was a friend of all the world, and sought to civilize the human race. for more than fifty years he labored to free the bodies and the souls of men--and many thousands have read his words with joy. he sought the suffering and oppressed. he sat by those in pain--and his helping hand was laid in pity on the brow of death. he asked only to be treated as he treated others. he asked for only what he earned, and had the manhood cheerfully to accept the consequences of his actions. he expected no reward for the goodness of another. but he has lived his life. we should shed no tears except the tears of gratitude. we should rejoice that he lived so long. in nature's course, his time had come. the four seasons were complete in him. the spring could never come again. the measure of his years was full. when the day is done--when the work of a life is finished--when the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the tired laborer should fall asleep. to outlive usefulness is a double death. "let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits." when the old oak is visited in vain by spring--when light and rain no longer thrill--it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone. it is better far to fall where nature softly covers all with woven moss and creeping vine. how little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! how little of this wondrous stream of cataracts and pools--this stream of life, that rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose shore the foot of one who comes has never pressed! how little of this life we know--this struggling ray of light 'twixt gloom and gloom--this strip of land by verdure clad, between the unknown wastes--this throbbing moment filled with love and pain--this dream that lies between the shadowy shores of sleep and death! we stand upon this verge of crumbling time. we love, we hope, we disappear. again we mingle with the dust, and the "knot intrinsicate" forever falls apart. but this we know: a noble life enriches all the world. horace seaver lived for others. he accepted toil and hope deferred. poverty was his portion. like socrates, he did not seek to adorn his body, but rather his soul with the jewels of charity, modesty, courage, and above all, with a love of liberty. farewell, o brave and modest man! your lips, between which truths burst into blossom, are forever closed. your loving heart has ceased to beat. your busy brain is still, and from your hand has dropped the sacred torch. your noble, self-denying life has honored us, and we will honor you. you were my friend, and i was yours. above your silent clay i pay this tribute to your worth. farewell! a tribute to lawrence barrett. at the broadway theatre, new york, march , . my heart tells me that on the threshold of my address it will be appropriate for me to say a few words about the great actor who has just fallen into that sleep that we call death. lawrence barrett was my friend, and i was his. he was an interpreter of shakespeare, to whose creations he gave flesh and blood. he began at the foundation of his profession, and rose until he stood next to his friend--next to one who is regarded as the greatest tragedian of our time--next to edwin booth. the life of lawrence barrett was a success, because he honored himself and added glory to the stage. he did not seek for gain by pandering to the thoughtless, ignorant or base. he gave the drama in its highest and most serious form. he shunned the questionable, the vulgar and impure, and gave the intellectual, the pathetic, the manly and the tragic. he did not stoop to conquer--he soared. he was fitted for the stage. he had a thoughtful face, a vibrant voice and the pose of chivalry, and besides he had patience, industry, courage and the genius of success. he was a graceful and striking bassanio, a thoughtful hamlet, an intense othello, a marvelous harebell, and the best cassius of his century. in the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part. in this great play the scenes are shifted by unknown forces, and the commencement, plot and end are still unknown--are still unguessed. one by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places. there is no pause--the play goes on. no prompter's voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be. will this great drama have an end? will the curtain fall at last? will it rise again upon some other stage? reason says perhaps, and hope still whispers yes. sadly i bid my friend farewell, i admired the actor, and i loved the man. a tribute to walt whitman. camden, n. j., march , . my friends: again we, in the mystery of life, are brought face to face with the mystery of death. a great man, a great american, the most eminent citizen of this republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay a tribute to his greatness and his worth. i know he needs no words of mine. his fame is secure. he laid the foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. he was, above all i have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. he was so great that he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. he never claimed to be lower or greater than any of the sous of men. he came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy for all. his arm was beneath the form of the sick. he sympathized with the imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy. one of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is great enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived. he said, speaking of an outcast: "not till the sun excludes you do i exclude you." his charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of whitman bent above it as the firmament bends above the earth. he was built on a broad and splendid plan--ample, without appearing to have limitations--passing easily for a brother of mountains and seas and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts with which timid pilots hug the shore, but giving himself freely with recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing as long as the stars were above him. he walked among men, among writers, among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary milliners and tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique god. he was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to all the sons and daughters of men. he uttered the great american voice; uttered a song worthy of the great republic. no man ever said more for the rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, of real justice. he neither scorned nor cringed, was neither tyrant nor slave. he asked only to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the great flag of nature, the blue and stars. he was the poet of life. it was a joy simply to breathe. he loved the clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the winding streams. he loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into the whitecaps of joy. he loved the fields, the hills; he was acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects of the earth. he not only saw these objects, but understood their meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his fellow-men. he was the poet of love. he was not ashamed of that divine passion that has built every home in the world; that divine passion that has painted every picture and given us every real work of art; that divine passion that has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human life. he was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of that which is natural. he was not only the poet of democracy, not only the poet of the great republic, but he was the poet of the human race. he was not confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth. he stretched out his hand and felt himself the equal of all kings and of all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no matter how low. he has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our century, possibly of almost any other. he was, above all things, a man, and above genius, above all the snow-capped peaks of intelligence, above all art, rises the true man. greater than all is the true man, and he walked among his fellow-men as such. he was the poet of death. he accepted all life and all death, and he justified all. he had the courage to meet all, and was great enough and splendid enough to harmonize all and to accept all there is of life as a divine melody. you know better than i what his life has been, but let me say one thing. knowing, as he did, what others can know and what they cannot, he accepted and absorbed all theories, all creeds, all religions, and believed in none. his philosophy was a sky that embraced all clouds and accounted for all clouds. he had a philosophy and a religion of his own, broader, as he believed--and as i believe--than others. he accepted all, he understood all, and he was above all. he was absolutely true to himself. he had frankness and courage, and he was as candid as light. he was willing that all the sons of men should be absolutely acquainted with his heart and brain. he had nothing to conceal. frank, candid, pure, serene, noble, and yet for years he was maligned and slandered, simply because he had the candor of nature. he will be understood yet, and that for which he was condemned--his frankness, his candor--will add to the glory and greatness of his fame. he wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid psalm of life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity--the greatest gospel that can be preached. he was not afraid to live, not afraid to die. for many years he and death were near neighbors. he was always willing and ready to meet and greet this king called death, and for many months he sat in the deepening twilight waiting for the night, waiting for the light. he never lost his hope. when the mists filled the valleys, he looked upon the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness disappeared, he fixed his gaze upon the stars. in his brain were the blessed memories of the day, and in his heart were mingled the dawn and dusk of life. he was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. the laughing nymphs of day did not desert him. they remained that they might clasp the hands and greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters of the night. and when they did come, walt whitman stretched his hand to them. on one side were the nymphs of the day, and on the other the silent sisters of the night, and so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached his journey's end. from the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed shore, he sent us messages of content and hope, and these messages seem now like strains of music blown by the "mystic trumpeter" from death's pale realm. to-day we give back to mother nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay. charitable as the air and generous as nature, he was negligent of all except to do and say what he believed he should do and should say. and i to-day thank him, not only for you but for myself, for all the brave words he has uttered. i thank him for all the great and splendid words lie has said in favor of liberty, in favor of man and woman, in favor of motherhood, in favor of fathers, in favor of children, and i thank him for the brave words that he has said of death. he has lived, he has died, and death is less terrible than it was before. thousands and millions will walk down into the "dark valley of the shadow" holding walt whitman by the hand. long after we are dead the brave words he has spoken will sound like trumpets to the dying. and so i lay this little wreath upon this great mans tomb. i loved him living, and i love him still. a tribute to philo d. beckwith. dowagiac, mich., january , . ladies and gentlemen: nothing is nobler than to plant the flower of gratitude on the grave of a generous man--of one who labored for the good of all--whose hands were open and whose heart was full. praise for the noble dead is an inspiration for the noble living. loving words sow seeds of love in every gentle heart. appreciation is the soil and climate of good and generous deeds. we are met to-night not to pay, but to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to one who lived and labored here--who was the friend of all and who for many years was the providence of the poor. to one who left to those who knew him best, the memory of countless loving deeds--the richest legacy that man can leave to man. we are here to dedicate this monument to the stainless memory of philo d. beckwith--one of the kings of men. this monument--this perfect theatre--this beautiful house of cheerfulness and joy--this home and child of all the arts--this temple where the architect, the sculptor and painter united to build and decorate a stage whereon the drama with a thousand tongues will tell the frailties and the virtues of the human race, and music with her thrilling voice will touch the source of happy tears. this is a fitting monument to the man whose memory we honor--to one, who broadening with the years, outgrew the cruel creeds, the heartless dogmas of his time--to one who passed from superstition to science--from religion to reason--from theology to humanity--from slavery to freedom--from the shadow of fear to the blessed light of love and courage. to one who believed in intellectual hospitality--in the perfect freedom of the soul, and hated tyranny, in every form, with all his heart. to one whose head and hands were in partnership constituting the firm of intelligence and industry, and whose heart divided the profits with his fellow-men. to one who fought the battle of life alone, without the aid of place or wealth, and yet grew nobler and gentler with success. to one who tried to make a heaven here and who believed in the blessed gospel of cheerfulness and love--of happiness and hope. and it is fitting, too, that this monument should be adorned with the sublime faces, wrought in stone, of the immortal dead--of those who battled for the rights of man--who broke the fetters of the slave--of those who filled the minds of men with poetry, art, and light--of voltaire, who abolished torture in france and who did more for liberty than any other of the sons of men--of thomas paine, whose pen did as much as any sword to make the new world free--of victor hugo, who wept for those who weep--of emerson, a worshiper of the ideal, who filled the mind with suggestions of the perfect--of goethe, the poet-philosopher--of whitman, the ample, wide as the sky--author of the tenderest, the most pathetic, the sublimest poem that this continent has produced--of shakespeare, the king of all--of beethoven, the divine,--of chopin and verdi and of wagner, grandest of them all, whose music satisfies the heart and brain and fills imagination's sky--of george eliot, who wove within her brain the purple robe her genius wears--of george sand, subtle and sincere, passionate and free--and with these--faces of those who, on the stage, have made the mimic world as real as life and death. beneath the loftiest monuments may be found ambition's worthless dust, while those who lived the loftiest lives are sleeping now in unknown graves. it may be that the bravest of the brave who ever fell upon the field of ruthless war, was left without a grave to mingle slowly with the land he saved. but here and now the man and monument agree, and blend like sounds that meet and melt in melody--a monument for the dead--a blessing for the living--a memory of tears--a prophecy of joy. fortunate the people where this good man lived, for they are all his heirs--and fortunate for me that i have had the privilege of laying this little laurel leaf upon his unstained brow. and now, speaking for those he loved--for those who represent the honored dead--i dedicate this home of mirth and song--of poetry and art--to the memory of philo d. beckwith--a true philosopher--a real philanthropist. a tribute to anton seidl. a telegram read at the funeral services in the metropolitan opera house, new york city, march , . in the noon and zenith of his career, in the flush and glory of success, anton seidl, the greatest orchestral leader of all time, the perfect interpreter of wagner, of all his subtlety and sympathy, his heroism and grandeur, his intensity and limitless passion, his wondrous harmonies that tell of all there is in life, and touch the longings and the hopes of every heart, has passed from the shores of sound to the realm of silence, borne by the mysterious and resistless tide that ever ebbs but never flows. all moods were his. delicate as the perfume of the first violet, wild as the storm, he knew the music of all sounds, from the rustle of leaves, the whisper of hidden springs, to the voices of the sea. he was the master of music, from the rhythmical strains of irresponsible joy to the sob of the funeral march. he stood like a king with his sceptre in his hand, and we knew that every tone and harmony were in his brain, every passion in his breast, and yet his sculptured face was as calm, as serene as perfect art. he mingled his soul with the music and gave his heart to the enchanted air. he appeared to have no limitations, no walls, no chains. he seemed to follow the pathway of desire, and the marvelous melodies, the sublime harmonies, were as free as eagles above the clouds with outstretched wings. he educated, refined, and gave unspeakable joy to many thousands of his fellow-men. he added to the grace and glory of life. he spoke a language deeper, more poetic than words--the language of the perfect, the language of love and death. but he is voiceless now; a fountain of harmony has ceased. its inspired strains have died away in night, and all its murmuring melodies are strangely still. we will mourn for him, we will honor him, not in words, but in the language that he used. anton seidl is dead. play the great funeral march. envelop him in music. let its wailing waves cover him. let its wild and mournful winds sigh and moan above him. give his face to its kisses and its tears. play the great funeral march, music as profound as death. that will express our sorrow--that will voice our love, our hope, and that will tell of the life, the triumph, the genius, the death of anton seidl. a tribute to dr. thomas seton robertson. new york september , . in the pulseless hush of death, silence seems more expressive, more appropriate--than speech. in the presence of the great mystery, the great mystery that waits to enshroud us all, we feel the uselessness of words. but where a fellow-mortal has reached his journey's end--where the darkness from which he emerged has received him again, it is but natural for his friends to mingle with their grief, expressions of their love and loss. he who lies before us in the sleep of death was generous to his fellow-men. his hands were always stretched to help, to save. he pitied the friendless, the unfortunate, the hopeless--proud of his skill--of his success. he was quick to decide--to act--prompt, tireless, forgetful of self. he lengthened life and conquered pain--hundreds are well and happy now because he lived. this is enough. this puts a star above the gloom of death. he was sensitive to the last degree--quick to feel a slight--to resent a wrong--but in the warmth of kindness the thorn of hatred blossomed. he was not quite fashioned for this world. the flints and thorns on life's highway bruised and pierced his flesh, and for his wounds he did not have the blessed balm of patience. he felt the manacles, the limitations--the imprisonments of life and so within the walls and bars he wore his very soul away. he could not bear the storms. the tides, the winds, the waves, in the morning of his life, dashed his frail bark against the rocks. he fought as best he could, and that he failed was not his fault. he was honest, generous and courageous. these three great virtues were his. he was a true and steadfast friend, seeing only the goodness of the ones he loved. only a great and noble heart is capable of this. but he has passed beyond the reach of praise or blame--passed to the realm of rest--to the waveless calm of perfect peace. the storm is spent--the winds are hushed--the waves have died along the shore--the tides are still--the aching heart has ceased to beat, and within the brain all thoughts, all hopes and fears--ambitions, memories, rejoicings and regrets--all images and pictures of the world, of life, are now as though they had not been. and yet hope, the child of love--the deathless, beyond the darkness sees the dawn. and we who knew and loved him, we, who now perform the last sad rites--the last that friendship can suggest--"will keep his memory green." dear friend, farewell! "if we do meet again we shall smile indeed--if not, this parting is well made." farewell! a tribute to thomas corwin. lebanon, ohio, march , . * an impromptu preface to colonel ingersoll's lecture at lebanon, ohio. ladies and gentlemen: being for the first time where thomas corwin lived and where his ashes rest, i cannot refrain from saying something of what i feel. thomas corwin was a natural orator--armed with the sword of attack and the shield of defence. nature filled his quiver with perfect arrows. he was the lord of logic and laughter. he had the presence, the pose, the voice, the face that mirrored thoughts, the unconscious gesture of the orator. he had intelligence--a wide horizon--logic as unerring as mathematics--humor as rich as autumn when the boughs and vines bend with the weight of ripened fruit, while the forests flame with scarlet, brown and gold. he had wit as quick and sharp as lightning, and like the lightning it filled the heavens with sudden light. in his laughter there was logic, in his wit wisdom, and in his humor philosophy and philanthropy. he was a supreme artist. he painted pictures with words. he knew the strength, the velocity of verbs, the color, the light and shade of adjectives. he was a sculptor in speech--changing stones to statues. he had in his heart the sacred something that we call sympathy. he pitied the unfortunate, the oppressed and the outcast his words were often wet with tears--tears that in a moment after were glorified by the light of smiles. all moods were his. he knew the heart, its tides and currents, its calms and storms, and like a skillful pilot he sailed emotion's troubled sea. he was neither solemn nor dignified, because he was neither stupid nor egotistic. he was natural, and had the spontaneity of winds and waves. he was the greatest orator of his time, the grandest that ever stood beneath our flag. reverently i lay this leaf upon his grave. a tribute to isaac h. bailey. new york, march , . my friends: when one whom we hold dear has reached the end of life and laid his burden down, it is but natural for us, his friends, to pay the tribute of respect and love; to tell his virtues, to express our sense of loss and speak above the sculptured clay some word of hope. our friend, about whose bier we stand, was in the highest, noblest sense a man. he was not born to wealth--he was his own providence, his own teacher. with him work was worship and labor was his only prayer. he depended on himself, and was as independent as it is possible for man to be. he hated debt, and obligation was a chain that scarred his flesh. he lived a long and useful life. in age he reaped with joy what he had cown in youth. he did not linger "until his flame lacked oil," but with his senses keen, his mind undimmed, and with his arms filled with gathered sheaves, in an instant, painlessly, unconsciously, he passed from happiness and health to the realm of perfect peace. we need not mourn for him, but for ourselves, for those he loved. he was an absolutely honest man--a man who kept his word, who fulfilled his contracts, gave heaped and rounded measure and discharged all obligations with the fabled chivalry of ancient knights. he was absolutely honest, not only with others but with himself. to his last moment his soul was stainless. he was true to his ideal--true to his thought, and what his brain conceived his lips expressed. he refused to pretend. he knew that to believe without evidence was impossible to the sound and sane, and that to say you believed when you did not, was possible only to the hypocrite or coward. he did not believe in the supernatural. he was a natural man and lived a natural life. he had no fear of fiends. he cared nothing for the guesses of inspired savages; nothing for the threats or promises of the sainted and insane. he enjoyed this life--the good things of this world--the clasp and smile of friendship, the exchange of generous deeds, the reasonable gratification of the senses--of the wants of the body and mind. he was neither an insane ascetic nor a fool of pleasure, but walked the golden path along the strip of verdure that lies between the deserts of extremes. with him to do right was not simply a duty, it was a pleasure. he had philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon their consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and punishments that no god can give, inflict, withhold or pardon. he loved his country, he was proud of the heroic past, dissatisfied with the present, and confident of the future. he stood on the rock of principle. with him the wisest policy was to do right. he would not compromise with wrong. he had no respect for political failures who became reformers and decorated fraud with the pretence of philanthropy, or sought to gain some private end in the name of public good. he despised time-servers, trimmers, fawners and all sorts and kinds of pretenders. he believed in national honesty; in the preservation of public faith. he believed that the government should discharge every obligation--the implied as faithfully as the expressed. and i would be unjust to his memory if i did not say that he believed in honest money, in the best money in the world, in pure gold, and that he despised with all his heart financial frauds, and regarded fifty cents that pretended to be a dollar, as he would a thief in the uniform of a policeman, or a criminal in the robe of a judge. he believed in liberty, and liberty for all. he pitied the slave and hated the master; that is to say, he was an honest man. in the dark days of the rebellion he stood for the right. he loved lincoln with all his heart--loved him for his genius, his courage and his goodness. he loved conkling--loved him for his independence, his manhood, for his unwavering courage, and because he would not bow or bend--loved him because he accepted defeat with the pride of a victor. he loved grant, and in the temple of his heart, over the altar, in the highest niche, stood the great soldier. nature was kind to our friend. she gave him the blessed gift of humor. this filled his days with the climate of autumn, so that to him even disaster had its sunny side. on account of his humor he appreciated and enjoyed the great literature of the world. he loved shakespeare, his clowns and heroes. he appreciated and enjoyed dickens. the characters of this great novelist were his acquaintances. he knew them all; some were his friends and some he dearly loved. he had wit of the keenest and quickest. the instant the steel of his logic smote the flint of absurdity the spark glittered. and yet, his wit was always kind. the flower went with the thorn. the targets of his wit were not made enemies, but admirers. he was social, and after the feast of serious conversation he loved the wine of wit--the dessert of a good story that blossomed into mirth. he enjoyed games--was delighted by the relations of chance--the curious combinations of accident. he had the genius of friendship. in his nature there was no suspicion. he could not be poisoned against a friend. the arrows of slander never pierced the shield of his confidence. he demanded demonstration. he defended a friend as he defended himself. against all comers he stood firm, and he never deserted the field until the friend had fled. i have known many, many friends--have clasped the hands of many that i loved, but in the journey of my life i have never grasped the hand of a better, truer, more unselfish friend than he who lies before us clothed in the perfect peace of death. he loved me living and i love him now. in youth we front the sun; we live in light without a fear, without a thought of dusk or night. we glory in excess. there is no dread of loss when all is growth and gain. with reckless hands we spend and waste and chide the flying hours for loitering by the way. the future holds the fruit of joy; the present keeps us from the feast, and so, with hurrying feet we climb the heights and upward look with eager eyes. but when the sun begins to sink and shadows fall in front, and lengthen on the path, then falls upon the heart a sense of loss, and then we hoard the shreds and crumbs and vainly long for what was cast away. and then with miser care we save and spread thin hands before december's half-fed flickering flames, while through the glass of time we moaning watch the few remaining grains of sand that hasten to their end. in the gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of youth, and hope sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of another morn. but our friend was an exception. he lived in the present; he enjoyed the sunshine of to-day. although his feet had touched the limit of four-score, he had not reached the time to stop, to turn and think: about the traveled road. he was still full of life and hope, and had the interest of youth in all the affairs of men. he had no fear of the future--no dread. he was ready for the end. i have often heard him repeat the words of epicurus: "why should i fear death? if i am, death is not. if death is, i am not. why should i fear that which cannot exist when i do?" if there is, beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, another world to which men carry all the failures and the triumphs of this life; if above and over all there be a god who loves the right, an honest man has naught to fear. if there be another world in which sincerity is a virtue, in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, then all is well with the dear friend whom we have lost. but if the grave ends all; if all that was our friend is dead, the world is better for the life he lived. beyond the tomb we cannot see. we listen, but from the lips of mystery there comes no word. darkness and silence brooding over all. and yet, because we love we hope. farewell! and yet again, farewell! and will there, sometime, be another world? we have our dream. the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book or of any creed. it was born of affection. and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death. we have our dream! jesus christ. * an unfinished lecture which colonel ingersoll commenced a few days before his death. for many centuries and by many millions of people, christ has been worshiped as god. millions and millions of eulogies on his character have been pronounced by priest and layman, in all of which his praises were measured only by the limitations of language--words were regarded as insufficient to paint his perfections. in his praise it was impossible to be extravagant. sculptor, poet and painter exhausted their genius in the portrayal of the peasant, who was in fact the creator of all worlds. his wisdom excited the wonder, his sufferings the pity and his resurrection and ascension the astonishment of the world. he was regarded as perfect man and infinite god. it was believed that in the gospels was found the perfect history of his life, his words and works, his death, his triumph over the grave and his return to heaven. for many centuries his perfection, his divinity--have been defended by sword and fire. by the altar was the scaffold--in the cathedral, the dungeon--the chamber of torture. the story of christ was told by mothers to their babes. for the most part his story was the beginning and end of education. it was wicked to doubt--infamous to deny. heaven was the reward for belief and hell the destination of the denier. all the forces of what we call society, were directed against investigation. every avenue to the mind was closed. on all the highways of thought, christians placed posts and boards, and on the boards were the words "no thoroughfare," "no crossing." the windows of the soul were darkened--the doors were barred. light was regarded as the enemy of mankind. during these christian years faith was rewarded with position, wealth and power. faith was the path to fame and honor. the man who investigated was the enemy, the assassin of souls. the creed was barricaded on every side, above it were the glories of heaven--below were the agonies of hell. the soldiers of the cross were strangers to pity. only traitors to god were shocked by the murder of an unbeliever. the true christian was a savage. his virtues were ferocious, and compared with his vices were beneficent. the drunkard was a better citizen than the saint. the libertine and prostitute were far nearer human, nearer moral, than those who pleased god by persecuting their fellows. the man who thought, and expressed his thoughts, died in a dungeon--on the scaffold or in flames. the sincere christian was insane. his one object was to save his soul. he despised all the pleasures of sense. he believed that his nature was depraved and that his desires were wicked. he fasted and prayed--deserted his wife and children--inflicted tortures on himself and sought by pain endured to gain the crown. * * * life. * written for mr. harrison grey fiske, editor of the new york dramatic mirror, december , . born of love and hope, of ecstasy and pain, of agony and fear, of tears and joy--dowered with the wealth of two united hearts--held in happy arms, with lips upon life's drifted font, blue-veined and fair, where perfect peace finds perfect form--rocked by willing feet and wooed to shadowy shores of sleep by siren mother singing soft and low--looking with wonder's wide and startled eyes at common things of life and day--taught by want and wish and contact with the things that touch the dimpled flesh of babes--lured by light and flame, and charmed by color's wondrous robes--learning the use of hands and feet, and by the love of mimicry beguiled to utter speech--releasing prisoned thoughts from crabbed and curious marks on soiled and tattered leaves--puzzling the brain with crooked numbers and their changing, tangled worth--and so through years of alternating day and night, until the captive grows familiar with the chains and walls and limitations of a life. and time runs on in sun and shade, until the one of all the world is wooed and won, and all the lore of love is taught and learned again. again a home is built with the fair chamber wherein faint dreams, like cool and shadowy vales, divide the billowed hours of love. again the miracle of a birth--the pain and joy, the kiss of welcome and the cradle-song drowning the drowsy prattle of a babe. and then the sense of obligation and of wrong--pity for those who toil and weep--tears for the imprisoned and despised--love for the generous dead, and in the heart the rapture of a high resolve. and then ambition, with its lust of pelf and place and power, longing to put upon its breast distinction's worthless badge. then keener thoughts of men, and eyes that see behind the smiling mask of craft--flattered no more by the obsequious cringe of gain and greed--knowing the uselessness of hoarded gold--of honor bought from those who charge the usury of self-respect--of power that only bends a coward's knees and forces from the lips of fear the lies of praise. knowing at last the unstudied gesture of esteem, the reverent eyes made rich with honest thought, and holding high above all other things--high as hope's great throbbing star above the darkness of the dead--the love of wife and child and friend. then locks of gray, and growing love of other days and half-remembered things--then holding withered hands of those who first held his, while over dim and loving eyes death softly presses down the lids of rest. and so, locking in marriage vows his children's hands and crossing others on the breasts of peace, with daughters' babes upon his knees, the white hair mingling with the gold, he journeys on from day to day to that horizon where the dusk is waiting for the night.--at last, sitting by the holy hearth of home as evening's embers change from red to gray, he falls asleep within the arms of her he worshiped and adored, feeling upon his pallid lips love's last and holiest kiss. ***** fac-simile of the last letter written by ingersoll urn containing the ashes of ingersoll the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "to plow is to pray; to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and fulfills." in twelve volumes, volume xi. miscellany dresden edition contents of volume xi. address on the civil rights act. introduction by frederick douglass("abou ben adhem")--decision of the united states supreme court pronouncing the civil rights act unconstitutional--limitations of judges--illusion destroyed by the decision in the dred scott case--mistake of our fathers in adopting the common law of england--the th amendment to the constitution quoted--the clause of the constitution upholding slavery--effect of this clause--definitions of a state by justice wilson and chief justice chase--effect of the thirteenth amendment--justice field on involuntary servitude--civil rights act quoted--definition of the word servitude by the supreme court--obvious purpose of the amendment--justice miller on the th amendment--citizens created by this amendment--opinion of justice field--rights and immunities guaranteed by the constitution--opinion delivered by chief-justice waite--further opinions of courts on the question of citizenship--effect of the th, th and th amendments--"corrective" legislation by congress--denial of equal "social" privileges--is a state responsible for the action of its agent when acting contrary to law?--the word "state" must include the people of the state as well as the officers of the state--the louisiana civil rights law, and a case tried under it--uniformity of duties essential to the carrier--congress left powerless to protect rights conferred by the constitution--definition of "appropriate legislation"--propositions laid down regarding the sovereignty of the state, the powers of the general government, etc.--a tribute to justice harlan--a denial that property exists by virtue of law--civil rights not a question of social equality--considerations upon which social equality depends--liberty not a question of social equality--the superior man--inconsistencies of the past--no reason why we should hate the colored people--the issues that are upon us. trial of c. b. reynolds for blasphemy. address to the jury. report of the case from the new york times (note)--the right to express opinions--attempts to rule the minds of men by force--liberty the greatest good--intellectual hospitality defined--when the catholic church had power--advent of the protestants--the puritans, quakers. unitarians, universalists--what is blasphemy?--why this trial should not have taken place--argument cannot be put in jail--the constitution of new jersey--a higher law than men can make--the blasphemy statute quoted and discussed--is the statute constitutional?--the harm done by blasphemy laws--the meaning of this persecution--religions are ephemeral--let us judge each other by our actions--men who have braved public opinion should be honored--the blasphemy law if enforced would rob the world of the results of scientific research--it declares the great men of to-day to be criminals--the indictment read and commented upon--laws that go to sleep--obsolete dogmas the denial of which was once punished by death--blasphemy characterized--on the argument that blasphemy endangers the public peace--a definition of real blasphemy--trials for blasphemy in england--the case of abner kneeland--true worship, prayer, and religion--what is holy and sacred--what is claimed in this case--for the honor of the state--the word liberty--result of the trial (note). god in the constitution. the feudal system--office and purpose of our constitution--which god shall we select?--the existence of any god a matter of opinion--what is entailed by a recognition of a god in the constitution--can the infinite be flattered with a constitutional amendment?--this government is secular--the government of god a failure--the difference between the theological and the secular spirit--a nation neither christian nor infidel--the priest no longer a necessity--progress of science and the development of the mind. a reply to bishop spalding. on god in the constitution--why the constitutional convention ignored the question of religion--the fathers misrepresented--reasons why the attributes of god should not form an organic part of the law of the land--the effect of a clause recognizing god. crimes against criminals. the three pests of a community--i. forms of punishment and torture--more crimes committed than prevented by governments--ii. are not vices transmitted by nature?-- . is it possible for all people to be honest?--children of vice as the natural product of society--statistics: the relation between insanity, pauperism, and crime--iv. the martyrs of vice--franklin's interest in the treatment of prisoners--v. kindness as a remedy--condition of the discharged prisoner--vi. compensation for convicts--vii. professional criminals--shall the nation take life?--influence of public executions on the spectators--lynchers for the most part criminals at heart--viii. the poverty of the many a perpetual menace--limitations of land-holding.--ix. defective education by our schools--hands should be educated as well as head--conduct improved by a clearer perception of consequences--x. the discipline of the average prison hardening and degrading--while society cringes before great thieves there will be little ones to fill the jails--xi. our ignorance should make us hesitate. a wooden god. on christian and chinese worship--report of the select committee on chinese immigration--the only true god as contrasted with joss--sacrifices to the "living god"--messrs. wright, dickey, o'connor and murch on the "religious system" of the american union--how to prove that christians are better than heathens--injustice in the name of god--an honest merchant the best missionary--a few extracts from confucius--the report proves that the wise men of china who predicted that christians could not be trusted were not only philosophers but prophets. some interrogation points. a new party and its purpose--the classes that exist in every country--effect of education on the common people--wants increased by intelligence--the dream of --the monopolist and the competitor--the war between the gould and mackay cables--competition between monopolies--all advance in legislation made by repealing laws--wages and values not to be fixed by law--men and machines--the specific of the capitalist: economy--the poor man and woman devoured by their fellow-men--socialism one of the worst possible forms of slavery--liberty not to be exchanged for comfort--will the workers always give their earnings for the useless?--priests, successful frauds, and robed impostors. art and morality. the origin of man's thoughts--the imaginative man--"medicinal view" of poetry--rhyme and religion--the theological poets and their purpose in writing--moral poets and their "unwelcome truths"--the really passionate are the virtuous--difference between the nude and the naked--morality the melody of conduct--the inculcation of moral lessons not contemplated by artists or great novelists--mistaken reformers--art not a sermon--language a multitude of pictures--great pictures and great statues painted and chiseled with words--mediocrity moral from a necessity which it calls virtue--why art civilizes--the nude--the venus de milo--this is art. the divided household of faith. the way in which theological seminaries were endowed--religious guide-boards--vast interests interwoven with creeds--pretensions of christianity--kepler's discovery of his three great laws--equivocations and evasions of the church--nature's testimony against the bible--the age of man on the earth--"inspired" morality of the bible--miracles--christian dogmas--what the church has been compelled to abandon--the appeal to epithets, hatred and punishment--"spirituality" the last resource of the orthodox--what is it to be spiritual?--two questions for the defenders of orthodox creeds. why am i an agnostic? part i. inharmony of nature and the lot of man with the goodness and wisdom of a supposed deity--why a creator is imagined--difficulty of the act of creation--belief in supernatural beings--belief and worship among savages--questions of origin and destiny--progress impossible without change of belief--circumstances determining belief--how may the true religion be ascertained?--prosperity of nations nor virtue of individuals dependent on religions or gods--uninspired books superior--part ii. the christian religion--credulity--miracles cannot be established--effect of testimony--miraculous qualities of all religions--theists and naturalists--the miracle of inspiration--how can the alleged fact of inspiration be established?--god's work and man's--rewards for falsehood offered by the church. huxley and agnosticism. statement by the principal of king's college--on the irrelevancy of a lack of scientific knowledge--difference between the agnostic and the christian not in knowledge but in credulity--the real name of an agnostic said to be "infidel"--what an infidel is--"unpleasant" significance of the word--belief in christ--"our lord and his apostles" possibly honest men--their character not invoked--possession by evil spirits--professor huxley's candor and clearness--the splendid dream of auguste comte--statement of the positive philosophy--huxley and harrison. ernest renan. his rearing and his anticipated biography--the complex character of the christ of the gospels--regarded as a man by renan--the sin against the holy ghost--renan on the gospels--no evidence that they were written by the men whose names they bear--written long after the events they describe--metaphysics of the church found in the gospel of john--not apparent why four gospels should have been written--regarded as legendary biographies--in "flagrant contradiction one with another"--the divine origin of christ an after-growth--improbable that he intended to form a church--renan's limitations--hebrew scholarship--his "people of israel"--his banter and blasphemy. tolstoy and "the kreutzer sonata." tolstoy's belief and philosophy--his asceticism--his view of human love--purpose of "the kreutzer sonata"--profound difference between the love of men and that of women--tolstoy cannot now found a religion, but may create the necessity for another asylum--the emotions--the curious opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree--impracticability of selling all and giving to the poor--love and obedience--unhappiness in the marriage relation not the fault of marriage. thomas paine. life by moncure d. conway--early advocacy of reforms against dueling and cruelty to animals--the first to write "the united states of america"--washington's sentiment against separation from great britain--paine's thoughts in the declaration of independence--author of the first proclamation of emancipation in america--establishment of a fund for the relief of the army--h's "farewell address"--the "rights of man"--elected to the french convention--efforts to save the life of the king--his thoughts on religion--arrested--the "age of reason" and the weapons it has furnished "advanced theologians"--neglect by gouverneur morris and washington--james monroe's letter to paine and to the committee of general safety--the vaunted religious liberty of colonial maryland--orthodox christianity at the beginning of the th century--new definitions of god--the funeral of paine. the three philanthropists. i. mr. a., the professional philanthropist, who established a colony for the enslavement of the poor who could not take care of themselves, amassed a large fortune thereby, built several churches, and earned the epitaph, "he was the providence of the poor"--ii. mr. b., the manufacturer, who enriched himself by taking advantage of the necessities of the poor, paid the lowest rate of wages, considered himself one of god's stewards, endowed the "b asylum" and the "b college," never lost a dollar, and of whom it was recorded, "he lived for others." iii. mr. c., who divided his profits with the people who had earned it, established no public institutions, suppressed nobody; and those who have worked for him said, "he allowed others to live for themselves." should the chinese be excluded? trampling on the rights of inferiors--rise of the irish and germans to power--the burlingame treaty--character of chinese laborers--their enemies in the pacific states--violation of treaties--the geary law--the chinese hated for their virtues--more piety than principle among the people's representatives--shall we go back to barbarism? a word about education. what the educated man knows--necessity of finding out the facts of nature--"scholars" not always educated men; from necessaries to luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers; the first duty of man; university education not necessary to usefulness, no advantage in learning useless facts. what i want for christmas. would have the kings and emperors resign, the nobility drop their titles, the professors agree to teach only what they know, the politicians changed to statesmen, the editors print only the truth--would like to see drunkenness and prohibition abolished, corporal punishment done away with, and the whole world free. fool friends. the fool friend believes every story against you, never denies a lie unless it is in your favor, regards your reputation as common prey, forgets his principles to gratify your enemies, and is so friendly that you cannot kick him. inspiration. nature tells a different story to all eyes and ears--horace greeley and the big trees--the man who "always did like rolling land"--what the snow looked like to the german--shakespeare's different story for each reader--as with nature so with the bible. the truth of history. people who live by lying--a case in point--h. hodson rugg's account of the conversion of ingersoll and , of his followers--the "identity of lost israel with the british nation"--old falsehoods about infidels--the new york observer and thomas paine--a rascally english editor--the charge that ingersoll's son had been converted--the fecundity of falsehood. how to edit a liberal paper. the editor should not narrow his horizon so that he can see only one thing--to know the defects of the bible is but the beginning of wisdom--the liberal paper should not discuss theological questions alone--a column for children--candor and kindness--nothing should be asserted that is not known--above all, teach the absolute freedom of the mind. secularism. the religion of humanity; what it embraces and what it advocates--a protest against ecclesiastical tyranny--believes in building a home here--means food and fireside--the right to express your thought--its advice to every human being--a religion without mysteries, miracles, or persecutions. criticism of "robert elsmere," "john ward, preacher," and "an african farm." religion unsoftened by infidelity--the orthodox minister whose wife has a heart--honesty of opinion not a mitigating circumstance--repulsiveness of an orthodox life--john ward an object of pity--lyndall of the "african farm"--the story of the hunter--death of waldo--women the caryatides of the church--attitude of christianity toward other religions--egotism of the ancient jews. the libel laws. all articles appearing in a newspaper should be signed by the writer--the law if changed should throw greater safeguards around the reputation of the citizen--pains should be taken to give prominence to retractions--the libel laws like a bayonet in war. rev. dr. newton's sermon on a new religion. mr. newton not regarded as a sceptic--new meanings given to old words--the vanishing picture of hell--the atonement--confidence being lost in the morality of the gospel--exclusiveness of the churches--the hope of immortality and belief in god have nothing to do with real religion--special providence a mistake. an essay on christmas. the day regarded as a holiday--a festival far older than christianity--relics of sun-worship in christian ceremonies--christianity furnished new steam for an old engine--pagan festivals correspond to ours--why holidays are popular--they must be for the benefit of the people. has freethought a constructive side? the object of freethought--what the religionist calls "affirmative and positive"--the positive side of freethought--constructive work of christianity. the improved man. he will be in favor of universal liberty, neither master nor slave; of equality and education; will develop in the direction of the beautiful; will believe only in the religion of this world--his motto--will not endeavor to change the mind of the "infinite"--will have no bells or censers--will be satisfied that the supernatural does not exist--will be self-poised, independent, candid and free. eight hours must come. the working people should be protected by law--life of no particular importance to the man who gets up before daylight and works till after dark--a revolution probable in the relations between labor and capital--working people becoming educated and more independent--the government can aid by means of good laws--women the worst paid--there should be no resort to force by either labor or capital. the jews. much like people of other religions--teaching given christian children about those who die in the faith of abraham--dr. john hall on the persecution of the jews in russia as the fulfillment of prophecy--hostility of orthodox early christians excited by jewish witnesses against the faith--an infamous chapter of history--good and bad men of every faith--jews should outgrow their own superstitions--what the intelligent jew knows. crumbling creeds. the common people called upon to decide as between the universities and the synods--modern medicine, law, literature and pictures as against the old--creeds agree with the sciences of their day--apology the prelude to retreat--the presbyterian creed infamous, but no worse than the catholic--progress begins when expression of opinion is allowed--examining the religions of other countries--the pulpit's position lost--the dogma of eternal pain the cause of the orthodox creeds losing popularity--every church teaching this infinite lie must fall. our schools. education the only lever capable of raising mankind--the school-house more important than the church--criticism of new york's school-buildings--the kindergarten system recommended--poor pay of teachers--the great danger to the republic is ignorance. vivisection. the hell of science--brutal curiosity of vivisectors--the pretence that they are working for the good of man--have these scientific assassins added to useful knowledge?--no good to the race to be accomplished by torture--the tendency to produce a race of intelligent wild beasts. the census enumerator's official catechism. right of the government to ask questions and of the citizen to refuse to answer them--matters which the government has no right to pry into--exposing the debtor's financial condition--a man might decline to tell whether he has a chronic disease or not. the agnostic christmas. natural phenomena and myths celebrated--the great day of the first religion, sun-worship--a god that knew no hatred nor sought revenge--the festival of light. spirituality. a much-abused word--the early christians too spiritual to be civilized--calvin and knox--paine, voltaire and humboldt not spiritual--darwin also lacking--what it is to be really spiritual--no connection with superstition. sumter's gun. what were thereby blown into rags and ravelings--the birth of a new epoch announced--lincoln made the most commanding figure of the century--story of its echoes. what infidels have done. what might have been asked of a christian years after christ--hospitals and asylums not all built for charity--girard college--lick observatory--carnegie not an orthodox christian--christian colleges--give us time. cruelty in the elmira reformatory. brockway a savage--the lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate the heart--brutality a failure--bishop potter's apostolical remark. law's delay. the object of a trial--justice can afford to wait--the right of appeal--case of mrs. maybrick--life imprisonment for murderers--american courts better than the english. bigotry of colleges. universities naturally conservative--kansas state university's objection to ingersoll as a commencement orator--comment by mr. depew (note)--action of cornell and the university of missouri. a young man's chances to-day. the chances a few years ago--capital now required--increasing competition in civilized life--independence the first object--if he has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. science and sentiment. science goes hand in hand with imagination--artistic and ethical development--science destroys superstition, not true religion--education preferable to legislation--our obligation to our children. "sowing and reaping." moody's belief accounted for--a dishonest and corrupting doctrine--a want of philosophy and sense--have souls in heaven no regrets?--mr. moody should read some useful books. should infidels send their children to sunday school? teachings of orthodox sunday schools--the ferocious god of the bible--miracles--a christian in constantinople would not send his child to a mosque--advice to all agnostics--strangle the serpent of superstition. what would you substitute for the bible as a moral guide? character of the bible--men and women not virtuous because of any book--the commandments both good and bad--books that do not help morality--jehovah not a moral god--what is morality?--intelligence the only moral guide. governor rollins' fast-day proclamation. decline of the christian religion in new hampshire--outgrown beliefs--present-day views of christ and the holy ghost--abandoned notions about the atonement--salvation for credulity--the miracles of the new testament--the bible "not true but inspired"--the "higher critics" riding two horses--infidelity in the pulpit--the "restraining influences of religion" as illustrated by spain and portugal--thinking, working and praying--the kind of faith that has departed. a look backward and a prophecy. the _truth seeker_ congratulated on its twenty-fifth birthday--teachings of twenty-five years ago--dodging and evading--the clerical assault on darwin--draper, buckle, hegel, spencer, emerson--comparison of prejudices--vanished belief in the devil--matter and force--contradictions dwelling in unity--substitutes for jehovah--a prophecy. political morality. argument in the contested election case of strobach against herbert--the importance of honest elections--poisoning the source of justice--the fraudulent voter a traitor to his sovereign, the will of the people--political morality imperative. a few reasons for doubting the inspiration of the bible. date and manner of composing the old testament--other books not now in existence, and disagreements about the canon--composite character of certain books--various versions--why was god's message given to the jews alone?--the story of the creation, of the flood, of the tower, and of lot's wife--moses and aaron and the plagues of egypt--laws of slavery--instructions by jehovah calculated to excite astonishment and mirth--sacrifices and the scapegoat--passages showing that the laws of moses were made after the jews had left the desert--jehovah's dealings with his people--the sabbath law--prodigies--joshua's miracle--damned ignorance and infamy--jephthah's sacrifice--incredible stories--the woman of endor and the temptation of david--elijah and elisha--loss of the pentateuch from moses to josiah--the jews before and after being abandoned by jehovah--wealth of solomon and other marvels. address on the civil rights act. on the d of october, , a vast number of citizens met at lincoln hall, washington, d. c., to give expression to their views concerning the decision of the supreme court of the united states, in which it is held that the civil rights act is unconstitutional. col. robert g. ingersoll was one of the speakers. the hon. frederick douglass introduced him as follows: abou ben adhem--(may his tribe increase!) awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, and saw within the moonlight of his room, making it rich and like a lily in bloom, an angel writing in a book of gold: exceeding peace had made ben adhem bold; and to the presence in the room he said, "what writest thou?" the vision raised its head, and, with a look made all of sweet accord, answered, "the names of those who love the lord." "and is mine one?" asked abou. "nay, not so," replied the angel. abou spoke more low, but cheerily still; and said, "i pray thee, then, write me as one that loves his fellow-men." the angel wrote, and vanished. the next night it came again, with a great wakening light, and showed the names whom love of god had blest; and, lo! ben adhem's name led all the rest. i have the honor to introduce robert g. ingersoll. mr. ingersoll's speech. ladies and gentlemen: we have met for the purpose of saying a few words about the recent decision of the supreme court, in which that tribunal has held the first and second sections of the civil rights act to be unconstitutional; and so held in spite of the fact that for years the people of the north and south have, with singular unanimity, supposed the act to be constitutional--supposed that it was upheld by the th and th amendments,--and so supposed because they knew with certainty the intention of the framers of the amendments. they knew this intention, because they knew what the enemies of the amendments and the enemies of the civil rights act claimed was the intention. and they also knew what the friends of the amendments and the law admitted the intention to be. the prejudices born of ignorance and of slavery had died or fallen asleep, and even the enemies of the amendments and the law had accepted the situation. but i shall speak of the decision as i feel, and in the same manner as i should speak even in the presence of the court. you must remember that i am not attacking persons, but opinions--not motives, but reasons--not judges, but decisions. the supreme court has decided: . that the first and second sections of the civil rights act of march , , are unconstitutional, as applied to the states--not being authorized by the th and th amendments. . that the th amendment is prohibitory upon the states only, and the legislation forbidden to be adopted by congress for enforcing it, is not "direct" legislation, but "corrective,"--such as may be necessary or proper for counteracting and restraining the effect of laws or acts passed or done by the several states. . that the th amendment relates only to slavery and involuntary servitude, which it abolishes. . that the th amendment establishes universal freedom in the united states. . that congress may probably pass laws directly enforcing its provisions. . that such legislative power in congress extends only to the subject of slavery, and its incidents. . that the denial of equal accommodations in inns, public conveyances and places of public amusement, imposes no badge of slavery or involuntary servitude upon the party, but at most infringes rights which are protected from state aggression by the th amendment. . the court is uncertain whether the accommodations and privileges sought to be protected by the first and second sections of the civil rights act are or are not rights constitutionally demandable,--and if they are, in what form they are to be protected. . neither does the court decide whether the law, as it stands, is operative in the territories and the district of columbia. . neither does the court decide whether congress, under the commercial power, may or may not pass a law securing to all persons equal accommodations on lines of public conveyance between two or more states. . the court also holds, in the present case, that until some state law has been passed, or some state action through its officers or agents has been taken adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the th amendment, no legislation of the united states under said amendment, or any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into activity, for the reason that the prohibitions of the amendment are against state laws and acts done under state authority. the essence of said decision being, that the managers and owners of inns, railways, and all public conveyances, of theatres and all places of public amusement, may discriminate on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and that the citizen so discriminated against, is without redress. this decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the constitution. it leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest of the white. it feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious ignorance bears toward race and color. it will be approved and quoted by hundreds of thousands of unjust men. the masked wretches who, in the darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the supreme court. the men who, by mob violence, prevent the negro from depositing his ballot--who with gun and revolver drive him from the polls, and those who insult with vile and vulgar words the inoffensive colored girl, will welcome this decision with hyena joy. the basest will rejoice--the noblest will mourn. but even in the presence of this decision, we must remember that it is one of the necessities of government that there should be a court of last resort; and while all courts will more or less fail to do justice, still, the wit of man has, as yet, devised no better way. even after reading this decision, we must take it for granted that the judges of the supreme court arrived at their conclusions honestly and in accordance with the best light they had. while they had the right to render the decision, every citizen has the right to give his opinion as to whether that decision is good or bad. knowing that they are liable to be mistaken, and honestly mistaken, we should always be charitable enough to admit that others may be mistaken; and we may also take another step, and admit that we may be mistaken about their being mistaken. we must remember, too, that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased. no matter whether a man wears a crown or a robe or a rag. under the emblem of power and the emblem of poverty, the man alike resides. the real thing is the man--the distinction often exists only in the clothes. take away the crown--there is only a man. remove the robe--there remains a man. take away the rag, and we find at least a man. there was a time in this country when all bowed to a decision of the supreme court. it was unquestioned. it was regarded as "a voice from on high." the people heard and they obeyed. the dred scott decision destroyed that illusion forever. from that day to this the people have claimed the privilege of putting the decisions of the supreme court in the crucible of reason. these decisions are no longer exempt from honest criticism. while the decision remains, it is the law. no matter how absurd, no matter how erroneous, no matter how contrary to reason and justice, it remains the law. it must be overturned either by the court itself (and the court has overturned hundreds of its own decisions), or by legislative action, or by an amendment to the constitution. we do not appeal to armed revolution. our government is so framed that it provides for what may be called perpetual peaceful revolution. for the redress of any grievance, for the purpose of righting any wrong, there is the perpetual remedy of an appeal to the people. we must remember, too, that judges keep their backs to the dawn. they find what has been, what is, but not what ought to be. they are tied and shackled by precedent, fettered by old decisions, and by the desire to be consistent, even in mistakes. they pass upon the acts and words of others, and like other people, they are liable to make mistakes. in the olden time we took what the doctors gave us, we believed what the preachers said; and accepted, without question, the judgments of the highest court. now it is different. we ask the doctor what the medicine is, and what effect he expects it to produce. we cross-examine the minister, and we criticise the decision of the chief-justice. we do this, because we have found that some doctors do not kill, that some ministers are quite reasonable, and that some judges know something about law. in this country, the people are the sovereigns. all officers--including judges--are simply their servants, and the sovereign has always the right to give his opinion as to the action of his agent. the sovereignty of the people is the rock upon which rests the right of speech and the freedom of the press. unfortunately for us, our fathers adopted the common law of england--a law poisoned by kingly prerogative--by every form of oppression, by the spirit of caste, and permeated, saturated, with the political heresy that the people received their rights, privileges and immunities from the crown. the thirteen original colonies received their laws, their forms, their ideas of justice, from the old world. all the judicial, legislative, and executive springs and sources had been touched and tainted. in the struggle with england, our fathers justified their rebellion by declaring that nature had clothed all men with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. the moment success crowned their efforts, they changed their noble declaration of equal rights for all, and basely interpolated the word "white." they adopted a constitution that denied the declaration of independence--a constitution that recognized and upheld slavery, protected the slave-trade, legalized piracy upon the high seas--that demoralized, degraded, and debauched the nation, and that at last reddened with brave blood the fields of the republic. our fathers planted the seeds of injustice, and we gathered the harvest. in the blood and flame of civil war, we retraced our fathers' steps. in the stress of war, we implored the aid of liberty, and asked once more for the protection of justice. we civilized the constitution of our fathers. we adopted three amendments--the th, th and th--the trinity of liberty. let us examine these amendments: "neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the united states or any place subject to their jurisdiction. "congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." before the adoption of this amendment, the constitution had always been construed to be the perfect shield of slavery. in order that slavery might be protected, the slave states were considered as sovereign. freedom was regarded as a local prejudice, slavery as the ward of the nation, the jewel of the constitution. for three-quarters of a century, the supreme court of the united states exhausted judicial ingenuity in guarding, protecting and fostering that infamous institution. for the purpose of preserving that infinite outrage, words and phrases were warped, and stretched, and tortured, and thumbscrewed, and racked. slavery was the one sacred thing, and the supreme court was its constitutional guardian. to show the faithfulness of that tribunal, i call your attention to the d clause of the d section of the th article of the constitution: "no person held to service or labor in any state under the laws thereof, escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." the framers of the constitution were ashamed to use the word "slave," and thereupon they said "person." they were ashamed to use the word "slavery," and they evaded it by saying, "held to service or labor." they were ashamed to put in the word "master," so they called him "the party to whom service or labor may be due." how can a slave owe service? how can a slave owe labor? how could a slave make a contract? how could the master have a legal claim against a slave? and yet, the supreme court of the united states found no difficulty in upholding the fugitive slave law by virtue of that clause. there were hundreds of decisions declaring that congress had power to pass laws to carry that clause into effect, and it was carried into effect. you will observe the wording of this clause: "no person held to service or labor in any state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." to whom was this clause directed? to individuals or to states? it expressly provides that the "person" held to service or labor shall not be discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any law or regulation in the "state" to which he has fled. did that law apply to states, or to individuals? the supreme court held that it applied to individuals as well as to states. any "person," in any state, interfering with the master who was endeavoring to steal the person he called his slave, was liable to indictment, and hundreds and thousands were indicted, and hundreds languished in prisons because they were noble enough to hold in infinite contempt such infamous laws and such infamous decisions. the best men in the united states--the noblest spirits under the flag--were imprisoned because they were charitable, because they were just, because they showed the hunted slave the path to freedom, and taught him where to find amid the glittering host of heaven the blessed northern star. every fugitive slave carried that clause with him when he entered a free state; carried it into every hiding place; and every northern man was bound, by virtue of that clause, to act as the spy and hound of slavery. the supreme court, with infinite ease, made a club of that clause with which to strike down the liberty of the fugitive and the manhood of the north. in the dred scott decision it was solemnly decided that a man of african descent, whether a slave or not, was not, and could not be, a citizen of a state or of the united states. the supreme court held on the even tenor of its way, and in the rebellion that tribunal was about the last fort to surrender. the moment the th amendment was adopted, the slaves became freemen. the distinction between "white" and "colored" vanished. the negroes became as though they had never been slaves--as though they had always been free--as though they had been white. they became citizens--they became a part of "the people," and "the people" constituted the state, and it was the state thus constituted that was entitled to the constitutional guarantee of a republican government. these freed men became citizens--became a part of the state in which they lived. the highest and noblest definition of a state, in our reports, was given by justice wilson, in the case of chisholm, &c., vs. georgia; "by a state, i mean a complete body of free persons, united for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others." chief justice chase declared that: "the people, in whatever territory dwelling, whether temporarily or permanently, or whether organized under regular government, or united by less definite relations, constitute the state." now, if the people, the moment the th amendment was adopted were all free, and if these people constituted the state; if, under the constitution of the united states, every state is guaranteed a republican government, then it is the duty of the general government to see to it that every state has such a government. if distinctions are made between free men on account of race or color, the government is not republican. the manner in which this guarantee of a republican form of government is to be enforced or made good, must be left to the wisdom and discretion of congress. the th amendment not only destroyed, but it built. it destroyed the slave-pen, and on its site erected the temple of liberty. it did not simply free slaves--it made citizens. it repealed every statute that upheld slavery. it erased from every report every decision against freedom. it took the word "white" from every law, and blotted from the constitution all clauses acknowledging property in man. if, then, all the people in each state, were, by virtue of the th amendment, free, what right had a majority to enslave a minority? what right had a majority to make any distinctions between free men? what right had a majority to take from a minority any privilege, or any immunity, to which they were entitled as free men? what right had the majority to make that unequal which the constitution made equal? not satisfied with saying that slavery should not exist, we find in the amendment the words "nor involuntary servitude." this was intended to destroy every mark and badge of legal inferiority. justice field upon this very question, says: "it is, however, clear that the words 'involuntary servitude' include something more than slavery, in the strict sense of the term. they include also serfage, vassalage, villanage, peonage, and all other forms of compulsory service for the mere benefit or pleasure of others. nor is this the full import of the term. the abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude was intended to make every one born in this country a free man, and as such to give him the right to pursue the ordinary avocations of life without other restraint than such as affects all others, and to enjoy equally with them the fruits of his labor. a person allowed to pursue only one trade or calling, and only in one locality of the country, would not be, in the strict sense of the term, in a condition of slavery, but probably no one would deny that he would be in a condition of servitude. he certainly would not possess the liberties, or enjoy the privileges of a freeman." justice field also quotes with approval the language of the counsel for the plaintiffs in the case: "whenever a law of a state, or a law of the united states, makes a discrimination between classes of persons which deprives the one class of their freedom or their property, or which makes a caste of them, to subserve the power, pride, avarice, vanity or vengeance of others--there involuntary servitude exists within the meaning of the th amendment." to show that the framers of the th amendment intended to blot out every form of slavery and servitude, i call attention to the civil rights act, approved april , , which provided, among other things, that: "all persons born in the united states, and not subject to any foreign power--excluding indians not taxed--are citizens of the united states; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, are entitled to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishments, pains and penalties--and to none other--any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary notwithstanding; and they shall have the same rights in every state and territory of the united states as white persons." the supreme court, in _the slaughter-house cases,_ ( wallace, ) has said that the word servitude has a larger meaning than the word slavery. "the word 'servitude' implies subjection to the will of another contrary to the common right." a man is in a state of involuntary servitude when he is forced to do, or prevented from doing, a thing, not by the law of the state, but by the simple will of another. he who enjoys less than the common rights of a citizen, he who can be forced from the public highway at the will of another, who can be denied entrance to the cars of a common carrier, is in a state of servitude. the th amendment did away with slavery not only, and with involuntary servitude, but with every badge and brand and stain and mark of slavery. it abolished forever distinctions on account of race and color. in the language of the supreme court: "it was the obvious purpose of the th amendment to forbid all shades and conditions of african slavery." and to that i add, it was the obvious purpose of that amendment to forbid all shades and conditions of slavery, no matter of what sort or kind--all marks of legal inferiority. each citizen was to be absolutely free. all his rights complete, whole, unmaimed and unabridged. from the moment of the adoption of that amendment, the law became color-blind. all distinctions on account of complexion vanished. it took the whip from the hand of the white man, and put the nation's flag above the negro's hut. it gave horizon, scope and dome to the lowest life. it stretched a sky studded with stars of hope above the humblest head. the supreme court has admitted, in the very case we are now discussing, that: "under the th amendment the legislation meaning the legislation of congress--so far as necessary or proper to eradicate all forms and incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, may be direct and primary, operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by state legislation or not." here we have the authority for dealing with individuals. the only question then remaining is, whether an individual, being the keeper of a public inn, or the agent of a railway corporation, created by a state, can be held responsible in a federal court for discriminating against a citizen of the united states on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. if such discrimination is a badge of slavery, or places the party discriminated against in a condition of involuntary servitude, then the civil rights act may be upheld by the th amendment. in the united slates vs. harris, u. s., , the supreme court says: "it is clear that the th amendment, besides abolishing forever slavery and involuntary servitude within the united states, gives power to congress to protect all citizens from being in any way subjected to slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, and in the enjoyment of that freedom which it was the object of the amendment to secure." this declaration covers the entire case. i agree with justice field: "the th amendment is not confined to african slavery. it is general and universal in its application--prohibiting the slavery of white men as well as black men, and not prohibiting mere slavery in the strict sense of the term, but involuntary servitude in every form." wallace, . the th amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist. who must see to it that this declaration is carried out? there can be but one answer. it is the duty of congress. at last the question narrows itself to this: is a citizen of the united states, when denied admission to public inns, railway cars and theatres, on account of his race or color, in a condition of involuntary servitude? if he is, then he is under the immediate protection of the general government, by virtue of the th amendment; and the civil rights act is clearly constitutional. if excluded from one inn, he may be from all; if from one car, why not from all? the man who depends for the preservation of his privileges upon a conductor, instead of the constitution, is in a condition of involuntary servitude. he who depends for his rights--not upon the laws of the land, but upon a landlord, is in a condition of involuntary servitude. the framers of the th amendment knew that the negro would be persecuted on account of his race and color--knew that many of the states could not be trusted to protect the rights of the colored man; and for that reason, the general government was clothed with power to protect the colored people from all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude. of what use are the declarations in the constitution that slavery and involuntary servitude shall not exist, and that all persons born or naturalized in the united states shall be citizens--not only of the united states, but of the states in which they reside--if, behind these declarations, there is no power to act--no duty for the general government to discharge? notwithstanding the th amendment had been adopted--notwithstanding slavery and involuntary servitude had been legally destroyed--it was found that the negro was still the helpless victim of the white man. another amendment was needed; and all the justices of the supreme court have told us why the th amendment was adopted. justice miller, speaking for the entire court, tells us that: "in the struggle of the civil war, slavery perished, and perished as a necessity of the bitterness and force of the conflict." that: "when the armies of freedom found themselves on the soil of slavery, they could do nothing else than free the victims whose enforced servitude was the foundation of the war." he also admits that: "when hard pressed in the contest, the colored men (for they proved themselves men in that terrible crisis) offered their services, and were accepted, by thousands, to aid in suppressing the unlawful rebellion." he also informs us that: "notwithstanding the fact that the southern states had formerly recognized the abolition of slavery, the condition of the slave, without further protection of the federal government, was almost as bad as it had been before." and he declares that: "the southern states imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens--curtailed their rights in the pursuit of liberty and property, to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while the colored people had lost the protection which they had received from their former owners from motives of interest." and that: "the colored people in some states were forbidden to appear in the towns in any other character than that of menial servants--that they were required to reside on the soil without the right to purchase or own it--that they were excluded from many occupations of gain and profit--that they were not permitted to give testimony in the courts where white men were on trial--and it was said that their lives were at the mercy of bad men, either because laws for their protection were insufficient, or were not enforced." we are informed by the supreme court that, "under these circumstances," the proposition for the th amendment was passed through congress, and that congress declined to treat as restored to full participation in the government of the union, the states which had been in insurrection, until they ratified that article by a formal vote of their legislative bodies. thus it will be seen that the rebel states were restored to the union by adopting the th amendment. in order to become equal members of the federal union, these states solemnly agreed to carry out the provisions of that amendment. the th amendment provides that: "all persons born or naturalized in the united states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the united states, and of the state wherein they reside." that is affirmative in its character. that affirmation imposes the obligation upon the general government to protect its citizens everywhere. that affirmation clothes the federal government with power to protect its citizens. under that clause, the federal arm can reach to the boundary of the republic, for the purpose of protecting the weakest citizen from the tyranny of citizens or states. that clause is a contract between the government and every man--a contract wherein the citizen promises allegiance, and the nation promises protection. by this clause, the federal government adopted all the citizens of all the states and territories, including the district of columbia, and placed them under the shield of the constitution--made each one a ward of the republic. under this contract, the government is under direct obligation to the citizen. the government cannot shirk its responsibility by leaving a citizen to be protected in his rights, as a citizen of the united states, by a state. the obligation of protection is direct. the obligation on the part of the citizen to the government is direct. the citizen cannot be untrue to the government because his state is, the action of the state under the th amendment is no excuse for the citizen. he must be true to the government. in war, the government has a right to his service. in peace, he has the right to be protected. if the citizen must depend upon the state, then he owes the first allegiance to that government or power that is under obligation to protect him. then, if a state secedes from the union, the citizen should go with the state--should go with the power that protects. that is not my doctrine. my doctrine is this: the first duty of the general government is to protect each citizen. the first duty of each citizen is to be true--not to his state, but to the republic. this clause of the th amendment made us all citizens of the united states--all children of the republic. under this decision, the republic refuses to acknowledge her children. under this decision of the supreme court, they are left upon the doorsteps of the states. citizens are changed to foundlings. if the th amendment created citizens of the united states, the power that created must define the rights of the citizens thus created, and must provide a remedy where such rights are infringed. the federal government speaks through its representatives--through congress; and congress, by the civil rights act, defined some of the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the united states--and congress provided a remedy when such rights and privileges were invaded, and gave jurisdiction to the federal courts. no state, or the department of any state, can authoritatively define the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the united states. these rights and immunities must be defined by the united states, and when so defined, they cannot be abridged by state authority. in the case of bartemeyer vs. iowa, wall., p. , justice field, in a concurring opinion, speaking of the th amendment, says: "it grew out of the feeling that a nation which had been maintained by such costly sacrifices was, after all, worthless, if a citizen could not be protected in all his fundamental rights, everywhere--north and south, east and west--throughout the limits of the republic. the amendment was not, as held in the opinion of the majority, primarily intended to confer citizenship on the negro race. it had a much broader purpose. it was intended to justify legislation extending the protection of the national government over the common rights of all citizens of the united states, and thus obviate objection to the legislation adopted for the protection of the emancipated race. it was intended to make it possible for all persons--which necessarily included those of every race and color--to live in peace and security wherever the jurisdiction of the nation reached. it therefore recognized, if it did not create, a national citizenship. this national citizenship is primary and not secondary.". i cannot refrain from calling attention to the splendor and nobility of the truths expressed by justice field in this opinion. so, justice field, in his dissenting opinion in what are known as _the slaughter-house cases_, found in wallace, p. , still speaking of the th amendment, says: "it recognizes in express terms--if it does not create--citizens of the united states, and it makes their citizenship dependent upon the place of their birth or the fact of their adoption, and not upon the constitution or laws of any state, or the condition of their ancestry. "a citizen of a state is now only a citizen of the united states residing in that state. the fundamental rights, privileges and immunities which belong to him as a free man and a free citizen of the united states, are not dependent upon the citizenship of any state. * * * "they do not derive their existence from its legislation, and cannot be destroyed by its power." what are "the fundamental rights, privileges and immunities" which belong to a free man? certainly the rights of all citizens of the united states are equal. their immunities and privileges must be the same. he who makes a discrimination between citizens on account of color, violates the constitution of the united states. have all citizens the same right to travel on the highways of the country? have they all the same right to ride upon the railways created by state authority? a railway is an improved highway. it was only by holding that it was an improved highway that counties and states aided in their construction. it has been decided, over and over again, that a railway is an improved highway. a railway corporation is the creation of a state--an agent of the state. it is under the control of the state--and upon what principle can a citizen be prevented from using the highways of a state on an equality with all other citizens? these are all rights and immunities guaranteed by the constitution of the united states. now, the question is--and it is the only question--can these rights and immunities, thus guaranteed and thus confirmed, be protected by the general government? in the case of _the u. s. vs. reese, et al._, u. s., p. , the supreme court decided, the opinion having been delivered by chief-justice waite, as follows: "rights and immunities created by, and dependent upon, the constitution of the united states can be protected by congress. the form and the manner of the protection may be such as congress in the legitimate exercise of its legislative discretion shall provide. this may be varied to meet the necessities of the particular right to be protected." this decision was acquiesced in by justices strong, bradley, swayne, davis, miller and field. dissenting opinions were filed by justices clifford and hunt, but neither dissented from the proposition that: "rights and immunities created by or dependent upon the constitution of the united states can be protected by congress," and that "the form and manner of the protection may be such as congress in the exercise of its legitimate discretion shall provide." so, in the same case, i find this language: "it follows that the amendment"--meaning the th--"has invested the citizens of the united states with a new constitutional right, which is within the protecting power of congress. this, under the express provisions of the second section of the amendment, congress may enforce by appropriate legislation." if the th amendment invested the citizens of the united states with a new constitutional right--that is, the right to vote--and if for that reason that right is within the protecting power of congress, then i ask, if the th amendment made certain persons citizens of the united states, did such citizenship become a constitutional right? and is such citizenship within the protecting power of congress? does citizenship mean anything except certain "rights, privileges and immunities"? is it not an invasion of citizenship to invade the immunities or privileges or rights belonging to a citizen? are not, then, all the immunities and privileges and rights under the protecting power of congress? the th amendment found the negro a slave, and made him a free man. that gave to him a new constitutional right, and according to the supreme court, that right is within the protecting power of congress. what rights are within the protecting power of congress? all the rights belonging to a free man. the th amendment made the negro a citizen. what then is under the protecting power of congress? all the rights, privileges and immunities belonging to him as a citizen. so, in the case of _tennessee vs, davis_, u, s,, , the supreme court, held that: "the united states is a government whose authority extends over the whole territory of the union, acting upon all the states, and upon all the people of all the states. "no state can exclude the federal government from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the constitution, or withhold from it for a moment the cognizance of any subject which the constitution has committed to it." this opinion was given by justice strong, and acquiesced in by chief-justice waite, justices miller, swayne, bradley and harlan. so in the case of _pensacola tel. co. vs. western union tel. co_., u. s., p. , the opinion having been delivered by chief-justice waite, i find this: "the government of the united states, within the scope of its power, operates upon every foot of territory under its jurisdiction. it legislates for the whole nation, and is not embarrassed by state lines." this was acquiesced in by justices clifford, strong, bradley, swayne and miller. so we are told by the entire supreme court in the case of _tiernan vs. rynker_, u. s., , that: "when the subject to which the power applies is national in its character, or of such a nature as to admit of uniformity of regulation, the power is exclusive of state authority." surely the question of citizenship is "national in its character." surely the question as to what are the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the united states is "national in its character." unless the declarations and definitions, the patriotic paragraphs, and the legal principles made, given, uttered and defined by the supreme court are but a judicial jugglery of words, the civil rights act is upheld by the intent, spirit and language of the th amendment. it was found that the th amendment did not protect the negro. then the th was adopted. still the colored citizen was trodden under foot. then the th was adopted. the th made him free, and, in my judgment, made him a citizen, and clothed him with all the rights of a citizen. that was denied, and then the th declared that he was a citizen. in my judgment, that gave him the right to vote. but that was denied--then the th was adopted, declaring that his right to vote should never be denied. the th amendment made all free. it broke the chains, pulled up the whipping-posts, overturned the auction-blocks, gave the colored mother her child, put the shield of the constitution over the cradle, destroyed all forms of involuntary servitude, and in the azure heaven of our flag it put the northern star. the th amendment made us all citizens. it is a contract between the republic and each individual--a contract by which the nation agrees to protect the citizen, and the citizen agrees to defend the nation. this amendment placed the crown of sovereignty on every brow. the th amendment secured the citizen in his right to vote, in his right to make and execute the laws, and put these rights above the power of any state. this amendment placed the ballot--the sceptre of authority--in every sovereign hand. we are told by the supreme court, in the case under discussion, that: "we must not forget that the province and scope of the th and th amendments are different;" that the th amendment "simply abolished slavery," and that the th amendment "prohibited the states from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the united states; from depriving them of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; and from denying to any the equal protection of the laws." we are told that: "the amendments are different, and the powers of congress under them are different. what congress has power to do under one it may not have power to do under the other." that "under the th amendment it has only to do with slavery and its incidents;" but that "under the th amendment it has power to counteract and render nugatory all state laws or proceedings which have the effect to abridge any of the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the united states, or to deprive them of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, or to deny to any of them the equal protection of the laws." did not congress have that power under the th amendment? could the states, in spite of the th amendment, deprive free men of life or property without due process of law? does the supreme court wish to be understood, that until the th amendment was adopted the states had the right to rob and kill free men? yet, in its effort to narrow and belittle the th amendment, it has been driven to this absurdity. did not congress, under the th amendment, have power to destroy slavery and involuntary servitude? did not congress, under that amendment, have the power to protect the lives, liberty and property of free men? and did not congress have the power "to render nugatory all state laws and proceedings under which free men were to be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law"? if congress was not clothed with such power by the th amendment, what was the object of that amendment? was that amendment a mere opinion, or a prophecy, or the expression of a hope? the th amendment provides that: "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states. nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws." we are told by the supreme court that congress has no right to enforce the th amendment by direct legislation, but that the legislation under that amendment can only be of a "corrective" character--such as may be necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect of unconstitutional laws passed by the states. in other words, that congress has no duty to perform, except to counteract the effect of unconstitutional laws by corrective legislation. the supreme court has also decided, in the present case, that congress has no right to legislate for the purpose of enforcing these clauses until the states shall have taken action. what action can the state take? if a state passes laws contrary to these provisions or clauses, they are void. if a state passes laws in conformity to these provisions, certainly congress is not called on to legislate. under what circumstances, then, can congress be called upon to act by way of "corrective" legislation, as to these particular clauses? what can congress do? suppose the state passes no law upon the subject, but allows citizens of the state--managers of railways, and keepers of public inns, to discriminate between their passengers and guests on account of race or color--what then? again, what is the difference between a state that has no law on the subject, and a state that has passed an unconstitutional law? in other words, what is the difference between no law and a void law? if the "corrective" legislation of congress is not needed where the state has passed an unconstitutional law, is it needed where the state has passed no law? what is there in either case to correct? surely it requires no particular legislation on the part of congress to kill a law that never had life. the states are prohibited by the constitution from making any regulations of foreign commerce. consequently, all regulations made by the states are null and void, no matter what the motive of the states may have been, and it requires no law of congress to annul such laws or regulations. this was decided by the supreme court of the united states, long ago, in what are known as _the license cases_. the opinion may be found in the th of howard, . "the nullity of any act inconsistent with the constitution, is produced by the declaration that the constitution is supreme." this was decided by the supreme court, the opinion having been delivered by chief justice marshall, in the case of _gibbons vs. ogden_, wheat, . the same doctrine was held in the case of _henderson et al., vs. mayor of new york, et al._, u. s. --the opinion of the court being delivered by justice miller. so it was held in the case of _the board of liquidation vs. mccomb_-- otto, . "that an unconstitutional law will be treated by the courts as null and void"--citing _osborn vs. the bank of the united states_, wheaton, , and _davis vs. gray_, wallace, . now, if the legislation of congress must be "corrective," then i ask, corrective of what? certainly not of unconstitutional and void laws. that which is void, cannot be corrected. that which is unconstitutional is not the subject of correction. congress either has the right to legislate directly, or not at all; because indirect or corrective legislation can apply only, according to the supreme court, to unconstitutional and void laws that have been passed by a stale; and as such laws cannot be "corrected," the doctrine of "corrective legislation" dies an extremely natural death. a state can do one of three things: . it can pass an unconstitutional law; . it can pass a constitutional law; . it can fail to pass any law. the unconstitutional law, being void, cannot be corrected. the constitutional law does not need correction. and where no law has been passed, correction is impossible. the supreme court insists that congress can not take action until the state does. a state that fails to pass any law on the subject, has not taken action. this leaves the person whose immunities and privileges have been invaded, with no redress except such as he may find in the state courts in a suit at law; and if the state court takes the same view that is apparently taken by the supreme court in this case,--namely, that it is a "social question," one not to be regulated by law, and not covered in any way by the constitution--then, discrimination can be made against citizens by landlords and railway conductors, and they are left absolutely without remedy. the supreme court asks, in this decision, "can the act of a mere individual--the owner of the inn, or public conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, or only as inflicting an ordinary civil injury properly cognizable by the laws of the state, and presumably subject to redress by those laws, until the contrary appears?" how is "the contrary to appear"? suppose a person denied equal privileges upon the railway on account of race and color, brings suit and is defeated? and suppose the highest tribunal of the state holds that the question is of a "social" character--what then? if, to use the language of the supreme court, it is "an ordinary civil injury, imposing no badge of slavery or servitude," then, no federal question is involved. why did not the supreme court tell us what may be done when "the contrary appears"? nothing is clearer than the intention of the supreme court in this case--and that is, to decide that denying to a man equal accommodations at public inns on account of race or color, is not an abridgment of a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the united states, and that such person, so denied, is not in a condition of involuntary servitude, or denied the equal protection of the laws. in other words--that it is a "social question." i have been told by one who heard the decision when it was read from the bench, that the following phrase was in the opinion: "_there are certain physiological differences of race that cannot be ignored_." that phrase is a lamp, in the light of which the whole decision should be read. suppose that in one of the southern states, the negroes being in a decided majority and having entire control, had drawn the color line, had insisted that: "there were certain physiological differences between the races that could not be ignored," and had refused to allow white people to enter their hotels, to ride in the best cars, or to occupy the aristocratic portion of a theatre; and suppose that a white man, thrust from the hotels, denied the entrance to cars, had brought his suit in the federal court. does any one believe that the supreme court would have intimated to that man that "there is only a social question involved,--a question with which the constitution and laws have nothing to do, and that he must depend for his remedy upon the authors of the injury"? would a white man, under such circumstances, feel that he was in a condition of involuntary servitude? would he feel that he was treated like an underling, like a menial, like a serf? would he feel that he was under the protection of the laws, shielded like other men by the constitution? of course, the argument of color is just as strong on one side as on the other. the white man says to the black, "you are not my equal because you are black;" and the black man can with the same propriety, reply, "you are not my equal because you are white." the difference is just as great in the one case as in the other. the pretext that this question involves, in the remotest degree, a social question, is cruel, shallow, and absurd. the supreme court, some time ago, held that the th section of the civil rights act was constitutional. that section declares that: "no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or maybe prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the united states or of any state, on account of color or previous condition of servitude." it also provides that: "if any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors, shall exclude, or fail to summon, any citizen in the case aforesaid, he shall, on conviction, be guilty of misdemeanor and be fined not more than five hundred dollars." in the case known as _ex-parte vs. virginia_--found in u. s. --it was held that an indictment against a state officer, under this section, for excluding persons of color from the jury, could be sustained. now, let it be remembered, there was no law of the state of virginia, by virtue of which a man was disqualified from sitting on the jury by reason of race or color. the officer did exclude, and did fail to summon, a citizen on account of race or color or previous condition of servitude. and the supreme court held: "that whether the statute-book of the state actually laid down any such rule of disqualification or not, the state, through its officer, enforced such rule; and that it was against such state action, through its officers and agents, that the last clause of the section was directed." the court further held that: "this aspect of the law was deemed sufficient to divest it of any unconstitutional character." in other words, the supreme court held that the officer was an agent of the state, although acting contrary to the statute of the state; and that, consequently, such officer, acting outside of law, was amenable to the civil rights act, under the th amendment, that referred only to states. the question arises: is a state responsible for the action of its agent when acting contrary to law? in other words: is the principal bound by the acts of his agent, that act not being within the scope of his authority? is a state liable--or is the government liable--for the act of any officer, that act not being authorized by law? it has been decided a thousand times, that a state is not liable for the torts and trespasses of its officers. how then can the agent, acting outside of his authority, be prosecuted under a law deriving its entire validity from a constitutional amendment applying only to states? does an officer, by acting contrary to state law, become so like a state that the word state, used in the constitution, includes him? so it was held in the case of _neal vs. delaware_,-- u. s., ,--that an officer acting contrary to the laws of the state--in defiance of those laws--would be amenable to the civil rights act, passed under an amendment to the constitution now held applicable only to states. it is admitted, and expressly decided in the case of _the u. s. vs. reese et al._, (already quoted) that when the wrongful refusal at an election is because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, congress can interfere and provide for the punishment of any individual guilty of such refusal, no matter whether such individual acted under or against the authority of the state. with this statement i most heartily agree. i agree that: "when the wrongful refusal is because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, congress can interfere and provide for the punishment of any individual guilty of such refusal." that is the key that unlocks the whole question. congress has power--full, complete, and ample,--to protect all citizens from unjust discrimination, and from being deprived of equal privileges on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. and this language is just as applicable to the th and th, as to the th amendment. if a citizen is denied the accommodations of a public inn, or a seat in a railway car, on account of race or color, or deprived of liberty on account of race or color, the constitution has been violated, and the citizen thus discriminated against or thus deprived of liberty, is entitled to redress in a federal court. it is held by the supreme court that the word "state" does not apply to the "people" of the state--that it applies only to the agents of the people of the state. and yet, the word "state," as used in the constitution, has been held to include not only the persons in office, but the people who elected them--not only the agents, but the principals. in the constitution it is provided that "no state shall coin money; and no state shall emit bills of credit." according to this decision, any person in any state, unless prevented by state authority, has the right to coin money and to emit bills of credit, and congress has no power to legislate upon the subject--provided he does not counterfeit any of the coins or current money of the united states. congress would have to deal--not with the individuals, but with the state; and unless the state had passed some act allowing persons to coin money, or emit bills of credit, congress could do nothing. yet, long ago, congress passed a statute preventing any person in any state from coining money. no matter if a citizen should coin it of pure gold, of the requisite fineness and weight, and not in the likeness of united states coins, he would be a criminal. we have a silver dollar, coined by the government, worth eighty-five cents; and yet, if any person, in any state, should coin what he called a dollar, not like our money, but with a dollar's worth of silver in it, he would be guilty of a crime. it may be said that the constitution provides that congress shall have power to coin money, and provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the united states; in other words, that the constitution gives power to congress to coin money and denies it to the states, not only, but gives congress the power to legislate against counterfeiting. so, in the th, th, and th amendments, power is given to congress, and power is denied to the states, not only, but congress is expressly authorized to enforce the amendments by appropriate legislation. certainly the power is as broad in the one case as in the other; and in both cases, individuals can be reached as well as states. so the constitution provides that: "congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states." under this clause congress deals directly with individuals. the states are not engaged in commerce, but the people are; and congress makes rules and regulations for the government of the people so engaged. the constitution also provides that: "congress shall have power to regulate commerce with the indian tribes." it was held in the case of _the united states vs. holliday_, wall., , that: "commerce with the indian tribes means commerce with the individuals composing those tribes." and under this clause it has been further decided that congress has the power to regulate commerce not only between white people and indian tribes, but between indian tribes; and not only that, but between individual indians. _worcester vs. the state, pet., ; the united states vs. . gallons, u. s., ; the united states vs. shawmux, saw., ._ now, if the word "tribe" includes individual indians, may not the word "state" include citizens? in this decision it is admitted by the supreme court that where a subject is submitted to the general legislative power of congress, then congress has plenary powers of legislation over the whole subject. let us apply these words to the th amendment. in this very decision i find that the th amendment: "by its own unaided force and effect, abolished slavery and established universal freedom." the court admits that: "legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit." the court further admits: "and such legislation may be primary and direct in its character." and then gives the reason: "for the amendment is not a mere prohibition of state laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the united states." i now ask, has that subject--that is to say, liberty,--been submitted to the general legislative power of congress? the th amendment provides that congress shall have power to enforce that amendment by appropriate legislation. in construing the th and th amendments and the civil rights act, it seems to me that the supreme court has forgotten the principle of construction that has been laid down so often by courts, and that is this: that in construing statutes, courts may look to the history and condition of the country as circumstances from which to gather the intention of the legislature. so it seems to me that the court failed to remember the rule laid down by story in the case of _prigg vs. the commonwealth of pennsylvania,_ pet., , a rule laid down in the interest of slavery--laid down for the purpose of depriving human beings of their liberty: "perhaps the safest rule of interpretation, after all, will be found to be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties and rights with all the lights and aids of contemporary history, and to give to the words of each just such operation and force consistent with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed." it must be admitted that certain rights were conferred by the th amendment. surely certain rights were conferred by the th amendment; and these rights should be protected and upheld by the federal government. and it was held in the case last cited, that: "if by one mode of interpretation the right must become shadowy and unsubstantial, and without any remedial power adequate to the end, and by another mode it will attain its just end and secure its manifest purpose--it would seem, upon principles of reasoning absolutely irresistable, that the latter ought to prevail. no court of justice can be authorized so as to construe any clauses of the constitution as to defeat its obvious ends, when another construction, equally accordant with the words and sense thereof, will enforce and protect them." in the present case, the supreme court holds, that congress can not legislate upon this subject until the state has passed some law contrary to the constitution. i call attention in reply to this, to the case of _hall vs. de cuir,_ u. s., . the state of louisiana, in , acting in the spirit of these amendments to the constitution, passed a law requiring that all persons engaged within that state in the business of common carriers of passengers, should make no discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. under this law, mrs. de cuir, a colored woman, took passage on a steamer, buying a ticket from new orleans to hermitage--the entire trip being within the limits of the state. the captain of the boat refused to give her equal accommodations with other passengers--the refusal being on the ground of her color. she commenced suit against the captain in the state court of louisiana, and recovered judgment for one thousand dollars. the defendant appealed to the supreme court of that state, and the judgment of the lower court was sustained. thereupon, the captain died, and the case was taken to the supreme court of the united states by his administrator, on the ground that a federal question was involved. you will see that this was a case where the state had acted, and had acted exactly in accordance with the constitutional amendments, and had by law provided that the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the united states--residing in the state of louisiana--should not be abridged, and that no distinction should be made on account of race or color. but in that case the supreme court of the united states solemnly decided that the legislation of the state was void--that the state of louisiana had no right to interfere--no right, by law, to protect a citizen of the united states from being discriminated against under such circumstances. you will remember that the plaintiff, mrs. de cuir, was to be carried from new orleans to hermitage, and that both places were within the state of louisiana. notwithstanding this, the supreme court held: "that if the public good required such legislation, it must come from congress and not from the state." what reason do you suppose was given? it was this: the constitution gives to congress power to regulate commerce between the states; and it appeared from the evidence given in that case, that the boat plied between the ports of new orleans and vicksburg. consequently, it was engaged in interstate commerce. therefore, it was under the protection of congress; and being under the protection of congress, the state had no authority to protect its citizens by a law in perfect harmony with the constitution of the united states, while such citizens were within the limits of louisiana. the supreme court scorns the protection of a state! in the case recently decided, and about which we are talking to-night, the supreme court decides exactly the other way. it decides that if the public good requires such legislation, it must come from the states, and not from congress; that congress cannot act until the state has acted, and until the state has acted wrong, and that congress can then only act for the purpose of "correcting" such state action. the decision in _hall vs. de cuir_ was rendered in . the civil rights act was then in force, and applied to all persons within the jurisdiction of the united states, and provided expressly that: "all persons within the jurisdiction of the united states shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, privileges, and facilities of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places of public amusement, without regard to race or color." and yet the supreme court said: "no carrier of passengers can conduct his business with satisfaction to himself, or comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a state line his passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the same cabin, and on the other to be kept separate." what right had the other state to pass a law that passengers should be kept separate, on account of race or color? how could such a law have been constitutional? the civil rights act applied to all states, and to both sides of the lines between all states, and produced absolute uniformity--and did not put the captain to the trouble of dividing his passengers. the court further said: "uniformity in the regulations by which the carrier is to be governed from one end to the other of his route, is a necessity in his business." the uniformity had been guaranteed by the civil rights act, and the statute of the state of louisiana was in exact conformity with the th amendment and the civil rights act. the court also said: "and to secure uniformity, congress, which is untrammeled by state lines, has been invested with the exclusive power of determining what such regulations shall be." yes. congress has been invested with such power, and congress has used it in passing the civil rights act--and yet, under these circumstances, the court proceeds to imagine the difficulty that a captain would have in dividing his passengers as he crosses a state line, keeping them apart until he reaches the line of another state, and then bringing them together, and so going on through the process of dispersing and huddling, to the end of his unfortunate route. it is held by the supreme court, that uniformity of duties is essential to the carrier, and so essential, that congress has control of the whole matter. if uniformity is so desirable for the carrier that congress takes control, then uniformity as to the rights of passengers is equally desirable; and under the th and th amendments, congress has the exclusive power to state what the rights, privileges and immunities of passengers shall be. so that, in , the supreme court decided that the _states could not_ legislate; and in , that _congress could not_, unless the state had. if congress controls interstate commerce upon the navigable waters, it also controls interstate commerce upon the railways. and if congress has exclusive jurisdiction in the one case, it has in the other. and if it has exclusive jurisdiction, it does not have to wait until states take action. if it does not have to wait until states take action, then the civil rights act, in so far as it refers to the rights of passengers going from one state to another, must be constitutional. it must be remembered, in this discussion, that the th section of the constitution conferred upon congress the power: "to make all laws that may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the constitution in the government of the united states." so the nd section of the th article provides: "congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." the same language is used in the th and th amendments. "this clause does not limit--it enlarges--the powers vested in the general government. it is an additional power--not a restriction on those already granted. it does not impair the right of the legislature to exercise its best judgment in the selection of measures to carry into execution the constitutional powers of the government. a sound construction of the constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people. let the end be legitimate--let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate--which are plainly adapted to that end--are constitutional." this is the language of chief justice marshall, in the case of _m'caulay, vs. the state_, wheaton, . "congress must possess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the constitution." u. s. vs. fisher, cranch, . again: "the power of congress to pass laws to enforce rights conferred by the constitution is not limited to the express powers of legislation enumerated in the constitution. the powers which are necessary and proper as means to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties expressly enjoined, are always implied. the end being given, the means to accomplish it are given also." _prigs vs. the commonwealth_, peters, . this decision was delivered by justice story, and is the same one already referred to, in which liberty was taken from a human being by judicial construction. it was held in that case that the nd section of the th article of the constitution, to which i have already called attention, contained "a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" of the owner in a slave, unaffected by any state law or regulation. if this is so, then i assert that the th amendment "contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" of every human being to liberty; that the th amendment "contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" to citizenship; and that the th amendment "contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" to vote. justice story held in that case that: "under and by virtue of that section of the constitution the owner of a slave was clothed with entire authority in every state in the nation to seize and recapture his slave." he also held that: "in that sense, and to that extent, that clause of the constitution might properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation--state or national." "but," says justice story: "the clause of the constitution does not stop there, but says that he, the slave, shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." and he holds that: "under that clause of the section congress became clothed with the appropriate authority to legislate for its enforcement." now let us look at the th and th amendments in the light of that decision. first. liberty and citizenship were given the colored people by this amendment. and justice story tells us that: "the power of congress to enforce rights conferred by the constitution is not limited to the express powers of legislation enumerated in the constitution, but the powers which are necessary to protect such rights are always implied." language cannot be stronger; words cannot be clearer. but now this decision has been reversed by the supreme court, and congress is left powerless to protect rights conferred by the constitution. it has been shorn of implied powers. it has duties to perform, and no power to act. it has rights to protect, but cannot choose the means. it is entangled in its own strength. it is a prisoner in the bastile of judicial construction. let us go further. justice story tells us that: "the words 'but shall be given up on the claim of the person to whom such labor or service may be due,' clothes congress with the appropriate authority to legislate for its enforcement." in the light of this remark, let us look at the th amendment: "all persons bom or naturalized in the united states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the united states and of the state wherein they reside." to which are added these words: "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." now, if the words: "but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due," clothes congress with power to legislate upon the entire subject, then i ask if the words in the th amendment declaring that "no law shall be made by any state, or enforced, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states; and that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," does not clothe congress with the power to legislate upon the entire subject? in the two cases there is only this difference: the first decision was made in the interest of human slavery--made to protect property in man; and the second decision ought to have been made for exactly the opposite purpose. under the first decision, congress had the right to select the means--but now that is denied. and yet it was decided in _m'cauley vs. the state_, wheaton, , that: "when the government has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the duty of performing an act, then it must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means." again: "the government has the right to employ freely every means not prohibited, for the fulfillment of its acknowledged duties." _the legal tender cases_-- wallace, . it will thus be seen that congress has the undoubted right to make all laws necessary for the exercise of all the powers vested in it by the constitution. when the constitution imposes a duty upon congress, it grants the necessary means. congress certainly, then, has the right to pass all necessary laws for the enforcement of the th, th and th amendments. any legislation is "appropriate" that is calculated to accomplish the end sought and that is not repugnant to the constitution. within these limits congress has the sovereign power of choice. no better definition of "appropriate legislation" has been given than that by the supreme court of california, in the case of the people vs. washington, california, : "legislation which practically tends to facilitate the securing to all, through the aid of the judicial and executive departments of the government, the full enjoyment of personal freedom, is appropriate." the supreme court despairingly asks: "if this legislation is appropriate for enforcing the prohibitions of the amendment, it is difficult to see where it is to stop. why may not congress, with equal show of authority, enact a code of laws for the enforcement and vindication of all rights of life, liberty and property?" my answer is: the legislation will stop when and where the discriminations on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, stop. whenever an immunity or privilege of a citizen of the united states is trodden down by the state, or by an individual, under the circumstances mentioned in the civil rights act--that is to say, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude--then the federal government must interfere. the government must defend the immunities and privileges of its citizens, not only from state invasion, but from individual invaders, when that invasion is based upon the distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. the government has taken upon itself that duty. this duty can be discharged by a law making a uniform rule, obligatory not only upon states, but upon individuals. all this will stop when the discriminations stop. after such examination of the authorities as i have been able to make, i lay down the following propositions, namely: . the sovereignty of a state extends only to that which exists by its own authority. . the powers of the general government were not conferred by the people of a single state; they were given by the people of the united states; and the laws of the united states, in pursuance of the constitution, are supreme over the entire republic. . the constitution of the united states is the supreme law of each state. . the united states is a government whose authority extends over the whole territory of the union, acting upon all the states and upon all the people of all the states. . no state can exclude the federal government from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the constitution, or withhold from it, for a moment, the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has committed to it. . it is the duty of congress to enforce the constitution, and it has been clothed with power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the constitution in the general government. . it is the duty of the government to protect every citizen of the united states in all his rights, everywhere, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and this the government has the right to do by direct legislation. . every citizen, when his privileges and immunities are invaded by the legislature of a state, has the right of appeal from such. state to the supreme court of the nation. . when a state fails to pass any law protecting a citizen from discrimination on account of race or color, and fails, in fact, to protect such citizen, then such citizen has the right to find redress in the federal courts. . whenever, in the constitution, a state is prohibited from doing anything that in the nature of the thing can be done by any citizen of that state, then the word "state" embraces and includes all the people of a state. . the th amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the jurisdiction of the united states. this is not a mere negation--it is a splendid affirmation. the duty is imposed upon the general government by that amendment to see to it that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist. it is a question absolutely within the power of the federal government, and the federal government is clothed with power to make all necessary laws to enforce that amendment against states and persons. . the th amendment provides that all persons born or naturalized in the united states and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the united states and of the states wherein they reside. this is also an affirmation. it is not a prohibition. the moment that amendment was adopted, it became the duty of the united states to protect the citizens recognized or created by that amendment. we are no longer citizens of the united states because we are citizens of a state, but we are citizens of the united states because we have been born or have been naturalized within the jurisdiction of the united states. it therefore follows, that it is not only the right, but it is the duty, of congress, to pass all laws necessary for the protection of citizens of the united states. . congress can not shirk this responsibility by leaving citizens of the united states to the care and keeping of the several states. the recent decision of the supreme court cuts, as with a sword, the tie that binds the citizen to the nation. under the old constitution, it was not certainly known who were citizens of the united states. there were citizens of the states, and such citizens looked to their several states for protection. the federal government had no citizens. patriotism did not rest on mutual obligation. under the th amendment, we are all citizens of a common country; and our first duty, our first obligation, our highest allegiance, is not to the state in which we reside, but to the federal government. the th amendment tends to destroy state prejudices and lays a foundation for national patriotism. . all statutes--all amendments to the constitution--in derogation of natural rights, should be strictly construed. . all statutes and amendments for the preservation of natural rights should be liberally construed. every court should, by strict construction, narrow the scope of every law that infringes upon any natural human right; and every court should, by construction, give the broadest meaning to every statute or constitutional provision passed or adopted for the preservation of freedom. . in construing the th, th and th amendments, the supreme court need not go back to decisions rendered in the days of slavery--when every statute was construed in favor of the sovereignty of the state and the rights of the master. these amendments utterly obliterated such decisions. the supreme court should begin with the amendments. it need not look behind them. they are a part of the fundamental organic law of the nation. they were adopted to destroy the old statutes, to obliterate the infamous clauses in the constitution, and to lay a new foundation for a new nation. . congress has the power to eradicate all forms and incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, by direct and primary legislation binding upon states and individuals alike. and when citizens are denied the exercise of common rights and privileges--when they are refused admittance to public inns and railway cars, on an equality with white persons--and when such denial and refusal are based upon race and color, such citizens are in a condition of involuntary servitude. the supreme court has failed to take into consideration the intention of the framers of these amendments. it has failed to comprehend the spirit of the age. it has undervalued the accomplishment of the war. it has not grasped in all their height and depth the great amendments to the constitution and the real object of government. to preserve liberty is the only use for government. there is no other excuse for legislatures, or presidents, or courts, for statutes or decisions. liberty is not simply a means--it is an end. take from our history, our literature, our laws, our hearts--that word, and we are naught but moulded clay. liberty is the one priceless jewel. it includes and holds and is the weal and wealth of life. liberty is the soil and light and rain--it is the plant and bud and flower and fruit--and in that sacred word lie all the seeds of progress, love and joy. this decision, in my judgment, is not worthy of the court by which it was delivered. it has given new life to the serpent of state sovereignty. it has breathed upon the dying embers of ignorant hate. it has furnished food and drink, breath and blood, to prejudices that were perishing of famine, and in the old case of _civilization vs. barbarism_, it has given the defendant a new trial. from this decision, john m. harlan had the breadth of brain, the goodness of heart, and the loyalty to logic, to dissent. by the fortress of liberty, one sentinel remains at his post. for moral courage i have supreme respect, and i admire that intellectual strength that breaks the cords and chains of prejudice and damned custom as though they were but threads woven in a spider's loom. this judge has associated his name with freedom, and he will be remembered as long as men are free. we are told by the supreme court that: "slavery cannot exist without law, any more than property and lands and goods can exist without law." i deny that property exists by virtue of law. i take exactly the opposite ground. it was the fact that man had property in lands and goods, that produced laws for the protection of such property. the supreme court has mistaken an effect for a cause. laws passed for the protection of property, sprang from the possession and ownership of the thing to be protected. when one man enslaves another, it is a violation of all justice--a subversion of the foundation of all law. statutes passed for the purpose of enabling man to enslave his fellow-man, resulted from a conspiracy entered into by the representatives of brute force. nothing can be more absurd than to call such a statute, born of such a conspiracy a law. according to the idea of the supreme court, man never had property until he had passed a law upon the subject. the first man who gathered leaves upon which to sleep, did not own them, because no law had been passed on the leaf subject. the first man who gathered fruit--the first man who fashioned a club with which to defend himself from wild beasts, according to the supreme court, had no property in these things, because no laws had been passed, and no courts had published their decisions. so the defenders of monarchy have taken the ground that societies were formed by contract--as though at one time men all lived apart, and came together by agreement and formed a government. we might just as well say that the trees got into groves by contract or conspiracy. man is a social being. by living together there grow out of the relation, certain regulations, certain customs. these at last hardened into what we call law--into what we call forms of government--and people who wish to defend the idea that we got everything from the king, say that our fathers made a contract. nothing can be more absurd. men did not agree upon a form of government and then come together; but being together, they made rules for the regulation of conduct. men did not make some laws and then get some property to fit the laws, but having property they made laws for its protection. it is hinted by the supreme court that this is in some way a question of social equality. it is claimed that social equality cannot be enforced by law. nobody thinks it can. this is not a question of social equality, but of equal rights. a colored citizen has the same right to ride upon the cars--to be fed and lodged at public inns, and to visit theatres, that i have. social equality is not involved. the federal soldiers who escaped from libby and andersonville, and who in swamps, in storm, and darkness, were rescued and fed by the slave, had no scruples about eating with a negro. they were willing to sit beneath the same tree and eat with him the food he brought. the white soldier was then willing to find rest and slumber beneath the negro's roof. charity has no color. it is neither white nor black. justice and patriotism are the same. even the confederate soldier was willing to leave his wife and children under the protection of a man whom he was fighting to enslave. danger does not draw these nice distinctions as to race or color. hunger is not proud. famine is exceedingly democratic in the matter of food. in the moment of peril, prejudices perish. the man fleeing for his life does not have the same ideas about social questions, as he who sits in the capitol, wrapped in official robes. position is apt to be supercilious. power is sometimes cruel. prosperity is often heartless. this cry about social equality is born of the spirit of caste--the most fiendish of all things. it is worse than slavery. slavery is at least justified by avarice--by a desire to get something for nothing--by a desire to live in idleness upon the labor of others--but the spirit of caste is the offspring of natural cruelty and meanness. social relations depend upon almost an infinite number of influences and considerations. we have our likes and dislikes. we choose our companions. this is a natural right. you cannot force into my house persons whom i do not want. but there is a difference between a public house and a private house. the one is for the public. the private house is for the family and those they may invite. the landlord invites the entire public, and he must serve those who come if they are fit to be received. a railway is public, not private. it derives its powers and its rights from the state. it takes private land for public purposes. it is incorporated for the good of the public, and the public must be served. the railway, the hotel, and the theatre, have a right to make a distinction between people of good and bad manners--between the clean and the unclean. there are white people who have no right to be in any place except a bath-tub, and there are colored people in the same condition. an unclean white man should not be allowed to force himself into a hotel, or into a railway car--neither should the unclean colored. what i claim is, that in public places, no distinction should be made on account of race or color. the bad black man should be treated like the bad white man, and the good black man like the good white man. social equality is not contended for--neither between white and white, black and black, nor between white and black. in all social relations we should have the utmost liberty--but public duties should be discharged and public rights should be recognized, without the slightest discrimination on account of race or color. riding in the same cars, stopping at the same inns, sitting in the same theatres, no more involve a social question, or social equality, than speaking the same language, reading the same books, hearing the same music, traveling on the same highway, eating the same food, breathing the same air, warming by the same sun, shivering in the same cold, defending the same flag, loving the same country, or living in the same world. and yet, thousands of people are in deadly fear about social equality. they imagine that riding with colored people is dangerous--that the chance acquaintance may lead to marriage. they wish to be protected from such consequences by law. they dare not trust themselves. they appeal to the supreme court for assistance, and wish to be barricaded by a constitutional amendment. they are willing that colored women shall prepare their food--that colored waiters shall bring it to them--willing to ride in the same cars with the porters and to be shown to their seats in theatres by colored ushers--willing to be nursed in sickness by colored servants. they see nothing dangerous--nothing repugnant, in any of these relations,--but the idea of riding in the same car, stopping at the same hotel, fills them with fear--fear for the future of our race. such people can be described only in the language of walt whitman. "they are the immutable, granitic pudding-heads of the world.". liberty is not a social question. civil equality is not social equality. we are equal only in rights. no two persons are of equal weight, or height. there are no two leaves in all the forests of the earth alike--no two blades of grass--no two grains of sand--no two hairs. no two any-things in the physical world are precisely alike. neither mental nor physical equality can be created by law, but law recognizes the fact that all men have been clothed with equal rights by nature, the mother of us all. the man who hates the black man because he is black, has the same spirit as he who hates the poor man because he is poor. it is the spirit of caste. the proud useless despises the honest useful. the parasite idleness scorns the great oak of labor on which it feeds, and that lifts it to the light. i am the inferior of any man whose rights i trample under foot. men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. they are superior who have the best heart--the best brain. superiority is born of honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty. the superior man is the providence of the inferior. he is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenceless. he stands erect by bending above the fallen. he rises by lifting others. in this country all rights must be preserved, all wrongs redressed, through the ballot. the colored man has in his possession in his care, a part of the sovereign power of the republic. at the ballot-box he is the equal of judges and senators, and presidents, and his vote, when counted, is the equal of any other. he must use this sovereign power for his own protection, and for the preservation of his children. the ballot is his sword and shield. it is his political providence. it is the rock on which he stands, the column against which he leans. he should vote for no man who dees not believe in equal rights for all--in the same privileges and immunities for all citizens, irrespective of race or color. he should not be misled by party cries, or by vague promises in political platforms. he should vote for the men, for the party, that will protect him; for congressmen who believe in liberty, for judges who worship justice, whose brains are not tangled by technicalities, and whose hearts are not petrified by precedents; and for presidents who will protect the blackest citizen from the tyranny of the whitest state. as you cannot trust the word of some white people, and as some black people do not always tell the truth, you must compel all candidates to put their principle' in black and white. of one thing you can rest assured: the best white people are your friends. the humane, the civilized, the just, the most intelligent, the grandest, are on your side. the sympathies of the noblest are with you. your enemies are also the enemies of liberty, of progress and of justice. the white men who make the white race honorable believe in equal rights for you. the noblest living are, the noblest dead were, your friends. i ask you to stand with your friends. do not hold the republican party responsible for this decision, unless the republican party endorses it. had the question been submitted to that party, it would have been decided exactly the other way--at least a hundred to one. that party gave you the th, th and th amendments. they were given in good faith. these amendments put you on a constitutional and political equality with white men. that they have been narrowed in their application by the supreme court, is not the fault of the republican party. let us wait and see what the republican party will do. that party has a strange history, and in that history is a mingling of cowardice and courage. the army of progress always becomes fearful after victory, and courageous after defeat. it has been the custom for principle to apologize to prejudice. the proclamation of emancipation gave liberty only to slaves beyond our lines--those beneath our flag were left to wear their chains. we said to the southern states: "lay down your arms, and you shall keep your slaves." we tried to buy peace at the expense of the negro. we offered to sacrifice the manhood of the north, and the natural rights of the colored man, upon the altar of the union. the rejection of that offer saved us from infamy. at one time we refused to allow the loyal black man to come within our lines. we would meet him at the outposts, receive his information, and drive him back to chain and lash. the government publicly proclaimed that the war was waged to save the union, with slavery. we were afraid to claim that the negro was a man--afraid to admit that he was property--and so we called him "contraband." we hesitated to allow the negro to fight for his own freedom--hesitated to let him wear the uniform of the nation while he battled for the supremacy of its flag. these are some of the inconsistencies of the past. in spite of them we advanced. we were educated by events, and at last we clearly saw that slavery was rebellion; that the "institution" had borne its natural fruit--civil war; that the entire country was responsible for slavery, and that slavery was responsible for rebellion. we declared that slavery should be extirpated from the republic. the great armies led by the greatest commander of the modern world, shattered, crushed and demolished the rebellion. the north grew grand. the people became sublime. the three sacred amendments were adopted. the republic was free. then came a period of hesitation, apology and fear. the colored citizen was left to his fate. for years the federal arm, palsied by policy, was powerless to protect; and this period of fear, of hesitation, of apology, of lack of confidence in the right, has borne its natural fruit--this decision of the supreme court. but it is not for me to give you advice. your conduct has been above all praise. you have been as patient as the earth beneath, as the stars above. you have been law-abiding and industrious, you have not offensively asserted your rights, or offensively borne your wrongs. you have been modest and forgiving. you have returned good for evil. when i remember that the ancestors of my race were in universities and colleges and common schools while you and your fathers were on the auction-block, in the slave-pen, or in the field beneath the cruel lash, in states where reading and writing were crimes, i am astonished at the progress you have made. all that i--all that any reasonable man--can ask is, that you continue doing as you have done. above all things--educate your children--strive to make yourselves independent--work for homes--work for yourselves--and wherever it is possible become the masters of yourselves. nothing gives me more pleasure than to see your little children with books under their arms, going and coming from school. it is very easy to see why colored people should hate us, but why we should hate them is beyond my comprehension. they never sold our wives. they never robbed our cradles.. they never scarred our backs. they never pursued us with bloodhounds. they never branded our flesh. it has been said that it is hard to forgive a man to whom we have done a great injury. i can conceive of no other reason why we should hate the colored people. to us they are a standing reproach. their history is our shame. their virtues seem to enrage some white people--their patience to provoke, and their forgiveness to insult. turn the tables--change places--and with what fierceness, with what ferocity, with what insane and passionate intensity we would hate them! the colored people do not ask for revenge--they simply ask for justice. they are willing to forget the past--willing to hide their scars--anxious to bury the broken chains, and to forget the miseries and hardships, the tears and agonies, of two hundred years. the old issues are again upon us. is this a nation? have all citizens of the united states equal rights, without regard to race or color? is it the duty of the general government to protect its citizens? can the federal arm be palsied by the action or non-action of a state? another opportunity is given for the people of this country to take sides. according to my belief, the supreme thing for every man to do is to be absolutely true to himself. all consequences--whether rewards or punishments, whether honor and power, or disgrace and poverty, are as dreams undreamt. i have made my choice. i have taken my stand. where my brain and heart go, there i will publicly and openly walk. doing this, is my highest conception of duty. being allowed to do this, is liberty. if this is not now a free government; if citizens cannot now be protected, regardless of race or color; if the three sacred amendments have been undermined by the supreme court--we must have another; and if that fails, then another; and we must neither stop, nor pause, until the constitution shall become a perfect shield for every right, of every human being, beneath our flag. trial of c. b. reynolds for blasphemy. address to the jury. * within thirty miles of new york, in the city of morristown, new jersey, a man was put on trial yesterday for distributing a pamphlet argument against the infallibility of the bible. the crime which the indictment alleges is blasphemy, for which the statutes of new jersey provide a penalty of two hundred dollars fine, or twelve months imprisonment, or both. it is the first case of the kind ever tried in new jersey, although the law dates back to colonial days. charles b. reynolds is the man on trial, and the state of new jersey, through the prosecuting attorney of morris county, is the prosecutor. the circuit court, judge francis child, assisted by county judges munson and quimby, sit upon the case. prosecutor wilder w. cutler represents the state, and robert g. ingersoll appears for the defendant. mr. reynolds went to boonton last summer to hold "free- thought" meetings. announcing his purpose without any flourish, he secured a piece of ground, pitched a tent upon it, and invited the towns-people to come and hear him. it was understood that he had been a methodist minister: that, finding it impossible to reconcile his mind to some of the historical parts of the bible, and unable to accept it in its entirety as a moral guide, he left the church and set out to proclaim his conclusions. the churches in boonton arrayed themselves against him. the catholics and methodists were especially active. taking this opposition as an excuse, one element of the town invaded his tent. they pelted reynolds with ancient eggs and vegetables. they chopped away the guy ropes of the tent and slashed the canvas with their knives. when the tent collapsed, the crowd rushed for the speaker to inflict further punishment by plunging him in the duck pond they rummaged the wrecked tent, but in vain. he had made his way ont in the confusion and was no more seen in boonton. but what he had said did not leave boonton with him, and the pamphlets he had distributed were read by many who probably would not have looked between their covers had his visit been attended by no unusual circumstances. boonton was still agitated up on the subject when mr. reynolds appeared in morristown. this time he did not try to hold meetings, but had his pamphlets with him. mr. reynolds appeared in morristown with the pamphlets on october thirteenth. a boonton delegation was there, clamoring for his indictment for blasphemy. the grand jury heard of his visit and found two indictments against him; one for blasphemy at boonton and the second for blasphemy at morristown. he furnished a five hundred dollar bond to appear for trial. on account of colonel ingersoll's throat troubles the case was adjourned several times through the winter and until monday last, when it was set peremptorily for trial yesterday. the public feeling excited at boonton was overshadowed by that at morristown and the neighboring region. for six months no topic was so interesting to the public as this. it monopolized attention at the stores, and became a fruitful subject of gossip in social and church circles. under such circumstances it was to be expected that everybody who could spare the time would go to court yesterday. lines of people began to climb the court house hill early in the morning. at the hour of opening court the room set apart for the trial was packed, and distaffs had to be stationed at the foot of the stairs to keep back those who were not early enough. from nine thirty to eleven o'clock the crowd inside talked of blasphemy in all the phases suggested by this case, and the outsiders waited patiently on the lawn and steps and along the dusty approaches to the gray building. eleven o'clock brought the train from new york and on it colonel ingersoll. his arrival at the court house with his clerk opened a new chapter in the day's gossip. the event was so absorbing indeed, that the crowd failed entirely to notice an elderly man wearing a black frock snit, a silk hat, with an army badge pinned to his coat, and looking like a merchant of means, who entered the court house a few minutes behind the famous lawyer. the last comer was the defendant. all was ready for the case. within five minutes five jurors were in the box. then colonel ingersoll asked what were his rights about challenges. he was informed that he might make six peremptory challenges and must challenge before the jurors took their seats. the only disqualification the court would recognize would be the inability of a juror to change his opinion in spite of evidence. colonel ingersoll induced the court to let him examine the five in the box and promptly ejected two presbyterians. thereafter colonel ingersoll examined every juror as soon as presented. he asked particularly about the nature of each man's prejudice, if he had one. to a juror who did not know that he understood the word, the colonel replied: "i may not define the word legally, but my own idea is that a man is prejudiced when he has made up his mind on a case without knowing anything about it." this juror thought that he came under that category. presbyterians had a rather hard time with the examiner. after twenty men had been examined and the defence had exercised five of its peremptory challenges, the following were sworn as jurymen. * * * * the jury having been sworn, prosecutor cutler announced that he would try only the indictment for the offence in morristown. he said that reynolds was charged with distributing pamphlets containing matter claimed to be blasphemous under the law. if the charge could be proved he asked a verdict of guilty. then he called sixteen towns- people, to most of whom reynolds had given a pamphlet. colonel ingersoll tried to get the presbyterian witnesses to say that they had read the pamphlet. not one of them admitted it. further than this he attempted no cross-examination. "i do not know that i shall have any witnesses one way or the other," colonel ingersoll said, rising to suggest a recess. "perhaps after dinner i may feel like making a few remarks." "there will be great disappointment if you do not" judge child responded, in a tone that meant a word for himself as well as for the other listeners. the spectators nodded approval to this sentiment. at : o'clock col. ingersoll having spoken since o'clock, judge child adjourned court until this morning. as colonel ingersoll left the room a throng pressed after him to offer congratulations. one old man said: "colonel ingersoll i am a presbyterian pastor, but i must say that was the noblest speech in defence of liberty i ever heard! your hand, sir; your hand,"--the times, new york, may , . gentlemen of the jury: i regard this as one of the most important cases that can be submitted to a jury. it is not a case that involves a little property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man. it involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every citizen of new jersey. the question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater importance submitted to a jury. and it may be well enough for me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which i could take a greater--a deeper interest. for my part, i would not wish to live in a world where i could not express my honest opinions. men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men. i deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any state, to put a padlock on the lips--to make the tongue a convict. i passionately deny the right of the herod of authority to kill the children of the brain. a man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. if we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men. if you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate--and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? and what is it to reap that field? it is simply to express what you have ascertained--simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men. if there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable serfs and slaves. if you have not the right to express your opinions, if the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath the blue of heaven that had the right to express his thought. if others claim the right, where did they get it? how did they happen to have it, and how did you happen to be deprived of it? where did a church or a nation get that right? are we not all children of the same mother? are we not all compelled to think, whether we wish to or not? can you help thinking as you do? when you look out upon the woods, the fields,--when you look at the solemn splendors of the night--these things produce certain thoughts in your mind, and they produce them necessarily. no man can think as he desires. no man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the action of his heart. the blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite of you. the eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. the ears hear, if they are unstopped, without asking your permission. and the brain thinks in spite of you. should you express that thought? certainly you should, if others express theirs. you have exactly the same right. he who takes it from you is a robber. for thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. did they succeed? no. will they succeed? no. why? because brute force is not an argument. you can stand with the lash over a man, or you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or by the stake, and say to this man: "recant or the lash descends, the prison door is locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the torch is given to the fagot." and so the man recants. is he convinced? not at all. have you produced a new argument? not the slightest. and yet the ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for thousands of years to rule the minds of men by brute force. they have endeavored to improve the mind by torturing the flesh--to spread religion with the sword and torch. they have tried to convince their brothers by putting their feet in iron boots, by putting fathers, mothers, patriots, philosophers and philanthropists in dungeons. and what has been the result? are we any nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then? no orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame. and yet every church that ever was established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the minority advocated free speech--every one. john calvin, the founder of the presbyterian church, while he lived in france, wrote a book on religious toleration in order to show that all men had an equal right to think; and yet that man afterward, clothed in a little authority, forgot all his sentiments about religious liberty, and had poor servetus burned at the stake, for differing with him on a question that neither of them knew anything about. in the minority, calvin advocated toleration--in the majority, he practiced murder. i want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to think alike. it seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike. why did he not do so? why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a methodist? why did he make yours so that you could not be a catholic? and why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever--why the brain of another so that he became a mohammedan--if he wanted us all to believe alike? after all, may be nature is good enough and grand enough and broad enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. may be, after all, it would not be best for us all to be just the same. what a stupid world, if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say. the most important thing in this world is liberty. more important than food or clothes--more important than gold or houses or lands--more important than art or science--more important than all religions, is the liberty of man. if civilization tends to do away with liberty, then i agree with mr. buckle that civilization is a curse. gladly would i give up the splendors of the nineteenth century--gladly would i forget every invention that has leaped from the brain of man--gladly would i see all books ashes, all works of art destroyed, all statues broken, and all the triumphs of the world lost--gladly, joyously would i go back to the abodes and dens of savagery, if that were necessary to preserve the inestimable gem of human liberty. so would every man who has a heart and brain. how has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. and there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in, and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it. never. by making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the church sought to prevent discussion--sought to prevent argument--sought to prevent a man giving his honest opinion. certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. in the silence of slavery it exists. it lives because lips are locked. it lives because men are slaves. if i understand myself, i advocate only the doctrines that in my judgment will make this world happier and better. if i know myself, i advocate only those things that will make a man a better citizen, a better father, a kinder husband--that will make a woman a better wife, a better mother--doctrines that will fill every home with sunshine and with joy. and if i believed that anything i should say to-day would have any other possible tendency, i would stop. i am a believer in liberty. that is my religion--to give to every other human being every right that i claim for myself, and i grant to every other human being, not the right--because it is his right--but instead of granting i declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that i maintain, to answer every argument that i urge--in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech. i am a believer in what i call "intellectual hospitality." a man comes to your door. if you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you receive him with a smile. you ask after his health. you say: "take a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?" that is what a hospitable, good man does--he does not set the dog on him. now, how should we treat a new thought? i say that the brain should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "come in; sit down; i want to cross-examine you; i want to find whether you are good or bad; if good, stay; if bad, i don't want to hurt you--probably you think you are all right,--but your room is better than your company, and i will take another idea in your place." why not? can any man have the egotism to say that he has found it all out? no. every man who has thought, knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows, and how ignorant, after all, the world must be. there was a time in europe when the catholic church had power. and i want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while i am opposed to catholicism i am not opposed to catholics--while i am opposed to presbyterianism i am not opposed to presbyterians. i do not fight people,--i fight ideas, i fight principles, and i never go into personalities. as i said, i do not hate presbyterians, but presbyterianism--that is, i am opposed to their doctrine. i do not hate a man that has the rheumatism--i hate the rheumatism when it has a man. so i attack certain principles because i think they are wrong, but i always want it understood that i have nothing against persons--nothing against victims. there was a time when the catholic church was in power in the old world. all at once there arose a man called martin luther, and what did the dear old catholics think? "oh," they said, "that man and his followers are going to hell." but they did not go. they were very good people. they may have been mistaken--i do not know. i think they were right in their opposition to catholicism--but i have just as much objection to the religion they founded as i have to the church they left. but they thought they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned out that their differing from the mother church did not hurt them. and then after awhile they began to divide, and there arose baptists; and-the other gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in new jersey, began cutting off their ears so that they could hear better; they began putting them in prison so that they would have a chance to think. but the baptists turned out to be good folks--first rate--good husbands, good fathers, good citizens. and in a little while, in england, the people turned to be episcopalians, on account of a little war that henry viii. had with the pope,--and i always sided with the pope in that war--but it made no difference; and in a little while the episcopalians turned out to be just about like other folks--no worse--and, as i know of, no better. after awhile arose the puritan, and the episcopalian said, "we don't want anything of him--he is a bad man;" and they finally drove some of them away and they settled in new england, and there were among them quakers, than whom there never were better people on the earth--industrious, frugal, gentle, kind and loving--and yet these puritans began hanging them. they said: "they are corrupting our children; if this thing goes on, everybody will believe in being kind and gentle and good, and what will become of us?" they were honest about it. so they went to cutting off ears. but the quakers were good people and none of the prophecies were fulfilled. in a little while there came some unitarians and they said, "the world is going to ruin, sure;"--but the world went on as usual, and the unitarians produced men like channing--one of the tenderest spirits that ever lived--they produced men like theodore parker--one of the greatest brained and greatest hearted men produced upon this continent--a good man--and yet they thought he was a blasphemer--they even prayed for his death--on their bended knees they asked their god to take time to kill him. well, they were mistaken. honest, probably. after awhile came the universalists, who said: "god is good. he will not damn anybody always, just for a little mistake he made here. this is a very short life; the path we travel is very dim, and a great many shadows fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub his toe, god will not burn him forever." and then all the rest of the sects cried out, "why, if you do away with hell, everybody will murder just for pastime--everybody will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves." but they did not. the universalists were good people--just as good as any others. most of them much better. none of the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet the differences existed. and so we go on until we find people who do not believe the bible at all, and when they say they do not, they come within this statute. now, gentlemen, i am going to try to show you, first, that this statute under which mr. reynolds is being tried is unconstitutional--that it is not in harmony with the constitution of new jersey; and i am going to try to show you in addition to that, that it was passed hundreds of years ago, by men who believed it was right to burn heretics and tie quakers to the end of a cart; men and even modest women--stripped naked--and lash them from town to town. they were the men who originally passed that statute, and i want to show you that it has slept all this time, and i am informed--i do not know how it is--that there never has been a prosecution in this state for blasphemy. now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. what is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation, in another. it is owing to where you are and who is in authority. and let me call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the american christians. we send missionaries to other countries. what for? to tell them that their religion is false, that their gods are myths and monsters, that their saviors and apostles were impostors, and that our religion is true. you send a man from morristown--a presbyterian, over to turkey. he goes there, and he tells the mohammedans--and he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it--that the koran is a lie, that mohammed was not a prophet of god, that the angel gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes--that it is all a mistake--there never was an angel so large as that. then what would the turks do? suppose the turks had a law like this statute in new jersey. they would put the morristown missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the people of morristown say? honestly--what do you think they would say? they would say, "why, look at those poor, heathen wretches. we sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." gentlemen, does not that show the need of more missionaries? i would say, yes. now, let us turn the tables. a gentleman comes from turkey to morristown. he has got a pamphlet. he says, "the koran is the inspired book, mohammed is the real prophet, your bible is false and your savior simply a myth." thereupon the morristown people put him in jail. then what would the turks say? they would say, "morristown needs more missionaries," and i would agree with them. in other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. let the world talk. and see how foolish this trial is. i have no doubt that the prosecuting attorney-agrees with me to-day, that whether this law is good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. and let me tell you why. here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. now, if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. that would have been the end. the diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand feet. but in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together since new jersey was first granted to charles ii.'s dearest brother james, the duke of york.. and what else? a trial here that is to be reported and published all over the united states, a trial that will give mr. reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. and yet this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject. i want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic--that it defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. not only so, but mr. reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his opinions on this subject. suppose that we put mr. reynolds in jail. the argument has not been sent to jail. that is still going the rounds, free as the winds. suppose you keep him at hard labor a year--all the time he is there, hundreds and thousands of people will be reading some account, or some fragment, of this trial. there is the trouble. if you could only imprison a thought, then intellectual tyranny might succeed. if you could only take an argument and put a striped suit of clothes on it--if you could only take a good, splendid, shining fact and lock it up in some dungeon of ignorance, so that its light would never again enter the mind of man, then you might succeed in stopping human progress. otherwise, no. let us see about this particular statute. in the first place, the state has a constitution. that constitution is a rule, a limitation to the power of the legislature, and a certain breastwork for the protection of private rights, and the constitution says to this sea of passions and prejudices: "thus far and no farther." the constitution says to each individual: "this shall panoply you; this is your complete coat of mail; this shall defend your rights." and it is usual in this country to make as a part of each constitution several general declarations--called the bill of rights. so i find that in the old constitution of new jersey, which was adopted in the year of grace , although the people at that time were not educated as they are now--the spirit of the revolution at that time not having permeated all classes of society--a declaration in favor of religious freedom. the people were on the eve of a revolution. this constitution was adopted on the third day of july, , one day before the immortal declaration of independence. now, what do we find in this--and we have got to go by this light, by this torch, when we examine the statute. i find in that constitution, in its eighteenth section, this: "no person shall ever in this state be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping god, in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; nor under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purpose of building or repairing any church or churches, contrary to what he believes to be true." that was a very great and splendid step. it was the divorce of church and state. it no longer allowed the state to levy taxes for the support of a particular religion, and it said to every citizen of new jersey: all that you give for that purpose must be voluntarily given, and the state will not compel you to pay for the maintenance of a church in which you do not believe. so far so good. the next paragraph was not so good. "there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this state in preference to another, and no protestant inhabitants of this state shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but all persons professing a belief in the faith of any protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably, shall be capable of being elected to any office of profit or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity enjoyed by other citizens." what became of the catholics under that clause, i do not know--whether they had any right to be elected to office or not under this act. but in , the state having grown civilized in the meantime, another constitution was adopted. the word protestant was then left out. there was to be no establishment of one religion over another. but protestantism did not render a man capable of being elected to office any more than catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious belief whatever. so far, so good. "no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust. no person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right on account of his religious principles." that is a very broad and splendid provision. "no person shall be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles." that was copied from the virginia constitution, and that clause in the virginia constitution was written by thomas jefferson, and under that clause men were entitled to give their testimony in the courts of virginia whether they believed in any religion or not, in any bible or not, or in any god or not. that same clause was afterward adopted by the state of illinois, also by many other states, and wherever that clause is, no citizen can be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles. it is a broad and generous clause. this statute, under which this indictment is drawn, is not in accordance with the spirit of that splendid sentiment. under that clause, no man can be deprived of any civil right on account of his religious principles, or on account of his belief. and yet, on account of this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous and savage statute, the same man who cannot be denied any political or civil right, can be sent to the penitentiary as a common felon for simply expressing his honest thought. and before i get through i hope to convince you that this statute is unconstitutional. but we will go another step: "every person may freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right." that is in the constitution of nearly every state in the union, and the intention of that is to cover slanderous words--to cover a case where a man under pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech falsely assails or accuses his neighbor. of course he should be held responsible for that abuse. then follows the great clause in the constitution of --more important than any other clause in that instrument--a clause that shines in that constitution like a star at night.-- "no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press." can anything be plainer--anything be more forcibly stated? "no law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of speech." now, while you are considering this statute, i want you to keep in mind this other statement: "no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press." and right here there is another thing i want to call your attention to. there is a constitution higher than any statute. there is a law higher than any constitution. it is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. above all things, one should maintain his selfrespect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal. there is a law higher than men can make. the facts as they exist in this poor world--the absolute consequences of certain acts--they are above all. and this higher law is the breath of progress, the very outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom we have. keep that in your minds. there never was a legislature great enough--there never was a constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilized man to stand between a black man and his liberty. there never was a constitution great enough to make me stand between any human being and his right to express his honest thoughts. such a constitution is an insult to the human soul, and i would care no more for it than i would for the growl of a wild beast. but we are not driven to that necessity here. this constitution is in accord with the highest and noblest aspirations of the heart--"no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech." now let us come to this old law--this law that was asleep for a hundred years before this constitution was adopted--this law coiled like a snake beneath the foundations of the government--this law, cowardly, dastardly--this law passed by wretches who were afraid: to discuss--this law passed by men who could not, and who knew they could not, defend their creed--and so they said: "give us the sword of the state and we will cleave the heretic down." and this law was made to control the minority. when the catholics were in power they visited that law upon their opponents. when the episcopalians were in power, they tortured and burned the poor catholic who had scoffed and who had denied the truth of their religion. whoever was in power used that, and whoever was out of power cursed that--and yet, the moment he got in power he used it: the people became civilized--but that law was on the statute book. it simply remained. there it was, sound asleep--its lips drawn over its long and cruel teeth. nobody savage enough to waken it. and it slept on, and new jersey has flourished. men have done well. you have had average health in this country. nobody roused the statute until the defendant in this case went to boonton, and there made a speech in which he gave his honest thought, and the people not having an argument handy, threw stones. thereupon mr. reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet on blasphemy and in it gave a photograph of the boonton christians. that is his offence. now let us read this infamous statute: "_if any person shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of god by denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching his being_"-- i want to say right here--many a man has cursed the god of another man. the catholics have cursed the god of the protestant. the presbyterians have cursed the god of the catholics--charged them with idolatry--cursed their images, laughed at their ceremonies. and these compliments have been interchanged between all the religions of the world. but i say here to-day that no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the god in whom he believed. no man, no human being, has ever lived who cursed his own idea of god. he always curses the idea that somebody else entertains. no human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be infinite wisdom and infinite goodness--and you know it. every man on this jury knows that. he feels that that must be an absolute certainty. then what have they cursed? some god they did not believe in--that is all. and has a man that right? i say, yes. he has a right to give his opinion of jupiter, and there is nobody in morristown who will deny him that right. but several thousands years ago it would have been very dangerous for him to have cursed jupiter, and yet jupiter is just as powerful now as he was then, but the roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was to jupiter--the roman people. so there was a time when you could have cursed zeus, the god of the greeks, and like socrates, they would have compelled you to drink hemlock. yet now everybody can curse this god. why? is the god dead? no. he is just as alive as he ever was. then what has happened? the greeks have passed away. that is all. so in all of our churches here. whenever a church is in the minority it clamors for free speech. when it gets in the majority, no. i do not believe the history of the world will show that any orthodox church when in the majority ever had the courage to face the free lips of the world. it sends for a constable. and is it not wonderful that they should do this when they preach the gospel of universal forgiveness--when they say, "if a man strike you on one cheek turn to him the other also--but if he laughs at your religion, put him in the penitentiary"? is that the doctrine? is that the law? now, read this law. do you know as i read it i can almost hear john calvin laugh in his grave. that would have been a delight to him. it is written exactly as he would have written it. there never was an inquisitor who would not have read that law with a malicious smile. the christians who brought the fagots and ran with all their might to be at the burning, would have enjoyed that law. you know that when they used to burn people for having said something against religion, they used to cut their tongues out before they burned them. why? for fear that if they did not, the poor, burning victims might say something that would scandalize the christian gentlemen who were building the fire. all these persons would have been delighted with this law. let us read a little further: "--_or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching jesus christ_." why, whoever did, since the poor man, or the poor god, was crucified? how did they come to crucify him? because they did not believe in free speech in jerusalem. how else? because there was a law against blasphemy in jerusalem--a law exactly like this. just think of it. oh, i tell you we have passed too many mile-stones on the shining road of human progress to turn back and wallow in that blood, in that mire. no: some men have said that he was simply a man. some believed that he was actually a god. others believed that he was not only a man, but that he stood as the representative of infinite love and wisdom. no man ever said one word against that being for saying "do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." no man ever raised his voice against him because he said, "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." and are they the "merciful" who when some man endeavors to answer their argument, put him in the penitentiary? no. the trouble is, the priests--the trouble is, the ministers--the trouble is, the people whose business it was to tell the meaning of these things, quarreled' with each other, and they put meanings upon human expressions by malice, meanings that the words will not bear. and let me be just to them. i believe that nearly all that has been done in this world has been honestly done. i believe that the poor savage who kneels down and prays to a stuffed snake--prays that his little children may recover from the fever--is honest, and it seems to me that a good god would answer his prayer if he could, if it was in accordance with wisdom, because the poor savage was doing the best he could, and no one can do any better than that. so i believe that the presbyterians who used to think that nearly everybody was going to hell, said exactly what they believed. they were honest about it, and i would not send one of them to jail--would never think of such a thing--even if he called the unbelievers of the world "wretches," "dogs," and "devils." what would i do? i would simply answer him--that is all; answer him kindly. i might laugh at him a little, but i would answer him in kindness. so these divisions of the human mind are natural. they are a necessity. do you know that all the mechanics that ever lived--take the best ones--cannot make two clocks that will run exactly alike one hour, one minute? they cannot make two pendulums that will beat in exactly the same time, one beat. if you cannot do that, how are you going to make hundreds, thousands, billions of people, each with a different quality and quantity of brain, each clad in a robe of living, quivering flesh, and each driven by passion's storm over the wild sea of life--how are you going to make them all think alike? this is the impossible thing that christian ignorance and bigotry and malice have been trying to do. this was the object of the inquisition and of the foolish legislature that passed this statute. let me read you another line from this ignorant statute:-- "_or the christian religion_." well, what is the christian religion? "if you scoff at the christian religion--if you curse the christian religion." well what is it? gentlemen, you hear presbyterians every day attack the catholic church. is that the christian religion? the catholic believes it is the christian religion, and you have to admit that it is the oldest one, and then the catholics turn round and scoff at the protestants. is that the christian religion? if so, every christian religion has been cursed by every other christian religion. is not that an absurd and foolish statute? i say that the catholic has the right to attack the presbyterian and tell him, "your doctrine is all wrong." i think he has the right to say to him, "you are leading thousands to hell." if he believes it, he not only has the right to say it, but it is his duty to say it; and if the presbyterian really believes the catholics are all going to the devil, it is his duty to say so. why not? i will never have any religion that i cannot defend--that is, that i do not believe i can defend. i may be mistaken, because no man is absolutely certain that he knows. we all understand that. every one is liable to be mistaken. the horizon of each individual is very narrow, and in his poor sky the stars are few and very small. "_or the word of god_--" what is that? "_the canonical scriptures contained in the books of the old and new testaments_." now, what has a man the right to say about that? has he the right to show that the book of revelation got into the canon by one vote, and one only? has he the right to show that they passed in convention upon what books they would put in and what they would not? has he the right to show that there were twenty-eight books called "the books of the hebrew's"? has he the right to show that? has he the right to show that martin luther said he did not believe there was one solitary word of gospel in the epistle to the romans? has he the right to show that some of these books were not written till nearly two hundred years afterward? has he the right to say it, if he believes it? i do not say whether this is true or not, but has a man the right to say it if he believes it? suppose i should read the bible all through right here in morristown, and after i got through i should make up my mind that it is not a true book--what ought i to say? ought i to clap my hand over my mouth and start for another state, and the minute i got over the line say, "it is not true, it is not true"? or, ought i to have the right and privilege of saying right here in new jersey, "my fellow-citizens, i have read the book--i do not believe that it is the word of god"? suppose i read it and think it is true, then i am bound to say so. if i should go to turkey and read the koran and make up my mind that it is false, you would all say that i was a miserable poltroon if i did not say so. by force you can make hypocrites--men who will agree with you from the teeth out, and in their hearts hate you. we want no more hypocrites. we have enough in every community. and how are you going to keep from having more? by having the air free,--by wiping from your statute books such miserable and infamous laws as this. "_the holy scriptures_." are they holy? must a man be honest? has he the right to be sincere? there are thousands of things in the scriptures that everybody believes. everybody believes the scriptures are right when they say, "thou shalt not steal"--everybody. and when they say "give good measure, heaped up and running over," everybody says, "good!" so when they say "love your neighbor," everybody applauds that. suppose a man believes that, and practices it, does it make any difference whether he believes in the flood or not? is that of any importance? whether a man built an ark or not--does that make the slightest difference? a man might deny it and yet be a very good man. another might believe it and be a very mean man. could it now, by any possibility, make a man a good father, a good husband, a good citizen? does it make any difference whether you believe it or not? does it make any difference whether or not you believe that a man was going through town, and his hair was a little short, like mine, and some little children laughed at him, and thereupon two bears from the woods came down and tore to pieces about forty of these children? is it necessary to believe that? suppose a man should say, "i guess that is a mistake; they did not copy that right; i guess the man that reported that was a little dull of hearing and did not get the story exactly right." any harm in saying that? is a man to be sent to the penitentiary for that? can you imagine an infinitely good god sending a man to hell because he did not believe the bear story? so i say if you believe the bible, say so; if you do not believe it, say so. and here is the vital mistake, i might almost say, in protestantism itself. the protestants when they fought the catholics said: "read the bible for yourselves--stop taking it from your priests--read the sacred volume with your own eyes; it is a revelation from god to his children, and you are the children." and then they said: "if after you read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in jail, and god will put you in hell." that is a fine position to get a man in. it is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at his pictures, saying: "they are the finest in the place, and i want your candid opinion. a man who looked at them the other day said they were daubs, and i kicked him downstairs--now i want your candid judgment." so the protestant church says to a man, "this bible is a message from your father,--your father in heaven. read it. judge for yourself. but if after you have read it you say it is not true, i will put you in the penitentiary for one year." the catholic church has a little more sense about that--at least more logic. it says: "this bible is not given to everybody. it is given to the world, to be sure, but it must be interpreted by the church. god would not give a bible to the world unless he also appointed some one, some organization, to tell the world what it means." they said: "we do not want the world filled with interpretations, and all the interpreters fighting each other." and the protestant has gone to the infinite absurdity of saying: "judge for yourself, but if you judge wrong you will go to the penitentiary here and to hell hereafter.". now, let us see further: "_or by profane scoffing expose them to ridicule_" think of such a law as that, passed under a constitution that says, "no law shall abridge the liberty of speech." but you must not ridicule the scriptures. did anybody ever dream of passing a law to protect shakespeare from being laughed at? did anybody ever think of such a thing? did anybody ever want any legislative enactment to keep people from holding robert burns in contempt? the songs of burns will be sung as long as there is love in the human heart. do we need to protect him from ridicule by a statute? does he need assistance from new jersey? is any statute needed to keep euclid from being laughed at in this neighborhood? and is it possible that a work written by an infinite being has to be protected by a legislature? is it possible that a book cannot be written by a god so that it will not excite the laughter of the human race? why, gentlemen, humor is one of the most valuable things in the human brain. it is the torch of the mind--it sheds light. humor is the readiest test of truth--of the natural, of the sensible--and when you take from a man all sense of humor, there will only be enough left to make a bigot. teach this man who has no humor--no sense of the absurd--the presbyterian creed, fill his darkened brain with superstition and his heart with hatred--then frighten him with the threat of hell, and he will be ready to vote for that statute. such men made that law. let us read another clause:-- "_and every person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined nor exceeding two hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding twelve months, or both_." i want you to remember that this statute was passed in england hundreds of years ago--just in that language. the punishment, however, has been somewhat changed. in the good old days when the king sat on the throne--in the good old days when the altar was the right-bower of the throne--then, instead of saying: "fined two hundred dollars and imprisoned one year," it was: "all his goods shall be confiscated; his tongue shall be bored with a hot iron, and upon his forehead he shall be branded with the letter b; and for the second offence he shall suffer death by burning." those were the good old days when people maintained the orthodox religion in all its purity and in all its ferocity. the first question for you, gentlemen, to decide in this case is: is this statute constitutional? is this statute in harmony with, the part of the constitution of which says: "the liberty of speech shall not be abridged"? that is for you to say. is this law constitutional, or is it simply an old statute that fell asleep, that was forgotten, that people simply failed to repeal? i believe i can convince you, if you will think a moment, that our fathers never intended to establish a government like that. when they fought for what they believed to be religious liberty--when they fought for what they believed to be liberty of speech, they believed that all such statutes would be wiped from the statute books of all the states. let me tell you another reason why i believe this. we have in this country naturalization laws. people may come here irrespective of their religion. they must simply swear allegiance to this country--they must forswear allegiance to every other potentate, prince and power--but they do not have to change their religion. a hindoo may become a citizen of the united states, and the constitution of the united states, like the constitution of new jersey, guarantees religious liberty. that hindoo believes in a god--in a god that no christian does believe in. he believes in a sacred book that every christian looks upon as a collection of falsehoods. he believes, too, in a savior--in buddha. now, i ask you,--when that man comes here and becomes a citizen--when the constitution is about him, above him--has he the right to give his ideas about his religion? has he the right to say in new jersey: "there is no god except the supreme brahm--there is no savior except buddha, the illuminated, buddha the blest"? i say that he has that right--and you have no right, because in addition to that he says, "you are mistaken; your god is not god; your bible is not true, and your religion is a mistake," to abridge his liberty of speech. he has the right to say it, and if he has the right to say it, i insist before this court and before this jury, that he has the right to give his reasons for saying it; and in giving those reasons, in maintaining his side, he has the right, not simply to appeal to history, not simply to the masonry of logic, but he has the right to shoot the arrows of wit, and to use the smile of ridicule. anything that can be laughed out of this world ought not to stay in it. so the persian--the believer in zoroaster, in the spirits of good and evil, and that the spirit of evil will finally triumph forever--if that is his religion--has the right to state it, and the right to give his reasons for his belief. how infinitely preposterous for you, one of the states of this union, to invite a persian or a hindoo to come to your shores. you do not ask him to renounce his god. you ask him to renounce the shah. then when he becomes a citizen, having the rights of every other citizen, he has the right to defend his religion and to denounce yours. there is another thing. what was the spirit of our government at that time? you must look at the leading men. who were they? what were their opinions? were most of them as guilty of blasphemy as is the defendant in this case? thomas jefferson--and there is, in my judgment, only one name on the page of american history greater than his--only one name for which i have a greater and tenderer reverence--and that is abraham lincoln, because of all men who ever lived and had power, he was the most merciful. and that is the way to test a man. how does he use power? does he want to crush his fellow citizens? does he like to lock somebody up in the penitentiary because he has the power of the moment? does he wish to use it as a despot, or as a philanthropist--like a devil, or like a man? thomas jefferson entertained about the same views entertained by the defendant in this case, and he was made president of the united states. he was the author of the declaration of independence, founder of the university of virginia, writer of that clause in the constitution of that state, that made all the citizens equal before the law. and when i come to the very sentences here charged as blasphemy, i will show you that these were the common sentiments of thousands of very great, of very intellectual and admirable men. i have no time, and it may be this is not the place and the occasion, to call your attention to the infinite harm that has been done in almost every religious nation by statutes such as this. where that statute is, liberty can not be; and if this statute is enforced by this jury and by this court, and if it is afterwards carried out, and if it could be carried out in the states of this union, there would be an end of all intellectual progress. we would go back to the dark ages. every man's mind, upon these subjects at least, would become a stagnant pool, covered with the scum of prejudice and meanness. and wherever such laws have been enforced, have the people been friends? here we are to-day in this blessed air--here amid these happy fields. can we imagine, with these surroundings, that a man for having been found with a crucifix in his poor little home, had been taken from his wife and children and burned--burned by protestants? you cannot conceive of such a thing now. neither can you conceive that there was a time when catholics found some poor protestant contradicting one of the dogmas of the church, and took that poor honest wretch--while his wife wept--while his children clung to his hands--to the public square, drove a stake in the ground, put a chain or two about him, lighted the fagots, and let the wife whom he loved and his little children see the flames climb around his limbs--you cannot imagine that any such infamy was ever practiced. and yet i tell you that the same spirit made this detestable, infamous, devilish statute. you can hardly imagine that there was a time when the same kind of men that made this law said to another man: "you say this world is round?" "yes, sir; i think it is, because i have seen its shadow on the moon." "you have?"--now, can you imagine a society, outside of hyenas and boa-constrictors, that would take that man, put him in the penitentiary, in a dungeon, turn the key upon him, and let his name be blotted from the book of human life? years afterward some explorer amid ruins finds a few bones. the same spirit that did that, made this statute--the same spirit that did that, went before the grand jury in this case--exactly. give the men that had this man indicted, the power, and i would not want to live in that particular part of the country. i would not willingly live with such men. i would go somewhere else, where the air is free, where i could speak my sentiments to my wife, to my children, and to my neighbors. now, this persecution differs only in degree from the infamies of the olden times. what does it mean? it means that the state of new jersey has all the light it wants. and what does that mean? it means that the state of new jersey is absolutely infallible--that it has got its growth and does not propose to grow any more. new jersey knows enough, and it will send teachers to the penitentiary. it is hardly possible that this state has accomplished all that it is ever going to accomplish. religions are for a day. they are the clouds. humanity is the eternal blue. religions are the waves of the sea. these waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind--that is to say, of passion; but humanity is the great sea. and so our religions change from day to day, and it is a blessed thing that they do. why? because we grow, and we are getting a little more civilized every day,--and any man that is not willing to let another man express his opinion, is not a civilized man, and you know it. any man that does not give to everybody else the rights he claims for himself, is not in honest man. here is a man who says, "i am going to join the methodist church." what right has he? just the same right to join it that i have not to join it--no more, no less. but if you are a methodist and i am not, it simply proves that you do not agree with me, and that i do not agree with you--that is all. another man is a catholic. he was born a catholic, or is convinced that catholicism is right. that is his business, and any man that would persecute him on that account, is a poor barbarian--a savage; any man that would abuse him on that account, is a barbarian--a savage. then i take the next step. a man does not wish to belong to any church. how are you going to judge him? judge him by the way he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors. does he pay his debts? does he tell the truth? does he help the poor? has he got a heart that melts when he hears grief's story? that is the way to judge him. i do not care what he thinks about the bears, or the flood, about bibles or gods. when some poor mother is found wandering in the street with a babe at her breast, does he quote scripture, or hunt for his pocket-book? that is the way to judge. and suppose he does not believe in any bible whatever? if christianity is true, that is his misfortune, and everybody should pity the poor wretch that is going down the hill. why kick him? you will get your revenge on him through all eternity--is not that enough? so i say, let us judge each other by our actions, not by theories, not by what we happen to believe--because that depends very much on where we were born. if you had been born in turkey, you probably would have been a mohammedan. if i had been born among the hindoos, i might have been a buddhist--i can't tell. if i had been raised in scotland, on oatmeal, i might have been a covenanter--nobody knows. if i had lived in ireland, and seen my poor wife and children driven into the street, i think i might have been a home-ruler--no doubt of it. you see it depends on where you were born--much depends on our surroundings. of course, there are men born in turkey who are not mohammedans, and there are men born in this country who are not christians--methodists, unitarians, or catholics, plenty of them, who are unbelievers--plenty of them who deny the truth of the scriptures--plenty of them who say: "i know not whether there be a god or not." well, it is a thousand times better to say that honestly than to say dishonestly that you believe in god. if you want to know the opinion of your neighbor, you want his honest opinion. you do not want to be deceived. you do not want to talk with a hypocrite. you want to get straight at his honest mind--and then you are going to judge him, not by what he says but by what he does. it is very easy to sail along with the majority--easy to sail the way the boats are going--easy to float with the stream; but when you come to swim against the tide, with the men on the shore throwing rocks at you, you will get a good deal of exercise in this world. and do you know that we ought to feel under the greatest obligation to men who have fought the prevailing notions of their day? there is not a presbyterian in morristown that does not hold up for admiration the man that carried the flag of the presbyterians when they were in the minority--not one. there is not a methodist in this state who does not admire john and charles wesley and whitefield, who carried the banner of that new and despised sect when it was in the minority. they glory in them because they braved public opinion, because they dared to oppose idiotic, barbarous and savage statutes like this. and there is not a universalist that does not worship dear old hosea ballou--i love him myself--because he said to the presbyterian minister: "you are going around trying to keep people out of hell, and i am going around trying to keep hell out of the people." every universalist admires him and loves him because when despised and railed at and spit upon, he stood firm, a patient witness for the eternal mercy of god. and there is not a solitary protestant who does not honor martin luther--who does not honor the covenanters in poor scotland, and that poor girl who was tied out on the sand of the sea by episcopalians, and kept there till the rising tide drowned her, and all she had to do to save her life was to say, "god save the king," but she would not say it without the addition of the words, "if it be god's will." no one, who is not a miserable, contemptible wretch, can fail to stand in admiration before such courage, such self-denial--such heroism. no matter what the attitude of your body may be, your soul falls on its knees before such men and such women. let us take another step. where would we have been if authority had always triumphed? where would we have been if such statutes had always been carried out? we have now a science called astronomy. that science has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else. we now live in an infinite universe. we know that the sun is a million times larger than our earth, and we know that there are other great luminaries millions of times larger than our sun. we know that there are planets so far away that light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand years to reach this grain of sand, this tear, we call the earth--and we now know that all the fields of space are sown thick with constellations. if that statute had been enforced, that science would not now be the property of the human mind. that science is contrary to the bible, and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. for what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would the world have the science of astronomy expunged from the brain of man? we learned the story of the stars in spite of that statute. the first men who said the world was round were scourged for scoffing at the scriptures. and even martin luther, speaking of one of the greatest men that ever lived, said: "does he think with his little lever to overturn the universe of god?" martin luther insisted that such men ought to be trampled under foot. if that statute had been carried into effect, galileo would have been impossible. kepler, the discoverer of the three laws, would have died with the great secret locked in his brain, and mankind would have been left ignorant, superstitious, and besotted. and what else? if that statute had been carried out, the world would have been deprived of the philosophy of spinoza; of the philosophy, of the literature, of the wit and wisdom, the justice and mercy of voltaire, the greatest frenchman that ever drew the breath of life--the man who by his mighty pen abolished torture in a nation, and helped to civilize a world. if that statute had been enforced, nearly all the books that enrich the libraries of the world could not have been written. if that statute had been enforced, humboldt could not have delivered the lectures now known as "the cosmos." if that statute had been enforced, charles darwin would not have been allowed to give to the world his discoveries that have been of more benefit to mankind than all the sermons ever uttered. in england they have placed his sacred dust in the great abbey. if he had lived in new jersey, and this statute could have been enforced, he would have lived one year at least in your penitentiary. why? that man went so far as not simply to deny the truth of your bible, but absolutely to deny the existence of your god. was he a good man? yes, one of the noblest and greatest of men. humboldt, the greatest german who ever lived, was of the same opinion. and so i might go on with the great men of to-day. who are the men who are leading the race upward and shedding light in the intellectual world? they are the men declared by that statute to be criminals. mr. spencer could not publish his books in the state of new jersey. he would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned; and yet that man has added to the intellectual wealth of the world. so with huxley, so with tyndall, so with helmholtz--so with the greatest thinkers and greatest writers of modern times. you may not agree with these men--and what does that prove? it simply proves that they do not agree with you--that is all. who is to blame? i do not know. they may be wrong, and you may be right; but if they had the power, and put you in the penitentiary simply because you differed with them, they would be savages; and if you have the power and imprison men because they differ from you, why then, of course, you are savages. no; i believe in intellectual hospitality. i love men that have a little horizon to their minds--a little sky, a little scope. i hate anything that is narrow and pinched and withered and mean and crawling, and that is willing to live on dust. i believe in creating such an atmosphere that things will burst into blossom. i believe in good will, good health, good fellowship, good feeling--and if there is any god on the earth, or in heaven, let us hope that he will be generous and grand. do you not see what the effect will be? i am not cursing you because you are a methodist, and not damning you because you are a catholic, or because you are an infidel--a good man is more than all of these. the grandest of all things is to be in the highest and noblest sense a man. now let us see the frightful things that this man, the defendant in this case, has done. let me read the charges against him as set out in this indictment. i shall insist that this statute does not cover any publication--that it covers simply speech--not in writing, not in book or pamphlet. let us see: "_this bible describes god as so loving that he drowned the whole world in his mad fury_." well, the great question about that is, is it true? does the bible describe god as having drowned the whole world with the exception of eight people? does it, or does it not? i do not know whether there is anybody in this county who has really read the bible, but i believe the story of the flood is there. it does say that god destroyed all flesh, and that he did so because he was angry. he says so, himself, if the bible be true. the defendant has simply repeated what is in the bible. the bible says that god is loving, and says that he drowned the world, and that he was angry. is it blasphemy to quote from the "sacred scriptures"? "_because it was so much worse than he, knowing all things, ever supposed it could be._" well, the bible does say that he repented having made man. now, is there any blasphemy in saying that the bible is true? that is the only question. it is a fact that god, according to the bible, did drown nearly everybody. if god knows all things, he must have known at the time he made them that he was going to drown them. is it likely that a being of infinite wisdom would deliberately do what he knew he must undo? is it blasphemy to ask that question? have you a right to think about it at all? if you have, you have the right to tell somebody what you think--if not, you have no right to discuss it, no right to think about it. all you have to do is to read it and believe it--to open your mouth like a young robin, and swallow--worms or shingle nails--no matter which. the defendant further blasphemed and said that:-- "_an all-wise, unchangeable god, who got out of patience with a world which was just what his own stupid blundering had made it, knew no better way out of the muddle than to destroy it by drowning!_" is that true? was not the world exactly as god made it? certainly. did he not, if the bible is true, drown the people? he did. did he know he would drown them when he made them? he did. did he know they ought to be drowned when they were made? he did. where then, is the blasphemy in saying so? there is not a minister in this world who could explain it--who would be permitted to explain it--under this statute. and yet you would arrest this man and put him in the penitentiary. but after you lock him in the cell, there remains the question still. is it possible that a good and wise god, knowing that he was going to drown them, made millions of people? what did he make them for? i do not know. i do not pretend to be wise enough to answer that question. of course, you cannot answer the question. is there anything blasphemous in that? would it be blasphemy in me to say i do not believe that any god ever made men, women and children--mothers, with babes clasped to their breasts, and then sent a flood to fill the world with death? a rain lasting for forty days--the water rising hour by hour, and the poor wretched children of god climbing to the tops of their houses--then to the tops of the hills. the water still rising--no mercy. the people climbing higher and higher, looking to the mountains for salvation--the merciless rain still falling, the inexorable flood still rising. children falling from the arms of mothers--no pity. the highest hills covered--infancy and old age mingling in death--the cries of women, the sobs and sighs lost in the roar of waves--the heavens still relentless. the mountains are covered--a shoreless sea rolls round the world, and on its billows are billions of corpses. this is the greatest crime that man has imagined, and this crime is called a deed of infinite mercy. do you believe that? i do not believe one word of it, and i have the right to say to all the world that this is false. if there be a good god, the story is not true. if there be a wise god, the story is not true. ought an honest man to be sent to the penitentiary for simply telling the truth? suppose we had a statute that whoever scoffed at science--whoever by profane language should bring the rule of three into contempt, or whoever should attack the proposition that two parallel lines will never include a space, should be sent to the penitentiary--what would you think of it? it would be just as wise and just as idiotic as this. and what else says the defendant? "_the bible-god says that his people made him jealous." "provoked him to anger._" is that true? it is. if it is true, is it blasphemous? let us read another line-- "_and now he will raise the mischief with them; that his anger bums like hell_." that is true. the bible says of god--"my anger burns to the lowest hell." and that is all that the defendant says. every word of it is in the bible. he simply does not believe it--and for that reason is a "blasphemer." i say to you now, gentlemen,--and i shall argue to the court,--that there is not in what i have read a solitary blasphemous word--not a word that has not been said in hundreds of pulpits in the christian world. theodore parker, a unitarian, speaking of this bible-god said: "vishnu with a necklace of skulls, vishnu with bracelets of living, hissing serpents, is a figure of love and mercy compared to the god of the old testament." that, we might call "blasphemy," but not what i have read. let us read on:-- "_he would destroy them all were it not that he feared the wrath of the enemy_." that is in the bible--word for word. then the defendant in astonishment says: "_the almighty god afraid of his enemies!_" that is what the bible says. what does it mean? if the bible is true, god was afraid. "_can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy?_" is not that true? if god be infinitely good and wise and powerful, is it possible he is afraid of anything? if the defendant had said that god was afraid of his enemies, that might have been blasphemy--but this man says the bible says that, and you are asked to say that it is blasphemy. now, up to this point there is no blasphemy, even if you were to enforce this infamous statute--this savage law. "_the old testament records for our instruction in morals, the most foul and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and polygamy, perpetrated by god's own saints, and the new testament indorses these lecherous wretches as examples for all good christians to follow_.". now, is it not a fact that the old testament does uphold polygamy? abraham would have gotten into trouble in new jersey--no doubt of that. sarah could have obtained a divorce in this state--no doubt of that. what is the use of telling a falsehood about it? let us tell the truth about the patriarchs. everybody knows that the same is true of moses. we have all heard of solomon--a gentleman with five or six hundred wives, and three or four hundred other ladies with whom he was acquainted. this is simply what the defendant says. is there any blasphemy about that? it is only the truth. if solomon were living in the united states to-day, we would put him in the penitentiary. you know that under the edmunds mormon law he would be locked up. if you should present a petition signed by his eleven hundred wives, you could not get him out. so it was with david. there are some splendid things about david, of course. i admit that, and pay my tribute of respect to his courage--but he happened to have ten or twelve wives too many, so he shut them up, put them in a kind of penitentiary and kept them there till they died. that would not be considered good conduct even in morristown. you know that. is it any harm to speak of it? there are plenty of ministers here to set it right--thousands of them all over the country, every one with his chance to talk all day sunday and nobody to say a word back. the pew cannot reply to the pulpit, you know; it has just to sit there and take it. if there is any harm in this, if it is not true, they ought to answer it. but it is here, and the only answer is an indictment. i say that lot was a bad man. so i say of abraham, and of jacob. did you ever know of a more despicable fraud practiced by one brother on another than jacob practiced on esau? my sympathies have always been with esau. he seemed to be a manly man. is it blasphemy to say that you do not like a hypocrite, a murderer, or a thief, because his name is in the bible? how do you know what such men are mentioned for? may be they are mentioned as examples, and you certainly ought not to be led away and induced to imagine that a man with seven hundred wives is a pattern of domestic propriety, one to be followed by yourself and your sons. i might go on and mention the names of hundreds of others who committed every conceivable crime, in the name of religion--who declared war, and on the field of battle killed men, women and babes, even children yet unborn, in the name of the most merciful god. the bible is filled with the names and crimes of these sacred savages, these inspired beasts. any man who says that a god of love commanded the commission of these crimes is, to say the least of it, mistaken. if there be a god, then it is blasphemous to charge him with the commission of crime. but let us read further from this indictment: "the aforesaid printed document contains other scandalous, infamous and blasphemous matters and things, to the tenor and effect following, that is to say--" then comes this particularly blasphemous line: "_now, reader, take time and calmly think it over _." gentlemen, there are many things i have read that i should not have expressed in exactly the same language used by the defendant, and many things that i am going to read i might not have said at all, but the defendant had the right to say every word with which he is charged in this indictment. he had the right to give his honest thought, no matter whether any human being agreed with what he said or not, and no matter whether any other man approved of the manner in which he said these things. i defend his right to speak, whether i believe in what he spoke or not, or in the propriety of saying what he did. i should defend a man just as cheerfully who had spoken against my doctrine, as one who had spoken against the popular superstitions of my time. it would make no difference to me how unjust the attack was upon my belief--how maliciously ingenious; and no matter how sacred the conviction that was attacked, i would defend the freedom of speech. and why? because no attack can be answered by force, no argument can be refuted by a blow, or by imprisonment, or by fine. you may imprison the man, but the argument is free; you may fell the man to the earth, but the statement stands. the defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the christian world to be sacred. yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth i mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes. the defendant says: "_take time to calmly think it over: was a jewish girl the mother of god, the mother of your god?_" the defendant probably asked this question, supposing that it must be answered by all sensible people in the negative. if the christian religion is true, then a jewish girl was the mother of almighty god. personally, if the doctrine is true, i have no fault to find with the statement that a jewish maiden was the mother of god.--millions believe, that this is true--i do not believe,--but who knows? if a god came from the throne of the universe, came to this world and became the child of a pure and loving woman, it would not lessen, in my eyes, the dignity or the greatness of that god. there is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the fruit of love. no matter how the statement is made, the fact remains the same. a jewish girl became the mother of god. if the bible is true, that is true, and to repeat it, even according to your law, is not blasphemous, and to doubt it, or to express the doubt, or to deny it, is not contrary to your constitution. to this defendant it seemed improbable that god was ever born of woman, was ever held in the lap of a mother; and because he cannot believe this, he is charged with blasphemy. could you pour contempt on shakespeare by saying that his mother was a woman,--by saying that he was once a poor, crying, little, helpless child? of course he was; and he afterwards became the greatest human being that ever touched the earth,--the only man whose intellectual wings have reached from sky to sky; and he was once a crying babe. what of it? does that cast any scorn or contempt upon him? does this take any of the music from "midsummer night's dream"?--any of the passionate wealth from "antony and cleopatra," any philosophy from "macbeth," any intellectual grandeur from "king lear"? on the contrary, these great productions of the brain show the growth of the dimpled babe, give every mother a splendid dream and hope for her child, and cover every cradle with a sublime possibility. the defendant is also charged with having said that: "_god cried and screamed_." why not? if he was absolutely a child, he was like other children,--like yours, like mine. i have seen the time, when absent from home, that i would have given more to have heard my children cry, than to have heard the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into flower. what if god did cry? it simply shows that his humanity was real and not assumed, that it was a tragedy, real, and not a poor pretence. and the defendant also says that if the orthodox religion be true, that the "_god of the universe kicked, and flung about his little arms, and made aimless dashes into space with his little fists_." is there anything in this that is blasphemous? one of the best pictures i ever saw of the virgin and child was painted by the spaniard, murillo. christ appears to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. such a picture takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or the glory of the incarnation. i think it is the best thing about the catholic church that it lifts up for adoration and admiration, a mother,--that it pays what it calls "divine honors" to a woman. there is certainly goodness in that, and where a church has so few practices that are good, i am willing to point this one out. it is the one redeeming feature about catholicism, that it teaches the worship of a woman. the defendant says more about the childhood of christ. he goes so far as to say, that: "_he was found staring foolishly at his own little toes._" and why not? the bible says, that "he increased in wisdom and stature." the defendant might have referred to something far more improbable. in the same verse in which st. luke says that jesus increased in wisdom and stature, will be found the assertion that he increased in favor with god and man. the defendant might have asked how it was that the love of god for god increased. but the defendant has simply stated that the child jesus grew, as other children grow; that he acted like other children, and if he did, it is more than probable that he did stare at his own toes. i have laughed many a time to see little children astonished with the sight of their feet. they seem to wonder what on earth puts the little toes in motion. certainly there is nothing blasphemous in supposing that the feet of christ amused him, precisely as the feet of other children have amused them. there is nothing blasphemous about this; on the contrary, it is beautiful. if i believed in the existence of god, the creator of this world, the being who, with the hand of infinity, sowed the fields of space with stars, as a farmer sows his grain, i should like to think of him as a little, dimpled babe, overflowing with joy, sitting upon the knees of a loving mother. the ministers themselves might take a lesson even from the man who is charged with blasphemy, and make an effort to bring an infinite god a little nearer to the human heart. the defendant also says, speaking of the infant christ, "_he was nursed at mary's breast._" yes, and if the story be true, that is the tenderest fact in it. nursed at the breast of woman. no painting, no statue, no words can make a deeper and a tenderer impression upon the heart of man than this: the infinite god, a babe, nursed at the holy breast of woman. you see these things do not strike all people the same. to a man that has been raised on the orthodox desert, these things are incomprehensible. he has been robbed of his humanity. he has no humor, nothing but the stupid and the solemn. his fancy sits with folded wings. imagination, like the atmosphere of spring, woos every seed of earth to seek the blue of heaven, and whispers of bud and flower and fruit. imagination gathers from every field of thought and pours the wealth of many lives into the lap of one. to the contracted, to the cast-iron people who believe in heartless and inhuman creeds, the words of the defendant seem blasphemous, and to them the thought that god was a little child is monstrous. they cannot bear to hear it said that he nursed at the breast of a maiden, that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that he had the joys and sorrows of other babes. i hope, gentlemen, that not only you, but the attorneys for the prosecution, have read what is known as the "apocryphal new testament," books that were once considered inspired, once admitted to be genuine, and that once formed a part of our new testament. i hope you have read the books of joseph and mary, of the shepherd of hermes, of the infancy and of mary, in which many of the things done by the youthful christ are described--books that were once the delight of the christian world; books that gave joy to children, because in them they read that christ made little birds of clay, that would at his command stretch out their wings and fly with joy above his head. if the defendant in this case had said anything like that, here in the state of new jersey, he would have been indicted; the orthodox ministers would have shouted "blasphemy," and yet, these little stories made the name of christ dearer to children. the church of to-day lacks sympathy; the theologians are without affection. after all, sympathy is genius. a man who really sympathizes with another understands him. a man who sympathizes with a religion, instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with the right, sees the evil that a creed contains. but the defendant, still speaking of the infant christ, is charged with having said: "_god smiled when he was comfortable. he lay in a cradle and was rocked to sleep._" yes, and there is no more beautiful picture than that. let some great religious genius paint a picture of this kind--of a babe smiling with content, rocked in the cradle by the mother who bends tenderly and proudly above him. there could be no more beautiful, no more touching, picture than this. what would i not give for a picture of shakespeare as a babe,--a picture that was a likeness,--rocked by his mother? i would give more for this than for any painting that now enriches the walls of the world. the defendant also says, that: "_god was sick when cutting his teeth._" and what of that? we are told that he was tempted in all points, as we are. that is to say, he was afflicted, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he suffered the pains and miseries common to man. otherwise, he was not flesh, he was not human. "_he caught the measles, the mumps, the scarlet fever and the whooping cough_." certainly he was liable to have these diseases, for he was, in fact, a child. other children have them. other children, loved as dearly by their mothers as christ could have been by his, and yet they are taken from the little family by fever; taken, it may be, and buried in the snow, while the poor mother goes sadly home, wishing that she was lying by its side. all that can be said of every word in this address, about christ and about his childhood, amounts to this; that he lived the life of a child; that he acted like other children. i have read you substantially what he has said, and this is considered blasphemous. he has said, that: "_according to the old testament, the god of the christian world commanded people to destroy each other._" if the bible is true, then the statement of the defendant is true. is it calculated to bring god into contempt to deny that he upheld polygamy, that he ever commanded one of his generals to rip open with the sword of war, the woman with child? is it blasphemy to deny that a god of infinite love gave such commandments? is such a denial calculated to pour contempt and scorn upon the god of the orthodox? is it blasphemous to deny that god commanded his children to murder each other? is it blasphemous to say that he was benevolent, merciful and just? it is impossible to say that the bible is true and that god is good. i do not believe that a god made this world, filled it with people and then drowned them. i do not believe that infinite wisdom ever made a mistake. if there be any god he was too good to commit such an infinite crime, too wise, to make such a mistake. is this blasphemy? is it blasphemy to say that solomon was not a virtuous man, or that david was an adulterer? must we say when this ancient king had one of his best generals placed in the front of the battle--deserted him and had him murdered for the purpose of stealing his wife, that he was "a man after god's own heart"? suppose the defendant in this case were guilty of something like that? uriah was fighting for his country, fighting the battles of david, the king. david wanted to take from him his wife. he sent for joab, his commander-in-chief, and said to him: "make a feint to attack a town. put uriah at the front of the attacking force, and when the people sally forth from the town to defend its gate, fall back so that this gallant, noble, patriotic man may be slain." this was done and the widow was stolen by the king. is it blasphemy to tell the truth and to say exactly what david was? let us be honest with each other; let us be honest with this defendant. for thousands of years men have taught that the ancient patriarchs were sacred, that they were far better than the men of modern times, that what was in them a virtue, is in us a crime. children are taught in sunday schools to admire and respect these criminals of the ancient days. the time has come to tell the truth about these men, to call things by their proper names, and above all, to stand by the right, by the truth, by mercy and by justice. if what the defendant has said is blasphemy under this statute then the question arises, is the statute in accordance with the constitution? if this statute is constitutional, why has it been allowed to sleep for all these years? i take this position: any law made for the preservation of a human right, made to guard a human being, cannot sleep long enough to die; but any law that deprives a human being of a natural right--if that law goes to sleep, it never wakes, it sleeps the sleep of death. i call the attention of the court to that remarkable case in england where, only a few years ago, a man appealed to trial by battle. the law allowing trial by battle had been asleep in the statute book of england for more than two hundred years, and yet the court held that, in spite of the fact that the law had been asleep--it being a law in favor of a defendant--he was entitled to trial by battle. and why? because it was a statute at the time made in defence of a human right, and that statute could not sleep long enough or soundly enough to die. in consequence of this decision, the parliament of england passed a special act, doing away forever with the trial by battle. when a statute attacks an individual right, the state must never let it sleep. when it attacks the right of the public at large and is allowed to pass into a state of slumber, it cannot be raised for the purpose of punishing an individual. now, gentlemen, a few words more. i take an almost infinite interest in this trial, and before you decide, i am exceedingly anxious that you should understand with clearness the thoughts i have expressed upon this subject i want you to know how the civilized feel, and the position now taken by the leaders of the world. a few years ago almost everything spoken against the grossest possible superstition was considered blasphemous. the altar hedged itself about with the sword; the priest went in partnership with the king. in those days statutes were leveled against all human speech. men were convicted of blasphemy because they believed in an actual personal god; because they insisted that god had body and parts. men were convicted of blasphemy because they denied that god had form. they have been imprisoned for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, and they have been torn in pieces for defending that doctrine. there are but few dogmas now believed by any christian church that have not at some time been denounced as blasphemous. when henry viii. put himself at the head of the episcopal church a creed was made, and in that creed there were five dogmas that must, of necessity, be believed. anybody who denied any one, was to be punished--for the first offence, with fine, with imprisonment, or branding, and for the second offence, with death. not one of these five dogmas is now a part of the creed of the church of england. so i could go on for days and weeks and months, showing that hundreds and hundreds of religious dogmas, to deny which was death, have been either changed or abandoned for others nearly as absurd as the old ones were. it may be, however, sufficient to say, that wherever the church has had power it has been a crime for any man to speak his honest thought. no church has ever been willing that any opponent should give a transcript of his mind. every church in power has appealed to brute force, to the sword, for the purpose of sustaining its creed. not one has had the courage to occupy the open field. the church has not been satisfied with calling infidels and unbelievers blasphemers. each church has accused nearly every other church of being a blasphemer. every pioneer has been branded as a criminal. the catholics called martin luther a blasphemer, and martin luther called copernicus a blasphemer. pious ignorance always regards intelligence as a kind of blasphemy. some of the greatest men of the world, some of the best, have been put to death for the crime of blasphemy, that is to say, for the crime of endeavoring to benefit their fellow-men. as long as the church has the power to close the lips of men, so long and no longer will superstition rule this world. "blasphemy is the word that the majority hisses into the ear of the few." after every argument of the church has been answered, has been refuted, then the church cries, "blasphemy!" blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth. blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says to a this year's bud. blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice. blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless. and let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy, as set out in this statute, is impossible. no man can blaspheme a book. no man can commit blasphemy by telling his honest thought. no man can blaspheme a god, or a holy ghost, or a son of god. the infinite cannot be blasphemed. in the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some poor man was struck by lightning, or when a blackened mark was left on the breast of a wife and mother, the poor savage supposed that some god, angered by something he had done, had taken his revenge. what else did the savage suppose? he believed that this god had the same feelings, with regard to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly chief had, or an earthly king had, with regard to the loyalty or treachery of members of his tribe, or citizens of his kingdom. so the savage said, when his country was visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the people away, or the storm scattered their poor houses in fragments: "we have allowed some freethinker to live; some one is in our town or village who has not brought his gift to the priest, his incense to the altar; some man of our tribe or of our country does not respect our god." then, for the purpose of appeasing the supposed god, for the purpose of again winning a smile from heaven, for the purpose of securing a little sunlight for their fields and homes, they drag the accused man from his home, from his wife and children, and with all the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his blood. they did it in self-defence; they believed that they were saving their own lives and the lives of their children; they did it to appease their god. most people are now beyond that point. now when disease visits a community, the intelligent do not say the disease came because the people were wicked; when the cholera comes, it is not because of the methodists, of the catholics, of the presbyterians, or of the infidels. when the wind destroys a town in the far west, it is not because somebody there had spoken his honest thoughts. we are beginning to see that the wind blows and destroys without the slightest reference to man, without the slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad, the irreligious or the religious. when the lightning leaps from the clouds it is just as likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and when the great serpents of flame climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly and just as joyously, the home of virtue, as they do the den and lair of vice. then the reason for all these laws has failed. the laws were made on account of a superstition. that superstition has faded from the minds of intelligent men, and, as a consequence, the laws based on the superstition ought to fail. there is one splendid thing in nature, and that is that men and nations must reap the consequences of their acts--reap them in this world, if they live, and in another if there be one. the man who leaves this world a bad man, a malicious man, will probably be the same man when he reaches another realm, and the man who leaves this shore good, charitable and honest, will be good, charitable and honest, no matter on what star he lives again. the world is growing sensible upon these subjects, and as we grow sensible, we grow charitable. another reason has been given for these laws against blasphemy, the most absurd reason that can by any possibility be given. it is this: there should be laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters blasphemy endangers the public peace. is it possible that christians will break the peace? is it possible that they will violate the law? is it probable that christians will congregate together and make a mob, simply because a man has given an opinion against their religion? what is their religion? they say, "if a man smites you on one cheek, turn the other also." they say, "we must love our neighbors as we love ourselves." is it possible then, that you can make a mob out of christians,--that these men, who love even their enemies, will attack others, and will destroy life, in the name of universal love? and yet, christians themselves say that there ought to be laws against blasphemy, for fear that christians, who are controlled by universal love, will become so outraged, when they hear an honest man express an honest thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in pieces. what is blasphemy? i will give you a definition; i will give you my thought upon this subject. what is real blasphemy? to live on the unpaid labor of other men--that is blasphemy. to enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body--that is blasphemy. to enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips--that is blasphemy. to deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie--that is blasphemy. to strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob--that is blasphemy. to persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many--that is blasphemy. to forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men--that is blasphemy. to pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain--that is blasphemy. to violate your conscience--that is blasphemy. the jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers. the man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer. why should we fear our fellow-men? why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? what harm can come from an honest interchange of thought? i have been giving you my real ideas. i have spoken freely, and yet the sun rose this morning, just the same as it always has. there is no particular change visible in the world, and i do not see but that we are all as happy to-day as though we had spent yesterday in making somebody else miserable. i denounced on yesterday the superstitions of the christian world, and yet, last night i slept the sleep of peace. you will pardon me for saying again that i feel the greatest possible interest in the result of this trial, in the principle at stake. this is my only apology, my only excuse, for taking your time. for years i have felt that the great battle for human liberty, the battle that has covered thousands of fields with heroic dead, had finally been won. when i read the history of this world, of what has been endured, of what has been suffered, of the heroism and infinite courage of the intellectual and honest few, battling with the countless serfs and slaves of kings and priests, of tyranny, of hypocrisy, of ignorance and prejudice, of faith and fear, there was in my heart the hope that the great battle had been fought, and that the human race, in its march towards the dawn, had passed midnight, and that the "great balance weighed up morning." this hope, this feeling, gave me the greatest possible joy. when i thought of the many who had been burnt, of how often the sons of liberty had perished in ashes, of how many o! the noblest and greatest had stood upon scaffolds, and of the countless hearts, the grandest that ever throbbed in human breasts, that had been broken by the tyranny of church and state, of how many of the noble and loving had sighed themselves away in dungeons, the only consolation was that the last bastile had fallen, that the dungeons of the inquisition had been torn down and that the scaffolds of the world could no longer be wet with heroic blood. you know that sometimes, after a great battle has been fought, and one of the armies has been broken, and its fortifications carried, there are occasional stragglers beyond the great field, stragglers who know nothing of the fate of their army, know nothing of the victory, and for that reason, fight on. there are a few such stragglers in the state of new jersey. they have never heard of the great victory. they do not know that in all civilized countries the hosts of superstition have been put to flight. they do not know that freethinkers, infidels, are to-day the leaders of the intellectual armies of the world. one of the last trials of this character, tried in great britain,--and that is the country that our ancestors fought in the sacred name of liberty,--one of the last trials in that country, a country ruled by a state church, ruled by a woman who was born a queen, ruled by dukes and nobles and lords, children of ancient robbers--was in the year . george jacob holyoake, one of the best of the human race, was imprisoned on a charge of atheism, charged with having written a pamphlet and having made a speech in which he had denied the existence of the british god. the judge who tried him, who passed sentence upon him, went down to his grave with a stain upon his intellect and upon his honor. all the real intelligence of great britain rebelled against the outrage. there was a trial after that to which i will call your attention. judge coleridge, father of the present chief justice of england, presided at this trial. a poor man by the name of thomas pooley, a man who dug wells for a living, wrote on the gate of a priest, that, if people would burn their bibles and scatter the ashes on the lands, the crops would be better, and that they would also save a good deal of money in tithes. he wrote several sentences of a kindred character. he was a curious man. he had an idea that the world was a living, breathing animal. he would not dig a well beyond a certain depth for fear he might inflict pain upon this animal, the earth. he was tried before judge coleridge, on that charge. an infinite god was about to be dethroned, because an honest well-digger had written his sentiments on the fence of a parson. he was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. afterward, many intelligent people asked for his pardon, on the ground that he was in danger of becoming insane. the judge refused to sign the petition. the pardon was refused. long before his sentence expired, he became a raving maniac. he was removed to an asylum and there died. some of the greatest men in england attacked that judge, among these, mr. buckle, author of "the history of civilization in england," one of the greatest books in this world. mr. buckle denounced judge coleridge. he brought him before the bar of english opinion, and there was not a man in england, whose opinion was worth anything, who did not agree with mr. buckle, and did not with him, declare the conviction of thomas pooley to be an infamous outrage. what were the reasons given? this, among others: the law was dead; it had been asleep for many years; it was a law passed during the ignorance of the middle ages, and a law that came out of the dungeon of religious persecution; a law that was appealed to by bigots and by hypocrites, to punish, to imprison an honest man. in many parts of this country, people have entertained the idea that new england was still filled with the spirit of puritanism, filled with the descendants of those who killed quakers in the name of universal benevolence, and traded quaker children in the barbadoes for rum, for the purpose of establishing the fact that god is an infinite father. yet, the last trial in massachusetts on a charge like this, was when abner kneeland was indicted on a charge of atheism. he was tried for having written this sentence: "the universalists believe in a god which i do not." he was convicted and imprisoned. chief justice shaw upheld the decision, and upheld it because he was afraid of public opinion; upheld it, although he must have known that the statute under which kneeland was indicted was clearly and plainly in violation of the constitution. no man can read the decision of justice shaw without being convinced that he was absolutely dominated, either by bigotry, or hypocrisy. one of the judges of that court, a noble man, wrote a dissenting opinion, and in that dissenting opinion is the argument of a civilized, of an enlightened jurist. no man can answer the dissenting opinion of justice morton. the case against kneeland was tried more than fifty years ago, and there has been none since in the new england states; and this case, that we are now trying, is the first ever tried in new jersey. the fact that it is the first, certifies to my interpretation of this statute, and it also certifies to the toleration and to the civilization of the people of this state. the statute is upon your books. you inherited it from your ignorant ancestors, and they inherited it from their savage ancestors. the people of new jersey were heirs of the mistakes and of the atrocities of ancient england. it is too late to enforce a law like this. why has it been allowed to slumber? who obtained this indictment? were they actuated by good and noble motives? had they the public weal at heart, or were they simply endeavoring to be revenged upon this defendant? were they willing to disgrace the state, in order that they might punish him? i have given you my definition of blasphemy, and now the question arises, what is worship? who is a worshiper? what is prayer? what is real religion? let me answer these questions. good, honest, faithful work, is worship. the man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshipers. the man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshiper. labor is the only prayer that nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer,--good, honest, noble work. a woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter, gone down to degradation and filth; the woman who follows him and lifts him out of the mire and presses him to her noble heart, until he becomes a man once more, this woman is a worshiper. her act is worship. the poor man and the poor woman who work night and day, in order that they may give education to their children, so that they may have a better life than their father and mother had; the parents who deny themselves the comforts of life, that they may lay up something to help their children to a higher place--they are worshipers; and the children who, after they reap the benefit of this worship, become ashamed of their parents, are blasphemers. the man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife,--a wife prematurely old and gray,--the husband who sits by her bed and holds, her thin, wan hand in his as lovingly, and kisses it as rapturously, as passionately, as when it was dimpled,--that is worship; that man is a worshiper; that is real religion. whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. he who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer. gentlemen, you can never make me believe--no statute can ever convince me, that there is any infinite being in this universe who hates an honest man. it is impossible to satisfy me that there is any god, or can be any god, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to express his thought. neither can the whole world convince me that any man should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being candid with his fellow-men. if you send men to the penitentiary for speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows, then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will step from it--not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory. let us take one more step. what is holy, what is sacred? i reply that human happiness is holy, human rights are holy. the body and soul of man--these are sacred. the liberty of man is of far more importance than any book; the rights of man more sacred than any religion--than any scriptures, whether inspired or not. what we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the truth is confined in one book--that the mysteries of the whole world are explained by one volume? all that is--all that conveys information to man--all that has been produced by the past--all that now exists--should be considered by an intelligent man. all the known truths of this world--all the philosophy, all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing music--the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest men, the trumpet calls to duty--all these make up the bible of the world--everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this great book. if we wish to be true to ourselves,--if we wish to benefit our fellow-men--if we wish to live honorable lives--we will give to every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves. there is another thing that should be remembered by you. you are the judges of the law, as well as the judges of the facts. in a case like this, you are the final judges as to what the law is; and if you acquit, no court can reverse your verdict. to prevent the least misconception, let me state to you again what i claim: first. i claim that the constitution of new jersey declares that: "_the liberty of speech shall not be abridged_." second. that this statute, under which this indictment is found, is unconstitutional, because it does abridge the liberty of speech; it does exactly that which the constitution emphatically says shall not be done. third. i claim, also, that under this law--even if it be constitutional--the words charged in this indictment do not amount to blasphemy, read even in the light, or rather in the darkness, of this statute. do not, i pray you, forget this point. do not forget, that, no matter what the court may tell you about the law--how good it is, or how bad it is--no matter what the court may instruct you on that subject--do not forget one thing, and that is: that the words charged in the indictment are the only words that you can take into consideration in this case. remember that no matter what else may be in the pamphlet--no matter what pictures or cartoons there may be of the gentlemen in boonton who mobbed this man in the name of universal liberty and love--do not forget that you have no right to take one word into account except the exact words set out in this indictment--that is to say, the words that i have read to you. upon this point the court will instruct you that you have nothing to do with any other line in that pamphlet; and i now claim, that should the court instruct you that the statute is constitutional, still i insist that the words set out in this indictment do not amount to blasphemy. there is still another point. this statute says: "whoever shall _willfully_ speak against." now, in this case, you must find that the defendant "willfully" did so and so--that is to say, that he made the statements attributed to him knowing that they were not true. if you believe that he was honest in what he said, then this statute does not touch him. even under this statute, a man may give his honest opinion. certainly, there is no law that charges a man with "willfully" being honest--"willfully" telling his real opinion--"willfully" giving to his fellow-men his thought. where a man is charged with larceny, the indictment must set out that he took the goods or the property with the intention to steal--with what the law calls the _animus furandi_. if he took the goods with the intention to steal, then he is a thief; but if he took the goods believing them to be his own, then he is guilty of no offence. so in this case, whatever was said by the defendant must have been "willfully" said. and i claim that if you believe that what the man said was honestly said, you cannot find him guilty under this statute. one more point: this statute has been allowed to slumber so long, that no man had the right to awaken it. for more than one hundred years it has slept; and so far as new jersey is concerned, it has been sound asleep since . for the first time it is dug out of its grave. the breath of life is sought to be breathed into it, to the end that some people may wreak their vengeance on an honest man. is there any evidence--has there been any--to show that the defendant was not absolutely candid in the expression of his opinions? is there one particle of evidence tending, to show that he is not a perfectly honest and sincere man? did the prosecution have the courage to attack his reputation? no. the state has simply proved to you that he circulated that pamphlet--that is all. it was claimed, among other things, that the defendant circulated this pamphlet among children. there was no such evidence--not the slightest. the only evidence about schools, or school-children was, that when the defendant talked with the bill-poster,--whose business the defendant was interfering with,--he asked him something about the population of the town, and about the schools. but according to the evidence, and as a matter of fact, not a solitary pamphlet was ever given to any child, or to any youth. according to the testimony, the defendant went into two or three stores,--laid the pamphlets on a show case, or threw them upon a desk--put them upon a stand where papers were sold, and in one instance handed a pamphlet to a man. that is all. in my judgment, however, there would have been no harm in giving this pamphlet to every citizen of your place. again i say, that a law that has been allowed to sleep for all these years--allowed to sleep by reason of the good sense and by reason of the tolerant spirit of the state of new jersey, should not be allowed to leap into life because a few are intolerant, or because a few lacked good sense and judgment. this snake should not be warmed into vicious life by the blood of anger. probably not a man on this jury agrees with me about the subject of religion. probably not a member of this jury thinks that i am right in the opinions that i have entertained and have so often expressed. most of you belong to some church, and i presume that those who do, have the good of what they call christianity at heart. there maybe among you some methodists. if so, they have read the history of their church, and they know that when it was in the minority, it was persecuted, and they know that they can not read the history of that persecution without becoming indignant. they know that the early methodists were denounced as heretics, as ranters, as ignorant pretenders. there are also on this jury, catholics, and they know that there is a tendency in many parts of this country to persecute a man now because he is a catholic. they also know that their church has persecuted in times past, whenever and wherever it had the power; and they know that protestants, when in power, have always persecuted catholics; and they know, in their hearts, that all persecution, whether in the name of law, or religion, is monstrous, savage, and fiendish. i presume that each one of you has the good of what you call christianity at heart. if you have, i beg of you to acquit this man. if you believe christianity to be a good, it never can do any church any good to put a man in jail for the expression of opinion. any church that imprisons a man because he has used an argument against its creed, will simply convince the world that it cannot answer the argument. christianity will never reap any honor, will never reap any profit, from persecution. it is a poor, cowardly, dastardly way of answering arguments. no gentleman will do it--no civilized man ever did do it--no decent human being ever did, or ever will. i take it for granted that you have a certain regard, a certain affection, for the state in which you live--that you take a pride in the commonwealth of new jersey. if you do, i beg of you to keep the record of your state clean. allow no verdict to be recorded against the freedom of speech. at present there is not to be found on the records of any inferior court, or on those of the supreme tribunal--any case in which a man has been punished for speaking his sentiments. the records have not been stained--have not been polluted--with such a verdict. keep such a verdict from the reports of your state--from the records of your courts. no jury has yet, in the state of new jersey, decided that the lips of honest men are not free--that there is a manacle upon the brain. for the sake of your state--for the sake of her reputation throughout the world--for your own sakes--and those of your children, and their children yet to be--say to the world that new jersey shares in the spirit of this age,--that new jersey is not a survival of the dark ages,--that new jersey does not still regard the thumbscrew as an instrument of progress,--that new jersey needs no dungeon to answer the arguments of a free man, and does not send to the penitentiary, men who think, and men who speak. say to the world, that where arguments are without foundation, new jersey has confidence enough in the brains of her people to feel that such arguments can be refuted by reason. for the sake of your state, acquit this man. for the sake of something of far more value to this world than new jersey--for the sake of something of more importance to mankind than this continent--for the sake of human liberty, for the sake of free speech, acquit this man. what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death. in the name of liberty, i implore--and not only so, but i insist--that you shall find a verdict in favor of this defendant. do not do the slightest thing to stay the march of human progress. do not carry us back, even for a moment, to the darkness of that cruel night that good men hoped had passed away forever. liberty is the condition of progress. without liberty, there remains only barbarism. without liberty, there can be no civilization. if another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. if every man has not the right to think, the people of new jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a constitution--no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to pass its sentence. in other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. it is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. all human actions--all good, all bad--have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue. without liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy--no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress. take the word liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds--but with that word realized--with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise. understand me. i am not blaming the people. i am not blaming the prosecution, or the prosecuting attorney. the officers of the court are simply doing what they feel to be their duty. they did not find the indictment. that was found by the grand jury. the grand jury did not find the indictment of its own motion. certain people came before the grand jury and made their complaint--gave their testimony, and upon that testimony, under this statute, the indictment was found. while i do not blame these people--they not being on trial--i do ask you to stand on the side of right. i cannot conceive of much greater happiness than to discharge a public duty, than to be absolutely true to conscience, true to judgment, no matter what authority may say, no matter what public opinion may demand. a man who stands by the right, against the world, cannot help applauding himself, and saying: "i am an honest man." i want your verdict--a verdict born of manhood, of courage; and i want to send a dispatch to-day to a woman who is lying sick. i wish you to furnish the words of this dispatch--only two words--and these two words will fill an anxious heart with joy. they will fill a soul with light. it is a very short message--only two words--and i ask you to furnish them: "not guilty." you are expected to do this, because i believe you will be true to your consciences, true to your best judgment, true to the best interests of the people of new jersey, true to the great cause of liberty. i sincerely hope that it will never be necessary again, under the flag of the united states--that flag for which has been shed the bravest and best blood of the world--under that flag maintained by washington, by jefferson, by franklin and by lincoln--under that flag in defence of which new jersey poured out her best and bravest blood--i hope it will never be necessary again for a man to stand before a jury and plead for the liberty of speech. note: the jury in this case brought in a verdict of guilty. the judge imposed a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs amounting in all to seventy-five dollars, which colonel ingersoll paid, giving his services free.--c. p. farrell. god in the constitution. "_all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed_." in this country it is admitted that the power to govern resides in the people themselves; that they are the only rightful source of authority. for many centuries before the formation of our government, before the promulgation of the declaration of independence, the people had but little voice in the affairs of nations. the source of authority was not in this world; kings were not crowned by their subjects, and the sceptre was not held by the consent of the governed. the king sat on his throne by the will of god, and for that reason was not accountable to the people for the exercise of his power. he commanded, and the people obeyed. he was lord of their bodies, and his partner, the priest, was lord of their souls. the government of earth was patterned after the kingdom on high. god was a supreme autocrat in heaven, whose will was law, and the king was a supreme autocrat on earth whose will was law. the god in heaven had inferior beings to do his will, and the king on earth had certain favorites and officers to do his. these officers were accountable to him, and he was responsible to god. the feudal system was supposed to be in accordance with the divine plan. the people were not governed by intelligence, but by threats and promises, by rewards and punishments. no effort was made to enlighten the common people; no one thought of educating a peasant--of developing the mind of a laborer. the people were created to support thrones and altars. their destiny was to toil and obey--to work and want. they were to be satisfied with huts and hovels, with ignorance and rags, and their children must expect no more. in the presence of the king they fell upon their knees, and before the priest they groveled in the very dust. the poor peasant divided his earnings with the state, because he imagined it protected his body; he divided his crust with the church, believing that it protected his soul. he was the prey of throne and altar--one deformed his body, the other his mind--and these two vultures fed upon his toil. he was taught by the king to hate the people of other nations, and by the priest to despise the believers in all other religions. he was made the enemy of all people except his own. he had no sympathy with the peasants of other lands, enslaved and plundered like himself., he was kept in ignorance, because education is the enemy of superstition, and because education is the foe of that egotism often mistaken for patriotism. the intelligent and good man holds in his affections the good and true of every land--the boundaries of countries are not the limitations of his sympathies. caring nothing for race, or color, he loves those who speak other languages and worship other gods. between him and those who suffer, there is no impassable gulf. he salutes the world, and extends the hand of friendship to the human race. he does not bow before a provincial and patriotic god--one who protects his tribe or nation, and abhors the rest of mankind. through all the ages of superstition, each nation has insisted that it was the peculiar care of the true god, and that it alone had the true religion--that the gods of other nations were false and fraudulent, and that other religions were wicked, ignorant and absurd. in this way the seeds of hatred had been sown, and in this way have been kindled the flames of war. men have had no sympathy with those of a different complexion, with those who knelt at other altars and expressed their thoughts in other words--and even a difference in garments placed them beyond the sympathy of others. every peculiarity was the food of prejudice and the excuse for hatred. the boundaries of nations were at last crossed by commerce. people became somewhat acquainted, and they found that the virtues and vices were quite evenly distributed. at last, subjects became somewhat acquainted with kings--peasants had the pleasure of gazing at princes, and it was dimly perceived that the differences were mostly in rags and names. in our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. they declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." this was a contradiction of the then political ideas of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy--a renunciation of the deity. it was in fact a declaration of the independence of the earth. it was a notice to all churches and priests that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. politically it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book," and appealed from the providence of god to the providence of man. those who promulgated the declaration adopted a constitution for the great republic. what was the office or purpose of that constitution? admitting that all power came from the people, it was necessary, first, that certain means be adopted for the purpose of ascertaining the will of the people, and second, it was proper and convenient to designate certain departments that should exercise certain powers of the government. there must be the legislative, the judicial and the executive departments. those who make laws should not execute them. those who execute laws should not have the power of absolutely determining their meaning or their constitutionality. for these reasons, among others, a constitution was adopted. this constitution also contained a declaration of rights. it marked out the limitations of discretion, so that in the excitement of passion, men shall not go beyond the point designated in the calm moment of reason. when man is unprejudiced, and his passions subject to reason, it is well he should define the limits of power, so that the waves driven by the storm of passion shall not overbear the shore. a constitution is for the government of man in this world. it is the chain the people put upon their servants, as well as upon themselves. it defines the limit of power and the limit of obedience. it follows, then, that nothing should be in a constitution that cannot be enforced by the power of the state--that is, by the army and navy. behind every provision of the constitution should stand the force of the nation. every sword, every bayonet, every cannon should be there. suppose, then, that we amend the constitution and acknowledge the existence and supremacy of god--what becomes of the supremacy of the people, and how is this amendment to be enforced? a constitution does not enforce itself. it must be carried out by appropriate legislation. will it be a crime to deny the existence of this constitutional god? can the offender be proceeded against in the criminal courts? can his lips be closed by the power of the state? would not this be the inauguration of religious persecution? and if there is to be an acknowledgment of god in the constitution, the question naturally arises as to which god is to have this honor. shall we select the god of the catholics--he who has established an infallible church presided over by an infallible pope, and who is delighted with certain ceremonies and placated by prayers uttered in exceedingly common latin? is it the god of the presbyterian with the five points of calvinism, who is ingenious enough to harmonize necessity and responsibility, and who in some way justifies himself for damning most of his own children? is it the god of the puritan, the enemy of joy--of the baptist, who is great enough to govern the universe, and small enough to allow the destiny of a soul to depend on whether the body it inhabited was immersed or sprinkled? what god is it proposed to put in the constitution? is it the god of the old testament, who was a believer in slavery and who justified polygamy? if slavery was right then, it is right now; and if jehovah was right then, the mormons are right now. are we to have the god who issued a commandment against all art--who was the enemy of investigation and of free speech? is it the god who commanded the husband to stone his wife to death because she differed with him on the subject of religion? are we to have a god who will re-enact the mosaic code and punish hundreds of offences with death? what court, what tribunal of last resort, is to define this god, and who is to make known his will? in his presence, laws passed by men will be of no value. the decisions of courts will be as nothing. but who is to make known the will of this supreme god? will there be a supreme tribunal composed of priests? of course all persons elected to office will either swear or affirm to support the constitution. men who do not believe in this god, cannot so swear or affirm. such men will not be allowed to hold any office of trust or honor. a god in the constitution will not interfere with the oaths or affirmations of hypocrites. such a provision will only exclude honest and conscientious unbelievers. intelligent people know that one knows whether there is a god or not. the existence of such a being is merely a matter of opinion. men who believe in the liberty of man, who are willing to die for the honor of their country, will be excluded from taking any part in the administration of its affairs. such a provision would place the country under the feet of priests. to recognize a deity in the organic law of our country would be the destruction of religious liberty. the god in the constitution would have to be protected. there would be laws against blasphemy, laws against the publication of honest thoughts, laws against carrying books and papers in the mails in which this constitutional god should be attacked. our land would be filled with theological spies, with religious eavesdroppers, and all the snakes and reptiles of the lowest natures, in this sunshine of religious authority, would uncoil and crawl. it is proposed to acknowledge a god who is the lawful and rightful governor of nations; the one who ordained the powers that be. if this god is really the governor of nations, it is not necessary to acknowledge him in the constitution. this would not add to his power. if he governs all nations now, he has always controlled the affairs of men. having this control, why did he not see to it that he was recognized in the constitution of the united states? if he had the supreme authority and neglected to put himself in the constitution, is not this, at least, _prima facie_ evidence that he did not desire to be there? for one, i am not in favor of the god who has "ordained the powers that be." what have we to say of russia--of siberia? what can we say of the persecuted and enslaved? what of the kings and nobles who live on the stolen labor of others? what of the priest and cardinal and pope who wrest, even from the hand of poverty, the single coin thrice earned? is it possible to flatter the infinite with a constitutional amendment? the confederate states acknowledged god in their constitution, and yet they were overwhelmed by a people in whose organic law no reference to god is made. all the kings of the earth acknowledge the existence of god, and god is their ally; and this belief in god is used as a means to enslave and rob, to govern and degrade the people whom they call their subjects. the government of the united states is secular. it derives its power from the consent of man. it is a government with which god has nothing whatever to do--and all forms and customs, inconsistent with the fundamental fact that the people are the source of authority, should be abandoned. in this country there should be no oaths--no man should be sworn to tell the truth, and in no court should there be any appeal to any supreme being. a rascal by taking the oath appears to go in partnership with god, and ignorant jurors credit the firm instead of the man. a witness should tell his story, and if he speaks falsely should be considered as guilty of perjury. governors and presidents should not issue religious proclamations. they should not call upon the people to thank god. it is no part of their official duty. it is outside of and beyond the horizon of their authority. there is nothing in the constitution of the united states to justify this religious impertinence. for many years priests have attempted to give to our government a religious form. zealots have succeeded in putting the legend upon our money: "in god we trust;" and we have chaplains in the army and navy, and legislative proceedings are usually opened with prayer. all this is contrary to the genius of the republic, contrary to the declaration of independence, and contrary really to the constitution of the united states. we have taken the ground that the people can govern themselves without the assistance of any supernatural power. we have taken the position that the people are the real and only rightful source of authority. we have solemnly declared that the people must determine what is politically right and what is wrong, and that their legally expressed will is the supreme law. this leaves no room for national superstition--no room for patriotic gods or supernatural beings--and this does away with the necessity for political prayers. the government of god has been tried. it was tried in palestine several thousand years ago, and the god of the jews was a monster of cruelty and ignorance, and the people governed by this god lost their nationality. theocracy was tried through the middle ages. god was the governor--the pope was his agent, and every priest and bishop and cardinal was armed with credentials from the most high--and the result was that the noblest and best were in prisons, the greatest and grandest perished at the stake. the result was that vices were crowned with honor, and virtues whipped naked through the streets. the result was that hypocrisy swayed the sceptre of authority, while honesty languished in the dungeons of the inquisition. the government of god was tried in geneva when john calvin was his representative; and under this government of god the flames climbed around the limbs and blinded the eyes of michael servetus, because he dared to express an honest thought. this government of god was tried in scotland, and the seeds of theological hatred were sown, that bore, through hundreds of years, the fruit of massacre and assassination. this government of god was established in new england, and the result was that quakers were hanged or burned--the laws of moses re-enacted and the "witch was not suffered to live." the result was that investigation was a crime, and the expression of an honest thought a capital offence. this government of god was established in spain, and the jews were expelled, the moors were driven out, moriscoes were exterminated, and nothing left but the ignorant and bankrupt worshipers of this monster. this government of god was tried in the united states when slavery was regarded as a divine institution, when men and women were regarded as criminals because they sought for liberty by flight, and when others were regarded as criminals because they gave them food and shelter. the pulpit of that day defended the buying and selling of women and babes, and the mouths of slave-traders were filled with passages of scripture, defending and upholding the traffic in human flesh. we have entered upon a new epoch. this is the century of man. every effort to really better the condition of mankind has been opposed by the worshipers of some god. the church in all ages and among all peoples has been the consistent enemy of the human race. everywhere and at all times, it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. it has been the sworn enemy of investigation and of intellectual development. it has denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine its power. it has always been carrying fagots to the feet of philosophy. it has erected the gallows for genius. it has built the dungeon for thinkers. and to-day the orthodox church is as much opposed as it ever was to the mental freedom of the human race. of course, there is a distinction made between churches and individual members. there have been millions of christians who have been believers in liberty and in the freedom of expression--millions who have fought for the rights of man--but churches as organizations, have been on the other side. it is true that churches have fought churches--that protestants battled with the catholics for what they were pleased to call the freedom of conscience; and it is also true that the moment these protestants obtained the civil power, they denied this freedom of conscience to others. 'let me show you the difference between the theological and the secular spirit. nearly three hundred years ago, one of the noblest of the human race, giordano bruno, was burned at rome by the catholic church--that is to say, by the "triumphant beast." this man had committed certain crimes--he had publicly stated that there were other worlds than this--other constellations than ours. he had ventured the supposition that other planets might be peopled. more than this, and worse than this, he had asserted the heliocentric theory--that the earth made its annual journey about the sun. he had also given it as his opinion that matter is eternal. for these crimes he was found unworthy to live, and about his body were piled the fagots of the catholic church. this man, this genius, this pioneer of the science of the nineteenth century, perished as serenely as the sun sets. the infidels of to-day find excuses for his murderers. they take into consideration the ignorance and brutality of the times. they remember that the world was governed by a god who was then the source of all authority. this is the charity of infidelity,--of philosophy. but the church of to-day is so heartless, is still so cold and cruel, that it can find no excuse for the murdered. this is the difference between theocracy and democracy--between god and man. if god is allowed in the constitution, man must abdicate. there is no room for both. if the people of the great republic become superstitious enough and ignorant enough to put god in the constitution of the united states, the experiment of self-government will have failed, and the great and splendid declaration that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" will have been denied, and in its place will be found this: all power comes from god; priests are his agents, and the people are their slaves. religion is an individual matter, and each soul should be left entirely free to form its own opinions and to judge of its accountability to a supposed supreme being. with religion, government has nothing whatever to do. government is founded upon force, and force should never interfere with the religious opinions of men. laws should define the rights of men and their duties toward each other, and these laws should be for the benefit of man in this world. a nation can neither be christian nor infidel--a nation is incapable of having opinions upon these subjects. if a nation is christian, will all the citizens go to heaven? if it is not, will they all be damned? of course it is admitted that the majority of citizens composing a nation may believe or disbelieve, and they may call the nation what they please. a nation is a corporation. to repeat a familiar saying, "it has no soul." there can be no such thing as a christian corporation. several christians may form a corporation, but it can hardly be said that the corporation thus formed was included in the atonement. for instance: seven christians form a corporation--that is to say, there are seven natural persons and one artificial--can it be said that there are eight souls to be saved? no human being has brain enough, or knowledge enough, or experience enough, to say whether there is, or is not, a god. into this darkness science has not yet carried its torch. no human being has gone beyond the horizon of the natural. as to the existence of the supernatural, one man knows precisely as much, and exactly as little as another. upon this question, chimpanzees and cardinals, apes and popes, are upon exact equality. the smallest insect discernible only by the most powerful microscope, is as familiar with this subject, as the greatest genius that has been produced by the human race. governments and laws are for the preservation of rights and the regulation of conduct. one man should not be allowed to interfere with the liberty of another. in the metaphysical world there should be no interference whatever, the same is true in the world of art. laws cannot regulate what is or is not music, what is or what is not beautiful--and constitutions cannot definitely settle and determine the perfection of statues, the value of paintings, or the glory and subtlety of thought. in spite of laws and constitutions the brain will think. in every direction consistent with the well-being and peace of society, there should be freedom. no man should be compelled to adopt the theology of another; neither should a minority, however small, be forced to acquiesce in the opinions of a majority, however large. if there be an infinite being, he does not need our help--we need not waste our energies in his defence. it is enough for us to give to every other human being the liberty we claim for ourselves. there may or may not be a supreme ruler of the universe--but we are certain that man exists, and we believe that freedom is the condition of progress; that it is the sunshine of the mental and moral world, and that without it man will go back to the den of savagery, and will become the fit associate of wild and ferocious beasts. we have tried the government of priests, and we know that such governments are without mercy. in the administration of theocracy, all the instruments of torture have been invented. if any man wishes to have god recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god. there has been in our country a divorce of church and state. this follows as a natural sequence of the declaration that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." the priest was no longer a necessity. his presence was a contradiction of the principle on which the republic was founded. he represented, not the authority of the people, but of some "power from on high," and to recognize this other power was inconsistent with free government. the founders of the republic at that time parted company with the priests, and said to them: "you may turn your attention to the other world--we will attend to the affairs of this." equal liberty was given to all. but the ultra theologian is not satisfied with this--he wishes to destroy the liberty of the people--he wishes a recognition of his god as the source of authority, to the end that the church may become the supreme power. but the sun will not be turned backward. the people of the united states are intelligent. they no longer believe implicitly in supernatural religion. they are losing confidence in the miracles and marvels of the dark ages. they know the value of the free school. they appreciate the benefits of science. they are believers in education, in the free play of thought, and there is a suspicion that the priest, the theologian, is destined to take his place with the necromancer, the astrologer, the worker of magic, and the professor of the black art. we have already compared the benefits of theology and science. when the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. to nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. the poor were clad in rags and skins--they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. the day of science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. but above and over all this, is the development of mind. there is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day--of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. these blessings did not fall from the skies, these benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. they were not found in cathedrals or behind altars--neither were they searched for with holy candles. they were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. they are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience--and for them all, man is indebted to man. let us hold fast to the sublime declaration of lincoln. let us insist that this, the republic, is "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."--the arena, boston, mass., january, . a reply to bishop spalding. * an unfinished reply to bishop j. l. spalding's article "god in the constitution," which appeared in the arena. boston, mass., april, . bishop spalding admits that "the introduction of the question of religion would not only have brought discord into the constitutional convention, but would have also engendered strife throughout the land." undoubtedly this is true. i am compelled to admit this, for the reason that in all times and in all lands the introduction of the question of religion has brought discord and has engendered strife. he also says: "in the presence of such danger, like wise men and patriots, they avoided irritating subjects"--the irritating subject being the question of religion. i admit that it always has been, and promises always to be, an "irritating subject," because it is not a subject decided by reason, but by ignorance, prejudice, arrogance and superstition. consequently he says: "it was prudence, then, not skepticism, which induced them to leave the question of religion to the several states." the bishop admits that it was prudent for the founders of this government to leave the question of religion entirely to the states. it was prudent because the question of religion is irritating--because religious questions engender strife and hatred. now, if it was prudent for the framers of the constitution to leave religion out of the constitution, and allow that question to be settled by the several states themselves under that clause preventing the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof, why is it not wise still--why is it not prudent now? my article was written against the introduction of religion into the constitution of the united states. i am opposed to a recognition of god and of jesus christ in that instrument; and the reason i am opposed to it is, that: "the introduction of the question of religion would not only bring discord, but would engender strife throughout the land." i am opposed to it for the reason that religion is an "irritating subject," and also because if it was prudent when the constitution was made, to leave god out, it is prudent now to keep him out. the bishop is mistaken--as bishops usually are--when he says: "had our fathers been skeptics, or anti-theists, they would not have required the president and vice-president, the senators and representatives in congress, and all executive and judicial officers of the united states, to call god to witness that they intended to perform their duties under the constitution like honest men and loyal citizens." the framers of the constitution did no such thing. they allowed every officer, from the president down, either to swear or to affirm, and those who affirmed did not call god to witness. in other words, our constitution allowed every officer to abolish the oath and to leave god out of the question. the bishop informs us, however, that: "the causes which would have made it unwise to introduce any phase of religious controversy into the constitutional convention have long since ceased to exist." is there as much division now in the religious world as then? has the catholic church thrown away the differences between it and the protestants? are we any better friends to-day than we were in ? as a matter of fact, is there not now a cause which did not to the same extent exist then? have we not in the united states, millions of people who believe in no religion whatever, and who regard all creeds as the work of ignorance and superstition? the trouble about putting god in the constitution in was, that they could not agree on the god to go in; and the reason why our fathers did not unite church and state was, that they could not agree on which church was to be the bride. the catholics of maryland certainly would not have permitted the nation to take the puritan church, neither would the presbyterians of pennsylvania have agreed to this, nor would the episcopalians of new york, or of any southern state. each church said: "marry me, or die a bachelor." the bishop asks whether there are "still reasons why an express recognition of god's sovereignty and providence should not form part of the organic law of the land"? i ask, were there any reasons, in , why an express recognition of god's sovereignty and providence should not form part of the organic law of the land? did not the bishop say, only a few lines back of that, "that the introduction of the question of religion into that body would have brought discord, and would have engendered strife throughout the land." what is the "question of religion" to which he referred? certainly "the recognition of god's sovereignty and providence," with the addition of describing the god as the author of the supposed providence. thomas jefferson would have insisted on having a god in the constitution who was not the author of the old and new testaments. benjamin franklin would have asked for the same god; and on that question john adams would have voted yes. others would have voted for a catholic god--others for an episcopalian, and so on, until the representatives of the various creeds were exhausted. i took the ground, and i still take the ground, that there is nothing in the constitution that cannot on occasion be enforced by the army and navy--that is to say, that cannot be defended and enforced by the sword. suppose god is acknowledged in the constitution, and somebody denies the existence of this god--what are you to do with him? every man elected to office must swear or affirm that he will support the constitution. can one who does not believe in this god, conscientiously take such oath, or make such affirmation? the effect, then, of such a clause in the constitution would be to drive from public life all except the believers in this god, and this providence. the government would be in fact a theocracy and would resort for its preservation to one of the old forms of religious persecution. i took the ground in my article, and still maintain it, that all intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is a god or not. this cannot be answered by saying, "that nearly all intelligent men in every age, including our own, have believed in god and have held that they had rational grounds for such faith." this is what is called a departure in pleading--it is a shifting of the issue. i did not say that intelligent people do not believe in the existence of god. what i did say is, that intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is a god or not. it is not true that we know the conditions of thought. neither is it true that we know that these conditions are unconditioned. there is no such thing as the unconditioned conditional. we might as well say that the relative is unrelated--that the unrelated is the absolute--and therefore that there is no difference between the absolute and the relative. the bishop says we cannot know the relative without knowing the absolute. the probability is that he means that we cannot know the relative without admitting the existence of the absolute, and that we cannot know the phenomenal without taking the noumenal for granted. still, we can neither know the absolute nor the noumenal for the reason that our mind is limited to relations. crimes against criminals. * "an address delivered before the state bar association at albany, n. y., january , ." in this brief address, the object is to suggest--there being no time to present arguments at length. the subject has been chosen for the reason that it is one that should interest the legal profession, because that profession to a certain extent controls and shapes the legislation of our country and fixes definitely the scope and meaning of all laws. lawyers ought to be foremost in legislative and judicial reform, and of all men they should understand the philosophy of mind, the causes of human action, and the real science of government. it has been said that the three pests of a community are: a priest without charity; a doctor without knowledge, and, a lawyer without a sense of justice. i. all nations seem to have had supreme confidence in the deterrent power of threatened and inflicted pain. they have regarded punishment as the shortest road to reformation. imprisonment, torture, death, constituted a trinity under whose protection society might feel secure. in addition to these, nations have relied on confiscation and degradation, on maimings, whippings, brandings, and exposures to public ridicule and contempt. connected with the court of justice was the chamber of torture. the ingenuity of man was exhausted in the construction of instruments that would surely reach the most sensitive nerve. all this was done in the interest of civilization--for the protection of virtue, and the well-being of states. curiously it was found that the penalty of death made little difference. thieves and highwaymen, heretics and blasphemers, went on their way. it was then thought necessary to add to this penalty of death, and consequently, the convicted were tortured in every conceivable way before execution. they were broken on the wheel--their joints dislocated on the rack. they were suspended by their legs and arms, while immense weights were placed upon their breasts. their flesh was burned and torn with hot irons. they were roasted at slow fires. they were buried alive--given to wild beasts--molten lead was poured in their ears--their eye-lids were cut off and, the wretches placed with their faces toward the sun--others were securely bound, so that they could move neither hand nor foot, and over their stomachs were placed inverted bowls; under these bowls rats were confined; on top of the bowls were heaped coals of fire, so that the rats in their efforts to escape would gnaw into the bowels of the victims. they were staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned by the slowly rising tide--and every means by which human nature can be overcome slowly, painfully and terribly, was conceived and carried into execution. and yet the number of so-called criminals increased. enough, the fact is that, no matter how severe the punishments were, the crimes increased. for petty offences men were degraded--given to the mercy of the rabble. their ears were cut off, their nostrils slit, their foreheads branded. they were tied to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to another. and yet, in spite of all, the poor wretches obstinately refused to become good and useful citizens. degradation has been thoroughly tried, with its maimings and brandings, and the result was that those who inflicted the punishments became as degraded as their victims. only a few years ago there were more than two hundred offences in great britain punishable by death. the gallows-tree bore fruit through all the year, and the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom--but the criminals increased. crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. the world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks, with hangmen and headsmen--and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities and crimes have accomplished little for the preservation of property or life. it is safe to say that governments have committed far more crimes than they have prevented. why is it that men will suffer and risk so much for the sake of stealing? why will they accept degradation and punishment and infamy as their portion? some will answer this question by an appeal to the dogma of original sin; others by saying that millions of men and women are under the control of fiends--that they are actually possessed by devils; and others will declare that all these people act from choice--that they are possessed of free wills, of intelligence--that they know and appreciate consequences, and that, in spite of all, they deliberately prefer a life of crime. ii. have we not advanced far enough intellectually to deny the existence of chance? are we not satisfied now that back of every act and thought and dream and fancy is an efficient cause? is anything, or can anything, be produced that is not necessarily produced? can the fatherless and motherless exist? is there not a connection between all events, and is not every act related to all other acts? is it not possible, is it not probable, is it not true, that the actions of all men are determined by countless causes over which they have no positive control? certain it is that men do not prefer unhappiness to joy. it can hardly be said that man intends permanently to injure himself, and that he does what he does in order that he may live a life of misery. on the other hand, we must take it for granted that man endeavors to better his own condition, and seeks, although by mistaken ways, his own well-being. the poorest man would like to be rich--the sick desire health--and no sane man wishes to win the contempt and hatred of his fellow-men. every human being prefers liberty to imprisonment. are the brains of criminals exactly like the brains of honest men? have criminals the same ambitions, the same standards of happiness or of well-being? if a difference exists in brain, will that in part account for the difference in character? is there anything in heredity? are vices as carefully transmitted by nature as virtues? does each man in some degree bear burdens imposed by ancestors? we know that diseases of flesh and blood are transmitted--that the child is the heir of physical deformity. are diseases of the brain--are deformities of the soul, of the mind, also transmitted? we not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical world there are causes and effects. we insist that there is and can be no effect without an efficient cause. when anything happens in that world, we are satisfied that it was naturally and necessarily produced. the causes may be obscure, but we as implicitly believe in their existence as when we know positively what they are. in the physical world we have taken the ground that there is nothing miraculous--that everything is natural--and if we cannot explain it, we account for our inability to explain, by our own ignorance. is it not possible, is it not probable, that what is true in the physical world is equally true in the realm of mind--in that strange world of passion and desire? is it possible that thoughts or desires or passions are the children of chance, born of nothing? can we conceive of nothing as a force, or as a cause? if, then, there is behind every thought and desire and passion an efficient cause, we can, in part at least, account for the actions of men. a certain man under certain conditions acts in a certain way. there are certain temptations that he, with his brain, with his experience, with his intelligence, with his surroundings cannot withstand. he is irresistibly led to do, or impelled to do, certain things; and there are other things that he can not do. if we change the conditions of this man, his actions will be changed. develop his mind, give him new subjects of thought, and you change the man; and the man being changed, it follows of necessity that his conduct will be different. in civilized countries the struggle for existence is severe--the competition far sharper than in savage lands. the consequence is that there are many failures. these failures lack, it may be, opportunity or brain or moral force or industry, or something without which, under the circumstances, success is impossible. certain lines of conduct are called legal, and certain others criminal, and the men who fail in one line may be driven to the other. how do we know that it is possible for all people to be honest? are we certain that all people can tell the truth? is it possible for all men to be generous or candid or courageous? i am perfectly satisfied that there are millions of people incapable of committing certain crimes, and it may be true that there are millions of others incapable of practicing certain virtues. we do not blame a man because he is not a sculptor, a poet, a painter, or a statesman. we say he has not the genius. are we certain that it does not require genius to be good? where is the man with intelligence enough to take into consideration the circumstances of each individual case? who has the mental balance with which to weigh the forces of heredity, of want, of temptation,--and who can analyze with certainty the mysterious motions of the brain? where and what are the sources of vice and virtue? in what obscure and shadowy recesses of the brain are passions born? and what is it that for the moment destroys the sense of right and wrong? who knows to what extent reason becomes the prisoner of passion--of some strange and wild desire, the seeds of which were sown, it may be, thousands of years ago in the breast of some savage? to what extent do antecedents and surroundings affect the moral sense? is it not possible that the tyranny of governments, the injustice of nations, the fierceness of what is called the law, produce in the individual a tendency in the same direction? is it not true that the citizen is apt to imitate his nation? society degrades its enemies--the individual seeks to degrade his. society plunders its enemies, and now and then the citizen has the desire to plunder his. society kills its enemies, and possibly sows in the heart of some citizen the seeds of murder. iii. is it not true that the criminal is a natural product, and that society unconsciously produces these children of vice? can we not safely take another step, and say that the criminal is a victim, as the diseased and insane and deformed are victims? we do not think of punishing a man because he is afflicted with disease--our desire is to find a cure. we send him, not to the penitentiary, but to the hospital, to an asylum. we do this because we recognize the fact that disease is naturally produced--that it is inherited from parents, or the result of unconscious negligence, or it may be of recklessness--but instead of punishing, we pity. if there are diseases of the mind, of the brain, as there are diseases of the body; and if these diseases of the mind, these deformities of the brain, produce, and necessarily produce, what we call vice, why should we punish the-criminal, and pity those who are physically diseased? socrates, in some respects at least one of the wisest of men, said: "it is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an ill-conditioned soul." we know that there are deformed bodies, and we are equally certain that there are deformed minds. of course, society has the right to protect itself, no matter whether the persons who attack its well-being are responsible or not, no matter whether they are sick in mind, or deformed in brain. the right of self-defence exists, not only in the individual, but in society. the great question is, how shall this right of self-defence be exercised? what spirit shall be in the nation, or in society--the spirit of revenge, a desire to degrade and punish and destroy, or a spirit born of the recognition of the fact that criminals are victims? the world has thoroughly tried confiscation, degradation, imprisonment, torture and death, and thus far the world has failed. in this connection i call your attention to the following statistics gathered in our own country: in , we had twenty-three millions of people, and between six and seven thousand prisoners. in --thirty-one millions of people, and nineteen thousand prisoners. in --thirty-eight millions of people, and thirty-two thousand prisoners. in --fifty millions of people, and fifty-eight thousand prisoners. it may be curious to note the relation between insanity, pauperism and crime: in , there were fifteen thousand insane; in , twenty-four thousand; in , thirty-seven thousand; in , ninety-one thousand. in the light of these statistics, we are not succeeding in doing away with crime. there were in , fifty-eight thousand prisoners, and in the same year fifty-seven thousand homeless children, and sixty-six thousand paupers in almshouses. is it possible that we must go to the same causes for these effects? iv. there is no reformation in degradation. to mutilate a criminal is to say to all the world that he is a criminal, and to render his reformation substantially impossible. whoever is degraded by society becomes its enemy. the seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his death he will hate the hand that sowed the seeds. there is also another side to this question. a punishment that degrades the punished will degrade the man who inflicts the punishment, and will degrade the government that procures the infliction. the whipping-post pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whipper, and not only the whipper, but the community at large. wherever its shadow falls it degrades. if, then, there is no reforming power in degradation--no deterrent power--for the reason that the degradation of the criminal degrades the community, and in this way produces more criminals, then the next question is, whether there is any reforming power in torture? the trouble with this is that it hardens and degrades to the last degree the ministers of the law. those who are not affected by the agonies of the bad will in a little time care nothing for the sufferings of the good. there seems to be a little of the wild beast in men--a something that is fascinated by suffering, and that delights in inflicting pain. when a government tortures, it is in the same state of mind that the criminal was when he committed his crime. it requires as much malice in those who execute the law, to torture a criminal, as it did in the criminal to torture and kill his victim. the one was a crime by a person, the other by a nation. there is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends to defeat itself. there were never as many traitors in england as when the traitor was drawn and quartered--when he was tortured in every possible way--when his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of mobs or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in chains. these frightful punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors continued to increase until they became powerful enough to decide what treason was and who the traitors were, and to inflict the same torments on others. think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. think of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. think for a moment of what they have endured--of the difficulties under which they have pursued their calling, and it will be exceedingly hard to believe that they were sane and natural people possessed of good brains, of minds well-poised, and that they did what they did from a choice unaffected by heredity and the countless circumstances that tend to determine the conduct of human beings. the other day i was asked these questions: "has there been as much heroism displayed for the right as for the wrong? has virtue had as many martyrs as vice?" for hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by force. the expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of crimes. dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. it was impossible to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and truth. is it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge, imprisonment, torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as to destroy virtue? in our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. it was provided in the constitution of the united states that "cruel and unusual punishments should not be inflicted." benjamin franklin took great interest in the treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for punishment's sake. to me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing something of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations to which he himself has been exposed--remembering the evil of his life, the things he would have done had there been opportunity, had he absolutely known that discovery would be impossible--should have feelings of hatred toward the imprisoned. is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit of self-defence? does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil thought and impulse were never in his mind? are his words a shield that he uses to protect himself from suspicion? for my part, i sympathize sincerely with all failures, with the victims of society, with those who have fallen, with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of passion have destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives. how perilous, after all, is the state of man. it is the work of a life to build a great and splendid character. it is the work of a moment to destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. how cruel hypocrisy is! is there any remedy? can anything be done for the reformation of the criminal? he should be treated with kindness. every right should be given him, consistent with the safety of society. he should neither be degraded nor robbed. the state should set the highest and noblest example. the powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there should be no desire for revenge. a man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is sent to the penitentiary--first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. the circumstances of each individual case are rarely inquired into. investigation stops when the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. no distinctions are made except as between first and subsequent offences. nothing is allowed for surroundings. all will admit that the industrious must be protected. in this world it is necessary to work. labor is the foundation of all prosperity. larceny is the enemy of industry. society has the right to protect itself. the question is, has it the right to punish?--has it the right to degrade?--or should it endeavor to reform the convict? a man is taken to the penitentiary. he is clad in the garments of a convict. he is degraded--he loses his name--he is designated by a number. he is no longer treated as a human being--he becomes the slave of the state. nothing is done for his improvement--nothing for his reformation. he is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor; leased, it may be, by the state to a contractor, who gets out of his hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he can. he is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. at night he is alone in his cell. the relations that should exist between men are destroyed. he is a convict. he is no longer worthy to associate even with his keepers. the jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who turns the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a model of honesty, of virtue and manhood. the convict is pavement on which those who watch him walk. he remains for the time of his sentence, and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. he is given money enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came. what is the condition of this man? can he get employment? not if he honestly states who he is and where he has been. the first thing he does is to deny his personality, to assume a name. he endeavors by telling falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. the average man does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has no confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. he believes that the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in. he knows that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been hardened--that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual humiliation--that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he believes that this ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that he feels he has been degraded and robbed. under these circumstances, what avenue is opened to the ex-convict? if he changes his name, there will be some detective, some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch, who will betray his secret. he is then discharged. he seeks employment again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. he is again detected and again discharged. and finally he becomes convinced that he cannot live as an honest man. he naturally drifts back into the society of those who have had a like experience; and the result is that in a little while he again stands in the dock, charged with the commission of another crime. again he is sent to the penitentiary--and this is the end. he feels that his day is done, that the future has only degradation for him. the men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. their labor belongs to others. they have no interest in their toil--no reason for doing the best they can--and the result is that the product of their labor is poor. this product comes in competition with the work of mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people. vi. why should the state take without compensation the labor of these men; and why should they, after having been imprisoned for years, be turned out without the means of support? would it not be far better, far more economical, to pay these men for their labor, to lay aside their earnings from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year--to put this money at interest, so that when the convict is released after five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his own--not merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which he was sent, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business on his own account, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of his heart? suppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. this would be to most of that class a fortune. it would form a breastwork, a fortress, behind which the man could fight temptation. this would give him food and raiment, enable him to go to some other state or country where he could redeem himself. if this were done, thousands of convicts would feel under immense obligation to the government. they would think of the penitentiary as the place in which they were saved--in which they were redeemed--and they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them from the abyss of crime. under these circumstances, the law would appear beneficent, and the heart of the poor convict, instead of being filled with malice, would overflow with gratitude. he would see the propriety of the course pursued by the government. he would recognize and feel and experience the benefits of this course, and the result would be good, not only to him, but to the nation as well. if the convict worked for himself, he would do the best he could, and the wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of other men. vii. there are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation--as a profession--men who have been convicted again and again, and who will persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of others. what shall be done with these men and women? put one thousand hardened thieves on an island--compel them to produce what they eat and use--and i am almost certain that a large majority would be opposed to theft. those who worked would not permit those who did not, to steal the result of their labor. in other words, self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society. such a community would be self-supporting. let women of the same class be put by themselves. keep the sexes absolutely apart. those who are beyond the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce themselves. those who cannot be reached by kindness--by justice--those who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be separated. they should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs. what shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men--with murderers? shall the nation take life? it has been contended that the death penalty deters others--that it has far more terror than imprisonment for life. what is the effect of the example set by a nation? is not the tendency to harden and degrade not only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community as well? a few years ago a man was hanged in alexandria, virginia. one who witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the smithsonian grounds at washington. he was tried and executed, and one who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his wife. the tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. in the presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. technicalities become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the appearance for a moment of being natural and logical. honest and conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable step. if the penalty were imprisonment for life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were made it could be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is fatal. a conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human nature--the uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that dim and darken the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if wrong, cannot be righted. the death penalty, inflicted by the government, is a perpetual excuse for mobs. the greatest danger in a republic is a mob, and as long as states inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. if the state does not consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle the suspected. the mob will say: "the only difference is in the trial; the state does the same--we know the man is guilty--why should time be wasted in technicalities?" in other words, why may not the mob do quickly that which the state does slowly? every execution tends to harden the public heart--tends to lessen the sacredness of human life. in many states of this union the mob is supreme. for certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed criminal. it is the duty of every citizen--and as it seems to me especially of every lawyer--to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit. one would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the opposite. and there is another thing in this connection--the men who constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the most depraved. a few years ago, in illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping, shot the sheriff. he was pursued, overtaken--lynched. the man who put the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for an assault to murder. and after the poor wretch was dead, another man climbed the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in the mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted for larceny. those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for having committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals themselves. as long as nations meet on the fields of war--as long as they sustain the relations of savages to each other--as long as they put the laurel and the oak on the brows of those who kill--just so long will citizens resort to violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by dagger and revolver. viii. if we are to change the conduct of men, we must change their conditions. extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand. destitution multiplies temptations and destroys the finer feelings. the bodies and souls of men are apt to be clad in like garments. if the body is covered with rags, the soul is generally in the same condition. selfrespect is gone--the man looks down--he has neither hope nor courage. he becomes sinister--he envies the prosperous--hates the fortunate, and despises himself. as long as children are raised in the tenement and gutter, the prisons will be full. the gulf between the rich and poor will grow wider and wider. one will depend on cunning, the other on force. it is a great question whether those who live in luxury can afford to allow others to exist in want. the value of property depends, not on the prosperity of the few, but on the prosperity of a very large majority. life and property must be secure, or that subtle thing called "value" takes its leave. the poverty of the many is a perpetual menace. if we expect a prosperous and peaceful country, the citizens must have homes. the more homes, the more patriots, the more virtue, and the more security for all that gives worth to life. we need not repeat the failures of the old world. to divide lands among successful generals, or among favorites of the crown, to give vast estates for services rendered in war, is no worse than to allow men of great wealth to purchase and hold vast tracts of land. the result is precisely the same--that is to say, a nation composed of a few landlords and of many tenants--the tenants resorting from time to time to mob violence, and the landlords depending upon a standing army. the property of no man, however, should be taken for either private or public use without just compensation and in accordance with law. there is in the state what is known as the right of eminent domain. the state reserves to itself the power to take the land of any private citizen for a public use, paying to that private citizen a just compensation to be legally ascertained. when a corporation wishes to build a railway, it exercises this right of eminent domain, and where the owner of land refuses to sell a right of way, or land for the establishment of stations or shops, and the corporation proceeds to condemn the land to ascertain its value, and when the amount thus ascertained is paid, the property vests in the corporation. this power is exercised because in the estimation of the people the construction of a railway is a public good. i believe that this power should be exercised in another direction. it would be well as it seems to me, for the legislature to fix the amount of land that a private citizen may own, that will not be subject to be taken for the use of which i am about to speak. the amount to be thus held will depend upon many local circumstances, to be decided by each state for itself. let me suppose that the amount of land that may be held for a farmer for cultivation has been fixed at one hundred and sixty acres--and suppose that a has several thousand acres. b wishes to buy one hundred and sixty acres or less of this land, for the purpose of making himself a home. a refuses to sell. now, i believe that the law should be so that b can invoke this right of eminent domain, and file his petition, have the case brought before a jury, or before commissioners, who shall hear the evidence and determine the value, and on the payment of the amount the land shall belong to b. i would extend the same law to lots and houses in cities and villages--the object being to fill our country with the owners of homes, so that every child shall have a fireside, every father and mother a roof, provided they have the intelligence, the energy and the industry to acquire the necessary means. tenements and flats and rented lands are, in my judgment, the enemies of civilization. they make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. they put a few in palaces, but they put many in prisons. i would go a step further than this. i would exempt homes of a certain value not only from levy and sale, but from every kind of taxation, state and national--so that these poor people would feel that they were in partnership with nature--that some of the land was absolutely theirs, and that no one could drive them from their home--so that mothers could feel secure. if the home increased in value, and exceeded the limit, then taxes could be paid on the excess; and if the home were sold, i would have the money realized exempt for a certain time in order that the family should have the privilege of buying another home. the home, after all, is the unit of civilization, of good government; and to secure homes for a great majority of our citizens, would be to lay the foundation of our government deeper and broader and stronger than that of any nation that has existed among men. ix. no one places a higher value upon the free school than i do; and no one takes greater pride in the prosperity of our colleges and universities. but at the same time, much that is called education simply unfits men successfully to fight the battle of life. thousands are to-day studying things that will be of exceedingly little importance to them or to others. much valuable time is wasted in studying languages that long ago were dead, and histories in which there is no truth. there was an idea in the olden time--and it is not yet dead--that whoever was educated ought not to work; that he should use his head and not his hands. graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual labor, in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. to this manly kind of independence they preferred the garret and the precarious existence of an unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their friends, and their ideas from the dead. the educated regarded the useful as degrading--they were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands white. the object of all education should be to increase the use fulness of man--usefulness to himself and others. every human being should be taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting he must be self-supporting. to live on the labor of others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. every man should be taught some useful art. his hands should be educated as well as his head. he should be taught to deal with things as they are--with life as it is. this would give a feeling of independence, which is the firmest foundation of honor, of character. every man knowing that he is useful, admires himself. in all the schools children should be taught to work in wood and iron, to understand the construction and use of machinery, to become acquainted with the great forces that man is using to do his work. the present system of education teaches names, not things. it is as though we should spend years in learning the names of cards, without playing a game. in this way boys would learn their aptitudes--would ascertain what they were fitted for--what they could do. it would not be a guess, or an experiment, but a demonstration. education should increase a boy's chances for getting a living. the real good of it is to get food and roof and raiment, opportunity to develop the mind and the body and live a full and ample life. the more real education, the less crime--and the more homes, the fewer prisons. x. the fear of punishment may deter some, the fear of exposure others; but there is no real reforming power in fear or punishment. men cannot be tortured into greatness, into goodness. all this, as i said before, has been thoroughly tried. the idea that punishment was the only relief, found its limit, its infinite, in the old doctrine of eternal pain; but the believers in that dogma stated distinctly that the victims never would be, and never could be, reformed. as men become civilized they become capable of greater pain and of greater joy. to the extent that the average man is capable of enjoying or suffering, to that extent he has sympathy with others. the average man, the more enlightened he becomes, the more apt he is to put himself in the place of another. he thinks of his prisoner, of his employee, of his tenant--and he even thinks beyond these; he thinks of the community at large. as man becomes civilized he takes more and more into consideration circumstances and conditions. he gradually loses faith in the old ideas and theories that every man can do as he wills, and in the place of the word "wills," he puts the word "must." the time comes to the intelligent man when in the place of punishments he thinks of consequences, results--that is to say, not something inflicted by some other power, but something necessarily growing out of what is done. the clearer men perceive the consequences of actions, the better they will be. behind consequences we place no personal will, and consequently do not regard them as inflictions, or punishments. consequences, no matter how severe they may be, create in the mind no feeling of resentment, no desire for revenge.' we do not feel bitterly toward the fire because it burns, or the frost that freezes, or the flood that overwhelms, or the sea that drowns--because we attribute to these things no motives, good or bad. so, when through the development of the intellect man perceives not only the nature, but the absolute certainty of consequences, he refrains from certain actions, and this may be called reformation through the intellect--and surely there is no better reformation than this. some may be, and probably millions have been, reformed, through kindness, through gratitude--made better in the sunlight of charity. in the atmosphere of kindness the seeds of virtue burst into bud and flower. cruelty, tyranny, brute force, do not and can not by any possibility better the heart of man. he who is forced upon his knees has the attitude, but never the feeling, of prayer. i am satisfied that the discipline of the average prison hardens and degrades. it is for the most part a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary power. there is really no appeal. the cries of the convict are not heard beyond the walls. the protests die in cells, and the poor prisoner feels that the last tie between him and his fellow-men has been broken. he is kept in ignorance of the outer world. the prison is a cemetery, and his cell is a grave. in many of the penitentiaries there are instruments of torture, and now and then a convict is murdered. inspections and investigations go for naught, because the testimony of a convict goes for naught. he is generally prevented by fear from telling his wrongs; but if he speaks, he is not believed--he is regarded as less than a human being, and so the imprisoned remain without remedy. when the visitors are gone, the convict who has spoken is prevented from speaking again. every manly feeling, every effort toward real reformation, is trampled under foot, so that when the convict's time is out there is little left on which to build. he has been humiliated to the last degree, and his spirit has so long been bent by authority and fear that even the desire to stand erect has almost faded from the mind. the keepers feel that they are safe, because no matter what they do, the convict when released will not tell the story of his wrongs, for if he conceals his shame, he must also hide their guilt. every penitentiary should be a real reformatory. that should be the principal object for the establishment of the prison. the men in charge should be of the kindest and noblest. they should be filled with divine enthusiasm for humanity, and every means should be taken to convince the prisoner that his good is sought--that nothing is done for revenge--nothing for a display of power, and nothing for the gratification of malice. he should feel that the warden is his unselfish friend. when a convict is charged with a violation of the rules--with insubordination, or with any offence, there should be an investigation in due and proper form, giving the convict an opportunity to be heard. he should not be for one moment the victim of irresponsible power. he would then feel that he had some rights, and that some little of the human remained in him still. they should be taught things of value--instructed by competent men. pains should be taken, not to punish, not to degrade, but to benefit and ennoble. we know, if we know anything, that men in the penitentiaries are not altogether bad, and that many out are not altogether good; and we feel that in the brain and heart of all, there are the seeds of good and bad. we know, too, that the best are liable to fall, and it may be that the worst, under certain conditions, may be capable of grand and heroic deeds. of one thing we may be assured--and that is, that criminals will never be reformed by being robbed, humiliated and degraded. ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. as long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort--as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails. xi. all the penalties, all the punishments, are inflicted under a belief that man can do right under all circumstances--that his conduct is absolutely under his control, and that his will is a pilot that can, in spite of winds and tides, reach any port desired. all this is, in my judgment, a mistake. it is a denial of the integrity of nature. it is based upon the supernatural and miraculous, and as long as this mistake remains the corner-stone of criminal jurisprudence, reformation will be impossible. we must take into consideration the nature of man--the facts of mind--the power of temptation--the limitations of the intellect--the force of habit--the result of heredity--the power of passion--the domination of want--the diseases of the brain--the tyranny of appetite--the cruelty of conditions--the results of association--the effects of poverty and wealth, of helplessness and power. until these subtle things are understood--until we know that man, in spite of all, can certainly pursue the highway of the right, society should not impoverish and degrade, should not chain and kill those who, after all, may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are deaf and blind. we know something of ourselves--of the average man--of his thoughts, passions, fears and aspirations--something of his sorrows and his joys, his weakness, his liability to fall--something of what he resists--the struggles, the victories and the failures of his life. we know something of the tides and currents of the mysterious sea--something of the circuits of the wayward winds--but we do not know where the wild storms are born that wreck and rend. neither do we know in what strange realm the mists and clouds are formed that darken all the heaven of the mind, nor from whence comes the tempest of the brain in which the will to do, sudden as the lightning's flash, seizes and holds the man until the dreadful deed is done that leaves a curse upon the soul. we do not know. our ignorance should make us hesitate. our weakness should make us merciful. i cannot more fittingly close this address than by quoting the prayer of the buddhist: "i pray thee to have pity on the vicious--thou hast already had pity on the virtuous by making them so." a wooden god. to the editor: to-day messrs. wright, dickey, o'connor, and murch, of the select committee on the causes of the present depression of labor, presented the majority special report upon chinese immigration. these gentlemen are in great fear for the future of our most holy and perfectly authenticated religion, and have, like faithful watchmen, from the walls and towers of zion, hastened to give the alarm. they have informed congress that "joss has his temple of worship in the chinese quarters, in san francisco. within the walls of a dilapidated structure is exposed to the view of the faithful the god of the chinaman, and here are his altars of worship. here he tears up his pieces of paper; here he offers up his prayers; here he receives his religious consolations, and here is his road to the celestial land;" that "joss is located in a long, narrow room in a building in a back alley, upon a kind of altar;" that "he is a wooden image, looking as much like an alligator as like a human being;" that the chinese "think there is such a place as heaven;" that "all classes of chinamen worship idols;" that "the temple is open every day at all hours;" that "the chinese have no sunday;" that this heathen god has "huge jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a half-dozen arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. about him are placed offerings of meat and other eatables--a sacrificial offering." *a letter to the chicago times, written at washington, d. c., march , . no wonder that these members of the committee were shocked at such an image of god, knowing as they did that the only true god was correctly described by the inspired lunatic of patmos in the following words: "and there sat in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. and he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." certainly a large mouth filled with white teeth is preferable to one used as the scabbard of a sharp, two-edged sword. why should these gentlemen object to a god with big, fiery eyeballs, when their own deity has eyes like a flame of fire? is it not a little late in the day to object to people because they sacrifice meat and other eatables to their god? we all know that for thousands of years the "real" god was exceedingly fond of roasted meat; that he loved the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the perfume of fresh, warm blood. the following account of the manner in which the "living god" desired that his chosen people should sacrifice, tends to show the degradation and religious blindness of the chinese: "aaron therefore went unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself. and the sons of aaron brought the blood unto him: and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar: but the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver of the sin offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the lord commanded moses. and the flesh and the hide he burnt with fire without the camp. and he slew the burnt offering; and aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled round about upon the altar. * * * and he brought the meat offering, and took a handful thereof, and burnt it upon the altar. * * * he slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering, which was for the people: and aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled upon the altar round about, and the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump, and that which covereth the inwards and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, and they put the fat upon the breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the altar. and the breast and the right shoulder aaron waved for a wave offering before the lord, as moses commanded." if the chinese only did something like this, we would know that they worshiped the "living" god. the idea that the supreme head of the "american system of religion" can be placated with a little meat and "ordinary eatables" is simply preposterous. he has always asked for blood, and has always asserted that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. the world is also informed by these gentlemen that "the idolatry of the chinese produces a demoralizing effect upon our american youth by bringing sacred things into disrespect, and making religion a theme of disgust and contempt." in san francisco there are some three hundred thousand people. is it possible that a few chinese can bring our "holy religion" into disgust and contempt? in that city there are fifty times as many churches as joss-houses. scores of sermons are uttered every week; religious books and papers are plentiful as leaves in autumn, and somewhat dryer; thousands of bibles are within the reach of all. and there, too, is the example of a christian city. why should we send missionaries to china if we can not convert the heathen when they come here? when missionaries go to a foreign land, the poor, benighted people have to take their word for the blessings showered upon a christian people; but when the heathen come here they can see for themselves. what was simply a story becomes a demonstrated fact. they come in contact with people who love their enemies. they see that in a christian land men tell the truth; that they will not take advantage of strangers; that they are just and patient, kind and tender; that they never resort to force; that they have no prejudice on account of color, race, or religion; that they look upon mankind as brethren; that they speak of god as a universal father, and are willing to work, and even to suffer, for the good not only of their own countrymen, but of the heathen as well. all this the chinese see and know, and why they still cling to the religion of their country is to me a matter of amazement. we all know that the disciples of jesus do unto others as they would that others should do unto them, and that those of confucius do not unto others anything that they would not that others should do unto them. surely, such peoples ought to live together in perfect peace. rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind of holy indignation, these christian representatives of a christian people most solemnly declare that: "anyone who is really endowed with a correct knowledge of our religious system, which acknowledges the existence of a living god and an accountability to him, and a future state of reward and punishment, who feels that he has an apology for this abominable pagan worship is not a fit person to be ranked as a good citizen of the american union. it is absurd to make any apology for its toleration. it must be abolished, and the sooner the decree goes forth by the power of this government the better it will be for the interests of this land." i take this, the earliest opportunity, to inform these gentlemen composing a majority of the committee, that we have in the united states no "religious system"; that this is a secular government. that it has no religious creed; that it does not believe or disbelieve in a future state of reward and punishment; that it neither affirms nor denies the existence of a "living god"; and that the only god, so far as this government is concerned, is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. under our flag the chinese have the same right to worship a wooden god that you have to worship any other. the constitution protects equally the church of jehovah and the house of joss. whatever their relative positions may be in heaven, they stand upon a perfect equality in the united states. this government is an infidel government. we have a constitution with man put in and god left out; and it is the glory of this country that we have such a constitution. it may be surprising to you that i have an apology for pagan worship, yet i have. and it is the same one that i have for the writers of this report. i account for both by the word _superstition_. why should we object to their worshiping god as they please? if the worship is improper, the protestation should come not from a committee of congress, but from god himself. if he is satisfied that is sufficient. our religion can only be brought into contempt by the actions of those who profess to be governed by its teachings. this report will do more in that direction than millions of chinese could do by burning pieces of paper before a wooden image. if you wish to impress the chinese with the value of your religion, of what you are pleased to call "the american system," show them that christians are better than heathens. prove to them that what you are pleased to call the "living god" teaches higher and holier things, a grander and purer code of morals than can be found upon pagan pages. excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality; and above all by advocating the absolute liberty of human thought. do not trample upon these people because they have a different conception of things about which even this committee knows nothing. give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a god after their own fashion. and let them describe him as they will. would you be willing to have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had pretended to have seen god, and had written of him as follows: "there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and did fly." why should you object to these people on account of their religion? your objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. of that spirit the inquisition was born. that spirit lighted the fagot, made the thumbscrew, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men. the same spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human beings; sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery. congress has nothing to do with the religion of the people. its members are not responsible to god for the opinions of their constituents, and it may tend to the happiness of the constituents for me to state that they are in no way responsible for the religion of the members. religion is an individual, not a national, matter. and where the nation interferes with the right of conscience, the liberties of the people are devoured by the monster superstition. if you wish to drive out the chinese, do not make a pretext of religion. do not pretend that you are trying to do god a favor. injustice in his name is doubly detestable. the assassin can not sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under the pretence of pleasing god, has cursed this world. a portion of this most remarkable report is intensely religious. there is in it almost the odor of sanctity; and when reading it, one is impressed with the living piety of its authors. but on the twenty-fifth page there are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true believers. leaving their religious views, the members immediately betake themselves to philosophy and prediction. listen: "the chinese race and the american citizen, whether native-born or one who is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in a state of antagonism. they cannot, or will not, ever meet upon common ground, and occupy together the same social level. this is impossible. the pagan and the christian travel different paths. this one believes in a living god; and that one in a type of monsters and the worship of wood and stone. thus in the religion of the two races of men they are as wide apart as the poles of the two hemispheres. they cannot now and never will approach the same religious altar. the christian will not recede to barbarism, nor will the chinese advance to the enlightened belt (whatever it is) of civilization. * * * he cannot be converted to those modern ideas of religious worship which have been accepted by europe and which crown the american system." christians used to believe that through their religion all the nations of the earth were finally to be blest. in accordance with that belief missionaries have been sent to every land, and untold wealth has been expended for what has been called the spread of the gospel. i am almost sure that i have read somewhere that "christ died for _all_ men," and that "god is no respecter of persons." it was once taught that it was the duty of christians to tell all people the "tidings of great joy." i have never believed these things myself, but have always contended that an honest merchant was the best missionary. commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed. for myself, i have but little confidence in any business or enterprise or investment that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders. but i am astonished that four christian statesmen, four members of congress, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, who seriously object to people on account of their religious convictions, should still assert that the very religion in which they believe--and the only religion established by the "living god," head of the american system--is not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-third of the human race. it is amazing that these four gentlemen have, in the defence of the christian religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly inadequate for the civilization of mankind; that the light of the cross can never penetrate the darkness of china; "that all the labors of the missionary, the example of the good, the exalted character of our civilization, make no impression upon the pagan life of the chinese;" and that even the report of this committee will not tend to elevate, refine, and christianize the yellow heathen of the pacific coast. in the name of religion these gentlemen have denied its power, and mocked at the enthusiasm of its founder. worse than this, they have predicted for the chinese a future of ignorance and idolatry in this world, and, if the "american system" of religion is true, hell-fire in the next. for the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets i will give a few extracts from the writings of confucius, that will, in my judgment, compare favorably with the best passages of their report: "my doctrine is that man must be true to the principles of his nature, and the benevolent exercise of them toward others. with coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and with my bended arm for a pillow, i still have joy. riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me but floating clouds. the man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who, in view of danger, forgets life, and who remembers an old agreement, however far back it extends, such a man may be reckoned a complete man. recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness. there is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life: reciprocity is that word." when the ancestors of the four christian congressmen were barbarians, when they lived in caves, gnawed bones, and worshiped dried snakes, the infamous chinese were reading these sublime sentences of confucius. when the forefathers of these christian statesmen were hunting toads to get the jewels out of their heads, to be used as charms, the wretched chinese were calculating eclipses, and measuring the circumference of the earth. when the progenitors of these representatives of the "american system of religion" were burning women charged with nursing devils, the people "incapable of being influenced by the exalted character of our civilization," were building asylums for the insane. neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of years, the chinese have honestly practiced the great principle known as civil service reform--a something that even the administration of mr. hayes has reached only through the proxy of promise. if we wish to prevent the immigration of the chinese, let us reform our treaties with the vast empire from whence they came. for thousands of years the chinese secluded themselves from the rest of the world. they did not deem the christian nations fit to associate with. we forced ourselves upon them. we called, not with cards, but with cannon. the english battered down the door in the names of opium and christ. this infamy was regarded as another triumph for the gospel. at last, in self-defence, the chinese allowed christians to touch their shores. their wise men, their philosophers, protested, and prophesied that time would show that christians could not be trusted. this report proves that the wise men were not only philosophers, but prophets. treat china as you would england. keep a treaty while it is in force. change it if you will, according to the laws of nations, but on no account excuse a breach of national faith by pretending that we are dishonest for god's sake. some interrogation points. a new party is struggling for recognition--a party with leaders who are not politicians, with followers who are not seekers after place. some of those who suffer and some of those who sympathize, have combined. those who feel that they are oppressed are organized for the purpose of redressing their wrongs. the workers for wages, and the seekers for work have uttered a protest. this party is an instrumentality for the accomplishment of certain things that are very near and very dear to the hearts of many millions. the object to be attained is a fairer division of profits between employers and employed. there is a feeling that in some way the workers should not want--that the industrious should not be the indigent. there is a hope that men and women and children are not forever to be the victims of ignorance and want--that the tenement house is not always to be the home of the poor, or the gutter the nursery of their babes. as yet, the methods for the accomplishment of these aims have not been agreed upon. many theories have been advanced and none has been adopted. the question is so vast, so complex, touching human interests in so many ways, that no one has yet been great enough to furnish a solution, or, if any one has furnished a solution, no one else has been wise enough to understand it. 'the hope of the future is that this question will finally be understood. it must not be discussed in anger. if a broad and comprehensive view is to be taken, there is no place for hatred or for prejudice. capital is not to blame. labor is not to blame. both have been caught in the net of circumstances. the rich are as generous as the poor would be if they should change places. men acquire through the noblest and the tenderest instincts. they work and save not only for themselves, but for their wives and for their children. there is but little confidence in the charity of the world. the prudent man in his youth makes preparation for his age. the loving father, having struggled himself, hopes to save his children from drudgery and toil. in every country there are classes--that is to say, the spirit of caste, and this spirit will exist until the world is truly civilized. persons in most communities are judged not as individuals, but as members of a class. nothing is more natural, and nothing more heartless. these lines that divide hearts on account of clothes or titles, are growing more and more indistinct, and the philanthropists, the lovers of the human race, believe that the time is coming when they will be obliterated. we may do away with kings and peasants, and yet there may still be the rich and poor, the intelligent and foolish, the beautiful and deformed, the industrious and idle, and it may be, the honest and vicious. these classifications are in the nature of things. they are produced for the most part by forces that are now beyond the control of man--but the old rule, that men are disreputable in the proportion that they are useful, will certainly be reversed. the idle lord was always held to be the superior of the industrious peasant, the devourer better than the producer, and the waster superior to the worker. while in this country we have no titles of nobility, we have the rich and the poor--no princes, no peasants, but millionaires and mendicants. the individuals composing these classes are continually changing. the rich of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow, and the children of the poor may take their places. in this country, the children of the poor are educated substantially in the same schools with those of the rich. all read the same papers, many of the same books, and all for many years hear the same questions discussed. they are continually being educated, not only at schools, but by the press, by political campaigns, by perpetual discussions on public questions, and the result is that those who are rich in gold are often poor in thought, and many who have not whereon to lay their heads have within those heads a part of the intellectual wealth of the world. years ago the men of wealth were forced to contribute toward the education of the children of the poor. the support of schools by general taxation was defended on the ground that it was a means of providing for the public welfare, of perpetuating the institutions of a free country by making better men and women. this policy has been pursued until at last the schoolhouse is larger than the church, and the common people through education have become uncommon. they now know how little is really known by what are called the upper classes--how little after all is understood by kings, presidents, legislators, and men of culture. they are capable not only of understanding a few questions, but they have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands. with the facility of politicians they can hide behind phrases, make barricades of statistics, and _chevaux-de-frise_ of inferences and assertions. they understand the sophistries of those who have governed. in some respects these common people are the superiors of the so-called aristocracy. while the educated have been turning their attention to the classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas and mistakes that they contain--while they have been giving their attention to ceramics, artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have been compelled to learn the practical things--to become acquainted with facts--by doing the work of the world. the professor of a college is no longer a match for a master mechanic. the master mechanic not only understands principles, but their application. he knows things as they are. he has come in contact with the actual, with realities. he knows something of the adaptation of means to ends, and this is the highest and most valuable form of education. the men who make locomotives, who construct the vast engines that propel ships, necessarily know more than those who have spent their lives in conjugating greek verbs, looking for hebrew roots, and discussing the origin and destiny of the universe. intelligence increases wants. by education the necessities of the people become increased. the old wages will not supply the new wants. man longs for a harmony between the thought within and the things without. when the soul lives in a palace the body is not satisfied with rags and patches. the glaring inequalities among men, the differences in condition, the suffering and the poverty, have appealed to the good and great of every age, and there has been in the brain of the philanthropist a dream--a hope, a prophecy, of a better day. it was believed that tyranny was the foundation and cause of the differences between men--that the rich were all robbers and the poor all victims, and that if a society or government could be founded on equal rights and privileges, the inequalities would disappear, that all would have food and clothes and reasonable work and reasonable leisure, and that content would be found by every hearth. there was a reliance on nature--an idea that men had interfered with the harmonious action of great principles which if left to themselves would work out universal wellbeing for the human race. others imagined that the inequalities between men were necessary--that they were part of a divine plan, and that all would be adjusted in some other world--that the poor here would be the rich there, and the rich here might be in torture there. heaven became the reward of the poor, of the slave, and hell their revenge. when our government was established it was declared that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. it was then believed that if all men had an equal opportunity, if they were allowed to make and execute their own laws, to levy their own taxes, the frightful inequalities seen in the despotisms and monarchies of the old world would entirely disappear. this was the dream of . the founders of the government knew how kings and princes and dukes and lords and barons had lived upon the labor of the peasants. they knew the history of those ages of want and crime, of luxury and suffering. but in spite of our declaration, in spite of our constitution, in spite of universal suffrage, the inequalities still exist. we have the kings and princes, the lords and peasants, in fact, if not in name. monopolists, corporations, capitalists, workers for wages, have taken their places, and we are forced to admit that even universal suffrage cannot clothe and feed the world. for thousands of years men have been talking and writing about the great law of supply and demand--and insisting that in some way this mysterious law has governed and will continue to govern the activities of the human race. it is admitted that this law is merciless--that when the demand fails, the producer, the laborer, must suffer, must perish--that the law feels neither pity nor malice--it simply acts, regardless of consequences. under this law capital will employ the cheapest. the single man can work for less than the married. wife and children are luxuries not to be enjoyed under this law. the ignorant have fewer wants than the educated, and for this reason can afford to work for less. the great law will give employment to the single and to the ignorant in preference to the married and intelligent. the great law has nothing to do with food or clothes, with filth or crime. it cares nothing for homes, for penitentiaries, or asylums. it simply acts--and some men triumph, some succeed, some fail, and some perish. others insist that the curse of the world is monopoly. and yet, as long as some men are stronger than others, as long as some are more intelligent than others, they must be, to the extent of such advantage, monopolists. every man of genius is a monopolist. we are told that the great remedy against monopoly--that is to say, against extortion, is free and unrestricted competition. but after all, the history of this world shows that the brutalities of competition are equaled only by those of monopoly. the successful competitor becomes a monopolist, and if competitors fail to destroy each other, the instinct of self-preservation suggests a combination. in other words, competition is a struggle between two or more persons or corporations for the purpose of determining which shall have the uninterrupted privilege of extortion. in this country the people have had the greatest reliance on competition. if a railway company charged too much a rival road was built. as a matter of fact, we are indebted for half the railroads of the united states to the extortion of the other half, and the same may truthfully be said of telegraph lines. as a rule, while the exactions of monopoly constructed new roads and new lines, competition has either destroyed the weaker, or produced the pool which is a means of keeping both monopolies alive, or of producing a new monopoly with greater needs, supplied by methods more heartless than the old. when a rival road is built the people support the rival because the fares and freights are somewhat less. then the old and richer monopoly inaugurates war, and the people, glorying in the benefits of competition, are absurd enough to support the old. in a little while the new company, unable to maintain the contest, left by the people at the mercy of the stronger, goes to the wall, and the triumphant monopoly proceeds to make the intelligent people pay not only the old price, but enough in addition to make up for the expenses of the contest. is there any remedy for this? none, except with the people themselves. when the people become intelligent enough to support the rival at a reasonable price; when they know enough to allow both roads to live; when they are intelligent enough to recognize a friend and to stand by that friend as against a known enemy, this question will be at least on the edge of a solution. so far as i know, this course has never been pursued except in one instance, and that is the present war between the gould and mackay cables. the gould system had been charging from sixty to eighty cents a word, and the mackay system charged forty. then the old monopoly tried to induce the rival to put the prices back to sixty. the rival refused, and thereupon the gould combination dropped to twelve and a half, for the purpose of destroying the rival. the mackay cable fixed the tariff at twenty-five cents, saying to its customers, "you are intelligent enough to understand what this war means. if our cables are defeated, the gould system will go back not only to the old price, but will add enough to reimburse itself for the cost of destroying us. if you really wish for competition, if you desire a reasonable service at a reasonable rate, you will support us." fortunately an exceedingly intelligent class of people does business by the cables. they are merchants, bankers, and brokers, dealing with large amounts, with intricate, complicated, and international questions. of necessity, they are used to thinking for themselves. they are not dazzled into blindness by the glare of the present. they see the future. they are not duped by the sunshine of a moment or the promise of an hour. they see beyond the horizon of a penny saved. these people had intelligence enough to say, "the rival who stands between us and extortion is our friend, and our friend shall not be allowed to die." does not this tend to show that people must depend upon themselves, and that some questions can be settled by the intelligence of those who buy, of those who use, and that customers are not entirely helpless? another thing should not be forgotten, and that is this: there is the same war between monopolies that there is between individuals, and the monopolies for many years have been trying to destroy each other. they have unconsciously been working for the extinction of monopolies. these monopolies differ as individuals do. you find among them the rich and the poor, the lucky and the unfortunate, millionaires and tramps. the great monopolies have been devouring the little ones. only a few years ago, the railways in this country were controlled by local directors and local managers. the people along the lines were interested in the stock. as a consequence, whenever any legislation was threatened hostile to the interests of these railways, they had local friends who used their influence with legislators, governors and juries. during this time they were protected, but when the hard times came many of these companies were unable to pay their interest. they suddenly became socialists. they cried out against their prosperous rivals. they felt like joining the knights of labor. they began to talk about rights and wrongs. but in spite of their cries, they have passed into the hands of the richer roads--they were seized by the great monopolies. now the important railways are owned by persons living in large cities or in foreign countries. they have no local friends, and when the time conies, and it may come, for the general government to say how much these companies shall charge for passengers and freight, they will have no local friends. it may be that the great mass of the people will then be on the other side. so that after all, the great corporations have been busy settling the question against themselves. possibly a majority of the american people believe to-day that in some way all these questions between capital and labor can be settled by constitutions, laws, and judicial decisions. most people imagine that a statute is a sovereign specific for any evil. but while the theory has all been one way, the actual experience has been the other--just as the free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists most of the facts. the truth is, as mr. buckle says, that for five hundred years all real advance in legislation has been made by repealing laws. of one thing we must be satisfied, and that is that real monopolies have never been controlled by law, but the fact that such monopolies exist, is a demonstration that the law has been controlled. in our country, legislators are for the most part controlled by those who, by their wealth and influence, elect them. the few, in reality, cast the votes of the many, and the few influence the ones voted for by the many. special interests, being active, secure special legislation, and the object of special legislation is to create a kind of monopoly--that is to say, to get some advantage. chiefs, barons, priests, and kings ruled, robbed, destroyed, and duped, and their places have been taken by corporations, monopolists, and politicians. the large fish still live on the little ones, and the fine theories have as yet failed to change the condition of mankind. law in this country is effective only when it is the recorded will of a majority. when the zealous few get control of the legislature, and laws are passed to prevent sabbath-breaking, or wine-drinking, they succeed only in putting their opinions and provincial prejudices in legal phrase. there was a time when men worked from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. these hours have not been lessened, they have not been shortened by law. the law has followed and recorded, but the law is not a leader and not a prophet. it appears to be impossible to fix wages--just as impossible as to fix the values of all manufactured things, including works of art. the field is too great, the problem too complicated, for the human mind to grasp. to fix the value of labor is to fix all values--labor being the foundation of all values. the value of labor cannot be fixed unless we understand the relations that all things bear to each other and to man. if labor were a legal tender--if a judgment for so many dollars could be discharged by so many days of labor,--and the law was that twelve hours of work should be reckoned as one day, then the law could change the hours to ten or eight, and the judgments could be paid in the shortened days. but it is easy to see that in all contracts made after the passage of such a law, the difference in hours would be taken into consideration. we must remember that law is not a creative force. it produces nothing. it raises neither corn nor wine. the legitimate object of law is to protect the weak, to prevent violence and fraud, and to enforce honest contracts, to the end that each person may be free to do as he desires, provided only that he does not interfere with the rights of others. our fathers tried to make people religious by law. they failed. thousands are now trying to make people temperate in the same manner. such efforts always have been and probably always will be failures. people who believe that an infinite god gave to the hebrews a perfect code of laws, must admit that even this code failed to civilize the inhabitants of palestine. it seems impossible to make people just or charitable or industrious or agreeable or successful, by law, any more than you can make them physically perfect or mentally sound. of course we admit that good people intend to make good laws, and that good laws faithfully and honestly executed, tend to the preservation of human rights and to the elevation of the race, but the enactment of a law not in accordance with a sentiment already existing in the minds and hearts of the people--the very people who are depended upon to enforce this law--is not a help, but a hindrance. a real law is but the expression, in an authoritative and accurate form, of the judgment and desire of the majority. as we become intelligent and kind, this intelligence and kindness find expression in law. but how is it possible to fix the wages of every man? to fix wages is to fix prices, and a government to do this intelligently, would necessarily have to have the wisdom generally attributed to an infinite being. it would have to supervise and fix the conditions of every exchange of commodities and the value of every conceivable thing. many things can be accomplished by law, employeers may be held responsible for injuries to the employed. the mines can be ventilated. children can be rescued from the deformities of toil--burdens taken from the backs of wives and mothers--houses made wholesome, food healthful--that is to say, the weak can be protected from the strong, the honest from the vicious, honest contracts can be enforced, and many rights protected. the men who have simply strength, muscle, endurance, compete not only with other men of strength, but with the inventions of genius. what would doctors say if physicians of iron could be invented with curious cogs and wheels, so that when a certain button was touched the proper prescription would be written? how would lawyers feel if a lawyer could be invented in such a way that questions of law, being put in a kind of hopper and a crank being turned, decisions of the highest court could be prophesied without failure? and how would the ministers feel if somebody should invent a clergyman of wood that would to all intents and purposes answer the purpose? invention has filled the world with the competitors not only of laborers, but of mechanics--mechanics of the highest skill. to-day the ordinary laborer is for the most part a cog in a wheel. he works with the tireless--he feeds the insatiable. when the monster stops, the man is out of employment, out of bread; he has not saved anything. the machine that he fed was not feeding him, was not working for him--the invention was not for his benefit. the other day i heard a man say that it was almost impossible for thousands of good mechanics to get employment, and that, in his judgment, the government ought to furnish work for the people. a few minutes after, i heard another say that he was selling a patent for cutting out clothes, that one of his machines could do the work of twenty tailors, and that only the week before he had sold two to a great house in new york, and that over forty cutters had been discharged. on every side men are being discharged and machines are being invented to take their places. when the great factory shuts down, the workers who inhabited it and gave it life, as thoughts do the brain, go away and it stands there like an empty skull. a few workmen, by the force of habit, gather about the closed doors and broken windows and talk about distress, the price of food and the coming winter. they are convinced that they have not had their share of what their labor created. they feel certain that the machines inside were not their friends. they look at the mansion of the employeer and think of the places where they live. they have saved nothing--nothing but themselves. the employeer seems to have enough. even when employeers fail, when they become bankrupt, they are far better off than the laborers ever were. their worst is better than the toilers' best. the capitalist comes forward with his specific. he tells the workingman that he must be economical--and yet, under the present system, economy would only lessen wages. under the great law of supply and demand every saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. the slaves who did not wish to run away helped fasten chains on those who did. so the saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough. does the great law demand that every worker live on the least possible amount of bread? is it his fate to work one day, that he may get enough food to be able to work another? is that to be his only hope--that and death? capital has always claimed and still claims the right to combine. manufacturers meet and determine upon prices, even in spite of the great law of supply and demand. have the laborers the same right to consult and combine? the rich meet in the bank, the clubhouse, or parlor. workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. all the organized forces of society are against them. capital has the army and the navy, the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments. when the rich combine, it is for the purpose of "exchanging ideas." when the poor combine, it is a "conspiracy." if they act in concert, if they really do something, it is a "mob." if they defend themselves, it is "treason." how is it that the rich control the departments of government? in this country the political power is equally divided among the men. there are certainly more poor than there are rich. why should the rich control? why should not the laborers combine for the purpose of controlling the executive, legislative, and judicial departments? will they ever find how powerful they are? in every country there is a satisfied class--too satisfied to care. they are like the angels in heaven, who are never disturbed by the miseries of earth. they are too happy to be generous. this satisfied class asks no questions and answers none. they believe the world is as it should be. all reformers are simply disturbers of the peace. when they talk low, they should not be listened to; when they talk loud, they should be suppressed. the truth is to-day what it always has been--what it always will be--those who feel are the only ones who think. a cry comes from the oppressed, from the hungry, from the down-trodden, from the unfortunate, from men who despair and from women who weep. there are times when mendicants become revolutionists--when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest and bravest battle for the right. how are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? will the machine finally go into partnership with the laborer? can these forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering children? will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? will the workers become intelligent enough and strong enough to be the owners of the machines? will these giants, these titans, shorten or lengthen the hours of labor? will they give leisure to the industrious, or will they make the rich richer, and the poor poorer? is man involved in the "general scheme of things"? is there no pity, no mercy? can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just; or does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal and vegetable world? the great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller trees. the strong animals devour the weak--everything eating something else--everything at the mercy of beak and claw and hoof and tooth--of hand and club, of brain and greed--inequality, injustice, everywhere. the poor horse standing in the street with his dray, overworked, over-whipped, and under-fed, when he sees other horses groomed to mirrors, glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud feet the very earth, probably indulges in the usual socialistic reflections, and this same horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into the dusty road, leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at donkeys in a field of clover, and feels like a nihilist. in the days of savagery the strong devoured the weak--actually ate their flesh. in spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all advance in science, literature and art, the strong, the cunning, the heartless still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and foolish. true, they do not eat their flesh, they do not drink their blood, but they live on their labor, on their self-denial, their weariness and want. the poor man who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and child through all his anxious, barren, wasted life--who goes to the grave without even having had one luxury--has been the food of others. he has been devoured by his fellow-men. the poor woman living in the bare and lonely room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep starvation from a child, is slowly being eaten by her fellow-men. when i take into consideration the agony of civilized life--the number of failures, the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame--i am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man. some of the best and purest of our race have advocated what is known as socialism. they have not only taught, but, what is much more to the purpose, have believed that a nation should be a family; that the government should take care of all its children; that it should provide work and food and clothes and education for all, and that it should divide the results of all labor equitably with all. seeing the inequalities among men, knowing of the destitution and crime, these men were willing to sacrifice, not only their own liberties, but the liberties of all. socialism seems to be one of the worst possible forms of slavery. nothing, in my judgment, would so utterly paralyze all the forces, all the splendid ambitions and aspirations that now tend to the civilization of man. in ordinary systems of slavery there are some masters, a few are supposed to be free; but in a socialistic state all would be slaves. if the government is to provide work it must decide for the worker what he must do. it must say who shall chisel statues, who shall paint pictures, who shall compose music, and who shall practice the professions. is any government, or can any government, be capable of intelligently performing these countless duties? it must not only control work, it must not only decide what each shall do, but it must control expenses, because expenses bear a direct relation to products. therefore the government must decide what the worker shall eat and wherewithal he shall be clothed; the kind of house in which he shall live; the manner in which it shall be furnished, and, if this government furnishes the work, it must decide on the days or the hours of leisure. more than this, it must fix values; it must decide not only who shall sell, but who shall buy, and the price that must be paid--and it must fix this value not simply upon the labor, but on everything that can be produced, that can be exchanged or sold. is it possible to conceive of a despotism beyond this? the present condition of the world is bad enough, with its poverty and ignorance, but it is far better than it could by any possibility be under any government like the one described. there would be less hunger of the body, but not of the mind. each man would simply be a citizen of a large penitentiary, and, as in every well regulated prison, somebody would decide what each should do. the inmates of a prison retire early; they rise with the sun; they have something to eat; they are not dissipated; they have clothes; they attend divine service; they have but little to say about their neighbors; they do not suffer from cold; their habits are excellent, and yet, no one envies their condition. socialism destroys the family. the children belong to the state. certain officers take the places of parents. individuality is lost. the human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty for any possible comfort. you remember the old fable of the fat dog that met the lean wolf in the forest. the wolf, astonished to see so prosperous an animal, inquired of the dog where he got his food, and the dog told him that there was a man who took care of him, gave him his breakfast, his dinner, and his supper with the utmost regularity, and that he had all that he could eat and very little to do. the wolf said, "do you think this man would treat me as he does you?" the dog replied, "yes, come along with me." so they jogged on together toward the dog's home. on the way the wolf happened to notice that some hair was worn off the dog's neck, and he said, "how did the hair become worn?" "that is," said the dog, "the mark of the collar--my master ties me at night." "oh," said the wolf, "are you chained? are you deprived of your liberty? i believe i will go back. i prefer hunger." it is impossible for any man with a good heart to be satisfied with this world as it now is. no one can truly enjoy even what he earns--what he knows to be his own, knowing that millions of his fellow-men are in misery and want. when we think of the famished we feel that it is almost heartless to eat. to meet the ragged and shivering makes one almost ashamed to be well dressed and warm--one feels as though his heart was as cold as their bodies. in a world filled with millions and millions of acres of land waiting to be tilled, where one man can raise the food for hundreds, millions are on the edge of famine. who can comprehend the stupidity at the bottom of this truth? is there to be no change? are "the law of supply and demand," invention and science, monopoly and competition, capital and legislation always to be the enemies of those who toil? will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give their earnings for the useless? will they support millions of soldiers to kill the sons of other workingmen? will they always build temples for ghosts and phantoms, and live in huts and dens themselves? will they forever allow parasites with crowns, and vampires with mitres, to live upon their blood? will they remain the slaves of the beggars they support? how long will they be controlled by friends who seek favors, and by reformers who want office? will they always prefer famine in the city to a feast in the fields? will they ever feel and know that they have no right to bring children into this world that they cannot support? will they use their intelligence for themselves, or for others? will they become wise enough to know that they cannot obtain their own liberty by destroying that of others? will they finally see that every man has a right to choose his trade, his profession, his employment, and has the right to work when, and for whom, and for what he will? will they finally say that the man who has had equal privileges with all others has no right to complain, or will they follow the example that has been set by their oppressors? will they learn that force, to succeed, must have a thought behind it, and that anything done, in order that it may endure, must rest upon the corner-stone of justice? will they, at the command of priests, forever extinguish the spark that sheds a little light in every brain? will they ever recognize the fact that labor, above all things, is honorable--that it is the foundation of virtue? will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that every healthy man must earn the right to live? will honest men stop taking off their hats to successful fraud? will industry, in the presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees, and will the lips unstained by lies forever kiss the robed impostor's hand?--north american review, march, . art and morality. art is the highest form of expression, and exists for the sake of expression. through art thoughts become visible. back of forms are the desire, the longing, the brooding creative instinct, the maternity of mind and the passion that give pose and swell, outline and color. of course there is no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute morality. we now clearly perceive that beauty and conduct are relative. we have outgrown the provincialism that thought is back of substance, as well as the old platonic absurdity, that ideas existed before the subjects of thought. so far, at least, as man is concerned, his thoughts have been produced by his surroundings, by the action and interaction of things upon his mind; and so far as man is concerned, things have preceded thoughts. the impressions that these things make upon us are what we know of them. the absolute is beyond the human mind. our knowledge is confined to the relations that exist between the totality of things that we call the universe, and the effect upon ourselves. actions are deemed right or wrong, according to experience and the conclusions of reason. things are beautiful by the relation that certain forms, colors, and modes of expression bear to us. at the foundation of the beautiful will be found the fact of happiness, the gratification of the senses, the delight of intellectual discovery and the surprise and thrill of appreciation. that which we call the beautiful, wakens into life through the association of ideas, of memories, of experiences, of suggestions of pleasure past and the perception that the prophecies of the ideal have been and will be fulfilled. art cultivates and kindles the imagination, and quickens the conscience. it is by imagination that we put ourselves in the place of another. when the wings of that faculty are folded, the master does not put himself in the place of the slave; the tyrant is not locked in the dungeon, chained with his victim. the inquisitor did not feel the flames that devoured the martyr. the imaginative man, giving to the beggar, gives to himself. those who feel indignant at the perpetration of wrong, feel for the instant that they are the victims; and when they attack the aggressor they feel that they are defending themselves. love and pity are the children of the imagination. our fathers read with great approbation the mechanical sermons in rhyme written by milton, young and pollok. those theological poets wrote for the purpose of convincing their readers that the mind of man is diseased, filled with infirmities, and that poetic poultices and plasters tend to purify and strengthen the moral nature of the human race. nothing to the true artist, to the real genius, is so contemptible as the "medicinal view." poems were written to prove that the practice of virtue was an investment for another world, and that whoever followed the advice found in those solemn, insincere and lugubrious rhymes, although he might be exceedingly unhappy in this world, would with great certainty be rewarded in the next. these writers assumed that there was a kind of relation between rhyme and religion, between verse and virtue; and that it was their duty to call the attention of the world to all the snares and pitfalls of pleasure. they wrote with a purpose. they had a distinct moral end in view. they had a plan. they were missionaries, and their object was to show the world how wicked it was and how good they, the writers, were. they could not conceive of a man being so happy that everything in nature partook of his feeling; that all the birds were singing for him, and singing by reason of his joy; that everything sparkled and shone and moved in the glad rhythm of his heart. they could not appreciate this feeling. they could not think of this joy guiding the artist's hand, seeking expression in form and color. they did not look upon poems, pictures, and statues as results, as children of the brain fathered by sea and sky, by flower and star, by love and light. they were not moved by gladness. they felt the responsibility of perpetual duty. they had a desire to teach, to sermonize, to point out and exaggerate the faults of others and to describe the virtues practiced by themselves. art became a colporteur, a distributer of tracts, a mendicant missionary whose highest ambition was to suppress all heathen joy. happy people were supposed to have forgotten, in a reckless moment, duty and responsibility. true poetry would call them back to a realization of their meanness and their misery. it was the skeleton at the feast, the rattle of whose bones had a rhythmic sound. it was the forefinger of warning and doom held up in the presence of a smile. these moral poets taught the "unwelcome truths," and by the paths of life put posts on which they painted hands pointing at graves. they loved to see the pallor on the cheek of youth, while they talked, in solemn tones, of age, decrepitude and lifeless clay. before the eyes of love they thrust, with eager hands, the skull of death. they crushed the flowers beneath their feet and plaited crowns of thorns for every brow. according to these poets, happiness was inconsistent with virtue. the sense of infinite obligation should be perpetually present. they assumed an attitude of superiority. they denounced and calumniated the reader. they enjoyed his confusion when charged with total depravity. they loved to paint the sufferings of the lost, the worthlessness of human life, the littleness of mankind, and the beauties of an unknown world. they knew but little of the heart. they did not know that without passion there is no virtue, and that the really passionate are the virtuous. art has nothing to do directly with morality or immorality. it is its own excuse for being; it exists for itself. the artist who endeavors to enforce a lesson, becomes a preacher; and the artist who tries by hint and suggestion to enforce the immoral, becomes a pander. there is an infinite difference between the nude and the naked, between the natural and the undressed. in the presence of the pure, unconscious nude, nothing can be more contemptible than those forms in which are the hints and suggestions of drapery, the pretence of exposure, and the failure to conceal. the undressed is vulgar--the nude is pure. the old greek statues, frankly, proudly nude, whose free and perfect limbs have never known the sacrilege of clothes, were and are as free from taint, as pure, as stainless, as the image of the morning star trembling in a drop of perfumed dew. morality is the harmony between act and circumstance. it is the melody of conduct. a wonderful statue is the melody of proportion. a great picture is the melody of form and color. a great statue does not suggest labor; it seems to have been created as a joy. a great painting suggests no weariness and no effort; the greater, the easier it seems. so a great and splendid life seems to have been without effort. there is in it no idea of obligation, no idea of responsibility or of duty. the idea of duty changes to a kind of drudgery that which should be, in the perfect man, a perfect pleasure. the artist, working simply for the sake of enforcing a moral, becomes a laborer. the freedom of genius is lost, and the artist is absorbed in the citizen. the soul of the real artist should be moved by this melody of proportion as the body is unconsciously swayed by the rhythm of a symphony. no one can imagine that the great men who chiseled the statues of antiquity intended to teach the youth of greece to be obedient to their parents. we cannot believe that michael angelo painted his grotesque and somewhat vulgar "day of judgment" for the purpose of reforming italian thieves. the subject was in all probability selected by his employeer, and the treatment was a question of art, without the slightest reference to the moral effect, even upon priests. we are perfectly certain that corot painted those infinitely poetic landscapes, those cottages, those sad poplars, those leafless vines on weather-tinted walls, those quiet pools, those contented cattle, those fields flecked with light, over which bend the skies, tender as the breast of a mother, without once thinking of the ten commandments. there is the same difference between moral art and the product of true genius, that there is between prudery and virtue. the novelists who endeavor to enforce what they are pleased to call "moral truths," cease to be artists. they create two kinds of characters--types and caricatures. the first never has lived, and the second never will. the real artist produces neither. in his pages you will find individuals, natural people, who have the contradictions and inconsistencies inseparable from humanity. the great artists "hold the mirror up to nature," and this mirror reflects with absolute accuracy. the moral and the immoral writers--that is to say, those who have some object besides that of art--use convex or concave mirrors, or those with uneven surfaces, and the result is that the images are monstrous and deformed. the little novelist and the little artist deal either in the impossible or the exceptional. the men of genius touch the universal. their words and works throb in unison with the great ebb and flow of things. they write and work for all races and for all time. it has been the object of thousands of reformers to destroy the passions, to do away with desires; and could this object be accomplished, life would become a burden, with but one desire--that is to say, the desire for extinction. art in its highest forms increases passion, gives tone and color and zest to life. but while it increases passion, it refines. it extends the horizon. the bare necessities of life constitute a prison, a dungeon. under the influence of art the walls expand, the roof rises, and it becomes a temple. art is not a sermon, and the artist is not a preacher. art accomplishes by indirection. the beautiful refines. the perfect in art suggests the perfect in conduct. the harmony in music teaches, without intention, the lesson of proportion in life. the bird in his song has no moral purpose, and yet the influence is humanizing. the beautiful in nature acts through appreciation and sympathy. it does not browbeat, neither does it humiliate. it is beautiful without regard to you. roses would be unbearable if in their red and perfumed hearts were mottoes to the effect that bears eat bad boys and that honesty is the best policy. art creates an atmosphere in which the proprieties, the amenities, and the virtues unconsciously grow. the rain does not lecture the seed. the light does not make rules for the vine and flower. the heart is softened by the pathos of the perfect. the world is a dictionary of the mind, and in this dictionary of things genius discovers analogies, resemblances, and parallels amid opposites, likeness in difference, and corroboration in contradiction. language is but a multitude of pictures. nearly every word is a work of art, a picture represented by a sound, and this sound represented by a mark, and this mark gives not only the sound, but the picture of something in the outward world and the picture of something within the mind, and with these words which were once pictures, other pictures are made. the greatest pictures and the greatest statues, the most wonderful and marvelous groups, have been painted and chiseled with words. they are as fresh to-day as when they fell from human lips. penelope still ravels, weaves, and waits; ulysses' bow is bent, and through the level rings the eager arrow flies. cordelia's tears are falling now. the greatest gallery of the world is found in shakespeare's book. the pictures and the marbles of the vatican and louvre are faded, crumbling things, compared with his, in which perfect color gives to perfect form the glow and movement of passion's highest life. everything except the truth wears, and needs to wear, a mask. little souls are ashamed of nature. prudery pretends to have only those passions that it cannot feel. moral poetry is like a respectable canal that never overflows its banks. it has weirs through which slowly and without damage any excess of feeling is allowed to flow. it makes excuses for nature, and regards love as an interesting convict. moral art paints or chisels feet, faces, and rags. it regards the body as obscene. it hides with drapery that which it has not the genius purely to portray. mediocrity becomes moral from a necessity which it has the impudence to call virtue. it pretends to regard ignorance as the foundation of purity and insists that virtue seeks the companionship of the blind. art creates, combines, and reveals. it is the highest manifestation of thought, of passion, of love, of intuition. it is the highest form of expression, of history and prophecy. it allows us to look at an unmasked soul, to fathom the abysses of passion, to understand the heights and depths of love. compared with what is in the mind of man, the outward world almost ceases to excite our wonder. the impression produced by mountains, seas, and stars is not so great, so thrilling, as the music of wagner. the constellations themselves grow small when we read "troilus and cres-sida," "hamlet," or "lear." what are seas and stars in the presence of a heroism that holds pain and death as naught? what are seas and stars compared with human hearts? what is the quarry compared with the statue? art civilizes because it enlightens, develops, strengthens, ennobles. it deals with the beautiful, with the passionate, with the ideal. it is the child of the heart. to be great, it must deal with the human. it must be in accordance with the experience, with the hopes, with the fears, and with the possibilities of man. no one cares to paint a palace, because there is nothing in such a picture to touch the heart. it tells of responsibility, of the prison, of the conventional. it suggests a load--it tells of apprehension, of weariness and ennui. the picture of a cottage, over which runs a vine, a little home thatched with content, with its simple life, its natural sunshine and shadow, its trees bending with fruit, its hollyhocks and pinks, its happy children, its hum of bees, is a poem--a smile in the desert of this world. the great lady, in velvet and jewels, makes but a poor picture. there is not freedom enough in her life. she is constrained. she is too far away from the simplicity of happiness. in her thought there is too much of the mathematical. in all art you will find a touch of chaos, of liberty; and there is in all artists a little of the vagabond--that is to say, genius. the nude in art has rendered holy the beauty of woman. every greek statue pleads for mothers and sisters. from these marbles come strains of music. they have filled the heart of man with tenderness and worship. they have kindled reverence, admiration and love. the venus de milo, that even mutilation cannot mar, tends only to the elevation of our race. it is a miracle of majesty and beauty, the supreme idea of the supreme woman. it is a melody in marble. all the lines meet in a kind of voluptuous and glad content. the pose is rest itself. the eyes are filled with thoughts of love. the breast seems dreaming of a child. the prudent is not the poetic; it is the mathematical. genius is the spirit of abandon; it is joyous, irresponsible. it moves in the swell and curve of billows; it is careless of conduct and consequence. for a moment, the chain of cause and effect seems broken; the soul is free. it gives an account not even to itself. limitations are forgotten; nature seems obedient to the will; the ideal alone exists; the universe is a symphony. every brain is a gallery of art, and every soul is, to a greater or less degree, an artist. the pictures and statues that now enrich and adorn the walls and niches of the world, as well as those that illuminate the pages of its literature, were taken originally from the private galleries of the brain. the soul--that is to say the artist--compares the pictures in its own brain with the pictures that have been taken from the galleries of others and made visible. this soul, this artist, selects that which is nearest perfection in each, takes such parts as it deems perfect, puts them together, forms new pictures, new statues, and in this way creates the ideal. to express desires, longings, ecstasies, prophecies and passions in form and color; to put love, hope, heroism and triumph in marble; to paint dreams and memories with words; to portray the purity of dawn, the intensity and glory of noon, the tenderness of twilight, the splendor and mystery of night, with sounds; to give the invisible to sight and touch, and to enrich the common things of earth with gems and jewels of the mind--this is art.--north american review, march, . the divided household of faith. "let determined things to destiny hold unbewailed their way." there is a continual effort in the mind of man to find the harmony that he knows must exist between all known facts. it is hard for the scientist to implicitly believe anything that he suspects to be inconsistent with a known fact. he feels that every fact is a key to many mysteries--that every fact is a detective, not only, but a perpetual witness. he knows that a fact has a countless number of sides, and that all these sides will match all other facts, and he also suspects that to understand one fact perfectly--like the fact of the attraction of gravitation--would involve a knowledge of the universe. it requires not only candor, but courage, to accept a fact. when a new fact is found it is generally denied, resisted, and calumniated by the conservatives until denial becomes absurd, and then they accept it with the statement that they always supposed it was true. the old is the ignorant enemy of the new. the old has pedigree and respectability; it is filled with the spirit of caste; it is associated with great events, and with great names; it is intrenched; it has an income--it represents property. besides, it has parasites, and the parasites always defend themselves. long ago frightened wretches who had by tyranny or piracy amassed great fortunes, were induced in the moment of death to compromise with god and to let their money fall from their stiffening hands into the greedy palms of priests. in this way many theological seminaries were endowed, and in this way prejudices, mistakes, absurdities, known as religious truths, have been perpetuated. in this way the dead hypocrites have propagated and supported their kind. most religions--no matter how honestly they originated--have been established by brute force. kings and nobles have used them as a means to enslave, to degrade and rob. the priest, consciously and unconsciously, has been the betrayer of his followers. near chicago there is an ox that betrays his fellows. cattle--twenty or thirty at a time--are driven to the place of slaughter. this ox leads the way--the others follow. when the place is reached, this bishop dupanloup turns and goes back for other victims. this is the worst side: there is a better. honest men, believing that they have found the whole truth--the real and only faith--filled with enthusiasm, give all for the purpose of propagating the "divine creed." they found colleges and universities, and in perfect, pious, ignorant sincerity, provide that the creed, and nothing but the creed, must be taught, and that if any professor teaches anything contrary to that, he must be instantly dismissed--that is to say, the children must be beaten with the bones of the dead. these good religious souls erect guide-boards with a provision to the effect that the guide-boards must remain, whether the roads are changed or not, and with the further provision that the professors who keep and repair the guide-boards must always insist that the roads have not been changed. there is still another side. professors do not wish to lose their salaries. they love their families and have some regard for themselves. there is a compromise between their bread and their brain. on pay-day they believe--at other times they have their doubts. they settle with their own consciences by giving old words new meanings. they take refuge in allegory, hide behind parables, and barricade themselves with oriental imagery. they give to the most frightful passages a spiritual meaning--and while they teach the old creed to their followers, they speak a new philosophy to their equals. there is still another side. a vast number of clergymen and laymen are perfectly satisfied. they have no doubts. they believe as their fathers and mothers did. the "scheme of salvation" suits them because they are satisfied that they are embraced within its terms. they give themselves no trouble. they believe because they do not understand. they have no doubts because they do not think. they regard doubt as a thorn in the pillow of orthodox slumber. their souls are asleep, and they hate only those who disturb their dreams. these people keep their creeds for future use. they intend to have them ready at the moment of dissolution. they sustain about the same relation to daily life that the small-boats carried by steamers do to ordinary navigation--they are for the moment of shipwreck. creeds, like life-preservers, are to be used in disaster. we must also remember that everything in nature--bad as well as good--has the instinct of self-preservation. all lies go armed, and all mistakes carry concealed weapons. driven to the last corner, even non-resistance appeals to the dagger. vast interests--political, social, artistic, and individual--are interwoven with all creeds. thousands of millions of dollars have been invested; many millions of people obtain their bread by the propagation and support of certain religious doctrines, and many millions have been educated for that purpose and for that alone. nothing is more natural than that they should defend themselves--that they should cling to a creed that gives them roof and raiment. only a few years ago christianity was a complete system. it included and accounted for all phenomena; it was a philosophy satisfactory to the ignorant world; it had an astronomy and geology of its own; it answered all questions with the same readiness and the same inaccuracy; it had within its sacred volumes the history of the past, and the prophecies of all the future; it pretended to know all that was, is, or ever will be necessary for the well-being of the human race, here and hereafter. when a religion has been founded, the founder admitted the truth of everything that was generally believed that did not interfere with his system. imposture always has a definite end in view, and for the sake of the accomplishment of that end, it will admit the truth of anything and everything that does not endanger its success. the writers of all sacred books--the inspired prophets--had no reason for disagreeing with the common people about the origin of things, the creation of the world, the rising and setting of the sun, and the uses of the stars, and consequently the sacred books of all ages have indorsed the belief general at the time. you will find in our sacred books the astronomy, the geology, the philosophy and the morality of the ancient barbarians. the religionist takes these general ideas as his foundation, and upon them builds the supernatural structure. for many centuries the astronomy, geology, philosophy and morality of our bible were accepted. they were not questioned, for the reason that the world was too ignorant to question. a few centuries ago the art of printing was invented. a new world was discovered. there was a complete revolution in commerce. the arts were born again. the world was filled with adventure; millions became self-reliant; old ideas were abandoned--old theories were put aside--and suddenly, the old leaders of thought were found to be ignorant, shallow and dishonest. the literature of the classic world was discovered and translated into modern languages. the world was circumnavigated; copernicus discovered the true relation sustained by our earth to the solar system, and about the beginning of the seventeenth century many other wonderful discoveries were made. in , a hollander found that two lenses placed in a certain relation to each other magnified objects seen through them. this discovery was the foundation of astronomy. in a little while it came to the knowledge of galileo; the result was a telescope, with which man has read the volume of the skies. on the th day of may, , kepler discovered the greatest of his three laws. these were the first great blows struck for the enfranchisement of the human mind. a few began to suspect that the ancient hebrews were not astronomers. from that moment the church became the enemy of science. in every possible way the inspired ignorance was defended--the lash, the sword, the chain, the fagot and the dungeon were the arguments used by the infuriated church. to such an extent was the church prejudiced against the new philosophy, against the new facts, that priests refused to look through the telescope of galileo. at last it became evident to the intelligent world that the inspired writings, literally translated, did not contain the truth--the bible was in danger of being driven from the heavens. the church also had its geology. the time when the earth was created had been definitely fixed and was certainly known. this fact had not only been stated by inspired writers, but their statement had been indorsed by priests, by bishops, cardinals, popes and ecumenical councils; that was settled. but a few men had learned the art of seeing. there were some eyes not always closed in prayer. they looked at the things about them; they observed channels that had been worn in solid rock by streams; they saw the vast territories that had been deposited by rivers; their attention was called to the slow inroads upon continents by seas--to the deposits by volcanoes--to the sedimentary rocks--to the vast reefs that had been built by the coral, and to the countless evidences of age, of the lapse of time--and finally it was demonstrated that this earth had been pursuing its course about the sun for millions and millions of ages. the church disputed every step, denied every fact, resorted to every device that cunning could suggest or ingenuity execute, but the conflict could not be maintained. the bible, so far as geology was concerned, was in danger of being driven from the earth. beaten in the open field, the church began to equivocate, to evade, and to give new meanings to inspired words. finally, falsehood having failed to harmonize the guesses of barbarians with the discoveries of genius, the leading churchmen suggested that the bible was not written to teach astronomy, was not written to teach geology, and that it was not a scientific book, but that it was written in the language of the people, and that as to unimportant things it contained the general beliefs of its time. the ground was then taken that, while it was not inspired in its science, it was inspired in its morality, in its prophecy, in its account of the miraculous, in the scheme of salvation, and in all that it had to say on the subject of religion. the moment it was suggested that the bible was not inspired in everything within its lids, the seeds of suspicion were sown. the priest became less arrogant. the church was forced to explain. the pulpit had one language for the faithful and another for the philosophical, i. e., it became dishonest with both. the next question that arose was as to the origin of man. the bible was being driven from the skies. the testimony of the stars was against the sacred volume. the church had also been forced to admit that the world was not created at the time mentioned in the bible--so that the very stones of the earth rose and united with the stars in giving testimony against the sacred volume. as to the creation of the world, the church resorted to the artifice of saying that "days" in reality meant long periods of time; so that no matter how old the earth was, the time could be spanned by six periods--in other words, that the years could not be too numerous to be divided by six. but when it came to the creation of man, this evasion, or artifice, was impossible. the bible gives the date of the creation of man, because it gives the age at which the first man died, and then it gives the generations from adam to the flood, and from the flood to the birth of christ, and in many instances the actual age of the principal ancestor is given. so that, according to this account--according to the inspired figures--man has existed upon the earth only about six thousand years. there is no room left for any people beyond adam. if the bible is true, certainly adam was the first man; consequently, we know, if the sacred volume be true, just how long man has lived and labored and suffered on this earth. the church cannot and dare not give up the account of the creation of adam from the dust of the earth, and of eve from the rib of the man. the church cannot give up the story of the garden of eden--the serpent--the fall and the expulsion; these must be defended because they are vital. without these absurdities, the system known as christianity cannot exist. without the fall, the atonement is a _non sequitur._ facts bearing upon these questions were discovered and discussed by the greatest and most thoughtful of men. lamarck, humboldt, haeckel, and above all, darwin, not only asserted, but demonstrated, that man is not a special creation. if anything can be established by observation, by reason, then the fact has been established that man is related to all life below him--that he has been slowly produced through countless years--that the story of eden is a childish myth--that the fall of man is an infinite absurdity. if anything can be established by analogy and reason, man has existed upon the earth for many millions of ages. we know now, if we know anything, that people not only existed before adam, but that they existed in a highly civilized state; that thousands of years before the garden of eden was planted men communicated to each other their ideas by language, and that artists clothed the marble with thoughts and passions. this is a demonstration that the origin of man given in the old testament is untrue--that the account was written by the ignorance, the prejudice and the egotism of the olden time. so, if anything outside of the senses can be known, we do know that civilization is a growth--that man did not commence a perfect being, and then degenerate, but that from small beginnings he has slowly risen, to the intellectual height he now occupies. the church, however, has not been willing to accept these truths, because they contradict the sacred word. some of the most ingenious of the clergy have been endeavoring for years to show that there is no conflict--that the account in genesis is in perfect harmony with the theories of charles darwin, and these clergymen in some way manage to retain their creed and to accept a philosophy that utterly destroys it. but in a few years the christian world will be forced to admit that the bible is not inspired in its astronomy, in its geology, or in its anthropology--that is to say, that the inspired writers knew nothing of the sciences, knew nothing of the origin of the earth, nothing of the origin of man--in other words, nothing of any particular value to the human race. it is, however, still insisted that the bible is inspired in its morality. let us examine this question. we must admit, if we know anything, if we feel anything, if conscience is more than a word, if there is such a thing as right and such a thing as wrong beneath the dome of heaven--we must admit that slavery is immoral. if we are honest, we must also admit that the old testament upholds slavery. it will be cheerfully admitted that jehovah was opposed to the enslavement of one hebrew by another. christians may quote the commandment "thou shalt not steal" as being opposed to human slavery, but after that commandment was given, jehovah himself told his chosen people that they might "buy their bondmen and bondwomen of the heathen round about, and that they should be their bondmen and their bondwomen forever." so all that jehovah meant by the commandment "thou shalt not steal" was that one hebrew should not steal from another hebrew, but that all hebrews might steal from the people of any other race or creed. it is perfectly apparent that the ten commandments were made only for the jews, not for the world, because the author of these commandments commanded the people to whom they were given to violate them nearly all as against the surrounding people. a few years ago it did not occur to the christian world that slavery was wrong. it was upheld by the church. ministers bought and sold the very people for whom they declared that christ had died. clergymen of the english church owned stock in slave-ships, and the man who denounced slavery was regarded as the enemy of morality, and thereupon was duly mobbed by the followers of jesus christ. churches were built with the results of labor stolen from colored christians. babes were sold from mothers and a part of the money given to send missionaries from america to heathen lands with the tidings of great joy. now every intelligent man on the earth, every decent man, holds in abhorrence the institution of human slavery. so with the institution of polygamy. if anything on the earth is immoral, that is. if there is anything calculated to destroy home, to do away with human love, to blot out the idea of family life, to cover the hearthstone with serpents, it is the institution of polygamy. the jehovah of the old testament was a believer in that institution. can we now say that the bible is inspired in its morality? consider for a moment the manner in which, under the direction of jehovah, wars were waged. remember the atrocities that were committed. think of a war where everything was the food of the sword. think for a moment of a deity capable of committing the crimes that are described and gloated over in the old testament. the civilized man has outgrown the sacred cruelties and absurdities. there is still another side to this question. a few centuries ago nothing was more natural than the unnatural. miracles were as plentiful as actual events. in those blessed days, that which actually occurred was not regarded of sufficient importance to be recorded. a religion without miracles would have excited derision. a creed that did not fill the horizon--that did not account for everything--that could not answer every question, would have been regarded as worthless. after the birth of protestantism, it could not be admitted by the leaders of the reformation that the catholic church still had the power of working miracles. if the catholic church was still in partnership with god, what excuse could have been made for the reformation? the protestants took the ground that the age of miracles had passed. this was to justify the new faith. but protestants could not say that miracles had never been performed, because that would take the foundation not only from the catholics but from themselves; consequently they were compelled to admit that miracles were performed in the apostolic days, but to insist that, in their time, man must rely upon the facts in nature. protestants were compelled to carry on two kinds of war; they had to contend with those who insisted that miracles had never been performed; and in that argument they were forced to insist upon the necessity for miracles, on the probability that they were performed, and upon the truthfulness of the apostles. a moment afterward, they had to answer those who contended that miracles were performed at that time; then they brought forward against the catholics the same arguments that their first opponents had brought against them. this has made every protestant brain "a house divided against itself." this planted in the reformation the "irrepressible conflict." but we have learned more and more about what we call nature--about what we call facts. slowly it dawned upon the mind that force is indestructible--that we cannot imagine force as existing apart from matter--that we cannot even think of matter existing apart from force--that we cannot by any possibility conceive of a cause without an effect, of an effect without a cause, of an effect that is not also a cause. we find no room between the links of cause and effect for a miracle. we now perceive that a miracle must be outside of nature--that it can have no father, no mother--that is to say, that it is an impossibility. the intellectual world has abandoned the miraculous. most ministers are now ashamed to defend a miracle. some try to explain miracles, and yet, if a miracle is explained, it ceases to exist. few congregations could keep from smiling were the minister to seriously assert the truth of the old testament miracles. miracles must be given up. that field must be abandoned by the religious world. the evidence accumulates every day, in every possible direction in which the human mind can investigate, that the miraculous is simply the impossible. confidence in the eternal constancy of nature increases day by day. the scientist has perfect confidence in the attraction of gravitation--in chemical affinities--in the great fact of evolution, and feels absolutely certain that the nature of things will remain forever the same. we have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods. the real miracles are the facts in nature. no one can explain the attraction of gravitation. no one knows why soil and rain and light become the womb of life. no one knows why grass grows, why water runs, or why the magnetic needle points to the north. the facts in nature are the eternal and the only mysteries. there is nothing strange about the miracles of superstition. they are nothing but the mistakes of ignorance and fear, or falsehoods framed by those who wished to live on the labor of others. in our time the champions of christianity, for the most part, take the exact ground occupied by the deists. they dare not defend in the open field the mistakes, the cruelties, the immoralities and the absurdities of the bible. they shun the garden of eden as though the serpent was still there. they have nothing to say about the fall of man. they are silent as to the laws upholding slavery and polygamy. they are ashamed to defend the miraculous. they talk about these things to sunday schools and to the elderly members of their congregations; but when doing battle for the faith, they misstate the position of their opponents and then insist that there must be a god, and that the soul is immortal. we may admit the existence of an infinite being; we may admit the immortality of the soul, and yet deny the inspiration of the scriptures and the divine origin of the christian religion. these doctrines, or these dogmas, have nothing in common. the pagan world believed in god and taught the dogma of immortality. these ideas are far older than christianity, and they have been almost universal. christianity asserts more than this. it is based upon the inspiration of the bible, on the fall of man, on the atonement, on the dogma of the trinity, on the divinity of jesus christ, on his resurrection from the dead, on his ascension into heaven. christianity teaches not simply the immortality of the soul--not simply the immortality of joy--but it teaches the immortality of pain, the eternity of sorrow. it insists that evil, that wickedness, that immorality and that every form of vice are and must be perpetuated forever. it believes in immortal convicts, in eternal imprisonment and in a world of unending pain. it has a serpent for every breast and a curse for nearly every soul. this doctrine is called the dearest hope of the human heart, and he who attacks it is denounced as the most infamous of men. let us see what the church, within a few years, has been compelled substantially to abandon,--that is to say, what it is now almost ashamed to defend. first, the astronomy of the sacred scriptures; second, the geology; third, the account given of the origin of man; fourth, the doctrine of original sin, the fall of the human race; fifth, the mathematical contradiction known as the trinity; sixth, the atonement--because it was only on the ground that man is accountable for the sin of another, that he could be justified by reason of the righteousness of another; seventh, that the miraculous is either the misunderstood or the impossible; eighth, that the bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is not moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent on account of the sins of the guilty; and ninth, the divinity of christ. all this must be given up by the really intelligent, by those not afraid to think, by those who have the courage of their convictions and the candor to express their thoughts. what then is left? let me tell you. everything in the bible that is true, is left; it still remains and is still of value. it cannot be said too often that the truth needs no inspiration; neither can it be said too often that inspiration cannot help falsehood. every good and noble sentiment uttered in the bible is still good and noble. every fact remains. all that is good in the sermon on the mount is retained. the lord's prayer is not affected. the grandeur of self-denial, the nobility of forgiveness, and the ineffable splendor of mercy are with us still. and besides, there remains the great hope for all the human race. what is lost? all the mistakes, all the falsehoods, all the absurdities, all the cruelties and all the curses contained in the scriptures. we have almost lost the "hope" of eternal pain--the "consolation" of perdition; and in time we shall lose the frightful shadow that has fallen upon so many hearts, that has darkened so many lives. the great trouble for many years has been, and still is, that the clergy are not quite candid. they are disposed to defend the old creed. they have been educated in the universities of the sacred mistake--universities that bruno would call "the widows of true learning." they have been taught to measure with a false standard; they have weighed with inaccurate scales. in youth, they became convinced of the truth of the creed. this was impressed upon them by the solemnity of professors who spoke in tones of awe. the enthusiasm of life's morning was misdirected. they went out into the world knowing nothing of value. they preached a creed outgrown. having been for so many years entirely certain of their position, they met doubt with a spirit of irritation--afterward with hatred. they are hardly courageous enough to admit that they are wrong. once the pulpit was the leader--it spoke with authority. by its side was the sword of the state, with the hilt toward its hand. now it is apologized for--it carries a weight. it is now like a living man to whom has been chained a corpse. it cannot defend the old, and it has not accepted the new. in some strange way it imagines that morality cannot live except in partnership with the sanctified follies and falsehoods of the past. the old creeds cannot be defended by argument. they are not within the circumference of reason--they are not embraced in any of the facts within the experience of man. all the subterfuges have been exposed; all the excuses have been shown to be shallow, and at last the church must meet, and fairly meet, the objections of our time. solemnity is no longer an argument. falsehood is no longer sacred. people are not willing to admit that mistakes are divine. truth is more important than belief--far better than creeds, vastly more useful than superstitions. the church must accept the truths of the present, must admit the demonstrations of science, or take its place in the mental museums with the fossils and monstrosities of the past. the time for personalities has passed; these questions cannot be determined by ascertaining the character of the disputants; epithets are no longer regarded as arguments; the curse of the church produces laughter; theological slander is no longer a weapon; argument must be answered with argument, and the church must appeal to reason, and by that standard it must stand or fall. the theories and discoveries of darwin cannot be answered by the resolutions of synods, or by quotations from the old testament. the world has advanced. the bible has remained the same. we must go back to the book--it cannot come to us--or we must leave it forever. in order to remain orthodox we must forget the discoveries, the inventions, the intellectual efforts of many centuries; we must go back until our knowledge--or rather our ignorance--will harmonize with the barbaric creeds. it is not pretended that all the creeds have not been naturally produced. it is admitted that under the same circumstances the same religions would again ensnare the human race. it is also admitted that under the same circumstances the same efforts would be made by the great and intellectual of every age to break the chains of superstition. there is no necessity of attacking people--we should combat error. we should hate hypocrisy, but not the hypocrite--larceny, but not the thief--superstition, but not its victim. we should do all within our power to inform, to educate, and to benefit our fellow-men. there is no elevating power in hatred. there is no reformation in punishment. the soul grows greater and grander in the air of kindness, in the sunlight of intelligence. we must rely upon the evidence of our senses, upon the conclusions of our reason. for many centuries the church has insisted that man is totally depraved, that he is naturally wicked, that all of his natural desires are contrary to the will of god. only a few years ago it was solemnly asserted that our senses were originally honest, true and faithful, but having been debauched by original sin, were now cheats and liars; that they constantly deceived and misled the soul; that they were traps and snares; that no man could be safe who relied upon his senses, or upon his reason;--he must simply rely upon faith; in other words, that the only way for man to really see was to put out his eyes. there has been a rapid improvement in the intellectual world. the improvement has been slow in the realm of religion, for the reason that religion was hedged about, defended and barricaded by fear, by prejudice and by law. it was considered sacred. it was illegal to call its truth in question. whoever disputed the priest became a criminal; whoever demanded a reason, or an explanation, became a blasphemer, a scoffer, a moral leper. the church defended its mistakes by every means within its power. but in spite of all this there has been advancement, and there are enough of the orthodox clergy left to make it possible for us to measure the distance that has been traveled by sensible people. the world is beginning to see that a minister should be a teacher, and that "he should not endeavor to inculcate a particular system of dogmas, but to prepare his hearers for exercising their own judgments." as a last resource, the orthodox tell the thoughtful that they are not "spiritual"--that they are "of the earth, earthy"--that they cannot perceive that which is spiritual. they insist that "god is a spirit, and must be worshiped in spirit." but let me ask, what is it to be spiritual? in order to be really spiritual, must a man sacrifice this world for the sake of another? were the selfish hermits, who deserted their wives and children for the miserable purpose of saving their own little souls, spiritual? were those who put their fellow-men in dungeons, or burned them at the state* on account of a difference of opinion, all spiritual people? did john calvin give evidence of his spirituality by burning servetus? were they spiritual people who invented and used instruments of torture--who denied the liberty of thought and expression--who waged wars for the propagation of the faith? were they spiritual people who insisted that infinite love could punish his poor, ignorant children forever? is it necessary to believe in eternal torment to understand the meaning of the word spiritual? is it necessary to hate those who disagree with you, and to calumniate those whose argument you cannot answer, in order to be spiritual? must you hold a demonstrated fact in contempt; must you deny or avoid what you know to be true, in order to substantiate the fact that you are spiritual? what is it to be spiritual? is the man spiritual who searches for the truth--who lives in accordance with his highest ideal--who loves his wife and children--who discharges his obligations--who makes a happy fireside for the ones he loves--who succors the oppressed--who gives his honest opinions--who is guided by principle--who is merciful and just? is the man spiritual who loves the beautiful--who is thrilled by music, and touched to tears in the presence of the sublime, the heroic and the self-denying? is the man spiritual who endeavors by thought and deed to ennoble the human race? the defenders of the orthodox faith, by this time, should know that the foundations are insecure. they should have the courage to defend, or the candor to abandon. if the bible is an inspired book, it ought to be true. its defenders must admit that jehovah knew the facts not only about the earth, but about the stars, and that the creator of the universe knew all about geology and astronomy even four thousand years ago. the champions of christianity must show that the bible tells the truth about the creation of man, the garden of eden, the temptation, the fall and the flood. they must take the ground that the sacred book is historically correct; that the events related really happened; that the miracles were actually performed; that the laws promulgated from sinai were and are wise and just, and that nothing is upheld, commanded, indorsed, or in any way approved or sustained that is not absolutely right. in other words, if they insist that a being of infinite goodness and intelligence is the author of the bible, they must be ready to show that it is absolutely perfect. they must defend its astronomy, geology, history, miracle and morality. if the bible is true, man is a special creation, and if man is a special creation, millions of facts must have conspired, millions of ages ago, to deceive the scientific world of to-day. if the bible is true, slavery is right, and the world should go back to the barbarism of the lash and chain. if the bible' is true, polygamy is the highest form of virtue. if the bible is true, nature has a master, and the miraculous is independent of and superior to cause and effect. if the bible is true, most of the children of men are destined to suffer eternal pain. if the bible is true, the science known as astronomy is a collection of mistakes--the telescope is a false witness, and light is a luminous liar. if the bible is true, the science known as geology is false and every fossil is a petrified perjurer. the defenders of orthodox creeds should have the courage to candidly answer at least two questions: first, is the bible inspired? second, is the bible true? and when they answer these questions, they should remember that if the bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and that if not true, inspiration can do it no good.--north american review, august, . why am i an agnostic? i. "with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." the same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions as in others. there is no subject--and can be none--concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence. neither is there any intelligent being who can, by any possibility, be flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity. the man who, without prejudice, reads and understands the old and new testaments will cease to be an orthodox christian. the intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country without fear and without prejudice will not and cannot be a believer. most people, after arriving at the conclusion that jehovah is not god, that the bible is not an inspired book, and that the christian religion, like other religions, is the creation of man, usually say: "there must be a supreme being, but jehovah is not his name, and the bible is not his word. there must be somewhere an over-ruling providence or power." this position is just as untenable as the other. he who cannot harmonize the cruelties of the bible with the goodness of jehovah, cannot harmonize the cruelties of nature with the goodness and wisdom of a supposed deity. he will find it impossible to account for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, for the triumph of the strong over the weak, for the countless victories of injustice. he will find it impossible to account for martyrs--for the burning of the good, the noble, the loving, by the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous. how can the deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of women and children? in what way will he justify religious persecution--the flame and sword of religious hatred? why did his god sit idly on his throne and allow his enemies to wet their swords in the blood of his friends? why did he not answer the prayers of the imprisoned, of the helpless? and when he heard the lash upon the naked back of the slave, why did he not also hear the prayer of the slave? and when children were sold from the breasts of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother's cry? it seems to me that the man who knows the limitations of the mind, who gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily an agnostic. he gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final causes, of comprehending the supernatural, or of conceiving of an infinite personality. from out the words creator, preserver, and providence, all meaning falls. the mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the conclusions arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and structure of his mind, on his experience, on hereditary drifts and tendencies, and on the countless things that constitute the difference in minds. one man, finding himself in the midst of mysterious phenomena, comes to the conclusion that all is the result of design; that back of all things is an infinite personality--that is to say, an infinite man; and he accounts for all that is by simply saying that the universe was created and set in motion by this infinite personality, and that it is miraculously and supernaturally governed and preserved. this man sees with perfect clearness that matter could not create itself, and therefore he imagines a creator of matter. he is perfectly satisfied that there is design in the world, and that consequently there must have been a designer. it does not occur to him that it is necessary to account for the existence of an infinite personality. he is perfectly certain that there can be no design without a designer, and he is equally certain that there can be a designer who was not designed. the absurdity becomes so great that it takes the place of a demonstration. he takes it for granted that matter was created and that its creator was not. he assumes that a creator existed from eternity, without cause, and created what is called matter out of nothing; or, whereas there was nothing, this creator made the something that we call substance. is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality? can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely powerful and intelligent? if such a being existed, then there must have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this being; because, if the universe was created, there must have been a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed. is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing? how could such a being be intelligent? what was there to be intelligent about? there was but one thing to know, namely, that there was nothing except this being. how could such a being be powerful? there was nothing to exercise force upon. there was nothing in the universe to suggest an idea. relations could not exist--except the relation between infinite intelligence and infinite nothing. the next great difficulty is the act of creation. my mind is so that i cannot conceive of something being created out of nothing. neither can i conceive of anything being created without a cause. let me go one step further. it is just as difficult to imagine something being created with, as without, a cause. to postulate a cause does not in the least lessen the difficulty. in spite of all, this lever remains without a fulcrum. we cannot conceive of the destruction of substance. the stone can be crushed to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that the atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope, and we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided again and again and again; but it is impossible for us to conceive of the annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of the least atom of which we can think. consequently the mind can imagine neither creation nor destruction. from this point it is very easy to reach the generalization that the indestructible could not have been created. these questions, however, will be answered by each individual according to the structure of his mind, according to his experience, according to his habits of thought, and according to his intelligence or his ignorance, his prejudice or his genius. probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the existence of supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known as the civilized nations, in an infinite personality. in the realm of thought majorities do not determine. each brain is a kingdom, each mind is a sovereign. the universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its truth. a large majority of mankind have believed in what is known as god, and an equally large majority have as implicitly believed in what is known as the devil. these beings have been inferred from phenomena. they were produced for the most part by ignorance, by fear, and by selfishness. man in all ages has endeavored to account for the mysteries of life and death, of substance, of force, for the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star. the savage, dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by countless objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew, without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce, trembling at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning, feeling the earth shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with the volcano's glare,--fell prostrate and begged for the protection of the unknown. in the long night of savagery, in the midst of pestilence and famine, through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of darkness, the seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man. the savage believed, and thoroughly believed, that everything happened in reference to him; that he by his actions could excite the anger, or by his worship placate the wrath, of the unseen. he resorted to flattery and prayer. to the best of his ability he put in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his idea of this god. for this idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a cathedral. before these images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon he lavished his wealth, he sought protection for himself and for the ones he loved. the few took advantage of the ignorant many. they pretended to have received messages from the unknown. they stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. they were the carriers of flags of truce. at the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived. the christian of to-day wonders at the savage who bowed before his idol; and yet it must be confessed that the god of stone answered prayer and protected his worshipers precisely as the christian's god answers prayer and protects his worshipers to-day. my mind is so that it is forced to the conclusion that substance is eternal; that the universe was without beginning and will be without end; that it is the one eternal existence; that relations are transient and evanescent; that organisms are produced and vanish; that forms change,--but that the substance of things is from eternity to eternity. it may be that planets are born and die, that constellations will fade from the infinite spaces, that countless suns will be quenched,--but the substance will remain. the questions of origin and destiny seem to be beyond the powers of the human mind. heredity is on the side of superstition. all our ignorance pleads for the old. in most men there is a feeling that their ancestors were exceedingly good and brave and wise, and that in all things pertaining to religion their conclusions should be followed. they believe that their fathers and mothers were of the best, and that that which satisfied them should satisfy their children. with a feeling of reverence they say that the religion of their mother is good enough and pure enough and reasonable enough for them. in this way the love of parents and the reverence for ancestors have unconsciously bribed the reason and put out, or rendered exceedingly dim, the eyes of the mind. there is a kind of longing in the heart of the old to live and die where their parents lived and died--a tendency to go back to the homes of their youth. around the old oak of manhood grow and cling these vines. yet it will hardly do to say that the religion of my mother is good enough for me, any more than to say the geology or the astronomy or the philosophy of my mother is good enough for me. every human being is entitled to the best he can obtain; and if there has been the slightest improvement on the religion of the mother, the son is entitled to that improvement, and he should not deprive himself of that advantage by the mistaken idea that he owes it to his mother to perpetuate, in a reverential way, her ignorant mistakes. if we are to follow the religion of our fathers and mothers, our fathers and mothers should have followed the religion of theirs. had this been done, there could have been no improvement in the world of thought. the first religion would have been the last, and the child would have died as ignorant as the mother. progress would have been impossible, and on the graves of ancestors would have been sacrificed the intelligence of mankind. we know, too, that there has been the religion of the tribe, of the community, and of the nation, and that there has been a feeling that it was the duty of every member of the tribe or community, and of every citizen of the nation, to insist upon it that the religion of that tribe, of that community, of that nation, was better than that of any other. we know that all the prejudices against other religions, and all the egotism of nation and tribe, were in favor of the local superstition. each citizen was patriotic enough to denounce the religions of other nations and to stand firmly by his own. and there is this peculiarity about man: he can see the absurdities of other religions while blinded to those of his own. the christian can see clearly enough that mohammed was an impostor. he is sure of it, because the people of mecca who were acquainted with him declared that he was no prophet; and this declaration is received by christians as a demonstration that mohammed was not inspired. yet these same christians admit that the people of jerusalem who were acquainted with christ rejected him; and this rejection they take as proof positive that christ was the son of god. the average man adopts the religion of his country, or, rather, the religion of his country adopts him. he is dominated by the egotism of race, the arrogance of nation, and the prejudice called patriotism. he does not reason--he feels. he does not investigate--he believes. to him the religions of other nations are absurd and infamous, and their gods monsters of ignorance and cruelty. in every country this average man is taught, first, that there is a supreme being; second, that he has made known his will; third, that he will reward the true believer; fourth, that he will punish the unbeliever, the scoffer, and the blasphemer; fifth, that certain ceremonies are pleasing to this god; sixth, that he has established a church; and seventh, that priests are his representatives on earth. and the average man has no difficulty in determining that the god of his nation is the true god; that the will of this true god is contained in the sacred scriptures of his nation; that he is one of the true believers, and that the people of other nations--that is, believing other religions--are scoffers; that the only true church is the one to which he belongs; and that the priests of his country are the only ones who have had or ever will have the slightest influence with this true god. all these absurdities to the average man seem self-evident propositions; and so he holds all other creeds in scorn, and congratulates himself that he is a favorite of the one true god. if the average christian had been born in turkey, he would have been a mohammedan; and if the average mohammedan had been born in new england and educated at andover, he would have regarded the damnation of the heathen as the "tidings of great joy." nations have eccentricities, peculiarities, and hallucinations, and these find expression in their laws, customs, ceremonies, morals, and religions. and these are in great part determined by soil, climate, and the countless circumstances that mould and dominate the lives and habits of insects, individuals, and nations. the average man believes implicitly in the religion of his country, because he knows nothing of any other and has no desire to know. it fits him because he has been deformed to fit it, and he regards this fact of fit as an evidence of its inspired truth. has a man the right to examine, to investigate, the religion of his own country--the religion of his father and mother? christians admit that the citizens of all countries not christian have not only this right, but that it is their solemn duty. thousands of missionaries are sent to heathen countries to persuade the believers in other religions not only to examine their superstitions, but to renounce them, and to adopt those of the missionaries. it is the duty of a heathen to disregard the religion of his country and to hold in contempt the creed of his father and of his mother. if the citizens of heathen nations have the right to examine the foundations of their religion, it would seem that the citizens of christian nations have the same right. christians, however, go further than this; they say to the heathen: you must examine your religion, and not only so, but you must reject it; and, unless you do reject it, and, in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned. then these same christians say to the inhabitants of a christian country: you must not examine; you must not investigate; but whether you examine or not, you must believe, or you will be eternally damned. if there be one true religion, how is it possible to ascertain which of all the religions the true one is? there is but one way. we must impartially examine the claims of all. the right to examine involves the necessity to accept or reject. understand me, not the right to accept or reject, but the necessity. from this conclusion there is no possible escape. if, then, we have the right to examine, we have the right to tell the conclusion reached. christians have examined other religions somewhat, and they have expressed their opinion with the utmost freedom--that is to say, they have denounced them all as false and fraudulent; have called their gods idols and myths, and their priests impostors. the christian does not deem it worth while to read the koran. probably not one christian in a thousand ever saw a copy of that book. and yet all christians are perfectly satisfied that the koran is the work of an impostor, no presbyterian thinks it is worth his while to examine the religious systems of india; he knows that the brahmins are mistaken, and that all their miracles are falsehoods. no methodist cares to read the life of buddha, and no baptist will waste his time studying the ethics of confucius. christians of every sort and kind take it for granted that there is only one true religion, and that all except christianity are absolutely without foundation. the christian world believes that all the prayers of india are unanswered; that all the sacrifices upon the countless altars of egypt, of greece, and of rome were without effect. they believe that all these mighty nations worshiped their gods in vain; that their priests were deceivers or deceived; that their ceremonies were wicked or meaningless; that their temples were built by ignorance and fraud, and that no god heard their songs of praise, their cries of despair, their words of thankfulness; that on account of their religion no pestilence was stayed; that the earthquake and volcano, the flood and storm went on their ways of death--while the real god looked on and laughed at their calamities and mocked at their fears. we find now that the prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their religion, not upon the goodness or providence of some god, but on soil and climate and commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage of the people, upon the development of the mind, on the spread of education, on the liberty of thought and action; and that in this mighty panorama of national life, reason has built and superstition has destroyed. being satisfied that all believe precisely as they must, and that religions have been naturally produced, i have neither praise nor blame for any man. good men have had bad creeds, and bad men have had good ones. some of the noblest of the human race have fought and died for the wrong. the brain of man has been the trysting-place of contradictions. passion often masters reason, and "the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection." in the discussion of theological or religious questions, we have almost passed the personal phase, and we are now weighing arguments instead of exchanging epithets and curses. they who really seek for truth must be the best of friends. each knows that his desire can never take the place of fact, and that, next to finding truth, the greatest honor must be won in honest search. we see that many ships are driven in many ways by the same wind. so men, reading the same book, write many creeds and lay out many roads to heaven. to the best of my ability, i have examined the religions of many countries and the creeds of many sects. they are much alike, and the testimony by which they are substantiated is of such a character that to those who believe is promised an eternal reward. in all the sacred books there are some truths, some rays of light, some words of love and hope. the face of savagery is sometimes softened by a smile--the human triumphs, and the heart breaks into song. but in these books are also found the words of fear and hate, and from their pages crawl serpents that coil and hiss in all the paths of men. for my part, i prefer the books that inspiration has not claimed. such is the nature of my brain that shakespeare gives me greater joy than all the prophets of the ancient world. there are thoughts that satisfy the hunger of the mind. i am convinced that humboldt knew more of geology than the author of genesis; that darwin was a greater naturalist than he who told the story of the flood; that laplace was better acquainted with the habits of the sun and moon than joshua could have been, and that haeckel, huxley, and tyndall know more about the earth and stars, about the history of man, the philosophy of life--more that is of use, ten thousand times--than all the writers of the sacred books. i believe in the religion of reason--the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world. let us be honest with ourselves. in the presence of countless mysteries; standing beneath the boundless heaven sown thick with constellations; knowing that each grain of sand, each leaf, each blade of grass, asks of every mind the answer-less question; knowing that the simplest thing defies solution; feeling that we deal with the superficial and the relative, and that we are forever eluded by the real, the absolute,--let us admit the limitations of our minds, and let us have the courage and the candor to say: we do not know. north american review, december, . ii. the christian religion rests on miracles. there are no miracles in the realm of science. the real philosopher does not seek to excite wonder, but to make that plain which was wonderful. he does not endeavor to astonish, but to enlighten. he is perfectly confident that there are no miracles in nature. he knows that the mathematical expression of the same relations, contents, areas, numbers and proportions must forever remain the same. he knows that there are no miracles in chemistry; that the attractions and repulsions, the loves and hatreds, of atoms are constant. under like conditions, he is certain that like will always happen; that the product ever has been and forever will be the same; that the atoms or particles unite in definite, unvarying proportions,--so many of one kind mix, mingle, and harmonize with just so many of another, and the surplus will be forever cast out. there are no exceptions. substances are always true to their natures. they have no caprices, no prejudices, that can vary or control their action. they are "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." in this fixedness, this constancy, this eternal integrity, the intelligent man has absolute confidence. it is useless to tell him that there was a time when fire would not consume the combustible, when water would not flow in obedience to the attraction of gravitation, or that there ever was a fragment of a moment during which substance had no weight. credulity should be the servant of intelligence. the ignorant have not credulity enough to believe the actual, because the actual appears to be contrary to the evidence of their senses. to them it is plain that the sun rises and sets, and they have not credulity enough to believe in the rotary motion of the earth--that is to say, they have not intelligence enough to comprehend the absurdities involved in their belief, and the perfect harmony between the rotation of the earth and all known facts. they trust their eyes, not their reason. ignorance has always been and always will be at the mercy of appearance. credulity, as a rule, believes everything except the truth. the semi-civilized believe in astrology, but who could convince them of the vastness of astronomical spaces, the speed of light, or the magnitude and number of suns and constellations? if hermann, the magician, and humboldt, the philosopher, could have appeared before savages, which would have been regarded as a god? when men knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of the correlation of force, and of its indestructibility, they were believers in perpetual motion. so when chemistry was a kind of sleight-of-hand, or necromancy, something accomplished by the aid of the supernatural, people talked about the transmutation of metals, the universal solvent, and the philosopher's stone. perpetual motion would be a mechanical miracle; and the transmutation of metals would be a miracle in chemistry; and if we could make the result of multiplying two by two five, that would be a miracle in mathematics. no one expects to find a circle the diameter of which is just one fourth of the circumference. if one could find such a circle, then there would be a miracle in geometry. in other words, there are no miracles in any science. the moment we understand a question or subject, the miraculous necessarily disappears. if anything actually happens in the chemical world, it will, under like conditions, happen again. no one need take an account of this result from the mouths of others: all can try the experiment for themselves. there is no caprice, and no accident. it is admitted, at least by the protestant world, that the age of miracles has passed away, and, consequently, miracles cannot at present be established by miracles; they must be substantiated by the testimony of witnesses who are said by certain writers--or, rather, by uncertain writers--to have lived several centuries ago; and this testimony is given to us, not by the witnesses themselves, not by persons who say that they talked with those witnesses, but by unknown persons who did not give the sources of their information. the question is: can miracles be established except by miracles? we know that the writers may have been mistaken. it is possible that they may have manufactured these accounts themselves. the witnesses may have told what they knew to be untrue, or they may have been honestly deceived, or the stories may have been true as at first told. imagination may have added greatly to them, so that after several centuries of accretion a very simple truth was changed to a miracle. we must admit that all probabilities must be against miracles, for the reason that that which is probable cannot by any possibility be a miracle. neither the probable nor the possible, so far as man is concerned, can be miraculous. the probability therefore says that the writers and witnesses were either mistaken or dishonest. we must admit that we have never seen a miracle ourselves, and we must admit that, according to our experience, there are no miracles. if we have mingled with the world, we are compelled to say that we have known a vast number of persons--including ourselves--to be mistaken, and many others who have failed to tell the exact truth. the probabilities are on the side of our experience, and, consequently, against the miraculous; and it is a necessity that the free mind moves along the path of least resistance. the effect of testimony depends on the intelligence and honesty of the witness and the intelligence of him who weighs. a man living in a community where the supernatural is expected, where the miraculous is supposed to be of almost daily occurrence, will, as a rule, believe that all wonderful things are the result of supernatural agencies. he will expect providential interference, and, as a consequence, his mind will pursue the path of least resistance, and will account for all phenomena by what to him is the easiest method. such people, with the best intentions, honestly bear false witness. they have been imposed upon by appearances, and are victims of delusion and illusion. in an age when reading and writing were substantially unknown, and when history itself was but the vaguest hearsay handed down from dotage to infancy, nothing was rescued from oblivion except the wonderful, the miraculous. the more marvelous the story, the greater the interest excited. narrators and hearers were alike ignorant and alike honest. at that time nothing was known, nothing suspected, of the orderly course of nature--of the unbroken and unbreakable chain of causes and effects. the world was governed by caprice. everything was at the mercy of a being, or beings, who were themselves controlled by the same passions that dominated man. fragments of facts were taken for the whole, and the deductions drawn were honest and monstrous. it is probably certain that all of the religions of the world have been believed, and that all the miracles have found credence in countless brains; otherwise they could not have been perpetuated. they were not all born of cunning. those who told were as honest as those who heard. this being so, nothing has been too absurd for human credence. all religions, so far as i know, claim to have been miraculously founded, miraculously preserved, and miraculously propagated. the priests of all claimed to have messages from god, and claimed to have a certain authority, and the miraculous has always been appealed to for the purpose of substantiating the message and the authority. if men believe in the supernatural, they will account for all phenomena by an appeal to supernatural means or power. we know that formerly everything was accounted for in this way except some few simple things with which man thought he was perfectly acquainted. after a time men found that under like conditions like would happen, and as to those things the supposition of supernatural interference was abandoned; but that interference was still active as to all the unknown world. in other words, as the circle of man's knowledge grew, supernatural interference withdrew and was active only just beyond the horizon of the known. now, there are some believers in universal special providence--that is, men who believe in perpetual interference by a supernatural power, this interference being for the purpose of punishing or rewarding, of destroying or preserving, individuals and nations. others have abandoned the idea of providence in ordinary matters, but still believe that god interferes on great occasions and at critical moments, especially in the affairs of nations, and that his presence is manifest in great disasters. this is the compromise position. these people believe that an infinite being made the universe and impressed upon it what they are pleased to call "laws," and then left it to run in accordance with those laws and forces; that as a rule it works well, and that the divine maker interferes only in cases of accident, or at moments when the machine fails to accomplish the original design. there are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there never has been, never will be, never can be any interference from without, for the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can be no without or beyond. the first class are theists pure and simple; the second are theists as to the unknown, naturalists as to the known; and the third are naturalists without a touch or taint of superstition. what can the evidence of the first class be worth? this question is answered by reading the history of those nations that believed thoroughly and implicitly in the supernatural. there is no conceivable absurdity that was not established by their testimony. every law or every fact in nature was violated. children were bom without parents; men lived for thousands of years; others subsisted without food, without sleep; thousands and thousands were possessed with evil spirits controlled by ghosts and ghouls; thousands confessed themselves guilty of impossible offences, and in courts, with the most solemn forms, impossibilities were substantiated by the oaths, affirmations, and confessions of men, women, and children. these delusions were not confined to ascetics and peasants, but they took possession of nobles and kings; of people who were at that time called intelligent; of the then educated. no one denied these wonders, for the reason that denial was a crime punishable generally with death. societies, nations, became insane--victims of ignorance, of dreams, and, above all, of fears. under these conditions human testimony is not and cannot be of the slightest value. we now know that nearly all of the history of the world is false, and we know this because we have arrived at that phase or point of intellectual development where and when we know that effects must have causes, that everything is naturally produced, and that, consequently, no nation could ever have been great, powerful, and rich unless it had the soil, the people, the intelligence, and the commerce. weighed in these scales, nearly all histories are found to be fictions. the same is true of religions. every intelligent american is satisfied that the religions of india, of egypt, of greece and rome, of the aztecs, were and are false, and that all the miracles on which they rest are mistakes. our religion alone is excepted. every intelligent hindoo discards all religions and all miracles except his own. the question is: when will people see the defects in their own theology as clearly as they perceive the same defects in every other? all the so-called false religions were substantiated by miracles, by signs and wonders, by prophets and martyrs, precisely as our own. our witnesses are no better than theirs, and our success is no greater. if their miracles were false, ours cannot be true. nature was the same in india and in palestine. one of the corner-stones of christianity is the miracle of inspiration, and this same miracle lies at the foundation of all religions. how can the fact of inspiration be established? how could even the inspired man know that he was inspired? if he was influenced to write, and did write, and did express thoughts and facts that to him were absolutely new, on subjects about which he had previously known nothing, how could he know that he had been influenced by an infinite being? and if he could know, how could he convince others? what is meant by inspiration? did the one inspired set down only the thoughts of a supernatural being? was he simply an instrument, or did his personality color the message received and given? did he mix his ignorance with the divine information, his prejudices and hatreds with the love and justice of the deity? if god told him not to eat the flesh of any beast that dieth of itself, did the same infinite being also tell him to sell this meat to the stranger within his gates? a man says that he is inspired--that god appeared to him in a dream, and told him certain things. now, the things said to have been communicated may have been good and wise; but will the fact that the communication is good or wise establish the inspiration? if, on the other hand, the communication is absurd or wicked, will that conclusively show that the man was not inspired? must we judge from the communication? in other words, is our reason to be the final standard? how could the inspired man know that the communication was received from god? if god in reality should appear to a human being, how could this human being know who had appeared? by what standard would he judge? upon this question man has no experience; he is not familiar enough with the supernatural to know gods even if they exist. although thousands have pretended to receive messages, there has been no message in which there was, or is, anything above the invention of man. there are just as wonderful things in the uninspired as in the inspired books, and the prophecies of the heathen have been fulfilled equally with those of the judean prophets. if, then, even the inspired man cannot certainly know that he is inspired, how is it possible for him to demonstrate his inspiration to others? the last solution of this question is that inspiration is a miracle about which only the inspired can have the least knowledge, or the least evidence, and this knowledge and this evidence not of a character to absolutely convince even the inspired. there is certainly nothing in the old or the new testament that could not have been written by uninspired human beings. to me there is nothing of any particular value in the pentateuch. i do not know of a solitary scientific truth contained in the five books commonly attributed to moses. there is not, as far as i know, a line in the book of genesis calculated to make a human being better. the laws contained in exodus, leviticus, numbers, and deuteronomy are for the most part puerile and cruel. surely there is nothing in any of these books that could not have been produced by uninspired men. certainly there is nothing calculated to excite intellectual admiration in the book of judges or in the wars of joshua; and the same may be said of samuel, chronicles, and kings. the history is extremely childish, full of repetitions of useless details, without the slightest philosophy, without a generalization bom of a wide survey. nothing is known of other nations; nothing imparted of the slightest value; nothing about education, discovery, or invention. and these idle and stupid annals are interspersed with myth and miracle, with flattery for kings who supported priests, and with curses and denunciations for those who would not hearken to the voice of the prophets. if all the historic books of the bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost. is it possible that the writer or writers of first and second kings were inspired, and that gibbon wrote "the decline and fall of the roman empire" without supernatural assistance? is it possible that the author of judges was simply the instrument of an infinite god, while john w. draper wrote "the intellectual development of europe" without one ray of light from the other world? can we believe that the author of genesis had to be inspired, while darwin experimented, ascertained, and reached conclusions for himself. ought not the work of a god to be vastly superior to that of a man? and if the writers of the bible were in reality inspired, ought not that book to be the greatest of books? for instance, if it were contended that certain statues had been chiselled by inspired men, such statues should be superior to any that uninspired man has made. as long as it is admitted that the venus de milo is the work of man, no one will believe in inspired sculptors--at least until a superior statue has been found. so in the world of painting. we admit that corot was uninspired. nobody claims that angelo had supernatural assistance. now, if some one should claim that a certain painter was simply the instrumentality of god, certainly the pictures produced by that painter should be superior to all others. i do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the song of solomon is the work of god, and that the tragedy of lear was the work of an uninspired man. we are all liable to be mistaken, but the iliad seems to me a greater work than the book of esther, and i prefer it to the writings of haggai and hosea. �schylus is superior to jeremiah, and shakespeare rises immeasurably above all the sacred books of the world. it does not seem possible that any human being ever tried to establish a truth--anything that really happened--by what is called a miracle. it is easy to understand how that which was common became wonderful by accretion,--by things added, and by things forgotten,--and it is easy to conceive how that which was wonderful became by accretion what was called supernatural. but it does not seem possible that any intelligent, honest man ever endeavored to prove anything by a miracle. as a matter of fact, miracles could only satisfy people who demanded no evidence; else how could they have believed the miracle? it also appears to be certain that, even if miracles had been performed, it would be impossible to establish that fact by human testimony. in other words, miracles can only be established by miracles, and in no event could miracles be evidence except to those who were actually present; and in order for miracles to be of any value, they would have to be perpetual. it must also be remembered that a miracle actually performed could by no possibility shed any light on any moral truth, or add to any human obligation. if any man has, ever been inspired, this is a secret miracle, known to no person, and suspected only by the man claiming to be inspired. it would not be in the power of the inspired to give satisfactory evidence of that fact to anybody else. the testimony of man is insufficient to establish the supernatural. neither the evidence of one man nor of twelve can stand when contradicted by the experience of the intelligent world. if a book sought to be proved by miracles is true, then it makes no difference whether it was inspired or not; and if it is not true, inspiration cannot add to its value. the truth is that the church has always--unconsciously, perhaps--offered rewards for falsehood. it was founded upon the supernatural, the miraculous, and it welcomed all statements calculated to support the foundation. it rewarded the traveller who found evidences of the miraculous, who had seen the pillar of salt into which the wife of lot had been changed, and the tracks of pharaoh's chariots on the sands of the red sea. it heaped honors on the historian who filled his pages with the absurd and impossible. it had geologists and astronomers of its own who constructed the earth and the constellations in accordance with the bible. with sword and flame it destroyed the brave and thoughtful men who told the truth. it was the enemy of investigation and of reason. faith and fiction were in partnership. to-day the intelligence of the world denies the miraculous. ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. the foundation of christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. the natural is true. the miraculous is false. north american review, march, . huxley and agnosticism. professor huxley and agnosticism. in the february number of the nineteenth century, , is an article by professor huxley, entitled "agnosticism." it seems that a church congress was held at manchester in october, , and that the principal of king's college brought the topic of agnosticism before the assembly and made the following statement: "but if this be so, for a man to urge as an escape from this article of belief that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of an unseen world, or of the future, is irrelevant. his difference from christians lies, not in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority on which they are stated. he may prefer to call himself an agnostic, but his real name is an older one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever. the word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance. perhaps it is right that it should. it is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that he does not believe in jesus christ." let us examine this statement, putting it in language that is easily understood; and for that purpose we will divide it into several paragraphs. first.--"for a man to urge that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is irrelevant." is there any other knowledge than a scientific knowledge? are there several kinds of knowing? is there such a thing as scientific ignorance? if a man says, "i know nothing of the unseen world because i have no knowledge upon that subject," is the fact that he has no knowledge absolutely irrelevant? will the principal of king's college say that having no knowledge is the reason he knows? when asked to give your opinion upon any subject, can it be said that your ignorance of that subject is irrelevant? if this be true, then your knowledge of the subject is also irrelevant? is it possible to put in ordinary english a more perfect absurdity? how can a man obtain any knowledge of the unseen world? he certainly cannot obtain it through the medium of the senses. it is not a world that he can visit. he cannot stand upon its shores, nor can he view them from the ocean of imagination. the principal of king's college, however, insists that these impossibilities are irrelevant. no person has come back from the unseen world. no authentic message has been delivered. through all the centuries, not one whisper has broken the silence that lies beyond the grave. countless millions have sought for some evidence, have listened in vain for some word. it is most cheerfully admitted that all this does not prove the non-existence of another world--all this does not demonstrate that death ends all. but it is the justification of the agnostic, who candidly says, "i do not know." second.--the principal of king's college states that the difference between an agnostic and a christian "lies, not in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority on which they are stated." is this a difference in knowledge, or a difference in belief--that is to say, a difference in credulity? the christian believes the mosaic account. he reverently hears and admits the truth of all that he finds within the scriptures. is this knowledge? how is it possible to know whether the reputed authors of the books of the old testament were the real ones? the witnesses are dead. the lips that could testify are dust. between these shores roll the waves of many centuries. who knows whether such a man as moses existed or not? who knows the author of kings and chronicles? by what testimony can we substantiate the authenticity of the prophets, or of the prophecies, or of the fulfillments? is there any difference between the knowledge of the christian and of the agnostic? does the principal of king's college know any more as to the truth of the old testament than the man who modestly calls for evidence? has not a mistake been made? is not the difference one of belief instead of knowledge? and is not this difference founded on the difference in credulity? would not an infinitely wise and good being--where belief is a condition to salvation--supply the evidence? certainly the creator of man--if such exist--knows the exact nature of the human mind--knows the evidence necessary to convince; and, consequently, such a being would act in accordance with such conditions. there is a relation between evidence and belief. the mind is so constituted that certain things, being in accordance with its nature, are regarded as reasonable, as probable. there is also this fact that must not be overlooked: that is, that just in the proportion that the brain is developed it requires more evidence, and becomes less and less credulous. ignorance and credulity go hand in hand. intelligence understands something of the law of average, has an idea of probability. it is not swayed by prejudice, neither is it driven to extremes by suspicion. it takes into consideration personal motives. it examines the character of the witnesses, makes allowance for the ignorance of the time,--for enthusiasm, for fear,--and comes to its conclusion without fear and without passion. what knowledge has the christian of another world? the senses of the christian are the same as those of the agnostic. he hears, sees, and feels substantially the same. his vision is limited. he sees no other shore and hears nothing from another world. knowledge is something that can be imparted. it has a foundation in fact. it comes within the domain of the senses. it can be told, described, analyzed, and, in addition to all this, it can be classified. whenever a fact becomes the property of one mind, it can become the property of the intellectual world. there are words in which the knowledge can be conveyed. the christian is not a supernatural person, filled with supernatural truths. he is a natural person, and all that he knows of value can be naturally imparted. it is within his power to give all that he has to the agnostic. the principal of king's college is mistaken when he says that the difference between the agnostic and the christian does not lie in the fact that the agnostic has no knowledge, "but that he does not believe the authority on which these things are stated." the real difference is this: the christian says that he has knowledge; the agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the christian accuses the agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. to the agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks. it is also true that the agnostic does not believe the authority relied on by the christian. what is the authority of the christian? thousands of years ago it is supposed that certain men, or, rather, uncertain men, wrote certain things. it is alleged by the christian that these men were divinely inspired, and that the words of these men are to be taken as absolutely true, no matter whether or not they are verified by modern discovery and demonstration. how can we know that any human being was divinely inspired? there has been no personal revelation to us to the effect that certain people were inspired--it is only claimed that the revelation was to them. for this we have only their word, and about that there is this difficulty: we know nothing of them, and, consequently, cannot, if we desire, rely upon their character for truth. this evidence is not simply hearsay--it is far weaker than that. we have only been told that they said these things; we do not know whether the persons claiming to be inspired wrote these things or not; neither are we certain that such persons ever existed. we know now that the greatest men with whom we are acquainted are often mistaken about the simplest matters. we also know that men saying something like the same things, in other countries and in ancient days, must have been impostors. the christian has no confidence in the words of mohammed; the mohammedan cares nothing about the declarations of buddha; and the agnostic gives to the words of the christian the value only of the truth that is in them. he knows that these sayings get neither truth nor worth from the person who uttered them. he knows that the sayings themselves get their entire value from the truth they express. so that the real difference between the christian and the agnostic does not lie in their knowledge,--for neither of them has any knowledge on this subject,--but the difference does lie in credulity, and in nothing else. the agnostic does not rely on the authority of moses and the prophets. he finds that they were mistaken in most matters capable of demonstration. he finds that their mistakes multiply in the proportion that human knowledge increases. he is satisfied that the religion of the ancient jews is, in most things, as ignorant and cruel as other religions of the ancient world. he concludes that the efforts, in all ages, to answer the questions of origin and destiny, and to account for the phenomena of life, have all been substantial failures. in the presence of demonstration there is no opportunity for the exercise of faith. truth does not appeal to credulity--it appeals to evidence, to established facts, to the constitution of the mind. it endeavors to harmonize the new fact with all that we know, and to bring it within the circumference of human experience. the church has never cultivated investigation. it has never said: let him who has a mind to think, think; but its cry from the first until now has been: let him who has ears to hear, hear. the pulpit does not appeal to the reason of the pew; it speaks by authority and it commands the pew to believe, and it not only commands, but it threatens. the agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. we would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. the church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. if we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing? third.--the principal of king's college, growing somewhat severe, declares that "he may prefer to call himself an agnostic, but his real name is an older one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever." this is spoken in a kind of holy scorn. according to this gentleman, an unbeliever is, to a certain extent, a disreputable person. in this sense, what is an unbeliever? he is one whose mind is so constituted that what the christian calls evidence is not satisfactory to him. is a person accountable for the constitution of his mind, for the formation of his brain? is any human being responsible for the weight that evidence has upon him? can he believe without evidence? is the weight of evidence a question of choice? is there such a thing as honestly weighing testimony? is the result of such weighing necessary? does it involve moral responsibility? if the mosaic account does not convince a man that it is true, is he a wretch because he is candid enough to tell the truth? can he preserve his manhood only by making a false statement? the mohammedan would call the principal of king's college an unbeliever,--so would the tribes of central africa,--and he would return the compliment, and all would be equally justified. has the principal of king's college any knowledge that he keeps from the rest of the world? has he the confidence of the infinite? is there anything praiseworthy in believing where the evidence is sufficient, or is one to be praised for believing only where the evidence is insufficient? is a man to be blamed for not agreeing with his fellow-citizen? were the unbelievers in the pagan world better or worse than their neighbors? it is probably true that some of the greatest greeks believed in the gods of that nation, and it is equally true that some of the greatest denied their existence. if credulity is a virtue now, it must have been in the days of athens. if to believe without evidence entities one to eternal reward in this century, certainly the same must have been true in the days of the pharaohs. an infidel is one who does not believe in the prevailing religion. we now admit that the infidels of greece and rome were right. the gods that they refused to believe in are dead. their thrones are empty, and long ago the sceptres dropped from their nerveless hands. to-day the world honors the men who denied and derided these gods. fourth.--the principal of king's college ventures to suggest that "the word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance; perhaps it is right that it should." a few years ago the word infidel did carry "an unpleasant significance." a few years ago its significance was so unpleasant that the man to whom the word was applied found himself in prison or at the stake. in particularly kind communities he was put in the stocks, pelted with offal, derided by hypocrites, scorned by ignorance, jeered by cowardice, and all the priests passed by on the other side. there was a time when episcopalians were regarded as infidels; when a true catholic looked upon a follower of henry viii. as an infidel, as an unbeliever; when a true catholic held in detestation the man who preferred a murderer and adulterer--a man who swapped religions for the sake of exchanging wives--to the pope, the head of the universal church. it is easy enough to conceive of an honest man denying the claims of a church based on the caprice of an english king. the word infidel "carries an unpleasant significance" only where the christians are exceedingly ignorant, intolerant, bigoted, cruel, and unmannerly. the real gentleman gives to others the rights that he claims for himself. the civilized man rises far above the bigotry of one who has been "born again." good breeding is far gentler than "universal love." it is natural for the church to hate an unbeliever--natural for the pulpit to despise one who refuses to subscribe, who refuses to give. it is a question of revenue instead of religion. the episcopal church has the instinct of self-preservation. it uses its power, its influence, to compel contribution. it forgives the giver. fifth.--the principal of king's college insists that "it is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that he does not believe in jesus christ." should it be an unpleasant thing for a man to say plainly what he believes? can this be unpleasant except in an uncivilized community--a community in which an uncivilized church has authority? why should not a man be as free to say that he does not believe as to say that he does believe? perhaps the real question is whether all men have an equal right to express their opinions. is it the duty of the minority to keep silent? are majorities always right? if the minority had never spoken, what to-day would have been the condition of this world? are the majority the pioneers of progress, or does the pioneer, as a rule, walk alone? is it his duty to close his lips? must the inventor allow his inventions to die in the brain? must the discoverer of new truths make of his mind a tomb? is man under any obligation to his fellows? was the episcopal religion always in the majority? was it at any time in the history of the world an unpleasant thing to be called a protestant? did the word protestant "carry an unpleasant significance"? was it "perhaps right that it should"? was luther a misfortune to the human race? if a community is thoroughly civilized, why should it be an unpleasant thing for a man to express his belief in respectful language? if the argument is against him, it might be unpleasant; but why should simple numbers be the foundation of unpleasantness? if the majority have the facts,--if they have the argument,--why should they fear the mistakes of the minority? does any theologian hate the man he can answer? it is claimed by the episcopal church that christ was in fact god; and it is further claimed that the new testament is an inspired account of what that being and his disciples did and said. is there any obligation resting on any human being to believe this account? is it within the power of man to determine the influence that testimony shall have upon his mind? if one denies the existence of devils, does he, for that reason, cease to believe in jesus christ? is it not possible to imagine that a great and tender soul living in palestine nearly twenty centuries ago was misunderstood? is it not within the realm of the possible that his words have been inaccurately reported? is it not within the range of the probable that legend and rumor and ignorance and zeal have deformed his life and belittled his character? if the man christ lived and taught and suffered, if he was, in reality, great and noble, who is his friend--the one who attributes to him feats of jugglery, or he who maintains that these stories were invented by zealous ignorance and believed by enthusiastic credulity? if he claimed to have wrought miracles, he must have been either dishonest or insane; consequently, he who denies miracles does what little he can to rescue the reputation of a great and splendid man. the agnostic accepts the good he did, the truth he said, and rejects only that which, according to his judgment, is inconsistent with truth and goodness. the principal of king's college evidently believes in the necessity of belief. he puts conviction or creed or credulity in place of character. according to his idea, it is impossible to win the approbation of god by intelligent investigation and by the expression of honest conclusions. he imagines that the infinite is delighted with credulity, with belief without evidence, faith without question. man has but little reason, at best; but this little should be used. no matter how small the taper is, how feeble the ray of light it casts, it is better than darkness, and no man should be rewarded for extinguishing the light he has. we know now, if we know anything, that man in this, the nineteenth century, is better capable of judging as to the happening of any event, than he ever was before. we know that the standard is higher to-day--we know that the intellectual light is greater--we know that the human mind is better equipped to deal with all questions of human interest, than at any other time within the known history of the human race. it will not do to say that "our lord and his apostles must at least be regarded as honest men." let this be admitted, and what does it prove? honesty is not enough. intelligence and honesty must go hand in hand. we may admit now that "our lord and his apostles" were perfectly honest men; yet it does not follow that we have a truthful account of what they said and of what they did. it is not pretended that "our lord" wrote anything, and it is not known that one of the apostles ever wrote a word. consequently, the most that we can say is that somebody has written something about "our lord and his apostles." whether that somebody knew or did not know is unknown to us. as to whether what is written is true or false, we must judge by that which is written. first of all, is it probable? is it within the experience of mankind? we should judge of the gospels as we judge of other histories, of other biographies. we know that many biographies written by perfectly honest men are not correct. we know, if we know anything, that honest men can be mistaken, and it is not necessary to believe everything that a man writes because we believe he was honest. dishonest men may write the truth. at last the standard or criterion is for each man to judge according to what he believes to be human experience. we are satisfied that nothing more wonderful has happened than is now happening. we believe that the present is as wonderful as the past, and just as miraculous as the future. if we are to believe in the truth of the old testament, the word evidence loses its meaning; there ceases to be any standard of probability, and the mind simply accepts or denies without reason. we are told that certain miracles were performed for the purpose of attesting the mission and character of christ. how can these miracles be verified? the miracles of the middle ages rest upon substantially the same evidence. the same may be said of the wonders of all countries and of all ages. how is it a virtue to deny the miracles of mohammed and to believe those attributed to christ? you may say of st. augustine that what he said was true or false. we know that much of it was false; and yet we are not justified in saying that he was dishonest. thousands of errors have been propagated by honest men. as a rule, mistakes get their wings from honest people. the testimony of a witness to the happening of the impossible gets no weight from the honesty of the witness. the fact that falsehoods are in the new testament does not tend to prove that the writers were knowingly untruthful. no man can be honest enough to substantiate, to the satisfaction of reasonable men, the happening of a miracle. for this reason it makes not the slightest difference whether the writers of the new testament were honest or not. their character is not involved. whenever a man rises above his contemporaries, whenever he excites the wonder of his fellows, his biographers always endeavor to bridge over the chasm between the people and this man, and for that purpose attribute to him the qualities which in the eyes of the multitude are desirable. miracles are demanded by savages, and, consequently, the savage biographer attributes miracles to his hero. what would we think now of a man who, in writing the life of charles darwin, should attribute to him supernatural powers? what would we say of an admirer of humboldt who should claim that the great german could cast out devils? we would feel that darwin and humboldt had been belittled; that the biographies were written for children and by men who had not outgrown the nursery. if the reputation of "our lord" is to be preserved--if he is to stand with the great and splendid of the earth--if he is to continue a constellation in the intellectual heavens, all claim to the miraculous, to the supernatural, must be abandoned. no one can overestimate the evils that have been endured by the human race by reason of a departure from the standard of the natural. the world has been governed by jugglery, by sleight-of-hand. miracles, wonders, tricks, have been regarded as of far greater importance than the steady, the sublime and unbroken march of cause and effect. the improbable has been established by the impossible. falsehood has furnished the foundation for faith. is the human body at present the residence of evil spirits, or have these imps of darkness perished from the world? where are they? if the new testament establishes anything, it is the existence of innumerable devils, and that these satanic beings absolutely took possession of the human mind. is this true? can anything be more absurd? does any intellectual man who has examined the question believe that depraved demons live in the bodies of men? do they occupy space? do they live upon some kind of food? of what shape are they? could they be classified by a naturalist? do they run or float or fly? if to deny the existence of these supposed beings is to be an infidel, how can the word infidel "carry an unpleasant significance"? of course it is the business of the principals of most colleges, as well as of bishops, cardinals, popes, priests, and clergymen to insist upon the existence of evil spirits. all these gentlemen are employeed to counteract the influence of these supposed demons. why should they take the bread out of their own mouths? is it to be expected that they will unfrock themselves? the church, like any other corporation, has the instinct of self-preservation. it will defend itself; it will fight as long as it has the power to change a hand into a fist. the agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. in his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. he is satisfied that "the miraculous" is the impossible. he knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that "the miraculous" was expected, that it was their daily food. all this is very clearly and delightfully stated by professor huxley, and it hardly seems possible that any intelligent man can read what he says without feeling that the foundation of all superstition has been weakened. the article is as remarkable for its candor as for its clearness. nothing is avoided--everything is met. no excuses are given.. he has left all apologies for the other side. when you have finished what professor huxley has written, you feel that your mind has been in actual contact with the mind of another, that nothing has been concealed; and not only so, but you feel that this mind is not only willing, but anxious, to know the actual truth. to me, the highest uses of philosophy are, first, to free the mind of fear, and, second, to avert all the evil that can be averted, through intelligence--that is to say, through a knowledge of the conditions of well-being. we are satisfied that the absolute is beyond our vision, beneath our touch, above our reach. we are now convinced that we can deal only with phenomena, with relations, with appearances, with things that impress the senses, that can be reached by reason, by the exercise of our faculties. we are satisfied that the reasonable road is "the straight road," the only "sacred way." of course there is faith in the world--faith in this world--and always will be, unless superstition succeeds in every land. but the faith of the wise man is based upon facts. his faith is a reasonable conclusion drawn from the known. he has faith in the progress of the race, in the triumph of intelligence, in the coming sovereignty of science. he has faith in the development of the brain, in the gradual enlightenment of the mind. and so he works for the accomplishment of great ends, having faith in the final victory of the race. he has honesty enough to say that he does not know. he perceives and admits that the mind has limitations. he doubts the so-called wisdom of the past. he looks for evidence, and he endeavors to keep his mind free from prejudice. he believes in the manly virtues, in the judicial spirit, and in his obligation to tell his honest thoughts. it is useless to talk about a destruction of consolations. that which is suspected to be untrue loses its power to console. a man should be brave enough to bear the truth. professor huxley has stated with great clearness the attitude of the agnostic. it seems that he is somewhat severe on the positive philosophy, while it is hard to see the propriety of worshiping humanity as a being, it is easy to understand the splendid dream of august comte. is the human race worthy to be worshiped by itself--that is to say, should the individual worship himself? certainly the religion of humanity is better than the religion of the inhuman. the positive philosophy is better far than catholicism. it does not fill the heavens with monsters, nor the future with pain. it may be said that luther and comte endeavored to reform the catholic church. both were mistaken, because the only reformation of which that church is capable is destruction. it is a mass of superstition. the mission of positivism is, in the language of its founder, "to generalize science and to systematize sociality." it seems to me that comte stated with great force and with absolute truth the three phases of intellectual evolution or progress. first.--"in the supernatural phase the mind seeks causes--aspires to know the essence of things, and the how and why of their operation. in this phase, all facts are regarded as the productions of supernatural agents, and unusual phenomena are interpreted as the signs of the pleasure or displeasure of some god." here at this point is the orthodox world of to-day. the church still imagines that phenomena should be interpreted as the signs of the pleasure or displeasure of god. nearly every history is deformed with this childish and barbaric view. second.--the next phase or modification, according to comte, is the metaphysical. "the supernatural agents are dispensed with, and in their places we find abstract forces or entities supposed to inhere in substances and capable of engendering phenomena." in this phase people talk about laws and principles as though laws and principles were forces capable of producing phenomena. third.--"the last stage is the positive. the mind, convinced of the futility of all enquiry into causes and essences, restricts itself to the observation and classification of phenomena, and to the discovery of the invariable relations of succession and similitude--in a word, to the discovery of the relations of phenomena." why is not the positive stage the point reached by the agnostic? he has ceased to inquire into the origin of things. he has perceived the limitations of the mind. he is thoroughly convinced of the uselessness and futility and absurdity of theological methods, and restricts himself to the examination of phenomena, to their relations, to their effects, and endeavors to find in the complexity of things the true conditions of human happiness. although i am not a believer in the philosophy of auguste comte, i cannot shut my eyes to the value of his thought; neither is it possible for me not to applaud his candor, his intelligence, and the courage it required even to attempt to lay the foundation of the positive philosophy. professor huxley and frederic harrison are splendid soldiers in the army of progress. they have attacked with signal success the sacred and solemn stupidities of superstition. both have appealed to that which is highest and noblest in man. both have been the destroyers of prejudice. both have shed light, and both have won great victories on the fields of intellectual conflict. they cannot afford to waste time in attacking each other. after all, the agnostic and the positivist have the same end in view--both believe in living for this world. the theologians, finding themselves unable to answer the arguments that have been urged, resort to the old subterfuge--to the old cry that agnosticism takes something of value from the life of man. does the agnostic take any consolation from the world? does he blot out, or dim, one star in the heaven of hope? can there be anything more consoling than to feel, to know, that jehovah is not god--that the message of the old testament is not from the infinite? is it not enough to fill the brain with a happiness unspeakable to know that the words, "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," will never be spoken to one of the children of men? is it a small thing to lift from the shoulders of industry the burdens of superstition? is it a little thing to drive the monster of fear from the hearts of men?--north american review, april, . ernest renan. "blessed are those whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled that they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop she please." ernest renan is dead. another source of light; another force of civilization; another charming personality; another brave soul, graceful in thought, generous in deed; a sculptor in speech, a colorist in words--clothing all in the poetry born of a delightful union of heart and brain--has passed to the realm of rest. reared under the influences of catholicism, educated for the priesthood, yet by reason of his natural genius, he began to think. forces that utterly subjugate and enslave the mind of mediocrity sometimes rouse to thought and action the superior soul. renan began to think--a dangerous thing for a catholic to do. thought leads to doubt, doubt to investigation, investigation to truth--the enemy of all superstition. he lifted the catholic extinguisher from the light and flame of reason. he found that his mental vision was improved. he read the scriptures for himself, examined them as he did other books not claiming to be inspired. he found the same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same miraculous impossibilities in the book attributed to god that he found in those known to have been written by men. into the path of reason, or rather into the highway, renan was led by henriette, his sister, to whom he pays a tribute that has the perfume of a perfect flower. "i was," writes renan, "brought up by women and priests, and therein lies the whole explanation of my good qualities and of my defects." in most that he wrote is the tenderness of woman, only now and then a little touch of the priest showing itself, mostly in a reluctance to spoil the ivy by tearing down some prison built by superstition. in spite of the heartless "scheme" of things he still found it in his heart to say, "when god shall be complete, he will be just," at the same time saying that "nothing proves to us that there exists in the world a central consciousness--a soul of the universe--and nothing proves the contrary." so, whatever was the verdict of his brain, his heart asked for immortality. he wanted his dream, and he was willing that others should have theirs. such is the wish and will of all great souls. he knew the church thoroughly and anticipated what would finally be written about him by churchmen: "having some experience of ecclesiastical writers i can sketch out in advance the way my biography will be written in spanish in some catholic review, of santa fé, in the year , . heavens! how black i shall be! i shall be so all the more, because the church when she feels that she is lost will end with malice. she will bite like a mad dog." he anticipated such a biography because he had thought for himself, and because he had expressed his thoughts--because he had declared that "our universe, within the reach of our experience, is not governed by any intelligent reason. god, as the common herd understand him, the living god, the acting god--the god-providence, does not show himself in the universe"--because he attacked the mythical and the miraculous in the life of christ and sought to rescue from the calumnies of ignorance and faith a serene and lofty soul. the time has arrived when jesus must become a myth or a man. the idea that he was the infinite god must be abandoned by all who are not religiously insane. those who have given up the claim that he was god, insist that he was divinely appointed and illuminated; that he was a perfect man--the highest possible type of the human race and, consequently, a perfect example for all the world. as time goes on, as men get wider or grander or more complex ideas of life, as the intellectual horizon broadens, the idea that christ was perfect may be modified. the new testament seems to describe several individuals under the same name, or at least one individual who passed through several stages or phases of religious development. christ is described as a devout jew, as one who endeavored to comply in all respects with the old law. many sayings are attributed to him consistent with this idea. he certainly was a hebrew in belief and feeling when he said, "swear not by heaven, because it is god's throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool; nor by jerusalem, for it is his holy city." these reasons were in exact accordance with the mythology of the jews. god was regarded simply as an enormous man, as one who walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, as one who had met man face to face, who had conversed with moses for forty days upon mount sinai, as a great king, with a throne in the heavens, using the earth to rest his feet upon, and regarding jerusalem as his holy city. then we find plenty of evidence that he wished to reform the religion of the jews; to fulfill the law, not to abrogate it then there is still another change: he has ceased his efforts to reform that religion and has become a destroyer. he holds the temple in contempt and repudiates the idea that jerusalem is the holy city. he concludes that it is unnecessary to go to some mountain or some building to worship or to find god, and insists that the heart is the true temple, that ceremonies are useless, that all pomp and pride and show are needless, and that it is enough to worship god under heaven's dome, in spirit and in truth. it is impossible to harmonize these views unless we admit that christ was the subject of growth and change; that in consequence of growth and change he modified his views; that, from wanting to preserve judaism as it was, he became convinced that it ought to be reformed. that he then abandoned the idea of reformation, and made up his mind that the only reformation of which the jewish religion was capable was destruction. if he was in fact a man, then the course he pursued was natural; but if he was god, it is perfectly absurd. if we give to him perfect knowledge, then it is impossible to account for change or growth. if, on the other hand, the ground is taken that he was a perfect man, then, it might be asked, was he perfect when he wished to preserve, or when he wished to reform, or when he resolved to destroy, the religion of the jews? if he is to be regarded as perfect, although not divine, when did he reach perfection? it is perfectly evident that christ, or the character that bears that name, imagined that the world was about to be destroyed, or at least purified by fire, and that, on account of this curious belief, he became the enemy of marriage, of all earthly ambition and of all enterprise. with that view in his mind, he said to himself, "why should we waste our energies in producing food for destruction? why should we endeavor to beautify a world that is so soon to perish?" filled with the thought of coming change, he insisted that there was but one important thing, and that was for each man to save his soul. he should care nothing for the ties of kindred, nothing for wife or child or property, in the shadow of the coming disaster. he should take care of himself. he endeavored, as it is said, to induce men to desert all they had, to let the dead, bury the dead, and follow him. he told his disciples, or those he wished to make his disciples, according to the testament, that it was their duty to desert wife and child and property, and if they would so desert kindred and wealth, he would reward them here and hereafter. we know now--if we know anything--that jesus was mistaken about the coming of the end, and we know now that he was greatly controlled in his ideas of life, by that mistake. believing that the end was near, he said, "take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." it was in view of the destruction of the world that he called the attention of his disciples to the lily that toiled not and yet excelled solomon in the glory of its raiment. having made this mistake, having acted upon it, certainly we cannot now say that he was perfect in knowledge. he is regarded by many millions as the impersonation of patience, of forbearance, of meekness and mercy, and yet, according to the account, he said many extremely bitter words, and threatened eternal pain. we also know, if the account be true, that he claimed to have supernatural power, to work miracles, to cure the blind and to raise the dead, and we know that he did nothing of the kind. so if the writers of the new testament tell the truth as to what christ claimed, it is absurd to say that he was a perfect man. if honest, he was deceived, and those who are deceived are not perfect. there is nothing in the new testament, so far as we know, that touches on the duties of nation to nation, or of nation to its citizens; nothing of human liberty; not one word about education; not the faintest hint that there is such a thing as science; nothing calculated to stimulate industry, commerce, or invention; not one word in favor of art, of music or anything calculated to feed or clothe the body, nothing to develop the brain of man. when it is assumed that the life of christ, as described in the new testament, is perfect, we at least take upon ourselves the burden of deciding what perfection is. people who asserted that christ was divine, that he was actually god, reached the conclusion, without any laborious course of reasoning, that all he said and did was absolute perfection. they said this because they had first been convinced that he was divine. the moment his divinity is given up and the assertion is made that he was perfect, we are not permitted to reason in that way. they said he was god, therefore perfect. now, if it is admitted that he was human, the conclusion that he was perfect does not follow. we then take the burden upon ourselves of deciding what perfection is. to decide what is perfect is beyond the powers of the human mind. renan, in spite of his education, regarded christ as a man, and did the best he could to account for the miracles that had been attributed to him, for the legends that had gathered about his name, and the impossibilities connected with his career, and also tried to account for the origin or birth of these miracles, of these legends, of these myths, including the resurrection and ascension. i am not satisfied with all the conclusions he reached or with all the paths he traveled. the refraction of light caused by passing through a woman's tears is hardly a sufficient foundation for a belief in so miraculous a miracle as the bodily ascension of jesus christ. there is another thing attributed to christ that seems to me conclusive evidence against the claim of perfection. christ is reported to have said that all sins could be forgiven except the sin against the holy ghost. this sin, however, is not defined. although christ died for the whole world, that through him all might be saved, there is this one terrible exception: there is no salvation for those who have sinned, or who may hereafter sin, against the holy ghost. thousands of persons are now in asylums, having lost their reason because of their fear that they had committed this unknown, this undefined, this unpardonable sin. it is said that a roman emperor went through a form of publishing his laws or proclamations, posting them so high on pillars that they could not be read, and then took the lives of those who ignorantly violated these unknown laws. he was regarded as a tyrant, as a murderer. and yet, what shall we say of one who declared that the sin against the holy ghost was the only one that could not be forgiven, and then left an ignorant world to guess what that sin is? undoubtedly this horror is an interpolation. there is something like it in the old testament. it is asserted by christians that the ten commandments are the foundation of all law and of all civilization, and you will find lawyers insisting that the mosaic code was the first information that man received on the subject of law; that before that time the world was without any knowledge of justice or mercy. if this be true the jews had no divine laws, no real instruction on any legal subject until the ten commandments were given. consequently, before that time there had been proclaimed or published no law against the worship of other gods or of idols. moses had been on mount sinai talking with jehovah. at the end of the dialogue he received the tables of stone and started down the mountain for the purpose of imparting this information to his followers. when he reached the camp he heard music. he saw people dancing, and he found that in his absence aaron and the rest of the people had cast a molten calf which they were then worshiping. this so enraged moses that he broke the tables of stone and made preparations for the punishment of the jews. remember that they knew nothing about this law, and, according to the modern christian claims, could not have known that it was wrong to melt gold and silver and mould it in the form of a calf. and yet moses killed about thirty thousand of these people for having violated a law of which they had never heard; a law known only to one man and one god. nothing could be more unjust, more ferocious, than this; and yet it can hardly be said to exceed in cruelty the announcement that a certain sin was unpardonable and then fail to define the sin. possibly, to inquire what the sin is, is the sin. renan regards jesus as a man, and his work gets its value from the fact that it is written from a human standpoint. at the same time he, consciously or unconsciously, or may be for the purpose of sprinkling a little holy water on the heat of religious indignation, now and then seems to speak of him as more than human, or as having accomplished something that man could not. he asserts that "the gospels are in part legendary; that they contain many things not true; that they are full of miracles and of the supernatural." at the same time he insists that these legends, these miracles, these supernatural things do not affect the truth of the probable things contained in these writings. he sees, and sees clearly, that there is no evidence that matthew or mark or luke or john wrote the books attributed to them; that, as a matter of fact, the mere title of "according to matthew," "according to mark," shows that they were written by others who claimed them to be in accordance with the stories that had been told by matthew or by mark. so renan takes the ground that the gospel of luke is founded on anterior documents and "is the work of a man who selected, pruned and combined, and that the same man wrote the acts of the apostles and in the same way." the gospels were certainly written long after the events described, and renan finds the reason for this in the fact that the christians believed that the world was about to end; that, consequently, there was no need of composing books; it was only necessary for them to preserve in their hearts during the little margin of time that remained a lively image of him whom they soon expected to meet in the clouds. for this reason the gospels themselves had but little authority for years, the christians relying on oral traditions. renan shows that there was not the slightest scruple about inserting additions in the gospels, variously combining them, and in completing some by taking parts from others; that the books passed from hand to hand, and that each one transcribed in the margin of his copy the words and parables he had found elsewhere which touched him; that it was not until human tradition became weakened that the text bearing the names of the apostles became authoritative. renan has criticised the gospels somewhat in the same spirit that he would criticise a modern work. he saw clearly that the metaphysics filling the discourses of john were deformities and distortions, full of mysticism, having nothing to do really with the character of jesus. he shows too "that the simple idea of the kingdom of god, at the time the gospel according to st. john was written, had faded away; that the hope of the advent of christ was growing dim, and that from belief the disciples passed into discussion, from discussion to dogma, from dogma to ceremony," and, finding that the new heaven and the new earth were not coming as expected, they turned their attention to governing the old heaven and the old earth. the disciples were willing to be humble for a few days, with the expectation of wearing crowns forever. they were satisfied with poverty, believing that the wealth of the world was to be theirs. the coming of christ, however, being for some unaccountable reason delayed, poverty and humility grew irksome, and human nature began to assert itself. in the gospel of john you will find the metaphysics of the church. there you find the second birth. there you find the doctrine of the atonement clearly set forth. there you find that god died for the whole world, and that whosoever believeth not in him is to be damned. there is nothing of the kind in matthew. matthew makes christ say that, if you will forgive others, god will forgive you. the gospel "according to mark" is the same. so is the gospel "according to luke." there is nothing about salvation through belief, nothing about the atonement. in mark, in the last chapter, the apostles are told to go into all the world and preach the gospel, with the statement that whoever believed and was baptised should be saved, and whoever failed to believe should be damned. but we now know that that is an interpolation. consequently, matthew, mark and luke never had the faintest conception of the "christian religion." they knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith--nothing. so that if a man had read only matthew, mark and luke, and had strictly followed what he found, he would have found himself, after death, in perdition. renan finds that certain portions of the gospel "according to john" were added later; that the entire twenty-first chapter is an interpolation; also, that many places bear the traces of erasures and corrections. so he says that it would be "impossible for any one to compose a life of jesus, with any meaning in it, from the discourses which john attributes to him, and he holds that this gospel of john is full of preaching, christ demonstrating himself; full of argumentation, full of stage effect, devoid of simplicity, with long arguments after each miracle, stiff and awkward discourses, the tone of which is often false and unequal." he also insists that there are evidently "artificial portions, variations like that of a musician improvising on a given theme." in spite of all this, renan, willing to soothe the prejudice of his time, takes the ground that the four canonical gospels are authentic, that they date from the first century, that the authors were, generally speaking, those to whom they are attributed; but he insists that their historic value is very diverse. this is a back-handed stroke. admitting, first, that they are authentic; second, that they were written about the end of the first century; third, that they are not of equal value, disposes, so far as he is concerned, of the dogma of inspiration. one is at a loss to understand why four gospels should have been written. as a matter of fact there can be only one true account of any occurrence, or of any number of occurrences. now, it must be taken for granted, that an inspired account is true. why then should there be four inspired accounts? it may be answered that all were not to write the entire story. to this the reply is that all attempted to cover substantially the same ground. many years ago the early fathers thought it necessary to say why there were four inspired books, and some of them said, because there were four cardinal directions and the gospels fitted the north, south, east and west. others said that there were four principal winds--a gospel for each wind. they might have added that some animals have four legs. renan admits that the narrative portions have not the same authority; "that many legends proceeded from the zeal of the second christian generation; that the narrative of luke is historically weak; that sentences attributed to jesus have been distorted and exaggerated; that the book was written outside of palestine and after the siege of jerusalem; that luke endeavors to make the different narratives agree, changing them for that purpose; that he softens the passages which had become embarrassing; that he exaggerated the marvelous, omitted errors in chronology; that he was a compiler, a man who had not been an eye-witness himself, and who had not seen eye-witnesses, but who labors at texts and wrests their sense to make them agree." this certainly is very far from inspiration. so "luke interprets the documents according to his own idea; being a kind of anarchist, opposed to property, and persuaded that the triumph of the poor was approaching; that he was especially fond of the anecdotes showing the conversion of sinners, the exaltation of the humble, and that he modified ancient traditions to give them this meaning." renan reached the conclusion that the gospels are neither biographies after the manner of suetonius nor fictitious legends in the style of philostratus, but that they are legendary biographies like the legends of the saints, the lives of plotinus and isidore, in which historical truth and the desire to present models of virtue are combined in various degrees; that they are "inexact" that they "contain numerous errors and discordances." so he takes the ground that twenty or thirty years after christ, his reputation had greatly increased, that "legends had begun to gather about him like clouds," that "death added to his perfection, freeing him from all defects in the eyes of those who had loved him, that his followers wrested the prophecies so that they might fit him. they said, 'he is the messiah.' the messiah was to do certain things; therefore jesus did certain things. then an account would be given of the doing." all of which of course shows that there can be maintained no theory of inspiration. it is admitted that where individuals are witnesses of the same transaction, and where they agree upon the vital points and disagree upon details, the disagreement may be consistent with their honesty, as tending to show that they have not agreed upon a story; but if the witnesses are inspired of god then there is no reason for their disagreeing on anything, and if they do disagree it is a demonstration that they were not inspired, but it is not a demonstration that they are not honest. while perfect agreement may be evidence of rehearsal, a failure to perfectly agree is not a demonstration of the truth or falsity of a story; but if the witnesses claim to be inspired, the slightest disagreement is a demonstration that they were not inspired. renan reaches the conclusion, proving every step that he takes, that the four principal documents--that is to say, the four gospels--are in "flagrant contradiction one with another." he attacks, and with perfect success, the miracles of the scriptures, and upon this subject says: "observation, which has never once been falsified, teaches us that miracles never happen, but in times and countries in which they are believed and before persons disposed to believe them. no miracle ever occurred in the presence of men capable of testing its miraculous character." he further takes the ground that no contemporary miracle will bear inquiry, and that consequently it is probable that the miracles of antiquity which have been performed in popular gatherings would be shown to be simple illusion, were it possible to criticise them in detail. in the name of universal experience he banishes miracles from history. these were brave things to do, things that will bear good fruit. as long as men believe in miracles, past or present they remain the prey of superstition. the catholic is taught that miracles were performed anciently not only, but that they are still being performed. this is consistent inconsistency. protestants teach a double doctrine: that miracles used to be performed, that the laws of nature used to be violated, but that no miracle is performed now. no protestant will admit that any miracle was performed by the catholic church. otherwise, protestants could not be justified in leaving a church with whom the god of miracles dwelt. so every protestant has to adopt two kinds of reasoning: that the laws of nature used to be violated and that miracles used to be performed, but that since the apostolic age nature has had her way and the lord has allowed facts to exist and to hold the field. a supernatural account, according to renan, "always implies credulity or imposture,"--probably both. it does not seem possible to me that christ claimed for himself what the testament claims for him. these claims were made by admirers, by followers, by missionaries. when the early christians went to rome they found plenty of demigods. it was hard to set aside the religion of a demigod by telling the story of a man from nazareth. these missionaries, not to be outdone in ancestry, insisted--and this was after the gospel "according to st. john" had been written--that christ was the son of god. matthew believed that he was the son of david, and the messiah, and gave the genealogy of joseph, his father, to support that claim. in the time of christ no one imagined that he was of divine origin. this was an after-growth. in order to place themselves on an equality with pagans they started the claim of divinity, and also took the second step requisite in that country: first, a god for his father, and second, a virgin for his mother. this was the pagan combination of greatness, and the christians added to this that christ was god. it is hard to agree with the conclusion reached by renan, that christ formed and intended to form a church. such evidence, it seems to me, is hard to find in the testament. christ seemed to satisfy himself, according to the testament, with a few statements, some of them exceedingly wise and tender, some utterly impracticable and some intolerant. if we accept the conclusions reached by renan we will throw away, the legends without foundation; the miraculous legends; and everything inconsistent with what we know of nature. very little will be left--a few sayings to be found among those attributed to confucius, to buddha, to krishna, to epictetus, to zeno, and to many others. some of these sayings are full of wisdom, full of kindness, and others rush to such extremes that they touch the borders of insanity. when struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. to agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice. we must not take from industry, from patriotism, from virtue, the right of self-defence. undoubtedly renan gave an honest transcript of his mind, the road his thought had followed, the reasons in their order that had occurred to him, the criticisms born of thought, and the qualifications, softening phrases, children of old sentiments and emotions that had not entirely passed away. he started, one might say, from the altar and, during a considerable part of the journey, carried the incense with him. the farther he got away, the greater was his clearness of vision and the more thoroughly he was convinced that christ was merely a man, an idealist. but, remembering the altar, he excused exaggeration in the "inspired" books, not because it was from heaven, not because it was in harmony with our ideas of veracity, but because the writers of the gospel were imbued with the oriental spirit of exaggeration, a spirit perfectly understood by the people who first read the gospels, because the readers knew the habits of the writers. it had been contended for many years that no one could pass judgment on the veracity of the scriptures who did not understand hebrew. this position was perfectly absurd. no man needs to be a student of hebrew to know that the shadow on the dial did not go back several degrees to convince a petty king that a boil was not to be fatal. renan, however, filled the requirement. he was an excellent hebrew scholar. this was a fortunate circumstance, because it answered a very old objection. the founder of christianity was, for his own sake, taken from the divine pedestal and allowed to stand like other men on the earth, to be judged by what he said and did, by his theories, by his philosophy, by his spirit. no matter whether renan came to a correct conclusion or not, his work did a vast deal of good. he convinced many that implicit reliance could not be placed upon the gospels, that the gospels themselves are of unequal worth; that they were deformed by ignorance and falsehood, or, at least, by mistake; that if they wished to save the reputation of christ they must not rely wholly on the gospels, or on what is found in the new testament, but they must go farther and examine all legends touching him. not only so, but they must throw away the miraculous, the impossible and the absurd. he also has shown that the early followers of christ endeavored to add to the reputation of their master by attributing to him the miraculous and the foolish; that while these stories added to his reputation at that time, since the world has advanced they must be cast aside or the reputation of the master must suffer. it will not do now to say that christ himself pretended to do miracles. this would establish the fact at least that he was mistaken. but we are compelled to say that his disciples insisted that he was a worker of miracles. this shows, either that they were mistaken or untruthful. we all know that a sleight-of-hand performer could gain a greater reputation among savages than darwin or humboldt; and we know that the world in the time of christ was filled with barbarians, with people who demanded the miraculous, who expected it; with people, in fact, who had a stronger belief in the supernatural than in the natural; people who never thought it worth while to record facts. the hero of such people, the christ of such people, with his miracles, cannot be the christ of the thoughtful and scientific. renan was a man of most excellent temper; candid; not striving for victory, but for truth; conquering, as far as he could, the old superstitions; not entirely free, it may be, but believing himself to be so. he did great good. he has helped to destroy the fictions of faith. he has helped to rescue man from the prison of superstition, and this is the greatest benefit that man can bestow on man. he did another great service, not only to jews, but to christendom, by writing the history of "the people of israel." christians for many centuries have persecuted the jews. they have charged them with the greatest conceivable crime--with having crucified an infinite god. this absurdity has hardened the hearts of men and poisoned the minds of children. the persecution of the jews is the meanest, the most senseless and cruel page in history. every civilized christian should feel on his cheeks the red spots of shame as he reads the wretched and infamous story. the flame of this prejudice is fanned and fed in the sunday schools of our day, and the orthodox minister points proudly to the atrocities perpetrated against the jews by the barbarians of russia as evidences of the truth of the inspired scriptures. in every wound god puts a tongue to proclaim the truth of his book. if the charge that the jews killed god were true, it is hardly reasonable to hold those who are now living responsible for what their ancestors did nearly nineteen centuries ago. but there is another point in connection with this matter: if christ was god, then the jews could not have killed him without his consent; and, according to the orthodox creed, if he had not been sacrificed, the whole world would have suffered eternal pain. nothing can exceed the meanness of the prejudice of christians against the jewish people. they should not be held responsible for their savage ancestors, or for their belief that jehovah was an intelligent and merciful god, superior to all other gods. even christians do not wish to be held responsible for the inquisition, for the torquemadas and the john calvins, for the witch-burners and the quaker-whippers, for the slave-traders and child-stealers, the most of whom were believers in our "glorious gospel," and many of whom had been bom the second time. renan did much to civilize the christians by telling the truth in a charming and convincing way about the "people of israel." both sides are greatly indebted to him: one he has ably defended, and the other greatly enlightened. having done what good he could in giving what he believed was light to his fellow-men, he had no fear of becoming a victim of god's wrath, and so he laughingly said: "for my part i imagine that if the eternal in his severity were to send me to hell i should succeed in escaping from it. i would send up to my creator a supplication that would make him smile. the course of reasoning by which i would prove to him that it was through his fault that i was damned would be so subtle that he would find some difficulty in replying. the fate which would suit me best is purgatory--a charming place, where many delightful romances begun on earth must be continued." such cheerfulness, such good philosophy, with cap and bells, such banter and blasphemy, such sound and solid sense drive to madness the priest who thinks the curse of rome can fright the world. how the snake of superstition writhes when he finds that his fangs have lost their poison. he was one of the gentlest of men--one of the fairest in discussion, dissenting from the views of others with modesty, presenting his own with clearness and candor. his mental manners were excellent. he was not positive as to the "unknowable." he said "perhaps." he knew that knowledge is good if it increases the happiness of man; and he felt that superstition is the assassin of liberty and civilization. he lived a life of cheerfulness, of industry, devoted to the welfare of mankind. he was a seeker of happiness by the highway of the natural, a destroyer of the dogmas of mental deformity, a worshiper of liberty and the ideal. as he lived, he died--hopeful and serene--and now, standing in imagination by his grave, we ask: will the night be eternal? the brain says, perhaps; while the heart hopes for the dawn.--north american review, november, . tolsto� and "the kreutzer sonata." count tolsto� is a man of genius. he is acquainted with russian life from the highest to the lowest--that is to say, from the worst to the best. he knows the vices of the rich and the virtues of the poor. he is a christian, a real believer in the old and new testaments, an honest follower of the peasant of palestine. he denounces luxury and ease, art and music; he regards a flower with suspicion, believing that beneath every blossom lies a coiled serpent. he agrees with lazarus and denounces dives and the tax-gatherers. he is opposed, not only to doctors of divinity, but of medicine. from the mount of olives he surveys the world. he is not a christian like the pope in the vatican, or a cardinal in a palace, or a bishop with revenues and retainers, or a millionaire who hires preachers to point out the wickedness of the poor, or the director of a museum who closes the doors on sunday. he is a christian something like christ. to him this life is but a breathing-spell between the verdict and the execution; the sciences are simply sowers of the seeds of pride, of arrogance and vice. shocked by the cruelties and unspeakable horrors of war, he became a non-resistant and averred that he would not defend his own body or that of his daughter from insult and outrage. in this he followed the command of his master: "resist not evil." he passed, not simply from war to peace, but from one extreme to the other, and advocated a doctrine that would leave the basest of mankind the rulers of the world. this was and is the error of a great and tender soul. he did not accept all the teachings of christ at once. his progress has been, judging from his writings, somewhat gradual; but by accepting one proposition he prepared himself for the acceptance of another. he is not only a christian, but has the courage of his convictions, and goes without hesitation to the logical conclusion. he has another exceedingly rare quality; he acts in accordance with his belief. his creed is translated into deed. he opposes the doctors of divinity, because they darken and deform the teachings of the master. he denounces the doctors of medicine, because he depends on providence and the promises of jesus christ. to him that which is called progress is, in fact, a profanation, and property is a something that the organized few have stolen from the unorganized many. he believes in universal labor, which is good, each working for himself. he also believes that each should have only the necessaries of life--which is bad. according to his idea, the world ought to be filled with peasants. there should be only arts enough to plough and sow and gather the harvest, to build huts, to weave coarse cloth, to fashion clumsy and useful garments, and to cook the simplest food. men and women should not adorn their bodies. they should not make themselves desirable or beautiful. but even under such circumstances they might, like the quakers, be proud of humility and become arrogantly meek. tolstoi would change the entire order of human development. as a matter of fact, the savage who adorns himself or herself with strings of shells, or with feathers, has taken the first step towards civilization. the tatooed is somewhat in advance of the unfrescoed. at the bottom of all this is the love of approbation, of the admiration of their fellows, and this feeling, this love, cannot be torn from the human heart. in spite of ourselves we are attracted by what to us is beautiful, because beauty is associated with pleasure, with enjoyment. the love of the well-formed, of the beautiful, is prophetic of the perfection of the human race. it is impossible to admire the deformed. they may be loved for their goodness or genius, but never because of their deformity. there is within us the love of proportion. there is a physical basis for the appreciation of harmony, which is also a kind of proportion. the love of the beautiful is shared with man by most animals. the wings of the moth are painted by love, by desire. this is the foundation of the bird's song. this love of approbation, this desire to please, to be admired, to be loved, is in some way the cause of all heroic, self-denying, and sublime actions. count tolstoï, following parts of the new testament, regards love as essentially impure. he seems really to think that there is a love superior to human love; that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, is, after all, a kind of glittering degradation; that it is better to love god than woman; better to love the invisible phantoms of the skies than the children upon our knees--in other words, that it is far better to love a heaven somewhere else than to make one here. he seems to think that women adorn themselves simply for the purpose of getting in their power the innocent and unsuspecting men. he forgets that the best and purest of human beings are controlled, for the most part unconsciously, by the hidden, subtle tendencies of nature. he seems to forget the great fact of "natural selection," and that the choice of one in preference to all others is the result of forces beyond the control of the individual. to him there seems to be no purity in love, because men are influenced by forms, by the beauty of women; and women, knowing this fact, according to him, act, and consequently both are equally guilty. he endeavors to show that love is a delusion; that at best it can last but for a few days; that it must of necessity be succeeded by indifference, then by disgust, lastly by hatred; that in every garden of eden is a serpent of jealousy, and that the brightest days end with the yawn of ennui. of course he is driven to the conclusion that life in this world is without value, that the race can be perpetuated only by vice, and that the practice of the highest virtue would leave the world without the form of man. strange as it may sound to some, this is the same conclusion reached by his divine master: "they did eat, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that noe entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all." "every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." according to christianity, as it really is and really was, the christian should have no home in this world--at least none until the earth has been purified by fire. his affections should be given to god; not to wife and children, not to friends or country. he is here but for a time on a journey, waiting for the summons. this life is a kind of dock running out into the sea of eternity, on which he waits for transportation. nothing here is of any importance; the joys of life are frivolous and corrupting, and by losing these few gleams of happiness in this world he will bask forever in the unclouded rays of infinite joy. why should a man risk an eternity of perfect happiness for the sake of enjoying himself a few days with his wife and children? why should he become an eternal outcast for the sake of having a home and fireside here? the "fathers" of the church had the same opinion of marriage. they agreed with saint paul, and tolstoï agrees with them. they had the same contempt for wives and mothers, and uttered the same blasphemies against that divine passion that has filled the world with art and song. all this is to my mind a kind of insanity; nature soured or withered--deformed so that celibacy is mistaken for virtue. the imagination becomes polluted, and the poor wretch believes that he is purer than his thoughts, holier than his desires, and that to outrage nature is the highest form of religion. but nature imprisoned, obstructed, tormented, always has sought for and has always found revenge. some of these victims, regarding the passions as low and corrupting, feeling humiliated by hunger and thirst, sought through maimings and mutilations the purification of the soul. count tolstoi in "the kreutzer sonata," has drawn, with a free hand, one of the vilest and basest of men for his hero. he is suspicious, jealous, cruel, infamous. the wife is infinitely too good for such a wild unreasoning beast, and yet the writer of this insane story seems to justify the assassin. if this is a true picture of wedded life in russia, no wonder that count tolstoï looks forward with pleasure to the extinction of the human race. of all passions that can take possession of the heart or brain jealousy is the worst. for many generations the chemists sought for the secret by which all metals could be changed to gold, and through which the basest could become the best. jealousy seeks exactly the opposite. it endeavors to transmute the very gold of love into the dross of shame and crime. the story of "the kreutzer sonata" seems to have been written for the purpose of showing that woman is at fault; that she has no right to be attractive, no right to be beautiful; and that she is morally responsible for the contour of her throat, for the pose of her body, for the symmetry of her limbs, for the red of her lips, and for the dimples in her cheeks. the opposite of this doctrine is nearer true. it would be far better to hold people responsible for their ugliness than for their beauty. it may be true that the soul, the mind, in some wondrous way fashions the body, and that to that extent every individual is responsible for his looks. it may be that the man or woman thinking high thoughts will give, necessarily, a nobility to expression and a beauty to outline. it is not true that the sins of man can be laid justly at the feet of woman. women are better than men; they have greater responsibilities; they bear even the burdens of joy. this is the real reason why their faults are considered greater. men and women desire each other, and this desire is a condition of civilization, progress, and happiness, and of everything of real value. but there is this profound difference in the sexes: in man this desire is the foundation of love, while in woman love is the foundation of this desire. tolstoï seems to be a stranger to the heart of woman. is it not wonderful that one who holds self-denial in such high esteem should say, "that life is embittered by the fear of one's children, and not only on account of their real or imaginary illnesses, but even by their very presence"? has the father no real love for the children? is he not paid a thousand times through their caresses, their sympathy, their love? is there no joy in seeing their minds unfold, their affections develop? of course, love and anxiety go together. that which we love we wish to protect. the perpetual fear of death gives love intensity and sacredness. yet count tolstoï gives us the feelings of a father incapable of natural affection; of one who hates to have his children sick because the orderly course of his wretched life is disturbed. so, too, we are told that modern mothers think too much of their children, care too much for their health, and refuse to be comforted when they die. lest these words may be thought libellous, the following extract is given; "in old times women consoled themselves with the belief, the lord hath given, and the lord hath taken away. blessed be the name of the lord. they consoled themselves with the thought that the soul of the departed had returned to him who gave it; that it was better to die innocent than to live in sin. if women nowadays had such a comfortable faith to support them, they might take their misfortunes less hard." the conclusion reached by the writer is that without faith in god, woman's love grovels in the mire. in this case the mire is made by the tears of mothers falling on the clay that hides their babes. the one thing constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the one window in which the light forever burns, the one star that darkness cannot quench, is woman's love. this one fact justifies the existence and the perpetuation of the human race. again i say that women are better than men; their hearts are more unreservedly given; in the web of their lives sorrow is inextricably woven with the greatest joys; self-sacrifice is a part of their nature, and at the behest of love and maternity they walk willingly and joyously down to the very gates of death. is there nothing in this to excite the admiration, the adoration, of a modern reformer? are the monk and nun superior to the father and mother? the author of "the kreutzer sonata" is unconsciously the enemy of mankind. he is filled with what might be called a merciless pity, a sympathy almost malicious. had he lived a few centuries ago, he might have founded a religion; but the most he can now do is, perhaps, to create the necessity for another asylum. count tolstoi objects to music--not the ordinary kind, but to great music, the music that arouses the emotions, that apparently carries us beyond the limitations of life, that for the moment seems to break the great chain of cause and effect, and leaves the soul soaring and free. "emotion and duty," he declares, "do not go hand in hand." all art touches and arouses the emotional nature. the painter, the poet, the sculptor, the composer, the orator, appeal to the emotions, to the passions, to the hopes and fears. the commonplace is transfigured; the cold and angular facts of existence take form and color; the blood quickens; the fancies spread their wings; the intellect grows sympathetic; the river of life flows full and free; and man becomes capable of the noblest deeds. take emotion from the heart of man and the idea of obligation would be lost; right and wrong would lose their meaning, and the word "ought" would never again be spoken. we are subject to conditions, liable to disease, pain, and death. we are capable of ecstasy. of these conditions, of these possibilities, the emotions are born. only the conditionless can be the emotionless. we are conditioned beings; and if the conditions are changed, the result may be pain or death or greater joy. we can only live within certain degrees of heat. if the weather were a few degrees hotter or a few degrees colder, we could not exist. we need food and roof and raiment. life and happiness depend on these conditions. we do not certainly know what is to happen, and consequently our hopes and fears are constantly active--that is to say, we are emotional beings. the generalization of tolstoï, that emotion never goes hand in hand with duty, is almost the opposite of the truth. the idea of duty could not exist without emotion. think of men and women without love, without desires, without passions? think of a world without art or music--a world without beauty, without emotion. and yet there are many writers busy pointing out the loathsomeness of love and their own virtues. only a little while ago an article appeared in one of the magazines in which all women who did not dress according to the provincial prudery of the writer were denounced as impure. millions of refined and virtuous wives and mothers were described as dripping with pollution because they enjoyed dancing and were so well formed that they were not obliged to cover their arms and throats to avoid the pity of their associates. and yet the article itself is far more indelicate than any dance or any dress, or even lack of dress. what a curious opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree! count tolstoï is also the enemy of wealth, of luxury. in this he follows the new testament. "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." he gathers his inspiration from the commandment, "sell all that thou hast and give to the poor." wealth is not a crime any more than health or bodily or intellectual strength. the weak might denounce the strong, the sickly might envy the healthy, just as the poor may denounce or envy the rich. a man is not necessarily a criminal because he is wealthy. he is to be judged, not by his wealth, but by the way he uses his wealth. the strong man can use his strength, not only for the benefit of himself, but for the good of others. so a man of intelligence can be a benefactor of the human race. intelligence is often used to entrap the simple and to prey upon the unthinking, but we do not wish to do away with intelligence. so strength is often used to tyrannize over the weak, and in the same way wealth may be used to the injury of mankind. to sell all that you have and give to the poor is not a panacea for poverty. the man of wealth should help the poor man to help himself. men cannot receive without giving some consideration, and if they have not labor or property to give, they give their manhood, their self-respect. besides, if all should obey this injunction, "sell what thou hast and give to the poor," who would buy? we know that thousands and millions of rich men lack generosity and have but little feeling for their fellows. the fault is not in the money, not in the wealth, but in the individuals. they would be just as bad were they poor. the only difference is that they would have less power. the good man should regard wealth as an instrumentality, as an opportunity, and he should endeavor to benefit his fellow-men, not by making them the recipients of his charity, but by assisting them to assist themselves. the desire to clothe and feed, to educate and protect, wives and children, is the principal reason for making money--one of the great springs of industry, prudence, and economy. those who labor have a right to live. they have a right to what they earn. he who works has a right to home and fireside and to the comforts of life. those who waste the spring, the summer, and the autumn of their lives must bear the winter when it comes. many of our institutions are absurdly unjust. giving the land to the few, making tenants of the many, is the worst possible form of socialism--of paternal government. in most of the nations of our day the idlers and non-producers are either beggars or aristocrats, paupers or princes, and the great middle laboring class support them both. rags and robes have a liking for each other. beggars and kings are in accord; they are all parasites, living on the same blood, stealing the same labor--one by beggary, the other by force. and yet in all this there can be found no reason for denouncing the man who has accumulated. one who wishes to tear down his bams and build greater has laid aside something to keep the wolf of want from the door of home when he is dead. even the beggars see the necessity of others working, and the nobility see the same necessity with equal clearness. but it is hardly reasonable to say that all should do the same kind of work, for the reason that all have not the same aptitudes, the same talents. some can plough, others can paint; some can reap and mow, while others can invent the instruments that save labor; some navigate the seas; some work in mines; while others compose music that elevates and refines the heart of the world. but the worst thing in "the kreutzer sonata" is the declaration that a husband can by force compel the wife to love and obey him. love is not the child of fear; it is not the result of force. no one can love on compulsion. even jehovah found that it was impossible to compel the jews to love him. he issued his command to that effect, coupled with threats of pain and death, but his chosen people failed to respond. love is the perfume of the heart; it is not subject to the will of husbands or kings or god. count tolstoï would establish slavery in every house; he would make every husband a tyrant and every wife a trembling serf. no wonder that he regards such marriage as a failure. he is in exact harmony with the curse of jehovah when he said unto the woman: "i will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." this is the destruction of the family, the pollution of home, the crucifixion of love. those who are truly married are neither masters nor servants. the idea of obedience is lost in the desire for the happiness of each. love is not a convict, to be detained with bolts and chains. love is the highest expression of liberty. love neither commands nor obeys. the curious thing is that the orthodox world insists that all men and women should obey the injunctions of christ; that they should take him as the supreme example, and in all things follow his teachings. this is preached from countless pulpits, and has been for many centuries. and yet the man who does follow the savior, who insists that he will not resist evil, who sells what he has and gives to the poor, who deserts his wife and children for the love of god, is regarded as insane. tolstoï, on most subjects, appears to be in accord with the founder of christianity, with the apostles, with the writers of the new testament, and with the fathers of the church; and yet a christian teacher of a sabbath school decides, in the capacity of postmaster-general, that "the kreutzer sonata" is unfit to be carried in the mails. although i disagree with nearly every sentence in this book, regard the story as brutal and absurd, the view of life presented as cruel, vile, and false, yet i recognize the right of count tolstoï to express his opinions on all subjects, and the right of the men and women of america to read for themselves. as to the sincerity of the author, there is not the slightest doubt. he is willing to give all that he has for the good of his fellow-men. he is a soldier in what he believes to be a sacred cause, and he has the courage of his convictions. he is endeavoring to organize society in accordance with the most radical utterances that have been attributed to jesus christ. the philosophy of palestine is not adapted to an industrial and commercial age. christianity was born when the nation that produced it was dying. it was a requiem--a declaration that life was a failure, that the world was about to end, and that the hopes of mankind should be lifted to another sphere. tolstoï stands with his back to the sunrise and looks mournfully upon the shadow. he has uttered many tender, noble, and inspiring words. there are many passages in his works that must have been written when his eyes were filled with tears. he has fixed his gaze so intently on the miseries and agonies of life that he has been driven to the conclusion that nothing could be better than the effacement of the human race. some men, looking only at the faults and tyrannies of government, have said: "anarchy is better." others, looking at the misfortunes, the poverty, the crimes, of men, have, in a kind of pitying despair, reached the conclusion that the best of all is death. these are the opinions of those who have dwelt in gloom--of the self-imprisoned. by comparing long periods of time, we see that, on the whole, the race is advancing; that the world is growing steadily, and surely, better; that each generation enjoys more and suffers less than its predecessor. we find that our institutions have the faults of individuals. nations must be composed of men and women; and as they have their faults, nations cannot be perfect. the institution of marriage is a failure to the extent, and only to the extent, that the human race is a failure. undoubtedly it is the best and the most important institution that has been established by the civilized world. if there is unhappiness in that relation, if there is tyranny upon one side and misery upon the other, it is not the fault of marriage. take homes from the world and only wild beasts are left. we cannot cure the evils of our day and time by a return to savagery. it is not necessary to become ignorant to increase our happiness. the highway of civilization leads to the light. the time will come when the human race will be truly enlightened, when labor will receive its due reward, when the last institution begotten of ignorance and savagery will disappear. the time will come when the whole world will say that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of mother for child, is the highest, the noblest, the purest, of which the heart is capable. love, human love, love of men and women, love of mothers fathers, and babes, is the perpetual and beneficent force. not the love of phantoms, the love that builds cathedrals and dungeons, that trembles and prays, that kneels and curses; but the real love, the love that felled the forests, navigated the seas, subdued the earth, explored continents, built countless homes, and founded nations--the love that kindled the creative flame and wrought the miracles of art, that gave us all there is of music, from the cradle-song that gives to infancy its smiling sleep to the great symphony that bears the soul away with wings of fire--the real love, mother of every virtue and of every joy.--north american review, september, . thomas paine. a magazine article. "a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year, but, by'r lady, he must build churches then." eighty-three years ago thomas paine ceased to defend himself. the moment he became dumb all his enemies found a tongue. he was attacked on every hand. the tories of england had been waiting for their revenge. the believers in kings, in hereditary government, the nobility of every land, execrated his memory. their greatest enemy was dead. the believers in human slavery, and all who clamored for the rights of the states as against the sovereignty of a nation, joined in the chorus of denunciation. in addition to this, the believers in the inspiration of the scriptures, the occupants of orthodox pulpits, the professors in christian colleges, and the religious historians, were his sworn and implacable foes. this man had gratified no ambition at the expense of his fellow-men; he had desolated no country with the flame and sword of war; he had not wrung millions from the poor and unfortunate; he had betrayed no trust, and yet he was almost universally despised. he gave his life for the benefit of mankind. day and night for many, many weary years, he labored for the good of others, and gave himself body and soul to the great cause of human liberty. and yet he won the hatred of the people for whose benefit, for whose emancipation, for whose civilization, for whose exaltation he gave his life. against him every slander that malignity could coin and hypocrisy pass was gladly and joyously taken as genuine, and every truth with regard to his career was believed to be counterfeit. he was attacked by thousands where he was defended by one, and the one who defended him was instantly attacked, silenced, or destroyed. at last his life has been written by moncure d. conway, and the real history of thomas paine, of what he attempted and accomplished, of what he taught and suffered, has been intelligently, truthfully and candidly given to the world. henceforth the slanderer will be without excuse. he who reads mr. conway's pages will find that thomas paine was more than a patriot--that he was a philanthropist--a lover not only of his country, but of all mankind. he will find that his sympathies were with those who suffered, without regard to religion or race, country or complexion. he will find that this great man did not hesitate to attack the governing class of his native land--to commit what was called treason against the king, that he might do battle for the rights of men; that in spite of the prejudices of birth, he took the side of the american colonies; that he gladly attacked the political abuses and absurdities that had been fostered by altars and thrones for many centuries; that he was for the people against nobles and kings, and that he put his life in pawn for the good of others. in the winter of , thomas paine came to america. after a time he was employeed as one of the writers on the _pennsylvania magazine._ let us see what he did, calculated to excite the hatred of his fellow-men. the first article he ever wrote in america, and the first ever published by him anywhere, appeared in that magazine on the th of 'march, . it was an attack on american slavery--a plea for the rights of the negro. in that article will be found substantially all the arguments that can be urged against that most infamous of all institutions. every is full of humanity, pity, tenderness, and love of justice. five days after this article appeared the american anti-slavery society was formed. certainly this should not excite our hatred. to-day the civilized world agrees with the essay written by thomas paine in . at that time great interests were against him. the owners of slaves became his enemies, and the pulpits, supported by slave labor, denounced this abolitionist. the next article published by thomas paine, in the same magazine, and for the next month, was an attack on the practice of dueling, showing that it was barbarous, that it did not even tend to settle the right or wrong of a dispute, that it could not be defended on any just grounds, and that its influence was degrading and cruel. the civilized world now agrees with the opinions of thomas paine upon that barbarous practice. in may, , appeared in the same magazine another article written by thomas paine, a protest against cruelty to animals. he began the work that was so successfully and gloriously carried out by henry bergh, one of the noblest, one of the grandest, men that this continent has produced. the good people of this world agree with thomas paine. in august of the same year he wrote a plea for the rights of woman, the first ever published in the new world. certainly he should not be hated for that. he was the first to suggest a union of the colonies. before the declaration of independence was issued, paine had written of and about the free and independent states of america. he had also spoken of the united colonies as the "glorious union," and he was the first to write these words: "the united states of america." in may, , washington said: "if you ever hear of me joining in any such measure (as separation from great britain) you have my leave to set me down for everything wicked." he had also said; "it is not the wish or interest of the government (meaning massachusetts), or of any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence." and in the same year benjamin franklin assured chatham that no one in america was in favor of separation. as a matter of fact, the people of the colonies wanted a redress of their grievances--they were not dreaming of separation, of independence. in paine wrote the pamphlet known as "common sense." this was published on the th of january, . it was the first appeal for independence, the first cry for national life, for absolute separation. no pamphlet, no book, ever kindled such a sudden conflagration,--a purifying flame, in which the prejudices and fears of millions were consumed. to read it now, after the lapse of more than a hundred years, hastens the blood. it is but the meagre truth to say that thomas paine did more for the cause of separation, to sow the seeds of independence, than any other man of his time. certainly we should not despise him for this. the declaration of independence followed, and in that declaration will be found not only the thoughts, but some of the expressions of thomas paine. during the war, and in the very darkest hours, paine wrote what is called "the crisis," a series of pamphlets giving from time to time his opinion of events, and his prophecies. these marvelous publications produced an effect nearly as great as the pamphlet "common sense." these strophes, written by the bivouac fires, had in them the soul of battle. in all he wrote, paine was direct and natural. he touched the very heart of the subject. he was not awed by names or titles, by place or power. he never lost his regard for truth, for principle--never wavered in his allegiance to reason, to what he believed to be right. his arguments were so lucid, so unanswerable, his comparisons and analogies so apt, so unexpected, that they excited the passionate admiration of friends and the unquenchable hatred of enemies. so great were these appeals to patriotism, to the love of liberty, the pride of independence, the glory of success, that it was said by some of the best and greatest of that time that the american cause owed as much to the pen of paine as to the sword of washington. on the d day of november, , there was introduced into the assembly of pennsylvania an act for the abolition of slavery. the preamble was written by thomas paine. to him belongs the honor and glory of having written the first proclamation of emancipation in america--paine the first, lincoln the last. paine, of all others, succeeded in getting aid for the struggling colonies from france. "according to lamartine, the king, louis xvi., loaded paine with favors, and a gift of six millions was confided into the hands of franklin and paine. on the th of august, , paine reached boston bringing two million five hundred thousand livres in silver, and in convoy a ship laden with clothing and military stores." "in november, , paine was elected clerk to the general assembly of pennsylvania. in , the assembly received a letter from general washington in the field, saying that he feared the distresses in the army would lead to mutiny in the ranks. this letter was read by paine to the assembly. he immediately wrote to blair mcclenaghan, a philadelphia merchant, explaining the urgency, and inclosing five hundred dollars, the amount of salary due him as clerk, as his contribution towards a relief fund. the merchant called a meeting the next day, and read paine's letter. a subscription list was immediately circulated, and in a short time about one million five hundred thousand dollars was raised. with this capital the pennsylvania bank--afterwards the bank of north america--was established for the relief of the army." in "paine wrote a memorial to chancellor livingston, secretary of foreign affairs, robert morris, minister of finance, and his assistant, urging the necessity of adding a continental legislature to congress, to be elected by the several states. robert morris invited the chancellor and a number of eminent men to meet paine at dinner, where his plea for a stronger union was discussed and approved. this was probably the earliest of a series of consultations preliminary to the constitutional convention." "on the th of april, , it being the eighth anniversary of the battle of lexington, paine printed a little pamphlet entitled 'thoughts on peace and the probable advantages thereof.'" in this pamphlet he pleads for "a supreme nationality absorbing all cherished sovereignties." mr. conway calls this pamphlet paine's "farewell address," and gives the following extract: "it was the cause of america that made me an author. the force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition in which the country was in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could save her,--a declaration of independence.--made it impossible for me, feeling as i did, to be silent; and if, in the course of more than seven years, i have rendered her any service, i have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind.... but as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, i therefore take leave of the subject. i have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings; and whatever country i may hereafter be in, i shall always feel an honest pride at the part i have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind." paine had made some enemies, first, by attacking african slavery, and, second, by insisting upon the sovereignty of the nation. during the revolution our forefathers, in order to justify making war on great britain, were compelled to take the ground that all men are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. in no other way could they justify their action. after the war, the meaner instincts began to take possession of the mind, and those who had fought for their own liberty were perfectly willing to enslave others. we must also remember that the revolution was begun and carried on by a noble minority--that the majority were really in favor of great britain and did what they dared to prevent the success of the american cause. the minority, however, had control of affairs. they were active, energetic, enthusiastic, and courageous, and the majority were overawed, shamed, and suppressed. but when peace came, the majority asserted themselves and the interests of trade and commerce were consulted. enthusiasm slowly died, and patriotism was mingled with the selfishness of traffic. but, after all, the enemies of paine were few, the friends were many. he had the respect and admiration of the greatest and the best, and was enjoying the fruits of his labor. the revolution was ended, the colonies were free. they had been united, they formed a nation, and the united states of america had a place on the map of the world. paine was not a politician. he had not labored for seven years to get an office. his services were no longer needed in america. he concluded to educate the english people, to inform them of their rights, to expose the pretences, follies and fallacies, the crimes and cruelties of nobles, kings, and parliaments. in the brain and heart of this man were the dream and hope of the universal republic. he had confidence in the people. he hated tyranny and war, despised the senseless pomp and vain show of crowned robbers, laughed at titles, and the "honorable" badges worn by the obsequious and servile, by fawners and followers; loved liberty with all his heart, and bravely fought against those who could give the rewards of place and gold, and for those who could pay only with thanks. hoping to hasten the day of freedom, he wrote the "rights of man"--a book that laid the foundation for all the real liberty that the english now enjoy--a book that made known to englishmen the declaration of nature, and convinced millions that all are children of the same mother, entitled to share equally in her gifts. every englishman who has outgrown the ideas of should remember paine with love and reverence. every englishman who has sought to destroy abuses, to lessen or limit the prerogatives of the crown, to extend the suffrage, to do away with "rotten boroughs," to take taxes from knowledge, to increase and protect the freedom of speech and the press, to do away with bribes under the name of pensions, and to make england a government of principles rather than of persons, has been compelled to adopt the creed and use the arguments of thomas paine. in england every step toward freedom has been a triumph of paine over burke and pitt. no man ever rendered a greater service to his native land. the book called the "rights of man" was the greatest contribution that literature had given to liberty. it rests on the bed-rock. no attention is paid to precedents except to show that they are wrong. paine was not misled by the proverbs that wolves had written for sheep. he had the intelligence to examine for himself, and the courage to publish his conclusions. as soon as the "rights of man" was published the government was alarmed. every effort was made to suppress it. the author was indicted; those who published, and those who sold, were arrested and imprisoned. but the new gospel had been preached--a great man had shed light--a new force had been born, and it was beyond the power of nobles and kings to undo what the author-hero had done. to avoid arrest and probable death, paine left england. he had sown with brave hand the seeds of thought, and he knew that he had lighted a fire that nothing could extinguish until england should be free. the fame of thomas paine had reached france in many ways--principally through lafayette. his services in america were well known. the pamphlet "common sense" had been published in french, and its effect had been immense. "the rights of man" that had created, and was then creating, such a stir in england, was also known to the french. the lovers of liberty everywhere were the friends and admirers of thomas paine. in america, england, scotland, ireland, and france he was known as the defender of popular rights. he had preached a new gospel. he had given a new magna charta to the people. so popular was paine in france that he was elected by three constituencies to the national convention. he chose to represent calais. from the moment he entered french territory he was received with almost royal honors. he at once stood with the foremost, and was welcomed by all enlightened patriots. as in america, so in france, he knew no idleness--he was an organizer and worker. the first thing he did was to found the first republican society, and the next to write its manifesto, in which the ground was taken that france did not need a king; that the people should govern themselves. in this manifesto was this argument: "what kind of office must that be in a government which requires neither experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the desperate chance of birth; that may be filled with an idiot, a madman, a tyrant, with equal effect as with the good, the virtuous, the wise? an office of this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of use." he said: "i am not the personal enemy of kings. quite the contrary. no man wishes more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable state of private individuals; but i am the avowed, open and intrepid enemy of what is called monarchy; and i am such by principles which nothing can either alter or corrupt, by my attachment to humanity, by the anxiety which i feel within myself for the dignity and honor of the human race." one of the grandest things done by thomas paine was his effort to save the life of louis xvi. the convention was in favor of death. paine was a foreigner. his career had caused some jealousies. he knew the danger he was in--that the tiger was already crouching for a spring--but he was true to his principles. he was opposed to the death penalty. he remembered that louis xvi. had been the friend of america, and he very cheerfully risked his life, not only for the good of france, not only to save the king, but to pay a debt of gratitude. he asked the convention to exile the king to the united states. he asked this as a member of the convention and as a citizen of the united states. as an american he felt grateful not only to the king, but to every frenchman. he, the adversary of all kings, asked the convention to remember that kings were men, and subject to human frailties. he took still another step, and said: "as france has been the first of european nations to abolish royalty, let us also be the first to abolish the punishment of death." even after the death of louis had been voted, paine made another appeal. with a courage born of the highest possible sense of duty he said: "france has but one ally--the united states of america. that is the only nation that can furnish france with naval provisions, for the kingdoms of northern europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. it happens that the person now under discussion is regarded in america as a deliverer of their country. i can assure you that his execution will there spread universal sorrow, and it is in your power not thus to wound the feelings of your ally. could i speak the french language i would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to respite the execution of your sentence on louis. ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of england the triumph of seeing the man perish on the scaffold who helped my dear brothers of america to break his chains." this was worthy of the man who had said: "where liberty is _not_, there is my country." paine was second on the committee to prepare the draft of a constitution for france to be submitted to the convention. he was the real author, not only of the draft of the constitution, but of the declaration of rights. in france, as in america, he took the lead. his first thoughts seemed to be first principles. he was clear because he was profound. people without ideas experience great difficulty in finding words to express them. from the moment that paine cast his vote in favor of mercy--in favor of life--the shadow of the guillotine was upon him. he knew that when he voted for the king's life, he voted for his own death. paine remembered that the king had been the friend of america, and to him ingratitude seemed the worst of crimes. he worked to destroy the monarch, not the man; the king, not the friend. he discharged his duty and accepted death. this was the heroism of goodness--the sublimity of devotion. believing that his life was near its close, he made up his mind to give to the world his thoughts concerning "revealed religion." this he had for some time intended to do, but other matters had claimed his attention. feeling that there was no time to be lost, he wrote the first part of the "age of reason," and gave the manuscript to joel barlow. six hours after, he was arrested. the second part was written in prison while he was waiting for death. paine clearly saw that men could not be really free, or defend the freedom they had, unless they were free to think and speak. he knew that the church was the enemy of liberty, that the altar and throne were in partnership, that they helped each other and divided the spoils. he felt that, being a man, he had the right to examine the creeds and the scriptures for himself, and that, being an honest man, it was his duty and his privilege to tell his fellow-men the conclusions at which he arrived. he found that the creeds of all orthodox churches were absurd and cruel, and that the bible was no better. of course he found that there were some good things in the creeds and in the bible. these he defended, but the infamous, the inhuman, he attacked. in matters of religion he pursued the same course that he had in things political. he depended upon experience, and above all on reason. he refused to extinguish the light in his own soul. he was true to himself, and gave to others his honest thoughts. he did not seek wealth, or place, or fame. he sought the truth. he had felt it to be his duty to attack the institution of slavery in america, to raise his voice against dueling, to plead for the rights of woman, to excite pity for the sufferings of domestic animals, the speechless friends of man; to plead the cause of separation, of independence, of american nationality, to attack the abuses and crimes of mon-archs, to do what he could to give freedom to the world. he thought it his duty to take another step. kings asserted that they derived their power, their right to govern, from god. to this assertion paine replied with the "rights of man." priests pretended that they were the authorized agents of god. paine replied with the "age of reason." this book is still a power, and will be as long as the absurdities and cruelties of the creeds and the bible have defenders. the "age of reason" affected the priests just as the "rights of man" affected nobles and kings. the kings answered the arguments of paine with laws, the priests with lies. kings appealed to force, priests to fraud. mr. conway has written in regard to the "age of reason" the most impressive and the most interesting chapter in his book. paine contended for the rights of the individual,--tor the jurisdiction of the soul. above all religions he placed reason, above all kings, men, and above all men, law. the first part of the "age of reason" was written in the shadow of a prison, the second part in the gloom of death. from that shadow, from that gloom, came a flood of light. this testament, by which the wealth of a marvelous brain, the love of a great and heroic heart were given to the world, was written in the presence of the scaffold, when the writer believed he was giving his last message to his fellow-men. the "age of reason" was his crime. franklin, jefferson, sumner and lincoln, the four greatest statesmen that america has produced, were believers in the creed of thomas paine. the universalists and unitarians have found their best weapons, their best arguments, in the "age of reason." slowly, but surely, the churches are adopting not only the arguments, but the opinions of the great reformer. theodore parker attacked the old testament and calvinistic theology with the same weapons and with a bitterness excelled by no man who has expressed his thoughts in our language. paine was a century in advance of his time. if he were living now his sympathy would be with savage, chadwick, professor briggs and the "advanced theologians." he, too, would talk about the "higher criticism" and the latest definition of "inspiration." these advanced thinkers substantially are repeating the "age of reason." they still wear the old uniform--clinging to the toggery of theology--but inside of their religious rags they agree with thomas paine. not one argument that paine urged against the inspiration of the bible, against the truth of miracles, against the barbarities and infamies of the old testament, against the pretensions of priests and the claims of kings, has ever been answered. his arguments in favor of the existence of what he was pleased to call the god of nature were as weak as those of all theists have been. but in all the affairs of this world, his clearness of vision, lucidity of expression, cogency of argument, aptness of comparison, power of statement and comprehension of the subject in hand, with all its bearings and consequences, have rarely, if ever, been excelled. he had no reverence for mistakes because they were old. he did not admire the castles of feudalism even when they were covered with ivy. he not only said that the bible was not inspired, but he demonstrated that it could not all be true. this was "brutal." he presented arguments so strong, so clear, so convincing, that they could not be answered. this was "vulgar." he stood for liberty against kings, for humanity against creeds and gods. this was "cowardly and low." he gave his life to free and civilize his fellow-men. this was "infamous." paine was arrested and imprisoned in december, . he was, to say the least, neglected by gouverneur morris and washington. he was released through the efforts of james monroe, in november, . he was called back to the convention, but too late to be of use. as most of the actors had suffered death, the tragedy was about over and the curtain was falling. paine remained in paris until the "reign of terror" was ended and that of the corsican tyrant had commenced. paine came back to america hoping to spend the remainder of his life surrounded by those for whose happiness and freedom he had labored so many years. he expected to be rewarded with the love and reverence of the american people. in james monroe had written to paine these words: "it is unnecessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, i speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare. they have not forgot the history of their own revolution and the difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. the crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and i hope never will stain, our national character. you are considered by them as not only having rendered important services in our own revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale the friend of human rights and a distinguished and able advocate of public liberty. to the welfare of thomas paine we are not and cannot be indifferent." in the same year mr. monroe wrote a letter to the committee of general safety, asking for the release of mr. paine, in which, among other things, he said: "the services thomas paine rendered to his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they shall deserve the title of a just and generous people." on reaching america, paine found that the sense of gratitude had been effaced. he found that the federalists hated him with all their hearts because he believed in the rights of the people and was still true to the splendid principles advocated during the darkest days of the revolution. in almost every pulpit he found a malignant and implacable foe, and the pews were filled with his enemies. the slaveholders hated him. he was held responsible even for the crimes of the french revolution. he was regarded as a blasphemer, an atheist, an enemy of god and man. the ignorant citizens of bordentown, as cowardly as orthodox, longed to mob the author of "common sense" and "the crisis." they thought he had sold himself to the devil because he had defended god against the slanderous charges that he had inspired the writers of the bible--because he had said that a being of infinite goodness and purity did not establish slavery and polygamy. paine had insisted that men had the right to think for themselves. this so enraged the average american citizen that he longed for revenge. in the people of the united states had exceedingly crude ideas about the liberty of thought and expression neither had they any conception of religious freedom. their highest thought on that subject was expressed by the word "toleration," and even this toleration extended only to the various christian sects. even the vaunted religious liberty of colonial maryland was only to the effect that one kind of christian should not fine, imprison and kill another kind of christian, but all kinds of christians had the right, and it was their duty, to brand, imprison and kill infidels of every kind. paine had been guilty of thinking for himself and giving his conclusions to the world without having asked the consent of a priest--just as he had published his political opinions without leave of the king. he had published his thoughts on religion and had appealed to reason--to the light in every mind, to the humanity, the pity, the goodness which he believed to be in every heart. he denied the right of kings to make laws and of priests to make creeds. he insisted that the people should make laws, and that every human being should think for himself. while some believed in the freedom of religion, he believed in the religion of freedom. if paine had been a hypocrite, if he had concealed his opinions, if he had defended slavery with quotations from the "sacred scriptures"--if he had cared nothing for the liberties of men in other lands--if he had said that the state could not live without the church--if he had sought for place instead of truth, he would have won wealth and power, and his brow would have been crowned with the laurel of fame. he made what the pious call the "mistake" of being true to himself--of living with an unstained soul. he had lived and labored for the people. the people were untrue' to him. they returned evil for good, hatred for benefits received, and yet this great chivalric soul remembered their ignorance and loved them with all his heart, and fought their oppressors with all his strength. we must remember what the churches and creeds were in that day, what the theologians really taught, and what the people believed. to save a few in spite of their vices, and to damn the many without regard to their virtues, and all for the glory of the damner:--_this was calvinism_. "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but he that hath a brain to think must not think. he that believeth without evidence is good, and he that believeth in spite of evidence is a saint. only the wicked doubt, only the blasphemer denies. _this was orthodox christianity_. thomas paine had the courage, the sense, the heart, to denounce these horrors, these absurdities, these infinite infamies. he did what he could to drive these theological vipers, these calvinistic cobras, these fanged and hissing serpents of superstition from the heart of man. a few civilized men agreed with him then, and the world has progressed since . intellectual wealth has accumulated; vast mental estates have been left to the world. geologists have forced secrets from the rocks, astronomers from the stars, historians from old records and lost languages. in every direction the thinker and the investigator have ventured and explored, and even the pews have begun to ask questions of the pulpits. humboldt has lived, and darwin and haeckel and huxley, and the armies led by them, have changed the thought of the world. the churches of could not be the friends of thomas paine. no church asserting that belief is necessary to salvation ever was, or ever will be, the champion of true liberty. a church founded on slavery--that is to say, on blind obedience, worshiping irresponsible and arbitrary power, must of necessity be the enemy of human freedom. the orthodox churches are now anxious to save the little that paine left of their creed. if one now believes in god, and lends a little financial aid, he is considered a good and desirable member. he need not define god after the manner of the catechism. he may talk about a "power that works for righteousness," or the tortoise truth that beats the rabbit lie in the long run, or the "unknowable," or the "unconditioned," or the "cosmic force," or the "ultimate atom," or "protoplasm," or the "what"--provided he begins this word with a capital. we must also remember that there is a difference between independence and liberty. millions have fought for independence--to throw off some foreign yoke--and yet were at heart the enemies of true liberty. a man in jail, sighing to be free, may be said to be in favor of liberty, but not from principle; but a man who, being free, risks or gives his life to free the enslaved, is a true soldier of liberty. thomas paine had passed the legendary limit of life. one by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred--his virtues denounced as vices--his services forgotten--his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. he was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. he was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death. even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend--the friend of the whole world--with all their hearts. on the th of june, , death came--death, almost his only friend. at his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. in a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead--on horseback, a quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head--and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude--constituted the funeral cortege of thomas paine. he who had received the gratitude of many millions, the thanks of generals and statesmen--he who had been the friend and companion of the wisest and best--he who had taught a people to be free, and whose words had inspired armies and enlightened nations, was thus given back to nature, the mother of us all. if the people of the great republic knew the life of this generous, this chivalric man, the real story of his services, his sufferings and his triumphs--of what he did to compel the robed and crowned, the priests and kings, to give back to the people liberty, the jewel of the soul; if they knew that he was the first to write, "the religion of humanity"; if they knew that he, above all others, planted and watered the seeds of independence, of union, of nationality, in the hearts of our forefathers--that his words were gladly repeated by the best and bravest in many lands; if they knew that he attempted, by the purest means, to attain the noblest and loftiest ends--that he was original, sincere, intrepid, and that he could truthfully say: "the world is my country, to do good my religion"--if the people only knew all this--the truth--they would repeat the words of andrew jackson: "thomas paine needs no monument made with hands; he has erected a monument in the hearts of all lovers of liberty."--north american review, august, . the three philanthropists. "well, while i am a beggar, i will rail, and say there is no sin but to be rich." mr. a. lived in the kingdom of--------. he was a sincere professional philanthropist. he was absolutely certain that he loved his fellow-men, and that his views were humane and scientific. he concluded to turn his attention to taking care of people less fortunate than himself. with this object in view he investigated the common people that lived about him, and he found that they were extremely ignorant, that many of them seemed to take no particular interest in life or in business, that few of them had any theories of their own, and that, while many had muscle, there was only now and then one who had any mind worth speaking of. nearly all of them were destitute of ambition. they were satisfied if they got something to eat, a place to sleep, and could now and then indulge in some form of dissipation. they seemed to have great confidence in to-morrow--trusted to luck, and took no thought for the future. many of them were extravagant, most of them dissipated, and a good many dishonest. mr. a. found that many of the husbands not only failed to support their families, but that some of them lived on the labor of their wives; that many of the wives were careless of their obligations, knew nothing about the art of cooking; nothing about keeping house; and that parents, as a general thing, neglected their children or treated them with cruelty. he also found that many of the people were so shiftless that they died of want and exposure. after having obtained this information mr. a. made up his mind to do what little he could to better their condition. he petitioned the king to assist him, and asked that he be allowed to take control of five hundred people in consideration that he would pay a certain amount into the treasury of the kingdom. the king being satisfied that mr. a. could take care of these people better than they were taking care of themselves, granted the petition. mr. a., with the assistance of a few soldiers, took these people from their old homes and haunts to a plantation of his own. he divided them into groups, and over each group placed a superintendent. he made certain rules and regulations for their conduct. they were only compelled to work from twelve to fourteen hours a day, leaving ten hours for sleep and recreation. good and substantial food was provided. their houses were comfortable and their clothing sufficient. their work was laid out from day to day and from month to month, so that they knew exactly what they were to do in each hour of every day. these rules were made for the good of the people, to the end that they might not interfere with each other, that they might attend to their duties, and enjoy themselves in a reasonable way. they were not allowed to waste their time, or to use stimulants or profane language. they were told to be respectful to the superintendents, and especially to mr. a.; to be obedient, and, above all, to accept the position in which providence had placed them, without complaining, and to cheerfully perform their tasks. mr. a. had found out all that the five hundred persons had earned the year before they were taken control of by him--just how much they had added to the wealth of the world. he had statistics taken for the year before with great care showing the number of deaths, the cases of sickness and of destitution, the number who had committed suicide, how many had been convicted of crimes and misdemeanors, how many days they had been idle, and how much time and money they had spent in drink and for worthless amusements. during the first year of their enslavement he kept like statistics. he found that they had earned several times as much; that there had been no cases of destitution, no drunkenness; that no crimes had been committed; that there had been but little sickness, owing to the regular course of their lives; that few had been guilty of misdemeanors, owing to the certainty of punishment; and that they had been so watched and superintended that for the most part they had traveled the highway of virtue and industry. mr. a. was delighted, and with a vast deal of pride showed these statistics to his friends. he not only demonstrated that the five hundred people were better off than they had been before, but that his own income was very largely increased. he congratulated himself that he had added to the well-being of these people not only, but had laid the foundation of a great fortune for himself. on these facts and these figures he claimed not only to be a philanthropist, but a philosopher; and all the people who had a mind to go into the same business agreed with him. some denounced the entire proceeding as unwarranted, as contrary to reason and justice. these insisted that the five hundred people had a right to live in their own way provided they did not interfere with others; that they had the right to go through the world with little food and with poor clothes, and to live in huts, if such was their choice. but mr. a. had no trouble in answering these objectors. he insisted that well-being is the only good, and that every human being is under obligation, not only to take care of himself, but to do what little he can towards taking care of others; that where five hundred people neglect to take care of themselves, it is the duty of somebody else, who has more intelligence and more means, to take care of them; that the man who takes five hundred people and improves their condition, gives them on the average better food, better clothes, and keeps them out of mischief, is a benefactor. "these people," said mr. a., "were tried. they were found incapable of taking care of themselves. they lacked intelligence or will or honesty or industry or ambition or something, so that in the struggle for existence they fell behind, became stragglers, dropped by the wayside, died in gutters; while many were destined to end their days either in dungeons or on scaffolds. besides all this, they were a nuisance to their prosperous fellow-citizens, a perpetual menace to the peace of society. they increased the burden of taxation; they filled the ranks of the criminal classes, they made it necessary to build more jails, to employ more policemen and judges; so that i, by enslaving them, not only assisted them, not only protected them against themselves, not only bettered their condition, not only added to the well-being of-society at large, but greatly increased my own fortune." mr. a. also took the ground that providence, by giving him superior intelligence, the genius of command, the aptitude for taking charge of others, had made it his duty to exercise these faculties for the well-being of the people and for the glory of god. mr. a. frequently declared that he was god's steward. he often said he thanked god that he was not governed by a sickly sentiment, but that he was a man of sense, of judgment, of force of character, and that the means employeed by him were in accordance with the logic of facts. some of the people thus enslaved objected, saying that they had the same right to control themselves that mr. a. had to control himself. but it only required a little discipline to satisfy them that they were wrong. some of the people were quite happy, and declared that nothing gave them such perfect contentment as the absence of all responsibility. mr. a. insisted that all men had not been endowed with the same capacity; that the weak ought to be cared for by the strong; that such was evidently the design of the creator, and that he intended to do what little he could to carry that design into effect. mr. a. was very successful. in a few years he had several thousands of men, women, and children working for him. he amassed a large fortune. he felt that he had been intrusted with this money by providence. he therefore built several churches, and once in a while gave large sums to societies for the spread of civilization. he passed away regretted by a great many people--not including those who had lived under his immediate administration. he was buried with great pomp, the king being one of the pall-bearers, and on his tomb was this: he was the providence of the poor. ii. "and, being rich, my virtue then shall be to say there is no vice but beggary." mr. b. did not believe in slavery. he despised the institution with every drop of his blood, and was an advocate of universal freedom. he held all the ideas of mr. a. in supreme contempt, and frequently spent whole evenings in denouncing the inhumanity and injustice of the whole business. he even went so far as to contend that many of a.'s slaves had more intelligence than a. himself, and that, whether they had intelligence or not, they had the right to be free. he insisted that mr. a.'s philanthropy was a sham; that he never bought a human being for the purpose of bettering that being's condition; that he went into the business simply to make money for himself; and that his talk about his slaves committing less crime than when they were free was simply to justify the crime committed by himself in enslaving his fellow-men. mr. b. was a manufacturer, and he employeed some five or six thousand men. he used to say that these men were not forced to work for him; that they were at perfect liberty to accept or reject the terms; that, so far as he was concerned, he would just as soon commit larceny or robbery as to force a man to work for him. "every laborer under my roof," he used to say, "is as free to choose as i am." mr b. believed in absolutely free trade; thought it an outrage to interfere with the free interplay of forces; said that every man should buy, or at least have the privilege of buying, where he could buy cheapest, and should have the privilege of selling where he could get the most. he insisted that a man who has labor to sell has the right to sell it to the best advantage, and that the purchaser has the right to buy it at the lowest price. he did not enslave men--he hired them. some said that he took advantage of their necessities; but he answered that he created no necessities, that he was not responsible for their condition, that he did not make them poor, that he found them poor and gave them work, and gave them the same wages that he could employ others for. he insisted that he was absolutely just to all; he did not give one man more than another, and he never refused to employ a man on account of the man's religion or politics; all that he did was simply to employ that man if the man wished to be employed, and give him the wages, no more and no less, that some other man of like capacity was willing to work for. mr. b. also said that the price of the article manufactured by him fixed the wages of the persons employed, and that he, mr. b., was not responsible for the price of the article he manufactured; consequently he was not responsible for the wages of the workmen. he agreed to pay them a certain price, he taking the risk of selling his articles, and he paid them regularly just on the day he agreed to pay them, and if they were not satisfied with the wages, they were at perfect liberty to leave. one of his private sayings was: "the poor ye have always with you." and from this he argued that some men were made poor so that others could be generous. "take poverty and suffering from the world," he said, "and you destroy sympathy and generosity." mr. b. made a large amount of money. many of his workmen complained that their wages did not allow them to live in comfort. many had large families, and therefore but little to eat. some of them lived in crowded rooms. many of the children were carried off by disease; but mr. b. took the ground that all these people had the right to go, that he did not force them to remain, that if they were not healthy it was not his fault, and that whenever it pleased providence to remove a child, or one of the parents, he, mr. b., was not responsible. mr. b. insisted that many of his workmen were extravagant; that they bought things that they did not need; that they wasted in beer and tobacco, money that they should save for funerals; that many of them visited places of amusement when they should have been thinking about death, and that others bought toys to please the children when they hardly had bread enough to eat. he felt that he was in no way accountable for this extravagance, nor for the fact that their wages did not give them the necessaries of life, because he not only gave them the same wages that other manufacturers gave, but the same wages that other workmen were willing to work for. mr. b. said,--and he always said this as though it ended the argument,--and he generally stood up to say it: "the great law of supply and demand is of divine origin; it is the only law that will work in all possible or conceivable cases; and this law fixes the price of all labor, and from it there is no appeal. if people are not satisfied with the operation of the law, then let them make a new world for themselves." some of mr. b.'s friends reported that on several occasions, forgetting what he had said on others, he did declare that his confidence was somewhat weakened in the law of supply and demand; but this was only when there seemed to be an over-production of the things he was engaged in manufacturing, and at such times he seemed to doubt the absolute equity of the great law. mr. b. made even a larger fortune than mr. a., because when his workmen got old he did not have to care for them, when they were sick he paid no doctors, and when their children died he bought no coffins. in this way he was relieved of a large part of the expenses that had to be borne by mr. a. when his workmen became too old, they were sent to the poorhouse; when they were sick, they were assisted by charitable societies; and when they died, they were buried by pity. in a few years mr. b. was the owner of many millions. he also considered himself as one of god's stewards; felt that providence had given him the intelligence to combine interests, to carry out great schemes, and that he was specially raised up to give employment to many thousands of people. he often regretted that he could do no more for his laborers without lessening his own profits, or, rather, without lessening his fund for the blessing of mankind--the blessing to begin immediately after his death. he was so anxious to be the providence of posterity that he was sometimes almost heartless in his dealings with contemporaries. he felt that it was necessary for him to be economical, to save every dollar that he could, because in this way he could increase the fund that was finally to bless mankind. he also felt that in this way he could lay the foundations of a permanent fame--that he could build, through his executors, an asylum to be called the "b. asylum," that he could fill a building with books to be called the "b. library," and that he could also build and endow an institution of learning to be called the "b. college," and that, in addition, a large amount of money could be given for the purpose of civilizing the citizens of less fortunate countries, to the end that they might become imbued with that spirit of combination and manufacture that results in putting large fortunes in the hands of those who have been selected by providence, on account of their talents, to make a better distribution of wealth than those who earned it could have done. mr. b. spent many thousands of dollars to procure such legislation as would protect him from foreign competition. he did not believe the law of supply and demand would work when interfered with by manufacturers living in other countries. mr. b., like mr. a., was a man of judgment. he had what is called a level head, was not easily turned aside from his purpose, and felt that he was in accord with the general sentiment of his time. by his own exertions he rose from poverty to wealth. he was born in a hut and died in a palace. he was a patron of art and enriched his walls with the works of the masters. he insisted that others could and should follow his example. for those who failed or refused he had no sympathy. he accounted for their poverty and wretchedness by saying: "these paupers have only themselves to blame." he died without ever having lost a dollar. his funeral was magnificent, and clergymen vied with each other in laudations of the dead. over his dust rises a monument of marble with the words: he lived for others. iii "but there are men who steal, and vainly try to gild the crime with pompous charity." there was another man, mr. c., who also had the genius for combination. he understood the value of capital, the value of labor; knew exactly how much could be done with machinery; understood the economy of things; knew how to do everything in the easiest and shortest way. and he, too, was a manufacturer and had in his employ many thousands of men, women, and children. he was what is called a visionary, a sentimentalist, rather weak in his will, not very obstinate, had but little egotism; and it never occurred to him that he had been selected by providence, or any supernatural power, to divide the property of others. it did not seem to him that he had any right to take from other men their labor without giving them a full equivalent. he felt that if he had more intelligence than his fellow-men he ought to use that intelligence not only for his own good but for theirs; that he certainly ought not to use it for the purpose of gaining an advantage over those who were his intellectual inferiors. he used to say that a man strong intellectually had no more right to take advantage of a man weak intellectually than the physically strong had to rob the physically weak. he also insisted that we should not take advantage of each other's necessities; that you should not ask a drowning man a greater price for lumber than you would if he stood on the shore; that if you took into consideration the necessities of your fellow-man, it should be only to lessen the price of that which you would sell to him, not to increase it. he insisted that honest men do not take advantage of their fellows. he was so weak that he had not perfect confidence in the great law of supply and demand as applied to flesh and blood. he took into consideration another law of supply and demand; he knew that the workingman had to be supplied with food, and that his nature demanded something to eat, a house to live in, clothes to wear. mr. c. used to think about this law of supply and demand as applicable to individuals. he found that men would work for exceedingly small wages when pressed for the necessaries of life; that under some circumstances they would give their labor for half of what it was worth to the employer, because they were in a position where they must do something for wife or child. he concluded that he had no right to take advantage of the necessities of others, and that he should in the first place honestly find what the work was worth to him, and then give to the man who did the work that amount. other manufacturers regarded mr. c. as substantially insane, while most of his workmen looked upon him as an exceedingly good-natured man, without any particular genius for business. mr. c., however, cared little about the opinions of others, so long as he maintained his respect for himself. at the end of the first year he found that he had made a large profit, and thereupon he divided this profit with the people who had earned it. some of his friends said to him that he ought to endow some public institution; that there should be a college in his native town; but mr. c. was of such a peculiar turn of mind that he thought justice ought to go before charity, and a little in front of egotism, and a desire to immortalize one's self. he said that it seemed to him that of all persons in the world entitled to this profit were the men who had earned it, the men who had made it by their labor, by days of actual toil. he insisted that, as they had earned it, it was really theirs, and if it was theirs, they should have it and should spend it in their own way. mr. c. was told that he would make the workmen in other factories dissatisfied, that other manufacturers would become his enemies, and that his course would scandalize some of the greatest men who had done so much for the civilization of the world and for the spread of intelligence. mr. c. became extremely unpopular with men of talent, with those who had a genius for business. he, however, pursued his way, and carried on his business with the idea that the men who did the work were entitled to a fair share of the profits; that, after all, money was not as sacred as men, and that the law of supply and demand, as understood, did not apply to flesh and blood. mr. c. said: "i cannot be happy if those who work for me are defrauded. if i feel i am taking what belongs to them, then my life becomes miserable. to feel that i have done justice is one of the necessities of my nature. i do not wish to establish colleges. i wish to establish no public institution. my desire is to enable those who work for me to establish a few thousand homes for themselves. my ambition is to enable them to buy the books they really want to read. i do not wish to establish a hospital, but i want to make it possible for my workmen to have the services of the best physicians--physicians of their own choice. "it is not for me to take their money and use it for the good of others or for my own glory. it is for me to give what they have earned to them. after i have given them the money that belongs to them, i can give them my advice--i can tell them how i hope they will use it; and after i have advised them, they will use it as they please. you cannot make great men and great women by suppression. slavery is not the school in which genius is born. every human being must make his own mistakes for himself, must learn for himself, must have his own experience; and if the world improves, it must be from choice, not from force; and every man who does justice, who sets the example of fair dealing, hastens the coming of universal honesty, of universal civilization." mr. c. carried his doctrine out to the fullest extent, honestly and faithfully. when he died, there were at the funeral those who had worked for him, their wives and their children. their tears fell upon his grave. they planted flowers and paid to him the tribute of their love. above his silent dust they erected a monument with this inscription: he allowed others to live for themselves. north american review, december, . should the chinese be excluded? the average american, like the average man of any country, has but little imagination. people who speak a different language, or worship some other god, or wear clothing unlike his own, are beyond the horizon of his sympathy. he cares but little or nothing for the sufferings or misfortunes of those who are of a different complexion or of another race. his imagination is not powerful enough to recognize the human being, in spite of peculiarities. instead of this he looks upon every difference as an evidence of inferiority, and for the inferior he has but little if any feeling. if these "inferior people" claim equal rights he feels insulted, and for the purpose of establishing his own superiority tramples on the rights of the so-called inferior. in our own country the native has always considered himself as much better than the immigrant, and as far superior to all people of a different complexion. at one time our people hated the irish, then the germans, then the italians, and now the chinese. the irish and germans, however, became numerous. they became citizens, and, most important of all, they had votes. they combined, became powerful, and the political parties sought their aid. they had something to give in exchange for protection--in exchange for political rights. in consequence of this they were flattered by candidates, praised by the political press, and became powerful enough not only to protect themselves, but at last to govern the principal cities in the united states. as a matter of fact the irish and the germans drove the native americans out of the trades and from the lower forms of labor. they built the railways and canals. they became servants. afterward the irish and the germans were driven from the canals and railways by the italians. the irish and germans improved their condition. they went into other businesses, into the higher and more lucrative trades. they entered the professions, turned their attention to politics, became merchants, brokers, and professors in colleges. they are not now building railroads or digging on public works. they are contractors, legislators, holders of office, and the italians and chinese are doing the old work. if matters had been allowed to work in a natural way, without the interference of mobs or legislators, the chinese would have driven the italians to better employments, and all menial labor would, in time, be done by the mongolians. in olden times each nation hated all others. this was considered natural and patriotic. spain, after many centuries of war, expelled the moors, then the moriscoes, and then the jews. and spain, in the name of religion and patriotism, succeeded in driving from its territory its industry, its taste and its intelligence, and by these mistakes became poor, ignorant and weak. france started on the same path when the huguenots were expelled, and even england at one time deported the jews. in those days a difference of race or religion was sufficient to justify any absurdity and any cruelty. in our country, as a matter of fact, there is but little prejudice against emigrants coming from europe, except among naturalized citizens; but nearly all foreign-born citizens are united in their prejudice against the chinese. the truth is that the chinese came to this country by invitation. under the burlingame treaty, china and the united states recognized: "the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents." and it was provided: "that the citizens of the united states visiting or residing in china and chinese subjects visiting or residing in the united states should reciprocally enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions, in respect to travel or residence, as shall be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation, in the country in which they shall respectively be visiting or residing." so, by the treaty of , providing for the limitation or suspension of emigration of chinese labor, it was declared: "that the limitation or suspension should apply only to chinese who emigrated to the united states as laborers; but that chinese laborers who were then in the united states should be allowed to go and come of their own free will and should be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities and exemptions, which were accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nations." it will thus be seen that all chinese laborers who came to this country prior to the treaty of were to be treated the same as the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation; that is to say, they were to be protected by our laws the same as we protect our own citizens. these chinese laborers are inoffensive, peaceable and law-abiding. they are honest, keeping their contracts, doing as they agree. they are exceedingly industrious, always ready to work and always giving satisfaction to their employers. they do not interfere with other people. they cannot become citizens. they have no voice in the making or the execution of the laws. they attend to their own business. they have their own ideas, customs, religion and ceremonies--about as foolish as our own; but they do not try to make converts or to force their dogmas on others. they are patient, uncomplaining, stoical and philosophical. they earn what they can, giving reasonable value for the money they receive, and as a rule, when they have amassed a few thousand dollars, they go back to their own country. they do not interfere with our ideas, our ways or customs. they are silent workers, toiling without any object, except to do their work and get their pay. they do not establish saloons and run for congress. neither do they combine for the purpose of governing others. of all the people on our soil they are the least meddlesome. some of them smoke opium, but the opium-smoker does not beat his wife. some of them play games of chance, but they are not members of the stock exchange. they eat the bread that they earn; they neither beg nor steal, but they are of no use to parties or politicians except as they become fuel to supply the flame of prejudice. they are not citizens and they cannot vote. their employers are about the only friends they have. in the pacific states the lowest became their enemies and asked for their expulsion. they denounced the chinese and those who gave them work. the patient followers of confucius were treated as outcasts--stoned by boys in the streets and mobbed by the fathers. few seemed to have any respect for their rights or their feelings. they were unlike us. they wore different clothes. they dressed their hair in a peculiar way, and therefore they were beyond our sympathies. these ideas, these practices, demoralized many communities; the laboring people became cruel and the small politicians infamous. when the rights of even one human being are held in contempt the rights of all are in danger. we cannot destroy the liberties of others without losing our own. by exciting the prejudices of the ignorant we at last produce a contempt for law and justice, and sow the seeds of violence and crime. both of the great political parties pandered to the leaders of the crusade against the chinese for the sake of electoral votes, and in the pacific states the friends of the chinese were forced to keep still or to publicly speak contrary to their convictions. the orators of the "sand lots" were in power, and the policy of the whole country was dictated by the most ignorant and prejudiced of our citizens. both of the great parties ratified the outrages committed by the mobs, and proceeded with alacrity to violate the treaties and solemn obligations of the government. these treaties were violated, these obligations were denied, and thousands of chinamen were deprived of their rights, of their property, and hundreds were maimed or murdered. they were driven from their homes. they were hunted like wild beasts. all this was done in a country that sends missionaries to china to tell the benighted savages of the blessed religion of the united states. at first a demand was made that the chinese should be driven out, then that no others should be allowed to come, and laws with these objects in view were passed, in spite of the treaties, preventing the coming of any more. for a time that satisfied the haters of the mongolian. then came a demand for more stringent legislation, so that many of the chinese already here could be compelled to leave. the answer or response to this demand is what is known as the geary law. by this act it is provided, among other things, that any chinaman convicted of not being lawfully in the country shall be removed to china, after having been imprisoned at hard labor for not exceeding one year. this law also does away with bail on _habeas corpus_, proceedings where the right to land has been denied to a chinaman. it also compels all chinese laborers to obtain, within one year after the passage of the law, certificates of residence from the revenue collectors, and if found without such certificate they shall be held to be unlawfully in the united states. it is further provided that if a chinaman claims that he failed to get such certificate by "accident, sickness or other unavoidable cause," then he must clearly establish such claim to the satisfaction of the judge "by at least one credible white witness." if we were at war with china then we might legally consider every chinaman as an enemy, but we were and are at peace with that country. the geary act was passed by congress and signed by the president simply for the sake of votes. the democrats in congress voted for it to save the pacific states to the democratic column; and a republican president signed it so that the pacific states should vote the republican ticket. principle was forgotten, or rather it was sacrificed, in the hope of political success. it was then known, as now, that china is a peaceful nation, that it does not believe in war as a remedy, that it relies on negotiation and treaty. it is also known that the chinese in this country were helpless, without friends, without power to defend themselves. it is possible that many members of congress voted in favor of the act believing that the supreme court would hold it unconstitutional, and that in the meantime it might be politically useful. the idea of imprisoning a man at hard labor for a year, and this man a citizen of a friendly nation, for the crime of being found in this country without a certificate of residence, must be abhorrent to the mind of every enlightened man. such punishment for such an "offence" is barbarous and belongs to the earliest times of which we know. this law makes industry a crime and puts one who works for his bread on a level with thieves and the lowest criminals, treats him as a felon, and clothes him in the stripes of a convict,--and all this is done at the demand of the ignorant, of the prejudiced, of the heartless, and because the chinese are not voters and have no political power. the chinese are not driven away because there is no room for them. our country is not crowded. there are many millions of acres waiting for the plow. there is plenty of room here under our flag for five hundred millions of people. these chinese that we wish to oppress and imprison are people who understand the art of irrigation. they can redeem the deserts. they are the best of gardeners. they are modest and willing to occupy the lowest seats. they only ask to be day-laborers, washers and ironers. they are willing to sweep and scrub. they are good cooks. they can clear lands and build railroads. they do not ask to be masters--they wish only to serve. in every capacity they are faithful; but in this country their virtues have made enemies, and they are hated because of their patience, their honesty and their industry. the geary law, however, failed to provide the ways and means for carrying it into effect, so that the probability is it will remain a dead letter upon the statute book. the sum of money required to carry it out is too large, and the law fails to create the machinery and name the persons authorized to deport the chinese. neither is there any mode of trial pointed out. according to the law there need be no indictment by a grand jury, no trial by a jury, and the person found guilty of being here without a certificate of residence can be imprisoned and treated as a felon without the ordinary forms of trial. this law is contrary to the laws and customs of nations. the punishment is unusual, severe, and contrary to our constitution, and under its provisions aliens--citizens of a friendly nation--can be imprisoned without due process of law. the law is barbarous, contrary to the spirit and genius of american institutions, and was passed in violation of solemn treaty stipulations. the congress-that passed it is the same that closed the gates of the world's fair on the "blessed sabbath," thinking it wicked to look at statues and pictures on that day. these representatives of the people seem to have had more piety than principle. after the passage of such a law by the united states is it not indecent for us to send missionaries to china? is there not work enough for them at home? we send ministers to china to convert the heathen; but when we find a chinaman on our soil, where he can be saved by our example, we treat him as a criminal. it is to the interest of this country to maintain friendly relations with china. we want the trade of nearly one-fourth of the human race. we want to pay for all we get from that country in articles of our own manufacture. we lost the trade of mexico and the south american republics because of slavery, because we hated people in whose veins was found a drop of african blood, and now we are losing the trade of china by pandering to the prejudices of the ignorant and cruel. after all, it pays to do right. this is a hard truth to learn--especially for a nation. a great nation should be bound by the highest conception of justice and honor. above all things it should be true to its treaties, its contracts, its obligations. it should remember that its responsibilities are in accordance with its power and intelligence. our government is founded on the equality of human rights--on the idea, the sacred truth, that all are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. our country is an asylum for the oppressed of all nations--of all races. here, the government gets its power from the consent of the governed. after the abolition of slavery these great truths were not only admitted, but they found expression in our constitution and laws. shall we now go back to barbarism? russia is earning the hatred of the civilized world by driving the jews from their homes. but what can the united states say? our mouths are closed by the geary law. we are in the same business. our law is as inhuman as the order or ukase of the czar. let us retrace our steps, repeal the law and accomplish what we justly desire by civilized means. let us treat china as we would england; and, above all, let us respect the rights of men,--north american review, july, . a word about education. the end of life--the object of life--is happiness. nothing can be better than that--nothing higher. in order to be really happy, man must be in harmony with his surroundings, with the conditions of well-being. in order to know these surroundings, he must be educated, and education is of value only as it contributes to the wellbeing of man, and only that is education which increases the power of man to gratify his real wants--wants of body and of mind. the educated man knows the necessity of finding out the facts in nature, the relations between himself and his fellow-men, between himself and the world, to the end that he may take advantage of these facts and relations for the benefit of himself and others. he knows that a man may understand latin and greek, hebrew and sanscrit, and be as ignorant of the great facts and forces in nature as a native of central africa. the educated man knows something that he can use, not only for the benefit of himself, but for the benefit of others. every skilled mechanic, every good farmer, every man who knows some of the real facts in nature that touch him, is to that extent an educated man. the skilled mechanic and the intelligent farmer may not be what we call "scholars," and what we call scholars may not be educated men. man is in constant need. he must protect himself from cold and heat, from sun and storm. he needs food and raiment for the body, and he needs what we call art for the development and gratification of his brain. beginning with what are called the necessaries of life, he rises to what are known as the luxuries, and the luxuries become necessaries, and above luxuries he rises to the highest wants of the soul. the man who is fitted to take care of himself, in the conditions he may be placed, is, in a very important sense, an educated man. the savage who understands the habits of animals, who is a good hunter and fisher, is a man of education, taking into consideration his circumstances. the graduate of a university who cannot take care of himself--no matter how much he may have studied--is not an educated man. in our time, an educated man, whether a mechanic, a farmer, or one who follows a profession, should know something about what the world has discovered. he should have an idea of the outlines of the sciences. he should have read a little, at least, of the best that has been written. he should know something of mechanics, a little about politics, commerce, and metaphysics; and in addition to all this, he should know how to make something. his hands should be educated, so that he can, if necessary, supply his own wants by supplying the wants of others. there are mental misers--men who gather learning all their lives and keep it to themselves. they are worse than hoarders of gold, because when they die their learning dies with them, while the metal miser is compelled to leave his gold for others. the first duty of man is to support himself--to see to it that he does not become a burden. his next duty is to help others if he has a surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped. it is not necessary to have what is called a university education in order to be useful or to be happy, any more than it is necessary to be rich, to be happy. great wealth is a great burden, and to have more than you can use, is to care for more than you want. the happiest are those who are prosperous, and who by reasonable endeavor can supply their reasonable wants and have a little surplus year by year for the winter of their lives. so, it is no use to learn thousands and thousands of useless facts, or to fill the brain with unspoken tongues. this is burdening yourself with more than you can use. the best way is to learn the useful. we all know that men in moderate circumstances cau have just as comfortable houses as the richest, just as comfortable clothing, just as good food. they can see just as fine paintings, just as marvelous statues, and they can hear just as good music. they can attend the same theatres and the same operas. they can enjoy the same sunshine, and above all, can love and be loved just as well as kings and millionaires. so the conclusion of the whole matter is, that he is educated who knows how to take care of himself; and that the happy man is the successful man, and that it is only a burden to have more than you want, or to learn those things that you cannot use.--the high school register, omaha, nebraska, january. . what i want for christmas. if i had the power to produce exactly what i want for next christmas, i would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to govern themselves. i would have all the nobility drop their titles and give their lands back to the people. i would have the pope throw away his tiara, take off his sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for god--is not infallible--but is just an ordinary italian. i would have all the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels. i would have them tell all their "flocks" to think for themselves, to be manly men and womanly women, and to do all in their power to increase the sum of human happiness. i would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths. i would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen,--to men who long to make their country great and free,--to men who care more for public good than private gain--men who long to be of use. i would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to print the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone. i would like to see drunkenness and prohibition both abolished. i would like to see corporal punishment done away with in every home, in every school, in every asylum, reformatory, and prison. cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles. i would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the public good. i would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little june with the december of his life. i would like to see an international court established in which to settle disputes between nations, so that armies could be disbanded and the great navies allowed to rust and rot in perfect peace. i would like to see the whole world free--free from injustice--free from superstition. this will do for next christmas. the following christmas, i may want more.--the arena, boston, december, . fool friends. nothing hurts a man, nothing hurts a party so terribly as fool friends. a fool friend is the sewer of bad news, of slander and all base and unpleasant things. a fool friend always knows every mean thing that has been said against you and against the party. he always knows where your party is losing, and the other is making large gains. he always tells you of the good luck your enemy has had. he implicitly believes every story against you, and kindly suspects your defence. a fool friend is always full of a kind of stupid candor. he is so candid that he always believes the statement of an enemy. he never suspects anything on your side. nothing pleases him like being shocked by horrible news concerning some good man. he never denies a lie unless it is in your favor. he is always finding fault with his party, and is continually begging pardon for not belonging to the other side. he is frightfully anxious that all his candidates should stand well with the opposition. he is forever seeing the faults of his party and the virtues of the other. he generally shows his candor by scratching the ticket. he always searches every nook and comer of his conscience to find a reason for deserting a friend or a principle. in the moment of victory he is magnanimously on your side. in defeat he consoles you by repeating prophecies made after the event. the fool friend regards your reputation as common prey for all the vultures, hyenas and jackals. he takes a sad pleasure in your misfortunes. he forgets his principles to gratify your enemies. he forgives your maligner, and slanders you with all his heart. he is so friendly that you cannot kick him. he generally talks for you but always bets the other way. inspiration we are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of god. what is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the true. if it is true, there is in fact no need of its being inspired--the truth will take care of itself. the church is forced to say that the bible differs from all other books; it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of god. let us then see what inspiration really is. a man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. it makes an impression upon his mind. it awakens memory, and this impression depends upon the man's experience--upon his intellectual capacity. another looks upon the same sea. he has a different brain; he has had a different experience. the sea may speak to him of joy; to the other of grief and tears. the sea cannot tell the same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great greek tragedian called "the multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: every drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and icy north; every one has fallen in snow, has been whirled by storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to vapor by the sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light; every one has fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed with mighty rivers back to the sea's embrace. everything in nature tells a different story to all eyes that see, and to all ears that hear. once in my life, and once only, i heard horace greeley deliver a lecture. i think the title was "across the continent." at last he reached the mammoth trees of california, and i thought, "here is an opportunity for the old man to indulge his fancy. here are trees that have outlived a thousand human governments. there are limbs above his head older than the pyramids. while man was emerging from barbarism to something like civilization, these trees were growing. older than history, every one appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy. the same wind that filled the sails of the argonauts had swayed these trees." but these trees said nothing of this kind to mr. greeley. upon these subjects not a word was told him. instead, he took his pencil, and after figuring awhile, remarked: "one of these trees, sawed into inch boards, would make more than three hundred thousand feet of lumber." i was once riding in the cars in illinois. there had been a violent thunder storm. the rain had ceased, the sun was going down. the great clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most wonderful architectural shapes. there were temples and palaces domed and turreted, and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold. they looked like the homes of the titans, or the palaces of the gods. a man was sitting near me. i touched him and said, "did you ever see anything so beautiful?" he looked out. he saw nothing of the cloud, nothing of the sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country, and replied, "yes, it is beautiful; i always did like rolling land." on another occasion i was riding in a stage. there had been a snow, and after the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs were arched. every fence, every log cabin, had been transfigured, touched with a glory almost beyond this world. the great fields were a pure and perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems, made wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of fairies come. the whole world looked like a bride, jeweled from head to foot. a german on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations of wonder, leaned forward, looked out of the stage window, and said, "y-a-a-s; it looks like a clean table cloth!" so, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember,--the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet, has to tell. nature says to me all that i am capable of understanding--gives all that i can receive. as with star or flower or sea, so with a book. a man reads shakespeare. what does he get from him? all that he has the mind to understand. he gets his little cup full. let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? almost nothing. shakespeare has a different story for each reader. he is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances--he may know a few--he may know all. the impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. leaving out for the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends--the natural food of thought must be the impression made upon the brain by coming in contact, through the medium of the five senses, with what we call the outward world. the brain is natural. its food is natural. the result--thought--must be natural. the supernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. of the supernatural we can have no conception. "thought" may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. it may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. above the natural, man cannot rise. there can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed persons. there can be religious monstrosities and misshapen, but they must be naturally produced. some people have ideas about what they are pleased to call the supernatural; what they call the supernatural is simply the deformed. the world is to each man according to each man. it takes the world as it really is, and that man to make that man's world, and that man's world cannot exist without that man. you may ask, and what of all this? i reply: as with everything in nature, so with the bible. it has a different story for each reader. is then, the bible a different book to every human being who reads it? it is. can god, then, through the bible, make the same revelation to two persons? he cannot. why? because the man who reads it is the man who inspires. inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. god should have "inspired" readers as well as writers. you may reply, god knew that his book would be understood differently by each one; really intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each. if this is so, then my understanding of the bible is the real revelation to me. if this is so, i have no right to take the understanding of another. i must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation i must stand. suppose, then, that i do read this bible honestly, carefully, and when i get through i am compelled to say, "the book is not true!" if this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that god has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true is the revelation made to me, and by which i am bound. if the book and my brain are both the work of the same infinite god, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree? either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. the inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads.--the truth seeker annual, new york, . the truth of history. thousands of christians have asked: how was it possible for christ and his apostles to deceive the people of jerusalem? how came the miracles to be believed? who had the impudence to say that lepers had been cleansed, and that the dead had been raised? how could such impostors have escaped exposure? i ask: how did mohammed deceive the people of mecca? how has the catholic church imposed upon millions of people? who can account for the success of falsehood? millions of people are directly interested in the false. they live by lying. to deceive is the business of their lives. truth is a cripple; lies have wings. it is almost impossible to overtake and kill and bury a lie. if you do, some one will erect a monument over the grave, and the lie is born again as an epitaph. let me give you a case in point. a few days ago the matlock _register_, a paper published in england, printed the following: conversion of the arch atheist. "mr. isaac loveland, of shoreham, desires us to insert the following:-- "november , . "dear mr. loveland.--a day or two since, i received from mr. hine the exhilarating intelligence that through his lectures on the 'identity of the british nation with lost israel,' in canada and the united states, that col. bob ingersoll, the arch atheist, has been converted to christianity, and has joined the episcopal church. praise the lord!!! , of his followers _have been won for christ_ through mr. hine's grand mission work, the other side of the atlantic. the colonel's cousin, the rev. mr. ingersoll, wrote to mr. hine soon after he began lecturing in america, informing him that his lectures had made a great impression on the colonel and other atheists. i noted it at the time in the messenger. bradlaugh will yet be converted; his brother has been, and has joined a british israel identity association. this is progress, and shows what an energetic, determined man (like mr. hine), who is earnest in his faith, can do. "very faithfully yours, "h. hodson rugg. "grove-road, st. john's wood, london." how can we account for an article like that? who made up this story? who had the impudence to publish it? as a matter of fact, i never saw mr. hine, never heard of him until this extract was received by me in the month of december. i never read a word about the "identity of lost israel with the british nation." it is a question in which i never had, and never expect to have, the slightest possible interest. nothing can be more preposterous than that the englishman in whose veins can be found the blood of the saxon, the dane, the norman, the piet, the scot and the celt, is the descendant of "abraham, isaac and jacob." the english language does not bear the remotest resemblance to the hebrew, and yet it is claimed by the reverend hod-son rugg that not only myself, but five thousand other atheists, were converted by the rev. mr. hine, because of his theory that englishmen and americans are simply jews in disguise. this letter, in my judgment, was published to be used by missionaries in china, japan, india and africa. if stories like this can be circulated about a living man, what may we not expect concerning the dead who have opposed the church? countless falsehoods have been circulated about all the opponents of superstition. whoever attacks the popular falsehoods of his time will find that a lie defends itself by telling other lies. nothing is so prolific, nothing can so multiply itself, nothing can lay and hatch as many eggs, as a good, healthy, religious lie. and nothing is more wonderful than the credulity of the believers in the supernatural. they feel under a kind of obligation to believe everything in favor of their religion, or against any form of what they are pleased to call "infidelity." the old falsehoods about voltaire, paine, hume, julian, diderot and hundreds of others, grow green every spring. they are answered; they are demonstrated to be without the slightest foundation; but they rarely die. and when one does die there seems to be a kind of cæsarian operation, so that in each instance although the mother dies the child lives to undergo, if necessary, a like operation, leaving another child, and sometimes two. there are thousands and thousands of tongues ready to repeat what the owners know to be false, and these lies are a part of the stock in trade, the valuable assets, of superstition. no church can afford to throw its property away. to admit that these stories are false now, is to admit that the church has been busy lying for hundreds of years, and it is also to admit that the word of the church is not and cannot be taken as evidence of any fact. a few years ago, i had a little controversy with the editor of the new york _observer_, the rev. irenaeus prime, (who is now supposed to be in heaven enjoying the bliss of seeing infidels in hell), as to whether thomas paine recanted his religious opinions. i offered to deposit a thousand dollars for the benefit of a charity, if the reverend doctor would substantiate the charge that paine recanted. i forced the new york _observer_ to admit that paine did not recant, and compelled that paper to say that "thomas paine died a blaspheming infidel." a few months afterward an english paper was sent to me--a religious paper--and in that paper was a statement to the effect that the editor of the new york _observer_ had claimed that paine recanted; that i had offered to give a thousand dollars to any charity that mr. prime might select, if he would establish the fact that paine did recant; and that so overwhelming was the testimony brought forward by mr. prime, that i admitted that paine did recant, and paid the thousand dollars. this is another instance of what might be called the truth of history. i wrote to the editor of that paper, telling the exact facts, and offering him advertising rates to publish the denial, and in addition, stated that if he would send me a copy of his paper with the denial, i would send him twenty-five dollars for his trouble. i received no reply, and the lie is in all probability still on its travels, going from sunday school to sunday school, from pulpit to pulpit, from hypocrite to savage,--that is to say, from missionary to hottentot--without the slightest evidence of fatigue--fresh and strong, and in its cheeks the roses and lilies of perfect health. some person, expecting to add another gem to his crown of glory, put in circulation the story that one of my daughters had joined the presbyterian church,--a story without the slightest foundation--and although denied a hundred times, it is still being printed and circulated for the edification of the faithful. every few days i receive some letter of inquiry as to this charge, and i have industriously denied it for years, but up to the present time, it shows no signs of death--not even of weakness. another religious gentleman put in print the charge that my son, having been raised in the atmosphere of infidelity, had become insane and died in an asylum. notwithstanding the fact that i never had a son, the story still goes right on, and is repeated day after day without the semblance of a blush. now, if all this is done while i am alive and well, and while i have all the facilities of our century for spreading the denials, what will be done after my lips are closed? the mendacity of superstition is almost enough to make a man believe in the supernatural. and so i might go on for a hundred columns. billions of falsehoods have been told and there are trillions yet to come. the doctrines of malthus have nothing to do with this particular kind of reproduction. "and there are also many other falsehoods which the church has told, the which if they should be written every one, i suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."--the truth seeker, new york, february, , . how to edit a liberal paper. a liberal paper should be edited by a liberal man. and by the word liberal i mean, not only free, not only one who thinks for himself, not only one who has escaped from the prisons of customs and creed, but one who is candid, intelligent and kind. this liberal editor should not forever play upon one string, no matter how wonderful the music. he should not have his attention forever fixed upon one question--that is to say, he should not look through a reversed telescope and narrow his horizon to that degree that he sees only one thing. to know that the bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist--all this is but the beginning of wisdom. this only lays the foundation for unprejudiced observation. to kill weeds, to fell forests, to drive away or exterminate wild beasts--this is preparatory to doing something of greater value. of course the weeds must be killed, the forests must be felled, and the beasts must be destroyed before the building of homes and the cultivation of fields. a liberal paper should not discuss theological questions alone. intelligent people everywhere have given up most of the old superstitions. they have pretty well made up their minds what is false, and they want to know some others. that is to say, liberal toward everything that is true. for this reason, a liberal paper should keep abreast of the discoveries of the human mind. no science should be neglected; no fact should be overlooked. inventions should be described and understood. and not only this, but the beautiful in thought, in form and color, should be preserved. the paper should be filled with things calculated to interest thoughtful, intelligent and serious people. there should be a column for children as well as for men. above all, it should be perfectly kind and candid. in discussion there is no place for hatred, no opportunity for slander. a personality is always out of place. an angry man can neither reason himself, nor perceive the reason of what another says. the orthodox world has always dealt in personalities. every minister can answer the argument of an opponent by attacking the character of the opponent. this example should never be followed by a liberal man. nobody can be bad enough to prove that the bible is uninspired, and nobody can be good enough to prove that it is the word of god. these facts have no relation. they neither stand nor fall together. nothing should be asserted that is not known. nothing should be denied, the falsity of which has not been, or cannot be, demonstrated. opinions are simply given for what they are worth. they are guesses, and one guesser should give to another guesser all the right of guessing that he claims for himself. upon the great questions of origin, of destiny, of immortality, of punishment and reward in other worlds, every honest man must say, "i do not know." upon these questions, this is the creed of intelligence. nothing is harder to bear than the egotism of ignorance and the arrogance of superstition. the man who has some knowledge of the difficulties surrounding these subjects, who knows something of the limitations of the human mind, must, of necessity, be mentally modest. and this condition of mental modesty is the only one consistent with individual progress. above all, and over all, a liberal paper should teach the absolute freedom of the mind, the utter independence of the individual, the perfect liberty of speech. we should remember that the world is as it must be; that the present is the necessary offspring of the past; that the future must be what the present makes it, and that the real work of the reformer, of the philanthropist, is to change the conditions of the present, to the end that the future may be better. secular thought, toronto, january , . secularism. several people have asked me the meaning of this term. secularism is the religion of humanity; it embraces the affairs of this world; it is interested in everything that touches the welfare of a sentient being; it advocates attention to the particular planet in which we happen to live; it means that each individual counts for something; it is a declaration of intellectual independence; it means that the pew is superior to the pulpit, that those who bear the burdens shall have the profits and that they who fill the purse shall hold the strings. it is a protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical tyranny, against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom, or of the priest of any phantom. it is a protest against wasting this life for the sake of one that we know not of. it proposes to let the gods take care of themselves. it is another name for common sense; that is to say, the adaptation of means to such ends as are desired and understood. secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. it trusts to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. it desires to be happy on this side of the grave. secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human race comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all, liberty. it means the abolition of sectarian feuds, of theological hatreds. it means the cultivation of friendship and intellectual hospitality. it means the living for ourselves and each other; for the present instead of the past, for this world rather than for another. it means the right to express your thought in spite of popes, priests, and gods. it means that impudent idleness shall no longer live upon the labor of honest men. it means the destruction of the business of those who trade in fear. it proposes to give serenity and content to the human soul. it will put out the fires of eternal pain. it is striving to do away with violence and vice, with ignorance, poverty and disease. it lives for the ever present to-day, and the ever coming to-morrow. it does not believe in praying and receiving, but in earning and deserving. it regards work as worship, labor as prayer, and wisdom as the savior of mankind. it says to every human being, take care of yourself so that you may be able to help others; adorn your life with the gems called good deeds; illumine your path with the sunlight called friendship and love. secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. it has no mysteries, no mummeries, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions. it considers the lilies of the field, and takes thought for the morrow. it says to the whole world, work that you may eat, drink, and be clothed; work that you may enjoy; work that you may not want; work that you may give and never need.--the independent pulpit, waco, texas, . criticism of "robert elsmere," "john ward, preacher," and "an african farm." if one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is--i mean that religion unsoftened by infidelity, by doubt--let him read "john ward, preacher." this book shows exactly what the love of god will do in the heart of man. this shows what the effect of the creed of christendom is, when absolutely believed. in this case it is the woman who is free and the man who is enslaved. in "robert els-mere" the man is breaking chains, while the woman prefers the old prison with its ivy-covered walls. why should a man allow human love to stand between his soul and the will of god--between his soul and eternal joy? why should not the true believer tear every blossom of pity, of charity, from his heart, rather than put in peril his immortal soul? an orthodox minister has a wife with a heart. having a heart she cannot believe in the orthodox creed. she thinks god better than he is. she flatters the infinite. this endangers the salvation of her soul. if she is upheld in this the souls of others may be lost. her husband feels not only accountable for her soul, but for the souls of others that may be injured by what she says, and by what she does. he is compelled to choose between his wife and his duty, between the woman and god. he is not great enough to go with his heart. he is selfish enough to side with the administration, with power. he lives a miserable life and dies a miserable death. the trouble with christianity is that it has no element of compromise--it allows no room for charity so far as belief is concerned. honesty of opinion is not even a mitigating circumstance. you are not asked to understand--you are commanded to believe. there is no common ground. the church carries no flag of truce. it does not say, believe you must, but, you must believe. no exception can be made in favor of wife or mother, husband or child. all human relations, all human love must, if necessary, be sacrificed with perfect cheerfulness. "let the dead bury their dead--follow thou me. desert wife and child. human love is nothing--nothing but a snare. you must love god better than wife, better than child." john ward endeavored to live in accordance with this heartless creed. nothing can be more repulsive than an orthodox life--than one who lives in exact accordance with the creed. it is hard to conceive of a more terrible character than john calvin. it is somewhat difficult to understand the puritans, who made themselves unhappy by way of recreation, and who seemed to enjoy themselves when admitting their utter worthlessness and in telling god how richly they deserved to be eternally damned. they loved to pluck from the tree of life every bud, every blossom, every leaf. the bare branches, naked to the wrath of god, excited their admiration. they wondered how birds could sing, and the existence of the rainbow led them to suspect the seriousness of the deity. how can there be any joy if man believes that he acts and lives under an infinite responsibility, when the only business of this life is to avoid the horrors of the next? why should the lips of men feel the ripple of laughter if there is a bare possibility that the creed of christendom is true? i take it for granted that all people believe as they must--that all thoughts and dreams have been naturally produced--that what we call the unnatural is simply the uncommon. all religions, poems, statues, vices and virtues, have been wrought by nature with the instrumentalities called men. no one can read "john ward, preacher," without hating with all his heart the creed of john ward; and no one can read the creed of john ward, preacher, without pitying with all his heart john ward; and no one can read this book without feeling how much better the wife was than the husband--how much better the natural sympathies are than the religions of our day, and how much superior common sense is to what is called theology. when we lay down the book we feel like saying: no matter whether god exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself; if he does, he does not take care of us; and whether he lives or not we must take care of ourselves. human love is better than any religion. it is better to love your wife than to love god. it is better to make a happy home here than to sunder hearts with creeds. this book meets the issues far more frankly, with far greater candor. this book carries out to its logical sequence the christian creed. it shows how uncomfortable a true believer must be, and how uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he comes in contact. it shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic, how selfish, how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox church is. in "robert elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and cultivation, of thought and talent. so in "john ward, preacher," there is strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness and courage. but "the story of an african farm" has but little in common with the other two. it is a work apart--belonging to no school, and not to be judged by the ordinary rules and canons of criticism. there are some puerilities and much philosophy, trivialities and some of the profoundest reflections. in addition to this, there is a vast and wonderful sympathy. the following upon love is beautiful and profound: "there is a love that begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly, but it lasts till death and asks less than it gives. there is another love that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that hour. it is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin, but there is always the scent of a god about it." there is no character in "robert elsmere" or in "john ward, preacher," comparable for a moment to lyndall in the "african farm." in her there is a splendid courage. she does not blame others for her own faults; she accepts. there is that splendid candor that you find in juliet in "measure for measure." she is asked: "love you the man that wronged you?" and she replies: "yes; as i love the woman that wronged him." the death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic. none but an artist could have written it: "then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. the dead face that the glass reflected was a thing of marvellous beauty and tranquillity. the gray dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there." so the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. this hunter climbs above his fellows--day by day getting away from human sympathy, away from ignorance. he lost at last his fellow-men, and truth was just as far away as ever. here he found the bones of another hunter, and as he looked upon the poor remains the wild faces said: "so he lay down here, for he was very tired. he went to sleep forever. he put himself to sleep. sleep is very tranquil. you are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart." so the death of waldo is most wonderfully told. the book is filled with thought, and with thoughts of the writer--nothing is borrowed. it is original, true and exceedingly sad. it has the pathos of real life. there is in it the hunger of the heart, the vast difference between the actual and the ideal: "i like to feel that strange life beating up against me. i like to realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. when my own life feels small and i am oppressed with it, i like to crush together and see it in a picture, in an instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life--a mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little malay boys playing naked on a shining sea-beach; a hindoo philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of god he may lose himself; a troop of bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing along the roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up; an epicurean discoursing at a roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness; a kafir witch-doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs barking and the voices of women and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins and singing the evening song. i like to see it all; i feel it run through me--that life belongs to me; it makes my little life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in." the author, olive schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart. she sometimes prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without warning, she speaks like a philosopher--like one who had guessed the riddle of the sphinx. she, too, is overwhelmed with the injustice of the world--with the negligence of nature--and she finds that it is impossible to find repose for heart or brain in any christian creed. these books show what the people are thinking--the tendency of modern thought. singularly enough the three are written by women. mrs. ward, the author of "robert elsmere," to say the least is not satisfied with the episcopal church. she feels sure that its creed is not true. at the same time, she wants it denied in a respectful tone of voice, and she really pities people who are compelled to give up the consolation of eternal punishment, although she has thrown it away herself and the tendency of her book is to make other people do so. it is what the orthodox call "a dangerous book." it is a flank movement calculated to suggest a doubt to the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has strayed beyond the shepherd's voice. it is hard for any one to read "john ward, preacher," without hating puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain that nothing is more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and whoever finishes "the story of an african farm" will feel that he has been brought in contact with a very great, passionate and tender soul. is it possible that women, who have been the caryatides of the church, who have borne its insults and its burdens, are to be its destroyers? man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. the fact that he can enjoy himself--that he can obtain good--gives him courage--courage to defend what he has, courage to try to get more. the fact that he can suffer pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear. man is also filled with curiosity. he examines. he is astonished by the uncommon. he is forced to take an interest in things because things affect him. he is liable at every moment to be injured. countless things attack him. he must defend himself. as a consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some degree tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from heat and cold. all the springs of action lie in the fact that he can suffer and enjoy. the savage has great confidence in his senses. he has absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. it requires many years of education and experience before he becomes satisfied that things are not always what they appear. it would be hard to convince the average barbarian that the sun does not actually rise and set--hard to convince him that the earth turns. he would rely upon appearances and would record you as insane. as man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more confidence in his reason than in his eyes. he no longer believes that a being called echo exists. he has found out the theory of sound, and he then knows that the wave of air has been returned to his ear, and the idea of a being who repeats his words fades from his mind; he begins then to rely, not upon appearances, but upon demonstration, upon the result of investigation. at last he finds that he has been deceived in a thousand ways, and he also finds that he can invent certain instruments that are far more accurate than his senses--instruments that add power to his sight, to his hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. day by day he gains confidence in himself. there is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the race, a period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted without question, but the declarations of others. the child in the cradle or in the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in fairy stories--believes in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can answer wishes, who create castles and temples and gardens with a thought. so the race, in its infancy, believed in such beings and in such creations. as the child grows, facts take the place of the old beliefs, and the same is true of the race. as a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own mistakes, not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of his neighbors. the same is true of a nation--it notices first the eccentricities and peculiarities of other nations. this is especially true of religious systems. christians take it for granted that their religion is true, that there can be about that no doubt, no mistake. they begin to examine the religions of other nations. they take it for granted that all these other religions are false. they are in a frame of mind to notice contradictions, to discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. in examining other religions they use their common sense. they carry in the hand the lamp of probability. the miracles of other christs, or of the founders of other religions, appear unreasonable--they find that they are not supported by evidence. most of the stories excite their laughter. many of the laws seem cruel, many of the ceremonies absurd. these christians satisfy themselves that they are right in their first conjecture--that is, that other religions are all made by men. afterward the same arguments they have used against other religions were found to be equally forcible against their own. they find that the miracles of buddha rest upon the same kind of evidence as the miracles in the old testament, as the miracles in the new--that the evidence in the one case is just as weak and unreliable as in the other. they also find that it is just as easy to account for the existence of christianity as for the existence of any other religion, and they find that the human mind in all countries has traveled substantially the same road and has arrived at substantially the same conclusions. it may be truthfully said that christianity by the examination of other religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. the moment it examined another religion it became a doubter, a sceptic, an investigator. it began to call for proof. this course being pursued in the examination of christianity itself, reached the result that had been reached as to other religions. in other words, it was impossible for christians successfully to attack other religions without showing that their own religion could be destroyed. the fact that only a few years ago we were all provincial should be taken into consideration. a few years ago nations were unacquainted with each other--no nation had any conception of the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any other. each nation imagined itself to be the favored of heaven--the only one to whom god had condescended to make known his will--the only one in direct communication with angels and deities. since the circumnavigation of the globe, since the invention of the steam engine, the discovery of electricity, the nations of the world have become acquainted with each other, and we now know that the old ideas were born of egotism, and that egotism is the child of ignorance and savagery. think of the egotism of the ancient jews, who imagined that they were "the chosen people"--the only ones in whom god took the slightest interest! imagine the egotism of the catholic church, claiming that it is the only church--that it is continually under the guidance of the holy ghost, and that the pope is infallible and occupies the place of god. think of the egotism of the presbyterian, who imagines that he is one of "the elect," and that billions of ages before the world was created, god, in the eternal counsel of his own good pleasure, picked out this particular presbyterian, and at the same time determined to send billions and billions to the pit of eternal pain. think of the egotism of the man who believes in special providence. the old philosophy, the old religion, was made in about equal parts of ignorance and egotism. this earth was the universe. the sun rose and set simply for the benefit of "god's chosen people." the moon and stars were made to beautify the night, and all the countless hosts of heaven were for no other purpose than to decorate what might be called the ceiling of the earth. it was also believed that this firmament was solid--that up there the gods lived, and that they could be influenced by the prayers and desires of men. we have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a speck, an atom in an infinite universe. we now know that the sun is a million times larger than the earth, and that other planets are millions of times larger than the sun; and when we think of these things, the old stories of the garden of eden and sinai and calvary seem infinitely out of proportion. at last we have reached a point where we have the candor and the intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion precisely as we examine those of other countries. we have produced men and women great enough to free themselves from the prejudices born of provincialism--from the prejudices, we might almost say, of patriotism. a few people are great enough not to be controlled by the ideas of the dead--great enough to know that they are not bound by the mistakes of their ancestors--and that a man may actually love his mother without accepting her belief. we have even gone further than this, and we are now satisfied that the only way to really honor parents is to tell our best and highest thoughts. these thoughts ought to be in the mind when reading the books referred to. there are certain tendencies, certain trends of thought, and these tendencies--these trends--bear fruit; that is to say, they produce the books about which i have spoken as well as many others. the libel laws question. have you any suggestions to make in regard to remodeling the libel laws? answer. i believe that every article appearing in a paper should be signed by the writer. if it is libelous, then the writer and the publisher should both be held responsible in damages. the law on this subject, if changed, should throw greater safeguards around the reputation of the citizen. it does not seem to me that the papers have any right to complain. probably a good many suits are brought that should not be instituted, but just think of the suits that are not brought. personally i have no complaint to make, as it would be very hard to find anything in any paper against me, but it has never occurred to me that the press needed any greater liberty than it now enjoys. it might be a good thing for a paper to publish each week, a list of mistakes, if this could be done without making that edition too large. but certainly when a false and scandalous charge has been made by mistake or as the result of imposition, great pains should be taken to give the retraction at once and in a way to attract attention. i suppose the papers are liable to be imposed upon--liable to print thousands of articles to which the attention of the editor or proprietor was not called. still, that is not the fault of the man whose character is attacked. on the whole i think the papers have the advantage of the average citizen as the law now is. if all articles had to be signed by the writer, i am satisfied the writer would be more careful and less liable to write anything of a libelous nature. i am willing to admit that i have given but little attention to the subject, probably for the reason that i have never been a sufferer. it would hardly do to hold only the writer responsible. suppose a man writes a libelous article, leaves the country, and then the article is published; is there no remedy? a suit for libel is not much of a remedy, i admit, but it is some. it is like the bayonet in war. very few are injured by bayonets, but a good many are afraid that they may be. --the herald, new york, october , . rev. dr. newton's sermon on a new religion. i have read the report of the rev. r. heber newton's sermon and i am satisfied, first, that mr. newton simply said what he thoroughly believes to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which he arrives are certainly correct. i do not regard mr. newton as a heretic or sceptic. every man who reads the bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for himself. he need not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to himself. but if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely honest. the episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. for many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. words are no more exempt from change than other things in nature. a word at one time rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. a word known as slang, picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest. we must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone on the painter, but on the one who sees it. so words must find some part of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. in the old times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast pit filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls were suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. this was the real old orthodox view. as man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid. finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others began to think that if the devil was, and is, really an enemy of god he would not spend his time punishing sinners to please god. why should the devil be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling of hatred toward the almighty? as men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were to suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object in eternal punishment--no reformation, no good to be accomplished--and certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of god. so the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence and not an infliction. then they took another step and concluded that every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the chance of doing right. and yet persons so believing still used the word "hell," but the old meaning had dropped out. so with regard to the atonement. at one time it was regarded as a kind of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. this was a barbaric view. afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in the brain that the life of christ was worth its moral effect. and yet these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been lost. take for instance the word "justice." the meaning that is given to that word depends upon the man who uses it--depends for the most part on the age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. the same is true of the word "freedom." millions and millions of people boasted that they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved their fellow-men. so, in the name of justice every possible crime has been perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been used. mr. newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge, by the progress of the sciences and arts--in other words, that there is a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. this will be fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything. mr. newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible to feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that the suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the wicked. i think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early church softened or weakened the barbaric passions. i think the early church was as barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. i do not believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could soften anything. a church that preaches the eternity of punishment has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it grow. so mr. newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. no one now goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. a man in doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the times. he goes to the scientist, to the library. he depends upon the untrammelled thought of fearless men. the church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who, having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed. the spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the average club. there is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in the next world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a large majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded. the peasants of europe--the workingmen--do not go to the church for sympathy. if they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted. so, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not depending on the churches to right their wrongs. they do not expect the pulpits to increase their wages. the preachers get their money from the well-to-do--from the employeer class--and their sympathies are with those from whom they receive their wages. the ministers attack the pleasures of the world. they are not so much scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on friday. they regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. they are not touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the real believers in the progress of the human race. it is all well enough to say that we should depend on providence, but experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will do no good to do it. we have found that man must be the providence of man, and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held, toward feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the air. so, mr. newton is correct in saying, as i understand him to say, that the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion. neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a god anything in fact to do with real religion. the old doctrine that god wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. we know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. we know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. we know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. we know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags. man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special providence is a mistake. this being so, the old religions must go down, and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty; upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his own efforts. then religion becomes a thing of this world--a religion to put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a religion that rewards virtue here. if mr. newton's sermon is in accordance with the episcopal creed, i congratulate the creed. in any event, i think mr. newton deserves great credit for speaking his thought. do not understand that i imagine that he agrees with me. the most i will say is that in some things i agree with him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too much humanity in his remarks to please the bishop. there is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for thinking god bad. when any one has said that he believed god to be so good that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human race, and that the time would come when every soul would be brought home and sit on an equality with the others around the great fireside of the universe, that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.--new york herald, december , . an essay on christmas. my family and i regard christmas as a holiday--that is to say, a day of rest and pleasure--a day to get acquainted with each other, a day to recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. the festival now called christmas is far older than christianity. it was known and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of what is known as our religion. it is a relic of sun-worship. it is the day on which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands of years before the new testament was written, thousands of years before the republic of rome existed, before one stone of athens was laid, before the pharaohs ruled in egypt, before the religion of brahma, before sanscrit was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves, pushed the matted hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the sun over the powers of the night. there are many relics of this worship--among which is the shaving of the priest's head, leaving the spot shaven surrounded by hair, in imitation of the rays of the sun. there is still another relic--the ministers of our day close their eyes in prayer. when men worshiped the sun--when they looked at that luminary and implored its assistance--they shut their eyes as a matter of necessity. afterward the priests looking at their idols glittering with gems, shut their eyes in flattery, pretending that they could not bear the effulgence of the presence; and to-day, thousands of years after the old ideas have passed away, the modern parson, without knowing the origin of the custom, closes his eyes when he prays. there are many other relics and souvenirs of the dead worship of the sun, and this festival was adopted by egyptians, greeks, romans, and by christians. as a matter of fact, christianity furnished new steam for an old engine, infused a new spirit into an old religion, and, as a matter of course, the old festival remained. for all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals. for instance, take the eucharist, the communion, where persons partake of the body and blood of the deity. this is an exceedingly old custom. among the ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of ceres and they called these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in honor of bacchus, and called this the blood of their god. and so i could go on giving the pagan origin of every christian ceremony and custom. the probability is that the worship of the sun was once substantially universal, and consequently the festival of christ was equally wide spread. as other religions have been produced, the old customs have been adopted and continued, so that the result is, this festival of christmas is almost world-wide. it is popular because it is a holiday. overworked people are glad of days that bring rest and recreation and allow them to meet their families and their friends. they are glad of days when they give and receive gifts--evidences of friendship, of remembrance and love. it is popular because it is really human, and because it is interwoven with our customs, habits, literature, and thought. for my part i am willing to have two or three a year--the more holidays the better. many people have an idea that i am opposed to sunday. i am perfectly willing to have two a week. all i insist on is that these days shall be for the benefit of the people, and that they shall be kept not in a way to make folks miserable or sad or hungry, but in a way to make people happy, and to add a little to the joy of life. of course, i am in favor of everybody keeping holidays to suit himself, provided he does not interfere with others, and i am perfectly willing that everybody should go to church on that day, provided he is willing that i should go somewhere else.--the tribune, new york, december, . has freethought a constructive side? the object of the freethinker is to ascertain the truth--the conditions of well-being--to the end that this life will be made of value. this is the affirmative, positive, and constructive side. without liberty there is no such thing as real happiness. there may be the contentment of the slave--of one who is glad that he has passed the day without a beating--one who is happy because he has had enough to eat--but the highest possible idea of happiness is freedom. all religious systems enslave the mind. certain things are demanded--certain things must be believed--certain things must be done--and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of individuality or hope of intellectual growth and progress. the religionist informs us that there is somewhere in the universe an orthodox god, who is endeavoring to govern the world, and who for this purpose resorts to famine and flood, to earthquake and pestilence--and who, as a last resort, gets up a revival of religion. that is called "affirmative and positive." the man of sense knows that no such god exists, and thereupon he affirms that the orthodox doctrine is infinitely absurd. this is called a "negation." but to my mind it is an affirmation, and is a part of the positive side of freethought. a man who compels this deity to abdicate his throne renders a vast and splendid service to the human race. as long as men believe in tyranny in heaven they will practice tyranny on earth. most people are exceedingly imitative, and nothing is so gratifying to the average orthodox man as to be like his god. these same christians tell us that nearly everybody is to be punished forever, while a few fortunate christians who were elected and selected billions of ages before the world was created, are to be happy. this they call the "tidings of great joy." the freethinker denounces this doctrine as infamous beyond the power of words to express. he says, and says clearly, that a god who would create a human being, knowing that that being was to be eternally miserable, must of necessity be an infinite fiend. the free man, into whose brain the serpent of superstition has not crept, knows that the dogma of eternal pain is an infinite falsehood. he also knows--if the dogma be true--that every decent human being should hate, with every drop of his blood, the creator of the universe. he also knows--if he knows anything--that no decent human being could be happy in heaven with a majority of the human race in hell. he knows that a mother could not enjoy the society of christ with her children in perdition; and if she could, he knows that such a mother is simply a wild beast. the free man knows that the angelic hosts, under such circumstances, could not enjoy themselves unless they had the hearts of boa-constrictors. it will thus be seen that there is an affirmative, a positive, a constructive side to freethought. what is the positive side? first: a denial of all orthodox falsehoods--an exposure of all superstitions. this is simply clearing the ground, to the end that seeds of value may be planted. it is necessary, first, to fell the trees, to destroy the poisonous vines, to drive out the wild beasts. then comes another phase--another kind of work. the freethinker knows that the universe is natural--that there is no room, even in infinite space, for the miraculous, for the impossible. the freethinker knows, or feels that he knows, that there is no sovereign of the universe, who, like some petty king or tyrant, delights in showing his authority. he feels that all in the universe are conditioned beings, and that only those are happy who live in accordance with the conditions of happiness, and this fact or truth or philosophy embraces all men and all gods--if there be gods. the positive side is this: that every good action has good consequences--that it bears good fruit forever--and that every bad action has evil consequences, and bears bad fruit. the freethinker also asserts that every man must bear the consequences of his actions--that he must reap what he sows, and that he cannot be justified by the goodness of another, or damned for the wickedness of another. there is still another side, and that is this: the freethinker knows that all the priests and cardinals and popes know nothing of the supernatural--they know nothing about gods or angels or heavens or hells--nothing about inspired books or holy ghosts, or incarnations or atonements. he knows that all this is superstition pure and simple. he knows also that these people--from pope to priest, from bishop to parson, do not the slightest good in this world--that they live upon the labor of others--that they earn nothing themselves--that they contribute nothing toward the happiness, or well-being, or the wealth of mankind. he knows that they trade and traffic in ignorance and fear, that they make merchandise of hope and grief--and he also knows that in every religion the priest insists on five things--first: there is a god. second: he has made known his will. third: he has selected me to explain this message. fourth: we will now take up a collection; and fifth: those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned. the positive side of freethought is to find out the truth--the facts of nature--to the end that we may take advantage of those truths, of those facts--for the purpose of feeding and clothing and educating mankind. in the first place, we wish to find that which will lengthen human life--that which will prevent or kill disease--that which will do away with pain--that which will preserve or give us health. we also want to go in partnership with these forces of nature, to the end that we may be well fed and clothed--that we may have good houses that protect us from heat and cold. and beyond this--beyond these simple necessities--there are still wants and aspirations, and free-thought will give us the highest possible in art--the most wonderful and thrilling in music--the greatest paintings, the most marvelous sculpture--in other words, free-thought will develop the brain to its utmost capacity. freethought is the mother of art and science, of morality and happiness. it is charged by the worshipers of the jewish myth, that we destroy, that we do not build. what have we destroyed? we have destroyed the idea that a monster created and governs this world--the declaration that a god of infinite mercy and compassion upheld slavery and polygamy and commanded the destruction of men, women, and babes. we have destroyed the idea that this monster created a few of his children for eternal joy, and the vast majority for everlasting pain. we have destroyed the infinite absurdity that salvation depends upon belief, that investigation is dangerous, and that the torch of reason lights only the way to hell. we have taken a grinning devil from every grave, and the curse from death--and in the place of these dogmas, of these infamies, we have put that which is natural and that which commends itself to the heart and brain. instead of loving god, we love each other. instead of the religion of the sky--the religion of this world--the religion of the family--the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband--the love of all for children. so that now the real religion is: let us live for each other; let us live for this world, without regard for the past and without fear for the future. let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there. nothing can be more absurd than the idea that we can do something to please or displease an infinite being. if our thoughts and actions can lessen or increase the happiness of god, then to that extent god is the slave and victim of man. the energies of the world have been wasted in the service of a phantom--millions of priests have lived on the industry of others and no effort has been spared to prevent the intellectual freedom of mankind. we know, if we know anything, that supernatural religion has no foundation except falsehood and mistake. to expose these falsehoods--to correct these mistakes--to build the fabric of civilization on the foundation of demonstrated truth--is the task of the freethinker. to destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction--to correct charts that lure to reef and wreck--to drive the fiend of fear from the mind--to protect the cradle from the serpent of superstition and dispel the darkness of ignorance with the sun of science--is the task of the freethinker. what constructive work has been done by the church? christianity gave us a flat world a few thousand years ago--a heaven above it where jehovah dwells and a hell below it where most people will dwell. christianity took the ground that a certain belief was necessary to salvation and that this belief was far better and of more importance than the practice of all the virtues. it became the enemy of investigation--the bitter and relentless foe of reason and the liberty of thought. it committed every crime and practiced every cruelty in the propagation of its creed. it drew the sword against the freedom of the world. it established schools and universities for the preservation of ignorance. it claimed to have within its keeping the source and standard of all truth. if the church had succeeded the sciences could not have existed. freethought has given us all we have of value. it has been the great constructive force. it is the only discoverer, and every science is its child.--the truth seeker, new york . the improved man. the improved man will be in favor of universal liberty, that is to say, he will be opposed to all kings and nobles, to all privileged classes. he will give to all others the rights he claims for himself. he will neither bow nor cringe, nor accept bowing and cringing from others. he will be neither master nor slave, neither prince nor peasant--simply man. he will be the enemy of all caste, no matter whether its foundation be wealth, title or power, and of him it will be said: "blessed is that man who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid." the improved man will be in favor of universal education. he will believe it the duty of every person to shed all the light he can, to the end that no child may be reared in darkness. by education he will mean the gaining of useful knowledge, the development of the mind along the natural paths that lead to human happiness. he will not waste his time in ascertaining the foolish theories of extinct peoples or in studying the dead languages for the sake of understanding the theologies of ignorance and fear, but he will turn his attention to the affairs of life, and will do his utmost to see to it that every child has an opportunity to learn the demonstrated facts of science, the true history of the world, the great principles of right and wrong applicable to human conduct--the things necessary to the preservation of the individual and of the state, and such arts and industries as are essential to the preservation of all. he will also endeavor to develop the mind in the direction of the beautiful--of the highest art--so that the palace in which the mind dwells may be enriched and rendered beautiful, to the end that these stones, called facts, may be changed into statues. the improved man will believe only in the religion of this world. he will have nothing to do with the miraculous and supernatural. he will find that there is no room in the universe for these things. he will know that happiness is the only good, and that everything that tends to the happiness of sentient beings is good, and that to do the things--and no other--that add to the happiness of man is to practice the highest possible religion. his motto will be: "sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof." he will know that each man should be his own priest, and that the brain is the real cathedral. he will know that in the realm of mind there is no authority--that majorities in this mental world can settle nothing--that each soul is the sovereign of its own world, and that it cannot abdicate without degrading itself. he will not bow to numbers or force; to antiquity or custom. he, standing under the flag of nature, under the blue and stars, will decide for himself. he will not endeavor by prayers and supplication, by fastings and genuflections, to change the mind of the "infinite" or alter the course of nature, neither will he employ others to do those things in his place. he will have no confidence in the religion of idleness, and will give no part of what he earns to support parson or priest, archbishop or pope. he will know that honest labor is the highest form of prayer. he will spend no time in ringing bells or swinging censers, or in chanting the litanies of barbarism, but he will appreciate all that is artistic--that is beautiful--that tends to refine and ennoble the human race. he will not live a life of fear. he will stand in awe neither of man nor ghosts. he will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude the darkest days. he will have no fear of death. about the grave, there will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises. the improved man will be satisfied that the supernatural does not exist--that behind every fact, every thought and dream is an efficient cause. he will know that every human action is a necessary product, and he will also know that men cannot be reformed by punishment, by degradation or by revenge. he will regard those who violate the laws of nature and the laws of states as victims of conditions, of circumstances, and he will do what he can for the wellbeing of his fellow-men. the improved man will not give his life to the accumulation of wealth. he will find no happiness in exciting the envy of his neighbors. he will not care to live in a palace while others who are good, industrious and kind are compelled to huddle in huts and dens. he will know that great wealth is a great burden, and that to accumulate beyond the actual needs of a reasonable human being is to increase not wealth, but responsibility and trouble. the improved man will find his greatest joy in the happiness of others and he will know that the home is the real temple. he will believe in the democracy of the fireside, and will reap his greatest reward in being loved by those whose lives he has enriched. the improved man will be self-poised, independent, candid and free. he will be a scientist. he will observe, investigate, experiment and demonstrate. he will use his sense and his senses. he will keep his mind open as the day to the hints and suggestions of nature. he will always be a student, a learner and a listener--a believer in intellectual hospitality. in the world of his brain there will be continuous summer, perpetual seed-time and harvest. facts will be the foundation of his faith. in one hand he will carry the torch of truth, and with the other raise the fallen.--the world, new york, february , . eight hours must come. i hardly know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the time when eight hours are to become a day's work, but i am perfectly satisfied that eight hours will become a labor day. the working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the capitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear. we have seen here in america street-car drivers working sixteen and seventeen hours a day. it was necessary to have a strike in order to get to fourteen, another strike to get to twelve, and nobody could blame them for keeping on striking till they get to eight hours. for a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark, life is of no particular importance. he simply earns enough one day to prepare himself to work another. his whole life is spent in want and toil, and such a life is without value. of course, i cannot say that the present effort is going to succeed--all i can say is that i hope it will. i cannot see how any man who does nothing--who lives in idleness--can insist that others should work ten or twelve hours a day. neither can i see how a man who lives on the luxuries of life can find it in his heart, or in his stomach, to say that the poor ought to be satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get. i believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between labor and capital. the laboring people a few generations ago were not very intellectual. there were no schoolhouses, no teachers except the church, and the church taught obedience and faith--told the poor people that although they had a hard time here, working for nothing, they would be paid in paradise with a large interest. now the working people are more intelligent--they are better educated--they read and write. in order to carry on the works of the present, many of them are machinists of the highest order. they must be reasoners. every kind of mechanism insists upon logic. the working people are reasoners--their hands and heads are in partnership. they know a great deal more than the capitalists. it takes a thousand times the brain to make a locomotive that it does to run a store or a bank. think of the intelligence in a steamship and in all the thousand machines and devices that are now working for the world. these working people read. they meet together--they discuss. they are becoming more and more independent in thought. they do not believe all they hear. they may take their hats off their heads to the priests, but they keep their brains in their heads for themselves. the free school in this country has tended to put men on an equality, and the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is able to express his views. under these circumstances there must be a revolution. that is to say, the relations between capital and labor must be changed, and the time must come when they who do the work--they who make the money--will insist on having some of the profits. i do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the government, or from government interference. i think the government can aid in passing good and wholesome laws--laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws preventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security of workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. but the laboring people must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially on their political power. they are in the majority in this country. they can if they wish--if they will stand together--elect congresses and senates, presidents and judges. they have it in their power to administer the government of the united states. the laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who labor are their brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and whenever one class of workingmen or working women is oppressed all other laborers ought to stand by the oppressed class. probably the worst paid people in the world are the working-women. think of the sewing women in this city--and yet we call ourselves civilized! i would like to see all working people unite for the purpose of demanding justice, not only for men, but for women. all my sympathies are on the side of those who toil--of those who produce the real wealth of the world--of those who carry the burdens of mankind. any man who wishes to force his brother to work--to toil--more than eight hours a day is not a civilized man. my hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that he is growing more and more intelligent. i have also the same hope for the capitalist. the time must come when the capitalist will clearly and plainly see that his interests are identical with those of the laboring man. he will finally become intelligent enough to know that his prosperity depends on the prosperity of those who labor. when both become intelligent the matter will be settled. neither labor nor capital should resort to force.--the morning journal, april , . the jews. when i was a child, i was taught that the jews were an exceedingly hard-hearted and cruel people, and that they were so destitute of the finer feelings that they had a little while before that time crucified the only perfect man who had appeared upon the earth; that this perfect man was also perfect god, and that the jews had really stained their hands with the blood of the infinite. when i got somewhat older, i found that nearly all people had been guilty of substantially the same crime--that is, that they had destroyed the progressive and the thoughtful; that religionists had in all ages been cruel; that the chief priests of all people had incited the mob, to the end that heretics--that is to say, philosophers--that is to say, men who knew that the chief priests were hypocrites--might be destroyed. i also found that christians had committed more of these crimes than all other religionists put together. i also became acquainted with a large number of jewish people, and i found them like other people, except that, as a rule, they were more industrious, more temperate, had fewer vagrants among them, no beggars, very few criminals; and in addition to all this, i found that they were intelligent, kind to their wives and children, and that, as a rule, they kept their contracts and paid their debts. the prejudice was created almost entirely by religious, or rather irreligious, instruction. all children in christian countries are taught that all the jews are to be eternally damned who die in the faith of abraham, isaac and jacob; that it is not enough to believe in the inspiration of the old testament--not enough to obey the ten commandments--not enough to believe the miracles performed in the days of the prophets, but that every jew must accept the new testament and must be a believer in christianity--that is to say, he must be regenerated--or he will simply be eternal kindling wood. the church has taught, and still teaches, that every jew is an outcast; that he is to-day busily fulfilling prophecy; that he is a wandering witness in favor of "the glad tidings of great joy;" that jehovah is seeing to it that the jews shall not exist as a nation--that they shall have no abiding place, but that they shall remain scattered, to the end that the inspiration of the bible may be substantiated. dr. john hall of this city, a few years ago, when the jewish people were being persecuted in russia, took the ground that it was all fulfillment of prophecy, and that whenever a jewish maiden was stabbed to death, god put a tongue in every wound for the purpose of declaring the truth of the old testament. just as long as christians take these positions, of course they will do what they can to assist in the fulfillment of what they call prophecy, and they will do their utmost to keep the jewish people in a state of exile, and then point to that fact as one of the corner-stones of christianity. my opinion is that in the early days of christianity all sensible jews were witnesses against the faith, and in this way excited the hostility of the orthodox. every sensible jew knew that no miracles had been performed in jerusalem. they all knew that the sun had not been darkened, that the graves had not given up their dead, that the veil of the temple had not been rent in twain--and they told what they knew. they were then denounced as the most infamous of human beings, and this hatred has pursued them from that day to this. there is no other chapter in history so infamous, so bloody, so cruel, so relentless, as the chapter in which is told the manner in which christians--those who love their enemies--have treated the jewish people. this story is enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheek, and the words of indignation to the lips of every honest man. nothing can be more unjust than to generalize about nationalities, and to speak of a race as worthless or vicious, simply because you have met an individual who treated you unjustly. there are good people and bad people in all races, and the individual is not responsible for the crimes of the nation, or the nation responsible for the actions of the few. good men and honest men are found in every faith, and they are not honest or dishonest because they are jews or gentiles, but for entirely different reasons. some of the best people i have ever known are jews, and some of the worst people i have known are christians. the christians were not bad simply because they were christians, neither were the jews good because they were jews. a man is far above these badges of faith and race. good jews are precisely the same as good christians, and bad christians are wonderfully like bad jews. personally, i have either no prejudices about religion, or i have equal prejudice against all religions. the consequence is that i judge of people not by their creeds, not by their rites, not by their mummeries, but by their actions. in the first place, at the bottom of this prejudice lies the coiled serpent of superstition. in other words, it is a religious question. it seems impossible for the people of one religion to like the people believing in another religion. they have different gods, different heavens, and a great variety of hells. for the followers of one god to treat the followers of another god decently is a kind of treason. in order to be really true to his god, each follower must not only hate all other gods, but the followers of all other gods. the jewish people should outgrow their own superstitions. it is time for them to throw away the idea of inspiration. the intelligent jew of to-day knows that the old testament was written by barbarians., and he knows that the rites and ceremonies are simply absurd. he knows that no intelligent man should care anything about abraham, isaac and jacob, three dead barbarians. in other words, the jewish people should leave their superstition and rely on science and philosophy. the christian should do the same. he, by this time, should know that his religion is a mistake, that his creed has no foundation in the eternal verities. the christian certainly should give up the hopeless task of converting the jewish people, and the jews should give up the useless task of converting the christians. there is no propriety in swapping superstitions--neither party can afford to give any boot. when the christian throws away his cruel and heartless superstitions, and when the jew throws away his, then they can meet as man to man. in the meantime, the world will go on in its blundering way, and i shall know and feel that everybody does as he must, and that the christian, to the extent that he is prejudiced, is prejudiced by reason of his ignorance, and that consequently the great lever with which to raise all mankind into the sunshine of philosophy, is intelligence. crumbling creeds. there is a desire in each brain to harmonize the knowledge that it has. if a man knows, or thinks he knows, a few facts, he will naturally use those facts for the purpose of determining the accuracy of his opinions on other subjects. this is simply an effort to establish or prove the unknown by the known--a process that is constantly going on in the minds of all intelligent people. it is natural for a man not governed by fear, to use what he knows in one department of human inquiry, in every other department that he investigates. the average of intelligence has in the last few years greatly increased. man may have as much credulity as he ever had, on some subjects, but certainly on the old subjects he has less. there is not as great difference to-day between the members of the learned professions and the common people. man is governed less and less by authority. he cares but little for the conclusions of the universities. he does not feel bound by the actions of synods or ecumenical councils--neither does he bow to the decisions of the highest tribunals, unless the reasons given for the decision satisfy his intellect. one reason for this is, that the so-called "learned" do not agree among themselves--that the universities dispute each other--that the synod attacks the ecumenical council--that the parson snaps his fingers at the priest, and even the protestant bishop holds the pope in contempt. if the learned cau thus disagree, there is no reason why the common people should hold to one opinion. they are at least called upon to decide as between the universities or synods; and in order to decide, they must examine both sides, and having examined both sides, they generally have an opinion of their own. there was a time when the average man knew nothing of medicine--he simply opened his mouth and took the dose. if he died, it was simply a dispensation of providence--if he got well, it was a triumph of science. now this average man not only asks the doctor what is the matter with him--not only asks what medicine will be good for him,--but insists on knowing the philosophy of the cure--asks the doctor why he gives it--what result he expects--and, as a rule, has a judgment of his own. so in law. the average business man has an exceedingly good idea of the law affecting his business. there is nothing now mysterious about what goes on in courts or in the decisions of judges--they are published in every direction, and all intelligent people who happen to read these opinions have their ideas as to whether the opinions are right or wrong. they are no longer the victims of doctors, or of lawyers, or of courts. the same is true in the world of art and literature. the average man has an opinion of his own. he is no longer a parrot repeating what somebody else says. he not only has opinions, but he has the courage to express them. in literature the old models fail to satisfy him. he has the courage to say that milton is tiresome--that dante is prolix--that they deal with subjects having no human interest. he laughs at young's "night thoughts" and pollok's "course of time"--knowing that both are filled with hypocrisies and absurdities. he no longer falls upon his knees before the mechanical poetry of mr. pope. he chooses--and stands by his own opinion. i do not mean that he is entirely independent, but that he is going in that direction. the same is true of pictures. he prefers the modern to the old masters. he prefers corot to raphael. he gets more real pleasure from millet and troyon than from all the pictures of all the saints and donkeys of the middle ages. in other words, the days of authority are passing away. the same is true in music. the old no longer satisfies, and there is a breadth, color, wealth, in the new that makes the old poor and barren in comparison. to a far greater extent this advance, this individual independence, is seen in the religious world. the religion of our day--that is to say, the creeds--at the time they were made, were in perfect harmony with the knowledge, or rather with the ignorance, of man in all other departments of human inquiry. all orthodox creeds agreed with the sciences of their day--with the astronomy and geology and biology and political conceptions of the middle ages. these creeds were declared to be the absolute and eternal truth. they could not be changed without abandoning the claim that made them authority. the priests, through a kind of unconscious self-defence, clung to every word. they denied the truth of all discovery. they measured every assertion in every other department by their creeds. at last the facts against them became so numerous--their congregations became so intelligent--that it was necessary to give new meanings to the old words. the cruel was softened--the absurd was partially explained, and they kept these old words, although the original meanings had fallen out. they became empty purses, but they retained them still. slowly but surely came the time when this course could not longer be pursued. the words must be thrown away--the creeds must be changed--they were no longer believed--only occasionally were they preached. the ministers became a little ashamed--they began to apologize. apology is the prelude to retreat. of all the creeds, the presbyterian, the old congregational, were the most explicit, and for that reason the most absurd. when these creeds were written, those who wrote them had perfect confidence in their truth. they did not shrink because of their cruelty. they cared nothing for what others called absurdity. they failed not to declare what they believed to be "the whole counsel of god." at that time, cruel punishments were inflicted by all governments. people were torn asunder, mutilated, burned. every atrocity was perpetrated in the name of justice, and the limit of pain was the limit of endurance. these people imagined that god would do as they would do. if they had had it in their power to keep the victim alive for years in the flames, they would most cheerfully have supplied the fagots. they believed that god could keep the victim alive forever, and that therefore his punishment would be eternal. as man becomes civilized he becomes merciful, and the time came when civilized presbyterians and congregationalists read their own creeds with horror. i am not saying that the presbyterian creed is any worse than the catholic. it is only a little more specific. neither am i saying that it is more horrible than the episcopal. it is not. all orthodox creeds are alike infamous. all of them have good things, and all of them have bad things. you will find in every creed the blossom of mercy and the oak of justice, but under the one and around the other are coiled the serpents of infinite cruelty. the time came when orthodox christians began dimly to perceive that god ought at least to be as good as they were. they felt that they were incapable of inflicting eternal pain, and they began to doubt the propriety of saying that god would do that which a civilized christian would be incapable of. we have improved in all directions for the same reasons. we have better laws now because we have a better sense of justice. we are believing more and more in the government of the people. consequently we are believing more and more in the education of the people, and from that naturally results greater individuality and a greater desire to hear the honest opinions of all. the moment the expression of opinion is allowed in any department, progress begins. we are using our knowledge in every direction. the tendency is to test all opinions by the facts we know. all claims are put in the crucible of investigation--the object being to separate the true from the false. he who objects to having his opinions thus tested is regarded as a bigot. if the professors of all the sciences had claimed that the knowledge they had was given by inspiration--that it was absolutely true, and that there was no necessity of examining further, not only, but that it was a kind of blasphemy to doubt--all the sciences would have remained as stationary as religion has. just to the extent that the bible was appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded; and just to the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has advanced--so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science. another thing may be alluded to in this connection. all the countries of the world are now, and have been for years, open to us. the ideas of other people--their theories, their religions--are now known; and we have ascertained that the religions of all people have exactly the same foundation as our own--that they all arose in the same way, were substantiated in the same way, were maintained by the same means, having precisely the same objects in view. for many years, the learned of the religious world were examining the religions of other countries, and in that work they established certain rules of criticism--pursued certain lines of argument--by which they overturned the claims of those religions to supernatural origin. after this had been successfully done, others, using the same methods on our religion, pursuing the same line of argument, succeeded in overturning ours. we have found that all miracles rest on the same basis--that all wonders were born of substantially the same ignorance and the same fear. the intelligence of the world is far better distributed than ever before. the historical outlines of all countries are well known. the arguments for and against all systems of religion are generally understood. the average of intelligence is far higher than ever before. all discoveries become almost immediately the property of the whole civilized world, and all thoughts are distributed by the telegraph and press with such rapidity, that provincialism is almost unknown. the egotism of ignorance and seclusion is passing away. the prejudice of race and religion is growing feebler, and everywhere, to a greater extent than ever before, the light is welcome. these are a few of the reasons why creeds are crumbling, and why such a change has taken place in the religious world. only a few years ago the pulpit was an intellectual power. the pews listened with wonder, and accepted without question. there was something sacred about the preacher. he was different from other mortals. he had bread to eat which they knew not of. he was oracular, solemn, dignified, stupid. the pulpit has lost its position. it speaks no longer with authority. the pews determine what shall be preached. they pay only for that which they wish to buy--for that which they wish to hear. of course in every church there is an advance guard and a conservative party, and nearly every minister is obliged to preach a little for both. he now and then says a radical thing for one part of his congregation, and takes it mostly back on the next sabbath, for the sake of the others. most of them ride two horses, and their time is taken up in urging one forward and in holding the other back. the great reason why the orthodox creeds have become unpopular is, that all teach the dogma of eternal pain. in old times, when men were nearly wild beasts, it was natural enough for them to suppose that god would do as they would do in his place, and so they attributed to this god infinite cruelty, infinite revenge. this revenge, this cruelty, wore the mask of justice. they took the ground that god, having made man, had the right to do with him as he pleased. at that time they were not civilized to the extent of seeing that a god would not have the right to make a failure, and that a being of infinite wisdom and power would be under obligation to do the right, and that he would have no right to create any being whose life would not be a blessing. the very fact that he made man, would put him under obligation to see to it that life should not be a curse. the doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. it is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive and with burnings. the men who burned their fellow-men for a moment, believed that god would burn his enemies forever. no civilized men ever believed in this dogma. the belief in eternal punishment has driven millions from the church. it was easy enough for people to imagine that the children of others had gone to hell; that foreigners had been doomed to eternal pain; but when it was brought home--when fathers and mothers bent above their dead who had died in their sins--when wives shed their tears on the faces of husbands who had been born but once--love suggested doubts and love fought the dogma of eternal revenge. this doctrine is as cruel as the hunger of hyenas, and is infamous beyond the power of any language to express--yet a creed with this doctrine has been called "the glad tidings of great joy"--a consolation to the weeping world. it is a source of great pleasure to me to know that all intelligent people are ashamed to admit that they believe it--that no intelligent clergyman now preaches it, except with a preface to the effect that it is probably untrue. i have been blamed for taking this consolation from the world--for putting out, or trying to put out, the fires of hell; and many orthodox people have wondered how i could be so wicked as to deprive the world of this hope. the church clung to the doctrine because it seemed a necessary excuse for the existence of the church. the ministers said: "no hell, no atonement; no atonement, no fall of man; no fall of man, no inspired book; no inspired book, no preachers; no preachers, no salary; no hell, no missionaries; no sulphur, no salvation." at last, the people are becoming enlightened enough to ask for a better philosophy. the doctrine of hell is now only for the poor, the ragged, the ignorant. well-dressed people won't have it. nobody goes to hell in a carriage--they foot it. hell is for strangers and tramps. no soul leaves a brown-stone front for hell--they start from the tenements, from jails and reformatories. in other words, hell is for the poor. it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a poor man to get into heaven, or for a rich man to get into hell. the ministers stand by their supporters. their salaries are paid by the well-to-do, and they can hardly afford to send the subscribers to hell. every creed in which is the dogma of eternal pain is doomed. every church teaching the infinite lie must fall, and the sooner the better.--the twentieth century, n, y., april , . our schools. i believe that education is the only lever capable of raising mankind. if we wish to make the future of the republic glorious we must educate the children of the present. the greatest blessing conferred by our government is the free school. in importance it rises above everything else that the government does. in its influence it is far greater. the schoolhouse is infinitely more important than the church, and if all the money wasted in the building of churches could be devoted to education we should become a civilized people. of course, to the extent that churches disseminate thought they are good, and to the extent that they provoke discussion they are of value, but the real object should be to become acquainted with nature--with the conditions of happiness--to the end that man may take advantage of the forces of nature. i believe in the schools for manual training, and that every child should be taught not only to think, but to do, and that the hand should be educated with the brain. the money expended on schools is the best investment made by the government. the schoolhouses in new york are not sufficient. many of them are small, dark, unventilated, and unhealthy. they should be the finest public buildings in the city. it would be far better for the episcopalians to build a university than a cathedral. attached to all these schoolhouses there should be grounds for the children--places for air and sunlight. they should be given the best. they are the hope of the republic and, in my judgment, of the world. we need far more schoolhouses than we have, and while money is being wasted in a thousand directions, thousands of children are left to be educated in the gutter. it is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts. the kindergarten system should be adopted, especially for the young; attending school is then a pleasure--the children do not run away from school, but to school. we should educate the children not simply in mind, but educate their eyes and hands, and they should be taught something that will be of use, that will help them to make a living, that will give them independence, confidence--that is to say, character. the cost of the schools is very little, and the cost of land--giving the children, as i said before, air and light--would amount to nothing. there is another thing: teachers are poorly paid. only the best should be employeed, and they should be well paid. men and women of the highest character should have charge of the children, because there is a vast deal of education in association, and it is of the utmost importance that the children should associate with real gentlemen--that is to say, with real men; with real ladies--that is to say, with real women. every schoolhouse should be inviting, clean, well ventilated, attractive. the surroundings should be delightful. children forced to school, learn but little. the schoolhouse should not be a prison or the teachers turnkeys. i believe that the common school is the bread of life, and all should be commanded to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. it would have been far better to have expelled those who refused to eat. the greatest danger to the republic is ignorance. intelligence is the foundation of free government.--the world, new york, september , . vivisection. *a letter written to philip g. peabody. may , . vivisection is the inquisition--the hell--of science. all the cruelty which the human--or rather the inhuman--heart is capable of inflicting, is in this one word. below this there is no depth. this word lies like a coiled serpent at the bottom of the abyss. we can excuse, in part, the crimes of passion. we take into consideration the fact that man is liable to be caught by the whirlwind, and that from a brain on fire the soul rushes to a crime. but what excuse can ingenuity form for a man who deliberately--with an unaccelerated pulse--with the calmness of john calvin at the murder of servetus--seeks, with curious and cunning knives, in the living, quivering flesh of a dog, for all the throbbing nerves of pain? the wretches who commit these infamous crimes pretend that they are working for the good of man; that they are actuated by philanthropy; and that their pity for the sufferings of the human race drives out all pity for the animals they slowly torture to death. but those who are incapable of pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men. a physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces--laying bare the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with forceps--would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women for the gratification of his curiosity. to settle some theory, he would trifle with the life of any patient in his power. by the same reasoning he will justify the vivisection of animals and patients. he will say that it is better that a few animals should suffer than that one human being should die; and that it is far better that one patient should die, if through the sacrifice of that one, several may be saved. brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without brain. have these scientific assassins discovered anything of value? they may have settled some disputes as to the action of some organ, but have they added to the useful knowledge of the race? it is not necessary for a man to be a specialist in order to have and express his opinion as to the right or wrong of vivisection. it is not necessary to be a scientist or a naturalist to detest cruelty and to love mercy. above all the discoveries of the thinkers, above all the inventions of the ingenious, above all the victories won on fields of intellectual conflict, rise human sympathy and a sense of justice. i know that good for the human race can never be accomplished by torture. i also know that all that has been ascertained by vivisection could have been done by the dissection of the dead. i know that all the torture has been useless. all the agony inflicted has simply hardened the hearts of the criminals, without enlightening their minds. it may be that the human race might be physically improved if all the sickly and deformed babes were killed, and if all the paupers, liars, drunkards, thieves, villains, and vivisectionists were murdered. all this might, in a few ages, result in the production of a generation of physically perfect men and women; but what would such beings be worth,--men and women healthy and heartless, muscular and cruel--that is to say, intelligent wild beasts? never can i be the friend of one who vivisects his fellow-creatures. i do not wish to touch his hand. when the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of tears is dry,--the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of a desert. the census enumerator's official catechism. i suppose the government has a right to ask all of these questions, and any more it pleases, but undoubtedly the citizen would have the right to refuse to answer them. originally the census was taken simply for the purpose of ascertaining the number of people--first, as a basis of representation; second, as a basis of capitation tax; third, as a basis to arrive at the number of troops that might be called from each state; and it may be for some other purposes, but i imagine that all are embraced in the foregoing. the government has no right to invade the privacy of the citizen; no right to inquire into his financial condition, as thereby his credit might be injured; no right to pry into his affairs, into his diseases, or his deformities; and, while the government may have the right to ask these questions, i think it was foolish to instruct the enumerators to ask them, and that the citizens have a perfect right to refuse to answer them. personally, i have no objection to answering any of these questions, for the reason that nothing is the matter with me that money will not cure. i know that it is thought advisable by many to find out the amount of mortgages in the united states, the rate of interest that is being paid, the general indebtedness of individuals, counties, cities and states, and i see no impropriety in finding this out in any reasonable way. but i think it improper to insist on the debtor exposing his financial condition. my opinion is that mr. porter only wants what is perfectly reasonable, and if left to himself, would ask only those questions that all people would willingly answer. i presume we can depend on medical statistics--on the reports of hospitals, etc., in regard to diseases and deformities, without interfering with the patients. as to the financial standing of people, there are already enough of spies in this country attending to that business. i don't think there is any danger of the courts compelling a man to answer these questions. suppose a man refuses to tell whether he has a chronic disease or not, and he is brought up before a united states court for contempt. in my opinion the judge would decide that the man could not be compelled to answer. it is bad enough to have a chronic disease without publishing it to the world. all intelligent people, of course, will be desirous of giving all useful information of a character that cannot be used to their injury, but can be used for the benefit of society at large. if, however, the courts shall decide that the enumerators have the right to ask these questions, and that everybody must answer them, i doubt if the census will be finished for many years. there are hundreds and thousands of people who delight in telling all about their diseases, when they were attacked, what they have taken, how many doctors have given them up to die, etc., and if the enumerators will stop to listen, the census of will not be published until the next century.--the world, new york, june , . the agnostic christmas again we celebrate the victory of light over darkness, of the god of day over the hosts of night. again samson is victorious over delilah, and hercules triumphs once more over omphale. in the embrace of isis, osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling typhon is defeated once more. again apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow. this is the festival of thor, of baldur and of prometheus. again buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of madura, zoroaster foils the king, bacchus laughs at the rage of cadmus, and chrishna eludes the tyrant. this is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal. this is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions--the worship of the sun. sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most reasonable of all. and not only the most natural and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful. the sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of happiness, of joy. the sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the all-loving. this bright god knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge. all evil qualities were in the breast of the god of darkness, of shadow, of night. and so i say again, this is the festival of light. this is the anniversary of the triumph of the sun over the hosts of darkness. let us all hope for the triumph of light--of right and reason--for the victory of fact over falsehood, of science over superstition. and so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the sun.--the journal, new york, december , . spirituality. if there is an abused word in our language, it is "spirituality." it has been repeated over and over for several hundred years by pious pretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively to them. in the early days of christianity, the "spiritual" renounced the world with all its duties and obligations. they deserted their wives and children. they became hermits and dwelt in caves. they spent their useless years in praying for their shriveled and worthless souls. they were too "spiritual" to love women, to build homes and to labor for children. they were too "spiritual" to earn their bread, so they became beggars and stood by the highways of life and held out their hands and asked alms of industry and courage. they were too "spiritual" to be merciful. they preached the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in "the wrath to come." they were too "spiritual" to be civilized, so they persecuted their fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. they were so "spiritual" that they invented instruments of torture, founded the inquisition, appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the fagot. they tore the flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron, buried their neighbors alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the brains of babes and cut off the breasts of mothers. these "spiritual" wretches spent day and night on their knees, praying for their own salvation and asking god to curse the best and noblest of the world. john calvin was intensely "spiritual" when he warmed his fleshless hands at the flames that consumed servetus. john knox was constrained by his "spirituality" to utter low and loathsome calumnies against all women. all the witch-burners and quaker-maimers and mutilators were so "spiritual" that they constantly looked heavenward and longed for the skies. these lovers of god--these haters of men--looked upon the greek marbles as unclean, and denounced the glories of art as the snares and pitfalls of perdition. these "spiritual" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and dimples, and exhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in the effort to make love loathsome. from almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds to the wealth, the joy and glory of life. it became the fashion for the "spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize and refine the heart. man was denounced as totally depraved. woman was declared to be a perpetual temptation--her beauty a snare and her touch pollution. even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of the "spiritual." they denounce some of the best and greatest--some of the benefactors of the race--for having lived on the low plane of usefulness--and for having had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this world. thomas paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the preservation of the rights of man, and voltaire lacked the "spiritual" because he abolished torture in france and attacked, with the enthusiasm of a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope of liberty from the heart of man. humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes the absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey influences" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of the world. darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but sincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and the courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. he contented himself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest truths that man has spoken since lips have uttered speech. but we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all were only common clay. this word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit of the pharisee. it sustains the same relation to sincerity that dutch metal does to pure gold. there seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the occupant--that changes his nature--that causes him to denounce what he really loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he never felt--a rapture that never thrilled his soul. hypnotized by his surroundings, he unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes the purchasers desire. in every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties--one conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both ways. a minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in the home of a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the pulpit. the moment he stands behind the bible cushion, like bottom, he is "translated" and the titania of superstition "kisses his large, fair ears." nothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce worldliness--ask his hearers what it will profit them to build railways and palaces and lose their own souls--inquire of the common folks before him why they waste their precious years in following trades and professions, in gathering treasures that moths corrupt and rust devours, giving their days to the vulgar business of making money,--and then see him take up a collection, knowing perfectly well that only the worldly, the very people he has denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar. "spirituality" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed. some people imagine that they are "spiritual" when they are sickly. it may be well enough to ask: what is it to be really spiritual? the spiritual man lives to his ideal. he endeavors to make others happy. he does not despise the passions that have filled the world with art and glory. he loves his wife and children--home and fireside. he cultivates the amenities and refinements of life. he is the friend and champion of the oppressed. his sympathies are with the poor and the suffering. he attacks what he believes to be wrong, though defended by the many, and he is willing to stand for the right against the world. he enjoys the beautiful. in the presence of the highest creations of art his eyes are suffused with tears. when he listens to the great melodies, the divine harmonies, he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love. he is intensely human. he carries in his heart the burdens of the world. he searches for the deeper meanings. he appreciates the harmonies of conduct, the melody of a perfect life. he loves his wife and children better than any god. he cares more for the world he lives in than for any other. he tries to discharge the duties of this life, to help those that he can reach. he believes in being useful--in making money to feed and clothe and educate the ones he loves--to assist the deserving and to support himself. he does not wish to be a burden on others. he is just, generous and sincere. spirituality is all of this world. it is a child of this earth, born and cradled here. it comes from no heaven, but it makes a heaven where it is. there is no possible connection between superstition and the spiritual, or between theology and the spiritual. the spiritually-minded man is a poet. if he does not write poetry, he lives it. he is an artist. if he does not paint pictures or chisel statues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his heart. he fills the temple of his soul with all that is beautiful, and he worships at the shrine of the ideal. in all the relations of life he is faithful and true. he asks for nothing that he does not earn. he does not wish to be happy in heaven if he must receive happiness as alms he does not rely on the goodness of another. he is not ambitious to become a winged pauper. spirituality is the perfect health of the soul. it is noble, manly, generous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb. nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine--the pretence that crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes arrogant and says: "i am 'spiritual.' i hold in contempt the vulgar joys of this life. you work and toil and build homes and sing songs and weave your delicate robes. you love women and children and adorn yourselves. you subdue the earth and dig for gold. you have your theatres, your operas and all the luxuries of life; but i, beggar that i am, pharisee that i am, am your superior because i am 'spiritual.'" above all things, let us be sincere.--the conservator, philadelphia, . sumter's gun. --april th-- for about three-quarters of a century the statesmen, that is to say, the politicians, of the north and south', had been busy making compromises, adopting constitutions and enacting laws; busy making speeches, framing platforms and political pretences, to the end that liberty and slavery might dwell in peace and friendship under the same flag. arrogance on one side, hypocrisy on the other. right apologized to wrong for the sake of the union. the sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender of piracy. in the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes. thirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the promises, all the laws, all the constitutional amendments, and all the idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of orators inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags and ravelings, pieces and patches. the north and south had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment, while the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each other as enemies. the roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. the echoes of that shot went out, not only over the bay of charleston, but over the hills, the prairies and forests of the continent. these echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were wise enough to understand. who at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future? who then was great enough to see the end? who then was wise enough to know that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by thousands and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields of ruthless war? at that time abraham lincoln, an illinois lawyer, was barely a month in the president's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and majestic figure of the nineteenth century--a figure that stands alone. who could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by countless lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away? there was at that time a young man at galena, silent, unobtrusive, unknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead the greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive the final sword of the rebellion. there was another, in the southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that shot, and who afterward marched from atlanta to the sea; and another, far away by the pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who became one of the immortal three. but, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in the fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that they had heard a prophecy of freedom. and the echoes told of death and glory for many thousands--of the agonies of women--the sobs of orphans--the sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the delivered, the enfranchised, the redeemed. they who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to millions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, north as well as south, and that before the echoes should die away, all the shackles would be broken, all the constitutions and statutes of slavery repealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact made to preserve the liberties of all. what infidels have done. one hundred years after christ had died suppose some one had asked a christian, what hospitals have you built? what asylums have you founded? they would have said "none." suppose three hundred years after the death of christ the same questions had been asked the christian, he would have said "none, not one." two hundred years more and the answer would have been the same. and at that time the christian could have told the questioner that the mohammedans had built asylums before the christians. he could also have told him that there had been orphan asylums in china for hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in india, and hospitals for the sick at athens. here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and asylums are not built for charity. they are built because people do not want to be annoyed by the sick and the insane. if a sick man should come down the street and sit upon your doorstep, what would you do with him? you would have to take him into your house or leave him to suffer. private families do not wish to take the burden of the sick. consequently, in self-defence, hospitals are built so that any wanderer coming to a house, dying, or suffering from any disease, may immediately be packed off to a hospital and not become a burden upon private charity. the fact that many diseases are contagious rendered hospitals necessary for the preservation of the lives of the citizens. the same thing is true of the asylums. people do not, as a rule, want to take into their families, all the children who happen to have no fathers and mothers. so they endow and build an asylum where those children can be sent--and where they can be whipped according to law. nobody wants an insane stranger in his house. the consequence is, that the community, to get rid of these people, to get rid of the trouble, build public institutions and send them there. now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory often flung at us from the pulpit, what institutions have infidels built? in the first place, there have not been many infidels for many years and, as a rule, a known infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the christians are so forgiving and loving they boycott him. if the average infidel, freely stating his opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last several hundred years, he has been in good luck. but as a matter of fact there have been some infidels who have done some good, even from a christian standpoint. the greatest charity ever established in the united states by a man--not by a community to get rid of a nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that good to last after his death--is the girard college in the city of philadelphia. girard was an infidel. he gained his first publicity by going like a common person into the hospitals and taking care of those suffering from contagious diseases--from cholera and smallpox. so there is a man by the name of james lick, an infidel, who has given the finest observatory ever given to the world. and it is a good thing for an infidel to increase the sight of men. the reason people are theologians is because they cannot see. mr. lick has increased human vision, and i can say right here that nothing has been seen through the telescope, calculated to prove the astronomy of joshua. neither can you see with that telescope a star that bears a christian name. the reason is that christianity was opposed to astronomy. so astronomers took their revenge, and now there is not one star that glitters in all the vast firmament of the boundless heavens that has a christian name. mr. carnegie has been what they call a public-spirited man. he has given millions of dollars for libraries and other institutions, and he certainly is not an orthodox christian. infidels, however, have done much better even than that. they have increased the sum of human knowledge. john w. draper, in his work on "the intellectual development of europe," has done more good to the american people and to the civilized world than all the priests in it. he was an infidel. buckle is another who has added to the sum of human knowledge. thomas paine, an infidel, did more for this country than any other man who ever lived in it. most of the colleges in this country have, i admit, been founded by christians, and the money for their support has been donated by christians, but most of the colleges of this country have simply classified ignorance, and i think the united states would be more learned than it is to-day if there never had been a christian college in it. but whether christians gave or infidels gave has nothing to do with the probability of the jonah story or with the probability that the mark on the dial went back ten degrees to prove that a little jewish king was not going to die of a boil. and if the infidels are all stingy and the christians are all generous it does not even tend to prove that three men were in a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont without even scorching their clothes. the best college in this country--or, at least, for a long time the best--was the institution founded by ezra cornell. that is a school where people try to teach what they know instead of what they guess. yet cornell university was attacked by every orthodox college in the united states at the time it was founded, because they said it was without religion. everybody knows that christianity does not tend to generosity. christianity says: "save your own soul, whether anybody else saves his or not." christianity says: "let the great ship go down. you get into the little life-boat of the gospel and paddle ashore, no matter what becomes of the rest." christianity says you must love god, or something in the sky, better than you love your wife and children. and the christian, even when giving, expects to get a very large compound interest in another world. the infidel who gives, asks no return except the joy that comes from relieving the wants of another. again the christians, although they have built colleges, have built them for the purpose of spreading their superstitions, and have poisoned the minds of the world, while the infidel teachers have filled the world with light. darwin did more for mankind than if he had built a thousand hospitals. voltaire did more than if he had built a thousand asylums for the insane. he will prevent thousands from going insane that otherwise might be driven into insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy." haeckel is filling the world with light. i am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of christians and the labors of infidels should be compared. then let it be understood that infidels have been in this world but a very short time. a few years ago there were hardly any. i can remember when i was the only infidel in the town where i lived. give us time and we will build colleges in which something will be taught that is of use. we hope to build temples that will be dedicated to reason and common sense, and where every effort will be made to reform mankind and make them better and better in this world. i am saying nothing against the charity of christians; nothing against any kindness or goodness. but i say the christians, in my judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. they may talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane by their teachings. orthodox religion has opposed liberty. it has opposed investigation and free thought. if all the churches in europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied, if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been far, far beyond what it is to-day. there is an idea that christianity is positive, and infidelity is negative. if this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is negative. what i contend is that infidelity is a positive religion; that christianity is a negative religion. christianity denies and infidelity admits. infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions of the reason. infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the heart of man. that is positive. religion asks man to give up this world for one he knows nothing about. that is negative. i stand by the religion of reason. i stand by the dogmas of demonstration. cruelty in the elmira reformatory. in my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being whipped or clubbed. mr. brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. he belongs to the dark ages--to the inquisition, to the torture-chamber, and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. to put any man within his power is in itself a crime. mr. brockway is a believer in cruelty--an apostle of brutality. he beats and bruises flesh to satisfy his conscience--his sense of duty. he wields the club himself because he enjoys the agony he inflicts. when a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. during the remainder of his term he trembles and obeys. but he is not reformed. in his heart is the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society far worse than when he entered the prison. mr. brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the elmira reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man--some man with brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel. i do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating the flesh of another, can reform him. the lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate the heart. there should be no bruising, no scarring of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. a civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. brutality has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has been a failure. criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and degrade society and increase the number of crimes. in the army and navy, soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld. only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punished with death in england. those who wished to reform this savage code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. they were regarded as weak and sentimental. at last the english code was reformed through the efforts of men who had brain and heart. but it is a significant fact that no bishop of the episcopal church, sitting in the house of lords, ever voted for the repeal of one of those savage laws. possibly this fact throws light on the recent poetic and christian declaration by bishop potter to the effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize through their hides the fact that the state has laws to which the individual must be obedient." this orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect accord with the history of the church. but it does not accord with the intelligence and philanthropy of our time. let us develop the brain by education, the heart by kindness. let us remember that criminals are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the conditions and to reform the criminals. law's delay. the object of a trial is not to convict--neither is it to acquit. the object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance with law. in this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable doubts. we insist that his guilt shall be really established by competent testimony. we also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have these exceptions passed upon by a higher court. we also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict. some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. they say that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is wasted because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a strict compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for years, and that in many instances the guilty escape. no one, so far as i know, asks that men shall be tried by partial and prejudiced jurors, or that judges shall be allowed to disregard the law for the sake of securing convictions, or that verdicts shall be allowed to stand unsupported by sufficient legal evidence. yet they talk as if they asked for these very things. we must remember that revenge is always in haste, and that justice can always afford to wait until the evidence is actually heard. there should be no delay except that which is caused by taking the time to find the truth. without such delay courts become mobs, before which, trials in a legal sense are impossible. it might be better, in a city like new york, to have the grand jury in almost perpetual session, so that a man charged with crime could be immediately indicted and immediately tried. so, the highest court to which appeals are taken should be in almost constant session, in order that all appeals might be quickly decided. but we do not wish to take away the right of appeal. that right tends to civilize the trial judge, reduces to a minimum his arbitrary power, puts his hatreds and passions in the keeping and control of his intelligence. that right of appeal has an excellent effect on the jury, because they know that their verdict may not be the last word. the appeal, where the accused is guilty, does not take the sword from the state, but it is a shield for the innocent. in england there is no appeal. the trials are shorter, the judges more arbitrary, the juries subservient, and the verdict often depends on the prejudice of the judge. the judge knows that he has the last guess--that he cannot be reviewed--and in the passion often engendered by the conflict of trial he acts much like a wild beast. the case of mrs. maybrick is exactly in point, and shows how dangerous it is to clothe the trial judge with supreme power. without doubt there is in this country too much delay, and this, it seems to me, can be avoided without putting the life or liberty of innocent persons in peril. take only such time as may be necessary to give the accused a fair trial, before an impartial jury, under and in accordance with the established forms of law, and to allow an appeal to the highest court. the state in which a criminal cannot have an impartial trial is not civilized. people who demand the conviction of the accused without regard to the forms of law are savages. but there is another side to this question. many people are losing confidence in the idea that punishment reforms the convict, or that capital punishment materially decreases capital crimes. my own opinion is that ordinary criminals should, if possible, be reformed, and that murderers and desperate wretches should be imprisoned for life. i am inclined to believe that our prisons make more criminals than they reform; that places like the reformatory at elmira plant and cultivate the seeds of crime. the state should never seek revenge; neither should it put in peril the life or liberty of the accused for the sake of a hasty trial, or by the denial of appeal. in my judgment, defective as our criminal courts and methods are, they are far better than the english. our judges are kinder, more humane; our juries nearer independent, and our methods better calculated to ascertain the truth. the bigotry of colleges. * a newspaper dispatch from lawrence, kansas, published yesterday, stated that col. robert o. ingersoll had been invited by the law students of the kansas state university to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the faculty council had objected and had invited chauncey m. depew instead. the dispatch also stared that the council had notified representatives of the law school that if they insisted on the great agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty would take heroic measures to thwart their design. it was also stated that the law students had made it clearly understood that the lecture ingersoll had been invited to deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views on religion, the bible and the deity were not to be alluded to, and they considered that the faculty council had "subjected them to an insult," and had gone out of its way, also, to affront colonel ingersoll without cause. colonel ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature, philosophically and in a true manly spirit. chauncey m. depew was seen at his residence, no. west fifty-fourth street, last night and asked if he had been invited to address the students of the kansas university in the place of colonel ingersoll. he said he had not. "would you go if you were invited?" he was asked. "no; i would not," he answered. "you see, i am so busy here; besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such that i would not have time to go to such a distant point, anyhow. "no, i do not care to express any opinion regarding the action of the faculty council of the kansas university, but i consider colonel ingersoll one of the greatest intellects of the century, from whose teaching all can profit."--the journal, new york, january , im. universities are naturally conservative. they know that if suspected of being really scientific, orthodox christians will keep their sons away, so they pander to the superstitions of the times. most of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the enemy of independence. universities, like people, have the instinct of self-preservation. the university of kansas is like the rest. the faculty of cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly the same action, and the faculty of the university of missouri did the same. these institutions must be the friends and defenders of superstition. the vanderbilt college, or university of tennessee, discharged professor winchell because he differed with the author of genesis on geology. these colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. if humboldt and darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these institutions of "learning." we need not find fault with the president and professors. they want to keep their places. the probability is that they would like to do better--that they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their hearts, welcome the truth. still, these universities seem to do good. the minds of their students are developed to that degree, that they naturally turn to me as the defender of their thoughts. this gives me great hope for the future. the young, the growing, the enthusiastic, are on my side. all the students who have selected me are my friends, and i thank them with all my heart. a young man's chances to-day. * col. robert g. ingersoll represents what is intellectually highest among the whole world's opponents of religion. he counts theology as the science of a superstition. he decries religion as it exists, and holds that the broadest thing a man, or all human nature, can do is to acknowledge ignorance when it cannot know. he accepts nothing on faith. he is the american who is forever asking, "why?"--who demands a reason and material proof before believing. as christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or demonstrable theory must reject it. believe as he does or not, all americans must be interested in him. his mind is marvelous, his tongue is silvern, his logic is invincible-- as logic. col. ingersoll is a shining example of the oft-quoted fact that, given mental ability, health and industry, a young man may make for himself whatever place in life he desires and is fitted to fill. his early advantages were limited, for his father, a congregational minister whose field of labor often changed, was a man of far too small an income to send his sons to college. whatever of mental training the young man had he was obliged to get by reason of his own exertion, and his splendid triumphs as an orator, and his solid achievements as a lawyer are all the result of his own efforts. the only help he had was that which is the common heritage of all american young men--the chance to fight even handed for success. it is not surprising, therefore, that col. ingersoll feels a deep interest in every bright young man of his acquaintance who is struggling manfully for the glittering prize so brilliantly won by the great agnostic himself. he does not believe, however, that the young man who goes out mto the world nowadays to seek his fortune has so easy a battle to fight as had the young men of thirty years ago. in conversation with the writer col. ingersoll spoke earnestly upon this subject. col. ingersoll's views regarding the bible and christianity were not generally understood by the public for some time after he had become famous as an orator, although he began to diverge from orthodoxy when quite young, and was as pronounced an agnostic when he went into the army, as he is now. col. ingersoll is an inch less than six feet tall, and weighs ten more than two hundred pounds. he will be sixty- one next august, and his hair is snowy. his shoulders are broad and as straight as they were eighteen years ago when he electrified a people and place! his own name upon the list of a nation's greatest orators with his matchless "plumed knight" speech in nominating james g. blaine for the presidency. his blue eyes look straight into yours when he speaks to you, and his sentences are punctuated by engaging little tricks of facial expression--now the brow is criss-crossed with the lines of a frown, sometimes quizzical and sometimes indignant--next, the smooth-shaven lips break into a curving smile, which may grow into a broad grin if the point just made were a humorous one, and this is quite likely to be followed by a look of sueh intense earnestness that you wonder if he will ever smile again. and all the time his eyes flash, illuminating, sometimes anticipatory, glances that add immensely to the clearness with which the thought he is expressing is set before you. he delights to tell a story, and he never tells any but good ones, but--and in this he is like lincoln--he is apt to use his stories to drive some proposition home. this is almost invariably true, even when he sets out to spin a yarn for the story's simple sake. his mentality seems to be duplex, quadruplex, multiplex, if you please--and while his lips and tongue are effectively delivering the story, his wonderful brain is, seemingly, unconsciously applying the point of the story to the proving of a pet theory, and when the tale has been told the verbal application follows. his birthplace was dresden, n. y. his early boyhood was passed in new york state and his youth and young manhood in illinois, ohio and wisconsin. his handgrasp is hearty and his manner and words are the very essence of straightforward directness. i called at his office once when the colonel was closeted with a person who wished to retain him in a law case involving a good deal of money. after a bit i was told that i could see him, and as i entered he was saying: "the case can't be won, for you are in the wrong. i don't want it." "but," pleaded the would-be client, "it seems to me that a good deal can be done in such a case by the way it is handled before the jury, and i thought if you were to be the man i might get a verdict." "no, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead of a plumb line; "i won't take it. good morning, sir." it has been sometimes said, indulgently, of col. ingersoll that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at all familiar with him or his work. as a matter of fact, his industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on after the fashion of less brainy men. when he has an important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of its details absorbs him at once and completely. it sometimes becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. but whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the knowledge required. and once acquired no sort of information ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics. it is the same when he has an address to prepare. every authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material that suggests some of the most telling points is one which no one but ingersoll himself would think of referring to. here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch of human thought or investigation. his memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a war time friend of his discovered last summer. it was a busy day with the colonel, who had given instructions to his office boy that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that col. ingersoll could not see him "but," said the visitor: "i must see him. i haven't seen him for twenty years; i am going out of town this afternoon, and i wouldn't miss talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of money." "well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by anybody." at this moment the door of the colonel's private office opened, and the colonel's portly form appeared upon the scene. "why, maj. blank," he said, "come in. i did tell the boy i wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the biggest law case in the world." the colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to leave new york without seeing and renewing his old acquaintance. col. ingersoll's retorts are as quick as a flash-light and as searching. one of them was so startling and so effective as to give a certain famous long drawn out railroad suit the nickname. "the ananias and sapphira ease." ingersoll was speaking and had made certain statements highly damaging to the other side, in such a way as to thoroughly anger a member of the opposing counsel, who suddenly interrupted the speaker with the abrupt and sarcastic remark: "i suppose the colonel, in the nature of things, never heard of the story of ananias ana sapphira." there were those present who expected to witness an angry outburst on the part of ingersoll in response to this plain implication that his statement had not the quality of veracity, but they were disappointed. ingersoll didn't even get angry. he turned slightly, fixed his limpid blue eyes upon the speaker, and looked cherubically. then he gently drawled out. "oh, yes, i have, yes, i have. and i've watched the gentleman who has just spoken all through this case with a curious interest. i've been expecting every once in a while to see him drop dead, but he seems to be all right down to the present moment." ingersoll never gets angry when he is interrupted, even if it is in the middle of an address or a lecture. a man interrupted him in cincinnati once, cutting right into one of the lecturer's most resonant periods with a yell: "that's a lie. bob lngersoll, and you know it." the audience was in an uproar in an instant, and cries of "put him out!" "throw him down stairs!" and the like were heard from all parts of the house. ingersoll stopped talking for a moment, and held up his hands, smiling. "don't hurt the man," he said. "he thinks he is right. but let me explain this thing for his especial benefit." then he reasoned the matter out in language so simple and plain that no one of any intelligence whatever could fail to comprehend. the man was not ejected, but sat through the entire address, and at the close asked the privilege of begging the lecturer's pardon. like most men of genius, colonel lngersoll is a passionate lover of music, and the harmonies of wagner seem to him to be the very acme of musical expression.... notwithstanding his thoroughly heretical beliefs or lack of beliefs, or, as he would say, because of them, colonel lngersoll is a very tender-hearted man. no one has ever made so strong an argument against vivisection in the alleged interests of science as lngersoll did in a speech a few years ago. to the presentation of his views against the refinements of scientific cruelty he brought his most vivid imagination, his most careful thought and his most impassioned oratory. colonel ingersoll's popularity with those who know him is proverbial. the clerks in his offices not only admire him for his ability and his achievements, but they esteem him for his kindliness of heart and his invariable courtesy in his intercourse with them. his offices are located in one of the buildings devoted to corporations and professional men on the lower part of nassau street and consist of three rooms. the one used by the head of the firm is farthest from the entrance. all are furnished in solid black walnut. in the colonel's room there is a picture of his loved brother ebon, and hanging below the frame thereof is the tin sign that the two brothers hung out for a shingle when they went into the law business in peoria. there are also pictures of a judge or two. the desks in all the rooms are littered with papers. books are piled to the ceiling. everywhere there is an air of personal freedom. there is no servility either to clients or the head of the business, but there is everywhere an informal courtesy somewhat akin to that which is born of a fueling of great comradeship. of the colonel's ideal home life the world has often been told. he lives during the winter at his town house in fifth avenue; in the summer at dobbs ferry, a charming place a few miles up the hudson from new york.--boston herald, july, . a few years ago there were many thousand miles of railroads to be built, a great many towns and cities to be located, constructed and filled; vast areas of uncultivated land were waiting for the plow, vast forests the axe, and thousands of mines were longing to be opened. in those days every young man of energy and industry had a future. the professions were not overcrowded; there were more patients than doctors, more litigants than lawyers, more buyers of goods than merchants. the young man of that time who was raised on a farm got a little education, taught school, read law or medicine--some of the weaker ones read theology--and there seemed to be plenty of room, plenty of avenues to success and distinction. so, too, a few years ago a political life was considered honorable, and so in politics there were many great careers. so, hundreds of towns wanted newspapers, and in each of those towns there was an opening for some energetic young man. at that time the plant cost but little; a few dollars purchased the press--the young publisher could get the paper stock on credit. now the railroads have all been built; the canals are finished; the cities have been located; the outside property has been cut into lots, and sold and mortgaged many times over. now it requires great capital to go into business. the individual is counting for less and less; the corporation, the trust, for more and more. now a great merchant employs hundreds of clerks; a few years ago most of those now clerks would have been merchants. and so it seems to be in nearly every department of life. of course, i do not know what inventions may leap from the brains of the future; there may be millions and millions of fortunes yet to be made in that direction, but of that i am not speaking. so, i think that a few years ago the chances were far more numerous and favorable to young men who wished to make a name for themselves, and to succeed in some department of human energy than now. in savage life a living is very easy to get. most any savage can hunt or fish; consequently there are few failures. but in civilized life competition becomes stronger and sharper; consequently, the percentage of failures increases, and this seems to be the law. the individual is constantly counting for less. it may be that, on the average, people live better than they did formerly, that they have more to eat, drink and wear; but the individual horizon has lessened; it is not so wide and cloudless as formerly. so i say that the chances for great fortunes, for great success, are growing less and less. i think a young man should do that which is easiest for him to do, provided there is an opportunity; if there is none, then he should take the next. the first object of every young man should be to be self-supporting, no matter in what direction--be independent. he should avoid being a clerk and he should avoid giving his future into the hands of any one person. he should endeavor to get a business in which the community will be his patron, and whether he is to be a lawyer, a doctor or a day-laborer depends on how much he has mixed mind with muscle. if a young man imagines that he has an aptitude for public speaking--that is, if he has a great desire to make his ideas known to the world--the probability is that the desire will choose the way, time and place for him to make the effort. if he really has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. if he is so carried away with his subject, is so in earnest that he becomes an instrumentality of his thought--so that he is forgotten by himself; so that he cares neither for applause nor censure--simply caring to present his thoughts in the highest and best and most comprehensive way, the probability is that he will be an orator. i think oratory is something that cannot be taught. undoubtedly a man can learn to be a fair talker. he can by practice learn to present his ideas consecutively, clearly and in what you may call "form," but there is as much difference between this and an oration as there is between a skeleton and a living human being clad in sensitive, throbbing flesh. there are millions of skeleton makers, millions of people who can express what may be called "the bones" of a discourse, but not one in a million who can clothe these bones. you can no more teach a man to be an orator than you can teach him to be an artist or a poet of the first class. when you teach him, there is the same difference between the man who is taught, and the man who is what he is by virtue of a natural aptitude, that there is between a pump and a spring--between a canal and a river--between april rain and water-works. it is a question of capacity and feeling--not of education. there are some things that you can tell an orator not to do. for instance, he should never drink water while talking, because the interest is broken, and for the moment he loses control of his audience. he should never look at his watch for the same reason. he should never talk about himself. he should never deal in personalities. he should never tell long stories, and if he tells any story he should never say that it is a true story, and that he knew the parties. this makes it a question of veracity instead of a question of art. he should never clog his discourse with details. he should never dwell upon particulars--he should touch universals, because the great truths are for all time. if he wants to know something, if he wishes to feel something, let him read shakespeare. let him listen to the music of wagner, of beethoven, or schubert. if he wishes to express himself in the highest and most perfect form, let him become familiar with the great paintings of the world--with the great statues--all these will lend grace, will give movement and passion and rhythm to his words. a great orator puts into his speech the perfume, the feelings, the intensity of all the great and beautiful and marvelous things that he has seen and heard and felt. an orator must be a poet, a metaphysician, a logician--and above all, must have sympathy with all. science and sentiment. it was thought at one time by many that science would do away with poetry--that it was the enemy of the imagination. we know now that is not true. we know that science goes hand in hand with imagination. we know that it is in the highest degree poetic and that the old ideas once considered so beautiful are flat and stale. compare kepler's laws with the old greek idea that the planets were boosted or pushed by angels. the more we know, the more beauty, the more poetry we find. ignorance is not the mother of the poetic or artistic. so, some people imagine that science will do away with sentiment. in my judgment, science will not only increase sentiment but sense. a person will be attracted to another for a thousand reasons, and why a person is attracted to another, may, and in some degree will, depend upon the intellectual, artistic and ethical development of each. the handsomest girl in zululand might not be attractive to herbert spencer, and the fairest girl in england might not be able to hasten the pulse of a choctaw brave. this does not prove that there is any lack of sentiment. men are influenced according to their capacity, their temperament, their knowledge. some men fall in love with a small waist, an arched instep or curly hair, without the slightest regard to mind or muscle. this we call sentiment. now, educate such men, develop their brains, enlarge their intellectual horizon, teach them something of the laws of health, and then they may fall in love with women because they are developed grandly in body and mind. the sentiment is still there--still controls--but back of the sentiment is science. sentiment can never be destroyed, and love will forever rule the human race. thousands, millions of people fear that science will destroy not only poetry, not only sentiment, but religion. this fear is idiotic. science will destroy superstition, but it will not injure true religion. science is the foundation of real religion. science teaches us the consequences of actions, the rights and duties of all. without science there can be no real religion. only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. real love and real religion are in no danger from science. the more we know the safer all good things are. do i think that the marriage of the sickly and diseased ought to be prevented by law? i have not much confidence in law--in law that i know cannot be carried out. the poor, the sickly, the diseased, as long as they are ignorant, will marry and help fill the world with wretchedness and want. we must rely on education instead of legislation. we must teach the consequences of actions. we must show the sickly and diseased what their children will be. we must preach the gospel of the body. i believe the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease--to leave a legacy of agony. i believe the time will come when men will refuse to fill the future with consumption and insanity. yes, we shall study ourselves. we shall understand the conditions of health and then we shall say: we are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children. even if i should get to heaven and have a harp, i know that i could not bear to see my descendants still on the earth, diseased, deformed, crazed--all suffering the penalties of my ignorance. let us have more science and more sentiment--more knowledge and more conscience--more liberty and more love. sowing and reaping. i have read the sermon on "sowing and reaping," and i now understand mr. moody better than i did before. the other day, in new york, mr. moody said that he implicitly believed the story of jonah and really thought that he was in the fish for three days. when i read it i was surprised that a man living in the century of humboldt, darwin, huxley, spencer and haeckel, should believe such an absurd and idiotic story. now i understand the whole thing. i can account for the amazing credulity of this man. mr. moody never read one of my lectures. that accounts for it all, and no wonder that he is a hundred years behind the times. he never read one of my lectures; that is a perfect explanation. poor man! he has no idea of what he has lost. he has been living on miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound sense. poor man! probably mr. moody has never read one word of darwin and so he still believes in the garden of eden and the talking snake and really thinks that jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its nostrils, stood it up and called it adam, and that he then took one of adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured eve. probably he has never read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still believes in the story of the flood. knowing nothing of astronomy, he still thinks that joshua stopped the sun. poor man! he has neglected spencer and has no idea of evolution. he thinks that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair having been perfect. he does not believe that man came from lower forms and has gradually journeyed upward. he really thinks that the devil outwitted god and vaccinated the human race with the virus of total depravity. poor man! he knows nothing of the great scientists--of the great thinkers, of the emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of spinoza, of voltaire, of draper, buckle, of paine or renan. mr. moody ought to read something besides the bible--ought to find out what the really intelligent have thought. he ought to get some new ideas--a few facts--and i think that, after he did so, he would be astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. he is a good man. his heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless. the trouble with this sermon, "sowing and reaping," is that he contradicts it. i believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every human being must bear the natural consequences of his acts. actions are good or bad according to their consequences. that is my doctrine. there is no forgiveness in nature. but mr. moody tells us that a man may sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath, repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven--in other words, that this man will not reap what he sowed, but what christ sowed, that this man's thistles will be changed to figs. this doctrine, to my mind, is not only absurd, but dishonest and corrupting. this is one of the absurdities in mr. moody's theology. the other is that a man can justly be damned for the sin of another. nothing can exceed the foolishness of these two ideas--first: "man can be justly punished forever for the sin of adam." second: "man can be justly rewarded with eternal joy for the goodness of christ." yet the man who believes this, preaches a sermon in which he says that a man must reap what he sows. orthodox christians teach exactly the opposite. they teach that no matter what a man sows, no matter how wicked his life has been, that he can by repentance change the crop. that all his sins shall be forgotten and that only the goodness of christ will be remembered. let us see how this works: mr. a. has lived a good and useful life, kept his contracts, paid his debts, educated his children, loved his wife and made his home a heaven, but he did not believe in the inspiration of mr. moody's bible. he died and his soul was sent to hell. mr. moody says that as a man sows so shall he reap. mr. b. lived a useless and wicked life. by his cruelty he drove his wife to insanity, his children became vagrants and beggars, his home was a perfect hell, he committed many crimes, he was a thief, a burglar, a murderer. a few minutes before he was hanged he got religion and his soul went from the scaffold to heaven. and yet mr. moody says that as a man sows so shall he reap. mr. moody ought to have a little philosophy--a little good sense. so mr. moody says that only in this life can a man secure the reward of repentance. just before a man dies, god loves him--loves him as a mother loves her babe--but a moment after he dies, he sends his soul to hell. in the other world nothing can be done to reform him. the society of god and the angels can have no good effect. nobody can be made better in heaven. this world is the only place where reform is possible. here, surrounded by the wicked in the midst of temptations, in the darkness of ignorance, a human being may reform if he is fortunate enough to hear the words of some revival preacher, but when he goes before his maker--before the trinity--he has no chance. god can do nothing for his soul except to send it to hell. this shows that the power for good is confined to people in this world and that in the next world god can do nothing to reform his children. this is theology. this is what they call "tidings of great joy." every orthodox creed is savage, ignorant and idiotic. in the orthodox heaven there is no mercy, no pity. in the orthodox hell there is no hope, no reform. god is an eternal jailer, an everlasting turnkey. and yet christians now say that while there may be no fire in hell--no actual flames--yet the lost souls will feel forever the tortures of conscience. what will conscience trouble the people in hell about? they tell us that they will remember their sins. well, what about the souls in heaven? they committed awful sins, they made their fellow-men unhappy. they took the lives of others--sent many to eternal torment. will they have no conscience? is hell the only place where souls regret the evil they have done? have the angels no regret, no remorse, no conscience? if this be so, heaven must be somewhat worse than hell. in old times, if people wanted to know anything they asked the preacher. now they do if they don't. the bible has, with intelligent men, lost its authority. the miracles are now regarded by sensible people as the spawn of ignorance and credulity. on every hand people are looking for facts--for truth--and all religions are taking their places in the museum of myths. yes, the people are becoming civilized, and so they are putting out the fires of hell. they are ceasing to believe in a god who seeks eternal revenge. the people are becoming sensible. they are asking for evidence. they care but little for the winged phantoms of the air--for the ghosts and devils and supposed gods. the people are anxious to be happy here and they want a little heaven in this life. theology is a curse. science is a blessing. we do not need preachers, but teachers; not priests, but thinkers; not churches, but schools; not steeples, but observatories. we want knowledge. let us hope that mr. moody will read some really useful books. should infidels send their children to sunday school? should parents, who are infidels, unbelievers or atheists, send their children to sunday schools and churches to give them the benefit of christian education? parents who do not believe the bible to be an inspired book should not teach their children that it is. they should be absolutely honest. hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a rule, lies are less valuable than facts. an unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be deformed, stunted and shriveled by superstition. he should not allow the child's imagination to be polluted. nothing is more outrageous than to take advantage of the helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds of falsehoods, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of fear, to teach dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain--filling life with the glow and glare of hell. no unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox inquisitions. he should defend the mind from attack as he would the body. he should recognize the rights of the soul. in the orthodox sunday schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe--that evidence is not essential--that faith is independent of facts and that religion is superior to reason. they are taught not to use their natural sense--not to tell what they really think--not to entertain a doubt--not to ask wicked questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers say. in this way the minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and conquered. would an educated man send his child to a school in which newton's statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation was denied--in which the law of falling bodies, as given by galileo, was ridiculed--kepler's three laws declared to be idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd? why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the geology and astronomy of the bible? children should be taught to seek for the truth--to be honest, kind, generous, merciful and just. they should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal. why then should an unbeliever, an infidel, send his child to an orthodox sunday school where he is taught that he has no right to seek for the truth--no right to be mentally honest, and that he will be damned for an honest doubt--where he is taught that god was ferocious, revengeful, heartless as a wild beast--that he drowned millions of his children--that he ordered wars of extermination and told his soldiers to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers and children, and to assassinate with the sword of war the babes unborn? why should an unbeliever in the bible send his child to an orthodox sunday school where he is taught that god was in favor of slavery and told the jews to buy of the heathen and that they should be their bondmen and bondwomen forever; where he is taught that god upheld polygamy and the degradation of women? why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of nature, in the unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect, allow his child to be taught that miracles have been performed; that men have gone bodily to heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with manna and quails; that fire has refused to burn clothes and flesh of men; that iron has been made to float; that the earth and moon have been stopped and that the earth has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other way; that devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have been cured with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made to live again? the thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest evidence that these miracles ever were performed. why should he allow his children to be stuffed with these foolish and impossible falsehoods? why should he give his lambs to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of superstition? children should be taught only what somebody knows. guesses should not be palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. if a christian lived in constantinople he would not send his children to the mosque to be taught that mohammed was a prophet of god and that the koran is an inspired book. why? because he does not believe in mohammed or the koran. that is reason enough. so, an agnostic, living in new york, should not allow his children to be taught that the bible is an inspired book. i use the word "agnostic" because i prefer it to the word atheist. as a matter of fact, no one knows that god exists and no one knows that god does not exist. to my mind there is no evidence that god exists--that this world is governed by a being of infinite goodness, wisdom and power, but i do not pretend to know. what i insist upon is that children should not be poisoned--should not be taken advantage of--that they should be treated fairly, honestly--that they should be allowed to develop from the inside instead of being crammed from the outside--that they should be taught to reason, not to believe--to think, to investigate and to use their senses, their minds. would a catholic send his children to a school to be taught that catholicism is superstition and that science is the only savior of mankind? why then should a free and sensible believer in science, in the naturalness of the universe, send his child to a catholic school? nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd. my advice to all agnostics is to keep their children from the orthodox sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the poison of the pulpits. teach your children the facts you know. if you do not know, say so. be as honest as you are ignorant. do all you can to develop their minds, to the end that they may live useful and happy lives. strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses about the cradle. keep your children from the augurs, the soothsayers, the medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural. tell them that all religions have been made by folks and that all the "sacred books" were written by ignorant men. teach them that the world is natural. teach them to be absolutely honest. do not send them where they will contract diseases of the mind--the leprosy of the soul. let us do all we can to make them intelligent. what would you substitute for the bible as a moral guide? * written for the boston investigator. you ask me what i would "substitute for the bible as a moral guide.". i know that many people regard the bible as the only moral guide and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect standard of morality. there are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good regulations and laws in the bible, and these are mingled with bad precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws. but we must remember that the bible is a collection of many books written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and tells in part the history of a people. we must also remember that the writers treat of many subjects. many of these writers have nothing to say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue. the book of genesis has nothing about morality. there is not a line in it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. no one can call that book a moral guide. it is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and legend. in exodus we have an account of the manner in which jehovah delivered the jews from egyptian bondage. we now know that the jews were never enslaved by the egyptians; that the entire story is a fiction. we know this, because there is not found in hebrew a word of egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language of the egyptians a word of hebrew origin. this being so, we know that the hebrews and egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years. certainly exodus was not written to teach morality. in that book you cannot find one word against human slavery. as a matter of fact, jehovah was a believer in that institution. the killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused to let the hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. the writer of that book regarded all the people of egypt, their children, their flocks and herds, as the property of pharaoh, and these people and these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but simply for the purpose of punishing the king. is it possible to get any morality out of this history? all the laws found in exodus, including the ten commandments, so far as they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all the peoples of the world. murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a majority of people object to being murdered. industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny. the nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and despises the liar. among all tribes, among all people, truth-telling has been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice. the love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found among all the animals that live. so the love of children for parents is natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. love does not spring from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands. so men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or creeds. all the ten commandments that are good were old, were the result of experience. the commandments that were original with jehovah were foolish. the worship of "any other god" could not have been worse than the worship of jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the sacredness of the sabbath. if commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against wars of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all its forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call such commandments a moral guide. before we can truthfully say that the ten commandments constitute a moral guide, we must add and subtract. we must throw away some, and write others in their places. the commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact, or experience. many of the regulations found in exodus, leviticus, numbers and deuteronomy, are good. many are absurd and cruel. the entire ceremonial of worship is insane. most of the punishment for violations of laws are un-philosophic and brutal.... the fact is that the pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes, and to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful or true. nothing of a moral nature can be found in joshua or judges. these books are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. they are about the same as the real history of the apache indians. the story of ruth is not particularly moral. in first and second samuel there is not one word calculated to develop the brain or conscience. jehovah murdered seventy thousand jews because david took a census of the people. david, according to the account, was the guilty one, but only the innocent were killed. in first and second kings can be found nothing of ethical value. all the kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the crowned wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the favorites of jehovah. in these books there cannot be found one word in favor of liberty. there are some good psalms, and there are some that are infamous. most of these psalms are selfish. many of them, are passionate appeals for revenge. the story of job shocks the heart of every good man. in this book there is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this drama called job, is heartless to the last degree. the children of job are murdered to settle a little wager between god and the devil. afterward, job having remained firm, other children are given in the place of the murdered ones. nothing, however, is done for the children who were murdered. the book of esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in the book is that the name of jehovah is not mentioned. i like the song of solomon because it tells of human love, and that is something i can understand. that book in my judgment, is worth all the ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide. there are some wise and merciful proverbs. some are selfish and some are flat and commonplace. i like the book of ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some poetry, and some philosophy. take away the interpolations and it is a good book. of course there is nothing in nehemiah or ezra to make men better, nothing in jeremiah or lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only a few passages in isaiah that can be used in a good cause. in ezekiel and daniel we find only ravings of the insane. in some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now and then an elevated thought. you can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a very bad creed. the trouble is that the spirit of the old testament, its disposition, its temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. the most fiendish things are commanded, commended and applauded. the stories that are told of joseph, of elisha, of daniel and gideon, and of many others, are hideous; hellish. on the whole, the old testament cannot be considered a moral guide. jehovah was not a moral god. he had all the vices, and he lacked all the virtues. he generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise. at the same time, we must remember that the old testament is a natural production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling toward the light. we must give them credit for the noble things they said, and we must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even their crimes. i know that many christians regard the old testament as the foundation and the new as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are faults and mistakes in the old testament, they insist that the new is the flower and perfect fruit. i admit that there are many good things in the new testament, and if we take from that book the dogmas of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood; if we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies, the idea that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that poverty is a preparation for paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good, sensible passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good moral guide,--narrow, but moral. of course, many important things would be left out. you would have nothing about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for education, nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still you would have a fairly good moral guide. on the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum. if you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal hatred, verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed that would shock the heart of a hyena. it may be that no book contains better passages than the new testament, but certainly no book contains worse. below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that kiss, you find the poison of the cobra. the bible is not a moral guide. any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum. what is morality? in this world we need certain things. we have many wants. we are exposed to many dangers. we need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind. we are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions. there are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase, well-being. there are certain things that destroy and there are others that preserve. happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is good, that is to say, moral. everything that destroys or diminishes well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. in other words, all that is good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral. what then is, or can be called, a moral guide? the shortest possible answer is one word: intelligence. we want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. we want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. we want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind. these facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide. we cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions of the world. these religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. all these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. they are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. they destroy the manliness of man. they promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith. this is not only absurd, but it is immoral. these religions teach the slave virtues. they make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. they create artificial crimes. to eat meat on friday, to enjoy yourself on sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god. to give your honest opinion about jehovah, mohammed or christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. to question or doubt miracles, is far worse than to deny known facts. only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. it is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. in addition to this, you must believe. these things are the foes of morality. they subvert all natural conceptions of virtue. all "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly unphilosophic. and all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly immoral. again i say: intelligence is the only moral guide. governor rollins' fast-day proclamation. the governor of new hampshire, undoubtedly a good and sincere man, issued a fast-day proclamation to the people of his state, in which i find the following paragraph: "the decline of the christian religion, particularly in our rural communities, is a marked feature of the times, and steps should be taken to remedy it. no matter what our belief may be in religious matters, every good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental and financial, is swift and sure. to me this is one of the strongest evidences of the fundamental truth of christianity. i suggest to-day, as far as possible on fast-day, union meetings be held, made up of all shades of belief, including all who are interested in the welfare of our state, and that in your prayers and other devotions and in your mutual councils you remember and consider the problem of the condition of religion in the rural communities. there are towns where no church bell sends forth its solemn call from january to january. there are villages where children grow to manhood unchristened. there are communities where the dead are laid away without the benison of the name of the christ, and where marriages are solemnized only by justices of the peace. this is a matter worthy of your thoughtful consideration, citizens of new hampshire. it does not augur well for the future. you can afford to devote one day in the year to your fellow-men, to work and thought and prayer for your children and your children's children." these words of the governor have caused surprise, discussion and danger. many ministers have denied that christianity is declining, and have attacked the governor with the malice of meekness and the savagery of humility. the question is: is christianity declining? in order to answer this question we must state what christianity is. christians tell us that there are certain fundamental truths that must be believed. we must believe in god, the creator and governor of the universe; in jesus christ, his only begotten son; in the holy ghost; in the atonement made by christ; in salvation by faith; in the second birth; in heaven for believers, in hell for deniers and doubters, and in the inspiration of the old and new testaments. they must also believe in a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering god, in special providence, and in addition to all this they must practice a few ceremonies. this, i believe, is a fair skeleton of christianity. of course i cannot give an exact definition. christians do not and never have agreed among themselves. they have been disputing and fighting for many centuries, and to-day they are as far apart as ever. a few years ago christians believed the "fundamental truths" they had no doubts. they knew that god existed; that he made the world. they knew when he commenced to work at the earth and stars and knew when he finished. they knew that he, like a potter, mixed and moulded clay into the shape of a man and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. they knew that he took from this man a rib and framed the first woman. it must be admitted that sensible christians have outgrown this belief. jehovah the gardener, the potter, the tailor, has been dethroned. the story of creation is believed only by the provincial, the stupid, the truly orthodox. people who have read darwin and haeckel and had sense enough to understand these great men, laugh at the legends of the jews. a few years ago most christians believed that christ was the son of god, and not only the son of god, but god himself. this belief is slowly fading from the minds of christians, from the minds of those who have minds. many christians now say that christ was simply a man--a perfect man. others say that he was divine, but not actually god--a union of god and man. some say that while christ was not god, he was as nearly like god as it is possible for man to be. the old belief that he was actually god--that he sacrificed himself unto himself--that he deserted himself; that he bore the burden of his own wrath; that he made it possible to save a few of his children by shedding his own blood; that he could not forgive the sins of men until they murdered him--this frightful belief is slowly dying day by day. most ministers are ashamed to preach these cruel and idiotic absurdities. the christ of our time is not the christ of the new testament--not the christ of the middle ages; nor of luther, wesley or the puritan fathers. the christ who was god--who was his own son and his own father--who was born of a virgin, cast out devils, rose from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven--is not the christ of to-day. the holy ghost has never been accurately defined or described. he has always been a winged influence--a divine aroma; a disembodied essence; a spiritual climate; an enthusiastic flame; a something sensitive and unforgiving; the real father of jesus christ. a few years ago the clergy had a great deal to say about the holy ghost, but now the average minister, while he alludes to this shadowy deity to round out a prayer, seems ta have but little confidence in him. this deity is and always has been extremely vague. he has been represented in the form of a dove; but this form is not associated with much intelligence. formerly it was believed that all men were by nature wicked, and that it would be perfectly just for god to damn the entire human race. in fact, it was thought that god, feeling that he had to damn all his children, invented a scheme by which some could be saved and at the same time justice could be satisfied. god knew that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. for many centuries he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. but the sins continued to increase. a greater sacrifice was necessary. so god concluded to make the greatest possible sacrifice--to shed his own blood, that is to say, to have it shed by his chosen people. this was the atonement--the scheme of salvation--a scheme that satisfied justice and partially defeated the devil. no intelligent christians believe in this atonement. it is utterly unphilosophic. the idea that man made salvation possible by murdering god is infinitely absurd. this makes salvation the blossom of a crime--the blessed fruit of murder. according to this the joys of heaven are born of the agonies of innocence. if the jews had been civilized--if they had believed in freedom of conscience and had listened kindly and calmly to the teachings of christ, the whole world, including christ's mother, would have gone to hell. our fathers had two absurdities. they balanced each other. they said that god could justly damn his children for the sin of adam, and that he could justly save his children on account of the sufferings and virtues of christ; that is to say, on account of his own sufferings and virtues. this view of the atonement has mostly been abandoned. it is now preached, not that christ bought souls with his blood, but that he has ennobled souls by his example. the supernatural part of the atonement has, by the more intelligent, been thrown away. so the idea of imputed sin--of vicarious vice--has been by many abandoned. salvation by faith is growing weak. people are beginning to see that character is more important than belief; that virtue is above all creeds. civilized people no longer believe in a god who will damn an honest, generous man. they see that it is not honest to offer a reward for belief. the promise of reward is not evidence. it is an attempt to bribe. if god wishes his children to believe, he should furnish evidence. he should not endeavor to make promises and threats take the place of facts. to offer a reward for credulity is dishonest and immoral--infamous. to say that good people who never heard of christ ought to be damned for not believing on him is a mixture of idiocy and savagery. people are beginning to perceive that happiness is a result, not a reward; that happiness must be earned; that it is not alms. it is also becoming apparent that sins cannot be forgiven; that no power can step between actions and consequences; that men must "reap what they sow;" that a man who has lived a cruel life cannot, by repenting between the last dose of medicine and the last breath, be washed in the blood of the lamb, and become an angel--an angel entitled to an eternity of joy. all this is absurd, but you may say that it is not cruel. but to say that a man who has lived a useful life; who has made a happy home; who has lifted the fallen, succored the oppressed and battled to uphold the right; to say that such a man, because he failed to believe without evidence, will suffer eternal pain, is to say that god is an infinite wild beast. salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation. at one time the "second birth" was regarded as a divine mystery--as a miracle--a something done by a supernatural power; probably by the holy ghost. now ministers are explaining this mystery. a change of heart is a change of ideas. about this there is nothing miraculous. this happens to most men and women--happens many times in the life of one man. if this happens without excitement--as the result of thought--it is called reformation. if it occurs in a revival--if it is the result of fright--it is called the "second birth." a few years ago christians believed in the inspiration of the bible. they had no doubts. the bible was the standard. if some geologist found a fact inconsistent with the scriptures he was silenced with a text. if some doubter called attention to a contradiction in the bible he was denounced as an ungodly and blaspheming wretch. christians then knew that the universe was only about six thousand years old, and any man who denied this was an enemy of christ and a friend of the devil. all this has changed. the bible is no longer the standard. science has dethroned the inspired volume. even theologians are taking facts into consideration. only ignorant bigots now believe in the plenary inspiration of the bible. the intelligent ministers know that the holy scriptures are filled with mistakes, contradictions and interpolations. they no longer believe in the flood, in babel, in lot's wife or in the fire and brimstone storm. they are not sure about the burning bush, the plagues of egypt, the division of the red sea or the miracles in the wilderness. all these wonders are growing foolish. they belong to the mother goose of the past, and many clergymen are ashamed to say that they believe them. so, the lengthening of the day in order that general joshua might have more time to kill, the journey of elijah to heaven, the voyage of jonah in the fish, and many other wonders of a like kind, have become so transparently false that even a theologian refuses to believe. the same is true of many of the miracles of the new testament. no sensible man now believes that christ cast devils and unclean spirits out of the bodies of men and women. a few years ago all christians believed all these devil miracles with all the mind they had. a few years ago only infidels denied these miracles, but now the theologians who are studying the "higher criticism" are reaching the conclusions of voltaire and paine. they have just discovered that the objections made to the bible by the deists are supported by the facts. at the same time these "higher critics," while they admit that the bible is not true, still insist that it is inspired. the other evening i attended forepaugh & sell's circus at madison square garden and saw a magnificent panorama of performances. while looking at a man riding a couple of horses i thought of the "higher critics." they accept darwin and cling to genesis. they admit that genesis is false in fact, and then assert that in a higher sense it is absolutely true. a lie bursts into blossom and has the perfume of truth. these critics declare that the bible is the inspired word of god, and then establish the truth of the declaration by showing that it is filled with contradictions, absurdities and false prophecies. the horses they ride, sometimes get so far apart that it seems to me that walking would be easier on the legs. so, i saw at the circus the "snake man." i saw him tie himself into all kinds of knots; saw him make a necktie of his legs; saw him throw back his head and force it between his knees; saw him twist and turn as though his bones were made of rubber, and as i watched him i thought of the mental doublings and contortions of the preachers who have answered me. let christians say what they will, the bible is no longer the actual word of god; it is no longer perfect; it is no longer quite true. the most that is now claimed for the bible by the "higher critics" is, that some passages are inspired; that some passages are true, and that god has left man free to pick these passages out. the ministers are preaching infidelity. what would lyman beecher have thought of a man like dr. abbott? he would have consigned him to hell. what would john wesley have thought of a methodist like dr. cadman? he would have denounced him as a child of the devil. what would calvin have thought of a presbyterian like professor briggs? he would have burned him at the stake, and through the smoke and flame would have shouted, "you are a dog of satan." how would jeremy taylor have treated an episcopalian like heber newton? the governor of new hampshire is right when he says that christianity has declined. the flames of faith are flickering, zeal is cooling and even bigotry is beginning to see the other side. i admit that there are still millions of orthodox christians whose minds are incapable of growth, and who care no more for facts than a monitor does for bullets. such obstructions on the highway of progress are removed only by death. the dogma of eternal pain is no longer believed by the reasonably intelligent. people who have a sense of justice know that eternal revenge cannot be enjoyed by infinite goodness. they know that hell would make heaven impossible. if christians believed in hell as they once did, the fagots would be lighted again, heretics would be stretched on the rack, and all the instruments of torture would again be stained with innocent blood. christianity has declined because intelligence has increased. men and women who know something of the history of man, of the horrors of plague, famine and flood, of earthquake, volcano and cyclone, of religious persecution and slavery, have but little confidence in special providence. they do not believe that a prayer was ever answered. thousands of people who accept christ as a moral guide have thrown, away the supernatural. christianity does not satisfy the brain and heart. it contains too many absurdities. it is unphilosophic, unnatural, impossible. not to resist evil is moral suicide. to love your enemies is impossible. to desert wife and children for the sake of heaven is cowardly and selfish. to promise rewards for belief is dishonest. to threaten torture for honest unbelief is infamous. christianity is declining because men and women are growing better. the governor was not satisfied with saying that christianity had declined, but he added this: "every good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental and financial is swift and sure." the restraining influences of religion have never been withdrawn from spain or portugal, from austria or italy. the "restraining influences" are still active in russia. emperor william relies on them in germany, and the same influences are very busy taking care of ireland. if these influences should be withdrawn from spain there would be "mental, moral and financial decay." is not this statement perfectly absurd? the fact is that religion has reduced spain to a guitar, italy to a hand organ and ireland to exile. what are the restraining influences of religion? i admit that religion can prevent people from eating meat on friday, from dancing in lent, from going to the theatre on holy days and from swearing in public. in other words, religion can restrain people from committing artificial offences. but the real question is: can religion restrain people from committing natural crimes? the church teaches that god can and will forgive sins. christianity sells sin on a credit. it says to men and women, "be good; do right; but no matter how many crimes you commit you can be forgiven." how can such a religion be regarded as a restraining influence! there was a time when religion had power; when the church ruled christendom; when popes crowned and uncrowned kings. was there at that time moral, mental and financial growth? did the nations thus restrained by religion, prosper? when these restraining influences were weakened, when popes were humbled, when creeds were denied, did morality, intelligence and prosperity begin to decay? what are the restraining influences of religion? did anybody ever hear of a policeman being dismissed because a new church had been organized? christianity teaches that the man who does right carries a cross. the exact opposite of this is true. the cross is carried by the man who does wrong. i believe in the restraining influences of intelligence. intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. if you wish to make men moral and prosperous develop the brain. men must be taught to rely on themselves. to supplicate the supernatural is a waste of time. the only evils that have been caused by the decline of christianity, as pointed out by the governor, are that in some villages they hear no solemn bells, that the dead are buried without christian ceremony, that marriages are contracted before justices of the peace, and that children go unchristened. these evils are hardly serious enough to cause moral, mental and financial decay. the average church bell is not very musical--not calculated to develop the mind or quicken the conscience. the absence of the ordinary funeral sermon does not add to the horror of death, and the failure to hear a minister say, as he stands by the grave, "one star differs in glory from another star. there is a difference between the flesh of fowl and fish. be not deceived. evil communications corrupt good manners," does not necessarily increase the grief of the mourners. so far as children are concerned, if they are vaccinated, it does not make much difference whether they are christened or not. marriage is a civil contract, and god is not one of the contracting parties. it is a contract with which the church has no business to interfere. marriage with us is regulated by law. the real marriage--the uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each--is the work of nature, and it is the best work that nature does. the ceremony of marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken place. ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees. certainly marriages by justices of the peace cannot cause the mental, moral and financial decay of a state. the things pointed out by the governor were undoubtedly produced by the decline of christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot possibly injure the people morally, mentally or financially. the governor calls on the people to think, work and pray. with two-thirds of this i agree. if the people of new hampshire will think and work without praying they will grow morally, mentally and financially. if they pray without working and thinking, they will decay. prayer is beggary--an effort to get something for nothing. labor is the honest prayer. i do not think that the good and true in christianity are declining. the good and true are more clearly perceived and more precious than ever. the supernatural, the miraculous part of christianity is declining. the new testament has been compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of reason. if christianity continues to decline at the same rate and ratio that it has declined in this generation, in a few years all that is supernatural in the christian religion will cease to exist. there is a conflict--a battle between the natural and the supernatural. the natural was baffled and beaten for thousands of years. the flag of defeat was carried by the few, by the brave and wise, by the real heroes of our race. they were conquered, captured, imprisoned, tortured and burned. others took their places. the banner was kept in the air. in spite of countless defeats the army of the natural increased. it began to gain victories. it did not torture and kill the conquered. it enlightened and blessed. it fought ignorance with science, cruelty with kindness, slavery with justice, and all vices with virtues. in this great conflict we have passed midnight. when the morning comes its rays will gild but one flag--the flag of the natural. all over christendom religions are declining. only children and the intellectually undeveloped have faith--the old faith that defies facts. only a few years ago to be excommunicated by the pope blanched the cheeks of the bravest. now the result would be laughter. only a few years ago, for the sake of saving heathen souls, priests would brave all dangers and endure all hardships. i once read the diary of a priest--one who long ago went down the illinois river, the first white man to be borne on its waters. in this diary he wrote that he had just been paid for all that he had suffered. he had added a gem to the crown of his glory--had saved a soul for christ. he had baptized a papoose. that kind of faith has departed from the world. the zeal that flamed in the hearts of calvin, luther and knox, is cold and dead. where are the wesleys and whitfields? where are the old evangelists, the revivalists who swayed the hearts of their hearers with words of flame? the preachers of our day have lost the promethean fire. they have lost the tone of certainty, of authority. "thus saith the lord" has dwindled to "perhaps." sermons, messages from god, promises radiant with eternal joy, threats lurid with the flames of hell--have changed to colorless essays; to apologies and literary phrases; to inferences and peradventures. "the blood-dyed vestures of the redeemer are not waving in triumph over the ramparts of sin and rebellion," but over the fortresses of faith float the white flags of truce. the trumpets no longer sound for battle, but for parley. the fires of hell have been extinguished, and heaven itself is only a dream. the "eternal verities" have changed to doubts. the torch of inspiration, choked with ashes, has lost its flame. there is no longer in the church "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind;" no "cloven tongues like as of fire;" no "wonders in the heaven above," and no "signs in the earth beneath." the miracles have faded away and the sceptre is passing from superstition to science--science, the only possible savior of mankind. a look backward and a prophecy. * written for the twenty-fifth anniversary number of the new york truth seeker, september , . i congratulate _the truth seeker_ on its twenty-fifth birthday. it has fought a good fight. it has always been at the front. it has carried the flag, and its flag is a torch that sheds light. twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part, were quite orthodox. the great "fundamental" falsehoods of christianity were generally accepted. those who were not christians, as a rule, admitted that they ought to be; that they ought to repent and join the church, and this they generally intended to do. the ministers had few doubts. the most of them had been educated not to think, but to believe. thought was regarded as dangerous, and the clergy, as a rule, kept on the safe side. investigation was discouraged. it was declared that faith was the only road that led to eternal joy. most of the schools and colleges were under sectarian control, and the presidents and professors were defenders of their creeds. the people were crammed with miracles and stuffed with absurdities. they were taught that the bible was the "inspired" word of god, that it was absolutely perfect, that the contradictions were only apparent, and that it contained no mistakes in philosophy, none in science. the great scheme of salvation was declared to be the result of infinite wisdom and mercy. heaven and hell were waiting for the human race. only those could be saved who had faith and who had been born twice. most of the ministers taught the geology of moses, the astronomy of joshua, and the philosophy of christ. they regarded scientists as enemies, and their principal business was to defend miracles and deny facts. they knew, however, that men were thinking, investigating in every direction, and they feared the result. they became a little malicious--somewhat hateful. with their congregations they relied on sophistry, and they answered their enemies with epithets, with misrepresentations and slanders; and yet their minds were filled with a vague fear, with a sickening dread. some of the people were reading and some were thinking. lyell had told them something about geology, and in the light of facts they were reading genesis again. the clergy called lyell an infidel, a blasphemer, but the facts seemed to care nothing for opprobrious names. then the "called," the "set apart," the "lord's anointed" began changing the "inspired" word. they erased the word "day" and inserted "period," and then triumphantly exclaimed: "the world was created in six periods." this answer satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied. more and more was being found about the history of life, of living things, the order in which the various forms had appeared and the relations they had sustained to each other. beneath the gaze of the biologist the fossils were again clothed with flesh, submerged continents and islands reappeared, the ancient forest grew once more, the air was filled with unknown birds, the seas with armored monsters, and the land with beasts of many forms that sought with tooth and claw each other's flesh. haeckel and huxley followed life through all its changing forms from monad up to man. they found that men, women, and children had been on this poor world for hundreds of thousands of years. the clergy could not dodge these facts, this conclusion, by calling "days" periods, because the bible gives the age of adam when he died, the lives and ages to the flood, to abraham, to david, and from david to christ, so that, according to the bible, man at the birth of christ had been on this earth four thousand and four years and no more. there was no way in which the sacred record could be changed, but of course the dear ministers could not admit the conclusion arrived at by haeckel and huxley. if they did they would have to give up original sin, the scheme of the atonement, and the consolation of eternal fire. they took the only course they could. they promptly and solemnly, with upraised hands, denied the facts, denounced the biologists as irreverent wretches, and defended the book. with tears in their voices they talked about "mother's bible," about the "faith of the fathers," about the prayers that the children had said, and they also talked about the wickedness of doubt. this satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied. the works of humboldt had been translated, and were being read; the intellectual horizon was enlarged, and the fact that the endless chain of cause and effect had never been broken, that nature had never been interfered with, forced its way into many minds. this conception of nature was beyond the clergy. they did not believe it; they could not comprehend it. they did not answer humboldt, but they attacked him with great virulence. they measured his works by the bible, because the bible was then the standard. in examining a philosophy, a system, the ministers asked: "does it agree with the sacred book?" with the bible they separated the gold from the dross. every science had to be tested by the scriptures. humboldt did not agree with moses. he differed from joshua. he had his doubts about the flood. that was enough. yet, after all, the ministers felt that they were standing on thin ice, that they were surrounded by masked batteries, and that something unfortunate was liable at any moment to happen. this increased their efforts to avoid, to escape. the truth was that they feared the truth. they were afraid of facts. they became exceedingly anxious for morality, for the young, for the inexperienced. they were afraid to trust human nature. they insisted that without the bible the world would rush to crime. they warned the thoughtless of the danger of thinking. they knew that it would be impossible for civilization to exist without the bible. they knew this because their god had tried it. he gave no bible to the antediluvians, and they became so bad that he had to destroy them. he gave the jews only the old testament, and they were dispersed. irreverent people might say that jehovah should have known this without a trial, but after all that has nothing to do with theology. attention had been called to the fact that two accounts of creation are in genesis, and that they do not agree and cannot be harmonized, and that, in addition to that, the divine historian had made a mistake as to the order of creation; that according to one account adam was made before the animals, and eve last of all, from adam's rib; and by the other account adam and eve were made after the animals, and both at the same time. a good many people were surprised to find that the creator had written contradictory accounts of the creation, and had forgotten the order in which he created. then there was another difficulty. jehovah had declared that on tuesday, or during the second period, he had created the "firmament" to divide the waters which were below the firmament from the waters above the firmament. it was found that there is no firmament; that the moisture in the air is the result of evaporation, and that there was nothing to divide the waters above, from the waters below. so that, according to the facts, jehovah did nothing on the second day or period, because the moisture above the earth is not prevented from falling by the firmament, but because the mist is lighter than air. the preachers, however, began to dodge, to evade, to talk about "oriental imagery." they declared that genesis was a "sublime poem," a divine "panorama of creation," an "inspired vision;" that it was not intended to be exact in its details, but that it was true in a far higher sense, in a poetical sense, in a spiritual sense, conveying a truth much higher, much grander than simple, fact. the contradictions were covered with the mantle of oriental imagery. this satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied. people were reading darwin. his works interested not only the scientific, but the intelligent in all the walks of life. darwin was the keenest observer of all time, the greatest naturalist in all the world. he was patient, modest, logical, candid, courageous, and absolutely truthful. he told the actual facts. he colored nothing. he was anxious only to ascertain the truth. he had no prejudices, no theories, no creed. he was the apostle of the real. the ministers greeted him with shouts of derision. from nearly all the pulpits came the sounds of ignorant laughter, one of the saddest of all sounds. the clergy in a vague kind of way believed the bible account of creation; they accepted the miltonic view; they believed that all animals, including man, had been made of clay, fashioned by jehovah's hands, and that he had breathed into all forms, not only the breath of life, but instinct and reason. they were not in the habit of descending to particulars; they did not describe jehovah as kneading the clay or modeling his forms like a sculptor, but what they did say included these things. the theory of darwin contradicted all their ideas on the subject, vague as they were. he showed that man had not appeared at first as man, that he had not fallen from perfection, but had slowly risen through many ages from lower forms. he took food, climate, and all conditions into consideration, and accounted for difference of form, function, instinct, and reason, by natural causes. he dispensed with the supernatural. he did away with jehovah the potter. of course the theologians denounced him as a blasphemer, as a dethroner of god. they even went so far as to smile at his ignorance. they said: "if the theory of darwin is true the bible is false, our god is a myth, and our religion a fable." in that they were right. against darwin they rained texts of scripture like shot and shell. they believed that they were victorious and their congregations were delighted. poor little frightened professors in religious colleges sided with the clergy. hundreds of backboneless "scientists" ranged themselves with the enemies of darwin. it began to look as though the church was victorious. slowly, steadily, the ideas of darwin gained ground. he began to be understood. men of sense were reading what he said. men of genius were on his side. in a little while the really great in all departments of human thought declared in his favor. the tide began to turn. the smile on the face of the theologian became a frozen grin. the preachers began to hedge, to dodge. they admitted that the bible was not inspired for the purpose of teaching science--only inspired about religion, about the spiritual, about the divine. the fortifications of faith were crumbling, the old guns had been spiked, and the armies of the "living god" were in retreat. great questions were being discussed, and freely discussed. people were not afraid to give their opinions, and they did give their honest thoughts. draper had shown in his "intellectual development of europe" that catholicism had been the relentless enemy of progress, the bitter foe of all that is really useful. the protestants were delighted with this book. buckle had shown in his "history of civilization in england" that protestantism had also enslaved the mind, had also persecuted to the extent of its power, and that protestantism in its last analysis was substantially the same as the creed of rome. this book satisfied the thoughtful. hegel in his first book had done a great work and it did great good in spite of the fact that his second book was almost a surrender. lecky in his first volume of "the history of rationalism" shed a flood of light on the meanness, the cruelty, and the malevolence of "revealed religion," and this did good in spite of the fact that he almost apologizes in the second volume for what he had said in the first. the universalists had done good. they had civilized a great many christians. they declared that eternal punishment was infinite revenge, and that the god of hell was an infinite savage. some of the unitarians, following the example of theodore parker, denounced jehovah as a brutal, tribal god. all these forces worked together for the development of the orthodox brain. herbert spencer was being read and understood. the theories of this great philosopher were being adopted. he overwhelmed the theologians with facts, and from a great height he surveyed the world. of course he was attacked, but not answered. emerson had sowed the seeds of thought--of doubt--in many minds, and from many directions the world was being flooded with intellectual light. the clergy became apologetic; they spoke with less certainty; with less emphasis, and lost a little confidence in the power of assertion. they felt the necessity of doing something, and they began to harmonize as best they could the old lies and the new truths. they tried to get the wreck ashore, and many of them were willing to surrender if they could keep their side-arms; that is to say, their salaries. conditions had been reversed. the bible had ceased to be the standard. science was the supreme and final test. there was no peace for the pulpit; no peace for the shepherds. students of the bible in england and germany had been examining the inspired scriptures. they had been trying to find when and by whom the books of the bible were written. they found that the pentateuch was not written by moses; that the authors of joshua, judges, ruth, samuel, kings, chronicles, esther, and job were not known; that the psalms were not written by david; that solomon had nothing to do with proverbs, ecclesiastes, or the song; that isaiah was the work of at least three authors; that the prophecies of daniel were written after the happening of the events prophesied. they found many mistakes and contradictions, and some of them went so far as to assert that the hebrews had never been slaves in egypt; that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the pursuit was only a myth. the new testament fared no better than the old. these critics found that nearly all of the books of the new testament had been written by unknown men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with interpolations' and contradictions; that the writers of matthew, mark, and luke did not understand the christian religion as it was understood by the author of the gospel according to john. of course, the critics were denounced from most of the pulpits, and the religious papers, edited generally by men who had failed as preachers, were filled with bitter denials and vicious attacks. the religious editors refused to be enlightened. they fought under the old flag. when dogmas became too absurd to be preached, they were taught in the sunday schools; when worn out there, they were given to the missionaries; but the dear old religious weeklies, the banners, the covenants, the evangelists, continued to feed their provincial subscribers with known mistakes and refuted lies. there is another fact that should be taken into consideration. all religions are provincial. mingled with them all and at the foundation of all are the egotism of ignorance, of isolation, the pride of race, and what is called patriotism. every religion is a natural product--the result of conditions. when one tribe became acquainted with another, the ideas of both were somewhat modified. so when nations and races come into contact a change in thought, in opinion, is a necessary result. a few years ago nations were strangers, and consequently hated each other's institutions and religions. commerce has done a great work in destroying provincialism. to trade commodities is to exchange ideas. so the press, the steamships, the railways, cables, and telegraphs have brought the nations together and enabled them to compare their prejudices, their religions, laws and customs. recently many scholars have been studying the religions of the world and have found them much the same. they have also found that there is nothing original in christianity; that the legends, miracles, christs, and conditions of salvation, the heavens, hells, angels, devils, and gods were the common property of the ancient world. they found that christ was a new name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but a legend; not a man, but a myth. people began to suspect that our religion had not been supernaturally revealed, while others, far older and substantially the same, had been naturally produced. they found it difficult to account for the fact that poor, ignorant savages had in the darkness of nature written so well that jehovah thousands of years afterwards copied it and adopted it as his own. they thought it curious that god should be a plagiarist. these scholars found that all the old religions had recognized the existence of devils, of evil spirits, who sought in countless ways to injure the children of men. in this respect they found that the sacred books of other nations were just the same as our bible, as our new testament. take the devil from our religion and the entire fabric falls. no devil, no fall of man. no devil, no atonement. no devil, no hell. the devil is the keystone of the arch. and yet for many years the belief in the existence of the devil--of evil spirits--has been fading from the minds of intelligent people. this belief has now substantially vanished. the minister who now seriously talks about a personal devil is regarded with a kind of pitying contempt. the devil has faded from his throne and the evil spirits have vanished from the air. the man who has really given up a belief in the existence of the devil cannot believe in the inspiration of the new testament--in the divinity of christ. if christ taught anything, if he believed in anything, he taught a belief in the existence of the devil..his principal business was casting out devils. he himself was taken possession of by the devil and carried to the top of the temple. thousands and thousands of people have ceased to believe the account in the new testament regarding devils, and yet continue to believe in the dogma of "inspiration" and the divinity of christ. in the brain of the average christian, contradictions dwell in unity. while a belief in the existence of the devil has almost faded away, the belief in the existence of a personal god has been somewhat weakened. the old belief that back of nature, back of all substance and force, was and is a personal god, an infinite intelligence who created and governs the world, began to be questioned. the scientists had shown the indestructibility of matter and force. büchner's great work had convinced most readers that matter and force could not have been created. they also became satisfied that matter cannot exist apart from force and that force cannot exist apart from matter. they found, too, that thought is a form of force, and that consequently intelligence could not have existed before matter, because without matter, force in any form cannot and could not exist. the creator of anything is utterly unthinkable. a few years ago god was supposed to govern the world. he rewarded the people with sunshine, with prosperity and health, or he punished with drought and flood, with plague and storm. he not only attended to the affairs of nations, but he watched the actions of individuals. he sank ships, derailed trains, caused conflagrations, killed men and women with his lightnings, destroyed some with earthquakes, and tore the homes and bodies of thousands into fragments with his cyclones. in spite of the church, in spite of the ministers, the people began to lose confidence in providence. the right did not seem always to triumph. virtue was not always rewarded and vice was not always punished. the good failed; the vicious succeeded; the strong and cruel enslaved the weak; toil was paid with the lash; babes were sold from the breasts of mothers, and providence seemed to be absolutely heartless. in other words, people began to think that the god of the christians and the god of nature were about the same, and that neither appeared to take any care of the human race. the deists of the last century scoffed at the bible god. he was too cruel, too savage. at the same time they praised the god of nature. they laughed at the idea of inspiration and denied the supernatural origin of the scriptures. now, if the bible is not inspired, then it is a natural production, and nature, not god, should be held responsible for the scriptures. yet the deists denied that god was the author and at the same time asserted the perfection of nature. this shows that even in the minds of deists contradictions dwell in unity. against all these facts and forces, these theories and tendencies, the clergy fought and prayed. it is not claimed that they were consciously dishonest, but it is claimed that they were prejudiced--that they were incapable of examining the other side--that they were utterly destitute of the philosophic spirit. they were not searchers for the facts, but defenders of the creeds, and undoubtedly they were the product of conditions and surroundings, and acted as they must. in spite of everything a few rays of light penetrated the orthodox mind. many ministers accepted some of the new facts, and began to mingle with christian mistakes a few scientific truths. in many instances they excited the indignation of their congregations. some were tried for heresy and driven from their pulpits, and some organized new churches and gathered about them a few people willing to listen to the sincere thoughts of an honest man. the great body of the church, however, held to the creed--not quite believing it, but still insisting that it was true. in private conversation they would apologize and admit that the old ideas were outgrown, but in public they were as orthodox as ever. in every church, however, there were many priests who accepted the new gospel; that is to say, welcomed the truth. to-day it may truthfully be said that the bible in the old sense is no longer regarded as the inspired word of god. jehovah is no longer accepted or believed in as the creator of the universe. his place has been taken by the unknown, the unseen, the invisible, the incomprehensible something, the cosmic dust, the first cause, the inconceivable, the original force, the mystery. the god of the bible, the gentleman who walked in the cool of the evening, who talked face to face with moses, who revenged himself on unbelievers and who gave laws written with his finger on tables of stone, has abdicated. he has become a myth. so, too, the new testament has lost its authority. people reason about it now as they do about other books, and even orthodox ministers pick out the miracles that ought to be believed, and when anything is attributed to christ not in accordance with their views, they take the liberty of explaining it away by saying "interpolation." in other words, we have lived to see science the standard instead of the bible. we have lived to see the bible tested by science, and, what is more, we have lived to see reason the standard not only in religion, but in all the domain of science. now all civilized scientists appeal to reason. they get their facts, and then reason from the foundation. now the theologian appeals to reason. faith is no longer considered a foundation. the theologian has found that he must build upon the truth and that he must establish this truth by satisfying human reason. this is where we are now. what is to be the result? is progress to stop? are we to retrace our steps? are we going back to superstition? are we going to take authority for truth? let me prophesy. in modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural and have slowly gained confidence in the natural. we have slowly lost confidence in gods and have slowly gained confidence in man. for the cure of disease, for the stopping of plague, we depend on the natural--on science. we have lost confidence in holy water and religious processions. we have found that prayers are never answered. in my judgment, all belief in the supernatural will be driven from the human mind. all religions must pass away. the augurs, the soothsayers, the seers, the preachers, the astrologers and alchemists will all lie in the same cemetery and one epitaph will do for them all. in a little while all will have had their day. they were naturally produced and they will be naturally destroyed. man at last will depend entirely upon himself--on the development of the brain--to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature--to the end that he may supply the wants of his body and feed the hunger of his mind. in my judgment, teachers will take the place of preachers and the interpreters of nature will be the only priests. political morality. the room of the house committee on elections was crowded this morning with committeemen and spectators to listen to an argument by col. robert g. ingersoll in the contested election case of strobach against herbert, of the iid alabama district. colonel ingersoll appeared for strobach, the contestant. while most of his argument was devoted to the dry details of the testimony, he entered into some discussion of the general principles involved in contested election cases, and spoke with great eloquence and force. the mere personal controversy, as between herbert and strobach, is not worth talking about. it is a question as to whether or not the republican system is a failure. unless the will of the majority can be ascertained, and surely ascertained, through the medium of the ballot, the foundation of this government rests upon nothing--the government ceases to be. i would a thousand time rather a democrat should come to congress from this district, or from any district, than that a republican should come who was not honestly elected. i would a thousand times rather that this country should honestly go to destruction than dishonestly and fraudulently go anywhere. we want it settled whether this form of government is or is not a failure. that is the real question, and it is the question at issue in every one of these cases. has congress power and has congress the sense to say to-day, that no man shall sit as a maker of laws for the people who has not been honestly elected? whenever you admit a man to congress and allow him to vote and make laws, you poison the source of justice--you poison the source of power; and the moment the people begin to think that many members of congress are there through fraud, that moment they cease to have respect for the legislative department of this government--that moment they cease to have respect for the sovereignty of the people represented by fraud. now, as i have said, i care nothing about the personal part of it, and, maybe you will not believe me, but i care nothing about the political part. the question is, who has the right on his side? who is honestly entitled to this seat? that is infinitely more important than any personal or party question. my doctrine is that a majority of the people must control--that we have in this country a king, that we have in this country a sovereign, just as truly as they can have in any other, and, as a matter of fact, a republic is the only country that does in truth have a sovereign, and that sovereign is the legally expressed will of the people. so that any man that puts in a fraudulent vote is a traitor to that sovereign; any man that knowingly counts an illegal vote is a traitor to that sovereign, and is not fit to be a citizen of the great republic. any man who fraudulently throws out a vote, knowing it to be a legal vote, tampers with the source of power, and is, in fact, false to our institutions. now, these are the questions to be decided, and i want them decided, not because this case happens to come from the south any more than if it came from the north. it is a matter that concerns the whole country. we must decide it. there must be a law on the subject. we have got to lay down a stringent rule that shall apply to these cases. there should be--there must be--such a thing as political morality so far as voting is concerned.--new york tribune, may , . a few reasons for doubting the inspiration of the bible. * printed from manuscript notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers, evidently written in the early ' 's. while much of the argument and criticism will be found embodied in his various lectures magazine articles and contributions to the press, it was thought too valuable in its present form to be left out of a complete edition of his works, on account of too much repetition. undoubtedly it was the author's intention to go through the bible in this same manner and to publish in book form. "a few reasons for doubting the inspiration of the bible." the old testament must have been written nearly two thousand years before the invention of printing. there were but few copies, and these were in the keeping of those whose interest might have prompted interpolations, and whose ignorance might have led to mistakes. second. the written hebrew was composed entirely of consonants, without any points or marks standing for vowels, so that anything like accuracy was impossible. anyone can test this for himself by writing an english sentence, leaving out the vowels. it will take far more inspiration to read than to write a book with consonants alone. third. the books composing the old testament were not divided into chapters or verses, and no system of punctuation was known. think of this a moment and you will see how difficult it must be to read such a book. fourth. there was not among the jews any dictionary of their language, and for this reason the accurate meaning of words could not be preserved. now the different meanings of words are preserved so that by knowing the age in which a writer lived we can ascertain with reasonable certainty his meaning. fifth. the old testament was printed for the first time in . until this date it existed only in manuscript, and was constantly exposed to erasures and additions. sixth. it is now admitted by the most learned in the hebrew language that in our present english version of the old testament there are at least one hundred thousand errors. of course the believers in inspiration assert that these errors are not sufficient in number to cast the least suspicion upon any passages upholding what are called the "fundamentals." seventh. it is not certainly known who in fact wrote any of the books of the old testament. for instance, it is now generally conceded that moses was not the author of the pentateuch. eighth. other books, not now in existence, are referred to in the old testament as of equal authority, such as the books of jasher, nathan, ahijah, iddo, jehu, sayings of the seers. ninth. the christians are not agreed among themselves as to what books are inspired. the catholics claim as inspired the books of maccabees, tobit, esdras, etc. others doubt the inspiration of esther, ecclesiastes, and the song of solomon. tenth. in the book of esther and the song of solomon the name of god is not mentioned, and no reference is made to any supreme being, nor to any religious duty. these omissions would seem sufficient to cast a little doubt upon these books. eleventh. within the present century manuscript copies of the old testament have been found throwing new light and changing in many instances the present readings. in consequence a new version is now being made by a theological syndicate composed of english and american divines, and after this is published it may be that our present bible will fall into disrepute. twelfth. the fact that language is continually changing, that words are constantly dying and others being born; that the same word has a variety of meanings during its life, shows hew hard it is to preserve the original ideas that might have been expressed in the scriptures, for thousands of years, without dictionaries, without the art of printing, and without the light of contemporaneous literature. thirteenth. whatever there was of the old testament seems to have been lost from the time of moses until the days of josiah, and it is probable that nothing like the bible existed in any permanent form among the jews until a few hundred years before christ. it is said that ezra gave the pentateuch to the jews, but whether he found or originated it is unknown. so it is claimed that nehemiah gathered up the manuscripts about the kings and prophets, while the books of job, psalms, proverbs, ruth, ecclesiastes, and some others were either collected or written long after. the jews themselves did not agree as to what books were really inspired. fourteenth. in the old testament we find several contradictory laws about the same thing, and contradictory accounts of the same occurrences. in the twentieth chapter of exodus we find the first account of the giving of the ten commandments. in the thirty-fourth chapter another account is given. these two accounts could never have been written by the same person. read these two accounts and you will be forced to admit that one of them cannot be true. so there are two histories of the creation, of the flood, and of the manner in which saul became king. fifteenth. it is now generally admitted that genesis must have been written by two persons, and the parts written by each can be separated, and when separated they are found to contradict each other in many important particulars. sixteenth. it is also admitted that copyists made verbal changes not only, but pieced out fragments; that the speeches of elihu in the book of job were all interpolated, and that most of the prophecies were made by persons whose names we have never known. seventeenth. the manuscripts of the old testament were not alike, and the greek version differed from the hebrew, and there was no absolutely received text of the old testament until after the commencement of the christian era. marks and points to denote vowels were invented probably about the seventh century after christ. whether these vowels were put in the proper places or not is still an open question. eighteenth. the alexandrian version, or what is known as the septuagint, translated by seventy learned jews, assisted by "miraculous power," about two hundred years before christ, could not have been, it is said, translated from the hebrew text that we now have. the differences can only be accounted for by supposing that they had a different hebrew text. the early christian churches adopted the septuagint, and were satisfied for a time. but so many errors were found, and so many were scanning every word in search of something to sustain their peculiar views, that several new versions appeared, all different somewhat from the hebrew manuscripts, from the septuagint, and from each other. all these versions were in greek. the first latin bible originated in africa, but no one has ever found out which latin manuscript was the original. many were produced, and all differed from each other. these latin versions were compared with each other and with the hebrew, and a new latin version was made in the fifth century, but the old latin versions held their own for about four hundred years, and no one yet knows which were right. besides these there were egyptian, ethiopie, armenian, and several others, all differing from each other as well as from all others in the world. it was not until the fourteenth century that the bible was translated into german, and not until the fifteenth that bibles were printed in the principal languages of europe. of these bibles there were several kinds--luther's, the dort, king james's, genevan, french, besides the danish and swedish. most of these differed from each other, and gave rise to infinite disputes and crimes without number. the earliest fragment of the bible in the "saxon" language known to exist was written sometime in the seventh century. the first bible was printed in england in . in the first english bible was printed that was divided into verses. under henry viii. the bible was revised; again under queen elizabeth, and once again under king james. this last was published in , and is the one now in general use. nineteenth. no one in the world has learning enough, nor has he time enough even if he had the learning, and could live a thousand years, to find out what books really belong to and constitute the old testament, the authors of these books, when they were written, and what they really mean. and until a man has the learning and the time to do all this he cannot certainly tell whether he believes the bible or not. twentieth. if a revelation from god was actually necessary to the happiness of man here and to his salvation hereafter, it is not easy to see why such revelation was not given to all the nations of the earth. why were the millions of asia, egypt, and america left to the insufficient light of nature. why was not a written, or what is still better, a printed revelation given to adam and eve in the garden of eden? and why were the jews themselves without a bible until the days of ezra the scribe? why was nature not so made that it would give light enough? why did god make men and leave them in darkness--a darkness that he, knew would fill the world with want and crime, and crowd with damned souls the dungeons of his hell? were the jews the only people who needed a revelation? it may be said that god had no time to waste with other nations, and gave the bible to the jews that other nations through them might learn of his existence and his will. if he wished other nations to be informed, and revealed himself to but one, why did he not choose a people that mingled with others? why did he give the message to those who had no commerce, who were obscure and unknown, and who regarded other nations with the hatred born of bigotry and weakness? what would we now think of a god who made his will known to the south sea islanders for the benefit of the civilized world? if it was of such vast importance for man to know that there is a god, why did not god make himself known? this fact could have been revealed by an infinite being instantly to all, and there certainly was no necessity of telling it alone to the jews, and allowing millions for thousands of years to die in utter ignorance. twenty-first. the chinese, japanese, hindus, tartars, africans, eskimo, persians, turks, kurds, arabs, polynesians, and many other peoples, are substantially ignorant of the bible. all the bible societies of the world have produced only about one hundred and twenty millions of bibles, and there are about fourteen hundred million people. there are hundreds of languages and tongues in which no bible has yet been printed. why did god allow, and why does he still allow, a vast majority of his children to remain in ignorance of his will? twenty-second. if the bible is the foundation of all civilization, of all just ideas of right and wrong, of our duties to god and each other, why did god not give to each nation at least one copy to start with? he must have known that no nation could get along successfully without a bible, and he also knew that man could not make one for himself. why, then, were not the books furnished? he must have known that the light of nature was not sufficient to reveal the scheme of the atonement, the necessity of baptism, the immaculate conception, transubstantiation, the arithmetic of the trinity, or the resurrection of the dead. twenty-third. it is probably safe to say that not one-third of the inhabitants of this world ever heard of the bible, and not one-tenth ever read it. it is also safe to say that no two persons who ever read it agreed as to its meaning, and it is not likely that even one person has ever understood it. nothing is more needed at the present time than an inspired translator. then we shall need an inspired commentator, and the translation and the commentary should be written in an inspired universal language, incapable of change, and then the whole world should be inspired to understand this language precisely the same. until these things are accomplished, all written revelations from god will fill the world with contending sects, contradictory creeds and opinions. twenty-fourth. all persons who know anything of constitutions and laws know how impossible it is to use words that will convey the same ideas to all. the best statesmen, the profoundest lawyers, differ as widely about the real meaning of treaties and statutes as do theologians about the bible. when the differences of lawyers are left to courts, and the courts give written decisions, the lawyers will again differ as to the real meaning of the opinions. probably no two lawyers in the united states understand our constitution alike. to allow a few men to tell what the constitution means, and to hang for treason all who refuse to accept the opinions of these few men, would accomplish in politics what most churches have asked for in religion. twenty-fifth. is it very wicked to deny that the universe was created of nothing by an infinite being who existed from all eternity? the human mind is such that it cannot possibly conceive of creation, neither can it conceive of an infinite being who dwelt in infinite space an infinite length of time. twenty-sixth. the idea that the universe was made in six days, and is but about six thousand years old, is too absurd for serious refutation. neither will it do to say that the six days were six periods, because this does away with the sabbath, and is in direct violation of the text. twenty-seventh. neither is it reasonable that this god made man out of dust, and woman out of one of the ribs of the man; that this pair were put in a garden; that they were deceived by a snake that had the power of speech; that they were turned out of this garden to prevent them from eating of the tree of life and becoming immortal; that god himself made them clothes; that the sons of god intermarried with the daughters of men; that to destroy all life upon the earth a flood was sent that covered the highest mountains; that noah and his sons built an ark and saved some of all animals as well as themselves; that the people tried to build a tower that would reach to heaven; that god confounded their language, and in this way frustrated their design. twenty-eighth. it is hard to believe that god talked to abraham as one man talks to another; that he gave him land that he pointed out; that he agreed to give him land that he never did; that he ordered him to murder his own son; that angels were in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with butter and milk, and making bargains about the destruction of cities. twenty-ninth. certainly a man ought not to be eternally damned for entertaining an honest doubt about a woman having been turned into a pillar of salt, about cities being destroyed by storms of fire and brimstone, and about people once having lived for nearly a thousand years. thirtieth. neither is it probable that god really wrestled with jacob and put his thigh out of joint, and that for that reason the jews refused "to eat the sinew that shrank," as recounted in the thirty-second chapter of genesis; that god in the likeness of a flame inhabited a bush; that he amused himself by changing the rod of moses into a serpent, and making his hand leprous as snow. thirty-first. one can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that god met moses at a hotel and tried to kill him that afterward he made this same moses a god to pharaoh, and gave him his brother aaron for a prophet; that he turned all the ponds and pools and streams and all the rivers into blood, and all the water in vessels of wood and stone; that the rivers thereupon brought forth frogs; that the frogs covered the whole land of egypt; that he changed dust into lice, so that all the men, women, children, and animals were covered with them; that he sent swarms of flies upon the egyptians; that he destroyed the innocent cattle with painful diseases; that he covered man and beast with blains and boils; that he so covered the magicians of egypt with boils that they could not stand before moses for the purpose of performing the same feats, that he destroyed every beast and every man that was in the fields, and every herb, and broke every tree with storm of hail and fire; that he sent locusts that devoured every herb that escaped the hail, and devoured every tree that grew; that he caused thick darkness over the land and put lights in the houses of the jews; that he destroyed all of the firstborn of egypt, from the firstborn of pharaoh upon the throne to the firstborn of the maidservant that sat behind the mill," together with the firstborn of all beasts, so that there was not a house in which the dead were not." ex. iv, . ex. viii, , . ex. ix, . ex. vii. . ex. viii, . ex. x, . ex. viii, . ex. ix, . ex. x, , . ex. viii, . ex. ix, . ex. xi, . ex. xii, . thirty-second. it is very hard to believe that three millions of people left a country and marched twenty or thirty miles all in one day. to notify so many people would require a long time, and then the sick, the halt, and the old would be apt to impede the march. it seems impossible that such a vast number--six hundred thousand men, besides women and children--could have been cared for, could have been fed and clothed, and the sick nursed, especially when we take into consideration that "they were thrust out of egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual." thirty-third. it seems cruel to punish a man forever for denying that god went before the jews by day "in a pillar of a cloud to lead' them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night," or for denying that pharaoh pursued the jews with six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of egypt, and that the six hundred thousand men of war of the jews were sore afraid when they saw the pursuing hosts. it does seems strange that after all the water in a country had been turned to blood--after it had been overrun with frogs and devoured with flies; after all the cattle had died with the murrain, and the rest had been killed by the fire and hail and the remainder had suffered with boils, and the firstborn of all that were left had died; that after locusts had devoured every herb and eaten up every tree of the field, and the firstborn had died, from the firstborn of the king on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon; that after three millions of people had left, carrying with them the jewels of silver and gold and the raiment of their oppressors, the egyptians still had enough soldiers and chariots and horses left to pursue and destroy an army of six hundred thousand men, if god had not interfered. ex. xii, - thirty-fourth. it certainly ought to satisfy god to torment a man for four or five thousand years for insisting that it is but a small thing for an infinite being to vanquish an egyptian army; that it was rather a small business to trouble people with frogs, flies, and vermin; that it looked almost malicious to cover people with boils and afflict cattle with disease; that a real good god would not torture innocent beasts on account of something the owners had done; that it was absurd to do miracles before a king to induce him to act in a certain way, and then harden his heart so that he would refuse; and that to kill all the firstborn of a nation was the act of a heartless fiend. thirty-fifth. certainly one ought to be permitted to doubt that twelve wells of water were sufficient for three millions of people, together with their flocks and herds, and to inquire a little into the nature of manna that was cooked by baking and seething and yet would melt in the sun, and that would swell or shrink so as to make an exact omer, no matter how much or how little there really was. certainly it is not a crime to say that water cannot be manufactured by striking a rock with a stick, and that the fate of battle cannot be decided by lifting one hand up or letting it fall. must we admit that god really did come down upon mount sinai in the sight of all the people; that he commanded that all who should go up into the mount or touch the border of it should be put to death, and that even the beasts that came near it should be killed? is it wrong to laugh at this? is it sinful to say that god never spoke from the top of a mountain covered with clouds these words to moses, "go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the lord to gaze, and many of them perish; and let the priests also, which come near to the lord, sanctify themselves, lest the lord break forth upon them"? ex. xv, . ex. xix. . ex. xix, , . ex. xvi, , ex. xvii, , . ex. xix, , can it be that an infinite intelligence takes delight in scaring savages, and that he is happy only when somebody trembles? is it reasonable to suppose that god surrounded himself with thunderings and lightnings and thick darkness to tell the priests that they should not make altars of hewn stones, nor with stairs? and that this god at the same time he gave the ten commandments ordered the jews to break the most of them? according to the bible these infamous words came from the mouth of god while he was wrapped and clothed in darkness and clouds upon the mount of sinai: if thou buy an hebrew servant six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and my children; i will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever. and if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his money. do you really think that a man will be eternally damned for endeavoring to wipe from the record of god those barbaric words? thirty-sixth. is it because of total depravity that some people refuse to believe that god went into partnership with insects and granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets; that he wasted forty days and nights furnishing moses with plans and specifications for a tabernacle, an ark, a mercy seat and two cherubs of gold, a table, four rings, some dishes and spoons, one candlestick, three bowls, seven lamps, a pair of tongs, some snuff dishes (for all of which god had patterns), ten curtains with fifty loops, a roof for the tabernacle of rams' skins dyed red, a lot of boards, an altar with horns, ash pans, basins, and flesh hooks, and fillets of silver and pins of brass; that he told moses to speak unto all the wise-hearted that he had filled with wisdom, that they might make a suit of clothes for aaron, and that god actually gave directions that an ephod "shall have the two shoulder-pieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof." ex. xix, , . ex. xxi, , ex. xxi, - , ex, xxiii, and gave all the orders concerning mitres, girdles, and onyx stones, ouches, emeralds, breastplates, chains, rings, urim and thummim, and the hole in the top of the ephod like the hole of a habergeon? thirty-seventh. is there a christian missionary who could help laughing if in any heathen country he had seen the following command of god carried out? "and thou shalt take the other ram; and aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. then shalt thou kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot." does one have to be born again to appreciate the beauty and solemnity of such a performance? is not the faith of the most zealous christian somewhat shaken while reading the recipes for cooking mutton, veal, beef, birds, and unleavened dough, found in the cook book that god made for aaron and his sons? thirty-eighth. is it to be wondered at that some people have doubted the statement that god told moses how to make some ointment, hair oil, and perfume, and then made it a crime punishable with death to make any like them? think of a god killing a man for imitating his ointment! think of a god saying that he made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh day and was refreshed! think of this god threatening to destroy the jews, and being turned from his purpose because moses told him that the egyptians might mock him! ex. xxvii and xxviii. ex. xxx, . ex. xxxii, , ex. xxix, , ex. xxxi, . thirty-ninth. what must we think of a man impudent enough to break in pieces tables of stone upon which god had written with his finger? what must we think of the goodness of a man that would issue the following order: "thus saith the lord god of israel, put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. consecrate yourselves to-day to the lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day"? is it true that the god of the bible demanded human sacrifice? did it please him for man to kill his neighbor, for brother to murder his brother, and for the father to butcher his sou? if there is a god let him cause it to be written in the book of his memory, opposite my name, that i refuted this slander and denied this lie. fortieth. can it be true that god was afraid to trust himself with the jews for fear he would consume them? can it be that in order to keep from devouring them he kept away and sent one of his angels in his place? can it be that this same god talked to moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend," when it is declared in the same chapter, by god himself, "thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live"? forty-first. why should a man, because he has done a bad action, go and kill a sheep? how can man make friends with god by cutting the throats of bullocks and goats? why should god delight in the shedding of blood? why should he want his altar sprinkled with blood, and the horns of his altar tipped with blood, and his priests covered with blood? why should burning flesh be a sweet savor in the nostrils of god? why did he compel his priests to be butchers, cutters and stabbers? ex. xxxii, - . ex. xxxiii, , . ex. xxxiii, , . why should the same god kill a man for eating the fat of an ox, a sheep, or a goat? forty-second. could it be a consolation to a man when dying to think that he had always believed that god told aaron to take two goats and draw cuts to see which goat should be killed and which should be a scapegoat? and that upon the head of the scapegoat aaron should lay both his hands and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of israel, and all their transgressions, and put them all on the head of the goat, and send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness; and that the goat should bear upon him all the iniquities of the people into a land not inhabited? how could a goat carry away a load of iniquities and transgressions? why should he carry them to a land uninhabited? were these sins contagious? about how many sins could an average goat carry? could a man meet such a goat now without laughing? forty-third. why should god object to a man wearing a garment made of woolen and linen? why should he care whether a man rounded the corners of his beard? why should god prevent a man from offering the sacred bread merely because he had a flat nose, or was lame, or had five fingers on one hand, or had a broken foot, or was a dwarf? if he objected to such people, why did he make them? forty-fourth. why should we believe that god insisted upon the sacrifice of human beings? is it a sin to deny this, and to deny the inspiration of a book that teaches it? read the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses of the last chapter of leviticus, a book in which there is more folly and cruelty, more stupidity and tyranny, than in any other book in this world except some others in the same bible. read the thirty-second chapter of exodus and you will see how by the most infamous of crimes man becomes reconciled to this god. lev, xvi, . lev. xvi, , . lev. xix, , , lev. xxi, - . you will see that he demands of fathers the blood of their sons. read the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the third chapter of numbers, "and i, behold, i have taken the levites from among the children of israel," etc. how, in the desert of sinai, did the jews obtain curtains of fine linen? how did these absconding slaves make cherubs of gold? where did they get the skins of badgers, and how did they dye them red? how did they make wreathed chains and spoons, basins and tongs? where did they get the blue cloth and their purple? where did they get the sockets of brass? how did they coin the shekel of the sanctuary? how did they overlay boards with gold? where did they get the numberless instruments and tools necessary to accomplish all these things? where did they get the fine flour and the oil? were all these found in the desert of sinai? is it a sin to ask these questions? are all these doubts born of a malignant and depraved heart? why should god in this desert prohibit priests from drinking wine, and from eating moist grapes? how could these priests get wine? do not these passages show that these laws were made long after the jews had left the desert, and that they were not given from sinai? can you imagine a god silly enough to tell a horde of wandering savages upon a desert that they must not eat any fruit of the trees they planted until the fourth year? forty-fifth. ought a man to be despised and persecuted for denying that god ordered the priests to make women drink dirt and water to test their virtue? or for denying that over the tabernacle there was a cloud during the day and fire by night, and that the cloud lifted up when god wished the jews to travel, and that until it was lifted they remained in their tents? num. v, - . num. ix, - . can it be possible that the "ark of the covenant" traveled on its own account, and that "when the ark set forward" the people followed, as is related in the tenth chapter of the holy book of numbers? forty-sixth. was it reasonable for god to give the jews manna, and nothing else, year after year? he had infinite power, and could just as easily have given them something good, in reasonable variety, as to have fed them on manna until they loathed the sight of it, and longingly remembered the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic of egypt. and yet when the poor people complained of the diet and asked for a little meat, this loving and merciful god became enraged, sent them millions of quails in his wrath, and while they were eating, while the flesh was yet between their teeth, before it was chewed, this amiable god smote the people with a plague and killed all those that lusted after meat. in a few days after, he made up his mind to kill the rest, but was dissuaded when moses told him that the canaanites would laugh at him. no wonder the poor jews wished they were back in egypt. no wonder they had rather be the slaves of pharaoh than the chosen people of god. no wonder they preferred the wrath of egypt to the love of heaven. in my judgment, the jews would have fared far better if jehovah had let them alone, or had he even taken the side of the egyptians. when the poor jews were told by their spies that the canaanites were giants, they, seized with fear, said, "let us go back to egypt." for this, their god doomed all except joshua and caleb to a wandering death. hear the words of this most merciful god: "but as for you, your carcasses they shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your sins until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness." and yet this same god promised to give unto all these people a land flowing with milk and honey. num. xiv, , . num. xiv. - . forty-seventh. "and while the children of israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. "and they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto moses and aaron, and unto all the congregation. "and they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. "and the lord said unto moses, the man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. "and all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died." when the last stone was thrown, and he that was a man was but a mangled, bruised, and broken mass, this god turned, and, _touched with pity_, said: "speak unto the children of israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue." in the next chapter, this jehovah, whose loving kindness is over all his works, because korah, dathan, and abiram objected to being starved to death in the wilderness, made the earth open and swallow not only them, but their wives and their little ones. not yet satisfied, he sent a plague and killed fourteen thousand seven hundred more. there never was in the history of the world such a cruel, revengeful, bloody, jealous, fickle, unreasonable, and fiendish ruler, emperor, or king as jehovah. no wonder the children of israel cried out, "behold we die, we perish, we all perish." forty-eighth. i cannot believe that a dry stick budded, blossomed, and bore almonds; that the ashes of a red heifer are a purification for sin; that god gave the cities into the hands of the jews because they solemnly agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that god became enraged and induced snakes to bite his chosen people; that god told balaam to go with the princess of moab, and then got angry because he did go; that an animal ever saw an angel and conversed with a man. num. xv, - . num. xv, , num. xix, - . i cannot believe that thrusting a spear through the body of a woman ever stayed a plague; that any good man ever ordered his soldiers to slay the men and keep the maidens alive for themselves; that god commanded men not to show mercy to each other; that he induced men to obey his commandments by promising them that he would assist them in murdering the wives and children of their neighbors; or that he ever commanded a man to kill his wife because she differed with him about religion; or that god was mistaken about hares chewing the cud; or that he objected to the people raising horses or that god wanted a camp kept clean because he walked through it at night; or that he commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; or that he ever threatened to give anybody the itch; or that he ever secretly buried a man and allowed the corpse to write an account of the funeral. forty-ninth. does it necessarily follow that a man wishes to commit some crime if he refuses to admit that the river jordan cut itself in two and allowed the lower end to run away? or that seven priests could blow seven ram's horns loud enough to throw down the walls of a city; or that god, after achan had confessed that he had secreted a garment and a wedge of gold, became good natured as soon as achan and his sons and daughters had been stoned to death and their bodies burned? is it not a virtue to abhor such a god? num. xxv, . deut. xvii, . deut. xxviii, . deut. xiii, - . deut. xxiii, , . josh, iii, . deut. xiv, . deut. xxv, ., josh. vi, . josh, vii, , . must we believe that god sanctioned and commanded all the cruelties and horrors described in the old testament; that he waged the most relentless and heartless wars; that he declared mercy a crime; that to spare life was to excite his wrath; that he smiled when maidens were violated, laughed when mothers were ripped open with a sword, and shouted with joy when babes were butchered in their mothers' arms? read the infamous book of joshua, and then worship the god who inspired it if you can. fiftieth. can any sane man believe that the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day, and that the moon stayed? that these miracles were performed in the interest of massacre and bloodshed; that the jews destroyed men, women, and children by the million, and practiced every cruelty that the ingenuity of their god could suggest? is it possible that these things really happened? is it possible that god commanded them to be done? again i ask you to read the book of joshua. after reading all its horrors you will feel a grim satisfaction in the dying words of joshua to the children of israel: "know for a certainty that the lord your god will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land." think of a god who boasted that he gave the jews a land for which they did not labor, cities which they did not build, and allowed them to eat of oliveyards and vineyards which they did not plant. think of a god who murders some of his children for the benefit of the rest, and then kills the rest because they are not thankful enough. think of a god who had the power to stop the sun and moon, but could not defeat an army that had iron chariots. josh, x, . josh, xiii, . josh. xxiv, . judges i, . fifty-first. can we blame the hebrews for getting tired of their god? never was a people so murdered, starved, stoned, burned, deceived, humiliated, robbed, and outraged. never was there so little liberty among men. never did the meanest king so meddle, eavesdrop, spy out, harass, torment, and persecute his people. never was ruler so jealous, unreasonable, contemptible, exacting, and ignorant as this god of the jews. never was such ceremony, such mummery, such stuff about bullocks, goats, doves, red heifers, lambs, and unleavened dough--never was such directions about kidneys and blood, ashes and fat, about curtains, tongs, fringes, ribands, and brass pins--never such details for killing of animals and men and the sprinkling of blood and the cutting of clothes. never were such unjust laws, such punishments, such damned ignorance and infamy! fifty-second. is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone? is it not strange that after he had appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, fed them by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led them by cloud and fire, and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred a calf of their own making? is it not beyond belief that this god, by statutes and commandments, by punishments and penalties, by rewards and promises, by wonders and plagues, by earthquakes and pestilence, could not in the least civilize the jews--could not get them beyond a point where they deserved killing? what shall we think of a god who gave his entire time for forty years to the work of converting three millions of people, and succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough to enter the promised land? was there ever in the history of man so detestible an administration of public affairs? is it possible that god sold his children to the king of mesopotamia; that he sold them to jabin, king of canaan, to the philistines, and to the children of ammon? is it possible that an angel of the lord devoured unleavened cakes and broth with fire that came out of the end of a stick as he sat under an oak-tree? can it be true that god made known his will by making dew fall on wool without wetting the ground around it? do you really believe that men who lap water like a dog make the best soldiers? do you think that a man could hold a lamp in his left hand, a trumpet in his right hand, blow his trumpet, shout "the sword of the lord and of gideon," and break pitchers at the same time? fifty-third. read the story of jephthah and his daughter, and then tell me what you think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to god, and what you think of a god who would receive such a sacrifice. this one story should be enough to make every tender and loving father hold this book in utter abhorrence. is it necessary, in order to be saved, that one must believe that an angel of god appeared unto manoah in the absence of her husband; that this angel afterward went up in a flame of fire; that as a result of this visit a child was born whose strength was in his hair? a child that made beehives of lions, incendiaries of foxes, and had a wife that wept seven days to get the answer to his riddle? will the wrath of god abide forever upon a man for doubting the story that samson killed a thousand men with a new jawbone? is there enough in the bible to save a soul with this story left out? is hell hungry for those who deny that water gushed from a "hollow place" in a dry bone? is it evidence of a new heart to believe that one man turned over a house so large that over three thousand people were on the roof? for my part, i cannot believe these things, and if my salvation depends upon my credulity i am as good as damned already. i cannot believe that the philistines took back the ark with a present of five gold mice, and that thereupon god relented. judges vi, . judges vi, . judges vii, . judges vii, . i sam. vi. . i can not believe that god killed fifty thousand men for looking into a box. it seems incredible, after all the jews had done, after all their wars and victories, even when saul was king, that there was not among them one smith who could make a sword or spear, and that they were compelled to go to the philistines to sharpen every plowshare, coulter, and mattock. can you believe that god said to saul, "now go and smite amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling"? can you believe that because saul took the king alive after killing every other man, woman, and child, the ogre called jehovah was displeased and made up his mind to hurl saul from the throne and give his place to another? i cannot believe that the philistines all ran away because one of their number was killed with a stone. i cannot justify the conduct of abigail, the wife of nabal, who took presents to david. david hardly did right when he said to this woman, "i have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person." it could hardly have been chance that made nabal so deathly sick next morning and killed him in ten days. all this looks wrong, especially as david married his widow before poor nabal was fairly cold. fifty-fourth. notwithstanding all i have heard of katie king, i cannot believe that a witch at endor materialized the ghost of samuel and caused it to appear with a cloak on. i cannot believe that god tempted david to take the census, and then gave him his choice of three punishments: first, seven years of famine; second, flying three months before their enemies; third, a pestilence of three days; that david chose the pestilence, and that god destroyed seventy thousand men. i sam. vi, . i sam. xv. i sam. xxviii. i sam. xiii, , . i sam. xxv. sam. xxiv. why should god kill the people for what david did? is it a sin to be counted? can anything more brutally hellish be conceived? why should man waste prayers upon such a god? fifty-fifth. must we admit that elijah was fed by ravens; that they brought him bread and flesh every morning and evening? must we believe that this same prophet could create meal and oil, and induce a departed soul to come back and take up its residence once more in the body? that he could get rain by praying for it; that he could cause fire to burn up a sacrifice and altar, together with twelve barrels of water? can we believe that an angel of the lord turned cook and prepared two suppers in one night for elijah, and that the prophet ate enough to last him forty days and forty nights?* is it true that when a captain with fifty men went after elijah, this prophet caused fire to come down from heaven and consume them all? should god allow such wretches to manage his fire? is it true that elijah consumed another captain with fifty men in the same way? is it a fact that a river divided because the water was struck with a cloak? did a man actually go to heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire, or was he carried to paradise by a whirlwind? must we believe, in order to be good and tender fathers and mothers, that because some "little children" mocked at an old man with a bald head, god--the same god who said, "suffer little children to come unto me"--sent two she-bears out of the wood and tare forty-two of these babes? think of the mothers that watched and waited for their children. think of the wailing when these mangled ones were found, when they were brought back and pressed to the breasts of weeping women. what an amiable gentleman mr. elisha must have been. fifty-sixth. it is hard to believe that a prophet by lying on a dead body could make it sneeze seven times. i kings xviii. kings i. kings iv. i kings xix. kings ii. it is hard to believe that being dipped seven times in the jordan could cure the leprosy. would a merciful god curse children, and children's children yet unborn, with leprosy for a father's fault? is it possible to make iron float in water? is it reasonable to say that when a corpse touched another corpse it came to life? is it a sign that a man wants to commit a crime because he refuses to believe that a king had a boil and that god caused the sun to go backward in heaven so that the shadow on a sun-dial went back ten degrees as a sign that the aforesaid would get well? is it true that this globe turned backward, that its motion was reversed as a sign to a jewish king? if it did not, this story is false, and that part of the bible is not true even if it is inspired. fifty-seventh. how did the bible get lost? where was the precious pentateuch from moses to josiah? how was it possible for the jews to get along without the directions as to fat and caul and kidney contained in leviticus? without that sacred book in his possession a priest might take up ashes and carry them out without changing his pantaloons. such mistakes kindled the wrath of god. as soon as the pentateuch was found josiah began killing wizards and such as had familiar spirits. fifty-eighth. i cannot believe that god talked to solomon, that he visited him in the night and asked him what he should give him; i cannot believe that he told him, "i will give thee riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like." if jehovah said this he was mistaken. it is not true that solomon had fourteen hundred chariots of war in a country without roads. it is not true that he made gold and silver at jerusalem as plenteous as stones. there were several kings in his day, and thousands since, that could have thrown away the value of palestine without missing the amount. kings v. kings, vi. . kings xx, - . kings v. . kings xiii, . kings xxii, . chron. i, , . the holy land was and is a wretched country. there are no monuments, no ruins attesting former wealth and greatness. the jews had no commerce, knew nothing of other nations, had no luxuries, never produced a painter, a sculptor, architect, scientist, or statesman until after the destruction of jerusalem. as long as jehovah attended to their affairs they had nothing but civil war, plague, pestilence, and famine. after he abandoned, and the christians ceased to persecute them, they became the most prosperous of people. since jehovah, in anger and disgust, cast them away they have produced painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen, composers, and philosophers. fifty-ninth. i cannot admit that hiram, the king of tyre, wrote a letter to solomon in which he admitted that the "god of israel made heaven and earth." this king was not a jew. it seems incredible that solomon had eighty thousand men hewing timber for the temple, with seventy thousand bearers of burdens, and thirty-six hundred overseers. sixtieth. i cannot believe that god shuts up heaven and prevents rain, or that he sends locusts to devour a land, or pestilence to destroy the people. i cannot believe that god told solomon that his eyes and heart should perpetually be in the house that solomon had built. sixty-first. i cannot believe that solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches; that all the kings of the earth sought his presence and brought presents of silver and gold, raiment, harness, spices, and mules--a rate year by year. is it possible that shishak, a king of egypt, invaded palestine with seventy thousand horsemen and twelve hundred chariots of war? chron. ii, . chron. vii, . chron. ix, - . chron. ii, . chron. vii, . chron. xii, , . i cannot believe that in a battle between jeroboam and abijah, the army of abijah actually slew in one day five hundred thousand chosen men. does anyone believe that zerah, the ethiopian, invaded palestine with a million men? i cannot believe that jehoshaphat had a standing army of nine hundred and sixty thousand men. i cannot believe that god advertised for a liar to act as his messenger. i cannot believe that king amaziah did right in the sight of the lord, and that he broke in pieces ten thousand men by casting them from a precipice. i cannot think that god smote a king with leprosy because he tried to burn incense. i cannot think that pekah slew one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day. chron. xiii, . chron. xvii, - . chron. xxv, . chron. xiv, . chron. xviii, - . chron. xxvi, . chron. xxviii, . the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest." in twelve volumes, volume viii. interviews dresden edition interviews the bible and a future life _question_. colonel, are your views of religion based upon the bible? _answer_. i regard the bible, especially the old testament, the same as i do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth, a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good sense. _question_. have you found any other work, sacred or profane, which you regard as more reliable? _answer_. i know of no book less so, in my judgment. _question_. you have studied the bible attentively, have you not? _answer_. i have read the bible. i have heard it talked about a good deal, and am sufficiently well acquainted with it to justify my own mind in utterly rejecting all claims made for its divine origin. _question_. what do you base your views upon? _answer_. on reason, observation, experience, upon the discoveries in science, upon observed facts and the analogies properly growing out of such facts. i have no confidence in anything pretending to be outside, or independent of, or in any manner above nature. _question_. according to your views, what disposition is made of man after death? _answer_. upon that subject i know nothing. it is no more wonderful that man should live again than he now lives; upon that question i know of no evidence. the doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. we love, therefore we wish to live. _question_. then you would not undertake to say what becomes of man after death? _answer_. if i told or pretended to know what becomes of man after death, i would be as dogmatic as are theologians upon this question. the difference between them and me is, i am honest. i admit that i do not know. _question_. judging by your criticism of mankind, colonel, in your recent lecture, you have not found his condition very satisfactory? _answer_. nature, outside of man, so far as i know, is neither cruel nor merciful. i am not satisfied with the present condition of the human race, nor with the condition of man during any period of which we have any knowledge. i believe, however, the condition of man is improved, and this improvement is due to his own exertions. i do not make nature a being. i do not ascribe to nature intentions. _question_. is your theory, colonel, the result of investigation of the subject? _answer_. no one can control his own opinion or his own belief. my belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. i am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me. i believe in this world. i have no confidence in any religion promising joys in another world at the expense of liberty and happiness in this. at the same time, i wish to give others all the rights i claim for myself. _question_. if i asked for proofs for your theory, what would you furnish? _answer_. the experience of every man who is honest with himself, every fact that has been discovered in nature. in addition to these, the utter and total failure of all religionists in all countries to produce one particle of evidence showing the existence of any supernatural power whatever, and the further fact that the people are not satisfied with their religion. they are continually asking for evidence. they are asking it in every imaginable way. the sects are continually dividing. there is no real religious serenity in the world. all religions are opponents of intellectual liberty. i believe in absolute mental freedom. real religion with me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not a creed, but a life. _question_. what punishment, then, is inflicted upon man for his crimes and wrongs committed in this life? _answer_. there is no such thing as intellectual crime. no man can commit a mental crime. to become a crime it must go beyond thought. _question_. what punishment is there for physical crime? _answer_. such punishment as is necessary to protect society and for the reformation of the criminal. _question_. if there is only punishment in this world, will not some escape punishment? _answer_. i admit that all do not seem to be punished as they deserve. i also admit that all do not seem to be rewarded as they deserve; and there is in this world, apparently, as great failures in matter of reward as in matter of punishment. if there is another life, a man will be happier there for acting according to his highest ideal in this. but i do not discern in nature any effort to do justice. --_the post_, washington, d. c., . mrs. van cott, the revivalist _question_. i see, colonel, that in an interview published this morning, mrs. van cott (the revivalist), calls you "a poor barking dog." do you know her personally? _answer_. i have never met or seen her. _question_. do you know the reason she applied the epithet? _answer_. i suppose it to be the natural result of what is called vital piety; that is to say, universal love breeds individual hatred. _question_. do you intend making any reply to what she says? _answer_. i have written her a note of which this is a copy: _buffalo, feb. th, ._ mrs. van cott; my dear madam:--were you constrained by the love of christ to call a man who has never injured you "a poor barking dog?" did you make this remark as a christian, or as a lady? did you say these words to illustrate in some faint degree the refining influence upon women of the religion you preach? what would you think of me if i should retort, using your language, changing only the sex of the last word? i have the honor to remain, yours truly, r. g. ingersoll _question_. well, what do you think of the religious revival system generally? _answer_. the fire that has to be blown all the time is a poor thing to get warm by. i regard these revivals as essentially barbaric. i think they do no good, but much harm, they make innocent people think they are guilty, and very mean people think they are good. _question_. what is your opinion concerning women as conductors of these revivals? _answer_. i suppose those engaged in them think they are doing good. they are probably honest. i think, however, that neither men nor women should be engaged in frightening people into heaven. that is all i wish to say on the subject, as i do not think it worth talking about. --_the express_, buffalo, new york, feb., . european trip and greenback question _question_. what did you do on your european trip, colonel? _answer_. i went with my family from new york to southampton, england, thence to london, and from london to edinburgh. in scotland i visited every place where burns had lived, from the cottage where he was born to the room where he died. i followed him from the cradle to the coffin. i went to stratford-upon-avon for the purpose of seeing all that i could in any way connected with shakespeare; next to london, where we visited again all the places of interest, and thence to paris, where we spent a couple of weeks in the exposition. _question_. and what did you think of it? _answer_. so far as machinery--so far as the practical is concerned, it is not equal to ours in philadelphia; in art it is incomparably beyond it. i was very much gratified to find so much evidence in favor of my theory that the golden age in art is in front of us; that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. the modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. i think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. nothing pleased me more than the painting from holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. they paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. they are not much on ariadnes and venuses, but they paint good women. _question_. what did you think of the american display? _answer_. our part of the exposition is good, but nothing to what is should and might have been, but we bring home nearly as many medals as we took things. we lead the world in machinery and in ingenious inventions, and some of our paintings were excellent. _question_. colonel, crossing the atlantic back to america, what do you think of the greenback movement? _answer_. in regard to the greenback party, in the first place, i am not a believer in miracles. i do not believe that something can be made out of nothing. the government, in my judgment, cannot create money; the government can give its note, like an individual, and the prospect of its being paid determines its value. we have already substantially resumed. every piece of property that has been shrinking has simply been resuming. we expended during the war--not for the useful, but for the useless, not to build up, but to destroy--at least one thousand million dollars. the government was an enormous purchaser; when the war ceased the industries of the country lost their greatest customer. as a consequence there was a surplus of production, and consequently a surplus of labor. at last we have gotten back, and the country since the war has produced over and above the cost of production, something near the amount that was lost during the war. our exports are about two hundred million dollars more than our imports, and this is a healthy sign. there are, however, five or six hundred thousand men, probably, out of employment; as prosperity increases this number will decrease. i am in favor of the government doing something to ameliorate the condition of these men. i would like to see constructed the northern and southern pacific railroads; this would give employment at once to many thousands, and homes after awhile to millions. all the signs of the times to me are good. the wretched bankrupt law, at last, is wiped from the statute books, and honest people in a short time can get plenty of credit. this law should have been repealed years before it was. it would have been far better to have had all who have gone into bankruptcy during these frightful years to have done so at once. _question_. what will be the political effect of the greenback movement? _answer_. the effect in maine has been to defeat the republican party. i do not believe any party can permanently succeed in the united states that does not believe in and advocate actual money. i want to see the greenback equal with gold the world round. a money below par keeps the people below par. no man can possibly be proud of a country that is not willing to pay its debts. several of the states this fall may be carried by the greenback party, but if i have a correct understanding of their views, that party cannot hold any state for any great length of time. but all the men of wealth should remember that everybody in the community has got, in some way, to be supported. i want to see them so that they can support themselves by their own labor. in my judgment real prosperity will begin with actual resumption, because confidence will then return. if the workingmen of the united states cannot make their living, cannot have the opportunity to labor, they have got to be supported in some way, and in any event, i want to see a liberal policy inaugurated by the government. i believe in improving rivers and harbors. i do not believe the trans-continental commerce of this country should depend on one railroad. i want new territories opened. i want to see american steamships running to all the great ports of the world. i want to see our flag flying on all the seas and in all the harbors. we have the best country, and, in my judgment, the best people in the world, and we ought to be the most prosperous nation on the earth. _question_. then you only consider the greenback movement a temporary thing? _answer_. yes; i do not believe that there is anything permanent in anything that is not sound, that has not a perfectly sound foundation, and i mean sound, sound in every sense of that word. it must be wise and honest. we have plenty of money; the trouble is to get it. if the greenbackers will pass a law furnishing all of us with collaterals, there certainly would be no trouble about getting the money. nothing can demonstrate more fully the plentifulness of money than the fact that millions of four per cent. bonds have been taken in the united states. the trouble is, business is scarce. _question_. but do you not think the greenback movement will help the democracy to success in ? _answer_. i think the greenback movement will injure the republican party much more than the democratic party. whether that injury will reach as far as depends simply upon one thing. if resumption--in spite of all the resolutions to the contrary-- inaugurates an era of prosperity, as i believe and hope it will, then it seems to me that the republican party will be as strong in the north as in its palmiest days. of course i regard most of the old issues as settled, and i make this statement simply because i regard the financial issue as the only living one. of course, i have no idea who will be the democratic candidate, but i suppose the south will be solid for the democratic nominee, unless the financial question divides that section of the country. _question_. with a solid south do you not think the democratic nominee will stand a good chance? _answer_. certainly, he will stand the best chance if the democracy is right on the financial question; if it will cling to its old idea of hard money, he will. if the democrats will recognize that the issues of the war are settled, then i think that party has the best chance. _question_. but if it clings to soft money? _answer_. then i think it will be beaten, if by soft money it means the payment of one promise with another. _question_. you consider greenbackers inflationists, do you not? _answer_. i suppose the greenbackers to be the party of inflation. i am in favor of inflation produced by industry. i am in favor of the country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses, books, pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody. i am in favor of being inflated with gold and silver, but i do not believe in the inflation of promise, expectation and speculation. i sympathize with every man who is willing to work and cannot get it, and i sympathize to that degree that i would like to see the fortunate and prosperous taxed to support his unfortunate brother until labor could be found. the greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold. while the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it is ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the credit takes wings. the bill of a perfectly solvent bank may circulate for years. now, because nobody demands the gold on that bill it doesn't follow that the bill would be just as good without any gold behind it. the idea that you can have the gold whenever you present the bill gives it its value. to illustrate: a poor man buys soup tickets. he is not hungry at the time of purchase, and will not be for some hours. during those hours the greenback gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand with which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further argue that if they can be good for a few hours without soup, why not forever? and they would be, only the holder gets hungry. until he is hungry, of course, he does not care whether any soup is on hand or not, but when he presents his ticket he wants his soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he does present the ticket gives it its value. and so i regard bank notes, without gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup. --_the post_, washington, d. c., . the pre-millennial conference. _question_. what do you think of the pre-millennial conference that was held in new york city recently? _answer_. well, i think that all who attended it were believers in the bible, and any one who believes in prophecies and looks to their fulfillment will go insane. a man that tries from daniel's ram with three horns and five tails and his deformed goats to ascertain the date of the second immigration of christ to this world is already insane. it all shows that the moment we leave the realm of fact and law we are adrift on the wide and shoreless sea of theological speculation. _question_. do you think there will be a second coming? _answer_. no, not as long as the church is in power. christ will never again visit this earth until the freethinkers have control. he will certainly never allow another church to get hold of him. the very persons who met in new york to fix the date of his coming would despise him and the feeling would probably be mutual. in his day christ was an infidel, and made himself unpopular by denouncing the church as it then existed. he called them liars, hypocrites, thieves, vipers, whited sepulchres and fools. from the description given of the church in that day, i am afraid that should he come again, he would be provoked into using similar language. of course, i admit there are many good people in the church, just as there were some good pharisees who were opposed to the crucifixion. --_the express_, buffalo, new york, nov. th, . the solid south and resumption. _question_. colonel, to start with, what do you think of the solid south? _answer_. i think the south is naturally opposed to the republican party; more, i imagine, to the name, than to the personnel of the organization. but the south has just as good friends in the republican party as in the democratic party. i do not think there are any republicans who would not rejoice to see the south prosperous and happy. i know of none, at least. they will have to get over the prejudices born of isolation. we lack direct and constant communication. i do not recollect having seen a newspaper from the gulf states for a long time. they, down there, may imagine that the feeling in the north is the same as during the war. but it certainly is not. the northern people are anxious to be friendly; and if they can be, without a violation of their principles, they will be. whether it be true or not, however, most of the republicans of the north believe that no republican in the south is heartily welcome in that section, whether he goes there from the north, or is a southern man. personally, i do not care anything about partisan politics. i want to see every man in the united states guaranteed the right to express his choice at the ballot-box, and i do not want social ostracism to follow a man, no matter how he may vote. a solid south means a solid north. a hundred thousand democratic majority in south carolina means fifty thousand republican majority in new york in . i hope the sections will never divide, simply as sections. but if the republican party is not allowed to live in the south, the democratic party certainly will not be allowed to succeed in the north. i want to treat the people of the south precisely as though the rebellion had never occurred. i want all that wiped from the slate of memory, and all i ask of the southern people is to give the same rights to the republicans that we are willing to give to them and have given to them. _question_. how do you account for the results of the recent elections? _answer_. the republican party won the recent election simply because it was for honest money, and it was in favor of resumption. and if on the first of january next, we resume all right, and maintain resumption, i see no reason why the republican party should not succeed in . the republican party came into power at the commencement of the rebellion, and necessarily retained power until its close; and in my judgment, it will retain power so long as in the horizon of credit there is a cloud of repudiation as large as a man's hand. _question_. do you think resumption will work out all right? _answer_. i do. i think that on the first of january the greenback will shake hands with gold on an equality, and in a few days thereafter will be worth just a little bit more. everything has resumed, except the government. all the property has resumed, all the lands, bonds and mortgages and stocks. all these things resumed long ago--that is to say, they have touched the bottom. now, there is no doubt that the party that insists on the government paying all its debts will hold control, and no one will get his hand on the wheel who advocates repudiation in any form. there is one thing we must do, though. we have got to put more silver in our dollars. i do not think you can blame the new york banks--any bank --for refusing to take eighty-eight cents for a dollar. neither can you blame any depositor who puts gold in the bank for demanding gold in return. yes, we must have in the silver dollar a dollar's worth of silver. --_the commercial_, cincinnati, ohio, november, . the sunday laws of pittsburg.* _question_. colonel, what do you think of the course the mayor has pursued toward you in attempting to stop your lecture? _answer_. i know very little except what i have seen in the morning paper. as a general rule, laws should be enforced or repealed; and so far as i am personally concerned, i shall not so much complain of the enforcing of the law against sabbath breaking as of the fact that such a law exists. we have fallen heir to these laws. they were passed by superstition, and the enlightened people of to-day should repeal them. ministers should not expect to fill their churches by shutting up other places. they can only increase their congregations by improving their sermons. they will have more hearers when they say more worth hearing. i have no idea that the mayor has any prejudice against me personally and if he only enforces the law, i shall have none against him. if my lectures were free the ministers might have the right to object, but as i charge one dollar admission and they nothing, they ought certainly be able to compete with me. _question_. don't you think it is the duty of the mayor, as chief executive of the city laws, to enforce the ordinances and pay no attention to what the statutes say? _answer_. i suppose it to be the duty of the mayor to enforce the ordinance of the city and if the ordinance of the city covers the same ground as the law of the state, a conviction under the ordinance would be a bar to prosecution under the state law. _question_. if the ordinance exempts scientific, literary and historical lectures, as it is said it does, will not that exempt you? _answer_. yes, all my lectures are historical; that is, i speak of many things that have happened. they are scientific because they are filled with facts, and they are literary of course. i can conceive of no address that is neither historical nor scientific, except sermons. they fail to be historical because they treat of things that never happened and they are certainly not scientific, as they contain no facts. _question_. suppose they arrest you what will you do? _answer_. i will examine the law and if convicted will pay the fine, unless i think i can reverse the case by appeal. of course i would like to see all these foolish laws wiped from the statute books. i want the law so that everybody can do just as he pleases on sunday, provided he does not interfere with the rights of others. i want the christian, the jew, the deist and the atheist to be exactly equal before the law. i would fight for the right of the christian to worship god in his own way just as quick as i would for the atheist to enjoy music, flowers and fields. i hope to see the time when even the poor people can hear the music of the finest operas on sunday. one grand opera with all its thrilling tones, will do more good in touching and elevating the world than ten thousand sermons on the agonies of hell. _question_. have you ever been interfered with before in delivering sunday lectures? _answer_. no, i postponed a lecture in baltimore at the request of the owners of a theatre because they were afraid some action might be taken. that is the only case. i have delivered lectures on sunday in the principal cities of the united states, in new york, boston, buffalo, chicago, san francisco, cincinnati and many other places. i lectured here last winter; it was on sunday and i heard nothing of its being contrary to law. i always supposed my lectures were good enough to be delivered on the most sacred days. --_the leader_, pittsburg, pa., october , . [* the manager of the theatre, where col. ingersoll lectured, was fined fifty dollars which col. ingersoll paid.] political and religious. _question_. what do you think about the recent election, and what will be its effect upon political matters and the issues and candidates of ? _answer_. i think the republicans have met with this almost universal success on account, first, of the position taken by the democracy on the currency question; that is to say, that party was divided, and was willing to go in partnership with anybody, whatever their doctrines might be, for the sake of success in that particular locality. the republican party felt it of paramount importance not only to pay the debt, but to pay it in that which the world regards as money. the next reason for the victory is the position assumed by the democracy in congress during the called session. the threats they then made of what they would do in the event that the executive did not comply with their demands, showed that the spirit of the party had not been chastened to any considerable extent by the late war. the people of this country will not, in my judgment, allow the south to take charge of this country until they show their ability to protect the rights of citizens in their respective states. _question_. then, as you regard the victories, they are largely due to a firm adherence to principle, and the failure of the democratic party is due to their abandonment of principle, and their desire to unite with anybody and everything, at the sacrifice of principle, to attain success? _answer_. yes. the democratic party is a general desire for office without organization. most people are democrats because they hate something, most people are republicans because they love something. _question_. do you think the election has brought about any particular change in the issues that will be involved in the campaign of ? _answer_. i think the only issue is who shall rule the country. _question_. do you think, then, the question of state rights, hard or soft money and other questions that have been prominent in the campaign are practically settled, and so regarded by the people? _answer_. i think the money question is, absolutely. i think the question of state rights is dead, except that it can still be used to defeat the democracy. it is what might be called a convenient political corpse. _question_. now, to leave the political field and go to the religious at one jump--since your last visit here much has been said and written and published to the effect that a great change, or a considerable change at least, had taken place in your religious, or irreligious views. i would like to know if that is so? _answer_. the only change that has occurred in my religious views is the result of finding more and more arguments in favor of my position, and, as a consequence, if there is any difference, i am stronger in my convictions than ever before. _question_. i would like to know something of the history of your religious views? _answer_. i may say right here that the christian idea that any god can make me his friend by killing mine is about a great mistake as could be made. they seem to have the idea that just as soon as god kills all the people that a person loves, he will then begin to love the lord. what drew my attention first to these questions was the doctrine of eternal punishment. this was so abhorrent to my mind that i began to hate the book in which it was taught. then, in reading law, going back to find the origin of laws, i found one had to go but a little way before the legislator and priest united. this led me to a study of a good many of the religions of the world. at first i was greatly astonished to find most of them better than ours. i then studied our own system to the best of my ability, and found that people were palming off upon children and upon one another as the inspired word of god a book that upheld slavery, polygamy and almost every other crime. whether i am right or wrong, i became convinced that the bible is not an inspired book; and then the only question for me to settle was as to whether i should say what i believed or not. this really was not the question in my mind, because, before even thinking of such a question, i expressed my belief, and i simply claim that right and expect to exercise it as long as i live. i may be damned for it in the next world, but it is a great source of pleasure to me in this. _question_. it is reported that you are the son of a presbyterian minister? _answer_. yes, i am the son of a new school presbyterian minister. _question_. about what age were you when you began this investigation which led to your present convictions? _answer_. i cannot remember when i believed the bible doctrine of eternal punishment. i have a dim recollection of hating jehovah when i was exceedingly small. _question_. then your present convictions began to form themselves while you were listening to the teachings of religion as taught by your father? _answer_. yes, they did. _question_. did you discuss the matter with him? _answer_. i did for many years, and before he died he utterly gave up the idea that this life is a period of probation. he utterly gave up the idea of eternal punishment, and before he died he had the happiness of believing that god was almost as good and generous as he was himself. _question_. i suppose this gossip about a change in your religious views arose or was created by the expression used at your brother's funeral, "in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing"? _answer_. i never willingly will destroy a solitary human hope. i have always said that i did not know whether man was or was not immortal, but years before my brother died, in a lecture entitled "the ghosts," which has since been published, i used the following words: "the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow--hope, shining upon the tears of grief." _question_. the great objection to your teaching urged by your enemies is that you constantly tear down, and never build up? _answer_. i have just published a little book entitled, "some mistakes of moses," in which i have endeavored to give most of the arguments i have urged against the pentateuch in a lecture i delivered under that title. the motto on the title page is, "a destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not." i cannot for my life see why one should be charged with tearing down and not rebuilding simply because he exposes a sham, or detects a lie. i do not feel under any obligation to build something in the place of a detected falsehood. all i think i am under obligation to put in the place of a detected lie is the detection. most religionists talk as if mistakes were valuable things and they did not wish to part with them without a consideration. just how much they regard lies worth a dozen i do not know. if the price is reasonable i am perfectly willing to give it, rather than to see them live and give their lives to the defence of delusions. i am firmly convinced that to be happy here will not in the least detract from our happiness in another world should we be so fortunate as to reach another world; and i cannot see the value of any philosophy that reaches beyond the intelligent happiness of the present. there may be a god who will make us happy in another world. if he does, it will be more than he has accomplished in this. i suppose that he will never have more than infinite power and never have less than infinite wisdom, and why people should expect that he should do better in another world than he has in this is something that i have never been able to explain. a being who has the power to prevent it and yet who allows thousands and millions of his children to starve; who devours them with earthquakes; who allows whole nations to be enslaved, cannot in my judgment be implicitly be depended upon to do justice in another world. _question_. how do the clergy generally treat you? _answer_. well, of course there are the same distinctions among clergymen as among other people. some of them are quite respectable gentlemen, especially those with whom i am not acquainted. i think that since the loss of my brother nothing could exceed the heartlessness of the remarks made by the average clergyman. there have been some noble exceptions, to whom i feel not only thankful but grateful; but a very large majority have taken this occasion to say most unfeeling and brutal things. i do not ask the clergy to forgive me, but i do request that they will so act that i will not have to forgive them. i have always insisted that those who love their enemies should at least tell the truth about their friends, but i suppose, after all, that religion must be supported by the same means as those by which it was founded. of course, there are thousands of good ministers, men who are endeavoring to make the world better, and whose failure is no particular fault of their own. i have always been in doubt as to whether the clergy were a necessary or an unnecessary evil. _question_. i would like to have a positive expression of your views as to a future state? _answer_. somebody asked confucius about another world, and his reply was: "how should i know anything about another world when i know so little of this?" for my part, i know nothing of any other state of existence, either before or after this, and i have never become personally acquainted with anybody that did. there may be another life, and if there is, the best way to prepare for it is by making somebody happy in this. god certainly cannot afford to put a man in hell who has made a little heaven in this world. i propose simply to take my chances with the rest of the folks, and prepare to go where the people i am best acquainted with will probably settle. i cannot afford to leave the great ship and sneak off to shore in some orthodox canoe. i hope there is another life, for i would like to see how things come out in the world when i am dead. there are some people i would like to see again, and hope there are some who would not object to seeing me; but if there is no other life i shall never know it. i do not remember a time when i did not exist; and if, when i die, that is the end, i shall not know it, because the last thing i shall know is that i am alive, and if nothing is left, nothing will be left to know that i am dead; so that so far as i am concerned i am immortal; that is to say, i cannot recollect when i did not exist, and there never will be a time when i shall remember that i do not exist. i would like to have several millions of dollars, and i may say that i have a lively hope that some day i may be rich, but to tell you the truth i have very little evidence of it. our hope of immortality does not come from any religion, but nearly all religions come from that hope. the old testament, instead of telling us that we are immortal, tells us how we lost immortality. you will recollect that if adam and eve could have gotten to the tree of life, they would have eaten of its fruit and would have lived forever; but for the purpose of preventing immortality god turned them out of the garden of eden, and put certain angels with swords or sabres at the gate to keep them from getting back. the old testament proves, if it proves anything--which i do not think it does--that there is no life after this; and the new testament is not very specific on the subject. there were a great many opportunities for the saviour and his apostles to tell us about another world, but they did not improve them to any great extent; and the only evidence, so far as i know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had. that is about my position. _question_. according to your observation of men, and your reading in relation to the men and women of the world and of the church, if there is another world divided according to orthodox principles between the orthodox and heterodox, which of the two that are known as heaven and hell would contain, in your judgment, the most good society? _answer_. since hanging has got to be a means of grace, i would prefer hell. i had a thousand times rather associate with the pagan philosophers than with the inquisitors of the middle ages. i certainly should prefer the worst man in greek or roman history to john calvin; and i can imagine no man in the world that i would not rather sit on the same bench with than the puritan fathers and the founders of orthodox churches. i would trade off my harp any minute for a seat in the other country. all the poets will be in perdition, and the greatest thinkers, and, i should think, most of the women whose society would tend to increase the happiness of man; nearly all the painters, nearly all the sculptors, nearly all the writers of plays, nearly all the great actors, most of the best musicians, and nearly all the good fellows--the persons who know stories, who can sing songs, or who will loan a friend a dollar. they will mostly all be in that country, and if i did not live there permanently, i certainly would want it so i could spend my winter months there. but, after all, what i really want to do is to destroy the idea of eternal punishment. that doctrine subverts all ideas of justice. that doctrine fills hell with honest men, and heaven with intellectual and moral paupers. that doctrine allows people to sin on credit. that doctrine allows the basest to be eternally happy and the most honorable to suffer eternal pain. i think of all doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous, and would disgrace the lowest savage; and any man who believes it, and has imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a serpent and the conscience of a hyena. _question_. your objective point is to destroy the doctrine of hell, is it? _answer_. yes, because the destruction of that doctrine will do away with all cant and all pretence. it will do away with all religious bigotry and persecution. it will allow every man to think and to express his thought. it will do away with bigotry in all its slimy and offensive forms. --_chicago tribune_, november , . politics and gen. grant _question_. some people have made comparisons between the late senators o. p. morton and zach. chandler. what did you think of them, colonel? _answer_. i think morton had the best intellectual grasp of a question of any man i ever saw. there was an infinite difference between the two men. morton's strength lay in proving a thing; chandler's in asserting it. but chandler was a strong man and no hypocrite. _question_. have you any objection to being interviewed as to your ideas of grant, and his position before the people? _answer_. i have no reason for withholding my views on that or any other subject that is under public discussion. my idea is that grant can afford to regard the presidency as a broken toy. it would add nothing to his fame if he were again elected, and would add nothing to the debt of gratitude which the people feel they owe him. i do not think he will be a candidate. i do not think he wants it. there are men who are pushing him on their own account. grant was a great soldier. he won the respect of the civilized world. he commanded the largest army that ever fought for freedom, and to make him president would not add a solitary leaf to the wreath of fame already on his brow; and should he be elected, the only thing he could do would be to keep the old wreath from fading. i do not think his reputation can ever be as great in any direction as in the direction of war. he has made his reputation and has lived his great life. i regard him, confessedly, as the best soldier the anglo-saxon blood has produced. i do not know that it necessarily follows because he is a great soldier he is great in other directions. probably some of the greatest statesmen in the world would have been the worst soldiers. _question_. do you regard him as more popular now than ever before? _answer_. i think that his reputation is certainly greater and higher than when he left the presidency, and mainly because he has represented this country with so much discretion and with such quiet, poised dignity all around the world. he has measured himself with kings, and was able to look over the heads of every one of them. they were not quite as tall as he was, even adding the crown to their original height. i think he represented us abroad with wonderful success. one thing that touched me very much was, that at a reception given him by the workingmen of birmingham, after he had been received by royalty, he had the courage to say that that reception gave him more pleasure than any other. he has been throughout perfectly true to the genius of our institutions, and has not upon any occasion exhibited the slightest toadyism. grant is a man who is not greatly affected by either flattery or abuse. _question_. what do you believe to be his position in regard to the presidency? _answer_. my own judgment is that he does not care. i do not think he has any enemies to punish, and i think that while he was president he certainly rewarded most of his friends. _question_. what are your views as to a third term? _answer_. i have no objection to a third term on principle, but so many men want the presidency that it seems almost cruel to give a third term to anyone. _question_. then, if there is no objection to a third term, what about a fourth? _answer_. i do not know that that could be objected to, either. we have to admit, after all, that the american people, or at least a majority of them, have a right to elect one man as often as they please. personally, i think it should not be done unless in the case of a man who is prominent above the rest of his fellow-citizens, and whose election appears absolutely necessary. but i frankly confess i cannot conceive of any political situation where one man is a necessity. i do not believe in the one-man-on-horseback idea, because i believe in all the people being on horseback. _question_. what will be the effect of the enthusiastic receptions that are being given to general grant? _answer_. i think these ovations show that the people are resolved not to lose the results of the great victories of the war, and that they make known this determination by their attention to general grant. i think that if he goes through the principal cities of this country the old spirit will be revived everywhere, and whether it makes him president or not the result will be to make the election go republican. the revival of the memories of the war will bring the people of the north together as closely as at any time since that great conflict closed, not in the spirit of hatred, or malice or envy, but in generous emulation to preserve that which was fairly won. i do not think there is any hatred about it, but we are beginning to see that we must save the south ourselves, and that that is the only way we can save the nation. _question_. but suppose they give the same receptions in the south? _answer_. so much the better. _question_. is there any split in the solid south? _answer_. some of the very best people in the south are apparently disgusted with following the democracy any longer, and would hail with delight any opportunity they could reasonably take advantage of to leave the organization, if they could do so without making it appear that they were going back on southern interests, and this opportunity will come when the south becomes enlightened, and sees that it has no interests except in common with the whole country. that i think they are beginning to see. _question_. how do you like the administration of president hayes? _answer_. i think its attitude has greatly improved of late. there are certain games of cards--pedro, for instance, where you can not only fail to make something, but be set back. i think that hayes's veto messages very nearly got him back to the commencement of the game--that he is now almost ready to commence counting, and make some points. his position before the country has greatly improved, but he will not develop into a dark horse. my preference is, of course, still for blaine. _question_. where do you think it is necessary the republican candidate should come from to insure success? _answer_. somewhere out of ohio. i think it will go to maine, and for this reason: first of all, blaine is certainly a competent man of affairs, a man who knows what to do at the time; and then he has acted in such a chivalric way ever since the convention at cincinnati, that those who opposed him most bitterly, now have for him nothing but admiration. i think john sherman is a man of decided ability, but i do not believe the american people would make one brother president, while the other is general of the army. it would be giving too much power to one family. _question_. what are your conclusions as to the future of the democratic party? _answer_. i think the democratic party ought to disband. i think they would be a great deal stronger disbanded, because they would get rid of their reputation without decreasing. _question_. but if they will not disband? _answer_. then the next campaign depends undoubtedly upon new york and indiana. i do not see how they can very well help nominating a man from indiana, and by that i mean hendricks. you see the south has one hundred and thirty-eight votes, all supposed to be democratic; with the thirty-five from new york and fifteen from indiana they would have just three to spare. now, i take it, that the fifteen from indiana are just about as essential as the thirty- five from new york. to lack fifteen votes is nearly as bad as being thirty-five short, and so far as drawing salary is concerned it is quite as bad. mr. hendricks ought to know that he holds the key to indiana, and that there cannot be any possibility of carrying this state for democracy without him. he has tried running for the vice-presidency, which is not much of a place anyhow--i would about as soon be vice-mother-in-law--and my judgment is that he knows exactly the value of his geographical position. new york is divided to that degree that it would be unsafe to take a candidate from that state; and besides, new york has become famous for furnishing defeated candidates for the democracy. i think the man must come from indiana. _question_. would the democracy of new york unite on seymour? _answer_. you recollect what lincoln said about the powder that had been shot off once. i do not remember any man who has once made a race for the presidency and been defeated ever being again nominated. _question_. what about bayard and hancock as candidates? _answer_. i do not see how bayard could possibly carry indiana, while his own state is too small and too solidly democratic. my idea of bayard is that he has not been good enough to be popular, and not bad enough to be famous. the american people will never elect a president from a state with a whipping-post. as to general hancock, you may set it down as certain that the south will never lend their aid to elect a man who helped to put down the rebellion. it would be just the same as the effort to elect greeley. it cannot be done. i see, by the way, that i am reported as having said that david davis, as the democratic candidate, could carry illinois. i did say that in , he could have carried it against hayes; but whether he could carry illinois in would depend altogether upon who runs against him. the condition of things has changed greatly in our favor since . --_the journal_, indianapolis, ind., november, . politics, religion and thomas paine. _question_. you have traveled about this state more or less, lately, and have, of course, observed political affairs here. do you think that senator logan will be able to deliver this state to the grant movement according to the understood plan? _answer_. if the state is really for grant, he will, and if it is not, he will not. illinois is as little "owned" as any state in this union. illinois would naturally be for grant, other things being equal, because he is regarded as a citizen of this state, and it is very hard for a state to give up the patronage naturally growing out of the fact that the president comes from that state. _question_. will the instructions given to delegates be final? _answer_. i do not think they will be considered final at all; neither do i think they will be considered of any force. it was decided at the last convention, in cincinnati, that the delegates had a right to vote as they pleased; that each delegate represented the district of the state that sent him. the idea that a state convention can instruct them as against the wishes of their constituents smacks a little too much of state sovereignty. the president should be nominated by the districts of the whole country, and not by massing the votes by a little chicanery at a state convention, and every delegate ought to vote what he really believes to be the sentiment of his constituents, irrespective of what the state convention may order him to do. he is not responsible to the state convention, and it is none of the state convention's business. this does not apply, it may be, to the delegates at large, but to all the others it certainly must apply. it was so decided at the cincinnati convention, and decided on a question arising about this same pennsylvania delegation. _question_. can you guess as to what the platform in going to contain? _answer_. i suppose it will be a substantial copy of the old one. i am satisfied with the old one with one addition. i want a plank to the effect that no man shall be deprived of any civil or political right on account of his religious or irreligious opinions. the republican party having been foremost in freeing the body ought to do just a little something now for the mind. after having wasted rivers of blood and treasure uncounted, and almost uncountable, to free the cage, i propose that something ought to be done for the bird. every decent man in the united states would support that plank. people should have a right to testify in courts, whatever their opinions may be, on any subject. justice should not shut any door leading to truth, and as long as just views neither affect a man's eyesight or his memory, he should be allowed to tell his story. and there are two sides to this question, too. the man is not only deprived of his testimony, but the commonwealth is deprived of it. there should be no religious test in this country for office; and if jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a state legislature, i think he ought to give it up. _question_. is there anything new about religion since you were last here? _answer_. since i was here i have spoken in a great many cities, and to-morrow i am going to do some missionary work at milwaukee. many who have come to scoff have remained to pray, and i think that my labors are being greatly blessed, and all attacks on me so far have been overruled for good. i happened to come in contact with a revival of religion, and i believe what they call an "outpouring" at detroit, under the leadership of a gentleman by the name of pentecost. he denounced me as god's greatest enemy. i had always supposed that the devil occupied that exalted position, but it seems that i have, in some way, fallen heir to his shoes. mr. pentecost also denounced all business men who would allow any advertisements or lithographs of mine to hang in their places of business, and several of these gentlemen thus appealed to took the advertisements away. the result of all this was that i had the largest house that ever attended a lecture in detroit. feeling that ingratitude is a crime, i publicly returned thanks to the clergy for the pains they had taken to give me an audience. and i may say, in this connection, that if the ministers do god as little good as they do me harm, they had better let both of us alone. i regard them as very good, but exceedingly mistaken men. they do not come much in contact with the world, and get most of their views by talking with the women and children of their congregations. they are not permitted to mingle freely with society. they cannot attend plays nor hear operas. i believe some of them have ventured to minstrel shows and menageries, where they confine themselves strictly to the animal part of the entertainment. but, as a rule, they have very few opportunities of ascertaining what the real public opinion is. they read religious papers, edited by gentlemen who know as little about the world as themselves, and the result of all this is that they are rather behind the times. they are good men, and would like to do right if they only knew it, but they are a little behind the times. there is an old story told of a fellow who had a post-office in a small town in north carolina, and he being the only man in the town who could read, a few people used to gather in the post-office on sunday, and he would read to them a weekly paper that was published in washington. he commenced always at the top of the first column and read right straight through, articles, advertisements, and all, and whenever they got a little tired of reading he would make a mark of red ochre and commence at that place the next sunday. the result was that the papers came a great deal faster than he read them, and it was about when they struck the war of . the moment they got to that, every one of them jumped up and offered to volunteer. all of which shows that they were patriotic people, but a little show, and somewhat behind the times. _question_. how were you pleased with the paine meeting here, and its results? _answer_. i was gratified to see so many people willing at last to do justice to a great and a maligned man. of course i do not claim that paine was perfect. all i claim is that he was a patriot and a political philosopher; that he was a revolutionist and an agitator; that he was infinitely full of suggestive thought, and that he did more than any man to convince the people of american not only that they ought to separate from great britain, but that they ought to found a representative government. he has been despised simply because he did not believe the bible. i wish to do what i can to rescue his name from theological defamation. i think the day has come when thomas paine will be remembered with washington, franklin and jefferson, and that the american people will wonder that their fathers could have been guilty of such base ingratitude. --_chicago times_, february , . reply to chicago critics. _question_. have you read the replies of the clergy to your recent lecture in this city on "what must we do to be saved?" and if so what do you think of them? _answer_. i think they dodge the point. the real point is this: if salvation by faith is the real doctrine of christianity, i asked on sunday before last, and i still ask, why didn't matthew tell it? i still insist that mark should have remembered it, and i shall always believe that luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. i was endeavoring to show that modern christianity has for its basis an interpolation. i think i showed it. the only gospel on the orthodox side is that of john, and that was certainly not written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the others were written. i know very well that the catholic church claimed during the dark ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the gospels by persons living in the first, second, and third centuries; but i believe such manuscripts were manufactured by the catholic church. for many years in europe there was not one person in twenty thousand who could read and write. during that time the church had in its keeping the literature of our world. they interpolated as they pleased. they created. they destroyed. in other words, they did whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith. the gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and i again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depends upon belief on the lord jesus christ, matthew didn't mention it. some one has said that christ didn't make known this doctrine of salvation by belief or faith until after his resurrection. certainly none of the gospels were written until after his resurrection; and if he made that doctrine known after his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should have been in matthew, mark, and luke, as well as in john. the replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the new testament. in other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological bias. there is one thing i wish to correct here. in an editorial in the _tribune_ it was stated that i had admitted that christ was beyond and above buddha, zoroaster, confucius, and others. i did not say so. another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good one. in my lecture i asked why it was that the disciples of christ wrote in greek, whereas, if fact, they understood only hebrew. it is now claimed that greek was the language of jerusalem at that time; that hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one understood it except the literati and the highly educated. if i fell into an error upon this point it was because i relied upon the new testament. i find in the twenty-first chapter of the acts an account of paul having been mobbed in the city of jerusalem; that he was protected by a chief captain and some soldiers; that, while upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the captain to speak unto the people. in the fortieth verse of that chapter i find the following: "and when he had given him license, paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people. and when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the hebrew tongue, saying," and then follows the speech of paul, wherein he gives an account of his conversion. it seems a little curious to me that paul, for the purpose of quieting a mob, would speak to that mob in an unknown language. if i were mobbed in the city of chicago, and wished to defend myself with an explanation, i certainly would not make that explanation in choctaw, even if i understood that tongue. my present opinion is that i would speak in english; and the reason i would speak in english is because that language is generally understood in this city, and so i conclude from the account in the twenty-first chapter of the acts that hebrew was the language of jerusalem at that time, or paul would not have addressed the mob in that tongue. _question_. did you read mr. courtney's answer? _answer_. i read what mr. courtney read from others, and think some of his quotations very good; and have no doubt that the authors will feel complimented by being quoted. there certainly is no need of my answering dr. courtney; sometime i may answer the french gentlemen from whom he quoted. _question_. but what about there being "belief" in matthew? _answer_. mr. courtney says that certain people were cured of diseases on account of faith. admitting that mumps, measles, and whooping-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a suggestion that salvation depended upon a like faith. i think he can hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the new testament to prove his doctrine. there is one instance in which a miracle was performed by christ without his knowledge; and i hardly think that even mr. courtney would insist that any faith could have been great enough for that. the fact is, i believe that all these miracles were ascribed to christ long after his death, and that christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any supernatural power whatever. neither do i believe that he claimed any supernatural origin. he claimed simply to be a man; no less, no more. i do not believe mr. courtney is satisfied with his own reply. _question_. and now as to prof. swing? _answer_. mr. swing has been out of the orthodox church so long that he seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it. i do not believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of chicago who will agree with mr. swing that salvation by faith is no longer preached. prof. swing seems to think it of no importance who wrote the gospel of matthew. in this i agree with him. judging from what he said there is hardly difference enough of opinion between us to justify a reply on his part. he, however, makes one mistake. i did not in the lecture say one word about tearing down churches. i have no objection to people building all the churches they wish. while i admit it is a pretty sight to see children on a morning in june going through the fields to the country church, i still insist that the beauty of that sight does not answer the question how it is that matthew forgot to say anything about salvation through christ. prof. swing is a man of poetic temperament, but this is not a poetic question. _question_. how did the card of dr. thomas strike you? _answer_. i think the reply of dr. thomas is in the best possible spirit. i regard him to-day as the best intellect in the methodist denomination. he seems to have what is generally understood as a christian spirit. he has always treated me with perfect fairness, and i should have said long ago many grateful things, had i not feared i might hurt him with his own people. he seems to be by nature a perfectly fair man; and i know of no man in the united states for whom i have a profounder respect. of course, i don't agree with dr. thomas. i think in many things he is mistaken. but i believe him to be perfectly sincere. there is one trouble about him--he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great trouble to many of his brethren. certain methodist hazel-brush feel a little uneasy in the shadow of this oak. to see the difference between him and some others, all that is necessary is to read his reply, and then read the remarks made at the methodist ministers' meeting on the monday following. compared with dr. thomas, they are as puddles by the sea. there is the same difference that there is between sewers and rivers, cesspools and springs. _question_. what have you to say to the remarks of the rev. dr. jewett before the methodist ministers' meeting? _answer_. i think dr. jewett is extremely foolish. i did not say that i would commence suit against a minister for libel. i can hardly conceive of a proceeding that would be less liable to produce a dividend. the fact about it is, that the rev. mr. jewett seems to think anything true that he hears against me. mr. jewett is probably ashamed of what he said by this time. he must have known it to be entirely false. it seems to me by this time even the most bigoted should lose their confidence in falsehood. of course there are times when a falsehood well told bridges over quite a difficulty, but in the long run you had better tell the truth, even if you swim the creek. i am astonished that these ministers were willing to exhibit their wounds to the world. i supposed of course i would hit some, but i had no idea of wounding so many. _question_. mr. crafts stated that you were in the habit of swearing in company and before your family? _answer_. i often swear. in other words, i take the name of god in vain; that is to say, i take it without any practical thing resulting from it, and in that sense i think most ministers are guilty of the same thing. i heard an old story of a clergyman who rebuked a neighbor for swearing, to whom the neighbor replied, "you pray and i swear, but as a matter of fact neither of us means anything by it." as to the charge that i am in the habit of using indecent language in my family, no reply is needed. i am willing to leave that question to the people who know us both. mr. crafts says he was told this by a lady. this cannot by any possibility be true, for no lady will tell a falsehood. besides, if this woman of whom he speaks was a lady, how did she happen to stay where obscene language was being used? no lady ever told mr. crafts any such thing. it may be that a lady did tell him that i used profane language. i admit that i have not always spoken of the devil in a respectful way; that i have sometimes referred to his residence when it was not a necessary part of the conversation, and that a divers times i have used a good deal of the terminology of the theologian when the exact words of the scientist might have done as well. but if by swearing is meant the use of god's name in vain, there are very few preachers who do not swear more than i do, if by "in vain" is meant without any practical result. i leave mr. crafts to cultivate the acquaintance of the unknown lady, knowing as i do, that after they have talked this matter over again they will find that both have been mistaken. i sincerely regret that clergymen who really believe that an infinite god is on their side think it necessary to resort to such things to defeat one man. according to their idea, god is against me, and they ought to have confidence in this infinite wisdom and strength to suppose that he could dispose of one man, even if they failed to say a word against me. had you not asked me i should have said nothing to you on these topics. such charges cannot hurt me. i do not believe it possible for such men to injure me. no one believes what they say, and the testimony of such clergymen against an infidel is no longer considered of value. i believe it was goethe who said, "i always know that i am traveling when i hear the dogs bark." _question_. are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons? _answer_. not unless something better is done than has been. of course, i don't know what another sabbath may bring forth. i am waiting. but of one thing i feel perfectly assured; that no man in the united states, or in the world, can account for the fact, if we are to be saved only by faith in christ, that matthew forgot it, that luke said nothing about it, and that mark never mentioned it except in two passages written by _another_ person. until that is answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "hamlet," i shall say, "ay, tell me that and unyoke." in the meantime i wish to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned. i cannot see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise. --_chicago tribune_, september , . the republican victory. _question_. do you really think, colonel, that the country has just passed through a crisis? _answer_. yes; there was a crisis and a great one. the question was whether a northern or southern idea of the powers and duties of the federal government was to prevail. the great victory of yesterday means that the rebellion was not put down on the field of war alone, but that we have conquered in the realm of thought. the bayonet has been justified by argument. no party can ever succeed in this country that even whispers "state sovereignty." that doctrine has become odious. the sovereignty of the state means a government without power, and citizens without protection. _question_. can you see any further significance in the present republican victory other than that the people do not wish to change the general policy of the present administration? _answer_. yes; the people have concluded that the lips of america shall be free. there never was free speech at the south, and there never will be until the people of that section admit that the nation is superior to the state, and that all citizens have equal rights. i know of hundreds who voted the republican ticket because they regarded the south as hostile to free speech. the people were satisfied with the financial policy of the republicans, and they feared a change. the north wants honest money--gold and silver. the people are in favor of honest votes, and they feared the practices of the democratic party. the tissue ballot and shotgun policy made them hesitate to put power in the hands of the south. besides, the tariff question made thousands and thousands of votes. as long as europe has slave labor, and wherever kings and priests rule, the laborer will be substantially a slave. we must protect ourselves. if the world were free, trade would be free, and the seas would be the free highways of the world. the great objects of the republican party are to preserve all the liberty we have, protect american labor, and to make it the undisputed duty of the government to protect every citizen at home and abroad. _question_. what do you think was the main cause of the republican sweep? _answer_. the wisdom of the republicans and the mistakes of the democrats. the democratic party has for twenty years underrated the intelligence, the patriotism and the honesty of the american people. that party has always looked upon politics as a trade, and success as the last act of a cunning trick. it has had no principles, fixed or otherwise. it has always been willing to abandon everything but its prejudices. it generally commences where it left off and then goes backward. in this campaign english was a mistake, hancock was another. nothing could have been more incongruous than yoking a federal soldier with a peace-at-any-price democrat. neither could praise the other without slandering himself, and the blindest partisan could not like them both. but, after all, i regard the military record of english as fully equal to the views of general hancock on the tariff. the greatest mistake that the democratic party made was to suppose that a campaign could be fought and won by slander. the american people like fair play and they abhor ignorant and absurd vituperation. the continent knew that general garfield was an honest man; that he was in the grandest sense a gentleman; that he was patriotic, profound and learned; that his private life was pure; that his home life was good and kind and true, and all the charges made and howled and screeched and printed and sworn to harmed only those who did the making and the howling, the screeching and the swearing. i never knew a man in whose perfect integrity i had more perfect confidence, and in less than one year even the men who have slandered him will agree with me. _question_. how about that "personal and confidential letter"? (the morey letter.) _answer_. it was as stupid, as devilish, as basely born as godfathered. it is an exploded forgery, and the explosion leaves dead and torn upon the field the author and his witnesses. _question_. is there anything in the charge that the republican party seeks to change our form of government by gradual centralization? _answer_. nothing whatever. we want power enough in the government to protect, not to destroy, the liberties of the people. the history of the world shows that burglars have always opposed an increase of the police. --_new york herald_, november , . ingersoll and beecher.* [* the sensation created by the speech of the rev. henry ward beecher at the academy of music, in brooklyn, when he uttered a brilliant eulogy of col. robert ingersoll and publicly shook hands with him has not yet subsided. a portion of the religious world is thoroughly stirred up at what it considers a gross breach of orthodox propriety. this feeling is especially strong among the class of positivists who believe that "an atheist's laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended." many believe that mr. beecher is at heart in full sympathy and accord with ingersoll's teachings, but has not courage enough to say so at the sacrifice of his pastoral position. the fact that these two men are the very head and front of their respective schools of thought makes the matter an important one. the denouncement of the doctrine of eternal punishment, followed by the scene at the academy, has about it an aroma of suggestiveness that might work much harm without an explanation. since colonel ingersoll's recent attack upon the _personnel_ of the clergy through the "shorter catechism" the pulpit has been remarkably silent regarding the great atheist. "is the keen logic and broad humanity of ingersoll converting the brain and heart of christendom?" was recently asked. did the hand that was stretched out to him on the stage of the academy reach across the chasm which separates orthodoxy from infidelity? desiring to answer the last question if possible, a _herald_ reporter visited mr. beecher and colonel ingersoll to learn their opinion of each other. neither of the gentlemen was aware that the other was being interviewed.] _question_. what is your opinion of mr. beecher? _answer_. i regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit of the world. he treated me with a generosity that nothing can exceed. he rose grandly above the prejudices supposed to belong to his class, and acted as only a man could act without a chain upon his brain and only kindness in his heart. i told him that night that i congratulated the world that it had a minister with an intellectual horizon broad enough and a mental sky studded with stars of genius enough to hold all creeds in scorn that shocked the heart of man. i think that mr. beecher has liberalized the english-speaking people of the world. i do not think he agrees with me. he holds to many things that i most passionately deny. but in common, we believe in the liberty of thought. my principal objections to orthodox religion are two--slavery here and hell hereafter. i do not believe that mr. beecher on these points can disagree with me. the real difference between us is-- he says god, i say nature. the real agreement between us is--we both say--liberty. _question_. what is his forte? _answer_. he is of a wonderfully poetic temperament. in pursuing any course of thought his mind is like a stream flowing through the scenery of fairyland. the stream murmurs and laughs while the banks grow green and the vines blossom. his brain is controlled by his heart. he thinks in pictures. with him logic means mental melody. the discordant is the absurd. for years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon of orthodoxy with the ivy of imagination. now and then he pulls for a moment the leafy curtain aside and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes, basilisks and abnormal monsters of the orthodox age, and then he utters a great cry, the protest of a loving, throbbing heart. he is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, in my judgment, greater and grander than any creed of any church. besides all this, he treated me like a king. manhood is his forte, and i expect to live and die his friend. beecher on ingersoll. _question_. what is your opinion of colonel ingersoll? _answer_. i do not think there should be any misconception as to my motive for indorsing mr. ingersoll. i never saw him before that night, when i clasped his hand in the presence of an assemblage of citizens. yet i regard him as one of the greatest men of this age. _question_. is his influence upon the world good or otherwise? _answer_. i am an ordained clergyman and believe in revealed religion. i am, therefore, bound to regard all persons who do not believe in revealed religion as in error. but on the broad platform of human liberty and progress i was bound to give him the right hand of fellowship. i would do it a thousand times over. i do not know colonel ingersoll's religious views precisely, but i have a general knowledge of them. he has the same right to free thought and free speech that i have. i am not that kind of a coward who has to kick a man before he shakes hands with him. if i did so i would have to kick the methodists, roman catholics and all other creeds. i will not pitch into any man's religion as an excuse for giving him my hand. i admire ingersoll because he is not afraid to speak what he honestly thinks, and i am only sorry that he does not think as i do. i never heard so much brilliancy and pith put into a two hour speech as i did on that night. i wish my whole congregation had been there to hear it. i regret that there are not more men like ingersoll interested in the affairs of the nation. i do not wish to be understood as indorsing skepticism in any form. --_new york herald_, november , . political. _question_. is it true, as rumored, that you intend to leave washington and reside in new york? _answer_. no, i expect to remain here for years to come, so far as i can now see. my present intention is certainly to stay here during the coming winter. _question_. is this because you regard washington as the pleasantest and most advantageous city for a residence? _answer_. well, in the first place, i dislike to move. in the next place, the climate is good. in the third place, the political atmosphere has been growing better of late, and when you consider that i avoid one dislike and reap the benefits of two likes, you can see why i remain. _question_. do you think that the moral atmosphere will improve with the political atmosphere? _answer_. i would hate to say that this city is capable of any improvement in the way of morality. we have a great many churches, a great many ministers, and, i believe, some retired chaplains, so i take it that the moral tone of the place could hardly be bettered. one majority in the senate might help it. seriously, however, i think that washington has as high a standard of morality as any city in the union. and it is one of the best towns in which to loan money without collateral in the world. _question_. do you know this from experience? _answer_. this i have been told [was the solemn answer.] _question_. do you think that the political features of the incoming administration will differ from the present? _answer_. of course, i have no right to speak for general garfield. i believe his administration will be republican, at the same time perfectly kind, manly, and generous. he is a man to harbor no resentment. he knows that it is the duty of statesmanship to remove causes of irritation rather then punish the irritated. _question_. do i understand you to imply that there will be a neutral policy, as it were, towards the south? _answer_. no, i think that there will be nothing neutral about it. i think that the next administration will be one-sided--that is, it will be on the right side. i know of no better definition for a compromise than to say it is a proceeding in which hypocrites deceive each other. i do not believe that the incoming administration will be neutral in anything. the american people do not like neutrality. they would rather a man were on the wrong side than on neither. and, in my judgment, there is no paper so utterly unfair, malicious and devilish, as one that claims to be neutral. no politician is as bitter as a neutral politician. neutrality is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. sometimes it hides what it is--nothing. it always stands for hollowness of head or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both. my idea is--and that is the only reason i have the right to express it--that general garfield believes in the platform adopted by the republican party. he believes in free speech, in honest money, in divorce of church and state, and he believes in the protection of american citizens by the federal government wherever the flag flies. he believes that the federal government is as much bound to protect the citizen at home as abroad. i believe he will do the very best he can to carry these great ideas into execution and make them living realities in the united states. personally, i have no hatred toward the southern people. i have no hatred toward any class. i hate tyranny, no matter whether it is south or north; i hate hypocrisy, and i hate above all things, the spirit of caste. if the southern people could only see that they gained as great a victory in the rebellion as the north did, and some day they will see it, the whole question would be settled. the south has reaped a far greater benefit from being defeated than the north has from being successful, and i believe some day the south will be great enough to appreciate that fact. i have always insisted that to be beaten by the right is to be a victor. the southern people must get over the idea that they are insulted simply because they are out-voted, and they ought by this time to know that the republicans of the north, not only do not wish them harm, but really wish them the utmost success. _question_. but has the republican party all the good and the democratic all the bad? _answer_. no, i do not think that the republican party has all the good, nor do i pretend that the democratic party has all the bad; though i may say that each party comes pretty near it. i admit that there are thousands of really good fellows in the democratic party, and there are some pretty bad people in the republican party. but i honestly believe that within the latter are most of the progressive men of this country. that party has in it the elements of growth. it is full of hope. it anticipates. the democratic party remembers. it is always talking about the past. it is the possessor of a vast amount of political rubbish, and i really believe it has outlived its usefulness. i firmly believe that your editor, mr. hutchings, could start a better organization, if he would only turn his attention to it. just think for a moment of the number you could get rid of by starting a new party. a hundred names will probably suggest themselves to any intelligent democrat, the loss of which would almost insure success. some one has said that a tailor in boston made a fortune by advertising that he did not cut the breeches of webster's statue. a new party by advertising that certain men would not belong to it, would have an advantage in the next race. _question_. what, in your opinion, were the causes which led to the democratic defeat? _answer_. i think the nomination of english was exceedingly unfortunate. indiana, being an october state, the best man in that state should have been nominated either for president or vice- president. personally, i know nothing of mr. english, but i have the right to say that he was exceedingly unpopular. that was mistake number one. mistake number two was putting a plank in the platform insisting upon a tariff for revenue only. that little word "only" was one of the most frightful mistakes ever made by a political party. that little word "only" was a millstone around the neck of the entire campaign. the third mistake was hancock's definition of the tariff. it was exceedingly unfortunate, exceedingly laughable, and came just in the nick of time. the fourth mistake was the speech of wade hampton, i mean the speech that the republican papers claim he made. of course i do not know, personally, whether it was made or not. if made, it was a great mistake. mistake number five was made in alabama, where they refused to allow a greenbacker to express his opinion. that lost the democrats enough greenbackers to turn the scale in maine, and enough in indiana to change that election. mistake number six was in the charges made against general garfield. they were insisted upon, magnified and multiplied until at last the whole thing assumed the proportions of a malicious libel. this was a great mistake, for the reason that a number of democrats in the united states had most heartily and cordially indorsed general garfield as a man of integrity and great ability. such indorsements had been made by the leading democrats of the north and south, among them governor hendricks and many others i might name. jere black had also certified to the integrity and intellectual grandeur of general garfield, and when afterward he certified to the exact contrary, the people believed that it was a persecution. the next mistake, number seven, was the chinese letter. while it lost garfield california, nevada, and probably new jersey, it did him good in new york. this letter was the greatest mistake made, because a crime is greater than a mistake. these, in my judgment, are the principal mistakes made by the democratic party in the campaign. had mcdonald been on the ticket the result might have been different, or had the party united on some man in new york, satisfactory to the factions, it might have succeeded. the truth, however, is that the north to-day is republican, and it may be that had the democratic party made no mistakes whatever the result would have been the same. but that mistakes were made is now perfectly evident to the blindest partisan. if the ticket originally suggested, seymour and mcdonald, had been nominated on an unobjectionable platform, the result might have been different. one of the happiest days in my life was the day on which the cincinnati convention did not nominate seymour and did nominate english. i regard general hancock as a good soldier, but not particularly qualified to act as president. he has neither the intellectual training nor the experience to qualify him for that place. _question_. you have doubtless heard of a new party, colonel. what is your idea in regard to it? _answer_. i have heard two or three speak of a new party to be called the national party, or national union party, but whether there is anything in such a movement i have no means of knowing. any party in opposition to the republican, no matter what it may be called, must win on a new issue, and that new issue will determine the new party. parties cannot be made to order. they must grow. they are the natural offspring of national events. they must embody certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify, the feelings of a vast number of people. no man can make a party, and if a new party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many. it has seemed to me for years that the democratic party carried too great a load in the shape of record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it all the time, and that if it could die just long enough to assume another form at the resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave stone to mark the end of its history, to get a cemetery back of it, that it might hope for something like success. in other words, that there must be a funeral before there can be victory. most of its leaders are worn out. they have become so accustomed to defeat that they take it as a matter of course; they expect it in the beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it. there must be some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as such has been gathered to its fathers. i do not think that the advice of senator hill will be followed. he is willing to kill the democratic party in the south if we will kill the republican party in the north. this puts me in mind of what the rooster said to the horse: "let us agree not to step on each other's feet." _question_. your views of the country's future and prospects must naturally be rose colored? _answer_. of course, i look at things through republican eyes and may be prejudiced without knowing it. but it really seems to me that the future is full of great promise. the south, after all, is growing more prosperous. it is producing more and more every year, until in time it will become wealthy. the west is growing almost beyond the imagination of a speculator, and the eastern and middle states are much more than holding their own. we have now fifty millions of people and in a few years will have a hundred. that we are a nation i think is now settled. our growth will be unparalleled. i myself expect to live to see as many ships on the pacific as on the atlantic. in a few years there will probably be ten millions of people living along the rocky and sierra mountains. it will not be long until illinois will find her market west of her. in fifty years this will be the greatest nation on the earth, and the most populous in the civilized world. china is slowly awakening from the lethargy of centuries. it will soon have the wants of europe, and america will supply those wants. this is a nation of inventors and there is more mechanical ingenuity in the united states than on the rest of the globe. in my judgment this country will in a short time add to its customers hundreds of millions of the people of the celestial empire. so you see, to me, the future is exceedingly bright. and besides all this, i must not forget the thing that is always nearest my heart. there is more intellectual liberty in the united states to-day than ever before. the people are beginning to see that every citizen ought to have the right to express himself freely upon every possible subject. in a little while, all the barbarous laws that now disgrace the statute books of the states by discriminating against a man simply because he is honest, will be repealed, and there will be one country where all citizens will have and enjoy not only equal rights, but all rights. nothing gratifies me so much as the growth of intellectual liberty. after all, the true civilization is where every man gives to every other, every right that he claims for himself. --_the post_, washington, d. c., november , . religion in politics. _question_. how do you regard the present political situation? _answer_. my opinion is that the ideas the north fought for upon the field have at last triumphed at the ballot-box. for several years after the rebellion was put down the southern ideas traveled north. we lost west virginia, new jersey, connecticut, new york and a great many congressional districts in other states. we lost both houses of congress and every southern state. the southern ideas reached their climax in . in my judgment the tide has turned, and hereafter the northern idea is going south. the young men are on the republican side. the old democrats are dying. the cradle is beating the coffin. it is a case of life and death, and life is ahead. the heirs outnumber the administrators. _question_. what kind of a president will garfield make? _answer_. my opinion is that he will make as good a president as this nation ever had. he is fully equipped. he is a trained statesman. he has discussed all the great questions that have arisen for the last eighteen years, and with great ability. he is a thorough scholar, a conscientious student, and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions. he is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to make a great president. he has no prejudices. prejudice is the child and flatterer of ignorance. he is firm, but not obstinate. the obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right. andrew johnson was obstinate--lincoln was firm. _question_. how do you think he will treat the south? _answer_. just the same as the north. he will be the president of the whole country. he will not execute the laws by the compass, but according to the constitution. i do not speak for general garfield, nor by any authority from his friends. no one wishes to injure the south. the republican party feels in honor bound to protect all citizens, white and black. it must do this in order to keep its self-respect. it must throw the shield of the nation over the weakest, the humblest and the blackest citizen. any other course is suicide. no thoughtful southern man can object to this, and a northern democrat knows that it is right. _question_. is there a probability that mr. sherman will be retained in the cabinet? _answer_. i have no knowledge upon that question, and consequently have nothing to say. my opinion about the cabinet is, that general garfield is well enough acquainted with public men to choose a cabinet that will suit him and the country. i have never regarded it as the proper thing to try and force a cabinet upon a president. he has the right to be surrounded by his friends, by men in whose judgment and in whose friendship he has the utmost confidence, and i would no more think of trying to put some man in the cabinet that i would think of signing a petition that a man should marry a certain woman. general garfield will, i believe, select his own constitutional advisers, and he will take the best he knows. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the condition of the democratic party at present? _answer_. it must get a new set of principles, and throw away its prejudices. it must demonstrate its capacity to govern the country by governing the states where it is in power. in the presence of rebellion it gave up the ship. the south must become republican before the north will willingly give it power; that is, the great ideas of nationality are greater than parties, and if our flag is not large enough to protect every citizen, we must add a few more stars and stripes. personally i have no hatreds in this matter. the present is not only the child of the past, but the necessary child. a statesman must deal with things as they are. he must not be like gladstone, who divides his time between foreign wars and amendments to the english book of common prayer. _question_. how do you regard the religious question in politics? _answer_. religion is a personal matter--a matter that each individual soul should be allowed to settle for itself. no man shod in the brogans of impudence should walk into the temple of another man's soul. while every man should be governed by the highest possible considerations of the public weal, no one has the right to ask for legal assistance in the support of his particular sect. if catholics oppose the public schools i would not oppose them because they are catholics, but because i am in favor of the schools. i regard the public school as the intellectual bread of life. personally i have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children. i suspect all creeds that rely implicitly on mothers and nurses. that religion is the best that commends itself the strongest to men and women of education and genius. after all, the prejudices of infancy and the ignorance of the aged are a poor foundation for any system of morals or faith. i respect every honest man, and i think more of a liberal catholic than of an illiberal infidel. the religious question should be left out of politics. you might as well decide questions of art and music by a ward caucus as to govern the longings and dreams of the soul by law. i believe in letting the sun shine whether the weeds grow or not. i can never side with protestants if they try to put catholics down by law, and i expect to oppose both of these until religious intolerance is regarded as a crime. _question_. is the religious movement of which you are the chief exponent spreading? _answer_. there are ten times as many freethinkers this year as there were last. civilization is the child of free thought. the new world has drifted away from the rotting wharf of superstition. the politics of this country are being settled by the new ideas of individual liberty; and parties and churches that cannot accept the new truths must perish. i want it perfectly understood that i am not a politician. i believe in liberty and i want to see the time when every man, woman and child will enjoy every human right. the election is over, the passions aroused by the campaign will soon subside, the sober judgment of the people will, in my opinion, indorse the result, and time will indorse the indorsement. --_the evening express_, new york city, november , . miracles and immortality. _question_. you have seen some accounts of the recent sermon of dr. tyng on "miracles," i presume, and if so, what is your opinion of the sermon, and also what is your opinion of miracles? _answer_. from an orthodox standpoint, i think the rev. dr. tyng is right. if miracles were necessary eighteen hundred years ago, before scientific facts enough were known to overthrow hundreds and thousands of passages in the bible, certainly they are necessary now. dr. tyng sees clearly that the old miracles are nearly worn out, and that some new ones are absolutely essential. he takes for granted that, if god would do a miracle to found his gospel, he certainly would do some more to preserve it, and that it is in need of preservation about now is evident. i am amazed that the religious world should laugh at him for believing in miracles. it seems to me just as reasonable that the deaf, dumb, blind and lame, should be cured at lourdes as at palestine. it certainly is no more wonderful that the law of nature should be broken now than that it was broken several thousand years ago. dr. tyng also has this advantage. the witnesses by whom he proves these miracles are alive. an unbeliever can have the opportunity of cross- examination. whereas, the miracles in the new testament are substantiated only by the dead. it is just as reasonable to me that blind people receive their sight in france as that devils were made to vacate human bodies in the holy land. for one i am exceedingly glad that dr. tyng has taken this position. it shows that he is a believer in a personal god, in a god who is attending a little to the affairs of this world, and in a god who did not exhaust his supplies in the apostolic age. it is refreshing to me to find in this scientific age a gentleman who still believes in miracles. my opinion is that all thorough religionists will have to take the ground and admit that a supernatural religion must be supernaturally preserved. i have been asking for a miracle for several years, and have in a very mild, gentle and loving way, taunted the church for not producing a little one. i have had the impudence to ask any number of them to join in a prayer asking anything they desire for the purpose of testing the efficiency of what is known as supplication. they answer me by calling my attention to the miracles recorded in the new testament. i insist, however, on a new miracle, and, personally, i would like to see one now. certainly, the infinite has not lost his power, and certainly the infinite knows that thousands and hundreds of thousands, if the bible is true, are now pouring over the precipice of unbelief into the gulf of hell. one little miracle would save thousands. one little miracle in pittsburg, well authenticated, would do more good than all the preaching ever heard in this sooty town. the rev. dr. tyng clearly sees this, and he has been driven to the conclusion, first, that god can do miracles; second, that he ought to, third, that he has. in this he is perfectly logical. after a man believes the bible, after he believes in the flood and in the story of jonah, certainly he ought not to hesitate at a miracle of to-day. when i say i want a miracle, i mean by that, i want a good one. all the miracles recorded in the new testament could have been simulated. a fellow could have pretended to be dead, or blind, or dumb, or deaf. i want to see a good miracle. i want to see a man with one leg, and then i want to see the other leg grow out. i would like to see a miracle like that performed in north carolina. two men were disputing about the relative merits of the salve they had for sale. one of the men, in order to demonstrate that his salve was better than any other, cut off a dog's tail and applied a little of the salve to the stump, and, in the presence of the spectators, a new tail grew out. but the other man, who also had salve for sale, took up the piece of tail that had been cast away, put a little salve at the end of that, and a new dog grew out, and the last heard of those parties they were quarrelling as to who owned the second dog. something like that is what i call a miracle. _question_. what do you believe about the immortality of the soul? do you believe that the spirit lives as an individual after the body is dead? _answer_. i have said a great many times that it is no more wonderful that we should live again than that we do live. sometimes i have thought it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we have a start. but upon that subject i have not the slightest information. whether man lives again or not i cannot pretend to say. there may be another world and there may not be. if there is another world we ought to make the best of it after arriving there. if there is not another world, or if there is another world, we ought to make the best of this. and since nobody knows, all should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that nobody knows. if we take the old testament for authority, man is not immortal. the old testament shows man how he lost immortality. according to genesis, god prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating of the tree of life. it is there stated, had he succeeded, man would have lived forever. god drove him from the garden, preventing him eating of this tree, and in consequence man became mortal; so that if we go by the old testament we are compelled to give up immortality. the new testament has but little on the subject. in one place we are told to seek for immortality. if we are already immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it. in another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in marriage. from this one would infer there would be some unworthy to be raised from the dead. upon the question of immortality, the old testament throws but little satisfactory light. i do not deny immortality, nor would i endeavor to shake the belief of anybody in another life. what i am endeavoring to do is to put out the fires of hell. if we cannot have heaven without hell, i am in favor of abolishing heaven. i do not want to go to heaven if one soul is doomed to agony. i would rather be annihilated. my opinion of immortality is this: first.--i live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful. second.--there was a time when i was not, and after i was not, i was. third.--now that i am, i may be again; and it is no more wonderful that i may be again, if i have been, than that i am, having once been nothing. if the churches advocated immortality, if they advocated eternal justice, if they said that man would be rewarded and punished according to deeds; if they admitted that some time in eternity there would be an opportunity given to lift up souls, and that throughout all the ages the angels of progress and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that some time, and no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the children of men would be reasonably happy, i never would say a solitary word against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long i shall oppose them; that is to say, as long as i live. _question_. do you believe in a god; and, if so, what kind of a god? _answer_. let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an answer. first.--man gets all food for thought through the medium of the senses. the effect of nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon the brain, must be natural. all food for thought, then, is natural. as a consequence of this, there can be no supernatural idea in the human brain. whatever idea there is must have been a natural product. if, then, there is no supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain an idea of the supernatural. if we can have no idea of the supernatural, and if the god of whom you spoke is admitted to be supernatural, then, of course, i can have no idea of him, and i certainly can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which i have no idea. there may be a god for all i know. there may be thousands of them. but the idea of an infinite being outside and independent of nature is inconceivable. i do not know of any word that would explain my doctrine or my views upon the subject. i suppose pantheism is as near as i could go. i believe in the eternity of matter and in the eternity of intelligence, but i do not believe in any being outside of nature. i do not believe in any personal deity. i do not believe in any aristocracy of the air. i know nothing about origin or destiny. between these two horizons i live, whether i wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what i find between these two horizons. i have never heard any god described that i believe in. i have never heard any religion explained that i accept. to make something out of nothing cannot be more absurd than that an infinite intelligence made this world, and proceeded to fill it with crime and want and agony, and then, not satisfied with the evil he had wrought, made a hell in which to consummate the great mistake. _question_. do you believe that the world, and all that is in it came by chance? _answer_. i do not believe anything comes by chance. i regard the present as the necessary child of a necessary past. i believe matter is eternal; that it has eternally existed and eternally will exist. i believe that in all matter, in some way, there is what we call force; that one of the forms of force is intelligence. i believe that whatever is in the universe has existed from eternity and will forever exist. secondly.--i exclude from my philosophy all ideas of chance. matter changes eternally its form, never its essence. you cannot conceive of anything being created. no one can conceive of anything existing without a cause or with a cause. let me explain; a thing is not a cause until an effect has been produced; so that, after all, cause and effect are twins coming into life at precisely the same instant, born of the womb of an unknown mother. the universe in the only fact, and everything that ever has happened, is happening, or will happen, are but the different aspects of the one eternal fact. --_the dispatch_, pittsburg, pa., december , . the political outlook. _question_. what phases will the southern question assume in the next four years? _answer_. the next congress should promptly unseat every member of congress in whose district there was not a fair and honest election. that is the first hard work to be done. let notice, in this way, be given to the whole country, that fraud cannot succeed. no man should be allowed to hold a seat by force or fraud. just as soon as it is understood that fraud is useless it will be abandoned. in that way the honest voters of the whole country can be protected. an honest vote settles the southern question, and congress has the power to compel an honest vote, or to leave the dishonest districts without representation. i want this policy adopted, not only in the south, but in the north. no man touched or stained with fraud should be allowed to hold his seat. send such men home, and let them stay there until sent back by honest votes. the southern question is a northern question, and the republican party must settle it for all time. we must have honest elections, or the republic must fall. illegal voting must be considered and punished as a crime. taking one hundred and seventy thousand as the basis of representation, the south, through her astounding increase of colored population, gains three electoral votes, while the north and east lose three. garfield was elected by the thirty thousand colored votes cast in new york. _question_. will the negro continue to be the balance of power, and if so, will it inure to his benefit? _answer_. the more political power the colored man has the better he will be treated, and if he ever holds the balance of power he will be treated as well as the balance of our citizens. my idea is that the colored man should stand on an equality with the white before the law; that he should honestly be protected in all his rights; that he should be allowed to vote, and that his vote should be counted. it is a simple question of honesty. the colored people are doing well; they are industrious; they are trying to get an education, and, on the whole, i think they are behaving fully as well as the whites. they are the most forgiving people in the world, and about the only real christians in our country. they have suffered enough, and for one i am on their side. i think more of honest black people than of dishonest whites, to say the least of it. _question_. do you apprehend any trouble from the southern leaders in this closing session of congress, in attempts to force pernicious legislation? _answer_. i do not. the southern leaders know that the doctrine of state sovereignty is dead. they know that they cannot depend upon the northern democrat, and they know that the best interests of the south can only be preserved by admitting that the war settled the questions and ideas fought for and against. they know that this country is a nation, and that no party can possibly succeed that advocates anything contrary to that. my own opinion is that most of the southern leaders are heartily ashamed of the course pursued by their northern friends, and will take the first opportunity to say so. _question_. in what light do you regard the chinaman? _answer_. i am opposed to compulsory immigration, or cooley or slave immigration. if chinamen are sent to this country by corporations or companies under contracts that amount to slavery or anything like it or near it, then i am opposed to it. but i am not prepared to say that i would be opposed to voluntary immigration. i see by the papers that a new treaty has been agreed upon that will probably be ratified and be satisfactory to all parties. we ought to treat china with the utmost fairness. if our treaty is wrong, amend it, but do so according to the recognized usage of nations. after what has been said and done in this country i think there is very little danger of any chinaman voluntarily coming here. by this time china must have an exceedingly exalted opinion of our religion, and of the justice and hospitality born of our most holy faith. _question_. what is your opinion of making ex-presidents senators for life? _answer_. i am opposed to it. i am against any man holding office for life. and i see no more reason for making ex-presidents senators, than for making ex-senators presidents. to me the idea is preposterous. why should ex-presidents be taken care of? in this country labor is not disgraceful, and after a man has been president he has still the right to be useful. i am personally acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration of being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office during their natural lives. the people of this country should never allow a great man to suffer. the hand, not of charity, but of justice and generosity, should be forever open to those who have performed great public service. but the ex-presidents of the future may not all be great and good men, and bad ex-presidents will not make good senators. if the nation does anything, let it give a reasonable pension to ex- presidents. no man feels like giving pension, power, or place to general grant simply because he was once president, but because he was a great soldier, and led the armies of the nation to victory. make him a general, and retire him with the highest military title. let him grandly wear the laurels he so nobly won, and should the sky at any time be darkened with a cloud of foreign war, this country will again hand him the sword. such a course honors the nation and the man. _question_. are we not entering upon the era of our greatest prosperity? _answer_. we are just beginning to be prosperous. the northern pacific railroad is to be completed. forty millions of dollars have just been raised by that company, and new states will soon be born in the great northwest. the texas pacific will be pushed to san diego, and in a few years we will ride in a pullman car from chicago to the city of mexico. the gold and silver mines are yielding more and more, and within the last ten years more than forty million acres of land have been changed from wilderness to farms. this country is beginning to grow. we have just fairly entered upon what i believe will be the grandest period of national development and prosperity. with the republican party in power; with good money; with unlimited credit; with the best land in the world; with ninety thousand miles of railway; with mountains of gold and silver; with hundreds of thousands of square miles of coal fields; with iron enough for the whole world; with the best system of common schools; with telegraph wires reaching every city and town, so that no two citizens are an hour apart; with the telephone, that makes everybody in the city live next door, and with the best folks in the world, how can we help prospering until the continent is covered with happy homes? _question_. what do you think of civil service reform? _answer_. i am in favor of it. i want such civil service reform that all the offices will be filled with good and competent republicans. the majority should rule, and the men who are in favor of the views of the majority should hold the offices. i am utterly opposed to the idea that a party should show its liberality at the expense of its principles. men holding office can afford to take their chances with the rest of us. if they are democrats, they should not expect to succeed when their party is defeated. i believe that there are enough good and honest republicans in this country to fill all the offices, and i am opposed to taking any democrats until the republican supply is exhausted. men should not join the republican party to get office. such men are contemptible to the last degree. neither should a republican administration compel a man to leave the party to get a federal appointment. after a great battle has been fought i do not believe that the victorious general should reward the officers of the conquered army. my doctrine is, rewards for friends. --_the commercial_, cincinnati, ohio, december , . mr. beecher, moses and the negro. _question_. mr. beecher is here. have you seen him? _answer_. no, i did not meet mr. beecher. neither did i hear him lecture. the fact is, that long ago i made up my mind that under no circumstances would i attend any lecture or other entertainment given at lincoln hall. first, because the hall has been denied me, and secondly, because i regard it as extremely unsafe. the hall is up several stories from the ground, and in case of the slightest panic, in my judgment, many lives would be lost. had it not been for this, and for the fact that the persons owning it imagined that because they had control, the brick and mortar had some kind of holy and sacred quality, and that this holiness is of such a wonderful character that it would not be proper for a man in that hall to tell his honest thoughts, i would have heard him. _question_. then i assume that you and mr. beecher have made up? _answer_. there is nothing to be made up for so far as i know. mr. beecher has treated me very well, and, i believe, a little too well for his own peace of mind. i have been informed that some members of plymouth church felt exceedingly hurt that their pastor should so far forget himself as to extend the right hand of fellowship to one who differs from him upon what they consider very essential points in theology. you see i have denied with all my might, a great many times, the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. i have also had the temerity to suggest that i did not believe that a being of infinite justice and mercy was the author of all that i find in the old testament. as, for instance, i have insisted that god never commanded anybody to butcher women or to cut the throats of prattling babes. these orthodox gentlemen have rushed to the rescue of jehovah by insisting that he did all these horrible things. i have also maintained that god never sanctioned or upheld human slavery; that he never would make one child to own and beat another. i have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same god ever established the institution of polygamy. i have insisted that the institution is simply infamous; that it destroys the idea of home; that it turns to ashes the most sacred words in our language, and leaves the world a kind of den in which crawl the serpents of selfishness and lust. i have been informed that after mr. beecher had treated me kindly a few members of his congregation objected, and really felt ashamed that he had so forgotten himself. after that, mr. beecher saw fit to give his ideas of the position i had taken. in this he was not exceedingly kind, nor was his justice very conspicuous. but i cared nothing about that, not the least. as i have said before, whenever mr. beecher says a good thing i give him credit. whenever he does an unfair or unjust thing i charge it to the account of his religion. i have insisted, and i still insist, that mr. beecher is far better than his creed. i do not believe that he believes in the doctrine of eternal punishment. neither do i believe that he believes in the literal truth of the scriptures. and, after all, if the bible is not true, it is hardly worth while to insist upon its inspiration. an inspired lie is not better than an uninspired one. if the bible is true it does not need to be inspired. if it is not true, inspiration does not help it. so that after all it is simply a question of fact. is it true? i believe mr. beecher stated that one of my grievous faults was that i picked out the bad things in the bible. how an infinitely good and wise god came to put bad things in his book mr. beecher does not explain. i have insisted that the bible is not inspired, and, in order to prove that, have pointed out such passages as i deemed unworthy to have been written even by a civilized man or a savage. i certainly would not endeavor to prove that the bible is uninspired by picking out its best passages. i admit that there are many good things in the bible. the fact that there are good things in it does not prove its inspiration, because there are thousands of other books containing good things, and yet no one claims they are inspired. shakespeare's works contain a thousand times more good things than the bible, but no one claims he was an inspired man. it is also true that there are many bad things in shakespeare--many passages which i wish he had never written. but i can excuse shakespeare, because he did not rise absolutely above his time. that is to say, he was a man; that is to say, he was imperfect. if anybody claimed now that shakespeare was actually inspired, that claim would be answered by pointing to certain weak or bad or vulgar passages in his works. but every christian will say that it is a certain kind of blasphemy to impute vulgarity or weakness to god, as they are all obliged to defend the weak, the bad and the vulgar, so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the bible. now, i pursued the same course with the bible that mr. beecher has pursued with me. why did he want to pick out my bad things? is it possible that he is a kind of vulture that sees only the carrion of another? after all, has he not pursued the same method with me that he blames me for pursuing in regard to the bible? of course he must pursue that method. he could not object to me and then point out passages that were not objectionable. if he found fault he had to find faults in order to sustain his ground. that is exactly what i have done with scriptures--nothing more and nothing less. the reason i have thrown away the bible is that in many places it is harsh, cruel, unjust, coarse, vulgar, atrocious, infamous. at the same time, i admit that it contains many passages of an excellent and splendid character --many good things, wise sayings, and many excellent and just laws. but i would like to ask this: suppose there were no passages in the bible except those upholding slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination; would anybody then claim that it was the word of god? i would like to ask if there is a christian in the world who would not be overjoyed to find that every one of these passages was an interpolation? i would also like to ask mr. beecher if he would not be greatly gratified to find that after god had written the bible the devil had got hold of it, and interpolated all these passages about slavery, polygamy, the slaughter of women and babes and the doctrine of eternal punishment? suppose, as a matter of fact, the devil did get hold of it; what part of the bible would mr. beecher pick out as having been written by the devil? and if he picks out these passages could not the devil answer him by saying, "you, mr. beecher, are like a vulture, a kind of buzzard, flying through the tainted air of inspiration, and pouncing down upon the carrion. why do you not fly like a dove, and why do you not have the innocent ignorance of the dove, so that you could light upon a carcass and imagine that you were surrounded by the perfume of violets?" the fact is that good things in a book do not prove that it is inspired, but the presence of bad things does prove that it is not. _question_. what was the real difficulty between you and moses, colonel, a man who has been dead for thousands of years? _answer_. we never had any difficulty. i have always taken pains to say that moses had nothing to do with the pentateuch. those books, in my judgment, were written several centuries after moses had become dust in his unknown sepulchre. no doubt moses was quite a man in his day, if he ever existed at all. some people say that moses is exactly the same as "law-giver;" that is to say, as legislature, that is to say as congress. imagine somebody in the future as regarding the congress of the united states as one person! and then imagine that somebody endeavoring to prove that congress was always consistent. but, whether moses lived or not makes but little difference to me. i presume he filled the place and did the work that he was compelled to do, and although according to the account god had much to say to him with regard to the making of altars, tongs, snuffers and candlesticks, there is much left for nature still to tell. thinking of moses as a man, admitting that he was above his fellows, that he was in his day and generation a leader, and, in a certain narrow sense, a patriot, that he was the founder of the jewish people; that he found them barbarians and endeavored to control them by thunder and lightning, and found it necessary to pretend that he was in partnership with the power governing the universe; that he took advantage of their ignorance and fear, just as politicians do now, and as theologians always will, still, i see no evidence that the man moses was any nearer to god than his descendants, who are still warring against the philistines in every civilized part of the globe. moses was a believer in slavery, in polygamy, in wars of extermination, in religious persecution and intolerance and in almost everything that is now regarded with loathing, contempt and scorn. the jehovah of whom he speaks violated, or commands the violation of at least nine of the ten commandments he gave. there is one thing, however, that can be said of moses that cannot be said of any person who now insists that he was inspired, and that is, he was in advance of his time. _question_. what do you think of the buckner bill for the colonization of the negroes in mexico? _answer_. where does mr. buckner propose to colonize the white people, and what right has he to propose the colonization of six millions of people? should we not have other bills to colonize the germans, the swedes, the irish, and then, may be, another bill to drive the chinese into the sea? where do we get the right to say that the negroes must emigrate? all such schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile. perhaps the history of the world does not give an instance of the emigration of six millions of people. notwithstanding the treatment that ireland has received from england, which may be designated as a crime of three hundred years, the irish still love ireland. all the despotism in the world will never crush out of the irish heart the love of home--the adoration of the old sod. the negroes of the south have certainly suffered enough to drive them into other countries; but after all, they prefer to stay where they were born. they prefer to live where their ancestors were slaves, where fathers and mothers were sold and whipped; and i don't believe it will be possible to induce a majority of them to leave that land. of course, thousands may leave, and in process of time millions may go, but i don't believe emigration will ever equal their natural increase. as the whites of the south become civilized the reason for going will be less and less. i see no reason why the white and black men cannot live together in the same land, under the same flag. the beauty of liberty is you cannot have it unless you give it away, and the more you give away the more you have. i know that my liberty is secure only because others are free. i am perfectly willing to live in a country with such men as frederick douglass and senator bruce. i have always preferred a good, clever black man to a mean white man, and i am of the opinion that i shall continue in that preference. now, if we could only have a colonization bill that would get rid of all the rowdies, all the rascals and hypocrites, i would like to see it carried out, thought some people might insist that it would amount to a repudiation of the national debt and that hardly enough would be left to pay the interest. no, talk as we will, the colored people helped to save this nation. they have been at all times and in all places the friends of our flag; a flag that never really protected them. and for my part, i am willing that they should stand forever beneath that flag, the equal in rights of all other people. politically, if any black men are to be sent away, i want it understood that each one is to be accompanied by a democrat, so that the balance of power, especially in new york, will not be disturbed. _question_. i notice that leading republican newspapers are advising general garfield to cut loose from the machine in politics; what do you regard as the machine? _answer_. all defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is some wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine. some of the recent reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages of a political campaign--who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable american citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. certain men will take the lead, and the weaker men will in a short time, unless they get all the loaves and fishes, denounce the whole thing as a machine, and, to show how thoroughly and honestly they detest the machine in politics, will endeavor to organize a little machine themselves. general garfield has been in politics for many years. he knows the principal men in both parties. he knows the men who have not only done something, but who are capable of doing something, and such men will not, in my opinion, be neglected. i do not believe that general garfield will do any act calculated to divide the republican party. no thoroughly great man carries personal prejudice into the administration of public affairs. of course, thousands of people will be prophesying that this man is to be snubbed and another to be paid; but, in my judgment, after the th of march most people will say that general garfield has used his power wisely and that he has neither sought nor shunned men simply because he wished to pay debts--either of love or hatred. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, january , . hades, delaware and freethought. _question_. now that a lull has come in politics, i thought i would come and see what is going on in the religious world? _answer_. well, from what little i learn, there has not been much going on during the last year. there are five hundred and twenty- six congregational churches in massachusetts, and two hundred of these churches have not received a new member for an entire year, and the others have scarcely held their own. in illinois there are four hundred and eighty-three presbyterian churches, and they have now fewer members than they had in , and of the four hundred and eighty-three, one hundred and eighty-three have not received a single new member for twelve months. a report has been made, under the auspices of the pan-presbyterian council, to the effect that there are in the whole world about three millions of presbyterians. this is about one-fifth of one per cent. of the inhabitants of the world. the probability is that of the three million nominal presbyterians, not more than two or three hundred thousand actually believe the doctrine, and of the two or three hundred thousand, not more than five or six hundred have any true conception of what the doctrine is. as the presbyterian church has only been able to induce one-fifth of one per cent. of the people to even call themselves presbyterians, about how long will it take, at this rate, to convert mankind? the fact is, there seems to be a general lull along the entire line, and just at present very little is being done by the orthodox people to keep their fellow-citizens out of hell. _question_. do you really think that the orthodox people now believe in the old doctrine of eternal punishment, and that they really think there is a kind of hell that our ancestors so carefully described? _answer_. i am afraid that the old idea is dying out, and that many christians are slowly giving up the consolations naturally springing from the old belief. another terrible blow to the old infamy is the fact that in the revised new testament the word hades has been substituted. as nobody knows exactly what hades means, it will not be quite so easy to frighten people at revivals by threatening them with something that they don't clearly understand. after this, when the impassioned orator cries out that all the unconverted will be sent to hades, the poor sinners, instead of getting frightened, will begin to ask each other what and where that is. it will take many years of preaching to clothe that word in all the terrors and horrors, pains, and penalties and pangs of hell. hades is a compromise. it is a concession to the philosophy of our day. it is a graceful acknowledgment to the growing spirit of investigation, that hell, after all, is a barbaric mistake. hades is the death of revivals. it cannot be used in song. it won't rhyme with anything with the same force that hell does. it is altogether more shadowy than hot. it is not associated with brimstone and flame. it sounds somewhat indistinct, somewhat lonesome, a little desolate, but not altogether uncomfortable. for revival purposes, hades is simply useless, and few conversions will be made in the old way under the revised testament. _question_. do you really think that the church is losing ground? _answer_. i am not, as you probably know, connected with any orthodox organization, and consequently have to rely upon them for my information. if they can be believed, the church is certainly in an extremely bad condition. i find that the rev. dr. cuyler, only a few days ago, speaking of the religious condition of brooklyn --and brooklyn, you know, has been called the city of churches-- states that the great mass of that christian city was out of christ, and that more professing christians went to the theatre than to the prayer meeting. this, certainly, from their standpoint, is a most terrible declaration. brooklyn, you know, is one of the great religious centres of the world--a city in which nearly all the people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a city filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of prayer and praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the theatres, with the free list entirely suspended, catch more christians than the churches; and this happens while all the pulpits thunder against the stage, and the stage remains silent as to the pulpit. at the same meeting in which the rev. dr. cuyler made his astounding statements the rev. mr. pentecost was the bearer of the happy news that four out of five persons living in the city of brooklyn were going down to hell with no god and with no hope. if he had read the revised testament he would have said "hades," and the effect of the statement would have been entirely lost. if four-fifths of the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly we cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world. at the meeting of the brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether they should depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting and prayer for the purpose of converting the city. in my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means to keep a good many people from fasting in brooklyn. if they had more meat, they could get along with less meeting. if fasting would save a city, there are always plenty of hungry folks even in that christian town. the real trouble with the church of to-day is, that it is behind the intelligence of the people. its doctrines no longer satisfy the brains of the nineteenth century; and if the church proposes to hold its power, it must lose its superstitions. the day of revivals is gone. only the ignorant and unthinking can hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed. fear has in it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery will become. the tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty, toward personal investigation. authority is no longer taken for truth. people are beginning to find that all the great and good are not dead--that some good people are alive, and that the demonstrations of to-day are fully equal to the mistaken theories of the past. _question_. how are you getting along with delaware? _answer_. first rate. you know i have been wondering where comegys came from, and at last i have made the discovery. i was told the other day by a gentleman from delaware that many years ago colonel hazelitt died; that colonel hazelitt was an old revolutionary officer, and that when they were digging his grave they dug up comegys. back of that no one knows anything of his history. the only thing they know about him certainly, is, that he has never changed one of his views since he was found, and that he never will. i am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community congenial to him. for instance, i saw in a paper the other day that within a radius of thirty miles around georgetown, delaware, there are about two hundred orphan and friendless children. these children, it seems, were indentured to delaware farmers by the managers of orphan asylums and other public institutions in and about philadelphia. it is stated in the paper, that: "many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails to perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly treated, half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad. if he does the work, his life is not likely to be much happier, for as a rule he will receive more kicks than candy. the result in either case is almost certain to be wrecked constitutions, dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs crippled or rendered useless by frost or rheumatism. the principal diet of these boys is corn pone. a few days ago, constable w. h. johnston went to the house of reuben taylor, and on entering the sitting room his attention was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little colored boy, who was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace. the boy's head was covered with ashes from the fire, and he did not pay the slightest attention to the visitor, until johnston asked what made him cry. then the little fellow sat up and drawing on old rag off his foot said, 'look there.' the sight that met johnston's eye was horrible beyond description. the poor boy's feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off the toes until the bones protruded. the flesh on the sides, bottoms, and tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many places, and the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes. the frost-bitten flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which were terribly inflamed. the right one had already begun suppurating. this poor little black boy, covered with nothing but a cotton shirt, drilling pants, a pair of nearly worn out brogans and a battered old hat, on the morning of december th, the coldest day of the season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees below zero, in the face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from home to protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of marauding cows and crows. he remained standing around in the snow until four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece of cold corn pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove wood till dark. having no bed, he slept that night in front of the fireplace, with his frozen feet buried in the ashes. dr. c. h. richards found it necessary to cut off the boy's feet as far back as the ankle and the instep." this was but one case in several. personally, i have no doubt that mr. reuben taylor entirely agrees with chief justice comegys on the great question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so gratify mr. reuben taylor as to see some man in a delaware jail for the crime of having expressed an honest thought. no wonder that in the state of delaware the christ of intellectual liberty has been crucified between the pillory and the whipping-post. of course i know that there are thousands of most excellent people in that state--people who believe in intellectual liberty, and who only need a little help--and i am doing what i can in that direction --to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute book of that little commonwealth. i have seen many people from that state lately who really wish that colonel hazelitt had never died. _question_. what has the press generally said with regard to the action of judge comegys? do they, so far as you know, justify his charge? _answer_. a great many papers having articles upon the subject have been sent to me. a few of the religious papers seem to think that the judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper called the _evening news_, published at chester, pa., that thinks "that the rebuke from so high a source of authority will have a most excellent effect, and will check religious blasphemers from parading their immoral creeds before the people." the editor of this paper should at once emigrate to the state of delaware, where he properly belongs. he is either a native of delaware, or most of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that he is a lineal descendant of some hessian, who deserted during the revolutionary war. most of the newspapers in the united states are advocates of mental freedom. probably nothing on earth has been so potent for good as an untrammeled, fearless press. among the papers of importance there is not a solitary exception. no leading journal in the united states can be found upon the side of intellectual slavery. of course, a few rural sheets edited by gentlemen, as mr. greeley would say, "whom god in his inscrutable wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other side, and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers. these editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same influence upon the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers --that is to say, they get little and give less. _question_. do you not think after all, the people who are in favor of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance with the real spirit of the old and new testaments? _answer_. of course, they act in exact accordance with many of the commands in the old testament, and in accordance with several passages in the new. at the same time, it may be said that they violate passages in both. if the old testament is true, and if it is the inspired word of god, of course, an infidel ought not be allowed to live; and if the new testament is true, an unbeliever should not be permitted to speak. there are many passages, though, in the new testament, that should protect even an infidel. among them is this: "do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." but that is a passage that has probably had as little effect upon the church as any other in the bible. so far as i am concerned, i am willing to adopt that passage, and i am willing to extend to every other human being every right that i claim for myself. if the churches would act upon this principle, if they would say--every soul, every mind, may think and investigate for itself; and around all, and over all, shall be thrown the sacred shield of liberty, i should be on their side. _question_. how do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their opinion of you and of your views? _answer_. most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my success; think that i ought to starve; that the people should not hear me; say that i do what i do for money, for popularity; that i am actuated by hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in human nature; think that i wish to tear down the churches, destroy all morality and goodness, and usher in the reign of crime and chaos. they know that shepherds are unnecessary in the absence of wolves, and it is to their interest to convince their sheep that they, the sheep, need protection. this they are willing to give them for half the wool. no doubt, most of these minsters are honest, and are doing what they consider their duty. be this as it may, they feel the power slipping from their hands. they know that the idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely necessary for the protection of society. they know that the intellectual world cares little for what they say, and that the great tide of human progress flows on careless of their help or hindrance. so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the bible, they are compelled to take the ground that slavery was once a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties that would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment. they poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute the imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of endless misery. even the laws of delaware shock the enlightened public of to-day. in that state they simply fine and imprison a man for expressing his honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches are right, god will damn a man forever for the same offence. the brain and heart of our time cannot be satisfied with the ancient creeds. the bible must be revised again. most of the creeds must be blotted out. humanity must take the place of theology. intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit. there must be freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right to express its honest thought. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, march , . a reply to the rev. mr. lansing.* [* rev. isaac j. lansing of meriden, conn., recently denounced col. robert g. ingersoll from the pulpit of the meriden methodist church, and had the opera house closed against him. this led a _union_ reporter to show colonel ingersoll what mr. lansing had said and to interrogate him with the following result.] _question_. did you favor the sending of obscene matter through the mails as alleged by the rev. mr. lansing? _answer_. of course not, and no honest man ever thought that i did. this charge is too malicious and silly to be answered. mr. lansing knows better. he has made this charge many times and he will make it again. _question_. is it a fact that there are thousands of clergymen in the country whom you would fear to meet in fair debate? _answer_. no; the fact is i would like to meet them all in one. the pulpit is not burdened with genius. there a few great men engaged in preaching, but they are not orthodox. i cannot conceive that a freethinker has anything to fear from the pulpit, except misrepresentation. of course, there are thousands of ministers too small to discuss with--ministers who stand for nothing in the church--and with such clergymen i cannot afford to discuss anything. if the presbyterians, or the congregationalists, or the methodists would select some man, and endorse him as their champion, i would like to meet him in debate. such a man i will pay to discuss with me. i will give him most excellent wages, and pay all the expenses at the discussion besides. there is but one safe course for the ministers--they must assert. they must declare. they must swear to it and stick to it, but they must not try to reason. _question_. you have never seen rev. mr. lansing. to the people of meriden and thereabouts he is well-known. judging from what has been told you of his utterances and actions, what kind of a man would you take him to be? _answer_. i would take him to be a christian. he talks like one, and he acts like one. if christianity is right, lansing is right. if salvation depends upon belief, and if unbelievers are to be eternally damned, then an infidel has no right to speak. he should not be allowed to murder the souls of his fellow-men. lansing does the best he knows how. he thinks that god hates an unbeliever, and he tries to act like god. lansing knows that he must have the right to slander a man whom god is to eternally damn. _question_. mr. lansing speaks of you as a wolf coming with fangs sharpened by three hundred dollars a night to tear the lambs of his flock. what do you say to that? _answer_. all i have to say is, that i often get three times that amount, and sometimes much more. i guess his lambs can take care of themselves. i am not very fond of mutton anyway. such talk mr. lansing ought to be ashamed of. the idea that he is a shepherd --that he is on guard--is simply preposterous. he has few sheep in his congregation that know as little on the wolf question as he does. he ought to know that his sheep support him--his sheep protect him; and without the sheep poor lansing would be devoured by the wolves himself. _question_. shall you sue the opera house management for breach of contract? _answer_. i guess not; but i may pay lansing something for advertising my lecture. i suppose mr. wilcox (who controls the opera house) did what he thought was right. i hear he is a good man. he probably got a little frightened and began to think about the day of judgment. he could not help it, and i cannot help laughing at him. _question_. those in meriden who most strongly oppose you are radical republicans. is it not a fact that you possess the confidence and friendship of some of the most respected leaders of that party? _answer_. i think that all the respectable ones are friends of mine. i am a republican because i believe in the liberty of the body, and i am an infidel because i believe in the liberty of the mind. there is no need of freeing cages. let us free the birds. if mr. lansing knew me, he would be a great friend. he would probably annoy me by the frequency and length of his visits. _question_. during the recent presidential campaign did any clergymen denounce you for your teachings, that you are aware of? _answer_. some did, but they would not if they had been running for office on the republican ticket. _question_. what is most needed in our public men? _answer_. hearts and brains. _question_. would people be any more moral solely because of a disbelief in orthodox teaching and in the bible as an inspired book, in your opinion? _answer_. yes; if a man really believes that god once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. it always has been bad. this belief built the dungeons of the inquisition. this belief made the puritan murder the quaker, and this belief has raised the devil with mr. lansing. _question_. do you believe there will ever be a millennium, and if so how will it come about? _answer_. it will probably start in meriden, as i have been informed that lansing is going to leave. _question_. is there anything else bearing upon the question at issue or that would make good reading, that i have forgotten, that you would like to say? _answer_. yes. good-bye. --_the sunday union_, new haven, conn., april , . beaconsfield, lent and revivals. _question_. what have you to say about the attack of dr. buckley on you, and your lecture? _answer_. i never heard of dr. buckley until after i had lectured in brooklyn. he seems to think that it was extremely ill bred in me to deliver a lecture on the "liberty of man, woman and child," during lent. lent is just as good as any other part of the year, and no part can be too good to do good. it was not a part of my object to hurt the feelings of the episcopalians and catholics. if they think that there is some subtle relation between hunger and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is strengthened by famine, or that veal, during lent, is the enemy of virtue, or that beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith--of course, all this is nothing to me. they have a right to say that vice depends upon victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and chastity on cheese, but they have no right to say that a lecture on liberty is an insult to them because they are hungry. i suppose that lent was instituted in memory of the savior's fast. at one time it was supposed that only a divine being could live forty days without food. this supposition has been overthrown. it has been demonstrated by dr. tanner to be utterly without foundation. what possible good did it do the world for christ to go without food for forty days? why should we follow such an example? as a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate, peevish and unpleasant. a good dinner puts a man at peace with all the world--makes him generous, good natured and happy. he feels like kissing his wife and children. the future looks bright. he wants to help the needy. the good in him predominates, and he wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. your good cook is a civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual progress is simply impossible. most of the orthodox creeds were born of bad cooking. bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia produced calvinism, and calvinism is the cancer of christianity. oatmeal is responsible for the worst features of scotch presbyterianism. half cooked beans account for the religion of the puritans. fried bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie the doctrine of state rights. lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and bad cooking is a crime. _question_. it is stated that you went to brooklyn while beecher and talmage were holding revivals, and that you did so for the purpose of breaking them up. how is this? _answer_. i had not the slightest idea of interfering with the revivals. they amounted to nothing. they were not alive enough to be killed. surely one lecture could not destroy two revivals. still, i think that if all the persons engaged in the revivals had spent the same length of time in cleaning the streets, the good result would have been more apparent. the truth is, that the old way of converting people will have to be abandoned. the americans are getting hard to scare, and a revival without the "scare" is scarcely worth holding. such maniacs as hammond and the "boy preacher" fill asylums and terrify children. after saying what he has about hell, mr. beecher ought to know that he is not the man to conduct a revival. a revival sermon with hell left out--with the brimstone gone--with the worm that never dies, dead, and the devil absent--is the broadest farce. mr. talmage believes in the ancient way. with him hell is a burning reality. he can hear the shrieks and groans. he is of that order of mind that rejoices in these things. if he could only convince others, he would be a great revivalist. he cannot terrify, he astonishes. he is the clown of the horrible--one of jehovah's jesters. i am not responsible for the revival failure in brooklyn. i wish i were. i would have the happiness of knowing that i had been instrumental in preserving the sanity of my fellow-men. _question_. how do you account for these attacks? _answer_. it was not so much what i said that excited the wrath of the reverend gentlemen as the fact that i had a great house. they contrasted their failure with my success. the fact is, the people are getting tired of the old ideas. they are beginning to think for themselves. eternal punishment seems to them like eternal revenge. they see that christ could not atone for the sins of others; that belief ought not to be rewarded and honest doubt punished forever; that good deeds are better than bad creeds, and that liberty is the rightful heritage of every soul. _question_. were you an admirer of lord beaconsfield? _answer_. in some respects. he was on our side during the war, and gave it as his opinion that the union would be preserved. mr. gladstone congratulated jefferson davis on having founded a new nation. i shall never forget beaconsfield for his kindness, nor gladstone for his malice. beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast, a political athlete, one of the most adroit men in the world. he had the persistence of his race. in spite of the prejudices of eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can be occupied by a citizen. during his administration england again became a continental power and played her game of european chess. i have never regarded beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle, or by his heart. he was strictly a politician. he always acted as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. he knew all the arts belonging to his trade. he would have succeeded anywhere, if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power. but after all, such men are splendid failures. they give themselves and others a great deal of trouble--they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and then fade from public view. they astonish the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. he had the imagination of the east united with the ambition of an englishman. with him, to succeed was to have done right. _question_. what do you think of him as an author? _answer_. most of his characters are like himself--puppets moved by the string of self-interest. the men are adroit, the women mostly heartless. they catch each other with false bait. they have great worldly wisdom. their virtue and vice are mechanical. they have hearts like clocks--filled with wheels and springs. the author winds them up. in his novels disræli allows us to enter the greenroom of his heart. we see the ropes, the pulleys and the old masks. in all things, in politics and in literature, he was cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful. his books will, in a little while, follow their author to their grave. after all, the good will live longest. --washington correspondent, _brooklyn eagle_, april , . answering the new york ministers.* [* ever since colonel ingersoll began the delivery of his lecture called _the great infidels_, the ministers of the country have made him the subject of special attack. one week ago last sunday the majority of the leading ministers in new york made replies to ingersoll's latest lecture. what he has to say to these replies will be found in a report of an interview with colonel ingersoll. no man is harder to pin down for a long talk than the colonel. he is so beset with visitors and eager office seekers anxious for help, that he can hardly find five minutes unoccupied during an entire day. through the shelter of a private room and the guardianship of a stout colored servant, the colonel was able to escape the crowd of seekers after his personal charity long enough to give some time to answer some of the ministerial arguments advanced against him in new york.] _question_. have you seen the attacks made upon you by certain ministers of new york, published in the _herald_ last sunday? _answer_. yes, i read, or heard read, what was in monday's _herald_. i do not know that you could hardly call them attacks. they are substantially a repetition of what the pulpit has been saying for a great many hundred years, and what the pulpit will say just so long as men are paid for suppressing truth and for defending superstition. one of these gentlemen tells the lambs of his flock that three thousand men and a few women--probably with quite an emphasis on the word "few"--gave one dollar each to hear their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed. probably nothing is so hard for the average preacher to bear as the fact that people are not only willing to hear the other side, but absolutely anxious to pay for it. the dollar that these people paid hurt their feelings vastly more than what was said after they were in. of course, it is a frightful commentary on the average intellect of the pulpit that a minister cannot get so large an audience when he preaches for nothing, as an infidel can draw at a dollar a head. if i depended upon a contribution box, or upon passing a saucer that would come back to the stage enriched with a few five cent pieces, eight or ten dimes, and a lonesome quarter, these gentlemen would, in all probability, imagine infidelity was not to be feared. the churches were all open on that sunday, and all could go who desired. yet they were not full, and the pews were nearly as empty of people as the pulpit of ideas. the truth is, the story is growing old, the ideas somewhat moss-covered, and everything has a wrinkled and withered appearance. this gentleman says that these people went to hear their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed. is it possible that in a city where so many steeples pierce the air, and hundreds of sermons are preached every sunday, there are three thousand men, and a few women, so anxious to hear "their maker cursed and their savior ridiculed" that they are willing to pay a dollar each? the gentleman knew that nobody cursed anybody's maker. he knew that the statement was utterly false and without the slightest foundation. he also knew that nobody had ridiculed the savior of anybody, but, on the contrary, that i had paid a greater tribute to the character of jesus christ than any minister in new york has the capacity to do. certainly it is not cursing the maker of anybody to say that the god described in the old testament is not the real god. certainly it is not cursing god to declare that the real god never sanctioned slavery or polygamy, or commanded wars of extermination, or told a husband to separate from his wife if she differed with him in religion. the people who say these things of god--if there is any god at all--do what little there is in their power, unwittingly of course, to destroy his reputation. but i have done something to rescue the reputation of the deity from the slanders of the pulpit. if there is any god, i expect to find myself credited on the heavenly books for my defence of him. i did say that our civilization is due not to piety, but to infidelity. i did say that every great reformer had been denounced as an infidel in his day and generation. i did say that christ was an infidel, and that he was treated in his day very much as the orthodox preachers treat an honest man now. i did say that he was tried for blasphemy and crucified by bigots. i did say that he hated and despised the church of his time, and that he denounced the most pious people of jerusalem as thieves and vipers. and i suggested that should he come again he might have occasion to repeat the remarks that he then made. at the same time i admitted that there are thousands and thousands of christians who are exceedingly good people. i never did pretend that the fact that a man was a christian even tended to show that he was a bad man. neither have i ever insisted that the fact that a man is an infidel even tends to show what, in other respects, his character is. but i always have said, and i always expect to say, that a christian who does not believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a curse to mankind, and that an infidel who does believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a blessing to this world. we cannot expect all infidels to be good, nor all christians to be bad, and we might make some mistakes even if we selected these people ourselves. it is admitted by the christians that christ made a great mistake when he selected judas. this was a mistake of over eight per cent. chaplain newman takes pains to compare some great christians with some great infidels. he compares washington with julian, and insists, i suppose, that washington was a great christian. certainly he is not very familiar with the history of washington, or he never would claim that he was particularly distinguished in his day for what is generally known as vital piety. that he went through the ordinary forms of christianity nobody disputes. that he listened to sermons without paying any particular attention to them, no one will deny. julian, of course, was somewhat prejudiced against christianity, but that he was one of the greatest men of antiquity no one acquainted with the history of rome can honestly dispute. when he was made emperor he found at the palace hundreds of gentlemen who acted as barbers, hair-combers, and brushers for the emperor. he dismissed them all, remarking that he was able to wash himself. these dismissed office-holders started the story that he was dirty in his habits, and a minister of the nineteenth century was found silly enough to believe the story. another thing that probably got him into disrepute in that day, he had no private chaplains. as a matter of fact, julian was forced to pretend that he was a christian in order to save his life. the christians of that day were of such a loving nature that any man who differed with them was forced to either fall a victim to their ferocity or seek safety in subterfuge. the real crime that julian committed, and the only one that has burned itself into the very heart and conscience of the christian world, is, that he transferred the revenues of the christian churches to heathen priests. whoever stands between a priest and his salary will find that he has committed the unpardonable sin commonly known as the sin against the holy ghost. this gentleman also compares luther with voltaire. if he will read the life of luther by lord brougham, he will find that in his ordinary conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that no respectable english publisher could be found who would soil paper with the translation. if he will take the pains to read an essay by macaulay, he will find that twenty years after the death of luther there were more catholics than when he was born. and that twenty years after the death of voltaire there were millions less than when he was born. if he will take just a few moments to think, he will find that the last victory of protestantism was in holland; that there has never been one since, and will never be another. if he would really like to think, and enjoy for a few moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little while over the instructive fact that languages having their root in the latin have generally been spoken in catholic countries, and that those languages having their root in the ancient german are now mostly spoken by people of protestant proclivities. it may occur to him, after thinking of this a while, that there is something deeper in the question than he has as yet perceived. luther's last victory, as i said before, was in holland; but the victory of voltaire goes on from day to day. protestantism is not holding its own with catholicism, even in the united states. i saw the other day the statistics, i believe, of the city of chicago, showing that, while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent., protestantism had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent. i am willing for one, to have the whole question depend upon a comparison of the worth and work of voltaire and luther. it may be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us that luther himself gave consent to a person high in office to have two wives, but prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still as possible. luther was, also, a believer in a personal devil. he thought that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit. on one occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had better drown her child; that he had no doubt that the devil was its father. this same luther made this observation: "universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell." from this you will see that he was an exceedingly good man, but mistaken upon many questions. so, too, he laughed at the copernican system, and wanted to know if those fool astronomers could undo the work of god. he probably knew as little about science as the reverend gentleman does about history. _question_. does he compare any other infidels with christians? _answer_. oh, yes; he compares lord bacon with diderot. i have never claimed that diderot was a saint. i have simply insisted that he was a great man; that he was grand enough to say that "incredulity is the beginning of philosophy;" that he had sense enough to know that the god described by the catholics and protestants of his day was simply an impossible monster; and that he also had the brain to see that the little selfish heaven occupied by a few monks and nuns and idiots they had fleeced, was hardly worth going to; in other words, that he was a man of common sense, greatly in advance of his time, and that he did what he could to increase the sum of human enjoyment to the end that there might be more happiness in this world. the gentleman compares him with lord bacon, and yet, if he will read the trials of that day--i think in the year --he will find that the christian lord bacon, the pious lord bacon, was charged with receiving pay for his opinions, and, in some instances, pay from both sides; that the christian lord bacon, at first upon his honor as a christian lord, denied the whole business; that afterward the christian lord bacon, upon his honor as a christian lord, admitted the truth of the whole business, and that, therefore, the christian lord bacon was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and rendered infamous and incapable of holding any office. now, understand me, i do not think bacon took bribes because he was a christian, because there have been many christian judges perfectly honest; but, if the statement of the reverend gentlemen of new york is true, his being a christian did not prevent his taking bribes. and right here allow me to thank the gentleman with all my heart for having spoken of lord bacon in this connection. i have always admired the genius of bacon, and have always thought of his fall with an aching heart, and would not now have spoken of his crime had not his character been flung in my face by a gentleman who asks his god to kill me for having expressed my honest thought. the same gentleman compares newton with spinoza. in the first place, there is no ground of parallel. newton was a very great man and a very justly celebrated mathematician. as a matter of fact, he is not celebrated for having discovered the law of gravitation. that was known for thousands of years before he was born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a little more he would find that newton's discovery was not that there is such a law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and inversely to the squares of their distances." i do not think he made the discoveries on account of his christianity. laplace was certainly in many respects as great a mathematician and astronomer, but he was not a christian. descartes was certainly not much inferior to newton as a mathematician, and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a christian. euclid, if i remember right, was not a christian, and yet he had quite a turn for mathematics. as a matter of fact, christianity got its idea of algebra from the mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been impossible. christianity did not even invent figures. we got those from the arabs. the very word "algebra" is arabic. the decimal system, i believe, however, was due to a german, but whether he was a christian or not, i do not know. we find that the chinese calculated eclipses long before christ was born; and, exactness being the rule at that time, there is an account of two astronomers having been beheaded for failing to tell the coming of an eclipse to the minute; yet they were not christians. there is another fact connected with newton, and that is that he wrote a commentary on the book of revelation. the probability is that a sillier commentary was never written. it was so perfectly absurd and laughable that some one--i believe it was voltaire--said that while newton had excited the envy of the intellectual world by his mathematical accomplishments, it had gotten even with him the moment his commentaries were published. spinoza was not a mathematician, particularly. he was a metaphysician, an honest thinker, whose influence is felt, and will be felt so long as these great questions have the slightest interest for the human brain. he also compares chalmers with hume. chalmers gained his notoriety from preaching what are known as the astronomical sermons, and, i suppose, was quite a preacher in his day. but hume was a thinker, and his works will live for ages after mr. chalmers' sermons will have been forgotten. mr. chalmers has never been prominent enough to have been well known by many people. he may have been an exceedingly good man, and derived, during his life, great consolation from a belief in the damnation of infants. mr. newman also compares wesley with thomas paine. when thomas paine was in favor of human liberty, wesley was against it. thomas paine wrote a pamphlet called "common sense," urging the colonies to separate themselves from great britain. wesley wrote a treatise on the other side. he was the enemy of human liberty; and if his advice could have been followed we would have been the colonies of great britain still. we never would have had a president in need of a private chaplain. mr. wesley had not a scientific mind. he preached a sermon once on the cause and cure of earthquakes, taking the ground that earthquakes were caused by sins, and that the only way to stop them was to believe on the lord jesus christ. he also laid down some excellent rules for rearing children, that is, from a methodist standpoint. his rules amounted to about this: _first_. never give them what they want. _second_. never give them what you intend to give them, at the time they want it. _third_. break their wills at the earliest possible moment. mr. wesley made every family an inquisition, every father and mother inquisitors, and all the children helpless victims. one of his homes would give an exceedingly vivid idea of hell. at the same time, mr. wesley was a believer in witches and wizards, and knew all about the devil. at his request god performed many miracles. on several occasions he cured his horse of lameness. on others, dissipated mr. wesley's headaches. now and then he put off rain on account of a camp meeting, and at other times stopped the wind blowing at the special request of mr. wesley. i have no doubt that mr. wesley was honest in all this,--just as honest as he was mistaken. and i also admit that he was the founder of a church that does extremely well in new countries, and that thousands of methodists have been exceedingly good men. but i deny that he ever did anything for human liberty. while mr. wesley was fighting the devil and giving his experience with witches and wizards, thomas paine helped to found a free nation, helped to enrich the air with another flag. wesley was right on one thing, though. he was opposed to slavery, and, i believe, called it the sum of all villainies. i have always been obliged to him for that. i do not think he said it because he was a methodist; but methodism, as he understood it, did not prevent his saying it, and methodism as others understood it, did not prevent men from being slaveholders, did not prevent them from selling babes from mothers, and in the name of god beating the naked back of toil. i think, on the whole, paine did more for the world than mr. wesley. the difference between an average methodist and an average episcopalian is not worth quarreling about. but the difference between a man who believes in despotism and one who believes in liberty is almost infinite. wesley changed episcopalians into methodists; paine turned lickspittles into men. let it be understood, once for all, that i have never claimed that paine was perfect. i was very glad that the reverend gentleman admitted that he was a patriot and the foe of tyrants; that he sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless; that he favored religious toleration, and that he weakened the power of the catholic church. i am glad that he made these admissions. whenever it can be truthfully said of a man that he loved his country, hated tyranny, sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless, nothing more is necessary. if god can afford to damn such a man, such a man can afford to be damned. while paine was the foe of tyrants, christians were the tyrants. when he sympathized with the oppressed, the oppressed were the victims of christians. when he befriended the helpless, the helpless were the victims of christians. paine never founded an inquisition; never tortured a human being; never hoped that anybody's tongue would be paralyzed, and was always opposed to private chaplains. it might be well for the reverend gentleman to continue his comparisons, and find eminent christians to put, for instance, along with humboldt, the shakespeare of science; somebody by the side of darwin, as a naturalist; some gentleman in england to stand with tyndall, or huxley; some christian german to stand with haeckel and helmholtz. may be he knows some christian statesman that he would compare with gambetta. i would advise him to continue his parallels. _question_. what have you to say of the rev. dr. fulton? _answer_. the rev. dr. fulton is a great friend of mine. i am extremely sorry to find that he still believes in a personal devil, and i greatly regret that he imagines that this devil has so much power that he can take possession of a human being and deprive god of their services. it is in sorrow and not in anger, that i find that he still believes in this ancient superstition. i also regret that he imagines that i am leading young men to eternal ruin. it occurs to me that if there is an infinite god, he ought not to allow anybody to lead young men to eternal ruin. if anything i have said, or am going to say, has a tendency to lead young men to eternal ruin, i hope that if there is a god with the power to prevent me, that he will use it. dr. fulton admits that in politics i am on the right side. i presume he makes this concession because he is a republican. i am in favor of universal education, of absolute intellectual liberty. i am in favor, also, of equal rights to all. as i have said before we have spent millions and millions of dollars and rivers of blood to free the bodies of men; in other words, we have been freeing the cages. my proposition now is to give a little liberty to the birds. i am not willing to stop where a man can simply reap the fruit of his hand. i wish him, also, to enjoy the liberty of his brain. i am not against any truth in the new testament. i did say that i objected to religion because it made enemies and not friends. the rev. dr. says that is one reason why he likes religion. dr. fulton tells me that the bible is the gift of god to man. he also tells me that the bible is true, and that god is its author. if the bible is true and god is its author, then god was in favor of slavery four thousand years ago. he was also in favor of polygamy and religious intolerance. in other words, four thousand years ago he occupied the exact position the devil is supposed to occupy now. if the bible teaches anything it teaches man to enslave his brother, that is to say, if his brother is a heathen. the god of the bible always hated heathens. dr. fulton also says that the bible is the basis of all law. yet, if the legislature of new york would re-enact next winter the mosaic code, the members might consider themselves lucky if they were not hung upon their return home. probably dr. fulton thinks that had it not been for the ten commandments, nobody would ever have thought that stealing was wrong. i have always had an idea that men objected to stealing because the industrious did not wish to support the idle; and i have a notion that there has always been a law against murder, because a large majority of people have always objected to being murdered. if he will read his old testament with care, he will find that god violated most of his own commandments--all except that "thou shalt worship no other god before me," and, may be, the commandment against work on the sabbath day. with these two exceptions i am satisfied that god himself violated all the rest. he told his chosen people to rob the gentiles; that violated the commandment against stealing. he said himself that he had sent out lying spirits; that certainly was a violation of another commandment. he ordered soldiers to kill men, women and babes; that was a violation of another. he also told them to divide the maidens among the soldiers; that was a substantial violation of another. one of the commandments was that you should not covet your neighbor's property. in that commandment you will find that a man's wife is put on an equality with his ox. yet his chosen people were allowed not only to covet the property of the gentiles, but to take it. if dr. fulton will read a little more, he will find that all the good laws in the decalogue had been in force in egypt a century before moses was born. he will find that like laws and many better ones were in force in india and china, long before moses knew what a bulrush was. if he will think a little while, he will find that one of the ten commandments, the one on the subject of graven images, was bad. the result of that was that palestine never produced a painter, or a sculptor, and that no jew became famous in art until long after the destruction of jerusalem. a commandment that robs a people of painting and statuary is not a good one. the idea of the bible being the basis of law is almost too silly to be seriously refuted. i admit that i did say that shakespeare was the greatest man who ever lived; and dr. fulton says in regard to this statement, "what foolishness!" he then proceeds to insult his audience by telling them that while many of them have copies of shakespeare's works in their houses, they have not read twenty pages of them. this fact may account for their attending his church and being satisfied with that sermon. i do not believe to-day that shakespeare is more influential than the bible, but what influence shakespeare has, is for good. no man can read it without having his intellectual wealth increased. when you read it, it is not necessary to throw away your reason. neither will you be damned if you do not understand it. it is a book that appeals to everything in the human brain. in that book can be found the wisdom of all ages. long after the bible has passed out of existence, the name of shakespeare will lead the intellectual roster of the world. dr. fulton says there is not one work in the bible that teaches that slavery or polygamy is right. he also states that i know it. if language has meaning--if words have sense, or the power to convey thought,--what did god mean when he told the israelites to buy of the heathen round about, and that the heathen should be their bondmen and bondmaids forever? what did god mean when he said, if a man strike his servant so he dies, he should not be punished, because his servant was his money? passages like these can be quoted beyond the space that any paper is willing to give. yet the rev. dr. fulton denies that the old testament upholds slavery. i would like to ask him if the old testament is in favor of religious toleration? if god wrote the old testament and afterward came upon the earth as jesus christ, and taught a new religion, and the jews crucified him, was this not in accordance with his own law, and was he not, after all, the victim of himself? _question_. what about the other ministers? _answer_. well, i see in the _herald_ that some ten have said that they would reply to me. i have selected the two, simply because they came first. i think they are about as poor as any; and you know it is natural to attack those who are the easiest answered. all these ministers are now acting as my agents, and are doing me all the good they can by saying all the bad things about me they can think of. they imagine that their congregations have not grown, and they talk to them as though they were living in the seventeenth instead of the nineteenth century. the truth is, the pews are beyond the pulpit, and the modern sheep are now protecting the shepherds. _question_. have you noticed a great change in public sentiment in the last three or four years? _answer_. yes, i think there are ten times as many infidels to- day as there were ten years ago. i am amazed at the great change that has taken place in public opinion. the churches are not getting along well. there are hundreds and hundreds who have not had a new member in a year. the young men are not satisfied with the old ideas. they find that the church, after all, is opposed to learning; that it is the enemy of progress; that it says to every young man, "go slow. don't allow your knowledge to puff you up. recollect that reason is a dangerous thing. you had better be a little ignorant here for the sake of being an angel hereafter, than quite a smart young man and get damned at last." the church warns them against humboldt and darwin, and tells them how much nobler it is to come from mud than from monkeys; that they were made from mud. every college professor is afraid to tell what he thinks, and every student detects the cowardice. the result is that the young men have lost confidence in the creeds of the day and propose to do a little thinking for themselves. they still have a kind of tender pity for the old folks, and pretend to believe some things they do not, rather than hurt grandmother's feelings. in the presence of the preachers they talk about the weather or other harmless subjects, for fear of bruising the spirit of their pastor. every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd leading the lambs through the green pastures and defending them at night from infidel wolves. all this he does for a certain share of the wool. others regard the church as a kind of social organization, as a good way to get into society. they wish to attend sociables, drink tea, and contribute for the conversion of the heathen. it is always so pleasant to think that there is somebody worse than you are, whose reformation you can help pay for. i find, too, that the young women are getting tired of the old doctrines, and that everywhere, all over this country, the power of the pulpit wanes and weakens. i find in my lectures that the applause is just in proportion to the radicalism of the thought expressed. our war was a great educator, when the whole people of the north rose up grandly in favor of human liberty. for many years the great question of human rights was discussed from every stump. every paper was filled with splendid sentiments. an application of those doctrines--doctrines born in war--will forever do away with the bondage of superstition. when man has been free in body for a little time, he will become free in mind, and the man who says, "i have a equal right with other men to work and reap the reward of my labor," will say, "i have, also, an equal right to think and reap the reward of my thought." in old times there was a great difference between a clergyman and a layman. the clergyman was educated; the peasant was ignorant. the tables have been turned. the thought of the world is with the laymen. they are the intellectual pioneers, the mental leaders, and the ministers are following on behind, predicting failure and disaster, sighing for the good old times when their word ended discussion. there is another good thing, and that is the revision of the bible. hundreds of passages have been found to be interpolations, and future revisers will find hundreds more. the foundation crumbles. that book, called the basis of all law and civilization, has to be civilized itself. we have outgrown it. our laws are better; our institutions grander; our objects and aims nobler and higher. _question_. do many people write to you upon this subject; and what spirit do they manifest? _answer_. yes, i get a great many anonymous letters--some letters in which god is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly malicious, and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good spirit, winding up with the information that i must certainly be damned. others express wonder that god allowed me to live at all, and that, having made the mistake, he does not instantly correct it by killing me. others prophesy that i will yet be a minister of the gospel; but, as there has never been any softening of the brain in our family, i imagine that the prophecy will never by fulfilled. lately, on opening a letter and seeing that it is upon this subject, and without a signature, i throw it aside without reading. i have so often found them to be so grossly ignorant, insulting and malicious, that as a rule i read them no more. _question_. of the hundreds of people who call upon you nearly every day to ask your help, do any of them ever discriminate against you on account of your infidelity? _answer_. no one who has asked a favor of me objects to my religion, or, rather, to my lack of it. a great many people do come to me for assistance of one kind or another. but i have never yet asked a man or woman whether they were religious or not, to what church they belonged, or any questions upon the subject. i think i have done favors for persons of most denominations. it never occurs to me whether they are christians or infidels. i do not care. of course, i do not expect that christians will treat me the same as though i belonged to their church. i have never expected it. in some instances i have been disappointed. i have some excellent friends who disagree with me entirely upon the subject of religion. my real opinion is that secretly they like me because i am not a christian, and those who do not like me envy the liberty i enjoy. --new york correspondent, _chicago times_, may , . guiteau and his crime.* [* our "royal bob" was found by _the gazette_, in the gloaming of a delicious evening, during the past week, within the open portals of his friendly residence, dedicated by the gracious presence within to a simple and cordial hospitality, to the charms of friendship and the freedom of an abounding comradeship. with intellectual and untrammeled life, a generous, wise and genial host, whoever enters finds a welcome, seasoned with kindly wit and attic humor, a poetic insight and a delicious frankness which renders an evening there a veritable symposium. the wayfarer who passes is charmed, and he who comes frequently, goes always away with delighted memories. what matters it that we differ? such as he and his make our common life the sweeter. an hour or two spent in the attractive parlors of the ingersoll homestead, amid that rare group, lends a newer meaning to the idea of home and a more secure beauty to the fact of family life. during the past exciting three weeks colonel ingersoll has been a busy man. he holds no office. no position could lend him an additional crown and even recognition is no longer necessary. but it has been well that amid the first fierce fury of anger and excitement, and the subsequent more bitter if not as noble outpouring of faction's suspicions and innuendoes, that so manly a man, so sagacious a counsellor, has been enabled to hold so positive a balance. cabinet officers, legal functionaries, detectives, citizens--all have felt the wise, humane instincts, and the capacious brain of this marked man affecting and influencing for this fair equipoise and calmer judgment. conversing freely on the evening of this visit, colonel ingersoll, in the abundance of his pleasure at the white house news, submitted to be interviewed, and with the following result.] _question_. by-the-way, colonel, you knew guiteau slightly, we believe. are you aware that it has been attempted to show that some money loaned or given him by yourself was really what he purchased the pistol with? _answer_. i knew guiteau slightly; i saw him for the first time a few days after the inauguration. he wanted a consulate, and asked me to give him a letter to secretary blaine. i refused, on the ground that i didn't know him. afterwards he wanted me to lend him twenty-five dollars, and i declined. i never loaned him a dollar in the world. if i had, i should not feel that i was guilty of trying to kill the president. on the principle that one would hold the man guilty who had innocently loaned the money with which he bought the pistol, you might convict the tailor who made his clothes. if he had had no clothes he would not have gone to the depot naked, and the crime would not have been committed. it is hard enough for the man who did lend him the money to lose that, without losing his reputation besides. nothing can exceed the utter absurdity of what has been said upon this subject. _question_. how did guiteau impress you and what have you remembered, colonel, of his efforts to reply to your lectures? _answer_. i do not know that guiteau impressed me in any way. he appeared like most other folks in search of a place or employment. i suppose he was in need. he talked about the same as other people, and claimed that i ought to help him because he was from chicago. the second time he came to see me he said that he hoped i had no prejudice against him on account of what he had said about me. i told him that i never knew he had said anything against me. i suppose now that he referred to what he had said in his lectures. he went about the country replying to me. i have seen one or two of his lectures. he used about the same arguments that mr. black uses in his reply to my article in the _north american review_, and denounced me in about the same terms. he is undoubtedly a man who firmly believes in the old testament, and has no doubt concerning the new. i understand that he puts in most of his time now reading the bible and rebuking people who use profane language in his presence. _question_. you most certainly do not see any foundation for the accusations of preachers like sunderland, newman and power, _et al_, that the teaching of a secular liberalism has had anything to do with the shaping of guiteau's character or the actions of his vagabond life or the inciting to his murderous deeds? _answer_. i do not think that the sermon of mr. power was in good taste. it is utterly foolish to charge the "stalwarts" with committing or inciting the crime against the life of the president. ministers, though, as a rule, know but little of public affairs, and they always account for the actions of people they do not like or agree with, by attributing to them the lowest and basest motives. this is the fault of the pulpit--always has been, and probably always will be. the rev. dr. newman of new york, tells us that the crime of guiteau shows three things: first, that ignorant men should not be allowed to vote; second, that foreigners should not be allowed to vote; and third, that there should not be so much religious liberty. it turns out, first, the guiteau is not an ignorant man; second, that he is not a foreigner; and third, that he is a christian. now, because an intelligent american christian tries to murder the president, this person says we ought to do something with ignorant foreigners and infidels. this is about the average pulpit logic. of course, all the ministers hate to admit the guiteau was a christian; that he belonged to the young men's christian association, or at least was generally found in their rooms; that he was a follower of moody and sankey, and probably instrumental in the salvation of a great many souls. i do not blame them for wishing to get rid of this record. what i blame them for is that they are impudent enough to charge the crime of guiteau upon infidelity. infidels and atheists have often killed tyrants. they have often committed crimes to increase the liberty of mankind; but the history of the world will not show an instance where an infidel or an atheist has assassinated any man in the interest of human slavery. of course, i am exceedingly glad that guiteau is not an infidel. i am glad that he believes the bible, glad that he has delivered lectures against what he calls infidelity, and glad that he has been working for years with the missionaries and evangelists of the united states. he is a man of small brain, badly balanced. he believes the bible to be the word of god. he believes in the reality of heaven and hell. he believes in the miraculous. he is surrounded by the supernatural, and when a man throws away his reason, of course no one can tell what he will do. he is liable to become a devotee or an assassin, a saint or a murderer; he may die in a monastery or in a penitentiary. _question_. according to your view, then, the species of fanaticism taught in sectarian christianity, by which guiteau was led to assert that garfield dead would be better off then living--being in paradise --is more responsible than office seeking or political factionalism for his deed? _answer_. guiteau seemed to think that the killing of the president would only open the gates of paradise to him, and that, after all, under such circumstances, murder was hardly a crime. this same kind of reasoning is resorted to in the pulpit to account for death. if guiteau had succeeded in killing the president, hundreds of ministers would have said, "after all, it may be that the president has lost nothing; it may be that our loss is his eternal gain; and although it seems cruel that providence should allow a man like him to be murdered, still, it may have been the very kindest thing that could have been done for him." guiteau reasoned in this way, and probably convinced himself, judging from his own life, that this world was, after all, of very little worth. we are apt to measure others by ourselves. of course, i do not think christianity is responsible for this crime. superstition may have been, in part --probably was. but no man believes in christianity because he thinks it sanctions murder. at the same time, an absolute belief in the bible sometimes produces the worst form of murder. take that of mr. freeman, of poeasset, who stabbed his little daughter to the heart in accordance with what he believed to be the command of god. this poor man imitated abraham; and, for that matter, jehovah himself. there have been in the history of christianity thousands and thousands of such instances, and there will probably be many thousands more that have been and will be produced by throwing away our own reason and taking the word of some one else --often a word that we do not understand. _question_. what is your opinion as to the effect of praying for the recovery of the president, and have you any confidence that prayers are answered? _answer_. my opinion as to the value of prayer is well known. i take it that every one who prays for the president shows at least his sympathy and good will. personally, i have no objection to anybody's praying. those who think their prayers are answered should pray. for all who honestly believe this, and who honestly implore their deity to watch over, protect, and save the life of the president, i have only the kindliest feelings. it may be that a few will pray to be seen of men; but i suppose that most people on a subject like this are honest. personally, i have not the slightest idea of the existence of the supernatural. prayer may affect the person who prays. it may put him in such a frame of mind that he can better bear disappointment than if he had not prayed; but i cannot believe that there is any being who hears and answers prayer. when we remember the earthquakes that have devoured, the pestilences that have covered the earth with corpses, and all the crimes and agonies that have been inflicted upon the good and weak by the bad and strong, it does not seem possible that anything can be accomplished by prayer. i do not wish to hurt the feelings of anyone, but i imagine that i have a right to my own opinion. if the president gets well it will be because the bullet did not strike an absolutely vital part; it will be because he has been well cared for; because he has had about him intelligent and skillful physicians, men who understood their profession. no doubt he has received great support from the universal expression of sympathy and kindness. the knowledge that fifty millions of people are his friends has given him nerve and hope. some of the ministers, i see, think that god was actually present and deflected the ball. another minister tells us that the president would have been assassinated in a church, but that god determined not to allow so frightful a crime to be committed in so sacred an edifice. all this sounds to me like perfect absurdity--simple noise. yet, i presume that those who talk in this way are good people and believe what they say. of course, they can give no reason why god did not deflect the ball when lincoln was assassinated. the truth is, the pulpit first endeavors to find out the facts, and then to make a theory to fit them. whoever believes in a special providence must, of necessity, by illogical and absurd; because it is impossible to make any theological theory that some facts will not contradict. _question_. won't you give us, then, colonel, your analysis of this act, and the motives leading to it? _answer_. i think guiteau wanted an office and was refused. he became importunate. he was, substantially, put out of the white house. he became malicious. he made up his mind to be revenged. this, in my judgment, is the diagnosis of his case. since he has been in jail he has never said one word about having been put out of the white house; he is lawyer enough to know he must not furnish any ground for malice. he is a miserable, malicious and worthless wretch, infinitely egotistical, imagines that he did a great deal toward the election of garfield, and upon being refused the house a serpent of malice coiled in his heart, and he determined to be revenged. that is all! _question_. do you, in any way, see any reason or foundation for the severe and bitter criticisms made against the stalwart leaders in connection with this crime? as you are well known to be a friend of the administration, while not unfriendly to mr. conkling and those acting with him, would you mind giving the public your opinion on this point? _answer_. of course, i do not hold arthur, conkling and platt responsible for guiteau's action. in the first excitement a thousand unreasonable things were said; and when passion has possession of the brain, suspicion is a welcome visitor. i do not think that any friend of the administration really believes conkling, platt and arthur responsible in the slightest degree. conkling wished to prevent the appointment of robertson. the president stood by his friend. one thing brought on another, mr. conkling petulantly resigned, and made the mistake of his life. there was a good deal of feeling, but, of course, no one dreamed that the wretch, guiteau, was lying in wait for the president's life. in the first place, guiteau was on the president's side, and was bitterly opposed to conkling. guiteau did what he did from malice and personal spite. i think the sermon preached last sunday in the campbellite church was unwise, ill advised, and calculated to make enemies instead of friends. mr. conkling has been beaten. he has paid for the mistake he made. if he can stand it, i can; and why should there be any malice on the subject? exceedingly good men have made mistakes, and afterward corrected them. _question_. is it not true, colonel ingersoll, that the lesson of this deed is to point the real and overwhelming need of re-knitting and harmonizing the factions? _answer_. there is hardly enough faction left for "knitting." the party is in harmony now. all that is necessary is to stop talking. the people of this country care very little as to who holds any particular office. they wish to have the government administered in accordance with certain great principles, and they leave the fields, the shops, and the stores once in four years, for the purpose of attending to that business. in the meantime, politicians quarrel about offices. the people go on. they plow fields, they build homes, they open mines, they enrich the world, they cover our country with prosperity, and enjoy the aforesaid quarrels. but when the time comes, these gentlemen are forgotten. principles take the place of politicians, and the people settle these questions for themselves. --_sunday gazette_, washington, d. c., july , . district suffrage. _question_. you have heretofore incidentally expressed yourself on the matter of local suffrage in the district of columbia. have you any objections to giving your present views of the question? _answer_. i am still in favor of suffrage in the district. the real trouble is, that before any substantial relief can be reached, there must be a change in the constitution of the united states. the mere right to elect aldermen and mayors and policemen is of no great importance. it is a mistake to take all political power from the citizens of the district. americans want to help rule the country. the district ought to have at least one representative in congress, and should elect one presidential elector. the people here should have a voice. they should feel that they are a part of this country. they should have the right to sue in all federal courts, precisely as though they were citizens of a state. this city ought to have half a million of inhabitants. thousands would come here every year from every part of the union, were it not for the fact that they do not wish to become political nothings. they think that citizenship is worth something, and they preserve it by staying away from washington. this city is a "flag of truce" where wounded and dead politicians congregate; the mecca of failures, the perdition of claimants, the purgatory of seekers after place, and the heaven only of those who neither want nor do anything. nothing is manufactured, no solid business is done in this city, and there never will be until energetic, thrifty people wish to make it their home, and they will not wish that until the people of the district have something like the rights and political prospects of other citizens. it is hard to see why the right to representation should be taken from citizens living in the capital of the nation. the believers in free government should believe in a free capital. _question_. are there any valid reasons why the constitutional limitations to the elective franchise in the district of columbia should not be removed by an amendment to that instrument? _answer_. i cannot imagine one. if our government is founded upon a correct principle there can be no objection urged against suffrage in the district that cannot, with equal force, be urged against every part of the country. if freedom is dangerous here, it is safe nowhere. if a man cannot be trusted in the district, he is dangerous in the state. we do not trust the place where the man happens to be; we trust the man. the people of this district cannot remain in their present condition without becoming dishonored. the idea of allowing themselves to be governed by commissioners, in whose selection they have no part, is monstrous. the people here beg, implore, request, ask, pray, beseech, intercede, crave, urge, entreat, supplicate, memorialize and most humbly petition, but they neither vote nor demand. they are not allowed to enter the temple of liberty; they stay in the lobby or sit on the steps. _question_. they say paris is france, because her electors or citizens control that municipality. do you foresee any danger of centralization in the full enfranchisement of the citizens of washington? _answer_. there was a time when the intelligence of france was in paris. the country was besotted, ignorant, catholic; paris was alive, educated, infidel, full of new theories, of passion and heroism. for two hundred years paris was an athlete chained to a corpse. the corpse was the rest of france. it is different now, and the whole country is at last filling with light. besides, paris has two millions of people. it is filled with factories. it is not only the intellectual center, but the center of money and business as well. let the _corps legislatif_ meet anywhere, and paris will continue to be in a certain splendid sense--france. nothing like that can ever happen here unless you expect washington to outstrip new york, philadelphia and chicago. if allowing the people of the district of columbia to vote was the only danger to the republic, i should be politically the happiest of men. i think it somewhat dangerous to deprive even one american citizen of the right to govern himself. _question_. would you have government clerks and officials appointed to office here given the franchise in the district? and should this, if given, include the women clerks? _answer_. citizenship should be determined here as in the states. clerks should not be allowed to vote unless their intention is to make the district their home. when i make a government i shall give one vote to each family. the unmarried should not be represented except by parents. let the family be the unit of representation. give each hearthstone a vote. _question_. how do you regard the opposition of the local clergy and of the bourbon democracy to enfranchising the citizens of the district? _answer_. i did not know that the clergy did oppose it. if, as you say, they do oppose it because they fear it will extend the liquor traffic, i think their reason exceedingly stupid. you cannot make men temperate by shutting up a few of the saloons and leaving others wide open. intemperance must be met with other weapons. the church ought not to appeal to force. what would the clergy of washington think should the miracle of cana be repeated in their day? had they been in that country, with their present ideas, what would they have said? after all there is a great deal of philosophy in the following: "better have the whole world voluntarily drunk then sober on compulsion." of course the bourbons object. objecting is the business of a bourbon. he always objects. if he does not understand the question he objects because he does not, and if he does understand he objects because he does. with him the reason for objecting is the fact that he does. _question_. what effect, if any, would the complete franchise to our citizens have upon real estate and business in washington? _answer_. if the people here had representation according to numbers--if the avenues to political preferment were open--if men here could take part in the real government of the country, if they could bring with them all their rights, this would be a great and splendid capital. we ought to have here a university, the best in the world, a library second to none, and here should be gathered the treasures of american art. the federal government has been infinitely economical in the direction of information. i hope the time will come when our government will give as much to educate two men as to kill one. --_the capital_, washington, d. c., december , . funeral of john g. mills and immortality.* [* robert g. ingersoll rarely takes the trouble to answer critics. his recent address over the dead body of his friend john g. mills has called forth a storm of denunciation from nearly every pulpit in the country. the writer called at the colonel's office in new york avenue yesterday and asked him to reply to some of the points made against him. reluctantly he assented.] _question_. have you seen the recent clerical strictures upon your doctrines? _answer_. there are always people kind enough to send me anything they have the slightest reason to think i do not care to read. they seem to be animated by a missionary spirit, and apparently want to be in a position when they see me in hell to exclaim: "you can't blame me. i sent you all the impudent articles i saw, and if you died unconverted it was no fault of mine." _question_. did you notice that a washington clergyman said that the very fact that you were allowed to speak at the funeral was in itself a sacrilege, and that you ought to have been stopped? _answer_. yes, i saw some such story. of course, the clergy regard marriages and funerals as the perquisites of the pulpit, and they resent any interference on the part of the pews. they look at these matters from a business point of view. they made the same cry against civil marriages. they denied that marriage was a contract, and insisted that it was a sacrament, and that it was hardly binding unless a priest had blessed it. they used to bury in consecrated ground, and had marks upon the graves, so that gabriel might know the ones to waken. the clergy wish to make themselves essential. they must christen the babe--this gives them possession of the cradle. they must perform the ceremony of marriage --this gives them possession of the family. they must pronounce the funeral discourse--this gives them possession of the dead. formerly they denied baptism to the children of the unbeliever, marriage to him who denied the dogmas of the church, and burial to honest men. the church wishes to control the world, and wishes to sacrifice this world for the next. of course i am in favor of the utmost liberty upon all these questions. when a presbyterian dies, let a follower of john calvin console the living by setting forth the "five points." when a catholic becomes clay, let a priest perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let him picture the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living. and when one dies who does not believe in any religion, having expressed a wish that somebody say a few words above his remains, i see no reason why such a proceeding should be stopped, and, for my part, i see no sacrilege in it. why should the reputations of the dead, and the feelings of those who live, be placed at the mercy of the ministers? a man dies not having been a christian, and who, according to the christian doctrine, is doomed to eternal fire. how would an honest christian minister console the widow and the fatherless children? how would he dare to tell what he claims to be truth in the presence of the living? the truth is, the christian minister in the presence of death abandons his christianity. he dare not say above the coffin, "the soul that once inhabited this body is now in hell." he would be denounced as a brutal savage. now and then a minister at a funeral has been brave enough and unmannerly enough to express his doctrine in all its hideousness of hate. i was told that in chicago, many years ago, a young man, member of a volunteer fire company, was killed by the falling of a wall, and at the very moment the wall struck him he was uttering a curse. he was a brave and splendid man. an orthodox minister said above his coffin, in the presence of his mother and mourning friends, that he saw no hope for the soul of that young man. the mother, who was also orthodox, refused to have her boy buried with such a sermon--stopped the funeral, took the corpse home, engaged a universalist preacher, and, on the next day having heard this man say that there was no place in the wide universe of god without hope, and that her son would finally stand among the redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his grave, and was satisfied. _question_. what have you to say to the charge that you are preaching the doctrine of despair and hopelessness, when they have the comforting assurances of the christian religion to offer? _answer_. all i have to say is this: if the christian religion is true, as commonly preached--and when i speak of christianity, i speak of the orthodox christianity of the day--if that be true, those whom i have loved the best are now in torment. those to whom i am most deeply indebted are now suffering the vengeance of god. if this religion be true, the future is of no value to me. i care nothing about heaven, unless the ones i love and have loved are there. i know nothing about the angels. i might not like them, and they might not like me. i would rather meet there the ones who have loved me here--the ones who would have died for me, and for whom i would have died; and if we are to be eternally divided --not because we differed in our views of justice, not because we differed about friendship or love or candor, or the nobility of human action, but because we differed in belief about the atonement or baptism or the inspiration of the scriptures--and if some of us are to be in heaven, and some in hell, then, for my part, i prefer eternal sleep. to me the doctrine of annihilation is infinitely more consoling, than the probable separation preached by the orthodox clergy of our time. of course, even if there be a god, i like persons that i know, better than i can like him--we have more in common--i know more about them; and how is it possible for me to love the infinite and unknown better than the ones i know? why not have the courage to say that if there be a god, all i know about him i know by knowing myself and my friends--by knowing others? and, after all, is not a noble man, is not a pure woman, the finest revelation we have of god--if there be one? of what use is it to be false to ourselves? what moral quality is there in theological pretence? why should a man say that he loves god better than he does his wife or his children or his brother or his sister or his warm, true friend? several ministers have objected to what i said about my friend mr. mills, on the ground that it was not calculated to console the living. mr. mills was not a christian. he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. he believed that restitution was the best repentance, and that, after all, sin is a mistake. he was not a believer in total depravity, or in the atonement. he denied these things. he was an unbeliever. now, let me ask, what consolation could a christian minister have given to his family? he could have said to the widow and the orphans, to the brother and sister: "your husband, your father, your brother, is now in hell; dry your tears; weep not for him, but try and save yourselves. he has been damned as a warning to you, care no more for him, why should you weep over the grave of a man whom god thinks fit only to be eternally tormented? why should you love the memory of one whom god hates?" the minister could have said: "he had an opportunity--he did not take it. the life-boat was lowered--he would not get in--he has been drowned, and the waves of god's wrath will sweep over him forever." this is the consolation of christianity and the only honest consolation that christianity can have for the widow and orphans of an unbeliever. suppose, however, that the christian minister has too tender a heart to tell what he believes to be the truth--then he can say to the sorrowing friends: "perhaps the man repented before he died; perhaps he is not in hell, perhaps you may meet him in heaven;" and this "perhaps" is a consolation not growing out of christianity, but out of the politeness of the preacher--out of paganism. _question_. do you not think that the bible has consolation for those who have lost their friends? _answer_. there is about the old testament this strange fact--i find in it no burial service. there is in it, i believe, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in malachi, not one word said over the dead as to their place and state. when abraham died, nobody said: "he is still alive--he is in another world." when the prophets passed away, not one word was said as to the heaven to which they had gone. in the old testament, saul inquired of the witch, and samuel rose. samuel did not pretend that he had been living, or that he was alive, but asked: "why hast thou disquieted me?" he did not pretend to have come from another world. and when david speaks of his son, saying that he could not come back to him, but that he, david, could go to his son, that is but saying that he, too, must die. there is not in the old testament one hope of immortality. it is expressly asserted that there is no difference between the man and beast--that as the one dieth so dieth the other. there is one little passage in job which commentators have endeavored to twist into a hope of immortality. here is a book of hundreds and hundreds of pages, and hundreds and hundreds of chapters--a revelation from god--and in it one little passage, which, by a mistranslation, is tortured into saying something about another life. and this is the old testament. i have sometimes thought that the jews, when slaves in egypt, were mostly occupied in building tombs for mummies, and that they became so utterly disgusted with that kind of work, that the moment they founded a nation for themselves they went out of the tomb business. the egyptians were believers in immortality, and spent almost their entire substance upon the dead. the living were impoverished to enrich the dead. the grave absorbed the wealth of egypt. the industry of a nation was buried. certainly the old testament has nothing clearly in favor of immortality. in the new testament we are told about the "kingdom of heaven,"--that it is at hand--and about who shall be worthy, but it is hard to tell what is meant by the kingdom of heaven. the kingdom of heaven was apparently to be in this world, and it was about to commence. the devil was to be chained for a thousand years, the wicked were to be burned up, and christ and his followers were to enjoy the earth. this certainly was the doctrine of paul when he says: "behold, i show you a mystery; we shall not all _sleep_, but we shall all be _changed_. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the _dead_ shall be _raised_ incorruptible, and _we_ shall be _changed_. for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." according to this doctrine, those who were alive were to be changed, and those who had died were to be raised from the dead. paul certainly did not refer to any other world beyond this. all these things were to happen here. the new testament is made up of the fragments of many religions. it is utterly inconsistent with itself; and there is not a particle of evidence of the resurrection and ascension of christ--neither in the nature of things could there be. it is a thousand times more probable that people were mistaken than that such things occurred. if christ really rose from the dead, he should have shown himself, not simply to his disciples, but to the very men who crucified him--to herod, to the high priest, to pilate. he should have made a triumphal entry into jerusalem after his resurrection, instead of before. he should have shown himself to the sadducees,--to those who denied the existence of spirit. take from the new testament its doctrine of eternal pain--the idea that we can please god by acts of self-denial that can do no good to others--take away all its miracles, and i have no objection to all the good things in it--no objection to the hope of a future life, if such a hope is expressed--not the slightest. and i would not for the world say anything to take from any mind a hope in which dwells the least comfort, but a doctrine that dooms a large majority of mankind to eternal flames ought not to be called a consolation. what i say is, that the writers of the new testament knew no more about the future state than i do, and no less. the horizon of life has never been pierced. the veil between time and what is called eternity, has never been raised, so far as i know; and i say of the dead what all others must say if they say only what they know. there is no particular consolation in a guess. not knowing what the future has in store for the human race, it is far better to prophesy good than evil. it is better to hope that the night has a dawn, that the sky has a star, than to build a heaven for the few, and a hell for the many. it is better to leave your dead in doubt than in fire--better that they should sleep in shadow than in the lurid flames of perdition. and so i say, and always have said, let us hope for the best. the minister asks: "what right have you to hope? it is sacrilegious in you!" but, whether the clergy like it or not, i shall always express my real opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: "there is in death, as i believe, nothing worse than sleep. hope for as much better as you can. under the seven-hued arch let the dead rest." throw away the bible, and you throw away the fear of hell, but the hope of another life remains, because the hope does not depend upon a book--it depends upon the heart--upon human affection. the fear, so far as this generation is concerned, is born of the book, and that part of the book was born of savagery. whatever of hope is in the book is born, as i said before, of human affection, and the higher our civilization the greater the affection. i had rather rest my hope of something beyond the grave upon the human heart, than upon what they call the scriptures, because there i find mingled with the hope of something good the threat of infinite evil. among the thistles, thorns and briers of the bible is one pale and sickly flower of hope. among all its wild beasts and fowls, only one bird flies heavenward. i prefer the hope without the thorns, without the briers, thistles, hyenas, and serpents. _question_. do you not know that it is claimed that immortality was brought to light in the new testament, that that, in fact, was the principal mission of christ? _answer_. i know that christians claim that the doctrine of immortality was first taught in the new testament. they also claim that the highest morality was found there. both these claims are utterly without foundation. thousands of years before christ was born--thousands of years before moses saw the light--the doctrine of immortality was preached by the priests of osiris and isis. funeral discourses were pronounced over the dead, ages before abraham existed. when a man died in egypt, before he was taken across the sacred lake, he had a trial. witnesses appeared, and if he had done anything wrong, for which he had not done restitution, he was not taken across the lake. the living friends, in disgrace, carried the body back, and it was buried outside of what might be called consecrated ground, while the ghost was supposed to wander for a hundred years. often the children of the dead would endeavor to redeem the poor ghost by acts of love and kindness. when he came to the spirit world there was the god anubis, who weighed his heart in the scales of eternal justice, and if the good deed preponderated he entered the gates of paradise; if the evil, he had to go back to the world, and be born in the bodies of animals for the purpose of final purification. at last, the good deeds would outweigh the evil, and, according to the religion of egypt, the latch-string of heaven would never be drawn in until the last wanderer got home. immortality was also taught in india, and, in fact, in all the countries of antiquity. wherever men have loved, wherever they have dreamed, wherever hope has spread its wings, the idea of immortality has existed. but nothing could be worse than the immortality promised in the new testament--admitting that it is so promised--eternal joy side by side with eternal pain. think of living forever, knowing that countless millions are suffering eternal pain! how much better it would be for god to commit suicide and let all life and motion cease! christianity has no consolation except for the christian, and if a christian minister endeavors to console the widow of an unbeliever he must resort, not to his religion, but to his sympathy--to the natural promptings of the heart. he is compelled to say: "after all, may be god is not so bad as we think," or, "may be your husband was better than he appeared; perhaps somehow, in some way, the dear man has squeezed in; he was a good husband, he was a kind father, and even if he is in hell, may be he is in the temperate zone, where they have occasional showers, and where, if the days are hot, the nights are reasonably cool." all i ask of christian ministers is to tell what they believe to be the truth--not to borrow ideas from the pagans--not to preach the mercy born of unregenerate sympathy. let them tell their real doctrines. if they will do that, they will not have much influence. if orthodox christianity is true, a large majority of the man who have made this world fit to live in are now in perdition. a majority of the revolutionary soldiers have been damned. a majority of the man who fought for the integrity of this union--a majority who were starved at libby and andersonville are now in hell. _question_. do you deny the immortality of the soul? _answer_. i have never denied the immortality of the soul. i have simply been honest. i have said: "i do not know." long ago, in my lecture on "the ghosts," i used the following language: "the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow hope, shining upon the tears of grief." --_the post_, washington, d. c., april , . star route and politics.* [* col. ingersoll entertains very pronounced ideas concerning president arthur, attorney-general brewster and divers other people, which will be found presented herewith in characteristically piquant style. with his family, the eloquent advocate has a cottage here, and finds brain and body rest and refreshment in the tumbling waves. this noon, in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, i bumped against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the providential coincidence. the water was warm, our clothes were in the bathing houses, and comfort was more certain where we were than anywhere else. the colonel is an expert swimmer and as a floater he cannot be beaten. he was floating when we bumped. spouting a pint of salt water from his mouth, he nearly choked with laughter as in answer to my question he said:] no, i do not believe there will be any more star route trials. there is so much talk about the last one, there will not be time for another. _question_. did you anticipate a verdict? _answer_. i did anticipate a verdict, and one of acquittal. i knew that the defendants were entitled to such a verdict. i knew that the government had signally failed to prove a case. there was nothing but suspicion, from which malice was inferred. the direct proof was utterly unworthy of belief. the direct witness was caught with letters he had forged. this one fact was enough to cover the prosecution with confusion. the fact that rerdell sat with the other defendants and reported to the government from day to day satisfied the jury as to the value of his testimony, and the animus of the department of justice. besides, rerdell had offered to challenge such jurors as the government might select. he handed counsel for defendants a list of four names that he wanted challenged. at that time it was supposed that each defendant would be allowed to challenge four jurors. afterward the court decided that all the defendants must be considered as one party and had the right to challenge four and no more. of the four names on rerdell's list the government challenged three and rerdell tried to challenge the other. this was what is called a coincidence. another thing had great influence with the jury--the evidence of the defendants was upon all material points so candid and so natural, so devoid of all coloring, that the jury could not help believing. if the people knew the evidence they would agree with the jury. when we remember that there were over ten thousand star routes, it is not to be wondered at that some mistakes were made--that in some instances too much was paid and in others too little. _question_. what has been the attitude of president arthur? _answer_. we asked nothing from the president. we wanted no help from him. we expected that he would take no part--that he would simply allow the matter to be settled by the court in the usual way. i think that he made one very serious mistake. he removed officers on false charges without giving them a hearing. he deposed marshal henry because somebody said that he was the friend of the defendants. henry was a good officer and an honest man. the president removed ainger for the same reason. this was a mistake. ainger should have been heard. there is always time to do justice. no day is too short for justice, and eternity is not long enough to commit a wrong. it was thought that the community could be terrorized:-- _first_. the president dismissed henry and ainger. _second_. the attorney-general wrote a letter denouncing the defendants as thieves and robbers. _third_. other letters from bliss and macveagh were published. _fourth_. dixon, the foreman of the first jury, was indicted. _fifth_. members of the first jury voting "guilty" were in various ways rewarded. _sixth_. bargains were made with boone and rerdell. the cases against boone were to be dismissed and rerdell was promised immunity. under these circumstances the second trial commenced. but of all the people in this country the citizens of washington care least for presidents and members of the cabinets. they know what these officers are made of. they know that they are simply folks--that they do not hold office forever--that the jupiters of to-day are often the pygmies of to-morrow. they have seen too many people come in with trumpets and flags and go out with hisses and rags to be overawed by the deities of a day. they have seen lincoln and they are not to be frightened by his successors. arthur took part to the extent of turning out men suspected of being friendly to the defence. arthur was in a difficult place. he was understood to be the friend of dorsey and, of course, had to do something. nothing is more dangerous than a friend in power. he is obliged to show that he is impartial, and it always takes a good deal of injustice to establish a reputation for fairness. _question_. was there any ground to expect aid or any different action on arthur's part? _answer_. all we expected was that arthur would do as the soldier wanted the lord to do at new orleans--"just take neither side." _question_. why did not brewster speak? _answer_. the court would not allow two closings. the attorney- general did not care to speak in the "middle." he wished to close, and as he could not do that without putting mr. merrick out, he concluded to remain silent. the defendants had no objection to his speaking, but they objected to two closing arguments for the government, and the court decided they were right. of course, i understand nothing about the way in which the attorneys for the prosecution arranged their difficulties. that was nothing to me; neither do i care what money they received--all that is for the next congress. it is not for me to speak of those questions. _question_. will there be other trials? _answer_. i think not. it does not seem likely that other attorneys will want to try, and the old ones have. my opinion is that we have had the last of the star route trials. it was claimed that the one tried was the strongest. if this is so the rest had better be dismissed. i think the people are tired of the whole business. it now seems probable that all the time for the next few years will be taken up in telling about the case that was tried. i see that cook is telling about macveagh and james and brewster and bliss; walsh is giving his opinion of kellogg and foster; bliss is saying a few words about cook and gibson; brewster is telling what bliss told him; gibson will have his say about garfield and macveagh, and it now seems probable that we shall get the bottom facts about the other jury--the actions of messrs. hoover, bowen, brewster cameron and others. personally i have no interest in the business. _question_. how does the next campaign look? _answer_. the republicans are making all the mistakes they can, and the only question now is, can the democrats make more? the tariff will be one of the great questions, and may be the only one except success. the democrats are on both sides of the question. they hate to give up the word "only." only for that word they might have succeeded in . if they can let "only" alone, and say they want "a tariff for revenue" they will do better. the fact is the people are not in favor of free trade, neither do they want a tariff high enough to crush a class, but they do want a tariff to raise a revenue and to protect our industries. i am for protection because it diversifies industries and develops brain--allows us to utilize all the muscle and brain we have. a party attacking the manufacturing interests of this country will fail. there are too many millions of dollars invested and too many millions of people interested. the country is becoming alike interested in this question. we are no longer divided, as in slavery times, into manufacturing and agricultural districts or sections. georgia, alabama, tennessee, louisiana and texas have manufacturing interests. and the western states believe in the protection of their industries. the american people have a genius for manufacturing, a genius for invention. we are not the greatest painters or sculptors or scientists, but we are without doubt the greatest inventors. if we were all engaged in one business we would become stupid. agricultural countries produce great wealth, but are never rich. to get rich it is necessary to mix thought with labor. to raise the raw material is a question of strength; to manufacture, to put it in useful and beautiful forms, is a question of mind. there is a vast difference between the value of, say, a milestone and a statue, and yet the labor expended in getting the raw material is about the same. the point, after all, is this: first, we must have revenue; second, shall we get this by direct taxation or shall we tax imports and at the same time protect american labor? the party that advocates reasonable protection will succeed.* [* at this point, with far away peals of thunder, the storm ceased, the sun reappeared and a vault of heavenly blue swung overhead. "let us get out," said colonel ingersoll. suiting the action to the word, the colonel struck out lustily for the beach, on which, hard as a rock and firm as flint, he soon planted his sturdy form. and as he lumbered across the sand to the side door of his comfortable cottage, some three hundred feet from the surf, the necessarily suggested contrast between ingersoll in court and ingersoll in soaked flannels was illustrated with forcible comicality. half an hour later he was found in the cozy library puffing a high flavored havana, and listening to home-made music of delicious quality. ingersoll at home is pleasant to contemplate. his sense of personal freedom is there aptly pictured. loving wife and affectionate daughters form, with happy-faced and genial-hearted father, a model circle into which friends deem it a privilege to enter and a pleasure to remain. continuing the conversation, ] _question_. in view of all this, where do you think the presidential candidate will come from? _answer_. from the west. _question_. why so? _answer_. the south and east must compromise. both can trust the west. the west represents the whole country. there is no provincialism in the west. the west is not old enough to have the prejudice of section; it is too prosperous to have hatred, too great to feel envy. _question_. you do not seem to think that arthur has a chance? _answer_. no vice-president was ever made president by the people. it is natural to resent the accident that gave the vice-president the place. they regard the vice-president as children do a stepmother. he is looked upon as temporary--a device to save the election--a something to stop a gap--a lighter--a political raft. he holds the horse until another rider is found. people do not wish death to suggest nominees for the presidency. i do not believe it will be possible for mr. arthur, no matter how well he acts, to overcome this feeling. the people like a new man. there is some excitement in the campaign, and besides they can have the luxury of believing that the new man is a great man. _question_. do you not think arthur has grown and is a greater man than when he was elected? _answer_. arthur was placed in very trying circumstances, and, i think, behaved with great discretion. but he was vice-president, and that is a vice that people will not pardon. _question_. how do you regard the situation in ohio? _answer_. i hear that the republicans are attacking hoadly, saying that he is an infidel. i know nothing about mr. hoadly's theological sentiments, but he certainly has the right to have and express his own views. if the republicans of ohio have made up their minds to disfranchise the liberals, the sooner they are beaten the better. why should the republican party be so particular about religious belief? was lincoln an orthodox christian? were the founders of the party--the men who gave it heart and brain--conspicuous for piety? were the abolitionists all believers in the inspiration of the bible? is judge hoadly to be attacked because he exercises the liberty that he gives to others? has not the republican party trouble enough with the spirituous to let the spiritual alone? if the religious issue is made, i hope that the party making it will be defeated. i know nothing about the effect of the recent decision of the supreme court of ohio. it is a very curious decision and seems to avoid the constitution with neatness and despatch. the decision seems to rest on the difference between the words tax and license--_i. e._, between allowing a man to sell whiskey for a tax of one hundred dollars or giving him a license to sell whiskey and charging him one hundred dollars. in this, the difference is in the law instead of the money. so far all the prohibitory legislation on the liquor question has been a failure. beer is victorious, and gambrinus now has olympus all to himself. on his side is the "bail"-- _question_. but who will win? _answer_. the present indications are favorable to judge hoadly. it is an off year. the ohio leaders on one side are not in perfect harmony. the germans are afraid, and they generally vote the democratic ticket when in doubt. the effort to enforce the sunday law, to close the gardens, to make one day in the week desolate and doleful, will give the republicans a great deal of hard work. _question_. how about illinois? _answer_. republican always. the supreme court of illinois has just made a good decision. that court decided that a contract made on sunday can be enforced. in other words, that sunday is not holy enough to sanctify fraud. you can rely on a state with a court like that. there is very little rivalry in illinois. i think that general oglesby will be the next governor. he is one of the best men in that state or any other. _question_. what about indiana? _answer_. in that state i think general gresham is the coming man. he was a brave soldier, an able, honest judge, and he will fill with honor any position he may be placed in. he is an excellent lawyer, and has as much will as was ever put in one man. mcdonald is the most available man for the democrats. he is safe and in every respect reliable. he is without doubt the most popular man in his party. _question_. well, colonel, what are you up to? _answer_. nothing. i am surrounded by sand, sea and sky. i listen to music, bathe in the surf and enjoy myself. i am wondering why people take interest in politics; why anybody cares about anything; why everybody is not contented; why people want to climb the greased pole of office and then dodge the brickbats of enemies and rivals; why any man wishes to be president, or a member of congress, or in the cabinet, or do anything except to live with the ones he loves, and enjoy twenty-four hours every day. i wonder why all new york does not come to long beach and hear schreiner's band play the music of wagner, the greatest of all composers. finally, in the language of walt whitman, "i loaf and invite my soul." --_the herald_, new york, july , . the interviewer. _question_. what do you think of newspaper interviewing? _answer_. i believe that james redpath claims to have invented the "interview." this system opens all doors, does away with political pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and official importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels everybody to show his hand. the interviewer seems to be omnipresent. he is the next man after the accident. if a man should be blown up he would likely fall on an interviewer. he is the universal interrogation point. he asks questions for a living. if the interviewer is fair and honest he is useful, if the other way, he is still interesting. on the whole, i regard the interviewer as an exceedingly important person. but whether he is good or bad, he has come to stay. he will interview us until we die, and then ask the "friends" a few questions just to round the subject off. _question_. what do you think of the tendency of newspapers is at present? _answer_. the papers of the future, i think, will be "news" papers. the editorial is getting shorter and shorter. the paragraphist is taking the place of the heavy man. people rather form their own opinions from the facts. of course good articles will always find readers, but the dreary, doleful, philosophical dissertation has had its day. the magazines will fall heir to such articles; then religious weeklies will take them up, and then they will cease altogether. _question_. do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do the newspapers lead them? _answer_. the papers lead and are led. most papers have for sale what people want to buy. as a rule the people who buy determine the character of the thing sold. the reading public grow more discriminating every year, and, as a result, are less and less "led." violent papers--those that most freely attack private character--are becoming less hurtful, because they are losing their own reputations. evil tends to correct itself. people do not believe all they read, and there is a growing tendency to wait and hear from the other side. _question_. do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as they did twenty-five years ago? _answer_. more, by the facts published, and less, by editorials. as we become more civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles--less by faith and more by fact. the best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves. _question_. what would you define public opinion to be? _answer_. first, in the widest sense, the opinion of the majority, including all kinds of people. second, in a narrower sense, the opinion of the majority of the intellectual. third, in actual practice, the opinion of those who make the most noise. fourth, public opinion is generally a mistake, which history records and posterity repeats. _question_. what do you regard as the result of your lectures? _answer_. in the last fifteen years i have delivered several hundred lectures. the world is growing more and more liberal every day. the man who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would have been denounced as an infidel. people are thinking more and believing less. the pulpit is losing influence. in the light of modern discovery the creeds are growing laughable. a theologian is an intellectual mummy, and excites attention only as a curiosity. supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness. the miracles and wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent. jonah and jack the giant killer, joshua and red riding hood, noah and neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous mother hubbard. --_the morning journal_, new york, july , . politics and prohibition. _question_. what do you think of the result in ohio? _answer_. in ohio prohibition did more harm to the republican chances than anything else. the germans hold the republicans responsible. the german people believe in personal liberty. they came to america to get it, and they regard any interference in the manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of personal rights. they claim they are not questions to be regulated by law, and i agree with them. i believe that people will finally learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it liable to break out at any moment. you can prevent a man from stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each other. it kills hospitality. again, the republican party in ohio is endeavoring to have sunday sanctified by the legislature. the working people want freedom on sunday. they wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common people. i feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated. i regard those two things as the principal causes of the republican party's defeat in ohio. _question_. do you believe that the democratic success was due to the possession of reverse principles? _answer_. i do not think that the democratic party is in favor of liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle, but rather from policy. finding the course pursued by the republicans unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a proof of the truth of what i contend. one great trouble in the republican party is bigotry. the pulpit is always trying to take charge. the same thing exists in the democratic party to a less degree. the great trouble here is that its worst element--catholicism --is endeavoring to get control. _question_. what causes operated for the republican success in iowa? _answer_. iowa is a prohibition state and almost any law on earth as against anything to drink, can be carried there. there are no large cities in the state and it is much easier to govern, but even there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. it will breed deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad. _question_. will these two considerations cut any figure in the presidential campaign of ? _answer_. the party, as a party, will have nothing to do with these questions. these matters are local. whether the republicans are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. if things should be generally in pretty good shape in , the people will allow the party to remain in power. changes of administration depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. if crops are bad and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether it is responsible or not. if a ship going down the river strikes a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain. it may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same, and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. so it is in politics. if nothing interferes between this and , the republican party will continue. otherwise it will be otherwise. but the principle of prosperity as applied to administrative change is strong. if the panic of had occurred in there would have been no occasion for a commission to sit on tilden. if it had struck us in , hancock would have been elected. neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the democratic party, but in the belief that the republican party was in some vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change. the republican party is not as strong as it used to be. the old leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places. blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. conkling dropped out and is now practicing law, and so i might go on enumerating leaders who have severed their connection with the party and are no longer identified with it. _question_. what is your opinion regarding the republican nomination for president? _answer_. my belief is that the republicans will have to nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all can unite. as a consequence he must be a new man. the democrats must do the same. they must nominate a new man. the old ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. my own judgment is that for the democrats, mcdonald is as strong a man as they can get. he is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. tilden? he is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. with no magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him. _question_. what are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff? _answer_. there are a great many democrats for protection and a great many for so-called free trade. i think the large majority of american people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting our manufactures. i do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for revenue and protection. the democrats would have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental protection. _question_. are they rectifying the error now? _answer_. i believe they are, already. they will do it next fall. if they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in their speeches. i do not regard the tariff as a local, but a national issue, notwithstanding hancock inclined to the belief that it was the former. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, october , . the republican defeat in ohio. _question_. what is your explanation of the republican disaster last tuesday? _answer_. too much praying and not enough paying, is my explanation of the republican defeat. _first_. i think the attempt to pass the prohibition amendment lost thousands of votes. the people of this country, no matter how much they may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet willing to set on foot a system of spying into each other's affairs. they know that prohibition would need thousands of officers--that it would breed informers and spies and peekers and skulkers by the hundred in every county. they know that laws do not of themselves make good people. good people make good laws. americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. the spirit that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that made and keeps this a free country. all this crusade and prayer-meeting business will not do in politics. we must depend upon the countless influences of civilization, upon science, art, music--upon the softening influences of kindness and argument. as life becomes valuable people will take care of it. temperance upon compulsion destroys something more valuable than itself--liberty. i am for the largest liberty in all things. _second_. the prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with democrats. the democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition could not carry, and that they could safely trade. the prohibitionists were insane enough to vote for their worst enemies, just for the sake of polling a large vote for prohibition, and were fooled as usual. _thirdly_. certain personal hatreds of certain republican politicians. these were the causes which led to republican defeat in ohio. _question_. will it necessitate the nomination of an ohio republican next year? _answer_. i do not think so. defeat is apt to breed dissension, and on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man from some other state. one politician will say to another, "you did it," and another will reply, "you are the man who ruined the party." i think we have given ohio her share; certainly she has given us ours. _question_. will this reverse seriously affect republican chances next year? _answer_. if the country is prosperous next year, if the crops are good, if prices are fair, if pittsburg is covered with smoke, if the song of the spindle is heard in lowell, if stocks are healthy, the republicans will again succeed. if the reverse as to crops and forges and spindles, then the democrats will win. it is a question of "chich-bugs," and floods and drouths. _question_. who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man the republicans could put up? _answer_. last year i thought general sherman, but he has gone to missouri, and now i am looking around. the first day i find out i will telegraph you. --_the democrat_, dayton, ohio, october , . the civil rights bill. _question_. what do you think of the recent opinion of the supreme court touching the rights of the colored man? _answer_. i think it is all wrong. the intention of the framers of the amendment, by virtue of which the law was passed, was that no distinction should be made in inns, in hotels, cars, or in theatres; in short, in public places, on account of color, race, or previous condition. the object of the men who framed that amendment to the constitution was perfectly clear, perfectly well known, perfectly understood. they intended to secure, by an amendment to the fundamental law, what had been fought for by hundreds of thousands of men. they knew that the institution of slavery had cost rebellion; the also knew that the spirit of caste was only slavery in another form. they intended to kill that spirit. their object was that the law, like the sun, should shine upon all, and that no man keeping a hotel, no corporation running cars, no person managing a theatre should make any distinction on account of race or color. this amendment is above all praise. it was the result of a moral exaltation, such as the world never before had seen. there were years during the war, and after, when the american people were simply sublime; when their generosity was boundless; when they were willing to endure any hardship to make this an absolutely free country. this decision of the supreme court puts the best people of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest portion of the white race. it allows a contemptible white man to trample upon a good colored man. i believe in drawing a line between good and bad, between clean and unclean, but i do not believe in drawing a color line which is as cruel as the lash of slavery. i am willing to be on an equality in all hotels, in all cars, in all theatres, with colored people. i make no distinction of race. those make the distinction who cannot afford not to. if nature has made no distinction between me and some others, i do not ask the aid of the legislature. i am willing to associate with all good, clean persons, irrespective of complexion. this decision virtually gives away one of the great principles for which the war was fought. it carries the doctrine of "state rights" to the democratic extreme, and renders necessary either another amendment or a new court. i agree with justice harlan. he has taken a noble and patriotic stand. kentucky rebukes massachusetts! i am waiting with some impatience--impatient because i anticipate a pleasure--for his dissenting opinion. only a little while ago justice harlan took a very noble stand on the virginia coupon cases, in which was involved the right of a state to repudiate its debts. now he has taken a stand in favor of the civil rights of the colored man; and in both instances i think he is right. this decision may, after all, help the republican party. a decision of the supreme court aroused the indignation of the entire north, and i hope the present decision will have a like effect. the good people of this country will not be satisfied until every man beneath the flag, without the slightest respect to his complexion, stands on a perfect equality before the law with every other. any government that makes a distinction on account of color, is a disgrace to the age in which we live. the idea that a man like frederick douglass can be denied entrance to a car, that the doors of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from entering a theatre; the idea that there shall be some ignominious corner into which such a man can be thrown simply by a decision of the supreme court! this idea is simply absurd. _question_. what remains to be done now, and who is going to do it? _answer_. for a good while people have been saying that the republican party has outlived its usefulness; that there is very little difference now between the parties; that there is hardly enough left to talk about. this decision opens the whole question. this decision says to the republican party, "your mission is not yet ended. this is not a free country. our flag does not protect the rights of a human being." this decision is the tap of a drum. the old veterans will fall into line. this decision gives the issue for the next campaign, and it may be that the supreme court has builded wiser than it knew. this is a greater question than the tariff or free trade. it is a question of freedom, of human rights, of the sacredness of humanity. the real americans, the real believers in liberty, will give three cheers for judge harlan. one word more. the government is bound to protect its citizens, not only when they are away from home, but when they are under the flag. in time of war the government has a right to draft any citizen; to put that citizen in the line of battle, and compel him to fight for the nation. if the government when imperiled has the right to compel a citizen, whether white or black, to defend with his blood the flag, that citizen, when imperiled, has the right to demand protection from the nation. the nation cannot then say, "you must appeal to your state." if the citizen must appeal to the state for redress, then the citizen should defend the state and not the general government, and the doctrine of state rights then becomes complete. --_the national republican_, washington, d. c., october , . justice harlan and the civil rights bill. _question_. what do you think of justice harlan's dissenting opinion in the civil rights case? _answer_. i have just read it and think it admirable in every respect. it is unanswerable. he has given to words their natural meaning. he has recognized the intention of the framers of the recent amendments. there is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or artificial. it is frank and manly. it is solid masonry, without crack or flaw. he does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or veneer. he states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. he has drawn an instructive parallel between the decisions of the olden time, upholding the power of congress to deal with individuals in the interests of slavery, and the power conferred on congress by the recent amendments. he has shown by the old decisions, that when a duty is enjoined upon congress, ability to perform it is given; that when a certain end is required, all necessary means are granted. he also shows that the fugitive slave acts of and of , rested entirely upon the implied power of congress to enforce a master's rights; and that power was once implied in favor of slavery against human rights, and implied from language shadowy, feeble and uncertain when compared with the language of the recent amendments. he has shown, too, that congress exercised the utmost ingenuity in devising laws to enforce the master's claim. implication was held ample to deprive a human being of his liberty, but to secure freedom, the doctrine of implication is abandoned. as a foundation for wrong, implication was their rock. as a foundation for right, it is now sand. implied power then was sufficient to enslave, while power expressly given is now impotent to protect. _question_. what do you think of the use he has made of the dred scott decision? _answer_. well, i think he has shown conclusively that the present decision, under the present circumstances, is far worse than the dred scott decision was under the then circumstances. the dred scott decision was a libel upon the best men of the revolutionary period. that decision asserted broadly that our forefathers regarded the negroes as having no rights which white men were bound to respect; that the negroes were merely merchandise, and that that opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, and that no one thought of disputing it. yet franklin contended that slavery might be abolished under the preamble of the constitution. thomas jefferson said that if the slave should rise to cut the throat of his master, god had no attribute that would side against the slave. thomas paine attacked the institution with all the intensity and passion of his nature. john adams regarded the institution with horror. so did every civilized man, south and north. justice harlan shows conclusively that the thirteenth amendment was adopted in the light of the dred scott decision; that it overturned and destroyed, not simply the decision, but the reasoning upon which it was based; that it proceeded upon the ground that the colored people had rights that white men were bound to respect, not only, but that the nation was bound to protect. he takes the ground that the amendment was suggested by the condition of that race, which had been declared by the supreme court of the united states to have no rights which white men were bound to respect; that it was made to protect people whose rights had been invaded, and whose strong arms had assisted in the overthrow of the rebellion; that it was made for the purpose of putting these men upon a legal authority with white citizens. justice harland also shows that while legislation of congress to enforce a master's right was upheld by implication, the rights of the negro do not depend upon that doctrine; that the thirteenth amendment does not rest upon implication, or upon inference; that by its terms it places the power in congress beyond the possibility of a doubt--conferring the power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation in express terms; and he also shows that the supreme court has admitted that legislation for that purpose may be direct and primary. had not the power been given in express terms, justice harlan contends that the sweeping declaration that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist would by implication confer the power. he also shows conclusively that, under the thirteenth amendment, congress has the right by appropriate legislation to protect the colored people against the deprivation of any right on account of their race, and that congress is not necessarily restricted, under the thirteenth amendment, to legislation against slavery as an institution, but that power may be exerted to the extent of protecting the race from discrimination in respect to such rights as belong to freemen, where such discrimination is based on race or color. if justice harlan is wrong the amendments are left without force and congress without power. no purpose can be assigned for their adoption. no object can be guessed that was to be accomplished. they become words, so arranged that they sound like sense, but when examined fall meaninglessly apart. under the decision of the supreme court they are quaker cannon--cloud forts--"property" for political stage scenery--coats of mail made of bronzed paper-- shields of gilded pasteboard--swords of lath. _question_. do you wish to say anything as to the reasoning of justice harlan on the rights of colored people on railways, in inns and theatres? _answer_. yes, i do. that part of the opinion is especially strong. he shows conclusively that a common carrier is in the exercise of a sort of public office and has public duties to perform, and that he cannot exonerate himself from the performance of these duties without the consent of the parties concerned. he also shows that railroads are public highways, and that the railway company is the agent of the state, and that a railway, although built by private capital, is just as public in its nature as though constructed by the state itself. he shows that the railway is devoted to public use, and subject to be controlled by the state for the public benefit, and that for these reasons the colored man has the same rights upon the railway that he has upon the public highway. justice harlan shows that the same law is applicable to inns that is applicable to railways; that an inn-keeper is bound to take all travelers if he can accommodate them; that he is not to select his guests; that he has not right to say to one "you may come in," and to another "you shall not;" that every one who conducts himself in a proper manner has a right to be received. he shows conclusively that an inn-keeper is a sort of public servant; that he is in the exercise of a _quasi_ public employment, that he is given special privileges, and charged with duties of a public character. as to theatres, i think his argument most happy. it is this: theatres are licensed by law. the authority to maintain them comes from the public. the colored race being a part of the public, representing the power granting the license, why should the colored people license a manager to open his doors to the white man and shut them in the face of the black man? why should they be compelled to license that which they are not permitted to enjoy? justice harlan shows that congress has the power to prevent discrimination on account of race or color on railways, at inns, and in places of public amusements, and has this power under the thirteenth amendment. in discussing the fourteenth amendment, justice harlan points out that a prohibition upon a state is not a power in congress or the national government, but is simply a denial of power to the state; that such was the constitution before the fourteenth amendment. he shows, however, that the fourteenth amendment presents the first instance in our history of the investiture of congress with affirmative power by legislation to enforce an express prohibition upon the states. this is an important point. it is stated with great clearness, and defended with great force. he shows that the first clause of the first section of the fourteenth amendment is of a distinctly affirmative character, and that congress would have had the power to legislate directly as to that section simply by implication, but that as to that as well as the express prohibitions upon the states, express power to legislate was given. there is one other point made by justice harlan which transfixes as with a spear the decision of the court. it is this: as soon as the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments were adopted the colored citizen was entitled to the protection of section two, article four, namely: "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states." now, suppose a colored citizen of mississippi moves to tennessee. then, under the section last quoted, he would immediately become invested with all the privileges and immunities of a white citizen of tennessee. although denied these privileges and immunities in the state from which he emigrated, in the state to which he immigrates he could not be discriminated against on account of his color under the second section of the fourth article. now, is it possible that he gets additional rights by immigration? is it possible that the general government is under a greater obligation to protect him in a state of which he is not a citizen than in a state of which he is a citizen? must he leave home for protection, and after he has lived long enough in the state to which he immigrates to become a citizen there, must he again move in order to protect his rights? must one adopt the doctrine of peripatetic protection--the doctrine that the constitution is good only _in transitu_, and that when the citizen stops, the constitution goes on and leaves him without protection? justice harlan shows that congress had the right to legislate directly while that power was only implied, but that the moment this power was conferred in express terms, then according to the supreme court, it was lost. there is another splendid definition given by justice harlan--a line drawn as broad as the mississippi. it is the distinction between the rights conferred by a state and rights conferred by the nation. admitting that many rights conferred by a state cannot be enforced directly by congress, justice harlan shows that rights granted by the nation to an individual may be protected by direct legislation. this is a distinction that should not be forgotten, and it is a definition clear and perfect. justice harlan has shown that the supreme court failed to take into consideration the intention of the framers of the amendment; failed to see that the powers of congress were given by express terms and did not rest upon implication; failed to see that the thirteenth amendment was broad enough to cover the civil rights act; failed to see that under the three amendments rights and privileges were conferred by the nation on citizens of the several states, and that these rights are under the perpetual protection of the general government, and that for their enforcement congress has the right to legislate directly; failed to see that all implications are now in favor of liberty instead of slavery; failed to comprehend that we have a new nation with a new foundation, with different objects, ends, and aims, for the attainment of which we use different means and have been clothed with greater powers; failed to see that the republic changed front; failed to appreciate the real reasons for the adoption of the amendments, and failed to understand that the civil rights act was passed in order that a citizen of the united states might appeal from local prejudice to national justice. justice harlan shows that it was the object to accomplish for the black man what had been accomplished for the white man--that is, to protect all their rights as free men and citizens; and that the one underlying purpose of the amendments and of the congressional legislation has been to clothe the black race with all the rights of citizenship, and to compel a recognition of their rights by citizens and states--that the object was to do away with class tyranny, the meanest and basest form of oppression. if justice harlan was wrong in his position, then, it may truthfully be said of the three amendments that: "the law hath bubbles as the water has, and these are of them." the decision of the supreme court denies the protection of the nation to the citizens of the nation. that decision has already borne fruit--the massacre at danville. the protection of the nation having been withdrawn, the colored man was left to the mercy of local prejudices and hatreds. he is without appeal, without redress. the supreme court tells him that he must depend upon his enemies for justice. _question_. you seem to agree with all that justice harlan has said, and to have the greatest admiration for his opinion? _answer_. yes, a man rises from reading this dissenting opinion refreshed, invigorated, and strengthened. it is a mental and moral tonic. it was produced after a clear head had held conference with a good heart. it will furnish a perfectly clear plank, without knot or wind-shake, for the next republican platform. it is written in good plain english, and ornamented with good sound sense. the average man can and will understand its every word. there is no subterfuge in it. each position is taken in the open field. there is no resort to quibbles or technicalities--no hiding. nothing is secreted in the sleeve--no searching for blind paths--no stooping and looking for ancient tracks, grass-grown and dim. each argument travels the highway--"the big road." it is logical. the facts and conclusions agree, and fall naturally into line of battle. it is sincere and candid--unpretentious and unanswerable. it is a grand defence of human rights--a brave and manly plea for universal justice. it leaves the decision of the supreme court without argument, without reason, and without excuse. such an exhibition of independence, courage and ability has won for justice harlan the respect and admiration of "both sides," and places him in the front rank of constitutional lawyers. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, november , . politics and theology. _question_. what is your opinion of brewster's administration? _answer_. i hardly think i ought to say much about the administration of mr. brewster. of course many things have been done that i thought, and still think, extremely bad; but whether mr. brewster was responsible for the things done, or not, i do not pretend to say. when he was appointed to his present position, there was great excitement in the country about the star route cases, and mr. brewster was expected to prosecute everybody and everything to the extent of the law; in fact, i believe he was appointed by reason of having made such a promise. at that time there were hundreds of people interested in exaggerating all the facts connected with the star route cases, and when there were no facts to be exaggerated, they made some, and exaggerated them afterward. it may be that the attorney-general was misled, and he really supposed that all he heard was true. my objection to the administration of the department of justice is, that a resort was had to spies and detectives. the battle was not fought in the open field. influences were brought to bear. nearly all departments of the government were enlisted. everything was done to create a public opinion in favor of the prosecution. everything was done that the cases might be decided on prejudice instead of upon facts. everything was done to demoralize, frighten and overawe judges, witnesses and jurors. i do not pretend to say who was responsible, possibly i am not an impartial judge. i was deeply interested at the time, and felt all of these things, rather than reasoned about them. possibly i cannot give a perfectly unbiased opinion. personally, i have no feeling now upon the subject. the department of justice, in spite of its methods, did not succeed. that was enough for me. i think, however, when the country knows the facts, that the people will not approve of what was done. i do not believe in trying cases in the newspapers before they are submitted to jurors. that is a little too early. neither do i believe in trying them in the newspapers after the verdicts have been rendered. that is a little too late. _question_. what are mr. blaine's chances for the presidency? _answer_. my understanding is that mr. blaine is not a candidate for the nomination; that he does not wish his name to be used in that connection. he ought to have been nominated in , and if he were a candidate, he would probably have the largest following; but my understanding is, that he does not, in any event, wish to be a candidate. he is a man perfectly familiar with the politics of this country, knows its history by heart, and is in every respect probably as well qualified to act as its chief magistrate as any man in the nation. he is a man of ideas, of action, and has positive qualities. he would not wait for something to turn up, and things would not have to wait long for him to turn them up. _question_. who do you think will be nominated at chicago? _answer_. of course i have not the slightest idea who will be nominated. i may have an opinion as to who ought to be nominated, and yet i may be greatly mistaken in that opinion. there are hundreds of men in the republican party, any one of whom, if elected, would make a good, substantial president, and there are many thousands of men about whom i know nothing, any one of whom would in all probability make a good president. we do not want any man to govern this country. this country governs itself. we want a president who will honestly and faithfully execute the laws, who will appoint postmasters and do the requisite amount of handshaking on public occasions, and we have thousands of men who can discharge the duties of that position. washington is probably the worst place to find out anything definite upon the subject of presidential booms. i have thought for a long time that one of the most valuable men in the country was general sherman. everybody knows who and what he is. he has one great advantage--he is a frank and outspoken man. he has opinions and he never hesitates about letting them be known. there is considerable talk about judge harlan. his dissenting opinion in the civil rights case has made every colored man his friend, and i think it will take considerable public patronage to prevent a good many delegates from the southern states voting for him. _question_. what are your present views on theology? _answer_. well, i think my views have not undergone any change that i know of. i still insist that observation, reason and experience are the things to be depended upon in this world. i still deny the existence of the supernatural. i still insist that nobody can be good for you, or bad for you; that you cannot be punished for the crimes of others, nor rewarded for their virtues. i still insist that the consequences of good actions are always good, and those of bad actions always bad. i insist that nobody can plant thistles and gather figs; neither can they plant figs and gather thistles. i still deny that a finite being can commit an infinite sin; but i continue to insist that a god who would punish a man forever is an infinite tyrant. my views have undergone no change, except that the evidence of that truth constantly increases, and the dogmas of the church look, if possible, a little absurder every day. theology, you know, is not a science. it stops at the grave; and faith is the end of theology. ministers have not even the advantage of the doctors; the doctors sometimes can tell by a post-mortem examination whether they killed the man or not; but by cutting a man open after he is dead, the wisest theologians cannot tell what has become of his soul, and whether it was injured or helped by a belief in the inspiration of the scriptures. theology depends on assertion for evidence, and on faith for disciples. --_the tribune_, denver, colorado, january , . morality and immortality. _question_. i see that the clergy are still making all kinds of charges against you and your doctrines. _answer_. yes. some of the charges are true and some of them are not. i suppose that they intend to get in the vicinity of veracity, and are probably stating my belief as it is honestly misunderstood by them. i admit that i have said and that i still think that christianity is a blunder. but the question arises, what is christianity? i do not mean, when i say that christianity is a blunder, that the morality taught by christians is a mistake. morality is not distinctively christian, any more than it is mohammedan. morality is human, it belongs to no ism, and does not depend for a foundation upon the supernatural, or upon any book, or upon any creed. morality is itself a foundation. when i say that christianity is a blunder, i mean all those things distinctively christian are blunders. it is a blunder to say that an infinite being lived in palestine, learned the carpenter's trade, raised the dead, cured the blind, and cast out devils, and that this god was finally assassinated by the jews. this is absurd. all these statements are blunders, if not worse. i do not believe that christ ever claimed that he was of supernatural origin, or that he wrought miracles, or that he would rise from the dead. if he did, he was mistaken--honestly mistaken, perhaps, but still mistaken. the morality inculcated by mohammed is good. the immorality inculcated by mohammed is bad. if mohammed was a prophet of god, it does not make the morality he taught any better, neither does it make the immorality any better or any worse. by this time the whole world ought to know that morality does not need to go into partnership with miracles. morality is based upon the experience of mankind. it does not have to learn of inspired writers, or of gods, or of divine persons. it is a lesson that the whole human race has been learning and learning from experience. he who upholds, or believes in, or teaches, the miraculous, commits a blunder. now, what is morality? morality is the best thing to do under the circumstances. anything that tends to the happiness of mankind is moral. anything that tends to unhappiness is immoral. we apply to the moral world rules and regulations as we do in the physical world. the man who does justice, or tries to do so--who is honest and kind and gives to others what he claims for himself, is a moral man. all actions must be judged by their consequences. where the consequences are good, the actions are good. where the consequences are bad, the actions are bad; and all consequences are learned from experience. after we have had a certain amount of experience, we then reason from analogy. we apply our logic and say that a certain course will bring destruction, another course will bring happiness. there is nothing inspired about morality--nothing supernatural. it is simply good, common sense, going hand in hand with kindness. morality is capable of being demonstrated. you do not have to take the word of anybody; you can observe and examine for yourself. larceny is the enemy of industry, and industry is good; therefore larceny is immoral. the family is the unit of good government; anything that tends to destroy the family is immoral. honesty is the mother of confidence; it united, combines and solidifies society. dishonesty is disintegration; it destroys confidence; it brings social chaos; it is therefore immoral. i also admit that i regard the mosaic account of the creation as an absurdity--as a series of blunders. probably moses did the best he could. he had never talked with humboldt or laplace. he knew nothing of geology or astronomy. he had not the slightest suspicion of kepler's three laws. he never saw a copy of newton's principia. taking all these things into consideration, i think moses did the best he could. the religious people say now that "days" did not mean days. of these "six days" they make a kind of telescope, which you can push in or draw out at pleasure. if the geologists find that more time was necessary they will stretch them out. should it turn out that the world is not quite as old as some think, they will push them up. the "six days" can now be made to suit any period of time. nothing can be more childish, frivolous or contradictory. only a few years ago the mosaic account was considered true, and moses was regarded as a scientific authority. geology and astronomy were measured by the mosaic standard. the opposite is now true. the church has changed; and instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false, because they do not agree with moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that the account by moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and geology. in other words, the standard has changed; the ancient is measured by the modern, and where the literal statement in the bible does not agree with modern discoveries, they do not change the discoveries, but give new meanings to the old account. we are not now endeavoring to reconcile science with the bible, but to reconcile the bible with science. nothing shows the extent of modern doubt more than the eagerness with which christians search for some new testimony. luther answered copernicus with a passage of scripture, and he answered him to the satisfaction of orthodox ignorance. the truth is that the jews adopted the stories of creation, the garden of eden, forbidden fruit, and the fall of man. they were told by older barbarians than they, and the jews gave them to us. i never said that the bible is all bad. i have always admitted that there are many good and splendid things in the jewish scriptures, and many bad things. what i insist is that we should have the courage and the common sense to accept the good, and throw away the bad. evil is not good because found in good company, and truth is still truth, even when surrounded by falsehood. _question_. i see that you are frequently charged with disrespect toward your parents--with lack of reverence for the opinions of your father? _answer_. i think my father and mother upon several religious questions were mistaken. in fact, i have no doubt that they were; but i never felt under the slightest obligation to defend my father's mistakes. no one can defend what he thinks is a mistake, without being dishonest. that is a poor way to show respect for parents. every protestant clergyman asks men and women who had catholic parents to desert the church in which they were raised. they have no hesitation in saying to these people that their fathers and mothers were mistaken, and that they were deceived by priests and popes. the probability is that we are all mistaken about almost everything; but it is impossible for a man to be respectable enough to make a mistake respectable. there is nothing remarkably holy in a blunder, or praiseworthy in stubbing the toe of the mind against a mistake. is it possible that logic stands paralyzed in the presence of paternal absurdity? suppose a man has a bad father; is he bound by the bad father's opinion, when he is satisfied that the opinion is wrong? how good does a father have to be, in order to put his son under obligation to defend his blunders? suppose the father thinks one way, and the mother the other; what are the children to do? suppose the father changes his opinion; what then? suppose the father thinks one way and the mother the other, and they both die when the boy is young; and the boy is bound out; whose mistakes is he then bound to follow? our missionaries tell the barbarian boy that his parents are mistaken, that they know nothing, and that the wooden god is nothing but a senseless idol. they do not hesitate to tell this boy that his mother believed lies, and hugged, it may be to her dying heart, a miserable delusion. why should a barbarian boy cast reproach upon his parents? i believe it was christ who commanded his disciples to leave father and mother; not only to leave them, but to desert them; and not only to desert father and mother, but to desert wives and children. it is also told of christ that he said that he came to set fathers against children and children against fathers. strange that a follower of his should object to a man differing in opinion from his parents! the truth is, logic knows nothing of consanguinity; facts have no relatives but other facts; and these facts do not depend upon the character of the person who states them, or upon the position of the discoverer. and this leads me to another branch of the same subject. the ministers are continually saying that certain great men--kings, presidents, statesmen, millionaires--have believed in the inspiration of the bible. only the other day, i read a sermon in which carlyle was quoted as having said that "the bible is a noble book." that all may be and yet the book not be inspired. but what is the simple assertion of thomas carlyle worth? if the assertion is based upon a reason, then it is worth simply the value of the reason, and the reason is worth just as much without the assertion, but without the reason the assertion is worthless. thomas carlyle thought, and solemnly put the thought in print, that his father was a greater man than robert burns. his opinion did burns no harm, and his father no good. since reading his "reminiscences," i have no great opinion of his opinion. in some respects he was undoubtedly a great man, in others a small one. no man should give the opinion of another as authority and in place of fact and reason, unless he is willing to take all the opinions of that man. an opinion is worth the warp and woof of fact and logic in it and no more. a man cannot add to the truthfulness of truth. in the ordinary business of life, we give certain weight to the opinion of specialists--to the opinion of doctors, lawyers, scientists, and historians. within the domain of the natural, we take the opinions of our fellow-men; but we do not feel that we are absolutely bound by these opinions. we have the right to re- examine them, and if we find they are wrong we feel at liberty to say so. a doctor is supposed to have studied medicine; to have examined and explored the questions entering into his profession; but we know that doctors are often mistaken. we also know that there are many schools of medicine; that these schools disagree with one another, and that the doctors of each school disagree with one another. we also know that many patients die, and so far as we know, these patients have not come back to tell us whether the doctors killed them or not. the grave generally prevents a demonstration. it is exactly the same with the clergy. they have many schools of theology, all despising each other. probably no two members of the same church exactly agree. they cannot demonstrate their propositions, because between the premise and the logical conclusion or demonstration, stands the tomb. a gravestone marks the end of theology. in some cases, the physician can, by a post- mortem examination, find what killed the patient, but there is no theological post-mortem. it is impossible, by cutting a body open, to find where the soul has gone; or whether baptism, or the lack of it, had the slightest effect upon final destiny. the church, knowing that there are no facts beyond the coffin, relies upon opinions, assertions and theories. for this reason it is always asking alms of distinguished people. some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the bible as "the corner- stone of american liberty." this sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the scriptures. the man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob. when we blindly follow authority we are serfs. when our reason is convinced we are freemen. it is rare to find a fully rounded and complete man. a man may be a great doctor and a poor mechanic, a successful politician and a poor metaphysician, a poor painter and a good poet. the rarest thing in the world is a logician--that is to say, a man who knows the value of a fact. it is hard to find mental proportion. theories may be established by names, but facts cannot be demonstrated in that way. very small people are sometimes right, and very great people are sometimes wrong. ministers are sometimes right. in all the philosophies of the world there are undoubtedly contradictions and absurdities. the mind of man is imperfect and perfect results are impossible. a mirror, in order to reflect a perfect picture, a perfect copy, must itself be perfect. the mind is a little piece of intellectual glass the surface of which is not true, not perfect. in consequence of this, every image is more or less distorted. the less we know, the more we imagine that we can know; but the more we know, the smaller seems the sum of knowledge. the less we know, the more we expect, the more we hope for, and the more seems within the range of probability. the less we have, the more we want. there never was a banquet magnificent enough to gratify the imagination of a beggar. the moment people begin to reason about what they call the supernatural, they seem to lose their minds. people seem to have lost their reason in religious matters, very much as the dodo is said to have lost its wings; they have been restricted to a little inspired island, and by disuse their reason has been lost. in the jewish scriptures you will find simply the literature of the jews. you will find there the tears and anguish of captivity, patriotic fervor, national aspiration, proverbs for the conduct of daily life, laws, regulations, customs, legends, philosophy and folly. these books, of course, were not written by one man, but by many authors. they do not agree, having been written in different centuries, under different circumstances. i see that mr. beecher has at last concluded that the old testament does not teach the doctrine of immortality. he admits that from mount sinai came no hope for the dead. it is very curious that we find in the old testament no funeral service. no one stands by the dead and predicts another life. in the old testament there is no promise of another world. i have sometimes thought that while the jews were slaves in egypt, the doctrine of immortality became hateful. they built so many tombs; they carried so many burdens to commemorate the dead; the saw a nation waste its wealth to adorn its graves, and leave the living naked to embalm the dead, that they concluded the doctrine was a curse and never should be taught. _question_. if the jews did not believe in immortality, how do you account for the allusions made to witches and wizards and things of that nature? _answer_. when saul visited the witch of endor, and she, by some magic spell, called up samuel, the prophet said: "why hast thou disquieted me, to call me up?" he did not say: why have you called me from another world? the idea expressed is: i was asleep, why did you disturb that repose which should be eternal? the ancient jews believed in witches and wizards and familiar spirits; but they did not seem to think that these spirits had once been men and women. they spoke to them as belonging to another world, a world to which man would never find his way. at that time it was supposed that jehovah and his angels lived in the sky, but that region was not spoken of as the destined home of man. jacob saw angels going up and down the ladder, but not the spirits of those he had known. there are two cases where it seems that men were good enough to be adopted into the family of heaven. enoch was translated, and elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire. as it is exceedingly cold at the height of a few miles, it is easy to see why the chariot was of fire, and the same fact explains another circumstance--the dropping of the mantle. the jews probably believed in the existence of other beings--that is to say, in angels and gods and evil spirits --and that they lived in other worlds--but there is no passage showing that they believed in what we call the immortality of the soul. _question_. do you believe, or disbelieve, in the immortality of the soul? _answer_. i neither assert nor deny; i simply admit that i do not know. upon that subject i am absolutely without evidence. this is the only world that i was ever in. there may be spirits, but i have never met them, and do not know that i would recognize a spirit. i can form no conception of what is called spiritual life. it may be that i am deficient in imagination, and that ministers have no difficulty in conceiving of angels and disembodied souls. i have not the slightest idea how a soul looks, what shape it is, how it goes from one place to another, whether it walks or flies. i cannot conceive of the immaterial having form; neither can i conceive of anything existing without form, and yet the fact that i cannot conceive of a thing does not prove that the thing does not exist, but it does prove that i know nothing about it, and that being so, i ought to admit my ignorance. i am satisfied of a good many things that i do not know. i am satisfied that there is no place of eternal torment. i am satisfied that that doctrine has done more harm than all the religious ideas, other than that, have done good. i do not want to take any hope from any human heart. i have no objection to people believing in any good thing--no objection to their expecting a crown of infinite joy for every human being. many people imagine that immortality must be an infinite good; but, after all, there is something terrible in the idea of endless life. think of a river that never reaches the sea; of a bird that never folds its wings; of a journey that never ends. most people find great pleasure in thinking about and in believing in another world. there the prisoner expects to be free; the slave to find liberty; the poor man expects wealth; the rich man happiness; the peasant dreams of power, and the king of contentment. they expect to find there what they lack here. i do not wish to destroy these dreams. i am endeavoring to put out the everlasting fires. a good, cool grave is infinitely better than the fiery furnace of jehovah's wrath. eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. for my part i would rather be annihilated than to be an angel, with all the privileges of heaven, and yet have within my breast a heart that could be happy while those who had loved me in this world were in perdition. i most sincerely hope that the future life will fulfill all splendid dreams; but in the religion of the present day there is no joy. nothing is so devoid of comfort, when bending above our dead, as the assertions of theology unsupported by a single fact. the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. from words spoken eighteen centuries ago, the echoes are so weak, and the sounds of the clods on the coffin are so loud. above the grave what can the honest minister say? if the dead were not a christian, what then? what comfort can the orthodox clergyman give to the widow of an honest unbeliever? if christianity is true, the other world will be worse than this. there the many will be miserable, only the few happy; there the miserable cannot better their condition; the future has no star of hope, and in the east of eternity there can never be a dawn. _question_. if you take away the idea of eternal punishment, how do you propose to restrain men; in what way will you influence conduct for good? _answer_. well, the trouble with religion is that it postpones punishment and reward to another world. wrong is wrong, because it breeds unhappiness. right is right, because it tends to the happiness of man. these facts are the basis of what i call the religion of this world. when a man does wrong, the consequences follow, and between the cause and effect, a redeemer cannot step. forgiveness cannot form a breastwork between act and consequence. there should be a religion of the body--a religion that will prevent deformity, that will refuse to multiply insanity, that will not propagate disease--a religion that is judged by its consequences in this world. orthodox christianity has taught, and still teaches, that in this world the difference between the good and the bad is that the bad enjoy themselves, while the good carry the cross of virtue with bleeding brows bound and pierced with the thorns of honesty and kindness. all this, in my judgment, is immoral. the man who does wrong carries a cross. there is no world, no star, in which the result of wrong is real happiness. there is no world, no star, in which the result of doing right is unhappiness. virtue and vice must be the same everywhere. vice must be vice everywhere, because its consequences are evil; and virtue must be virtue everywhere, because its consequences are good. there can be no such thing as forgiveness. these facts are the only restraining influences possible--the innocent man cannot suffer for the guilty and satisfy the law. _question_. how do you answer the argument, or the fact, that the church is constantly increasing, and that there are now four hundred millions of christians? _answer_. that is what i call the argument of numbers. if that argument is good now, it was always good. if christians were at any time in the minority, then, according to this argument, christianity was wrong. every religion that has succeeded has appealed to the argument of numbers. there was a time when buddhism was in a majority. buddha not only had, but has more followers then christ. success is not a demonstration. mohammed was a success, and a success from the commencement. upon a thousand fields he was victor. of the scattered tribes of the desert, he made a nation, and this nation took the fairest part of europe from the followers of the cross. in the history of the world, the success of mohammed is unparalleled, but this success does not establish that he was the prophet of god. now, it is claimed that there are some four hundred millions of christians. to make that total i am counted as a christian; i am one of the fifty or sixty millions of christians in the united states--excluding indians, not taxed. by this census report, we are all going to heaven--we are all orthodox. at the last great day we can refer with confidence to the ponderous volumes containing the statistics of the united states. as a matter of fact, how many christians are there in the united states--how many believers in the inspiration of the scriptures--how many real followers of christ? i will not pretend to give the number, but i will venture to say that there are not fifty millions. how many in england? where are the four hundred millions found? to make this immense number, they have counted all the heretics, all the catholics, all the jews, spiritualists, universalists and unitarians, all the babes, all the idiotic and insane, all the infidels, all the scientists, all the unbelievers. as a matter of fact, they have no right to count any except the orthodox members of the orthodox churches. there may be more "members" now than formerly, and this increase of members is due to a decrease of religion. thousands of members are only nominal christians, wearing the old uniform simply because they do not wish to be charged with desertion. the church, too, is a kind of social institution, a club with a creed instead of by-laws, and the creed is never defended unless attacked by an outsider. no objection is made to the minister because he is liberal, if he says nothing about it in his pulpit. a man like mr. beecher draws a congregation, not because he is a christian, but because he is a genius; not because he is orthodox, but because he has something to say. he is an intellectual athlete. he is full of pathos and poetry. he has more description than divinity; more charity than creed, and altogether more common sense than theology. for these reasons thousands of people love to hear him. on the other hand, there are many people who have a morbid desire for the abnormal--for intellectual deformities--for thoughts that have two heads. this accounts for the success of some of mr. beecher's rivals. christians claim that success is a test of truth. has any church succeeded as well as the catholic? was the tragedy of the garden of eden a success? who succeeded there? the last best thought is not a success, if you mean that only that is a success which has succeeded, and if you mean by succeeding, that it has won the assent of the majority. besides there is no time fixed for the test. is that true which succeeds to-day, or next year, or in the next century? once the copernican system was not a success. there is no time fixed. the result is that we have to wait. a thing to exist at all has to be, to a certain extent, a success. a thing cannot even die without having been a success. it certainly succeeded enough to have life. presbyterians should remember, while arguing the majority argument, and the success argument, that there are far more catholics than protestants, and that the catholics can give a longer list of distinguished names. my answer to all this, however, is that the history of the world shows that ignorance has always been in the majority. there is one right road; numberless paths that are wrong. truth is one; error is many. when a great truth has been discovered, one man has pitted himself against the world. a few think; the many believe. the few lead; the many follow. the light of the new day, as it looks over the window sill of the east, falls at first on only one forehead. there is another thing. a great many people pass for christians who are not. only a little while ago a couple of ladies were returning from church in a carriage. they had listened to a good orthodox sermon. one said to the other: "i am going to tell you something--i am going to shock you--i do not believe in the bible." and the other replied: "neither do i." --_the news_, detroit, michigan, january , . politics, mormonism and mr. beecher _question_. what will be the main issues in the next presidential campaign? _answer_. i think that the principal issues will be civil rights and protection for american industries. the democratic party is not a unit on the tariff question--neither is the republican; but i think that a majority of the democrats are in favor of free trade and a majority of republicans in favor of a protective tariff. the democratic congressmen will talk just enough about free trade to frighten the manufacturing interests of the country, and probably not quite enough to satisfy the free traders. the result will be that the democrats will talk about reforming the tariff, but will do nothing but talk. i think the tariff ought to be reformed in many particulars; but as long as we need to raise a great revenue my idea is that it ought to be so arranged as to protect to the utmost, without producing monopoly in american manufacturers. i am in favor of protection because it multiplies industries; and i am in favor of a great number of industries because they develop the brain, because they give employment to all and allow us to utilize all the muscle and all the sense we have. if we were all farmers we would grow stupid. if we all worked at one kind of mechanic art we would grow dull. but with a variety of industries, with a constant premium upon ingenuity, with the promise of wealth as the reward of success in any direction, the people become intelligent, and while we are protecting our industries we develop our brains. so i am in favor of the protection of civil rights by the federal government, and that, in my judgment, will be one of the great issues in the next campaign. _question_. i see that you say that one of the great issues in the coming campaign will be civil rights; what do you mean by that? _answer_. well, i mean this. the supreme court has recently decided that a colored man whose rights are trampled upon, in a state, cannot appeal to the federal government for protection. the decision amounts to this: that congress has no right until a state has acted, and has acted contrary to the constitution. now, if a state refuses to do anything upon the subject, what is the citizen to do? my opinion is that the government is bound to protect its citizens, and as a consideration for this protection, the citizen is bound to stand by the government. when the nation calls for troops, the citizen of each state is bound to respond, no matter what his state may think. this doctrine must be maintained, or the united states ceases to be a nation. if a man looks to his state for protection, then he must go with his state. my doctrine is, that there should be patriotism upon the one hand, and protection upon the other. if a state endeavors to secede from the union, a citizen of that state should be in a position to defy the state and appeal to the nation for protection. the doctrine now is, that the general government turns the citizen over to the state for protection, and if the state does not protect him, that is his misfortune; and the consequence of this doctrine will be to build up the old heresy of state sovereignty--a doctrine that was never appealed to except in the interest of thieving or robbery. that doctrine was first appealed to when the constitution was formed, because they were afraid the national government would interfere with the slave trade. it was next appealed to, to uphold the fugitive slave law. it was next appealed to, to give the territories of the united states to slavery. then it was appealed to, to support rebellion, and now out of this doctrine they attempt to build a breastwork, behind which they can trample upon the rights of free colored men. i believe in the sovereignty of the nation. a nation that cannot protect its citizens ought to stop playing nation. in the old times the supreme court found no difficulty in supporting slavery by "inference," by "intendment," but now that liberty has become national, the court is driven to less than a literal interpretation. if the constitution does not support liberty, it is of no use. to maintain liberty is the only legitimate object of human government. i hope the time will come when the judges of the supreme court will be elected, say for a period of ten years. i do not believe in the legal monk system. i believe in judges still maintaining an interest in human affairs. _question_. what do you think of the mormon question? _answer_. i do not believe in the bayonet plan. mormonism must be done away with by the thousand influences of civilization, by education, by the elevation of the people. of course, a gentleman would rather have one noble woman than a hundred females. i hate the system of polygamy. nothing is more infamous. i admit that the old testament upholds it. i admit that the patriarchs were mostly polygamists. i admit that solomon was mistaken on that subject. but notwithstanding the fact that polygamy is upheld by the jewish scriptures, i believe it to be a great wrong. at the same time if you undertake to get the idea out of the mormons by force you will not succeed. i think a good way to do away with that institution would be for all the churches to unite, bear the expense, and send missionaries to utah; let these ministers call the people together and read to them the lives of david, solomon, abraham and other patriarchs. let all the missionaries be called home from foreign fields and teach these people that they should not imitate the only men with whom god ever condescended to hold intercourse. let these frightful examples be held up to these people, and if it is done earnestly, it seems to me that the result would be good. polygamy exists. all laws upon the subject should take that fact into consideration, and punishment should be provided for offences thereafter committed. the children of mormons should be legitimized. in other words, in attempting to settle this question, we should accomplish all the good possible, with the least possible harm. i agree mostly with mr. beecher, and i utterly disagree with the rev. mr. newman. mr. newman wants to kill and slay. he does not rely upon christianity, but upon brute force. he has lost his confidence in example, and appeals to the bayonet. mr. newman had a discussion with one of the mormon elders, and was put to ignominious flight; no wonder that he appeals to force. having failed in argument, he calls for artillery; having been worsted in the appeal to scripture, he asks for the sword. he says, failing to convert, let us kill; and he takes this position in the name of the religion of kindness and forgiveness. strange that a minister now should throw away the bible and yell for a bayonet; that he should desert the scriptures and call for soldiers; that he should lose confidence in the power of the spirit and trust in a sword. i recommend that mormonism be done away with by distributing the old testament throughout utah. _question_. what do you think of the investigation of the department of justice now going on? _answer_. the result, in my judgment, will depend on its thoroughness. if mr. springer succeeds in proving exactly what the department of justice did, the methods pursued, if he finds out what their spies and detectives and agents were instructed to do, then i think the result will be as disastrous to the department as beneficial to the country. the people seem to have forgotten that a little while after the first star route trial three of the agents of the department of justice were indicted for endeavoring to bribe the jury. they forget that mr. bowen, an agent of the department of justice, is a fugitive, because he endeavored to bribe the foreman of the jury. they seem to forget that the department of justice, in order to cover its own tracks, had the foreman of the jury indicted because one of its agents endeavored to bribe him. probably this investigation will nudge the ribs of the public enough to make people remember these things. personally, i have no feelings on the subject. it was enough for me that we succeeded in thwarting its methods, in spite of the detectives, spies, and informers. the department is already beginning to dissolve. brewster cameron has left it, and as a reward has been exiled to arizona. mr. brewster will probably be the next to pack his official valise. a few men endeavored to win popularity by pursuing a few others, and thus far they have been conspicuous failures. macveagh and james are to-day enjoying the oblivion earned by misdirected energy, and mr. brewster will soon keep them company. the history of the world does not furnish an instance of more flagrant abuse of power. there never was a trial as shamelessly conducted by a government. but, as i said before, i have no feeling now except that of pity. _question_. i see that mr. beecher is coming round to your views on theology? _answer_. i would not have the egotism to say that he was coming round to my views, but evidently mr. beecher has been growing. his head has been instructed by his heart; and if a man will allow even the poor plant of pity to grow in his heart he will hold in infinite execration all orthodox religion. the moment he will allow himself to think that eternal consequences depend upon human life; that the few short years we live in the world determine for an eternity the question of infinite joy or infinite pain; the moment he thinks of that he will see that it is an infinite absurdity. for instance, a man is born in arkansas and lives there to be seventeen or eighteen years of age, is it possible that he can be truthfully told at the day of judgment that he had a fair chance? just imagine a man being held eternally responsible for his conduct in delaware! mr. beecher is a man of great genius--full of poetry and pathos. every now and then he is driven back by the orthodox members of his congregation toward the old religion, and for the benefit of those weak disciples he will preach what is called "a doctrinal sermon;" but before he gets through with it, seeing that it is infinitely cruel, he utters a cry of horror, and protests with all the strength of his nature against the cruelty of the creed. i imagine that he has always thought that he was under great obligation to plymouth church, but the truth is that the church depends upon him; that church gets its character from mr. beecher. he has done a vast deal to ameliorate the condition of the average orthodox mind. he excites the envy of the mediocre minister, and he excites the hatred of the really orthodox, but he receives the approbation of good and generous men everywhere. for my part, i have no quarrel with any religion that does not threaten eternal punishment to very good people, and that does not promise eternal reward to very bad people. if orthodox christianity is true, some of the best people i know are going to hell, and some of the meanest i have ever known are either in heaven or on the road. of course, i admit that there are thousands and millions of good christians--honest and noble people, but in my judgment, mr. beecher is the greatest man in the world who now occupies a pulpit. * * * * * speaking of a man's living in delaware, a young man, some time ago, came up to me on the street, in an eastern city and asked for money. "what is your business," i asked. "i am a waiter by profession." "where do you come from?" "delaware." "well, what was the matter --did you drink, or cheat your employer, or were you idle?" "no." "what was the trouble?" "well, the truth is, the state is so small they don't need any waiters; they all reach for what they want." _question_. do you not think there are some dangerous tendencies in liberalism? _answer_. i will first state this proposition: the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance. the cash system in morals, as well as in business, breeds economy. we will suppose a community in which everybody is bound to sell on credit, and in which every creditor can take the benefit of the bankrupt law every saturday night, and the constable pays the costs. in my judgment that community would be extravagant as long as the merchants lasted. we will take another community in which everybody has to pay cash, and in my judgment that community will be a very economical one. now, then, let us apply this to morals. christianity allows everybody to sin on a credit, and allows a man who has lived, we will say sixty-nine years, what christians are pleased to call a worldly life, an immoral life. they allow him on his death-bed, between the last dose of medicine and the last breath, to be converted, and that man who has done nothing except evil, becomes an angel. here is another man who has lived the same length of time, doing all the good he possibly could do, but not meeting with what they are pleased to call "a change of heart;" he goes to a world of pain. now, my doctrine is that everybody must reap exactly what he sows, other things being equal. if he acts badly he will not be very happy; if he acts well he will not be very sad. i believe in the doctrine of consequences, and that every man must stand the consequences of his own acts. it seems to me that that fact will have a greater restraining influence than the idea that you can, just before you leave this world, shift your burden on to somebody else. i am a believer in the restraining influences of liberty, because responsibility goes hand in hand with freedom. i do not believe that the gallows is the last step between earth and heaven. i do not believe in the conversion and salvation of murderers while their innocent victims are in hell. the church has taught so long that he who acts virtuously carries a cross, and that only sinners enjoy themselves, that it may be that for a little while after men leave the church they may go to extremes until they demonstrate for themselves that the path of vice is the path of thorns, and that only along the wayside of virtue grow the flowers of joy. the church has depicted virtue as a sour, wrinkled termagant; an old woman with nothing but skin and bones, and a temper beyond description; and at the same time vice has been painted in all the voluptuous outlines of a greek statue. the truth is exactly the other way. a thing is right because it pays; a thing is wrong because it does not; and when i use the word "pays," i mean in the highest and noblest sense. --_the daily news_, denver, colorado, january , . free trade and christianity. _question_. who will be the republican nominee for president? _answer_. the correct answer to this question would make so many men unhappy that i have concluded not to give it. _question_. has not the democracy injured itself irretrievably by permitting the free trade element to rule it? _answer_. i do not think that the democratic party weakened itself by electing carlisle, speaker. i think him an excellent man, an exceedingly candid man, and one who will do what he believes ought to be done. i have a very high opinion of mr. carlisle. i do not suppose any party in this country is really for free trade. i find that all writers upon the subject, no matter which side they are on, are on that side with certain exceptions. adam smith was in favor of free trade, with a few exceptions, and those exceptions were in matters where he thought it was for england's interest not to have free trade. the same may be said of all writers. so far as i can see, the free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists all the facts. the free trade theories are splendid, but they will not work; the results are disastrous. we find by actual experiment that it is better to protect home industries. it was once said that protection created nothing but monopoly; the argument was that way, but the facts are not. take, for instance, steel rails; when we bought them of england we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton. i believe there was a tariff of twenty-eight or twenty-nine dollars a ton, and yet in spite of all the arguments going to show that protection would simply increase prices in america, would simply enrich the capitalists and impoverish the consumer, steel rails are now produced, i believe, right here in colorado for forty-two dollars a ton. after all, it is a question of labor; a question of prices that shall be paid the laboring man; a question of what the laboring man shall eat; whether he shall eat meat or soup made from the bones. very few people take into consideration the value of raw material and the value of labor. take, for instance, your ton of steel rails worth forty-two dollars. the iron in the earth is not worth twenty-five cents. the coal in the earth and the lime in the ledge together are not worth twenty-five cents. now, then, of the forty-two dollars, forty-one and a half is labor. there is not two dollars' worth of raw material in a locomotive worth fifteen thousand dollars. by raw material i mean the material in the earth. there is not in the works of a watch which will sell for fifteen dollars, raw material of the value of one-half cent. all the rest is labor. a ship, a man-of-war that costs one million dollars-- the raw material in the earth is not worth, in my judgment, one thousand dollars. all the rest is labor. if there is any way to protect american labor, i am in favor of it. if the present tariff does not do it, then i am in favor of changing to one that will. if the democratic party takes a stand for free trade or anything like it, they will need protection; they will need protection at the polls; that is to say, they will meet only with defeat and disaster. _question_. what should be done with the surplus revenue? _answer_. my answer to that is, reduce internal revenue taxation until the present surplus is exhausted, and then endeavor so to arrange your tariff that you will not produce more than you need. i think the easiest question to grapple with on this earth is a surplus of money. i do not believe in distributing it among the states. i do not think there could be a better certificate of the prosperity of our country than the fact that we are troubled with a surplus revenue; that we have the machinery for collecting taxes in such perfect order, so ingeniously contrived, that it cannot be stopped; that it goes right on collecting money, whether we want it or not; and the wonderful thing about it is that nobody complains. if nothing else can be done with the surplus revenue, probably we had better pay some of our debts. i would suggest, as a last resort, to pay a few honest claims. _question_. are you getting nearer to or farther away from god, christianity and the bible? _answer_. in the first place, as mr. locke so often remarked, we will define our terms. if by the word "god" is meant a person, a being, who existed before the creation of the universe, and who controls all that is, except himself, i do not believe in such a being; but if by the word god is meant all that is, that is to say, the universe, including every atom and every star, then i am a believer. i suppose the word that would nearest describe me is "pantheist." i cannot believe that a being existed from eternity, and who finally created this universe after having wasted an eternity in idleness; but upon this subject i know just as little as anybody ever did or ever will, and, in my judgment, just as much. my intellectual horizon is somewhat limited, and, to tell you the truth, this is the only world that i was ever in. i am what might be called a representative of a rural district, and, as a matter of fact, i know very little about the district. i believe it was confucius who said: "how should i know anything about another world when i know so little of this?" the greatest intellects of the world have endeavored to find words to express their conception of god, of the first cause, or of the science of being, but they have never succeeded. i find in the old confession of faith, in the old catechism, for instance, this description: that god is a being without body, parts or passions. i think it would trouble anybody to find a better definition of nothing. that describes a vacuum, that is to say, that describes the absence of everything. i find that theology is a subject that only the most ignorant are certain about, and that the more a man thinks, the less he knows. from the bible god, i do not know that i am going farther and farther away. i have been about as far as a man could get for many years. i do not believe in the god of the old testament. now, as to the next branch of your question, christianity. the question arises, what is christianity? i have no objection to the morality taught as a part of christianity, no objection to its charity, its forgiveness, its kindness; no objection to its hope for this world and another, not the slightest, but all these things do not make christianity. mohammed taught certain doctrines that are good, but the good in the teachings of mohammed is not mohammedism. when i speak of christianity i speak of that which is distinctly christian. for instance, the idea that the infinite god was born in palestine, learned the carpenter's trade, disputed with the parsons of his time, excited the wrath of the theological bigots, and was finally crucified; that afterward he was raised from the dead, and that if anybody believes this he will be saved and if he fails to believe it, he will be lost; in other words, that which is distinctly christian in the christian system, is its supernaturalism, its miracles, its absurdity. truth does not need to go into partnership with the supernatural. what christ said is worth the reason it contains. if a man raises the dead and then says twice two are five, that changes no rule in mathematics. if a multiplication table was divinely inspired, that does no good. the question is, is it correct? so i think that in the world of morals, we must prove that a thing is right or wrong by experience, by analogy, not by miracles. there is no fact in physical science that can be supernaturally demonstrated. neither is there any fact in the moral world that could be substantiated by miracles. now, then, keeping in mind that by christianity i mean the supernatural in that system, of course i am just as far away from it as i can get. for the man christ i have respect. he was an infidel in his day, and the ministers of his day cried out blasphemy, as they have been crying ever since, against every person who has suggested a new thought or shown the worthlessness of an old one. now, as to the third part of the question, the bible. people say that the bible is inspired. well, what does inspiration mean? did god write it? no; but the men who did write it were guided by the holy spirit. very well. did they write exactly what the holy spirit wanted them to write? well, religious people say, yes. at the same time they admit that the gentlemen who were collecting, or taking down in shorthand what was said, had to use their own words. now, we all know that the same words do not have the same meaning to all people. it is impossible to convey the same thoughts to all minds by the same language, and it is for that reason that the bible has produced so many sects, not only disagreeing with each other, but disagreeing among themselves. we find, then, that it is utterly impossible for god (admitting that there is one) to convey the same thoughts in human language to all people. no two persons understand the same language alike. a man's understanding depends upon his experience, upon his capacity, upon the particular bent of his mind--in fact, upon the countless influences that have made him what he is. everything in nature tells everyone who sees it a story, but that story depends upon the capacity of the one to whom it is told. the sea says one thing to the ordinary man, and another thing to shakespeare. the stars have not the same language for all people. the consequence is that no book can tell the same story to any two persons. the jewish scriptures are like other books, written by different men in different ages of the world, hundreds of years apart, filled with contradictions. they embody, i presume, fairly enough, the wisdom and ignorance, the reason and prejudice, of the times in which they were written. they are worth the good that is in them, and the question is whether we will take the good and throw the bad away. there are good laws and bad laws. there are wise and foolish sayings. there are gentle and cruel passages, and you can find a text to suit almost any frame of mind; whether you wish to do an act of charity or murder a neighbor's babe, you will find a passage that will exactly fit the case. so that i can say that i am still for the reasonable, for the natural; and am still opposed to the absurd and supernatural. _question_. is there any better or more ennobling belief than christianity; if so, what is it? _answer_. there are many good things, of course, in every religion, or they would not have existed; plenty of good precepts in christianity, but the thing that i object to more than all others is the doctrine of eternal punishment, the idea of hell for many and heaven for the few. take from christianity the doctrine of eternal punishment and i have no particular objection to what is generally preached. if you will take that away, and all the supernatural connected with it, i have no objection; but that doctrine of eternal punishment tends to harden the human heart. it has produced more misery than all the other doctrines in the world. it has shed more blood; it has made more martyrs. it has lighted the fires of persecution and kept the sword of cruelty wet with heroic blood for at least a thousand years. there is no crime that that doctrine has not produced. i think it would be impossible for the imagination to conceive of a worse religion than orthodox christianity--utterly impossible; a doctrine that divides this world, a doctrine that divides families, a doctrine that teaches the son that he can be happy, with his mother in perdition; the husband that he can be happy in heaven while his wife suffers the agonies of hell. this doctrine is infinite injustice, and tends to subvert all ideas of justice in the human heart. i think it would be impossible to conceive of a doctrine better calculated to make wild beasts of men than that; in fact, that doctrine was born of all the wild beast there is in man. it was born of infinite revenge. think of preaching that you must believe that a certain being was the son of god, no matter whether your reason is convinced or not. suppose one should meet, we will say on london bridge, a man clad in rags, and he should stop us and say, "my friend, i wish to talk with you a moment. i am the rightful king of great britain," and you should say to him, "well, my dinner is waiting; i have no time to bother about who the king of england is," and then he should meet another and insist on his stopping while the pulled out some papers to show that he was the rightful king of england, and the other man should say, "i have got business here, my friend; i am selling goods, and i have no time to bother my head about who the king of england is. no doubt you are the king of england, but you don't look like him." and then suppose he stops another man, and makes the same statement to him, and the other man should laugh at him and say, "i don't want to hear anything on this subject; you are crazy; you ought to go to some insane asylum, or put something on your head to keep you cool." and suppose, after all, it should turn out that the man was king of england, and should afterward make his claim good and be crowned in westminster. what would we think of that king if he should hunt up the gentlemen that he met on london bridge, and have their heads cut off because they had no faith that he was the rightful heir? and what would we think of a god now who would damn a man eighteen hundred years after the event, because he did not believe that he was god at the time he was living in jerusalem; not only damn the fellows that he met and who did not believe him, but gentlemen who lived eighteen hundred years afterward, and who certainly could have known nothing of the facts except from hearsay? the best religion, after all, is common sense; a religion for this world, one world at a time, a religion for to-day. we want a religion that will deal in questions in which we are interested. how are we to do away with crime? how are we to do away with pauperism? how are we to do away with want and misery in every civilized country? england is a christian nation, and yet about one in six in the city of london dies in almshouses, asylums, prisons, hospitals and jails. we, i suppose, are a civilized nation, and yet all the penitentiaries are crammed; there is want on every hand, and my opinion is that we had better turn our attention to this world. christianity is charitable; christianity spends a great deal of money; but i am somewhat doubtful as to the good that is accomplished. there ought to be some way to prevent crime; not simply to punish it. there ought to be some way to prevent pauperism, not simply to relieve temporarily a pauper, and if the ministers and good people belonging to the churches would spend their time investigating the affairs of this world and let the new jerusalem take care of itself, i think it would be far better. the church is guilty of one great contradiction. the ministers are always talking about worldly people, and yet, were it not for worldly people, who would pay the salary? how could the church live a minute unless somebody attended to the affairs of this world? the best religion, in my judgment, is common sense going along hand in hand with kindness, and not troubling ourselves about another world until we get there. i am willing for one, to wait and see what kind of a country it will be. _question_. does the question of the inspiration of scriptures affect the beauty and benefits of christianity here and hereafter? _answer_. a belief in the inspiration of the scriptures has done, in my judgment, great harm. the bible has been the breastwork for nearly everything wrong. the defenders of slavery relied on the bible. the bible was the real auction block on which every negro stood when he was sold. i never knew a minister to preach in favor of slavery that did not take his text from the bible. the bible teaches persecution for opinion's sake. the bible--that is the old testament--upholds polygamy, and just to the extent that men, through the bible, have believed that slavery, religious persecution, wars of extermination and polygamy were taught by god, just to that extent the bible has done great harm. the idea of inspiration enslaves the human mind and debauches the human heart. _question_. is not christianity and the belief in god a check upon mankind in general and thus a good thing in itself? _answer_. this, again, brings up the question of what you mean by christianity, but taking it for granted that you mean by christianity the church, then i answer, when the church had almost absolute authority, then the world was the worst. now, as to the other part of the question, "is not a belief in god a check upon mankind in general?" that is owing to what kind of god the man believes in. when mankind believed in the god of the old testament, i think that belief was a bad thing; the tendency was bad. i think that john calvin patterned after jehovah as nearly as his health and strength would permit. man makes god in his own image, and bad men are not apt to have a very good god if they make him. i believe it is far better to have a real belief in goodness, in kindness, in honesty and in mankind than in any supernatural being whatever. i do not suppose it would do any harm for a man to believe in a real good god, a god without revenge, a god that was not very particular in having a man believe a doctrine whether he could understand it or not. i do not believe that a belief of that kind would do any particular harm. there is a vast difference between the god of john calvin and the god of henry ward beecher, and a great difference between the god of cardinal pedro gonzales de mendoza and the god of theodore parker. _question_. well, colonel, is the world growing better or worse? _answer_. i think better in some respects and worse in others; but on the whole, better. i think that while events, like the pendulum of a clock, go backward and forward, man, like the hands, goes forward. i think there is more reason and less religion, more charity and less creed. i think the church is improving. ministers are ashamed to preach the old doctrines with the old fervor. there was a time when the pulpit controlled the pews. it is so no longer. the pews know what they want, and if the minister does not furnish it they discharge him and employ another. he is no longer an autocrat; he must bring to the market what his customers are willing to buy. _question_. what are you going to do to be saved? _answer_. well, i think i am safe, anyway. i suppose i have a right to rely on what matthew says, that if i will forgive others god will forgive me. i suppose if there is another world i shall be treated very much as i treat others. i never expect to find perfect bliss anywhere; maybe i should tire of it if i should. what i have endeavored to do has been to put out the fires of an ignorant and cruel hell; to do what i could to destroy that dogma; to destroy the doctrine that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin. --_the denver republican_, denver, colorado, january , . the oath question. _question_. i suppose that your attention has been called to the excitement in england over the oath question, and you have probably wondered that so much should have been made of so little? _answer_. yes; i have read a few articles upon the subject, including one by cardinal newman. it is wonderful that so many people imagine that there is something miraculous in the oath. they seem to regard it as a kind of verbal fetich, a charm, an "open sesame" to be pronounced at the door of truth, a spell, a kind of moral thumbscrew, by means of which falsehood itself is compelled to turn informer. the oath has outlived its brother, "the wager of battle." both were born of the idea that god would interfere for the right and for the truth. trial by fire and by water had the same origin. it was once believed that the man in the wrong could not kill the man in the right; but, experience having shown that he usually did, the belief gradually fell into disrepute. so it was once thought that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread; but, the fear that made the swallowing difficult having passed away, the appeal to the corsned was abolished. it was found that a brazen or a desperate man could eat himself out of the greatest difficulty with perfect ease, satisfying the law and his own hunger at the same time. the oath is a relic of barbarous theology, of the belief that a personal god interferes in the affairs of men; that some god protects innocence and guards the right. the experience of the world has sadly demonstrated the folly of that belief. the testimony of a witness ought to be believed, not because it is given under the solemnities of an oath, but because it is reasonable. if unreasonable it ought to be thrown aside. the question ought not to be, "has this been sworn to?" but, "is this true?" the moment evidence is tested by the standard of reason, the oath becomes a useless ceremony. let the man who gives false evidence be punished as the lawmaking power may prescribe. he should be punished because he commits a crime against society, and he should be punished in this world. all honest men will tell the truth if they can; therefore, oaths will have no effect upon them. dishonest men will not tell the truth unless the truth happens to suit their purpose; therefore, oaths will have no effect upon them. we punish them, not for swearing to a lie, but for telling it, and we can make the punishment for telling the falsehood just as severe as we wish. if they are to be punished in another world, the probability is that the punishment there will be for having told the falsehood here. after all, a lie is made no worse by an oath, and the truth is made no better. _question_. you object then to the oath. is your objection based on any religious grounds, or on any prejudice against the ceremony because of its religious origin; or what is your objection? _answer_. i care nothing about the origin of the ceremony. the objection to the oath is this: it furnishes a falsehood with a letter of credit. it supplies the wolf with sheep's clothing and covers the hands of jacob with hair. it blows out the light, and in the darkness leah is taken for rachel. it puts upon each witness a kind of theological gown. this gown hides the moral rags of the depraved wretch as well as the virtues of the honest man. the oath is a mask that falsehood puts on, and for a moment is mistaken for truth. it gives to dishonesty the advantage of solemnity. the tendency of the oath is to put all testimony on an equality. the obscure rascal and the man of sterling character both "swear," and jurors who attribute a miraculous quality to the oath, forget the real difference in the men, and give about the same weight to the evidence of each, because both were "sworn." a scoundrel is delighted with the opportunity of going through a ceremony that gives importance and dignity to his story, that clothes him for the moment with respectability, loans him the appearance of conscience, and gives the ring of true coin to the base metal. to him the oath is a shield. he is in partnership, for a moment, with god, and people who have no confidence in the witness credit the firm. _question_. of course you know the religionists insist that people are more likely to tell the truth when "sworn," and that to take away the oath is to destroy the foundation of testimony? _answer_. if the use of the oath is defended on the ground that religious people need a stimulus to tell the truth, then i am compelled to say that religious people have been so badly educated that they mistake the nature of the crime. they should be taught that to defeat justice by falsehood is the real offence. besides, fear is not the natural foundation of virtue. even with religious people fear cannot always last. ananias and sapphira have been dead so long, and since their time so many people have sworn falsely without affecting their health that the fear of sudden divine vengeance no longer pales the cheek of the perjurer. if the vengeance is not sudden, then, according to the church, the criminal will have plenty of time to repent; so that the oath no longer affects even the fearful. would it not be better for the church to teach that telling the falsehood is the real crime, and that taking the oath neither adds to nor takes from its enormity? would it not be better to teach that he who does wrong must suffer the consequences, whether god forgives him or not? he who tries to injure another may or may not succeed, but he cannot by any possibility fail to injure himself. men should be taught that there is no difference between truth-telling and truth-swearing. nothing is more vicious than the idea that any ceremony or form of words--hand-lifting or book-kissing--can add, even in the slightest degree, to the perpetual obligation every human being is under to speak the truth. the truth, plainly told, naturally commends itself to the intelligent. every fact is a genuine link in the infinite chain, and will agree perfectly with every other fact. a fact asks to be inspected, asks to be understood. it needs no oath, no ceremony, no supernatural aid. it is independent of all the gods. a falsehood goes in partnership with theology, and depends on the partner for success. to show how little influence for good has been attributed to the oath, it is only necessary to say that for centuries, in the christian world, no person was allowed to testify who had the slightest pecuniary interest in the result of a suit. the expectation of a farthing in this world was supposed to outweigh the fear of god's wrath in the next. all the pangs, pains, and penalties of perdition were considered as nothing when compared with pounds, shillings and pence in this world. _question_. you know that in nearly all deliberative bodies--in parliaments and congresses--an oath or an affirmation is required to support what is called the constitution; and that all officers are required to swear or affirm that they will discharge their duties; do these oaths and affirmations, in your judgment, do any good? _answer_. men have sought to make nations and institutions immortal by oaths. subjects have sworn to obey kings, and kings have sworn to protect subjects, and yet the subjects have sometimes beheaded a king; and the king has often plundered the subjects. the oaths enabled them to deceive each other. every absurdity in religion, and all tyrannical institutions, have been patched, buttressed, and reinforced by oaths; and yet the history of the world shows the utter futility of putting in the coffin of an oath the political and religious aspirations of the race. revolutions and reformations care little for "so help me god." oaths have riveted shackles and sanctified abuses. people swear to support a constitution, and they will keep the oath as long as the constitution supports them. in the colonists cared nothing for the fact that they had sworn to support the british crown. all the oaths to defend the constitution of the united states did not prevent the civil war. we have at last learned that states may be kept together for a little time, by force; permanently only by mutual interests. we have found that the delilah of superstition cannot bind with oaths the secular samson. why should a member of parliament or of congress swear to maintain the constitution? if he is a dishonest man, the oath will have no effect; if he is an honest patriot, it will have no effect. in both cases it is equally useless. if a member fails to support the constitution the probability is that his constituents will treat him as he does the constitution. in this country, after all the members of congress have sworn or affirmed to defend the constitution, each political party charges the other with a deliberate endeavor to destroy that "sacred instrument." possibly the political oath was invented to prevent the free and natural development of a nation. kings and nobles and priests wished to retain the property they had filched and clutched, and for that purpose they compelled the real owners to swear that they would support and defend the law under color of which the theft and robbery had been accomplished. so, in the church, creeds have been protected by oaths. priests and laymen solemnly swore that they would, under no circumstances, resort to reason; that they would overcome facts by faith, and strike down demonstrations with the "sword of the spirit." professors of the theological seminary at andover, massachusetts, swear to defend certain dogmas and to attack others. they swear sacredly to keep and guard the ignorance they have. with them, philosophy leads to perjury, and reason is the road to crime. while theological professors are not likely to make an intellectual discovery, still it is unwise, by taking an oath, to render that certain which is only improbable. if all witnesses sworn to tell the truth, did so, if all members of parliament and of congress, in taking the oath, became intelligent, patriotic, and honest, i should be in favor of retaining the ceremony; but we find that men who have taken the same oath advocate opposite ideas, and entertain different opinions, as to the meaning of constitutions and laws. the oath adds nothing to their intelligence; does not even tend to increase their patriotism, and certainly does not make the dishonest honest. _question_. are not persons allowed to testify in the united states whether they believe in future rewards and punishments or not? _answer_. in this country, in most of the states, witnesses are allowed to testify whether they believe in perdition and paradise or not. in some states they are allowed to testify even if they deny the existence of god. we have found that religious belief does not compel people to tell the truth, and than an utter denial of every christian creed does not even tend to make them dishonest. you see, a religious belief does not affect the senses. justice should not shut any door that leads to truth. no one will pretend that, because you do not believe in hell, your sight is impaired, or your hearing dulled, or your memory rendered less retentive. a witness in a court is called upon to tell what he has seen, what he has heard, what he remembers, not what he believes about gods and devils and hells and heavens. a witness substantiates not a faith, but a fact. in order to ascertain whether a witness will tell the truth, you might with equal propriety examine him as to his ideas about music, painting or architecture, as theology. a man may have no ear for music, and yet remember what he hears. he may care nothing about painting, and yet is able to tell what he sees. so he may deny every creed, and yet be able to tell the facts as he remembers them. thomas jefferson was wise enough so to frame the constitution of virginia that no person could be deprived of any civil right on account of his religious or irreligious belief. through the influence of men like paine, franklin and jefferson, it was provided in the federal constitution that officers elected under its authority could swear or affirm. this was the natural result of the separation of church and state. _question_. i see that your presidents and governors issue their proclamations calling on the people to assemble in their churches and offer thanks to god. how does this happen in a government where church and state are not united? _answer_. jefferson, when president, refused to issue what is known as the "thanksgiving proclamation," on the ground that the federal government had no right to interfere in religious matters; that the people owed no religious duties to the government; that the government derived its powers, not from priests or gods, but from the people, and was responsible alone to the source of its power. the truth is, the framers of our constitution intended that the government should be secular in the broadest and best sense; and yet there are thousands and thousands of religious people in this country who are greatly scandalized because there is no recognition of god in the federal constitution; and for several years a great many ministers have been endeavoring to have the constitution amended so as to recognize the existence of god and the divinity of christ. a man by the name of pollock was once superintendent of the mint of philadelphia. he was almost insane about having god in the constitution. failing in that, he got the inscription on our money, "in god we trust." as our silver dollar is now, in fact, worth only eighty-five cents, it is claimed that the inscription means that we trust in god for the other fifteen cents. there is a constant effort on the part of many christians to have their religion in some way recognized by law. proclamations are now issued calling upon the people to give thanks, and directing attention to the fact that, while god has scourged or neglected other nations, he has been remarkably attentive to the wants and wishes of the united states. governors of states issue these documents written in a tone of pious insincerity. the year may or may not have been prosperous, yet the degree of thankfulness called for is always precisely the same. a few years ago the governor of iowa issued an exceedingly rhetorical proclamation, in which the people were requested to thank god for the unparalleled blessings he had showered upon them. a private citizen, fearing that the lord might be misled by official correspondence, issued his proclamation, in which he recounted with great particularity the hardships of the preceding year. he insisted that the weather had been of the poorest quality; that the spring came late, and the frost early; that the people were in debt; that the farms were mortgaged; that the merchants were bankrupt; and that everything was in the worst possible condition. he concluded by sincerely hoping that the lord would pay no attention to the proclamation of the governor, but would, if he had any doubt on the subject, come down and examine the state for himself. these proclamations have always appeared to me absurdly egotistical. why should god treat us any better than he does the rest of his children? why should he send pestilence and famine to china, and health and plenty to us? why give us corn, and egypt cholera? all these proclamations grow out of egotism and selfishness, of ignorance and superstition, and are based upon the idea that god is a capricious monster; that he loves flattery; that he can be coaxed and cajoled. the conclusion of the whole matter with me is this: for truth in courts we must depend upon the trained intelligence of judges, the right of cross-examination, the honesty and common sense of jurors, and upon an enlightened public opinion. as for members of congress, we will trust to the wisdom and patriotism, not only of the members, but of their constituents. in religion we will give to all the luxury of absolute liberty. the alchemist did not succeed in finding any stone the touch of which transmuted baser things to gold; and priests have not invented yet an oath with power to force from falsehood's desperate lips the pearl of truth. --_secular review_, london, england, . wendell phillips, fitz john porter and bismarck. _question_. are you seeking to quit public lecturing on religious questions? _answer_. as long as i live i expect now and then to say my say against the religious bigotry and cruelty of the world. as long as the smallest coal is red in hell i am going to keep on. i never had the slightest idea of retiring. i expect the church to do the retiring. _question_. what do you think of wendell phillips as an orator? _answer_. he was a very great orator--one of the greatest that the world has produced. he rendered immense service in the cause of freedom. he was in the old days the thunderbolt that pierced the shield of the constitution. one of the bravest soldiers that ever fought for human rights was wendell phillips. _question_. what do you think of the action of congress on fitz john porter? _answer_. i think congress did right. i think they should have taken this action long before. there was a question of his guilt, and he should have been given the benefit of a doubt. they say he could have defeated longstreet. there are some people, you know, who would have it that an army could be whipped by a good general with six mules and a blunderbuss. but we do not regard those people. they know no more about it than a lady who talked to me about porter's case. she argued the question of porter's guilt for half an hour. i showed her where she was all wrong. when she found she was beaten she took refuge with "oh, well, anyhow he had no genius." well, if every man is to be shot who has no genius, i want to go into the coffin business. _question_. what, in your judgment, is necessary to be done to insure republican success this fall? _answer_. it is only necessary for the republican party to stand by its principles. we must be in favor of protecting american labor not only, but of protecting american capital, and we must be in favor of civil rights, and must advocate the doctrine that the federal government must protect all citizens. i am in favor of a tariff, not simply to raise a revenue--that i regard as incidental. the democrats regard protection as incidental. the two principles should be, protection to american industry and protection to american citizens. so that, after all, there is but one issue--protection. as a matter of fact, that is all a government is for--to protect. the republican party is stronger to-day than it was four years ago. the republican party stands for the progressive ideas of the american people. it has been said that the administration will control the southern delegates. i do not believe it. this administration has not been friendly to the southern republicans, and my opinion is there will be as much division in the southern as in the northern states. i believe blaine will be a candidate, and i do not believe the prohibitionists will put a ticket in the field, because they have no hope of success. _question_. what do you think generally of the revival of the bloody shirt? do you think the investigations of the republicans of the danville and copiah massacres will benefit them? _answer_. well, i am in favor of the revival of that question just as often as a citizen of the republic is murdered on account of his politics. if the south is sick of that question, let it stop persecuting men because they are republicans. i do not believe, however, in simply investigating the question and then stopping after the guilty ones are found. i believe in indicting them, trying them, and convicting them. if the government can do nothing except investigate, we might as well stop, and admit that we have no government. thousands of people think that it is almost vulgar to take the part of the poor colored people in the south. what part should you take if not that of the weak? the strong do not need you. and i can tell the southern people now, that as long as they persecute for opinion's sake they will never touch the reins of political power in this country. _question_. how do you regard the action of bismarck in returning the lasker resolutions? was it the result of his hatred of the jews? _answer_. bismarck opposed a bill to do away with the disabilities of the jews on the ground that prussia is a christian nation, founded for the purpose of spreading the gospel of jesus christ. i presume that it was his hatred of the jews that caused him to return the resolutions. bismarck should have lived several centuries ago. he belongs to the dark ages. he is a believer in the sword and the bayonet--in brute force. he was loved by germany simply because he humiliated france. germany gave her liberty for revenge. it is only necessary to compare bismarck with gambetta to see what a failure he really is. germany was victorious and took from france the earnings of centuries; and yet germany is to-day the least prosperous nation in europe. france was prostrate, trampled into the earth, robbed, and yet, guided by gambetta, is to-day the most prosperous nation in europe. this shows the difference between brute force and brain. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, february , . general subjects. _question_. do you enjoy lecturing? _answer_. of course i enjoy lecturing. it is a great pleasure to drive the fiend of fear out of the hearts of men women and children. it is a positive joy to put out the fires of hell. _question_. where do you meet with the bitterest opposition? _answer_. i meet with the bitterest opposition where the people are the most ignorant, where there is the least thought, where there are the fewest books. the old theology is becoming laughable. very few ministers have the impudence to preach in the old way. they give new meanings to old words. they subscribe to the same creed, but preach exactly the other way. the clergy are ashamed to admit that they are orthodox, and they ought to be. _question_. do liberal books, such as the works of paine and infidel scientists sell well? _answer_. yes, they are about the only books on serious subjects that do sell well. the works of darwin, buckle, draper, haeckel, tyndall, humboldt and hundreds of others, are read by intelligent people the world over. works of a religious character die on the shelves. the people want facts. they want to know about the world, about all forms of life. they want the mysteries of every day solved. they want honest thoughts about sensible questions. they are tired of the follies of faith and the falsehoods of superstition. they want a heaven here. in a few years the old theological books will be sold to make paper on which to print the discoveries of science. _question_. in what section of the country do you find the most liberality? _answer_. i find great freedom of thought in boston, new york, chicago, san francisco, in fact, all over what we call the north. the west of course is liberal. the truth is that all the intelligent part of the country is liberal. the railroad, the telegraph, the daily paper, electric light, the telephone, and freedom of thought belong together. _question_. is it true that you were once threatened with a criminal prosecution for libel on religion? _answer_. yes, in delaware. chief justice comegys instructed the grand jury to indict me for blasphemy. i have taken by revenge on the state by leaving it in ignorance. delaware is several centuries behind the times. it is as bigoted as it is small. compare kansas city with wilmington and you will see the difference between liberalism and orthodoxy. _question_. this is washington's birthday. what do you think of general washington? _answer_. i suppose that washington was what was called religious. he was not very strict in his conduct. he tried to have church and state united in virginia and was defeated by jefferson. it should make no difference with us whether washington was religious or not. jefferson was by far the greater man. in intellect there was no comparison between washington and franklin. i do not prove the correctness of my ideas by names of dead people. i depend upon reason instead of gravestones. one fact is worth a cemetery full of distinguished corpses. we ask not for the belief of somebody, but for evidence, for facts. the church is a beggar at the door of respectability. the moment a man becomes famous, the church asks him for a certificate that the bible is true. it passes its hat before generals and presidents, and kings while they are alive. it says nothing about thinkers and real philosophers while they live, except to slander them, but the moment they are dead it seeks among their words for a crumb of comfort. _question_. will liberalism ever organize in america? _answer_. i hope not. organization means creed, and creed means petrifaction and tyranny. i believe in individuality. i will not join any society except an anti-society society. _question_. do you consider the religion of bhagavat purana of the east as good as the christian? _answer_. it is far more poetic. it has greater variety and shows vastly more thought. like the hebrew, it is poisoned with superstition, but it has more beauty. nothing can be more barren than the theology of the jews and christians. one lonely god, a heaven filled with thoughtless angels, a hell with unfortunate souls. nothing can be more desolate. the greek mythology is infinitely better. _question_. do you think that the marriage institution is held in less respect by infidels than by christians? _answer_. no; there was never a time when marriage was more believed in than now. never were wives treated better and loved more; never were children happier than now. it is the ambition of the average american to have a good and happy home. the fireside was never more popular than now. _question_. what do you think of beecher? _answer_. he is a great man, but the habit of his mind and the bent of his early education oppose his heart. he is growing and has been growing every day for many years. he has given up the idea of eternal punishment, and that of necessity destroys it all. the christian religion is founded upon hell. when the foundation crumbles the fabric falls. beecher was to have answered my article in the _north american review_, but when it appeared and he saw it, he agreed with so much of it that he concluded that an answer would be useless. --_the times_, kansas city, missouri, february , . reply to kansas city clergy. _question_. will you take any notice of mr. magrath's challenge? _answer_. i do not think it worth while to discuss with mr. magrath. i do not say this in disparagement of his ability, as i do not know the gentleman. he may be one of the greatest of men. i think, however, that mr. magrath might better answer what i have already said. if he succeeds in that, then i will meet him in public discussion. of course he is an eminent theologian or he would not think of discussing these questions with anybody. i have never heard of him, but for all that he may be the most intelligent of men. _question_. how have the recently expressed opinions of our local clergy impressed you? _answer_. i suppose you refer to the preachers who have given their opinion of me. in the first place i am obliged to them for acting as my agents. i think mr. hogan has been imposed upon. tacitus is a poor witness--about like josephus. i say again that we have not a word about christ written by any human being who lived in the time of christ--not a solitary word, and mr. hogan ought to know it. the rev. mr. matthews is mistaken. if the bible proves anything, it proves that the world was made in six days and that adam and eve were built on saturday. the bible gives the age of adam when he died, and then gives the ages of others down to the flood, and then from that time at least to the return from the captivity. if the genealogy of the bible is true it is about six thousand years since adam was made, and the world is only five days older than adam. it is nonsense to say that the days were long periods of time. if that is so, away goes the idea of sunday. the only reason for keeping sunday given in the bible is that god made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. mr. mathews is not candid. he knows that he cannot answer the arguments i have urged against the bible. he knows that the ancient jews were barbarians, and that the old testament is a barbarous book. he knows that it upholds slavery and polygamy, and he probably feels ashamed of what he is compelled to preach. mr. jardine takes a very cheerful view of the subject. he expects the light to dawn on the unbelievers. he speaks as though he were the superior of all infidels. he claims to be a student of the evidences of christianity. there are no evidences, consequently mr. jardine is a student of nothing. it is amazing how dignified some people can get on a small capital. mr. haley has sense enough to tell the ministers not to attempt to answer me. that is good advice. the ministers had better keep still. it is the safer way. if they try to answer what i say, the "sheep" will see how foolish the "shepherds" are. the best way is for them to say, "that has been answered." mr. wells agrees with mr. haley. he, too, thinks that silence is the best weapon. i agree with him. let the clergy keep still; that is the best way. it is better to say nothing than to talk absurdity. i am delighted to think that at last the ministers have concluded that they had better not answer infidels. mr. woods is fearful only for the young. he is afraid that i will hurt the children. he thinks that the mother ought to stoop over the cradle and in the ears of the babe shout, hell! so he thinks in all probability that the same word ought to be repeated at the grave as a consolation to mourners. i am glad that mr. mann thinks that i am doing neither good nor harm. this gives me great hope. if i do no harm, certainly i ought not to be eternally damned. it is very consoling to have an orthodox minister solemnly assert that i am doing no harm. i wish i could say as much for him. the truth is, all these ministers have kept back their real thoughts. they do not tell their doubts--they know that orthodoxy is doomed --they know that the old doctrine excites laughter and scorn. they know that the fires of hell are dying out; that the bible is ceasing to be an authority; and that the pulpit is growing feebler and feebler every day. poor parsons! _question_. would the catholicism of general sherman's family affect his chances for the presidency? _answer_. i do not think the religion of the family should have any weight one way or the other. it would make no difference with me; although i hate catholicism with all my heart, i do not hate catholics. some people might be so prejudiced that they would not vote for a man whose wife belongs to the catholic church; but such people are too narrow to be consulted. general sherman says that he wants no office. in that he shows his good sense. he is a great man and a great soldier. he has won laurels enough for one brow. he has the respect and admiration of the nation, and does not need the presidency to finish his career. he wishes to enjoy the honors he has won and the rest he deserves. _question_. what is your opinion of matthew arnold? _answer_. he is a man of talent, well educated, a little fussy, somewhat sentimental, but he is not a genius. he is not creative. he is a critic--not an originator. he will not compare with emerson. --_the journal_, kansas city, missouri, february , . swearing and affirming. _question_. what is the difference in the parliamentary oath of this country which saves us from such a squabble as they have had in england over the bradlaugh case? _answer_. our constitution provides that a member of congress may swear or affirm. the consequence is that we can have no such controversy as they have had in england. the framers of our constitution wished forever to divorce church and state. they knew that it made no possible difference whether a man swore or affirmed, or whether he swore and affirmed to support the constitution. all the federal officers who went into the rebellion had sworn or affirmed to support the constitution. all that did no good. the entire oath business is a mistake. i think it would be a thousand times better to abolish all oaths in courts of justice. the oath allows a rascal to put on the garments of solemnity, the mask of piety, while he tells a lie. in other words, the oath allows the villain to give falsehood the appearance of truth. i think it would be far better to let each witness tell his story and leave his evidence to the intelligence of the jury and judge. the trouble about an oath is that its tendency is to put all witnesses on an equality; the jury says, "why, he swore to it." now, if the oath were abolished, the jury would judge all testimony according to the witness, and then the evidence of one man of good reputation would outweigh the lies of thousands of nobodies. it was at one time believed that there was something miraculous in the oath, that it was a kind of thumbscrew that would torture the truth out of a rascal, and at one time they believed that if a man swore falsely he might be struck by lightning or paralyzed. but so many people have sworn to lies without having their health impaired that the old superstition has very little weight with the average witness. i think it would be far better to let every man tell his story; let him be cross-examined, let the jury find out as much as they can of his character, of his standing among his neighbors--then weigh his testimony in the scale of reason. the oath is born of superstition, and everything born of superstition is bad. the oath gives the lie currency; it gives it for the moment the ring of true metal, and the ordinary average juror is imposed upon and justice in many instances defeated. nothing can be more absurd than the swearing of a man to support the constitution. let him do what he likes. if he does not support the constitution, the probability is that his constituents will refuse to support him. every man who swears to support the constitution swears to support it as he understands it, and no two understand it exactly alike. now, if the oath brightened a man's intellect or added to his information or increased his patriotism or gave him a little more honesty, it would be a good thing--but it doesn't. and as a consequence it is a very useless and absurd proceeding. nothing amuses me more in a court than to see one calf kissing the tanned skin of another. --_the courier_, buffalo, new york, may , . reply to a buffalo critic. _question_. what have you to say in reply to the letter in to- day's _times_ signed r. h. s.? _answer_. i find that i am accused of "four flagrant wrongs," and while i am not as yet suffering from the qualms of conscience, nor do i feel called upon to confess and be forgiven, yet i have something to say in self-defence. as to the first objection made by your correspondent, namely, that my doctrine deprives people of the hope that after this life is ended they will meet their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, long since passed away, in the land beyond the grave, and there enjoy their company forever, i have this to say: if christianity is true we are not quite certain of meeting our relatives and friends where we can enjoy their company forever. if christianity is true most of our friends will be in hell. the ones i love best and whose memory i cherish will certainly be among the lost. the trouble about christianity is that it is infinitely selfish. each man thinks that if he can save his own little, shriveled, microscopic soul, that is enough. no matter what becomes of the rest. christianity has no consolation for a generous man. i do not wish to go to heaven if the ones who have given me joy are to be lost. i would much rather go with them. the only thing that makes life endurable in this world is human love, and yet, according to christianity, that is the very thing we are not to have in the other world. we are to be so taken up with jesus and the angels, that we shall care nothing about our brothers and sisters that have been damned. we shall be so carried away with the music of the harp that we shall not even hear the wail of father or mother. such a religion is a disgrace to human nature. as to the second objection,--that society cannot be held together in peace and good order without hell and a belief in eternal torment, i would ask why an infinitely wise and good god should make people of so poor and mean a character that society cannot be held together without scaring them. is it possible that god has so made the world that the threat of eternal punishment is necessary for the preservation of society? the writer of the letter also says that it is necessary to believe that if a man commits murder here he is destined to be punished in hell for the offence. this is christianity. yet nearly every murderer goes directly from the gallows to god. nearly every murderer takes it upon himself to lecture the assembled multitude who have gathered to see him hanged, and invite them to meet him in heaven. when the rope is about his neck he feels the wings growing. that is the trouble with the christian doctrine. every murderer is told he may repent and go to heaven, and have the happiness of seeing his victim in hell. should heaven at any time become dull, the vein of pleasure can be re-thrilled by the sight of his victim wriggling on the gridiron of god's justice. really, christianity leads men to sin on credit. it sells rascality on time and tells all the devils they can have the benefit of the gospel bankrupt act. the next point in the letter is that i do not preach for the benefit of mankind, but for the money which is the price of blood. of course it makes no difference whether i preach for money or not. that is to say, it makes no difference to the preached. the arguments i advance are either good or bad. if they are bad they can easily be answered by argument. if they are not they cannot be answered by personalities or by ascribing to me selfish motives. it is not a personal matter. it is a matter of logic, of sense-- not a matter of slander, vituperation or hatred. the writer of the letter, r. h. s., may be an exceedingly good person, yet that will add no weight to his or her argument. he or she may be a very bad person, but that would not weaken the logic of the letter, if it had any logic to begin with. it is not for me to say what my motives are in what i do or say; it must be left to the judgment of mankind. i presume i am about as bad as most folks, and as good as some, but my goodness or badness has nothing to do with the question. i may have committed every crime in the world, yet that does not make the story of the flood reasonable, nor does it even tend to show that the three gentlemen in the furnace were not scorched. i may be the best man in the world, yet that does not go to prove that jonah was swallowed by the whale. let me say right here that if there is another world i believe that every soul who finds the way to that shore will have an everlasting opportunity to do right--of reforming. my objection to christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and i might add infinitely absurd. i deprive no one of any hope unless you call the expectation of eternal pain a hope. _question_. have you read the rev. father lambert's "notes on ingersoll," and if so, what have you to say of them or in reply to them? _answer_. i have read a few pages or paragraphs of that pamphlet, and do not feel called upon to say anything. mr. lambert has the same right to publish his ideas that i have, and the readers must judge. people who believe his way will probably think that he has succeeded in answering me. after all, he must leave the public to decide. i have no anxiety about the decision. day by day the people are advancing, and in a little while the sacred superstitions of to-day will be cast aside with the foolish myths and fables of the pagan world. as a matter of fact there can be no argument in favor of the supernatural. suppose you should ask if i had read the work of that gentleman who says that twice two are five. i should answer you that no gentleman can prove that twice two are five; and yet this is exactly as easy as to prove the existence of the supernatural. there are no arguments in favor of the supernatural. there are theories and fears and mistakes and prejudices and guesses, but no arguments--plenty of faith, but no facts; plenty of divine revelation, but no demonstration. the supernatural, in my judgment, is a mistake. i believe in the natural. --_the times_, buffalo, new york, may , . blasphemy.* [* "if robert g. ingersoll indulges in blasphemy to-night in his lecture, as he has in other places and in this city before, he will be arrested before he leaves the city." so spoke rev. irwin h. torrence, general secretary of the pennsylvania bible society, yesterday afternoon to a _press_ reporter. "we have consulted counsel; the law is with us, and ingersoll has but to do what he has done before, to find himself in a cell. here is the act of march , : "'if any person shall willfully, premeditatedly and despitefully blaspheme or speak loosely and profanely of almighty god, christ jesus, the holy spirit, or the scriptures of truth, such person, on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, and undergo an imprisonment not exceeding three months, or either, at the discretion of the court.'" last evening colonel ingersoll sat in the dining room at guy's hotel, just in from new york city. when told of the plans of mr. torrence and his friends, he laughed and said:] i did not suppose that anybody was idiotic enough to want me arrested for blasphemy. it seems to me that an infinite being can take care of himself without the aid of any agent of a bible society. perhaps it is wrong for me to be here while the methodist conference is in session. of course no one who differs from the methodist ministers should ever visit philadelphia while they are here. i most humbly hope to be forgiven. _question_. what do you think of the law of ? _answer_. it is exceedingly foolish. surely, there is no need for the legislature of pennsylvania to protect an infinite god, and why should the bible be protected by law? the most ignorant priest can hold darwin up to orthodox scorn. this talk of the rev. mr. torrence shows that my lectures are needed; that religious people do not know what real liberty is. i presume that the law of is an old one re-enacted. it is a survival of ancient ignorance and bigotry, and no one in the legislature thought it worth while to fight it. it is the same as the law against swearing, both are dead letters and amount to nothing. they are not enforced and should not be. public opinion will regulate such matters. if all who take the name of god in vain were imprisoned there would not be room in the jails to hold the ministers. they speak of god in the most flippant and snap-your-fingers way that can be conceived of. they speak to him as though he were an intimate chum, and metaphorically slap him on the back in the most familiar way possible. _question_. have you ever had any similar experiences before? _answer_. oh, yes--threats have been made, but i never was arrested. when mr. torrence gets cool he will see that he has made a mistake. people in philadelphia have been in the habit of calling the citizens of boston bigots--but there is more real freedom of thought and expression in boston than in almost any other city of the world. i think that as i am to suffer in hell forever, mr. torrence ought to be satisfied and let me have a good time here. he can amuse himself through all eternity by seeing me in hell, and that ought to be enough to satisfy, not only an agent, but the whole bible society. i never expected any trouble in this state, and most sincerely hope that mr. torrence will not trouble me and make the city a laughing stock. philadelphia has no time to waste in such foolish things. let the bible take its chances with other books. let everybody feel that he has the right freely to express his opinions, provided he is decent and kind about it. certainly the christians now ought to treat infidels as well as penn did indians. nothing could be more perfectly idiotic than in this day and generation to prosecute any man for giving his conclusions upon any religious subject. mr. torrence would have had huxley and haeckel and tyndall arrested; would have had humboldt and john stuart mill and harriet martineau and george eliot locked up in the city jail. mr. torrence is a fossil from the old red sandstone of a mistake. let him rest. to hear these people talk you would suppose that god is some petty king, some liliputian prince, who was about to be dethroned, and who was nearly wild for recruits. _question_. but what would you do if they should make an attempt to arrest you? _answer_. nothing, except to defend myself in court. --_philadelphia press_, may , . politics and british columbia. _question_. i understand that there was some trouble in connection with your lecture in victoria, b. c. what are the facts? _answer_. the published accounts, as circulated by the associated press, were greatly exaggerated. the affair was simply this: the authorities endeavored to prevent the lecture. they refused the license, on the ground that the theatre was unsafe, although it was on the ground floor, had many exits and entrances, not counting the windows. the theatre was changed to meet the objections of the fire commissioner, and the authorities expressed their satisfaction and issued the license. afterward further objection was raised, and on the night of the lecture, when the building was about two- thirds full, the police appeared and said that the lecture would not be allowed to be delivered, because the house was unsafe. after a good deal of talk, the policeman in authority said that there should be another door, whereupon my friends, in a few minutes, made another door with an ax and a saw, the crowd was admitted and the lecture was delivered. the audience was well-behaved, intelligent and appreciative. beyond some talking in the hall, and the natural indignation of those who had purchased tickets and were refused admittance, there was no disturbance. i understand that those who opposed the lecture are now heartily ashamed of the course pursued. _question_. are you going to take any part in the campaign? _answer_. it is not my intention to make any political speeches. i have made a good many in the past, and, in my judgment, have done my part. i have no other interest in politics than every citizen should have. i want that party to triumph which, in my judgment, represents the best interests of the country. i have no doubt about the issue of the election. i believe that mr. blaine will be the next president. but there are plenty of talkers, and i really think that i have earned a vacation. _question_. what do you think cleveland's chances are in new york? _answer_. at this distance it is hard to say. the recent action of tammany complicates matters somewhat. but my opinion is that blaine will carry the state. i had a letter yesterday from that state, giving the opinion of a gentleman well informed, that blaine would carry new york by no less than fifty thousand majority. _question_. what figure will butler cut in the campaign? _answer_. i hardly think that butler will have many followers on the th of november. his forces will gradually go to one side or the other. it is only when some great principle is at stake that thousands of men are willing to vote with a known minority. _question_. but what about the prohibitionists? _answer_. they have a very large following. they are fighting for something they believe to be of almost infinite consequence, and i can readily understand how a prohibitionist is willing to be in the minority. it may be well enough for me to say here, that my course politically is not determined by my likes or dislikes of individuals. i want to be governed by principles, not persons. if i really thought that in this campaign a real principle was at stake, i should take part. the only great question now is protection, and i am satisfied that it is in no possible danger. _question_. not even in the case of a democratic victory? _answer_. not even in the event of a democratic victory. no state in the union is for free trade. every free trader has an exception. these exceptions combined, control the tariff legislation of this country, and if the democrats were in power to-day, with the control of the house and senate and executive, the exceptions would combine and protect protection. as long as the federal government collects taxes or revenue on imports, just so long these revenues will be arranged to protect home manufactures. _question_. you said that if there were a great principle at stake, you would take part in the campaign. you think, then, that there is no great principle involved? _answer_. if it were a matter of personal liberty, i should take part. if the republican party had stood by the civil rights bill, i should have taken part in the present campaign. _question_. still, i suppose we can count on you as a republican? _answer_. certainly, i am a republican. --_evening post_, san francisco, california, september , . ingersoll catechised. _question_. does christianity advance or retard civilization? _answer_. if by christianity you mean the orthodox church, then i unhesitatingly answer that it does retard civilization, always has retarded it, and always will. i can imagine no man who can be benefitted by being made a catholic or a presbyterian or a baptist or a methodist--or, in other words, by being made an orthodox christian. but by christianity i do not mean morality, kindness, forgiveness, justice. those virtues are not distinctively christian. they are claimed by mohammedans and buddhists, by infidels and atheists--and practiced by some of all classes. christianity consists of the miraculous, the marvelous, and the impossible. the one thing that i most seriously object to in christianity is the doctrine of eternal punishment. that doctrine subverts every idea of justice. it teaches the infinite absurdity that a finite offence can be justly visited by eternal punishment. another serious objection i have is, that christianity endeavors to destroy intellectual liberty. nothing is better calculated to retard civilization than to subvert the idea of justice. nothing is better calculated to retain barbarism than to deny to every human being the right to think. justice and liberty are the two wings that bear man forward. the church, for a thousand years, did all within its power to prevent the expression of honest thought; and when the church had power, there was in this world no civilization. we have advanced just in the proportion that christianity has lost power. those nations in which the church is still powerful are still almost savage--portugal, spain, and many others i might name. probably no country is more completely under the control of the religious idea than russia. the czar is the direct representative of god. he is the head of the church, as well as of the state. in russia every mouth is a bastille and every tongue a convict. this russian pope, this representative of god, has on earth his hell (siberia), and he imitates the orthodox god to the extent of his health and strength. everywhere man advances as the church loses power. in my judgment, ireland can never succeed until it ceases to be catholic; and there can be no successful uprising while the confessional exists. at one time in new england the church had complete power. there was then no religious liberty. and so we might make a tour of the world, and find that superstition always has been, is, and forever will be, inconsistent with human advancement. _question_. do not the evidences of design in the universe prove a creator? _answer_. if there were any evidences of design in the universe, certainly they would tend to prove a designer, but they would not prove a creator. design does not prove creation. a man makes a machine. that does not prove that he made the material out of which the machine is constructed. you find the planets arranged in accordance with what you call a plan. that does not prove that they were created. it may prove that they are governed, but it certainly does not prove that they were created. is it consistent to say that a design cannot exist without a designer, but that a designer can? does not a designer need a design as much as a design needs a designer? does not a creator need a creator as much as the thing we think has been created? in other words, is not this simply a circle of human ignorance? why not say that the universe has existed from eternity, as well as to say that a creator has existed from eternity? and do you not thus avoid at least one absurdity by saying that the universe has existed from eternity, instead of saying that it was created by a creator who existed from eternity? because if your creator existed from eternity, and created the universe, there was a time when he commenced; and back of that, according to shelley, is "an eternity of idleness." some people say that god existed from eternity, and has created eternity. it is impossible to conceive of an act co-equal with eternity. if you say that god has existed forever, and has always acted, then you make the universe eternal, and you make the universe as old as god; and if the universe be as old as god, he certainly did not create it. these questions of origin and destiny--of infinite gods--are beyond the powers of the human mind. they cannot be solved. we might as well try to travel fast enough to get beyond the horizon. it is like a man trying to run away from his girdle. consequently, i believe in turning our attention to things of importance--to questions that may by some possibility be solved. it is of no importance to me whether god exists or not. i exist, and it is important to me to be happy while i exist. therefore i had better turn my attention to finding out the secret of happiness, instead of trying to ascertain the secret of the universe. i say with regard to god, i do not know; and therefore i am accused of being arrogant and egotistic. religious papers say that i do know, because webster told me. they use webster as a witness to prove the divinity of christ. they say that webster was on the god side, and therefore i ought to be. i can hardly afford to take webster's ideas of another world, when his ideas about this were so bad. when bloodhounds were pursuing a woman through the tangled swamps of the south--she hungry for liberty--webster took the side of the bloodhounds. such a man is no authority for me. bacon denied the copernican system of astronomy; he is an unsafe guide. wesley believed in witches; i cannot follow him. no man should quote a name instead of an argument; no man should bring forward a person instead of a principle, unless he is willing to accept all the ideas of that person. _question_. is not a pleasant illusion preferable to a dreary truth--a future life being in question? _answer_. i think it is. i think that a pleasing illusion is better then a terrible truth, so far as its immediate results are concerned. i would rather think the one i love living, than to think her dead. i would rather think that i had a large balance in bank than that my account was overdrawn. i would rather think i was healthy than to know that i had a cancer. but if we have an illusion, let us have it pleasing. the orthodox illusion is the worst that can possibly be conceived. take hell out of that illusion, take eternal pain away from that dream, and say that the whole world is to be happy forever--then you might have an excuse for calling it a pleasant illusion; but it is, in fact, a nightmare --a perpetual horror--a cross, on which the happiness of man has been crucified. _question_. are not religion and morals inseparable? _answer_. religion and morality have nothing in common, and yet there is no religion except the practice of morality. but what you call religion is simply superstition. religion as it is now taught teaches our duties toward god--our obligations to the infinite, and the results of a failure to discharge those obligations. i believe that we are under no obligations to the infinite; that we cannot be. all our obligations are to each other, and to sentient beings. "believe in the lord jesus christ, and thou shalt be saved," has nothing to do with morality. "do unto other as ye would that others should do unto you" has nothing to do with believing in the lord jesus christ. baptism has nothing to do with morality. "pay your honest debts." that has nothing to do with baptism. what is called religion is simple superstition, with which morality has nothing to do. the churches do not prevent people from committing natural offences, but restrain them from committing artificial ones. as for instance, the catholic church can prevent one of its members from eating meat on friday, but not from whipping his wife. the episcopal church can prevent dancing, it may be, in lent, but not slander. the presbyterian can keep a man from working on sunday, but not from practicing deceit on monday. and so i might go through the churches. they lay the greater stress upon the artificial offences. those countries that are the most religious are the most immoral. when the world was under the control of the catholic church, it reached the very pit of immorality, and nations have advanced in morals just in proportion that they have lost christianity. _question_. it is frequently asserted that there is nothing new in your objections against christianity. what is your reply to such assertions? _answer_. of course, the editors of religious papers will say this; christians will say this. in my opinion, an argument is new until it has been answered. an argument is absolutely fresh, and has upon its leaves the dew of morning, until it has been refuted. all men have experienced, it may be, in some degree, what we call love. millions of men have written about it. the subject is of course old. it is only the presentation that can be new. thousands of men have attacked superstition. the subject is old, but the manner in which the facts are handled, the arguments grouped--these may be forever new. millions of men have preached christianity. certainly there is nothing new in the original ideas. nothing can be new except the presentation, the grouping. the ideas may be old, but they may be clothed in new garments of passion; they may be given additional human interest. a man takes a fact, or an old subject, as a sculptor takes a rock; the rock is not new. of this rock he makes a statue; the statue is new. and yet some orthodox man might say there is nothing new about that statue: "i know the man that dug the rock; i know the owner of the quarry." substance is eternal; forms are new. so in the human mind certain ideas, or in the human heart certain passions, are forever old; but genius forever gives them new forms, new meanings; and this is the perpetual originality of genius. _question_. do you consider that churches are injurious to the community? _answer_. in the exact proportion that churches teach falsehood; in the exact proportion that they destroy liberty of thought, the free action of the human mind; in the exact proportion that they teach the doctrine of eternal pain, and convince people of its truth--they are injurious. in the proportion that they teach morality and justice, and practice kindness and charity--in that proportion they are a benefit. every church, therefore, is a mixed problem--part good and part bad. in one direction it leads toward and sheds light; in the other direction its influence is entirely bad. now, i would like to civilize the churches, so that they will be able to do good deeds without building bad creeds. in other words, take out the superstitious and the miraculous, and leave the human and the moral. _question_. why do you not respond to the occasional clergyman who replies to your lectures? _answer_. in the first place, no clergyman has ever replied to my lectures. in the second place, no clergyman ever will reply to my lectures. he does not answer my arguments--he attacks me; and the replies that i have seen are not worth answering. they are far below the dignity of the question under discussion. most of them are ill-mannered, as abusive as illogical, and as malicious as weak. i cannot reply without feeling humiliated. i cannot use their weapons, and my weapons they do not understand. i attack christianity because it is cruel, and they account for all my actions by putting behind them base motives. they make it at once a personal question. they imagine that epithets are good enough arguments with which to answer an infidel. a few years ago they would have imprisoned me. a few years before that they would have burned me. we have advanced. now they only slander; and i congratulate myself on the fact that even that is not believed. ministers do not believe each other about each other. the truth has never yet been ascertained in any trial by a church. the longer the trial lasts, the obscurer is the truth. they will not believe each other, even on oath; and one of the most celebrated ministers of this country has publicly announced that there is no use in answering a lie started by his own church; that if he does answer it--if he does kill it--forty more lies will come to the funeral. in this connection we must remember that the priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. is this because priests instinctively know priests? now, when a christian tells a buddhist some of the miracles of the testament, the buddhist smiles. when a buddhist tells a christian the miracles performed by buddha, the christian laughs. this reminds me of an incident. a man told a most wonderful story. everybody present expressed surprise and astonishment, except one man. he said nothing; he did not even change countenance. one who noticed that the story had no effect on this man, said to him: "you do not seem to be astonished in the least at this marvelous tale." the man replied, "no; i am a liar myself." you see, i am not trying to answer individual ministers. i am attacking the whole body of superstition. i am trying to kill the entire dog, and i do not feel like wasting any time killing fleas on that dog. when the dog dies, the fleas will be out of provisions, and in that way we shall answer them all at once. so, i do not bother myself answering religious newspapers. in the first place, they are not worth answering; and in the second place, to answer would only produce a new crop of falsehoods. you know, the editor of a religious newspaper, as a rule, is one who has failed in the pulpit; and you can imagine the brains necessary to edit a religious weekly from this fact. i have known some good religious editors. by some i mean one. i do not say that there are not others, but i do say i do not know them. i might add, here, that the one i did know is dead. since i have been in this city there have been some "replies" to me. they have been almost idiotic. a catholic priest asked me how i had the impudence to differ with newton. newton, he says, believed in a god; and i ask this catholic priest how he has the impudence to differ with newton. newton was a protestant. this simply shows the absurdity of using men's names for arguments. this same priest proves the existence of god by a pagan orator. is it possible that god's last witness died with cicero? if it is necessary to believe in a god now, the witnesses ought to be on hand now. another man, pretending to answer me, quotes le conte, a geologist; and according to this geologist we are "getting very near to the splendors of the great white throne." where is the great white throne? can any one, by studying geology, find the locality of the great white throne? to what stratum does it belong? in what geologic period was the great white throne formed? what on earth has geology to do with the throne of god? the truth is, there can be no reply to the argument that man should be governed by his reason; that he should depend upon observation and experience; that he should use the faculties he has for his own benefit, and the benefit of his fellow-man. there is no answer. it is not within the power of man to substantiate the supernatural. it is beyond the power of evidence. _question_. why do the theological seminaries find it difficult to get students? _answer_. i was told last spring, at new haven, that the "theologs," as they call the young men there being fitted for the ministry, were not regarded as intellectual by all the other students. the orthodox pulpit has no rewards for genius. it has rewards only for stupidity, for belief--not for investigation, not for thought; and the consequence is that young men of talent avoid the pulpit. i think i heard the other day that of all the students at harvard only nine are preparing for the ministry. the truth is, the ministry is not regarded as an intellectual occupation. the average church now consists of women and children. men go to please their wives, or stay at home and subscribe to please their wives; and the wives are beginning to think, and many of them are staying at home. many of them now prefer the theatre or the opera or the park or the seashore or the forest or the companionship of their husbands and children at home. _question_. how does the religious state of california compare with the rest of the union? _answer_. i find that sensible people everywhere are about the same, and the proportion of freethinkers depends on the proportion of sensible folks. i think that california has her full share of sensible people. i find everywhere the best people and the brightest people--the people with the most heart and the best brain--all tending toward free thought. of course, a man of brain cannot believe the miracles of the old and new testaments. a man of heart cannot believe in the doctrine of eternal pain. we have found that other religions are like ours, with precisely the same basis, the same idiotic miracles, the same christ or saviour. it will hardly do to say that all others like ours are false, and ours the only true one, when others substantially like it are thousands of years older. we have at last found that a religion is simply an effort on the part of man to account for what he sees, what he experiences, what he feels, what he fears, and what he hopes. every savage has his philosophy. that is his religion and his science. the religions of to-day are the sciences of the past; and it may be that the sciences of to-day will be the religions of the future, and that other sciences will be as far beyond them as the science of to-day is beyond the religion of to-day. as a rule, religion is a sanctified mistake, and heresy a slandered fact. in other words, the human mind grows--and as it grows it abandons the old, and the old gets its revenge by maligning the new. --_the san franciscan_, san francisco, october , . blaine's defeat. _question_. colonel, the fact that you took no part in the late campaign, is a subject for general comment, and knowing your former enthusiastic advocacy and support of blaine, the people are somewhat surprised, and would like to know why? _answer_. in the first place, it was generally supposed that blaine needed no help. his friends were perfectly confident. they counted on a very large catholic support. the irish were supposed to be spoiling to vote for blaine and logan. all the protestant ministers were also said to be solid for the ticket. under these circumstances it was hardly prudent for me to say much. i was for blaine in . in i was for garfield, and in i was for gresham or harlan. i believed then and i believe now that either one of these men could have been elected. blaine is an exceedingly able man, but he made some mistakes and some very unfortunate utterances. i took no part in the campaign; first, because there was no very important issue, no great principle at stake, and second, i thought that i had done enough, and, third, because i wanted to do something else. _question_. what, in your opinion, were the causes for blaine's defeat? _answer_. first, because of dissension in the party. second, because party ties have grown weak. third, the prohibition vote. fourth, the delmonico dinner--too many rich men. fifth, the rev. dr. burchard with his rum, romanism and rebellion. sixth, giving too much attention to ohio and not enough to new york. seventh, the unfortunate remark of mr. blaine, that "the state cannot get along without the church." eighth, the weakness of the present administration. ninth, the abandonment by the party of the colored people of the south. tenth, the feeling against monopolies, and not least, a general desire for a change. _question_. what, in your opinion, will be the result of cleveland's election and administration upon the general political and business interests of the country? _answer_. the business interests will take care of themselves. a dollar has the instinct of self-preservation largely developed. the tariff will take care of itself. no state is absolutely for free trade. in each state there is an exception. the exceptions will combine, as they always have. michigan will help pennsylvania take care of iron, if pennsylvania will help michigan take care of salt and lumber. louisiana will help pennsylvania and michigan if they help her take care of sugar. colorado, california and ohio will help the other states if they will help them about wool--and so i might make a tour of the states, ending with vermont and maple sugar. i do not expect that cleveland will do any great harm. the democrats want to stay in power, and that desire will give security for good behavior. _question_. will he listen to or grant any demands made of him by the alleged independent republicans of new york, either in his appointments or policies? _answer_. of this i know nothing. the independents--from what i know of them--will be too modest to claim credit or to ask office. they were actuated by pure principle. they did what they did to purify the party, so that they could stay in it. now that it has been purified they will remain, and hate the democratic party as badly as ever. i hardly think that cleveland would insult their motives by offering loaves and fishes. all they desire is the approval of their own consciences. --_the commonwealth_, topeka, kansas, november , . blaine's defeat. _question_. how do you account for the defeat of mr. blaine? _answer_. how do i account for the defeat of mr. blaine? i will answer: st. john, the independents, burchard, butler and cleveland did it. the truth is that during the war a majority of the people, counting those in the south, were opposed to putting down the rebellion by force. it is also true that when the proclamation of emancipation was issued a majority of the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it, and it is also true that when the colored people were made citizens a majority of the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it. now, while, in my judgment, an overwhelming majority of the whole people have honestly acquiesced in the result of the war, and are now perfectly loyal to the union, and have also acquiesced in the abolition of slavery, i doubt very much whether they are really in favor of giving the colored man the right to vote. of course they have not the power now to take that right away, but they feel anything but kindly toward the party that gave the colored man that right. that is the only result of the war that is not fully accepted by the south and by many democrats of the north. another thing, the republican party was divided--divided too by personal hatreds. the party was greatly injured by the decision of the supreme court in which the civil rights bill was held void. now, a great many men who kept with the republican party, did so because they believed that that party would protect the colored man in the south, but as soon as the court decided that all the laws passed were unconstitutional, these men felt free to vote for the other side, feeling that it would make no difference. they reasoned this way: if the republican party cannot defend the colored people, why make a pretence that excites hatred on one side and disarms the other? if the colored people have to depend upon the state for protection, and the federal government cannot interfere, why say any more about it? i think that these men made a mistake and our party made a mistake in accepting without protest a decision that was far worse than the one delivered in the case of dred scott. by accepting this decision the most important issue was abandoned. the republican party must take the old ground that it is the duty of the federal government to protect the citizens, and that it cannot simply leave that duty to the state. it must see to it that the state performs that duty. _question_. have you seen the published report that dorsey claims to have paid you one hundred thousand dollars for your services in the star route cases? _answer_. i have seen the report, but dorsey never said anything like that. _question_. is there no truth in the statement, then? _answer_. well, dorsey never said anything of the kind. _question_. then you do not deny that you received such an enormous fee? _answer_. all i say is that dorsey did not say i did.* --_the commercial_, louisville, kentucky, october , . [* col. ingersoll has been so criticised and maligned for defending mr. dorsey in the star route cases, and so frequently charged with having received an enormous fee, that i think it but simple justice to his memory to say that he received no such fee, and that the ridiculously small sums he did receive were much more than offset by the amount he had to pay as indorser of mr. dorsey's paper. --c. f. farrell.] plagiarism and politics. _question_. what have you to say about the charges published in this morning's _herald_ to the effect that you copied your lecture about "mistakes of moses" from a chapter bearing the same title in a book called hittell's "evidences against christianity"? _answer_. all i have to say is that the charge is utterly false. i will give a thousand dollars reward to any one who will furnish a book published before my lecture, in which that lecture can be found. it is wonderful how malicious the people are who love their enemies. this charge is wholly false, as all others of like nature are. i do not have to copy the writings of others. the christians do not seem to see that they are constantly complimenting me by saying that what i write is so good that i must have stolen it. poor old orthodoxy! _question_. what is your opinion of the incoming administration, and how will it affect the country? _answer_. i feel disposed to give cleveland a chance. if he does the fair thing, then it is the duty of all good citizens to say so. i do not expect to see the whole country go to destruction because the democratic party is in power. neither do i believe that business is going to suffer on that account. the times are hard, and i fear will be much harder, but they would have been substantially the same if blaine had been elected. i wanted the republican party to succeed and fully expected to see mr. blaine president, but i believe in making the best of what has happened. i want no office, i want good government--wise legislation. i believe in protection, but i want the present tariff reformed and i hope the democrats will be wise enough to do so. _question_. how will the democratic victory affect the colored people in the south? _answer_. certainly their condition will not be worse than it has been. the supreme court decided that the civil rights bill was unconstitutional and that the federal government cannot interfere. that was a bad decision and our party made a mistake in not protesting against it. i believe it to be the duty of the federal government to protect all its citizens, at home as well as abroad. my hope is that there will be a division in the democratic party. that party has something now to divide. at last it has a bone, and probably the fighting will commence. i hope that some new issue will take color out of politics, something about which both white and colored may divide. of course nothing would please me better than to see the democratic party become great and grand enough to give the colored people their rights. _question_. why did you not take part in the campaign? _answer_. well, i was afraid of frightening the preachers away. i might have done good by scaring one, but i did not know burchard until it was too late. seriously, i did not think that i was needed. i supposed that blaine had a walkover, that he was certain to carry new york. i had business of my own to attend to and did not want to interfere with the campaign. _question_. what do you think of the policy of nominating blaine in , as has been proposed? _answer_. i think it too early to say what will be done in . parties do not exist for one man. parties have certain ends in view and they choose men as instruments to accomplish these ends. parties belong to principles, not persons. no party can afford to follow anybody. if in mr. blaine should appear to be the best man for the party then he will be nominated, otherwise not. i know nothing about any intention to nominate him again and have no idea whether he has that ambition. the whig party was intensely loyal to henry clay and forgot the needs of the country, and allowed the democrats to succeed with almost unknown men. parties should not belong to persons, but persons should belong to parties. let us not be too previous--let us wait. _question_. what do you think of the course pursued by the rev. drs. ball and burchard? _answer_. in politics the preacher is somewhat dangerous. he has a standard of his own; he has queer ideas of evidence, great reliance on hearsay; he is apt to believe things against candidates, just because he wants to. the preacher thinks that all who differ with him are instigated by the devil--that their intentions are evil, and that when they behave themselves they are simply covering the poison with sugar. it would have been far better for the country if mr. ball had kept still. i do not pretend to say that his intentions were not good. he likely thought it his duty to lift a warning voice, to bawl aloud and to spare not, but i think he made a mistake, and he now probably thinks so himself. mr. burchard was bound to say a smart thing. it sounded well, and he allowed his ears to run away with his judgment. as a matter of fact, there is no connection between rum and romanism. catholic countries do not use as much alcohol as protestant. england has far more drunkards than spain. scotland can discount italy or portugal in good, square drinking. so there is no connection between romanism and rebellion. ten times as many methodists and twenty times as many baptists went into the rebellion as catholics. thousands of catholics fought as bravely as protestants for the preservation of the union. no doubt mr. burchard intended well. he thought he was giving blaine a battle-cry that would send consternation into the hearts of the opposition. my opinion is that in the next campaign the preachers will not be called to the front. of course they have the same right to express their views that other people have, but other people have the right to avoid the responsibility of appearing to agree with them. i think though that it is about time to let up on burchard. he has already unloaded on the lord. _question_. do you think cleveland will put any southern men in his cabinet? _answer_. i do. nothing could be in worse taste than to ignore the section that gave him three-fourths of his vote. the people have put the democratic party in power. they intended to do what they did, and why should the south not be recognized? garland would make a good attorney-general; lamar has the ability to fill any position in the cabinet. i could name several others well qualified, and i suppose that two or three southern men will be in the cabinet. if they are good enough to elect a president they are good enough to be selected by a president. _question_. what do you think of mr. conkling's course? _answer_. mr. conkling certainly had the right to keep still. he was under no obligation to the party. the republican papers have not tried to secure his services. he has been very generally and liberally denounced ever since his quarrel with mr. garfield, and it is only natural to resent what a man feels to be an injustice. i suppose he has done what he honestly thought was, under the circumstances, his duty. i believe him to be a man of stainless integrity, and he certainly has as much independence of character as one man can carry. it is time to put the party whip away. people can be driven from, but not to, the republican party. if we expect to win in we must welcome recruits. --_the plain dealer_, cleveland, ohio, dec. , . religious prejudice. _question_. will a time ever come when political campaigns will be conducted independently of religious prejudice? _answer_. as long as men are prejudiced, they will probably be religious, and certainly as long as they are religious they will be prejudiced, and every religionist who imagines the next world infinitely more important than this, and who imagines that he gets his orders from god instead of from his own reason, or from his fellow-citizens, and who thinks that he should do something for the glory of god instead of for the benefit of his fellow-citizens --just as long as they believe these things, just so long their prejudices will control their votes. every good, ignorant, orthodox christian places his bible above laws and constitutions. every good, sincere and ignorant catholic puts pope above king and president, as well as above the legally expressed will of a majority of his countrymen. every christian believes god to be the source of all authority. i believe that the authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed. man is the source of power, and to protect and increase human happiness should be the object of government. i think that religious prejudices are growing weaker because religious belief is growing weaker. and these prejudices --should men ever become really civilized--will finally fade away. i think that a presbyterian, to-day, has no more prejudice against an atheist than he has against a catholic. a catholic does not dislike an infidel any more than he does a presbyterian, and i believe, to-day, that most of the presbyterians would rather see and atheist president than a pronounced catholic. _question_. is agnosticism gaining ground in the united states? _answer_. of course, there are thousands and thousands of men who have now advanced intellectually to the point of perceiving the limit of human knowledge. in other words, at last they are beginning to know enough to know what can and cannot be known. sensible men know that nobody knows whether an infinite god exists or not. sensible men know that an infinite personality cannot, by human testimony, be established. sensible men are giving up trying to answer the questions of origin and destiny, and are paying more attention to what happens between these questions--that is to say, to this world. infidelity increases as knowledge increases, as fear dies, and as the brain develops. after all, it is a question of intelligence. only cunning performs a miracle, only ignorance believes it. _question_. do you think that evolution and revealed religion are compatible--that is to say, can a man be an evolutionist and a christian? _answer_. evolution and christianity may be compatible, provided you take the ground that christianity is only one of the links in the chain, one of the phases of civilization. but if you mean by christianity what is generally understood, of course that and evolution are absolutely incompatible. christianity pretends to be not only the truth, but, so far as religion is concerned, the whole truth. christianity pretends to give a history of religion and a prophecy of destiny. as a philosophy, it is an absolute failure. as a history, it is false. there is no possible way by which darwin and moses can be harmonized. there is an inexpressible conflict between christianity and science, and both cannot long inhabit the same brain. you cannot harmonize evolution and the atonement. the survival of the fittest does away with original sin. _question_. from your knowledge of the religious tendency in the united states, how long will orthodox religion be popular? _answer_. i do not think that orthodox religion is popular to-day. the ministers dare not preach the creed in all its naked deformity and horror. they are endeavoring with the vines of sentiment to cover up the caves and dens in which crawl the serpents of their creed. very few ministers care now to speak of eternal pain. they leave out the lake of fire and brimstone. they are not fond of putting in the lips of christ the loving words, "depart from me, ye cursed." the miracles are avoided. in short, what is known as orthodoxy is already unpopular. most ministers are endeavoring to harmonize what they are pleased to call science and christianity, and nothing is now so welcome to the average christian as some work tending to show that, after all, joshua was an astronomer. _question_. what section of the united states, east, west, north, or south, is the most advanced in liberal religious ideas? _answer_. that section of the country in which there is the most intelligence is the most liberal. that section of the country where there is the most ignorance is the most prejudiced. the least brain is the most orthodox. there possibly is no more progressive city in the world, no more liberal, than boston. chicago is full of liberal people. so is san francisco. the brain of new york is liberal. every town, every city, is liberal in the precise proportion that it is intelligent. _question_. will the religion of humanity be the religion of the future? _answer_. yes; it is the only religion now. all other is superstition. what they call religion rests upon a supposed relation between man and god. in what they call religion man is asked to do something for god. as god wants nothing, and can by no possibility accept anything, such a religion is simply superstition. humanity is the only possible religion. whoever imagines that he can do anything for god is mistaken. whoever imagines that he can add to his happiness in the next world by being useless in this, is also mistaken. and whoever thinks that any god cares how he cuts his hair or his clothes, or what he eats, or whether he fasts, or rings a bell, or puts holy water on his breast, or counts beads, or shuts his eyes and says words to the clouds, is laboring under a great mistake. _question_. a man in the swaim court martial case was excluded as a witness because he was an atheist. do you think the law in the next decade will permit the affirmative oath? _answer_. if belief affected your eyes, your ears, any of your senses, or your memory, then, of course, no man ought to be a witness who had not the proper belief. but unless it can be shown that atheism interferes with the sight, the hearing, or the memory, why should justice shut the door to truth? in most of the states of this union i could not give testimony. should a man be murdered before my eyes i could not tell a jury who did it. christianity endeavors to make an honest man an outlaw. christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in god. no lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed. _question_. do you think that bigotry would persecute now for religious opinion's sake, if it were not for the law and the press? _answer_. i think that the church would persecute to-day if it had the power, just as it persecuted in the past. we are indebted for nearly all our religious liberty to the hypocrisy of the church. the church does not believe. some in the church do, and if they had the power, they would torture and burn as of yore. give the presbyterian church the power, and it would not allow an infidel to live. give the methodist church the power and the result would be the same. give the catholic church the power--just the same. no church in the united states would be willing that any other church should have the power. the only men who are to be angels in the next world are the ones who cannot be trusted with human liberty in this; and the man who are destined to live forever in hell are the only gentlemen with whom human liberty is safe. why should christians refuse to persecute in this world, when their god is going to in the next? --_mail and express_, new york, january , . cleveland and his cabinet. _question_. what do you think of mr. cleveland's cabinet? _answer_. it is a very good cabinet. some objections have been made to mr. lamar, but i think he is one of the very best. he is a man of ability, of unquestioned integrity, and is well informed on national affairs. ever since he delivered his eulogy on the life and services of sumner, i have had great respect for mr. lamar. he is far beyond most of his constituents, and has done much to destroy the provincial prejudices of mississippi. he will without doubt make an excellent secretary of the interior. the south has no better representative man, and i believe his appointment will, in a little while, be satisfactory to the whole country. bayard stands high in his party, and will certainly do as well as his immediate predecessor. nothing could be better than the change in the department of justice. garland is an able lawyer, has been an influential senator and will, in my judgment, make an excellent attorney-general. the rest of the cabinet i know little about, but from what i hear i believe they are men of ability and that they will discharge their duties well. mr. vilas has a great reputation in wisconsin, and is one of the best and most forcible speakers in the country. _question_. will mr. cleveland, in your opinion, carry out the civil service reform he professes to favor? _answer_. i have no reason to suspect even that he will not. he has promised to execute the law, and the promise is in words that do not admit of two interpretations. of course he is sincere. he knows that this course will save him a world of trouble, and he knows that it makes no difference about the politics of a copyist. all the offices of importance will in all probability be filled by democrats. the president will not put himself in the power of his opponents. if he is to be held responsible for the administration he must be permitted to choose his own assistants. this is too plain to talk about. let us give mr. cleveland a fair show--and let us expect success instead of failure. i admit that many presidents have violated their promises. there seems to be something in the atmosphere of washington that breeds promise and prevents performance. i suppose it is some kind of political malarial microbe. i hope that some political pasteur will, one of these days, discover the real disease so that candidates can be vaccinated during the campaign. until them, presidential promises will be liable to a discount. _question_. is the republican party dead? _answer_. my belief is that the next president will be a republican, and that both houses will be republican in . mr. blaine was defeated by an accident--by the slip of another man's tongue. but it matters little what party is in power if the government is administered upon correct principles, and if the democracy adopt the views of the republicans and carry out republican measures, it may be that they can keep in power--otherwise--otherwise. if the democrats carry out real democratic measures, then their defeat is certain. _question_. do you think that the era of good feeling between the north and the south has set in with the appointment of ex-rebels to the cabinet? _answer_. the war is over. the south failed. the nation succeeded. we should stop talking about south and north. we are one people, and whether we agree or disagree one destiny awaits us. we cannot divide. we must live together. we must trust each other. confidence begets confidence. the whole country was responsible for slavery. slavery was rebellion. slavery is dead--so is rebellion. liberty has united the country and there is more real union, national sentiment to-day, north and south, than ever before. _question_. it is hinted that mr. tilden is really the power behind the throne. do you think so? _answer_. i guess nobody has taken the hint. of course mr. tilden has retired from politics. the probability is that many democrats ask his advice, and some rely on his judgment. he is regarded as a piece of ancient wisdom--a phenomenal persistence of the jeffersonian type--the connecting link with the framers, founders and fathers. the power behind the throne is the power that the present occupant supposes will determine who the next occupant shall be. _question_. with the introduction of the democracy into power, what radical changes will take place in the government, and what will be the result? _answer_. if the president carries out his inaugural promises there will be no radical changes, and if he does not there will be a very radical change at the next presidential election. the inaugural is a very good republican document. there is nothing in it calculated to excite alarm. there is no dangerous policy suggested--no conceited vagaries--nothing but a plain statement of the situation and the duty of the chief magistrate as understood by the president. i think that the inaugural surprised the democrats and the republicans both, and if the president carries out the program he has laid down he will surprise and pacify a large majority of the american people. --_mail and express_, new york, march , . religion, prohibition, and gen. grant. _question_. what do you think of prohibition, and what do you think of its success in this state? _answer_. few people understand the restraining influence of liberty. moderation walks hand in hand with freedom. i do not mean the freedom springing from the sudden rupture of restraint. that kind of freedom usually rushes to extremes. people must be educated to take care of themselves, and this education must commence in infancy. self-restraint is the only kind that can always be depended upon. of course intemperance is a great evil. it causes immense suffering--clothes wives and children in rags, and is accountable for many crimes, particularly those of violence. laws to be of value must be honestly enforced. laws that sleep had better be dead. laws to be enforced must be honestly approved of and believed in by a large majority of the people. unpopular laws make hypocrites, perjurers and official shirkers of duty. and if to the violation of such laws severe penalties attach, they are rarely enforced. laws that create artificial crimes are the hardest to carry into effect. you can never convince a majority of people that it is as bad to import goods without paying the legal duty as to commit larceny. neither can you convince a majority of people that it is a crime or sin, or even a mistake, to drink a glass of wine or beer. thousands and thousands of people in this state honestly believe that prohibition is an interference with their natural rights, and they feel justified in resorting to almost any means to defeat the law. in this way people become somewhat demoralized. it is unfortunate to pass laws that remain unenforced on account of their unpopularity. people who would on most subjects swear to the truth do not hesitate to testify falsely on a prohibition trial. in addition to this, every known device is resorted to, to sell in spite of the law, and when some want to sell and a great many want to buy, considerable business will be done, while there are fewer saloons and less liquor sold in them. the liquor is poorer and the price is higher. the consumer has to pay for the extra risk. more liquor finds its way to homes, more men buy by the bottle and gallon. in old times nearly everybody kept a little rum or whiskey on the sideboard. the great washingtonian temperance movement drove liquor out of the home and increased the taverns and saloons. now we are driving liquor back to the homes. in my opinion there is a vast difference between distilled spirits and the lighter drinks, such as wine and beer. wine is a fireside and whiskey a conflagration. these lighter drinks are not unhealthful and do not, as i believe, create a craving for stronger beverages. you will, i think, find it almost impossible to enforce the present law against wine and beer. i was told yesterday that there are some sixty places in cedar rapids where whiskey is sold. it takes about as much ceremony to get a drink as it does to join the masons, but they seem to like the ceremony. people seem to take delight in outwitting the state when it does not involve the commission of any natural offence, and when about to be caught, may not hesitate to swear falsely to the extent of "don't remember," or "can't say positively," or "can't swear whether it was whiskey or not." one great trouble in iowa is that the politicians, or many of them who openly advocate prohibition, are really opposed to it. they want to keep the german vote, and they do not want to lose native republicans. they feel a "divided duty" to ride both horses. this causes the contrast between their conversation and their speeches. a few years ago i took dinner with a gentleman who had been elected governor of one of our states on the prohibition ticket. we had four kinds of wine during the meal, and a pony of brandy at the end. prohibition will never be a success until it prohibits the prohibitionists. and yet i most sincerely hope and believe that the time will come when drunkenness shall have perished from the earth. let us cultivate the love of home. let husbands and wives and children be companions. let them seek amusements together. if it is a good place for father to go, it is a good place for mother and the children. i believe that a home can be made more attractive than a saloon. let the boys and girls amuse themselves at home--play games, study music, read interesting books, and let the parents be their playfellows. the best temperance lecture, in the fewest words, you will find in victor hugo's great novel "les miserables." the grave digger is asked to take a drink. he refuses and gives this reason: "the hunger of my family is the enemy of my thirst." _question_. many people wonder why you are out of politics. will you give your reasons? _answer_. a few years ago great questions had to be settled. the life of the nation was at stake. later the liberty of millions of slaves depended upon the action of the government. afterward reconstruction and the rights of citizens pressed themselves upon the people for solution. and last, the preservation of national honor and credit. these questions did not enter into the last campaign. they had all been settled, and properly settled, with the one exception of the duty of the nation to protect the colored citizens. the supreme court settled that, at least for a time, and settled it wrong. but the republican party submitted to the civil rights decision, and so, as between the great parties, that question did not arise. this left only two questions--protection and office. but as a matter of fact, all republicans were not for our present system of protection, and all democrats were not against it. on that question each party was and is divided. on the other question--office--both parties were and are in perfect harmony. nothing remains now for the democrats to do except to give a "working" definition of "offensive partisanship." _question_. do you think that the american people are seeking after truth, or do they want to be amused? _answer_. we have all kinds. thousands are earnestly seeking for the truth. they are looking over the old creeds, they are studying the bible for themselves, they have the candor born of courage, they are depending upon themselves instead of on the clergy. they have found out that the clergy do not know; that their sources of information are not reliable; that, like the politicians, many ministers preach one way and talk another. the doctrine of eternal pain has driven millions from the church. people with good hearts cannot get consolation out of that cruel lie. the ministers themselves are getting ashamed to call that doctrine "the tidings of great joy." the american people are a serious people. they want to know the truth. they fell that whatever the truth may be they have the courage to hear it. the american people also have a sense of humor. they like to see old absurdities punctured and solemn stupidity held up to laughter. they are, on the average, the most intelligent people on the earth. they can see the point. their wit is sharp, quick and logical. nothing amuses them more that to see the mask pulled from the face of sham. the average american is generous, intelligent, level-headed, manly, and good- natured. _question_. what, in your judgment, is the source of the greatest trouble among men? _answer_. superstition. that has caused more agony, more tears, persecution and real misery than all other causes combined. the other name for superstition is ignorance. when men learn that all sin is a mistake, that all dishonesty is a blunder, that even intelligent selfishness will protect the rights of others, there will be vastly more happiness in this world. shakespeare says that "there is no darkness but ignorance." sometime man will learn that when he steals from another, he robs himself--that the way to be happy is to make others so, and that it is far better to assist his fellow-man than to fast, say prayers, count beads or build temples to the unknown. some people tell us that selfishness is the only sin, but selfishness grows in the soil of ignorance. after all, education is the great lever, and the only one capable of raising mankind. people ignorant of their own rights are ignorant of the rights of others. every tyrant is the slave of ignorance. _question_. how soon do you think we would have the millennium if every person attended strictly to his own business? _answer_. now, if every person were intelligent enough to know his own business--to know just where his rights ended and the rights of others commenced, and then had the wisdom and honesty to act accordingly, we should have a very happy world. most people like to control the conduct of others. they love to write rules, and pass laws for the benefit of their neighbors, and the neighbors are pretty busy at the same business. people, as a rule, think that they know the business of other people better than they do their own. a man watching others play checkers or chess always thinks he sees better moves than the players make. when all people attend to their own business they will know that a part of their own business is to increase the happiness of others. _question_. what is causing the development of this country? _answer_. education, the free exchange of ideas, inventions by which the forces of nature become our servants, intellectual hospitality, a willingness to hear the other side, the richness of our soil, the extent of our territory, the diversity of climate and production, our system of government, the free discussion of political questions, our social freedom, and above all, the fact that labor is honorable. _question_. what is your opinion of the religious tendency of the people of this country? _answer_. using the word religion in its highest and best sense, the people are becoming more religious. we are far more religious --using the word in its best sense--than when we believed in human slavery, but we are not as orthodox as we were then. we have more principle and less piety. we care more for the right and less for the creed. the old orthodox dogmas are mouldy. you will find moss on their backs. they are only brought out when a new candidate for the ministry is to be examined. only a little while ago in new york a candidate for the presbyterian pulpit was examined and the following is a part of the examination: _question_. "do you believe in eternal punishment, as set forth in the confession of faith?" _answer_. (with some hesitation) "yes, i do." _question_. "have you preached on that subject lately?" _answer_. "no. i prepared a sermon on hell, in which i took the ground that the punishment of the wicked will be endless, and have it with me." _question_. "did you deliver it?" _answer_. "no. i thought that my congregation would not care to hear it. the doctrine is rather unpopular where i have been preaching, and i was afraid i might do harm, so i have not delivered it yet." _question_. "but you believe in eternal damnation, do you not?" _answer_. "o yes, with all my heart." he was admitted, and the admission proves the dishonesty of the examiners and the examined. the new version of the old and new testaments has done much to weaken confidence in the doctrine of inspiration. it has occurred to a good many that if god took the pains to inspire men to write the bible, he ought to have inspired others to translate it correctly. the general tendency today is toward science, toward naturalism, toward what is called infidelity, but is in fact fidelity. men are in a transition state, and the people, on the average, have more real good, sound sense to-day than ever before. the church is losing its power for evil. the old chains are wearing out, and new ones are not being made. the tendency is toward intellectual freedom, and that means the final destruction of the orthodox bastille. _question_. what is your opinion of general grant as he stands before the people to-day? _answer_. i have always regarded general grant as the greatest soldier this continent has produced. he is to-day the most distinguished son of the republic. the people have the greatest confidence in his ability, his patriotism and his integrity. the financial disaster impoverished general grant, but he did not stain the reputation of the grand soldier who led to many victories the greatest army that ever fought for the liberties of man. --_iowa state register_, may , . hell or sheol and other subjects. _question_. colonel, have you read the revised testament? _answer_. yes, but i don't believe the work has been fairly done. the clergy are not going to scrape the butter off their own bread. the clergy are offensive partisans, and those of each denomination will interpret the scriptures their way. no baptist minister would countenance a "revision" that favored sprinkling, and no catholic priest would admit that any version would be correct that destroyed the dogma of the "real presence." so i might go through all the denominations. _question_. why was the word sheol introduced in place of hell, and how do you like the substitute? _answer_. the civilized world has outgrown the vulgar and brutal hell of their fathers and founders of the churches. the clergy are ashamed to preach about sulphurous flames and undying worms. the imagination of the world has been developed, the heart has grown tender, and the old dogma of eternal pain shocks all civilized people. it is becoming disgraceful either to preach or believe in such a beastly lie. the clergy are beginning to think that it is hardly manly to frighten children with a detected falsehood. sheol is a great relief. it is not so hot as the old place. the nights are comfortable, and the society is quite refined. the worms are dead, and the air reasonably free from noxious vapors. it is a much worse word to hold a revival with, but much better for every day use. it will hardly take the place of the old word when people step on tacks, put up stoves, or sit on pins; but for use at church fairs and mite societies it will do about as well. we do not need revision; excision is what we want. the barbarism should be taken out of the bible. passages upholding polygamy, wars of extermination, slavery, and religious persecution should not be attributed to a perfect god. the good that is in the bible will be saved for man, and man will be saved from the evil that is in that book. why should we worship in god what we detest in man? _question_. do you think the use of the word sheol will make any difference to the preachers? _answer_. of course it will make no difference with talmage. he will make sheol just as hot and smoky and uncomfortable as hell, but the congregations will laugh instead of tremble. the old shudder has gone. beecher had demolished hell before sheol was adopted. according to his doctrine of evolution hell has been slowly growing cool. the cindered souls do not even perspire. sheol is nothing to mr. beecher but a new name for an old mistake. as for the effect it will have on heber newton, i cannot tell, neither can he, until he asks his bishop. there are people who believe in witches and madstones and fiat money, and centuries hence it may be that people will exist who will believe as firmly in hell as dr. shedd does now. _question_. what about beecher's sermons on "evolution"? _answer_. beecher's sermons on "evolution" will do good. millions of people believe that mr. beecher knows at least as much as the other preachers, and if he regards the atonement as a dogma with a mistake for a foundation, they may conclude that the whole system is a mistake. but whether mr. beecher is mistaken or not, people know that honesty is a good thing, that gratitude is a virtue, that industry supports the world, and that whatever they believe about religion they are bound by every conceivable obligation to be just and generous. mr. beecher can no more succeed in reconciling science and religion, than he could in convincing the world that triangles and circles are exactly the same. there is the same relation between science and religion that there is between astronomy and astrology, between alchemy and chemistry, between orthodoxy and common sense. _question_. have you read miss cleveland's book? she condemns george eliot's poetry on the ground that it has no faith in it, nothing beyond. do you imagine she would condemn burns or shelley for that reason? _answer_. i have not read miss cleveland's book; but, if the author condemns the poetry of george eliot, she has made a mistake. there is no poem in our language more beautiful than "the lovers," and none loftier or purer than "the choir invisible." there is no poetry in the "beyond." the poetry is here--here in this world, where love is in the heart. the poetry of the beyond is too far away, a little too general. shelley's "skylark" was in our sky, the daisy of burns grew on our ground, and between that lark and that daisy is room for all the real poetry of the earth. --_evening record_, boston, mass., . interviewing, politics and spiritualism. _question_. what is your opinion of the peculiar institution of american journalism known as interviewing? _answer_. if the interviewers are fair, if they know how to ask questions of a public nature, if they remember what is said, or write it at the time, and if the interviewed knows enough to answer questions in a way to amuse or instruct the public, then interviewing is a blessing. but if the representative of the press asks questions, either impudent or unimportant, and the answers are like the questions, then the institution is a failure. when the journalist fails to see the man he wishes to interview, or when the man refuses to be interviewed, and thereupon the aforesaid journalist writes up an interview, doing the talking for both sides, the institution is a success. such interviews are always interesting, and, as a rule, the questions are to the point and the answers perfectly responsive. there is probably a little too much interviewing, and to many persons are asked questions upon subjects about which they know nothing. mr. smith makes some money in stocks or pork, visits london, and remains in that city for several weeks. on his return he is interviewd as to the institutions, laws and customs of the british empire. of course such an interview is exceedingly instructive. lord affanaff lands at the dock in north river, is driven to a hotel in a closed carriage, is interviewed a few minutes after by a representative of the _herald_ as to his view of the great republic based upon what he has seen. such an interview is also instructive. interviews with candidates as to their chances of election is another favorite way of finding out their honest opinion, but people who rely on those interviews generally lose their bets. the most interesting interviews are generally denied. i have been expecting to see an interview with the rev. dr. leonard on the medicinal properties of champagne and toast, or the relation between old ale and modern theology, and as to whether prohibition prohibits the prohibitionists. _question_. have you ever been misrepresented in interviews? _answer_. several times. as a general rule, the clergy have selected these misrepresentations when answering me. i never blamed them, because it is much easier to answer something i did not say. most reporters try to give my real words, but it is difficult to remember. they try to give the substance, and in that way change or destroy the sense. you remember the frenchman who translated shakespeare's great line in macbeth--"out, brief candle!"--into "short candle, go out!" another man, trying to give the last words of webster--"i still live"--said "i aint dead yit." so that when they try to do their best they often make mistakes. now and then interviews appear not one word of which i ever said, and sometimes when i really had an interview, another one has appeared. but generally the reporters treat me well, and most of them succeed in telling about what i said. personally i have no cause for complaint. _question_. what do you think of the administration of president cleveland? _answer_. i know but very little about it. i suppose that he is doing the best he can. he appears to be carrying out in good faith the principles laid down in the platform on which he was elected. he is having a hard road to travel. to satisfy an old democrat and a new mugwump is a difficult job. cleveland appears to be the owner of himself--appears to be a man of great firmness and force of character. the best thing that i have heard about him is that he went fishing on sunday. we have had so much mock morality, dude deportment and hypocritical respectability in public office, that a man with courage enough to enjoy himself on sunday is a refreshing and healthy example. all things considered i do not see but that cleveland is doing well enough. the attitude of the administration toward the colored people is manly and fair so far as i can see. _question_. are you still a republican in political belief? _answer_. i believe that this is a nation. i believe in the equality of all men before the law, irrespective of race, religion or color. i believe that there should be a dollar's worth of silver in a silver dollar. i believe in a free ballot and a fair count. i believe in protecting those industries, and those only, that need protection. i believe in unrestricted coinage of gold and silver. i believe in the rights of the state, the rights of the citizen, and the sovereignty of the nation. i believe in good times, good health, good crops, good prices, good wages, good food, good clothes and in the absolute and unqualified liberty of thought. if such belief makes a republican, than that is what i am. _question_. do you approve of john sherman's policy in the present campaign with reference to the bloody shirt, which reports of his speeches show that he is waving? _answer_. i have not read senator sherman's speech. it seems to me that there is a better feeling between the north and south than ever before--better than at any time since the revolutionary war. i believe in cultivating that feeling, and in doing and saying what we can to contribute to its growth. we have hated long enough and fought enough. the colored people never have been well treated but they are being better treated now than ever before. it takes a long time to do away with prejudices that were based upon religion and rascality--that is to say, inspiration and interest. we must remember that slavery was the crime of the whole country. now, if senator sherman has made a speech calculated to excite the hatreds and prejudices of the north and south, i think that he has made a mistake. i do not say that he has made such a speech, because i have not read it. the war is over--it ended at appomattox. let us hope that the bitterness born of the conflict died out forever at riverside. the people are tired almost to death of the old speeches. they have been worn out and patched, and even the patches are threadbare. the supreme court decided the civil rights bill to be unconstitutional, and the republican party submitted. i regarded the decision as monstrous, but the republican party when in power said nothing and did nothing. i most sincerely hope that the democratic party will protect the colored people at least as well as we did when we were in power. but i am out of politics and intend to keep politics out of me. _question_. we have been having the periodical revival of interest in spiritualism. what do you think of "spiritualism," as it is popularly termed? _answer_. i do not believe in the supernatural. one who does not believe in gods would hardly believe in ghosts. i am not a believer in any of the "wonders" and "miracles" whether ancient or modern. there may be spirits, but i do not believe there are. they may communicate with some people, but thus far they have been successful in avoiding me. of course, i know nothing for certain on the subject. i know a great many excellent people who are thoroughly convinced of the truth of spiritualism. christians laugh at the "miracles" to-day, attested by folks they know, but believe the miracles of long ago, attested by folks that they did not know. this is one of the contradictions in human nature. most people are willing to believe that wonderful things happened long ago and will happen again in the far future; with them the present is the only time in which nature behaves herself with becoming sobriety. in old times nature did all kinds of juggling tricks, and after a long while will do some more, but now she is attending strictly to business, depending upon cause and effect. _question_. who, in your opinion, is the greatest leader of the "opposition" yclept the christian religion? _answer_. i suppose that mr. beecher is the greatest man in the pulpit, but he thinks more of darwin than he does of david and has an idea that the old testament is just a little too old. he has put evolution in the place of the atonement--has thrown away the garden of eden, snake, apples and all, and is endeavoring to save enough of the orthodox wreck to make a raft. i know of no other genius in the pulpit. there are plenty of theological doctors and bishops and all kinds of titled humility in the sacred profession, but men of genius are scarce. all the ministers, except messrs. moody and jones, are busy explaining away the contradiction between inspiration and demonstration. _question_. what books would you recommend for the perusal of a young man of limited time and culture with reference to helping him in the development of intellect and good character? _answer_. the works of darwin, ernst haeckel, draper's "intellectual development of europe," buckle's "history of civilization in england," lecky's "history of european morals," voltaire's "philosophical dictionary," büchner's "force and matter," "the history of the christian religion" by waite; paine's "age of reason," d'holbach's "system of nature," and, above all, shakespeare. do not forget burns, shelley, dickens and hugo. _question_. will you lecture the coming winter? _answer_. yes, about the same as usual. woe is me if i preach not my gospel. _question_. have you been invited to lecture in europe? if so do you intend to accept the "call"? _answer_. yes, often. the probability is that i shall go to england and australia. i have not only had invitations but most excellent offers from both countries. there is, however, plenty to do here. this is the best country in the world and our people are eager to hear the other side. the old kind of preaching is getting superannuated. it lags superfluous in the pulpit. our people are outgrowing the cruelties and absurdities of the ancient jews. the idea of hell has become shocking and vulgar. eternal punishment is eternal injustice. it is infinitely infamous. most ministers are ashamed to preach the doctrine, and the congregations are ashamed to hear it preached. it is the essence of savagery. --_plain dealer_, cincinnati, ohio, september , . my belief. _question_. it is said that in the past four or five years you have changed or modified your views upon the subject of religion; is this so? _answer_. it is not so. the only change, if that can be called a change, is, that i am more perfectly satisfied that i am right-- satisfied that what is called orthodox religion is a simple fabrication of mistaken men; satisfied that there is no such thing as an inspired book and never will be; satisfied that a miracle never was and never will be performed; satisfied that no human being knows whether there is a god or not, whether there is another life or not; satisfied that the scheme of atonement is a mistake, that the innocent cannot, by suffering for the guilty, atone for the guilt; satisfied that the doctrine that salvation depends on belief, is cruel and absurd; satisfied that the doctrine of eternal punishment is infamously false; satisfied that superstition is of no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and real religion. no, i have not modified my views. i detect new absurdities every day in the popular belief. every day the whole thing becomes more and more absurd. of course there are hundreds and thousands of most excellent people who believe in orthodox religion; people for whose good qualities i have the greatest respect; people who have good ideas on most other subjects; good citizens, good fathers, husbands, wives and children--good in spite of their religion. i do not attack people. i attack the mistakes of people. orthodoxy is getting weaker every day. _question_. do you believe in the existence of a supreme being? _answer_. i do not believe in any supreme personality or in any supreme being who made the universe and governs nature. i do not say that there is no such being--all i say is that i do not believe that such a being exists. i know nothing on the subject, except that i know that i do not know and that nobody else knows. but if there is such a being, he certainly never wrote the old testament. you will understand my position. i do not say that a supreme being does not exist, but i do say that i do not believe such a being exists. the universe--embracing all that is--all atoms, all stars, each grain of sand and all the constellations, each thought and dream of animal and man, all matter and all force, all doubt and all belief, all virtue and all crime, all joy and all pain, all growth and all decay--is all there is. it does not act because it is moved from without. it acts from within. it is actor and subject, means and end. it is infinite; the infinite could not have been created. it is indestructible and that which cannot be destroyed was not created. i am a pantheist. _question_. don't you think the belief of the agnostic is more satisfactory to the believer than that of the atheist? _answer_. there is no difference. the agnostic is an atheist. the atheist is an agnostic. the agnostic says: "i do not know, but i do not believe there is any god." the atheist says the same. the orthodox christian says he knows there is a god; but we know that he does not know. he simply believes. he cannot know. the atheist cannot know that god does not exist. _question_. haven't you just the faintest glimmer of a hope that in some future state you will meet and be reunited to those who are dear to you in this? _answer_. i have no particular desire to be destroyed. i am willing to go to heaven if there be such a place, and enjoy myself for ever and ever. it would give me infinite satisfaction to know that all mankind are to be happy forever. infidels love their wives and children as well as christians do theirs. i have never said a word against heaven--never said a word against the idea of immortality. on the contrary, i have said all i could truthfully say in favor of the idea that we shall live again. i most sincerely hope that there is another world, better than this, where all the broken ties of love will be united. it is the other place i have been fighting. better that all of us should sleep the sleep of death forever than that some should suffer pain forever. if in order to have a heaven there must be a hell, then i say away with them both. my doctrine puts the bow of hope over every grave; my doctrine takes from every mother's heart the fear of hell. no good man would enjoy himself in heaven with his friends in hell. no good god could enjoy himself in heaven with millions of his poor, helpless mistakes in hell. the orthodox idea of heaven--with god an eternal inquisitor, a few heartless angels and some redeemed orthodox, all enjoying themselves, while the vast multitude will weep in the rayless gloom of god's eternal dungeon--is not calculated to make man good or happy. i am doing what i can to civilize the churches, humanize the preachers and get the fear of hell out of the human heart. in this business i am meeting with great success. --_philadelphia times_, september , . some live topics. _question_. shall you attend the albany freethought convention? _answer_. i have agreed to be present not only, but to address the convention, on sunday, the th of september. i am greatly gratified to know that the interest in the question of intellectual liberty is growing from year to year. everywhere i go it seems to be the topic of conversation. no matter upon what subject people begin to talk, in a little while the discussion takes a religious turn, and people who a few moments before had not the slightest thought of saying a word about the churches, or about the bible, are giving their opinions in full. i hear discussions of this kind in all the public conveyances, at the hotels, on the piazzas at the seaside--and they are not discussions in which i take any part, because i rarely say anything upon these questions except in public, unless i am directly addressed. there is a general feeling that the church has ruled the world long enough. people are beginning to see that no amount of eloquence, or faith, or erudition, or authority, can make the records of barbarism satisfactory to the heart and brain of this century. they have also found that a falsehood in hebrew in no more credible than in plain english. people at last are beginning to be satisfied that cruel laws were never good laws, no matter whether inspired or uninspired. the christian religion, like every other religion depending upon inspired writings, is wrecked upon the facts of nature. so long as inspired writers confined themselves to the supernatural world; so long as they talked about angels and gods and heavens and hells; so long as they described only things that man has never seen, and never will see, they were safe, not from contradiction, but from demonstration. but these writings had to have a foundation, even for their falsehoods, and that foundation was in nature. the foundation had to be something about which somebody knew something, or supposed they knew something. they told something about this world that agreed with the then general opinion. had these inspired writers told the truth about nature-- had they said that the world revolved on its axis, and made a circuit about the sun--they could have gained no credence for their statements about other worlds. they were forced to agree with their contemporaries about this world, and there is where they made the fundamental mistake. having grown in knowledge, the world has discovered that these inspired men knew nothing about this earth; that the inspired books are filled with mistakes--not only mistakes that we can contradict, but mistakes that we can demonstrate to be mistakes. had they told the truth in their day, about this earth, they would not have been believed about other worlds, because their contemporaries would have used their own knowledge about this world to test the knowledge of these inspired men. we pursue the same course; and what we know about this world we use as the standard, and by that standard we have found that the inspired men knew nothing about nature as it is. finding that they were mistaken about this world, we have no confidence in what they have said about another. every religion has had its philosophy about this world, and every one has been mistaken. as education becomes general, as scientific modes are adopted, this will become clearer and clearer, until "ignorant as inspiration" will be a comparison. _question_. have you seen the memorial to the new york legislature, to be presented this winter, asking for the repeal of such laws as practically unite church and state? _answer_. i have seen a memorial asking that church property be taxed like other property; that no more money should be appropriated from the public treasury for the support of institutions managed by and in the interest of sectarian denominations; for the repeal of all laws compelling the observance of sunday as a religious day. such memorials ought to be addressed to the legislatures of all the states. the money of the public should only be used for the benefit of the public. public money should not be used for what a few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public. personally, i think it would be for the benefit of the public to have infidel or scientific--which is the same thing--lectures delivered in every town, in every state, on every sunday; but knowing that a great many men disagree with me on this point, i do not claim that such lectures ought to be paid for with public money. the methodist church ought not to be sustained by taxation, nor the catholic, nor any other church. to relieve their property from taxation is to appropriate money, to the extent of that tax, for the support of that church. whenever a burden is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed over the rest of the property of the state, and to release one kind of property is to increase the tax on all other kinds. there was a time when people really supposed the churches were saving souls from the eternal wrath of a god of infinite love. being engaged in such a philanthropic work, and at the time nobody having the courage to deny it--the church being all-powerful--all other property was taxed to support the church; but now the more civilized part of the community, being satisfied that a god of infinite love will not be eternally unjust, feel as though the church should support herself. to exempt the church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest's salary. the catholic now objects to being taxed to support a school in which his religion is not taught. he is not satisfied with the school that says nothing on the subject of religion. he insists that it is an outrage to tax him to support a school where the teacher simply teaches what he knows. and yet this same catholic wants his church exempted from taxation, and the tax of an atheist or of a jew increased, when he teaches in his untaxed church that the atheist and jew will both be eternally damned! is it possible for impudence to go further? i insist that no religion should be taught in any school supported by public money; and by religion i mean superstition. only that should be taught in a school that somebody can learn and that somebody can know. in my judgment, every church should be taxed precisely the same as other property. the church may claim that it is one of the instruments of civilization and therefore should be exempt. if you exempt that which is useful, you exempt every trade and every profession. in my judgment, theatres have done more to civilize mankind than churches; that is to say, theatres have done something to civilize mankind--churches nothing. the effect of all superstition has been to render men barbarous. i do not believe in the civilizing effects of falsehood. there was a time when ministers were supposed to be in the employ of god, and it was thought that god selected them with great care --that their profession had something sacred about it. these ideas are no longer entertained by sensible people. ministers should be paid like other professional men, and those who like their preaching should pay for the preach. they should depend, as actors do, upon their popularity, upon the amount of sense, or nonsense, that they have for sale. they should depend upon the market like other people, and if people do not want to hear sermons badly enough to build churches and pay for them, and pay the taxes on them, and hire the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other use. the pulpit should no longer be a pauper. i do not believe in carrying on any business with the contribution box. all the sectarian institutions ought to support themselves. these should be no methodist or catholic or presbyterian hospitals or orphan asylums. all these should be supported by the state. there is no such thing as catholic charity, or methodist charity. charity belongs to humanity, not to any particular form of faith or religion. you will find as charitable people who never heard of religion, as you can find in the church. the state should provide for those who ought to be provided for. a few methodists beg of everybody they meet--send women with subscription papers, asking money from all classes of people, and nearly everybody gives something from politeness, or to keep from being annoyed; and when the institution is finished, it is pointed at as the result of methodism. probably a majority of the people in this country suppose that there was no charity in the world until the christian religion was founded. great men have repeated this falsehood, until ignorance and thoughtlessness believe it. there were orphan asylums in china, in india, and in egypt thousands of years before christ was born; and there certainly never was a time in the history of the whole world when there was less charity in europe than during the centuries when the church of christ had absolute power. there were hundreds of mohammedan asylums before christianity had built ten in the entire world. all institutions for the care of unfortunate people should be secular--should be supported by the state. the money for the purpose should be raised by taxation, to the end that the burden may be borne by those able to bear it. as it is now, most of the money is paid, not by the rich, but by the generous, and those most able to help their needy fellow citizens are the very ones who do nothing. if the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, and these institutions will no longer be supported by the generous and emotional, and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity. now, as to the sunday laws, we know that they are only spasmodically enforced. now and then a few people are arrested for selling papers or cigars. some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman because he has been caught shaving a christian, sunday morning. now and then some poor fellow with a hack, trying to make a dollar or two to feed his horses, or to take care of his wife and children, is arrested as though he were a murderer. but in a few days the public are inconvenienced to that degree that the arrests stop and business goes on in its accustomed channels, sunday and all. now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken. the ministers have done their best to prevent all recreation on the sabbath. they would like to stop all the boats on the hudson, and on the sea-- stop all the excursion trains. they would like to compel every human being that lives in the city of new york to remain within its limits twenty-four hours every sunday. they hate the parks; they hate music; they hate anything that keeps a man away from church. most of the churches are empty during the summer, and now most of the ministers leave themselves, and give over the entire city to the devil and his emissaries. and yet if the ministers had their way, there would be no form of human enjoyment except prayer, signing subscription papers, putting money in contribution boxes, listening to sermons, reading the cheerful histories of the old testament, imagining the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. the church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of prejudice against croquet. _question_. do you think that the orthodox church gets its ideas of the sabbath from the teachings of christ? _answer_. i do not hold christ responsible for these idiotic ideas concerning the sabbath. he regarded the sabbath as something made for man--which was a very sensible view. the holiest day is the happiest day. the most sacred day is the one in which have been done the most good deeds. there are two reasons given in the bible for keeping the sabbath. one is that god made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. now that all the ministers admit that he did not make the world in six days, but that he made it in six "periods," this reason is no longer applicable. the other reason is that he brought the jews out of egypt with a "mighty hand." this may be a very good reason still for the observance of the sabbath by the jews, but the real sabbath, that is to say, the day to be commemorated, is our saturday, and why should we commemorate the wrong day? that disposes of the second reason. nothing can be more inconsistent than the theories and practice of the churches about the sabbath. the cars run sundays, and out of the profits hundreds of ministers are supported. the great iron and steel works fill with smoke and fire the sabbath air, and the proprietors divide the profits with the churches. the printers of the city are busy sunday afternoons and evenings, and the presses during the nights, so that the sermons of sunday can reach the heathen on monday. the servants of the rich are denied the privileges of the sanctuary. the coachman sits on the box out-doors, while his employer kneels in church preparing himself for the heavenly chariot. the iceman goes about on the holy day, keeping believers cool, they knowing at the same time that he is making it hot for himself in the world to come. christians cross the atlantic, knowing that the ship will pursue its way on the sabbath. they write letters to their friends knowing that they will be carried in violation of jehovah's law, by wicked men. yet they hate to see a pale-faced sewing girl enjoying a few hours by the sea; a poor mechanic walking in the fields; or a tired mother watching her children playing on the grass. nothing ever was, nothing ever will be, more utterly absurd and disgusting than a puritan sunday. nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict observance of the sabbath. it fills the house with hypocrisy and the meanest kind of petty tyranny. the parents look sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. they are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only because they are so stupid. _question_. what have you to say about the growth of catholicism, the activity of the salvation army, and the success of revivalists like the rev. samuel jones? is christianity really gaining a strong hold on the masses? _answer_. catholicism is growing in this country, and it is the only country on earth in which it is growing. its growth here depends entirely upon immigration, not upon intellectual conquest. catholic emigrants who leave their homes in the old world because they have never had any liberty, and who are catholics for the same reason, add to the number of catholics here, but their children's children will not be catholics. their children will not be very good catholics, and even these immigrants themselves, in a few years, will not grovel quite so low in the presence of a priest. the catholic church is gaining no ground in catholic countries. the salvation army is the result of two things--the general belief in what are known as the fundamentals of christianity, and the heartlessness of the church. the church in england--that is to say, the church of england--having succeeded--that is to say, being supported by general taxation--that is to say, being a successful, well-fed parasite--naturally neglected those who did not in any way contribute to its support. it became aristocratic. splendid churches were built; younger sons with good voices were put in the pulpits; the pulpit became the asylum for aristocratic mediocrity, and in this way the church of england lost interest in the masses and the masses lost interest in the church of england. the neglected poor, who really had some belief in religion, and who had not been absolutely petrified by form and patronage, were ready for the salvation army. they were not at home in the church. they could not pay. they preferred the freedom of the street. they preferred to attend a church where rags were no objection. had the church loved and labored with the poor the salvation army never would have existed. these people are simply giving their idea of christianity, and in their way endeavoring to do what they consider good. i don't suppose the salvation army will accomplish much. to improve mankind you must change conditions. it is not enough to work simply upon the emotional nature. the surroundings must be such as naturally produce virtuous actions. if we are to believe recent reports from london, the church of england, even with the assistance of the salvation army, has accomplished but little. it would be hard to find any country with less morality. you would search long in the jungles of africa to find greater depravity. i account for revivalists like the rev. samuel jones in the same way. there is in every community an ignorant class--what you might call a literal class--who believe in the real blood atonement; who believe in heaven and hell, and harps and gridirons; who have never had their faith weakened by reading commentators or books harmonizing science and religion. they love to hear the good old doctrine; they want hell described; they want it described so that they can hear the moans and shrieks; they want heaven described; they want to see god on a throne, and they want to feel that they are finally to have the pleasure of looking over the battlements of heaven and seeing all their enemies among the damned. the rev. mr. munger has suddenly become a revivalist. according to the papers he is sought for in every direction. his popularity seems to rest upon the fact that he brutally beat a girl twelve years old because she did not say her prayers to suit him. muscular christianity is what the ignorant people want. i regard all these efforts--including those made by mr. moody and mr. hammond--as evidence that christianity, as an intellectual factor, has almost spent its force. it no longer governs the intellectual world. _question_. are not the catholics the least progressive? and are they not, in spite of their professions to the contrary, enemies to republican liberty? _answer_. every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous. a church that puts a book above the laws and constitution of its country, that puts a book above the welfare of mankind, is dangerous to human liberty. every church that puts itself above the legally expressed will of the people is dangerous. every church that holds itself under greater obligation to a pope than to a people is dangerous to human liberty. every church that puts religion above humanity--above the well-being of man in this world--is dangerous. the catholic church may be more dangerous, not because its doctrines are more dangerous, but because, on the average, its members more sincerely believe its doctrines, and because that church can be hurled as a solid body in any given direction. for these reasons it is more dangerous than other churches; but the doctrines are no more dangerous than those of the protestant churches. the man who would sacrifice the well- being of man to please an imaginary phantom that he calls god, is also dangerous. the only safe standard is the well-being of man in this world. whenever this world is sacrificed for the sake of another, a mistake has been made. the only god that man can know is the aggregate of all beings capable of suffering and of joy within the reach of his influence. to increase the happiness of such beings is to worship the only god that man can know. _question_. what have you to say to the assertion of dr. deems that there were never so many christians as now? _answer_. i suppose that the population of the earth is greater now than at any other time within the historic period. this being so, there may be more christians, so-called, in this world than there were a hundred years ago. of course, the reverend doctor, in making up his aggregate of christians, counts all kinds and sects--unitarians, universalists, and all the other "ans" and "ists" and "ics" and "ites" and "ers." but dr. deems must admit that only a few years ago most of the persons he now calls christians would have been burnt as heretics and infidels. let us compare the average new york christian with the christian of two hundred years ago. it is probably safe to say that there is not now in the city of new york a genuine presbyterian outside of an insane asylum. probably no one could be found who will to-day admit that he believes absolutely in the presbyterian confession of faith. there is probably not an episcopalian who believes in the thirty-nine articles. probably there is not an intelligent minister in the city of new york, outside of the catholic church, who believes that everything in the bible is true. probably no clergyman, of any standing, would be willing to take the ground that everything in the old testament--leaving out the question of inspiration--is actually true. very few ministers now preach the doctrine of eternal punishment. most of them would be ashamed to utter that brutal falsehood. a large majority of gentlemen who attend church take the liberty of disagreeing with the preacher. they would have been very poor christians two hundred years ago. a majority of the ministers take the liberty of disagreeing, in many things, with their presbyteries and synods. they would have been very poor preachers two hundred years ago. dr. deems forgets that most christians are only nominally so. very few believe their creeds. very few even try to live in accordance with what they call christian doctrines. nobody loves his enemies. no christian when smitten on one cheek turns the other. most christians do take a little thought for the morrow. they do not depend entirely upon the providence of god. most christians now have greater confidence in the average life-insurance company than in god--feel easier when dying to know that they have a policy, through which they expect the widow will receive ten thousand dollars, than when thinking of all the scripture promises. even church-members do not trust in god to protect their own property. they insult heaven by putting lightning rods on their temples. they insure the churches against the act of god. the experience of man has shown the wisdom of relying on something that we know something about, instead of upon the shadowy supernatural. the poor wretches to-day in spain, depending upon their priests, die like poisoned flies; die with prayers between their pallid lips; die in their filth and faith. _question_. what have you to say on the mormon question? _answer_. the institution of polygamy is infamous and disgusting beyond expression. it destroys what we call, and all civilized people call, "the family." it pollutes the fireside, and, above all, as burns would say, "petrifies the feeling." it is, however, one of the institutions of jehovah. it is protected by the bible. it has inspiration on its side. sinai, with its barren, granite peaks, is a perpetual witness in its favor. the beloved of god practiced it, and, according to the sacred word, the wisest man had, i believe, about seven hundred wives. this man received his wisdom directly from god. it is hard for the average bible worshiper to attack this institution without casting a certain stain upon his own book. only a few years ago slavery was upheld by the same bible. slavery having been abolished, the passages in the inspired volume upholding it have been mostly forgotten, but polygamy lives, and the polygamists, with great volubility, repeat the passages in their favor. we send our missionaries to utah, with their bibles, to convert the mormons. the mormons show, by these very bibles, that god is on their side. nothing remain now for the missionaries except to get back their bibles and come home. the preachers do not appeal to the bible for the purpose of putting down mormonism. they say: "send the army." if the people of this country could only be honest; if they would only admit that the old testament is but the record of a barbarous people; if the samson of the nineteenth century would not allow its limbs to be bound by the delilah of superstition, it could with one blow destroy this monster. what shall we say of the moral force of christianity, when it utterly fails in the presence of mormonism? what shall we say of a bible that we dare not read to a mormon as an argument against legalized lust, or as an argument against illegal lust? i am opposed to polygamy. i want it exterminated by law; but i hate to see the exterminators insist that god, only a few thousand years ago, was as bad as the mormons are to-day. in my judgment, such a god ought to be exterminated. _question_. what do you think of men like the rev. henry ward beecher and the rev. r. heber newton? do they deserve any credit for the course they have taken? _answer_. mr. beecher is evidently endeavoring to shore up the walls of the falling temple. he sees the cracks; he knows that the building is out of plumb; he feels that the foundation is insecure. lies can take the place of stones only so long as they are thoroughly believed. mr. beecher is trying to do something to harmonize superstition and science. he is reading between the lines. he has discovered that darwin is only a later saint paul, or that saint paul was the original darwin. he is endeavoring to make the new testament a scientific text-book. of course he will fail. but his intentions are good. thousands of people will read the new testament with more freedom than heretofore. they will look for new meanings; and he who looks for new meanings will not be satisfied with the old ones. mr. beecher, instead of strengthening the walls, will make them weaker. there is no harmony between religion and science. when science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "let us be friends." it reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: "let us agree not to step on each other's feet." mr. beecher, having done away with hell, substitutes annihilation. his doctrine at present is that only a fortunate few are immortal, and that the great mass return to dreamless dust. this, of course, is far better than hell, and is a great improvement on the orthodox view. mr. beecher cannot believe that god would make such a mistake as to make men doomed to suffer eternal pain. why, i ask, should god give life to men whom he knows are unworthy of life? why should he annihilate his mistakes? why should he make mistakes that need annihilation? it can hardly be said that mr. beecher's idea is a new one. it was taught, with an addition, thousands of years ago, in india, and the addition almost answers my objection. the old doctrine was that only the soul that bears fruit, only the soul that bursts into blossom, will at the death of the body rejoin the infinite, and that all other souls--souls not having blossomed--will go back into low forms and make the journey up to man once more, and should they then blossom and bear fruit, will be held worthy to join the infinite, but should they again fail, they again go back; and this process is repeated until they do blossom, and in this way all souls at last become perfect. i suggest that mr. beecher make at least this addition to his doctrine. but allow me to say that, in my judgment, mr. beecher is doing great good. he may not convince many people that he is right, but he will certainly convince a great many people that christianity is wrong. _question_. in what estimation do you hold charles watts and samuel putnam, and what do you think of their labors in the cause of freethought? _answer_. mr. watts is an extremely logical man, with a direct and straightforward manner and mind. he has paid great attention to what is called "secularism." he thoroughly understands organization, and he is undoubtedly one of the strongest debaters in the field. he has had great experience. he has demolished more divines than any man of my acquaintance. i have read several of his debates. in discussion he is quick, pertinent, logical, and, above all, good natured. there is not in all he says a touch of malice. he can afford to be generous to his antagonists, because he is always the victor, and is always sure of the victory. last winter wherever i went, i heard the most favorable accounts of mr. watts. all who heard him were delighted. mr. putnam is one of the most thorough believers in intellectual liberty in the world. he believes with all his heart, is full of enthusiasm, ready to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship. had he lived a few years ago, he would have been a martyr. he has written some of the most stirring appeals to the liberals of this country that i have ever read. he believes that freethought has a future; that the time is coming when the superstitions of the world will either be forgotten, or remembered--some of them with smiles--most of them with tears. mr. putnam, although endowed with a poetic nature, with poetic insight, clings to the known, builds upon the experience of man, and believes in fancies only when they are used as the wings of a fact. i have never met a man who appeared to be more thoroughly devoted to the great cause of mental freedom. i have read his books with great interest, and find in them many pages filled with philosophy and pathos. i have met him often and i never heard him utter a harsh word about any human being. his good nature is as unfailing as the air. his abilities are of the highest order. it is a positive pleasure to meet him. he is so enthusiastic, so unselfish, so natural, so appreciative of others, so thoughtful for the cause, and so careless of himself, that he compels the admiration of every one who really loves the just and true. --_the truth seeker_, new york, september , . the president and senate. _question_. what have you to say with reference to the respective attitudes of the president and senate? _answer_. i don't think there is any doubt as to the right of the senate to call on the president for information. of course that means for what information he has. when a duty devolves upon two persons, one of them has no right to withhold any facts calculated to throw any light on the question that both are to decide. the president cannot appoint any officer who has to be confirmed by the senate; he can simply nominate. the senate cannot even suggest a name; it can only pass upon the person nominated. if it is called upon for counsel and advice, how can it give advice without knowing the facts and circumstances? the president must have a reason for wishing to make a change. he should give that reason to the senate without waiting to be asked. he has assured the country that he is a civil service reformer; that no man is to be turned out because he is a republican, and no man appointed because he is a democrat. now, the senate has given the president an opportunity to prove that he has acted as he has talked. if the president feels that he is bound to carry out the civil-service law, ought not the senate to feel in the same way? is it not the duty of the senate to see to it that the president does not, with its advice and consent, violate the civil service law? is the consent of the senate a mere matter of form? in these appointments the president is not independent of or above the senate; they are equal, and each has the right to be "honor bright" with the other, at least. as long as this foolish law is unrepealed it must be carried out. neither party is in favor of civil service reform, and never was. the republican party did not carry it out, and did not intend to. the president has the right to nominate. under the law as it is now, when the president wants to appoint a clerk, or when one of his secretaries wants one, four names are sent, and from these four names a choice has to be made. this is clearly an invasion of the rights of the executive. if they have the right to compel the president to choose from four, why not from three, or two? why not name the one, and have done with it? the law is worse than unconstitutional--it is absurd. but in this contest the senate, in my judgment, is right. in my opinion, by the time cleveland goes out most of the offices will be filled with democrats. if the republicans succeed next time, i know, and everybody knows, that they will never rest easy until they get the democrats out. they will shout "offensive partisanship." the truth is, the theory is wrong. every citizen should take an interest in politics. a good man should not agree to keep silent just for the sake of an office. a man owes his best thoughts to his country. if he ought to defend his country in time of war, and under certain circumstances give his life for it, can we say that in time of peace he is under no obligation to discharge what he believes to be a duty, if he happens to hold an office? must he sell his birthright for the sake of being a doorkeeper? the whole doctrine is absurd and never will be carried out. _question_. what do you think as to the presidential race? _answer_. that is a good way off. i think the people can hardly be roused to enthusiasm by the old names. our party must take another step forward. we cannot live on what we have done; we must seek power for the sake, not of power, but for the accomplishment of a purpose. we must reform the tariff. we must settle the question of silver. we must have sense enough to know what the country needs, and courage enough to tell it. by reforming the tariff, i mean protect that and that only that needs protection-- laws for the country and not for the few. we want honest money; we want a dollar's worth of gold in a silver dollar, and a dollar's worth of silver in a gold dollar. we want to make them of equal value. bi-metallism does not mean that eighty cents' worth of silver is worth one hundred in gold. the republican party must get back its conscience and be guided by it in deciding the questions that arise. great questions are pressing for solution. thousands of working people are in want. business is depressed. the future is filled with clouds. what does the republican party propose? must we wait for mobs to inaugurate reform? must we depend on police or statesmen? should we wait and crush by brute force or should we prevent? the toilers demand that eight hours should constitute a day's work. upon this question what does our party say? labor saving machines ought to lighten the burdens of the laborers. it will not do to say "over production" and keep on inventing machines and refuse to shorten the hours. what does our party say? the rich can take care of themselves if the mob will let them alone, and there will be no mob if there is no widespread want. hunger is a communist. the next candidate of the republican party must be big enough and courageous enough to answer these questions. if we find that kind of a candidate we shall succeed--if we do not, we ought not. --_chicago inter-ocean_, february, . atheism and citizenship. _question_. have you noticed the decision of mr. nathaniel jarvis, jr., clerk of the naturalization bureau of the court of common pleas, that an atheist cannot become a citizen? _answer_. yes, but i do not think it necessary for a man to be a theist in order to become or to remain a citizen of this country. the various laws, from up to , provided that the person wishing to be naturalized might make oath or affirmation. the first exception you will find in the revised statutes of the united states passed in - , section , , as follows:--"an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the united states in the following manner, and not otherwise:--first, he shall declare on oath, before a circuit or district court of the united states, etc." i suppose mr. jarvis felt it to be his duty to comply with this section. in this section there is nothing about affirmation --only the word "oath" is used--and mr. jarvis came to the conclusion that an atheist could not take an oath, and, therefore, could not declare his intention legally to become a citizen of the united states. undoubtedly mr. jarvis felt it his duty to stand by the law and to see to it that nobody should become a citizen of this country who had not a well defined belief in the existence of a being that he could not define and that no man has ever been able to define. in other words, that he should be perfectly convinced that there is a being "without body, parts or passions," who presides over the destinies of this world, and more especially those of new york in and about that part known as city hall park. _question_. was not mr. jarvis right in standing by the law? _answer_. if mr. jarvis is right, neither humboldt nor darwin could have become a citizen of the united states. wagner, the greatest of musicians, not being able to take an oath, would have been left an alien. under this ruling haeckel, spencer and tyndall would be denied citizenship--that is to say, the six greatest men produced by the human race in the nineteenth century, were and are unfit to be citizens of the united states. those who have placed the human race in debt cannot be citizens of the republic. on the other hand, the ignorant wife beater, the criminal, the pauper raised in the workhouse, could take the necessary oath and would be welcomed by new york "with arms outstretched as she would fly." _question_. you have quoted one statute. is there no other applicable to this case? _answer_. i am coming to that. if mr. jarvis will take the pains to read not only the law of naturalization in section , of the revised statutes of the united states, but the very first chapter in the book, "title i.," he will find in the very first section this sentence: "the requirements of any 'oath' shall be deemed complied with by making affirmation in official form." this applies to section , . of course an atheist can affirm, and the statute provides that wherever an oath is required affirmation may be made. _question_. did you read the recent action of judge o'gorman, of the superior court, in refusing naturalization papers to an applicant because he had not read the constitution of the united states? _answer_. i did. the united states constitution is a very important document, a good, sound document, but it is talked about a great deal more than it is read. i'll venture that you may commence at the battery to interview merchants and other business men about the constitution and you will talk with a hundred before you will find one who has ever read it. --_new york herald_, august , . the labor question. _question_. what is your remedy, colonel, for the labor troubles of the day? _answer_. one remedy is this: i should like to see the laboring men succeed. i should like to see them have a majority in congress and with a president of their own. i should like to see this so that they could satisfy themselves how little, after all, can be accomplished by legislation. the moment responsibility should touch their shoulders they would become conservative. they would find that making a living in this world is an individual affair, and that each man must look out for himself. they would soon find that the government cannot take care of the people. the people must support the government. everything cannot be regulated by law. the factors entering into this problem are substantially infinite and beyond the intellectual grasp of any human being. perhaps nothing in the world will convince the laboring man how little can be accomplished by law until there is opportunity of trying. to discuss the question will do good, so i am in favor of its discussion. to give the workingmen a trial will do good, so i am in favor of giving them a trial. _question_. but you have not answered my question: i asked you what could be done, and you have told me what could not be done. now, is there not some better organization of society that will help in this trouble? _answer_. undoubtedly. unless humanity is a failure, society will improve from year to year and from age to age. there will be, as the years go by, less want, less injustice, and the gifts of nature will be more equally divided, but there will never come a time when the weak can do as much as the strong, or when the mentally weak can accomplish as much as the intellectually strong. there will forever be inequality in society; but, in my judgment, the time will come when an honest, industrious person need not want. in my judgment, that will come, not through governmental control, not through governmental slavery, not through what is called socialism, but through liberty and through individuality. i can conceive of no greater slavery than to have everything done by the government. i want free scope given to individual effort. in time some things that governments have done will be removed. the creation of a nobility, the giving of vast rights to corporations, and the bestowment of privileges on the few will be done away with. in other words, governmental interference will cease and man will be left more to himself. the future will not do away with want by charity, which generally creates more want than it alleviates, but by justice and intelligence. shakespeare says, "there is no darkness but ignorance," and it might be added that ignorance is the mother of most suffering. --_the enquirer_, cincinnati, ohio, september , . railroads and politics. _question_. you are intimately acquainted with the great railroad managers and the great railroad systems, and what do you think is the great need of the railways to-day? _answer_. the great need of the railroads to-day is more business, more cars, better equipments, better pay for the men and less gambling in wall street. _question_. is it your experience that public men usually ride on passes? _answer_. yes, whenever they can get them. passes are for the rich. only those are expected to pay who can scarcely afford it. nothing shortens a journey, nothing makes the road as smooth, nothing keeps down the dust and keeps out the smoke like a pass. _question_. don't you think that the pass system is an injustice --that is, that ordinary travelers are taxed for the man who rides on a pass? _answer_. certainly, those who pay, pay for those who do not. this is one of the misfortunes of the obscure. it is so with everything. the big fish live on the little ones. _question_. are not parallel railroads an evil? _answer_. no, unless they are too near together. competition does some good and some harm, but it must exist. all these things must be left to take care of themselves. if the government interferes it is at the expense of the manhood and liberty of the people. _question_. but wouldn't it be better for the people if the railroads were managed by the government as is the post-office? _answer_. no, everything that individual can do should be left to them. if the government takes charge of the people they become weak and helpless. the people should take charge of the government. give the folks a chance. _question_. in the next presidential contest what will be the main issue? _answer_. the maine issue! _question_. would you again refuse to take the stump for mr. blaine if he should be renominated, and if so, why? _answer_. i do not expect to take the stump for anybody. mr. blaine is probably a candidate, and if he is nominated there will be plenty of people on the stump--or fence--or up a tree or somewhere in the woods. _question_. what are the most glaring mistakes of cleveland's administration? _answer_. first, accepting the nomination. second, taking the oath of office. third, not resigning. --_times star_, cincinnati, september , . prohibition. _question_. how much importance do you attach to the present prohibition movement? _answer_. no particular importance. i am opposed to prohibition and always have been, and hope always to be. i do not want the legislature to interfere in these matters. i do not believe that the people can be made temperate by law. men and women are not made great and good by the law. there is no good in the world that cannot be abused. prohibition fills the world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the law. where a majority are against it, juries will violate their oath, and witnesses will get around the truth, and the result is demoralization. take wine and malt liquors out of the world and we shall lose a vast deal of good fellowship; the world would lose more than it would gain. there is a certain sociability about wine that i should hate to have taken from the earth. strong liquors the folks had better let alone. if prohibition succeeds, and wines and malt liquors go, the next thing will be to take tobacco away, and the next thing all other pleasures, until prayer meetings will be the only places of enjoyment. _question_. do you care to say who your choice is for republican nominee for president in ? _answer_. i now promise that i will answer this question either in may or june, . at present my choice is not fixed, and is liable to change at any moment, and i need to leave it free, so that it can change from time to time as the circumstances change. i will, however, tell you privately that i think it will probably be a new man, somebody on whom the republicans can unite. i have made a good many inquiries myself to find out who this man is to be, but in every instance the answer has been determined by the location in which the gentleman lived who gave the answer. let us wait. _question_. do you think the republican party should take a decided stand on the temperance issue? _answer_. i do; and that decided stand should be that temperance is an individual question, something with which the state and nation have nothing to do. temperance is a thing that the law cannot control. you might as well try to control music, painting, sculpture, or metaphysics, as the question of temperance. as life becomes more valuable, people will learn to take better care of it. there is something more to be desired even than temperance, and that is liberty. i do not believe in putting out the sun because weeds grow. i should rather have some weeds than go without wheat and corn. the republican party should represent liberty and individuality; it should keep abreast of the real spirit of the age; the republican party ought to be intelligent enough to know that progress has been marked not by the enactment of new laws, but by the repeal of old ones. --_evening traveler_, boston, october, . henry george and labor. _question_. it is said, colonel ingersoll, that you are for henry george? _answer_. of course; i think it the duty of the republicans to defeat the democracy--a solemn duty--and i believe that they have a chance to elect george; that is to say, an opportunity to take new york from their old enemy. if the republicans stand by george he will succeed. all the democratic factions are going to unite to beat the workingmen. what a picture! now is the time for the republicans to show that all their sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires. they were on the side of the slave--they gave liberty to millions. let them take another step and extend their hands to the sons of toil. my heart beats with those who bear the burdens of this poor world. _question_. do you not think that capital is entitled to protection? _answer_. i am in favor of accomplishing all reforms in a legal and orderly way, and i want the laboring people of this country to appeal to the ballot. all classes and all interests must be content to abide the result. i want the laboring people to show that they are intelligent enough to stand by each other. henry george is their natural leader. let them be true to themselves by being true to him. the great questions between capital and labor must be settled peaceably. there is no excuse for violence, and no excuse for contempt and scorn. no country can be prosperous while the workers want and the idlers waste. those who do the most should have the most. there is no civilized country, so far as i know, but i believe there will be, and i want to hasten they day when the map of the world will give the boundaries of that blessed land. _question_. do you agree with george's principles? do you believe in socialism? _answer_. i do not understand that george is a socialist. he is on the side of those that work--so am i. he wants to help those that need help--so do i. the rich can take care of themselves. i shed no tears over the miseries of capital. i think of the men in mines and factories, in huts, hovels and cellars; of the poor sewing women; of the poor, the hungry and the despairing. the world must be made better through intelligence. i do not go with the destroyers, with those that hate the successful, that hate the generous, simply because they are rich. wealth is the surplus produced by labor, and the wealth of the world should keep the world from want. --_new york herald_, october , . labor question and socialism. _question_. what do you think of henry george for mayor? _answer_. several objections have been urged, not to what mr. george has done, but to what mr. george has thought, and he is the only candidate up to this time against whom a charge of this character could be made. among other things, he seems to have entertained an idea to the effect that a few men should not own the entire earth; that a child coming into the world has a right to standing room, and that before he walks, his mother has a right to standing room while she holds him. he insists that if it were possible to bottle the air, and sell it as we do mineral water, it would be hardly fair for the capitalists of the world to embark in such a speculation, especially where millions were allowed to die simply because they were not able to buy breath at "pool prices." mr. george seems to think that the time will come when capital will be intelligent enough and civilized enough to take care of itself. he has a dream that poverty and crime and all the evils that go hand in hand with partial famine, with lack of labor, and all the diseases born of living in huts and cellars, born of poor food and poor clothing and of bad habits, will disappear, and that the world will be really fit to live in. he goes so far as to insist that men ought to have more than twenty-three or twenty-four dollars a month for digging coal, and that they ought not to be compelled to spend that money in the store or saloon of the proprietor of the mine. he has also stated on several occasions that a man ought not to drive a street car for sixteen or eighteen hours a day--that even a street-car driver ought to have the privilege now and then of seeing his wife, or at least one of the children, awake. and he has gone so far as to say that a letter-carrier ought not to work longer in each day for the united states than he would for a civilized individual. to people that imagine that this world is already perfection; that the condition of no one should be bettered except their own, these ideas seem dangerous. a man who has already amassed a million, and who has no fear for the future, and who says: "i will employ the cheapest labor and make men work as long as they can possibly endure the toil," will regard mr. george as an impractical man. it is very probable that all of us will be dead before all the theories of mr. george are put in practice. some of them, however, may at some time benefit mankind; and so far as i am concerned, i am willing to help hasten the day, although it may not come while i live. i do not know that i agree with many of the theories of mr. george. i know that i do not agree with some of them. but there is one thing in which i do agree with him, and that is, in his effort to benefit the human race, in his effort to do away with some of the evils that now afflict mankind. i sympathize with him in his endeavor to shorten the hours of labor, to increase the well- being of laboring men, to give them better houses, better food, and in every way to lighten the burdens that now bear upon their bowed backs. it may be that very little can be done by law, except to see that they are not absolutely abused; to see that the mines in which they work are supplied with air and with means of escape in time of danger; to prevent the deforming of children by forcing upon them the labor of men; to shorten the hours of toil, and to give all laborers certain liens, above all other claims, for their work. it is easy to see that in this direction something may be done by law. _question_. colonel ingersoll, are you a socialist? _answer_. i am an individualist instead of a socialist. i am a believer in individuality and in each individual taking care of himself, and i want the government to do just as little as it can consistently with the safety of the nation, and i want as little law as possible--only as much as will protect life, reputation and property by punishing criminals and by enforcing honest contracts. but if a government gives privileges to a few, the few must not oppress the many. the government has no right to bestow any privilege upon any man or upon any corporation, except for the public good. that which is a special privilege to the few, should be a special benefit to the many. and whenever the privileged few abuse the privilege so that it becomes a curse to the many, the privilege, whatever it is, should be withdrawn. i do not pretend to know enough to suggest a remedy for all the evils of society. i doubt if one human mind could take into consideration the almost infinite number of factors entering into such a problem. and this fact that no one knows, is the excuse for trying. while i may not believe that a certain theory will work, still, if i feel sure it will do no harm, i am willing to see it tried. _question_. do you think that mr. george would make a good mayor? _answer_. i presume he would. he is a thoughtful, prudent man. his reputation for honesty has never, so far as i know, been called in question. it certainly does not take a genius to be mayor of new york. if so, there have been some years when there was hardly a mayor. i take it that a clear-headed, honest man, whose only object is to do his duty, and with courage enough to stand by his conscience, would make a good mayor of new york or of any other city. _question_. are you in sympathy with the workingmen and their objects? _answer_. i am in sympathy with laboring men of all kinds, whether they labor with hand or brain. the knights of labor, i believe, do not allow a lawyer to become a member. i am somewhat wider in my sympathies. no men in the world struggle more heroically; no men in the world have suffered more, or carried a heavier cross, or worn a sharper crown of thorns, than those that have produced what we call the literature of our race. so my sympathies extend all the way from hod-carriers to sculptors; from well-diggers to astronomers. if the objects of the laboring men are to improve their condition without injuring others; to have homes and firesides, and wives and children; plenty to eat, good clothes to wear; to develop their minds, to educate their children--in short, to become prosperous and civilized, i sympathize with them, and hope they will succeed. i have not the slightest sympathy with those that wish to accomplish all these objects through brute force. a nihilist may be forgiven in russia--may even be praised in russia; a socialist may be forgiven in germany; and certainly a home-ruler can be pardoned in ireland, but in the united states there is no place for anarchist, socialist or dynamiter. in this country the political power has been fairly divided. poverty has just as many votes as wealth. no man can be so poor as not to have a ballot; no man is rich enough to have two; and no man can buy another vote, unless somebody is mean enough and contemptible enough to sell; and if he does sell his vote, he never should complain about the laws or their administration. so the foolish and the wise are on an equality, and the political power of this country is divided so that each man is a sovereign. now, the laboring people are largely in the majority in this country. if there are any laws oppressing them, they should have them repealed. i want the laboring people--and by the word "laboring" now, i include only the men that they include by that word--to unite; i want them to show that they have the intelligence to act together, and sense enough to vote for a friend. i want them to convince both the other great parties that they cannot be purchased. this will be an immense step in the right direction. i have sometimes thought that i should like to see the laboring men in power, so that they would realize how little, after all, can be done by law. all that any man should ask, so far as the government is concerned, is a fair chance to compete with his neighbors. personally, i am for the abolition of all special privileges that are not for the general good. my principal hope of the future is the civilization of my race; the development not only of the brain, but of the heart. i believe the time will come when we shall stop raising failures, when we shall know something of the laws governing human beings. i believe the time will come when we shall not produce deformed persons, natural criminals. in other words, i think the world is going to grow better and better. this may not happen to this nation or to what we call our race, but it may happen to some other race, and all that we do in the right direction hastens that day and that race. _question_. do you think that the old parties are about to die? _answer_. it is very hard to say. the country is not old enough for tables of mortality to have been calculated upon parties. i suppose a party, like anything else, has a period of youth, of manhood and decay. the democratic party is not dead. some men grow physically strong as they grow mentally weak. the democratic party lived out of office, and in disgrace, for twenty-five years, and lived to elect a president. if the democratic party could live on disgrace for twenty-five years it now looks as though the republican party, on the memory of its glory and of its wonderful and unparalleled achievements, might manage to creep along for a few years more. --_new york world_, october , . henry george and socialism. _question_. what is your opinion of the result of the election? _answer_. i find many dead on the field whose faces i recognize. i see that morrison has taken a "horizontal" position. free trade seems to have received an exceedingly black eye. carlisle, in my judgment, one of the very best men in congress, has been defeated simply because he is a free trader, and i suppose you can account for hurd's defeat in the same way. the people believe in protection although they generally admit that the tariff ought to be reformed. i believe in protecting "infant industries," but i do not believe in rocking the cradle when the infant is seven feet high and wears number twelve boots. _question_. do you sympathize with the socialists, or do you think that the success of george would promote socialism? _answer_. i have said frequently that if i lived in russia i should in all probability be a nihilist. i can conceive of no government that would not be as good as that of russia, and i would consider _no_ government far preferable to that government. any possible state of anarchy is better than organized crime, because in the chaos of anarchy justice may be done by accident, but in a government organized for the perpetuation of slavery, and for the purpose of crushing out of the human brain every noble thought, justice does not live. in germany i would probably be a socialist--to this extent, that i would want the political power honestly divided among the people. i can conceive of no circumstance in which i could support bismarck. i regard bismarck as a projection of the middle ages, as a shadow that has been thrown across the sunlight of modern civilization, and in that shadow grow all the bloodless crimes. now, in ireland, of course, i believe in home rule. in this country i am an individualist. the political power here is equally divided. poverty and wealth have the same power at the ballot-box. intelligence and ignorance are on an equality here, simply because all men have a certain interest in the government where they live. i hate above all other things the tyranny of a government. i do not want a government to send a policeman along with me to keep me from buying eleven eggs for a dozen. i will take care of myself. i want the people to do everything they can do, and the government to keep its hands off, because if the government attends to all these matters the people lose manhood, and in a little while become serfs, and there will arise some strong mind and some powerful hand that will reduce them to actual slavery. so i am in favor or personal liberty to the largest extent. whenever the government grants privileges to the few, these privileges should be for the benefit of the many, and when they cease to be for the benefit of the many, they should be taken from the few and used by the government itself for the benefit of the whole people. and i want to see in this country the government so administered that justice will be done to all as nearly as human institutions can produce such a result. now, i understand that in any state of society there will be failures. we have failures among the working people. we have had some failures in congress. i will not mention the names, because your space is limited. there have been failures in the pulpit, at the bar; in fact, in every pursuit of life you will presume we shall have failures with us for a great while; at least until the establishment of the religion of the body, when we shall cease to produce failures; and i have faith enough in the human race to believe that that time will come, but i do not expect it during my life. _question_. what do you think of the income tax as a step toward the accomplishment of what you desire? _answer_. there are some objections to an income tax. first, the espionage that it produces on the part of the government. second, the amount of perjury that it annually produces. men hate to have their business inquired into if they are not doing well. they often pay a very large tax to make their creditors think they are prosperous. others by covering up, avoid the tax. but i will say this with regard to taxation: the great desideratum is stability. if we tax only the land, and that were the only tax, in a little while every other thing, and the value of every other thing, would adjust itself in relation to that tax, and perfect justice would be the result. that is to say, if it were stable long enough the burden would finally fall upon the right backs in every department. the trouble with taxation is that it is continually changing--not waiting for the adjustment that will naturally follow provided it is stable. i think the end, so far as land is concerned, could be reached by cumulative taxation--that is to say, a man with a certain amount of land paying a very small per cent., with more land, and increased per cent., and let that per cent. increase rapidly enough so that no man could afford to hold land that he did not have a use for. so i believe in cumulative taxation in regard to any kind of wealth. let a man worth ten million dollars pay a greater per cent. than one worth one hundred thousand, because he is able to pay it. the other day a man was talking to me about having the dead pay the expenses of the government; that whenever a man died worth say five million dollars, one million should go to the government; that if he died worth ten million dollars, three millions should go to the government; if he died worth twenty million dollars, eight million should go to the government, and so on. he said that in this way the expenses of the government could be borne by the dead. i should be in favor of cumulative taxation upon legacies-- the greater the legacy, the greater the per cent. of taxation. but, of course, i am not foolish enough to suppose that i understand these questions. i am giving you a few guesses. my only desire is to guess right. i want to see the people of this world live for this world, and i hope the time will come when a civilized man will understand that he cannot be perfectly happy while anybody else is miserable; that a perfectly civilized man could not enjoy a dinner knowing that others were starving; that he could not enjoy the richest robes if he knew that some of his fellow-men in rags and tatters were shivering in the blast. in other words, i want to carry out the idea there that i have so frequently uttered with regard to the other world; that is, that no gentleman angel could be perfectly happy knowing that somebody else was in hell. _question_. what are the chances for the republican party in ? _answer_. if it will sympathize with the toilers, as it did with the slaves; if it will side with the needy; if it will only take the right side it will elect the next president. the poor should not resort to violence; the rich should appeal to the intelligence of the working people. these questions cannot be settled by envy and scorn. the motto of both parties should be: "come, let us reason together." the republican party was the grandest organization that ever existed. it was brave, intelligent and just. it sincerely loved the right. a certificate of membership was a patent of nobility. if it will only stand by the right again, its victorious banner will float over all the intelligent sons of toil. --_the times_, chicago, illinois, november , . reply to the rev. b. f. morse.* [* at the usual weekly meeting of the baptist ministers at the publication rooms yesterday, the rev. dr. b. f. morse read an essay on "christianity vs. materialism." his contention was that all nature showed that design, not evolution, was its origin. in his concluding remarks dr. morse said that he knew from unquestionable authority, that robert g. ingersoll did not believe what he uttered in his lectures, and that to get out of a financial embarrassment he looked around for a money making scheme that could be put into immediate execution. to lecture against christianity was the most rapid way of giving him the needed cash and, what was quite as acceptable to him, at the same time, notoriety.] this aquatic or web-footed theologian who expects to go to heaven by diving is not worth answering. nothing can be more idiotic than to answer an argument by saying he who makes it does not believe it. belief has nothing to do with the cogency or worth of an argument. there is another thing. this man, or rather this minister, says that i attacked christianity simply to make money. is it possible that, after preachers have had the field for eighteen hundred years, the way to make money is to attack the clergy? is this intended as a slander against me or the ministers? the trouble is that my arguments cannot be answered. all the preachers in the world cannot prove that slavery is better than liberty. they cannot show that all have not an equal right to think. they cannot show that all have not an equal right to express their thoughts. they cannot show that a decent god will punish a decent man for making the best guess he can. this is all there is about it. --_the herald_, new york, december , . ingersoll on mcglynn. the attitude of the roman catholic church in dr. mcglynn's case is consistent with the history and constitution of the catholic church --perfectly consistent with its ends, its objects, and its means-- and just as perfectly inconsistent with intellectual liberty and the real civilization of the human race. when a man becomes a catholic priest, he has been convinced that he ought not to think for himself upon religious questions. he has become convinced that the church is the only teacher--that he has a right to think only to enforce its teachings. from that moment he is a moral machine. the chief engineer resides at rome, and he gives his orders through certain assistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the machine has nothing to do one way or the other. this machine is paid for giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up theirs. while somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure of turning a crank belonging to somebody below him. of course, the catholic church is supposed to be the only perfect institution on earth. all others are not only imperfect, but unnecessary. all others have been made either by man, or by the devil, or by a partnership, and consequently cannot be depended upon for the civilization of man. the catholic church gets its power directly from god, and is the only institution now in the world founded by god. there was never any other, so far as i know, except polygamy and slavery and a crude kind of monarchy, and they have been, for the most part, abolished. the catholic church must be true to itself. it must claim everything, and get what it can. it alone is infallible. it alone has all the wisdom of this world. it alone has the right to exist. all other interests are secondary. to be a catholic is of the first importance. human liberty is nothing. wealth, position, food, clothing, reputation, happiness--all these are less than worthless compared with what the catholic church promises to the man who will throw all these away. a priest must preach what his bishop tells him. a bishop must preach what his archbishop tells him. the pope must preach what he says god tells him. dr. mcglynn cannot make a compromise with the catholic church. it never compromises when it is in the majority. i do not mean by this that the catholic church is worse than any other. all are alike in this regard. every sect, no matter how insignificant; every church, no matter how powerful, asks precisely the same thing from every member--that is to say, a surrender of intellectual freedom. the catholic church wants the same as the baptist, the presbyterian, and the methodist--it wants the whole earth. it is ambitious to be the one supreme power. it hopes to see the world upon its knees, with all its tongues thrust out for wafers. it has the arrogance of humility and the ferocity of universal forgiveness. in this respect it resembles every other sect. every religion is a system of slavery. of course, the religionists say that they do not believe in persecution; that they do not believe in burning and hanging and whipping or loading with chains a man simply because he is an infidel. they are willing to leave all this with god, knowing that a being of infinite goodness will inflict all these horrors and tortures upon an honest man who differs with the church. in case dr. mcglynn is deprived of his priestly functions, it is hard to say what effect it will have upon his church and the labor party in the country. so long as a man believes that a church has eternal joy in store for him, so long as he believes that a church holds within its hand the keys of heaven and hell, it will be hard to make him trade off the hope of everlasting happiness for a few good clothes and a little good food and higher wages here. he finally thinks that, after all, he had better work for less and go a little hungry, and be an angel forever. i hope, however, that a good many people who have been supporting the catholic church by giving tithes of the wages of weariness will see, and clearly see, that catholicism is not their friend; that the church cannot and will not support them; that, on the contrary, they must support the church. i hope they will see that all the prayers have to be paid for, although not one has ever been answered. i hope they will perceive that the church is on the side of wealth and power, that the mitre is the friend of the crown, that the altar is the sworn brother of the throne. i hope they will finally know that the church cares infinitely more for the money of the millionaire than for the souls of the poor. of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. i am speaking of the church as an institution, as a corporation--and when i say the church, i include all churches. it is said of corporations in general, that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that it has less than any other. it lives on alms. it gives nothing for what it gets. it has no sympathy. beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other beggars. nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the catholic church on the side of human freedom; nothing more pleasure than to see the catholics of the world--those who work and weep and toil-- sensible enough to know that all the money paid for superstition is worse than lost. i wish they could see that the counting of beads, and the saying of prayers and celebrating of masses, and all the kneelings and censer-swingings and fastings and bell-ringing, amount to less than nothing--that all these things tend only to the degradation of mankind. it is hard, i know, to find an antidote for a poison that was mingled with a mother's milk. the laboring masses, so far as the catholics are concerned, are filled with awe and wonder and fear about the church. this fear began to grow while they were being rocked in their cradles, and they still imagine that the church has some mysterious power; that it is in direct communication with some infinite personality that could, if it desired, strike then dead, or damn their souls forever. persons who have no such belief, who care nothing for popes or priests or churches or heavens or hells or devils or gods, have very little idea of the power of fear. the old dogmas filled the brain with strange monsters. the soul of the orthodox christian gropes and wanders and crawls in a kind of dungeon, where the strained eyes see fearful shapes, and the frightened flesh shrinks from the touch of serpents. the good part of christianity--that is to say, kindness, morality --will never go down. the cruel part ought to go down. and by the cruel part i mean the doctrine of eternal punishment--of allowing the good to suffer for the bad--allowing innocence to pay the debt of guilt. so the foolish part of christianity--that is to say, the miraculous--will go down. the absurd part must perish. but there will be no war about it as there was in france. nobody believes enough in the foolish part of christianity now to fight for it. nobody believes with intensity enough in miracles to shoulder a musket. there is probably not a christian in new york willing to fight for any story, no matter if the story is so old that it is covered with moss. no mentally brave and intelligent man believes in miracles, and no intelligent man cares whether there was a miracle or not, for the reason that every intelligent man knows that the miraculous has no possible connection with the moral. "thou shalt not steal," is just as good a commandment if it should turn out that the flood was a drouth. "thou shalt not murder," is a good and just and righteous law, and whether any particular miracle was ever performed or not has nothing to do with the case. there is no possible relation between these things. i am on the side not only of the physically oppressed, but of the mentally oppressed. i hate those who put lashes on the body, and i despise those who put the soul in chains. in other words, i am in favor of liberty. i do not wish that any man should be the slave of his fellow-men, or that the human race should be the slaves of any god, real or imaginary. man has the right to think for himself, to work for himself, to take care of himself, to get bread for himself, to get a home for himself. he has a right to his own opinion about god, and heaven and hell; the right to learn any art or mystery or trade; the right to work for whom he will, for what he will, and when he will. the world belongs to the human race. there is to be no war in this country on religious opinions, except a war of words--a conflict of thoughts, of facts; and in that conflict the hosts of superstition will go down. they may not be defeated to-day, or to-morrow, or next year, or during this century, but they are growing weaker day by day. this priest, mcglynn, has the courage to stand up against the propaganda. what would have been his fate a few years ago? what would have happened to him in spain, in portugal, in italy--in any other country that was catholic--only a few years ago? yet he stands here in new york, he refuses to obey god's vicegerent; he freely gives his mind to an archbishop; he holds the holy inquisition in contempt. he has done a great thing. he is undoubtedly an honest man. he never should have been a catholic. he has no business in that church. he has ideas of his own--theories, and seems to be governed by principles. the catholic church is not his place. if he remains, he must submit, he must kneel in the humility of abjectness; he must receive on the back of his independence the lashes of the church. if he remains, he must ask the forgiveness of slaves for having been a man. if he refuses to submit, the church will not have him. he will be driven to take his choice-- to remain a member, humiliated, shunned, or go out into the great, free world a citizen of the republic, with the rights, responsibilities, and duties of an american citizen. i believe that dr. mcglynn is an honest man, and that he really believes in the land theories of mr. george. i have no confidence in his theories, but i have confidence that he is actuated by the best and noblest motives. _question_. are you to go on the lecture platform again? _answer_. i expect to after a while. i am now waiting for the church to catch up. i got so far ahead that i began almost to sympathize with the clergy. they looked so helpless and talked in such a weak, wandering, and wobbling kind of way that i felt as though i had been cruel. from the papers i see that they are busy trying to find out who the wife of cain was. i see that the rev. dr. robinson, of new york, is now wrestling with that problem. he begins to be in doubt whether adam was the first man, whether eve was the first woman; suspects that there were other races, and that cain did not marry his sister, but somebody else's sister, and that the somebody else was not cain's brother. one can hardly over- estimate the importance of these questions, they have such a direct bearing on the progress of the world. if it should turn out that adam was the first man, or that he was not the first man, something might happen--i am not prepared to say what, but it might. it is a curious kind of a spectacle to see a few hundred people paying a few thousand dollars a year for the purpose of hearing these great problems discussed: "was adam the first man?" "who was cain's wife?" "has anyone seen a map of the land of nod?" "where are the four rivers that ran murmuring through the groves of paradise?" "who was the snake? how did he walk? what language did he speak?" this turns a church into a kind of nursery, makes a cradle of each pew, and gives to each member a rattle with which he can amuse what he calls his mind. the great theologians of andover--the gentlemen who wear the brass collars furnished by the dead founder--have been disputing among themselves as to what is to become of the heathen who fortunately died before meeting any missionary from that institution. one can almost afford to be damned hereafter for the sake of avoiding the dogmas of andover here. nothing more absurd and childish has ever happened--not in the intellectual, but in the theological world. there is no need of the freethinkers saying anything at present. the work is being done by the church members themselves. they are beginning to ask questions of the clergy. they are getting tired of the old ideas--tired of the consolations of eternal pain--tired of hearing about hell--tired of hearing the bible quoted or talked about--tired of the scheme of redemption--tired of the trinity, of the plenary inspiration of the barbarous records of a barbarous people--tired of the patriarchs and prophets--tired of daniel and the goats with three horns, and the image with the clay feet, and the little stone that rolled down the hill--tired of the mud man and the rib woman--tired of the flood of noah, of the astronomy of joshua, the geology of moses--tired of kings and chronicles and lamentations--tired of the lachrymose jeremiah--tired of the monstrous, the malicious, and the miraculous. in short, they are beginning to think. they have bowed their necks to the yoke of ignorance and fear and impudence and superstition, until they are weary. they long to be free. they are tired of the services-- tired of the meaningless prayers--tired of hearing each other say, "hear us, good lord"--tired of the texts, tired of the sermons, tired of the lies about spontaneous combustion as a punishment for blasphemy, tired of the bells, and they long to hear the doxology of superstition. they long to have common sense lift its hands in benediction and dismiss the congregation. --_brooklyn citizen_, april, . trial of the chicago anarchists. _question_. what do you think of the trial of the chicago anarchists and their chances for a new trial? _answer_. i have paid some attention to the evidence and to the rulings of the court, and i have read the opinion of the supreme court of illinois, in which the conviction is affirmed. of course these men were tried during a period of great excitement--tried when the press demanded their conviction--when it was asserted that society was on the edge of destruction unless these men were hanged. under such circumstances, it is not easy to have a fair and impartial trial. a judge should either sit beyond the reach of prejudice, in some calm that storms cannot invade, or he should be a kind of oak that before any blast he would stand erect. it is hard to find such a place as i have suggested and not easy to find such a man. we are all influenced more or less by our surroundings, by the demands and opinions and feelings and prejudices of our fellow- citizens. there is a personality made up of many individuals known as society. this personality has prejudices like an individual. it often becomes enraged, acts without the slightest sense, and repents at its leisure. it is hard to reason with a mob whether organized or disorganized, whether acting in the name of the law or of simple brute force. but in any case, where people refuse to be governed by reason, they become a mob. _question_. do you not think that these men had a fair trial? _answer_. i have no doubt that the court endeavored to be fair-- no doubt that judge gary is a perfectly honest, upright man, but i think his instructions were wrong. he instructed the jury to the effect that where men have talked in a certain way, and where the jury believed that the result of such talk might be the commission of a crime, that such men are responsible for that crime. of course, there is neither law nor sense in an instruction like this. i hold that it must have been the intention of the man making the remark, or publishing the article, or doing the thing--it must have been his intention that the crime should be committed. men differ as to the effect of words, and a man may say a thing with the best intentions the result of which is a crime, and he may say a thing with the worst of intentions and the result may not be a crime. the supreme court of illinois seemed to have admitted that the instructions were wrong, but took the ground that it made no difference with the verdict. this is a dangerous course for the court of last resort to pursue; neither is it very complimentary to the judge who tried the case, that his instructions had no effect upon the jury. under the instructions of the court below, any man who had been arrested with the seven anarchists and of whom it could be proved that he had ever said a word in favor of any change in government, or of other peculiar ideas, no matter whether he knew of the meeting at the haymarket or not, would have been convicted. i am satisfied that the defendant fielden never intended to harm a human being. as a matter of fact, the evidence shows that he was making a speech in favor of peace at the time of the occurrence. the evidence also shows that he was an exceedingly honest, industrious, and a very poor and philanthropic man. _question_. do you uphold the anarchists? _answer_. certainly not. there is no place in this country for the anarchist. the source of power here is the people, and to attack the political power is to attack the people. if the laws are oppressive, it is the fault of the oppressed. if the laws touch the poor and leave them without redress, it is the fault of the poor. they are in a majority. the men who work for their living are the very men who have the power to make every law that is made in the united states. there is no excuse for any resort to violence in this country. the boycotting by trades unions and by labor organizations is all wrong. let them resort to legal methods and to no other. i have not the slightest sympathy with the methods that have been pursued by anarchists, or by socialists, or by any other class that has resorted to force or intimidation. the ballot-box is the place to assemble. the will of the people can be made known in that way, and their will can be executed. at the same time, i think i understand what has produced the anarchist, the socialist, and the agitator. in the old country, a laboring man, poorly clad, without quite enough to eat, with a wife in rags, with a few children asking for bread--this laboring man sees the idle enjoying every luxury of this life; he sees on the breast of "my lady" a bonfire of diamonds; he sees "my lord" riding in his park; he sees thousands of people who from the cradle to the grave do no useful act; add nothing to the intellectual or the physical wealth of the world; he sees labor living in the tenement house, in the hut; idleness and nobility in the mansion and the palace; the poor man a trespasser everywhere except upon the street, where he is told to "move on," and in the dusty highways of the country. that man naturally hates the government--the government of the few, the government that lives on the unpaid labor of the many, the government that takes the child from the parents, and puts him in the army to fight the child of another poor man and woman in some other country. these anarchists, these socialists, these agitators, have been naturally produced. all the things of which i have spoken sow in the breast of poverty the seeds of hatred and revolution. these poor men, hunted by the officers of the law, cornered, captured, imprisoned, excite the sympathy of other poor men, and if some are dragged to the gallows and hanged, or beheaded by the guillotine, they become saints and martyrs, and those who sympathize with them feel that they have the power, and only the power of hatred--the power of riot, of destruction--the power of the torch, of revolution, that is to say, of chaos and anarchy. the injustice of the higher classes makes the lower criminal. then there is another thing. the misery of the poor excites in many noble breasts sympathy, and the men who thus sympathize wish to better the condition of their fellows. at first they depend upon reason, upon calling the attention of the educated and powerful to the miseries of the poor. nothing happens, no result follows. the juggernaut of society moves on, and the wretches are still crushed beneath the great wheels. these men who are really good at first, filled with sympathy, now become indignant--they are malicious, then destructive and criminal. i do not sympathize with these methods, but i do sympathize with the general object that all good and generous people seek to accomplish--namely, to better the condition of the human race. only the other day, in boston, i said that we ought to take into consideration the circumstances under which the anarchists were reared; that we ought to know that every man is necessarily produced; that man is what he is, not by accident, but necessity; that society raises its own criminals--that it plows the soil and cultivates and harvests the crop. and it was telegraphed that i had defended anarchy. nothing was ever further from my mind. there is no place, as i said before, for anarchy in the united states. in russia it is another question; in germany another question. every country that is governed by the one man, or governed by the few, is the victim of anarchy. that _is_ anarchy. that is the worst possible form of socialism. the definition of socialism given by its bitterest enemy is, that idlers wish to live on the labor and on the money of others. is not this definition--a definition given in hatred--a perfect definition of every monarchy and of nearly every government in the world? that is to say: the idle few live on the labor and the money of others. _question_. will the supreme court take cognizance of this case and prevent the execution of the judgment? _answer_. of course it is impossible for me to say. at the same time, judging from the action of justice miller in the case of _the people vs. maxwell_, it seems probable that the supreme court may interfere, but i have not examined the question sufficiently to form an opinion. my feeling about the whole matter is this: that it will not tend to answer the ideas advanced by these men, to hang them. their execution will excite sympathy among thousands and thousands of people who have never examined and knew nothing of the theories advanced by the anarchists, or the socialists, or other agitators. in my judgment, supposing the men to be guilty, it is far better to imprison them. less harm will be done the cause of free government. we are not on the edge of any revolution. no other government is as firmly fixed as ours. no other government has such a broad and splendid foundation. we have nothing to fear. courage and safety can afford to be generous--can afford to act without haste and without the feeling of revenge. so, for my part, i hope that the sentence may be commuted, and that these men, if found guilty at last, may be imprisoned. this course is, in my judgment, the safest to pursue. it may be that i am led to this conclusion, because of my belief that every man does as he must. this belief makes me charitable toward all the world. this belief makes me doubt the wisdom of revenge. this belief, so far as i am concerned, blots from our language the word "punishment." society has a right to protect itself, and it is the duty of society to reform, in so far as it may be possible, any member who has committed what is called a crime. where the criminal cannot be reformed, and the safety of society can be secured by his imprisonment, there is no possible excuse for destroying his life. after these six or seven men have been, in accordance with the forms of law, strangled to death, there will be a few pieces of clay, and about them will gather a few friends, a few admirers--and these pieces will be buried, and over the grave will be erected a monument, and those who were executed as criminals will be regarded by thousands as saints. it is far better for society to have a little mercy. the effect upon the community will be good. if these men are imprisoned, people will examine their teachings without prejudice. if they are executed, seen through the tears of pity, their virtues, their sufferings, their heroism, will be exaggerated; others may emulate their deeds, and the gulf between the rich and the poor will be widened--a gulf that may not close until it has devoured the noblest and the best. --_the mail and express_, new york, november , . the stage and the pulpit. _question_. what do you think of the methodist minister at nashville, tenn., who, from his pulpit, denounced the theatrical profession, without exception, as vicious, and of the congregation which passed resolutions condemning miss emma abbott for rising in church and contradicting him, and of the methodist bishop who likened her to a "painted courtesan," and invoked the aid of the law "for the protection of public worship" against "strolling players"? _answer_. the methodist minister of whom you speak, without doubt uttered his real sentiments. the church has always regarded the stage as a rival, and all its utterances have been as malicious as untrue. it has always felt that the money given to the stage was in some way taken from the pulpit. it is on this principle that the pulpit wishes everything, except the church, shut up on sunday. it knows that it cannot stand free and open competition. all well-educated ministers know that the bible suffers by a comparison with shakespeare. they know that there is nothing within the lids of what they call "the sacred book" that can for one moment stand side by side with "lear" or "hamlet" or "julius cæsar" or "antony and cleopatra" or with any other play written by the immortal man. they know what a poor figure the davids and the abrahams and the jeremiahs and the lots, the jonahs, the jobs and the noahs cut when on the stage with the great characters of shakespeare. for these reasons, among others, the pulpit is malicious and hateful when it thinks of the glories of the stage. what minister is there now living who could command the prices commanded by edwin booth or joseph jefferson; and what two clergymen, by making a combination, could contend successfully with robson and crane? how many clergymen would it take to command, at regular prices, the audiences that attend the presentation of wagner's operas? it is very easy to see why the pulpit attacks the stage. nothing could have been in more wretched taste than for the minister to condemn miss emma abbott for rising in church and defending not only herself, but other good women who are doing honest work for an honest living. of course, no minister wishes to be answered; no minister wishes to have anyone in the congregation call for the proof. a few questions would break up all the theology in the world. ministers can succeed only when congregations keep silent. when superstition succeeds, doubt must be dumb. the methodist bishop who attacked miss abbott simply repeated the language of several centuries ago. in the laws of england actors were described as "sturdy vagrants," and this bishop calls them "strolling players." if we only had some strolling preachers like garrick, like edwin forrest, or booth or barrett, or some crusade sisters like mrs. siddons, madam ristori, charlotte cushman, or madam modjeska, how fortunate the church would be! _question_. what is your opinion of the relative merits of the pulpit and the stage, preachers and actors? _answer_. we must remember that the stage presents an ideal life. it is a world controlled by the imagination--a world in which the justice delayed in real life may be done, and in which that may happen which, according to the highest ideal, should happen. it is a world, for the most part, in which evil does not succeed, in which the vicious are foiled, in which the right, the honest, the sincere, and the good prevail. it cultivates the imagination, and in this respect is far better than the pulpit. the mission of the pulpit is to narrow and shrivel the human mind. the pulpit denounces the freedom of thought and of expression; but on the stage the mind is free, and for thousands of years the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, have been permitted to witness plays wherein the slave was freed, wherein the oppressed became the victor, and where the downtrodden rose supreme. and there is another thing. the stage has always laughed at the spirit of caste. the low-born lass has loved the prince. all human distinctions in this ideal world have for the moment vanished, while honesty and love have triumphed. the stage lightens the cares of life. the pulpit increases the tears and groans of man. there is this difference: the pretence of honesty and the honesty of pretence. _question_. how do you view the episcopalian scheme of building a six-million-dollar untaxed cathedral in this city for the purpose of "uniting the sects," and, when that is accomplished, "unifying the world in the love of christ," and thereby abolishing misery? _answer_. i regard the building of an episcopal cathedral simply as a piece of religious folly. the world will never be converted by christian palaces and temples. every dollar used in its construction will be wasted. it will have no tendency to unite the various sects; on the contrary, it will excite the envy and jealousy of every other sect. it will widen the gulf between the episcopalian and the methodist, between the episcopalian and the presbyterian, and this hatred will continue until the other sects build a cathedral just a little larger, and then the envy and the hatred will be on the other side. religion will never unify the world, and never will give peace to mankind. there has been more war in the last eighteen hundred years than during any similar period within historic times. war will be abolished, if it ever is abolished, not by religion, but by intelligence. it will be abolished when the poor people of germany, of france, of spain, of england, and other countries find that they have no interest in war. when those who pay, and those who do the fighting, find that they are simply destroying their own interests, wars will cease. there ought to be a national court to decide national difficulties. we consider a community civilized when the individuals of that community submit their differences to a legal tribunal; but there being no national court, nations now sustain, as to each other, the relation of savages--that is to say, each one must defend its rights by brute force. the establishment of a national court civilizes nations, and tends to do away with war. christianity caused so much war, so much bloodshed, that christians were forced to interpolate a passage to account for their history, and the interpolated passage is, "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." suppose that all the money wasted in cathedrals in the middle ages had been used for the construction of schoolhouses, academies, and universities, how much better the world would have been! suppose that instead of supporting hundreds of thousands of idle priests, the money had been given to men of science, for the purpose of finding out something of benefit to the human race here in this world. _question_. what is your opinion of "christian charity" and the "fatherhood of god" as an economic polity for abolishing poverty and misery? _answer_. of course, the world is not to be civilized and clothed and fed through charity. ordinary charity creates more want than it alleviates. the greatest possible charity is the greatest possible justice. when proper wages are paid, when every one is as willing to give what a thing is worth as he is now willing to get it for less, the world will be fed and clothed. i believe in helping people to help themselves. i believe that corporations, and successful men, and superior men intellectually, should do all within their power to keep from robbing their fellow- men. the superior man should protect the inferior. the powerful should be the shield of the weak. to-day it is, for the most part, exactly the other way. the failures among men become the food of success. the world is to grow better and better through intelligence, through a development of the brain, through taking advantage of the forces of nature, through science, through chemistry, and through the arts. religion can do nothing except to sow the seeds of discord between men and nations. commerce, manufactures, and the arts tend to peace and the well-being of the world. what is known as religion --that is to say, a system by which this world is wasted in preparation for another--a system in which the duties of men are greater to god than to his fellow-men--a system that denies the liberty of thought and expression--tends only to discord and retrogression. of course, i know that religious people cling to the bible on account of the good that is in it, and in spite of the bad, and i know that freethinkers throw away the bible on account of the bad that is in it, in spite of the good. i hope the time will come when that book will be treated like other books, and will be judged upon its merits, apart from the fiction of inspiration. the church has no right to speak of charity, because it is an object of charity itself. it gives nothing; all it can do is to receive. at best, it is only a respectable beggar. i never care to hear one who receives alms pay a tribute to charity. the one who gives alms should pay this tribute. the amount of money expended upon churches and priests and all the paraphernalia of superstition, is more than enough to drive the wolves from the doors of the world. _question_. have you noticed the progress catholics are making in the northwest, discontinuing public schools, and forcing people to send their children to the parochial schools; also, at pittsburg, pa., a roman catholic priest has been elected principal of a public school, and he has appointed nuns as assistant teachers? _answer_. sectarian schools ought not to be supported by public taxation. it is the very essence of religious tyranny to compel a methodist to support a catholic school, or to compel a catholic to support a baptist academy. nothing should be taught in the public schools that the teachers do not know. nothing should be taught about any religion, and nothing should be taught that can, in any way, be called sectarian. the sciences are not religion. there is no such thing as methodist mathematics, or baptist botany. in other words, no religion has anything to do with facts. the facts are all secular; the sciences are all of this world. if catholics wish to establish their own schools for the purpose of preserving their ignorance, they have the right to do so; so has any other denomination. but in this country the state has no right to teach any form of religion whatever. persons of all religions have the right to advocate and defend any religion in which they believe, or they have the right to denounce all religions. if the catholics establish parochial schools, let them support such schools; and if they do, they will simply lessen or shorten the longevity of that particular superstition. it has often been said that nothing will repeal a bad law as quickly as its enforcement. so, in my judgment, nothing will destroy any church as certainly, and as rapidly, as for the members of that church to live squarely up to the creed. the church is indebted to its hypocrisy to-day for its life. no orthodox church in the united states dare meet for the purpose of revising the creed. they know that the whole thing would fall to pieces. nothing could be more absurd than for a roman catholic priest to teach a public school, assisted by nuns. the catholic church is the enemy of human progress; it teaches every man to throw away his reason, to deny his observation and experience. _question_. your opinions have frequently been quoted with regard to the anarchists--with regard to their trial and execution. have you any objection to stating your real opinion in regard to the matter? _answer_. not in the least. i am perfectly willing that all civilized people should know my opinions on any question in which others than myself can have any interest. i was anxious, in the first place, that the defendants should have a fair and impartial trial. the worst form of anarchy is when a judge violates his conscience and bows to a popular demand. a court should care nothing for public opinion. an honest judge decides the law, not as it ought to be, but as it is, and the state of the public mind throws no light upon the question of what the law then is. i thought that some of the rulings on the trial of the anarchists were contrary to law. i think so still. i have read the opinion of the supreme court of illinois, and while the conclusion reached by that tribunal is the law of that case, i was not satisfied with the reasons given, and do not regard the opinion as good law. there is no place for an anarchist in the united states. there is no excuse for any resort to force; and it is impossible to use language too harsh or too bitter in denouncing the spirit of anarchy in this country. but, no matter how bad a man is, he has the right to be fairly tried; and if he cannot be fairly tried, then there is anarchy on the bench. so i was opposed to the execution of these men. i thought it would have been far better to commute the punishment to imprisonment, and i said so; and i not only said so, but i wrote a letter to governor oglesby, in which i urged the commutation of the death sentence. in my judgment, a great mistake was made. i am on the side of mercy, and if i ever make mistakes, i hope they will all be made on that side. i have not the slightest sympathy with the feeling of revenge. neither have i ever admitted, and i never shall, that every citizen has not the right to give his opinion on all that may be done by any servant of the people, by any judge, or by any court, by any officer--however small or however great. each man in the united states is a sovereign, and a king can freely speak his mind. words were put in my mouth that i never uttered with regard to the anarchists. i never said that they were saints, or that they would be martyrs. what i said was that they would be regarded as saints and martyrs by many people if they were executed, and that has happened which i said would happen. i am, so far as i know, on the side of the right. i wish, above all things, for the preservation of human liberty. this government is the best, and we should not lose confidence in liberty. property is of very little value in comparison with freedom. a civilization that rests on slavery is utterly worthless. i do not believe in sacrificing all there is of value in the human heart, or in the human brain, for the preservation of what is called property, or rather, on account of the fear that what is called "property" may perish. property is in no danger while man is free. it is the freedom of man that gives value to property. it is the happiness of the human race that creates what we call value. if we preserve liberty, the spirit of progress, the conditions of development, property will take care of itself. _question_. the christian press during the past few months has been very solicitous as to your health, and has reported you weak and feeble physically, and not only so, but asserts that there is a growing disposition on your part to lay down your arms, and even to join the church. _answer_. i do not think the christian press has been very solicitous about my _health_. neither do i think that my health will ever add to theirs. the fact is, i am exceedingly well, and my throat is better than it has been for many years. any one who imagines that i am disposed to lay down my arms can read by reply to dr. field in the november number of the _north american review_. i see no particular difference in myself, except this; that my hatred of superstition becomes a little more and more intense; on the other hand, i see more clearly, that all the superstitions were naturally produced, and i am now satisfied that every man does as he must, including priests and editors of religious papers. this gives me hope for the future. we find that certain soil, with a certain amount of moisture and heat, produces good corn, and we find when the soil is poor, or when the ground is too wet, or too dry, that no amount of care can, by any possibility, produce good corn. in other words, we find that the fruit, that is to say, the result, whatever it may be, depends absolutely upon the conditions. this being so, we will in time find out the conditions that produce good, intelligent, honest men. this is the hope for the future. we shall know better than to rely on what is called reformation, or regeneration, or a resolution born of ignorant excitement. we shall rely, then, on the eternal foundation--the fact in nature-- that like causes produce like results, and that good conditions will produce good people. _question_. every now and then some one challenges you to a discussion, and nearly every one who delivers lectures, or speeches, attacking you, or your views, says that you are afraid publicly to debate these questions. why do you not meet these men, and why do you not answer these attacks? _answer_. in the first place, it would be a physical impossibility to reply to all the attacks that have been made--to all the "answers." i receive these attacks, and these answers, and these lectures almost every day. hundreds of them are delivered every year. a great many are put in pamphlet form, and, of course, copies are received by me. some of them i read, at least i look them over, and i have never yet received one worthy of the slightest notice, never one in which the writer showed the slightest appreciation of the questions under discussion. all these pamphlets are about the same, and they could, for the matter, have all been produced by one person. they are impudent, shallow, abusive, illogical, and in most respects, ignorant. so far as the lecturers are concerned, i know of no one who has yet said anything that challenges a reply. i do not think a single paragraph has been produced by any of the gentlemen who have replied to me in public, that is now remembered by reason of its logic or beauty. i do not feel called upon to answer any argument that does not at least appear to be of value. whenever any article appears worthy of an answer, written in a kind and candid spirit, it gives me pleasure to reply. i should like to meet some one who speaks by authority, some one who really understands his creed, but i cannot afford to waste time on little priests or obscure parsons or ignorant laymen. --_the truth seeker_, new york, january , . roscoe conkling. _question_. what is mr. conkling's place in the political history of the united states? _answer_. upon the great questions mr. conkling has been right. during the war he was always strong and clear, unwavering and decided. his position was always known. he was right on reconstruction, on civil rights, on the currency, and, so far as i know, on all important questions. he will be remembered as an honest, fearless man. he was admired for his known integrity. he was never even suspected of being swayed by an improper consideration. he was immeasurably above purchase. his popularity rested upon his absolute integrity. he was not adapted for a leader, because he would yield nothing. he had no compromise in his nature. he went his own road and he would not turn aside for the sake of company. his individuality was too marked and his will too imperious to become a leader in a republic. there is a great deal of individuality in this country, and a leader must not appear to govern and must not demand obedience. in the senate he was a leader. he settled with no one. _question_. what essentially american idea does he stand for? _answer_. it is a favorite saying in this country that the people are sovereigns. mr. conkling felt this to be true, and he exercised what he believed to be his rights. he insisted upon the utmost freedom for himself. he settled with no one but himself. he stands for individuality--for the freedom of the citizen, the independence of the man. no lord, no duke, no king was ever prouder of his title or his place than mr. conkling was of his position and his power. he was thoroughly american in every drop of his blood. _question_. what have you to say about his having died with sealed lips? _answer_. mr. conkling was too proud to show wounds. he did not tell his sorrows to the public. it seemed sufficient to him to know the facts himself. he seemed to have great confidence in time, and he had the patience to wait. of course he could have told many things that would have shed light on many important events, but for my part i think he acted in the noblest way. he was a striking and original figure in our politics. he stood alone. i know of no one like him. he will be remembered as a fearless and incorruptible statesman, a great lawyer, a magnificent speaker, and an honest man. --_the herald_, new york, april , . the church and the stage. _question_. i have come to talk with you a little about the drama. have you any decided opinions on that subject? _answer_. nothing is more natural than imitation. the little child with her doll, telling it stories, putting words in its mouth, attributing to it the feelings of happiness and misery, is the simple tendency toward the drama. little children always have plays, they imitate their parents, they put on the clothes of their elders, they have imaginary parties, carry on conversation with imaginary persons, have little dishes filled with imaginary food, pour tea and coffee out of invisible pots, receive callers, and repeat what they have heard their mothers say. this is simply the natural drama, an exercise of the imagination which always has been and which, probably, always will be, a source of great pleasure. in the early days of the world nothing was more natural than for the people to re-enact the history of their country--to represent the great heroes, the great battles, and the most exciting scenes the history of which has been preserved by legend. i believe this tendency to re-enact, to bring before the eyes the great, the curious, and pathetic events of history, has been universal. all civilized nations have delighted in the theatre, and the greatest minds in many countries have been devoted to the drama, and, without doubt, the greatest man about whom we know anything devoted his life to the production of plays. _question_. i would like to ask you why, in your opinion as a student of history, has the protestant church always been so bitterly opposed to the theatre? _answer_. i believe the early christians expected the destruction of the world. they had no idea of remaining here, in the then condition of things, but for a few days. they expected that christ would come again, that the world would be purified by fire, that all the unbelievers would be burned up and that the earth would become a fit habitation for the followers of the saviour. protestantism became as ascetic as the early christians. it is hard to conceive of anybody believing in the "five points" of john calvin going to any place of amusement. the creed of protestantism made life infinitely sad and made man infinitely responsible. according to this creed every man was liable at any moment to be summoned to eternal pain; the most devout christian was not absolutely sure of salvation. this life was a probationary one. everybody was considered as waiting on the dock of time, sitting on his trunk, expecting the ship that was to bear him to an eternity of good or evil--probably evil. they were in no state of mind to enjoy burlesque or comedy, and, so far as tragedy was concerned, their own lives and their own creeds were tragic beyond anything that could by any possibility happen in this world. a broken heart was nothing to be compared with a damned soul; the afflictions of a few years, with the flames of eternity. this, to say the least of it, accounts, in part, for the hatred that protestantism always bore toward the stage. of course, the churches have always regarded the theatre as a rival and have begrudged the money used to support the stage. you know that macaulay said the puritans objected to bear-baiting, not because they pitied the bears, but because they hated to see the people enjoy themselves. there is in this at least a little truth. orthodox religion has always been and always will be the enemy of happiness. this world is not the place for enjoyment. this is the place to suffer. this is the place to practice self-denial, to wear crowns of thorns; the other world is the place for joy, provided you are fortunate enough to travel the narrow, grass-grown path. of course, wicked people can be happy here. people who care nothing for the good of others, who live selfish and horrible lives, are supposed by christians to enjoy themselves; consequently, they will be punished in another world. but whoever carried the cross of decency, and whoever denied himself to that degree that he neither stole nor forged nor murdered, will be paid for this self-denial in another world. and whoever said that he preferred a prayer-meeting with five or six queer old men and two or three very aged women, with one or two candles, and who solemnly affirmed that he enjoyed that far more than he could a play of shakespeare, was expected with much reason, i think, to be rewarded in another world. _question_. do you think that church people were justified in their opposition to the drama in the days when congreve, wycherley and ben jonson were the popular favorites? _answer_. in that time there was a great deal of vulgarity in many of the plays. many things were said on the stage that the people of this age would not care to hear, and there was not very often enough wit in the saying to redeem it. my principal objection to congreve, wycherley and most of their contemporaries is that the plays were exceedingly poor and had not much in them of real, sterling value. the puritans, however, did not object on account of the vulgarity; that was not the honest objection. no play was ever put upon the english stage more vulgar then the "table talk" of martin luther, and many sermons preached in that day were almost unrivaled for vulgarity. the worst passages in the old testament were quoted with a kind of unction that showed a love for the vulgar. and, in my judgment, the worst plays were as good as the sermons, and the theatre of that time was better adapted to civilize mankind, to soften the human heart, and to make better men and better women, than the pulpit of that day. the actors, in my judgment, were better people than the preachers. they had in them more humanity, more real goodness and more appreciation of beauty, of tenderness, of generosity and of heroism. probably no religion was ever more thoroughly hateful than puritanism. but all religionists who believe in an eternity of pain would naturally be opposed to everything that makes this life better; and, as a matter of fact, orthodox churches have been the enemies of painting, of sculpture, of music and the drama. _question_. what, in your estimation, is the value of the drama as a factor in our social life at the present time? _answer_. i believe that the plays of shakespeare are the most valuable things in the possession of the human race. no man can read and understand shakespeare without being an intellectually developed man. if shakespeare could be as widely circulated as the bible--if all the bible societies would break the plates they now have and print shakespeare, and put shakespeare in all the languages of the world, nothing would so raise the intellectual standard of mankind. think of the different influence on men between reading deuteronomy and "hamlet" and "king lear"; between studying numbers and the "midsummer night's dream"; between pondering over the murderous crimes and assassinations in judges, and studying "the tempest" or "as you like it." man advances as he develops intellectually. the church teaches obedience. the man who reads shakespeare has his intellectual horizon enlarged. he begins to think for himself, and he enjoys living in a new world. the characters of shakespeare become his acquaintances. he admires the heroes, the philosophers; he laughs with the clowns, and he almost adores the beautiful women, the pure, loving, and heroic women born of shakespeare's heart and brain. the stage has amused and instructed the world. it had added to the happiness of mankind. it has kept alive all arts. it is in partnership with all there is of beauty, of poetry, and expression. it goes hand in hand with music, with painting, with sculpture, with oratory, with philosophy, and history. the stage has humor. it abhors stupidity. it despises hypocrisy. it holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. it thrusts the spear of ridicule through the shield of pretence. it laughs at the lugubrious and it has ever taught and will, in all probability, forever teach, that man is more than a title, and that human love laughs at all barriers, at all the prejudices of society and caste that tend to keep apart two loving hearts. _question_. what is your opinion of the progress of the drama in educating the artistic sense of the community as compared with the progress of the church as an educator of the moral sentiment? _answer_. of course, the stage is not all good, nor is--and i say this with becoming modesty--the pulpit all bad. there have been bad actors and there have been good preachers. there has been no improvement in plays since shakespeare wrote. there has been great improvement in theatres, and the tendency seems to me be toward higher artistic excellence in the presentation of plays. as we become slowly civilized we will constantly demand more artistic excellence. there will always be a class satisfied with the lowest form of dramatic presentation, with coarse wit, with stupid but apparent jokes, and there will always be a class satisfied with almost anything; but the class demanding the highest, the best, will constantly increase in numbers, and the other classes will, in all probability, correspondingly decrease. the church has ceased to be an educator. in an artistic direction it never did anything except in architecture, and that ceased long ago. the followers of to-day are poor copyists. the church has been compelled to be a friend of, or rather to call in the assistance of, music. as a moral teacher, the church always has been and always will be a failure. the pulpit, to use the language of frederick douglass, has always "echoed the cry of the street." take our own history. the church was the friend of slavery. that institution was defended in nearly every pulpit. the bible was the auction-block on which the slave-mother stood while her child was sold from her arms. the church, for hundreds of years, was the friend and defender of the slave-trade. i know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or another. the church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless. the church preaches the doctrine of forgiveness. this doctrine sells crime on credit. the idea that there is a god who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. happiness ought to be the result of good actions. happiness ought to spring from the seed a man sows himself. it ought not to be a reward, it ought to be a consequence, and there ought to be no idea that there is any being who can step between action and consequence. to preach that a man can abuse his wife and children, rob his neighbors, slander his fellow-citizens, and yet, a moment or two before he dies, by repentance become a glorified angel is, in my judgment, immoral. and to preach that a man can be a good man, kind to his wife and children, an honest man, paying his debts, and yet, for the lack of a certain belief, the moment after he is dead, be sent to an eternal prison, is also immoral. so that, according to my opinion, while the church teaches men many good things, it also teaches doctrines subversive of morality. if there were not in the whole world a church, the morality of man, in my judgment, would be the gainer. _question_. what do you think of the treatment of the actor by society in his social relations? _answer_. for a good many years the basis of society has been the dollar. only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public. if any man produced a book he had to find a patron--some titled donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. if you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the dedication written by lord bacon to james i., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead--beyond cæsar and marcus aurelius. in those days the literary man was a servant, a hack. he lived in grub street. he was only one degree above the sturdy vagrant and the escaped convict. why was this? he had no money and he lived in an age when money was the fountain of respectability. let me give you another instance: mozart, whose brain was a fountain of melody, was forced to eat at table with coachmen, with footmen and scullions. he was simply a servant who was commanded to make music for a pudding-headed bishop. the same was true of the great painters, and of almost all other men who rendered the world beautiful by art, and who enriched the languages of mankind. the basis of respectability was the dollar. now that the literary man has an intelligent public he cares nothing for the ignorant patron. the literary man makes money. the world is becoming civilized and the literary man stands high. in england, however, if charles darwin had been invited to dinner, and there had been present some sprig of nobility, some titled vessel holding the germs of hereditary disease, darwin would have been compelled to occupy a place beneath him. but i have hopes even for england. the same is true of the artist. the man who can now paint a picture by which he receives from five thousand to fifty thousand dollars, is necessarily respectable. the actor who may realize from one to two thousand dollars a night, or even more, is welcomed in the stupidest and richest society. so with the singers and with all others who instruct and amuse mankind. many people imagine that he who amuses them must be lower than they. this, however, is hardly possible. i believe in the aristocracy of the brain and heart; in the aristocracy of intelligence and goodness, and not only appreciate but admire the great actor, the great painter, the great sculptor, the marvelous singer. in other words, i admire all people who tend to make this life richer, who give an additional thought to this poor world. _question_. do you think this liberal movement, favoring the better class of plays, inaugurated by the rev. dr. abbott, will tend to soften the sentiment of the orthodox churches against the stage? _answer_. i have not read what dr. abbott has written on this subject. from your statement of his position, i think he entertains quite a sensible view, and, when we take into consideration that he is a minister, a miraculously sensible view. it is not the business of the dramatist, the actor, the painter or the sculptor to teach what the church calls morality. the dramatist and the actor ought to be truthful, ought to be natural--that is to say, truthfully and naturally artistic. he should present pictures of life properly chosen, artistically constructed; an exhibition of emotions truthfully done, artistically done. if vice is presented naturally, no one will fall in love with vice. if the better qualities of the human heart are presented naturally, no one can fail to fall in love with them. but they need not be presented for that purpose. the object of the artist is to present truthfully and artistically. he is not a sunday school teacher. he is not to have the moral effect eternally in his mind. it is enough for him to be truly artistic. because, as i have said, a great many times, the greatest good is done by indirection. for instance, a man lives a good, noble, honest and lofty life. the value of that life would be destroyed if he kept calling attention to it--if he said to all who met him, "look at me!" he would become intolerable. the truly artistic speaks of perfection; that is to say, of harmony, not only of conduct, but of harmony and proportion in everything. the pulpit is always afraid of the passions, and really imagines that it has some influence on men and women, keeping them in the path of virtue. no greater mistake was ever made. eternally talking and harping on that one subject, in my judgment, does harm. forever keeping it in the mind by reading passages from the bible, by talking about the "corruption of the human heart," of the "power of temptation," of the scarcity of virtue, of the plentifulness of vice--all these platitudes tend to produce exactly what they are directed against. _question_. i fear, colonel, that i have surprised you into agreeing with a clergyman. the following are the points made by the rev. dr. abbott in his editorial on the theatre, and it seems to me that you and he think very much alike--on that subject. the points are these: . it is not the function of the drama to teach moral lessons. . a moral lesson neither makes nor mars either a drama or a novel. . the moral quality of a play does not depend upon the result. . the real function of the drama is like that of the novel--not to amuse, not to excite; but to portray life, and so minister to it. and as virtue and vice, goodness and evil, are the great fundamental facts of life, they must, in either serious story or serious play, be portrayed. if they are so portrayed that the vice is alluring and the virtue repugnant, the play or story is immoral; if so portrayed that the vice is repellant and the virtue alluring, they play or story is moral. . the church has no occasion to ask the theatre to preach; though if it does preach we have a right to demand that its ethical doctrines be pure and high. but we have a right to demand that in its pictures of life it so portrays vice as to make it abhorrent, and so portrays virtue as to make it attractive. _answer_. i agree in most of what you have read, though i must confess that to find a minister agreeing with me, or to find myself agreeing with a minister, makes me a little uncertain. all art, in my judgment, is for the sake of expression--equally true of the drama as of painting and sculpture. no poem touches the human heart unless it touches the universal. it must, at some point, move in unison with the great ebb and flow of things. the same is true of the play, of a piece of music or a statue. i think that all real artists, in all departments, touch the universal and when they do the result is good; but the result need not have been a consideration. there is an old story that at first there was a temple erected upon the earth by god himself; that afterward this temple was shivered into countless pieces and distributed over the whole earth, and that all the rubies and diamonds and precious stones since found are parts of that temple. now, if we could conceive of a building, or of anything involving all art, and that it had been scattered abroad, then i would say that whoever find and portrays truthfully a thought, an emotion, a truth, has found and restored one of the jewels. --_dramatic mirror_, new york, april , . protection and free trade. _question_. do you take much interest in politics, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. i take as much interest in politics as a republican ought who expects nothing and who wants nothing for himself. i want to see this country again controlled by the republican party. the present administration has not, in my judgment, the training and the political intelligence to decide upon the great economic and financial questions. there are a great many politicians and but few statesmen. here, where men have to be elected every two or six years, there is hardly time for the officials to study statesmanship--they are busy laying pipes and fixing fences for the next election. each one feels much like a monkey at a fair, on the top of a greased pole, and puts in the most of his time dodging stones and keeping from falling. i want to see the party in power best qualified, best equipped, to administer the government. _question_. what do you think will be the particular issue of the coming campaign? _answer_. that question has already been answered. the great question will be the tariff. mr. cleveland imagines that the surplus can be gotten rid of by a reduction of the tariff. if the reduction is so great as to increase the demand for foreign articles, the probability is that the surplus will be increased. the surplus can surely be done away with by either of two methods; first make the tariff prohibitory; second, have no tariff. but if the tariff is just at that point where the foreign goods could pay it and yet undersell the american so as to stop home manufactures, then the surplus would increase. as a rule we can depend on american competition to keep prices at a reasonable rate. when that fails we have at all times the governing power in our hands--that is to say, we can reduce the tariff. in other words, the tariff is not for the benefit of the manufacturer--the protection is not for the mechanic or the capitalist --it is for the whole country. i do not believe in protecting silk simply to help the town of paterson, but i am for the protection of the manufacture, because, in my judgment, it helps the entire country, and because i know that it has given us a far better article of silk at a far lower price than we obtained before the establishment of those factories. i believe in the protection of every industry that needs it, to the end that we may make use of every kind of brain and find use for all human capacities. in this way we will produce greater and better people. a nation of agriculturalists or a nation of mechanics would become narrow and small, but where everything is done, then the brain is cultivated on every side, from artisan to artist. that is to say, we become thinkers as well as workers; muscle and mind form a partnership. i don't believe that england is particularly interested in the welfare of the united states. it never seemed probable to me that men like godwin smith sat up nights fearing that we in some way might injure ourselves. to use a phrase that will be understood by theologians at least, we ought to "copper" all english advice. the free traders say that there ought to be no obstructions placed by governments between buyers and sellers. if we want to make the trade, of course there should be no obstruction, but if we prefer that americans should trade with americans--that americans should make what americans want--then, so far as trading with foreigners is concerned, there ought to be an obstruction. i am satisfied that the united states could get along if the rest of the world should be submerged, and i want to see this country in such a condition that it can be independent of the rest of mankind. there is more mechanical genius in the united states than in the rest of the world, and this genius has been fostered and developed by protection. the democracy wish to throw all this away--to make useless this skill, this ingenuity, born of generations of application and thought. these deft and marvelous hands that create the countless things of use and beauty to be worth no more than the common hands of ignorant delvers and shovelers. to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, labor becomes honorable and its burden lighter. thousands of millions of dollars have been invested on the faith of this policy--millions and millions of people are this day earning their bread by reason of protection, and they are better housed and better fed and better clothed than any other workmen on the globe. the intelligent people of this country will not be satisfied with president cleveland's platform--with his free trade primer. they believe in good wages for good work, and they know that this is the richest nation in the world. the republic is worth at least sixty billion dollars. this vast sum is the result of labor, and this labor has been protected either directly or indirectly. this vast sum has been made by the farmer, the mechanic, the laborer, the miner, the inventor. protection has given work and wages to the mechanic and a market to the farmer. the interests of all laborers in america--all men who work--are identical. if the farmer pays more for his plow he gets more for his plowing. in old times, when the south manufactured nothing and raised only raw material--for the reason that its labor was enslaved and could not be trusted with education enough to become skillful--it was in favor of free trade; it wanted to sell the raw material to england and buy the manufactured article where it could buy the cheapest. even under those circumstances it was a short-sighted and unpatriotic policy. now everything is changing in the south. they are beginning to see that he who simply raises raw material is destined to be forever poor. for instance, the farmer who sells corn will never get rich; the farmer should sell pork and beef and horses. so a nation, a state, that parts with its raw material, loses nearly all the profits, for the reason that the profit rises with the skill requisite to produce. it requires only brute strength to raise cotton; it requires something more to spin it, to weave it, and the more beautiful the fabric the greater the skill, and consequently the higher the wages and the greater the profit. in other words, the more thought is mingled with labor the more valuable is the result. besides all this, protection is the mother of economy; the cheapest at last, no matter whether the amount paid is less or more. it is far better for us to make glass than to sell sand to other countries; the profit on sand will be exceedingly small. the interests of this country are united; they depend upon each other. you destroy one and the effect upon all the rest may be disastrous. suppose we had free trade to-day, what would become of the manufacturing interests to-morrow? the value of property would fall thousands of millions of dollars in an instant. the fires would die out in thousands and thousands of furnaces, innumerable engines would stop, thousands and thousands would stop digging coal and iron and steel. what would the city that had been built up by the factories be worth? what would be the effect on farms in that neighborhood? what would be the effect on railroads, on freights, on business--what upon the towns through which they passed? stop making iron in pennsylvania, and the state would be bankrupt in an hour. give us free trade, and new jersey, connecticut and many other states would not be worth one dollar an acre. if a man will think of the connection between all industries--of the dependence and inter-dependence of each on all; of the subtle relations between all human pursuits--he will see that to destroy some of the grand interest makes financial ruin and desolation. i am not talking now about a tariff that is too high, because that tariff does not produce a surplus--neither am i asking to have that protected which needs no protection--i am only insisting that all the industries that have been fostered and that need protection should be protected, and that we should turn our attention to the interests of our own country, letting other nations take care of themselves. if every american would use only articles produced by americans--if they would wear only american cloth, only american silk--if we would absolutely stand by each other, the prosperity of this nation would be the marvel of human history. we can live at home, and we have now the ingenuity, the intelligence, the industry to raise from nature everything that a nation needs. _question_. what have you to say about the claim that mr. cleveland does not propose free trade? _answer_. i suppose that he means what he said. his argument was all for free trade, and he endeavored to show to the farmer that he lost altogether more money by protection, because he paid a higher price for manufactured articles and received no more for what he had to sell. this certainly was an argument in favor of free trade. and there is no way to decrease the surplus except to prohibit the importation of foreign articles, which certainly mr. cleveland is not in favor of doing, or to reduce the tariff to a point so low that no matter how much may be imported the surplus will be reduced. if the message means anything it means free trade, and if there is any argument in it it is an argument in favor of absolutely free trade. the party, not willing to say "free trade" uses the word "reform." this is simply a mask and a pretence. the party knows that the president made a mistake. the party, however, is so situated that it cannot get rid of cleveland, and consequently must take him with his mistake--they must take him with his message, and then show that all he intended by "free trade" was "reform." _question_. who do you think ought to be nominated at chicago? _answer_. personally, i am for general gresham. i am saying nothing against the other prominent candidates. they have their friends, and many of them are men of character and capacity, and would make good presidents. but i know of no man who has a better record than gresham, and of no man who, in my judgment, would receive a larger number of votes. i know of no republican who would not support judge gresham. i have never heard one say that he had anything against him or know of any reason why he should not be voted for. he is a man of great natural capacity. he is candid and unselfish. he has for many years been engaged in the examination and decision of important questions, of good principles, and consequently he has a trained mind. he knows how to take hold of a question, to get at a fact, to discover in a multitude of complications the real principle--the heart of the case. he has always been a man of affairs. he is not simply a judge--that is to say, a legal pair of scales--he knows the effect of his decision on the welfare of communities--he is not governed entirely by precedents--he has opinions of his own. in the next place, he is a man of integrity in all the relations of life. he is not a seeker after place, and, so far as i know, he has done nothing for the purpose of inducing any human being to favor his nomination. i have never spoken to him on the subject. in the west he has developed great strength, in fact, his popularity has astonished even his best friends. the great mass of people want a perfectly reliable man--one who will be governed by his best judgment and by a desire to do the fair and honorable thing. it has been stated that the great corporations might not support him with much warmth for the reason that he has failed to decide certain cases in their favor. i believe that he has decided the law as he believed it to be, and that he has never been influenced in the slightest degree, by the character, position, or the wealth of the parties before him. it may be that some of the great financiers, the manipulators, the creators of bonds and stocks, the blowers of financial bubbles, will not support him and will not contribute any money for the payment of election expenses, because they are perfectly satisfied that they could not make any arrangements with him to get the money back, together with interest thereon, but the people of this country are intelligent enough to know what that means, and they will be patriotic enough to see to it that no man needs to bow or bend or cringe to the rich to attain the highest place. the possibility is that mr. blaine could have been nominated had he not withdrawn, but having withdrawn, of course the party is released. others were induced to become candidates, and under these circumstances mr. blaine has hardly the right to change his mind, and certainly other persons ought not to change it for him. _question_. do you think that the friends of gresham would support blaine if he should be nominated? _answer_. undoubtedly they would. if they go into convention they must abide the decision. it would be dishonorable to do that which you would denounce in others. whoever is nominated ought to receive the support of all good republicans. no party can exist that will not be bound by its own decision. when the platform is made, then is the time to approve or reject. the conscience of the individual cannot be bound by the action of party, church or state. but when you ask a convention to nominate your candidate, you really agree to stand by the choice of the convention. principles are of more importance than candidates. as a rule, men who refuse to support the nominee, while pretending to believe in the platform, are giving an excuse for going over to the enemy. it is a pretence to cover desertion. i hope that whoever may be nominated at chicago will receive the cordial support of the entire party, of every man who believes in republican principles, who believes in good wages for good work, and has confidence in the old firms of "mind and muscle," of "head and hand." --_new york press_, may , . labor, and tariff reform. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the condition of labor in this country as compared with that abroad? _answer_. in the first place, it is self-evident that if labor received more in other lands than in this the tide of emigration would be changed. the workingmen would leave our shores. people who believe in free trade are always telling us that the laboring man is paid much better in germany than in the united states, and yet nearly every ship that comes from germany is crammed with germans, who, for some unaccountable reason, prefer to leave a place where they are doing well and come to one where they must do worse. the same thing can be said of denmark and sweden, of england, scotland, ireland and of italy. the truth is, that in all those lands the laboring man can earn just enough to-day to do the work of to-morrow; everything he earns is required to get food enough in his body and rags enough on his back to work from day to day, to toil from week to week. there are only three luxuries within his reach--air, light, and water; probably a fourth might be added --death. in those countries the few own the land, the few have the capital, the few make the laws, and the laboring man is not a power. his opinion in neither asked nor heeded. the employers pay as little as they can. when the world becomes civilized everybody will want to pay what things are worth, but now capital is perfectly willing that labor shall remain at the starvation line. competition on every hand tends to put down wages. the time will come when the whole community will see that justice is economical. if you starve laboring men you increase crime; you multiply, as they do in england, workhouses, hospitals and all kinds of asylums, and these public institutions are for the purpose of taking care of the wrecks that have been produced by greed and stinginess and meanness--that is to say, by the ignorance of capital. _question_. what effect has the protective tariff on the condition of labor in this country? _answer_. to the extent that the tariff keeps out the foreign article it is a direct protection to american labor. everything in this country is on a larger scale than in any other. there is far more generosity among the manufacturers and merchants and millionaires and capitalists of the united states than among those of any other country, although they are bad enough and mean enough here. but the great thing for the laboring man in the united states is that he is regarded as a man. he is a unit of political power. his vote counts just as much as that of the richest and most powerful. the laboring man has to be consulted. the candidate has either to be his friend or to pretend to be his friend, before he can succeed. a man running for the presidency could not say the slightest word against the laboring man, or calculated to put a stain upon industry, without destroying every possible chance of success. generally, every candidate tries to show that he is a laboring man, or that he was a laboring man, or that his father was before him. there is in this country very little of the spirit of caste--the most infamous spirit that ever infested the heartless breast of the brainless head of a human being. _question_. what will be the effect on labor of a departure in american policy in the direction of free trade? _answer_. if free trade could be adopted to-morrow there would be an instant shrinkage of values in this country. probably the immediate loss would equal twenty billion dollars--that is to say, one-third of the value of the country. no one can tell its extent. all thing are so interwoven that to destroy one industry cripples another, and the influence keeps on until it touches the circumference of human interests. i believe that labor is a blessing. it never was and never will be a curse. it is a blessed thing to labor for your wife and children, for your father and mother, and for the ones you love. it is a blessed thing to have an object in life--something to do-- something to call into play your best thoughts, to develop your faculties and to make you a man. how beautiful, how charming, are the dreams of the young mechanic, the artist, the musician, the actor and the student. how perfectly stupid must be the life of a young man with nothing to do, no ambition, no enthusiasm--that is to say, nothing of the divine in him; the young man with an object in life, of whose brain a great thought, a great dream has taken possession, and in whose heart there is a great, throbbing hope. he looks forward to success--to wife, children, home--all the blessings and sacred joys of human life. he thinks of wealth and fame and honor, and of a long, genial, golden, happy autumn. work gives the feeling of independence, of self-respect. a man who does something necessarily puts a value on himself. he feels that he is a part of the world's force. the idler--no matter what he says, no matter how scornfully he may look at the laborer--in his very heart knows exactly what he is; he knows that he is a counterfeit, a poor worthless imitation of a man. but there is a vast difference between work and what i call "toil." what must be the life of a man who can earn only one dollar or two dollars a day? if this man has a wife and a couple of children how can the family live? what must they eat? what must they wear? from the cradle to the coffin they are ignorant of any luxury of life. if the man is sick, if one of the children dies, how can doctors and medicines be paid for? how can the coffin or the grave be purchased? these people live on what might be called "the snow line"--just at that point where trees end and the mosses begin. what are such lives worth? the wages of months would hardly pay for the ordinary dinner of the family of a rich man. the savings of a whole life would not purchase one fashionable dress, or the lace on it. such a man could not save enough during his whole life to pay for the flowers of a fashionable funeral. and yet how often hundreds of thousands of persons, who spend thousands of dollars every year on luxuries, really wonder why the laboring people should complain. they are astonished when a car driver objects to working fourteen hours a day. men give millions of dollars to carry the gospel to the heathen, and leave their own neighbors without bread; and these same people insist on closing libraries and museums of art on sunday, and yet sunday is the only day that these institutions can be visited by the poor. they even want to stop the street cars so that these workers, these men and women, cannot go to the parks or the fields on sunday. they want stages stopped on fashionable avenues so that the rich may not be disturbed in their prayers and devotions. the condition of the workingman, even in america, is bad enough. if free trade will not reduce wages what will? if manufactured articles become cheaper the skilled laborers of america must work cheaper or stop producing the articles. every one knows that most of the value of a manufactured article comes from labor. think of the difference between the value of a pound of cotton and a pound of the finest cotton cloth; between a pound of flax and enough point lace to weigh a pound; between a few ounces of paint, two or three yards of canvas and a great picture; between a block of stone and a statue! labor is the principal factor in price; when the price falls wages must go down. i do not claim that protection is for the benefit of any particular class, but that it is for the benefit not only of that particular class, but of the entire country. in england the common laborer expects to spend his old age in some workhouse. he is cheered through all his days of toil, through all his years of weariness, by the prospect of dying a respectable pauper. the women work as hard as the men. they toil in the iron mills. they make nails, they dig coal, they toil in the fields. in europe they carry the hod, they work like beasts and with beasts, until they lose almost the semblance of human beings--until they look inferior to the animals they drive. on the labor of these deformed mothers, of these bent and wrinkled girls, of little boys with the faces of old age, the heartless nobility live in splendor and extravagant idleness. i am not now speaking of the french people, as france is the most prosperous country in europe. let us protect our mothers, our wives and our children from the deformity of toil, from the depths of poverty. _question_. is not the ballot an assurance to the laboring man that he can get fair treatment from his employer? _answer_. the laboring man in this country has the political power, provided he has the intelligence to know it and the intelligence to use it. in so far as laws can assist labor, the workingman has it in his power to pass such laws; but in most foreign lands the laboring man has really no voice. it is enough for him to work and wait and suffer and emigrate. he can take refuge in the grave or go to america. in the old country, where people have been taught that all blessing come from the king, it is very natural for the poor to believe the other side of that proposition--that is to say, all evils come from the king, from the government. they are rocked in the cradle of this falsehood. so when they come to this country, if they are unfortunate, it is natural for them to blame the government. the discussion of these questions, however, has already done great good. the workingman is becoming more and more intelligent. he is getting a better idea every day of the functions and powers and limitations of government, and if the problem is ever worked out-- and by "problem" i mean the just and due relations that should exist between labor and capital--it will be worked out here in america. _question_. what assurance has the american laborer that he will not be ultimately swamped by foreign immigration? _answer_. most of the immigrants that come to american come because they want a home. nearly every one of them is what you may call "land hungry." in his country, to own a piece of land was to be respectable, almost a nobleman. the owner of a little land was regarded as the founder of a family--what you might call a "village dynasty." when they leave their native shores for america, their dream is to become a land owner--to have fields, to own trees, and to listen to the music of their own brooks. the moment they arrive the mass of them seek the west, where land can be obtained. the great northwest now is being filled with scandinavian farmers, with persons from every part of germany--in fact from all foreign countries--and every year they are adding millions of acres to the plowed fields of the republic. this land hunger, this desire to own a home, to have a field, to have flocks and herds, to sit under your own vine and fig tree, will prevent foreign immigration from interfering to any hurtful degree with the skilled workmen of america. these land owners, these farmers, become consumers of manufactured articles. they keep the wheels and spindles turning and the fires in the forges burning. _question_. what do you think of cleveland's message? _answer_. only the other day i read a speech made by the hon. william d. kelley, of pennsylvania, upon this subject, in which he says in answer to what he calls "the puerile absurdity of president cleveland's assumption" that the duty is always added to the cost, not only of imported commodities, but to the price of like commodities produced in this country, "that the duties imposed by our government on sugar reduced to _ad valorem_ were never so high as now, and the price of sugar was never in this country so low as it is now." he also showed that this tax on sugar has made it possible for us to produce sugar from other plants and he gives the facts in relation to corn sugar. we are now using annually nineteen million bushels of corn for the purpose of making glucose or corn sugar. he shows that in this industry alone there has been a capital invested of eleven million dollars; that seven hundred and thirty-two thousand acres of land are required to furnish the supply, and that this one industry now gives employment to about twenty-two thousand farmers, about five thousand laborers in factories, and that the annual value of this product of corn sugar is over seventeen million dollars. he also shows what we may expect from the cultivation of the beet. i advise every one to read that speech, so that they may have some idea of the capabilities of this country, of the vast wealth asking for development, of the countless avenues opened for ingenuity, energy and intelligence. _question_. does the protective tariff cheapen the prices of commodities to the laboring man? _answer_. in this there are involved two questions. if the tariff is so low that the foreign article is imported, of course this tariff is added to the cost and must be paid by the consumer; but if the protective tariff is so high that the importer cannot pay it, and as a consequence the article is produced in america, then it depends largely upon competition whether the full amount of the tariff will be added to the article. as a rule, competition will settle that question in america, and the article will be sold as cheaply as the producers can afford. for instance: if there is a tariff, we will say of fifty cents on a pair of shoes, and this tariff is so low that the foreign article can afford to pay it, then that tariff, of course, must be paid by the consumer. but suppose the tariff was five dollars on a pair of shoes--that is to say, absolutely prohibitory--does any man in his senses say that five dollars would be added to each pair of american shoes? of course, the statement is the answer. i think it is the duty of the laboring man in this country, first, thoroughly to post himself upon these great questions, to endeavor to understand his own interest as well as the interest of his country, and if he does, i believe he will arrive at the conclusion that it is far better to have the country filled with manufacturers than to be employed simply in the raising of raw material. i think he will come to the conclusion that we had better have skilled labor here, and that it is better to pay for it than not to have it. i think he will find that it is better for america to be substantially independent of the rest of the world. i think he will conclude that nothing is more desirable than the development of american brain, and that nothing better can be raised than great and splendid men and women. i think he will conclude that the cloud coming from the factories, from the great stacks and chimneys, is the cloud on which will be seen, and always seen, the bow of american promise. _question_. what have you to say about tariff reform? _answer_. i have this to say: that the tariff is for the most part the result of compromises--that is, one state wishing to have something protected agrees to protect something else in some other state, so that, as a matter of fact, many things are protected that need no protection, and many things are unprotected that ought to be cared for by the government. i am in favor of a sensible reform of the tariff--that is to say, i do not wish to put it in the power of the few to practice extortion upon the many. congress should always be wide awake, and whenever there is any abuse it should be corrected. at the same time, next to having the tariff just--next in importance is to have it stable. it does us great injury to have every dollar invested in manufactures frightened every time congress meets. capital should feel secure. insecurity calls for a higher interest, wants to make up for the additional risk, whereas, when a dollar feels absolutely certain that it is well invested, that it is not to be disturbed, it is satisfied with a very low rate of interest. the present agitation--the message of president cleveland upon these questions--will cost the country many hundred millions of dollars. _question_. i see that some one has been charging that judge gresham is an infidel? _answer_. i have known judge gresham for many years, and of course have heard him talk upon many subjects, but i do not remember ever discussing with him a religious topic. i only know that he believes in allowing every man to express his opinions, and that he does not hate a man because he differs with him. i believe that he believes in intellectual hospitality, and that he would give all churches equal rights, and would treat them all with the utmost fairness. i regard him as a fair-minded, intelligent and honest man, and that is enough for me. i am satisfied with the way he acts, and care nothing about his particular creed. i like a manly man, whether he agrees with me or not. i believe that president garfield was a minister of the church of the disciples--that made no difference to me. mr. blaine is a member of some church in augusta--i care nothing for that. whether judge gresham belongs to any church, i do not know. i never asked him, but i know he does not agree with me by a large majority. in this country, where a divorce has been granted between church and state, the religious opinions of candidates should be let alone. to make the inquiry is a piece of impertinence--a piece of impudence. i have voted for men of all persuasions and expect to keep right on, and if they are not civilized enough to give me the liberty they ask for themselves, why i shall simply set them an example of decency. _question_. what do you think of the political outlook? _answer_. the people of this country have a great deal of intelligence. tariff and free trade and protection and home manufactures and american industries--all these things will be discussed in every schoolhouse of the country, and in thousands and thousands of political meetings, and when next november comes you will see the democratic party overthrown and swept out of power by a cyclone. all other questions will be lost sight of. even the prohibitionists would rather drink beer in a prosperous country than burst with cold water and hard times. the preservation of what we have will be the great question. this is the richest country and the most prosperous country, and i believe that the people have sense enough to continue the policy that has given them those results. i never want to see the civilization of the old world, or rather the barbarism of the old world, gain a footing on this continent. i am an american. i believe in american ideas--that is to say, in equal rights, and in the education and civilization of all the people. --_new york press_, june , . cleveland and thurman. _question_. what do you think of the democratic nominations? _answer_. in the first place, i hope that this campaign is to be fought on the issues involved, and not on the private characters of the candidates. all that they have done as politicians--all measures that they have favored or opposed--these are the proper subjects of criticism; in all other respects i think it better to let the candidates alone. i care but little about the private character of mr. cleveland or of mr. thurman. the real question is, what do they stand for? what policy do they advocate? what are the reasons for and against the adoption of the policy they propose? i do not regard cleveland as personally popular. he has done nothing, so far as i know, calculated to endear him to the popular heart. he certainly is not a man of enthusiasm. he has said nothing of a striking or forcible character. his messages are exceedingly commonplace. he is not a man of education, of wide reading, of refined tastes, or of general cultivation. he has some firmness and a good deal of obstinacy, and he was exceedingly fortunate in his marriage. four years ago he was distinctly opposed to a second term. he was then satisfied that no man should be elected president more than once. he was then fearful that a president might use his office, his appointing power, to further his own ends instead of for the good of the people. he started, undoubtedly, with that idea in his mind. he was going to carry out the civil service doctrine to the utmost. but when he had been president a few months he was exceedingly unpopular with his party. the democrats who elected him had been out of office for twenty-five years. during all those years they had watched the republicans sitting at the national banquet. their appetites had grown keener and keener, and they expected when the th of march, , came that the republicans would be sent from the table and that they would be allowed to tuck the napkins under their chins. the moment cleveland got at the head of the table he told his hungry followers that there was nothing for them, and he allowed the republicans to go on as usual. in a little while he began to hope for a second term, and gradually the civil service notion faded from his mind. he stuck to it long enough to get the principal mugwump papers committed to him and to his policy; long enough to draw their fire and to put them in a place where they could not honorably retreat without making themselves liable to the charge of having fought only for the loaves and fishes. as a matter of fact, no men were hungrier for office than the gentlemen who had done so much for civil service reform. they were so earnest in the advocacy of that principle that they insisted that only their followers should have place; but the real rank and file, the men who had been democrats through all the disastrous years, and who had prayed and fasted, became utterly disgusted with mr. cleveland's administration and they were not slow to express their feelings. mr. cleveland saw that he was in danger of being left with no supporters, except a few who thought themselves too respectable really to join the democratic party. so for the last two years, and especially the last year, he turned his attention to pacifying the real democrats. he is not the choice of the democratic party. although unanimously nominated, i doubt if he was the unanimous choice of a single delegate. another very great mistake, i think, has been made by mr. cleveland. he seems to have taken the greatest delight in vetoing pension bills, and they seem to be about the only bills he has examined, and he has examined them as a lawyer would examine the declaration, brief or plea of his opponent. he has sought for technicalities, to the end that he might veto these bills. by this course he has lost the soldier vote, and there is no way by which he can regain it. upon this point i regard the president as exceedingly weak. he has shown about the same feeling toward the soldier now that he did during the war. he was not with them then either in mind or body. he is not with them now. his sympathies are on the other side. he has taken occasion to show his contempt for the democratic party again and again. this certainly will not add to his strength. he has treated the old leaders with great arrogance. he has cared nothing for their advice, for their opinions, or for their feelings. the principal vestige of monarchy or despotism in our constitution is the veto power, and this has been more liberally used by mr. cleveland than by any other president. this shows the nature of the man and how narrow he is, and through what a small intellectual aperture he views the world. nothing is farther from true democracy than this perpetual application of the veto power. as a matter of fact, it should be abolished, and the utmost that a president should be allowed to do, would be to return a bill with his objections, and the bill should then become a law upon being passed by both houses by a simple majority. this would give the executive the opportunity of calling attention to the supposed defects, and getting the judgment of congress a second time. i am perfectly satisfied that mr. cleveland is not popular with his party. the noise and confusion of the convention, the cheers and cries, were all produced and manufactured for effect and for the purpose of starting the campaign. now, as to senator thurman. during the war he occupied substantially the same position occupied by mr. cleveland. he was opposed to putting down the rebellion by force, and as i remember it, he rather justified the people of the south for going with their states. ohio was in favor of putting down the rebellion, yet mr. thurman, by some peculiar logic of his own, while he justified southern people for going into rebellion because they followed their states, justified himself for not following his state. his state was for the union. his state was in favor of putting down rebellion. his state was in favor of destroying slavery. certainly, if a man is bound to follow his state, he is equally bound when the state is right. it is hardly reasonable to say that a man is only bound to follow his state when his state is wrong; yet this was really the position of senator thurman. i saw the other day that some gentlemen in this city had given as a reason for thinking that thurman would strengthen the ticket, that he had always been right on the financial question. now, as a matter of fact, he was always wrong. when it was necessary for the government to issue greenbacks, he was a hard money man--he believed in the mint drops--and if that policy had been carried out, the rebellion could not have been suppressed. after the suppression of the rebellion, and when hundreds and hundreds of millions of greenbacks were afloat, and the republican party proposed to redeem them in gold, and to go back--as it always intended to do--to hard money--to a gold and silver basis--then senator thurman, holding aloft the red bandanna, repudiated hard money, opposed resumption, and came out for rag currency as being the best. let him change his ideas--put those first that he had last--and you might say that he was right on the currency question; but when the country needed the greenback he was opposed to it, and when the country was able to redeem the greenback, he was opposed to it. it gives me pleasure to say that i regard senator thurman as a man of ability, and i have no doubt that he was coaxed into his last financial position by the democratic party, by the necessities of ohio, and by the force and direction of the political wind. no matter how much respectability he adds to the ticket, i do not believe that he will give any great strength. in the first place, he is an old man. he has substantially finished his career. young men cannot attach themselves to him, because he has no future. his following is not an army of the young and ambitious--it is rather a funeral procession. yet, notwithstanding this fact, he will furnish most of the enthusiasm for this campaign--and that will be done with his handkerchief. the democratic banner is thurman's red bandanna. i do not believe that it will be possible for the democracy to carry ohio by reason of thurman's nomination, and i think the failure to nominate gray or some good man from that state, will lose indiana. so, while i have nothing to say against senator thurman, nothing against his integrity or his ability, still, under the circumstances, i do not think his nomination a strong one. _question_. do you think that the nominations have been well received throughout the united states? _answer_. not as well as in england. i see that all the tory papers regard the nominations as excellent--especially that of cleveland. every englishman who wants ireland turned into a penitentiary, and every irishman to be treated as a convict, is delighted with the action of the st. louis convention. england knows what she wants. her market is growing small. a few years ago she furnished manufactured articles to a vast portion of the world. millions of her customers have become ingenious enough to manufacture many things that they need, so the next thing england did was to sell them the machinery. now they are beginning to make their own machinery. consequently, english trade is falling off. she must have new customers. nothing would so gratify her as to have sixty millions of americans buy her wares. if she could see our factories still and dead; if she could put out the fires of our furnaces and forges; there would come to her the greatest prosperity she has ever known. she would fatten on our misfortunes --grow rich and powerful and arrogant upon our poverty. we would become her servants. we would raise the raw material with ignorant labor and allow her children to reap all the profit of its manufacture, and in the meantime to become intelligent and cultured while we grew poor and ignorant. the greatest blow that can be inflicted upon england is to keep her manufactured articles out of the united states. sixty millions of americans buy and use more than five hundred millions of asiatics --buy and use more than all of china, all of india and all of africa. one civilized man has a thousand times the wants of a savage or of a semi-barbarian. most of the customers of england want a few yards of calico, some cheap jewelry, a little powder, a few knives and a few gallons of orthodox rum. to-day the united states is the greatest market in the world. the commerce between the states is almost inconceivable in its immensity. in order that you may have some idea of the commerce of this country, it is only necessary to remember one fact. we have railroads enough engaged in this commerce to make six lines around the globe. the addition of a million americans to our population gives us a better market than a monopoly of ten millions of asiatics. england, with her workhouses, with her labor that barely exists, wishes this market, and wishes to destroy the manufactures of america, and she expects irish-americans to assist her in this patriotic business. now, as to the enthusiasm in this country. i fail to see it. the nominations have fallen flat. it has been known for a long time that cleveland was to be nominated. that has all been discounted, and the nomination of judge thurman has been received in a quite matter-of-fact way. it may be that his enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by what might be called the appearance above the horizon of the morning star of this campaign--oregon. what a star to rise over the work of the st. louis convention! what a prophecy for democrats to commence business with! oregon, with the free trade issue, seven thousand to eight thousand republican majority--the largest ever given by that state--oregon speaks for the pacific coast. _question_. what do you think of the democratic platform? _answer_. mr. watterson was kind enough to say that before they took the roof off of the house they were going to give the occupants a chance to get out. by the "house" i suppose he means the great workshop of america. by the "roof" he means protection; and by the "occupants" the mechanics. he is not going to turn them out at once, or take the roof off in an instant, but this is to be done gradually. in other words, they will remove it shingle by shingle or tile by tile, until it becomes so leaky or so unsafe that the occupants-- that is to say, the mechanics, will leave the building. the first thing in the platform is a reaffirmation of the platform of , and an unqualified endorsement of president cleveland's message on the tariff. and if president cleveland's message has any meaning whatever, it means free trade--not instantly, it may be--but that is the object and the end to be attained. all his reasoning, if reasoning it can be called, is in favor of absolute free trade. the issue is fairly made--shall american labor be protected, or must the american laborer take his chances with the labor market of the world? must he stand upon an exact par with the laborers of belgium and england and germany, not only, but with the slaves and serfs of other countries? must he be reduced to the diet of the old country? is he to have meat on holidays and a reasonably good dinner on christmas, and live the rest of the year on crusts, crumbs, scraps, skimmed milk, potatoes, turnips, and a few greens that he can steal from the corners of fences? is he to rely for meat, on poaching, and then is he to be transported to some far colony for the crime of catching a rabbit? are our workingmen to wear wooden shoes? now, understand me, i do not believe that the democrats think that free trade would result in disaster. their minds are so constituted that they really believe that free trade would be a great blessing. i am not calling in question their honesty. i am simply disputing the correctness of their theory. it makes no difference, as a matter of fact, whether they are honest or dishonest. free trade established by honest people would be just as injurious as if established by dishonest people. so there is no necessity of raising the question of intention. consequently, i admit that they are doing the best they know now. this is not admitting much, but it is something, as it tends to take from the discussion all ill feeling. we all know that the tariff protects special interests in particular states. louisiana is not for free trade. it may be for free trade in everything except sugar. it is willing that the rest of the country should pay an additional cent or two a pound on sugar for its benefit, and while receiving the benefit it does not wish to bear its part of the burden. if the other states protect the sugar interests in louisiana, certainly that state ought to be willing to protect the wool interest in ohio, the lead and hemp interest in missouri, the lead and wool interest in colorado, the lumber interest in minnesota, the salt and lumber interest in michigan, the iron interest in pennsylvania, and so i might go on with a list of the states--because each one has something that it wishes to have protected. it sounds a little strange to hear a democratic convention cry out that the party "is in favor of the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and indestructible states." only a little while ago the democratic party regarded it as the height of tyranny to coerce a free state. can it be said that a state is "free" that is absolutely governed by the nation? is a state free that can make no treaty with any other state or country--that is not permitted to coin money or to declare war? why should such a state be called free? the truth is that the states are not free in that sense. the republican party believes that this is a nation and that the national power is the highest, and that every citizen owes the highest allegiance to the general government and not to his state. in other words, we are not virginians or mississippians or delawareans --we are americans. the great republic is a free nation, and the states are but parts of that nation. the doctrine of state sovereignty was born of the institution of slavery. in the history of our country, whenever anything wrong was to be done, this doctrine of state sovereignty was appealed to. it protected the slave-trade until the year . it passed the fugitive slave law. it made every citizen in the north a catcher of his fellow-man--made it the duty of free people to enslave others. this doctrine of state rights was appealed to for the purpose of polluting the territories with the institution of slavery. to deprive a man of his liberty, to put him back into slavery, state lines were instantly obliterated; but whenever the government wanted to protect one of its citizens from outrage, then the state lines became impassable barriers, and the sword of justice fell in twain across the line of a state. people forget that the national government is the creature of the people. the real sovereign is the people themselves. presidents and congressmen and judges are the creatures of the people. if we had a governing class--if men were presidents or senators by virtue of birth--then we might talk about the danger of centralization; but if the people are sufficiently intelligent to govern themselves, they will never create a government for the destruction of their liberties, and they are just as able to protect their rights in the general government as they are in the states. if you say that the sovereignty of the state protects labor, you might as well say that the sovereignty of the county protects labor in the state and that the sovereignty of the town protects labor in the county. of all subjects in the world the democratic party should avoid speaking of "a critical period of our financial affairs, resulting from over taxation." how did taxation become necessary? who created the vast debt that american labor must pay? who made this taxation of thousands of millions necessary? why were the greenbacks issued? why were the bonds sold? who brought about "a critical period of our financial affairs"? how has the democratic party "averted disaster"? how could there be a disaster with a vast surplus in the treasury? can you find in the graveyard of nations this epitaph: "died of a surplus"? has any nation ever been known to perish because it had too much gold and too much silver, and because its credit was better than that of any other nation on the earth? the democrats seem to think--and it is greatly to their credit--that they have prevented the destruction of the government when the treasury was full--when the vaults were overflowing. what would they have done had the vaults been empty? let them wrestle with the question of poverty; let them then see how the democratic party would succeed. when it is necessary to create credit, to inspire confidence, not only in our own people, but in the nations of the world--which of the parties is best adapted for the task? the democratic party congratulates itself that it has not been ruined by a republican surplus! what good boys we are! we have not been able to throw away our legacy! is it not a little curious that the convention plumed itself on having paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers and sailors of the republic than was ever paid before during an equal period? it goes wild in its pretended enthusiasm for the president who has vetoed more pension bills than all the other presidents put together. the platform informs us that "the democratic party has adopted and consistently pursued and affirmed a prudent foreign policy, preserving peace with all nations." does it point with pride to the mexican fiasco, or does it rely entirely upon the great fishery triumph? what has the administration done--what has it accomplished in the field of diplomacy? when we come to civil service, about how many federal officials were at the st. louis convention? about how many have taken part in the recent nominations? in other words, who has been idle? we have recently been told that the wages of workingmen are just as high in the old country as in this, when you take into consideration the cost of living. we have always been told by all the free trade papers and orators, that the tariff has no bearing whatever upon wages, and yet, the democrats have not succeeded in convincing themselves. i find in their platform this language: "a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between the wages of american and foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and enterprises by giving them the assurance of an extended market and steady and continuous operations." it would seem from this that the democratic party admits that wages are higher here than in foreign countries. certainly they do not mean to say that they are lower. if they are higher here than in foreign countries, the question arises, why are they higher? if you took off the tariff, the presumption is that they would be as low here as anywhere else, because this very democratic convention says: "a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between wages." in other words, they would keep tariff enough on to protect our workingmen from the low wages of the foreigner--consequently, we have the admission of the democratic party that in order to keep wages in this country higher than they are in belgium, in italy, in england and in germany, we must protect home labor. then follows the _non sequitur_, which is a democratic earmark. they tell us that by keeping a tariff, "making due allowance for the difference between wages, all the industries and enterprises would be encouraged and promoted by giving them the assurance of an extended market." what does the word "extended" mean? if it means anything, it means a market in other countries. in other words, we will put the tariff so low that the wages of american workingmen will be so low that he can compete with the laborers of other countries; otherwise his market could not be "extended." what does this mean? there is evidently a lack of thought here. the two things cannot be accomplished in that way. if the tariff raises american wages, the american cannot compete in foreign markets with the men who work for half the price. what may be the final result is another question. american industry properly protected, american genius properly fostered, may invent ways and means--such wonderful machinery, such quick, inexpensive processes, that in time american genius may produce at a less rate than any other country, for the reason that the laborers of other countries will not be as intelligent, will not be as independent, will not have the same ambition. fine phrases will not deceive the people of this country. the american mechanic already has a market of sixty millions of people, and, as i said before, the best market in the world. this country is now so rich, so prosperous, that it is the greatest market of the earth, even for luxuries. it is the best market for pictures, for works of art. it is the best market for music and song. it is the best market for dramatic genius, and it is the best market for skilled labor, the best market for common labor, and in this country the poor man to-day has the best chance--he can look forward to becoming the proprietor of a home, of some land, to independence, to respectability, and to an old age without want and without disgrace. the platform, except upon this question of free trade, means very little. there are other features in it which i have not at present time to examine, but shall do so hereafter. i want to take it up point by point and find really what it means, what its scope is, and what the intentions were of the gentlemen who made it. but it may be proper to say here, that in my judgment it is a very weak and flimsy document, as victor hugo would say, "badly cut and badly sewed." of course, i know that the country will exist whatever party may be in power. i know that all our blessings do not come from laws, or from the carrying into effect of certain policies, and probably i could pay no greater compliment to any country than to say that even eight years of democratic rule cannot materially affect her destiny. --_new york press_, june , . the republican platform of . _question_. what do you think of the signs of the times so far as the campaign has progressed? _answer_. the party is now going through a period of misrepresentation. every absurd meaning that can be given to any combination of words will be given to every plank of the platform. in the heat of partisan hatred every plank will look warped and cracked. a great effort is being made to show that the republican party is in favor of intemperance,--that the great object now is to lessen the price of all intoxicants and increase the cost of all the necessaries of life. the papers that are for nothing but reform of everything and everybody except themselves, are doing their utmost to show that the republican party is the enemy of honesty and temperance. the other day, at a republican ratification meeting, i stated among other things, that we could not make great men and great women simply by keeping them out of temptation--that nobody would think of tying the hands of a person behind them and then praise him for not picking pockets; that great people were great enough to withstand temptation, and in that connection i made this statement: "temperance goes hand in hand with liberty"--the idea being that when a chain is taken from the body an additional obligation is perceived by the mind. these good papers--the papers that believe in honest politics--stated that i said: "temperance goes hand in hand with liquor." this was not only in the reports of the meeting, but this passage was made the subject of several editorials. it hardly seems possible that any person really thought that such a statement had been expressed. the republican party does not want free whiskey --it wants free men; and a great many people in the republican party are great enough to know that temperance does go hand in hand with liberty; they are great enough to know that all legislation as to what we shall eat, as to what we shall drink, and as to wherewithal we shall be clothed, partakes of the nature of petty, irritating and annoying tyranny. they also know that the natural result is to fill a country with spies, hypocrites and pretenders, and that when a law is not in accordance with an enlightened public sentiment, it becomes either a dead letter, or, when a few fanatics endeavor to enforce it, a demoralizer of courts, of juries and of people. the attack upon the platform by temperance people is doing no harm, for the reason that long before november comes these people will see the mistake they have made. it seems somewhat curious that the democrats should attack the platform if they really believe that it means free whiskey. the tax was levied during the war. it was a war measure. the government was _in extremis_, and for that reason was obliged to obtain a revenue from every possible article of value. the war is over; the necessity has disappeared; consequently the government should return to the methods of peace. we have too many government officials. let us get rid of collectors and gaugers and inspectors. let us do away with all this machinery, and leave the question to be settled by the state. if the temperance people themselves would take a second thought, they would see that when the government collects eighty or ninety million dollars from a tax on whiskey, the traffic becomes entrenched, it becomes one of the pillars of the state, one of the great sources of revenue. let the states attend to this question, and it will be a matter far easier to deal with. the prohibitionists are undoubtedly honest, and their object is to destroy the traffic, to prevent the manufacture of whiskey. can they do this as long as the government collects ninety million dollars per annum from that one source? if there is anything whatever in this argument, is it not that the traffic pays a bribe of ninety million dollars a year for its life? will not the farmers say to the temperance men: "the distilleries pay the taxes, the distilleries raise the price of corn; is it not better for the general government to look to another direction for its revenues and leave the states to deal as they may see proper with this question?" with me, it makes no difference what is done with the liquor-- whether it is used in the arts or not--it is a question of policy. there is no moral principle involved on our side of the question, to say the least of it. if it is a crime to make and sell intoxicating liquors, the government, by licensing persons to make and sell, becomes a party to the crime. if one man poisons another, no matter how much the poison costs, the crime is the same; and if the person from whom the poison was purchased knew how it was to be used, he is also a murderer. there have been many reformers in this world, and they have seemed to imagine that people will do as they say. they think that you can use people as you do bricks or stones; that you can lay them up in walls and they will remain where they are placed; but the truth is, you cannot do this. the bricks are not satisfied with each other--they go away in the night--in the morning there is no wall. most of these reformers go up what you might call the mount sinai of their own egotism, and there, surrounded by the clouds of their own ignorance, they meditate upon the follies and the frailties of their fellow-men and then come down with ten commandments for their neighbors. all this talk about the republican platform being in favor of intemperance, so far as the democratic party is concerned, is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy--nothing more, nothing less. so far as the prohibitionists are concerned, they may be perfectly honest, but, if they will think a moment, they will see how perfectly illogical they are. no one can help sympathizing with any effort honestly made to do away with the evil of intemperance. i know that many believe that these evils can be done away with by legislation. while i sympathize with the objects that these people wish to attain, i do not believe in the means they suggest. as life becomes valuable, people will become temperate, because they will take care of themselves. temperance is born of the countless influences of civilization. character cannot be forced upon anybody; it is a growth, the seeds of which are within. men cannot be forced into real temperance any more than they can be frightened into real morality. you may frighten a man to that degree that he will not do a certain thing, but you cannot scare him badly enough to prevent his wanting to do that thing. reformation begins on the inside, and the man refrains because he perceives that he ought to refrain, not because his neighbors say that he ought to refrain. no one would think of praising convicts in jail for being regular at their meals, or for not staying out nights; and it seems to me that when the prohibitionists--when the people who are really in favor of temperance--look the ground all over they will see that it is far better to support the republican party than to throw their votes away; and the republicans will see that it is simply a proposition to go back to the original methods of collecting revenue for the government--that it is simply abandoning the measures made necessary by war, and that it is giving to the people the largest liberty consistent with the needs of the government, and that it is only leaving these questions where in time of peace they properly belong --to the states themselves. _question_. do you think that the knights of labor will cut any material figure in this election? _answer_. the knights of labor will probably occupy substantially the same position as other laborers and other mechanics. if they clearly see that the policy advocated by the republican party is to their interest, that it will give them better wages than the policy advocated by the democrats, then they will undoubtedly support our ticket. there is more or less irritation between employers and employed. all men engaged in manufacturing and neither good nor generous. many of them get work for as little as possible, and sell its product for all they can get. it is impossible to adopt a policy that will not by such people be abused. many of them would like to see the working man toil for twelve hours or fourteen or sixteen in each day. many of them wonder why they need sleep or food, and are perfectly astonished when they ask for pay. in some instances, undoubtedly, the working men will vote against their own interests simply to get even with such employers. some laboring men have been so robbed, so tyrannized over, that they would be perfectly willing to feel for the pillars and take a certain delight in a destruction that brought ruin even to themselves. such manufacturers, however, i believe to be in a minority, and the laboring men, under the policy of free trade, would be far more in their power. when wages fall below a certain point, then comes degradation, loss of manhood, serfdom and slavery. if any man has the right to vote for his own interests, certainly the man who labors is that man, and every working man having in his will a part of the sovereignty of this nation, having within him a part of the lawmaking power, should have the intelligence and courage to vote for his own interests; he should vote for good wages; he should vote for a policy that would enable him to lay something by for the winter of his life, that would enable him to earn enough to educate his children, enough to give him a home and a fireside. he need not do this in anger or for revenge, but because it is just, because it is right, and because the working people are in a majority. they ought to control the world, because they have made the world what it is. they have given everything there is of value. labor plows every field, builds every house, fashions everything of use, and when that labor is guided by intelligence the world is prosperous. he who thinks good thoughts is a laborer--one of the greatest. the man who invented the reaper will be harvesting the fields for thousands of years to come. if labor is abused in this country the laborers have it within their power to defend themselves. all my sympathies are with the men who toil. i shed very few tears over bankers and millionaires and corporations--they can take care of themselves. my sympathies are with the man who has nothing to sell but his strength; nothing to sell but his muscle and his intelligence; who has no capital except that which his mother gave him--a capital he must sell every day; my sympathies are with him; and i want him to have a good market; and i want it so that he can sell the work for more than enough to take care of him to-morrow. i believe that no corporation should be allowed to exist except for the benefit of the whole people. the government should always act for the benefit of all, and when the government gives a part of its power to an aggregation of individuals, the accomplishment of some public good should justify the giving of that power; and whenever a corporation becomes subversive of the very end for which it was created, the government should put an end to its life. so i believe that after these matters, these issues have been discussed--when something is understood about the effect of a tariff, the effect of protection, the laboring people of this country will be on the side of the republican party. the republican party is always trying to do something--trying to take a step in advance. persons who care for nothing except themselves--who wish to make no effort except for themselves--are its natural enemies. _question_. what do you think of mr. mills' fourth of july speech on his bill? _answer_. certain allowances should always be made for the fourth of july. what mr. mills says with regard to free trade depends, i imagine, largely on where he happens to be. you remember the old story about the _moniteur_. when napoleon escaped from elba that paper said: "the ogre has escaped." and from that moment the epithets grew a little less objectionable as napoleon advanced, and at last the _moniteur_ cried out: "the emperor has reached paris." i hardly believe that mr. mills would call his bill in texas a war tariff measure. he might commence in new york with that description, but as he went south that language, in my judgment, would change, and when he struck the brazos i think the bill would be described as the nearest possible approach to free trade. mr. mills takes the ground that if raw material comes here free of duty, then we can manufacture that raw material and compete with other countries in the markets of the world--that is to say, under his bill. now, other countries can certainly get the raw material as cheaply as we can, especially those countries in which the raw material is raised; and if wages are less in other countries than in ours, the raw material being the same, the product must cost more with us than with them. consequently we cannot compete with foreign countries simply by getting the raw material at the same price; we must be able to manufacture it as cheaply as they, and we can do that only by cutting down the wages of the american workingmen. because, to have raw material at the same price as other nations, is only a part of the problem. the other part is how cheaply can we manufacture it? and that depends upon wages. if wages are twenty-five cents a day, then we can compete with those nations where wages are twenty-five cents a day; but if our wages are five or six times as high, then the twenty-five cent labor will supply the market. there is no possible way of putting ourselves on an equality with other countries in the markets of the world, except by putting american labor on an equality with the other labor of the world. consequently, we cannot obtain a foreign market without lessening our wages. no proposition can be plainer than this. it cannot be said too often that the real prosperity of a country depends upon the well-being of those who labor. that country is not prosperous where a few are wealthy and have all the luxuries that the imagination can suggest, and where the millions are in want, clothed in rags, and housed in tenements not fit for wild beasts. the value of our property depends on the civilization of our people. if the people are happy and contented, if the workingman receives good wages, then our houses and our farms are valuable. if the people are discontented, if the workingmen are in want, then our property depreciates from day to day, and national bankruptcy will only be a question of time. if mr. mills has given a true statement with regard to the measure proposed by him, what relation does that measure bear to the president's message? what has it to do with the democratic platform? if mr. mills has made no mistake, the president wrote a message substantially in favor of free trade. the democratic party ratified and indorsed that message, and at the same time ratified and indorsed the mills bill. now, the message was for free trade, and the mills bill, according to mr. mills, is for the purpose of sustaining the war tariff. they have either got the wrong child or the wrong parents. _question_. i see that some people are objecting to your taking any part in politics, on account of your religious opinion? _answer_. the democratic party has always been pious. if it is noted for anything it is for its extreme devotion. you have no idea how many democrats wear out the toes of their shoes praying. i suppose that in this country there ought to be an absolute divorce between church and state and without any alimony being allowed to the church; and i have always supposed that the republican party was perfectly willing that anybody should vote its ticket who believed in its principles. the party was not established, as i understand it, in the interest of any particular denomination; it was established to promote and preserve the freedom of the american citizen everywhere. its first object was to prevent the spread of human slavery; its second object was to put down the rebellion and preserve the union; its third object was the utter destruction of human slavery everywhere, and its fourth object is to preserve not only the fruit of all that it has won, but to protect american industry to the end that the republic may not only be free, but prosperous and happy. in this great work all are invited to join, no matter whether catholics or presbyterians or methodists or infidels--believers or unbelievers. the object is to have a majority of the people of the united states in favor of human liberty, in favor of justice and in favor of an intelligent american policy. i am not what is called strictly orthodox, and yet i am liberal enough to vote for a presbyterian, and if a presbyterian is not liberal enough to stand by a republican, no matter what his religious opinions may be, then the presbyterian is not as liberal as the republican party, and he is not as liberal as an unbeliever; in other words, he is not a manly man. i object to no man who is running for office on the ticket of my party on account of his religious convictions. i care nothing about the church of which he is a member. that is his business. that is an individual matter--something with which the state has no right to interfere--something with which no party can rightfully have anything to do. these great questions are left open to discussion. every church must take its chance in the open field of debate. no belief has the right to draw the sword--no dogma the right to resort to force. the moment a church asks for the help of the state, it confesses its weakness, it confesses its inability to answer the arguments against it. i believe in the absolute equality before the law, of all religions and all metaphysical theories; and i would no more control those things by law than i would endeavor to control the arts and the sciences by legislation. man admires the beautiful, and what is beautiful to one may not be to another, and this inequality or this difference cannot be regulated by law. the same is true of what is called religious belief. i am willing to give all others every right that i claim for myself, and if they are not willing to give me the rights they claim for themselves, they are not civilized. no man acknowledges the truth of my opinions because he votes the same ticket that i do, and i certainly do not acknowledge the correctness of the opinions of others because i vote the republican ticket. we are republicans together. upon certain political questions we agree, upon other questions we disagree--and that is all. only religious people, who have made up their minds to vote the democratic ticket, will raise an objection of this kind, and they will raise the objection simply as a pretence, simply for the purpose of muddying the water while they escape. of course there may be some exceptions. there are a great many insane people out of asylums. if the republican party does not stand for absolute intellectual liberty, it had better disband. and why should we take so much pains to free the body, and then enslave the mind? i believe in giving liberty to both. give every man the right to labor, and give him the right to reap the harvest of his toil. give every man the right to think, and to reap the harvest of his brain--that is to say, give him the right to express his thoughts. --_new york press_, july , . james g. blaine and politics. _question_. i see that there has lately been published a long account of the relations between mr. blaine and yourself, and the reason given for your failure to support him for the nomination in and ? _answer_. every little while some donkey writes a long article pretending to tell all that happened between mr. blaine and myself. i have never seen any article on the subject that contained any truth. they are always the invention of the writer or of somebody who told him. the last account is more than usually idiotic. an unpleasant word has never passed between mr. blaine and myself. we have never had any falling out. i never asked mr. blaine's influence for myself. i never asked president hayes or garfield or arthur for any position whatever, and i have never asked mr. cleveland for any appointment under the civil service. with regard to the german mission, about which so much has been said, all that i ever did in regard to that was to call on secretary evarts and inform him that there was no place in the gift of the administration that i would accept. i could not afford to throw away a good many thousand dollars a year for the sake of an office. so i say again that i never asked, or dreamed of asking, any such favor of mr. blaine. the favors have been exactly the other way-- from me, and not from him. so there is not the slightest truth in the charge that there was some difference between our families. i have great respect for mrs. blaine, have always considered her an extremely good and sensible woman; our relations have been of the friendliest character, and such relations have always existed between all the members of both families, so far as i know. nothing could be more absurd that the charge that there was some feeling growing out of our social relations. we do not depend upon others to help us socially; we need no help, and if we did we would not accept it. the whole story about there having been any lack of politeness or kindness is without the slightest foundation. in i did not think that mr. blaine could be elected. i thought the same at the chicago convention this year. i know that he has a great number of ardent admirers and of exceedingly self-denying and unselfish friends. i believe that he has more friends than any other man in the republican party; but he also has very bitter enemies--enemies with influence. taking this into consideration, and believing that the success of the party was more important than the success of any individual, i was in favor of nominating some man who would poll the entire republican vote. this feeling did not grow out of any hostility to any man, but simply out of a desire for republican success. in other words, i endeavored to take an unprejudiced view of the situation. under no circumstances would i underrate the ability and influence of mr. blaine, nor would i endeavor to deprecate the services he has rendered to the republican party and to the country. but by this time it ought to be understood that i belong to no man, that i am the proprietor of myself. there are two kinds of people that i have no use for--leaders and followers. the leader should be principle; the leader should be a great object to be accomplished. the follower should be the man dedicated to the accomplishment of a noble end. he who simply follows persons gains no honor and is incapable of giving honor even to the one he follows. there are certain things to be accomplished and these things are the leaders. we want in this country an american system; we wish to carry into operation, into practical effect, ideas, policies, theories in harmony with our surroundings. this is a great country filled with intelligent, industrious, restless, ambitious people. millions came here because they were dissatisfied with the laws, the institutions, the tyrannies, the absurdities, the poverty, the wretchedness and the infamous spirit of caste found in the old world. millions of these people are thinking for themselves, and only the people who can teach, who can give new facts, who can illuminate, should be regarded as political benefactors. this country is, in my judgment, in all that constitutes true greatness, the nearest civilized of any country. only yesterday the german empire robbed a woman of her child; this was done as a political necessity. nothing is taken into consideration except some move on the political chess-board. the feelings of a mother are utterly disregarded; they are left out of the question; they are not even passed upon. they are naturally ignored, because in these governments only the unnatural is natural. in our political life we have substantially outgrown the duel. there are some small, insignificant people who still think it important to defend a worthless reputation on the field of "honor," but for respectable members of the senate, of the house, of the cabinet, to settle a political argument with pistols would render them utterly contemptible in this country; that is to say, the opinion that governs, that dominates in this country, holds the duel in abhorrence and in contempt. what could be more idiotic, absurd, childish, than the duel between boulanger and floquet? what was settled? it needed no duel to convince the world that floquet is a man of courage. the same may be said of boulanger. he has faced death upon many fields. why, then, resort to the duel? if boulanger's wound proves fatal, that certainly does not tend to prove that floquet told the truth, and if boulanger recovers, it does not tend to prove that he did not tell the truth. nothing is settled. two men controlled by vanity, that individual vanity born of national vanity, try to kill each other; the public ready to reward the victor; the cause of the quarrel utterly ignored; the hands of the public ready to applaud the successful swordsman --and yet france is called a civilized nation. no matter how serious the political situation may be, no matter if everything depends upon one man, that man is at the mercy of anyone in opposition who may see fit to challenge him. the greatest general at the head of their armies may be forced to fight a duel with a nobody. such ideas, such a system, keeps a nation in peril and makes every cause, to a greater or less extent, depend upon the sword or the bullet of a criminal. --_the press_, new york, july , . the mills bill. _question_. what, in your opinion, is the significance of the vote on the mills bill recently passed in the house? in this i find there were one hundred and sixty-two for it, and one hundred and forty-nine against it; of these, two republicans voted for, and five democrats against. _answer_. in the first place, i think it somewhat doubtful whether the bill could have been passed if mr. randall had been well. his sickness had much to do with this vote. had he been present to have taken care of his side, to have kept his forces in hand, he, in my judgment, taking into consideration his wonderful knowledge of parliamentary tactics, would have defeated this bill. it is somewhat hard to get the average democrat, in the absence of his leader, to throw away the prospect of patronage. most members of congress have to pay tolerably strict attention to their political fences. the president, although clinging with great tenacity to the phrase "civil service," has in all probability pulled every string he could reach for the purpose of compelling the democratic members not only to stand in line, but to answer promptly to their names. every democrat who has shown independence has been stepped on just to the extent he could be reached; but many members, had the leader been on the floor--and a leader like randall--would have followed him. there are very few congressional districts in the united states not intensely democratic where the people want nothing protected. there are a few districts where nothing grows except ancient politics, where they cultivate only the memory of what never ought to have been, where the subject of protection has not yet reached. the impudence requisite to pass the mills bill is something phenomenal. think of the representatives from louisiana saying to the ranchmen of the west and to the farmers of ohio that wool must be on the free list, but that for the sake of preserving the sugar interest of louisiana and a little portion of texas, all the rest of the united states must pay tribute. everybody admits that louisiana is not very well adapted by nature for raising sugar, for the reason that the cane has to be planted every year, and every third year the frost puts in an appearance just a little before the sugar. now, while i think personally that the tariff on sugar has stimulated the inventive genius of the country to find other ways of producing that which is universally needed; and while i believe that it will not be long until we shall produce every pound of sugar that we consume, and produce it cheaper than we buy it now, i am satisfied that in time and at no distant day sugar will be made in this country extremely cheap, not only from beets, but from sorghum and corn, and it may be from other products. at the same time this is no excuse for louisiana, neither is it any excuse for south carolina asking for a tariff on rice, and at the same time wishing to leave some other industry in the united states, in which many more millions have been invested, absolutely without protection. understand, i am not opposed to a reasonable tariff on rice, provided it is shown that we can raise rice in this country cheaply and at a profit to such an extent as finally to become substantially independent of the rest of the world. what i object to is the impudence of the gentleman who is raising the rice objecting to the protection of some other industry of far greater importance than his. after all, the whole thing must be a compromise. we must act together for the common good. if we wish to make something at the expense of another state we must allow that state to make something at our expense, or at least we must be able to show that while it is for our benefit it is also for the benefit of the country at large. everybody is entitled to have his own way up to the point that his way interferes with somebody else. states are like individuals--their rights are relative--they are subordinated to the good of the whole country. for many years it has been the american policy to do all that reasonably could be done to foster american industry, to give scope to american ingenuity and a field for american enterprise--in other words, a future for the united states. the southern states were always in favor of something like free trade. they wanted to raise cotton for great britain--raw material for other countries. at that time their labor was slave labor, and they could not hope ever to have skilled labor, because skilled labor cannot be enslaved. the southern people knew at that time that if a man was taught enough of mathematics to understand machinery, to run locomotives, to weave cloth; it he was taught enough of chemistry even to color calico, it would be impossible to keep him a slave. education always was and always will be an abolitionist. the south advocated a system of harmony with slavery, in harmony with ignorance--that is to say, a system of free trade, under which it might raise its raw material. it could not hope to manufacture, because by making its labor intelligent enough to manufacture it would lose it. in the north, men are working for themselves, and as i have often said, they were getting their hands and heads in partnership. every little stream that went singing to the sea was made to turn a thousand wheels; the water became a spinner and a weaver; the water became a blacksmith and ran a trip hammer; the water was doing the work of millions of men. in other words, the free people of the north were doing what free people have always done, going into partnership with the forces of nature. free people want good tools, shapely, well made--tools with which the most work can be done with the least strain. suppose the south had been in favor of protection; suppose that all over the southern country there had been workshops, factories, machines of every kind; suppose that her people had been as ingenious as the people of the north; suppose that her hands had been as deft as those that had been accustomed to skilled labor; then one of two things would have happened; either the south would have been too intelligent to withdraw from the union, or, having withdrawn, it would have had the power to maintain its position. my opinion is that is would have been too intelligent to withdraw. when the south seceded it had no factories. the people of the south had ability, but it was not trained in the direction then necessary. they could not arm and equip their men; they could not make their clothes; they could not provide them with guns, with cannon, with ammunition, and with the countless implements of destruction. they had not the ingenuity; they had not the means; they could not make cars to carry their troops, or locomotives to draw them; they had not in their armies the men to build bridges or to supply the needed transportation. they had nothing but cotton --that is to say, raw material. so that you might say that the rebellion has settled the question as to whether a country is better off and more prosperous, and more powerful, and more ready for war, that is filled with industries, or one that depends simply upon the production of raw material. there is another thing in this connection that should never be forgotten--at least, not until after the election in november, and then if forgotten, should be remembered at every subsequent election --and that is, that the southern confederacy had in its constitution the doctrine of free trade. among other things it was fighting for free trade. as a matter of fact, john c. calhoun was fighting for free trade; the nullification business was in the interest of free trade. the southern people are endeavoring simply to accomplish, with the aid of new york, what they failed to accomplish on the field. the south is as "solid" to-day as in . it is now for free trade, and it purposes to carry the day by the aid of one or two northern states. history is repeating itself. it was the same for many years, up to the election of abraham lincoln. understand me, i do not blame the south for acting in accordance with its convictions, but the north ought not to be misled. the north ought to understand what the issue is. the south has a different idea of government--it is afraid of what it calls "centralization"--it is extremely sensitive about what are called "state rights" or the sovereignty of the state. but the north believes in a union that is united. the north does not expect to have any interest antagonistic to the union. the north has no mental reservation. the north believes in the government and in the federal system, and the north believes that when a state is admitted into the union it becomes a part--an integral part--of the nation; that there was a welding, that the state, so far as sovereignty is concerned, is lost in the union, and that the people of that state become citizens of the whole country. _question_. i see that by the vote two of the five democrats who voted for protection, and one of the two republicans who voted for free trade, were new yorkers. what do you think is the significance of this fact in relation to the question as to whether new york will join the south in the opposition to the industries of the country? _answer_. in the city of new york there are a vast number of men --importers, dealers in foreign articles, representatives of foreign houses, of foreign interests, of foreign ideas. of course most of these people are in favor of free trade. they regard new york as a good market; beyond that they have not the slightest interest in the united states. they are in favor of anything that will give them a large profit, or that will allow them to do the same business with less capital, or that will do them any good without the slightest regard as to what the effect may be on this country as a nation. they come from all countries, and they expect to remain here until their fortunes are made or lost and all their ideas are moulded by their own interests. then, there are a great many natives who are merchants in new york and who deal in foreign goods, and they probably think--some of them--that it would be to their interest to have free trade, and they will probably vote according to the ledger. with them it is a question of bookkeeping. their greed is too great to appreciate the fact that to impoverish customers destroys trade. at the same time, new york, being one of the greatest manufacturing states of the world, will be for protection, and the democrats of new york who voted for protection did so, not only because the believed in it themselves, but because their constituents believe in it, and the republicans who voted the other way must have represented some district where the foreign influence controls. the people of this state will protect their own industries. _question_. what will be the fate of the mills bill in the senate? _answer_. i think that unless the senate has a bill prepared embodying republican ideals, a committee should be appointed, not simply to examine the mills bill, but to get the opinions and the ideas of the most intelligent manufacturers and mechanics in this country. let the questions be thoroughly discussed, and let the information thus obtained be given to the people; let it be published from day to day; let the laboring man have his say, let the manufacturer give his opinion; let the representatives of the principal industries be heard, so that we may vote intelligently, so that the people may know what they are doing. a great many industries have been attacked. let them defend themselves. public property should not be taken for democratic use without due process of law. certainly it is not the business of a republican senate to pull the donkey of the democrats out of the pit; the dug the pit, and we have lost no donkey. i do not think the senate called upon to fix up this mills bill, to rectify its most glaring mistakes, and then for the sake of saving a little, give up a great deal. what we have got is safe until the democrats have the power to pass a bill. we can protect our rights by not passing their bills. in other words, we do not wish to practice any great self-denial simply for the purpose of insuring democratic success. if the bill is sent back to the house, no matter in what form, if it still has the name "mills bill" i think the democrats will vote for it simply to get out of their trouble. they will have the president's message left. but i do hope that the senate will investigate this business. it is hardly fair to ask the senate to take decided and final action upon this bill in the last days of the session. there is no time to consider it unless it is instantly defeated. this would probably be a safe course, and yet, by accident, there may be some good things in this bill that ought to be preserved, and certainly the democratic party ought to regard it as a compliment to keep it long enough to read it. the interests involved are great--there are the commercial and industrial interests of sixty millions of people. these questions touch the prosperity of the republic. every person under the flag has a direct interest in the solution of these questions. the end that is now arrived at, the policy now adopted, may and probably will last for many years. one can hardly overestimate the immensity of the interests at stake. a man dealing with his own affairs should take time to consider; he should give himself the benefit of his best judgment. when acting for others he should do no less. the senators represent, or should represent, not only their own views, but above these things they represent the material interests of their constituents, of their states, and to this trust they must be true, and in order to be true, they must understand the material interests of their states, and in order to be faithful, they must understand how the proposed changes in the tariff will affect these interests. this cannot be done in a moment. in my judgment, the best way is for the senate, through the proper committee, to hear testimony, to hear the views of intelligent men, of interested men, of prejudiced men--that is to say, they should look at the question from all sides. _question_. the senate is almost tied; do you think that any republicans are likely to vote in the interest of the president's policy at this session? _answer_. of course i cannot pretend to answer that question from any special knowledge, or on any information that others are not in possession of. my idea is simply this: that a majority of the senators are opposed to the president's policy. a majority of the senate will, in my judgment, sustain the republican policy; that is to say, they will stand by the american system. a majority of the senate, i think, know that it will be impossible for us to compete in the markets of the world with those nations in which labor is far cheaper than it is in the united states, and that when you make the raw material just the same, you have not overcome the difference in labor, and until this is overcome we cannot successfully compete in the markets of the world with those countries where labor is cheaper. and there are only two ways to overcome this difficulty--either the price of labor must go up in the other countries or must go down in this. i do not believe that a majority of the senate can be induced to vote for a policy that will decrease the wages of american workingmen. there is this curious thing: the president started out blowing the trumpet of free trade. it gave, as the democrats used to say, "no uncertain sound." he blew with all his might. messrs. morrison, carlisle, mills and many others joined the band. when the mills bill was introduced it was heralded as the legitimate offspring of the president's message. when the democratic convention at st. louis met, the declaration was made that the president's message, the mills bill, the democratic platform of and the democratic platform of , were all the same--all segments of one circle; in fact, they were like modern locomotives--"all the parts interchangeable." as soon as the republican convention met, made its platform and named its candidates, it is not free trade, but freer trade; and now mr. mills, in the last speech that he was permitted to make in favor of his bill, endeavored to show that it was a high protective tariff measure. this is what lawyers call "a departure in pleading." that is to say, it is a case that ought to be beaten on demurrer. --_new york press_, july , . society and its criminals* [* col. robert g. ingersoll was greatly interested in securing for chiara cignarale a commutation of the death sentence to imprisonment for life. in view of the fact that the great agnostic has made a close study of capital punishment, a reporter for the _world_ called upon him a day or two ago for an interview touching modern reformatory measures and the punishment of criminals. speaking generally on the subject colonel ingersoll said:] i suppose that society--that is to say, a state or a nation--has the right of self-defence. it is impossible to maintain society-- that is to say, to protect the rights of individuals in life, in property, in reputation, and in the various pursuits known as trades and professions, without in some way taking care of those who violate these rights. the principal object of all government should be to protect those in the right from those in the wrong. there are a vast number of people who need to be protected who are unable, by reason of the defects in their minds and by the countless circumstances that enter into the question of making a living, to protect themselves. among the barbarians there was, comparatively speaking, but little difference. a living was made by fishing and hunting. these arts were simple and easily learned. the principal difference in barbarians consisted in physical strength and courage. as a consequence, there were comparatively few failures. most men were on an equality. now that we are somewhat civilized, life has become wonderfully complex. there are hundreds of arts, trades, and professions, and in every one of these there is great competition. besides all this, something is needed every moment. civilized man has less credit than the barbarian. there is something by which everything can be paid for, including the smallest services. everybody demands payment, and he who fails to pay is a failure. owing to the competition, owing to the complexity of modern life, owing to the thousand things that must be known in order to succeed in any direction, on either side of the great highway that is called progress, are innumerable wrecks. as a rule, failure in some honest direction, or at least in some useful employment, is the dawn of crime. people who are prosperous, people who by reasonable labor can make a reasonable living, who, having a little leisure can lay in a little for the winter that comes to all, are honest. as a rule, reasonable prosperity is virtuous. i don't say great prosperity, because it is very hard for the average man to withstand extremes. when people fail under this law, or rather this fact, of the survival of the fittest, they endeavor to do by some illegal way that which they failed to do in accordance with law. persons driven from the highway take to the fields, and endeavor to reach their end or object in some shorter way, by some quicker path, regardless of its being right or wrong. i have said this much to show that i regard criminals as unfortunates. most people regard those who violate the law with hatred. they do not take into consideration the circumstances. they do not believe that man is perpetually acted upon. they throw out of consideration the effect of poverty, of necessity, and above all, of opportunity. for these reasons they regard criminals with feelings of revenge. they wish to see them punished. they want them imprisoned or hanged. they do not think the law has been vindicated unless somebody has been outraged. i look at these things from an entirely different point of view. i regard these people who are in the clutches of the law not only as unfortunates, but, for the most part, as victims. you may call them victims of nature, or of nations, or of governments; it makes no difference, they are victims. under the same circumstances the very persons who punish them would be punished. but whether the criminal is a victim or not, the honest man, the industrious man, has the right to defend the product of his labor. he who sows and plows should be allowed to reap, and he who endeavors to take from him his harvest is what we call a criminal; and it is the business of society to protect the honest from the dishonest. without taking into account whether the man is or is not responsible, still society has the right of self-defence. whether that right of self-defence goes to the extent of taking life, depends, i imagine, upon the circumstances in which society finds itself placed. a thousand men on a ship form a society. if a few men should enter into a plot for the destruction of the ship, or for turning it over to pirates, or for poisoning and plundering the most of the passengers--if the passengers found this out certainly they would have the right of self-defence. they might not have the means to confine the conspirators with safety. under such circumstances it might be perfectly proper for them to destroy their lives and to throw their worthless bodies into the sea. but what society has the right to do depends upon the circumstances. now, in my judgment, society has the right to do two things--to protect itself and to do what it can to reform the individual. society has no right to take revenge; no right to torture a convict; no right to do wrong because some individual has done wrong. i am opposed to all corporal punishment in penitentiaries. i am opposed to anything that degrades a criminal or leaves upon him an unnecessary stain, or puts upon him any stain that he did not put upon himself. most people defend capital punishment on the ground that the man ought to be killed because he has killed another. the only real ground for killing him, even if that be good, is not that he has killed, but that he may kill. what he has done simply gives evidence of what he may do, and to prevent what he may do, instead of to revenge what he has done, should be the reason given. now, there is another view. to what extent does it harden the community for the government to take life? don't people reason in this way: that man ought to be killed; the government, under the same circumstances, would kill him, therefore i will kill him? does not the government feed the mob spirit--the lynch spirit? does not the mob follow the example set by the government? the government certainly cannot say that it hangs a man for the purpose of reforming him. its feelings toward that man are only feelings of revenge and hatred. these are the same feelings that animate the lowest and basest mob. let me give you an example. in the city of bloomington, in the state of illinois, a man confined in the jail, in his efforts to escape, shot and, i believe, killed the jailer. he was pursued, recaptured, brought back and hanged by a mob. the man who put the rope around his neck was then under indictment for an assault to kill and was out on bail, and after the poor wretch was hanged another man climbed the tree and, in a kind of derision, put a piece of cigar between the lips of the dead man. the man who did this had also been indicted for a penitentiary offence and was then out on bail. i mention this simply to show the kind of people you find in mobs. now, if the government had a greater and nobler thought; if the government said: "we will reform; we will not destroy; but if the man is beyond reformation we will simply put him where he can do no more harm," then, in my judgment, the effect would be far better. my own opinion is, that the effect of an execution is bad upon the community--degrading and debasing. the effect is to cheapen human life; and, although a man is hanged because he has taken human life, the very fact that his life is taken by the government tends to do away with the idea that human life is sacred. let me give you an illustration. a man in the city of washington went to alexandria, va., for the purpose of seeing a man hanged who had murdered an old man and a woman for the purpose of getting their money. on his return from that execution he came through what is called the smithsonian grounds. this was on the same day, late in the evening. there he met a peddler, whom he proceeded to murder for his money. he was arrested in a few hours, in a little while was tried and convicted, and in a little while was hanged. and another man, present at this second execution, went home on that same day, and, in passing by a butcher-shop near his house, went in, took from the shop a cleaver, went into his house and chopped his wife's head off. this, i say, throws a little light upon the effect of public executions. in the cignarale case, of course the sentence should have been commuted. i think, however, that she ought not to be imprisoned for life. from what i read of the testimony i think she should have been pardoned. it is hard, i suppose, for a man fully to understand and enter into the feelings of a wife who has been trampled upon, abused, bruised, and blackened by the man she loved--by the man who made to her the vows of eternal affection. the woman, as a rule, is so weak, so helpless. of course, it does not all happen in a moment. it comes on as the night comes. she notices that he does not act quite as affectionately as he formerly did. day after day, month after month, she feels that she is entering a twilight. but she hopes that she is mistaken, and that the light will come again. the gloom deepens, and at last she is in midnight--a midnight without a star. and this man, whom she once worshiped, is now her enemy-- one who delights to trample upon every sentiment she has--who delights in humiliating her, and who is guilty of a thousand nameless tyrannies. under these circumstances, it is hardly right to hold that woman accountable for what she does. it has always seemed to me strange that a woman so circumstanced--in such fear that she dare not even tell her trouble--in such fear that she dare not even run away--dare not tell a father or a mother, for fear that she will be killed--i say, that in view of all this, it has always seemed strange to me that so few husbands have been poisoned. the probability is that society raises its own criminals. it plows the land, sows the seed, and harvests the crop. i believe that the shadow of the gibbet will not always fall upon the earth. i believe the time will come when we shall know too much to raise criminals--know too much to crowd those that labor into the dens and dungeons that we call tenements, while the idle live in palaces. the time will come when men will know that real progress means the enfranchisement of the whole human race, and that our interests are so united, so interwoven, that the few cannot be happy while the many suffer; so that the many cannot be happy while the few suffer; so that none can be happy while one suffers. in other words, it will be found that the human race is interested in each individual. when that time comes we will stop producing criminals; we will stop producing failures; we will not leave the next generation to chance; we will not regard the gutter as a proper nursery for posterity. people imagine that if the thieves are sent to the penitentiary, that is the last of the thieves; that if those who kill others are hanged, society is on a safe and enduring basis. but the trouble is here: a man comes to your front door and you drive him away. you have an idea that that man's case is settled. you are mistaken. he goes to the back door. he is again driven away. but the case is not settled. the next thing you know he enters at night. he is a burglar. he is caught; he is convicted; he is sent to the penitentiary, and you imagine that the case is settled. but it is not. you must remember that you have to keep all the agencies alive for the purpose of taking care of these people. you have to build and maintain your penitentiaries, your courts of justice; you have to pay your judges, your district attorneys, your juries, you witnesses, your detectives, your police--all these people must be paid. so that, after all, it is a very expensive way of settling this question. you could have done it far more cheaply had you found this burglar when he was a child; had you taken his father and mother from the tenement house, or had you compelled the owners to keep the tenement clean; or if you had widened the streets, if you had planted a few trees, if you had had plenty of baths, if you had had a school in the neighborhood. if you had taken some interest in this family--some interest in this child--instead of breaking into houses, he might have been a builder of houses. there is, and it cannot be said too often, no reforming influence in punishment; no reforming power in revenge. only the best of men should be in charge of penitentiaries; only the noblest minds and the tenderest hearts should have the care of criminals. criminals should see from the first moment that they enter a penitentiary that it is filled with the air of kindness, full of the light of hope. the object should be to convince every criminal that he has made a mistake; that he has taken the wrong way; that the right way is the easy way, and that the path of crime never did and never can lead to happiness; that that idea is a mistake, and that the government wishes to convince him that he has made a mistake; wishes to open his intellectual eyes; wishes so to educate him, so to elevate him, that he will look back upon what he has done, only with horror. this is reformation. punishment is not. when the convict is taken to sing sing or to auburn, and when a striped suit of clothes is put upon him--that is to say, when he is made to feel the degradation of his position--no step has been taken toward reformation. you have simply filled his heart with hatred. then, when he has been abused for several years, treated like a wild beast, and finally turned out again in the community, he has no thought, in a majority of cases, except to "get even" with those who have persecuted him. he feels that it is a persecution. _question_. do you think that men are naturally criminals and naturally virtuous? _answer_. i think that man does all that he does naturally--that is to say, a certain man does a certain act under certain circumstances, and he does this naturally. for instance, a man sees a five dollar bill, and he knows that he can take it without being seen. five dollars is no temptation to him. under the circumstances it is not natural that he should take it. the same man sees five million dollars, and feels that he can get possession of it without detection. if he takes it, then under the circumstances, that was natural to him. and yet i believe there are men above all price, and that no amount of temptation or glory or fame could mislead them. still, whatever man does, is or was natural to him. another view of the subject is this: i have read that out of fifty criminals who had been executed it was found, i believe, in nearly all the cases, that the shape of the skull was abnormal. whether this is true or not, i don't know; but that some men have a tendency toward what we call crime, i believe. where this has been ascertained, then, it seems to me, such men should be placed where they cannot multiply their kind. women who have a criminal tendency should be placed where they cannot increase their kind. for hardened criminals --that is to say, for the people who make crime a business--it would probably be better to separate the sexes; to send the men to one island, the women to another. let them be kept apart, to the end that people with criminal tendencies may fade from the earth. this is not prompted by revenge. this would not be done for the purpose of punishing these people, but for the protection of society --for the peace and happiness of the future. my own belief is that the system in vogue now in regard to the treatment of criminals in many states produces more crime than it prevents. take, for instance, the southern states. there is hardly a chapter in the history of the world the reading of which could produce greater indignation than the history of the convict system in many of the southern states. these convicts are hired out for the purpose of building railways, or plowing fields, or digging coal, and in some instances the death-rate has been over twelve per cent. a month. the evidence shows that no respect was paid to the sexes--men and women were chained together indiscriminately. the evidence also shows that for the slightest offences they were shot down like beasts. they were pursued by hounds, and their flesh was torn from their bones. so in some of the northern prisons they have what they call the weighing machine--an infamous thing, and he who uses it commits as great a crime as the convict he punishes could have committed. all these things are degrading, debasing, and demoralizing. there is no need of any such punishment in any penitentiary. let the punishment be of such kind that the convict is responsible himself. for instance, if the convict refuses to obey a reasonable rule he can be put into a cell. he can be fed when he obeys the rule. if he goes hungry it is his own fault. it depends upon himself to say when he shall eat. or he may be placed in such a position that if he does not work--if he does not pump--the water will rise and drown him. if the water does rise it is his fault. nobody pours it upon him. he takes his choice. these are suggested as desperate cases, but i can imagine no case where what is called corporal punishment should be inflicted, and the reason i am against it is this: i am opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. i am opposed to any punishment the infliction of which tends to harden and debase the man who inflicts it. i am for no laws that have to be carried out by human curs. take, for instance, the whipping-post. nothing can be more degrading. the man who applies the lash is necessarily a cruel and vulgar man, and the oftener he applies it the more and more debased he will become. the whole thing can be stated in the one sentence: i am opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman, and by "gentleman" i mean a self-respecting, honest, generous man. _question_. what do you think of the efficacy or the propriety of punishing criminals by solitary confinement? _answer_. solitary confinement is a species of torture. i am opposed to all torture. i think the criminal should not be punished. he should be reformed, if he is capable of reformation. but, whatever is done, it should not be done as a punishment. society should be too noble, too generous, to harbor a thought of revenge. society should not punish, it should protect itself only. it should endeavor to reform the individual. now, solitary confinement does not, i imagine, tend to the reformation of the individual. neither can the person in that position do good to any human being. the prisoner will be altogether happier when his mind is engaged, when his hands are busy, when he has something to do. this keeps alive what we call cheerfulness. and let me say a word on this point. i don't believe that the state ought to steal the labor of a convict. here is a man who has a family. he is sent to the penitentiary. he works from morning till night. now, in my judgment, he ought to be paid for the labor over and above what it costs to keep him. that money should be sent to his family. that money should be subject, at least, to his direction. if he is a single man, when he comes out of the penitentiary he should be given his earnings, and all his earnings, so that he would not have the feeling that he had been robbed. a statement should be given to him to show what it had cost to keep him and how much his labor had brought and the balance remaining in his favor. with this little balance he could go out into the world with something like independence. this little balance would be a foundation for his honesty--a foundation for a resolution on his part to be a man. but now each one goes out with the feeling that he has not only been punished for the crime which he committed, but that he has been robbed of the results of his labor while there. the idea is simply preposterous that the people sent to the penitentiary should live in idleness. they should have the benefit of their labor, and if you give them the benefit of their labor they will turn out as good work as if they were out of the penitentiary. they will have the same reason to do their best. consequently, poor articles, poorly constructed things, would not come into competition with good articles made by free people outside of the walls. now many mechanics are complaining because work done in the penitentiaries is brought into competition with their work. but the only reason that convict work is cheaper is because the poor wretch who does it is robbed. the only reason that the work is poor is because the man who does it has no interest in its being good. if he had the profit of his own labor he would do the best that was in him, and the consequence would be that the wares manufactured in the prisons would be as good as those manufactured elsewhere. for instance, we will say here are three or four men working together. they are all free men. one commits a crime and he is sent to the penitentiary. is it possible that his companions would object to his being paid for honest work in the penitentiary? and let me say right here, all labor is honest. whoever makes a useful thing, the labor is honest, no matter whether the work is done in a penitentiary or in a palace; in a hovel or the open field. wherever work is done for the good of others, it is honest work. if the laboring men would stop and think, they would know that they support everybody. labor pays all the taxes. labor supports all the penitentiaries. labor pays the warden. labor pays everything, and if the convicts are allowed to live in idleness labor must pay their board. every cent of tax is borne by the back of labor. no matter whether your tariff is put on champagne and diamonds, it has to be paid by the men and women who work--those who plow in the fields, who wash and iron, who stand by the forge, who run the cars and work in the mines, and by those who battle with the waves of the sea. labor pays every bill. there is one little thing to which i wish to call the attention of all who happen to read this interview, and that is this: undoubtedly you think of all criminals with horror and when you hear about them you are, in all probability, filled with virtuous indignation. but, first of all, i want you to think of what you have in fact done. secondly, i want you to think of what you have wanted to do. thirdly, i want you to reflect whether you were prevented from doing what you wanted to do by fear or by lack of opportunity. then perhaps you will have more charity. _question_. what do you think of the new legislation in the state changing the death penalty to death by electricity? _answer_. if death by electricity is less painful than hanging, then the law, so far as that goes, is good. there is not the slightest propriety in inflicting upon the person executed one single unnecessary pang, because that partakes of the nature of revenge--that is to say, of hatred--and, as a consequence, the state shows the same spirit that the criminal was animated by when he took the life of his neighbor. if the death penalty is to be inflicted, let it be done in the most humane way. for my part, i should like to see the criminal removed, if he must be removed, with the same care and with the same mercy that you would perform a surgical operation. why inflict pain? who wants it inflicted? what good can it, by any possibility, do? to inflict unnecessary pain hardens him who inflicts it, hardens each among those who witness it, and tends to demoralize the community. _question_. is it not the fact that punishments have grown less and less severe for many years past? _answer_. in the old times punishment was the only means of reformation. if anybody did wrong, punish him. if people still continued to commit the same offence, increase the punishment; and that went on until in what they call "civilized countries" they hanged people, provided they stole the value of one shilling. but larceny kept right on. there was no diminution. so, for treason, barbarous punishments were inflicted. those guilty of that offence were torn asunder by horses; their entrails were cut out of them while they were yet living and thrown into their faces; their bodies were quartered and their heads were set on pikes above the gates of the city. yet there was a hundred times more treason then than now. every time a man was executed and mutilated and tortured in this way the seeds of other treason were sown. so in the church there was the same idea. no reformation but by punishment. of course in this world the punishment stopped when the poor wretch was dead. it was found that that punishment did not reform, so the church said: "after death it will go right on, getting worse and worse, forever and forever." finally it was found that this did not tend to the reformation of mankind. slowly the fires of hell have been dying out. the climate has been changing from year to year. men have lost confidence in the power of the thumbscrew, the fagot, and the rack here, and they are losing confidence in the flames of perdition hereafter. in other words, it is simply a question of civilization. when men become civilized in matters of thought, they will know that every human being has the right to think for himself, and the right to express his honest thought. then the world of thought will be free. at that time they will be intelligent enough to know that men have different thoughts, that their ways are not alike, because they have lived under different circumstances, and in that time they will also know that men act as they are acted upon. and it is my belief that the time will come when men will no more think of punishing a man because he has committed the crime of larceny than they will think of punishing a man because he has the consumption. in the first case they will endeavor to reform him, and in the second case they will endeavor to cure him. the intelligent people of the world, many of them, are endeavoring to find out the great facts in nature that control the dispositions of men. so other intelligent people are endeavoring to ascertain the facts and conditions that govern what we call health, and what we call disease, and the object of these people is finally to produce a race without disease of flesh and without disease of mind. these people look forward to the time when there need to be neither hospitals nor penitentiaries. --_new york world_, august , . woman's right to divorce. _question_. col. robert g. ingersoll, the great agnostic, has always been an ardent defender of the sanctity of the home and of the marriage relation. apropos of the horrible account of a man's tearing out the eyes of his wife at far rockaway last week, colonel ingersoll was asked what recourse a woman had under such circumstances? _answer_. i read the account, and i don't remember of ever having read anything more perfectly horrible and cruel. it is impossible for me to imagine such a monster, or to account for such an inhuman human being. how a man could deprive a human being of sight, except where some religious question is involved, is beyond my comprehension. we know that for many centuries frightful punishments were inflicted, and inflicted by the pious, by the theologians, by the spiritual minded, and by those who "loved their neighbors as themselves." we read the accounts of how the lids of men's eyes were cut off and then the poor victims tied where the sum would shine upon their lifeless orbs; of others who were buried alive; of others staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned by the rising tide; of others put in sacks filled with snakes. yet these things appeared far away, and we flattered ourselves that, to a great degree, the world had outgrown these atrocities; and now, here, near the close of the nineteenth century, we find a man--a husband--cruel enough to put out the eyes of the woman he swore to love, protect and cherish. this man has probably been taught that there is forgiveness for every crime, and now imagines that when he repents there will be more joy in heaven over him than over ninety and nine good and loving husbands who have treated their wives in the best possible manner, and who, instead of tearing out their eyes, have filled their lives with content and covered their faces with kisses. _question_. you told me, last week, in a general way, what society should do with the husband in such a case as that. i would like to ask you to-day, what you think society ought to do with the wife in such a case, or what ought the wife to be permitted to do for herself? _answer_. when we take into consideration the crime of the man who blinded his wife, it is impossible not to think of the right of divorce. many people insist that marriage is an indissoluble tie; that nothing can break it, and that nothing can release either party from the bond. now, take this case at far rockaway. one year ago the husband tore out one of his wife's eyes. had she then good cause for divorce? is it possible that an infinitely wise and good god would insist on this poor, helpless woman remaining with the wild beast, her husband? can anyone imagine that such a course would add to the joy of paradise, or even tend to keep one harp in tune? can the good of society require the woman to remain? she did remain, and the result is that the other eye has been torn from its socket by the hands of the husband. is she entitled to a divorce now? and if she is granted one, is virtue in danger, and shall we lose the high ideal of home life? can anything be more infamous than to endeavor to make a woman, under such circumstances, remain with such a man? it may be said that she should leave him--that they should live separate and apart. that is to say, that this woman should be deprived of a home; that she should not be entitled to the love of man; that she should remain, for the rest of her days, worse than a widow. that is to say, a wife, hiding, keeping out of the way, secreting herself from the hyena to whom she was married. nothing, in my judgment, can exceed the heartlessness of a law or of a creed that would compel this woman to remain the wife of this monster. and it is not only cruel, but it is immoral, low, vulgar. the ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriages were dissoluble. is it necessary to lose your freedom in order to retain your character, in order to be womanly or manly? must a woman in order to retain her womanhood become a slave, a serf, with a wild beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master? has not the married woman the right of self-defence? is it not the duty of society to protect her from her husband? if she owes no duty to her husband; if it is impossible for her to feel toward him any thrill of affection, what is there of marriage left? what part of the contract remains in force? she is not to live with him, because she abhors him. she is not to remain in the same house with him, for fear he may kill her. what, then, are their relations? do they sustain any relation except that of hunter and hunted--that is, of tyrant and victim? and is it desirable that this relation should be rendered sacred by a church? is it desirable to have families raised under such circumstances? are we really in need of the children born of such parents? if the woman is not in fault, does society insist that her life should be wrecked? can the virtue of others be preserved only by the destruction of her happiness, and by what might be called her perpetual imprisonment? i hope the clergy who believe in the sacredness of marriage--in the indissolubility of the marriage tie--will give their opinions on this case. i believe that marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. i always believe that a man will keep his contract; that a woman, in the highest sense, will keep hers, but suppose the man does not. is the woman still bound? is there no mutuality? what is a contract? it is where one party promises to do something in consideration that the other party will do something. that is to say, there is a consideration on both sides, moving from one to the other. a contract without consideration is null and void; and a contract duly entered into, where the consideration of one party is withheld, is voidable, and can be voided by the party who has kept, or who is willing to keep, the contract. a marriage without love is bad enough. but what can we say of a marriage where the parties hate each other? is there any morality in this--any virtue? will any decent person say that a woman, true, good and loving, should be compelled to live with a man she detests, compelled to be the mother of his children? is there a woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself? and is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear what she would shudderingly avoid? let us bring these questions home. in other words, let us have some sense, some feeling, some heart--and just a little brain. marriages are made by men and women. they are not made by the state, and they are not made by the gods. by this time people should learn that human happiness is the foundation of virtue--the foundation of morality. nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings. nothing is virtuous the result of which is not a human good. the world has always been living for phantoms, for ghosts, for monsters begotten by ignorance and fear. the world should learn to live for itself. man should, by this time, be convinced that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons for doing wrong, are right here in this world--all within the horizon of this life. and besides, we should have imagination to put ourselves in the place of another. let a man suppose himself a helpless wife, beaten by a brute who believes in the indissolubility of marriage. would he want a divorce? i suppose that very few people have any adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children; of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a returning husband; of the number of children who hide when they hear the voice of a father. very few people know the number of blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day. few know the nights of terror passed by mothers holding young children at their breasts. compared with this, the hardships of poverty, borne by those who love each other, are nothing. men and women, truly married, bear the sufferings of poverty. they console each other; their affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine. but think of the others! i have said a thousand times that the home is the unit of good government. when we have kind fathers and loving mothers, then we shall have civilized nations, and not until then. civilization commences at the hearthstone. when intelligence rocks the cradle--when the house is filled with philosophy and kindness--you will see a world a peace. justice will sit in the courts, wisdom in the legislative halls, and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the spirit of liberty! _question_. what is your idea with regard to divorce? _answer_. my idea is this: as i said before, marriage is the most sacred contract--the most important contract--that human beings can make. as a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth--with all she has. from this contract the husband should never be released unless the wife has broken a condition; that is to say, has failed to fulfill the contract of marriage. on the other hand, the woman should be allowed a divorce for the asking. this should be granted in public, precisely as the marriage should be in public. every marriage should be known. there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered into should be understood; and as all marriage records should be kept, so the divorce should be open, public and known. the property should be divided by a court of equity, under certain regulations of law. if there are children, they should be provided for through the property and the parents. people should understand that men and women are not virtuous by law. they should comprehend the fact that law does not create virtue--that law is not the foundation, the fountain, of love. they should understand that love is in the human heart, and that real love is virtuous. people who love each other will be true to each other. the death of love is the commencement of vice. besides this, there is a public opinion that has great weight. when that public opinion is right, it does a vast amount of good, and when wrong, a great amount of harm. people marry, or should marry, because it increases the happiness of each and all. but where the marriage turns out to have been a mistake, and where the result is misery, and not happiness, the quicker they are divorced the better, not only for themselves, but for the community at large. these arguments are generally answered by some donkey braying about free love, and by "free love" he means a condition of society in which there is no love. the persons who make this cry are, in all probability, incapable of the sentiment, of the feeling, known as love. they judge others by themselves, and they imagine that without law there would be no restraint. what do they say of natural modesty? do they forget that people have a choice? do they not understand something of the human heart, and that true love has always been as pure as the morning star? do they believe that by forcing people to remain together who despise each other they are adding to the purity of the marriage relation? do they not know that all marriage is an outward act, testifying to that which has happened in the heart? still, i always believe that words are wasted on such people. it is useless to talk to anybody about music who is unable to distinguish one tune from another. it is useless to argue with a man who regards his wife as his property, and it is hardly worth while to suggest anything to a gentleman who imagines that society is so constructed that it really requires, for the protection of itself, that the lives of good and noble women should be wrecked, i am a believer in the virtue of women, in the honesty of man. the average woman is virtuous; the average man is honest, and the history of the world shows it. if it were not so, society would be impossible. i don't mean by this that most men are perfect, but what i mean is this: that there is far more good than evil in the average human being, and that the natural tendency of most people is toward the good and toward the right. and i most passionately deny that the good of society demands that any good person should suffer. i do not regard government as a juggernaut, the wheels of which must, of necessity, roll over and crush the virtuous, the self-denying and the good. my doctrine is the exact opposite of what is known as free love. i believe in the marriage of true minds and of true hearts. but i believe that thousands of people are married who do not love each other. that is the misfortune of our century. other things are taken into consideration--position, wealth, title and the thousand things that have nothing to do with real affection. where men and women truly love each other, that love, in my judgment, lasts as long as life. the greatest line that i know of in the poetry of the world is in the th sonnet of shakespeare: "love is not love which alters when it alteration finds." _question_. why do you make such a distinction between the rights of man and the rights of women? _answer_. the woman has, as her capital, her youth, her beauty. we will say that she is married at twenty or twenty-five. in a few years she has lost her beauty. during these years the man, so far as capacity to make money is concerned--to do something--has grown better and better. that is to say, his chances have improved; hers have diminished. she has dowered him with the spring of her life, and as her life advances her chances decrease. consequently, i would give her the advantage, and i would not compel her to remain with him against her will. it seems to me far worse to be a wife upon compulsion than to be a husband upon compulsion. besides this, i have a feeling of infinite tenderness toward mothers. the woman that bears children certainly should not be compelled to live with a man whom she despises. the suffering is enough when the father of the child is to her the one man of all the world. many people who have a mechanical apparatus in their breasts that assists in the circulation of what they call blood, regard these views as sentimental. but when you take sentiment out of the world nothing is left worth living for, and when you get sentiment out of the heart it is nothing more or less than a pump, an old piece of rubber that has acquired the habit of contracting and dilating. but i have this consolation: the people that do not agree with me are those that do not understand me. --_new york world_, . secularism. _question_. colonel, what is your opinion of secularism? do you regard it as a religion? _answer_. i understand that the word secularism embraces everything that is of any real interest or value to the human race. i take it for granted that everybody will admit that well-being is the only good; that is to say, that it is impossible to conceive of anything of real value that does not tend either to preserve or to increase the happiness of some sentient being. secularism, therefore, covers the entire territory. it fills the circumference of human knowledge and of human effort. it is, you may say, the religion of this world; but if there is another world, it is necessarily the religion of that, as well. man finds himself in this world naked and hungry. he needs food, raiment, shelter. he finds himself filled with almost innumerable wants. to gratify these wants is the principal business of life. to gratify them without interfering with other people is the course pursued by all honest men. secularism teaches us to be good here and now. i know nothing better than goodness. secularism teaches us to be just here and now. it is impossible to be juster than just. man can be as just in this world as in any other, and justice must be the same in all worlds. secularism teaches a man to be generous, and generosity is certainly as good here as it can be anywhere else. secularism teaches a man to be charitable, and certainly charity is as beautiful in this world and in this short life as it could be were man immortal. but orthodox people insist that there is something higher than secularism; but, as a matter of fact, the mind of man can conceive of nothing better, nothing higher, nothing more spiritual, than goodness, justice, generosity, charity. neither has the mind of men been capable of finding a nobler incentive to action than human love. secularism has to do with every possible relation. it says to the young man and to the young woman: "don't marry unless you can take care of yourselves and your children." it says to the parents: "live for your children; put forth every effort to the end that your children may know more than you--that they may be better and grander than you." it says: "you have no right to bring children into the world that you are not able to educate and feed and clothe." it says to those who have diseases that can be transmitted to children: "do not marry; do not become parents; do not perpetuate suffering, deformity, agony, imbecility, insanity, poverty, wretchedness." secularism tells all children to do the best they can for their parents--to discharge every duty and every obligation. it defines the relation that should exist between husband and wife; between parent and child; between the citizen and the nation. and not only that, but between nations. secularism is a religion that is to be used everywhere, and at all times--that is to be taught everywhere and practiced at all times. it is not a religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of the schools; it is not a religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of politics. it belongs in the schools; it belongs at the polls. it is the business of secularism to teach every child; to teach every voter. it is its business to discuss all political problems, and to decide all questions that affect the rights or the happiness of a human being. orthodox religion is a firebrand; it must be kept out of the schools; it must be kept out of politics. all the churches unite in saying that orthodox religion is not for every day use. the catholics object to any protestant religion being taught to children. protestants object to any catholic religion being taught to children. but the secularist wants his religion taught to all; and his religion can produce no feeling, for the reason that it consists of facts--of truths. and all of it is important; important for the child, important for the parent, important for the politician --for the president--for all in power; important to every legislator, to every professional man, to every laborer and every farmer--that is to say, to every human being. the great benefit of secularism is that is appeals to the reason of every man. it asks every man to think for himself. it does not threaten punishment if a man thinks, but it offers a reward, for fear that he will not think. it does not say, "you will be damned in another world if you think." but it says, "you will be damned in this world if you do not think." secularism preserves the manhood and the womanhood of all. it says to each human being: "stand upon your own feet. count one! examine for yourself. investigate, observe, think. express your opinion. stand by your judgment, unless you are convinced you are wrong, and when you are convinced, you can maintain and preserve your manhood or womanhood only by admitting that you were wrong." it is impossible that the whole world should agree on one creed. it may be impossible that any two human beings can agree exactly in religious belief. secularism teaches that each one must take care of himself, that the first duty of man is to himself, to the end that he may be not only useful to himself, but to others. he who fails to take care of himself becomes a burden; the first duty of man is not to be a burden. every secularist can give a reason for his creed. first of all, he believes in work--taking care of himself. he believes in the cultivation of the intellect, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature--to the end that he may be clothed and fed and sheltered. he also believes in giving to every other human being every right that he claims for himself. he does not depend on prayer. he has no confidence in ghosts or phantoms. he knows nothing of another world, and knows just as little of a first cause. but what little he does know, he endeavors to use, and to use for the benefit of himself and others. he knows that he sustains certain relations to other sentient beings, and he endeavors to add to the aggregate of human joy. he is his own church, his own priest, his own clergyman and his own pope. he decides for himself; in other words, he is a free man. he also has a bible, and this bible embraces all the good and true things that have been written, no matter by whom, or in what language, or in what time. he accepts everything that he believes to be true, and rejects all that he thinks is false. he knows that nothing is added to the probability of an event, because there has been an account of it written and printed. all that has been said that is true is part of his bible. every splendid and noble thought, every good word, every kind action-- all these you will find in his bible. and, in addition to these, all that is absolutely known--that has been demonstrated--belongs to the secularist. all the inventions, machines--everything that has been of assistance to the human race--belongs to his religion. the secularist is in possession of everything that man has. he is deprived only of that which man never had. the orthodox world believes in ghosts and phantoms, in dreams and prayers, in miracles and monstrosities; that is to say, in modern theology. but these things do not exist, or if they do exist, it is impossible for a human being to ascertain the fact. secularism has no "castles in spain." it has no glorified fog. it depends upon realities, upon demonstrations; and its end and aim is to make this world better every day--to do away with poverty and crime, and to cover the world with happy and contended homes. let me say, right here, that a few years ago the secular hall at leicester, england, was opened by a speech from george jacob holyoake, entitled, "secularism as a religion." i have never read anything better on the subject of secularism than this address. it is so clear and so manly that i do not see how any human being can read it without becoming convinced, and almost enraptured. let me quote a few lies from this address:-- "the mind of man would die if it were not for thought, and were thought suppressed, god would rule over a world of idiots. "nature feeds thought, day and night, with a million hands. "to think is a duty, because it is a man's duty not to be a fool. "if man does not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living upon the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution himself in return. he has no ideas but such as he obtains by 'out- door relief,' and he goes about the world with a charity mind. "the more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is in the world. "progress can only walk in the footsteps of conviction. "coercion in thought is not progress, it reduces to ignominious pulp the backbone of the mind. "by religion i mean the simple creed of deed and duty, by which a man seeks his own welfare in his own way, with an honest and fair regard to the welfare and ways of others. "in these thinking and practical days, men demand a religion of daily life, which stands on a business footing." i think nothing could be much better than the following, which shows the exact relation that orthodox religion sustains to the actual wants of human beings: "the churches administer a system of foreign affairs. "secularism dwells in a land of its own. it dwells in a land of certitude. "in the kingdom of thought there is no conquest over man, but over foolishness only." i will not quote more, but hope all who read this will read the address of mr. holyoake, who has, in my judgment, defined secularism with the greatest possible clearness. _question_. what, in your opinion, are the best possible means to spread this gospel or religion of secularism? _answer_. this can only be done by the cultivation of the mind-- only through intelligence--because we are fighting only the monsters of the mind. the phantoms whom we are endeavoring to destroy do not exist; they are all imaginary. they live in that undeveloped or unexplored part of the mind that belongs to barbarism. i have sometimes thought that a certain portion of the mind is cultivated so that it rises above the surrounding faculties and is like some peak that has lifted itself above the clouds, while all the valleys below are dark or dim with mist and cloud. it is in this valley-region, amid these mists, beneath these clouds, that these monsters and phantoms are born. and there they will remain until the mind sheds light--until the brain is developed. one exceedingly important thing is to teach man that his mind has limitations; that there are walls that he cannot scale--that he cannot pierce, that he cannot dig under. when a man finds the limitations of his own mind, he knows that other people's minds have limitations. he, instead of believing what the priest says, he asks the priest questions. in a few moments he finds that the priest has been drawing on his imagination for what is beyond the wall. consequently he finds that the priest knows no more than he, and it is impossible that he should know more than he. an ignorant man has not the slightest suspicion of what a superior man may do. consequently, he is liable to become the victim of the intelligent and cunning. a man wholly unacquainted with chemistry, after having been shown a few wonders, is ready to believe anything. but a chemist who knows something of the limitations of that science--who knows what chemists have done and who knows the nature of things--cannot be imposed upon. when no one can be imposed upon, orthodox religion cannot exist. it is an imposture, and there must be impostors and there must be victims, or the religion cannot be a success. secularism cannot be a success, universally, as long as there is an impostor or a victim. this is the difference: the foundation of orthodox religion is imposture. the foundation of secularism is demonstration. just to the extent that a man knows, he becomes a secularist. _question_. what do you think of the action of the knights of labor in indiana in turning out one of their members because he was an atheist, and because he objected to the reading of the bible at lodge meetings? _answer_. in my judgment, the knights of labor have made a great mistake. they want liberty for themselves--they feel that, to a certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. if they want liberty, they should be willing to give liberty to others. certainly one of their members has the same right to his opinion with regard to the existence of a god, that the other members have to theirs. i do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a supreme being, provided he understands the history of liberty. when a man takes into consideration the fact that for many thousands of years labor was unpaid, nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that millions and hundreds of millions of human beings were bought and sold the same as cattle, and that during all that time the religions of the world upheld the practice, and the priests of the countless unknown gods insisted that the institution of slavery was divine-- i do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion that, perhaps, after all, there is no supreme being--at least none who pays any particular attention to the affairs of this world. if one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he will at least wonder why "a god of infinite goodness and wisdom" did not interfere just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny that he was in favor of the trade. here, in our own country, millions of men were enslaved, and hundreds and thousands of ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their bibles in front of them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the only institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. and they proved it by reading passages from this very bible that the knights of labor in indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings. for their benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages, and suggest that, hereafter, they read those passages at every meeting, for the purpose of convincing all the knights that the lord is on the side of those who work for a living:-- "both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen and bondmaids. "moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. "and ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you to inherit them for a possession. they shall be your bondsmen forever." nothing seems more natural to me than that a man who believes that labor should be free, and that he who works should be free, should come to the conclusion that the passages above quoted are not entirely on his side. i don't see why people should be in favor of free bodies who are not also in favor of free minds. if the mind is to remain in imprisonment, it is hardly worth while to free the body. if the man has the right to labor, he certainly has the right to use his mind, because without mind he can do no labor. as a rule, the more mind he has, the more valuable his labor is, and the freer his mind is the more valuable he is. if the knights of labor expect to accomplish anything in this world, they must do it by thinking. they must have reason on their side, and the only way they can do anything by thinking is to allow each other to think. let all the men who do not believe in the inspiration of the bible, leave the knights of labor and i do not know how many would be left. but i am perfectly certain that those left will accomplish very little, simply from their lack of sense. intelligent clergymen have abandoned the idea of plenary inspiration. the best ministers in the country admit that the bible is full of mistakes, and while many of them are forced to say that slavery is upheld by the old testament they also insist that slavery was and is, and forever will be wrong. what had the knights of labor to do with a question of religion? what business is it of theirs who believes or disbelieves in the religion of the day? nobody can defend the rights of labor without defending the right to think. i hope that in time these knights will become intelligent enough to read in their meetings something of importance; something that applies to this century; something that will throw a little light on questions under discussion at the present time. the idea of men engaged in a kind of revolution reading from leviticus, deuteronomy and haggai, for the purpose of determining the rights of workingmen in the nineteenth century! no wonder such men have been swallowed by the whale of monopoly. and no wonder that, while that are in the belly of this fish, they insist on casting out a man with sense enough to understand the situation! the knights of labor have made a mistake and the sooner they reverse their action the better for all concerned. nothing should be taught in this world that somebody does not know. --_secular thought_, toronto, canada, august , . summer recreation--mr. gladstone. _question_. what is the best philosophy of summer recreation? _answer_. as a matter of fact, no one should be overworked. recreation becomes necessary only when a man has abused himself or has been abused. holidays grew out of slavery. an intelligent man ought not to work so hard to-day that he is compelled to rest to-morrow. each day should have its labor and its rest. but in our civilization, if it can be called civilization, every man is expected to devote himself entirely to business for the most of the year and by that means to get into such a state of body and mind that he requires, for the purpose of recreation, the inconveniences, the poor diet, the horrible beds, the little towels, the warm water, the stale eggs and the tough beef of the average "resort." for the purpose of getting his mental and physical machinery in fine working order, he should live in a room for two or three months that is about eleven by thirteen; that is to say, he should live in a trunk, fight mosquitoes, quarrel with strangers, dispute bills, and generally enjoy himself; and this is supposed to be the philosophy of summer recreation. he can do this, or he can go to some extremely fashionable resort where his time is taken up in making himself and family presentable. seriously, there are few better summer resorts than new york city. if there were no city here it would be the greatest resort for the summer on the continent; with its rivers, its bay, with its wonderful scenery, with the winds from the sea, no better could be found. but we cannot in this age of the world live in accordance with philosophy. no particular theory can be carried out. we must live as we must; we must earn our bread and we must earn it as others do, and, as a rule, we must work when others work. consequently, if we are to take any recreation we must follow the example of others; go when they go and come when they come. in other words, man is a social being, and if one endeavors to carry individuality to an extreme he must suffer the consequences. so i have made up my mind to work as little as i can and to rest as much as i can. _question_. what is your opinion of mr. gladstone as a controversialist? _answer_. undoubtedly mr. gladstone is a man of great talent, of vast and varied information, and undoubtedly he is, politically speaking, at least, one of the greatest men in england--possibly the greatest. as a controversialist, and i suppose by that you mean on religious questions, he is certainly as good as his cause. few men can better defend the indefensible than mr. gladstone. few men can bring forward more probabilities in favor of the impossible, then mr. gladstone. he is, in my judgment, controlled in the realm of religion by sentiment; he was taught long ago certain things as absolute truths and he has never questioned them. he has had all he can do to defend them. it is of but little use to attack sentiment with argument, or to attack argument with sentiment. a question of sentiment can hardly be discussed; it is like a question of taste. a man is enraptured with a landscape by corot; you cannot argue him out of his rapture; the sharper the criticism the greater his admiration, because he feels that it is incumbent upon him to defend the painter who has given him so much real pleasure. some people imagine that what they think ought to exist must exist, and that what they really desire to be true is true. we must remember that mr. gladstone has been what is called a deeply religions man all his life. there was a time when he really believed it to be the duty of the government to see to it that the citizens were religious; when he really believed that no man should hold any office or any position under the government who was not a believer in the established religion; who was not a defender of the parliamentary faith. i do not know whether he has ever changed his opinions upon these subjects or not. there is not the slightest doubt as to his honesty, as to his candor. he says what he believes, and for his belief he gives the reasons that are satisfactory to him. to me it seems impossible that miracles can be defended. i do not see how it is possible to bring forward any evidence that any miracle was ever performed; and unless miracles have been performed, christianity has no basis as a system. mr. hume took the ground that it was impossible to substantiate a miracle, for the reason that it is more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, or are dishonest, than that a fact in nature should be violated. for instance: a man says that a certain time, in a certain locality, the attraction of gravitation was suspended; that there were several moments during which a cannon ball weighed nothing, during which when dropped from the hand, or rather when released from the hand, it refused to fall and remained in the air. it is safe to say that no amount of evidence, no number of witnesses, could convince an intelligent man to-day that such a thing occurred. we believe too thoroughly in the constancy of nature. while men will not believe witnesses who testify to the happening of miracles now, they seem to have perfect confidence in men whom they never saw, who have been dead for two thousand years. of course it is known that mr. gladstone has published a few remarks concerning my religious views and that i have answered him the best i could. i have no opinion to give as to that controversy; neither would it be proper for me to say what i think of the arguments advanced by mr. gladstone in addition to what i have already published. i am willing to leave the controversy where it is, or i am ready to answer any further objections that mr. gladstone may be pleased to urge. in my judgment, the "age of faith" is passing away. we are living in a time of demonstration. [note: from an unfinished interview found among colonel ingersoll's papers.] prohibition. it has been decided in many courts in various states that the traffic in liquor can be regulated--that it is a police question. it has been decided by the courts in iowa that its manufacture and sale can be prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or a brewery may be declared a nuisance and may legally be abated, and these decisions have been upheld by the supreme court of the united states. consequently, it has been settled by the highest tribunal that states have the power either to regulate or to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only so, but that states have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries without making any compensation to owners. so it has always been considered within the power of the state to license the selling of intoxicating liquors. in other words, this question is one that the states can decide for themselves. it is not, and it should not be, in my judgment, a federal question. it is something with which the united states has nothing to do. it belongs to the states; and where a majority of the people are in favor of prohibition and pass laws to that effect, there is nothing in the constitution of the united states that interferes with such action. the remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a question of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another: can prohibitory laws be enforced? there are to-day in kansas,--a prohibition state--more saloons, that is to say, more places in which liquor is sold, than there are in georgia, a state without prohibition legislation. there are more in nebraska, according to the population, more in iowa, according to the population, than in many of the states in which there is the old license system. you will find that the united states has granted more licenses to wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition states,--according to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has not been adopted. these facts tend to show that it is not enough for the legislature to say: "be it enacted." behind every law there must be an intelligent and powerful public opinion. a law, to be enforced, must be the expression of such powerful and intelligent opinion; otherwise it becomes a dead letter; it is avoided; judges continue the cases, juries refuse to convict, and witnesses are not particular about telling the truth. such laws demoralize the community, or, to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass such laws. _question_. what do you think of the prohibitory movement on general principles? _answer_. the trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending to reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are compelled to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. for the purpose of preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch. eyes and ears must become acquainted with keyholes. every neighbor suspects every other. a man with a bottle or demijohn is followed. those who drink get behind doors, in cellars and garrets. hypocrisy becomes substantially universal. hundreds of people become suddenly afflicted with a variety of diseases, for the cure of which alcohol in some form is supposed to be indispensable. malaria becomes general, and it is perfectly astonishing how long a few pieces of peruvian bark will last, and how often the liquor can be renewed without absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. the state becomes a paradise for patent medicine--the medicine being poor whiskey with a scientific name. physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind figures in their prescriptions. then in the towns clubs are formed, the principal object being to establish a saloon, and in many instances the drug store becomes a favorite resort, especially on sundays. there is, however, another side to this question. it is this: nothing in the world is more important than personal liberty. many people are in favor of blotting out the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. this is the mistake of all prohibitory fanaticism. _question_. what is true temperance, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. men have used stimulants for many thousand years, and as much is used to-day in various forms as in any other period of the world's history. they are used with more prudence now than ever before, for the reason that the average man is more intelligent now than ever before. intelligence has much to do with temperance. the barbarian rushes to the extreme, for the reason that but little, comparatively, depends upon his personal conduct or personal habits. now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. the business men of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone. men of wealth, men of intelligence, do not wish to employ intemperate physicians. they are not willing to trust their health or their lives with a physician who is under the influence of liquor. the same is true of business men in regard to their legal interests. they insist upon having sober attorneys; they want the counsel of a sober man. so in every department. on the railways it is absolutely essential that the engineer, that the conductor, the train dispatcher and every other employee, in whose hands are the lives of men, should be temperate. the consequence is that under the law of the survival of the fittest, the intemperate are slowly but surely going to the wall; they are slowly but surely being driven out of employments of trust and importance. as we rise in the scale of civilization we continually demand better and better service. we are continually insisting upon better habits, upon a higher standard of integrity, of fidelity. these are the causes, in my judgment, that are working together in the direction of true temperance. _question_. do you believe the people can be made to do without a stimulant? _answer_. the history of the world shows that all men who have advanced one step beyond utter barbarism have used some kind of stimulant. man has sought for it in every direction. every savage loves it. everything has been tried. opium has been used by many hundreds of millions. hasheesh has filled countless brains with chaotic dreams, and everywhere that civilization has gone the blood of the grape has been used. nothing is easier now to obtain than liquor. in one bushel of corn there are at least five gallons-- four can easily be extracted. all starch, all sugars, can be changed almost instantly into alcohol. every grain that grows has in it the intoxicating principle, and, as a matter of fact, nearly all of the corn, wheat, sugar and starch that man eats is changed into alcohol in his stomach. whether man can be compelled to do without a stimulant is a question that i am unable to answer. of one thing i am certain: he has never yet been compelled to do without one. the tendency, i think, of modern times is toward a milder stimulant than distilled liquors. whisky and brandies are too strong; wine and beer occupy the middle ground. wine is a fireside, whisky a conflagration. it seems to me that it would be far better if the prohibitionists would turn their attention toward distilled spirits. if they were willing to compromise, the probability is that they would have public opinion on their side. if they would say: "you may have all the beer and all the wine and cider you wish, and you can drink them when and where you desire, but the sale of distilled spirits shall be prohibited," it is possible that this could be carried out in good faith in many if not in most of the states--possibly in all. we all know the effect of wine, even when taken in excess, is nothing near as disastrous as the effect of distilled spirits. why not take the middle ground? the wine drinkers of the old country are not drunkards. they have been drinking wine for generations. it is drunk by men, women and children. it adds to the sociability of the family. it does not separate the husband from the rest, it keeps them all together, and in that view is rather a benefit than an injury. good wine can be raised as cheaply here as in any part of the world. in nearly every part of our country the grape grows and good wine can be made. if our people had a taste for wine they would lose the taste for stronger drink, and they would be disgusted with the surroundings of the stronger drink. the same may be said in favor of beer. as long as the prohibitionists make no distinction between wine and whisky, between beer and brandy, just so long they will be regarded by most people as fanatics. the prohibitionists cannot expect to make this question a federal one. the united states has no jurisdiction of this subject. congress can pass no laws affecting this question that could have any force except in such parts of our country as are not within the jurisdiction of states. it is a question for the states and not for the federal government. the prohibitionists are simply throwing away their votes. let us suppose that we had a prohibition congress and a prohibition president--what steps could be taken to do away with drinking in the city of new york? what steps could be taken in any state of this union? what could by any possibility be done? a few years ago the prohibitionists demanded above all things that the tax be taken from distilled spirits, claiming at that time that such a tax made the government a partner in vice. now when the republican party proposes under certain circumstances to remove that tax, the prohibitionists denounce the movement as one in favor of intemperance. we have also been told that the tax on whisky should be kept for the reason that it increases the price, and that an increased price tends to make a temperate people; that if the tax is taken off, the price will fall and the whole country start on the downward road to destruction. is it possible that human nature stands on such slippery ground? it is possible that our civilization to-day rests upon the price of alcohol, and that, should the price be reduced, we would all go down together? for one, i cannot entertain such a humiliating and disgraceful view of human nature. i believe that man is destined to grow greater, grander and nobler. i believe that no matter what the cost of alcohol may be, life will grow too valuable to be thrown away. men hold life according to its value. men, as a rule, only throw away their lives when they are not worth keeping. when life becomes worth living it will be carefully preserved and will be hoarded to the last grain of sand that falls through the glass of time. _question_. what is the reason for so much intemperance? _answer_. when many people are failures, when they are distanced in the race, when they fall behind, when they give up, when they lose ambition, when they finally become convinced that they are worthless, precisely as they are in danger of becoming dishonest. in other words, having failed in the race of life on the highway, they endeavor to reach to goal by going across lots, by crawling through the grass. disguise this matter as we may, all people are not successes, all people have not the brain or the muscle or the moral stamina necessary to succeed. some fall in one way, some in another; some in the net of strong drink, some in the web of circumstances and others in a thousand ways, and the world itself cannot grow better unless the unworthy fail. the law is the survival of the fittest, that is to say, the destruction of the unfit. there is no scheme of morals, no scheme of government, no scheme of charity, that can reverse this law. if it could be reversed, then the result would be the survival of the unfittest, the speedy end of which would be the extinction of the human race. temperance men say that it is wise, in so far as possible, to remove temptation from our fellow-men. let us look at this in regard to other matters. how do we do away with larceny? we cannot remove property. we cannot destroy the money of the world to keep people from stealing some of it. in other words, we cannot afford to make the world valueless to prevent larceny. all strength by which temptation is resisted must come from the inside. virtue does not depend upon the obstacles to be overcome; virtue depends upon what is inside of the man. a man is not honest because the safe of the bank is perfectly secure. upon the honest man the condition of the safe has no effect. we will never succeed in raising great and splendid people by keeping them out of temptation. great people withstand temptation. great people have what may be called moral muscle, moral force. they are poised within themselves. they understand their relations to the world. the best possible foundation for honesty is the intellectual perception that dishonesty can, under no circumstances, be a good investment--that larceny is not only wicked, but foolish--not only criminal, but stupid--that crimes are committed only by fools. on every hand there is what is called temptation. every man has the opportunity of doing wrong. every man, in this country, has the opportunity of drinking too much, has the opportunity of acquiring the opium habit, has the opportunity of taking morphine every day--in other words, has the opportunity of destroying himself. how are they to be prevented? most of them are prevented--at least in a reasonable degree--and they are prevented by their intelligence, by their surroundings, by their education, by their objects and aims in life, by the people they love, by the people who love them. no one will deny the evils of intemperance, and it is hardly to be wondered at that people who regard only one side--who think of the impoverished and wretched, of wives and children in want, of desolate homes--become the advocates of absolute prohibition. at the same time, there is a philosophic side, and the question is whether more good cannot be done by moral influence, by example, by education, by the gradual civilization of our fellow-men, than in any other possible way. the greatest things are accomplished by indirection. in this way the idea of force, of slavery, is avoided. the person influenced does not feel that he has been trampled upon, does not regard himself as a victim--he feels rather as a pupil, as one who receives a benefit, whose mind has been enlarged, whose life has been enriched--whereas the direct way of "thou shalt not" produces an antagonism--in other words, produces the natural result of "i will." by removing one temptation you add strength to others. by depriving a man of one stimulant, as a rule, you drive him to another, and the other may be far worse than the one from which he has been driven. we have hundreds of laws making certain things misdemeanors, which are naturally right. thousands of people, honest in most directions, delight in outwitting the government--derive absolute pleasure from getting in a few clothes and gloves and shawls without the payment of duty. thousands of people buy things in europe for which they pay more than they would for the same things in america, and then exercise their ingenuity in slipping them through the custom-house. a law to have real force must spring from the nature of things, and the justice of this law must be generally perceived, otherwise it will be evaded. the temperance people themselves are playing into the hands of the very party that would refuse to count their votes. allow the democrats to remain in power, allow the democrats to be controlled by the south, and a large majority might be in favor of temperance legislation, and yet the votes would remain uncounted. the party of reform has a great interest in honest elections, and honest elections must first be obtained as the foundation of reform. the prohibitionists can take their choice between these parties. would it not be far better for the prohibitionists to say: "we will vote for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the nearest in favor of what we deem to be the right"? they should also take into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that others disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in it, and that other people cannot leave their principles to vote for prohibition; and they must remember, that these other people are in the majority. mr. fisk knows that he cannot be elected president--knows that it is impossible for him to carry any state in the union. he also knows that in nearly every state in the union--probably in all--a majority of the people believe in stimulants. why not work with the great and enlightened majority? why rush to the extreme for the purpose not only of making yourself useless but hurtful? no man in the world is more opposed to intemperance than i am. no man in the world feels more keenly the evils and the agony produced by the crime of drunkenness. and yet i would not be willing to sacrifice liberty, individuality, and the glory and greatness of individual freedom, to do away with all the evils of intemperance. in other words, i believe that slavery, oppression and suppression would crowd humanity into a thousand deformities, the result of which would be a thousand times more disastrous to the well-being of man. i do not believe in the slave virtues, in the monotony of tyranny, in the respectability produced by force. i admire the men who have grown in the atmosphere of liberty, who have the pose of independence, the virtues of strength, of heroism, and in whose hearts is the magnanimity, the tenderness, and the courage born of victory. --_new york world_, october , . robert elsmere. why do people read a book like "robert elsmere," and why do they take any interest in it? simply because they are not satisfied with the religion of our day. the civilized world has outgrown the greater part of the christian creed. civilized people have lost their belief in the reforming power of punishment. they find that whips and imprisonment have but little influence for good. the truth has dawned upon their minds that eternal punishment is infinite cruelty--that it can serve no good purpose and that the eternity of hell makes heaven impossible. that there can be in this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a perfectly miserable place--that no infinite being can be good who knowingly and, as one may say, willfully created myriads of human beings, knowing that they would be eternally miserable. in other words, the civilized man is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just than the old idea of god. the ideal of a few thousand years ago is far below the real of to-day. no good man now would do what jehovah is said to have done four thousand years ago, and no civilized human being would now do what, according to the christian religion, christ threatens to do at the day of judgment. _question_. has the christian religion changed in theory of late years, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. a few years ago the deists denied the inspiration of the bible on account of its cruelty. at the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the god of nature. now we are convinced that nature is as cruel as the bible; so that, if the god of nature did not write the bible, this god at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this god has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. so that now we have arrived at the question--not as to whether the bible is inspired and not as to whether jehovah is the real god, but whether there is a god or not. the intelligence of christendom to-day does not believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. if there be an infinite god, inspiration in some particular regard would be a patch--it would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect --in other words, it would show that the general plan was defective. _question_. do you consider any religion adequate? _answer_. a good man, living in england, drawing a certain salary for reading certain prayers on stated occasions, for making a few remarks on the subject of religion, putting on clothes of a certain cut, wearing a gown with certain frills and flounces starched in an orthodox manner, and then looking about him at the suffering and agony of the world, would not feel satisfied that he was doing anything of value for the human race. in the first place, he would deplore his own weakness, his own poverty, his inability to help his fellow-men. he would long every moment for wealth, that he might feed the hungry and clothe the naked--for knowledge, for miraculous power, that he might heal the sick and the lame and that he might give to the deformed the beauty of proportion. he would begin to wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite power could allow his children to die, to suffer, to be deformed by necessity, by poverty, to be tempted beyond resistance; how he could allow the few to live in luxury, and the many in poverty and want, and the more he wondered the more useless and ironical would seem to himself his sermons and his prayers. such a man is driven to the conclusion that religion accomplishes but little--that it creates as much want as it alleviates, and that it burdens the world with parasites. such a man would be forced to think of the millions wasted in superstition. in other words, the inadequacy, the uselessness of religion would be forced upon his mind. he would ask himself the question: "is it possible that this is a divine institution? is this all that man can do with the assistance of god? is this the best?" _question_. that is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not, colonel ingersoll? _answer_. the moment a man reaches the point where he asks himself this question he has ceased to be an orthodox christian. it will not do to say that in some other world justice will be done. if god allows injustice to triumph here, why not there? robert elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy. there is hardly light enough for him to see clearly; but there is so much light that the stars in the night of superstition are obscured. _question_. you do not deny that a religious belief is a comfort? _answer_. there is one thing that it is impossible for me to comprehend. why should any one, when convinced that christianity is a superstition, have or feel a sense of loss? certainly a man acquainted with england, with london, having at the same time something like a heart, must feel overwhelmed by the failure of what is known as christianity. hundreds of thousands exist there without decent food, dwelling in tenements, clothed with rags, familiar with every form of vulgar vice, where the honest poor eat the crust that the vicious throw away. when this man of intelligence, of heart, visits the courts; when he finds human liberty a thing treated as of no value, and when he hears the judge sentencing girls and boys to the penitentiary--knowing that a stain is being put upon them that all the tears of all the coming years can never wash away--knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without the slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as a mere matter of form, and that the judge puts this brand of infamy upon the forehead of the convict just as cheerfully as a mexican brands his cattle; and when this man of intelligence and heart knows that these poor people are simply the victims of society, the unfortunates who stumble and over whose bodies rolls the juggernaut--he knows that there is, or at least appears to be, no power above or below working for righteousness--that from the heavens is stretched no protecting hand. and when a man of intelligence and heart in england visits the workhouse, the last resting place of honest labor; when he thinks that the young man, without any great intelligence, but with a good constitution, starts in the morning of his life for the workhouse, and that it is impossible for the laboring man, one who simply has his muscle, to save anything; that health is not able to lay anything by for the days of disease--when the man of intelligence and heart sees all this, he is compelled to say that the civilization of to-day, the religion of to-day, the charity of to-day--no matter how much of good there may be behind them or in them, are failures. a few years ago people were satisfied when the minister said: "all this will be made even in another world; a crust-eater here will sit at the head of the banquet there, and the king here will beg for the crumbs that fall from the table there." when this was said, the poor man hoped and the king laughed. a few years ago the church said to the slave: "you will be free in another world, and your freedom will be made glorious by the perpetual spectacle of your master in hell." but the people--that is, many of the people--are no longer deceived by what once were considered fine phrases. they have suffered so much that they no longer wish to see others suffer and no longer think of the suffering of others as a source of joy to themselves. the poor see that the eternal starvation of kings and queens in another world will be no compensation for what they have suffered there. the old religions appear vulgar and the ideas of rewards and punishments are only such as would satisfy a cannibal chief or one of his favorites. _question_. do you think the christian religion has made the world better? _answer_. for many centuries there has been preached and taught in an almost infinite number of ways a supernatural religion. during all this time the world has been in the care of the infinite, and yet every imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang has been suffered, and every injustice has been done. during all these years the priests have enslaved the minds, and the kings the bodies, of men. the priests did what they did in the name of god, and the kings appeal to the same source of authority. man suffered as long as he could. revolution, reformation, was simply a re- action, a cry from the poor wretch that was between the upper and the nether millstone. the liberty of man has increased just in the proportion that the authority of the gods has decreased. in other words, the wants of man, instead of the wishes of god, have inaugurated what we call progress, and there is this difference: theology is based upon the narrowest and intensest form of selfishness. of course, the theologian knows, the christian knows, that he can do nothing for god; consequently all that he does must be and is for himself, his object being to win the approbation of this god, to the end that he may become a favorite. on the other side, men touched not only by their own misfortunes, but by the misfortunes of others, are moved not simply by selfishness, but by a splendid sympathy with their fellow-men. _question_. christianity certainly fosters charity? _answer_. nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing more heartless than a charitable institution. for instance, in england, think for a moment of the manner in which charities are distributed, the way in which the crust is flung at lazarus. if that parable could be now retold, the dogs would bite him. the same is true in this country. the institution has nothing but contempt for the one it relieves. the people in charge regard the pauper as one who has wrecked himself. they feel very much as a man would feel rescuing from the water some hare-brained wretch who had endeavored to swim the rapids of niagara--the moment they reach him they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. this course makes charity a hypocrite, with every pauper for its enemy. mrs. ward compelled robert elsmere to perceive, in some slight degree, the failure of christianity to do away with vice and suffering, with poverty and crime. we know that the rich care but little for the poor. no matter how religious the rich may be, the sufferings of their fellows have but little effect upon them. we are also beginning to see that what is called charity will never redeem this world. the poor man willing to work, eager to maintain his independence, knows that there is something higher than charity--that is to say, justice. he finds that many years before he was born his country was divided out between certain successful robbers, flatterers, cringers and crawlers, and that in consequence of such division not only he himself, but a large majority of his fellow-men are tenants, renters, occupying the surface of the earth only at the pleasure of others. he finds, too, that these people who have done nothing and who do nothing, have everything, and that those who do everything have but little. he finds that idleness has the money and that the toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. he finds also that the young men of genius are bribed by social distinctions --unconsciously it may be--but still bribed in a thousand ways. he finds that the church is a kind of waste-basket into which are thrown the younger sons of titled idleness. _question_. do you consider that society in general has been made better by religious influences? _answer_. society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles, are in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters. christianity is not an enemy of this system--it is in harmony with it. christianity reveals to us a universe presided over by an infinite autocrat--a universe without republicanism, without democracy--a universe where all power comes from one and the same source, and where everyone using authority is accountable, not to the people, but to this supposed source of authority. kings reign by divine right. priests are ordained in a divinely appointed way--they do not get their office from man. man is their servant, not their master. in the story of robert elsmere all there is of christianity is left except the miraculous. theism remains, and the idea of a protecting providence is left, together with a belief in the immeasurable superiority of jesus christ. that is to say, the miracles are discarded for lack of evidence, and only for lack of evidence; not on the ground that they are impossible, not on the ground that they impeach and deny the integrity of cause and effect, not on the ground that they contradict the self-evident proposition that an effect must have an efficient cause, but like the scotch verdict, "not proven." it is an effort to save and keep in repair the dungeons of the inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the vines that have overrun them. many people imagine that falsehoods may become respectable on account of age, that a certain reverence goes with antiquity, and that if a mistake is covered with the moss of sentiment it is altogether more credible than a parvenu fact. they endeavor to introduce the idea of aristocracy into the world of thought, believing, and honestly believing, that a falsehood long believed is far superior to a truth that is generally denied. _question_. if robert elsmere's views were commonly adopted what would be the effect? _answer_. the new religion of elsmere is, after all, only a system of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up a larger per cent. for the relief of its victims. the abolition of the system is not dreamed of. a civilized minority could not by any possibility be happy while a majority of the world were miserable. a civilized majority could not be happy while a minority were miserable. as a matter of fact, a civilized world could not be happy while one man was really miserable. at the foundation of civilization is justice--that is to say, the giving of an equal opportunity to all the children of men. secondly, there can be no civilization in the highest sense until sympathy becomes universal. we must have a new definition for success. we must have new ideals. the man who succeeds in amassing wealth, who gathers money for himself, is not a success. it is an exceedingly low ambition to be rich to excite the envy of others, or for the sake of the vulgar power it gives to triumph over others. such men are failures. so the man who wins fame, position, power, and wins these for the sake of himself, and wields this power not for the elevation of his fellow-men, but simply to control, is a miserable failure. he may dispense thousands of millions in charity, and his charity may be prompted by the meanest part of his nature--using it simply as a bait to catch more fish and to prevent the rising tide of indignation that might overwhelm him. men who steal millions and then give a small percentage to the lord to gain the praise of the clergy and to bring the salvation of their souls within the possibilities of imagination, are all failures. robert elsmere gains our affection and our applause to the extent that he gives up what are known as orthodox views, and his wife catherine retains our respect in the proportion that she lives the doctrine that elsmere preaches. by doing what she believes to be right, she gains our forgiveness for her creed. one is astonished that she can be as good as she is, believing as she does. the utmost stretch of our intellectual charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the old bottle--she really believes that the bottle is the important thing--that the wine is but a secondary consideration. she misses the label, and not having perfect confidence in her own taste, she does not feel quite sure that the wine is genuine. _question_. what, on the whole, is your judgment of the book? _answer_. i think the book conservative. it is an effort to save something--a few shreds and patches and ravelings--from the wreck. theism is difficult to maintain. why should we expect an infinite being to do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this? if he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there? if he allows rascality to succeed in this world, why not in the next? to believe in god and to deny his personality is an exceedingly vague foundation for a consolation. if you insist on his personality and power, then it is impossible to account for what happens. why should an infinite god allow some of his children to enslave others? why should he allow a child of his to burn another child of his, under the impression that such a sacrifice was pleasing to him? unitarianism lacks the motive power. orthodox people who insist that nearly everybody is going to hell, and that it is their duty to do what little they can to save their souls, have what you might call a spur to action. we can imagine a philanthropic man engaged in the business of throwing ropes to persons about to go over the falls of niagara, but we can hardly think of his carrying on the business after being convinced that there are no falls, or that people go over them in perfect safety. in this country the question has come up whether all the heathen are bound to be damned unless they believe in the gospel. many admit that the heathen will be saved if they are good people, and that they will not be damned for not believing something that they never heard. the really orthodox people--that is to say, the missionaries--instantly see that this doctrine destroys their business. they take the ground that there is but one way to be saved--you must believe on the lord jesus christ--and they are willing to admit, and cheerfully to admit, that the heathen for many generations have gone in an unbroken column down to eternal wrath. and they not only admit this, but insist upon it, to the end that subscriptions may not cease. with them salary and salvation are convertible terms. the tone of this book is not of the highest. too much stress is laid upon social advantages--too much respect for fashionable folly and for ancient absurdity. it is hard for me to appreciate the feelings of one who thinks it difficult to give up the consolations of the gospel. what are the consolations of the church of england? it is a religion imposed upon the people by authority. it is the gospel at the mouth of a cannon, at the point of a bayonet, enforced by all authority, from the beadle to the queen. it is a parasite living upon tithes--these tithes being collected by the army and navy. it produces nothing--is simply a beggar--or rather an aggregation of beggars. it teaches nothing of importance. it discovers nothing. it is under obligation not to investigate. it has agreed to remain stationary not only, but to resist all innovation. according to the creed of this church, a very large proportion of the human race is destined to suffer eternal pain. this does not interfere with the quiet, with the serenity and repose of the average clergyman. they put on their gowns, they read the service, they repeat the creed and feel that their duty has been done. how any one can feel that he is giving up something of value when he finds that the episcopal creed is untrue is beyond my imagination. i should think that every good man and woman would overflow with joy, that every heart would burst into countless blossoms the moment the falsity of the episcopal creed was established. christianity is the most heartless of all religions--the most unforgiving, the most revengeful. according to the episcopalian belief, god becomes the eternal prosecutor of his own children. i know of no creed believed by any tribe, not excepting the tribes where cannibalism is practiced, that is more heartless, more inhuman than this. to find that the creed is false is like being roused from a frightful dream, in which hundreds of serpents are coiled about you, in which their eyes, gleaming with hatred, are fixed on you, and finding the world bathed in sunshine and the songs of birds in your ears and those you love about you. --_new york world_, november , . working girls. _question_. what is your opinion of the work undertaken by the _world_ in behalf of the city slave girl? _answer_. i know of nothing better for a great journal to do. the average girl is so helpless, and the greed of the employer is such, that unless some newspaper or some person of great influence comes to her assistance, she is liable not simply to be imposed upon, but to be made a slave. girls, as a rule, are so anxious to please, so willing to work, that they bear almost every hardship without complaint. nothing is more terrible than to see the rich living on the work of the poor. one can hardly imagine the utter heartlessness of a man who stands between the wholesale manufacturer and the wretched women who make their living--or rather retard their death--by the needle. how a human being can consent to live on this profit, stolen from poverty, is beyond my imagination. these men, when known, will be regarded as hyenas and jackals. they are like the wild beasts which follow herds of cattle for the purpose of devouring those that are injured or those that have fallen by the wayside from weakness. _question_. what effect has unlimited immigration on the wages of women? _answer_. if our country were overpopulated, the effect of immigration would be to lessen wages, for the reason that the working people of europe are used to lower wages, and have been in the habit of practicing an economy unknown to us. but this country is not overpopulated. there is plenty of room for several hundred millions more. wages, however, are too low in the united states. the general tendency is to leave the question of labor to what is called the law of supply and demand. my hope is that in time we shall become civilized enough to know that there is a higher law, or rather a higher meaning in the law of supply and demand, than is now perceived. year after year what are called the necessaries of life increase. many things now regarded as necessaries were formerly looked upon as luxuries. so, as man becomes civilized, he increases what may be called the necessities of his life. when perfectly civilized, one of the necessities of his life will be that the lives of others shall be of some value to them. a good man is not happy so long as he knows that other good men and women suffer for raiment and for food, and have no roof but the sky, no home but the highway. consequently what is called the law of supply and demand will then have a much larger meaning. in nature everything lives upon something else. life feeds upon life. something is lying in wait for something else, and even the victim is weaving a web or crouching for some other victim, and the other victim is in the same business--watching for something else. the same is true in the human world--people are living on each other; the cunning obtain the property of the simple; wealth picks the pockets of poverty; success is a highwayman leaping from the hedge. the rich combine, the poor are unorganized, without the means to act in concert, and for that reason become the prey of combinations and trusts. the great questions are: will man ever be sufficiently civilized to be honest? will the time ever come when it can truthfully be said that right is might? the lives of millions of people are not worth living, because of their ignorance and poverty, and the lives of millions of others are not worth living, on account of their wealth and selfishness. the palace without justice, without charity, is as terrible as the hovel without food. _question_. what effect has the woman's suffrage movement had on the breadwinners of the country? _answer_. i think the women who have been engaged in the struggle for equal rights have done good for women in the direction of obtaining equal wages for equal work. there has also been for many years a tendency among women in our country to become independent --a desire to make their own living--to win their own bread. so many husbands are utterly useless, or worse, that many women hardly feel justified in depending entirely on a husband for the future. they feel somewhat safer to know how to do something and earn a little money themselves. if men were what they ought to be, few women would be allowed to labor--that is to say, to toil. it should be the ambition of every healthy and intelligent man to take care of, to support, to make happy, some woman. as long as women bear the burdens of the world, the human race can never attain anything like a splendid civilization. there will be no great generation of men until there has been a great generation of women. for my part, i am glad to hear this question discussed--glad to know that thousands of women take some interest in the fortunes and in the misfortunes of their sisters. the question of wages for women is a thousand times more important than sending missionaries to china or to india. there is plenty for missionaries to do here. and by missionaries i do not mean gentlemen and ladies who distribute tracts or quote scripture to people out of work. if we are to better the condition of men and women we must change their surroundings. the tenement house breeds a moral pestilence. there can be in these houses no home, no fireside, no family, for the reason that there is no privacy, no walls between them and the rest of the world. there is no sacredness, no feeling, "this is ours." _question_. might not the rich do much? _answer_. it would be hard to overestimate the good that might be done by the millionaires if they would turn their attention to sending thousands and thousands into the country or to building them homes miles from the city, where they could have something like privacy, where the family relations could be kept with some sacredness. think of the "homes" in which thousands and thousands of young girls are reared in our large cities. think of what they see and what they hear; of what they come in contact with. how is it possible for the virtues to grow in the damp and darkened basements? can we expect that love and chastity and all that is sweet and gentle will be produced in these surroundings, in cellars and garrets, in poverty and dirt? the surroundings must be changed. _question_. are the fathers and brothers blameless who allow young girls to make coats, cloaks and vests in an atmosphere poisoned by the ignorant and low-bred? _answer_. the same causes now brutalizing girls brutalize their fathers and brothers, and the same causes brutalize the ignorant and low-lived that poison the air in which these girls are made to work. it is hard to pick out one man and say that he is to blame, or one woman and say that the fault is hers. we must go back of all this. in my opinion, society raises its own failures, its own criminals, its own wretches of every sort and kind. great pains are taken to raise these crops. the seeds, it may be, were sown thousands of years ago, but they were sown, and the present is the necessary child of all the past. if the future is to differ from the present, the seeds must now be sown. it is not simply a question of charity, or a question of good nature, or a question of what we call justice--it is a question of intelligence. in the first place, i suppose that it is the duty of every human being to support himself--first, that he may not become a burden upon others, and second, that he may help others. i think all people should be taught never, under any circumstances, if by any possibility they can avoid it, to become a burden. every one should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. as long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity. _question_. has the public school system anything to do with the army of pupils who, after six years of study, willingly accept the injustice and hardship imposed by capital? _answer_. the great trouble with the public school is that many things are taught that are of no immediate use. i believe in manual training schools. i believe in the kindergarten system. every person ought to be taught how to do something--ought to be taught the use of their hands. they should endeavor to put in palpable form the ideas that they gain. such an education gives them a confidence in themselves, a confidence in the future--gives them a spirit and feeling of independence that they do not now have. men go through college studying for many years, and when graduated have not the slightest conception of how to make a living in any department of human effort. thousands of them are to-day doing manual labor and doing it very poorly, whereas, if they had been taught the use of tools, the use of their hands, they would derive a certain pleasure from their work. it is splendid to do anything well. one can be just as poetic working with iron and wood as working with words and colors. _question_. what ought to be done, or what is to be the end? _answer_. the great thing is for the people to know the facts. there are thousands and millions of splendid and sympathetic people who would willingly help, if they only knew; but they go through the world in such a way that they know but little of it. they go to their place of business; they stay in their offices for a few hours; they go home; they spend the evening there or at a club; they come in contact with the well-to-do, with the successful, with the satisfied, and they know nothing of the thousands and millions on every side. they have not the least idea how the world lives, how it works, how it suffers. they read, of course, now and then, some paragraph in which the misfortune of some wretch is set forth, but the wretch is a kind of steel engraving, an unreal shadow, a something utterly unlike themselves. the real facts should be brought home, the sympathies of men awakened, and awakened to such a degree that they will go and see how these people live, see how they work, see how they suffer. _question_. does exposure do any good? _answer_. i hope that _the world_ will keep on. i hope that it will express every horror that it can, connected with the robbery of poor and helpless girls, and i hope that it will publish the names of all the robbers it can find, and the wretches who oppress the poor and who live upon the misfortunes of women. the crosses of this world are mostly born by wives, by mothers and by daughters. their brows are pierced by thorns. they shed the bitterest tears. they live and suffer and die for others. it is almost enough to make one insane to think of what woman, in the years of savagery and civilization, has suffered. think of the anxiety and agony of motherhood. maternity is the most pathetic fact in the universe. think how helpless girls are. think of the thorns in the paths they walk--of the trials, the temptations, the want, the misfortune, the dangers and anxieties that fill their days and nights. every true man will sympathize with woman, and will do all in his power to lighten her burdens and increase the sunshine of her life. _question_. is there any remedy? _answer_. i have always wondered that the great corporations have made no provisions for their old and worn out employees. it seems to me that not only great railway companies, but great manufacturing corporations, ought to provide for their workmen. many of them are worn out, unable longer to work, and they are thrown aside like old clothes. they find their way to the poorhouses or die in tenements by the roadside. this seems almost infinitely heartless. men of great wealth, engaged in manufacturing, instead of giving five hundred thousand dollars for a library, or a million dollars for a college, ought to put this money aside, invest it in bonds of the government, and the interest ought to be used in taking care of the old, of the helpless, of those who meet with accidents in their work. under our laws, if an employee is caught in a wheel or in a band, and his arm or leg is torn off, he is left to the charity of the community, whereas the profits of the business ought to support him in his old age. if employees had this feeling--that they were not simply working for that day, not simply working while they have health and strength, but laying aside a little sunshine for the winter of age--if they only felt that they, by their labor, were creating a fireside in front of which their age and helplessness could sit, the feeling between employed and employers would be a thousand times better. on the great railways very few people know the number of the injured, of those who lose their hands or feet, of those who contract diseases riding on the tops of freight trains in snow and sleet and storm; and yet, when these men become old and helpless through accident, they are left to shift for themselves. the company is immortal, but the employees become helpless. now, it seems to me that a certain per cent. should be laid aside, so that every brakeman and conductor could feel that he was providing for himself, as well as for his fellow-workmen, so that when the dark days came there would be a little light. the men of wealth, the men who control these great corporations-- these great mills--give millions away in ostentatious charity. they send missionaries to foreign lands. they endow schools and universities and allow the men who earned the surplus to die in want. i believe in no charity that is founded on robbery. i have no admiration for generous highwaymen or extravagant pirates. at the foundation of charity should be justice. let these men whom others have made wealthy give something to their workmen--something to those who created their fortunes. this would be one step in the right direction. do not let it be regarded as charity--let it be regarded as justice. --_new york world_, december , . protection for american actors. _question_. it is reported that you have been retained as counsel for the actors' order of friendship--the edwin forrest lodge of new york, and the shakespeare lodge of philadelphia--for the purpose of securing the necessary legislation to protect american actors-- is that so? _answer_. yes, i have been retained for that purpose, and the object is simply that american actors may be put upon an equal footing with americans engaged in other employments. there is a law now which prevents contractors going abroad and employing mechanics or skilled workmen, and bringing them to this country to take the places of our citizens. no one objects to the english, german and french mechanics coming with their wives and children to this country and making their homes here. our ports are open, and have been since the foundation of this government. wages are somewhat higher in this country than in any other, and the man who really settles here, who becomes, or intends to become an american citizen, will demand american wages. but if a manufacturer goes to europe, he can make a contract there and bring hundreds and thousands of mechanics to this country who will work for less wages than the american, and a law was passed to prevent the american manufacturer, who was protected by a tariff, from burning the laborer's candle at both ends. that is to say, we do not wish to give him the american price, by means of a tariff, and then allow him to go to europe and import his labor at the european price. in the law, actors were excepted, and we now find the managers are bringing entire companies from the old county, making contracts with them there, and getting them at much lower prices than they would have had to pay for american actors. no one objects to a foreign actor coming here for employment, but we do not want an american manager to go there, and employ him to act here. no one objects to the importation of a star. we wish to see and hear the best actors in the world. but the rest of the company--the support--should be engaged in the united states, if the star speaks english. i see that it is contended over in england, that english actors are monopolizing the american stage because they speak english, while the average american actor does not. the real reason is that the english actor works for less money--he is the cheaper article. certainly no one will accuse the average english actor of speaking english. the hemming and hawing, the aristocratic stutter, the dropping of h's and picking them up at the wrong time, have never been popular in the united states, except by way of caricature. nothing is more absurd than to take the ground that the english actors are superior to the american. i know of no english actor who can for a moment be compared with joseph jefferson, or with edwin booth, or with lawrence barrett, or with denman thompson, and i could easily name others. if english actors are so much better than american, how is it that an american star is supported by the english? mary anderson is certainly an american actress, and she is supported by english actors. is it possible that the superior support the inferior? i do not believe that england has her equal as an actress. her hermione is wonderful, and the appeal to apollo sublime. in perdita she "takes the winds of march with beauty." where is an actress on the english stage the superior of julia marlowe in genius, in originality, in naturalness? is there any better mrs. malaprop than mrs. drew, and better sir anthony than john gilbert? no one denies that the english actors and actresses are great. no one will deny that the plays of shakespeare are the greatest that have been produced, and no one wishes in any way to belittle the genius of the english people. in this country the average person speaks fairly good english, and you will find substantially the same english spoken in most of the country; whereas in england there is a different dialect in almost every county, and most of the english people speak the language as if was not their native tongue. i think it will be admitted that the english write a good deal better than they speak, and that their pronunciation is not altogether perfect. these things, however, are not worth speaking of. there is no absolute standard. they speak in the way that is natural to them, and we in the way that is natural to us. this difference furnishes no foundation for a claim of general superiority. the english actors are not brought here on account of their excellence, but on account of their cheapness. it requires no great ability to play the minor parts, or the leading roles in some plays, for that matter. and yet acting is a business, a profession, a means of getting bread. we protect our mechanics and makers of locomotives and of all other articles. why should we not protect, by the same means, the actor? you may say that we can get along without actors. so we can get along without painters, without sculptors and without poets. but a nation that gets along without these people of genius amounts to but little. we can do without music, without players and without composers; but when we take art and poetry and music and the theatre out of the world, it becomes an exceedingly dull place. actors are protected and cared for in proportion that people are civilized. if the people are intelligent, educated, and have imaginations, they enjoy the world of the stage, the creations of poets, and they are thrilled by great music, and, as a consequence, respect the dramatist, the actor and the musician. _question_. it is claimed that an amendment to the law, such as is desired, will interfere with the growth of art? _answer_. no one is endeavoring to keep stars from this country. if they have american support, and the stars really know anything, the american actors will get the benefit. if they bring their support with them, the american actor is not particularly benefitted, and the star, when the season is over, takes his art and his money with him. managers who insist on employing foreign support are not sacrificing anything for art. their object is to make money. they care nothing for the american actor--nothing for the american drama. they look for the receipts. it is the sheerest cant to pretend that they are endeavoring to protect art. on the th of february, , a law was passed making it unlawful "for any person, company, partnership or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or emigration of any alien or aliens into the united states, under contract or agreement, parol or special, previous to the importation or emigration of such aliens to perform labor or services of any kind the united states." by this act it was provided that its provisions should not apply to professional actors, artists, lecturers or singers, in regard to persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants. the object now in view is so to amend the law that its provision shall apply to all actors except stars. _question_. in this connection there has been so much said about the art of acting--what is your idea as to that art? _answer_. above all things in acting, there must be proportion. there are no miracles in art or nature. all that is done--every inflection and gesture--must be in perfect harmony with the circumstances. sensationalism is based on deformity, and bears the same relation to proportion that caricature does to likeness. the stream that flows even with its banks, making the meadows green, delights us ever; the one that overflows surprises for a moment. but we do not want a succession of floods. in acting there must be natural growth, not sudden climax. the atmosphere of the situation, the relation sustained to others, should produce the emotions. nothing should be strained. beneath domes there should be buildings, and buildings should have foundations. there must be growth. there should be the bud, the leaf, the flower, in natural sequence. there must be no leap from naked branches to the perfect fruit. most actors depend on climax--they save themselves for the supreme explosion. the scene opens with a slow match and ends when the spark reaches the dynamite. so, most authors fill the first act with contradictions and the last with explanations. plots and counter-plots, violence and vehemence, perfect saints and perfect villains--that is to say, monsters, impelled by improbable motives, meet upon the stage, where they are pushed and pulled for the sake of the situation, and where everything is so managed that the fire reaches the powder and the explosion is the climax. there is neither time, nor climate, nor soil, in which the emotions and intentions may grow. no land is plowed, no seed is sowed, no rain falls, no light glows--the events are all orphans. no one would enjoy a sudden sunset--we want the clouds of gold that float in the azure sea. no one would enjoy a sudden sunrise--we are in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. in other words, we want sequence, proportion, logic, beauty. there are several actors in this country who are in perfect accord with nature--who appear to make no effort--whose acting seems to give them joy and rest. we do well what we do easily. it is a great mistake to exhaust yourself, instead of the subject. all great actors "fill the stage" because they hold the situation. you see them and nothing else. _question_. speaking of american actors, colonel, i believe you are greatly interested in the playing of miss marlowe, and have given your opinion of her as parthenia; what do you think of her julia and viola? _answer_. a little while ago i saw miss marlowe as julia, in "the hunchback." we must remember the limitations of the play. nothing can excel the simplicity, the joyous content of the first scene. nothing could be more natural than the excitement produced by the idea of leaving what you feel to be simple and yet good, for what you think is magnificent, brilliant and intoxicating. it is only in youth that we are willing to make this exchange. one does not see so clearly in the morning of life when the sun shines in his eyes. in the afternoon, when the sun is behind him, he sees better --he is no longer dazzled. in old age we are not only willing, but anxious, to exchange wealth and fame and glory and magnificence, for simplicity. all the palaces are nothing compared with our little cabin, and all the flowers of the world are naught to the wild rose that climbs and blossoms by the lowly window of content. happiness dwells in the valleys with the shadows. the moment julia is brought in contact with wealth, she longs for the simple--for the true love of one true man. wealth and station are mockeries. these feelings, these emotions, miss marlowe rendered not only with look and voice and gesture, but with every pose of her body; and when assured that her nuptials with the earl could be avoided, the only question in her mind was as to the absolute preservation of her honor--not simply in fact, but in appearance, so that even hatred could not see a speck upon the shining shield of her perfect truth. in this scene she was perfect--everything was forgotten except the desire to be absolutely true. so in the scene with master walter, when he upbraids her for forgetting that she is about to meet her father, when excusing her forgetfulness on the ground that he has been to her a father. nothing could exceed the delicacy and tenderness of this passage. every attitude expressed love, gentleness, and a devotion even unto death. one felt that there could be no love left for the father she expected to meet--master walter had it all. a greater julia was never on the stage--one in whom so much passion mingled with so much purity. miss marlowe never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature." she maintains proportion. the river of her art flows even with the banks. in viola, we must remember the character--a girl just rescued from the sea--disguised as a boy--employed by the duke, whom she instantly loves--sent as his messenger to woo another for him--olivia enamored of the messenger--forced to a duel--mistaken for her brother by the captain, and her brother taken for herself by olivia--and yet, in the midst of these complications and disguises, she remains a pure and perfect girl--these circumstances having no more real effect upon her passionate and subtle self than clouds on stars. when malvolio follows and returns the ring the whole truth flashes upon her. she is in love with orsino--this she knows. olivia, she believes, is in love with her. the edge of the situation, the dawn of this entanglement, excites her mirth. in this scene she becomes charming--an impersonation of spring. her laughter is as natural and musical as the song of a brook. so, in the scene with olivia in which she cries, "make me a willow cabin at your gate!" she is the embodiment of grace, and her voice is as musical as the words, and as rich in tone as they are in thought. in the duel with sir andrew she shows the difference between the delicacy of woman and the cowardice of man. she does the little that she can, not for her own sake, but for the sake of her disguise --she feels that she owes something to her clothes. but i have said enough about this actress to give you an idea of one who is destined to stand first in her profession. we will now come back to the real question. i am in favor of protecting the american actor. i regard the theatre as the civilizer of man. all the arts united upon the stage, and the genius of the race has been lavished on this mimic world. --_new york star_, december , . liberals and liberalism. _question_. what do you think of the prospects of liberalism in this country? _answer_. the prospects of liberalism are precisely the same as the prospects of civilization--that is to say, of progress. as the people become educated, they become liberal. bigotry is the provincialism of the mind. men are bigoted who are not acquainted with the thoughts of others. they have been taught one thing, and have been made to believe that their little mental horizon is the circumference of all knowledge. the bigot lives in an ignorant village, surrounded by ignorant neighbors. this is the honest bigot. the dishonest bigot may know better, but he remains a bigot because his salary depends upon it. a bigot is like a country that has had no commerce with any other. he imagines that in his little head there is everything of value. when a man becomes an intellectual explorer, an intellectual traveler, he begins to widen, to grow liberal. he finds that the ideas of others are as good as and often better than his own. the habits and customs of other people throw light on his own, and by this light he is enabled to discover at least some of his own mistakes. now the world has become acquainted. a few years ago, a man knew something of the doctrines of his own church. now he knows the creeds of others, and not only so, but he has examined to some extent the religions of other nations. he finds in other creeds all the excellencies that are in his own, and most of the mistakes. in this way he learns that all creeds have been produced by men, and that their differences have been accounted for by race, climate, heredity--that is to say, by a difference in circumstances. so we now know that the cause of liberalism is the cause of civilization. unless the race is to be a failure, the cause of liberalism must succeed. consequently, i have the same faith in that cause that i have in the human race. _question_. where are the most liberals, and in what section of the country is the best work for liberalism being done? _answer_. the most liberals are in the most intelligent section of the united states. where people think the most, there you will find the most liberals; where people think the least, you will find the most bigots. bigotry is produced by feeling--liberalism by thinking--that is to say, the one is a prejudice, the other a principle. every geologist, every astronomer, every scientist, is doing a noble work for liberalism. every man who finds a fact, and demonstrates it, is doing work for the cause. all the literature of our time that is worth reading is on the liberal side. all the fiction that really interests the human mind is with us. no one cares to read the old theological works. essays written by professors of theological colleges are regarded, even by christians, with a kind of charitable contempt. when any demonstration of science is attacked by a creed, or a passage of scripture, all the intelligent smile. for these reasons i think that the best work for liberalism is being done where the best work for science is being done--where the best work for man is being accomplished. every legislator that assists in the repeal of theological laws is doing a great work for liberalism. _question_. in your opinion, what relation do liberalism and prohibition bear to each other? _answer_. i do not think they have anything to do with each other. they have nothing in common except this: the prohibitionists, i presume, are endeavoring to do what they can for temperance; so all intelligent liberals are doing what they can for the cause of temperance. the prohibitionist endeavors to accomplish his object by legislation--the liberalist by education, by civilization, by example, by persuasion. the method of the liberalist is good, that of the prohibitionist chimerical and fanatical. _question_. do you think that liberals should undertake a reform in the marriage and divorce laws and relations? _answer_. i think that liberals should do all in their power to induce people to regard marriage and divorce in a sensible light, and without the slightest reference to any theological ideas. they should use their influence to the end that marriage shall be considered as a contract--the highest and holiest that men and women can make. and they should also use their influence to have the laws of divorce based on this fundamental idea,--that marriage is a contract. all should be done that can be done by law to uphold the sacredness of this relation. all should be done that can be done to impress upon the minds of all men and all women their duty to discharge all the obligations of the marriage contract faithfully and cheerfully. i do not believe that it is to the interest of the state or of the nation, that people should be compelled to live together who hate each other, or that a woman should be bound to a man who has been false and who refuses to fulfill the contract of marriage. i do not believe that any man should call upon the police, or upon the creeds, or upon the church, to compel his wife to remain under his roof, or to compel a woman against her will to become the mother of his children. in other words, liberals should endeavor to civilize mankind, and when men and women are civilized, the marriage question, and the divorce question, will be settled. _question_. should liberals vote on liberal issues? _answer_. i think that, other things being anywhere near equal, liberals should vote for men who believe in liberty, men who believe in giving to others the rights they claim for themselves--that is to say, for civilized men, for men of some breadth of mind. liberals should do what they can to do away with all the theological absurdities. _question_. can, or ought, the liberals and spiritualists to unite? _answer_. all people should unite where they have objects in common. they can vote together, and act together, without believing the same on all points. a liberal is not necessarily a spiritualist, and a spiritualist is not necessarily a liberal. if spiritualists wish to liberalize the government, certainly liberals would be glad of their assistance, and if spiritualists take any step in the direction of freedom, the liberals should stand by them to that extent. _question_. which is the more dangerous to american institutions --the national reform association (god-in-the-constitution party) or the roman catholic church? _answer_. the association and the catholic church are dangerous according to their power. the catholic church has far more power than the reform association, and is consequently far more dangerous. the god-in-the-constitution association is weak, fanatical, stupid, and absurd. what god are we to have in the constitution? whose god? if we should agree to-morrow to put god in the constitution, the question would then be: which god? on that question, the religious world would fall out. in that direction there is no danger. but the roman catholic church is the enemy of intellectual liberty. it is the enemy of investigation. it is the enemy of free schools. that church always has been, always will be, the enemy of freedom. it works in the dark. when in a minority it is humility itself--when in power it is the impersonation of arrogance. in weakness it crawls--in power it stands erect, and compels its victims to fall upon their faces. the most dangerous institution in this world, so far as the intellectual liberty of man is concerned, is the roman catholic church. next to that is the protestant church. _question_. what is your opinion of the christian religion and the christian church? _answer_. my opinion upon this subject is certainly well known. the christian church is founded upon miracles--that is to say, upon impossibilities. of course, there is a great deal that is good in the creeds of the churches, and in the sermons delivered by its ministers; but mixed with this good is much that is evil. my principal objection to orthodox religion is the dogma of eternal pain. nothing can be more infamously absurd. all civilized men should denounce it--all women should regard it with a kind of shuddering abhorrence. --_secular thought_, toronto, canada, . pope leo xiii. _question_. do you agree with the views of pope leo xiii. as expressed in _the herald_ of last week? _answer_. i am not personally acquainted with leo xiii., but i have not the slightest idea that he loves americans or their country. i regard him as an enemy of intellectual liberty. he tells us that where the church is free it will increase, and i say to him that where others are free it will not. the catholic church has increased in this country by immigration and in no other way. possibly the pope is willing to use his power for the good of the whole people, protestants and catholics, and to increase their prosperity and happiness, because by this he means that he will use his power to make catholics out of protestants. it is impossible for the catholic church to be in favor of mental freedom. that church represents absolute authority. its members have no right to reason--no right to ask questions--they are called upon simply to believe and to pay their subscriptions. _question_. do you agree with the pope when he says that the result of efforts which have been made to throw aside christianity and live without it can be seen in the present condition of society-- discontent, disorder, hatred and profound unhappiness? _answer_. undoubtedly the people of europe who wish to be free are discontented. undoubtedly these efforts to have something like justice done will bring disorder. those in power will hate those who are endeavoring to drive them from their thrones. if the people now, as formerly, would bear all burdens cheerfully placed upon their shoulders by church and state--that is to say, if they were so enslaved mentally that they would not even have sense enough to complain, then there would be what the pope might call "peace and happiness"--that is to say, the peace of ignorance, and the happiness of those who are expecting pay in another world for their agonies endured in this. of course, the revolutionaries of europe are not satisfied with the catholic religion; neither are they satisfied with the protestant. both of these religions rest upon authority. both discourage reason. both say "let him that hath ears to hear, hear," but neither say let him that hath brains to think, think. christianity has been thoroughly tried, and it is a failure. nearly every church has upheld slavery, not only of the body, but of the mind. when christian missionaries invade what they call a heathen country, they are followed in a little while by merchants and traders, and in a few days afterward by the army. the first real work is to kill the heathen or steal their lands, or else reduce them to something like slavery. i have no confidence in the reformation of this world by churches. churches for the most part exist, not for this world, but for another. they are founded upon the supernatural, and they say: "take no thought for the morrow; put your trust in your heavenly father and he will take care of you." on the other hand, science says: "you must take care of yourself, live for the world in which you happen to be--if there is another, live for that when you get there." _question_. what do you think of the plan to better the condition of the workingmen, by committees headed by bishops of the catholic church, in discussing their duties? _answer_. if the bishops wish to discuss with anybody about duties they had better discuss with the employers, instead of the employed. this discussion had better take place between the clergy and the capitalist. there is no need of discussing this question with the poor wretches who cannot earn more than enough to keep their souls in their bodies. if the catholic church has so much power, and if it represents god on earth, let it turn its attention to softening the hearts of capitalists, and no longer waste its time in preaching patience to the poor slaves who are now bearing the burdens of the world. _question_. do you agree with the pope that: "sound rules of life must be founded on religion"? _answer_. i do not. sound rules of life must be founded on the experience of mankind. in other words, we must live for this world. why should men throw away hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars in building cathedrals and churches, and paying the salaries of bishops and priests, and cardinals and popes, and get no possible return for all this money except a few guesses about another world --those guesses being stated as facts--when every pope and priest and bishop knows that no one knows the slightest thing on the subject. superstition is the greatest burden borne by the industry of the world. the nations of europe to-day all pretend to be christian, yet millions of men are drilled and armed for the purpose of killing other christians. each christian nation is fortified to prevent other christians from devastating their fields. there is already a debt of about twenty-five thousand millions of dollars which has been incurred by christian nations, because each one is afraid of every other, and yet all say: "it is our duty to love our enemies." this world, in my judgment, is to be reformed through intelligence --through development of the mind--not by credulity, but by investigation; not by faith in the supernatural, but by faith in the natural. the church has passed the zenith of her power. the clergy must stand aside. scientists must take their places. _question_. do you agree with the pope in attacking the present governments of europe and the memories of mazzini and saffi? _answer_. i do not. i think mazzini was of more use to italy than all the popes that ever occupied the chair of st. peter--which, by the way, was not his chair. i have a thousand times more regard for mazzini, for garibaldi, for cavour, than i have for any gentleman who pretends to be the representative of god. there is another objection i have to the pope, and that is that he was so scandalized when a monument was reared in rome to the memory of giordano bruno. bruno was murdered about two hundred and sixty years ago by the catholic church, and such has been the development of the human brain and heart that on the very spot where he was murdered a monument rises to his memory. but the vicar of god has remained stationary, and he regards this mark of honor to one of the greatest and noblest of the human race as an act of blasphemy. the poor old man acts as if america had never been discovered--as if the world were still flat--and as if the stars had been made out of little pieces left over from the creation of the world and stuck in the sky simply to beautify the night. but, after all, i do not blame this pope. he is the victim of his surroundings. he was never married. his heart was never softened by wife or children. he was born that way, and, to tell you the truth, he has my sincere sympathy. let him talk about america and stay in italy. --_the herald_, new york, april , . the sacredness of the sabbath. _question_. what do you think of the sacredness of the sabbath? _answer_. i think all days, all times and all seasons are alike sacred. i think the best day in a man's life is the day that he is truly the happiest. every day in which good is done to humanity is a holy day. if i were to make a calendar of sacred days, i would put down the days in which the greatest inventions came to the mind of genius; the days when scattered tribes became nations; the days when good laws were passed; the days when bad ones were repealed; the days when kings were dethroned, and the people given their own; in other words, every day in which good has been done; in which men and women have truly fallen in love, days in which babes were born destined to change the civilization of the world. these are all sacred days; days in which men have fought for the right, suffered for the right, died for the right; all days in which there were heroic actions for good. the day when slavery was abolished in the united states is holier than any sabbath by reason of "divine consecration." of course, i care nothing about the sacredness of the sabbath because it was hallowed in the old testament, or because of that day jehovah is said to have rested from his labors. a space of time cannot be sacred, any more than a vacuum can be sacred, and it is rendered sacred by deeds done in it, and not in and of itself. if we should finally invent some means of traveling by which we could go a thousand miles a day, a man could escape sunday all his life by traveling west. he could start monday, and stay monday all the time. or, if he should some time get near the north pole, he could walk faster than the earth turns and thus beat sunday all the while. _question_. should not the museums and art galleries be thrown open to the workingmen free on sunday? _answer_. undoubtedly. in all civilized countries this is done, and i believe it would be done in new york, only it is said that money has been given on condition that the museums should be kept closed on sundays. i have always heard it said that large sums will be withheld by certain old people who have the prospect of dying in the near future if the museums are open on sunday. this, however, seems to me a very poor and shallow excuse. money should not be received under such conditions. one of the curses of our country has been the giving of gifts to colleges on certain conditions. as, for instance, the money given to andover by the original founder on the condition that a certain creed be taught, and other large amounts have been given on a like condition. now, the result of this is that the theological professor must teach what these donors have indicated, or go out of the institution; or --and this last "or" is generally the trouble--teach what he does not believe, endeavoring to get around it by giving new meaning to old words. i think the cause of intellectual progress has been much delayed by these conditions put in the wills of supposed benefactors, so that after they are dead they can rule people who have the habit of being alive. in my opinion, a corpse is a poor ruler, and after a man is dead he should keep quiet. of course all that he did will live, and should be allowed to have its natural effect. if he was a great inventor or discoverer, or if he uttered great truths, these became the property of the world; but he should not endeavor, after he is dead, to rule the living by conditions attached to his gifts. all the museums and libraries should be opened, not only to workingmen, but to all others. if to see great paintings, great statues, wonderful works of art; if to read the thoughts of the greatest men--if these things tend to the civilization of the race, then they should be put as nearly as possible within the reach of all. the man who works eight or ten or twelve hours a day has not time during the six days of labor to visit libraries or museums. sunday is his day of leisure, his day of recreation, and on that day he should have the privilege, and he himself should deem it a right to visit all the public libraries and museums, parks and gardens. in other words, i think the laboring man should have the same rights on sundays, to say the least of it, that wealthy people have on other days. the man of wealth has leisure. he can attend these places on any day he may desire; but necessity being the master of the poor man, sunday is his one day for such a purpose. for men of wealth to close the museums and libraries on that day, shows that they have either a mistaken idea as to the well-being of their fellow-men, or that they care nothing about the rights of any except the wealthy. personally, i have no sort of patience with the theological snivel and drivel about the sacredness of the sabbath. i do not understand why they do not accept the words of their own christ, namely, that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." the hypocrites of judea were great sticklers for the sabbath, and the orthodox christians of new york are exactly the same. my own opinion is that a man who has been at work all the week, in the dust and heat, can hardly afford to waste his sunday in hearing an orthodox sermon--a sermon that gives him the cheerful intelligence that his chances for being damned are largely in the majority. i think it is far better for the workingman to go out with his family in the park, into the woods, to some german garden, where he can hear the music of wagner, or even the waltzes of strauss, or to take a boat and go down to the shore of the sea. i think than in summer a few waves of the ocean are far more refreshing then all the orthodox sermons of the world. as a matter of fact, i believe the preachers leave the city in the summer and let the devil do his worst. whether it is believed that the devil has less power in warm weather, i do not know. but i do know that, as the mercury rises, the anxiety about souls decreases, and the hotter new york becomes, the cooler hell seems to be. i want the workingman, no matter what he works at--whether at doctoring people, or trying law suits, or running for office--to have a real good time on sunday. he, of course, must be careful not to interfere with the rights of others. he ought not to play draw-poker on the steps of a church; neither should he stone a chinese funeral, nor go to any excesses; but all the week long he should have it in his mind: next sunday i am going to have a good time. my wife and i and the children are going to have a happy time. i am going out with the girl i like; or my young man is going to take me to the picnic. and this thought, and this hope, of having a good time on sunday--of seeing some great pictures at the metropolitan art gallery--together with a good many bad ones-- will make work easy and lighten the burden on the shoulders of toil. i take a great interest, too, in the working women--particularly in the working woman. i think that every workingman should see to it that every working woman has a good time on sunday. i am no preacher. all i want is that everybody should enjoy himself in a way that he will not and does not interfere with the enjoyment of others. it will not do to say that we cannot trust the people. our government is based upon the idea that the people can be trusted, and those who say that the workingmen cannot be trusted, do not believe in republican or democratic institutions. for one, i am perfectly willing to trust the working people of the country. i do, every day. i trust the engineers on the cars and steamers. i trust the builders of houses. i trust all laboring men every day of my life, and if the laboring people of the country were not trustworthy--if they were malicious or dishonest--life would not be worth living. --_the journal_, new york, june , . the west and south. _question_. do you think the south will ever equal or surpass the west in point of prosperity? _answer_. i do not. the west has better soil and more of the elements of wealth. it is not liable to yellow fever; its rivers have better banks; the people have more thrift, more enterprise, more political hospitality; education is more general; the people are more inventive; better traders, and besides all this, there is no race problem. the southern people are what their surroundings made them, and the influence of slavery has not yet died out. in my judgment the climate of the west is superior to that of the south. the west has good, cold winters, and they make people a little more frugal, prudent and industrious. winters make good homes, cheerful firesides, and, after all, civilization commences at the hearthstone. the south is growing, and will continue to grow, but it will never equal the west. the west is destined to dominate the republic. _question_. do you consider the new ballot-law adapted to the needs of our system of elections? if not, in what particulars does it require amendment? _answer_. personally i like the brave and open way. the secret ballot lacks courage. i want people to know just how i vote. the old _viva voce_ way was manly and looked well. every american should be taught that he votes as a sovereign--an emperor--and he should exercise the right in a kingly way. but if we must have the secret ballot, then let it be secret indeed, and let the crowd stand back while the king votes. _question_. what do you think of the service pension movement? _answer_. i see that there is a great deal of talk here in indiana about this service pension movement. it has always seemed to me that the pension fund has been frittered away. of what use is it to give a man two or three dollars a month? if a man is rich why should he have any pension? i think it would be better to give pensions only to the needy, and then give them enough to support them. if the man was in the army a day or a month, and was uninjured, and can make his own living, or has enough, why should he have a pension? i believe in giving to the wounded and disabled and poor, with a liberal hand, but not to the rich. i know that the nation could not pay the men who fought and suffered. there is not money enough in the world to pay the heroes for what they did and endured --but there is money enough to keep every wounded and diseased soldier from want. there is money enough to fill the lives of those who gave limbs or health for the sake of the republic, with comfort and happiness. i would also like to see the poor soldier taken care of whether he was wounded or not, but i see no propriety in giving to those who do not need. --_the journal_, indianapolis, indiana, june , . the westminster creed and other subjects. _question_. what do you think of the revision of the westminster creed? _answer_. i think that the intelligence and morality of the age demand the revision. the westminster creed is infamous. it makes god an infinite monster, and men the most miserable of beings. that creed has made millions insane. it has furrowed countless cheeks with tears. under its influence the sentiments and sympathies of the heart have withered. this creed was written by the worst of men. the civilized presbyterians do not believe it. the intelligent clergyman will not preach it, and all good men who understand it, hold it in abhorrence. but the fact is that it is just as good as the creed of any orthodox church. all these creeds must be revised. young america will not be consoled by the doctrine of eternal pain. yes, the creeds must be revised or the churches will be closed. _question_. what do you think of the influence of the press on religion? _answer_. if you mean on orthodox religion, then i say the press is helping to destroy it. just to the extent that the press is intelligent and fearless, it is and must be the enemy of superstition. every fact in the universe is the enemy of every falsehood. the press furnishes food for, and excites thought. this tends to the destruction of the miraculous and absurd. i regard the press as the friend of progress and consequently the foe of orthodox religion. the old dogmas do not make the people happy. what is called religion is full of fear and grief. the clergy are always talking about dying, about the grave and eternal pain. they do not add to the sunshine of life. if they could have their way all the birds would stop singing, the flowers would lose their color and perfume, and all the owls would sit on dead trees and hoot, "broad is the road that leads to death." _question_. if you should write your last sentence on religious topics what would be your closing? _answer_. i now in the presence of death affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that i have said against the superstitions of the world. i would say at least that much on the subject with my last breath. _question_. what, in your opinion, will be browning's position in the literature of the future? _answer_. lower than at present. mrs. browning was far greater than her husband. he never wrote anything comparable to "mother and poet." browning lacked form, and that is as great a lack in poetry as it is in sculpture. he was the author of some great lines, some great thoughts, but he was obscure, uneven and was always mixing the poetic with the commonplace. to me he cannot be compared with shelley or keats, or with our own walt whitman. of course poetry cannot be very well discussed. each man knows what he likes, what touches his heart and what words burst into blossom, but he cannot judge for others. after one has read shakespeare, burns and byron, and shelley and keats; after he has read the "sonnets" and the "daisy" and the "prisoner of chillon" and the "skylark" and the "ode to the grecian urn"--the "flight of the duchess" seems a little weak. --_the post-express_, rochester, new york, june , . shakespeare and bacon. _question_. what is your opinion of ignatius donnelly as a literary man irrespective of his baconian theory? _answer_. i know that mr. donnelly enjoys the reputation of being a man of decided ability and that he is regarded by many as a great orator. he is known to me through his baconian theory, and in that of course i have no confidence. it is nearly as ingenious as absurd. he has spent great time, and has devoted much curious learning to the subject, and has at last succeeded in convincing himself that shakespeare claimed that which he did not write, and that bacon wrote that which he did not claim. but to me the theory is without the slightest foundation. _question_. mr. donnelly asks: "can you imagine the author of such grand productions retiring to that mud house in stratford to live without a single copy of the quarto that has made his name famous?" what do you say? _answer_. yes; i can. shakespeare died in , and the quarto was published in , seven years after he was dead. under these circumstances i think shakespeare ought to be excused, even by those who attack him with the greatest bitterness, for not having a copy of the book. there is, however, another side to his. bacon did not die until long after the quarto was published. did he have a copy? did he mention the copy in his will? did he ever mention the quarto in any letter, essay, or in any way? he left a library, was there a copy of the plays in it? has there ever been found a line from any play or sonnet in his handwriting? bacon left his writings, his papers, all in perfect order, but no plays, no sonnets, said nothing about plays--claimed nothing on their behalf. this is the other side. now, there is still another thing. the edition of was published by shakespeare's friends, heminge and condell. they knew him--had been with him for years, and they collected most of his plays and put them in book form. ben jonson wrote a preface, in which he placed shakespeare above all the other poets--declared that he was for all time. the edition of was gotten up by actors, by the friends and associates of shakespeare, vouched for by dramatic writers--by those who knew him. this is enough. _question_. how do you explain the figure: "his soul, like mazeppa, was lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate"? mr. donnelly does not understand you. _answer_. it hardly seems necessary to explain a thing as simple and plain as that. men are carried away by some fierce passion-- carried away in spite of themselves as mazeppa was carried by the wild horse to which he was lashed. whether the comparison is good or bad it is at least plain. nothing could tempt me to call mr. donnelly's veracity in question. he says that he does not understand the sentence and i most cheerfully admit that he tells the exact truth. _question_. mr. donnelly says that you said: "where there is genius, education seems almost unnecessary," and he denounces your doctrine as the most abominable doctrine ever taught. what have you to say to that? _answer_. in the first place, i never made the remark. in the next place, it may be well enough to ask what education is. much is taught in colleges that is of no earthly use; much is taught that is hurtful. there are thousands of educated men who never graduated from any college or university. every observant, thoughtful man is educating himself as long as he lives. men are better then books. observation is a great teacher. a man of talent learns slowly. he does not readily see the necessary relation that one fact bears to another. a man of genius, learning one fact, instantly sees hundreds of others. it is not necessary for such a man to attend college. the world is his university. every man he meets is a book--every woman a volume every fact a torch--and so without the aid of the so-called schools he rises to the very top. shakespeare was such a man. _question_. mr. donnelly says that: "the biggest myth ever on earth was shakespeare, and that if francis bacon had said to the people, i, francis bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking in secret my share of the coppers and shillings taken at the door of those low playhouses, he would have been ruined. if he had put the plays forth simply as poetry it would have ruined his legal reputation." what do you think of this? _answer_. i hardly think that shakespeare was a myth. he was certainly born, married, lived in london, belonged to a company of actors; went back to stratford, where he had a family, and died. all these things do not as a rule happen to myths. in addition to this, those who knew him believed him to be the author of the plays. bacon's friends never suspected him. i do not think it would have hurt bacon to have admitted that he wrote "lear" and "othello," and that he was getting "coppers and shillings" to which he was justly entitled. certainly not as much as for him to have written this, which if fact, though not in exact form, he did write: "i, francis bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking coppers and shillings to which i was not entitled--but which i received as bribes while sitting as a judge." he has been excused for two reasons. first, because his salary was small, and, second, because it was the custom for judges to receive presents. bacon was a lawyer. he was charged with corruption--with having taken bribes, with having sold his decisions. he knew what the custom was and knew how small his salary was. but he did not plead the custom in his defense. he did not mention the smallness of the salary. he confessed that he was guilty--as charged. his confession was deemed too general and he was called upon by the lords to make a specific confession. this he did. he specified the cases in which he had received the money and told how much, and begged for mercy. he did not make his confession, as mr. donnelly is reported to have said, to get his fine remitted. the confession was made before the fine was imposed. neither do i think that the theatre in which the plays of shakespeare were represented could or should be called a "low play house." the fact that "othello," "lear," "hamlet," "julius cæsar," and the other great dramas were first played in that playhouse made it the greatest building in the world. the gods themselves should have occupied seats in that theatre, where for the first time the greatest productions of the human mind were put upon the stage. --_the tribune_, minneapolis, minn., may , . growing old gracefully, and presbyterianism. _question_. how have you acquired the art of growing old gracefully? _answer_. it is very hard to live a great while without getting old, and it is hardly worth while to die just to keep young. it is claimed that people with certain incomes live longer than those who have to earn their bread. but the income people have a stupid kind of life, and though they may hang on a good many years, they can hardly be said to do much real living. the best you can say is, not that they lived so many years, but that it took them so many years to die. some people imagine that regular habits prolong life, but that depends somewhat on the habits. only the other day i read an article written by a physician, in which regular habits --good ones, were declared to be quite dangerous. where life is perfectly regular, all the wear and tear comes on the same nerves--every blow falls on the same place. variety, even in a bad direction, is a great relief. but living long has nothing to do with getting old gracefully. good nature is a great enemy of wrinkles, and cheerfulness helps the complexion. if we could only keep from being annoyed at little things, it would add to the luxury of living. great sorrows are few, and after all do not affect us as much as the many irritating, almost nothings that attack from every side. the traveler is bothered more with dust than mountains. it is a great thing to have an object in life-- something to work for and think for. if a man thinks only about himself, his own comfort, his own importance, he will not grow old gracefully. more and more his spirit, small and mean, will leave its impress on his face, and especially in his eyes. you look at him and feel that there is no jewel in the casket; that a shriveled soul is living in a tumble-down house. the body gets its grace from the mind. i suppose that we are all more or less responsible for our looks. perhaps the thinker of great thoughts, the doer of noble deeds, moulds his features in harmony with his life. probably the best medicine, the greatest beautifier in the world, is to make somebody else happy. i have noticed that good mothers have faces as serene as a cloudless day in june, and the older the serener. it is a great thing to know the relative importance of things, and those who do, get the most out of life. those who take an interest in what they see, and keep their minds busy are always young. the other day i met a blacksmith who has given much attention to geology and fossil remains. he told me how happy he was in his excursions. he was nearly seventy years old, and yet he had the enthusiasm of a boy. he said he had some very fine specimens, "but," said he, "nearly every night i dream of finding perfect ones." that man will keep young as long as he lives. as long as a man lives he should study. death alone has the right to dismiss the school. no man can get too much knowledge. in that, he can have all the avarice he wants, but he can get too much property. if the business men would stop when they got enough, they might have a chance to grow old gracefully. but the most of them go on and on, until, like the old stage horse, stiff and lame, they drop dead in the road. the intelligent, the kind, the reasonably contented, the courageous, the self-poised, grow old gracefully. _question_. are not the restraints to free religious thought being worn away, as the world grows older, and will not the recent attacks of the religious press and pulpit upon the unorthodoxy of dr. briggs, rev. r. heber newton and the prospective episcopal bishop of massachusetts, dr. phillips brooks, and others, have a tendency still further to extend this freedom? _answer_. of course the world is growing somewhat wiser--getting more sense day by day. it is amazing to me that any human being or beings ever wrote the presbyterian creed. nothing can be more absurd--more barbaric than that creed. it makes man the sport of an infinite monster, and yet good people, men and women of ability, who have gained eminence in almost every department of human effort, stand by this creed as if it were filled with wisdom and goodness. they really think that a good god damns his poor ignorant children just for his own glory, and that he sends people to perdition, not for any evil in them, but to the praise of his glorious justice. dr. briggs has been wicked enough to doubt this phase of god's goodness, and dr. bridgman was heartless enough to drop a tear in hell. of course they have no idea of what justice really is. the presbyterian general assembly that has just adjourned stood by calvinism. the "five points" are as sharp as ever. the members of that assembly--most of them--find all their happiness in the "creed." they need no other amusement. if they feel blue they read about total depravity--and cheer up. in moments of great sorrow they think of the tale of non-elect infants, and their hearts overflow with a kind of joy. they cannot imagine why people wish to attend the theatre when they can read the "confession of faith," or why they should feel like dancing after they do read it. it is very sad to think of the young men and women who have been eternally ruined by witnessing the plays of shakespeare, and it is also sad to think of the young people, foolish enough to be happy, keeping time to the pulse of music, waltzing to hell in loving pairs--all for the glory of god, and to the praise of his glorious justice. i think, too, of the thousands of men and women who, while listening to the music of wagner, have absolutely forgotten the presbyterian creed, and who for a little while have been as happy as if the creed had never been written. tear down the theatres, burn the opera houses, break all musical instruments, and then let us go to church. i am not at all surprised that the general assembly took up this progressive euchre matter. the word "progressive" is always obnoxious to the ministers. euchre under another name might go. of course, progressive euchre is a kind of gambling. i knew a young man, or rather heard of him, who won at progressive euchre a silver spoon. at first this looks like nothing, almost innocent, and yet that spoon, gotten for nothing, sowed the seed of gambling in that young man's brain. he became infatuated with euchre, then with cards in general, then with draw-poker in particular,--then into wall street. he is now a total wreck, and has the impudence to say that is was all "pre-ordained." think of the thousands and millions that are being demoralized by games of chance, by marbles --when they play for keeps--by billiards and croquet, by fox and geese, authors, halma, tiddledywinks and pigs in clover. in all these miserable games, is the infamous element of chance--the raw material of gambling. probably none of these games could be played exclusively for the glory of god. i agree with the presbyterian general assembly, if the creed is true, why should anyone try to amuse himself? if there is a hell, and all of us are going there, there should never be another smile on the human face. we should spend our days in sighs, our nights in tears. the world should go insane. we find strange combinations--good men with bad creeds, and bad men with good ones--and so the great world stumbles along. --_the blade_, toledo, ohio, june , . creeds. there is a natural desire on the part of every intelligent human being to harmonize his information--to make his theories agree--in other words, to make what he knows, or thinks he knows, in one department, agree and harmonize with what he knows, or thinks he knows, in every other department of human knowledge. the human race has not advanced in line, neither has it advanced in all departments with the same rapidity. it is with the race as it is with an individual. a man may turn his entire attention to some one subject--as, for instance, to geology--and neglect other sciences. he may be a good geologist, but an exceedingly poor astronomer; or he may know nothing of politics or of political economy. so he may be a successful statesman and know nothing of theology. but if a man, successful in one direction, takes up some other question, he is bound to use the knowledge he has on one subject as a kind of standard to measure what he is told on some other subject. if he is a chemist, it will be natural for him, when studying some other question, to use what he knows in chemistry; that is to say, he will expect to find cause and effect everywhere --succession and resemblance. he will say: it must be in all other sciences as in chemistry--there must be no chance. the elements have no caprice. iron is always the same. gold does not change. prussic acid is always poison--it has no freaks. so he will reason as to all facts in nature. he will be a believer in the atomic integrity of all matter, in the persistence of gravitation. being so trained, and so convinced, his tendency will be to weigh what is called new information in the same scales that he has been using. now, for the application of this. progress in religion is the slowest, because man is kept back by sentimentality, by the efforts of parents, by old associations. a thousand unseen tendrils are twining about him that he must necessarily break if he advances. in other departments of knowledge inducements are held out and rewards are promised to the one who does succeed--to the one who really does advance--to the one who discovers new facts. but in religion, instead of rewards being promised, threats are made. the man is told that he must not advance; that if he takes a step forward, it is at the peril of his soul; that if he thinks and investigates, he is in danger of exciting the wrath of god. consequently religion has been of the slowest growth. now, in most departments of knowledge, man has advanced; and coming back to the original statement--a desire to harmonize all that we know--there is a growing desire on the part of intelligent men to have a religion fit to keep company with the other sciences. our creeds were made in times of ignorance. they suited very well a flat world, and a god who lived in the sky just above us and who used the lightning to destroy his enemies. this god was regarded much as a savage regarded the head of his tribe--as one having the right to reward and punish. and this god, being much greater than a chief of the tribe, could give greater rewards and inflict greater punishments. they knew that the ordinary chief, or the ordinary king, punished the slightest offence with death. they also knew that these chiefs and kings tortured their victims as long as the victims could bear the torture. so when they described their god, they gave this god power to keep the tortured victim alive forever --because they knew that the earthly chief, or the earthly king, would prolong the life of the tortured for the sake of increasing the agonies of the victim. in those savage days they regarded punishment as the only means of protecting society. in consequence of this they built heaven and hell on an earthly plan, and they put god--that is to say the chief, that is to say the king--on a throne like an earthly king. of course, these views were all ignorant and barbaric; but in that blessed day their geology and astronomy were on a par with their theology. there was a harmony in all departments of knowledge, or rather of ignorance. since that time there has been a great advance made in the idea of government--the old idea being that the right to govern came from god to the king, and from the king to his people. now intelligent people believe that the source of authority has been changed, and that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. so there has been a great advance in the philosophy of punishment--in the treatment of criminals. so, too, in all the sciences. the earth is no longer flat; heaven is not immediately above us; the universe has been infinitely enlarged, and we have at last found that our earth is but a grain of sand, a speck on the great shore of the infinite. consequently there is a discrepancy, a discord, a contradiction between our theology and the other sciences. men of intelligence feel this. dr. briggs concluded that a perfectly good and intelligent god could not have created billions of sentient beings, knowing that they were to be eternally miserable. no man could do such a thing, had he the power, without being infinitely malicious. dr. briggs began to have a little hope for the human race--began to think that maybe god is better than the creed describes him. and right here it may be well enough to remark that no one has ever been declared a heretic for thinking god bad. heresy has consisted in thinking god better than the church said he was. the man who said god will damn nearly everybody, was orthodox. the man who said god will save everybody, was denounced as a blaspheming wretch, as one who assailed and maligned the character of god. i can remember when the universalists were denounced as vehemently and maliciously as the atheists are to-day. now, dr. briggs is undoubtedly an intelligent man. he knows that nobody on earth knows who wrote the five books of moses. he knows that they were not written until hundreds of years after moses was dead. he knows that two or more persons were the authors of isaiah. he knows that david did not write to exceed three or four of the psalms. he knows that the book of job is not a jewish book. he knows that the songs of solomon were not written by solomon. he knows that the book of ecclesiastes was written by a freethinker. he also knows that there is not in existence to-day--so far as anybody knows--any of the manuscripts of the old or new testaments. so about the new testament, dr. briggs knows that nobody lives who has ever seen an original manuscript, or who ever saw anybody that did see one, or that claims to have seen one. he knows that nobody knows who wrote matthew or mark or luke or john. he knows that john did not write john, and that that gospel was not written until long after john was dead. he knows that no one knows who wrote the hebrews. he also knows that the book of revelation is an insane production. dr. briggs also knows the way in which these books came to be canonical, and he knows that the way was no more binding than a resolution passed by a political convention. he also knows that many books were left out that had for centuries equal authority with those that were put in. he also knows that many passages-- and the very passages upon which many churches are founded--are interpolations. he knows that the last chapter of mark, beginning with the sixteenth verse to the end, is an interpolation; and he also knows that neither matthew nor mark nor luke ever said one word about the necessity of believing on the lord jesus christ, or of believing anything--not one word about believing the bible or joining the church, or doing any particular thing in the way of ceremony to insure salvation. he knows that according to matthew, god agreed to forgive us when we would forgive others. consequently he knows that there is not one particle of what is called modern theology in matthew, mark, or luke. he knows that the trouble commenced in john, and that john was not written until probably one hundred and fifty years--possibly two hundred years--after christ was dead. so he also knows that the sin against the holy ghost is an interpolation; that "i came not to bring peace but a sword," if not an interpolation, is an absolute contradiction. so, too, he knows that the promise to forgive in heaven what the disciples should forgive on earth, is an interpolation; and that if its not an interpolation, it is without the slightest sense in fact. knowing these things, and knowing, in addition to what i have stated, that there are thirty thousand or forty thousand mistakes in the old testament, that there are a great many contradictions and absurdities, than many of the laws are cruel and infamous, and could have been made only by a barbarous people, dr. briggs has concluded that, after all, the torch that sheds the serenest and divinest light is the human reason, and that we must investigate the bible as we do other books. at least, i suppose he has reached some such conclusion. he may imagine that the pure gold of inspiration still runs through the quartz and porphyry of ignorance and mistake, and that all we have to do is to extract the shining metal by some process that may be called theological smelting; and if so i have no fault to find. dr. briggs has taken a step in advance--that is to say, the tree is growing, and when the tree grows, the bark splits; when the new leaves come the old leaves are rotting on the ground. the presbyterian creed is a very bad creed. it has been the stumbling-block, not only of the head, but of the heart for many generations. i do not know that it is, in fact, worse than any other orthodox creed; but the bad features are stated with an explicitness and emphasized with a candor that render the creed absolutely appalling. it is amazing to me that any man ever wrote it, or that any set of men ever produced it. it is more amazing to me that any human being ever believed in it. it is still more amazing that any human being ever thought it wicked not to believe it. it is more amazing still, than all the others combined, that any human being ever wanted it to be true. this creed is a relic of the middle ages. it has in it the malice, the malicious logic, the total depravity, the utter heartlessness of john calvin, and it gives me great pleasure to say that no presbyterian was ever as bad as his creed. and here let me say, as i have said many times, that i do not hate presbyterians--because among them i count some of my best friends--but i hate presbyterianism. and i cannot illustrate this any better than by saying, i do not hate a man because he has the rheumatism, but i hate the rheumatism because it has a man. the presbyterian church is growing, and is growing because, as i said at first, there is a universal tendency in the mind of man to harmonize all that he knows or thinks he knows. this growth may be delayed. the buds of heresy may be kept back by the north wind of princeton and by the early frost called patton. in spite of these souvenirs of the dark ages, the church must continue to grow. the theologians who regard theology as something higher than a trade, tend toward liberalism. those who regard preaching as a business, and the inculcation of sentiment as a trade, will stand by the lowest possible views. they will cling to the letter and throw away the spirit. they prefer the dead limb to a new bud or to a new leaf. they want no more sap. they delight in the dead tree, in its unbending nature, and they mistake the stiffness of death for the vigor and resistance of life. now, as with dr. briggs, so with dr. bridgman, although it seems to me that he has simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire; and why he should prefer the episcopal creed to the baptist, is more than i can imagine. the episcopal creed is, in fact, just as bad as the presbyterian. it calmly and with unruffled brow, utters the sentence of eternal punishment on the majority of the human race, and the episcopalian expects to be happy in heaven, with his son or daughter or his mother or wife in hell. dr. bridgman will find himself exactly in the position of the rev. mr. newton, provided he expresses his thought. but i account for the bridgmans and for the newtons by the fact that there is still sympathy in the human heart, and that there is still intelligence in the human brain. for my part, i am glad to see this growth in the orthodox churches, and the quicker they revise their creeds the better. i oppose nothing that is good in any creed--i attack only that which is ignorant, cruel and absurd, and i make the attack in the interest of human liberty, and for the sake of human happiness. _question_. what do you think of the action of the presbyterian general assembly at detroit, and what effect do you think it will have on religious growth? _answer_. that general assembly was controlled by the orthodox within the church, by the strict constructionists and by the calvinists; by gentlemen who not only believe the creed, not only believe that a vast majority of people are going to hell, but are really glad of it; by gentlemen who, when they feel a little blue, read about total depravity to cheer up, and when they think of the mercy of god as exhibited in their salvation, and the justice of god as illustrated by the damnation of others, their hearts burst into a kind of efflorescence of joy. these gentlemen are opposed to all kinds of amusements except reading the bible, the confession of faith, and the creed, and listening to presbyterian sermons and prayers. all these things they regard as the food of cheerfulness. they warn the elect against theatres and operas, dancing and games of chance. well, if their doctrine is true, there ought to be no theatres, except exhibitions of hell; there ought to be no operas, except where the music is a succession of wails for the misfortunes of man. if their doctrine is true, i do not see how any human being could ever smile again--i do not see how a mother could welcome her babe; everything in nature would become hateful; flowers and sunshine would simply tell us of our fate. my doctrine is exactly the opposite of this. let us enjoy ourselves every moment that we can. the love of the dramatic is universal. the stage has not simply amused, but it has elevated mankind. the greatest genius of our world poured the treasures of his soul into the drama. i do not believe that any girl can be corrupted, or that any man can be injured, by becoming acquainted with isabella or miranda or juliet or imogen, or any of the great heroines of shakespeare. so i regard the opera as one of the great civilizers. no one can listen to the symphonies of beethoven, or the music of schubert, without receiving a benefit. and no one can hear the operas of wagner without feeling that he has been ennobled and refined. why is it the presbyterians are so opposed to music in the world, and yet expect to have so much in heaven? is not music just as demoralizing in the sky as on the earth, and does anybody believe that abraham or isaac or jacob, ever played any music comparable to wagner? why should we postpone our joy to another world? thousands of people take great pleasure in dancing, and i say let them dance. dancing is better than weeping and wailing over a theology born of ignorance and superstition. and so with games of chance. there is a certain pleasure in playing games, and the pleasure is of the most innocent character. let all these games be played at home and children will not prefer the saloon to the society of their parents. i believe in cards and billiards, and would believe in progressive euchre, were it more of a game--the great objection to it is its lack of complexity. my idea is to get what little happiness you can out of this life, and to enjoy all sunshine that breaks through the clouds of misfortune. life is poor enough at best. no one should fail to pick up every jewel of joy that can be found in his path. every one should be as happy as he can, provided he is not happy at the expense of another, and no person rightly constituted can be happy at the expense of another. so let us get all we can of good between the cradle and the grave; all that we can of the truly dramatic; all that we can of music; all that we can of art; all that we can of enjoyment; and if, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life; and if there be another life, let us make the best of that. i am doing what little i can to hasten the coming of the day when the human race will enjoy liberty--not simply of body, but liberty of mind. and by liberty of mind i mean freedom from superstition, and added to that, the intelligence to find out the conditions of happiness; and added to that, the wisdom to live in accordance with those conditions. --_the morning advertiser_, new york, june , . the tendency of modern thought. _question_. do you regard the briggs trial as any evidence of the growth of liberalism in the church itself? _answer_. when men get together, and make what they call a creed, the supposition is that they then say as nearly as possible what they mean and what they believe. a written creed, of necessity, remains substantially the same. in a few years this creed ceases to give exactly the new shade of thought. then begin two processes, one of destruction and the other of preservation. in every church, as in every party, and as you may say in every corporation, there are two wings--one progressive, the other conservative. in the church there will be a few, and they will represent the real intelligence of the church, who become dissatisfied with the creed, and who at first satisfy themselves by giving new meanings to old words. on the other hand, the conservative party appeals to emotions, to memories, and to the experiences of their fellow- members, for the purpose of upholding the old dogmas and the old ideas; so that each creed is like a crumbling castle. the conservatives plant ivy and other vines, hoping that their leaves will hide the cracks and erosions of time; but the thoughtful see beyond these leaves and are satisfied that the structure itself is in the process of decay, and that no amount of ivy can restore the crumbling stones. the old presbyterian creed, when it was first formulated, satisfied a certain religious intellect. at that time people were not very merciful. they had no clear conceptions of justice. their lives were for the most part hard; most of them suffered the pains and pangs of poverty; nearly all lived in tyrannical governments and were the sport of nobles and kings. their idea of god was born of their surroundings. god, to them, was an infinite king who delighted in exhibitions of power. at any rate, their minds were so constructed that they conceived of an infinite being who, billions of years before the world was, made up his mind as to whom he would save and whom he would damn. he not only made up his mind as to the number he would save, and the number that should be lost, but he saved and damned without the slightest reference to the character of the individual. they believed then, and some pretend to believe still, that god damns a man not because he is bad, and that he saves a man not because he is good, but simply for the purpose of self-glorification as an exhibition of his eternal justice. it would be impossible to conceive of any creed more horrible than that of the presbyterians. although i admit--and i not only admit but i assert--that the creeds of all orthodox christians are substantially the same, the presbyterian creed says plainly what it means. there is no hesitation, no evasion. the horrible truth, so-called, is stated in the clearest possible language. one would think after reading this creed, that the men who wrote it not only believed it, but were really glad it was true. ideas of justice, of the use of power, of the use of mercy, have greatly changed in the last century. we are beginning dimly to see that each man is the result of an infinite number of conditions, of an infinite number of facts, most of which existed before he was born. we are beginning dimly to see that while reason is a pilot, each soul navigates the mysterious sea filled with tides and unknown currents set in motion by ancestors long since dust. we are beginning to see that defects of mind are transmitted precisely the same as defects of body, and in my judgment the time is coming when we shall not more think of punishing a man for larceny than for having the consumption. we shall know that the thief is a necessary and natural result of conditions, preparing, you may say, the field of the world for the growth of man. we shall no longer depend upon accident and ignorance and providence. we shall depend upon intelligence and science. the presbyterian creed is no longer in harmony with the average sense of man. it shocks the average mind. it seems too monstrous to be true; too horrible to find a lodgment in the mind of the civilized man. the presbyterian minister who thinks, is giving new meanings to the old words. the presbyterian minister who feels, also gives new meanings to the old words. only those who neither think nor feel remain orthodox. for many years the christian world has been engaged in examining the religions of other peoples, and the christian scholars have had but little trouble in demonstrating the origin of mohammedanism and buddhism and all other isms except ours. after having examined other religions in the light of science, it occurred to some of our theologians to examine their own doctrine in the same way, and the result has been exactly the same in both cases. dr. briggs, as i believe, is a man of education. he is undoubtedly familiar with other religions, and has, to some extent at least, made himself familiar with the sacred books of other people. dr. briggs knows that no human being knows who wrote a line of the old testament. he knows as well as he can know anything, for instance, that moses never wrote one word of the books attributed to him. he knows that the book of genesis was made by putting two or three stories together. he also knows that it is not the oldest story, but was borrowed. he knows that in this book of genesis there is not one word adapted to make a human being better, or to shed the slightest light on human conduct. he knows, if he knows anything, that the mosaic code, so-called, was, and is, exceedingly barbarous and not adapted to do justice between man and man, or between nation and nation. he knows that the jewish people pursued a course adapted to destroy themselves; that they refused to make friends with their neighbors; that they had not the slightest idea of the rights of other people; that they really supposed that the earth was theirs, and that their god was the greatest god in the heavens. he also knows that there are many thousands of mistakes in the old testament as translated. he knows that the book of isaiah is made up of several books. he knows the same thing in regard to the new testament. he also knows that there were many other books that were once considered sacred that have been thrown away, and that nobody knows who wrote a solitary line of the new testament. besides all this, dr. briggs knows that the old and new testaments are filled with interpolations, and he knows that the passages of scripture which have been taken as the foundation stones for creeds, were written hundreds of years after the death of christ. he knows well enough that christ never said: "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." he knows that the same being never said: "thou art peter, and on this rock will i build my church." he knows, too, that christ never said: "whosoever believes shall be saved, and whosoever believes not shall be damned." he knows that these were interpolations. he knows that the sin against the holy ghost is another interpolation. he knows, if he knows anything, that the gospel according to john was written long after the rest, and that nearly all of the poison and superstition of orthodoxy is in that book. he knows also, if he knows anything, that st. paul never read one of the four gospels. knowing all these things, dr. briggs has had the honesty to say that there was some trouble about taking the bible as absolutely inspired in word and punctuation. i do not think, however, that he can maintain his own position and still remain a presbyterian or anything like a presbyterian. he takes the ground, i believe, that there are three sources of knowledge: first, the bible; second, the church; third, reason. it seems to me that reason should come first, because if you say the bible is a source of authority, why do you say it? do you say this because your reason is convinced that it is? if so, then reason is the foundation of that belief. if, again, you say the church is a source of authority, why do you say so? it must be because its history convinces your reason that it is. consequently, the foundation of that idea is reason. at the bottom of this pyramid must be reason, and no man is under any obligation to believe that which is unreasonable to him. he may believe things that he cannot prove, but he does not believe them because they are unreasonable. he believes them because he thinks they are not unreasonable, not impossible, not improbable. but, after all, reason is the crucible in which every fact must be placed, and the result fixes the belief of the intelligent man. it seems to me that the whole presbyterian creed must come down together. it is a scheme based upon certain facts, so-called. there is in it the fall of man. there is in it the scheme of the atonement, and there is the idea of hell, eternal punishment, and the idea of heaven, eternal reward; and yet, according to their creed, hell is not a punishment and heaven is not a reward. now, if we do away with the fall of man we do away with the atonement; then we do away with all supernatural religion. then we come back to human reason. personally, i hope that the presbyterian church will be advanced enough and splendid enough to be honest, and if it is honest, all the gentlemen who amount to anything, who assist in the trial of dr. briggs, will in all probability agree with him, and he will be acquitted. but if they throw aside their reason, and remain blindly orthodox, then he will be convicted. to me it is simply miraculous that any man should imagine that the bible is the source of truth. there was a time when all scientific facts were measured by the bible. that time is past, and now the believers in the bible are doing their best to convince us that it is in harmony with science. in other words, i have lived to see a change of standards. when i was a boy, science was measured by the bible. now the bible is measured by science. this is an immense step. so it is impossible for me to conceive what kind of a mind a man has, who finds in the history of the church the fact that it has been a source of truth. how can any one come to the conclusion that the catholic church has been a source of truth, a source of intellectual light? how can anyone believe that the church of john calvin has been a source of truth? if its creed is not true, if its doctrines are mistakes, if its dogmas are monstrous delusions, how can it be said to have been a source of truth? my opinion is that dr. briggs will not be satisfied with the step he has taken. he has turned his face a little toward the light. the farther he walks the harder it will be for him to turn back. the probability is that the orthodox will turn him out, and the process of driving out men of thought and men of genius will go on until the remnant will be as orthodox as they are stupid. _question_. do you think mankind is drifting away from the supernatural? _answer_. my belief is that the supernatural has had its day. the church must either change or abdicate. that is to say, it must keep step with the progress of the world or be trampled under foot. the church as a power has ceased to exist. to-day it is a matter of infinite indifference what the pulpit thinks unless there comes the voice of heresy from the sacred place. every orthodox minister in the united states is listened to just in proportion that he preaches heresy. the real, simon-pure, orthodox clergyman delivers his homilies to empty benches, and to a few ancient people who know nothing of the tides and currents of modern thought. the orthodox pulpit to-day has no thought, and the pews are substantially in the same condition. there was a time when the curse of the church whitened the face of a race, but now its anathema is the food of laughter. _question_. what, in your judgment, is to be the outcome of the present agitation in religious circles? _answer_. my idea is that people more and more are declining the postponement of happiness to another world. the general tendency is to enjoy the present. all religions have taught men that the pleasures of this world are of no account; that they are nothing but husks and rags and chaff and disappointment; that whoever expects to be happy in this world makes a mistake; that there is nothing on the earth worth striving for; that the principal business of mankind should be to get ready to be happy in another world; that the great occupation is to save your soul, and when you get it saved, when you are satisfied that you are one of the elect, then pack up all your worldly things in a very small trunk, take it to the dock of time that runs out into the ocean of eternity, sit down on it, and wait for the ship of death. and of course each church is the only one that sells a through ticket which can be depended on. in all religions, as far as i know, is an admixture of asceticism, and the greater the quantity, the more beautiful the religion has been considered, the tendency of the world to- day is to enjoy life while you have it; it is to get something out of the present moment; and we have found that there are things worth living for even in this world. we have found that a man can enjoy himself with wife and children; that he can be happy in the acquisition of knowledge; that he can be very happy in assisting others; in helping those he loves; that there is some joy in poetry, in science and in the enlargement and development of the mind; that there is some delight in music and in the drama and in the arts. we are finding, poor as the world is, that it beats a promise the fulfillment of which is not to take place until after death. the world is also finding out another thing, and that is that the gentlemen who preach these various religions, and promise these rewards, and threaten the punishments, know nothing whatever of the subject; that they are as blindly ignorant as the people they pretend to teach, and the people are as blindly ignorant as the animals below them. we have finally concluded that no human being has the slightest conception of origin or of destiny, and that this life, not only in its commencement but in its end, is just as mysterious to-day as it was to the first man whose eyes greeted the rising sun. we are no nearer the solution of the problem than those who lived thousands of years before us, and we are just as near it as those who will live millions of years after we are dead. so many people having arrived at the conclusion that nobody knows and that nobody can know, like sensible folks they have made up their minds to enjoy life. i have often said, and i say again, that i feel as if i were on a ship not knowing the port from which it sailed, not knowing the harbor to which it was going, not having a speaking acquaintance with any of the officers, and i have made up my mind to have as good a time with the other passengers as possible under the circumstances. if this ship goes down in mid- sea i have at least made something, and if it reaches a harbor of perpetual delight i have lost nothing, and i have had a happy voyage. and i think millions and millions are agreeing with me. now, understand, i am not finding fault with any of these religions or with any of these ministers. these religions and these ministers are the necessary and natural products of sufficient causes. mankind has traveled from barbarism to what we now call civilization, by many paths, all of which under the circumstances, were absolutely necessary; and while i think the individual does as he must, i think the same of the church, of the corporation, and of the nation, and not only of the nation, but of the whole human race. consequently i have no malice and no prejudices. i have likes and dislikes. i do not blame a gourd for not being a cantaloupe, but i like cantaloupes. so i do not blame the old hard-shell presbyterian for not being a philosopher, but i like philosophers. so to wind it all up with regard to the tendency of modern thought, or as to the outcome of what you call religion, my own belief is that what is known as religion will disappear from the human mind. and by "religion" i mean the supernatural. by "religion" i mean living in this world for another, or living in this world to gratify some supposed being, whom we never saw and about whom we know nothing, and of whose existence we know nothing. in other words, religion consists of the duties we are supposed to owe to the first great cause, and of certain things necessary for us to do here to insure happiness hereafter. these ideas, in my judgment, are destined to perish, and men will become convinced that all their duties are within their reach, and that obligations can exist only between them and other sentient beings. another idea, i think, will force itself upon the mind, which is this: that he who lives the best for this world lives the best for another if there be one. in other words, humanity will take the place of what is called "religion." science will displace superstition, and to do justice will be the ambition of man. my creed is this: happiness is the only good. the place to be happy is here. the time to be happy is now. the way to be happy is to make others so. _question_. what is going to take the place of the pulpit? _answer_. i have for a long time wondered why somebody didn't start a church on a sensible basis. my idea is this: there are, of course, in every community, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and people of all trades and professions who have not the time during the week to pay any particular attention to history, poetry, art, or song. now, it seems to me that it would be a good thing to have a church and for these men to employ a man of ability, of talent, to preach to them sundays, and let this man say to his congregation: "now, i am going to preach to you for the first few sundays--eight or ten or twenty, we will say--on the art, poetry, and intellectual achievements of the greeks." let this man study all the week and tell his congregation sunday what he has ascertained. let him give to his people the history of such men as plato, as socrates, what they did; of aristotle, of his philosophy; of the great greeks, their statesmen, their poets, actors, and sculptors, and let him show the debt that modern civilization owes to these people. let him, too, give their religions, their mythology--a mythology that has sown the seed of beauty in every land. then let him take up rome. let him show what a wonderful and practical people they were; let him give an idea of their statesmen, orators, poets, lawyers--because probably the romans were the greatest lawyers. and so let him go through with nation after nation, biography after biography, and at the same time let there be a sunday school connected with this church where the children shall be taught something of importance. for instance, teach them botany, and when a sunday is fair, clear, and beautiful, let them go into the fields and woods with their teachers, and in a little while they will become acquainted with all kinds of tress and shrubs and flowering plants. they could also be taught entomology, so that every bug would be interesting, for they would see the facts in science-- something of use to them. i believe that such a church and such a sunday school would at the end of a few years be the most intelligent collection of people in the united states. to teach the children all of these things and to teach their parents, too, the outlines of every science, so that every listener would know something of geology, something of astronomy, so that every member could tell the manner in which they find the distance of a star-- how much better that would be than the old talk about abraham, isaac, and jacob, and quotations from haggai and zephaniah, and all this eternal talk about the fall of man and the garden of eden, and the flood, and the atonement, and the wonders of revelation! even if the religious scheme be true, it can be told and understood as well in one day as in a hundred years. the church says, "he that hath ears to hear let him hear." i say: "he that hath brains to think, let him think." so, too, the pulpit is being displaced by what we call places of amusement, which are really places where men go because they find there is something which satisfies in a greater or less degree the hunger of the brain. never before was the theatre as popular as it is now. never before was so much money lavished upon the stage as now. very few men having their choice would go to hear a sermon, especially of the orthodox kind, when they had a chance to see a great actor. the man must be a curious combination who would prefer an orthodox sermon, we will say, to a concert given by theodore thomas. and i may say in passing that i have great respect for theodore thomas, because it was he who first of all opened to the american people the golden gates of music. he made the american people acquainted with the great masters, and especially with wagner, and it is a debt that we shall always owe him. in this day the opera--that is to say, music in every form--is tending to displace the pulpit. the pulpits have to go in partnership with music now. hundreds of people have excused themselves to me for going to church, saying they have splendid music. long ago the catholic church was forced to go into partnership not only with music, but with painting and with architecture. the protestant church for a long time thought it could do without these beggarly elements, and the protestant church was simply a dry-goods box with a small steeple on top of it, its walls as bleak and bare and unpromising as the creed. but even protestants have been forced to hire a choir of ungodly people who happen to have beautiful voices, and they, too, have appealed to the organ. music is taking the place of creed, and there is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered. music, of all other things, gives wings to thought and allows the soul to rise above all the pains and troubles of this life, and to feel for a moment as if it were absolutely free, above all clouds, destined to enjoy forever. so, too, science is beckoning with countless hands. men of genius are everywhere beckoning men to discoveries, promising them fortunes compared with which aladdin's lamp was weak and poor. all these things take men from the church; take men from the pulpit. in other words, prosperity is the enemy of the pulpit. when men enjoy life, when they are prosperous here, they are in love with the arts, with the sciences, with everything that gives joy, with everything that promises plenty, and they care nothing about the prophecies of evil that fall from the solemn faces of the parsons. they look in other directions. they are not thinking about the end of the world. they hate the lugubrious, and they enjoy the sunshine of to-day. and this, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: first, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose to-morrow; third, enjoy to- day. astrology was displaced by astronomy. alchemy and the black art gave way to chemistry. science is destined to take the place of superstition. in my judgment, the religion of the future will be reason. --_the tribune_, chicago, illinois, november, . woman suffrage, horse racing, and money. _question_. what are your opinions on the woman's suffrage question? _answer_. i claim no right that i am not willing to give to my wife and daughters, and to the wives and daughters of other men. we shall never have a generation of great men until we have a generation of great women. i do not regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue, or uselessness as one of the requisites of a lady. i am a believer in equal rights. those who are amenable to the laws should have a voice in making the laws. in every department where woman has had an equal opportunity with man, she has shown that she has equal capacity. george sand was a great writer, george eliot one of the greatest, mrs. browning a marvelous poet--and the lyric beauty of her "mother and poet" is greater than anything her husband ever wrote--harriet martineau a wonderful woman, and ouida is probably the greatest living novelist, man or woman. give the women a chance. [the colonel's recent election as a life member of the manhattan athletic club, due strangely enough to a speech of his denouncing certain forms of sport, was referred to, and this led him to express his contempt for prize-fighting, and then he said on the subject of horse-racing: ] the only objection i have to horse racing is its cruelty. the whip and spur should be banished from the track. as long as these are used, the race track will breed a very low and heartless set of men. i hate to see a brute whip and spur a noble animal. the good people object to racing, because of the betting, but bad people, like myself, object to the cruelty. men are not forced to bet. that is their own business, but the poor horse, straining every nerve, does not ask for the lash and iron. abolish torture on the track and let the best horse win. _question_. what do you think of the chilian insult to the united states flag? _answer_. in the first place, i think that our government was wrong in taking the part of balmaceda. in the next place, we made a mistake in seizing the itata. america should always side with the right. we should care nothing for the pretender in power, and balmaceda was a cruel, tyrannical scoundrel. we should be with the people everywhere. i do not blame chili for feeling a little revengeful. we ought to remember that chili is weak, and nations, like individuals, are sensitive in proportion that they are weak. let us trust chili just as we would england. we are too strong to be unjust. _question_. how do you stand on the money question? _answer_. i am with the republican party on the question of money. i am for the use of gold and silver both, but i want a dollar's worth of silver in a silver dollar. i do not believe in light money, or in cheap money, or in poor money. these are all contradictions in terms. congress cannot fix the value of money. the most it can do is to fix its debt paying power. it is beyond the power of any congress to fix the purchasing value of what it may be pleased to call money. nobody knows, so far as i know, why people want gold. i do not know why people want silver. i do not know how gold came to be money; neither do i understand the universal desire, but it exists, and we take things as we find them. gold and silver make up, you may say, the money of the world, and i believe in using the two metals. i do not believe in depreciating any american product; but as value cannot be absolutely fixed by law, so far as the purchasing power is concerned, and as the values of gold and silver vary, neither being stable any more than the value of wheat or corn is stable, i believe that legislation should keep pace within a reasonable distance at least, of the varying values, and that the money should be kept as nearly equal as possible. of course, there is one trouble with money to-day, and that is the use of the word "dollar." it has lost its meaning. so many governments have adulterated their own coin, and as many have changed weights, that the word "dollar" has not to-day an absolute, definite, specific meaning. like individuals, nations have been dishonest. the only time the papal power had the right to coin money--i believe it was under pius ix., when antonelli was his minister--the coin of the papacy was so debased that even orthodox catholics refused to take it, and it had to be called in and minted by the french empire, before even the italians recognized it as money. my own opinion is, that either the dollar must be absolutely defined--it must be the world over so many grains of pure gold, or so many grains of pure silver--or we must have other denominations for our money, as for instance, ounces, or parts of ounces, and the time will come, in my judgment, when there will be a money of the world, the same everywhere; because each coin will contain upon its face the certificate of a government that it contains such a weight--so many grains or so many ounces--of a certain metal. i, for one, want the money of the united states to be as good as that of any other country. i want its gold and silver exactly what they purport to be; and i want the paper issued by the government to be the same as gold. i want its credit so perfectly established that it will be taken in every part of the habitable globe. i am with the republican party on the question of money, also on the question of protection, and all i hope is that the people of this country will have sense enough to defend their own interests. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, october , . missionaries. _question_. what is your opinion of foreign missions? _answer_. in the first place, there seems to be a pretty good opening in this country for missionary work. we have a good many indians who are not methodists. i have never known one to be converted. a good many have been killed by christians, but their souls have not been saved. maybe the methodists had better turn their attention to the heathen of our own country. then we have a good many mormons who rely on the truth of the old testament and follow the example of abraham, isaac and jacob. it seems to me that the methodists better convert the mormons before attacking the tribes of central africa. there is plenty of work to be done right here. a few good bishops might be employed for a time in converting dr. briggs and professor swing, to say nothing of other heretical presbyterians. there is no need of going to china to convert the chinese. there are thousands of them here. in china our missionaries will tell the followers of confucius about the love and forgiveness of christians, and when the chinese come here they are robbed, assaulted, and often murdered. would it not be a good thing for the methodists to civilize our own christians to such a degree that they would not murder a man simply because he belongs to another race and worships other gods? so, too, i think it would be a good thing for the methodists to go south and persuade their brethren in that country to treat the colored people with kindness. a few efforts might be made to convert the "white-caps" in ohio, indiana and some other states. my advice to the methodists is to do what little good they can right here and now. it seems cruel to preach to the heathen a gospel that is dying out even here, and fill their poor minds with the absurd dogmas and cruel creeds that intelligent men have outgrown and thrown away. honest commerce will do a thousand times more good than all the missionaries on earth. i do not believe that an intelligent chinaman or an intelligent hindoo has ever been or ever will be converted into a methodist. if methodism is good we need it here, and if it is not good, do not fool the heathen with it. --_the press_, cleveland, ohio, november , . my belief and unbelief.* [* col. robert g. ingersoll was in toledo for a few hours yesterday afternoon on railroad business. whatever mr. ingersoll says is always read with interest, for besides the independence of his averments, his ideas are worded in a way that in itself is attractive. while in the court room talking with some of the officials and others, he was saying that in this world there is rather an unequal distribution of comforts, rewards, and punishments. for himself, he had fared pretty well. he stated that during the thirty years he has been married there have been fifteen to twenty of his relatives under the same roof, but never had there been in his family a death or a night's loss of sleep on account of sickness. "the lord has been pretty good to you," suggested marshall wade. "well, i've been pretty good to him," he answered.] _question_. i have heard people in discussing yourself and your views, express the belief that way down in the depths of your mind you are not altogether a "disbeliever." are they in any sense correct? _answer_. i am an unbeliever, and i am a believer. i do not believe in the miraculous, the supernatural, or the impossible. i do not believe in the "mosaic" account of the creation, or in the flood, or the tower of babel, or that general joshua turned back the sun or stopped the earth. i do not believe in the jonah story, or that god and the devil troubled poor job. neither do i believe in the mt. sinai business, and i have my doubts about the broiled quails furnished in the wilderness. neither do i believe that man is wholly depraved. i have not the least faith in the eden, snake and apple story. neither do i believe that god is an eternal jailer; that he is going to be the warden of an everlasting penitentiary in which the most of men are to be eternally tormented. i do not believe that any man can be justly punished or rewarded on account of his belief. but i do believe in the nobility of human nature. i believe in love and home, and kindness and humanity. i believe in good fellowship and cheerfulness, in making wife and children happy. i believe in good nature, in giving to others all the rights that you claim for yourself. i believe in free thought, in reason, observation and experience. i believe in self-reliance and in expressing your honest thought. i have hope for the whole human race. what will happen to one, will, i hope, happen to all, and that, i hope, will be good. above all, i believe in liberty. --_the blade_, toledo, ohio, january , . must religion go? _question_. what is your idea as to the difference between honest belief, as held by honest religious thinkers, and heterodoxy? _answer_. of course, i believe that there are thousands of men and women who honestly believe not only in the improbable, not only in the absurd, but in the impossible. heterodoxy, so-called, occupies the half-way station between superstition and reason. a heretic is one who is still dominated by religion, but in the east of whose mind there is a dawn. he is one who has seen the morning star; he has not entire confidence in the day, and imagines in some way that even the light he sees was born of the night. in the mind of the heretic, darkness and light are mingled, the ties of intellectual kindred bind him to the night, and yet he has enough of the spirit of adventure to look toward the east. of course, i admit that christians and heretics are both honest; a real christian must be honest and a real heretic must be the same. all men must be honest in what they think; but all men are not honest in what they say. in the invisible world of the mind every man is honest. the judgment never was bribed. speech may be false, but conviction is always honest. so that the difference between honest belief, as shared by honest religious thinkers and heretics, is a difference of intelligence. it is the difference between a ship lashed to the dock, and on making a voyage; it is the difference between twilight and dawn--that is to say, the coming of the sight and the coming of the morning. _question_. are women becoming freed from the bonds of sectarianism? _answer_. women are less calculating than men. as a rule they do not occupy the territory of compromise. they are natural extremists. the woman who is not dominated by superstition is apt to be absolutely free, and when a woman has broken the shackles of superstition, she has no apprehension, no fears. she feels that she is on the open sea, and she cares neither for wind nor wave. an emancipated woman never can be re-enslaved. her heart goes with her opinions, and goes first. _question_. do you consider that the influence of religion is better than the influence of liberalism upon society, that is to say, is society less or more moral, is vice more or less conspicuous? _answer_. whenever a chain is broken an obligation takes its place. there is and there can be no responsibility without liberty. the freer a man is, the more responsible, the more accountable he feels; consequently the more liberty there is, the more morality there is. believers in religion teach us that god will reward men for good actions, but men who are intellectually free, know that the reward of a good action cannot be given by any power, but that it is the natural result of the good action. the free man, guided by intelligence, knows that his reward is in the nature of things, and not in the caprice even of the infinite. he is not a good and faithful servant, he is an intelligent free man. the vicious are ignorant; real morality is the child of intelligence; the free and intelligent man knows that every action must be judged by its consequences; he knows that if he does good he reaps a good harvest; he knows that if he does evil he bears a burden, and he knows that these good and evil consequences are not determined by an infinite master, but that they live in and are produced by the actions themselves. --_evening advertiser_, new york, february , . word painting and college education. _question_. what is the history of the speech delivered here in ? was it extemporaneous? _answer_. it was not born entirely of the occasion. it took me several years to put the thoughts in form--to paint the pictures with words. no man can do his best on the instant. iron to be beaten into perfect form has to be heated several times and turned upon the anvil many more, and hammered long and often. you might as well try to paint a picture with one sweep of the brush, or chisel a statue with one stroke, as to paint many pictures with words, without great thought and care. now and then, while a man is talking, heated with his subject, a great thought, sudden as a flash of lightning, illumines the intellectual sky, and a great sentence clothed in words of purple, falls, or rather rushes, from his lips--but a continuous flight is born, not only of enthusiasm, but of long and careful thought. a perfect picture requires more details, more lights and shadows, than the mind can grasp at once, or on the instant. thoughts are not born of chance. they grow and bud and blossom, and bear the fruit of perfect form. genius is the soil and climate, but the soil must be cultivated, and the harvest is not instantly after the planting. it takes time and labor to raise and harvest a crop from that field called the brain. _question_. do you think young men need a college education to get along? _answer_. probably many useless things are taught in colleges. i think, as a rule, too much time is wasted learning the names of the cards without learning to play a game. i think a young man should be taught something that he can use--something he can sell. after coming from college he should be better equipped to battle with the world--to do something of use. a man may have his brain stuffed with greek and latin without being able to fill his stomach with anything of importance. still, i am in favor of the highest education. i would like to see splendid schools in every state, and then a university, and all scholars passing a certain examination sent to the state university free, and then a united states university, the best in the world, and all graduates of the state universities passing a certain examination sent to the united states university free. we ought to have in this country the best library, the best university, the best school of design in the world; and so i say, more money for the mind. _question_. was the peculiar conduct of the rev. dr. parkhurst, of new york, justifiable, and do you think that it had a tendency to help morality? _answer_. if christ had written a decoy letter to the woman to whom he said: "go and sin no more," and if he had disguised himself and visited her house and had then lodged a complaint against her before the police and testified against her, taking one of his disciples with him, i do not think he would have added to his reputation. --_the news_, indianapolis, indiana, february , . personal magnetism and the sunday question. [colonel ingersoll was a picturesque figure as he sat in his room at the gibson house yesterday, while the balmy may breeze blew through the open windows, fluttered the lace curtains and tossed the great infidel's snowy hair to and fro. the colonel had come in from new york during the morning and the keen white sunlight of a lovely may day filled his heart with gladness. after breakfast, the man who preaches the doctrine of the golden rule and the gospel of humanity and the while chaffs the gentlemen of the clerical profession, was in a fine humor. he was busy with cards and callers, but not too busy to admire the vase full of freshly-picked spring flowers that stood on the mantel, and wrestled with clouds of cigar smoke, to see which fragrance should dominate the atmosphere. to a reporter of _the commercial gazette_, the colonel spoke freely and interestingly upon a variety of subjects, from personal magnetism in politics to mob rule in tennessee. he had been interested in colonel weir's statement about the lack of gas in exposition hall, at the convention, and when asked if he believed there was any truth in the stories that the gas supply had been manipulated so as to prevent the taking of a ballot after he had placed james g. blaine in nomination, he replied: ] all i can say is, that i heard such a story the day after the convention, but i do not know whether or not it is true. i have always believed, that if a vote had been taken that evening, blaine would have been nominated, possibly not as the effect of my speech, but the night gave time for trafficking, and that is always dangerous in a convention. i believed then that blaine ought to have been nominated, and that it would have been a very wise thing for the party to have done. that he was not the candidate was due partly to accident and partly to political traffic, but that is one of the bygones, and i believe there is an old saying to the effect that even the gods have no mastery over the past. _question_. do you think that eloquence is potent in a convention to set aside the practical work of politics and politicians? _answer_. i think that all the eloquence in the world cannot affect a trade if the parties to the contract stand firm, and when people have made a political trade they are not the kind of people to be affected by eloquence. the practical work of the world has very little to do with eloquence. there are a great many thousand stone masons to one sculptor, and houses and walls are not constructed by sculptors, but by masons. the daily wants of the world are supplied by the practical workers, by men of talent, not by men of genius, although in the world of invention, genius has done more, it may be, than the workers themselves. i fancy the machinery now in the world does the work of many hundreds of millions; that there is machinery enough now to do several times the work that could be done by all the men, women and children of the earth. the genius who invented the reaper did more work and will do more work in the harvest field than thousands of millions of men, and the same may be said of the great engines that drive the locomotives and the ships. all these marvelous machines were made by men of genius, but they are not the men who in fact do the work. [this led the colonel to pay a brilliant tribute to the great orators of ancient and modern times, the peer of all of them being cicero. he dissected and defined oratory and eloquence, and explained with picturesque figures, wherein the difference between them lay. as he mentioned the magnetism of public speakers, he was asked as to his opinion of the value of personal magnetism in political life.] it may be difficult to define what personal magnetism is, but i think it may be defined in this way: you don't always feel like asking a man whom you meet on the street what direction you should take to reach a certain point. you often allow three or four to pass, before you meet one who seems to invite the question. so, too, there are men by whose side you may sit for hours in the cars without venturing a remark as to the weather, and there are others to whom you will commence talking the moment you sit down. there are some men who look as if they would grant a favor, men toward whom you are unconsciously drawn, men who have a real human look, men with whom you seem to be acquainted almost before you speak, and that you really like before you know anything about them. it may be that we are all electric batteries; that we have our positive and our negative poles; it may be that we need some influence that certain others impart, and it may be that certain others have that which we do not need and which we do not want, and the moment you think that, you feel annoyed and hesitate, and uncomfortable, and possibly hateful. i suppose there is a physical basis for everything. possibly the best test of real affection between man and woman, or of real friendship between man and woman, is that they can sit side by side, for hours maybe, without speaking, and yet be having a really social time, each feeling that the other knows exactly what they are thinking about. now, the man you meet and whom you would not hesitate a moment to ask a favor of, is what i call a magnetic man. this magnetism, or whatever it may be, assists in making friends, and of course is a great help to any one who deals with the public. men like a magnetic man even without knowing him, perhaps simply having seen him. there are other men, whom the moment you shake hands with them, you feel you want no more; you have had enough. a sudden chill runs up the arm the moment your hand touches theirs, and finally reaches the heart; you feel, if you had held that hand a moment longer, an icicle would have formed in the brain. such people lack personal magnetism. these people now and then thaw out when you get thoroughly acquainted with them, and you find that the ice is all on the outside, and then you come to like them very well, but as a rule first impressions are lasting. magnetism is what you might call the climate of a man. some men, and some women, look like a perfect june day, and there are others who, while the look quite smiling, yet you feel that the sky is becoming overcast, and the signs all point to an early storm. there are people who are autumnal--that is to say, generous. they have had their harvest, and have plenty to spare. others look like the end of an exceedingly hard winter--between the hay and grass, the hay mostly gone and the grass not yet come up. so you will see that i think a great deal of this thing that is called magnetism. as i said, there are good people who are not magnetic, but i do not care to make an arctic expedition for the purpose of discovering the north pole of their character. i would rather stay with those who make me feel comfortable at the first. [from personal magnetism to the lynching saturday morning down at nashville, tennessee, was a far cry, but when colonel ingersoll was asked what he thought of mob law, whether there was any extenuation, any propriety and moral effect resultant from it, he quickly answered: ] i do not believe in mob law at any time, among any people. i believe in justice being meted out in accordance with the forms of law. if a community violates that law, why should not the individual? the example is bad. besides all that, no punishment inflicted by a mob tends to prevent the commission of crime. horrible punishment hardens the community, and that in itself produces more crime. there seems to be a sort of fascination in frightful punishments, but, to say the least of it, all these things demoralize the community. in some countries, you know, they whip people for petty offences. the whipping, however, does no good, and on the other hand it does harm; it hardens those who administer the punishment and those who witness it, and it degrades those who receive it. there will be but little charity in the world, and but little progress until men see clearly that there is no chance in the world of conduct any more than in the physical world. back of every act and dream and thought and desire and virtue and crime is the efficient cause. if you wish to change mankind, you must change the conditions. there should be no such thing as punishment. we should endeavor to reform men, and those who cannot be reformed should be placed where they cannot injure their fellows. the state should never take revenge any more than the community should form itself into a mob and take revenge. this does harm, not good. the time will come when the world will no more think of sending men to the penitentiary for stealing, as a punishment, that it will for sending a man to the penitentiary because he has consumption. when that time comes, the object will be to reform men; to prevent crime instead of punishing it, and the object then will be to make the conditions such that honest people will be the result, but as long as hundreds of thousands of human beings live in tenements, as long as babes are raised in gutters, as long as competition is so sharp that hundreds of thousands must of necessity be failures, just so long as society gets down on its knees before the great and successful thieves, before the millionaire thieves, just so long will it have to fill the jails and prisons with the little thieves. when the "good time" comes, men will not be judged by the money they have accumulated, but by the uses they make of it. so men will be judged, not according to their intelligence, but by what they are endeavoring to accomplish with their intelligence. in other words, the time will come when character will rise above all. there is a great line in shakespeare that i have often quoted, and that cannot be quoted too often: "there is no darkness but ignorance." let the world set itself to work to dissipate this darkness; let us flood the world with intellectual light. this cannot be accomplished by mobs or lynchers. it must be done by the noblest, by the greatest, and by the best. [the conversation shifting around to the sunday question; the opening of the world's fair on sunday, the attacks of the pulpit upon the sunday newspapers, the opening of parks and museums and libraries on sunday, colonel ingersoll waxed eloquent, and in answer to many questions uttered these paragraphs: ] of course, people will think that i have some prejudice against the parsons, but really i think the newspaper press is of far more importance in the world than the pulpit. if i should admit in a kind of burst of generosity, and simply for the sake of making a point, that the pulpit can do some good, how much can it do without the aid of the press? here is a parson preaching to a few ladies and enough men, it may be, to pass the contribution box, and all he says dies within the four walls of that church. how many ministers would it take to reform the world, provided i again admit in a burst of generosity, that there is any reforming power in what they preach, working along that line? the sunday newspaper, i think, is the best of any day in the week. that paper keeps hundreds and thousands at home. you can find in it information about almost everything in the world. one of the great sunday papers will keep a family busy reading almost all day. now, i do not wonder that the ministers are so opposed to the sunday newspaper, and so they are opposed to anything calculated to decrease the attendance at church. why, they want all the parks, all the museums, all the libraries closed on sunday, and they want the world's fair closed on sunday. now, i am in favor of sunday; in fact, i am perfectly willing to have two of them a week, but i want sunday as a day of recreation and pleasure. the fact is we ought not to work hard enough during the week to require a day of rest. every day ought to be so arranged that there would be time for rest from the labor of that day. sunday is a good day to get business out of your mind, to forget the ledger and the docket and the ticker, to forget profits and losses, and enjoy yourself. it is a good day to go to the art museums, to look at pictures and statues and beautiful things, so that you may feel that there is something in this world besides money and mud. it is a good day, is sunday, to go to the libraries and spend a little time with the great and splendid dead, and to go to the cemetery and think of those who are sleeping there, and to give a little thought to the time when you, too, like them, will fall asleep. i think it is a good day for almost anything except going to church. there is no need of that; everybody knows the story, and if a man has worked hard all the week, you can hardly call it recreation if he goes to church sunday and hears that his chances are ninety-nine in a hundred in favor of being eternally damned. so it is i am in favor of having the world's fair open on sunday. it will be a good day to look at the best the world has produced; a good day to leave the saloons and commune for a little while with the mighty spirits that have glorified this world. sunday is a good day to leave the churches, where they teach that man has become totally depraved, and look at the glorious things that have been wrought by these depraved beings. besides all this, it is the day of days for the working man and working woman, for those who have to work all the week. in new york an attempt was made to open the metropolitan museum of art on sunday, and the pious people opposed it. they thought it would interfere with the joy of heaven if people were seen in the park enjoying themselves on sunday, and they also held that nobody would visit the museum if it were opened on sunday; that the "common people" had no love for pictures and statues and cared nothing about art. the doors were opened, and it was demonstrated that the poor people, the toilers and workers, did want to see such things on sunday, and now more people visit the museum on sunday than on all the other days of the week put together. the same is true of the public libraries. there is something to me infinitely pharisaical, hypocritical and farcical in this sunday nonsense. the rich people who favor keeping sunday "holy," have their coachman drive them to church and wait outside until the services end. what do they care about the coachman's soul? while they are at church their cooks are busy at home getting dinner ready. what do they care for the souls of cooks? the whole thing is pretence, and nothing but pretence. it is the instinct of business. it is the competition of the gospel shop with other shops and places of resort. the ministers, of course, are opposed to all shows except their own, for they know that very few will come to see or hear them and the choice must be the church or nothing. i do not believe that one day can be more holy than another unless more joyous than another. the holiest day is the happiest day-- the day on which wives and children and men are happiest. in that sense a day can be holy. our idea of the sabbath is from the puritans, and they imagined that a man has to be miserable in order to excite the love of god. we have outgrown the old new england sabbath--the old scotch horror. the germans have helped us and have set a splendid example. i do not see how a poor workingman can go to church for recreation--i mean an orthodox church. a man who has hell here cannot be benefitted by being assured that he is likely to have hell hereafter. the whole business i hold in perfect abhorrence. they tell us that god will not prosper us unless we observe the sabbath. the jews kept the sabbath and yet jehovah deserted them, and they are a people without a nation. the scotch kept sunday; they are not independent. the french never kept sunday, and yet they are the most prosperous nation in europe. --_commercial gazette_, cincinnati, ohio, may , . authors. _question_. who, in your opinion, is the greatest novelist who has written in the english language? _answer_. the greatest novelist, in my opinion, who has ever written in the english language, was charles dickens. he was the greatest observer since shakespeare. he had the eyes that see, the ears that really hear. i place him above thackeray. dickens wrote for the home, for the great public. thackeray wrote for the clubs. the greatest novel in our language--and it may be in any other--is, according to my ideas, "a tale of two cities." in that, are philosophy, pathos, self-sacrifice, wit, humor, the grotesque and the tragic. i think it is the most artistic novel that i have read. the creations of dickens' brain have become the citizens of the world. _question_. what is your opinion of american writers? _answer_. i think emerson was a fine writer, and he did this world a great deal of good, but i do not class him with the first. some of his poetry is wonderfully good and in it are some of the deepest and most beautiful lines. i think he was a poet rather than a philosopher. his doctrine of compensation would be delightful if it had the facts to support it. of course, hawthorne was a great writer. his style is a little monotonous, but the matter is good. "the marble faun" is by far his best effort. i shall always regret that hawthorne wrote the life of franklin pierce. walt whitman will hold a high place among american writers. his poem on the death of lincoln, entitled "when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," is the greatest ever written on this continent. he was a natural poet and wrote lines worthy of america. he was the poet of democracy and individuality, and of liberty. he was worthy of the great republic. _question_. what about henry george's books? _answer_. henry george wrote a wonderful book and one that arrested the attention of the world--one of the greatest books of the century. while i do not believe in his destructive theories, i gladly pay a tribute to his sincerity and his genius. _question_. what do you think of bellamy? _answer_. i do not think what is called nationalism of the bellamy kind is making any particular progress in this country. we are believers in individual independence, and will be, i hope, forever. boston was at one time the literary center of the country, but the best writers are not living here now. the best novelists of our country are not far from boston. edgar fawcett lives in new york. howells was born, i believe, in ohio, and julian hawthorne lives in new jersey or in long island. among the poets, james whitcomb riley is a native of indiana, and he has written some of the daintiest and sweetest things in american literature. edgar fawcett is a great poet. his "magic flower" is as beautiful as anything tennyson has ever written. eugene field of chicago, has written some charming things, natural and touching. westward the star of literature takes its course. --_the star_, kansas city, mo., may , . inebriety.* [* published from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers, evidently written soon after the discovery of the "keeley cure."] _question_. do you consider inebriety a disease, or the result of diseased conditions? _answer_. i believe that by a long and continuous use of stimulants, the system gets in such a condition that it imperatively demands not only the usual, but an increased stimulant. after a time, every nerve becomes hungry, and there is in the body of the man a cry, coming from every nerve, for nourishment. there is a kind of famine, and unless the want is supplied, insanity is the result. this hunger of the nerves drowns the voice of reason--cares nothing for argument--nothing for experience--nothing for the sufferings of others--nothing for anything, except for the food it requires. words are wasted, advice is of no possible use, argument is like reasoning with the dead. the man has lost the control of his will --it has been won over to the side of the nerves. he imagines that if the nerves are once satisfied he can then resume the control of himself. of course, this is a mistake, and the more the nerves are satisfied, the more imperative is their demand. arguments are not of the slightest force. the knowledge--the conviction--that the course pursued is wrong, has no effect. the man is in the grasp of appetite. he is like a ship at the mercy of wind and wave and tide. the fact that the needle of the compass points to the north has no effect--the compass is not a force--it cannot battle with the wind and tide--and so, in spite of the fact that the needle points to the north, the ship is stranded on the rocks. so the fact that the man knows that he should not drink has not the slightest effect upon him. the sophistry of passion outweighs all that reason can urge. in other words, the man is the victim of disease, and until the disease is arrested, his will is not his own. he may wish to reform, but wish is not will. he knows all of the arguments in favor of temperance--he knows all about the distress of wife and child--all about the loss of reputation and character--all about the chasm toward which he is drifting--and yet, not being the master of himself, he goes with the tide. for thousands of years society has sought to do away with inebriety by argument, by example, by law; and yet millions and millions have been carried away and countless thousands have become victims of alcohol. in this contest words have always been worthless, for the reason that no argument can benefit a man who has lost control of himself. _question_. as a lawyer, will you express an opinion as to the moral and legal responsibility of a victim of alcoholism? _answer_. personally, i regard the moral and legal responsibility of all persons as being exactly the same. all persons do as they must. if you wish to change the conduct of an individual you must change his conditions--otherwise his actions will remain the same. we are beginning to find that there is no effect without a cause, and that the conduct of individuals is not an exception to this law. every hope, every fear, every dream, every virtue, every crime, has behind it an efficient cause. men do neither right nor wrong by chance. in the world of fact and in the world of conduct, as well as in the world of imagination, there is no room, no place, for chance. _question_. in the case of an inebriate who has committed a crime, what do you think of the common judicial opinion that such a criminal is as deserving of punishment as a person not inebriated? _answer_. i see no difference. believing as i do that all persons act as they must, it makes not the slightest difference whether the person so acting is what we call inebriated, or sane, or insane --he acts as he must. there should be no such thing as punishment. society should protect itself by such means as intelligence and humanity may suggest, but the idea of punishment is barbarous. no man ever was, no man ever will be, made better by punishment. society should have two objects in view: first, the defence of itself, and second, the reformation of the so-called criminal. the world has gone on fining, imprisoning, torturing and killing the victims of condition and circumstance, and condition and circumstance have gone on producing the same kind of men and women year after year and century after century--and all this is so completely within the control of cause and effect, within the scope and jurisdiction of universal law, that we can prophesy the number of criminals for the next year--the thieves and robbers and murderers --with almost absolute certainty. there are just so many mistakes committed every year--so many crimes --so many heartless and foolish things done--and it does not seem to be--at least by the present methods--possible to increase or decrease the number. we have thousands and thousands of pulpits, and thousands of moralists, and countless talkers and advisers, but all these sermons, and all the advice, and all the talk, seem utterly powerless in the presence of cause and effect. mothers may pray, wives may weep, children may starve, but the great procession moves on. for thousands of years the world endeavored to save itself from disease by ceremonies, by genuflections, by prayers, by an appeal to the charity and mercy of heaven--but the diseases flourished and the graveyards became populous, and all the ceremonies and all the prayers were without the slightest effect. we must at last recognize the fact, that not only life, but conduct, has a physical basis. we must at last recognize the fact that virtue and vice, genius and stupidity, are born of certain conditions. _question_. in which way do you think the reformation or reconstruction of the inebriate is to be effected--by punishment, by moral suasion, by seclusion, or by medical treatment? _answer_. in the first place, punishment simply increases the disease. the victim, without being able to give the reasons, feels that punishment is unjust, and thus feeling, the effect of the punishment cannot be good. you might as well punish a man for having the consumption which he inherited from his parents, or for having a contagious disease which was given to him without his fault, as to punish him for drunkenness. no one wishes to be unhappy--no one wishes to destroy his own well-being. all persons prefer happiness to unhappiness, and success to failure, consequently, you might as well punish a man for being unhappy, and thus increase his unhappiness, as to punish him for drunkenness. in neither case is he responsible for what he suffers. neither can you cure this man by what is called moral suasion. moral suasion, if it amounts to anything, is the force of argument --that is to say, the result of presenting the facts to the victim. now, of all persons in the world, the victim knows the facts. he knows not only the effect upon those who love him, but the effect upon himself. there are no words that can add to his vivid appreciation of the situation. there is no language so eloquent as the sufferings of his wife and children. all these things the drunkard knows, and knows perfectly, and knows as well as any other human being can know. at the same time, he feels that the tide and current of passion are beyond his power. he feels that he cannot row against the stream. there is but one way, and that is, to treat the drunkard as the victim of a disease--treat him precisely as you would a man with a fever, as a man suffering from smallpox, or with some form of indigestion. it is impossible to talk a man out of consumption, or to reason him out of typhoid fever. you may tell him that he ought not to die, that he ought to take into consideration the condition in which he would leave his wife. you may talk to him about his children--the necessity of their being fed and educated --but all this will have nothing to do with the progress of the disease. the man does not wish to die--he wishes to live--and yet, there will come a time in his disease when even that wish to live loses its power to will, and the man drifts away on the tide, careless of life or death. so it is with drink. every nerve asks for a stimulant. every drop of blood cries out for assistance, and in spite of all argument, in spite of all knowledge, in this famine of the nerves, a man loses the power of will. reason abdicates the throne, and hunger takes its place. _question_. will you state your reasons for your belief? _answer_. in the first place, i will give a reason for my unbelief in what is called moral suasion and in legislation. as i said before, for thousands and thousands of years, fathers and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers have been endeavoring to prevent the ones they love from drink, and yet, in spite of everything, millions have gone on and filled at last a drunkard's grave. so, societies have been formed all over the world. but the consumption of ardent spirits has steadily increased. laws have been passed in nearly all the nations of the world upon the subject, and these laws, so far as i can see, have done but little, if any, good. and the same old question is upon us now: what shall be done with the victims of drink? there have been probably many instances in which men have signed the pledge and have reformed. i do not say that it is not possible to reform many men, in certain stages, by moral suasion. possibly, many men can be reformed in certain stages, by law; but the per cent. is so small that, in spite of that per cent., the average increases. for these reasons, i have lost confidence in legislation and in moral suasion. i do not say what legislation may do by way of prevention, or what moral suasion may do in the same direction, but i do say that after man have become the victims of alcohol, advice and law seem to have lost their force. i believe that science is to become the savior of mankind. in other words, every appetite, every excess, has a physical basis, and if we only knew enough of the human system--of the tides and currents of thought and will and wish--enough of the storms of passion--if we only knew how the brain acts and operates--if we only knew the relation between blood and thought, between thought and act--if we only knew the conditions of conduct, then we could, through science, control the passions of the human race. when i first heard of the cure of inebriety through scientific means, i felt that the morning star had risen in the east--i felt that at last we were finding solid ground. i did not accept--being of a skeptical turn of mind--all that i heard as true. i preferred to hope, and wait. i have waited, until i have seen men, the victims of alcohol, in the very gutter of disgrace and despair, lifted from the mire, rescued from the famine of desire, from the grasp of appetite. i have seen them suddenly become men--masters and monarchs of themselves. miracles, theosophy and spiritualism. _question_. do you believe that there is such a thing as a miracle, or that there has ever been? _answer_. mr. locke was in the habit of saying: "define your terms." so the first question is, what is a miracle? if it is something wonderful, unusual, inexplicable, then there have been many miracles. if you mean simply that which is inexplicable, then the world is filled with miracles; but if you mean by a miracle, something contrary to the facts in nature, then it seems to me that the miracle must be admitted to be an impossibility. it is like twice two are eleven in mathematics. if, again, we take the ground of some of the more advanced clergy, that a miracle is in accordance with the facts in nature, but with facts unknown to man, then we are compelled to say that a miracle is performed by a divine sleight-of-hand; as, for instance, that our senses are deceived; or, that it is perfectly simple to this higher intelligence, while inexplicable to us. if we give this explanation, then man has been imposed upon by a superior intelligence. it is as though one acquainted with the sciences--with the action of electricity--should excite the wonder of savages by sending messages to his partner. the savage would say, "a miracle;" but the one who sent the message would say, "there is no miracle; it is in accordance with facts in nature unknown to you." so that, after all, the word miracle grows in the soil of ignorance. the question arises whether a superior intelligence ought to impose upon the inferior. i believe there was a french saint who had his head cut off by robbers, and this saint, after the robbers went away, got up, took his head under his arm and went on his way until he found friends to set it on right. a thing like this, if it really happened, was a miracle. so it may be said that nothing is much more miraculous than the fact that intelligent men believe in miracles. if we read in the annals of china that several thousand years ago five thousand people were fed on one sandwich, and that several sandwiches were left over after the feast, there are few intelligent men--except, it may be, the editors of religious weeklies--who would credit the statement. but many intelligent people, reading a like story in the hebrew, or in the greek, or in a mistranslation from either of these languages, accept the story without a doubt. so if we should find in the records of the indians that a celebrated medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy people and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would believe the story. i believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had the slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion. my own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as another; that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as anything that ever happened; that nothing is more wonderful than that we live--that we think--that we convey our thoughts by speech, by gestures, by pictures. nothing is more wonderful than the growth of grass--the production of seed--the bud, the blossom and the fruit. in other words, we are surrounded by the inexplicable. all that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural; and that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with what we know, we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to have happened contrary to what we know, we call the miraculous. i think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural way; that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that this wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and never will be, broken. in other words, there is nothing superior to the universe--nothing that can interfere with this procession of causes and effects. i believe in no miracles in the theological sense. my opinion is that the universe is, forever has been, and forever will be, perfectly natural. whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant people, the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential --as an evidence that he is in partnership with some higher power. the credulity of savagery made this easy. but at last we have discovered that there is no necessary relation between the miraculous and the moral. whenever a man's reason is developed to that point that he sees the reasonableness of a thing, he needs no miracle to convince him. it is only ignorance or cunning that appeals to the miraculous. there is another thing, and that is this: truth relies upon itself --that is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and all other truths. if you tell the facts, you need not appeal to a miracle. it is only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be propped and buttressed by wonders and miracles. _question_. what is your explanation of the miracles referred to in the old and new testaments? _answer_. in the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. if it is a real miracle, there is no explanation. if it can be explained, then the miracle disappears, and the thing was done in accordance with the facts and forces of nature. in a time when not one it may be in thousands could read or write, when language was rude, and when the signs by which thoughts were conveyed were few and inadequate, it was very easy to make mistakes, and nothing is more natural than for a mistake to grow into a miracle. in an ignorant age, history for the most part depended upon memory. it was handed down from the old in their dotage, to the young without judgment. the old always thought that the early days were wonderful--that the world was wearing out because they were. the past looked at through the haze of memory, became exaggerated, gigantic. their fathers were stronger than they, and their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on until they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years. in my judgment, everything in the old testament contrary to the experience of the civilized world, is false. i do not say that those who told the stories knew that they were false, or that those who wrote them suspected that they were not true. thousands and thousands of lies are told by honest stupidity and believed by innocent credulity. then again, cunning takes advantage of ignorance, and so far as i know, though all the history of the world a good many people have endeavored to make a living without work. i am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature--that the elements are eternally the same--that the chemical affinities and hatreds know no shadow of turning--that just so many atoms of one kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative numbers have never changed and never will change. i am satisfied that the attraction of gravitation is a permanent institution; that the laws of motion have been the same that they forever will be. there is no chance, there is no caprice. behind every effect is a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause, and only that is produced which a cause of necessity produces. _question_. what do you think of madame blavatsky and her school of theosophists? do you believe madame blavatsky does or has done the wonderful things related of her? have you seen or known of any theosophical or esoteric marvels? _answer_. i think wonders are about the same in this country that they are in india, and nothing appears more likely to me simply because it is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. in my judgment, madame blavatsky has never done any wonderful things--that is to say, anything not in perfect accordance with the facts of nature. i know nothing of esoteric marvels. in one sense, everything that exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the history of one grain of sand we would know the history of the universe. i regard the universe as a unit. everything that happens is only a different aspect of that unit. there is no room for the marvelous--there is no space in which it can operate--there is no fulcrum for its lever. the universe is already occupied with the natural. the ground is all taken. it may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine that they have had wonderful experiences. i know but little of the theosophists--but little of the spiritualists. it has always seemed to me that the messages received by spiritualists are remarkably unimportant--that they tell us but little about the other world, and just as little about this--that if all the messages supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual lips, were destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but little. some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and whenever they say any good thing, i imagine that it was produced in their brain, and that it came from no other world. i have no right to pass upon their honesty. most of them may be sincere. it may be that all the founders of religions have really supposed themselves to be inspired--believed that they held conversations with angels and gods. it seems to be easy for some people to get in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become realities, their dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable. personally, i have no sort of confidence in these messages from the other world. there may be mesmeric forces--there may be an odic force. it may be that some people can tell of what another is thinking. i have seen no such people--at least i am not acquainted with them--and my own opinion is that no such persons exist. _question_. do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to earth? _answer_. i do not. i do not say that the spirits do not come back. i simply say that i know nothing on the subject. i do not believe in such spirits, simply for the reason that i have no evidence upon which to base such a belief. i do not say there are no such spirits, for the reason that my knowledge is limited, and i know of no way of demonstrating the non-existence of spirits. it may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call life ends with what we call death. i have had no experience beyond the grave, and very little back of birth. consequently, i cannot say that i have a belief on this subject. i can simply say that i have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature that i would use as the corner-stone of a belief. _question_. do you believe in the resurrection of the body? _answer_. my answer to that is about the same as to the other question. i do not believe in the resurrection of the body. it seems to me an exceedingly absurd belief--and yet i do not know. i am told, and i suppose i believe, that the atoms that are in me have been in many other people, and in many other forms of life, and i suppose at death the atoms forming my body go back to the earth and are used in countless forms. these facts, or what i suppose to be facts, render a belief in the resurrection of the body impossible to me. we get atoms to support our body from what we eat. now, if a cannibal should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to the missionary should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the cannibal should then die while the atoms of the missionary formed part of his flesh, to whom would these atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection? then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance between animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and all animals have been trees, and all trees have been animals; so that the probability is that the atoms that are now in us have been, as i said in the first place, in millions of other people. now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms enough in the morning of the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given to the first men, that belonged to the first men when they died, there will certainly be no atoms for the last men. consequently, i am compelled to say that i do not believe in the resurrection of the body.* [* from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers.] tolstoy and literature. _question_. what is your opinion of count leo tolstoy? _answer_. i have read tolstoy. he is a curious mixture of simplicity and philosophy. he seems to have been carried away by his conception of religion. he is a non-resistant to such a degree that he asserts that he would not, if attacked, use violence to preserve his own life or the life of a child. upon this question he is undoubtedly insane. so he is trying to live the life of a peasant and doing without the comforts of life! this is not progress. civilization should not endeavor to bring about equality by making the rich poor or the comfortable miserable. this will not add to the pleasures of the rich, neither will it feed the hungry, not clothe the naked. the civilized wealthy should endeavor to help the needy, and help them in a sensible way, not through charity, but through industry; through giving them opportunities to take care of themselves. i do not believe in the equality that is to be reached by pulling the successful down, but i do believe in civilization that tends to raise the fallen and assists those in need. should we all follow tolstoy's example and live according to his philosophy the world would go back to barbarism; art would be lost; that which elevates and refines would be destroyed; the voice of music would become silent, and man would be satisfied with a rag, a hut, a crust. we do not want the equality of savages. no, in civilization there must be differences, because there is a constant movement forward. the human race cannot advance in line. there will be pioneers, there will be the great army, and there will be countless stragglers. it is not necessary for the whole army to go back to the stragglers, it is better that the army should march forward toward the pioneers. it may be that the sale of tolstoy's works is on the increase in america, but certainly the principles of tolstoy are gaining no foothold here. we are not a nation of non-resistants. we believe in defending our homes. nothing can exceed the insanity of non- resistance. this doctrine leaves virtue naked and clothes vice in armor; it gives every weapon to the wrong and takes every shield from the right. i believe that goodness has the right of self- defence. as a matter of fact, vice should be left naked and virtue should have all the weapons. the good should not be a flock of sheep at the mercy of every wolf. so, i do not accept tolstoy's theory of equality as a sensible solution of the labor problem. the hope of this world is that men will become civilized to that degree that they cannot be happy while they know that thousands of their fellow-men are miserable. the time will come when the man who dwells in a palace will not be happy if want sits upon the steps at his door. no matter how well he is clothed himself he will not enjoy his robes if he sees others in rags, and the time will come when the intellect of this world will be directed by the heart of this world, and when men of genius and power will do what they can for the benefit of their fellow- men. all this is to come through civilization, through experience. men, after a time, will find the worthlessness of great wealth; they will find it is not splendid to excite envy in others. so, too, they will find that the happiness of the human race is so interdependent and so interwoven, that finally the interest of humanity will be the interest of the individual. i know that at present the lives of many millions are practically without value, but in my judgment, the world is growing a little better every day. on the average, men have more comforts, better clothes, better food, more books and more of the luxuries of life than ever before. _question_. it is said that properly to appreciate rousseau, voltaire, hugo and other french classics, a thorough knowledge of the french language is necessary. what is your opinion? _answer_. no; to say that a knowledge of french is necessary in order to appreciate voltaire or hugo is nonsensical. for a student anxious to study the works of these masters, to set to work to learn the language of the writers would be like my building a flight of stairs to go down to supper. the stairs are already there. some other person built them for me and others who choose to use them. men have spent their lives in the study of the french and english, and have given us voltaire, hugo and all other works of french classics, perfect in sentiment and construction as the originals are. macaulay was a great linguist, but he wrote no better than shakespeare, and burns wrote perfect english, though virtually uneducated. good writing is a matter of genius and heart; reading is application and judgment. i am of the opinion that wilbur's english translation of "les miserables" is better than hugo's original, as a literary masterpiece. what a grand novel it is! what characters, jean valjean and javert! _question_. which in your opinion is the greatest english novel? _answer_. i think the greatest novel ever written in english is "a tale of two cities," by dickens. it is full of philosophy; its incidents are dramatically grouped. sidney carton, the hero, is a marvelous creation and a marvelous character. lucie manette is as delicate as the perfume of wild violets, and cell , north tower, and scenes enacted there, almost touch the region occupied by "lear." there, too, mme. defarge is the impersonation of the french revolution, and the nobleman of the chateau with his fine features changed to stone, and the messenger at tellson's bank gnawing the rust from his nails; all there are the creations of genius, and these children of fiction will live as long as imagination spreads her many-colored wings in the mind of man. _question_. what do you think of pope? _answer_. pope! alexander pope, the word-carpenter, a mechanical poet, or stay--rather a "digital poet;" that fits him best--one of those fellows who counts his fingers to see that his verse is in perfect rhythm. his "essay on man" strikes me as being particularly defective. for instance: "all discord, harmony not understood, all partial evil, universal good," from the first epistle of his "essay on man." anything that is evil cannot by any means be good, and anything partial cannot be universal. we see in libraries ponderous tomes labeled "burke's speeches." no person ever seems to read them, but he is now regarded as being in his day a great speaker, because now no one has pluck enough to read his speeches. why, for thirty years burke was known in parliament as the "dinner bell"--whenever he rose to speak, everybody went to dinner. --_the evening express_, buffalo, new york, october , . woman in politics. _question_. what do you think of the influence of women in politics? _answer_. i think the influence of women is always good in politics, as in everything else. i think it the duty of every woman to ascertain what she can in regard to her country, including its history, laws and customs. woman above all others is a teacher. she, above all others, determines the character of children; that is to say, of men and women. there is not the slightest danger of women becoming too intellectual or knowing too much. neither is there any danger of men knowing too much. at least, i know of no men who are in immediate peril from that source. i am a firm believer in the equal rights of human beings, and no matter what i think as to what woman should or should not do, she has the same right to decide for herself that i have to decide for myself. if women wish to vote, if they wish to take part in political matters, if they wish to run for office, i shall do nothing to interfere with their rights. i most cheerfully admit that my political rights are only equal to theirs. there was a time when physical force or brute strength gave pre- eminence. the savage chief occupied his position by virtue of his muscle, of his courage, on account of the facility with which he wielded a club. as long as nations depend simply upon brute force, the man, in time of war, is, of necessity, of more importance to the nation than woman, and as the dispute is to be settled by strength, by force, those who have the strength and force naturally settle it. as the world becomes civilized, intelligence slowly takes the place of force, conscience restrains muscle, reason enters the arena, and the gladiator retires. a little while ago the literature of the world was produced by men, and men were not only the writers, but the readers. at that time the novels were coarse and vulgar. now the readers of fiction are women, and they demand that which they can read, and the result is that women have become great writers. the women have changed our literature, and the change has been good. in every field where woman has become a competitor of man she has either become, or given evidence that she is to become, his equal. my own opinion is that woman is naturally the equal of man and that in time, that is to say, when she has had the opportunity and the training, she will produce in the world of art as great pictures, as great statues, and in the world of literature as great books, dramas and poems as man has produced or will produce. there is nothing very hard to understand in the politics of a country. the general principles are for the most part simple. it is only in the application that the complexity arises, and woman, i think, by nature, is as well fitted to understand these things as man. in short, i have no prejudice on this subject. at first, women will be more conservative than men; and this is natural. women have, through many generations, acquired the habit of submission, of acquiescence. they have practiced what may be called the slave virtues--obedience, humility--so that some time will be required for them to become accustomed to the new order of things, to the exercise of greater freedom, acting in accordance with perceived obligation, independently of authority. so i say equal rights, equal education, equal advantages. i hope that woman will not continue to be the serf of superstition; that she will not be the support of the church and priest; that she will not stand for the conservation of superstition, but that in the east of her mind the sun of progress will rise. _question_. in your lecture on voltaire you made a remark about the government of ministers, and you stated that if the ministers of the city of new york had to power to make the laws most people would prefer to live in a well regulated penitentiary. what do you mean by this? _answer_. well, as a rule, ministers are quite severe. they have little patience with human failures. they are taught, and they believe and they teach, that man is absolutely master of his own fate. besides, they are believers in the inspiration of the scriptures, and the laws of the old testament are exceedingly severe. nearly every offence was punished by death. every offence was regarded as treason against jehovah. in the pentateuch there is no pity. if a man committed some offence justice was not satisfied with his punishment, but proceeded to destroy his wife and children. jehovah seemed to think that crime was in the blood; that it was not sufficient to kill the criminal, but to prevent future crimes you should kill his wife and babes. the reading of the old testament is calculated to harden the heart, to drive the angel of pity from the breast, and to make man a religious savage. the clergy, as a rule, do not take a broad and liberal view of things. they judge every offence by what they consider would be the result if everybody committed the same offence. they do not understand that even vice creates obstructions for itself, and that there is something in the nature of crime the tendency of which is to defeat crime, and i might add in this place that the same seems to be true of excessive virtue. as a rule, the clergy clamor with great zeal for the execution of cruel laws. let me give an instance in point: in the time of george iii., in england, there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punishable with death. from time to time this cruel code was changed by act of parliament, yet no bishop sitting in the house of lords ever voted in favor of any one of these measures. the bishops always voted for death, for blood, against mercy and against the repeal of capital punishment. during all these years there were some twenty thousand or more of the established clergy, and yet, according to john bright, no voice was ever raised in any english pulpit against the infamous criminal code. another thing: the orthodox clergy teach that man is totally depraved; that his inclination is evil; that his tendency is toward the devil. starting from this as a foundation, of course every clergyman believes every bad thing said of everybody else. so, when some man is charged with a crime, the clergyman taking into consideration the fact that the man is totally depraved, takes it for granted that he must be guilty. i am not saying this for the purpose of exciting prejudice against the clergy. i am simply showing what is the natural result of a certain creed, of a belief in universal depravity, or a belief in the power and influence of a personal devil. if the clergy could have their own way they would endeavor to reform the world by law. they would re-enact the old statutes of the puritans. joy would be a crime. love would be an offence. every man with a smile on his face would be suspected, and a dimple in the cheek would be a demonstration of depravity. in the trial of a cause it is natural for a clergyman to start with the proposition, "the defendant is guilty;" and then he says to himself, "let him prove himself innocent." the man who has not been poisoned with the creed starts out with the proposition, "the defendant is innocent; let the state prove that he is guilty." consequently, i say that if i were defending a man whom i knew to be innocent, i would not have a clergyman on the jury if i could help it. --_new york advertiser_, december , . spiritualism. _question_. have you investigated spiritualism, and what has been your experience? _answer_. a few years ago i paid some attention to what is called spiritualism, and was present when quite mysterious things were supposed to have happened. the most notable seance that i attended was given by slade, at which slate-writing was done. two slates were fastened together, with a pencil between them, and on opening the slates certain writing was found. when the writing was done it was impossible to tell. so, i have been present when it was claimed that certain dead people had again clothed themselves in flesh and were again talking in the old way. in one instance, i think, george washington claimed to be present. on the same evening shakespeare put in an appearance. it was hard to recognize shakespeare from what the spirit said, still i was assured by the medium that there was no mistake as to the identity. _question_. can you offer any explanation of the extraordinary phenomena such as henry j. newton has had produced at his own house under his own supervision? _answer_. in the first place, i don't believe that anything such as you describe has ever happened. i do not believe that a medium ever passed into and out of a triple-locked iron cage. neither do i believe that any spirits were able to throw shoes and wraps out of the cage; neither do i believe that any apparitions ever rose from the floor, or that anything you relate has ever happened. the best explanation i can give of these wonderful occurrences is the following: a little boy and girl were standing in a doorway holding hands. a gentleman passing, stopped for a moment and said to the little girl: "what relation is the little boy to you?" and she replied, "we had the same father and we had the same mother, but i am not his sister and he is not my brother." this at first seemed to be quite a puzzle, but it was exceedingly plain when the answer was known: the little girl lied. _question_. have you had any experience with spirit photography, spirit physicians, or spirit lawyers? _answer_. i was shown at one time several pictures said to be the photographs of living persons surrounded by the photographs of spirits. i examined them very closely, and i found evidence in the photographs themselves that they were spurious. i took it for granted that light is the same everywhere, and that it obeys the angle of incidence in all worlds and at all times. in looking at the spirit photographs i found, for instance, that in the photograph of the living person the shadows fell to the right, and that in the photographs of the ghosts, or spirits, supposed to have been surrounding the living person at the time the picture was taken, the shadows did not fall in the same direction, sometimes in the opposite direction, never at the same angle even when the general direction was the same. this demonstrated that the photographs of the spirits and of the living persons were not taken at the same time. so much for photographs. i have had no experience with spirit physicians. i was once told by a lawyer who came to employ me in a will case, that a certain person had made a will giving a large amount of money for the purpose of spreading the gospel of spiritualism, but that the will had been lost and than an effort was then being made to find it, and they wished me to take certain action pending the search, and wanted my assistance. i said to him: "if spiritualism be true, why not ask the man who made the will what it was and also what has become of it. if you can find that out from the departed, i will gladly take a retainer in the case; otherwise, i must decline." i have had no other experience with the lawyers. _question_. if you were to witness phenomena that seemed inexplicable by natural laws, would you be inclined to favor spiritualism? _answer_. i would not. if i should witness phenomena that i could not explain, i would leave the phenomena unexplained. i would not explain them because i did not understand them, and say they were or are produced by spirits. that is no explanation, and, after admitting that we do not know and that we cannot explain, why should we proceed to explain? i have seen mr. kellar do things for which i cannot account. why should i say that he has the assistance of spirits? all i have a right to say is that i know nothing about how he does them. so i am compelled to say with regard to many spiritualistic feats, that i am ignorant of the ways and means. at the same time, i do not believe that there is anything supernatural in the universe. _question_. what is your opinion of spiritualism and spiritualists? _answer_. i think the spiritualism of the present day is certainly in advance of the spiritualism of several centuries ago. persons who now deny spiritualism and hold it in utter contempt insist that some eighteen or nineteen centuries ago it had possession of the world; that miracles were of daily occurrence; that demons, devils, fiends, took possession of human beings, lived in their bodies, dominated their minds. they believe, too, that devils took possession of the bodies of animals. they also insist that a wish could multiply fish. and, curiously enough, the spiritualists of our time have but little confidence in the phenomena of eighteen hundred years ago; and, curiously enough, those who believe in the spiritualism of eighteen hundred years ago deny the spiritualism of to-day. i think the spiritualists of to-day have far more evidence of their phenomena than those who believe in the wonderful things of eighteen centuries ago. the spiritualists of to-day have living witnesses, which is something. i know a great many spiritualists that are exceedingly good people, and are doing what they can to make the world better. but i think they are mistaken. _question_. do you believe in spirit entities, whether manifestible or not? _answer_. i believe there is such a thing as matter. i believe there is a something called force. the difference between force and matter i do not know. so there is something called consciousness. whether we call consciousness an entity or not makes no difference as to what it really is. there is something that hears, sees and feels, a something that takes cognizance of what happens in what we call the outward world. no matter whether we call this something matter or spirit, it is something that we do not know, to say the least of it, all about. we cannot understand what matter is. it defies us, and defies definitions. so, with what we call spirit, we are in utter ignorance of what it is. we have some little conception of what we mean by it, and of what others mean, but as to what it really is no one knows. it makes no difference whether we call ourselves materialists or spiritualists, we believe in all there is, no matter what you call it. if we call it all matter, then we believe that matter can think and hope and dream. if we call it all spirit, then we believe that spirit has force, that it offers a resistance; in other words, that it is, in one of its aspects, what we call matter. i cannot believe that everything can be accounted for by motion or by what we call force, because there is something that recognizes force. there is something that compares, that thinks, that remembers; there is something that suffers and enjoys; there is something that each one calls himself or herself, that is inexplicable to himself or herself, and it makes no difference whether we call this something mind or soul, effect or entity, it still eludes us, and all the words we have coined for the purpose of expressing our knowledge of this something, after all, express only our desire to know, and our efforts to ascertain. it may be that if we would ask some minister, some one who has studied theology, he would give us a perfect definition. the scientists know nothing about it, and i know of no one who does, unless it be a theologian. --_the globe-democrat_, st. louis, mo., . plays and players. [illustration: chatham street theater] _chatham street theater, new york city, n. y., where robert g. ingersoll was baptized in by his father, the rev. john ingersoll, who temporarily preached at the theatre, his church having been destroyed by fire_. _question_. what place does the theatre hold among the arts? _answer_. nearly all the arts unite in the theatre, and it is the result of the best, the highest, the most artistic, that man can do. in the first place, there must be the dramatic poet. dramatic poetry is the subtlest, profoundest, the most intellectual, the most passionate and artistic of all. then the stage must be prepared, and there is work for the architect, the painter and sculptor. then the actors appear, and they must be gifted with imagination, with a high order of intelligence; they must have sympathies quick and deep, natures capable of the greatest emotion, dominated by passion. they must have impressive presence, and all that is manly should meet and unite in the actor; all that is womanly, tender, intense and admirable should be lavishly bestowed on the actress. in addition to all this, actors should have the art of being natural. let me explain what i mean by being natural. when i say that an actor is natural, i mean that he appears to act in accordance with his ideal, in accordance with his nature, and that he is not an imitator or a copyist--that he is not made up of shreds and patches taken from others, but that all he does flows from interior fountains and is consistent with his own nature, all having in a marked degree the highest characteristics of the man. that is what i mean by being natural. the great actor must be acquainted with the heart, must know the motives, ends, objects and desires that control the thoughts and acts of men. he must be familiar with many people, including the lowest and the highest, so that he may give to others, clothed with flesh and blood, the characters born of the poet's brain. the great actor must know the relations that exist between passion and voice, gesture and emphasis, expression and pose. he must speak not only with his voice, but with his body. the great actor must be master of many arts. then comes the musician. the theatre has always been the home of music, and this music must be appropriate; must, or should, express or supplement what happens on the stage; should furnish rest and balm for minds overwrought with tragic deeds. to produce a great play, and put it worthily upon the stage, involves most arts, many sciences and nearly all that is artistic, poetic and dramatic in the mind of man. _question_. should the drama teach lessons and discuss social problems, or should it give simply intellectual pleasure and furnish amusement? _answer_. every great play teaches many lessons and touches nearly all social problems. but the great play does this by indirection. every beautiful thought is a teacher; every noble line speaks to the brain and heart. beauty, proportion, melody suggest moral beauty, proportion in conduct and melody in life. in a great play the relations of the various characters, their objects, the means adopted for their accomplishment, must suggest, and in a certain sense solve or throw light on many social problems, so that the drama teaches lessons, discusses social problems and gives intellectual pleasure. the stage should not be dogmatic; neither should its object be directly to enforce a moral. the great thing for the drama to do, and the great thing it has done, and is doing, is to cultivate the imagination. this is of the utmost importance. the civilization of man depends upon the development, not only of the intellect, but of the imagination. most crimes of violence are committed by people who are destitute of imagination. people without imagination make most of the cruel and infamous creeds. they were the persecutors and destroyers of their fellow-men. by cultivating the imagination, the stage becomes one of the greatest teachers. it produces the climate in which the better feelings grow; it is the home of the ideal. all beautiful things tend to the civilization of man. the great statues plead for proportion in life, the great symphonies suggest the melody of conduct, and the great plays cultivate the heart and brain. _question_. what do you think of the french drama as compared with the english, morally and artistically considered? _answer_. the modern french drama, so far as i am acquainted with it, is a disease. it deals with the abnormal. it is fashioned after balzac. it exhibits moral tumors, mental cancers and all kinds of abnormal fungi,--excrescences. everything is stood on its head; virtue lives in the brothel; the good are the really bad and the worst are, after all, the best. it portrays the exceptional, and mistakes the scum-covered bayou for the great river. the french dramatists seem to think that the ceremony of marriage sows the seed of vice. they are always conveying the idea that the virtuous are uninteresting, rather stupid, without sense and spirit enough to take advantage of their privilege. between the greatest french plays and the greatest english plays of course there is no comparison. if a frenchman had written the plays of shakespeare, desdemona would have been guilty, isabella would have ransomed her brother at the duke's price, juliet would have married the county paris, run away from him, and joined romeo in mantua, and miranda would have listened coquettishly to the words of caliban. the french are exceedingly artistic. they understand stage effects, love the climax, delight in surprises, especially in the improbable; but their dramatists lack sympathy and breadth of treatment. they are provincial. with them france is the world. they know little of other countries. their plays do not touch the universal. _question_. what are your feelings in reference to idealism on the stage? _answer_. the stage ought to be the home of the ideal; in a word, the imagination should have full sway. the great dramatist is a creator; he is the sovereign, and governs his own world. the realist is only a copyist. he does not need genius. all he wants is industry and the trick of imitation. on the stage, the real should be idealized, the ordinary should be transfigured; that is, the deeper meaning of things should be given. as we make music of common air, and statues of stone, so the great dramatist should make life burst into blossom on the stage. a lot of words, facts, odds and ends divided into acts and scenes do not make a play. these things are like old pieces of broken iron that need the heat of the furnace so that they may be moulded into shape. genius is that furnace, and in its heat and glow and flame these pieces, these fragments, become molten and are cast into noble and heroic forms. realism degrades and impoverishes the stage. _question_. what attributes should an actor have to be really great? _answer_. intelligence, imagination, presence; a mobile and impressive face; a body that lends itself to every mood in appropriate pose, one that is oak or willow, at will; self-possession; absolute ease; a voice capable of giving every shade of meaning and feeling, an intuitive knowledge or perception of proportion, and above all, the actor should be so sincere that he loses himself in the character he portrays. such an actor will grow intellectually and morally. the great actor should strive to satisfy himself--to reach his own ideal. _question_. do you enjoy shakespeare more in the library than shakespeare interpreted by actors now on the boards? _answer_. i enjoy shakespeare everywhere. i think it would give me pleasure to hear those wonderful lines spoken even by phonographs. but shakespeare is greatest and best when grandly put upon the stage. there you know the connection, the relation, the circumstances, and these bring out the appropriateness and the perfect meaning of the text. nobody in this country now thinks of hamlet without thinking of booth. for this generation at least, booth is hamlet. it is impossible for me to read the words of sir toby without seeing the face of w. f. owen. brutus is davenport, cassius is lawrence barrett, and lear will be associated always in my mind with edwin forrest. lady macbeth is to me adelaide ristori, the greatest actress i ever saw. if i understood music perfectly, i would much rather hear seidl's orchestra play "tristan," or hear remenyi's matchless rendition of schubert's "ave maria," than to read the notes. most people love the theatre. everything about it from stage to gallery attracts and fascinates. the mysterious realm, behind the scenes, from which emerge kings and clowns, villains and fools, heroes and lovers, and in which they disappear, is still a fairyland. as long as man is man he will enjoy the love and laughter, the tears and rapture of the mimic world. _question_. is it because we lack men of genius or because our life is too material that no truly great american plays have been written? _answer_. no great play has been written since shakespeare; that is, no play has been written equal to his. but there is the same reason for that in all other countries, including england, that there is in this country, and that reason is that shakespeare has had no equal. america has not failed because life in the republic is too material. germany and france, and, in fact, all other nations, have failed in the same way. in the sense in which i am speaking, germany has produced no great play. in the dramatic world shakespeare stands alone. compared with him, even the classic is childish. there is plenty of material for plays. the republic has lived a great play--a great poem--a most marvelous drama. here, on our soil, have happened some of the greatest events in the history of the world. all human passions have been and are in full play here, and here as elsewhere, can be found the tragic, the comic, the beautiful, the poetic, the tears, the smiles, the lamentations and the laughter that are the necessary warp and woof with which to weave the living tapestries that we call plays. we are beginning. we have found that american plays must be american in spirit. we are tired of imitations and adaptations. we want plays worthy of the great republic. some good work has recently been done, giving great hope for the future. of course the realistic comes first; afterward the ideal. but here in america, as in all other lands, love is the eternal passion that will forever hold the stage. around that everything else will move. it is the sun. all other passions are secondary. their orbits are determined by the central force from which they receive their light and meaning. love, however, must be kept pure. the great dramatist is, of necessity, a believer in virtue, in honesty, in courage and in the nobility of human nature. he must know that there are men and women that even a god could not corrupt; such knowledge, such feeling, is the foundation, and the only foundation, that can support the splendid structure, the many pillared stories and the swelling dome of the great drama. --_the new york dramatic mirror_, december , . woman. it takes a hundred men to make an encampment, but one woman can make a home. i not only admire woman as the most beautiful object ever created, but i reverence her as the redeeming glory of humanity, the sanctuary of all the virtues, the pledge of all perfect qualities of heart and head. it is not just or right to lay the sins of men at the feet of women. it is because women are so much better than men that their faults are considered greater. the one thing in this world that is constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the one window in which the light forever burns, the one star that darkness cannot quench, is woman's love. it rises to the greatest heights, it sinks to the lowest depths, it forgives the most cruel injuries. it is perennial of life, and grows in every climate. neither coldness nor neglect, harshness nor cruelty, can extinguish it. a woman's love is the perfume of the heart. this is the real love that subdues the earth; the love that has wrought all the miracles of art, that gives us music all the way from the cradle song to the grand closing symphony that bears the soul away on wings of fire. a love that is greater than power, sweeter than life and stronger than death. strikes, expansion and other subjects. _question_. what have you to say in regard to the decision of judge billings in new orleans, that strikes which interfere with interstate commerce, are illegal? _answer_. as a rule, men have a right to quit work at any time unless there is some provision to the contrary in their contracts. they have not the right to prevent other men from taking their places. of course i do not mean by this that strikers may not use persuasion and argument to prevent other men from filling their places. all blacklisting and refusing to work with other men is illegal and punishable. of course men may conspire to quit work, but how is it to be proved? one man can quit, or five hundred men can quit together, and nothing can prevent them. the decisions of judge ricks and judge billings are an acknowledgment, at least, of the principle of public control or regulation of railroads and of commerce generally. the railroads, which run for private profit, are public carriers, and the public has a vested interest in them as such. the same principle applies to the commerce of the country and can be dealt with by the courts in the same way. it is unlikely, however, that judge billings' decision will have any lasting effect upon organized labor. law cannot be enforced against such vast numbers of people, especially when they have the general sympathy. nearly all strikes have been illegal, but the numbers involved have made the courts powerless. _question_. are you in favor of the annexation of canada? _answer_. yes, if canada is. we do not want that country unless that country wants us. i do not believe it to the interests of canada to remain a province. canada should either be an independent nation, or a part of a nation. now canada is only a province--with no career--with nothing to stimulate either patriotism or great effort. yes, i hope that canada will be annexed. by all means annex the sandwich islands, too. i believe in territorial expansion. a prosperous farmer wants the land next him, and a prosperous nation ought to grow. i believe that we ought to hold the key to the pacific and its commerce. we want to be prepared at all points to defend our interests from the greed and power of england. we are going to have a navy, and we want that navy to be of use in protecting our interests the world over. and we want interests to protect. it is a splendid feeling--this feeling of growth. by the annexation of these islands we open new avenues to american adventure, and the tendency is to make our country greater and stronger. the west indian islands ought to be ours, and some day our flag will float there. this country must not stop growing. _question_. is the spirit of patriotism declining in america? _answer_. there has been no decline in the spirit of american patriotism; in fact, it has increased rather then otherwise as the nation has grown older, stronger, more prosperous, more glorious. if there were occasion to demonstrate the truth of this statement it would be quickly demonstrated. let an attack be made upon the american flag, and you will very quickly find out how genuine is the patriotic spirit of americans. i do not think either that there has been a decline in the celebration of the fourth of july. the day is probably not celebrated with as much burning of gunpowder and shooting of fire crackers in the large cities as formerly, but it is celebrated with as much enthusiasm as ever all through the west, and the feeling of rejoicing over the anniversary of the day is as great and strong as ever. the people are tired of celebrating with a great noise and i am glad of it. _question_. what do you think of the congress of religions, to be held in chicago during the world's fair? _answer_. it will do good, if they will honestly compare their creeds so that each one can see just how foolish all the rest are. they ought to compare their sacred books, and their miracles, and their mythologies, and if they do so they will probably see that ignorance is the mother of them all. let them have a congress, by all means, and let them show how priests live on the labor of those they deceive. it will do good. _question_. do you think that cleveland's course as to appointments has strengthened him with the people? _answer_. patronage is a two-edged sword with very little handle. it takes an exceedingly clever president to strengthen himself by its exercise. when a man is running for president the twenty men in every town who expect to be made postmaster are for him heart and soul. only one can get the office, and the nineteen who do not, feel outraged, and the lucky one is mad on account of the delay. so twenty friends are lost with one place. _question_. is the age of chivalry dead? _answer_. the "age of chivalry" never existed except in the imagination. the age of chivalry was the age of cowardice and crime. there is more chivalry to-day than ever. men have a better, a clearer idea of justice, and pay their debts better, and treat their wives and children better than ever before. the higher and better qualities of the soul have more to do with the average life. to-day men have greater admiration and respect for women, greater regard for the social and domestic obligations than their fathers had. _question_. what led you to begin lecturing on your present subject, and what was your first lecture? _answer_. my first lecture was entitled "progress." i began lecturing because i thought the creeds of the orthodox church false and horrible, and because i thought the bible cruel and absurd, and because i like intellectual liberty. --new york, may , . sunday a day of pleasure. _question_. what do you think of the religious spirit that seeks to regulate by legislation the manner in which the people of this country shall spend their sundays? _answer_. the church is not willing to stand alone, not willing to base its influence on reason and on the character of its members. it seeks the aid of the state. the cross is in partnership with the sword. people should spend sundays as they do other days; that is to say, as they please. no one has the right to do anything on monday that interferes with the rights of his neighbors, and everyone has the right to do anything he pleases on sunday that does not interfere with the rights of his neighbors. sunday is a day of rest, not of religion. we are under obligation to do right on all days. nothing can be more absurd than the idea that any particular space of time is sacred. everything in nature goes on the same on sunday as on other days, and if beyond nature there be a god, then god works on sunday as he does on all other days. there is no rest in nature. there is perpetual activity in every possible direction. the old idea that god made the world and then rested, is idiotic. there were two reasons given to the hebrews for keeping the sabbath --one because jehovah rested on that day, the other because the hebrews were brought out of egypt. the first reason, we know, is false, and the second reason is good only for the hebrews. according to the bible, sunday, or rather the sabbath, was not for the world, but for the hebrews, and the hebrews alone. our sunday is pagan and is the day of the sun, as monday is the day of the moon. all our day names are pagan. i am opposed to all sunday legislation. _question_. why should sunday be observed otherwise than as a day of recreation? _answer_. sunday is a day of recreation, or should be; a day for the laboring man to rest, a day to visit museums and libraries, a day to look at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day for poetry and art, a day on which to read old letters and to meet friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of life, a day for those who live in tenements to feel the soft grass beneath their feet. in short, sunday should be a day of joy. the church endeavors to fill it with gloom and sadness, with stupid sermons and dyspeptic theology. nothing could be more cowardly than the effort to compel the observance of the sabbath by law. we of america have outgrown the childishness of the last century; we laugh at the superstitions of our fathers. we have made up our minds to be as happy as we can be, knowing that the way to be happy is to make others so, that the time to be happy is now, whether that now is sunday or any other day in the week. _question_. under a federal constitution guaranteeing civil and religious liberty, are the so-called "blue laws" constitutional? _answer_. no, they are not. but the probability is that the supreme courts of most of the states would decide the other way. and yet all these laws are clearly contrary to the spirit of the federal constitution and the constitutions of most of the states. i hope to live until all these foolish laws are repealed and until we are in the highest and noblest sense a free people. and by free i mean each having the right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights or with the happiness of another. i want to see the time when we live for this world and when all shall endeavor to increase, by education, by reason, and by persuasion, the sum of human happiness. --_new york times_, july , . the parliament of religions. _question_. the parliament of religions was called with a view to discussing the great religions of the world on the broad platform of tolerance. supposing this to have been accomplished, what effect is it likely to have on the future of creeds? _answer_. it was a good thing to get the representatives of all creeds to meet and tell their beliefs. the tendency, i think, is to do away with prejudice, with provincialism, with egotism. we know that the difference between the great religions, so far as belief is concerned, amounts to but little. their gods have different names, but in other respects they differ but little. they are all cruel and ignorant. _question_. do you think likely that the time is coming when all the religions of the world will be treated with the liberality that is now characterizing the attitude of one sect toward another in christendom? _answer_. yes, because i think that all religions will be found to be of equal authority, and because i believe that the supernatural will be discarded and that man will give up his vain and useless efforts to get back of nature--to answer the questions of whence and whither? as a matter of fact, the various sects do not love one another. the keenest hatred is religious hatred. the most malicious malice is found in the hearts of those who love their enemies. _question_. bishop newman, in replying to a learned buddhist at the parliament of religions, said that buddhism had given to the world no helpful literature, no social system, and no heroic virtues. is this true? _answer_. bishop newman is a very prejudiced man. probably he got his information from the missionaries. buddha was undoubtedly a great teacher. long before christ lived buddha taught the brotherhood of man. he said that intelligence was the only lever capable of raising mankind. his followers, to say the least of them, are as good as the followers of christ. bishop newman is a methodist--a follower of john wesley--and he has the prejudices of the sect to which he belongs. we must remember that all prejudices are honest. _question_. is christian society, or rather society in christian countries, cursed with fewer robbers, assassins, and thieves, proportionately, then countries where "heathen" religions predominate? _answer_. i think not. i do not believe that there are more lynchings, more mob murders in india or turkey or persia than in some christian states of the great republic. neither will you find more train robbers, more forgers, more thieves in heathen lands than in christian countries. here the jails are full, the penitentiaries are crowded, and the hangman is busy. all over christendom, as many assert, crime is on the increase, going hand in hand with poverty. the truth is, that some of the wisest and best men are filled with apprehension for the future, but i believe in the race and have confidence in man. _question_. how can society be so reconstructed that all this horrible suffering, resultant from poverty and its natural associate, crime, may be abolished, or at least reduced to a minimum? _answer_. in the first place we should stop supporting the useless. the burden of superstition should be taken from the shoulders of industry. in the next place men should stop bowing to wealth instead of worth. men should be judged by what they do, by what they are, instead of by the property they have. only those able to raise and educate children should have them. children should be better born--better educated. the process of regeneration will be slow, but it will be sure. the religion of our day is supported by the worst, by the most dangerous people in society. i do not allude to murderers or burglars, or even to the little thieves. i mean those who debauch courts and legislatures and elections-- those who make millions by legal fraud. _question_. what do you think of the theosophists? are they sincere--have they any real basis for their psychological theories? _answer_. the theosophists may be sincere. i do not know. but i am perfectly satisfied that their theories are without any foundation in fact--that their doctrines are as unreal as their "astral bodies," and as absurd as a contradiction in mathematics. we have had vagaries and theories enough. we need the religion of the real, the faith that rests on fact. let us turn our attention to this world--the world in which we live. --_new york herald_, september, . cleveland's hawaiian policy. _question_. colonel, what do you think about mr. cleveland's hawaiian policy? _answer_. i think it exceedingly laughable and a little dishonest --with the further fault that it is wholly unconstitutional. this is not a one-man government, and while liliuokalani may be queen, cleveland is certainly not a king. the worst thing about the whole matter, as it appears to me, is the bad faith that was shown by mr. cleveland--the double-dealing. he sent mr. willis as minister to the provisional government and by that act admitted the existence, and the rightful existence, of the provisional government of the sandwich islands. when mr. willis started he gave him two letters. one was addressed to dole, president of the provisional government, in which he addressed dole as "great and good friend," and at the close, being a devout christian, he asked "god to take care of dole." this was the first letter. the letter of one president to another; of one friend to another. the second letter was addressed to mr. willis, in which mr. willis was told to upset dole at the first opportunity and put the deposed queen back on her throne. this may be diplomacy, but it is no kin to honesty. in my judgment, it is the worst thing connected with the hawaiian affair. what must "the great and good" dole think of our great and good president? what must other nations think when they read the two letters and mentally exclaim, "look upon this and then upon that?" i think mr. cleveland has acted arrogantly, foolishly, and unfairly. i am in favor of obtaining the sandwich islands--of course by fair means. i favor this policy because i want my country to become a power in the pacific. all my life i have wanted this country to own the west indies, the bermudas, the bahamas and barbadoes. they are our islands. they belong to this continent, and for any other nation to take them or claim them was, and is, a piece of impertinence and impudence. so i would like to see the sandwich islands annexed to the united states. they are a good way from san francisco and our western shore, but they are nearer to us than they are to any other nation. i think they would be of great importance. they would tend to increase the asiatic trade, and they certainly would be important in case of war. we should have fortifications on those islands that no naval power could take. some objection has been made on the ground that under our system the people of those islands would have to be represented in congress. i say yes, represented by a delegate until the islands become a real part of the country, and by that time, there would be several hundred thousand americans living there, capable of sending over respectable members of congress. now, i think that mr. cleveland has made a very great mistake. first, i think he was mistaken as to the facts in the sandwich islands; second, as to the constitution of the united states, and thirdly, as to the powers of the president of the united states. _question_. in your experience as a lawyer what was the most unique case in which you were ever engaged? _answer_. the star route trial. every paper in the country, but one, was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet owned by one of the defendants. i received a note from a man living in a little town in ohio criticizing me for defending the accused. in reply i wrote that i supposed he was a sensible man and that he, of course, knew what he was talking about when he said the accused were guilty; that the government needed just such men as he, and that he should come to the trial at once and testify. the man wrote back: "dear colonel: i am a ---- fool." _question_. will the church and the stage ever work together for the betterment of the world, and what is the province of each? _answer_. the church and stage will never work together. the pulpit pretends that fiction is fact. the stage pretends that fiction is fact. the pulpit pretence is dishonest--that of the stage is sincere. the actor is true to art, and honestly pretends to be what he is not. the actor is natural, if he is great, and in this naturalness is his truth and his sincerity. the pulpit is unnatural, and for that reason untrue. the pulpit is for another world, the stage for this. the stage is good because it is natural, because it portrays real and actual life; because "it holds the mirror up to nature." the pulpit is weak because it too often belittles and demeans this life; because it slanders and calumniates the natural and is the enemy of joy. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, february , . orators and oratory.* [* it was at his own law office in new york city that i had my talk with that very notable american, col. robert g. ingersoll. "bob" ingersoll, americans call him affectionately; in a company of friends it is "the colonel." a more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and those who know even a little of him will tell you that a bigger-hearted man probably does not live. suppose a well- knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine, strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep, uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve. introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still, some notion of "bob" ingersoll. colonel ingersoll stands at the front of american orators. the natural thing, therefore, was that i should ask him--a master in the art--about oratory. what he said i shall give in his own words precisely as i took them down from his lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old english tongue that is of some importance. but the wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of ingersoll can only be adequately understood when you also have the finishing touch of his facile voice.] _question_. i should be glad if you would tell me what you think the differences are between english and american oratory? _answer_. there is no difference between the real english and the real american orator. oratory is the same the world over. the man who thinks on his feet, who has the pose of passion, the face that thought illumines, a voice in harmony with the ideals expressed, who has logic like a column and poetry like a vine, who transfigures the common, dresses the ideals of the people in purple and fine linen, who has the art of finding the best and noblest in his hearers, and who in a thousand ways creates the climate in which the best grows and flourishes and bursts into blossom--that man is an orator, no matter of what time, of what country. _question_. if you were to compare individual english and american orators--recent or living orators in particular--what would you say? _answer_. i have never heard any of the great english speakers, and consequently can pass no judgment as to their merits, except such as depends on reading. i think, however, the finest paragraph ever uttered in great britain was by curran in his defence of rowan. i have never read one of mr. gladstone's speeches, only fragments. i think he lacks logic. bright was a great speaker, but he lacked imagination and the creative faculty. disræli spoke for the clubs, and his speeches were artificial. we have had several fine speakers in america. i think that thomas corwin stands at the top of the natural orators. sergeant s. prentiss, the lawyer, was a very great talker; henry ward beecher was the greatest orator that the pulpit has produced. theodore parker was a great orator. in this country, however, probably daniel webster occupies the highest place in general esteem. _question_. which would you say are the better orators, speaking generally, the american people or the english people? _answer_. i think americans are, on the average, better talkers than the english. i think england has produced the greatest literature of the world; but i do not think england has produced the greatest orators of the world. i know of no english orator equal to webster or corwin or beecher. _question_. would you mind telling me how it was you came to be a public speaker, a lecturer, an orator? _answer_. we call this america of ours free, and yet i found it was very far from free. our writers and our speakers declared that here in america church and state were divorced. i found this to be untrue. i found that the church was supported by the state in many ways, that people who failed to believe certain portions of the creeds were not allowed to testify in courts or to hold office. it occurred to me that some one ought to do something toward making this country intellectually free, and after a while i thought that i might as well endeavor to do this as wait for another. this is the way in which i came to make speeches; it was an action in favor of liberty. i have said things because i wanted to say them, and because i thought they ought to be said. _question_. perhaps you will tell me your methods as a speaker, for i'm sure it would be interesting to know them? _answer_. sometimes, and frequently, i deliver a lecture several times before it is written. i have it taken by a shorthand writer, and afterward written out. at other times i have dictated a lecture, and delivered it from manuscript. the course pursued depends on how i happen to feel at the time. sometimes i read a lecture, and sometimes i deliver lectures without any notes--this, again, depending much on how i happen to feel. so far as methods are concerned, everything should depend on feeling. attitude, gestures, voice, emphasis, should all be in accord with and spring from feeling, from the inside. _question_. is there any possibility of your coming to england, and, i need hardly add, of your coming to speak? _answer_. i have thought of going over to england, and i may do so. there is an england in england for which i have the highest possible admiration, the england of culture, of art, of principle. --_the sketch_, london, eng., march , . catholicism and protestantism. the pope, the a. p. a., agnosticism and the church. _question_. which do you regard as the better, catholicism or protestantism? _answer_. protestantism is better than catholicism because there is less of it. protestantism does not teach that a monk is better than a husband and father, that a nun is holier than a mother. protestants do not believe in the confessional. neither do they pretend that priests can forgive sins. protestantism has fewer ceremonies and less opera bouffe, clothes, caps, tiaras, mitres, crooks and holy toys. catholics have an infallible man--an old italian. protestants have an infallible book, written by hebrews before they were civilized. the infallible man is generally wrong, and the infallible book is filled with mistakes and contradictions. catholics and protestants are both enemies of intellectual freedom --of real education, but both are opposed to education enough to make free men and women. between the catholics and protestants there has been about as much difference as there is between crocodiles and alligators. both have done the worst they could, both are as bad as they can be, and the world is getting tired of both. the world is not going to choose either--both are to be rejected. _question_. are you willing to give your opinion of the pope? _answer_. it may be that the pope thinks he is infallible, but i doubt it. he may think that he is the agent of god, but i guess not. he may know more than other people, but if he does he has kept it to himself. he does not seem satisfied with standing in the place and stead of god in spiritual matters, but desires temporal power. he wishes to be pope and king. he imagines that he has the right to control the belief of all the world; that he is the shepherd of all "sheep" and that the fleeces belong to him. he thinks that in his keeping is the conscience of mankind. so he imagines that his blessing is a great benefit to the faithful and that his prayers can change the course of natural events. he is a strange mixture of the serious and comical. he claims to represent god, and admits that he is almost a prisoner. there is something pathetic in the condition of this pontiff. when i think of him, i think of lear on the heath, old, broken, touched with insanity, and yet, in his own opinion, "every inch a king." the pope is a fragment, a remnant, a shred, a patch of ancient power and glory. he is a survival of the unfittest, a souvenir of theocracy, a relic of the supernatural. of course he will have a few successors, and they will become more and more comical, more and more helpless and impotent as the world grows wise and free. i am not blaming the pope. he was poisoned at the breast of his mother. superstition was mingled with her milk. he was poisoned at school--taught to distrust his reason and to live by faith. and so it may be that his mind was so twisted and tortured out of shape that he now really believes that he is the infallible agent of an infinite god. _question_. are you in favor of the a. p. a.? _answer_. in this country i see no need of secret political societies. i think it better to fight in the open field. i am a believer in religious liberty, in allowing all sects to preach their doctrines and to make as many converts as they can. as long as we have free speech and a free press i think there is no danger of the country being ruled by any church. the catholics are much better than their creed, and the same can be said of nearly all members of orthodox churches. a majority of american catholics think a great deal more of this country than they do of their church. when they are in good health they are on our side. it is only when they are very sick that they turn their eyes toward rome. if they were in the majority, of course, they would destroy all other churches and imprison, torture and kill all infidels. but they will never be in the majority. they increase now only because catholics come in from other countries. in a few years that supply will cease, and then the catholic church will grow weaker every day. the free secular school is the enemy of priestcraft and superstition, and the people of this country will never consent to the destruction of that institution. i want no man persecuted on account of his religion. _question_. if there is no beatitude, or heaven, how do you account for the continual struggle in every natural heart for its own betterment? _answer_. man has many wants, and all his efforts are the children of wants. if he wanted nothing he would do nothing. we civilize the savage by increasing his wants, by cultivating his fancy, his appetites, his desires. he is then willing to work to satisfy these new wants. man always tries to do things in the easiest way. his constant effort is to accomplish more with less work. he invents a machine; then he improves it, his idea being to make it perfect. he wishes to produce the best. so in every department of effort and knowledge he seeks the highest success, and he seeks it because it is for his own good here in this world. so he finds that there is a relation between happiness and conduct, and he tries to find out what he must do to produce the greatest enjoyment. this is the basis of morality, of law and ethics. we are so constituted that we love proportion, color, harmony. this is the artistic man. morality is the harmony and proportion of conduct-- the music of life. man continually seeks to better his condition --not because he is immortal--but because he is capable of grief and pain, because he seeks for happiness. man wishes to respect himself and to gain the respect of others. the brain wants light, the heart wants love. growth is natural. the struggle to overcome temptation, to be good and noble, brave and sincere, to reach, if possible, the perfect, is no evidence of the immortality of the soul or of the existence of other worlds. men live to excel, to become distinguished, to enjoy, and so they strive, each in his own way, to gain the ends desired. _question_. do you believe that the race is growing moral or immoral? _answer_. the world is growing better. there is more real liberty, more thought, more intelligence than ever before. the world was never so charitable or generous as now. we do not put honest debtors in prison, we no longer believe in torture. punishments are less severe. we place a higher value on human life. we are far kinder to animals. to this, however, there is one terrible exception. the vivisectors, those who cut, torture, and mutilate in the name of science, disgrace our age. they excite the horror and indignation of all good people. leave out the actions of those wretches, and animals are better treated than ever before. so there is less beating of wives and whipping of children. the whip in no longer found in the civilized home. intelligent parents now govern by kindness, love and reason. the standard of honor is higher than ever. contracts are more sacred, and men do nearer as they agree. man has more confidence in his fellow-man, and in the goodness of human nature. yes, the world is getting better, nobler and grander every day. we are moving along the highway of progress on our way to the eden of the future. _question_. are the doctrines of agnosticism gaining ground, and what, in your opinion, will be the future of the church? _answer_. the agnostic is intellectually honest. he knows the limitations of his mind. he is convinced that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered by man. he knows that he cannot answer these questions, and he is candid enough to say so. the agnostic has good mental manners. he does not call belief or hope or wish, a demonstration. he knows the difference between hope and belief--between belief and knowledge--and he keeps these distinctions in his mind. he does not say that a certain theory is true because he wishes it to be true. he tries to go according to evidence, in harmony with facts, without regard to his own desires or the wish of the public. he has the courage of his convictions and the modesty of his ignorance. the theologian is his opposite. he is certain and sure of the existence of things and beings and worlds of which there is, and can be, no evidence. he relies on assertion, and in all debate attacks the motive of his opponent instead of answering his arguments. all savages know the origin and destiny of man. about other things they know but little. the theologian is much the same. the agnostic has given up the hope of ascertaining the nature of the "first cause"--the hope of ascertaining whether or not there was a "first cause." he admits that he does not know whether or not there is an infinite being. he admits that these questions cannot be answered, and so he refuses to answer. he refuses also to pretend. he knows that the theologian does not know, and he has the courage to say so. he knows that the religious creeds rest on assumption, supposition, assertion--on myth and legend, on ignorance and superstition, and that there is no evidence of their truth. the agnostic bends his energies in the opposite direction. he occupies himself with this world, with things that can be ascertained and understood. he turns his attention to the sciences, to the solution of questions that touch the well-being of man. he wishes to prevent and cure diseases; to lengthen life; to provide homes and raiment and food for man; to supply the wants of the body. he also cultivates the arts. he believes in painting and sculpture, in music and the drama--the needs of the soul. the agnostic believes in developing the brain, in cultivating the affections, the tastes, the conscience, the judgment, to the end that man may be happy in this world. he seeks to find the relation of things, the condition of happiness. he wishes to enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may perform the work of the world. back of all progress are the real thinkers; the finders of facts, those who turn their attention to the world in which we live. the theologian has never been a help, always a hindrance. he has always kept his back to the sunrise. with him all wisdom was in the past. he appealed to the dead. he was and is the enemy of reason, of investigation, of thought and progress. the church has never given "sanctuary" to a persecuted truth. there can be no doubt that the ideas of the agnostic are gaining ground. the scientific spirit has taken possession of the intellectual world. theological methods are unpopular to-day, even in theological schools. the attention of men everywhere is being directed to the affairs of this world, this life. the gods are growing indistinct, and, like the shapes of clouds, they are changing as they fade. the idea of special providence has been substantially abandoned. people are losing, and intelligent people have lost, confidence in prayer. to-day no intelligent person believes in miracles--a violation of the facts in nature. they may believe that there used to be miracles a good while ago, but not now. the "supernatural" is losing its power, its influence, and the church is growing weaker every day. the church is supported by the people, and in order to gain the support of the people it must reflect their ideas, their hopes and fears. as the people advance, the creeds will be changed, either by changing the words or giving new meanings to the old words. the church, in order to live, must agree substantially with those who support it, and consequently it will change to any extent that may be necessary. if the church remains true to the old standards then it will lose the support of progressive people, and if the people generally advance the church will die. but my opinion is that it will slowly change, that the minister will preach what the members want to hear, and that the creed will be controlled by the contribution box. one of these days the preachers may become teachers, and when that happens the church will be of use. _question_. what do you regard as the greatest of all themes in poetry and song? _answer_. love and death. the same is true of the greatest music. in "tristan and isolde" is the greatest music of love and death. in shakespeare the greatest themes are love and death. in all real poetry, in all real music, the dominant, the triumphant tone, is love, and the minor, the sad refrain, the shadow, the background, the mystery, is death. _question_. what would be your advice to an intelligent young man just starting out in life? _answer_. i would say to him: "be true to your ideal. cultivate your heart and brain. follow the light of your reason. get all the happiness out of life that you possibly can. do not care for power, but strive to be useful. first of all, support yourself so that you may not be a burden to others. if you are successful, if you gain a surplus, use it for the good of others. own yourself and live and die a free man. make your home a heaven, love your wife and govern your children by kindness. be good natured, cheerful, forgiving and generous. find out the conditions of happiness, and then be wise enough to live in accordance with them. cultivate intellectual hospitality, express your honest thoughts, love your friends, and be just to your enemies." --_new york herald_, september , . woman and her domain. _question_. what is your opinion of the effect of the multiplicity of women's clubs as regards the intellectual, moral and domestic status of their members? _answer_. i think that women should have clubs and societies, that they should get together and exchange ideas. women, as a rule, are provincial and conservative. they keep alive all the sentimental mistakes and superstitions. now, if they can only get away from these, and get abreast with the tide of the times, and think as well as feel, it will be better for them and their children. you know st. paul tells women that if they want to know anything they must ask their husbands. for many centuries they have followed this orthodox advice, and of course they have not learned a great deal, because their husbands could not answer their questions. husbands, as a rule, do not know a great deal, and it will not do for every wife to depend on the ignorance of her worst half. the women of to-day are the great readers, and no book is a great success unless it pleases the women. as a result of this, all the literature of the world has changed, so that now in all departments the thoughts of women are taken into consideration, and women have thoughts, because they are the intellectual equals of men. there are no statesmen in this country the equals of harriet martineau; probably no novelists the equals of george eliot or george sand, and i think ouida the greatest living novelist. i think her "ariadne" is one of the greatest novels in the english language. there are few novels better than "consuelo," few poems better than "mother and poet." so in all departments women are advancing; some of them have taken the highest honors at medical colleges; others are prominent in the sciences, some are great artists, and there are several very fine sculptors, &c., &c. so you can readily see what my opinion is on that point. i am in favor of giving woman all the domain she conquers, and as the world becomes civilized the domain that she can conquer will steadily increase. _question_. but, colonel, is there no danger of greatly interfering with a woman's duties as wife and mother? _answer_. i do not think that it is dangerous to think, or that thought interferes with love or the duties of wife or mother. i think the contrary is the truth; the greater the brain the greater the power to love, the greater the power to discharge all duties and obligations, so i have no fear for the future. about women voting i don't care; whatever they want to do they have my consent. --_the democrat_, grand rapids, michigan, . professor swing. _question_. since you were last in this city, colonel, a distinguished man has passed away in the person of professor swing. the public will be interested to have your opinion of him. _answer_. i think professor swing did a great amount of good. he helped to civilize the church and to humanize the people. his influence was in the right direction--toward the light. in his youth he was acquainted with toil, poverty, and hardship; his road was filled with thorns, and yet he lived and scattered flowers in the paths of many people. at first his soul was in the dungeon of a savage creed, where the windows were very small and closely grated, and though which struggled only a few rays of light. he longed for more light and for more liberty, and at last his fellow- prisoners drove him forth, and from that time until his death he did what he could to give light and liberty to the souls of men. he was a lover of nature, poetic in his temperament, charitable and merciful. as an orator he may have lacked presence, pose and voice, but he did not lack force of statement or beauty of expression. he was a man of wide learning, of great admiration of the heroic and tender. he did what he could to raise the standard of character, to make his fellow-men just and noble. he lost the provincialism of his youth and became in a very noble sense a citizen of the world. he understood that all the good is not in our race or in our religion--that in every land there are good and noble men, self- denying and lovely women, and that in most respects other religions are as good as ours, and in many respects better. this gave him breadth of intellectual horizon and enlarged his sympathy for the failures of the world. i regard his death as a great loss, and his life as a lesson and inspiration. --_inter-ocean_, chicago, october , . senator sherman and his book.* [* no one is better qualified than robert g. ingersoll to talk about senator sherman's book and the questions it raises in political history. mr. ingersoll was for years a resident of washington and a next-door neighbor to mr. sherman; he was for an even longer period the intimate personal friend of james g. blaine; he knew garfield from almost daily contact, and of the republican national conventions concerning which senator sherman has raised points of controversy mr. ingersoll can say, as the north carolinian said of the confederacy: "part of whom i am which." he placed blaine's name before the convention at cincinnati in . he made the first of the three great nominating speeches in convention history, conkling and garfield making the others in . the figure of the plumed knight which mr. ingersoll created to characterize mr. blaine is part of the latter's memory. at chicago, four years later, when garfield, dazed by the irresistible doubt of the convention, was on the point of refusing that in the acceptance of which he had no voluntary part, ingersoll was the adviser who showed him that duty to sherman required no such action.] _question_. what do you think of senator sherman's book--especially the part about garfield? _answer_. of course, i have only read a few extracts from mr. sherman's reminiscences, but i am perfectly satisfied that the senator is mistaken about garfield's course. the truth is that garfield captured the convention by his course from day to day, and especially by the speech he made for sherman. after that speech, and it was a good one, the best garfield ever made, the convention said, "speak for yourself, john." it was perfectly apparent that if the blaine and sherman forces should try to unite, grant would be nominated. it had to be grant or a new man, and that man was garfield. it all came about without garfield's help, except in the way i have said. garfield even went so far as to declare that under no circumstances could he accept, because he was for sherman, and honestly for him. he told me that he would not allow his name to go before the convention. just before he was nominated i wrote him a note in which i said he was about to be nominated, and that he must not decline. i am perfectly satisfied that he acted with perfect honor, and that he did his best for sherman. _question_. mr. sherman expresses the opinion that if he had had the "moral strength" of the ohio delegation in his support he would have been nominated? _answer_. we all know that while senator sherman had many friends, and that while many thought he would make an excellent president, still there was but little enthusiasm among his followers. sherman had the respect of the party, but hardly the love. _question_. in his book the senator expresses the opinion that he was quite close to the nomination in , when mr. quay was for him. do you think that is so, mr. ingersoll? _answer_. i think mr. sherman had a much better chance in than in , but as a matter of fact, he never came within hailing distance of success at any time. he is not of the nature to sway great bodies of men. he lacks the power to impress himself upon others to such an extent as to make friends of enemies and devotees of friends. mr. sherman has had a remarkable career, and i think that he ought to be satisfied with what he has achieved. _question_. mr. ingersoll, what do you think defeated blaine for the nomination in ? _answer_. on the first day of the convention at cincinnati it was known that blaine was the leading candidate. all of the enthusiasm was for him. it was soon known that conkling, bristow or morton could not be nominated, and that in all probability blaine would succeed. the fact that blaine had been attacked by vertigo, or had suffered from a stroke of apoplexy, gave an argument to those who opposed him, and this was used with great effect. after blaine was put in nomination, and before any vote was taken, the convention adjourned, and during the night a great deal of work was done. the michigan delegation was turned inside out and the blaine forces raided in several states. hayes, the dark horse, suddenly developed speed, and the scattered forces rallied to his support. i have always thought that if a ballot could have been taken on the day blaine was put in nomination he would have succeeded, and yet he might have been defeated for the nomination anyway. blaine had the warmest friends and the bitterest enemies of any man in the party. people either loved or hated him. he had no milk-and-water friends and no milk-and-water enemies. _question_. if blaine had been nominated at cincinnati in would he have made a stronger candidate than hayes did? _answer_. if he had been nominated then, i believe that he would have been triumphantly elected. mr. blaine's worst enemies would not have supported tilden, and thousands of moderate democrats would have given their votes to blaine. _question_. mr. ingersoll, do you think that mr. blaine wanted the nomination in , when he got it? _answer_. in , mr. blaine told me that he did not want the nomination. i said to him: "is that honest?" he replied that he did not want it, that he was tired of the whole business. i said: "if you do not want it; if you have really reached that conclusion, then i think you will get it." he laughed, and again said: "i do not want it." i believe that he spoke exactly as he then felt. _question_. what do you think defeated mr. blaine at the polls in ? _answer_. blaine was a splendid manager for another man, a great natural organizer, and when acting for others made no mistake; but he did not manage his own campaign with ability. he made a succession of mistakes. his suit against the indianapolis editor; his letter about the ownership of certain stocks; his reply to burchard and the preachers, in which he said that history showed the church could get along without the state, but the state could not get along without the church, and this in reply to the "rum, romanism and rebellion" nonsense; and last, but not least, his speech to the millionaires in new york--all of these things weakened him. as a matter of fact many catholics were going to support blaine, but when they saw him fooling with the protestant clergy, and accepting the speech of burchard, they instantly turned against him. if he had never met burchard, i think he would have been elected. his career was something like that of mr. clay; he was the most popular man of his party and yet---- _question_. how do you account for mr. blaine's action in allowing his name to go before the convention at minneapolis in ? _answer_. in , mr. blaine was a sick man, almost worn out; he was not his former self, and he was influenced by others. he seemed to have lost his intuition; he was misled, yet in spite of all defeats, no name will create among republicans greater enthusiasm than that of james g. blaine. millions are still his devoted, unselfish and enthusiastic friends and defenders. --_the globe-democrat_, st. louis, october , . reply to the christian endeavorers. _question_. how were you affected by the announcement that the united prayers of the salvationists and christian endeavorers were to be offered for your conversion? _answer_. the announcement did not affect me to any great extent. i take it for granted that the people praying for me are sincere and that they have a real interest in my welfare. of course, i thank them one and all. at the same time i can hardly account for what they did. certainly they would not ask god to convert me unless they thought the prayer could be answered. and if their god can convert me of course he can convert everybody. then the question arises why he does not do it. why does he let millions go to hell when he can convert them all. why did he not convert them all before the flood and take them all to heaven instead of drowning them and sending them all to hell. of course these questions can be answered by saying that god's ways are not our ways. i am greatly obliged to these people. still, i feel about the same, so that it would be impossible to get up a striking picture of "before and after." it was good-natured on their part to pray for me, and that act alone leads me to believe that there is still hope for them. the trouble with the christian endeavorers is that they don't give my arguments consideration. if they did they would agree with me. it seemed curious that they would advise divine wisdom what to do, or that they would ask infinite mercy to treat me with kindness. if there be a god, of course he knows what ought to be done, and will do it without any hints from ignorant human beings. still, the endeavorers and the salvation people may know more about god than i do. for all i know, this god may need a little urging. he may be powerful but a little slow; intelligent but sometimes a little drowsy, and it may do good now and then to call his attention to the facts. the prayers did not, so far as i know, do me the least injury or the least good. i was glad to see that the christians are getting civilized. a few years ago they would have burned me. now they pray for me. suppose god should answer the prayers and convert me, how would he bring the conversion about? in the first place, he would have to change my brain and give me more credulity--that is, he would be obliged to lessen my reasoning power. then i would believe not only without evidence, but in spite of evidence. all the miracles would appear perfectly natural. it would then seem as easy to raise the dead as to waken the sleeping. in addition to this, god would so change my mind that i would hold all reason in contempt and put entire confidence in faith. i would then regard science as the enemy of human happiness, and ignorance as the soil in which virtues grow. then i would throw away darwin and humboldt, and rely on the sermons of orthodox preachers. in other words, i would become a little child and amuse myself with a religious rattle and a gabriel horn. then i would rely on a man who has been dead for nearly two thousand years to secure me a seat in paradise. after conversion, it is not pretended that i will be any better so far as my actions are concerned; no more charitable, no more honest, no more generous. the great difference will be that i will believe more and think less. after all, the converted people do not seem to be better than the sinners. i never heard of a poor wretch clad in rags, limping into a town and asking for the house of a christian. i think that i had better remain as i am. i had better follow the light of my reason, be true to myself, express my honest thoughts, and do the little i can for the destruction of superstition, the little i can for the development of the brain, for the increase of intellectual hospitality and the happiness of my fellow-beings. one world at a time. --_new york journal_, december , . spiritualism. there are several good things about spiritualism. first, they are not bigoted; second, they do not believe in salvation by faith; third, they don't expect to be happy in another world because christ was good in this; fourth, they do not preach the consolation of hell; fifth, they do not believe in god as an infinite monster; sixth, the spiritualists believe in intellectual hospitality. in these respects they differ from our christian brethren, and in these respects they are far superior to the saints. i think that the spiritualists have done good. they believe in enjoying themselves--in having a little pleasure in this world. they are social, cheerful and good-natured. they are not the slaves of a book. their hands and feet are not tied with passages of scripture. they are not troubling themselves about getting forgiveness and settling their heavenly debts for a cent on the dollar. their belief does not make then mean or miserable. they do not persecute their neighbors. they ask no one to have faith or to believe without evidence. they ask all to investigate, and then to make up their minds from the evidence. hundreds and thousands of well-educated, intelligent people are satisfied with the evidence and firmly believe in the existence of spirits. for all i know, they may be right--but---- _question_. the spiritualists have indirectly claimed, that you were in many respects almost one of them. have you given them reason to believe so? _answer_. i am not a spiritualist, and have never pretended to be. the spiritualists believe in free thought, in freedom of speech, and they are willing to hear the other side--willing to hear me. the best thing about the spiritualists is that they believe in intellectual hospitality. _question_. is spiritualism a religion or a truth? _answer_. i think that spiritualism may properly be called a religion. it deals with two worlds--teaches the duty of man to his fellows--the relation that this life bears to the next. it claims to be founded on facts. it insists that the "dead" converse with the living, and that information is received from those who once lived in this world. of the truth of these claims i have no sufficient evidence. _question_. are all mediums impostors? _answer_. i will not say that all mediums are impostors, because i do not know. i do not believe that these mediums get any information or help from "spirits." i know that for thousands of years people have believed in mediums--in spiritualism. a spirit in the form of a man appeared to samson's mother, and afterward to his father. spirits, or angels, called on abraham. the witch of endor raised the ghost of samuel. an angel appeared with three men in the furnace. the handwriting on the wall was done by a spirit. a spirit appeared to joseph in a dream, to the wise men and to joseph again. so a spirit, an angel or a god, spoke to saul, and the same happened to mary magdalene. the religious literature of the world is filled with such things. take spiritualism from christianity and the whole edifice crumbles. all religions, so far as i know, are based on spiritualism--on communications received from angels, from spirits. i do not say that all the mediums, ancient and modern, were, and are, impostors--but i do think that all the honest ones were, and are, mistaken. i do not believe that man has ever received any communication from angels, spirits or gods. no whisper, as i believe, has ever come from any other world. the lips of the dead are always closed. from the grave there has come no voice. for thousands of years people have been questioning the dead. they have tried to catch the whisper of a vanished voice. many say that they have succeeded. i do not know. _question_. what is the explanation of the startling knowledge displayed by some so-called "mediums" of the history and personal affairs of people who consult them? is there any such thing as mind-reading or thought-transference? _answer_. in a very general way, i suppose that one person may read the thought of another--not definitely, but by the expression of the face, by the attitude of the body, some idea may be obtained as to what a person thinks, what he intends. so thought may be transferred by look or language, but not simply by will. everything that is, is natural. our ignorance is the soil in which mystery grows. i do not believe that thoughts are things that can been seen or touched. each mind lives in a world of its own, a world that no other mind can enter. minds, like ships at sea, give signs and signals to each other, but they do not exchange captains. _question_. is there any such thing as telepathy? what is the explanation of the stories of mental impressions received at long distances? _answer_. there are curious coincidences. people sometimes happen to think of something that is taking place at a great distance. the stories about these happenings are not very well authenticated, and seem never to have been of the least use to anyone. _question_. can these phenomena be considered aside from any connection with, or form of, superstition? _answer_. i think that mistake, emotion, nervousness, hysteria, dreams, love of the wonderful, dishonesty, ignorance, grief and the longing for immortality--the desire to meet the loved and lost, the horror of endless death--account for these phenomena. people often mistake their dreams for realities--often think their thoughts have "happened." they live in a mental mist, a mirage. the boundary between the actual and the imagined becomes faint, wavering and obscure. they mistake clouds for mountains. the real and the unreal mix and mingle until the impossible becomes common, and the natural absurd. _question_. do you believe that any sane man ever had a vision? _answer_. of course, the sane and insane have visions, dreams. i do not believe that any man, sane or insane, was ever visited by an angel or spirit, or ever received any information from the dead. _question_. setting aside from consideration the so-called physical manifestations of the mediums, has spiritualism offered any proof of the immortality of the soul? _answer_. of course spiritualism offers what it calls proof of immortality. that is its principal business. thousands and thousands of good, honest, intelligent people think the proof sufficient. they receive what they believe to be messages from the departed, and now and then the spirits assume their old forms --including garments--and pass through walls and doors as light passes through glass. do these things really happen? if the spirits of the dead do return, then the fact of another life is established. it all depends on the evidence. our senses are easily deceived, and some people have more confidence in their reason than in their senses. _question_. do you not believe that such a man as robert dale owen was sincere? what was the real state of mind of the author of "footfalls on the boundaries of another world"? _answer_. without the slightest doubt, robert dale owen was sincere. he was one of the best of men. his father labored all his life for the good of others. robert owen, the father, had a debate, in cincinnati, with the rev. alexander campbell, the founder of the campbellite church. campbell was no match for owen, and yet the audience was almost unanimously against owen. robert dale owen was an intelligent, thoughtful, honest man. he was deceived by several mediums, but remained a believer. he wanted spiritualism to be true. he hungered and thirsted for another life. he explained everything that was mysterious or curious by assuming the interference of spirits. he was a good man, but a poor investigator. he thought that people were all honest. _question_. what do you understand the spiritualist means when he claims that the soul goes to the "summer land," and there continues to work and evolute to higher planes? _answer_. no one pretends to know where "heaven" is. the celestial realm is the blessed somewhere in the unknown nowhere. so far as i know, the "summer land" has no metes and bounds, and no one pretends to know exactly or inexactly where it is. after all, the "summer land" is a hope--a wish. spiritualists believe that a soul leaving this world passes into another, or into another state, and continues to grow in intelligence and virtue, if it so desires. spiritualists claim to prove that there is another life. christians believe this, but their witnesses have been dead for many centuries. they take the "hearsay" of legend and ancient gossip; but spiritualists claim to have living witnesses; witnesses that can talk, make music; that can take to themselves bodies and shake hands with the people they knew before they passed to the "other shore." _question_. has spiritualism, through its mediums, ever told the world anything useful, or added to the store of the world's knowledge, or relieved its burdens? _answer_. i do not know that any medium has added to the useful knowledge of the world, unless mediums have given evidence of another life. mediums have told us nothing about astronomy, geology or history, have made no discoveries, no inventions, and have enriched no art. the same may be said of every religion. all the orthodox churches believe in spiritualism. every now and then the virgin appears to some peasant, and in the old days the darkness was filled with evil spirits. christ was a spiritualist, and his principal business was the casting out of devils. all of his disciples, all of the church fathers, all of the saints were believers in spiritualism of the lowest and most ignorant type. during the middle ages people changed themselves, with the aid of spirits, into animals. they became wolves, dogs, cats and donkeys. in those day all the witches and wizards were mediums. so animals were sometimes taken possession of by spirits, the same as balaam's donkey and christ's swine. nothing was too absurd for the christians. _question_. has not spiritualism added to the world's stock of hope? and in what way has not spiritualism done good? _answer_. the mother holding in her arms her dead child, believing that the babe has simply passed to another life, does not weep as bitterly as though she thought that death was the eternal end. a belief in spiritualism must be a consolation. you see, the spiritualists do not believe in eternal pain, and consequently a belief in immortality does not fill their hearts with fear. christianity makes eternal life an infinite horror, and casts the glare of hell on almost every grave. the spiritualists appear to be happy in their belief. i have never known a happy orthodox christian. it is natural to shun death, natural to desire eternal life. with all my heart i hope for everlasting life and joy--a life without failures, without crimes and tears. if immortality could be established, the river of life would overflow with happiness. the faces of prisoners, of slaves, of the deserted, of the diseased and starving would be radiant with smiles, and the dull eyes of despair would glow with light. if it could be established. let us hope. --_the journal_, new york, july , . a little of everything. _question_. what is your opinion of the position taken by the united states in the venezuelan dispute? how should the dispute be settled? _answer_. i do not think that we have any interest in the dispute between venezuela and england. it was and is none of our business. the monroe doctrine was not and is not in any way involved. mr. cleveland made a mistake and so did congress. _question_. what should be the attitude of the church toward the stage? _answer_. it should be, what it always has been, against it. if the orthodox churches are right, then the stage is wrong. the stage makes people forget hell; and this puts their souls in peril. there will be forever a conflict between shakespeare and the bible. _question_. what do you think of the new woman? _answer_. i like her. _question_. where rests the responsibility for the armenian atrocities? _answer_. religion is the cause of the hatred and bloodshed. _question_. what do you think of international marriages, as between titled foreigners and american heiresses? _answer_. my opinion is the same as is entertained by the american girl after the marriages. it is a great mistake. _question_. what do you think of england's poet laureate, alfred austin? _answer_. i have only read a few of his lines and they were not poetic. the office of poet laureate should be abolished. men cannot write poems to order as they could deliver cabbages or beer. by poems i do not mean jingles of words. i mean great thoughts clothed in splendor. _question_. what is your estimate of susan b. anthony? _answer_. miss anthony is one of the most remarkable women in the world. she has the enthusiasm of youth and spring, the courage and sincerity of a martyr. she is as reliable as the attraction of gravitation. she is absolutely true to her conviction, intellectually honest, logical, candid and infinitely persistent. no human being has done more for women than miss anthony. she has won the respect and admiration of the best people on the earth. and so i say: good luck and long life to susan b. anthony. _question_. which did more for his country, george washington or abraham lincoln? _answer_. in my judgment, lincoln was the greatest man ever president. i put him above washington and jefferson. he had the genius of goodness; and he was one of the wisest and shrewdest of men. lincoln towers above them all. _question_. what gave rise to the report that you had been converted --did you go to church somewhere? _answer_. i visited the "people's church" in kalamazoo, michigan. this church has no creed. the object is to make people happy in this world. miss bartlett is the pastor. she is a remarkable woman and is devoting her life to good work. i liked her church and said so. this is all. _question_. are there not some human natures so morally weak or diseased that they cannot keep from sin without the aid of some sort of religion? _answer_. i do not believe that the orthodox religion helps anybody to be just, generous or honest. superstition is not the soil in which goodness grows. falsehood is poor medicine. _question_. would you consent to live in any but a christian community? if you would, please name one. _answer_. i would not live in a community where all were orthodox christians. i would rather dwell in central africa. if i could have my choice i would rather live among people who were free, who sought for truth and lived according to reason. sometime there will be such a community. _question_. is the noun "united states" singular or plural, as you use english? _answer_. i use it in the singular. _question_. have you read nordau's "degeneracy"? if so, what do you think of it? _answer_. i think it is substantially insane. _question_. what do you think of bishop doane's advocacy of free rum as a solution of the liquor problem? _answer_. i am a believer in liberty. all the temperance legislation, all the temperance societies, all the agitation, all these things have done no good. _question_. do you agree with mr. carnegie that a college education is of little or no practical value to a man? _answer_. a man must have education. it makes no difference where or how he gets it. to study the dead languages is time wasted so far as success in business is concerned. most of the colleges in this country are poor because controlled by theologians. _question_. what suggestion would you make for the improvement of the newspapers of this country? _answer_. every article in a newspaper should be signed by the writer. and all writers should do their best to tell the exact facts. _question_. what do you think of niagara falls? _answer_. it is a dangerous place. those great rushing waters-- there is nothing attractive to me in them. there is so much noise; so much tumult. it is simply a mighty force of nature--one of those tremendous powers that is to be feared for its danger. what i like in nature is a cultivated field, where men can work in the free open air, where there is quiet and repose--no turmoil, no strife, no tumult, no fearful roar or struggle for mastery. i do not like the crowded, stuffy workshop, where life is slavery and drudgery. give me the calm, cultivated land of waving grain, of flowers, of happiness. _question_. what is worse than death? _answer_. oh, a great many things. to be dishonored. to be worthless. to feel that you are a failure. to be insane. to be constantly afraid of the future. to lose the ones you love. --_the herald_, rochester, new york, february , . is life worth living--christian science and politics. _question_. with all your experiences, the trials, the responsibilities, the disappointments, the heartburnings, colonel, is life worth living? _answer_. well, i can only answer for myself. i like to be alive, to breathe the air, to look at the landscape, the clouds and stars, to repeat old poems, to look at pictures and statues, to hear music, the voices of the ones i love. i like to talk with my wife, my girls, my grandchildren. i like to sleep and to dream. yes, you can say that life, to me, is worth living. _question_. colonel, did you ever kill any game? _answer_. when i was a boy i killed two ducks, and it hurt me as much as anything i ever did. no, i would not kill any living creature. i am sometimes tempted to kill a mosquito on my hand, but i stop and think what a wonderful construction it has, and shoo it away. _question_. what do you think of political parties, colonel? _answer_. in a country where the sovereignty is divided among the people, that is to say, among the men, in order to accomplish anything, many must unite, and i believe in joining the party that is going the nearest your way. i do not believe in being the slave or serf or servant of a party. go with it if it is going your road, and when the road forks, take the one that leads to the place you wish to visit, no matter whether the party goes that way or not. i do not believe in belonging to a party or being the property of any organization. i do not believe in giving a mortgage on yourself or a deed of trust for any purpose whatever. it is better to be free and vote wrong than to be a slave and vote right. i believe in taking the chances. at the same time, as long as a party is going my way, i believe in placing that party above particular persons, and if that party nominates a man that i despise, i will vote for him if he is going my way. i would rather have a bad man belonging to my party in place, than a good man belonging to the other, provided my man believes in my principles, and to that extent i believe in party loyalty. neither do i join in the general hue and cry against bosses. there has always got to be a leader, even in a flock of wild geese. if anything is to be accomplished, no matter what, somebody takes the lead and the others allow him to go on. in that way political bosses are made, and when you hear a man howling against bosses at the top of his lungs, distending his cheeks to the bursting point, you may know that he has ambition to become a boss. i do not belong to the republican party, but i have been going with it, and when it goes wrong i shall quit, unless the other is worse. there is no office, no place, that i want, and as it does not cost anything to be right, i think it better to be that way. _question_. what is your idea of christian science? _answer_. i think it is superstition, pure and unadulterated. i think that soda will cure a sour stomach better than thinking. in my judgment, quinine is a better tonic than meditation. of course cheerfulness is good and depression bad, but if you can absolutely control the body and all its functions by thought, what is the use of buying coal? let the mercury go down and keep yourself hot by thinking. what is the use of wasting money for food? fill your stomach with think. according to these christian science people all that really exists is an illusion, and the only realities are the things that do not exist. they are like the old fellow in india who said that all things were illusions. one day he was speaking to a crowd on his favorite hobby. just as he said "all is illusion" a fellow on an elephant rode toward him. the elephant raised his trunk as though to strike, thereupon the speaker ran away. then the crowd laughed. in a few moments the speaker returned. the people shouted: "if all is illusion, what made you run away?" the speaker replied: "my poor friends, i said all is illusion. i say so still. there was no elephant. i did not run away. you did not laugh, and i am not explaining now. all is illusion." that man must have been a christian scientist. --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, november, . vivisection. _question_. why are you so utterly opposed to vivisection? _answer_. because, as it is generally practiced, it is an unspeakable cruelty. because it hardens the hearts and demoralizes those who inflict useless and terrible pains on the bound and helpless. if these vivisectionists would give chloroform or ether to the animals they dissect; if they would render them insensible to pain, and if, by cutting up these animals, they could learn anything worth knowing, no one would seriously object. the trouble is that these doctors, these students, these professors, these amateurs, do not give anesthetics. they insist that to render the animal insensible does away with the value of the experiment. they care nothing for the pain they inflict. they are so eager to find some fact that will be of benefit to the human race, that they are utterly careless of the agony endured. now, what i say is that no decent man, no gentleman, no civilized person, would vivisect an animal without first having rendered that animal insensible to pain. the doctor, the scientist, who puts his knives, forceps, chisels and saws into the flesh, bones and nerves of an animal without having used an anesthetic, is a savage, a pitiless, heartless monster. when he says he does this for the good of man, because he wishes to do good, he says what is not true. no such man wants to do good; he commits the crime for his own benefit and because he wishes to gratify an insane cruelty or to gain a reputation among like savages. these scientists now insist that they have done some good. they do not tell exactly what they have done. the claim is general in its character--not specific. if they have done good, could they not have done just as much if they had used anesthetics? good is not the child of cruelty. _question_. do you think that the vivisectionists do their work without anesthetics? do they not, as a rule, give something to deaden pain? _answer_. here is what the trouble is. now and then one uses chloroform, but the great majority do not. they claim that it interferes with the value of the experiment, and, as i said before, they object to the expense. why should they care for what the animals suffer? they inflict the most horrible and useless pain, and they try the silliest experiments--experiments of no possible use or advantage. for instance: they flay a dog to see how long he can live without his skin. is this trifling experiment of any importance? suppose the dog can live a week or a month or a year, what then? what must the real character of the scientific wretch be who would try an experiment like this? is such a man seeking the good of his fellow- men? so, these scientists starve animals until they slowly die; watch them from day to day as life recedes from the extremities, and watch them until the final surrender, to see how long the heart will flutter without food; without water. they keep a diary of their sufferings, of their whinings and moanings, of their insanity. and this diary is published and read with joy and eagerness by other scientists in like experiments. of what possible use is it to know how long a dog or horse can live without food? so, they take animals, dogs and horses, cut through the flesh with the knife, remove some of the back bone with the chisel, then divide the spinal marrow, then touch it with red hot wires for the purpose of finding, as they say, the connection of nerves; and the animal, thus vivisected, is left to die. a good man will not voluntarily inflict pain. he will see that his horse has food, if he can procure it, and if he cannot procure the food, he will end the sufferings of the animal in the best and easiest way. so, the good man would rather remain in ignorance as to how pain is transmitted than to cut open the body of a living animal, divide the marrow and torture the nerves with red hot iron. of what use can it be to take a dog, tie him down and cut out one of his kidneys to see if he can live with the other? these horrors are perpetrated only by the cruel and the heartless --so cruel and so heartless that they are utterly unfit to be trusted with a human life. they inoculate animals with a virus of disease; they put poison in their eyes until rottenness destroys the sight; until the poor brutes become insane. they given them a disease that resembles hydrophobia, that is accompanied by the most frightful convulsions and spasms. they put them in ovens to see what degree of heat it is that kills. they also try the effect of cold; they slowly drown them; they poison them with the venom of snakes; they force foreign substances into their blood, and, by inoculation, into their eyes; and then watch and record their agonies; their sufferings. _question_. don't you think that some good has been accomplished, some valuable information obtained, by vivisection? _answer_. i don't think any valuable information has been obtained by the vivisection of animals without chloroform that could not have been obtained with chloroform. and to answer the question broadly as to whether any good has been accomplished by vivisection, i say no. according to the best information that i can obtain, the vivisectors have hindered instead of helped. lawson tait, who stands at the head of his profession in england, the best surgeon in great britain, says that all this cutting and roasting and freezing and torturing of animals has done harm instead of good. he says publicly that the vivisectors have hindered the progress of surgery. he declares that they have not only done no good, but asserts that they have done only harm. the same views according to doctor tait, are entertained by bell, syme and fergusson. many have spoken of darwin as though he were a vivisector. this is not true. all that has been accomplished by these torturers of dumb and helpless animals amounts to nothing. we have obtained from these gentlemen koch's cure for consumption, pasteur's factory of hydrophobia and brown-sequard's elixir of life. these three failures, gigantic, absurd, ludicrous, are the great accomplishment of vivisection. surgery has advanced, not by the heartless tormentors of animals, but by the use of anesthetics--that is to say, chloroform, ether and cocaine. the cruel wretches, the scientific assassins, have accomplished nothing. hundreds of thousands of animals have suffered every pain that nerves can feel, and all for nothing--nothing except to harden the heart and to make criminals of men. they have not given anesthetics to these animals, but they have been guilty of the last step in cruelty. they have given curare, a drug that attacks the centers of motion, that makes it impossible for the animal to move, so that when under its influence, no matter what the pain may be, the animal lies still. this curare not only destroys the power of motion, but increases the sensitiveness of the nerves. to give this drug and then to dissect the living animal is the extreme of cruelty. beyond this, heartlessness cannot go. _question_. do you know that you have been greatly criticized for what you have said on this subject? _answer_. yes; i have read many criticisms; but what of that. it is impossible for the ingenuity of man to say anything in defence of cruelty--of heartlessness. so, it is impossible for the defenders of vivisection to show any good that has been accomplished without the use of anesthetics. the chemist ought to be able to determine what is and what is not poison. there is no need of torturing the animals. so, this giving to animals diseases is of no importance to man--not the slightest; and nothing has been discovered in bacteriology so far that has been of use or that is of benefit. personally, i admit that all have the right to criticise; and my answer to the critics is, that they do not know the facts; or, knowing them, they are interested in preventing a knowledge of these facts coming to the public. vivisection should be controlled by law. no animal should be allowed to be tortured. and to cut up a living animal not under the influence of chloroform or ether, should be a penitentiary offence. a perfect reply to all the critics who insist that great good has been done is to repeat the three names--koch, pasteur and brown- sequard. the foundation of civilization is not cruelty; it is justice, generosity, mercy. --_evening telegram_, new york, september , . divorce. _question_. the _herald_ would like to have you give your ideas on divorce. on last sunday in your lecture you said a few words on the subject, but only a few. do you think the laws governing divorce ought to be changed? _answer_. we obtained our ideas about divorce from the hebrews-- from the new testament and the church. in the old testament woman is not considered of much importance. the wife was the property of the husband. "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox or his wife." in this commandment the wife is put on an equality with other property, so under certain conditions the husband could put away his wife, but the wife could not put away her husband. in the new testament there is little in favor of marriage, and really nothing as to the rights of wives. christ said nothing in favor of marriage, and never married. so far as i know, none of the apostles had families. st. paul was opposed to marriage, and allowed it only as a choice of evils. in those days it was imagined by the christians that the world was about to be purified by fire, and that they would be changed into angels. the early christians were opposed to marriage, and the "fathers" looked upon woman as the source of all evil. they did not believe in divorces. they thought that if people loved each other better than they did god, and got married, they ought to be held to the bargain, no matter what happened. these "fathers" were, for the most part, ignorant and hateful savages, and had no more idea of right and wrong than wild beasts. the church insisted that marriage was a sacrament, and that god, in some mysterious way, joined husband and wife in marriage--that he was one of the parties to the contract, and that only death could end it. of course, this supernatural view of marriage is perfectly absurd. if there be a god, there certainly have been marriages he did not approve, and certain it is that god can have no interest in keeping husbands and wives together who never should have married. some of the preachers insist that god instituted marriage in the garden of eden. we now know that there was no garden of eden, and that woman was not made from the first man's rib. nobody with any real sense believes this now. the institution of marriage was not established by jehovah. neither was it established by christ, not any of his apostles. in considering the question of divorce, the supernatural should be discarded. we should take into consideration only the effect upon human beings. the gods should be allowed to take care of themselves. is it to the interest of a husband and wife to live together after love has perished and when they hate each other? will this add to their happiness? should a woman be compelled to remain the wife of a man who hates and abuses her, and whom she loathes? has society any interest in forcing women to live with men they hate? there is no real marriage without love, and in the marriage state there is no morality without love. a woman who remains the wife of a man whom she despises, or does not love, corrupts her soul. she becomes degraded, polluted, and feels that her flesh has been soiled. under such circumstances a good woman suffers the agonies of moral death. it may be said that the woman can leave her husband; that she is not compelled to live in the same house or to occupy the same room. if she has the right to leave, has she the right to get a new house? should a woman be punished for having married? women do not marry the wrong men on purpose. thousands of mistakes are made--are these mistakes sacred? must they be preserved to please god? what good can it do god to keep people married who hate each other? what good can it do the community to keep such people together? _question_. do you consider marriage a contract or a sacrament? _answer_. marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. no matter whether it is called a contract or a sacrament, it remains the same. a true marriage is a natural concord or agreement of souls--a harmony in which discord is not even imagined. it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist. all other considerations are lost. the present seems eternal. in this supreme moment there is no shadow, or the shadow is as luminous as light. when two beings thus love, thus united, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. the idea of contract is lost. duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one. this is real marriage. now, if the man turns out to be a wild beast, if he destroys the happiness of the wife, why should she remain his victim? if she wants a divorce, she should have it. the divorce will not hurt god or the community. as a matter of fact, it will save a life. no man not poisoned by superstition will object to the release of an abused wife. in such a case only savages can object to divorce. the man who wants courts and legislatures to force a woman to live with him is a monster. _question_. do you believe that the divorced should be allowed to marry again? _answer_. certainly. has the woman whose rights have been outraged no right to build another home? must this woman, full of kindness, affection and health, be chained until death releases her? is there no future for her? must she be an outcast forever? can she never sit by her own hearth, with the arms of her children about her neck, and by her side a husband who loves and protects her? there are no two sides to this question. all human beings should be allowed to correct their mistakes. if the wife has flagrantly violated the contract of marriage, the husband should be given a divorce. if the wife wants a divorce, if she loathes her husband, if she no longer loves him, then the divorce should be granted. it is immoral for a woman to live as the wife of a man whom she abhors. the home should be pure. children should be well-born. their parents should love one another. marriages are made by men and women, not by society, not by the state, not by the church, not by the gods. nothing is moral, that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings. the good home is the unit of good government. the hearthstone is the corner-stone of civilization. society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes. it is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. most of the laws about divorce are absurd or cruel, and ought to be repealed. --_the herald_, new york, february, . music, newspapers, lynching and arbitration. _question_. how do you enjoy staying in chicago? _answer_. well, i am about as happy as a man can be when he is away from home. i was at the opera last night. i am always happy when i hear the music of wagner interpreted by such a genius as seidl. i do not believe there is a man in the world who has in his brain and heart more of the real spirit of wagner than anton seidl. he knows how to lead, how to phrase and shade, how to rush and how to linger, and to express every passion and every mood. so i was happy last night to hear him. then i heard edouard de reszke, the best of bass singers, with tones of a great organ, and others soft and liquid, and jean de reszke, a great tenor, who sings the "swan song" as though inspired; and i liked bispham, but hated his part. he is a great singer; so is mme. litvinne. so, i can say that i am enjoying chicago. in fact, i always did. i was here when the town was small, not much more than huts and hogs, lumber and mud; and now it is one of the greatest of cities. it makes me happy just to think of the difference. i was born the year chicago was incorporated. in my time matches were invented. steam navigation became really useful. the telegraph was invented. gas was discovered and applied to practical uses, and electricity was made known in its practical workings to mankind. thus, it is seen the world is progressing; men are becoming civilized. but the process of civilization even now is slow. in one or two thousand years we may hope to see a vast improvement in man's condition. we may expect to have the employer so far civilized that he will not try to make money for money's sake, but in order that he may apply it to good uses, to the amelioration of his fellow-man's condition. we may also expect the see the workingman, the employee, so far civilized that he will know it is impossible and undesirable for him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his employer. we may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. altruism is nonsense, craziness. _question_. is chicago as liberal, intellectually, as new york? _answer_. i think so. of course you will find thousands of free, thoughtful people in new york--people who think and want others to do the same. so, there are thousands of respectable people who are centuries behind the age. in other words, you will find all kinds. i presume the same is true of chicago. i find many liberal people here, and some not quite so liberal. some of the papers here seem to be edited by real pious men. on last tuesday the _times-herald_ asked pardon of its readers for having given a report of my lecture. that editor must be pious. in the same paper, columns were given to the prospective prize- fight at carson city. all the news about the good corbett and the orthodox fitzsimmons--about the training of the gentlemen who are going to attack each others' jugulars and noses; who are expected to break jaws, blacken eyes, and peel foreheads in a few days, to settle the question of which can bear the most pounding. in this great contest and in all its vulgar details, the readers of the _times-herald_ are believed by the editor of that religious daily to take great interest. the editor did not ask the pardon of his readers for giving so much space to the nose-smashing sport. no! he knew that would fill their souls with delight, and, so knowing, he reached the correct conclusion that such people would not enjoy anything i had said. the editor did a wise thing and catered to a large majority of his readers. i do not think that we have as religious a daily paper in new york as the _times-herald_. so the editor of the _times- herald_ took the ground that men with little learning, in youth, might be agnostic, but as they grew sensible they would become orthodox. when he wrote that he was probably thinking of humboldt and darwin, of huxley and haeckel. may be herbert spencer was in his mind, but i think that he must have been thinking of a few boys in his native village. _question_. what do you think about prize-fighting anyway? _answer_. well, i think that prize-fighting is worse, if possible, than revival meetings. next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old roman days, i think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and degrading of exhibitions. all fights, whether cock- fights, bull-fights or pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. no matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are simply savages. under no possible circumstances would i witness a prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. the marquis of queensbury was once at my house, and i found his opinions were the same as mine. everyone thinks that he had something to do with the sport of prize-fighting, but he did not, except to make some rules once for a college boxing contest. he told me that he never saw but one prize-fight in his life, and that it made him sick. _question_. how are you on the arbitration treaty? _answer_. i am for it with all my heart. i have read it, and read it with care, and to me it seems absolutely fair. england and america should set an example to the world. the english-speaking people have reason enough and sense enough, i hope, to settle their differences by argument--by reason. let us get the wild beast out of us. two great nations like england and america appealing to force, arguing with shot and shell! what is education worth? is what we call civilization a sham? yes, i believe in peace, in arbitration, in settling disputes like reasonable, human beings. all that war can do is to determine who is the stronger. it throws no light on any question, addresses no argument. there is a point to a bayonet, but no logic. after the war is over the victory does not tell which nation was right. civilized men take their differences to courts or arbitrators. civilized nations should do the same. there ought to be an international court. let every man do all he can to prevent war--to prevent the waste, the cruelties, the horrors that follow every flag on every field of battle. it is time that man was human--time that the beast was out of his heart. _question_. what do you think of mckinley's inaugural? _answer_. it is good, honest, clear, patriotic and sensible. there is one thing in it that touched me; i agree with him that lynching has to be stopped. you see that now we are citizens of the united states, not simply of the state in which we happen to live. i take the ground that it is the business of the united states to protect its citizens, not only when they are in some other country, but when they are at home. the united states cannot discharge this obligation by allowing the states to do as they please. where citizens are being lynched the government should interfere. if the governor of some barbarian state says that he cannot protect the lives of citizens, then the united states should, if it took the entire army and navy. _question_. what is your opinion of charity organizations? _answer_. i think that the people who support them are good and generous--splendid--but i have a poor opinion of the people in charge. as a rule, i think they are cold, impudent and heartless. there is too much circumlocution, or too many details and too little humanity. the jews are exceedingly charitable. i think that in new york the men who are doing the most for their fellow-men are jews. nathan strauss is trying to feed the hungry, warm the cold, and clothe the naked. for the most part, organized charities are, i think, failures. a real charity has to be in the control of a good man, a real sympathetic, a sensible man, one who helps others to help themselves. let a hungry man go to an organized society and it requires several days to satisfy the officers that the man is hungry. meanwhile he will probably starve to death. _question_. do you believe in free text-books in the public schools? _answer_. i do not care about the text-book question. but i am in favor of the public school. nothing should be taught that somebody does not know. no superstitions--nothing but science. _question_. there has been a good deal said lately about your suicide theology, colonel. do you still believe that suicide is justifiable? _answer_. certainly. when a man is useless to himself and to others he has a right to determine what he will do about living. the only thing to be considered is a man's obligation to his fellow- beings and to himself. i don't take into consideration any supernatural nonsense. if god wants a man to stay here he ought to make it more comfortable for him. _question_. since you expounded your justification of suicide, colonel, i believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at your door? _answer_. oh, yes. every suicide that has happened since that time has been charged to me. i don't know how the people account for the suicides before my time. i have not yet heard of my being charged with the death of cato, but that may yet come to pass. i was reading the other day that the rate of suicide in germany is increasing. i suppose my article has been translated into german. _question_. how about lying, colonel? is it ever right to lie? _answer_. of course, sometimes. in war when a man is captured by the enemy he ought to lie to them to mislead them. what we call strategy is nothing more than lies. for the accomplishment of a good end, for instance, the saving of a woman's reputation, it is many times perfectly right to lie. as a rule, people ought to tell the truth. if it is right to kill a man to save your own life it certainly ought to be right to fool him for the same purpose. i would rather be deceived than killed, wouldn't you? --_the inter-ocean_, chicago, illinois, march, . a visit to shaw's garden. _question_. i was told that you came to st. louis on your wedding trip some thirty years ago and went to shaw's garden? _answer_. yes; we were married on the th of february, . we were here in st. louis, and we did visit shaw's garden, and we thought it perfectly beautiful. afterward we visited the kew gardens in london, but our remembrance of shaw's left kew in the shade. of course, i have been in st. louis many times, my first visit being, i think, in . i have always liked the town. i was acquainted at one time with a great many of your old citizens. most of them have died, and i know but few of the present generation. i used to stop at the old planter's house, and i was there quite often during the war. in those days i saw hackett as falstaff, the best falstaff that ever lived. ben de bar was here then, and the maddern sisters, and now the daughter of one of the sisters, minnie maddern fiske, is one of the greatest actresses in the world. she has made a wonderful hit in new york this season. and so the ebb and flow of life goes on--the old pass and the young arrive. "death and progress!" it may be that death is, after all, a great blessing. maybe it gives zest and flavor to life, ardor and flame to love. at the same time i say, "long life" to all my friends. i want to live--i get great happiness out of life. i enjoy the company of my friends. i enjoy seeing the faces of the ones i love. i enjoy art and music. i love shakespeare and burns; love to hear the music of wagner; love to see a good play. i take pleasure in eating and sleeping. the fact is, i like to breathe. i want to get all the happiness out of life that i can. i want to suck the orange dry, so that when death comes nothing but the peelings will be left, and so i say: "long life!" --_the republic_, st. louis, april , . the venezuelan boundary discussion and the whipping-post. _question_. what is your opinion as to the action of the president on the venezuelan matter? _answer_. in my judgment, the president acted in haste and without thought. it may be said that it would have been well enough for him to have laid the correspondence before congress and asked for an appropriation for a commission to ascertain the facts, to the end that our government might intelligently act. there was no propriety in going further than that. to almost declare war before the facts were known was a blunder--almost a crime. for my part, i do not think the monroe doctrine has anything to do with the case. mr. olney reasons badly, and it is only by a perversion of facts, and an exaggeration of facts, and by calling in question the motives of england that it is possible to conclude that the monroe doctrine has or can have anything to do with the controversy. the president went out of his way to find a cause of quarrel. nobody doubts the courage of the american people, and we for that reason can afford to be sensible and prudent. valor and discretion should go together. nobody doubts the courage of england. america and england are the leading nations, and in their keeping, to a great extent, is the glory of the future. they should be at peace. should a difference arise it should be settled without recourse to war. fighting settles nothing but the relative strength. no light is thrown on the cause of the conflict--on the question or fact that caused the war. _question_. do you think that there is any danger of war? _answer_. if the members of congress really represent the people, then there is danger. but i do not believe the people will really want to fight about a few square miles of malarial territory in venezuela--something in which they have no earthly or heavenly interest. the people do not wish to fight for fight's sake. when they understand the question they will regard the administration as almost insane. the message has already cost us more than the war of or the mexican war, or both. stocks and bonds have decreased in value several hundred millions, and the end is not yet. it may be that it will, on account of the panic, be impossible for the government to maintain the gold standard--the reserve. then gold would command a premium, the government would be unable to redeem the greenbacks, and the result would be financial chaos, and all this the result of mr. cleveland's curiosity about a boundary line between two countries, in neither of which we have any interest, and this curiosity has already cost us more than both countries, including the boundary line, are worth. the president made a great mistake. so did the house and senate, and the poor people have paid a part of the cost. _question_. what is your opinion of the gerry whipping post bill? _answer_. i see that it has passed the senate, and yet i think it is a disgrace to the state. how the senators can go back to torture, to the dark ages, to the custom of savagery, is beyond belief. i hope that the house is nearer civilized, and that the infamous bill will be defeated. if, however, the bill should pass, then i hope governor morton will veto it. nothing is more disgusting, more degrading, than the whipping-post. it degrades the whipped and the whipper. it degrades all who witness the flogging. what kind of a person will do the whipping? men who would apply the lash to the naked backs of criminals would have to be as low as the criminals, and probably a little lower. the shadow of the whipping-post does not fall on any civilized country, and never will. the next thing we know mr. gerry will probably introduce some bill to brand criminals on the forehead or cut off their ears and slit their noses. this is in the same line, and is born of the same hellish spirit. there is no reforming power in torture, in bruising and mangling the flesh. if the bill becomes a law, i hope it will provide that the lash shall be applied by mr. gerry and his successors in office. let these pretended enemies of cruelty enjoy themselves. if the bill passes, i presume mr. gerry could get a supply of knouts from russia, as that country has just abolished the whipping-post. --_the journal_, new york, december , . colonel shepard's stage horses.* [* one of colonel shepard's equine wrecks was picked up on fifth avenue yesterday by the prevention of cruelty society, and was laid up for repairs. the horse was about twenty- eight years old, badly foundered, and its leg was cut and bleeding. it was the leader of three that had been hauling a fifth avenue stage, and, according to the society's agents, was in about as bad a condition as a horse could be and keep on his feet. the other two horses were little better, neither of them being fit to drive. colonel shepard's scrawny nags have long been an eyesore to colonel robert g. ingersoll, who is compelled to see them from his windows at number fifth avenue. he said last night:] it might not be in good taste for me to say anything about colonel shepard's horses. he might think me prejudiced. but i am satisfied horses cannot live on faith or on the substance of things hoped for. it is far better for the horse, to feed him without praying, than to pray without feeding him. it is better to be kind even to animals, than to quote scripture in small capitals. now, i am not saying anything against colonel shepard. i do not know how he feeds his horses. if he is as good and kind as he is pious, then i have nothing to say. maybe he does not allow the horses to break the sabbath by eating. they are so slow that they make one think of a fast. they put me in mind of the garden of eden--the rib story. when i watch them on the avenue i, too, fall to quoting scripture, and say, "can these dry bones live?" still, i have a delicacy on this subject; i hate to think about it, and i think the horses feel the same way. --_morning advertiser_, new york, january , . a reply to the rev. l. a. banks. _question_. have you read the remarks made about you by the rev. mr. banks, and what do you think of what he said? _answer_. the reverend gentleman pays me a great compliment by comparing me to a circus. everybody enjoys the circus. they love to see the acrobats, the walkers on the tight rope, the beautiful girls on the horses, and they laugh at the wit of the clowns. they are delighted with the jugglers, with the music of the band. they drink the lemonade, eat the colored popcorn and laugh until they nearly roll off their seats. now the circus has a few animals so that christians can have an excuse for going. think of the joy the circus gives to the boys and girls. they look at the show bills, see the men and women flying through the air, bursting through paper hoops, the elephants standing on their heads, and the clowns, in curious clothes, with hands on their knees and open mouths, supposed to be filled with laughter. all the boys and girls for many miles around know the blessed day. they save their money, obey their parents, and when the circus comes they are on hand. they see the procession and then they see the show. they are all happy. no sermon ever pleased them as much, and in comparison even the sunday school is tame and dull. to feel that i have given as much joy as the circus fills me with pleasure. what chance would the rev. dr. banks stand against a circus? the reverend gentleman has done me a great honor, and i tender him my sincere thanks. _question_. dr. banks says that you write only one lecture a year, while preachers write a brand new one every week--that if you did that people would tire of you. what have you to say to that? _answer_. it may be that great artists paint only one picture a year, and it may be that sign painters can do several jobs a day. still, i would not say that the sign painters were superior to the artists. there is quite a difference between a sculptor and a stone-cutter. there are thousands of preachers and thousands and thousands of sermons preached every year. has any orthodox minister in the year given just one paragraph to literature? has any orthodox preacher uttered one great thought, clothed in perfect english that thrilled the hearers like music--one great strophe that became one of the treasures of memory? i will make the question a little clearer. has any orthodox preacher, or any preacher in an orthodox pulpit uttered a paragraph of what may be called sculptured speech since henry ward beecher died? i do not wonder that the sermons are poor. their doctrines have been discussed for centuries. there is little chance for originality; they not only thresh old straw, but the thresh straw that has been threshed a million times--straw in which there has not been a grain of wheat for hundreds of years. no wonder that they have nervous prostration. no wonder that they need vacations, and no wonder that their congregations enjoy the vacations as keenly as the ministers themselves. better deliver a real good address fifty-two times than fifty-two poor ones--just for the sake of variety. _question_. dr. banks says that the tendency at present is not toward agnosticism, but toward christianity. what is your opinion? _answer_. when i was a boy "infidels" were very rare. a man who denied the inspiration of the bible was regarded as a monster. now there are in this country millions who regard the bible as the work of ignorant and superstitious men. a few years ago the bible was the standard. all scientific theories were tested by the bible. now science is the standard and the bible is tested by that. dr. banks did not mention the names of the great scientists who are or were christians, but he probably thought of laplace, humboldt, haeckel, huxley, spencer, tyndall, darwin, helmholtz and draper. when he spoke of christian statesmen he likely thought of jefferson, franklin, washington, paine and lincoln--or he may have thought of pierce, fillmore and buchanan. but, after all, there is no argument in names. a man is not necessarily great because he holds office or wears a crown or talks in a pulpit. facts, reasons, are better than names. but it seems to me that nothing can be plainer than that the church is losing ground--that the people are discarding the creeds and that superstition has passed the zenith of its power. _question_. dr. banks says that christ did not mention the western hemisphere because god does nothing for men that they can do for themselves. what have you to say? _answer_. christ said nothing about the western hemisphere because he did not know that it existed. he did not know the shape of the earth. he was not a scientist--never even hinted at any science-- never told anybody to investigate--to think. his idea was that this life should be spent in preparing for the next. for all the evils of this life, and the next, faith was his remedy. i see from the report in the paper that dr. banks, after making the remarks about me preached a sermon on "herod the villain in the drama of christ." who made herod? dr. banks will answer that god made him. did god know what herod would do? yes. did he know that he would cause the children to be slaughtered in his vain efforts to kill the infant christ? yes. dr. banks will say that god is not responsible for herod because he gave herod freedom. did god know how herod would use his freedom? did he know that he would become the villain in the drama of christ? yes. who, then, is really responsible for the acts of herod? if i could change a stone into a human being, and if i could give this being freedom of will, and if i knew that if i made him he would murder a man, and if with that knowledge i made him, and he did commit a murder, who would be the real murderer? will dr. banks in his fifty-two sermons of next year show that his god is not responsible for the crimes of herod? no doubt dr. banks is a good man, and no doubt he thinks that liberty of thought leads to hell, and honestly believes that all doubt comes from the devil. i do not blame him. he thinks as he must. he is a product of conditions. he ought to be my friend because i am doing the best i can to civilize his congregation. --_the plain dealer_, cleveland, ohio, . cuba--zola and theosophy. _question_. what do you think, colonel, of the cuban question? _answer_. what i know about this question is known by all. i suppose that the president has information that i know nothing about. of course, all my sympathies are with the cubans. they are making a desperate--an heroic struggle for their freedom. for many years they have been robbed and trampled under foot. spain is, and always has been, a terrible master--heartless and infamous. there is no language with which to tell what cuba has suffered. in my judgment, this country should assist the cubans. we ought to acknowledge the independence of that island, and we ought to feed the starving victims of spain. for years we have been helping spain. cleveland did all he could to prevent the cubans from getting arms and men. this was a criminal mistake--a mistake that even spain did not appreciate. all this should instantly be reversed, and we should give aid to cuba. the war that spain is waging shocks every civilized man. spain has always been the same. in holland, in peru, in mexico, she was infinitely cruel, and she is the same to-day. she loves to torture, to imprison, to degrade, to kill. her idea of perfect happiness is to shed blood. spain is a legacy of the dark ages. she belongs to the den, the cave period. she has no business to exist. she is a blot, a stain on the map of the world. of course there are some good spaniards, but they are not in control. i want cuba to be free. i want spain driven from the western world. she has already starved five hundred thousand cubans--poor, helpless non-combatants. among the helpless she is like a hyena--a tiger among lambs. this country ought to stop this gigantic crime. we should do this in the name of humanity--for the sake of the starving, the dying. _question_. do you think we are going to have war with spain? _answer_. i do not think there will be war. unless spain is insane, she will not attack the united states. she is bankrupt. no nation will assist her. a civilized nation would be ashamed to take her hand, to be her friend. she has not the power to put down the rebellion in cuba. how then can she hope to conquer this country? she is full of brag and bluster. of course she will play her hand for all it is worth, so far as talk goes. she will double her fists and make motions. she will assume the attitude of war, but she will never fight. should she commence hostilities, the war would be short. she would lose her navy. the little commerce she has would be driven from the sea. she would drink to the dregs the cup of humiliation and disgrace. i do not believe that spain is insane enough to fire upon our flag. i know that there is nothing too mean, too cruel for her to do, but still she must have sense enough to try and save her own life. no, i think there will be no war, but i believe that cuba will be free. my opinion is that the maine was blown up from the outside--blown up by spanish officers, and i think the report of the board will be to that effect. such a crime ought to redden even the cheeks of spain. as soon as this fact is known, other nations will regard spain with hatred and horror. if the maine was destroyed by spain we will ask for indemnity. the people insist that the account be settled and at once. possibly we may attack spain. there is the only danger of war. we must avenge that crime. the destruction of two hundred and fifty-nine americans must be avenged. free cuba must be their monument. i hope for the sake of human nature that the spanish did not destroy the maine. i hope it was the result of an accident. i hope there is to be no war, but spain must be driven from the new world. _question_. what about zola's trial and conviction? _answer_. it was one of the most infamous trials in the history of the world. zola is a great man, a genius, the best man in france. his trial was a travesty on justice. the judge acted like a bandit. the proceedings were a disgrace to human nature. the jurors must have been ignorant beasts. the french have disgraced themselves. long live zola. _question_. having expressed yourself less upon the subject of theosophy than upon other religious beliefs, and as theosophy denies the existence of a god as worshiped by christianity, what is your idea of the creed? _answer_. insanity. i think it is a mild form of delusion and illusion; vague, misty, obscure, half dream, mixed with other mistakes and fragments of facts--a little philosophy, absurdity-- a few impossibilities--some improbabilities--some accounts of events that never happened--some prophecies that will not come to pass-- a structure without foundation. but the theosophists are good people; kind and honest. theosophy is based on the supernatural and is just as absurd as the orthodox creeds. --_the courier-journal_, louisville, ky., february, . how to become an orator. _question_. what advice would you give to a young man who was ambitious to become a successful public speaker or orator? _answer_. in the first place, i would advise him to have something to say--something worth saying--something that people would be glad to hear. this is the important thing. back of the art of speaking must be the power to think. without thoughts words are empty purses. most people imagine that almost any words uttered in a loud voice and accompanied by appropriate gestures, constitute an oration. i would advise the young man to study his subject, to find what others had thought, to look at it from all sides. then i would tell him to write out his thoughts or to arrange them in his mind, so that he would know exactly what he was going to say. waste no time on the how until you are satisfied with the what. after you know what you are to say, then you can think of how it should be said. then you can think about tone, emphasis, and gesture; but if you really understand what you say, emphasis, tone, and gesture will take care of themselves. all these should come from the inside. they should be in perfect harmony with the feelings. voice and gesture should be governed by the emotions. they should unconsciously be in perfect agreement with the sentiments. the orator should be true to his subject, should avoid any reference to himself. the great column of his argument should be unbroken. he can adorn it with vines and flowers, but they should not be in such profusion as to hide the column. he should give variety of episode by illustrations, but they should be used only for the purpose of adding strength to the argument. the man who wishes to become an orator should study language. he should know the deeper meaning of words. he should understand the vigor and velocity of verbs and the color of adjectives. he should know how to sketch a scene, to paint a picture, to give life and action. he should be a poet and a dramatist, a painter and an actor. he should cultivate his imagination. he should become familiar with the great poetry and fiction, with splendid and heroic deeds. he should be a student of shakespeare. he should read and devour the great plays. from shakespeare he could learn the art of expression, of compression, and all the secrets of the head and heart. the great orator is full of variety--of surprises. like a juggler, he keeps the colored balls in the air. he expresses himself in pictures. his speech is a panorama. by continued change he holds the attention. the interest does not flag. he does not allow himself to be anticipated. a picture is shown but once. so, an orator should avoid the commonplace. there should be no stuffing, no filling. he should put no cotton with his silk, no common metals with his gold. he should remember that "gilded dust is not as good as dusted gold." the great orator is honest, sincere. he does not pretend. his brain and heart go together. every drop of his blood is convinced. nothing is forced. he knows exactly what he wishes to do--knows when he has finished it, and stops. only a great orator knows when and how to close. most speakers go on after they are through. they are satisfied only with a "lame and impotent conclusion." most speakers lack variety. they travel a straight and dusty road. the great orator is full of episode. he convinces and charms by indirection. he leaves the road, visits the fields, wanders in the woods, listens to the murmurs of springs, the songs of birds. he gathers flowers, scales the crags and comes back to the highway refreshed, invigorated. he does not move in a straight line. he wanders and winds like a stream. of course, no one can tell a man what to do to become an orator. the great orator has that wonderful thing called presence. he has that strange something known as magnetism. he must have a flexible, musical voice, capable of expressing the pathetic, the humorous, the heroic. his body must move in unison with his thought. he must be a reasoner, a logician. he must have a keen sense of humor --of the laughable. he must have wit, sharp and quick. he must have sympathy. his smiles should be the neighbors of his tears. he must have imagination. he should give eagles to the air, and painted moths should flutter in the sunlight. while i cannot tell a man what to do to become an orator, i can tell him a few things not to do. there should be no introduction to an oration. the orator should commence with his subject. there should be no prelude, no flourish, no apology, no explanation. he should say nothing about himself. like a sculptor, he stands by his block of stone. every stroke is for a purpose. as he works the form begins to appear. when the statue is finished the workman stops. nothing is more difficult than a perfect close. few poems, few pieces of music, few novels end well. a good story, a great speech, a perfect poem should end just at the proper point. the bud, the blossom, the fruit. no delay. a great speech is a crystallization in its logic, an efflorescence in its poetry. i have not heard many speeches. most of the great speakers in our country were before my time. i heard beecher, and he was an orator. he had imagination, humor and intensity. his brain was as fertile as the valleys of the tropics. he was too broad, too philosophic, too poetic for the pulpit. now and then, he broke the fetters of his creed, escaped from his orthodox prison, and became sublime. theodore parker was an orator. he preached great sermons. his sermons on "old age" and "webster," and his address on "liberty" were filled with great thoughts, marvelously expressed. when he dealt with human events, with realities, with things he knew, he was superb. when he spoke of freedom, of duty, of living to the ideal, of mental integrity, he seemed inspired. webster i never heard. he had great qualities; force, dignity, clearness, grandeur; but, after all, he worshiped the past. he kept his back to the sunrise. there was no dawn in his brain. he was not creative. he had no spirit of prophecy. he lighted no torch. he was not true to his ideal. he talked sometimes as though his head was among the stars, but he stood in the gutter. in the name of religion he tried to break the will of stephen girard--to destroy the greatest charity in all the world; and in the name of the same religion he defended the fugitive slave law. his purpose was the same in both cases. he wanted office. yet he uttered a few very great paragraphs, rich with thought, perfectly expressed. clay i never heard, but he must have had a commanding presence, a chivalric bearing, an heroic voice. he cared little for the past. he was a natural leader, a wonderful talker--forcible, persuasive, convincing. he was not a poet, not a master of metaphor, but he was practical. he kept in view the end to be accomplished. he was the opposite of webster. clay was the morning, webster the evening. clay had large views, a wide horizon. he was ample, vigorous, and a little tyrannical. benton was thoroughly commonplace. he never uttered an inspired word. he was an intense egoist. no subject was great enough to make him forget himself. calhoun was a political calvinist--narrow, logical, dogmatic. he was not an orator. he delivered essays, not orations. i think it was in that kossuth visited this country. he was an orator. there was no man, at that time, under our flag, who could speak english as well as he. in the first speech i read of kossuth's was this line: "russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks." in this you see the poet, the painter, the orator. s. s. prentiss was an orator, but, with the recklessness of a gamester, he threw his life away. he said profound and beautiful things, but he lacked application. he was uneven, disproportioned, saying ordinary things on great occasions, and now and then, without the slightest provocation, uttering the sublimest and most beautiful thoughts. in my judgment, corwin was the greatest orator of them all. he had more arrows in his quiver. he had genius. he was full of humor, pathos, wit, and logic. he was an actor. his body talked. his meaning was in his eyes and lips. gov. o. p. morton of indiana had the greatest power of statement of any man i ever heard. all the argument was in his statement. the facts were perfectly grouped. the conclusion was a necessity. the best political speech i ever heard was made by gov. richard j. oglesby of illinois. it had every element of greatness--reason, humor, wit, pathos, imagination, and perfect naturalness. that was in the grand years, long ago. lincoln had reason, wonderful humor, and wit, but his presence was not good. his voice was poor, his gestures awkward--but his thoughts were profound. his speech at gettysburg is one of the masterpieces of the world. the word "here" is used four or five times too often. leave the "heres" out, and the speech is perfect. of course, i have heard a great many talkers, but orators are few and far between. they are produced by victorious nations--born in the midst of great events, of marvelous achievements. they utter the thoughts, the aspirations of their age. they clothe the children of the people in the gorgeous robes of giants. the interpret the dreams. with the poets, they prophesy. they fill the future with heroic forms, with lofty deeds. they keep their faces toward the dawn--toward the ever-coming day. --_new york sun_, april, . john russell young and expansion. _question_. you knew john russell young, colonel? _answer_. yes, i knew him well and we were friends for many years. he was a wonderfully intelligent man--knew something about everything, had read most books worth reading. he was one of the truest friends. he had a genius for friendship. he never failed to do a favor when he could, and he never forgot a favor. he had the genius of gratitude. his mind was keen, smooth, clear, and he really loved to think. i had the greatest admiration for his character and i was shocked when i read of his death. i did not know that he had been ill. all my heart goes out to his wife--a lovely woman, now left alone with her boy. after all, life is a fearful thing at best. the brighter the sunshine the deeper the shadow. _question_. are you in favor of expansion? _answer_. yes, i have always wanted more--i love to see the republic grow. i wanted the sandwich islands, wanted porto rico, and i want cuba if the cubans want us. i want the philippines if the filipinos want us--i do not want to conquer and enslave those people. the war on the filipinos is a great mistake--a blunder--almost a crime. if the president had declared his policy, then, if his policy was right, there was no need of war. the president should have told the filipinos just exactly what he wanted. it is a small business, after dewey covered manila bay with glory, to murder a lot of half- armed savages. we had no right to buy, because spain had no right to sell the philippines. we acquired no rights on those islands by whipping spain. _question_. do you think the president should have stated his policy in boston the other day? _answer_. yes, i think it would be better if he would unpack his little budget--i like mckinley, but i liked him just as well before he was president. he is a good man, not because he is president, but because he is a man--you know that real honor must be earned-- people cannot give honor--honor is not alms--it is wages. so, when a man is elected president the best thing he can do is to remain a natural man. yes, i wish mckinley would brush all his advisers to one side and say his say; i believe his say would be right. now, don't change this interview and make me say something mean about mckinley, because i like him. the other day, in chicago, i had an interview and i wrote it out. in that "interview" i said a few things about the position of senator hoar. i tried to show that he was wrong--but i took pains to express by admiration for senator hoar. when the interview was published i was made to say that senator hoar was a mud-head. i never said or thought anything of the kind. don't treat me as that chicago reporter did. _question_. what do you think of atkinson's speech? _answer_. well, some of it is good--but i never want to see the soldiers of the republic whipped. i am always on our side. --_the press_, philadelphia, february , . psychical research and the bible.* [* as an incident in the life of any one favored with the privilege, a visit to the home of col. robert g. ingersoll is certain to be recalled as a most pleasant and profitable experience. although not a sympathizer with the great agnostic's religious views, yet i have long admired his ability, his humor, his intellectual honesty and courage. and it was with gratification that i accepted the good offices of a common friend who recently offered to introduce me to the ingersoll domestic circle in gramercy park. here i found the genial colonel, surrounded by his children, his grandchildren, and his amiable wife, whose smiling greeting dispelled formality and breathed "welcome" in every syllable. the family relationship seemed absolutely ideal-- the very walls emitting an atmosphere of art and music, of contentment and companionship, of mutual trust, happiness and generosity. but my chief desire was to elicit colonel ingersoll's personal views on questions related to the new thought and its attitude on matters on which he is known to have very decided opinions. my request for a private chat was cordially granted. during the conversation that ensued--(the substance of which is presented to the readers of _mind_ in the following paragraphs, with the colonel's consent)--i was impressed most deeply, not by the force of his arguments, but by the sincerity of his convictions. among some of his more violent opponents, who presumably lack other opportunities of becoming known, it is the fashion to accuse ingersoll of having really no belief in his own opinions. but, if he convinced me of little else, he certainly, without effort, satisfied my mind that this accusation is a slander. utterly mistaken in his views he may be; but if so, his errors are more honest than many of those he points out in the king james version of the bible. if his pulpit enemies could talk with this man by his own fireside, they would pay less attention to ingersoll himself and more to what he says. they would consider his _meaning_, rather than his motive. as the colonel is the most conspicuous denunciator of intolerance and bigotry in america, he has been inevitably the greatest victim of these obstacles to mental freedom. "to answer ingersoll" is the pet ambition of many a young clergyman--the older ones have either acquired prudence or are broad enough to concede the utility of even agnostics in the economy of evolution. it was with the very subject that we began our talk--the uncharitableness of men, otherwise good, in their treatment of those whose religious views differ from their own.] _question_. what is your conception of true intellectual hospitality? as truth can brook no compromises, has it not the same limitations that surround social and domestic hospitality? _answer_. in the republic of mind we are all equals. each one is sceptered and crowned. each one is the monarch of his own realm. by "intellectual hospitality" i mean the right of every one to think and to express his thought. it makes no difference whether his thought is right or wrong. if you are intellectually hospitable you will admit the right of every human being to see for himself; to hear with his own ears, see with his own eyes, and think with his own brain. you will not try to change his thought by force, by persecution, or by slander. you will not threaten him with punishment--here or hereafter. you will give him your thought, your reasons, your facts; and there you will stop. this is intellectual hospitality. you do not give up what you believe to be the truth; you do not compromise. you simply give him the liberty you claim for yourself. the truth is not affected by your opinion or by his. both may be wrong. for many years the church has claimed to have the "truth," and has also insisted that it is the duty of every man to believe it, whether it is reasonable to him or not. this is bigotry in its basest form. every man should be guided by his reason; should be true to himself; should preserve the veracity of his soul. each human being should judge for himself. the man that believes that all men have this right is intellectually hospitable. _question_. in the sharp distinction between theology and religion that is now recognized by many theologians, and in the liberalizing of the church that has marked the last two decades, are not most of your contentions already granted? is not the "lake of fire and brimstone" an obsolete issue? _answer_. there has been in the last few years a great advance. the orthodox creeds have been growing vulgar and cruel. civilized people are shocked at the dogma of eternal pain, and the belief in hell has mostly faded away. the churches have not changed their creeds. they still pretend to believe as they always have--but they have changed their tone. god is now a father--a friend. he is no longer the monster, the savage, described in the bible. he has become somewhat civilized. he no longer claims the right to damn us because he made us. but in spite of all the errors and contradictions, in spite of the cruelties and absurdities found in the scriptures, the churches still insist that the bible is _inspired_. the educated ministers admit that the pentateuch was not written by moses; that the psalms were not written by david; that isaiah was the work of at least three; that daniel was not written until after the prophecies mentioned in that book had been fulfilled; that ecclesiastes was not written until the second century after christ; that solomon's song was not written by solomon; that the book of esther is of no importance; and that no one knows, or pretends to know, who were the authors of kings, samuel, chronicles, or job. and yet these same gentlemen still cling to the dogma of inspiration! it is no longer claimed that the bible is true--but _inspired_. _question_. yet the sacred volume, no matter who wrote it, is a mine of wealth to the student and the philosopher, is it not? would you have us discard it altogether? _answer_. inspiration must be abandoned, and the bible must take its place among the books of the world. it contains some good passages, a little poetry, some good sense, and some kindness; but its philosophy is frightful. in fact, if the book had never existed i think it would have been far better for mankind. it is not enough to give up the bible; that is only the beginning. the _supernatural_ must be given up. it must be admitted that nature has no master; that there never has been any interference from without; that man has received no help from heaven; and that all the prayers that have ever been uttered have died unanswered in the heedless air. the religion of the supernatural has been a curse. we want the religion of usefulness. _question_. but have you no use whatever for prayer--even in the sense of aspiration--or for faith, in the sense of confidence in the ultimate triumph of the right? _answer_. there is a difference between wishing, hoping, believing, and--knowing. we can wish without evidence or probability, and we can wish for the impossible--for what we believe can never be. we cannot hope unless there is in the mind a possibility that the thing hoped for can happen. we can believe only in accordance with evidence, and we know only that which has been demonstrated. i have no use for prayer; but i do a good deal of wishing and hoping. i hope that some time the right will triumph--that truth will gain the victory; but i have no faith in gaining the assistance of any god, or of any supernatural power. i never pray. _question_. however fully materialism, as a philosophy, may accord with the merely human _reason_, is it not wholly antagonistic to the instinctive faculties of the mind? _answer_. human reason is the final arbiter. any system that does not commend itself to the reason must fall. i do not know exactly what you mean by _materialism_. i do not know what matter is. i am satisfied, however, that without matter there can be no force, no life, no thought, no reason. it seems to me that mind is a form of force, and force cannot exist apart from matter. if it is said that god created the universe, then there must have been a time when he commenced to create. if at that time there was nothing in existence but himself, how could he have exerted any force? force cannot be exerted except in opposition to force. if god was the only existence, force could not have been exerted. _question_. but don't you think, colonel, that the materialistic philosophy, even in the light of your own interpretation, is essentially pessimistic? _answer_. i do not consider it so. i believe that the pessimists and the optimists are both right. this is the worst possible world, and this is the best possible world--because it is as it must be. the present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past. _question_. what have you to say concerning the operations of the society for psychical research? do not its facts and conclusions prove, if not immortality, at least the continuity of life beyond the grave? are the millions of spiritualists deluded? _answer_. of course i have heard and read a great deal about the doings of the society; so, i have some knowledge as to what is claimed by spiritualists, by theosophists, and by all other believers in what are called "spiritual manifestations." thousands of wonderful tings have been established by what is called "evidence" --the testimony of good men and women. i have seen things done that i could not explain, both by mediums and magicians. i also know that it is easy to deceive the senses, and that the old saying "that seeing is believing" is subject to many exceptions. i am perfectly satisfied that there is, and can be, no force without matter; that everything that is--all phenomena--all actions and thoughts, all exhibitions of force, have a material basis--that nothing exists,--ever did, or ever will exist, apart from matter. so i am satisfied that no matter ever existed, or ever will, apart from force. we think with the same force with which we walk. for every action and for every thought, we draw upon the store of force that we have gained from air and food. we create no force; we borrow it all. as force cannot exist apart from matter, it must be used _with_ matter. it travels only on material roads. it is impossible to convey a thought to another without the assistance of matter. no one can conceive of the use of one of our senses without substance. no one can conceive of a thought in the absence of the senses. with these conclusions in my mind--in my brain--i have not the slightest confidence in "spiritual manifestations," and do not believe that any message has ever been received from the dead. the testimony that i have heard--that i have read--coming even from men of science--has not the slightest weight with me. i do not pretend to see beyond the grave. i do not say that man is, or is not, immortal. all i say is that there is no evidence that we live again, and no demonstration that we do not. it is better ignorantly to hope than dishonestly to affirm. _question_. and what do you think of the modern development of metaphysics--as expressed outside of the emotional and semi- ecclesiastical schools? i refer especially to the power of mind in the curing of disease--as demonstrated by scores of drugless healers. _answer_. i have no doubt that the condition of the mind has some effect upon the health. the blood, the heart, the lungs answer-- respond to--emotion. there is no mind without body, and the body is affected by thought--by passion, by cheerfulness, by depression. still, i have not the slightest confidence in what is called "mind cure." i do not believe that thought, or any set of ideas, can cure a cancer, or prevent the hair from falling out, or remove a tumor, or even freckles. at the same time, i admit that cheerfulness is good and depression bad. but i have no confidence in what you call "drugless healers." if the stomach is sour, soda is better than thinking. if one is in great pain, opium will beat meditation. i am a believer in what you call "drugs," and when i am sick i send for a physician. i have no confidence in the supernatural. magic is not medicine. _question_. one great object of this movement, is to make religion scientific--an aid to intellectual as well as spiritual progress. is it not thus to be encouraged, and destined to succeed--even though it prove the reality and supremacy of the spirit and the secondary importance of the flesh? _answer_. when religion becomes scientific, it ceases to be religion and becomes science. religion is not intellectual--it is emotional. it does not appeal to the reason. the founder of a religion has always said: "let him that hath ears to hear, hear!" no founder has said: "let him that hath brains to think, think!" besides, we need not trouble ourselves about "spirit" and "flesh." we know that we know of no spirit--without flesh. we have no evidence that spirit ever did or ever will exist apart from flesh. such existence is absolutely inconceivable. if we are going to construct what you call a "religion," it must be founded on observed and known facts. theories, to be of value, must be in accord with all the facts that are known; otherwise they are worthless. we need not try to get back of facts or behind the truth. the _why_ will forever elude us. you cannot move your hand quickly enough to grasp your image back of the mirror. --_mind_, new york, march, . this century's glories. the laurel of the nineteenth century is on darwin's brow. this century has been the greatest of all. the inventions, the discoveries, the victories on the fields of thought, the advances in nearly every direction of human effort are without parallel in human history. in only two directions have the achievements of this century been excelled. the marbles of greece have not been equalled. they still occupy the niches dedicated to perfection. they sculptors of our century stand before the miracles of the greeks in impotent wonder. they cannot even copy. they cannot give the breath of life to stone and make the marble feel and think. the plays of shakespeare have never been approached. he reached the summit, filled the horizon. in the direction of the dramatic, the poetic, the human mind, in my judgment, in shakespeare's plays reached its limit. the field was harvested, all the secrets of the heart were told. the buds of all hopes blossomed, all seas were crossed and all the shores were touched. with these two exceptions, the grecian marbles and the shakespeare plays, the nineteenth century has produced more for the benefit of man than all the centuries of the past. in this century, in one direction, i think the mind has reached the limit. i do not believe the music of wagner will ever be excelled. he changed all passions, longing, memories and aspirations into tones, and with subtle harmonies wove tapestries of sound, whereon were pictured the past and future, the history and prophecy of the human heart. of course copernicus, galileo, newton and kepler laid the foundations of astronomy. it may be that the three laws of kepler mark the highest point in that direction that the mind has reached. in the other centuries there is now and then a peak, but through ours there runs a mountain range with alp on alp--the steamship that has conquered all the seas; the railway, with its steeds of steel with breath of flame, covers the land; the cables and telegraphs, along which lightning is the carrier of thought, have made the nations neighbors and brought the world to every home; the making of paper from wood, the printing presses that made it possible to give the history of the human race each day; the reapers, mowers and threshers that superseded the cradles, scythes and flails; the lighting of streets and houses with gas and incandescent lamps, changing night into day; the invention of matches that made fire the companion of man; the process of making steel, invented by bessemer, saving for the world hundreds of millions a year; the discovery of anesthetics, changing pain to happy dreams and making surgery a science; the spectrum analysis, that told us the secrets of the suns; the telephone, that transports speech, uniting lips and ears; the phonograph, that holds in dots and marks the echoes of our words; the marvelous machines that spin and weave, that manufacture the countless things of use, the marvelous machines, whose wheels and levers seem to think; the discoveries in chemistry, the wave theory of light, the indestructibility of matter and force; the discovery of microbes and bacilli, so that now the plague can be stayed without the assistance of priests. the art of photography became known, the sun became an artist, gave us the faces of our friends, copies of the great paintings and statues, pictures of the world's wonders, and enriched the eyes of poverty with the spoil of travel, the wealth of art. the cell theory was advanced, embryology was studied and science entered the secret house of life. the biologists, guided by fossil forms, followed the paths of life from protoplasm up to man. then came darwin with the "origin of species," "natural selection," and the "survival of the fittest." from his brain there came a flood of light. the old theories grew foolish and absurd. the temple of every science was rebuilt. that which had been called philosophy became childish superstition. the prison doors were opened and millions of convicts, of unconscious slaves, roved with joy over the fenceless fields of freedom. darwin and haeckel and huxley and their fellow-workers filled the night of ignorance with the glittering stars of truth. this is darwin's victory. he gained the greatest victory, the grandest triumph. the laurel of the nineteenth century is on his brow. _question_. how does the literature of to-day compare with that of the first half of the century, in your opinion? _answer_. there is now no poet of laughter and tears, of comedy and pathos, the equal of hood. there is none with the subtle delicacy, the aerial footstep, the flame-like motion of shelley; none with the amplitude, sweep and passion, with the strength and beauty, the courage and royal recklessness of byron. the novelists of our day are not the equals of dickens. in my judgment, dickens wrote the greatest of all novels. "the tale of two cities" is the supreme work of fiction. its philosophy is perfect. the characters stand out like living statues. in its pages you find the blood and flame, the ferocity and self-sacrifice of the french revolution. in the bosom of the vengeance is the heart of the horror. in , north tower, sits one whom sorrow drove beyond the verge, rescued from death by insanity, and we see the spirit of dr. manette tremblingly cross the great gulf that lies between the night of dreams and the blessed day, where things are as they seem, as a tress of golden hair, while on his hands and cheeks fall lucie's blessed tears. the story is filled with lights and shadows, with the tragic and grotesque. while the woman knits, while the heads fall, jerry cruncher gnaws his rusty nails and his poor wife "flops" against his business, and prim miss pross, who in the desperation and terror of love held mme. defarge in her arms and who in the flash and crash found that her burden was dead, is drawn by the hand of a master. and what shall i say of sidney carton? of his last walk? of his last ride, holding the poor girl by the hand? is there a more wonderful character in all the realm of fiction? sidney carton, the perfect lover, going to his death for the love of one who loves another. to me the three greatest novels are "the tale of two cities," by dickens, "les miserables," by hugo, and "ariadne," by ouida. "les miserables" is full of faults and perfections. the tragic is sometimes pushed to the grotesque, but from the depths it brings the pearls of truth. a convict becomes holier than the saint, a prostitute purer than the nun. this book fills the gutter with the glory of heaven, while the waters of the sewer reflect the stars. in "ariadne" you find the aroma of all art. it is a classic dream. and there, too, you find the hot blood of full and ample life. ouida is the greatest living writer of fiction. some of her books i do not like. if you wish to know what ouida really is, read "wanda," "the dog of flanders," "the leaf in a storm." in these you will hear the beating of her heart. most of the novelists of our time write good stories. they are ingenious, the characters are well drawn, but they lack life, energy. they do not appear to act for themselves, impelled by inner force. they seem to be pushed and pulled. the same may be said of the poets. tennyson belongs to the latter half of our century. he was undoubtedly a great writer. he had no flame or storm, no tidal wave, nothing volcanic. he never overflowed the banks. he wrote nothing as intense, as noble and pathetic as the "prisoner of chillon;" nothing as purely poetic as "the skylark;" nothing as perfect as the "grecian urn," and yet he was one of the greatest of poets. viewed from all sides he was far greater than shelley, far nobler than keats. in a few poems shelley reached almost the perfect, but many are weak, feeble, fragmentary, almost meaningless. so keats in three poems reached a great height--in "st. agnes' eve," "the grecian urn," and "the nightingale"--but most of his poetry is insipid, without thought, beauty or sincerity. we have had some poets ourselves. emerson wrote many poetic and philosophic lines. he never violated any rule. he kept his passions under control and generally "kept off the grass." but he uttered some great and splendid truths and sowed countless seeds of suggestion. when we remember that he came of a line of new england preachers we are amazed at the breadth, the depth and the freedom of his thought. walt whitman wrote a few great poems, elemental, natural--poems that seem to be a part of nature, ample as the sky, having the rhythm of the tides, the swing of a planet. whitcomb riley has written poems of hearth and home, of love and labor worthy of robert burns. he is the sweetest, strongest singer in our country and i do not know his equal in any land. but when we compare the literature of the first half of this century with that of the last, we are compelled to say that the last, taken as a whole, is best. think of the volumes that science has given to the world. in the first half of this century, sermons, orthodox sermons, were published and read. now reading sermons is one of the lost habits. taken as a whole, the literature of the latter half of our century is better than the first. i like the essays of prof. clifford. they are so clear, so logical that they are poetic. herbert spencer is not simply instructive, he is charming. he is full of true imagination. he is not the slave of imagination. imagination is his servant. huxley wrote like a trained swordsman. his thrusts were never parried. he had superb courage. he never apologized for having an opinion. there was never on his soul the stain of evasion. he was as candid as the truth. haeckel is a great writer because he reveres a fact, and would not for his life deny or misinterpret one. he tells what he knows with the candor of a child and defends his conclusions like a scientist, a philosopher. he stands next to darwin. coming back to fiction and poetry, i have great admiration for edgar fawcett. there is in his poetry thought, beauty and philosophy. he has the courage of his thought. he knows our language, the energy of verbs, the color of adjectives. he is in the highest sense an artist. _question_. what do you think of hall caine's recent efforts to bring about a closer union between the stage and pulpit? _answer_. of course, i am not certain as to the intentions of mr. caine. i saw "the christian," and it did not seem to me that the author was trying to catch the clergy. there is certainly nothing in the play calculated to please the pulpit. there is a clergyman who is pious and heartless. john storm is the only christian, and he is crazy. when glory accepts him at last, you not only feel, but you know she has acted the fool. the lord in the piece is a dog, and the real gentleman is the chap that runs the music hall. how the play can please the pulpit i do not see. storm's whole career is a failure. his followers turn on him like wild beasts. his religion is a divine and diabolical dream. with him murder is one of the means of salvation. mr. caine has struck christianity a stinging blow between the eyes. he has put two preachers on the stage, one a heartless hypocrite and the other a madman. certainly i am not prejudiced in favor of christianity, and yet i enjoyed the play. if mr. caine says he is trying to bring the stage and the pulpit together, then he is a humorist, with the humor of rabelais. _question_. what do recent exhibitions in this city, of scenes from the life of christ, indicate with regard to the tendencies of modern art? _answer_. nothing. some artists love the sombre, the melancholy, the hopeless. they enjoy painting the bowed form, the tear-filled eyes. to them grief is a festival. there are people who find pleasure in funerals. they love to watch the mourners. the falling clods make music. they love the silence, the heavy odors, the sorrowful hymns and the preacher's remarks. the feelings of such people do not indicate the general trend of the human mind. even a poor artist may hope for success if he represents something in which many millions are deeply interested, around which their emotions cling like vines. a man need not be an orator to make a patriotic speech, a speech that flatters his audience. so, an artist need not be great in order to satisfy, if his subject appeals to the prejudice of those who look at his pictures. i have never seen a good painting of christ. all the christs that i have seen lack strength and character. they look weak and despairing. they are all unhealthy. they have the attitude of apology, the sickly smile of non-resistance. i have never seen an heroic, serene and triumphant christ. to tell the truth, i never saw a great religious picture. they lack sincerity. all the angels look almost idiotic. in their eyes is no thought, only the innocence of ignorance. i think that art is leaving the celestial, the angelic, and is getting in love with the natural, the human. troyon put more genius in the representation of cattle than angelo and raphael did in angels. no picture has been painted of heaven that is as beautiful as a landscape by corot. the aim of art is to represent the realities, the highest and noblest, the most beautiful. the greeks did not try to make men like gods, but they made gods like men. so that great artists of our day go to nature. _question_. is it not strange that, with one exception, the most notable operas written since wagner are by italian composers instead of german? _answer_. for many years german musicians insisted that wagner was not a composer. they declared that he produced only a succession of discordant noises. i account for this by the fact that the music of wagner was not german. his countrymen could not understand it. they had to be educated. there was no orchestra in germany that could really play "tristan and isolde." its eloquence, its pathos, its shoreless passion was beyond them. there is no reason to suppose that germany is to produce another wagner. is england expected to give us another shakespeare? --_the sun_, new york, march , . capital punishment and the whipping-post. _question_. what do you think of governor roosevelt's decision in the case of mrs. place? _answer_. i think the refusal of governor roosevelt to commute the sentence of mrs. place is a disgrace to the state. what a spectacle of man killing a woman--taking a poor, pallid, frightened woman, strapping her to a chair and then arranging the apparatus so she can be shocked to death. many call this a christian country. a good many people who believe in hell would naturally feel it their duty to kill a wretched, insane woman. society has a right to protect itself, but this can be done by imprisonment, and it is more humane to put a criminal in a cell than in a grave. capital punishment degrades and hardens a community and it is a work of savagery. it is savagery. capital punishment does not prevent murder, but sets an example--an example by the state--that is followed by its citizens. the state murders its enemies and the citizen murders his. any punishment that degrades the punished, must necessarily degrade the one inflicting the punishment. no punishment should be inflicted by a human being that could not be inflicted by a gentleman. for instance, take the whipping-post. some people are in favor of flogging because they say that some offences are of such a frightful nature that flogging is the only punishment. they forget that the punishment must be inflicted by somebody, and that somebody is a low and contemptible cur. i understand that john g. shortall, president of the humane society of illinois, has had a bill introduced into the legislature of the state for the establishment of the whipping-post. the shadow of that post would disgrace and darken the whole state. nothing could be more infamous, and yet this man is president of the humane society. now, the question arises, what is humane about this society? certainly not its president. undoubtedly he is sincere. certainly no man would take that position unless he was sincere. nobody deliberately pretends to be bad, but the idea of his being president of the humane society is simply preposterous. with his idea about the whipping-post he might join a society of hyenas for the cultivation of ferocity, for certainly nothing short of that would do justice to his bill. i have too much confidence in the legislators of that state, and maybe my confidence rests in the fact that i do not know them, to think that the passage of such a bill is possible. if it were passed i think i would be justified in using the language of the old marylander, who said, "i have lived in maryland fifty years, but i have never counted them, and my hope is, that god won't." _question_. what did you think of the late joseph medill? _answer_. i was not very well acquainted with mr. medill. i had a good many conversations with him, and i was quite familiar with his work. i regard him as the greatest editor of the northwestern states and i am not sure that there was a greater one in the country. he was one of the builders of the republican party. he was on the right side of the great question of liberty. he was a man of strong likes and i may say dislikes. he never surrendered his personality. the atom called joseph medill was never lost in the aggregation known as the republican party. he was true to that party when it was true to him. as a rule he traveled a road of his own and he never seemed to have any doubt about where the road led. i think that he was an exceedingly useful man. i think the only true religion is usefulness. he was a very strong writer, and when touched by friendship for a man, or a cause, he occasionally wrote very great paragraphs, and paragraphs full of force and most admirably expressed. --_the tribune_, chicago, march , . expansion and trusts.* [* this was colonel ingersoll's last interview.] i am an expansionist. the country has the land hunger and expansion is popular. i want all we can honestly get. but i do not want the philippines unless the filipinos want us, and i feel exactly the same about the cubans. we paid twenty millions of dollars to spain for the philippine islands, and we knew that spain had no title to them. the question with me is not one of trade or convenience; it is a question of right or wrong. i think the best patriot is the man who wants his country to do right. the philippines would be a very valuable possession to us, in view of their proximity to china. but, however desirable they may be, that cuts no figure. we must do right. we must act nobly toward the filipinos, whether we get the islands or not. i would like to see peace between us and the filipinos; peace honorable to both; peace based on reason instead of force. if control had been given to dewey, if miles had been sent to manila, i do not believe that a shot would have been fired at the filipinos, and that they would have welcomed the american flag. _question_. although you are not in favor of taking the philippines by force, how do you regard the administration in its conduct of the war? _answer_. they have made many mistakes at washington, and they are still making many. if it has been decided to conquer the filipinos, then conquer them at once. let the struggle not be drawn out and the drops of blood multiplied. the republican party is being weakened by inaction at the capital. if the war is not ended shortly, the party in power will feel the evil effects at the presidential election. _question_. in what light do you regard the philippines as an addition to the territory of the united states? _answer_. probably in the future, and possibly in the near future, the value of the islands to this country could hardly be calculated. the division of china which is bound to come, will open a market of four hundred millions of people. naturally a possession close to the open doors of the east would be of an almost incalculable value to this country. it might perhaps take a long time to teach the chinese that they need our products. but suppose that the chinese came to look upon wheat in the same light that other people look upon wheat and its product, bread? what an immense amount of grain it would take to feed four hundred million hungry chinamen! the same would be the case with the rest of our products. so you will perhaps agree with me in my view of the immense value of the islands if they could but be obtained by honorable means. _question_. if the democratic party makes anti-imperialism the prominent plank in its platform, what effect will it have on the party's chance for success? _answer_. anti-imperialism, as the democratic battle-cry, would greatly weaken a party already very weak. it is the most unpopular issue of the day. the people want expansion. the country is infected with patriotic enthusiasm. the party that tries to resist the tidal wave will be swept away. anybody who looks can see. let a band at any of the summer resorts or at the suburban breathing spots play a patriotic air. the listeners are electrified, and they rise and off go their hats when "the star-spangled banner" is struck up. imperialism cannot be fought with success. _question_. will the democratic party have a strong issue in its anti-trust cry? _answer_. in my opinion, both parties will nail anti-trust planks in their platforms. but this talk is all bosh with both parties. neither one is honest in its cry against trusts. the one making the more noise in this direction may get the votes of some unthinking persons, but every one who is capable of reading and digesting what he reads, knows full well that the leaders of neither party are sincere and honest in their demonstrations against the trusts. why should the democratic party lay claim to any anti-trust glory? is it not a republican administration that is at present investigating the alleged evils of trusts? --_the north american_, philadelphia, june , . 	attributed to evil spirits�origin of the priesthood�temptation of 	christ�innate ideas�divine interference�special providence�the 	crane and the fish�cancer as a proof of design�matter and 	force�miracle�passing the hat for just one fact�sir william hamilton 	on cause and effect�the phenomena of mind�necessity and free will�the 	dark ages�the originality of repetition�of what use have the gods been 	to man?�paley and design�make good health contagious�periodicity of 	the universe and the commencement of intellectual freedom�lesson of 	the ineffectual attempt to rescue the tomb of christ from the 	mohammedans�the cemetery of the gods�taking away crutches�imperial 	reason 	humboldt. 	( .) 	the universe is governed by law�the self-made man�poverty generally 	an advantage�humboldt's birth-place�his desire for travel�on what 	humboldt's fame depends�his companions and friends�investigations 	in the new world�a picture�subjects of his addresses�victory of the 	church over philosophy�influence of the discovery that the world is 	governed by law�on the term law�copernicus�astronomy�aryabhatta� 	descartes�condition of the world and man when the morning of science 	dawned�reasons for honoring humboldt�the world his monument 	thomas paine. 	( .) 	with his name left out the history of liberty cannot be written�paine's 	origin and condition�his arrival in america with a letter of 	introduction by franklin�condition of the colonies�"common sense"�a 	new nation born�paine the best of political writers�the "crisis"�war 	not to the interest of a trading nation�paine's standing at the close 	of the revolution�close of the eighteenth century in france-the 	"rights of man"�paine prosecuted in england�"the world is my 	country"�elected to the french assembly�votes against the death of 	the king�imprisoned�a look behind the altar�the "age of reason"�his 	argument against the bible as a revelation�christianity of paine's 	day�a blasphemy law in force in maryland�the scotch "kirk"�hanging 	of thomas aikenhead for denying the inspiration of the 	scriptures�"cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants"�science�"he 	died in the land his genius defended," 	individuality. 	( .) 	"his soul was like a star and dwelt apart"�disobedience one of the 	conditions of progress.�magellan�the monarch and the hermit-why 	the church hates a thinker�the argument from grandeur and 	prosperity-travelers and guide-boards�a degrading saying�theological 	education�scotts, henrys and mcknights�the church the great 	robber�corrupting the reason of children�monotony of acquiescence: for 	god's sake, say no�protestant intolerance: luther and calvin�assertion 	of individual independence a step toward infidelity�salute to 	jupiter�the atheistic bug-little religious liberty in america�god in 	the constitution, man out�decision of the supreme court of illinois 	that an unbeliever could not testify in any court�dissimulation�nobody 	in this bed�the dignity of a unit 	heretics and heresies. 	( .) 	liberty, a word without which all other words are vain�the church, the 	bible, and persecution�over the wild waves of war rose and fell 	the banner of jesus christ�highest type of the orthodox 	christian�heretics' tongues and why they should be removed before 	burning�the inquisition established�forms of torture�act of henry 	viii for abolishing diversity of opinion�what a good christian was 	obliged to believe�the church has carried the black flag�for what men 	and women have been burned�john calvin's advent into the 	world�his infamous acts�michael servetus�castalio�spread of 	presbyterianism�indictment of a presbyterian minister in illinois for 	heresy�specifications�the real bible 	the ghosts. 	( .) 	dedication to ebon c. ingersoll�preface�mendacity of the religious 	press�"materialism"�ways of pleasing the ghosts�the idea of 	immortality not born of any book�witchcraft and demon-ology�witch 	trial before sir matthew hale�john wesley a firm believer in 	ghosts�"witch-spots"�lycanthropy�animals tried and convicted�the 	governor of minnesota and the grasshoppers�a papal bull against 	witchcraft�victims of the delusion�sir william blackstone's 	affirmation�trials in belgium�incubi and succubi�a bishop 	personated by the devil�the doctrine that diseases are caused by 	ghosts�treatment�timothy dwight against vaccination�ghosts as 	historians�the language of eden�leibnitz, founder of the science 	of language�cosmas on astronomy�vagaries of kepler and tycho 	brahe�discovery of printing, powder, and america�thanks to the 	inventors�the catholic murderer and the meat�let the ghosts go 	the liberty of man, woman, and child. 	( .) 	liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to 	matter�the history of man a history of slavery�the infidel our 	fathers in the good old time�the iron arguments that christians 	used�instruments of torture�a vision of the inquisition�models of 	man's inventions�weapons, armor, musical instruments, paintings, 	books, skulls�the gentleman in the dug-out�homage to genius and 	intellect�abraham lincoln�what i mean by liberty�the man who cannot 	afford to speak his thought is a certificate of the meanness of the 	community in which he resides�liberty of woman�marriage and the 	family�ornaments the souvenirs of bondage-the story of the garden of 	eden�adami and heva�equality of the sexes-the word "boss"�the cross 	man-the stingy man�wives who are beggars�how to spend money�by 	the tomb of the old napoleon�the woman you love will never grow 	old�liberty of children�when your child tells a lie�disowning 	children�beating your own flesh and blood�make home pleasant�sunday 	when i was a boy�the laugh of a child�the doctrine of eternal 	punishment�jonathan edwards on the happiness of believing husbands 	whose wives are in hell�the liberty of eating and sleeping�water in 	fever�soil and climate necessary to the production of genius�against 	annexing santo domingo�descent of man�conclusion 	about farming in illinois. 	( .) 	to plow is to pray; to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and 	fulfills�the old way of farming�cooking an unknown art-houses, fuel, 	and crops�the farmer's boy�what a farmer should sell�beautifying 	the home�advantages of illinois as a farming state�advantages of the 	farmer over the mechanic�farm life too lonely-on early rising�sleep 	the best doctor�fashion�patriotism and boarding houses�the farmer and 	the railroads�money and confidence�demonetization of silver-area of 	illinois�mortgages and interest�kindness to wives and children�how 	a beefsteak should be cooked�decorations and comfort�let the children 	sleep�old age 	what must we do to be saved? 	( .) 	preface�the synoptic gospels�only mark knew of the necessity of 	belief�three christs described�the jewish gentleman and the piece of 	bacon�who wrote the new testament?�why christ and the apostles wrote 	nothing�infinite respect for the man christ�different feeling for 	the theological christ�saved from what?�chapter on the gospel of 	matthew�what this gospel says we must do to be saved�jesus and the 	children�john calvin and jonathan edwards conceived of as dimpled 	darlings�christ and the man who inquired what good thing he should 	do that he might have eternal life�nothing said about belief�an 	interpolation�chapter on the gospel of mark�the believe or be damned 	passage, and why it was written�the last conversation of christ with 	his disciples�the signs that follow them that believe�chapter on 	the gospel of luke�substantial agreement with matthew and mark�how 	zaccheus achieved salvation�the two thieves on the cross�chapter 	on the gospel of john�the doctrine of regeneration, or the new 	birth�shall we love our enemies while god damns his?�chapter on the 	catholics�communication with heaven through decayed saints�nuns and 	nunneries�penitentiaries of god should be investigated�the 	athanasian creed expounded�the trinity and its members�chapter on the 	episcopalians�origin of the episcopal church�apostolic succession 	an imported article�episcopal creed like the catholic, with a 	few additional absurdities�chapter on the methodists�wesley and 	whitfield�their quarrel about predestination�much preaching for little 	money�adapted to new countries�chapter on the presbyterians�john 	calvin, murderer�meeting between calvin and knox�the infamy of 	calvinism�division in the church�the young presbyterian's resignation 	to the fate of his mother�a frightful, hideous, and hellish 	creed�chapter on the evangelical alliance�jeremy taylor's opinion of 	baptists�orthodoxy not dead�creed of the alliance�total depravity, 	eternal damnation�what do you propose?�the gospel of good-fellowship, 	cheerfulness, health, good living, justice�no forgiveness�god's 	forgiveness does not pay my debt to smith�gospel of liberty, of 	intelligence, of humanity�one world at a time�"upon that rock i 	stand" volume ii.--lectures detailed contents of volume ii. preface. some mistakes of moses. some reasons why orthodoxy. myth and miracle. detailed contents of volume ii. 	 some mistakes of moses. 	( .) 	preface�i. he who endeavors to control the mind by force is a 	tyrant, and he who submits is a slave�all i ask�when a religion 	is founded�freedom for the orthodox clergy�every minister an 	attorney�submission to the orthodox and the dead�bounden duty of 	the ministry�the minister factory at andover�ii. free schools�no 	sectarian sciences�religion and the schools�scientific 	hypocrites�iii. the politicians and the churches�iv. man and woman the 	highest possible titles�belief dependent on surroundings�worship of 	ancestors�blindness necessary to keeping the narrow path�the bible the 	chain that binds�a bible of the middle ages and the awe it inspired�v. 	the pentateuch�moses not the author�belief out of which grew 	religious ceremonies�egypt the source of the information of moses�vi. 	monday�nothing, in the light of raw material�the story of creation 	begun�the same story, substantially, found in the records of babylon, 	egypt, and india�inspiration unnecessary to the truth�usefulness of 	miracles to fit lies to facts�division of darkness and light�vii. 	tuesday�the firmament and some biblical notions about it�laws of 	evaporation unknown to the inspired writer�viii. wednesday�the waters 	gathered into seas�fruit and nothing to eat it�five epochs in the 	organic history of the earth�balance between the total amounts of 	animal and vegetable life�vegetation prior to the appearance of the 	sun�ix. thursday�sun and moon manufactured�magnitude of the solar 	orb�dimensions of some of the planets�moses' guess at the size of sun 	and moon�joshua's control of the heavenly bodies�a hypothesis urged 	by ministers�the theory of "refraction"�rev. henry morey�astronomical 	knowledge of chinese savants�the motion of the earth reversed by 	jehovah for the reassurance of ahaz�"errors" renounced by button�x. 	"he made the stars also"�distance of the nearest star�xi. 	friday�whales and other living creatures produced�xii. 	saturday�reproduction inaugurated�xiii. "let us make man"�human 	beings created in the physical image and likeness of god�inquiry as 	to the process adopted�development of living forms according to 	evolution�how were adam and eve created?�the rib story�age of 	man upon the earth�a statue apparently made before the world�xiv. 	sunday�sacredness of the sabbath destroyed by the theory of vast 	"periods"�reflections on the sabbath�xv. the necessity for a good 	memory�the two accounts of the creation in genesis i and ii�order 	of creation in the first account�order of creation in the second 	account�fastidiousness of adam in the choice of a helpmeet�dr. 	adam clark's commentary�dr. scott's guess�dr. matthew henry's 	admission�the blonde and brunette problem�the result of unbelief and 	the reward of faith�"give him a harp"�xvi. the garden�location of 	eden�the four rivers�the tree of knowledge�andover appealed 	to�xvii. the fall�the serpent�dr. adam clark gives a zoological 	explanation�dr. henry dissents�whence this serpent?�xviii. 	dampness�a race of giants�wickedness of mankind�an ark constructed�a 	universal flood indicated�animals probably admitted to the ark�how did 	they get there?�problem of food and service�a shoreless sea covered 	with innumerable dead�drs. clark and henry on the situation�the ark 	takes ground�new difficulties�noah's sacrifice�the rainbow as a 	memorandum�babylonian, egyptian, and indian legends of a flood�xix. 	bacchus and babel�interest attaching to noah�where did our first 	parents and the serpent acquire a common language?�babel and the 	confusion of tongues�xx. faith in filth�immodesty of biblical 	diction�xxi. the hebrews�god's promises to abraham�the sojourning 	of israel in egypt�marvelous increase�moses and aaron�xxii. 	the plagues�competitive miracle working�defeat of the local 	magicians�xxiii. the flight out of egypt�three million people in a 	desert�destruction of pharaoh ana his host�manna�a superfluity of 	quails�rev. alexander cruden's commentary�hornets as allies of the 	israelites�durability of the clothing of the jewish people�an ointment 	monopoly�consecration of priests�the crime of becoming a mother�the 	ten commandments�medical ideas of jehovah�character of the god of 	the pentateuch�xxiv. confess and avoid�xxv. "inspired" slavery�xxvi. 	"inspired" marriage-xxvii. "inspired" war-xxviii. "inspired" religious 	liberty�xxix. conclusion. 	some reasons why. 	( .) 	i�religion makes enemies�hatred in the name of universal 	benevolence�no respect for the rights of barbarians�literal 	fulfillment of a new testament prophecy�ii. duties to god�can we 	assist god?�an infinite personality an infinite impossibility-ill. 	inspiration�what it really is�indication of clams�multitudinous 	laughter of the sea�horace greeley and the mammoth trees�a landscape 	compared to a table-cloth�the supernatural is the deformed�inspiration 	in the man as well as in the book�our inspired bible�iv. god's 	experiment with the jews�miracles of one religion never astonish the 	priests of another�"i am a liar myself"�v. civilized countries�crimes 	once regarded as divine institutions�what the believer in the 	inspiration of the bible is compelled to say�passages apparently 	written by the devil�vi. a comparison of books�advancing a cannibal 	from missionary to mutton�contrast between the utterances of jehovah 	and those of reputable heathen�epictetus, cicero, zeno, 	seneca�the hindu, antoninus, marcus aurelius�the avesta�vii. 	monotheism�egyptians before moses taught there was but one god 	and married but one wife�persians and hindoos had a single supreme 	deity�rights of roman women�marvels of art achieved without the 	assistance of heaven�probable action of the jewish jehovah incarnated 	as man�viii. the new testament�doctrine of eternal pain brought to 	light�discrepancies�human weaknesses cannot be predicated of 	divine wisdom�why there are four gospels according to irenæus�the 	atonement�remission of sins under the mosaic dispensation�christians 	say, "charge it"�god's forgiveness does not repair an injury�suffering 	of innocence for the guilty�salvation made possible by jehovah's 	failure to civilize the jews�necessity of belief not taught in the 	synoptic gospels�non-resistance the offspring of weakness�ix. christ's 	mission�all the virtues had been taught before his advent�perfect and 	beautiful thoughts of his pagan predecessors�st. paul contrasted 	with heathen writers�"the quality of mercy"�x. eternal pain�an 	illustration of eternal punishment�captain kreuger of the barque 	tiger�xi. civilizing influence of the bible�its effects on the 	jews�if christ was god, did he not, in his crucifixion, reap what 	he had sown?�nothing can add to the misery of a nation whose king is 	jehovah 	orthodoxy. 	( .) 	orthodox religion dying out�religious deaths and births�the religion 	of reciprocity�every language has a cemetery�orthodox institutions 	survive through the money invested in them�"let us tell our real 	names"�the blows that have shattered the shield and shivered the lance 	of superstition�mohammed's successful defence of the sepulchre of 	christ�the destruction of art�the discovery of america�although 	he made it himself, the holy ghost was ignorant of the form of this 	earth�copernicus and kepler�special providence�the man and the ship 	he did not take�a thanksgiving proclamation contradicted�charles 	darwin�henry ward beecher�the creeds�the latest creed�god as 	a governor�the love of god�the fall of man�we are bound 	by representatives without a chance to vote against them�the 	atonement�the doctrine of depravity a libel on the human race�the 	second birth�a unitarian universalist�inspiration of the 	scriptures�god a victim of his own tyranny�in the new testament 	trouble commences at death�the reign of truth and love�the old 	spaniard who died without an enemy�the wars it brought�consolation 	should be denied to murderers�at the rate at which heathen are being 	converted, how long will it take to establish christ's kingdom on 	earth?�the resurrection�the judgment day�pious evasions�"we shall 	not die, but we shall all be hanged"�"no bible, no civilization" 	miracles of the new testament�nothing written by christ or his 	contemporaries�genealogy of jesus�more miracles�a master of 	death�improbable that he would be crucified�the loaves and fishes�how 	did it happen that the miracles convinced so few?�the resurrection�the 	ascension�was the body spiritual�parting from the disciples�casting 	out devils�necessity of belief�god should be consistent in the 	matter of forgiving enemies�eternal punishment�some good men who are 	damned�another objection�love the only bow on life's dark cloud�"now 	is the accepted time"�rather than this doctrine of eternal punishment 	should be true�i would rather that every planet should in its orbit 	wheel a barren star�what i believe�immortality�it existed long before 	moses�consolation�the promises are so far away, and the dead are so 	near�death a wall or a door�a fable�orpheus and eurydice. 	myth and miracle. 	( .) 	i. happiness the true end and aim of life�spiritual people and 	their literature�shakespeare's clowns superior to inspired 	writers�beethoven's sixth symphony preferred to the five books of 	moses�venus of milo more pleasing than the presbyterian creed�ii. 	religions naturally produced�poets the myth-makers�the sleeping 	beauty�orpheus and eurydice�red riding hood�the golden age�elysian 	fields�the flood myth�myths of the seasons�iii. the sun-god�jonah, 	buddha, chrisnna, horus, zoroaster�december th as a birthday of 	gods�christ a sun-god�the cross a symbol of the life to come�when 	nature rocked the cradle of the infant world�iv. difference between 	a myth and a miracle�raising the dead, past and present�miracles 	of jehovah�miracles of christ�everything told except the truth�the 	mistake of the world�v. beginning of investigation�the stars as 	witnesses against superstition�martyrdom of bruno�geology�steam and 	electricity�nature forever the same�persistence of force�cathedral, 	mosque, and joss house have the same foundation�science the 	providence of man�vi. to soften the heart of god�martyrs�the god was 	silent�credulity a vice�develop the imagination�"the skylark" and 	"the daisy"�vii. how are we to civilize the world?�put theology out 	of religion�divorce of church and state�secular education�godless 	schools�viii. the new jerusalem�knowledge of the supernatural 	possessed by savages�beliefs of primitive peoples�science is 	modest�theology arrogant�torque-mada and bruno on the day of 	judgment�ix. poison of superstition in the mother's milk�ability 	of mistakes to take care of themselves�longevity of religious 	lies�mother's religion pleaded by the cannibal�the religion of 	freedom�o liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry volume iii--lectures detailed contents of volume iii. shakespeare robert burns.* abraham lincoln voltaire. liberty in literature. the great infidels.* conclusion. which way? about the holy bible. detailed contents of volume iii. 	 shakespeare 	( .) 	i. the greatest genius of our world�not of supernatural origin or 	of royal blood�illiteracy of his parents�education�his father�his 	mother a great woman�stratford unconscious of the immortal 	child�social position of shakespeare�of his personal 	peculiarities�birth, marriage, and death�what we know of him�no line 	written by him to be found�the absurd epitaph�ii. contemporaries 	by whom he was mentioned�iii. no direct mention of any of his 	contemporaries in the plays�events and personages of his time�iv. 	position of the actor in shakespeare's time�fortunately he was not 	educated at oxford�an idealist�his indifference to stage-carpentry 	and plot�he belonged to all lands�knew the brain and heart of man�an 	intellectual spendthrift�v. the baconian theory�vi. dramatists before 	and during the time of shakespeare�dramatic incidents illustrated in 	passages from "macbeth" and "julius cæsar"�vii. his use of the work of 	others�the pontic sea�a passage from "lear"�viii. extravagance that 	touches the infinite�the greatest compliment�"let me not live after 	my flame lacks oil"�where pathos almost touches the grotesque�ix. 	an innovator and iconoclast�disregard of the "unities"�nature 	forgets�violation of the classic model�x. types�the secret of 	shakespeare�characters who act from reason and motive�what they say 	not the opinion of shakespeare�xi. the procession that issued from 	shakespeare's brain�his great women�lovable clowns�his men�talent 	and genius�xii. the greatest of all philosophers�master of the 	human heart�love�xiii. in the realm of comparison�xiv. definitions: 	suicide, drama, death, memory, the body, life, echo, the 	world, rumor�the confidant of nature�xv. humor and 	pathos�illustrations�xvi. not a physician, lawyer, or botanist�he was 	a man of imagination�he lived the life of all�the imagination had a 	stage in shakespeare's brain. 	robert burns. 	( .) 	poetry and poets�milton, dante, petrarch�old-time poetry in 	scotland�influence of scenery on literature�lives that are 	poems�birth of burns�early life and education�scotland emerging from 	the gloom of calvinism�a metaphysical peasantry�power of the scotch 	preacher�famous scotch names�john barleycorn vs. calvinism�why robert 	burns is loved�his reading�made goddesses of women�poet of love: his 	"vision," "bonnie doon," "to mary in heaven"�poet of home: 	"cotter's saturday night," "john anderson, my jo"�friendship: "auld 	lang-syne"�scotch drink: "willie brew'd a peck o' maut"�burns the 	artist: the "brook," "tam o'shanter"�a real democrat: "a man's a man 	for a' that"�his theology: the dogma of eternal pain, "morality," 	"hypocrisy," "holy willie's prayer"�on the bible�a statement of his 	religion�contrasted with tennyson�from cradle to coffin�his last 	words�lines on the birth-place of burns. 	abraham lincoln. 	( .) 	i. simultaneous birth of lincoln and darwin�heroes of every 	generation�slavery�principle sacrificed to success�lincoln's 	childhood�his first speech�a candidate for the senate against 	douglass�ii. a crisis in the affairs of the republic�the south not 	alone responsible for slavery�lincoln's prophetic words�nominated for 	president and elected in spite of his fitness�iii. secession and 	civil war�the thought uppermost in his mind�iv. a crisis in the 	north�proposition to purchase the slaves�v. the proclamation of 	emancipation�his letter to horace greeley�waited on by clergymen�vi. 	surrounded by enemies�hostile attitude of gladstone, salisbury, 	louis napoleon, and the vatican�vii. slavery the perpetual 	stumbling-block�confiscation�viii. his letter to a republican 	meeting in illinois�its effect�ix. the power of his personality�the 	embodiment of mercy�use of the pardoning power�x. the vallandigham 	affair�the horace greeley incident�triumphs of humor�xi. promotion of 	general hooker�a prophecy and its fulfillment�xii.�states rights vs. 	territorial integrity�xiii. his military genius�the foremost man in 	all the world: and then the horror came�xiv. strange mingling of mirth 	and tears�deformation of great historic characters�washington now 	only a steel engraving�lincoln not a type�virtues necessary in a 	new country�laws of cultivated society�in the country is the idea 	of home�lincoln always a pupil�a great lawyer�many-sided�wit and 	humor�as an orator�his speech at gettysburg contrasted with the 	oration of edward everett�apologetic in his kindness�no official 	robes�the gentlest memory of our world. 	voltaire. 	( .) 	i. changes wrought by time�throne and altar twin vultures�the king and 	the priest�what is greatness?�effect of voltaire's name on clergyman 	and priest�born and baptized�state of france in �the church 	at the head�efficacy of prayers and dead saints�bells and holy 	water�prevalence of belief in witches, devils, and fiends�seeds of 	the revolution scattered by noble and priest�condition in england�the 	inquisition in full control in spain�portugal and germany burning 	women�italy prostrate beneath the priests, the puritans in america 	persecuting quakers, and stealing children�ii. the days of youth�his 	education�chooses literature as a profession and becomes a diplomat�in 	love and disinherited�unsuccessful poem competition�jansenists 	and molinists�the bull unigenitus�exiled to tulle�sent to the 	bastile�exiled to england�acquaintances made there�iii. the morn 	of manhood�his attention turned to the history of the church�the 	"triumphant beast" attacked�europe filled with the product of his 	brain�what he mocked�the weapon of ridicule�his theology�his 	"retractions"�what goethe said of voltaire�iv. the scheme of 	nature�his belief in the optimism of pope destroyed by the lisbon 	earthquake�v. his humanity�case of jean calas�the sirven family�the 	espenasse case�case of chevalier de la barre and d'etallonde�voltaire 	abandons france�a friend of education�an abolitionist�not 	a saint�vi. the return�his reception�his death�burial at 	romilli-on-the-seine�vii. the death-bed argument�serene demise of 	the infamous�god has no time to defend the good and protect the 	pure�eloquence of the clergy on the death-bed subject�the 	second return�throned upon the bastile�the grave desecrated by 	priests�voltaire. 	a testimonial to walt whitman�let us put wreaths on the brows of the 	living�literary ideals of the american people in �"leaves of 	grass"�its reception by the provincial prudes�the religion of the 	body�appeal to manhood and womanhood�books written for the 	market�the index expurgatorius�whitman a believer in 	democracy�individuality�humanity�an old-time sea-fight�what is 	poetry?�rhyme a hindrance to expression�rhythm the comrade of 	the poetic�whitman's attitude toward religion�philosophy�the two 	poems�"a word out of the sea"�"when lilacs last in the door"�"a chant 	for death"� 	the history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of 	infidels�the king and the priest�the origin of god and heaven, of 	the devil and hell�the idea of hell born of ignorance, brutality, 	cowardice, and revenge�the limitations of our ancestors�the devil 	and god�egotism of barbarians�the doctrine of hell not an exclusive 	possession of christianity�the appeal to the cemetery�religion and 	wealth, christ and poverty�the "great" not on the side of christ and 	his disciples�epitaphs as battle-cries�some great men in favor of 	almost every sect�mistakes and superstitions of eminent men�sacred 	books�the claim that all moral laws came from god through 	the jews�fear�martyrdom�god's ways toward men�the emperor 	constantine�the death test�theological comity between protestants and 	catholics�julian�a childish fable still believed�bruno�his crime, 	his imprisonment and 	liberty in literature. 	( .) 	"old age"�"leaves of grass" 	the great infidels. 	( .) 	martyrdom�the first to die for truth without expectation of reward�the 	church in the time of voltaire�voltaire�diderot�david hume�benedict 	spinoza�our infidels�thomas paine�conclusion. 	which way? 	( .) 	i. the natural and the supernatural�living for the benefit of 	your fellow-man and living for ghosts�the beginning of doubt�two 	philosophies of life�two theories of government�ii. is our god 	superior to the gods of the heathen?�what our god has done�iii. two 	theories about the cause and cure of disease�the first physician�the 	bones of st. anne exhibited in new york�archbishop corrigan and 	cardinal gibbons countenance a theological fraud�a japanese story�the 	monk and the miraculous cures performed by the bones of a donkey 	represented as those of a saint�iv.�two ways of accounting for sacred 	books and religions�v-two theories about morals�nothing miraculous 	about morality�the test of all actions�vi. search for the 	impossible�alchemy�"perpetual motion"�astrology�fountain of perpetual 	youth�vii. "great men" and the superstitions in which they have 	believed�viii. follies and imbecilities of great men�we do not know 	what they thought, only what they said�names of great unbelievers�most 	men controlled by their surroundings�ix. living for god in switzerland, 	scotland, new england�in the dark ages�let us live for man�x. the 	narrow road of superstition�the wide and ample way�let us squeeze the 	orange dry�this was, this is, this shall be. 	about the holy bible. 	( .) 	the truth about the bible ought to be told�i. the origin of the 	bible�establishment of the mosaic code�moses not the author of the 	pentateuch�some old testament books of unknown origin�ii. is the old 	testament inspired?�what an inspired book ought to be�what the bible 	is�admission of orthodox christians that it is not inspired as to 	science�the enemy of art�iii. the ten commandments�omissions and 	redundancies�the story of achan�the story of elisha�the story of 	daniel�the story of joseph�iv. what is it all worth?�not true, and 	contradictory�its myths older than the pentateuch�other accounts 	of the creation, the fall, etc.�books of the old testament named 	and characterized�v. was jehovah a god of love?�vi. jehovah's 	administration�vii. the new testament�many other gospels besides 	our four�disagreements�belief in devils�raising of the dead�other 	miracles�would a real miracle-worker have been crucified?�viii. 	the philosophy of christ�love of 	enemies�improvidence�self-mutilation�the earth as a 	footstool�justice�a bringer of war�division of families�ix. is christ 	our example?�x. why should we place christ at the top and summit of the 	human race?�how did he surpass other teachers?�what he left unsaid, 	and why�inspiration�rejected books of the new testament�the bible and 	the crimes it has caused. volume iv.--lectures detailed contents of volume iv. why i am an agnostic. the truth. how to reform mankind. a thanksgiving sermon. a lay sermon. the foundations of faith. superstition. the devil. progress. what is religion? detailed contents of volume iv. 	 why i am an agnostic. 	( .) 	i. influence of birth in determining religious belief�scotch, irish, 	english, and americans inherit their faith�religions of nations 	not suddenly changed�people who knew�what they were certain 	about�revivals�character of sermons preached�effect of conversion�a 	vermont farmer for whom perdition had no terrors�the man and his 	dog�backsliding and re-birth�ministers who were sincere�a free will 	baptist on the rich man and lazarus�ii. the orthodox god�the 	two dispensations�the infinite horror�iii. religious books�the 	commentators�paley's watch argument�milton, young, and pollok�iv. 	studying astronomy�geology�denial and evasion by the clergy�v. the 	poems of robert burns�byron, shelley, keats, and shakespeare�vi. 	volney, gibbon, and thomas paine�voltaire's services to liberty�pagans 	compared with patriarchs�vii. other gods and other religions�dogmas, 	myths, and symbols of christianity older than our era�viii. the men 	of science, humboldt, darwin, spencer, huxley, haeckel�ix. matter and 	force indestructible and uncreatable�the theory of design�x. god an 	impossible being�the panorama of the past�xi. free from sanctified 	mistakes and holy lies. 	the truth. 	( .) 	i. the martyrdom of man�how is truth to be found�every man should be 	mentally honest�he should be intellectually hospitable�geologists, 	chemists, mechanics, and professional men are seeking for the truth�ii. 	those who say that slavery is better than liberty�promises are not 	evidence�horace greeley and the cold stove�iii. "the science of 	theology" the only dishonest science�moses and brigham young�minds 	poisoned and paralyzed in youth�sunday schools and theological 	seminaries�orthodox slanderers of scientists�religion has nothing 	to do with charity�hospitals built in self-defence�what good has the 	church accomplished?�of what use are the orthodox ministers, and 	what are they doing for the good of mankind�the harm they are 	doing�delusions they teach�truths they should tell about the 	bible�conclusions�our christs and our miracles. 	how to reform mankind. 	( .) 	i. "there is no darkness but ignorance"�false notions concerning 	all departments of life�changed ideas about science, government and 	morals�ii. how can we reform the world?�intellectual light the first 	necessity�avoid waste of wealth in war�iii. another waste�vast amount 	of money spent on the church�iv. plow can we lessen crime?�frightful 	laws for the punishment of minor crimes�a penitentiary should be a 	school�professional criminals should not be allowed to populate the 	earth�v. homes for all-make a nation of householders�marriage 	and divorce-vi. the labor question�employers cannot govern 	prices�railroads should pay pensions�what has been accomplished 	for the improvement of the condition of labor�vii. educate the 	children�useless knowledge�liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake 	of anything�false worship of wealth�viii. we must work and wait. 	a thanksgiving sermon. 	( .) 	i. our fathers ages ago�from savagery to civilization�for the 	blessings we enjoy, whom should we thank?�what good has the church 	done?-did christ add to the sum of useful knowledge�the saints�what 	have the councils and synods done?�what they gave us, and what they 	did not�shall we thank them for the hell here and for the hell of 	the future?�ii. what does god do?�the infinite juggler and his 	puppets�what the puppets have done�shall we thank these 	gods?�shall we thank nature?�iii. men who deserve our thanks�the 	infidels, philanthropists and scientists�the discoverers and 	inventors�magellan�copernicus�bruno�galileo�kepler, herschel, 	newton, and laplace�lyell�what the worldly have done�origin and 	vicissitudes of the bible�the septuagint�investigating the phenomena 	of nature�iv. we thank the good men and good women of the past�the 	poets, dramatists, and artists�the statesmen�paine, jefferson, 	ericsson, lincoln. grant�voltaire, humboldt, darwin. 	a lay sermon. 	( .) 	prayer of king lear�when honesty wears a rag and rascality a robe-the 	nonsense of "free moral agency "�doing right is not self-denial-wealth 	often a gilded hell�the log house�insanity of getting 	more�great wealth the mother of crime�separation of rich and 	poor�emulation�invention of machines to save labor�production and 	destitution�the remedy a division of the land�evils of tenement 	houses�ownership and use�the great weapon is the ballot�sewing 	women�strikes and boycotts of no avail�anarchy, communism, and 	socialism�the children of the rich a punishment for wealth�workingmen 	not a danger�the criminals a necessary product�society's right 	to punish�the efficacy of kindness�labor is honorable�mental 	independence. 	the foundations of faith. 	( .) 	i. the old testament�story of the creation�age of the earth and 	of man�astronomical calculations of the egyptians�the flood�the 	firmament a fiction�israelites who went into egypt�battles of the 	jews�area of palestine�gold collected by david for the temple�ii. the 	new testament�discrepancies about the birth of christ�herod and 	the wise men�the murder of the babes of bethlehem�when was christ 	born�cyrenius and the census of the world�genealogy of christ 	according to matthew and luke�the slaying of zacharias�appearance of 	the saints at the crucifixion�the death of judas iscariot�did 	christ wish to be convicted?�iii. jehovah�iv. the trinity�the 	incarnation�was christ god?�the trinity expounded�"let us pray"�v. 	the theological christ�sayings of a contradictory character�christ a 	devout jew�an ascetic�his philosophy�the ascension�the best that can 	be said about christ�the part that is beautiful and glorious�the other 	side�vi. the scheme of redemption�vii. belief�eternal pain�no hope 	in hell, pity in heaven, or mercy in the heart of god�viii. conclusion. 	superstition. 	( .) 	i. what is superstition?�popular beliefs about the significance 	of signs, lucky and unlucky numbers, days, accidents, jewels, 	etc.�eclipses, earthquakes, and cyclones as omens�signs and wonders 	of the heavens�efficacy of bones and rags of saints�diseases and 	devils�ii. witchcraft�necromancers�what is a miracle?�the uniformity 	of nature�iii. belief in the existence of good spirits or angels�god 	and the devil�when everything was done by the supernatural�iv. all 	these beliefs now rejected by men of intelligence�the devil's success 	made the coming of christ a necessity�"thou shalt not suffer a witch 	to live"�some biblical angels�vanished visions�v. where are heaven 	and hell?�prayers never answered�the doctrine of design�why worship 	our ignorance?�would god lead us into temptation?�president mckinley's 	thanks giving for the santiago victory�vi. what harm does superstition 	do?�the heart hardens and the brain softens�what superstition has done 	and taught�fate of spain�of portugal, austria, germany�vii. inspired 	books�mysteries added to by the explanations of theologians�the 	inspired bible the greatest curse of christendom�viii. modifications 	of jehovah�changing the bible�ix. centuries of darkness�the church 	triumphant�when men began to think�x. possibly these superstitions are 	true, but we have no evidence�we believe in the natural�science is the 	real redeemer. 	the devil. 	( .) 	i. if the devil should die, would god make another?�how was the idea 	of a devil produced�other devils than ours�natural origin of these 	monsters�ii. the atlas of christianity is the devil�the devil of the 	old testament�the serpent in eden�"personifications" of evil�satan 	and job�satan and david�iii. take the devil from the drama 	of christianity and the plot is gone�jesus tempted by the evil 	one�demoniac possession�mary magdalene�satan and judas�incubi 	and succubi�the apostles believed in miracles and magic�the pool of 	bethesda�iv. the evidence of the church�the devil was forced to 	father the failures of god�belief of the fathers of the church 	in devils�exorcism at the baptism of an infant in the sixteenth 	century�belief in devils made the universe a madhouse presided over by 	an insane god�v. personifications of the devil�the orthodox ostrich 	thrusts his head into the sand�if devils are personifications so are 	all the other characters of the bible�vi. some queries about the 	devil, his place of residence, his manner of living, and his object in 	life�interrogatories to the clergy�vii. the man of straw the master 	of the orthodox ministers�his recent accomplishments�viii. keep the 	devils out of children�ix. conclusion.�declaration of the free. 	progress. 	( - .) 	the prosperity of the world depends upon its workers�veneration for the 	ancient�credulity and faith of the middle ages�penalty for reading 	the scripture in the mother tongue�unjust, bloody, and cruel laws�the 	reformers too were persecutors�bigotry of luther and knox�persecution 	of castalio�montaigne against torture in france�"witchcraft" (chapter 	on)�confessed wizards�a case before sir matthew hale�belief 	in lycanthropy�animals tried and executed�animals received 	as witnesses�the corsned or morsel of execution�kepler an 	astrologer�luther's encounter with the devil�mathematician 	stoefflers, astronomical prediction of a flood�histories filled with 	falsehood�legend about the daughter of pharaoh invading scotland and 	giving the country her name�a story about mohammed�a history of the 	britains written by archdeacons�ingenuous remark of eusebius�progress 	in the mechanic arts�england at the beginning of the eighteenth 	century�barbarous punishments�queen elizabeth's order concerning 	clergymen and servant girls�inventions of watt, arkwright, and 	others�solomon's deprivations�language (chapter on)�belief that the 	hebrew was of paradise�geography (chapter on)�the works of cosmas�printing 	invented�church's opposition to books�the inquisition�the 	reformation�"slavery" (chapter on)�voltaire's remark on slavery as 	a contract�white slaves in greece, rome, england, scotland, and 	france�free minds make free bodies�causes of the abolition of white 	slavery in europe�the french revolution�the african slave trade, 	its beginning and end�liberty triumphed (chapter head)�abolition of 	chattel slavery�conclusion. 	what is religion? 	( .) 	i. belief in god and sacrifice�did an infinite god create the children 	of men and is he the governor of the universe?�ii. if this god exists, 	how do we know he is good?�should both the inferior and the superior 	thank god for their condition?�iii. the power that works for 	righteousness�what is this power?�the accumulated experience of the 	world is a power working for good?�love the commencement of the higher 	virtues�iv. what has our religion done?�would christians have been 	worse had they adopted another faith?�v. how can mankind be reformed 	without religion?�vi. the four corner-stones of my theory�vii. matter 	and force eternal�links in the chain of evolution�viii. reform�the 	gutter as a nursery�can we prevent the unfit from filling the world 	with their children?�science must make woman the owner and mistress 	of herself�morality born of intelligence�ix. real religion and real 	worship. volume v.--discussions detailed contents of volume v. preface. ingersoll's interviews on talmage. first interview. second interview. third interview. fourth interview. fifth interview, sixth interview. the talmagian catechism. a vindication of thomas paine. conclusion. the observer's second attack ingersoll's second reply. contents of volume v. 	 ingersoll's six interviews on talmage. 	( .) 	preface�first interview: great men as witnesses 	to the truth of the gospel�no man should quote 	the words of another unless he is willing to 	accept all the opinions of that man�reasons of 	more weight than reputations�would a general 	acceptance of unbelief fill the penitentiaries?� 	my creed�most criminals orthodox�relig-ion and 	morality not necessarily associates�on the 	creation of the universe out of omnipotence�mr. 	talmage's theory about the pro-duction of light 	prior to the creation of the sun�the deluge and 	the ark�mr. talmage's tendency to belittle the 	bible miracles�his chemical, geological, and 	agricultural views�his disregard of good manners- 	-second interview: an insulting text�god's design 	in creating guiteau to be the assassin of 	garfield�mr. talmage brings the charge of 	blasphemy�some real blasphemers�the tabernacle 	pastor tells the exact opposite of the truth about 	col. ingersoll's attitude toward the circulation 	of immoral books�"assassinating" god�mr. 	talmage finds nearly all the invention of modern 	times mentioned in the bible�the reverend 	gentleman corrects the translators of the bible in 	the matter of the rib story�denies that polygamy 	is permitted by the old testament�his de-fence of 	queen victoria and violation of the grave of 	george eliot�exhibits a christian spirit�third 	interview: mr. talmage's partiality in the 	bestowal of his love�denies the right of laymen 	to examine the scriptures�thinks the infidels 	victims of bibliophobia �he explains the stopping 	of the sun and moon at the command of joshua� 	instances a dark day in the early part of the 	century�charges that holy things are made light 	of�reaffirms his confidence in the whale and 	jonah story�the commandment which forbids the 	making of graven images�affirmation that the 	bible is the friend of woman�the present 	condition of woman�fourth interview: colonel 	ingersoll compared by mr. talmage tojehoiakim, who 	consigned writings of jeremiah to the flames�an 	intimation that infidels wish to have all copies 	of the bible destroyed by fire�laughter 	deprecated�col. ingersoll accused of denouncing 	his father�mr. talmage holds that a man may be 	perfectly happy in heaven with his mother in hell- 	-challenges the infidel to read a chapter from st. 	john�on the "chief solace of the world"�dis- 	covers an attempt is being made to put out the 	light-houses of the farther shore�affirms our 	debt to christianity for schools, hospitals, 	etc.�denies that infidels have ever done any 	good� 	fifth interview: inquiries if men gather grapes of 	thorns, or figs of thistles, and is answered in 	the negative�resents the charge that the bible is 	a cruel book�demands to know where the cruelty of 	the bible crops out in the lives of christians� 	col. ingersoll accused of saying that the bible 	is a collection of polluted writings�mr. talmage 	asserts the orchestral harmony of the scriptures 	from genesis to revelation, and repudiates the 	theory of contradictions�his view of mankind 	indicated in quotations from his confession of 	faith�he insists that the bible is scientific� 	traces the new testament to its source with st. 	john�pledges his word that no man ever died for a 	lie cheerfully and triumphantly�as to prophecies 	and predictions�alleged "prophetic" fate of the 	jewish people�sixth interview: dr. talmage takes 	the ground that the unrivalled circulation of the 	bible proves that it is inspired�forgets' that a 	scientific fact does not depend on the vote of 	numbers�names some christian millions�his 	arguments characterized as the poor-est, weakest, 	and best possible in support of the doctrine of 	inspira-tion�will god, in judging a man, take 	into consideration the cir-cumstances of that 	man's life?�satisfactory reasons for not believ- 	ing that the bible is inspired. 	the talmagian catechism. 	the pith and marrow of what mr. talmage has been 	pleased to say, set forth in the form of a shorter 	catechism. 	a vindication of thomas paine. 	( .) 	letter to the new york observer�an offer to pay 	one thousand dollars in gold for proof that thomas 	paine or voltaire died in terror because of any 	religious opinions either had expressed� 	proposition to create a tribunal to hear the 	evidence�the ob-server, after having called upon 	col. ingersoll to deposit the money, and 	characterized his talk as "infidel 'buncombe,'" 	denies its own words, but attempts to prove them� 	its memory refreshed by col. ingersoll and the 	slander refuted�proof that paine did not recant - 	-testimony of thomas nixon, daniel pelton, mr. 	jarvis, b. f. has-kin, dr. manley, amasa 	woodsworth, gilbert vale, philip graves, m. d., 	willet hicks, a. c. hankinson, john hogeboom, w. 	j. hilton, tames cheetham, revs. milledollar and 	cunningham, mrs. hedden, andrew a. dean, william 	carver,�the statements of mary roscoe and mary 	hindsdale examined�william cobbett's account of a 	call upon mary hinsdale�did thomas paine live the 	life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, 	cowardly, and beastly death?�grant thorbum's 	charges examined�statement of the rev. j. d. 	wickham, d.d., shown to be utterly false�false 	witness of the rev. charles hawley, d.d.�w. h. 	ladd, james cheetham, and mary hinsdale�paine's 	note to cheetham�mr-staple, mr. purdy, col. john 	fellows, james wilburn, walter morton, clio 	rickman, judge herttell, h. margary, elihu palmer, 	mr. 	xv 	lovett, all these testified that paine was a 	temperate man�washington's letter to paine� 	thomas jefferson's�adams and washing-ton on 	"common sense"�-james monroe's tribute� 	quotations from paine�paine's estate and his 	will�the observer's second attack (p. ): 	statements of elkana watson, william carver, rev. 	e. f. hatfield, d.d., james cheetham, dr. j. w. 	francis, dr. manley, bishop fenwick�ingersoll's 	second reply (p. ): testimony garbled by the 	editor of the observer�mary roscoeand mary hins- 	dale the same person�her reputation for veracity- 	-letter from rev. a. w. cornell�grant thorburn 	exposed by james parton�the observer's admission 	that paine did not recant�affidavit of 	william b. barnes. volume vi.--discussions detailed contents of volume vi. the christian religion; ingersoll's opening paper the christian religion, by jeremiah s. black. the christian religion, by robert g. ingersoll. faith or agnosticism. the field-ingersoll discussion. a reply to the rev. henry m. field, d.d. a last word to robert g. ingersoll letter to dr. field. controversy on christianty col. ingersoll to mr. gladstone. rome or reason. the church its own witness, by cardinal manning. rome or reason: a reply to cardinal manning. is divorce wrong? divorce. is corporal punishment degrading? detailed contents of volume vi. 	 the christian religion; ingersoll's opening paper 	( .) 	i. col. ingersoll's opening paper�statement of the fundamental truths 	of christianity�reasons for thinking that portions of the old testament 	are the product of a barbarous people�passages upholding 	slavery, polygamy, war, and religious persecution not evidences of 	inspiration�if the words are not inspired, what is?�commands of 	jehovah compared with the precepts of pagans and stoics�epictetus, 	cicero, zeno, seneca, brahma�ii. the new testament�why were 	four gospels necessary?�salvation by belief�the doctrine of 	the atonement�the jewish system culminating in the sacrifice of 	christ�except for the crucifixion of her son, the virgin mary would be 	among the lost�what christ must have known would follow the acceptance 	of his teachings�the wars of sects, the inquisition, the fields of 	death�why did he not forbid it all?�the little that he revealed�the 	dogma of eternal punishment�upon love's breast the church has placed 	the eternal asp�iii. the "inspired" writers�why did not god furnish 	every nation with a bible? 	ii. judge black's reply�his duty that of a policeman�the church not 	in danger�classes who break out into articulate blasphemy�the 	sciolist�personal remarks about col. ingersoll�chief-justice gibson of 	pennsylvania quoted�we have no jurisdiction or capacity to rejudge the 	justice of god�the moral code of the bible�civil government of the 	jews�no standard of justice without belief in a god�punishments for 	blasphemy and idolatry defended�wars of conquest�allusion to col. 	ingersoll's war record�slavery among the jews�polygamy discouraged by 	the mosaic constitution�jesus of nazareth and the establishment of 	his religion�acceptance of christianity and adjudication upon its 	divinity�the evangelists and their depositions�the fundamental truths 	of christianity�persecution and triumph of the church�ingersoll's 	propositions compressed and the compressions answered�salvation as a 	reward of belief�punishment of unbelief�the second birth, atonement, 	redemption, non-resistance, excessive punishment of sinners, christ and 	persecution, christianity and freedom of thought, sufficiency of the 	gospel, miracles, moral effect of christianity. 	iii. col. ingersoll's rejoinder�how this discussion came about�natural 	law�the design argument�the right to rejudge the justice even of a 	god�violation of the commandments by jehovah�religious intolerance 	of the old testament�judge black's justification of wars of 	extermination�his defence of slavery�polygamy not "discouraged" by the 	old testament�position of woman under the jewish system and under that 	of the ancients�a "policeman's" view of god�slavery under jehovah 	and in egypt�the admission that jehovah gave no commandment against 	polygamy�the learned and wise crawl back in cribs�alleged harmony of 	old and new testaments�on the assertion that the spread of christianity 	proves the supernatural origin of the gospel�the argument applicable to 	all religions�communications from angels ana gods�authenticity of 	the statements of the evangelists�three important manuscripts�rise 	of mormonism�ascension of christ�the great public events alleged 	as fundamental truths of christianity�judge black's system 	of "compression"�"a metaphysical question"�right and 	wrong�justice�christianity and freedom of thought�heaven and 	hell�production of god and the devil�inspiration of the bible 	dependent on the credulity of the reader�doubt of miracles�the 	world before christ's advent�respect for the man christ�the dark 	ages�institutions of mercy�civil law. 	the field-ingersoll discussion. 	( .) 	an open letter to robert g. ingersoll�superstitions�basis of 	religion�napoleon's question about the stars�the idea of god�crushing 	out hope�atonement, regeneration, and future retribution�socrates and 	jesus�the language of col. ingersoll characterized as too sweeping�the 	sabbath�but a step from sneering at religion to sneering at morality. 	a reply to the rev. henry m. field, d. d.�honest differences of 	opinion�charles darwin�dr. field's distinction between superstition 	and religion�the presbyterian god an infinite torquemada�napoleon's 	sensitiveness to the divine influence�the preference of agassiz�the 	mysterious as an explanation�the certainty that god is not what he 	is thought to be�self-preservation the fibre of society�did 	the assassination of lincoln illustrate the justice of god's 	judgments?�immortality�hope and the presbyterian creed�to a mother 	at the grave of her son�theological teaching of forgiveness�on 	eternal retribution�jesus and mohammed�attacking the religion of 	others�ananias and sapphira�the pilgrims and freedom to worship�the 	orthodox sabbath�natural restraints on conduct�religion and 	morality�the efficacy of prayer�respect for belief of father and 	mother�the "power behind nature"�survival of the fittest�the saddest 	fact�"sober second thought." 	a last word to robert g. ingersoll, by dr. field�god not a 	presbyterian�why col. ingersoll's attacks on religion are resented�god 	is more merciful than man�theories about the future life�retribution 	a necessary part of the divine law�the case of robinson 	crusoe�irresistible proof of design�col. ingersoll's view of 	immortality�an almighty friend. 	letter to dr. field�the presbyterian god�what the presbyterians 	claim�the "incurably bad"�responsibility for not seeing things 	clearly�good deeds should follow even atheists�no credit in 	belief�design argument that devours itself�belief as a foundation 	of social order�no consolation in orthodox religion�the "almighty 	friend" and the slave mother�a hindu prayer�calvinism�christ not the 	supreme benefactor of the race. 	colonel ingersoll on christianity. 	( .) 	some remarks on his reply to dr. field by the hon. wm. e. 	gladstone�external triumph and prosperity of the church�a truth half 	stated�col. ingersoll's tumultuous method and lack of reverential 	calm�jephthah's sacrifice�hebrews xii expounded�the case of 	abraham�darwinism and the scriptures�why god demands sacrifices of 	man�problems admitted to be insoluble�relation of human genius 	to human greatness�shakespeare and others�christ and the family 	relation�inaccuracy of reference in the reply�ananias and 	sapphira�the idea of immortality�immunity of error in belief from 	moral responsibility�on dishonesty in the formation of opinion�a 	plausibility of the shallowest kind�the system of thuggism�persecution 	for opinion's sake�riding an unbroken horse. 	col. ingersoll to mr. gladstone�on the "impaired" state of the human 	constitution�unbelief not due to degeneracy�objections to the 	scheme of redemption�does man deserve only punishment?�"reverential 	calm"�the deity of the ancient jews�jephthah and abraham�relation 	between darwinism and the inspiration of the scriptures�sacrifices to 	the infinite�what is common sense?�an argument that will defend every 	superstition�the greatness of shakespeare�the absolute indissolubility 	of marriage�is the religion of christ for this age?�as to ananias and 	sapphira�immortality and people of low intellectual development�can 	we control our thought?�dishonest opinions cannot be formed�some 	compensations for riding an "unbroken horse." 	rome or reason. 	( .) 	"the church its own witness," by cardinal manning�evidence 	that christianity is of divine origin�the universality of the 	church�natural causes not sufficient to account for the catholic 	church�-the world in which christianity arose�birth of christ�from 	st peter to leo xiii.�the first effect of christianity�domestic 	life's second visible effect�redemption of woman from traditional 	degradation�change wrought by christianity upon the social, political 	and international relations of the world�proof that christianity is of 	divine origin and presence�st. john and the christian fathers�sanctity 	of the church not affected by human sins. 	a reply to cardinal manning�i. success not a demonstration of either 	divine origin or supernatural aid�cardinal manning's argument 	more forcible in the mouth of a mohammedan�why churches rise and 	flourish�mormonism�alleged universality of the catholic church�its 	"inexhaustible fruitfulness" in good things�the inquisition and 	persecution�not invincible�its sword used by spain�its unity not 	unbroken�the state of the world when christianity was established�the 	vicar of christ�a selection from draper's "history of the intellectual 	development of europe"�some infamous popes�part ii. how the pope 	speaks�religions older than catholicism and having the same rites 	and sacraments�is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine 	origin?�integration and disintegration�the condition of the world 	years ago�the creed of catholicism�the "one true god" with a knowledge 	of whom catholicism has "filled the world"�did the catholic church 	overthrow idolatry?�marriage�celibacy�human passions�the cardinal's 	explanation of jehovah's abandonment of the children of men for 	four thousand years�catholicism tested by paganism�canon law 	and convictions had under it�rival popes�importance of a greek 	"inflection"�the cardinal witnesses. 	is divorce wrong? 	( .) 	preface by the editor of the north american review�introduction, by the 	rev. s. w. dike, ll. d.�a catholic view by cardinal gibbons�divorce 	as regarded by the episcopal church, by bishop, henry c. potter�four 	questions answered, by robert g. ingersoll. 	divorce. 	reply to cardinal gibbons�indissolubility of marriage a reaction 	from polygamy�biblical marriage�polygamy simultaneous and 	successive�marriage and divorce in the light of experience�reply 	to bishop potter�reply to mr. gladstone�justice bradley�senator 	dolph�the argument continued in colloquial form�dialogue between 	cardinal gibbons and a maltreated wife�she asks the advice of mr. 	gladstone�the priest who violated his vow�absurdity of the divorce 	laws of some states. 	reply to dr. lyman abbott. 	( ) 	dr. abbott's equivocations�crimes punishable by death under mosaic 	and english law�severity of moses accounted for by dr. abbott�the 	necessity for the acceptance of christianity�christians should be 	glad to know that the bible is only the work of man and that the new 	testament life of christ is untrue�all the good commandments, known 	to the world thousands of years before moses�human happiness of 	more consequence than the truth about god�the appeal to great 	names�gladstone not the greatest statesman�what the agnostic says�the 	magnificent mistakes of genesis�the story of joseph�abraham as a 	"self-exile for conscience's sake." 	reply to archdeacon farrar. 	( .) 	revelation as an appeal to man's "spirit"�what is spirit and what is 	"spiritual intuition"?�the archdeacon in conflict with st. paul�ii. 	the obligation to believe without evidence�iii. ignorant credulity�iv. 	a definition of orthodoxy�v. fear not necessarily cowardice�prejudice 	is honest�the ola has the advantage in an argument�st. 	augustine�jerome�the appeal to charlemagne�roger bacon�lord bacon 	a defender of the copernican system�the difficulty of finding out 	what great men believed�names irrelevantly cited�bancroft on the 	hessians�original manuscripts of the bible�vi. an infinite personality 	a contradiction in terms�vii. a beginningless being�viii. the 	cruelties of nature not to be harmonized with the goodness of a 	deity�sayings from the indian�origen, st. augustine, dante, aquinas. 	is corporal punishment degrading? 	( .) 	a reply to the dean of st. paul�growing confidence in the power of 	kindness�crimes against soldiers and sailors�misfortunes punished 	as crimes�the dean's voice raised in favor of the brutalities of the 	past�beating of children�of wives�dictum of solomon. volume vii.--discussions detailed contents of volume vii. my reviewers reviewed. my chicago bible class. to the indianapolis clergy. the brooklyn divines. the limitations of toleration. a christmas sermon. suicide of judge normile. is suicide a sin? is avarice triumphant? a reply to the cincinnati gazette and catholic telegraph. an interview on chief justice comegys. a reply to rev. drs. thomas and lorimer. a reply to rev. john hall and warner van norden. a reply to the rev. dr. plumb. a reply to the new york clergy on superstition. detailed contents of volume vii. 	 my reviewers reviewed. 	( .) 	answer to san francisco clergymen�definition of liberty, physical 	and mental�the right to compel belief�woman the equal of man�the 	ghosts�immortality�slavery�witchcraft�aristocracy of the 	air�unfairness of clerical critics�force and matter�doctrine of 	negation�confident deaths of murderers�childhood scenes returned to 	by the dying�death-bed of voltaire�thomas paine�the first 	sectarians were heretics�reply to rev. mr. guard�slaughter of 	the canaanites�reply to rev. samuel robinson�protestant 	persecutions�toleration�infidelity and progress�the 	occident�calvinism�religious editors�reply to the rev. mr. 	ijams�does the bible teach man to enslave his brothers?�reply to 	california christian advocate�self-government of french people at 	and since the revolution�on the site of the bastile�french 	peasant's cheers for jesus christ�was the world created in six 	days�geology�what is the astronomy of the bible?�the earth the centre 	of the universe�joshua's miracle�change of motion into heat�geography 	and astronomy of cosmas�does the bible teach the existence of 	that impossible crime called witchcraft?�saul and the woman of 	endor�familiar spirits�demonology of the new testament�temptation of 	jesus�possession by devils�gadarene swine story�test of belief�bible 	idea of the rights of children�punishment of the rebellious 	son�jephthah's vow and sacrifice�persecution of job�the gallantry 	of god�bible idea of the rights of women�paul's instructions to 	wives�permission given to steal wives�does the bible sanction 	polygamy and concubinage?�does the bible uphold and justify political 	tyranny?�powers that be ordained of god�religious liberty of 	god�sun-worship punishable with death�unbelievers to be damned�does 	the bible describe a god of mercy?�massacre commanded�eternal 	punishment taught in the new testament�the plan of salvation�fall 	and atonement moral bankruptcy�other religions�parsee 	sect�brahmins�confucians�heretics and orthodox. 	my chicago bible class. 	( .) 	rev. robert collyer�inspiration of the scriptures�rev. dr. 	thomas�formation of the old testament�rev. dr. kohler�rev. mr. 	herford�prof. swing�rev. dr. ryder. 	to the indianapolis clergy. 	( .) 	rev. david walk�character of jesus�two or three christs described 	in the gospels�christ's change of opinions�gospels later than the 	epistles�divine parentage of christ a late belief�the man christ 	probably a historical character�jesus belittled by his worshipers�he 	never claimed to be divine�christ's omissions�difference between 	christian and other modern civilizations�civilization not promoted 	by religion�inventors�french and american civilization: how 	produced�intemperance and slavery in christian nations�advance due to 	inventions and discoveries�missionaries�christian nations preserved by 	bayonet and ball�dr. t. b. taylor�origin of life on this planet�sir 	william thomson�origin of things undiscoverable�existence after 	death�spiritualists�if the dead return�our calendar�christ and 	christmas-the existence of pain�plato's theory of evil�will god do 	better in another world than he does in this?�consolation�life not a 	probationary stage�rev. d.o'donaghue�the case of archibald armstrong 	and jonathan newgate�inequalities of life�can criminals live a 	contented life?�justice of the orthodox god illustrated. 	the brooklyn divines. 	( .) 	are the books of atheistic or infidel writers extensively 	read?�increase in the number of infidels�spread of scientific 	literature�rev. dr. eddy�rev. dr. hawkins�rev. dr. haynes�rev. 	mr. pullman�rev. mr. foote�rev. mr. wells�rev. dr. van dyke�rev. 	carpenter�rev. mr. reed�rev. dr. mcclelland�ministers opposed to 	discussion�whipping children�worldliness as a foe of the church�the 	drama�human love�fires, cyclones, and other afflictions as promoters 	of spirituality�class distinctions�rich and poor�aristocracies�the 	right to choose one's associates�churches social affairs�progress 	of the roman catholic church�substitutes for the churches�henry 	ward beecher�how far education is favored by the sects�rivals of the 	pulpit�christianity now and one hundred years ago�french revolution 	produced by the priests�why the revolution was a failure�infidelity 	of one hundred years ago�ministers not more intellectual than a century 	ago�great preachers of the past�new readings of old texts�clerical 	answerers of infidelity�rev. dr. baker�father fransiola�faith and 	reason�democracy of kindness�moral instruction�morality born of human 	needs�the conditions of happiness�the chief end of man. 	the limitations of toleration. 	( .) 	discussion between col. robert g. ingersoll, hon. frederic r. coudert, 	and ex-gov. stewart l. woodford before the nineteenth century club of 	new york�propositions�toleration not a disclaimer but a waiver of the 	right to persecute�remarks of courtlandt palmer�no responsibility for 	thought�intellectual hospitality�right of free speech�origin of the 	term "toleration"�slander and false witness�nobody can control his own 	mind: anecdote�remarks of mr. coudert�voltaire, rousseau, hugo, and 	ingersoll�general woodford's speech�reply by colonel ingersoll�a 	catholic compelled to pay a compliment to voltaire�responsibility for 	thoughts�the mexican unbeliever and his reception in the other country. 	a christmas sermon. 	( .) 	christianity's message of grief�christmas a pagan festival�reply 	to dr. buckley�charges by the editor of the christian advocate�the 	tidings of christianity�in what the message of grief consists�fear 	and flame�an everlasting siberia�dr. buckley's proposal to boycott the 	telegram�reply to rev. j. m. king and rev. thomas dixon, jr. cana day 	be blasphemed?�hurting christian feelings�for revenue only what is 	blasphemy?�balaam's ass wiser than the prophet�the universalists�can 	god do nothing for this world?�the universe a blunder if christianity 	is true�the duty of a newspaper�facts not sectarian�the rev. 	mr. peters�what infidelity has done�public school system not 	christian�orthodox universities�bruno on oxford�as to public 	morals�no rewards or punishments in the universe�the atonement 	immoral�as to sciences and art�bruno, humboldt, darwin�scientific 	writers opposed by the church�as to the liberation of slaves�as to 	the reclamation of inebriates�rum and religion�the humanity 	of infidelity�what infidelity says to the dying�the battle 	continued�morality not assailed by an attack on christianity�the 	inquisition and religious persecution�human nature derided by 	christianity�dr. dacosta�"human brotherhood" as exemplified by 	the history of the church�the church and science, art and 	learning��astronomy's revenge�galileo and kepler�mrs. browning: 	science thrust into the brain of europe�our numerals�christianity and 	literature�institution's of learning�stephen girard�james lick�our 	chronology�historians�natural philosophy�philology�metaphysical 	research�intelligence, hindoo, egyptian�inventions�john 	ericsson�emancipators�rev. mr. ballou�the right of goa to 	punish�rev. dr. hillier�rev. mr. haldeman�george a. locey�the "great 	physician"�rev. mr. talmage�rev. j. benson hamilton�how voltaire 	died�the death-bed of thomas paine�rev. mr. holloway�original 	sin�rev. dr. tyler�the good samaritan a heathen�hospitals and 	asylums�christian treatment of the insane�rev. dr. buckley�the 	north american review discussion�judge black, dr. field, 	mr. gladstone�circulation of obscene literature�eulogy of 	whiskey�eulogy of tobacco�human stupidity that defies the gods�rev. 	charles deems�jesus a believer in a personal devil�the man christ. 	suicide of judge normile. 	( .) 	reply to the western watchman�henry d'arcy�peter's 	prevarication-some excellent pagans-heartlessness of a 	catholic�wishes do not affect the judgment�devout robbers�penitent 	murderers�reverential drunkards�luther's distich�judge 	normile�self-destruction. 	is suicide a sin? 	( .) 	col. ingersoll's first letter in the new york world�under what 	circumstances a man has the right to take his own life�medicine and the 	decrees of god�case of the betrayed girl�suicides not cowards�suicide 	under roman law�many suicides insane�insanity caused by religion�the 	law against suicide cruel and idiotic�natural and sufficient cause for 	self-destruction�christ's death a suicide�col. ingersoll's reply to his 	critics�is suffering the work of god?�it is not man's duty to 	endure hopeless suffering�when suicide is justifiable�the 	inquisition�alleged cowardice of suicides�propositions 	demonstrated�suicide the foundation of the christian 	religion�redemption and atonement�the clergy on infidelity 	and suicide�morality and unbelief�better injure yourself than 	another�misquotation by opponents�cheerful view the best�the 	wonder is that men endure�suicide a sin (interview in the new 	york journal)�causes of suicide�col. ingersoll does not advise 	suicide�suicides with tracts or bibles in their pockets�suicide a sin 	(interview in the new york herald)�comments on rev. alerle st. croix 	wright's sermon�suicide and sanity (interview in the york world)�as to 	the cowardice of suicide�germany and the prevalence of suicide�killing 	of idiots and defective infants�virtue, morality, and religion. 	is avarice triumphant? 	( .) 	reply to general rush hawkins' article, "brutality and avarice 	triumphant"�croakers and prophets of evil�medical treatment 	for believers in universal evil�alleged fraud in army 	contracts�congressional extravagance�railroad "wreckers"�how 	stockholders in some roads lost their money�the star-route 	trials�timber and public lands�watering stock�the formation 	of trusts�unsafe hotels: european game and singing birds�seal 	fisheries�cruelty to animals�our indians�sensible and manly 	patriotism�days of brutality�defence of slavery by the websters, 	bentons, and clays�thirty years' accomplishment�ennobling influence of 	war for the right�the lady ana the brakeman�american esteem of honesty 	in business�republics do not tend to official corruption�this the best 	country in the world. 	a reply to the cincinnati gazette and catholic telegraph. 	( .) 	defence of the lecture on moses�how biblical miracles are sought to 	be proved�some non sequiturs�a grammatical criticism�christianity 	destructive of manners�cuvier and agassiz on mosaic cosmogony�clerical 	advance agents�christian threats and warnings�catholicism the upas 	tree�hebrew scholarship as a qualification for deciding probababilities 	�contradictions and mistranslations of the bible�number of errors in 	the scriptures�the sunday question. 	an interview on chief justice comegys. 	( .) 	charged with blasphemy in the state of delaware�can a conditionless 	deity be injured?�injustice the only blasphemy�the lecture 	in delaware�laws of that state�all sects in turn charged with 	blasphemy�heresy consists in making god better than he is thought 	to be�a fatal biblical passage�judge comegys�wilmington 	preachers�states with laws against blasphemy�no danger of infidel 	mobs�no attack on the state of delaware contemplated�comegys a 	resurrection�grand jury's refusal to indict�advice about the cutting 	out of heretics' tongues�objections to the whipping-post�mr. bergh's 	bill�one remedy for wife-beating. 	a reply to rev. drs. thomas and lorimer. 	( .) 	solemnity�charged with being insincere�irreverence�old testament 	better than the new�"why hurt our feelings?"�involuntary action of 	the brain�source of our conceptions of space�good and bad�right and 	wrong�the minister, the horse and the lord's prayer�men responsible 	for their actions�the "gradual" theory not applicable to 	the omniscient�prayer powerless to alter results�religious 	persecution�orthodox ministers made ashamed of their 	creed�purgatory�infidelity and baptism contrasted�modern conception 	of the universe�the golden bridge of life�"the only salutation"�the 	test for admission to heaven�"scurrility." 	a reply to rev. john hall and warner van norden. 	( .) 	dr. hall has no time to discuss the subject of starving 	workers�cloakmakers' strike�warner van norden of the church extension 	society�the uncharitableness of organized charity�defence of the 	cloakmakers�life of the underpaid�on the assertion that assistance 	encourages idleness and crime�the man without pity an intellectual 	beast�tendency of prosperity to breed selfishness�thousands idle 	without fault�egotism of riches�van norden's idea of happiness�the 	worthy poor. 	a reply to the rev. dr. plumb. 	( .) 	interview in a boston paper�why should a minister call this a "poor" 	world?�would an infinite god make people who need a redeemer?�gospel 	gossip�christ's sayings repetitions�the philosophy of confucius�rev. 	mr. mills�the charge of "robbery"�the divine plan. 	a reply to the new york clergy on superstition. 	( .) 	interview in the new york journal�rev. roberts. macarthur�a 	personal devil�devils who held conversations with christ not simply 	personifications of evil�the temptation�the "man of straw"�christ's 	mission authenticated by the casting out of devils�spain�god 	responsible for the actions of man�rev. dr. j. lewis parks�rev. dr. e. 	f. moldehnke�patience amidst the misfortunes of others�yellow fever 	as a divine agent�the doctrine that all is for the best�rev. mr. 	hamlin�why did god create a successful rival?�a compliment by the 	rev. mr. belcher�rev. w. c. buchanan�no argument old until it is 	answered�why should god create sentient beings to be damned?�rev. j. 	w. campbell�rev. henry frank�rev. e. c.j. kraeling on christ and the 	devil�would he make a world like this? volume viii.--interviews interviews the bible and a future life mrs. van cott, the revivalist european trip and greenback question the pre-millennial conference. the solid south and resumption. the sunday laws of pittsburg.* political and religious. politics and gen. grant politics, religion and thomas paine. reply to chicago critics. the republican victory. ingersoll and beecher.* political. religion in politics. miracles and immortality. the political outlook. mr. beecher, moses and the negro. hades, delaware and freethought. a reply to the rev. mr. lansing.* beaconsfield, lent and revivals. answering the new york ministers.* guiteau and his crime.* district suffrage. funeral of john g. mills and immortality.* star route and politics.* the interviewer. politics and prohibition. the republican defeat in ohio. the civil rights bill. justice harlan and the civil rights bill. politics and theology. morality and immortality. politics, mormonism and mr. beecher free trade and christianity. the oath question. wendell phillips, fitz john porter and bismarck. general subjects. reply to kansas city clergy. swearing and affirming. reply to a buffalo critic. blasphemy.* politics and british columbia. ingersoll catechised. blaine's defeat. blaine's defeat. plagiarism and politics. religious prejudice. cleveland and his cabinet. religion, prohibition, and gen. grant. hell or sheol and other subjects. interviewing, politics and spiritualism. my belief. some live topics. the president and senate. atheism and citizenship. the labor question. railroads and politics. prohibition. henry george and labor. labor question and socialism. henry george and socialism. reply to the rev. b. f. morse.* ingersoll on mcglynn. trial of the chicago anarchists. the stage and the pulpit. roscoe conkling. the church and the stage. protection and free trade. labor, and tariff reform. cleveland and thurman. the republican platform of . james g. blaine and politics. the mills bill. society and its criminals* woman's right to divorce. secularism. summer recreation�mr. gladstone. prohibition. robert elsmere. working girls. protection for american actors. liberals and liberalism. pope leo xiii. the sacredness of the sabbath. the west and south. the westminster creed and other subjects. shakespeare and bacon. growing old gracefully, and presbyterianism. creeds. the tendency of modern thought. woman suffrage, horse racing, and money. missionaries. my belief and unbelief.* must religion go? word painting and college education. personal magnetism and the sunday question. authors. inebriety.* miracles, theosophy and spiritualism. tolstoy and literature. woman in politics. spiritualism. plays and players. woman. strikes, expansion and other subjects. sunday a day of pleasure. the parliament of religions. cleveland's hawaiian policy. orators and oratory.* catholicism and protestantism. the pope, the a. p. a., agnosticism woman and her domain. professor swing. senator sherman and his book.* reply to the christian endeavorers. spiritualism. a little of everything. is life worth living�christian science and politics. vivisection. divorce. music, newspapers, lynching and arbitration. a visit to shaw's garden. the venezuelan boundary discussion and the whipping-post. colonel shepard's stage horses.* a reply to the rev. l. a. banks. cuba�zola and theosophy. how to become an orator. john russell young and expansion. psychical research and the bible.* this century's glories. capital punishment and the whipping-post. expansion and trusts.* volume ix.--political detailed contents of volume ix. an address to the colored people. speech at indianapolis. centennial oration. bangor speech. cooper union speech, new york. indianapolis speech. chicago speech. eight to seven address. hard times and the way out. suffrage address. wall street speech. brooklyn speech. address to the th illinois regiment. decoration day oration. decoration day address. ratification speech. reunion address. the chicago and new york gold speech. detailed contents of volume ix. 	 an address to the colored people. 	( .) 	slavery and its justification by law and religion�its destructive 	influence upon nations�inauguration of the modern slave trade by the 	portuguese gonzales�planted upon american soil�the abolitionists, 	clarkson, wilberforce, and others�the struggle in england�pioneers 	in san domingo, oge and chevannes�early op-posers of slavery in 	america�william lloyd garrison�wendell phillips, charles sumner, john 	brown�the fugitive slave law�the emancipation proclamation�dread of 	education in the south�advice to the colored people. 	indianapolis speech. 	( .) 	suspension of the writ of habeas corpus�precedent established by the 	revolutionary fathers�committees of safety appointed by the 	continental congress�arrest of disaffected persons in pennsylvania 	and delaware�interference with elections�resolution of continental 	congress with respect to citizens who opposed the sending of deputies 	to the convention of new york�penalty for refusing to take continental 	money or pray for the american cause�habeas corpus suspended during the 	revolution�interference with freedom of the press�negroes freed and 	allowed to fight in the continental army�crispus attacks�an abolition 	document issued by andrew jackson�majority rule�slavery and the 	rebellion�tribute to general grant. 	speech nominating blaine. 	( .) 	note descriptive of the occasion�demand of the republicans of the 	united states�resumption�the plumed knight. 	centennial oration. 	( .) 	one hundred years ago, our fathers retired the gods from politics�the 	declaration of independence�meaning of the declaration�the old idea 	of the source of political power�our fathers educated by their 	surroundings�the puritans�universal religious toleration declared by 	the catholics of maryland�roger williams�not all of our fathers in 	favor of independence�fortunate difference in religious views�secular 	government�authority derived from the people�the declaration and 	the beginning of the war�what they fought for�slavery�results of 	a hundred years of freedom�the declaration carried out in letter and 	spirit. 	bangor speech. 	( .) 	the hayes campaign�reasons for voting the republican ticket�abolition 	of slavery�preservation of the union�reasons for not trusting the 	democratic party�record of the republican party�democrats assisted 	the south�paper money�enfranchisement of the negroes�samuel j. 	tilden�his essay on finance. 	cooper union speech, new york. 	( .) 	all citizens stockholders in the united states of america�the 	democratic party a hungry organization�political parties 	contrasted�the fugitive slave law a disgrace to hell in its palmiest 	days�feelings of the democracy hurt on the subject of religion�defence 	of slavery in a resolution of the presbyterians, south�state of the 	union at the time the republican party was born�jacob thompson�the 	national debt�protection of citizens abroad�tammany hall: its relation 	to the penitentiary�the democratic party of new york city�"what 	hands!"�free schools. 	indianapolis speech. 	( .) 	address to the veteran soldiers of the rebellion�objections to 	the democratic party�the men who have been democrats�why i am a 	republican�free labor and free thought�a vision of war�democratic 	slander of the greenback�shall the people who saved the country rule 	it?�on finance�government cannot create money�the greenback dollar 	a mortgage upon the country�guarantees that the debt will be paid-'the 	thoroughbred and the mule�the column of july, paris�the misleading 	guide board, the dismantled mill, and the place where there had been a 	hotel, 	chicago speech. 	( .) 	the plea of "let bygones be bygones"�passport of the democratic 	party�right of the general government to send troops into southern 	states for the protection of colored people�abram s. hewitt's 	congratulatory letter to the negroes�the demand for inflation of the 	currency�record of rutherford b. hayes�contrasted with samuel j. 	tilden�merits of the republican party�negro and southern white�the 	superior man�"no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." 	eight to seven address. 	( .) 	on the electoral commission�reminiscences of the hayes-tilden camp� 	constitution of the electoral college�characteristics of the members� 	frauds at the ballot box poisoning the fountain of power�reforms 	suggested�elections too frequent�the professional office-seeker�a 	letter on civil service reform�young men advised against government 	clerkships�too many legislators and too much legislation�defect in the 	constitution as to the mode of electing a president�protection of 	citizens by state and general governments�the dual government in south 	carolina�ex-rebel key in the president's cabinet�implacables and 	bourbons south and north�"i extend to you each and all the olive branch 	of peace." 	hard times and the way out. 	( .) 	capital and labor�what is a capitalist?�the idle and the industrious 	artisans�no conflict between capital and labor�a period of inflation 	and speculation�life and fire insurance agents�business done on 	credit�the crash, failure, and bankruptcy�fall in the price of real 	estate a form of resumption�coming back to reality�definitions of 	money examined�not gold and silver but intelligent labor the measure 	of value�government cannot by law create wealth�a bill of fare not 	a dinner�fiat money�american honor pledged to the maintenance of the 	greenbacks�the cry against holders of bonds�criminals and vagabonds to 	be supported�duty of government to facilitate enterprise�more men must 	cultivate the soil�government aid for the overcoming of obstacles too 	great for individual enterprise�the palace builders the friends of 	labor�extravagance the best form of charity�useless to boost a man 	who is not climbing�the reasonable price for labor�the vagrant and his 	strange and winding path�what to tell the working men. 	suffrage address. 	( .) 	the right to vote�all women who desire the suffrage should have 	it�shall the people of the district of columbia manage their own 	affairs�their right to a representative in congress and an electoral 	vote�anomalous state of affairs at the capital of the republic�not the 	wealthy and educated alone should govern�the poor as trustworthy as the 	rich�strict registration laws needed. 	wall street speech. 	( .) 	obligation of new york to protect the best interests of the 	country�treason and forgery of the democratic party in its appeal to 	sword and pen�the one republican in the penitentiary of maine�the 	doctrine of state sovereignty�protection for american brain and 	muscle�hancock on the tariff�a forgery (the morey letter) committed 	and upheld�the character of james a. garfield. 	brooklyn speech. 	( .) 	introduced by henry ward beecher (note)�some patriotic 	democrats�freedom of speech north and south�an honest ballot� 	address to the th illinois regiment. 	decoration day oration. 	decoration day address. 	ratification speech. 	reunion address. 	the chicago and new york gold speech. volume x.--legal detailed contents of volume x. address to the jury in the munn trial. closing address to the jury in the first star route trial. opening address to the jury in the second star route trial. closing address in second star route trial address to the jury in the davis will case. argument before the vice-chancellor in the russell case. detailed contents of volume x. 	 address to the jury in the munn trial. 	demoralization caused by alcohol�note from the chicago 	times�prejudice�review of the testimony of jacob rehm�perjury 	characterized�the defendant and the offence charged (p. )�testimony 	of golsen reviewed�rehm's testimony before the grand jury�good 	character (p. )�suspicion not evidence. 	closing address to the jury in the first star route trial. 	note from the washington capital�the assertion denied that we are 	a demoralized country and that our country is distinguished among 	the nations only for corruption�duties of jurors and duties of 	lawyers�section under which the indictment is found�cases cited to 	show that overt acts charged and also the crime itself must be proved 	as described�routes upon which indictments are based and overt acts 	charged (pp. - )�routes on which the making of false claims is 	alleged�authorities on proofs of conspiracy (pp. - )�examination 	of the evidence against stephen w. and john w. dorsey (pp. - )�the 	corpus delicti in a case of conspiracy and the acts necessary to be done 	in order to establish conspiracy (pp. - )�testimony of walsh 	and the confession of rerdell�extravagance in mail carrying (p. 	 )�productiveness of mail routes (p. )�hypothesis of guilt and 	law of evidence�dangerous influence of suspicion�terrorizing the 	jury�the woman at her husband's side. 	opening address to the jury in the second star route trial. 	juries the bulwark of civil liberty�suspicion not evidence�brief 	statement of the case�john m. peck, john w. dorsey, stephen w. dorsey, 	john r. miner, mr. (a. e. ) boone (p.p. - )�the clendenning 	bonds�miner's, peck's, and dorsey's bids�why they bid on cheap 	routes�number of routes upon which there are indictments�the 	arrangement between stephen w. dorsey and john r. miner�appearance 	of mr. vaile in the contracts�partnership formed�the routes 	divided�senator dorsey's course after getting the routes�his routes 	turned over to james w. bosler�profits of the business (p. )�the 	petitions for more mails�productive and unproductive post-offices�men 	who add to the wealth of the world�where the idea of the productiveness 	of post routes was hatched�cost of letters to recipients in �the 	overland mail (p. )�loss in distributing the mail in the district 	of columbia and other territories�post-office the only evidence 	of national beneficence�profit and loss of mail carrying�orders 	antedated, and why�routes increased and expedited�additional bonds for 	additional trips�the charge that pay was received when the mail was 	not carried�fining on shares�subcontracts for less than the original 	contracts�pay on discontinued routes�alleged false affidavits�right 	of petition�reviewing the ground. 	closing address to the jury in the second star route trial. 	scheme of the indictment�story of the case�what constitutes fraudulent 	bidding�how a conspiracy must be proved�the hypothesis of guilt and 	law of evidence�conversation unsatisfactory evidence�fallibility of 	memory�proposition to produce mr. dorsey's books�interruption of the 	court to decide that primary evidence, having once been refused, can not 	afterwards be introduced to contradict secondary evidence�a defendant 	may not be presumed into the penitentiary�a decision by justice 	field�the right of petition�was there a conspiracy?�dorsey's 	benevolence (p. )�the chico springs letter�evidence of moore 	reviewed�mr. ker's defective memory�the informer system�testimony 	of rerdell reviewed�his letter to dorsey (p. )�the affidavit of 	rerdell and dorsey�petitions for faster time�uncertainty regarding 	handwriting�government should be incapable of deceit�rerdell's 	withdrawal of the plea of not guilty (p. )�informers, their immunity 	and evidence�nailing down the lid of rerdell's coffin�mistakes of 	messrs. ker and merrick and the court�letter of h. m. vaile to the 	sixth auditor�miner's letter to carey�miner, peck & co. to frank a. 	tuttle�answering points raised by mr. bliss ( et seq.)�evidence 	regarding the payment of money by dorsey to brady�a. e. boone's 	testimony reviewed�secrecy of contractors regarding the amount of their 	bids�boone's partnership agreement with dorsey�explanation of bids 	in different names�omission of instructions from proposals (p. 	 )�accusation that senator mitchell was the paid agent of 	the defendants�alleged sneers at things held sacred�what is a 	conspiracy?�the theory that there was a conspiracy�dorsey's alleged 	interest�the two affidavits in evidence�inquiry of general miles�why 	the defendant's books were not produced�tames w. bosler's testimony 	read (p. )�the court shown to be mistaken regarding a decision 	previously made (pp. - )�no logic in abuse�charges against john 	w. miner�testimony of a. w. moore reviewed-the verdict predicted�the 	defendants in the case�what is left for the jury to say�remarks of 	messrs. henkle and davidge�the verdict. 	address to the jury in the davis will case. 	note from the anaconda standard�senator sander's warning to the jury 	not to be enticed by sinners�evidence, based on quality of handwriting, 	that davis did not write the will�evidence of the spelling�assertion 	that the will was forged�peculiarities of eddy's handwriting�holes 	in sconce's signature and reputation�his memory�business sagacity 	of davis�his alleged children�date of his death�testimony of mr. 	knight�ink used in writing the will�expert evidence�speechlessness 	of john a. davis�eddy's failure to take the stand�testimony of 	carruthers�relatives of sconce�mary ann davis's connections�the 	family tree�the signature of the will�what the evidence shows�duty 	and opportunity of the jury. 	argument before the vice-chancellor in the russell case. 	antenuptial waiving of dower by women�a case from illinois�at what 	age men and women cease to feel the tender flame�russell's bargain with 	mrs. russell�antenuptial contract and parole agreement�definition 	of "liberal provision "�the woman not bound by a contract made in 	ignorance of the facts�contract destroyed by deception. volume xi.--miscellany detailed contents of volume xi. address on the civil rights act. trial of c. b. reynolds for blasphemy. god in the constitution. a reply to bishop spalding. crimes against criminals. a wooden god. some interrogation points. art and morality. the divided household of faith. why am i an agnostic? huxley and agnosticism. ernest renan. tolstoÏ and "the kreutzer sonata." thomas paine. the three philanthropists. should the chinese be excluded? a word about education. what i want for christmas. fool friends. inspiration the truth of history. how to edit a liberal paper. secularism. criticism of "robert elsmere," "john ward, preacher," and "an african farm." the libel laws rev. dr. newton's sermon on a new religion. an essay on christmas. has freethought a constructive side? the improved man. eight hours must come. the jews. crumbling creeds. our schools. vivisection. the census enumerator's official catechism. the agnostic christmas spirituality. sumter's gun. what infidels have done. cruelty in the elmira reformatory. law's delay. the bigotry of colleges. a young man's chances to-day. science and sentiment. sowing and reaping. should infidels send their children to sunday school? what would you substitute for the bible as a moral guide? governor rollins' fast-day proclamation. a look backward and a prophecy. political morality. a few reasons for doubting the inspiration of the bible. detailed contents of volume xi. 	 address on the civil rights act. 	introduction by frederick douglass("abou ben adhem")�decision of 	the united states supreme court pronouncing the civil rights act 	unconstitutional�limitations of judges�illusion destroyed by the 	decision in the dred scott case�mistake of our fathers in adopting 	the common law of england�the th amendment to the constitution 	quoted�the clause of the constitution upholding slavery�effect of 	this clause�definitions of a state by justice wilson and chief justice 	chase�effect of the thirteenth amendment�justice field on involuntary 	servitude�civil rights act quoted�definition of the word servitude by 	the supreme court�obvious purpose of the amendment�justice miller 	on the th amendment�citizens created by this amendment�opinion 	of justice field�rights and immunities guaranteed by the 	constitution�opinion delivered by chief-justice waite�further opinions 	of courts on the question of citizenship�effect of the th, th and 	 th amendments�"corrective" legislation by congress�denial of equal 	"social" privileges�is a state responsible for the action of its agent 	when acting contrary to law?�the word "state" must include the people 	of the state as well as the officers of the state�the louisiana civil 	rights law, and a case tried under it�uniformity of duties essential to 	the carrier�congress left powerless to protect rights conferred by the 	constitution�definition of "appropriate legislation"�propositions laid 	down regarding the sovereignty of the state, the powers of the general 	government, etc.�a tribute to justice harlan�a denial that property 	exists by virtue of law�civil rights not a question of social 	equality�considerations upon which social equality depends�liberty not 	a question of social equality�the superior man�inconsistencies of the 	past�no reason why we should hate the colored people�the issues that 	are upon us. 	trial of c. b. reynolds for blasphemy. 	address to the jury. 	report of the case from the new york times (note)�the right to express 	opinions�attempts to rule the minds of men by force�liberty the 	greatest good�intellectual hospitality defined�when the catholic 	church had power�advent of the protestants�the puritans, quakers. 	unitarians, universalists�what is blasphemy?�why this trial should not 	have taken place�argument cannot be put in jail�the constitution of 	new jersey�a higher law than men can make�the blasphemy statute 	quoted and discussed�is the statute constitutional?�the harm done 	by blasphemy laws�the meaning of this persecution�religions are 	ephemeral�let us judge each other by our actions�men who have braved 	public opinion should be honored�the blasphemy law if enforced would 	rob the world of the results of scientific research�it declares the 	great men of to-day to be criminals�the indictment read and commented 	upon�laws that go to sleep�obsolete dogmas the denial of which was 	once punished by death�blasphemy characterized�on the argument 	that blasphemy endangers the public peace�a definition of real 	blasphemy�trials for blasphemy in england�the case of abner 	kneeland�true worship, prayer, and religion�what is holy and 	sacred�what is claimed in this case�for the honor of the state�the 	word liberty�result of the trial (note). 	god in the constitution. 	the feudal system�office and purpose of our constitution�which god 	shall we select?�the existence of any god a matter of opinion�what is 	entailed by a recognition of a god in the constitution�can the infinite 	be flattered with a constitutional amendment?�this government is 	secular�the government of god a failure�the difference between the 	theological and the secular spirit�a nation neither christian nor 	infidel�the priest no longer a necessity�progress of science and the 	development of the mind. 	a reply to bishop spalding. 	on god in the constitution�why the constitutional convention ignored 	the question of religion�the fathers misrepresented�reasons why the 	attributes of god should not form an organic part of the law of the 	land�the effect of a clause recognizing god. 	crimes against criminals. 	the three pests of a community�i. forms of punishment and torture�more 	crimes committed than prevented by governments�ii. are not vices 	transmitted by nature?� . is it possible for all people to be 	honest?�children of vice as the natural product of society�statistics: 	the relation between insanity, pauperism, and crime�iv. the martyrs of 	vice�franklin's interest in the treatment of prisoners�v. kindness 	as a remedy�condition of the discharged prisoner�vi. compensation 	for convicts�vii. professional criminals�shall the nation take 	life?�influence of public executions on the spectators�lynchers 	for the most part criminals at heart�viii. the poverty of the many a 	perpetual menace�limitations of land-holding.�ix. defective education 	by our schools�hands should be educated as well as head�conduct 	improved by a clearer perception of consequences�x. the discipline of 	the average prison hardening and degrading�while society cringes before 	great thieves there will be little ones to fill the jails�xi. our 	ignorance should make us hesitate. 	a wooden god. 	on christian and chinese worship�report of the select committee 	on chinese immigration�the only true god as contrasted with 	joss�sacrifices to the "living god"�messrs. wright, dickey, o'connor 	and murch on the "religious system" of the american union�how to prove 	that christians are better than heathens�injustice in the name of 	god�an honest merchant the best missionary�a few extracts from 	confucius�the report proves that the wise men of china who predicted 	that christians could not be trusted were not only philosophers but 	prophets. 	some interrogation points. 	a new party and its purpose�the classes that exist in every 	country�effect of education on the common people�wants increased by 	intelligence�the dream of �the monopolist and the competitor�the 	war between the gould and mackay cables�competition between 	monopolies�all advance in legislation made by repealing laws�wages 	and values not to be fixed by law�men and machines�the specific of 	the capitalist: economy�the poor man and woman devoured by 	their fellow-men�socialism one of the worst possible forms of 	slavery�liberty not to be exchanged for comfort�will the workers 	always give their earnings for the useless?�priests, successful frauds, 	and robed impostors. 	art and morality. 	the origin of man's thoughts�the imaginative man�"medicinal view" of 	poetry�rhyme and religion�the theological poets and their purpose in 	writing�moral poets and their "unwelcome truths"�the really passionate 	are the virtuous�difference between the nude and the naked�morality 	the melody of conduct�the inculcation of moral lessons not contemplated 	by artists or great novelists�mistaken reformers�art not a 	sermon�language a multitude of pictures�great pictures and great 	statues painted and chiseled with words�mediocrity moral from a 	necessity which it calls virtue�why art civilizes�the nude�the venus 	de milo�this is art. 	the divided household of faith. 	the way in which theological seminaries were endowed�religious 	guide-boards�vast interests interwoven with creeds�pretensions of 	christianity�kepler's discovery of his three great laws�equivocations 	and evasions of the church�nature's testimony against the 	bible�the age of man on the earth�"inspired" morality of the 	bible�miracles�christian dogmas�what the church has been compelled to 	abandon�the appeal to epithets, hatred and punishment�"spirituality" 	the last resource of the orthodox�what is it to be spiritual?�two 	questions for the defenders of orthodox creeds. 	why am i an agnostic? 	part i. inharmony of nature and the lot of man with the goodness and 	wisdom of a supposed deity�why a creator is imagined�difficulty of the 	act of creation�belief in supernatural beings�belief and worship among 	savages�questions of origin and destiny�progress impossible without 	change of belief�circumstances determining belief�how may the 	true religion be ascertained?�prosperity of nations nor virtue 	of individuals dependent on religions or gods�uninspired books 	superior�part ii. the christian religion�credulity�miracles cannot 	be established�effect of testimony�miraculous qualities of all 	religions�theists and naturalists�the miracle of inspiration�how 	can the alleged fact of inspiration be established?�god's work and 	man's�rewards for falsehood offered by the church. 	huxley and agnosticism. 	statement by the principal of king's college�on the irrelevancy of a 	lack of scientific knowledge�difference between the agnostic and 	the christian not in knowledge but in credulity�the real name of 	an agnostic said to be "infidel"�what an infidel is�"unpleasant" 	significance of the word�belief in christ�"our lord and his apostles" 	possibly honest men�their character not invoked�possession by evil 	spirits�professor huxley's candor and clearness�the splendid dream 	of auguste comte�statement of the positive philosophy�huxley and 	harrison. 	ernest renan. 	his rearing and his anticipated biography�the complex character of the 	christ of the gospels�regarded as a man by renan�the sin against the 	holy ghost�renan on the gospels�no evidence that they were written 	by the men whose names they bear�written long after the events they 	describe�metaphysics of the church found in the gospel of john�not 	apparent why four gospels should have been written�regarded as 	legendary biographies�in "flagrant contradiction one with another"�the 	divine origin of christ an after-growth�improbable that he intended to 	form a church�renan's limitations�hebrew scholarship�his "people of 	israel"�his banter and blasphemy. 	tolstoy and "the kreutzer sonata." 	tolstoy's belief and philosophy�his asceticism�his view of human 	love�purpose of "the kreutzer sonata"�profound difference between the 	love of men and that of women�tolstoy cannot now found a religion, but 	may create the necessity for another asylum�the emotions�the curious 	opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree�impracticability of 	selling all and giving to the poor�love and obedience�unhappiness in 	the marriage relation not the fault of marriage. 	thomas paine. 	life by moncure d. conway�early advocacy of reforms against dueling 	and cruelty to animals�the first to write "the united states of 	america"�washington's sentiment against separation from great 	britain�paine's thoughts in the declaration of independence�author of 	the first proclamation of emancipation in america�establishment of a 	fund for the relief of the army�h's "farewell address"�the "rights of 	man"�elected to the french convention�efforts to save the life of the 	king�his thoughts on religion�arrested�the "age of reason" and the 	weapons it has furnished "advanced theologians"�neglect by gouverneur 	morris and washington�james monroe's letter to paine and to the 	committee of general safety�the vaunted religious liberty of 	colonial maryland�orthodox christianity at the beginning of the th 	century�new definitions of god�the funeral of paine. 	the three philanthropists. 	i. mr. a., the professional philanthropist, who established a colony 	for the enslavement of the poor who could not take care of themselves, 	amassed a large fortune thereby, built several churches, and earned 	the epitaph, "he was the providence of the poor"�ii. mr. b., 	the manufacturer, who enriched himself by taking advantage of the 	necessities of the poor, paid the lowest rate of wages, considered 	himself one of god's stewards, endowed the "b asylum" and the "b 	college," never lost a dollar, and of whom it was recorded, "he lived 	for others." iii. mr. c., who divided his profits with the people who had 	earned it, established no public institutions, suppressed nobody; and 	those who have worked for him said, "he allowed others to live for 	themselves." 	should the chinese be excluded? 	trampling on the rights of inferiors�rise of the irish and germans 	to power�the burlingame treaty�character of chinese laborers�their 	enemies in the pacific states�violation of treaties�the geary law�the 	chinese hated for their virtues�more piety than principle among the 	people's representatives�shall we go back to barbarism? 	a word about education. 	what the educated man knows�necessity of finding out the facts 	of nature�"scholars" not always educated men; from necessaries to 	luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers; the first duty of 	man; university education not necessary to usefulness, no advantage in 	learning useless facts. 	what i want for christmas. 	would have the kings and emperors resign, the nobility drop their 	titles, the professors agree to teach only what they know, the 	politicians changed to statesmen, the editors print only the 	truth�would like to see drunkenness and prohibition abolished, 	corporal punishment done away with, and the whole world free. 	fool friends. 	the fool friend believes every story against you, never denies a lie 	unless it is in your favor, regards your reputation as common prey, 	forgets his principles to gratify your enemies, and is so friendly that 	you cannot kick him. 	inspiration. 	nature tells a different story to all eyes and ears�horace greeley and 	the big trees�the man who "always did like rolling land"�what the 	snow looked like to the german�shakespeare's different story for each 	reader�as with nature so with the bible. 	the truth of history. 	people who live by lying�a case in point�h. hodson rugg's account of 	the conversion of ingersoll and , of his followers�the "identity of 	lost israel with the british nation"�old falsehoods about infidels�the 	new york observer and thomas paine�a rascally english editor�the 	charge that ingersoll's son had been converted�the fecundity of 	falsehood. 	how to edit a liberal paper. 	the editor should not narrow his horizon so that he can see only 	one thing�to know the defects of the bible is but the beginning of 	wisdom�the liberal paper should not discuss theological questions 	alone�a column for children�candor and kindness�nothing should be 	asserted that is not known�above all, teach the absolute freedom of the 	mind. 	secularism. 	the religion of humanity; what it embraces and what it advocates�a 	protest against ecclesiastical tyranny�believes in building a home 	here�means food and fireside�the right to express your thought�its 	advice to every human being�a religion without mysteries, miracles, or 	persecutions. 	criticism of "robert elsmere," "john ward, preacher," and "an african farm." 	religion unsoftened by infidelity�the orthodox minister whose wife has 	a heart�honesty of opinion not a mitigating circumstance�repulsiveness 	of an orthodox life�john ward an object of pity�lyndall of the 	"african farm"�the story of the hunter�death of waldo�women the 	caryatides of the church�attitude of christianity toward other 	religions�egotism of the ancient jews. 	the libel laws. 	all articles appearing in a newspaper should be signed by the 	writer�the law if changed should throw greater safeguards around the 	reputation of the citizen�pains should be taken to give prominence to 	retractions�the libel laws like a bayonet in war. 	rev. dr. newton's sermon on a new religion. 	mr. newton not regarded as a sceptic�new meanings given to old 	words�the vanishing picture of hell�the atonement�confidence being 	lost in the morality of the gospel�exclusiveness of the churches�the 	hope of immortality and belief in god have nothing to do with real 	religion�special providence a mistake. 	an essay on christmas. 	the day regarded as a holiday�a festival far older 	than christianity�relics of sun-worship in christian 	ceremonies�christianity furnished new steam for an old engine�pagan 	festivals correspond to ours�why holidays are popular�they must be for 	the benefit of the people. 	has freethought a constructive side? 	the object of freethought�what the religionist calls "affirmative 	and positive"�the positive side of freethought�constructive work of 	christianity. 	the improved man. 	he will be in favor of universal liberty, neither master nor slave; of 	equality and education; will develop in the direction of the beautiful; 	will believe only in the religion of this world�his motto�will not 	endeavor to change the mind of the "infinite"�will have no bells or 	censers�will be satisfied that the supernatural does not exist�will be 	self-poised, independent, candid and free. 	eight hours must come. 	the working people should be protected by law�life of no particular 	importance to the man who gets up before daylight and works till 	after dark�a revolution probable in the relations between labor and 	capital�working people becoming educated and more independent�the 	government can aid by means of good laws�women the worst paid�there 	should be no resort to force by either labor or capital. 	the jews. 	much like people of other religions�teaching given christian children 	about those who die in the faith of abraham�dr. john hall on 	the persecution of the jews in russia as the fulfillment of 	prophecy�hostility of orthodox early christians excited by jewish 	witnesses against the faith�an infamous chapter of history�good 	and bad men of every faith�jews should outgrow their own 	superstitions�what the intelligent jew knows. 	crumbling creeds. 	the common people called upon to decide as between the universities and 	the synods�modern medicine, law, literature and pictures as against the 	old�creeds agree with the sciences of their day�apology the prelude 	to retreat�the presbyterian creed infamous, but no worse than 	the catholic�progress begins when expression of opinion is 	allowed�examining the religions of other countries�the pulpit's 	position lost�the dogma of eternal pain the cause of the orthodox 	creeds losing popularity�every church teaching this infinite lie must 	fall. 	our schools. 	education the only lever capable of raising mankind�the 	school-house more important than the church�criticism of new york's 	school-buildings�the kindergarten system recommended�poor pay of 	teachers�the great danger to the republic is ignorance. 	vivisection. 	the hell of science�brutal curiosity of vivisectors�the pretence that 	they are working for the good of man�have these scientific assassins 	added to useful knowledge?�no good to the race to be accomplished by 	torture�the tendency to produce a race of intelligent wild beasts. 	the census enumerator's official catechism. 	right of the government to ask questions and of the citizen to refuse 	to answer them�matters which the government has no right to pry 	into�exposing the debtor's financial condition�a man might decline to 	tell whether he has a chronic disease or not. 	the agnostic christmas. 	natural phenomena and myths celebrated�the great day of the first 	religion, sun-worship�a god that knew no hatred nor sought revenge�the 	festival of light. 	spirituality. 	a much-abused word�the early christians too spiritual to be 	civilized�calvin and knox�paine, voltaire and humboldt not 	spiritual�darwin also lacking�what it is to be really spiritual�no 	connection with superstition. 	sumter's gun. 	what were thereby blown into rags and ravelings�the birth of a 	new epoch announced�lincoln made the most commanding figure of the 	century�story of its echoes. 	what infidels have done. 	what might have been asked of a christian years after 	christ�hospitals and asylums not all built for charity�girard 	college�lick observatory�carnegie not an orthodox christian�christian 	colleges�give us time. 	cruelty in the elmira reformatory. 	brockway a savage�the lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate 	the heart�brutality a failure�bishop potter's apostolical remark. 	law's delay. 	the object of a trial�justice can afford to wait�the right of 	appeal�case of mrs. maybrick�life imprisonment for murderers�american 	courts better than the english. 	bigotry of colleges. 	universities naturally conservative�kansas state university's 	objection to ingersoll as a commencement orator�comment by mr. depew 	(note)�action of cornell and the university of missouri. 	a young man's chances to-day. 	the chances a few years ago�capital now required�increasing 	competition in civilized life�independence the first object�if he has 	something to say, there will be plenty to listen. 	science and sentiment. 	science goes hand in hand with imagination�artistic and ethical 	development�science destroys superstition, not true religion�education 	preferable to legislation�our obligation to our children. 	"sowing and reaping." 	moody's belief accounted for�a dishonest and corrupting doctrine�a 	want of philosophy and sense�have souls in heaven no regrets?�mr. 	moody should read some useful books. 	should infidels send their children to sunday school? 	teachings of orthodox sunday schools�the ferocious god of the 	bible�miracles�a christian in constantinople would not send his 	child to a mosque�advice to all agnostics�strangle the serpent of 	superstition. 	what would you substitute for the bible as a moral guide? 	character of the bible�men and women not virtuous because of any 	book�the commandments both good and bad�books that do not help 	morality�jehovah not a moral god�what is morality?�intelligence the 	only moral guide. 	governor rollins' fast-day proclamation. 	decline of the christian religion in new hampshire�outgrown 	beliefs�present-day views of christ and the holy ghost�abandoned 	notions about the atonement�salvation for credulity�the miracles 	of the new testament�the bible "not true but inspired"�the "higher 	critics" riding two horses�infidelity in the pulpit�the "restraining 	influences of religion" as illustrated by spain and portugal�thinking, 	working and praying�the kind of faith that has departed. 	a look backward and a prophecy. 	the truth seeker congratulated on its twenty-fifth birthday�teachings 	of twenty-five years ago�dodging and evading�the clerical assault 	on darwin�draper, buckle, hegel, spencer, emerson�comparison 	of prejudices�vanished belief in the devil�matter and 	force�contradictions dwelling in unity�substitutes for jehovah�a 	prophecy. 	political morality. 	argument in the contested election case of strobach against herbert�the 	importance of honest elections�poisoning the source of justice�the 	fraudulent voter a traitor to his sovereign, the will of the 	people�political morality imperative. 	a few reasons for doubting the inspiration of the bible. 	date and manner of composing the old testament�other books not now in 	existence, and disagreements about the canon�composite character of 	certain books�various versions�why was god's message given to the jews 	alone?�the story of the creation, of the flood, of the tower, and 	of lot's wife�moses and aaron and the plagues of egypt�laws of 	slavery�instructions by jehovah calculated to excite astonishment and 	mirth�sacrifices and the scapegoat�passages showing that the laws of 	moses were made after the jews had left the desert�jehovah's dealings 	with his people�the sabbath law�prodigies�joshua's miracle�damned 	ignorance and infamy�jephthah's sacrifice�incredible stories�the 	woman of endor and the temptation of david�elijah and elisha�loss of 	the pentateuch from moses to josiah�the jews before and after being 	abandoned by jehovah�wealth of solomon and other marvels. volume xii.--miscellany prof. van buren denslow's "modern thinkers." preface to dr. edgar c. beall's "the brain and the bible." preface to "men, women and gods." preface to "for her daily bread." preface to "agnosticism and other essays." preface to "faith or fact." the grant banquet. thirteen club dinner. robson and crane dinner. the police captains' dinner. general grant's birthday dinner lotos club dinner, twentieth anniversary. manhattan athletic club dinner. the liederkranz club, seidl-stanton banquet. the frank b. carpenter dinner. unitarian club dinner. western society of the army of the potomac banquet. lotos club dinner in honor of anton seidl. lotos club dinner in honor of rear admiral schley. address to the actors' fund of america. the children of the stage. address to the press club. the circulation of obscene literature. convention of the national liberal league. convention of the american secular union. the religious belief of abraham lincoln. organized charities. spain and the spaniards. our new possessions. a few fragments on expansion. is it ever right for husband or wife to kill rival? professor briggs. fragments. effect of the world's fair on the human race. sabbath superstition. a tribute to george jacob holyoake. at the grave of benjamin w. parker. a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll a tribute to the rev. alexander clark. at a child's grave. a tribute to john g. mills. a tribute to elizur wright. a tribute to mrs. ida whiting knowles. a tribute to henry ward beecher. a tribute to roscoe conkling. a tribute to richard h. whiting. a tribute to courtlandt palmer. a tribute to mrs. mary h. fiske. a tribute to horace seaver. a tribute to lawrence barrett. a tribute to walt whitman. a tribute to philo d. beckwith. a tribute to anton seidl. a tribute to dr. thomas seton robertson. a tribute to thomas corwin. a tribute to isaac h. bailey. jesus christ. life. the works of robert g. ingersoll "he loves his country best who strives to make it best." in twelve volumes, volume ix. political new york the dresden publishing co., c. p. farrell dresden edition contents of volume ix. an address to the colored people. ( .) slavery and its justification by law and religion--its destructive influence upon nations--inauguration of the modern slave trade by the portuguese gonzales--planted upon american soil--the abolitionists, clarkson, wilberforce, and others--the struggle in england--pioneers in san domingo, oge and chevannes--early op-posers of slavery in america--william lloyd garrison--wendell phillips, charles sumner, john brown--the fugitive slave law--the emancipation proclamation--dread of education in the south--advice to the colored people. indianapolis speech. ( .) suspension of the writ of habeas corpus--precedent established by the revolutionary fathers--committees of safety appointed by the continental congress--arrest of disaffected persons in pennsylvania and delaware--interference with elections--resolution of continental congress with respect to citizens who opposed the sending of deputies to the convention of new york--penalty for refusing to take continental money or pray for the american cause--habeas corpus suspended during the revolution--interference with freedom of the press--negroes freed and allowed to fight in the continental army--crispus attacks--an abolition document issued by andrew jackson--majority rule--slavery and the rebellion--tribute to general grant. speech nominating blaine. ( .) note descriptive of the occasion--demand of the republicans of the united states--resumption--the plumed knight. centennial oration. ( .) one hundred years ago, our fathers retired the gods from politics--the declaration of independence--meaning of the declaration--the old idea of the source of political power--our fathers educated by their surroundings--the puritans--universal religious toleration declared by the catholics of maryland--roger williams--not all of our fathers in favor of independence--fortunate difference in religious views--secular government--authority derived from the people--the declaration and the beginning of the war--what they fought for--slavery--results of a hundred years of freedom--the declaration carried out in letter and spirit. bangor speech. ( .) the hayes campaign--reasons for voting the republican ticket--abolition of slavery--preservation of the union--reasons for not trusting the democratic party--record of the republican party--democrats assisted the south--paper money--enfranchisement of the negroes--samuel j. tilden--his essay on finance. cooper union speech, new york. ( .) all citizens stockholders in the united states of america--the democratic party a hungry organization--political parties contrasted--the fugitive slave law a disgrace to hell in its palmiest days--feelings of the democracy hurt on the subject of religion--defence of slavery in a resolution of the presbyterians, south--state of the union at the time the republican party was born--jacob thompson--the national debt--protection of citizens abroad--tammany hall: its relation to the penitentiary--the democratic party of new york city--"what hands!"--free schools. indianapolis speech. ( .) address to the veteran soldiers of the rebellion--objections to the democratic party--the men who have been democrats--why i am a republican--free labor and free thought--a vision of war--democratic slander of the greenback--shall the people who saved the country rule it?--on finance--government cannot create money--the greenback dollar a mortgage upon the country--guarantees that the debt will be paid-'the thoroughbred and the mule--the column of july, paris--the misleading guide board, the dismantled mill, and the place where there had been a hotel, chicago speech. ( .) the plea of "let bygones be bygones"--passport of the democratic party--right of the general government to send troops into southern states for the protection of colored people--abram s. hewitt's congratulatory letter to the negroes--the demand for inflation of the currency--record of rutherford b. hayes--contrasted with samuel j. tilden--merits of the republican party--negro and southern white--the superior man--"no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." eight to seven address. ( .) on the electoral commission--reminiscences of the hayes-tilden camp-- constitution of the electoral college--characteristics of the members-- frauds at the ballot box poisoning the fountain of power--reforms suggested--elections too frequent--the professional office-seeker--a letter on civil service reform--young men advised against government clerkships--too many legislators and too much legislation--defect in the constitution as to the mode of electing a president--protection of citizens by state and general governments--the dual government in south carolina--ex-rebel key in the president's cabinet--implacables and bourbons south and north--"i extend to you each and all the olive branch of peace." hard times and the way out. ( .) capital and labor--what is a capitalist?--the idle and the industrious artisans--no conflict between capital and labor--a period of inflation and speculation--life and fire insurance agents--business done on credit--the crash, failure, and bankruptcy--fall in the price of real estate a form of resumption--coming back to reality--definitions of money examined--not gold and silver but intelligent labor the measure of value--government cannot by law create wealth--a bill of fare not a dinner--fiat money--american honor pledged to the maintenance of the greenbacks--the cry against holders of bonds--criminals and vagabonds to be supported--duty of government to facilitate enterprise--more men must cultivate the soil--government aid for the overcoming of obstacles too great for individual enterprise--the palace builders the friends of labor--extravagance the best form of charity--useless to boost a man who is not climbing--the reasonable price for labor--the vagrant and his strange and winding path--what to tell the working men. suffrage address. ( .) the right to vote--all women who desire the suffrage should have it--shall the people of the district of columbia manage their own affairs--their right to a representative in congress and an electoral vote--anomalous state of affairs at the capital of the republic--not the wealthy and educated alone should govern--the poor as trustworthy as the rich--strict registration laws needed. wall street speech. ( .) obligation of new york to protect the best interests of the country--treason and forgery of the democratic party in its appeal to sword and pen--the one republican in the penitentiary of maine--the doctrine of state sovereignty--protection for american brain and muscle--hancock on the tariff--a forgery (the morey letter) committed and upheld--the character of james a. garfield. brooklyn speech. ( .) introduced by henry ward beecher (note)--some patriotic democrats--freedom of speech north and south--an honest ballot-- an address to the colored people. * an address delivered to the colored people at galesburg, illinois, . fellow-citizens--slavery has in a thousand forms existed in all ages, and among all people. it is as old as theft and robbery. every nation has enslaved its own people, and sold its own flesh and blood. most of the white race are in slavery to-day. it has often been said that any man who ought to be free, will be. the men who say this should remember that their own ancestors were once cringing, frightened, helpless slaves. when they became sufficiently educated to cease enslaving their own people, they then enslaved the first race they could conquer. if they differed in religion, they enslaved them. if they differed in color, that was sufficient. if they differed even in language, it was enough. if they were captured, they then pretended that having spared their lives, they had the right to enslave them. this argument was worthless. if they were captured, then there was no necessity for killing them. if there was no necessity for killing them, then they had no right to kill them. if they had no right to kill them, then they had no right to enslave them under the pretence that they had saved their lives. every excuse that the ingenuity of avarice could devise was believed to be a complete justification, and the great argument of slaveholders in all countries has been that slavery is a divine institution, and thus stealing human beings has always been fortified with a "thus saith the lord." slavery has been upheld by law and religion in every country. the word liberty is not in any creed in the world. slavery is right according to the law of man, shouted the judge. it is right according to the law of god, shouted the priest. thus sustained by what they were pleased to call the law of god and man, slaveholders never voluntarily freed the slaves, with the exception of the quakers. the institution has in all ages been clung to with the tenacity of death; clung to until it sapped and destroyed the foundations of society; clung to until all law became violence; clung to until virtue was a thing only of history; clung to until industry folded its arms--until commerce reefed every sail--until the fields were desolate and the cities silent, except where the poor free asked for bread, and the slave for mercy; clung to until the slave forging the sword of civil war from his fetters drenched the land in the master's blood. civil war has been the great liberator of the world. slavery has destroyed every nation that has gone down to death. it caused the last vestige of grecian civilization to disappear forever, and it caused rome to fall with a crash that shook the world. after the disappearance of slavery in its grossest forms in europe, gonzales pointed out to his countrymen, the portuguese, the immense profits that they could make by stealing africans, and thus commenced the modern slave-trade--that aggregation of all horror--that infinite of all cruelty, prosecuted only by demons, and defended only by fiends. and yet the slave-trade has been defended and sustained by every civilized nation, and by each and all has been baptized "legitimate commerce," in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost: it was even justified upon the ground that it tended to christianize the negro. it was of the poor hypocrites who had used this argument that whittier said, "they bade the slaveship speed from coast to coast, fanned by the wings of the holy ghost." backed and supported by such christian and humane arguments slavery was planted upon our soil in , and from that day to this it has been the cause of all our woes, of all the bloodshed--of all the heart-burnings--hatred and horrors of more than two hundred years, and yet we hated to part with the beloved institution. like pharaoh we would not let the people go. he was afflicted with vermin, with frogs--with water turned to blood--with several kinds of lice, and yet would not let the people go. we were afflicted with worse than all these combined--the northern democracy--before we became grand enough to say, "slavery shall be eradicated from the soil of the republic." when we reached this sublime moral height we were successful. the rebellion was crushed and liberty established. a majority of the civilized world is for freedom--nearly all the christian denominations are for liberty. the world has changed--the people are nobler, better and purer than ever. every great movement must be led by heroic and self-sacrificing pioneers. in england, in christian england, the soul of the abolition cause was thomas clarkson. to the great cause of human freedom he devoted his life. he won over the eloquent and glorious wilberforce, the great pitt, the magnificent orator, burke, and that far-seeing and humane statesman, charles james fox. in a resolution was introduced in the house of commons declaring that the slave trade ought to be abolished. it was defeated. learned lords opposed it. they said that too much capital was invested by british merchants in the slave-trade. that if it were abolished the ships would rot at the wharves, and that english commerce would be swept from the seas. sanctified bishops--lords spiritual--thought the scheme fanatical, and various resolutions to the same effect were defeated. the struggle lasted twenty years, and yet during all those years in which england refused to abolish the hellish trade, that nation had the impudence to send missionaries all over the world to make converts to a religion that in their opinion, at least, allowed man to steal his brother man--that allowed one christian to rob another of his wife, his child, and of that greatest of all blessings--his liberty. it was not until the year that england was grand and just enough to abolish the slave-trade, and not until that slavery was abolished in all her colonies. the name of thomas clarkson should be remembered and honored through all coming time by every black man, and by every white man who loves liberty and hates cruelty and injustice. clarkson, wilberforce, pitt, fox, burke, were the titans that swept the accursed slaver from that highway--the sea. in st. domingo the pioneers were oge and chevannes; they headed a revolt; they were unsuccessful, but they roused the slaves to resistance. they were captured, tried, condemned and executed. they were made to ask forgiveness of god, and of the king, for having attempted to give freedom to their own flesh and blood. they were broken alive on the wheel, and left to die of hunger and pain. the blood of these martyrs became the seed of liberty; and afterward in the midnight assault, in the massacre and pillage, the infuriated slaves shouted their names as their battle-cry, until toussaint, the greatest of the blacks, gave freedom to them all. in the united states, among the revolutionary fathers, such men as john adams, and his son john quincy--such men as franklin and john jay were opposed to the institution of slavery. thomas jefferson said, speaking of the slaves, "when the measure of their tears shall be full--when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness--doubtless a god of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality." thomas paine said, "no man can be happy surrounded by those whose happiness he has destroyed." and a more self-evident proposition was never uttered. these and many more revolutionary heroes were opposed to slavery and did what they could to prevent the establishment and spread of this most wicked and terrible of all institutions. you owe gratitude to those who were for liberty as a principle and not from mere necessity. you should remember with more than gratitude that firm, consistent and faithful friend of your downtrodden race, wm. lloyd garrison. he has devoted his life to your cause. many years ago in boston he commenced the publication of a paper devoted to liberty. poor and despised--friendless and almost alone, he persevered in that grandest and holiest of all possible undertakings. he never stopped, or stayed, or paused until the chain was broken and the last slave could lift his toil-worn face to heaven with the light of freedom shining down upon him, and say, i am a free man. you should not forget that noble philanthropist, wendell phillips, and your most learned and eloquent defender, charles sumner. but the real pioneer in america was old john brown. moved not by prejudice, not by love of his blood, or his color, but by an infinite love of liberty, of right, of justice, almost single-handed, he attacked the monster, with thirty million people against him. his head was wrong. he miscalculated his forces; but his heart was right. he struck the sublimest blow of the age for freedom. it was said of him that, he stepped from the gallows to the throne of god. it was said that he had made the scaffold to liberty what christ had made the cross to christianity. the sublime victor hugo declared that john brown was greater than washington, and that his name would live forever. i say, that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. no man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty. if the black people want a patron saint, let them take the brave old john brown. and as the gentleman who preceded me said, at all your meetings, never separate until you have sung the grand song, "john brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on." you do not, in my opinion, owe a great debt of gratitude to many of the white people. only a few years ago both parties agreed to carry out the fugitive slave law. if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had fled from slavery--had traveled through forests, crossed rivers, and through countless sufferings had got within one step of canada--of free soil--with the light of the north star shining in her eyes, and her babe pressed to her withered breast, both parties agreed to clutch her and hand her back to the dominion of the hound and lash. both parties, as parties, were willing to do this when the rebellion commenced. the truth is, we had to give you your liberty. there came a time in the history of the war when, defeated at the ballot box and in the field--driven to the shattered gates of eternal chaos--we were forced to make you free; and on the first day of january, , the justice so long delayed was done, and four millions of people were lifted from the condition of beasts of burden to the sublime heights of freedom. lincoln, the immortal, issued, and the men of the north sustained the great proclamation. as in the war there came a time when we were forced to make you free, so in the history of reconstruction came a time when we were forced to make you citizens; when we were forced to say that you should vote, and that you should have and exercise all the rights that we claim for ourselves. and to-day i am in favor of giving you every right that i claim for myself. in reconstructing the southern states, we could take our choice, either give the ballot to the negro, or allow the rebels to rule. we preferred loyal blacks to disloyal whites, because we believed liberty safer in the hands of its friends than in those of its foes. we must be for freedom everywhere. freedom is progress--slavery is desolation, cruelty and want. freedom invents--slavery forgets. the problem of the slave is to do the least work in the longest space of time. the problem of free men is to do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time. the free man, working for wife and children, gets his head and his hands in partnership. freedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the highest, from the simplest to the most complex. freedom believes in education--the salvation of slavery is ignorance. the south always dreaded the alphabet. they looked upon each letter as an abolitionist, and well they might. with a scent keener than their own bloodhounds they detected everything that could, directly or indirectly, interfere with slavery. they knew that when slaves begin to think, masters begin to tremble. they knew that free thought would destroy them; that discussion could not be endured; that a free press would liberate every slave; and so they mobbed free thought, and put an end to free discussion and abolished a free press, and in fact did all the mean and infamous things they could, that slavery might live, and that liberty might perish from among men. you are now citizens of many of the states, and in time you will be of all. i am astonished when i think how long it took to abolish the slave-trade, how long it took to abolish slavery in this country. i am also astonished to think that a few years ago magnificent steamers went down the mississippi freighted with your fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, and maybe some of you, bound like criminals, separated from wives, from husbands, every human feeling laughed at and outraged, sold like beasts, carried away from homes to work for another, receiving for pay only the marks of the lash upon the naked back. i am astonished at these things. i hate to think that all this was done under the constitution of the united states, under the flag of my country, under the wings of the eagle. the flag was not then what it is now. it was a mere rag in comparison. the eagle was a buzzard, and the constitution sanctioned the greatest crime of the world. i wonder that you--the black people--have forgotten all this. i wonder that you ask a white man to address you on this occasion, when the history of your connection with the white race is written in your blood and tears--is still upon your flesh, put there by the branding-iron and the lash. i feel like asking your forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted upon yours. if, in the future, the wheel of fortune should take a turn, and you should in any country have white men in your power, i pray you not to execute the villainy we have taught you. one word in conclusion. you have your liberty--use it to benefit your race. educate yourselves, educate your children, send teachers to the south. let your brethren there be educated. let them know something of art and science. improve yourselves, stand by each other, and above all be in favor of liberty the world over. the time is coming when you will be' allowed to be good and useful citizens of the great republic. this is your country as much as it is mine. you have the same rights here that i have--the same interest that i have. the avenues of distinction will be open to you and your children. great advances have been made. the rebels are now opposed to slavery--the democratic party is opposed to slavery, _as they say_. there is going to be no war of races. both parties want your votes in the south, and there will be just enough negroes without principle to join the rebels to make them think they will get more, and so the rebels will treat the negroes well. and the republicans will be sure to treat them well in order to prevent any more joining the rebels. the great problem is solved. liberty has solved it--and there will be no more slavery. on the old flag, on every fold and on every star will be liberty for all, equality before the law. the grand people are marching forward, and they will not pause until the earth is without a chain, and without a throne. speech at indianapolis. * hon. robert g. ingersoll, attorney-general of illinois, spoke at the rink last night to a large and appreciative audience among whom were many ladies. the distinguished speaker was escorted to the rink by the battalion of the fighting boys in blue. col. ingersoll spoke at a great disadvantage in having so large a hall to fill, but he has a splendid voice and so overcame the difficulty. the audience liberally applauded the numerous passages of eloquence and humor in col. ingersoll's speeeh, and listened with the best attention to his powerful argument, nor could they have done otherwise, for the speaker has a national reputation and did himself full justice last night--the journal, indianapolis, indiana, september , . grant campaign the democratic party, so-called, have several charges which they make against the republican party. they give us a variety of reasons why the republican party should no longer be entrusted with the control of this country. among other reasons they say that the republican party during the war was guilty of arresting citizens without due process of law--that we arrested democrats and put them in jail without indictment, in lincoln bastiles, without making an affidavit before a justice of the peace--that on some occasions we suspended the writ of _habeas corpus_, that we put some democrats in jail without their being indicted. i am sorry we did not put more. i admit we arrested some of them without an affidavit filed before a justice of the peace. i sincerely regret that we did not arrest more. i admit that for a few hours on one or two occasions we interfered with the freedom of the press; i sincerely regret that the government allowed a sheet to exist that did not talk on the side of this government. i admit that we did all these things. it is only proper and fair that we should answer these charges. unless the republican party can show that they did these things either according to the strict letter of law, according to the highest precedent, or from the necessity of the case, then we must admit that our party did wrong. you know as well as i that every democratic orator talks about the fathers, about washington and jackson, madison, jefferson, and many others; they tell us about the good old times when politicians were pure, when you could get justice in the courts, when congress was honest, when the political parties differed, and differed kindly and honestly; and they are shedding crocodile tears day after day--praying that the good old honest times might return again. they tell you that the members of this radical party are nothing like the men of the revolution. let us see. i lay this down as a proposition, that we had a right to do anything to preserve this government that our fathers had a right to do to found it. if they had a right to put tories in jail, to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_, and on some occasions _corpus_, in order to found this government, we had a right to put rebels and democrats in jail and to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ in order to preserve the government they thus formed. if they had a right to interfere with the freedom of the press in order that liberty might be planted upon this soil, we had a right to do the same thing to prevent the tree from being destroyed. in a word, we had a right to do anything to preserve this government which they had a right to do to found it. did our fathers arrest tories without writs, without indictments--did they interfere with the personal rights of tories in the name of liberty--did they have washington bastiles, did they have jefferson jails--did they have dungeons in the time of the revolution in which they put men that dared talk against this country and the liberties of the colonies? i propose to show that they did--that where we imprisoned one they imprisoned a hundred--that where we interfered with personal liberty once they did it a hundred times--that they carried on a war that _was_ a war--that they knew that when an appeal was made to force that was the end of law--that they did not attempt to gain their liberties through a justice of the peace or through a grand jury; that they appealed to force and the god of battles, and that any man who sought their protection and at the same time was against them and their cause they took by the nape of the neck and put in jail, where he ought to have been. the old continental congress in and had made up their minds that we ought to have something like liberty in these colonies, and the first step they took toward securing that end was to provide for the selection of a committee in every county and township, with a view to examining and finding out how the people stood touching the liberty of the colonies, and if they found a man that was not in favor of it, the people would not have anything to do with him politically, religiously, or socially. that was the first step they took, and a very sensible step it was. what was the next step? they found that these men were so lost to every principle of honor that they did not hurt them any by disgracing them. so they passed the following resolution which explains itself: _resolved_. that it be recommended to the several provincial assemblies or conventions or councils, or committees of safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective colonies whose going at large, may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of america.--journal of congress, vol. , page . what was the committee of safety? was it a justice of the peace? no. was it a grand jury? no. it was simply a committee of five or seven persons, more or less, appointed to watch over the town or county and see that these tories were attending to their business and not interfering with the rights of the colonies. whom were they to thus arrest and secure? every man that had committed murder--that had taken up arms against america, or voted the democratic or tory ticket? no. "every person whose going at large might in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of america." it was not necessary that they had committed any overt act, but if in the opinion of this council of safety, it was dangerous to let them run at large they were locked up. suppose that we had done that during the last war? you would have had to build several new jails in this county. what a howl would have gone up all over this state if we had attempted such a thing as that, and yet we had a perfect right to do anything to preserve our liberties, which our fathers had a right to do to obtain them. what more did they do? in the same congress that signed the immortal declaration of independence (and i think they knew as much about liberty and the rights of men as any democrat in marion county) adopted another resolution: _resolved_. that it be recommended to the executive powers of the several states, forthwith to apprehend and secure all persons who have in their general conduct and conversation evinced a disposition inimical to the cause of america, and that the persons so seized be confined in such places and treated in such manner as shall be consistent with their several characters and security of their persons.---journal of congress, vol. , p. . if they had talked as the democrats talked during the late war--if they had called the soldiers, "washington hirelings," and if when they allowed a few negroes to help them fight, had branded the struggle for liberty as an abolition war, they would be "apprehended and confined in such places and treated in such manner as was consistent with their characters and security of their persons," and yet all they did was to show a disposition inimical to the independence of america. if we had pursued a policy like that during the late war, nine out of ten of the members of the democratic party would have been in jail--there would not have been jails and prisons enough on the face of the whole earth to hold them. . now, when a democrat talks to you about lincoln bastiles, just quote this to him: _whereas_, the states of pennsylvania and delaware are threatened with an immediate invasion from a powerful army, who have already landed at the head of chesapeake bay; and whereas, the principles of sound policy and self-preservation require that persons who may be reasonably suspected of aiding or abetting the cause of the enemy may be prevented from pursuing measures injurious to the general weal, _resolved_, that the executive authorities of the states of pennsylvania and delaware be requested to cause all persons within their respective states, notoriously disaffected, to be apprehended, disarmed and secured until such time as the respective states think they may be released without injury to the common cause.---journal of congress, vol. , p. . that is what they did with them. when there was an invasion threatened the good state of indiana, if we had said we will imprison all men who by their conduct and conversation show that they are inimical to our cause, we would have been obliged to import jails and corral democrats as we did mules in the army. our fathers knew that the flag was never intended to protect any man who wanted to assail it. what more did they do? there was a man by the name of david franks, who wrote a letter and wanted to send it to england. in that letter he gave it as his opinion that the colonies were becoming disheartened and sick of the war. the heroic and chivalric fathers of the revolution violated the mails, took the aforesaid letter and then they took the aforesaid david franks by the collar and put him in jail. then they passed a resolution in congress that inasmuch as the said letter showed a disposition inimical to the liberties of the united states, major general arnold be requested to cause the said david franks to be forthwith arrested, put in jail and confined till the further order of congress. (jour. cong., vol. , p. and .) how many democrats wrote letters during the war declaring that the north never could conquer the south? how many wrote letters to the soldiers in the army telling them to shed no more fraternal blood in that suicidal and unchristian war? it would have taken all the provost marshals in the united states to arrest the democrats in indiana who were guilty of that offence. and yet they are talking about our fathers being such good men, while they are cursing us fordoing precisely what they did, only to a less extent than they did. we are still on the track of the old continental congress. i want you to understand the spirit that animated those men. they passed a resolution which is particularly applicable to the democrats during the war: with respect to all such unworthy americans as, regardless of their duty to their creator, their country, and their posterity, have taken part with our oppressors, and, influenced by the hope or possession of ignominious rewards, strive to recommend themselves to the bounty of the administration by misrepresenting and traducing the conduct and principles of the friends of american liberty, and opposing every measure formed for its preservation and security, _resolved_, that it be recommended to the different assemblies, conventions and committees or councils of safety in the united colonies, by the most speedy and effectual measures, to frustrate the mischievous machinations and restrain the wicked practices of these men. and it is the opinion of this congress that they ought to be disarmed and the more dangerous among them either kept in safe custody or bound with sufficient sureties for their good behavior. and in order that the said assemblies, conventions, committees or councils of safety may be enabled with greater ease and facility to carry this resolution into execution, _resolved_, that they be authorized to call to their aid whatever continental troops stationed in or near their respective colonies that may be conveniently spared from their more immediate duties, and commanding officers of such troops are hereby directed to afford the said assemblies, conventions, committees or councils of safety, all such assistance in executing this resolution as they may require, and which, consistent with the good of the service, may be supplied--journal of congress, vol. i, p. , do you hear that, democrat? the old continental congress said to these committees and councils of safety: "whenever you want to arrest any of these scoundrels, call on the continental troops." and general washington, the commander-in-chief of the army, and the officers under him, were directed to aid in the enforcement of all the measures adopted with reference to disaffected and dangerous persons. and what had these persons done? simply shown by their conversation, and letters directed to their friends, that they were opposed to the cause of american liberty. they did not even spare the governors of states. they were not appalled by any official position that a tory might hold. they simply said, "if you are not in favor of american liberty, we will put you 'where the dogs won't bite you.'" one of these men was governor eden of maryland. congress passed a resolution requesting the council of safety of maryland to seize and secure his person and papers, and send such of them as related to the american dispute to congress without delay. at the same time the person and papers of another man, one alexander ross, were seized in the same manner. ross was put in jail, and his papers transmitted to congress. there was a fellow by the name of parke and another by the name of morton, who presumed to undertake a journey from philadelphia to new york without getting a pass. congress ordered them to be arrested and imprisoned until further orders. they did not wait to have an affidavit filed before a justice of the peace. they took them by force and put them in jail, and that was the end of it. so much for the policy of the fathers, in regard to arbitrary arrests. during the war there was a great deal said about our occasionally interfering with the elections. let us see how the fathers stood upon that question. they held a convention in the state of new york in revolutionary times, and there were some gentlemen in queens county that were playing the role of kentucky--they were going to be neutral--they refused to vote to send deputies to the convention--they stood upon their dignity just as kentucky stood upon hers--a small place to stand on, the lord knows. what did our fathers do with them? they denounced them as unworthy to be american citizens and hardly fit to live. here is a resolution adopted by the continental congress on the d of january, : _resolved_, that all such persons in queens county aforesaid as voted against sending deputies to the present convention of new york, and named in a list of delinquents in queens county, published by the convention of new york, be put out of the protection of the united colonies, and that all trade and intercourse with them cease; that none of the inhabitants of that county be permitted to travel or abide in any part of these united colonies out of their said colony without a certificate from the convention or committee of safety of the colony of new york, setting forth that such inhabitant is a friend of the american cause, and not of the number of those who voted against sending deputies to the said convention, and that such of the inhabitants as shall be found out of the said county without such certificate, be apprehended and imprisoned three months. _resolved_, that no attorney or lawyer ought to commence, prosecute or defend any action at law of any kind, for any of the said inhabitants of queens county, who voted against sending deputies to the convention as aforesaid, and such attorney or lawyer as shall countenance this revolution, are enemies to the american cause, and shall be treated accordingly. what had they done? simply voted against sending delegates to the convention, and yet the fathers not only put them out of the protection of law, but prohibited any lawyer from appearing in their behalf in a court. democrats, don't you wish we had treated you that way during the war? what more did they do? they ordered a company of troops from connecticut, and two or three companies from new jersey, to go into the state of new york, and take away from every person who had voted against sending deputies to the convention, all his arms, and if anybody refused to give up his arms, they put him in jail. don't you wish you had lived then, my friend democrat? don't you wish you had prosecuted the war as our fathers prosecuted the revolution? i now want to show you how far they went in this direction. a man by the name of sutton, who lived on long island, had been going around giving his constitutional opinions upon the war. they had him arrested, and went on to resolve that he should be taken from philadelphia, pay the cost of transportation himself, be put in jail there, and while in jail should board himself. wouldn't a democrat have had a hard scramble for victuals if we had carried out that idea? just see what outrageous and terrible things the fathers did. and why did they do it? because they saw that in order to establish the liberties of america it was necessary they should take the tory by the throat just as it was necessary for us to take rebels by the throat during the late war. they had paper money in those days--shin-plasters--and some of the democrats of those times had legal doubts about this paper currency. one of these democrats, thomas harriott, was called before a committee of safety of new york, and there convicted of having refused to receive in payment the continental bills. the committee of new york conceiving that he was a dangerous person, informed the provincial congress of the facts in the case, and inquired whether congress thought he ought to go at large. upon receipt of this information by congress an order for the imprisonment of the offender was passed, as follows: _resolved_, that the general committee of the city of new york be requested and authorized, and are hereby requested and authorized to direct that thomas harriott be committed to close jail in this city, there to remain until further orders of this congress.--amer. archives, th series, vol. , p. i, . and yet all that he had done was to refuse to take continental money. he had simply given his opinion on the legal tender law, just as the democrats of indiana did in regard to greenbacks, and as a few circuit judges decided when they declared the legal tender act unconstitutional. it would have been perfectly proper and right that they, every man of them, should be, like thomas harriott, "committed to close jail, there to remain until further orders." did our forefathers ever interfere with religion? yes, they did with a preacher by the name of daniels, because he would not pray for the american cause. he thought he could coax the lord to beat us. they said to him, "you pray on our side, sir." he would not do it, and so they put him in jail and gave him work enough to pray himself out, and it took him some time to do it. they interfered with a _lack_ of religion. they believed that a tory or traitor in the pulpit was no better than anybody else. that is the way i have sometimes felt during the war. i have thought that i would like to see some of those white cravatted gentlemen "snaked" right out of the pulpits where they had dared to utter their treason, and set to playing checkers through a grated window. it is not possible that our fathers ever interfered with the writ of _habeas corpus_, is it? yes sir. our fathers advocated the doctrine that the good of the people is the supreme law of the land. they also advocated the doctrine that in the midst of armies law falls to the ground; the doctrine that when a country is in war it is to be governed by the laws of war. they thought that laws were made for the protection of good citizens, for the punishment of citizens that were bad, when they were not too bad or too numerous; then they threw the law-book down while they took the cannon and whipped the badness out of them; that is the next step, when the stones you throw, and kind words, and grass have failed. they said, why did we not appeal to law? we did; but it did no good. a large portion of the people were up in arms in defiance of law, and there was only one way to put them down, and that was by force of arms; and whenever an appeal is made to force, that force is governed by the law of war. the fathers suspended the writ in the case of a man who had committed an offence in the state of new york. they sent him to the state of connecticut to be confined, just as men were sent from indiana to fort lafayette. the attorneys came before the convention of new york to hear the matter inquired into, but the committee of the convention to whom the matter was referred refused to inquire into the original cause of commitment--a direct denial of the authority of the writ. the writ of _habeas corpus_ merely brings the body before the judge that he may inquire why he is imprisoned. they refused to make any such inquiry. their action was endorsed by the convention and the gentleman was sent to connecticut and put in jail. they not only did these things in one instance, but in a thousand. they took men from maryland and put them in prison in pennsylvania, and they took men from pennsylvania and confined them in maryland, whenever they thought the tories were so thick at one point that the rascals might possibly be released, they took them somewhere else. they did not interfere with the freedom of the press, did they? yes, sir. they found a gentleman who was speaking and writing against the liberties of the colonies, and they just took his paper away from him, and gave it to a man who ran it in the interest of the colonies, using the tory's type and press. [a voice--that was right.] right! of course it was right. what right has a newspaper in indiana to talk against the cause for which your son is laying down his life on the field of battle? what right has any man to make it take thousands of men more to crush a rebellion? what right has any man protected by the american flag to do all in his power to put it in the hands of the enemies of his country? the same right that any man has to be a rascal, a thief and traitor--no other right under heaven. our fathers had sense enough to see that, and they said, "one gentleman in the rear printing against our noble cause, will cost us hundreds of noble lives at the front." why have you a right to take a rebel's horse? because it helps you and weakens the enemy. that is by the law of war. that is the principle upon which they seized the tory printing press. they had the right to do it. and if i had had the power in this country, no man should have said a word, or written a line, or printed anything against the cause for which the heroic men of the north sacrificed their lives. i would have enriched the soil of this country with him before he should have done it. a man by the name of james rivington undertook to publish a paper against the country. they would not speak to him; they denounced him, seized his press, and made him ask forgiveness and promise to print no more such stuff before they would let him have his sheet again. no person but a rebel ever thought that was wrong. there is no common sense in going to the field to fight and leaving a man at home to undo all that you accomplish. our fathers did not like these tories, and when the war was over they confiscated their estates--took their land and gave it over to good union men. how did they do it? did they issue summons, and have a trial? no, sir. they did it by wholesale--they did it by resolution, and the estates of hundreds of men were taken from them without their having a day in court or any notice or trial whatever. they said to the tories: "you cast your fortunes with the other side, let them pay you. the flag you fought against protects the land you owned and it will prevent you from having it." nor is that all. they ran thousands of them out of the country away up into nova scotia, and the old blue-nosed tories are there yet. in his letter to governor cooke of rhode island, washington enumerates an act of that colony, declaring that "none should speak, write, or act against the proceedings of congress or their acts of assembly, under penalty of being disarmed and disqualified from holding any office, and being further punished by imprisonment," as one that met his approbation, and which should exist in other colonies. there is the doctrine for you democrats. so i could go on by the hour or by the day. i could show you how they made domiciliary visits, interfered with travel, imprisoned without any sort of writ or affidavit--in other words, did whatever they thought was necessary to whip the enemy and establish their independence. what next do they charge against us? that we freed negroes. so we did. that we allowed those negroes to fight in the army. yes, we did, that we allowed them to vote. we did that too. that we have made them citizens. yes, we have, and what are you democrats going to do about it? now, what did our fathers do? did they free any of the negroes? yes, sir. did they allow any of them to fight in the army? yes, sir. did they permit any of them to vote? yes, sir. did they make them citizens? yes, sir. let us see whether they did or not. before we had the present constitution we had what were called articles of confederation. the fourth of those articles provided that every free inhabitant of the colony should be a citizen. it did not make any difference whether he was white or black; and negroes voted by the side of washington and jefferson. just here the question arises, if negroes were good enough in and to vote by the side of such men, whether rebels and their sympathizers are good enough now to vote alongside of the negro. did they let any of these negroes fight? in , when massachusetts had slaves, there appeared in the boston gazette the following notice: "ran away from his master, wm. brown, of framingham, on the th september last, a mulatto fellow, about years of age, named crispus, about feet high, short curly hair, had on a light colored bear-skin coat, brown jacket, new buckskin breeches, blue yarn stockings and check woolen shirt," etc. this "mulatto fellow" did not come back, and so they advertised the next week and the week following, but still the toes of the blue yarn socks pointed the other way. that was in . came and , and the people of this continent began to talk about having their liberties. and while wise and thoughtful men were talking about it, making petitions for popular rights and laying them at the foot of the throne, the king's troops were in boston. one day they marched down king street, on their way to arrest some citizen. the soldiery were attacked by a mob, and at its head was a "mulatto fellow" who shouted "here they are," and it was observed that this "mulatto fellow" was about six feet high--that his knees were nearer together than common, and that he was about years of age. the soldiers fired upon the mob and he fell, shot through with five balls--the first man that led a charge against british aggression--the first martyr whose blood was shed for american liberty upon this soil. they took up that poor corpse, and as it lay in faneuil hall it did more honor to the place than did daniel webster defending the fugitive slave law. they allowed him to fight. would our fathers have been brutal enough, if he had not been killed, to put him back into slavery? no! they would have said that a man who fights for liberty should enjoy it. if a man fights for that flag it shall protect him. perish forever from the heavens the flag that will not defend its defenders, be they white or black. thus our fathers felt. they raised negro troops by the company and the regiment, and gave his liberty to every man that fought for liberty. not only that, but they allowed them to vote. they voted in the carolinas, in tennessee, in new york, in all the new england states. our fathers had too much decency to act upon the democratic doctrine. in the war of , negroes fought at lake erie and at new orleans, and then the fathers, as in the revolution, were too magnanimous to turn them back into slavery. you need not get mad, my democratic friends, because you hate ben. butler. let me read you an abolition document. you will all say it is right; you cannot say anything else when you hear it. butler, you know, was down in new orleans, and he made some of those rebels dance a tune that they did not know, and he made them keep pretty good time too: _to the free colored inhabitants of louisiana:_ through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. this shall no longer exist. as sons of freedom you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing. as americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous support as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government. as fathers, husbands and brothers you are summoned to rally around the standard of the eagle--to defend all which is dear in existence. your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services rendered. your intelligent minds can not be led away by false representations. your love of honor would cause you to despise a man who should attempt to deceive you. in the sincerity of a soldier and the language of truth i address you. to every noble-hearted, generous free man of color volunteering to serve during the present contest and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty in money and lands now received by the white soldiers of the united states, viz: $ in money and one hundred and sixty acres of land. the noncommissioned officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay and daily rations and clothing furnished any american soldier. on enrolling yourselves in companies, the major general commanding will select officers for your government from your white fellow-citizens. your non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves. due regard will be paid to their feelings as freemen and soldiers. you will not by being associated with white men in the same corps, be exposed to improper companions or unjust sarcasm. as a distinct battalion or regiment pursuing the path of glory, you will undivided receive the applause and gratitude of your countrymen. to assure you of the sincerity of my intentions and my anxiety to engage your valuable services to our country, i have communicated my wishes to the governor of louisiana, who is fully informed as to the manner of enrollment, and give you every necessary information on the subject of this address. this is a terrible document to a democrat. let us look back over it a little. "through a mistaken policy." we had not sense enough to let the negroes fight during the first part of the war. "as sons of freedom" we had got sense by this time. "americans." oh! shocking! think of calling negroes americans. "your country!" is that not enough to make a democrat sick? "as fathers, husbands, brothers." negro brothers. that is too bad. "your intelligent minds." now, just think of a negro having an intelligent mind. "are not to be led away by false representations." then precious few of them will vote the democratic ticket. "your sense of honor will lead you to despise the man who should attempt to deceive you." then how they will hate the democratic party. then he goes on to say that the same bounty, money and land that the white soldiers receive will be paid to these negroes. not only that, but they are to have the same pay, clothing and rations. only think of a negro having as much land, as much to eat and as many clothes to wear as a white man. is not this a vile abolition document? and yet there is not a democrat in indiana that dare open his mouth against it, full of negro equality as it is. now, let us see when and by whom this proclamation was issued. you will find that it is dated, "headquarters th military district, mobile, september st, ," and signed "andrew jackson, major general commanding." oh, you jackson democrats. you gentlemen that are descended from washington and jackson--great heavens, what a descent! do you think. jackson was a democrat? he generally passed for a good democrat; yet he issued that abominable abolition proclamation and put negroes on an equality with white men. that is not the worst of it, either; for after he got these negroes into the army he made a speech to them, and what did he say in that speech? here it is in full: _to the men of color:_ soldiers--from the shores of mobile i called you to arms. i invited you to share in the perils and to divide the glory with your white countrymen. i expected much from you, for i was not uninformed of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading foe. i knew that you could endure hunger, thirst, and all the hardships of war. i knew that you loved the land of your nativity, and that like ourselves you had to defend all that is most dear to man. but you surpass my hopes. i have found in you united to these qualities that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds. soldiers, the president of the united states shall be informed of your conduct on the present occasion and the voice of the representatives of the american nation shall applaud your valor as your general now praises your ardor. the enemy is near. his sails cover the lakes. but the brave are united, and if he finds' us contending among ourselves, it will be only for the prize of valor, its noblest reward. there is negro equality for you. there is the first man since the heroes of the revolution died that issued a proclamation and put negroes on an equality with white men, and he was as good a democrat as ever lived in indiana. i could go on and show where they voted, and who allowed them to vote, but i have said enough on that question, and also upon the question of their fighting in the army, and of their being citizens, and have established, i think conclusively, this: _first_. that our fathers, in order to found this government, arrested men without warrant, indictment or affidavit by the hundred and by the thousand; that we, in order to preserve the government that they thus founded, arrested a few people without warrant. _second_. that our fathers, for the purpose of founding the government, suspended the writ of _habeas corpus_; that we, for the purpose of preserving the same government, did the same thing. _third_. that they, for the purpose of inaugurating this government, interfered with the liberty of the press; that we, on one or two occasions, for the purpose of preserving the government, interfered with the liberty of the press. _fourth_. that our fathers allowed negroes to fight in order that they might secure the liberties of america; that we, in order to preserve those liberties, allow negroes to fight. _fifth_. that our fathers, out of gratitude to the negroes in the revolutionary war, allowed them to vote; that we have done the same. that they made them citizens, and we have followed their example. as far as i have gone, i have shown that the fathers of the revolution and the war of set us the example for everything we have done. now, mr. democrat, if you want to curse us, curse them too. either quit yawping about the fathers, or quit yawping about us. now, then, was there any necessity, during this war, to follow the example of our fathers? the question was put to us in : "shall the majority rule?" and also the balance of that question: "shall the minority submit?" the minority said they would not. upon the right of the majority to rule rests the entire structure of our government. had we, in , given up that principle, the foundations of our government would have been totally destroyed. in fact there would have been no government, even in the north. it is no use to say the majority shall rule if the minority consents. therefore, if, when a man has been duly elected president, anybody undertakes to prevent him from being president, it is your duty to protect him and enforce submission to the will of the majority. in we had presented to us the alternative, either to let the great principle that lies at the foundation of our government go by the board, or to appeal to arms, and to the god of battles, and fight it through. the southern people said they were going out of the union; we implored them to stay, by the common memories of the revolution, by an apparent common destiny; by the love of man, but they refused to listen to us--rushed past us, and appealed to the arbitrament of the sword; and now i, for one, say by the decision of the sword let them abide. now, i want to show how mean the american people were in . the vile and abominable institution of slavery had so corrupted us that we did not know right from wrong. it crept into the pulpit until the sermon became the echo of the bloodhound's bark. it crept upon the bench, and the judge could not tell whether the corn belonged to the man that raised it, or to the fellow that did not, but he rather thought it belonged to the latter. we had lost our sense of justice. even the people of indiana were so far gone as to agree to carry out the fugitive slave law. was it not low-lived and contemptible? we agreed that if we found a woman ninety-nine one hundredths white, who, inspired by the love of liberty, had run away from her masters, and had got within one step of free soil, we would clutch her and bring her back to the dominion of the democrat, the bloodhound and the lash. we were just mean enough to do it. we used to read that some hundreds of years ago a lot of soldiers would march into a man's house, take him out, tie him to a stake driven into the earth, pile fagots around him, and let the thirsty flames consume him, and all because they differed from him about religion. we said it was horrible; it made our blood run cold to think of it; yet at the same time many a magnificent steamboat floated down the mississippi with wives and husbands, fragments of families torn asunder, doomed to a life of toil, requited only by lashes upon the naked back, and branding irons upon the quivering flesh, and we thought little of it. when we set out to put down the rebellion the democratic party started up all at once and said, "you are not going to interfere with slavery, are you?" now, it is remarkable that whenever we were going to do a good thing, we had to let on that we were going to do a mean one. if we had said at the outset, "we will break the shackles from four millions of slaves" we never would have succeeded. we had to come at it by degrees. the democrats scented it out. they had a scent keener than a bloodhound when anything was going to be done to affect slavery. "put down rebellion," they said, "but don't hurt slavery." we said, "we will not; we will restore the union as it was and the constitution as it is." we were in good faith about it. we had no better sense then than to think that it was worth fighting for, to preserve the cause of quarrel--the bone of contention--so as to have war all the time. every blow we struck for slavery was a blow against us. the rebellion was simply slavery with a mask on. we never whipped anybody but once so long as we stood upon that doctrine; that was at donelson; and the victory there was not owing to the policy, but to the splendid genius of the next president of the united states. after a while it got into our heads that slavery was the cause of the trouble, and we began to edge up slowly toward slavery. when mr. lincoln said he would destroy slavery if absolutely necessary for the suppression of the rebellion, people thought that was the most radical thing that ever was uttered. but the time came when it was necessary to free the slaves, and to put muskets into their hands. the democratic party opposed us with all their might until the draft came, and they wanted negroes for substitutes; and i never heard a democrat object to arming the negroes after that. [the speaker from this point presented the history of the republican policy of reconstruction, and touched lightly on the subject of the national debt. he glanced at the finances, reviewing in the most scathing manner the history and character of seymour, paid a most eloquent tribute to the character and public services of general grant, and closed with the following words: ] the hero of the rebellion, who accomplished at shiloh what napoleon endeavored at waterloo; who captured vicksburg by a series of victories unsurpassed, taking the keystone from the rebel arch; who achieved at missionary ridge a success as grand as it was unexpected to the country; who, having been summoned from the death-bed of rebellion in the west, marched like an athlete from the potomac to the james, the grandest march in the history of the world. this was all done without the least flourish upon his part. no talk about destiny--without faith in a star--with the simple remark that he would "fight it out on that line," without a boast, modest to bashfulness, yet brave to audacity, simple as duty, firm as war, direct as truth--this hero, with so much common sense that he is the most uncommon man of his time, will be, in spite of executive snares and cabinet entanglements, of competent false witnesses of the democratic party, the next president of the united states. he will be trusted with the government his genius saved. speech at cincinnati.* * the nomination of blaine was the passionately dramatic scene of the day. robert g. ingersoll had been fixed upon to present blaine's name to the convention, and, as the result proved, a more effective champion could not have been selected in the whole party conclave. as the clerk, running down the list, reached maine, an extraordinary event happened. the applause and cheers which had heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the galleries and platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous outburst from every part of the house. ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to the central stage. as he walked forward the thundering cheers, sustained and swelling, never ceased. as he reached the platform they took on an increased volume of sound, and for ten minutes the surging fury of acclamation, the wild waving of fans, hats, and handkerchiefs transformed the scene from one of deliberation to that of a bedlam of rapturous delirium. ingersoll waited with unimpaired serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard. * * * and then began an appeal, impassioned, artful, brilliant, and persuasive. * * * possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning, cordial frankness, ingersoll had half won his audience before he spoke a word. it is the attestation of every man that heard him, that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered before a political convention. its effect was indescribable. the coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest expression. the adversaries of blaine, as well as his friends, listened with unswerving, absorbed attention. curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes and mouth wide open, his figure moving in unison to the tremendous periods that fell in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from the illinoisan's smiling lips. the matchless method and manner of the man can never be imagined from the report in type. to realize the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the irrestrainable fervor of the audience requires actual sight. words can do but meagre justice to the wizard power of this extraordinary man. he swayed and moved and impelled and restrained and worked in all ways with the mass before him as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank face as calm as when he began, the overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable wonder and delight.--chicago times, june , . speech nominating blaine. june , . massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of benjamin h. bristow; so am i; but if any man nominated by this convention can not carry the state of massachusetts, i am not satisfied with the loyalty of that state. if the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old commonwealth of massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, i would advise them to sell out faneuil hall as a democratic headquarters. i would advise them to take from bunker hill that old monument of glory. the republicans of the united states demand as their leader in the great contest of a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions. they demand a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as before the election. they demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense--a man of superb moral courage. they demand a man acquainted with public affairs--with the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. they demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this government to the other nations of the earth. they demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and prerogatives of each and every department of this government. they demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the united states; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the united states have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. the republicans of the united states demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil. this money has to be dug out of the earth. you cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention. the republicans of the united states want a man who knows that this government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. they demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school. they demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a confederate congress. the man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand and gallant leader of the republican party--james g. blaine. our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag--such a man is james g. blaine. for the republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat. this is a grand year--a year filled with recollections of the revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty--a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for the man who has preserved in congress what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched the mask of democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, james g. blaine marched down the halls of the american congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor. for the republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle. james g. blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the republican party. i call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free. gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at andersonville and libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, illinois--illinois nominates for the next president of this country, that prince of parliamentarians--that leader of leaders--james g. blaine. centennial oration. * delivered on the one hundredth anniversary of the declaration of independence, at peoria, ill., july , . july , . the declaration of independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of a people. it is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom. i say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the british navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of america, looking after defenceless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. it was made when thousands of english soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of america were in the substantial possession of the enemy. and so, i say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man. and if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the physical. they had the courage not only, but they had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are created equal. such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in the olden time, but, for the first time in the history of the world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. with one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. they struck down with one immortal blow that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. with one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed, all that had been done by centuries of war--centuries of hypocrisy--centuries of injustice. one hundred years ago our fathers retired the gods from politics. what more did they do? they then declared that each man has a right to live. and what does that mean? it means that he has the right to make his living. it means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor--the labor of his hand and of his brain. what more? that every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his own way. grander words than these have never been spoken by man. and what more did these men say? they laid down the doctrine that governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. the old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of the state--that is to say, for kings and nobles. the old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest--that their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other. and what more? that the people are the source of political power. that was not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. it changed the ideas of people with regard to the source of political power. for the first time it made human beings men. what was the old idea? the old idea was that no political power came from, or in any manner belonged to, the people. the old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. that was the old idea. the nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to divide what they stole with god almighty. the source, then, of political power was from above. the people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. the kings were responsible to god; not to the people. the kings were responsible to the clouds; not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered. and our forefathers, in this declaration of independence, reversed this thing, and said: no; the people, they are the source of political power, and their rulers, these presidents, these kings are but the agents and servants of the great sublime people. for the first time, really, in the history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the people were royally seated thereon. the people became the sovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people. it is hard for you and me now to even imagine the immense results of that change. it is hard for you and for me, at this day, to understand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man, that the king had some wonderful right over him; that in some strange way the king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, body and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse--to somebody with epaulettes on his shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head. our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first landed on american shores they believed it. they thought they belonged to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief who could trace his pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber. it took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and hearts. they were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of the old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. the distance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and every mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. besides that, when they came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one hand and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the world, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little republics. and the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not. it has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated by nature, that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed; that the great rivers--the wide plains--the splendid lakes--the lonely forests--the sublime mountains--that all these things stole into and became a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in which they lived. they began to hate the narrow, contracted views of europe. they were educated by their surroundings, and every little colony had to be to a certain extent a republic. the kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. but there were too many indians. there was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country--who were dissatisfied with england, dissatisfied with france, with germany, with ireland and holland. the kings' favorites stayed at home. men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. and they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. the best blood of the old world came to the new. when they first came over they did not have a great deal of political philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. we might as well tell the truth. when the puritans first came, they were narrow. they did not understand what liberty meant--what religious liberty, what political liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. there was one feeling among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the clouds--they were in favor of universal education. wherever they went they built schoolhouses, introduced books and ideas of literature. they believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. that is the glory of the puritan fathers. they forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to apply the principle of universal liberty--of toleration. some of the colonies did not forget it, and i want to give credit where credit should be given. the catholics of maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious toleration. let this be remembered to their eternal honor. let it be remembered to the disgrace of the protestant government of england, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. and to the honor and credit of the catholics of maryland let it be remembered that the moment they got back into power they re-enacted the old law. the baptists of rhode island also, led by roger williams, were in favor of universal religious liberty. no american should fail to honor roger williams. he was the first grand advocate of the liberty of the soul. he was in favor of the eternal divorce of church and state. so far as i know, he was the only man at that time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty. while the catholics of maryland declared in favor of religious _toleration_, they had no idea of religious liberty. they would not allow anyone to call in question the doctrine of the trinity, or the inspiration of the scriptures. they stood ready with branding-iron and gallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to express his thoughts. so many religions met in our country--so many theories and dogmas came in contact--so many follies, mistakes, and stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into disrepute. besides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of all others. the people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the next. the preacher was lost in the patriot. the bible was read to find passages against kings. everybody was discussing the rights of man. farmers and mechanics suddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every question was asked and answered. during these years of political excitement the interest in religion abated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects and creeds. at last our fathers became tired of being colonists--tired of writing and reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended knees to an idiot king. they began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an old monarchy. they had the idea--the puritans, the catholics, the episcopalians, the baptists, the quakers, and a few freethinkers, all had the idea--that they would like to form a new nation. now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of independence. do not understand that they were all like jefferson; that they were all like adams or lee; that they were all like thomas paine or john hancock. there were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed to american independence. there were thousands and thousands who said: "when you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false." thousands and thousands of them said: "we prefer great britain." but the men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new nation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few. they met in philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by lee of virginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to dissolve their political connection with great britain. they made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. all nations had been, so to speak, the wards of some church. the religious idea as to the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments, and had been the bane and curse of man. happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. there were the puritans who hated the episcopalians, and episcopalians who hated the catholics, and the catholics who hated both, while the quakers held them all in contempt. there they were, of every sort, and color and kind, and how was it that they came together? they had a common aspiration. they wanted to form a new nation. more than that, most of them cordially hated great britain; and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. they solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of all. our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. recollect that. the first secular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. in other words, our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence. you might as well have a government united by force with art, or with poetry, or with oratory, as with religion. religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more. religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more. the religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and curse. the religious argument that has to be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. a prayer that must have a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. love need not carry knives and revolvers. so our fathers said: "we will form a secular government, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship god as he thinks best." they said: "religion is an individual thing between each man and his creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." and why did they do this? the history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. they had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks, and the dungeons of the inquisition. they knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. they knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. they also knew that if they gave power to any church, it would corrupt the best church in the world. and so they said that power must not reside in a church, or in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is--in the great body of the people. and the officers and servants of the people must be responsible to them. and so i say again, as i said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the pro-foundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man. they turned, as i tell you, everything squarely about. they derived all their authority from the people. they did away forever with the theological idea of government. and what more did they say? they said that whenever the rulers abused this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the people. how did they come to say this? i will tell you. they were pushed into it. how? they felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened. nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ of _habeas corpus_. nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas of justice. and they began to inquire what rights the king of great britain had. they began to search for the charter of his authority. they began to investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they found at' the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not thrones, but humanity and the rights of men. and so they said, we are men; we are men. they found out they were men. and the next thing they said, was, "we will be free men; we are weary of being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men; and these colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a nation; and that nation ought to drive the last british soldier into the sea." and so they signed that brave declaration of independence. i thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing that sublime declaration. i thank them for their courage--for their patriotism--for their wisdom--for the splendid confidence in themselves and in the human race. i thank them for what they were, and for what we are--for what they did, and for what we have received--for what they suffered, and for what we enjoy. what would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? what would we have been to-day? nobodies--ready to get down on our knees and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed marauder--that royal robber, william the conqueror. they signed that declaration of independence, although they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. they looked forward and saw poverty, deprivation, gloom, and death. but they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom. these grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has been raised only by enthusiasts. in every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. the enthusiasts of were the builders and framers of this great and splendid government; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory that will finally cover this world. they knew, they felt, they believed that they would give a new constellation to the political heavens--that they would make the americans a grand people--grand as the continent upon which they lived. the war commenced. there was little money, and less credit. the new nation had but few friends. to a great extent each soldier of freedom had to clothe and feed himself. he was poor and pure, brave and good, and so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man. what did the soldier leave when he went? he left his wife and children. did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic? no. he left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at that time the ally of the still more savage briton. he left his wife to defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their mother and by nature. the mother made the living; she planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and, in the darkness of night, told them about their brave father and the "sacred cause." she told them that in a little while the war would be over and father would come back covered with honor and glory. think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps of the dead--who waited through the sad and desolate years for the dear ones who never came. the soldiers of did not march away with music and banners. they went in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears. they went to meet, not an equal, but a superior--to fight five times their number--to make a desperate stand to stop the advance of the enemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of rocks, of rivers, and of hills. let me say here: the greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. that army is the bravest that can be whipped the greatest number of times and fight again. over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. now and then they would meet the english with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. and so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and somber gloom of valley forge. there were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had been shed and spent in vain. but there were some men gifted with that wonderful prophecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with. and so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent; brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of yorktown, the old banner won its place in the air, and became glorious forever. seven long years of war--fighting for what? for the principle that all men are created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. no man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. what else were they fighting for? simply that in america every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. it has been denied by kings--they were thieves. it has been denied by statesmen--they were liars. it has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops, and by popes--they were hypocrites. what else were they fighting for? for the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. the great body of the people make all the money; do all the work. they plow the land, cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer? is it the non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin? those were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they were fighting for. they fought to build up a new, a great nation; to establish an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. they knew the history of this world. they knew the history of human slavery. the history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. in the olden times the family was a monarchy, the father being the monarch. the mother and children were the veriest slaves. the will of the father was the supreme law. he had the power of life and death. it took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and child even tolerable. a few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. a strong nation robbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. this was the commencement of human slavery. it is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. it has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible cruelty unperpetrated. it has been practiced and defended by all nations in some form. it has been upheld by all religions. it has been defended by nearly every pulpit. from the profits derived from the slave trade churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. slavery has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. it has received the sanction of statesmen, of kings, and of queens. it has been defended by the throne, the pulpit and the bench. monarchs have shared in the profits. clergymen have taken their part of the spoils, reciting passages of scripture in its defence at the same time, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law. only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. only a few years ago they passed with and belonged to the soil, like the coal under it and rocks on it. only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far than we treat our animals at the present day. only a few years ago it was a crime in england for a man to have a bible in his house, a crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterward burned. only a few years ago fathers could and did sell their children. only a few years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts--that being a crime. only a few years ago to be honest, at least in the expression of your ideas, was a felony. to do right was a capital offence; and in those days chains and whips were the incentives to labor, and the preventives of thought. honesty was a vagrant, justice a fugitive, and liberty in chains. only a few years ago men were denounced because they doubted the inspiration of the bible--because they denied miracles, and laughed at the wonders recounted by the ancient jews. only a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the human heart in order to be respectable. only a few years ago, people who thought god too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child were considered infamous. as soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others. with an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon others the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. as soon as white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced. in this infamous traffic nearly every nation of europe embarked. fortunes were quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of europe were excited; all ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf; religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments of europe upheld it in the name of commerce--in the name of civilization and religion. our fathers knew the history of caste. they knew that in the despotisms of the old world it was a disgrace to be useful. they knew that a mechanic was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below a blooded horse. they knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in contempt--that he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect. the world has changed. the other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron, from europe, and they were received in the city of new york as though they had been princes. they had been sent by the great republic of france to examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic of america. they looked a thousand times better to me than the edward alberts and albert edwards--the royal vermin, that live on the body politic. and i would think much more of our government if it would fete and feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal line. our fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of founding a government for the protection of the rights of man. the theological idea as to the source of political power had poisoned the web and woof of every government in the world, and our fathers banished it from this continent forever. what we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. they did not attain to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. we want, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious--the absolute independence of the individual. that is what we want. i want it so that i, one of the children of nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that i can say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and i have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual or any nation on the face of the globe. we want every american to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a declaration of individual independence. let each man enjoy his liberty to the utmost--enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense of another. the french convention gave the best definition of liberty i have ever read: "the liberty of one citizen ceases only where the liberty of another citizen commences." i know of no better definition. i ask you to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. and if you are independent be just. allow everybody else to make his declaration of individual independence. allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your children to make theirs. let everybody be absolutely free and independent, knowing only the sacred obligations of honesty and affection. let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and everything except our own consciences and our own brains. do not belong to any clique. have the clear title-deeds in fee simple to yourselves, without any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world. it is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. it is a grand thing to protect the rights of others. it is a sublime thing to be free and just. only a few days ago i stood in independence hall--in that little room where was signed the immortal paper. a little room, like any other; and it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and touching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men. in a few moments i was in the park, where are gathered the accomplishments of a century. our fathers never dreamed of the things i saw. there were hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame--every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious cogs and cranks, and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and steel. and going out from one little building were wires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart. i saw all that had been achieved by this nation, and i wished that the signers of the declaration--the soldiers of the revolution--could see what a century of freedom has produced. i wished they could see the fields we cultivate--the rivers we navigate--the railroads running over the alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest--on over the broad prairies--on over the vast plains--away over the mountains of the west, to the golden gate of the pacific. all this is the result of a hundred years of freedom. are you not more than glad that in was announced the sublime principle that political power resides with the people? that our fathers then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but that they would be free and independent citizens of america? i will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. all should be named, or none. i feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down without even his name being remembered--who was included only in a report of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing even the number that attached to his august corpse--is entitled to as deep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of the host. standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, i ask, will the second century be as grand as the first? i believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane. i believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human sympathy, a greater desire to help one another, in the united states, than in all the world besides. we must progress. we are just at the commencement of invention. the steam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science has been amused. wait; there will be grander things, there will be wider and higher culture--a grander standard of character, of literature and art. we have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many of us will live until a hundred millions stand beneath the flag. we are getting more real solid sense. the schoolhouse is the finest building in the village. we are writing and reading more books; we are painting and buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things--trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal sphinx. we are looking in every direction--investigating; in short, we are thinking and working. besides all this, i believe the people are nearer honest than ever before. a few years ago we were willing to live upon the labor of four million slaves. was that honest? at last, we have a national conscience. at last, we have carried out the declaration of independence. our fathers wrote it--we have accomplished it. the black man was a slave--we made him a citizen. we found four million human beings in manacles, and now the hands of a race are held up in the free air without a chain. i have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man--once a slave--sitting in the seat of his former master in the congress of the united states. i have had that pleasure, and when i saw it my eyes were filled with tears. i felt that we had carried, out the declaration of independence--that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. i felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children, standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million. i would protect him more, because the rich white man could protect himself. all who stand beneath our banner are free. ours is the only flag that has in reality written upon it: liberty, fraternity, equality--the three grandest words in all the languages of men. liberty: give to every man the fruit of his own labor--the labor of his hands and of his brain. fraternity: every man in the right is my brother. equality: the rights of all are equal: justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: no race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. the declaration of independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit. the second century will be grander than the first. fifty millions of people are celebrating this day. to-day, the black man looks upon his child and says: the avenues to distinction are open to you--upon your brow may fall the civic wreath--this day belongs to you. we are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the atlantic, is following the sun to the pacific, across a continent of happy homes. we are a great people. three millions have increased to fifty--thirteen states to thirty-eight. we have better homes, better clothes, better food and more of it, and more of the conveniences of life, than any other people upon the globe. the farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago--and they have twice as much sense and heart. liberty and labor have given us all. i want every person here to believe in the dignity of labor--to know that the respectable man is the useful man--the man who produces or helps others to produce something of value, whether thought of the brain or work of the hand. i want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of injustice, of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more rights than another because he has better clothes, more land, more money, because he owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position. remember that all men have equal rights. remember that the man who acts best his part--who loves his friends the best--is most willing to help others--truest to the discharge of obligation--who has the best heart--the most feeling--the deepest sympathies--and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself is the best man. i am willing to swear to this. what has made this country? i say again, liberty and labor. what would we be without labor? i want every farmer when plowing the rustling corn of june--while mowing in the perfumed fields--to feel that he is adding to the wealth and glory of the united states. i want every mechanic--every man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the cars running, the telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the statues and painting the pictures; that he is writing and printing the books; that he is helping to fill the world with honor, with happiness, with love and law. our country is founded upon the dignity of labor--upon the equality of man. ours is the first real republic in the history of the world. beneath our flag the people are free. we have retired the gods from politics. we have found that man is the only source of political power, and that the governed should govern. we have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind. bangor speech. * yesterday was a glorious day for the republicans of bangor. the weather was delightful and all the imposing exercises of the day were conducted with a gratifying and even inspiring success. the noon train from waterville brought gov. connor, col. ingersoll and senator blaine. at p. m. the speakers arrived at the grounds and were received with applause as they ascended the platform, where a number of the most prominent citizens of bangor and vicinity were assembled. at this time the platform was surrounded by a dense mass of people, numbering thousands. the meeting was called to order by c. a. boutelle, in behalf of the republican state committee. as col. ingersoll was introduced by gov. connor he was welcomed by tumultuous cheers, which he gracefully acknowledged. as we said before, no report could do justice to such a masterly effort as that of the great western orator, and we have not attempted to convey any adequate impression of an address which is conceded on all hands to be the most remarkable for originality, power and eloquence ever heard in this section. such a speech by such a man--if there is another--must be heard; the magnetism of the speaker must be felt; the indescribable influence must be experienced, in order to appreciate his wonderful power. the vast audience was alternately swayed from enthusiasm for the grand principles advocated, to indignation at the crimes of democracy, as the record of that party was scorched with his invective; from laughter at the ludicrous presentment of democratic inconsistencies, to tears brought forth by the pathos and eloquence of his appeals for justice and humanity. during portions of his address there was moisture in the eyes of every person in the audience, and from opening to close he held the assemblage by a spell more potent than that of any man we have ever heard speak. it was one of the grandest, most cogent and thrilling appeals in behalf of the great principles of liberty, loyalty and justice to all men, ever delivered, and we wish it might have been heard by every citizen of our beloved republic. the colonel was repeatedly urged by the audience to go on, and he spoke for about two hours with undiminished fervor. his hearers would gladly have given him audience for two hours longer, but with a splendid tribute to mr. blaine as the strongest tie between new england and the west, he took his seat amid the ringing cheers and plaudits of the assemblage.--the whig and courier, bangor, maine, august , . hayes campaign . i have the honor to belong to the republican party; the grandest, the sublimest party in the history of the world. this grand party is not only in favor of the liberty of the body, but also the liberty of the soul. this sublime party gives to all the labor of their hands and of their brains. this party allows every person to think for himself and to express his thoughts. the republican party forges no chains for the mind, no fetters for the souls of men. it declares that the intellectual domain shall be forever free. in the free air there is room for every wing. the republican party endeavors to remove all obstructions on the highway of progress. in this sublime undertaking it asks the assistance of all. its platform is continental. upon it there is room for the methodist, the baptist, the catholic, the universalist, the presbyterian, and the freethinker. there is room for all who are in favor of the preservation of the sacred rights of men. i am going to give you a few reasons for voting the republican ticket. the republican party depends upon reason, upon argument, upon education, upon intelligence and upon patriotism. the republican party makes no appeal to ignorance and prejudice. it wishes to destroy both. it is the party of humanity, the party that hates caste, that honors labor, that rewards toil, that believes in justice. it appeals to all that is elevated and noble in man, to the higher instincts, to the nobler aspirations. it has accomplished grand things. the horizon of the past is filled with the glory of republican achievement. the monuments of its wisdom, its power and patriotism crowd all the fields of conflict. upon the constitution this party wrote equal rights for all; upon every statute book, humanity; upon the flag, liberty. the republican party of the united states is the conscience of the nineteenth century. it is the justice of this age, the embodiment of social progress and honor. it has no knee for the past. its face is toward the future. it is the party of advancement, of the dawn, of the sunrise. the republican party commenced its grand career by saying that the institution of human slavery had cursed enough american soil; that the territories should not be damned with that most infamous thing; that this country was sacred to freedom; that slavery had gone far enough. upon that issue the great campaign of was fought and won. the republican party was born of wisdom and conscience. the people of the south claimed that slavery should be protected; that the doors of the territories should be thrown open to them and to their institutions. they not only claimed this, but they also insisted that the constitution of the united states protected slave property, the same as other property everywhere. the south was defeated, and then appealed to arms. in a moment all their energies were directed toward the destruction of this government. they commenced the war--they fired upon the flag that had protected them for nearly a century. the north was compelled to decide instantly between the destruction of the nation and civil war. the division between the friends and enemies of the union at once took place. the government began to defend itself. to carry on the war money was necessary. the government borrowed, and finally issued its notes and bonds. the democratic party in the north sympathized with the rebellion. everything was done to hinder, embarrass, obstruct and delay. they endeavored to make a rebel breastwork of the constitution; to create a fire in the rear. they denounced the government; resisted the draft; shot united states officers; declared the war a failure and an outrage; rejoiced over our defeats, and wept and cursed at our victories. to crush the rebellion in the south and keep in subjection the democratic party at the north, thousands of millions of money were expended--the nation burdened with a fearful debt, and the best blood of the country poured out upon the fields of battle. in order to destroy the rebellion it became necessary to destroy slavery. as a matter of fact, slavery was the rebellion. as soon as this truth forced itself upon the government--thrust as it were into the brain of the north upon the point of a rebel bayonet--the republican party resolved to destroy forever the last vestige of that savage and cruel institution; an institution that made white men devils and black men beasts. the republican party put down the rebellion; saved the nation; destroyed slavery; made the slave a citizen; put the ballot in the hands of the black man; forgave the assassins of the government; restored nearly every rebel to citizenship, and proclaimed peace to, and for each and all. for sixteen years the country has been in the hands of that great party. for sixteen years that grand party, in spite of rebels in arms--in spite of the democratic party of the north, has preserved the territorial integrity, and the financial honor of the country. it has endeavored to enforce the laws; it has tried to protect loyal men at the south; it has labored to bring murderers and assassins to justice, and it is working now to preserve the priceless fruits of its great victory. the present question is, whom shall we trust? to whom shall we give the reins of power? what party will best preserve the rights of the people? what party is most deserving of our confidence? there is but one way to determine the character of a party, and that is, by ascertaining its history. could we have safely trusted the democratic party in ? no. and why not? because it was a believer in the right of secession--a believer in the sacredness of human slavery. the democratic party then solemnly declared--speaking through its most honored and trusted leaders--that each state had the right to secede. this made the constitution a _nudum pactum_, a contract without a consideration, a democratic promise, a wall of mist, and left every state free to destroy at will the fabric of american government--the fabric reared by our fathers through years of toil and blood. could we have safely trusted that party in , when, in convention assembled, it declared the war a failure, and wished to give up the contest at a moment when universal victory was within the grasp of the republic? had the people put that party in power then, there would have been a southern confederacy to-day, and upon the limbs of four million people the chains of slavery would still have clanked. is there one man present who, to-day, regrets that the vallandigham democracy of was spurned and beaten by the american people? is there one man present who, to-day, regrets the utter defeat of that mixture of slavery, malice and meanness, called the democratic party, in ? could we have safely trusted that party in ? at that time the democracy of the south was trying to humble and frighten the colored people or exterminate them. these inoffensive colored people were shot down without provocation, without mercy. the white democrats were as relentless as fiends. they killed simply to kill. they murdered these helpless people, thinking that they were in some blind way getting their revenge upon the people of the north. no tongue can exaggerate the cruelties practiced upon the helpless freedmen of the south. these white democrats had been reared amid and by slavery. slavery knows no such thing as justice, no such thing as mercy. slavery does not dream of governing by reason, by argument or persuasion. slavery depends upon force, upon the bowie-knife, the revolver, the whip, the chain and the bloodhound. the white democrats of the south had been reared amid slavery; they cared nothing for reason; they knew of but one thing to be used when there was a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest, and that was brute force. it never occurred to them to educate, to inform, and to reason. it was easier to shoot than to reason; it was quicker to stab than to argue; cheaper to kill than to educate. a grave costs less than a schoolhouse; bullets were cheaper than books; and one knife could stab more than forty schools could convert. they could not bear to see the negro free--to see the former slave trampling on his old chains, holding a ballot in his hand. they could not endure the sight of a negro in office. it was gall and wormwood to think of a slave occupying a seat in congress; to think of a negro giving his ideas about the political questions of the day. and so these white democrats made up their minds that by a reign of terrorism they would drive the negro from the polls, drive him from all official positions, and put him back in reality in the old condition. to accomplish this they commenced a system of murder, of assassination, of robbery, theft, and plunder, never before equaled in extent and atrocity. all this was in its height when in the democracy asked the control of this government. is there a man here who in his heart regrets that the democrats failed in ? do you wish that the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down like a wild beast, regardless of the prayers and tears of wife and children, were now holding positions of honor and trust in this government? are you sorry that these assassins were defeated in ? in the democratic party, bent upon victory, greedy for office, with itching palms and empty pockets, threw away all principle--if democratic doctrines can be called principles--and nominated a life-long enemy of their party for president. no one doubted or doubts the loyalty and integrity of horace greeley. but all knew that if elected he would belong to the party electing him; that he would have to use democrats as his agents, and all knew, or at least feared, that the agents would own and use the principal. all believed that in the malicious clutch of the democratic party horace greeley would be not a president, but a prisoner--not a ruler, but a victim. against that grand man i have nothing to say. i simply congratulate him upon his escape from being used as a false key by the democratic party. during all these years the democratic party prophesied the destruction of the government, the destruction of the constitution, and the banishment of liberty from american soil. in that party declared that after four years of failure to restore the union by the experiment of war, there should be a cessation of hostilities. they then declared "that the constitution had been violated in every part, and that public liberty and private rights had been trodden down." and yet the constitution remained and still remains; public liberty still exists, and private rights are still respected. in , growing more desperate, and being still filled with the spirit of prophecy, this same party in its platform said: "under the repeated assaults of the republican party, the pillars of the government are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in november next, and inaugurate its president, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the constitution." the republican party did succeed in november, , and did inaugurate its president, and we did not meet as a subjected and conquered people amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the constitution. we met as a victorious people, amid the proudest achievements of liberty, protected by a constitution spotless and stainless--pure as the alpine snow thrice sifted by the northern blast. you must not forget the condition of the government when it came into the hands of the republican party. its treasury was empty, its means squandered, its navy dispersed, its army unreliable, the offices filled with rebels and rebel spies; the democratic party of the north rubbing its hands in a kind of hellish glee and shouting, "i told you so." when the republican party came into power in , it found the southern states in arms; it came into power when human beings were chained hand to hand and driven like cattle to market; when white men were engaged in the ennobling business of raising dogs to pursue and catch men and women; when the bay of the bloodhound was considered as the music of the union. it came into power when, from thousands of pulpits, slavery was declared to be a divine institution. it took the reins of government when education was an offence, when mercy, humanity and justice were political crimes. the republican party came into power when the constitution of the united states upheld the crime of crimes, a constitution that gave the lie direct to the declaration of independence, and, as i said before, when the southern states were in arms. to the fulfillment of its great destiny it gave all its energies. to the almost superhuman task, it gave its every thought and power. for four long and terrible years, with vast armies in the field against it; beset by false friends; in constant peril; betrayed again and again; stabbed by the democratic party, in the name of the constitution; reviled and slandered beyond conception; attacked in every conceivable manner--the republican party never faltered for an instant. its courage increased with the difficulties to be overcome. hopeful in defeat, confident in disaster, merciful in victory; sustained by high aims and noble aspirations, it marched forward, through storms of shot and shell--on to the last fortification of treason and rebellion--forward to the shining goal of victory, lasting and universal. during these savage and glorious years, the democratic party of the north, as a party, assisted the south. democrats formed secret societies to burn cities--to release rebel prisoners. they shot down officers who were enforcing the draft; they declared the war unconstitutional; they left nothing undone to injure the credit of the government; they persuaded soldiers to desert; they went into partnership with rebels for the purpose of spreading contagious diseases through the north. they were the friends and allies of persons who regarded yellow fever and smallpox as weapons of civilized warfare. in spite of all this, the republicans succeeded. the democrats declared slavery to be a divine institution; the republican party abolished it. the constitution of the united states was changed from a sword that stabbed the rights of four million people to a shield for every human being beneath our flag. the democrats of new york burned orphan asylums and inaugurated a reign of terror in order to co-operate with the raid of john morgan. remember, my friends, that all this was done when the fate of our country trembled in the balance of war; that all this was done when the great heart of the north was filled with agony and courage; when the question was, "shall liberty or slavery triumph?" no words have ever passed the human lips strong enough to curse the northern allies of the south. the united states wanted money. it wanted money to buy muskets and cannon and shot and shell, it wanted money to pay soldiers, to buy horses, wagons, ambulances, clothing and food. like an individual, it had to borrow this money; and, like an honest individual, it must pay this money. clothed with sovereignty, it had, or at least exercised, the power to make its notes a legal tender. this quality of being a legal tender was the only respect in which these notes differ from those signed by an individual. as a matter of fact, every note issued was a forced loan from the people, a forced loan from the soldiers in the field--in short, a forced loan from every person that took a single dollar. upon every one of these notes is printed a promise. the belief that this promise will be made good gives every particle of value to each note that it has. although each note, by law, is a legal tender, yet if the government declared that it never would redeem these notes, the people would not take them if revolution could hurl such a government from power. so that the belief that these notes will finally be paid, added to the fact that in the meantime they are a legal tender, gives them all the value they have. and, although all are substantially satisfied that they will be paid, none know at what time. this uncertainty as to the time, as to when, affects the value of these notes. they must be paid, unless a promise can be delayed so long as to amount to a fulfillment. they must be paid. the question is, "how?" the answer is, "by the industry and prosperity of the people." they cannot be paid by law. law made them; labor must pay them; and they must be paid out of the profits of the people. we must pay the debt with eggs, not with goose. in a terrible war we spent thousands of millions; all the bullets thrown; all the powder burned; all the property destroyed, of every sort, kind, and character; all the time of the people engaged--all these things were a dead loss. the debt represents the loss. paying the debt is simply repairing the loss. when we, as a people, shall have made a net amount, equal to the amount thrown, as it were, away in war, or somewhere near that amount, we will resume specie payment; we will redeem our promises. we promised on paper, we shall pay in gold and silver. we asked the people to hold this paper until we got the money, and they are holding the paper and we are getting the money. as soon as the slaves were free, the republican party said, "they must be citizens, not vagrants." the democratic party opposed this just, this generous measure. the freedmen were made citizens. the republican party then said, "these citizens must vote; they must have the ballot, to keep what the bullet has won." the democratic party said "no." the negroes received the ballot. the republican party then said, "these voters must be educated, so that the ballot shall be the weapon of intelligence, not of ignorance." the democratic party objected. but schools were founded, and books were put in the hands of the colored people, instead of whips upon their backs. we said to the southern people, "the colored men are citizens; their rights must be respected; they are voters, they must be allowed to vote; they were and are our friends, and we are their protectors." all this was accomplished by the republican party. it changed the organic law of the land, so that it is now a proper foundation for a free government; it struck the cruel shackles from four million human beings; it put down the most gigantic rebellion in the history of the world; it expunged from the statute books of every state, and of the nation, all the cruel and savage laws that slavery had enacted; it took whips from the backs, and chains from the limbs, of men; it dispensed with bloodhounds as the instruments of civilization; it banished to the memory of barbarism the slave-pen, the auction block, and the whipping-post; it purified a nation; it elevated the human race. all this was opposed by the democratic party; opposed with a bitterness, compared to which ordinary malice is sweet. i say the democratic party, because i consider those who fought against the government, in the fields of the south, and those who opposed in the north, as democrats--one and all. the democratic party has been, during all these years, the enemy of civilization, the hater of liberty, the despiser of justice. when i say the democratic party sympathized with the rebellion, i mean a majority of that party. i know there are in the democratic party, soldiers who fought for the union. i do not know why they are there, but i have nothing to say against them. i will never utter a word against any man who bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, for the preservation of the republic. when i use the term democratic party, i do not mean those soldiers. there are others in the democratic party who are there just because their fathers were democrats. they do not mean any particular harm. others are there because they could not amount to anything in the republican party. a man only fit for a corporal in the republican ranks, will make a leader in the democratic party. by the democratic party, i mean that party that sided with the south--that believed in secession--that loved slavery--that hated liberty--that denounced lincoln as a tyrant--that burned orphan asylums--that gloried in our disasters--that denounced every effort to save the nation--they are the gentlemen i mean, and they constitute a large majority of the democratic party. the democrats hate the negro to-day, with a hatred begotten of a well-grounded fear that the colored people are rapidly becoming their superiors in industry, intellect and character. the colored people have suffered enough. they were and are our friends. they are the friends of this country, and cost what it may they must be protected. the white loyal man must be protected. they have been ostracized, slandered, mobbed, and murdered. their very blood cries from the ground. these two things--payment of the debt and protection of loyal citizens, are the things to be done. which party can be trusted? which will be the more apt to pay the debt? which will be the more apt to protect the colored and white loyalist at the south? who is samuel j. tilden? samuel j. tilden is an attorney. he never gave birth to an elevated, noble sentiment in his life. he is a kind of legal spider, watching in a web of technicalities for victims. he is a compound of cunning and heartlessness--of beak and claw and fang. he is one of the few men who can grab a railroad and hide the deep cuts, tunnels and culverts in a single night. he is a corporation wrecker. he is a demurrer filed by the confederate congress. he waits on the shores of bankruptcy to clutch the drowning by the throat. he was never married. the democratic party has satisfied the longings of his heart. he has looked upon love as weakness. he has courted men because women cannot vote. he has contented himself by adopting a rag-baby, that really belongs to mr. hendricks, and his principal business at present is explaining how he came to adopt this child. samuel j. tilden has been for years without number a new york democrat. new york has been, and still is, the worst governed city in the world. political influence is bought and sold like stocks and bonds. nearly every contract is larceny in disguise--nearly every appointment is a reward for crime, and every election is a fraud. among such men samuel j. tilden has lived; with such men he has acted; by such men he has been educated; such men have been his scholars, and such men are his friends. these men resisted the draft, but samuel j. tilden remained their friend. they burned orphan asylums, but tilden's friendship never cooled. they inaugurated riot and murder, but tilden wavered not. they stole a hundred millions, and when no more was left to steal--when the people could not even pay the interest on the amount stolen--then these democrats, clapping their hands over their bursting pockets, began shouting for reform. mr. tilden has been a reformer for years, especially of railroads. the vital issue with him has been the issue of bogus stock. although a life-long democrat, he has been an amalgamationist--of corporations. while amassing millions, he has occasionally turned his attention to national affairs. he left his private affairs (and his reputation depends upon these affairs being kept private) long enough to assist the democracy to declare the war for the restoration of the union a failure; long enough to denounce lincoln as a tyrant and usurper. he was generally too busy to denounce the political murders and assassinations in the south--too busy to say a word in favor of justice and liberty; but he found time to declare the war for the preservation of the country an outrage. he managed to spare time enough to revile the proclamation of emancipation--time enough to shed a few tears over the corpse of slavery; time enough to oppose the enfranchisement of the colored man; time enough to raise his voice against the injustice of putting a loyal negro on a political level with a pardoned rebel; time enough to oppose every forward movement of the nation. no man should ever be elected president of this country who raised his hand to dismember and destroy it. no man should be elected president who sympathized with those who were endeavoring to destroy it. no man should be elected president of this great nation who, when it was in deadly peril, did not endeavor to save it by act and word. no man should be elected president who does not believe that every negro should be free--that the colored people should be allowed to vote. no man should be placed at the head of the nation--in command of the army and navy--who does not believe that the constitution, with all its amendments, should be sacredly enforced. no man should be elected president of this nation who believes in the democratic doctrine of "states rights;" who believes that this government is only a federation of states. no man should be elected president of our great country who aided and abetted her enemies in war--who advised or countenanced resistance to a draft in time of war, who by slander impaired her credit, sneered at her heroes, and laughed at her martyrs. samuel j. tilden is the possessor of nearly every disqualification mentioned. mr. tilden is the author of an essay on finance, commonly called a letter of acceptance, in which his ideas upon the great subject are given in the plainest and most direct manner imaginable. all through this letter or essay there runs a vein of honest bluntness really refreshing. as a specimen of bluntness and clearness, take the following extracts: how shall the government make these notes at all times as good as specie? it has to provide in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by the wants of business a central reservoir of coin, adequate to the adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of the international balance, and as a guaranty against transient drains, artificially created by panic or by speculation. it has also to provide for the payment in coin of such fractional currency as may be presented for redemption, and such inconsiderable portion of legal tenders as individuals may from time to time desire to convert for special use, or in order to lay by in coin their little store of money. to make the coin now in the treasury available for the objects of this reserve, to gradually strengthen and enlarge that reserve, and to provide for such other exceptional demands for coin as may arise, does not seem to me a work of difficulty. if wisely planned and discreetly pursued, it ought not to cost any sacrifice to the business of the country. it should tend, on the contrary, to the revival of hope and confidence. in other words, the way to pay the debt is to get the money, and the way to get the money is to provide a central reservoir of coin to adjust fluctuations. as to the resumption he gives us this: the proper time for the resumption is the time when wise preparation shall have ripened into perfect ability to accomplish the object with a certainty and ease that will inspire confidence and encourage the reviving of business. the earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is best. even when preparations shall have been matured, the exact date would have to be chosen with reference to the then existing state of trade and credit operations in our own country, and the course of foreign commerce and condition of exchanges with other nations. the specific measure and actual date are matters of details, having reference to ever-changing conditions. they belong to the domain of practical, administrative statesmanship. the captain of a steamer, about starting from new york to liverpool, does not assemble a council over his ocean craft, and fix an angle by which to lash the rudder for the whole voyage. a human intelligence must be at the helm to discern the shifting forces of water and winds. a human mind must be at the helm to feel the elements day by day, and guide to a mastery over them. such preparations are everything. without them a legislative command fixing a day--an official promise fixing a day, are shams. they are worse. they are a snare and a delusion to all who trust them. they destroy all confidence among thoughtful men whose judgment will at last sway public opinion. an attempt to act on such a command, or such a promise without preparation, would end in a new suspension. it would be a fresh calamity, prolific of confusion, distrust, and distress. that is to say, congress has not sufficient intelligence to fix the date of resumption. they cannot fix the proper time. but a democratic convention has human intelligence enough to know that the first day of january, , is not the proper date. that convention knew what the state of trade and credit in our country and the course of foreign commerce and the condition of exchanges with other nations would be on the first day of january, . of course they did, or else they never would have had the impudence to declare that resumption would be impossible at that date. the next extract is more luminous still: the government of the united states, in my opinion, can advance to a resumption of specie payments on its legal tender notes by gradual and safe processes tending to relieve the present business distress. if charged by the people with the administration of the executive office, i should deem it a duty so to exercise the powers with which it has or may be invested by congress, as the best and soonest to conduct the country to that beneficent result. why did not this great statesman tell us of some "gradual and safe process"? he promises, if elected, to so administer the government that it will soon reach a beneficent result. how is this to be done? what is his plan? will he rely on "a human intelligence at the helm," or on "the central reservoir," or on some "gradual and safe process"? i defy any man to read this letter and tell me what mr. tilden really proposes to do. there is nothing definite said. he uses such general terms, such vague and misty expressions, such unmeaning platitudes, that the real idea, if he had one, is lost in fog and mist. suppose i should, in the most solemn and impressive manner, tell you that the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting financial operations, not to say speculations of the wildest character, cannot be rendered instantly accountable to a true financial theory based upon the great law that the superfluous is not a necessity, except in vague thoughts of persons unacquainted with the exigencies of the hour, and cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with a human intelligence at the head, hasten by any system of convertible bonds the expectation of public distrust, no matter how wisely planned and discreetly pursued, failure is assured whatever the real result may be. must we wage this war for the right forever? is there no time when the soldiers of progress can rest? will the bugles of the great army of civilization never sound even a halt? it does seem as though there can be no stop, no rest. it is in the world of mind as in the physical world. every plant of value has to be cultivated. the land must be plowed, the seeds must be planted and watered. it must be guarded every moment. its enemies crawl in the earth and fly in the air. the sun scorches it, the rain drowns it, the dew rusts it. he who wins it must fight. but the weeds they grow in spite of all. nobody plows for them except accident. the winds sow the seeds, chance covers them, and they flourish and multiply. the sun cannot burn them--they laugh at rain and frost--they care not for birds and beasts. in spite of all they grow. it is the same in politics. a true republican must continue to grow, must work, must think, must advance. the republican party is the party of progress, of ideas, of work. to make a republican you must have schools, books, papers. to make a democrat, take all these away. republicans are the useful; democrats the noxious--corn and wheat against the dog fennel and canada thistles. republicans of maine, do not forget that each of you has two votes in this election--one in maine and one in indiana. remember that we are relying on you. there is no stronger tie between the prairies of illinois and the pines of maine--between the western states and new england, than james g. blaine. we are relying on maine for from twelve to fifteen thousand on the th of september, and indiana will answer with from fifteen to twenty thousand, and hearing these two votes the nation in november will declare for hayes and wheeler.* * this being a newspaper report, and never revised by the author, is of necessity incomplete, but the publisher feels that it should not be lost cooper union speech, new york. *col. robert g. ingersoll of illinois last night, at cooper union, spoke on the political issues of the day, at unusual length, to the largest and most enthusiastic audience which, during the last ten years, any single speaker has attracted. his address was in his happiest epigrammatic style, and was interrupted every few moments either by the most uproarious laughter or enthusiastic cheering. it is no exaggeration to say that the meeting was the largest cooper institute has seen since the war. not merely the main hall was filled, but the wide corridor in third avenue, the entrance hall in eighth street, and every committee-room to which his voice could reach, though the speaker was unseen, were crowded--in fact, literally packed. half an hour before the hour named for the organization of the meeting, admission to the body of the hall was almost impossible; and selected officers, and the speaker of the evening himself had to beg their way to the platform. the latter was as painfully crowded with invited guests as the body of the hall; and ingress was impossible after the speaker began, and egress was almost as difficult owing to the pressure in the committee-room through which the platform is approached. not only in numbers alone, but in the prominence of the persons present, was the meeting impressive. besides the usual large quota of active politicians always seen at such meetings, there were seen numbers of leading merchants, financiers, and lawyers of new york, prominent officials not only of the city but the state and national government. the speech was nearly two hours in length, but as the interruptions were frequent, indeed almost continuous, it seemed very short, and when mr. ingersoll concluded his fire of epigrams, there were loud calls and appeals to him to go on. there were suggestions by some of the managers, of other speakers who might follow him, but the presiding officer wisely decided to submit no other speaker to the too severe test of speaking on the same occasion with mr. ingersoll. chauncey m. depew, on leaving the hall, remarked that it was the greatest speech he ever heard, and numbers of old campaigners were equally enthusiastic. at its conclusion, the reception which mr. ingersoll held on the platform lasted over half-an-hour, and when finally commissioner wheeler piloted him through the crowd to his coach, three or four hundred of the audience followed and gave him lusty cheers as he drove off.--new york tribune, september , . hayes campaign. . i am just on my way home from the grand old state of maine, and there has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which i will read to you. if it were not good, you may swear i would not read it: "every congressional district, every county in maine, republican by a large majority. the victory is overwhelming, and the majority will exceed , ." that dispatch is signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, james g. blaine. i suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation known as the united states of america, and as such stockholders we have a right to vote the way we think will best subserve our own interests. each one has certain stock in this government, whether he is rich, or whether he is poor, and the poor man has the same interest in the united states of america that the richest man in it has. it is our duty, conscientiously and honestly, to hear the argument upon both sides of the political question, and then go and vote conscientiously for the side that we believe will best preserve our interest in the united states of america. two great parties are before you now asking your support--the democratic party and the republican party. one wishes to be kept in power, the other wishes to have a chance once more at the treasury of the united states. the democratic party is probably the hungriest organization that ever wandered over the desert of political disaster in the history of the world. there never was, in all probability, a political stomach so thoroughly empty, or an appetite so outrageously keen as the one possessed by the democratic party. the democratic party has been howling like a pack of wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the windows of the national capitol, and scratching at the doors of the white house. they have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for sixteen long, weary years. occasionally they have retired to some convenient eminence and lugubriously howled about the constitution. the democratic party comes and asks for your vote, not on account of anything it has done, not on account of anything it has accomplished, but on account of what it promises to do; the democratic party can make just as good a promise as any other party in the world, and it will come farther from fulfilling it than any other party on this globe. the republican party having held this government for sixteen years, proposes to hold it for four years more. the republican party comes to you with its record open, and asks every man, woman and child in this broad country to read its every word. and i say to you, that there is not a line, a paragraph, or a page of that record that is not only an honor to the republican party, but to the human race. on every page of that record is written some great and glorious action, done either for the liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. we ask every body to read its every word. the democratic party comes before you with its record closed, recording every blot and blur, and stain and treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a single word, but to be kind enough to take its infamous promises for the future. now, my friends, i propose to tell you, to-night, something that has been done by the democratic party, and then allow you to judge for yourselves. now, if a man came to you, you owning a steamboat on the hudson river, and he wished to hire out to you as an engineer, and you inquired about him, and found he had blown up and destroyed and wrecked every steamboat he had ever been engineer on, and you should tell him: "i can't hire you; you blew up such an engine, you wrecked such a ship," he would say to you, "my lord! mister, you must let bygones be bygones." if a man came to your bank, or came to a solitary individual here to borrow a hundred dollars, and you went and inquired about him and found he never paid a note in his life, found he was a dead-beat, and you say to him, "i cannot loan you money." "why?" "because, i have ascertained you never pay your debts." "ah, yes," he says, "you are no gentleman going prying into a man's record," i tell you, my good friends, a good character rests upon a record, and not upon a prospectus, a good record rests upon a deed accomplished, and not upon a promise, a good character rests upon something really done, and not upon a good resolution, and you cannot make a good character in a day. if you could, tilden would have one to-morrow night. i propose now to tell you, my friends, a little of the history of the republican party, also a little of the history of the democratic party. and first, the republican party. the united states of america is a free country, it is the only free country upon this earth; it is the only republic that was ever established among men. we have read, we have heard, of the republics of greece, of egypt, of venice; we have heard of the free cities of europe. there never was a republic of venice; there never was a republic of rome; there never was a republic of athens; there never was a free city in europe; there never was a government not cursed with caste; there never was a government not cursed with slavery; there never was a country not cursed with almost every infamy, until the republican party of the united states made this a free country. it is the first party in the world that contended that the respectable man was the useful man; it is the first party in the world that said, without regard to previous conditions, without regard to race, every human being is entitled to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it is the only party in the world that has endeavored to carry those sublime principles into actual effect. every other party has been allied to some piece of rascality; every other party has been patched up with some thieving, larcenous, leprous compromise. the republican party keeps its forehead in the grand dawn of perpetual advancement; the republican party is the party of reason; it is the party of argument; it is the party of education; it believes in free schools, it believes in scientific schools; it believes that the schools are for the public and all the public; it believes that science never should be interfered with by any sectarian influence whatever. the republican party is in favor of science; the republican party, as i said before, is the party of reason; it argues; it does not mob; it reasons; it does not murder; it persuades you, not with the shot gun, not with tar and feathers, but with good sound reason, and argument. in order for you to ascertain what the republican party has done for us, let us refresh ourselves a little; we all know it, but it is well enough to hear it now and then. let us then refresh our recollection a little, in order to understand what the grand and great republican party has accomplished in the land. we will consider, in the first place, the condition of the country when the republican party was born. when this republican party was born there was upon the statute books of the united states of america a law known as the fugitive slave law of , by which every man in the state of new york was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon a negro, who was simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom, just as you would set a dog upon a wolf. that was the fugitive slave law of . around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog, but it had not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. i said in the state of maine, and several other states, and expect to say it again although i hurt the religious sentiment of the democratic party, and shocked the piety of that organization by saying it, but i did say then, and now say, that the fugitive slave law in would have disgraced hell in its palmiest days. i tell you, my friends, you do not know how easy it is to shock the religious sentiments of the democratic party; there is a deep and pure vein of piety running through that organization; it has been for years spiritually inclined; there is probably no organization in the world that really will stand by any thing of a spiritual character, at least until it is gone, as that democratic party will. everywhere i have been i have crushed their religious hopes. you have no idea how sorry i am that i hurt their feelings so upon the subject of religion. why, i did not suppose that they cared anything about christianity, but i have been deceived. i now find that they do, and i have done what no other man in the united states ever did--i have made the democratic party come to the defence of christianity. i have made the democratic party use what time they could spare between drinks in quoting scripture. but notwithstanding the fact that i have shocked the religious sentiment of that party, i do not want them to defend christianity any more; they will bring it into universal contempt if they do. yes, yes, they will make the words honesty and reform a stench in the nostrils of honest men. they made the words of the constitution stand almost for treason, during the entire war, and every decent word that passes the ignorant, leprous, malignant lips of the democratic party, becomes dishonored from that day forth. at the same time, in , when the fugitive slave law was passed, in nearly all of the western states, there was a law by which the virtues of pity and hospitality became indictable offences. there was a law by which the virtue of charity became a crime, and the man who performed a kindness could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. it was the law of illinois--of my own state--that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined and imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of , under the infamous black laws of the western states. at the time the republican party was born, (and i have told this many times) if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had escaped from slavery, carrying her child on her bosom, having gone through morass and brush and thorns and thickets, had crossed creeks and rivers, and had finally got within one step of freedom, with the light of the north star shining in her tear-filled eyes--with her child upon her withered breast--it would have been an indictable offence to have given her a drop of water or a crust of bread; not only that, but under the slave law of , it was the duty of every northern citizen claiming to be a free man, to clutch that woman and hand her back to the dominion of her master and to the democratic lash. the democrats are sorry that those laws have been repealed. the republican party with the mailed hand of war tore from the statute books of the united states, and from the statute books of each state, every one of those infamous, hellish laws, and trampled them beneath her glorious feet. such laws are infamous beyond expression; one would suppose they had been passed by a legislature, the lower house of which were hyenas, the upper house snakes, and the executive a cannibal king. the institution of slavery had polluted, had corrupted the church, not only in the south, but a large proportion of the church in the north; so that ministers stood up in their pulpits here in new york and defended the very infamy that i have mentioned. not only that, but the presbyterians, south, in , met in general synod, and passed two resolutions. the first resolution read, "resolved, that slavery is a divine institution" (and as the boy said, "so is hell"). _second_, "resolved, that god raised up the presbyterian church, south, to protect and perpetuate that institution." well, all i have to say is that, if god did this, he never chose a more infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical object. what more had slavery done? at that time it had corrupted the very courts, so that in nearly every state in this union if a democrat had gone to the hut of a poor negro, and had shot down his wife and children before his very eyes, had strangled the little dimpled babe in the cradle, there was no court before which this negro could come to give testimony. he was not allowed to go before a magistrate and indict the murderer; he was not allowed to go before a grand jury and swear an indictment against the wretch. justice was not only blind, but deaf; and that was the idea of justice in the south, when the republican party was born. when the republican party was born the bay of the bloodhound was the music of the union; when this party was born the dome of our capitol at washington cast its shadow upon slave-pens in which crouched and shuddered women from whose breasts their babes had been torn by wretches who are now crying for honesty and reform. when the republican party was born, a bloodhound was considered as one of the instrumentalities of republicanism. when the republican party was born, the church had made the cross of christ a whipping-post. when the republican party was born, courts of the united states had not the slightest idea of justice, provided a black man was on the other side. when this party came into existence, if a negro had a plot of ground and planted corn in it, and the rain had fallen upon it, and the dew had lain lovingly upon it, and the arrows of light shot from the exhaustless quiver of the sun, had quickened the blade, and the leaves waved in the perfumed air of june, and it finally ripened into the full ear in the golden air of autumn, the courts of the united states did not know to whom the corn belonged, and if a democrat had driven the negro off and shucked the corn, and that case had been left to the supreme court of many of the states in this union, they would have read all the authorities, they would have heard all the arguments, they would have heard all the speeches, then pushed their spectacles back on their bald and brainless heads and decided, all things considered, the democrat was entitled to that corn. we pretended at that time to be a free country; it was a lie. we pretended at that time to do justice in our courts; it was a lie, and above all our pretence and hypocrisy rose the curse of slavery, like chimborazo above the clouds. now, my friends, what is there about this great republican party? it is the party of intellectual freedom. it is one thing to bind the hands of men; it is one thing to steal the results of physical labor of men, but it is a greater crime to forge fetters for the souls of men. i am a free man; i will do my own thinking or die; i give a mortgage on my soul to nobody; i give a deed of trust on my soul to nobody; no matter whether i think well or i think ill; whatever thought i have shall be my thought, and shall be a free thought, and i am going to give cheerfully, gladly, the same right to thus think to every other human being. i despise any man who does not own himself. i despise any man who does not possess his own spirit. i would rather die a beggar, covered with rags, with my soul erect, fearless and free, than to live a king in a palace of gold, clothed with the purple of power, with my soul slimy with hypocrisy, crawling in the dust of fear. i will do my own thinking, and when i get it thought, i will say it. these are the splendid things, my friends, about the republican party; intellectual and physical liberty for all. now, my friends, i have told you a little about the republican party. now, i will tell you a little more about the republican party. when that party came into power it elected abraham lincoln president of the united states. i live in the state that holds within its tender embrace the sacred ashes of abraham lincoln, the best, the purest man that was ever president of the united states. i except none. when he was elected president of the united states, the democratic party said: "we will not stand it;" the democratic party south said: "we will not bear it;" and the democratic party north said: "you ought not to bear it." james buchanan was then president. james buchanan read the constitution of the united states, or a part of it, and read several platforms made by the democratic party, and gave it as his deliberate opinion that a state had a right to go out of the union. he gave it as his deliberate opinion that this was a confederacy and not a nation, and when he said that, there was another little, dried up, old bachelor sitting over in the amen corner of the political meeting and he squeaked out: "that is my opinion too," and the name of that man was samuel j. tilden. the democratic party then and now says that the union is simply a confederacy; but i want this country to be a nation. i want to live in a great and splendid country. a great nation makes a great people. your surroundings have something to do with it. great plains, magnificent rivers, great ranges of mountains, a country washed by two oceans--all these things make us great and grand as the continent on which we live. the war commenced, and the moment the war commenced the whole country was divided into two parties. no matter what they had been before, whether democrats, freesoilers, republicans, old whigs, or abolitionists--the whole country divided into two parties--the friends and enemies of the country--patriots and traitors, and they so continued until the rebellion was put down. i cheerfully admit that thousands of democrats went into the army, and that thousands of democrats were patriotic men. i cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought more of their country than they did of the democratic party, and they came with us to fight for the country, and i honor every one of them from the bottom of my heart, and nineteen out of twenty of them have voted the republican ticket from that day to this. some of them came back and went to the democratic party again and are still in that party; i have not a word to say against them, only this: they are swapping off respectability for disgrace. they give to the democratic party all the respectability it has, and the democratic party gives to them all the disgrace they have. democratic soldier, come out of the democratic party. there was a man in my state got mad at the railroad and would not ship his hogs on it, so he drove them to chicago, and it took him so long to get them there that the price had fallen; when he came back, they laughed at him, and said to him, "you didn't make much, did you, driving your hogs to chicago?" "no," he said, "i didn't make anything except the company of the hogs on the way." soldier of the republic, i say, with the democratic party all you can make is the company of the hogs on the way down. come out, come out and leave them alone in their putridity--in their rottenness. leave them alone. do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. leave them alone. i tell you the democratic party must be left alone; it must be left to enjoy the primal curse, "on thy belly shalt thou crawl and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," o democratic party. now, my friends, i need not tell you how we put down the rebellion. you all know. i need not describe to you the battles you fought. i need not tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives. i need not tell you of the old men who are still waiting for footsteps that never will return. i need not tell you of the women who are waiting for the return of their loved ones. i need not tell you of all these things. you know we put down the rebellion; we fought until the old flag triumphed over every inch of american soil redeemed from the clutch of treason. now, my friends, what was the democratic party doing when the republican party was doing these splendid things? when, the republican party said this was a nation; when the republican party said we shall be free; when the republican party said slavery shall be extirpated from american soil; when the republican party said the negro shall be a citizen, and the citizen shall have the ballot, and the citizen shall have the right to cast that ballot for the government of his choice peaceably--what was the democratic party doing? i will tell you a few things that the democratic party has done within the last sixteen years. in the first place, they were not willing that this country should be saved unless slavery could be saved with it. there never was a democrat, north or south--and by democrat i mean the fellows who stuck to the party all during the war, the ones that stuck to the party after it was a disgrace; the ones that stuck to the party from simple, pure cussedness--there never was one who did not think more of the institution of slavery than he did of the government of the united states; not one that i ever saw or read of. and so they said to us for all those years: "if you can save the union with slavery, and without any help from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not propose that this shall be an abolition war." so the democratic party from the first said, "an effort to preserve this union is unconstitutional," and they made a breastwork of the constitution for rebels to get behind and shoot down loyal men, so that the first charge i lay at the feet of the democratic party, the first charge i make in the indictment, is that they thought more of slavery than of liberty and of this union, and in my judgment they are in the same condition this moment. the next thing they did was to discourage enlistments in the north. they did all in their power to prevent any man's going into the army to assist in putting down the rebellion. and that grand reformer and statesman, samuel j. tilden, gave it as his opinion that the south could sue, and that every soldier who put his foot on sacred southern soil would be a trespasser, and could be sued before a justice of the peace. the democratic party met in their conventions in every state north, and denounced the war as an abolition war, and abraham lincoln as a tyrant. what more did they do? they went into partnership with the rebels. they said to the rebels just as plainly as though they had spoken it: "hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard, until we get the political possession of the north, and then you can go in peace." what more? a man by the name of jacob thompson--a nice man and a good democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the government samuel j. tilden is the best man--jacob thompson had the misfortune to be a very vigorous democrat, and i will show you what i mean by that. a democrat during the war who had a musket--you understand, a musket--he was a rebel, and during the war a rebel that did not have a musket was a democrat. i call mr. thompson a vigorous democrat, because he had a musket. jacob thompson was the rebel agent in canada, and when he went there he took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of co-operating with the northern democracy. he got himself acquainted with and in connection with the democratic party in ohio, in indiana, and in illinois. the vigorous democrats, the real democrats, in these states had organized themselves under the heads of "sons of liberty," "knights of the golden circle," "order of the star," and various other beautiful names, and their object was to release rebel prisoners from camp chase, camp douglass in chicago, and from one camp in indianapolis and another camp at rock island. their object was to raise a fire in the rear, as they called it--in other words, to burn down the homes of union soldiers while they were in the front fighting for the honor of their country. that was their object, and they put themselves in connection with jacob thompson. they were to have an uprising on the th of august, . it was thought best to hold a few public meetings for the purpose of arousing the public mind. they held the first meeting in the city of peoria, where i live. that was august rd, . here they came from every part of the state, and were addressed by the principal democratic politicians in illinois. to that meeting fernando wood addressed a letter, in which he said that although absent in body he should be present in spirit. george pendleton of ohio, george pugh of the same state, seymour of connecticut, and various other democratic gentlemen, sent acknowledgments and expressions of regret to this democratic meeting that met at this time for the purpose of organizing an uprising among the democratic party. i saw that meeting, and heard some of their speeches. they denounced the war as an abolition nigger war. they denounced abraham lincoln as a tyrant. they carried transparencies that said, "is there money enough in the land to pay this nigger debt? arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant lincoln from the throne." and the men that promulgated that very thing are running for the most important political offices in the country, on the ground of honesty and reform. and jacob thompson says that he furnished the money to pay the expenses of that democratic meeting. they were all paid by rebel gold, by jacob thompson. he has on file the voucher from these democratic gentlemen in favor of tilden and hendricks. the next meetings were held in springfield, illinois, and indianapolis, indiana, the expenses of which were paid in the same way. they shipped to one town these weapons of our destruction in boxes labeled sunday school books! that same rebel agent, jacob thompson, hired a democrat by the name of churchill to burn the city of cincinnati, ohio, and thompson coolly remarked: "i don't think he has had much luck, as i have only heard of a _few_ fires." in indianapolis a man named dodds was arrested--a sound democrat--so sound that the government had to take him by the nape of the neck and put him in fort lafayette. the convention of democrats then met in the city of chicago, and declared the war a failure. there never was a more infamous lie on this earth than when the democratic convention declared in that the war was a failure. it was but a few days afterward that the roar of grants cannon announced that a lie. rise from your graves, union soldiers, one and all, that fell in support of your country--rise from your graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when the democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation of your country was a failure, that the democratic party was a vast aggregated liar. well, we grew magnanimous, and let dodds out of fort lafayette; and where do you suppose dodds is now? he is in wisconsin. what do you suppose dodds is doing? making speeches. whom for? tilden and hendricks--"honesty and reform!" this same jacob thompson, democrat, hired men to burn new york, and they did set fire in some twenty places, and they used greek fire, as he said in his letter, and ingenuously adds: "i shall never hereafter advise the use of greek fire." they knew that in the smoke and ruins would be found the charred remains of mothers and children, and that the flames leaping like serpents would take the child from the mothers arms, and they were ready to do it to preserve the infamous institution of slavery; and the democratic party has never objected to it from that day to this. they burned steamboats, and many men with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the woods of missouri. while these things were going on, democrats in the highest positions said: "not one cent to prosecute the war." the next question we have to consider is about paying the debt. this is the first question. the second question is the protection of the citizen, whether he is white or black. we owe a large debt. two-thirds of that debt was incurred in consequence of the action and the meanness of the democrats. there are some people who think that you can defer the payment of a promise so long that the postponement of the debt will serve in lieu of its liquidation--that you pay your debts by putting off your creditors. the people have to support the government; the government cannot support the people. the government has no money but what it received from the people. it had therefore to borrow money to carry on the war. every greenback that it issued was a forced loan. my notes are not a legal tender, though if i had the power i might possibly make them so. we borrowed money and we have to pay the debt. that debt represents the expenses of war. the horses and the gunpowder and the rifles and the artillery are represented in that debt--it represents all the munitions of war. until we pay that debt we can never be a solvent nation. until our net profits amount to as much as we lost during the war we can never be a solvent people. if a man cannot understand that, there is no use in talking to him on the subject. the alchemists in olden times who fancied that they could make gold out of nothing were not more absurd than the american advocates of soft money. they resemble the early explorers of our continent who lost years in searching for the fountain of eternal youth, but the ear of age never caught the gurgle of that spring. we all have heard of men who spent years of labor in endeavoring to produce perpetual motion. they produced machines of the most ingenious character with cogs and wheels, and pulleys without number, but these ingenious machines had one fault, they would not go. you will never find a way to make money out of nothing. it is as great nonsense as the fountain of perpetual youth. you cannot do it. gold is the best material which labor has yet found as a measure of value. that measure of value must be as valuable as the object it measures. the value of gold arises from the amount of labor expended in producing it. a gold dollar will buy as much labor as produced that dollar. [here the speaker opened a telegram from maine, which he read to the audience amid a perfect tempest of applause. it contained the following words:] "we have triumphed by an immense majority, something we have not achieved since ." [the speaker resumed.] and this despatch is signed by the man who clutched the throats of the democrats and held them until they grew black in the face, james g. blaine. *** now, gentlemen, to pass from the financial part of this, and i will say one word before i do it. the republican party intends to pay its debts in coin on the st of january, . paper money means probably the payment of the confederate debt; a metallic currency, the discharge of honest obligations. we have touched hard-pan prices in this country, and we want to do a hard-pan business with hard money. we now come to the protection of our citizens. a government that cannot protect its citizens, at home and abroad, ought to be swept from the map of the world. the democrats tell you that they will protect any citizen if he is only away from home, but if he is in louisiana or any other state in the union, the government is powerless to protect him. i say a government has a right to protect every citizen at home as well as abroad, and the government has the right to take its soldiers across the state line, to take its soldiers into any state, for the purpose of protecting even one man. that is my doctrine with regard to the power of the government. but here comes a democrat to-day and tells me, (and it is the old doctrine of secession in disguise), that the state of louisiana must protect its own citizens, and that if it does not, the general government has nothing to do unless the governor of that state asks assistance, no matter whether anarchy prevails or not. that is infamous. the united states has the right to draft you and me into the army and compel us to serve there, if its powers are being usurped. it is the duty of this government to see to it that every citizen has all his rights in every state in this union, and to protect him in the enjoyment of those rights, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must. democrats tell us that they treat the colored man very well. i have frequently read stories relating how two white men were passing along the road when suddenly they were set upon by ten or twelve negroes, who sought their lives; but in the fight which ensued, the ten or twelve negroes were killed, and not a white man hurt. i tell you it is infamous, and the democratic press of the north laughs at it, and mr. samuel j. tilden does not care. he knows that many of the southern states are to be carried by assassination and murder, and he knows that if he is elected it will be by assassination and murder. it is infamous beyond the expression of language. now, i ask you which party will be the most likely to preserve the liberty of the negro--the party who fought for slavery, or the men who gave them freedom? these are the two great questions--the payment of the debt, and the protection of our citizens. my friends, we have to pay the debt, as i told you, but it is of greater importance to make sacred american citizenship. now, these two parties have a couple of candidates. the democratic party has put forward mr. samuel j. tilden. mr. tilden is a democrat who belongs to the democratic party of the city of new york; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country. i wish you could see it. the pugilists, the prizefighters, the plug-uglies, the fellows that run with the "masheen;" nearly every nose is mashed, about half the ears have been chawed off; and of whatever complexion they are, their eyes are nearly always black. they have fists like tea-kettles and heads like bullets. i wish you could see them. i have been in new york every few weeks for fifteen years; and whenever i am here i see the old banner of tammany hall, "tammany hall and reform;" "john morrissey and reform;" "john kelley and reform;" "william m. tweed and reform;" and the other day i saw the same old flag; "samuel j. tilden and reform." the democratic party of the city of new york never had but two objects--grand and petit larceny. tammany hall bears the same relation to the penitentiary that the sunday school does to the church. i have heard that the democratic party got control of the city when it did not owe a dollar, and have stolen and stolen until it owes a hundred and sixty millions, and i understand that every election they have had was a fraud, every one. i understand that they stole everything they could lay their hands on; and what hands! grasped and grasped and clutched, until they stole all it was possible for the people to pay, and now they are all yelling for "honesty and reform." i understand that samuel j. tilden was a pupil in that school, and that now he is the head teacher. i understand that when the war commenced he said he would never aid in the prosecution of that old outrage. i understand that he said in and in that the southern states could snap the tie of confederation as a nation would break a treaty, and that they could repel coercion as a nation would repel invasion. i understand that during the entire war he was opposed to its prosecution, and that he was opposed to the proclamation of emancipation, and demanded that the document be taken back. i understand that he regretted to see the chains fall from the limbs of the colored man. i understand that he regretted when the constitution of the united states was elevated and purified, pure as the driven snow. i understand that he regretted when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the world the only pure republic that ever existed. this is enough for me to say about him, and since the news from maine you need not waste your time in talking about him. [a voice: "how about free schools?"] i want every schoolhouse to be a temple of science in which shall be taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be taught actual facts, and i do not want that schoolhouse touched, or that institution of science touched, by any superstition whatever. leave religion with the church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each individual heart and man. let every man be his own bishop, let every man be his own pope, let every man do his own thinking, let every man have a brain of his own. let every man have a heart and conscience of his own. we are growing better, and truer, and grander. and let me say, mr. democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. we are keeping education for your children. we are keeping the old flag floating for your children; and let me say, as a prediction, there is only air enough on this continent to float that one flag. note.--this address was not revised by the author for publication. indianapolis speech. * col. ingersoll was introduced by gen'l noyes, who said: "i have now the exquisite pleasure of introducing to you that dashing cavalry officer, that thunderbolt of war, that silver tongued orator, col. robert g. ingersoll of illinois." the journal, indianapolis, indiana. september lst, . hayes campaign. delivered to the veteran soldiers of the rebellion. ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens and citizen soldiers:--i am opposed to the democratic party, and i will tell you why. every state that seceded from the united states was a democratic state. every ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a democrat. every man that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a democrat. every man that tried to destroy this nation was a democrat. every enemy this great republic has had for twenty years has been a democrat. every man that shot union soldiers was a democrat. every man that denied to the union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine, and when some poor, emaciated union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a democrat. every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a democrat. the man that assassinated abraham lincoln was a democrat. every man that sympathized with the assassin--every man glad that the noblest president ever elected was assassinated, was a democrat. every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a democrat. every man that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a democrat. every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a democrat. every man that impaired the credit of the united states, every man that swore we would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was a democrat. every man that resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at union men simply because they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a democrat. every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a democrat. every man that cursed abraham lincoln because he issued the proclamation of emancipation--the grandest paper since the declaration of independence--every one of them was a democrat. every man that denounced the soldiers that bared their breasts to the storms of shot and shell for the honor of america and for the sacred rights of man; was a democrat. every man that wanted an uprising in the north, that wanted to release the rebel prisoners that they might burn down the homes of union soldiers above the heads of their wives and children, while the brave husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front fighting for the honor of the old flag, every one of them was a democrat. i am not through yet. every man that believed this glorious nation of ours is a confederacy, every man that believed the old banner carried by our fathers over the fields of the revolution; the old flag carried by our fathers over the fields of ; the glorious old banner carried by our brothers over the plains of mexico; the sacred banner carried by our brothers over the cruel fields of the south, simply stood for a contract, simply stood for an agreement, was a democrat. every man who believed that any state could go out of the union at its pleasure, every man that believed the grand fabric of the american government could be made to crumble instantly into dust at the touch of treason, was a democrat. every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in new york, was a democrat; every man that tried to fire the city of new york, although he knew that thousands would perish, and knew that the great serpent of flame leaping from buildings would clutch children from their mothers' arms--every wretch that did it was a democrat. recollect it! every man that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in the north, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a democrat. soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a democrat. every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, is a souvenir of a democrat. i want you to recollect it. every man that was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a democrat. every man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the lips--every one was a democrat. i am a republican. i will tell you why: this is the only free government in the world. the republican party made it so. the republican party took the chains from four millions of people. the republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a schoolhouse. the republican party put down the rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be extirpated from the face of this continent. what more? i am a republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. it is a party that has a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself, a party that says, no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.* * at this point the rain began to descend, and it looked as if a heavy shower was impending. several umbrellas were put up. gov. noyes--"god bless you! what is rain to soldiers" voice--"go ahead; we don't mind the rain." it was proposed to adjourn the meeting to masonic hall, but the motion was voted down by an overwhelming majority, and mr. ingersoll proceeded. i am a republican because the republican party says this country is a nation, and not a confederacy. i am here in indiana to speak, and i have as good a right to speak here as though i had been born on this stand--not because the state flag of indiana waves over me--i would not know it if i should see it. you have the same right to speak in illinois, not because the state flag of illinois waves over you, but because that banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes, waves over you and me. i am in favor of this being a nation. think of a man gratifying his entire ambition in the state of rhode island. we want this to be a nation, and you cannot have a great, grand, splendid people without a great, grand, splendid country. the great plains, the sublime mountains, the great rushing, roaring rivers, shores lashed by two oceans, and the grand anthem of niagara, mingle and enter, into the character of every american citizen, and make him or tend to make him a great and grand character. i am for the republican party because it says the government has as much right, as much power, to protect its citizens at home as abroad. the republican party does not say that you have to go away from home to get the protection of the government. the democratic party says the government cannot march its troops into the south to protect the rights of the citizens. it is a lie. the government claims the right, and it is conceded that the government has the right, to go to your house, while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and serene--the government claims the right to go to your fireside and take you by force and put you into the army; take you down to the valley of the shadow of hell, put you by the ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for your flag. now, that being so, when the war is over and your country is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of democrats want to trample upon your rights, i want to know if the government that took you from your fireside and made you fight for it, i want to know if it is not bound to fight for you. the flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. the government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. i am a republican because the republican party says, "we will protect the rights of american citizens at home, and if necessary we will march an army into any state to protect the rights of the humblest american citizen in that state." i am a republican because that party allows me to be free--allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. i am a republican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind. it invites the methodist, it invites the catholic, it invites the presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the freethinker; it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. i am a republican, i tell you. there is room in the republican air for every wing; there is room on the republican sea for every sail. republicanism says to every man: "let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself." but the democratic party says; "be blind owls, sit on the dry limb of a dead tree, and hoot only when that party says hoot." in the republican party there are no followers. we are all leaders. there is not a party chain. there is not a party lash. any man that does not love this country, any man that does not love liberty, any man that is not in favor of human progress, that is not in favor of giving to others all he claims for himself; we do not ask him to vote the republican ticket. you can vote it if you please, and if there is any democrat within hearing who expects to die before another election, we are willing that he should vote one republican ticket, simply as a consolation upon his death-bed. what more? i am a republican because that party believes in free labor. it believes that free labor will give us wealth. it believes in free thought, because it believes that free thought will give us truth. you do not know what a grand party you belong to. i never want any holier or grander title of nobility than that i belong to the republican party, and have fought for the liberty of man. the republican party, i say, believes in free labor. the republican party also believes in slavery. what kind of slavery? in enslaving the forces of nature. we believe that free labor, that free thought, have enslaved the forces of nature, and made them work for man. we make old attraction of gravitation work for us; we make the lightning do our errands; we make steam hammer and fashion what we need. the forces of nature are the slaves of the republican party. they have no backs to be whipped, they have no hearts to be torn--no hearts to be broken; they cannot be separated from their wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of their husbands; they work night and day and they never tire. you cannot whip them, you cannot starve them, and a democrat even can be trusted with one of them. i tell you i am a republican. i believe, as i told you, that free labor will give us these slaves. free labor will produce all these things, and everything you have to-day has been produced by free labor, nothing by slave labor. slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing machine in the shape of a whip. free labor has invented all the machines. we want to come down to the philosophy of these things. the problem of free labor, when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works for the little children he adores--the problem is to do the most work in the shortest space of time. the problem of slavery is to do the least work in the longest space of time. that is the difference. free labor, love, affection--they have invented everything of use in this world. i am a republican. i tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every day, and the democratic party is getting smaller every day. see the advancement we have made in a few years, see what we have done. we have covered this nation with wealth, with glory and with liberty. this is the first free government in the world. the republican party is the first party that was not founded on some compromise with the devil. it is the first party of pure, square, honest principle; the first one. and we have the first free country that ever existed. and right here i want to thank every soldier that fought to make it free, every one living and dead. i thank you again and again and again. you made the first free government in the world, and we must not forget the dead heroes. if they were here they would vote the republican ticket, every one of them. i tell you we must not forget them. * the past rises before me like a dream. again we are in the great struggle for national life. we hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. we see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. we lose sight of them no more. we are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. we see them part with those they love. some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. we hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. some are receiving the blessings of old men. some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. kisses and tears, tears and kisses--divine mingling of agony and love! and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. we see them part. we see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the sunlight sobbing. at the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. he is gone, and forever. we see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching down the streets of the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. we go with them, one and all. we are by their side on all the gory fields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. we stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. we are with them in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. we are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. we see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. we are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured. we are at home when the news comes that they are dead. we see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. we see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. the past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. we see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. cruelty unspeakable! outrage infinite! four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. all the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. and all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. the past rises before us. we hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. the broken fetters fall. these heroes died. we look. instead of slaves we see men and women and children. the wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and schoolhouses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. these heroes are dead. they died for liberty--they died for us. they are at rest. they sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. they, sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. in the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. i have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead. * this poetic flight of oratory has since become universally known as "a. vision of war." now, my friends, i have given you a few reasons why i am a republican. i have given you a few reasons why i am not a democrat. let me say another thing. the democratic party opposed every forward movement of the army of the republic, every one. do not be fooled. imagine the meanest resolution that you can think of--that is the resolution the democratic party passed. imagine the meanest thing you can think of--that is what they did; and i want you to recollect that the democratic party did these devilish things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the balance of war. i want you to recollect another thing; when they tell you about hard times, that the democratic party made the hard times; that every dollar we owe to-day was made by the southern and northern democracy. when we commenced to put down the rebellion we had to borrow money, and the democratic party went into the markets of the world and impaired the credit of the united states. they slandered, they lied, they maligned the credit of the united states, and to such an extent did they do this, that at one time during the war paper was only worth about thirty-four cents on the dollar. gold went up to $ . . what did that mean? it meant that greenbacks were worth thirty-four cents on the dollar. what became of the other sixty-six cents? they were lied out of the greenback, they were slandered out of the greenback, they were maligned out of the greenback, they were calumniated out of the greenback, by the democratic party of the north. two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of the burden now upon the shoulders of american industry, were placed there by the slanders of the democratic party of the north, and the other third by the democratic party of the south. and when you pay your taxes keep an account and charge two-thirds to the northern democracy and one-third to the southern democracy, and whenever you have to earn the money to pay the taxes, when you have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull off the blisters, and under each one, as the foundation, you will find a democratic lie. recollect that the democratic party did all the things of which i have told you, when the fate of our nation was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. recollect that the democratic party did these things when your brothers, your fathers, and your chivalric sons were fighting, bleeding, suffering, and dying upon the battle-fields of the south; when shot and shell were crashing through their sacred flesh. recollect that this democratic party was false to the union when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers, and your chivalric sons were lying in the hospitals of pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever pictures of the ones they loved; recollect that the democratic party was false to the nation when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers were lying alone upon the field of battle at night, the life-blood slowly oozing from the mangled and pallid lips of death; recollect that the democratic party was false to your country when your husbands, your brothers, your fathers, and your sons were lying in the prison pens of the south, with no covering but the clouds, with no bed but the frozen earth, with no food except such as worms had re-p fused to eat, and with no friends except insanity and death. recollect it, and spurn that party forever. i have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which i might construct sentences like snakes; out of which i might construct sentences that had fanged mouths, and that had forked tongues; out of which i might construct sentences that would writhe and hiss; and then i could give my opinion of the northern allies of the southern rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of the country. there are three questions now submitted to the american people. the first is, shall the people that saved this country rule it? shall the men who saved the old flag hold it? shall the men who saved the ship of state sail it, or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink it? that is the question. shall a solid south, a united south, united by assassination and murder, a south solidified by the shot-gun; shall a united south, with the aid of a divided north, shall they control this great and splendid country? we are right back where we were in . this is simply a prolongation of the war. this is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. the other was the war of cannon, this is the war of thought; and we have to beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. the question is, shall the men who endeavored to destroy this country rule it? shall the men that said, this is not a nation, have charge of the nation? the next question is, shall we pay our debts? we had to borrow some money to pay for shot and shell to shoot democrats with. we found that we could get along with a few less democrats, but not with any less country, and so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we pay it? and which party is the more apt to pay it, the republican party that made the debt--the party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconstitutional? every time a democrat sees a greenback, it says to him, "i vanquished you." every time a republican sees a greenback, it says, "you and i put down the rebellion and saved the country." now, my friends, you have heard a great deal about finance. nearly everybody that talks about it gets as dry--as dry as if they had been in the final home of the democratic party for forty years. i will now give you my ideas about finance. in the first place the government does not support the people, the people support the government. the government is a perpetual pauper. it passes round the hat, and solicits contributions; but then you must remember that the government has a musket behind the hat. the government produces nothing. it does not plow the land, it does not sow corn, it does not grow trees. the government is a perpetual consumer. we support the government. now, the idea that the government can make money for you and me to live on--why, it is the same as though my hired man should issue certificates of my indebtedness to him for me to live on. some people tell me that the government can impress its sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. well, if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? it takes no more ink and no more paper--why not make one thousand dollar bills? why not make a hundred million dollar bills and all be billionaires? if the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes from you and me for? why does it not make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us? mr. greenbacker, suppose the government issued a billion dollars to-morrow, how would you get any of it? [a voice, "steal it."] i was not speaking to the democrats. you would not get any of it unless you had something to exchange for it. the government would not go around and give you your aver-: age. you have to have some corn, or wheat, or pork to give for it. how do you get your money? by work. where from? you have to dig it out of the ground. that is where it comes from. men have always had a kind of hope that something could be made out of nothing. the old alchemists sought, with dim eyes, for something that could change the baser metals to gold. with tottering steps, they searched for the spring of eternal youth. holding in trembling hands retort and crucible, they dreamed of the elixir of life. the baser metals are not gold. no human ear has ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of immortal youth. the wrinkles upon the brow of age are still waiting for the elixir of life. inspired by the same idea, mechanics have endeavored, by curious combinations of levers and inclined planes, of wheels and cranks and shifting weights, to produce perpetual motion; but the wheels and levers wait for force. and, in the financial world, there are thousands now trying to find some way for promises to take the place of performance; for some way to make the word dollar as good as the dollar itself; for some way to make the promise to pay a dollar take the dollar's place. this financial alchemy, this pecuniary perpetual motion, this fountain of eternal wealth, are the same old failures with new names. something cannot be made out of nothing. nothing is a poor capital to, carry on business with, and makes a very unsatisfactory balance at your bankers. let me tell you another thing. the democrats seem to think that you can fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept it. they say you can stamp the sovereignty of the government upon paper. i saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the roman empire. that empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though julius cæsar were still riding at the head of the roman legions. was it his sovereignty that made it valuable? suppose he had put it upon a piece of paper--it would have been of no more value than a democratic promise. another thing, my friends: this debt will be paid; you need not worry about that. the democrats ought to pay it. they lost the suit, and they ought to pay the costs. but we in our patriotism are willing to pay our share. every man that has a bond, every man that has a greenback dollar has a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth. every one has a mortgage on the honor of the republican party, and it is on record. every spear of grass; every bearded head of golden wheat that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious west is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every particle of coal laid away by that old miser the sun, millions-of years ago, is a guarantee that every dollar will be paid; all the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow-capped sierra nevadas, waiting for the miners pick to give back the flash of the sun, every ounce is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; and all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains which adorn our broad land are guarantees that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre forests of the north, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; every locomotive with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled babe in the cradle, every honest man, every noble woman, and every man that votes the republican ticket is a guarantee that the debt will be paid--these, all these, each and all, are the guarantees that every promise of the united states will be sacredly fulfilled. what is the next question? the next question is, will we protect the union men in the south? i tell you the white union men have suffered enough. it is a crime in the southern states to be a republican. it is a crime in every southern state to love this country, to believe in the sacred rights of men. the colored people have suffered enough. for more than two hundred years they have suffered the fabled torments of the damned; for more than two hundred years they worked and toiled without reward, bending, in the burning sun, their bleeding backs; for more than two hundred years, babes were torn from the breasts of mothers, wives from husbands, and every human tie broken by the cruel hand of greed; for more than two hundred years they were pursued by hounds, beaten with clubs, burned with fire, bound with chains; two hundred years of toil, of agony, of tears; two hundred years of hope deferred; two hundred years of gloom and shadow and darkness and blackness; two hundred years of supplication, of entreaty; two hundred years of infinite outrage, without a moment of revenge. the colored people have suffered enough. they were and are our friends. they are the friends of this country, and, cost what it may, they must be protected. there was not during the whole rebellion a single negro that was not our friend. we are willing to be reconciled to our southern brethren when they will treat our friends as men. when they will be just to the friends of this country; when they are in favor of allowing every american citizen to have his rights--then we are their friends. we are willing to trust them with the nation when they are the friends of the nation. we are willing to trust them with liberty when they believe in liberty. we are willing to trust them with the black man when they cease riding in the darkness of night, (those masked wretches,) to the hut of the freedman, and notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of his family, shoot him down; when they cease to consider the massacre of hamburg as a democratic triumph, then, i say, we will be their friends, and not before. now, my friends, thousands of the southern people and thousands of the northern democrats are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in the race of life. and, mr. democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your business. the simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. you have to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a sense of justice. if you do not the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. i am for giving every man a chance. anybody that can pass me is welcome. i believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the future, as the land used to be in the state of illinois, is open to pre-emption. the fellow that gets a fact first, that is his; that gets an idea first, that is his. every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that touches the ground to the last one that leans against the shining summit of human ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first. mr. democrat, (i point down because they are nearly all on the first round of the ladder) if you can not climb, stand one side and let the deserving negro pass. i must tell you one thing. i have told it so much, and you have all heard it fifty times, but i am going to tell it again because i like it. suppose there was a great horse race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs* and all the donkeys. at the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a network of life had been cast upon him--with his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks--what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on that track? but the democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burrs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his cockle-burr tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "i am down on mule equality." i stood, a little while ago, in the city of paris, where stood the bastile, where now stands the column of july, surmounted by a figure of liberty. in its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a banner; upon its glorious forehead the glittering and shining star of progress--and as i looked upon it i said: "such is the republican party of my country." the other day going along the road i came to a place where the road had been changed, but the guide-board did not know it. it had stood there for twenty years pointing deliberately and solemnly in the direction of a desolate field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide-board thought the next man would. thousands passed, but nobody heeded the hand on the guide-post, and through sunshine and storm it pointed diligently into the old field and swore to it the road went that way; and i said to myself: "such is the democratic party of the united states." the other day i came to a river where there had been a mill; a part of it was there still. an old sign said: "cash for wheat." the old water-wheel was broken; it had been warped by the sun, cracked and split by many winds and storms. there had not been a grain of wheat ground there for twenty years. the door was gone, nobody had built a new dam, the mill was not worth a dam; and i said to myself: "such is the democratic party." i saw a little while ago a place on the road where there had once been an hotel. but the hotel and barn had burned down and there was nothing standing but two desolate chimneys, up the flues of which the fires of hospitality had not roared for thirty years. the fence was gone, and the post-holes even were obliterated, but in the road there was an old sign upon which were these words: "entertainment for man and beast." the old sign swung and creaked in the winter wind, the snow fell upon it, the sleet clung to it, and in the summer the birds sang and twittered and made love upon it. nobody ever stopped there, but the sign swore to it, the sign certified to it! "entertainment for man and beast," and i said to myself: "such is the democratic party of the united states," and i further said, "one chimney ought to be called tilden and the other hendricks." now, my friends, i want you to vote the republican ticket. i want you to swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the rebellion. i want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the proclamation of emancipation. i want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the utter abolition of slavery. i want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who called the soldiers in the field, lincoln hirelings. i want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who denounced lincoln as a tyrant. i want you to swear that you will not vote for any enemy of human progress. go and talk to every democrat that you can see; get him by the coatcollar, talk to him, and hold him like coleridge's ancient mariner, with your glittering eye; hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever did; tell him kindly; tell him in a christian spirit, as i do, but tell him. recollect, there never was a more important election than the one you are going to hold in indiana. i tell you we must stand by the country. it is a glorious country. it permits you and me to be free. it is the only country in the world where labor is respected. let us support it. it is the only country in the world where the useful man is the only aristocrat. the man that works for a dollar a day, goes home at night to his little ones, takes his little boy on his knee, and he thinks that boy can achieve anything that the sons of the wealthy man can achieve. the free schools are open to him; he may be the richest, the greatest, and the grandest, and that thought sweetens every drop of sweat that rolls down the honest face of toil. vote to save that country. my friends, this country is getting better every day. samuel j. tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. if that is so he ought to be the president. but i denounce him as a calumniator of my country; a maligner of this nation. it is not so. this country is covered with asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphans and wounded soldiers. thieves and rascals do not build such things. in the cities of the atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of new york city, where the democratic party is the strongest--took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the roses of health back to their pallid cheeks. rascals and thieves do not so. when chicago burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the american people. thieves and rascals do not so. i am a republican. the world is getting better. husbands are treating their wives better than they used to; wives are treating their husbands better. children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips and clubs are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love and by sense. the world is getting better; it is getting better in maine, in vermont. it is getting better in every state of the north, and i tell you we are going to elect hayes and wheeler and the world will then be better still. i have a dream that this world is growing better and better every day and every year; that there is more charity, more justice, more love every day. i have a dream that prisons will not always curse the land; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall upon the earth; that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislatures, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world will be governed by justice and charity, and by the splendid light of liberty. that is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault. i am going to do my level best to give others the same chance i ask for myself. free thought will give us truth; free labor will give us wealth. chicago speech. * col. robert g. ingersoll spoke last night at the exposition building to the largest audience ever drawn by one man in chicago. from . o'clock the sidewalks fronting along the building were jammed. at every entrance there were hundreds, and half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring for admittance. so great was the pressure the doors were finally closed, and the entrances at either end cautiously opened to admit the select who knew enough to apply in those directions. occasionally a rush was made for the main door, and as the crowd came up against the huge barricade they were swept back only for another effort. wabash avenue, monroe, adams, jackson, and van buren streets were jammed with ladies and gentlemen who swept into michigan avenue and swelled the sea that surged around the building. at . the doors were flung open and the people rushed in. seating accommodations supposed to be adequate to all demands, had been provided, but in an instant they were filled, the aisles were jammed and around the sides of the building poured a steady stream of humanity, intent only upon some coign of vantage, some place, where they could see and where they could hear. prom the fountain, beyond which the building lay in shadow to the northern end, was a swaying, surging mass of people. such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a political meeting in chicago. they came by the hundreds, and the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest in his remarks. the galleries were packed. the frame of the huge elevator creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon it. the trusses bore their living weight. the gallery railings bent and cracked. the roof was crowded, and the sky lights teemed with heads. here and there an adventurous youth crept out on the girders and braces. towards the northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. it was fairly packed--packed like a sardine-box--with men and boys. up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ, everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was pre-empted and filled. it was a magnificent, outpouring, at east , in number, a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the orator.--chicago tribune., october st, . hayes campaign. . ladies and gentlemen:--democrats and republicans have a common interest in the united states. we have a common interest in the preservation of good order. we have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. and i appeal to all, democrats and republicans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as president and vice-president of the united states the men and the parties, which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as republicans or democrats. the democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the reputation and character of the democratic organization. the democratic party says, "let bygones be bygones." i never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. i never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act remembered. not only so, but he expected his loving children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting place. but whenever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says, "let bygones be bygones." the democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. i do not know whether, according to the democratic standard, i am a gentleman or not; but i do say that in a certain sense i am one of the historians of the democratic party. i do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be a gentleman, but i admit that a gentleman hates to read this record; a gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but i do it, not because i like to do it, but because i believe the best interests of this country demand that there shall be a history given of the democratic party. in the first place, i claim that the democratic party embraces within its filthy arms the worst elements in american society. i claim that every enemy that this government has had for twenty years has been and is a democrat; every man in the dominion of canada that hates the great republic, would like to see tilden and hendricks successful. every titled thief in great britain would like to see tilden and hendricks the next president and vice-president of the united states. i say more; every state that seceded from this union was a democratic state. every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the instrumentalities of a free government--every one was a democrat. in short, every enemy that this government has had for twenty years, every enemy that liberty and progress has had in the united states for twenty years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our nation, every man who has been a disgrace to the great republic for twenty years, has been a democrat. i do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who are that way are democrats. the democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. this political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of character. on one of these papers he will show you the ordinance of ; on another one of those papers he will have a part of the fugitive slave law; on another one some of the black laws that used to disgrace illinois; on another governor tilden's letter to kent; on another a certificate signed by lyman trumbull that the republican party is not fit to associate with--that certificate will be endorsed by governor john m. palmer and my friend judge doolittle. he will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut, somewhat torn, representing abraham lincoln falling upon the neck of s. corning judd, and thanking him for saving the union as commander-in-chief of the sons of liberty. this political tramp will also have a letter dated boston, mass., saying: "i hereby certify that for fifty years i have regarded the bearer as a thief and robber, but i now look upon him as a reformer. signed, charles francis adams." following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for food, the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. study the expression of that dog. translate it into english and it means "oh! i want to bite a nigger!" and when the dog has that expression he bears a striking likeness to his master. the question is, shall that tramp and that dog gain possession of the white house? the democratic party learns nothing; the democratic party forgets nothing. the democratic party does not know that the world has advanced a solitary inch since . time is a democratic dumb watch. it has not given a tick for sixteen years. the democratic party does not know that we, upon the great glittering highway of progress, have passed a single mile-stone for twenty years. the democratic party is incapable of learning. the democratic party is incapable of anything but prejudice and hatred. every man that is a democrat is a democrat because he hates something; every man that is a republican is a republican because he loves something. the democratic party is incapable of advancement; the only stock that it has in trade to-day is the old infamous doctrine of democratic state rights. there never was a more infamous doctrine advanced on this earth, than the democratic idea of state rights. what is it? it has its foundation in the idea that this is not a nation; it has its foundation in the idea that this is simply a confederacy, that this great government is simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have simply made a trade, that the people of any one of the states are sovereign to the extent that they have the right to trample upon the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that the general government cannot interfere. the great democratic heart is fired to-day, the democratic bosom is bloated with indignation because of an order made by general grant sending troops into the southern states to defend the rights of american citizens! who objects to a soldier going? nobody except a man who wants to carry an election by fraud, by violence, by intimidation, by assassination, and by murder. the democratic party is willing to-day that tilden and hendricks should be elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership with assassination and murder; they are willing to-day that every man in the southern states, who is a friend of this union, and who fought for our flag--that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled in the dust, provided that tilden and hendricks be elected president and vice-president of this country. they tell us that a state line is sacred; that you never can cross it unless you want to do a mean thing; that if you want to catch a fugitive slave you have the right to cross it; but if you wish to defend the rights of men, then it is a sacred line, and you cannot cross it. such is the infamous doctrine of the democratic party. who, i say, will be injured by sending soldiers into the southern states? no one in the world except the man who wants to prevent an honest citizen from casting a legal vote for the government of his choice. for my part, i think more of the colored union men of the south than i do of the white disunion men of the south. for my part, i think more of a black friend than i do of a white enemy. for my part, i think more of a friend black outside, and white in, than i do of a man who is white outside and black inside. for my part, i think more of black justice, of black charity, and of black patriotism, than i do of white cruelty, than i do of white treachery and treason. as a matter of fact, all that is done in the south to-day, of use, is done by the colored man. the colored man raises everything that is raised in the south, except hell. and i say here to-night that i think one hundred times more of the good, honest, industrious black man of the south than i do of all the white men together that do not love this government, and i think more of the black man of the south than i do of the white man of the north who sympathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man. i believe that this is a government, first, not only of power, but that it is the right of this government to march all the soldiers in the united states into any sovereign state of this union to defend the rights of every american citizen in that state. if it is the duty of the government to defend you in time of war, when you were compelled to go into the army, how much more is it the duty of the government to defend in time of peace the man who, in time of war, voluntarily and gladly rushed to the rescue and defence of his country; and yet the democratic doctrine is that you are to answer the call of the nation, but the nation will be deaf to your cry, unless the governor of your state makes request of your government. suppose the governors and every man trample upon your rights, is the nation then to let you be trampled upon? will the nation hear only the cry of the oppressor, or will it heed the cry of the oppressed? i believe we should have a government that can hear the faintest wail, the faintest cry for justice from the lips of the humblest citizen beneath the flag. but the democratic doctrine is that this government can protect its citizens only when they are away from home. this may account for so many democrats going to canada during the war. i believe that the government must protect you, not only abroad but must protect you at home; and that is the greatest question before the american people to-day. i had thought that human impudence had reached its limit ages and ages ago. i had believed that some time in the history of the world impudence had reached its height, and so believed until i read the congratulatory address of abram s. hewitt, chairman of the national executive democratic committee, wherein he congratulates the negroes of the south on what he calls a democratic victory in the state of indiana. if human impudence can go beyond this, all i have to say is, it never has. what does he say to the southern people, to the colored people? he says to them in substance: "the reason the white people trample upon you is because the white people are weak. give the white people more strength, put the white people in authority, and, although they murder you now when they are weak, when they are strong they will let you alone. yes; the only trouble with our southern white brethren is that they are in the minority, and they kill you now, and the only way to save your lives is to put your enemy in the majority." that is the doctrine of abram s. hewitt, and he congratulates the colored people of the south upon the democratic victory in indiana. there is going to be a great crop of hawks next season--let us congratulate the doves. that is it. the burglars have whipped the police--let us congratulate the bank. that is it. the wolves have killed off almost all the shepherds--let us congratulate the sheep. in my judgment, the black people have suffered enough. they have been slaves for two hundred years, and more than all, they have been compelled to keep the company of the men that owned them. think of that! think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from you! think of being compelled to live with the man that sold your wife! think of being compelled to live with the man that stole your child from the cradle before your very eyes! think of being compelled to live with the thief of your life, and spend your days with the white robber, and be under his control! the black people have suffered enough. for two hundred years they were owned and bought and sold and branded like cattle. for two hundred years every human tie was rent and torn asunder by the bloody, brutal hands of avarice and might. they have suffered enough. during the war the black people were our friends not only, but whenever they were entrusted with the family, with the wives and children of their masters, they were true to them. they stayed at home and protected the wife and child of the master while he went into the field and fought for the right to sell the wife and the right to whip and steal the child of the very black man that was protecting him. the black people, i say, have suffered enough, and for that reason i am in favor of the government protecting them in every southern state, if it takes another war to do it. we can never compromise with the south at the expense of our friends. we never can be friends with the men that starved and shot our brothers. we can never be friends with the men that waged the most cruel war in the world; not for liberty, but for the right to deprive other men of their liberty. we never can be their friends until they are the friends of our friends, until they treat the black man justly; until they treat the white union man respectfully; until republicanism ceases to be a crime; until to vote the republican ticket ceases to make you a political and social outcast. we want no friendship with the enemies of our country. the next question is, who shall have possession of this country--the men that saved it,--or the men that sought to destroy it? the southern people lit the fires of civil war. they who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the ashes left. the men that saved this country must rule it. the men that saved the flag must carry it. this government is not far from destruction when it crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the man that was false to it in time of war. this nation is not far from the precipice of annihilation and destruction when it gives its highest honor to a man false, false to the country when everything we held dear trembled in the balance of war, when everything was left to the arbitrament of the sword. the next question prominently before the people--though i think the great question is, whether citizens shall be protected at home--the next question i say, is the financial question. with that there is no trouble. we had to borrow money, and we have to pay it. that is all there is of that, and we are going to pay it just as soon as we make the money to pay it with, and we are going to make the money out of prosperity. we have to dig it out of the earth. you cannot make a dollar by law. you cannot redeem a cent by statute. you cannot pay one solitary farthing by all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made beneath the sun. if the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national indebtedness is wealth, if that is their idea, why not go another step and make every individual note a legal tender? why not pass a law that every man shall take every other man's note? then i swear we would have money in plenty. no, my friends, a promise to pay a dollar is not a dollar, no matter if that promise is made by the greatest and most powerful nation on the globe. a promise is not a performance. an agreement is not an accomplishment and there never will come a time when a promise to pay a dollar is as good as the dollar, unless everybody knows that you have the dollar and will pay it whenever they ask for it. we want no more inflation. we want simply to pay our debts as fast as the prosperity of the country allows it and no faster. every speculator that was caught with property on his hands upon which he owed more than the property was worth, wanted the game to go on a little longer. whoever heard of a man playing poker that wanted to quit when he was a loser? he wants to have a fresh deal. he wants another hand, and he don't want any man that is ahead to jump the game. it is so with the speculators in this country. they bought land, they bought houses, they bought goods, and when the crisis and crash came, they were caught with the property on their hands, and they want another inflation, they want another tide to rise that will again sweep this driftwood into the middle of the great financial stream. that is all. every lot in this city that was worth five thousand and that is now worth two thousand--do you know what is the matter with that lot? it has been redeeming. it has been resuming. that is what is the matter with that lot. every man that owned property that has now fallen fifty per cent., that property has been resuming; and if you could have another inflation to-morrow, the day that the bubble burst would find thousands of speculators who paid as much for property as property was worth, and they would ask for another tide of affairs in men. they would ask for another inflation. what for? to let them out and put somebody else in. we want no more inflation. we want the simple honest payment of the debt, and to pay out of the prosperity of this country. but, says the greenback man, "we never had as good times as when we had plenty of greenbacks." suppose a farmer would buy a farm for ten thousand dollars and give his note. he would buy carriages, horses, wagons and agricultural implements, and give his note. he would send mary, jane and lucy to school. he would buy them pianos, and send them to college, and would give his note, and the next year he would again give his note for the interest, and the next year again his note, and finally they would come to him and say, "we must settle up; we have taken your notes as long as we can; we want money." "why," he would say to the gentleman, "i never had as good a time in my life as while i have been giving those notes. i never had a farm until the man gave it to me for my note. my children have been clothed as well as anybody's. we have had carriages; we have had fine horses; and our house has been filled with music, and laughter, and dancing; and why not keep on taking those notes?" so it is with the greenback man; he says, "when we were running in debt we had a jolly time--let us keep it up." but, my friends, there must come a time when inflation would reach that point when all the goverment notes in the world would not buy a pin; when all the government notes in the world would not be worth as much as the last year's democratic platform. i have no fear that these debts will not be paid. i have no fear that every solitary greenback dollar will not be redeemed; but, my friends, we shall have some trouble doing it. why? because the debt is a great deal larger than it should have been. in the first place, there should have been po debt. if it had not been for the southern democracy there would have been no war. if it had not been for the northern democracy the war would not have lasted one year. there was a man tried in court for having murdered his father and mother. he was found guilty, and the judge asked him, "what have you to say that sentence of death shall not be pronounced on you?" "nothing in the world judge," said he, "only i hope your honor will take pity on me and remember that i am a poor orphan." i have no doubt that this debt will be paid. we have the honor to pay it, and we do not pay it on account of the avarice or greed of the bondholder. an honest man does not pay money to a creditor simply because the creditor wants it. the honest man pays at the command of his honor and not at the demand of the creditor. the united states will pay its debts, not because the creditor demands, but because we owe it. the united states will liquidate every debt at the command of its honor, and every cent will be paid. war is destruction, war is loss, and all the property destroyed, and the time that is lost, put together, amount to what we call a national debt. when in peace we shall have made as much net profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we shall be a solvent people. the greenback will be redeemed, we expect to redeem it on the first day of january, . we may fail; we will fail if the prosperity of the country fails; but we intend to try to do it, and if we fail, we will fail as a soldier fails to take a fort, high upon the rampart, with the flag of resumption in our hands. we will not say that we cannot pay the debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to be paid. i have had to borrow money myself; i have had to give my note, and i recollect distinctly that every man i ever did give my note to insisted that somewhere in that note there should be some vague hint as to the cycle, as to the geological period, as to the time, as to the century and date when i expected to pay those little notes. i never understood that having a time fixed would prevent my being industrious; that it would interfere with my honesty; or with my activity, or with my desire to discharge that debt. and if any man in this great country owed you one thousand dollars, due you the first day of next january, and he should come to you and say: "i want to pay you that debt, but you must take that date out of that note." "why?" you would say. "why," he would reply in the language of tilden, "i have to make wise preparation." "well," you would say, "why don't you do it?" "oh," he says, "i cannot do it while you have that date in that note." "another thing," he says, "i have to get me a central reservoir of coin." and do you know i have always thought i would like to see the democratic party around a central reservoir of coin. suppose this debtor would also tell you, "i want the date out of that note, because i have to come at it by a very slow and gradual process." "well," you would say, "i do not care how slow or how gradual you are, provided that you get around by the time the note is due." what would you think of a man that wanted the date out of the note? you would think he was a mixture of rascal and democrat. that is what you would think. now, my friends, the democratic party (if you may call it a party) brings forward as its candidate samuel j. tilden, of new york. i am opposed to him, first, because he is an old bachelor. in a country like ours, depending for its prosperity and glory upon an increase of the population, to elect an old bachelor is a suicidal policy. any man that will live in this country for sixty years, surrounded by beautiful women with rosy lips and dimpled cheeks, in every dimple lurking a cupid, with pearly teeth and sparkling eyes--any man that will push them all aside and be satisfied with the embraces of the democratic party, does not even know the value of time. i am opposed to samuel j. tilden, because he is a democrat; because he belongs to the democratic party of the city of new york; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country. no man should be president of this nation who denies that it is a nation. samuel j. tilden denounced the war as an outrage. no man should be president of this country that denounced a war waged in its defence as an outrage. to elect such a man would be an outrage. samuel j. tilden said that the flag stands for a contract; that it stands for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. but the great, splendid republican party says, "no! that flag stands for a great, hoping, aspiring, sublime nation, not for a confederacy." i am opposed, i say, to the election of samuel j. tilden for another reason. if he is elected he will be controlled by his party, and his party will be controlled by the southern stockholders in that party. they own nineteen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the policy of the democratic corporation. no northern democrat has the manliness to stand up before a southern democrat. every democrat, nearly, has a face of dough, and the southern democrat will swap his ears, change his nose, cut his mouth the other way of the leather, so that his own mother would not know him, in fifteen minutes. if samuel j. tilden is elected president of the united states, he will be controlled by the democratic party, and the democratic party will be controlled by the southern democracy--that is to say, the late rebels; that is to say, the men that tried to destroy the government; that is to say, the men who are sorry they did not destroy the government; that is to say, the enemies of every friend of this union; that is to say, the murderers and the assassins of union men living in the southern country. let me say another thing. if mr. tilden does not act in accordance with the southern democratic command, the southern democracy will not allow a single life to stand between them and the absolute control of this country. hendricks will then be their man. i say that it would be an outrage to give this country into the control of men who endeavored to destroy it, to give this country into the control of the southern rebels and haters of union men. and on the other hand, the republican party has put forward rutherford b. hayes. he is an honest man. the democrats will say, "that is nothing." well, let them try it. rutherford b. hayes has a good character. rutherford b. hayes, when this war commenced, did not say with tilden, "it is an outrage." he did not say with tilden, "i never will contribute to the prosecution of this war." but he did say this, "i would go into this war if i knew i would be killed in the course of it, rather than to live through it and take no part in it." during the war rutherford b. hayes received many wounds in his flesh, but not one scratch upon his honor. samuel j. tilden received many wounds upon his honor, but not one scratch on his flesh. rutherford b. hayes is a firm man; not an obstinate man, but a firm man; and i draw this distinction: a firm man will do what he believes to be right, because he wants to do right. he will stand firm because he believes it to be right; but an obstinate man wants his own way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong. rutherford b. hayes is firm in the right, and obstinate only when he knows he is in the right. if you want to vote for a man who fought for you, vote for rutherford b. hayes. if you want to vote for a man that carried our flag through the storm of shot and shell, vote for rutherford b. hayes. if you believe patriotism to be a virtue, vote for rutherford b. hayes. if you believe this country wants heroes, vote for rutherford b. hayes. if you want a man who turned against his country in time of war, vote for samuel j. tilden. if you believe the war waged for the salvation of our nation was an outrage, vote for samuel j. tilden. if you believe it is better to stay at home and curse the brave men in the field, fighting for the sacred rights of man, vote for samuel j. tilden. if you want to pay a premium upon treason, if you want to pay a premium upon hypocrisy, if you want to pay a premium upon chicanery, if you want to pay a premium upon sympathizing with the enemies of your country, vote for samuel j. tilden. if you believe that patriotism is right, if you believe the brave defender of liberty is better than the assassin of freedom, vote for rutherford b. hayes. i am proud that i belong to the republican party. it is the only party that has not begged pardon for doing right. it is the only party that has said: "there shall be no distinction on account of race, on account of color, on account of previous condition." it is the only party that ever had a platform broad enough for all humanity to stand upon. it is the first decent party that ever lived. the republican party made the first free government that was ever made. the republican party made the first decent constitution that any nation ever had. the republican party gave to the sky the first pure flag that was ever kissed by the waves of air. the republican party is the first party that ever said: "every man is entitled to liberty," not because he is white, not because he is black, not because he is rich, not because he is poor, but because he is a man. the republican party is the first party that knew enough to know that humanity is more than skin deep. it is the first party that said, "government should be for all, as the light, as the air, is for all." and it is the first party that had the sense to say, "what air is to the lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man." the republican party is the first party that ever was in favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving to every man, without distinction of race or color, the fruits of the labor of his hands. the republican party said, "free labor will give us wealth, free thought will give us truth." the republican party is the first party that said to every man, "think for yourself, and express that thought." i am a free man. i belong to the republican party. this is a free country. i will think my thought. i will speak my thought or die. i say the republican party is for free labor. free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power, added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of mankind. every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in the world, we owe to free labor and to free thought. free labor, free thought! science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil. the republican party, i say, believes in free labor. every solitary thing, every solitary improvement made in the united states has been made by the republican party. every reform accomplished was inaugurated, and was accomplished by the great, grand, glorious republican party. the republican party does not say: "let bygones be bygones." the republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. the republican party brings its record before you and implores you to read every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. on the first page you will find it written: "slavery has cursed american soil long enough;" on the same page you will find it written: "slavery shall go no farther." on the same page you will find it written: "the bloodhounds shall not drip their gore upon another inch of american soil." on the second page you will find it written: "this is a nation, not a confederacy; every state belongs to every citizen, and no state has a right to take territory belonging to any citizens in the united states and set up a separate government." on the third page you will find the grandest declaration ever made in this country: "slavery shall be extirpated from the american soil." on the next page: "the rebellion shall be put down." on the next page: "the rebellion has been put down." on the next page: "slavery has been extirpated from the american soil." on the next page: "the freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citizens." on the next page: "they are citizens." on the next page: "the ballot shall be put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next page: "every citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall have a right to cast that ballot." that in short, that in brief, is the history of the republican party. the republican party says, and it means what it says: "this shall be a free country forever; every man in it twenty-one years of age shall have the right to vote for the government of his choice, and if any man endeavors to interfere with that right, the government of the united states will see to it that the right of every american citizen is protected at the polls." now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average democrat, and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be the better man. it is the trouble in the south to-day. and i say to my southern friends (and i admit that there are a great many good men in the south, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great mass of the population is vicious, violent, virulent and malignant; the great mass of the population is cruel, revengeful, idle, hateful,) and i tell that population: "if you do not go to work, the negro, by his patient industry, will pass you." in the long run, the nation that is honest, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people who are idle, no matter how grand an ancestry they may have had, and so i say, mr. northern democrat, look out! the superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man is the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts up his down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow and human want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb the great hill of fame. the superior man is the man who loves his fellow-man. and let me say right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are brothers the world over, no matter what their complexion may be; centuries may separate them, yet they are hand in hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and all the superior men, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting the great battle for the progress of mankind. i pity the man, i execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that he is white. whenever i am reduced to that necessity, i believe shame will make me red instead of white. i believe another thing. if i cannot hoe my row, i will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. if i belong to the superior race, i will be so superior that i can make my living without stealing from the inferior. i am perfectly willing that any democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. i have never seen one yet, except when i looked over my shoulder. but if they can pass i shall be delighted. whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats. whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage in spite of ourselves. any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the world; but until somebody does go by, of the democratic persuasion, i shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future time, they may get by. the democrats are afraid of being passed, because they are being passed. no man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he robs. no man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he steals from. i had rather be a slave than a slave-master. i had rather be stolen from than be a thief. i had rather be the wronged than the wrong-doer. and allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every man that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong. every race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. there never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon whom he trampled. and let me say another thing: no government can stand upon the crushed rights of one single human being; and any compromise that we make with the south, if we make it at the expense of our friends, will carry in its own bosom the seeds of its own death and destruction, and cannot stand. a government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. all the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and nations that have passed away--all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. from sand-enshrouded egypt, from the marble wilderness of athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the cry, "no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." we must found this nation anew. we must fight our fight. we must cling to our old party until there is freedom of speech in every part of the united states. we must cling to the old party until i can speak in every state of the south as every southerner can speak in every state of the north. we must vote the grand old republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every southern state that there is in every northern, eastern and western state. we must stand by the party until every southern man will admit that this country belongs to every citizen of the united states as much as to the man that is born in that country. one more thing. i do not want any man that ever fought for this country to vote the democratic ticket. you will swap your respectability for disgrace. there are thousands of you--great, grand, splendid men--that have fought grandly for this union, and now i beseech of you, i beg of you, do not give respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. do not do it. do not vote with the democratic party, of the north. sometimes i think a rebel sympathizer in the north worse than a rebel, and i will tell you why. the rebel was carried into the rebellion by public opinion at home,--his father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, and everybody he knew; and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the army. he went on the rebel side with his state. the northern democrat went against his own state; went against his own government; and went against public opinion at home. the northern democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. the southern rebel went with the current; the northern rebel rowed against the current from pure, simple cussedness. and i beg every man that ever fought for the union, every man that ever bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, that the old flag might float over every inch of american soil redeemed from the clutch of treason; i beg him, i implore him, do not go with the democratic party. and to every young man within the sound of my voice i say, do not tie your bright and shining prospects to that old corpse of democracy. you will get tired of dragging it around. do not cast your first vote with the enemies of your country. do not cast your first vote with the democratic party that was glad when the union army was defeated. do not cast your vote with that party whose cheeks flushed with the roses of joy when the old flag was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle. remember, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could, every dishonest and treasonable thing it could. recollect that that party did all it could to divide this nation, and destroy this country. for myself i have no fear; hayes and wheeler will be the next president and vice-president of the united states of america. let me beg of you--let me implore you--let me beseech you, every man, to come out on election day. every man, do your duty; every man do his duty with regard to the state ticket of the great and glorious state of illinois. this year we need republicans; this year we need men that will vote for the party; and i tell you that a republican this year, no matter what you have against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him, is better for the country, no matter how much you hate him, he is better for the country than any democrat nature can make, or ever has made. we must, in this supreme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote only for the men who are in favor of keeping this government in the power, in the custody, in the control of the great, the sublime republican party. ladies and gentlemen, if i were insensible to the honor you have done me by this magnificent meeting--the most magnificent i ever saw on earth--a meeting such as only the marvelous city of pluck could produce; if i were insensible of the honor, i would be made of stone. i shall remember it with delight; i shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of my life. and i ask in return of every republican here to remember all the days of his life, every sacrifice made by this nation for liberty; every sacrifice made by every private soldier, every sacrifice made by every patriotic man and patriotic woman. i do not ask you to remember in revenge, but i ask you never, never to forget. as the world swings through the constellations year after year, i want the memory, i want the patriotic memory of this country to sit by the grave of every union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with tears, to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting honor. i thank you, i thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thousand times. good-night. note:--there was no full report made of this speech, the above are simply extracts. eight to seven address. (on the electoral commission.) * the reputation of col. robert g. ingersoll had taken possession of the boston mind to such an extent that his expected address was spoken of as "the lecture." people talked about going to it, as if on that night all other places were to be closed, and the whole population of the city turned into tremont temple. long before the appointed hour a rare audience, for even lecture loving boston, had assembled. col. ingersoll stepped upon the platform preceded by governor rice, and followed by william lloyd garrison, james t. fields and others. after the presentation of two large and exquisite bouquets governor rice introduced colonel ingersoll, and the audience, the most acute and determined looking i ever saw in boston, poured out their welcome! it seemed as if all the cheers that had been suppressed between the first of november and the decision of the electoral commission, found vent at that moment and the vigorous clapping was renewed and prolonged until it became an unmistakable salute to the recent brilliant campaigning of the great western orator. it is hardly possible to speak in too high terms of the lecture which, under the title of " to ," contained a witty, philosophical and intensely patriotic review of the political contest preceding and following the recent election, with wise and timely suggestions for preventing similar perils in the future.-- boston, october nd, . . i have sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed by parties full of hatred, full of malice, full of slander. i have sometimes wondered whether or not in the future there would not be discovered such a science as the science of government. i do not know what you think, but what little i do know, and what little experience has been mine, is, i must admit, against it. we have passed through the most remarkable campaign of our history--a campaign remarkable in every respect. it was bitter, passionate, relentless and desperate, and i admit, for one, that i added to its bitterness and relentlessness. i told, and frankly told, my real, honest opinion of the democratic party of the north. i told, and cheerfully told, my opinion of the democratic party of the south. and i have nothing to take back. but, to show you that my heart is not altogether wicked; i am willing to forgive and do forgive with all my heart, every person and every party that i ever said anything against. i believe that the campaign of was the turning-point, the midnight in the history of the american republic. i believe, and firmly believe, that if the democratic party had swept into power, it would have been the end of progress, and the end of what i consider human liberty, beneath our flag. i felt so, and i went into the campaign simply because the rights of american citizens in at least sixteen states of the union were trampled under foot. i did what little i could. i am glad i did it. we had, as i say, a wonderful campaign, and each party said and did about all that could be said and done. everybody attended to politics. business was suspended. everything was given over to processions and torches, and flags and transparencies; and resolutions and conventions and speeches and songs. old arguments were revamped. old stories were pressed into service. the old story of the rebellion was told again and again. the memories of the war were revived. the north was arrayed against the south as though upon the field of battle. party cries were heard on every hand. each party leaped like a tiger upon the reputation of the other, and tore with tooth and claw, with might and main, to the very end of the campaign. i felt that it was necessary to arouse the north. i felt that it was necessary to tell again the story of the rebellion, from bull run to appomattox. i felt that it was necessary to describe what the southern people were doing with union men, and with colored men; and i felt it necessary so to describe it that the people of the north could hear the whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the withered leaves. i did all i could to arouse the people of the north. i did all i could to prevent the democratic party from getting into power. the first morning after the election, the democracy had a banquet of joy, but all through the feast they saw sitting at the head of the table the dim outline of the skeleton of defeat. and, when the tide turned, republicans rejoiced with a face ready at any moment to express the profoundest grief. then came despatches and rumors, and estimated majorities, and vague talk about returning boards, and intimidating voters, and stuffed ballot boxes, and fraudulent returns, and bribed clerks, and injunctions, and contempts of courts, and telegrams in cipher, and outrages, and octoroon balls in which reverend senators were whirled in love's voluptuous waltz. everybody discussed the qualifications of electors and the value of governors' certificates, and how to get behind returns, and how to buy an elector, and who had the right to count; and persons expecting offices of trust, honor and profit began to threaten war and extermination, calls were made for a hundred thousand men, and there were no end of meetings, and resolutions and denunciations, and the downfall of the country was prophesied; and yet, notwithstanding all this, the name of the person who really was elected remained unknown. the last scene of this strange, eventful history, so far as the election by the people was concerned, was cronin. i see him now as he leaves the land "where rolls the oregon and hears no sound save his own dashings." cronin, the last surviving veteran of the grand army of "honesty and reform." cronin, a quorum of one. cronin, who elected the two others by a plurality of his own vote. i see him now, armed with hoadley's opinion and grover's certificate, trudging wearily and drearily over the wide and wasted saleratus deserts of the west, with a little card marked "s. j. t. i g. p." then came the great question of who shall count the electoral vote. the vice-president being a republican, it was generally contended, at least by me, that he had a right to count that vote. my doctrine was, if the vice-president would count the vote right, he had the right to count it. the vice-president not being a democrat, the members of that party claimed that the house could prevent the vice-president from counting it, and this was simply because the house was not republican. nearly all decided according to their politics. the constitution is a little blind on this point, and where anything is blind i always see it my way. it was about this time that some of the democrats began to talk about bringing one hundred thousand unarmed men to washington to superintend the count. others, however, got up a scheme to create, a court in the united states where politics should have no earthly influence. nothing could be easier, they thought, after we had gone through such a hot and exciting campaign, than to pick out men who have no prejudices whatever on the subject. finally a bill was passed creating a tribunal to count the vote, if any, and hear testimony, if any, and declare what man had been elected president, if any. this tribunal consisted of fifteen men, ten being chosen on account of their politics--five from the senate and five from the house,--and they chose four judges from purely geographical considerations. i was there, and i know exactly how it was. those four men were picked with a map of the united states in front of the pickers. the democrats chose justice field, not because he was a democrat, but because he lived on the pacific slope. they chose justice clifford, not because he was a democrat, but because he lived on the eastern slope; that was fair. thereupon the republicans chose justice strong, not because he was a republican, but because he lived on the eastern slope. you can see the point. the republicans chose justice miller, not because he was a republican, but because he represented the great west. they then allowed these four to select a fifth man. well, it was impossible to select the fifth man from geographical considerations, you can see that yourselves. there was nothing left to choose between, you know, as far as geography was concerned. they then agreed that they would not take a justice from any state in which the candidate for president lived. they left out justice hunt, from new york, and justice swayne, from ohio. they knew of course that that would not influence them, but they did that simply--well, they did not want them there; that was all, and it would be unhandy to pick one man out of four. so they left swayne and hunt out. and then they would pick one man as between justice bradley and justice davis. just at that time the people of the state of illinois happened to be out of a senator, and judge davis was there and expressed a willingness to go to the senate. and the people of the state of illinois elected him, and therefore there was nobody to choose from except justice bradley, and he was a republican. now, you know this runs in families. his record was good--by marriage. he married a daughter of chief justice hornblower, of new jersey. now, hornblower was what you might call a partisan. do you know they went to him--it was in the old times, and he was a kind of whig,--they went to him with a petition, in the state of new jersey, a petition addressed to the legislature for the abolition of capital punishment, and hornblower said, "i'll be damned if i sign it while there is a democrat in the state of new jersey." as a matter of fact, however, i believe that justice bradley and all the other justices, and all other persons on that tribunal decided as they honestly thought was right. judge davis is as broad mentally as he is physically; he has an immensity of common sense, and as much judgment as any one man ever needs to use, and, in my judgment, he would have come to the same conclusion as judge bradley, precisely. these men were appointed--it was a democratic scheme, and i am glad they got it up--and during that entire investigation, so much were the members of that party controlled by old associations and habits, and by partisan feeling that there was not a solitary one of the seven democrats that ever once voted on the republican side. and, as a necessity, the republicans had to stand together. and so, notwithstanding the seven democrats voted constantly together, the eight republicans kept having a majority of one, until the last disputed state was given against the great party of "honesty and reform." and, finally, when they found they were defeated, they made up their minds to prevent the counting of the vote. they made up their minds to wear out the session and prevent the election of a president. just at that point, for a wonder, (nothing ever astonished me more), the members from the south said: "we do not want any more war; we have had war enough and we say that a president shall be peacefully elected, and that he shall be peacefully inaugurated!" as soon as i heard that i felt under a little obligation to the democracy of the south, and when they stood in the gap and prevented the democracy of the north from plunging this government into the hell of civil war, i felt like taking them by the hand and saying, "we have beaten the enemy once, let us keep on. let us join hands." i felt like saying to the democracy of the south, "you never will have a day's prosperity in the south until you join the great, free, progressive party of the north--never!" and they never will. now, i say, i felt as though i were under a certain obligation to these people. they prevented this thing, and they made it possible for the vice-president to declare rutherford b. hayes president of the united states. now, right here, i want you to observe that this shows the real defects in our system of government. in the first place, our government is being governed by fraud. if the very fountain of power is poisoned by fraud, then the whole government is impure. we must find out some way to prevent fraudulent voting in the united states or our government is a failure. great cities were the mothers of election frauds. they inaugurated violence and intimidation. they produced the repeaters and the false boxes. they invented fan-tail tickets and pasters, and gradually these delightful and patriotic arts and practices have spread over almost the entire country. unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form of government must cease. the fountain of power is poisoned. the sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. the government becomes organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and decisions of the courts. the legislators are elected in many instances by fraud. the judges are in many instances chosen by fraud. every department of the government becomes tainted and corrupt. it is no longer a republic, unless something can be devised to ascertain with certainty the really honest will of the sovereign people. for the accomplishment of this object the good and patriotic men of all parties should most heartily unite. to cast an illegal vote should be considered by all as a crime. we must if possible get rid of the mob--the vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the cities where they vote. we must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the rich mob i mean the men who buy up these vagabonds. various states have passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open all the doors of fraud. men are allowed to vote if they have been for one year in the state, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct; and when they have failed to have their names registered before the day of election, they can avoid the effect of this neglect by making a few affidavits, certified to by reputable householders. of course all necessary affidavits are made, with hundreds and thousands to spare. my idea is that the period of registration, in the first place, is too short, and, in the second place, no way should be given by which they can vote unless they have been properly registered, affidavit or no affidavit. every man, when he goes into a ward or precinct, should be registered. it should be his duty to see that he is registered. officers should be kept for that purpose, and he should never be allowed to cast a vote until he has been registered at least one year. sixty days, say, or thirty days--sixty would be better--sixty days before the election the registry lists should be corrected, and every citizen should have the right to enter a complaint or objection as against any name found upon that list. thirty days, or twenty days before the election, that list should be published and should be exposed in several public places in each ward and each precinct, and upon the day of election no man should be allowed to vote whose name was not upon the registry list. our wards and precincts should be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his ballot for the government of his choice can walk to the polls like a gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. allow me to say that unless some such plan is adopted in the united states, there never will be another fair election in this country. during the last campaign all the arts and artifices of the city, all the arts and artifices of the lowest wards were spread over this entire country, and unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and guard the sovereign will of the people, we will cease to be a republican government. another thing--and i cannot say it too often--fraud at the ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the government. when they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they despise the officers elected. when they are satisfied it is a fraud, they despise the law made by the legislators. when they are satisfied it is a fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most august tribunals. another trouble in this country is that our terms of office are too short. our elections are too frequent. they interfere with the business of our country. when elections are so frequent, men make a business of politics. if they fail to get one office they immediately run for another, and they keep running until the people elect them for the simple purpose of getting rid of the annoyance. lengthen the terms, purify the ballot, and the present scramble for office will become contests for principles. a man who cannot get a living--unless he has been disabled in the service of his country or from some other cause--without holding office, is not fit for an office. a professional office-seeker is one of the meanest, and lowest, and basest of human beings--a little higher than the lower animals and a little lower than man. he has no earthly or heavenly independence; not a particle; not a particle. a successful office-seeker is like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, and draws all things towards the office he wants. he has not even a temper. you cannot insult him. shut the door in his face, and, so far as he is concerned, it is left wide open, and you are standing on the threshold with a smile, extending the hand of welcome. he crawls and cringes and flatters and lies and swaggers and brags and tells of the influence he has in the ward he lives in. we cannot too often repeat that splendid saying, "the office should seek the man, not man the office." if you will lengthen the term of office it will be so long between meals that he will have to do something else or starve. adopt the system of registration, as i have suggested; have small and convenient election districts, so that, as i said before, the honest, law-abiding, and peaceable citizen can attend the polls; so that he will not be compelled to risk his life to deposit his ballot that will be stolen or thrown out, or forced to keep the company of ballots caused by fraudulent violence. lengthen the term of office, drive the professional hunter and seeker of office from the field, and you will go far toward strengthening and vivifying and preserving the fabric of the constitution. that is the kind of civil service reform i am in favor of, and as i am on that subject, i will say a word about it. there is but one vital question--but one question of real importance--in fact i might say in the whole world, and that is the great question of civil service reform. there may be some others indirectly affecting the human race, and in which some people take a languid kind of interest, but the only question worth discussing and comprehending in all its phases is the one i have mentioned. this great question is in its infancy still. the doctrine as yet has been applied only to politics.* * colonel ingersoll then read the following letter, of which he was the author. my dear sir:--in the olden times, during the purer days of the republic, the motto was, "to the victors belong the spoils." the great object of civil service reform is to reverse this motto. our people are thoroughly disgusted with machine politics, and demand politics without any machine. in every precinct and ward there are persons going about lauding one party and crying down the other. they make it their business to attend to the affairs of the nation. they call conventions, pass resolutions; they put notices in papers of the times and places of meetings; they select candidates for office, and then insist upon having them elected; they distribute papers and political documents; they crowd the mails with newspapers, platforms, resolutions, facts and figures, and with everything calculated to help their party and hurt the other. in short, they are the disturbers of the public peace. they keep the community in a perpetual excitement. in the last campaign, wherever they were was turmoil. they fired cannon, carried flags, torches and transparencies; they subsidized brass bands, and shouted and hurrahed as though the world had gone insane. they were induced to do these things by the hope of success and office. take away this hope and there will be peace once more. this thing is unendurable. the staid, the quiet and respectable people, the moderate and conservative men who always have an idea of joining the other side just to show their candor, are heartily tired of the entire performance. these gentlemen demand a rest. they are not adventurers; they have incomes; they belong to families; they have monograms and liveries. they have succeeded, and they want quiet. growth makes a noise; development, as they call it, is nothing but disturbance. we want stability, we want political petrifaction, and we therefore demand that these meetings shall be dismissed, that these processions shall halt, that these flags shall be furled. but these things never will be stopped until we stop paying men with office for making these disturbances. you know that it has been the habit for men elected to bestow political favors upon the men who elected them. this is a crying shame. it is a kind of bribery and corruption. men should not work with the expectation of reward and success. the frightful consequences of rewarding one's friends cannot be contemplated by a true patriot without a shudder. exactly the opposite course is demanded by the great principle of civil service reform. there is no patriotism in working for place, for power and success. the true lover of his country is stimulated to action by the hope of defeat, and the prospect of office for his opponent. to such an extent has the pernicious system of rewarding friends for political services gone in this country, that until very lately it was difficult for a member of the defeated party to obtain a respectable office. the result of all this is, that the country is divided, that these divisions are kept alive by these speakers, writers and convention callers. the great mission of civil service reform is not to do away with parties, but with conflicting opinion, by taking from all politicians the hope of reward. there is no other hope for peace. what do the people know about the wants of the nation? there are in every community a few quiet and respectable men, who know all about the wants of the people--gentlemen who have retired from business, who take no part in discussion and who are therefore free from prejudice. let these men attend to our politics. they will not call conventions, except in the parlors of hotels. they will not put out our eyes with flaring torches. they will not deafen us with speeches. they will carry on a campaign without producing opposition. they will have elections but no contests. all the offices will be given to the defeated party. this of itself will insure tranquillity at the polls. no one will be deprived of the privilege of casting a ballot. when campaigns are conducted in this manner a gentleman can engage in politics with a feeling that he is protected by the great principle of civil service reform. but just so long as men persist in rewarding their friends, as they call them, just so long will our country be cursed with political parties. nothing can be better calculated to preserve the peace than the great principle of rewarding those who have confidence enough in our institutions to keep silent while peace will sit with folded wings upon the moss-covered political stump of a ruder age. i am satisfied that to civil service reform the republican party is indebted for the last great victory. upon this question the enthusiasm of the people was simply unbounded. in the harvest field, the shop, the counting-room, in the church, in the saloon, in, the palace and in the hut, nothing was heard and nothing discussed except the great principle of civil service reform. among the most touching incidents of the campaign was to see a few old soldiers, sacred with scars, sit down, and while battles and hair-breadth escapes, and prisons of want, were utterly forgotten, discuss with tremulous lips and tearful eyes the great question of civil service reform. during the great political contest i addressed several quite large and intelligent audiences, and no one who did not has or can have the slightest idea of the hold that civil service reform had upon the very souls of our people. upon all other subjects the indifference was marked. i dwelt upon the glittering achievements of my party, but they were indifferent. i pictured outrages perpetrated upon our citizens, but they did not care. all this went idly by, but when i touched upon civil service reform, old men, gray-haired and strong, broke down utterly--tears fell like rain. the faces of women grew ashen with the intensity of anguish, and even little children sobbed as though their hearts would break. to one who has witnessed these affecting scenes, civil service reform is almost a sacred thing. even the speeches delivered upon this subject in german affected to tears thousands of persons wholly unacquainted with that language. in some instances those who did not understand a word were affected even more than those who did. surely there must be something in the subject itself, apart from the words used to explain it, that can under such circumstances lead captive the hearts of men. during the entire campaign the cry of civil service reform was heard from one end of our land to the other. the sailor nailed those words to the mast. the miner repeated them between the strokes of the pick. mothers explained them to their children. emigrants painted them upon their wagons. they were mingled with the reaper's song and the shout of the pioneer. adopt this great principle and we can have quiet and lady-like campaigns, a few articles in monthly magazines, a leader or two in the "nation," in the pictorial papers wood-cuts of the residences of the respective candidates and now and then a letter from an old whig would constitute all the aggressive agencies of the contest. i am satisfied that this great principle secured us our victories in florida and louisiana, and its effect on the high joint commission was greater than is generally supposed. it was this that finally decided the action of the returning boards. cronin is the only man upon whom this great principle was an utter failure. let it be understood that friends are not to be rewarded. let it be settled that political services are a barrier to political preferment, and my word for it, machine politics will never be heard of again. yours truly,---- i do not believe in carrying civil service reform to the extent that you will not allow an officer to resign. i do not believe that that principle should be insisted upon to that degree that there would only be two ways left to get out of office--death or suicide. i believe, other things being equal, any party having any office within its gift will give that office to the man that really believes in the principles of that party, and who has worked to give those principles ultimate victory. that is human nature. the man that plows, the man that sows, and the man that cultivates, ought to be the man that reaps. but we have in this country a multitude of little places, a multitude of clerkships in washington; and the question is whether on the incoming of a new administration, these men shall all be turned out. in the first place, they are on starvation salaries, just barely enough to keep soul and body together, and respectability on the outside; and if there is a young man in this audience, i beg of him: never accept a clerkship from this government. do not live on a little salary; do not let your mind be narrowed; do not sell all the splendid possibilities of the future; do not learn to cringe and fawn and crawl. i would rather have forty acres of land, with a log cabin on it and the woman i love in the cabin--with a little grassy winding path leading down to the spring where the water gurgles from the lips of earth whispering day and night to the white pebbles a perpetual poem--with holly-hocks growing at the corner of the house, and morning-glories blooming over the low latched door--with lattice work over the window so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the dimpled babe in the cradle, and birds--like songs with wings hovering in the summer air--than be the clerk of any government on earth. now, i say, let us lengthen the term of office--i do not care much how long--send a man to congress at least for five years. and it would be a great blessing if there were not half as many of them sent. we have too many legislators and too much legislation; too little about important matters, and too much about unimportant matters. lengthen the term of office so that the man can turn his attention to something else when he gets in besides looking after his re-election. there is another defect we must remedy in our constitution, in my judgment, and that is as to the mode of electing a president. i believe it of the greatest importance that the executive should be entirely independent of the legislative and judicial departments of the country. i do not believe that congress should have the right to create a vacancy which it can fill. i do not believe that the senate of the united states, or the lower house of congress, by a simple objection, should have the right to deprive any state of its electoral vote. our constitution now provides that the electors chosen in each state shall meet in their respective states upon a certain day and there cast their votes for president and vice-president of the united states. they shall properly certify to the votes which are cast, and shall transmit lists of them, together with the proper certificates, to the vice-president of the united states. and it is then declared that upon a certain day in the presence of both houses of congress, the vice-president shall open the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. it does not exactly say who shall count these votes. it does not in so many words say the vice-president shall do it, or may do it, or that both houses of congress shall do it, or may do it, or that either house can prevent a count of the votes. it leaves us in the dark, and, to a certain degree, in blindness. i believe there is a way, and a very easy way, out of the entire trouble, and it is this: i do not care whether the electors first meet in their respective states or not, but i want the constitution so amended that the electors of all the states shall meet on a certain day in the city of washington, and count the votes themselves; to allow that body to be the judge of who are electors, to allow it to choose a chairman, and to allow the person so chosen to declare who is the president, and who is the vice-president of the united states. the executive is then entirely free and independent of the legislative department of government. the executive is then entirely free from the judicial department, and i tell you, it is a public calamity to have the ermine of the supreme court of the united states touched or stained by a political suspicion. in my judgment, this country can never stand such a strain again as it has now. now, my friends, all these questions are upon us and they have to be settled. we cannot go on as we have been going. we cannot afford to live as we have lived--one section running against the other. we cannot go along that way. it must be settled, either peaceably or there must again be a resort to the boisterous sword of civil war. the people of the south must stop trampling on the rights of the colored men. it must not be a crime in any state of this union to be a lover of this country. i have seen it stated in several papers lately that it is the duty of each state to protect its own citizens. well, i know that. suppose that the state does not do it; what then i say? well, then, say these people, the governor of the state has the right to call on the general government for assistance. but suppose the governor will not call for assistance, what then? then, they tell us, the legislature can do so by a joint resolution. but suppose the legislature will not do it, what then? then, say these people, it is a defect in the constitution. in my judgment, that is the absurdest kind of secession. if the state of illinois must protect me, if i have no right to call for the protection of the general government, all i have to say is that my allegiance must belong to the government that protects me. if illinois protects me, and the general government has not the power, then my first allegiance is due to illinois; and should illinois unsheathe the sword of civil war, i must stand by my state, if that doctrine is true. i say, my first allegiance is due to the general government, and not to the state of illinois, and if the state of illinois goes out of the union, i swear to you that i will not. what does the general government propose to give me in exchange for my allegiance? the general government has a right to take my property. the general government has a right to take my body in its necessary defence. what does that government propose to give in exchange for that right? protection, or else our government is a fraud. who has a right to call for the protection of the united states? i say, the citizen who needs it. can our government obtain information only through the official sources? must our government wait until the government asks the proofs, while the state tramples upon the rights of the citizens? must it wait until the legislature calls for assistance to help it stop robbing and plundering citizens of the united states? is that the doctrine and the idea of the northern democratic party? it is not mine. a government that will not protect its citizens is a disgrace to humanity. a government that waits until a governor calls--a government that cannot hear the cry of the meanest citizen under its flag when his rights are being trampled upon, even by citizens of a southern state--has no right to exist. it is the duty of the american citizen to see to it that every state has a government, not only republican in form, but it is the duty of the united states to see to it that life, liberty and property are protected in each state. if they are not protected, it is the duty of the united states to protect them, if it takes all her military force both upon land and upon the sea. the people whose government cannot always hear the faintest wail of the meanest man beneath its flag have no right to call themselves a nation. the flag that will not protect its protectors and defend its defenders is a rag that is not worth the air in which it waves. how are we going to do it? do it by kindness if you can; by conciliation if you can, but the government is bound to try every way until it succeeds. now, rutherford b. hayes was elected president. the democracy will say, of course, that he never was elected, but that does not make any difference. he is president to-day, and all these things are about him to be settled. what shall we do? what can we do? there are two governors in south carolina and two legislatures and not one cent of taxes has been collected by either. a dual government would seem to be the most economical in the world. now, the question for us to decide, the question to be decided by this administration is, how are we to ascertain which is the legal government of the state, and what department of the government has a right to ascertain that fact? must it be left to congress? has the senate alone the right to determine it? can it be left in any way to the supreme court, or shall the executive decide it himself? i do not say that the executive has the power to decide that question for himself. i do not say he has not, but i do not say he has. the question, so far as louisiana and south carolina are concerned--that question is now in the senate of the united states. governor kellogg is asking for admission as a senator from the state of louisiana, and the question is to be decided by the senate first, whether he is entitled to his seat, and that question of course, rests upon the one fact--was the legislature that elected him the legal legislature of the state of louisiana? it seems to me that when that question is pending in the senate of the united states the president has not the right, or at least it would be improper for him to decide it on his own motion, and say this or that government is the real and legal government of the state of louisiana. but some mode must be adopted, some way must be discovered to settle this question, and to settle it peacefully. we are an enlightened people. force is the last thing that civilized men should resort to. as long as courts can be created, as long as courts of arbitration can be selected, as long as we can reason and think, and urge all the considerations of humanity upon each other, there should be no appeal to arms in the united states upon any question whatever. what should the president do? he could only spare twenty-five hundred men from the indian war--that is the same army that has so long been trampling on the rights of the south, the same army that the democratic congress wished to reduce, and that army of twenty-five hundred men is all he has to spare to protect american citizens in the southern states. is there any sentiment in the north that would uphold the executive in calling for volunteers? is there any sentiment here that would respond to a call for twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand men? is there any congress to pass the necessary act to pay them if there was? and so the president of the united states appreciated the situation, and the people of the south came to him and said, "we have had war enough, we have had trouble enough, our country languishes, we have no trade, our pockets are empty, something must be done for us, we are utterly and perfectly disgusted with the leadership of the democratic party of the north. now, will you let us be your friends?" and he had the sense to say, "yes." the president took the right hand of the north, and put it into the right hand of the south and said "let us be friends. we parted at the cannon's mouth; we were divided by the edge of the glittering sword; we must become acquainted again. we are equals. we are all fellow-citizens. in a government of the people, by the people and for the people, there shall not be an outcast class, whether white or black. to this feast, every child of the republic shall be invited and welcomed." it was a grand thing grandly done. if the president succeeds in his policy, it will be an immense compliment to his brain. if he fails, it will be an equal compliment to his heart. he has opened the door; he has advanced; he has extended his hand, he has broken the silence of hatred with the words of welcome. actuated by this broad and catholic spirit he has selected his constitutional advisors, and allow me to say right here, the president has the right to select his constitutional advisors to suit himself, and the idea of men endeavoring to force themselves or others into the cabinet of the president, against, as it were, his will, why i would as soon think of circulating a petition to compel some woman to marry me. he has gathered around him the men he considers the wisest and the best, and i say, let us give them a fair chance. i say, let us be honest with the president of the united states and his cabinet, and give his policy a fair and honest chance. in order to show his good faith with the south he chose as a member of his cabinet an ex-rebel from tennessee. i confess, when i heard of it i did not like it. it did not seem to be exactly what i had been making all this fuss about. but i thought i would be honest about it, and i went and called on mr. key, and really he begins already to look a good deal like a republican. a real honest looking man. and then i said to myself that he had not done much more harm than as though he had been a democrat at the north during those four years, and had cursed and swore instead of fought about it. and so i told him "i am glad you are appointed." and i am. give him a chance, and so far as the whole cabinet is concerned--i have not the time to go over them one by one now, it is perfectly satisfactory to me. the president made up his mind that to appoint that man would be to say to the south: "i do not look upon you as pariahs in this government. i look upon you as fellow-citizens; i want you to wipe forever the color line, or the union line, from the records of this government on account of what has been done heretofore." what are you now? is the only question that should be asked. it was a strange thing for the president to appoint that man. it was an experiment. it is an experiment. it has not yet been decided, but i believe it will simply be a proof of the president's wisdom. i can stand that experiment taken in connection with the appointment of frederick douglass as marshal of the district of columbia. i was glad to see that man's appointment. he is a good, patient, stern man. he has been fighting for the liberty of his race, and at the same time for our liberty. this man has done something for the freedom of my race as well as his own. this is no time for war. war settles nothing except the mere question of strength. that is all war ever did settle. you cannot shoot ideas into a man with a musket, or with cannon into one of those old bourbon democrats of the north. you cannot let prejudices out of a man with a sword. this is the time for reason, for discussion, for compromise. this is the time to repair, to rebuild, to preserve. war destroys. peace creates. war is decay and death. peace is growth and life,--sunlight and air. war kills men. peace maintains them. artillery does not reason; it asserts. a bayonet has point enough, but no logic. when the sword is drawn, reason remains in the scabbard. it is not enough to win upon the field of battle, you must be victor within the realm of thought. there must be peace between the north and south some time; not a conquered peace, but a peace that conquers. the question is, can you and i forget the past? can we forget everything except the heroic sacrifices of the men who saved this government? can we say to the south, "let us be brothers"? can we? i am willing to do it because, in the first place, it is right, and in the second place, it will pay if it can be carried out. we have fought and hated long enough. our country is prostrate. labor is in rags. energy has empty hands. industry has empty pockets. the wheels of the factory are still. in the safe of prudence money lies idle, locked by the key of fear. confidence is what we need--confidence in each other; confidence in our institutions; confidence in our form of government; in the great future; confidence in law, confidence in liberty, confidence in progress, and in the grand destiny of the great republic. now, do not imagine that i think this policy will please every body. of course there are men south and north who can never be conciliated. they are the implacables in the south--the bourbons in the north. nothing will ever satisfy them. the implacables want to own negroes and whip them; the bourbons never will be satisfied until they can help catch one. the implacables with violent hands drive emigration from their shores. they are poisoning the springs and sources of prosperity. they dine on hatred and sup on regret. they mourn over the lost cause and partake of the communion of revenge. they strike down the liberties of their fellow-citizens and refuse to enjoy their own. they remember nothing but wrongs, and they forget nothing but benefits. their bosoms are filled with the serpents of hate. no one can compromise with them. nothing can change them. they must be left to the softening influence of time and death. the bourbons are the allies of the implacables. a bourbon in the majority is an implacable in the minority. an implacable in the minority is a bourbon. we do not appeal to, but from these men. but there are in the south thousands of men who have accepted in good faith the results of the war; men who love and wish to preserve this nation, men tired of strife--men longing for a real union based upon mutual respect and confidence. these men are willing that the colored man shall be free--willing that he shall vote, and vote for the government of his choice--willing that his children shall be educated--willing that he shall have all the rights of an american citizen. these men are tired of the implacables and disgusted with the bourbons. these men wish to unite with the patriotic men of the north in the great work of reestablishing a government of law. for my part, call me of what party you please, i am willing to join hands with these men, without regard to race, color or previous condition. with a knowledge of our wants--with a clear perception of our difficulties, rutherford b. hayes became president. nations have been saved by the grandeur of one man. above all things a president should be a patriot. party at best is only a means--the good of the country, the happiness of the people, the only end. now, i appeal to you democrats here--not a great many, i suppose--do not oppose this policy because you think it is going to increase the republican strength. if it strengthens the government, no matter whether it is republican or democratic, it is for the common good. and you republicans, you who have had all these feelings of patriotism and glory, i ask you to wait and let this experiment be tried. do not prophesy failure for it and then work to fulfill the prophecy. give the president a chance. i tell you to-night that he is as good a republican as there is in the united states; and i tell you that if this policy is not responded to by the south, rutherford b. hayes will change it, just as soon and as often as is necessary to accomplish the end. the president has offered the southern people the olive branch of peace, and so far as i am concerned, i implore both the southern people and the northern people to accept it. i extend to you each and all the olive branch of peace. fellow-citizens of the south, i beseech you to take it. by the memory of those who died for naught; by the charred remains of your remembered homes; by the ashes of your statesman dead; for the sake of your sons and your daughters and their fair children yet to be, i implore you to take it with loving and with loyal hands. it will cultivate your wasted fields. it will rebuild your towns and cities. it will fill your coffers with gold. it will educate your children. it will swell the sails of your commerce. it will cause the roses of joy to clamber and climb over the broken cannon of war. it will flood the cabins of the freedman with light, and clothe the weak in more than coat of mail, and wrap the poor and lowly in "measureless content." take it. the north will forgive if the south will forget. take it! the negro will wipe from the tablet of memory the strokes and scars of two hundred years, and blur with happy tears the record of his wrongs. take it! it will unite our nation. it will make us brothers once again. take it! and justice will sit in your courts under the outspread wings of peace. take it! and the brain and lips of the future will be free. take it! it will bud and blossom in your hands and fill your land with fragrance and with joy. hard times and the way out. * boston, october , . ladies and gentlemen:--the lovers of the human race, the philanthropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all believed that when man should have the right to govern himself, when every human being should be equal before the law, pauperism, crime, and want would exist only in the history of the past. they accounted for misery in their time by the rapacity of kings and the cruelty of priests. here, in the united states, man at last is free. here, man makes the laws, and all have an equal voice. the rich cannot oppress the poor, because the poor are in a majority. the laboring men, those who in some way work for their living, can elect every congressman and every judge; they can make and interpret the laws, and if labor is oppressed in the united states by capital, labor has simply itself to blame. the cry is now raised that capital in some mysterious way oppresses industry; that the capitalist is the enemy of the man who labors. what is a capitalist? every man who has good health; every man with good sense; every one who has had his dinner, and has enough left for supper, is, to that extent, a capitalist. every man with a good character, who has the credit to borrow a dollar or to buy a meal, is a capitalist; and nine out of ten of the great capitalists in the united states are simply successful workingmen. there is no conflict, and can be no conflict, in the united states between capital and labor; and the men who endeavor to excite the envy of the unfortunate and the malice of the poor are the enemies of law and order. as a rule, wealth is the result of industry, economy, attention to business; and as a rule, poverty is the result of idleness, extravagance, and inattention to business, though to these rules there are thousands of exceptions. the man who has wasted his time, who has thrown away his opportunities, is apt to envy the man who has not. for instance, there are six shoemakers working in one shop. one of them attends to his business. you can hear the music of his hammer late and early. he is in love with some girl on the next street. he has made up his mind to be a man; to succeed; to make somebody else happy; to have a home; and while he is working, in his imagination he can see his own fireside, with the firelight falling upon the faces of wife and child. the other five gentlemen work as little as they can, spend sunday in dissipation, have the headache monday, and, as a result, never advance. the industrious one, the one in love, gains the confidence of his employer, and in a little while he cuts out work for the others. the first thing you know he has a shop of his own, the next a store; because the man of reputation, the man of character, the man of known integrity, can buy all he wishes in the united states upon a credit. the next thing you know he is married, and he has built him a house, and he is happy, and his dream has been realized. after awhile the same five shoemakers, having pursued the old course, stand on the corner some sunday when he rides by. he has a carriage, his wife sits by his side, her face covered with smiles, and they have two children, their eyes beaming with joy, and the blue ribbons are fluttering in the wind. and thereupon, these five shoemakers adjourn to some neighboring saloon and pass a resolution that there is an irrepressible conflict between capital and labor. there is, in fact, no such conflict, and the laboring men of the united states have the power to protect themselves. in the ballot-box the vote of lazarus is on an equality with the vote of dives; the vote of a wandering pauper counts the same as that of a millionaire. in a land where the poor, where the laboring men have the right and have the power to make the laws, and do, in fact, make the laws, certainly there should be no complaint. in our country the people hold the power, and if any corporation in any state is devouring the substance of the people, every state has retained the power of eminent domain, under which it can confiscate the property and franchise of any corporation by simply paying to that corporation what such property is worth. and yet thousands of people are talking as though the rich combined for the express purpose of destroying the poor, are talking as though there existed a widespread conspiracy against industry, against honest toil; and thousands and thousands of speeches have been made and numberless articles have been written to fill the breasts of the unfortunate with hatred. we have passed through a period of wonderful and unprecedented inflation. for years we enjoyed the luxury of going into debt, the felicity of living upon credit. we have in the united states about eighty thousand miles of railway, more than enough to make a treble track around the globe. most of these miles were built in a period of twenty-five years, and at a cost of at least five thousand millions of dollars. think of the ore that had to be dug, of the iron that was melted; think of the thousands employed in cutting bridge timber and ties, and giving to the wintry air the music of the axe; think of the thousands and thousands employed in making cars, in making locomotives, those horses of progress with nerves of steel and breath of flame; think of the thousands and thousands of workers in brass and steel and iron; think of the numberless industries that thrived in the construction of eighty thousand miles of railway, of the streams bridged, of the mountains tunneled, of the plains crossed; and think of the towns and cities that sprang up, as if by magic, along these highways of iron. during the same time we had a war in which we expended thousands of millions of dollars, not to create, not to construct, but to destroy. all this money was spent in the work of demolition, and every shot and every shell and every musket and every cannon was used to destroy. all the time of every soldier was lost. an amount of property inconceivable was destroyed, and some of the best and bravest were sacrificed. during these years the productive power of the north was strained to the utmost; every wheel was in motion; there was employment for every kind and description of labor, and for every mechanic. there was a constantly rising market--speculation was rife, and it seemed almost impossible to lose. as a consequence, the men who had been toiling upon the farm became tired. it was too slow a way to get rich. they heard of their neighbor, of their brother, who had gone to the city and had suddenly become a millionaire. they became tired with the slow methods of agriculture. the young men of intelligence, of vim, of nerve became disgusted with the farms. on every hand fortunes were being made. a wave of wealth swept over the united states; huts became houses; houses became palaces with carpeted floors and pictured walls; tatters became garments; rags became robes; and for the first time in the history of the world, the poor tasted of the luxuries of wealth. we wondered how our fathers could have endured their poor and barren lives. every business was pressed to the snow line. old life insurance associations had been successful; new ones sprang up on every hand. the agents filled every town. these agents were given a portion of the premium. you could hardly go out of your house without being told of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. you were shown pictures of life insurance agents emptying vast bags of gold at the feet of a disconsolate widow. you saw in imagination your own fatherless children wiping away the tears of grief and smiling with joy. these agents insured everybody and everything. they would have insured a hospital or consumption in its last hemorrhage. fire insurance was managed in precisely the same way. the agents received a part of the premium, and they insured anything and everything, no matter what its danger might be. they would have insured powder in perdition, or icebergs under the torrid zone with the same alacrity. and then there were accident companies, and you could not go to the station to buy your ticket without being shown a picture of disaster. you would see there four horses running away with a stage, and old ladies and children being thrown out; you would see a steamer being blown up on the mississippi, legs one way and arms the other, heads one side and hats the other; locomotives going through bridges, good samaritans carrying off the wounded on stretchers. the merchants, too, were not satisfied to do business in the old way. it was too slow; they could not wait for customers. they filled the country with drummers, and these drummers convinced all the country merchants that they needed about twice as many goods as they could possibly sell, and they took their notes on sixty and ninety days, and renewed them whenever desired, provided the parties renewing the notes would take more goods. and these country merchants pressed the goods upon their customers in the same manner. everybody was selling, everybody was buying, and nearly all was done upon a credit. no one believed the day of settlement ever would or ever could come. towns must continue to grow, and in the imagination of speculators there were hundreds of cities numbering their millions of inhabitants. land, miles and miles from the city, was laid out in blocks and squares and parks; land that will not be occupied for residences probably for hundreds of years to come, and these lots were sold, not by the acre, not by the square mile, but by so much per foot. they were sold on credit, with a partial payment down and the balance secured by a mortgage. these values, of course, existed simply in the imagination; and a deed of trust upon a cloud or a mortgage upon a last year's fog would have been just as valuable. everybody advertised, and those who were not selling goods and real estate were in the medicine line, and every rock beneath our flag was covered with advice to the unfortunate; and i have often thought that if some sincere christian had made a pilgrimage to sinai and climbed its venerable crags, and in a moment of devotion dropped upon his knees and raised his eyes toward heaven, the first thing that would have met his astonished gaze would in all probability have been: "st. x plantation bitters." suddenly there came a crash. jay cooke failed, and i have heard thousands of men account for the subsequent hard times from the fact that cooke did fail. as well might you account for the smallpox by saying that the first pustule was the cause of the disease. the failure of jay cooke & co. was simply a symptom of a disease universal. no language can describe the agonies that have been endured since . no language can tell the sufferings of the men that have wandered over the dreary and desolate desert of bankruptcy. thousands and thousands supposed that they had enough, enough for their declining years, enough for wife and children, and suddenly found themselves paupers and vagrants. during all these years the bankruptcy law was in force, and whoever failed to keep his promise had simply to take the benefit of this law. as a consequence, there could be no real, solid foundation for business. property commenced to decline; that is to say, it commenced to resume; that is to say, it began to be rated at its real instead of at its speculative value. land is worth what it will produce, and no more. it may have speculative value, and, if the prophecy is fulfilled, the man who buys it may become rich, and if the prophecy is not fulfilled, then the land is simply worth what it will produce. lots worth from five to ten thousand dollars apiece suddenly vanished into farms worth twenty-five dollars per acre. these lots resumed. the farms that before that time had been considered worth one hundred dollars per acre, and are now worth twenty or thirty, have simply resumed. magnificent residences supposed to be worth one hundred thousand dollars, that can now be purchased for twenty-five thousand, they have simply resumed. the property in the united states has not fallen in value, but its real value has been ascertained. the land will produce as much as it ever would, and is as valuable to-day as it ever was; and every improvement, every invention that adds to the productiveness of the soil or to the facilities for getting that product to market, adds to the wealth of the nation. as a matter of fact, the property kept pace with what we were pleased to call our money. as the money depreciated, property appreciated; as the money appreciated, property depreciated. the moment property began to fall speculation ceased. there is but little speculation upon a falling market. the stocks and bonds, based simply upon ideas, became worthless, the collaterals became dust and ashes. at the close of the war, when the government ceased to be such a vast purchaser and consumer, many of the factories had to stop. when the crash came the men stopped digging ore; they stopped felling the forest; the fires died out in the furnaces; the men who had stood in the glare of the forge were in the gloom of want. there was no employment for them. the employer could not sell his product; business stood still, and then came what we call the hard times. our wealth was a delusion and illusion, and we simply came back to reality. too many men were doing nothing, too many men were traders, brokers, speculators. there were not enough producers of the things needed; there were too many producers of the things no one wished. there needed to be a re-distribution of men. many remedies have been proposed, and chief among these is the remedy of fiat money. probably no subject in the world is less generally understood than that of money. so many false definitions have been given, so many strange, conflicting theories have been advanced, that it is not at all surprising that men have come to imagine that money is something that can be created by law. the definitions given by the hard-money men themselves have been used as arguments by those who believe in the power of congress to create wealth. we are told that gold is an instrumentality or a device to facilitate exchanges. we are told that gold is a measure of value. let us examine these definitions. "_gold is an instrumentality or device to facilitate exchanges._" that sounds well, but i do not believe it. gold and silver are commodities. they are the products of labor. they are not instrumentalities; they are not devices to facilitate exchanges; they are the things exchanged for something else; and other things are exchanged for them. the only device about it to facilitate exchanges is the coining of these metals. whenever the government or any government certifies that in a certain piece of gold or silver there are a certain number of grains of a certain fineness, then he who gives it knows that he is not giving too much, and he who receives, that he is receiving enough, so that i will change the definition to this: the _coining_ of the precious metals is a device to facilitate exchanges. the precious metals themselves are property; they are merchandise; they are commodities, and whenever one commodity is exchanged for another it is barter, and gold is the last refinement of barter. the second definition is: "_gold is the measure of value_." we are told by those who believe in fiat money that gold is a measure of value just the same as a half bushel or a yardstick. i deny that gold is a measure of value. the yardstick is not a measure of value; it is simply a measure of quantity. it measures cloth worth fifty dollars a yard precisely as it does calico worth four cents. it is, therefore, not a measure of value, but of quantities. the same with the half bushel. the half bushel measures wheat precisely the same, whether that wheat is worth three dollars or one dollar. it simply measures quantity; not quality, or value. the yardstick, the half bushel, and the coining of money are all devices to facilitate exchanges. the yardstick assures the man who sells that he has not sold too much; it assures the man who buys that he has received enough; and in that way it facilitates exchanges. the coining of money facilitates exchange, for the reason that were it not coined, each man who did any business would have to carry a pair of scales and be a chemist. it matters not whether the yardstick or half bushel are of gold, silver, or wood, for the reason that the yardstick and half bushel are not the things bought. we buy not them, but the things they measure. if gold and silver are not the measure of value, what is? i answer--intelligent labor. gold gets its value from labor. of course, i cannot account for the fact that mankind have a certain fancy for gold or for diamonds, neither can i account for the fact that we like certain things better than others to eat. these are simply facts in nature, and they are facts, whether they can be explained or not. the dollar in gold represents, on the average, the labor that it took to dig and mint it, together with all the time of the men who looked for it without finding it. that dollar in gold, on the average, will buy the product of the same amount of labor in any other direction. nothing ever has been money, from the most barbarous to the most civilized times, unless it was a product of nature, and a something to which the people among whom it passed as money attached a certain value, a value not dependent upon law, not dependent upon "fiat" in any degree. nothing has ever been considered money that man could produce. a bank bill is not money, neither is a check nor a draft. these are all devices simply to facilitate business, but in or of themselves they have no value. we are told, however, that the government can create money. this i deny. the government produces nothing; it raises no wheat, no corn; it digs no gold, no silver. it is not a producer, it is a consumer. the government cannot by law create wealth. and right here i wish to ask one question, and i would like to have it answered some time. if the government can make money, if it can create money, if by putting its sovereignty upon a piece of paper it can create absolute money, why should the government collect taxes? we have in every district assessors and collectors; we have at every port customhouses, and we are collecting taxes day and night for the support of this government. now, if the government can make money itself, why should it collect taxes from the poor? here is a man cultivating a farm--he is working among the stones and roots, and digging day and night; why should the government go to that man and make him pay twenty or thirty or forty dollars taxes when the government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could make a thousand-dollar fiat bill quicker than that man could wink? why impose upon industry in that manner? why should the sun borrow a candle? and if the government can create money, how much should it create, and if it should create it who will get it? money has a great liking for money. a single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lonesome; it never is satisfied until it has found its companions. money gravitates towards money, and issue as much as you may, as much as you will, the time will come when that money will be in the hands of the industrious, in the hands of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the hands of the cunning; in other words, in the hands of the successful. the other day i had a conversation with one of the principal gentlemen upon that side, and i told him, "whenever you can successfully palm off on a man a bill of fare for a dinner, i shall believe in your doctrine; and when i can satisfy the pangs of hunger by reading a cook-book, i shall join your party." only that is money which stands for labor. only that is money which will buy, on the average, in all other directions the result of the same labor expended in its production. as a matter of fact, there is money enough in the country to transact the business. never before in the history of our government was money so cheap; that is to say, was interest so low; never. there is plenty of money, and we could borrow all we wished had we the collaterals. we could borrow all we wish if there was some business in which we could embark that promised a sure and reasonable return. if we should come to a man who kept a ferry, and find his boat on a sandbar and the river dry, what would he think of us should we tell him he had not enough boat? he would probably reply that he had plenty of boat, but not enough water. we have plenty of money, but not enough business. the reason we have not enough business is, we have not enough confidence, and the reason we have not confidence is because the market is slowly falling, and the reason it is slowly falling is that things have not yet quite resumed; that we have not quite touched the absolute bedrock of valuation. another reason is because those that left the cultivation of the soil have not yet all returned, and they are living, some upon their wits, some upon their relatives, some upon charity, and some upon crime. the next question is: suppose the government should issue a thousand millions of fiat money, how would it regulate the value thereof? every creditor could be forced to take it, but nobody else. if a man was in debt one dollar for a bushel of wheat, he could compel the creditor to take the fiat money; but if he wished to buy the wheat, then the owner could say, "i will take one dollar in gold or fifty dollars in fiat money, or i will not sell it for fiat money at any price." what will congress do then? in order to make this fiat money good it will have to fix the price of every conceivable commodity; the price of painting a picture, of trying a lawsuit, of chiseling a statue, the price of a day's work; in short, the price of every conceivable thing. this even will not be sufficient. it will be necessary, then, to provide by law that the prices fixed shall be received, and that no man shall be allowed to give more for anything than the price fixed by congress. now, i do not believe that any congress has sufficient wisdom to tell beforehand what will be the relative value of all the products of labor. when the volume of currency is inflated it is at the expense of the creditor class; when it is contracted it is contracted at the expense of the debtor class. in other words, inflation means going into debt; contraction means the payment of the debt. a gold dollar is a dollar's worth of gold. a real paper dollar is a dollar's worth of paper. another remedy has been suggested by the same persons who advocate fiat money. with a consistency perfectly charming, they say it would have been much better had we allowed the treasury notes to fade out. why allow fiat money to fade out when a simple act of congress can make it as good as gold? when greenbacks fade out the loss falls upon the chance holder, upon the poor, the industrious, and the unfortunate. the rich, the cunning, the well-informed manage to get rid of what they happen to hold. when, however, the bills are redeemed, they are paid by the wealth and property of the whole country. to allow them to fade out is universal robbery; to pay them is universal justice. the greenback should not be allowed to fade away in the pocket of the soldier or in the hands of his widow and children. it is said that; the continental money faded away. it was and is a disgrace to our forefathers. when the greenback fades away there will fade with it honor from the american heart, brain from the american head, and our flag from the air of heaven. a great cry has been raised against the holders of bonds. they have been denounced by every epithet that malignity can coin. during the war our bonds were offered for sale and they brought all that they then appeared to be worth. they had to be sold or the rebellion would have been a success. to the bond we are indebted as much as to the greenback. the fact is, however, we are indebted to neither; we are indebted to the soldiers. but every man who took a greenback at less than gold committed the same crime, and no other, as he who bought the bonds at less than par in gold. these bonds have changed hands thousands of times. they have been paid for in gold again and again. they have been bought at prices far above par; they have been laid away by loving husbands for wives, by toiling fathers for children; and the man who seeks to repudiate them now, or to pay them in fiat rags, is unspeakably cruel and dishonest. if the government has made a bad bargain it must live up to it. if it has made a foolish promise the only way is to fulfill it. a dishonest government can exist only among dishonest people. when our money is below par we feel below par. we cannot bring prosperity by cheapening money; we cannot increase our wealth by adding to the volume of a depreciated currency. if the prosperity of a country depends upon the volume of its currency, and if anything is money that people can be made to think is money, then the successful counterfeiter is a public benefactor. the counterfeiter increases the volume of currency; he stimulates business, and the money issued by him will not be hoarded and taken from the channels of trade. during the war, during the inflation--that is to say, during the years that we were going into debt--fortunes were made so easily that people left the farms, crowded to the towns and cities. thousands became speculators, traders, and merchants; thousands embarked in every possible and conceivable scheme. they produced nothing; they simply preyed upon labor and dealt with imaginary values. these men must go back; they must become producers, and every producer is a paying consumer. thousands and thousands of them are unable to go back. to a man who begs of you a breakfast you cannot say, "why don't you get a farm?" you might as well say, "why don't you start a line of steamships?" to him both are impossibilities. they must be helped. we should all remember that society must support all of its members, all of its robbers, thieves, and paupers. every vagabond and vagrant has to be fed and clothed, and society must support in some way all of its members. it can support them in jails, in asylums, in hospitals, in penitentiaries; but it is a very costly way. we have to employ judges to try them, juries to sit upon their cases, sheriffs, marshals, and constables to arrest them, policemen to watch them, and it may be, at last, a standing army to put them down. it would be far cheaper, probably, to support them all at some first-class hotel. we must either support them or help them support themselves. they let us go upon the one hand simply to take us by the other, and we can take care of them as paupers and criminals, or, by wise statesmanship, help them to be honest and useful men. of all the criminals transported by england to australia and tasmania, the records show that a very large per cent.--something over ninety--became useful and decent people. in australia they found homes; hope again spread its wings in their breasts. they had different ambitions; they were removed from vile and vicious associations. they had new surroundings; and, as a rule, man does not morally improve without a corresponding improvement in his physical condition. one biscuit, with plenty of butter, is worth all the tracts ever distributed. thousands must be taken from the crowded streets and stifling dens, away from the influences of filth and want, to the fields and forests of the west and south. they must be helped to help themselves. while the government cannot create gold and silver, while it cannot by its fiat make money, it can furnish facilities for the creation of wealth. it can aid in the distribution of products, and in the distribution of men; it can aid in the opening of new territories; it can aid great and vast enterprises that cannot be accomplished by individual effort. the government should see to it that every facility is offered to honorable adventure, enterprise and industry. our ships ought to be upon every sea; our flag ought to be flying in every port. our rivers and harbors ought to be improved. the usefulness of the mississippi should be increased, its banks strengthened, and its channel deepened. at no distant day it will bear the commerce of a hundred millions of people. that grand river is the great guaranty of territorial integrity; it is the protest of nature against disunion, and from its source to the sea it will forever flow beneath one flag. the northern pacific railway should be pushed to completion. in this way labor would be immediately given to many thousands of men. along the line of that thoroughfare would spring up towns and cities; new communities with new surroundings; and where now is the wilderness there would be thousands and thousands of happy homes. the texas pacific should also be completed. a vast agricultural and mineral region would be opened to the enterprise and adventure of the american people. probably arizona holds within the miserly clutches of her rocks greater wealth than any other state or territory of the world. the construction of that road would put life and activity into a hundred industries. it would give employment to many thousands of people, and homes at last to many millions. it would cause the building of thousands of miles of branches to open, not only new territory, but to connect with roads already built. it would double the products of gold and silver, open new fields to trade, create new industries, and make it possible for us to supply eight millions of people in the republic of mexico with our products. the construction of this great highway will enable the government to dispense with from ten to fifteen regiments of infantry and cavalry now stationed along the border. people enough will settle along this line to protect themselves. it will permanently settle the indian question, saving the people millions each year. it will effectually destroy the present monopoly, and in this way greatly increase production and consumption. it will double our trade with china and japan, and with the pacific states as well. it will settle the southern question by filling the southern states with immigrants, diversifying the industries of that section, changing and rebuilding the commercial and social fabric; it will do away with the conservatism of regret and the prejudice born of isolation. it will transmute to wealth the unemployed muscle of the country. it will rescue california from the control of a single corporation, from the government of an oligarchy united, watchful, despotic, and vindictive. it will liberate the farmers, the merchants, and even the politicians of the pacific coast. besides, it must not be forgotten so to frame the laws and charters that congress shall forever have the control of fares and freights. in this way the public will be perfectly protected and the government perfectly secured. look at the map, and you will see the immense advantages its construction will give to the entire country, not only to the south, but to the east and west as well. it is one hundred and fifty miles nearer from chicago to san diego than to san francisco. you will see that the whole of texas, a state containing two hundred and ten thousand square miles; a state four times as large as illinois, five times as large as new york, capable of supporting a population of twenty millions of people, is put in direct and immediate communication with the whole country. territory to the extent of nearly a million square miles will be given to agriculture, trade, commerce, and mining, by the construction of this line. let this road be built, and we shall feel again the enthusiasm born of enterprise. in the vast stagnation there will be at last a current. something besides waiting is necessary to secure, or to even hasten, the return of prosperity. secure the completion of this line and extend the time for building the northern pacific, and confidence and employment will return together. more men must cultivate the soil. in the older states lands are too high. it requires too much capital to commence. there are so many failures in business; so many merchants, traders, and manufacturers have been wrecked and stranded upon the barren shores of bankruptcy, that the people are beginning to prefer the small but certain profits of agriculture to the false and splendid promises of speculation. we must open new territories; we must give the mechanics now out of employment an opportunity to cultivate the soil--not as day-laborers but as owners; not as tenants, but as farmers. something must be done to develop the resources of this country. with the best lands of the world; with a population intellectual, energetic, and ingenious far beyond the average of mankind; with the richest mines of the globe; with plenty of capital; with a surplus of labor; with thousands of arms folded in enforced idleness; with billions of gold asking to be dug; with millions of acres waiting for the plow, thousands upon thousands are in absolute want. new avenues must be opened. all our territory must be given to immigration. greater facilities must be offered. obstacles that cannot be overcome by individual enterprise must be conquered by the government for the good of all. every man out of employment is impoverishing the country. labor transmutes muscle into wealth. idleness is a rust that devours even gold. for five years we have been wasting the labor of millions--wasting it for lack of something to do. prosperity has been changed to want and discontent. on every hand the poor are asking for work. that is a wretched government where the honest and industrious beg, unsuccessfully, for the right to toil; where those who are willing, anxious, and able to work, cannot get bread. if everything is to be left to the blind and heartless working of the laws of supply and demand, why have governments? if the nation leaves the poor to starve, and the weak and unfortunate to perish, it is hard to see for what purpose the nation should be preserved. if our statesmen are not wise enough to foster great enterprises, and to adopt a policy that will give us prosperity, it may be that the laboring classes, driven to frenzy by hunger, the bitterness of which will be increased by seeing others in the midst of plenty, will seek a remedy in destruction. the transcontinental commerce of this country should not be in the clutch and grasp of one corporation. all sections of the union should, as far as possible, be benefited. cheap rates will come, and can be maintained only by competition. we should cultivate commercial relations with china and japan. six hundred millions of people are slowly awaking from a lethargy of six thousand years. in a little while they will have the wants of civilized men, and america will furnish a large proportion of the articles demanded by these people. in a few years there will be as many ships upon the pacific as upon the atlantic. in a few years our trade with china will be far greater than with europe. in a few years we will sustain the same relation to the far east that europe once sustained to us. america for centuries to come will supply six hundred millions of people with the luxuries of life. a country that expects to control the trade of other countries must develop its own resources to the utmost. we have pursued a small, a mean, and a penurious course. demagogues have ridden into office and power upon the cry of economy, by opposing every measure looking to the improvement of the country, by endeavoring to see how cheaply nothing could be done. a government, like an individual, should live up to its privileges; it should husband its resources, simply that it may use them. a nation that expects to control the commerce of half a world must have its money equal with gold and silver. it must have the money of the world. whenever the laboring men are out of employment they begin to hate the rich. they feel that the dwellers in palaces, the riders in carriages, the wearers of broadcloth, silk, and velvet have in some way been robbing them. as a matter of fact, the palace builders are the friends of labor. the best form of charity is extravagance. when you give a man money, when you toss him a dollar, although you get nothing, the man loses his manhood. to help others help themselves is the only real charity. there is no use in boosting a man who is not climbing. whenever i see a splendid home, a palace, a magnificent block, i think of the thousands who were fed--of the women and children clothed, of the firesides made happy. a rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best furniture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful flowers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the books that he can afford, is a perpetual blessing. the prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor. the extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save. the rich man who lives according to his means, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. the miser, who lives in a hovel, wears rags, and hoards his gold, is a perpetual curse. he is like one who dams a river at its source. the moment hard times come the cry of economy is raised. the press, the platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the rich. in consequence of this cry, the man of wealth discharges servants, sells horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and after taking employment and food from as many as he can, congratulates himself that he has done his part toward restoring prosperity to the country. in that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical will be found pauperism and crime; but where the poor are economical and the rich are extravagant, that country is filled with prosperity. the man who wants others to work to such an extent that their lives are burdens, is utterly heartless. the toil of the world should continually decrease. of what use are your inventions if no burdens are lifted from industry--if no additional comforts find their way to the home of labor; why should labor fill the world with wealth and live in want? every labor-saving machine should help the whole world. every one should tend to shorten the hours of labor. reasonable labor is a source of joy. to work for wife and child, to toil for those you love, is happiness; provided you can make them happy. but to work like a slave, to see your wife and children in rags, to sit at a table where food is coarse and scarce, to rise at four in the morning, to work all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable bed at night, to live without leisure, without rest, without making those you love comfortable and happy--this is not living--it is dying--a slow, lingering crucifixion. the hours of labor should be shortened. with the vast and wonderful improvements of the nineteenth century there should be not only the necessaries of life for those who toil, but comforts and luxuries as well. what is a reasonable price for labor? i answer: such a price as will enable the man to live; to have the comforts of life; to lay by a little something for his declining years, so that he can have his own home, his own fireside; so that he can preserve the feelings of a man. every man ought to be willing to pay for what he gets. he ought to desire to give full value received. the man who wants two dollars' worth of work for one is not an honest man. i sympathize with every honest effort made by the children of labor to improve their condition. that is a poorly governed country in which those who do the most have the least. there is something wrong when men are obliged to beg for leave to toil. we are not yet a civilized people; when we are, pauperism and crime will vanish from our land. there is one thing, however, of which i am glad and proud, and that is, that society is not, in our country, petrified; that the poor are not always poor. the children of the poor of this generation may, and probably will, be the rich of the next. the sons of the rich of this generation may be the poor of the next; so that after all, the rich fear and the poor hope. i sympathize with the wanderers, with the vagrants out of employment; with the sad and weary men who are seeking for work. when i see one of these men, poor and friendless--no matter how bad he is--i think that somebody loved him once; that he was once held in the arms of a mother; that he slept beneath her loving eyes, and wakened in the light of her smile. i see him in the cradle, listening to lullabies sung soft and low, and his little face is dimpled as though touched by the rosy fingers of joy. and then i think of the strange and winding paths, the weary roads he has traveled from that mother's arms to vagrancy and want. there should be labor and food for all. we invent; we take advantage of the forces of nature; we enslave the winds and waves; we put shackles upon the unseen powers and chain the energy that wheels the world. these slaves should release from bondage all the children of men. by invention, by labor--that is to say, by working and thinking--we shall compel prosperity to dwell with us. do not imagine that wealth can be created by law; do not for a moment believe that paper can be changed to gold by the fiat of congress. do not preach the heresy that you can keep a promise by making another in its place that is never to be kept. do not teach the poor that the rich have conspired to trample them into the dust. tell the workingmen that they are in the majority; that they can make and execute the laws. tell them that since the employers have suffered about as much as the employed. tell them that the people who have the power to make the laws should never resort to violence. tell them never to envy the successful. tell the rich to be extravagant and the poor to be economical. tell every man to use his best efforts to get him a home. without a home, without some one to love, life and country are meaningless words. upon the face of the patriot must have fallen the firelight of home. tell the people that they must have honest money, so that when a man has a little laid by for wife and child, it will comfort him even in death; so that he will feel that he leaves something for bread, something that, in some faint degree, will take his place; that he has left the coined toil of his hands to work for the loved when he is dust. tell your representatives in congress to improve our rivers and harbors; to release our transcontinental commerce from the grasp of monopoly; to open all our territories, and to build up our trade with the whole world. tell them not to issue a dollar of fiat paper, but to redeem every promise the nation has made. if fiat money is ever issued it will be worthless, for the folly that would issue has not the honor to pay when the experiment fails. tell them to put their trust in work. debts can be created by law, but they must be paid by labor. tell them that "fiat money" is madness and repudiation is death. suffrage address. * this address was delivered at a suffrage meeting in washington, d. c., january , . ladies and gentlemen: i believe the people to be the only rightful source of political power, and that any community, no matter where, in which any citizen is not allowed to have his voice in the making of the laws he must obey, that community is a tyranny. it is a matter of astonishment to me that a meeting like this is necessary in the capital of the united states. if the citizens of the district of columbia are not permitted to vote, if they are not allowed to govern themselves, and if there is no sound reason why they are not allowed to govern themselves, then the american idea of government is a failure. i do not believe that only the rich should vote, or that only the whites should vote, or that only the blacks should vote. i do not believe that right depends upon wealth, upon education, or upon color. it depends absolutely upon humanity. i have the right to vote because i am a man, because i am an american citizen, and that right i should and am willing to share equally with every human being. there has been a great deal said in this country of late in regard to giving the right of suffrage to women. so far as i am concerned i am willing that every woman in the nation who desires that privilege and honor shall vote. if any woman wants to vote i am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. she gets her right, if she has it, from precisely the same source that i get mine, and there are many questions upon which i would deem it desirable that women should vote, especially upon the question of peace or war. if a woman has a child to be offered upon the altar of that moloch, a husband liable to be drafted, and who loves a heart that can be entered by the iron arrow of death, she surely has as much right to vote for peace as some thrice-besotted sot who reels to the ballot-box and deposits a vote for war. i believe, and always have, that there is only one objection to a woman voting, and that is, the men are not sufficiently civilized for her to associate with them, and for several years i have been doing what little i can to civilize them. the only question before this meeting, as i understand it, is, shall the people of this district manage their own affairs--whether they shall vote their own taxes and select their own officers who are to execute the laws they make? and for one, i say there is no human being with ingenuity enough to frame an argument against this question. it is all very well to say that congress will do this, but congress has a great deal to do besides. there is enough before that body coming from all the states and territories of the union, and the numberless questions arising in the conduct of the general government. i am opposed to a government where the few govern the many. i am opposed to a government that depends upon suppers, and upon flattery; upon crooking the hinges of the knee; upon favors, upon subterfuges. we want to be manly men in this district. we must direct and control our own affairs, and if we are not capable of doing it, there is no part of the union where they are capable. it is said there is a vast amount of ignorance here. that is true; but that is also true of every section of the united states. there is too much ignorance and there will continue to be until the people become great enough, generous enough, and splendid enough to see that no child shall grow up in their midst without a good, common-school education. the people of this district are capable of managing their educational affairs if they are allowed to do so. the fact is, a man now living in the district lives under a perpetual flag of truce. he is nobody. he counts for nothing. he is not noticed except as a suppliant. nothing as a citizen. that day should pass away. it will be a perpetual education for this people to govern themselves, and until they do they cannot be manly men. they say, though, that there is a vast rabble here. very well. make your election laws so as to exclude the vast rabble. let it be understood that no man shall vote who has not lived here at least one year. let your registration laws prohibit any man from voting unless he has been registered at least six months. we do not want to be governed by people who have no abode here--who are political bedouins of the desert. we want to be governed by people who live with us--who live somewhere among us, and whom somebody knows, and if a law is properly framed there will be no trouble about self-government in the district of columbia. let the experiment be tried here of a perfect, complete and honest registration; let every man, no matter who he is or where he comes from, vote only by strict compliance with a good registry law. we can have a fair election, and wherever there is a fair election there will be good government. our government depends for its stability upon honest elections. the great principle underlying our system of government is that the people have the virtue and the patriotism to govern themselves. that is the foundation stone, the corner and the base of our edifice, and upon it our government is on trial to-day. and until a man is considered infamous who casts an illegal vote, our government will not be safe. whoever casts an illegal vote knowingly is a traitor to the principle upon which our government is founded. and whoever deprives a citizen of his right to vote is also a traitor to our government. when these things are understood; when the finger of public scorn shall be pointed at every man who votes illegally, or unlawfully prevents an honest vote, then you will have a splendid government. it is humiliating for one hundred and seventy-five thousand people to depend simply upon the right of petition. the few will disregard the petition of the many. i have not one word to say against the officers of the district. not a word. but let them do as well as they can; that is no justification. it is no justification of a monarchy that the king is a good man; it is no justification of a tyranny that the despot does justice. there may come another who will do injustice; and a free people like ours should not be satisfied to be governed by strangers. they would better have bad men of their own choosing than to have good men forced upon them. you have property here, and you have a right to protect it, and a right to improve it. you have life and liberty and the right to protect it. you have a right to say what money shall be assessed and collected and paid for that protection. you have laws and you have a right to have them executed by officers of your own selection, and by nobody else. in my judgment, all that is necessary to have these things done is to have the subject properly laid before congress, and let that body thoroughly and perfectly understand the situation. there is no member there, who rightly understanding our wishes, will dare continue this disfranchisement of the people. we have the same right to vote that their constituents have, precisely--no more and no less. this district ought to have one representative in congress, a representative with a right to speak--not a tongueless dummy. the idea of electing a delegate who has simply the privilege of standing around! we ought to have a representative who has not only the right to talk, but who will talk. this district has the right to a vote in the committees of congress, and not simply the privilege of receiving a little advice. and more than that, this district ought to have at least one electoral vote in a selection of a president of the united states. a smaller population than yours is represented not only in congress, but in the electoral college. if it is necessary to amend the constitution to secure these rights let us try and have it amended; and when that question is put to the people of the whole country they will be precisely as willing that the people of the district of columbia shall have an equal voice as that they themselves should have a voice. let us stop at no half-way ground, but claim, and keep claiming all our rights until somebody says we shall have them. and let me tell you another thing: once have the right of self-government recognized here, have a delegate in congress, and an electoral vote for president, and thousands will be willing to come here and become citizens of the district. as it is, the moment a man settles here his american citizenship falls from him like dead leaves from a tree. from that moment he is nobody. every american citizen wants a little political power--wants to cast his vote for the rulers of the nation. he wants to have something to say about the laws he has to obey, and they are not willing to come here and disfranchise themselves. the moment it is known that a man is from the district he has no influence, and no one cares what his political opinions may be. now, let us have it so that we can vote and be on an equality with the rest of the voters of the united states. this government was founded upon the idea that the only source of power is the people. let us show at the capital that we have confidence in that principle; that every man should have a vote and voice in the south, in the north, everywhere, no matter how low his condition, no matter that he was a slave, no matter what his color is, or whether he can read or write, he is clothed with the right to name those who make the laws he is to obey. while the lowest and most degraded in every state in this union have that right, the best and most intelligent in the district have not that right. it will not do. there is no sense in it--there is no justice in it--nothing american in it. if this were the case in some of the capitals of europe we would not be surprised; but here in the united states, where we have so much to say about the right of self-government, that two hundred thousand people should not have the right to say who shall make, and who shall execute the laws is at least an anomaly and a contradiction of our theory of government, and for one, i propose to do what little i can to correct it. it has been said that you had once here the right of self-government. if i understand it, the right you had was to elect somebody to some office, and all the other officers were appointed. you had no control over your legislature; you had very little control over your other officers, and the people of the district were held responsible for what was actually done by the appointing power. we want no appointing power. if it is necessary to have a police magistrate, i say the people are competent to elect that magistrate; and if he is not a good man they are qualified to select another in his place. you ought to elect your judges. i do not want the office of the judiciary so far from the people that it may feel entirely independent. i want every officer in this district held-accountable to the people, and, unless he discharges his duties faithfully, the people will put him out, and select another in his stead. i want it understood that no american citizen can be forced to pay a dollar in a state or in the district where he lives who is not represented, and where he has not the right to vote. it is all tyranny, and all infamous. the people of the united states wonder to-day that you have submitted to this outrage as long as you have. neither do i believe that only the rich should have the right to vote; that only they should govern; or that only the educated should govern. i have noticed among educated men many who did not know enough to govern themselves. i have known many wealthy men who did not believe in liberty, in giving the people the same rights they claimed for themselves. i believe in that government where the ballot of lazarus counts as much as the vote of dives. let the rich, let the educated, govern the people by moral suasion and by example and by kindness, and not by brute force. and in a community like this, where the avenues to distinction are open alike to all, there will be many more reasons for acting like men. when you can hold any position, when every citizen can have conferred upon him honor and responsibility, there is some stimulus to be a man. but in a community where but the few are clothed with power by appointment, no incentive exists among the people. if the avenues to distinction and honor are open to all, such a government is beneficial on every hand, and the poorest man in the community may say to himself, "if i pursue the right course the very highest place is open to me." and the poorest man, with his little tow-headed boy on his knee, can say, "john, all the avenues are open to you; although i am poor, you may be rich, and while i am obscure, you may become distinguished." that idea sweetens every hour of toil and renders holy every drop of sweat that rolls down the face of labor. i hate tyranny in every form. i despise it, and i execrate a tyrant wherever he may be, and in every country where the people are struggling for the right of self-government i sympathize with them in their struggle. wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in favor of human rights i am a rebel. i sympathize with all the people in europe who are endeavoring to push kings from thrones and struggling for the right to govern themselves. america ought to send greeting to every part of the world where such a struggle is pending, and we of the district of columbia ought to be able to join in the greeting, but we never shall be until we have the right of self-government ourselves. no man who is a good citizen can have any objection to self-government here. no man can be opposed to it who believes that our people have enough wisdom, enough virtue, enough patriotism to govern themselves. the man who doubts the right of the people to govern themselves casts a little doubt upon the question, simply because he is not man enough himself to believe in liberty. i would trust the poor of this country with our liberties as soon as i would the rich. i will trust the huts and hovels, just as soon as i will the mansions and palaces. i will trust those who work by the day in the street as soon as i will the bankers of the united states. i will trust the ignorant--even the ignorant. why? because they want education, and no people in this country are so anxious to have their children educated as those who are not educated themselves. i will trust the ignorant with the liberties of this country quicker than i would some of the educated who doubt the principles upon which our government is founded. but let the intelligent do what they can to instruct the ignorant. let the wealthy do what they can to give the blessings of liberty to the poor, and then this government will remain forever. the time is passing away when any man of genius can be respected who will not use that genius in elevating his fellow-man. the time is passing away when men, however wealthy, can be respected unless they use their millions for the elevation of mankind. the time is coming when no man will be called an honest man who is not willing to give to every other man, be he white or black, every right that he asks for himself. for my part, i am willing to live under a government where all govern, and am not willing to live under any other. i am willing to live where i am on an equality with other men, where they have precisely my rights, and no more; and i despise any government that is not based upon this principle of human equality. now, let us go just for that one thing, that we have the same right as any other people in the united states--that is, to govern this district ourselves. let us be represented in the lawmaking power, and let us advocate a change in the fundamental law so that the people of this district shall be entitled to one vote as to who shall be president of the united states. and when that is done and our people are clothed with the panoply of citizenship, you will find this district growing not to two hundred thousand, but in a little while one million of people will live here. now, for one, i have not the slightest feeling against members of congress for what has been done. i believe when this matter is laid before them fully and properly you will find few men in that august body who will vote against the proposition. they have had trouble enough. they do not understand our affairs. they never did, never will, never can. no one who does not live here will. the public interests are so many and so conflicting, and touch the sides of so many, that the people must attend to this matter themselves. they know when they want a market, a judge, or a collector of taxes, and nobody else does and nobody else has a right to. and instead of going up to congress and standing around some committee-room with a long petition in your hands, begging somebody to wait just one moment, it will be far better that you should go to the polls and elect your representative, who can attend to your interests in congress. but above all things, i want to warn you, charge you, beseech you, that in any legislation upon this subject you must secure a registration law that will prevent the casting of an illegal vote. do this before it is known whether the district is republican or democratic. i do not care. no matter how much of a republican i am, absolutely, i would rather be governed by democrats who live here than by republicans who do not. and now, while it is not known whether this is a democratic or republican community, let us get up a registration that no one can violate; because the moment you have an election, and it is ascertained to be either democratic or republican, the victorious party may be opposed to any registration or any legislation that will put in jeopardy their power. i have lived long enough to be satisfied that any state in this union, no matter whether democratic or republican, will be safe as long as the people have the right to vote, and to see that the ballots will be counted. this country is now upon trial. in nearly every state in this union there is liable to happen just the same thing that only the other day happened in maine. in every state there can be two legislatures, one in the state-house and the other on the fence. let us in this district so guard the right to vote and the counting of the ballots, that we shall know after the election who has been elected and know with certainty the men who have been elected by the legal voters of the district. it becomes us all, whether republicans or democrats, to unite in securing such a law. let us act together, democrats and republicans, black and white, rich and poor, educated and ignorant--let us all unite upon the principle that we have the right to govern ourselves. then it will make no difference whether the district of columbia shall be democratic or republican, provided it is the will of a legal majority of her people. ladies and gentlemen, i thank you. wall street speech. * a political demonstration was made in wall street yesterday afternoon that stands without a rival among the many out-door meetings in that place, which for years have been memorable features of presidential campaigns. bankers and brokers, members of the produce exchange, and dry goods merchants assembled at their respective rendezvous and marched in imposing processions to the open space in front of the sub-treasury building, from the steps of which col. ingersoll delivered an address. written words are entirely inadequate to describe this demonstration of wall street business men. it never was equaled in point of numbers, respectability or enthusiasm, even during the excitement caused by the outbreak of the rebellion. throughout the day the business houses, banking offices and public buildings down town were gay with flags and bunting. business was practically suspended all day, and the principal topic of conversation on the exchanges and m offices and stores was the coming meeting. long before the hour set, well-dressed people began to gather near the sub- treasury building and by two o'clock wall street, from broad and nassau half way down to william, was passable only with difficulty. while the crowd was fast gathering on every hand, graiulla's band, stationed upon the corner buttress near the sub-treasury, struck up a patriotic air, and in a few minutes the throngs had swelled to such proportions that the police had all they could do to maintain a thoroughfare. a few minutes more ana the distant strains of another band attracted all eyes toward broadway, where the head of the procession was seen turning into wall street. ten abreast and every man a gentleman, they marched by. at this time wall street from half way to william street to half way to broadway, nassau street half way to pine, and broad street as far as the eye could reach, were densely packed with people from side to side. everything else, except the telegraph-poles and the tops of the lamp-posts, was hidden from view. every window, roof, stoop, and projecting point was covered. the produce exchange men finding broad street impassable made a detour to the east and marched up wall street, filling that thoroughfare to william. it was a tremendous crowd in point of numbers, and its composition was entirely of gentlemen--men with refined, intelligent faces--bankers, brokers, merchants of all kinds--real business men. thousands of millions of dollars were represented in it. on the left of the sub-treasury steps a platform had been erected, with a sounding board covering the rear and top. a national flag floated from its roof, and its railing was draped with other flags. after the arrival of the several organizations the banners they bore were hung at the sides by way of further ornamentation. mr. jackson s. schultz then introduced col. ingersoll, the speaker of the day. the cheering was terrific for several minutes. raising his hand for silence, col. ingersoll then delivered his address.--new york times, october th, . n.y. city. (garfield campaign.) . fellow-citizens of the great city of new york: this is the grandest audience i ever saw. this audience certifies that general james a. garfield is to be the next president of the united states. this audience certifies that a republican is to be the next mayor of the city of new york. this audience certifies that the business men of new york understand their interests, and that the business men of new york are not going to let this country be controlled by the rebel south and the rebel north. in the democratic party appealed to force; now it appeals to fraud. in the democratic party appealed to the sword; now it appeals to the pen. it was treason then, it is forgery now. the democratic party cannot be trusted with the property or with the honor of the people of the united states. the city of new york owes a great debt to the country. every man that has cleared a farm has helped to build new york; every man that helped to build a railway helped to build up the palaces of this city. where i am now speaking are the termini of all the railways in the united states. they all come here. new york has been built up by the labor of the country, and new york owes it to the country to protect the best interests of the country. the farmers of illinois depend upon the merchants, the brokers and the bankers, upon the gentlemen of new york, to beat the rabble of new york. you owe to yourselves; you owe to the great re public; and this city that does the business of a hemisphere--this city that will in ten years be the financial centre of this world--owes it to itself, to be true to the great principles that have allowed it to exist and flourish. the republicans of new york ought to say that this shall forever be a free country. the republicans of new york ought to say that free speech shall forever be held sacred in the united states. the republicans of new york ought to see that the party that defended the nation shall still remain in power. the republicans of new york should see that the flag is safely held by the hands that defended it in war. the republicans of new york know that the prosperity of the country depends upon good government, and they also know that good government means protection to the people--rich and poor, black and white. the republicans of new york know that a black friend is better than a white enemy. they know that a negro while fighting for the government, is better than any white man who will fight against it. the republicans of new york know that the colored party in the south which allows every man to vote as he pleases, is better than any white man who is opposed to allowing a negro to cast his honest vote. a black man in favor of liberty is better than a white man in favor of slavery. the republicans of new york must be true to their friends. this government means to protect all its citizens, at home and abroad, or it becomes a byword in the mouths of the nations of the world. now, what do we want to do? we are going to have an election next tuesday, and every republican knows why he is going to vote the republican ticket; while every democrat votes his without knowing why. a republican is a republican because he loves something; a democrat is a democrat because he hates something. a republican believes in progress; a democrat in retrogression. a democrat is a "has been." he is a "used to be." the republican party lives on hope; the democratic on memory. the democrat keeps his back to the sun and imagines himself a great man because he casts a great shadow. now, there are certain things we want to preserve--that the business men of new york want to preserve--and, in the first place, we want an honest ballot. and where the democratic party has power there never has been an honest ballot. you take the worst ward in this city, and there is where you will find the greatest democratic majority. you know it, and so do i. there is not a university in the north, east or west that has not in it a republican majority. there is not a penitentiary in the united states that has not in it a democratic majority--and they know it. two years ago, about two hundred and eighty-three convicts were in the penitentiary of maine. out of that whole number there was one republican, and only one. [a voice--"who was the man?"] well, i do not know, but he broke out. he said that he did not mind being in the penitentiary, but the company was a little more than he could stand. you cannot rely upon that party for an honest ballot. every law that has been passed in this country in the last twenty years, to throw a safeguard around the ballot-box, has been passed by the republican party. every law that has been defeated has been defeated by the democratic party. and you know it. unless we have an honest ballot the days of the republic are numbered; and the only way to get an honest ballot is to beat the democratic party forever. and that is what we are going to do. that party can never carry its record; that party is loaded down with the infamies of twenty years; yes, that party is loaded down with the infamies of fifty years. it will never elect a president in this world. i give notice to the democratic party to-day that it will have to change its name before the people of the united states will change the administration. you will have to change your natures; you will have to change your personnel, and you will have to get enough republicans to join you and tell you how to run a campaign. if you want an honest ballot--and every honest man does--then you will vote to keep the republican party in power. what else do you want? you want honest money, and i say to the merchants and to the bankers and to the brokers, the only party that will give you honest money is the party that resumed specie payments. the only party that will give you honest money is the party that said a greenback is a broken promise until it is redeemed with gold. you can only trust the party that has been honest in disaster. from to --sixteen long years--the republican party was the party of honor and principle, and the republican party saved the honor of the united states. and you know it. during that time the democratic party did what it could to destroy our credit at home and abroad. we are not only in favor of free speech, and an honest ballot and honest money, but we are for law and order. what part of this country believes in free speech--the south or the north? the south would never give free speech to the country; there was no free speech in the city of new york until the republican party came into power. the democratic party has not intelligence enough to know that free speech is the germ of this republic. the democratic party cares little for free speech because it has no argument to make--no reasons to offer. its entire argument is summed up and ended in three words--"hurrah for hancock!" the republican party believes in free speech because it has something to say; because it believes in argument; because it believes in moral suasion; because it believes in education. any man that does not believe in free speech is a barbarian. any state that does not support it is not a civilized state. i have a right to express my opinion, in common with every other human being, and i am willing to give to every other human being the right that i claim for myself. republicanism means justice in politics. republicanism means progress in civilization. republicanism means that every man shall be an educated patriot and a gentleman. i want to say to you to-day that it is an honor to belong to the republican party. it is an honor to have belonged to it for twenty years; it is an honor to belong to the party that elected abraham lincoln president. and let me say to you that lincoln was the greatest, the best, the purest, the kindest man that has ever sat in the presidential chair. it is an honor to belong to the republican party that gave four millions of men the rights of freemen; it is an honor to belong to the party that broke the shackles from four millions of men, women and children. it is an honor to belong to the party that declared that bloodhounds were not the missionaries of civilization. it is an honor to belong to the party that said it was a crime to steal a babe from its mother's breast. it is an honor to belong to the party that swore that this is a nation forever, one and indivisible. it is an honor to belong to the party that elected u. s. grant president of the united states. it is an honor to belong to the party that issued thousands and thousands of millions of dollars in promises--that issued promises until they became as thick as the withered leaves of winter; an honor to belong to the party that issued them to put down a rebellion; an honor to belong to the party that put it down; an honor to belong to the party that had the moral courage and honesty to make every one of the promises made in war, as good as shining, glittering gold in peace. and i tell you that if there is another life, and if there is a day of judgment, all you need say upon that solemn occasion is, "i was in life and in my death a good square republican." i hate the doctrine of state sovereignty because it fostered state pride; because it fostered the idea that it is more to be a citizen of a state than a citizen of this glorious country. i love the whole country. i like new york because it is a part of the country, and i like the country because it has new york in it. i am not standing here to-day because the flag of new york floats over my head, but because that flag for which more heroic blood has been shed than for any other flag that is kissed by the air of heaven, waves forever over my head. that is the reason i am here. the doctrine of state sovereignty was appealed to in defence of the slave-trade; the next time in defence of the slave trade as between the states; the next time in defence of the fugitive slave law; and if there is a democrat in favor of the fugitive slave law he should be ashamed--if not of himself--of the ignorance of the time in which he lived. that fugitive slave law was a compromise so that we might be friends of the south. they said in - : "if you catch the slave we will be your friend;" and they tell us now: "if you let us trample upon the rights of the black man in the south, we will be your friend." i do not want their friendship upon such terms. i am a friend of my friend, and an enemy of my enemy. that is my doctrine. we might as well be honest about it. under that doctrine of state rights, such men as i see before me--bankers, brokers, merchants, gentlemen--were expected to turn themselves into hounds and chase a poor fugitive that had been lured by the love of liberty and guided by the glittering north star. the democratic party wanted you to keep your trade with the south, no matter to what depths of degradation you had to sink, and the democratic party to-day says if you want to sell your goods to the southern people, you must throw your honor and manhood into the streets. the patronage of the splendid north is enough to support the city of new york. there is another thing: why is this city filled with palaces, covered with wealth? because american labor has been protected. i am in favor of protection to american labor, everywhere. i am in favor of protecting american brain and muscle; i am in favor of giving scope to american ingenuity and american skill. we want a market at home, and the only way to have it is to have mechanics at home; and the only way to have mechanics is to have protection; and the only way to have protection is to vote the republican ticket. you, business men of new york, know that general garfield understands the best interests not only of new york, but of the entire country. and you want to stand by the men who will stand by you. what does a simple soldier know about the wants of the city of new york? what does he know about the wants of this great and splendid country? if he does not know more about it than he knows about the tariff he does not know much. i do not like to hit the dead. my hatred stops with the grave, and i tell you we are going to bury the democratic party next tuesday. the pulse is feeble now, and if that party proposes to take advantage of the last hour, it is time it should go into the repenting business. nothing pleases me better than to see the condition of that party to-day. what do the democrats know on the subject of the tariff? they are frightened; they are rattled. they swear their plank and platform meant nothing. they say in effect: "when we put that in we lied; and now having made that confession we hope you will have perfect confidence in us from this out." hancock says that the object of the party is to get the tariff out of politics. that is the reason, i suppose, why they put that plank in the platform. i presume he regards the tariff as a little local issue, but i tell you to-day that the great question of protecting american labor never will be taken out of politics. as long as men work, as long as the laboring man has a wife and family to support, just so long will he vote for the man that will protect his wages. and you can no more take it out of politics than you can take the question of government out of politics. i do not want any question taken out of politics. i want the people to settle these questions for themselves, and the people of this country are capable of doing it. if you do not believe it, read the returns from ohio and indiana. there are other persons who would take the question of office out of politics. well, when we get the tariff and office both out of politics, then, i presume, we will see two parties on the same side. it will not do. david a. wells has come to the rescue of the democratic party on the tariff, and shed a few pathetic tears over scrap iron. but it will not do. you cannot run this country on scraps. we believe in the tariff because it gives skilled labor good pay. we believe in the tariff because it allows the laboring man to have something to eat. we believe in the tariff because it keeps the hands of the producer close to the mouth of the devourer. we believe in the tariff because it developed american brain; because it builds up our towns and cities; because it makes americans self-supporting; because it makes us an independent nation. and we believe in the tariff because the democratic party does not. that plank in the democratic party was intended for a dagger to assassinate the prosperity of the north. the northern people have become aroused and that is the plank that is broken in the democratic platform; and that plank was wide enough when it broke to let even hancock through. gentlemen, they are gone. they are gone--honor bright. look at the desperate means that have been resorted to by the democratic party, driven to the madness of desperation. not satisfied with having worn the tongue of slander to the very tonsils, not satisfied with attacking the private reputation of a splendid man, not satisfied with that, they have appealed to a crime; a deliberate and infamous forgery has been committed. that forgery has been upheld by some of the leaders of the democratic party; that forgery has been defended by men calling themselves respectable. leaders of the democratic party have stood by and said that they were acquainted with the handwriting of james a. garfield; and that the handwriting in the forged letter was his, when they knew that it was absolutely unlike his. they knew it, and no man has certified that that was the writing of james a. garfield who did not know that in his throat of throats he told a falsehood. every honest man in the city of new york ought to leave such a party if he belongs to it. every honest man ought to refuse to belong to the party that did such an infamous crime. senator barnum, chairman of the democratic committee, has lost control. he is gone, and i will tell you what he puts me in mind of. there was an old fellow used to come into town every saturday and get drunk. he had a little yoke of oxen, and the boys out of pity used to throw him into the wagon and start the oxen for home. just before he got home they had to go down a long hill, and the oxen, when they got to the brow of it, commenced to run. now and then the wagon struck a stone and gave the old fellow an awful jolt, and that would wake him up. after he had looked up and had one glance at the cattle he would fall helplessly back to the bottom, and always say, "gee a little, if anything." and that is the only order barnum has been able to give for the last two weeks--"gee a little, if anything." i tell you now that forgery makes doubly sure the election of james a. garfield. the people of the north believe in honest dealing; the people of the north believe in free speech and an honest ballot. the people of the north believe that this is a nation; the people of the north hate treason; the people of the north hate forgery; the people of the north hate slander. the people of the north have made up their minds to give to general garfield a vindication of which any american may be forever proud. james a. garfield is to-day a poor man, and you know that there is not money enough in this magnificent street to buy the honor and manhood of james a. garfield. money cannot make such a man, and i will swear to you that money cannot buy him. james a. garfield to-day wears the glorious robe of honest poverty. he is a poor man; i like to say it here in wall street; i like to say it surrounded by the millions of america; i like to say it in the midst of banks and bonds and stocks; i love to say it where gold is piled--that although a poor man, he is rich in honor; in integrity he is wealthy, and in brain he is a millionaire. i know him, and i like him. so do you all, gentlemen. garfield was a poor boy, he is a certificate of the splendid form of our government. most of these magnificent buildings have been built by poor boys; most of the success of new york began almost in poverty. you know it. the kings of this street were once poor, and they may be poor again; and if they are fools enough to vote for hancock they ought to be. garfield is a certificate of the splendor of our government, that says to every poor boy, "all the avenues of honor are open to you." i know him, and i like him. he is a scholar; he is a statesman; he is a soldier; he is a patriot; and above all, he is a magnificent man; and if every man in new york knew him as well as i do, garfield would not lose a hundred votes in this city. compare him with hancock, and then compare general arthur with william h. english. if there ever was a pure republican in this world, general arthur is one. you know in wall street, there are some men always prophesying disaster, there are some men always selling "short." that is what the democratic party is doing to-day. you know as well as i do that if the democratic party succeeds, every kind of property in the united states will depreciate. you know it. there is not a man on the street, who if he knew hancock was to be elected would not sell the stocks and bonds of every railroad in the united states "short." i dare any broker here to deny it. there is not a man in wall or broad street, or in new york, but what knows the election of hancock will depreciate every share of railroad stock, every railroad bond, every government bond, in the united states of america. and if you know that, i say it is a crime to vote for hancock and english. i belong to the party that is prosperous when the country is prosperous. i belong to the party that believes in good crops; that is glad when a fellow finds a gold mine; that rejoices when there are forty bushels of wheat to the acre; that laughs when every railroad declares dividends, that claps both its hands when every investment pays; when the rain falls for the farmer, when the dew lies lovingly on the grass. i belong to the party that is happy when the people are happy; when the laboring man gets three dollars a day; when he has roast beef on his table; when he has a carpet on the floor; when he has a picture of garfield on the wall. i belong to the party that is happy when everybody smiles, when we have plenty of money, good horses, good carriages; when our wives are happy and our children feel glad. i belong to the party whose banner floats side by side with the great flag of the country; that does not grow fat on defeat. the democratic party is a party of famine; it is a good friend of an early frost, it believes in the colorado beetle and the weevil. when the crops are bad the democratic mouth opens from ear to ear with smiles of joy; it is in partnership with bad luck; a friend of empty pockets; rags help it. i am on the other side. the democratic party is the party of darkness. i believe in the party of sunshine; and in the party that even in darkness believes that the stars are shining and waiting for us. now, gentlemen, i have endeavored to give you a few reasons for voting the republican ticket; and i have given enough to satisfy any reasonable man. and you know it. do not go with the democratic party, young man. you have a character to make. you cannot make it, as the democratic party does, by passing a resolution. if your father voted the democratic ticket, that is disgrace enough for one family. tell the old man you can stand it no longer. tell the old gentleman that you have made up your mind to stand with the party of human progress; and if he asks you why you cannot vote the democratic ticket you tell him: "every man that tried to destroy the government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers, every keeper of libby, andersonville and salisbury, every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the north, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child--every solitary one was a democrat." tell him you cannot stand that party. tell him you have to go with the republican party, and if he asks you why, tell him it destroyed slavery, it preserved the union, it paid the national debt; it made our credit as good as that of any nation on the earth. tell him it makes every dollar in a four per cent, bond worth a dollar and ten cents; that it satisfies the demands of the highest civilization. tell the old man that the republican party preserved the honor of the nation; that it believes in education; that it looks upon the schoolhouse as a cathedral. tell him that the republican party believes in absolute intellectual liberty; in absolute religious freedom; in human rights, and that human rights rise above states. tell him that the republican party believes in humanity, justice, human equality, and that the republican party believes this is a nation and will be forever and ever; that an honest ballot is the breath of the republic's life; that honest money is the blood of the republic; and that nationality is the great throbbing beat of the heart of the republic. tell him that. and tell him that you are going to stand by the flag that the patriots of the north carried upon the battle-field of death. tell him you are going to be true to the martyred dead; that you are going to vote exactly as lincoln would have voted were he living. tell him that if every traitor dead were living now, there would issue from his lips of dust, "hurrah for hancock!" that could every patriot rise, he would cry for garfield and liberty; for union and for human progress everywhere. tell him that the south seeks to secure by the ballot what it lost by the bayonet; to whip by the ballot those who fought it in the field. but we saved the country; and we have the heart and brains to take care of it. i will tell you what we are going to do. we are going to treat them in the south just as well as we treat the people in the north. victors cannot afford to have malice. the north is too magnanimous to have hatred. we will treat the south precisely as we treat the north. there are thousands of good people there. let us give them money to improve their rivers and harbors; i want to see the sails of their commerce filled with the breezes of prosperity; their fences rebuilt; their houses painted. i want to see their towns prosperous; i want to see schoolhouses in every town; i want to see books in the hands of every child, and papers and magazines in every house; i want to see all the rays of light, of civilization of the nineteenth century, enter every home of the south; and in a little while you will see that country full of good republicans. we can afford to be kind; we cannot afford to be unkind. i will shake hands cordially with every believer in human liberty; i will shake hands with every believer in nationality; i will shake hands with every man who is the friend of the human race. that is my doctrine. i believe in the great republic; in this magnificent country of ours. i believe in the great people of the united states. i believe in the muscle and brain of america, in the prairies and forests. i believe in new york. i believe in the brains of your city. i believe that you know enough to vote the republican ticket. i believe that you are grand enough to stand by the country that has stood by you. but whatever you do, i never shall cease to thank you for the great honor you have conferred upon me this day. note.--this being a newspaper report it is necessarily incomplete. brooklyn speech. * the rev. henry ward beecher and colonel robert g. ingersoll spoke from the same platform last night, and the great preacher introduced the great orator and free-thinker to the grandest political audience that was ever assembled in brooklyn. the reverend gentleman presided over the republican mass meeting held in the academy of music. when he introduced ingersoll he did it with a warmth and earnestness of compliment that brought the six thousand lookers-on to their feet to applaud. when the expounder of the gospel of christ took the famous atheist by the hand, and shook it fervently, saying that while he respected and honored him for the honesty of his convictions and his splendid labors for patriotism and the country, the enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the great building trembled and vibrated with the storm of applause. with such a scene to harmonize the multitude at the outstart it is not strange that the meeting continued to the end such a one as has no parallel even in these days of feverish political excitement and turmoil. the orator spoke in his best vein and his audience was responsive to the wonderful magical spell of his eloquence. and when his last glowing utterance had lost its echo in the wild storm of applause that rewarded him at the close, mr. beecher again stepped forward and, as if to emphasize the earnestness of his previous compliments, proposed a vote of thanks to the distinguished speaker. the vote was a roar of affirmation, whose voice was not stronger when mr. ingersoll in turn called upon the audience to give three cheers for the great preacher. they were given, and repeated three times over. men waved their ats and umbrellas, ladies, of whom there were many hundreds present, waved their handkerchiefs, and men, strangers to each other, shook hands with the fervency of brotherhood. it was indeed a strange scene, and the principal actors in it seemed not less than the most wildly excited man there to appreciate its peculiar import and significance. standing at the front of the stage, underneath a canopy of nags, at either side great baskets of flowers, they clasped each other's hands, and stood thus for several minutes, while the excited thousands cheered themselves hoarse and applauded wildly. as mr. beecher began to speak, however, the applause that broke out was deafening. in substance mr. beecher spoke as follows:--"i am not accustomed to preside at meetings like this; only the exigency of the times could induce me to do it. i am not here either to make a speech, but more especially to introduce the eminent orator of the evening. * * * i stand not as a minister, but as a man among men, pleading the cause of fellowship and equal rights. we are not here as mechanics, as artists, merchants, or professional men, but as fellow-citizens. the gentleman who will speak to-night is in no conventicle or church. he is to speak to a great body of citizens, and i take the liberty of saying that i respect him as the man that for a full score and more of years has worked for the right in the great, broad field of humanity, and for the cause of human rights. i consider it an honor to extend to him, as i do now, the warm, earnest, right hand of fellowship." (as mr. beecher said this he turned to mr. ingersoll and extended his hand. the palms of the two men met with a clasp that was heard all over the house, and was the signal for tumultuous cheering and applause, which continued for several minutes.) "i now introduce to you," continued mr. beecher, leading mr. ingersoll forward, "a man who--and i say it not flatteringly--is the most brilliant speaker of the english tongue of all men on this globe. but as under the brilliancy of the blaze or light we find the living coals of fire, under the lambent flow of his wit and magnificent antithesis we find the glorious flame of genius and honest thought. ladies and gentlemen, mr. ingersoll."--new york herald, october st, . (garfield campaign.) . ladies and gentlemen: years ago i made up my mind that there was no particular argument in slander. i made up my mind that for parties, as well as for individuals, honesty in the long-run is the best policy. i made up my mind that the people were entitled to know a man's honest thoughts, and i propose to-night to tell you exactly what i think. and it may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party has a mortgage on me. i am the sole proprietor of myself. no party, no organization, has any deed of trust on what little brains i have, and as long as i can get my part of the common air i am going to tell my honest thoughts. one man in the right will finally get to be a majority. i am not going to say a word to-night that every democrat here will not know is true, and, whatever he may say, i will compel him in his heart to give three cheers. in the first place, i wish to admit that during the war there were hundreds of thousands of patriotic democrats. i wish to admit that if it had not been for the war democrats of the north, we never would have put down the rebellion. let us be honest. i further admit that had it not been for other than war democrats there never would have been a rebellion to put down. war democrats! why did we call them war democrats? did you ever hear anybody talk about a war republican? we spoke of war democrats to distinguish them from those democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms. i also wish to admit that the republican party is not absolutely perfect. while i believe that it is the best party that ever existed, while i believe it has, within its organization, more heart, more brain, more patriotism than any other organization that ever existed beneath the sun, i still admit that it is not entirely perfect. i admit, in its great things, in its splendid efforts to preserve this nation, in its grand effort to keep our flag in heaven, in its magnificent effort to free four millions of slaves, in its great and sublime effort to save the financial honor of this nation, i admit that it has made some mistakes. in its great effort to do right it has sometimes by mistake done wrong. and i also wish to admit that the great democratic party, in its effort to get office has sometimes by mistake done right. you see that i am inclined to be perfectly fair. i am going with the republican party because it is going my way; but if it ever turns to the right or left, i intend to go straight ahead. in every government there is something that ought to be preserved, in every government there are many things that ought to be destroyed. every good man, every patriot, every lover of the human race, wishes to preserve the good and destroy the bad; and every one in this audience who wishes to preserve the good will go with that section of our common country--with that party in our country that he honestly believes will preserve the good and destroy the bad. it takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good republican. it is a vast deal of labor. the republican party is the fruit of all ages--of self-sacrifice and devotion. the republican party is born of every good thing that was ever done in this world. the republican party is the result of all martyrdom, of all heroic blood shed for the right. it is the blossom and fruit of the great world's best endeavor. in order to make a republican you have to have schoolhouses. you have to have newspapers and magazines. a good republican is the best fruit of civilization, of all there is of intelligence, of art, of music and of song. if you want to make democrats, let them alone. the democratic party is the settlings of this country. nobody hoes weeds. nobody takes especial pains to raise dog-fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel, the seeds are sown by accident and gathered by chance. but if you want to raise wheat and corn you must plough the ground. you must defend and you must harvest the crop with infinite patience and toil. it is precisely that way--if you want to raise a good republican you must work. if you wish to raise a democrat give him wholesome neglect. the democratic party flatters the vices of mankind. that party says to the ignorant man, "you know enough." it says to the vicious man, "you are good enough." the republican party says, "you must be better next year than you are this." a republican takes a man by the collar and says, "you must do your best, you must climb the infinite hill of human progress as long as you live." now and then one gets tired. he says, "i have climbed enough and so much better than i expected to do that i do not wish to travel any farther." now and then one gets tired and lets go all hold, and he rolls down to the very bottom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon his feet transfigured, and says: "hurrah for hancock!" there are things in this government that i wish to preserve, and there are things that i wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you ought to go the way that i am going: it is only fair that i give to you my reasons. this is a republic founded upon intelligence and the patriotism of the people, and in every republic it is absolutely necessary that there should be free speech. free speech is the gem of the human soul. words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to those words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with light. in a republic every individual tongue has a right to the general ear. in a republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to all his fellow-citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. when you say a man shall not express his honest thought you say his fellow-citizens shall be deprived of honest thoughts; for of what use is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to address the jury if the jury has been bought? of what use is it to allow the jury to bring in a verdict of "not guilty," if the defendant is to be hung by a mob? i ask you to-night, is not every solitary man here in favor of free speech? is there a solitary democrat here who dares say he is not in favor of free speech? in which part of this country are the lips of thought free--in the south or in the north? which section of our country can you trust the inestimable gem of free speech with? can you trust it to the gentlemen of mississippi or to the gentlemen of massachusetts? can you trust it to alabama or to new york? can you trust it to the south or can you trust it to the great and splendid north? honor bright--honor bright, is there any freedom of speech in the south? there never was and there is none to-night--and let me tell you why. they had the institution of human slavery in the south, which could not be defended at the bar of public reason. it was an institution that could not be defended in the high forum of human conscience. no man could stand there and defend the right to rob the cradle--none to defend the right to sell the babe from the breast of the agonized mother--none to defend the claim that lashes on a bare back are a legal tender for labor performed. every man that lived upon the unpaid labor of another knew in his heart that he was a thief. and for that reason he did not wish to discuss that question. thereupon the institution of slavery said, "you shall not speak; you shall not reason," and the lips of free thought were manacled. you know it. every one of you. every democrat knows it as well as every republican. there never was free speech in the south. and what has been the result? and allow me to admit right here, because i want to be fair, there are thousands and thousands of most excellent people in the south--thousands of them. there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands there who would like to vote the republican ticket. and whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free ballot there, they will vote the republican ticket. i say again, there are hundreds of thousands of good people in the south; but the institution of human slavery prevented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in nature that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without putting corresponding manacles upon your own brain. when the south enslaved the negro, it also enslaved itself, and the result was an intellectual desert. no book has been produced, with one exception, that has added to the knowledge of mankind; no paper, no magazine, no poet, no philosopher, no philanthropist, was ever raised in that desert. now and then some one protested against that infamous institution, and he came as near being a philosopher as the society in which he lived permitted. why is it that new england, a rock-clad land, blossoms like a rose? why is it that new york is the empire state of the great union? i will tell you. because you have been permitted to trade in ideas. because the lips of speech have been absolutely free for twenty years. we never had free speech in any state in this union until the republican party was born. that party was rocked in the cradle of intellectual liberty, and that is the reason i say it is the best party that ever existed in the wide, wide world. i want to preserve free speech, and, as an honest man, i look about me and i say, "how can i best preserve it?" by giving it to the south or north; to the democracy or to the republican party? and i am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech is safest with its earliest defenders. where is there such a thing as a republican mob to prevent the expression of an honest thought? where? the people of the south are allowed to come to the north; they are allowed to express their sentiments upon every stump in the great east, the great west, and in the great middle states; they go to maine, to vermont, and to all our states, and they are allowed to speak, and we give them a respectful hearing, and the meanest thing we do is to answer their arguments. i say to-night that we ought to have the same liberty to discuss these questions in the south that southerners have in the north. and i say more than that, the democrats of the north ought to compel the democrats of the south to treat the republicans of the south as well as the republicans of the north treat them. we treat the democrats well in the north; we treat them like gentlemen in the north; and yet they go into partnership with the democracy of the south, knowing that the democracy of the south will not treat republicans in that section with fairness. a democrat ought to be ashamed of that. if my friends will not treat other people as well as the friends of the other people treat me, i'll swap friends. first, then, i am in favor of free speech, and i am going with that section of my country that believes in free speech; i am going with that party that has always upheld that sacred right. when you stop free speech, when you say that a thought shall die in the womb of the brain,--why, it would have the same effect upon the intellectual world that to stop springs at their sources would have upon the physical world. stop the springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle, the streams cease to murmur, and the great rivers cease rushing to the embrace of the sea. so you stop thought. stop thought in the brain in which it is born, and theory dies; and the great ocean of knowledge to which all should be permitted to contribute, and from which all should be allowed to draw, becomes a vast desert of ignorance. i have always said, and i say again, that the more liberty there is given away, the more you have. i endeavor to be consistent in my life and action. i am a believer in intellectual liberty, and wherever the torch of knowledge burns the whole horizon is filled with a glorious halo. i am a free man. i would be less than a man if i did not wish to hand this flame to my child with the flame increased rather than diminished. whom will we trust to take care of free speech? let us consider and be honest with one another. the gem of the brain is the innocence of the soul. i am not only in favor of free speech, but i am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. there is only one emperor in this country; there is one czar; only one supreme crown and king, and that is the will, the legally expressed will of the majority. every american citizen is a sovereign. the poorest and humblest may wear that crown, the beggar holds in his hand that sceptre equally with the proudest and richest, and so far as his sovereignty is concerned, the poorest american, he who earns but one dollar a day, has the same voice in controlling the destiny of the united states as the millionaire. the man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the springs of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. the government is upon the edge of mexicanization through fraudulent voting. the ballot-box is the throne of america; the ballot-box is the ark of the covenant. unless we see to it that every man who has a right to vote, votes, and unless we see to it that every honest vote is counted, the days of this republic are numbered. when you suspect that a congressman is not elected; when you suspect that a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people will hold the law in contempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts, and then come revolution and chaos. it is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept absolutely pure. it is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a democrat or republican--and i want further to admit that i believe a large majority of democrats are honest in their opinions, and i know that all republicans _must_ be honest in their opinions. it is the duty, then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes are cast and counted. now, honor bright, which section of this union can you trust the ballot-box with? do you wish to trust louisiana, or do you wish to trust alabama that gave, in , thirty-four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight republican majority and now gives ninety-two thousand democratic majority? and of that ninety-two thousand majority, every one is a lie! a contemptible, infamous lie! because if every voter had been allowed to vote, there would have been forty thousand republican majority. honor bright, can you trust it with the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down, notwithstanding the supplication of his wife and the tears of his babe? can you trust it to the men who since the close of our war have killed more men, simply because those men wished to vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the sublime heroism of the north--who have killed more men than were killed on both sides in the revolutionary war; than were killed on both sides during the war of ; than were killed on both sides in both wars? can you trust them? can you trust the gentlemen who invented the tissue ballot? do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of the shot-gun, of the white-liners, of the ku klux? do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they will not be ruled by a majority of american citizens if a portion of that majority is made of black men? and i want to tell you right here, i like a black man who loves this country better than i do a white man who hates it. i think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven! i say, can you trust the ballot-box to the democratic party? read the history of the state of new york. read the history of this great and magnificent city--the queen of the atlantic--read her history and tell us whether you can implicitly trust democratic returns? honor bright! i am not only, then, for free speech, but i am for an honest ballot; and in order that you may have no doubt left upon your minds as to which party is in favor of an honest vote, i will call your attention to this striking fact. every law that has been passed in every state of this union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the american ballot-box, has been passed by the republican party, and in every state where the republican party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of making it a law; in every state where such a bill has been defeated, it has been defeated by the democratic party. that ought to satisfy any reasonable man to satiety. i am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but i am in favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the united states. i want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. i want plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of the united states. i want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. and the question is, which section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that revenue? let us be honest about it. which section can you trust? in the last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars of the internal revenue taxes. we have collected principally from taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in the southern states three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four illicit distilleries. and during the same time the southern people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded fifty-five others, and the only offence that the wounded and dead committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country. recollect it--don't you forget it. and in several southern states to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the internal revenue department with a breech-loading rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the revenue. i don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my government. during the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven thousand and eighty-four southern democrats for endeavoring to defraud the revenue of the united states. recollect--three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four distilleries seized. twenty-five revenue officers killed, fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four democrats arrested. can we trust them? the state of alabama in its last democratic convention passed a resolution that no man should be tried in a federal court for a violation of the revenue laws--that he should be tried in a state court. think of it--he should be tried in a state court! let me tell you how it will come out if we trust the southern states to collect this revenue. a couple of methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and at the end of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to take up a collection. when the hat was returned he found in it pieces of slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent--not one--and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and said, "let us thank god!" and the owner of the hat said, "what for?" and the brother replied, "because you got your hat back." if we trust the south we shan't get our hats back. i am next in favor of honest money. i am in favor of gold and silver, and paper with gold and silver behind it. i believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of american products, and i am in favor of anything that will add to the value of an american product. but i want a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make it four feet in diameter. no government can afford to be a clipper of coin. a great republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. honest money, an honest people, an honest nation. when our money is only worth eighty cents on the dollar, we feel twenty per cent, below par. when our money is good we feel good. when our money is at par, that is where we are. i am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations as well as men, honesty is the best policy, always, everywhere, and forever. what section of this country, what party, will give us honest money--honor bright--honor bright? i have been told that during the war, we had plenty of money. i never saw it. i lived years without seeing a dollar. i saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. and the greenback, unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. you cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of paper. we must have paper that represents money. i want it issued by the government, and i want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "i know that my redeemer liveth." when we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. of course we had plenty when we bought on credit. no man has ever starved when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. as long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. the trouble commences when the pay-day arrives. and i do not wonder that after the war thousands of people said, "let us have another inflation." which party said, "no, we must pay the promise made in war"? honor bright! the democratic party had once been a hard money party, but it drifted from its metallic moorings and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you know it. they said, "give us more money;" and every man that had bought on credit and owed a little something on what he had purchased, when the property went down commenced crying, or many of them did, for inflation. i understand it. a man, say, bought a piece of land for six thousand dollars; paid five thousand dollars on it; gave a mortgage for one thousand dollars, and suddenly, in , found that the land would not pay the other thousand. the land had resumed, and then he said, looking lugubriously at his note and mortgage, "i want another inflation." and i never heard a man call for it that did not also say, "if it ever comes, and i don't unload, you may shoot me." it was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and i make this comparison knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. i have been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly says, "i have got to go home. the fact is, my wife is not well." and the fellow who is behind says, "let us have another deal; i have my opinion of the fellow that will jump a game." and so it was in the hard times of . they said: "give us another deal; let us get our driftwood back into the centre of the stream." and they cried out for more money. but the republican party said: "we do want more money, but not more promises. we have got to pay this first, and if we start out again upon that wide sea of promise we may never touch the shore." a thousand theories were born of want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile brain of trouble; and these people said, "after all, what is money? why, it is nothing but a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." true; and consequently it makes no difference whether your half bushel is of wood or gold or silver or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yardstick is gold or paper. but the trouble about that statement is this: a half bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, diamonds and pearls precisely the same as corn and wheat. the yardstick is not a measure of value; it is a measure of length, and it measures lace worth one hundred dollars a yard precisely as it does cent tape. and another reason why it makes no difference to the purchaser whether the half bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you do not buy the yardstick; you do not get the half bushel in the trade. and if it were so with money--if the people that had the money at the start of the trade, kept it after the consummation of the bargain--then it would not make any difference what you made your money of. but the trouble is the money changes hands. and let me say to-night, money is a thing--it is a product of nature--and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat star. i am in favor of honest money. free speech is the brain of the republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life, and honest money is the blood that courses through its veins. if i am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when i die, i want it to be a good one. i do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of widowhood, or become a democratic broken promise in the pocket of the orphan; i want it money. i want money that will outlive the democratic party. they told us--and they were honest about it--they said, "when we have plenty of money, we are prosperous." and i said, "when we are prosperous, we have plenty of money." when we are prosperous, then we have credit, and credit inflates the currency. whenever a man buys a pound of sugar and says, "charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever he gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the place of money, he inflates the currency. the consequence is that when we are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call "plenty." but you cannot increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay. suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, so dry that the turtle had to help the catfish over the shoals, and there you would see the ferryboat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, up on the sand, high and dry, and the cracks all opening in the sun, filled with loose oakum, looking like an average democratic mouth listening to a constitutional argument, and you should say to him, "how is business?" and he would say, "dull." and then you would say to him, "now, what you want is more boat." he would probably answer, "if i had a little more water i could get along with this one." suppose i next came to a man running a railroad, complaining of hard times. "why," said he, "i did a million dollars' worth of business the first year and used five hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease. the second year i did five hundred thousand dollars' worth of business and used four hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease." "well," said i, "the reason your road fell off was because you did not use enough grease." but i want to be fair, and i wish to-night to return my thanks to the democratic party. you did a great and splendid work. you went all over the united states and you said upon every stump that a greenback was better than gold. you said, "we have at last found the money of the poor man. gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we have money that will go around inquiring for a man that is dead broke. we have finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in it." but, after all, do you know that money is the most social thing in this world? if a fellow has one dollar in his pocket, and he meets another with two, do you know that dollar is absolutely homesick until it gets where the other two are? and yet the greenbackers told us that they had finally invented money that would be the poor mans friend. they said, "it is better than gold, better than silver," and they got so many men to believe it that when we resumed and said, "here is your gold for your greenback," the fellows who had the greenback said, "we don't want it. the greenbacks are good enough for us." do you know, if they had wanted it we could not have given it to them? and so i return my thanks to the greenback party. but allow me to say in this connection, the days of their usefulness have passed forever. now, i am not foolish enough to claim that the republican party resumed. i am not silly enough to say that john sherman resumed. but i will tell you what i do say. i say that every man who raised a bushel of corn or a bushel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork for sale helped to resume. i say that the gentle rain and the loving dew helped to resume. the soil of the united states impregnated by the loving sun helped to resume. the men that dug the coal and the iron and the silver and the copper and the gold helped to resume. and the men upon whose foreheads fell the light of furnaces helped to resume. and the sailors who fought with the waves of the seas helped to resume. i admit to-night that the democrats earned their share of the money to resume with. all i claim is that the republican party furnished the honesty to pay it over. that is what i claim; and the republican party set the day, and the republican party worked to the promise. that is what i say. and had it not been for the republican party this nation would have been financially dishonored. i am for honest money, and i am for the payment of every dollar of our debt, and so is every democrat now, i take it. but what did you say a little while ago? did you say we could resume? no; you swore we could not, and you swore our bonds would be worthless as the withered leaves of winter. and now when a democrat goes to england and sees an american four per cent, quoted at one hundred and ten he kind of swells up, and says: "that's the kind of man i am." in that country he pretends he was a republican in this. and i do not blame him. i do not begrudge him enjoying respectability when away from home. the republican party is entitled to the credit for keeping this nation grandly and splendidly honest. i say, the republican party is entitled to the credit of preserving the honor of this nation. in came the crash, and all the languages of the world cannot describe the agonies suffered by the american people from to . a man who thought he was a millionaire came to poverty; he found his stocks and bonds ashes in the paralytic hand of old age. men who expected to live all their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves beggars and paupers. the great factories were closed, the workmen were demoralized, and the roads of the united states were filled with tramps. in the hovel of the poor and the palace of the rich came the serpent of temptation and whispered in the american ear the terrible word "repudiation." but the republican party said, "no; we will pay every dollar. no; we have started toward the shining goal of resumption and we never will turn back." and the republican party struggled until it had the happiness of seeing upon the broad shining forehead of american labor the words "financial honor." the republican party struggled until every paper promise was as good as gold. and the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise again. we could not jump until our feet touched something that they could be pressed against. and from that moment to this we have been going, going, going higher and higher, more prosperous every hour. and now they say, "let us have a change." when i am sick i want a change; when i am poor i want a change; and if i were a democrat i would have a personal change. we are prosperous to-day, and must keep so. we are back to gold and silver. let us stay there; and let us stay with the party that brought us there. now, i am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot-box and an honest collection of the revenue of the united states, and an honest money, but i am in favor of the idea, of the great and splendid truth, that this is a nation one and indivisible. i deny that we are a confederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and chains of mist. this is a nation, and every man in it owes his first allegiance to the grand old flag for which more brave blood was shed than for any other flag that waves in the sight of heaven. there is another thing; we all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. we desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. we desire to be citizens of a government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. most of us are convinced that our government is the best upon this earth. it is the only government where manhood, and manhood alone, is not made simply a condition of citizenship, but where manhood, and manhood alone, permits its possessor to have his equal share in control of the government. it is the only government in the world where poverty is upon an exact equality with wealth, so far as controlling the destiny of the republic is concerned. it is the only nation where the man clothed in rags stands upon an equality with the one wearing purple. it is the only country in the world where, politically, the hut is upon an equality with the palace. for that reason every poor man should stand by this government, and every poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his children; every poor man who does not is willing his children should bear the badge of political inferiority; and the only way to make this government a complete and perfect success is for the poorest man to think as much of his manhood as the millionaire does of his wealth. a man does not vote in this country simply because he is rich; he does not vote in this country simply because he has an education; he does not vote simply because he has talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, and that he has his manhood to support; and we admit in this country that nothing can be more valuable to any human being than his manhood, and for that reason we put poverty on an equality with wealth. we say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. we say in this country that without liberty the nation is not worth preserving. now, i appeal to-day to every poor man; i appeal to-day to every laboring man, and i ask him, is there another country on this globe where you can have equal rights with others? there is another thing; do you want a government of law or of brute force? in which part of this country do you find law supreme? in which part of this country can a man find justice in the courts; in the north or in the south? where is crime punished? where is innocence protected, in the north or in the south? which section of this country will you trust? you can tell what a man is by the way he treats persons in his power, and the man that will sneak and crawl in the presence of greatness, will trample the weak when he gets them in his power. what class of people does the state have in its power? criminals and creditors; and you can judge of a state by the way it treats its criminals and creditors. georgia is the best state in the south. they have a penitentiary system by which they hire out their convict labor. only two years ago the whole thing was examined by a friend of mine, col. allston. he had been in the rebel army and was my good friend. he used to come to my house day after day to see me. he got converted and had the grit to say so. being a member of the legislature, he had a committee of investigation appointed. now, in order that you may understand the difference, you must know that in the northern penitentiaries the average annual death rate is one per cent.; that is, of one thousand convicts, ten will die in a year, on the average. that low death rate is because we are civilized, because we do not kill; but in the georgia penitentiary it was as high as fifteen, twenty-seven and forty-seven per cent., at a time when there was no typhoid or yellow fever, or epidemic of any kind. they died for four months at a rate of ten per cent, per month. they crowded the convicts in together, regardless of sex. they treated them precisely as wild beasts, and many of them were shot down. persons high in authority, senators of the united states, held interests in those contracts, and robert allston denounced them. when on a visit he said, "i believe when i get home i shall be killed." i told him not to go back to georgia, but to stay in the civilized north; but no, he would go back, and on the very day of his arrival he was murdered in cold blood. do you want to trust such men? * * * the southern people say this is a confederacy and they are honest in it. they fought for it, they believed it. they believe in the doctrine of state sovereignty, and many democrats of the north believe in the same doctrine. no less a man than horatio seymour--standing it may be at the head of democratic statesmen--said, if he has been correctly reported, only the other day, that he despised the word "nation." i bless that word. i owe my first allegiance to this nation, and it owes its first protection to me. i am talking here to-night, not because i am protected by the flag of new york. i would not know that flag if i should see it. i am talking here, and have the right to talk here, because the flag of my country is above us. i have the same right as though i had been born upon this very platform. i am proud of new york because it is a part of my country. i am proud of my country because it has such a state as new york in it, and i will be prouder of new york on a week from next tuesday than ever before in my life. i despise the doctrine of state sovereignty. i believe in the rights of the states, but not in the sovereignty of the states. states are political conveniences. rising above states, as the alps above valleys, are the rights of man. rising above the rights of the government, even in this nation, are the sublime rights of the people. governments are good only so long as they protect human rights. but the rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon the altar of the state, or upon the altar of the nation. let me tell you a few objections that i have to state sovereignty. that doctrine has never been appealed to for any good. the first time it was appealed to was when our constitution was made. and the object then was to keep the slave-trade open until the year . the object then was to make the sea the highway of piracy--the object then was to allow american citizens to go into the business of selling men and women and children, and feed their cargo to the sharks of the sea, and the sharks of the sea were as merciful as they. that was the first time that the appeal to the doctrine of state sovereignty was made, and the next time was for the purpose of keeping alive the interstate slave-trade, so that a gentleman in virginia could sell the slave who had nursed him, and rob the cradles of their babes. think of it! it was made so they could rob the cradle in the name of law. think of it! think of it! and the next time they appealed to the doctrine of state sovereignty was in favor of the fugitive slave law--a law that made a bloodhound of every northern man; that made charity a crime; a law that made love a state-prison offence; that branded the forehead of charity as if it were a felon. think of it! it is a part of my honor to hate such principles. i have no respect for any man who is so mean, cruel and wicked, as to allow himself to be transformed into a bloodhound to bay upon the tracks of innocent human prey. i will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. if you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion. a good man is pretty apt to be right; a perfectly honest man is like the surface of the stainless mirror, that gives back by simply looking at him, the image of the one who looks. the next time they appealed to the doctrine of state sovereignty was to increase the area of human slavery, so that the bloodhound, with clots of blood dropping from his loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the billowy plains of kansas. think of it! the democratic party then said the federal government had a right to cross the state line. and the next time they appealed to that infamous doctrine was in defence of secession and treason; a doctrine that cost us six thousand millions of dollars; a doctrine that cost four hundred thousand lives; a doctrine that filled our country with widows, our homes with orphans. and i tell you, the doctrine of state sovereignty is the viper in the bosom of this republic, and if we do not kill that viper it will kill us. the democrats tell us that in the olden time the federal government had a right to cross a state line to put shackles upon the limbs of men. it had the right to cross a state line to trample upon the rights of human beings, but now it has no right to cross those lines upon an errand of mercy or justice. we are told that now, when the federal government wishes to protect a citizen, a state line rises like a chinese wall, and the sword of federal power turns to air the moment it touches one of those lines. i deny it and i despise, abhor and execrate the doctrine of state sovereignty. the democrats tell us if we wish to be protected by the federal government we must leave home. i wish they would try it for about ten days. they say the federal government can defend a citizen in england, france, spain or germany, but cannot defend a child of the republic sitting around the family hearth. i deny it. a government that cannot protect its citizens at home is unfit to be called a government. i want a government with an ear so good that it can hear the faintest cry of the oppressed wherever its flag floats. i want a government with an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever it may raise its serpent head. i want a government that will protect a freedman, standing by his little log hut, with the same alacrity and with the same efficiency that it would protect vanderbilt, living in a palace of marble and gold. humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a thing to be preserved. let us look at it. for instance, here is a war, and the federal government says to a man, "we want you," and he says, "no, i don't want to go," and then they put a lot of pieces of paper in a wheel and on one of those pieces is his name, and another man turns the crank, and then they pull it out and there is his name, and they say, "come," and so he goes. and they stand him in front of the brazen-throated guns; they make him fight for his native land, and when the war is over he goes home and he finds the war has been unpopular in his neighborhood, and they trample on his rights, and he says to the federal government, "protect me." and he says to the government, "i owe my allegiance to you. you must protect me." what will you say of that government if it says to him, "you must look to your state for protection"? "ah, but," he says, "my state is the very power trampling upon me," and, of course, the robber is not going to send for the police, it is the duty of the government to defend even its drafted men; and if that is the duty of the government, what shall i say of the volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and agonized embrace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket, goes to the field and says, "here i am, ready to die for my native land"? a nation that will not defend its volunteer defenders is a disgrace to the map of this world. this is a nation. free speech is the brain of the republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life; honest money is the blood of its veins; and the idea of nationality is its great, beating, throbbing heart. i am for a nation. and yet the democrats tell me that it is dangerous to have centralized power. how would you have it? i believe in the localization of power; i believe in having enough of it localized in one place to be effectively used; i believe in a localization of brain. i suppose democrats would like to have it spread all over your body, and they act as though theirs was. there is another thing in which i believe: i believe in the protection of american labor. the hand that holds aladdin's lamp must be the hand of toil. this nation rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and i want the american laboring man to have enough to wear; i want him to have enough to eat: i want him to have something for the ordinary misfortunes of life; i want him to have the pleasure of seeing his wife well-dressed; i want him to see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children; i want him to see the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; i want him to feel that this is his country, and the shield of protection is above his labor. and i will tell you why i am for protection, too. if we were all farmers we would be stupid. if we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. if we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. protection to american labor diversifies american industry, and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human brain. protection protects ingenuity; it protects intelligence; and protection raises sense; and by protection we have greater men, better looking women and healthier children. free trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world. and allow me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "hurrah for hancock!" is a poor consolation. i do not think much of a government where the people do not have enough to eat. i am a materialist to that extent; i want something to eat. i have been in countries where the laboring man had meat once a year; sometimes twice--christmas and easter. and i have seen women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man in this audience could carry, and at the same time knitting busily with both hands, and those women lived without meat; and when i thought of the american laborer, i said to myself, "after all, my country is the best in the world." and when i came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying, it seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom. labor has more to eat and more to wear in the united states than in any other land of this earth. i want america to produce everything that americans need. i want it so that if the whole world should declare war against us, if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and swords, we could supply all our material wants in and of ourselves. i want to live to see the american woman dressed in american silk; the american man in everything, from hat to boots, produced in america by the cunning hand of american toil. i want to see the workingman have a good house, painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the floor, pictures on the wall. i want to see him a man, feeling that he is a king by the divine right of living in the republic. and every man here is just a little bit a king, you know. every man here is a part of the sovereign power. every man wears a little of purple; every man has a little of crown and a little of sceptre; and every man that will sell his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unfit to be an american citizen. i believe in american labor, and i will tell you why. the other day a man told me that we had produced in the united states of america one million tons of steel rails. how much are they worth? sixty dollars a ton. in other words, the million tons are worth sixty million dollars. how much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? twenty-five cents. american labor takes twenty-five cents worth of iron in the ground and adds to it fifty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. one million tons of rails, and the raw material not worth twenty-four thousand dollars! we build a ship in the united states worth five hundred thousand dollars, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship bringing five hundred thousand dollars in gold is only twenty thousand dollars; four hundred and eighty thousand dollars by american labor, american muscle, coined into gold; american brains made a legal tender the world round. i propose to stand by the nation. i want the furnaces kept hot. i want the sky to be filled with the smoke of american industry, and upon that cloud of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. that is what i am for. where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come from? from the south. the south would like to stab the prosperity of the north. they would rather trade with old england than with new england. they would rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in war than with those who conquered the rebellion. they knew what gave us our strength in war. they knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers of new england were putting down the rebellion. they knew that every wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of human progress. it won't do! they were so lured by the greed of office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a nation. it won't do! i do not wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when my country fails. i do not wish to belong to a party whose banner went up with the banner of rebellion. i do not wish to belong to a party that was in partnership with defeat and disaster. i do not. and there is not a democrat here who does not know that a failure of the crops this year would have helped his party. you know that an early frost would have been a godsend to them. you know that the potato-bug could have done them more good than all their speakers. i wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when the country is prosperous. i belong to that party which is not poor when the golden billows are running over the seas of wheat. i belong to that party which is prosperous when there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are upon the thousand hills. i belong to that party which is prosperous when the furnaces are aflame, and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when everybody has enough to eat; when everybody is happy; when the children are all going to school, and when joy covers my nation as with a garment. that party which is prosperous then, is my party. now, then, i have been telling you what i am for. i am for free speech, and so ought you to be. i am for an honest ballot, and if you are not you ought to be. i am for the collection of the revenue. i am for honest money. i am for the idea that this is a nation forever. i believe in protecting american labor. i want the shield of my country above every anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every deft hand of american labor. now, then, which section of this country will be the more apt to carry these ideas into execution? which party will be the more apt to achieve these grand and splendid things? honor bright? now we have not only to choose between sections of the country; we have to choose between parties. here is the democratic party, and i admit there are thousands of good democrats who went to the war, and some of those that stayed at home were good men; and i want to ask you, and i want you to tell me in reply what that party did during the war when the war democrats were away from home. what did they do? that is the question. i say to you, that every man who tried to tear our flag out of heaven was a democrat. the men who wrote the ordinances of secession, who fired upon fort sumter; the men who starved our soldiers, who fed them with the crumbs that the worms had devoured before, they were democrats. the keepers of libby, the keepers of andersonville, were democrats--libby and andersonville, the two mighty wings that will bear the memory of the confederacy to eternal infamy! the men who wished to scatter yellow fever in the north and who tried to fire the great cities of the north--they were all democrats. he who said that the greenback would never be paid and he who slandered sixty cents out of every dollar of the nation's promises were democrats. who were joyful when your brothers and your sons and your fathers lay dead on a field of battle that the country had lost? they were democrats. the men who wept when the old banner floated in triumph above the ramparts of rebellion--they were democrats. you know it. the men who wept when slavery was destroyed, who believed slavery to be a divine institution, who regarded bloodhounds as apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the funeral of that infernal institution--they were democrats. bad company--bad company! and let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. do not give new blood to that institution. the democratic party has a yellow passport. on one side it says "dangerous." they imagine they have not changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. that party was once the enemy of my country, was once the enemy of our flag, and more than that, it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that party to-night is not willing that the citizens of the republic should exercise all their rights irrespective of their color. and allow me to say right here that i am opposed to that party. we have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between candidates. the democracy have put forward as the bearers of their standard general hancock and william h. english. the democrats have at last nominated a union soldier. they nominated george b. mcclellan once, because he failed to whip the south; they nominated mr. greeley, when they despised him, and now they have nominated general hancock. do they think the south loves him? at gettysburg they say he fought against them, and that is one great reason why he should be president--that he shot rebels. do the men that fought at gettysburg still believe in state sovereignty? wade hampton says, "we must vote as lee and jackson fought." they fought for state sovereignty. has the south changed? hancock went to kill them then; they want to vote for him now. who has changed? [a voice: "hancock."] i think so. they are using him as a figure-head. they have dressed him in the noble blue, with the patriotic coat and union buttons, and they do not like him any better than they did at gettysburg. it would be just as consistent for the republicans to have nominated wade hampton. did general hancock believe in state sovereignty when he was at gettysburg? if he did, he was a murderer, and not a union soldier--he was killing men he believed to be in the right, and a man cannot fight unless his conscience approves of what his sword does, and if he was honest at that time, he did not believe in state sovereignty, and it seems to me he would hate to have the men who tried to destroy this government cheering him. all the glory he ever got was in the service of the republican party, and if he does not look out he will lose it all in the service of the democratic party. he had a conversation with general grant. it was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the department of the gulf. in that conversation he stated to general grant that he was opposed to "nigger domination." grant said to him, "we must obey the laws of congress. we are soldiers." and that meant, the military is not above the civil authority. and i tell you to-night, that the army and the navy are the right and left hands of the civil power. grant said to him: "three or four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and property." general hancock replied to that: "i am opposed to 'nigger domination.'" allow me to say that i do not believe any man fit for the presidency of the great republic, who is capable of insulting a down-trodden race. i never meet a negro that i do not feel like asking his forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. i remember that from the white man he received for two hundred years agony and tears; i remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast of a mother; i remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed upon all the holy relations of life; and i do not feel like insulting the colored man; i feel rather like asking the forgiveness of his race for the crimes that my race have put upon him. "nigger domination!" what a fine scabbard that makes for the sword of gettysburg! it won't do! what is general hancock for, besides the presidency? how does he stand upon the great questions affecting american prosperity? he told us the other day that the tariff is a local question. the tariff affects every man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says it is a local question. so is death. he also told us that he heard that question discussed once, in pennsylvania. he must have been eavesdropping. and he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as nature lasts. then senator randolph wrote him a letter. i do not know whether senator randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse than the first interview; and i understand now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at governor's island, upon the great subject of the tariff. it won't do! they say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying southern pensions and southern claims. he says that a man that fought against this government has no right to a pension. good! i say a man that fought against this government has no right to office. if a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [a voice--"how about longstreet?"] longstreet has repented of what he did. longstreet admits that he was wrong. and there was no braver officer in the southern confederacy. every man of the south who will say, "i made a mistake"--i do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong--all i ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the south to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and forever, he is for this being a nation. i will take him by the hand. but while he is attempting to do at the ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, i am against him; while he uses a northern general to bait a southern trap, i won't bite. i will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but while they insist that they were right, while they insist that state sovereignty is the proper doctrine, i am opposed to their climbing into power. hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, "you can not trust that party, but you can trust me." he says, "look at them; i admit they are a hungry lot; i admit that they haven't had a bite in twenty years; i admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. but between that vast appetite known as the democratic party, and the public treasury, i will throw the shield of my veto." no man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. the veto power is a distinction with which the constitution has clothed the executive, and no president has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question. but he agrees in advance. i would rather trust a party than a man. death may veto hancock, and death has not been a successful politician in the united states. tyler, fillmore, andy johnson--i do not wish death to elect any more presidents; and if he does, and if hancock is elected, william h. english becomes president of the united states. no, no, no! all i need to say about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. you do not want him. whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or not i do not know, and i will not give currency to a solitary word against the reputation of an american citizen unless i know it to be true. what i have against him is what he has done in public life. when charles sumner, that great and splendid publicist--charles sumner, the philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to the history of the future--when he stood up in the united states senate and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast. that man was a member of congress, and when a resolution was introduced in the house, to expel that man, william h. english voted "no." all the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. that is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, never, never, never would i vote for a man that would defend the assassin of free speech. general hancock, they tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has had to spare from war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given to the constitution of his country; showing under what circumstances a major-general can put at defiance the congress of the united states. it won't do! but while i am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he never will be president of the united states. now, i say that a man who in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of june, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again pursues the avocations of peace--that man is just as good, to say the least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other folks. to say the least of it, he is as good. the republicans have named as their standard bearers james a. garfield and chester a. arthur. james a. garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of chickamauga as much glory as any one man could carry. he is not only a soldier-- -he is a statesman. he has studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the american people. his opinions are well known, and i say to you tonight that there is not in this nation, there is not in this republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than james a. garfield. i know him and i like him. i know him as well as any other public man, and i like him. the democratic party say that he is not honest. i have been reading some democratic papers to-day, and you would say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. they tell me that james a. garfield is not honest. are you a democrat? your party tried to steal nearly half of this country. your party stole the armament of a nation. your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. you have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a motion of honesty. james a. garfield has been at the head of the most important committees of congress; he is a member of the most important one of the whole house. he has no peer in the congress of the united states. and you know it. he is the leader of the house. with one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. i know him and i like him. he is as genial as may and he is as generous as autumn. and the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man. several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. and these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "if you don't stop i will throw it back at you." and a little fellow said, "you can't do it without dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway." i never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that th day of october when i found that between an honest and a kingly man and his maligners, two great states had thrown their shining shields. when ohio said, "garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of ohio a grander man"--and when indiana held up her hands and said, "allow me to indorse that verdict," i was profoundly happy, because that said to me, "garfield will carry every northern state;" that said to me, "the solid south will be confronted by a great and splendid north." i know garfield--i like him. some people have said, "how is it that you support garfield, when he was a minister?" "how is it that you support garfield when he is a christian?" i will tell you. there are two reasons. the first is i am not a bigot; and secondly, james a. garfield is not a bigot. he believes in giving to every other human being every right he claims for himself. he believes in freedom of speech and freedom of thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. he believes in an absolute divorce between church and state. he believes that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its persuasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the sword of civil power. he disagrees with me in many things; but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. i want to do equal and exact justice everywhere. i want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and i wish to say to you, [turning toward mr. beecher and directly addressing him] that i thank you for what you have said to-night, and to congratulate the people of this city and country that you have intellectual horizon enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand of a man, howsoever much he may disagree in some things with you, on the grand platform and broad principle of citizenship. james a. garfield, believing with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does, is perfectly satisfactory to me. i know him, and i like him. men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his shoes. he is a man of brain. since his nomination he must have made forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. he has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the american people. he is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and who has never made a mistake. i will tell you why he does not make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. because he was guided by the glittering northern star of principle. lie after lie has been told about him. slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air, with its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie is a forgery. i saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon the chinese question. i know his writing; i know his signature; i am well acquainted with his writing. i know handwriting, and i tell you to-night, that letter and that signature are forgeries. a forgery for the benefit of the pacific states; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the american workingman that garfield is without heart. i tell you, my fellow-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. but ohio pierced their centre and indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot re-form with a forgery for a standard. they are gone! now, some people say to me, "how long are you going to preach the doctrine of hate?" i never did preach it. in many states of this union it is a crime to be a republican. i am going to preach my doctrine until every american citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every state of this union. i am going to preach my doctrine until this is a civilized country. that is all. i will treat the gentlemen of the south precisely as we do the gentlemen of the north. i want to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours-. i want to improve their rivers and their harbors; i want to fill their land with commerce; i want them to prosper; i want them to build schoolhouses; i want them to open the lands to immigration to all people who desire to settle upon their soil. i want to be friends with them; i want to let the past be buried forever; i want to let bygones be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and eternal justice. i am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. let us stand by our colors; let the old republican party that has made this a nation--the old republican party that has saved the financial honor of this country--let that party stand by its colors. let that party say, "free speech forever!" let that party say, "an honest ballot forever!" let that party say, "honest money forever! the nation and the flag forever!" and let that party stand by the great men carrying her banner, james a. garfield and chester a. arthur. i would rather trust a party than a man. if general garfield dies, the republican party lives; if general garfield dies, general arthur will take his place--a brave, honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every republican can rely. and if he dies, the republican party lives, and as long as the republican party does not die, the great republic will live. as long as the republican party lives, this will be the asylum of the world. let me tell you, mr. irishman, this is the only country on the earth where irishmen have had enough to eat. let me tell you, mr. german, that you have more liberty here than you had in the fatherland. let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity. oh! i love the old republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide air, domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. i love the republic; i love it because i love liberty. liberty is my religion, and at its altar i worship, and will worship. address to the th illinois regiment. * this is only a fragment of a speech made by col. ingersoll at peoria, ., in , to the th illinois regiment, at their anniversary meeting. peoria, ills. . the history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream. it seems almost impossible that the events that have now passed into history ever happened. that hundreds of thousands of men, born and reared under one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in truth, the same interests, should have met upon the terrible field of death, and for four long years should have fought with a bitterness and determination never excelled; that they should have filled our land with orphans and widows, and made our country hollow with graves, is indeed wonderful; but that the people of the south should have thus fought--thus attempted to destroy and overthrow the government founded by the heroes of the revolution--merely for the sake of perpetuating the infamous institution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief. strange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to fight against freedom and to die for slavery! it is most wonderful that the terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of the republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings over our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war and eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are to-day, with the same determination that characterized them in battle, engaged in effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of war. but the progress we have made as a people is if possible still more astonishing. we pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended slavery. we quoted the declaration of independence and voted for the compromise of . from servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. we were tyrants. we are liberators. we were slave-catchers. we are now the chivalrous breakers of chains. from slavery, over a bloody and terrible path, we have marched to freedom. hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of justice--the defenders of the right--the pillar upon which rests the hope of the world. to whom are we indebted for this wonderful change? most of all to you, the soldiers of the great republic. we thank you that the hands of time were not turned back a thousand years--that the dark ages did not again come upon the world--that prometheus was not again chained--that the river of progress was not stopped or stayed--that the dear blood shed during all the past was not rendered vain--that the sublime faith of all the grand and good did not become a bitter dream, but a reality more glorious than ever entered into the imagination of the rapt heroes of the past. soldiers of the eighty-sixth illinois, we thank you, and through you all the defenders of the republic, living and dead. we thank you that the deluge of blood has subsided, that the ark of our national safety is at rest, that the dove has returned with the olive branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of war are in the far distance, covered with the beautiful bow. in the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of freedom, in the name of america, in the name of the oppressed of the whole world, we thank you again and again. we thank you, that in the darkest hour you never despaired of the republic, that you were not dismayed, that through disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine, through the serried ranks of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you marched resolutely, unflinchingly and bravely forward. forward through shot and shell! forward through fire and sword! forward past the corpses of your brave comrades, buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands of heroes! forward past the scattered bones of starved captives! forward through the glittering bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the guns! forward through the din and roar and smoke and hell of war! onward through blood and fire to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and complete victory, and from the top your august hands unfurled to the winds the old banner of the stars, and it waves in triumph now, and shall forever, from the st. lawrence to the rio grande, and from the atlantic to the pacific! we thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn are not trodden down beneath the bloody feet of invasion--that our homes are not ashes--that our hearthstones are not desolate--that our towns and cities still stand, that our temples and institutions of learning are secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more than all, we thank you that the republic still lives; that law and order reign supreme; that the constitution is still sacred; that a republican government has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a certainty for all time; that we have by your heroism established the sublime and shining truth that a government by the people, for the people, can and will stand until governments cease among men; that you have given the lie to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and that you have firmly established the republic upon the great ideas of national unity and human liberty. we thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and beautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our money, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations of the earth. we thank you for every state redeemed, for every star brought back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you for the grand future that you have opened for us and for our children through all the ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children, but for mankind. thanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed of the old world; the arms of our charity are still open, we still beckon them across the sea, and they come in multitudes,'leaving home, the graves of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with their wives and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which the sun shines--and with their countless hands of labor add to the wealth, the permanence and the glory of our country. and let them come from the land of luther, of hampden and emmett. whoever is for freedom and the sacred rights of man is a true american, and as such, we welcome them all. we thank you to-day in the name of four millions of people, whose shackles you have so nobly and generously broken, and who, from the condition of beasts of burden, have by your efforts become men. we thank you in the name of this poor and hitherto despised and insulted race, and say that their emancipation was, and is, the crowning glory of this most terrible war. peace without liberty could have been only a bloody delusion and a snare. freedom is peace; slavery is war. we must act justly and honorably with these emancipated men, knowing that the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. we must do what is best for both races. we must not be controlled merely by party. if the government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the shock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the rights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men. we thank you for the lesson that has been taught the old world by your patriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned that sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings crownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death, the chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles of superstition from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution will fly from the earth, and the banner of universal freedom, with the words "civil and religious liberty for the world" written upon every fold, blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under the whole heavens. we thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future, and will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. we will gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last moments with our gratitude. we will follow you tearfully to the narrow house of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and purest marble. the hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the chisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the heroic saviors of the great republic. such ground will be holy, and future generations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your heroic examples, patience and fortitude from your sufferings, and strength eternal from your success. i cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. it seems to me as though their spirits ought to hover over you to-day--that they might join with us in giving thanks for the great victory,--that their faces might grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,--that the living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their sufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are suffused with tears. then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their sons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans asking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that while they can say "my country," they cannot say "my son," "my husband," or "my father." my heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far away from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor pieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings i enjoy to-day. shall i recount their sufferings? they were starved day by day with a systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage tribes. they were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and then they slowly faded and wasted from life. some were released from their sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered lips, their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel of death. and thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their ears; the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their dying comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery. and what shall i say more of the regiment before me? it is enough that you were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for america and mankind. it is but just, however, to say that you were at the bloody field of perryville, that you stood with thomas at chickamauga and kept at bay the rebel host, that you marched to the relief of knoxville through bitter cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that heroic garrison. it is but just to say that you were with sherman in his wonderful march through the heart of the confederacy; that you were in the terrible charge at kenesaw mountain, and held your ground for days within a few steps of the rebel fortifications; that you were at atlanta and took part in the terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously through her streets; that you were at savannah; that you had the honor of being present when johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde laid down their arms; that from there you marched to washington and beneath the shadow of the glorious dome of our capitol, that lifts from the earth as though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national ovation recorded in the annals of the world. decoration day oration. * at the memorial celebration of the grand army of the republic last evening the academy of music was filled to overflowing, within a few minutes after the opening of the doors. gen. hancock was the first arrival of importance. the governor's island band accepted this as a signal for the overture. the academy was tastefully decorated. the three balconies were covered, the first with blue cloth, the second with white and national bunting, studded with the insignia of the original thirteen states, and the family circle with red. over the centre of the stage the national flag and device hung suspended, and was held in its place by flying streamers extending to the boxes. the latter were draped with flags, relieved by antique armor and weapons-- shields, casques and battle axes and crossed swords and pikes. at . the curtain slowly rose, and discovered to the view of the audience, a second audience reaching back to the farthest depths of the scenes. these were the fortunate holders of stage tickets, and comprised a great number of distinguished men. among them were noticed gen. horace porter, gen. lloyd aspinwall, gen. daniel butterfield, gen. d. d. wylie, gen. charles roome, gen. w. palmer, gen. john cochrane, gen. h. g. tremaine, the hon. edward pierrepont, dep't. commander james m. fraser, the hon. carl schurz, august belmont, henry clews, dr. lewis a. sayre, charles scribner, jesse seligman, william dowa, henry bergh and george william curtis. gen. bamum came upon the stage followed by president arthur, gen's. grant and hancock, secretaries folger and brewster, ex-senator roscoe conkling, mayor grace and the rev. j. p. newman. gen. hancock's brilliant uniform made him a very conspicuous figure, and he served as a foil to the plain evening dress of gen. grant, who was separated from him by the portly form of the president. gen. james mcquade, the president of the day, rose and uncovering a flag which draped a sort of patriotic altar in front of him, announced that it was the genuine flag upon which was written the famous order, "if any man pull down the american flag, shoot him on the spot.' * this was the signal for round after round of applause, while gen. mcquade waved this precious relic of the past. the time had now come for the introduction of the orator of the evening, col. robert g. ingersoll. col. ingersoll stepped across the stage to the reading desk, and was received with an ovation of cheering and waving of handkerchiefs. after the enthusiasm had somewhat abated, a gentleman in one of the boxes shouted: "three-cheers for ingersoll." these were given with a will, the excitement quieted down and the orator spoke as follows '.--the new york times. may st, . new york city. . this day is sacred to our heroes dead. upon their tombs we have lovingly laid the wealth of spring. this is a day for memory and tears. a mighty nation bends above its honored graves, and pays to noble dust the tribute of its love. gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the heart. to-day we tell the history of our country's life--recount the lofty deeds of vanished years--the toil and suffering, the defeats and victories of heroic men,--of men who made our nation great and free. we see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western sun. we feel the thrill of discovery when the new world was found. we see the oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men whose flesh had known the chill of chains--the adventurous, the proud, the brave, sailing an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown lands. we see the settlements, the little clearings, the blockhouse and the fort, the rude and lonely huts. brave men, true women, builders of homes, fellers of forests, founders of states. separated from the old world,--away from the heartless distinctions of caste,--away from sceptres and titles and crowns, they governed themselves. they defended their homes; they earned their bread. each citizen had a voice, and the little villages became republics. slowly the savage was driven back. the days and nights were filled with fear, and the slow years with massacre and war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with blood of mothers and their babes. but the savages of the new world were kinder than the kings and nobles of the old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the places of the dead were filled. amid common dangers and common hopes, the prejudiced and feuds of europe faded slowly from their hearts. from every land, of every speech, driven by want and lured by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the mysterious continent of the west. year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered and increased. they began to talk about liberty--to reason of the rights of man. they * t asked no help from distant kings, and they began to doubt the use of paying tribute to the useless. they lost respect for dukes and lords, and held in high esteem all honest men. there was the dawn of a new day. they began to dream of independence. they found that they could make and execute the laws. they had tried the experiment of self-government. they had succeeded. the old world wished to dominate the new. in the care and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this continent--of half the world. on this day the story of the great struggle between colonists and kings should be told. we should tell our children of the contest--first for justice, then for freedom. we should tell them the history of the declaration of independence--the chart and compass of all human rights:--all men are equal, and have the right to life, to liberty and joy. this declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands of titled tyranny the sceptre of usurped and arbitrary power. it superseded royal grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a thousand years. it gave the peasant a career; it knighted all the sons of toil; it opened all the paths to fame, and put the star of hope above the cradle of the poor man's babe. england was then the mightiest of nations--mistress of every sea--and yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power. to-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters, the weary marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the agonies, and above all, the glories of the revolution. we remember all--from lexington to valley forge, and from that midnight of despair to yorktown's cloudless day. we remember the soldiers and thinkers--the heroes of the sword and pen. they had the brain and heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and defend these words: "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." in defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the war was waged and won. to-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and chivalric men who came from other lands to make ours free. of the many thousands who shared the gloom and glory of the seven sacred years, not one remains. the last has mingled with the earth, and nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked graves, and some beneath the leaning, crumbling stones from which their names have been effaced by time's irreverent and relentless hands. but the nation they founded remains. the united states are still free and independent. the "government derives its just power from the consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with gratitude the heroes of the revolution. let us be truthful; let us be kind. when peace came, when the independence of a new nation was acknowledged, the great truth for which our fathers fought was half denied, and the constitution was inconsistent with the declaration. the war was waged for liberty, and yet the victors forged new fetters for their fellow-men. the chains our fathers broke were put by them upon the limbs of others. "freedom for all" was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, through seven years of want and war. in peace the cloud was forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen. let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to themselves. in war they had been generous, noble and self-sacrificing; with peace came selfishness and greed. they were not great enough to appreciate the grandeur of the principles for which they fought. they ceased to regard the great truths as having universal application. "liberty for all" included only themselves. they qualified the declaration. they interpolated the word "white." they obliterated the word "all." let us be kind. we will remember the age in which they lived. we will compare them with the citizens of other nations. they made merchandise of men. they legalized a crime. they sowed the seeds of war. but they founded this nation. let us gratefully remember. let us gratefully forget. to-day we remember the heroes of the second war with england, in which our fathers fought for the freedom of the seas--for the rights of the american sailor. we remember with pride the splendid victories of erie and champlain and the wondrous achievements upon the sea--achievements that covered our navy with a glory that neither the victories nor defeats of the future can dim. we remember the heroic services and sufferings of those who fought the merciless savage of the frontier. we see the midnight massacre, and hear the war-cries of the allies of england. we see the flames climb around the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children. peace came at last, crowned with the victory of new orleans--a victory that "did redeem all sorrows" and all defeats. the revolution gave our fathers a free land--the war of a free sea. to-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in triumph from the rio grande to the heights of chapultepec. leaving out of question the justice of our cause--the necessity for war--we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous courage of our troops. a handful of men, brave, impetuous, determined, irresistible, conquered a nation. our history has no record of more daring deeds. again peace came, and the nation hoped and thought that strife was at an end. we had grown too powerful to be attacked. our resources were boundless, and the future seemed secure. the hardy pioneers moved to the great west. beneath their ringing strokes the forests disappeared, and on the prairies waved the billowed seas of wheat and corn. the great plains were crossed, the mountains were conquered, and the foot of victorious adventure pressed the shore of the pacific. in the great north all the streams went singing to the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting shuttles back and forth. inventions were springing like magic from a thousand brains. from labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and flame, and from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke. but in the south, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept while babes were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives speechlessly looked the last good-bye. fugitives, lighted by the northern star, sought liberty on english soil, and were, by northern men, thrust back to whip and chain. the great statesmen, the successful politicians, announced that law had compromised with crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had barred appeal. a race was left without a right, without a hope. the future had no dawn, no star--nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but work and want. this, was the conclusion of the statesmen, the philosophy of the politicians--of constitutional expounders:--this was decided by courts and ratified by the nation. we had been successful in three wars. we had wrested thirteen colonies from great britain. we had conquered our place upon the high seas. we had added more than two millions of square miles to the national domain. we had increased in population from three to thirty-one millions. we were in the midst of plenty. we were rich and free. ours appeared to be the most prosperous of nations. but it was only appearance. the statesmen and the politicians were deceived. real victories can be won only for the right. the triumph of justice is the only peace. such is the nature of things. he who enslaves another cannot be free. he who attacks the right, assaults himself. the mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. the foundations of the republic were insecure. the great dome of the temple was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones were crumbling. four millions of human beings were enslaved. party cries had been mistaken for principles--partisanship for patriotism--success for justice. but pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves; mercy heard the sobs of mothers reft of babes, and justice held aloft the scales, in which one drop of blood shed by a master's lash, outweighed a nation's gold. there were a few men, a few women, who had the courage to attack this monstrous crime. they found it entrenched in constitutions, statutes, and decisions--barricaded and bastioned by every department and by every party. politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys, judges its menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had been sacrificed our country's honor. it was the crime of the nation--of the whole country--north and south responsible alike. to-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. earth has no grander men--no nobler women. they were the real philanthropists, the true patriots. when the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death,--this is heroism. the abolitionists were heroes. he loves his country best who strives to make it best. the bravest men are those who have the greatest fear of doing wrong. mere politicians wish the country to do something for them. true patriots desire to do something for their country. courage without conscience is a wild beast. patriotism without principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to place. these men, these women, had courage and conscience, patriotism and principle, heart and brain. the south relied upon the bond,--upon a barbarous clause that stained, disfigured and defiled the federal pact, and made the monstrous claim that slavery was the nation's ward. the spot of shame grew red in northern cheeks, and northern men declared that slavery had poisoned, cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and that the territories must be free. the radicals of the south cried: "no union without slavery!" the radicals of the north replied: "no union without liberty!" the northern radicals were right. upon the great issue of free homes for free men, a president was elected by the free states. the south appealed to the sword, and raised the standard of revolt. for the first time in history the oppressors rebelled. but let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals,--great enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was rebellion, that slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and strand the mighty ship that bears the hope and fortune of this world. the first shot liberated the north. constitution, statutes and decisions, compromises, platforms, and resolutions made, passed, and ratified in the interest of slavery became mere legal lies, base and baseless. parchment and paper could no longer stop or stay the onward march of man. the north was free. millions instantly resolved that the nation should not die--that freedom should not perish, and that slavery should not live. millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands, answered to the nation's call. the great armies have desolated the earth. the greatest soldiers have been ambition's dupes. they waged war for the sake of place and pillage, pomp and power,--for the ignorant applause of vulgar millions,--for the flattery of parasites, and the adulation of sycophants and slaves. let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the grandest, the noblest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but to free; not to destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for conscience; not only for us, but for every land and every race. with courage, with enthusiasm, with a devotion' never excelled, with an exaltation and purity of purpose never equaled, this grand army fought the battles of the republic. for the preservation of this nation, for the destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these sailors, on land and sea, disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no danger, neither paused nor swerved until a stainless flag, without a rival, floated over all our wide domain, and until every human being beneath its folds was absolutely free. the great victory for human rights--the greatest of all the years--had been won; won by the union men of the north, by the union men of the south, and by those who had been slaves. liberty was national, slavery was dead. the flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is the symbol of all we are, of all we hope to be. it is the emblem of equal rights. it means free hands, free lips, self-government and the sovereignty of the individual. it means that this continent has been dedicated to freedom. it means universal education,--light for every mind, knowledge for every child. it means that the schoolhouse is the fortress of liberty. it means that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" that each man is accountable to and for the government; that responsibility goes hand in hand with liberty. it means that it is the duty of every citizen to bear his share of the public burden,--to take part in the affairs of his town, his county, his state and his country. it means that the ballot-box is the ark of the covenant; that the source of authority must not be poisoned. it means the perpetual right of peaceful revolution. it means that every citizen of the republic--native or naturalized--must be protected; at home, in every state,--abroad, in every land, on every sea. it means that all distinctions based on birth or blood, have perished from our laws; that our government shall stand between labor and capital, between the weak and the strong, between the individual and the corporation, between want and wealth, and give the guarantee of simple justice to each and all. it means that there shall be a legal remedy for every wrong. it means national hospitality,--that we must welcome to our shores the exiles of the world, and that we may not drive them back. some may be deformed by labor, dwarfed by hunger, broken in spirit, victims of tyranny and caste,--in whose sad faces may be read the touching record of a weary life; and yet their children, born of liberty and love, will be symmetrical and fair, intelligent and free. that flag is the emblem of a supreme will--of a nation's power. beneath its folds the weakest must be protected and the strongest must obey. it shields and canopies alike the loftiest mansion and the rudest hut. that flag was given to the air in the revolution's darkest days. it represents the sufferings of the past, the glories yet to be; and like the bow of heaven, it is the child of storm and sun. this day is sacred to the great heroic host who kept this flag above our heads,--sacred to the living and the dead--sacred to the scarred and maimed,--sacred to the wives who gave their husbands, to the mothers who gave their sons. here in this peaceful land of ours,--here where the sun shines, where flowers grow, where children play, millions of armed men battled for the right and breasted on a thousand fields the iron storms of war. these brave, these incomparable men, founded the first republic. they fulfilled the prophecies; they brought to pass the dreams; they realized the hopes, that all the great and good and wise and just have made and had since man was man. but what of those who fell? there is no language to express the debt we owe, the love we bear, to all the dead who died for us. words are but barren sounds. we can but stand beside their graves and in the hush and silence feel what speech has never told. they fought, they died; and for the first time since man has kept a record of events, the heavens bent above and domed a land without a serf, a servant or a slave. decoration day address. * empty sleeves worn by veterans with scanty locks and grizzled mustaches graced the metropolitan opera house last night. on the breasts of their faded uniforms glittered the badges of the legions in which they had fought and suffered, and beside them sat the wives and daughters, whose hearts had ached at home while they served their country at the front. every seat in the great opera house was filled, and hundreds stood, glad to and any place where they could see and hear. and the gathering and the proceedings were worthy of the occasion. mr. depew upon taking the chair said that he had the chief treat of the evening to present to the audience, and that was robert g. ingersoll, the greatest living orator, and one of the great controversialists of the age. then came the orator of the occasion col. ingersoll, whose speech is printed herewith. enthusiastic cheers greeted all his points, and his audience simply went wild at the end. it was a grand oration, and it was listened to by enthusiastic and appreciative hearers, upon whom not a single word was lost, and in whose hearts every word awoke a responsive echo. nor did the enthusiasm which col. ingersoll created end until the very last, when the whole assemblage arose and sang "america" in a way which will never be forgotten by any one present. it was a great ending of a great evening.--the new york times, may st, . new york city. . this is a sacred day--a day for gratitude and love. to-day we commemorate more than independence, more than the birth of a nation, more than the fruits of the revolution, more than physical progress, more than the accumulation of wealth, more than national prestige and power. we commemorate the great and blessed victory over ourselves--the triumph of civilization, the reformation of a people, the establishment of a government consecrated to the preservation of liberty and the equal rights of man. nations can win success, can be rich and powerful, can cover the earth with their armies, the seas with their fleets, and yet be selfish, small and mean. physical progress means opportunity for doing good. it means responsibility. wealth is the end of the despicable, victory the purpose of brutality. but there is something nobler than all these--something that rises above wealth and power--something above lands and palaces--something above raiment and gold--it is the love of right, the cultivation of the moral nature, the desire to do justice, the inextinguishable love of human liberty. nothing can be nobler than a nation governed by conscience, nothing more infamous than power without pity, wealth without honor and without the sense of justice. only by the soldiers of the right can the laurel be won or worn. on this day we honor the heroes who fought to make our nation just and free--who broke the shackles of the slave, who freed the masters of the south and their allies of the north. we honor chivalric men who made america the hope and beacon of the human race--the foremost nation of the world. these heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated that a government in which the legally expressed will of the people is sovereign and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest, noblest and the best. they demonstrated the human right of the people, and of all the people, to make and execute the laws--that authority does not come from the clouds, or from ancestry, or from the crowned and titled, or from constitutions and compacts, laws and customs--not from the admissions of the great, or the concessions of the powerful and victorious--not from graves, or consecrated dust--not from treaties made between successful robbers--not from the decisions of corrupt and menial courts--not from the dead, but from the living--not from the past but from the present, from the people of to-day--from the brain, from the heart and from the conscience of those who live and love and labor. the history of this world for the most part is the history of conflict and war, of invasion, of conquest, of victorious wrong, of the many enslaved by the few. millions have fought for kings, for the destruction and enslavement of their fellow-men. millions have battled for empire, and great armies have been inspired by the hope of pillage; but for the first time in the history of this world millions of men battled for the right, fought to free not themselves, but others, not for prejudice, but for principle, not for conquest, but for conscience. the men whom we honor were the liberators of a nation, of a whole country, north and south--of two races. they freed the body and the brain, gave liberty to master and to slave. they opened all the highways of thought, and gave to fifty millions of people the inestimable legacy of free speech. they established the free exchange of thought. they gave to the air a flag without a stain, and they gave to their country a constitution that honest men can reverently obey. they destroyed the hateful, the egotistic and provincial--they established a nation, a national spirit, a national pride and a patriotism as broad as the great republic. they did away with that ignorant and cruel prejudice that human rights depend on race or color, and that the superior race has the right to oppress the inferior. they established the sublime truth that the superior are the just, the kind, the generous, and merciful--that the really superior are the protectors, the defenders, and the saviors of the oppressed, of the fallen, the unfortunate, the weak and helpless. they established that greatest of all truths that nothing is nobler than to labor and suffer for others. if we wish to know the extent of our debt to these heroes, these soldiers of the right, we must know what we were and what we are. a few years ago we talked about liberty, about the freedom of the world, and while so talking we enslaved our fellow-men. we were the stealers of babes and the whippers of women. we were in partnership with bloodhounds. we lived on unpaid labor. we held manhood in contempt. honest toil was disgraceful--sympathy was a crime--pity was unconstitutional--humanity contrary to law, and charity was treason. men were imprisoned for pointing out in heaven's dome the northern star--for giving food to the hungry, water to the parched lips of thirst, shelter to the hunted, succor to the oppressed. in those days criminals and courts, pirates and pulpits were in partnership--liberty was only a word standing for the equal rights of robbers. for many years we insisted that our fathers had founded a free government, that they were the lovers of liberty, believers in equal rights. we were mistaken. the colonists did not believe in the freedom of to-day. their laws were filled with intolerance, with slavery and the infamous spirit of caste. they persecuted and enslaved. most of them were narrow, ignorant and cruel. for the most part, their laws were more brutal than those of the nations from which they came. they branded the forehead of intelligence, bored with hot irons the tongue of truth. they persecuted the good and enslaved the helpless. they were believers in pillories and whipping-posts for honest, thoughtful men. when their independence was secured they adopted a constitution that legalized slavery, and they passed laws making it the duty of free men to prevent others from becoming free. they followed the example of kings and nobles. they knew that monarchs had been interested in the slave trade, and that the first english commander of a slave-ship divided his profits with a queen. they forgot all the splendid things they had said--the great principles they had so proudly and eloquently announced. the sublime truths faded from their hearts. the spirit of trade, the greed for office, took possession of their souls. the lessons of history were forgotten. the voices coming from all the wrecks of kingdoms, empires and republics on the shores of the great river were unheeded and unheard. if the foundation is not justice, the dome cannot be high enough, or splendid enough, to save the temple. but above everything in the minds of our fathers was the desire for union--to create a nation, to become a power. our fathers compromised. a compromise is a bargain in which each party defrauds the other, and himself. the compromise our fathers made was the coffin of honor and the cradle of war. a brazen falsehood and a timid truth are the parents of compromise. but some--the greatest and the best--believed in liberty for all. they repeated the splendid sayings of the roman: "by the law of nature all men are free;"--of the french king: "men are born free and equal;"--of the sublime zeno: "all men are by nature equal, and virtue alone establishes a difference between them." in the year preceding the declaration of independence, a society for the abolition of slavery was formed in pennsylvania and its first president was one of the wisest and greatest of men--benjamin franklin. a society of the same character was established in new york in ; its first president was john jay--the second, alexander hamilton. but in a few years these great men were forgotten. parties rivaled each other in the defence of wrong. politicians cared only for place and power. in the clamor of the heartless, the voice of the generous was lost. slavery became supreme. it dominated legislatures, courts and parties; it rewarded the faithless and little; it degraded the honest and great. and yet, through all these hateful years, thousands and thousands of noble men and women denounced the degradation and the crime. most of their names are unknown. they have given a glory to obscurity. they have filled oblivion with honor. in the presence of death it has been the custom to speak of the worthlessness, and the vanity, of life. i prefer to speak of its value, of its importance, of its nobility and glory. life is not merely a floating shadow, a momentary spark, a dream that vanishes. nothing can be grander than a life filled with great and noble thoughts--with brave and honest deeds. such a life sheds light, and the seeds of truth sown by great and loyal men bear fruit through all the years to be. to have lived and labored and died for the right--nothing can be sublimer. history is but the merest outline of the exceptional--of a few great crimes, calamities, wars, mistakes and dramatic virtues. a few mountain peaks are touched, while all the valleys of human life, where countless victories are won, where labor wrought with love--are left in the eternal shadow. but these peaks are not the foundation of nations. the forgotten words, the unrecorded deeds, the unknown sacrifices, the heroism, the industry, the patience, the love and labor of the nameless good and great have for the most part founded, guided and defended states. the world has been civilized by the unregarded poor, by the untitled nobles, by the uncrowned kings who sleep in unknown graves mingled with the common dust. they have thought and wrought, have borne the burdens of the world. the pain and labor have been theirs--the glory has been given to the few. the conflict came. the south unsheathed the sword. then rose the embattled north, and these men who sleep to-night beneath the flowers of half the world, gave all for us. they gave us a nation--a republic without a slave--a republic that is sovereign, and to whose will every citizen and every state must bow. they gave us a constitution for all--one that can be read without shame and defended without dishonor. they freed the brain, the lips and hands of men. all that could be done by force was done. all that could be accomplished by the adoption of constitutions was done. the rest is left to education--the innumerable influences of civilization--to the development of the intellect, to the cultivation of the heart and the imagination. the past is now a hideous dream. the present is filled with pride, with gratitude, and hope. liberty is the condition of real progress. the free man works for wife and child--the slave toils from fear. liberty gives leisure and leisure refines, beautifies and ennobles. slavery gives idleness and idleness degrades, deforms and brutalizes. liberty and slavery--the right and wrong--the joy and grief--the day and night--the glory and the gloom of all the years. liberty is the word that all the good have spoken. it is the hope of every loving heart--the spark and flame in every noble breast--the gem in every splendid soul--the many-colored dream in every honest brain. this word has filled the dungeon with its holy light,--has put the halo round the martyr's head,--has raised the convict far above the king, and clad even the scaffold with a glory that dimmed and darkened every throne. to the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the torches of the present. the war is over. the institution that caused it has perished. the prejudices that fanned the flames are only ashes now. we are one people. we will stand or fall together. at last, with clear eyes we see that the triumph of right was a triumph for all. together we reap the fruits of the great victory. we are all conquerors. around the graves of the heroes--north and south, white and colored--together we stand and with uncovered heads reverently thank the saviors of our native land. we are now far enough away from the conflict--from its hatreds, its passions, its follies and its glories, to fairly and philosophically examine the causes and in some measure at least to appreciate the results. states and nations, like individuals, do as they must. back of revolution, of rebellion, of slavery and freedom, are the efficient causes. knowing this, we occupy that serene height from which it is possible to calmly pronounce a judgment upon the past. we know now that the seeds of our war were sown hundreds and thousands of years ago--sown by the vicious and the just, by prince and peasant, by king and slave, by all the virtues and by all the vices, by all the victories and all the defeats, by all the labor and the love, the loss and gain, by all the evil and the good, and by all the heroes of the world. of the great conflict we remember only its glory and its lessons. we remember only the heroes who made the republic the first of nations, and who laid the foundation for the freedom of mankind. this will be known as the century of freedom. slowly the hosts of darkness have been driven back. in england and the united states united for the suppression of the slave-trade. the netherlands joined in this holy work in . france lent her aid in and spain in . in the same year the united states declared the traffic to be piracy, and in the same law was enacted by great britain. in brazil agreed to suppress the traffic in human flesh. in england abolished slavery in the west indies, and in in her east indian possessions, giving liberty to more than twelve millions of slaves. in sweden abolished slavery, and in it was abolished in the colonies of denmark and france. in alexander ii., czar of all the russias, emancipated the serfs, and on the first day of january, , the shackles fell from millions of the citizens of this republic. this was accomplished by the heroes we remember to-day--this, in accordance with the proclamation of emancipation signed by lincoln,--greatest of our mighty dead--lincoln the gentle and the just--and whose name will be known and honored to "the last syllable of recorded time." and this year, , has been made blessed and memorable forever--in the vast empire of brazil there stands no slave. let us hope that when the next century looks from the sacred portals of the east, its light will only fall upon the faces of the free. * by request, col. ingersoll closed this address with his "vision of war," to which he added "a vision of the future." this accounts for its repetition in this volume. the past rises before me like a dream. again we are in the great struggle for national life. we hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. we see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. we lose sight of them no more. we are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. we see them part with those they love. some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. we hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. some are receiving the blessings of old men. some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. kisses and tears, tears and kisses--divine mingling of agony and love! and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. we see them part. we see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the sunlight sobbing. at the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. he is gone, and forever. we see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching-down the streets of the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. we go with them, one and all. we are by their side on all the gory fields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. we stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. we are with them in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. we are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. we see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. we are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured. we are at home when the news comes that they are dead. we see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. we see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. the past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. we see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. cruelty unspeakable! outrage infinite! four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. all the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. and all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. the past rises before us. we hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. the broken fetters fall. these heroes died. we look. instead of slaves we see men and women and children. the wand of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen, the whipping post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. these heroes are dead. they died for liberty--they died for us. they are at rest. they sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. they sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. in the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. i have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead. a vision of the future rises: i see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content,--the foremost land of all the earth. i see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust. the aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth. i see a world without a slave. man at last is free. nature's forces have by science been enslaved. lightning and light, wind and wave, frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and air are the tireless toilers for the human race. i see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in hand, where the poor girl trying to win bread with the needle--the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor,"--is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame. i see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. i see a race without disease of flesh or brain,--shapely and fair,--the married harmony of form and function,--and, as i look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope. ratification speech. * delivered at the metropolitan opera house, new york, june , . harrison and morton. . fellow-citizens, ladies and gentlemen--the speaker who is perfectly candid, who tells his honest thought, not only honors himself, but compliments his audience. it is only to the candid that man can afford to absolutely open his heart. most people, whenever a man is nominated for the presidency, claim that they were for him from the very start--as a rule, claim that they discovered him. they are so anxious to be with the procession, so afraid of being left, that they insist that they got exactly the man they wanted. i will be frank enough with you to say that the convention did not nominate my choice. i was for the nomination of general gresham, believing that, all things considered, he was the best and most available man--a just judge, a soldier, a statesman. but there is something in the american blood that bows to the will of the majority. there is that splendid fealty and loyalty to the great principle upon which our government rests; so that when the convention reached its conclusion, every republican was for the nominee. there were good men from which to select this ticket. i made my selection, and did the best i could to induce the convention to make the same. some people think, or say they think, that i made a mistake in telling the name of the man whom i was for. but i always know whom i am for, i always know what i am for, and i know the reasons why i am for the thing or for the man. and it never once occurred to me that we could get a man nominated, or elected, and keep his name a secret. when i am for a man i like to stand by him, even while others leave, no matter if at last i stand alone. i believe in doing things above board, in the light, in the wide air. no snake ever yet had a skin brilliant enough, no snake ever crawled through the grass secretly enough, silently or cunningly enough, to excite my admiration. my admiration is for the eagle, the monarch of the empyrean, who, poised on outstretched pinions, challenges the gaze of all the world. take your position in the sunlight; tell your neighbors and your friends what you are for, and give your reasons for your position; and if that is a mistake, i expect to live making only mistakes. i do not like the secret way, but the plain, open way; and i was for one man, not because i had anything against the others, who were all noble, splendid men, worthy to be presidents of the united states. now, then, leaving that subject, two parties again confront each other. with parties as with persons goes what we call character. they have built up in the nation in which they live reputation, and the reputation of a party should be taken into consideration as well as the reputation of a man. what is this party? what has it done? what has it endeavored to do? what are the ideas in its brain? what are the hopes, the emotions and the loves in its heart? does it wish to make the world grander and better and freer? has it a high ideal? does it believe in sunrise, or does it keep its back to the sacred east of eternal progress? these are the questions that every american should ask. every man should take pride in this great nation--america, with a star of glory in her forehead!--and every man should say, "i hope when i lie down in death i shall leave a greater and grander country than when i was born." this is the country of humanity. this is the government of the poor. this is where man has an even chance with his fellow-man. in this country the poorest man holds in his hand at the day of election the same unit, the same amount, of political power as the owner of a hundred millions. that is the glory of the united states. a few days ago our party met in convention. now, let us see who we are. let us see what the republican party is. let us see what is the spirit that animates this great and splendid organization. and i want you to think one moment, just one moment: what was this country when the first republican president was elected? under the law then, every northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human beings, who, led by the light of the northern star, were escaping to free soil. remember that. and remember, too, that when our first president was elected we found a treasury empty, the united states without credit, the great republic unable to borrow money from day to day to pay its current expenses. remember that. think of the glory and grandeur of the republican party that took the country with an empty exchequer, and then think of what the democratic party says to-day of the pain and anguish it has suffered administering the government with a surplus! we must remember what the republican party has done--what it has accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the civilization of our race. we must remember its courage in war, its honesty in peace. civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the stability and the patriotism of a country. after the war comes a greater strain. it is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater thing to live for it. we must remember that the republican party not only put down a rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and thousands of millions, but that it had the industry and the intelligence to pay that debt, and to give to the united states the best financial standing of any nation. when this great party came together in chicago what was the first thing the convention did? what was the first idea in its mind? it was to honor the memory of the greatest and grandest men the republic has produced. the first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of abraham lincoln--abraham lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest men who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat in the presidential chair. and why the greatest? because the kindest, because he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart of any other president. and so the convention paid its tribute to the great soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great army of freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch of american soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the eternal freedom of mankind. and what next did this convention do? the next thing was to send fraternal greetings to the americans of brazil. why? because brazil had freed every slave, and because that act left the new world, this hemisphere, without a slave--left two continents dedicated to the freedom of man--so that with that act of brazil the new world, discovered only a few years ago, takes the lead in the great march of human progress and liberty. that is the second thing the convention did. only a little while ago the minister to this country from brazil, acting under instructions from his government, notified the president of the united states that this sublime act had been accomplished--notified him that from the bodies of millions of men the chains of slavery had fallen--an act great enough to make the dull sky of half the world glow as though another morning had risen upon another day. and what did our president say? was he filled with enthusiasm? did his heart beat quicker? did the blood rush to his cheek? he simply said, as it is reported, "that he hoped time would justify the wisdom of the measure." it is precisely the same as though a man should quit a life of crime, as though some gentleman in the burglar business should finally announce to his friends: "i have made up my mind never to break into another house," and the friend should reply: "i hope that time will justify the propriety of that resolution." that was the first thing, with regard to the condition of the world, that came into the mind of the republican convention. and why was that? because the republican party has fought for liberty from the day of its birth to the present moment. and what was the next? the next resolution passed by the convention was, "that we earnestly hope, we shall soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule in ireland." wherever a human being wears a chain, there you will find the sympathy of the republican party. wherever one languishes in a dungeon for having raised the standard of revolt in favor of human freedom, there you will find the sympathy of the republican party. i believe in liberty for ireland, not because it is ireland, but because they are human beings, and i am for liberty, not as a prejudice, but as a principle. the man rightfully in jail who wants to get out is a believer in liberty as a prejudice; but when a man out of jail sees a man wrongfully in jail and is willing to risk his life to give liberty to the man who ought to have it, that is being in favor of liberty as a principle. so i am in favor of liberty everywhere, all over the world, and wherever one man tries to govern another simply because he has been born a lord or a duke or a king, or wherever one governs another simply by brute force, i say that that is oppression, and it is the business of americans to do all they can to give liberty to the oppressed everywhere. ireland should govern herself. those who till the soil should own the soil, or have an opportunity at least of becoming the owners. a few landlords should not live in extravagance and luxury while those who toil live on the leavings, on parings, on crumbs and crusts. the treatment of ireland by england has been one continuous crime. there is no meaner page in history. what is the next thing in this platform? and if there is anything in it that anybody can object to, we will find it out to-night. the next thing is the supremacy of the nation.-why, even the democrats now believe in that, and in their own platform are willing to commence that word with a capital n. they tell us that they are in favor of an indissoluble union--just as i presume they always have been. but they now believe in a union. so does the republican party. what else? the republican party believes, not in state sovereignty, but in the preservation of all the rights reserved to the states by the constitution. let me show you the difference: for instance, you make a contract with your neighbor who lives next door--equal partners--and at the bottom of the contract you put the following addition: "if there is any dispute as to the meaning of this contract, my neighbor shall settle it, and any settlement he shall make shall be final." is there any use of talking about being equal partners any longer? any use of your talking about being a sovereign partner? so, the constitution of the united states says: "if any question arises between any state and the federal government it shall be decided by a federal court." that is the end of what they call state sovereignty. think of a sovereign state that can make no treaty, that cannot levy war, that cannot coin money. but we believe in maintaining the rights of the states absolutely in their integrity, because we believe in local self-government. we deny, however, that a state has any right to deprive a citizen of his vote. we deny that the state has any right to violate the federal law, and we go further and we say that it is the duty of the general government to see to it that every citizen in every state shall have the right to exercise all of his privileges as a citizen of the united states--"the right of every lawful citizen," says our platform, "native or foreign, white or black, to cast a free ballot." let me say one word about that. the ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of america; it is the only rightful sovereign of the republic; and whoever refuses to count an honest vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the great principle upon which our government is founded. the man poisons, or endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of justice, of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can cast his vote everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are not a republican people, we are not a civilized nation. the republican party will not have finished its mission until this country is civilized. that is its business. it was born of a protest against barbarism. the republican party was the organized conscience of the united states. it had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. there is something better even than success in this world; or in other words, there is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. then whatever happens, you have succeeded. now, comes the next question. the republican party not only wants to protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants to have that vote counted. and what else? the next thing in this platform is protection for american labor. i am going to tell you in a very brief way why i am in favor of protection. first, i want this republic substantially independent of the rest of the world. you must remember that while people are civilized--some of them--so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other. there is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. so that this nation is not safe one moment from war. i want the republic so that it can live although at war with all the world. we have every kind of climate that is worth having. our country embraces the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. i want this nation substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. then, too, the nation that cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace. that is one reason. let me give you the next. the next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be eternally poor. there is no state in this union where the farmer raises wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. why? he only makes one profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. the farmer that raises corn does better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. in other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers get rich. there is a vast difference between the labor necessary to raise raw material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used by civilized men. remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw material your labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap, the raw material will be cheap, and the result is that your country will grow poorer and poorer, while the country that buys your raw material, makes it into fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent and rich. i want you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation of this whole subject. most people who talk on this point bring forward column after column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to be a walking table of logarithms. i do not care to discuss it that way. i want to get at the foundation principles, so that you can give a reason, as well as myself, why you are in favor of protection. let us take another step. we will take a locomotive--a wonderful thing--that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and breath of flame--a wonderful thing. let us see how it is made. did you ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate brains, that can make a thing like that? did you ever think about it? how much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth that was changed into that locomotive? a locomotive that is worth, we will say, twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth lying in the earth, deposited there millions of years ago? not as much as one dollar. let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars. what, then, has labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive? eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. now, why? because, just to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase; just to the extent you mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor; just to the extent that the labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that extent or in that proportion, is the product valuable. think about it. raw material! there is a piece of canvas five feet one way, three the other. raw material would be to get a man to whitewash it; that is raw material. let a man of genius paint a picture upon it; let him put in that picture the emotions of his heart, the landscapes that have made poetry in his brain, the recollection of the ones he loves, the prattle of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of her smile, and all the sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is worth five thousand dollars--ten thousand dollars. noise is raw material, but the great opera of "tristan and isolde" is the result of skilled labor. there is the same difference between simple brute strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the symphonies of beethoven. i want you to get this in your minds. now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. you raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the south does it and does nothing more the south will be poor, the south will be ignorant, and it will be solidly democratic. now, do not imagine that i am saying anything against the democratic party. i believe the democratic party is doing the best it can under the circumstances. you know my philosophy makes me very charitable. you find out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for his vote always. why? because there are causes and effects in nature. there are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation to each other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of events, you find these causes and effects, and if you only look far enough, you will know why a man does as he does. i have nothing to say against the democratic party. i want to talk against ideas, not against people. i do not care anything about their candidates, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. what, gentlemen, are your ideas? what do you propose to do? what is your policy? that is what i want to know, and i am willing to meet them upon the field of intellectual combat. they are in possession; they are in the rifle pits of office; we are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the flag that we love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which so many dying men have looked in the last hour when they thought of home and country--under that flag we will carry the democratic fortifications. another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will understand what we are doing. i do not believe in protecting american industry for the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class, but for the sake of the whole nation. and if i did not believe that it was for the best interests of the whole nation i should be opposed to it. let us take this next step. everybody, of course, cannot be a farmer. everybody cannot be a mechanic. all the people in the world cannot go at one business. we must have a diversity of industry. i say, the greater that diversity, the greater the development of brain in the country. we then have what you might call a mental exchange; men are then pursuing every possible direction in which the mind can go, and the brain is being developed upon all sides; whereas, if you all simply cultivated the soil, you would finally become stupid. if you all did only one business you would become ignorant; but by pursuing all possible avocations that call for taste, genius, calculation, discovery, ingenuity, invention--by having all these industries open to the american people, we will be able to raise great men and great women; and i am for protection, because it will enable us to raise greater men and greater women. not only because it will make more money in less time, but because i would rather have greater folks and less money. one man of genius makes a continent sublime. take all the men of wealth from scotland--who would know it? wipe their names from the pages of history, and who would miss them? nobody. blot out one name, robert burns, and how dim and dark would be the star of scotland. the great thing is to raise great folks. that is what we want to do, and we want to diversify all the industries and protect them all. how much? simply enough to prevent the foreign article from destroying the domestic. but they say, then the manufacturers will form a trust and put the prices up. if we depend upon the foreign manufacturers will they not form trusts? we can depend on competition. what do the democrats want to do? they want to do away with the tariff, so as to do away with the surplus. they want to put down the tariff to do away with the surplus. if you put down the tariff a small per cent, so that the foreign article comes to america, instead of decreasing, you will increase the surplus. where you get a dollar now, you will get five then. if you want to stop getting anything from imports, you want to put the tariff higher, my friend. let every democrat understand this, and let him also understand that i feel and know that he has the same interest in this great country that i have, and let me be frank enough and candid enough and honest enough to say that i believe the democratic party advocates the policy it does because it believes it will be the best for the country. but we differ upon a question of policy, and the only way to argue it is to keep cool. if a man simply shouts for his side, or gets mad, he is a long way from any intellectual improvement. if i am wrong in this, i want to be set right. if it is not to the interest of america that the shuttle shall keep flying, that wheels shall keep turning, that cloth shall be woven, that the forges shall flame and that the smoke shall rise from the numberless chimneys--if that is not to the interest of america, i want to know it. but i believe that upon the great cloud of smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of this country, every man who will think can see the bow of national promise. "oh, but," they say, "you put the prices so high." let me give you two or three facts: only a few years ago i know that we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton for bessemer steel. at that time the tariff was twenty-eight dollars a ton, i believe. i am not much on figures. i generally let them add it up, and i pay it and go on about my business. with the tariff at twenty-eight dollars a ton, that being a sufficient protection against great britain, the ingenuity of america went to work. capital had the courage to try the experiment, and the result was that, instead of buying thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of tons of steel from great britain, we made it here in our own country, and it went down as low as thirty dollars a ton. under this "rascally protection" it went down to one-fourth of what free trade england was selling it to us for. and so i might go on all night with a thousand other articles; all i want to show you is that we want these industries here, and we want them protected just as long as they need protection. we want to rock the cradle just as long as there is a child in it. when the child gets to be seven or eight feet high, and wears number twelve boots, we will say: "now you will have to shift for yourself." what we want is not simply for the capitalist, not simply for the workingmen, but for the whole country. if there is any object worthy the attention of this or any other government, it is the condition of the workingmen. what do they do? they do all that is done. they are the atlases upon whose mighty shoulders rests the fabric of american civilization. the men of leisure are simply the vines that run round this great sturdy oak of labor. if there is anything noble enough, and splendid enough to claim the attention of a nation, it is this question, and i hope the time will come when labor will receive far more than it does to-day. i want you all to think of it--how little, after all, the laboring man, even in america, receives. [a voice: "under protection."] yes, sir, even under protection. take away that protection, and he is instantly on a level with the european serf. and let me ask that good, honest gentleman one question. if the laborer is better off in other countries, why does not the american laborer emigrate to europe? there is no place in the wide world where, in my judgment, labor reaps its true reward. there never has been. but i hope the time will come when the american laborer will not only make a living for himself, for his wife and children, but lay aside something to keep the roof above his head when the winter of age may come. my sympathies are all with them, and i would rather see thousands of... '' palaces of millionaires unroofed than to see desolation in the cabins of the poor. i know that this world has been made beautiful by those who have labored and those who have suffered. i know that we owe to them the conveniences of life, and i have more conveniences, i live a more luxurious life, than any monarch ever lived one hundred years ago. i have more conveniences than any emperor could have purchased with the revenue of his empire one hundred years ago. it is worth something to live in this age of the world. and what has made us such a great and splendid and progressive and sensible people? [a voice: "free thought."] free thought, of course. back of every invention is free thought. why does a man invent? slavery never invents; freedom invents. a slave working for his master tries to do the least work in the longest space of time, but a free man, working for wife and children, tries to do the most work in the shortest possible time. he is in love with what he is doing, consequently his head and his hands go in partnership; muscle and brain unite, and the result is that the head invents something to help the hands, and out of the brain leaps an invention that makes a slave of the forces of nature--those forces that have no backs to be whipped, those forces that shed no tears, those forces that are destined to work forever for the happiness of the human race. consequently i am for the protection of american labor, american genius, american thought. i do not want to put our workingmen on a level with the citizens of despotisms. why do not the democrats and others want the chinese to come here? are they in favor of being protected? why is it that the democrats and others object to penitentiary labor? i will tell you. they say that a man in the penitentiary can produce cheaper. he has no family to support, he has no children to look after; and they say, it is hardly fair to make the father of a family and an honest man compete with a criminal within the walls of a penitentiary. so they ask to be protected. what is the difference whether a man is in the penitentiary, or whether he is in the despotism of some european state? "ah, but," they say, "you let the laborer of europe come here himself." yes, and i am in favor of it always. why? this world belongs to the human race. and when they come here, in a little while they have our wants, and if they do not their children do, and you will find the second generation of irishmen or germans or of any other nationality just as patriotic as the tenth generation from the first immigrant. i want them to come. then they get our habits. who wants free trade? only those who want us for their customers, who would like to sell us everything that we use--england, germany, all those countries. and why? because one american will buy more than one thousand, yes, five thousand asiatics. america consumes more to-day than china and india, more than ten billion would of semi-civilized and barbarous peoples. what do they buy--what does england sell? a little powder, a little whiskey, cheap calico, some blankets--a few things of that kind. what does the american purchase? everything that civilized man uses or that civilized man can want. england wants this market. give her free trade, and she will become the most powerful, the richest nation that ever had her territories marked upon the map of the world. and what do we become? nobodies. poor. invention will be lost, our minds will grow clumsy, the wondrous, deft hand of the mechanic paralyzed--a great raw material producing country--ignorant, poor, barbaric. i want the cotton that is raised in this country to be spun here, to be woven into cloth. i want everything that we use to be made by americans. we can make the cloth, we can raise the food to feed and to clothe this nation, and the nation is now only in its infancy. somehow people do not understand this. they really think we are getting filled up. look at the map of this country. see the valley of the mississippi. put your hand on it. trace the rivers coming from the rocky mountains and the alleghanies, and sweeping down to the gulf, and know that in the valley of the mississippi, with its wondrous tributaries, there can live and there can be civilized and educated five hundred millions of human beings. let us have some sense. i want to show you how far this goes beyond the intellectual horizon of some people who hold office. for instance: we have a tariff on lead, and by virtue of that tariff on lead nearly every silver mine is worked in this country. take the tariff from lead and there would remain in the clutch of the rocks, of the quartz misers, for all time, millions and millions of silver; but when that is put with lead, and lead runs with silver, they can make enough on lead and silver to pay for the mining, and the result is that millions and millions are added every year to the wealth of the united states. let me tell you another thing: there is not a state in the union but has something it wants protected. and louisiana--a democratic state, and will be just as long as democrats count the votes--louisiana has the impudence to talk about free trade and yet it wants its sugar protected. kentucky says free trade, except hemp; and if anything needs protection it is hemp. missouri says hemp and lead. colorado, lead and wool; and so you can make the tour of the states and every one is for free trade with an exception--that exception being to the advantage of that state, and when you put the exceptions together you have protected the industries of all the states. now, if the democratic party is in favor of anything, it is in favor of free trade. if president clevelands message means anything it means free trade. and why? because it says to every man that gets protection: if you will look about you, you will find that you pay for something else that is protected more than you receive in benefits for what is protected of yours; consequently the logic of that is free trade. they believe in it i have no doubt. when the whole world is civilized, when men are everywhere free, when they all have something like the same tastes and ambitions, when they love their families and their children, when they want the same kind of food and roofs above them--if that day shall ever come--the world can afford to have its trade free, but do not put the labor of america on a par with the labor of the old world. now, about taxes--internal revenue. that was resorted to in time of war. the democratic party made it necessary. we had to tax everything to beat back the democratic hosts, north and south. now, understand me. i know that thousands and hundreds of thousands of individual democrats were for this country, and were as pure patriots as ever marched beneath the flag. i know that--hundreds of thousands of them. i am speaking of the party organization that staid at home and passed resolutions that every time the union forces won a victory the constitution had been violated. i understand that. those taxes were put on in time of war, because it was necessary. direct taxation is always odious. a government dislikes, to be represented among all the people by a tax gatherer, by an official who visits homes carrying consternation and grief wherever he goes. everybody, from the most ancient times of which i have ever read, until the present moment, dislikes a tax gatherer. i have never yet seen in any cemetery a monument with this inscription: "sacred to the memory of the man who loved to pay his taxes." it is far better if we can collect the needed revenue of this government indirectly. but, they say, you must not take the taxes off tobacco; you must not take the taxes off alcohol or spirits or whiskey. why? because it is immoral to take off the taxes. do you believe that there was, on the average, any more drunkenness in this country before the tax was put on than there is now? i do not. i believe there is as much liquor drank to-day, per capita, as there ever was in the united states. i will not blame the democratic party. i do not care what they drink. what they think is what i have to do with. i will be plain with them, because i know lots of fellows in the democratic party, and that is the only bad thing about them--splendid fellows. and i know a good many republicans, and i am willing to take my oath that that is the only good thing about them. so, let us all be fair. i want the taxes taken from tobacco and whiskey; and why? because it is a war measure that should not be carried on in peace; and in the second place, i do not want that system inaugurated in this country, unless there is an absolute necessity for it, and the moment the necessity is gone, stop it. the moral side of this question? only a couple of years ago, i think it was, the prohibitionists said that they wanted this tax taken from alcohol. why? because as long as the government licensed, as long as the government taxed and received sixty millions of dollars in revenue, just so long the government would make this business respectable, just so long the government would be in partnership with this liquor crime. that is what they said then. now we say take the tax off, and they say it is immoral. now, i have a little philosophy about this. i may be entirely wrong, but i am going to give it to you. you never can make great men and great women, by keeping them out of the way of temptation. you have to educate them to withstand temptation. it is all nonsense to tie a man's hands behind him and then praise him for not picking pockets. i believe that temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. just as life becomes valuable, people take care of it. just as life is great, and splendid and noble, as long as the future is a kind of gallery filled with the ideal, just so long will we take care of ourselves and avoid dissipation of every kind. do you know, i believe, as much as i believe that i am living, that if the mississippi itself were pure whiskey and its banks loaf sugar, and all the flats covered with mint, and all the bushes grew teaspoons and tumblers, there would not be any more drunkenness than there is now! as long as you say to your neighbor "you must not" there is something in that neighbor that says, "well i will determine that for myself, and you just say that again and i will take a drink if it kills me." there is no moral question involved in it, except this: let the burden of government rest as lightly as possible upon the shoulders of the people, and let it cause as little irritation as possible. give liberty to the people. i am willing that the women who wear silks, satins and diamonds; that the gentlemen who smoke havana cigars and drink champagne and chateau yquem; i am perfectly willing that they shall pay my taxes and support this government, and i am willing that the man who does not do that, but is willing to take the domestic article, should go tax free. temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. you recollect that little old story about a couple of men who were having a discussion on this prohibition question, and the man on the other side said to the prohibitionist: "how would you like to live in a community where every body attended to his own business, where every body went to bed regularly at night, got up regularly in the morning; where every man, woman and child was usefully employed during the day; no backbiting, no drinking of whiskey, no cigars, and where they all attended divine services on sunday, and where no profane language was used?" "why," said he, "such a place would be a paradise, or heaven; but there is no such place." "oh," said the other man, "every well regulated penitentiary is that way." so much for the moral side of the question. another point that the republican party calls the attention of the country to is the use that has been made of the public land. oh, say the democratic party, see what states, what empires have been given away by the republican party--and see what the republican party did with it. road after road built to the great pacific. our country unified--the two oceans, for all practical purposes, washing one shore. that is what it did, and what else? it has given homes to millions of people in a civilized land, where they can get all the conveniences of civilization. and what else? fifty million acres have been taken back by the government. how was this done? it was by virtue of the provisions put in the original grants by the republican party. there is another thing to which the republican party has called the attention of the country, and that is the admission of new states where there are people enough to form a state. now, with a solid south, with the assistance of a few democrats from the north, comes a state, north dakota, with plenty of population, a magnificent state, filled with intelligence and prosperity. it knocks at the door for admission, and what is the question asked by this administration? not "have you the land, have you the wealth, have you the men and women?" but "are you democratic or republican?" and being intelligent people, they answer: "we are republicans." and the solid south, assisted by the democrats of the north, says to that people: "the door is shut; we will not have you." why? "because you would add two to the republican majority in the senate." is that the spirit in which a nation like this should be governed? when a state asks for admission, no matter what the politics of its people may be, i say, admit that state; put a star on the flag that will glitter for her. the next thing the republican party says is, gold and silver shall both be money. you cannot make every thing payable in gold--that would be unfair to the poor man. you shall not make every thing payable in silver--that would be unfair to the capitalist; but it shall be payable in gold and silver. and why ought we to be in favor of silver? because we are the greatest silver producing nation in the world; and the value of a thing, other things being equal, depends on its uses, and being used as money adds to the value of silver. and why should we depreciate one of our own products by saying that we will not take it as money? i believe in bimetalism, gold and silver, and you cannot have too much of either or both. no nation ever died of a surplus, and in all the national cemeteries of the earth you will find no monument erected to a nation that died from having too much silver. give me all the silver i want and i am happy. the republican party has always been sound on finance. it always knew you could not pay a promise with a promise. the republican party always had sense enough to know that money could not be created by word of mouth, that you could not make it by a statute, or by passing resolutions in a convention. it always knew that you had to dig it out of the ground by good, honest work. the republican party always knew that money is a commodity, exchangeable for all other commodities, but a commodity just as much as wheat or corn, and you can no more make money by law than you can make wheat or corn by law. you can by law, make a promise that will to a certain extent take the place of money until the promise is paid. it seems to me that any man who can even understand the meaning of the word democratic can understand that theory of money. another thing right in this platform. free schools for the education of all the children in the land. the republican party believes in looking out for the children. it knows that the a, b, c's are the breastworks of human liberty. they know that every schoolhouse is an arsenal, a fort, where missiles are made to hurl against the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; so they are for the free school. and what else? they are for reducing the postage one-half. why? simply for the diffusion of intelligence. what effect will that have? it will make us more and more one people. the oftener we communicate with each other the more homogeneous we become. the more we study the same books and read the same papers the more we swap ideas, the more we become true americans, with the same spirit in favor of liberty, progress and the happiness of the human race. what next? the republican party says, let us build ships for america--for american sailors. let our fleets cover the seas, and let our men-of-war protect the commerce of the republic--not that we can wrong some weak nation, but so that we can keep the world from doing wrong to us. this is all. i have infinite contempt for civilized people who have guns carrying balls weighing several hundred pounds, who go and fight poor, naked savages that can only throw boomerangs and stones. i hold such a nation in infinite contempt. what else is in this platform? you have no idea of the number of things in it till you look them over. it wants to cultivate friendly feelings with all the governments in north, central and south america, so that the great continents can be one--instigated, moved, pervaded, inspired by the same great thoughts. in other words, we want to civilize this continent and the continent of south america. and what else? this great platform is in favor of paying--not giving, but paying--pensions to every man who suffered in the great war. what would we have said at the time? what, if the north could have spoken, would it have said to the heroes of gettysburg on the third day? "stand firm! we will empty the treasures of the nation at your feet." they had the courage and the heroism to keep the hosts of rebellion back without that promise, and is there an american to-day that can find it in his heart to begrudge one solitary dollar that has found its way into the pocket of a maimed soldier, or into the hands of his widow or his orphan? what would we have offered to the sailors under farragut on condition that they would pass forts st. phillip and jackson? what would we have offered to the soldiers under grant in the wilderness? what to the followers of sherman and sheridan? do you know, i can hardly conceive of a spirit contemptible enough--and i am not now alluding to the president of the united states--i can hardly conceive of a spirit contemptible enough to really desire to keep a maimed soldier from the bounty of this nation. it would be a disgrace and a dishonor if we allowed them to die in poorhouses, to drop by life's highway and to see their children mourning over their poor bodies, glorious with scars, maimed into immortality. i may do a great many bad things before i die, but i give you my word that so long as i live i will never vote for any president that vetoed a pension bill unless upon its face it was clear that the man was not a wounded soldier. what next in this platform? for the protection of american homes. i am a believer in the home. i have said, and i say again--the hearthstone is the foundation of the great temple; the fireside is the altar where the true american worships. i believe that the home, the family, is the unit of good government, and i want to see the aegis of the great republic over millions of happy homes. that is all there is in this world worth living for. honor, place, fame, glory, riches--they are ashes, smoke, dust, disappointment, unless there is somebody in the world you love, somebody who loves you; unless there is some place that you can call home, some place where you can feel the arms of children around your neck, some place that is made absolutely sacred by the love of others. so i am for this platform. i am for the election of harrison and morton, and although i did nothing toward having that ticket nominated, because, i tell you, i was for gresham, yet i will do as much toward electing the candidates, within my power, as any man who did vote on the winning side. we have a good ticket, a noble, gallant soldier at the head; that is enough for me. he is in favor of liberty and progress. and you have for vice-president a man that you all know better than i do, but a good, square, intelligent, generous man. that is enough for me. and these men are standing on the best platform that was ever adopted by the republican party--a platform that stands for education, liberty, the free ballot, american industry; for the american policy that has made us the richest and greatest nation of the globe. reunion address. * the elmwood reunion, participated in by six regiments, came to a glorious close last evening. there were thousands of people present. the city was gayly decorated with flags and hunting, while pictures and busts of col. ingersoll were in every show window. from early in the morning until noon, delegations kept coming in, a special train arrived from peoria at . o'clock, bearing a large delegation of old soldiers together with col. ingersoll and his daughter maud. he was met by the reception committee, and marched up the street escorted by an army of veterans. when he arrived on the west side of the public square, the lines were opened, and he marched between, in review of his old friends and comrades. the parade started as soon as it could be formed, after the arrival of the special train. col. ingersoll was greeted by a salute of thirteen guns from peoria's historic cannon, as he was escorted to the grand stand by spencer's band and the peoria veterans. the reviewing stand was on the west side of the park. here the parade was seen by col. ingersoll and the other distinguished guests, among whom were congressmen graff and prince, mayor day, judges n. e. worthington and i. c. pinkney, and the hon. clark e. carr, who also made a speech saying that the people cannot estimate the majesty of the eloquence of col. robert g. ingersoll, keeping alive the flame of patriotism from to the present time. . the parade was an imposing one, there were fully two thousand five hundred old veterans in line who passed in review before col. ingersoll, each one doffing his hat as he marched by. the most pleasing feature of the exercises of the day was the representation of the living flag by one hundred and fifty little girls of elmwood, at ten o' clock under the direction of col. lem. h. wiley, of peoria. the flag was presented on a large inclined amphitheatre at the left of the grand stand, and was the finest thing ever witnessed lu this part of the country. following the presentation of the living flag, chairman brown called the reunion to order, and col. lem. h. wiley, national bugler gave the assembly call. following the assembly call a male chorus rendered a song, "ring o bells." the song was composed for the occasion by mr. e. r. brown and was as follows: "welcome now that leader fearless, free of thought and grand of brain, king of hearts and speaker peerless, hail our ingersoll again." *** then chairman, e. r. brown, took charge of the meeting and introduced col. ingersoll as the greatest of living orators, referring to the time that the colonel declared, a quarter of a century ago, in rouse's hall, peoria, that from that time forth there would be one free man in illinois, and expressing indebtedness to him for what had been done since for the freedom and happiness of mankind, by his mighty brain, his great spirit and his gentle heart. he then spoke of col. ingersoll's residence in peoria county, paying an eloquent tribute to him, and concluded by leading the distinguished gentleman to the front of the stand. the appearance of col. ingersoll was a signal for a mighty shout, which was heartily joined in by everybody present, even the little girls composing the living flag, cheering and waving their banners. it was fully ten minutes before the cheering had subsided, and when col. ingersoll commenced to speak it was renewed and he was forced to wait for several minutes more. when quiet was restored, he opened his address, and for an hour and a half he held the vast audience spell-bound with his eloquence and wit. after col. ingersoll's speech the veterans crowded around the stand to meet and grasp the hand of their comrade, and the boys of the eleventh illinois cavalry, his old regiment, were especially profuse in their congratulations and thanks for the splendid address he had delivered. his speeeh was off-hand, only occasional reference being made to his short notes. the colonel then left the park amid the yells of delight of the old soldiers, every man of whom endeavored to grasp his hand. in the afternoon the veterans assembled in liberty hall by themselves, the room being filled. col. ingersoll appeared and was greeted with such cheers as he had not received during the entire day. he then said good-bye to his old comrades.--chicago inter-ocean and peoria papers, sept. th, . elmwood, ills. . ladies and gentlemen, fellow-citizens, old friends and comrades: it gives me the greatest pleasure to meet again those with whom i became acquainted in the morning of my life. it is now afternoon. the sun of life is slowly sinking in the west, and, as the evening comes, nothing can be more delightful than to see again the faces that i knew in youth. when first i knew you the hair was brown; it is now white. the lines were not quite so deep, and the eyes were not quite so dim. mingled with this pleasure is sadness,--sadness for those who have passed away--for the dead. and yet i am not sure that we ought to mourn for the dead. i do not know which is better--life or death. it may be that death is the greatest gift that ever came from nature's open hands. we do not know. there is one thing of which i am certain, and that is, that if we could live forever here, we would care nothing for each other. the fact that we must die, the fact that the feast must end, brings our souls together, and treads the weeds from out the paths between our hearts. and so it may be, after all, that love is a little flower that grows on the crumbling edge of the grave. so it may be, that were it not for death there would be no love, and without love all life would be a curse. i say it gives me great pleasure to meet you once again; great pleasure to congratulate you on your good fortune--the good fortune of being a citizen of the first and grandest republic ever established upon the face of the earth. that is a royal fortune. to be an heir of all the great and brave men of this land, of all the good, loving and patient women; to be in possession of the blessings that they have given, should make every healthy citizen of the united states feel like a millionaire. this, to-day, is the most prosperous country on the globe; and it is something to be a citizen of this country. it is well, too, whenever we meet, to draw attention to what has been done by our ancestors. it is well to think of them and to thank them for all their work, for all their courage, for all their toil. three hundred years ago our country was a vast wilderness, inhabited by a few savages. three hundred years ago--how short a time; hardly a tick of the great clock of eternity--three hundred years; not a second in the life even of this planet--three hundred years ago, a wilderness; three hundred years ago, inhabited by a few savages; three hundred years ago a few men in the old world, dissatisfied, brave and adventurous, trusted their lives to the sea and came to this land. in there were only three millions of people all told. these men settled on the shores of the sea. these men, by experience, learned to govern themselves. these men, by experience, found that a man should be respected in the proportion that he was useful. they found, by experience, that titles were of no importance; that the real thing was the man, and that the real things in the man were heart and brain. they found, by experience, how to govern themselves, because there was nobody else here when they came. the gentlemen who had been in the habit of governing their fellow-men staid at home, and the men who had been in the habit of being governed came here, and, consequently, they had to govern themselves. and finally, educated by experience, by the rivers and forests, by the grandeur and splendor of nature, they began to think that this continent should not belong to any other; that it was great enough to count one, and that they had the intelligence and manhood to lay the foundations of a nation. it would be impossible to pay too great and splendid a tribute to the great and magnificent souls of that day. they saw the future. they saw this country as it is now, and they endeavored to lay the foundation deep; they endeavored to reach the bed-rock of human rights, the bed-rock of justice. and thereupon they declared that all men were born equal; that all the children of nature had at birth the same rights, and that all men had the right to pursue the only good,--happiness. and what did they say? they said that men should govern men; that the power to govern should come from the consent of the governed, not from the clouds, not from some winged phantom of the air, not from the aristocracy of ether. they said that this power should come from men; that the men living in this world should govern it, and that the gentlemen who were dead should keep still. they took another step, and said that church and state should forever be divorced. that is no harm to real religion. it never was, because real religion means the doing of justice; real religion means the giving to others every right you claim for yourself; real religion consists in duties of man to man, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in defending the innocent, and in saying what you believe to be true. our fathers had enough sense to say that, and a man to do that in had to be a pretty big fellow. it is not so much to say it now, because they set the example; and, upon these principles of which i have spoken, they fought the war of the revolution. at no time, probably, were the majority of our forefathers in favor of independence, but enough of them were on the right side, and they finally won a victory. and after the victory, those that had not been even in favor of independence became, under the majority rule, more powerful than the heroes of the revolution. then it was that our fathers made a mistake. we have got to praise them for what they did that was good, and we will mention what they did that was wrong. they forgot the principles for which they fought. they forgot the sacredness of human liberty, and, in the name of freedom, they made a mistake and put chains on the limbs of others. that was their error; that was the poison that entered the american blood; that was the corrupting influence that demoralized presidents and priests; that was the influence that corrupted the united states of america. that mistake, of course, had to be paid for, as all mistakes in nature have to be paid for. and not only do you pay for your mistake itself, but you pay at least ten per cent, compound interest. whenever you do wrong, and nobody finds it out, do not imagine you have gotten over it; you have not. nature knows it. the consequences of every bad act are the invisible police that no prayers can soften, and no gold can bribe. recollect that. recollect, that for every bad act, there will be laid upon your shoulder the arresting hand of the consequences; and it is precisely the same with a nation as it is with an individual. you have got to pay for all of your mistakes, and you have got to pay to the uttermost farthing. that is the only forgiveness known in nature. nature never settles unless she can give a receipt in full. i know a great many men differ with me, and have all sorts of bankruptcy systems, but nature is not built that way. finally, slavery took possession of the government. every man who wanted an office had to be willing to step between a fugitive slave and his liberty. slavery corrupted the courts, and made judges decide that the child born in the state of pennsylvania, whose mother had been a slave, could not be free. that was as infamous a decision as was ever rendered, and yet the people, in the name of the law, did this thing, and the supreme court of the united states did not know right from wrong. these dignified gentlemen thought that labor could be paid by lashes on the back--which was a kind of legal tender--and finally an effort was made to subject the new territory--the nation--to the institution of slavery. then we had a war with mexico, in which we got a good deal of glory and one million square miles of land, but little honor. i will admit that we got but little honor out of that war. that territory they wanted to give to the slaveholder. in we purchased from napoleon the great, one million square miles of land, and then, in , we bought florida from spain. so that, when the war came, we had about three million square miles of new land. the object was to subject all this territory to slavery. the idea was to go on and sell the babes from their mothers until time should be no more. the idea was to go on with the branding-iron and the whip. the idea was to make it a crime to teach men, human beings, to read and write; to make every northern man believe that he was a bulldog, a bloodhound to track down men and women, who, with the light of the north star in their eyes, were seeking the free soil of great britain. yes, in these times we had lots of mean folks. let us remember that. and all at once, under the forms of law, under the forms of our government, the greatest man under the flag was elected president. that man was abraham lincoln. and then it was that those gentlemen of the south said: "we will not be governed by the majority; we will be a law unto ourselves." and let me tell you here to-day--i am somewhat older than i used to be; i have a little philosophy now that i had not at the nine o'clock in the morning portion of my life--and i do not blame anybody. i do not blame the south; i do not blame the confederate soldier. she--the south--was the fruit of conditions. she was born to circumstances stronger than herself; and do you know, according to my philosophy, (which is not quite orthodox), every man and woman in the whole world are what conditions have made them. so let us have some sense. the south said, "we will not submit; this is not a nation, but a partnership of states." i am willing to go so far as to admit that the south expressed the original idea of the government. but now the question was, to whom did the newly acquired property belong? new states had been carved out of that territory; the soil of these states had been purchased with the money of the republic, and had the south the right to take these states out of the republic? that was the question. the great west had another interest, and that was that no enemy, no other nation, should control the mouth of the mississippi. i regard the mississippi river as nature's protest against secession. the old mississippi river says, and swears to it, that this country shall be one, now and forever. what was to be done? the south said, "we will never remain," and the north said, "you shall not go." it was a little slow about saying it, it is true. some of the best republicans in the north said, "let it go." but the second, sober thought of the great north said, "no, this is our country and we are going to keep it on the map of the world." and some who had been democrats wheeled into line, and hundreds and thousands said, "this is our country," and finally, when the government called for volunteers, hundreds and thousands came forward to offer their services. nothing more sublime was ever seen in the history of this world. i congratulate you to-day that you live in a country that furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty in any country round the world. i want you to know that. i want you to know that the north, east and west furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty. i want you to know that gen. grant commanded more men, men fighting for the right, not for conquest, than any other general who ever marshaled the hosts of war. let us remember that, and let us be proud of it. the millions who poured from the north for the defence of the flag--the story of their heroism has been told to you again and again. i have told it myself many times. it is known to every intelligent man and woman in the world. everybody knows how much we suffered. everybody knows how we poured out money like water; how we spent it like leaves of the forest. everybody knows how the brave blood was shed. everybody knows the story of the great, the heroic struggle, and everybody knows that at last victory came to our side, and how the last sword of the rebellion was handed to gen. grant. there is no need to tell that story again. but the question now, as we look back, is, was this country worth saving? was the blood shed in vain? were the lives given for naught? that is the question. this country, according to my idea, is the one success of the world. men here have more to eat, more to wear, better houses, and, on the average, a better education than those of any other nation now living, or any that has passed away. was the country worth saving? see what we have done in this country since . we were not much of a people then, to be honor bright about it. we were carrying, in the great race of national life, the weight of slavery, and it poisoned us; it paralyzed our best energies; it took from our politics the best minds; it kept from the bench the greatest brains. but what have we done since , since we really became a free people, since we came to our senses, since we have been willing to allow a man to express his honest thoughts on every subject? do you know how much good we did? the war brought men together from every part of the country and gave them an opportunity to compare their foolishness. it gave them an opportunity to throw away their prejudices, to find that a man who differed with them on every subject might be the very best of fellows. that is what the war did. we have been broadening ever since. i sometimes have thought it did men good to make the trip to california in . as they went over the plains they dropped their prejudices on the way. i think they did, and that's what killed the grass. but to come back to my question, what have we done since ? from to , in spite of the waste of war, in spite of all the property destroyed by flame, in spite of all the waste, our profits were one billion three hundred and seventy-four million dollars. think of it! from to ! that is a vast sum. from to our profits were two billion one hundred and thirty-nine million dollars. men may talk against wealth as much as they please; they may talk about money being the root of all evil, but there is little real happiness in this world without some of it. it is very handy when staying at home and it is almost indispensable when you travel abroad. money is a good thing. it makes others happy; it makes those happy whom you love, and if a man can get a little together, when the night of death drops the curtain upon him, he is satisfied that he has left a little to keep the wolf from the door of those who, in life, were dear to him. yes, money is a good thing, especially since special providence has gone out of business. i can see to-day something beyond the wildest dream of any patriot who lived fifty years ago. the united states to-day is the richest nation on the face of the earth. the old nations of the world, egypt, india, greece, rome, every one of them, when compared with this great republic, must be regarded as paupers. how much do you suppose this nation is worth to-day? i am talking about land and cattle, products, manufactured articles and railways. over seventy thousand million dollars. just think of it. take a thousand dollars and then take nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand; so you will have one thousand piles of one thousand each. that makes only a million, and yet the united states today is worth seventy thousand millions. this is thirty-five percent, more than great britain is worth. we are a great nation. we have got the land. this land was being made for many millions of years. its soil was being made by the great lakes and rivers, and being brought down from the mountains for countless ages. this continent was standing like a vast pan of milk, with the cream rising for millions of years, and we were the chaps that got there when the skimming commenced. we are rich, and we ought to be rich. it is our own fault if we are not. in every department of human endeavor, along every path and highway, the progress of the republic has been marvelous, beyond the power of language to express. let me show you: in the horse-power of all the engines, the locomotives and the steamboats that traversed the lakes and rivers--the entire power--was three million five hundred thousand. in the horse-power of engines and locomotives and steamboats was over seventeen million. think of that and what it means! think of the forces at work for the benefit of the united states, the machines doing the work of thousands and millions of men! and remember that every engine that puffs is puffing for you; every road that runs is running for you. i want you to know that the average man and woman in the united states to-day has more of the conveniences of life than kings and queens had one hundred years ago. yes, we are getting along. in we used one billion eight hundred million dollars' worth of products, of things manufactured and grown, and we sent to other countries two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth. in we used three billion eighty-nine million dollars' worth, and we sent to other countries six hundred and fifty-four million dollars' worth. you see, these vast sums are almost inconceivable. there is not a man to-day with brains large enough to understand these figures; to understand how many cars this money put upon the tracks, how much coal was devoured by the locomotives, how many men plowed and worked in the fields, how many sails were given to the wind, how many ships crossed the sea. i tell you, there is no man able to think of the ships that were built, the cars that were made, the mines that were opened, the trees that were felled--no man has imagination enough to grasp the meaning of it all. no man has any conception of the sea till he crosses it. i knew nothing of how broad this country is until i went over it in a slow train. since the productive power of the united states has more than trebled. i like to talk about these things, because they mean good houses, carpets on the floors, pictures on the walls, some books on the shelves. they mean children going to school with their stomachs full of good food, prosperous men and proud mothers. all my life i have taken a much deeper interest in what men produce than in what nature does. i would rather see the prairies, with the oats and the wheat and the waving corn, and the schoolhouse, and hear the thrush sing amid the happy homes of prosperous men and women--i would rather see these things than any range of mountains in the world. take it as you will, a mountain is of no great value. in our land was worth four billion five hundred million dollars; in it was worth fourteen billion dollars. in all the railroads in the united states were worth four hundred million dollars, now they are worth a little less than ten thousand million dollars. i want you to understand what these figures mean. for thirty years we spent, on an average, one million dollars a day in building railroads.--i want you to think what that means. all that money had to be dug out of the ground. it had to be made by raising something or manufacturing something. we did not get it by writing essays on finance, or discussing the silver question. it had to be made with the ax, the plow, the reaper, the mower; in every form of industry; all to produce these splendid results. we have railroads enough now to make seven tracks around the great globe, and enough left for side tracks. that is what we have done here, in what the european nations are pleased to call "the new world." i am telling you these things because you may not know them, and i did not know them myself until a few days ago. i am anxious to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. when you have told it, you remember it. it is with information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people. in the houses in the united states, the cabins on the frontier, the buildings in the cities, were worth six thousand million dollars. now they are worth over twenty-two thousand million dollars. to talk about figures like these is enough to make a man dizzy. in our animals of all kinds, including the illinois deer--commonly called swine--the oxen and horses, and all others, were worth about one thousand million dollars; now they are worth about four thousand million dollars. are we not getting rich? our national debt today is nothing. it is like a man who owes a cent and has a dollar. since we have been industrious. we have created two million five hundred thousand new farms. since we have done a good deal of plowing; there have been a good many tired legs. i have been that way myself. since we have put in cultivation two hundred million acres of land. illinois, the best state in the union, has thirty-five million acres of land, and yet, since , we have put in cultivation enough land to make six states of the size of illinois. that will give you some idea of the quantity of work we have done. i will admit i have not done much of it myself, but i am proud of it. in we had four million five hundred and sixty-five thousand farmers in this country, whose land and implements were worth over sixteen thousand million dollars. the farmers of this country, on an average, are worth five thousand dollars, and the peasants of the old world, who cultivate the soil, are not worth, on an average, ten dollars beyond the wants of the moment. the farmers of our country produce, on an average, about one million four hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff a day. what else? have we in other directions kept pace with our physical development? have we developed the mind? have we endeavored to develop the brain? have we endeavored to civilize the heart? i think we have. we spend more for schools per head than any nation in the world. and the common school is the breath of life. great britain spends one dollar and thirty cents per head on the common schools; france spends eighty cents; austria, thirty cents; germany, fifty cents; italy, twenty-five cents, and the united states over two dollars and fifty cents. i tell you the schoolhouse is the fortress of liberty. every schoolhouse is an arsenal, filled with weapons and ammunition to destroy the monsters of ignorance and fear. as i have said ten thousand times, the school-house is my cathedral. the teacher is my preacher. eighty-seven per cent, of all the people of the united states, over ten years of age, can read and write. there is no parallel for this in the history of the wide world. over forty-two millions of educated citizens, to whom are opened all the treasures of literature! forty-two millions of people, able to read and write! i say, there is no parallel for this. the nations of antiquity were very ignorant when compared with this great republic of ours. there is no other nation in the world that can show a record like ours. we ought to be proud of it. we ought to build more schools, and build them better. our teachers ought to be paid more, and everything ought to be taught in the public school that is worth knowing. i believe that the children of the republic, no matter whether their fathers are rich or poor, ought to be allowed to drink at the fountain of education, and it does not cost more to teach everything in the free schools than it does teaching reading and writing and ciphering. have we kept up in other ways? the post office tells a wonderful story. in switzerland, going through the post office in each year, are letters, etc., in the proportion of seventy-four to each inhabitant. in england the number is sixty; in germany, fifty-three; in france, thirty-nine; in austria, twenty-four; in italy, sixteen, and in the united states, our own home, one hundred and ten. think of it. in italy only twenty-five cents paid per head for the support of the public schools and only sixteen letters. and this is the place where god's agent lives. i would rather have one good schoolmaster than two such agents. there is another thing. a great deal has been said, from time to time, about the workingman. i have as much sympathy with the workingman as anybody on the earth--who does not work. there has always been a desire in this world to let somebody else do the work, nearly everybody having the modesty to stand back whenever there is anything to be done. in savage countries they make the women do the work, so that the weak people have always the bulk of the burdens. in civilized communities the poor are the ones, of course, that work, and probably they are never fully paid. it is pretty hard for a manufacturer to tell how much he can pay until he sells the stuff which he manufactures. every man who manufactures is not rich. i know plenty of poor corporations; i know tramp railroads that have not a dollar. and you will find some of them as anarchistic as you will find their men. what a man can pay, depends upon how much he can get for what he has produced. what the farmer can pay his help depends upon the price he receives for his stock, his corn and his wheat. but wages in this country are getting better day by day. we are getting a little nearer to being civilized day by day, and when i want to make up my mind on a subject i try to get a broad view of it, and not decide it on one case. in the average wages of the workingman were, per year, two hundred and eighty-nine dollars. in the average was four hundred and eighty-five. thus the average has almost doubled in thirty years. the necessaries of life are far cheaper than they were in . now, to my mind, that is a hopeful sign. and when i am asked how can the dispute between employer and employee be settled, i answer, it will be settled when both parties become civilized. it takes a long time to educate a man up to the point where he does not want something for nothing. yet, when a man is civilized, he does not. he wants for a thing just what it is worth; he wants to give labor its legitimate reward, and when he has something to sell he never wants more than it is worth. i do not claim to be civilized myself; but all these questions between capital and labor will be settled by civilization. we are to-day accumulating wealth at the rate of more than seven million dollars a day. is not this perfectly splendid? and in the midst of prosperity let us never forget the men who helped to save our country, the men whose heroism gave us the prosperity we now enjoy. we have one-seventh of the good land of this world. you see there is a great deal of poor land in the world. i know the first time i went to california, i went to the sink of the humboldt, and what a forsaken look it had. there was nothing there but mines of brimstone. on the train, going over, there was a fellow who got into a dispute with a minister about the first chapter of genesis. and when they got along to the sink of the humboldt the fellow says to the minister: "do you tell me that god made the world in six days, and then rested on the seventh?" he said, "i do." "well," said the fellow, "don't you think he could have put in another day here to devilish good advantage?" but, as i have said, we have got about one-seventh of the good land of the world. i often hear people say that we have too many folks here; that we ought to stop immigration; that we have no more room. the people who say this know nothing of their country. they are ignorant of their native land. i tell you that the valley of the mississippi and the valleys of its tributaries can support a population of five hundred millions of men, women, and children. don't talk of our being overpopulated; we have only just started. here, in this land of ours, five hundred million men and women and children can be supported and educated without trouble. we can afford to double two or three times more. but what have we got to do? we have got to educate them when they come. that is to say, we have got to educate their children, and in a few generations we will have them splendid american citizens, proud of the republic. we have no more patriotic men under the flag than the men who came from other lands, the hundreds and thousands of those who fought to preserve this country. and i think just as much of them as i would if they had been born on american soil. what matters it where a man was born? it is what is inside of him you have to look at--what kind of a heart he has, and what kind of a head. i do not care where he was born; i simply ask, is he a man? is he willing to give to others what he claims for himself? that is the supreme test. now, i have got a hobby. i do not suppose any of you have heard of it. i think the greatest thing for a country is for all of its citizens to have a home. i think it is around the fireside of home that the virtues grow, including patriotism. we want homes. until a few years ago it was the custom to put men in prison for debt. the authorities threw a man into jail when he owed something which he could not pay, and by throwing him into jail they deprived him of an opportunity to earn what would pay it. after a little time they got sense enough to know that they could not collect a debt in this way, and that it was better to give him his freedom and allow him to earn something, if he could. therefore, imprisonment for debt was done away with. at another time, when a man owed anything, if he was a carpenter, a blacksmith or a shoemaker, and not able to pay it, they took his tools, on a writ of sale and execution, and thus incapacitated him so that he could do nothing. finally they got sense enough to abolish that law, to leave the mechanic his tools and the farmer his plows, horses and wagons, and after this, debts were paid better than ever they were before. then we thought of protecting the home-builder, and we said: "we will have a homestead exemption. we will put a roof over wife and child, which shall be exempt from execution and sale," and so we preserved hundreds of thousands and millions of homes, while debts were paid just as well as ever they were paid before. now, i want to take a step further. i want, the rich people of this country to support it. i want the people who are well off to pay the taxes. i want the law to exempt a homestead of a certain value, say from two thousand dollars to two thousand five hundred, and to exempt it, not only from sale on judgment and execution, but to exempt it from taxes of all sorts and kinds. i want to keep the roof over the heads of children when the man himself is gone. i want that homestead to belong not only to the man, but to wife and children. i would like to live to see a roof over the heads of all the families of the republic. i tell you, it does a man good to have a home. you are in partnership with nature when you plant a hill of corn. when you set out a tree you have a new interest in this world. when you own a little tract of land you feel as if you and the earth were partners. all these things dignify human nature. bad as i am, i have another hobby. there are thousands and thousands of criminals in our country. i told you a little while ago i did not blame the south, because of the conditions which prevailed in the south. the people of the south did as they must. i am the same about the criminal. he does as he must. if you want to stop crime you must treat it properly. the conditions of society must not be such as to produce criminals. when a man steals and is sent to the penitentiary he ought to be sent there to be reformed and not to be brutalized; to be made a better man, not to be robbed. i am in favor, when you put a man in the penitentiary, of making him work, and i am in favor of paying him what his work is worth, so that in five years, when he leaves the prison cell, he will have from two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars as a breastwork between him and temptation, and something for a foundation upon which to build a nobler life. now he is turned out and before long he is driven back. nobody will employ him, nobody will take him, and, the night following the day of his release he is without a roof over his head and goes back to his old ways. i would allow him to change his name, to go to another state with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and begin the world again. we must recollect that it is the misfortune of a man to become a criminal. i have hobbies and plenty of them. i want to see five hundred millions of people living here in peace. if we want them to live in peace, we must develop the brain, civilize the heart, and above all things, must not forget education. nothing should be taught in the school that somebody does not know. when i look about me to-day, when i think of the advance of my country, then i think of the work that has been done. think of the millions who crossed the mysterious sea, of the thousands and thousands of ships with their brave prows towards the west. think of the little settlements on the shores of the ocean, on the banks of rivers, on the edges of forests. think of the countless conflicts with savages--of the midnight attacks--of the cabin floors wet with the blood of dead fathers, mothers and babes. think of the winters of want, of the days of toil, of the nights of fear, of the hunger and hope. think of the courage, the sufferings and hardships. think of the homesickness, the disease and death. think of the labor; of the millions and millions of trees that were felled, while the aisles of the great forests were filled with the echoes of the ax; of the many millions of miles of furrows turned by the plow; of the millions of miles of fences built; of the countless logs changed to lumber by the saw--of the millions of huts, cabins and houses. think of the work. listen, and you will hear the hum of wheels, the wheels with which our mothers spun the flax and wool. listen, and you will hear the looms and flying shuttles with which they wove the cloth. think of the thousands still pressing toward the west, of the roads they made, of the bridges they built; of the homes, where the sunlight fell, where the bees hummed, the birds sang and the children laughed; of the little towns with mill and shop, with inn and schoolhouse; of the old stages, of the crack of the whips and the drivers' horns; of the canals they dug. think of the many thousands still pressing toward the west, passing over the alleghanies to the shores of the ohio and the great lakes--still onward to the mississippi--the missouri. see the endless processions of covered wagons drawn by horses, by oxen,--men and boys and girls on foot, mothers and babes inside. see the glimmering camp fires at night; see the thousands up with the sun and away, leaving the perfume of coffee on the morning air, and sometimes leaving the new-made grave of wife or child. listen, and you will hear the cry of "gold!" and you will see many thousands crossing the great plains, climbing the mountains and pressing on to the pacific. think of the toil, the courage it has taken to possess this land! think of the ore that was dug, the furnaces that lit the nights with flame; of the factories and mills by the rushing streams. think of the inventions that went hand in hand with the work; of the flails that were changed to threshers; of the sickles that became cradles, and the cradles that were changed to reapers and headers--of the wooden plows that became iron and steel; of the spinning wheel that became the jennie, and the old looms transformed to machines that almost think--of the steamboats that traversed the rivers, making the towns that were far apart neighbors and friends; of the stages that became cars, of the horses changed to locomotives with breath of flame, and the roads of dust and mud to highways of steel, of the rivers spanned and the mountains tunneled. think of the inventions, the improvements that changed the hut to the cabin, the cabin to the house, the house to the palace, the earthen floors and bare walls to carpets and pictures--that changed famine to feast--toil to happy labor and poverty to wealth. think of the cost. think of the separation of families--of boys and girls leaving the old home--taking with them the blessings and kisses of fathers and mothers. think of the homesickness, of the tears shed by the mothers left by the daughters gone. think of the millions of brave men deformed by labor now sleeping in their honored graves. think of all that has been wrought, endured and accomplished for our good, and let us remember with gratitude, with love and tears the brave men, the patient loving women who subdued this land for us. then think of the heroes who served this country; who gave us this glorious present and hope of a still more glorious future; think of the men who really made us free, who secured the blessings of liberty, not only to us, but to billions yet unborn. this country will be covered with happy homes and free men and free women. to-day we remember the heroic dead, those whose blood reddens the paths and highways of honor; those who died upon the field, in the charge, in prison-pens, or in famine's clutch; those who gave their lives that liberty should not perish from the earth. and to-day we remember the great leaders who have passed to the realm of silence, to the land of shadow. thomas, the rock of chickamauga, self-poised, firm, brave, faithful; sherman, the reckless, the daring, the prudent and the victorious; sheridan, a soldier fit to have stood by julius cæsar and to have uttered the words of command; and grant, the silent, the invincible, the unconquered; and rising above them all, lincoln, the wise, the patient, the merciful, the grandest figure in the western world. we remember them all today and hundreds of thousands who are not mentioned, but who are equally worthy, hundreds of thousands of privates, deserving of equal honor with the plumed leaders of the host. and what shall i say to you, survivors of the death-filled days? to you, my comrades, to you whom i have known in the great days, in the time when the heart beat fast and the blood flowed strong; in the days of high hope--what shall i say? all i can say is that my heart goes out to you, one and all. to you who bared your bosoms to the storms of war; to you who left loved ones to die, if need be, for the sacred cause. may you live long in the land you helped to save; may the winter of your age be as green as spring, as full of blossoms as summer, as generous as autumn, and may you, surrounded by plenty, with your wives at your sides and your grandchildren on your knees, live long. and when at last the fires of life burn low; when you enter the deepening dusk of the last of many, many happy days; when your brave hearts beat weak and slow, may the memory of your splendid deeds; deeds that freed your fellow-men; deeds that kept your country on the map of the world; deeds that kept the flag of the republic in the air--may the memory of these deeds fill your souls with peace and perfect joy. let it console you to know that you are not to be forgotten. centuries hence your story will be told in art and song, and upon your honored graves flowers will be lovingly laid by millions' of men and women now unborn. again expressing the joy that i feel in having met you, and again saying farewell to one and all, and wishing you all the blessings of life, i bid you goodbye.* * at the last reunion of the eleventh illinois cavalry, the colonel's old regiment, and the soldiers of peoria county, which mr. ingersoll attended, a little incident happened which let us into the inner circle of his life. the meeting was held at elmwood. while the soldier were passing in review the citizens and young people filled all the seats in the park and crowded around the speaker's stand, so as to occupy all available space. when the soldiers had finished their parade and returned to the park, they found it impossible to get near the speaker. of course we were all disappointed, but were forced to stand on the outskirts of the vast throng. as soon as he ceased speaking, mr. ingersoll said to a soldier that he would like to meet his comrades in the hall at a certain hour in the afternoon. the word spread quickly, and at the appointed hour the hall was crowded with soldiers. the guard stationed at tue door was ordered to let none but soldiers pass into the hall. some of the comrades, however, brought their wives. the guards, true to their orders, refused to let the ladies pass. just as mr. ingersoll was ready to speak, word came to him that some of the comrades' wives were outside and wanted permission to pass the guard. the hall was full, but mr. ingersoll requested all comrades whose wives were within reach to go and get them. when his order had been complied with even standing room was at a premium. when mr. ingersoll arose to speak to that great assemblage of white-haired veterans and their aged companions his voice was unusually tender, and the wave of emotion that passed through the hall cannot be told in words. tears and cheers blended as mr. ingersoll arose and began his speech with the statement that all present were nearing the setting sun of life, and in all probability that was the last opportunity many of them would have of taking each other by the hand. in this half-hour impromptu speech the great-hearted man, robert g. ingersoll, was seen at his best. it was not a clash of opinions over party or creed, but it was a meeting of hearts and communion together in the holy of holies of human life. the address was a series of word-pictures that still hang on the walls of memory. the speaker, in his most sympathetic mood, drew a picture of the service of the g. a. r., of the women of the republic, and then paid a beautiful tribute to home and invoked the kindest and greatest influence to guard his comrades and their companions during the remainder of life's journey. we got very close to the man that day, where we could see the heart of mr. ingersoll. i have often wished that a reporter could have been present to preserve the address. imagine four beautiful word-paintings entitled, "the service of the g. a. r.," "the influence of noble womanhood," "the sacredness of home," and "the pilgrimage of life." imagine these word-paintings as drawn by mr. ingersoll under the most favorable circumstances, and you have an idea of that address. mr. ingersoll the agnostic is a very different man from mr. ingersoll the man and patriot. i cannot share the doubts of this agnostic. i cannot help admiring the man and patriot.--the rev. frank mcalpine, peoria star, august , . the chicago and new york gold speech. * "this world will see but one ingersoll." such was the terse, laconic, yet potent utterance that came spontaneously from a celebrated statesman whose head is now pillowed in the dust of death, as he stood in the lobby of the old burnet house in cincinnati after the famous republican convention in that city in , at which colonel robert g. ingersoll made that powerful speech nominating blaine for the presidency, one which is read and reread to- day, and will be read in the future, as an example of the highest art of the platform. that same sentiment in thought, emotion or vocal expression emanated from upward of twenty thousand citizens last night who heard the eloquent and magic ingersoll in the great tent stretched near the corner of sacramento avenue and lake street as he expounded the living gospel of true republicanism. the old warhorse, silvered by long years of faithful service to his country, aroused the same all-pervading enthusiasm as he did in the campaigns of grant and hayes and garfield. he has lost not one whit, not one iota of his striking physical presence, his profound reasoning, his convincing logic, his rollicking wit, grandiloquence--in fine, all the graces of the orator of old, reenforced by increased patriotism and the ardor of the call to battle for his country, are still his in the fullest measure. ingersoll in his powerful speech at cincinnati, spoke in behalf of a friend; last night he plead for his country. in he eulogized a man; last night, twenty years afterward, he upheld the principles of democratic government. such was the difference in his theme; the logic, the eloquence of his utterances was the more profound in the same ratio. he came to the ground floor of human existence and talked as man to man. his patriotism, be it religion, sentiment, or that lofty spirit inseparable from man's soul, is his life. last night he sought to inspire those who heard him with the same loyalty, and he succeeded. those passionate outbursts of eloquence, the wit that fairly scintillated, the logic as inexorable as heaven's decrees, his rich rhetoric and immutable facts driven straight to his hearers with the strength of bullets, aroused applause that came as spontaneous as sunlight. now eliciting laughter, now silence, now cheers, the great orator, with the singular charm of presence, manner and voice, swayed his immense audience at his own volition. packed with potency was every sentence, each word a living thing, and with them he flayed financial heresy, laid bare the dire results of free trade, and exposed the dangers of populism. it was an immense audience that greeted him. the huge tent was packed from center-pole to circumference, and thousands went away because they could not gain entrance. the houses in the vicinity were beautifully illuminated decorated. the chairman, wm. p. mccabe, in a brief but forcible speech, presented colonel ingersoll to the vast audience. as the old veteran of rebellion days arose from his seat, one prolonged, tremendous cheer broke forth from the twenty thousand throats. and it was fully fifteen minutes before the great orator could begin to deliver his address. in his introductory speech mr. mccabe said: "friends and fellow-citizens: i have no set speech to make to-night. my duty is to introduce to you one whose big heart and big brain is filled with love and patriotic care for the things that concern the country he fought for and loved so well. i now have the honor of introducing to you hon. robert g. ingersoll."--the intrr-ocean, chicago, ., october th, . . ladies and gentlemen: this is our country. the legally expressed will of the majority is the supreme law of the land. we are responsible for what our government does. we cannot excuse ourselves because of the act of some king, or the opinions of nobles. we are the kings. we are the nobles. we are the aristocracy of america, and when our government does right we are honored, and when our government does wrong the brand of shame is on the american brow. again we are on the field of battle, where thought contends with thought, the field of battle where facts are bullets and arguments are swords. to-day there is in the united states a vast congress consisting of the people, and in that congress every man has a voice, and it is the duty of every man to inquire into all questions presented, to the end that he may vote as a man and as a patriot should. no american should be dominated by prejudice. no man standing under our flag should follow after the fife and drum of a party. he should say to himself: "i am a free man, and i will discharge the obligations of an american citizen with all the intelligence i possess." i love this country because the people are free; and if they are not free it is their own fault. to-night i am not going to appeal to your prejudices, if you have any. i am going to talk to the sense that you have. i am going to address myself to your brain and to your heart. i want nothing of you except that you will preserve the institutions of the republic; that you will maintain her honor unstained. that is all i ask. i admit that all the parties who disagree with me are honest. large masses of mankind are always honest, the leader not always, but the mass of people do what they believe to be right. consequently there is no argument in abuse, nothing calculated to convince in calumny. to be kind, to be candid, is far nobler, far better, and far more american. we live in a democracy, and we admit that every other human being has the same right to think, the same right to express his thought, the same right to vote that we have, and i want every one who hears me to vote in exact accord with his sense, to cast his vote in accordance with his conscience. i want every one to do the best he can for the great republic, and no matter how he votes, if he is honest, i shall find no fault. but the great thing is to understand what you are going to do; the great thing is to use the little sense that we have. in most of us the capital is small, and it ought to be turned often. we ought to pay attention, we ought to listen to what is said and then think, think for ourselves. several questions have been presented to the american people for their solution, and i propose to speak a little about those questions, and i do not want you to pretend to agree with me. i want no applause unless you honestly believe i am right. three great questions are presented: first, as to money; second, as to the tariff, and third, whether this government has the right of self-defence. whether this is a government of law, or whether there shall be an appeal from the supreme court to a mob. these are the three questions to be answered next tuesday by the american people. first, let us take up this money question. thousands and thousands of speeches have been made on the subject. pamphlets thick as the leaves of autumn have been scattered from one end of the republic to the other, all about money, as if it were an exceedingly metaphysical question, as though there were something magical about it. what is money? money is a product of nature. money is a part of nature. money is something that man cannot create. all the legislatures and congresses of the world cannot by any possibility create one dollar, any more than they could suspend the attraction of gravitation or hurl a new constellation into the concave sky. money is not made. it has to be found. it is dug from the crevices of rocks, washed from the sands of streams, from the gravel of ancient valleys; but it is not made. it cannot be created. money is something that does not have to be redeemed. money is the redeemer. and yet we have a man running for the presidency on three platforms with two vice-presidents, who says that money is the creature of law. it may be that law sometimes is the creature of money, but money was never the creature of law. a nation can no more create money by law than it can create corn and wheat and barley by law, and the promise to pay money is no nearer money than a warehouse receipt is grain, or a bill of fare is a dinner. if you can make money by law, why should any nation be poor? the supply of law is practically unlimited. suppose one hundred people should settle on an island, form a government, elect a legislature. they would have the power to make law, and if law can make money, if money is the creature of law, why should not these one hundred people on the island be as wealthy as great britain? what is to hinder? and yet we are told that money is the creature of law. in the financial world that is as absurd as perpetual motion in mechanics; it is as absurd as the fountain of eternal youth, the philosopher's stone, or the transmutation of metals. what is a dollar? people imagine that a piece of paper with pictures on it, with signatures, is money. the greenback is not money--never was; never will be. it is a promise to pay money; not money. the note of the nation is no nearer money than the note of an individual. a bank note is not money. it is a promise to pay money; that is all. well, what is a dollar? in the civilized world it is twenty-three grains and twenty-two one hundredths of pure gold. that is a dollar. well, cannot we make dollars out of silver? yes, i admit it, but in order to make a silver dollar you have got to put a dollars worth of silver in the silver dollar, and you have to put as much silver in it as you can buy for twenty-three grains and twenty-two one-hundredths' of a grain of pure gold. it takes a dollar's worth of silver to make a dollar. it takes a dollar's worth of paper to make a paper dollar. it takes a dollar's worth of iron to make an iron dollar; and there is no way of making a dollar without the value. and let me tell you another thing. you do not add to the value of gold by coining it any more than you add to the value of wheat by measuring it; any more than you add to the value of coal by weighing it. why do you coin gold? because every man cannot take a chemist's outfit with him. he cannot carry a crucible and retort, scales and acids, and so the government coins it, simply to certify how much gold there is in the piece. ah, but, says this same gentleman, what gives our money--our silver--its value? it is because it is a legal tender, he says. nonsense; nonsense. gold was not given value by being made a legal tender, but being valuable it was made a legal tender. and gold gets no value to-day from being a legal tender. i not only say that, but i will prove it; and i will not only prove it, but i will demonstrate it. take a twenty dollar gold piece, hammer it out of shape, mar the goddess of liberty, pound out the united states of america and batter the eagle, and after you get it pounded how much is it worth? it is worth exactly twenty dollars. is it a legal tender? no. has its value been changed? no. take a silver dollar. it is a legal tender; now pound it into a cube, and how much is it worth? a little less than fifty cents. what gives it the value of a dollar? the fact that it is a legal tender? no; but the promise of the government to keep it on an equality with gold. i will not only say this, but i will demonstrate it. i do not ask you to take my word; just use the sense you have. the mexican silver dollar has a little more silver in it than one of our dollars, and the mexican silver dollar is a legal tender in mexico. if there is any magic about legal tender it ought to work as well in mexico as in the united states. i take an american silver dollar and i go to mexico. i buy a dinner for a dollar and i give to the mexican the american dollar and he gives me a mexican dollar in change. yet both of the dollars are legal tender. why is it that the mexican dollar is worth only fifty cents? because the mexican government has not agreed to keep it equal with gold; that is all, that is all. we want the money of the civilized world, and i will tell you now that in the procession of nations every silver nation lags behind--every one. there is not a silver nation on the globe where decent wages are paid for human labor--not one. the american laborer gets ten times as much here in gold as a laborer gets in china in silver, twenty times as much as a laborer does in india, four times as much as a laborer gets in russia; and yet we are told that the man who will "follow england" with the gold standard lacks patriotism and manhood. what then shall we say of the man that follows china, that follows india in the silver standard? does that require patriotism? it certainly requires self-denial. and yet these gentlemen say that our money is too good. they might as well say the air is too pure; they might as well say the soil is too rich. how can money be too good? mr. bryan says that it is so good, people hoard it; and let me tell him they always will. mr. bryan wants money so poor that everybody will be anxious to spend it. he wants money so poor that the rich will not have it. then he thinks the poor can get it. we are willing to toil for good money. good money means the comforts and luxuries of life. real money is always good. paper promises and silver substitutes may be poor; words and pictures may be cheap and may fade to worthlessness--but gold shines on. in chicago, many years ago, there was an old colored man at the grand pacific. i met him one morning, and he looked very sad, and i said to him, "uncle, what is the matter?" "well," he said, "my wife ran away last night. pretty good looking woman; a good deal younger than i am; but she has run off." and he says: "colonel, i want to give you my idea about marriage. if a man wants to marry a woman and have a good time, and be satisfied and secure in his mind, he wants to marry some woman that no other man on god's earth would have." that is the kind of money these gentlemen want in the united states. cheap money. do you know that the words cheap money are a contradiction in terms? cheap money is always discounted when people find out that it is cheap. we want good money, and i do not care how much we get. but we want good money. men are willing to toil for good money; willing to work in the mines; willing to work in the heat and glare of the furnace; willing to go to the top of the mast on the wild sea; willing to work in tenements; women are willing to sew with their eyes filled with tears for the sake of good money. and if anything is to be paid in good money, labor is that thing. if any man is entitled to pure gold, it is the man who labors. let the big fellows take cheap money. let the men living next the soil be paid in gold. but i want the money of this country as good as that of any other country. when our money is below par we feel below par. i want our money, no matter how it is payable, to have the gold behind it. that is the money i want in the united states. i want to teach the people of the world that a democracy is honest. i want to teach the people of the world that america is not only capable of self-government, but that it has the self-denial, the courage, the honor, to pay its debts to the last farthing. mr. bryan tells the farmers who are in debt that they want cheap money. what for? to pay their debts. and he thinks that is a compliment to the tillers of the soil. the statement is an insult to the farmers, and the farmers of maine and vermont have answered him. and if the farmers of those states with their soil can be honest, i think a farmer in illinois has no excuse for being a rascal. i regard the farmers as honest men, and when the sun shines and the rains fall and the frosts wait, they will pay their debts. they are good men, and i want to tell you to-night that all the stories that have been told about farmers being populists are not true. you will find the populists in the towns, in the great cities, in the villages. all the failures, no matter for what reason, are on the populist's side. they want to get rich by law. they are tired of work. and yet mr. bryan says vote for cheap money so that you can pay your debts in fifty cent dollars. will an honest man do it? suppose a man has borrowed a thousand bushels of wheat of his neighbor, of sixty pounds to the bushel, and then congress should pass a law making thirty pounds of wheat a bushel. would that farmer pay his debt with five hundred bushels and consider himself an honest man? mr. bryan says, "vote for cheap money to pay your debts," and thereupon the creditor says, "what is to become of me?" mr. bryan says, "we will make it one dollar and twenty-nine cents an ounce, and make it of the ratio of sixteen to one, make it as good as gold." and thereupon the poor debtor says, "how is that going to help me?" and in nearly all the speeches that this man has made he has taken the two positions, first, that we want cheap money to pay debts, and second, that the money would be just as good as gold for creditors. now, the question is: can congress make fifty cents' worth of silver worth one dollar? that is the question, and if congress can, then i oppose the scheme on account of its extravagance. what is the use of wasting all that silver? think about it. if congress can make fifty cents' worth of silver worth a dollar by law, why can it not make one cent's worth of silver worth a dollar by law. let us save the silver and use it for forks and spoons. the supply even of silver is limited--the supply of law is inexhaustible. do not waste silver, use more law. you cannot fix values by law any more than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers. there is another trouble. if congress, by the free coinage of silver, can double its value, why should we allow an englishman with a million dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market price, to bring it to america, have it coined free of charge, and make it exactly double the value? why should we put a million dollars in his pocket? that is too generous. why not buy the silver from him in the open market and let the government make the million dollars? nothing is more absurd; nothing is more idiotic. i admit that mr. bryan is honest. i admit it. if he were not honest his intellectual pride would not allow him to make these statements. well, another thing says our friend, "gold has been cornered"; and thousands of people believe it. you have no idea of the credulity of some folks. i say that it has not been cornered, and i will not only prove it, i will demonstrate it. whenever the stock exchange or some of the members have a corner on stocks, that stock goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts. whenever gentlemen in chicago get up a corner on wheat in the produce exchange, wheat goes up or the corner bursts. and yet they tell me there has been a corner in gold for all these years, yet since to the present time the rate of interest has steadily gone down. if there had been a corner the rate of interest would have steadily advanced. there is a demonstration. but let me ask, for my own information, if they corner gold what will prevent their cornering silver? or are you going to have it so poor that it will not be worth cornering? then they say another thing, and that is that the demonetization of silver is responsible for all the hardships we have endured, for all the bankruptcy, for all the panics. that is not true, and i will not only prove it, but i will demonstrate it. the poison of demonetization entered the american veins, as they tell us, in , and has been busy in its hellish work from that time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were vaccinated, , was the most prosperous year ever known by this republic. all the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good wages, everybody prosperous. how, mr. bryanite, how do you account for that? just be honest a minute and think about it. then there is another thing. in great britain demonetized silver, and that wretched old government has had nothing but gold from that day to this as a standard. and to show you the frightful results of that demonetization, that government does not own now above one-third of the globe, and all the winds are busy floating her flags. there is a demonstration. mr. bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver to . what is the use of stopping there? why not make it to ? why not make it equal with gold and be done with it? and why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? i do not know. i am not well acquainted with all the facts that enter into the question of value, but why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? i do not know. and i guess if he were cross-examined along toward the close of the trial he would admit that he did not know. and yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our fathers. well, let us see. our fathers did some good things. in they made gold and silver the standards, and at a ratio of to . but where you have two metals and endeavor to make a double standard it is very hard to keep them even. they vary, and, as old dogberry says, "an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind." they made the ratio to , and who did it? thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton. jefferson, the greatest man, with one exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. with one exception. [a voice: "who was that?"] abraham lincoln. alexander hamilton, with more executive ability than any other man that ever stood under the flag. and how did they fix the ratio? they found the commercial value in the market; that is how they did it. and they went on and issued american dollars to ; and in , when jefferson was president, the coinage was stopped. why? there was too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of passing them around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths. then in the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one. that was based again on the commercial value, and instead of sixteen to one they went into the thousands in decimals. it was not quite sixteen to one. they wanted to fix it absolutely on the commercial value. then a few more dollars were coined; and our fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to , eight millions, and seven millions had been melted. in the gold standard was in fact adopted, and, as i have told you, from to only eight millions of silver had been coined. what have the "enemies of silver" done since that time? under the act of we have coined over four hundred and thirty millions of these blessed dollars. we bought four million ounces of silver in the open market every month, and in spite of the vast purchases silver continued to go down. we are coining about two millions a month now, and silver is still going down. even the expectation of the election of bryan cannot add the tenth of one per cent, to the value of silver bullion. it is going down day by day. but what i want to say to-night is, if you want silver money, measure it by the gold standard. i wish every one here would read the speech of senator sherman, delivered at columbus a little while ago, in which he gives the history of american coinage, and every man who will read it will find that silver was not demonetized in . you will find that it was demonetized in , and if he will read back he will find that the apostles of silver now were in favor of the gold standard in . senator jones of nevada in voted for the law of . he said from his seat in the senate, that god had made gold the standard. he said that gold was the mother of civilization. whether he has heard from god since or not i do not know. but now he is on the other side. senator stewart of nevada was there at the time; he voted for the act of , and said that gold was the only standard. he has changed his mind. so they have said of me that i used to talk another way, and they have published little portions of speeches, without publishing all that was said. i want to tell you to-night that i have never changed on the money question. on many subjects i have changed. i am very glad to feel that i have grown a little in the last forty or fifty years. and a man should allow himself to grow, to bud and blossom and bear new fruit, and not be satisfied with the rotten apples under the tree. but on the money question i have not changed. sixteen years ago in this city at cooper union, in , in discussing this precise question, i said that i wanted gold and silver and paper; that i wanted the paper issued by the general government, and back of every paper dollar i wanted a gold dollar or a silver dollar worth a dollar in gold. i said then, "i want that silver dollar worth a dollar in gold if you have to make it four feet in diameter." i said then, "i want our paper so perfectly secure that when the savage in central africa looks upon a government bill of the united states his eyes will gleam as though he looked at shining gold." i said then, "i want every paper dollar of the union to be able to hold up its hand and swear, 'i know that my redeemer liveth.'" i said then, "the republic cannot afford to debase money; cannot afford to be a clipper of coin; an honest nation, honest money; for nations as well as individuals, honesty is the best policy everywhere and forever." i have not changed on that subject. as i told a gentleman the other day, "i am more for silver than you are because i want twice as much of it in a dollar as you do." ah, but they say, "free coinage would bring prosperity." i do not believe it, and i will tell you why. elect bryan, come to the silver standard, and what would happen? we have in the united states about six hundred million dollars in gold. every dollar would instantly go out of circulation. why? no man will use the best money when he can use cheaper. remember that. no carpenter will use mahogany when his contract allows pine. gold will go out of circulation, and what next would happen? all the greenbacks would fall to fifty cents on the dollar. the only reason they are worth a dollar now is because the government has agreed to pay them in gold. when you come to a silver basis they fall to fifty cents. what next? all the national bank notes would be cut square in two. why? because they are secured by united states bonds, and when we come to a silver basis, united states bonds would be paid in silver, fifty cents on the dollar. and what else would happen? what else? these sacred silver dollars would instantly become fifty cent pieces, because they would no longer be redeemable in gold; because the government would no longer be under obligation to keep them on a parity with gold. and how much currency and specie would that leave for us in the united states? in value three hundred and fifty million dollars. that is five dollars per capita. we have twenty dollars per capita now, and yet they want to go to five dollars for the purpose of producing prosperous times! what else would happen? every human being living on an income would lose just one-half. every soldiers' pension would be cut in two. every human being who has a credit in the savings bank would lose just one-half. all the life insurance companies would pay just one-half. all the fire insurance companies would pay just one-half, and leave you the ashes for the balance. that is what they call prosperity. and what else? the republic would be dishonored. the believers in monarchy--in the divine right of kings--the aristocracies of the old world--would say, "democracy is a failure, freedom is a fraud, and liberty is a liar;" and we would be compelled to admit the truth. no; we want good, honest money. we want money that will be good when we are dead. we want money that will keep the wolf from the door, no matter what congress does. we want money that no law can create; that is what we want. there was a time when rome was mistress of the world, and there was a time when the arch of the empire fell, and the empire was buried in the dust of oblivion; and before those days the roman people coined gold, and one of those coins is as good to-night as when julius cæsar rode at the head of his legions. that is the money we want. we want money that is honest. but mr. bryan hates the bondholders. who are the bondholders? let us be honest; let us have some sense. when this government was in the flame of civil war it was compelled to sell bonds, and everybody who bought a bond bought it because he believed the great republic would triumph at last. every man who bought a bond was our friend, and every bond that he purchased added to the chances of our success. they were our friends, and i respect them all. most of them are dead, and the bonds they bought have been sold and resold maybe hundreds of times, and the men who have them now paid a hundred and twenty in gold, and why should they not be paid in gold? can any human being think of any reason? and yet mr. bryan says that the debt is so great that it cannot be paid in gold. how much is the republic worth? let me tell you? this republic to-day--its lands in cultivation, its houses, railways, canals, and money--is worth seventy thousand million dollars. and what do we owe? one billion five hundred million dollars, and what is the condition of the country? it is the condition of a man who has seventy dollars and owes one dollar and a half. this is the richest country on the globe. have we any excuse for being thieves? have we any excuse for failing to pay the debt? no, sir; no, sir. mr. bryan hates the bondholders of the railways. why? i do not know. what did those wretches do? they furnished the money to build the one hundred and eighty thousand miles of railway in the united states; that is what they did. they paid the money that threw up the road-bed, that shoveled the gravel; they paid the men that turned the ore into steel and put it in form for use; they paid the men that cut down the trees and made the ties, that manufactured the locomotives and the cars. that is what they did. no wonder that a presidential failure hates them. so this man hates bankers. now, what is a banker? here is a little town of five thousand people, and some of them have a little money. they do not want to keep it in the house because some bryan man might find it; i mean if it were silver. so one citizen buys a safe and rents a room and tells all the people, "you deposit the overplus with me to hold it subject to your order upon your orders signed as checks;" and so they do, and in a little while he finds that he has on hand continually about one hundred thousand dollars more than is called for, and thereupon he loans it to the fellow who started the livery stable and to the chap that opened the grocery and to the fellow with the store, and he makes this idle money work for the good and prosperity of that town. and that is all he does. and these bankers now, if mr. bryan becomes president, can pay the depositors in fifty cent dollars; and yet they are such rascally wretches that they say, "we prefer to pay back gold." you can see how mean they are. mr. bryan hates the rich. would he like to be rich? he hates the bondholders. would he like to have a million? he hates the successful man. does he want to be a failure? if he does, let him wait until the third day of november. we want honest money because we are honest people; and there never was any real prosperity for a nation or an individual without honesty, without integrity, and it is our duty to preserve the reputation of the great republic. better be an honest bankrupt than a rich thief. poverty can hold in its hand the jewel, honor--a jewel that outshines all other gems. a thousand times better be poor and noble than rich and fraudulent. then there is another question--the question of the tariff. i admit that there are a great many arguments in favor of free trade, but i assert that all the facts are the other way. i want american people as far as possible to manufacture everything that americans use. the more industries we have the more we will develop the american brain, and the best crop you can raise in every country is a crop of good men and good women--of intelligent people. and another thing, i want to keep this market for ourselves. a nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor; a nation that manufactures will grow intelligent and rich. it only takes muscle to dig ore. it takes mind to manufacture a locomotive, and only that labor is profitable that is mixed with thought. muscle must be in partnership with brain. i am in favor of keeping this market for ourselves, and yet some people say: "give us the market of the world." well, why don't you take it? there is no export duty on anything. you can get things out of this country cheaper than from any other country in the world. iron is as cheap here in the ground, so are coal and stone, as any place on earth. the timber is as cheap in the forest. why don't you make things and sell them in central africa, in china and japan? why don't you do it? i will tell you why. it is because labor is too high; that is all. almost the entire value is labor. you make a ton of steel rails worth twenty-five dollars; the ore in the ground is worth only a few cents, the coal in the earth only a few cents, the lime in the cliff only a few cents--altogether not one dollar and fifty cents; but the ton is worth twenty-five dollars; twenty-three dollars and fifty cents labor! that is the trouble. the steamship is worth five hundred thousand dollars, but the raw material is not worth ten thousand dollars. the rest is labor. why is labor higher here than in europe? protection. and why do these gentlemen ask for the trade of the world? why do they ask for free trade? because they want cheaper labor. that is all; cheaper labor. the markets of the world! we want our own markets. i would rather have the market of illinois than all of china with her four hundred millions. i would rather have the market of one good county in new york than all of mexico. what do they want in mexico? a little red calico, a few sombreros and some spurs. they make their own liquor and they live on red pepper and beans. what do you want of their markets? we want to keep our own. in other words, we want to pursue the policy that has given us prosperity in the past. we tried a little bit of free trade in when we were all prosperous. i said then: "if grover cleveland is elected it will cost the people five hundred million dollars." i am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor a profitable son, but i placed the figure too low. his election has cost a thousand million dollars. there is an old song, "you put the wrong man off at buffalo;" we took the wrong man on at buffalo. we tried just a little of it, not much. we tried the wilson bill--a bill, according to mr. cleveland, born of perfidy and dishonor--a bill that he was not quite foolish enough to sign and not brave enough to veto. we tried it and we are tired of it, and if experience is a teacher the american people know a little more than they did. we want to do our own work, and we want to mingle our thought with our labor. we are the most inventive of all the peoples. we sustain the same relation to invention that the ancient greeks did to sculpture. we want to develop the brain; we want to cultivate the imagination, and we want to cover our land with happy homes. a thing is worth sometimes the thought that is in it, sometimes the genius. here is a man buys a little piece of linen for twenty-five cents, he buys a few paints for fifteen cents, and a few brushes, and he paints a picture; just a little one; a picture, maybe, of a cottage with a dear old woman, white hair, serene forehead and satisfied eyes; at the corner a few hollyhocks in bloom--may be a tree in blossom, and as you listen you seem to hear the songs of birds--the hum of bees, and your childhood all comes back to you as you look. you feel the dewy grass beneath your bare feet once again, and you go back in your mind until the dear old woman on the porch is once more young and fair. there is a soul there. genius has done its work. and the little picture is worth five, ten, may be fifty thousand dollars. all the result of labor and genius. and another thing we want is to produce great men and great women here in our own country; then again we want business. talk about charity, talk about the few dollars that fall unconsciously from the hand of wealth, talk about your poorhouses and your sewing societies and your poor little efforts in the missionary line in the worst part of your town! ah, there is no charity like business. business gives work to labor's countless hands; business wipes the tears from the eyes of widows and orphans; business dimples with joy the cheek of sorrow; business puts a roof above the heads of the homeless; business covers the land with happy homes. we do not want any populistic philanthropy. we want no fiat philosophy. we want no silver swindles. we want business. wind and wave are our servants; let them work. steam and electricity are our slaves; let them toil. let all the wheels whirl; let all the shuttles fly. fill the air with the echoes of hammer and saw. fill the furnace with flame; the moulds with liquid iron. let them glow. build homes and palaces of trade. plow the fields, reap the waving grain. create all things that man can use. business will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the ignorant, enrich the world with art--fill the air with song. give us protection and prosperity. do not cheat us with free trade dreams. do not deceive us with debased coin. give us good money--the life blood of business--and let it flow through the veins and arteries of commerce. and let me tell you to-night the smoke arising from the factories' great plants forms the only cloud on which has ever been seen the glittering bow of american promise. we want work, and i tell you to-night that my sympathies are with the men who work, with the women who weep. i know that labor is the atlas on whose shoulders rests the great superstructure of civilization and the great dome of science adorned with all there is of art. labor is the great oak, labor is the great column, and labor, with its deft and cunning hands, has created the countless things of art and beauty. i want to see labor paid. i want to see capital civilized until it will be willing to give labor its share, and i want labor intelligent enough to settle all these questions in the high court of reason. and let me tell the workingman to-night: you will never help your self by destroying your employer. you have work to sell. somebody has to buy it, if it is bought, and somebody has to buy it that has the money. who is going to manufacture something that will not sell. nobody is going into the manufacturing business through philanthropy, and unless your employer makes a profit, the mill will be shut down and you will be out of work. the interest of the employer and the employed should be one. whenever the employers of the continent are successful, then the workingman is better paid, and you know it. i have some hope in the future for the workingman. i know what it is to work. i do not think my natural disposition runs in that direction, but i know what it is to work, and i have worked with all my might at one dollar and a half a week. i did the work of a man for fifty cents a day, and i was not sorry for it. in the horizon of my future burned and gleamed the perpetual star of hope. i said to myself: i live in a free country, and i have a chance; i live in a free country, and i have as much liberty as any other man beneath the flag, and i have enjoyed it. something has been done for labor. only a few years ago a man worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but the hours have been reduced to at least ten and are on the way to still further reduction. and while the hours have been decreased the wages have as certainly been increased. in forty years--in less--the wages of american workingmen have doubled. a little while ago you received an average of two hundred and eighty-five dollars a year; now you receive an average of more than four hundred and ninety dollars; there is the difference. so it seems to me that the star of hope is still in the sky for every workingman. then there is another thing: every workingman in this country can take his little boy on his knee and say, "john, all the avenues to distinction, wealth, and glory are open to you. there is the free school; take your chances with the rest." and it seems to me that that thought ought to sweeten every drop of sweat that trickles down the honest brow of toil. so let us have protection! how much? enough, so that our income at least will equal our outgo. that is a good way to keep house. i am tired of depression and deficit. i do not like to see a president pawning bonds to raise money to pay his own salary. i do not like to see the great republic at the mercy of anybody, so let us stand by protection. there is another trouble. the gentleman now running for the presidency--a tireless talker--oh, if he had a brain equal to his vocal chords, what a man! and yet when i read his speeches it seems to me as though he stood on his head and thought with his feet. this man is endeavoring to excite class against class, to excite the poor against the rich. let me tell you something. we have no classes in the united states. there are no permanent classes here. the millionaire may be a mendicant, the mendicant may be a millionaire. the man now working for the millionaire may employ that millionaire's sons to work for him. there is a chance for us all. sometimes a numskull is born in the mansion, and a genius rises from the gutter. old mother nature has a queer way of taking care of her children. you cannot tell. you cannot tell. here we have a free open field of competition, and if a man passes me in the race i say: "good luck. get ahead of me if you can, you are welcome." and why should i hate the rich? why should i make my heart a den of writhing, hissing snakes of envy? get rich. i do not care. i am glad i live in a country where somebody can get rich. it is a spur in the flank of ambition. let them get rich. i have known good men that were quite rich, and i have known some mean men who were in straitened circumstances. so i have known as good men as ever breathed the air, who were poor. we must respect the man; what is inside, not what is outside. that is why i like this country. that is why i do not want it dishonored. i want no class feeling. the citizens of america should be friends. where capital is just and labor intelligent, happiness dwells. fortunate that country where the rich are extravagant and the poor economical. miserable that country where the rich are economical and the poor are extravagant. a rich spendthrift is a blessing. a rich miser is a curse. extravagance is a splendid form of charity. let the rich spend, let them build, let them give work to their fellow-men, and i will find no fault with their wealth, provided they obtained it honestly. there was an old fellow by the name of socrates. he happened to be civilized, living in a barbarous time, and he was tried for his life. and in his speech in which he defended himself is a paragraph that ought to remain in the memory of the human race forever. he said to those judges, "during my life i have not sought ambition, wealth. i have not sought to adorn my body, but i have endeavored to adorn my soul with the jewels of patience and justice, and above all, with the love of liberty." such a man rises above all wealth. why should we envy the rich? why envy a man who has no earthly needs? why envy a man that carries a hundred canes? why envy a man who has that which he cannot use? i know a great many rich men and i have read about a great many others, and i do not envy them. they are no happier than i am. you see, after all, few rich men own their property. the property owns them. it gets them up early in the morning. it will not let them sleep; it makes them suspect their friends. sometimes they think their children would like to attend a first-class funeral. why should we envy the rich? they have fear; we have hope. they are on the top of the ladder; we are close to the ground. they are afraid of falling, and we hope to rise. why should we envy the rich? they never drank any colder water than i have. they never ate any lighter biscuits or any better corn bread. they never drank any better illinois wine, or felt better after drinking it, than i have; than you have. they never saw any more glorious sunsets with the great palaces of amethyst and gold, and they never saw the heavens thicker with constellations; they never read better poetry. they know no more about the ecstasies of love than we do. they never got any more pleasure out of courting than i did. why should we envy the rich? i know as much about the ecstasies of love of wife and child and friends as they. they never had any better weather in june than i have, or you have. they can buy splendid pictures. i can look at them. and who owns a great picture or a great statue? the man who bought it? possibly, and possibly not. the man who really owns it, is the man who understands it, that appreciates it, the man into whose heart its beauty and genius come, the man who is ennobled and refined and glorified by it. they have never heard any better music than i have. when the great notes, winged like eagles, soar to the great dome of sound, i have felt just as good as though i had a hundred million dollars. do not try to divide this country into classes. the rich man that endeavors to help his fellow-man deserves the honor and respect of the great republic. i have nothing against the man that got rich in the free and open field of competition. where they combine to rob their fellow-men, then i want the laws enforced. that is all. let them play fair and they are welcome to all they get. and why should we hate the successful? why? we cannot all be first. the race is a vast procession; a great many hundred millions are back of the center, and in front there is only one human being; that is all. shall we wait for the other fellows to catch up? shall the procession stop? i say, help the fallen, assist the weak, help the poor, bind up the wounds, but do not stop the procession. why should we envy the successful? why should we hate them? and why should we array class against class? it is all wrong. for instance, here is a young man, and he is industrious. he is in love with a girl around the corner. she is in his brain all day--in his heart all night, and while he is working he is thinking. he gets a little ahead, they get married. he is an honest man, he gets credit, and the first thing you know he has a good business of his own and he gets rich; educates his children, and his old age is filled with content and love. good! his companions bask in the sunshine of idleness. they have wasted their time, wasted their wages in dissipation, and when the winter of life comes, when the snow falls on the barren fields of the wasted days, then shivering with cold, pinched with hunger, they curse the man who has succeeded. thereupon they all vote for bryan. then there is another question, and that is whether the government has a right to protect itself? and that is whether the employees of railways shall have a right to stop the trains, a right to prevent interstate commerce, a right to burn bridges and shoot engineers? has the united states the right to protect commerce between the states? i say, yes. it is the duty of the president to lay the mailed hand of the republic upon the mob. we want no mobs in this country. this is a government of the people and by the people, a government of law, and these laws should be interpreted by the courts in judicial calm. we have a supreme tribunal. undoubtedly it has made some bad decisions, but it has made a vast number of good ones. the judges do the best they can. of course they are not like mr. bryan, infallible. but they are doing the best they can, and when they make a decision that is wrong it will be attacked by reason, it will be attacked by argument, and in time it will be reversed, but i do not believe in attacking it with a torch or by a mob. i hate the mob spirit. civilized men obey the law. civilized men believe in order. civilized men believe that a man that makes property by industry and economy has the right to keep it. civilized men believe that that man has the right to use it as he desires, and they will judge of his character by the manner in which he uses it. if he endeavors to assist his fellow-man he will have the respect and admiration of his fellow-men. but we want a government of law. we do not want labor questions settled by violence and blood. i want to civilize the capitalist so that he will be willing to give what labor is worth. i want to educate the workingman so that he will be willing to receive what labor is worth. i want to civilize them both to that degree that they can settle all their disputes in the high court of reason. but when you tell me that they can stop the commerce of the nation, then you preach the gospel of the bludgeon, the gospel of torch and bomb. i do not believe in that religion. i believe in a religion of kindness, reason and law. the law is the supreme will of the supreme people, and we must obey it or we go back to savagery and black night. i stand by the courts. i stand by the president who endeavors to preserve the peace. i am against mobs; i am against lynchings, and i believe it is the duty of the federal government to protect all of its citizens at home and abroad; and i want a government powerful enough to say to the governor of any state where they are murdering american citizens without process of law--i want the federal government to say to the governor of that state: "stop; stop shedding the blood of american citizens. and if you cannot stop it, we can." i believe in a government that will protect the lowest, the poorest and weakest as promptly as the mightiest and strongest. that is my government. this old doctrine of state sovereignty perished in the flame of civil war, and i tell you to-night that that infamous lie was surrendered to grant with lee's sword at appomattox. i believe in a strong government, not in a government that can make money, but in a strong government. oh, i forgot to ask the question, "if the government can make money why should it collect taxes?" let us be honest. here is a poor man with a little yoke of cattle, cultivating forty acres of stony ground, working like a slave in the heat of summer, in the cold blasts of winter, and the government makes him pay ten dollars taxes, when, according to these gentlemen, it could issue a one hundred thousand dollar bill in a second. issue the bill and give the fellow with the cattle a rest. is it possible for the mind to conceive anything more absurd than that the government can create money? now, the next question is, or the next thing is, you have to choose between men. shall mr. bryan be the next president or shall mckinley occupy that chair? who is mr. bryan? he is not a tried man. if he had the capacity to reason, if he had logic, if he could spread the wings of imagination, if there were in his heart the divine flower called pity, he might be an orator, but lacking all these, he is as he is. when major mckinley was fighting under the flag, bryan was in his mother's arms, and judging from his speeches he ought to be there still. what is he? he is a populist. he voted for general weaver. only a little while ago he denied being a democrat. his mind is filled with vagaries. a fiat money man. his brain is an insane asylum without a keeper. imagine that man president. whom would he call about him? upon whom would he rely? probably for secretary of state he would choose ignatius donnelly of minnesota; for secretary of the interior, henry george; for secretary of war, tillman with his pitchforks; for postmaster-general, peffer of kansas. once somebody said: "if you believe in fiat money, why don't you believe in fiat hay, and you can make enough hay out of peffer's whiskers to feed all the cattle in the country." for secretary of the treasury, coin harvey. for secretary of the navy, coxey, and then he could keep off the grass. and then would come the millennium. the great cryptogram and the bacon cipher; the single tax, state saloons, fiat money, free silver, destruction of banks and credit, bondholders and creditors mobbed, courts closed, debts repudiated and the rest of the folks made rich by law. and suppose bryan should die, and then think, think of thomas watson sitting in the chair of abraham lincoln. that is enough to give a patriot political nightmare. if mckinley dies there is an honest capable man to take his place. a man who believes in business, in prosperity. a man who knows what money is. a man who would never permit the laying of a land warrant on a cloud. a man of good sense, a man of level head. a man that loves his country, a man that will protect its honor. and is mckinley a tried man? honest, candid, level-headed, putting on no airs, saying not what he thinks somebody else thinks, but what he thinks, and saying it in his own honest, forcible way. he has made hundreds of speeches during this campaign, not to people whom he ran after, but to people who came to see him. not from the tail end of cars, but from the doorstep of his home, and every speech has been calculated to make votes. every speech has increased the respect of the american people for him, every one. he has never slopped over. four years ago i read a speech made by him at cleveland, on the tariff. i tell you to-night that he is the best posted man on the tariff under the flag. i tell you that he knows the road to prosperity. i read that speech. it had foundation, proportion, dome, and he handled his facts as skillfully as caesar marshaled his hosts on the fields of war, and ever since i read it i have had profound respect for the intelligence and statesmanship of william mckinley. he will call about him the best, the wisest, and the most patriotic men, and his cabinet will respect the highest and loftiest interests and aspirations of the american people. then you have to make another choice. you have to choose between parties, between the new democratic and the old republican. and i want to tell you the new democratic is worse than the old, and that is a good deal for me to say. in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of democrats thought more of country than of party. hundreds and hundreds of thousands shouldered their muskets, rushed to the rescue of the republic, and sustained the administration of abraham lincoln. with their help the rebellion was crushed, and now hundreds and hundreds of thousands of democrats will hold country above party and will join with the republicans in saving the honor, the reputation, of the united states; and i want to say to all the national democrats who feel that they cannot vote for bryan, i want to say to you, vote for mckinley. this is no war for blank cartridges. your gun makes as much noise, but it does not do as much execution. if you vote for palmer it is not to elect him, it is simply to defeat bryan, and the sure way to defeat bryan is to vote for mckinley. you have to choose between parties. the new democratic party, with its allies, the populists and socialists and free silverites, represents the follies, the mistakes, and the absurdities of a thousand years. they are in favor of everything that cannot be done. whatever is, is wrong. they think creditors are swindlers, and debtors who refuse to pay their debts are honest men. good money is bad and poor money is good. a promise is better than a performance. they desire to abolish facts, punish success, and reward failure. they are worse than the old. and yet i want to be honest. i am like the old dutchman who made a speech in arkansas. he said: "ladies and gentlemen, i must tell you the truth. there are good and bad in all parties except the democratic party, and in the democratic party there are bad and worse." the new democratic party, a party that believes in repudiation, a party that would put the stain of dishonesty on every american brow and that would make this government subject to the mob. you have to make your choice. i have made mine. i go with the party that is traveling my way. i do not pretend to belong to anything or that anything belongs to me. when a party goes my way i go with that party and i stick to it as long as it is traveling my road. and let me tell you something. the history of the republican party is the glory of the united states. the republican party has the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of old age. the republican party has the genius of administration. the republican party knows the wants of the people. the republican party kept this country on the map of the world and kept our flag in the air. the republican party made our country free, and that one fact fills all the heavens with light. the republican party is the pioneer of progress; the grandest organization that has ever existed among men. the republican party is the conscience of the nineteenth century. i am proud to belong to it. vote the republican ticket and you will be happy here, and if there is another life you will be happy there. i had an old friend down in woodford county, charley mulidore. he won a coffin on lincoln's election. he took it home and every birthday he called in his friends. they had a little game of "sixty-six" on the coffin lid. when the game was over they opened the coffin and took out the things to eat and drink and had a festival, and the minister in the little town, hearing of it, was scandalized, and he went to charley mulidore and he said: "mr. mulidore, how can you make light of such awful things?" "what things?" "why," he said, "mr. mulidore, what did you do with that coffin? in a little while you die, and then you come to the day of judgment." "well, mr. preacher, when i come to that day of judgment they will say, 'what is your name?' i will tell them, 'charley mulidore.' and they will say, 'mr. mulidore, are you a christian?' 'no, sir, i was a republican, and the coffin i got out of this morning i won on abraham lincoln's election.' and then they will say, 'walk in, mr. mulidore, walk in, walk in; here is your halo and there is your harp.'" if you want to live in good company vote the republican ticket. vote for black for governor of the state of new york--a man in favor of protection and honest money; a man that believes in the preservation of the honor of the nation. vote for members of congress that are true to the great principles of the republican party. vote for every republican candidate from the lowest to the highest. this is a year when we mean business. vote, as i tell you, the republican ticket if you want good company. if you want to do some good to your fellow-men, if you want to say when you die--when the curtain falls--when the music of the orchestra grows dim--when the lights fade; if you want to live so at that time you can say "the world is better because i lived," vote the republican ticket in . vote with the party of lincoln--greatest of our mighty dead; lincoln the merciful. vote with the party of grant, the greatest soldier of his century; a man worthy to have been matched against cæsar for the mastery of the world; as great a general as ever planted on the field of war the torn and tattered flag of victory. vote with the party of sherman and sheridan and thomas. but the time would fail me to repeat even the names of the philosophers, the philanthropists, the thinkers, the orators, the statesmen, and the soldiers who made the republican party glorious forever. we love our country; dear to us for its reputation throughout the world. we love our country for her credit in all the marts of the world. we love our country, because under her flag we are free. it is our duty to hand down the american institutions to our children unstained, unimpaired. it is our duty to preserve them for ourselves, for our children, and for their fair children yet to be. this is the last speech that i shall make in this campaign, and to-night there comes upon me the spirit of prophecy. on november th you will find that by the largest majorities in our history, william mckinley has been elected president of the united states.* * the final rally of the mckinley league for the present campaign, was held last night in carnegie music hall, ana the orator chosen to present the doctrines of the republican party was robert g. ingersoll. the meeting will remain notable for the high character of the audience. the great hall was filled to its utmost capacity. it was crowded from the rear of the stage to the last row of seats in the deep gallery. the boxes were occupied by brilliantly attired women, and hundreds of other women vied with the sterner sex in the applause that greeted the numerous telling points of the speaker. the audience was a very fashionable and exclusive one, for admission was only to be had by ticket, and tickets were hard to get. on the stage a great company of men and women were gathered, and over them waved rich masses of color, the american colors, of course, predominating in the display flags hung from all the gallery rails, and the whole scheme of decoration was consistent and beautiful. at . o'clock mr. john e. milholland appeared upon the stage followed by col. ingersoll. without any delay mr. milholland was presented as the chairman of the meeting. he spoke briefly of the purpose of the party and then said; "there is no intelligent audience under the flag or in any civilized country to whom it would be necessary for me to introduce robert g. ingersoll." and the cheers with which the audience greeted the orator proved the truth of his words. col. ingersoll rose impressively and advanced to the front of the stage, from which the speaker's desk had been removed in order to allow him full opportunity to indulge in his habit of walking to and fro as he talked. he was greeted with tremendous applause; the men cheered him and the women waved their handkerchiefs and fans for several minutes. he was able to secure instant command of his audience, and while the applause was wildest, he waved his hand, and the gesture was followed by a silence that was oppressive. still the speaker waited. he did not intend to waste any of his ammunition. then, convinced that every eye was centred upon him, he spoke, declaring "this is our country." the assembly was his from that instant. he followed it up with a summary of the issues of the campaign. they were "money, the tariff, and whether this government has the right of self-defence." as he said later on in his address, the colonel has changed in a good many things, but he has not changed his politics, and he has not altered one whit in his masterful command of forceful sayings.--new york tribune, october th, . note:--this was col. ingersoll's last political address. need to redo all the "remove" lines: the works of robert g. ingersoll "arguments cannot be answered with insults. kindness is strength; anger blows out the lamp of the mind. in the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm." in twelve volumes volume vi. discussions dresden edition contents. the christian religion. ( .) i. col. ingersoll's opening paper--statement of the fundamental truths of christianity--reasons for thinking that portions of the old testament are the product of a barbarous people--passages upholding slavery, polygamy, war, and religious persecution not evidences of inspiration--if the words are not inspired, what is?--commands of jehovah compared with the precepts of pagans and stoics--epictetus, cicero, zeno, seneca, brahma--ii. the new testament--why were four gospels necessary?--salvation by belief--the doctrine of the atonement--the jewish system culminating in the sacrifice of christ--except for the crucifixion of her son, the virgin mary would be among the lost--what christ must have known would follow the acceptance of his teachings--the wars of sects, the inquisition, the fields of death--why did he not forbid it all?--the little that he revealed--the dogma of eternal punishment--upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp--iii. the "inspired" writers--why did not god furnish every nation with a bible? ii. judge black's reply--his duty that of a policeman--the church not in danger--classes who break out into articulate blasphemy--the sciolist--personal remarks about col. ingersoll--chief-justice gibson of pennsylvania quoted--we have no jurisdiction or capacity to rejudge the justice of god--the moral code of the bible--civil government of the jews--no standard of justice without belief in a god--punishments for blasphemy and idolatry defended--wars of conquest--allusion to col. ingersoll's war record--slavery among the jews--polygamy discouraged by the mosaic constitution--jesus of nazareth and the establishment of his religion--acceptance of christianity and adjudication upon its divinity--the evangelists and their depositions--the fundamental truths of christianity--persecution and triumph of the church--ingersoll's propositions compressed and the compressions answered--salvation as a reward of belief--punishment of unbelief--the second birth, atonement, redemption, non-resistance, excessive punishment of sinners, christ and persecution, christianity and freedom of thought, sufficiency of the gospel, miracles, moral effect of christianity. iii. col. ingersoll's rejoinder--how this discussion came about--natural law--the design argument--the right to rejudge the justice even of a god--violation of the commandments by jehovah--religious intolerance of the old testament--judge black's justification of wars of extermination--his defence of slavery--polygamy not "discouraged" by the old testament--position of woman under the jewish system and under that of the ancients--a "policeman's" view of god--slavery under jehovah and in egypt--the admission that jehovah gave no commandment against polygamy--the learned and wise crawl back in cribs--alleged harmony of old and new testaments--on the assertion that the spread of christianity proves the supernatural origin of the gospel--the argument applicable to all religions--communications from angels ana gods--authenticity of the statements of the evangelists--three important manuscripts--rise of mormonism--ascension of christ--the great public events alleged as fundamental truths of christianity--judge black's system of "compression"--"a metaphysical question"--right and wrong--justice--christianity and freedom of thought--heaven and hell--production of god and the devil--inspiration of the bible dependent on the credulity of the reader--doubt of miracles--the world before christ's advent--respect for the man christ--the dark ages--institutions of mercy--civil law. the field-ingersoll discussion. ( .) an open letter to robert g. ingersoll--superstitions--basis of religion--napoleon's question about the stars--the idea of god--crushing out hope--atonement, regeneration, and future retribution--socrates and jesus--the language of col. ingersoll characterized as too sweeping--the sabbath--but a step from sneering at religion to sneering at morality. a reply to the rev. henry m. field, d. d.--honest differences of opinion--charles darwin--dr. field's distinction between superstition and religion--the presbyterian god an infinite torquemada--napoleon's sensitiveness to the divine influence--the preference of agassiz--the mysterious as an explanation--the certainty that god is not what he is thought to be--self-preservation the fibre of society--did the assassination of lincoln illustrate the justice of god's judgments?--immortality--hope and the presbyterian creed--to a mother at the grave of her son--theological teaching of forgiveness--on eternal retribution--jesus and mohammed--attacking the religion of others--ananias and sapphira--the pilgrims and freedom to worship--the orthodox sabbath--natural restraints on conduct--religion and morality--the efficacy of prayer--respect for belief of father and mother--the "power behind nature"--survival of the fittest--the saddest fact--"sober second thought." a last word to robert g. ingersoll, by dr. field--god not a presbyterian--why col. ingersoll's attacks on religion are resented--god is more merciful than man--theories about the future life--retribution a necessary part of the divine law--the case of robinson crusoe--irresistible proof of design--col. ingersoll's view of immortality--an almighty friend. letter to dr. field--the presbyterian god--what the presbyterians claim--the "incurably bad"--responsibility for not seeing things clearly--good deeds should follow even atheists--no credit in belief--design argument that devours itself--belief as a foundation of social order--no consolation in orthodox religion--the "almighty friend" and the slave mother--a hindu prayer--calvinism--christ not the supreme benefactor of the race. colonel ingersoll on christianity. ( .) some remarks on his reply to dr. field by the hon. wm. e. gladstone--external triumph and prosperity of the church--a truth half stated--col. ingersoll's tumultuous method and lack of reverential calm--jephthah's sacrifice--hebrews xii expounded--the case of abraham--darwinism and the scriptures--why god demands sacrifices of man--problems admitted to be insoluble--relation of human genius to human greatness--shakespeare and others--christ and the family relation--inaccuracy of reference in the reply--ananias and sapphira--the idea of immortality--immunity of error in belief from moral responsibility--on dishonesty in the formation of opinion--a plausibility of the shallowest kind--the system of thuggism--persecution for opinion's sake--riding an unbroken horse. col. ingersoll to mr. gladstone--on the "impaired" state of the human constitution--unbelief not due to degeneracy--objections to the scheme of redemption--does man deserve only punishment?--"reverential calm"--the deity of the ancient jews--jephthah and abraham--relation between darwinism and the inspiration of the scriptures--sacrifices to the infinite--what is common sense?--an argument that will defend every superstition--the greatness of shakespeare--the absolute indissolubility of marriage--is the religion of christ for this age?--as to ananias and sapphira--immortality and people of low intellectual development--can we control our thought?--dishonest opinions cannot be formed--some compensations for riding an "unbroken horse." rome or reason? ( .) "the church its own witness," by cardinal manning--evidence that christianity is of divine origin--the universality of the church--natural causes not sufficient to account for the catholic church---the world in which christianity arose--birth of christ--from st peter to leo xiii.--the first effect of christianity--domestic life's second visible effect--redemption of woman from traditional degradation--change wrought by christianity upon the social, political and international relations of the world--proof that christianity is of divine origin and presence--st. john and the christian fathers--sanctity of the church not affected by human sins. a reply to cardinal manning--i. success not a demonstration of either divine origin or supernatural aid--cardinal manning's argument more forcible in the mouth of a mohammedan--why churches rise and flourish--mormonism--alleged universality of the catholic church--its "inexhaustible fruitfulness" in good things--the inquisition and persecution--not invincible--its sword used by spain--its unity not unbroken--the state of the world when christianity was established--the vicar of christ--a selection from draper's "history of the intellectual development of europe"--some infamous popes--part ii. how the pope speaks--religions older than catholicism and having the same rites and sacraments--is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin?--integration and disintegration--the condition of the world years ago--the creed of catholicism--the "one true god" with a knowledge of whom catholicism has "filled the world"--did the catholic church overthrow idolatry?--marriage--celibacy--human passions--the cardinal's explanation of jehovah's abandonment of the children of men for four thousand years--catholicism tested by paganism--canon law and convictions had under it--rival popes--importance of a greek "inflection"--the cardinal witnesses. is divorce wrong? ( .) preface by the editor of the north american review--introduction, by the rev. s. w. dike, ll. d.--a catholic view by cardinal gibbons--divorce as regarded by the episcopal church, by bishop, henry c. potter--four questions answered, by robert g. ingersoll. divorce. reply to cardinal gibbons--indissolubility of marriage a reaction from polygamy--biblical marriage--polygamy simultaneous and successive--marriage and divorce in the light of experience--reply to bishop potter--reply to mr. gladstone--justice bradley--senator dolph--the argument continued in colloquial form--dialogue between cardinal gibbons and a maltreated wife--she asks the advice of mr. gladstone--the priest who violated his vow--absurdity of the divorce laws of some states. reply to dr. lyman abbott. ( ) dr. abbott's equivocations--crimes punishable by death under mosaic and english law--severity of moses accounted for by dr. abbott--the necessity for the acceptance of christianity--christians should be glad to know that the bible is only the work of man and that the new testament life of christ is untrue--all the good commandments, known to the world thousands of years before moses--human happiness of more consequence than the truth about god--the appeal to great names--gladstone not the greatest statesman--what the agnostic says--the magnificent mistakes of genesis--the story of joseph--abraham as a "self-exile for conscience's sake." reply to archdeacon farrar. ( .) revelation as an appeal to man's "spirit"--what is spirit and what is "spiritual intuition"?--the archdeacon in conflict with st. paul--ii. the obligation to believe without evidence--iii. ignorant credulity--iv. a definition of orthodoxy--v. fear not necessarily cowardice--prejudice is honest--the ola has the advantage in an argument--st. augustine--jerome--the appeal to charlemagne--roger bacon--lord bacon a defender of the copernican system--the difficulty of finding out what great men believed--names irrelevantly cited--bancroft on the hessians--original manuscripts of the bible--vi. an infinite personality a contradiction in terms--vii. a beginningless being--viii. the cruelties of nature not to be harmonized with the goodness of a deity--sayings from the indian--origen, st. augustine, dante, aquinas. is corporal punishment degrading? ( .) a reply to the dean of st. paul--growing confidence in the power of kindness--crimes against soldiers and sailors--misfortunes punished as crimes--the dean's voice raised in favor of the brutalities of the past--beating of children--of wives--dictum of solomon. the christian religion; ingersoll's opening paper [ingersoll-black] by robert g. ingersoll in the presence of eternity the mountains are as transient as the clouds. a profound change has taken place in the world of thought. the pews are trying to set themselves somewhat above the pulpit. the layman discusses theology with the minister, and smiles. christians excuse themselves for belonging to the church, by denying a part of the creed. the idea is abroad that they who know the most of nature believe the least about theology. the sciences are regarded as infidels, and facts as scoffers. thousands of most excellent people avoid churches, and, with few exceptions, only those attend prayer-meetings who wish to be alone. the pulpit is losing because the people are growing. of course it is still claimed that we are a christian people, indebted to something called christianity for all the progress we have made. there is still a vast difference of opinion as to what christianity really is, although many warring sects have been discussing that question, with fire and sword, through centuries of creed and crime. every new sect has been denounced at its birth as illegitimate, as a something born out of orthodox wedlock, and that should have been allowed to perish on the steps where it was found. of the relative merits of the various denominations, it is sufficient to say that each claims to be right. among the evangelical churches there is a substantial agreement upon what they consider the fundamental truths of the gospel. these fundamental truths, as i understand them, are: that there is a personal god, the creator of the material universe; that he made man of the dust, and woman from part of the man; that the man and woman were tempted by the devil; that they were turned out of the garden of eden; that, about fifteen hundred years afterward, god's patience having been exhausted by the wickedness of mankind, he drowned his children with the exception of eight persons; that afterward he selected from their descendants abraham, and through him the jewish people; that he gave laws to these people, and tried to govern them in all things; that he made known his will in many ways; that he wrought a vast number of miracles; that he inspired men to write the bible; that, in the fullness of time, it having been found impossible to reform mankind, this god came upon earth as a child born of the virgin mary; that he lived in palestine; that he preached for about three years, going from place to place, occasionally raising the dead, curing the blind and the halt; that he was crucified--for the crime of blasphemy, as the jews supposed, but that, as a matter of fact, he was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of all who might have faith in him; that he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he now is, making intercession for his followers; that he will forgive the sins of all who believe on him, and that those who do not believe will be consigned to the dungeons of eternal pain. these--it may be with the addition of the sacraments of baptism and the last supper--constitute what is generally known as the christian religion. it is most cheerfully admitted that a vast number of people not only believe these things, but hold them in exceeding reverence, and imagine them to be of the utmost importance to mankind. they regard the bible as the only light that god has given for the guidance of his children; that it is the one star in nature's sky--the foundation of all morality, of all law, of all order, and of all individual and national progress. they regard it as the only means we have for ascertaining the will of god, the origin of man, and the destiny of the soul. it is needless to inquire into the causes that have led so many people to believe in the inspiration of the scriptures. in my opinion, they were and are mistaken, and the mistake has hindered, in countless ways, the civilization of man. the bible has been the fortress and defence of nearly every crime. no civilized country could re-enact its laws, and in many respects its moral code is abhorrent to every good and tender man. it is admitted that many of its precepts are pure, that many of its laws are wise and just, and that many of its statements are absolutely true. without desiring to hurt the feeling? of anybody, i propose to give a few reasons for thinking that a few passages, at least, in the old testament are the product of a barbarous people. in all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately asserted, that slavery is and always was a hideous crime; that a war of conquest is simply murder; that polygamy is the enslavement of woman, the degradation of man, and the destruction of home; that nothing is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless women, and of prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to soldiers; that wives should not be stoned to death on account of their religious opinions, and that the death penalty ought not to be inflicted for a violation of the sabbath. we know that there was a time, in the history of almost every nation, when slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination were regarded as divine institutions; when women were looked upon as beasts of burden, and when, among some people, it was considered the duty of the husband to murder the wife for differing with him on the subject of religion. nations that entertain these views to-day are regarded as savage, and, probably, with the exception of the south sea islanders, the feejees, some citizens of delaware, and a few tribes in central africa, no human beings can be found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects with the jehovah of the ancient jews. the only evidence we have, or can have, that a nation has ceased to be savage is the fact that it has abandoned these doctrines. to every one, except the theologian, it is perfectly easy to account for the mistakes, atrocities, and crimes of the past, by saying that civilization is a slow and painful growth; that the moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of want, of crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the scales of justice; that conscience is born of suffering; that mercy is the child of the imagination--of the power to put oneself in the sufferer's place, and that man advances only as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the forces of nature. but the believer in the inspiration of the bible is compelled to declare that there was a time when slavery was right--when men could buy, and women could sell, their babes. he is compelled to insist that there was a time when polygamy was the highest form of virtue; when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy; when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. he must maintain that jehovah is just as bad now as he was four thousand years ago, or that he was just as good then as he is now, but that human conditions have so changed that slavery, polygamy, religious persecutions, and wars of conquest are now perfectly devilish. once they were right--once they were commanded by god himself; now, they are prohibited. there has been such a change in the conditions of man that, at the present time, the devil is in favor of slavery, polygamy, religious persecution, and wars of conquest. that is to say, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that jehovah held four thousand years ago, but in the meantime jehovah has remained exactly the same--changeless and incapable of change. we find that other nations beside the jews had similar laws and ideas; that they believed in and practiced slavery and polygamy, murdered women and children, and exterminated their neighbors to the extent of their power. it is not claimed that they received a revelation. it is admitted that they had no knowledge of the true god. and yet, by a strange coincidence, they practised the same crimes, of their own motion, that the jews did by the command of jehovah. from this it would seem that man can do wrong without a special revelation. it will hardly be claimed, at this day, that the passages in the bible upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution are evidences of the inspiration of that book. suppose that there had been nothing in the old testament upholding these crimes, would any modern christian suspect that it was not inspired, on account of the omission? suppose that there had been nothing in the old testament but laws in favor of these crimes, would any intelligent christian now contend that it was the work of the true god? if the devil had inspired a book, will some believer in the doctrine of inspiration tell us in what respect, on the subjects of slavery, polygamy, war, and liberty, it would have differed from some parts of the old testament? suppose that we should now discover a hindu book of equal antiquity with the old testament, containing a defence of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution, would we regard it as evidence that the writers were inspired by an infinitely wise and merciful god? as most other nations at that time practiced these crimes, and as the jews would have practiced them all, even if left to themselves, one can hardly see the necessity of any inspired commands upon these subjects. is there a believer in the bible who does not wish that god, amid the thunders and lightnings of sinai, had distinctly said to moses that man should not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that men should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the sword should never be unsheathed to shed the blood of honest men? is there a believer in the world, who would not be delighted to find that every one of these infamous passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of god were never reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? is there a believer who does not regret that god commanded a husband to stone his wife to death for suggesting the worship of the sun or moon? surely, the light of experience is enough to tell us that slavery is wrong, that polygamy is infamous, and that murder is not a virtue. no one will now contend that it was worth god's while to impart the information to moses, or to joshua, or to anybody else, that the jewish people might purchase slaves of the heathen, or that it was their duty to exterminate the natives of the holy land. the deists have contended that the old testament is too cruel and barbarous to be the work of a wise and loving god. to this, the theologians have replied, that nature is just as cruel; that the earthquake, the volcano, the pestilence and storm, are just as savage as the jewish god; and to my mind this is a perfect answer. suppose that we knew that after "inspired" men had finished the bible, the devil got possession of it, and wrote a few passages; what part of the sacred scriptures would christians now pick out as being probably his work? which of the following passages would naturally be selected as having been written by the devil--"love thy neighbor as thyself," or "kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman; but all the women children keep alive for yourselves."? it may be that the best way to illustrate what i have said of the old testament is to compare some of the supposed teachings of jehovah with those of persons who never read an "inspired" line, and who lived and died without having received the light of revelation. nothing can be more suggestive than a comparison of the ideas of jehovah--the inspired words of the one claimed to be the infinite god, as recorded in the bible--with those that have been expressed by men who, all admit, received no help from heaven. in all ages of which any record has been preserved, there have been those who gave their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. now, if the bible is really the work of god, it should contain the grandest and sublimest truths. it should, in all respects, excel the works of man. within that book should be found the best and loftiest definitions of justice; the truest conceptions of human liberty; the clearest outlines of duty; the tenderest, the highest, and the noblest thoughts,--not that the human mind has produced, but that the human mind is capable of receiving. upon every page should be found the luminous evidence of its divine origin. unless it contains grander and more wonderful things than man has written, we are not only justified in saying, but we are compelled to say, that it was written by no being superior to man. it may be said that it is unfair to call attention to certain bad things in the bible, while the good are not so much as mentioned. to this it may be replied that a divine being would not put bad things in a book. certainly a being of infinite intelligence, power, and goodness could never fall below the ideal of "depraved and barbarous" man. it will not do, after we find that the bible upholds what we now call crimes, to say that it is not verbally inspired. if the words are not inspired, what is? it may be said that the thoughts are inspired. but this would include only the thoughts expressed without words. if ideas are inspired, they must be contained in and expressed only by inspired words; that is to say, the arrangement of the words, with relation to each other, must have been inspired. for the purpose of this perfect arrangement, the writers, according to the christian world, were inspired. were some sculptor inspired of god to make a statue perfect in its every part, we would not say that the marble was inspired, but the statue--the relation of part to part, the married harmony of form and function. the language, the words, take the place of the marble, and it is the arrangement of these words that christians claim to be inspired. if there is one uninspired word,--that is, one word in the wrong place, or a word that ought not to be there,--to that extent the bible is an uninspired book. the moment it is admitted that some words are not, in their arrangement as to other words, inspired, then, unless with absolute certainty these words can be pointed out, a doubt is cast on all the words the book contains. if it was worth god's while to make a revelation to man at all, it was certainly worth his while to see that it was correctly made. he would not have allowed the ideas and mistakes of pretended prophets and designing priests to become so mingled with the original text that it is impossible to tell where he ceased and where the priests and prophets began. neither will it do to say that god adapted his revelation to the prejudices of mankind. of course it was necessary for an infinite being to adapt his revelation to the intellectual capacity of man; but why should god confirm a barbarian in his prejudices? why should he fortify a heathen in his crimes? if a revelation is of any importance whatever, it is to eradicate prejudices from the human mind. it should be a lever with which to raise the human race. theologians have exhausted their ingenuity in finding excuses for god. it seems to me that they would be better employed in finding excuses for men. they tell us that the jews were so cruel and ignorant that god was compelled to justify, or nearly to justify, many of their crimes, in order to have any influence with them whatever. they tell us that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be criminal, the jews would have refused to receive the ten commandments. they insist that, under the circumstances, god did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along slowly, step by step, so that, in a few hundred years, they would be induced to admit that it was hardly fair to steal a babe from its mother's breast. it has always seemed reasonable that an infinite god ought to have been able to make man grand enough to know, even without a special revelation, that it is not altogether right to steal the labor, or the wife, or the child, of another. when the whole question is thoroughly examined, the world will find that jehovah had the prejudices, the hatreds, and superstitions of his day. if there is anything of value, it is liberty. liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of life. without it the world is a prison and the universe an infinite dungeon. if the bible is really inspired, jehovah commanded the jewish people to buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of the jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. yet epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was made, a man whose soul followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the jewish god, was great enough to say: "will you not remember that your servants are by nature your brothers, the children of god? in saying that you have bought them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods." we find that jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round about them." "of them," said jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." and yet cicero, a pagan, cicero, who had never been enlightened by reading the old testament, had the moral grandeur to declare: "they who say that we should love our fellow-citizens, but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever." if the bible is inspired, jehovah, god of all worlds, actually said: "and if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." and yet zeno, founder of the stoics, centuries before christ was born, insisted that no man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the slave had become so by conquest, or by purchase. jehovah ordered a jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this command: "when the lord thy god shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." and yet epictetus, whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the guidance of human conduct: "live with thy inferiors as thou would'st have thy superiors live with thee." is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom said: "i will heap mischief upon them: i will spend mine arrows upon them. they shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: i will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. the sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs"; while seneca, an uninspired roman, said: "the wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. he will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. his clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly." can we believe that god ever said of any one: "let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." if he ever said these words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music, from the hindu: "sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children." jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of sinai," said to the jews: "thou shalt have no other gods before me.... thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." contrast this with the words put by the hindu into the mouth of brahma: "i am the same to all mankind. they who honestly serve other gods, involuntarily worship me. i am he who partaketh of all worship, and i am the reward of all worshipers." compare these passages. the first, a dungeon where crawl the things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with suns. ii. waiving the contradictory statements in the various books of the new testament; leaving out of the question the history of the manuscripts; saying nothing about the errors in translation and the interpolations made by the fathers; and admitting, for the time being, that the books were all written at the times claimed, and by the persons whose names they bear, the questions of inspiration, probability, and absurdity still remain. as a rule, where several persons testify to the same transaction, while agreeing in the main points, they will disagree upon many minor things, and such disagreement upon minor matters is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not agreed among themselves upon the story they should tell. these differences in statement we account for from the facts that all did not see alike, that all did not have the same opportunity for seeing, and that all had not equally good memories. but when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no contradiction, even in the minutest detail. the accounts should be not only substantially, but they should be actually, the same. it is impossible to account for any differences, or any contradictions, except from the weaknesses of human nature, and these weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom. why should there be more than one correct account of anything? why were four gospels necessary? one inspired record of all that happened ought to be enough. one great objection to the old testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by god, but all the cruelties recounted in the old testament ceased with death. the vengeance of jehovah stopped at the portal of the tomb. he never threatened to avenge himself upon the dead; and not one word, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse of malachi, contains the slightest intimation that god will punish in another world. it was reserved for the new testament to make known the frightful doctrine of eternal pain. it was the teacher of universal benevolence who rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man on the lurid gulfs of hell. within the breast of non-resistance was coiled the worm that never dies. one great objection to the new testament is that it bases salvation upon belief. this, at least, is true of the gospel according to john, and of many of the epistles. i admit that matthew never heard of the atonement, and died utterly ignorant of the scheme of salvation. i also admit that mark never dreamed that it was necessary for a man to be born again; that he knew nothing of the mysterious doctrine of regeneration, and that he never even suspected that it was necessary to believe anything. in the sixteenth chapter of mark, we are told that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned"; but this passage has been shown to be an interpolation, and, consequently, not a solitary word is found in the gospel according to mark upon the subject of salvation by faith. the same is also true of the gospel of luke. it says not one word as to the necessity of believing on jesus christ, not one word as to the atonement, not one word upon the scheme of salvation, and not the slightest hint that it is necessary to believe anything here in order to be happy hereafter. and i here take occasion to say, that with most of the teachings of the gospels of matthew, mark, and luke i most heartily agree. the miraculous parts must, of course, be thrown aside. i admit that the necessity of belief, the atonement, and the scheme of salvation are all set forth in the gospel of john,--a gospel, in my opinion, not written until long after the others. according to the prevailing christian belief, the christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. if this doctrine is without foundation, if it is repugnant to justice and mercy, the fabric falls. we are told that the first man committed a crime for which all his posterity are responsible,--in other words, that we are accountable, and can be justly punished for a sin we never in fact committed. this absurdity was the father of another, namely, that a man can be rewarded for a good action done by another. god, according to the modern theologians, made a law, with the penalty of eternal death for its infraction. all men, they say, have broken that law. in the economy of heaven, this law had to be vindicated. this could be done by damning the whole human race. through what is known as the atonement, the salvation of a few was made possible. they insist that the law--whatever that is--demanded the extreme penalty, that justice called for its victims, and that even mercy ceased to plead. under these circumstances, god, by allowing the innocent to suffer, satisfactorily settled with the law, and allowed a few of the guilty to escape. the law was satisfied with this arrangement. to carry out this scheme, god was born as a babe into this world. "he grew in stature and increased in knowledge." at the age of thirty-three, after having lived a life filled with kindness, charity and nobility, after having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. it is claimed that he actually took our place, and bore our sins and our guilt; that in this way the justice of god was satisfied, and that the blood of christ was an atonement, an expiation, for the sins of all who might believe on him. under the mosaic dispensation, there was no remission of sin except through the shedding of blood. if a man committed certain sins, he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves. the priest would lay his hands upon the animal, and the sin of the man would be transferred. then the animal would be killed in the place of the real sinner, and the blood thus shed and sprinkled upon the altar would be an atonement. in this way jehovah was satisfied. the greater the crime, the greater the sacrifice--the more blood, the greater the atonement. there was always a certain ratio between the value of the animal and the enormity of the sin. the most minute directions were given about the killing of these animals, and about the sprinkling of their blood. every priest became a butcher, and every sanctuary a slaughter-house. nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined and loving soul. nothing could have been better calculated to harden the heart than this continual shedding of innocent blood. this terrible system is supposed to have culminated in the sacrifice of christ. his blood took the place of all other. it is necessary to shed no more. the law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited. the idea that god wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery. how can sin be transferred from men to animals, and how can the shedding of the blood of animals atone for the sins of men? the church says that the sinner is in debt to god, and that the obligation is discharged by the savior. the best that can possibly be said of such a transaction is, that the debt is transferred, not paid. the truth is, that a sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. if a man injures his neighbor, it is not enough for him to get the forgiveness of god, but he must have the forgiveness of his neighbor. if a man puts his hand in the fire and god forgives him, his hand will smart exactly the same. you must, after all, reap what you sow. no god can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat. there are in nature neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences. the life of christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence. to make innocence suffer is the greatest sin; how then is it possible to make the suffering of the innocent a justification for the criminal? why should a man be willing to let the innocent suffer for him? does not the willingness show that he is utterly unworthy of the sacrifice? certainly, no man would be fit for heaven who would consent that an innocent person should suffer for his sin. what would we think of a man who would allow another to die for a crime that he himself had committed? what would we think of a law that allowed the innocent to take the place of the guilty? is it possible to vindicate a just law by inflicting punishment on the innocent? would not that be a second violation instead of a vindication? if there was no general atonement until the crucifixion of christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that time? and it must be remembered that the blood shed by the jews was not for other nations. jehovah hated foreigners. the gentiles were left without forgiveness what has become of the millions who have died since, without having heard of the atonement? what becomes of those who have heard but have not believed? it seems to me that the doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral. can a law be satisfied by the execution of the wrong person? when a man commits a crime, the law demands his punishment, not that of a substitute; and there can be no law, human or divine, that can be satisfied by the punishment of a substitute. can there be a law that demands that the guilty be rewarded? and yet, to reward the guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent. according to the orthodox theology, there would have been no heaven had no atonement been made. all the children of men would have been cast into hell forever. the old men bowed with grief, the smiling mothers, the sweet babes, the loving maidens, the brave, the tender, and the just, would have been given over to eternal pain. man, it is claimed, can make no atonement for himself. if he commits one sin, and with that exception lives a life of perfect virtue, still that one sin would remain unexpiated, unatoned, and for that one sin he would be forever lost. to be saved by the goodness of another, to be a redeemed debtor forever, has in it something repugnant to manhood. we must also remember that jehovah took special charge of the jewish people; and we have always been taught that he did so for the purpose of civilizing them. if he had succeeded in civilizing the jews, he would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty; because, if the jews had been a civilized people when christ appeared,--a people whose hearts had not been hardened by the laws and teachings of jehovah,--they would not have crucified him, and, as a consequence, the world would have been lost. if the jews had believed in religious freedom,--in the right of thought and speech,--not a human soul could ever have been saved. if, when christ was on his way to calvary, some brave, heroic soul had rescued him from the holy mob, he would not only have been eternally damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being, and, except for the crucifixion of her son, the virgin mary, if the church is right, would be to-day among the lost. in countless ways the christian world has endeavored, for nearly two thousand years, to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. is it not immoral to teach that man can sin, that he can harden his heart and pollute his soul, and that, by repenting and believing something that he does not comprehend, he can avoid the consequences of his crimes? has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? should men be taught that sin gives happiness here; that they ought to bear the evils of a virtuous life in this world for the sake of joy in the next; that they can repent between the last sin and the last breath; that after repentance every stain of the soul is washed away by the innocent blood of another; that the serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of their own crimes; that the goodness of another can be transferred to them; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against? another objection is that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul. it is often asserted that to believe is the only safe way. if you wish to be safe, be honest. nothing can be safer than that. no matter what his belief may be, no man, even in the hour of death, can regret having been honest. it never can be necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul. a soul without reason is scarcely worth saving. there is no more degrading doctrine than that of mental non-resistance. the soul has a right to defend its castle--the brain, and he who waives that right becomes a serf and slave. neither can i admit that a man, by doing me an injury, can place me under obligation to do him a service. to render benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between actions. he who treats his friends and enemies alike has neither love nor justice. the idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to protect himself. this doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was impossible. to allow a crime to be committed when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. and yet, under the banner of non-resistance, the church has shed the blood of millions, and in the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination. with her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. for a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought. if christ was in fact god, he knew all the future. before him, like a panorama, moved the history yet to be. he knew exactly how his words would be interpreted. he knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. he knew that the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. he knew that brave men would languish in dungeons, in darkness, filled with pain; that the church would use instruments of torture, that his followers would appeal to whip and chain. he must have seen the horizon of the future red with the flames of the _auto da fe_. he knew all the creeds that would spring like poison fungi from every text. he saw the sects waging war against each other. he saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building dungeons for their fellow-men. he saw them using instruments of pain. he heard the groans, saw the faces white with agony, the tears, the blood--heard the shrieks and sobs of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. he knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. he knew that the inquisition would be born of teachings attributed to him. he saw all the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. he knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed, and women's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. why did he fail to speak? why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world, that man should not persecute, for opinion's sake, his fellow-man? why did he not cry, you shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and torment those who differ from you in creed? why did he not plainly say, i am the son of god? why did he not explain the doctrine of the trinity? why did he not tell the manner of baptism that was pleasing to him? why did he not say something positive, definite, and satisfactory about another world? why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven to the glad knowledge of another life? why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? he came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "love thy neighbor as thyself"? that was in the old testament. "love god with all thy heart"? that was in the old testament. "return good for evil"? that was said by buddha seven hundred years before he was born. "do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? this was the doctrine of lao-tsze. did he come to give a rule of action? zoroaster had done this long before: "whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." did he come to teach us of another world? the immortality of the soul had been taught by hindus, egyptians, greeks, and romans hundreds of years before he was born. long before, the world had been told by socrates that: "one who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we may have suffered from him." and cicero had said: "let us not listen to those who think that we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly: nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." is there anything nearer perfect than this from confucius: "for benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge"? the dogma of eternal punishment rests upon passages in the new testament. this infamous belief subverts every idea of justice. around the angel of immortality the church has coiled this serpent. a finite being can neither commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the infinite. a being of infinite goodness and wisdom has no right, according to the human standard of justice, to create any being destined to suffer eternal pain. a being of infinite wisdom would not create a failure, and surely a man destined to everlasting agony is not a success. how long, according to the universal benevolence of the new testament, can a man be reasonably punished in the next world for failing to believe something unreasonable in this? can it be possible that any punishment can endure forever? suppose that every flake of snow that ever fell was a figure nine, and that the first flake was multiplied by the second, and that product by the third, and so on to the last flake. and then suppose that this total should be multiplied by every drop of rain that ever fell, calling each drop a figure nine; and that total by each blade of grass that ever helped to weave a carpet for the earth, calling each blade a figure nine; and that again by every grain of sand on every shore, so that the grand total would make a line of nines so long that it would require millions upon millions of years for light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per second, to reach the end. and suppose, further, that each unit in this almost infinite total stood for billions of ages--still that vast and almost endless time, measured by all the years beyond, is as one flake, one drop, one leaf, one blade, one grain, compared with all the flakes and drops and leaves and blades and grains. upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. and yet, in the same book in which is taught this most infamous of doctrines, we are assured that "the lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." iii. so far as we know, man is the author of all books. if a book had been found on the earth by the first man, he might have regarded it as the work of god; but as men were here a good while before any books were found, and as man has produced a great many books, the probability is that the bible is no exception. most nations, at the time the old testament was written, believed in slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution; and it is not wonderful that the book contained nothing contrary to such belief. the fact that it was in exact accord with the morality of its time proves that it was not the product of any being superior to man. "the inspired writers" upheld or established slavery, countenanced polygamy, commanded wars of extermination, and ordered the slaughter of women and babes. in these respects they were precisely like the uninspired savages by whom they were surrounded. they also taught and commanded religious persecution as a duty, and visited the most trivial offences with the punishment of death. in these particulars they were in exact accord with their barbarian neighbors. they were utterly ignorant of geology and astronomy, and knew no more of what had happened than of what would happen; and, so far as accuracy is concerned, their history and prophecy were about equal; in other words, they were just as ignorant as those who lived and died in nature's night. does any christian believe that if god were to write a book now, he would uphold the crimes commanded in the old testament? has jehovah improved? has infinite mercy-become more merciful? has infinite wisdom intellectually-advanced? will any one claim that the passages upholding slavery have liberated mankind; that we are indebted for our modern homes to the texts that made polygamy a virtue; or that religious liberty found its soil, its light, and rain in the infamous verse wherein the husband is commanded to stone to death the wife for worshiping an unknown god? the usual answer to these objections is that no country has ever been civilized without the bible. the jews were the only people to whom jehovah made his will directly known,--the only people who had the old testament. other nations were utterly neglected by their creator. yet, such was the effect of the old testament on the jews, that they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. they could not have done much worse without a bible. in the crucifixion of christ, they followed the teachings of his father. if, as it is now alleged by the theologians, no nation can be civilized without a bible, certainly god must have known the fact six thousand years ago, as well as the theologians know it now. why did he not furnish every nation with a bible? as to the old testament, i insist that all the bad passages were written by men; that those passages were not inspired. i insist that a being of infinite goodness never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never told a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never ordered one nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his wife because she suggested the worshiping of some other god. i also insist that the old testament would be a much better book with all of these passages left out; and, whatever may be said of the rest, the passages to which attention has been drawn can with vastly more propriety be attributed to a devil than to a god. take from the new testament all passages upholding the idea that belief is necessary to salvation; that christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of the world; that the punishment of the human soul will go on forever; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of honest investigation; take from it all miraculous stories,--and i admit that all the good passages are true. if they are true, it makes no difference whether they are inspired or not. inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. only that which never happened needs to be substantiated by miracles. the universe is natural. the church must cease to insist that the passages upholding the institutions of savage men were inspired of god. the dogma of the atonement must be abandoned. good deeds must take the place of faith. the savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced. credulity is not a virtue, and investigation is not a crime. miracles are the children of mendacity. nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal procession of causes and effects. reason must be the final arbiter. "inspired" books attested by miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. a religion that does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in a little while, excite the mockery of all. every civilized man believes in the liberty of thought. is it possible that god is intolerant? is an act infamous in man one of the virtues of the deity? could there be progress in heaven without intellectual liberty? is the freedom of the future to exist only in perdition? is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like christ can be saved? is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? are we to be saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous? is credulity to be winged and crowned, while honest doubt is chained and damned? do not misunderstand me. my position is that the cruel passages in the old testament are not inspired; that slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution always have been, are, and forever will be, abhorred and cursed by the honest, the virtuous, and the loving; that the innocent cannot justly suffer for the guilty, and that vicarious vice and vicarious virtue are equally absurd; that eternal punishment is eternal revenge; that only the natural can happen; that miracles prove the dishonesty of the few and the credulity of the many; and that, according to matthew, mark, and luke, salvation does not depend upon belief, nor the atonement, nor a "second birth," but that these gospels are in exact harmony with the declaration of the great persian: "taking the first footstep with the good thought, the second with the good word, and the third with the good deed, i entered paradise." the dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. while dusty faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty to honest thoughts; the mental firmament expands and lifts; the broken clouds drift by; the hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the monstrous night, dissolve and fade. robert g. ingersoll. the christian religion, by jeremiah s. black. "gratiano speaks of an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all venice: his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them they are not worth the search."--_merchant of venice_. the request to answer the foregoing paper comes to me, not in the form but with the effect of a challenge, which i cannot decline without seeming to acknowledge that the religion of the civilized world is an absurd superstition, propagated by impostors, professed by hypocrites, and believed only by credulous dupes. but why should i, an unlearned and unauthorized layman, be placed in such a predicament? the explanation is easy enough. this is no business of the priests. their prescribed duty is to preach the word, in the full assurance that it will commend itself to all good and honest hearts by its own manifest veracity and the singular purity of its precepts. they cannot afford to turn away from their proper work, and leave willing hearers uninstructed, while they wrangle in vain with a predetermined opponent. they were warned to expect slander, indignity, and insult, and these are among the evils which they must not resist. it will be seen that i am assuming no clerical function. i am not out on the forlorn hope of converting mr. ingersoll. i am no preacher exhorting a sinner to leave the seat of the scornful and come up to the bench of the penitents. my duty is more analogous to that of the policeman who would silence a rude disturber of the congregation by telling him that his clamor is false and his conduct an offence against public decency. nor is the church in any danger which calls for the special vigilance of its servants. mr. ingersoll thinks that the rock-founded faith of christendom is giving way before his assaults, but he is grossly mistaken. the first sentence of his essay is a preposterous blunder. it is not true that "_a profound change_ has taken place in the world of _thought,_" unless a more rapid spread of the gospel and a more faithful observance of its moral principles can be called so. its truths are everywhere proclaimed with the power of sincere conviction, and accepted with devout reverence by uncounted multitudes of all classes. solemn temples rise to its honor in the great cities; from every hill-top in the country you see the church-spire pointing toward heaven, and on sunday all the paths that lead to it are crowded with worshipers. in nearly all families, parents teach their children that christ is god, and his system of morality absolutely perfect. this belief lies so deep in the popular heart that, if every written record of it were destroyed to-day, the memory of millions could reproduce it to-morrow. its earnestness is proved by its works. wherever it goes it manifests itself in deeds of practical benevolence. it builds, not churches alone, but almshouses, hospitals, and asylums. it shelters the poor, feeds the hungry, visits the sick, consoles the afflicted, provides for the fatherless, comforts the heart of the widow, instructs the ignorant, reforms the vicious, and saves to the uttermost them that are ready to perish. to the common observer, it does not look as if christianity was making itself ready to be swallowed up by infidelity. thus far, at least, the promise has been kept that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." there is, to be sure, a change in the party hostile to religion--not "a profound change," but a change entirely superficial--which consists, not in thought, but merely in modes of expression and methods of attack. the bad classes of society always hated the doctrine and discipline which reproached their wickedness and frightened them by threats of punishment in another world. aforetime they showed their contempt of divine authority only by their actions; but now, under new leadership, their enmity against god breaks out into articulate blasphemy. they assemble themselves together, they hear with passionate admiration the bold harangue which ridicules and defies the maker of the universe; fiercely they rage against the highest, and loudly they laugh, alike at the justice that condemns, and the mercy that offers to pardon them. the orator who relieves them by assurances of impunity, and tells them that no supreme authority has made any law to control them, is applauded to the echo and paid a high price for his congenial labor; he pockets their money, and flatters himself that he is a great power, profoundly moving "the world of thought." there is another totally false notion expressed in the opening paragraph, namely, that "they who know most of nature believe the least about theology." the truth is exactly the other way. the more clearly one sees "the grand procession of causes and effects," the more awful his reverence becomes for the author of the "sublime and unbroken" law which links them together. not self-conceit and rebellious pride, but unspeakable humility, and a deep sense of the measureless distance between the creator and the creature, fills the mind of him who looks with a rational spirit upon the works of the all-wise one. the heart of newton repeats the solemn confession of david: "when i consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?" at the same time, the lamentable fact must be admitted that "a little learning is a dangerous thing" to some persons. the sciolist with a mere smattering of physical knowledge is apt to mistake himself for a philosopher, and swelling with his own importance, he gives out, like simon magus, "that himself is some great one." his vanity becomes inflamed more and more, until he begins to think he knows all things. he takes every occasion to show his accomplishments by finding fault with the works of creation* and providence; and this is an exercise in which he cannot long continue without learning to disbelieve in any being greater than himself. it was to such a person, and not to the unpretending simpleton, that solomon applied his often quoted aphorism: "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god." these are what paul refers to as "vain babblings and the opposition of science, falsely so called;" but they are perfectly powerless to stop or turn aside the great current of human thought on the subject of christian theology. that majestic stream, supplied from a thousand unfailing fountains, rolls on and will roll forever. _labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum_. mr. ingersoll is not, as some have estimated him, the most formidable enemy that christianity has encountered since the time of julian the apostate. but he stands at the head of living infidels, "by merit raised to that bad eminence." his mental organization has the peculiar defects which fit him for such a place. he is all imagination and no discretion. he rises sometimes into a region of wild poetry, where he can color everything to suit himself. his motto well expresses the character of his argumentation--"mountains are as unstable as clouds:" a fancy is as good as a fact, and a high-sounding period is rather better than a logical demonstration. his inordinate self-confidence makes him at once ferocious and fearless. he was a practical politician before he "took the stump" against christianity, and at all times he has proved his capacity to "split the ears of the groundlings," and make the unskillful laugh. the article before us is the least objectionable of all his productions. its style is higher, and better suited to the weight of the theme. here the violence of his fierce invective is moderated; his scurrility gives place to an attempt at sophistry less shocking if not more true; and his coarse jokes are either excluded altogether, or else veiled in the decent obscurity of general terms. such a paper from such a man, at a time like the present, is not wholly unworthy of a grave contradiction. he makes certain charges which we answer by an explicit denial, and thus an issue is made, upon which, as a pleader would say, we "put ourselves upon the country." he avers that a certain "something called christianity" is a false faith imposed on the world without evidence; that the facts it pretends to rest on are mere inventions; that its doctrines are pernicious; that its requirements are unreasonable, and that its sanctions are cruel. i deny all this, and assert, on the contrary, that its doctrines are divinely revealed; its fundamental facts incontestably proved; its morality perfectly free from all taint of error, and its influence most beneficent upon society in general, and upon all individuals who accept it and make it their rule of action. how shall this be determined? not by what we call divine revelation, for that would be begging the question; not by sentiment, taste, or temper, for these are as likely to be false as true; but by inductive reasoning from evidence, of which the value is to be measured according to those rules of logic which enlightened and just men everywhere have adopted to guide them in the search for truth. we can appeal only to that rational love of justice, and that detestation of falsehood, which fair-minded persons of good intelligence bring to the consideration of other important subjects when it becomes their duty to decide upon them. in short, i want a decision upon sound judicial principles. gibson, the great chief-justice of pennsylvania, once said to certain skeptical friends of his: "give christianity a common-law trial; submit the evidence _pro_ and _con_ to an impartial jury under the direction of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly be in its favor." this deliverance, coming from the most illustrious judge of his time, not at all given to expressions of sentimental piety, and quite incapable of speaking on any subject for mere effect, staggered the unbelief of those who heard it. i did not know him then, except by his great reputation for ability and integrity, but my thoughts were strongly influenced by his authority, and i learned to set a still higher value upon all his opinions, when, in after life, i was honored with his close and intimate friendship. let christianity have a trial on mr. ingersoll's indictment, and give us a decision _secundum allegata et probata_. i will confine myself strictly to the record; that is to say, i will meet the accusations contained in this paper, and not those made elsewhere by him or others. his first specification against christianity is the belief of its disciples "that there is a personal god, the creator of the material universe." if god made the world it was a most stupendous miracle, and all miracles, according to mr. ingersoll's idea are "the children of mendacity." to admit the one great miracle of creation would be an admission that other miracles are at least probable, and that would ruin his whole case. but you cannot catch the leviathan of atheism with a hook. the universe, he says, is natural--it came into being of its own accord; it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by spontaneous evolution. it would be a mere waste of time and space to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created by a pre-existent and self-conscious being, of power and wisdom to us inconceivable. conviction of the fact (miraculous though it be) forces itself on every one whose mental faculties are healthy and tolerably well balanced. the notion that all things owe their origin and their harmonious arrangement to the fortuitous concurrence of atoms is a kind of lunacy which very few men in these days are afflicted with. i hope i may safely assume it as certain that all, or nearly all, who read this page will have sense and reason enough to see for themselves that the plan of the universe could not have been designed without a designer or executed without a maker. but mr. ingersoll asserts that, at all events, this material world had not a good and beneficent creator; it is a bad, savage, cruel piece of work, with its pestilences, storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes; and man, with his liability to sickness, suffering, and death, is not a success, but, on the contrary, a failure. to defend the creator of the world against an arraignment so foul as this would be almost as unbecoming as to make the accusation. we have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the justice of god. why man is made to fill this particular place in the scale of creation--a little lower than the angels, yet far above the brutes; not passionless and pure, like the former, nor mere machines, like the latter; able to stand, yet free to fall; knowing the right, and accountable for going wrong; gifted with reason, and impelled by self-love to exercise the faculty--these are questions on which we may have our speculative opinions, but knowledge is out of our reach. meantime, we do not discredit our mental independence by taking it for granted that the supreme being has done all things well. our ignorance of the whole scheme makes us poor critics upon the small part that comes within our limited perceptions. seeming defects in the structure of the world may be its most perfect ornament--all apparent harshness the tenderest of mercies. "all discord, harmony not understood, all partial evil, universal good." but worse errors are imputed to god as moral ruler of the world than those charged against him as creator. he made man badly, but governed him worse; if the jehovah of the old testament was not merely an imaginary being, then, according to mr. ingersoll, he was a prejudiced, barbarous, criminal tyrant. we will see what ground he lays, if any, for these outrageous assertions. mainly, principally, first and most important of all, is the unqualified assertion that the "moral code" which jehovah gave to his people "is in many respects abhorrent to every good and tender man." does mr. ingersoll know what he is talking about? the moral code of the bible consists of certain immutable rules to govern the conduct of all men, at all times and all places, in their private and personal relations with one another. it is entirely separate and apart from the civil polity, the religious forms, the sanitary provisions, the police regulations, and the system of international law laid down for the special and exclusive observance of the jewish people. this is a distinction which every intelligent man knows how to make. has mr. ingersoll fallen into the egregious blunder of confounding these things? or, understanding the true sense of his words, is he rash and shameless enough to assert that the moral code of the bible excites the abhorrence of good men? in fact, and in truth, this moral code, which he reviles, instead of being abhorred, is entitled to, and has received, the profoundest respect of all honest and sensible persons. the second table of the decalogue is a perfect compendium of those duties which every man owes to himself, his family, and his neighbor. in a few simple words, which he can commit to memory almost in a minute, it teaches him to purify his heart from covetousness; to live decently, to injure nobody in reputation, person, or property, and to give every one his own. by the poets, the prophets, and the sages of israel, these great elements are expanded into a volume of minuter rules, so clear, so impressive, and yet so solemn and so lofty, that no pre-existing system of philosophy can compare with it for a moment. if this vain mortal is not blind with passion, he will see, upon reflection, that he has attacked the old testament precisely where it is most impregnable. dismissing his groundless charge against the moral code, we come to his strictures on the civil government of the jews, which he says was so bad and unjust that the lawgiver by whom it was established must have been as savagely cruel as the creator that made storms and pestilences; and the work of both was more worthy of a devil than a god. his language is recklessly bad, very defective in method, and altogether lacking in precision. but, apart from the ribaldry of it, which i do not feel myself bound to notice, i find four objections to the jewish constitution--not more than four--which are definite enough to admit of an answer. these relate to the provisions of the mosaic law on the subjects of ( ) blasphemy and idolatry; ( ) war; ( ) slavery; ( ) polygamy. in these respects he pronounces the jewish system not only unwise but criminally unjust. here let me call attention to the difficulty of reasoning about justice with a man who has no acknowledged standard of right and wrong. what is justice? that which accords with law; and the supreme law is the will of god. but i am dealing with an adversary who does not admit that there is a god. then for him there is no standard at all; one thing is as right as another, and all things are equally wrong. without a sovereign ruler there is no law, and where there is no law there can be no transgression. it is the misfortune of the atheistic theory that it makes the moral world an anarchy; it refers all ethical questions to that confused tribunal where chaos sits as umpire and "by decision more embroils the fray." but through the whole of this cloudy paper there runs a vein of presumptuous egotism which says as plainly as words can speak it that the author holds _himself_ to be the ultimate judge of all good and evil; what he approves is right, and what he dislikes is certainly wrong. of course i concede nothing to a claim like that. i will not admit that the jewish constitution is a thing to be condemned merely because he curses it. i appeal from his profane malediction to the conscience of men who have a rule to judge by. such persons will readily see that his specific objections to the statesmanship which established the civil government of the hebrew people are extremely shallow, and do not furnish the shade of an excuse for the indecency of his general abuse. _first_. he regards the punishments inflicted for blasphemy and idolatry as being immoderately cruel. considering them merely as religious offences,--as sins against god alone,--i agree that civil laws should notice them not at all. but sometimes they affect very injuriously certain social rights which it is the duty of the state to protect. wantonly to shock the religious feelings of your neighbor is a grievous wrong. to utter blasphemy or obscenity in the presence of a christian woman is hardly better than to strike her in the face. still, neither policy nor justice requires them to be ranked among the highest crimes in a government constituted like ours. but things were wholly different under the jewish theocracy, where god was the personal head of the state. there blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance; idolatry was an overt act of treason; to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort. these are crimes which every independent community has always punished with the utmost rigor. in our own very recent history, they were repressed at the cost of more lives than judea ever contained at any one time. mr. ingersoll not only ignores these considerations, but he goes the length of calling god a religious persecutor and a tyrant because he does not encourage and reward the service and devotion paid by his enemies to the false gods of the pagan world. he professes to believe that all kinds of worship are equally meritorious, and should meet the same acceptance from the true god. it is almost incredible that such drivel as this should be uttered by anybody. but mr. ingersoll not only expresses the thought plainly--he urges it with the most extravagant figures of his florid rhetoric. he quotes the first commandment, in which jehovah claims for himself the exclusive worship of his people, and cites, in contrast, the promise put in the mouth of brahma, that he will appropriate the worship of all gods to himself, and reward all worshipers alike. these passages being compared, he declares the first "a dungeon, where crawl the things begot of jealous slime;" the other, "great as the domed firmament, inlaid with suns." why is the living god, whom christians believe to be the lord of liberty and father of lights, denounced as the keeper of a loathsome dungeon? because he refuses to encourage and reward the worship of mammon and moloch, of belial and baal; of bacchus, with its drunken orgies, and venus, with its wanton obscenities; the bestial religion which degraded the soul of egypt and the "dark idolatries of alienated judah," polluted with the moral filth of all the nations round about. let the reader decide whether this man, entertaining such sentiments and opinions, is fit to be a teacher, or at all likely to lead us in the way we should go. _second_. under the constitution which god provided for the jews, they had, like every other nation, the war-making power. they could not have lived a day without it. the right to exist implied the right to repel, with all their strength, the opposing force which threatened their destruction. it is true, also, that in the exercise of this power they did not observe those rules of courtesy and humanity which have been adopted in modern times by civilized belligerents. why? because their enemies, being mere savages, did not understand and would not practise, any rule whatever; and the jews were bound _ex necessitate rei_--not merely justified by the _lex talionis_--to do as their enemies did. in your treatment of hostile barbarians, you not only may lawfully, but must necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. if they come to conquer you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by exterminating theirs. this sufficiently answers the silly talk of atheists and semi-atheists about the warlike wickedness of the jews. but mr. ingersoll positively, and with the emphasis of supreme and all-sufficient authority, declares that "a war of conquest is simply murder." he sustains this proposition by no argument founded in principle. he puts sentiment in place of law, and denounces aggressive fighting because it is offensive to his "tender and refined soul;" the atrocity of it is therefore proportioned to the sensibilities of his own heart. he proves war a desperately wicked thing by continually vaunting his own love for small children. babes--sweet babes--the prattle of babes--are the subjects of his most pathetic eloquence, and his idea of music is embodied in the commonplace expression of a hindu, that the lute is sweet only to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children. all this is very amiable in him, and the more so, perhaps, as these objects of his affection are the young ones of a race in his opinion miscreated by an evil-working chance. but his _philoprogenitiveness_ proves nothing against jew or gentile, seeing that all have it in an equal degree, and those feel it most who make the least parade of it. certainly it gives him no authority to malign the god who implanted it alike in the hearts of us all. but i admit that his benevolence becomes peculiar and ultra when it extends to beasts as well as babes. he is struck with horror by the sacrificial solemnities of the jewish religion. "the killing of those animals was," he says, "a terrible system," a "shedding of innocent blood," "shocking to a refined and sensitive soul." there is such a depth of tenderness in this feeling, and such a splendor of refinement, that i give up without a struggle to the superiority of a man who merely professes it. a carnivorous american, full of beef and mutton, who mourns with indignant sorrow because bulls and goats were killed in judea three thousand years ago, has reached the climax of sentimental goodness, and should be permitted to dictate on all questions of peace and war. let grotius, vattel, and pufendorf, as well as moses and the prophets, hide their diminished heads. but to show how inefficacious, for all practical purposes, a mere sentiment is when substituted for a principle, it is only necessary to recollect that mr. ingersoll is himself a warrior who staid not behind the mighty men of his tribe when they gathered themselves together for a war of conquest. he took the lead of a regiment as eager as himself to spoil the philistines, "and out he went a-coloneling." how many amale-kites, and hittites, and amorites he put to the edge of the sword, how many wives he widowed, or how many mothers he "unbabed" cannot now be told. i do not even know how many droves of innocent oxen he condemned to the slaughter. but it is certain that his refined and tender soul took great pleasure in the terror, conflagration, blood, and tears with which the war was attended, and in all the hard oppressions which the conquered people were made to suffer afterwards. i do not say that the war was either better or worse for his participation and approval. but if his own conduct (for which he professes neither penitence nor shame) was right, it was right on grounds which make it an inexcusable outrage to call the children of israel savage criminals for carrying on wars of aggression to save the life of their government. these inconsistencies are the necessary consequence of having no rule of action and no guide for the conscience. when a man throws away the golden metewand of the law which god has provided, and takes the elastic cord of feeling for his measure of righteousness, you cannot tell from day to day what he will think or do. _third_. but jehovah permitted his chosen people to hold the captives they took in war or purchased from the heathen as servants for life. this was slavery, and mr. ingersoll declares that "in all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately asserted, that slavery is, and always was, a hideous crime," therefore he concludes that jehovah was a criminal. this would be a _non sequitur_, even if the premises were true. but the premises are false; civilized countries have admitted no such thing. that slavery is a crime, under all circumstances and at all times, is a doctrine first started by the adherents of a political faction in this country, less than forty years ago. they denounced god and christ for not agreeing with them, in terms very similar to those used here by mr. ingersoll. but they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it. politically, they were successful; i need not say by what means, or with what effect upon the morals of the country. doubtless mr. ingersoll gets a great advantage by invoking their passions and their interests to his aid, and he knows how to use it. i can only say that, whether american abolitionism was right or wrong under the circumstances in which we were placed, my faith and my reason both assure me that the infallible god proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized slavery in judea. subordination of inferiors to superiors is the groundwork of human society. all improvement of our race, in this world and the next, must come from obedience to some master better and wiser than ourselves. there can be no question that, when a jew took a neighboring savage for his bond-servant, incorporated him into his family, tamed him, taught him to work, and gave him a knowledge of the true god, he conferred upon him a most beneficent boon. _fourth_. polygamy is another of his objections to the mosaic constitution. strange to say, it is not there. it is neither commanded nor prohibited; it is only discouraged. if mr. ingersoll were a statesman instead of a mere politician, he would see good and sufficient reasons for the forbearance to legislate directly upon the subject. it would be improper for me to set them forth here. he knows, probably, that the influence of the christian church alone, and without the aid of state enactments, has extirpated this bad feature of asiatic manners wherever its doctrines were carried. as the christian faith prevails in any community, in that proportion precisely marriage is consecrated to its true purpose, and all intercourse between the sexes refined and purified. mr. ingersoll got his own devotion to the principle of monogamy--his own respect for the highest type of female character--his own belief in the virtue of fidelity to one good wife--from the example and precept of his christian parents. i speak confidently, because these are sentiments which do not grow in the heart of the natural man without being planted. why, then, does he throw polygamy into the face of the religion which abhors it? because he is nothing if not political. the mormons believe in polygamy, and the mormons are unpopular. they are guilty of having not only many wives but much property, and if a war could be hissed up against them, its fruits might be more "gaynefull pilladge than wee doe now conceyve of." it is a cunning maneuver, this, of strengthening atheism by enlisting anti-mormon rapacity against the god of the christians. i can only protest against the use he would make of these and other political interests. it is not argument; it is mere stump oratory. i think i have repelled all of mr. ingersoll's accusations against the old testament that are worth noticing, and i might stop here. but i will not close upon him without letting him see, at least, some part of the case on the other side. i do not enumerate in detail the positive proofs which support the authenticity of the hebrew bible, though they are at hand in great abundance, because the evidence in support of the new dispensation will establish the verity of the old--the two being so connected together that if one is true the other cannot be false. when jesus of nazareth announced himself to be christ, the son of god, in judea, many thousand persons who heard his words and saw his works believed in his divinity without hesitation. since the morning of the creation, nothing has occurred so wonderful as the rapidity with which this religion spread itself abroad. men who were in the noon of life when jesus was put to death as a malefactor lived to see him worshiped as god by organized bodies of believers in every province of the roman empire. in a few more years it took complete possession of the general mind, supplanted all other religions, and wrought a radical change in human society. it did this in the face of obstacles which, according to every human calculation, were insurmountable. it was antagonized by all the evil propensities, the sensual wickedness, and the vulgar crimes of the multitude, as well as the polished vices of the luxurious classes; and was most violently opposed even by those sentiments and habits of thought which were esteemed virtuous, such as patriotism and military heroism. it encountered not only the ignorance and superstition, but the learning and philosophy, the poetry, eloquence, and art of the time. barbarism and civilization were alike its deadly enemies. the priesthood of every established religion and the authority of every government were arrayed against it. all these, combined together and roused to ferocious hostility, were overcome, not by the enticing words of man's wisdom, but by the simple presentation of a pure and peaceful doctrine, preached by obscure strangers at the daily peril of their lives. is it mr. ingersoll's idea that this happened by chance, like the creation of the world? if not, there are but two other ways to account for it; either the evidence by which the apostles were able to prove the supernatural origin of the gospel was overwhelming and irresistible, or else its propagation was provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the divine being himself. between these two, infidelity may make its own choice. just here another dilemma presents its horns to our adversary. if christianity was a human fabrication, its authors must have been either good men or bad. it is a moral impossibility--a mere contradiction in terms--to say that good, honest, and true men practised a gross and willful deception upon the world. it is equally incredible that any combination of knaves, however base, would fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce themselves, and to invoke the curse of god upon their own conduct. men that love lies, love not such lies as that. is there any way out of this difficulty, except by confessing that christianity is what it purports to be--a divine revelation? the acceptance of christianity by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its founder and his apostles was, under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce. the record of that judgment has come down to us, accompanied by the depositions of the principal witnesses. in the course of eighteen centuries many efforts have been made to open the judgment or set it aside on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support it. but on every rehearing the wisdom and virtue of mankind have re-affirmed it. and now comes mr. ingersoll, to try the experiment of another bold, bitter, and fierce reargument. i will present some of the considerations which would compel me, if i were a judge or juror in the cause, to decide it just as it was decided originally. _first_. there is no good reason to doubt that the statements of the evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine. the multiplication of copies was a sufficient guarantee against any material alteration of the text. mr. ingersoll speaks of interpolations made by the fathers of the church. all he knows and all he has ever heard on that subject is that some of the innumerable transcripts contained errors which were discovered and corrected. that simply proves the present integrity of the documents. _second_. i call these statements _depositions_, because they are entitled to that kind of credence which we give to declarations made under oath--but in a much higher degree, for they are more than sworn to. they were made in the immediate prospect of death. perhaps this would not affect the conscience of an atheist,--neither would an oath,--but these people manifestly believed in a judgment after death, before a god of truth, whose displeasure they feared above all things. _third_. the witnesses could not have been mistaken. the nature of the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them. for every averment they had "the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes" and ears. besides, they were plain-thinking, sober, unimaginative men, who, unlike mr. ingersoll, always, under all circumstances, and especially in the presence of eternity, recognized the difference between mountains and clouds. it is inconceivable how any fact could be proven by evidence more conclusive than the statement of such persons, publicly given and steadfastly persisted in through every kind of persecution, imprisonment and torture to the last agonies of a lingering death. _fourth_. apart from these terrible tests, the more ordinary claims to credibility are not wanting. they were men of unimpeachable character. the most virulent enemies of the cause they spoke and died for have never suggested a reason for doubting their personal honesty. but there is affirmative proof that they and their fellow-disciples were held by those who knew them in the highest estimation for truthfulness. wherever they made their report it was not only believed, but believed with a faith so implicit that thousands were ready at once to seal it with their blood. _fifth_. the tone and temper of their narrative impress us with a sentiment of profound respect. it is an artless, unimpassioned, simple story. no argument, no rhetoric, no epithets, no praises of friends, no denunciation of enemies, no attempts at concealment. how strongly these qualities commend the testimony of a witness to the confidence of judge and jury is well known to all who have any experience in such matters. _sixth_. the statements made by the evangelists are alike upon every important point, but are different in form and expression, some of them including details which the others omit. these variations make it perfectly certain that there could have been no previous concert between the witnesses, and that each spoke independently of the others, according to his own conscience and from his own knowledge. in considering the testimony of several witnesses to the same transaction, their substantial agreement upon the main facts, with circumstantial differences in the detail, is always regarded as the great characteristic of truth and honesty. there is no rule of evidence more universally adopted than this--none better sustained by general experience, or more immovably fixed in the good sense of mankind. mr. ingersoll, himself, admits the rule and concedes its soundness. the logical consequence of that admission is that we are bound to take this evidence as incontestably true. but mark the infatuated perversity with which he seeks to evade it. he says that when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, the rule does not apply, because the witnesses then speak what is known to him who inspired them, and all must speak exactly the same, even to the minutest detail. mr. ingersoll's notion of an inspired witness is that he is no witness at all, but an irresponsible medium who unconsciously and involuntarily raps out or writes down whatever he is prompted to say. but this is a false assumption, not countenanced or even suggested by anything contained in the scriptures. the apostles and evangelists are expressly declared to be witnesses, in the proper sense of the word, called and sent to testify the truth according to their knowledge. if they had all told the same story in the same way, without variation, and accounted for its uniformity by declaring that they were inspired, and had spoken without knowing whether their words were true or false, where would have been their claim to credibility? but they testified what they knew; and here comes an infidel critic impugning their testimony because the impress of truth is stamped upon its face. _seventh_. it does not appear that the statements of the evangelists were ever denied by any person who pretended to know the facts. many there were in that age and afterward who resisted the belief that jesus was the christ, the son of god, and only saviour of man; but his wonderful works, the miraculous purity of his life, the unapproachable loftiness of his doctrines, his trial and condemnation by a judge who pronounced him innocent, his patient suffering, his death on the cross, and resurrection from the grave,--of these not the faintest contradiction was attempted, if we except the false and feeble story which the elders and chief priests bribed the guard at the tomb to put in circulation. _eighth_. what we call the fundamental truths of christianity consist of great public events which are sufficiently established by history without special proof. the value of mere historical evidence increases according to the importance of the facts in question, their general notoriety, and the magnitude of their visible consequences. cornwallis surrendered to washington at yorktown, and changed the destiny of europe and america. nobody would think of calling a witness or even citing an official report to prove it. julius caesar was assassinated. we do not need to prove that fact like an ordinary murder. he was master of the world, and his death was followed by a war with the conspirators, the battle at philippi, the quarrel of the victorious triumvirs, actium, and the permanent establishment of imperial government under augustus. the life and character, the death and resurrection, of jesus are just as visibly connected with events which even an infidel must admit to be of equal importance. the church rose and armed herself in righteousness for conflict with the powers of darkness; innumerable multitudes of the best and wisest rallied to her standard and died in her cause; her enemies employed the coarse and vulgar machinery of human government against her, and her professors were brutally murdered in large numbers, her triumph was complete; the gods of greece and rome crumbled on their altars; the world was revolutionized and human society was transformed. the course of these events, and a thousand others, which reach down to the present hour, received its first propulsion from the transcendent fact of christ's crucifixion. moreover, we find the memorial monuments of the original truth planted all along the way. the sacraments of baptism and the supper constantly point us back to the author and finisher of our faith. the mere historical evidence is for these reasons much stronger than what we have for other occurrences which are regarded as undeniable. when to this is added the cumulative evidence given directly and positively by eye-witnesses of irreproachable character, and wholly uncontradicted, the proof becomes so strong that the disbelief we hear of seems like a kind of insanity. "it is the very error of the moon, which comes more near the earth than she was wont, and makes men mad!" from the facts established by this evidence, it follows irresistibly that the gospel has come to us from god. that silences all reasoning about the wisdom and justice of its doctrines, since it is impossible, even to imagine that wrong can be done or commanded by that sovereign being whose will alone is the ultimate standard of all justice. but mr. ingersoll is still dissatisfied. he raises objections as false, fleeting, and baseless as clouds, and insists that they are as stable as the mountains, whose everlasting foundations are laid by the hand of the almighty. i will compress his propositions into plain words printed in _italics_, and, taking a look at his misty creations, let them roll away and vanish into air, one after another. _christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of belief alone_. this is a misrepresentation simple and naked. no such doctrine is propounded in the scriptures, or in the creed of any christian church. on the contrary, it is distinctly taught that faith avails nothing without repentance, reformation, and newness of life. _the mere failure to believe it is punished in hell_. i have never known any christian man or woman to assert this. it is universally agreed that children too young to understand it do not need to believe it. and this exemption extends to adults who have never seen the evidence, or, from weakness of intellect, are incapable of weighing it. lunatics and idiots are not in the least danger, and for aught i know, this category may, by a stretch of god's mercy, include minds constitutionally sound, but with faculties so perverted by education, habit, or passion that they are incapable of reasoning. i sincerely hope that, upon this or some other principle, mr. ingersoll may escape the hell he talks about so much. but there is no direct promise to save him in spite of himself. the plan of redemption contains no express covenant to pardon one who rejects it with scorn and hatred. our hope for him rests upon the infinite compassion of that gracious being who prayed on the cross for the insulting enemies who nailed him there. _the mystery of the second birth is incomprehensible_. christ established a new kingdom in the world, but not of it. subjects were admitted to the privileges and protection of its government by a process equivalent to naturalization. to be born again, or regenerated is to be naturalized. the words all mean the same thing. does mr. ingersoll want to disgrace his own intellect by pretending that he cannot see this simple analogy? _the doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral_. the plan of salvation, or any plan for the rescue of sinners from the legal operation of divine justice, could have been framed only in the councils of the omniscient. necessarily its heights and depths are not easily fathomed by finite intelligence. but the greatest, ablest, wisest, and most virtuous men that ever lived have given it their profoundest consideration, and found it to be not only authorized by revelation, but theoretically conformed to their best and highest conceptions of infinite goodness. nevertheless, here is a rash and superficial man, without training or habits of reflection, who, upon a mere glance, declares that it "must be abandoned," because it _seems to him_ "absurd, unjust, and immoral." i would not abridge his freedom of thought or speech, and the _argumentum ad verecundiam_ would be lost upon him. otherwise i might suggest that, when he finds all authority, human and divine, against him, he had better speak in a tone less arrogant. _he does not comprehend how justice and mercy can be blended together in the plan of redemption, and therefore it cannot be true_. a thing is not necessarily false because he does not understand it: he cannot annihilate a principle or a fact by ignoring it. there are many truths in heaven and earth which no man can see through; for instance, the union of man's soul with his body, is not only an unknowable but an unimaginable mystery. is it therefore false that a connection does exist between matter and spirit? _how, he asks, can the sufferings of an innocent person satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty?_ this raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss here. as matter of fact, christ died that sinners might be reconciled to god, and in that sense he died for them; that is, to furnish them with the means of averting divine justice, which their crimes had provoked.. _what, he again asks, would we think of a man who allowed another to die for a crime which he himself had committed?_ i answer that a man who, by any contrivance, causes his own offence to be visited upon the head of an innocent person is unspeakably depraved. but are christians guilty of this baseness because they accept the blessings of an institution which their great benefactor died to establish? loyalty to the king who has erected a most beneficent government for us at the cost of his life--fidelity to the master who bought us with his blood--is not the fraudulent substitution of an innocent person in place of a criminal. _the doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, reconciliation with enemies, as taught in the new testament, is the child of weakness, degrading and unjust_. this is the whole substance of a long, rambling diatribe, as incoherent as a sick man's dream. christianity does not forbid the necessary defense of civil society, or the proper vindication of personal rights. but to cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs, real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who have crossed us--these diabolical propensities are checked and curbed by the authority and spirit of the christian religion, and the application of it has converted men from low savages into refined and civilized beings. _the punishment of sinners in eternal hell is excessive_. the future of the soul is a subject on which we have very dark views. in our present state, the mind takes no idea except what is conveyed to it through the bodily senses. all our conceptions of the spiritual world are derived from some analogy to material things, and this analogy must necessarily be very remote, because the nature of the subjects compared is so diverse that a close similarity cannot be even supposed. no revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity; but in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good and the bad in the next world. speculative opinions concerning the punishment of the wicked, its nature and duration, vary with the temper and the imaginations of men. doubtless we are many of us in error; but how can mr. ingersoll enlighten us? acknowledge ing no standard of right and wrong in this world, he can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil, are all morally alike in his eyes, and if there be in heaven a congregation of the just, he sees no reason why the worst rogue should not be a member of it. it is supposed, however, that man has a soul as well as a body, and that both are subject to certain laws, which cannot be violated without incurring the proper penalty--or consequence, if he likes that word better. _if christ was god, he knew that his followers would persecute and murder men for their opinions; yet he did not forbid it_. there is but one way to deal with this accusation, and that is to contradict it flatly. nothing can be conceived more striking than the prohibition, not only of persecution, but of all the passions which lead or incite to it. no follower of christ indulges in malice even to his enemy without violating the plainest rule of his faith. he cannot love god and hate his brother: if he says he can, st. john pronounces him a liar. the broadest benevolence, universal philanthropy, inexhaustible charity, are inculcated in every line of the new testament. it is plain that mr. ingersoll never read a chapter of it; otherwise he would not have ventured upon this palpable falsification of its doctrines. who told him that the devilish spirit of persecution was authorized, or encouraged, or not forbidden, by the gospel? the person, whoever it was, who imposed upon his trusting ignorance should be given up to the just reprobation of his fellow-citizens. _christians in modern times carry on wars of detraction and slander against one another_. the discussions of theological subjects by men who believe in the fundamental doctrines of christ are singularly free from harshness and abuse. of course i cannot speak with absolute certainty, but i believe most confidently that there is not in all the religious polemics of this century as much slanderous invective as can be found in any ten lines of mr. ingersoll's writings. of course i do not include political preachers among my models of charity and forbearance. they are a mendacious set, but christianity is no more responsible for their misconduct than it is for the treachery of judas iscariot or the wrongs done to paul by alexander the coppersmith. _but, says he, christians have been guilty of wanton and wicked persecution_. it is true that some persons, professing christianity, have violated the fundamental principles of their faith by inflicting violent injuries and bloody wrongs upon their fellow-men. but the perpetrators of these outrages were in fact not christians: they were either hypocrites from the beginning or else base apostates--infidels or something worse--hireling wolves, whose gospel was their maw. not one of them ever pretended to find a warrant for his conduct in any precept of christ or any doctrine of his church. all the wrongs of this nature which history records have been the work of politicians, aided often by priests and ministers who were willing to deny their lord and desert to the enemy, for the sake of their temporal interests. take the cases most commonly cited and see if this be not a true account of them. the _auto da fé_ of spain and portugal, the burnings at smithfield, and the whipping of women in massachusetts, were the outcome of a cruel, false, and antichristian policy. coligny and his adherents were killed by an order of charles ix., at the instance of the guises, who headed a hostile faction, and merely for reasons of state. louis xiv. revoked the edict of nantes, and banished the waldenses under pain of confiscation and death; but this was done on the declared ground that the victims were not safe subjects. the brutal atrocities of cromwell and the outrages of the orange lodges against the irish catholics were not persecutions by religious people, but movements as purely political as those of the know-nothings, plug-uglys, and blood-tubs of this country. if the gospel should be blamed for these acts in opposition to its principles, why not also charge it with the cruelties of nero, or the present persecution of the jesuits by the infidel republic of france? _christianity is opposed to freedom of thought_. the kingdom of christ is based upon certain principles, to which it requires the assent of every one who would enter therein. if you are unwilling to own his authority and conform your moral conduct to his laws, you cannot expect that he will admit you to the privileges of his government. but naturalization is not forced upon you if you prefer to be an alien. the gospel makes the strongest and tenderest appeal to the heart, reason, and conscience of man--entreats him to take thought for his own highest interest, and by all its moral influence provokes him to good works; but he is not constrained by any kind of duress to leave the service or relinquish the wages of sin. is there anything that savors of tyranny in this? a man of ordinary judgment will say, no. but mr. ingersoll thinks it as oppressive as the refusal of jehovah to reward the worship of demons. _the gospel of christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart_. that depends upon what kind of a heart it is. if it hungers after righteousness, it will surely be filled. it is probable, also, that if it hungers for the filthy food of a godless philosophy it will get what its appetite demands. that was an expressive phrase which carlyle used when he called modern infidelity "the gospel of dirt." those who are greedy to swallow it will doubless be supplied satisfactorily. _accounts of miracles are always false_. are miracles impossible? no one will say so who opens his eyes to the miracles of creation with which we are surrounded on every hand. you cannot even show that they are _a priori_ improbable. god would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it; he would authenticate in some way the right of prophets and apostles to speak in his name; supernatural power was the broad seal which he affixed to their commission. from this it follows that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the original improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at all. therefore, if the miracles of the new testament are proved by sufficient evidence, we believe them as we believe any other established fact. they become deniable only when it is shown that the great miracle of making the world was never performed. accordingly mr. ingersoll abolishes creation first, and thus clears the way to his dogmatic conclusion that _all_ miracles are "the children of mendacity." _christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization_. mr. ingersoll, as a zealous apostle of "the gospel of dirt," must be expected to throw a good deal of mud. but this is too much: it injures himself instead of defiling the object of his assault. when i answer that all we have of virtue, justice, intellectual liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, and true wisdom came to us from that source which he reviles as the fountain of evil, i am not merely putting one assertion against the other; for i have the advantage, which he has not, of speaking what every tolerably well-informed man knows to be true. reflect what kind of a world this was when the disciples of christ undertook to reform it, and compare it with the condition in which their teachings have put it. in its mighty metropolis, the center of its intellectual and political power, the best men were addicted to vices so debasing that i could not even allude to them without soiling the paper i write upon. all manner of unprincipled wickedness was practiced in the private life of the whole population without concealment or shame, and the magistrates were thoroughly and universally corrupt. benevolence in any shape was altogether unknown. the helpless and the weak got neither justice nor mercy. there was no relief for the poor, no succor for the sick, no refuge for the unfortunate. in all pagandom there was not a hospital, asylum, almshouse, or organized charity of any sort. the indifference to human life was literally frightful. the order of a successful leader to assassinate his opponents was always obeyed by his followers with the utmost alacrity and pleasure. it was a special amusement of the populace to witness the shows at which men were compelled to kill one another, to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, or otherwise "butchered, to make a roman holiday." in every province paganism enacted the same cold-blooded cruelties; oppression and robbery ruled supreme; murder went rampaging and red over all the earth. the church came, and her light penetrated this moral darkness like a new sun. she covered the globe with institutions of mercy, and thousands upon thousands of her disciples devoted themselves exclusively to works of charity at the sacrifice of every earthly interest. her earliest adherents were killed without remorse--beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder, thrown to the beasts, or covered with pitch, piled up in great heaps, and slowly burnt to death. but her faith was made perfect through suffering, and the law of love rose in triumph from the ashes of her martyrs. this religion has come down to us through the ages, attended all the way by righteousness, justice, temperance, mercy, transparent truthfulness, exulting hope, and white-winged charity. never was its influence for good more plainly perceptible than now. it has not converted, purified, and reformed all men, for its first principle is the freedom of the human will, and there are those who choose to reject it. but to the mass of mankind, directly and indirectly, it has brought uncounted benefits and blessings. abolish it--take away the restraints which it imposes on evil passions--silence the admonitions of its preachers--let all christians cease their labors of charity--blot out from history the records of its heroic benevolence--repeal the laws it has enacted and the institutions it has built up--let its moral principles be abandoned and all its miracles of light be extinguished--what would we come to? i need not answer this question: the experiment has been partially tried. the french nation formally renounced christianity, denied the existence of the supreme being, and so satisfied the hunger of the infidel heart for a time. what followed? universal depravity, garments rolled in blood, fantastic crimes unimagined before, which startled the earth with their sublime atrocity. the american people have and ought to have no special desire to follow that terrible example of guilt and misery. it is impossible to discuss this subject within the limits of a review. no doubt the effort to be short has made me obscure. if mr. ingersoll thinks himself wronged, or his doctrines misconstrued, let him not lay my fault at the door of the church, or cast his censure on the clergy. "_adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum_." j. s. black. the christian religion, by robert g. ingersoll. iii. "apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in order to become acceptable to god, is mere superstition and religious folly." kant. "apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in order to become acceptable to god, is mere superstition and religious folly." kant. several months ago, the north american review asked me to write an article, saying that it would be published if some one would furnish a reply. i wrote the article that appeared in the august number, and by me it was entitled "is all of the bible inspired?" not until the article was written did i know who was expected to answer. i make this explanation for the purpose of dissipating the impression that mr. black had been challenged by me. to have struck his shield with my lance might have given birth to the impression that i was somewhat doubtful as to the correctness of my position. i naturally expected an answer from some professional theologian, and was surprised to find that a reply had been written by a "policeman," who imagined that he had answered my arguments by simply telling me that my statements were false. it is somewhat unfortunate that in a discussion like this any one should resort to the slightest personal detraction. the theme is great enough to engage the highest faculties of the human mind, and in the investigation of such a subject vituperation is singularly and vulgarly out of place. arguments cannot be answered with insults. it is unfortunate that the intellectual arena should be entered by a "policeman," who has more confidence in concussion than discussion. kindness is strength. good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. anger blows out the lamp of the mind. in the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. insolence is not logic. epithets are the arguments of malice. candor is the courage of the soul. leaving the objectionable portions of mr. black's reply, feeling that so grand a subject should not be blown and tainted with malicious words, i proceed to answer as best i may the arguments he has urged. i am made to say that "the universe is natural"; that "it came into being of its own accord"; that "it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by spontaneous evolution." i did say that "the universe is natural," but i did not say that "it came into being of its own accord"; neither did i say that "it made its own laws and afterward improved itself." the universe, according to my idea, is, always was, and forever will be. it did not "come into being," it is the one eternal being,--the only thing that ever did, does, or can exist. it did not "make its own laws." we know nothing of what we call the laws of nature except as we gather the idea of law from the uniformity of phenomena springing from like conditions. to make myself clear: water always runs down-hill. the theist says that this happens because there is behind the phenomenon an active law. as a matter of fact, law is this side of the phenomenon. law does not cause the phenomenon, but the phenomenon causes the idea of law in our minds; and this idea is produced from the fact that under like circumstances the same phenomenon always happens. mr. black probably thinks that the difference in the weight of rocks and clouds was created by law; that parallel lines fail to unite only because it is illegal that diameter and circumference could have been so made that it would be a greater distance across than around a circle; that a straight line could enclose a triangle if not prevented by law, and that a little legislation could make it possible for two bodies to occupy the same space at the same time. it seems to me that law cannot be the cause of phenomena, but is an effect produced in our minds by their succession and resemblance. to put a god back of the universe, compels us to admit that there was a time when nothing existed except this god; that this god had lived from eternity in an infinite vacuum, and in absolute idleness. the mind of every thoughtful man is forced to one of these two conclusions: either that the universe is self-existent, or that it was created by a self-existent being. to my mind, there are far more difficulties in the second hypothesis than in the first. of course, upon a question like this, nothing can be absolutely known. we live on an atom called earth, and what we know of the infinite is almost infinitely limited; but, little as we know, all have an equal right to give their honest thought. life is a shadowy, strange, and winding road on which we travel for a little way--a few short steps---just from the cradle, with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet way-side inn, where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is--good-night. i know as little as any one else about the "plan" of the universe; and as to the "design," i know just as little. it will not do to say that the universe was designed, and therefore there must be a designer. there must first be proof that it was "designed." it will not do to say that the universe has a "plan," and then assert that there must have been an infinite maker. the idea that a design must have a beginning and that a designer need not, is a simple expression of human ignorance. we find a watch, and we say: "so curious and wonderful a thing must have had a maker." we find the watch-maker, and we say: "so curious and wonderful a thing as man must have had a maker." we find god, and we then say: "he is so wonderful that he must _not_ have had a maker." in other words, all things a little wonderful must have been created, but it is possible for something to be so wonderful that it always existed. one would suppose that just as the wonder increased the necessity for a creator increased, because it is the wonder of the thing that suggests the idea of creation. is it possible that a designer exists from all eternity without design? was there no design in having an infinite designer? for me, it is hard to see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences. it is somewhat difficult to discern the design or the benevolence in so making the world that billions of animals live only on the agonies of others. the justice of god is not visible to me in the history of this world. when i think of the suffering and death, of the poverty and crime, of the cruelty and malice, of the heartlessness of this "design" and "plan," where beak and claw and tooth tear and rend the quivering flesh of weakness and despair, i cannot convince myself that it is the result of infinite wisdom, benevolence, and justice. most christians have seen and recognized this difficulty, and have endeavored to avoid it by giving god an opportunity in another world to rectify the seeming mistakes of this. mr. black, however, avoids the entire question by saying: "we have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the justice of god." in other words, we have no right to think upon this subject, no right to examine the questions most vitally affecting human kind. we are simply to accept the ignorant statements of barbarian dead. this question cannot be settled by saying that "it would be a mere waste of time and space to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created by a preexistent and self-conscious being." the time and space should have been "wasted," and the proofs should have been enumerated. these "proofs" are what the wisest and greatest are trying to find. logic is not satisfied with assertion. it cares nothing for the opinions of the "great,"--nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all for the superstitions of the dead. in the world of science, a fact is a legal tender. assertions and miracles are base and spurious coins. we have the right to rejudge the justice even of a god. no one should throw away his reason--the fruit of all experience. it is the intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide, and without it the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king, attended by a retinue of thieves and hypocrites. of course it is admitted that most of the ten commandments are wise and just. in passing, it may be well enough to say, that the commandment, "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth," was the absolute death of art, and that not until after the destruction of jerusalem was there a hebrew painter or sculptor. surely a commandment is not inspired that drives from the earth the living canvas and the breathing stone--leaves all walls bare and all the niches desolate. in the tenth commandment we find woman placed on an exact equality with other property, which, to say the least of it, has never tended to the amelioration of her condition. a very curious thing about these commandments is that their supposed author violated nearly every one. from sinai, according to the account, he said: "thou shalt not kill," and yet he ordered the murder of millions; "thou shalt not commit adultery," and yet he gave captured maidens to gratify the lust of captors; "thou shalt not steal," and yet he gave to jewish marauders the flocks and herds of others; "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his wife," and yet he allowed his chosen people to destroy the homes of neighbors and to steal their wives; "honor thy father and thy mother," and yet this same god had thousands of fathers butchered, and with the sword of war killed children yet unborn; "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and yet he sent abroad "lying spirits" to deceive his own prophets, and in a hundred ways paid tribute to deceit. so far as we know, jehovah kept only one of these commandments--he worshiped no other god. the religious intolerance of the old testament is justified upon the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance," that "idolatry was an act of overt treason," and that "to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort." according to mr. black, we should all have liberty of conscience except when directly governed by god. in that country where god is king, liberty cannot exist. in this position, i admit that he is upheld and fortified by the "sacred" text. within the old testament there is no such thing as religious toleration. within that volume can be found no mercy for an unbeliever. for all who think for themselves, there are threatenings, curses, and anathemas. think of an infinite being who is so cruel, so unjust, that he will not allow one of his own children the liberty of thought! think of an infinite god acting as the direct governor of a people, and yet not able to command their love! think of the author of all mercy imbruing his hands in the blood of helpless men, women, and children, simply because he did not furnish them with intelligence enough to understand his law! an earthly father who cannot govern by affection is not fit to be a father; what, then, shall we say of an infinite being who resorts to violence, to pestilence, to disease, and famine, in the vain effort to obtain even the respect of a savage? read this passage, red from the heart of cruelty: "_if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers,... thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shalt thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people; and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die_." this is the religious liberty of the bible. if you had lived in palestine, and if the wife of your bosom, dearer to you than your own soul, had said: "i like the religion of india better than that of palestine," it would have been your duty to kill her. "your eye must not pity her, your hand must be first upon her, and afterwards the hand of all the people." if she had said: "let us worship the sun--the sun that clothes the earth in garments of green--the sun, the great fireside of the world--the sun that covers the hills and valleys with flowers--that gave me your face, and made it possible for me to look into the eyes of my babe--let us worship the sun," it was your duty to kill her. you must throw the first stone, and when against her bosom--a bosom filled with love for you--you had thrown the jagged and cruel rock, and had seen the red stream of her life oozing from the dumb lips of death, you could then look up and receive the congratulations of the god whose commandment you had obeyed. is it possible that a being of infinite mercy ordered a husband to kill his wife for the crime of having expressed an opinion on the subject of religion? has there been found upon the records of the savage world anything more perfectly fiendish than this commandment of jehovah? this is justified on the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance, and idolatry an act of overt treason." we can understand how a human king stands in need of the service of his people. we can understand how the desertion of any of his soldiers weakens his army; but were the king infinite in power, his strength would still remain the same, and under no conceivable circumstances could the enemy triumph. i insist that, if there is an infinitely good and wise god, he beholds with pity the misfortunes of his children. i insist that such a god would know the mists, the clouds, the darkness enveloping the human mind. he would know how few stars are visible in the intellectual sky. his pity, not his wrath, would be excited by the efforts of his blind children, groping in the night to find the cause of things, and endeavoring, through their tears, to see some dawn of hope. filled with awe by their surroundings, by fear of the unknown, he would know that when, kneeling, they poured out their gratitude to some unseen power, even to a visible idol, it was, in fact, intended for him. an infinitely good being, had he the power, would answer the reasonable prayer of an honest savage, even when addressed to wood and stone. the atrocities of the old testament, the threatenings, maledictions, and curses of the "inspired book," are defended on the ground that the jews had a right to treat their enemies as their enemies treated them; and in this connection is this remarkable statement: "in your treatment of hostile barbarians you not only may lawfully, you must necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. if they come to conquer you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by exterminating theirs." for a man who is a "christian policeman," and has taken upon himself to defend the christian religion; for one who follows the master who said that when smitten on one cheek you must turn the other, and who again and again enforced the idea that you must overcome evil with good, it is hardly consistent to declare that a civilized nation must of necessity adopt the warfare of savages. is it possible that in fighting, for instance, the indians of america, if they scalp our soldiers we should scalp theirs? if they ravish, murder, and mutilate our wives, must we treat theirs in the same manner? if they kill the babes in our cradles, must we brain theirs? if they take our captives, bind them to the trees, and if their squaws fill their quivering flesh with sharpened fagots and set them on fire, that they may die clothed with flame, must our wives, our mothers, and our daughters follow the fiendish example? is this the conclusion of the most enlightened christianity? will the pulpits of the united states adopt the arguments of this "policeman"? is this the last and most beautiful blossom of the sermon on the mount? is this the echo of "father, forgive them; they know not what they do"? mr. black justifies the wars of extermination and conquest because the american people fought for the integrity of their own country; fought to do away with the infamous institution of slavery; fought to preserve the jewels of liberty and justice for themselves and for their children. is it possible that his mind is so clouded by political and religious prejudice, by the recollections of an unfortunate administration, that he sees no difference between a war of extermination and one of self-preservation? that he sees no choice between the murder of helpless age, of weeping women and of sleeping babes, and the defence of liberty and nationality? the soldiers of the republic did not wage a war of extermination. they did not seek to enslave their fellow-men. they did not murder trembling age. they did not sheathe their swords in women's breasts. they gave the old men bread, and let the mothers rock their babes in peace. they fought to save the world's great hope--to free a race and put the humblest hut beneath the canopy of liberty and law. claiming neither praise nor dispraise for the part taken by me in the civil war, for the purposes of this argument, it is sufficient to say that i am perfectly willing that my record, poor and barren as it is, should be compared with his. never for an instant did i suppose that any respectable american citizen could be found willing at this day to defend the institution of slavery; and never was i more astonished than when i found mr. black denying that civilized countries passionately assert that slavery is and always was a hideous crime. i was amazed when he declared that "the doctrine that slavery is a crime under all circumstances and at all times was first started by the adherents of a political faction in this country less than forty years ago." he tells us that "they denounced god and christ for not agreeing with them," but that "they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it. politically they were successful; i need not say by what means, or with what effect upon the morals of the country." slavery held both branches of congress, filled the chair of the executive, sat upon the supreme bench, had in its hands all rewards, all offices; knelt in the pew, occupied the pulpit, stole human beings in the name of god, robbed the trundle-bed for love of christ; incited mobs, led ignorance, ruled colleges, sat in the chairs of professors, dominated the public press, closed the lips of free speech, and polluted with its leprous hand every source and spring of power. the abolitionists attacked this monster. they were the bravest, grandest men of their country and their century. denounced by thieves, hated by hypocrites, mobbed by cowards, slandered by priests, shunned by politicians, abhorred by the seekers of office,--these men "of whom the world was not worthy," in spite of all opposition, in spite of poverty and want, conquered innumerable obstacles, never faltering for one moment, never dismayed--accepting defeat with a smile born of infinite hope--knowing that they were right--insisted and persisted until every chain was broken, until slave-pens became schoolhouses, and three millions of slaves became free men, women, and children. they did not measure with "the golden metewand of god," but with "the elastic cord of human feeling." they were men the latchets of whose shoes no believer in human slavery was ever worthy to unloose. and yet we are told by this modern defender of the slavery of jehovah that they were not even respectable; and this slander is justified because the writer is assured "that the infallible god proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized slavery in judea." not satisfied with having slavery in this world, mr. black assures us that it will last through all eternity, and that forever and forever inferiors must be subordinated to superiors. who is the superior man? according to mr. black, he is superior who lives upon the unpaid labor of the inferior. with me, the superior man is the one who uses his superiority in bettering the condition of the inferior. the superior man is strength for the weak, eyes for the blind, brains for the simple; he is the one who helps carry the burden that nature has put upon the inferior. any man who helps another to gain and retain his liberty is superior to any infallible god who authorized slavery in judea. for my part, i would rather be the slave than the master. it is better to be robbed than to be a robber. i had rather be stolen from than to be a thief. according to mr. black, there will be slavery in heaven, and fast by the throne of god will be the auction-block, and the streets of the new jerusalem will be adorned with the whipping post, while the music of the harp will be supplemented by the crack of the driver's whip. if some good republican would catch mr. black, "incorporate him into his family, tame him, teach him to think, and give him a knowledge of the true principles of human liberty and government, he would confer upon him a most beneficent boon." slavery includes all other crimes. it is the joint product of the kidnapper, pirate, thief, murderer, and hypocrite. it degrades labor and corrupts leisure. to lacerate the naked back, to sell wives, to steal babes, to breed bloodhounds, to debauch your own soul--this is slavery. this is what jehovah "authorized in judea." this is what mr. black believes in still. he "measures with the golden metewand of god." i abhor slavery. with me, liberty is not merely a means--it is an end. without that word, all other words are empty sounds. mr. black is too late with his protest against the freedom of his fellow-man. liberty is making the tour of the world. russia has emancipated her serfs; the slave trade is prosecuted only by thieves and pirates; spain feels upon her cheek the burning blush of shame; brazil with proud and happy eyes is looking for the dawn of freedom's day; the people of the south rejoice that slavery is no more, and every good and honest man (excepting mr. black), of every land and clime, hopes that the limbs of men will never feel again the weary weight of chains. we are informed by mr. black that polygamy is neither commanded nor prohibited in the old testament--that it is only "discouraged." it seems to me that a little legislation on that subject might have tended to its "discouragement." but where is the legislation? in the moral code, which mr. black assures us "consists of certain immutable rules to govern the conduct of all men at all times and at all places in their private and personal relations with others," not one word is found on the subject of polygamy. there is nothing "discouraging" in the ten commandments, nor in the records of any conversation jehovah is claimed to have had with moses upon sinai. the life of abraham, the story of jacob and laban, the duty of a brother to be the husband of the widow of his deceased brother, the life of david, taken in connection with the practice of one who is claimed to have been the wisest of men--all these things are probably relied on to show that polygamy was at least "discouraged." certainly, jehovah had time to instruct moses as to the infamy of polygamy. he could have spared a few moments from a description of the patterns of tongs and basins, for a subject so important as this. a few words in favor of the one wife and the one husband--in favor of the virtuous and loving home--might have taken the place of instructions as to cutting the garments of priests and fashioning candlesticks and ouches of gold. if he had left out simply the order that rams' skins should be dyed red, and in its place had said, "a man shall have but one wife, and the wife but one husband," how much better would it have been. all the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. it makes man a beast, and woman a slave. it destroys the fireside and makes virtue an outcast. it takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. and yet mr. black insists that we owe to the bible the present elevation of woman. where will he find in the old testament the rights of wife, and mother, and daughter defined? even in the new testament she is told to "learn in silence, with all subjection;" that she "is not suffered to teach, nor to usurp any authority over the man, but to be in silence." she is told that "the head of every man is christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of christ is god." in other words, there is the same difference between the wife and husband that there is between the husband and christ. the reasons given for this infamous doctrine are that "adam was first formed, and then eve;" that "adam was not deceived," but that "the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." these childish reasons are the only ones given by the inspired writers. we are also told that "a man, indeed, ought to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of god;" but that "the woman is the glory of the man," and this is justified from the fact, and the remarkable fact, set forth in the very next verse--that "the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." and the same gallant apostle says: "neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man;" "wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. therefore, as the church is subject unto christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in everything." these are the passages that have liberated woman! according to the old testament, woman had to ask pardon, and had to be purified, for the crime of having borne sons and daughters. if in this world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her child. the doctrine that woman is the slave, or serf, of man--whether it comes from heaven or from hell, from god or a demon, from the golden streets of the new jerusalem or from the very sodom of perdition--is savagery, pure and simple. in no country in the world had women less liberty than in the holy land, and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than jehovah of the jews. the position of woman was far better in egypt than in palestine. before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of isis were sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the gods. before moses was born, women had sat upon the egyptian throne. upon ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same chair. in persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest civilizations "they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as goddesses in heaven." at the advent of christianity, in all pagan countries women officiated at the sacred altars. they guarded the eternal fire. they kept the sacred books. from their lips came the oracles of fate. under the domination of the christian church, woman became the merest slave for at least a thousand years. it was claimed that through woman the race had fallen, and that her loving kiss had poisoned all the springs of life. christian priests asserted that but for her crime the world would have been an eden still. the ancient fathers exhausted their eloquence in the denunciation of woman, and repeated again and again the slander of st. paul. the condition of woman has improved just in proportion that man has lost confidence in the inspiration of the bible. for the purpose of defending the character of his infallible god, mr. black is forced to defend religious intolerance, wars of extermination, human slavery, and _almost_ polygamy. he admits that god established slavery; that he commanded his chosen people to buy the children of the heathen; that heathen fathers and mothers did right to sell their girls and boys; that god ordered the jews to wage wars of extermination and conquest; that it was right to kill the old and young; that god forged manacles for the human brain; that he commanded husbands to murder their wives for suggesting the worship of the sun or moon; and that every cruel, savage passage in the old testament was inspired by him. such is a "policeman's" view of god. will mr. black have the kindness to state a few of his objections to the devil? mr. black should have answered my arguments, instead of calling me "blasphemous" and "scurrilous." in the discussion of these questions i have nothing to do with the reputation of my opponent. his character throws no light on the subject, and is to me a matter of perfect indifference. neither will it do for one who enters the lists as the champion of revealed religion to say that "we have no right to rejudge the justice of god." such a statement is a white flag. the warrior eludes the combat when he cries out that it is a "metaphysical question." he deserts the field and throws down his arms when he admits that "no revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity." again i ask, why were the jewish people as wicked, cruel, and ignorant with a revelation from god, as other nations were without? why were the worshipers of false deities as brave, as kind, and generous as those who knew the only true and living god? how do you explain the fact that while jehovah was waging wars of extermination, establishing slavery, and persecuting for opinion's sake, heathen philosophers were teaching that all men are brothers, equally entitled to liberty and life? you insist that jehovah believed in slavery and yet punished the egyptians for enslaving the jews. was your god once an abolitionist? did he at that time "denounce christ for not agreeing with him"? if slavery was a crime in egypt, was it a virtue in palestine? did god treat the canaanites better than pharaoh did the jews? was it right for jehovah to kill the children of the people because of pharaoh's sin? should the peasant be punished for the king's crime? do you not know that the worst thing that can be said of nero, caligula, and commodus is that they resembled the jehovah of the jews? will you tell me why god failed to give his bible to the whole world? why did he not give the scriptures to the hindu, the greek, and roman? why did he fail to enlighten the worshipers of "mammon" and moloch, of belial and baal, of bacchus and venus? after all, was not bacchus as good as jehovah? is it not better to drink wine than to shed blood? was there anything in the worship of venus worse than giving captured maidens to satisfy the victor's lust? did "mammon" or moloch do anything more infamous than to establish slavery? did they order their soldiers to kill men, women, and children, and to save alive nothing that had breath? do not answer these questions by saying that "no veil has been lifted between time and eternity," and that "we have no right to rejudge the justice of god." if jehovah was in fact god, he knew the end from the beginning. he knew that his bible would be a breastwork behind which tyranny and hypocrisy would crouch; that it would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the defence of robbers, called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. he knew that he had taught the jewish people but little of importance. he knew that he found them free and left them captives. he knew that he had never fulfilled the promises made to them. he knew that while other nations had advanced in art and science, his chosen people were savage still. he promised them the world, and gave them a desert. he promised them liberty, and he made them slaves. he promised them victory, and he gave them defeat. he said they should be kings, and he made them serfs. he promised them universal empire, and gave them exile. when one finishes the old testament, he is compelled to say: nothing can add to to the misery of a nation whose king is jehovah! and here i take occasion to thank mr. black for having admitted that jehovah gave no commandment against the practice of polygamy, that he established slavery, waged wars of extermination, and persecuted for opinion's sake even unto death. most theologians endeavor to putty, patch, and paint the wretched record of inspired crime, but mr. black has been bold enough and honest enough to admit the truth. in this age of fact and demonstration it is refreshing to find a man who believes so thoroughly in the monstrous and miraculous, the impossible and immoral--who still clings lovingly to the legends of the bib and rattle--who through the bitter experiences of a wicked world has kept the credulity of the cradle, and finds comfort and joy in thinking about the garden of eden, the subtle serpent, the flood, and babel's tower, stopped by the jargon of a thousand tongues--who reads with happy eyes the story of the burning brimstone storm that fell upon the cities of the plain, and smilingly explains the transformation of the retrospective mrs. lot--who laughs at egypt's plagues and pharaoh's whelmed and drowning hosts--eats manna with the wandering jews, warms himself at the burning bush, sees korah's company by the hungry earth devoured, claps his wrinkled hands with glee above the heathens' butchered babes, and longingly looks back to the patriarchal days of concubines and slaves. how touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to hear the rhymes and fables once again! how charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast! mr. black comes to the conclusion that the hebrew bible is in exact harmony with the new testament, and that the two are "connected together;" and "that if one is true the other cannot be false." if this is so, then he must admit that if one is false the other cannot be true; and it hardly seems possible to me that there is a right-minded, sane man, except mr. black, who now believes that a god of infinite kindness and justice ever commanded one nation to exterminate another; ever ordered his soldiers to destroy men, women, and babes; ever established the institution of human slavery; ever regarded the auction-block as an altar, or a bloodhound as an apostle. mr. black contends (after having answered my indictment against the old testament by admitting the allegations to be true) that the rapidity with which christianity spread "proves the supernatural origin of the gospel, or that it was propagated by the direct aid of the divine being himself." let us see. in his efforts to show that the "infallible god established slavery in judea," he takes occasion to say that "the doctrine that slavery is a crime under all circumstances was first started by the adherents of a political faction in this, country less than forty years ago;" that "they denounced god and christ for not agreeing with them;" but that "they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it." let it be remembered that this was only forty years ago; and yet, according to mr. black, a few disreputable men changed the ideas of nearly fifty millions of people, changed the constitution of the united states, liberated a race from slavery, clothed three millions of people with political rights, took possession of the government, managed its affairs for more than twenty years, and have compelled the admiration of the civilized world. is it mr. black's idea that this happened by chance? if not, then according to him, there are but two ways to account for it; either the rapidity with which republicanism spread proves its supernatural origin, "or else its propagation was provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the divine being himself." between these two, mr. black may make his choice. he will at once see that the rapid rise and spread of any doctrine does not even tend to show that it was divinely revealed. this argument is applicable to all religions. mohammedans can use it as well as christians. mohammed was a poor man, a driver of camels. he was without education, without influence, and without wealth, and yet in a few years he consolidated thousands of tribes, and made millions of men confess that there is "one god, and mohammed is his prophet." his success was a thousand times greater during his life than that of christ. he was not crucified; he was a conqueror. "of all men, he exercised the greatest influence upon the human race." never in the world's history did a religion spread with the rapidity of his. it burst like a storm over the fairest portions of the globe. if mr. black is right in his position that rapidity is secured only by the direct aid of the divine being, then mohammed was most certainly the prophet of god. as to wars of extermination and slavery, mohammed agreed with mr. black, and upon polygamy, with jehovah. as to religious toleration, he was great enough to say that "men holding to any form of faith might be saved, provided they were virtuous." in this, he was far in advance both of jehovah and mr. black. it will not do to take the ground that the rapid rise and spread of a religion demonstrates its divine character. years before gautama died, his religion was established, and his disciples were numbered by millions. his doctrines were not enforced by the sword, but by an appeal to the hopes, the fears, and the reason of mankind; and more than one-third of the human race are to-day the followers of gautama. his religion has outlived all that existed in his time; and according to dr. draper, "there is no other country in the world except india that has the religion to-day it had at the birth of jesus christ." gautama believed in the equality of all men; abhorred the spirit of caste, and proclaimed justice, mercy, and education for all. imagine a mohammedan answering an infidel; would he not use the argument of mr black, simply substituting mohammed for christ, just as effectually as it has been used against me? there was a time when india was the foremost nation of the world. would not your argument, mr. black, have been just as good in the mouth of a brahmin then, as it is in yours now? egypt, the mysterious mother of mankind, with her pyramids built thirty-four hundred years before christ, was once the first in all the earth, and gave to us our trinity, and our symbol of the cross. could not a priest of isis and osiris have used your arguments to prove that his religion was divine, and could he not have closed by saying: "from the facts established by this evidence it follows irresistibly that our religion came to us from god"? do you not see that your argument proves too much, and that it is equally applicable to all the religions of the world? again, it is urged that "the acceptance of christianity by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its founder and his apostles was, under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce." if this is true, then "the acceptance of buddhism by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its founder was an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce." the same could be said of mohammedanism, and, in fact, of every religion that has ever benefited or cursed this world. this argument, when reduced to its simplest form, is this: all that succeeds is inspired. the old argument that if christianity is a human fabrication its authors must have been either good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there are but two classes of persons--the good and the bad. there is at least one other class--_the mistaken_, and both of the other classes may belong to this. thousands of most excellent people have been deceived, and the history of the world is filled with instances where men have honestly supposed that they had received communications from angels and gods. in thousands of instances these pretended communications contained the purest and highest thoughts, together with the most important truths; yet it will not do to say that these accounts are true; neither can they be proved by saying that the men who claimed to be inspired were good. what we must say is, that being good men, they were mistaken; and it is the charitable mantle of a mistake that i throw over mr. black, when i find him defending the institution of slavery. he seems to think it utterly incredible that any "combination of knaves, however base, would fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce themselves, and to invoke the curse of god upon their own conduct." how did religions other than christianity and judaism arise? were they all "concocted by a combination of knaves"? the religion of gautama is filled with most beautiful and tender thoughts, with most excellent laws, and hundreds of sentences urging mankind to deeds of love and self-denial. was gautama inspired? does not mr. black know that thousands of people charged with witchcraft actually confessed in open court their guilt? does he not know that they admitted that they had spoken face to face with satan, and had sold their souls for gold and power? does he not know that these admissions were made in the presence and expectation of death? does he not know that hundreds of judges, some of them as great as the late lamented gibson, believed in the existence of an impossible crime? we are told that "there is no good reason to doubt that the statements of the evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine." the fact is, no one knows who made the "statements of the evangelists." there are three important manuscripts upon which the christian world relies. "the first appeared in the catalogue of the vatican, in . this contains the old testament. of the new, it contains the four gospels,--the acts, the seven catholic epistles, nine of the pauline epistles, and the epistle to the hebrews, as far as the fourteenth verse of the ninth chapter,"--and nothing more. this is known as the codex vatican. "the second, the alexandrine, was presented to king charles the first, in . it contains the old and new testaments, with some exceptions; passages are wanting in matthew, in john, and in ii. corinthians. it also contains the epistle of clemens romanus, a letter of athanasius, and the treatise of eusebius on the psalms." the last is the sinaitic codex, discovered about , at the convent of st. catherine's, on mount sinai. "it contains the old and new testaments, and in addition the entire epistle of barnabas, and a portion of the shepherd of hermas--two books which, up to the beginning of the fourth century, were looked upon by many as scripture." in this manuscript, or codex, the gospel of st. mark concludes with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, leaving out the frightful passage: "go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." in matters of the utmost importance these manuscripts disagree, but even if they all agreed it would not furnish the slightest evidence of their truth. it will not do to call the statements made in the gospels "depositions," until it is absolutely established who made them, and the circumstances under which they were made. neither can we say that "they were made in the immediate prospect of death," until we know who made them. it is absurd to say that "the witnesses could not have been mistaken, because the nature of the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them." can it be pretended that the witnesses could not have been mistaken about the relation the holy ghost is alleged to have sustained to jesus christ? is there no possibility of delusion about a circumstance of that kind? did the writers of the four gospels have "'the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes' and ears" in that behalf? how was it possible for any one of the four evangelists to know that christ was the son of god, or that he was god? his mother wrote nothing on the subject. matthew says that an angel of the lord told joseph in a dream, but joseph never wrote an account of this wonderful vision. luke tells us that the angel had a conversation with mary, and that mary told elizabeth, but elizabeth never wrote a word. there is no account of mary or joseph or elizabeth or the angel, having had any conversation with matthew, mark, luke, or john in which one word was said about the miraculous origin of jesus christ. the persons who knew did not write, so that the account is nothing but hearsay. does mr. black pretend that such statements would be admitted as evidence in any court? but how do we know that the disciples of christ wrote a word of the gospels? how did it happen that christ wrote nothing? how do we know that the writers of the gospels "were men of unimpeachable character"? all this is answered by saying "that nothing was said by the most virulent enemies against the personal honesty of the evangelists." how is this known? if christ performed the miracles recorded in the new testament, why would the jews put to death a man able to raise their dead? why should they attempt to kill the master of death? how did it happen that a man who had done so many miracles was so obscure, so unknown, that one of his disciples had to be bribed to point him out? is it not strange that the ones he had cured were not his disciples? can we believe, upon the testimony of those about whose character we know nothing, that lazarus was raised from the dead? what became of lazarus? we never hear of him again. it seems to me that he would have been an object of great interest. people would have said: "he is the man who was once dead." thousands would have inquired of him about the other world; would have asked him where he was when he received the information that he was wanted on the earth. his experience would have been vastly more interesting than everything else in the new testament. a returned traveler from the shores of eternity--one who had walked twice through the valley of the shadow--would have been the most interesting of human beings. when he came to die again, people would have said: "he is not afraid; he has had experience; he knows what death is." but, strangely enough, this lazarus fades into obscurity with "the wise men of the east," and with the dead who came out of their graves on the night of the crucifixion. how is it known that it was claimed, during the life of christ, that he had wrought a miracle? and if the claim was made, how is it known that it was not denied? did the jews believe that christ was clothed with miraculous power? would they have dared to crucify a man who had the power to clothe the dead with life? is it not wonderful that no one at the trial of christ said one word about the miracles he had wrought? nothing about the sick he had healed, nor the dead he had raised? is it not wonderful that josephus, the best historian the hebrews produced, says nothing about the life or death of christ; nothing about the massacre of the infants by herod; not one word about the wonderful star that visited the sky at the birth of christ; nothing about the darkness that fell upon the world for several hours in the midst of day; and failed entirely to mention that hundreds of graves were opened, and that multitudes of jews arose from the dead, and visited the holy city? is it not wonderful that no historian ever mentioned any of these prodigies? and is it not more amazing than all the rest, that christ himself concealed from matthew, mark, and luke the dogma of the atonement, the necessity of belief, and the mystery of the second birth? of course i know that two letters were said to have been written by pilate to tiberius, concerning the execution of christ, but they have been shown to be forgeries. i also know that "various letters were circulated attributed to jesus christ," and that one letter is said to have been written by him to abgarus, king of edessa; but as there was no king of edessa at that time, this letter is admitted to have been a forgery. i also admit that a correspondence between seneca and st. paul was forged. here in our own country, only a few years ago, men claimed to have found golden plates upon which was written a revelation from god. they founded a new religion, and, according to their statement, did many miracles. they were treated as outcasts, and their leader was murdered. these men made their "depositions" "in the immediate prospect of death." they were mobbed, persecuted, derided, and yet they insisted that their prophet had miraculous power, and that he, too, could swing back the hingeless door of death. the followers of these men have increased, in these few years, so that now the murdered prophet has at least two hundred thousand disciples. it will be hard to find a contradiction of these pretended miracles, although this is an age filled with papers, magazines, and books. as a matter of fact, the claims of joseph smith were so preposterous that sensible people did not take the pains to write and print denials. when we remember that eighteen hundred years ago there were but few people who could write, and that a manuscript did not become public in any modern sense, it was possible for the gospels to have been written with all the foolish claims in reference to miracles without exciting comment or denial. there is not, in all the contemporaneous literature of the world, a single word about christ or his apostles. the paragraph in josephus is admitted to be an interpolation, and the letters, the account of the trial, and several other documents forged by the zeal of the early fathers, are now admitted to be false. neither will it do to say that "the statements made by the evangelists are alike upon every important point." if there is anything of importance in the new testament, from the theological standpoint, it is the ascension of jesus christ. if that happened, it was a miracle great enough to surfeit wonder. are the statements of the inspired witnesses alike on this important point? let us see. matthew says nothing upon the subject. either matthew was not there, had never heard of the ascension,--or, having heard of it, did not believe it, or, having seen it, thought it too unimportant to record. to this wonder of wonders mark devotes one verse: "so then, after the lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right-hand of god." can we believe that this verse was written by one who witnessed the ascension of jesus christ; by one who watched his master slowly rising through the air till distance reft him from his tearful sight? luke, another of the witnesses, says: "and it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." john corroborates matthew by saying nothing on the subject. now, we find that the last chapter of mark, after the eighth verse, is an interpolation; so that mark really says nothing about the occurrence. either the ascension of christ must be given up, or it must be admitted that the witnesses do not agree, and that three of them never heard of that most stupendous event. again, if anything could have left its "form and pressure" on the brain, it must have been the last words of jesus christ. the last words, according to matthew, are: "go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you: and lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." the last words, according to the inspired witness known as mark, are: "and these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." luke tells us that the last words uttered by christ, with the exception of a blessing, were: "and behold, i send forth the promise of my father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." the last words, according to john, were: "peter, seeing him, saith to jesus: lord, and what shall this man do? jesus saith unto him, if i will that he tarry till i come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." an account of the ascension is also given in the acts of the apostles; and the last words of christ, according to that inspired witness, are: "but ye shall receive power, after that the holy ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in jerusalem and in all judea, and in samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." in this account of the ascension we find that two men stood by the disciples in white apparel, and asked them: "ye men of galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." matthew says nothing of the two men. mark never saw them. luke may have forgotten them when writing his gospel, and john may have regarded them as optical illusions. luke testifies that christ ascended on the very day of his resurrection. john deposes that eight days after the resurrection christ appeared to the disciples and convinced thomas. in the acts we are told that christ remained on earth for forty days after his resurrection. these "depositions" do not agree. neither do matthew and luke agree in their histories of the infancy of christ. it is impossible for both to be true. one of these "witnesses" must have been mistaken. the most wonderful miracle recorded in the new testament, as having been wrought by christ, is the resurrection of lazarus. while all the writers of the gospels, in many instances, record the same wonders and the same conversations, is it not remarkable that the greatest miracle is mentioned alone by john? two of the witnesses, matthew and luke, give the genealogy of christ. matthew says that there were forty-two generations from abraham to christ. luke insists that there were forty-two from christ to david, while matthew gives the number as twenty-eight. it may be said that this is an old objection. an objection-remains young until it has been answered. is it not wonderful that luke and matthew do not agree on a single name of christ's ancestors for thirty-seven generations? there is a difference of opinion among the "witnesses" as to what the gospel of christ is. if we take the "depositions" of matthew, mark, and luke, then the gospel of christ amounts simply to this: that god will forgive the forgiving, and that he will be merciful to the merciful. according to three witnesses, christ knew nothing of the doctrine of the atonement; never heard of the second birth; and did not base salvation, in whole nor in part, on belief. in the "deposition" of john, we find that we must be born again; that we must believe on the lord jesus christ; and that an atonement was made for us. if christ ever said these things to, or in the hearing of, matthew, mark, and luke, they forgot to mention them. to my mind, the failure of the evangelists to agree as tu what is necessary for man to do in order to insure the salvation of his soul, is a demonstration that they were not inspired. neither do the witnesses agree as to the last words of christ when he was crucified. matthew says that he cried: "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" mark agrees with matthew. luke testifies that his last words were: "father, into thy hands i commend my spirit." john states that he cried: "it is finished." luke says that christ said of his murderers: "father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." matthew, mark, and john do not record these touching words. john says that christ, on the day of his resurrection, said to his disciples: "whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." the other disciples do not record this monstrous passage. they did not hear the abdication of god. they were not present when christ placed in their hands the keys of heaven and hell, and put a world beneath the feet of priests. it is easy to account for the differences and contradictions in these "depositions" (and there are hundreds of them) by saying that each one told the story as he remembered it, or as he had heard it, or that the accounts have been changed, but it will not do to say that the witnesses were inspired of god. we can account for these contradictions by the infirmities of human nature; but, as i said before, the infirmities of human nature cannot be predicated of a divine being. again, i ask, why should there be more than one inspired gospel? of what use were the other three? there can be only one true account of anything. all other true accounts must simply be copies of that. and i ask again, why should there have been more than one inspired gospel? that which is the test of truth as to ordinary witnesses is a demonstration against their inspiration. it will not do at this late day to say that the miracles worked by christ demonstrated his divine origin or mission. the wonderful works he did, did not convince the people with whom he lived. in spite of the miracles, he was crucified. he was charged with blasphemy. "policemen" denounced the "scurrility" of his words, and the absurdity of his doctrines. he was no doubt told that it was "almost a crime to utter blasphemy in the presence of a jewish woman;" and it may be that he was taunted for throwing away "the golden metewand" of the "infallible god who authorized slavery in judea," and taking the "elastic cord of human feeling." christians tell us that the citizens of mecca refused to believe on mohammed because he was an impostor, and that the citizens of jerusalem refused to believe on jesus christ because he was _not_ an impostor. if christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him--if he had cured the maimed, the leprous, and the halt--if he had changed the night of blindness into blessed day--if he had wrested from the fleshless hand of avaricious death the stolen jewel of a life, and clothed again with throbbing flesh the pulseless dust, he would have won the love and adoration of mankind. if ever there shall stand upon this earth the king of death, all human knees will touch the ground. we are further informed that "what we call the fundamental truths of christianity consist of great public events which are sufficiently established by history without special proof." of course, we admit that the roman empire existed; that julius caesar was assassinated; and we may admit that rome was founded by romulus and remus; but will some one be kind enough to tell us how the assassination of caesar even tends to prove that romulus and remus were suckled by a wolf? we will all admit that, in the sixth century after christ, mohammed was born at mecca; that his victorious hosts vanquished half the christian world; that the crescent triumphed over the cross upon a thousand fields; that all the christians of the earth were not able to rescue from the hands of an impostor the empty grave of christ. we will all admit that the mohammedans cultivated the arts and sciences; that they gave us our numerals; taught us the higher mathematics; gave us our first ideas of astronomy, and that "science was thrust into the brain of europe on the point of a moorish lance;" and yet we will not admit that mohammed was divinely inspired, nor that he had frequent conversations with the angel gabriel, nor that after his death his coffin was suspended in mid-air. a little while ago, in the city of chicago, a gentleman addressed a number of sunday-school children. in his address, he stated that some people were wicked enough to deny the story of the deluge; that he was a traveler; that he had been to the top of mount ararat, and had brought with him a stone from that sacred locality. the children were then invited to form in procession and walk by the pulpit, for the purpose of seeing this wonderful stone. after they had looked at it, the lecturer said: "now, children, if you ever hear anybody deny the story of the deluge, or say that the ark did not rest on mount ararat, you can tell them that you know better, because you have seen with your own eyes a stone from that very mountain." the fact that christ lived in palestine does not tend to show that he was in any way related to the holy ghost; nor does the existence of the christian religion substantiate the ascension of jesus christ. we all admit that socrates lived in athens, but we do not admit that he had a familiar spirit. i am satisfied that john wesley was an englishman, but i hardly believe that god postponed a rain because mr. wesley wanted to preach. all the natural things in the world are not sufficient to establish the supernatural. mr. black reasons in this way: there was a hydra-headed monster. we know this, because hercules killed him. there must have been such a woman as proserpine, otherwise pluto could not have carried her away. christ must have been divine, because the holy ghost was his father. and there must have been such a being as the holy ghost, because without a father christ could not have existed. those who are disposed to deny everything because a part is false, reason exactly the other way. they insist that because there was no hydra-headed monster, hercules did not exist. the true position, in my judgment, is that the natural is not to be discarded because found in the company of the miraculous, neither should the miraculous be believed because associated with the probable. there was in all probability such a man as jesus christ. he may have lived in jerusalem. he may have been crucified, but that he was the son of god, or that he was raised from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven, has never been, and, in the nature of things, can never be, substantiated. apparently tired with his efforts to answer what i really said, mr. black resorted to the expedient of "compressing" my propositions and putting them in italics. by his system of "compression" he was enabled to squeeze out what i really said, and substitute a few sentences of his own. i did not say that "christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of belief alone," but i did say that no salvation is offered _without_ belief. there must be a difference of opinion in the minds of mr. black's witnesses on this subject. in one place we are told that a man is "justified by faith without the deeds of the law;" and in another, "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness;" and the following passages seem to show the necessity of belief: "_he that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of god." "he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the son, shall not see life; but the wrath of god abideth on him." "jesus said unto her, i am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." "and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." "for the gifts and calling of god are without repentance." "for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of god." "not of works, lest any man should boast." "whosoever shall confess that jesus is the son of god, god dwelleth in him, and he in god." "whosoever believeth not shall be damned._" i do not understand that the christians of to-day insist that simple belief will secure the salvation of the soul. i believe it is stated in the bible that "the very devils believe;" and it would seem from this that belief is not such a meritorious thing, after all. but christians do insist that without belief no man can be saved; that faith is necessary to salvation, and that there is "none other name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved," except that of christ. my doctrine is that there is only one way to be saved, and that is to act in harmony with your surroundings--to live in accordance with the facts of your being. a being of infinite wisdom has no right to create a person destined to everlasting pain. for the honest infidel, according to the american evangelical pulpit, there is no heaven. for the upright atheist, there is nothing in another world but punishment. mr. black admits that lunatics and idiots are in no danger of hell. this being so, his god should have created only lunatics and idiots. why should the fatal gift of brain be given to any human being, if such gift renders him liable to eternal hell? better be a lunatic here and an angel there. better be an idiot in this world, if you can be a seraph in the next. as to the doctrine of the atonement, mr. black has nothing to offer except the barren statement that it is believed by the wisest and the best. a mohammedan, speaking in constantinople, will say the same of the koran. a brahmin, in a hindu temple, will make the same remark, and so will the american indian, when he endeavors to enforce something upon the young of his tribe. he will say: "the best, the greatest of our tribe have believed in this." this is the argument of the cemetery, the philosophy of epitaphs, the logic of the coffin. who are the greatest and wisest and most virtuous of mankind? this statement, that it has been believed by the best, is made in connection with an admission that it cannot be fathomed by the wisest. it is not claimed that a thing is necessarily false because it is not understood, but i do claim that it is not necessarily true because it cannot be comprehended. i still insist that "the plan of redemption," as usually preached, is absurd, unjust, and immoral. for nearly two thousand years judas iscariot has been execrated by mankind; and yet, if the doctrine of the atonement is true, upon his treachery hung the plan of salvation. suppose judas had known of this plan--known that he was selected by christ for that very purpose, that christ was depending on him. and suppose that he also knew that only by betraying christ could he save either himself or others; what ought judas to have done? are you willing to rely upon an argument that justifies the treachery of that wretch? i insisted upon knowing how the sufferings of an innocent man could satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty. to this, mr. black replies as follows: "this raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss here." is this considered an answer? is it in this way that "my misty creations are made to roll away and vanish into air one after another?" is this the best that can be done by one of the disciples of the infallible god who butchered babes in judea? is it possible for a "policeman" to "silence a rude disturber" in this way? to answer an argument, is it only necessary to say that it "raises a metaphysical question"? again i say: the life of christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence. and again i say: the effort to vindicate a law by inflicting punishment on the innocent is a second violation instead of a vindication. mr. black, under the pretence of "compressing," puts in my mouth the following: "the doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, reconciliation with enemies, as taught in the new testament, is the child of weakness, degrading and unjust." this is entirely untrue. what i did say is this: "the idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man who had the power to protect himself. this doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was impossible." i said not one word against the forgiveness of injuries, not one word against the reconciliation of enemies--not one word. i believe in the reconciliation of enemies. i believe in a reasonable forgiveness of injuries. but i do not believe in the doctrine of non-resistance. mr. black proceeds to say that christianity forbids us "to cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who have crossed us." and yet the man who thus describes christianity tells us that it is not only our right, but our duty, to fight savages as savages fight us; insists that where a nation tries to exterminate us, we have a right to exterminate them. this same man, who tells us that "the diabolical propensities of the human heart are checked and curbed by the spirit of the christian religion," and that this religion "has converted men from low savages into refined and civilized beings," still insists that the author of the christian religion established slavery, waged wars of extermination, abhorred the liberty of thought, and practiced the divine virtues of retaliation and revenge. if it is our duty to forgive our enemies, ought not god to forgive his? is it possible that god will hate his enemies when he tells us that we must love ours? the enemies of god cannot injure him, but ours can injure us. if it is the duty of the injured to forgive, why should the uninjured insist upon having revenge? why should a being who destroys nations with pestilence and famine expect that his children will be loving and forgiving? mr. black insists that without a belief in god there can be no perception of right and wrong, and that it is impossible for an atheist to have a conscience. mr. black, the christian, the believer in god, upholds wars of extermination. i denounce such wars as murder. he upholds the institution of slavery. i denounce that institution as the basest of crimes. yet i am told that i have no knowledge of right and wrong; that i measure with "the elastic cord of human feeling," while the believer in slavery and wars of extermination measures with "the golden metewand of god." what is right and what is wrong? everything is right that tends to the happiness of mankind, and everything is wrong that increases the sum of human misery. what can increase the happiness of this world more than to do away with every form of slavery, and with all war? what can increase the misery of mankind more than to increase wars and put chains upon more human limbs? what is conscience? if man were incapable of suffering, if man could not feel pain, the word "conscience" never would have passed his lips. the man who puts himself in the place of another, whose imagination has been cultivated to the point of feeling the agonies suffered by another, is the man of conscience. but a man who justifies slavery, who justifies a god when he commands the soldier to rip open the mother and to pierce with the sword of war the child unborn, is controlled and dominated, not by conscience, but by a cruel and remorseless superstition. consequences determine the quality of an action. if consequences are good, so is the action. if actions had no consequences, they would be neither good nor bad. man did not get his knowledge of the consequences of actions from god, but from experience and reason. if man can, by actual experiment, discover the right and wrong of actions, is it not utterly illogical to declare that they who do not believe in god can have no standard of right and wrong? consequences are the standard by which actions are judged. they are the children that testify as to the real character of their parents. god or no god, larceny is the enemy of industry--industry is the mother of prosperity--prosperity is a good, and therefore larceny is an evil. god or no god, murder is a crime. there has always been a law against larceny, because the laborer wishes to enjoy the fruit of his toil. as long as men object to being killed, murder will be illegal. according to mr. black, the man who does not believe in a supreme being acknowledges no standard of right and wrong in this world, and therefore can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. is it possible that only those who believe in the god who persecuted for opinion's sake have any standard of right and wrong? were the greatest men of all antiquity without this standard? in the eyes of intelligent men of greece and rome, were all deeds, whether good or evil, morally alike? is it necessary to believe in the existence of an infinite intelligence before you can have any standard of right and wrong? is it possible that a being cannot be just or virtuous unless he believes in some being infinitely superior to himself? if this doctrine be true, how can god be just or virtuous? does he believe in some being superior to himself? it may be said that the pagans believed in a god, and consequently had a standard of right and wrong. but the pagans did not believe in the "true" god. they knew nothing of jehovah. of course it will not do to believe in the wrong god. in order to know the difference between right and wrong, you must believe in the right god--in the one who established slavery. can this be avoided by saying that a false god is better than none? the idea of justice is not the child of superstition--it was not born of ignorance; neither was it nurtured by the passages in the old testament upholding slavery, wars of extermination, and religious persecution. every human being necessarily has a standard of right and wrong; and where that standard has not been polluted by superstition, man abhors slavery, regards a war of extermination as murder, and looks upon religious persecution as a hideous crime. if there is a god, infinite in power and wisdom, above him, poised in eternal calm, is the figure of justice. at the shrine of justice the infinite god must bow, and in her impartial scales the actions even of infinity must be weighed. there is no world, no star, no heaven, no hell, in which gratitude is not a virtue and where slavery is not a crime. according to the logic of this "reply," all good and evil become mixed and mingled--equally good and equally bad, unless we believe in the existence of the infallible god who ordered husbands to kill their wives. we do not know right from wrong now, unless we are convinced that a being of infinite mercy waged wars of extermination four thousand years ago. we are incapable even of charity, unless we worship the being who ordered the husband to kill his wife for differing with him on the subject of religion. we know that acts are good or bad only as they effect the actors, and others. we know that from every good act good consequences flow, and that from every bad act there are only evil results. every virtuous deed is a star in the moral firmament. there is in the moral world, as in the physical, the absolute and perfect relation of cause and effect. for this reason, the atonement becomes an impossibility. others may suffer by your crime, but their suffering cannot discharge you; it simply increases your guilt and adds to your burden. for this reason happiness is not a reward--it is a consequence. suffering is not a punishment--it is a result. it is insisted that christianity is not opposed to freedom of thought, but that "it is based on certain principles to which it requires the assent of all." is this a candid statement? are we only required to give our assent to certain principles in order to be saved? are the inspiration of the bible, the divinity of christ, the atonement, and the trinity, principles? will it be admitted by the orthodox world that good deeds are sufficient unto salvation--that a man can get into heaven by living in accordance with certain principles? this is a most excellent doctrine, but it is not christianity. and right here, it may be well enough to state what i mean by christianity. the morality of the world is not distinctively christian. zoroaster, gautama, mohammed, confucius, christ, and, in fact, all founders of religions, have said to their disciples: you must not steal; you must not murder; you must not bear false witness; you must discharge your obligations. christianity is the ordinary moral code, _plus_ the miraculous origin of jesus christ, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension, the inspiration of the bible, the doctrine of the atonement, and the necessity of belief. buddhism is the ordinary moral code, _plus_ the miraculous illumination of buddha, the performance of certain ceremonies, a belief in the transmigration of the soul, and in the final absorption of the human by the infinite. the religion of mohammed is the ordinary moral code, _plus_ the belief that mohammed was the prophet of god, total abstinence from the use of intoxicating drinks, a harem for the faithful here and hereafter, ablutions, prayers, alms, pilgrimages, and fasts. the morality in christianity has never opposed the freedom of thought. it has never put, nor tended to put, a chain on a human mind, nor a manacle on a human limb; but the doctrines distinctively christian--the necessity of believing a certain thing; the idea that eternal punishment awaited him who failed to believe; the idea that the innocent can suffer for the guilty--these things have opposed, and for a thousand years substantially destroyed, the freedom of the human mind. all religions have, with ceremony, magic, and mystery, deformed, darkened, and corrupted the soul. around the sturdy oaks of morality have grown and clung the parasitic, poisonous vines of the miraculous and monstrous. i have insisted, and i still insist, that it is impossible for a finite man to commit a crime deserving infinite punishment; and upon this subject mr. black admits that "no revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity;" and, consequently, neither the priest nor the "policeman" knows anything with certainty regarding another world. he simply insists that "in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good and bad in the next world." there is "a very marked distinction" in this; but there is this rainbow on the darkest human cloud: the worst have hope of reform. all i insist is, if there is another life, the basest soul that finds its way to that dark or radiant shore will have the everlasting chance of doing right. nothing but the most cruel ignorance, the most heartless superstition, the most ignorant theology, ever imagined that the few days of human life spent here, surrounded by mists and clouds of darkness, blown over life's sea by storms and tempests of passion, fixed for all eternity the condition of the human race. if this doctrine be true, this life is but a net, in which jehovah catches souls for hell. the idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation unsheathed the swords and lighted the fagots of persecution. as long as heaven is the reward of creed instead of deed, just so long will every orthodox church be a bastile, every member a prisoner, and every priest a turnkey. in the estimation of good orthodox christians, i am a criminal, because i am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. i want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the god that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure--a god made of sticks, called creeds, and of old clothes, called myths. i have tried to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by the savages of the past. is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light from the glare of hell? infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. to worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes the soul. while there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no perfectly good being can be perfectly happy. against the heartlessness of this doctrine every grand and generous soul should enter its solemn protest. i want no part in any heaven where the saved, the ransomed, and redeemed drown with merry shouts the cries and sobs of hell--in which happiness forgets misery--where the tears of the lost increase laughter and deepen the dimples of joy. the idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. this idea tends to show that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. only from dens, lairs, and caves--only from mouths filled with cruel fangs--only from hearts of fear and hatred--only from the conscience of hunger and lust--only from the lowest and most debased, could come this most cruel, heartless, and absurd of all dogmas. our ancestors knew but little of nature. they were too astonished to investigate. they could not divest themselves of the idea that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. they made up their minds that at least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the next. man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward him. it was supposed that god demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters and heretics, and regarded investigation as rebellion. each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of god were converted or killed. to allow a heretic to live in peace was to invite the wrath of god. every public evil--every misfortune--was accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. when epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the anger of god. by putting intention behind what man called good, god was produced. by putting intention behind what man called bad, the devil was created. leave this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away. if not a human being existed, the sun would continue to shine, and tempest now and then would devastate the earth; the rain would fall in pleasant showers; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, the earthquake would devour, birds would sing and daisies bloom and roses blush, and volcanoes fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine as serenely as though the world were filled with loving hearts and happy homes. do not imagine that the doctrine of eternal revenge belongs to christianity alone. nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. upon this burning foundation nearly all have built. over the abyss of pain rose the glittering dome of pleasure. this world was regarded as one of trial. here, a god of infinite wisdom experimented with man. between the outstretched paws of the infinite, the mouse--man--was allowed to play. here, man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. here, he could read, and hear read, the sacred books. here, he could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. here, he could build churches and cathedrals. here, he could burn incense, fast, wear hair-cloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images, and persecute all who had the courage to despise superstition, and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. after death, if he died out of the church, nothing could be done to make him better. when he should come into the presence of god, nothing was left except to damn him. priests might convert him here, but god could do nothing there. all of which shows how much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator. only here, on the earth, where the devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement. strange! that a world cursed by god, filled with temptations, and thick with fiends, should be the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. the imprisoned imagined a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker; religion for reason; superstition for science. all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed, and bore fruit in this one word--hell. for the nourishment of this dogma, cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light. why did mr. black fail to answer what i said in relation to the doctrine of inspiration? did he consider that a "metaphysical question"? let us see what inspiration really is. a man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. it makes an impression on his mind. it awakens memory, and this impression depends upon his experience--upon his intellectual capacity. another looks upon the same sea. he has a different brain; he has a different experience. the sea may speak to him of joy, to the other of grief and tears. the sea cannot tell the same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. one may think of wreck and ruin, and another, while listening to the "multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: every drop has visited all the shores of earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and icy north, has fallen in snow, has whirled in storms around the mountain peaks, been kissed to vapor by the sun, worn the seven-hued robe of light, fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs, and laughed in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks. everything in nature tells a different story to all eyes that see and to all ears that hear. so, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember, the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet has to tell. nature says to me all that i am capable of understanding--gives all that i can receive. as with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. a thoughtful man reads shakespeare. what does he get? all that he has the mind to understand. let another read him, who knows nothing of the drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? almost nothing. shakespeare has a different story for each reader. he is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances. the impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. leaving out for the moment the impressions gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends--the natural food of thought must be the impressions made upon the brain by coming in contact through the medium of the senses with what we call the outward world. the brain is natural; its food is natural; the result, thought, must be natural. of the supernatural we have no conception. thought may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and denominated unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. it may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. above the natural, man cannot rise. there can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed persons. there may be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they were naturally produced. the world is to each man according to each man. it takes the world as it really is and that man to make that man's world. you may ask, and what of all this? i reply, as with everything in nature, so with the bible. it has a different story for each reader. is, then, the bible a different book to every human being who reads it? it is. can god, through the bible, make precisely the same revelation to two persons? he cannot. why? because the man who reads is not inspired. god should inspire readers as well as writers. you may reply: god knew that his book would be understood differently by each one, and intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each. if this is so, then my understanding of the bible is the real revelation to me. if this is so, i have no right to take the understanding of another. i must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation i must stand. suppose then, that i read this bible honestly, fairly, and when i get through am compelled to say, "the book is not true." if this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that god has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true is the revelation made to me, and by which i am bound. if the book and my brain are both the work of the same infinite god, whose fault is it that the book and brain do not agree? either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. the inspiration of the bible depends on the credulity of him who reads. there was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history, were thought to be inspired; that time has passed. there was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled the world of thought; that time has passed. mr. black, continuing his process of compressing my propositions, attributes to me the following statement: "the gospel of christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart." i did not say this. what i did say is: "the dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart." in so far as christ taught any doctrine in opposition to slavery, in favor of intellectual liberty, upholding kindness, enforcing the practice of justice and mercy, i most cheerfully admit that his teachings should be followed. such teachings do not need the assistance of miracles. they are not in the region of the supernatural. they find their evidence in the glad response of every honest heart that superstition has not touched and stained. the great question under discussion is, whether the immoral, absurd, and infamous can be established by the miraculous. it cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle. that which actually happens sets in motion innumerable effects, which, in turn, become causes producing other effects. these are all "witnesses" whose "depositions" continue. what i insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by human testimony. we have known people to be mistaken. we know that all people will not tell the truth. we have never seen the dead raised. when people assert that they have, we are forced to weigh the probabilities, and the probabilities are on the other side. it will not do to assert that the universe was created, and then say that such creation was miraculous, and, therefore, all miracles are possible. we must be sure of our premises. who knows that the universe was created? if it was not; if it has existed from eternity; if the present is the necessary child of all the past, then the miraculous is the impossible. throw away all the miracles of the new testament, and the good teachings of christ remain--all that is worth preserving will be there still. take from what is now known as christianity the doctrine of the atonement, the fearful dogma of eternal punishment, the absurd idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and with most of the remainder the good and intelligent will most heartily agree. mr. black attributes to me the following expression: "christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization." i said no such thing. strange, that he is only able to answer what i did not say. i endeavored to show that the passages in the old testament upholding slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious intolerance had filled the world with blood and crime. i admitted that there are many wise and good things in the old testament. i also insisted that the doctrine of the atonement--that is to say, of moral bankruptcy--the idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and the frightful dogma of eternal pain, had narrowed the soul, had darkened the mind, and had arrested the progress of human society. like other religions, christianity is a mixture of good and evil. the church has made more orphans than it has fed. it has never built asylums enough to hold the insane of its own making. it has shed more blood than light. mr. black seems to think that miracles are the most natural things imaginable, and wonders that anybody should be insane enough to deny the probability of the impossible. he regards all who doubt the miraculous origin, the resurrection and ascension of jesus christ, as afflicted with some "error of the moon," and declares that their "disbelief seems like a kind of insanity." to ask for evidence is not generally regarded as a symptom of a brain diseased. delusions, illusions, phantoms, hallucinations, apparitions, chimeras, and visions are the common property of the religious and the insane. persons blessed with sound minds and healthy bodies rely on facts, not fancies--on demonstrations instead of dreams. it seems to me that the most orthodox christians must admit that many of the miracles recorded in the new testament are extremely childish. they must see that the miraculous draught of fishes, changing water into wine, fasting for forty days, inducing devils to leave an insane man by allowing them to take possession of swine, walking on the water, and using a fish for a pocket-book, are all unworthy of an infinite being, and are calculated to provoke laughter--to feed suspicion and engender doubt. mr. black takes the ground that if a man believes in the creation of the universe--that being the most stupendous miracle of which the mind can conceive--he has no right to deny anything. he asserts that god created the universe; that creation was a miracle; that "god would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it," and that he would authenticate his revelation by giving his prophets and apostles supernatural power. after making these assertion, he triumphantly exclaims: "it therefore follows that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the original improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at all." how does he know that god made the universe? how does he know what god would be likely to do? how does he know that any revelation was made? and how did he ascertain that any of the apostles and prophets were entrusted with supernatural power? it will not do to prove your premises by assertions, and then claim that your conclusions are correct, because they agree with your premises. if "god would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it," why did he reveal it only to the jews? according to mr. black, god is the only natural thing in the universe. we should remember that ignorance is the mother of credulity; that the early christians believed everything but the truth, and that they accepted paganism, admitted the reality of all the pagan miracles--taking the ground that they were all forerunners of their own. pagan miracles were never denied by the christian world until late in the seventeenth century. voltaire was the third man of note in europe who denied the truth of greek and roman mythology. "the early christians cited pagan oracles predicting in detail the sufferings of christ. they forged prophecies, and attributed them to the heathen sibyls, and they were accepted as genuine by the entire church." st. irenæus assures us that all christians possessed the power of working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the sick, and even raised the dead. st. epiphanius asserts that some rivers and fountains were annually transmuted into wine, in attestation of the miracle of cana, adding that he himself had drunk of these fountains. st. augustine declares that one was told in a dream where the bones of st. stephen were buried, that the bones were thus discovered, and brought to hippo, and that they raised five dead persons to life, and that in two years seventy miracles were performed with these relics. justin martyr states that god once sent some angels to guard the human race, that these angels fell in love with the daughters of men, and became the fathers of innumerable devils. for hundreds of years, miracles were about the only things that happened. they were wrought by thousands of christians, and testified to by millions. the saints and martyrs, the best and greatest, were the witnesses and workers of wonders. even heretics, with the assistance of the devil, could suspend the "laws of nature." must we believe these wonderful accounts because they were written by "good men," by christians, "who made their statements in the presence and expectation of death"? the truth is that these "good men" were mistaken. they expected the miraculous. they breathed the air of the marvelous. they fed their minds on prodigies, and their imaginations feasted on effects without causes. they were incapable of investigating. doubts were regarded as "rude disturbers of the congregation." credulity and sanctity walked hand in hand. reason was danger. belief was safety. as the philosophy of the ancients was rendered almost worthless by the credulity of the common people, so the proverbs of christ, his religion of forgiveness, his creed of kindness, were lost in the mist of miracle and the darkness of superstition. if mr. black is right, there were no virtue, justice, intellectual liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, or true wisdom, until christianity was established. he asserts that when christ came, "benevolence, in any shape, was altogether unknown." he insists that "the infallible god who authorized slavery in judea" established a government; that he was the head and king of the jewish people; that for this reason heresy was treason. is it possible that god established a government in which benevolence was unknown? how did it happen that he established no asylums for the insane? how do you account for the fact that your god permitted some of his children to become insane? why did jehovah fail to establish hospitals and schools? is it reasonable to believe that a good god would assist his chosen people to exterminate or enslave his other children? why would your god people a world, knowing that it would be destitute of benevolence for four thousand years? jehovah should have sent missionaries to the heathen. he ought to have reformed the inhabitants of canaan. he should have sent teachers, not soldiers--missionaries, not murderers. a god should not exterminate his children; he should reform them. mr. black gives us a terrible picture of the condition of the world at the coming of christ; but did the god of judea treat his own children, the gentiles, better than the pagans treated theirs? when rome enslaved mankind--when with her victorious armies she sought to conquer or to exterminate tribes and nations, she but followed the example of jehovah. is it true that benevolence came with christ, and that his coming heralded the birth of pity in the human heart? does not mr. black know that, thousands of years before christ was born, there were hospitals and asylums for orphans in china? does he not know that in egypt, before moses lived, the insane were treated with kindness and wooed back to natural thought by music's golden voice? does he not know that in all times, and in all countries, there have been great and loving souls who wrought, and toiled, and suffered, and died that others might enjoy? is it possible that he knows nothing of the religion of buddha--a religion based upon equality, charity and forgiveness? does he not know that, centuries before the birth of the great peasant of palestine, another, upon the plains of india, had taught the doctrine of forgiveness; and that, contrary to the tyranny of jehovah, had given birth to the sublime declaration that all men are by nature free and equal? does he not know that a religion of absolute trust in god had been taught thousands of years before jerusalem was built--a religion based upon absolute special providence, carrying its confidence to the extremest edge of human thought, declaring that every evil is a blessing in disguise, and that every step taken by mortal man, whether in the rags of poverty or the royal robes of kings, is the step necessary to be taken by that soul in order to reach perfection and eternal joy? but how is it possible for a man who believes in slavery to have the slightest conception of benevolence, justice or charity? if mr. black is right, even christ believed and taught that man could buy and sell his fellow-man. will the christians of america admit this? do they believe that christ from heaven's throne mocked when colored mothers, reft of babes, knelt by empty cradles and besought his aid? for the man christ--for the reformer who loved his fellow-men--for the man who believed in an infinite father, who would shield the innocent and protect the just--for the martyr who expected to be rescued from the cruel cross, and who at last, finding that his hope was dust, cried out in the gathering gloom of death: "my god! my god! why hast thou forsaken me?"--for that great and suffering man, mistaken though he was, i have the highest admiration and respect. that man did not, as i believe, claim a miraculous origin; he did not pretend to heal the sick nor raise the dead. he claimed simply to be a man, and taught his fellow-men that love is stronger far than hate. his life was written by reverent ignorance. loving credulity belittled his career with feats of jugglery and magic art, and priests, wishing to persecute and slay, put in his mouth the words of hatred and revenge. the theological christ is the impossible union of the human and divine--man with the attributes of god, and god with the limitations and weaknesses of man. after giving a terrible description of the pagan world, mr. black says: "the church came, and her light penetrated the moral darkness like a new sun; she covered the globe with institutions of mercy." is this true? do we not know that when the roman empire fell, darkness settled on the world? do we not know that this darkness lasted for a thousand years, and that during all that time the church of christ held, with bloody hands, the sword of power? these years were the starless midnight of our race. art died, law was forgotten, toleration ceased to exist, charity fled from the human breast, and justice was unknown. kings were tyrants, priests were pitiless, and the poor multitude were slaves. in the name of christ, men made instruments of torture, and the _auto da fê_ took the place of the gladiatorial show. liberty was in chains, honesty in dungeons, while christian superstition ruled mankind. christianity compromised with paganism. the statues of jupiter were used to represent jehovah. isis and her babe were changed to mary and the infant christ. the trinity of egypt became the father, son, and holy ghost. the simplicity of the early christians was lost in heathen rites and pagan pomp. the believers in the blessedness of poverty became rich, avaricious, and grasping, and those who had said, "sell all, and give to the poor," became the ruthless gatherers of tithes and taxes. in a few years the teachings of jesus were forgotten. the gospels were interpolated by the designing and ambitious. the church was infinitely corrupt. crime was crowned, and virtue scourged. the minds of men were saturated with superstition. miracles, apparitions, angels, and devils had possession of the world. "the nights were filled with incubi and succubi; devils', clad in wondrous forms, and imps in hideous shapes, sought to tempt or fright the soldiers of the cross. the maddened spirits of the air sent hail and storm. sorcerers wrought sudden death, and witches worked with spell and charm against the common weal." in every town the stake arose. faith carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. priests--not "politicians"--fed and fanned the eager flames. the dungeon was the foundation of the cathedral. priests sold charms and relics to their flocks to keep away the wolves of hell. thousands of christians, failing to find protection in the church, sold their poor souls to satan for some magic wand. suspicion sat in every house, families were divided, wives denounced husbands, husbands denounced wives, and children their parents. every calamity then, as now, increased the power of the church. pestilence supported the' pulpit, and famine was the right hand of faith. christendom was insane. will mr. black be kind enough to state at what time "the church covered the globe with institutions of mercy"? in his reply, he conveys the impression that these institutions were organized in the first century, or at least in the morning of christianity. how many hospitals for the sick were established by the church during a thousand years? do we not know that for hundreds of years the mohammedans erected more hospitals and asylums than the christians? christendom was filled with racks and thumbscrews, with stakes and fagots, with chains and dungeons, for centuries before a hospital was built. priests despised doctors. prayer was medicine. physicians interfered with the sale of charms and relics. the church did not cure--it killed. it practiced surgery with the sword. the early christians did not build asylums for the insane. they charged them with witchcraft, and burnt them. they built asylums, not for the mentally diseased, but for the mentally developed. these asylums were graves. all the languages of the world have not words of horror enough to paint the agonies of man when the church had power. tiberius, caligula, claudius, nero, domitian, and commodus were not as cruel, false, and base as many of the christians popes. opposite the names of these imperial criminals write john the xii., leo the viii., boniface the vii., benedict the ix., innocent the iii., and alexander the vi. was it under these pontiffs that the "church penetrated the moral darkness like a new sun," and covered the globe with institutions of mercy? rome was far better when pagan than when catholic. it was better to allow gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. the greatest of the romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. seneca condemned the combats even of wild beasts. he was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." aurelius compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. roman lawyers declared that all men are by nature free and equal. woman, under pagan rule in rome, became as free as man. zeno, long before the birth of christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men. we know that the civil law is the foundation of our codes. we know that fragments of greek and roman art--a few manuscripts saved from christian destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the moors--were the seeds of modern civilization. christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to believe. not one step was taken in advance. over the manuscripts of philosophers and poets, priests with their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries of faith. for a thousand years the torch of progress was extinguished in the blood of christ, and his disciples, moved by ignorant zeal, by insane, cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a hundred millions of their fellow-men. they made this world a hell. but if cathedrals had been universities--if dungeons of the inquisition had been laboratories--if christians had believed in character instead of creed--if they had taken from the bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and absurd--if domes of temples had been observatories--if priests had been philosophers--if missionaries had taught the useful arts--if astrology had been astronomy--if the black art had been chemistry--if superstition had been science--if religion had been humanity--it' would have been a heaven filled with love, with liberty, and joy. we did not get our freedom from the church. the great truth, that all men are by nature free, was never told on sinai's barren crags, nor by the lonely shores of galilee. the old testament filled this world with tyranny and crime, and the new gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all the sons of men. the old describes the hell of the past, and the new the hell of the future. the old tells us the frightful things that god has done--the new the cruel things that he will do. these two books give us the sufferings of the past and future--the injustice, the agony, the tears of both worlds. if the bible is true--if jehovah is god--if the lot of countless millions is to be eternal pain--better a thousand times that all the constellations of the shoreless vast were eyeless darkness and eternal space. better that all that is should cease to be. better that all the seeds and springs of things should fail and wither from great nature's realm. better that causes and effects should lose relation and become unmeaning phrases and forgotten sounds. better that every life should change to breathless death, to voiceless blank, and every world to blind oblivion and to moveless naught. mr. black justifies all the crimes and horrors, excuses all the tortures of all the christian years, by denouncing the cruelties of the french revolution. thinking people will not hasten to admit that an infinitely good being authorized slavery in judea, because of the atrocities of the french revolution. they will remember the sufferings of the huguenots. they will remember the massacre of st. bartholomew. they will not forget the countless cruelties of priest and king. they will not forget the dungeons of the bastile. they will know that the revolution was an effect, and that liberty was not the cause--that atheism was not the cause. behind the revolution they will see altar and throne--sword and fagot--palace and cathedral--king and priest--master and slave--tyrant and hypocrite. they will see that the excesses, the cruelties, and crimes were but the natural fruit of seeds the church had sown. but the revolution was not entirely evil. upon that cloud of war, black with the myriad miseries of a thousand years, dabbled with blood of king and queen, of patriot and priest, there was this bow: "beneath the flag of france all men are free." in spite of all the blood and crime, in spite of deeds that seem insanely base, the people placed upon a nation's brow these stars:--liberty, fraternity, equality--grander words than ever issued from jehovah's lips. robert g. ingersoll. faith or agnosticism. [ingersoll-field.] the field-ingersoll discussion. an open letter to robert g. ingersoll. dear sir: i am glad that i know you, even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster because of your unbelief. i shall never forget the long evening i spent at your house in washington; and in what i have to say, however it may fail to convince you, i trust you will feel that i have not shown myself unworthy of your courtesy or confidence. your conversation, then and at other times, interested me greatly. i recognized at once the elements of your power over large audiences, in your wit and dramatic talent--personating characters and imitating tones of voice and expressions of countenance--and your remarkable use of language, which even in familiar talk often rose to a high degree of eloquence. all this was a keen intellectual stimulus. i was, for the most part, a listener; but as we talked freely of religious matters, i protested against your unbelief as utterly without reason. yet there was no offence given or taken, and we parted, i trust, with a feeling of mutual respect. still further, we found many points of sympathy. i do not hesitate to say that there are many things in which i agree with you, in which i love what you love and hate what you hate. a man's hatreds are not the least important part of him; they are among the best indications of his character. you love truth, and hate lying and hypocrisy--all the petty arts and deceits of the world by which men represent themselves to be other than they are--as well as the pride and arrogance, in which they assume superiority over their fellow-beings. above all, you hate every form of injustice and oppression. nothing moves your indignation so much as "man's inhumanity to man," and you mutter "curses, not loud but deep," on the whole race of tyrants and oppressors, whom you would sweep from the face of the earth. and yet, you do not hate oppression more than i; nor love liberty more. nor will i admit that you have any stronger desire for that intellectual freedom, to the attainment of which you look forward as the last and greatest emancipation of mankind. nor have you a greater horror of superstition. indeed, i might say that you cannot have so great, for the best of all reasons, that you have not seen so much of it; you have not stood on the banks of the ganges, and seen the hindoos by tens of thousands rushing madly to throw themselves into the sacred river, even carrying the ashes of their dead to cast them upon the waters. it seems but yesterday that i was sitting on the back of an elephant, looking down on this horrible scene of human degradation. such superstition overthrows the very foundations of morality. in place of the natural sense of right and wrong, which is written in men's consciences and hearts, it introduces an artificial standard, by which the order of things is totally reversed: right is made wrong, and wrong is made right. it makes that a virtue which is not a virtue, and that a crime which is not a crime. religion consists in a round of observances that have no relation whatever to natural goodness, but which rather exclude it by being a substitute for it. penances and pilgrimages take the place of justice and mercy, benevolence and charity. such a religion, so far from being a purifier, is the greatest corrupter of morals; so that it is no extravagance to say of the hindoos, who are a gentle race, that they might be virtuous and good if they were not so religious. but this colossal superstition weighs upon their very existence, crushing out even natural virtue. such a religion is an immeasurable curse. i hope this language is strong enough to satisfy even your own intense hatred of superstition. you cannot loathe it more than i do. so far we agree perfectly. but unfortunately you do not limit your crusade to the religions of asia, but turn the same style of argument against the religion of europe and america, and, indeed, against the religious belief and worship of every country and clime. in this matter you make no distinctions: you would sweep them all away; church and cathedral must go with the temple and the pagoda, as alike manifestations of human credulity, and proofs of the intellectual feebleness and folly of mankind. while under the impression of that memorable evening at your house, i took up some of your public addresses, and experienced a strange revulsion of feeling. i could hardly believe my eyes as i read, so inexpressibly was i shocked. things which i held sacred you not only rejected with unbelief, but sneered at with contempt. your words were full of a bitterness so unlike anything i had heard from your lips, that i could not reconcile the two, till i reflected that in robert ingersoll (as in the most of us) there were two men, who were not only distinct, but contrary the one to the other--the one gentle and sweet-tempered; the other delighting in war as his native element. between the two, i have a decided preference for the former. i have no dispute with the quiet and peaceable gentleman, whose kindly spirit makes sunshine in his home; but it is _that other man_ over yonder, who comes forth into the arena like a gladiator, defiant and belligerent, that rouses my antagonism. and yet i do not intend to _stand up_ even against him; but if he will only _sit down_ and listen patiently, and answer in those soft tones of voice which he knows so well how to use, we can have a quiet talk, which will certainly do him no harm, while it relieves my troubled mind. what then is the basis of this religion which you despise? at the foundation of every form of religious faith and worship, is the idea of god. here you take your stand; you do not believe in god. of course you do not deny absolutely the existence of a creative power: for that would be to assume a knowledge which no human being can possess. how small is the distance that we can see before us! the candle of our intelligence throws its beams but a little way, beyond which the circle of light is compassed by universal darkness. upon this no one insists more than yourself. i have heard you discourse upon the insignificance of man in a way to put many preachers to shame. i remember your illustration from the myriads of creatures that live on plants, from which you picked out, to represent human insignificance, an insect too small to be seen by the naked eye, whose world was a leaf, and whose life lasted but a single day! surely a creature that can only be seen with a microscope, cannot _know_ that a creator does not exist! this, i must do you the justice to say, you do not affirm. all that you can say is, that if there be no knowledge on one side, neither is there on the other; that it is only a matter of probability; and that, judging from such evidence as appeals to your senses and your understanding, you do not _believe_ that there is a god. whether this be a reasonable conclusion or not, it is at least an intelligible state of mind. now i am not going to argue against what the catholics call "invincible ignorance"--an incapacity on account of temperament--for i hold that the belief in god, like the belief in all spiritual things, comes to some minds by a kind of intuition. there are natures so finely strung that they are sensitive to influences which do not touch others. you may say that it is mere poetical rhapsody when shelley writes: "the awful shadow of some unseen power, floats, though unseen, among us." but there are natures which are not at all poetical or dreamy, only most simple and pure, which, in moments of spiritual exaltation, are almost _conscious_ of a presence that is not of this world. but this, which is a matter of experience, will have no weight with those who do not have that experience. for the present, therefore, i would not be swayed one particle by mere sentiment, but look at the question in the cold light of reason alone. the idea of god is, indeed, the grandest and most awful that can be entertained by the human mind. its very greatness overpowers us, so that it seems impossible that such a being should exist. but if it is hard to conceive of infinity, it is still harder to get any intelligible explanation of the present order of things without admitting the existence of an intelligent creator and upholder of all. galileo, when he swept the sky with his telescope, traced the finger of god in every movement of the heavenly bodies. napoleon, when the french savants on the voyage to egypt argued that there was no god, disdained any other answer than to point upward to the stars and ask, "who made all these?" this is the first question, and it is the last. the farther we go, the more we are forced to one conclusion. no man ever studied nature with a more simple desire to know the truth than agassiz, and yet the more he explored, the more he was startled as he found himself constantly face to face with the evidences of mind. do you say this is "a great mystery," meaning that it is something that we do not know anything about? of course, it is "a mystery." but do you think to escape mystery by denying the divine existence? you only exchange one mystery for another. the first of all mysteries is, not that god exists, but that _we_ exist. here we are. how did we come here? we go back to our ancestors; but that does not take away the difficulty; it only removes it farther off. once begin to climb the stairway of past generations, and you will find that it is a jacob's ladder, on which you mount higher and higher until you step into the very presence of the almighty. but even if we know that there is a god, what can we know of his character? you say, "god is whatever we conceive him to be." we frame an image of deity out of our consciousness--it is simply a reflection of our own personality, cast upon the sky like the image seen in the alps in certain states of the atmosphere--and then fall down and worship that which we have created, not indeed with our hands, but out of our minds. this may be true to some extent of the gods of mythology, but not of the god of nature, who is as inflexible as nature itself. you might as well say that the laws of nature are whatever we imagine them to be. but we do not go far before we find that, instead of being pliant to our will, they are rigid and inexorable, and we dash ourselves against them to our own destruction. so god does not bend to human thought any more than to human will. the more we study him the more we find that he is _not_ what we imagined him to be; that he is far greater than any image of him that we could frame. but, after all, you rejoin that the conception of a supreme being is merely an abstract idea, of no practical importance, with no bearing upon human life. i answer, it is of immeasurable importance. let go the idea of god, and you have let go the highest moral restraint. there is no ruler above man; he is a law unto himself--a law which is as impotent to produce order, and to hold society together, as man is with his little hands to hold the stars in their courses. i know how you reason against the divine existence from the moral disorder of the world. the argument is one that takes strong hold of the imagination, and may be used with tremendous effect. you set forth in colors none too strong the injustice that prevails in the relations of men to one another--the inequalities of society; the haughtiness of the rich and the misery of the poor; you draw lurid pictures of the vice and crime which run riot in the great capitals which are the centres of civilization; and when you have wound up your audience to the highest pitch, you ask, "how can it be that there is a just god in heaven, who looks down upon the earth and sees all this horrible confusion, and yet does not lift his hand to avenge the innocent or punish the guilty?" to this i will make but one answer: does it convince yourself? i do not mean to imply that you are conscious of insincerity. but an orator is sometimes carried away by his own eloquence, and states things more strongly than he would in his cooler moments. so i venture to ask: with all your tendency to skepticism, do you really believe that there is no moral government of the world--no power behind nature "making for righteousness?" are there no retributions in history? when lincoln stood on the field of gettysburg, so lately drenched with blood, and, reviewing the carnage of that terrible day, accepted it as the punishment of our national sins, was it a mere theatrical flourish in him to lift his hand to heaven, and exclaim, "just and true are thy ways, lord god almighty!" having settled it to your own satisfaction that there is no god, you proceed in the same easy way to dispose of that other belief which lies at the foundation of all religion--the immortality of the soul. with an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you confess your ignorance of what, perhaps, others are better acquainted with, when you say, "this world is all that _i_ know anything about, _so far as i recollect_." this is very wittily put, and some may suppose it contains an argument; but do you really mean to say that you do not _know_ anything except what you "recollect," or what you have seen with your eyes? perhaps you never saw your grandparents; but have you any more doubt of their existence than of that of your father and mother whom you did see? here, as when you speak of the existence of god, you carefully avoid any positive affirmation: you neither affirm nor deny. you are ready for whatever may "turn up." in your jaunty style, if you find yourself hereafter in some new and unexpected situation, you will accept it and make the best of it, and be "as ready as the next man to enter on any remunerative occupation!" but while airing this pleasant fancy, you plainly regard the hope of another life as a beggar's dream--the momentary illusion of one who, stumbling along life's highway, sets him down by the roadside, footsore and weary, cold and hungry, and falls asleep, and dreams of a time when he shall have riches and plenty. poor creature! let him dream; it helps him to forget his misery, and may give him a little courage for his rude awaking to the hard reality of life. but it is all a dream, which dissolves in thin air, and floats away and disappears. this illustration i do not take from you, but simply choose to set forth what (as i infer from the sentences above quoted and many like expressions) may describe, not unfairly, your state of mind. your treatment of the subject is one of trifling. you do not speak of it in a serious way, but lightly and flippantly, as if it were all a matter of fancy and conjecture, and not worthy of sober consideration. now, does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present existence? to many of them life is a burden to carry, and they need all the helps to carry it that can be found in reason, in philosophy, or in religion. but what support does your hollow creed supply? you are a man of warm heart, of the tenderest sympathies. those who know you best, and love you most, tell me that you cannot bear the sight of suffering even in animals; that your natural sensibility is such that you find no pleasure in sports, in hunting or fishing; to shoot a robin would make you feel like a murderer. if you see a poor man in trouble your first impulse is to help him. you cannot see a child in tears but you want to take up the little fellow in your arms, and make him smile again. and yet, with all your sensibility, you hold the most remorseless and pitiless creed in the world--a creed in which there is not a gleam of mercy or of hope. a mother has lost her only son. she goes to his grave and throws herself upon it, the very picture of woe. one thought only keeps her from despair: it is that beyond this life there is a world where she may once more clasp her boy in her arms. what will you say to that mother? you are silent, and your silence is a sentence of death to her hopes. by that grave you cannot speak; for if you were to open your lips and tell that mother what you really believe, it would be that her son is blotted out of existence, and that she can never look upon his face again. thus with your iron heel do you trample down and crush the last hope of a broken heart. when such sorrow comes to you, you feel it as keenly as any man. with your strong domestic attachments one cannot pass out of your little circle without leaving a great void in your heart, and your grief is as eloquent as it is hopeless. no sadder words ever fell from human lips than these, spoken over the coffin of one to whom you were tenderly attached: "life is but a narrow vale, between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities!" this is a doom of annihilation, which strikes a chill to the stoutest heart. even you must envy the faith which, as it looks upward, sees those "peaks of two eternities," not "cold and barren," but warm with the glow of the setting sun, which gives promise of a happier to-morrow! i think i hear you say, "so might it be! would that i could believe it!" for no one recognizes more the emptiness of life as it is. i do not forget the tone in which you said: "life is very sad to me; it is very pitiful; there isn't much to it." true indeed! with your belief, or want of belief, there is very little to it; and if this were all, it would be a fair question whether life were worth living. in the name of humanity, let us cling to all that is left us that can bring a ray of hope into its darkness, and thus lighten its otherwise impenetrable gloom. i observe that you not unfrequently entertain yourself and your audiences by caricaturing certain doctrines of the christian religion. the "atonement," as you look upon it, is simply "punishing the wrong man"--letting the guilty escape and putting the innocent to death. this is vindicating justice by permitting injustice. but is there not another side to this? does not the idea of sacrifice run through human life, and ennoble human character? you see a mother denying herself for her children, foregoing every comfort, enduring every hardship, till at last, worn out by her labor and her privation, she folds her hands upon her breast. may it not be said truly that she gives her life for the life of her children? history is full of sacrifice, and it is the best part of history. i will not speak of "the noble army of martyrs," but of heroes who have died for their country or for liberty--what is it but this element of devotion for the good of others that gives such glory to their immortal names? how then should it be thought a thing without reason that a deliverer of the race should give his life for the life of the world? so, too, you find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of "regeneration." but what is regeneration but a change of character shown in a change of life? is that so very absurd? have you never seen a drunkard reformed? have you never seen a man of impure life, who, after running his evil course, had, like the prodigal, "come to himself"--that is, awakened to his shame, and turning from it, come back to the path of purity, and finally regained a true and noble manhood? probably you would admit this, but say that the change was the result of reflection, and of the man's own strength of will. the doctrine of regeneration only adds to the will of man the power of god. we believe that man is weak, but that god is mighty; and that when man tries to raise himself, an arm is stretched out to lift him up to a height which he could not attain alone. sometimes one who has led the worst life, after being plunged into such remorse and despair that he feels as if he were enduring the agonies of hell, turns back and takes another course: he becomes "a new creature," whom his friends can hardly recognize as he "sits clothed and in his right mind." the change is from darkness to light, from death to life; and he who has known but one such case will never say that the language is too strong which describes that man as "born again." if you think that i pass lightly over these doctrines, not bringing out all the meaning which they bear, i admit it. i am not writing an essay in theology, but would only show, in passing, by your favorite method of illustration, that the principles involved are the same with which you are familiar in everyday life. but the doctrine which excites your bitterest animosity is that of future retribution. the prospect of another life, reaching on into an unknown futurity, you would contemplate with composure were it not for the dark shadow hanging over it. but to live only to suffer; to live when asking to die; to "long for death, and not be able to find it"--is a prospect which arouses the anger of one who would look with calmness upon death as an eternal sleep. the doctrine loses none of its terrors in passing through your hands; for it is one of the means by which you work upon the feelings of your hearers. you pronounce it "the most horrible belief that ever entered the human mind: that the creator should bring beings into existence to destroy them! this would make him the most fearful tyrant in the universe--a moloch devouring his own children!" i shudder when i recall the fierce energy with which you spoke as you said, "such a god i hate with all the intensity of my being!" but gently, gently, sir! we will let this burst of fury pass before we resume the conversation. when you are a little more tranquil, i would modestly suggest that perhaps you are fighting a figment of your imagination. i never heard of any christian teacher who said that "the creator brought beings into the world to destroy them!" is it not better to moderate yourself to exact statements, especially when, with all modifications, the subject is one to awaken a feeling the most solemn and profound? now i am not going to enter into a discussion of this doctrine. i will not quote a single text. i only ask you whether it is not a scientific truth that _the effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause is eternal_. science has opened our eyes to some very strange facts in nature. the theory of vibrations is carried by the physicists to an alarming extent. they tell us that it is literally and mathematically true that you cannot throw a ball in the air but it shakes the solar system. thus all things act upon all. what is true in space may be true in time, and the law of physics may hold in the spiritual realm. when the soul of man departs out of the body, being released from the grossness of the flesh, it may enter on a life a thousand times more intense than this: in which it will not need the dull senses as avenues of knowledge, because the spirit itself will be all eye, all ear, all intelligence; while memory, like an electric flash, will in an instant bring the whole of the past into view; and the moral sense will be quickened as never before. here then we have all the conditions of retribution--a world which, however shadowy it may be seem, is yet as real as the homes and habitations and activities of our present state; with memory trailing the deeds of a lifetime behind it, and conscience, more inexorable than any judge, giving its solemn and final verdict. with such conditions assumed, let us take a case which would awaken your just indignation--that of a selfish, hardhearted, and cruel man; who sacrifices the interests of everybody to his own; who grinds the faces of the poor, robbing the widow and the orphan of their little all; and who, so far from making restitution, dies with his ill-gotten gains held fast in his clenched hand. how long must the night be to sleep away the memory of such a hideous life? if he wakes, will not the recollection cling to him still? are there any waters of oblivion that can cleanse his miserable soul? if not--if he cannot forget--surely he cannot forgive himself for the baseness which now he has no opportunity to repair. here, then, is a retribution which is inseparable from his being, which is a part of his very existence. the undying memory brings the undying pain. take another case--alas! too sadly frequent. a man of pleasure betrays a young, innocent, trusting woman by the promise of his love, and then casts her off, leaving her to sink down, down, through every degree of misery and shame, till she is lost in depths, which plummet never sounded, and disappears. is he not to suffer for this poor creature's ruin? can he rid himself of it by fleeing beyond "that bourne from whence no traveler returns"? not unless he can flee from himself: for in the lowest depths of the under-world--a world in which the sun never shines--that image will still pursue him. as he wanders in its gloomy shades a pale form glides by him like an affrighted ghost. the face is the same, beautiful even in its sorrow, but with a look upon it as of one who has already suffered an eternity of woe. in an instant all the past comes back again. he sees the young, unblessed mother wandering in some lonely place, that only the heavens may witness her agony and her despair. there he sees her holding up in her arms the babe that had no right to be born, and calling upon god to judge her betrayer. how far in the future must he travel to forget that look? is there any escape except by plunging into the gulf of annihilation? thus far in this paper i have taken a tone of defence. but i do not admit that the christian religion needs any apology,--it needs only to be rightly understood to furnish its own complete vindication. instead of considering its "evidences," which is but going round the outer walls, let us enter the gates of the temple and see what is within. here we find something better than "towers and bulwarks" in the character of him who is the founder of our religion, and not its founder only but its very core and being. christ is christianity. not only is he the great teacher, but the central subject of what he taught, so that the whole stands or falls with him. in our first conversation, i observed that, with all your sharp comments on things sacred, you professed great respect for the ethics of christianity, and for its author. "make the sermon on the mount your religion," you said, "and there i am with you." very well! so far, so good. and now, if you will go a little further, you may find still more food for reflection. all who have made a study of the character and teachings of christ, even those who utterly deny the supernatural, stand in awe and wonder before the gigantic figure which is here revealed. renan closes his "life of jesus" with this as the result of his long study: "jesus will never be surpassed. his worship will be renewed without ceasing; his story [légende] will draw tears from beautiful eyes without end; his sufferings will touch the finest natures; all the ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there has not risen a greater than jesus;" while rousseau closes his immortal eulogy by saying, "socrates died like a philosopher, but jesus christ like a god!" here is an argument for christianity to which i pray you to address yourself. as you do not believe in miracles, and are ready to explain everything by natural causes, i beg you to tell us how came it to pass that a hebrew peasant, born among the hills of judea, had a wisdom above that of socrates or plato, of confucius or buddha? this is the greatest of miracles, that such a being has lived and died on the earth. since this is the chief argument for religion, does it not become one who undertakes to destroy it to set himself first to this central position, instead of wasting his time on mere outposts? when you next address one of the great audiences that hang upon your words, is it unfair to ask that you lay aside such familiar topics as miracles or ghosts, or a reply to talmage, and tell us what you think of jesus christ; whether you look upon him as an impostor, or merely as a dreamer--a mild and harmless enthusiast; or are you ready to acknowledge that he is entitled to rank among the great teachers of mankind? but if you are compelled to admit the greatness of christ, you take your revenge on the apostles, whom you do not hesitate to say that you "don't think much of." in fact, you set them down in a most peremptory way as "a poor lot." it did seem rather an unpromising "lot," that of a boat-load of fishermen, from which to choose the apostles of a religion--almost as unpromising as it was to take a rail-splitter to be the head of a nation in the greatest crisis of its history! but perhaps in both cases there was a wisdom higher than ours, that chose better than we. it might puzzle even you to give a better definition of religion than this of the apostle james: "pure religion and undefiled before god and the father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," or to find among those sages of antiquity, with whose writings you are familiar, a more complete and perfect delineation of that which is the essence of all goodness and virtue, than paul's description of the charity which "suffereth long and is kind;" or to find in the sayings of confucius or of buddha anything more sublime than this aphorism of john: "god is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in god, and god in him." and here you must allow me to make a remark, which is not intended as a personal retort, but simply in the interest of that truth which we both profess to seek, and to count worth more than victory. your language is too sweeping to indicate the careful thinker, who measures his words and weighs them in a balance. your lectures remind me of the pictures of gustave doré, who preferred to paint on a large canvas, with figures as gigantesque as those of michael angelo in his last judgment. the effect is very powerful, but if he had softened his colors a little,--if there were a few delicate touches, a mingling of light and shade, as when twilight is stealing over the earth,--the landscape would be more true to nature. so, believe me, your words would be more weighty if they were not so strong. but whenever you touch upon religion you seem to lose control of yourself, and a vindictive feeling takes possession of you, which causes you to see things so distorted from their natural appearance that you cannot help running into the broadest caricature. you swing your sentences as the woodman swings his axe. of course, this "slashing" style is very effective before a popular audience, which does not care for nice distinctions, or for evidence that has to be sifted and weighed; but wants opinions off hand, and likes to have its prejudices and hatreds echoed back in a ringing voice. this carries the crowd, but does not convince the philosophic mind. the truth-seeker cannot cut a road through the forest with sturdy blows; he has a hidden path to trace, and must pick his way with slow and cautious step to find that which is more precious than gold. but if it were possible for you to sweep away the "evidences of christianity," you have not swept away christianity itself; it still lives, not only in tradition, but in the hearts of the people, entwined with all that is sweetest in their domestic life, from which it must be torn out with unsparing hand before it can be exterminated. to begin with, you turn your back upon history. all that men have done and suffered for the sake of religion was folly. the pilgrims, who crossed the sea to find freedom to worship god in the forests of the new world, were miserable fanatics. there is no more place in the world for heroes and martyrs. he who sacrifices his life for a faith, or an idea, is a fool. the only practical wisdom is to have a sharp eye to the main chance. if you keep on in this work of demolition, you will soon destroy all our ideals. family life withers under the cold sneer--half pity and half scorn--with which you look down on household worship. take from our american firesides such scenes as that pictured in the _cotter's saturday night_, and you have taken from them their most sacred hours and their tenderest memories. the same destructive spirit which intrudes into our domestic as well as our religious life, would take away the beauty of our villages as well as the sweetness of our homes. in the weary round of a week of toil, there comes an interval of rest; the laborer lays down his burden, and for a few hours breathes a serener air. the sabbath morning has come: "sweet day i so cool, so calm, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky." at the appointed hour the bell rings across the valley, and sends its echoes among the hills; and from all the roads the people come trooping to the village church. here they gather, old and young, rich and poor; and as they join in the same act of worship, feel that god is the maker of them all? is there in our national life any influence more elevating than this--one which tends more to bring a community together; to promote neighborly feeling; to refine the manners of the people; to breed true courtesy, and all that makes a christian village different from a cluster of indian wigwams--a civilized community different from a tribe of savages? all this you would destroy: you would abolish the sabbath, or have it turned into a holiday; you would tear down the old church, so full of tender associations of the living and the dead, or at least have it "razeed," cutting off the tall spire that points upward to heaven; and the interior you would turn into an assembly room--a place of entertainment, where the young people could have their merry-makings, except perchance in the warm' summer-time, when they could dance on the village green! so far you would have gained your object. but would that be a more orderly community, more refined or more truly happy? you may think this a mere sentiment--that we care more for the picturesque than for the true. but there is one result which is fearfully real: the destructive creed, or no creed, which despoils our churches and our homes, attacks society in its first principles by taking away the support of morality. i do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the sanctions of religion. there may be individuals of great natural force of character, who can stand alone--men of superior intellect and strong will. but in general human nature is weak, and virtue is not the spontaneous growth of childish innocence. men do not become pure and good by instinct. character, like mind, has to be developed by education; and it needs all the elements of strength which can be given it, from without as well as from within, from the government of man and the government of god. to let go of these restraints is a peril to public morality. you feel strong in the strength of a robust manhood, well poised in body and mind, and in the centre of a happy home, where loving hearts cling to you like vines round the oak. but many to whom you speak are quite otherwise. you address thousands of young men who have come out of country homes, where they have been brought up in the fear of god, and have heard the morning and evening prayer. they come into a city full of temptations, but are restrained from evil by the thought of father and mother, and reverence for him who is the father of us all--a feeling which, though it may not have taken the form of any profession, is yet at the bottom of their hearts, and keeps them from many a wrong and wayward step. a young man, who is thus "guarded and defended" as by unseen angels, some evening when he feels very lonely, is invited to "go and hear ingersoll," and for a couple of hours listens to your caricatures of religion, with descriptions of the prayers and the psalm-singing, illustrated by devout grimaces and nasal tones, which set the house in roars of laughter, and are received with tumultuous applause. when it is all over, and the young man finds himself again under the flaring lamps of the city streets, he is conscious of a change; the faith of his childhood has been rudely torn from him, and with it "a glory has passed away from the earth;" the bible which his mother gave him, the morning that he came away, is "a mass of fables;" the sentence which she wished him to hang on the wall, "thou, god, seest me," has lost its power, for there is no god that sees him, no moral government, no law and no retribution. so he reasons as he walks slowly homeward, meeting the temptations which haunt these streets at night--temptations from which he has hitherto turned with a shudder, but which he now meets with a diminished power of resistance. have you done that young man any good in taking from him what he held sacred before? have you not left him morally weakened? from sneering at religion, it is but a step to sneering at morality, and then but one step more to a vicious and profligate career. how are you going to stop this downward tendency? when you have stripped him of former restraints, do you leave him anything in their stead, except indeed a sense of honor, self-respect, and self-interest?--worthy motives, no doubt, but all too feeble to withstand the fearful temptations that assail him. is the chance of his resistance as good as it was before? watch him as he goes along that street at midnight! he passes by the places of evil resort, of drinking and gambling--those open mouths of hell; he hears the sound of music and dancing, and for the first time pauses to listen. how long will it be before he will venture in? with such dangers in his path, it is a grave responsibility to loosen the restraints which hold such a young man to virtue. these gibes and sneers which you utter so lightly, may have a sad echo in a lost character and a wretched life. many a young man has been thus taunted until he has pushed off from the shore, under the idea of gaining his "liberty," and ventured into the rapids, only to be carried down the stream, and left a wreck in the whirlpool below. you tell me that your object is to drive fear out of the world. that is a noble ambition; if you succeed, you will be indeed a deliverer. of course you mean only irrational fears. you would not have men throw off the fear of violating the laws of nature; for that would lead to incalculable misery. you aim only at the terrors born of ignorance and superstition. but how are you going to get rid of these? you trust to the progress of science, which has dispelled so many fears arising from physical phenomena, by showing that calamities ascribed to spiritual agencies are explained by natural causes. but science can only go a certain way, beyond which we come into the sphere of the unknown, where all is dark as before. how can you relieve the fears of others--indeed how can you rid yourself of fear, believing as you do that there is no power above which can help you in any extremity; that you are the sport of accident, and may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of nature? if i believed this, i should feel that i was in the grasp of some terrible machinery which was crushing me to atoms, with no possibility of escape. not so does religion leave man here on the earth, helpless and hopeless--in abject terror, as he is in utter darkness as to his fate--but opening the heaven above him, it discovers a great intelligence, compassing all things, seeing the end from the beginning, and ordering our little lives so that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements of character, conduce to our future happiness. god is our father. we look up into his face with childlike confidence, and find that "his service is perfect freedom." "love casts out fear." that, i beg to assure you, is the way, and the only way, by which man can be delivered from those fears by which he is all his lifetime subject to bondage. in your attacks upon religion you do violence to your own manliness. knowing you as i do, i feel sure that you do not realize where your blows fall, or whom they wound, or you would not use your weapons so freely. the faiths of men are as sacred as the most delicate manly or womanly sentiments of love and honor. they are dear as the beloved faces that have passed from our sight. i should think myself wanting in respect to the memory of my father and mother if i could speak lightly of the faith in which they lived and died. surely this must be mere thoughtlessness, for i cannot believe that you find pleasure in giving pain. i have not forgotten the gentle hand that was laid upon your shoulder, and the gentle voice which said, "uncle robert wouldn't hurt a fly." and yet you bruise the tenderest sensibilities, and trample down what is most cherished by millions of sisters and daughters and mothers, little heeding that you are sporting with "human creatures' lives." you are waging a hopeless war--a war in which you are certain only of defeat. the christian religion began to be nearly two thousand years before you and i were born, and it will live two thousand years after we are dead. why is it that it lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms perish? is not this "the survival of the fittest?" contend against it with all your wit and eloquence, you will fail, as all have failed before you. you cannot fight against the instincts of humanity. it is as natural for men to look up to a higher power as it is to look up to the stars. tell them that there is no god! you might as well tell them that there is no sun in heaven, even while on that central light and heat all life on earth depends. i do not presume to, think that i have convinced you, or changed your opinion; but it is always right to appeal to a man's "sober second thought"--to that better judgment that comes with increasing knowledge and advancing years; and i will not give up hope that you will yet see things more clearly, and recognize the mistake you have made in not distinguishing religion from superstition--two things as far apart as "the hither from the utmost pole." superstition is the greatest enemy of religion. it is the nightmare of the mind, filling it with all imaginable terrors--a black cloud which broods over half the world. against this you may well invoke the light of science to scatter its darkness. whoever helps to sweep it away, is a benefactor of his race. but when this is done, and the moral atmosphere is made pure and sweet, then you as well as we may be conscious of a new presence coming into the hushed and vacant air, as religion, daughter of the skies, descends to earth to bring peace and good will to men. henry m. field. a reply to the rev. henry m. field, d.d. "doubt is called the beacon of the wise." my dear mr. field: i answer your letter because it is manly, candid and generous. it is not often that a minister of the gospel of universal benevolence speaks of an unbeliever except in terms of reproach, contempt and hatred. the meek are often malicious. the statement in your letter, that some of your brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief, tends to show that those who love god are not always the friends of their fellow-men. is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally damned, that they are by nature totally depraved, and that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look upon others as "monsters"? and yet "some of your brethren," who regard unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy. the first question that arises between us, is as to the innocence of honest error--as to the right to express an honest thought. you must know that perfectly honest men differ on many important subjects. some believe in free trade, others are the advocates of protection. there are honest democrats and sincere republicans. how do you account for these differences? educated men, presidents of colleges, cannot agree upon questions capable of solution--questions that the mind can grasp, concerning which the evidence is open to all and where the facts can be with accuracy ascertained. how do you explain this? if such differences can exist consistently with the good faith of those who differ, can you not conceive of honest people entertaining different views on subjects about which nothing can be positively known? you do not regard me as a monster. "some of your brethren" do. how do you account for this difference? of course, your brethren--their hearts having been softened by the presbyterian god--are governed by charity and love. they do not regard me as a monster because i have committed an infamous crime, but simply for the reason that i have expressed my honest thoughts. what should i have done? i have read the bible with great care, and the conclusion has forced itself upon my mind not only that it is not inspired, but that it is not true. was it my duty to speak or act contrary to this conclusion? was it my duty to remain silent? if i had been untrue to myself, if i had joined the majority,--if i had declared the book to be the inspired word of god,--would your brethren still have regarded me as a monster? has religion had control of the world so long that an honest man seems monstrous? according to your creed--according to your bible--the same being who made the mind of man, who fashioned every brain, and sowed within those wondrous fields the seeds of every thought and deed, inspired the bible's every word, and gave it as a guide to all the world. surely the book should satisfy the brain. and yet, there are millions who do not believe in the inspiration of the scriptures. some of the greatest and best have held the claim of inspiration in contempt. no presbyterian ever stood higher in the realm of thought than humboldt. he was familiar with nature from sands to stars, and gave his thoughts, his discoveries and conclusions, "more precious than the tested gold," to all mankind. yet he not only rejected the religion of your brethren, but denied the existence of their god. certainly, charles darwin was one of the greatest and purest of men,--as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass,--desiring only to find amid the mists and clouds of ignorance the star of truth. no man ever exerted a greater influence on the intellectual world. his discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred scriptures of mankind. in the light of "natural selection," "the survival of the fittest," and "the origin of species," even the christian religion becomes a gross and cruel superstition. yet darwin was an honest, thoughtful, brave and generous man. compare, i beg of you, these men, humboldt and darwin, with the founders of the presbyterian church. read the life of spinoza, the loving pantheist, and then that of john calvin, and tell me, candidly, which, in your opinion, was a "monster." even your brethren do not claim that men are to be eternally punished for having been mistaken as to the truths of geology, astronomy, or mathematics. a man may deny the rotundity and rotation of the earth, laugh at the attraction of gravitation, scout the nebular hypothesis, and hold the multiplication table in abhorrence, and yet join at last the angelic choir. i insist upon the same freedom of thought in all departments of human knowledge. reason is the supreme and final test. if god has made a revelation to man, it must have been addressed to his reason. there is no other faculty that could even decipher the address. i admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night,--blown and flared by passion's storm,--and yet it is the only light. extinguish that, and nought remains. you draw a distinction between what you are pleased to call "superstition" and religion. you are shocked at the hindoo mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her god. what do you think of abraham, of jephthah? what is your opinion of jehovah himself? is not the sacrifice of a child to a phantom as horrible in palestine as in india? why should a god demand a sacrifice from man? why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light? you must remember that the hindoo mother believes that her child will be forever blest--that it will become the especial care of the god to whom it has been given. this is a sacrifice through a false belief on the part of the mother. she breaks her heart for the love of her babe. but what do you think of the christian mother who expects to be happy in heaven, with her child a convict in the eternal prison--a prison in which none die, and from which none escape? what do you say of those christians who believe that they, in heaven, will be so filled with ecstasy that all the loved of earth will be forgotten--that all the sacred relations of life, and all the passions of the heart, will fade and die, so that they will look with stony, un-replying, happy eyes upon the miseries of the lost? you have laid down a rule by which superstition can be distinguished from religion. it is this: "it makes that a crime which is not a crime, and that a virtue which is not a virtue." let us test your religion by this rule. is it a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe? is it a crime to be governed by that which to you is evidence, and is it infamous to express your honest thought? there is also another question: is credulity a virtue? is the open mouth of ignorant wonder the only entrance to paradise? according to your creed, those who believe are to be saved, and those who do not believe are to be eternally lost. when you condemn men to everlasting pain for unbelief--that is to say, for acting in accordance with that which is evidence to them--do you not make that a crime which is not a crime? and when you reward men with an eternity of joy for simply believing that which happens to be in accord with their minds, do you not make that a virtue which is not a virtue? in other words, do you not bring your own religion exactly within your own definition of superstition? the truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his thoughts. the brain thinks without asking our consent. we believe, or we disbelieve, without an effort of the will. belief is a result. it is the effect of evidence upon the mind. the scales turn in spite of him who watches. there is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. the conclusion is entirely independent of desire. we must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish. that which must be, has the right to be. we think in spite of ourselves. the brain thinks as the heart beats, as the eyes see, as the blood pursues its course in the old accustomed ways. the question then is, not have we the right to think,--that being a necessity,--but have we the right to express our honest thoughts? you certainly have the right to express yours, and you have exercised that right. some of your brethren, who regard me as a monster, have expressed theirs. the question now is, have i the right to express mine? in other words, have i the right to answer your letter? to make that a crime in me which is a virtue in you, certainly comes within your definition of superstition. to exercise a right yourself which you deny to me is simply the act of a tyrant. where did you get your right to express your honest thoughts? when, and where, and how did i lose mine? you would not burn, you would not even imprison me, because i differ with you on a subject about which neither of us knows anything. to you the savagery of the inquisition is only a proof of the depravity of man. you are far better than your creed. you believe that even the christian world is outgrowing the frightful feeling that fagot, and dungeon, and thumb-screw are legitimate arguments, calculated to convince those upon whom they are used, that the religion of those who use them was founded by a god of infinite compassion. you will admit that he who now persecutes for opinion's sake is infamous. and yet, the god you worship will, according to your creed, torture through all the endless years the man who entertains an honest doubt. a belief in such a god is the foundation and cause of all religious persecution. you may reply that only the belief in a false god causes believers to be inhuman. but you must admit that the jews believed in the true god, and you are forced to say that they were so malicious, so cruel, so savage, that they crucified the only sinless being who ever lived. this crime was committed, not in spite of their religion, but in accordance with it. they simply obeyed the command of jehovah. and the followers of this sinless being, who, for all these centuries, have denounced the cruelty of the jews for crucifying a man on account of his opinion, have destroyed millions and millions of their fellow-men for differing with them. and this same sinless being threatens to torture in eternal fire countless myriads for the same offence. beyond this, inconsistency cannot go. at this point absurdity becomes infinite. your creed transfers the inquisition to another world, making it eternal. your god becomes, or rather is, an infinite torquemada, who denies to his countless victims even the mercy of death. and this you call "a consolation." you insist that at the foundation of every religion is the idea of god. according to your creed, all ideas of god, except those entertained by those of your faith, are absolutely false. you are not called upon to defend the gods of the nations dead; nor the gods of heretics. it is your business to defend the god of the bible--the god of the presbyterian church. when in the ranks doing battle for your creed, you must wear the uniform of your church. you dare not say that it is sufficient to insure the salvation of a soul to believe in a god, or in some god. according to your creed, man must believe in your god. all the nations dead believed in gods, and all the worshipers of zeus, and jupiter, and isis, and osiris, and brahma prayed and sacrificed in vain. their petitions were not answered, and their souls were not saved. surely you do not claim that it is sufficient to believe in any one of the heathen gods. what right have you to occupy the position of the deists, and to put forth arguments that even christians have answered? the deist denounced the god of the bible because of his cruelty, and at the same time lauded the god of nature. the christian replied that the god of nature was as cruel as the god of the bible. this answer was complete. i feel that you are entitled to the admission that none have been, that none are, too ignorant, too degraded, to believe in the supernatural; and i freely give you the advantage of this admission. only a few--and they among the wisest, noblest, and purest of the human race--have regarded all gods as monstrous myths. yet a belief in "the true god" does not seem to make men charitable or just. for most people, theism is the easiest solution of the universe. they are satisfied with saying that there must be a being who created and who governs the world. but the universality of a belief does not tend to establish its truth. the belief in the existence of a malignant devil has been as universal as the belief in a beneficent god, yet few intelligent men will say that the universality of this belief in an infinite demon even tends to prove his existence. in the world of thought, majorities count for nothing. truth has always dwelt with the few. man has filled the world with impossible monsters, and he has been the sport and prey of these phantoms born of ignorance and hope and fear. to appease the wrath of these monsters man has sacrificed his fellow-man. he has shed the blood of wife and child; he has fasted and prayed; he has suffered beyond the power of language to express, and yet he has received nothing from these gods--they have heard no supplication, they have answered no prayer. you may reply that your god "sends his rain on the just and on the unjust," and that this fact proves that he is merciful to all alike. i answer, that your god sends his pestilence on the just and on the unjust--that his earthquakes devour and his cyclones rend and wreck the loving and the vicious, the honest and the criminal. do not these facts prove that your god is cruel to all alike? in other words, do they not demonstrate the absolute impartiality of divine negligence? do you not believe that any honest man of average intelligence, having absolute control of the rain, could do vastly better than is being done? certainly there would be no droughts or floods; the crops would not be permitted to wither and die, while rain was being wasted in the sea. is it conceivable that a good man with power to control the winds would not prevent cyclones? would you not rather trust a wise and honest man with the lightning? why should an infinitely wise and powerful god destroy the good and preserve the vile? why should he treat all alike here, and in another world make an infinite difference? why should your god allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? why should he allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake? can you answer these questions? does it not seem to you that your god must have felt a touch of shame when the poor slave mother--one that had been robbed of her babe--knelt and with clasped hands, in a voice broken with sobs, commenced her prayer with the words "our father"? it gave me pleasure to find that, notwithstanding your creed, you are philosophical enough to say that some men are incapacitated, by reason of temperament, for believing in the existence of god. now, if a belief in god is necessary to the salvation of the soul, why should god create a soul without this capacity? why should he create souls that he knew would be lost? you seem to think that it is necessary to be poetical, or dreamy, in order to be religious, and by inference, at least, you deny certain qualities to me that you deem necessary. do you account for the atheism of shelley by saying that he was not poetic, and do you quote his lines to prove the existence of the very god whose being he so passionately denied? is it possible that napoleon--one of the most infamous of men--had a nature so finely strung that he was sensitive to the divine influences? are you driven to the necessity of proving the existence of one tyrant by the words of another? personally, i have but little confidence in a religion that satisfied the heart of a man who, to gratify his ambition, filled half the world with widows and orphans. in regard to agassiz, it is just to say that he furnished a vast amount of testimony in favor of the truth of the theories of charles darwin, and then denied the correctness of these theories--preferring the good opinions of harvard for a few days to the lasting applause of the intellectual world. i agree with you that the world is a mystery, not only, but that everything in nature is equally mysterious, and that there is no way of escape from the mystery of life and death. to me, the crystallization of the snow is as mysterious as the constellations. but when you endeavor to explain the mystery of the universe by the mystery of god, you do not even exchange mysteries--you simply make one more. nothing can be mysterious enough to become an explanation. the mystery of man cannot be explained by the mystery of god. that mystery still asks for explanation. the mind is so that it cannot grasp the idea of an infinite personality. that is beyond the circumference. this being so, it is impossible that man can be convinced by any evidence of the existence of that which he cannot in any measure comprehend. such evidence would be equally incomprehensible with the incomprehensible fact sought to be established by it, and the intellect of man can grasp neither the one nor the other. you admit that the god of nature--that is to say, your god--is as inflexible as nature itself. why should man worship the inflexible? why should he kneel to the unchangeable? you say that your god "does not bend to human thought any more than to human will," and that "the more we study him, the more we find that he is not what we imagined him to be." so that, after all, the only thing you are really certain of in relation to your god is, that he is not what you think he is. is it not almost absurd to insist that such a state of mind is necessary to salvation, or that it is a moral restraint, or that it is the foundation of social order? the most religious nations have been the most immoral, the cruelest and the most unjust. italy was far worse under the popes than under the cæsars. was there ever a barbarian nation more savage than the spain of the sixteenth century? certainly you must know that what you call religion has produced a thousand civil wars, and has severed with the sword all the natural ties that produce "the unity and married calm of states." theology is the fruitful mother of discord; order is the child of reason. if you will candidly consider this question--if you will for a few moments forget your preconceived opinions--you will instantly see that the instinct of self-preservation holds society together. religion itself was born of this instinct. people, being ignorant, believed that the gods were jealous and revengeful. they peopled space with phantoms that demanded worship and delighted in sacrifice and ceremony, phantoms that could be flattered by praise and changed by prayer. these ignorant people wished to preserve themselves. they supposed that they could in this way avoid pestilence and famine, and postpone perhaps the day of death. do you not see that self-preservation lies at the foundation of worship? nations, like individuals, defend and protect themselves. nations, like individuals, have fears, have ideals, and live for the accomplishment of certain ends. men defend their property because it is of value. industry is the enemy of theft. men, as a rule, desire to live, and for that reason murder is a crime. fraud is hateful to the victim. the majority of mankind work and produce the necessities, the comforts, and the luxuries of life. they wish to retain the fruits of their labor. government is one of the instrumentalities for the preservation of what man deems of value. this is the foundation of social order, and this holds society together. religion has been the enemy of social order, because it directs the attention of man to another world. religion teaches its votaries to sacrifice this world for the sake of that other. the effect is to weaken the ties that hold families and states together. of what consequence is anything in this world compared with eternal joy? you insist that man is not capable of self-government, and that god made the mistake of filling a world with failures--in other words, that man must be governed not by himself, but by your god, and that your god produces order, and establishes and preserves all the nations of the earth. this being so, your god is responsible for the government of this world. does he preserve order in russia? is he accountable for siberia? did he establish the institution of slavery? was he the founder of the inquisition? you answer all these questions by calling my attention to "the retributions of history." what are the retributions of history? the honest were burned at the stake; the patriotic, the generous, and the noble were allowed to die in dungeons; whole races were enslaved; millions of mothers were robbed of their babes. what were the retributions of history? they who committed these crimes wore crowns, and they who justified these infamies were adorned with the tiara. you are mistaken when you say that lincoln at gettysburg said: "just and true are thy judgments, lord god almighty." something like this occurs in his last inaugural, in which he says,--speaking of his hope that the war might soon be ended,--"if it shall continue until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, still it must be said, 'the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether.'" but admitting that you are correct in the assertion, let me ask you one question: could one standing over the body of lincoln, the blood slowly oozing from the madman's wound, have truthfully said: "just and true are thy judgments, lord god almighty"? do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise and good god? have you convinced even yourself of this? why should god permit the triumph of injustice? why should the loving be tortured? why should the noblest be destroyed? why should the world be filled with misery, with ignorance, and with want? what reason have you for believing that your god will do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this? will he be wiser? will he have more power? will he be more merciful? when i say "your god," of course i mean the god described in the bible and the presbyterian confession of faith. but again i say, that in the nature of things, there can be no evidence of the existence of an infinite being. an infinite being must be conditionless, and for that reason there is nothing that a finite being can do that can by any possibility affect the well-being of the conditionless. this being so, man can neither owe nor discharge any debt or duty to an infinite being. the infinite cannot want, and man can do nothing for a being who wants nothing. a conditioned being can be made happy, or miserable, by changing conditions, but the conditionless is absolutely independent of cause and effect. i do not say that a god does not exist, neither do i say that a god does exist; but i say that i do not know--that there can be no evidence to my mind of the existence of such a being, and that my mind is so that it is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality. i know that in your creed you describe god as "without body, parts, or passions." this, to my mind, is simply a description of an infinite vacuum. i have had no experience with gods. this world is the only one with which i am acquainted, and i was surprised to find in your letter the expression that "perhaps others are better acquainted with that of which i am so ignorant." did you, by this, intend to say that you know anything of any other state of existence--that you have inhabited some other planet--that you lived before you were born, and that you recollect something of that other world, or of that other state? upon the question of immortality you have done me, unintentionally, a great injustice. with regard to that hope, i have never uttered "a flippant or a trivial" word. i have said a thousand times, and i say again, that the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. i have said a thousand times, and i say again, that we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door--the beginning, or end, of a day--the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings--the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life, that brings rapture and love to every one. the belief in immortality is far older than christianity. thousands of years before christ was born billions of people had lived and died in that hope. upon countless graves had been laid in love and tears the emblems of another life. the heaven of the new testament was to be in this world. the dead, after they were raised, were to live here. not one satisfactory word was said to have been uttered by christ--nothing philosophic, nothing clear, nothing that adorns, like a bow of promise, the cloud of doubt. according to the account in the new testament, christ was dead for a period of nearly three days. after his resurrection, why did not some one of his disciples ask him where he had been? why did he not tell them what world he had visited? there was the opportunity to "bring life and immortality to light." and yet he was as silent as the grave that he had left--speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away. how do you account for this? was it not infinitely cruel to leave the world in darkness and in doubt, when one word could have filled all time with hope and light? the hope of immortality is the great oak round which have climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. the vines have not supported the oak--the oak has supported the vines. as long as men live and love and die, this hope will blossom in the human heart. all i have said upon this subject has been to express my hope and confess my lack of knowledge. neither by word nor look have i expressed any other feeling than sympathy with those who hope to live again--for those who bend above their dead and dream of life to come. but i have denounced the selfishness and heartlessness of those who expect for themselves an eternity of joy, and for the rest of mankind predict, without a tear, a world of endless pain. nothing can be more contemptible than such a hope--a hope that can give satisfaction only to the hyenas of the human race. when i say that i do not know--when i deny the existence of perdition, you reply that "there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures." you have had the goodness to invite me to a grave over which a mother bends and weeps for her only son. i accept your invitation. we will go together. do not, i pray you, deal in splendid generalities. be explicit. remember that the son for whom the loving mother weeps was not a christian, not a believer in the inspiration of the bible nor in the divinity of jesus christ. the mother turns to you for consolation, for some star of hope in the midnight of her grief. what must you say? do not desert the presbyterian creed. do not forget the threatenings of jesus christ. what must you say? will you read a portion of the presbyterian confession of faith? will you read this? "although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of god as to leave man inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of god and of his will which is necessary to salvation." or, will you read this? "by the decree of god, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death. these angels and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." suppose the mother, lifting her tear-stained face, should say: "my son was good, generous, loving and kind. he gave his life for me. is there no hope for him?" would you then put this serpent in her breast? "men not professing the christian religion cannot be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to conform their lives according to the light of nature. we cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin. there is no sin so small but that it deserves damnation. works done by unregenerate men, although, for the matter of that, they may be things which god commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, are sinful and cannot please god or make a man meet to receive christ or god." and suppose the mother should then sobbingly ask: "what has become of my son? where is he now?" would you still read from your confession of faith, or from your catechism--this? "the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. at the last day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the wicked shall be cast into eternal torment and punished with everlasting destruction. the wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torment, both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever." if the poor mother still wept, still refused to be comforted, would you thrust this dagger in her heart? "at the day of judgment you, being caught up to christ in the clouds, shall be seated at his right hand and there openly acknowledged and acquitted, and you shall join with him in the damnation of your son." if this failed to still the beatings of her aching heart, would you repeat these words which you say came from the loving soul of christ? "they who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." would you not be compelled, according to your belief, to tell this mother that "there is but one name given under heaven and among men whereby" the souls of men can enter the gates of paradise? would you not be compelled to say: "your son lived in a christian land. the means of grace were within his reach. he died not having experienced a change of heart, and your son is forever lost. you can meet your son again only by dying in your sins; but if you will give your heart to god you can never clasp him to your breast again." what could i say? let me tell you: "my dear madam, this reverend gentleman knows nothing of another world. he cannot see beyond the tomb. he has simply stated to you the superstitions of ignorance, of cruelty and fear. if there be in this universe a god, he certainly is as good as you are. why should he have loved your son in life--loved him, according to this reverend gentleman, to that degree that he gave his life for him; and why should that love be changed to hatred the moment your son was dead? "my dear woman, there are no punishments, there are no rewards--there are consequences; and of one thing you may rest assured, and that is, that every soul, no matter what sphere it may inhabit, will have the everlasting opportunity of doing right. "if death ends all, and if this handful of dust over which you weep is all there is, you have this consolation: your son is not within the power of this reverend gentleman's god--that is something. your son does not suffer. next to a life of joy is the dreamless sleep of death." does it not seem to you infinitely absurd to call orthodox christianity "a consolation"? here in this world, where every human being is enshrouded in cloud and mist,--where all lives are filled with mistakes,--where no one claims to be perfect, is it "a consolation" to say that "the smallest sin deserves eternal pain"? is it possible for the ingenuity of man to extract from the doctrine of hell one drop, one ray, of "consolation"? if that doctrine be true, is not your god an infinite criminal? why should he have created uncounted billions destined to suffer forever? why did he not leave them unconscious dust? compared with this crime, any crime that man can by any possibility commit is a virtue. think for a moment of your god,--the keeper of an infinite penitentiary filled with immortal convicts,--your god an eternal turnkey, without the pardoning power. in the presence of this infinite horror, you complacently speak of the atonement,--a scheme that has not yet gathered within its horizon a billionth part of the human race,--an atonement with one-half the world remaining undiscovered for fifteen hundred years after it was made. if there could be no suffering, there could be no sin. to unjustly cause suffering is the only possible crime. how can a god accept the suffering of the innocent in lieu of the punishment of the guilty? according to your theory, this infinite being, by his mere will, makes right and wrong. this i do not admit. right and wrong exist in the nature of things--in the relation they bear to man, and to sentient beings. you have already admitted that "nature is inflexible, and that a violated law calls for its consequences." i insist that no god can step between an act and its natural effects. if god exists, he has nothing to do with punishment, nothing to do with reward. from certain acts flow certain consequences; these consequences increase or decrease the happiness of man; and the consequences must be borne. a man who has forfeited his life to the commonwealth may be pardoned, but a man who has violated a condition of his own well-being cannot be pardoned--there is no pardoning power. the laws of the state are made, and, being made, can be changed; but the facts of the universe cannot be changed. the relation of act to consequence cannot be altered. this is above all power, and, consequently, there is no analogy between the laws of the state and the facts in nature. an infinite god could not change the relation between the diameter and circumference of the circle. a man having committed a crime may be pardoned, but i deny the right of the state to punish an innocent man in the place of the pardoned--no matter how willing the innocent man may be to suffer the punishment. there is no law in nature, no fact in nature, by which the innocent can be justly punished to the end that the guilty may go free. let it be understood once for all: nature cannot pardon. you have recognized this truth. you have asked me what is to become of one who seduces and betrays, of the criminal with the blood of his victim upon his hands? without the slightest hesitation i answer, whoever commits a crime against another must, to the utmost of his power in this world and in another, if there be one, make full and ample restitution, and in addition must bear the natural consequences of his offence. no man can be perfectly happy, either in this world or in any other, who has by his perfidy broken a loving and confiding heart. no power can step between acts and consequences--no forgiveness, no atonement. but, my dear friend, you have taught for many years, if you are a presbyterian, or an evangelical christian, that a man may seduce and betray, and that the poor victim, driven to insanity, leaping from some wharf at night where ships strain at their anchors in storm and darkness--you have taught that this poor girl may be tormented forever by a god of infinite compassion. this is not all that you have taught. you have said to the seducer, to the betrayer, to the one who would not listen to her wailing cry,--who would not even stretch forth his hand to catch her fluttering garments,--you have said to him: "believe in the lord jesus christ, and you shall be happy forever; you shall live in the realm of infinite delight, from which you can, without a shadow falling upon your face, observe the poor girl, your victim, writhing in the agonies of hell." you have taught this. for my part, i do not see how an angel in heaven meeting another angel whom he had robbed on the earth, could feel entirely blissful. i go further. any decent angel, no matter if sitting at the right hand of god, should he see in hell one of his victims, would leave heaven itself for the purpose of wiping one tear from the cheek of the damned. you seem to have forgotten your statement in the commencement of your letter, that your god is as inflexible as nature--that he bends not to human thought nor to human will. you seem to have forgotten the line which you emphasized with italics: "_the effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause, is eternal_." in the light of this sentence, where do you find a place for forgiveness--for your atonement? where is a way to escape from the effect of a cause that is eternal? do you not see that this sentence is a cord with which i easily tie your hands? the scientific part of your letter destroys the theological. you have put "new wine into old bottles," and the predicted result has followed. will the angels in heaven, the redeemed of earth, lose their memory? will not all the redeemed rascals remember their rascality? will not all the redeemed assassins remember the faces of the dead? will not all the seducers and betrayers remember her sighs, her tears, and the tones of her voice, and will not the conscience of the redeemed be as inexorable as the conscience of the damned? if memory is to be forever "the warder of the brain," and if the redeemed can never forget the sins they committed, the pain and anguish they caused, then they can never be perfectly happy; and if the lost can never forget the good they did, the kind actions, the loving words, the heroic deeds; and if the memory of good deeds gives the slightest pleasure, then the lost can never be perfectly miserable. ought not the memory of a good action to live as long as the memory of a bad one? so that the undying memory of the good, in heaven, brings undying pain, and the undying memory of those in hell brings undying pleasure. do you not see that if men have done good and bad, the future can have neither a perfect heaven nor a perfect hell? i believe in the manly doctrine that every human being must bear the consequences of his acts, and that no man can be justly saved or damned on account of the goodness or the wickedness of another. if by atonement you mean the natural effect of self-sacrifice, the effects following a noble and disinterested action; if you mean that the life and death of christ are worth their effect upon the human race,--which your letter seems to show,--then there is no question between us. if you have thrown away the old and barbarous idea that a law had been broken, that god demanded a sacrifice, and that christ, the innocent, was offered up for us, and that he bore the wrath of god and suffered in our place, then i congratulate you with all my heart. it seems to me impossible that life should be exceedingly joyous to any one who is acquainted with its miseries, its burdens, and its tears. i know that as darkness follows light around the globe, so misery and misfortune follow the sons of men. according to your creed, the future state will be worse than this. here, the vicious may reform; here, the wicked may repent; here, a few gleams of sunshine may fall upon the darkest life. but in your future state, for countless billions of the human race, there will be no reform, no opportunity of doing right, and no possible gleam of sunshine can ever touch their souls. do you not see that your future state is infinitely worse than this? you seem to mistake the glare of hell for the light of morning. let us throw away the dogma of eternal retribution. let us "cling to all that can bring a ray of hope into the darkness of this life." you have been kind enough to say that i find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of regeneration. if, by regeneration, you mean reformation,--if you mean that there comes a time in the life of a young man when he feels the touch of responsibility, and that he leaves his foolish or vicious ways, and concludes to act like an honest man,--if this is what you mean by regeneration, i am a believer. but that is not the definition of regeneration in your creed--that is not christian regeneration. there is some mysterious, miraculous, supernatural, invisible agency, called, i believe, the holy ghost, that enters and changes the heart of man, and this mysterious agency is like the wind, under the control, apparently, of no one, coming and going when and whither it listeth. it is this illogical and absurd view of regeneration that i have attacked. you ask me how it came to' pass that a hebrew peasant, born among the hills of galilee, had a wisdom above that of socrates or plato, of confucius or buddha, and you conclude by saying, "this is the greatest of miracles--that such a being should live and die on the earth." i can hardly admit your conclusion, because i remember that christ said nothing in favor of the family relation. as a matter of fact, his life tended to cast discredit upon marriage. he said nothing against the institution of slavery; nothing against the tyranny of government; nothing of our treatment of animals; nothing about education, about intellectual progress; nothing of art, declared no scientific truth, and said nothing as to the rights and duties of nations. you may reply that all this is included in "do unto others as you would be done by;" and "resist not evil." more than this is necessary to educate the human race. it is not enough to say to your child or to your pupil, "do right." the great question still remains: what is right? neither is there any wisdom in the idea of non-resistance. force without mercy is tyranny. mercy without force is but a waste of tears. take from virtue the right of self-defence and vice becomes the master of the world. let me ask you how it came to pass that an ignorant driver of camels, a man without family, without wealth, became master of hundreds of millions of human beings? how is it that he conquered and overran more than half of the christian world? how is it that on a thousand fields the banner of the cross went down in blood, while that of the crescent floated in triumph? how do you account for the fact that the flag of this impostor floats to-day above the sepulchre of christ? was this a miracle? was mohammed inspired? how do you account for confucius, whose name is known wherever the sky bends? was he inspired--this man who for many centuries has stood first, and who has been acknowledged the superior of all men by hundreds and thousands of millions of his fellow-men? how do you account for buddha,--in many respects the greatest religious teacher this world has ever known,--the broadest, the most intellectual of them all; he who was great enough, hundreds of years before christ was born, to declare the universal brotherhood of man, great enough to say that intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind? how do you account for him, who has had more followers than any other? are you willing to say that all success is divine? how do you account for shakespeare, born of parents who could neither read nor write, held in the lap of ignorance and love, nursed at the breast of poverty--how do you account for him, by far the greatest of the human race, the wings of whose imagination still fill the horizon of human thought; shakespeare, who was perfectly acquainted with the human heart, knew all depths of sorrow, all heights of joy, and in whose mind were the fruit of all thought, of all experience, and a prophecy of all to be; shakespeare, the wisdom and beauty and depth of whose words increase with the intelligence and civilization of mankind? how do you account for this miracle? do you believe that any founder of any religion could have written "lear" or "hamlet"? did greece produce a man who could by any possibility have been the author of "troilus and cressida"? was there among all the countless millions of almighty rome an intellect that could have written the tragedy of "julius cæsar"? is not the play of "antony and cleopatra" as egyptian as the nile? how do you account for this man, within whose veins there seemed to be the blood of every race, and in whose brain there were the poetry and philosophy of a world? you ask me to tell my opinion of christ. let me say here, once for all, that for the man christ--for the man who, in the darkness, cried out, "my god, why hast thou forsaken me!" --for that man i have the greatest possible respect. and let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground. to that great and serene peasant of palestine i gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and my tears. he was a reformer in his day--an infidel in his time. back of the theological mask, and in spite of the interpolations of the new testament, i see a great and genuine man. it is hard to see how you can consistently defend the course pursued by christ himself. he attacked with great bitterness "the religion of others." it did not occur to him that "there was something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of his fellow-creatures." he denounced the chosen people of god as a "generation of vipers." he compared them to "whited sepulchres." how can you sustain the conduct of missionaries? they go to other lands and attack the sacred beliefs of others. they tell the people of india and of all heathen lands, not only that their religion is a lie, not only that their gods are myths, but that the ancestors of these people--their fathers and mothers who never heard of god, of the bible, or of christ--are all in perdition. is not this a cruel treatment of the belief of a fellow-creature? a religion that is not manly and robust enough to bear attack with smiling fortitude is unworthy of a place in the heart or brain. a religion that takes refuge in sentimentality, that cries out: "do not, i pray you, tell me any truth calculated to hurt my feelings," is fit only for asylums. you believe that christ was god, that he was infinite in power. while in jerusalem he cured the sick, raised a few from the dead, and opened the eyes of the blind. did he do these things because he loved mankind, or did he do these miracles simply to establish the fact that he was the very christ? if he was actuated by love, is he not as powerful now as he was then? why does he not open the eyes of the blind now? why does he not with a touch make the leper clean? if you had the power to give sight to the blind, to cleanse the leper, and would not exercise it, what would be thought of you? what is the difference between one who can and will not cure, and one who causes disease? only the other day i saw a beautiful girl--a paralytic, and yet her brave and cheerful spirit shone over the wreck and ruin of her body like morning on the desert. what would i think of myself, had i the power by a word to send the blood through all her withered limbs freighted again with life, should i refuse? most theologians seem to imagine that the virtues have been produced by and are really the children of religion. religion has to do with the supernatural. it defines our duties and obligations to god. it prescribes a certain course of conduct by means of which happiness can be attained in another world. the result here is only an incident. the virtues are secular. they have nothing whatever to do with the supernatural, and are of no kindred to any religion. a man may be honest, courageous, charitable, industrious, hospitable, loving and pure, without being religious--that is to say, without any belief in the supernatural; and a man may be the exact opposite and at the same time a sincere believer in the creed of any church--that is to say, in the existence of a personal god, the inspiration of the scriptures and in the divinity of jesus christ. a man who believes in the bible may or may not be kind to his family, and a man who is kind and loving in his family may or may not believe in the bible. in order that you may see the effect of belief in the formation of character, it is only necessary to call your attention to the fact that your bible shows that the devil himself is a believer in the existence of your god, in the inspiration of the scriptures, and in the divinity of jesus christ. he not only believes these things, but he knows them, and yet, in spite of it all, he remains a devil still. few religions have been bad enough to destroy all the natural goodness in the human heart. in the deepest midnight of superstition some natural virtues, like stars, have been visible in the heavens. man has committed every crime in the name of christianity--or at least crimes that involved the commission of all others. those who paid for labor with the lash, and who made blows a legal tender, were christians. those who engaged in the slave trade were believers in a personal god. one slave ship was called "the jehovah." those who pursued with hounds the fugitive led by the northern star prayed fervently to christ to crown their efforts with success, and the stealers of babes, just before falling asleep, commended their souls to the keeping of the most high. as you have mentioned the apostles, let me call your attention to an incident. you remember the story of ananias and sapphira. the apostles, having nothing themselves, conceived the idea of having all things in common. their followers who had something were to sell what little they had, and turn the proceeds over to these theological financiers. it seems that ananias and sapphira had a piece of land. they sold it, and after talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, concluded to keep a little--just enough to keep them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond. when ananias brought the money, he was asked whether he had kept back a part of the price. he said that he had not. whereupon god, the compassionate, struck him dead. as soon as the corpse was removed, the apostles sent for his wife. they did not tell her that her husband had been killed. they deliberately set a trap for her life. not one of them was good enough or noble enough to put her on her guard; they allowed her to believe that her husband had told his story, and that she was free to corroborate what he had said. she probably felt that they were giving more than they could afford, and, with the instinct of woman, wanted to keep a little. she denied that any part of the price had been kept back. that moment the arrow of divine vengeance entered her heart. will you be kind enough to tell me your opinion of the apostles in the light of this story? certainly murder is a greater crime than mendacity. you have been good enough, in a kind of fatherly way, to give me some advice. you say that i ought to soften my colors, and that my words would be more weighty if not so strong. do you really desire that i should add weight to my words? do you really wish me to succeed? if the commander of one army should send word to the general of the other that his men were firing too high, do you think the general would be misled? can you conceive of his changing his orders by reason of the message? i deny that "the pilgrims crossed the sea to find freedom to worship god in the forests of the new world." they came not in the interest of freedom. it never entered their minds that other men had the same right to worship god according to the dictates of their consciences that the pilgrims themselves had. the moment they had power they were ready to whip and brand, to imprison and burn. they did not believe in religious freedom. they had no more idea of liberty of conscience than jehovah. i do not say that there is no place in the world for heroes and martyrs. on the contrary, i declare that the liberty we now have was won for us by heroes and by martyrs, and millions of these martyrs were burned, or flayed alive, or torn in pieces, or assassinated by the church of god. the heroism was shown in fighting the hordes of religious superstition. giordano bruno was a martyr. he was a hero. he believed in no god, in no heaven, and in no hell, yet he perished by fire. he was offered liberty on condition that he would recant. there was no god to please, no heaven to expect, no hell to fear, and yet he died by fire, simply to preserve the unstained whiteness of his soul. for hundreds of years every man who attacked the church was a hero. the sword of christianity has been wet for many centuries with the blood of the noblest. christianity has been ready with whip and chain and fire to banish freedom from the earth. neither is it true that "family life withers under the cold sneer--half pity and half scorn--with which i look down on household worship." those who believe in the existence of god, and believe that they are indebted to this divine being for the few gleams of sunshine in this life, and who thank god for the little they have enjoyed, have my entire respect. never have i said one word against the spirit of thankfulness. i understand the feeling of the man who gathers his family about him after the storm, or after the scourge, or after long sickness, and pours out his heart in thankfulness to the supposed god who has protected his fireside. i understand the spirit of the savage who thanks his idol of stone, or his fetich of wood. it is not the wisdom of the one or of the other that i respect, it is the goodness and thankfulness that prompt the prayer. i believe in the family. i believe in family life; and one of my objections to christianity is that it divides the family. upon this subject i have said hundreds of times, and i say again, that the roof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft, cool clasp of earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. the home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire, the fairest flower in all this world. what did christianity in the early centuries do for the home? what have nunneries and monasteries, and what has the glorification of celibacy done for the family? do you not know that christ himself offered rewards in this world and eternal happiness in another to those who would desert their wives and children and follow him? what effect has that promise had upon family life? as a matter of fact, the family is regarded as nothing. christianity teaches that there is but one family, the family of christ, and that all other relations are as nothing compared with that. christianity teaches the husband to desert the wife, the wife to desert the husband, children to desert their parents, for the miserable and selfish purpose of saving their own little, shriveled souls. it is far better for a man to love his fellow-men than to love god. it is better to love wife and children than to love christ. it is better to serve your neighbor than to serve your god--even if god exists. the reason is palpable. you can do nothing for god. you can do something for wife and children. you can add to the sunshine of a life. you can plant flowers in the pathway of another. it is true that i am an enemy of the orthodox sabbath. it is true that i do not believe in giving one-seventh of our time to the service of superstition. the whole scheme of your religion can be understood by any intelligent man in one day. why should he waste a seventh of his whole life in hearing the same thoughts repeated again and again? nothing is more gloomy than an orthodox sabbath. the mechanic who has worked during the week in heat and dust, the laboring man who has barely succeeded in keeping his soul in his body, the poor woman who has been sewing for the rich, may go to the village church which you have described. they answer the chimes of the bell, and what do they hear in this village church? is it that god is the father of the human race; is that all? if that were all, you never would have heard an objection from my lips. that is not all. if all ministers said: bear the evils of this life; your father in heaven counts your tears; the time will come when pain and death and grief will be forgotten words; i should have listened with the rest. what else does the minister say to the poor people who have answered the chimes of your bell? he says: "the smallest sin deserves eternal pain." "a vast majority of men are doomed to suffer the wrath of god forever." he fills the present with fear and the future with fire. he has heaven for the few, hell for the many. he describes a little grass-grown path that leads to heaven, where travelers are "few and far between," and a great highway worn with countless feet that leads to everlasting death. such sabbaths are immoral. such ministers are the real savages. gladly would i abolish such a sabbath. gladly would i turn it into a holiday, a day of rest and peace, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day to exchange civilities with your neighbors; and gladly would i see the church in which such sermons are preached changed to a place of entertainment. gladly would i have the echoes of orthodox sermons--the owls and bats among the rafters, the snakes in crevices and corners--driven out by the glorious music of wagner and beethoven. gladly would i see the sunday school where the doctrine of eternal fire is taught, changed to a happy dance upon the village green. music refines. the doctrine of eternal punishment degrades. science civilizes. superstition looks longingly back to savagery. you do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the sanctions of religion. christianity has sold, and continues to sell, crime on a credit. it has taught, and it still teaches, that there is forgiveness for all. of course it teaches morality. it says: "do not steal, do not murder;" but it adds, "but if you do both, there is a way of escape: believe on the lord jesus christ and thou shalt be saved." i insist that such a religion is no restraint. it is far better to teach that there is no forgiveness, and that every human being must bear the consequences of his acts. the first great step toward national reformation is the universal acceptance of the idea that there is no escape from the consequences of our acts. the young men who come from their country homes into a city filled with temptations, may be restrained by the thought of father and mother. this is a natural restraint. they may be restrained by their knowledge of the fact that a thing is evil on account of its consequences, and that to do wrong is always a mistake. i cannot conceive of such a man being more liable to temptation because he has heard one of my lectures in which i have told him that the only good is happiness--that the only way to attain that good is by doing what he believes to be right. i cannot imagine that his moral character will be weakened by the statement that there is no escape from the consequences of his acts. you seem to think that he will be instantly led astray--that he will go off under the flaring lamps to the riot of passion. do you think the bible calculated to restrain him? to prevent this would you recommend him to read the lives of abraham, of isaac, and of jacob, and the other holy polygamists of the old testament? should he read the life of david, and of solomon? do you think this would enable him to withstand temptation? would it not be far better to fill the young man's mind with facts so that he may know exactly the physical consequences of such acts? do you regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue? is fear the arch that supports the moral nature of man? you seem to think that there is danger in knowledge, and that the best chemists are most likely to poison themselves. you say that to sneer at religion is only a step from sneering at morality, and then only another step to that which is vicious and profligate. the jews entertained the same opinion of the teachings of christ. he sneered at their religion. the christians have entertained the same opinion of every philosopher. let me say to you again--and let me say it once for all--that morality has nothing to do with religion. morality does not depend upon the supernatural. morality does not walk with the crutches of miracles. morality appeals to the experience of mankind. it cares nothing about faith, nothing about sacred books. morality depends upon facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product of which can be estimated. it needs no priest, no ceremony, no mummery. it believes in the freedom of the human mind. it asks for investigation. it is founded upon truth. it is the enemy of all religion, because it has to do with this world, and with this world alone. my object is to drive fear out of the world. fear is the jailer of the mind. christianity, superstition--that is to say, the supernatural--makes every brain a prison and every soul a convict. under the government of a personal deity, consequences partake of the nature of punishments and rewards. under the government of nature, what you call punishments and rewards are simply consequences. nature does not punish. nature does not reward. nature has no purpose. when the storm comes, i do not think: "this is being done by a tyrant." when the sun shines, i do not say: "this is being done by a friend." liberty means freedom from personal dictation. it does not mean escape from the relations we sustain to other facts in nature. i believe in the restraining influences of liberty. temperance walks hand in hand with freedom. to remove a chain from the body puts an additional responsibility upon the soul. liberty says to the man: you injure or benefit yourself; you increase or decrease your own well-being. it is a question of intelligence. you need not bow to a supposed tyrant, or to infinite goodness. you are responsible to yourself and to those you injure, and to none other. i rid myself of fear, believing as i do that there is no power above which can help me in any extremity, and believing as i do that there is no power above or below that can injure me in any extremity. i do not believe that i am the sport of accident, or that i may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of nature. there is no accident, and there is no agency. that which happens must happen. the present is the necessary child of all the past, the mother of all the future. does it relieve mankind from fear to believe that there is some god who will help them in extremity? what evidence have they on which to found this belief? when has any god listened to the prayer of any man? the water drowns, the cold freezes, the flood destroys, the fire burns, the bolt of heaven falls--when and where has the prayer of man been answered? is the religious world to-day willing to test the efficacy of prayer? only a few years ago it was tested in the united states. the christians of christendom, with one accord, fell upon their knees and asked god to spare the life of one man. you know the result. you know just as well as i that the forces of nature produce the good and bad alike. you know that the forces of nature destroy the good and bad alike. you know that the lightning feels the same keen delight in striking to death the honest man that it does or would in striking the assassin with his knife lifted above the bosom of innocence. did god hear the prayers of the slaves? did he hear the prayers of imprisoned philosophers and patriots? did he hear the prayers of martyrs, or did he allow fiends, calling themselves his followers, to pile the fagots round the forms of glorious men? did he allow the flames to devour the flesh of those whose hearts were his? why should any man depend on the goodness of a god who created countless millions, knowing that they would suffer eternal grief? the faith that you call sacred--"sacred as the most delicate manly or womanly sentiment of love and honor"--is the faith that nearly all of your fellow-men are to be lost. ought an honest man to be restrained from denouncing that faith because those who entertain it say that their feelings are hurt? you say to me: "there is a hell. a man advocating the opinions you advocate will go there when he dies." i answer: "there is no hell. the bible that teaches it is not true." and you say: "how can you hurt my feelings?" you seem to think that one who attacks the religion of his parents is wanting in respect to his father and his mother. were the early christians lacking in respect for their fathers and mothers? were the pagans who embraced christianity heartless sons and daughters? what have you to say of the apostles? did they not heap contempt upon the religion of their fathers and mothers? did they not join with him who denounced their people as a "generation of vipers"? did they not follow one who offered a reward to those who would desert fathers and mothers? of course you have only to go back a few generations in your family to find a field who was not a presbyterian. after that you find a presbyterian. was he base enough and infamous enough to heap contempt upon the religion of his father and mother? all the protestants in the time of luther lacked in respect for the religion of their fathers and mothers. according to your idea, progress is a prodigal son. if one is bound by the religion of his father and mother, and his father happens to be a presbyterian and his mother a catholic, what is he to do? do you not see that your doctrine gives intellectual freedom only to foundlings? if by christianity you mean the goodness, the spirit of forgiveness, the benevolence claimed by christians to be a part, and the principal part, of that peculiar religion, then i do not agree with you when you say that "christ is christianity and that it stands or falls with him." you have narrowed unnecessarily the foundation of your religion. if it should be established beyond doubt that christ never existed, all that is of value in christianity would remain, and remain unimpaired. suppose that we should find that euclid was a myth, the science known as mathematics would not suffer. it makes no difference who painted or chiseled the greatest pictures and statues, so long as we have the pictures and statues. when he who has given the world a truth passes from the earth, the truth is left. a truth dies only when forgotten by the human race. justice, love, mercy, forgiveness, honor, all the virtues that ever blossomed in the human heart, were known and practiced for uncounted ages before the birth of christ. you insist that religion does not leave man in "abject terror"--does not leave him "in utter darkness as to his fate." is it possible to know who will be saved? can you read the names mentioned in the decrees of the infinite? is it possible to tell who is to be eternally lost? can the imagination conceive a worse fate than your religion predicts for a majority of the race? why should not every human being be in "abject terror" who believes your doctrine? how many loving and sincere women are in the asylums to-day fearing that they have committed "the unpardonable sin"--a sin to which your god has attached the penalty of eternal torment, and yet has failed to describe the offence? can tyranny go beyond this--fixing the penalty of eternal pain for the violation of a law not written, not known, but kept in the secrecy of infinite darkness? how much happier it is to know nothing about it, and to believe nothing about it! how much better to have no god! you discover a "great intelligence ordering our little lives, so that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements of character, conduce to our future happiness." this is an old explanation--probably as good as any. the idea is, that this world is a school in which man becomes educated through tribulation--the muscles of character being developed by wrestling with misfortune. if it is necessary to live this life in order to develop character, in order to become worthy of a better world, how do you account for the fact that billions of the human race die in infancy, and are thus deprived of this necessary education and development? what would you think of a schoolmaster who should kill a large proportion of his scholars during the first day, before they had even had the opportunity to look at "a"? you insist that "there is a power behind nature making for righteousness." if nature is infinite, how can there be a power outside of nature? if you mean by "a power making for righteousness" that man, as he becomes civilized, as he becomes intelligent, not only takes advantage of the forces of nature for his own benefit, but perceives more and more clearly that if he is to be happy he must live in harmony with the conditions of his being, in harmony with the facts by which he is surrounded, in harmony with the relations he sustains to others and to things; if this is what you mean, then there is "a power making for righteousness." but if you mean that there is something supernatural back of nature directing events, then i insist that there can by no possibility be any evidence of the existence of such a power. the history of the human race shows that nations rise and fall. there is a limit to the life of a race; so that it can be said of every dead nation, that there was a period when it laid the foundations of prosperity, when the combined intelligence and virtue of the people constituted a power working for righteousness, and that there came a time when this nation became a spendthrift, when it ceased to accumulate, when it lived on the labors of its youth, and passed from strength and glory to the weakness of old age, and finally fell palsied to its tomb. the intelligence of man guided by a sense of duty is the only power that makes for righteousness. you tell me that i am waging "a hopeless war," and you give as a reason that the christian religion began to be nearly two thousand years before i was born, and that it will live two thousand years after i am dead. is this an argument? does it tend to convince even yourself? could not caiaphas, the high priest, have said substantially this to christ? could he not have said: "the religion of jehovah began to be four thousand years before you were born, and it will live two thousand years after you are dead"? could not a follower of buddha make the same illogical remark to a missionary from andover with the glad tidings? could he not say: "you are waging a hopeless war. the religion of buddha began to be twenty-five hundred years before you were born, and hundreds of millions of people still worship at great buddha's shrine"? do you insist that nothing except the right can live for two thousand years? why is it that the catholic church "lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms perish"? do you consider that the "survival of the fittest"? is it the same christian religion now living that lived during the middle ages? is it the same christian religion that founded the inquisition and invented the thumbscrew? do you see no difference between the religion of calvin and jonathan edwards and the christianity of to-day? do you really think that it is the same christianity that has been living all these years? have you noticed any change in the last generation? do you remember when scientists endeavored to prove a theory by a passage from the bible, and do you now know that believers in the bible are exceedingly anxious to prove its truth by some fact that science has demonstrated? do you know that the standard has changed? other things are not measured by the bible, but the bible has to submit to another test. it no longer owns the scales. it has to be weighed,--it is being weighed,--it is growing lighter and lighter every day. do you know that only a few years ago "the glad tidings of great joy" consisted mostly in a description of hell? do you know that nearly every intelligent minister is now ashamed to preach about it, or to read about it, or to talk about it? is there any change? do you know that but few ministers now believe in the "plenary inspiration" of the bible, that from thousands of pulpits people are now told that the creation according to genesis is a mistake, that it, never was as wet as the flood, and that the miracles of the old testament are considered simply as myths or mistakes? how long will what you call christianity endure, if it changes as rapidly during the next century as it has during the last? what will there be left of the supernatural? it does not seem possible that thoughtful people can, for many years, believe that a being of infinite wisdom is the author of the old testament, that a being of infinite purity and kindness upheld polygamy and slavery, that he ordered his chosen people to massacre their neighbors, and that he commanded husbands and fathers to persecute wives and daughters unto death for opinion's sake. it does not seem within the prospect of belief that jehovah, the cruel, the jealous, the ignorant, and the revengeful, is the creator and preserver of the universe. does it seem possible that infinite goodness would create a world in which life feeds on life, in which everything devours and is devoured? can there be a sadder fact than this: innocence is not a certain shield? it is impossible for me to believe in the eternity of punishment. if that doctrine be true, jehovah is insane. day after day there are mournful processions of men and women, patriots and mothers, girls whose only crime is that the word liberty burst into flower between their pure and loving lips, driven like beasts across the melancholy wastes of siberian snow. these men, these women, these daughters, go to exile and to slavery, to a land where hope is satisfied with death. does it seem possible to you that an "infinite father" sees all this and sits as silent as a god of stone? and yet, according to your presbyterian creed, according to your inspired book, according to your christ, there is another procession, in which are the noblest and the best, in which you will find the wondrous spirits of this world, the lovers of the human race, the teachers of their fellow-men, the greatest soldiers that ever battled for the right; and this procession of countless millions, in which you will find the most generous and the most loving of the sons and daughters of men, is moving on to the siberia of god, the land of eternal exile, where agony becomes immortal. how can you, how can any man with brain or heart, believe this infinite lie? is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy? after all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced, that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all crimes, were simply necessities? is it not possible that out of this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute justification for the individual? may we not find that every soul has, like mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like prometheus to the rocks of fate? you ask me to take the "sober second thought." i beg of you to take the first, and if you do, you will throw away the presbyterian creed; you will instantly perceive that he who commits the "smallest sin" no more deserves eternal pain than he who does the smallest virtuous deed deserves eternal bliss; you will become convinced that an infinite god who creates billions of men knowing that they will suffer through all the countless years is an infinite demon; you will be satisfied that the bible, with its philosophy and its folly, with its goodness and its cruelty, is but the work of man, and that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. for you personally, i have the highest regard and the sincerest respect, and i beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a mad-house. do not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. preach, i pray you, the gospel of intellectual hospitality--the liberty of thought and speech. take from loving hearts the awful fear. have mercy on your fellow-men. do not drive to madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief. pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. do not proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an infinite spider is weaving webs to catch the souls of men. robert g. ingersoll. a last word to robert g. ingersoll my dear colonel ingersoll: i have read your reply to my open letter half a dozen times, and each time with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate. it is written with great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as complete an argument as you are able to give for the faith (or want of faith) that is in you. doubtless you think it unanswerable, and so it will seem to those who are predisposed to your way of thinking. to quote a homely saying of mr. lincoln, in which there is as much of wisdom as of wit, "for those who like that sort of thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do like." you may answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers, are equally prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not more impressed by the force of your pleading. i do not deny a strong leaning that way, and yet our real interest is the same--to get at the truth; and, therefore, i have tried to give due weight to whatever of argument there is in the midst of so much eloquence; but must confess that, in spite of all, i remain in the same obdurate frame of mind as before. with all the candor that i can bring to bear upon the question, i find on reviewing my open letter scarcely a sentence to change and nothing to withdraw; and am quite willing to leave it as my declaration of faith, to stand side by side with your reply, for intelligent and candid men to judge between us. i need only to add a few words in taking leave of the subject. you seem a little disturbed that "some of my brethren" should look upon you as "a monster" because of your unbelief. i certainly do not approve of such language, although they would tell me that it is the only word which is a fit response to your ferocious attacks upon what they hold most sacred. you are a born gladiator, and when you descend into the arena, you strike heavy blows, which provoke blows in return. in this very reply you manifest a particular animosity against presbyterians. is it because you were brought up in that church, of which your father, whom you regard with filial respect and affection, was an honored minister? you even speak of "the presbyterian god!" as if we assumed to appropriate the supreme being, claiming to be the special objects of his favor. is there any ground for this imputation of narrowness? on the contrary, when we bow our knees before our maker, it is as the god and father of all mankind; and the expression you permit yourself to use, can only be regarded as grossly offensive. was it necessary to offer this rudeness to the religious denomination in which you were born? and this may explain, what you do not seem fully to understand, why it is that you are sometimes treated to sharp epithets by the religious press and public. you think yourself persecuted for your opinions. but others hold the same opinions without offence. nor is it because you express your opinions. nobody would deny you the same freedom which is accorded to huxley or herbert spencer. it is not because you exercise your liberty of judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which you attack others, holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule, and speaking of those who profess it as if they must be either knaves or fools. it is not in human nature not to resent such imputations on that which, however incredible to you, is very precious to them. hence it is that they think you a rough antagonist; and when you shock them by such expressions as i have quoted, you must expect some pretty strong language in return. i do not join them in this, because i know you, and appreciate that other side of you which is manly and kindly and chivalrous. but while i recognize these better qualities, i must add in all frankness that i am compelled to look upon you as a man so embittered against religion that you cannot think of it except as associated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy. in such a state of mind it is hardly possible for you to judge fairly of the arguments for its truth. i believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised, and that when man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say darwin's was, "as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass." but if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible. it is the moral element which alone makes the responsibility. nor do i believe that any man will be judged in this world or the next for what does not involve a moral wrong. hence your appalling statement, "the god you worship will, according to your creed, torture (!) through all the endless years the man who entertains an honest doubt," does not produce the effect intended, simply because i do not affirm nor believe any such thing. i believe that, in the future world, every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and that the judgment, whatever it may be, will be transparently just. god is more merciful than man. he desireth not the death of the wicked. christ forgave, where men would condemn, and whatever be the fate of any human soul, it can never be said that the supreme ruler was wanting either in justice or mercy. this i emphasize because you dwell so much upon the subject of future retribution, giving it an attention so constant as to be almost exclusive. whatever else you touch upon, you soon come back to this as the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come. your denunciations of this "inhuman" belief are so reiterated that one would be left to infer that there is nothing else in religion; that it is all wrath and terror. but this is putting a part for the whole. religion is a vast system, of which this is but a single feature: it is but one doctrine of many; and indeed some whom no one will deny to be devout christians, do not hold it at all, or only in a modified form, while with all their hearts they accept and profess the religion that christ came to bring into the world. archdeacon farrar, of westminster abbey, the most eloquent preacher in the church of england, has written a book entitled "eternal hope," in which he argues from reason and the bible, that this life is not "the be-all and end-all" of human probation; but that in the world to come there will be another opportunity, when countless millions, made wiser by unhappy experience, will turn again to the paths of life; and that so in the end the whole human race, with the exception of perhaps a few who remain irreclaimable, will be recovered and made happy forever. others look upon "eternal death" as merely the extinction of being, while immortality is the reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that sense the words, "the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord." the latter view might recommend itself to you as the application of "the survival of the fittest" to another world, the worthless, the incurably bad, of the human race being allowed to drop out of existence (an end which can have no terrors for you, since you look upon it as the common lot of all men,) while the good are continued in being forever. the acceptance of either of these theories would relieve your mind of that "horror of great darkness" which seems to come over it whenever you look forward to retribution beyond the grave. but while conceding all liberty to others i cannot so easily relieve myself of this stern and rugged truth. to me moral evil in the universe is a tremendous reality, and i do not see how to limit it within the bounds of time. retribution is to me a necessary part of the divine law. a law without a penalty for its violations is no law. but i rest the argument for it, not on the bible, but _on principles which you yourself acknowledge_. you say, "there are no punishments, no rewards: there are consequences." very well, take the "consequences," and see where they lead you. when a man by his vices has reduced his body to a wreck and his mind to idiocy, you say this is the "consequence" of his vicious life. is it a great stretch of language to say that it is his "punishment," and nonetheless punishment because self-inflicted? to the poor sufferer raving in a madhouse, it matters little what it is called, so long as he is experiencing the agonies of hell. and here your theory of "consequences," if followed up, will lead you very far. for if man lives after death, and keeps his personal identity, do not the "consequences" of his past life follow him into the future? and if his existence is immortal, are not the consequences immortal also? and what is this but endless retribution? but you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is destroyed by the easy way in which a man escapes the penalty. he has but to repent, and he is restored to the same condition before the law as if he had not sinned. not so do i understand it. "i believe in the forgiveness of sins," but forgiveness does not reverse the course of nature; it does not prevent the operation of natural law. a drunkard may repent as he is nearing his end, but that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor avert the consequences. in spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of shame and remorse. the inexorable law must be fulfilled. and so in the future world. even though a man be forgiven, he does not wholly escape the evil of his past life. a retribution follows him even within the heavenly gates; for if he does not suffer, still that bad life has so shriveled up his moral nature as to diminish his power of enjoyment. there are degrees of happiness, as one star differeth from another star in glory; and he who begins wrong, will find that it is not as well to sin and repent of it as not to sin at all. he enters the other world in a state of spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at the bottom and climb slowly upward. we might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself has not only its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that must come even there. we read of "the book of god's remembrance," but is there not another book of remembrance in the mind itself--a book which any man may well fear to open and to look thereon? when that book is opened, and we read its awful pages, shall we not all think "what might have been?" and will those thoughts be wholly free from sadness? the drunken brute who breaks the heart that loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may forgive him with her dying lips; but _he cannot forgive himself _, and _never_ can he recall without grief that bowed head and that broken heart. this preserves the element of retribution, while it does not shut the door to forgiveness and mercy. but we need not travel over again the round of christian doctrines. my faith is very simple; it revolves around two words; god and christ. these are the two centres, or, as an astronomer might say, the double-star, or double-sun, of the great orbit of religious truth. as to the first of these, you say "there can be no evidence to my mind of the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality;" and you gravely put to me this question: "do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise and good god? have you convinced even yourself of this?" here are two questions--one as to the existence of god, and the other as to his benevolence. i will answer both in language as plain as it is possible for me to use. first, do i believe in the existence of god? i answer that it is impossible for me not to believe it. i could not disbelieve it if i would. you insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of choice or of the will, but of evidence. you say "the brain thinks as the heart beats, as the eyes see." then let us stand aside with all our prepossessions, and open our eyes to what we can see. when robinson crusoe in his desert island came down one day to the seashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could he help the instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? you might have tried to persuade him that it was all chance,--that the sand had been washed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and taken this form, or that some marine insect had traced a figure like a human foot,--you would not have moved him a particle. the imprint was there, and the conclusion was irresistible: he did not believe--he knew that some human being, whether friend or foe, civilized or savage, had set his foot upon that desolate shore. so when i discover in the world (as i think i do) mysterious footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question whether i shall believe or not: i cannot help believing that some power greater than man has set foot upon the earth. it is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of the argument from design; but "my mind is so that it is incapable" of resisting the conclusion to which it leads me. and (since personal questions are in order) i beg to ask if it is possible for you to take in your hands a watch, and believe that there was no "design" in its construction; that it was not made to keep time, but only "happened" so; that it is the product of some freak of nature, which brought together its parts and set it going. do you not know with as much positiveness as can belong to any conviction of your mind, that it was not the work of accident, but of design; and that if there was a design, there was a designer? and if the watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made to see and the ear to hear? skeptics may fight against this argument as much as they please, and try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and yet it remains forever entwined in the living frame of man as well as imbedded in the solid foundations of the globe. wherefore i repeat, it is not a question with me whether i will believe or not--i cannot help believing; and i am not only surprised, but amazed, that you or any thoughtful man can come to any other conclusion.' in wonder and astonishment i ask, "do you really believe" that in all the wide universe there is no higher intelligence than that of the poor human creatures that creep on this earthly ball? for myself, it is with the pro-foundest conviction as well as the deepest reverence that i repeat the first sentence of my faith: "i believe in god the father almighty." and not the almighty only, but the wise and the good. again i ask, how can i help believing what i see every day of my life? every morning, as the sun rises in the east, sending light and life over the world, i behold a glorious image of the beneficent creator. the exquisite beauty of the dawn, the dewy freshness of the air, the fleecy clouds floating in the sky--all speak of him. and when the sun goes down, sending shafts of light through the dense masses that would hide his setting, and casting a glory over the earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is to me but the reflection of him who "spreadeth out the heavens like a curtain; who maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind." how much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man himself: in the power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of penetrating the mysteries of nature and climbing among the stars. can a being endowed with such transcendent gifts doubt the goodness of his creator? yes, i believe with all my heart and soul in one who is not only infinitely great, but infinitely good; who loves all the creatures he has made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud spans the arch of heaven, stretching from horizon to horizon; looking down upon them with a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold. "like as a father pitieth his children, so the lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." on the question of immortality you are equally "at sea." you know nothing and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that you do not know, and believe that you do not believe. you confess indeed to a faint hope, and admit a bare possibility, that there may be another life, though you are in an uncertainty about it that is altogether bewildering and desperate. but your mind is so poetical that you give a certain attractiveness even to the prospect of annihilation. you strew the sepulchre with such flowers as these: "i have said a thousand times, and i say again, that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. "i have said a thousand times, and i say again, that we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one." beautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! it is a silver lining to the cloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable. but perhaps we ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter from one who recognizes no light but that of nature. that light is very dim. if it were all we had, we should be just where cicero was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was "to be hoped for rather than believed." but does not that very uncertainty show the need of a something above nature, which is furnished in him who "was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose again from the dead?" it is the conqueror of death who calls to the fainthearted: "i am the resurrection and the life." since he has gone before us, lighting up the dark passage of the grave, we need not fear to follow, resting on the word of our leader: "because i live, ye shall live also." this faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which cannot be torn from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears every heartstring; and it was to this i referred as the last refuge of a poor, suffering, despairing soul, when i asked: "does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present existence?" the imputation of cruelty you repel with some warmth, saying (with a slight variation of my language): "_when i deny the existence of perdition_, you reply that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures." of course, this change of words, putting perdition in the place of immortal life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. but it was enough to change the whole character of what i wrote. as i described "the treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures," i did think it "very cruel," and i think so still. while correcting this slight misquotation, i must remove from your mind a misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be absolutely comical. in my letter referring to your disbelief of immortality, i had said: "with an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you confess your ignorance of what perhaps others are better acquainted with, when you say, 'this world is all that i know anything about, _so far as i recollect_'" of course "what perhaps others are better acquainted with" was a part of what you said, or at least implied by your manner (for you do not convey your meaning merely by words, but by a tone of voice, by arched eyebrows, or a curled lip); and yet, instead of taking the sentence in its plain and obvious sense, you affect to understand it as an assumption on my part to have some private and mysterious knowledge of another world (!), and gravely ask me, "did you by this intend to say that you know anything of any other state of existence; that you have inhabited some other planet; that you lived before you were born; and that you recollect something of that other world or of that other state?" no, my dear colonel! i have been a good deal of a traveler, and have seen all parts of this world, but i have never visited any other. in reading your sober question, if i did not know you to be one of the brightest wits of the day, i should be tempted to quote what sidney smith says of a scotchman, that "you cannot get a joke into his head except by a surgical operation!" but to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith and our hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring to the troubled human heart. you sneer at the idea that religion can be a "consolation." indeed! is it not a consolation to have an almighty friend? was it a light matter for the poor slave mother, who sat alone in her cabin, having been robbed of her children, to sing in her wild, wailing accents: "nobody knows the sorrows i've seen: nobody knows but jesus?" would you rob her of that unseen friend--the only friend she had on earth or in heaven? but i will do you the justice to say that your want of religious faith comes in part from your very sensibility and tenderness of heart. you cannot recognize an overruling providence, because your mind is so harassed by scenes that you witness. why, you ask, do men suffer so? you draw frightful pictures of the misery which exists in the world, as a proof of the incapacity of its ruler and governor, and do not hesitate to say that "any honest man of average intelligence could do vastly better." if you could have your way, you would make everybody happy; there should be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain. this is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse me for saying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a stalwart man. the world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like children: spoiled children they would soon become. it is an arena of conflict, in which we are to develop the manhood that is in us. we all have to take the "rough-and-tumble" of life, and are the better for it--physically, intellectually, and morally. if there be any true manliness within us, we come out of the struggle stronger and better; with larger minds and kinder hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler charity. perhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree as to the true end of life. but here i fear the difference is irreconcilable. you think that end is happiness: i think it is character. i do not believe that the highest end of life upon earth is to "have a good time to get from it the utmost amount of enjoyment;" but to be truly and greatly good; and that to that end no discipline can be too severe which leads us "to suffer and be strong." that discipline answers its end when it raises the spirit to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. the splendor of virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark background. it was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed the greatest degree of moral heroism, the power of "man's unconquerable mind." but i know well that these illustrations do not cover the whole case. there is another picture to be added to those of heroic struggle and martyrdom--that of silent suffering, which makes of life one long agony, and which often comes upon the good, so that it seems as if the best suffered the most. and yet when you sit by a sick bed, and look into a face whiter than the pillow on which it rests, do you not sometimes mark how that very suffering refines the nature that bears it so meekly? this is the christian theory: that suffering, patiently borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest enjoyment. looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should be that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be revealed." when the heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn that blushes "o'er the world," there will be "a restitution of all things:" the poor will be made rich, and the most suffering the most serenely happy; as in the vision of the apocalypse, when it is asked "what are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" the answer is, "these are they which came our of great tribulation." in this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after innumerable struggles with doubt, after the experience and the reflection of years, i feel "a great peace." it is the glow of sunset that gilds the approach of evening. for (we must confess it) it is towards that you and i are advancing. the sun has passed the meridian, and hastens to his going down. whatever of good this life has for us (and i am far from being one of those who look upon it as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. i see the shadows creeping on; yet i welcome the twilight that will soon darken into night, for i know that it will be a night all glorious with stars. as i look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange, overpowering sense of the infinite goodness, which surrounding me like an atmosphere: "and so beside the silent sea, i wait the muffled oar; no harm from him can come to me on ocean or on shore. i know not where his islands lift their fronded palms in air; i only know i cannot drift beyond his love and care." would that you could share with me this confidence and this hope! but you seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith. in one of your closing paragraphs, you give what is to you "the conclusion of the whole matter." after repudiating religion with scorn, you ask, "is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy?" and thus indicate the true answer to be given, to which no words can do justice but your own: "after all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced; that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all crimes, were simply necessities? is it not possible that out of this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute justification for the individual? may we not find that every soul has, like mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like prometheus to the rocks of fate?" if this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of "all things." not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes of futurity, but of all that makes the present life worth living--of all freedom, and hence of all virtue. there are no more any moral distinctions in the world--no good and no evil, no right and no wrong; nothing but grim necessity. with such a creed, i wonder how you can ever stand at the bar, and argue for the conviction of a criminal. why should he be convicted and punished for what he could not help? indeed he is not a criminal, since there is no such thing as crime. he is not to blame. was he not "lashed to the wild horse of passion," carried away by a power beyond his control? what cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars! poor fellow! he deserves our pity. let us hasten to relieve him from a position which must be so painful, and make our humble apology for having presumed to punish him for an act in which he only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist. this will be "absolute justification for the individual." but what will become of society, you do not tell us. are you aware that in this last attainment of "a better, a higher philosophy" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have swung round to the side of john calvin, and gone far beyond him? that you, who have exhausted all the resources of the english language in denouncing his creed as the most horrible of human beliefs--brainless, soulless, heartless; who have held it up to scorn and derision; now hold to the blackest calvinism that was ever taught by man? you cannot find words sufficient to express your horror of the doctrine of divine decrees; and yet here you have decrees with a vengeance--predestination and damnation, both in one. under such a creed, man is a thousand times worse off than under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. you may say that at any rate he cannot suffer forever. you do not know even that; but at any rate _he suffers as long as he exists_. there is no god above to show him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll, he is "lashed to the rocks of fate," with the insatiate vulture tearing at his heart! in reading your glittering phrases, i seem to be losing hold of everything, and to be sinking, sinking, till i touch the lowest depths of an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like a death-knell tolls the midnight of the soul. if i believed this i should cry, god help us all! or no--for there would be no god, and even this last consolation would be denied us: for why should we offer a prayer which can neither be heard nor answered? as well might we ask mercy from "the rocks of fate" to which we are chained forever! recoiling from this gospel of despair, i turn to one in whose face there is something at once human and divine--an indescribable majesty, united with more than human tenderness and pity; one who was born among the poor, and had not where to lay his head, and yet went about doing good; poor, yet making many rich; who trod the world in deepest loneliness, and yet whose presence lighted up every dwelling into which he came; who took up little children in his arms, and blessed them; a giver of joy to others, and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human sorrow, and yet was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping with them that wept; coming to bethany to comfort mary and martha concerning their brother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to the most abject of human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry of a blind beggar by the wayside; willing to be known as "the friend of sinners," if he might recall them into the way of peace; who did not scorn even the fallen woman who sank at his feet, but by his gentle word, "neither do i condemn thee; go and sin no more," lifted her up, and set her in the path of a virtuous womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross, prayed: "father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." in this friend of the friendless, comforter of the comfortless, forgiver of the penitent, and guide of the erring, i find a greatness that i had not found in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. no voice in all the ages thrills me like that which whispers close to my heart, "come unto me and i will give you rest," to which i answer: this is my master, and i will follow him. henry m. field. letter to dr. field. my dear mr. field: with great pleasure i have read your second letter, in which you seem to admit that men may differ even about religion without being responsible for that difference; that every man has the right to read the bible for himself, state freely the conclusion at which he arrives, and that it is not only his privilege, but his duty to speak the truth; that christians can hardly be happy in heaven, while those they loved on earth are suffering with the lost; that it is not a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe, and to be governed by evidence; that credulity is not a virtue, and that the open mouth of ignorant wonder is not the only entrance to paradise; that belief is not necessary to salvation, and that no man can justly be made to suffer eternal pain for having expressed an intellectual conviction. you seem to admit that no man can justly be held responsible for his thoughts; that the brain thinks without asking our consent, and that we believe or disbelieve without an effort of the will. i congratulate you upon the advance that you have made. you not only admit that we have the right to think, but that we have the right to express our honest thoughts. you admit that the christian world no longer believes in the fagot, the dungeon, and the thumbscrew. has the christian world outgrown its god? has man become more merciful than his maker? if man will not torture his fellow-man on account of a difference of opinion, will a god of infinite love torture one of his children for what is called the sin of unbelief? has man outgrown the inquisition, and will god forever be the warden of a penitentiary? the walls of the old dungeons have fallen, and light now visits the cell where brave men perished in darkness. is jehovah to keep the cells of perdition in repair forever, and are his children to be the eternal prisoners? it seems hard for you to appreciate the mental condition of one who regards all gods as substantially the same; that is to say, who thinks of them all as myths and phantoms born of the imagination,--characters in the religious fictions of the race. to you it probably seems strange that a man should think far more of jupiter than of jehovah. regarding them both as creations of the mind, i choose between them, and i prefer the god of the greeks, on the same principle that i prefer portia to iago; and yet i regard them, one and all, as children of the imagination, as phantoms born of human fears and human hopes. surely nothing was further from my mind than to hurt the feelings of any one by speaking of the presbyterian god. i simply intended to speak of the god of the presbyterians. certainly the god of the presbyterian is not the god of the catholic, nor is he the god of the mohammedan or hindoo. he is a special creation suited only to certain minds. these minds have naturally come together, and they form what we call the presbyterian church. as a matter of fact, no two churches can by any possibility have precisely the same god; neither can any two human beings conceive of precisely the same deity. in every man's god there is, to say the least, a part of that man. the lower the man, the lower his conception of god. the higher the man, the grander his deity must be. the savage who adorns his body with a belt from which hang the scalps of enemies slain in battle, has no conception of a loving, of a forgiving god; his god, of necessity, must be as revengeful, as heartless, as infamous as the god of john calvin. you do not exactly appreciate my feeling. i do not hate presbyterians; i hate presbyterianism. i hate with all my heart the creed of that church, and i most heartily despise the god described in the confession of faith. but some of the best friends i have in the world are afflicted with the mental malady known as presbyterianism. they are the victims of the consolation growing out of the belief that a vast majority of their fellow-men are doomed to suffer eternal torment, to the end that their creator may be eternally glorified. i have said many times, and i say again, that i do not despise a man because he has the rheumatism; i despise the rheumatism because it has a man. but i do insist that the presbyterians have assumed to appropriate to themselves their supreme being, and that they have claimed, and that they do claim, to be the "special objects of his favor." they do claim to be the very elect, and they do insist that god looks upon them as the objects of his special care. they do claim that the light of nature, without the torch of the presbyterian creed, is insufficient to guide any soul to the gate of heaven. they do insist that even those who never heard of christ, or never heard of the god of the presbyterians, will be eternally lost; and they not only claim this, but that their fate will illustrate not only the justice but the mercy of god. not only so, but they insist that the morality of an unbeliever is displeasing to god, and that the love of an unconverted mother for her helpless child is nothing less than sin. when i meet a man who really believes the presbyterian creed, i think of the laocoon. i feel as though looking upon a human being helpless in the coils of an immense and poisonous serpent. but i congratulate you with all my heart that you have repudiated this infamous, this savage creed; that you now admit that reason was given us to be exercised; that god will not torture any man for entertaining an honest doubt, and that in the world to come "every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body." let me quote your exact language: "i believe that in the future world every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body." do you not see that you have bidden farewell to the presbyterian church? in that sentence you have thrown away the atonement, you have denied the efficacy of the blood of jesus christ, and you have denied the necessity of belief. if we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, that is the end of the presbyterian scheme of salvation. i sincerely congratulate you for having repudiated the savagery of calvinism. it also gave me great pleasure to find that you have thrown away, with a kind of glad shudder, that infamy of infamies, the dogma of eternal pain. i have denounced that inhuman belief; i have denounced every creed that had coiled within it that viper; i have denounced every man who preached it, the book that contains it, and with all my heart the god who threatens it; and at last i have the happiness of seeing the editor of the new york _evangelist_ admit that devout christians do not believe that lie, and quote with approbation the words of a minister of the church of england to the effect that all men will be finally recovered and made happy. do you find this doctrine of hope in the presbyterian creed? is this star, that sheds light on every grave, found in your bible? did christ have in his mind the shining truth that all the children of men will at last be filled with joy, when he uttered these comforting words: "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels"? do you find in this flame the bud of hope, or the flower of promise? you suggest that it is possible that "the incurably bad will be annihilated," and you say that such a fate can have no terrors for me, as i look upon annihilation as the common lot of all. let us examine this position. why should a god of infinite wisdom create men and women whom he knew would be "incurably bad"? what would you say of a mechanic who was forced to destroy his own productions on the ground that they were "incurably bad"? would you say that he was an infinitely wise mechanic? does infinite justice annihilate the work of infinite wisdom? does god, like an ignorant doctor, bury his mistakes? besides, what right have you to say that i "look upon annihilation as the common lot of all"? was there any such thought in my reply? do you find it in any published words of mine? do you find anything in what i have written tending to show that i believe in annihilation? is it not true that i say now, and that i have always said, that i do not know? does a lack of knowledge as to the fate of the human soul imply a belief in annihilation? does it not equally imply a belief in immortality? you have been--at least until recently--a believer in the inspiration of the bible and in the truth of its every word. what do you say to the following: "for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast." you will see that the inspired writer is not satisfied with admitting that he does not know. "as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." was it not cruel for an inspired man to attack a sacred belief? you seem surprised that i should speak of the doctrine of eternal pain as "the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come." if that doctrine be true, what else is there worthy of engaging the attention of the human mind? it is the blackness that extinguishes every star. it is the abyss in which every hope must perish. it leaves a universe without justice and without mercy--a future without one ray of light, and a present with nothing but fear. it makes heaven an impossibility, god an infinite monster, and man an eternal victim. nothing can redeem a religion in which this dogma is found. clustered about it are all the snakes of the furies. but you have abandoned this infamy, and you have admitted that we are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. nothing can be nearer self-evident than the fact that a finite being cannot commit an infinite sin; neither can a finite being do an infinitely good deed. that is to say, no one can deserve for any act eternal pain, and no one for any deed can deserve eternal joy. if we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, the old orthodox hell and heaven both become impossible. so, too, you have recognized the great and splendid truth that sin cannot be predicated of an intellectual conviction. this is the first great step toward the liberty of soul. you admit that there is no morality and no immorality in belief--that is to say, in the simple operation of the mind in weighing evidence, in observing facts, and in drawing conclusions. you admit that these things are without sin and without guilt. had all men so believed there never could have been religious persecution--the inquisition could not have been built, and the idea of eternal pain never could have polluted the human heart. you have been driven to the passions for the purpose of finding what you are pleased to call "sin" and "responsibility" and you say, speaking of a human being, "but if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible." one would suppose that the use of the word "cannot" is inconsistent with the idea of responsibility. what is passion? there are certain desires, swift, thrilling, that quicken the action of the heart--desires that fill the brain with blood, with fire and flame--desires that bear the same relation to judgment that storms and waves bear to the compass on a ship. is passion necessarily produced? is there an adequate cause for every effect? can you by any possibility think of an effect without a cause, and can you by any possibility think of an effect that is not a cause, or can you think of a cause that is not an effect? is not the history of real civilization the slow and gradual emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment, from the mastery of passion? is not that man civilized whose reason sits the crowned monarch of his brain--whose passions are his servants? who knows the strength of the temptation to another? who knows how little has been resisted by those who stand, how much has been resisted by those who fall? who knows whether the victor or the victim made the braver and the more gallant fight? in judging of our fellow-men we must take into consideration the circumstances of ancestry, of race, of nationality, of employment, of opportunity, of education, and of the thousand influences that tend to mold or mar the character of man. such a view is the mother of charity, and makes the god of the presbyterians impossible. at last you have seen the impossibility of forgiveness. that is to say, you perceive that after forgiveness the crime remains, and its children, called consequences, still live. you recognize the lack of philosophy in that doctrine. you still believe in what you call "the forgiveness of sins," but you admit that forgiveness cannot reverse the course of nature, and cannot prevent the operation of natural law. you also admit that if a man lives after death, he preserves his personal identity, his memory, and that the consequences of his actions will follow him through all the eternal years. you admit that consequences are immortal. after making this admission, of what use is the old idea of the forgiveness of sins? how can the criminal be washed clean and pure in the blood of another? in spite of this forgiveness, in spite of this blood, you have taken the ground that consequences, like the dogs of actæon, follow even a presbyterian, even one of the elect, within the heavenly gates. if you wish to be logical, you must also admit that the consequences of good deeds, like winged angels, follow even the atheist within the gates of hell. you have had the courage of your convictions, and you have said that we are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. by that judgment i am willing to abide. but, whether willing or not, i must abide, because there is no power, no god that can step between me and the consequences of my acts. i wish no heaven that i have not earned, no happiness to which i am not entitled. i do not wish to become an immortal pauper; neither am i willing to extend unworthy hands for alms. my dear mr. field, you have outgrown your creed--as every presbyterian must who grows at all. you are far better than the spirit of the old testament; far better, in my judgment, even than the spirit of the new. the creed that you have left behind, that you have repudiated, teaches that a man may be guilty of every crime--that he may have driven his wife to insanity, that his example may have led his children to the penitentiary, or to the gallows, and that yet, at the eleventh hour, he may, by what is called "repentance," be washed absolutely pure by the blood of another and receive and wear upon his brow the laurels of eternal peace. not only so, but that creed has taught that this wretch in heaven could look back on the poor earth and see the wife, whom he swore to love and cherish, in the mad-house, surrounded by imaginary serpents, struggling in the darkness of night, made insane by his heartlessness--that creed has taught and teaches that he could look back and see his children in prison cells, or on the scaffold with the noose about their necks, and that these visions would not bring a shade of sadness to his redeemed and happy face. it is this doctrine, it is this dogma--so bestial, so savage as to beggar all the languages of men--that i have denounced. all the words of hatred, loathing and contempt, found in all the dialects and tongues of men, are not sufficient to express my hatred, my contempt, and my loathing of this creed. you say that it is impossible for you not to believe in the existence of god. with this statement, i find no fault. your mind is so that a belief in the existence of a supreme being gives satisfaction and content. of course, you are entitled to no credit for this belief, as you ought not to be rewarded for believing that which you cannot help believing; neither should i be punished for failing to believe that which i cannot believe. you believe because you see in the world around you such an adaptation of means to ends that you are satisfied there is design. i admit that when robinson crusoe saw in the sand the print of a human foot, like and yet unlike his own, he was justified in drawing the conclusion that a human being had been there. the inference was drawn from his own experience, and was within the scope of his own mind. but i do not agree with you that he "knew" a human being had been there; he had only sufficient evidence upon which to found a belief. he did not know the footsteps of all animals; he could not have known that no animal except man could have made that footprint: in order to have known that it was the foot of man, he must have known that no other animal was capable of making it, and he must have known that no other being had produced in the sand the likeness of this human foot. you see what you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, and you draw the conclusion that there must be an infinite intelligence. your conclusion is far wider than your premise. let us suppose, as mr. hume supposed, that there is a pair of scales, one end of which is in darkness, and you find that a pound weight, or a ten-pound weight, placed upon that end of the scale in the light is raised; have you the right to say that there is an infinite weight on the end in darkness, or are you compelled to say only that there is weight enough on the end in darkness to raise the weight on the end in light? it is illogical to say, because of the existence of this earth and of what you can see in and about it, that there must be an infinite intelligence. you do not know that even the creation of this world, and of all planets discovered, required an infinite power, or infinite wisdom. i admit that it is impossible for me to look at a watch and draw the inference that there was no design in its construction, or that it only happened. i could not regard it as a product of some freak of nature, neither could i imagine that its various parts were brought together and set in motion by chance. i am not a believer in chance. but there is a vast difference between what man has made and the materials of which he has constructed the things he has made. you find a watch, and you say that it exhibits, or shows design. you insist that it is so wonderful it must have had a designer--in other words, that it is too wonderful not to have been constructed. you then find the watchmaker, and you say with regard to him that he too must have had a designer, for he is more wonderful than the watch. in imagagination you go from the watchmaker to the being you call god, and you say he designed the watchmaker, but he himself was not designed because he is too wonderful to have been designed. and yet in the case of the watch and of the watchmaker, it was the wonder that suggested design, while in the case of the maker of the watchmaker the wonder denied a designer. do you not see that this argument devours itself? if wonder suggests a designer, can it go on increasing until it denies that which it suggested? you must remember, too, that the argument of design is applicable to all. you are not at liberty to stop at sunrise and sunset and growing corn and all that adds to the happiness of man; you must go further. you must admit that an infinitely wise and merciful god designed the fangs of serpents, the machinery by which the poison is distilled, the ducts by which it is carried to the fang, and that the same intelligence impressed this serpent with a desire to deposit this deadly virus in the flesh of man. you must believe that an infinitely wise god so constructed this world, that in the process of cooling, earthquakes would be caused--earthquakes that devour and overwhelm cities and states. do you see any design in the volcano that sends its rivers of lava over the fields and the homes of men? do you really think that a perfectly good being designed the invisible parasites that infest the air, that inhabit the water, and that finally attack and destroy the health and life of man? do you see the same design in cancers that you do in wheat and corn? did god invent tumors for the brain? was it his ingenuity that so designed the human race that millions of people should be born deaf and dumb, that millions should be idiotic? did he knowingly plant in the blood or brain the seeds of insanity? did he cultivate those seeds? do you see any design in this? man calls that good which increases his happiness, and that evil which gives him pain. in the olden time, back of the good he placed a god; back of the evil a devil; but now the orthodox world is driven to admit that the god is the author of all. for my part, i see no goodness in the pestilence--no mercy in the bolt that leaps from the cloud and leaves the mark of death on the breast of a loving mother. i see no generosity in famine, no goodness in disease, no mercy in want and agony. and yet you say that the being who created parasites that live only by inflicting pain--the being responsible for all the sufferings of mankind--you say that he has "a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold." yet according to the doctrine of the orthodox world, this being of infinite love and tenderness so created nature that its light misleads, and left a vast majority of the human race to blindly grope their way to endless pain. you insist that a knowledge of god--a belief in god--is the foundation of social order; and yet this god of infinite tenderness has left for thousands and thousands of years nearly all of his children without a revelation. why should infinite goodness leave the existence of god in doubt? why should he see millions in savagery destroying the lives of each other, eating the flesh of each other, and keep his existence a secret from man? why did he allow the savages to depend on sunrise and sunset and clouds? why did he leave this great truth to a few half-crazed prophets, or to a cruel, heartless, and ignorant church? the sentence "there is a god".could have been imprinted on every blade of grass, on every leaf, on every star. an infinite god has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness. there is still another point. you know that for thousands of ages men worshiped wild beasts as god. you know that for countless generations they knelt by coiled serpents, believing those serpents to be gods. why did the real god secrete himself and allow his poor, ignorant, savage children to imagine that he was a beast, a serpent? why did this god allow mothers to sacrifice their babes? why did he not emerge from the darkness? why did he not say to the poor mother, "do not sacrifice your babe; keep it in your arms; press it to your bosom; let it be the solace of your declining years. i take no delight in the death of children; i am not what you suppose me to be; i am not a beast; i am not a serpent; i am full of love and kindness and mercy, and i want my children to be happy in this world"? did the god who allowed a mother to sacrifice her babe through the mistaken idea that he, the god, demanded the sacrifice, feel a tenderness toward that mother "compared to which all human love is faint and cold"? would a good father allow some of his children to kill others of his children to please him? there is still another question. why should god, a being of infinite tenderness, leave the question of immortality in doubt? how is it that there is nothing in the old testament on this subject? why is it that he who made all the constellations did not put in his heaven the star of hope? how do you account for the fact that you do not find in the old testament, from the first mistake in genesis, to the last curse in malachi, a funeral service? is it not strange that some one in the old testament did not stand by an open grave of father or mother and say: "we shall meet again"? was it because the divinely inspired men did not know? you taunt me by saying that i know no more of the immortality of the soul than cicero knew. i admit it. i know no more than the lowest savage, no more than a doctor of divinity--that is to say, nothing. is it not, however, a curious fact that there is less belief in the immortality of the soul in christian countries than in heathen lands--that the belief in immortality, in an orthodox church, is faint and cold and speculative, compared with that belief in india, in china, or in the pacific isles? compare the belief in immortality in america, of christians, with that of the followers of mohammed. do not christians weep above their dead? does a belief in immortality keep back their tears? after all, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near--the echoes of words said to have been spoken more than eighteen centuries ago are lost in the sounds of the clods that fall on the coffin, and yet, compared with the orthodox hell, compared with the prison-house of god, how ecstatic is the grave--the grave without a sigh, without a tear, without a dream, without a fear. compared with the immortality promised by the presbyterian creed, how beautiful annihilation seems. to be nothing--how much better than to be a convict forever. to be unconscious dust--how much better than to be a heartless angel. there is not, there never has been, there never will be, any consolation in orthodox christianity. it offers no consolation to any good and loving man. i prefer the consolation of nature, the consolation of hope, the consolation springing from human affection. i prefer the simple desire to live and love forever. of course, it would be a consolation to know that we have an "almighty friend" in heaven; but an "almighty friend" who cares nothing for us, who allows us to be stricken by his lightning, frozen by his winter, starved by his famine, and at last imprisoned in his hell, is a friend i do not care to have. i remember "the poor slave mother who sat alone in her cabin, having been robbed of her children;" and, my dear mr. field, i also remember that the people who robbed her justified the robbery by reading passages from the sacred scriptures. i remember that while the mother wept, the robbers, some of whom were christians, read this: "buy of the heathen round about, and they shall be your bondmen and bondwomen forever." i remember, too, that the robbers read: "servants be obedient unto your masters;" and they said, this passage is the only message from the heart of god to the scarred back of the slave. i remember this, and i remember, also, that the poor slave mother upon her knees in wild and wailing accents called on the "almighty friend," and i remember that her prayer was never heard, and that her sobs died in the negligent air. you ask me whether i would "rob this poor woman of such a friend?" my answer is this: i would give her liberty; i would break her chains. but let me ask you, did an "almighty friend" see the woman he loved "with a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold," and the woman who loved him, robbed of her children? what was the "almighty friend" worth to her? she preferred her babe. how could the "almighty friend" see his poor children pursued by hounds--his children whose only crime was the love of liberty--how could he see that, and take sides with the hounds? do you believe that the "almighty friend" then governed the world? do you really think that he "bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast, fanned by the wings of the holy ghost"? do you believe that the "almighty friend" saw all of the tragedies that were enacted in the jungles of africa--that he watched the wretched slave-ships, saw the miseries of the middle passage, heard the blows of all the whips, saw all the streams of blood, all the agonized faces of women, all the tears that were shed? do you believe that he saw and knew all these things, and that he, the "almighty friend," looked coldly down and stretched no hand to save? you persist, however, in endeavoring to account for the miseries of the world by taking the ground that happiness is not the end of life. you say that "the real end of life is character, and that no discipline can be too severe which leads us to suffer and be strong." upon this subject you use the following language: "if you could have your way you would make everybody happy; there would be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain." and this you say, is a "child's picture, hardly worthy of a stalwart man." let me read you another "child's picture," which you will find in the twenty-first chapter of revelation, supposed to have been written by st. john, the divine: "and i heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold the tabernacle of god is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and god himself shall be with them, and be their god; and god shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.". if you visited some woman living in a tenement, supporting by her poor labor a little family--a poor woman on the edge of famine, sewing, it may be, her eyes blinded by tears--would you tell her that "the world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like children."? would you tell her that to think of a world without poverty, without tears, without pain, is "a child's picture"? if she asked you for a little assistance, would you refuse it on the ground that by being helped she might lose character? would you tell her: "god does not wish to have you happy; happiness is a very foolish end; character is what you want, and god has put you here with these helpless, starving babes, and he has put this burden on your young life simply that you may suffer and be strong. i would help you gladly, but i do not wish to defeat the plans of your almighty friend"? you can reason one way, but you would act the other. i agree with you that work is good, that struggle is essential; that men are made manly by contending with each other and with the forces of nature; but there is a point beyond which struggle does not make character; there is a point at which struggle becomes failure. can you conceive of an "almighty friend" deforming his children because he loves them? did he allow the innocent to languish in dungeons because he was their friend? did he allow the noble to perish upon the scaffold, the great and the self-denying to be burned at the stake, because he had the power to save? was he restrained by love? did this "almighty friend" allow millions of his children to be enslaved to the end that the "splendor of virtue might have a dark background"? you insist that "suffering patiently borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of character, and in the end of the highest enjoyment." do you not then see that your "almighty friend" has been unjust to the happy--that he is cruel to those whom we call the fortunate--that he is indifferent to the men who do not suffer--that he leaves all the happy and prosperous and joyous without character, and that in the end, according to your doctrine, they are the losers? but, after all, there is no need of arguing this question further. there is one fact that destroys forever your theory--and that is the fact that millions upon millions die in infancy. where do they get "elevation of character"? what opportunity is given to them to "suffer and be strong"? let us admit that we do not know. let us say that the mysteries of life, of good and evil, of joy and pain, have never been explained. is character of no importance in heaven? how is it possible for angels, living in "a child's picture," to "suffer and be strong"? do you not see that, according to your philosophy, only the damned can grow great--only the lost can become sublime? you do not seem to understand what i say with regard to what i call the higher philosophy. when that philosophy is accepted, of course there will be good in the world, there will be evil, there will still be right and wrong. what is good? that which tends to the happiness of sentient beings. what is evil? that which tends to the misery, or tends to lessen the happiness of sentient beings. what is right? the best thing to be done under the circumstances--that is to say, the thing that will increase or preserve the happiness of man. what is wrong? that which tends to the misery of man. what you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing whatever to do with this. there is no difference between necessity and liberty. he who is free, acts from choice. what is the foundation of his choice? what we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation--we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. to us the nature of things does not seem to be a master--nature has no will. society has the right to protect itself by imprisoning those who prey upon its interests; but it has no right to punish. it may have the right to destroy the life of one dangerous to the community; but what has freedom to do with this? do you kill the poisonous serpent because he knew better than to bite? do you chain a wild beast because he is morally responsible? do you not think that the criminal deserves the pity of the virtuous? i was looking forward to the time when the individual might feel justified--when the convict who had worn the garment of disgrace might know and feel that he had acted as he must. there is an old hindoo prayer to which i call your attention: "have mercy, god, upon the vicious; thou hast already had mercy upon the just by making them just." is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced? this, of course, would end in the justification of men. is not that a desirable thing? is it not possible that intelligence may at last raise the human race to that sublime and philosophic height? you insist, however, that this is calvinism. i take it for granted that you understand calvinism--but let me tell you what it is. calvinism asserts that man does as he must, and that, notwithstanding this fact, he is responsible for what he does--that is to say, for what he is compelled to do--that is to say, for what god does with him; and that, for doing that which he must, an infinite god, who compelled him to do it, is justified in punishing the man in eternal fire; this, not because the man ought to be damned, but simply for the glory of god. starting from the same declaration, that man does as he must, i reach the conclusion that we shall finally perceive in this fact justification for every individual. and yet you see no difference between my doctrine and calvinism. you insist that damnation and justification are substantially the same; and yet the difference is as great as human language can express. you call the justification of all the world "the gospel of despair," and the damnation of nearly all the human race the "consolation of religion." after all, my dear friend, do you not see that when you come to speak of that which is really good, you are compelled to describe your ideal human being? it is the human in christ, and only the human, that you by any possibility can understand. you speak of one who was born among the poor, who went about doing good, who sympathized with those who suffered. you have described, not only one, but many millions of the human race, millions of others have carried light to those sitting in darkness; millions and millions have taken children in their arms; millions have wept that those they love might smile. no language can express the goodness, the heroism, the patience and self-denial of the many millions, dead and living, who have preserved in the family of man the jewels of the heart. you have clad one being in all the virtues of the race, in all the attributes of gentleness, patience, goodness, and love, and yet that being, according to the new testament, had to his character another side. true, he said, "come unto me and i will give you rest;" but what did he say to those who failed to come? you pour out your whole heart in thankfulness to this one man who suffered for the right, while i thank not only this one, but all the rest. my heart goes out to all the great, the self-denying and the good,--to the founders of nations, singers of songs, builders of homes; to the inventors, to the artists who have filled the world with beauty, to the composers of music, to the soldiers of the right, to the makers of mirth, to honest men, and to all the loving mothers of the race. compare, for one moment, all that the savior did, all the pain and suffering that he relieved,--compare all this with the discovery of anæsthetics. compare your prophets with the inventors, your apostles with the keplers, the humboldts and the darwins. i belong to the great church that holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul. most men are provincial, narrow, one sided, only partially developed. in a new country we often see a little patch of land, a clearing in which the pioneer has built his cabin. this little clearing is just large enough to support a family, and the remainder of the farm is still forest, in which snakes crawl and wild beasts occasionally crouch. it is thus with the brain of the average man. there is a little clearing, a little patch, just large enough to practice medicine with, or sell goods, or practice law; or preach with, or do some kind of business, sufficient to obtain bread and food and shelter for a family, while all the rest of the brain is covered with primeval forest, in which lie coiled the serpents of superstition and from which spring the wild beasts of orthodox religion. neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we do not know. no cause is great enough to demand a sacrifice of candor. the mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, have never yet been solved. i combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity of pain--those only who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men--those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast. let us banish the shriveled hags of superstition; let us welcome the beautiful daughters of truth and joy. robert g. ingersoll. controversy on christianty [ingersoll-gladstone.] colonel ingersoll on christianity; some remarks on his reply to dr. field. by hon. wm. e. gladstone. as a listener from across the broad atlantic to the clash of arms in the combat between colonel ingersoll and dr. field on the most momentous of all subjects, i have not the personal knowledge which assisted these doughty champions in making reciprocal acknowledgments, as broad as could be desired, with reference to personal character and motive. such acknowledgments are of high value in keeping the issue clear, if not always of all adventitious, yet of all venomous matter. destitute of the experience on which to found them as original testimonies, still, in attempting partially to criticise the remarkable reply of colonel ingersoll, i can both accept in good faith what has been said by dr. field, and add that it seems to me consonant with the strain of the pages i have set before me. having said this, i shall allow myself the utmost freedom in remarks, which will be addressed exclusively to the matter, not the man. let me begin by making several acknowledgments of another kind, but which i feel to be serious. the christian church has lived long enough in external triumph and prosperity to expose those of whom it is composed to all such perils of error and misfeasance, as triumph and prosperity bring with them. belief in divine guidance is not of necessity belief that such guidance can never be frustrated by the laxity, the infirmity, the perversity of man, alike in the domain of action and in the domain of thought. believers in the perpetuity of the life of the church are not tied to believing in the perpetual health of the church. even the great latin communion, and that communion even since the council of the vatican in , theoretically admits, or does not exclude, the possibility of a wide range of local and partial error in opinion as well as conduct. elsewhere the admission would be more unequivocal. of such errors in tenet, or in temper and feeling more or less hardened into tenet, there has been a crop alike abundant and multifarious. each christian party is sufficiently apt to recognize this fact with regard to every other christian party; and the more impartial and reflective minds are aware that no party is exempt from mischiefs, which lie at the root of the human constitution in its warped, impaired, and dislocated condition. naturally enough, these deformities help to indispose men towards belief; and when this indisposition has been developed into a system of negative warfare, all the faults of all the christian bodies, and sub-divisions of bodies, are, as it was natural to expect they would be, carefully raked together, and become part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of redemption. i notice these things in the mass, without particularity, which might be invidious, for two important purposes. first, that we all, who hold by the gospel and the christian church, may learn humility and modesty, as well as charity and indulgence, in the treatment of opponents, from our consciousness that we all, alike by our exaggerations and our shortcomings in belief, no less than by faults of conduct, have contributed to bring about this condition of fashionable hostility to religious faith: and, secondly, that we may resolutely decline to be held bound to tenets, or to consequences of tenets, which represent not the great christendom of the past and present, but only some hole and corner of its vast organization; and not the heavenly treasure, but the rust or the canker to which that treasure has been exposed through the incidents of its custody in earthen vessels. i do not remember ever to have read a composition, in which the merely local coloring of particular, and even very limited sections of christianity, was more systematically used as if it had been available and legitimate argument against the whole, than in the reply before us. colonel ingersoll writes with a rare and enviable brilliancy, but also with an impetus which he seems unable to control. denunciation, sarcasm, and invective, may in consequence be said to constitute the staple of his work; and, if argument or some favorable admission here and there peeps out for a moment, the writer soon leaves the dry and barren heights for his favorite and more luxurious galloping grounds beneath. thus, when the reply has consecrated a line (n. a. r., no. , p. ) to the pleasing contemplation of his opponent as "manly, candid, and generous," it immediately devotes more than twelve to a declamatory denunciation of a practice (as if it were his) altogether contrary to generosity and to candor, and reproaches those who expect (_ibid._) "to receive as alms an eternity of joy." i take this as a specimen of the mode of statement which permeates the whole reply. it is not the statement of an untruth. the christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all. _qui salvandos salvas gratis_ is his song of thankful praise. but it is the statement of one-half of a truth, which lives only in its entirety, and of which the reply gives us only a mangled and bleeding _frustum_. for the gospel teaches that the faith which saves is a living and energizing faith, and that the most precious part of the alms which we receive lies in an ethical and spiritual process, which partly qualifies for, but also and emphatically composes, this conferred eternity of joy. restore this ethical element to the doctrine from which the reply has rudely displaced it, and the whole force of the assault is gone, for there is now a total absence of point in the accusation; it conies only to this, that "mercy and judgment are met together," and that "righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (ps. lxxxv. ). perhaps, as we proceed, there will be supplied ampler means of judging whether i am warranted in saying that the instance i have here given is a normal instance of a practice so largely followed as to divest the entire reply of that calmness and sobriety of movement which are essential to the just exercise of the reasoning power in subject matter not only grave, but solemn. pascal has supplied us, in the "provincial letters," with an unique example of easy, brilliant, and fascinating treatment of a theme both profound and complex. but where shall we find another pascal? and, if we had found him, he would be entitled to point out to us that the famous work was not less close and logical than it was witty. in this case, all attempt at continuous argument appears to be deliberately abjured, not only as to pages, but, as may almost be said, even as to lines. the paper, noteworthy as it is, leaves on my mind the impression of a battle-field where every man strikes at every man, and all is noise, hurry, and confusion. better surely had it been, and worthier of the great weight and elevation of the subject, if the controversy had been waged after the pattern of those engagements where a chosen champion on either side, in a space carefully limited and reserved, does battle on behalf of each silent and expectant host. the promiscuous crowds represent all the lower elements which enter into human conflicts: the chosen champions, and the order of their proceeding, signify the dominion of reason over force, and its just place as the sovereign arbiter of the great questions that involve the main destiny of man. i will give another instance of the tumultuous method in which the reply conducts, not, indeed, its argument, but its case. dr. field had exhibited an example of what he thought superstition, and had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion. but to the author of the reply all religion is superstition, and, accordingly, he writes as follows (p. ): "you are shocked at the hindoo mother, when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her god. what do you think of abraham? of jephthah? what is your opinion of jehovah himself?" taking these three appeals in the reverse order to that in which they are written, i will briefly ask, as to the closing challenge, "what do you think of jehovah himself?" whether this is the tone in which controversy ought to be carried on? not only is the name of jehovah encircled in the heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love, but the christian religion teaches, through the incarnation, a doctrine of personal union with god so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential calm. i do not deny that a person who deems a given religion to be wicked may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the character of the author and object of that religion. but he is surely bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well the terms and the manner of his indictment. if he founds it upon allegations of fact, these allegations should be carefully stated, so as to give his antagonists reasonable evidence that it is truth and not temper which wrings from him a sentence of condemnation, delivered in sobriety and sadness, and not without a due commiseration for those, whom he is attempting to undeceive, who think he is himself both deceived and a deceiver, but who surely are entitled, while this question is in process of decision, to require that he whom they adore should at least be treated with those decent reserves which are deemed essential when a human being, say a parent, wife, or sister, is in question. but here a contemptuous reference to jehovah follows, not upon a careful investigation of the cases of abraham and of jephthah, but upon a mere summary citation of them to surrender themselves, so to speak, as culprits; that is to say, a summons to accept at once, on the authority of the reply, the view which the writer is pleased to take of those cases. it is true that he assures us in another part of his paper that he has read the scriptures with care; and i feel bound to accept this assurance, but at the same time to add that if it had not been given i should, for one, not have made the discovery, but might have supposed that the author had galloped, not through, but about, the sacred volume, as a man glances over the pages of an ordinary newspaper or novel. although there is no argument as to abraham or jephthah expressed upon the surface, we must assume that one is intended, and it seems to be of the following kind: "you are not entitled to reprove the hindoo mother who cast her child under the wheels of the car of juggernaut, for you approve of the conduct of jephthah, who (probably) sacrificed his daughter in fulfilment of a vow (judges xi. ) that he would make a burnt offering of whatsoever, on his safe return, he should meet coming forth from the doors of his dwelling." now the whole force of this rejoinder depends upon our supposed obligation as believers to approve the conduct of jephthah. it is, therefore, a very serious question whether we are or are not so obliged. but this question the reply does not condescend either to argue, or even to state. it jumps to an extreme conclusion without the decency of an intermediate step. are not such methods of proceeding more suited to placards at an election, than to disquisitions on these most solemn subjects? i am aware of no reason why any believer in christianity should not be free to canvass, regret, condemn the act of jephthah. so far as the narration which details it is concerned, there is not a word of sanction given to it more than to the falsehood of abraham in egypt, or of jacob and rebecca in the matter of the hunting (gen. xx. - , and gen. xxiii.); or to the dissembling of st. peter in the case of the judaizing converts (gai. ii. ). i am aware of no color of approval given to it elsewhere. but possibly the author of the reply may have thought he found such an approval in the famous eleventh chapter of the epistle to the hebrews, where the apostle, handling his subject with a discernment and care very different from those of the reply, writes thus (heb. xi. ): "and what shall i say more? for the time would fail me to tell of gideon, and of barak, and of samson, and of jephthah: of david also, and samuel, and of the prophets." jephthah, then, is distinctly held up to us by a canonical writer as an object of praise. but of praise on what account? why should the reply assume that it is on account of the sacrifice of his child? the writer of the reply has given us no reason, and no rag of a reason, in support of such a proposition. but this was the very thing he was bound by every consideration to prove, upon making his indictment against the almighty. in my opinion, he could have one reason only for not giving a reason, and that was that no reason could be found. the matter, however, is so full of interest, as illustrating both the method of the reply and that of the apostolic writer, that i shall enter farther into it, and draw attention to the very remarkable structure of this noble chapter, which is to faith what the thirteenth of cor. i. is to charity. from the first to the thirty-first verse, it commemorates the achievements of faith in ten persons: abel, enoch, noah, abraham, sarah, isaac, jacob, joseph, moses (in greater detail than any one else), and finally rahab, in whom, i observe in passing, it will hardly be pretended that she appears in this list on account of the profession she had pursued. then comes the rapid recital (v. ), without any specification of particulars whatever, of these four names: gideon, barak, samson, jephthah. next follows a kind of recommencement, indicated by the word also; and the glorious acts and sufferings of the prophets are set forth largely with a singular power and warmth, headed by the names of david and samuel, the rest of the sacred band being mentioned only in the mass. now, it is surely very remarkable that, in the whole of this recital, the apostle, whose "feet were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace," seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress on the exploits of warriors. of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, david is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet, or declarer of the divine counsels. it is yet more noteworthy that joshua, who had so fair a fame, but who was only a warrior, is never named in the chapter, and we are simply told that "by faith the walls of jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven times" (hebrews xi. ). but the series of four names, which are given without any specification of their title to appear in the list, are all names of distinguished warriors. they had all done great acts of faith and patriotism against the enemies of israel,--gideon against the midianites, barak against the hosts of syria, samson against the philistines, and jephthah against the children of ammon. their tide to appear in the list at all is in their acts of war, and the mode of their treatment as men of war is in striking accordance with the analogies of the chapter. all of them had committed errors. gideon had again and again demanded a sign, and had made a golden ephod, "which thing became a snare unto gideon and to his house" (judges viii. ). barak had refused to go up against jabin unless deborah would join the venture (judges v. ). samson had been in dalliance with delilah. last came jephthah, who had, as we assume, sacrificed his daughter in fulfilment of a rash vow. no one supposes that any of the others are honored by mention in the chapter on account of his sin or error: why should that supposition be made in the case of jephthah, at the cost of all the rules of orderly interpretation? having now answered the challenge as to jephthah, i proceed to the case of abraham. it would not be fair to shrink from touching it in its tenderest point. that point is nowhere expressly touched by the commendations bestowed upon abraham in scripture. i speak now of the special form, of the words that are employed. he is not commended because, being a father, he made all the preparations antecedent to plunging the knife into his son. he is commended (as i read the text) because, having received a glorious promise, a promise that his wife should be a mother of nations, and that kings should be born of her (gen. xvii. ), and that by his seed the blessings of redemption should be conveyed to man, and the fulfilment of this promise depending solely upon the life of isaac, he was, nevertheless, willing that the chain of these promises should be broken by the extinction of that life, because his faith assured him that the almighty would find the way to give effect to his own designs (heb. xi. - ). the offering of isaac is mentioned as a completed offering, and the intended blood-shedding, of which i shall speak presently, is not here brought into view. the facts, however, which we have before us, and which are treated in scripture with caution, are grave and startling. a father is commanded to sacrifice his son. before consummation, the sacrifice is interrupted. yet the intention of obedience had been formed, and certified by a series of acts. it may have been qualified by a reserve of hope that god would interpose before the final act, but of this we have no distinct statement, and it can only stand as an allowable conjecture. it may be conceded that the narrative does not supply us with a complete statement of particulars. that being so, it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it. thus much, however, i think, may further be said: the command was addressed to abraham under conditions essentially different from those which now determine for us the limits of moral obligation. for the conditions, both socially and otherwise, were indeed very different. the estimate of human life at the time was different. the position of the father in the family was different: its members were regarded as in some sense his property. there is every reason to suppose that, around abraham in "the land of moriah," the practice of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in vigor. but we may look more deeply into the matter. according to the book of genesis, adam and eve were placed under a law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of simple obedience. the tree, of which alone they were forbidden to eat, was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. duty lay for them in following the command of the most high, before and until they, or their descendants, should become capable of appreciating it by an ethical standard. their condition was greatly analogous to that of the infant, who has just reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he is ordered to do this or that, but not the nature of the thing so ordered. to the external standard of right and wrong, and to the obligation it entails per se, the child is introduced by a process gradually unfolded with the development of his nature, and the opening out of what we term a moral sense. if we pass at once from the epoch of paradise to the period of the prophets, we perceive the important progress that has been made in the education of the race. the almighty, in his mediate intercourse with israel, deigns to appeal to an independently conceived criterion, as to an arbiter between his people and himself. "come, now, and let us reason together, saith the lord" (isaiah i. ). "yet ye say the way of the lord is not equal. hear now, o house of israel, is not my way equal, are not your ways unequal?" (ezekiel xvii. ). between these two epochs how wide a space of moral teaching has been traversed! but abraham, so far as we may judge from the pages of scripture, belongs essentially to the adamic period, far more than to the prophetic. the notion of righteousness and sin was not indeed hidden from him: transgression itself had opened that chapter, and it was never to be closed: but as yet they lay wrapped up, so to speak, in divine command and prohibition. and what god commanded, it was for abraham to believe that he himself would adjust to the harmony of his own character. the faith of abraham, with respect to this supreme trial, appears to have been centered in this, that he would trust god to all extremities, and in despite of all appearances. the command received was obviously inconsistent with the promises which had preceded it. it was also inconsistent with the morality acknowledged in later times, and perhaps too definitely reflected in our minds, by an anachronism easy to conceive, on the day of abraham. there can be little doubt, as between these two points of view, that the strain upon his faith was felt mainly, to say the least, in connection with the first mentioned. this faith is not wholly unlike the faith of job; for job believed, in despite of what was to the eye of flesh an unrighteous government of the world. if we may still trust the authorized version, his cry was, "though he slay me, yet will i trust in him" (job xiii. ). this cry was, however, the expression of one who did not expect to be slain; and it may be that abraham, when he said, "my son, god will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering," not only believed explicitly that god would do what was right, but, moreover, believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son. i do not say that this case is like the case of jephthah, where the introduction of difficulty is only gratuitous. i confine myself to these propositions. though the law of moral action is the same everywhere and always, it is variously applicable to the human being, as we know from experience, in the various stages of his development; and its first form is that of simple obedience to a superior whom there is every ground to trust. and further, if the few straggling rays of our knowledge in a case of this kind rather exhibit a darkness lying around us than dispel it, we do not even know all that was in the mind of abraham, and are not in a condition to pronounce upon it, and cannot, without departure from sound reason, abandon that anchorage by which he probably held, that the law of nature was safe in the hands of the author of nature, though the means of the reconciliation between the law and the appearances have not been fully placed within our reach. but the reply is not entitled to so wide an answer as that which i have given. in the parallel with the case of the hindoo widow, it sins against first principles. an established and habitual practice of child-slaughter, in a country of an old and learned civilization, presents to us a case totally different from the issue of a command which was not designed to be obeyed and which belongs to a period when the years of manhood were associated in great part with the character that appertains to childhood. it will already have been seen that the method of this reply is not to argue seriously from point to point, but to set out in masses, without the labor of proof, crowds of imputations, which may overwhelm an opponent like balls from a _mitrailleuse_. as the charges lightly run over in a line or two require pages for exhibition and confutation, an exhaustive answer to the reply within the just limits of an article is on this account out of the question; and the only proper course left open seems to be to make a selection of what appears to be the favorite, or the most formidable and telling assertions, and to deal with these in the serious way which the grave interests of the theme, not the manner of their presentation, may deserve. it was an observation of aristotle that weight attaches to the undemonstrated propositions of those who are able to speak on any given subject matter from experience. the reply abounds in undemonstrated propositions. they appear, however, to be delivered without any sense of a necessity that either experience or reasoning are required in order to give them a title to acceptance. thus, for example, the system of mr. darwin is hurled against christianity as a dart which cannot but be fatal (p. ): "his discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred scriptures of mankind." this wide-sweeping proposition is imposed upon us with no exposition of the how or the why; and the whole controversy of belief one might suppose is to be determined, as if from st. petersburgh, by a series of _ukases_. it is only advanced, indeed, to decorate the introduction of darwin's name in support of the proposition, which i certainly should support and not contest, that error and honesty are compatible. on what ground, then, and for what reason, is the system of darwin fatal to scriptures and to creeds? i do not enter into the question whether it has passed from the stage of working hypothesis into that of demonstration, but i assume, for the purposes of the argument, all that, in this respect, the reply can desire. it is not possible to discover, from the random language of the reply, whether the scheme of darwin is to sweep away all theism, or is to be content with extinguishing revealed religion. if the latter is meant, i should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now; and that the succinct though grand account of the creation in genesis is singularly accordant with the same idea, but is wider than darwinism, since it includes in the grand progression the inanimate world as well as the history of organisms. but, as this could not be shown without much detail, the reply reduces me to the necessity of following its own unsatisfactory example in the bald form of an assertion, that there is no colorable ground for assuming evolution and revelation to be at variance with one another. if, however, the meaning be that theism is swept away by darwinism, i observe that, as before, we have only an unreasoned dogma or dictum to deal with, and, dealing perforce with the unknown, we are in danger of striking at a will of the wisp. still, i venture on remarking that the doctrine of evolution has acquired both praise and dispraise which it does not deserve. it is lauded in the skeptical camp because it is supposed to get rid of the shocking idea of what are termed sudden acts of creation; and it is as unjustly dispraised, on the opposing side, because it is thought to bridge over the gap between man and the inferior animals, and to give emphasis to the relationship between them. but long before the day either of mr. darwin or his grandfather, dr. erasmus darwin, this relationship had been stated, perhaps even more emphatically by one whom, were it not that i have small title to deal in undemonstrated assertion, i should venture to call the most cautious, the most robust, and the most comprehensive of our philosophers. suppose, says bishop butler (analogy, part , chap. ), that it were implied in the natural immortality of brutes, that they must arrive at great attainments, and become (like us) rational and moral agents; even this would be no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and capacities they may be endowed with. and if pride causes us to deem it an indignity that our race should have proceeded by propagation from an ascending scale of inferior organisms, why should it be a more repulsive idea to have sprung immediately from something less than man in brain and body, than to have been fashioned according to the expression in genesis (chap. ii., v. ), "out of the dust of the ground?" there are halls and galleries of introduction in a palace, but none in a cottage; and this arrival of the creative work at its climax through an ever aspiring preparatory series, rather than by transition at a step from the inanimate mould of earth, may tend rather to magnify than to lower the creation of man on its physical side. but if belief has (as commonly) been premature in its alarms, has non-belief been more reflective in its exulting anticipations, and its paeans on the assumed disappearance of what are strangely enough termed sudden acts of creation from the sphere of our study and contemplation? one striking effect of the darwinian theory of descent is, so far as i understand, to reduce the breadth of all intermediate distinctions in the scale of animated life. it does not bring all creatures into a single lineage, but all diversities are to be traced back, at some point in the scale and by stages indefinitely minute, to a common ancestry. all is done by steps, nothing by strides, leaps, or bounds; all from protoplasm up to shakespeare, and, again, all from primal night and chaos up to protoplasm. i do not ask, and am incompetent to judge, whether this is among the things proven, but i take it so for the sake of the argument; and i ask, first, why and whereby does this doctrine eliminate the idea of creation? does the new philosophy teach that if the passage from pure reptile to pure bird is achieved by a spring (so to speak) over a chasm, this implies and requires creation; but that if reptile passes into bird, and rudimental into finished bird, by a thousand slight and but just discernible modifications, each one of these is so small that they are not entitled to a name so lofty, may be set down to any cause or no cause, as we please? i should have supposed it miserably unphilosophical to treat the distinction between creative and non-creative function as a simply quantitative distinction. as respects the subjective effect on the human mind, creation in small, when closely regarded, awakens reason to admiring wonder, not less than creation in great: and as regards that function itself, to me it appears no less than ridiculous to hold that the broadly outlined and large advances of so-called mosaism are creation, but the refined and stealthy onward steps of darwinism are only manufacture, and relegate the question of a cause into obscurity, insignificance, or oblivion. but does not reason really require us to go farther, to turn the tables on the adversary, and to contend that evolution, by how much it binds more closely together the myriad ranks of the living, aye, and of all other orders, by so much the more consolidates, enlarges, and enhances the true argument of design, and the entire theistic position? if orders are not mutually related, it is easier to conceive of them as sent at haphazard into the world. we may, indeed, sufficiently, draw an argument of design from each separate structure, but we have no further title to build upon the position which each of them holds as towards any other. but when the connexion between these objects has been established, and so established that the points of transition are almost as indiscernible as the passage from day to night, then, indeed, each preceding stage is a prophecy of the following, each succeeding one is a memorial of the past, and, throughout the immeasurable series, every single member of it is a witness to all the rest. the reply ought surely to dispose of these, and probably many more arguments in the case, before assuming so absolutely the rights of dictatorship, and laying it down that darwinism, carried to its legitimate conclusion (and i have nowhere endeavored to cut short its career), destroys the creeds and scriptures of mankind. that i maybe the more definite in my challenge, i would, with all respect, ask the author of the reply to set about confuting the succinct and clear argument of his countryman, mr. fiske, who, in the earlier part of the small work entitled _man's destiny_ (macmillan, london, ) has given what seems to me an admissible and also striking interpretation of the leading darwinian idea in its bearings on the theistic argument. to this very partial treatment of a great subject i must at present confine myself; and i proceed to another of the notions, as confident as they seem to be crude, which the reply has drawn into its wide-casting net (p. ): "why should god demand a sacrifice from; man? why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?" this is one of the cases in which happy or showy illustration is, in the reply before me, set to carry with a rush the position which argument would have to approach more laboriously and more slowly. the case of the glow-worm with the sun cannot but move a reader's pity, it seems so very hard. but let us suppose for a moment that the glow-worm was so constituted, and so related to the sun that an interaction between them was a fundamental condition of its health and life; that the glowworm must, by the law of its nature, like the moon, reflect upon the sun, according to its strength and measure, the light which it receives, and that only by a process involving that reflection its own store of vitality could be upheld? it will be said that this is a very large _petitio_ to import into the glowworm's case. yes, but it is the very _petitio_ which is absolutely requisite in order to make it parallel to the case of the christian. the argument which the reply has to destroy is and must be the christian argument, and not some figure of straw, fabricated at will. it is needless, perhaps, but it is refreshing, to quote the noble psalm (ps. . , , , ), in which this assumption of the reply is rebuked. "all the beasts of the forest are mine; and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills.... if i be hungry i will not tell thee; for the whole world is mine, and all that is therein.... offer unto god thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most highest, and call upon me in the time of trouble; so will i hear thee, and thou shalt praise me." let me try my hand at a counter-illustration. if the infinite is to make no demand upon the finite, by parity of reasoning the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small. why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and sacrifice, from his young child? is there not some flavor of the sun and glow-worm here? but every man does so make them, if he is a man of sense and feeling; and he makes them for the sake and in the interest of the son himself, whose nature, expanding in the warmth of affection and pious care, requires, by an inward law, to return as well as to receive. and so god asks of us, in order that what we give to him may be far more our own than it ever was before the giving, or than it could have been unless first rendered up to him, to become a part of what the gospel calls our treasure in heaven. although the reply is not careful to supply us with whys, it does not hesitate to ask for them (p. ): "why should an infinitely wise and powerful god destroy the good and preserve the vile? why should he treat all alike here, and in another world make an infinite difference? why should your god allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? why should he allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake?" the upholders of belief or of revelation, from claudian down to cardinal newman (see the very remarkable passage of the _apologia pro vitâ suâ_, pp. - ), cannot and do not, seek to deny that the methods of divine government, as they are exhibited by experience, present to us many and varied moral problems, insoluble by our understanding. their existence may not, and should not, be dissembled. but neither should they be exaggerated. now exaggeration by mere suggestion is the fault, the glaring fault, of these queries. one who had no knowledge of mundane affairs beyond the conception they insinuate would assume that, as a rule, evil has the upper hand in the management of the world. is this the grave philosophical conclusion of a careful observer, or is it a crude, hasty, and careless overstatement? it is not difficult to conceive how, in times of sadness and of storm, when the suffering soul can discern no light at any point of the horizon, place is found for such an idea of life. it is, of course, opposed to the apostolic declaration that godliness hath the promise of the life that now is ( tim. iv. ), but i am not to expect such a declaration to be accepted as current coin, even of the meanest value, by the author of the reply. yet i will offer two observations founded on experience in support of it, one taken from a limited, another from a larger and more open sphere. john wesley, in the full prime of his mission, warned the converts whom he was making among english laborers of a spiritual danger that lay far ahead. it was that, becoming godly, they would become careful, and, becoming careful, they would become wealthy. it was a just and sober forecast, and it represented with truth the general rule of life, although it be a rule perplexed with exceptions. but, if this be too narrow a sphere of observation, let us take a wider one, the widest of all. it is comprised in the brief statement that christendom rules the world, and rules it, perhaps it should be added, by the possession of a vast surplus of material as well as moral force. therefore the assertions carried by implication in the queries of the reply, which are general, are because general untrue, although they might have been true within those prudent limitations which the method of this reply appears especially to eschew. taking, then, these challenges as they ought to have been given, i admit that great believers, who have been also great masters of wisdom and knowledge, are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny. the climax of these inequalities is perhaps to be found in the fact that, whereas rational belief, viewed at large, founds the providential government of the world upon the hypothesis of free agency, there are so many cases in which the overbearing mastery of circumstance appears to reduce it to extinction or paralysis. now, in one sense, without doubt, these difficulties are matter for our legitimate and necessary cognizance. it is a duty incumbent upon us respectively, according to our means and opportunities, to decide for ourselves, by the use of the faculty of reason given us, the great questions of natural and revealed religion. they are to be decided according to the evidence; and, if we cannot trim the evidence into a consistent whole, then according to the balance of the evidence. we are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation, except such as common-sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life. as in ordinary conduct, so in considering the basis of belief, we are bound to look at the evidence as a whole. we have no right to demand demonstrative proofs, or the removal of all conflicting elements, either in the one sphere or in the other. what guides us sufficiently in matters of common practice has the very same authority to guide us in matters of speculation; more properly, perhaps, to be called the practice of the soul. if the evidence in the aggregate shows the being of a moral governor of the world, with the same force as would suffice to establish an obligation to act in a matter of common conduct, we are bound in duty to accept it, and have no right to demand as a condition previous that all occasions of doubt or question be removed out of the way. our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, with a finite place in a comprehensive scheme, devised and administered by a being who is infinite, would be able either to embrace within his view, or rightly to appreciate, all the motives and the aims that may have been in the mind of the divine disposer? on the contrary, a demand so unreasonable deserves to be met with the scornful challenge of dante (paradise xix. ): or tu chi sei, che vuoi sedere a scranna per giudicar da lungi mille miglia colla veduta corta d'una spanna? undoubtedly a great deal here depends upon the question whether, and in what degree, our knowledge is limited. and here the reply seems to be by no means in accord with newton and with butler. by its contempt for authority, the reply seems to cut off from us all knowledge that is not at first hand; but then also it seems to assume an original and first hand knowledge of all possible kinds of things. i will take an instance, all the easier to deal with because it is outside the immediate sphere of controversy. in one of those pieces of fine writing with which the reply abounds, it is determined _obiter_ by a backhanded stroke (n. a. r., p. ) that shakespeare is "by far the greatest of the human race." i do not feel entitled to assert that he is not; but how vast and complex a question is here determined for us in this airy manner! has the writer of the reply really weighed the force, and measured the sweep of his own words? whether shakespeare has or has not the primacy of genius over a very few other names which might be placed in competition with his, is a question which has not yet been determined by the general or deliberate judgment of lettered mankind. but behind it lies another question, inexpressibly difficult, except for the reply, to solve. that question is, what is the relation of human genius to human greatness. is genius the sole constitutive element of greatness, or with what other elements, and in what relations to them, is it combined? is every man great in proportion to his genius? was goldsmith, or was sheridan, or was burns, or was byron, or was goethe, or was napoleon, or was alcibiades, no smaller, and was johnson, or was howard, or was washington, or was phocion, or leonidas, no greater, than in proportion to his genius properly so-called? how are we to find a common measure, again, for different kinds of greatness; how weigh, for example, dante against julius caesar? and i am speaking of greatness properly so called, not of goodness properly so called. we might seem to be dealing with a writer whose contempt for authority in general is fully balanced, perhaps outweighed, by his respect for one authority in particular. the religions of the world, again, have in many cases given to many men material for life-long study. the study of the christian scriptures, to say nothing of christian life and institutions, has been to many and justly famous men a study "never ending, still beginning"; not, like the world of alexander, too limited for the powerful faculty that ranged over it; but, on the contrary, opening height on height, and with deep answering to deep, and with increase of fruit ever prescribing increase of effort. but the reply has sounded all these depths, has found them very shallow, and is quite able to point out (p. ) the way in which the saviour of the world might have been a much greater teacher than he actually was; had he said anything, for instance, of the family relation, had he spoken against slavery and tyranny, had he issued a sort of _code napoleon_ embracing education, progress, scientific truth, and international law. this observation on the family relation seems to me beyond even the usual measure of extravagance when we bear in mind that, according to the christian scheme, the lord of heaven and earth "was subject" (st. luke ii. ) to a human mother and a reputed human father, and that he taught (according to the widest and, i believe, the best opinion) the absolute indissolubility of marriage. i might cite many other instances in reply. but the broader and the true answer to the objection is, that the gospel was promulgated to teach principles and not a code; that it included the foundation of a society in which those principles were to be conserved, developed, and applied; and that down to this day there is not a moral question of all those which the reply does or does not enumerate, nor is there a question of duty arising in the course of life for any of us, that is not determinable in all its essentials by applying to it as a touchstone the principles declared in the gospel. is not, then, the _hiatus_, which the reply has discovered in the teaching of our lord, an imaginary _hiatus_? nay, are the suggested improvements of that teaching really gross deteriorations? where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codified religion, which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization? why was not room to be left for the career of human thought in finding out, and in working out, the adaptation of christianity to the ever varying movement of the world? and how is it that they who will not admit that a revelation is in place when it has in view the great and necessary work of conflict against sin, are so free in recommending enlargements of that revelation for purposes, as to which no such necessity can be pleaded? i have known a person who, after studying the old classical or olympian religion for the third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehension of it, some inkling of what it meant. woe is him that he was not conversant either with the faculties or with the methods of the reply, which apparently can dispose in half an hour of any problem, dogmatic, historical, or moral: and which accordingly takes occasion to assure us that buddha was "in many respects the greatest religious teacher this world has ever known, the broadest, the most intellectual of them all" (p. ). on this i shall only say that an attempt to bring buddha and buddhism into line together is far beyond my reach, but that every christian, knowing in some degree what christ is, and what he has done for the world, can only be the more thankful if buddha, or confucius, or any other teacher has in any point, and in any measure, come near to the outskirts of his ineffable greatness and glory. it is my fault or my misfortune to remark, in this reply, an inaccuracy of reference, which would of itself suffice to render it remarkable. christ, we are told (pp. , ), denounced the chosen people of god as "a generation of vipers." this phrase is applied by the baptist to the crowd who came to seek baptism from him; but it is only applied by our lord to scribes or pharisees (luke iii. , matthew xxiii. , and xii. ), who are so commonly placed by him in contrast with the people. the error is repeated in the mention of whited sepulchres. take again the version of the story of ananias and sapphira. we are told (p. ) that the apostles conceived the idea "of having all things in common." in the narrative there is no statement, no suggestion of the kind; it is a pure interpolation (acts iv. - ). motives of a reasonable prudence are stated as a mattei of fact to have influenced the offending couple--another pure interpolation. after the catastrophe of ananias "the apostles sent for his wife"--a third interpolation. i refer only to these points as exhibitions of an habitual and dangerous inaccuracy, and without any attempt at present to discuss the case, in which the judgments of god are exhibited on their severer side, and in which i cannot, like the reply, undertake summarily to determine for what causes the almighty should or should not take life, or delegate the power to take it. again, we have (p. ) these words given as a quotation from the bible: "they who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." the second clause thus reads as if applicable to the persons mentioned in the first; that is to say, to those who reject the tidings of the gospel. but instead of its being a continuous passage, the latter section is brought out of another gospel (st. matthew's) and another connection; and it is really written, not of those who do not believe, but those who refuse to perform offices of charity to their neighbor in his need. it would be wrong to call this intentional misrepresentation; but can it be called less than somewhat reckless negligence? it is a more special misfortune to find a writer arguing on the same side with his critic, and yet for the critic not to be able to agree with him. but so it is with reference to the great subject of immortality, as treated in the reply. "the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection; and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mist and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death" (p. ). here we have a very interesting chapter of the history of human opinion disposed of in the usual summary way, by a statement which, as it appears to me, is developed out of the writer's inner consciousness. if the belief in immortality is not connected with any revelation or religion, but is simply the expression of a subjective want, then plainly we may expect the expression of it to be strong and clear in proportion to the various degrees in which faculty is developed among the various races of mankind. but how does the matter stand historically? the egyptians were not a people of high intellectual development, and yet their religious system was strictly associated with, i might rather say founded on, the belief in immortality. the ancient greeks, on the other hand, were a race of astonishing, perhaps unrivalled, intellectual capacity. but not only did they, in prehistoric ages, derive their scheme of a future world from egypt; we find also that, with the lapse of time and the advance of the hellenic civilization, the constructive ideas of the system lost all life and definite outline, and the most powerful mind of the greek philosophy, that of aristotle, had no clear perception whatever of a personal existence in a future state. the favorite doctrine of the reply is the immunity of all error in belief from moral responsibility. in the first page (p. ) this is stated with reserve as the "innocence of honest error." but why such a limitation? the reply warms with its subject; it shows us that no error can be otherwise than honest, inasmuch as nothing which involves honesty, or its reverse, can, from the constitution of our nature, enter into the formation of opinion. here is the full blown exposition (p. ): "the brain thinks without asking our consent. we believe, or we disbelieve, without an effort of the will. belief is a result. it is the effect of evidence upon the mind. the scales turn in spite of him who watches. _there is no opportunity of being honesty or dishonest, in the formation of an opinion_. the conclusion is entirely independent of desire." the reasoning faculty is, therefore, wholly extrinsic to our moral nature, and no influence is or can be received or imparted between them. i know not whether the meaning is that all the faculties of our nature are like so many separate departments in one of the modern shops that supply all human wants; that will, memory, imagination, affection, passion, each has its own separate domain, and that they meet only for a comparison of results, just to tell one another what they have severally been doing. it is difficult to conceive, if this be so, wherein consists the personality, or individuality or organic unity of man. it is not difficult to see that while the reply aims at uplifting human nature, it in reality plunges us (p. ) into the abyss of degradation by the destruction of moral freedom, responsibility, and unity. for we are justly told that "reason is the supreme and final test." action may be merely instinctive and habitual, or it may be consciously founded on formulated thought; but, in the cases where it is instinctive and habitual, it passes over, so soon as it is challenged, into the other category, and finds a basis for itself in some form of opinion. but, says the reply, we have no responsibility for our opinions: we cannot help forming them according to the evidence as it presents itself to us. observe, the doctrine embraces every kind of opinion, and embraces all alike, opinion on subjects where we like or dislike, as well as upon subjects where we merely affirm or deny in some medium absolutely colorless. for, if a distinction be taken between the colorless and the colored medium, between conclusions to which passion or propensity or imagination inclines us, and conclusions to which these have nothing to say, then the whole ground will be cut away from under the feet of the reply, and it will have to build again _ab initio_. let us try this by a test case. a father who has believed his son to have been through life upright, suddenly finds that charges are made from various quarters against his integrity. or a friend, greatly dependent for the work of his life on the co-operation of another friend, is told that that comrade is counterworking and betraying him. i make no assumption now as to the evidence or the result; but i ask which of them could approach the investigation without feeling a desire to be able to acquit? and what shall we say of the desire to condemn? would elizabeth have had no leaning towards finding mary stuart implicated in a conspiracy? did english judges and juries approach with an unbiassed mind the trials for the popish plot? were the opinions formed by the english parliament on the treaty of limerick formed without the intervention of the will? did napoleon judge according to the evidence when he acquitted himself in the matter of the due d' enghien? does the intellect sit in a solitary chamber, like galileo in the palace of the vatican, and pursue celestial observation all untouched, while the turmoil of earthly business is raging everywhere around? according to the reply, it must be a mistake to suppose that there is anywhere in the world such a thing as bias, or prejudice, or prepossession: they are words without meaning in regard to our judgments, for even if they could raise a clamor from without, the intellect sits within, in an atmosphere of serenity, and, like justice, is deaf and blind, as well as calm. in addition to all other faults, i hold that this philosophy, or phantasm of philosophy, is eminently retrogressive. human nature, in its compound of flesh and spirit, becomes more complex with the progress of civilization; with the steady multiplication of wants, and of means for their supply. with complication, introspection has largely extended, and i believe that, as observation extends its field, so far from isolating the intelligence and making it autocratic, it tends more and more to enhance and multiply the infinitely subtle, as well as the broader and more palpable modes, in which the interaction of the human faculties is carried on. who among us has not had occasion to observe, in the course of his experience, how largely the intellectual power of a man is affected by the demands of life on his moral powers, and how they open and grow, or dry up and dwindle, according to the manner in which those demands are met. genius itself, however purely a conception of the intellect, is not exempt from the strong influences of joy and suffering, love and hatred, hope and fear, in the development of its powers. it may be that homer, shakespeare, goethe, basking upon the whole in the sunshine of life, drew little supplementary force from its trials and agitations. but the history of one not less wonderful than any of these, the career of dante, tells a different tale; and one of the latest and most searching investigators of his history (scartazzini, dante alighieri, _seine zeit, sein leben, und seine werkes_, b. ii. ch. , p. ; also pp. , . biel, ) tells and shows us, how the experience of his life co-operated with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he was. under the three great heads of love, belief, and patriotism, his life was a continued course of ecstatic or agonizing trials. the strain of these trials was discipline; discipline was experience; and experience was elevation. no reader of his greatest work will, i believe, hold with the reply that his thoughts, conclusions, judgments, were simple results of an automatic process, in which the will and affections had no share, that reasoning operations are like the whir of a clock running down, and we can no more arrest the process or alter the conclusion than the wheels can stop the movement or the noise.* * i possess the confession of an illiterate criminal, made, i think, in , under the following circumstances: the new poor law had just been passed in england, and it required persons needing relief to go into the workhouse as a condition of receiving it. in some parts of the country, this provision produced a profound popular panic. the man in question was destitute at the time. he was (i think) an old widower with four very young sons. he rose in the night and strangled them all, one after another, with a blue handkerchief, not from want of fatherly affection, but to keep them out of the workhouse. the confession of this peasant, simple in phrase, but intensely impassioned, strongly reminds me of the ugolino of dante, and appears to make some approach to its sublimity. such, in given circumstances, is the effect of moral agony on mental power. the doctrine taught in the reply, that belief is, as a general, nay, universal law, independent of the will, surely proves, when examined, to be a plausibility of the shallowest kind. even in arithmetic, if a boy, through dislike of his employment, and consequent lack of attention, brings out a wrong result for his sum, it can hardly be said that his conclusion is absolutely and in all respects independent of his will. moving onward, point by point, toward the centre of the argument, i will next take an illustration from mathematics. it has (i apprehend) been demonstrated that the relation of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is not susceptible of full numerical expression. yet, from time to time, treatises are published which boldly announce that they set forth the quadrature of the circle. i do not deny that this may be purely intellectual error; but would it not, on the other hand, be hazardous to assert that no grain of egotism or ambition has ever entered into the composition of any one of such treatises? i have selected these instances as, perhaps, the most favorable that can be found to the doctrine of the reply. but the truth is that, if we set aside matters of trivial import, the enormous majority of human judgments are those into which the biassing power off likes and dislikes more or less largely enters. i admit, indeed, that the illative faculty works under rules upon which choice and inclination ought to exercise no influence whatever. but even if it were granted that in fact the faculty of discourse is exempted from all such influence within its own province, yet we come no nearer to the mark, because that faculty has to work upon materials supplied to it by other faculties; it draws conclusions according to premises, and the question has to be determined whether our conceptions set forth in those premises are or are not influenced by moral causes. for, if they be so influenced, then in vain will be the proof that the understanding has dealt loyally and exactly with the materials it had to work upon; inasmuch as, although the intellectual process be normal in itself, the operation may have been tainted _ab initio_ by coloring and distorting influences which have falsified the primary conceptions. let me now take an illustration from the extreme opposite quarter to that which i first drew upon. the system called thuggism, represented in the practice of the thugs, taught that the act, which we describe as murder, was innocent. was this an honest error? was it due, in its authors as well as in those who blindly followed them, to an automatic process of thought, in which the will was not consulted, and which accordingly could entail no responsibility? if it was, then it is plain that the whole foundations, not of belief, but of social morality, are broken up. if it was not, then the sweeping doctrine of the present writer on the necessary blamelessness of erroneous conclusions tumbles to the ground like a house of cards at the breath of the child who built it. in truth, the pages of the reply, and the letter which has more recently followed it,* themselves demonstrate that what the writer has asserted wholesale he overthrows and denies in detail. * north american review for january, , "another letter to dr. field." "you will admit," says the reply (p. ), "that he who now persecutes for opinion's sake is infamous." but why? suppose he thinks that by persecution he can bring a man from soul-destroying falsehood to soul-saving truth, this opinion may reflect on his intellectual debility: but that is his misfortune, not his fault. his brain has thought without asking his consent; he has believed or disbelieved without an effort of the will (p. ). yet the very writer, who has thus established his title to think, is the first to hurl at him an anathema for thinking. and again, in the letter to dr. field (n. a. r., vol. , p. ), "the dogma of eternal pain" is described as "that infamy of infamies." i am not about to discuss the subject of future retribution. if i were, it would be my first duty to show that this writer has not adequately considered either the scope of his own arguments (which in no way solve the difficulties he presents) or the meaning of his words; and my second would be to recommend his perusal of what bishop butler has suggested on this head. but i am at present on ground altogether different. i am trying another issue. this author says we believe or disbelieve without the action of the will, and, consequently, belief or disbelief is not the proper subject of praise or blame. and yet, according to the very same authority, the dogma of eternal pain is what?--not "an error of errors," but an "infamy of infamies;" and though to hold a negative may not be a subject of moral reproach, yet to hold the affirmative may. truly it may be asked, is not this a fountain which sends forth at once sweet waters and bitter? once more. i will pass away from tender ground, and will endeavor to lodge a broader appeal to the enlightened judgment of the author. says odysseus in the illiad (b. ii.) [--greek--]: and a large part of the world, stretching this sentiment beyond its original meaning, have held that the root of civil power is not in the community, but in its head. in opposition to this doctrine, the american written constitution, and the entire american tradition, teach the right of a nation to self-government. and these propositions, which have divided and still divide the world, open out respectively into vast systems of irreconcilable ideas and laws, practices and habits of mind. will any rational man, above all will any american, contend that these conflicting systems have been adopted, upheld, and enforced on one side and the other, in the daylight of pure reasoning only, and that moral, or immoral, causes have had nothing to do with their adoption? that the intellect has worked impartially, like a steam-engine, and that selfishness, love of fame, love of money, love of power, envy, wrath, and malice, or again bias, in its least noxious form, have never had anything to do with generating the opposing movements, or the frightful collisions in which they have resulted? if we say that they have not, we contradict the universal judgment of mankind. if we say they have, then mental processes are not automatic, but may be influenced by the will and by the passions, affections, habits, fancies that sway the will; and this writer will not have advanced a step toward proving the universal innocence of error, until he has shown that propositions of religion are essentially unlike almost all other propositions, and that no man ever has been, or from the nature of the case can be, affected in their acceptance or rejection by moral causes.* * the chief part of these observations were written before i had received the january number of the review, with col. ingersoll's additional letter to dr. field. much, of this letter is specially pointed at dr. field, who can defend himself, and at calvin, whose ideas i certainly cannot undertake to defend all along the line. i do not see that the letter adds to those, the most salient, points of the earlier article which i have endeavored to select for animadversion. to sum up. there are many passages in these noteworthy papers, which, taken by themselves, are calculated to command warm sympathy. towards the close of his final, or latest letter, the writer expresses himself as follows (n. a. r., vol. , p. .): "neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we do not know. no cause is great enough to demand a sacrifice of candor. the mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, have never yet been solved." how good, how wise are these words! but coming at the close of the controversy, have they not some of the ineffectual features of a death-bed repentance? they can hardly be said to represent in all points the rules under which the pages preceding them have been composed; or he, who so justly says that we ought not to assert what we do not know, could hardly have laid down the law as we find it a few pages earlier (ibid, p. ) when it is pronounced that "an infinite god has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness." candor and upright intention are indeed every where manifest amidst the flashing corruscations which really compose the staple of the articles. candor and upright intention also impose upon a commentator the duty of formulating his animadversions. i sum them up under two heads. whereas we are placed in an atmosphere of mystery, relieved only by a little sphere of light round each of us, like a clearing in an american forest (which this writer has so well described), and rarely can see farther than is necessary for the direction of our own conduct from day to day, we find here, assumed by a particular person, the character of an universal judge without appeal. and whereas the highest self-restraint is necessary in these dark but, therefore, all the more exciting inquiries, in order to maintain the ever quivering balance of our faculties, this rider chooses to ride an unbroken horse, and to throw the reins upon his neck. i have endeavored to give a sample of the results. w. e. gladstone. col. ingersoll to mr. gladstone. to the right honorable w. e. gladstone, m. p.: my dear sir: at the threshold of this reply, it gives me pleasure to say that for your intellect and character i have the greatest respect; and let me say further, that i shall consider your arguments, assertions, and inferences entirely apart from your personality--apart from the exalted position that you occupy in the estimation of the civilized world. i gladly acknowledge the inestimable services that you have rendered, not only to england, but to mankind. most men are chilled and narrowed by the snows of age; their thoughts are darkened by the approach of night. but you, for many years, have hastened toward the light, and your mind has been "an autumn that grew the more by reaping." under no circumstances could i feel justified in taking advantage of the admissions that you have made as to the "errors" the "misfeasance" the "infirmities and the perversity" of the christian church. it is perfectly apparent that churches, being only aggregations of people, contain the prejudice, the ignorance, the vices and the virtues of ordinary human beings. the perfect cannot be made out of the imperfect. a man is not necessarily a great mathematician because he admits the correctness of the multiplication table. the best creed may be believed by the worst of the human race. neither the crimes nor the virtues of the church tend to prove or disprove the supernatural origin of religion. the massacre of st. bartholomew tends no more to establish the inspiration of the scriptures, than the bombardment of alexandria. but there is one thing that cannot be admitted, and that is your statement that the constitution of man is in a "warped, impaired, and dislocated condition," and that "these deformities indispose men to belief." let us examine this. we say that a thing is "warped" that was once nearer level, flat, or straight; that it is "impaired" when it was once nearer perfect, and that it is "dislocated" when once it was united. consequently, you have said that at some time the human constitution was unwarped, unimpaired, and with each part working in harmony with all. you seem to believe in the degeneracy of man, and that our unfortunate race, starting at perfection, has traveled downward through all the wasted years. it is hardly possible that our ancestors were perfect. if history proves anything, it establishes the fact that civilization was not first, and savagery afterwards. certainly the tendency of man is not now toward barbarism. there must have been a time when language was unknown, when lips had never formed a word. that which man knows, man must have learned. the victories of our race have been slowly and painfully won. it is a long distance from the gibberish of the savage to the sonnets of shakespeare--a long and weary road from the pipe of pan to the great orchestra voiced with every tone from the glad warble of a mated bird to the hoarse thunder of the sea. the road is long that lies between the discordant cries uttered by the barbarian over the gashed body of his foe and the marvelous music of wagner and beethoven. it is hardly possible to conceive of the years that lie between the caves in which crouched our naked ancestors crunching the bones of wild beasts, and the home of a civilized man with its comforts, its articles of luxury and use,--with its works of art, with its enriched and illuminated walls. think of the billowed years that must have rolled between these shores. think of the vast distance that man has slowly groped from the dark dens and lairs of ignorance and fear to the intellectual conquests of our day. is it true that these deformities, these warped, impaired, and dislocated constitutions indispose men to belief? can we in this way account for the doubts entertained by the intellectual leaders of mankind? it will not do, in this age and time, to account for unbelief in this deformed and dislocated way. the exact opposite must be true. ignorance and credulity sustain the relation of cause and effect. ignorance is satisfied with assertion, with appearance. as man rises in the scale of intelligence he demands evidence. he begins to look back of appearance. he asks the priest for reasons. the most ignorant part of christendom is the most orthodox. you have simply repeated a favorite assertion of the clergy, to the effect that man rejects the gospel because he is naturally depraved and hard of heart--because, owing to the sin of adam and eve, he has fallen from the perfection and purity of paradise to that "impaired" condition in which he is satisfied with the filthy rags of reason, observation and experience. the truth is, that what you call unbelief is only a higher and holier faith. millions of men reject christianity because of its cruelty. the bible was never rejected by the cruel. it has been upheld by countless tyrants--by the dealers in human flesh--by the destroyers of nations--by the enemies of intelligence--by the stealers of babes and the whippers of women. it is also true that it has been held as sacred by the good, the self-denying, the virtuous and the loving, who clung to the sacred volume on account of the good it contains and in spite of all its cruelties and crimes. you are mistaken when you say that all "the faults of all the christian bodies and subdivisions of bodies have been carefully raked together," in my reply to dr. field, "and made part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of salvation." no thoughtful man pretends that any fault of any christian body can be used as an argument against what you call the "divine scheme of redemption." i find in your remarks the frequent charge that i am guilty of making assertions and leaving them to stand without the assistance of argument or fact, and it may be proper, at this particular point, to inquire how you know that there is "a divine scheme of redemption." my objections to this "divine scheme of redemption" are: _first_, that there is not the slightest evidence that it is divine; _second_, that it is not in any sense a "scheme," human or divine; and _third_, that it cannot, by any possibility, result in the redemption of a human being. it cannot be divine, because it has no foundation in the nature of things, and is not in accordance with reason. it is based on the idea that right and wrong are the expression of an arbitrary will, and not words applied to and descriptive of acts in the light of consequences. it rests upon the absurdity called "pardon," upon the assumption that when a crime has been committed justice will be satisfied with the punishment of the innocent. one person may suffer, or reap a benefit, in consequence of the act of another, but no man can be justly punished for the crime, or justly rewarded for the virtues, of another. a "scheme" that punishes an innocent man for the vices of another can hardly be called divine. can a murderer find justification in the agonies of his victim? there is no vicarious vice; there is no vicarious virtue. for me it is hard to understand how a just and loving being can charge one of his children with the vices, or credit him with the virtues, of another. and why should we call anything a "divine scheme" that has been a failure from the "fall of man" until the present moment? what race, what nation, has been redeemed through the instrumentality of this "divine scheme"? have not the subjects of redemption been for the most part the enemies of civilization? has not almost every valuable book since the invention of printing been denounced by the believers in the "divine scheme"? intelligence, the development of the mind, the discoveries of science, the inventions of genius, the cultivation of the imagination through art and music, and the practice of virtue will redeem the human race. these are the saviors of mankind. you admit that the "christian churches have by their exaggerations and shortcomings, and by their faults of conduct, contributed to bring about a condition of hostility to religious faith." if one wishes to know the worst that man has done, all that power guided by cruelty can do, all the excuses that can be framed for the commission of every crime, the infinite difference that can exist between that which is professed and that which is practiced, the marvelous malignity of meekness, the arrogance of humility and the savagery of what is known as "universal love," let him read the history of the christian church. yet, i not only admit that millions of christians have been honest in the expression of their opinions, but that they have been among the best and noblest of our race. and it is further admitted that a creed should be examined apart from the conduct of those who have assented to its truth. the church should be judged as a whole, and its faults should be accounted for either by the weakness of human nature, or by reason of some defect or vice in the religion taught,--or by both. is there anything in the christian religion--anything in what you are pleased to call the "sacred scriptures" tending to cause the crimes and atrocities that have been committed by the church? it seems to be natural for man to defend himself and the ones he loves. the father slays the man who would kill his child--he defends the body. the christian father burns the heretic--he defends the soul. if "orthodox christianity" be true, an infidel has not the right to live. every book in which the bible is attacked should be burned with its author. why hesitate to burn a man whose constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated," for a few moments, when hundreds of others will be saved from eternal flames? in christianity you will find the cause of persecution. the idea that belief is essential to salvation--this ignorant and merciless dogma--accounts for the atrocities of the church. this absurd declaration built the dungeons, used the instruments of torture, erected the scaffolds and lighted the fagots of a thousand years. what, i pray you, is the "heavenly treasure" in the keeping of your church? is it a belief in an infinite god? that was believed thousands of years before the serpent tempted eve. is it the belief in the immortality of the soul? that is far older. is it that man should treat his neighbor as himself? that is more ancient. what is the treasure in the keeping of the church? let me tell you. it is this: that there is but one true religion--christianity,--and that all others are false; that the prophets, and christs, and priests of all others have been and are impostors, or the victims of insanity; that the bible is the one inspired book--the one authentic record of the words of god; that all men are naturally depraved and deserve to be punished with unspeakable torments forever; that there is only one path that leads to heaven, while countless highways lead to hell; that there is only one name under heaven by which a human being can be saved; that we must believe in the lord jesus christ; that this life, with its few and fleeting years, fixes the fate of man; that the few will be saved and the many forever lost. this is "the heavenly treasure" within the keeping of your church. and this "treasure" has been guarded by the cherubim of persecution, whose flaming swords were wet for many centuries with the best and bravest blood. it has been guarded by cunning, by hypocrisy, by mendacity, by honesty, by calumniating the generous, by maligning the good, by thumbscrews and racks, by charity and love, by robbery and assassination, by poison and fire, by the virtues of the ignorant and the vices of the learned, by the violence of mobs and the whirlwinds of war, by every hope and every fear, by every cruelty and every crime, and by all there is of the wild beast in the heart of man. with great propriety it may be asked: in the keeping of which church is this "heavenly treasure"? did the catholics have it, and was it taken by luther? did henry the viii. seize it, and is it now in the keeping of the church of england? which of the warring sects in america has this treasure; or have we, in this country, only the "rust and cankers"? is it in an episcopal church, that refuses to associate with a colored man for whom christ died, and who is good enough for the society of the angelic host? but wherever this "heavenly treasure" has been, about it have always hovered the stymphalian birds of superstition, thrusting their brazen beaks and claws deep into the flesh of honest men. you were pleased to point out as the particular line justifying your assertion "that denunciation, sarcasm, and invective constitute the staple of my work," that line in which i speak of those who expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy, and add: "i take this as a specimen of the mode of statement which permeates the whole." dr. field commenced his open letter by saying: "i am glad that i know you, _even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster, because of your unbelief_." in reply i simply said: "the statement in your letter that some of your brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief tends to show that those who love god are not always the friends of their fellow-men. is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally damned--that they are by nature depraved--that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look upon others as monsters? and yet some of your brethren, who regard unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy." is there any denunciation, sarcasm or invective in this? why should one who admits that he himself is totally depraved call any other man, by way of reproach, a monster? possibly, he might be justified in addressing him as a fellow-monster. i am not satisfied with your statement that "the christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all." is it true that man deserves only punishment? does the man who makes the world better, who works and battles for the right, and dies for the good of his fellow-men, deserve nothing but pain and anguish? is happiness a gift or a consequence? is heaven only a well-conducted poorhouse? are the angels in their highest estate nothing but happy paupers? must all the redeemed feel that they are in heaven simply because there was a miscarriage of justice? will the lost be the only ones who will know that the right thing has been done, and will they alone appreciate the "ethical elements of religion"? will they repeat the words that you have quoted: "mercy and judgment are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other"? or will those words be spoken by the redeemed as they joyously contemplate the writhings of the lost? no one will dispute "that in the discussion of important questions calmness and sobriety are essential." but solemnity need not be carried to the verge of mental paralysis. in the search for truth,--that everything in nature seems to hide,--man needs the assistance of all his faculties. all the senses should be awake. humor should carry a torch, wit should give its sudden light, candor should hold the scales, reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every fact, and memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold. the church has always despised the man of humor, hated laughter, and encouraged the lethargy of solemnity. it is not willing that the mind should subject its creed to every test of truth. it wishes to overawe. it does not say, "he that hath a mind to think, let him think;" but, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear." the church has always abhorred wit,--that is to say, it does not enjoy being struck by the lightning of the soul. the foundation of wit is logic, and it has always been the enemy of the supernatural, the solemn and absurd. you express great regret that no one at the present day is able to write like pascal. you admire his wit and tenderness, and the unique, brilliant, and fascinating manner in which he treated the profoundest and most complex themes. sharing in your admiration and regret, i call your attention to what might be called one of his religious generalizations: "disease is the natural state of a christian." certainly it cannot be said that i have ever mingled the profound and complex in a more fascinating manner. another instance is given of the "tumultuous method in which i conduct, not, indeed, my argument, but my case." dr. field had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion, to which i replied: "you are shocked at the hindoo mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her god. what do you think of abraham, of jephthah? what is your opinion of jehovah himself?" these simple questions seem to have excited you to an unusual degree, and you ask in words of some severity: "whether this is the tone in which controversies ought be carried on?" and you say that--"not only is the name of jehovah encircled in the heart of every believer with the pro-foundest reverence and love, but that the christian religion teaches, through the incarnation, a personal relation with god so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential calm." you admit that "a person who deems a given religion to be wicked, may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the character of the author and object of that religion," but you insist that such person is "bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well the terms and meaning of his indictment." was there any lack of "reverential calm" in my question? i gave no opinion, drew no indictment, but simply asked for the opinion of another. was that a violation of the "laws of social morality and decency"? it is not necessary for me to discuss this question with you. it has been settled by jehovah himself. you probably remember the account given in the eighteenth chapter of i. kings, of a contest between the prophets of baal and the prophets of jehovah. there were four hundred and fifty prophets of the false god who endeavored to induce their deity to consume with fire from heaven the sacrifice upon his altar. according to the account, they were greatly in earnest. they certainly appeared to have some hope of success, but the fire did not descend. "and it came to pass at noon, that elijah mocked them and said 'cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure, he sleepeth and must be awaked.'" do you consider that the proper way to attack the god of another? did not elijah know that the name of baal "was encircled in the heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love"? did he "violate the laws of social morality and decency"? but jehovah and elijah did not stop at this point. they were not satisfied with mocking the prophets of baal, but they brought them down to the brook kishon--four hundred and fifty of them--and there they murdered every one. does it appear to you that on that occasion, on the banks of the brook kishon--"mercy and judgment met together, and that righteousness and peace kissed each other"? the question arises: has every one who reads the old testament the right to express his thought as to the character of jehovah? you will admit that as he reads his mind will receive some impression, and that when he finishes the "inspired volume" he will have some opinion as to the character of jehovah. has he the right to express that opinion? is the bible a revelation from god to man? is it a revelation to the man who reads it, or to the man who does not read it? if to the man who reads it, has he the right to give to others the revelation that god has given to him? if he comes to the conclusion at which you have arrived,--that jehovah is god,--has he the right to express that opinion? if he concludes, as i have done, that jehovah is a myth, must he refrain from giving his honest thought? christians do not hesitate to give their opinion of heretics, philosophers, and infidels. they are not restrained by the "laws of social morality and decency." they have persecuted to the extent of their power, and their jehovah pronounced upon unbelievers every curse capable of being expressed in the hebrew dialect. at this moment, thousands of missionaries are attacking the gods of the heathen world, and heaping contempt on the religion of others. but as you have seen proper to defend jehovah, let us for a moment examine this deity of the ancient jews. there are several tests of character. it may be that all the virtues can be expressed in the word "kindness," and that nearly all the vices are gathered together in the word "cruelty." laughter is a test of character. when we know what a man laughs at, we know what he really is. does he laugh at misfortune, at poverty, at honesty in rags, at industry without food, at the agonies of his fellow-men? does he laugh when he sees the convict clothed in the garments of shame--at the criminal on the scaffold? does he rub his hands with glee over the embers of an enemy's home? think of a man capable ol laughing while looking at marguerite in the prison cell with her dead babe by her side. what must be the real character of a god who laughs at the calamities of his children, mocks at their fears, their desolation, their distress and anguish? would an infinitely loving god hold his ignorant children in derision? would he pity, or mock? save, or destroy? educate, or exterminate? would he lead them with gentle hands toward the light, or lie in wait for them like a wild beast? think of the echoes of jehovah's laughter in the rayless caverns of the eternal prison. can a good man mock at the children of deformity? will he deride the misshapen? your jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held them up to scorn and hatred. these divine mistakes--these blunders of the infinite--were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who had dishonored them. does a kind father mock his deformed child? what would you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe? there is another test. how does a man use power? is he gentle or cruel? does he defend the weak, succor the oppressed, or trample on the fallen? if you will read again the twenty-eighth chapter of deuteronomy, you will find how jehovah, the compassionate, whose name is enshrined in so many hearts, threatened to use his power. "the lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting and mildew. and thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. the lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust.".... "and thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the earth.".... "the lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness. and thou shalt eat of the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters. the tender and delicate woman among you,... her eye shall be evil... toward her young one and toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall eat them." should it be found that these curses were in fact uttered by the god of hell, and that the translators had made a mistake in attributing them to jehovah, could you say that the sentiments expressed are inconsistent with the supposed character of the infinite fiend? a nation is judged by its laws--by the punishment it inflicts. the nation that punishes ordinary offences with death is regarded as barbarous, and the nation that tortures before it kills is denounced as savage. what can you say of the government of jehovah, in which death was the penalty for hundreds of offences?--death for the expression of an honest thought--death for touching with a good intention a sacred ark--death for making hair oil--for eating shew bread--for imitating incense and perfumery? in the history of the world a more cruel code cannot be found. crimes seem to have been invented to gratify a fiendish desire to shed the blood of men. there is another test: how does a man treat the animals in his power--his faithful horse--his patient ox--his loving dog? how did jehovah treat the animals in egypt? would a loving god, with fierce hail from heaven, bruise and kill the innocent cattle for the crimes of their owners? would he torment, torture and destroy them for the sins of men? jehovah was a god of blood. his altar was adorned with the horns of a beast. he established a religion in which every temple was a slaughter-house, and every priest a butcher--a religion that demanded the death of the first-born, and delighted in the destruction of life. there is still another test: the civilized man gives to others the rights that he claims for himself. he believes in the liberty of thought and expression, and abhors persecution for conscience sake. did jehovah believe in the innocence of thought and the liberty of expression? kindness is found with true greatness. tyranny lodges only in the breast of the small, the narrow, the shriveled and the selfish. did jehovah teach and practice generosity? was he a believer in religious liberty? if he was and is, in fact, god, he must have known, even four thousand years ago, that worship must be free, and that he who is forced upon his knees cannot, by any possibility, have the spirit of prayer. let me call your attention to a few passages in the thirteenth chapter of deuteronomy: "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods,... thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die." is it possible for you to find in the literature of this world more awful passages than these? did ever savagery, with strange and uncouth marks, with awkward forms of beast and bird, pollute the dripping walls of caves with such commands? are these the words of infinite mercy? when they were uttered, did "righteousness and peace kiss each other"? how can any loving man or woman "encircle the name of jehovah"--author of these words--"with profoundest reverence and love"? do i rebel because my "constitution is warped, impaired and dislocated"? is it because of "total depravity" that i denounce the brutality of jehovah? if my heart were only good--if i loved my neighbor as myself--would i then see infinite mercy in these hideous words? do i lack "reverential calm"? these frightful passages, like coiled adders, were in the hearts of jehovah's chosen people when they crucified "the sinless man." jehovah did not tell the husband to reason with his wife. she was to be answered only with death. she was to be bruised and mangled to a bleeding, shapeless mass of quivering flesh, for having breathed an honest thought. if there is anything of importance in this world, it is the family, the home, the marriage of true souls, the equality of husband and wife--the true republicanism of the heart--the real democracy of the fireside. let us read the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of genesis: "unto the woman he said, i will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." never will i worship any being who added to the sorrows and agonies of maternity. never will i bow to any god who introduced slavery into every home--who made the wife a slave and the husband a tyrant. the old testament shows that jehovah, like his creators, held women in contempt. they were regarded as property: "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,--nor his ox." why should a pure woman worship a god who upheld polygamy? let us finish this subject: the institution of slavery involves all crimes. jehovah was a believer in slavery. this is enough. why should any civilized man worship him? why should his name "be encircled with love and tenderness in any human heart"? he believed that man could become the property of man--that it was right for his chosen people to deal in human flesh--to buy and sell mothers and babes. he taught that the captives were the property of the captors and directed his chosen people to kill, to enslave, or to pollute. in the presence of these commandments, what becomes of the fine saying, "love thy neighbor as thyself"? what shall we say of a god who established slavery, and then had the effrontery to say, "thou shalt not steal"? it may be insisted that jehovah is the father of all--and that he has "made of one blood all the nations of the earth." how then can we account for the wars of extermination? does not the commandment "love thy neighbor as thyself," apply to nations precisely the same as to individuals? nations, like individuals, become great by the practice of virtue. how did jehovah command his people to treat their neighbors? he commanded his generals to destroy all, men, women and babes: "thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth." "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." "that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." "... i will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust...." "the sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs." is it possible that these words fell from the lips of the most merciful? you may reply that the inhabitants of canaan were unfit to live--that they were ignorant and cruel. why did not jehovah, the "father of all," give them the ten commandments? why did he leave them without a bible, without prophets and priests? why did he shower all the blessings of revelation on one poor and wretched tribe, and leave the great world in ignorance and crime--and why did he order his favorite children to murder those whom he had neglected? by the question i asked of dr. field, the intention was to show that jephthah, when he sacrificed his daughter to jehovah, was as much the slave of superstition as is the hindoo mother when she throws her babe into the yellow waves of the ganges. it seems that this savage jephthah was in direct communication with jehovah at mizpeh, and that he made a vow unto the lord and said: "if thou shalt without fail deliver the children of ammon into mine hands, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when i return in peace from the children of ammon, shall surely be the lord's, and i will offer it up as a burnt offering." in the first place, it is perfectly clear that the sacrifice intended was a human sacrifice, from the words: "that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me." some human being--wife, daughter, friend, was expected to come. according to the account, his daughter--his only daughter--his only child--came first. if jephthah was in communication with god, why did god allow this man to make this vow; and why did he allow the daughter that he loved to be first, and why did he keep silent and allow the vow to be kept, while flames devoured the daughter's flesh? st. paul is not authority. he praises samuel, the man who hewed agag in pieces; david, who compelled hundreds to pass under the saws and harrows of death, and many others who shed the blood of the innocent and helpless. paul is an unsafe guide. he who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes. if "believers are not obliged to approve of the conduct of jephthah" are they free to condemn the conduct of jehovah? if you will read the account you will see that the "spirit of the lord was upon jephthah" when he made the cruel vow. if paul did not commend jephthah for keeping this vow, what was the act that excited his admiration? was it because jephthah slew on the banks of the jordan "forty and two thousand" of the sons of ephraim? in regard to abraham, the argument is precisely the same, except that jehovah is said to have interfered, and allowed an animal to be slain instead. one of the answers given by you is that "it may be allowed that the narrative is not within our comprehension"; and for that reason you say that "it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it." why cautiously? these stories of abraham and jephthah have cost many an innocent life. only a few years ago, here in my country, a man by the name of freeman, believing that god demanded at least the show of obedience--believing what he had read in the old testament that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission," and so believing, touched with insanity, sacrificed his little girl--plunged into her innocent breast the dagger, believing it to be god's will, and thinking that if it were not god's will his hand would be stayed. i know of nothing more pathetic than the story of this crime told by this man. nothing can be more monstrous than the conception of a god who demands sacrifice--of a god who would ask of a father that he murder his son--of a father that he would burn his daughter. it is far beyond my comprehension how any man ever could have believed such an infinite, such a cruel absurdity. at the command of the real god--if there be one--i would not sacrifice my child, i would not murder my wife. but as long as there are people in the world whose minds are so that they can believe the stories of abraham and jephthah, just so long there will be men who will take the lives of the ones they love best. you have taken the position that the conditions are different; and you say that: "according to the book of genesis, adam and eve were placed under a law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of simple obedience. the tree of which alone they were forbidden to eat was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; duty lay for them in following the command of the most high, before and until they became capable of appreciating it by an ethical standard. their knowledge was but that of an infant who has just reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he is ordered to do this or that, but not the nature of the things so ordered.". if adam and eve could not "consciously perceive right and wrong," how is it possible for you to say that "duty lay for them in following the command of the most high"? how can a person "incapable of perceiving right and wrong" have an idea of duty? you are driven to say that adam and eve had no moral sense. how under such circumstances could they have the sense of guilt, or of obligation? and why should such persons be punished? and why should the whole human race become tainted by the offence of those who had no moral sense? do you intend to be understood as saying that jehovah allowed his children to enslave each other because "duty lay for them in following the command of the most high"? was it for this reason that he caused them to exterminate each other? do you account for the severity of his punishments by the fact that the poor creatures punished were not aware of the enormity of the offences they had committed? what shall we say of a god who has one of his children stoned to death for picking up sticks on sunday, and allows another to enslave his fellow-man? have you discovered any theory that will account for both of these facts? another word as to abraham:--you defend his willingness to kill his son because "the estimate of human life at the time was different"--because "the position of the father in the family was different; its members were regarded as in some sense his property;" and because "there is every reason to suppose that around abraham in the 'land of moriah' the practice of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in full vigor." let us examine these three excuses: was jehovah justified in putting a low estimate on human life? was he in earnest when he said "that whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed"? did he pander to the barbarian view of the worthlessness of life? if the estimate of human life was low, what was the sacrifice worth? was the son the property of the father? did jehovah uphold this savage view? had the father the right to sell or kill his child? do you defend jehovah and abraham because the ignorant wretches in the "land of moriah," knowing nothing of the true god, cut the throats of their babes "as an act of religion"? was jehovah led away by the example of the gods of moriah? do you not see that your excuses are simply the suggestions of other crimes? you see clearly that the hindoo mother, when she throws her babe into the ganges at the command of her god, "sins against first principles"; but you excuse abraham because he lived in the childhood of the race. can jehovah be excused because of his youth? not satisfied with your explanation, your defences and excuses, you take the ground that when abraham said: "my son, god will provide a lamb for a burnt offering," he may have "believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son." in other words, that abraham did not believe that he would be required to shed the blood of isaac. so that, after all, the faith of abraham consisted in "believing implicitly" that jehovah was not in earnest. you have discovered a way by which, as you think, the neck of orthodoxy can escape the noose of darwin, and in that connection you use this remarkable language: "i should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." it is hard to see how this statement agrees with the one in the beginning of your remarks, in which you speak of the human constitution in its "warped, impaired and dislocated" condition. when you wrote that line you were certainly a theologian--a believer in the episcopal creed--and your mind, by mere force of habit, was at that moment contemplating man as he is supposed to have been created--perfect in every part. at that time you were endeavoring to account for the unbelief now in the world, and you did this by stating that the human constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated"; but the moment you are brought face to face with the great truths uttered by darwin, you admit "that the moral history of man has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." is not this a fountain that brings forth sweet and bitter waters? i insist, that the discoveries of darwin do away absolutely with the inspiration of the scriptures--with the account of creation in genesis, and demonstrate not simply the falsity, not simply the wickedness, but the foolishness of the "sacred volume." there is nothing in darwin to show that all has been evolved from "primal night and from chaos." there is no evidence of "primal night." there is no proof of universal chaos. did your jehovah spend an eternity in "primal night," with no companion but chaos. it makes no difference how long a lower form may require to reach a higher. it makes no difference whether forms can be simply modified or absolutely changed. these facts have not the slightest tendency to throw the slightest light on the beginning or on the destiny of things. i most cheerfully admit that gods have the right to create swiftly or slowly. the reptile may become a bird in one day, or in a thousand billion years--this fact has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a first cause, but it has something to do with the truth of the bible, and with the existence of a personal god of infinite power and wisdom. does not a gradual improvement in the thing created show a corresponding improvement in the creator? the church demonstrated the falsity and folly of darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the mosaic account of creation, and now the theories of darwin having been fairly established, the church says that the mosaic account is true, because it is in harmony with darwin. now, if it should turn out that darwin was mistaken, what then? to me it is somewhat difficult to understand the mental processes of one who really feels that "the gap between man and the inferior animals or their relationship was stated, perhaps, even more emphatically by bishop butler than by darwin." butler answered deists, who objected to the cruelties of the bible, and yet lauded the god of nature by showing that the god of nature is as cruel as the god of the bible. that is to say, he succeeded in showing that both gods are bad. he had no possible conception of the splendid generalizations of darwin--the great truths that have revolutionized the thought of the world. but there was one question asked by bishop butler that throws a flame of light upon the probable origin of most, if not all, religions: "why might not whole communities and public bodies be seized with fits of insanity as well as individuals?" if you are convinced that moses and darwin are in exact accord, will you be good enough to tell who, in your judgment, were the parents of adam and eve? do you find in darwin any theory that satisfactorily accounts for the "inspired fact" that a rib, commencing with monogonic propagation--falling into halves by a contraction in the middle--reaching, after many ages of evolution, the amphigonie stage, and then, by the survival of the fittest, assisted by natural selection, moulded and modified by environment, became at last, the mother of the human race? here is a world in which there are countless varieties of life--these varieties in all probability related to each other--all living upon each other--everything devouring something, and in its turn devoured by something else--everywhere claw and beak, hoof and tooth,--everything seeking the life of something else--every drop of water a battle-field, every atom being for some wild beast a jungle--every place a golgotha--and such a world is declared to be the work of the infinitely wise and compassionate. according to your idea, jehovah prepared a home for his children--first a garden in which they should be tempted and from which they should be driven; then a world filled with briers and thorns and wild and poisonous beasts--a world in which the air should be filled with the enemies of human life--a world in which disease should be contagious, and in which it was impossible to tell, except by actual experiment, the poisonous from the nutritious. and these children were allowed to live in dens and holes and fight their way against monstrous serpents and crouching beasts--were allowed to live in ignorance and fear--to have false ideas of this good and loving god--ideas so false, that they made of him a fiend--ideas so false, that they sacrificed their wives and babes to appease the imaginary wrath of this monster. and this god gave to different nations different ideas of himself, knowing that in consequence of that these nations would meet upon countless fields of death and drain each other's veins. would it not have been better had the world been so that parents would transmit only their virtues--only their perfections, physical and mental,--allowing their diseases and their vices to perish with them? in my reply to dr. field i had asked: why should god demand a sacrifice from man? why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? should the sun beg from the glowworm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light? upon which you remark, "that if the infinite is to make no demands upon the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small." can this be called reasoning? why should the infinite demand a sacrifice from man? in the first place, the infinite is conditionless--the infinite cannot want--the infinite has. a conditioned being may want; but the gratification of a want involves a change of condition. if god be conditionless, he can have no wants--consequently, no human being can gratify the infinite. but you insist that "if the infinite is to make no demands upon the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small." the great have wants. the strong are often in need, in peril, and the great and strong often need the services of the small and weak. it was the mouse that freed the lion. england is a great and powerful nation--yet she may need the assistance of the weakest of her citizens. the world is filled with illustrations. the lack of logic is in this: the infinite cannot want anything; the strong and the great may, and as a fact always do. the great and the strong cannot help the infinite--they can help the small and the weak, and the small and the weak can often help the great and strong. you ask: "why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and sacrifice from his young child?" no sensible father ever demanded love from his child. every civilized father knows that love rises like the perfume from a flower. you cannot command it by simple authority. it cannot obey. a father demands obedience from a child for the good of the child and for the good of himself. but suppose the father to be infinite--why should the child sacrifice anything for him? but it may be that you answer all these questions, all these difficulties, by admitting, as you have in your remarks, "that these problems are insoluble by our understanding." why, then, do you accept them? why do you defend that which you cannot understand? why does your reason volunteer as a soldier under the flag of the incomprehensible? i asked of dr. field, and i ask again, this question: why should an infinitely wise and powerful god destroy the good and preserve the vile? what do i mean by this question? simply this: the earthquake, the lightning, the pestilence, are no respecters of persons. the vile are not always destroyed, the good are not always saved. i asked: why should god treat all alike in this world, and in another make an infinite difference? this, i suppose, is "insoluble to our understanding." why should jehovah allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? can you by any possibility answer this question? you may account for all these inconsistencies, these cruel contradictions, as john wesley accounted for earthquakes when he insisted that they were produced by the wickedness of men, and that the only way to prevent them was for everybody to believe on the lord jesus christ. and you may have some way of showing that mr. wesley's idea is entirely consistent with the theories of mr. darwin. you seem to think that as long as there is more goodness than evil in the world--as long as there is more joy than sadness--we are compelled to infer that the author of the world is infinitely good, powerful, and wise, and that as long as a majority are out of gutters and prisons, the "divine scheme" is a success. according to this system of logic, if there were a few more unfortunates--if there was just a little more evil than good--then we would be driven to acknowledge that the world was created by an infinitely malevolent being. as a matter of fact, the history of the world has been such that not only your theologians but your apostles, and not only your apostles but your prophets, and not only your prophets but your jehovah, have all been forced to account for the evil, the injustice and the suffering, by the wickedness of man, the natural depravity of the human heart and the wiles and machinations of a malevolent being second only in power to jehovah himself. again and again you have called me to account for "mere suggestions and assertions without proof"; and yet your remarks are filled with assertions and mere suggestions without proof. you admit that "great believers are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny." how do you know "that they have been set down to work out their destiny"? if that was, and is, the purpose, then the being who settled the "destiny," and the means by which it tvas to be "worked out," is responsible for all that happens. and is this the end of your argument, "that you are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings"? is the solution of this problem beyond your power? does the bible shed no light? is the christian in the presence of this question as dumb as the agnostic? when the injustice of this world is so flagrant that you cannot harmonize that awful fact with the wisdom and goodness of an infinite god, do you not see that you have surrendered, or at least that you have raised a flag of truce beneath which your adversary accepts as final your statement that you do not know and that your imagination is not sufficient to frame an excuse for god? it gave me great pleasure to find that at last even you have been driven to say that: "it is a duty incumbent upon us respectively according to our means and opportunities, to decide by the use of the faculty of reason given us, the great questions of natural and revealed religion." you admit "that i am to decide for myself, by the use of my reason," whether the bible is the word of god or not--whether there is any revealed religion--and whether there be or be not an infinite being who created and who governs this world. you also admit that we are to decide these questions according to the balance of the evidence. is this in accordance with the doctrine of jehovah? did jehovah say to the husband that if his wife became convinced, according to her means and her opportunities, and decided according to her reason, that it was better to worship some other god than jehovah, then that he was to say to her: "you are entitled to decide according to the balance of the evidence as it seems to you"? have you abandoned jehovah? is man more just than he? have you appealed from him to the standard of reason? is it possible that the leader of the english liberals is nearer civilized than jehovah? do you know that in this sentence you demonstrate the existence of a dawn in your mind? this sentence makes it certain that in the east of the midnight of episcopal superstition there is the herald of the coming day. and if this sentence shows a dawn, what shall i say of the next: "we are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation except such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life"? this certainly is a morning star. let me take this statement, let me hold it as a torch, and by its light i beg of you to read the bible once again. is it in accordance with reason that an infinitely good and loving god would drown a world that he had taken no means to civilize--to whom he had given no bible, no gospel,--taught no scientific fact and in which the seeds of art had not been sown; that he would create a world that ought to be drowned? that a being of infinite wisdom would create a rival, knowing that the rival would fill perdition with countless souls destined to suffer eternal pain? is it according to common sense that an infinitely good god would order some of his children to kill others? that he would command soldiers to rip open with the sword of war the bodies of women--wreaking vengeance on babes unborn? is it according to reason that a good, loving, compassionate, and just god would establish slavery among men, and that a pure god would uphold polygamy? is it according to common sense that he who wished to make men merciful and loving would demand the sacrifice of animals, so that his altars would be wet with the blood of oxen, sheep, and doves? is it according to reason that a good god would inflict tortures upon his ignorant children--that he would torture animals to death--and is it in accordance with common sense and reason that this god would create countless billions of people knowing that they would be eternally damned? what is common sense? is it the result of observation, reason and experience, or is it the child of credulity? there is this curious fact: the far past and the far future seem to belong to the miraculous and the monstrous. the present, as a rule, is the realm of common sense. if you say to a man: "eighteen hundred years ago the dead were raised," he will reply: "yes, i know that." and if you say: "a hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised," he will probably reply: "i presume so." but if you tell him: "i saw a dead man raised to-day," he will ask, "from what madhouse have you escaped?" the moment we decide "according to reason," "according to the balance of evidence," we are charged with "having violated the laws of social morality and decency," and the defender of the miraculous and the incomprehensible takes another position. the theologian has a city of refuge to which he flies--an old breastwork behind which he kneels--a rifle-pit into which he crawls. you have described this city, this breastwork, this rifle-pit and also the leaf under which the ostrich of theology thrusts its head. let me quote: "our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, with a finite place in a comprehensive scheme devised and administered by a being who is infinite, would be able even to embrace within his view, or rightly to appreciate all the motives or aims that there may have been in the mind of the divine disposer?" and this is what you call "deciding by the use of the faculty of reason," "according to the evidence," or at least "according to the balance of evidence." this is a conclusion reached by a "rule of investigation such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life." will you have the kindness to explain what it is to act contrary to evidence, or contrary to common sense? can you imagine a superstition so gross that it cannot be defended by that argument? nothing, it seems to me, could have been easier than for jehovah to have reasonably explained his scheme. you may answer that the human intellect is not sufficient to understand the explanation. why then do not theologians stop explaining? why do they feel it incumbent upon them to explain that which they admit god would have explained had the human mind been capable of understanding it? how much better would it have been if jehovah had said a few things on these subjects. it always seemed wonderful to me that he spent several days and nights on mount sinai explain* ing to moses how he could detect the presence of leprosy, without once thinking to give him a prescription for its cure. there were thousands and thousands of opportunities for this god to withdraw from these questions the shadow and the cloud. when jehovah out of the whirlwind asked questions of job, how much better it would have been if job had asked and jehovah had answered. you say that we should be governed by evidence and by common sense. then you tell us that the questions are beyond the reach of reason, and with which common sense has nothing to do. if we then ask for an explanation, you reply in the scornful challenge of dante. you seem to imagine that every man who gives an opinion, takes his solemn oath that the opinion is the absolute end of all investigation on that subject. in my opinion, shakespeare was, intellectually, the greatest of the human race, and my intention was simply to express that view. it never occurred to me that any one would suppose that i thought shakespeare a greater actor than garrick, a more wonderful composer than wagner, a better violinist than remenyi, or a heavier man than daniel lambert. it is to be regretted that you were misled by my words and really supposed that i intended to say that shakespeare was a greater general than caesar. but, after all, your criticism has no possible bearing on the point at issue. is it an effort to avoid that which cannot be met? the real question is this: if we cannot account for christ without a miracle, how can we account for shakespeare? dr. field took the ground that christ himself was a miracle; that it was impossible to account for such a being in any natural way; and, guided by common sense, guided by the rule of investigation such as common sense teaches, i called attention to buddha, mohammed, confucius, and shakespeare. in another place in your remarks, when my statement about shakespeare was not in your mind, you say: "all is done by steps--nothing by strides, leaps or bounds--all from protoplasm up to shakespeare." why did you end the series with shakespeare? did you intend to say dante, or bishop butler? it is curious to see how much ingenuity a great man exercises when guided by what he calls "the rule of investigation as suggested by common sense." i pointed out some things that christ did not teach--among others, that he said nothing with regard to the family relation, nothing against slavery, nothing about education, nothing as to the rights and duties of nations, nothing as to any scientific truth. and this is answered by saying that "i am quite able to point out the way in which the savior of the world might have been much greater as a teacher than he actually was." is this an answer, or is it simply taking refuge behind a name? would it not have been better if christ had told his disciples that they must not persecute; that they had no right to destroy their fellow-men; that they must not put heretics in dungeons, or destroy them with flames; that they must not invent and use instruments of torture; that they must not appeal to brutality, nor endeavor to sow with bloody hands the seeds of peace? would it not have been far better had he said: "i come not to bring a sword, but peace"? would not this have saved countless cruelties and countless lives? you seem to think that you have fully answered my objection when you say that christ taught the absolute indissolubility of marriage. why should a husband and wife be compelled to live with each other after love is dead? why should the wife still be bound in indissoluble chains to a husband who is cruel, infamous, and false? why should her life be destroyed because of his? why should she be chained to a criminal and an outcast? nothing can be more unphilosophic than this. why fill the world with the children of indifference and hatred? the marriage contract is the most important, the most sacred, that human beings can make. it will be sacredly kept by good men and by good women. but if a loving woman--tender, noble, and true--makes this contract with a man whom she believed to be worthy of all respect and love, and who is found to be a cruel, worthless wretch, why should her life be lost? do you not know that the indissolubility of the marriage contract leads to its violation, forms an excuse for immorality, eats out the very heart of truth, and gives to vice that which alone belongs to love? but in order that you may know why the objection was raised, i call your attention to the fact that christ offered a reward, not only in this world but in another, to any husband who would desert his wife. and do you know that this hideous offer caused millions to desert their wives and children? theologians have the habit of using names instead of arguments--of appealing to some man, great in some direction, to establish their creed; but we all know that no man is great enough to be an authority, except in that particular domain in which he won his eminence; and we all know that great men are not great in all directions. bacon died a believer in the ptolemaic system of astronomy. tycho brahe kept an imbecile in his service, putting down with great care the words that fell from the hanging lip of idiocy, and then endeavored to put them together in a way to form prophecies. sir matthew hale believed in witchcraft not only, but in its lowest and most vulgar forms; and some of the greatest men of antiquity examined the entrails of birds to find the secrets of the future. it has always seemed to me that reasons are better than names. after taking the ground that christ could not have been a greater teacher than he actually was, you ask: "where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codified religion which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization?" does not this question admit that the teachings of christ will not serve for all nations, all ages and all states of civilization? but let me ask: if it was necessary for christ "to deliver to an uninstructed population of a particular age a certain religion suited only for that particular age," why should a civilized and scientific age eighteen hundred years afterwards be absolutely bound by that religion? do you not see that your position cannot be defended, and that you have provided no way for retreat? if the religion of christ was for that age, is it for this? are you willing to admit that the ten commandments are not for all time? if, then, four thousand years before christ, commandments were given not simply for "an uninstructed population of a particular age, but for all time," can you give a reason why the religion of christ should not have been of the same character? in the first place you say that god has revealed himself to the world--that he has revealed a religion; and in the next place, that "he has not revealed a perfect religion, for the reason that no room would be left for the career of human thought." why did not god reveal this imperfect religion to all people instead of to a small and insignificant tribe, a tribe without commerce and without influence among the nations of the world? why did he hide this imperfect light under a bushel? if the light was necessary for one, was it not necessary for all? and why did he drown a world to whom he had not even given that light? according to your reasoning, would there not have been left greater room for the career of human thought, had no revelation been made? you say that "you have known a person who after studying the old classical or olympian religion for a third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehension of it--some inkling of what is meant." you say this for the purpose of showing how impossible it is to understand the bible. if it is so difficult, why do you call it a revelation? and yet, according to your creed, the man who does not understand the revelation and believe it, or who does not believe it, whether he understands it or not, is to reap the harvest of everlasting pain. ought not the revelation to be revealed? in order to escape from the fact that christ denounced the chosen people of god as "a generation of vipers" and as "whited sepulchres," you take the ground that the scribes and pharisees were not the chosen people. of what blood were they? it will not do to say that they were not the people. can you deny that christ addressed the chosen people when he said: "jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee"? you have called me to an account for what i said in regard to ananias and sapphira. _first_, i am charged with having said that the apostles conceived the idea of having all things in common, and you denounce this as an interpolation; _second_, "that motives of prudence are stated as a matter of fact to have influenced the offending couple"--and this is charged as an interpolation; and, _third_, that i stated that the apostles sent for the wife of ananias--and this is characterized as a pure invention. to me it seems reasonable to suppose that the idea of having all things in common was conceived by those who had nothing, or had the least, and not by those who had plenty. in the last verses of the fourth chapter of the acts, you will find this: "neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessed of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. and joses, who by the apostles was surnamed barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation), a levite and of the country of cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet." now it occurred to me that the idea was in all probability suggested by the men at whose feet the property was laid. it never entered my mind that the idea originated with those who had land for sale. there may be a different standard by which human nature is measured in your country, than in mine; but if the thing had happened in the united states, i feel absolutely positive that it would have been at the suggestion of the apostles. "ananias, with sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet." in my letter to dr. field i stated--not at the time pretending to quote from the new testament--that ananias and sapphira, after talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, probably concluded to keep a little--just enough to keep them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond. it never occurred to me that any man would imagine that this was a quotation, and i feel like asking your pardon for having led you into this error. we are informed in the bible that "they kept back a part of the price." it occurred to me, "judging by the rule of investigation according to common sense," that there was a reason for this, and i could think of no reason except that they did not care to trust the apostles with all, and that they kept back just a little, thinking it might be useful if the rest should be lost. according to the account, after peter had made a few remarks to ananias, "ananias fell down and gave up the ghost;.... and the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. and it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in." whereupon peter said: "'tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?' and she said, 'yea, for so much.' then peter said unto her, 'how is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.' then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost; and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband." the only objection found to this is, that i inferred that the apostles had sent for her. sending for her was not the offence. the failure to tell her what had happened to her husband was the offence--keeping his fate a secret from her in order that she might be caught in the same net that had been set for her husband by jehovah. this was the offence. this was the mean and cruel thing to which i objected. have you answered that? of course, i feel sure that the thing never occurred--the probability being that ananias and sapphira never lived and never died. it is probably a story invented by the early church to make the collection of subscriptions somewhat easier. and yet, we find a man in the nineteenth century, foremost of his fellow-citizens in the affairs of a great nation, upholding this barbaric view of god. let me beg of you to use your reason "according to the rule suggested by common sense." let us do what little we can to rescue the reputation, even of a jewish myth, from the calumnies of ignorance and fear. so, again, i am charged with having given certain words as a quotation from the bible in which two passages are combined--"they who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned. and these shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." they were given as two passages. no one for a moment supposed that they would be read together as one, and no one imagined that any one in answering the argument would be led to believe that they were intended as one. neither was there in this the slightest negligence, as i was answering a man who is perfectly familiar with the bible. the objection was too small to make. it is hardly large enough to answer--and had it not been made by you it would not have been answered. you are not satisfied with what i have said upon the subject of immortality. what i said was this: the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. you answer this by saying that "the egyptians were believers in immortality, but were not a people of high intellectual development." how such a statement tends to answer what i have said, is beyond my powers of discernment. is there the slightest connection between my statement and your objection? you make still another answer, and say that "the ancient greeks were a race of perhaps unparalled intellectual capacity, and that notwithstanding that, the most powerful mind of the greek philosophy, that of aristotle, had no clear conception of a personal existence in a future state." may i be allowed to ask this simple question: who has? are you urging an objection to the dogma of immortality, when you say that a race of unparalled intellectual capacity had no confidence in it? is that a doctrine believed only by people who lack intellectual capacity? i stated that the idea of immortality was born of love, you reply, "the egyptians believed it, but they were not intellectual." is not this a _non sequitur?_ the question is: were they a loving people? does history show that there is a moral governor of the world? what witnesses shall we call? the billions of slaves who were paid with blows?--the countless mothers whose babes were sold? have we time to examine the waldenses, the covenanters of scotland, the catholics of ireland, the victims of st. bartholomew, of the spanish inquisition, all those who have died in flames? shall we hear the story of bruno? shall we ask servetus? shall we ask the millions slaughtered by christian swords in america--all the victims of ambition, of perjury, of ignorance, of superstition and revenge, of storm and earthquake, of famine, flood and fire? can all the agonies and crimes, can all the inequalities of the world be answered by reading the "noble psalm" in which are found the words: "call upon me in the day of trouble, so i will hear thee, and thou shalt praise me"? do you prove the truth of these fine words, this honey of trebizond, by the victims of religious persecution? shall we hear the sighs and sobs of siberia? another thing. why should you, from the page of greek history, with the sponge of your judgment, wipe out all names but one, and tell us that the most powerful mind of the greek philosophy was that of aristotle? how did you ascertain this fact? is it not fair to suppose that you merely intended to say that, according to your view, aristotle had the most powerful mind among all the philosophers of greece? i should not call attention to this, except for your criticism on a like remark of mine as to the intellectual superiority of shakespeare. but if you knew the trouble i have had in finding out your meaning, from your words, you would pardon me for calling attention to a single line from aristotle: "clearness is the virtue of style." to me epicurus seems far greater than aristotle, he had clearer vision. his cheek was closer to the breast of nature, and he planted his philosophy nearer to the bed-rock of fact. he was practical enough to know that virtue is the means and happiness the end; that the highest philosophy is the art of living. he was wise enough to say that nothing is of the slightest value to man that does not increase or preserve his wellbeing, and he was great enough to know and courageous enough to declare that all the gods and ghosts were monstrous phantoms born of ignorance and fear. i still insist that human affection is the foundation of the idea of immortality; that love was the first to speak that word, no matter whether they who spoke it were savage or civilized, egyptian or greek. but if we are immortal--if there be another world--why was it not clearly set forth in the old testament? certainly, the authors of that book had an opportunity to learn it from the egyptians. why was it not revealed by jehovah? why did he waste his time in giving orders for the consecration of priests--in saying that they must have sheep's blood put on their right ears and on their right thumbs and on their right big toes? could a god with any sense of humor give such directions, or watch without huge laughter the performance of such a ceremony? in order to see the beauty, the depth and tenderness of such a consecration, is it essential to be in a state of "reverential calm"? is it not strange that christ did not tell of another world distinctly, clearly, without parable, and without the mist of metaphor? the fact is that the hindoos, the egyptians, the greeks, and the romans taught the immortality of the soul, not as a glittering guess--a possible perhaps--but as a clear and demonstrated truth for many centuries before the birth of christ. if the old testament proves anything, it is that death ends all. and the new testament, by basing immortality on the resurrection of the body, but "keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope." in my reply to dr. field, i said: "the truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his thoughts. the brain thinks without asking our consent; we believe, or disbelieve, without an effort of the will. belief is a result. it is the effect of evidence upon the mind. the scales turn in spite of him who watches. there is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. the conclusion is entirely independent of desire. we must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish." does the brain think without our consent? can we control our thought? can we tell what we are going to think tomorrow? can we stop thinking? is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product of the will? can the scales in which reason weighs evidence be turned by the will? why then should evidence be weighed? if it all depends on the will, what is evidence? is there any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion? must not the man who forms the opinion know what it is? he cannot knowingly cheat himself. he cannot be deceived with dice that he loads. he cannot play unfairly at solitaire without knowing that he has lost the game. he cannot knowingly weigh with false scales and believe in the correctness of the result. you have not even attempted to answer my arguments upon these points, but you have unconsciously avoided them. you did not attack the citadel. in military parlance, you proceeded to "shell the woods." the noise is precisely the same as though every shot had been directed against the enemy's position, but the result is not. you do not seem willing to implicitly trust the correctness of your aim. you prefer to place the target after the shot. the question is whether the will knowingly can change evidence, and whether there is any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion. you have changed the issue. you have erased the word formation and interpolated the word expression. let us suppose that a man has given an opinion, knowing that it is not based on any fact. can you say that he has given his opinion? the moment a prejudice is known to be a prejudice, it disappears. ignorance is the soil in which prejudice must grow. touched by a ray of light, it dies. the judgment of man may be warped by prejudice and passion, but it cannot be consciously warped. it is impossible for any man to be influenced by a known prejudice, because a known prejudice cannot exist. i am not contending that all opinions have been honestly expressed. what i contend is that when a dishonest opinion has been expressed it is not the opinion that was formed. the cases suggested by you are not in point. fathers are honestly swayed, if really swayed, by love; and queens and judges have pretended to be swayed by the highest motives, by the clearest evidence, in order that they might kill rivals, reap rewards, and gratify revenge. but what has all this to do with the fact that he who watches the scales in which evidence is weighed knows the actual result? let us examine your case: if a father is _consciously_ swayed by his love for his son, and for that reason says that his son is innocent, then he has not expressed his opinion. if he is unconsciously swayed and says that his son is innocent, then he has expressed his opinion. in both instances his opinion was independent of his will; but in the first instance he did not express his opinion. you will certainly see this distinction between the formation and the expression of an opinion. the same argument applies to the man who consciously has a desire to condemn. such a _conscious_ desire cannot affect the testimony--cannot affect the opinion. queen elizabeth undoubtedly desired the death of mary stuart, but this conscious desire could not have been the foundation on which rested elizabeth's opinion as to the guilt or innocence of her rival. it is barely possible that elizabeth did not express her real opinion. do you believe that the english judges in the matter of the popish plot gave judgment in accordance with their opinions? are you satisfied that napoleon expressed his real opinion when he justified himself for the assassination of the duc d'enghien? if you answer these questions in the affirmative, you admit that i am right. if you answer in the negative, you admit that you are wrong. the moment you admit that the opinion formed cannot be changed by expressing a pretended opinion, your argument is turned against yourself. it is admitted that prejudice strengthens, weakens and colors evidence; but prejudice is honest. and when one acts knowingly against the evidence, that is not by reason of prejudice. according to my views of propriety, it would be unbecoming for me to say that your argument on these questions is "a piece of plausible shallowness." such language might be regarded as lacking "reverential calm," and i therefore refrain from even characterizing it as plausible. is it not perfectly apparent that you have changed the issue, and that instead of showing that opinions are creatures of the will, you have discussed the quality of actions? what have corrupt and cruel judgments pronounced by corrupt and cruel judges to do with their real opinions? when a judge forms one opinion and renders another he is called corrupt. the corruption does not consist in forming his opinion, but in rendering one that he did not form. does a dishonest creditor, who incorrectly adds a number of items making the aggregate too large, necessarily change his opinion as to the relations of numbers? when an error is known, it is not a mistake; but a conclusion reached by a mistake, or by a prejudice, or by both, is a necessary conclusion. he who pretends to come to a conclusion by a mistake which he knows is not a mistake, knows that he has not expressed his real opinion. can any thing be more illogical than the assertion that because a boy reaches, through negligence in adding figures, a wrong result, that he is accountable for his opinion of the result? if he knew he was negligent, what must his opinion of the result have been? so with the man who boldly announces that he has discovered the numerical expression of the relation sustained by the diameter to the circumference of a circle. if he is honest in the announcement, then the announcement was caused not by his will but by his ignorance. his will cannot make the announcement true, and he could not by any possibility have supposed that his will could affect the correctness of his announcement. the will of one who thinks that he has invented or discovered what is called perpetual motion, is not at fault. the man, if honest, has been misled; if not honest, he endeavors to mislead others. there is prejudice, and prejudice does raise a clamor, and the intellect is affected and the judgment is darkened and the opinion is deformed; but the prejudice is real and the clamor is sincere and the judgment is upright and the opinion is honest. the intellect is not always supreme. it is surrounded by clouds. it sometimes sits in darkness. it is often misled--sometimes, in superstitious fear, it abdicates. it is not always a white light. the passions and prejudices are prismatic--they color thoughts. desires betray the judgment and cunningly mislead the will. you seem to think that the fact of responsibility is in danger unless it rests upon the will, and this will you regard as something without a cause, springing into being in some mysterious way, without father or mother, without seed or soil, or rain or light. you must admit that man is a conditioned being--that he has wants, objects, ends, and aims, and that these are gratified and attained only by the use of means. do not these wants and these objects have something to do with the will, and does not the intellect have something to do with the means? is not the will a product? independently of conditions, can it exist? is it not necessarily produced? behind every wish and thought, every dream and fancy, every fear and hope, are there not countless causes? man feels shame. what does this prove? he pities himself. what does this demonstrate? the dark continent of motive and desire has never been explored. in the brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, where seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms of flame, profound and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms where vague and fearful things are half revealed, jungles where passion's tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle and mislead; and the poor sovereign of this pictured world is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that mockery has throned and crowned. no one pretends that the mind of man is perfect--that it is not affected by desires, colored by hopes, weakened by fears, deformed by ignorance and distorted by superstition. but all this has nothing to do with the innocence of opinion. it may be that the thugs were taught that murder is innocent; but did the teachers believe what they taught? did the pupils believe the teachers? did not jehovah teach that the act that we describe as murder was a duty? were not his teachings practiced by moses and joshua and jephthah and samuel and david? were they honest? but what has all this to do with the point at issue? society has the right to protect itself, even from honest murderers and conscientious thieves. the belief of the criminal does not disarm society; it protects itself from him as from a poisonous serpent, or from a beast that lives on human flesh. we are under no obligation to stand still and allow ourselves to be murdered by one who honestly thinks that it is his duty to take our lives. and yet according to your argument, we have no right to defend ourselves from honest thugs. was saul of tarsus a thug when he persecuted christians "even unto strange cities"? is the thug of india more ferocious than torquemada, the thug of spain? if belief depends upon the will, can all men have correct opinions who will to have them? acts are good or bad, according to their consequences, and not according to the intentions of the actors. honest opinions may be wrong, and opinions dishonestly expressed may be right. do you mean to say that because passion and prejudice, the reckless "pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores of will and judgment," sway the mind, that the opinions which you have expressed in your remarks to me are not your opinions? certainly you will admit that in all probability you have prejudices and passions, and if so, can the opinions that you have expressed, according to your argument, be honest? my lack of confidence in your argument gives me perfect confidence in your candor. you may remember the philosopher who retained his reputation for veracity, in spite of the fact that he kept saying: "there is no truth in man." are only those opinions honest that are formed without any interference of passion, affection, habit or fancy? what would the opinion of a man without passions, affections, or fancies be worth? the alchemist gave up his search for an universal solvent upon being asked in what kind of vessel he expected to keep it when found. it may be admitted that biel "shows us how the life of dante co-operated with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he was," but does this tend to show that dante changed his opinions by an act of his will, or that he reached honest opinions by knowingly using false weights and measures? you must admit that the opinions, habits and religions of men depend, at least in some degree, on race, occupation, training and capacity. is not every thoughtful man compelled to agree with edgar fawcett, in whose brain are united the beauty of the poet and the subtlety of the logician, "who sees how vice her venom wreaks on the frail babe before it speaks, and how heredity enslaves with ghostly hands that reach from graves"? why do you hold the intellect criminally responsible for opinions, when you admit that it is controlled by the will? and why do you hold the will responsible, when you insist that it is swayed by the passions and affections? but all this has nothing to do with the fact that every opinion has been honestly formed, whether honestly expressed or not. no one pretends that all governments have been honestly formed and honestly administered. all vices, and some virtues are represented in most nations. in my opinion a republic is far better than a monarchy. the legally expressed will of the people is the only rightful sovereign. this sovereignty, however, does not embrace the realm of thought or opinion. in that world, each human being is a sovereign,--throned and crowned: one is a majority. the good citizens of that realm give to others all rights that they claim for themselves, and those who appeal to force are the only traitors. the existence of theological despotisms, of god-anointed kings, does not tend to prove that a known prejudice can determine the weight of evidence. when men were so ignorant as to suppose that god would destroy them unless they burned heretics, they lighted the fagots in selfdefence. feeling as i do that man is not responsible for his opinions, i characterized persecution for opinion's sake as infamous. so, it is perfectly clear to me, that it would be the infamy of infamies for an infinite being to create vast numbers of men knowing that they would suffer eternal pain. if an infinite god creates a man on purpose to damn him, or creates him knowing that he will be damned, is not the crime the same? we make mistakes and failures because we are finite; but can you conceive of any excuse for an infinite being who creates failures? if you had the power to change, by a wish, a statue into a human being, and you knew that this being would die without a "change of heart" and suffer endless pain, what would you do? can you think of any excuse for an earthly father, who, having wealth, learning and leisure, leaves his own children in ignorance and darkness? do you believe that a god of infinite wisdom, justice and love, called countless generations of men into being, knowing that they would be used as fuel for the eternal fire? many will regret that you did not give your views upon the main questions--the principal issues--involved, instead of calling attention, for the most part, to the unimportant. if men were discussing the causes and results of the franco-prussian war, it would hardly be worth while for a third person to interrupt the argument for the purpose of calling attention to a misspelled word in the terms of surrender. if we admit that man is responsible for his opinions and his thoughts, and that his will is perfectly free, still these admissions do not even tend to prove the inspiration of the bible, or the "divine scheme of redemption." in my judgment, the days of the supernatural are numbered. the dogma of inspiration must be abandoned. as man advances,--as his intellect enlarges,--as his knowledge increases,--as his ideals become nobler, the bibles and creeds will lose their authority--the miraculous will be classed with the impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded. thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died, and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common fate? creeds cannot remain permanent in a world in which knowledge increases. science and superstition cannot peaceably occupy the same brain. this is an age of investigation, of discovery and thought. science destroys the dogmas that mislead the mind and waste the energies of man. it points out the ends that can be accomplished; takes into consideration the limits of our faculties; fixes our attention on the affairs of this world, and erects beacons of warning on the dangerous shores. it seeks to ascertain the conditions of health, to the end that life may be enriched and lengthened, and it reads with a smile this passage: "and god-wrought special miracles by the hands of paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." science is the enemy of fear and credulity. it invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. it seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. it welcomes every fact and every truth. it has furnished a foundation for morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. from all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. it seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and' heart. it refines through art, music and the drama--giving voice and expression to every noble thought. the mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but the ambition to understand. it does not pray--it works. it does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." its feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter of heretics. it has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon--that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered--that an infinite personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be established--such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. and, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here--that all our obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, but what he can." and after all, it may be that "to ride an unbroken horse with the reins thrown upon his neck"--as you charge me with doing--gives a greater variety of sensations, a keener delight, and a better prospect of winning the race than to sit solemnly astride of a dead one, in "a deep reverential calm," with the bridle firmly in your hand. again assuring you of my profound respect, i remain, sincerely yours, robert g. ingersoll. rome or reason. col. ingersoll and cardinal manning. the gladstone-ingersoll controversy. the church its own witness, by cardinal manning. the vatican council, in its decree on faith has these words: "the church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own divine legation."* its divine founder said: "i am the light of the world;" and, to his apostles, he said also, "ye are the light of the world," and of his church he added, "a city seated on a hill cannot be hid." the vatican council says, "the church is its own witness." my purpose is to draw out this assertion more fully. * "const. dogm. de fide catholica, c. iii. these words affirm that the church is self-evident, as light is to the eye, and through sense, to the intellect. next to the sun at noonday, there is nothing in the world more manifest than the one visible universal church. both the faith and the infidelity of the world bear witness to it. it is loved and hated, trusted and feared, served and assaulted, honored and blasphemed: it is christ or antichrist, the kingdom of god or the imposture of satan. it pervades the civilized world. no man and no nation can ignore it, none can be indifferent to it. why is all this? how is its existence to be accounted for? let me suppose that i am an unbeliever in christianity, and that some friend should make me promise to examine the evidence to show that christianity is a divine revelation; i should then sift and test the evidence as strictly as if it were in a court of law, and in a cause of life and death; my will would be in suspense: it would in no way control the process of my intellect. if it had any inclination from the equilibrium, it would be towards mercy and hope; but this would not add a feather's weight to the evidence, nor sway the intellect a hair's breadth. after the examination has been completed, and my intellect convinced, the evidence being sufficient to prove that christianity is a divine revelation, nevertheless i am not yet a christian. all this sifting brings me to the conclusion of a chain of reasoning; but i am not yet a believer. the last act of reason has brought me to the brink of the first act of faith. they are generically distinct and separable. the acts of reason are intellectual, and jealous of the interference of the will. the act of faith is an imperative act of the will, founded on and justified by the process and conviction of the intellect. hitherto i have been a critic: henceforward, if i will, i become a disciple. it may here be objected that no man can so far suspend the inclination of the will when the question is, has god indeed spoken to man or no? is the revealed law of purity, generosity, perfection, divine, or only the poetry of imagination? can a man be indifferent between two such sides of the problem? will he not desire the higher and better side to be true? and if he desire, will he not incline to the side that he desires to find true? can a moral being be absolutely indifferent between two such issues? and can two such issues be equally attractive to a moral agent? can it be indifferent and all the same to us whether god has made himself and his will known to us or not? is there no attraction in light, no repulsion in darkness? does not the intrinsic and eternal distinction of good and evil make itself felt in spite of the will? are we not responsible to "receive the truth in the love of it?" nevertheless, evidence has its own limits and quantities, and cannot be made more or less by any act of the will. and yet, what is good or bad, high or mean, lovely or hateful, ennobling or degrading, must attract or repel men as they are better or worse in their moral sense; for an equilibrium between good and evil, to god or to man, is impossible. the last act of my reason, then, is distinct from my first act of faith precisely in this: so long as i was uncertain i suspended the inclination of my will, as an act of fidelity to conscience and of loyalty to truth; but the process once complete, and the conviction once attained, my will imperatively constrains me to believe, and i become a disciple of a divine revelation. my friend next tells me that there are christian scriptures, and i go through precisely the same process of critical examination and final conviction, the last act of reasoning preceding, as before, the first act of faith. he then tells me that there is a church claiming to be divinely founded, divinely guarded, and divinely guided in its custody of christianity and of the christian scriptures. once more i have the same twofold process of reasoning and of believing to go through. there is, however, this difference in the subject-matter: christianity is an order of supernatural truth appealing intellectually to my reason; the christian scriptures are voiceless, and need a witness. they cannot prove their own mission, much less their own authenticity or inspiration. but the church is visible to the eye, audible to the ear, self-manifesting and self-asserting: i cannot escape from it. if i go to the east, it is there; if i go to the west, it is there also. if i stay at home, it is before me, seated on the hill; if i turn away from it, i am surrounded by its light. it pursues me and calls to me. i cannot deny its existence; i cannot be indifferent to it; i must either listen to it or willfully stop my ears; i must heed it or defy it, love it or hate it. but my first attitude towards it is to try it with forensic strictness, neither pronouncing it to be christ nor antichrist till i have tested its origin, claim, and character. let us take down the case in short-hand. . it says that it interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world. in some it holds the whole nation in its unity, in others it holds fewer; but in all it is present, visible, audible, naturalized, and known as the one catholic church, a name that none can appropriate. though often claimed and controversially assumed, none can retain it; it falls off. the world knows only one catholic church, and always restores the name to the right owner. . it is not a national body, but extra-national, accused of its foreign relations and foreign dependence. it is international, and independent in a supernational unity. . in faith, divine worship, sacred ceremonial, discipline, government, from the highest to the lowest, it is the same in every place. . it speaks all languages in the civilized world. . it is obedient to one head, outside of all nations, except one only; and in that nation, his headship is not national but world-wide. . the world-wide sympathy of the church in all lands with its head has been manifested in our days, and before our eyes, by a series of public assemblages in rome, of which nothing like or second to it can be found. in , bishops of all nations surrounded their head when he defined the immaculate conception. in , bishops assembled at the canonization of the martyrs of japan. in , bishops came to keep the eighteenth centenary of st. peter's martyrdom. in , bishops assembled in the vatican council. on the feast of the epiphany, , the bishops of thirty nations during two whole hours made profession of faith in their own languages, kneeling before their head. add to this, that in , in the sacerdotal jubilee of pius ix., rome was filled for months by pilgrims from all lands in europe and beyond the sea, from the old world and from the new, bearing all manner of gifts and oblations to the head of the universal church. to this, again, must be added the world-wide outcry and protest of all the catholic unity against the seizure and sacrilege of september, , when rome was taken by the italian revolution. . all this came to pass not only by reason of the great love of the catholic world for pius ix., but because they revered him as the successor of st. peter and the vicar of jesus christ. for that undying reason the same events have been reproduced in the time of leo xiii. in the early months of this year rome was once more filled with pilgrims of all nations, coming in thousands as representatives of millions in all nations, to celebrate the sacerdotal jubilee of the sovereign pontiff. the courts of the vatican could not find room for the multitude of gifts and offerings of every kind which were sent from all quarters of the world. . these things are here said, not because of any other importance, but because they set forth in the most visible and self-evident way the living unity and the luminous universality of the one catholic and roman church. . what has thus far been said is before our eyes at this hour. it is no appeal to history, but to a visible and palpable fact. men may explain it as they will; deny it, they cannot. they see the head of the church year by year speaking to the nations of the world; treating with empires, republics and governments. there is no other man on earth that can so bear himself. neither from canterbury nor from constantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen. this is the century of revolutions. rome has in our time been besieged three times; three popes have been driven out of it, two have been shut up in the vatican. the city is now full of the revolution. the whole church has been tormented by falck laws, mancini laws, and crispi laws. an unbeliever in germany said some years ago, "the net is now drawn so tight about the church, that if it escapes this time i will believe in it." whether he believes, or is even alive now to believe, i cannot say. nothing thus far has been said as proof. the visible, palpable facts, which are at this moment before the eyes of all men, speak for themselves. there is one, and only one, worldwide unity of which these things can be said. it is a fact and a phenomenon for which an intelligible account must be rendered. if it be only a human system built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, let the adversaries prove it. the burden is upon them; and they will have more to do as we go on. thus far we have rested upon the evidence of sense and fact. we must now go on to history and reason. every religion and every religious body known to history has varied from itself and broken up. brahminism has given birth to buddhism; mahometanism is parted into the arabian and european khalifates; the greek schism into the russian, constantinopolitan, and bulgarian autocephalous fragment; protestaritism into its multitudinous diversities. all have departed from their original type, and all are continually developing new and irreconcilable, intellectual and ritualistic, diversities and repulsions. how is it that, with all diversities of language, civilization, race, interest, and conditions, social and political, including persecution and warfare, the catholic nations are at this day, even when in warfare, in unchanged unity of faith, communion, worship and spiritual sympathy with each other and with their head? this needs a rational explanation. it may be said in answer, endless divisions have come out of the church, from arius to photius, and from photius to luther. yes, but they all came out. there is the difference. they did not remain in the church, corrupting the faith. they came out, and ceased to belong to the catholic unity, as a branch broken from a tree ceases to belong to the tree. but the identity of the tree remains the same. a branch is not a tree, nor a tree a branch. a tree may lose branches, but it rests upon its root, and renews its loss. not so the religions, so to call them, that have broken away from unity. not one has retained its members or its doctrines. once separated from the sustaining unity of the church, all separations lose their spiritual cohesion, and then their intellectual identity. _ramus procisus arescit_. for the present it is enough to say that no human legislation, authority or constraint can ever create internal unity of intellect and will; and that the diversities and contradictions generated by all human systems prove the absence of divine authority. variations or contradictions are proof of the absence of a divine mission to mankind. all natural causes run to disintegration. therefore, they can render no account of the world-wide unity of the one universal church. such, then, are the facts before our eyes at this day. we will seek out the origin of the body or system called the catholic church, and pass at once to its outset eighteen hundred years ago. i affirm, then, three things: ( ) first, that no adequate account can be given of this undeniable fact from natural causes; ( ) that the history of the catholic church demands causes above nature; and ( ) that it has always claimed for itself a divine origin and divine authority. i. and, first, before we examine what it was and what it has done, we will recall to mind what was the world in the midst of which it arose. the most comprehensive and complete description of the old world, before christianity came in upon it, is given in the first chapter of the epistle to the romans. mankind had once the knowledge of god: that knowledge was obscured by the passions of sense; in the darkness of the human intellect, with the light of nature still before them, the nations worshiped the creature--that is, by pantheism, polytheism, idolatry; and, having lost the knowledge of god and of his perfections, they lost the knowledge of their own nature and of its laws, even of the natural and rational laws, which thenceforward ceased to guide, restrain, or govern them. they became perverted and inverted with every possible abuse, defeating the end and destroying the powers of creation. the lights of nature were put out, and the world rushed headlong into confusions, of which the beasts that perish were innocent. this is analytically the history of all nations but one. a line of light still shone from adam to enoch, from enoch to abraham, to whom the command was given, "walk before me and be perfect." and it ran on from abraham to caiaphas, who crucified the founder of christianity. through all anthropomorphisms of thought and language this line of light still passed inviolate and inviolable. but in the world, on either side of that radiant stream, the whole earth was dark. the intellectual and moral state of the greek world may be measured in its highest excellence in athens; and of the roman world in rome. the 'state of athens--its private, domestic, and public morality--may be seen in aristophanes. the state of rome is visible in juvenal, and in the fourth book of st. augustine's "city of god." there was only one evil wanting-. the world was not atheist. its polytheism was the example and the warrant of all forms of moral abominations. imitary quod colis plunged the nations in crime. their theology was their degradation; their text-book of an elaborate corruption of intellect and will. christianity came in "the fullness of time." what that fullness may mean, is one of the mysteries of times and seasons which it is not for us to know. but one motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek. it gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man are capable. the four great empires were each of them the concentration of a supreme effort of human power. the second inherited from the first, the third from both, the fourth from all three. it was, as it was foretold or described, as a beast, "exceeding terrible; his teeth and claws were of iron; he devoured and broke in pieces; and the rest he stamped upon with his feet." * the empire of man over man was never so widespread, so absolute, so hardened into one organized mass, as in imperial rome. the world had never seen a military power so disciplined, irresistible, invincible; a legislation so just, so equitable, so strong in its execution; a government so universal, so local, so minute. it seemed to be imperishable. rome was called the eternal. the religions of all nations were enshrined in dea roma; adopted, practiced openly, and taught. they were all _religiones licitae_, known to the law; not tolerated only, but recognized. the theologies of egypt, greece, and of the latin world, met in an empyreum, consecrated and guarded by the imperial law, and administered by the pontifex maximus. no fanaticism ever surpassed the religious cruelties of rome.. add to all this the colluvies of false philosophies of every land, and of every date. they both blinded and hardened the intellect of public opinion and of private men against the invasion of anything except contempt, and hatred of both the philosophy of sophists and of the religion of the people. add to all this the sensuality of the most refined and of the grossest luxury the world had ever seen, and a moral confusion and corruption which violated every law of nature. * daniel, vii. . the god of this world had built his city. from foundation to parapet, everything that the skill and power of man could do had been done without stint of means or limit of will. the divine hand was stayed, or rather, as st. augustine says, an unsurpassed natural greatness was the reward of certain natural virtues, degraded as they were in unnatural abominations. rome was the climax of the power of man without god, the apotheosis of the human will, the direct and supreme antagonist of god in his own world. in this the fullness of time was come. man built all this for himself. certainly, man could not also build the city of god. they are not the work of one and the same architect, who capriciously chose to build first the city of confusion, suspending for a time his skill and power to build some day the city of god. such a hypothesis is folly. of two things, one. disputers must choose one or the other. both cannot be asserted, and the assertion needs no answer--it refutes itself. so much for the first point. ii. in the reign of augustus, and in a remote and powerless oriental race, a child was born in a stable of a poor mother. for thirty years he lived a hidden life; for three years he preached the kingdom of god, and gave laws hitherto unknown to men. he died in ignominy upon the cross; on the third day he rose again; and after forty days he was seen no more. this unknown man created the world-wide unity of intellect and will which is visible to the eye, and audible, in all languages, to the ear. it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations, in all ages, to this day. what proportion is there between the cause and the effect? what power was there in this isolated man? what unseen virtues went out of him to change the world? for change the world he did; and that not in the line or on the level of nature as men had corrupted it, but in direct contradiction to all that was then supreme in the world. he taught the dependence of the intellect against its self-trust, the submission of the will against its license, the subjugation of the passions by temperate control or by absolute subjection against their willful indulgence. this was to reverse what men believed to be the laws of nature: to make water climb upward and fire to point downward. he taught mortification of the lusts of the flesh, contempt of the lusts of the eyes, and hatred of the pride of life. what hope was there that such a teacher should convert imperial rome? that such a doctrine should exorcise the fullness of human pride and lust? yet so it has come to pass; and how? twelve men more obscure than himself, absolutely without authority or influence of this world, preached throughout the empire and beyond it. they asserted two facts: the one, that god had been made man; the other, that he died and rose again. what could be more incredible? to the jews the unity and spirituality of god were axioms of reason and faith; to the gentiles, however cultured, the resurrection of the flesh was impossible. the divine person who had died and risen could not be called in evidence as the chief witness. he could not be produced in court. could anything be more suspicious if credible, or less credible even if he were there to say so? all that they could do was to say, "we knew him for three years, both before his death and after he rose from the dead. if you will believe us, you will believe what we say. if you will not believe us, we can say no more. he is not here, but in heaven. we cannot call him down." it is true, as we read, that peter cured a lame man at the gate of the temple. the pharisees could not deny it, but they would not believe what peter said; they only told him to hold his tongue. and yet thousands in one day in jerusalem believed in the incarnation and the resurrection; and when the apostles were scattered by persecution, wherever they went men believed their word. the most intense persecution was from the jews, the people of faith and of divine traditions. in the name of god and of religion they stoned stephen, and sent saul to persecute at damascus. more than this, they stirred up the romans in every place. as they had forced pilate to crucify jesus of nazareth, so they swore to slay paul. and yet, in spite of all, the faith spread. it is true, indeed, that the empire of alexander, the spread of the hellenistic greek, the prevalence of greek in rome itself, the roman roads which made the empire traversable, the roman peace which sheltered the preachers of the faith in the outset of their work, gave them facilities to travel and to be understood. but these were only external facilities, which in no way rendered more credible or more acceptable the voice of penance and mortification, or the mysteries of the faith, which was immutably "to the jews a stumbling-block and to the greeks foolishness." it was in changeless opposition to nature as man had marred it; but it was in absolute harmony with nature as god had made it to his own likeness. its power was its persuasiveness; and its persuasiveness was in its conformity to the highest and noblest aspirations and aims of the soul in man. the master-key so long lost was found at last; and its conformity to the wards of the lock was its irrefragable witness to its own mission and message. but if it is beyond belief that christianity in its outset made good its foothold by merely human causes and powers, how much more does this become incredible in every age as we come down from the first century to the nineteenth, and from the apostolic mission to the world-wide church, catholic and roman, at this day. not only did the world in the fullness of its power give to the christian faith no help to root or to spread itself, but it wreaked all the fullness of its power upon it to uproot and to destroy it, of the first thirty pontiffs in rome, twenty-nine were martyred. ten successive persecutions, or rather one universal and continuous persecution of two hundred years, with ten more bitter excesses of enmity in every province of the empire, did all that man can do to extinguish the christian name. the christian name may be blotted out here and there in blood, but the christian faith can nowhere be slain. it is inscrutable, and beyond the reach of man. in nothing is the blood of the martyrs more surely the seed of the faith. every martyrdom was a witness to the faith, and the ten persecutions were the sealing of the work of the twelve apostles. the destroyer defeated himself. christ crucified was visibly set forth before all the nations, the world was a calvary, and the blood of the martyrs preached in every tongue the passion of jesus christ. the world did its worst, and ceased only for weariness and conscious defeat. then came the peace, and with peace the peril of the church. the world outside had failed; the world inside began to work. it no longer destroyed life; it perverted the intellect, and, through intellectual perversion, assailed the faith at its centre, the angel of light preached heresy. the baptismal creed was assailed all along the line; gnosticism assailed the father-and creator of all things; arianism, the god-head of the son; nestorianism, the unity of his person; monophysites, the two natures; monothelites, the divine and human wills; macedonians, the person of the holy ghost so throughout the centuries, from nicæa to the vatican, every article has been in succession perverted by heresy and defined by the church. but of this we shall speak hereafter. if the human intellect could fasten its perversions on the chris tian faith, it would have done so long ago; and if the christian faith had been guarded by no more than human intellect, it would long ago have been disintegrated, as we see in every religion outside the unity of the one catholic church. there is no example in which fragmentary christianities have not departed from their original type. no human system is immutable; no thing human is changeless. the human intellect, therefore, can give no sufficient account of the identity of the catholic faith in all places and in all ages by any of its own natural processes or powers. the force of this argument is immensely increased when we trace the tradition of the faith through the nineteen oecumenical councils which, with one continuous intelligence, have guarded and unfolded the deposit of faith, defining every truth as it has been successively assailed, in absolute harmony and unity of progression. what the senate is to your great republic, or the parliament to our english monarchy, such are the nineteen councils of the church, with this only difference: the secular legislatures must meet year by year with short recesses; councils have met on the average once in a century. the reason of this is that the mutabilities of national life, which are as the water-floods, need constant remedies; the stability of the church seldom needs new legislation. the faith needs no definition except in rare intervals of periodical intellectual disorder. the discipline of the church reigns by an universal common law which seldom needs a change, and by local laws which are provided on the spot. nevertheless, the legislation of the church, the _corpus juris_, or _canon law_, is a creation of wisdom and justice, to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear comparison. human intellect has reached its climax in jurisprudence, but the world-wide and secular legislation of the church has a higher character. how the christian law corrected, elevated, and completed the imperial law, may be seen in a learned and able work by an american author, far from the catholic faith, but in the main just and accurate in his facts and arguments--the _gesta christi_ of charles loring brace. water cannot rise above its source, and if the church by mere human wisdom corrected and perfected the imperial law, its source must be higher than the sources of the world. this makes a heavy demand on our credulity. starting from st. peter to leo xiii., there have been some pontiffs claiming to be, and recognized by the whole catholic unity as, successors of st. peter and vicars of jesus christ. to them has been rendered in every age not only the external obedience of outward submission, but the internal obedience of faith. they have borne the onset of the nations who destroyed imperial rome, and the tyranny of heretical emperors of byzantium; and, worse than this, the alternate despotism and patronage of the emperors of the west, and the substraction of obedience in the great western schisms, when the unity of the church and the authority of its head were, as men thought, gone for ever. it was the last assault--the forlorn hope of the gates of hell. every art of destruction had been tried: martyrdom, heresy, secularity, schism; at last, two, and three, and four claimants, or, as the world says, rival popes, were set up, that men might believe that st. peter had no longer a successor, and our lord no vicar, upon earth; for, though all might be illegitimate, only one could be the lawful and true head of the church. was it only by the human power of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme, was once more restored in the council of constance, never to be broken again? the succession of the english monarchy has been, indeed, often broken, and always restored, in these thousand years. but here is a monarchy of eighteen hundred years, powerless in worldly force or support, claiming and receiving not only outward allegiance, but inward unity of intellect and will. if any man tell us that these two phenomena are on the same level of merely human causes, it is too severe a tax upon our natural reason to believe it. but the inadequacy of human causes to account for the universality, unity, and immutability of the catholic church, will stand out more visibly if we look at the intellectual and moral revolution which christianity has wrought in the world and upon mankind. the first effect of christianity was to fill the world with the true knowledge of the one true god, and to destroy utterly all idols, not by fire but by light. before the light of the world no false god and no polytheism could stand. the unity and spirituality of god swept away all theogonies and theologies of the first four thousand years. the stream of light which descended from the beginning expanded into a radiance, and the radiance into a flood, which illuminated all nations, as it had been foretold, "the earth is filled with the knowledge of the lord, as the covering waters of the sea;" "and idols shall be utterly destroyed."* in this true knowledge of the divine nature was revealed to men their own relation to a creator as of sons to a father. the greeks called the chief of the gods _zeus pater_, and the latins _jupiter_; but neither realized the dependence and love of sonship as revealed by the founder of christianity. * isaias, xi. - , . the monotheism of the world comes down from a primeval and divine source. polytheism is the corruption of men and of nations. yet in the multiplicity of all polytheisms, ont supreme deity was always recognized. the divine unity was imperishable. polytheism is of human imagination: it is of men's manufacture. the deification of nature and passions and heroes had filled the world with an elaborate and tenacious superstition, surrounded by reverence, fear, religion, and awe. every perversion of what is good in man surrounded it with authority; everything that is evil in man guarded it with jealous care. against this world-wide and imperious demon-ology the science of one god, all holy and supreme, advanced with resistless force. beelzebub is not divided against himself; and if polytheism is not divine, monotheism must be. the overthrow of idolatry and demonology was the mastery of forces that are above nature. this conclusion is enough for our present purpose. a second visible effect of christianity of which nature cannot offer any adequate cause is to be found in the domestic life of the christian world. in some nations the existence of marriage was not so much as recognized. in others, if recognized, it was dishonored by profuse concubinage. even in israel, the most advanced nation, the law of divorce was permitted for the hardness of their hearts. christianity republished the primitive law by which marriage unites only one man and one woman indissolubly in a perpetual contract. it raised their mutual and perpetual contract to a sacrament. this at one blow condemned all other relations between man and woman, all the legal gradations of the imperial law, and all forms and pleas of divorce. beyond this the spiritual legislation of the church framed most elaborate tables of consanguinity and affinity, prohibiting all marriages between persons in certain degrees of kinship or relation. this law has created the purity and peace of domestic life. neither the greek nor the roman world had any true conception of a home. the _eoria_ or vesta was a sacred tradition guarded by vestals like a temple worship. it was not a law and a power in the homes of the people. christianity, by enlarging the circles of prohibition within which men and women were as brothers and sisters, has created the home with all its purities and safeguards. such a law of unity and indissolubility, encompassed by a multitude of prohibitions, no mere human legislation could impose on the the passions and will of mankind. and yet the imperial laws gradually yielded to its resistless pressure, and incorporated it in its world-wide legislation. the passions and practices of four thousand years were against the change; yet it was accomplished, and it reigns inviolate to this day, though the relaxations of schism in the east and the laxities of the west have revived the abuse of divorces, and have partially abolished the wise and salutary prohibitions which guard the homes of the faithful. these relaxations prove that all natural forces have been, and are, hostile to the indissoluble law of christian marriage. certainly, then, it was not by natural forces that the sacrament of matrimony and the legislation springing from it were enacted. if these are restraints of human liberty and license, either they do not spring from nature, or they have had a supernatural cause whereby they exist. it was this that redeemed woman from the traditional degradation in which the world had held her. the condition of women in athens and in rome--which may be taken as the highest points of civilization--is too well known to need recital. women had no rights, no property, no independence. plato looked upon them as state property; aristotle as chattels; the greeks wrote of them as [--greek--]. they were the prey, the sport, the slaves of man. even in israel, though they were raised incomparably higher than in the gentile world, they were far below the dignity and authority of christian women. libanius, the friend of julian, the apostate, said, "o ye gods of greece, how great are the women of the christians!" whence came the elevation of womanhood? not from the ancient civilization, for it degraded them; not from israel, for among the jews the highest state of womanhood was the marriage state. the daughter of jepthe went into the mountains to mourn not her death but her virginity. the marriage state in the christian world, though holy and good, is not the highest state. the state of virginity unto death is the highest condition of man and woman. but this is above the law of nature. it belongs to a higher order. and this life of virginity, in repression of natural passion and lawful instinct, is both above and against the tendencies of human nature. it begins in a mortification, and ends in a mastery, over the movements and ordinary laws of human nature. who will ascribe this to natural causes? and, if so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years? and when has it ever appeared except in a handful of vestal virgins, or in oriental recluses, with what reality history shows? an exception proves a rule. no one will imagine that a life of chastity is impossible to nature; but the restriction is a repression of nature which individuals may acquire, but the multitude have never attained. a religion which imposes chastity on the unmarried, and upon its priesthood, and upon the multitudes of women in every age who devote themselves to the service of one whom they have never seen, is a mortification of nature in so high a degree as to stand out as a fact and a phenomenon, of which mere natural causes afford no adequate solution. its existence, not in a handful out of the millions of the world, but its prevalence and continuity in multitudes scattered throughout the christian world, proves the presence of a cause higher than the laws of nature. so true is this, that jurists teach that the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience are contrary to "the policy of the law," that is, to the interests of the commonwealth, which desires the multiplication, enrichment, and liberty of its members. to what has been said may be added the change wrought by christianity upon the social, political, and international relations of the world. the root of this ethical change, private and public, is the christian home. the authority of parents, the obedience of children, the love of brotherhood, are the three active powers which have raised the society of man above the level of the old world. israel was head and shoulders above the world around it; but christendom is high above israel. the new commandment of brotherly love, and the sermon on the mount, have wrought a revolution, both in private and public life. from this come the laws of justice and sympathy which bind together the nations of the christian world. in the old world, even the most refined races, worshiped by our modern philosophers, held and taught that man could hold property in man. in its chief cities there were more slaves than free men. who has taught the equality of men before the law, and extinguished the impious thought that man can hold property in man? it was no philosopher: even aristotle taught that a slave was [--greek--]. it was no lawgiver, for all taught the lawfulness of slavery till christianity denied it. the christian law has taught that man can lawfully sell his labor, but that he cannot lawfully be sold, or sell himself. the necessity of being brief, the impossibility of drawing out the picture of the old world, its profound immoralities, its unimaginable cruelties, compels me to argue with my right hand tied behind me. i can do no more than point again to mr. brace's "gesta christi," or to dr. dollinger's "gentile and jew," as witnesses to the facts which i have stated or implied. no one who has not read such books, or mastered their contents by original study, can judge of the force of the assertion that christianity has reformed the world by direct antagonism to the human will, and by a searching and firm repression of human passion. it has ascended the stream of human license, _contra ictum fluminis_, by a power mightier than nature, and by laws of a higher order than the relaxations of this world. before christianity came on earth, the civilization of man by merely natural force had culminated. it could not rise above its source; all that it could do was done; and the civilization in every race and empire had ended in decline and corruption. the old civilization was not regenerated. it passed away to give place to a new. but the new had a higher source, nobler laws and supernatural powers. the highest excellence of men and of nations is the civilization of christianity. the human race has ascended into what we call christendom, that is, into the new creation of charity and justice among men. christendom was created by the worldwide church as we see it before our eyes at this day. philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands: they did not make it; but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions. these are destructive forces. they build up nothing. it has been well said by donoso cortez that "the history of civilization is the history of christianity, the history of christianity is the history of the church, the history of the church is the history of the pontiffs, the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen." some years ago, a professor of great literary reputation in england, who was supposed even then to be, as his subsequent writings have proved, a skeptic or non-christian, published a well-known and very candid book, under the title of "ecce homo." the writer placed himself, as it were, outside of christianity. he took, not the church in the world as in this article, but the christian scriptures as a historical record, to be judged with forensic severity and absolute impartiality of mind. to the credit of the author, he fulfilled this pledge; and his conclusion shall here be given. after an examination of the life and character of the author of christianity, he proceeded to estimate his teaching and its effects under the following heads: . the christian legislation. . the christian republic. . its universality. . the enthusiasm of humanity. . the lord's supper. . positive morality. . philanthropy. . edification. . mercy. . resentment. . forgiveness. he then draws his conclusion as follows: "the achievement of christ in founding by his single will and power a structure so durable and so universal is like no other achievement which history records. the masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and commonplace in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation flimsy and unsubstantial. when we speak of it the commonplaces of admiration fail us altogether. shall we speak of the originality of the design, of the skill displayed in the execution? all such terms are inadequate. originality and contriving skill operate indeed, but, as it were, implicitly. the creative effort which produced that against which it is said the gates of hell shall not prevail cannot be analyzed. no architect's designs were furnished for the new jerusalem; no committee drew up rules for the universal commonwealth. if in the works of nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity, then in christ's work it may be that the same indications occur. but these inferior and secondary powers were not consciously exercised; they were implicitly present in the manifold yet single creative act. the inconceivable work was done in calmness; before the eyes of mea it was noiselessly accomplished, attracting little attention. who can describe that which unites men? who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? he who can do these things can explain the origin of the christian church. for others it must be enough to say, 'the holy ghost fell on those that believed'. no man saw the building of the new jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfinished walla and unpaved streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe: 'it descended out of heaven from god.'"* * "ece homo," conclusion, p. , fifth edition. macmillan, . and yet the writer is, as he was then, still outside of christianity. iii. we come now to our third point, that christianity has always claimed a divine origin and a divine presence as the source of its authority and powers. to prove this by texts from the new testament would be to transcribe the volume; and if the evidence of the whole new testament were put in, not only might some men deny its weight as evidence, but we should place our whole argument upon a false foundation. christianity was anterior to the new testament and is independent of it. the christian scriptures presuppose both the faith and the church as already existing, known, and believed. _prior liber quam stylus_: as tertullian argued. the gospel was preached before it was written. the four books were written to those who already believed, to confirm their faith. they were written at intervals: st. matthew in hebrew in the year , in greek in . st. mark in , st. luke in , st. john about , in different places and for different motives. four gospels did not exist for sixty years, or two generations of men. st. peter and st. paul knew of only three of our four. in those sixty years the faith had spread from east to west. saints and martyrs had gone up to their crown who never saw a sacred book. the apostolic epistles prove the antecedent existence of the churches to which they were addressed. rome and corinth, and galatia and ephesus, philippi and colossæ, were churches with pastors and people before st. paul wrote to them. the church had already attested and executed its divine legation before the new testament existed; and when all its books were written they were not as yet collected into a volume. the earliest collection was about the beginning of the second century, and in the custody of the church in rome. we must, therefore, seek to know what was and is christianity before and outside of the written books; and we have the same evidence for the oral tradition of the faith as we have for the new testament itself. both alike were in the custody of the church; both are delivered to us by the same witness and on the same evidence. to reject either, is logically to reject both. happily men are not saved by logic, but by faith. the millions of men in all ages have believed by inheritance of truth divinely guarded and delivered to them. they have no need of logical analysis. they have believed from their childhood. neither children nor those who _infantibus oquiparantur_ are logicians. it is the penance of the doubter and the unbeliever to regain by toil his lost inheritance. it is a hard penance, like the suffering of those who eternally debate on "predestination, freewill, fate." between the death of st. john and the mature lifetime of st. irenæus fifty years elapsed. st. polycarp was disciple of st. john. st. irenæus was disciple of st. polycarp. the mind of st. john and the mind of st. irenæus had only one intermediate intelligence, in contact with each. it would be an affectation of minute criticism to treat the doctrine of st. irenaeus as a departure from the doctrine of st. polycarp, or the doctrine of st. polycarp as a departure from the doctrine of st. john. moreover, st. john ruled the church at ephesus, and st. irenaeus was born in asia minor about the year a. d. --that is, twenty years after st. john's death, when the church in asia minor was still full of the light of his teaching and of the accents of his voice. let us see how st. irenæus describes the faith and the church. in his work against heresies, in book iii. chap. i., he says, "we have known the way of our salvation by those through whom the gospel came to us; which, indeed, they then preached, but afterwards, by the will of god, delivered to us in scriptures, the future foundation and pillar of our faith. it is not lawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge, as some dare to affirm, boasting themselves to be correctors of the apostles. for after our lord rose from the dead, and when they had been clothed with the power of the holy ghost, who came upon them from on high, they were filled with all truths, and had knowledge which was perfect." in chapter ii. he adds that, "when they are refuted out of scripture, they turn and accuse the scriptures as erroneous, unauthoritative, and of various readings, so that the truth cannot be found by those who do not know tradition"--that is, their own. "but when we challenge them to come to the tradition of the apostles, which is in custody of the succession of presbyters in the church, they turn against tradition, saying that they are not only wiser than the presbyters, but even the apostles, and have found the truth." "it therefore comes to pass that they will not agree either with the scriptures or with tradition." (ibid. c. iii.) "therefore, all who desire to know the truth ought to look to the tradition of the apostles, which is manifest in all the world and in all the church. we are able to count up the bishops who were instituted in the church by the apostles, and their successors to our day. they never taught nor knew such things as these men madly assert." "but as it would be too long in such a book as this to enumerate the successions of all the churches, we point to the tradition of the greatest, most ancient church, known to all, founded and constituted in rome by the two glorious apostles peter and paul, and to the faith announced to all men, coming down to us by the succession of bishops, thereby confounding all those who, in any way, by self-pleasing, or vainglory, or blindness, or an evil mind, teach as they ought not. for with this church, by reason of its greater principality, it is necessary that all churches should agree; that is, the faithful, wheresoever they be, for in that church the tradition of the apostles has been preserved." no comment need be made on the words the "greater principality," which have been perverted by every anti-catholic writer from the time they were written to this day. but if any one will compare them with the words of st. paul to the colossians (chap. i. ), describing the primacy of the head of the church in heaven, it will appear almost certain that the original greek of st. irenæus, which is unfortunately lost, contained either [--greek--], or some inflection of [--greek--] which signifies primacy. however this may be, st. irenæus goes on: "the blessed apostles, having founded and instructed the church, gave in charge the episcopate, for the administration of the same, to linus. of this linus, paul, in his epistle to timothy, makes mention. to him succeeded anacletus, and after him, in the third place from the apostles, clement received the episcopate, he who saw the apostles themselves and conferred with them, while as yet he had the preaching of the apostles in his ears and the tradition before his eyes; and not he only, but many who had been taught by the apostles still survived. in the time of this clement, when no little dissension had arisen among the brethren in corinth, the church in rome wrote very powerful letters _potentissimas litteras_ to the corinthians, recalling them to peace, restoring their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had so short a time ago received from the apostles." these letters of st. clement are well known, but have lately become more valuable and complete by the discovery of fragments published in a new edition by light-foot. in these fragments there is a tone of authority fully explaining the words of st. irenæus. he then traces the succession of the bishops of rome to his own day, and adds: "this demonstration is complete to show that it is one and the same life-giving faith which has been preserved in the church from the apostles until now, and is handed on in truth." "polycarp was not only taught by the apostles, and conversed with many of those who had seen our lord, but he also was constituted by the apostles in asia to be bishop in the church of smyrna. we also saw him in our early youth, for he lived long, and when very old departed from this life most gloriously and nobly by martyrdom. he ever taught that what he had learned from the apostles, and what the church had delivered, those things only are true." in the fourth chapter, st. irenæus goes on to say: "since, then, there are such proofs (of the faith), the truth is no longer to be sought for among others, which it is easy to receive from the church, forasmuch as the apostles laid up all truth in fullness in a rich depository, that all who will may receive from it the water of life." "but what if the apostles had not left us the scriptures: ought we not to follow the order of tradition, which they gave in charge to them to whom they intrusted the churches? to which order (of tradition) many barbarous nations yield assent, who believe in christ without paper and ink, having salvation written by the spirit in their hearts, and diligently holding the ancient tradition." in the twenty-sixth chapter of the same book he says: "therefore, it is our duty to obey the presbyters who are in the church, who have succession from the apostles, as we have already shown; who also with the succession of the episcopate have the _charisma veritatis certum_," the spiritual and certain gift of truth. i have quoted these passages at length, not so much as proofs of the catholic faith as to show the identity of the church at its outset with the church before our eyes at this hour, proving that the acorn has grown up into its oak, or, if you will, the identity of the church at this hour with the church of the apostolic mission. these passages show the episcopate, its central principality, its succession, its custody of the faith, its subsequent reception and guardianship of the scriptures, its divine tradition, and the charisma or divine assistance by which its perpetuity is secured in the succession of the apostles. this is almost verbally, after eighteen hundred years, the decree of the vatican council: _veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis charisma_.* * "const. dogmatica prima de ecclesia christi," cap. iv. but st. irenæus draws out in full the church of this day. he shows the parallel of the first creation and of the second; of the first adam and the second; and of the analogy between the incarnation or natural body, and the church or mystical body of christ. he says: our faith "we received from the church, and guard.... as an excellent gift in a noble vessel, always full of youth, and making youthful the vessel itself in which it is. for this gift of god is intrusted to the church, as the breath of life (_was imparted_) to the first man, so this end, that all the members partaking of it might be quickened with life. and thus the communication of christ is imparted; that is, the holy ghost, the earnest of incorruption, the confirmation of the faith, the way of ascent to god. for in the church (st. paul says) god placed apostles, prophets, doctors, and all other operations of the spirit, of which none are partakers who do not come to the church, thereby depriving themselves of life by a perverse mind and worse deeds. for where the church is, there is also the spirit of god; and where the spirit of god is, there is the church, and all grace. but the spirit is truth. wherefore, they who do not partake of him (_the spirit_), and are not nurtured unto life at the breast of the mother (_the church_), do not receive of that most pure fountain which proceeds from the body of christ, but dig out for themselves broken pools from the trenches of the earth, and drink water soiled with mire, because they turn aside from the faith of the church lest they should be convicted, and reject the spirit lest they should be taught."* again he says: "the church, scattered throughout the world, even unto the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples the faith in one god the father almighty, that made the heaven and the earth, and the seas, and all things that are in them." &c.** *st. irenæus, cont. hezret lib. iii. cap. xxiv. ** lib. i. cap. x. he then recites the doctrines of the holy trinity, the incarnation, the passion, resurrection, and ascension of our lord jesus christ, and his coming again to raise all men, to judge men and angels, and to give sentence of condemnation or of life everlasting. how much soever the language may vary from other forms, such is the substance of the baptismal creed. he then adds: "the church having received this preaching and this faith, as we have said before, although it be scattered abroad through the whole world, carefully preserves it, dwelling as in one habitation, and believes alike in these (doctrines) as though she had one soul and the same heart: and in strict accord, as though she had one mouth, proclaims, and teaches, and delivers onward these things. and although there may be many diverse languages in the world, yet the power of the tradition is one and the same. and neither do the churches planted in germany believe otherwise, or otherwise deliver (the faith), nor those in iberia, nor among the celtae, nor in the east, nor in egypt, nor in libya, nor they that are planted in the mainland. but as the sun, which is god's creature, in all the world is one and the same, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and lightened all men that are willing to come to the knowledge of the truth. and neither will any ruler of the church, though he be mighty in the utterance of truth, teach otherwise than thus (for no man is above the master), nor will he that is weak in the same diminish from the tradition; for the faith being one and the same, he that is able to say most of it hath nothing over, and he that is able to say least hath no lack."* * st. irenaeus, lib. i. c. x. to st. irenaeus, then, the church was "the irrefragable witness of its own legation." when did it cease so to be? it would be easy to multiply quotations from tertullian in a. d. , from st. cyprian a. d. , from st. augustine and st. optatus in a. d. , from st. leo in a. d. , all of which are on the same traditional lines of faith in a divine mission to the world and of a divine assistance in its discharge. but i refrain from doing so because i should have to write not an article but a folio. any catholic theology will give the passages which are now before me; or one such book as the loci theologici of melchior canus will suffice to show the continuity and identity of the tradition of st. irenaeus and the tradition of the vatican council, in which the universal church last declared the immutable faith and its own legation to mankind. the world-wide testimony of the catholic church is a sufficient witness to prove the coming of the incarnate son to redeem mankind, and to return to his father; it is also sufficient to prove the advent of the holy ghost to abide with us for ever. the work of the son in this world was accomplished by the divine acts and facts of his three-and-thirty years of life, death, resurrection, and ascension. the office of the holy ghost is perpetual, not only as the illuminator and sanctifier of all who believe, but also as the life and guide of the church. i may quote now the words of the founder of the church: "it is expedient to you that i go: for if i go not, the paraclete will not come to you; but if i go, i will send him to you."* "i will ask the father, and he shall give you another paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever."** "the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not nor knoweth him; but you shall know him, because he shall abide with you and shall be in you."*** * st. john, xvi. . ** ibid, xiv. . *** st.john, xiv. , . st. paul in the epistles to the ephesians describes the church as a body of which the head is in heaven, and the author of its indefectible life abiding in it as his temple. therefore the words, "he that heareth you heareth me." this could not be if the witness of the apostles had been only human. a divine guidance was attached to the office they bore. they were, therefore, also judges of right and wrong, and teachers by divine guidance of the truth. but the presence and guidance of the spirit of truth is as full at this day as when st. irenæus wrote. as the churches then were witnesses, judges, and teachers, so is the church at this hour a world-wide witness, an unerring judge and teacher, divinely guided and guarded in the truth. it is therefore not only a human and historical, but a divine witness. this is the chief divine truth which the last three hundred years have obscured. modern christianity believes in the one advent of the redeemer, but rejects the full and personal advent of the holy ghost. and yet the same evidence proves both. the christianity of reformers, always returns to judaism, because they reject the full, or do not believe the personal, advent of the holy ghost. they deny that there is an infallible teacher, among men; and therefore they return to the types and shadows of the law before the incarnation, when the head was not yet incarnate, and the body of christ did not as yet exist. but perhaps some one will say, "i admit your description of the church as it is now and as it was in the days of st. irenæus; but the eighteen hundred years of which you have said nothing were ages of declension, disorder, superstition, demoralization." i will answer by a question: was not this foretold? was not the church to be a field of wheat and tares growing together till the harvest at the end of the world? there were cathari of old, and puritans since, impatient at the patience of god in bearing with the perversities and corruptions of the human intellect and will. the church, like its head in heaven, is both human and divine. "he was crucified in weakness," but no power of man could wound his divine nature. so with the church, which is his body. its human element may corrupt and die; its divine life, sanctity, authority, and structure cannot die; nor can the errors of human intellect fasten upon its faith, nor the immoralities of the human will fasten upon its sanctity. its organization of head and body is of divine creation, divinely guarded by the holy ghost, who quickens it by his indwelling, and guides it by his light. it is in itself incorrupt and incorruptible in the midst of corruption, as the light of heaven falls upon all the decay and corruption in the world, unsullied and unalterably pure. we are never concerned to deny or to cloak the sins of christians or of catholics. they may destroy themselves, but they cannot infect the church from which they fall. the fall of lucifer left no stain behind him. when men accuse the church of corruption, they reveal the fact that to them the church is a human institution, of voluntary aggregation or of legislative enactment. they reveal the fact that to them the church is not an object of divine faith, as the real presence in the sacrament of the altar. they do not perceive or will not believe that the articles of the baptismal creed are objects of faith, divinely revealed or divinely created. "i believe in the holy ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins," are all objects of faith in a divine order. they are present in human history, but the human element which envelops them has no power to infect or to fasten upon them. until this is perceived there can be no true or full belief in the advent and office of the holy ghost, or in the nature and sacramental action of the church. it is the visible means and pledge of light and of sanctification to all who do not bar their intellect and their will against its inward and spiritual grace. the church is not on probation. it is the instrument of probation to the world. as the light of the world, it is changeless as the firmament as the source of sanctification, it is inexhaustible as the rivex of life. the human and external history of men calling themselves christian and catholic has been at times as degrading and abominable as any adversary is pleased to say. but the sanctity of the church is no more affected by human sins than was baptism by the hypocrisy of simon magus. the divine foundation, and office, and mission of the church is a part of christianity. they who deny it deny an article of faith; they who believe it imperfectly are the followers of a fragmentary christianity of modern date. who can be a disciple of jesus christ who does not believe the words? "on this rock i will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;" "as the father hath sent me, i also send you;"* "i dispose to you, as my father hath disposed to me, a kingdom;"** "all power in heaven and earth is given unto me. go, therefore, and teach all nations;"*** "he that heareth you heareth me;"**** "i will be with you always, even unto the end of the world;"(v) "when the days of pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place: and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were, of fire;" "and they were all filled with the holy ghost;" (vi) "it seemed good to the holy ghost and to us to lay upon you no other burdens."(vii) but who denies that the apostles claimed a divine mission? and who can deny that the catholic and roman church from st. irenæus to leo xiii. has ever and openly claimed the same, invoking in all its supreme acts as witness, teacher, and legislator the presence, light, and guidance of the holy ghost? as the preservation of all created things is by the same creative power produced in perpetual and universal action, so the indefectibility of the church and of the faith is by the perpetuity of the presence and office of the third person of the holy trinity. therefore, st. augustine calls the day of pentecost, natalis spiritus sancti. *st. john, xx. . ** st. luke, xxii. . *** st. matthew, xxviii. , . **** st. luke, x. . (v) st. matthew, xxviii. . (vii)acts, ii. - . (viii) acts, xv. . it is more than time that i should make an end; and to do so it will be well to sum up the heads of our argument. the vatican council declares that the world-wide church is the irrefragable witness of its own legation or mission to mankind. in proof of this i have affirmed: . that the imperishable existence of christianity, and the vast and undeniable revolution that it has wrought in men and in nations, in the moral elevation of manhood and of womanhood, and in the domestic, social and political life of the christian world, cannot be accounted for by any natural causes, or by any forces that are, as philosophers say, _intra possibilitatem natures_, within the limits of what is possible to man. . that this world-wide and permanent elevation of the christian world, in comparison with both the old world and the modern world outside of christianity, demands a cause higher than the possibility of nature. . that the church has always claimed a divine origin and a divine office and authority in virtue of a perpetual divine assistance. to this even the christian world, in all its fragments external to the catholic unity, bears witness. it is turned to our reproach. they rebuke us for holding the teaching of the church to be infallible. we take the rebuke as a testimony of our changeless faith. it is not enough for men to say that they refuse to believe this account of the visible and palpable fact of the imperishable christianity of the catholic and roman church. they must find a more reasonable, credible, and adequate account for it. this no man has yet done. the denials are many and the solutions are many; but they do not agree together. their multiplicity is proof of their human origin. the claim of the catholic church to a divine authority and to a divine assistance is one and the same in every age, and is identical in every place. error is not the principle of unity, nor truth of variations. the church has guarded the doctrine of the apostles, by divine assistance, with unerring fidelity. the articles of the faith are to-day the same in number as in the beginning. the explicit definition of their implicit meaning has expanded from age to age, as the everchanging denials and perversions of the world have demanded new definitions of the ancient truth. the world is against all dogma, because it is impatient of definiteness and certainty in faith. it loves open questions and the liberty of error. the church is dogmatic for fear of error. every truth defined adds to its treasure. it narrows the field of error and enlarges the inheritance of truth. the world and the church are ever moving in opposite directions. as the world becomes more vague and uncertain, the church becomes more definite. it moves against wind and tide, against the stress and storm of the world. there was never a more luminous evidence of this supernatural fact than in the vatican council. for eight months all that the world could say and do, like the four winds of heaven, was directed upon it. governments, statesmen, diplomatists, philosophers, intriguers, mockers, and traitors did their utmost and their worst against it. they were in dread lest the church should declare that by divine assistance its head in faith and morals cannot err; for if this be true, man did not found it, man cannot reform it, man cannot teach it to interpret its history or its acts. it knows its own history, and is the supreme witness of its own legation. i am well aware that i have been writing truisms, and repeating trite and trivial arguments. they are trite because the feet of the faithful for nearly nineteen hundred years have worn them in their daily life; they are trivial because they point to the one path in which the wayfarer, though a fool, shall not err. henry edward, (cardinal manning), card. archbishop of westminster. rome or reason: a reply to cardinal manning. superstition "has ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision." i. cardinal manning has stated the claims of the roman catholic church with great clearness, and apparently without reserve. the age, position and learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from their worth. he represents the oldest of the christian churches. the questions involved are among the most important that can engage the human mind. no one having the slightest regard for that superb thing known as intellectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek in any way to gain a victory over truth. without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible. all have the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the establishment of facts. all have the same to gain, the same to lose. he loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right. absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the eyes. prejudice and passion cloud the mind. in each disputant should be blended the advocate and judge. in this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of cardinal manning. the proposition is that "the church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own divine legation." the reasons given as supporting this proposition are: that the catholic church interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world; that it is extranational and independent in a supernational unity; that it is the same in every place; that it speaks all languages in the civilized world; that it is obedient to one head; that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to rome, and that all these things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality of the roman church. it is also asserted that "men see the head of the church year by year speaking to the nations of the world, treating with empires, republics and governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear himself," and that "neither from canterbury nor from constantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen." it is also claimed that the catholic church has enlightened and purified the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life; that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization of christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and rulers; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive and calamitous. we will examine these assertions as well as some others. no one will dispute that the catholic church is the best witness of its own existence. the same is true of every thing that exists--of every church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect. but it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the church is evidence of its divine origin. can it be said that success is supernatural? all success in this world is relative. majorities are not necessarily right. if anything is known--if anything can be known--we are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. we believe in what is called the progress of mankind. progress, for the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old errors--that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with the facts of nature, seeing with greater clearness the conditions of well-being. there is no nation in which a majority leads the way. in the progress of mankind, the few have been the nearest right. there have been centuries in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. some great man leads the way--he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day. afterward, many millions accept his views. but there are still heights above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new, becomes a night. so, we cannot say that success demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid. we know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled beneath the feet of the multitude. we know that the torch of science has been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. we know that the whole intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. the truth or falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number of those who assert, or of those who deny. if the marvelous propagation of the catholic church proves its divine origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of mohammedanism? nothing can be clearer than that christianity arose out of the ruins of the roman empire--that is to say, the ruins of paganism. and it is equally clear that mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of catholicism. after mohammed came upon the stage, "christianity was forever expelled from its most glorious seats--from palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections; from asia minor, that of its first churches; from egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of trinitarian orthodoxy, and from carthage, who imposed her belief on europe." before that time "the ecclesiastical chiefs of rome, of constantinople, and of alexandria were engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man. bishops were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. patriarchs and primates were excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for earthly power--bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal females with concessions of episcopal love. among legions of monks who carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man. "under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, mohammed arose, and raised his own nation from fetichism, the adoration of the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably wrenched from christianity more than half--and that by far the best half--of her possessions, since it included the holy land, the birth-place of the christian faith, and africa, which had imparted to it its latin form; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand years that continent, and a very large part of asia, remain permanently attached to the arabian doctrine." it may be interesting in this connection to say that the mohammedan now proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous propagation of the faith. if the argument is good in the mouth of a catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a moslem? let us see if it is not better. according to cardinal manning, the catholic church triumphed only over the institutions of men--triumphed only over religions that had been established by men,--by wicked and ignorant men. but mohammed triumphed not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of god. this ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy, unassisted by god, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered leaves. at his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white faces--popes trembled, and the armies of god, fighting for the true faith, were conquered on a thousand fields. if the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove? let us put this question in a milder form: suppose the second church lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove? as a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against it. something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. if it succeeds and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable. if it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are exceedingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and easily overcome. here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion. its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had the advantages of what is known as modern civilization. yet this new faith--founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the scriptures--in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing. it was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its strength. it was driven from state to state by the believers in universal love, until it left what was called civilization, crossed the wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the great salt lake. it continued to grow. its founder, as he declared, had frequent conversations with god, and received directions from that source. hundreds of miracles were performed--multitudes upon the desert were miraculously fed--the sick were cured--the dead were raised, and the mormon church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand believers in the new faith. do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth of its creed? joseph smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown language, had been engraved this new revelation, and i think he insisted that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated. if there should be mormon bishops in all the countries of the world, eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the head of that church? it seems to me that a "supernatural" religion--that is to say, a religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant people than any other--and the more ignorant the people, the easier such a religion could be established. the reason for this is plain. all ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the supernatural. the conception of uniformity, of what may be called the eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension. they are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior beings--that is to say, by the supernatural. in other words, that religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was satisfactory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best chance of success. it is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the development of man, everything was miraculous. after a time, the mind slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special interference. the domain of the miraculous grew less and less--the domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous. the rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of mankind--there was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was miraculous. men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. it took many observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion. ordinary rains became "natural," floods remained "miraculous." but it can all be summed up in this: the average man regards the common as natural, the uncommon as supernatural. the educated man--and by that i mean the developed man--is satisfied that all phenomena are natural, and that the supernatural does not and can not exist. as a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks intelligence. the same is true of nations and races. the barbarian is egotistic enough to suppose that an infinite being is constantly doing something, or failing to do something, on his account. but as man rises in the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to the conclusion that nothing in nature happens on his account--that he is hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets. let us make an application of this: to me, the success of mormonism is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the superstitious. it has been recruited from communities brutalized by other forms of superstition. to me, the success of mohammed does not tend to show that he was right--for the reason that he triumphed only over the ignorant, over the superstitious. the same is true of the catholic church. its seeds were planted in darkness. it was accepted by the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. it did not, it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. to count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed. on the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence against itself. questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers. there was a time when the copernican system of astronomy had but few supporters--the multitude being on the other side. there was a time when the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority. let us press this idea further. there was a time when christianity was not in the majority, anywhere. let us suppose that the first christian missionary had met a prelate of the pagan faith, and suppose this prelate had used against the christian missionary the cardinal's argument--how could the missionary have answered if the cardinal's argument is good? but, after all, is the success of the catholic church a marvel? if this church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care, protection and guidance of an infinite being, is not its failure far more wonderful than its success? for eighteen centuries it has persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote. this is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try to convert the world to catholicism. are catholics better than protestants? are they nearer honest, nearer just, more charitable? are catholic nations better than protestant? do the catholic nations move in the van of progress? within their jurisdiction are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? is spain the first nation of the world? let me ask another question: are catholics or protestants better than freethinkers? has the catholic church produced a greater man than humboldt? has the protestant produced a greater than darwin? was not emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true believer? was pius ix., or any other vicar of christ, superior to abraham lincoln? but it is claimed that the catholic church is universal, and that its universality demonstrates its divine origin. according to the bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the world and preach the gospel--yet not one of them, nor one of their converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of god, for fifteen hundred years afterward, knew of the existence of the western hemisphere. during all that time, can it be said that the catholic church was universal? at the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in which the catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard of it, not one in ten believed it. certainly the catholic church was not then universal. is it universal now? what impression has catholicism made upon the many millions of china, of japan, of india, of africa? can it truthfully be said that the catholic church is now universal? when any church becomes universal, it will be the only church. there cannot be two universal churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other. the cardinal next tries to prove that the catholic church is divine, "by its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things." and here let me admit that there are many millions of good catholics--that is, of good men and women who are catholics. it is unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason that this would be only a kind of personality. many thousands of heroes have died in defence of the faith, and millions of catholics have killed and been killed for the sake of their religion. and here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend to prove the truth of a religion. the man who dies in flames, standing by what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he believes, but his sincerity. without calling in question the intentions of the catholic church, we can ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things," and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity." in the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. nothing is more sacred, or can be more sacred, than the wellbeing of man. all things that tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are good--that is to say, they are sacred. all things that tend to the destruction of man's well-being, that tend to his unhappiness, are bad, no matter by whom they are taught or done. it is perfectly certain that the catholic church has taught, and still teaches, that intellectual liberty is dangerous--that it should not be allowed. it was driven to take this position because it had taken another. it taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is necessary to salvation. it has always known that investigation and inquiry led, or might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead, to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. in other words, the catholic church has something more important than this world, more important than the well-being of man here. it regards this life as an opportunity for joining that church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of your soul. if the catholic church is right in its premises, it is right in its conclusion. if it is necessary to believe the catholic creed in order to obtain eternal joy, then, of course, nothing else in this world is, comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. consequently, the catholic church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual freedom, of investigation, of inquiry--in other words, the enemy of progress in secular things. the result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief necessary to salvation. this effort naturally divided itself into persuasion and persecution. it will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable, forgiving and just. a church must be judged by the same standard. has the church been merciful? has it been "fruitful in the good things" of justice, charity and forgiveness? can a good man, believing a good doctrine, persecute for opinion's sake? if the church imprisons a man for the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that the doctrine of the church is wrong, or that the church is bad? both cannot be good. "sanctity" without goodness is impossible. thousands of "saints" have been the most malicious of the human race. if the history of the world proves anything, it proves that the catholic church was for many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among men. i cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and used by the eminently good; neither can i believe that honest people were imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a church that was "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things." and let me say here that i have no protestant prejudices against catholicism, and have no catholic prejudices against protestantism. i regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same prejudice. they were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. all the gods have been made by men. they are all equally powerful and equally useless. i like some of them better than i do others, for the same reason that i admire some characters in fiction more than i do others. i prefer miranda to caliban, but have not the slightest idea that either of them existed. so i prefer jupiter to jehovah, although perfectly satisfied that both are myths. i believe myself to be in a frame of mind to justly and fairly consider the claims of different religions, believing as i do that all are wrong, and admitting as i do that there is some good in all. when one speaks of the "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things" of the catholic church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the inquisition--the rewards offered by the roman church for the capture and murder of honest men. we remember the dominican order, the members of which, upheld by the vicar of christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth hounds, through many centuries. the church, "inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things," not only imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. it robbed graves, to the end that it might convict corpses of heresy--to the end that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans their patrimony. we remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons--the millions who perished by the sword--the vast multitudes destroyed in flames--those who were flayed alive--those who were blinded--those whose tongues were cut out--those into whose ears were poured molten lead--those whose eyes were deprived of their lids--those who were tortured and tormented in every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature overcome. and we remember, too, the exultant cry of the church over the bodies of her victims: "their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now tortured in hell." we remember that the church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power--that it was used to brutalize, degrade, stupefy, and "sanctify" the children of men. we know also that the vicars of christ were persecutors for opinion's sake--that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought through fear--that they endeavored to make every brain a bastile in which the mind should be a convict--that they endeavored to make every tongue a prisoner, watched by a familiar of the inquisition--and that they threatened punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and, in the name of their god, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings hereafter. we know, too, that the catholic church was, during all the years of its power, the enemy of every science. it preferred magic to medicine, relics to remedies, priests to physicians. it thought more of astrologers than of astronomers. it hated geologists--it persecuted the chemist, and imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery calculated to improve the condition of mankind. it is impossible to forget the persecutions of the cathari, the albigenses, the waldenses, the hussites, the huguenots, and of every sect that had the courage to think just a little for itself. think of a woman--the mother of a family--taken from her children and burned, on account of her view as to the three natures of jesus christ. think of the catholic church,--an institution with a divine founder, presided over by the agent of god--punishing a woman for giving a cup of cold water to a fellow-being who had been anathematized. think of this church, "fruitful in all good things," launching its curse at an honest man--not only cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet with a fiendish particularity, but having at the same time the impudence to call on god, and the holy ghost, and jesus christ, and the virgin mary, to join in the curse; and to curse him not only here, but forever hereafter--calling upon all the saints and upon all the redeemed to join in a hallelujah of curses, so that earth and heaven should reverberate with countless curses launched at a human being simply for having expressed an honest thought. this church, so "fruitful in all good things," invented crimes that it might punish. this church tried men for a "suspicion of heresy"--imprisoned them for the vice of being suspected--stripped them of all they had on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. this was a part of the canon law. it is too late to talk about the "invincible stability" of the catholic church. it was not invincible in the seventh, in the eighth, or in the ninth centuries. it was not invincible in germany in luther's day. it was not invincible in the low countries. it was not invincible in scotland, or in england. it was not invincible in france. it is not invincible in italy, it is not supreme in any intellectual centre of the world. it does not triumph in paris, or berlin; it is not dominant in london, in england; neither is it triumphant in the united states. it has not within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who are the leaders of the human race. it is claimed that catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its unity." i suppose the catholic church is more powerful in spain than in any other nation. the history of this nation demonstrates the result of catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a certain religion is too sacred to be examined. without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many causes that contributed to the adoption of catholicism by the spanish people, it is enough to say that spain, of all nations, has been and is the most thoroughly catholic, and the most thoroughly interpenetrated and dominated by the spirit of the church of rome. spain used the sword of the church. in the name of religion it endeavored to conquer the infidel world. it drove from its territory the moors, not because they were bad, not because they were idle and dishonest, but because they were infidels. it expelled the jews, not because they were ignorant or vicious, but because they were unbelievers. it drove out the moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts of the intelligent, the industrious, the honest and the useful, because they were not catholics. it leaped like a wild beast upon the low countries, for the destruction of protestantism. it covered the seas with its fleets, to destroy the intellectual liberty of man. and not only so--it established the inquisition within its borders. it imprisoned the honest, it burned the noble, and succeeded after many years of devotion to the true faith, in destroying the industry, the intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the nobility and the wealth of a nation. it became a wreck, a jest of the conquered, and excited the pity of its former victims. in this period of degradation, the catholic church held "the whole nation in its unity." at last spain began to deviate from the path of the church it made a treaty with an infidel power. in it became humble enough, and wise enough, to be friends with turkey. it made treaties with tripoli and algiers and the barbary states. it had become too poor to ransom the prisoners taken by these powers. it began to appreciate the fact that it could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword. spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to enrich and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost faith in the catholic church. this may be said of every other nation in christendom. torquemada is dead; castelar is alive. the dungeons of the inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and mists--not much, but a little. spain is not yet clothed and in her right mind. a few years ago the cholera visited madrid and other cities. physicians were mobbed. processions of saints carried the host through the streets for the purpose of staying the plague. the streets were not cleaned; the sewers were filled. filth and faith, old partners, reigned supreme. the church, "eminent for its sanctity," stood in the light and cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. the church, in its "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things," allowed its children to perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an instrumentality to further enslave its votaries and its victims. no one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the highest order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. it is necessary neither to deny or disparage the self-denial and goodness of these men. but their religion did more than all other causes to produce the very evils that called for the exhibition of self-denial and heroism. one scientist in control of madrid could have prevented the plague. in such cases, cleanliness is far better than "godliness;" science is superior to superstition; drainage much better than divinity; therapeutics more excellent than theology. goodness is not enough--intelligence is necessary. faith is not sufficient, creeds are helpless, and prayers fruitless. it is admitted that the catholic church exists in many nations; that it is dominated, at least in a great degree, by the bishop of rome--that it is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may be called a "supernational unity." the same, however, is true of the masonic fraternity. it exists in many nations, but it is not a national body. it is in the same sense extranational, in the same sense international, and has in the same sense a supernational unity. so the same may be said of other societies. this, however, does not tend to prove that anything supernational is supernatural. it is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and government, the catholic church is substantially the same wherever it exists. this establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the institution. the church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by repression. wherever man has had something like freedom, differences have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become permanent--new sects have been born and the catholic church has been weakened. the boast of unity is the confession of tyranny. it is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to divine origin. this is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and yet in the cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast and confession: "was it only by the human power of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme, was once more restored in the council of constance, never to be broken again?" by this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the catholic church had been broken, and that it required more than human power to restore it. then the boast is made that it will never be broken again. yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the catholic church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin. now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin failed. the unity was broken in spite of the divine founder. this is admitted by the use of the word "again." the unbroken unity of the church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine origin; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. the argument is then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human power to restore the internal and external unity of the church, and that the restoration, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. is there any contradiction beyond this? let us state the case in another way. let us suppose that a man has a sword which he claims was made by god, stating that the reason he knows that god made the sword is that it never had been and never could be broken. now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken, and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him if he then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding was the evidence that it was of divine origin? a prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and external unity of the church can never be broken again. it is admitted that it was broken--it is asserted that it was divinely restored--and then it is declared that it is never to be broken again. no reason is given for this prophecy; it must be born of the facts already stated. put in a form to be easily understood, it is this: we know that the unity of the church can never be broken, because the church is of divine origin. we know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument, because it was restored by god, and it has not been broken since. therefore, it never can be broken again. it is stated that the catholic church is immutable, and that its immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. was it immutable when its unity, internal and external, was broken? was it precisely the same after its unity was broken that it was before? was it precisely the same after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken? was it universal while it was without unity? which of the fragments was universal--which was immutable? the fact that the catholic church is obedient to the pope, establishes, not the supernatural origin of the church, but the mental slavery of its members. it establishes the fact that it is a successful organization; that it is cunningly devised; that it destroys the mental independence, and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of his soul. the fact that catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope, establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organization. how was the roman empire formed? by what means did that great power hold in bondage the then known world? how is it that a despotism is established? how is it that the few enslave the many? how is it that the nobility live on the labor of peasants? the answer is in one word, organization. the organized few triumph over the unorganized many. the few hold the sword and the purse. the unorganized are overcome in detail--terrorized, brutalized, robbed, conquered. we must remember that when christianity was established the world was ignorant, credulous and cruel. the gospel with its idea of forgiveness--with its heaven and hell--was suited to the barbarians among whom it was preached. let it be understood, once for all, that christ had but little to do with christianity. the people became convinced--being ignorant, stupid and credulous--that the church held the keys of heaven and hell. the foundation for the most terrible mental tyranny that has existed among men was in this way laid. the catholic church enslaved to the extent of its power. it resorted to every possible form of fraud; it perverted every good instinct of the human heart; it rewarded every vice; it resorted to every artifice that ingenuity could devise, to reach the highest round of power. it tortured the accused to make them confess; it tortured witnesses to compel the commission of perjury; it tortured children for the purpose of making them convict their parents; it compelled men to establish their own innocence; it imprisoned without limit; it had the malicious patience to wait; it left the accused without trial, and left them in dungeons until released by death. there is no crime that the catholic church did not commit,--no cruelty that it did not practice,--no form of treachery that it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. it was the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. it did all that organization, cunning, piety, self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and brute force could do to enslave the children of men. it was the enemy of intelligence, the assassin of liberty, and the destroyer of progress. it loaded the noble with chains and the infamous with honors. in one hand it carried the alms dish, in the other a dagger. it argued with the sword, persuaded with poison, and convinced with the fagot. it is impossible to see how the divine origin of a church can be established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope. does the fact that millions of the faithful visit mecca establish the truth of the koran? is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops of thirty nations kneel before a man? is it not humiliating to know that man is willing to kneel at the feet of man? could a noble man demand, or joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows? as a rule, arrogance and humility go together. he who in power compels his fellow-man to kneel, will himself kneel when weak. the tyrant is a cringer in power; a cringer is a tyrant out of power. great men stand face to face. they meet on equal terms. the cardinal who kneels in the presence of the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence; and the bishop who kneels demands that the priest shall kneel to him; and the priest who kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel; and all, from pope to the lowest--that is to say, from pope to exorcist, from pope to the one in charge of the bones of saints--all demand that the people, the laymen, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them. the man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. courage has no knees. fear kneels, or falls upon its ashen face. the cardinal insists that the pope is the vicar of christ, and that all popes have been. what is a vicar of christ? he is a substitute in office. he stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation to the church, in relation to the world, that jesus christ would occupy were he the pope at rome. in other words, he takes christ's place; so that, according to the doctrine of the catholic church, jesus christ himself is present in the person of the pope. we all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. a good king might leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. the good man and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the agent is--what kind of person the vicar is--consequently the bad may be chosen. but if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad, knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison and burn the noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a king? now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of jesus christ, he must have been chosen by jesus christ; and when he was chosen, christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. can we believe that an infinitely wise and good being would choose immoral, dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars? the cardinal admits that "the history of christianity is the history of the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen are the popes of rome." let me call attention to a few passages in draper's "history of the intellectual development of europe." "constantine was one of the vicars of christ. afterwards, stephen iv. was chosen. the eyes of constantine were then put out by stephen, acting in christ's place. the tongue of the bishop theodorus was amputated by the man who had been substituted for god. this bishop was left in a dungeon to perish of thirst. pope leo iii. was seized in the street and forced into a church, where the nephews of pope adrian attempted to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. his successor, stephen v., was driven ignominiously from rome. his successor, paschal i., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the lateran palace. john viii., unable to resist the mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute. "at this time, the bishop of naples was in secret alliance with the mohammedans, and they divided with this catholic bishop the plunder they collected from other catholics. this bishop was excommunicated by the pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief mohammedans, and assassinated others. there was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church were seized, and the gate of st. pancrazia was opened with false keys to admit the saracens. formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of pope john, was himself elected pope in . boniface vi. was his successor. he had been deposed from the diaconate and from the priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. stephen vii. was the next pope, and he had the dead body of formosus taken from the grave, clothed in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a council. the corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body cast into the tiber. afterwards stephen vii., this vicar of christ, was thrown into prison and strangled. "from to , five popes were consecrated. leo v., in less than two months after he became pope, was cast into prison by christopher, one of his chaplains. this christopher usurped his place, and in a little while was expelled from rome by sergius iii., who became pope in . this pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated theodora, who with her daughters marozia and theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. the love of theodora was also shared by john x. she gave him the archbishopric of revenna, and made him pope in . the daughter of theodora overthrew this pope. she surprised him in the lateran palace. his brother, peter, was killed; the pope was thrown into prison, where he was afterward murdered. afterward, this marozia, daughter of theodora, made her own son pope, john xi. many affirmed that pope sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to her husband alberic, whose brother guido she afterward married. another of her sons, alberic, jealous of his brother john, the pope, cast him and their mother into prison. alberic's son was then elected pope as john xii. "john was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of christ. his reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the emperor otho i. was compelled by the german clergy to interfere. he was tried. it appeared that john had received bribes for the consecration of bishops; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the lateran palace had become a brothel. he put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic; he maimed another--both dying in consequence of their injuries. he was given to drunkenness and to gambling. he was deposed at last, and leo vii. elected in his stead. subsequently he got the upper hand. he seized his antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and the tongue of others. his life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced." and yet, i admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity, and justice when compared with the orthodox god--with the god they worshiped. these popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute only for a few years--they could burn only for a few moments--but their god threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their god is as much worse than they were, as hell is worse than the inquisition. "john xiii. was strangled in prison. boniface vii. imprisoned benedict vii., and starved him to death. john xiv. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the castle of st. angelo. the corpse of boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets." it must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by catholics--murdered by the faithful--that one vicar of christ strangled another vicar of christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers and the greatest statesmen of the earth." "pope john xvi. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail. benedict ix., a boy of less than twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. one of his successors, victor iii., declared that the life of benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. he ruled like a captain of banditti. the people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction, and it was bought by a presbyter named john, who became gregory vi., in the year of grace . well may we ask, were these the vicegerents of god upon earth--these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?" it may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit that has not been committed by the vicars of christ. they have inflicted every possible torture, violated every natural right. greater monsters the human race has not produced. among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" vicars of christ there were probably some good men. this would have happened even if the intention had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by christ himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one. if one hypocrite was duly elected pope--one murderer, one strangler, one starver--this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge. but who were the vicars of christ? how many have there been? cardinal manning himself does not know. he is not sure. he says: "starting from st. peter to leo xiii., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole catholic unity as successors of st. peter and vicars of jesus christ." why did he use the word "some"? why "claiming"? does he not positively know? is it possible that the present vicar of christ is not certain as to the number of his predecessors? is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact? robert g. ingersoll. ii. "if we live thus tamely,-- to be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,-- farewell nobility." no one will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations; that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from canterbury nor from constantinople such a voice goes forth." how does the pope speak? what does he say? he speaks against the liberty of man--against the progress of the human race. he speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful against the discoveries of science. he speaks for the destruction of civilization. who listens? do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to the ear fearing that an accent may be lost? does france listen? does italy hear? is not the church weakest at its centre? do those who have raised italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great nations, pay attention? does great britain care for this voice--this moan, this groan--of the middle ages? do the words of leo xiii. impress the intelligence of the great republic? can anything be more absurd than for the vicar of christ to attack a demonstration of science with a passage of scripture, or a quotation from one of the "fathers"? compare the popes with the kings and queens of england. infinite wisdom had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. this is faint praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance succeeded in getting better rulers for england than "infinite wisdom" did for the church of rome. compare the popes with the presidents of the republic elected by the people. if adams had murdered washington, and jefferson had imprisoned adams, and if madison had cut out jefferson's tongue, and monroe had assassinated madison, and john quincy adams had poisoned monroe, and general jackson had hung adams and his cabinet, we might say that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. but if this had happened, the verdict of the world would be that the people are not capable of selecting their presidents. but this voice from rome is growing feebler day by day; so feeble that the cardinal admits that the vicar of god, and the supernatural church, "are being tormented by falck laws, by mancini laws and by crispi laws." in other words, this representative of god, this substitute of christ, this church of divine origin, this supernatural institution--pervaded by the holy ghost--are being "tormented" by three politicians. is it possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other? it is claimed that if the catholic church "be only a human system, built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove it--that the burden is upon them." as a general thing, institutions are natural. if this church is supernatural, it is the one exception. the affirmative is with those who claim that it is of divine origin. so far as we know, all governments and all creeds are the work of man. no one believes that rome was a supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those of the catholic church. commencing in weakness, rome grew, and fought, and conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a subjugated world. and yet all was natural. for every effect there was an efficient cause. the catholic asserts that all other religions have been produced by man--that brahminism and buddhism, the religion of isis and osiris, the marvelous mythologies of greece and rome, were the work of the human mind. from these religions catholicism has borrowed. long before catholicism was born, it was believed that women had borne children whose fathers were gods. the trinity was promulgated in egypt centuries before the birth of moses. celibacy was taught by the ancient nazarenes and essenes, by the priests of egypt and india, by mendicant monks, and by the piously insane of many countries long before the apostles lived. the chinese tell us that "when there were but one man and one woman upon the earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people the globe; and the gods, honoring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin mother became the parent of humanity." the founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon the labor of others. the sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far older than the church of rome. the eucharist is pagan. long before popes began to murder each other, pagans ate cakes--the flesh of ceres, and drank wine--the blood of bacchus. holy water flowed in the ganges and nile, priests interceded for the people, and anointed the dying. it will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been of divine origin. in most religions there has been a strange mingling of the good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and malicious. buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on the development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by the sword, but by preaching, by persuasion, and by kindness--yet in many things it was contrary to the human will, contrary to the human passions, and contrary to good sense. buddhism succeeded. can we, for this reason, say that it is a supernatural religion? is the unnatural the supernatural? it is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the catholic church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its divine origin. has the creed of buddhism changed in three thousand years? is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin? when anything refuses to grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by god? if the catholic church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries, this proves that there has been no intellectual development. if men do not differ upon religious subjects, it is because they do not think. differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. every church must gain or lose: it cannot remain the same; it must decay or grow. the fact that the catholic church has not grown--that it has been petrified from the first--does not establish divine origin; it simply establishes the fact that it retards the progress of man. everything in nature changes--every atom is in motion--every star moves. nations, institutions and individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. this is and will be true of the catholic church. it was once weak--it grew stronger--it reached its climax of power--it began to decay--it never can rise again. it is confronted by the dawn of science. in the presence of the nineteenth century it cowers. it is not true that "all natural causes run to disintegration." natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration. all growth is integration, and all growth is natural. all decay is disintegration, and all decay is natural. nature builds and nature destroys. when the acorn grows--when the sunlight and rain fall upon it and the oak rises--so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes" do not "run to disintegration." but there comes a time when the oak has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. but if the cardinal is right--if "all natural causes run to disintegration," then every success must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction. this is catholic science: "all natural causes run to disintegration." what do these causes find to disintegrate? nothing that is natural. the fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of supernatural origin. according to the cardinal, the only business of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. to prevent this, the supernatural needs the protection of the infinite. according to this doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature. growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature. every plant is supernatural--it defeats the disintegrating influences of rain and light. the generalization of the cardinal is half the truth. it would be equally true to say: all natural causes run to integration. but the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal. the cardinal asserts that "christendom was created by the world-wide church as we see it before our eyes at this day." philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions. the meaning of this is that christendom was far better three hundred years ago than now; that during these three centuries christendom has been going toward barbarism. it means that the supernatural church of god has been a failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has been helpless in the midst of "reformations and revolutions." what was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period, according to the cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution? in that blessed time, philip ii. was king of spain--he with the cramped head and the monstrous jaw. heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous beasts; the inquisition was firmly established, and priests were busy with rack and fire. with a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love of god, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every nerve in the human body. in those happy days, the duke of alva was devastating the homes of holland; heretics were buried alive--their tongues were torn from their mouths, their lids from their eyes; the armada was on the sea for the destruction of the heretics of england, and the moriscoes--a million and a half of industrious people--were being driven by sword and flame from their homes. the jews had been expelled from spain. this catholic country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from its territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity, unequaled, in the annals of crime. nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. and yet a cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of shakespeare, regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years. three hundred years ago, charles ix., in france, son of catherine de medici, in the year of grace --after nearly sixteen centuries of catholic christianity--after hundreds of vicars of christ had sat in st. peter's chair--after the natural passions of man had been "softened" by the creed of rome--came the massacre of st. bartholomew, the result of a conspiracy between the vicar of christ, philip ii., charles ix., and his fiendish mother. let the cardinal read the account of this massacre once more, and, after reading it, imagine that he sees the gashed and mutilated bodies of thousands of men and women, and then let him say that he regrets the revolutions and reformations of three hundred years. about three hundred years ago clement viii., vicar of christ, acting in god's place, substitute of the infinite, persecuted giordano bruno even unto death. this great, this sublime man, was tried for heresy. he had ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth; he had hazarded the conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger and more glorious than ours. for these low and groveling thoughts, for this contradiction of the word and vicar of god, this man was imprisoned for many years. but his noble spirit was not broken, and finally, in the year , by the orders of the infamous vicar, he was chained to the stake. priests believing in the doctrine of universal forgiveness--priests who when smitten upon one cheek turned the other--carried with a kind of ferocious joy fagots to the feet of this incomparable man. these disciples of "our lord" were made joyous as the flames, like serpents, climbed around the body of bruno. in a few moments the brave thinker was dead, and the priests who had burned him fell upon their knees and asked the infinite god to continue the blessed work forever in hell. there are two things that cannot exist in the same universe--an infinite god and a martyr. does the cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in the extermination of protestants? does he regret that dungeons of the inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? does he long for the fires of the _auto da fé_.? in coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the catholic church--in determining the truth of the claim of infallibility--we are not restricted to the physical achievements of that church, or to the history of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth. this church has a creed; and if this church is of divine origin--if its head is the vicar of christ, and, as such, infallible in matters of faith and morals, this creed must be true. let us start with the supposition that god exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful and good--and this is only a supposition. now, if the creed is foolish, absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. we find in this creed the following: "whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith." it is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest, merciful, charitable and just. creed is more important than conduct. the most important of all things is, that he hold the catholic faith. there were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be. millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their fellows. we know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with it as without it. we know that it is not necessary to believe it to be good, loving, tender, noble and self-denying. we admit that millions who have believed it have also been self-denying and heroic, and that millions, by such belief, were not prevented from torturing and destroying the helpless. now, if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were bad, then there might be some propriety in saying that "whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith." but as the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration becomes absurd, ignorant and cruel. there is still another clause: "which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." we now have both sides of this wonderful truth: the believer will be saved, the unbeliever will be lost. we know that faith is not the child or servant of the will. we know that belief is a conclusion based upon what the mind supposes to be true. we know that it is not an act of the will. nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false. it resolves itself into a question of intelligence. if the creed is true, then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. is this a crime for which a man should everlastingly perish? if the creed is false, then a man accepts it because he lacks intelligence. in both cases the crime is exactly the same. if a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should not be saved for accepting the false. this one clause demonstrates that a being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. it also demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a sense of justice. what is this catholic faith that must be held? it is this: "that we worship one god in trinity and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." why should an infinite being demand worship? why should one god wish to be worshiped as three? why should three gods wished to be worshiped as one? why should we pray to one god and think of three, or pray to three gods and think of one? can this increase the happiness of the one or of the three? is it possible to think of one as three, or of three as one? if you think of three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as one? when you think of three as one, what do you do with the other two? you must not "confound the persons"--they must be kept separate. when you think of one as three, how do you get the other two? you must not "divide the substance." is it possible to write greater contradictions than these? this creed demonstrates the human origin of the catholic church. nothing could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief--for the expression of honest thought--for having been guided by his reason--for having acted in accordance with his best judgment. another claim is made, to the effect "that the catholic church has filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true god, and that it has destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire." the catholic church described the true god as a being who would inflict eternal pain on his weak and erring children; described him as a fickle, quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom flattery governed; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance with closed eyes and open mouth; one who delighted in useless self-denial, who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns, as they lay prostrate on dungeon floors; one who was delighted when the husband deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far wilderness, tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and penance, by fasting and faith. according to the catholic church, the true god enjoyed the agonies of heretics. he loved the smell of their burning flesh; he applauded with wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the _auto da fé_ was a divine comedy. the shrieks of wives, the cries of babes when fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect and filled his cup with joy. this true god did not know the shape of the earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the stars. "the stream of light which descended from the beginning" was propagated by fagot to fagot, until christendom was filled with the devouring fires of faith. it may also be said that the catholic church filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true devil. it filled the air with malicious phantoms, crowded innocent sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins and ghosts, and butchered and burned thousands for the commission of impossible crimes. it is contended that: "in this true knowledge of the divine nature was revealed to man their own relation to a creator as sons to a father." this tender relation was revealed by the catholics to the pagans, the arians, the cathari, the waldenses, the albigenses, the heretics, the jews, the moriscoes, the protestants--to the natives of the west indies, of mexico, of peru--to philosophers, patriots and thinkers. all these victims were taught to regard the true god as a loving father, and this lesson was taught with every instrument of torture--with brandings and burnings, with flayings and flames. the world was filled with cruelty and credulity, ignorance and intolerance, and the soil in which all these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true god, and the true knowledge of the one true devil. and yet, we are compelled to say, that the one true devil described by the catholic church was not as malevolent as the one true god. is it true that the catholic church overthrew idolatry? what is idolatry? what shall we say of the worship of popes--of the doctrine of the real presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments, of holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of amulets and charms? the catholic church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. it abandoned the idea of continuity in nature, it denied the integrity of cause and effect. the government of the world was the composite result of the caprice of god, the malice of satan, the prayers of the faithful--softened, it may be, by the charity of chance. yet the cardinal asserts, without the preface of a smile, that "demonology was overthrown by the church, with the assistance of forces that were above nature;" and in the same breath gives birth to this enlightened statement: "beelzebub is not divided against himself." is a belief in beelzebub a belief in demonology? has the cardinal forgotten the council of nice, held in the year of grace , that declared the worship of images to be lawful? did that infallible council, under the guidance of the holy ghost, destroy idolatry? the cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacrament, and therefore indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better than marriage,--holier than a sacrament,--that marriage is not the highest state, but that "the state of virginity unto death is the highest condition of man and woman." the highest ideal of a family is where all are equal--where love has superseded authority--where each seeks the good of all, and where none obey--where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no church can interfere. the real marriage is based on mutual affection--the ceremony is but the outward evidence of the inward flame. to this contract there are but two parties. the church is an impudent intruder. marriage is made public to the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives that find expression in the acts of human beings. the man and woman are not joined together by god, or by the church, or by the state. the church and state may prescribe certain ceremonies, certain formalities--but all these are only evidence of the existence of a sacred fact in the hearts of the wedded. the indissolubility of marriage is a dogma that has filled the lives of millions with agony and tears. it has given a perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. fear has borne children begotten by brutality. countless women have endured the insults, indignities and cruelties of fiendish husbands, because they thought that it was the will of god. the contract of marriage is the most important that human beings can make; but no contract can be so important as to release one of the parties from the obligation of performance; and no contract, whether made between man and woman, or between them and god, after a failure of consideration caused by the willful act of the man or woman, can hold and bind the innocent and honest. do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than others? a little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his hand to strike her: "do not touch me; you have no right to beat me; i am not your wife." about a year ago a husband, whom god in his infinite wisdom had joined to a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage, becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes. she forgave him. a few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful crime, leaving his victim totally blind. would it not have been better if man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom god had joined together? thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is indissoluble, are the beaters of wives. the law of the church has created neither the purity nor the peace of domestic life. back of all churches is human affection. back of all theologies is the love of the human heart. back of all your priests and creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one man by the one woman. back of your faith is the fireside; back of your folly is the family; and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child. it is not true that neither the greek nor the roman world had any true conception of a home. the splendid story of ulysses and penelope, the parting of hector and andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of home existed among the greeks. before the establishment of christianity, the roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. she was free and noble. the church degraded woman--made her the property of the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. the "fathers" denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. the church worshiped a god who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the husband. this church followed the teachings of st. paul. it taught the uncleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were conceived in sin. this church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would forsake their wives and children and follow him. did this tend to the elevation of woman? did this detestable doctrine "create the purity and peace of domestic life"? is it true that a monk is purer than a good and noble father?--that a nun is holier than a loving mother? is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother's love? is there anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against her billowed breast? the good man is useful, the best man is the most useful. those who fill the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves for their own good and not for the benefit of others. they are earning eternal glory for themselves--they do not fast for their fellow-men--their selfishness is only equalled by their foolishness. compare the monk in his selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers for the purpose of saving his barren soul, with a husband and father sitting by his fireside with wife and children. compare the nun with the mother and her babe. celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. it tries to put a stain upon motherhood, upon marriage, upon love--that is to say, upon all that is holiest in the human heart. take love from the world, and there is nothing left worth living for. the church has treated this great, this sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart. they have placed the love of god above the love of woman, above the love of man. human love is generous and noble. the love of god is selfish, because man does not love god for god's sake, but for his own. yet the cardinal asserts "that the change wrought by christianity in the social, political and international relations of the world"--"that the root of this ethical change, private and public, is the christian home." a moment afterward, this prelate insists that celibacy is far better than marriage. if the world could be induced to live in accordance with the "highest state," this generation would be the last. why were men and women created? why did not the catholic god commence' with the sinless and sexless? the cardinal ought to take the ground that to talk well is good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy; and that to think, to reason, is very well, but that to be a catholic is far better. why should we desire the destruction of human passions? take passions from human beings and what is left? the great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. to indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance--to destroy passion is another. the reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue. the goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct--all were produced by human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. love is a transfiguration. it ennobles, purifies and glorifies. in true marriage two hearts burst into flower. two lives unite. they melt in music. every moment is a melody. love is a revelation, a creation. from love the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. justice, self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. lover, wife, mother, husband, father, child, home--these words shed light--they are the gems of human speech. without love all glory fades, the noble falls from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of the air, and virtue ceases to exist. it is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the tendencies of human nature; and the cardinal then asks: "who will ascribe this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years?" if there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice against the tendencies of human nature--if this religion succeeds, then it is claimed by the cardinal that such religion must be of divine origin. is it "against the tendencies of human nature" for a mother to throw her child into the ganges to please a supposed god? yet a religion that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more believers than the catholic church can boast. religions, like nations and individuals, have always gone along the line of least resistance. nothing has "ascended the stream of human license by a power mightier than nature." there is no such power. there never was, there never can be, a miracle. we know that man is a conditioned being. we know that he is affected by a change of conditions. if he is ignorant he is superstitious; this is natural. if his brain is developed--if he perceives clearly that all things are naturally produced, he ceases to be superstitious, and becomes scientific. he is not a saint, but a savant--not a priest, but a philosopher. he does not worship, he works; he investigates; he thinks; he takes advantage, through intelligence, of the forces of nature. he is no longer the victim of appearances, the dupe of his own ignorance, and the persecutor of his fellow-men. he then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than to love god. he then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier than the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear. it is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant and idolatrous when the catholic church was established, and that because the world is better now than then, the church is of divine origin. what was the world when science came? what was it in the days of galileo, copernicus and kepler? what-was it when printing was invented? what was it when the western world was found? would it not be much easier to prove that science is of divine origin? science does not persecute. it does not shed blood--it fills the world with light. it cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and enables man to answer his own prayers. cardinal manning takes the ground that jehovah practically abandoned the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every abomination. he claims that christianity came "in the fullness of time," and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know." having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to know, the cardinal explains it: "one motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek--it gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man are capable." is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of falsehood and evil"? why should an infinitely wise god desire this development and consolidation? what would be thought of a father who should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into every possible excess, to the end that he might "develop all the falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable"? if a supernatural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural religion given to the first man? the catholic church, if this be true, should have been founded in the garden of eden. was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural religion--a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? was there "husbandry in heaven"? but the cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so equitable, as that of rome. is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so equitable? was not the civil law far better than the mosaic--more philosophical, nearer just? the civil law was produced without the assistance of god. according to the cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant mosaic code came from the lips of infinite wisdom and compassion. it is declared that the history of rome shows what man can do without god, and i assert that the history of the inquisition shows what man can do when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over, by the infallible vicars of god. the fact that the early christians not only believed incredible things, but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the cardinal as a miracle. this is only another phase of the old argument that success is the test of divine origin. all supernatural religions have been founded in precisely the same way. the credulity of eighteen hundred years ago believed everything except the truth. a religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to the people among whom it grows. it is shaped and molded by the general ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives. the key is fashioned by the lock. every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonized with their hopes, their fears, their vices, and their virtues. if, as the cardinal says, the religion of christ is in absolute harmony with nature, how can it be supernatural? the cardinal also declares that "the religion of christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature in all nations and all ages to this day." what becomes of the argument that catholicism must be of divine origin because "it has ascended the stream of human license, _contra ictum fluminis_, by a power mightier than nature"? if "it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and all ages to this day," it has gone with the stream, and not against it. if "the religion of christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations," then the men who have rejected it are unnatural, and these men have gone against the stream. how then can it be said that christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has marred it? to what extent has man marred it? in spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the religion of jesus christ. are we justified in saying that the catholic church is of divine origin because the pagans failed to destroy it by persecution? we will put the cardinal's statement in form: paganism failed to destroy catholicism by persecution, therefore catholicism is of divine origin. let us make an application of this logic: paganism failed to destroy catholicism by persecution; therefore, catholicism is of divine origin. catholicism failed to destroy protestantism by persecution; therefore, protestantism is of divine origin. catholicism and protestantism combined failed to destroy infidelity; therefore, infidelity is of divine origin. let us make another application: paganism did not succeed in destroying catholicism; therefore, paganism was a false religion. catholicism did not succeed in destroying protestantism; therefore, catholicism is a false religion. catholicism and protestantism combined failed to destroy infidelity; therefore, both catholicism and protestantism are false religions. the cardinal has another reason for believing the catholic church of divine origin. he declares that the "canon law is a creation of wisdom and justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear comparison;" "that the world-wide and secular legislation of the church was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its source, the church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and perfected the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been higher than the sources of the world." when europe was the most ignorant, the canon law was supreme. as a matter of fact, the good in the canon law was borrowed--the bad was, for the most part, original. in my judgment, the legislation of the republic of the united states is in many respects superior to that of rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the civil law. our legislation is superior in many particulars to that of england, and yet we are greatly indebted to the common law; but it never occurred to me that our statutes at large are divinely inspired. if the canon law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then it should be a perfect code. yet, the canon law made it a crime next to robbery and theft to take interest for money. without the right to take interest the business of the whole world, would to a large extent, cease and the prosperity of mankind end. there are railways enough in the united states to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was built with borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. in no other way could the savings of many thousands have been brought together and a capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and continental importance. it was provided in this same wonderful canon law that a heretic could not be a witness against a catholic. the catholic was at liberty to rob and wrong his fellow-man, provided the fellow-man was not a fellow catholic, and in a court established by the vicar of christ, the man who had been robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. a catholic could enter the house of an unbeliever, of a jew, of a heretic, of a moor, and before the eyes of the husband and father murder his wife and children, and the father could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of the murderer. the world is wiser now, and the canon law, given to us by infinite wisdom, has been repealed by the common sense of man. in this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop, seventy-two witnesses were required; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four; a cardinal deacon, twenty-four; a subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader, ostiarius, seven; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses were invariably required; of a presbyter, seven; of a deacon, three. these laws, in my judgment, were made, not by god, but by the clergy. so too in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid, favor, or counsel, to excommunicated persons, should be anathema, and that those who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with or gave anything in charity to the excommunicated should be anathema. is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime? did he say: "whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated shall wear forever a garment of fire"? were not the laws of the romans much better? besides all this, under the canon law the dead could be tried for heresy, and their estates confiscated--that is to say, their widows and orphans robbed. the most brutal part of the common law of england is that in relation to the rights of women--all of which was taken from the _corpus juris canonici_, "the law that came from a higher source than man." the only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists was _propter infidelitatem_, which was when one of the parties became catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an unbeliever. under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of his wife had only to join the catholic church, provided she remained faithful to the religion of her fathers. under this divine law, a man marrying a widow was declared to be a bigamist. it would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and inconsistencies of the canon law. it has been thrown away by the world. every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the canon law is of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of theological government. under the canon law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards, of holding intercourse with devils. thousands perished at the stake, having been convicted of these impossible crimes. under the canon law, there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. a man or woman could be arrested, charged with being suspected, and under this canon law, flowing from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in favor of guilt. the suspected had to prove themselves innocent. in all civilized courts, the presumption of innocence is the shield of the indicted, but the canon law took away this shield, and put in the hand of the priest the sword of presumptive guilt. if the real pope is the vicar of christ, the true shepherd of the sheep, this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. a divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and yet the catholic sheep have not always been certain who the shepherd was. the council of pisa, held in , deposed two popes--rivals--gregory and benedict--that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of christ and the pretended. this action was taken because a council, enlightened by the holy ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. the council then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied. alexander v. died, and john xxiii. took his place; gregory xii. insisted that he was the lawful pope; john resigned, then he was deposed, and afterward imprisoned; then gregory xii. resigned, and martin v. was elected. the whole thing reads like the annals of a south american revolution. the council of constance restored, as the cardinal declares, the unity of the church, and brought back the consolation of the holy ghost. before this great council john huss appeared and maintained his own tenets. the council declared that the church was not bound to keep its promise with a heretic. huss was condemned and executed on the th of july, . his disciple, jerome of prague, recanted, but having relapsed, was put to death, may , . this cursed council shed the blood of huss and jerome. the cardinal appeals to the author of "ecce homo" for the purpose of showing that christianity is above nature, and the following passages, among others, are quoted: "who can describe that which unites men? who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? he who can do these things can explain the origin of the christian church." these passages should not have been quoted by the cardinal. the author of these passages simply says that the origin of the christian church is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men--than that which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their union--no harder to describe than the origin of civil society--because he says that one who can describe these can describe the other. certainly none of these things are above nature. we do not need the assistance of the holy ghost in these matters. we know that men are united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers--by race, climate and education. it is no more wonderful that people live in families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and bees live in flocks and swarms. if we know anything, we know that language is natural--that it is a physical science. but if we take the ground occupied by the cardinal, then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man, is supernatural. let me ask, by what man? what man must we take as the standard? cosmas or humboldt, st. irenæus or darwin? if everything that we cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the supernatural. the man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge stops. at that point he says that he does not know. such a man is a philosopher. then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the horizon of the human intellect. could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural causes? how would he account for these wonders? he would account for them precisely as the cardinal accounts for the catholic church. belonging to no rival church, i have not the slightest interest in the primacy of leo xiii., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation. the cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original greek of st. irenæus, _which is unfortunately lost_, contained either [--greek--], or some inflection of [--greek--], which signifies primacy." from this it appears that the primacy of the bishop of rome rests on some "inflection" of a greek word--and that this supposed inflection was in a letter supposed to have been written by st. irenæus, which has certainly been lost. is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power has this, and only this, for its foundation? to this "inflection" has it come at last? the cardinal's case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his witnesses. the fathers of the church were utterly incapable of examining a question of fact. they were all believers in the miraculous. the same is true of the apostles. if st. john was the author of the apocalypse, he was undoubtedly insane. if polycarp said the things attributed to him by catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master. what is the testimony of st. john worth in the light of the following? "cerinthus, the heretic, was in a bathhouse. st. john and another christian were about to enter. st. john cried out: 'let us run away, lest the house fall upon us while the enemy of truth is in it.'" is it possible that st. john thought that god would kill two eminent christians for the purpose of getting even with one heretic? let us see who polycarp was. he seems to have been a prototype of the catholic church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning this father: "when any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence he would stop his ears." after this, there can be no question of his orthodoxy. it is claimed that polycarp was a martyr--that a spear was run through his body, and that from the wound his soul, in the shape of a bird, flew away. the history of his death is just as true as the history of his life. irenæus, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a millennium--a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not be the highest form of virtue. if he is called as a witness for the purpose of establishing the divine origin of the church, and if one of his "inflections" is the basis of papal supremacy, is the cardinal also willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium? all the fathers were infinitely credulous. every one of them believed, not only in the miracles said to have been wrought by christ, by the apostles, and by other christians, but every one of them believed in the pagan miracles. all of these fathers were familiar with wonders and impossibilities. nothing was so common with them as to work miracles, and on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed the order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead. it is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the fathers of the church wrote. there were many centuries filled with forgeries--many generations in which the cunning hands of ecclesiastics erased, obliterated or interpolated the records of the past--during which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that never existed. the testimony of the "fathers" is without the slightest value. they believed everything--they examined nothing. they received as a waste-basket receives. whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with the cardinal: "happily, men are not saved by logic." robert g. ingersoll. is divorce wrong? by cardinal gibbons, bishop henry c. potter, and colonel robert g. ingersoll. the attention of the public has been particularly directed of late to the abuses of divorce, and to the facilities afforded by the complexities of american law, and by the looseness of its administration, for the disruption of family ties. therefore the _north american review_ has opened its pages for the thorough discussion of the subject in its moral, social, and religious aspects, and some of the most eminent leaders of modern thought have contributed their opinions. the rev. s. w. dike, ll.d., who is a specialist on the subject of divorce, has prepared some statistics touching the matter, and, with the assistance of bishop potter, the four following questions have been formulated as a basis for the discussion: . do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances? . ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances? . what is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family? . does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to the moral purity of society? editor north american review, introduction by the rev. s. w. dike, ll.d. i am to introduce this discussion with some facts and make a few suggestions upon them. in the dozen years of my work at this problem i have steadily insisted upon a broad basis of fact as the only foundation of sound opinion. we now have a great statistical advance in the report of the department of labor. a few of these statistics will serve the present purpose. there were in the united states , divorces reported for the year and , for , or a total , in the twenty years. this increase is more than twice as great as the population, and has been remarkably uniform throughout the period. with the exception of new york, perhaps delaware, and the three or four states where special legislative reforms have been secured, the increase covers the country and has been more than twice the gain in population. the south apparently felt the movement later than the north and west, but its greater rapidity there will apparently soon obliterate most existing differences. the movement is well-nigh as universal in europe as here. thirteen european countries, including canada, had , divorces in and , in --an increase of per cent. in the same period the increase with us was . per cent. but the ratios of divorce to population are here generally three or four times greater than in europe. the ratios to marriage in the united states are sometimes as high as to , to , or even a little more for single years. in heathen japan for three years they were more than to . but divorce there is almost wholly left to the regulation of the family, and practically optional with the parties. it is a re-transference of the wife by a simple writing to her own family. . the increase of divorce is one of several evils affecting the family. among these are hasty or ill-considered marriages, the decline of marriage and the decrease of children,--too generally among classes pecuniarily best able to maintain domestic life,--the probable increase in some directions of marital infidelity and sexual vice, and last, but not least, a tendency to reduce the family to a minimum of force in the life of society. all these evils should be studied and treated in their relations to each other. carefully-conducted investigations alone can establish these latter statements beyond dispute, although there can be little doubt of their general correctness as here carefully made. and the conclusion is forced upon us that the toleration of the increase of divorce, touching as it does the vital bond of the family, is so far forth a confession of our western civilization that it despairs of all remedies for ills of the family, and is becoming willing, in great degree, to look away from all true remedies to a dissolution of the family by the courts in all serious cases. if this were our settled purpose, it would look like giving up the idea of producing and protecting a family increasingly capable of enduring to the end of its natural existence. if the drift of things on this subject during the present century may be taken as prophetic, our civilization moves in an opposite direction in its treatment of the family from its course with the individual. . divorce, including these other evils related to the family, is preeminently a social problem. it should therefore be reached by all the forces of our great social institutions--religious, educational, industrial, and political. each of these should be brought to bear on it proportionately and in cooperation with the others. but i can here take up only one or two lines for further suggestion. . the causes of divorces, like those of most social evils, are often many and intricate. the statistics for this country, when the forty-three various statutory causes are reduced to a few classes, show that per cent, of the divorces were based on adultery, on cruelty, were granted for desertion, for drunkenness, less than for neglect to provide, and so on. but these tell very little, except that it is easier or more congenial to use one or another of the statutory causes, just as the old "omnibus clause," which gave general discretion to the courts in connecticut, and still more in some other states, was made to cover many cases. a special study of forty-five counties in twelve states, however, shows that drunkenness was a direct or indirect cause in . per cent, of , cases. that is, it could be found either alone or in conjunction with others, directly or indirectly, in one-fifth of the cases. . laws and their administration affect divorce. new york grants absolute divorce for only one cause, and new jersey for two. yet new york has many more divorces in proportion to population, due largely to a looser system of administration. in seventy counties of twelve states per cent, of the applications are granted. the enactment of a more stringent law is immediately followed by a decrease of divorces, from which there is a tendency to recover. personally, i think stricter methods of administration, restrictions upon remarriage, proper delays in hearing suits, and some penal inflictions for cruelty, desertion, neglect of support, as well as for adultery, would greatly reduce divorces, even without removing a single statutory cause. there would be fewer unhappy families, not more. for people would then look to real remedies instead of confessing the hopelessness of remedy by appeals to the courts. a multitude of petty ills and many utterly wicked frauds and other abuses would disappear. "your present methods," said a nova scotian to a man from maine a few years ago, "are simply ways of multiplying and magnifying domestic ills." there is much force in this. but let us put reform of marriage laws along with these measures. . the evils of conflicting and diverse marriage and divorce laws are doing immense harm. the mischief through which innocent parties are defrauded, children rendered illegitimate, inheritance made uncertain, and actual imprisonments for bigamy grow out of divorce and remarriage, are well known to most. uniformity through a national law or by conventions of the states has been strongly urged for many years. uniformity is needed. but for one, i have long discouraged too early action, because the problem is too difficult, the consequences too serious, and the elements of it still too far out of our reach for any really wise action at present. the government report grew immediately out of this conviction. it will, i think, abundantly justify the caution. for it shows that uniformity could affect at the utmost only a small percentage of the total divorces in the united states. _only . percent of all the divorced who were married in this country obtained their divorces in a different state from the one in which their marriage had taken place, in all these twenty years, . per cent, having been divorced in the state where married_. now, marriage on the average lasts . years before divorce occurs, which probably is nearly two-fifths the length of a married life before its dissolution by death. from this . per cent, there must, therefore, be subtracted the large migration of married couples for legitimate purposes, in order to get any fair figure to express the migration for divorce. but the movement of the native population away from the state of birth is or per cent. this, however, includes all ages. for all who believe that divorce itself is generally a great evil, the conclusion is apparently inevitable that the question of uniformity, serious as it is, is a very small part of the great legal problem demanding solution at our hands. this general problem, aside from its graver features in the more immediate sphere of sociology and religion, must evidently tax our publicists and statesmen severely. the old temptation to meet special evils by general legislation besets us on this subject. i think comparative and historical study of the law of the family, (the _familienrecht_ of the germans), especially if the movement of european law be seen, points toward the need of a pretty comprehensive and thorough examination of our specific legal problem of divorce and marriage law in this fuller light, before much legislation is undertaken. samuel w. dike. however much men may differ in their views of the nature and attributes of the matrimonial contract, and in their concept of the rights and obligations of the marriage state, no one will deny that these are grave questions; since upon marriage rests the family, and upon the family rest society, civilization, and the highest interests of religion and the state. yet, strange to say, divorce, the deadly enemy of marriage, stalks abroad to-day bold and unblushing, a monster licensed by the laws of christian states to break hearts, wreck homes and ruin souls. and passing strange is it, too, that so many, wise and far-seeing in less weighty concerns, do not appear to see in the evergrowing power of divorce a menace not only to the sacredness of the marriage institution, but even to the fair social fabric reared upon matrimony as its corner-stone. god instituted in paradise the marriage state and sanctified it. he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility. by divine authority adam spoke when of his wife he said: "this now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."* * gen., ii., - . but like other things on earth, marriage suffered in the fall; and little by little polygamy and divorce began to assert themselves against the law of matrimonial unity and indissolubility. yet the ideal of the marriage institution never faded away. it survived, not only among the chosen people, but even among the nations of heathendom, disfigured much, 'tis true, but with its ancient beauty never wholly destroyed. when, in the fullness of time, christ came to restore the things that were perishing, he reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms the sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage. nay, more. he gave to this state added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had "from the beginning." he made marriage a sacrament, made it the type of his own never-ending union with his one spotless spouse, the church. st. paul, writing to the ephesians, says: "husbands, love your wives, as christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. so also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.... for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh."* * ephes., v., - . in defence of christian marriage, the church was compelled from the earliest days of her existence to do frequent and stern battle. but cultured pagan, and rough barbarian, and haughty christian lord were met and conquered. men were taught to master passion, and christian marriage, with all its rights secured and reverenced, became a ruling power in the world. the council of trent, called, in the throes of the mighty moral upheaval of the sixteenth century, to deal with the new state of things, again proclaimed to a believing and an unbelieving world the catholic doctrine of the holiness, unity, and indissolubility of marriage, and the unlawfulness of divorce. the council declared no new dogmas: it simply reaffirmed the common teaching of the church for centuries. but some of the most hallowed attributes of marriage seemed to be objects of peculiar detestation to the new teachers, and their abolition was soon demanded. "the leaders in the changes of matrimonial law," writes professor woolsey, "were the protestant reformers themselves, and that almost from the beginning of the movement.... the reformers, when they discarded the sacramental view of marriage and the celibacy of the clergy, had to make out a new doctrine of marriage and of divorce."* the "new doctrine of marriage and of divorce," pleasing as it was to the sensual man, was speedily learned and as speedily put in practice. the sacredness with which christian marriage had been hedged around began to be more and more openly trespassed upon, and restive shoulders wearied more and more quickly of the marriage yoke when divorce promised freedom for newer joys. to our own time the logical consequences of the "new doctrine" have come. to-day "abyss calls upon abyss," change calls for change, laxity calls for license. divorce is now a recognized presence in high life and low; and polygamy, the first-born of divorce, sits shameless in palace and in hovel. yet the teacher that feared not to speak the words of truth in bygone ages is not silent now. in no uncertain tones, the church proclaims to the world to-day the unchangeable law of the strict unity and absolute indissolubility of valid and consummated christian marriage. to the question then, "can divorce from the bond of marriage ever be allowed?" the catholic can only answer no. * "divorce and divorce legislation," by theodore d. woolsey, d ed., p. . and for this no, his first and last and best reason can be but this: "_thus saith the lord_." as time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding divorce from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the many who deny to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction. and nowhere is this more true than in our own country. yet our experience of the evils of divorce is but the experience of every people that has cherished this monster. let us take but a hasty view of the consequences of divorce in ancient times. turn only to pagan greece and rome, two peoples that practised divorce most extensively. in both we find divorce weakening their primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. among the greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. divorce grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family circle. among the romans divorce was not common until the latter days of the republic. then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes and in every walk of life. "passion, interest, or caprice," gibbon, the historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* each succeeding generation witnessed moral corruption more general, moral degradation more profound; men and women were no longer ashamed of licentiousness; until at length the nation that became mighty because built on a pure family fell when its corner-stone crumbled away in rottenness. * "decline and fall of the roman empiré," milman's ed., vol. iii., p. . heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, too, have made trial of divorce. in europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage and divorce has had! notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and in due proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce have been multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly broken, and the obligations of that sacred state more and more shamelessly disregarded. in our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. mr. carroll d. wright, in a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to congress in february, , places the number of divorces in the united states in at , , and the number in at , . these figures show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our increase in population. the knowledge that divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. legislators and judges in some states are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for divorce. frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and in some states divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant--in such cases generally an innocent wife. crime has sometimes been committed for the very purpose of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in which plots have been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse in order to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. sometimes, too, there is a collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. one of them trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is entered for the plaintiff. every daily newspaper tells us of divorces applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals. we are filled with righteous indignation at mormonism; we brand it as a national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. why? because, forsooth, the mormons are polygamists. do we forget that there are two species of polygamy--simultaneous and successive? mormons practise without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in whose nostrils mormonism is a stench and an abomination. the christian press and pulpit of the land denounce the mormons as "an adulterous generation," but too often deal very tenderly with christian polygamists. why? is christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of god than mormon polygamy? among us, *tis true, the one is looked upon as more respectable than the other. yet we know that the mormons as a class, care for their wives and children; while christian polygamists but too often leave wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and leave miserable children a public charge. "o divorced and much-married christian," says the polygamous dweller by salt lake, "pluck first the beam from thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from the eye of thy much-married, but undivorced, mormon brother." it follows logically from the catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital bond, that no one, even though divorced _a vinculo_ by the civil power, can be allowed by the church to take another consort during the lifetime of the true wife or husband, and such connection the church can but hold as sinful. it is written: "whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. and if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."* * mark, x., ii, . of course, i am well aware that upon the words of our saviour as found in st. matthew, chap. xix., , many base the right of divorce from the marriage bond for adultery, with permission to remarry. but, as is well known, the catholic church, upon the concurrent testimony of the evangelists mark* and luke,** and upon the teaching of st. paul,*** interprets our lord's words quoted by st. matthew as simply permitting, on account of adultery, divorce from bed and board, with no right to either party to marry another. but even if divorce _a vinculo_ were not forbidden by divine law, how inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it a panacea. "divorce _a vinculo_," as dr. brownson truly says, "logically involves divorce _ad libitum."_*** now, what reason is there to suppose that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the new connection than in the old? as a matter of fact, many persons have been divorced a number of times. sometimes, too, it happens that, after a period of separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and are again divorced. indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the parties--causes that would be likely to make a new union as wretched as the old one. there is wisdom in the pithy saying of-a recent writer: "much ill comes, not because men and women are married, but because they are fools."*** * mark, x., n, . luke, xvi., . j i. cor.,vii., , . ** essay on "the family--christian and pagan." *** prof. david swing in chicago journal. there are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does not contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion that divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. he who believes the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and the connection resulting from it criminal, can only say: "evil should not be done that good may come." but, after all, would even passing good come from this greater freedom? in a few exceptional cases--yes: in the vast majority of cases--no. the trying of divorce as a safeguard of purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. in rome adulteries increased as divorces were multiplied. after speaking of the facility and frequency of divorce among the romans, gibbon adds: "a specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. the facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. the minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten."* how _apropos_ in this connection are the words of professor woolsey: "nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu, various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution, illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have increased also--not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the whole."! surely in few parts of the wide world is the truth of these strong words more evident than in those parts of our own country where loose divorce laws have long prevailed. it should be noted that, while never allowing the dissolution of the marriage bond, the catholic church has always permitted, for grave causes and under certain conditions, a temporary or permanent "separation from bed and board." * "decline and fall of the roman empire," milman's ed., vol. iii., p. . ** "divorce and divorce legislation," d ed., p. . the causes which, _positis ponendis_, justify such separation may be briefly given thus: mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or body. it may be said that there are persons so unhappily mated and so constituted that for them no relief can come save from divorce _a vinculo_, with permission to remarry. i shall not linger here to point out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power the grace to suffer and be strong. but for those whose reasoning on this subject is of the earth, earthy, i shall add some words of practical worldly wisdom from eminent jurists. in a note to his edition of blackstone's "commentaries," mr. john taylor coleridge says: "it is no less truly than beautifully said by sir w. scott, in the case of evans v. evans, that 'though in particular cases the repugnance of the law to dissolve the obligation of matrimonial cohabitation may operate with great severity upon individuals, yet it must be carefully remembered that the general happiness of the married life is secured by its indissolubility.' when people understand that they must live together, except for a few reasons known to the law, they learn to soften by mutual accommodation that yoke which they know they cannot shake off: they become good husbands and good wives from the necessity of remaining husbands and wives: for necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties which it imposes. if it were once understood that upon mutual disgust married persons might be legally separated, many couples who now pass through the world with mutual comfort, with attention to their common offspring, and to the moral order of civil society, might have been at this moment living in a state of mutual unkindness, in a state of estrangement from their common offspring, and in a state of the most licentious and unrestrained immorality. in this case, as in many other cases, the happiness of some individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good." the facility and frequency of divorce, and its lamentable consequences, are nowadays calling much attention to measures of "divorce reform." "how can divorce reform be best secured?" it may be asked. believing, as i do, that divorce is evil, i also believe that its "reformation" and its death must be simultaneous. it should cease to be. divorce as we know it began when marriage was removed from the domain of the church: divorce shall cease when the old order shall be restored. will this ever come to pass? perhaps so--after many days. meanwhile, something might be done, something should be done, to lessen the evils of divorce. our present divorce legislation must be presumed to be such as the majority of the people wish it. a first step, therefore, in the way of "divorce reform" should be the creation of a more healthy public sentiment on this question. then will follow measures that will do good in proportion to their stringency. a few practical suggestions as to the salient features of remedial divorce legislation may not be out of place. persons seeking at the hands of the civil law relief in matrimonial troubles should have the right to ask for divorce _a vinculo_, or simple separation _a mensâ et thoro_, as they may elect. the number of legally-recognized grounds for divorce should be lessened, and "noiseless" divorces forbidden. "rapid-transit" facilities for passing through divorce courts should be cut off, and divorce "agencies" should be suppressed. the plaintiff in a divorce case should be a _bona fide_ resident of the judicial district in which his petition is filed, and in every divorce case the legal representatives of the state should appear for the defendant, and, by all means, the right of remarriage after divorce should be restricted. if divorce cannot be legislated out of existence, let, at least, its power for evil be diminished. james cardinal gibbons. i am asked certain questions with regard to the attitude of the episcopal church towards the matter of divorce. in undertaking to answer them, it is to be remembered that there is a considerable variety of opinion which is held in more or less precise conformity with doctrinal or canonical declarations of the church. with these variations this paper, except in so far as it may briefly indicate them, is not concerned. nor is it an expression of individual opinion. that is not what has been asked for or attempted. the doctrine and law of the protestant episcopal church on the subject of divorce is contained in canon , title ii., of the "digest of the canons," . that, canon has been to a certain extent interpreted by episcopal judgments under section iv. the "public opinion" of the clergy or laity can only be ascertained in the usual way; especially by examining their published treatises, letters, etc., and perhaps most satisfactorily by the reports of discussion in the diocesan and general conventions on the subject of divorce. among members of the protestant episcopal church divorce is excessively rare, cases of uncertainty in the application of the canon, are much more rare, and the practice of the clergy is almost perfectly uniform. there is, however, by no means the same uniformity in their opinions either as to divorce or marriage. as divorce is necessarily a mere accident of marriage, and as divorce is impossible without a precedent marriage, much practical difficulty might arise, and much difference of opinion does arise, from the fact that the protestant episcopal church has nowhere defined marriage. negatively, it is explicitly affirmed (article xxv.) that "matrimony is not to be counted for a sacrament of the gospel." this might seem to reduce matrimony to a civil contract. and accordingly the first rubric in the _form of solemnization of matrimony_ directs, on the ground of differences of laws in the various states, that "the minister is left to the direction of those laws in everything that regards the civil contract between the parties." laws determining what persons shall be capable of contracting would seem to be included in "everything that regards the civil contract;" and unquestionably the laws of most of the states render all persons legally divorced capable of at once contracting a new marriage. both the first section of canon and the _form of solemnization_, affirm that, "if any persons be joined together otherwise than as god's word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful." but it is nowhere excepting as to divorce, declared _what the impediments are_. the protestant episcopal church has never, by canon or express legislation, published, for instance, a table of prohibited degrees. on the matter of divorce, however, canon , title ii., supersedes, for the members of the protestant episcopal church, both a part of the civil law relating to the persons capable of contracting marriage, and also all private judgment as to the teaching of "the word of god" on that subject. no minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living. but if the person seeking to be married is the innocent party in the divorce for adultery, that person, whether man or woman, may be married by a minister of the church. with the above exception, the clergy are forbidden to administer the sacraments to any divorced and remarried person without the express permission of the bishop, unless that person be "penitent" and "in imminent danger of death." any doubts "as to the facts of any case under section ii. of this canon" must be referred to the bishop. of course, where there is no reasonable doubt the minister may proceed. it may be added that the sacraments are to be refused also to persons who may be reasonably supposed to have contracted marriage "otherwise," in any respect, "than as the word of god and the discipline of this church doth allow." these impediments are nowhere defined; and accordingly it has happened that a man who had married a deceased wife's sister and the woman he had married were, by the private judgment of a priest, refused the holy communion. the civil courts do not seem inclined to protect the clergy from consequences of interference with the civil law. in southbridge, mass., a few weeks ago, a man who had been denounced from the altar for marrying again after a divorce obtained a judgment for $ , damages. the law of the church would seem to be that, even though a legal divorce may have been obtained, remarriage is absolutely forbidden, excepting to the innocent party, whether man or woman, in a divorce for adultery. the penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the officiating clergyman, deposition from the ministry; for the offending man or woman, exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large number of the clergy, involves everlasting damnation. it is obvious, then, that the protestant episcopal church allows the complete validity of a divorce _a vinculo_ in the case of adultery, and the right of remarriage to the innocent party. but that church has not determined in what manner either the grounds of the divorce or the "innocence" of either party is to be ascertained. the canon does not require a clergyman to demand, nor can the church enable him to secure, the production of a copy of the record or decree of the court of law by which a divorce is granted, nor would such decree indicate the "innocence" of one party, though it might prove the guilt of the other. the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family is too obvious to require stating. as the father and mother are the heads of the family, their separation must inevitably destroy the common family life. on the other hand, it is often contended that the destruction has been already completed, and that a divorce is only the legal recognition of what has already taken place; "the integrity of the family" can scarcely remain when either a father or mother, or both, are living in violation of the law on which that integrity rests. the question may be asked whether the absolute prohibition of divorce would contribute to the moral purity of society. it is difficult to answer such a question, because anything on the subject must be comparatively worthless until verified by experience. it is quite certain that the prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit sexual connections, as was abundantly proved when divorce in england was put within the reach of persons who were not able to afford the expense of a special act of parliament. it is, indeed, so palpable a fact that any amount of evidence or argument is wholly superfluous. the law of the protestant episcopal church is by no means identical with the opinion of either the clergy or the laity. in the judgment of many, the existing law is far too lax, or, at least, the whole doctrine of marriage is far too inadequately dealt with in the authoritative teaching of the church. the opinion of this school finds, perhaps, its most adequate expression in the report of a committee of the last general convention forming appendix xiii. of the "journal" of that convention. it is, substantially, that the mosaic law of marriage is still binding upon the church, unless directly abrogated by christ himself; that it was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him, excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person until the death of the other party is wholly forbidden; that marriage is not merely a civil contract, but a spiritual and supernatural union, requiring for its mutual obligation a supernatural, divine grace; that such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony, which is a true sacrament and does actually confer grace; that marriage is wholly within the jurisdiction of the church, though the state may determine such rules and guarantees as may secure publicity and sufficient evidence of a marriage, etc.; that severe penalties should be inflicted by the state, on the demand of the church, for the suppression of all offences against the seventh commandment and sundry other parts of the mosaic legislation, especially in relation to "prohibited degrees." there is another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the integrity of the family and sexual purity, which would nevertheless repudiate much the greater part of the above assumption. this school, if one may so venture to combine scattered opinions, argues substantially as follows: the type of all mosaic legislation was circumcision; that rite was of universal obligation and divine authority. st. paul so regarded it. the abrogation of the law requiring circumcision was, therefore, the abrogation of the whole of the mosaic legislation. the "burden of proof," therefore, rests upon those who affirm the present obligation of what formed a part of the mosaic law; and they must show that it has been reenacted by christ and his apostles or forms some part of some other and independent system of law or morals still in force. christ's words about divorce are not to be construed as a positive law, but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not everybody "can receive." so far as christ's words seem to indicate an inequality as to divorce between man and woman, they are explained by the authoritative and inspired assertion of st. paul: "in christ jesus there is neither male nor female." a divine law is equally authoritative by whomsoever declared--whether by the son incarnate or by the holy ghost speaking through inspired apostles. if, then, a divine law was ever capable of suspension or modification, it may still be capable of such suspension or modification in corresponding circumstances. the circumstances which justified a modification of the original divine law of marriage do still exist in many conditions of society and even of individual life. the protestant episcopal church cannot, alone, speak with such authority on disputed passages of scripture as to justify her ministers in direct disobedience to the civil authority, which is also "ordained of god." the exegesis of the early church was closely connected with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of women and of married life, which are no longer believed. of course this is a very brief statement. as a matter of fact the actual effect of the doctrine and discipline of the protestant episcopal church on marriage and divorce is that divorce among her members is excessively rare; that it is regarded with extreme aversion; and that the public opinion of the church maintains the law as it now is, but could not be trusted to execute laws more stringent. a member of the committee of the general convention whose report has been already referred to closes that report with the following protest: "the undersigned finds himself unable to concur in so much of the [proposed] canon as forbids the holy communion to a truly pious and godly woman who has been compelled by long years of suffering from a drunken and brutal husband to obtain a divorce, and has regularly married some suitable person according to the established laws of the land. and also from so much of the [proposed] canon as may seem to forbid marriage with a deceased wife's sister." the final action on these points, which has already been stated, indicates that the proposed report thus referred to was, in one particular at least, in advance of the sentiment of the church as expressed in her general convention. henry c. potter. _question ( .) do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?_ the world for the most part is ruled by the tomb, and the living are tyrannized over by the dead. old ideas, long after the conditions under which they were produced have passed away, often persist in surviving. many are disposed to worship the ancient--to follow the old paths, without inquiring where they lead, and without knowing exactly where they wish to go themselves. opinions on the subject of divorce have been, for the most part, inherited from the early christians. they have come to us through theological and priestly channels. the early christians believed that the world was about to be destroyed, or that it was to be purified by fire; that all the wicked were to perish, and that the good were to be caught up in the air to meet their lord--to remain there, in all probability, until the earth was prepared as a habitation for the blessed. with this thought or belief in their minds, the things of this world were of comparatively no importance. the man who built larger barns in which to store his grain was regarded as a foolish farmer, who had forgotten, in his greed for gain, the value of his own soul. they regarded prosperous people as the children of mammon, and the unfortunate, the wretched and diseased, as the favorites of god. they discouraged all worldly pursuits, except the soliciting of alms. there was no time to marry or to be given in marriage; no time to build homes and have families. all their thoughts were centred upon the heaven they expected to inherit. business, love, all secular things, fell into disrepute. nothing is said in the testament about the families of the apostles; nothing of family life, of the sacredness of home; nothing about the necessity of education, the improvement and development of the mind. these things were forgotten, for the reason that nothing, in the presence of the expected event, was considered of any importance, except to be ready when the son of man should come. such was the feeling, that rewards were offered by christ himself to those who would desert their wives and children. human love was spoken of with contempt. "let the dead bury their dead. what is that to thee? follow thou me." they not only believed these things, but acted in accordance with them; and, as a consequence, all the relations of life were denied or avoided, and their obligations disregarded. marriage was discouraged. it was regarded as only one degree above open and unbridled vice, and was allowed only in consideration of human weakness. it was thought far better not to marry--that it was something grander for a man to love god than to love woman. the exceedingly godly, the really spiritual, believed in celibacy, and held the opposite sex in a kind of pious abhorrence. and yet, with that inconsistency so characteristic of theologians, marriage was held to be a sacrament. the priest said to the man who married: "remember that you are caught for life. this door opens but once. before this den of matrimony the tracks are all one way." this was in the nature of a punishment for having married. the theologian felt that the contract of marriage, if not contrary to god's command, was at least contrary to his advice, and that the married ought to suffer in some way, as a matter of justice. the fact that there could be no divorce, that a mistake could not be corrected, was held up as a warning. at every wedding feast this skeleton stretched its fleshless finger towards bride and groom. nearly all intelligent people have given up the idea that the world is about to come to an end. they do not now believe that prosperity is a certain sign of wickedness, or that poverty and wretchedness are sure certificates of virtue. they are hardly convinced that dives should have been sent to hell simply for being rich, or that lazarus was entitled to eternal joy on account of his poverty. we now know that prosperous people may be good, and that unfortunate people may be bad. we have reached the conclusion that the practice of virtue tends in the direction of prosperity, and that a violation of the conditions of well-being brings, with absolute certainty, wretchedness and misfortune. there was a time when it was believed that the sin of an individual was visited upon the tribe, the community, or the nation to which he belonged. it was then thought that if a man or woman had made a vow to god, and had failed to keep the vow, god might punish the entire community; therefore it was the business of the community to see to it that the vow was kept. that idea has been abandoned. as we progress, the rights of the individual are perceived, and we are now beginning dimly to discern that there are no rights higher than the rights of the individual. there was a time when nearly all believed in the reforming power of punishment--in the beneficence of brute force. but the world is changing. it was at one time thought that the inquisition was the savior of society; that the persecution of the philosopher was requisite to the preservation of the state, and that, no matter what happened, the state should be preserved. we have now more light. and standing upon this luminous point that we call the present, let me answer your questions. marriage is the most important, the most sacred, contract that human beings can make. no matter whether we call it a contract, or a sacrament, or both, it remains precisely the same. and no matter whether this contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest, it is exactly the same. a true marriage is a natural concord and agreement of souls, a harmony in which discord is not even imagined; it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist; all other considerations are lost; the present seems to be eternal. in this supreme moment there is no shadow--or the shadow is as luminous as light. and when two beings thus love, thus unite, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. that which is said before the altar, or minister, or magistrate, or in the presence of witnesses, is only the outward evidence of that which has already happened within; it simply testifies to a union that has already taken place--to the uniting of two mornings of hope to reach the night together. each has found the ideal; the man has found the one woman of all the world--the impersonation of affection, purity, passion, love, beauty, and grace; and the woman has found the one man of all the world, her ideal, and all that she knows of romance, of art, courage, heroism, honesty, is realized in him. the idea of contract is lost. duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one. nothing can add to the sacredness of this marriage, to the obligation and duty of each to each. there is nothing in the ceremony except the desire on the part of the man and woman that the whole world should know that they are really married and that their souls have been united. every marriage, for a thousand reasons, should be public, should be recorded, should be known; but, above all, to the end that the purity of the union should appear. these ceremonies are not only for the good and for the protection of the married, but also for the protection of their children, and of society as well. but, after all, the marriage remains a contract of the highest possible character--a contract in which each gives and receives a heart. the question then arises, should this marriage, under any circumstances, be dissolved? it is easy to understand the position taken by the various churches; but back of theological opinions is the question of contract. in this contract of marriage, the man agrees to protect and cherish his wife. suppose that he refuses to protect; that he abuses, assaults, and tramples upon the woman he wed. what is her redress? is she under any obligation to him? he has violated the contract. he has failed to protect, and, in addition, he has assaulted her like a wild beast. is she under any obligation to him? is she bound by the contract he has broken? if so, what is the consideration for this obligation? must she live with him for his sake? or, if she leaves him to preserve her life, must she remain his wife for his sake? no intelligent man will answer these questions in the affirmative. if, then, she is not bound to remain his wife for the husband's sake, is she bound to remain his wife because the marriage was a sacrament? is there any obligation on the part of the wife to remain with the brutal husband for the sake of god? can her conduct affect in any way the happiness of an infinite being? is it possible for a human being to increase or diminish the well-being of the infinite? the next question is as to the right of society in this matter. it must be admitted that the peace of society will be promoted by the separation of such people. certainly society cannot insist upon a wife remaining with a husband who bruises and mangles her flesh. even married women have a right to personal security. they do not lose, either by contract or sacrament, the right of self-preservation; this they share in common, to say the least of it, with the lowest living creatures. this will probably be admitted by most of the enemies of divorce; but they will insist that while the wife has the right to flee from her husband's roof and seek protection of kindred or friends, the marriage--the sacrament--must remain unbroken. is it to the interest of society that those who despise each other should live together? ought the world to be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the children of lust and loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love? is it possible that an infinitely wise and compassionate god insists that a helpless woman shall remain the wife of a cruel wretch? can this add to the joy of paradise, or tend to keep one harp in tune? can anything be more infamous than for a government to compel a woman to remain the wife of a man she hates--of one whom she justly holds in abhorrence? does any decent man wish the assistance of a constable, a sheriff, a judge, or a church, to keep his wife in his house? is it possible to conceive of a more contemptible human being than a man who would appeal to force in such a case? it may be said that the woman is free to go, and that the courts will protect her from the brutality of the man who promised to be her protector; but where shall the woman go? she may have no friends; or they may be poor; her kindred may be dead. has she no right to build another home? must this woman, full of kindness, affection, health, be tied and chained to this living corpse? is there no future for her? must she be an outcast forever--deceived and betrayed for her whole life? can she never sit by her own hearth, with the arms of her children about her neck, and with a husband who loves and protects her? is she to become a social pariah, and is this for the benefit of society?--or is it for the sake of the wretch who destroyed her life? the ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriage could be annulled. is it necessary to lose your liberty in order to retain your moral character--in order to be pure and womanly? must a woman, in order to retain her virtue, become a slave, a serf, with a beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master? if an infinite being is one of the parties to the contract, is it not the duty of this being to see to it that the contract is carried out? what consideration does the infinite being give? what consideration does he receive? if a wife owes no duty to her husband because the husband has violated the contract, and has even assaulted her life, is it possible for her to feel toward him any real thrill of affection? if she does not, what is there left of marriage? what part of this contract or sacrament remains in living force? she can not sustain the relation of wife, because she abhors him; she cannot remain under the same roof, for fear that she may be killed. they sustain, then, only the relations of hunter and hunted--of tyrant and victim. is it desirable that this relation should last through life, and that it should be rendered sacred by the ceremony of a church? again i ask, is it desirable to have families raised under such circumstances? are we in need of children born of such parents? can the virtue of others be preserved only by this destruction of happiness, by this perpetual imprisonment? a marriage without love is bad enough, and a marriage for wealth or position is low enough; but what shall we say of a marriage where the parties actually abhor each other? is there any morality in this? any virtue in this? is there virtue in retaining the name of wife, or husband, without the real and true relation? will any good man say, will any good woman declare, that a true, loving woman should be compelled to be the mother of children whose father she detests? is there a good woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself; and is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear that from which she would shudderingly and shriekingly shrink? marriages are made by men and women; not by society; not by the state; not by the church; not by supernatural beings. by this time we should know that nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings; that nothing is virtuous the result of which is not good. we know now, if we know anything, that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons against doing wrong, are here in this world. we should have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of another. let a man suppose himself a helpless woman beaten by a brutal husband--would he advocate divorces then? few people have an adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children, of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a returning husband, of the number of children who hide when they hear the voice of a father. few people know the number of blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day, and few know the nights of terror passed by mothers who hold babes to their breasts. compared with these, all the hardships of poverty borne by those who love each other are as nothing. men and women truly married bear the sufferings and misfortunes of poverty together. they console each other. in the darkest night they see the radiance of a star, and their affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine. the good home is the unit of the good government. the hearthstone is the corner-stone of civilization. society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes, of homes where husbands and wives are selfish, cold, and cruel. it is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved, that they should live in fear, or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. homes should be filled with kind and generous fathers, with true and loving mothers; and when they are so filled, the world will be civilized. intelligence will rock the cradle; justice will sit in the courts; wisdom in the legislative halls; and above all and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the spirit of liberty. although marriage is the most important and the most sacred contract that human beings can make, still when that contract has been violated, courts should have the power to declare it null and void upon such conditions as may be just. as a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth, her beauty, her love--with all she has; and from this contract certainly the husband should never be released, unless the wife has broken the conditions of that contract. divorces should be granted publicly, precisely as the marriage should be solemnized. every marriage should be known, and there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered into should be understood; the record should be open and public. and the same is true of divorces. the conditions should be determined, the property should be divided by a court of equity, and the custody of the children given under regulations prescribed. men and women are not virtuous by law. law does not of itself create virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. law should protect virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract, and the husband, if he has fulfilled his. but the death of love is the end of marriage. love is natural. back of all ceremony burns and will forever burn the sacred flame. there has been no time in the world's history when that torch was extinguished. in all ages, in all climes, among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love. long before a ceremony was thought of, long before a priest existed, there were true and perfect marriages. back of public opinion is natural modesty, the affections of the heart; and in spite of all law, there is and forever will be the realm of choice. wherever love is, it is pure; and everywhere, and at all times, the ceremony of marriage testifies to that which has happened within the temple of the human heart. _question ( ). ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances?_ this depends upon whether marriage is a crime. if it is not a crime, why should any penalty be attached? can any one conceive of any reason why a woman obtaining a divorce, without fault on her part, should be compelled as a punishment to remain forever single? why should she be punished for the dishonesty or brutality of another? why should a man who faithfully kept his contract of marriage, and who was deserted by an unfaithful wife, be punished for the benefit of society? why should he be doomed to live without a home? there is still another view. we must remember that human passions are the same after as before divorce. to prevent remarriage is to give excuse for vice. _question ( ). what is the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family?_ the real marriage is back of the ceremony, and the real divorce is back of the decree. when love is dead, when husband and wife abhor each other, they are divorced. the decree records in a judicial way what has really taken place, just as the ceremony of marriage attests a contract already made. the true family is the result of the true marriage, and the institution of the family should above all things be preserved. what becomes of the sacredness of the home, if the law compels those who abhor each other to sit at the same hearth? this lowers the standard, and changes the happy haven of home into the prison-cell. if we wish to preserve the integrity of the family, we must preserve the democracy of the fireside, the republicanism of the home, the absolute and perfect equality of husband and wife. there must be no exhibition of force, no spectre of fear. the mother must not remain through an order of court, or the command of a priest, or by virtue of the tyranny of society; she must sit in absolute freedom, the queen of herself, the sovereign of her own soul and of her own body. real homes can never be preserved through force, through slavery, or superstition. nothing can be more sacred than a home, no altar purer than the hearth. _question ( ). does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to the moral purity of society?_ we must define our terms. what is moral purity? the intelligent of this world seek the well-being of themselves and others. they know that happiness is the only good; and this they strive to attain. to live in accordance with the conditions of well-being is moral in the highest sense. to use the best instrumentalities to attain the highest ends is our highest conception of the moral. in other words, morality is the melody of the perfection of conduct. a man is not moral because he is obedient through fear or ignorance. morality lives in the realm of perceived obligation, and where a being acts in accordance with perceived obligation, that being is moral. morality is not the child of slavery. ignorance is not the corner-stone of virtue. the first duty of a human being is to himself. he must see to it that he does not become a burden upon others. to be self-respecting, he must endeavor to be self-sustaining. if by his industry and intelligence he accumulates a margin, then he is under obligation to do with that margin all the good he can. he who lives to the ideal does the best he can. in true marriage men and women give not only their bodies, but their souls. this is the ideal marriage; this is moral. they who give their bodies, but not their souls, are not married, whatever the ceremony may be; this is immoral. if this be true, upon what principle can a woman continue to sustain the relation of wife after love is dead? is there some other consideration that can take the place of genuine affection? can she be bribed with money, or a home, or position, or by public opinion, and still remain a virtuous woman? is it for the good of society that virtue should be thus crucified between church and state? can it be said that this contributes to the moral purity of the human race? is there a higher standard of virtue in countries where divorce is prohibited than in those where it is granted? where husbands and wives who have ceased to love cannot be divorced, there are mistresses and lovers. the sacramental view of marriage is the shield of vice. the world looks at the wife who has been abused, who has been driven from the home of her husband, and the world pities; and when this wife is loved by some other man, the world excuses. so, too, the husband who cannot live in peace, who leaves his home, is pitied and excused. is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband to insist on living with a wife who has no love for him? is not this a perpetual crime? is the wife to lose her personality? has she no right of choice? is her modesty the property of another? is the man she hates the lord of her desire? has she no right to guard the jewels of her soul? is there a depth below this? and is this the foundation of morality? this the corner-stone of society? this the arch that supports the dome of civilization? is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand, this sacrilege on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven? to me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within our knowledge, is maternity. around this sacred word cluster the joys and sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. the mother walks in the shadow of death that she may give another life. upon the altar of love she puts her own life in pawn. when the world is civilized, no wife will become a mother against her will. man will then know that to enslave another is to imprison himself. robert g. ingersoll. divorce. a little while ago the north american review propounded the following questions: . do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances? . ought divorced people to be allowed to marry, under any circumstances? . what is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family? . does the absolute prohibition of divorce, where it exists, contribute to the moral purity of society? these questions were answered in the november number of the review, , by cardinal gibbons, bishop henry c. potter and myself. in the december number, the same questions were again answered by w. e. gladstone, justice bradley and senator dolph. in the following month mary a. livermore, amelia e. barr, rose terry cooke, elizabeth stuart phelps and jennie june gave their opinions upon the subject of divorce; and in the february number of this year, margaret lee and the rev. phillip s. moxom contributed articles upon this subject. i propose to review these articles, and, first, let me say a few words in answer to cardinal gibbons. reply to cardinal gibbons. the indissolubility of marriage was a reaction from polygamy. man naturally rushes from one extreme to the other. the cardinal informs us that "god instituted in paradise the marriage state, and sanctified it;" that "he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility." the cardinal, however, accounts for polygamy and divorce by saying that, "marriage suffered in the fall." if it be true that god instituted marriage in the garden of eden, and declared its unity and indissolubility, how do you account for the fact that this same god afterwards upheld polygamy? how is it that he forgot to say anything on the subject when he gave the ten commandments to moses? how does it happen that in these commandments he puts women on an equality with other property--"thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or thy neighbor's ox, or anything that is thy neighbor's"? how did it happen that jacob, who was in direct communication with god, married, not his deceased wife's sister, but both sisters, while both were living? is there any way of accounting for the fact that god upheld concubinage? neither is it true that "christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms, the sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage." neither is it true that "christ gave to this state an added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had 'from the beginning.'" if god declared the unity and indissolubility of marriage in the garden of eden, how was it possible for christ to have "added a holiness and dignity to marriage higher far than it had from the beginning"? how did christ make marriage a sacrament? there is nothing on that subject in the new testament; besides, christ did apparently allow divorce, for one cause at least. he is reported to have said: "whosoever putteth away his wife, save for fornication, causeth her to commit adultery." the cardinal answers the question, "can divorce from the bonds of marriage ever be allowed?" with an emphatic theological "no," and as a reason for this "no," says, "thus saith the lord." it is true that we regard mormonism as a national disgrace, and that we so regard it because the mormons are polygamists. at the same time, intelligent people admit that polygamy is no worse in utah, than it was in palestine--no worse under joseph smith, than under jehovah--that it has been and must be forever the same, in all countries and in all times. the cardinal takes the ground that "there are two species of polygamy--simultaneous and successive," and yet he seems to regard both species with equal horror. if a wife dies and the husband marries another woman, is not that successive polygamy? the cardinal takes the ground that while no dissolution of the marriage bond should be allowed, yet for grave causes a temporary or permanent separation from bed and board may be obtained, and these causes he enumerates as "mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or body." to those, however, not satisfied with this doctrine, and who are "so unhappily mated and so constituted that for them no relief can come save from absolute divorce," the cardinal says, in a very sympathetic way, that he "will not linger here to point out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power, the grace to suffer and be strong." at the foundation and upon the very threshold of this inquiry, one thing ought to be settled, and that is this: are we to answer these questions in the light of human experience; are we to answer them from the standpoint of what is better here, in this world, for men and women--what is better for society here and now--or are we to ask: what is the will of god? and in order to find out what is this will of god, are we to ask the church, or are we to read what are called "the sacred writings" for ourselves? in other words, are these questions to be settled by theological and ecclesiastical authority, or by the common sense of mankind? no one, in my judgment, should marry for the sake of god, and no one should be divorced for the sake of god, and no man and woman should live together as husband and wife, for the sake of god. god being an infinite being, cannot be rendered unhappy by any action of man, neither can his well-being be increased; consequently, the will of god has nothing whatever to do with this matter. the real question then must be: what is best for man? only the other day, a husband sought out his wife and with his own hand covered her face with sulphuric acid, and in a moment afterward she was blind. a cardinal of the catholic church tells this woman, sitting in darkness, that it is her duty to "suffer and be strong"; that she must still remain the wife of this wretch; that to break the bond that binds them together, would be an act of sacrilege. so, too, two years ago, a husband deserted his wife in germany. he came to this country. she was poor. she had two children--one a babe. holding one in her arm, and leading the other by the hand, she walked hundreds of miles to the shore of the sea. overcome by fatigue, she was taken sick, and for months remained in a hospital. having recovered, she went to work, and finally got enough money to pay her passage to new york. she came to this city, bringing her children with her. upon her arrival, she commenced a search for her husband. one day overcome by exertion, she fainted in the street. persons took pity upon her and carried her upstairs into a room. by a strange coincidence, a few moments afterward her husband entered. she recognized him. he fell upon her like a wild beast, and threw her down the stairs. she was taken up from the pavement bleeding, and carried to a hospital. the cardinal says to this woman: remain the wife of this man; it will be very pleasing to god; "suffer and be strong." but i say to this woman: apply to some court; get a decree of absolute divorce; cling to your children, and if at any time hereafter some good and honest man offers you his hand and heart, and you can love him, accept him and build another home, to the end that you may sit by your own fireside, in your old age, with your children about you. it is not true that the indissolubility of marriage preserves the virtue of mankind. the fact is exactly the opposite. if the cardinal wishes to know why there are more divorces now than there were fifty or a hundred years ago, let me tell him: women are far more intelligent--some of them are no longer the slaves either of husbands, or priests. they are beginning to think for themselves. they can see no good reason why they should sacrifice their lives to please popes or gods. they are no longer deceived by theological prophecies. they are not willing to suffer here, with the hope of being happy beyond the clouds--they want their happiness now. reply to bishop potter. bishop potter does not agree with the cardinal, yet they both study substantially the same bible--both have been set apart for the purpose of revealing the revelation. they are the persons whose duty it is to enlighten the common people. cardinal gibbons knows that he represents the only true church, and bishop potter is just as sure that he occupies that position. what is the ordinary man to do? the cardinal states, without the slightest hesitation, that "christ made marriage a sacrament--made it the type of his own never-ending union with his one sinless spouse, the church." the bishop does not agree with the cardinal. he says: "christ's words about divorce are not to be construed as a positive law, but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not everybody can receive." ought not the augurs to agree among themselves? what is a man who has only been born once, to do? the cardinal says explicitly that marriage is a sacrament, and the bishop cites article xxv., that "matrimony is not to be accounted for a sacrament of the gospel," and then admits that "this might seem to reduce matrimony to a civil contract." for the purpose of bolstering up that view, he says, "the first rubric in the form of solemnization of matrimony declares that the minister is left to the direction of those laws in every thing that regards a civil contract between the parties.'" he admits that "no minister is allowed, _as a rule_, to solemnize the marriage of any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living." as a matter of fact, we know that hundreds of episcopalians do marry where a wife or a husband is still living, and they are not turned out of the episcopal church for this offence. the bishop admits that the church can do very little on the subject, but seems to gather a little consolation from the fact, that "the penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the officiating clergyman, deposition from the ministry--for the offending man or woman exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large number of the clergy, involves everlasting damnation." the cardinal is perfectly satisfied that the prohibition of divorce is the foundation of morality, and the bishop is equally certain that "the prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit sexual connections." the bishop also gives us the report of a committee of the last general convention, forming appendix xiii of the journal. this report, according to the bishop, is to the effect "that the mosaic law of marriage is still binding upon the church unless directly abrogated by christ himself, that it-was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person until the death of the other party, is wholly forbidden; that marriage is not merely a civil contract but a spiritual and supernatural union, requiring for its mutual obligations a supernatural divine grace, and that such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony." the most beautiful thing about this report is, that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever. i must admit that the report is in exact accordance with the words of jesus christ. on the other hand, the bishop, not to leave us entirely without hope, says that "there is in his church another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the integrity of the family, which would nevertheless repudiate the greater part of the above report." there is one thing, however, that i was exceedingly glad to see, and that is, that according to the bishop the ideas of the early church are closely connected with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of woman, and about married life, which are no longer believed. the bishop has, with great clearness, stated several sides of this question; but i must say, that after reading the cardinal and the bishop, the earnest theological seeker after truth would find himself, to say the least of it, in some doubt. as a matter of fact, who cares what the old testament says upon this subject? are we to be bound forever by the ancient barbarians? mr. gladstone takes the ground, first, "that marriage is essentially a contract for life, and only expires when life itself expires"; second, "that christian marriage involves a vow before god"; third, "that no authority has been given to the christian church to cancel such a vow"; fourth, "that it lies beyond the province of tie civil legislature, which, from the necessity of things, has a veto within the limits of reason, upon the making of it, but has no competency to annul it when once made"; fifth, "that according to the laws of just interpretation, remarriage is forbidden by the text of holy scripture"; and sixth, "that while divorce of any kind impairs the integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage destroys it root and branch; that the parental and the conjugal relations are joined together by the hand of the almighty no less than the persons united by the marriage tie, to one another." _first_. undoubtedly, a real marriage was never entered into unless the parties expected to live together as long as they lived. it does not enter into the imagination of the real lover that the time is coming when he is to desert the being he adores, neither does it enter into the imagination of his wife, or of the girl about to become a wife. but how and in what way, does a christian marriage involve a vow before god? is god a party to the contract? if yes, he ought to see to it that the contract is carried out. if there are three parties--the man, the woman, and god--each one should be bound to do something, and what is god bound to do? is he to hold the man to his contract, when the woman has violated hers? is it his business to hold the woman to the contract, when the man has violated his? and what right has he to have anything to say on the subject, unless he has agreed to do something by reason of this vow? otherwise, it would be simply a _nudum pactum_--a vow without consideration. mr. gladstone informs us that no authority has been given to the christian church to cancel such a vow. if he means by that, that god has not given any such authority to the christian church, i most cheerfully admit it.* * note.--this abrupt termination, together with the unfinished replies to justice bradley and senator dolph, which follow, shows that the author must have been interrupted in his work, and on next taking it up concluded that the colloquial and concrete form would better serve his turn than the more formal and didactic style above employed. he thereupon dictated his reply to the gibbon and gladstone arguments in the following form which will be regarded as a most interesting instance of the author's wonderful versatility of style. this unfinished matter was found among col. ingersoll's manuscripts, and is given as transcribed from the stenographic notes of mr. i. n. baker, his secretary, without revision by the author. justice bradley. cardinal gibbons, bishop potter, and mr. gladstone represent the theological side--that is to say, the impracticable, the supernatural, the unnatural. after reading their opinions, it is refreshing to read those of justice bradley. it is like coming out of the tomb into the fresh air. speaking of the law, whether regarded as divine or human or both, justice bradley says: "i know no other law on the subject but the moral law, which does not consist of arbitrary enactments and decrees, but is adapted to our condition as human beings. this is so, whether it is conceived of as the will of an all-wise creator, or as the voice of humanity speaking from its experience, its necessities and its higher instincts. and that law surely does not demand that the injured party to the marriage bond should be forever tied to one who disregards and violates every obligation that it imposes--to one with whom it is impossible to cohabit--to one whose touch is contamination. nor does it demand that such injured party, if legally free, should be forever debarred from forming other ties through which the lost hopes of happiness for life may be restored. it is not reason, and it can not be law--divine, or moral--that unfaithfulness, or willful and obstinate desertion, or persistent cruelty of the stronger party, should afford no ground for relief.......if no redress be legalized, the law itself will be set at defiance, and greater injury to soul and body will result from clandestine methods of relief." surely, this is good, wholesome, practical common sense. senator dolph. senator dolph strikes a strong blow, and takes the foundation from under the idiotic idea of legal separation without divorce. he says: "as there should be no partial divorce, which leaves the parties in the condition aptly described by an eminent jurist as 'a wife without a husband and a husband without a wife,' so, as a matter of public expediency, and in the interest of public morals, whenever and however the marriage is dissolved, both parties should be left free to remarry." again: "prohibition of remarriage is likely to injure society more than the remarriage of the guilty party;" and the senator says, with great force: "divorce for proper causes, free from fraud and collusion, conserves the moral integrity of the family." in answering the question as to whether absolute prohibition of divorce tends to morality or immorality, the senator cites the case of south carolina. in that state, divorces were prohibited, and in consequence of this prohibition, the proportion of his property which a married man might give to his concubine was regulated by law. the argument continued, in colloquial form. those who have written on the subject of divorce seem to be divided into two classes--the supernaturalists and the naturalists. the first class rely on tradition, inspired books, the opinions of theologians as expressed in creeds, and the decisions of ecclesiastical tribunals. the second class take into account the nature of human beings, their own experience, and the facts of life, as they know them. the first class live for another world; the second, for this--the one in which we live. the theological theorists regard men and women as depraved, in consequence of what they are pleased to call "the fall of man," while the men and women of common sense know that the race has slowly and painfully progressed through countless years of suffering and toil. the priests insist that marriage is a sacrament; the philosopher, that it is a contract. the question as to the propriety of granting divorces cannot now be settled by quoting passages of scripture, or by appealing to creeds, or by citing the acts of legislatures or the decisions of courts. with intelligent millions, the scriptures are no longer considered as of the slightest authority. they pay no more regard to the bible than to the koran, the zend-avestas, or the popol vuh--neither do they care for the various creeds that were formulated by barbarian ancestors, nor for the laws and decisions based upon the savagery of the past. in the olden times when religions were manufactured--when priest-craft and lunacy governed the world--the women were not consulted. they were regarded and treated as serfs and menials--looked upon as a species of property to be bought and sold like the other domestic animals. this view or estimation of woman was undoubtedly in the mind of the author of the ten commandments when he said: "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,--nor his ox." such, however, has been the advance of woman in all departments of knowledge--such advance having been made in spite of the efforts of the church to keep her the slave of faith--that the obligations, rights and remedies growing out of the contract of marriage and its violation, cannot be finally determined without her consent and approbation. legislators and priests must consult with wives and mothers. they must become acquainted with their wants and desires--with their profound aversions* their pure hatreds, their loving self-denials, and, above all, with the religion of the body that moulds and dominates their lives. we have learned to suspect the truth of the old, because it is old, and for that reason was born in the days of slavery and darkness--because the probability is that the parents of the old were ignorance and superstition. we are beginning to be wise enough to take into consideration the circumstances of our own time--the theories and aspirations of the present--the changed conditions of the world--the discoveries and inventions that have modified or completely changed the standards of the greatest of the human race. we are on the eve of discovering that nothing should be done for the sake of gods, but all for the good of man--nothing for another world--everything for this. all the theories must be tested by experience, by facts. the moment a supernatural theory comes in contact with a natural fact, it falls to chaos. let us test all these theories about marriage and divorce--all this sacramental, indissoluble imbecility, with a real case--with a fact in life. a few years ago a man and woman fell in love and were married in a german village. the woman had a little money and this was squandered by the husband. when the money was gone, the husband deserted his wife and two little children, leaving them to live as best they might. she had honestly given her hand and heart, and believed that if she could only see him once more--if he could again look into her eyes--he would come back to her. the husband had fled to america. the wife lived four hundred miles from the sea. taking her two little children with her, she traveled on foot the entire distance. for eight weeks she journeyed, and when she reached the sea--tired, hungry, worn out, she fell unconscious in the street. she was taken to the hospital, and for many weeks fought for life upon the shore of death. at last she recovered, and sailed for new york. she was enabled to get just enough money to buy a steerage ticket. a few days ago, while wandering in the streets of new york in search of her husband, she sank unconscious to the sidewalk. she was taken into the home of another. in a little while her husband entered. he caught sight of his wife. she ran toward him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried: "at last i have found you!" "with an oath, he threw her to the floor; he bruised her flesh with his feet and fists; he dragged her into the hall, and threw her into the street." let us suppose that this poor wife sought out cardinal gibbons and the right honorable william e. gladstone, for the purpose of asking their advice. let us imagine the conversation: _the wife_. my dear cardinal, i was married four years ago. i loved my husband and i was sure that he loved me. two babes were born. he deserted me without cause. he left me in poverty and want. feeling that he had been overcome by some delusion--tempted by something more than he could bear, and dreaming that if i could look upon his face again he would return, i followed-him on foot. i walked, with my children in my arms, four hundred miles. i crossed the sea. i found him at last--and instead of giving me again his love, he fell upon me like a wild beast. he bruised and blackened my flesh. he threw me from him, and for my proffered love i received curses and blows. another man, touched by the evidence of my devotion, made my acquaintance--came to my relief--supplied my wants--gave me and my children comfort, and then offered me his hand and heart, in marriage. my dear cardinal, i told him that i was a married woman, and he told me that i should obtain a divorce, and so i have come to ask your counsel. _the cardinal_. my dear woman, god instituted in paradise the marriage state and sanctified it, and he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility. _the wife_. but, mr. cardinal, if it be true that "god instituted marriage in the garden of eden, and declared its unity and indissolubility," how do you account for the fact that this same god afterward upheld polygamy? how is it that he forgot to say anything on the subject when he gave the ten commandments to moses? _the cardinal_. you must remember that the institution of marriage suffered in the fall of man. _the wife_. how does that throw any light upon my case? that was long ago. surely, i was not represented at that time, and is it right that i should be punished for what was done by others in the very beginning of the world? _the cardinal._ christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms, the sanctity, unity and indissolubility of marriage, and christ gave to this state an added holiness, and a dignity higher far than it had from the beginning. _the wife_. how did it happen that jacob, while in direct communication with god, married, not his deceased wife's sister, but both sisters while both were living? and how, my dear cardinal, do you account for the fact that god upheld concubinage? _the cardinal._ marriage is a sacrament. you seem to ask me whether divorce from the bond of marriage can ever be allowed? i answer with an emphatic theological no; and as a reason for this no, i say, thus saith the lord. to allow a divorce and to permit the divorced parties, or either of them, to remarry, is one species of polygamy. there are two kinds--the simultaneous and the successive. _the wife_. but why did god allow simultaneous polygamy in palestine? was it any better in palestine then than it is in utah now? if a wife dies, and the husband marries another wife, is not that successive polygamy? _the cardinal_. curiosity leads to the commission of deadly sins. we should be satisfied with a thus saith the lord, and you should be satisfied with a thus saith the cardinal. if you have the right to inquire--to ask questions--then you take upon yourself the right of deciding after the questions have been answered. this is the end of authority. this undermines the cathedral. you must remember the words of our lord: "what god hath joined together, let not man put asunder." _the wife_. do you really think that god joined us together? did he at the time know what kind of man he was joining to me? did he then know that he was a wretch, an ingrate, a kind of wild beast? did he then know that this husband would desert me--leave me with two babes in my arms, without raiment and without food? did god put his seal upon this bond of marriage, upon this sacrament, and it was well-pleasing in his sight that my life should be sacrificed, and does he leave me now to crawl toward death, in poverty and tears? _the cardinal_. my dear woman, i will not linger here to point out to you the need of seeking from a higher than an earthly power the grace to suffer and be strong. _the wife_. mr. cardinal, am i under any obligation to god? will it increase the happiness of the infinite for me to remain homeless and husbandless? another offers to make me his wife and to give me a home,--to take care of my children and to fill my heart with joy. if i accept, will the act lessen the felicity or ecstasy of heaven? will it add to the grief of god? will it in any way affect his well-being? _the cardinal._ nothing that we can do can effect the well-being of god. he is infinitely above his children. _the wife_. then why should he insist upon the sacrifice of my life? mr. cardinal, you do not seem to sympathize with me. you do not understand the pangs i feel. you are too far away from my heart, and your words of consolation do not heal the bruise; they leave me as i now leave you--without hope. i will ask the advice of the right honorable william e. gladstone. _the wife_. mr. gladstone, you know my story, and so i ask that you will give me the benefit of your knowledge, of your advice. _mr. gladstone_. my dear woman, marriage is essentially a contract for life, and only expires when life itself expires. i say this because christian marriage involves a vow before god, and no authority has been given to the christian church to cancel such a vow. _the wife_. do you consider that god was one of the contracting parties in my marriage? must all vows made to god be kept? suppose the vow was made in ignorance, in excitement--must it be absolutely fulfilled? will it make any difference to god whether it is kept or not? does not an infinite god know the circumstances under which every vow is made? will he not take into consideration the imperfections, the ignorance, the temptations and the passions of his children? will god hold a poor girl to the bitter dregs of a mistaken bargain? have i not suffered enough? is it necessary that my heart should break? did not god know at the time the vow was made that it ought not to have been made? if he feels toward me as a father should, why did he give no warning? why did he accept the vow? why did he allow a contract to be made giving only to death the annulling power? is death more merciful than god? _mr. gladstone_. all vows that are made to god must be kept. do you not remember that jephthah agreed to sacrifice the first one who came out of his house to meet him, and that he fulfilled the vow, although in doing so, he murdered his own daughter. god makes no allowance for ignorance, for temptation, for passion--nothing. besides, my dear woman, to cancel the contract of marriage lies beyond the province of the civil legislature; it has no competency to annul the contract of marriage when once made. _the wife_. the man who has rescued me from the tyranny of my husband--the man who wishes to build me a home and to make my life worth living, wishes to make with me a contract of marriage. this will give my babes a home. _mr. gladstone_. my dear madam, while divorce of any kind impairs the integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage destroys it root and branch. _the wife_. the integrity of my family is already destroyed. my husband deserted his home--left us in the very depths of want. i have in my arms two helpless babes. i love my children, and i love the man who has offered to give them and myself another fireside. can you say that this is only destruction? the destruction has already occurred. a remarriage gives a home to me and mine. _mr. gladstone._ but, my dear mistaken woman, the parental and the conjugal relations are joined together by the hand of the almighty. _the wife._ do you believe that the almighty was cruel enough, in my case, to join the parental and the conjugal relations, to the end that they should endure as long as i can bear the sorrow? if there were three parties to my marriage, my husband, myself, and god, should each be bound by the contract to do something? what did god bind himself to do? if nothing, why should he interfere? if nothing, my vow to him was without consideration. you are as cruel and unsympathetic, mr. gladstone, as the cardinal. you have not the imagination to put yourself in my place. _mr. gladstone._ my dear madam, we must be governed by the law of christ, and there must be no remarriage. the husband and wife must remain husband and wife until a separation is caused by death. _the wife._ if christ was such a believer in the sacredness of the marriage relation, why did he offer rewards not only in this world, but in the next, to husbands who would desert their wives and follow him? _mr. gladstone._ it is not for us to inquire. god's ways are not our ways. _the wife._ nature is better than you. a mother's love is higher and deeper than your philosophy. i will follow the instincts of my heart. i will provide a home for my babes, and for myself. i will be freed from the infamous man who betrayed me. i will become the wife of another--of one who loves me--and after having filled his life with joy, i hope to die in his arms, surrounded by my children. a few months ago, a priest made a confession--he could carry his secret no longer. he admitted that he was married--that he was the father of two children--that he had violated his priestly vows. he was unfrocked and cast out. after a time he came back and asked to be restored into the bosom of the church, giving as his reason that he had abandoned his wife and babes. this throws a flood of light on the theological view of marriage. i know of nothing equal to this, except the story of the sandwich island chief who was converted by the missionaries, and wished to join the church. on cross-examination, it turned out that he had twelve wives, and he was informed that a polygamist could not be a christian. the next year he presented himself again for the purpose of joining the church, and stated that he was not a polygamist--that he had only one wife. when the missionaries asked him what he had done with the other eleven he replied: "i ate them." the indissoluble marriage was a reaction from polygamy. the church has always pretended that it was governed by the will of god, and that for all its dogmas it had a "thus saith the lord." reason and experience were branded as false guides. the priests insisted that they were in direct communication with the infinite--that they spoke by the authority of god, and that the duty of the people was to obey without question and to submit with at least the appearance of gladness. we now know that no such communication exists--that priests spoke without authority, and that the duty of the people was and is to examine for themselves. we now know that no one knows what the will of god is, or whether or not such a being exists. we now know that nature has furnished all the light there is, and that the inspired books are like all books, and that their value depends on the truth, the beauty, and the wisdom they contain. we also know that it is now impossible to substantiate the supernatural. judging from experience--reasoning from known facts--we can safely say that society has no right to demand the sacrifice of an innocent individual. society has no right, under the plea of self-preservation, to compel women to remain the wives of men who have violated the contract of marriage, and who have become objects of contempt and loathing to their wives. it is not to the best interest of society to maintain such firesides--such homes. the time has not arrived, in my judgment, for the congress of the united states, under an amendment to the constitution, to pass a general law applicable to all the states, fixing the terms and conditions of divorce. the states of the union are not equally enlightened. some are far more conservative than others. let us wait until a majority of the states have abandoned the theological theories upon this subject. upon this question light comes from the west, where men have recently laid the foundations of states, and where the people are not manacled and burdened with old constitutions and statutes and decisions, and where with a large majority the tendency is to correct the mistakes of their ancestors. let the states in their own way solve this question, and the time will come when the people will be ready to enact sensible and reasonable laws touching this important subject, and then the constitution can be amended and the whole subject controlled by federal law. the law, as it now exists in many of the states, is to the last degree absurd and cruel. in some states the husband can obtain a divorce on the ground that the wife has been guilty of adultery, but the wife cannot secure a divorce from the husband simply for the reason that he has been guilty of the same offence. so, in most of the states where divorce is granted on account of desertion for a certain number of years, the husband can return on the last day of the time fixed, and the poor wife who has been left in want is obliged to receive the wretch with open arms. in some states nothing is considered cruelty that does not endanger life or limb or health. the whole question is in great confusion, but after all there are some states where the law is reasonable, and the consequence is, that hundreds and thousands of suffering wives are released from a bondage worse than death. the idea that marriage is something more than a contract is at the bottom of all the legal and judicial absurdities that surround this subject. the moment that it is regarded from a purely secular standpoint the infamous laws will disappear. we shall then take into consideration the real rights and obligations of the parties to the contract of marriage. we shall have some respect for the sacred feelings of mothers--for the purity of woman--the freedom of the fireside--the real democracy of the hearthstone and, above all, for love, the purest, the profoundest and the holiest of all passions. we shall no longer listen to priests who regard celibacy as a higher state than marriage, nor to those statesmen who look upon a barbarous code as the foundation of all law. as long as men imagine that they have property in wives; that women can be owned, body and mind; that it is the duty of wives to obey; that the husband is the master, the source of authority--that his will is law, and that he can call on legislators and courts to protect his superior rights, that to enforce obedience the power of the state is pledged--just so long will millions of husbands be arrogant, tyrannical and cruel. no gentleman will be content to have a slave for the mother of his children. force has no place in the world of love. it is impossible to control likes and dislikes by law. no one ever did and no one ever can love on compulsion. courts can not obtain jurisdiction of the heart. the tides and currents of the soul care nothing for the creeds. people who make rules for the conduct of others generally break them themselves. it is so easy to bear with fortitude the misfortunes of others. every child should be well-born--well fathered and mothered. society has as great an interest in children as in parents. the innocent should not be compelled by law to suffer for the crimes of the guilty. wretched and weeping wives are not essential to the welfare of states and nations. the church cries now "whom god hath joined together let not man put asunder"; but when the people are really civilized the state will say: "whom nature hath put asunder let not man bind and manacle together." robert g. ingersoll. answer to lyman abbott. * this unfinished article was written as a reply to the rev. lyman abbott's article entitled, "flaws in ingersollism," which was printed in the april number of the north american review for . in your open letter to me, published in this review, you attack what you supposed to be my position, and ask several questions to which you demand answers; but in the same letter, you state that you wish no controversy with me. is it possible that you wrote the letter to prevent a controversy? do you attack only those with whom you wish to live in peace, and do you ask questions, coupled with a request that they remain unanswered? in addition to this, you have taken pains to publish in your own paper, that it was no part of your design in the article in the _north american review_, to point out errors in my statements, and that this design was distinctly disavowed in the opening paragraph of your article. you further say, that your simple object was to answer the question "what is christianity?" may i be permitted to ask why you addressed the letter to me, and why do you now pretend that, although you did address a letter to me, i was not in your mind, and that you had no intention of pointing out any flaws in my doctrines or theories? can you afford to occupy this position? you also stated in your own paper, _the christian union_, that the title of your article had been changed by the editor of the _review_, without your knowledge or consent; leaving it to be inferred that the title given to the article by you was perfectly consistent with your statement, that it was no part of your design in the article in the _north american review_, to point out errors in my (ingersoll's) statements; and that your simple object was to answer the question, what is christianity? and yet, the title which you gave your own article was as follows: "to robert g. ingersoll: a reply." first. we are told that only twelve crimes were punished by death: idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, fraudulent prophesying, sabbath-breaking, rebellion against parents, resistance to judicial officers, murder, homicide by negligence, adultery, incestuous marriages, and kidnapping. we are then told that as late as the year there were crimes capital in england. does not the world know that all the crimes or offences punishable by death in england could be divided in the same way? for instance, treason. this covered a multitude of offences, all punishable by death. larceny covered another multitude. perjury--trespass, covered many others. there might still be made a smaller division, and one who had made up his mind to define the criminal code of england might have said that there was only one offence punishable by death--wrong-doing. the facts with regard to the criminal code of england are, that up to the reign of george i. there were offences punishable by death. between the accession of george i. and termination of the reign of george iii., there were added new crimes to which capital punishment was attached. so that when george iv. became king, there were offences capital in england. john bright, commenting upon this subject, says: "during all these years, so far as this question goes, our government was becoming more cruel and more barbarous, and we do not find, and have not found, that in the great church of england, with its fifteen or twenty thousand ministers, and with its more than score of bishops in the house of lords, there ever was a voice raised, or an organization formed, in favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous cruelties which our law was continually inflicting. was not voltaire justified in saying that the english were the only people who murdered by law?" as a matter of fact, taking into consideration the situation of the people, the number of subjects covered by law, there were far more offences capital in the days of moses, than in the reign of george iv. is it possible that a minister, a theologian of the nineteenth century, imagines that he has substantiated the divine origin of the old testament by endeavoring to show that the government of god was not quite as bad as that of england? mr. abbott also informs us that the reason moses killed so many was, that banishment from the camp during the wandering in the wilderness was a punishment worse than death. if so, the poor wretches should at least have been given their choice. few, in my judgment, would have chosen death, because the history shows that a large majority were continually clamoring to be led back to egypt. it required all the cunning and power of god to keep the fugitives from returning in a body. many were killed by jehovah, simply because they wished to leave the camp--because they longed passionately for banishment, and thought with joy of the flesh-pots of egypt, preferring the slavery of pharaoh to the liberty of jehovah. the memory of leeks and onions was enough to set their faces toward the nile. second. i am charged with saying that the christian missionaries say to the heathen: "you must examine your religion--and not only so, but you must reject it; and unless you do reject it, and in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned." mr. abbott denies the truth of this statement. let me ask him, if the religion of jesus christ is preached clearly and distinctly to a heathen, and the heathen understands it, and rejects it deliberately, unequivocally, and finally, can he be saved? this question is capable of a direct answer. the reverend gentleman now admits that an acceptance of christianity is not essential to salvation. if the acceptance of christianity is not essential to the salvation of the heathen who has heard christianity preached--knows what its claims are, and the evidences that support those claims, is the acceptance of christianity essential to the salvation of an adult intelligent citizen of the united states? will the reverend gentleman tell us, and without circumlocution, whether the acceptance of christianity is necessary to the salvation of anybody? if he says that it is, then he admits that i was right in my statement concerning what is said to the heathen. if he says that it is not, then i ask him, what do you do with the following passages of scripture: "there is none other name given under heaven or among men whereby we must be saved." "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and whosoever believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; and whosoever believeth not shall be damned"? i am delighted to know that millions of pagans will be found to have entered into eternal life without any knowledge of christ or his religion. another question naturally arises: if a heathen can hear and reject the gospel, and yet be saved, what will become of the heathen who never heard of the gospel? are they all to be saved? if all who never heard are to be saved, is it not dangerous to hear?--is it not cruel to preach? why not stop preaching and let the entire world become heathen, so that after this, no soul may be lost? third. you say that i desire to deprive mankind of their faith in god, in christ and in the bible. i do not, and have not, endeavored to destroy the faith of any man in a good, in a just, in a merciful god, or in a reasonable, natural, human christ, or in any truth that the bible may contain. i have endeavored--and with some degree of success--to destroy the faith of man in the jehovah of the jews, and in the idea that christ was in fact the god of this universe. i have also endeavored to show that there are many things in the bible ignorant and cruel--that the book was produced by barbarians and by savages, and that its influence on the world has been bad. and i do believe that life and property will be safer, that liberty will be surer, that homes will be sweeter, and life will be more joyous, and death less terrible, if the myth called jehovah can be destroyed from the human mind. it seems to me that the heart of the christian ought to burst into an efflorescence of joy when he becomes satisfied that the bible is only the work of man; that there is no such place as perdition--that there are no eternal flames--that men's souls are not to suffer everlasting pain--that it is all insanity and ignorance and fear and horror. i should think that every good and tender soul would be delighted to know that there is no christ who can say to any human being--to any father, mother, or child--"depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." i do believe that he will be far happier when the psalms of david are sung no more, and that he will be far better when no one could sing the th psalm without shuddering and horror. these psalms for the most part breathe the spirit of hatred, of revenge, and of everything fiendish in the human heart. there are some good lines, some lofty aspirations--these should be preserved; and to the extent that they do give voice to the higher and holier emotions, they should be preserved. so i believe the world will be happier when the life of christ, as it is written now in the new testament, is no longer believed. some of the ten commandments will fall into oblivion, and the world will be far happier when they do. most of these commandments are universal. they were not discovered by jehovah--they were not original with him. "thou shalt not kill," is as old as life. and for this reason a large majority of people in all countries have objected to being murdered. "thou shalt not steal," is as old as industry. there never has been a human being who was willing to work through the sun and rain and heat of summer, simply for the purpose that some one who had lived in idleness might steal the result of his labor. consequently, in all countries where it has been necessary to work, larceny has been a crime. "thou shalt not lie," is as old as speech. men have desired, as a rule, to know the truth; and truth goes with courage and candor. "thou shalt not commit adultery," is as old as love. "honor thy father and thy mother," is as old as the family relation. all these commandments were known among all peoples thousands and thousands of years before moses was born. the new one, "thou shalt worship no other gods but me," is a bad commandment--because that god was not worthy of worship. "thou shalt make no graven image,"--a bad commandment. it was the death of art. "thou shalt do no work on the sabbath-day,"--a bad commandment; the object of that being, that one-seventh of the time should be given to the worship of a monster, making a priesthood necessary, and consequently burdening industry with the idle and useless. if professor clifford felt lonely at the loss of such a companion as jehovah, it is impossible for me to sympathize with his feelings. no one wishes to destroy the hope of another life--no one wishes to blot out any good that is, or that is hoped for, or the hope of which gives consolation to the world. neither do i agree with this gentleman when he says, "let us have the truth, cost what it may." i say: let us have happiness--well-being. the truth upon these matters is of but little importance compared with the happiness of mankind. whether there is, or is not, a god, is absolutely unimportant, compared with the well-being of the race. whether the bible is, or is not, inspired, is not of as much consequence as human happiness. of course, if the old and new testaments are true, then human happiness becomes impossible, either in this world, or in the world to come--that is, impossible to all people who really believe that these books are true. it is often necessary to know the truth, in order to prepare ourselves to bear consequences; but in the metaphysical world, truth is of no possible importance except as it affects human happiness. if there be a god, he certainly will hold us to no stricter responsibility about metaphysical truth than about scientific truth. it ought to be just as dangerous to make a mistake in geology as in theology--in astronomy as in the question of the atonement. i am not endeavoring to overthrow any faith in god, but the faith in a bad god. and in order to accomplish this, i have endeavored to show that the question of whether an infinite god exists, or not, is beyond the power of the human mind. anything is better than to believe in the god of the bible. fourth. mr. abbott, like the rest, appeals to names instead of to arguments. he appeals to socrates, and yet he does not agree with socrates. he appeals to goethe, and yet goethe was far from a christian. he appeals to isaac newton and to mr. gladstone--and after mentioning these names, says, that on his side is this faith of the wisest, the best, the noblest of mankind. was socrates after all greater than epicurus--had he a subtler mind--was he any nobler in his life? was isaac newton so much greater than humboldt--than charles darwin, who has revolutionized the thought of the civilized world? did he do the one-hundredth part of the good for mankind that was done by voltaire--was he as great a metaphysician as spinoza? but why should we appeal to names? in a contest between protestantism and catholicism are you willing to abide by the tests of names? in a contest between christianity and paganism, in the first century, would you have considered the question settled by names? had christianity then produced the equals of the great greeks and romans? the new can always be overwhelmed with names that were in favor of the old. sir isaac newton, in his day, could have been overwhelmed by the names of the great who had preceded him. christ was overwhelmed by this same method--moses and the prophets were appealed to as against this peasant of palestine. this is the argument of the cemetery--this is leaving the open field, and crawling behind gravestones. newton was understood to be, all his life, a believer in the trinity; but he dared not say what his real thought was. after his death there was found among his papers an argument that he published against the divinity of christ. this had been published in holland, because he was afraid to have it published in england. how do we really know what the great men of whom you speak believed, or believe? i do not agree with you when you say that gladstone is the greatest statesman. he will not, in my judgment, for one moment compare with thomas jefferson--with alexander hamilton--or, to come down to later times, with gambetta; and he is immeasurably below such a man as abraham lincoln. lincoln was not a believer. gambetta was an atheist. and yet, these names prove nothing. instead of citing a name, and saying that this great man--sir isaac newton, for instance--believed in our doctrine, it is far better to give the reasons that sir isaac newton had for his belief. nearly all organizations are filled with snobbishness. each church has a list of great names, and the members feel in duty bound to stand by their great men. why is idolatry the worst of sins? is it not far better to worship a god of stone than a god who threatens to punish in eternal flames the most of his children? if you simply mean by idolatry a false conception of god, you must admit that no finite mind can have a true conception of god--and you must admit that no two men can have the same false conception of god, and that, as a consequence, no two men can worship identically the same deity. consequently they are all idolaters. i do not think idolatry the worst of sins. cruelty is the worst of sins. it is far better to worship a false god, than to injure your neighbor--far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men. fifth. i am glad that you admit that a bad god is worse than no god. if so, the atheist is far better than the believer in jehovah, and far better than the believer in the divinity of jesus christ--because i am perfectly satisfied that none but a bad god would threaten to say to any human soul, "depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." so that, before any christian can be better than an atheist, he must reform his god. the agnostic does not simply say, "i do not know." he goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. he insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. he is not satisfied with saying that you do not know,--he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact--he drives you from the realm of reason--he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture--into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact. you say that religion tells us that "life is a battle with temptation--the result is eternal life to the victors." but what of the victims? did your god create these victims, knowing that they would be victims? did he deliberately change the clay into the man--into a being with wants, surrounded by difficulties and temptations--and did he deliberately surround this being with temptations that he knew he could not withstand, with obstacles that he knew he could not overcome, and whom he knew at last would fall a victim upon the field of death? is there no hope for this victim? no remedy for this mistake of your god? is he to remain a victim forever? is it not better to have no god than such a god? could the condition of this victim be rendered worse by the death of god? sixth. of course i agree with you when you say that character is worth more than condition--that life is worth more than place. but i do not agree with you when you say that being--that simple existence--is better than happiness. if a man is not happy, it is far better not to be. i utterly dissent from your philosophy of life. from my standpoint, i do not understand you when you talk about self-denial. i can imagine a being of such character, that certain things he would do for the one he loved, would by others be regarded as acts of self-denial, but they could not be so regarded by him. in these acts of so-called selfdenial, he would find his highest joy. this pretence that to do right is to carry a cross, has done an immense amount of injury to the world. only those who do wrong carry a cross. to do wrong is the only possible self-denial. the pulpit has always been saying that, although the virtuous and good, the kind, the tender, and the loving, may have a very bad time here, yet they will have their reward in heaven--having denied themselves the pleasures of sin, the ecstasies of crime, they will be made happy in a world hereafter; but that the wicked, who have enjoyed larceny, and rascality in all its forms, will be punished hereafter. all this rests upon the idea that man should sacrifice himself, not for his fellow-men, but for god--that he should do something for the almighty--that he should go hungry to increase the happiness of heaven--that he should make a journey to our lady of loretto, with dried peas in his shoes; that he should refuse to eat meat on friday; that he should say so many prayers before retiring to rest; that he should do something that he hated to do, in order that he might win the approbation of the heavenly powers. for my part, i think it much better to feed the hungry, than to starve yourself. you ask me, what is christianity? you then proceed to partially answer your own question, and you pick out what you consider the best, and call that christianity. but you have given only one side, and that side not all of it good. why did you not give the other side of christianity--the side that talks of eternal flames, of the worm that dieth not--the side that denounces the investigator and the thinker--the side that promises an eternal reward for credulity--the side that tells men to take no thought for the morrow but to trust absolutely in a divine providence? "within thirty years after the crucifixion of jesus, faith in his resurrection had become the inspiration of the church." i ask you, was there a resurrection? what advance has been made in what you are pleased to call the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, through the instrumentality of the church? was there as much dread of god among the pagans as there has been among christians? i do not believe that the church is a conservator of civilization. it sells crime on credit. i do not believe it is an educator of good will. it has caused more war than all other causes. neither is it a school of a nobler reverence and faith. the church has not turned the minds of men toward principles of justice, mercy and truth--it has destroyed the foundation of justice. it does not minister comfort at the coffin--it fills the mourners with fear. it has never preached a gospel of "peace on earth"--it has never preached "good will toward men." for my part, i do not agree with you when you say that: "the most stalwart anti-romanists can hardly question that with the roman catholic church abolished by instantaneous decree, its priests banished and its churches closed, the disaster to american communities would be simply awful in its proportions, if not irretrievable in its results." i may agree with you in this, that the most stalwart anti-romanists would not wish to have the roman catholic church abolished by tyranny, and its priests banished, and its churches closed. but if the abolition of that church could be produced by the development of the human mind; and if its priests, instead of being banished, should become good and useful citizens, and were in favor of absolute liberty of mind, then i say that there would be no disaster, but a very wide and great and splendid blessing. the church has been the centaur--not theseus; the church has not been hercules, but the serpent. so i believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. loyalty to the truth as we perceive it--loyalty to our duty as we know it--loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart--is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or god. there is a kind of slavery--a kind of abdication--for any man to take any other man as his absolute pattern and to hold him up as the perfection of all life, and to feel that it is his duty to grovel in the dust in his presence. it is better to feel that the springs of action are within yourself--that you are poised upon your own feet--and that you look at the world with your own eyes, and follow the path that reason shows. i do not believe that the world could be re-organized upon the simple but radical principles of the sermon on the mount. neither do i believe that this sermon was ever delivered by one man. it has in it many fragments that i imagine were dropped from many mouths. it lacks coherence--it lacks form. some of the sayings are beautiful, sublime and tender; and others seem to be weak, contradictory and childish. seventh. i do not say that i do not know whether this faith is true, or not. i say distinctly and clearly, that i know it is not true. i admit that i do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, because i do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. but according to my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. but i do know something of human nature; i do know a little of the history of mankind; and i know enough to know that what is known as the christian faith, is not true. i am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all per-adventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. i know as well as i know that i live--that others live--that what you call your faith, is not true. i am glad, however, that you admit that the miracles of the old testament, or the inspiration of the old testament, are not essentials. i draw my conclusion from what you say: "i have not in this paper discussed the miracles, or the inspiration of the old testament; partly because those topics, in my opinion, occupy a subordinate position in christian faith, and i wish to consider only essentials." at the same time, you tell us that, "on historical evidence, and after a careful study of the arguments on both sides, i regard as historical the events narrated in the four gospels, ordinarily regarded as miracles." at the same time, you say that you fully agree with me that the order of nature has never been violated or interrupted. in other words, you must believe that all these so-called miracles were actually in accordance with the laws, or facts rather, in nature. eighth. you wonder that i could write the following: "to me there is nothing of any particular value in the pentateuch. there is not, so far as i know, a line in the book of genesis calculated to make a human being better." you then call my attention to "the magnificent psalm of praise to the creator with which genesis opens; to the beautiful legend of the first sin and its fateful consequences; the inspiring story of abraham--the first selfexile for conscience sake; the romantic story of joseph the peasant boy becoming a prince," which you say "would have attraction for any one if he could have found a charm in, for example, the legends of the round table." the "magnificent psalm of praise to the creator with which genesis opens" is filled with magnificent mistakes, and is utterly absurd. "the beautiful legend of the first sin and its fateful consequences" is probably the most contemptible story that was ever written, and the treatment of the first pair by jehovah is unparalleled in the cruelty of despotic governments. according to this infamous account, god cursed the mothers of the world, and added to the agonies of maternity. not only so, but he made woman a slave, and man something, if possible, meaner--a master. i must confess that i have very little admiration for abraham. (give reasons.) so far as joseph is concerned, let me give you the history of joseph,--how he conspired with pharaoh to enslave the people of egypt. you seem to be astonished that i am not in love with the character of joseph, as pictured in the bible. let me tell you who joseph was. it seems, from the account, that pharaoh had a dream. none of his wise men could give its meaning. he applied to joseph, and joseph, having been enlightened by jehovah, gave the meaning of the dream to pharaoh. he told the king that there would be in egypt seven years of great plenty, and after these seven years of great plenty, there would be seven years of famine, and that the famine would consume the land. thereupon joseph gave to pharaoh some advice. first, he was to take up a fifth part of the land of egypt, in the seven plenteous years--he was to gather all the food of those good years, and lay up corn, and he was to keep this food in the cities. this food was to be a store to the land against the seven years of famine. and thereupon pharaoh said unto joseph, "forasmuch as god hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will i be greater than thou. and pharaoh said unto joseph, see i have set thee over all the land of egypt." we are further informed by the holy writer, that in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls, and that joseph gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of egypt, and laid up the food in the cities, and that he gathered corn as the sand of the sea. this was done through the seven plenteous years. then commenced the years of dearth. then the people of egypt became hungry, and they cried to pharaoh for bread, and pharaoh said unto all the egyptians, go unto joseph. the famine was over all the face of the earth, and joseph opened the storehouses, and sold unto the egyptians, and the famine waxed sore in the land of egypt. there was no bread in the land, and egypt fainted by reason of the famine. and joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of egypt, by the sale of corn, and brought the money to pharaoh's house. after a time the money failed in the land of egypt, and the egyptians came unto joseph and said, "give us bread; why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth." and joseph said, "give your cattle, and i will give you for your cattle." and they brought their cattle unto joseph, and he gave them bread in exchange for horses and flocks and herds, and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. when the year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said, "our money is spent, our cattle are gone, naught is left but our bodies and our lands." and they said to joseph, "buy us, and our land, for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto pharaoh; and give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate." and joseph bought all the land of egypt for pharaoh; for the egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them. so the land became pharaoh's. then joseph said to the people, "i have bought you this day, and your land; lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land." and thereupon the people said, "thou hast saved our lives; we will be pharaoh's servants." "and joseph made it a law over the land of egypt unto this day, that pharaoh should have the fifth part, _except the land of the priests only, which became not pharaoh's_." yet i am asked, by a minister of the nineteenth century, whether it is possible that i do not admire the character of joseph. this man received information from god--and gave that information to pharaoh, to the end that he might impoverish and enslave a nation. this man, by means of intelligence received from jehovah, took from the people what they had, and compelled them at last to sell themselves, their wives and their children, and to become in fact bondmen forever. yet i am asked by the successor of henry ward beecher, if i do not admire the infamous wretch who was guilty of the greatest crime recorded in the literature of the world. so, it is difficult for me to understand why you speak of abraham as "a self-exile for conscience sake." if the king of england had told one of his favorites that if he would go to north america he would give him a territory hundreds of miles square, and would defend him in its possession, and that he there might build up an empire, and the favorite believed the king, and went, would you call him "a self-exile for conscience sake"? according to the story in the bible, the lord promised abraham that if he would leave his country and kindred, he would make of him a great nation, would bless him, and make his name great, that he would bless them that blessed abraham, and that he would curse him whom abraham cursed; and further, that in him all the families of the earth should be blest. if this is true, would you call abraham "a self-exile for conscience sake"? if abraham had only known that the lord was not to keep his promise, he probably would have remained where he was--the fact being, that every promise made by the lord to abraham, was broken. do you think that abraham was "a self-exile for conscience sake" when he told sarah, his wife, to say that she was his sister--in consequence of which she was taken into pharaoh's house, and by reason of which pharaoh made presents of sheep and oxen and man servants and maid servants to abraham? what would you call such a proceeding now? what would you think of a man who was willing that his wife should become the mistress of the king, provided the king would make him presents? was it for conscience sake that the same subterfuge was adopted again, when abraham said to abimelech, the king of gerar, she is my sister--in consequence of which abimelech sent for sarah and took her? mr. ingersoll having been called to montana, as counsel in a long and important law suit, never finished this article. answer to archdeacon farrar. * this fragment (found among col. ingersoll's papers) is a mere outline of a contemplated answer to archdeacon farrar's article in the north american review, may, , entitled: "a few words on col. ingersoll." archdeacon farrar, in the opening of his article, in a burst of confidence, takes occasion to let the world know how perfectly angelic he intends to be. he publicly proclaims that he can criticise the arguments of one with whom he disagrees, without resorting to invective, or becoming discourteous. does he call attention to this because most theologians are hateful and ungentlemanly? is it a rare thing for the pious to be candid? why should an archdeacon be cruel, or even ill-bred? yet, in the very beginning, the archdeacon in effect says: behold, i show you a mystery--a christian who can write about an infidel, without invective and without brutality. is it then so difficult for those who love their enemies to keep within the bounds of decency when speaking of unbelievers who have never injured them? as a matter of fact, i was somewhat surprised when i read the proclamation to the effect that the writer was not to use invective, and was to be guilty of no discourtesy; but on reading the article, and finding that he had failed to keep his promise, i was not surprised. it is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. the arguments that cannot be answered provoke epithet. archdeacon farrar criticises several of my statements: _the same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions as in others_. this apparently self-evident statement seems to excite almost the ire of this archdeacon, and for the purpose of showing that it is not true, he states, first, that "the first postulate of revelation is that it appeals to man's spirit;" second, that "the spirit is a sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding;" third, that "if a man denies the existence of a spiritual intuition, he is like a blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising harmonies;" fourth, that "revelation must be judged by its own criteria;" and fifth, that "st. paul draws a marked distinction between the spirit of the world and the spirit which is of god," and that the same saint said that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god, for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned." let us answer these objections in their order. . "the first postulate of revelation is that it appeals to man's spirit." what does the archdeacon mean by "spirit"? a man says that he has received a revelation from god, and he wishes to convince another man that he has received a revelation--how does he proceed? does he appeal to the man's reason? will he tell him the circumstances under which he received the revelation? will he tell him why he is convinced that it was from god? will the archdeacon be kind enough to tell how the spirit can be approached passing by the reason, the understanding, the judgment and the intellect? if the archdeacon replies that the revelation itself will bear the evidence within itself, what then, i ask, does he mean by the word "evidence"? evidence about what? is it such evidence as satisfies the intelligence, convinces the reason, and is it in conformity with the known facts of the mind? it may be said by the archdeacon that anything that satisfies what he is pleased to call the spirit, that furnishes what it seems by nature to require, is of supernatural origin. we hear music, and this music seems to satisfy the desire for harmony--still, no one argues, from that fact, that music is of supernatural origin. it may satisfy a want in the brain--a want unknown until the music was heard--and yet we all agree in saying that music has been naturally produced, and no one claims that beethoven, or wagner, was inspired. the same may be said of things that satisfy the palate--of statues, of paintings, that reveal to him who looks, the existence of that of which before that time he had not even dreamed. why is it that we love color--that we are pleased with harmonies, or with a succession of sounds rising and falling at measured intervals? no one would answer this question by saying that sculptors and painters and musicians were inspired; neither would they say that the first postulate of art is that it appeals to man's spirit, and for that reason the rules or laws of probability have nothing to do with the question of art. . that "the spirit is a sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding." let us imagine a man without senses. he cannot feel, see, hear, taste, or smell. what is he? would it be possible for him to have an idea? would such a man have a spirit to which revelation could appeal, or would there be locked in the dungeon of his brain a spirit, that is to say, a "sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding"? admit that in the person supposed, the machinery of life goes on--what is he more than an inanimate machine? . that "if a man denies the very existence of a spiritual intuition, he is like a blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising harmonies." what do you mean by "spiritual intuition"? when did this "spiritual intuition" become the property of man--before, or after, birth? is it of supernatural, or miraculous, origin, and is it possible that this "spiritual intuition" is independent of the man? is it based upon experience? was it in any way born of the senses, or of the effect of nature upon the brain--that is to say, of things seen, or heard, or touched? is a "spiritual intuition" an entity? if man can exist without the "spiritual intuition," do you insist that the "spiritual intuition" can exist without the man? you may remember that mr. locke frequently remarked: "define your terms." it is to be regretted that in the hurry of writing your article, you forgot to give an explanation of "spiritual intuition." i will also take the liberty of asking you how a blind man could criticise colors, and how a deaf man could criticise harmonies. possibly you may imagine that "spiritual intuition" can take cognizance of colors, as well as of harmonies. let me ask: why cannot a blind man criticise colors? let me answer: for the same reason that archdeacon farrar can tell us nothing about an infinite personality. . that "revelation must be judged by its own criteria." suppose the bible had taught that selfishness, larceny and murder were virtues; would you deny its inspiration? would not your denial be based upon a conclusion that had been reached by your reason that no intelligent being could have been its author--that no good being could, by any possibility, uphold the commission of such crimes? in that case would you be guided by "spiritual intuition," or by your reason? when we examine the claims of a history--as, for instance, a history of england, or of america, are we to decide according to "spiritual intuition," or in accordance with the laws or rules of probability? is there a different standard for a history written in hebrew, several thousand years ago, and one written in english in the nineteenth century? if a history should now be written in england, in which the most miraculous and impossible things should be related as facts, and if i should deny these alleged facts, would you consider that the author had overcome my denial by saying, "history must be judged by its own criteria"? . that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god, for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned." the archdeacon admits that the natural man cannot know the things of the spirit, because they are not naturally, but spiritually, discerned. on the next page we are told, that "the truths which agnostics repudiate have been, and are, acknowledged by all except a fraction of the human race." it goes without saying that a large majority of the human race are natural; consequently, the statement of the archdeacon contradicts the statement of st. paul. the archdeacon insists that all except a fraction of the human race acknowledge the truths which agnostics repudiate, and they must acknowledge them because they are by them spiritually discerned; and yet, st. paul says that this is impossible, and insists that "the natural man cannot know the things of the spirit of god, because they are spiritually discerned." there is only one way to harmonize the statement of the archdeacon and the saint, and that is, by saying that nearly all of the human race are unnatural, and that only a small fraction are natural, and that the small fraction of men who are natural, are agnostics, and only those who accept what the archdeacon calls "truths" are unnatural to such a degree that they can discern spiritual things. upon this subject, the last things to which the archdeacon appeals, are the very things that he, at first, utterly repudiated. he asks, "are we contemptuously to reject the witness of innumerable multitudes of the good and wise, that--with a spiritual reality more convincing to them than the material evidences which converted the apostles,"--they have seen, and heard, and their hands have handled the "word of life"? thus at last the archdeacon appeals to the evidences of the senses. ii. the archdeacon then proceeds to attack the following statement: _there is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence_. one would suppose that it would be impossible to formulate an objection to this statement. what is or is not evidence, depends upon the mind to which it is presented. there is no possible "insinuation" in this statement, one way or the other. there is nothing sinister in it, any more than there would be in the statement that twice five are ten. how did it happen to occur to the archdeacon that when i spoke of believing without evidence, i referred to all people who believe in the existence of a god, and that i intended to say "that one-third of the world's inhabitants had embraced the faith of christians without evidence"? certain things may convince one mind and utterly fail to convince others. undoubtedly the persons who have believed in the dogmas of christianity have had what was sufficient evidence for them. all i said was, that "there is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence." does the archdeacon insist that there is an obligation resting on any human mind to believe without evidence? is he willing to go a step further and say that there is an obligation resting upon the minds of men to believe contrary to evidence? if one is under obligation to believe without evidence, it is just as reasonable to say that he is under obligation to believe in spite of evidence. what does the word "evidence" mean? a man in whose honesty i have great confidence, tells me that he saw a dead man raised to life. i do not believe him. why? his statement is not evidence to my mind. why? because it contradicts all of my experience, and, as i believe, the experience of the intelligent world. no one pretends that "one-third of the world's inhabitants have embraced the faith of christians without evidence"--that is, that all christians have embraced the faith without evidence. in the olden time, when hundreds of thousands of men were given their choice between being murdered and baptized, they generally accepted baptism--probably they accepted christianity without critically examining the evidence. is it historically absurd that millions of people have believed in systems of religion without evidence? thousands of millions have believed that mohammed was a prophet of god. and not only so, but have believed in his miraculous power. did they believe without evidence? is it historically absurd to say that mohammedanism is based upon mistake? what shall we say of the followers of buddha, who far outnumber the followers of christ? have they believed without evidence? and is it historically absurd to say that our ancestors of a few hundred years ago were as credulous as the disciples of buddha? is it not true that the same gentlemen who believed thoroughly in all the miracles of the new testament also believed the world to be flat, and were perfectly satisfied that the sun made its daily journey around the earth? did they have any evidence? is it historically absurd to say that they believed without evidence? iii. _neither is there any intelligent being who can by any possibility be flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity._ the archdeacon asks what i "gain by stigmatizing as ignorant credulity that inspired, inspiring, invincible conviction--the formative principle of noble efforts and self-sacrificing lives, which at this moment, as during all the long millenniums of the past, has been held not only by the ignorant and the credulous, but by those whom all the ages have regarded as the ablest, the wisest, the most learned and the most gifted of mankind?" does the archdeacon deny that credulity is ignorant? in this connection, what does the word "credulity" mean? it means that condition or state of the mind in which the impossible, or the absurd, is accepted as true. is not such credulity ignorant? do we speak of wise credulity--of intelligent credulity? we may say theological credulity, or christian credulity, but certainly not intelligent credulity. is the flattery of the ignorant and credulous--the flattery being based upon that which ignorance and credulity have accepted--acceptable to any intelligent being? is it possible that we can flatter god by pretending to believe, or by believing, that which is repugnant to reason, that which upon examination is seen to be absurd? the archdeacon admits that god cannot possibly be so flattered. if, then, he agrees with my statement, why endeavor to controvert it? iv. the man who without prejudice reads and understands the old and new testaments will cease to be an orthodox christian. the archdeacon says that he cannot pretend to imagine what my definition of an orthodox christian is. i will use his own language to express my definition. "by an orthodox christian i mean one who believes what is commonly called the apostles' creed. i also believe that the essential doctrines of the church must be judged by her universal formulae, not by the opinions of this or that theologian, however eminent, or even of any number of theologians, unless the church has stamped them with the sanction of her formal and distinct acceptance." this is the language of the archdeacon himself, and i accept it as a definition of orthodoxy. with this definition in mind, i say that the man who without prejudice reads and understands the old and new testaments will cease to be an orthodox christian. by "prejudice," i mean the tendencies and trends given to his mind by heredity, by education, by the facts and circumstances entering into the life of man. we know how children are poisoned in the cradle, how they are deformed in the sunday school, how they are misled by the pulpit. and we know how numberless interests unite and conspire to prevent the individual soul from examining for itself. we know that nearly all rewards are in the hands of superstition--that she holds the sweet wreath, and that her hands lead the applause of what is called the civilized world. we know how many men give up their mental independence for the sake of pelf and power. we know the influence of mothers and fathers--of church and state--of faith and fashion. all these influences produce in honest minds what may be known as prejudice,--in other minds, what may be known as hypocrisy. it is hardly worth my while to speak of the merits of students of holy writ "who," the archdeacon was polite enough to say, "know ten thousand times more of the scriptures" than i do. this, to say the least of it, is a gratuitous assertion, and one that does not tend to throw the slightest ray of light on any matter in controversy. neither is it true that it was my "point" to say that all people are prejudiced, merely because they believe in god; it was my point to say that no man can read the miracles of the old testament, without prejudice, and believe them; it was my point to say that no man can read many of the cruel and barbarous laws said to have been given by god himself, and yet believe,--unless he was prejudiced,--that these laws were divinely given. neither do i believe that there is now beneath the cope of heaven an intelligent man, without prejudice, who believes in the inspiration of the bible. v. the intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country, without fear and without prejudice, will not and cannot be a believer. in answering this statement the archdeacon says: "_argal_, every believer in any religion is either an incompetent idiot, or coward--with a dash of prejudice." i hardly know what the gentleman means by an "incompetent idiot," as i know of no competent ones. it was not my intention to say that believers in religion are idiots or cowards. i did not mean, by using the word "fear," to say that persons actuated by fear are cowards. that was not in my mind. by "fear," i intended to convey that fear commonly called awe, or superstition,--that is to say, fear of the supernatural,--fear of the gods--fear of punishment in another world--fear of some supreme being; not fear of some other man--not the fear that is branded with cowardice. and, of course, the archdeacon perfectly understood my meaning; but it was necessary to give another meaning in order to make the appearance of an answer possible. by "prejudice," i mean that state of mind that accepts the false for the true. all prejudice is honest. and the probability is, that all men are more or less prejudiced on some subject. but on that account i do not call them "incompetent idiots, or cowards, with a dash of prejudice." i have no doubt that the archdeacon himself believes that all mahommedans are prejudiced, and that they are actuated more or less by fear, inculcated by their parents and by society at large. neither have i any doubt that he regards all catholics as prejudiced, and believes that they are governed more or less by fear. it is no answer to what i have said for the archdeacon to say that "others have studied every form of religion with infinitely greater power than i have done." this is a personality that has nothing to do with the subject in hand. it is no argument to repeat a list of names. it is an old trick of the theologians to use names instead of arguments--to appeal to persons instead of principles--to rest their case upon the views of kings and nobles and others who pretend eminence in some department of human learning or ignorance, rather than on human knowledge. this is the argument of the old against the new, and on this appeal the old must of necessity have the advantage. when some man announces the discovery of a new truth, or of some great fact contrary to the opinions of the learned, it is easy to overwhelm him with names. there is but one name on his side--that is to say, his own. all others who are living, and the dead, are on the other side. and if this argument is good, it ought to have ended all progress many thousands of years ago. if this argument is conclusive, the first man would have had freedom of opinion; the second man would have stood an equal chance; but if the third man differed from the other two, he would have been gone. yet this is the argument of the church. they say to every man who advances something new: are you greater than the dead? the man who is right is generally modest. men in the wrong, as a rule, are arrogant; and arrogance is generally in the majority. the archdeacon appeals to certain names to show that i am wrong. in order for this argument to be good--that is to say, to be honest--he should agree with all the opinions of the men whose names he gives. he shows, or endeavors to show, that i am wrong, because i do not agree with st. augustine. does the archdeacon agree with st. augustine? does he now believe that the bones of a saint were taken to hippo--that being in the diocese of st. augustine--and that five corpses, having been touched with these bones, were raised to life? does he believe that a demoniac, on being touched with one of these bones, was relieved of a multitude of devils, and that these devils then and there testified to the genuineness of the bones, not only, but told the hearers that the doctrine of the trinity was true? does the archdeacon agree with st. augustine that over seventy miracles were performed with these bones, and that in a neighboring town many hundreds of miracles were performed? does he agree with st. augustine in his estimate of women--placing them on a par with beasts? i admit that st. augustine had great influence with the people of his day--but what people? i admit also that he was the founder of the first begging brotherhood--that he organized mendicancy--and that he most cheerfully lived on the labor of others. if st. augustine lived now he would be the inmate of an asylum. this same st. augustine believed that the fire of hell was material--that the body itself having influenced the soul to sin, would be burned forever, and that god by a perpetual miracle would save the body from being annihilated and devoured in those eternal flames. let me ask the archdeacon a question: do you agree with st. augustine? if you do not, do you claim to be a greater man? is "your mole-hill higher than his dhawalagiri"? are you looking down upon him from the altitude of your own inferiority? precisely the same could be said of st. jerome. the archdeacon appeals to charlemagne, one of the great generals of the world--a man who in his time shed rivers of blood, and who on one occasion massacred over four thousand helpless prisoners--a christian gentleman who had, i think, about nine wives, and was the supposed father of some twenty children. 'this same charlemagne had laws against polygamy, and yet practiced it himself. are we under the same obligation to share his vices as his views? it is wonderful how the church has always appealed to the so-called great--how it has endeavored to get certificates from kings and queens, from successful soldiers and statesmen, to the truth of the bible and the moral character of christ! how the saints have crawled in the dust before the slayers of mankind! think of proving the religion of love and forgiveness by charlemagne and napoleon! an appeal is also made to roger bacon. yet this man attained all his eminence by going contrary to the opinions and teachings of the church. in his time, it was matter of congratulation that you knew nothing of secular things. he was a student of nature, an investigator, and by the very construction of his mind was opposed to the methods of catholicism. copernicus was an astronomer, but he certainly did not get his astronomy from the church, nor from general joshua, nor from the story of the jewish king for whose benefit the sun was turned back in heaven ten degrees. neither did kepler find his three laws in the sermon on the mount, nor were they the utterances of jehovah on mount sinai. he did not make his discoveries because he was a christian; but in spite of that fact. as to lord bacon, let me ask, are you willing to accept his ideas? if not, why do you quote his name? am i bound by the opinions of bacon in matters of religion, and not in matters of science? bacon denied the coperni-can system, and died a believer in the ptolemaic--died believing that the earth is stationary and that the sun and stars move around it as a center. do you agree with bacon? if not, do you pretend that your mind is greater? would it be fair for a believer in bacon to denounce you as an egotist and charge you with "obstreperousness" because you merely suggested that mr. bacon was a little off in his astronomical opinions? do you not see that you have furnished the cord for me to tie your hands behind you? i do not know how you ascertained that shakespeare was what you call a believer. substantially all that we know of shakespeare is found in what we know as his "works" all else can be read in one minute. may i ask, how you know that shakespeare was a believer? do you prove it by the words he put in the mouths of his characters? if so, you can prove that he was anything, nothing, and everything. have you literary bread to eat that i know not of? whether dante was, or was not, a christian, i am not prepared to say. i have always admired him for one thing: he had the courage to see a pope in hell. probably you are not prepared to agree with milton--especially in his opinion that marriage had better be by contract, for a limited time. and if you disagree with milton on this point, do you thereby pretend to say that you could have written a better poem than paradise lost? so newton is supposed to have been a trinitarian. and yet it is said that, after his death, there was found an article, which had been published by him in holland, against the dogma of the trinity. after all, it is quite difficult to find out what the great men have believed. they have been actuated by so many unknown motives; they have wished for place; they have desired to be archdeacons, bishops, cardinals, popes; their material interests have sometimes interfered with the expression of their thoughts. most of the men to whom you have alluded lived at a time when the world was controlled by what may be called a christian mob--when the expression of an honest thought would have cost the life of the one who expressed it--when the followers of christ were ready with sword and fagot to exterminate philosophy and liberty from the world. is it possible that we are under any obligation to believe the mosaic account of the garden of eden, or of the talking serpent, because "whewell had an encyclopaedic range of knowledge"? must we believe that joshua stopped the sun, because faraday was "the most eminent man of science of his day"? shall we believe the story of the fiery furnace, because "mr. spottiswoode was president of the royal society"--had "rare mathematical genius"--so rare that he was actually "buried in westminster abbey"? shall we believe that jonah spent three days and nights in the inside of a whale because "professor clark maxwell's death was mourned by all"? are we under any obligation to believe that an infinite god sent two she bears to tear forty children in pieces because they laughed at a prophet without hair? must we believe this because "sir gabriel stokes is the living president of the royal society, and a churchman" besides? are we bound to believe that daniel spent one of the happiest evenings of his life in the lion's den, because "sir william dawson of canada, two years ago, presided over the british association"? and must we believe in the ten plagues of egypt, including the lice, because "professor max müller made an eloquent plea in westminster abbey in favor of christian missions"? possibly he wanted missionaries to visit heathen lands so that they could see the difference for themselves between theory and practice, in what is known as the christian religion. must we believe the miracles of the new testament--the casting out of devils--because "lord tennyson and mr. browning stand far above all other poets of this generation in england," or because "longfellow, holmes, and lowell and whittier" occupy the same position in america? must we admit that devils entered into swine because "bancroft and parkman are the leading prose writers of america"--which i take this occasion to deny? it is to be hoped that some time the archdeacon will read that portion of mr. bancroft's history in which he gives the account of how the soldiers, commonly called hessians, were raised by the british government during the american revolution. these poor wretches were sold at so much apiece. for every one that was killed, so much was paid, and for every one that was wounded a certain amount was given. mr. bancroft tells us that god was not satisfied with this business, and although he did not interfere in any way to save the poor soldiers, he did visit the petty tyrants who made the bargains with his wrath. i remember that as a punishment to one of these, his wife was induced to leave him; another one died a good many years afterwards; and several of them had exceedingly bad luck. after reading this philosophic dissertation on the dealings of providence, i doubt if the archdeacon will still remain of the opinion that mr. bancroft is one of the leading prose writers of america. if the archdeacon will read a few of the sermons of theodore parker, and essays of ralph waldo emerson, if he will read the life of voltaire by james parton, he may change his opinion as to the great prose writers of america. my argument against miracles is answered by reference to "dr. lightfoot, a man of such immense learning that he became the equal of his successor dr. westcott." and when i say that there are errors and imperfections in the bible, i am told that dr. westcott "investigated the christian religion and its earliest documents _au fond_, and was an orthodox believer." of course the archdeacon knows that no one now knows who wrote one of the books of the bible. he knows that no one now lives who ever saw one of the original manuscripts, and that no one now lives who ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had seen an original manuscript. vi. is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality? the archdeacon says that it is, and yet in the same article he quotes the following from job: "canst thou by searching find out god?" "it is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" and immediately after making these quotations, the archdeacon takes the ground of the agnostic, and says, "with the wise ancient rabbis, we learn to say, _i do not know_." it is impossible for me to say what any other human being cannot conceive; but i am absolutely certain that my mind cannot conceive of an infinite personality--of an infinite ego. man is conscious of his individuality. man has wants. a multitude of things in nature seems to work against him; and others seem to be favorable to him. there is conflict between him and nature. if man had no wants--if there were no conflict between him and any other being, or any other thing, he could not say "i"--that is to say, he could not be conscious of personality. now, it seems to me that an infinite personality is a contradiction in terms, says "i." vii. the same line of argument applies to the next statement that is criticised by the archdeacon: _can the human mind conceive a beginningless being?_ we know that there is such a thing as matter, but we do not know that there is a beginningless being. we say, or some say, that matter is eternal, because the human mind cannot conceive of its commencing. now, if we knew of the existence of an infinite being, we could not conceive of his commencing. but we know of no such being. we do know of the existence of matter; and my mind is so, that i cannot conceive of that matter having been created by a beginningless being. i do not say that there is not a beginningless being, but i do not believe there is, and it is beyond my power to conceive of such a being. the archdeacon also says that "space is quite as impossible to conceive as god." but nobody pretends to love space--no one gives intention and will to space--no one, so far as i know, builds altars or temples to space. now, if god is as inconceivable as space, why should we pray to god? the archdeacon, however, after quoting sir william hamilton as to the inconceivability of space as absolute or infinite, takes occasion to say that "space is an entity." may i be permitted to ask how he knows that space is an entity? as a matter of fact, the conception of infinite space is a necessity of the mind, the same as eternity is a necessity of the mind. viii. the next sentence or statement to which the archdeacon objects is as follows: _he who cannot harmonize the cruelties of the bible with the goodness of jehovah, cannot harmonize the cruelties of nature with the goodness or wisdom of a supposed deity. he will find it impossible to account for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, and for the triumph of the strong over the weak._ one objection that he urges to this statement is that st. paul had made a stronger one in the same direction. the archdeacon however insists that "a world without a contingency, or an agony, could have had no hero and no saint," and that "science enables us to demonstrate that much of the apparent misery and anguish is transitory and even phantasmal; that many of the seeming forces of destruction are overruled to ends of beneficence; that most of man's disease and anguish is due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness." i will not say that these things have been said before, but i will say that they have been answered before. the idea that the world is a school in which character is formed and in which men are educated is very old. if, however, the world is a school, and there is trouble and misfortune, and the object is to create character--that is to say, to produce heroes and saints--then the question arises, what becomes of those who die in infancy? they are left without the means of education. are they to remain forever without character? or is there some other world of suffering and sorrow? is it possible to form character in heaven? how did the angels become good? how do you account for the justice of god? did he attain character through struggle and suffering? what would you say of a school teacher who should kill one-third of the children on the morning of the first day? and what can you say of god,--if this world is a school,--who allows a large per cent, of his children to die in infancy--consequently without education--therefore, without character? if the world is the result of infinite wisdom and goodness, why is the christian church engaged in endeavoring to make it better; or, rather, in an effort to change it? why not leave it as an infinite god made it? is it true that most of man's diseases are due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness? is it not true that no matter how good men are they must die, and will they not die of diseases? is it true that the wickedness of man has created the microbe? is it possible that the sinfulness of man created the countless enemies of human life that lurk in air and water and food? certainly the wickedness of man has had very little influence on tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. is it true that "the signature of beauty with which god has stamped the visible world--alike in the sky and on the earth--alike in the majestic phenomena of an intelligent creation and in its humblest and most microscopic production--is a perpetual proof that god is a god of love"? let us see. the scientists tell us that there is a little microscopic animal, one who is very particular about his food--so particular, that he prefers to all other things the optic nerve, and after he has succeeded in destroying that nerve and covering the eye with the mask of blindness, he has intelligence enough to bore his way through the bones of the nose in search of the other optic nerve. is it not somewhat difficult to discover "the signature of beauty with which god has stamped" this animal? for my part, i see but little beauty in poisonous serpents, in man-eating sharks, in crocodiles, in alligators. it would be impossible for me to gaze with admiration upon a cancer. think, for a moment, of a god ingenious enough and good enough to feed a cancer with the quivering flesh of a human being, and to give for the sustenance of that cancer the life of a mother. it is well enough to speak of "the myriad voices of nature in their mirth and sweetness," and it is also well enough to think of the other side. the singing birds have a few notes of love--the rest are all of warning and of fear. nature, apparently with infinite care, produces a living thing, and at the same time is just as diligently at work creating another living thing to devour the first, and at the same time a third to devour the second, and so on around the great circle of life and death, of agony and joy--tooth and claw, fang and tusk, hunger and rapine, massacre and murder, violence and vengeance and vice everywhere and through all time. [here the manuscript ends, with the following notes.] sayings from the indian. "the rain seems hardest when the wigwam leaks." "when the tracks get too large and too numerous, the wise indian says that he is hunting something else." "a little crook in the arrow makes a great miss." "a great chief counts scalps, not hairs." "you cannot strengthen the bow by poisoning the arrows." "no one saves water in a flood." origen. origen considered that the punishment of the wicked consisted in separation from god. there was too much pity in his heart to believe in the flames of hell. but he was condemned as heretical by the council of carthage, a. d., , and afterwards by other councils. st. augustine. st. augustine censures origen for his merciful view, and says: "the church, not without reason, condemned him for this error." he also held that hell was in the centre of the earth, and that god supplied the centre with perpetual fire by a miracle. dante. dante is a wonderful mixture of melancholy and malice, of religion and revenge, and he represents himself as so pitiless that when he found his political opponents in hell, he struck their faces and pulled the hair of the tormented. aquinas. aquinas believed the same. he was the loving gentleman who believed in the undying worm. is corporal punishment degrading? * this unfinished and unrevised article was found among col. ingersoll's papers, and is here reproduced without change.-- it is a reply to the dean of st paul's contribution to the north american review for dec., , entitled: "is corporal punishment degrading?" the dean of st. paul protests against the kindness of parents, guardians and teachers toward children, wards and pupils. he believes in the gospel of ferule and whips, and has perfect faith in the efficacy of flogging in homes and schools. he longs for the return of the good old days when fathers were severe, and children affectionate and obedient. in america, for many years, even wife-beating has been somewhat unpopular, and the flogging of children has been considered cruel and unmanly. wives with bruised and swollen faces, and children with lacerated backs, have excited pity for themselves rather than admiration for savage husbands and brutal fathers. it is also true that the church has far less power here than in england, and it may be that those who wander from the orthodox fold grow merciful and respect the rights even of the weakest. but whatever the cause may be, the fact is that we, citizens of the republic, feel that certain domestic brutalities are the children of monarchies and despotisms; that they were produced by superstition, ignorance, and savagery; and that they are not in accord with the free and superb spirit that founded and preserves the great republic. of late years, confidence in the power of kindness has greatly increased, and there is a wide-spread suspicion that cruelty and violence are not the instrumentalities of civilization. physicians no longer regard corporal punishment as a sure cure even for insanity--and it is generally admitted that the lash irritates rather than soothes the victim of melancholia. civilized men now insist that criminals cannot always be reformed even by the most ingenious instruments of torture. it is known that some convicts repay the smallest acts of kindness with the sincerest gratitude. some of the best people go so far as to say that kindness is the sunshine in which the virtues grow. we know that for many ages governments tried to make men virtuous with dungeon and fagot and scaffold; that they tried to cure even disease of the mind with brandings and maimings and lashes on the naked flesh of men and women--and that kings endeavored to sow the seeds of patriotism--to plant and nurture them in the hearts of their subjects--with whip and chain. in england, only a few years ago, there were hundreds of brave soldiers and daring sailors whose breasts were covered with honorable scars--witnesses of wounds received at trafalgar and balaklava--while on the backs of these same soldiers and sailors were the marks of english whips. these shameless cruelties were committed in the name of discipline, and were upheld by officers, statesmen and clergymen. the same is true of nearly all civilized nations. these crimes have been excused for the reason that our ancestors were, at that time, in fact, barbarians--that they had no idea of justice, no comprehension of liberty, no conception of the rights of men, women, and children. at that time the church was, in most countries, equal to, or superior to, the state, and was a firm believer in the civilizing influences of cruelty and torture. according to the creeds of that day, god intended to torture the wicked forever, and the church, according to its power, did all that it could in the same direction. learning their rights and duties from priests, fathers not only beat their children, but their wives. in those days most homes were penitentiaries, in which wives and children were the convicts and of which husbands and fathers were the wardens and turnkeys. the king imitated his supposed god, and imprisoned, flogged, branded, beheaded and burned his enemies, and the husbands and fathers imitated the king, and guardians and teachers imitated them. yet in spite of all the beatings and burnings, the whippings and hangings, the world was not reformed. crimes increased, the cheeks of wives were furrowed with tears, the faces of children white with fear--fear of their own fathers; pity was almost driven from the heart of man and found refuge, for the most part, in the breasts of women, children, and dogs. in those days, misfortunes were punished as crimes. honest debtors were locked in loathsome dungeons, and trivial offences were punished with death. worse than all that, thousands of men and women were destroyed, not because they were vicious, but because they were virtuous, honest and noble. extremes beget obstructions. the victims at last became too numerous, and the result did not seem to justify the means. the good, the few, protested against the savagery of kings and fathers. nothing seems clearer to me than that the world has been gradually growing better for many years. men have a clearer conception of rights and obligations--a higher philosophy--a far nobler ideal. even kings admit that they should have some regard for the well-being of their subjects. nations and individuals are slowly outgrowing the savagery of revenge, the desire to kill, and it is generally admitted that criminals should neither be imprisoned nor tortured for the gratification of the public. at last we are beginning to know that revenge is a mistake--that cruelty not only hardens the victim, but makes a criminal of him who inflicts it, and that mercy guided by intelligence is the highest form of justice. the tendency of the world is toward kindness. the religious creeds are being changed or questioned, because they shock the heart of the present. all civilized churches, all humane christians, have given up the dogma of eternal pain. this infamous doctrine has for many centuries polluted the imagination and hardened the heart. this coiled viper no longer inhabits the breast of a civilized man. in all civilized countries slavery has been abolished, the honest debtor released, and all are allowed the liberty of speech. long ago flogging was abolished in our army and navy and all cruel and unusual punishments prohibited by law. in many parts of the republic the whip has been banished from the public schools, the flogger of children is held in abhorrence, and the wife-beater is regarded as a cowardly criminal. the gospel of kindness is not only preached, but practiced. such has been the result of this advance of civilization--of this growth of kindness--of this bursting into blossom of the flower called pity, in the heart--that we treat our horses (thanks to henry bergh) better than our ancestors did their slaves, their servants or their tenants. the gentlemen of to-day show more affection for their dogs than most of the kings of england exhibited toward their wives. the great tide is toward mercy; the savage creeds are being changed; heartless laws have been repealed; shackles have been broken; torture abolished, and the keepers of prisons are no longer allowed to bruise and scar the flesh of convicts. the insane are treated with kindness--asylums are in the midst of beautiful grounds, the rooms are filled with flowers, and the wandering mind is called back by the golden voice of music. in the midst of these tendencies--of these accomplishments--in the general harmony between the minds of men, acting together, to the end that the world may be governed by kindness through education and the blessed agencies of reformation and prevention, the dean of st. paul raises his voice in favor of the methods and brutalities of the past. the reverend gentleman takes the ground that the effect of flogging on the flogged is not degrading; that the effect of corporal punishment is ennobling; that it tends to make boys manly by ennobling and teaching them to bear bodily pain with fortitude. to be flogged develops character, self-reliance, courage, contempt of pain and the highest heroism. the dean therefore takes the ground that parents should flog their children, guardians their wards, and teachers their pupils. if the dean is wrong he goes too far, and if he is right he does not go far enough. he does not advocate the flogging of children who obey their parents, or of pupils who violate no rule. it follows then that such children are in great danger of growing up unmanly, without the courage and fortitude to bear bodily pain. if flogging is really a blessing it should not be withheld from the good and lavished on the unworthy. the dean should have the courage of his convictions. the teacher should not make a pretext of the misconduct of the pupil to do him a great service. he should not be guilty of calling a benefit a punishment he should not deceive the children under his care and develop their better natures under false pretences. but what is to become of the boys and girls who "behave themselves," who attend to their studies, and comply with the rules? they lose the benefits conferred on those who defy their parents and teachers, reach maturity without character, and so remain withered and worthless. the dean not only defends his position by an appeal to the bible, the history of nations, but to his personal experience. in order to show the good effects of brutality and the bad consequences of kindness, he gives two instances that came under his observation. the first is that of an intelligent father who treated his sons with great kindness and yet these sons neglected their affectionate father in his old age. the second instance is that of a mother who beat her daughter. the wretched child, it seems, was sent out to gather sticks from the hedges, and when she brought home a large stick, the mother suspected that she had obtained it wrongfully and thereupon proceeded to beat the child. and yet the dean tells us that this abused daughter treated the hyena mother with the greatest kindness, and loved her as no other daughter ever loved a mother. in order to make this case strong and convincing the dean states that this mother was a most excellent christian. from these two instances the dean infers, and by these two instances proves, that kindness breeds bad sons, and that flogging makes affectionate daughters. the dean says to the christian mother: "if you wish to be loved by your daughter, you must beat her." and to the christian father he says: "if you want to be neglected in your old age by your sons, you will treat them with kindness." the dean does not follow his logic to the end. let me give him two instances that support his theory. a good man married a handsome woman. he was old, rich, kind and indulgent. he allowed his wife to have her own way. he never uttered a cross or cruel word. he never thought of beating her. and yet, as the dean would say, in consequence of his kindness, she poisoned him, got his money and married another man. in this city, not long ago, a man, a foreigner, beat his wife according to his habit. on this particular occasion the punishment was excessive. he beat her until she became unconscious; she was taken to a hospital and the physician said that she could not live. the husband was brought to the hospital and preparations were made to take her dying statement. after being told that she was dying, she was asked if her husband had beaten her. her face was so bruised and swollen that the lids of her eyes had to be lifted in order that she might see the wretch who had killed her. she beckoned him to her side--threw her arms about his neck--drew his face to hers--kissed him, and said: "he is not the man. he did not do it"--then--died. according to the philosophy of the dean, these instances show that kindness causes crime, and that wife-beating cultivates in the highest degree the affectional nature of woman. the dean, if consistent, is a believer in slavery, because the lash judiciously applied brings out the finer feelings of the heart. slaves have been known to die for their masters, while under similar circumstances hired men have sought safety in flight. we all know of many instances where the abused, the maligned, and the tortured have returned good for evil--and many instances where the loved, the honored, and the trusted have turned against their benefactors, and yet we know that cruelty and torture are not superior to love and kindness. yet, the dean tries to show that severity is the real mother of affection, and that kindness breeds monsters. if kindness and affection on the part of parents demoralize children, will not kindness and affection on the part of children demoralize the parents? when the children are young and weak, the parents who are strong beat the children in order that they may be affectionate. now, when the children get strong and the parents are old and weak, ought not the children to beat them, so that they too may become kind and loving? if you want an affectionate son, beat him. if you desire a loving wife, beat her. this is really the advice of the dean of st paul. to me it is one of the most pathetic facts in nature that wives and children love husbands and fathers who are utterly unworthy. it is enough to sadden a life to think of the affection that has been lavished upon the brutal, of the countless pearls that love has thrown to swine. the dean, quoting from hooker, insists that "the voice of man is as the sentence of god himself,"--in other words, that the general voice, practice and opinion of the human race are true. and yet, cannibalism, slavery, polygamy, the worship of snakes and stones, the sacrifice of babes, have during vast periods of time been practiced and upheld by an overwhelming majority of mankind. whether the "general voice" can be depended on depends much on the time, the epoch, during which the "general voice" was uttered. there was a time when the "general voice" was in accord with the appetite of man; when all nations were cannibals and lived on each other, and yet it can hardly be said that this voice and appetite were in exact accord with divine goodness. it is hardly safe to depend on the "general voice" of savages, no matter how numerous they may have been. like most people who defend the cruel and absurd, the dean appeals to the bible as the supreme authority in the moral world,--and yet if the english parliament should re-enact the mosaic code every member voting in the affirmative would be subjected to personal violence, and an effort to enforce that code would produce a revolution that could end only in the destruction of the government. the morality of the old testament is not always of the purest; when jehovah tried to induce pharaoh to let the hebrews go, he never took the ground that slavery was wrong. he did not seek to convince by argument, to soften by pity, or to persuade by kindness. he depended on miracles and plagues. he killed helpless babes and the innocent beasts of the fields. no wonder the dean appeals to the bible to justify the beating of children. so, too, we are told that "all sensible persons, christian and otherwise, will admit that there are in every child born into the world tendencies to evil that need rooting out." the dean undoubtedly believes in the creed of the established church, and yet he does not hesitate to say that a god of infinite goodness and intelligence never created a child--never allowed one to be born into the world without planting in its little heart "tendencies to evil that need rooting out." so, solomon is quoted to the effect "that he that spareth his rod hateth his son." to me it has always been a matter of amazement why civilized people, living in the century of darwin and humboldt, should quote as authority the words of solomon, a murderer, an ingrate, an idolater, and a polygamist--a man so steeped and sodden in ignorance that he really believed he could be happy with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. the dean seems to regret that flogging is no longer practiced in the british navy, and quotes with great cheerfulness a passage from deuteronomy to prove that forty lashes on the naked back will meet with the approval of god. he insists that st. paul endured corporal punishment without the feeling of degradation not only, but that he remembered his sufferings with a sense of satisfaction. does the dean think that the satisfaction of st. paul justified the wretches who beat and stoned him? leaving the hebrews, the dean calls the greeks as witnesses to establish the beneficence of flogging. they resorted to corporal punishment in their schools, says the dean and then naively remarks "that plutarch was opposed to this." the dean admits that in rome it was found necessary to limit by law the punishment that a father might inflict upon his children, and yet he seems to regret that the legislature interfered. the dean observes that "quintillian severely censured corporal punishment" and then accounts for the weakness and folly of the censure, by saying that "quintillian wrote in the days when the glories of rome were departed." and then adds these curiously savage words: "it is worthy of remark that no children treated their parents with greater tenderness and reverence than did those of rome in the days when the father possessed the unlimited power of punishment." not quite satisfied with the strength of his case although sustained by moses and solomon, st. paul and several schoolmasters, he proceeds to show that god is thoroughly on his side, not only in theory, but in practice; "whom the lord loveth lie chasteneth, and scourgeth every sou whom he receiveth.". the dean asks this question: "which custom, kindness or severity, does experience show to be the less dangerous?" and he answers from a new heart: "i fear that i must unhesitatingly give the palm to severity." "i have found that there have been more reverence and affection, more willingness to make sacrifices for parents, more pleasure in contributing to their pleasure or happiness in that life where the tendency has been to a severe method of treatment." is it possible that any good mail exists who is willing to gain the affection of his children in that way? how could such a man beat and bruise the flesh of his babes, knowing that they would give him in return obedience and love; that they would fill the evening of his days--the leafless winter of his life--with perfect peace? think of being fed and clothed by children you had whipped--whose flesh you had scarred! think of feeling in the hour of death upon your withered lips, your withered cheeks, the kisses and the tears of one whom, you had beaten--upon whose flesh were still the marks of your lash! the whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretence, and their obedience a species of self-defence. fear is the father of lies. the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and the crop depends upon the soil." in twelve volumes, volume vii. discussions dresden edition contents of volume vii. my reviewers reviewed. ( .) answer to san francisco clergymen--definition of liberty, physical and mental--the right to compel belief--woman the equal of man--the ghosts--immortality--slavery--witchcraft--aristocracy of the air--unfairness of clerical critics--force and matter--doctrine of negation--confident deaths of murderers--childhood scenes returned to by the dying--death-bed of voltaire--thomas paine--the first sectarians were heretics--reply to rev. mr. guard--slaughter of the canaanites--reply to rev. samuel robinson--protestant persecutions--toleration--infidelity and progress--the occident--calvinism--religious editors--reply to the rev. mr. ijams--does the bible teach man to enslave his brothers?--reply to california _christian advocate_--self-government of french people at and since the revolution--on the site of the bastile--french peasant's cheers for jesus christ--was the world created in six days--geology--what is the astronomy of the bible?--the earth the centre of the universe--joshua's miracle--change of motion into heat--geography and astronomy of cosmas--does the bible teach the existence of that impossible crime called witchcraft?--saul and the woman of endor--familiar spirits--demonology of the new testament--temptation of jesus--possession by devils--gadarene swine story--test of belief--bible idea of the rights of children--punishment of the rebellious son--jephthah's vow and sacrifice--persecution of job--the gallantry of god--bible idea of the rights of women--paul's instructions to wives--permission given to steal wives--does the bible sanction polygamy and concubinage?--does the bible uphold and justify political tyranny?--powers that be ordained of god--religious liberty of god--sun-worship punishable with death--unbelievers to be damned--does the bible describe a god of mercy?--massacre commanded--eternal punishment taught in the new testament--the plan of salvation--fall and atonement moral bankruptcy--other religions--parsee sect--brahmins--confucians--heretics and orthodox. my chicago bible class. ( .) rev. robert collyer--inspiration of the scriptures--rev. dr. thomas--formation of the old testament--rev. dr. kohler--rev. mr. herford--prof. swing--rev. dr. ryder. to the indianapolis clergy. ( .) rev. david walk--character of jesus--two or three christs described in the gospels--christ's change of opinions--gospels later than the epistles--divine parentage of christ a late belief--the man christ probably a historical character--jesus belittled by his worshipers--he never claimed to be divine--christ's omissions--difference between christian and other modern civilizations--civilization not promoted by religion--inventors--french and american civilization: how produced--intemperance and slavery in christian nations--advance due to inventions and discoveries--missionaries--christian nations preserved by bayonet and ball--dr. t. b. taylor--origin of life on this planet--sir william thomson--origin of things undiscoverable--existence after death--spiritualists--if the dead return--our calendar--christ and christmas-the existence of pain--plato's theory of evil--will god do better in another world than he does in this?--consolation--life not a probationary stage--rev. d.o'donaghue--the case of archibald armstrong and jonathan newgate--inequalities of life--can criminals live a contented life?--justice of the orthodox god illustrated. the brooklyn divines. ( .) are the books of atheistic or infidel writers extensively read?--increase in the number of infidels--spread of scientific literature--rev. dr. eddy--rev. dr. hawkins--rev. dr. haynes--rev. mr. pullman--rev. mr. foote--rev. mr. wells--rev. dr. van dyke--rev. carpenter--rev. mr. reed--rev. dr. mcclelland--ministers opposed to discussion--whipping children--worldliness as a foe of the church--the drama--human love--fires, cyclones, and other afflictions as promoters of spirituality--class distinctions--rich and poor--aristocracies--the right to choose one's associates--churches social affairs--progress of the roman catholic church--substitutes for the churches--henry ward beecher--how far education is favored by the sects--rivals of the pulpit--christianity now and one hundred years ago--french revolution produced by the priests--why the revolution was a failure--infidelity of one hundred years ago--ministers not more intellectual than a century ago--great preachers of the past--new readings of old texts--clerical answerers of infidelity--rev. dr. baker--father fransiola--faith and reason--democracy of kindness--moral instruction--morality born of human needs--the conditions of happiness--the chief end of man. the limitations of toleration. ( .) discussion between col. robert g. ingersoll, hon. frederic r. coudert, and ex-gov. stewart l. woodford before the nineteenth century club of new york--propositions--toleration not a disclaimer but a waiver of the right to persecute--remarks of courtlandt palmer--no responsibility for thought--intellectual hospitality--right of free speech--origin of the term "toleration"--slander and false witness--nobody can control his own mind: anecdote--remarks of mr. coudert--voltaire, rousseau, hugo, and ingersoll--general woodford's speech--reply by colonel ingersoll--a catholic compelled to pay a compliment to voltaire--responsibility for thoughts--the mexican unbeliever and his reception in the other country. a christmas sermon. ( .) christianity's message of grief--christmas a pagan festival--reply to dr. buckley--charges by the editor of the christian advocate--the tidings of christianity--in what the message of grief consists--fear and flame--an everlasting siberia--dr. buckley's proposal to boycott the telegram--reply to rev. j. m. king and rev. thomas dixon, jr. cana day be blasphemed?--hurting christian feelings--for revenue only what is blasphemy?--balaam's ass wiser than the prophet--the universalists--can god do nothing for this world?--the universe a blunder if christianity is true--the duty of a newspaper--facts not sectarian--the rev. mr. peters--what infidelity has done--public school system not christian--orthodox universities--bruno on oxford--as to public morals--no rewards or punishments in the universe--the atonement immoral--as to sciences and art--bruno, humboldt, darwin--scientific writers opposed by the church--as to the liberation of slaves--as to the reclamation of inebriates--rum and religion--the humanity of infidelity--what infidelity says to the dying--the battle continued--morality not assailed by an attack on christianity--the inquisition and religious persecution--human nature derided by christianity--dr. dacosta--"human brotherhood" as exemplified by the history of the church--the church and science, art and learning----astronomy's revenge--galileo and kepler--mrs. browning: science thrust into the brain of europe--our numerals--christianity and literature--institution's of learning--stephen girard--james lick--our chronology--historians--natural philosophy--philology--metaphysical research--intelligence, hindoo, egyptian--inventions--john ericsson--emancipators--rev. mr. ballou--the right of goa to punish--rev. dr. hillier--rev. mr. haldeman--george a. locey--the "great physician"--rev. mr. talmage--rev. j. benson hamilton--how voltaire died--the death-bed of thomas paine--rev. mr. holloway--original sin--rev. dr. tyler--the good samaritan a heathen--hospitals and asylums--christian treatment of the insane--rev. dr. buckley--the north american review discussion--judge black, dr. field, mr. gladstone--circulation of obscene literature--eulogy of whiskey--eulogy of tobacco--human stupidity that defies the gods--rev. charles deems--jesus a believer in a personal devil--the man christ. suicide of judge normile. ( .) reply to the _western watchman_--henry d'arcy--peter's prevarication-some excellent pagans-heartlessness of a catholic--wishes do not affect the judgment--devout robbers--penitent murderers--reverential drunkards--luther's distich--judge normile--self-destruction. is suicide a sin? ( .) col. ingersoll's first letter in _the new york world_--under what circumstances a man has the right to take his own life--medicine and the decrees of god--case of the betrayed girl--suicides not cowards--suicide under roman law--many suicides insane--insanity caused by religion--the law against suicide cruel and idiotic--natural and sufficient cause for self-destruction--christ's death a suicide--col. ingersoll's reply to his critics--is suffering the work of god?--it is not man's duty to endure hopeless suffering--when suicide is justifiable--the inquisition--alleged cowardice of suicides--propositions demonstrated--suicide the foundation of the christian religion--redemption and atonement--the clergy on infidelity and suicide--morality and unbelief--better injure yourself than another--misquotation by opponents--cheerful view the best--the wonder is that men endure--suicide a sin (interview in the new york journal)--causes of suicide--col. ingersoll does not advise suicide--suicides with tracts or bibles in their pockets--suicide a sin (interview in the new york herald)--comments on rev. alerle st. croix wright's sermon--suicide and sanity (interview in the york world)--as to the cowardice of suicide--germany and the prevalence of suicide--killing of idiots and defective infants--virtue, morality, and religion. is avarice triumphant? ( .) reply to general rush hawkins' article, "brutality and avarice triumphant"--croakers and prophets of evil--medical treatment for believers in universal evil--alleged fraud in army contracts--congressional extravagance--railroad "wreckers"--how stockholders in some roads lost their money--the star-route trials--timber and public lands--watering stock--the formation of trusts--unsafe hotels: european game and singing birds--seal fisheries--cruelty to animals--our indians--sensible and manly patriotism--days of brutality--defence of slavery by the websters, bentons, and clays--thirty years' accomplishment--ennobling influence of war for the right--the lady ana the brakeman--american esteem of honesty in business--republics do not tend to official corruption--this the best country in the world. a reply to the cincinnati gazette and catholic telegraph. ( .) defence of the lecture on moses--how biblical miracles are sought to be proved--some _non sequiturs_--a grammatical criticism--christianity destructive of manners--cuvier and agassiz on mosaic cosmogony--clerical advance agents--christian threats and warnings--catholicism the upas tree--hebrew scholarship as a qualification for deciding probababilities --contradictions and mistranslations of the bible--number of errors in the scriptures--the sunday question. an interview on chief justice comegys. ( .) charged with blasphemy in the state of delaware--can a conditionless deity be injured?--injustice the only blasphemy--the lecture in delaware--laws of that state--all sects in turn charged with blasphemy--heresy consists in making god better than he is thought to be--a fatal biblical passage--judge comegys--wilmington preachers--states with laws against blasphemy--no danger of infidel mobs--no attack on the state of delaware contemplated--comegys a resurrection--grand jury's refusal to indict--advice about the cutting out of heretics' tongues--objections to the whipping-post--mr. bergh's bill--one remedy for wife-beating. a reply to rev. drs. thomas and lorimer. ( .) solemnity--charged with being insincere--irreverence--old testament better than the new--"why hurt our feelings?"--involuntary action of the brain--source of our conceptions of space--good and bad--right and wrong--the minister, the horse and the lord's prayer--men responsible for their actions--the "gradual" theory not applicable to the omniscient--prayer powerless to alter results--religious persecution--orthodox ministers made ashamed of their creed--purgatory--infidelity and baptism contrasted--modern conception of the universe--the golden bridge of life--"the only salutation"--the test for admission to heaven--"scurrility." a reply to rev. john hall and warner van norden. ( .) dr. hall has no time to discuss the subject of starving workers--cloakmakers' strike--warner van norden of the church extension society--the uncharitableness of organized charity--defence of the cloakmakers--life of the underpaid--on the assertion that assistance encourages idleness and crime--the man without pity an intellectual beast--tendency of prosperity to breed selfishness--thousands idle without fault--egotism of riches--van norden's idea of happiness--the worthy poor. a reply to the rev. dr. plumb. ( .) interview in a boston paper--why should a minister call this a "poor" world?--would an infinite god make people who need a redeemer?--gospel gossip--christ's sayings repetitions--the philosophy of confucius--rev. mr. mills--the charge of "robbery"--the divine plan. a reply to the new york clergy on superstition. ( .) interview in the new york journal--rev. roberts. macarthur--a personal devil--devils who held conversations with christ not simply personifications of evil--the temptation--the "man of straw"--christ's mission authenticated by the casting out of devils--spain--god responsible for the actions of man--rev. dr. j. lewis parks--rev. dr. e. f. moldehnke--patience amidst the misfortunes of others--yellow fever as a divine agent--the doctrine that all is for the best--rev. mr. hamlin--why did god create a successful rival?--a compliment by the rev. mr. belcher--rev. w. c. buchanan--no argument old until it is answered--why should god create sentient beings to be damned?--rev. j. w. campbell--rev. henry frank--rev. e. c.j. kraeling on christ and the devil--would he make a world like this? my reviewers reviewed. * this lecture was delivered by col. ingersoll in san francisco cal., june , . it was a reply to various clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon him after the delivery of his lectures, "the liberty of man, woman and child," and "the ghosts." i. against the aspersions of the pulpit and the religious press, i offer in evidence this magnificent audience. although i represent but a small part of the holy cause of intellectual liberty, even that part shall not be defiled or smirched by a single personality. whatever i say, i shall say because i believe it will tend to make this world grander, man nearer just, the father kinder, the mother more loving, the children more affectionate, and because i believe it will make an additional flower bloom in the pathway of every one who hears me. in the first place, what have i said? what has been my offence? what have i done? i am spoken of by the clergy as though i were a wolf that in the absence of the good shepherd had fattened upon his innocent flock. what have i said? i delivered a lecture entitled, "the liberty of man, woman and child." in that lecture i said that man was entitled to physical and intellectual liberty. i defined physical liberty to be the right to do right; the right to do anything that did not interfere with the real happiness of others. i defined intellectual liberty to be the right to think right, and the right to think wrong--provided you did your best to think right. this must be so, because thought is only an instrumentality by which we seek to ascertain the truth. every man has the right to think, whether his thought is in reality right or wrong; and he cannot be accountable to any being for thinking wrong. there is upon man, so far as thought is concerned, the obligation to think the best he can, and to honestly express his best thought. whenever he finds what is right, or what he honestly believes to be the right, he is less than a man if he fears to express his conviction before an assembled world. the right to do right is my definition of physical liberty. "the right of one human being ceases where the right of another commences." my definition of intellectual liberty is, the right to think, whether you think right or wrong, provided you do your best to think right. i believe in liberty, fraternity and equality--the blessed trinity of humanity. i believe in observation, reason and experience--the blessed trinity of science. i believe in man, woman and child--the blessed trinity of life and joy. i have said, and still say, that you have no right to endeavor by force to compel another to think your way--that man has no right to compel his fellow-man to adopt his creed, by torture or social ostracism. i have said, and still say, that even an infinite god has and can have no right to compel by force or threats even the meanest of mankind to accept a dogma abhorrent to his mind. as a matter of fact such a power is incapable of being exercised. you may compel a man to say that he has changed his mind. you may force him to say that he agrees with you. in this way, however, you make hypocrites, not converts. is it possible that a god wishes the worship of a slave? does a god desire the homage of a coward? does he really long for the adoration of a hypocrite? is it possible that he requires the worship of one who dare not think? if i were a god it seems to me that i had rather have the esteem and love of one grand, brave man, with plenty of heart and plenty of brain, than the blind worship, the ignorant adoration, the trembling homage of a universe of men afraid to reason. and yet i am warned by the orthodox guardians of this great city not to think. i am told that i am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of god. they inform me that unless i believe in a certain way, meaning their way, i am in danger of everlasting fire. there was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. that time has substantially passed away. for a hundred years hell has been gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the climate gradually changing. to such an extent has the change already been effected that if i were going there to-night i would take an overcoat and a box of matches. they say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. i deny it. a conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. the god who punishes it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. as for me, i would a thousand times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his children for an honest belief. the next thing i have said is, that woman is the equal of man; that she has every right that man has, and one more--the right to be protected, because she is the weaker. i have said that marriage should be an absolutely perfect partnership of body and soul; that a man should treat his wife like a splendid flower, and that she should fill his life with perfume and with joy. i have said that a husband had no right to be morose; that he had no right to assassinate the sunshine and murder the joy of life. i have said that when he went home he should go like a ray of light, and fill his house so full of joy that it would burst out of the doors and windows and illumine even the darkness of night. i said that marriage was the holiest, highest, the most sacred institution among men; that it took millions of years for woman to advance from the condition of absolute servitude, from the absolute slavery where the bible found her and left her, up to the position she occupies at present. i have pleaded for the rights of woman, for the rights of wives, and what is more, for the rights of little children. i have said that they could be governed by affection, by love, and that my heart went out to all the children of poverty and of crime; to the children that live in the narrow streets and in the sub-cellars; to the children that run and hide when they hear the footsteps of a brutal father, the children that grow pale when they hear their names pronounced even by a mother; to all the little children, the flotsam and jetsam upon the wide, rude sea of life. i have said that my heart goes out to them one and all; i have asked fathers and mothers to cease beating their own flesh and blood. i have said to them, when your child does wrong, put your arms around him; let him feel your heart beat against his. it is easier to control your child with a kiss than with a club. for expressing these sentiments, i have been denounced by the religious press and by ministers in their pulpits as a demon, as an enemy of order, as a fiend, as an infamous man. of this, however, i make no complaint. a few years ago they would have burned me at the stake and i should have been compelled to look upon their hypocritical faces through flame and smoke. they cannot do it now or they would. one hundred years ago i would have been burned, simply for pleading for the rights of men. fifty years ago i would have been imprisoned. fifty years ago my wife and my children would have been torn from my arms in the name of the most merciful god. twenty-five years ago i could not have made a living in the united states at the practice of law; but i can now. i would not then have been allowed to express my thought; but i can now, and i will. and when i think about the liberty i now enjoy, the whole horizon is illuminated with glory and the air is filled with wings. i then delivered another lecture entitled "ghosts," in which i sought to show that man had been controlled by phantoms of his own imagination; in which i sought to show these imps of darkness, these devils, had all been produced by superstition; in which i endeavored to prove that man had groveled in the dust before monsters of his own creation; in which i endeavored to demonstrate that the many had delved in the soil that the few might live in idleness, that the many had lived in caves and dens that the few might dwell in palaces of gold; in which i endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts except hatred, except ignorance, except unhappiness, and that in the name of phantoms man had covered the face of the world with tears. and for this, i have been assailed, in the name, i presume, of universal forgiveness. so far as any argument i have produced is concerned, it cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether i am a good or a bad man. it cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether my personal character is good or bad. that is not the question, though, so far as i am concerned, i am willing to stake the whole question upon that issue. that is not, however, the thing to be discussed, nor the thing to be decided. the question is, whether what i said is true. i did say that from ghosts we had obtained certain things--among other things a book known as the bible. from the ghosts we received that book; and the believers in ghosts pretend that upon that book rests the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. this i deny. whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be changed by any book whatever. if i am immortal, i am. if am not, no book can render me so. it is no mure wonderful that i should live again than that i do live. the doctrine of immortality is not based upon any book. the foundation of that idea is not a creed. the idea of immortality, which, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves of hope and fear against the shores and rocks of fate and time, was not born of any book, was not born of a creed. it is not the child of any religion. it was born of human affection; and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the eternal bow--hope shining upon the tears of grief. i did say that these ghosts taught that human slavery was right. if there is a crime beneath the shining stars it is the crime of enslaving a human being. slavery enslaves not only the slave, but the master as well. when you put a chain upon the limbs of another, you put a fetter also upon your own brain. i had rather be a slave than a slaveholder. the slave can at least be just--the slaveholder cannot. i had rather be robbed than be a robber. i had rather be stolen from than to be a thief. i have said, and i do say, that the bible upheld, sustained and sanctioned the institution of human slavery; and before i get through i will prove it. i said that to the same book we are indebted, to a great degree, for the doctrine of witchcraft. relying upon its supposed sacred texts, people were hanged and their bodies burned for getting up storms at sea with the intent of drowning royal vermin. every possible offence was punished under the name of witchcraft, from souring beer to high treason. i also said, and i still say, that the book we obtained from the ghosts, for the guidance of man, upheld the infamy of infamies, called polygamy; and i will also prove that. and the same book teaches, not political liberty, but political tyranny. i also said that the author of the book given us by the ghosts knew nothing about astronomy, still less about geology, still less, if possible, about medicine, and still less about legislation. this is what i have said concerning the aristocracy of the air. i am well aware that having said it i ought to be able to prove the truth of my words. i have said these things. no one ever said them in better nature than i have. i have not the slightest malice--a victor never felt malice. as soon as i had said these things, various gentlemen felt called upon to answer me. i want to say that if there is anything i like in the world it is fairness. and one reason i like it so well is that i have had so little of it. i can say, if i wish, extremely mean and hateful things. i have read a great many religious papers and discussions and think that i now know all the infamous words in our language. i know how to account for every noble action by a mean and wretched motive, and that, in my judgment, embraces nearly the entire science of modern theology. the moment i delivered a lecture upon "the liberty of man, woman and child," i was charged with having said that there is nothing back of nature, and that nature with its infinite arms embraces everything; and thereupon i was informed that i believed in nothing but matter and force, that i believed only in earth, that i did not believe in spirit. if by spirit you mean that which thinks, then i am a believer in spirit. if you mean by spirit the something that says "i," the something that reasons, hopes, loves and aspires, then i am a believer in spirit. whatever spirit there is in the universe must be a natural thing, and not superimposed upon nature. all that i can say is, that whatever is, is natural. and there is as much goodness, in my judgment, as much spirit in this world as in any other; and you are just as near the heart of the universe here as you can be anywhere. one of your clergymen says in answer, as he supposes, to me, that there is matter and force and spirit. well, can matter exist without force? what would keep it together? what would keep the finest possible conceivable atom together unless there was force? can you imagine such a thing as matter without force? can you conceive of force without matter? can you conceive of force floating about attached to nothing? can you possibly conceive of this? no human being can conceive of force without matter. "you cannot conceive of force being harnessed or hitched to matter as you would hitch horses to a carriage." you cannot. now, what is spirit? they say spirit is the first thing that was. it seems to me, however, as though spirit was the blossom, the fruit of all, not the commencement. they say it was first. very well. spirit without force, a spirit without any matter--what would that spirit do? no force, no matter!--a spirit living in an infinite vacuum. what would such a spirit turn its particular attention to? this spirit, according to these theologians, created the world, the universe; and if it did, there must have been a time when it commenced to create; and back of that there must have been an eternity spent in absolute idleness. now, is it possible that a spirit existed during an eternity without any force and without any matter? is it possible that force could exist without matter or spirit? is it possible that matter could exist alone, if by matter you mean something without force? the only answer i can give to all these questions is, i do not know. for my part, i do not know what spirit is, if there is any. i do not know what matter is, neither am i acquainted with the elements of force. if you mean by matter that which i can touch, that which occupies space, then i believe in matter. if you mean by force anything that can overcome weight, that can overcome what we call gravity or inertia; if you mean by force that which moves the molecules of matter, or the movement itself, then i believe in force. if you mean by spirit that which thinks and loves, then i believe in spirit. there is, however, no propriety in wasting any time about the science of metaphysics. i will give you my definition of metaphysics: two fools get together; each admits what neither can prove, and thereupon both of them say, "hence we infer." that is all there is of metaphysics. these gentlemen, however, say to me that all my doctrine about the treatment of wives and children, all my ideas of the rights of man, all these are wrong, because i am not exactly correct as to my notion spirit. they say that spirit existed first, at least an eternity before there was any force or any matter. exactly how spirit could act without force we do not understand. that we must take upon credit. how spirit could create matter without force is a serious question, and we are too reverent to press such an inquiry. we are bound to be satisfied, however, that spirit is entirely independent of force and matter, and any man who denies this must be "a malevolent and infamous wretch." another reverend gentleman proceeds to denounce all i have said as the doctrine of negation. and we are informed by him--speaking i presume from experience--that negation is a poor thing to die by. he tells us that the last hours are the grand testing hours. they are the hours when atheists disown their principles and infidels bewail their folly--"that voltaire and thomas paine wrote sharply against christianity, but their death-bed scenes are too harrowing for recital"--he also states that "another french infidel philosopher tried in vain to fortify voltaire, but that a stronger man than voltaire had taken possession of him, and he cried 'retire! it is you that have brought me to my present state--begone! what a rich glory you have brought me.'" this, my friends, is the same old, old falsehood that has been repeated again and again by the lips of hatred and hypocrisy. there is not in one of these stories a solitary word of truth; and every intelligent man knows all these death-bed accounts to be entirely and utterly false. they are taken, however, by the mass of the church as evidence that all opposition to christianity, so-called, fills the bed of the dying infidel and scoffer with serpents and scorpions. so far as my experience goes, the bad die in many instances as placidly as the good. i have sometimes thought that a hardened wretch, upon whose memory is engraved the record of nearly every possible crime, dies without a shudder, without a tremor, while some grand, good man, remembering during his last moments an unkind word spoken to a stranger, it may be in the heat of anger, dies with remorseful words upon his lips. nearly every murderer who is hanged, dies with an immensity of nerve, but i never thought it proved that he had lived a good and useful life. neither have i imagined that it sanctified the crime for which he suffered death. the fact is, that when man approaches natural death, his powers, his intellectual faculties fail and grow dim. he becomes a child. he has less and less sense. and just in proportion as he loses his reasoning powers, he goes back to the superstitions of his childhood. the scenes of youth cluster about him and he is again in the lap of his mother. of this very fact, there is not a more beautiful description than that given by shakespeare when he takes that old mass of wit and filth, jack falstaff, in his arms, and mrs quickly says: "a' made a finer end, and went away, an it had been my christom child; a' parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' the tide; for after i saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' end, i knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields." as the genius of shakespeare makes falstaff a child again upon sunny slopes, decked with daisies, so death takes the dying back to the scenes of their childhood, and they are clasped once more to the breasts of mothers. they go back, for the reason that nearly every superstition in the world has been sanctified by some sweet and placid mother. remember, the superstition has never sanctified the mother, but the mother has sanctified the superstition. the young mohammedan, who now lies dying upon some field of battle, thinks sweet and tender thoughts of home and mother, and will, as the blood oozes from his veins, repeat some holy verse from the blessed koran. every superstition in the world that is now held sacred has been made so by mothers, by fathers, by the recollections of home. i know what it has cost the noble, the brave, the tender, to throw away every superstition, although sanctified by the memory of those they loved. whoever has thrown away these superstitions has been pursued by his fellow-men, from the day of the death of voltaire the church has pursued him as though he had been the vilest criminal. a little over one hundred years ago, catholicism, the inventor of instruments of torture, red with the innocent blood of millions, felt in its heartless breast the dagger of voltaire. from that blow the catholic church never can recover. livid with hatred she launched at her assassin the curse of rome, and ignorant protestants have echoed that curse. for myself, i like voltaire, and whenever i think of that name, it is to me as a plume floating above some grand knight--a knight who rides to a walled city and demands an unconditional surrender. i like him. he was once imprisoned in the bastile, and while in that frightful fortress--and i like to tell it--he changed his name. his name was francois marie arouet. in his gloomy cell he changed this name to voltaire, and when some sixty years afterward the bastile was torn down to the very dust, "voltaire" was the battle cry of the destroyers who did it. i like him because he did more for religious toleration than any other man who ever lived or died. i admire him because he did more to do away with torture in civil proceedings than any other man. i like him because he was always upon the side of justice, upon the side of progress. i like him in spite of his faults, because he had many and splendid virtues. i like him because his doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country. i like him because he hated tyranny; and when he died he died as serenely as ever mortal died; he spoke to his servant recognizing him as a man. he said to him, calling him by name: "my friend, farewell." these were the last words of voltaire. and this was the only frightful scene enacted at his bed of death. i like voltaire, because for half a century he was the intellectual emperor of europe. i like him, because from his throne at the foot of the alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in christendom. i will give to any clergyman in the city of san francisco a thousand dollars in gold to substantiate the story that the death of voltaire was not as peaceful as the coming of the dawn. the same absurd story is told of thomas paine. thomas paine was a patriot--he was the first man in the world to write these words: "the free and independent states of america." he was the first man to convince the american people that they ought to separate themselves from great britain. "his pen did as much, to say the least, for the liberty of america, as the sword of washington." the men who have enjoyed the benefit of his heroic services repay them with slander and calumny. if there is in this world a crime, ingratitude is a crime. and as for myself, i am not willing to receive anything from any man without making at least an acknowledgment of my obligation. y et these clergymen, whose very right to stand in their pulpits and preach, was secured to them by such men as thomas paine, delight in slandering the reputation of that great man. they tell their hearers that he died in fear,--that he died in agony, hearing devils rattle chains, and that the infinite god condescended to frighten a dying man. i will give one thousand dollars in gold to any clergyman in san francisco who will substantiate the truth of the absurd stories concerning the death of thomas paine. there is not one word of truth in these accounts; not one word. let me ask one thing, and let me ask it, if you please, in what is called a reverent spirit. suppose that voltaire and thomas paine, and volney and hume and hobbes had cried out when dying "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" what would the clergymen of this city then have said? to resort to these foolish calumnies about the great men who have opposed the superstitions of the world, is in my judgment, unbecoming any intelligent man. the real question is not, who is afraid to die? the question is, who is right? the great question is not, who died right, but who lived right? there is infinitely more responsibility in living than in dying. the moment of death is the most unimportant moment of life. nothing can be done then. you cannot even do a favor for a friend, except to remember him in your will. it is a moment when life ceases to be of value. while living, while you have health and strength, you can augment the happiness of your fellow-men; and the man who has made others happy need not be afraid to die. yet these believers, as they call themselves, these believers who hope for immortality--thousands of them, will rob their neighbors, thousands of them will do numberless acts of injustice, when, according to their belief, the witnesses of their infamy will live forever; and the men whom they have injured and outraged, will meet them in every glittering star through all the ages yet to be. as for me, i would rather do a generous action, and read the record in the grateful faces of my fellow-men. these gentlemen who attack me are orthodox now, but the men who started their churches were heretics. the first presbyterian was a heretic. the first baptist was a heretic. the first congregationalist was a heretic. the first christian was denounced as a blasphemer. and yet these heretics, the moment they get numerous enough to be in the majority in some locality, begin to call themselves orthodox. can there be any impudence beyond this? the first baptist, as i said before, was a heretic; and he was the best baptist that i have ever heard anything about. i always liked him. he was a good man--roger williams. he was the first man, so far as i know, in this country, who publicly said that the soul of man should be free. and it was a wonder to me that a man who had sense enough to say that, could think that any particular form of baptism was necessary to salvation. it does strike me that a man of great brain and thought could not possibly think the eternal welfare of a human being, the question whether he should dwell with angels, or be tossed upon eternal waves of fire, should be settled by the manner in which he had been baptized. that seems, to me so utterly destitute of thought and heart, that it is a matter of amazement to me that any man ever looked upon the ordinance of baptism as of any importance whatever. if we were at the judgment seat to-night, and the supreme being, in our hearing, should ask a man: "have you been a good man?" and the man replied: "tolerably good." "did you love your wife and children?" "yes." "did you try and make them happy?" "yes." "did you try and make your neighbors happy?" "yes, i paid my debts: i gave heaping measure, and i never cared whether i was thanked for it or not." suppose the supreme being then should say: "were you ever baptized?" and the man should reply: "i am sorry to say i never was." could a solitary person of sense hear that question asked, by the supreme being, without laughing, even if he knew that his own case was to be called next? i happened to be in the company of six or seven baptist elders--how i ever got into such bad company, i don't know,--and one of them asked what i thought about baptism. well, i never thought much about it; did not know much about it; didn't want to say anything, but they insisted upon it. i said, "well, i'll give you my opinion--with soap, baptism is a good thing." the reverend mr. guard has answered me, as i am informed, upon several occasions. i have read the reports of his remarks, and have boiled them down. he said some things about me not entirely pleasant, which i do not wish to repeat. in his reply he takes the ground: _first_. that the bible is not an immoral book, because he swore upon it or by it when he joined the masons. _second_. he excuses solomon for all his crimes upon the supposition that he had softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart. _third._ that the hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants of canaan, according to the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." he takes the ground that the destruction of these canaanites, the ripping open of women with child by the sword of war, was an act of sublime mercy. he justifies a war of extermination; he applauds every act of cruelty and murder. he says that the canaanites ought to have been turned from their homes; that men guilty of no crime except fighting for their country, old men with gray hairs, old mothers and little, dimpled, prattling children, ought to have been sacrificed upon the altar of war; that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into the bodies of all, old and young. this is what the reverend gentleman is pleased to call mercy. if this is mercy let us have injustice. if there is in the heavens such a god i am sorry that man exists. all this, however, is justified upon the ground that god has the right to do as he pleases with the being he has created. this i deny. such a doctrine is infamously false. suppose i could take a stone and in one moment change it into a sentient, hoping, loving human being, would i have the right to torture it? would i have the right to give it pain? no one but a fiend would either exercise or justify such a right. even if there is a god who created us all he has no such right. above any god that can exist, in the infinite serenity forever sits the figure of justice; and this god, no matter how great and infinite he may be, is bound to do justice. _fourth._ that god chose the jews and governed them personally for thousands of years, and drove out the canaanites in order that his peculiar people might not be corrupted by the example of idolaters; that he wished to make of the hebrews a great nation, and that, consequently, he was justified in destroying the original inhabitants of that country. it seems to me that the end hardly justified the means. according to the account, god governed the jews personally for many ages and succeeded in civilizing them to that degree, that they crucified him the first opportunity they had. such an administration can hardly be called a success. _fifth._ the reverend gentleman seems to think that the practice of polygamy after all is not a bad thing when compared with the crime of exhibiting a picture of antony and cleopatra. upon the corrupting influence of such pictures he descants at great length, and attacks with all the bitterness of the narrow theologian the masterpieces of art. allow me to say one word about art. that is one of the most beautiful words in our language--art. and it never seemed to me necessary for art to go in partnership with a rag. i like the paintings of angelo, of raffaelle. i like the productions of those splendid souls that put their ideas of beauty upon the canvas uncovered. "there are brave souls in every land who worship nature, grand and nude, and who with swift indignant hand tear off the fig leaves of the prude." _sixth_. that it may be true that the bible sanctions slavery, but that it is not an immoral book even if it does. i can account for these statements, for these arguments, only as the reverend gentleman has accounted for the sins of solomon--"by a softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart." it does seem to me that if i were a christian, and really thought my fellow-man was going down to the bottomless pit; that he was going to misery and agony forever, it does seem to me that i would try and save him. it does seem to me, that instead of having my mouth filled with epithets and invectives; instead of drawing the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, it seems to me that my eyes would be filled with tears. it seems to me that i would do what little i could to reclaim him. i would talk to him and of him, in kindness. i would put the arms of affection about him. i would not speak of him as though he were a wild beast. i would not speak to him as though he were a brute. i would think of him as a man, as a man liable to eternal torture among the damned, and my heart would be filled with sympathy, not hatred--my eyes with tears, not scorn. if there is anything pitiable, it is to see a man so narrowed and withered by the blight and breath of superstition, as cheerfully to defend the most frightful crimes of which we have a record--a man so hardened and petrified by creed and dogma that he hesitates not to defend even the institution of human slavery--so lost to all sense of pity that he applauds murder and rapine as though they were acts of the loftiest self-denial. the next gentleman who has endeavored to answer what i have said, is the rev. samuel robinson. this he has done in his sermon entitled "ghosts against god or ingersoll against honesty." i presume he imagines himself to be the defendant in both cases. this gentleman apologized for attending an infidel lecture, upon the ground that he had to contribute to the support of a "materialistic demon." to say the least, this is not charitable. but i am satisfied. i am willing to exchange facts for epithets. i fare so much better than did the infidels in the olden time that i am more than satisfied. it is a little thing that i bear. the brave men of the past endured the instruments of torture. they were stretched upon racks; their feet were crushed in iron boots; they stood upon the shores of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land. they were taken from their firesides, from their wives, from their children; they were taken to the public square; they were chained to stakes, and their ashes were scattered by the countless hands of hatred. i am satisfied. the disciples of fear cannot touch me. this gentlemen hated to contribute a cent to the support of a "materialistic demon." when i saw that statement i will tell you what i did. i knew the man's conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of a "materialistic demon." i wrote him a letter and i said: "my dear sir: in order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, i hereby enclose the amount you paid to attend my lecture." i then gave him a little good advice. i advised him to be charitable, to be kind, and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to one of my talks for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that all men had the same right to think. this man denied having received the money, but it was traced to him through a blot on the envelope. this gentleman avers that everything that i said about persecution is applicable to the catholic church only. that is what he says. the catholics have probably persecuted more than any other church, simply because that church has had more power, simply because it has been more of a church. it has to-day a better organization, and as a rule, the catholics come nearer believing what they say about their church than other christians do. was it a catholic persecution that drove the puritan fathers from england? was it not the storm of episcopal persecution that filled the sails of the mayflower? was it not a protestant persecution that drove the ark and dove to america? let us be honest. who went to scotland and persecuted the presbyterians? who was it that chained to the stake that splendid girl by the sands of the sea for not saying "god save the king"? she was worthy to have been the mother of cæsar. she would not say "god save the king," but she would say "god save the king, if it be god's will." protestants ordered her to say "god save the king," and no more. she said, "i will not," and they chained her to a stake in the sand and allowed her to be drowned by the rising of the inexorable tide. who did this? protestants. who drove roger williams from massachusetts? protestants. who sold white quaker children into slavery? protestants. who cut out the tongues of quakers? who burned and destroyed men and women and children charged with impossible crimes? protestants. the protestants have persecuted exactly to the extent of their power. the catholics have done the same. i want, however, to be just. the first people to pass an act of religious toleration in the new world were the catholics of maryland. the next were the baptists of rhode island, led by roger williams. the catholics passed the act of religious toleration, and after the protestants got into power again in england, and also in the colony of maryland, they repealed the law of toleration and passed another law declaring the catholics from under the protection of all law. afterward, the catholics again got into power and had the generosity and magnanimity to re-enact the old law. and, so far as i know, it is the only good record upon the subject of religious toleration the catholics have in this world, and i am always willing to give them credit for it. this gentleman also says that infidelity has done nothing for the world in the development of the arts and sciences. does he not know that nearly every man who took a forward step was denounced by the church as a heretic and infidel? does he not know that the church has in all ages persecuted the astronomers, the geologists, the logicians? does he not know that even to-day the church slanders and maligns the foremost men? has he ever heard of tyndall, of huxley? is he acquainted with john w. draper, one of the leading minds of the world? did he ever hear of auguste comte, the great frenchman? did he ever hear of descartes, of laplace, of spinoza? in short, has he ever heard of a man who took a step in advance of his time? orthodoxy never advances. when it advances, it ceases to be orthodoxy and becomes heresy. orthodoxy is putrefaction. it is intellectual cloaca; it cannot advance. what the church calls infidelity is simply free thought. every man who really owns his own brain is, in the estimation of the church, an infidel. there is a paper published in this city called _the occident_. the editor has seen fit to speak of me, and of the people who have assembled to hear me, in the lowest, vilest and most scurrilous terms possible. i cannot afford to reply in the same spirit. he alleges that the people who assemble to hear me are the low, the debauched and the infamous. the man who reads that paper ought to read it with tongs. it is a presbyterian sheet; and would gladly treat me as john calvin treated castalio. castalio was the first minister in the history of christendom who acknowledged the innocence of honest error, and john calvin followed him like a sleuth-hound of perdition. he called him a "dog of satan;" said that he had crucified christ afresh; and pursued him to the very grave. the editor of this paper is still warming his hands at the fire that burned servetus. he has in his heart the same fierce hatred of everything that is free. but what right have we to expect anything good of a man who believes in the eternal damnation of infants? there may have been sometime in the history of the world a worse religion than old school presbyterianism, but if there ever was, from cannibalism to civilization, i have never heard of it. i make a distinction between the members and the creed of that church. i know many who are a thousand times better than the creed--good, warm and splendid friends of mine. i would do anything in the world for them. and i have said to them a hundred times, "you are a thousand times better than your creed." but when you come down to the doctrine of the damnation of infants, it is the deformity of deformities. the editor of this paper is engaged in giving the world the cheerful doctrines of fore-ordination and damnation--those twin comforts of the presbyterian creed, and warning them against the frightful effects of reasoning in any manner for themselves. he regards the intellectually free as the lowest, the vilest and the meanest, as men who wish to sin, as men who are longing to commit crime, men who are anxious to throw off all restraint. my friends, every chain thrown from the body puts an additional obligation upon the soul. every man who is free, puts a responsibility upon his brain and upon his heart. you, who never want responsibility, give your souls to some church. you, who never want the feeling that you are under obligation to yourselves, give your souls away. but if you are willing to feel and meet responsibility; if you feel that you must give an account not only to yourselves but to every human being whom you injure, then you must be free. where there is no freedom, there can be no responsibility. it is a mystery to me why the editors of religious papers are so malicious, why they endeavor to answer argument with calumny. is it because they feel the sceptre slowly slipping from their hands? is it the result of impotent rage? is it because there is being written upon every orthodox brain a certificate of intellectual inferiority? this same editor assures his readers that what i say is not worth answering, and yet he devotes column after column of his journal to that very purpose. he states that i am no speaker, no orator; and upon the same page admits that he did not hear me, giving as a reason that he does not think it right to pay money for such a purpose. recollect, that in a religious paper, a man who professes honesty, criticises a statue or a painting, condemns it, and at the end of the criticism says that he never saw it. he criticises what he calls the oratory of a man, and at the end says, "i never heard him, and i never saw him." as a matter of fact, i have never heard of any of these gentlemen who thought it necessary to hear what any man said in order to answer him. the next gentleman who answered me is the rev. mr. ijams. and i must say, so far as i can see, in his argument, or in his mode of treatment, he is a kind and considerate gentleman. he makes several mistakes as to what i really said, but the fault i suppose must have been in the report. i am made to say in the report of his sermon, "there is no sacred place in all the universe." what i did say was, "there is no sacred place in all the universe of thought. there is nothing too holy to be investigated, nothing too divine to be understood. the fields of thought are fenceless, and without a wall." i say this to-night. mr. ijams also says that i had declared that man had not only the right to do right, but also the right to do wrong. what i really said was, man has the right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to think wrong. thought is a means of ascertaining truth, a mode by which we arrive at conclusions. and if no one has a right to think, unless he thinks right, he would only have the right to think upon self-evident propositions. in all respects, with the exception of these misstatements to which i have called your attention, so far as i can see, mr. ijams was perfectly fair, and treated me as though i had the ordinary rights of a human being. i take this occasion to thank him. a great many papers, a great many people, a good many ministers and a multitude of men, have had their say, and have expressed themselves with the utmost freedom. i cannot reply to them all. i can only reply to those who have made a parade of answering me. many have said it is not worth answering, and then proceeded to answer. they have said, he has produced no argument, and then have endeavored to refute it. they have said it is simply the old straw that has been thrashed over and over again for years and years. if all i have said is nothing, if it is all idle and foolish, why do they take up the time of their fellow-men replying to me? why do they fill their religious papers with criticisms, if all i have said and done reminds them, according to the rev. mr. guard, of "some little dog barking at a railway train"? why stop the train, why send for the directors, why hold a consultation and finally say, we must settle with that dog or stop running these cars? probably the best way to answer them all, is to prove beyond cavil the truth of what i have said. does the bible teach man to enslave his brother? ii. if this "sacred" book teaches man to enslave his brother, it is not inspired. a god who would establish slavery is as cruel and heartless as any devil could be. "moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. "and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. they shall be your bondmen forever. "both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, _shall be_ of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids."--leviticus xxv. this is white slavery. this allows one white man to buy another, to buy a woman, to separate families and rob a mother of her child. this makes the whip upon the naked backs of men and women a legal tender for labor performed. this is the kind of slavery established by the most merciful god. the reason given for all this, is, that the persons whom they enslaved were heathen. you may enslave them because they are not orthodox. if you can find anybody who does not believe in me, the god of the jews, you may steal his wife from his arms, and her babe from the cradle. if you can find a woman that does not believe in the hebrew jehovah, you may steal her prattling child from her breast. can any one conceive of anything more infamous? can any one find in the literature of this world more frightful words ascribed even to a demon? and all this is found in that most beautiful and poetic chapter known as the th of leviticus--from the bible--from this sacred gift of god--this "magna charta of human freedom." . "if thou buy an hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . "if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. . "if his master have given him a wife, and she hath borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. . "and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and children; i w ill not go out free: . "then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."--_exodus, xxi._ the slave is allowed to have his liberty if he will give up his wife and children. he must remain in slavery for the sake of wife and child. this is another of the laws of the most merciful god. this god changes even love into a chain. children are used by him as manacles and fetters, and wives become the keepers of prisons. any man who believes that such hideous laws were made by an infinitely wise and benevolent god is, in my judgment, insane or totally depraved. these are the doctrines of the old testament. what is the doctrine of the new? what message had he who came from heaven's throne for the oppressed of earth? what words of sympathy, what words of cheer, for those who labored and toiled without reward? let us see: "servants, be obedient to them that are _your_ masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto christ."--_ephesians, vi._ this is the salutation of the most merciful god to a slave, to a woman who has been robbed of her child--to a man tracked by hounds through lonely swamps--to a girl with flesh torn and bleeding--to a mother weeping above an empty cradle. "servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fro ward."--_i peter ii., _. "for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward god endure grief, suffering wrongfully."--_i peter ii., _. it certainly must be an immense pleasure to god to see a man work patiently for nothing. it must please the most high to see a slave with his wife and child sold upon the auction block. if this slave escapes from slavery and is pursued, how musical the baying of the bloodhound must be to the ears of this most merciful god. all this is simply infamous. on the throne of this universe there sits no such monster. "servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing god."--_col. iii., _. the apostle here seems afraid that the slave would not work every moment that his strength permitted. he really seems to have feared that he might not at all times do the very best he could to promote the interests of the thief who claimed to own him. and speaking to all slaves, in the name of the father of all, this apostle says: "obey in all things your masters, not with eye-service, but with singleness of heart, fearing god." he says to them in substance, there is no way you can so well please god as to work honestly for a thief. . "let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of god and _his_ doctrine be not blasphemed." think of serving god by honoring a robber! think of bringing the name and doctrine of god into universal contempt by claiming to own yourself! . "and they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. these things teach and exhort." that is to say, do not despise christians who steal the labor of others. do not hold in contempt the "faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit," who turn the cross of christ into a whipping post. . "if any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words _even_ to words of our lord jesus christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness. . "he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, . "perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." this seems to be the opinion the apostles entertained of the early abolitionists. seeking to give human beings their rights, seeking to give labor its just reward, seeking to clothe all men with that divine garment of the soul, liberty,--all this was denounced by the apostle as a simple strife of words, whereof cometh envy, railings, evil surmisings and perverse disputing, destitute of truth. . "but godliness with contentment is great gain. . "for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. . "and having food and raiment let us be therewith content."--_i tim., vi._ this was intended to make a slave satisfied to hear the clanking of his chains. this is the reason he should never try to better his condition. he should be contented simply with the right to work for nothing. if he only had food and raiment, and a thief to work for, he should be contented. he should solace himself with the apostolic reflection, that as he brought nothing into the world, he could carry nothing out, and that when dead he would be as happily situated as his master. in order to show you what the inspired writer meant by the word _servant_, i will read from the st chapter of exodus, verses and : "and if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. "notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he _is_ his money." yet, notwithstanding these passages the _christian advocate_ says, "the bible is the magna charta of our liberty." after reading that, i was not surprised by the following in the same paper: "we regret to record that ingersoll is on a low plane of infidelity and atheism, not less offensive to good morals than have been the teachings of infidelity during the last century. france has been cursed with such teachings for a hundred years, and because of it, to-day her citizens are incapable of self-government." what was the condition of france a century ago? were they capable of self-government then? for fourteen hundred years the common people of france had suffered. for fourteen hundred years they had been robbed by the altar and by the throne. they had been the prey of priests and nobles. all were exempt from taxation, except the common people. the cup of their suffering was full, and the french people arose in fury and frenzy, and tore the drapery from the altars of god, and filled the air with the dust of thrones. surely, the slavery of fourteen centuries had not been produced by the teachings of voltaire. i stood only a little while ago at the place where once stood the bastile. in my imagination i saw that prison standing as it stood of yore. i could see it attacked by the populace. i could see their stormy faces and hear their cries. and i saw that ancient fortification of tyranny go down forever. and now where once stood the bastile stands the column of july. upon its summit is a magnificent statue of liberty, holding in one hand a banner, in the other a broken chain, and upon its shining forehead is the star of progress. there it stands where once stood the bastile. and france is as much superior to what it was when voltaire was born, as that statue, surmounting the column of july, is more beautiful than the bastile that stood there once with its cells of darkness, and its dungeons of horror. and yet we are now told that the french people have rendered themselves incapable of government, simply because they have listened to the voice of progress. there are magnificent men in france. from that country have come to the human race some of the grandest and holiest messages the ear of man has ever heard. the french people have given to history some of the most touching acts of self-sacrifice ever performed beneath the amazed stars. for my part, i admire the french people. i cannot forget the rue san antoine, nor the red cap of liberty. i can never cease to remember that the tricolor was held aloft in paris, while europe was in chains, and while liberty, with a bleeding breast, was in the inquisition of spain. and yet we are now told by a religious paper, that france is not capable of self-government. i suppose it was capable of self-government under the old régime, at the time of the massacre of st. bartholomew. i suppose it was capable of self-government when women were seen yoked with cattle pulling plows. i suppose it was capable of self-government when all who labored were in a condition of slavery. in the old times, even among the priests, there were some good, some sincere and most excellent men. i have read somewhere of a sermon preached by one of these in the cathedral of notre dame. this old priest, among other things, said that the soul of a beggar was as dear to god as the soul of the richest of his people, and that jesus christ died as much for a beggar as for a prince. one french peasant, rough with labor, cried out: "i propose three cheers for jesus christ." i like such things. i like to hear of them. i like to repeat them. paris has been a kind of volcano, and has made the heavens lurid with its lava of hatred, but it has also contributed more than any other city to the intellectual development of man. france has produced some infamous men, among others john calvin, but for one calvin, she has produced a thousand benefactors of the human race. the moment the french people rise above the superstitions of the church, they will be in the highest sense capable of self-government. the moment france succeeds in releasing herself from the coils of catholicism--from the shadows of superstition--from the foolish forms and mummeries of the church--from the intellectual tyranny of a thousand years--she will not only be capable of self-government, but will govern herself. let the priests be usefully employed. we want no overseers of the mind; no slave-drivers for the soul. we cannot afford to pay hypocrites for depriving us of liberty. it is a waste of money to pay priests to frighten our children, and paralyze the intellect of women. was the world created in six days? iii. for hundreds of years it was contended by all christians that the earth was made in six days, literal days of twenty-four hours each, and that on the seventh day the lord rested from his labor. geologists have driven the church from this position, and it is now claimed that the days mentioned in the bible are periods of time. this is a simple evasion, not in any way supported by the scriptures. the bible distinctly and clearly says that the world was created in six days. there is not within its lids a clearer statement. it does not say six periods. it was made according to that book in six days: . "and god saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. and the evening and the morning were the sixth day."--_genesis i_. . "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. . "and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. . "and god blessed the seventh day (not seventh period), and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which god created and made."--_genesis ii_. from the following passages it seems clear what was meant by the word days: . "six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."--served him right! . "wherefore, the children of israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath, throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. . "it is a sign between me and the children of israel forever; for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. . "and he gave unto moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of god."--_exodus xxxi_. . "then spake joshua to the lord in the day when the lord delivered up the amorites before the children of israel, and he said in the sight of israel, sun, stand thou still upon gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of ajalon. . "and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. is not this written in the book of jasher? so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven; and hasted not to go down about a whole day. . "and there was no day like that before it or after it, that the lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the lord fought for israel."--_josh. x_. these passages must certainly convey the idea that this world was made in six days, not six periods. and the reason why they were to keep the sabbath was because the creator rested on the seventh day--not period. if you say six periods, instead of six days, what becomes of your sabbath? the only reason given in the bible for observing the sabbath is that god observed it--that he rested from his work that day and was refreshed. take this reason away and the sacredness of that day has no foundation in the scriptures. what is the astronomy of the bible? iv. when people were ignorant of all the sciences the bible was understood by those who read it the same as by those who wrote it. from time to time discoveries were made that seemed inconsistent with the scriptures. at first, theologians denounced the discoverers of all facts inconsistent with the bible, as atheists and scoffers. the bible teaches us that the earth is the centre of the universe; that the sun and moon and stars revolve around this speck called the earth. the men who discovered that all this was a mistake were denounced by the ignorant clergy of that day, precisely as the ignorant clergy of our time denounce the advocates of free thought. when the doctrine of the earth's place in the solar system was demonstrated; when persecution could no longer conceal the mighty truth, then it was that the church made an effort to harmonize the scriptures with the discoveries of science. when the utter absurdity of the mosaic account of creation became apparent to all thoughtful men, the church changed the reading of the bible. then it was pretended that the "days" of creation were vast periods of time. when it was shown to be utterly impossible that the sun revolved around the earth, then the account given by joshua of the sun standing still for the space of a whole day, was changed into a figure of speech. it was said that joshua merely conformed to the mode of speech common in his day; and that when he said the sun stood still, he merely intended to convey the idea that the earth ceased turning upon its axis. they admitted that stopping the sun could not lengthen the day, and for that reason it must have been the earth that stopped. but you will remember that the moon stood still in the valley of ajalon--that the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. one would naturally suppose that the sun would have given sufficient light to enable the jews to avenge themselves upon their enemies without any assistance from the moon. of course, if the moon had not stopped, the relations between the earth and moon would have been changed. is there a sensible man in the world who believes this wretched piece of ignorance? is it possible that the religion of this nineteenth century has for its basis such childish absurdities? according to this account, what was the sun, or rather the earth, stopped for? it was stopped in order that the hebrews might avenge themselves upon the amorites. for the accomplishment of such a purpose the earth was made to pause. why should an almost infinite force be expended simply for the purpose of destroying a handful of men? why this waste of force? let me explain. i strike my hands together. they feel a sudden heat. where did the heat come from? motion has been changed into heat. you will remember that there can be no destruction of force. it disappears in one form only to reappear in another. the earth, rotating at the rate of one thousand miles an hour, was stopped. the motion of this vast globe would have instantly been changed into heat. it has been calculated by one of the greatest scientists of the present day that to stop the earth would generate as much heat as could be produced by burning a world as large as this of solid coal. and yet, all this force was expended for the paltry purpose of defeating a few poor barbarians. the employment of so much force for the accomplishment of so insignificant an object would be as useless as bringing all the intellect of a great man to bear in answering the arguments of the clergymen of san francisco. the waste of that immense force in stopping the planets in their grand courses, for the purpose claimed, would be like using a krupp gun to destroy an insect to which a single drop of water is "an unbounded world." how is it possible for men of ordinary intellect, not only to endorse such ignorant falsehoods, but to malign those who do not? can anything be more debasing to the intellect of man than a belief in the astronomy of the bible? according to the scriptures, the world was made out of nothing, and the sun, moon, and stars, of the nothing that happened to be left. to the writers of the bible the firmament was solid, and in it were grooves along which the stars were pushed by angels. from the bible cosmas constructed his geography and astronomy. his book was passed upon by the church, and was declared to be the truth concerning the subjects upon which he treated. this eminent geologist and astronomer, taking the bible as his guide, found and taught: first, that the earth was flat; second, that it was a vast parallelogram; third, that in the middle there was a vast body of land, then a strip of water all around it, then a strip of land. he thought that on the outer strip of land people lived before the flood--that at the time of the flood, noah in his ark crossed the strip of water and landed on the shore of the country, in the middle of the world, where we now are. this great biblical scholar informed the true believers of his day that in the outer strip of land were mountains, around which the sun and moon revolved; that when the sun was on the side of the mountain next the land occupied by man, it was day, and when on the other side, it was night. mr. cosmas believed the bible, and regarded joshua as the most eminent astronomer of his day. he also taught that the firmament was solid, and that the angels pushed and drew the stars. he tells us that these angels attended strictly to their business, that each one watched the motions of all the others so that proper distances might always be maintained, and all confusion avoided. all this was believed by the gentlemen who made most of our religion. the great argument made by cosmas to show that the earth must be flat, was the fact that the bible stated that when christ should come the second time, in glory, the whole world should see him. "now," said cosmas, "if the world is round, how could the people on the other side see the lord when he comes?" this settled the question. these were the ideas of the fathers of the church. these men have been for centuries regarded as almost divinely inspired. long after they had become dust they governed the world. the superstitions they planted, their descendants watered with the best and bravest blood. to maintain their ignorant theories, the brain of the world was dwarfed for a thousand years, and the infamous work is still being prosecuted. the bible was regarded as not only true, but as the best of all truth. any new theory advanced, was immediately examined in the light, or rather in the darkness, of revelation, and if according to that test it was false, it was denounced, and the person bringing it forward forced to recant. it would have been a far better course to have discovered every theory found to be in harmony with the scriptures. and yet we are told by the clergy and religious press of this city, that the bible is the foundation of all science. does the bible teach the existence of that impossible crime called witchcraft? v. it was said by sir thomas more that to give up witchcraft was to give up the bible itself. this idea was entertained by nearly all the eminent theologians of a hundred years ago. in my judgment, they were right. to give up witchcraft is to give up, in a great degree at least, the supernatural. to throw away the little ghosts simply prepares the mind of man to give up the great ones. the founders of nearly all creeds, and of all religions properly so called, have taught the existence of good and evil spirits. they have peopled the dark with devils and the light with angels. they have crowded hell with demons and heaven with seraphs. the moment these good and evil spirits, these angels and fiends, disappear from the imaginations of men, and phenomena are accounted for by natural rather than by supernatural means, a great step has been taken in the direction of what is now known as materialism. while the church believes in witchcraft, it is in a greatly modified form. the evil spirits are not as plenty as in former times, and more phenomena are accounted for by natural means. just to the extent that belief has been lost in spirits, just to that extent the church has lost its power and authority. when men ceased to account for the happening of any event by ascribing it to the direct action of good or evil spirits, and began to reason from known premises, the chains of superstition began to grow weak. into such disrepute has witchcraft at last fallen that many christians not only deny the existence of these evil spirits, but take the ground that no such thing is taught in the scriptures. let us see: "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."--_exodus xxii., _. . "then said saul unto his servants, seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that i may go to her, and enquire of her. and his servants said to him, behold, there is a woman that hath a spirit at endor. . "and saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, i pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom i shall name unto thee. . "and the woman said unto him, behold, thou knowest what saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land; wherefore, then, layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? . "and saul sware to her by the lord, saying, as the lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. . "then said the woman, whom shall i bring up unto thee? and he said, bring me up samuel. . "and when the woman saw samuel she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to saul, saying, why hast thou deceived me? for thou art saul. . "and the king said unto her, be not afraid: for what sawest thou? and the woman said unto saul, i saw gods ascending out of the earth. . "and he said unto her, what form is he of? and she said, an old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. and saul perceived that it was samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. . "and samuel said to saul, why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?"-- samuels xxviii. this reads very much like an account of a modern spiritual seance. is it not one of the wonderful things of the world that men and women who believe this account of the witch of endor, who believe all the miracles and all the ghost stories of the bible, deny with all their force the truth of modern spiritualism. so far as i am concerned, i would rather believe some one who has heard what he relates, who has seen what he tells, or at least thinks he has seen what he tells. i would rather believe somebody i know, whose reputation for truth is good among those who know him. i would rather believe these people than to take the words of those who have been in their graves for four thousand years, and about whom i know nothing. "regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them; i am the lord, your god."--_leviticus xix_. "and the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, i will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people."--_leviticus xx._ . "there shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, . "or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . "for all that do these things are an abomination unto the lord."--_deut. xviii_. i have given you a few of the passages found in the old testament upon this subject, showing conclusively that the bible teaches the existence of witches, wizards and those who have familiar spirits. in the new testament there are passages equally strong, showing that the savior himself was a believer in the existence of evil spirits, and in the existence of a personal devil. nothing can be plainer than the teaching of the following: . "then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. . "and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. . "and when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the son of god, command that these stones be made bread. . "but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god. . "then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple. . "and saith unto him, if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. . "jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord, thy god. . "again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. . "and saith unto him, all these things will i give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. . "then saith jesus unto him, get thee hence, satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the lord thy god, and him only shalt thou serve. . "then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."--_matt. iv._ if this does not teach the existence of a personal devil, there is nothing within the lids of the scriptures teaching the existence of a personal god. if this does not teach the existence of evil spirits, there is nothing in the bible going to show that good spirits exist either in this world or the next. . "when the even was come they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick."--_matt. vii._ . "and they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the gadarenes. . "and when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, . "who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: . "because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. . "and always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. . "but when he saw jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, . "and cried with a loud voice, and said, what have i to do with thee, jesus, thou son of the most high god? i adjure thee by god, that thou torment me not. . "for he said unto him, come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. . "and he asked him, what is thy name? and he answered, saying, my name is legion, for we are many. . "now, there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. . "and all the devils besought him, saying, send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. . "and forthwith jesus gave them leave. and the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and they were about two thousand; and were choked in the sea."--_mark v_. the doctrine of witchcraft does not stop here. the power of casting out devils was bequeathed by the savior to his apostles and followers, and to all who might believe in him throughout all the coming time: . "and these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. . "and they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."--_mark xvi._ i would like to see the clergy who have been answering me, tested in this way: let them drink poison, let them take up serpents, let them cure the sick by the laying on of hands, and i will then believe that they believe. i deny the witchcraft stories of the world. witches are born in the ignorant, frightened minds of men. reason will exorcise them. "they are tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." these devils have covered the world with blood and tears. they have filled the earth with fear. they have filled the lives of children with darkness and horror. they have peopled the sweet world of imagination with monsters. they have made religion a strange mingling of fear and ferocity. i am doing what i can to reave the heavens of these monsters. for my part, i laugh at them all. i hold them all in contempt, ancient and modern, great and small. the bible idea of the rights of children. vi. all religion has for its basis the tyranny of god and the slavery of man. . "if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them. . "then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto, the gate of his place. . "and they shall say unto the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. . "and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all israel shall hear, and fear."--_deut. xxi._ abraham was commanded to offer his son isaac as a sacrifice. he proceeded to obey. and the boy, being then about thirty years of age, was not consulted. at the command of a phantom of the air, a man was willing to offer upon the altar his only son. and such was the slavery of children, that the only son had not the spirit to resist. have you ever read the story of jephthah? "and jephthah vowed a vow unto the lord, and said, if thou shalt without fail deliver the children of ammon into mine hands, . "then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when i return in peace from the children of ammon, shall surely be the lord's, and i will offer it up for a burnt offering. . "so jephthah passed over unto the children of ammon to fight against them; and the lord delivered them into his hands. . "and he smote them from aroer, even till thou come to minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. thus the children of ammon were subdued before the children of israel. ."and jephthah came to mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. . "and it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for i have opened my mouth unto the lord, and i cannot go back.... . "and it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."--_judges xi._ is there in the history of the world a sadder thing than this? what can we think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to a demon god? and what can we think of a god who would accept such a sacrifice? can such a god be worthy of the worship of man? i plead for the rights of children. i plead for the government of kindness and love. i plead for the republic of home, the democracy of the fireside. i plead for affection. and for this i am pursued by invective. for this i am called a fiend, a devil, a monster, by christian editors and clergymen, by those who pretend to love their enemies and pray for those that despitefully use them. allow me to give you another instance of affection related in the scriptures. there was, it seems, a most excellent man by the name of job. the lord was walking up and down, and happening to meet satan, said to him: "are you acquainted with my servant job? have you noticed what an excellent man he is?" and satan replied to him and said: "why should he not be an excellent man--you have given him everything he wants? take from him what he has and he will curse you." and thereupon the lord gave satan the power to destroy the property and children of job. in a little while these high contracting parties met again; and the lord seemed somewhat elated with his success, and called again the attention of satan to the sinlessness of job. satan then told him to touch his body and he would curse him. and thereupon power was given to satan over the body of job, and he covered his body with boils. yet in all this, job did not sin with his lips. this book seems to have been written to show the excellence of patience, and to prove that at last god will reward all who will bear the afflictions of heaven with fortitude and without complaint. the sons and daughters of job had been slain, and then the lord, in order to reward job, gave him other children, other sons and other daughters--not the same ones he had lost; but others. and this, according to the writer, made ample amends. is that the idea we now have of love? if i have a child, no matter how deformed that child may be, and if it dies, nobody can make the loss to me good by bringing a more beautiful child. i want the one i loved and the one i lost. the gallantry of god. vii. i have said that the bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for the rights of woman. now i propose to prove it. it takes something besides epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. let us see what the sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race. a man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there an altar at which he worships the memory of mother, is less than a man. . "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. . "but i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." the reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred writer, was: . "for adam was first formed, then eve. . "and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. . "notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."--_ tim. ii._ . "but i would have you know, that the head of every man is christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of christ is god." that is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man does to christ, and man sustains the same relation to christ that christ does to god. this places the woman infinitely below the man. and yet this barbarous idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. how can any woman look other than with contempt upon such passages? how can any woman believe that this is the will of a most merciful god? . "for a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of god; but the woman is the glory of man." and this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next verse: . "for the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man." this same chivalric gentleman also says: . "neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."--_ cor. xi._ . "wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the lord." is it possible for abject obedience to go beyond this? . "for the husband is the head of the wife, even as christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body. . "therefore, as the church is subject unto christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."--_eph. v._ even the savior did not put man and woman upon an equality. a man could divorce his wife, but the wife could not divorce her husband. every noble woman should hold such apostles and such ideas in contempt. according to the old testament, woman had to ask pardon and had to be purified from the crime of having born sons and daughters. to make love and maternity crimes is infamous. . "when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, . "and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife, . "then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails."--_deut. xxi_. this is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell, from a god or from a devil, from the golden streets of the new jerusalem or from the very sodom of perdition. it is barbarism complete and utter. does the bible sanction polygamy and concubinage? viii. read the infamous order of moses in the st chapter of numbers--an order unfit to be reproduced in print--an order which i am unwilling to repeat. read the st chapter of exodus. read the st chapter of deuteronomy. read the-life of abraham, of david, of solomon, of jacob, and then tell me the sacred bible does not teach polygamy and concubinage. all the languages of the world are insufficient to express the filth of polygamy. it makes man a beast--woman a slave. it destroys the fireside. it makes virtue an outcast. it makes home a lair of wild beasts. it is the infamy of infamies. yet this is the doctrine of the bible--a doctrine defended even by luther and melancthon. it is by the bible that brigham young justifies the practice of this beastly horror. it takes from language those sweetest words, husband, wife, father mother, child and lover. it takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of loathsome lust. yet the book justifying this infamy is the book upon which rests the civilization of the nineteenth century. and because i denounce this frightful thing, the clergy denounce me as a demon, and the infamous _christian advocate_ says that the moral sentiment of this state ought to denounce this illinois catiline for his blasphemous utterances and for his base and debasing scurrility. does the bible uphold and justify political tyranny? ix. for my part, i insist that man has not only the capacity, but the right to govern himself. all political authority is vested in the people themselves, they have the right to select their officers and agents, and these officers and agents are responsible to the people. political authority does not come from the clouds. man should not be governed by the aristocracy of the air. the bible is not a republican or democratic book. exactly the opposite doctrine is taught. from that volume we learn that the people have no power whatever; that all power and political authority comes from on high, and that all the kings, all the potentates and powers, have been ordained of god; that all the ignorant and cruel kings have been placed upon the world's thrones by the direct act of deity. the scriptures teach us that the common people have but one duty--the duty of obedience. let me read to you some of the political ideas in the great "magna charta" of human liberty. . "let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god; the powers that be are ordained of god. . "whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of god: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." according to this, george iii. was ordained of god. he was king of great britian by divine right, and by divine right was the lawful king of the american colonies. the leaders in the revolutionary struggle resisted the power, and according to these passages, resisted the ordinances of god; and for that resistance they are promised the eternal recompense of damnation. . "for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.... . "wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. . "for, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are god's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing."--_romans, xiii._ . "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme. . "or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. . "for so is the will of god."--_ pet. ii._ had these ideas been carried out, political progress in the world would have been impossible. upon the necks of the people still would have been the feet of kings. i deny this wretched, this infamous doctrine. whether higher powers are ordained of god or not, if those higher powers endeavor to destroy the rights of man, i for one shall resist. whenever and wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in support of a human right, i am a rebel. the despicable doctrine of submission to titled wrong and robed injustice finds no lodgment in the brain of a man. the real rulers are the people, and the rulers so-called are but the servants of the people. they are not ordained of any god. all political power comes from and belongs to man. upon these texts of scripture rest the thrones of europe. for fifteen hundred years these verses have been repeated by brainless kings and heardess priests. for fifteen hundred years each one of these texts has been a bastile in which has been imprisoned the pioneers of progress. each one of these texts has been an obstruction on the highway of humanity. each one has been a fortification behind which have crouched the sainted hypocrites and the titled robbers. according to these texts, a robber gets his right to rob from god. and it is the duty of the robbed to submit. the thief gets his right to steal from god. the king gets his right to trample upon human liberty from god. i say, fight the king--fight the priest. the religious liberty of god. x. the bible denounces religious liberty. after covering the world with blood, after having made it almost hollow with graves, christians are beginning to say that men have a right to differ upon religious questions provided the questions about which they differ are not considered of great importance. the motto of the evangelical alliance is: "in non-essentials, liberty; in essentials, unity." the christian world have condescended to say that upon all non-essential points we shall have the right to think for ourselves; but upon matters of the least importance, they will think and speak for us. in this they are consistent. they but follow the teachings of the god they worship. they but adhere to the precepts and commands of the sacred scriptures. within that volume there is no such thing as religious toleration. within that volume there is not one particle of mercy for an unbeliever. for all who think for themselves, for all who are the owners of their own souls, there are threatenings, curses and anathemas. any christian who to-day exercises the least toleration is to that extent false to his religion. let us see what the "magna charta" of liberty says upon this subject: . "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers. . "namely of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or afar off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth. . "thou shalt not consent unto him; nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him. . "but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. . "and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the lord thy god, which brought thee out of the land of egypt, from the house of bondage."--_deut. xiii._ that is the religious liberty of the bible. if the wife of your bosom had said, "i like the religion of india better than the religion of palestine," it was then your duty to kill her, and the merciful most high--understand me, i do not believe in any merciful most high--said: "thou shalt not pity her but thou shalt surely kill; thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death." this i denounce as infamously infamous. if it is necessary to believe in such a god, if it is necessary to adore such a deity in order to be saved, i will take my part joyfully in perdition. let me read you a few more extracts from the "magna charta" of human liberty. . "if there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the lord thy god giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the lord thy god, in transgressing his covenant, . "and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which i have not commanded. . "and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in israel. . "then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die." under this law if the woman you loved had said: "let us worship the sun; i am tired of this jealous and bloodthirsty jehovah; let us worship the sun; let us kneel to it as it rises over the hills, filling the world with light and love, when the dawn stands jocund on the mountain's misty top; it is the sun whose beams illumine and cover the earth with verdure and with beauty; it is the sun that covers the trees with leaves, that carpets the earth with grass and adorns the world with flowers; i adore the sun because in its light i have seen your eyes; it has given to me the face of my babe; it has clothed my life with joy; let us in gratitude fall down and worship the glorious beams of the sun." for this offence she deserved not only death, but death at your hands: "thine eye shall not pity her; neither shalt thou spare; neither shalt thou conceal her. "but thou shalt surely kill her: thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. "and thou shalt stone her with stones that she die." for my part i had a thousand times rather worship the sun than a god who would make such a law or give such a command. this you may say is the doctrine of the old testament--what is the doctrine of the new? "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned." that is the religious liberty of the new testament. that is the "tidings of great joy." every one of these words has been a chain upon the limbs, a whip upon the backs of men. every one has been a fagot. every one has been a sword. every one has been a dungeon, a scaffold, a rack. every one has been a fountain of tears. these words have filled the hearts of men with hatred. these words invented all the instruments of torture. these words covered the earth with blood. for the sake of argument, suppose that the bible is an inspired book. if then, as is contended, god gave these frightful laws commanding religious intolerance to his chosen people, and afterward this same god took upon himself flesh, and came among the jews and taught a different religion, and they crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown? does the bible describe a god of mercy? xi. is it possible to conceive of a more jealous, revengeful, changeable, unjust, unreasonable, cruel being than the jehovah of the hebrews? is it possible to read the words said to have been spoken by this deity, without a shudder? is it possible to contemplate his character without hatred? "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh."--_deut. xxxii._ is this the language of an infinitely kind and tender parent to his weak, his wandering and suffering children? "thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." _psalms, lxviii._ is it possible that a god takes delight in seeing dogs lap the blood of his children? . "and the lord thy god will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. . "but the lord thy god shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. . "and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them."--_deut. vii._ if these words had proceeded from the mouth of a demon, if they had been spoken by some enraged and infinitely malicious fiend, i should not have been surprised. but these things are attributed to a god of infinite mercy. . "so joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the lord god of israel commanded."--_josh, x._ . "and all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe."--_josh. xi._ . "there was not a city that made peace with the children of israel, save the hivites, the inhabitants of gibeon; all other they took in battle. . "for it was of the lord to harden their hearts that they should come against israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the lord commanded moses."--_josh. xi._ there are no words in our language with which to express the indignation i feel when reading these cruel and heartless words. "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. and it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the sword. but the women, _and the little ones_, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. "thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." these terrible instructions were given to an army of invasion. the men who were thus ruthlessly murdered were fighting for their homes, their firesides, for their wives and for their little children. yet these things, by the clergy of san francisco, are called acts of sublime mercy. all this is justified by the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. the old testament is filled with anathemas, with curses, with words of vengeance, of revenge, of jealousy, of hatred and of almost infinite brutality. do not, i pray you, pluck from the heart the sweet flower of pity and trample it in the bloody dust of superstition. do not, i beseech you, justify the murder of women, the assassination of dimpled babes. do not let the gaze of the gorgon of superstition turn your hearts to stone. is there an intelligent christian in the world who would not with joy and gladness receive conclusive testimony to the effect that all the passages in the bible upholding and sustaining polygamy and concubinage, political tyranny, the subjection of woman, the enslavement of children, establishing domestic and political tyranny, and that all the commands to destroy men, women and children, are but interpolations of kings and priests, made for the purpose of subjugating mankind through the instrumentality of fear? is there a christian in the world who would not think vastly more of the bible if all these infamous things were eliminated from it? surely the good things in that book are not rendered more sacred from the fact that in the same volume are found the frightful passages i have quoted. in my judgment the bible should be read and studied precisely as we read and study any book whatever. the good in it should be preserved and cherished, and that which shocks the human heart should be cast aside forever. while the old testament threatens men, women and children with disease, famine, war, pestilence and death, there are no threatenings of punishment beyond this life. the doctrine of eternal punishment is a dogma of the new testament. this doctrine, the most cruel, the most infamous of which the human mind can conceive, is taught, if taught at all, in the bible--in the new testament. one cannot imagine what the human heart has suffered by reason of the frightful doctrine of eternal damnation. it is a doctrine so abhorrent to every drop of my blood, so infinitely cruel, that it is impossible for me to respect either the head or heart of any human being who teaches or fears it. this doctrine necessarily subverts all ideas of justice. to inflict infinite punishment for finite crimes, or rather for crimes committed by finite beings, is a proposition so monstrous that i am astonished it ever found lodgment in the brain of man. whoever says that we can be happy in heaven while those we loved on earth are suffering infinite torments in eternal fire, defames and calumniates the human heart. the plan of salvation. xii. we are told, however, that a way has been provided for the salvation of all men, and that in this plan the infinite mercy of god is made manifest to the children of men. according to the great scheme of the atonement, the innocent suffers for the guilty in order to satisfy a law. what kind of law must it be that is satisfied with the agony of innocence? who made this law? if god made it he must have known that the innocent would have to suffer as a consequence. the whole scheme is to me a medley of contradictions, impossibilities and theological conclusions. we are told that if adam and eve had not sinned in the garden of eden death never would have entered the world. we are further informed that had it not been for the devil, adam and eve would not have been led astray; and if they had not, as i said before, death never would have touched with its icy hand the human heart. if our first parents had never sinned, and death never had entered the world, you and i never would have existed. the earth would have been filled thousands of generations before you and i were born. at the feast of life, death made seats vacant for us. according to this doctrine, we are indebted to the devil for our existence. had he not tempted eve--no sin. if there had been no sin--no death. if there had been no death the world would have been filled ages before you and i were born. therefore, we owe our existence to the devil. we are further informed that as a consequence of original sin the scheme called the atonement became necessary; and that if the savior had not taken upon himself flesh and come to this atom called the earth, and if he had not been crucified for us, we should all have been cast forever into hell. had it not been for the bigotry of the jews and the treachery of judas iscariot, christ would not have been crucified; and if he had not been crucified, all of us would have had our portion in the lake that burneth with eternal fire. according to this great doctrine, according to this vast and most wonderful scheme, we owe, as i said before, our existence to the devil, our salvation to judas iscariot and the bigotry of the jews. so far as i am concerned, i fail to see any mercy in the plan of salvation. is it mercy to reward a man forever in consideration of believing a certain thing, of the truth of which there is, to his mind, ample testimony? is it mercy to punish a man with eternal fire simply because there is not testimony enough to satisfy his mind? can there be such a thing as mercy in eternal punishment? and yet this same deity says to me, "resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but i will eternally damn mine." it seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach. all atonement, after all, is a kind of moral bankruptcy. under its provisions, man is allowed the luxury of sinning upon a credit. whenever he is guilty of a wicked action he says, "charge it." this kind of bookkeeping, in my judgment, tends to breed extravagance in sin. the truth is, most christians are better than their creeds; most creeds are better than the bible, and most men are better than their god. other religions. xiii. we must remember that ours is not the only religion. man has in all ages endeavored to answer the great questions whence? and whither? he has endeavored to read his destiny in the stars, to pluck the secret of his existence from the night. he has questioned the spectres of his own imagination. he has explored the mysterious avenues of dreams. he has peopled the heavens with spirits. he has mistaken his visions for realities. in the twilight of ignorance he has mistaken shadows for gods. in all ages he has been the slave of misery, the dupe of superstition and the fool of hope. he has suffered and aspired. religion is a thing of growth, of development. as we advance we throw aside the grosser and absurder forms of faith--practically at first by ceasing to observe them, and lastly, by denying them altogether. every church necessarily by its constitution endeavors to prevent this natural growth or development. what has happened to other religions must happen to ours. ours is not superior to many that have passed, or are passing away. other religions have been lived for and died for by men as noble as ours can boast. their dogmas and doctrines have, to say the least, been as reasonable, as full of spiritual grandeur, as ours. man has had beautiful thoughts. man has tried to solve these questions in all the countries of the world, and i respect all such men and women; but let me tell you one little thing. i want to show you that in other countries there is something. the parsee sect of persia say: a persian saint ascended the three stairs that lead to heaven's gate, and knocked; a voice said: "who is there?" "thy servant, o god!" but the gates would not open. for seven years he did every act of kindness; again he came, and the voice said: "who is there?" and he replied: "thy slave, o god!" yet the gates were shut. yet seven other years of kindness, and the man again knocked; and the voice cried and said: "who is there?" "thyself, o god!" and the gates wide open flew. i say there is no more beautiful christian poem than this. a persian after having read our religion, with its frightful descriptions of perdition, wrote these words: "two angels flying out from the blissful city of god--the angel of love and the angel of pity--hovered over the eternal pit where suffered the captives of hell. one smile of love illumined the darkness and one tear of pity extinguished all the fires." has orthodoxy produced anything as generously beautiful as this? let me read you this: sectarians, hear this: believers in eternal damnation, hear this: clergy of america who expect to have your happiness in heaven increased by seeing me burning in hell, hear this: this is the prayer of the brahmins--a prayer that has trembled from human lips toward heaven for more than four thousand years: "never will i seek or receive private individual salvation. never will i enter into final bliss alone. but forever and everywhere will i labor and strive for the final redemption of every creature throughout all worlds, and until all are redeemed. never will i wrongly leave this world to sin, sorrow and struggle, but will remain and work and suffer where i am." has the orthodox religion produced a prayer like this? see the infinite charity, not only for every soul in this world, but of all the shining worlds of the universe. think of that, ye parsons who imagine that a large majority are going to eternal ruin. compare it with the sermons of jonathan edwards, and compare it with the imprecation of christ: "depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" with the ideas of jeremy taylor, with the creeds of christendom, with all the prayers of all the saints, and in no church except the universalist will you hear a prayer like this. "when thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." since the days of zoroaster has there been any rule for human conduct given superior to this? are the principles taught by us superior to those of confucius? he was asked if there was any single word comprising the duties of man. he replied: "reciprocity." upon being asked what he thought of the doctrine of returning benefits for injuries, he replied: "that is not my doctrine. if you return benefits for injuries what do you propose for benefits? my doctrine is; for benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge." to return good for evil is to pay a premium upon wickedness. i cannot put a man under obligation to do me a favor by doing him an injury. now, to-day, right now, what is the church doing? what is it doing, i ask you honestly? does it satisfy the craving hearts of the nineteenth century? are we satisfied? i am not saying this except from the honesty of my heart. are we satisfied? is it a consolation to us now? is it even a consolation when those we love die? the dead are so near and the promises are so far away. it is covered with the rubbish of the past. i ask you, is it all that is demanded by the brain and heart of the nineteenth century? we want something better; we want something grander; we want something that has more brain in it, and more heart in it. we want to advance--that is what we want; and you cannot advance without being a heretic--you cannot do it. nearly all these religions have been upheld by persecution and bloodshed. they have been rendered stable by putting fetters upon the human brain. they have all, however, been perfectly natural productions, and under similar circumstances would all be reproduced. only by intellectual development are the old superstitions outgrown. as only the few intellectually advance, the majority is left on the side of superstition, and remains there until the advanced ideas of the few thinkers become general; and by that time there are other thinkers still in advance. and so the work of development and growth slowly and painfully proceeds from age to age. the pioneers are denounced as heretics, and the heretics denounce their denouncers as the disciples of superstition and ignorance. christ was a heretic. herod was orthodox. socrates was a blasphemer. anytus worshiped all the gods. luther was a skeptic, while the sellers of indulgences were the best of catholics. roger williams was a heretic, while the puritans who drove him from massachusetts were all orthodox. every step in advance in the religious history of the world has been taken by heretics. no superstition has been destroyed except by a heretic. no creed has been bettered except by a heretic. heretic is the name that the orthodox laggard hurls at the disappearing pioneer. it is shouted by the dwellers in swamps to the people upon the hills. it is the opinion that midnight entertains of the dawn. it is what the rotting says of the growing. heretic is the name that a stench gives to a perfume. with this word the coffin salutes the cradle. it is taken from the lips of the dead. orthodoxy is a shroud--heresy is a banner. orthodoxy is an epitaph--heresy is a prophecy. orthodoxy is a cloud, a fog, a mist--heresy the star shining forever above the child of truth. i am a believer in the eternity of progress. i do not believe that want will forever extend its withered hand, its wan and shriveled palms, for charity. i do not believe that the children will forever be governed by cruelty and brute force. i do not believe that poverty will dwell with man forever. i do not believe that prisons will forever cover the earth, or that the shadow of the gallows will forever fall upon the ground. i do not believe that injustice will sit forever upon the bench, or that malice and superstition will forever stand in the pulpit. i believe the time will come when there will be charity in every heart, when there will be love in every family, and when law and liberty and justice, like the atmosphere, will surround this world. we have worshiped the ghosts long enough. we have prostrated ourselves before the ignorance of the past. let us stand erect and look with hopeful eyes toward the brightening future. let us stand by our convictions. let us not throw away our idea of justice for the sake of any book or of any religion whatever. let us live according to our highest and noblest and purest ideal. by this time we should know that the real bible has not been written. the real bible is not the work of inspired men, or prophets, or apostles, or evangelists, or of christs. every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. it is not attested by prophecy, by miracles, or signs. it makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. it has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. it appeals to man in the name of demonstration. it has nothing to conceal. it has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. it does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. it challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. it is incapable of being blasphemed. this book appeals to all the surroundings of man. each thing that exists testifies to its perfection. the earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth. ladies and gentlemen you cannot tell how i thank you this evening; you cannot tell how i feel toward the intellectual hospitality of this great city by the pacific sea. ladies and gentlemen, i thank you--i thank you again and again, a thousand times. my chicago bible class. * chicago times, . to the editor:-- nothing is more gratifying than to see ideas that were received with scorn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. only a few weeks ago, i stated that the bible was not inspired; that moses was mistaken; that the "flood" was a foolish myth; that the tower of babel existed only in credulity; that god did not create the universe from nothing, that he did not start the first woman with a rib; that he never upheld slavery; that he was not a polygamist; that he did not kill people for making hair-oil; that he did not order his generals to kill the dimpled babes; that he did not allow the roses of love and the violets of modesty to be trodden under the brutal feet of lust; that the hebrew language was written without vowels; that the bible was composed of many books, written by unknown men; that all translations differed from each other; and that this book had filled the world with agony and crime. at that time i had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergymen in chicago would substantially agree with me--in public. i have read the replies of the rev. robert collyer, dr. thomas, rabbi kohler, rev. brooke herford, prof. swing and dr. ryder, and will now ask them a few questions, answering them in their own words. first. rev. robert collyer. _question_. what is your opinion of the bible? answer. "it is a splendid book. it makes the noblest type of catholics and the meanest bigots. through this book men give their hearts for good to god, or for evil to the devil. the best argument for the intrinsic greatness of the book is that it can touch such wide extremes, and seem to maintain us in the most unparalleled cruelty, as well as the most tender mercy; that it can inspire purity like that of the great saints, and afford arguments in favor of polygamy. the bible is the text book of ironclad calvinism and sunny universalism. it makes the quaker quiet, and the millerite crazy. it inspired the union soldier to live and grandly die for the right, and stonewall jackson to live nobly, and die grandly for the wrong." _question_. but, mr. collyer, do you really think that a book with as many passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired? _answer._ "i look upon the old testament as a rotting tree. when it falls it will fertilize a bank of violets." _question_. do you believe that god upheld slavery and polygamy? do you believe that he ordered the killing of babes and the violation of maidens? _answer._ "there is threefold inspiration in the bible, the first, peerless and perfect, the word of god to man; _the second, simply and purely human, and then below this again, there is an inspiration born of an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well can be_. a threefold inspiration, of heaven first, then of the earth, and then of hell, all in the same book, all sometimes in the same chapter, and then, besides, a great many things that need no inspiration." _question_. then after all you do not pretend that the scriptures are really inspired? _answer._ "the scriptures make no such claim for themselves as the church makes for them. they leave me free to say this is false, or this is true. the truth even within the bible, dies and lives, makes on this side and loses on that." _question_. what do you say to the last verse in the bible, where a curse is threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book? _answer._ "i have but one answer to this question, and it is: let who will have written this, i cannot for an instant believe that it was written by a divine inspiration. such dogmas and threats as these are not of god, but of man, and not of any man of a free spirit and heart eager for the truth, but a narrow man who would cripple and confine the human soul in its quest after the whole truth of god, and back those who have done the shameful things in the name of the most high." _question_. do you not regard such talk as "slang"? (supposed) answer. if an infidel had said that the writer of revelation was narrow and bigoted, i might have denounced his discourse as "slang," but i think that unitarian ministers can do so with the greatest propriety. _question_. do you believe in the stories of the bible, about jael, and the sun standing still, and the walls falling at the blowing of horns? _answer._ "they may be legends, myths, poems, or what they will, but they are not the word of god. so i say again, it was not the god and father of us all, who inspired the woman to drive that nail crashing through the king's temple after she had given him that bowl of milk and bid him sleep in safety, but a very mean devil of hatred and revenge, that i should hardly expect to find in a squaw on the plains. it was not the ram's horns and the shouting before which the walls fell flat. if they went down at all, it was through good solid pounding. and not for an instant did the steady sun stand still or let his planet stand still while barbarian fought barbarian. he kept just the time then he keeps now. they might believe it who made the record. i do not. and since the whole christian world might believe it, still we do not who gather in this church. a free and reasonable mind stands right in our way. newton might believe it as a christian, and disbelieve it as a philosopher. we stand then with the philosopher against the christian, for we must believe what is true to us in the last test, and these things are not true." second. rev. dr. thomas. _question_. what is your opinion of the old testament? _answer._ "my opinion is that it is not one book, but many--thirty-nine books bound up in one. the date and authorship of most of these books are wholly unknown. the hebrews wrote without vowels, and without dividing the letters into syllables, words, or sentences. the books were gathered up by ezra. at that time only two of the jewish tribes remained. all progress has ceased. in gathering up the sacred book, copyists exercised great liberty in making changes and additions." _question_. yes, we know all that, but is the old testament inspired? _answer._ "there maybe the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory; of patriotism--and there are such inspirations. there are moments when great truths and principles come to men. they seek the man, and not the man them." _question_. yes, we all admit that, but is the bible inspired? _answer._ "but still i know of no way to convince anyone of spirit, and inspiration, and god, only as his reason may take hold of these things." _question_. do you think the old testament true? _answer._ "the story of eden may be an allegory. the history of the children of israel may have mistakes." _question_. must inspiration claim infallibility? answer. "it is a mistake to say that if you believe one part of the bible you must believe all. some of the thirty-nine books may be inspired, others not; or there may be degrees of inspiration." _question_. do you believe that god commanded the soldiers to kill the children and the married women, and save for themselves, the maidens, as recorded in _numbers xxxi, _, do you believe that god upheld slavery? do you believe that god upheld polygamy? _answer._ "the bible may be wrong in some statements. god and right cannot be wrong. we must not exalt the bible above god. it may be that we have claimed too much for the bible, and thereby given not a little occasion for such men as mr. ingersoll to appear at the other extreme, denying too much." _question_. what then shall be done? _answer._ "we must take a middle ground. it is not necessary to believe that the bears devoured the forty-two children, nor that jonah was swallowed by the whale." third. rev. dr. kohler. _question_. what is your opinion about the old testament? _answer._ "i will not make futile attempts of artificially interpreting the letter of the bible so as to make it reflect the philosophical, moral and scientific views of our time. the bible is a sacred record of humanity's childhood." _question_. are you an orthodox christian? _answer._ "no. orthodoxy, with its face turned backward to a ruined temple or a dead messiah, is fast becoming like lot's wife, a pillar of salt." _question_. do you really believe the old testament was inspired? _answer._ "i greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like voltaire and thomas paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so instrumental in bringing about this glorious era of freedom, so congenial and blissful, particularly to the long-abused jewish race." _question_. do you believe in the inspiration of the bible? _answer._ "of course there is a destructive axe needed to strike down the old building in order to make room for the grander new. the divine origin claimed by the hebrews for their national literature, was claimed by all nations for their old records and laws as preserved by the priesthood. as moses, the hebrew law-giver, is represented as having received the law from god on the holy mountain, so is zoroaster the persian, manu the hindoo, minos the cretan, lycurgus the spartan, and numa the roman." _question_. do you believe all the stories in the bible? _answer._ "all that can and must be said against them is that they have been too long retained around the arms and limbs of grown-up manhood, to check the spiritual progress of religion; that by jewish ritualism and christian dogmatism they became fetters unto the soul, turning the light of heaven into a misty haze to blind the eye, and even into a hell-fire of fanaticism to consume souls." _question_. is the bible inspired? _answer._ "true, the bible is not free from errors, nor is any work of man and time. it abounds in childish views and offensive matter. i trust that it will in a time not far off be presented for common use in families, schools, synagogues and churches, in a refined shape, cleansed from all dross and chaff, and stumbling blocks in which the scoffer delights to dwell." fourth. rev. mr. herford. _question_. is the bible true? _answer._ "ingersoll is very fond of saying 'the question is not, is the bible inspired, but is it true?' that sounds very plausible, but you know as applied to _any ancient book_ it is simply nonsense." _question_. do you think the stories in the bible exaggerated? _answer._ "i dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated." _question_. do you think that god upheld polygamy? _answer._ "the truth of which simply is, that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among the jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets did not come to the idea of its being wrong. _but what is there to be indignant_ about in that?" _question_. and so you really wonder why any man should be indignant at the idea that god upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called polygamy? _answer._ "what is there to be indignant about in that?" fifth. prof. swing. _question_. what is your idea of the bible? _answer._ "i think it is a poem." sixth. rev. dr. ryder. _question_. and what is your idea of the sacred scriptures? _answer._ "like other nations, the hebrews had their patriotic, descriptive, didactic and lyrical poems in the same varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike other nations, whatever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the characteristic of religion." _question_. i suppose you fully appreciate the religious characteristics of the song of solomon. no answer. _question_. does the bible uphold polygamy? _answer._ "the law of moses did not forbid it, but contained many provisions against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to restrict it within narrow limits." _question_. so you think god corrected some of the worst abuses of polygamy, but preserved the institution itself? i might question many others, but have concluded not to consider those as members of my bible class who deal in calumnies and epithets. from the so-called "replies" of such ministers, it appears that while christianity changes the heart, it does not improve the manners, and that one can get into heaven in the next world without having been a gentleman in this. it is difficult for me to express the deep and thrilling satisfaction i have experienced in reading the admissions of the clergy of chicago. surely, the battle of intellectual liberty is almost won, when ministers admit that the bible is filled with ignorant and cruel mistakes; that each man has the right to think for himself, and that it is not necessary to believe the scriptures in order to be saved. from the bottom of my heart i congratulate my pupils on the advance they have made, and hope soon to meet them on the serene heights of perfect freedom. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c., may , . to the indianapolis clergy. * the iconoclast, indianapolis, indiana. . the following questions have been submitted to me by the rev. david walk, dr. t. b. taylor, the rev. myron w. reed, and the rev. d. o'donaghue, of indianapolis, with the request that i answer. _question_. is the character of jesus of nazareth, as described in the four gospels, fictional or real?--rev. david walk. _answer._ in all probability, there was a man by the name of jesus christ, who was, in his day and generation, a reformer--a man who was infinitely shocked at the religion of jehovah--who became almost insane with pity as he contemplated the sufferings of the weak, the poor, and the ignorant at the hands of an intolerant, cruel, hypocritical, and bloodthirsty church. it is no wonder that such a man predicted the downfall of the temple. in all probability, he hated, at last, every pillar and stone in it, and despised even the "holy of holies." this man, of course, like other men, grew. he did not die with the opinion he held in his youth. he changed his views from time to time--fanned the spark of reason into a flame, and as he grew older his horizon extended and widened, and he became gradually a wiser, greater, and better man. i find two or three christs described in the four gospels. in some portions you would imagine that he was an exceedingly pious jew. when he says that people must not swear by jerusalem, because it is god's holy city, certainly no pharisee could have gone beyond that expression. so, too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers from the temple. this, had it happened, would have been the act simply of one who had respect for this temple and not for the religion taught in it. it would seem that, at first, christ believed substantially in the religion of his time; that afterward, seeing its faults, he wished to reform it; and finally, comprehending it in all its enormity, he devoted his life to its destruction. this view shows that he "increased in stature and grew in knowledge." this view is also supported by the fact that, at first, according to the account, christ distinctly stated that his gospel was not for the gentiles. at that time he had altogether more patriotism than philosophy. in my own opinion, he was driven to like the gentiles by the persecution he endured at home. he found, as every freethinker now finds, that there are many saints not in churches and many devils not out. the character of christ, in many particulars, as described in the gospels, depends upon who wrote the gospels. each one endeavored to make a christ to suit himself. so that christ, after all, is a growth; and since the gospels were finished, millions of men have been adding to and changing the character of christ. there is another thing that should not be forgotten, and that is that the gospels were not written until after the epistles. i take it for granted that paul never saw any of the gospels, for the reason that he quotes none of them. there is also this remarkable fact: paul quotes none of the miracles of the new testament. he says not one word about the multitude being fed miraculously, not one word about the resurrection of lazarus, nor of the widow's son. he had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think these incidents of enough importance to be embalmed in an epistle. so we find that none of the early fathers ever quoted from the four gospels. nothing can be more certain than that the four gospels were not written until after the epistles, and nothing can be more certain than that the early christians knew nothing of what we call the gospels of matthew, mark, luke, and john. all these things have been growths. at first it was believed that christ was a direct descendant from david. at that time the disciples of christ, of course, were jews. the messiah was expected through the blood of david.--for that reason, the genealogy of joseph, a descendant of david, was given. it was not until long after, that the idea came into the minds of christians that christ was the son of the holy ghost. if they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed that christ was in fact the son of the holy ghost, why did they give the genealogy of joseph to show that christ was related to david? in other words, why should the son of god attempt to get glory out of the fact that he had in his veins the blood of a barbarian king? there is only one answer to this. the jews expected the messiah through david, and in order to prove that christ was the messiah, they gave the genealogy of joseph. afterward, the idea became popularized that christ was the son of god, and then were interpolated the words "as was supposed" in the genealogy of christ. it was a long time before the disciples became great enough to include the world in their scheme, and before they thought it proper to tell the "glad tidings of great joy" beyond the limits of judea. my own opinion is that the man called christ lived; but whether he lived in palestine, or not, is of no importance. his life is worth its example, its moral force, its benevolence, its self-denial and heroism. it is of no earthly importance whether he changed water into wine or not. all his miracles are simply dust and darkness compared with what he actually said and actually did. we should be kind to each other whether lazarus was raised or not. we should be just and forgiving whether christ lived or not. all the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue, morality, or justice. miracles belong to superstition, to ignorance, to fear and folly. neither does it make any difference who wrote the gospels. they are worth the truth that is in them and no more. the words of paul are often quoted, that "all scripture is given by inspiration of god." of course that could not have applied to anything written after that time. it could have applied only to the scriptures then written and then known. it is perfectly clear that the four gospels were not at that time written, and therefore this statement of paul's does not apply to the four gospels. neither does it apply to anything written after that statement was written. neither does it apply to that statement. if it applied to anything it was the old testament, and not the new. christ has been belittled by his worshipers. when stripped of the miraculous; when allowed to be, not divine but divinely human, he will have gained a thousandfold in the estimation of mankind. i think of him as i do of buddha, as i do of confucius, of epictetus, of bruno. i place him with the great, the generous, the self-denying of the earth, and for the man christ, i feel only admiration and respect. i think he was in many things mistaken. his reliance upon the goodness of god was perfect. he seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect him. he thought that if god clothed the lilies of the field in beauty, if he provided for the sparrows, he would surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. in this he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, overwhelmed, he cried out: "why hast thou forsaken me?" i do not believe that christ ever claimed to be divine; ever claimed to be inspired; ever claimed to work a miracle. in short, i believe that he was an honest man. these claims were all put in his mouth by others--by mistaken friends, by ignorant worshipers, by zealous and credulous followers, and sometimes by dishonest and designing priests. this has happened to all the great men of the world. all historical characters are, in part, deformed or reformed by fiction. there was a man by the name of george washington, but no such george washington ever existed as we find portrayed in history. the historical cæsar never lived. the historical mohammed is simply a myth. it is the task of modern criticism to rescue these characters, and in the mass of superstitious rubbish to find the actual man. christians borrowed the old clothes of the olympian gods and gave them to christ. to me, christ the man is far greater than christ the god. to me, it has always been a matter of wonder that christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the frightful system of human slavery--almost universal in his time. what he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. it is marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing about art. he said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward to those who would desert their wives and families. of course, i do not believe that he said the words that were attributed to him, in which a reward is offered to any man who will desert his kindred. but if we take the account given in the four gospels as the true account, then christ did offer a reward to a father who would desert his children. it has always been contended that he was a perfect example of mankind, and yet he never married. as a result of what he did not teach in connection with what he did teach, his followers saw no harm in slavery, no harm in polygamy. they belittled this world and exaggerated the importance of the next. they consoled the slave by telling him that in a little while he would exchange his chains for wings. they comforted the captive by saying that in a few days he would leave his dungeon for the bowers of paradise. his followers believed that he had said that "whosoever believeth not shall be damned." this passage was the cross upon which intellectual liberty was crucified. if christ had given us the laws of health; if he had told us how to cure disease by natural means; if he had set the captive free; if he had crowned the people with their rightful power; if he had placed the home above the church; if he had broken all the mental chains; if he had flooded all the caves and dens of fear with light, and filled the future with a common joy, he would in truth have been the savior of this world. _question_. how do you account for the difference between the christian and other modern civilizations? _answer._ i account for the difference between men by the difference in their ancestry and surroundings--the difference in soil, climate, food, and employment. there would be no civilization in england were it not for the gulf stream. there would have been very little here had it not been for the discovery of columbus. and even now on this continent there would be but little civilization had the soil been poor. i might ask: how do you account for the civilization of egypt? at one time that was the greatest civilization in the world. did that fact prove that the egyptian religion was of divine origin? so, too, there was a time when the civilization of india was beyond all others. does that prove that vishnu was a god? greece dominated the intellectual world for centuries. does that fact absolutely prove that zeus was the creator of heaven and earth? the same may be said of rome. there was a time when rome governed the world, and yet i have always had my doubts as to the truth of the roman mythology. as a matter of fact, rome was far better than any christian nation ever was to the end of the seventeenth century. a thousand years of christian rule produced no fellow for the greatest of rome. there were no poets the equals of horace or virgil, no philosophers as great as lucretius, no orators like cicero, no emperors like marcus aurelius, no women like the mothers of rome. the civilization of a country may be hindered by a religion, but it has never been increased by any form of superstition. when america was discovered it had the same effect upon europe that it would have, for instance, upon the city of chicago to have lake michigan put the other side of it. the mediterranean lost its trade. the centers of commerce became deserted. the prow of the world turned westward, and, as a result, france, england, and all countries bordering on the atlantic became prosperous. the world has really been civilized by discoverers--by thinkers. the man who invented powder, and by that means released hundreds of thousands of men from the occupations of war, did more for mankind than religion. the inventor of paper--and he was not a christian--did more than all the early fathers for mankind. the inventors of plows, of sickles, of cradles, of reapers; the inventors of wagons, coaches, locomotives; the inventors of skiffs, sail-vessels, steamships; the men who have made looms--in short, the inventors of all useful things--they are the civilizers taken in connection with the great thinkers, the poets, the musicians, the actors, the painters, the sculptors. the men who have invented the useful, and the men who have made the useful beautiful, are the real civilizers of mankind. the priests, in all ages, have been hindrances--stumbling-blocks. they have prevented man from using his reason. they have told ghost stories to courage until courage became fear. they have done all in their power to keep men from growing intellectually, to keep the world in a state of childhood, that they themselves might be deemed great and good and wise. they have always known that their reputation for wisdom depended upon the ignorance of the people. i account for the civilization of france by such men as voltaire. he did good by assisting to destroy the church. luther did good exactly in the same way. he did harm in building another church. i account, in part, for the civilization of england by the fact that she had interests greater than the church could control; and by the further fact that her greatest men cared nothing for the church. i account in part for the civilization of america by the fact that our fathers were wise enough, and jealous of each other enough, to absolutely divorce church and state. they regarded the church as a dangerous mistress--one not fit to govern a president. this divorce was obtained because men like jefferson and paine were at that time prominent in the councils of the people. there is this peculiarity in our country--the only men who can be trusted with human liberty are the ones who are not to be angels hereafter. liberty is safe so long as the sinners have an opportunity to be heard. neither must we imagine that our civilization is the only one in the world. they had no locks and keys in japan until that country was visited by christians, and they are now used only in those ports where christians are allowed to enter. it has often been claimed that there is but one way to make a man temperate, and that is by making him a christian; and this is claimed in face of the fact that christian nations are the most intemperate in the world. for nearly thirteen centuries the followers of mohammed have been absolute teetotalers--not one drunkard under the flag of the star and crescent. wherever, in turkey, a man is seen under the influence of liquor, they call him a christian. you must also remember that almost every christian nation has held slaves. only a few years ago england was engaged in the slave trade. a little while before that our puritan ancestors sold white quaker children in the barbadoes, and traded them for rum, sugar, and negro slaves. even now the latest champion of christianity upholds slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination. sometimes i suspect that our own civilization is not altogether perfect. when i think of the penitentiaries crammed to suffocation, and of the many who ought to be in; of the want, the filth, the depravity of the great cities; of the starvation in the manufacturing centers of great britain, and, in fact, of all europe; when i see women working like beasts of burden, and little children deprived, not simply of education, but of air, light and food, there is a suspicion in my mind that christian civilization is not a complete and overwhelming success. after all, i am compelled to account for the advance that we have made, by the discoveries and inventions of men of genius. for the future i rely upon the sciences; upon the cultivation of the intellect. i rely upon labor; upon human interests in this world; upon the love of wife and children and home. i do not rely upon sacred books, but upon good men and women. i do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity. neither do i rely upon missionaries to convert those whom we are pleased to call "the heathen." honest commerce is the great civilizer. we exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics. the effort to force a religion upon the people always ends in war. commerce, founded upon mutual advantage, makes peace. an honest merchant is better than a missionary. spain was blessed with what is called christian civilization, and yet, for hundreds of years, that government was simply an organized crime. when one pronounces the name of spain, he thinks of the invasion of the new world, the persecution in the netherlands, the expulsion of the jews, and the inquisition. even to-day, the christian nations of europe preserve themselves from each other by bayonet and ball. prussia has a standing army of six hundred thousand men, france a half million, and all their neighbors a like proportion. these countries are civilized. they are in the enjoyment of christian governments--have their hundreds of a thousands of ministers, and the land covered with cathedrals and churches--and yet every nation is nearly beggared by keeping armies in the field. christian kings have no confidence in the promises of each other. what they call peace is the little time necessarily spent in reloading their guns. england has hundreds of ships of war to protect her commerce from other christians, and to force china to open her ports to the opium trade. only the other day the prime minister of china, in one of his dispatches to the english government, used substantially the following language: "england regards the opium question simply as one of trade, but to china, it has a moral aspect." think of christian england carrying death and desolation to hundreds of thousands in the name of trade. then think of heathen china protesting in the name of morality. at the same time england has the impudence to send missionaries to china. what has been called christianity has been a disturber of the public peace in all countries and at all times. nothing has so alienated nations, nothing has so destroyed the natural justice of mankind, as what has been known as religion. the idea that all men must worship the same god, believe the same dogmas, has for thousands of years plucked with bloody hands the flower of pity from the human heart. our civilization is not christian. it does not come from the skies. it is not a result of "inspiration." it is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge--that is to say, of science. when man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized. _question_. since laplace and other most distinguished astronomers hold to the theory that the earth was originally in a gaseous state, and then a molten mass in which the germs, even, of vegetable or animal life, could not exist, how do you account for the origin of life on this planet without a "creator"?--dr. t. b. taylor. _answer._ whether or not "the earth was originally in a gaseous state and afterwards a molten mass in which the germs of vegetable and animal life could not exist," i do not know. my belief is that the earth as it is, and as it was, taken in connection with the influence of the sun, and of other planets, produced whatever has existed or does exist on the earth. i do not see why gas would not need a "creator" as much as a vegetable. neither can i imagine that there is any more necessity for some one to start life than to start a molten mass. there may be now portions of the world in which there is not one particle of vegetable life. it may be that on the wide waste fields of the arctic zone there are places where no vegetable life exists, and there may be many thousand miles where no animal life can be found. but if the poles of the earth could be changed, and if the arctic zone could be placed in a different relative position to the sun, the snows would melt, the hills would appear, and in a little while even the rocks would be clothed with vegetation. after a time vegetation would produce more soil, and in a few thousand years forests would be filled with beasts and birds. i think it was sir william thomson who, in his effort to account for the origin of life upon this earth, stated that it might have come from some meteoric stone falling from some other planet having in it the germs of life. what would you think of a farmer who would prepare his land and wait to have it planted by meteoric stones? so, what would you think of a deity who would make a world like this, and allow it to whirl thousands and millions of years, barren as a gravestone, waiting for some vagrant comet to sow the seeds of life? i believe that back of animal life is the vegetable, and back of the vegetable, it may be, is the mineral. it may be that crystallization is the first step toward what we call life, and yet i believe life is back of that. in my judgment, if the earth ever was in a gaseous state, it was filled with life. these are subjects about which we know but little. how do you account for chemistry? how do you account for the fact that just so many particles of one kind seek the society of just so many particles of another, and when they meet they instantly form a glad and lasting union? how do you know but atoms have love and hatred? how do you know that the vegetable does not enjoy growing, and that crystallization itself is not an expression of delight? how do you know that a vine bursting into flower does not feel a thrill? we find sex in the meanest weeds--how can you say they have no loves? after all, of what use is it to search for a creator? the difficulty is not thus solved. you leave your creator as much in need of a creator as anything your creator is supposed to have created. the bottom of your stairs rests on nothing, and the top of your stairs leans upon nothing. you have reached no solution. the word "god" is simply born of our ignorance. we go as far as we can, and we say the rest of the way is "god." we look as far as we can, and beyond the horizon, where there is nought so far as we know but blindness, we place our deity. we see an infinitesimal segment of a circle, and we say the rest is "god." man must give up searching for the origin of anything. no one knows the origin of life, or of matter, or of what we call mind. the whence and the whither are questions that no man can answer. in the presence of these questions all intellects are upon a level. the barbarian knows exactly the same as the scientist, the fool as the philosopher. only those who think that they have had some supernatural information pretend to answer these questions, and the unknowable, the impossible, the unfathomable, is the realm wholly occupied by the "inspired." we are satisfied that all organized things must have had a beginning, but we cannot conceive that matter commenced to be. forms change, but substance remains eternally the same. a beginning of substance is unthinkable. it is just as easy to conceive of anything commencing to exist _without_ a cause as _with_ a cause. there must be something for cause to operate upon. cause operating upon nothing--were such a thing possible--would produce nothing. there can be no relation between cause and nothing. we can understand how things can be arranged, joined or separated--and how relations can be changed or destroyed, but we cannot conceive of creation--of nothing being changed into something, nor of something being made--except from preexisting materials. _question_. since the universal testimony of the ages is in the affirmative of phenomena that attest the continued existence of man after death--which testimony is overwhelmingly sustained by the phenomena of the nineteenth century--what further evidence should thoughtful people require in order to settle the question, "does death end all?" _answer._ i admit that in all ages men have believed in spooks and ghosts and signs and wonders. this, however, proves nothing. men have for thousands of ages believed the impossible, and worshiped the absurd. our ancestors have worshiped snakes and birds and beasts. i do not admit that any ghost ever existed. i know that no miracle was ever performed except in imagination; and what you are pleased to call the "phenomena of the nineteenth century," i fear are on an exact equality with the phenomena of the dark ages. we do not yet understand the action of the brain. no one knows the origin of a thought. no one knows how he thinks, or why he thinks, any more than one knows why or how his heart beats. people, i imagine, have always had dreams. in dreams they often met persons whom they knew to be dead, and it may be that much of the philosophy of the present was born of dreams. i cannot admit that anything supernatural ever has happened or ever will happen. i cannot admit the truth of what you call the "phenomena of the nineteenth century," if by such "phenomena" you mean the reappearance of the dead. i do not deny the existence of a future state, because i do not know. neither do i aver that there is one, because i do not know. upon this question i am simply honest. i find that people who believe in immortality--or at least those who say they do--are just as afraid of death as anybody else. i find that the most devout christian weeps as bitterly above his dead, as the man who says that death ends all. you see the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. still, i do not say that man is not immortal; but i do say that there is nothing in the bible to show that he is. the old testament has not a word upon the subject--except to show us how we lost immortality. according to that book, man was driven from the garden of eden, lest he should put forth his hand and eat of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. so the fact is, the old testament shows us how we lost immortality. in the new testament we are told to seek for immortality, and it is also stated that "god alone hath immortality." there is this curious thing about christians and spiritualists: the spiritualists laugh at the christians for believing the miracles of the new testament; they laugh at them for believing the story about the witch of endor. and then the christians laugh at the spiritualists for believing that the same kind of things happen now. as a matter of fact, the spiritualists have the best of it, because their witnesses are now living, whereas the christians take simply the word of the dead--of men they never saw and of men about whom they know nothing. the spiritualist, at least, takes the testimony of men and women that he can cross-examine. it would seem as if these gentlemen ought to make common cause. then the christians could prove their miracles by the spiritualists, and the spiritualists could prove their "phenomena" by the christians. i believe that thoughtful people require some additional testimony in order to settle the question, "does death end all?" if the dead return to this world they should bring us information of value. there are thousands of questions that studious historians and savants are endeavoring to settle--questions of history, of philosophy, of law, of art, upon which a few intelligent dead ought to be able to shed a flood of light. all the questions of the past ought to be settled. some modern ghosts ought to get acquainted with some of the pharaohs, and give us an outline of the history of egypt. they ought to be able to read the arrow-headed writing and all the records of the past. the hieroglyphics of all ancient peoples should be unlocked, and thoughts and facts that have been imprisoned for so many thousand years should be released and once again allowed to visit brains. the spiritualists ought to be able to give us the history of buried cities. they should clothe with life the dust of all the past. if they could only bring us valuable information; if they could only tell us about some steamer in distress so that succor could be sent; if they could only do something useful, the world would cheerfully accept their theories and admit their "facts." i think that thoughtful people have the right to demand such evidence. i would like to have the spirits give us the history of all the books of the new testament and tell us who first told of the miracles. if they could give us the history of any religion, or nation, or anything, i should have far more confidence in the "phenomena of the nineteenth century." there is one thing about the spiritualists i like, and that is, they are liberal. they give to others the rights they claim for themselves. they do not pollute their souls with the dogma of eternal pain. they do not slander and persecute even those who deny their "phenomena." but i cannot admit that they have furnished conclusive evidence that death does not end all. beyond the horizon of this life we have not seen. from the mysterious beyond no messenger has come to me. for the whole world i would not blot from the sky of the future a single star. arched by the bow of hope let the dead sleep. _question_. how, when, where, and by whom was our present calendar originated,--that is "anno domini,"--and what event in the history of the nations does it establish as a fact, if not the birth of jesus of nazareth? _answer._ i have already said, in answer to a question by another gentleman, that i believe the man jesus christ existed, and we now date from somewhere near his birth. i very much doubt about his having been born on christmas, because in reading other religions, i find that that time has been celebrated for thousands of years, and the cause of it is this: about the st or d of december is the shortest day. after that the days begin to lengthen and the sun comes back, and for many centuries in most nations they had a festival in commemoration of that event. the christians, i presume, adopted this day, and made the birth of christ fit it. three months afterward--the st of march--the days and nights again become equal, and the day then begins to lengthen. for centuries the nations living in the temperate zones have held festivals to commemorate the coming of spring--the yearly miracle of leaf, of bud and flower. this is the celebration known as easter, and the christians adopted that in commemoration of christ's resurrection. so that, as a matter of fact, these festivals of christmas and easter do not even tend to show that they stand for or are in any way connected with the birth or resurrection of christ. in fact the evidence is overwhelmingly the other way. while we are on the calendar business it may be well enough to say that we get our numerals from the arabs, from whom also we obtained our ideas of algebra. the higher mathematics came to us from the same source. so from the arabs we receive chemistry, and our first true notions of geography. they gave us also paper and cotton. owing to the fact that the earth does not make its circuit in the exact time of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, and owing to the fact that it was a long time before any near approach was made to the actual time, all calendars after awhile became too inaccurate for general use, and they were from time to time changed. right here, it may be well enough to remark, that all the monuments and festivals in the world are not sufficient to establish an impossible event. no amount of monumental testimony, no amount of living evidence, can substantiate a miracle. the monument only proves the _belief_ of the builders. if we rely upon the evidence of monuments, calendars, dates, and festivals, all the religions on the earth can be substantiated. turkey is filled with such monuments and much of the time wasted in such festivals. we celebrate the fourth of july, but such celebration does not even tend to prove that god, by his special providence, protected washington from the arrows of an indian. the hebrews celebrate what is called the passover, but this celebration does not even tend to prove that the angel of the lord put blood on the door-posts in egypt. the mohammedans celebrate to-day the flight of mohammed, but that does not tend to prove that mohammed was inspired and was a prophet of god. nobody can change a falsehood to a truth by the erection of a monument. monuments simply prove that people endeavor to substantiate truths and falsehoods by the same means. _question_. letting the question as to hell hereafter rest for the present, how do you account for the hell here--namely, the existence of pain? there are people who, by no fault of their own, are at this present time in misery. if for these there is no life to come, their existence is a mistake; but if there is a life to come, it may be that the sequel to the acts of the play to come will justify the pain and misery of this present time?--rev. myron w. reed. _answer._ there are four principal theories: _first_--that there is behind the universe a being of infinite power and wisdom, kindness, and justice. _second_--that the universe has existed from eternity, and that it is the only eternal existence, and that behind it is no creator. _third_--that there is a god who made the universe, but who is not all-powerful and who is, under the circumstances, doing the best he can. _fourth_--that there is an all-powerful god who made the universe, and that there is also a nearly all-powerful devil, and this devil ravels about as fast as this god knits. by the last theory, as taught by plato, it is extremely easy to account for the misery in this world. if we admit that there is a malevolent being with power enough, and with cunning enough, to frequently circumvent god, the problem of evil becomes solved so far as this world is concerned. but why this being was evil is still unsolved; why the devil is malevolent is still a mystery. consequently you will have to go back of this world, on that theory, to account for the origin of evil. if this devil always existed, then, of course, the universe at one time was inhabited only by this god and this devil. if the third theory is correct, we can account for the fact that god does not see to it that justice is always done. if the second theory is true, that the universe has existed from eternity, and is without a creator, then we must account for the existence of evil and good, not by personalities behind the universe, but by the nature of things. if there is an infinitely good and wise being who created all, it seems to me that he should have made a world in which innocence should be a sufficient shield. he should have made a world where the just man should have nothing to fear. my belief is this: we are surrounded by obstacles. we are filled with wants. we must have clothes. we must have food. we must protect ourselves from sun and storm, from heat and cold. in our conflict with these obstacles, with each other, and with what may be called the forces of nature, all do not succeed. it is a fact in nature that like begets like; that man gives his constitution, at least in part, to his children; that weakness and strength are in some degree both hereditary. this is a fact in nature. i do not hold any god responsible for this fact--filled as it is with pain and joy. but it seems to me that an infinite god should so have arranged matters that the bad would not pass--that it would die with its possessor--that the good should survive, and that the man should give to his son, not the result of his vices, but the fruit of his virtues. i cannot see why we should expect an infinite god to do better in another world than he does in this. if he allows injustice to prevail here, why will he not allow the same thing in the world to come? if there is any being with power to prevent it, why is crime permitted? if a man standing upon the railway should ascertain that a bridge had been carried off by a flood, and if he also knew that the train was coming filled with men, women, and children; with husbands going to their wives, and wives rejoining their families; if he made no effort to stop that train; if he simply sat down by the roadside to witness the catastrophe, and so remained until the train dashed off the precipice, and its load of life became a mass of quivering flesh, he would be denounced by every good man as the most monstrous of human beings. and yet this is exactly what the supposed god does. he, if he exists, sees the train rushing to the gulf. he gives no notice. he sees the ship rushing for the hidden rock. he makes no sign. and he so constructed the world that assassins lurk in the air--hide even in the sunshine--and when we imagine that we are breathing the breath of life, we are taking into ourselves the seeds of death. there are two facts inconsistent in my mind--a martyr and a god. injustice upon earth renders the justice of heaven impossible. i would not take from those suffering in this world the hope of happiness hereafter. my principal object has been to take away from them the fear of eternal pain hereafter. still, it is impossible for me to explain the facts by which i am surrounded, if i admit the existence of an infinite being. i find in this world that physical and mental evils afflict the good. it seems to me that i have the same reason to expect the bad to be rewarded hereafter. i have no right to suppose that infinite wisdom will ever know any more, or that infinite benevolence will increase in kindness, or that the justice of the eternal can change. if, then, this eternal being allows the good to suffer pain here, what right have we to say that he will not allow them to suffer forever? some people have insisted that this life is a kind of school for the production of self-denying men and women--that is, for the production of character. the statistics show that a large majority die under five years of age. what would we think of a schoolmaster who killed the most of his pupils the first day? if this doctrine is true, and if manhood cannot be produced in heaven, those who die in childhood are infinitely unfortunate. i admit that, although i do not understand the subject, still, all pain, all misery may be for the best. i do not know. if there is an infinitely wise being, who is also infinitely powerful, then everything that happens must be for the best. that philosophy of special providence, going to the extreme, is infinitely better than most of the christian creeds. there seems to be no half-way house between special providence and atheism. you know some of the buddhists say that when a man commits murder, that is the best thing he could have done, and that to be murdered was the best thing that could have happened to the killed. they insist that every step taken is the necessary step and the best step; that crimes are as necessary as virtues, and that the fruit of crime and virtue is finally the same. but whatever theories we have, we have at last to be governed by the facts. we are in a world where vice, deformity, weakness, and disease are hereditary. in the presence of this immense and solemn truth rises the religion of the body. every man should refuse to increase the misery of this world. and it may be that the time will come when man will be great enough and grand enough utterly to refrain from the propagation of disease and deformity, and when only the healthy will be fathers and mothers. we do know that the misery in this world can be lessened; consequently i believe in the religion of this world. and whether there is a heaven or hell here, or hereafter, every good man has enough to do to make this world a little better than it is. millions of lives are wasted in the vain effort to find the origin of things, and the destiny of man. this world has been neglected. we have been taught that life should be merely a preparation for death. to avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. for the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. most misery is produced by ignorance. passions sow the seeds of pain. _question_. state with what words you can comfort those who have, by their own fault, or by the fault of others, found this life not worth living? _answer._ if there is no life beyond this, and so believing i come to the bedside of the dying--of one whose life has been a failure--a "life not worth living," i could at least say to such an one, "your failure ends with your death. beyond the tomb there is nothing for you--neither pain nor misery, neither grief nor joy." but if i were a good orthodox christen, then i would have to say to this man, "your life has been a failure; you have not been a christian, and the failure will be extended eternally; you have not only been a failure for a time, but you will be a failure forever." admitting that there is another world, and that the man's life had been a failure in this, then i should say to him, "if you live again, you will have the eternal opportunity to reform. there will be no time, no date, no matter how many millions and billions of ages may have passed away, at which you will not have the opportunity of doing right." under no circumstances could i consistently say to this man: "although your life has been a failure; although you have made hundreds and thousands of others suffer; although you have deceived and betrayed the woman who loved you; although you have murdered your benefactor; still, if you will now repent and believe a something that is unreasonable or reasonable to your mind, you will, at the moment of death, be transferred to a world of eternal joy." this i could not say. i would tell him, "if you die a bad man here, you will commence the life to come with the same character you leave this. character cannot be made by another for you. you must be the architect of your own." there is to me unspeakably more comfort in the idea that every failure ends here, than that it is to be perpetuated forever. how can a christian comfort the mother of a girl who has died without believing in christ? what doctrine is there in christianity to wipe away her tears? what words of comfort can you offer to the mother whose brave boy fell in defence of his country, she knowing and you knowing, that the boy was not a christian, that he did not believe in the bible, and had no faith in the blood of the atonement? what words of comfort have you for such fathers and for such mothers? to me, there is no doctrine so infinitely absurd as the idea that this life is a probationary state--that the few moments spent here decide the fate of a human soul forever. nothing can be conceived more merciless, more unjust. i am doing all i can to destroy that doctrine. i want, if possible, to get the shadow of hell from the human heart. why has any life been a failure here? if god is a being of infinite wisdom and kindness, why does he make failures? what excuse has infinite wisdom for peopling the world with savages? why should one feel grateful to god for having made him with a poor, weak and diseased brain; for having allowed him to be the heir of consumption, of scrofula, or of insanity? why should one thank god, who lived and died a slave? after all, is it not of more importance to speak the absolute truth? is it not manlier to tell the fact than to endeavor to convey comfort through falsehood? people must reap not only what they sow, but what others have sown. the people of the whole world are united in spite of themselves. next to telling a man, whose life has been a failure, that he is to enjoy an immortality of delight--next to that, is to assure him that a place of eternal punishment does not exist. after all, there are but few lives worth living in any great and splendid sense. nature seems filled with failure, and she has made no exception in favor of man. to the greatest, to the most successful, there comes a time when the fevered lips of life long for the cool, delicious kiss of death--when, tired of the dust and glare of day, they hear with joy the rustling garments of the night. archibald armstrong and jonathan newgate were fast friends. their views in regard to the question of a future life, and the existence of a god, were in perfect accord. they said: "'we know so little about these matters that we are not justified in giving them any serious consideration. our motto and rule of life shall be for each one to make himself as comfortable as he can, and enjoy every pleasure within his reach, not allowing himself to be influenced at all by thoughts of a future life.' "both had some money. archibald had a large amount. once upon a time when no human eye saw him--and he had no belief in a god--jonathan stole every dollar of his friend's wealth, leaving him penniless. he had no fear, no remorse; no one saw him do the deed. he became rich, enjoyed life immensely, lived in contentment and pleasure, until in mellow old age he went the way of all flesh. archibald fared badly. the odds were against him. "his money was gone. he lived in penury and discontent, dissatisfied with mankind and with himself, until at last, overcome by misfortune, and depressed by an incurable malady, he sought rest in painless suicide." _question_. what are we to think of the rule of life laid down by these men? was either of them inconsistent or illogical? is there no remedy to correct such irregularities?--rev. d. o'donaghue. _answer._ the rev. mr. o'donaghue seems to entertain strange ideas as to right and wrong. he tells us that archibald armstrong and jonathan newgate concluded to make themselves as comfortable as they could and enjoy every pleasure within their reach, and the rev. mr. o'donaghue states that one of the pleasures within the reach of mr. newgate was to steal what little money mr. armstrong had. does the reverend gentleman think that mr. newgate made or could make himself comfortable in that way? he tells us that mr. newgate "had no remorse,"--that he "became rich and enjoyed life immensely,"--that he "lived in contentment and pleasure, until, in mellow old age, he went the way of all flesh." does the reverend gentleman really believe that a man can steal without fear, without remorse? does he really suppose that one can enjoy the fruits of theft, that a criminal can live a contented and happy life, that one who has robbed his friend can reach a mellow and delightful old age? is this the philosophy of the rev. mr. o'donaghue? and right here i may be permitted to ask, why did the rev. mr. o'donaghue's god allow a thief to live without fear, without remorse, to enjoy life immensely and to reach a mellow old age? and why did he allow mr. armstrong, who had been robbed, to live in penury and discontent, until at last, overcome by misfortune, he sought rest in suicide? does the rev. mr. o'donaghue mean to say that if there is no future life it is wise to steal in this? if the grave is the eternal home, would the rev. mr. o'donaghue advise people to commit crimes in order that they may enjoy this life? such is not my philosophy. whether there is a god or not, truth is better than falsehood. whether there is a heaven or hell, honesty is always the best policy. there is no world, and can be none, where vice can sow the seed of crime and reap the sheaves of joy. according to my view, mr. armstrong was altogether more fortunate than mr. newgate. i had rather be robbed than to be a robber, and i had rather be of such a disposition that i would be driven to suicide by misfortune than to live in contentment upon the misfortunes of others. the reverend gentleman, however, should have made his question complete--he should have gone the entire distance. he should have added that mr. newgate, after having reached a mellow old age, was suddenly converted, joined the church, and died in the odor of sanctity on the very day that his victim committed suicide. but i will answer the fable of the reverend gentleman with a fact. a young man was in love with a girl. she was young, beautiful, and trustful. she belonged to no church--knew nothing about a future world--basked in the sunshine of this. all her life had been filled with gentle deeds. the tears of pity had sanctified her cheeks. she believed in no religion, worshiped no god, believed no bible, but loved everything. her lover in a fit of jealous rage murdered her. he was tried; convicted; a motion for a new trial overruled and a pardon refused. in his cell, in the shadow of death, he was converted--he became a catholic. with the white lips of fear he confessed to a priest. he received the sacrament. he was hanged, and from the rope's end winged his way to the realms of bliss. for months the murdered girl had suffered all the pains and pangs of hell. the poor girl will endure the agony of the damned forever, while her murderer will be ravished with angelic chant and song. such is the justice of the orthodox god. allow me to use the language of the reverend gentleman: "is there no remedy to correct such irregularities?" as long as the idea of eternal punishment remains a part of the christian system, that system will be opposed by every man of heart and brain. of all religious dogmas it is the most shocking, infamous, and absurd. the preachers of this doctrine are the enemies of human happiness; they are the assassins of natural joy. every father, every mother, every good man, every loving woman, should hold this doctrine in abhorrence; they should refuse to pay men for preaching it; they should not build churches in which this infamy is taught; they should teach their little children that it is a lie; they should take this horror from childhood's heart--a horror that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin. the brooklyn divines. * brooklyn union, . _question_. the clergymen who have been interviewed, almost unanimously have declared that the church is suffering very little from the skepticism of the day, and that the influence of the scientific writers, whose opinions are regarded as atheistic or infidel, is not great; and that the books of such writers are not read as much as some people think they are. what is your opinion with regard to that subject? _answer._ it is natural for a man to defend his business, to stand by his class, his caste, his creed. and i suppose this accounts for the ministers all saying that infidelity is not on the increase. by comparing long periods of time, it is very easy to see the progress that has been made. only a few years ago men who are now considered quite orthodox would have been imprisoned, or at least mobbed, for heresy. only a few years ago men like huxley and tyndall and spencer and darwin and humboldt would have been considered as the most infamous of monsters. only a few years ago science was superstition's hired man. the scientific men apologized for every fact they happened to find. with hat in hand they begged pardon of the parson for finding a fossil, and asked the forgiveness of god for making any discovery in nature. at that time every scientific discovery was something to be pardoned. moses was authority in geology, and joshua was considered the first astronomer of the world. now everything has changed, and everybody knows it except the clergy. now religion is taking off its hat to science. religion is finding out new meanings for old texts. we are told that god spoke in the language of the common people; that he was not teaching any science; that he allowed his children not only to remain in error, but kept them there. it is now admitted that the bible is no authority on any question of natural fact; it is inspired only in morality, in a spiritual way. all, except the brooklyn ministers, see that the bible has ceased to be regarded as authority. nobody appeals to a passage to settle a dispute of fact. the most intellectual men of the world laugh at the idea of inspiration. men of the greatest reputations hold all supernaturalism in contempt. millions of people are reading the opinions of men who combat and deny the foundation of orthodox christianity. humboldt stands higher than all the apostles. darwin has done more to change human thought than all the priests who have existed. where there was one infidel twenty-five years ago, there are one hundred now. i can remember when i would be the only infidel in the town. now i meet them thick as autumn leaves; they are everywhere. in all the professions, trades, and employments, the orthodox creeds are despised. they are not simply disbelieved; they are execrated. they are regarded, not with indifference, but with passionate hatred. thousands and hundreds of thousands of mechanics in this country abhor orthodox christianity. millions of educated men hold in immeasurable contempt the doctrine of eternal punishment. the doctrine of atonement is regarded as absurd by millions. so with the dogma of imputed guilt, vicarious virtue, and vicarious vice. i see that the rev. dr. eddy advises ministers not to answer the arguments of infidels in the pulpit, and gives this wonderful reason: that the hearers will get more doubts from the answer than from reading the original arguments. so the rev. dr. hawkins admits that he cannot defend christianity from infidel attacks without creating more infidelity. so the rev. dr. haynes admits that he cannot answer the theories of robertson smith in popular addresses. the only minister who feels absolutely safe on this subject, so far as his congregation is concerned, seems to be the rev. joseph pullman. he declares that the young people in his church don't know enough to have intelligent doubts, and that the old people are substantially in the same condition. mr. pullman feels that he is behind a breastwork so strong that other defence is unnecessary. so the rev. mr. foote thinks that infidelity should never be refuted in the pulpit. i admit that it never has been successfully done, but i did not suppose so many ministers admitted the impossibility. mr. foote is opposed to all public discussion. dr. wells tells us that scientific atheism should be ignored; that it should not be spoken of in the pulpit. the rev, dr. van dyke has the same feeling of security enjoyed by dr. pullman, and he declares that the great majority of the christian people of to-day know nothing about current infidel theories. his idea is to let them remain in ignorance; that it would be dangerous for the christian minister even to state the position of the infidel; that, after stating it, he might not, even with the help of god, successfully combat the theory. these ministers do not agree. dr. carpenter accounts for infidelity by nicotine in the blood. it is all smoke. he thinks the blood of the human family has deteriorated. he thinks that the church is safe because the christians read. he differs with his brothers pullman and van dyke. so the rev. george e. reed believes that infidelity should be discussed in the pulpit. he has more confidence in his general and in the weapons of his warfare than some of his brethren. his confidence may arise from the fact that he has never had a discussion. the rev. dr. mcclelland thinks the remedy is to stick by the catechism; that there is not now enough of authority; not enough of the brute force; thinks that the family, the church, and the state ought to use the rod; that the rod is the salvation of the world; that the rod is a divine institution; that fathers ought to have it for their children; that mothers ought to use it. this is a part of the religion of universal love. the man who cannot raise children without whipping them ought not to have them. the man who would mar the flesh of a boy or girl is unfit to have the control of a human being. the father who keeps a rod in his house keeps a relic of barbarism in his heart. there is nothing reformatory in punishment; nothing reformatory in fear. kindness, guided by intelligence, is the only reforming force. an appeal to brute force is an abandonment of love and reason, and puts father and child upon a savage equality; the savageness in the heart of the father prompting the use of the rod or club, produces a like savageness in the victim; the old idea that a child's spirit must be broken is infamous. all this is passing away, however, with orthodox christianity. that children are treated better than formerly shows conclusively the increase of what is called infidelity. infidelity has always been a protest against tyranny in the state, against intolerance in the church, against barbarism in the family. it has always been an appeal for light, for justice, for universal kindness and tenderness. _question_. the ministers say, i believe, colonel, that worldliness is the greatest foe to the church, and admit that it is on the increase? _answer._ i see that all the ministers you have interviewed regard worldliness as the great enemy of the church. what is worldliness? i suppose worldliness consists in paying attention to the affairs of this world; getting enjoyment out of this life; gratifying the senses, giving the ears music, the eyes painting and sculpture, the palate good food; cultivating the imagination; playing games of chance; adorning the person; developing the body; enriching the mind; investigating the facts by which we are surrounded; building homes; rocking cradles; thinking; working; inventing; buying; selling; hoping--all this, i suppose, is worldliness. these "worldly" people have cleared the forests, plowed the land, built the cities, the steamships, the telegraphs, and have produced all there is of worth and wonder in the world. yet the preachers denounce them. were it not for "worldly" people how would the preachers get along? who would build the churches? who would fill the contribution boxes and plates, and who (most serious of all questions) would pay the salaries? it is the habit of the ministers to belittle men who support them--to slander the spirit by which they live. "it is as though the mouth should tear the hand that feeds it." the nobility of the old world hold the honest workingman in contempt, and yet are so contemptible themselves that they are willing to live upon his labor. and so the minister pretending to be spiritual--pretending to be a spiritual guide--looks with contempt upon the men who make it possible for him to live. it may be said by "worldliness" they only mean enjoyment--that is, hearing music, going to the theater and the opera, taking a sunday excursion to the silvery margin of the sea. of course, ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. they think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. in my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. the drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. persecution is not born of the stage. on the contrary, upon the stage have forever been found impersonations of patriotism, heroism, courage, fortitude, and justice, and these impersonations have always been applauded, and have been represented that they might be applauded. in the pulpit, hypocrites have been worshiped; upon the stage they have been held up to derision and execration. shakespeare has done far more for the world than the bible. the ministers keep talking about spirituality as opposed to worldliness. nothing can be more absurd than this talk of spirituality. as though readers of the bible, repeaters of texts, and sayers of prayers were engaged in a higher work than honest industry. is there anything higher than human love? a man is in love with a girl, and he has determined to work for her and to give his life that she may have a life of joy. is there anything more spiritual than that--anything higher? they marry. he clears some land. he fences a field. he builds a cabin; and she, of this hovel, makes a happy home. she plants flowers, puts a few simple things of beauty upon the walls. this is what the preachers call "worldliness." is there anything more spiritual? in a little while, in this cabin, in this home, is heard the drowsy rhythm of the cradle's rock, while softly floats the lullaby upon the twilight air. is there anything more spiritual, is there anything more infinitely tender than to see husband and wife bending, with clasped hands, over a cradle, gazing upon the dimpled miracle of love? i say it is spiritual to work for those you love; spiritual to improve the physical condition of mankind--for he who improves the physical condition improves the mental. i believe in the plowers instead of the prayers. i believe in the new firm of "health & heresy" rather than the old partnership of "disease & divinity," doing business at the old sign of the "skull & crossbones." some of the ministers that you have interviewed, or at least one of them, tells us the cure for worldliness. he says that god is sending fires, and cyclones, and things of that character for the purpose of making people spiritual; of calling their attention to the fact that everything in this world is of a transitory nature. the clergy have always had great faith in famine, in affliction, in pestilence. they know that a man is a thousand times more apt to thank god for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet. they know that prosperity has the same effect on the average christian that thick soup has, according to bumble, on the english pauper: "it makes 'em impudent." the devil made a mistake in not doubling job's property instead of leaving him a pauper. in prosperity the ministers think that we forget death and are too happy. in the arms of those we love, the dogma of eternal fire is for the moment forgotten. according to the ministers, god kills our children in order that we may not forget him. they imagine that the man who goes into dakota, cultivates the soil and rears him a little home, is getting too "worldly." and so god starts a cyclone to scatter his home and the limbs of wife and children upon the desolate plains, and the ministers in brooklyn say this is done because we are getting too "worldly." they think we should be more "spiritual;" that is to say, willing to live upon the labor of others; willing to ask alms, saying, in the meantime, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." if this is so, why not give the money back? "spiritual" people are those who eat oatmeal and prunes, have great confidence in dried apples, read cowper's "task" and pollok's "course of time," laugh at the jokes in _harper's monthly_, wear clothes shiny at the knees and elbows, and call all that has elevated the world "beggarly elements." _question_. some of the clergymen who have been interviewed admit that the rich and poor no longer meet together, and deprecate the establishment of mission chapels in connection with the large and fashionable churches. _answer._ the early christians supposed that the end of the world was at hand. they were all sitting on the dock waiting for the ship. in the presence of such a belief what are known as class distinctions could not easily exist. most of them were exceedingly poor, and poverty is a bond of union. as a rule, people are hospitable in the proportion that they lack wealth. in old times, in the west, a stranger was always welcome. he took in part the place of the newspaper. he was a messenger from the older parts of the country. life was monotonous. the appearance of the traveler gave variety. as people grow wealthy they grow exclusive. as they become educated there is a tendency to pick their society. it is the same in the church. the church no longer believes the creed, no longer acts as though the creed were true. if the rich man regarded the sermon as a means of grace, as a kind of rope thrown by the minister to a man just above the falls; if he regarded it as a lifeboat, or as a lighthouse, he would not allow his coachman to remain outside. if he really believed that the coachman had an immortal soul, capable of eternal joy, liable to everlasting pain, he would do his utmost to make the calling and election of the said coachman sure. as a matter of fact the rich man now cares but little for servants. they are not included in the scheme of salvation, except as a kind of job lot. the church has become a club. it is a social affair, and the rich do not care to associate in the week days with the poor they may happen to meet at church. as they expect to be in heaven together forever, they can afford to be separated here. there will certainly be time enough there to get acquainted. another thing is the magnificence of the churches. the church depends absolutely upon the rich. poor people feel out of place in such magnificent buildings. they drop into the nearest seat; like poor relations, they sit on the extreme edge of the chair. at the table of christ they are below the salt. they are constantly humiliated. when subscriptions are asked for they feel ashamed to have their mite compared with the thousands given by the millionaire. the pennies feel ashamed to mingle with the silver in the contribution plate. the result is that most of them avoid the church. it costs too much to worship god in public. good clothes are necessary, fashionably cut. the poor come in contact with too much silk, too many jewels, too many evidences of what is generally assumed to be superiority. _question_. would this state of affairs be remedied if, instead of churches, we had societies of ethical culture? would not the rich there predominate and the poor be just as much out of place? _answer._ i think the effect would be precisely the same, no matter what the society is, what object it has, if composed of rich and poor. class distinctions, to a greater or less extent, will creep in--in fact, they do not have to creep in. they are there at the commencement, and they are born of the different conditions of the members. these class distinctions are not always made by men of wealth. for instance, some men obtain money, and are what we call snobs. others obtain it and retain their democratic principles, and meet men according to the law of affinity, or general intelligence, on intellectual grounds, for instance. there is not only the distinction produced by wealth and power, but there are the distinctions born of intelligence, of culture, of character, of end, object, aim in life. no one can blame an honest mechanic for holding a wealthy snob in utter contempt. neither can any one blame respectable poverty for declining to associate with arrogant wealth. the right to make the distinction is with all classes, and with the individuals of all classes. it is impossible to have any society for any purpose--that is, where they meet together--without certain embarrassments being produced by these distinctions. nowt for instance, suppose there should be a society simply of intelligent and cultured people. there, wealth, to a great degree, would be disregarded. but, after all, the distinction that intelligence draws between talent and genius is as marked and cruel as was ever drawn between poverty and wealth. wherever the accomplishment of some object is deemed of such vast importance that, for the moment, all minor distinctions are forgotten, then it is possible for the rich and poor, the ignorant and intelligent, to act in concert. this happens in political parties, in time of war, and it has also happened whenever a new religion has been founded. whenever the rich wish the assistance of the poor, distinctions are forgotten. it is upon the same principle that we gave liberty to the slave during the civil war, and clad him in the uniform of the nation; we wanted him, we needed him; and, for the time, we were perfectly willing to forget the distinction of color. common peril produces pure democracy. it is with societies as with individuals. a poor young man coming to new york, bent upon making his fortune, begins to talk about the old fogies; holds in contempt many of the rules and regulations of the trade; is loud in his denunciation of monopoly; wants competition; shouts for fair play, and is a real democrat. but let him succeed; let him have a palace in fifth avenue, with his monogram on spoons and coaches; then, instead of shouting for liberty, he will call for more police. he will then say: "we want protection; the rabble must be put down." we have an aristocracy of wealth. in some parts of our country an aristocracy of literature--men and women who imagine themselves writers and who hold in contempt all people who cannot express commonplaces in the most elegant diction--people who look upon a mistake in grammar as far worse than a crime. so, in some communities we have an aristocracy of muscle. the only true aristocracy, probably, is that of kindness. intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel; as cruel as wealth without a sense of justice; as cruel as muscle without mercy. so that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart. _question_. you say that the aristocracy of intellect is quite as cruel as the aristocracy of wealth--what do you mean by that? _answer._ by intellect, i mean simply intellect; that is to say, the aristocracy of education--of simple brain--expressed in innumerable ways--in invention, painting, sculpture, literature. and i meant to say that that aristocracy was as cruel as that of simple arrogant wealth. after all, why should a man be proud of something given him by nature--something that he did not earn, did not produce--something that he could not help? is it not more reasonable to be proud of wealth which you have accumulated than of brain which nature gave you? and, to carry this idea clearly out, why should we be proud of anything? is there any proper occasion on which to crow? if you succeed, your success crows for you; if you fail, certainly crowing is not in the best of taste. and why should a man be proud of brain? why should he be proud of disposition or of good acts? _question_. you speak of the cruelty of the intellect, and yet, of course, you must recognize the right of every one to select his own companions. would it be arrogant for the intellectual man to prefer the companionship of people of his own class in preference to commonplace and unintelligent persons? _answer._ all men should have the same rights, and one right that every man should have is to associate with congenial people. there are thousands of good men whose society i do not covet. they may be stupid, or they may be stupid only in the direction in which i am interested, and may be exceedingly intelligent as to matters about which i care nothing. in either case they are not congenial. they have the right to select congenial company; so have i. and while distinctions are thus made, they are not cruel; they are not heartless. they are for the good of all concerned, spring naturally from the circumstances, and are consistent with the highest philanthropy. why we notice these distinctions in the church more than we do in the club is that the church talks one way and acts another; because the church insists that a certain line of conduct is essential to salvation, and that every human being is in danger of eternal pain. if the creed were true, then, in the presence of such an infinite verity, all earthly distinctions should instantly vanish. every christian should exert himself for the salvation of the soul of a beggar with the same degree of earnestness that he would show to save a king. the accidents of wealth, education, social position, should be esteemed as naught, and the richest should gladly work side by side with the poorest. the churches will never reach the poor as long as they sell pews; as long as the rich members wear their best clothes on sunday. as long as the fashions of the drawing-room are taken to the table of the last supper, the poor will remain in the highways and hedges. present fashion is more powerful than faith. so long as the ministers shut up their churches, and allow the poor to go to hell in summer; as long as they leave the devil without a competitor for three months in the year, the churches will not materially impede the march of human progress. people often, unconsciously and without any malice, say something or do something that throws an unexpected light upon a question. the other day, in one of the new york comic papers, there was a picture representing the foremost preachers of the country at the seaside together. it was regarded as a joke that they could enjoy each others society. these ministers are supposed to be the apostles of the religion of kindness. they tell us to love even our enemies, and yet the idea that they could associate happily together is regarded as a joke! after all, churches are like other institutions, they have to be managed, and they now rely upon music and upon elocution rather than upon the gospel. they are becoming social affairs. they are giving up the doctrine of eternal punishment, and have consequently lost their hold. the orthodox churches used to tell us there was to be a fire, and they offered to insure; and as long as the fire was expected the premiums were paid and the policies were issued. then came the universalist church, saying that there would be no fire, and yet asking the people to insure. for such a church there is no basis. it undoubtedly did good by its influence upon other churches. so with the unitarian. that church has no basis for organization; no reason, because no hell is threatened, and heaven is but faintly promised. just as the churches have lost their belief in eternal fire, they have lost their influence, and the reason they have lost their belief is on account of the diffusion of knowledge. that doctrine is becoming absurd and infamous. intelligent people are ashamed to broach it. intelligent people can no longer believe it. it is regarded with horror, and the churches must finally abandon it, and when they do, that is the end of the church militant. _question_. what do you say to the progress of the roman catholic church, in view of the fact that they have not changed their belief, in any particular, in regard to future punishment? _answer._ neither catholicism nor protestantism will ever win another battle. the last victory of protestantism was won in holland. nations have not been converted since then. the time has passed to preach with sword and gun, and for that reason catholicism can win no more victories. that church increases in this country mostly from immigration. catholicism does not belong to the new world. it is at war with the idea of our government, antagonistic to true republicanism, and is in every sense anti-american. the catholic church does not control its members. that church prevents no crime. it is not in favor of education. it is not the friend of liberty. in europe it is now used as a political power, but here it dare not assert itself. there are thousands of good catholics. as a rule they probably believe the creed of the church. that church has lost the power to anathematize. it can no longer burn. it must now depend upon other forces--upon persuasion, sophistry, ignorance, fear, and heredity. _question_. you have stated your objections to the churches, what would you have to take their place? _answer._ there was a time when men had to meet together for the purpose of being told the law. this was before printing, and for hundreds and hundreds of years most people depended for their information on what they heard. the ear was the avenue to the brain. there was a time, of course, when freemasonry was necessary, so that a man could carry, not only all over his own country, but to another, a certificate that he was a gentleman; that he was an honest man. there was a time, and it was necessary, for the people to assemble. they had no books, no papers, no way of reaching each other. but now all that is changed. the daily press gives you the happenings of the world. the libraries give you the thoughts of the greatest and best. every man of moderate means can command the principal sources of information. there is no necessity for going to the church and hearing the same story forever. let the minister write what he wishes to say. let him publish it. if it is worth buying, people will read it. it is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would read. of course, there will always be meetings, occasions when people come together to exchange ideas, to hear what a man has to say upon some questions, but the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody on the same subject is absurd. _question_. would you include a man like henry ward beecher in that statement? _answer._ beecher is interesting just in proportion that he is not orthodox, and he is altogether more interesting when talking against his creed. he delivered a sermon the other day in chicago, in which he takes the ground that christianity is kindness, and that, consequently, no one could be an infidel. every one believes in kindness, at least theoretically. in that sermon he throws away all creed, and comes to the conclusion that christianity is a life, not an aggregation of intellectual convictions upon certain subjects. the more sermons like that are preached, probably the better. what i intended was the eternal repetition of the old story: that god made the world and a man, and then allowed the devil to tempt him, and then thought of a scheme of salvation, of vicarious atonement, years afterwards; drowned everybody except noah and his family, and afterward, when he failed to civilize the jewish people, came in person and suffered death, and announced the doctrine that all who believed on him would be saved, and those who did not, eternally lost. now, this story, with occasional references to the patriarchs and the new jerusalem, and the exceeding heat of perdition, and the wonderful joys of paradise, is the average sermon, and this story is told again, again, and again, by the same men, listened to by the same people without any effect except to tire the speaker and the hearer. if all the ministers would take their texts from shakespeare; if they would read every sunday a selection from some of the great plays, the result would be infinitely better. they would all learn something; the mind would be enlarged, and the sermon would appear short. nothing has shown more clearly the intellectual barrenness of the pulpit than baccalaureate sermons lately delivered. the dignified dullness, the solemn stupidity of these addresses has never been excelled. no question was met. the poor candidates for the ministry were given no new weapons. armed with the theological flintlock of a century ago, they were ordered to do battle for doctrines older than their weapons. they were told to rely on prayer, to answer all arguments by keeping out of discussions, and to overwhelm the skeptic by ignoring the facts. there was a time when the protestant clergy were in favor of education; that is to say, education enough to make a catholic a protestant, but not enough to make a protestant a philosopher. the catholics are also in favor of education enough to make a savage a catholic, and there they stop. the christian should never unsettle his belief. if he studies, if he reads, he is in danger. a new idea is a doubt; a doubt is the threshold of infidelity. the young ministers are warned against inquiry. they are educated like robins; they swallow whatever is thrown in the mouth, worms or shingle-nails, it makes no difference, and they are expected to get their revenge by treating their flocks precisely as the professors treated them. the creeds of the churches are being laughed at. thousands of young men say nothing, because they do not wish to hurt the feelings of mothers and maiden aunts. thousands of business men say nothing, for fear it may interfere with trade. politicians keep quiet for fear of losing influence. but when you get at the real opinions of people, a vast majority have outgrown the doctrines of orthodox christianity. some people think these things good for women and children, and use the lord as an immense policeman to keep order. every day ministers are uttering a declaration of independence. they are being examined by synods and committees of ministers, and they are beginning everywhere to say that they do not regard this life as a probationary stage; that the doctrine of eternal punishment is too bad; that the bible is, in many things, foolish, absurd, and infamous; that it must have been written by men. and the people at large are beginning to find that the ministers have kept back the facts; have not told the history of the bible; have not given to their congregations the latest advices, and so the feeling is becoming almost general that orthodox christianity has outlived its usefulness. the church has a great deal to contend with. the scientific men are not religious. geology laughs at genesis, and astronomy has concluded that joshua knew but very little of the motions of heavenly bodies. statesmen do not approve of the laws of moses; the intellect of the world is on the other side. there is something besides preaching on sunday. the newspaper is the rival of the pulpit. nearly all the cars are running on that blessed day. steamers take hundreds of thousands of excursionists. the man who has been at work all the week seeks the sight of the sea, and this has become so universal that the preacher is following his example. the flock has ceased to be afraid of the wolf, and the shepherd deserts the sheep. in a little while all the libraries will be open--all the museums. there will be music in the public parks; the opera, the theater. and what will churches do then? the cardinal points will be demonstrated to empty pews, unless the church is wise enough to meet the intellectual demands of the present. _question_. you speak as if the influences working against christianity to-day will tend to crush it out of existence. do you think that christianity is any worse off now than it was during the french revolution, when the priests were banished from the country and reason was worshiped; or in england, a hundred years ago, when hume, bolingbroke, and others made their attacks upon it? _answer._ you must remember that the french revolution was produced by catholicism; that it was a reaction; that it went to infinite extremes; that it was a revolution seeking revenge. it is not hard to understand those times, provided you know the history of the catholic church. the seeds of the french revolution were sown by priests and kings. the people had suffered the miseries of slavery for a thousand years, and the french revolution came because human nature could bear the wrongs no longer. it was something not reasoned; it was felt. only a few acted from intellectual convictions. the most were stung to madness, and were carried away with the desire to destroy. they wanted to shed blood, to tear down palaces, to cut throats, and in some way avenge the wrongs of all the centuries. catholicism has never recovered--it never will. the dagger of voltaire struck the heart; the wound was mortal. catholicism has staggered from that day to this. it has been losing power every moment. at the death of voltaire there were twenty millions less catholics than when he was born. in the french revolution muscle outran mind; revenge anticipated reason. there was destruction without the genius of construction. they had to use materials that had been rendered worthless by ages of catholicism. the french revolution was a failure because the french people were a failure, and the french people were a failure because catholicism had made them so. the ministers attack voltaire without reading him. probably there are not a dozen orthodox ministers in the world who have read the works of voltaire. i know of no one who has. only a little while ago, a minister told me he had read voltaire. i offered him one hundred dollars to repeat a paragraph, or to give the title, even, of one of voltaire's volumes. most ministers think he was an atheist. the trouble with the infidels in england a hundred years ago was that they did not go far enough. it may be that they could not have gone further and been allowed to live. most of them took the ground that there was an infinite, all-wise, beneficent god, creator of the universe, and that this all-wise, beneficent god certainly was too good to be the author of the bible. they, however, insisted that this good god was the author of nature, and the theologians completely turned the tables by showing that this god of nature was in the pestilence and plague business, manufactured earthquakes, overwhelmed towns and cities, and was, of necessity, the author of all pain and agony. in my judgment, the deists were all successfully answered. the god of nature is certainly as bad as the god of the old testament. it is only when we discard the idea of a deity, the idea of cruelty or goodness in nature, that we are able ever to bear with patience the ills of life. i feel that i am neither a favorite nor a victim. nature neither loves nor hates me. i do not believe in the existence of any personal god. i regard the universe as the one fact, as the one existence--that is, as the absolute thing. i am a part of this. i do not say that there is no god; i simply say that i do not believe there is. there may be millions of them. neither do i say that man is not immortal. upon that point i admit that i do not know, and the declarations of all the priests in the world upon that subject give me no light, and do not even tend to add to my information on the subject, because i know that they know that they do not know. the infidelity of a hundred years ago knew nothing, comparatively speaking, of geology; nothing of astronomy; nothing of the ideas of lamarck and darwin; nothing of evolution; nothing, comparatively speaking, of other religions; nothing of india, that womb of metaphysics; in other words, the infidels of a hundred years ago knew the creed of orthodox christianity to be false, but had not the facts to demonstrate it. the infidels of to-day have the facts; that is the difference. a hundred years ago it was a guessing prophecy; to-day it is the fact and fulfillment. everything in nature is working against superstition to-day. superstition is like a thorn in the flesh, and everything, from dust to stars, is working together to destroy the false. the smallest pebble answers the greatest parson. one blade of grass, rightly understood, destroys the orthodox creed. _question_. you say that the pews will be empty in the future unless the church meets the intellectual demands of the present. are not the ministers of to-day, generally speaking, much more intellectual than those of a hundred years ago, and are not the "liberal" views in regard to the inspiration of the bible, the atonement, future punishment, the fall of man, and the personal divinity of christ which openly prevail in many churches, an indication that the church is meeting the demands of many people who do not care to be classed as out-and-out disbelievers in christianity, but who have advanced views on those and other questions? _answer._ as to the first part of this question, i do not think the ministers of to-day are more intellectual than they were a hundred years ago; that is, i do not think they have greater brain capacity, but i think on the average, the congregations have a higher amount. the amelioration of orthodox christianity is not by the intelligence in the pulpit, but by the brain in the pews. another thing: one hundred years ago the church had intellectual honors to bestow. the pulpit opened a career. not so now. there are too many avenues to distinction and wealth--too much worldliness. the best minds do not go into the pulpit. martyrs had rather be burned than laughed at. most ministers of to-day are not naturally adapted to other professions promising eminence. there are some great exceptions, but those exceptions are the ministers nearest infidels. theodore parker was a great man. henry ward beecher is a great man--not the most consistent man in the world--but he is certainly a man of mark, a remarkable genius. if he could only get rid of the idea that plymouth church is necessary to him--after that time he would not utter an orthodox word. chapin was a man of mind. i might mention some others, but, as a rule, the pulpit is not remarkable for intelligence. the intelligent men of the world do not believe in orthodox christianity. it is to-day a symptom of intellectual decay. the conservative ministers are the stupid ones. the conservative professors are those upon whose ideas will be found the centuries' moss, old red sandstone theories, pre-historic silurian. now, as to the second part of the question: the views of the church are changing, the clergy of brooklyn to the contrary, notwithstanding. orthodox religion is a kind of boa-constrictor; anything it can not dodge it will swallow. the church is bound to have something for sale that somebody wants to buy. according to the pew demand will be the pulpit supply. in old times the pulpit dictated to the pews. things have changed. theology is now run on business principles. the gentleman who pays for the theories insists on having them suit him. ministers are intellectual gardeners, and they must supply the market with such religious vegetables as the congregations desire. thousands have given up belief in the inspiration of the bible, the divinity of christ, the atonement idea and original sin. millions believe now, that this is not a state of probation; that a man, provided he is well off and has given liberally to the church, or whose wife has been a regular attendant, will, in the next world, have another chance; that he will be permitted to file a motion for a new trial. others think that hell is not as warm as it used to be supposed; that, while it is very hot in the middle of the day, the nights are cool; and that, after all, there is not so much to fear from the future. they regard the old religion as very good for the poor, and they give them the old ideas on the same principle that they give them their old clothes. these ideas, out at the elbows, out at the knees, buttons off, somewhat raveled, will, after all, do very well for paupers. there is a great trade of this kind going on now--selling old theological clothes to the colored people in the south. all i have said applies to all churches. the catholic church changes every day. it does not change its ceremonies; but the spirit that begot the ceremonies, the spirit that clothed the skeleton of ceremony with the flesh and blood and throb of life and love, is gone. the spirit that built the cathedrals, the spirit that emptied the wealth of the world into the lap of rome, has turned in another direction. of course, the churches are all going to endeavor to meet the demands of the hour. they will find new readings for old texts. they will re-punctuate and re-parse the old testament. they will find that "flat" meant "a little rounding;" that "six days" meant "six long times;" that the word "flood" should have been translated "dampness," "dew," or "threatened rain;" that daniel in the lion's den was an historical myth; that samson and his foxes had nothing to do with this world. all these things will be gradually explained and made to harmonize with the facts of modern science. they will not change the words of the creed; they will simply give "new meanings and the highest criticism to-day is that which confesses and avoids. in other words, the churches will change as the people change. they will keep for sale that which can be sold. already the old goods are being "marked down." if, however, the church should fail, why then it must go. i see no reason, myself, for its existence. it apparently does no good; it devours without producing; it eats without planting, and is a perpetual burden. it teaches nothing of value. it misleads, mystifies, and misrepresents. it threatens without knowledge and promises without power. in my judgment, the quicker it goes the better for all mankind. but if it does not go in name, it must go in fact, because it must change; and, therefore, it is only a question of time when it ceases to divert from useful channels the blood and muscle of the world. _question_. you say that in the baccalaureate sermons delivered lately the theological students were told to answer arguments by keeping out of discussion. is it not the fact that ministers have of late years preached very largely on scientific disbelief, agnosticism, and infidelity, so much so as to lead to their being reprimanded by some of their more conservative brethren? _answer._ of course there are hundreds of thousands of ministers perpetually endeavoring to answer infidelity. their answers have done so much harm that the more conservative among the clergy have advised them to stop. thousands have answered me, and their answers, for the most part, are like this: paine was a blackguard, therefore the geology of genesis is on a scientific basis. we know the doctrine of the atonement is true, because in the french revolution they worshiped reason. and we know, too, all about the fall of man and the garden of eden because voltaire was nearly frightened to death when he came to die. these are the usual arguments, supplemented by a few words concerning myself. and, in my view, they are the best that can be made. failing to answer a man's argument, the next best thing is to attack his character. "you have no case," said an attorney to the plaintiff. "no matter," said the plaintiff, "i want you to give the defendant the devil." _question_. what have you to say to the rev. dr. baker's statement that he generally buys five or six tickets for your lectures and gives them to young men, who are shocked at the flippant way in which you are said to speak of the bible? _answer._ well, as to that, i have always wondered why i had such immense audiences in brooklyn and new york. this tends to clear away the mystery. if all the clergy follow the example of dr. baker, that accounts for the number seeking admission. of course, dr. baker would not misrepresent a thing like that, and i shall always feel greatly indebted to him, shall hereafter regard him as one of my agents, and take this occasion to return my thanks. he is certainly welcome to all the converts to christianity made by hearing me. still, i hardly think it honest in young men to play a game like that on the doctor. _question_. you speak of the eternal repetition of the old story of christianity and say that the more sermons like the one mr. beecher preached lately the better. is it not the fact that ministers, at the present time, do preach very largely on questions of purely moral, social, and humanitarian interest, so much so, indeed, as to provoke criticism on the part of the secular newspaper press? _answer._ i admit that there is a general tendency in the pulpit to preach about things happening in this world; in other words, that the preachers themselves are beginning to be touched with worldliness. they find that the new jerusalem has no particular interest for persons dealing in real estate in this world. and thousands of people are losing interest in abraham, in david, haggai, and take more interest in gentlemen who have the cheerful habit of living. they also find that their readers do not wish to be reminded perpetually of death and coffins; and worms and dust and gravestones and shrouds and epitaphs and hearses, biers, and cheerful subjects of that character. that they prefer to hear the minister speak about a topic in which they have a present interest, and about which something cheerful can be said. in fact, it is a relief to hear about politics, a little about art, something about stocks or the crops, and most ministers find it necessary to advertise that they are going to speak on something that has happened within the last eighteen hundred years, and that, for the time being, shadrach, meshech, and abednego will be left in the furnace. of course, i think that most ministers are reasonably honest. maybe they don't tell all their doubts, but undoubtedly they are endeavoring to make the world better, and most of the church members think that they are doing the best that can be done. i am not criticising their motives, but their methods. i am not attacking the character or reputation of ministers, but simply giving my ideas, avoiding anything personal. i do not pretend to be very good, nor very bad---just fair to middling. _question_. you say that christians will not read for fear that they will unsettle their belief. father fransiola (roman catholic) said in the interview i had with him: "if you do not allow man to reason you crush his manhood. therefore, he has to reason upon the credibility of his faith, and through reason, guided by faith, he discovers the truth, and so satisfies his wants." _answer._ without calling in question the perfect sincerity of father fransiola, i think his statement is exactly the wrong end to. i do not think that reason should be guided by faith; i think that faith should be guided by reason. after all, the highest possible conception of faith would be the science of probabilities, and the probable must not be based on what has not happened, but upon what has; not upon something we know nothing about, but the nature of the things with which we are acquainted. the foundation we must know something about, and whenever we reason, we must have something as a basis, something secular, something that we think we know. about these facts we reason, sometimes by analogy, and we say thus and so has happened, therefore thus and so may happen. we do not say thus and so _may_ happen, therefore something else _has_ happened. we must reason from the known to the unknown, not from the unknown to the known. this father admits that if you do not allow a man to reason you crush his manhood. at the same time he says faith must govern reason. who makes the faith? the church. and the church tells the man that he must take the faith, reason or no reason, and that he may afterward reason, taking the faith as a fact. this makes him an intellectual slave, and the poor devil mistakes for liberty the right to examine his own chains. these gentlemen endeavor to satisfy their prisoners by insisting that there is nothing beyond the walls. _question_. you criticise the church for not encouring the poor to mingle with the rich, and yet you defend the right of a man to choose his own company. are not these same distinctions made by non-confessing christians in real life, and will not there always be some greater, richer, wiser, than the rest? _answer._ i do not blame the church because there are these distinctions based on wealth, intelligence, and culture. what i blame the church for is pretending to do away with these distinctions. these distinctions in men are inherent; differences in brain, in race, in blood, in education, and they are differences that will eternally exist--that is, as long as the human race exists. some will be fortunate, some unfortunate, some generous, some stingy, some rich, some poor. what i wish to do away with is the contempt and scorn and hatred existing between rich and poor. i want the democracy of kindness--what you might call the republicanism of justice. i do not have to associate with a man to keep from robbing him. i can give him his rights without enjoying his company, and he can give me my rights without inviting me to dinner. why should not poverty have rights? and has not honest poverty the right to hold dishonest wealth in contempt, and will it not do it, whether it belongs to the same church or not? we cannot judge men by their wealth, or by the position they hold in society. i like every kind man; i hate every cruel one. i like the generous, whether they are poor or rich, ignorant or cultivated. i like men that love their families, that are kind to their wives, gentle with their children, no matter whether they are millionaires or mendicants. and to me the blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. i respect no man because he is rich; i hold in contempt no man because he is poor. _question_. some of the clergymen say that the spread of infidelity is greatly exaggerated; that it makes more noise and creates more notice than conservative christianity simply on account of its being outside of the accepted line of thought. _answer._ there was a time when an unbeliever, open and pronounced, was a wonder. at that time the church had great power; it could retaliate; it could destroy. the church abandoned the stake only when too many men objected to being burned. at that time infidelity was clad not simply in novelty, but often in fire. of late years the thoughts of men have been turned, by virtue of modern discoveries, as the result of countless influences, to an investigation of the foundation of orthodox religion. other religions were put in the crucible of criticism, and nothing was found but dross. at last it occurred to the intelligent to examine our own religion, and this examination has excited great interest and great comment. people want to hear, and they want to hear because they have already about concluded themselves that the creeds are founded in error. thousands come to hear me because they are interested in the question, because they want to hear a man say what they think. they want to hear their own ideas from the lips of another. the tide has turned, and the spirit of investigation, the intelligence, the intellectual courage of the world is on the other side. a real good old-fashioned orthodox minister who believes the thirty-nine articles with all his might, is regarded to-day as a theological mummy, a kind of corpse acted upon by the galvanic battery of faith, making strange motions, almost like those of life--not quite. _question_. how would you convey moral instruction from youth up, and what kind of instruction would you give? _answer._ i regard christianity as a failure. now, then, what is christianity? i do not include in the word "christianity" the average morality of the world or the morality taught in all systems of religion; that is, as distinctive christianity. christianity is this: a belief in the inspiration of the scriptures, the atonement, the life, death, and resurrection of christ, an eternal reward for the believers in christ, and eternal punishment for the rest of us. now, take from christianity its miracles, its absurdities of the atonement and fall of man and the inspiration of the scriptures, and i have no objection to it as i understand it. i believe, in the main, in the christianity which i suppose christ taught, that is, in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness. i do not believe in loving enemies; i have pretty hard work to love my friends. neither do i believe in revenge. no man can afford to keep the viper of revenge in his heart. but i believe in justice, in self-defence. christianity--that is, the miraculous part--must be abandoned. as to morality--morality is born, is born of the instinct of self-preservation. if man could not suffer, the word "conscience" never would have passed his lips. self-preservation makes larceny a crime. murder will be regarded as a bad thing as long as a majority object to being murdered. morality does not come from the clouds; it is born of human want and human experience. we need no inspiration, no inspired work. the industrious man knows that the idle has no right to rob him of the product of his labor, and the idle man knows that he has no right to do it. it is not wrong because we find it in the bible, but i presume it was put in the bible because it is wrong. then, you find in the bible other things upheld that are infamous. and why? because the writers of the bible were barbarians, in many things, and because that book is a mixture of good and evil. i see no trouble in teaching morality without miracle. i see no use of miracle. what can men do with it? credulity is not a virtue. the credulous are not necessarily charitable. wonder is not the mother of wisdom. i believe children should be taught to investigate and to reason for themselves, and that there are facts enough to furnish a foundation for all human virtue. we will take two families; in the one, the father and mother are both christians, and they teach their children their creed; teach them that they are naturally totally depraved; that they can only hope for happiness in a future life by pleading the virtues of another, and that a certain belief is necessary to salvation; that god punishes his children forever. such a home has a certain atmosphere. take another family; the father and mother teach their children that they should be kind to each other because kindness produces happiness; that they should be gentle; that they should be just, because justice is the mother of joy. and suppose this father and mother say to their children: "if you are happy it must be as a result of your own actions; if you do wrong you must suffer the consequences. no christ can redeem you; no savior can suffer for you. you must suffer the consequences of your own misdeeds. if you plant you must reap, and you must reap what you plant." and suppose these parents also say: "you must find out the conditions of happiness. you must investigate the circumstances by which you are surrounded. you must ascertain the nature and relation of things so that you can act in accordance with known facts, to the end that you may have health and peace." in such a family, there would be a certain atmosphere, in my judgment, a thousand times better and purer and sweeter than in the other. the church generally teaches that rascality pays in this world, but not in the next; that here virtue is a losing game, but the dividends will be large in another world. they tell the people that they must serve god on credit, but the devil pays cash here. that is not my doctrine. my doctrine is that a thing is right because it pays, in the highest sense. that is the reason it is right. the reason a thing is wrong is because it is the mother of misery. virtue has its reward here and now. it means health; it means intelligence, contentment, success. vice means exactly the opposite. most of us have more passion than judgment, carry more sail than ballast, and by the tempest of passion we are blown from port, we are wrecked and lost. we cannot be saved by faith or by belief. it is a slower process: we must be saved by knowledge, by intelligence--the only lever capable of raising mankind. _question_. the shorter catechism, colonel, you may remember says "that man's chief end is to glorify god and enjoy him forever." what is your idea of the chief end of man? _answer._ it has always seemed a little curious to me that joy should be held in such contempt here, and yet promised hereafter as an eternal reward. why not be happy here, as well as in heaven. why not have joy here? why not go to heaven now--that is, to-day? why not enjoy the sunshine of this world, and all there is of good in it? it is bad enough; so bad that i do not believe it was ever created by a beneficent deity; but what little good there is in it, why not have it? neither do i believe that it is the end of man to glorify god. how can the infinite be glorified? does he wish for reputation? he has no equals, no superiors. how can he have what we call reputation? how can he achieve what we call glory? why should he wish the flattery of the average presbyterian? what good will it do him to know that his course has been approved of by the methodist episcopal church? what does he care, even, for the religious weeklies, or the presidents of religious colleges? i do not see how we can help god, or hurt him. if there be an infinite being, certainly nothing we can do can in any way affect him. we can affect each other, and therefore man should be careful not to sin against man. for that reason i have said a hundred times, injustice is the only blasphemy. if there be a heaven i want to associate there with the ones who have loved me here. i might not like the angels and the angels might not like me. i want to find old friends. i do not care to associate with the infinite; there could be no freedom in such society. i suppose i am not spiritual enough, and am somewhat touched with worldliness. it seems to me that everybody ought to be honest enough to say about the infinite "i know nothing of eternal joy, i have no conception about another world, i know nothing." at the same time, i am not attacking anybody for believing in immortality. the more a man can hope, and the less he can fear, the better. i have done what i could to drive from the human heart the shadow of eternal pain. i want to put out the fires of an ignorant and revengeful hell. the limitations of toleration. * a discussion between col. robert g. ingersoll, hon. frederic r. coudert, ex-gov. stewart l. woodford, before the nineteenth century club of new york, at the metropolitan opera house, may , . the points for discussion, as submitted in advance, were the following propositions: colonel ingersoll's opening. ladies, mr. president and gentlemen: i am here to-night for the purpose of defending your right to differ with me. i want to convince you that you are under no compulsion to accept my creed; that you are, so far as i am concerned, absolutely free to follow the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and i believe that you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that you claim for yourselves. first. thought is a necessary natural product--the result of what is called impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain, not forgetting the fact of heredity. second. no human being is accountable to any being-human or divine--for his thoughts. third. human beings have a certain interest in the thoughts of each other, and one who undertakes to tell his thoughts should be honest. fourth. all have an equal right to express their thoughts upon all subjects. fifth. for one man to say to another, "i tolerate you," is an assumption of authority--not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute. sixth. each man has the same right to express to the whole world his ideas, that the rest of the world have to express their thoughts to him. courtlandt palmer, esq., president of the club, in introducing mr. ingersoll, among other things said: "the inspiration of the orator of the evening seems to be that of the great victor hugo, who uttered the august saying, 'there shall be no slavery of the mind.' "when i was in paris, about a year ago, i visited the tomb of victor hugo. it was placed in a recess in the crypt of the pantheon. opposite it was the tomb of jean jacques rousseau. near by, in another recess, was the memorial statue of voltaire; and i felt, as i looked at these three monuments, that had colonel ingersoll been born in france, and had he passed in his long life account, the acclaim of the liberal culture of france would have enlarged that trio into a quartette. "colonel ingersoll has appeared in several important debates in print, notably with judge jeremiah s. black formerly attorney-general of the united states: lately in the pages of the north american review with the rev. dr. henry m. field, and last but not least the right hon. william e gladstone, england's greatest citizen, has taken up the cudgel against him in behalf of his view of orthodoxy to-night, i believe-for the first time, the colonel has consented to appear in a colloquial discussion. i have now the honor to introduce this distinguished orator." i admit, at the very threshold, that every human being thinks as he must; and the first proposition really is, whether man has the right to think. it will bear but little discussion, for the reason that no man can control his thought. if you think you can, what are you going to think to-morrow? what are you going to think next year? if you can absolutely control your thought, can you stop thinking? the question is, has the will any power over the thought? what is thought? it is the result of nature--of the outer world--first upon the senses--those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce, thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be produced. whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. whoever hears any sound--or any symphony--no matter what--thinks. whoever looks upon the sea, or on a star, or on a flower, or on the face of a fellow-man, thinks, and the result of that look is an absolute necessity. the thought produced will depend upon your brain, upon your experience, upon the history of your life. one who looks upon the sea, knowing that the one he loved the best had been devoured by its hungry waves, will have certain thoughts; and he who sees it for the first time, will have different thoughts. in other words, no two brains are alike; no two lives have been or are or ever will be the same. consequently, nature cannot produce the same effect upon any two brains, or upon any two hearts. the only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. if we were all the same, we would die dumb. no thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. we differ--our thoughts are different. therefore the commerce that we call conversation. back of language is thought. back of language is the desire to express our thought to another. this desire not only gave us language--this desire has given us the libraries of the world. and not only the libraries; this desire to express thought, to show to others the splendid children of the brain, has written every book, formed every language, painted every picture, and chiseled every statue--this desire to express our thought to others, to reap the harvest of the brain. if, then, thought is a necessity, "it follows as the night the day" that there is, there can be, no responsibility for thought to any being, human or divine. a camera contains a sensitive plate. the light flashes upon it, and the sensitive plate receives a picture. is it in fault, is it responsible, for the picture? so with the brain. an image is left on it, a picture is imprinted there. the plate may not be perfectly level--it may be too concave, or too convex, and the picture may be a deformity; so with the brain. but the man does not make his own brain, and the consequence is, if the picture is distorted it is not the fault of the brain. we take then these two steps: first, thought is a necessity; and second, the thought depends upon the brain. each brain is a kind of field where nature sows with careless hands the seeds of thought. some brains are poor and barren fields, producing weeds and thorns, and some are like the tropic world where grow the palm and pine--children of the sun and soil. you read shakespeare. what do you get out of shakespeare? all that your brain is able to hold. it depends upon your brain. if you are great--if you have been cultivated--if the wings of your imagination have been spread--if you have had great, free, and splendid thoughts--'r you have stood upon the edge of things--if you have had the courage to meet all that can come--you get an immensity from shakespeare. if you have lived nobly--if you have loved with every drop of your blood and every fibre of your being--if you have suffered--if you have enjoyed--then you get an immensity from shakespeare. but if you have lived a poor, little, mean, wasted, barren, weedy life--you get very little from that immortal man. so it is from every source in nature--what you get depends upon what you are. take then the second step. if thought is a necessity, there can be no responsibility for thought. and why has man ever believed that his fellow-man was responsible for his thought? everything that is, everything that has been, has been naturally produced. man has acted as, under the same circumstances, we would have acted; because when you say "under the circumstances," it is the same as to say that you would do exactly as they have done. there has always been in men the instinct of self-preservation. there was a time when men believed, and honestly believed, that there was above them a god. sometimes they believed in many, but it will be sufficient for my illustration to say, one. man believed that there was in the sky above him a god who attended to the affairs of men. he believed that that god, sitting upon his throne, rewarded virtue and punished vice. he believed also, that that god held the community responsible for the sins of individuals. he honestly believed it. when the flood came, or when the earthquake devoured, he really believed that some god was filled with anger--with holy indignation--at his children. he believed it, and so he looked about among his neighbors to see who was in fault, and if there was any man who had failed to bring his sacrifice to the altar, had failed to kneel, it may be to the priest, failed to be present in the temple, or had given it as his opinion that the god of that tribe or of that nation was of no use, then, in order to placate the god, they seized the neighbor and sacrificed him on the altar of their ignorance and of their fear. they believed when the lightning leaped from the cloud and left its blackened mark upon the man, that he had done something--that he had excited the wrath of the gods. and while man so believed, while he believed that it was necessary, in order to defend himself, to kill his neighbor--he acted simply according to the dictates of his nature. what i claim is that we have nov-advanced far enough not only to think, but to know, that the conduct of man has nothing to do with the phenomena of nature. we are now advanced far enough to absolutely know that no man can be bad enough and no nation infamous enough to cause an earthquake. i think we have got to that point that we absolutely know that no man can be wicked enough to entice one of the bolts from heaven--that no man can be cruel enough to cause a drought--and that you could not have infidels enough on the earth to cause another flood. i think we have advanced far enough not only to say that, but to absolutely know it--i mean people who have thought, and in whose minds there is something like reasoning. we know, if we know anything, that the lightning is just as apt to hit a good man as a bad man. we know it. we know that the earthquake is just as liable to swallow virtue as to swallow vice. and you know just as well as i do that a ship loaded with pirates is just as apt to outride the storm as one crowded with missionaries. you know it. i am now speaking of the phenomena of nature. i believe, as much as i believe that i live, that the reason a thing is right is because it tends to the happiness of mankind. i believe, as much as i be-believe that i live, that on the average the good man is not only the happier man, but that no man is happy who is not good. if then we have gotten over that frightful, that awful superstition--we are ready to enjoy hearing the thoughts of each other. i do not say, neither do i intend to be understood as saying, that there is no god. all i intend to say is, that so far as we can see, no man is punished, no nation is punished by lightning, or famine, or storm. everything happens to the one as to the other. now, let us admit that there is an infinite god. that has nothing to do with the sinlessness of thought--nothing to do with the fact that no man is accountable to any being, human or divine, for what he thinks. and let me tell you why. if there be an infinite god, leave him to deal with men who sin against him. you can trust him, if you believe in him. he has the power. he has a heaven full of bolts. trust him. and now that you are satisfied that the earthquake will not swallow you, or the lightning strike you, simply because you tell your thoughts, if one of your neighbors differs with you, and acts improperly or thinks or speaks improperly of your god, leave him with your god--he can attend to him a thousand times better than you can, he has the time. he lives from eternity to eternity. more than that, he has the means. so that, whether there be this being or not, you have no right to interfere with your neighbor. the next proposition is, that i have the same right to express my thought to the whole world, that the whole world has to express its thought to me. i believe that this realm of thought is not a democracy, where the majority rule; it is not a republic. it is a country with one inhabitant. this brain is the world in which my mind lives, and my mind is the sovereign of that realm. we are all kings, and one man balances the rest of the world as one drop of water balances the sea. each soul is crowned. each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens of the intellectual world who give to every other human being every right that they claim for themselves, and only those are traitors in the great realm of thought who abandon reason and appeal to force. if now i have got out of your minds the idea that you must abuse your neighbors to keep on good terms with god, then the question of religion is exactly like every question--i mean of thought, of mind--i have nothing to say now about action. is there authority in the world of art? can a legislature pass a law that a certain picture is beautiful, and can it pass a law putting in the penitentiary any impudent artistic wretch who says that to him it is not beautiful? precisely the same with music. our ears are not all the same; we are not touched by the same sounds--the same beautiful memories* do not arise. suppose you have an authority in music? you may make men, it may be, by offering them office or by threatening them with punishment, swear that they all like that tune--but you never will know till the day of your death whether they do or not. the moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites--and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks. so in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. no one can be compelled to pray. no matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. you cannot do it. neither can you compel anybody to worship a god. worship rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. it cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one else commands. it must be absolutely true to the law of its own nature. and do you think any god would be satisfied with compulsory worship? would he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees repeating words without a soul--giving him what you might call the shucks of sound? will any god be satisfied with that? and so i say, we must be as free in one department of thought as another. now, i take the next step, and that is, that the rights of all are absolutely equal. i have the same right to give you my opinion that you have to give me yours. i have no right to compel you to hear, if you do not want to. i have no right to compel you to speak if you do not want to. if you do not wish to know my thought, i have no right to force it upon you. the next thing is, that this liberty of thought, this liberty of expression, is of more value than any other thing beneath the stars. of more value than any religion, of more value than any government, of more value than all the constitutions that man has written and all the laws that he has passed, is this liberty--the absolute liberty of the human mind. take away that word from language, and all other words become meaningless sounds, and there is then no reason for a man being and living upon the earth. so then, i am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality--that is all. you come to me with a new idea. i invite you into the house. let us see what you have. let us talk it over. if i do not like your thought, i will bid it a polite "good day." if i do like it, i will say: "sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world." that is all. and how any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. here is a man who speaks--who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. can liberty go further than that? is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty--the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak? is there any limitation beyond that? so, whoever has spoken against the right to speak has admitted that he violated his own doctrine. no man can open his mouth against the freedom of speech without denying every argument he may put forward. why? he is exercising the right that he denies. how did he get it? suppose there is one man on an island. you will all admit now that he would have the right to do his own thinking. you will all admit that he has the right to express his thought. now, will somebody tell me how many men would have to emigrate to that island before the original settler would lose his right to think and his right to express himself? if there be an infinite being--and it is a question that i know nothing about--you would be perfectly astonished to know how little i do know on that subject, and yet i know as much as the aggregated world knows, and as little as the smallest insect that ever fanned with happy wings the summer air--if there be such a being, i have the same right to think that he has simply because it is a necessity of my nature--because i cannot help it. and the infinite would be just as responsible to the smallest intelligence living in the infinite spaces--he would be just as responsible to that intelligence as that intelligence can be to him, provided that intelligence thinks as a necessity of his nature. there is another phrase to which i object--"toleration." "the limits of toleration." why say "toleration"? i will tell you why. when the thinkers were in the minority--when the philosophers were vagabonds--when the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires--when the majority were ignorantly orthodox--when they hated the heretic as a last year's leaf hates a this year's bud--in that delightful time these poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to conscientious rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "don't kill us; don't be so arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." at that time the minority was too small to talk about rights, and the great big ignorant majority when tired of shedding blood, said: "well, we will tolerate you; we can afford to wait; you will not live long, and when the being of infinite compassion gets hold of you we will glut our revenge through an eternity of joy; we will ask you every now and then, 'what is your opinion now?'" both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took the place almost of liberty. but i do not like it. when you say "i tolerate," you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to persecute. it is only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few years, but you retain the right. i deny it. and let me say here to-night--it is your experience, it is mine--that the bigger a man is the more charitable he is; you know it. the more brain he has, the more excuses he finds for all the world; you know it. and if there be in heaven an infinite being, he must be grander than any man; he must have a thousand times more charity than the human heart can hold, and is it possible that he is going to hold his ignorant children responsible for the impressions made by nature upon their brain? let us have some sense. there is another side to this question, and that is with regard to the freedom of thought and expression in matters pertaining to this world. no man has a right to hurt the character of a neighbor. he has no right to utter slander. he has no right to bear false witness. he has no right to be actuated by any motive except for the general good--but the things he does here to his neighbor--these are easily defined and easily punished. all that i object to is setting up a standard of authority in the world of art, the world of beauty, the world of poetry, the world of worship, the world of religion, and the world of metaphysics. that is what i object to; and if the old doctrines had been carried out, every human being that has benefited this world would have been destroyed. if the people who believe that a certain belief is necessary to insure salvation had had control of this world, we would have been as ignorant to-night as wild beasts. every step in advance has been made in spite of them. there has not been a book of any value printed since the invention of that art--and when i say "of value," i mean that contained new and splendid truths--that was not anathematized by the gentlemen who believed that man is responsible for his thought. every step has been taken in spite of that doctrine. consequently i simply believe in absolute liberty of mind. and i have no fear about any other world--not the slightest. when i get there, i will give my honest opinion of that country; i will give my honest thought there; and if for that i lose my soul, i will keep at least my self-respect. a man tells me a story. i believe it, or disbelieve it. i cannot help it. i read a story--no matter whether in the original hebrew, or whether it has been translated. i believe it or i disbelieve it. no matter whether it is written in a very solemn or a very flippant manner--i have my idea about its truth. and i insist that each man has the right to judge that for himself, and for that reason, as i have already said, i am defending your right to differ with me--that is all. and if you do differ with me, all that it proves is that i do not agree with you. there is no man that lives to-night beneath the stars--there is no being--that can force my soul upon its knees, unless the reason is given. i will be no slave. i do not care how big my master is, i am just as small, if a slave, as though the master were small. it is not the greatness of the master that can honor the slave. in other words, i am going to act according to my right, as i understand it, without interfering with any other human being. and now, if you think--any of you, that you can control your thought, i want you to try it. there is not one here who can by any possibility think, only as he must. you remember the story of the methodist minister who insisted that he could control his thoughts. a man said to him, "nobody can control his own mind." "oh, yes, he can," the preacher replied. "my dear sir," said the man, "you cannot even say the lord's prayer without thinking of something else." "oh, yes, i can." "well, if you will do it, i will give you that horse, the best riding horse in this county." "well, who is to judge?" said the preacher. "i will take your own word for it, and if you say the lord's prayer through without thinking of anything else, i will give you that horse." so the minister shut his eyes and began: "our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come. thy will be done,"--"i suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?" i say to you to-night, ladies and gentlemen, that i feel more interest in the freedom of thought and speech than in all other questions, knowing, as i do, that it is the condition of great and splendid progress for the race; remembering, as i do, that the opposite idea has covered the cheek of the world with tears; remembering, and knowing, as i do, that the enemies of free thought and free speech have covered this world with blood. these men have filled the heavens with an infinite monster; they have filled the future with fire and flame, and they have made the present, when they have had the power, a perdition. these men, these doctrines, have carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. these men, these doctrines, have hated to see the dawn of an intellectual day. these men, these doctrines, have denied every science, and denounced and killed every philosopher they could lay their bloody, cruel, ignorant hands upon. and for that reason, i am for absolute liberty of thought, everywhere, in every department, domain, and realm of the human mind. remarks of mr. coudert. _ladies and gentlemen and mr. president_: it is not only "the sense of the church" that i am lacking now, i am afraid it is any sense at all; and i am only wondering how a reasonably intelligent being--meaning myself--could in view of the misfortune that befell mr. kernan, have undertaken to speak to-night. this is a new experience. i have never sung in any of verdi's operas--i have never listened to one through--but i think i would prefer to try all three of these performances rather than go on with this duty which, in a vain moment of deluded vanity, i heedlessly undertook. i am in a new field here. i feel very much like the master of a ship who thinks that he can safely guide his bark. (i am not alluding to the traditional bark of st. peter, in which i hope that i am and will always be, but the ordinary bark that requires a compass and a rudder and a guide.) and i find that all these ordinary things, which we generally take for granted, and which are as necessary to our safety as the air which we breathe, or the sunshine that we enjoy, have been quietly, pleasantly, and smilingly thrown overboard by the gentleman who has just preceded me. carlyle once said--and the thought came to me as the gentleman was speaking--"a comic history of england!"--for some wretch had just written such a book--(talk of free thought and free speech when men do such things!)--"a comic history of england!" the next thing we shall hear of will be "a comic history of the bible!" i think we have heard the first chapter of that comic history to-night; and the only comfort that i have--and possibly some other antiquated and superannuated persons of either sex, if such there be within my hearing--is that such things as have seemed to me charmingly to partake of the order of blasphemy, have been uttered with such charming bonhomie, and received with such enthusiastic admiration, that i have wondered whether we are in a christian audience of the nineteenth century, or in a possible ingersollian audience of the twenty-third. and let me first, before i enter upon the very few and desultory remarks, which are the only ones that i can make now and with which i may claim your polite attention--let me say a word about the comparison with which your worthy president opened these proceedings. there are two or three things upon which i am a little sensitive: one, aspersions upon the land of my birth--the city of new york; the next, the land of my fathers; and the next, the bark that i was just speaking of. now your worthy president, in his well-meant efforts to exhibit in the best possible style the new actor upon his stage, said that he had seen victor hugo's remains, and voltaire's, and jean jacques rousseau's, and that he thought the niche might well be filled by colonel ingersoll. if that had been merely the expression of a natural desire to see him speedily annihilated, i might perhaps in the interests of the christian community have thought, but not said, "amen!" (here you will at once observe the distinction i make between free thought and free speech!) i do not think, and i beg that none of you, and particularly the eloquent rhetorician who preceded me, will think, that in anything i may say i intend any personal discourtesy, for i do believe to some extent in freedom of speech upon a platform like this. such a debate as this rises entirely above and beyond the plane of personalities. i suppose that your president intended to compare colonel ingersoll to voltaire, to hugo and to rousseau. i have no retainer from either of those gentlemen, but for the reason that i just gave you, i wish to defend their memory from what i consider a great wrong. and so i do not think--with all respect to the eloquent and learned gentleman--that he is entitled to a place in that niche. voltaire did many wrong things. he did them for many reasons, and chiefly because he was human. but voltaire did a great deal to build up. leaving aside his noble tragedies, which charmed and delighted his audiences, and dignified the stage, throughout his work was some effort to ameliorate the condition of the human race. he fought against torture; he fought against persecution; he fought against bigotry; he clamored and wrote against littleness and fanaticism in every way, and he was not ashamed when he entered upon his domains at fernay, to erect a church to the god of whom the most our friend can say is, "i do not know whether he exists or not." rousseau did many noble things, but he was a madman, and in our day would probably have been locked up in an asylum and treated by intelligent doctors. his works, however, bear the impress of a religious education, and if there be in his works or sayings anything to parallel what we have heard tonight--whether a parody on divine revelation, or a parody upon the prayer of prayers--i have not seen it. victor hugo has enriched the literature of his day with prose and poetry that have made him the shakespeare of the nineteenth century--poems as deeply imbued with a devout sense of responsibility to the almighty as the writings of an archbishop or a cardinal. he has left the traces of his beneficent action all over the literature of his day, of his country, and of his race. all these men, then, have built up something. will anyone, the most ardent admirer of colonel ingersoll, tell me what he has built up? to go now to the argument. the learned gentleman says that freedom of thought is a grand thing. unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. what one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only could? what persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain--that bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with our blood--and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable and uncontrolled? is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free? when in the history of the world has thought ever been fettered? if there be a page in history upon which such an absurdity is written, i have failed to find it. thought is beyond the domain of man. the most cruel and arbitrary ruler can no more penetrate into your bosom and mine and extract the inner workings of our brain, than he can scale the stars or pull down the sun from its seat. thought must be free. thought is unseen, unhandled and untouched, and no despot has yet been able to reach it, except when the thoughts burst into words. and therefore, may we not consider now, and say, that liberty of word is what he wants, and not liberty of thought, which no one has ever gainsaid, or disputed? liberty of speech!--and the gentleman generously tells us, "why, i only ask for myself what i would cheerfully extend to you. i wish you to be free; and you can even entertain those old delusions which your mothers taught, and look with envious admiration upon me while i scale the giddy heights of olympus, gather the honey and approach the stars and tell you how pure the air is in those upper regions which you are unable to reach." thanks for his kindness! but i think that it is one thing for us to extend to him that liberty that he asks for--the liberty to destroy--and another thing for him to give us the liberty which we claim--the liberty to conserve. oh, destruction is so easy, destruction is so pleasant! it marks the footsteps all through our life. the baby begins by destroying his bib; the older child by destroying his horse, and when the man is grown up and he joins the regiment with the latent instinct that when he gets a chance he will destroy human life. this building cost many thousand days' work. it was planned by more or less skillful architects (ignorant of ventilation, but well-meaning). men lavished their thought, and men lavished their sweat for a pittance, upon this building. it took months and possibly years to build it and to adorn it and to beautify it. and yet, as it stands complete tonight with all of you here in the vigor of your life and in the enjoyment of such entertainment as you may get here this evening, i will find a dozen men who with a few pounds of dynamite will reduce it and all of us to instant destruction. the dynamite man may say to me, "i give you full liberty to build and occupy and insure, if you will give me liberty to blow up." is that a fair bargain? am i bound in conscience and in good sense to accept it? liberty of speech! tell me where liberty of speech has ever existed. there have been free societies, england was a free country. france has struggled through crisis after crisis to obtain liberty of speech. we think we have liberty of speech, as we understand it, and yet who would undertake to say that our society could live with liberty of speech? we have gone through many crises in our short history, and we know that thought is nothing before the law, but the word is an act--as guilty at times as the act of killing, or burglary, or any of the violent crimes that disgrace humanity and require the police. a word is an act--an act of the tongue; and why should my tongue go unpunished, and i who wield it mercilessly toward those who are weaker than i, escape, if my arm is to be punished when i use it tyrannously? whom would you punish for the murder of desdemona--is it iago, or othello? who was the villain, who was the criminal, who deserved the scaffold--who but free speech? iago exercised free speech. he poisoned the ear of othello and nerved his arm and othello was the murderer--but iago went scot free. that was a word. "oh," says the counsel, "but that does not apply to individuals; be tender and charitable to individuals." tender and charitable to men if they endeavor to destroy all that you love and venerate and respect! are you tender and charitable to me if you enter my house, my castle, and debauch my children from the faith that they have been taught? are you tender and charitable to them and to me when you teach them that i have instructed them in falsehood, that their mother has rocked them in blasphemy, and that they are now among the fools and the witlings of the world because they believe in my precepts? is that the charity that you speak of? heaven forbid that liberty of speech such as that, should ever invade my home or yours! we all understand, and the learned gentleman will admit, that his discourse is but an eloquent apology for blasphemy. and when i say this, i beg you to believe me incapable of resorting to the cheap artifice of strong words to give point to a pointless argument, or to offend a courteous adversary. i think if i put it to him he would, with characteristic candor, say, "yes, that is what i claim--the liberty to blaspheme; the world has outgrown these things; and i claim to-day, as i claimed a few months ago in the neighboring gallant little state of new jersey, that while you cannot slander man, your tongue is free to revile and insult man's maker." new jersey was behind in the race for progress, and did not accept his argument. his unfortunate client was convicted and had to pay the fine which the press--which is seldom mistaken--says came from the pocket of his generous counsel. the argument was a strong one; the argument was brilliant, and was able; and i say now, with all my predilections for the church of my fathers, and for your church (because it is not a question of our differences, but it is a question whether the tree shall be torn up by the roots, not what branches may bear richer fruit or deserve to be lopped off)--i say, why has every christian state passed these statutes against blasphemy? turning into ridicule sacred things--firing off the lord's prayer as you would a joke from joe miller or a comic poem--that is what i mean by blasphemy. if there is any other or better definition, give it me, and i will use it. now understand. all these states of ours care not one fig what our religion is. behave yourselves properly, obey the laws, do not require the intervention of the police, and the majesty of your conscience will be as exalted as the sun. but the wisest men and the best men--possibly not so eloquent as the orator, but i may say it without offence to him--other names that shine brightly in the galaxy of our best men, have insisted and maintained that the christian faith was the ligament that kept our modern society together, and our laws have said, and the laws of most of our states say, to this day, "think what you like, but do not, like samson, pull the pillars down upon us all." if i had anything to say, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that i should say it now. my exordium has been very long, but it was no longer than the dignity of the subject, perhaps, demanded. free speech we all have. absolute liberty of speech we never had. did we have it before the war? many of us here remember that if you crossed an imaginary line and went among some of the noblest and best men that ever adorned this continent, one word against slavery meant death. and if you say that that was the influence of slavery, i will carry you to boston, that city which numbers within its walls as many intelligent people to the acre as any city on the globe--was it different there? why, the fugitive, beaten, blood-stained slave, when he got there, was seized and turned back; and when a few good and brave men, in defence of free speech, undertook to defend the slave and to try and give him liberty, they were mobbed and pelted and driven through the city. you may say, "that proves there was no liberty of speech." no; it proves this: that wherever, and wheresoever, and whenever, liberty of speech is incompatible with the safety of the state, liberty of speech must fall back and give way, in order that the state may be preserved. first, above everything, above all things, the safety of the people is the supreme law. and if rhetoricians, anxious to tear down, anxious to pluck the faith from the young ones who are unable to defend it, come forward with nickel-plated platitudes and commonplaces clothed in second-hand purple and tinsel, and try to tear down the temple, then it is time, i shall not say for good men--for i know so few they make a small battalion--but for good women, to come to the rescue. general woodford's speech. mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen>: at this late hour, i could not attempt--even if i would--the eloquence of my friend colonel ingersoll; nor the wit and rapier-like sarcasm of my other valued friend mr. coudert. but there are some things so serious about this subject that we discuss to-night, that i crave your pardon if, without preface, and without rhetoric, i get at once to what from my protestant standpoint seems the fatal logical error of mr. inger-soll's position. mr. ingersoll starts with the statement--and that i may not, for i could not, do him injustice, nor myself injustice, in the quotation, i will give it as he stated it--he starts with this statement: that thought is a necessary natural product, the result of what we call impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain. do you think that is thought? now stop--turn right into your own minds--is that thought? does not will power take hold? does not reason take hold? does not memory take hold, and is not thought the action of the brain based upon the impression and assisted or directed by manifold and varying influences? secondly, our friend mr. ingersoll says that no human being is accountable to any being, human or divine, for his thought. he starts with the assumption that thought is the inevitable impression burnt upon the mind at once, and then jumps to the conclusion that there is no responsibility. now, is not that a fair logical analysis of what he has said? my senses leave upon my mind an impression, and then my mind, out of that impression, works good or evil. the glass of brandy, being presented to my physical sense, inspires thirst--inspires the thought of thirst--inspires the instinct of debauchery. am i not accountable for the result of the mind given me, whether i yield to the debauch, or rise to the dignity of self-control? every thing of sense leaves its impression upon the mind. if there be no responsibility anywhere, then is this world blind chance. if there be no responsibility anywhere, then my friend deserves no credit if he be guiding you in the path of truth, and i deserve no censure if i be carrying you back into the path of superstition. why, admit for a moment that a man has no control over his thought, and you destroy absolutely the power of regenerating the world, the power of improving the world. the world swings one way, or it swings the other. if it be true that in all these ages we have come nearer and nearer to a perfect liberty, that is true simply and alone because the mind of man through reason, through memory, through a thousand inspirations and desires and hopes, has ever tended toward better results and higher achievements. no accountability? i speak not for my friend, but i recognize that i am accountable to myself; i recognize that whether i rise or fall, that whether my life goes upward or downward, i am responsible to myself. and so, in spite of all sophistry, so in spite of all dream, so in spite of all eloquence, each woman, each man within this audience is responsible--first of all to herself and himself--whether when bad thoughts, when passion, when murder, when evil come into the heart or brain he harbors them there or he casts them out. i am responsible further--i am responsible to my neighbor. i know that i am my neighbor's keeper, i know that as i touch your life, as you touch mine, i am responsible every moment, every hour, every day, for my influence upon you. i am either helping you up, or i am dragging you down; you are either helping me up or you are dragging me down--and you know it. sophistry cannot get away from this; eloquence cannot seduce us from it. you know that if you look back through the record of your life, there are lives that you have helped and lives that you have hurt. you know that there are lives on the downward plane that went down because in an evil hour you pushed them; you know, perhaps with blessing, lives that have gone up because you have reached out to them a helping hand. that responsibility for your neighbor is a responsibility and an accountability that you and i cannot avoid or evade. i believe one thing further: that because there is a creation there is a creator. i believe that because there is force, there is a projector of force; because there is matter, there is spirit. i reverently believe these things. i am not angry with my neighbor because he does not; it may be that he is right, that i am wrong; but if there be a power that sent me into this world, so far as that power has given me wrong direction, or permitted wrong direction, that power will judge me justly. so far as i disregard the light that i have, whatever it may be--whether it br light of reason, light of conscience, light of history--so far as i do that which my judgment tells me is wrong, i am responsible and i am accountable. now the protestant theory, as i understand it, is simply this: it would vary from the theory as taught by the mother church--it certainly swings far away from the theory as suggested by my friend; i understand the protestant theory to be this: that every man is responsible to himself, to his neighbor, and to his god, for his thought. not for the first impression--but for that impression, for that direction and result which he intelligently gives to the first impression or deduces from it. i understand that the protestant idea is this: that man may think--we know he will think--for himself; but that he is responsible for it. that a man may speak his thought, so long as he does not hurt his neighbor. he must use his own liberty so that he shall not injure the well-being of any other one--so that when using this liberty, when exercising this freedom, he is accountable at the last to his god. and so protestantism sends me into the world with this terrible and solemn responsibility. it leaves mr. ingersoll free to speak his thought at the bar of his conscience, before the bar of his fellow-man, but it holds him in the inevitable grip of absolute responsibility for every light word idly spoken. god grant that he may use that power so that he can face that responsibility at the last! it leaves to every churchman liberty to believe and stand by his church according to his own conviction. it stands for this; the absolute liberty of each individual man to think, to write, to speak, to act, according to the best light within him; limited as to his fellows, by the condition that he shall not use that liberty so as to injure them; limited in the other direction, by those tremendous laws which are laws in spite of all rhetoric, and in spite of all logic. if i put my finger into the fire, that fire burns. if i do a wrong, that wrong remains. if i hurt my neighbor, the wrong reacts upon myself. if i would try to escape what you call judgment, what you call penalty, i cannot escape the working of the inevitable-law that follows a cause by effect; i cannot escape that inevitable law--not the creation of some dark monster flashing through the skies--but, as i believe, the beneficent creation which puts into the spiritual life the same control of law that guides the material life, which wisely makes me responsible, that in the solemnity of that responsibility i am bound to lift my brother up and never to drag my brother down. reply of colonel ingersoll. the first gentleman who replied to me took the ground boldly that expression is not free--that no man has the right to express his real thoughts--and i suppose that he acted in accordance with that idea. how are you to know whether he thought a solitary thing that he said, or not? how is it possible for us to ascertain whether he is simply the mouthpiece of some other? whether he is a free man, or whether he says that which he does not believe, it is impossible for us to ascertain. he tells you that i am about to take away the religion of your mothers. i have heard that said a great many times. no doubt mr. coudert has the religion of his mother, and judging from the argument he made, his mother knew at least as much about these questions as her son. i believe that every good father and good mother wants to see the son and the daughter climb higher upon the great and splendid mount of thought than they reached. you never can honor your father by going around swearing to his mistakes. you never can honor your mother by saying that ignorance is blessed because she did not know everything. i want to honor my parents by finding out more than they did. there is another thing that i was a little astonished at--that mr. coudert, knowing that he would be in eternal felicity with his harp in his hand, seeing me in the world of the damned, could yet grow envious here to-night at my imaginary monument. and he tells you--this catholic--that voltaire was an exceedingly good christian compared with me. do you know i am glad that i have compelled a catholic--one who does not believe he has the right to express his honest thoughts--to pay a compliment to voltaire simply because he thought it was at my expense? i have an almost infinite admiration for voltaire; and when i hear that name pronounced, i think of a plume floating over a mailed knight--i think of a man that rode to the beleaguered city of catholicism and demanded a surrender--i think of a great man who thrust the dagger of assassination into your mother church, and from that wound she never will recover. one word more. this gentleman says that children are destructive--that the first thing they do is to destroy their bibs. the gentleman, i should think from his talk, has preserved his! they talk about blasphemy. what is blasphemy? let us be honest with each other. whoever lives upon the unpaid labor of others is a blasphemer. whoever slanders, maligns, and betrays is a blasphemer. whoever denies to others the rights that he claims for himself is a blasphemer. who is a worshiper? one who makes a happy home--one who fills the lives of wife and children with sunlight--one who has a heart where the flowers of kindness burst into blossom and fill the air with perfume--the man who sits beside his wife, prematurely old and wasted, and holds her thin hands in his and kisses them as passionately and loves her as truly and as rapturously as when she was a bride--he is a worshiper--that is worship. and the gentleman brought forward as a reason why we should not have free speech, that only a few years ago some of the best men in the world, if you said a word in favor of liberty, would shoot you down. what an argument was that! they were not good men. they were the whippers of women and the stealers of babes--robbers of the trundlebed--assassins of human liberty. they knew no better, but i do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian. so much for debauching his family by telling them that his precepts are false. if he has taught them as he has taught us to-night, he has debauched their minds. i would be honest at the cradle. i would not tell a child anything as a certainty that i did not know. i would be absolutely honest. but he says that thought is absolutely free--nobody can control thought. let me tell him: superstition is the jailer of the mind. you can so stuff a child with superstition that its poor little brain is a bastile and its poor little soul a convict. fear is the jailer of the mind, and superstition is the assassin of liberty. so when anybody goes into his family and tells these great and shining truths, instead of debauching his children they will kill the snakes that crawl in their cradles. let us be honest and free. and now, coming to the second gentleman. he is a protestant. the catholic church says: "don't think; pay your fare; this is a through ticket, and we will look out for your baggage." the protestant church says: "read that bible for yourselves; think for yourselves; but if you do not come to a right conclusion you will be eternally damned." any sensible man will say, "then i won't read it--i'll believe it without reading it." and that is the only way you can be sure you will believe it; don't read it. governor woodford says that we are responsible for our thoughts. why? could you help thinking as you did on this subject? no, could you help believing the bible? i suppose not. could you help believing that story of jonah? certainly not--it looks reasonable in brooklyn. i stated that thought was the result of the impressions of nature upon the mind through the medium of the senses. he says you cannot have thought without memory. how did you get the first one? of course i intended to be understood--and the language is clear--that there could be no thought except through the impressions made upon the brain by nature through the avenues called the senses. take away the senses, how would you think then? if you thought at all, i think you would agree with mr. coudert. now, i admit--so we need never have a contradiction about it--i admit that every human being is responsible to the person he injures. if he injures any man, woman, or child, or any dog, or the lowest animal that crawls, he is responsible to that animal, to that being--in other words, he is responsible to any being that he has injured. but you cannot injure an infinite being, if there be one. i will tell you why. you cannot help him, and you cannot hurt him. if there be an infinite being, he is conditionless--he does not want anything--he has it. you cannot help anybody that does not want something--you cannot help him. you cannot hurt anybody unless he is a conditioned being and you change his condition so as to inflict a harm. but if god be conditionless, you cannot hurt him, and you cannot help him. so do not trouble yourselves about the infinite. all our duties lie within reach--all our duties are right here; and my religion is simply this: _first_. give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself. _second_. if you tell your thought at all, tell your honest thought. do not be a parrot--do not be an instrumentality for an organization. tell your own thought, honor bright, what you think. my next idea is, that the only possible good in the universe is happiness. the time to be happy is now. the place to be happy is here. the way to be happy is to try and make somebody else so. my good friend general woodford--and he is a good man telling the best he knows--says that i will be accountable at the bar up yonder. i am ready to settle that account now, and expect to be, every moment of my life--and when that settlement comes, if it does come, i do not believe that a solitary being can rise and say that i ever injured him or her. but no matter what they say. let me tell you a story, how we will settle if we do get there. you remember the story told about the mexican who believed that his country was the only one in the world, and said so. the priest told him that there was another country where a man lived who was eleven or twelve feet high, that made the whole world, and if he denied it, when that man got hold of him he would not leave a whole bone in his body. but he denied it. he was one of those men who would not believe further than his vision extended. so one day in his boat, he was rocking away when the wind suddenly arose and he was blown out of sight of his home. after several days he was blown so far that he saw the shores of another country. then he said, "my lord; i am gone! i have been swearing all my life that there was no other country, and here it is!" so he did his best--paddled with what little strength he had left, reached the shore, and got out of his boat. sure enough, there came down a man to meet him about twelve feet high. the poor little wretch was frightened almost to death, so he said to the tall man as he saw him coming down: "mister, whoever you are, i denied your existence--i did not believe you lived; i swore there was no such country as this; but i see i was mistaken, and i am gone. you are going to kill me, and the quicker you do it the better and get me out of my misery. do it now!" the great man just looked at the little fellow, and said nothing, till he asked, "what are you going to do with me, because over in that other country i denied your existence?" "what am i going to do with you?" said the supposed god. "now that you have got here, if you behave yourself i am going to treat you well." a christmas sermon. * this is the famous christmas sermon written by colonel ingersoll and printed in the evening telegram, on december , . i. the good part of christmas is not always christian--it is generally pagan; that is to say, human, natural. christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. it came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. it meant war on earth and perdition hereafter. it taught some good things--the beauty of love and kindness in man. but as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. it has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. it has filled the future with fear and flame, and made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. not satisfied with that, it has deprived god of the pardoning power. in answer to this "christmas sermon" the rev. dr. j. m. buckley, editor of the christian advocate, the recognized organ of the methodist church, wrote an article, calling upon the public to boycott the evening telegram for publishing such a "sermon." this attack was headed "lies that are mountainous." the telegram promptly accepted the issue raised by dr. buckley and dared him to do his utmost. on the very same day it published an answer from colonel ingersoll that echoed throughout america.' and yet it may have done some good by borrowing from the pagan world the old festival called christmas. long before christ was born the sun-god triumphed over the powers of darkness. about the time that we call christmas the days begin perceptibly to lengthen. our barbarian ancestors were worshipers of the sun, and they celebrated his victory over the hosts of night. such a festival was natural and beautiful. the most natural of all religions is the worship of the sun. christianity adopted this festival. it borrowed from the pagans the best it has. i believe in christmas and in every day that has been set apart for joy. we in america have too much work and not enough play. we are too much like the english. i think it was heinrich heine who said that he thought a blaspheming frenchman was a more pleasing object to god than a praying englishman. we take our joys too sadly. i am in favor of all the good free days--the more the better. christmas is a good day to forgive and forget--a good day to throw away prejudices and hatreds--a good day to fill your heart and your house, and the hearts and houses of others, with sunshine. r. g ingersoll. col. ingersoll's reply to dr. buckley. ii. whenever an orthodox editor attacks an unbeliever, look out for kindness, charity and love. the gentle editor of the _christian advocate_ charges me with having written three "gigantic falsehoods," and he points them out as follows: _first_--"christianity did not come with tidings of great joy? but with a message of eternal grief." _second_--"it [christianity] has filled the future with fear and flame, and made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men." _third_--"not satisfied with that, it [christianity] has deprived god of the pardoning power." now, let us take up these "gigantic falsehoods" in their order and see whether they are in accord with the new testament or not--whether they are supported by the creed of the methodist church. i insist that christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. according to the orthodox creeds, christianity came with the tidings that the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new religion, would be tormented in eternal fire. these were not "tidings of great joy." if the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the bottom, would they talk about "tidings of great joy"? it is to be presumed that christ knew what his mission was, and what he came for. he says: "think not that i am come to send peace on earth; i came not to send peace, but a sword. for i am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." in my judgment, these are not "tidings of great joy." now, as to the message of eternal grief: "then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." "and these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous [meaning the methodists] into life eternal." "he that believeth not shall be damned." "he that believeth not the son shall not see life; but the wrath of god abideth on him." "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." "and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever." knowing, as we do, that but few people have been believers, that during the last eighteen hundred years not one in a hundred has died in the faith, and that consequently nearly all the dead are in hell, it can truthfully be said that christianity came with a message of eternal grief. now, as to the second "gigantic falsehood," to the effect that christianity filled the future with fear and flame, and made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. in the old testament there is nothing about punishment in some other world, nothing about the flames and torments of hell. when jehovah killed one of his enemies he was satisfied. his revenge was glutted when the victim was dead. the old testament gave the future to sleep and oblivion. but in the new testament we are told that the punishment in another world is everlasting, and that "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever." this awful doctrine, these frightful texts, filled the future with fear and flame. building on these passages, the orthodox churches have constructed a penitentiary, in which nearly all the sons of men are to be imprisoned and tormented forever, and of this prison god is the keeper. the doors are opened only to receive. the doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. as i have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases--petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain. the next question is whether christianity has deprived god of the pardoning power. the methodist church and every orthodox church teaches that this life is a period of probation; that there is no chance given for reformation after death; that god gives no opportunity to repent in another world. this is the doctrine of the christian world. if this dogma be true, then god will never release a soul from hell--the pardoning power will never be exercised. how happy god will be and how happy all the saved will be, knowing that billions and billions of his children, of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, and children are convicts in the eternal dungeons, and that the words of pardon will never be spoken! yet this is in accordance with the promise contained in the new testament, of happiness here and eternal joy hereafter, to those who would desert brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children. it seems to me clear that christianity did not bring "tidings of great joy," but that it came with a "message of eternal grief"--that it did "fill the future with fear and flame," that it did make god "the keeper of an eternal penitentiary," that the penitentiary "was destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men," and that "it deprived god of the pardoning power." of course you can find passages full of peace, in the bible, others of war--some filled with mercy, and others cruel as the fangs of a wild beast. according to the methodists, god has an eternal prison--an everlasting siberia. there is to be an eternity of grief, of agony and shame. what do i think of what the doctor says about the _telegram_ for having published my christmas sermon? the editor of the _christian advocate_ has no idea of what intellectual liberty means. he ought to know that a man should not be insulted because another man disagrees with him. what right has dr. buckley to disagree with cardinal gibbons, and what right has cardinal gibbons to disagree with dr. buckley? the same right that i have to disagree with them both. i do not warn people against reading catholic or methodist papers or books. but i do tell them to investigate for themselves--to stand by what they believe to be true, to deny the false, and, above all things, to preserve their mental manhood. the good doctor wants the _telegram_ destroyed--wants all religious people to unite for the purpose of punishing the _telegram_--because it published something with which the reverend doctor does not agree, or rather that does not agree with the doctor. it is too late. that day has faded in the west of the past. the doctor of theology has lost his power. theological thunder has lost its lightning--it is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who hear. the _telegram_ has nothing to fear. it is, in the highest sense, a newspaper--wide-awake, alive, always on time, good to its friends, fair with its enemies, and true to the public. what have i to say to the doctor's personal abuse? nothing. a man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that i am incapable of telling the truth, or that i tell lies, and yet all this proves nothing. my arguments remain unanswered. i cannot afford to call dr. buckley names, i have good mental manners. the cause i represent (in part) is too great, too sacred, to be stained by an ignorant or a malicious personality. i know that men do as they must with the light they have, and so i say--more light! iii. the rev. james m. king--who seems to have taken this occasion to become known--finds fault because "blasphemous utterances concerning christmas" were published in the _telegram_, and were allowed "to greet the eyes of innocent children and pure women." how is it possible to blaspheme a day? one day is not, in and of itself, holier than another--that is to say, two equal spaces of time are substantially alike. we call a day "good" or "bad" according to what happens in the day. a day filled with happiness, with kind words, with noble deeds, is a good day. a day filled with misfortunes and anger and misery we call a bad day. but how is it possible to blaspheme a day? a man may or may not believe that christ was born on the th of december, and yet he may fill that day, so far as he is concerned, with good thoughts and words and deeds. another may really believe that christ was born on that day, and yet do his worst to make all his friends unhappy. but how can the rights of what are called "clean families" be violated by reading the honest opinions of others as to whether christmas is kept in honor of the birth of christ, or in honor of the triumph of the sun over the hosts of darkness? are christian families so weak intellectually that they cannot bear to hear the other side? or is their case so weak that the slightest evidence overthrows it? why do all these ministers insist that it is ill-bred to even raise a question as to the truth of the improbable, or as to the improbability of the impossible? a minister says to me that i am going to hell--that i am bound to be punished forever and ever--and thereupon i say to him: "there is no hell you are mistaken; your bible is not inspired; no human being is to suffer agony forever;" and thereupon, with an injured look, he asks me this question: "why do you hurt my feelings?" it does not occur to him that i have the slightest right to object to his sentence of eternal grief. does the gentleman imagine that true men and pure women cannot differ with him? there are many thousands of people who love and honor the memory of jesus christ, who yet have not the slightest belief in his divine origin, and who do not for one moment imagine that he was other than a good and heroic man. and there are thousands of people who admire the character of jesus christ who do not believe that he ever existed--who admire the character of christ as they admire imogen, or per-dita, not believing that any of the characters mentioned actually lived. and it may be well enough here to state that no human being hates any really good man or good woman--that is, no human being hates a man known to be good--a woman known to be pure and good. no human being hates a lovable character. it is perfectly easy for any one with the slightest imagination to understand how other people differ from him. i do not attribute a bad motive to a man simply because he disagrees with me. i do not say that a man is a christian or a mohammedan "for revenue only." i do not say that a man joins the democratic party simply for office, or that he marches with the republicans simply for position. i am willing to hear his reasons--with his motives i have nothing to do. mr. king imagines that i have denounced christianity "for revenue only." is he willing to admit that we have drifted so far from orthodox religion that the way to make money is to denounce christianity? i can hardly believe, for joy, that liberty of thought has advanced so far. i regret exceedingly that there is not an absolute foundation for his remark. i am indeed sorry that it is possible in this world of ours for any human being to make a living out of the ignorance and fear of his fellow-men. still, it gives me great hope for the future to read, even in this ignorant present, that there is one man, and that man myself, who advocates human liberty--the absolute enfranchisement of the soul--and does it "for revenue"--because this charge is such a splendid compliment to my fellow-men. possibly the remark of the rev. mr. king will be gratifying to the _telegram_ and will satisfy that brave and progressive sheet that it is in harmony with the intelligence of the age. my opinion is that the _telegram_ will receive the praise of enlightened and generous people. personally i judge a man not so much by his theories as by his practice, and i would much rather meet on the desert--were i about to perish for want of water--a mohammedan who would give me a drink than a christian who would not; because, after all is said and done, we are compelled to judge people by their actions. i do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain, inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. all that takes place there is invisible and soundless. this mind, hidden in this brain, masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions of the man, of the woman. by these actions we judge of the character, of the soul. so i make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not by his theories, but by his actions. under no circumstances can the expression of an honest opinion, couched in becoming language, amount to blasphemy. and right here it may be well enough to inquire: what is blasphemy? a man who knowingly assaults the true, who knowingly endeavors to stain the pure, who knowingly maligns the good and noble, is a blasphemer. a man who deserts the truth because it is unpopular is a blasphemer. he who runs with the hounds knowing that the hare is in the right is a blasphemer. in the soul of every man, or in the temple inhabited by the soul, there is one niche in which can be found the statue of the ideal. in the presence of this statue the good man worships--the bad man blasphemes--that is to say, he is not true to the ideal. a man who slanders a pure woman or an honest man is a blasphemer. so, too, a man who does not give the honest transcript of his mind is a blasphemer. if a man really thinks the character of jehovah, as portrayed in the old testament, is good, and he denounces jehovah as bad, he is a blasphemer. if he really believes that the character of jehovah, as portrayed in the old testament, is bad, and he pronounces it good, he is a blasphemer and a coward. all laws against "blasphemy" have been passed by the numerically strong and intellectually weak. these laws have been passed by those who, finding no help in logic, appealed to the legislature. back of all these superstitions you will find some self-interest. i do not say that this is true in every case, but i do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to god. nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that god wanted what his agents liked. now, i will not say that all priests have been priests "for revenue only," but i must say that the history of the world tends to show that the sacerdotal class prefer revenue without religion to religion without revenue. i am much obliged to the rev. mr. king for admitting that an infidel has a right to publish his views at his own expense, and with the utmost cheerfulness i accord that right to a christian. the only thing i have ever objected to is the publication of his views at the expense of others. i cannot admit, however, that the ideas contained in what is known as the christmas sermon are "revolting to a vast majority of the people who give character to the community in which we live." i suppose that a very large majority of men and women who disagree with me are perfectly satisfied that i have the right to disagree with them, and that i do not disagree with them to any greater degree than they disagree with me. and i also imagine that a very large majority of intelligent people are perfectly willing to hear the other side. i do not regard religious opinions or political opinions as exotics that have to be kept under glass, protected from the frosts of common sense or the tyrannous north wind of logic. such plants are hardly worth preserving. they certainly ought to be hardy enough to stand the climate of free discussion, and if they cannot, the sooner they die the better. i do not think there was anything blasphemous or impure in the words published by, the _telegram_. the most that can possibly be said against them, calculated to excite the prejudice of christians, is that they were true--that they cannot be answered except by abuse. it is not possible, in this day and generation, to stay the rising flood of intellectual freedom by keeping the names of thinkers out of print. the church has had the field for eighteen hundred years. for most of this time it has held the sword and purse of the world. for many centuries it controlled colleges and universities and schools. it had within its gift wealth and honor. it held the keys, so far as this world is concerned, of heaven and hell--that is to say, of prosperity and misfortune. it pursued its enemies even to the grave. it reddened the scaffold with the best blood, and kept the sword of persecution wet for many centuries. thousands and thousands have died in its dungeons. millions of reputations have been blasted by its slanders. it has made millions of widows and orphans, and it has not only ruled this world, but it has pretended to hold the keys of eternity, and under this pretence it has sentenced countless millions to eternal flames. at last the spirit of independence rose against its monstrous assumptions. it has been growing some-what weaker. it has been for many years gradually losing its power. the sword of the state belongs now to the people. the partnership between altar and throne has in many countries been dissolved. the adulterous marriage of church and state has ceased to exist. men are beginning to express their honest thoughts. in the arena where speech is free, superstition is driven to the wall. man relies more and more on the facts in nature, and the real priest is the interpreter of nature. the pulpit is losing its power. in a little while religion will take its place with astrology, with the black art, and its ministers will take rank with magicians and sleight-of-hand performers. with regard to the letter of the rev. thomas dixon, jr., i have but little to say. i am glad that he believes in a free platform and a free press--that he, like lucretia mott, believes in "truth for authority, and not authority for truth." at the same time i do not see how the fact that i am not a scientist has the slightest bearing upon the question; but if there is any fact that i have avoided or misstated, then i wish that fact to be pointed out. i admit also, that i am a "sentimentalist"--that is, that i am governed, to a certain extent, by sentiment--that my mind is so that cruelty is revolting and that mercy excites my love and admiration. i admit that i am so much of "a sentimentalist" that i have no love for the jehovah of the old testament, and that it is impossible for me to believe a creed that fills the prison house of hell with countless billions of men, women and children. i am also glad that the reverend gentleman admits that i have "stabbed to the heart hundreds of superstitions and lies," and i hope to stab many, many more, and if i succeed in stabbing all lies to the heart there will be no foundation left for what i called "orthodox" christianity--but goodness will survive, justice will live, and the flower of mercy will shed its perfume forever. when we take into consideration the fact that the rev. mr. dixon is a minister and believes that he is called upon to deliver to the people a divine message, i do not wonder that he makes the following assertion: "if god could choose balaam's ass to speak a divine message, i do not see why he could not utilize the colonel." it is natural for a man to justify himself and to defend his own occupation. mr. dixon, however, will remember that the ass was much superior to the prophet of god, and that the argument was all on the side of the ass. and, furthermore, that the spiritual discernment of the ass far exceeded that of the prophet. it was the ass who saw the angel when the prophet's eye was dim. i suggest to the rev. mr. dixon that he read the account once more, and he will find:-- _first_, that the ass _first_ saw the angel of the lord; _second_, that the prophet balaam was cruel, unreasonable, and brutal; _third_, that the prophet so lost his temper that he wanted to kill the innocent ass, and the ass, not losing her temper, reasoned with the prophet and demonstrated not only her intellectual but her moral superiority. in addition to all this the angel of the lord had to open the eyes of the prophet--in other words, had to work a miracle--in order to make the prophet equal to the ass, and not only so, but rebuked him for his cruelty. and this same angel admitted that without any miracle whatever the ass saw him--the angel--showing that the spiritual discernment of the ass in those days was far superior to that of the prophet. i regret that the rev. mr. king loses his temper and that the rev. mr. dixon is not quite polite. all of us should remember that passion clouds the judgment, and that he who seeks for victory loses sight of the cause. and there is another thing: he who has absolute confidence in the justice of his position can afford to be good-natured. strength is the foundation of kindness; weakness is often malignant, and when argument fails passion comes to the rescue. let us be good-natured. let us have respect for the rights of each other. the course pursued by the _telegram_ is worthy of all praise. it has not only been just to both sides, but it has been--as is its custom--true to the public. robert g. ingersoll. ingersoll again answers his critics. iv. _to the editor of the evening telegram _: some of the gentlemen who have given their ideas through the columns of the _telegram_ have wandered from the questions under discussion. it may be well enough to state what is really in dispute. i was called to account for having stated that christianity did not bring "tidings of great joy," but a message of eternal grief--that it filled the future with fear and flame--made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever, and that, not satisfied with that, it had deprived god of the pardoning power. these statements were called "mountainous lies" by the rev. dr. buckley, and because the _telegram_ had published the "christmas sermon" containing these statements, he insisted that such a paper should not be allowed in the families of christians or of jews--in other words, that the _telegram_ should be punished, and that good people should refuse to allow that sheet to come into their homes. it will probably be admitted by all fair-minded people that if the orthodox creeds be true, then christianity was and is the bearer of a message of eternal grief, and a large majority of the human race are to become eternal convicts, and god has deprived himself of the pardoning power. according to those creeds, no word of mercy to any of the lost can ever fall from the lips of the infinite. the universalists deny that such was or is the real message of christianity. they insist that all are finally to be saved. if that doctrine be true, then i admit that christianity came with "tidings of great joy." personally i have no quarrel with the univer-salist church. i have no quarrel with any creed that expresses hope for all of the human race. i find fault with no one for filling the future with joy--for dreaming splendid dreams and for uttering splendid prophecies. i do not object to christianity because it promises heaven to a few, but because it threatens the many with perdition. it does not seem possible to me that a god who loved men to that degree that he died that they might be saved, abandons his children the moment they are dead. it seems to me that an infinite god might do something for a soul after it has reached the other world. is it possible that infinite wisdom can do no more than is done for a majority of souls in this world? think of the millions born in ignorance and filth, raised in poverty and crime. think of the millions who are only partially developed in this world. think of the weakness of the will, of the power of passion. think of the temptations innumerable. think, too, of the tyranny of man, of the arrogance of wealth and position, of the sufferings of the weak--and can we then say that an infinite god has done, in this world, all that could be done for the salvation of his children? is it not barely possible that something may be done in another world? is there nothing left for god to do for a poor, ignorant, criminal human soul after it leaves this world? can god do nothing except to pronounce the sentence of eternal pain? i insist that if the orthodox creed be true, christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but that its message was and is one of eternal grief. if the orthodox creed be true, the universe is a vast blunder--an infinite crime. better, a thousand times, that every pulse of life should cease--better that all the gods should fall palsied from their thrones, than that the creed of christendom should be true. there is another question and that involves the freedom of the press. the _telegram_ has acted with the utmost fairness and with the highest courage. after all, the american people admire the man who takes his stand and bravely meets all comers. to be an instrumentality of progress, the press must be free. only the free can carry a torch. liberty sheds light. the editor or manager of a newspaper occupies a public position, and he must not treat his patrons as though they were weak and ignorant children. he must not, in the supposed interest of any ism, suppress the truth--neither must he be dictated to by any church or any society of believers or unbelievers. the _telegram_, by its course, has given a certificate of its manliness, and the public, by its course, has certified that it appreciates true courage. all christians should remember that facts are not sectarian, and that the sciences are not bound by the creeds. we should remember that there are no such things as methodist mathematics, or baptist botany, or catholic chemistry. the sciences are secular. . the rev. mr. peters seems to have mistaken the issues--and yet, in some things, i agree with him. he is certainly right when he says that "mr. buckley's cry to boycott the telegram is unmanly and un-american," but i am not certain that he is right when he says that it is un-christian. the church has not been in the habit of pursuing enemies with kind words and charitable deeds. to tell the truth, it has always been rather relentless. it has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven. there is in the history of christendom no instance where the church has extended the hand of friendship to a man who denied the truth of its creed. there is in the church no spirit--no climate--of compromise. in the nature of things there can be none, because the church claims that it is absolutely right--that there is only one road leading to heaven. it demands unconditional surrender. it will not bear contradiction. it claims to have the absolute truth. for these reasons it cannot consistently compromise, any more than a mathematician could change the multiplication table to meet the view of some one who should deny that five times five are twenty-five. the church does not give its opinion--it claims to know--it demands belief. honesty, industry, generosity count for nothing in the absence of belief. it has taught and still teaches that no man can reach heaven simply through good and honest deeds. it believes and teaches that the man who relies upon himself will be eternally punished--and why should the church forgive a man whom it thinks its god is waiting somewhat impatiently to damn? the rev. mr. peters asks--and probably honestly thinks that the questions are pertinent to the issues involved--"what has infidelity done for the world? what colleges, hospitals, and schools has it founded? what has it done for the elevation of public morals?" and he inquires what science or art has been originated by infidelity. he asks how many slaves it has liberated, how many inebriates it has reclaimed, how many fallen women it has restored, and what it did for the relief of the wounded and dying soldiers; and concludes by asking what life it ever assisted to higher holiness, and what death it has ever cheered. although these questions have nothing whatever to do with the matters under discussion, still it may be well enough to answer them. it is cheerfully admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built by christians in christian countries, and it is also admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built in countries not christian; that there were such institutions in china thousands of years before christ was born, and that many centuries before the establishment of any orthodox church there were asylums on the banks of the nile--asylums for the old, the poor, the infirm--asylums for the blind and for the insane, and that the egyptians, even of those days, endeavored to cure insanity with kindness and affection. the same is true of india and probably of most ancient nations. there has always been more or less humanity in man--more or less goodness in the human heart. so far as we know, mothers have always loved their children. there must always have been more good than evil, otherwise the human race would have perished. the best things in the christian religion came from the heart of man. pagan lips uttered the sublimest of truths, and all ages have been redeemed by honesty, heroism, and love. but let me answer these questions in their order. _first_--as to the schools. it is most cheerfully admitted that the catholics have always been in favor of education--that is to say, of education enough to make a catholic out of a heathen. it is also admitted that protestants have always been in favor of enough education to make a protestant out of a catholic. many schools and many colleges have been established for the spread of what is called the gospel and for the education of the clergy. presbyterians have founded schools for the benefit of their creed. the methodists have established colleges for the purpose of making methodists. the same is true of nearly all the sects. as a matter of fact, these schools have in many important directions hindered rather than helped the cause of real education. the pupils were not taught to investigate for themselves. they were not allowed to think. they were told that thought is dangerous. they were stuffed and crammed with creeds--with the ideas of others. their credulity was applauded and their curiosity condemned. if all the people had been educated in these sectarian schools, all the people would have been far more ignorant than they are. these schools have been, and most of them still are, the enemies of higher education, and just to the extent that they are under the control of theologians they are hindrances, and just to the extent that they have become secularized they have been and are a benefit. our public-school system is not christian. it is secular. yet i admit that it never could have been established without the assistance of christians--neither could it have been supported without the assistance of others. but such is the value placed upon education that people of nearly all denominations, and of nearly all religions, and of nearly all opinions, for the most part agree that the children of a nation should be educated by the nation. some religious people are opposed to these schools because they are not religious--because they do not teach some creed--but a large majority of the people stand by the public schools as they are. these schools are growing better and better, simply because they are growing less and less theological, more and more secular. infidelity, or agnosticism, or free thought, has insisted that only that should be taught in schools which somebody knows or has good reason to believe. the greatest professors in our colleges to-day are those who have the least confidence in the supernatural, and the schools that stand highest in the estimation of the most intelligent are those that have drifted farthest from the orthodox creeds. free thought has always been and ever must be the friend of education. without free thought there can be no such thing--in the highest sense--as a school. unless the mind is free, there are no teachers and there are no pupils, in any just and splendid sense. the church has been and still is the enemy of education, because it has been in favor of intellectual slavery, and the theological schools have been what might be called the deformatories of the human mind. for instance: a man is graduated from an orthodox university. in this university he has studied astronomy, and yet he believes that joshua stopped the sun. he has studied geology, and yet he asserts the truth of the mosaic cosmogony. he has studied chemistry, and yet believes that water was turned into wine. he has been taught the ordinary theory of cause and effect, and at the same time he thoroughly believes in the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. can such an institution, with any propriety, be called a seat of learning? can we not say of such a university what bruno said of oxford: "learning is dead and oxford is its widow." year after year the religious colleges are improving--simply because they are becoming more and more secular, less and less theological. whether infidelity has founded universities or not, it can truthfully be said that the spirit of investigation, the spirit of free thought, the attitude of mental independence, contended for by those who are called infidels, have made schools useful instead of hurtful. can it be shown that any infidel has ever raised his voice against education? can there be found in the literature of free thought one line against the enlightenment of the human race? has free thought ever endeavored to hide or distort, a fact? has it not always appealed to the senses--to demonstration? it has not said, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but it has said, "he that hath brains to think, let him think." the object of a school should be to ascertain truth in every direction, to the end that man may know the conditions of happiness--and every school should be absolutely free. no teacher should be bound by anything except a perceived fact. he should not be the slave of a creed, engaged in the business of enslaving others. so much for schools. second--as to public morals. christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. every church unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on a credit. i do not mean by this that any church consciously advocates immorality. i most cheerfully admit that thousands and thousands of ministers are endeavoring to do good--that they are pure, self-denying men, trying to make this world better. but there is a frightful defect in their philosophy. they say to the bank cashier: you must not steal, you must not take a dollar--larceny is wrong, it is contrary to all law, human and divine--but if you do steal every cent in the bank, god will as gladly, quickly forgive you in canada as he will in the united states. on the other hand, what is called infidelity says: there is no being in the universe who rewards, and there is no being who punishes--every act has its consequences. if the act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. it says to every human being: you must reap what you sow. there is no reward, there is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the invisible and implacable police of nature. they cannot be avoided. they cannot be bribed. no power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the world to make them pause. even a god cannot induce them to release for one instant their victim. this great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. if all men knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions--if they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is. free thought has attacked the morality of what is called the atonement. the innocent should not suffer for the guilty, and if the innocent does suffer for the guilty, that cannot by any possibility justify the guilty. the reason a thing is wrong is because it, in some way, causes the innocent to suffer. this being the very essence of wrong, how can the suffering of innocence justify the guilty? if there be a world of joy, he who is worthy to enter that world must be willing to carry his own burdens in this. so much for morality. third--as to sciences and art. i do not believe that we are indebted to christianity for any science. i do not remember that one science is mentioned in the new testament. there is not one word, so far as i remember, about education--nothing about any science, nothing about art. the writers of the new testament seem to have thought that the world was about coming to an end. this world was to be sacrificed absolutely to the next. the affairs of this life were not worth speaking of. all people were exhorted to prepare at once for the other life. the sciences have advanced in the proportion that they did not interfere with orthodox theology. to the extent that they were supposed to interfere with theology they have been obstructed and denounced. astronomy was found to be inconsistent with the scriptures, and the astronomers were imprisoned and despised. geology contradicted the mosaic account, and the geologists were denounced and persecuted. every step taken in astronomy was taken in spite of the church, and every fact in geology had to fight its way. the same is true as to the science of medicine. the church wished to cure disease by necromancy, by charm and prayer, and with the bones of the saints. the church wished man to rely entirely upon god--that is to say, upon the church--and not upon himself. the physician interfered with the power and prosperity of the priest, and those who appealed to physicians were denounced as lacking faith in god. this state of things existed even in the old testament times. a king failed to send for the prophets, but sent for a physician, and then comes this piece of grim humor: "and asa slept with his fathers." the great names in science are not those of recognized saints. bruno--one of the greatest and bravest of men--greatest of all martyrs--perished at the stake, because he insisted on the existence of other worlds and taught the astronomy of galileo. humboldt--in some respects the wisest man known to the scientific world--denied the existence of the supernatural and "the truths of revealed religion," and yet he revolutionized the thought of his day and left a legacy of intellectual glory to the race. darwin--greatest of scientists--so great that our time will probably be known as "darwin's century"--had not the slightest confidence in any possible phase of the so-called supernatural. this great man left the creed of christendom without a foundation. he brought as witnesses against the inspiration of the scriptures such a multitude of facts, such an overwhelming amount of testimony, that it seems impossible to me that any unprejudiced man can, after hearing the testimony, remain a believer in evangelical religion. he accomplished more than all the schools, colleges, and universities that christianity has founded. he revolutionized the philosophy of the civilized world. the writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly opposed by the church. there is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of the world that cannot be found on the "index expurgatorius." kant and fichte and spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox-world. voltaire did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him with a fury amounting to insanity--called him an atheist, although he believed not only in god, but in special providence. he was opposed to the church--that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he was despised. and what shall i say of d'holbach, of hume, of buckle, of draper, of haeckel, of büchner, of tyndall and huxley, of auguste comte, and hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with light and the heart of man with love and kindness? it may be well enough, in regard to art, to say that christianity is indebted to greece and rome for its highest conceptions, and it may be well to add that for many centuries christianity did the best it could to destroy the priceless marbles of greece and rome. a few were buried, and in that way were saved from christian fury. the same is true of the literature of the classic world. a few fragments were rescued, and these became the seeds of modern literature. a few statues were preserved, and they are to-day models for all the world. of course it will be admitted that there is much art in christian lands, because, in spite of the creeds, christians, so-called, have turned their attention to this world. they have beautified their homes, they have endeavored to clothe themselves in purple and fine linen. they have been forced from banquets or from luxury by the difficulty of camels going through the eyes of needles or the impossibility of carrying water to the rich man. they have cultivated this world, and the arts have lived. did they obey the precepts that they find in their sacred writings there would be no art, they would "take no thought for the morrow," they would "consider the lilies of the field." fourth--as to the liberation of slaves. it was exceedingly unfortunate for the rev. mr. peters that he spoke of slavery. the bible upholds human slavery--white slavery. the bible was quoted by all slaveholders and slave-traders. the man who went to africa to steal women and children took the bible with him. he planted himself firmly on the word of god. as whittier says of whitefield: "he bade the slave ship speed from coast to coast, fanned by the wings of the holy ghost." so when the poor wretches were sold to the planters, the planters defended their action by reading the bible. when a poor woman was sold, her children torn from her breast, the auction block on which she stood was the bible; the auctioneer who sold her quoted the scriptures; the man who bought her repeated the quotations, and the ministers from the pulpit said to the weeping woman, as her child was carried away: "servants, be obedient unto your masters." freethinkers in all ages have been opposed to slavery. thomas paine did more for human liberty than any other man who ever stood upon the western world. the first article he ever wrote in this country was one against the institution of slavery. freethinkers have also been in favor of free bodies. freethinkers have always said "free hands," and the infidels, the wide world over, have been friends of freedom. fifth--as to the reclamation of inebriates. much has been said, and for many years, on the subject of temperance--much has been uttered by priests and laymen--and yet there seems to be a subtle relation between rum and religion. scotland is extremely orthodox, yet it is not extremely temperate. england is nothing if not religious, and london is, par excellence, the christian city of the world, and yet it is the most intemperate. the mohammedans--followers of a false prophet--do not drink. sixth--as to the humanity of infidelity. can it be said that people have cared for the wounded and dying only because they were orthodox? is it not true that religion, in its efforts to propagate the creed of forgiveness by the sword, has caused the death of more than one hundred and fifty millions of human beings? is it not true that where the church has cared for one orphan it has created hundreds? can christianity afford to speak of war? the christian nations of the world to-day are armed against each other. in europe, all that can be gathered by taxation--all that can be borrowed by pledging the prosperity of the future--the labor of those yet unborn--is used for the purpose of keeping christians in the field, to the end that they may destroy other christians, or at least prevent other christians from destroying them. europe is covered with churches and fortifications, with temples and with forts--hundreds of thousands of priests, millions of soldiers, countless bibles and countless bayonets--and that whole country is oppressed and impoverished for the purpose of carrying on war. the people have become deformed by labor, and yet christianity boasts of peace. seventh--"and what death has infidelity ever cheered?" is it possible for the orthodox christian to cheer the dying when the dying is told that there is a world of eternal pain, and that he, unless he has been forgiven, is to be an eternal convict? will it cheer him to know that, even if he is to be saved, countless millions are to be lost? is it possible for the christian religion to put a smile upon the face of death? on the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: what happens to you will happen to all. if there be another world of joy, it is for all. if there is another life, every human being will have the eternal opportunity of doing right--the eternal opportunity to live, to reform, to enjoy. there is no monster in the sky. there is no moloch who delights in the agony of his children. these frightful things are savage dreams. infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity. infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of hope over every grave. let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion. let us not wander away. robert g. ingersoll. jan'y , . ingersoll continues the battle. v. no one objects to the morality of christianity. the industrious people of the world--those who have anything--are, as a rule, opposed to larceny; a very large majority of people object to being murdered, and so we have laws against larceny and murder. a large majority of people believe in what they call, or what they understand to be, justice--at least as between others. there is no very great difference of opinion among civilized people as to what is or is not moral. it cannot truthfully be said that the man who attacks buddhism attacks all morality. he does not attack goodness, justice, mercy, or anything that tends in his judgment to the welfare of mankind; but he attacks buddhism. so one attacking what is called christianity does not attack kindness, charity, or any virtue. he attacks something that has been added to the virtues. he does not attack the flower, but what he believes to be the parasite. if people, when they speak of christianity, include the virtues common to all religions, they should not give christianity credit for all the good that has been done. there were millions of virtuous men and women, millions of heroic and self-denying souls before christianity was known. it does not seen possible to me that love, kindness, justice, or charity ever caused any one who possessed and practiced these virtues to persecute his fellow-man on account of a difference of belief. if christianity has persecuted, some reason must exist outside of the virtues it has inculcated. if this reason--this cause--is inherent in that something else, which has been added to the ordinary virtues, then christianity can properly be held accountable for the persecution. of course back of christianity is the nature of man, and, primarily, it may be responsible. is there anything in christianity that will account for such persecutions--for the inquisition? it certainly was taught by the church that belief was necessary to salvation, and it was thought at the same time that the fate of man was eternal punishment; that the state of man was that of depravity, and that there was but one way by which he could be saved, and that was through belief--through faith. as long as this was honestly believed, christians would not allow heretics or infidels to preach a doctrine to their wives, to their children, or to themselves which, in their judgment, would result in the damnation of souls. the law gives a father the right to kill one who is about to do great bodily harm to his son. now, if a father has the right to take the life of a man simply because he is attacking the body of his son, how much more would he have the right to take the life of one who was about to assassinate the soul of his son! christians reasoned in this way. in addition to this, they felt that god would hold the community responsible if the community allowed a blasphemer to attack the true religion. therefore they killed the freethinker, or rather the free talker, in self-defence. at the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. if the founder of christianity had plainly said: "it is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest"--if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution. if he had added to this: "you must not persecute in my name. the religion i teach is the religion of love--not the religion of force and hatred. you must not imprison your fellow-men. you must not stretch them upon racks, or crush their bones in iron boots. you must not flay them alive. you must not cut off their eyelids, or pour molten lead into their ears. you must treat all with absolute kindness. if you cannot convert your neighbor by example, persuasion, argument, that is the end. you must never resort to force, and, whether he believes as you do or not, treat him always with kindness"--his followers then would not have murdered their fellows in his name. if christ was in fact god, he knew the persecutions that would be carried on in his name; he knew the millions that would suffer death through torture; and yet he died without saying one word to prevent what he must have known, if he were god, would happen. all that christianity has added to morality is worthless and useless. not only so--it has been hurtful. take christianity from morality and the useful is left, but take morality from christianity and the useless remains. now, falling back on the old assertion, "by its fruits we may know christianity," then i think we are justified in saying that, as christianity consists of a mixture of morality and _something else_, and as morality never has persecuted a human being, and as christianity has persecuted millions, the cause of the persecution must be the _something else_ that was added to morality. i cannot agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "christianity has taught mankind the priceless value and dignity of human nature." on the other hand, christianity has taught that the whole human race is by nature depraved, and that if god should act in accordance with his sense of justice, all the sons of men would be doomed to eternal pain. human nature has been derided, has been held up to contempt and scorn, all our desires and passions denounced as wicked and filthy. dr. da costa asserts that christianity has taught mankind the value of freedom. it certainly has not been the advocate of free thought; and what is freedom worth if the mind is to be enslaved? dr. da costa knows that millions have been sacrificed in their efforts to be free; that is, millions have been sacrificed for exercising their freedom as against the church. it is not true that the church "has taught and established the fact of human brotherhood." this has been the result of a civilization to which christianity itself has been hostile. can we prove that "the church established human brotherhood" by banishing the jews from spain; by driving out the moors; by the tortures of the inquisition; by butchering the covenanters of scotland; by the burning of bruno and servetus; by the persecution of the irish; by whipping and hanging quakers in new england; by the slave trade; and by the hundreds of wars waged in the name of christ? we all know that the bible upholds slavery in its very worst and most cruel form; and how it can be said that a religion founded upon a bible that upholds the institution of slavery has taught and established the fact of human brotherhood, is beyond my imagination to conceive. neither do i think it true that "we are indebted to christianity for the advancement of science, art, philosophy, letters and learning." i cheerfully admit that we are indebted to christianity for some learning, and that the human mind has been developed by the discussion of the absurdities of superstition. certainly millions and millions have had what might be called mental exercise, and their minds may have been somewhat broadened by the examination, even, of these absurdities, contradictions, and impossibilities. the church was not the friend of science or learning when it burned vanini for writing his "dialogues concerning nature." what shall we say of the "index expurgatorius"? for hundreds of years all books of any particular value were placed on the "index," and good catholics forbidden to read them. was this in favor of science and learning? that we are indebted to christianity for the advancement of science seems absurd. what science? christianity was certainly the enemy of astronomy, and i believe that it was mr. draper who said that astronomy took her revenge, so that not a star that glitters in all the heavens bears a christian name. can it be said that the church has been the friend of geology, or of any true philosophy? let me show how this is impossible. the church accepts the bible as an inspired book. then the only object is to find its meaning, and if that meaning is opposed to any result that the human mind may have reached, the meaning stands and the result reached by the mind must be abandoned. for hundreds of years the bible was the standard, and whenever anything was asserted in any science contrary to-the bible, the church immediately denounced the scientist. i admit the standard has been changed, and ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree with the bible, but that the bible agrees with science. certainly christianity has done little for art. the early christians destroyed all the marbles of greece and rome upon which they could lay their violent hands; and nothing has been produced by the christian world equal to the fragments that were accidentally preserved. there have been many artists who were christians; but they were not artists because they were christians; because there have been many christians who were not artists. it cannot be said that art is born of any creed. the mode of expression may be determined, and probably is to a certain degree, by the belief of the artist; but not his artistic perception and feeling. so, galileo did not make his discoveries because he was a christian, but in spite of it. his bible was the other way, and so was his creed. consequently, they could not by any possibility have assisted him. kepler did not discover or announce what are known as the "three laws" because he was a christian; but, as i said about galileo, in spite of his creed. every christian who has really found out and demonstrated and clung to a fact inconsistent with the absolute inspiration of the scriptures, has done so certainly without the assistance of his creed. let me illustrate this: when our ancestors were burning each other to please god; when they were ready to destroy a man with sword and flame for teaching the rotundity of the world, the moors in spain were teaching geography to their children with brass globes. so, too, they had observatories and knew something of the orbits of the stars. they did not find out these things because they were mohammedans, or on account of their belief in the impossible. they were far beyond the christians, intellectually, and it has been very poetically said by mrs. browning, that "science was thrust into the brain of europe on the point of a moorish lance." from the arabs we got our numerals, making mathematics of the higher branches practical. we also got from them the art of making cotton paper, which is almost at the foundation of modern intelligence. we learned from them to make cotton cloth, making cleanliness possible in christendom. so from among people of different religions we have learned many useful things; but they did not discover them on account of their religion. it will not do to say that the religion of greece was true because the greeks were the greatest sculptors. neither is it an argument in favor of monarchy that shakespeare, the greatest of men, was born and lived in a monarchy. dr. da costa takes one of the effects of a general cause, or of a vast number of causes, and makes it the cause, not only of other effects, but of the general cause. he seems to think that all events for many centuries, and especially all the good ones, were caused by christianity. as a matter of fact, the civilization of our time is the result of countless causes with which christianity had little to do, except by way of hindrance. does the doctor think that the material progress of the world was caused by this passage: "take no thought for the morrow"? does he seriously insist that the wealth of christendom rests on this inspired declaration: "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"? the rev. mr. peters, in answer, takes the ground that the bible has produced the richest and most varied literature the world has ever seen. this, i think, is hardly true. has not most of modern literature been produced in spite of the bible? did not christians, for many generations, take the ground that the bible was the only important book, and that books differing from the bible should be destroyed? if christianity--catholic and protestant--could have had its way, the works of voltaire, spinoza, hume, paine, humboldt, darwin, haeckel, spencer, comte, huxley, tyndall, draper, goethe, gibbon, buckle and büchner would not have been published. in short, the philosophy that enlightens and the fiction that enriches the brain would not exist. the greatest literature the world has ever seen is, in my judgment, the poetic--the dramatic; that is to say, the literature of fiction in its widest sense. certainly if the church could have had control, the plays of shakespeare never would have been written; the literature of the stage could not have existed; most works of fiction, and nearly all poetry, would have perished in the brain. so i think it hardly fair to say that "the bible has produced the richest and most varied literature the world has ever seen." thousands of theological books have been written on thousands of questions of no possible importance. libraries have been printed on subjects not worth discussing--not worth thinking about--and that will, in a few years, be regarded as puerile by the whole world. mr. peters, in his enthusiasm, asks this question: "who raised our great institutions of learning? infidels never a stone of them!" stephen girard founded the best institution of learning, the best charity, the noblest ever founded in this or any other land; and under the roof built by his wisdom and his wealth many thousands of orphans have been reared, clothed, fed and educated, not only in books, but in avocations, and become happy and useful citizens. under his will there has been distributed to the poor, fuel to the value of more than $ , ; and this distribution goes on year after year. one of the best observatories in the world was built by the generosity of james lick, an infidel. i call attention to these two cases simply to show that the gentleman is mistaken, and that he was somewhat carried away by his zeal. so, too, mr. peters takes the ground that "we are indebted to christianity for our chronology." according to christianity this world has been peopled about six thousand years. christian chronology gives the age of the first man, and then gives the line from father to son down to the flood, and from the flood down to the coming of christ, showing that men have been upon the earth only about six thousand years. this chronology is infinitely absurd, and i do not believe that there is an intelligent, well-educated christian in the world, having examined the subject, who will say that the christian chronology is correct. neither can it, i think, truthfully be said that "we are indebted to christianity for the continuation of history." the best modern historians of whom i have any knowledge are voltaire, hume, gibbon, buckle and draper. neither can i admit that "we are indebted to christianity for natural philosophy." i do not deny that some natural philosophers have also been christians, or, rather, that some christians have been natural philosophers to the extent that their christianity permitted. but lamarck and humboldt and darwin and spencer and haeckel and huxley and tyndall have done far more for natural philosophy than they have for orthodox religion. whoever believes in the miraculous must be the enemy of natural philosophy. to him there is something above nature, liable to interfere with nature. such a man has two classes of ideas in his mind, each inconsistent with the other. to the extent that he believes in the supernatural he is incapacitated for dealing with the natural, and to that extent fails to be a philosopher. philosophy does not include the caprice of the infinite. it is founded on the absolute integrity and invariability of nature. neither do i agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "we are indebted to christianity for our knowledge of philology." the church taught for a long time that hebrew was the first language and that other languages had been derived from that; and for hundreds and hundreds of years the efforts of philologists were arrested simply because they started with that absurd assumption and believed in the tower of babel. christianity cannot now take the credit for "metaphysical research." it has always been the enemy of metaphysical research. it never has said to any human being, "think!" it has always said, "hear!" it does not ask anybody to investigate. it lays down certain doctrines as absolutely true, and, instead of asking investigation, it threatens every investigator with eternal pain. metaphysical research is destroying what has been called christianity, and christians have always feared it. this gentleman makes another mistake, and a very common one. this is his argument: christian countries are the most intelligent; therefore they owe that intelligence to christianity. then the next step is taken. christianity, being the best, having produced these results, must have been of divine origin. let us see what this proves. there was a time when egypt was the first nation in the world. could not an egyptian, at that time have used the same arguments that mr. peters uses now, to prove that the religion of egypt was divine? could he not then have said: "egypt is the most intelligent, the most civilized and the richest of all nations; it has been made so by its religion; its religion is, therefore, divine"? so there was a time when a hindoo could have made the same argument. certainly this argument could have been made by a greek. it could have been repeated by a roman. and yet mr. peters will not admit that the religion of egypt was divine, or that the mythology of greece was true, or that jupiter was in fact a god. is it not evident to all that if the churches in europe had been institutions of learning; if the domes of cathedrals had been observatories; if priests had been teachers of the facts in nature, the world would have been far in advance of what it is to-day? countries depend on something besides their religion for progress. nations with a good soil can get along quite well with an exceedingly poor religion; and no religion yet has been good enough to give wealth or happiness to human beings where the climate and soil were bad and barren. religion supports nobody. it has to be supported. it produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. it is a perpetual mendicant. it lives on the labor of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver. mr. peters makes this exceedingly strange statement: "every discovery in science, invention and art has been the work of christian men. infidels have contributed their share, but never one of them has reached the grandeur of originality." this, i think, so far as invention is concerned, can be answered with one name--john ericsson, one of the profoundest agnostics i ever met. i am almost certain that humboldt and goethe were original. darwin was certainly regarded as such. i do not wish to differ unnecessarily with mr. peters, but i have some doubts about morse having been the inventor of the telegraph. neither can i admit that christianity abolished slavery. many of the abolitionists in this country were infidels; many of them were christians. but the church itself did not stand for liberty. the quakers, i admit, were, as a rule, on the side of freedom. but the christians of new england persecuted these quakers, whipped them from town to town, lacerated their naked backs, and maimed their bodied, not only, but took their lives. mr. peters asks: "what name is there among the world's emancipators after which you cannot write the name 'christian?'" well, let me give him a few--voltaire, jefferson, paine, franklin, lincoln, darwin. mr. peters asks: "why is it that in christian countries you find the greatest amount of physical and intellectual liberty, the greatest freedom of thought, speech, and action?" is this true of all? how about spain and portugal? there is more infidelity in france than in spain, and there is far more liberty in france than in spain. there is far more infidelity in england than there was a century ago, and there is far more liberty than there was a century ago. there is far more infidelity in the united states than there was fifty years ago, and a hundred infidels to-day where there was one fifty years ago; and there is far more intellectual liberty, far greater freedom of speech and action, than ever before. a few years ago italy was a christian country to the fullest extent. now there are a thousand times more liberty and a thousand times less religion. orthodoxy is dying; liberty is growing. mr. ballou, a grandson, or grand-nephew, of hosea ballou, seems to have wandered from the faith. as a rule, christians insist that when one denies the religion of christian parents he is an exceedingly bad man, but when he denies the religion of parents not christians, and becomes a christian, that he is a very faithful, good and loving son. mr. ballou insists that god has the same right to punish us that nature has, or that the state has. i do not think he understands what i have said. the state ought not to punish for the sake of punishment. the state may imprison, or inflict what is called punishment, first, for its own protection, and, secondly, for the reformation of the punished. if no one could do the state any injury, certainly the state would have no right to punish under the plea of protection; and if no human being could by any possibility be reformed, then the excuse of reformation could not be given. let us apply this: if god be infinite, no one can injure him. therefore he need not punish anybody or damn anybody or burn anybody for his protection. let us take another step. punishment being justified only on two grounds--that is, the protection of society and the reformation of the punished--how can eternal punishment be justified? in the first place, god does not punish to protect himself, and, in the second place, if the punishment is to be forever, he does not punish to reform the punished. what excuse then is left? let us take still another step. if, instead of punishment, we say "consequences," and that every good man has the right to reap the good consequences of good actions, and that every bad man must bear the consequences of bad actions, then you must say to the good: if you stop doing good you will lose the harvest. you must say to the bad: if you stop doing bad you need not increase your burdens. and if it be a fact in nature that all must reap what they sow, there is neither mercy nor cruelty in this fact, and i hold no god responsible for it. the trouble with the christian creed is that god is described as the one who gives rewards and the one who inflicts eternal pain. there is still another trouble. this god, if infinite, must have known when he created man, exactly who would be eternally damned. what right had he to create men, knowing that they were to be damned? so much for mr. ballou. the rev. dr. hillier seems to reason in a kind of circle. he takes the ground, in the first place, that "infidelity, christianity, science, and experience all agree, without the slightest tremor of uncertainty, in the inexorable law that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." he then takes the ground that, "if we wish to be rid of the harvest, we must not sow the seed; if we would avoid the result, we must remove the cause; the only way to be rid of hell is to stop doing evil; that this, and this only, is the way to abolish an eternal penitentiary." very good; but that is not the point. the real thing under discussion is this: is this life a state of probation, and if a man fails to live a good life here, will he have no opportunity for reformation in another world, if there be one? can he cease to do evil in the eternal penitentiary? and if he does, can he be pardoned--can he be released? it is admitted that man must bear the consequences of his acts. if the consequences are good, then the acts are good. if the consequences are bad, the acts are bad. through experience we find that certain acts tend to unhappiness and others to happiness. now, the only question is whether we have wisdom enough to live in harmony with our conditions here; and if we fail here, will we have an opportunity of reforming in another world? if not, then the few years that we live here determine whether we shall be angels or devils forever. it seems to me, if there be another life, that in that life men may do good, and men may do evil; and if they may do good it seems to me that they may reform. i do not see why god, if there be one, should lose all interest in his children, simply because they leave this world and go where he is. is it possible that an infinite god does all for his children here, in this poor ignorant world, that it is possible for him to do, and that if he fails to reform them here, nothing is left to do except to make them eternal convicts? the rev. mr. haldeman mistakes my position. i do not admit that "an infinite god, as revealed in nature, has allowed men to grow up under conditions which no ordinary mortal can look at in all their concentrated agony and not break his heart." i do not confess that god reveals himself in nature as an infinite god, without mercy. i do not admit that there is an infinite being anywhere responsible for the agonies and tears, for the barbarities and horrors of this life. i cannot believe that there is in the universe a being with power to prevent these things. i hold no god responsible. i attribute neither cruelty nor mercy to nature. nature neither weeps nor rejoices. i cannot believe that this world, as it now is, as it has been, was created by an infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent god. but it is far better that we should all go down "with souls unsatisfied" to the dreamless grave, to the tongueless silence of the voiceless dust, than that countless millions of human souls should suffer forever. eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. eternal punishment is eternal revenge, and can be inflicted only by an eternal monster. mr. george a. locey endeavors to put his case in an extremely small compass, and satisfies himself with really one question, and that is: "if a man in good health is stricken with disease, is assured that a physician can cure him, but refuses to take the medicine and dies, ought there to be any escape?" he concludes that the physician has done his duty; that the patient was obdurate and suffered the penalty. the application he makes is this: "the christian's 'tidings of great joy' is the message that the great physician tendered freely. its acceptance is a cure certain, and a life of eternal happiness the reward. if the soul accepts, are they not tidings of great joy; and if the soul rejects, is it not unreasonable on the part of colonel ingersoll to try and sneak out and throw the blame on god?" the answer to this seems easy. the cases are not parallel. if an infinite god created us all, he knew exactly what we would do. if he gave us free will it does not change the result, because he knew how we would use the free will. now, if he knew that billions upon billions would refuse to take the remedy, and consequently would suffer eternal pain, why create them? there would have been much less misery in the world had he left them dust. what right has a god to make a failure? why should he change dust into a sentient being, knowing that that being was to be the heir of endless agony? if the supposed physician had created the patient who refused to take the medicine, and had so created him that he knew he would refuse to take it, the cases might be parallel. according to the orthodox creed, millions are to be damned who never heard of the medicine or of the "great physician." there is one thing said by the rev. mr. talmage that i hardly think he could have intended. possibly there has been a misprint. it is the following paragraph: "who" (speaking of jesus) "has such an eye to our need; such a lip to kiss away our sorrow; such a hand to snatch us out of the fire; _such a foot to trample our enemies_; such a heart to embrace all our necessities?" what does the reverend gentleman mean by "_such a foot to trample our enemies_"? this, to me, is a terrible line. but it is in accordance with the history of the church. in the name of its founder it has "trampled on its enemies," and beneath its cruel feet have perished the noblest of the world. the rev. j. benson hamilton, of brooklyn, comes into this discussion with a great deal of heat and considerable fury. he states that "infidelity is the creed of prosperity, but when sickness or trouble or sorrow comes he" (meaning the infidel) "does not paw nor mock nor cry 'ha! ha!' he sneaks and cringes like a whipped cur, and trembles and whines and howls." the spirit of mr. hamilton is not altogether admirable. he seems to think that a man establishes the truth of his religion by being brave, or demonstrates its falsity by trembling in the presence of death. thousands of people have died for false religions and in honor of false gods. their heroism did not prove the truth of the religion, but it did prove the sincerity of their convictions. a great many murderers have been hanged who exhibited on the scaffold the utmost contempt of death; and yet this courage exhibited by dying murderers has never been appealed to in justification of murder. the reverend gentleman tells again the story of the agonies endured by thomas paine when dying; tells us that he then said that he wished his work had been thrown into the fire, and that if the devil ever had any agency in any work he had in the writing of that book (meaning "the age of reason,") and that he frequently asked the lord jesus to have mercy upon him. of course there is not a word of truth in this story. its falsity has been demonstrated thousands and thousands of times, and yet ministers of the gospel go right on repeating it just the same. so this gentleman tells us that voltaire was accustomed to close his letters with the words, "crush the wretch!" (meaning christ). this is not so. he referred to superstition, to religion, not to christ. this gentleman also says that "voltaire was the prey of anguish and dread, alternately supplicating and blaspheming god; that he complained that he was abandoned by god; that when he died his friends fled from the room, declaring the sight too terrible to be endured." there is not one word of truth in this. everybody who has read the life of voltaire knows that he died with the utmost serenity. let me tell you how voltaire died. he was an old man of eighty-four. he had been surrounded by the comforts of life. he was a man of wealth--of genius. among the literary men of the world he stood first. god had allowed him to have the appearance of success. his last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. he stood at the summit of his age. the priests became anxious. they began to fear that god would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of voltaire. toward the last of may, , it was whispered in paris that voltaire was dying. upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey. "two days before his death his nephew went to seek the curé of st. sulpice and the abbé gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick-chamber, who was informed that they were there. "'ah, well,' said voltaire; 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' "the abbé spoke some words to voltaire, exhorting him to patience. the curé of st. sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked voltaire, lifting his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our lord jesus christ. the sick man pushed one of his hands against the curé's coif shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side: "'let me die in peace!' "the curé seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of the philosopher. he made the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the abbé gautier. "he expired," says wagniere, "on the th of may, , at about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. "ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of morand, his _valet-de-chambre_, who was watching by him, pressed it and said: 'adieu, my dear morand. i am gone!' "these were his last words." from this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful--from these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch--all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances have been drawn and made. from these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed all the shameless calumnies about the death of this great and wonderful man. voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. from his throne at the foot of the alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. he was the pioneer of his century. he was the assassin of superstition. through the shadows of faith and fable; through the darkness of myth and miracle; through the midnight of christianity; through the blackness of bigotry; past cathedral and dungeon; past rack and stake; past altar and throne, he carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch of reason. let me also tell you about the death of thomas paine. after the publication of his "rights of man" and "the age of reason", every falsehood that malignity could coin and malice pass, was given to the world. on his return to america, although thomas jefferson, another infidel, was president, it was hardly safe for paine to appear in the public streets. under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven, his rights were not respected. under the constitution that he had first suggested, his life was insecure. he had helped to give liberty to more than three millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto him. he was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned and cursed. but he maintained his integrity. he stood by the convictions of his mind, and never for one moment did he hesitate or waver. he died almost alone. the moment he died the pious commenced manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. they had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and these ancient falsehoods are certified to by the clergy even of the present day. the truth is that thomas paine died as he had lived. some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his will. several of them he ordered from his room. a couple of catholic priests, in all the meekness of arrogance, called that they might enjoy the agonies of the dying friend of man. thomas paine, rising in his bed, the few moments of expiring life fanned into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both. his physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dulled ear of the dying man: "do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that jesus christ is the son of god?" and the reply was: "i have no wish to believe on that subject." these were the last remembered words of thomas paine. he died as serenely as ever mortal passed away. he died in the full possession of his mind, and on the brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life. every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, every lover of the great republic, should feel under obligation to thomas paine for the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the american revolution. in the midnight of valley forge, "the crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. we should remember that thomas paine was the first man to write these words: "the united states of america." the rev. mr. hamilton seems to take a kind of joy in imagining what infidels will suffer when they come to die, and he writes as though he would like to be present. for my part i hope that all the sons and daughters of men will die in peace; that they will pass away as easily as twilight fades to night. of course when i said that "christianity did not bring tidings of great joy, but a message of eternal grief," i meant orthodox christianity; and when i said that "christianity fills the future with fire and flame, and made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever," i was giving what i understood to be the evangelical belief on that subject. if the churches have given up the doctrine of eternal punishment, then for one i am delighted, and i shall feel that what little i have done toward that end has not been done in vain. the rev. mr. hamilton, enjoying my dying agony in imagination, says: "let the world wait but for a few years at the most, when death's icy fingers feel for the heartstrings of the boaster, and, as most of his like who have gone before him have done, he will sing another strain." how shall i characterize the spirit that could prompt the writing of such a sentence? the reverend gentleman "loves his enemies," and yet he is filled with glee when he thinks of the agonies i shall endure when death's icy fingers feel for the strings of my heart! yet i have done him no harm. he then quotes, as being applicable to me, a passage from the prophet isaiah, commencing: "the vile person will speak villainy." is this passage applicable only to me? the rev. mr. holloway is not satisfied with the "christmas sermon." for his benefit i repeat, in another form, what the "christmas sermon" contains: if orthodox christianity teaches that this life is a period of probation, that we settle here our eternal destiny, and that all who have heard the gospel and who have failed to believe it are to be eternally lost, then i say that christianity did not "bring tidings of great joy," but a message of eternal grief. and if the orthodox churches are still preaching the doctrine of endless pain, then i say it would be far better if every church crumbled into dust than that such preaching and such teaching should be continued. it would be far better yet, however, if the ministers could be converted and their congregations enlightened. i admit that the orthodox churches preach some things beside hell; but if they do not believe in the eternity of punishment they ought publicly to change their creeds. i admit, also, that the average minister advises his congregation to be honest and to treat all with kindness, and i admit that many of these ministers fail to follow their own advice when they make what they call "replies" to me. of course there are many good things about the church. to the extent that it is charitable, or rather to the extent that it causes charity, it is good. to the extent that it causes men and women to lead moral lives it is good. but to the extent that it fills the future with fear it is bad. to the extent that it convinces any human being that there is any god who not only can, but will, inflict eternal torments on his own children, it is bad. and such teaching does tend to blight humanity. such teaching does pollute the imagination of childhood. such teaching does furrow the cheeks of the best and tenderest with tears..such teaching does rob old age of all its joy, and covers every cradle with a curse! the rev. mr. holloway seems to be extremely familiar with god. he says: "god seems to have delayed his advent through all the ages to give unto the world the fullest opportunity to do all that the human mind could suggest for the weal of the race." according to this gentleman, god just delayed his advent for the purpose of seeing what the world would do, _knowing all the time exactly what would be done_. let us make a suggestion: if the orthodox creed be true, then all people became tainted or corrupted or depraved, or in some way spoiled by what is known as "original sin." according to the old testament, these people kept getting worse and worse. it does not seem that jehovah made any effort to improve them, but he patiently waited for about fifteen hundred years without having established any church, without having given them a bible, and then he drowned all but eight persons. now, those eight persons were also depraved. the taint of original sin was also in their blood. it seems to me that jehovah made a mistake. he should also have killed the remaining eight, and started new, kept the serpent out of his garden, and furnished the first pair with a bible and the presbyterian confession of faith. the rev. dr. tyler takes it for granted that all charity and goodness are the children of christianity. this is a mistake. all the virtues were in the world long before christ came. probably mr. tyler will be convinced by the words of christ himself. he will probably remember the story of the good samaritan, and if he does he will see that it is exactly in point. the good samaritan was not a hebrew. he was not one of "the chosen people." he was a poor, "miserable heathen," who knew nothing about the jehovah of the old testament, and who had never heard of the "scheme of salvation." and yet, according to christ, he was far more charitable than the levites--the priests of jehovah, the highest of "the chosen people." is it not perfectly plain from this story that charity was in the world before christianity was established? a great deal has been said about asylums and hospitals, as though the christians are entitled to great credit on that score. if dr. tyler will read what is said in the british encyclopaedia, under the head of "mental diseases," he will find that the egyptians treated the insane with the utmost kindness, and that they called reason back to its throne by the voice of music; that the temples were resorted to by crowds of the insane; and that "whatever gifts of nature or productions of art were calculated to impress the imagination were there united. games and recreations were instituted in the temples. groves and gardens surrounded these holy retreats. gayly decorated boats sometimes transported patients to breathe the pure breezes of the nile." so in ancient greece it is said that "from the hands of the priest the cure of the disordered mind first passed into the domain of medicine, with the philosophers. pythagoras is said to have employed music for the cure of mental diseases. the order of the day for his disciples exhibits a profound knowledge of the relations of body and mind. the early morning was divided between gentle exercise, conversation and music. then came conversation, followed by gymnastic exercise and a temperate diet. afterward, a bath and supper with a sparing allowance of wine; then reading, music and conversation concluded the day." so "asclepiades was celebrated for his treatment of mental disorders. he recommended that bodily restraint should be avoided as much as possible." it is also stated that "the philosophy and arts of greece spread to rome, and the first special treatise on insanity is that of celsus, which distinguishes varieties of insanity and their proper treatment." "over the arts and sciences of greece and rome the errors and ignorance of the middle ages gradually crept, until they enveloped them in a cloud worse than egyptian darkness. the insane were again consigned to the miracle-working-ordinances of o o priests or else totally neglected. idiots and imbeciles were permitted to go clotheless and homeless. the frantic and furious were chained in lonesome dungeons and exhibited for money, like wild beasts. the monomaniacs became, according to circumstance, the objects of superstitious horror or reverence. they were regarded as possessed with demons and subjected either to priestly exorcism, or cruelly destroyed as wizards and witches. this cruel treatment of the insane continued with little or no alleviation down to the end of the last century in all the civilized countries of europe." let me quote a description of these christian asylums. "public asylums indeed existed in most of the metropolitan cities of europe, but the insane were more generally, if at all troublesome, confined in jails, where they were chained in the lowest dungeons or made the butts and menials of the most debased criminals. in public asylums the inmates were confined in cellars, isolated in cages, chained to floors or walls. these poor victims were exhibited to the public like wild beasts. they were often killed by the ignorance and brutality of their keepers." i call particular attention to the following paragraph: "such was the state of the insane generally throughout europe at the commencement of this century. such it continued to be in england so late as and in ireland as , as revealed by the inquiries of parliamentary commissions in those years respectively." dr. tyler is entirely welcome to all the comfort these facts can give. not only were the greeks and romans and egyptians far in advance of the christians in the treatment of the mentally diseased, but even the mohammedans were in advance of the christians about years, and in addition to this they treated their lunatics with great kindness. the temple of diana of ephesus was a refuge for insolvent debtors, and the thesium was a refuge for slaves. again, i say that hundreds of years before the establishment of christianity there were in india not only hospitals and asylums for people, but even for animals. the great mistake of the christian clergy is that they attribute all goodness to christianity. they have always been engaged in maligning human nature--in attacking the human heart--in efforts to destroy all natural passions. perfect maxims for the conduct of life were uttered and repeated in india and china hundreds and hundreds of years before the christian era. every virtue was lauded and every vice denounced. all the good that christianity has in it came from the human heart. everything in that system of religion came from this world; and in it you will find not only the goodness of man, but the imperfections of man--not only the love of man, but the malice of man. let me tell you why the christians for so many centuries neglected or abused the insane. they believed the new testament, and honestly supposed that the insane were filled with devils. in regard to the contest between dr. buckley, who, as i understand it, is a doctor of theology--and i should think such theology stood in need of a doctor--and the _telegram_, i have nothing to say. there is only one side to that contest; and so far as the doctor heretofore criticised what is known as the "christmas sermon," i have answered him, leaving but very little to which i care to reply in his last article. dr. buckley, like many others, brings forward names instead of reasons--instead of arguments. milton, pascal, elizabeth fry, john howard, and michael faraday are not arguments. they are only names; and, instead of giving the names, dr. buckley should give the reasons advanced by those whose names he pronounces. jonathan edwards may have been a good man, but certainly his theology was infamous. so father mathew was a good man, but it was impossible for him to be good enough to convince dr. buckley of the doctrine of the "real presence." milton was a very good man, and he described god as a kind of brigadier-general, put the angels in uniform and had regular battles; but milton's goodness can by no possibility establish the truth of his poetical and absurd vagaries. all the self-denial and goodness in the world do not even tend to prove the existence of the supernatural or of the miraculous. millions and millions of the most devoted men could not, by their devotion, substantiate the inspiration of the scriptures. there are, however, some misstatements in dr. buckley's article that ought not to be passed over in silence. the first is to the effect that i was invited to write an article for the _north american review_, judge jeremiah black to reply, and that judge black was improperly treated. now, it is true that i was invited to write an article, and did write one; but i did not know at the time who was to reply. it is also true that judge black did reply, and that my article and his reply appeared in the same number of the _review._ dr. buckley alleges that the _north american review_ gave me an opportunity to review the judge, but denied to judge black an opportunity to respond. this is without the slightest foundation in fact. mr. metcalf, who at that time was manager of the _review_, is still living and will tell the facts. personally i had nothing to do with it, one way or the other. i did not regard judge black's reply as formidable, and was not only willing that he should be heard again, but anxious that he should. so much for that. as to the debate, with dr. field and mr. gladstone, i leave them to say whether they were or were not fairly treated. dr. field, by his candor, by his fairness, and by the manly spirit he exhibited won my respect and love. most ministers imagine that any man who differs from them is a blasphemer. this word seems to leap unconsciously from their lips. they cannot imagine that another man loves liberty as much and with as sincere devotion as they love god. they cannot imagine that another prizes liberty above all gods, even if gods exist. they cannot imagine that any mind is so that it places justice above all persons, a mind that cannot conceive even of a god who is not bound to do justice. if god exists, above him, in eternal calm, is the figure of justice. neither can some ministers understand a man who regards jehovah and jupiter as substantially the same, with this exception--that he thinks far more of jupiter, because jupiter had at least some human feelings. i do not understand that a man can be guilty of blasphemy who states his honest thoughts in proper language, his object being, not to torture the feelings of others, but simply to give his thought--to find and establish the truth. dr. buckley makes a charge that he ought to have known to be without foundation. speaking of myself, he said: "in him the laws to prevent the circulation of obscene publications through the mails have found their most vigorous opponent." it is hardly necessary for me to say that this is untrue. the facts are that an effort was made to classify obscene literature with what the pious call "blasphemous and immoral works." a petition was forwarded to congress to amend the law so that the literature of freethought could not be thrown from the mails, asking that, if no separation could be made, the law should be repealed. it was said that i had signed this petition, and i certainly should have done so had it been presented to me. the petition was absolutely proper. a few years ago i found the petition, and discovered that while it bore my name it had never been signed by me. but for the purposes of this answer i am perfectly willing that the signature should be regarded as genuine, as there is nothing in the petition that should not have been granted. the law as it stood was opposed by the liberal league--but not a member of that society was in favor of the circulation of obscene literature; but they did think that the privacy of the mails had been violated, and that it was of the utmost importance to maintain the inviolability of the postal service. i disagreed with these people, and favored the destruction of obscene literature not only, but that it be made a criminal offence to send it through the mails. as a matter of fact i drew up resolutions to that effect that were passed. afterward they were changed, or some others were passed, and i resigned from the league on that account. nothing can be more absurd than that i was, directly or indirectly, or could have been, interested in the circulation of obscene publications through the mails; and i will pay a premium of $ , a word for each and every word i ever said or wrote in favor of sending obscene publications through the mails. i might use much stronger language. i might follow the example of dr. buckley himself. but i think i have said enough to satisfy all unprejudiced people that the charge is absurdly false. now, as to the eulogy of whiskey. it gives me a certain pleasure to read that even now, and i believe the readers of the _telegram_ would like to read it once more; so here it is: "i send you some of the most wonderful whiskey that ever drove the skeleton from a feast or painted landscapes in the brain of man. it is the mingled souls of wheat and corn. in it you will find the sunshine and the shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields; the breath of june; the carol of the lark; the dews of night; the wealth of summer and autumn's rich content, all golden with imprisoned light. drink it and you will hear the voices of men and maidens singing the 'harvest home,' mingled with the laughter of children. drink it and you will feel within your blood the star-lit dawns, the dreamy, tawny dusks of many perfect days. for forty years this liquid joy has been within the happy staves of oak, longing to touch the lips of men." i re-quote this for the reason that dr. buckley, who is not very accurate, made some mistakes in his version. now, in order to show the depth of degradation to which i have sunk in this direction, i will confess that i also wrote a eulogy of tobacco, and here it is: "nearly four centuries ago columbus, the adventurous, in the blessed island of cuba, saw happy people with rolled leaves between their lips. above their heads were little clouds of smoke. their faces were serene, and in their eyes was the autumnal heaven of content. these people were kind, innocent, gentle and loving. "the climate of cuba is the friendship of the earth and air, and of this climate the sacred leaves were born--the leaves that breed in the mind of him who uses them the cloudless, happy days in which they grew. "these leaves make friends, and celebrate with gentle rites the vows of peace. they have given consolation to the world. they are the companions of the lonely--the friends of the imprisoned, of the exile, of workers in mines, of fellers of forests, of sailors on the desolate seas. they are the givers of strength and calm to the vexed and wearied minds of those who build with thought and dream the temples of the soul. "they tell of hope and rest. they smooth the wrinkled brows of pain--drive fears and strange misshapen dreads from out the mind and fill the heart with rest and peace. within their magic warp and woof some potent gracious spell imprisoned lies, that, when released by fire, doth softly steal within the fortress of the brain and bind in sleep the captured sentinels of care and grief. "these leaves are the friends of the fireside, and their smoke, like incense, rises from myriads of happy homes. cuba is the smile of the sea." there are some people so constituted that there is no room in the heaven of their minds for the butterflies and moths of fancy to spread their wings. everything is taken in solemn and stupid earnest. such men would hold shakespeare responsible for what falstaff said about "sack," and for mrs. quickly's notions of propriety. there is an old greek saying which is applicable here: "in the presence of human stupidity, even the gods stand helpless." john wesley, founder of the methodist church, lacked all sense of humor. he preached a sermon on "the cause and cure of earthquakes." he insisted that they were caused by the wickedness of man, and that the only way to cure them was to believe on the lord jesus christ. the man who does not carry the torch of humor is always in danger of falling into the pit of absurdity. the rev. charles deems, pastor of the church of the strangers, contributes his part to the discussion. he took a text from john, as follows: "he that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. for this purpose the son of god was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." according to the orthodox creed of the rev. dr. deems all have committed sin, and consequently all are of the devil. the doctor is not a metaphysician. he does not care to play at sleight of hand with words. he stands on bed-rock, and he asserts that the devil is no persian myth, but a personality, who works unhindered by the limitations of a physical body, and gets human personalities to aid him in his works. according to the text, it seems that the devil was a sinner from the beginning. i suppose that must mean from his beginning, or from the beginning of things. according to dr. deems' creed, his god is the creator of all things, and consequently must have been the creator of the devil. according to the scriptures the devil is the father of lies, and dr. deems' god is the father of the devil--that is to say, the grandfather of lies. this strikes me as almost "blasphemous." the doctor also tells us "that jesus believed as much in the personality of the devil as in that of herod or pilate or john or peter." that i admit. there is not the slightest doubt, if the new testament be true, that christ believed in a personal devil--a devil with whom he had conversations; a devil who took him to the pinnacle of the temple and endeavored to induce him to leap to the earth below. of course he believed in a personal devil. not only so; he believed in thousands of personal devils. he cast seven devils out of mary magdalene. he cast a legion of devils out of the man in the tombs, or, rather, made a bargain with these last-mentioned devils that they might go into a drove or herd of swine, if they would leave the man. i not only admit that christ believed in devils, but he believed that some devils were deaf and dumb, and so declared. dr. deems is right, and i hope he will defend against all comers the integrity of the new testament. the doctor, however, not satisfied exactly with what he finds in the new testament, draws a little on his own imagination. he says: "the devil is an organizing, imperial intellect, vindictive, sharp, shrewd, persevering, the aim of whose works is to overthrow the authority of god's law." how does the doctor know that the devil has an organizing, imperial intellect? how does he know that he is vindictive and sharp and shrewd and persevering? if the devil has an "imperial intellect," why does he attempt the impossible? robert burns shocked scotland by saying of the devil, or, rather, to the devil, that he was sorry for him, and hoped he would take a thought and mend. dr. deems has gone far in advance of burns. for a clergyman he seems to be exceedingly polite. speaking of the "arch enemy of god"--of that "organizing, imperial intellect who is seeking to undermine the church"--the doctor says: "the devil may be conceded to be sincere." it has been said: "an honest god is the noblest work of man," and it may now be added: a sincere devil is the noblest work of dr. deems. but, with all the devil's smartness, sharpness, and shrewdness, the doctor says that he "cannot write a book; that he cannot deliver lectures" (like myself, i suppose), "edit a newspaper" (like the editor of the _telegram_), "or make after-dinner speeches; but he can get his servants to do these things for him." there is one thing in the doctor's address that i feel like correcting (i quote from the _telegram's_ report): "dr. deems showed at length how the son of god, the christ of the bible--_not the christ of the lecture platform caricatures_--is operating to overcome all these works." i take it for granted that he refers to what he supposes i have said about christ, and, for fear that he may not have read it, i give it here: "and let me say here, once for all, that for the man christ i have infinite respect. let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man, is holy ground. and let me say, once for all, that to that great and serene man i gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration and my tears. he was a reformer in his day. he was an infidel in his time. he was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom and manhood out of the human mind. had i lived at that time i would have been his friend, and should he come again he will not find a better friend than i will be. that is for the man. for the theological creation i have a different feeling." i have not answered each one who has attacked by name. neither have i mentioned those who have agreed with me. but i do take this occasion to thank all, irrespective of their creeds, who have manfully advocated the right of free speech, and who have upheld the _telegram_ in the course it has taken. i thank all who have said a kind word for me, and i also feel quite grateful to those who have failed to say unkind words. epithets are not arguments. to abuse is not to convince. anger is stupid and malice illogical. and, after all that has appeared by way of reply, i still insist that orthodox christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but with a message of eternal grief. robert g. ingersoll. new york, february , . suicide of judge normile. *a reply to the western watchman, published in the st. louis globe democrat, sept. , . _question_. have you read an article in the _western watchman_, entitled "suicide of judge normile"? if so, what is your opinion of it? _answer._ i have read the article, and i think the spirit in which it is written is in exact accord with the creed, with the belief, that prompted it. in this article the writer speaks not only of judge normile, but of henry d'arcy, and begins by saying that a catholic community had been shocked, but that as a matter of fact the catholics had no right "to feel special concern in the life or death of either," for the reason, "that both had ceased to be catholics, and had lived as infidels and scoffers." according to the catholic creed all infidels and scoffers are on the direct road to eternal pain; and yet, if the _watchman_ is to be believed, catholics have no right to have special concern for the fate of such people, even after their death. the church has always proclaimed that it was seeking the lost--that it was trying in every way to convert the infidels and save the scoffers--that it cared less for the ninety-nine sheep safe in the fold than for the one that had strayed. we have been told that god so loved infidels and scoffers, that he came to this poor world and gave his life that they might be saved. but now we are told by the _western watchman_ that the church, said to have been founded by christ, has no right to feel any special concern about the fate of infidels and scoffers. possibly the _watchman_ only refers to the infidels and scoffers who were once catholics. if the new testament is true, st. peter was at one time a christian; that is to say, a good catholic, and yet he fell from grace and not only denied his master, but went to the extent of swearing that he did not know him; that he never had made his acquaintance. and yet, this same peter was taken back and became the rock on which the catholic church is supposed to rest. are the catholics of st. louis following the example of christ, when they publicly declare that they care nothing for the fate of one who left the church and who died in his sins? the _watchman_, in order to show that it was simply doing its duty, and was not actuated by hatred or malice, assures us as follows: "a warm personal friendship existed between d'arcy and normile and the managers of this paper." what would the _watchman_ have said if these men had been the personal enemies of the managers of that paper? two warm personal friends, once catholics, had gone to hell; but the managers of the _watchman_, "warm personal friends" of the dead, had no right to feel any special concern about these friends in the flames of perdition. one would think that pity had changed to piety. another wonderful statement is that "both of these men determined to go to hell, if there was a hell, and to forego the joys of heaven, if there was a heaven." admitting that heaven and hell exist, that heaven is a good place, and that hell, to say the least, is, and eternally will be, unpleasant, why should any sane man unalterably determine to go to hell? it is hard to think of any reason, unless he was afraid of meeting those catholics in heaven who had been his "warm personal friends" in this world. the truth is that no one wishes to be unhappy in this or any other country. the truth is that henry d'arcy and judge normile both became convinced that the catholic church is of human origin, that its creed is not true, that it is the enemy of progress, and the foe of freedom. it may be that they were in part led to these conclusions by the conduct of their "warm personal friends." it is claimed that these men, henry d'arcy and judge normile "studied" to convince themselves "that there was no god, that they went back to paganism and lived among the ancients," and "that they soon revelled in the grossness of paganism." if they went back to paganism, they certainly found plenty of gods. the pagans filled heaven and earth with deities. the catholics have only three, while the pagans had hundreds. and yet there were some very good pagans. by associating with socrates and plato one would not necessarily become a groveling wretch. zeno was not altogether abominable. he would compare favorably, at least, with the average pope. aristotle was not entirely despicable, although wrong, it may be, in many things. epicurus was temperate, frugal and serene. he perceived the beauty of use, and celebrated the marriage of virtue and joy. he did not teach his disciples to revel in grossness, although his maligners have made this charge. cicero was a pagan, and yet he uttered some very sublime and generous sentiments. among other things, he said this: "when we say that we should love romans, but not foreigners, we destroy the bond of universal brotherhood and drive from our hearts charity and justice." suppose a pagan had written about "two warm personal friends" of his, who had joined the catholic church, and suppose he had said this: "although our two warm personal friends have both died by their own hands, and although both have gone to the lowest hell, and are now suffering inconceivable agonies, we have no right to feel any special concern about them or about their sufferings; and, to speak frankly, we care nothing for their agonies, nothing for their tears, and we mention them only to keep other pagans from joining that blasphemous and ignorant church. both of our friends were raised as pagans, both were educated in our holy religion, and both had read the works of our greatest and wisest authors, and yet they fell into apostasy, and studied day and night, in season and out of season, to convince themselves that a young carpenter of palestine was in fact, jupiter, whom we call stator, the creator, the sustainer and governor of all." it is probable that the editor of the _watchman_ was perfectly conscientious in his attack on the dead. nothing but a sense of religious duty could induce any man to attack the character of a "warm personal friend," and to say that although the friend was in hell, he felt no special concern as to his fate. the _watchman_ seems to think that it is hardly probable or possible that a sane catholic should become an infidel. people of every religion feel substantially in this way. it is probable that the mohammedan is of the opinion that no sane believer in the religion of islam could possibly become a catholic. probably there are no sane mohammedans. i do not know. now, it seems to me, that when a sane catholic reads the history of his church, of the inquisition, of centuries of flame and sword, of philosophers and thinkers tortured, flayed and burned by the "bride of god," and of all the cruelties of christian years, he may reasonably come to the conclusion that the church of rome is not the best possible church in this, the best possible of all worlds. it would hardly impeach his sanity if, after reading the history of superstition, he should denounce the hierarchy, from priest to pope. the truth is, the real opinions of all men are perfectly honest no matter whether they are for or against the catholic creed. all intelligent people are intellectually hospitable. every man who knows something of the operations of his own mind is absolutely certain that his wish has not, to his knowledge, influenced his judgment. he may admit that his wish has influenced his speech, but he must certainly know that it has not affected his judgment. in other words, a man cannot cheat himself in a game of solitaire and really believe that he has won the game. no matter what the appearance of the cards may be, he knows whether the game was lost or won. so, men may say that their judgment is a certain way, and they may so affirm in accordance with their wish, but neither the wish, nor the declaration can affect the real judgment. so, a man must know whether he believes a certain creed or not, or, at least, what the real state of his mind is. when a man tells me that he believes in the supernatural, in the miraculous, and in the inspiration of the scriptures, i take it for granted that he is telling the truth, although it seems impossible to me that the man could reach that conclusion. when another tells me that he does not know whether there is a supreme being or not, but that he does not believe in the supernatural, and is perfectly satisfied that the scriptures are for the most part false and barbarous, i implicitly believe every word he says. i admit cheerfully that there are many millions of men and women who believe what to me seems impossible and infinitely absurd; and, undoubtedly, what i believe seems to them equally impossible. let us give to others the liberty which we claim for ourselves. the _watchman_ seems to think that unbelief, especially when coupled with what they call "the sins of the flesh," is the lowest possible depth, and tells us that "robbers may be devout," "murderers penitent," and "drunkards reverential." in some of these statements the _watchman_ is probably correct. there have been "devout robbers." there have been gentlemen of the highway, agents of the road, who carried sacred images, who bowed, at holy shrines for the purpose of securing success. for many centuries the devout catholics robbed the jews. the devout ferdinand and isabella were great robbers. a great many popes have indulged in this theological pastime, not to speak of the rank and file. yes, the _watchman_ is right. there is nothing in robbery that necessarily interferes with devotion. there have been penitent murderers, and most murderers, unless impelled by a religious sense of duty to god, have been penitent. david, with dying breath, advised his son to murder the old friends of his father. he certainly was not penitent. undoubtedly torquemada murdered without remorse, and calvin burned his "warm personal friend" to gain the applause of god. philip the second was a murderer, not penitent, because he deemed it his duty. the same may be said of the duke of alva, and of thousands of others. robert burns was not, according to his own account, strictly virtuous, and yet i like him better than i do those who planned and carried into bloody execution the massacre of st. bartholomew. undoubtedly murderers have been penitent. a man in california cut the throat of a woman, although she begged for mercy, saying at the same time that she was not prepared to die. he cared nothing for her prayers. he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. he made a motion for a new trial. this was denied. he appealed to the governor, but the executive refused to interfere. then he became penitent and experienced religion. on the scaffold he remarked that he was going to heaven; that his only regret was that he would not meet the woman he had murdered, as she was not a christian when she died. undoubtedly murderers can be penitent. an old spaniard was dying. he sent for a priest to administer the last sacraments of the church. the priest told him that he must forgive all his enemies. "i have no enemies," said the dying man, "i killed the last one three weeks ago." undoubtedly murderers can be penitent. so, i admit that drunkards have been pious and reverential, and i might add, honest and generous. some good catholics and some good protestants have enjoyed a hospitable glass, and there have been priests who used the blood of the grape for other than a sacramental purpose. even luther, a good catholic in his day, a reformer, a doctor of divinity, gave to the world this couplet: "who loves not woman, wine and song, will live a fool his whole life long." the _watchman_, in effect, says that a devout robber is better than an infidel; that a penitent murderer is superior to a freethinker, in the sight of god. another curious thing in this article is that after sending both men to hell, the _watchman_ says: "as to their moral habits we know nothing." it may then be taken for granted, if these "warm personal friends" knew nothing against the dead, that their lives were, at least, what the church calls moral. we know, if we know anything, that there is no necessary connection between what is called religion and morality. certainly there were millions of moral people, those who loved mercy and dealt honestly, before the catholic church existed. the virtues were well known, and practiced, before a triple crown surrounded the cunning brain of an italian vicar of god, and before the flames of the _auto da fé_ delighted the hearts of a christian mob. thousands of people died for the right, before the wrong organized the infallible church. but why should any man deem it his duty or feel it a pleasure to say harsh and cruel things of the dead? why pierce the brow of death with the thorns of hatred? suppose the editor of the _watchman_ had died, and judge normile had been the survivor, would the infidel and scoffer have attacked the unreplying dead? henry d'arcy i did not know; but judge normile was my friend and i was his. although we met but a few times, he excited my admiration and respect. he impressed me as being an exceedingly intelligent man, well informed on many subjects, of varied reading, possessed of a clear and logical mind, a poetic temperament, enjoying the beautiful things in literature and art, and the noble things in life. he gave his opinions freely, but without the least arrogance, and seemed perfectly willing that others should enjoy the privilege of differing with him. he was, so far as i could perceive, a gentleman, tender of the feelings of others, free and manly in his bearing, "of most excellent fancy," and a most charming and agreeable companion. according, however, to the _watchman_, such a man is far below a "devout robber" or a "penitent murderer." is it possible that an assassin like ravillac is far better than a philosopher like voltaire; and that all the catholic robbers and murderers who retain their faith, give greater delight to god than the humboldts, haeckels and darwins who have filled the world with intellectual light? possibly the catholic church is mistaken. possibly the _watchman_ is in error, and possibly there may be for the erring, even in another world, some asylum besides hell. judge normile died by his own hand. certainly he was not afraid of the future. he was not appalled by death. he died by his own hand. can anything be more pitiful--more terrible? how can a man in the flowing tide and noon of life destroy himself? what storms there must have been within the brain; what tempests must have raved and wrecked; what lightnings blinded and revealed; what hurrying clouds obscured and hid the stars; what monstrous shapes emerged from gloom; what darkness fell upon the day; what visions filled the night; how the light failed; how paths were lost; how highways disappeared; how chasms yawned; until one thought--the thought of death--swift, compassionate and endless--became the insane monarch of the mind. standing by the prostrate form of one who thus found death, it is far better to pity than to revile--to kiss the clay than curse the man. the editor of the _watchman_ has done himself injustice. he has not injured the dead, but the living. i am an infidel--an unbeliever--and yet i hope that all the children of men may find peace and joy. no matter how they leave this world, from altar or from scaffold, crowned with virtue or stained with crime, i hope that good may come to all. r. g. ingersoll. is suicide a sin? * these letters were published in the new york world, . col. ingersoll's first letter. i do not know whether self-killing is on the increase or not. if it is, then there must be, on the average, more trouble, more sorrow, more failure, and, consequently, more people are driven to despair. in civilized life there is a great struggle, great competition, and many fail. to fail in a great city is like being wrecked at sea. in the country a man has friends; he can get a little credit, a little help, but in the city it is different. the man is lost in the multitude. in the roar of the streets, his cry is not heard. death becomes his only friend. death promises release from want, from hunger and pain, and so the poor wretch lays down his burden, dashes it from his shoulders and falls asleep. to me all this seems very natural. the wonder is that so many endure and suffer to the natural end, that so many nurse the spark of life in huts and prisons, keep it and guard it through years of misery and want; support it by beggary, by eating the crust found in the gutter, and to whom it only gives days of weariness and nights of fear and dread. why should the man, sitting amid the wreck of all he had, the loved ones dead, friends lost, seek to lengthen, to preserve his life? what can the future have for him? under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself. when life is of no value to him, when he can be of no real assistance to others, why should a man continue? when he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to those he loves, why should he remain? the old idea was that god made us and placed us here for a purpose and that it was our duty to remain until he called us. the world is outgrowing this absurdity. what pleasure can it give god to see a man devoured by a cancer; to see the quivering flesh slowly eaten; to see the nerves throbbing with pain? is this a festival for god? why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? a little morphine would give him sleep--the agony would be forgotten and he would pass unconsciously from happy dreams to painless death. if god determines all births and deaths, of what use is medicine and why should doctors defy with pills and powders, the decrees of god? no one, except a few insane, act now according to this childish superstition. why should a man, surrounded by flames, in the midst of a burning building, from which there is no escape, hesitate to put a bullet through his brain or a dagger in his heart? would it give god pleasure to see him burn? when did the man lose the right of self-defence? so, when a man has committed some awful crime, why should he stay and ruin his family and friends? why should he add to the injury? why should he live, filling his days and nights, and the days and nights of others, with grief and pain, with agony and tears? why should a man sentenced to imprisonment for life hesitate to still his heart? the grave is better than the cell. sleep is sweeter than the ache of toil. the dead have no masters. so the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of home closed against her, the faces of friends averted, no hand that will help, no eye that will soften with pity, the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of dread and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like clouds broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by the serpents of remorse, flying from horrors too great to bear, rushes with joy through the welcome door of death. undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable suicide--cases in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes almost a crime. as to the necessity of death, each must decide for himself. and if a man honestly decides that death is best--best for him and others--and acts upon the decision, why should he be blamed? certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical coward. he may have lacked moral courage, but not physical. it may be said that some men fight duels because they are afraid to decline. they are between two fires--the chance of death and the certainty of dishonor, and they take the chance of death. so the christian martyrs were, according to their belief, between two fires--the flames of the fagot that could burn but for a few moments, and the fires of god, that were eternal. and they chose the flames of the fagot. men who fear death to that degree that they will bear all the pains and pangs that nerves can feel, rather than die, cannot afford to call the suicide a coward. it does not seem to me that brutus was a coward or that seneca was. surely antony had nothing left to live for. cato was not a craven. he acted on his judgment. so with hundreds of others who felt that they had reached the end---that the journey was done, the voyage was over, and, so feeling, stopped. it seems certain that the man who commits suicide, who "does the thing that ends all other deeds, that shackles accident and bolts up change" is not lacking in physical courage. if men had the courage, they would not linger in prisons, in almshouses, in hospitals; they would not bear the pangs of incurable disease, the stains of dishonor; they would not live in filth and want, in poverty and hunger, neither would they wear the chain of slavery. all this can be accounted for only by the fear of death or "of something after." seneca, knowing that nero intended to take his life, had no fear. he knew that he could defeat the emperor. he knew that "at the bottom of every river, in the coil of every rope, on the point of every dagger, liberty sat and smiled." he knew that it was his own fault if he allowed himself to be tortured to death by his enemy. he said: "there is this blessing, that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as i choose the house in which i live, the ship in which i will sail, so will i choose the time and manner of my death." to me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble. under the roman law persons found guilty of certain offences were not only destroyed, but their blood was polluted and their children became outcasts. if, however, they died before conviction their children were saved. many committed suicide to save their babes. certainly they were not cowards. although guilty of great crimes they had enough of honor, of manhood, left to save their innocent children. this was not cowardice. without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity. men lose their property. the fear of the future overpowers them. things lose proportion, they lose poise and balance, and in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill themselves. the disappointed in love, broken in heart--the light fading from their lives--seek the refuge of death. those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways--who mangle their throats with broken glass, dash themselves from towers and roofs, take poisons that torture like the rack--such persons must be insane. but those who take the facts into account, who weigh the arguments for and against, and who decide that death is best--the only good--and then resort to reasonable means, may be, so far as i can see, in full possession of their minds. life is not the same to all--to some a blessing, to some a curse, to some not much in any way. some leave it with unspeakable regret, some with the keenest joy and some with indifference. religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing upon the number of suicides. the fear of god, of judgment, of eternal pain will stay the hand, and people so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural death. a belief in eternal agony beyond the grave will cause such believers to suffer the pangs of this life. when there is no fear of the future, when death is believed to be a dreamless sleep, men have less hesitation about ending their lives. on the other hand, orthodox religion has driven millions to insanity. it has caused parents to murder their children and many thousands to destroy themselves and others. it seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox believers who kill themselves must be insane, and to such a degree that their belief is forgotten. god and hell are out of their minds. i am satisfied that many who commit suicide are insane, many are in the twilight or dusk of insanity, and many are perfectly sane. the law we have in this state making it a crime to attempt suicide is cruel and absurd and calculated to increase the number of successful suicides. when a man has suffered so much, when he has been so persecuted and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and sleep of death, why should the state add to the sufferings of that man? a man seeking death, knowing that he will be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and precautions to make death certain. this law was born of superstition, passed by thoughtlessness and enforced by ignorance and cruelty. when the house of life becomes a prison, when the horizon has shrunk and narrowed to a cell, and when the convict longs for the liberty of death, why should the effort to escape be regarded as a crime? of course, i regard life from a natural point of view. i do not take gods, heavens or hells into account. my horizon is the known, and my estimate of life is based upon what i know of life here in this world. people should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or for other worlds or the hopes and fears of some future state. our joys, our sufferings and our duties are here. the law of new york about the attempt to commit suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal. both are idiotic. law cannot prevent suicide. those who have lost all fear of death, care nothing for law and its penalties. death is liberty, absolute and eternal. we should remember that nothing happens but the natural. back of every suicide and every attempt to commit suicide is the natural and efficient cause. nothing happens by chance. in this world the facts touch each other. there is no space between--no room for chance. given a certain heart and brain, certain conditions, and suicide is the necessary result. if we wish to prevent suicide we must change conditions. we must by education, by invention, by art, by civilization, add to the value of the average life. we must cultivate the brain and heart--do away with false pride and false modesty. we must become generous enough to help our fellows without degrading them. we must make industry--useful work of all kinds--honorable. we must mingle a little affection with our charity--a little fellowship. we should allow those who have sinned to really reform. we should not think only of what the wicked have done, but we should think of what we have wanted to do. people do not hate the sick. why should they despise the mentally weak--the diseased in brain? our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances--of conditions--and we do as we must. this great truth should fill the heart with pity for the failures of our race. sometimes i have wondered that christians denounced the suicide; that in olden times they buried him where the roads crossed, drove a stake through his body, and then took his property from his children and gave it to the state. if christians would only think, they would see that orthodox religion rests upon suicide--that man was redeemed by suicide, and that without suicide the whole world would have been lost. if christ were god, then he had the power to protect himself from the jews without hurting them. but instead of using his power he allowed them to take his life. if a strong man should allow a few little children to hack him to death with knives when he could easily have brushed them aside, would we not say that he committed suicide? there is no escape. if christ were, in fact, god, and allowed the jews to kill him, then he consented to his own death--refused, though perfectly able, to defend and protect himself, and was, in fact, a suicide. we cannot reform the world by law or by superstition. as long as there shall be pain and failure, want and sorrow, agony and crime, men and women will untie life's knot and seek the peace of death. to the hopelessly imprisoned--to the dishonored and despised--to those who have failed, who have no future, no hope--to the abandoned, the brokenhearted, to those who are only remnants and fragments of men and women--how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death! and even to the most fortunate, death at last is a welcome deliverer. death is as natural and as merciful as life. when we have journeyed long--when we are weary--when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for the cool kisses of the night--when the senses are dull--when the pulse is faint and low--when the mists gather on the mirror of memory--when the past is almost forgotten, the present hardly perceived--when the future has but empty hands--death is as welcome as a strain of music. after all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. next to eternal happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the cool earth, disturbed by no dream, by no thought, by no pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and forever. the wonder is that so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they, limp and stagger and crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. the wonder is that so few of the miserable are brave enough to die--that so many are terrified by the "something after death"--by the spectres and phantoms of superstition. most people are in love with life. how they cling to it in the arctic snows--how they struggle in the waves and currents of the sea--how they linger in famine--how they fight disaster and despair! on the crumbling edge of death they keep the flag flying and go down at last full of hope and courage. but many have not such natures. they cannot bear defeat. they are disheartened by disaster. they lie down on the field of conflict and give the earth their blood. they are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. we should not curse or blame--we should pity. on their pallid faces our tears should fall. one of the best men i ever knew, with an affectionate wife, a charming and loving daughter, committed suicide. he was a man of generous impulses. his heart was loving and tender. he was conscientious, and so sensitive that he blamed himself for having done what at the time he thought was wise and best. he was the victim of his virtues. let us be merciful in our judgments. all we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving and the malignant, the conscientious and the vicious, the educated and the ignorant, actuated by many motives, urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions--sometimes in the calm of judgment, sometimes in passion's storm and stress, sometimes in whirl and tempest of insanity--raise their hands against themselves and desperately put out the light of life. those who attempt suicide should not be punished. if they are insane they should if possible be restored to reason; if sane, they should be reasoned with, calmed and assisted. r. g. ingersoll. col. ingersoll's reply to his critics. in the article written by me about suicide the ground was taken that "under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself." this has been attacked with great fury by clergymen, editors and the writers of letters. these people contend that the right of self-destruction does not and cannot exist. they insist that life is the gift of god, and that he only has the right to end the days of men; that it is our duty to bear the sorrows that he sends with grateful patience. some have denounced suicide as the worst of crimes--worse than the murder of another. the first question, then, is: has a man under any circumstances the right to kill himself? a man is being slowly devoured by a cancer--his agony is intense--his suffering all that nerves can feel. his life is slowly being taken. is this the work of the good god? did the compassionate god create the cancer so that it might feed on the quiverering flesh of this victim? this man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination to conceive, is of no use to himself. his life is but a succession of pangs. he is of no use to his wife, his children, his friends or society. day after day he is rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the brain to sleep. has he the right to render himself unconscious? is it proper for him to take refuge in sleep? if there be a good god i cannot believe that he takes pleasure in the sufferings of men--that he gloats over the agonies of his children. if there be a good god, he will, to the extent of his power, lessen the evils of life. so i insist that the man being eaten by the cancer--a burden to himself and others, useless in every way--has the right to end his pain and pass through happy sleep to dreamless rest. but those who have answered me would say to this man: "it is your duty to be devoured. the good god wishes you to suffer. your life is the gift of god. you hold it in trust and you have no right to end it. the cancer is the creation of god and it is your duty to furnish it with food." take another case: a man is on a burning ship, the crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped--gone in the lifeboats--and he is left alone. in the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of help. he cannot swim. if he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship he burns. in any event he can live but a few moments. those who have answered me, those who insist that under no circumstances a man has the right to take his life, would say to this man on the deck, "remain where you are. it is the desire of your loving, heavenly father that you be clothed in flame--that you slowly roast--that your eyes be scorched to blindness and that you die insane with pain. your life is not your own, only the agony is yours." i would say to this man: do as you wish. if you prefer drowning to burning, leap into the sea. between inevitable evils you have the right of choice. you can help no one, not even god, by allowing yourself to be burned, and you can injure no one, not even god, by choosing the easier death. let us suppose another case: a man has been captured by savages in central africa. he is about to be tortured to death. his captors are going to thrust splinters of pine into his flesh and then set them on fire. he watches them as they make the preparations. he knows what they are about to do and what he is about to suffer. there is no hope of rescue, of help. he has a vial of poison. he knows that he can take it and in one moment pass beyond their power, leaving to them only the dead body. is this man under obligation to keep his life because god gave it, until the savages by torture take it? are the savages the agents of the good god? are they the servants of the infinite? is it the duty of this man to allow them to wrap his body in a garment of flame? has he no right to defend himself? is it the will of god that he die by torture? what would any man of ordinary intelligence do in a case like this? is there room for discussion? if the man took the poison, shortened his life a few moments, escaped the tortures of the savages, is it possible that he would in another world be tortured forever by an infinite savage? suppose another case: in the good old days, when the inquisition flourished, when men loved their enemies and murdered their friends, many frightful and ingenious ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain. those who loved god, who had been "born twice," would take a fellow-man who had been convicted of "heresy," lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure his arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so that he could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his body. then these worshipers of god would wait until the rats, seeking food and liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim. now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture, had within his hand a dagger, would it excite the wrath of the "good god," if with one quick stroke he found the protection of death? to this question there can be but one answer. in the cases i have supposed it seems to me that each person would have the right to destroy himself. it does not seem possible that the man was under obligation to be devoured by a cancer; to remain upon the ship and perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tortured to death by savages; to drop the dagger and endure the "mercies" of the church. if, in the cases i have supposed, men would have the right to take their lives, then i was right when i said that "under many circumstances a man has a right to kill himself." _second_.--i denied that persons who killed themselves were physical cowards. they may lack moral courage; they may exaggerate their misfortunes, lose the sense of proportion, but the man who plunges the dagger in his heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps from some roof and dashes himself against the stones beneath, is not and cannot be a physical coward. the basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear of death, and when that fear is not only gone, but in its place is the desire to die, no matter by what means, it is impossible that cowardice should exist. the suicide wants the very thing that a coward fears. he seeks the very thing that cowardice endeavors to escape. so, the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the less is not a coward, but a reasonable man. it must be admitted that the suicide is honest with himself. he is to bear the injury; if it be one. certainly there is no hypocrisy, and just as certainly there is no physical cowardice. is the man who takes morphine rather than be eaten to death by a cancer a coward? is the man who leaps into the sea rather than be burned a coward? is the man that takes poison rather than be tortured to death by savages or "christians" a coward? _third_.--i also took the position that some suicides were sane; that they acted on their best judgment, and that they were in full possession of their minds. now, if under some circumstances, a man has the right to take his life, and, if, under such circumstances, he does take his life, then it cannot be said that he was insane. most of the persons who have tried to answer me have taken the ground that suicide is not only a crime, but some of them have said that it is the greatest of crimes. now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been sane. so all persons who denounce the suicide as a criminal admit that he was sane. under the law, an insane person is incapable of committing a crime. all the clergymen who have answered me, and who have passionately asserted that suicide is a crime, have by that assertion admitted that those who killed themselves were sane. they agree with me, and not only admit, but assert that "some who have committed suicide were sane and in the full possession of their minds." it seems to me that these three propositions have been demonstrated to be true: _first_, that under some circumstances a man has the right to take his life; _second_, that the man who commits suicide is not a physical coward, and, _third_, that some who have committed suicide were at the time sane and in full possession of their minds. _fourth_.--i insisted, and still insist, that suicide was and is the foundation of the christian religion. i still insist that if christ were god he had the power to protect himself without injuring his assailants--that having that power it was his duty to use it, and that failing to use it he consented to his own death and was guilty of suicide. to this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for the redemption of man, that he made an atonement for the sins of believers. these ideas about redemption and atonement are born of a belief in the "fall of man," on account of the sins of our first "parents," and of the declaration that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." the foundation has crumbled. no intelligent person now believes in the "fall of man"--that our first parents were perfect, and that their descendants grew worse and worse, at least until the coming of christ. intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before the dawn of history, man was a poor, naked, cruel, ignorant and degraded savage, whose language consisted of a few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all the virtues of the beasts; that the journey from the den to the home, the palace, has been long and painful, through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and war; through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice and thought. redemption and atonement are left without a fact on which to rest. the idea that an infinite god, creator of all worlds, came to this grain of sand, learned the trade of a carpenter, discussed with pharisees and scribes, and allowed a few infuriated hebrews to put him to death that he might atone for the sins of men and redeem a few believers from the consequences of his own wrath, can find no lodgment in a good and natural brain. in no mythology can anything more monstrously unbelievable be found. but if christ were a man and attacked the religion of his times because it was cruel and absurd; if he endeavored to found a religion of kindness, of good deeds, to take the place of heartlessness and ceremony, and if, rather than to deny what he believed to be right and true, he suffered death, then he was a noble man--a benefactor of his race. but if he were god there was no need of this. the jews did not wish to kill god. if he had only made himself known all knees would have touched the ground. if he were god it required no heroism to die. he knew that what we call death is but the opening of the gates of eternal life. if he were god there was no self-sacrifice. he had no need to suffer pain. he could have changed the crucifixion to a joy. even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is no escape from these conclusions--from these arguments--and so, instead of attacking the arguments, they attack the man who makes them. _fifth_.--i denounced the law of new york that makes an attempt to commit suicide a crime. it seems to me that one who has suffered so much that he passionately longs for death should be pitied, instead of punished--helped rather than imprisoned. a despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave to toil, a woman without home, without friends, without bread, with clasped hands, with tear-filled eyes, with broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night leaps from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of death. she is rescued by a kind, courageous man, handed over to the authorities, indicted, tried, convicted, clothed in a convict's garb and locked in a felon's cell. to me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law that only savages would enforce. _sixth_.--in this discussion a curious thing has happened. for several centuries the clergy have declared that while infidelity is a very good thing to live by, it is a bad support, a wretched consolation, in the hour of death. they have in spite of the truth, declared that all the great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking god for mercy, surrounded by fiends, in the torments of despair. think of the thousands and thousands of clergymen who have described the last agonies of voltaire, who died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes from play to slumber; the final anguish of hume, who fell into his last sleep as serenely as a river, running between green and shaded banks, reaches the sea; the despair of thomas paine, one of the bravest, one of the noblest men, who met the night of death untroubled as a star that meets the morning. at the same time these ministers admitted that the average murderer could meet death on the scaffold with perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask the people who had gathered to see him killed to meet him in heaven. but the honest man who had expressed his honest thoughts against the creed of the church in power could not die in peace. god would see to it that his last moments should be filled with the insanity of fear--that with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse, the cry for pardon. this has all changed, and now the clergy, in their sermons answering me, declare that the atheists, the freethinkers, have no fear of death--that to avoid some little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly and cheerfully put out the light of life. it is now said that infidels believe that death is the end--that it is a dreamless sleep--that it is without pain--that therefore they have no fear, care nothing for gods, or heavens or hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing for the day of judgment, and that when life becomes a burden they carelessly throw it down. the infidels are so afraid of death that they commit suicide. this certainly is a great change, and i congratulate myself on having forced the clergy to contradict themselves. _seventh_.--the clergy take the position that the atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality--that he can have no real conception of right and wrong. they are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some being far above himself. in this connection we might ask how god can be moral or good unless he believes in some being superior to himself? what is morality? it is the best thing to do under the circumstances. what is the best thing to do under the circumstances? that which will increase the sum of human happiness--or lessen it the least. happiness in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral--that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral. it is not hard for an atheist--for an unbeliever--to keep his hands out of the fire. he knows that burning his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames. so it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence--so far as what he considers his own good is concerned. sometimes he is swayed by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance--but when he is really intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him. if he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is good for others--for all the world. it is impossible for me to see' why any belief in the supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. every man who has the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all morality. the idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of mankind. morality is not of supernatural origin. it did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life. subjects who are governed by the threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. they are not governed by the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. they are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards--by alms. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the ten commandments. _eighth_.--the clergy take the position that the atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality--that he can have no real conception of right and wrong. they are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some being far above himself. in this connection we might ask how god can be moral or good unless he believes in some being superior to himself? what is morality? it is the best thing to do under the circumstances. what is the best thing to do under the circumstances? that which will increase the sum of human happiness--or lessen it the least. happiness in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral--that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral. it is not hard for an atheist--for an unbeliever--to keep his hands out of the fire. he knows that burning his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames. so it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence--so far as what he considers his own good is concerned. sometimes he is swayed by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance--but when he is really intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him. if he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is food for others--for all the world. it is impossible for me to see why any belief in the supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. every man who has the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all morality. the idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of mankind. morality is not of supernatural origin. it did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life. subjects who are governed by the threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. they are not governed by the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. they are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards--by alms. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the ten commandments. _eighth_.--many of the clergy, some editors and some writers of letters who have answered me, have said that suicide is the worst of crimes--that a man had better murder somebody else than himself. one clergyman gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide dies in an act of sin, and therefore he had better kill another person. probably he would commit a less crime if he would murder his wife or mother. i do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in sin. to say that it is not as wicked to murder another as yourself seems absurd. the man about to kill himself wishes to die. why is it better for him to kill another man, who wishes to live? to my mind it seems clear that you had better injure yourself than another. better be a spendthrift than a thief. better throw away your own money than steal the money of another--better kill yourself if you wish to die than murder one whose life is full of joy. the clergy tell us that god is everywhere, and that it is one of the greatest possible crimes to rush into his presence. it is wonderful how much they know about god and how little about their fellow-men. wonderful the amount of their information about other worlds and how limited their knowledge is of this. there may or may not be an infinite being. i neither affirm nor deny. i am honest enough to say that i do not know. i am candid enough to admit that the question is beyond the limitations of my mind. yet i think i know as much on that subject as any human being knows or ever knew, and that is--nothing. i do not say that there is not another world, another life; neither do i say that there is. i say that i do not know. it seems to me that every sane and honest man must say the same. but if there is an infinitely good god and another world, then the infinitely good god will be just as good to us in that world as he is in this. if this infinitely good god loves his children in this world, he will love them in another. if he loves a man when he is alive, he will not hate him the instant he is dead. if we are the children of an infinitely wise and powerful god, he knew exactly what we would do--the temptations that we could and could not withstand--knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon us, knew under what circumstances we would take our lives--and produced such circumstances himself. it is perfectly apparent that there are many people incapable by nature of bearing the burdens of life, incapable of preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of disaster, disease and loss, and who by failure, by misfortune and want, are driven to despair and insanity, in whose darkened minds there comes like a flash of lightning in the night, the thought of death, a thought so strong, so vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all duties, all obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught remains except a fierce and wild desire to die. thousands and thousands become moody, melancholy, brood upon loss of money, of position, of friends, until reason abdicates and frenzy takes possession of the soul. if there be an infinitely wise and powerful god, all this was known to him from the beginning, and he so created things, established relations, put in operation causes and effects, that all that has happened was the necessary result of his own acts. _ninth_.--nearly all who have tried to answer what i said have been exceedingly careful to misquote me, and then answer something that i never uttered. they have declared that i have advised people who were in trouble, somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that i have told men who have lost their money, who had failed in business, who were not good in health, to kill themselves at once, without taking into consideration any duty that they owed to wives, children, friends, or society. no man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle alone if he is able to help. no man has a right to desert his children if he can possibly be of use. as long as he can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he can stand between wife and misery, between child and want, as long as he can be of any use, it is his duty to remain. i believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny side of things, in bearing with fortitude the evils of life, in struggling against adversity, in finding the fuel of laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in to-morrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints and shards, and in changing by the alchemy of patience even evil things to good. i believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, of courage and good nature. of the future i have no fear. my fate is the fate of the world--of all that live. my anxieties are about this life, this world. about the phantoms called gods and their impossible hells, i have no care, no fear. the existence of god i neither affirm nor deny, i wait. the immortality of the soul i neither affirm nor deny. i hope--hope for all of the children of men. i have never denied the existence of another world, nor the immortality of the soul. for many years i have said that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. what i deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity of torture. after all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong. people do not kill themselves on the advice of friends or enemies. all wish to be happy, to enjoy life; all wish for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as long as life gives joy, the idea of self-destruction never enters the human mind. the oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the rights of others, the robbers of the poor, those who put wages below the living point, the ministers who make people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain; these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering and the helpless down to death. it will not do to say that god has appointed a time for each to die. of this there is, and there can be, no evidence. there is no evidence that any god takes any interest in the affairs of men--that any sides with the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues the oppressed. even the clergy admit that their god, through all ages, has allowed his friends, his worshipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered by his enemies. such is the protection of god. billions of prayers have been uttered; has one been answered? who sends plague, pestilence and famine? who bids the earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm? _tenth_.--again, i say that it is wonderful to me that so many men, so many women endure and carry their burdens to the natural end; that so many, in spite of "age, ache and penury," guard with trembling hands the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to the last; that the helpless wretches in poorhouses and asylums cling to life; that the exiles in siberia, loaded with chains, scarred with the knout, live on; that the incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom the future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch and clasp of death. it is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the grave; a short journey. the suicide hastens, shortens the path, loses the afternoon, the twilight, the dusk of life's day; loses what he does not want, what he cannot bear. in the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of madness, or in the calm of thought and choice, the beleaguered soul finds the serenity of death. let us leave the dead where nature leaves them. we know nothing of any realm that lies beyond the horizon of the known, beyond the end of life. let us be honest with ourselves and others. let us pity the suffering, the despairing, the men and women hunted and pursued by grief and shame, by misery and want, by chance and fate until their only friend is death. robert g. ingersoll. suicide a sin. * new york journal, . an interview. _question_. do you think that what you have written about suicide has caused people to take their lives? _answer._ no, i do not. people do not kill themselves because of the ideas of others. they are the victims of misfortune. _question_. what do you consider the chief cause of suicide? _answer._ there are many causes. some individuals are crossed in love, others are bankrupt in estate or reputation, still others are diseased in body and frequently in mind. there are a thousand and one causes that lead up to the final act. _question_. do you consider that nationality plays a part in these tragedies? _answer._ no, it is a question of individuals. there are those whose sorrows are greater than they can bear. these sufferers seek the peace of death. _question_. do you, then, advise suicide? _answer._ no, i have never done so, but i have said, and still say, that there are circumstances under which it is justifiable for a person to take his life. _question_. what do you think of the law which prohibits self-destruction? _answer._ that it is absurd and ridiculous. the other day a man was tried before judge goff for having tried to kill himself. i think he pleaded guilty, and the judge, after speaking of the terrible crime of the poor wretch, sentenced him to the penitentiary for two years. this was an outrage; infamous in every way, and a disgrace to our civilization. _question_. do you believe that such a law will prevent the frequency of suicides? _answer._ by no means. after this, persons in new york who have made up their minds to commit suicide will see to it that they succeed. _question_. have your opinions been in any way modified since your first announcement of them? _answer._ no, i feel now as i have felt for many years. no one can answer my articles on suicide, because no one can satisfactorily refute them. every man of sense knows that a person being devoured by a cancer has the right to take morphine, and pass from agony to dreamless sleep. so, too, there are circumstances under which a man has the right to end his pain of mind. _question_. have you seen in the papers that many who have killed themselves have had on their persons some article of yours on suicide? _answer._ yes, i have read such accounts, but i repeat that i do not think these persons were led to kill themselves by reading the articles. many people who have killed themselves were found to have bibles or tracts in their pockets. _question_. how do you account for the presence of the latter? _answer._ the reason of this is that the theologians know nothing. the pious imagine that their god has placed us here for some wise and inscrutable purpose, and that he will call for us when he wants us. all this is idiotic. when a man is of no use to himself or to others, when his days and nights are filled with pain and sorrow, why should he remain to endure them longer? suicide a sin. * new york herald, . an interview. col. robert g. ingersoll was seen at his house and asked if he had read the rev. merle st. croix wright's sermon. _answer._ yes. i have read the sermon, and also an interview had with the reverend gentleman. long ago i gave my views about suicide, and i entertain the same views still. mr. wright's sermon has stirred up quite a commotion among the orthodox ministers. this commotion may always be expected when anything sensible comes from a pulpit. mr. wright has mixed a little common sense with his theology, and, of course this has displeased the truly orthodox. sense is the bitterest foe that theology has. no system of supernatural religion can outlive a good dose of real good sense. the orthodox ministers take the ground that an infinite being created man, put him on the earth and determined his days. they say that god desires every person to live until he, god, calls for his soul. they insist that we are all on guard and must remain so until relieved by a higher power--the superior officer. the trouble with this doctrine is that it proves too much. it proves that god kills every person who dies as we say, "according to nature." it proves that we ought to say, "according to god." it proves that god sends the earthquake, the cyclone, the pestilence, for the purpose of killing people. it proves that all diseases and all accidents are his messengers, and that all who do not kill themselves, die by the act, and in accordance with the will of god. it also shows that when a man is murdered, it is in harmony with, and a part of the divine plan. when god created the man who was murdered, he knew that he would be murdered, and when he made the man who committed the murder, he knew exactly what he would do. so that the murder was the act of god. can it be said that god intended that thousands should die of famine and that he, to accomplish his purpose, withheld the rain? can we say that he intended that thousands of innocent men should die in dungeons and on scaffolds? is it possible that a man, "slowly being devoured by a cancer," whose days and nights are filled with torture, who is useless to himself and a burden to others, is carrying out the will of god? does god enjoy his agony? is god thrilled by the music of his moans--the melody of his shrieks? this frightful doctrine makes god an infinite monster, and every human being a slave; a victim. this doctrine is not only infamous but it is idiotic. it makes god the only criminal in the universe. now, if we are governed by reason, if we use our senses and our minds, and have courage enough to be honest; if we know a little of the world's history, then we know--if we know anything--that man has taken his chances, precisely the same as other animals. he has been destroyed by heat and cold, by flood and fire, by storm and famine, by countless diseases, by numberless accidents. by his intelligence, his cunning, his strength, his foresight, he has managed to escape utter destruction. he has defended himself. he has received no supernatural aid. neither has he been attacked by any supernatural power. nothing has ever happened in nature as the result of a purpose to benefit or injure the human race. consequently the question of the right or wrong of suicide is not in any way affected by a supposed obligation to the infinite. all theological considerations must be thrown aside because we see and know that the laws of life are the same for all living things--that when the conditions are favorable, the living multiply and life lengthens, and when the conditions are unfavorable, the living decrease and life shortens. we have no evidence of any interference of any power superior to nature. taking into consideration the fact that all the duties and obligations of man must be to his fellows, to sentient beings, here in this world, and that he owes no duty and is under no obligation to any phantoms of the air, then it is easy to determine whether a man under certain circumstances has the right to end his life. if he can be of no use to others--if he is of no use to himself--if he is a burden to others--a curse to himself--why should he remain? by ending his life he ends his sufferings and adds to the well-being of others. he lessens misery and increases happiness. under such circumstances undoubtedly a man has the right to stop the pulse of pain and woo the sleep that has no dream. i do not think that the discussion of this question is of much importance, but i am glad that a clergyman has taken a natural and a sensible position, and that he has reasoned not like a minister, but like a man. when wisdom comes from the pulpit i am delighted and surprised. i feel then that there is a little light in the east, possibly the dawn of a better day. i congratulate the rev. mr. wright, and thank him for his brave and philosophic words. there is still another thing. certainly a man has the right to avoid death, to save himself from accident and disease. if he has this right, then the theologians must admit that god, in making his decrees, took into consideration the result of such actions. now, if god knew that while most men would avoid death, some would seek it, and if his decrees were so made that they would harmonize with the acts of those who would avoid death, can we say that he did not, in making his decrees, take into consideration the acts of those who would seek death? let us remember that all actions, good, bad and indifferent, are the necessary children of conditions--that there is no chance in the natural world in which we live. so, we must keep in mind that all real opinions are honest, and that all have the same right to express their thoughts. let us be charitable. when some suffering wretch, wild with pain, crazed with regret, frenzied with fear, with desperate hand unties the knot of life, let us have pity--let us be generous. suicide and sanity. * new york press, . an interview. _question_. is a suicide necessarily insane? was the first question, to which colonel ingersoll replied: _answer._ no. at the same time i believe that a great majority of suicides are insane. there are circumstances under which suicide is natural, sensible and right. when a man is of no use to himself, when he can be of no use to others, when his life is filled with agony, when the future has no promise of relief, then i think he has the right to cast the burden of life away and seek the repose of death. _question_. is a suicide necessarily a coward? _answer._ i cannot conceive of cowardice in connection with suicide. of nearly all things death is the most feared. and the man who voluntarily enters the realm of death cannot properly be called a coward. many men who kill themselves forget the duties they owe to others--forget their wives and children. such men are heartless, wicked, brutal; but they are not cowards. _question_. when is the suicide of the sane justifiable? _answer._ to escape death by torture; to avoid being devoured by a cancer; to prevent being a burden on those you love; when you can be of no use to others or to yourself; when life is unbearable; when in all the horizon of the future there is no star of hope. _question_. do you believe that any suicides have been caused or encouraged by your declaration three years ago that suicide sometimes was justifiable? _answer._ many preachers talk as though i had inaugurated, invented, suicide, as though no one who had not read my ideas on suicide had ever taken his own life. talk as long as language lasts, you cannot induce a man to kill himself. the man who takes his own life does not go to others to find reasons or excuses. _question_. on the whole is the world made better or worse by suicides? _answer._ better by some and poorer by others. _question_. why is it that germany, said to be the most educated of civilized nations, leads the world in suicides? _answer._ i do not know that germany is the most educated; neither do i know that suicide is more frequent there than in all other countries. i know that the struggle for life is severe in germany, that the laws are unjust, that the government is oppressive, that the people are sentimental, that they brood over their troubles and easily become hopeless. _question_. if suicide is sometimes justifiable, is not killing of born idiots and infants hopelessly handicapped at birth equally so? _answer._ there is no relation between the questions--between suicides and killing idiots. suicide may, under certain circumstances, be right and killing idiots may be wrong; killing idiots may be right and suicide may be wrong. when we look about us, when we read interviews with preachers about jonah, we know that all the idiots have not been killed. _question_. should suicide be forbidden by law? _answer._ no. a law that provides for the punishment of those who attempt to commit suicide is idiotic. those who are willing to meet death are not afraid of law. the only effect of such a law would be to make the person who had concluded to kill himself a little more careful to succeed. _question_. what is your belief about virtue, morality and religion? _answer._ i believe that all actions that tend to the well-being of sentient beings are virtuous and moral. i believe that real religion consists in doing good. i do not believe in phantoms. i believe in the uniformity of nature; that matter will forever attract matter in proportion to mass and distance; that, under the same circumstances, falling bodies will attain the same speed, increasing in exact proportion to distance; that light will always, under the same circumstances, be reflected at the same angle; that it will always travel with the same velocity; that air will forever be lighter than water, and gold heavier than iron; that all substances will be true to their natures; that a certain degree of heat will always expand the metals and change water into steam; that a certain degree of cold will cause the metals to shrink and change water into ice; that all atoms will forever be in motion; that like causes will forever produce like effects, that force will be overcome only by force; that no atom of matter will ever be created or destroyed; that the energy in the universe will forever remain the same, nothing lost, nothing gained; that all that has been possible has happened, and that all that will be possible will happen; that the seeds and causes of all thoughts, dreams, fancies and actions, of all virtues and all vices, of all successes and all failures, are in nature; that there is in the universe no power superior to nature; that man is under no obligation to the imaginary gods; that all his obligations and duties are to be discharged and done in this world; that right and wrong do not depend on the will of an infinite being, but on the consequences of actions, and that these consequences necessarily flow from the nature of things. i believe that the universe is natural. is avarice triumphant? *a reply to general rush hawkins' article, "brutality and avarice triumphant," published in the north american review, june, . there are many people, in all countries, who seem to enjoy individual and national decay. they love to prophesy the triumph of evil. they mistake the afternoon of their own lives for the evening of the world. to them everything has changed. men are no longer honest or brave, and women have ceased to be beautiful. they are dyspeptic, and it gives them the greatest pleasure to say that the art of cooking has been lost. for many generations many of these people occupied the pulpits. they lifted the hand of warning whenever the human race took a step in advance. as wealth increased, they declared that honesty and goodness and self-denial and charity were vanishing from the earth. they doubted the morality of well-dressed people--considered it impossible that the prosperous should be pious. like owls sitting on the limbs of a dead tree, they hooted the obsequies of spring, believing it would come no more. there are some patriots who think it their duty to malign and slander the land of their birth. they feel that they have a kind of cassandra mission, and they really seem to enjoy their work. they honestly believe that every kind of crime is on the increase, that the courts are all corrupt, that the legislators are bribed, that the witnesses are suborned, that all holders of office are dishonest; and they feel like a modern marius sitting amid the ruins of all the virtues. it is useless to endeavor to persuade these people that they are wrong. they do not want arguments, because they will not heed them. they need medicine. their case is not for a philosopher, but for a physician. general hawkins is probably right when he says that some fraudulent shoes, some useless muskets, and some worn-out vessels were sold to the government during the war; but we must remember that there were millions and millions of as good shoes as art and honesty could make, millions of the best muskets ever constructed, and hundreds of the most magnificent ships ever built, sold to the government during the same period. we must not mistake an eddy for the main stream. we must also remember another thing: there were millions of good, brave, and patriotic men to wear the shoes, to use the muskets, and to man the ships. so it is probably true that congress was extravagant in land subsidies voted to railroads; but that this legislation was secured by bribery is preposterous. it was all done in the light of noon. there is not the slightest evidence tending to show that the general policy of hastening the construction of railways through the territories of the united states was corruptly adopted--not the slightest. at the same time, it may be that some members of congress were induced by personal considerations to vote for such subsidies. as a matter of fact, the policy was wise, and through the granting of the subsidies thousands of miles of railways were built, and these railways have given to civilization vast territories which otherwise would have remained substantially useless to the world. where at that time was a wilderness, now are some of the most thriving cities in the united states--a great, an industrious, and a happy population. the results have justified the action of congress. it is also true that some railroads have been "wrecked" in the united states, but most of these wrecks have been the result of competition. it is the same with corporations as with individuals--the powerful combine against the weak. in the world of commerce and business is the great law of the survival of the strongest. railroads are not eleemosynary institutions. they have but little regard for the rights of one another. some fortunes have been made by the criminal "wrecking" of roads, but even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest. many railways were built in advance of a demand; they had to develop the country through which they passed. while they waited for immigration, interest accumulated; as a result foreclosure took place; then reorganization. by that time the country had been populated; towns were springing up along the line; increased business was the result. on the new bonds and the new stock the company paid interest and dividends. then the ones who first invested and lost their money felt that they had been defrauded. so it is easy to say that certain men are guilty of crimes--easy to indict the entire nation, and at the same time impossible to substantiate one of the charges. everyone who knows the history of the star-route trials knows that nothing was established against the defendants, knows that every effort was made by the government to convict them, and also knows that an unprejudiced jury of twelve men, never suspected of being improperly influenced, after having heard the entire case, pronounced the defendants not guilty. after this, of course, any one can say, who knows nothing of the evidence and who cares nothing for the facts, that the defendants were all guilty. it may also be true that some settlers in the far west have taken timber from the public lands, and it may be that it was a necessity. our laws and regulations were such that where a settler was entitled to take up a certain amount of land he had to take it all in one place; he could not take a certain number of acres on the plains and a certain number of acres in the timber. the consequence was that when he settled upon the land--the land that he could cultivate--he took the timber that he needed from the government land, and this has been called stealing. so i suppose it may be said that the cattle stole the government's grass and possibly drank the government's water. it will also be admitted with pleasure that stock has been "watered" in this country. and what is the crime or practice known as watering stock? for instance, you have a railroad one hundred miles long, worth, we will say, $ , , --able to pay interest on that sum at the rate of six per cent. now, we all know that the amount of stock issued has nothing to do with the value of the thing represented by the stock. if there was one share of stock representing this railroad, it would be worth three million dollars, whether it said on its face it was one dollar or one hundred dollars. if there were three million shares of stock issued on this property, they would be worth one dollar apiece, and, no matter whether it said on this stock that each share was a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, the share would be worth one dollar--no more, no less. if any one wishes to find the value of stock, he should find the value of the thing represented by the stock. it is perfectly clear that, if a pie is worth one dollar, and you cut it into four pieces, each piece is worth twenty-five cents; and if you cut it in a thousand pieces, you do not increase the value of the pie. if, then, you wish to find the value of a share of stock, find its relation to the thing represented by all the stock. it can also be safely admitted that trusts have been formed. the reason is perfectly clear. corporations are like individuals--they combine. unfortunate corporations become socialistic, anarchistic, and cry out against the abuses of trusts. it is natural for corporations to defend themselves--natural for them to stop ruinous competition by a profitable pool; and when strong corporations combine, little corporations suffer. it is with corporations as with fishes--the large eat the little; and it may be that this will prove a public benefit in the end. when the large corporations have taken possession of the little ones, it may be that the government will take possession of them--the government being the largest corporation of them all. it is to be regretted that all houses are not fireproof; but certainly no one imagines that the people of this country build houses for the purpose of having them burned, or that they erect hotels having in view the broiling of guests. men act as they must; that is to say, according to wants and necessities. in a new country the buildings are cheaper than in an old one, money is scarcer, interest higher, and consequently people build cheaply and take the risks of fire. they do not do this on account of the constitution of the united states, or the action of political parties, or the general idea that man is entitled to be free. in the hotels of europe it may be that there is not as great danger of fire as of famine. the destruction of game and of the singing birds is to be greatly regretted, not only in this country, but in all others. the people of america have been too busy felling forests, ploughing fields, and building houses, to cultivate, to the highest degree, the aesthetic side of their natures. nature has been somewhat ruthless with us. the storms of winter breasted by the western pioneer, the whirlwinds of summer, have tended, it may be, to harden somewhat the sensibilities; in consequence of which they have allowed their horses and cattle to bear the rigors of the same climate. it is also true that the seal-fisheries are being destroyed, in the interest of the present, by those who care nothing for the future. all these things are to be deprecated, are to be spoken against; but we must not hint, provided we are lovers of the republic, that such things are caused by free institutions. general hawkins asserts that "christianity has neither preached nor practiced humanity towards animals," while at the same time "sunday school children by hundreds of thousands are taught what a terrible thing it is to break the sabbath;" that "museum trustees tremble with pious horror at the suggestion of opening the doors leading to the collections on that day," and that no protests have come "from lawmakers or the christian clergy." few people will suspect me of going out of my way to take care of christianity or of the clergy. at the same time, i can afford to state the truth. while there is not much in the bible with regard to practicing humanity toward animals, there is at least this: "the merciful man is merciful to his beast." of course, i am not alluding now to the example set by jehovah when he destroyed the cattle of the egyptians with hailstones and diseases on account of the sins of their owners. in regard to the treatment of animals christians have been much like other people. so, hundreds of lawmakers have not only protested against cruelty to animals, but enough have protested against it to secure the enactment of laws making cruelty toward animals a crime. henry bergh, who did as much good as any man who has lived in the nineteenth century, was seconded in his efforts by many of the christian clergy not only, but by hundreds and thousands of professing christians--probably millions. let us be honest. it is true that the clergy are apt to lose the distinction between offences and virtues, to regard the little as the important--that is to say, to invert the pyramid. it is true that the indians have been badly treated. it is true that the fringe of civilization has been composed of many low and cruel men. it is true that the red man has been demoralized by the vices of the white. it is a frightful fact that, when a superior race meets an inferior, the inferior imitates only the vices of the superior, and the superior those of the inferior. they exchange faults and failings. this is one of the most terrible facts in the history of the human race. nothing can be said to justify our treatment of the indians. there is, however, this shadow of an excuse: in the old times, when we lived along the atlantic, it hardly occurred to our ancestors that they could ever go beyond the ohio; so the first treaty with the indians drove them back but a few miles. in a little while, through immigration, the white race passed the line, and another treaty was made, forcing the indians still further west; yet the tide of immigration kept on, and in a little while again the line was passed, the treaty violated. another treaty was made, pushing the indians still farther toward the pacific, across the illinois, across the mississippi, across the missouri, violating at every step some treaty made; and each treaty born of the incapacity of the white men who made it to foretell the growth of the republic. but the author of "brutality and avarice triumphant" made a great mistake when he selected the last thirty years of our national life as the period within which the americans have made a change of the national motto appropriate, and asserted that now there should be in place of the old motto the words, "plundering made easy." most men believe in a sensible and manly patriotism. no one should be blind to the defects in the laws and institutions of his country. he should call attention to abuses, not for the purpose of bringing his country into disrepute, but that the abuses may cease and the defects be corrected. he should do what he can to make his country great, prosperous, just, and free. but it is hardly fair to exaggerate the faults of your country for the purpose of calling attention to your own virtues, or to earn the praise of a nation that hates your own. this is what might be called wallowing in the gutter of reform. the thirty years chosen as the time in which we as a nation have passed from virtue to the lowest depths of brutality and avarice are, in fact, the most glorious years in the life of this or of any other nation. in slavery was, in a legal sense at least, a national institution. it was firmly imbedded in the federal constitution. the fugitive slave law was in full force and effect. in all the southern and in nearly all of the northern states it was a crime to give food, shelter, or raiment to a man or woman seeking liberty by flight. humanity was illegal, hospitality a misdemeanor, and charity a crime. men and women were sold like beasts. mothers were robbed of their babes while they stood under our flag. all the sacred relations of life were trampled beneath the bloody feet of brutality and avarice. besides, so firmly was slavery fixed in law and creed, in statute and scripture, that the tongues of honest men were imprisoned. those who spoke for the slave were mobbed by northern lovers of the "union." now, it seems to me that those were the days when the motto could properly have been, "plundering made easy." those were the days of brutality, and the brutality was practiced to the end that we might make money out of the unpaid labor of others. it is not necessary to go into details as to the cause of the then condition; it is enough to say that the whole nation, north and south, was responsible. there were many years of compromise, and thousands of statesmen, so-called, through conventions and platforms, did what they could to preserve slavery and keep the union. these efforts corrupted politics, demoralized our statesmen, polluted our courts, and poisoned our literature. the websters, bentons, and clays mistook temporary expedients for principles, and really thought that the progress of the world could be stopped by the resolutions of a packed political convention. yet these men, mistaken as they really were, worked and wrought unconsciously in the cause of human freedom. they believed that the preservation of the union was the one important thing, and that it could not be preserved unless slavery was protected--unless the north would be faithful to the bargain as written in the constitution. for the purpose of keeping the nation true to the union and false to itself, these men exerted every faculty and all their strength. they exhausted their genius in showing that slavery was not, after all, very bad, and that disunion was the most terrible calamity that could by any possibility befall the nation, and that the union, even at the price of slavery, was the greatest possible blessing. they did not suspect that slavery would finally strike the blow for disunion. but when the time came and the south unsheathed the sword, the teachings of these men as to the infinite value of the union gave to our flag millions of brave defenders. now, let us see what has been accomplished during the thirty years of "brutality and avarice." the republic has been rebuilt and reunited, and we shall remain one people for many centuries to come. the mississippi is nature's protest against disunion. the constitution of the united states is now the charter of human freedom, and all laws inconsistent with the idea that all men are entitled to liberty have been repealed. the black man knows that the constitution is his shield, that the laws protect him, that our flag is his, and the black mother feels that her babe belongs to her. where the slave-pen used to be you will find the schoolhouse. the dealer in human flesh is now a teacher; instead of lacerating the back of a child, he develops and illumines the mind of a pupil. there is now freedom of speech. men are allowed to utter their thoughts. lips are no longer sealed by mobs. never before in the history of our world has so much been done for education. the amount of business done in a country on credit is the measure of confidence, and confidence is based upon honesty. so it may truthfully be said that, where a vast deal of business is done on credit, an exceedingly large per cent. of the people are regarded as honest. in our country a very large per cent. of contracts are faithfully fulfilled. probably there is no nation in the world where so much business is done on credit as in the united states. the fact that the credit of the republic is second to that of no other nation on the globe would seem to be at least an indication of a somewhat general diffusion of honesty. the author of "brutality and avarice triumphant" seems to be of the opinion that our country was demoralized by the war. they who fight for the right are not degraded--they are ennobled. when men face death and march to the mouths of the guns for a principle, they grow great; and if they come out of the conflict, they come with added moral grandeur; they become better men, better citizens, and they love more intensely than ever the great cause for the success of which they put their lives in pawn. the period of the revolution produced great men. after the great victory the sons of the heroes degenerated, and some of the greatest principles involved in the revolution were almost forgotten. during the civil war the north grew great and the south was educated. never before in the history of mankind was there such a period of moral exaltation. the names that shed the brightest, the whitest light on the pages of our history became famous then. against the few who were actuated by base and unworthy motives let us set the great army that fought for the republic, the millions who bared their breasts to the storm, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands who did their duty honestly, nobly, and went back to their wives and children with no thought except to preserve the liberties of themselves and their fellow-men. of course there were some men who did not do their duty--some men false to themselves and to their country. no one expects to find sixty-five millions of saints in america. a few years ago a lady complained to the president of a western railroad that a brakeman had spoken to her with great rudeness. the president expressed his regret at the incident, and said among other things: "madam, you have no idea how difficult it is for us to get gentlemen to fill all those places." it is hardly to be expected that the american people should excel all others in the arts, in poetry, and in fiction. we have been very busy taking possession of the republic. it is hard to overestimate the courage, the industry, the self-denial it has required to fell the forests, to subdue the fields, to construct the roads, and to build the countless homes. what has been done is a certificate of the honesty and industry of our people. it is not true that "one of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals seem to say in the plainest phraseology possible: 'successful wrong is right.'" men in this country are not esteemed simply because they are rich; inquiries are made as to how they made their money, as to how they use it. the american people do not fall upon their knees before the golden calf; the worst that can be said is that they think too much of the gold of the calf--and this distinction is seen by the calves themselves. nowhere in the world is honesty in business esteemed more highly than here. there are millions of business men--merchants, bankers, and men engaged in all trades and professions--to whom reputation is as dear as life. there is one thing in the article "brutality and avarice triumphant" that seems even more objectionable than the rest, and that is the statement, or, rather, the insinuation, that all the crimes and the shortcomings of the american people can be accounted for by the fact that our government is a republic. we are told that not long ago a french official complained to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work done by four under the empire, and on being asked the reason answered: "it is the republic." he was told that, as he was the head of the bureau, he could prevent the abuse, to which he replied: "i know i have the power; but i have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now too old to learn another occupation, and i _must_ make places for the friends of the deputies." and then it is added by general hawkins: "_and so it is here_." it seems to me that it cannot be fairly urged that we have abused the indians because we contend that all men have equal rights before the law, or because we insist that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. the probability is that a careful reading of the history of the world will show that nations under the control of kings and emperors have been guilty of some cruelty. to account for the bad we do by the good we believe, is hardly logical. our virtues should not be made responsible for our vices. is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men? is a man dishonest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men? in order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor? is human liberty a mistake? is it possible that a citizen of the great republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens? is he willing to abdicate? is he willing to admit that his rights are not equal to the rights of others? is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing to become a serf, a servant or a slave? is it possible that "high character is impracticable" in this republic? is this the experience of the author of "brutality and avarice triumphant"? is it true that "intellectual achievement pays no dividends"? is it not a fact that america is to-day the best market in the world for books, for music, and for art? there is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping slanders. this, in my judgment, is the best government, the best country, in the world. the citizens of this republic are, on the average, better clothed and fed and educated than any other people. they are fuller of life, more progressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature, than any other of the children of men. here the burdens of government are lightest, the responsibilities of the individual greatest, and here, in my judgment, are to be worked out the most important problems of social science. here in america is a finer sense of what is due from man to man than you will find in other lands. we do not cringe to those whom chance has crowned; we stand erect. our sympathies are strong and quick. generosity is almost a national failing. the hand of honest want is rarely left unfilled. great calamities open the hearts and hands of all. here you will find democracy in the family--republicanism by the fireside. say what you will, the family is apt to be patterned after the government. if a king is at the head of the nation, the husband imagines himself the monarch of the home. in this country we have carried into the family the idea on which the government is based. here husbands and wives are beginning to be equals. the highest test of civilization is the treatment of women and children. by this standard america stands first among nations. there is a magnitude, a scope, a grandeur, about this country--an amplitude--that satisfies the heart and the imagination. we have our faults, we have our virtues, but our country is the best. no american should ever write a line that can be sneeringly quoted by an enemy of the great republic. robert g. ingersoll. a reply to the cincinnati gazette and catholic telegraph. * the cincinnati gazette, . an interview. _question_. colonel, have you noticed the criticisms made on your lectures by the _cincinnati gazette_ and the _catholic telegraph_? _answer._ i have read portions of the articles. _question_. what do you think of them? _answer._ well, they are hardly of importance enough to form a distinct subject of thought. _question_. well, what do you think of the attempted argument of the _gazette_ against your lecture on moses? _answer._ the writer endeavors to show that considering the ignorance prevalent four thousand years ago, god did as well as one could reasonably expect; that god at that time did not have the advantage of telescope, microscope, and spectrum, and that for this reason a few mistakes need not excite our special wonder. he also shows that, although god was in favor of slavery he introduced some reforms; but whether the reforms were intended to perpetuate slavery or to help the slave is not stated. the article has nothing to do with my position. i am perfectly willing to admit that there is a land called egypt; that the jews were once slaves; that they got away and started a little country of their own. all this may be true without proving that they were miraculously fed in the wilderness, or that water ran up hill, or that god went into partnership with hornets or snakes. there may have been a man by the name of moses without proving that sticks were turned into snakes. a while ago a missionary addressed a sunday school. in the course of his remarks he said that he had been to mount ararat, and had brought a stone from the mountain. he requested the children to pass in line before him so that they could all get a look at this wonderful stone. after they had all seen it he said: "you will as you grow up meet people who will deny that there ever was a flood, or that god saved noah and the animals in the ark, and then you can tell them that you know better, because you saw a stone from the very mountain where the ark rested." that is precisely the kind of argument used in the _gazette_. the article was written by some one who does not quite believe in the inspiration of the scriptures himself, and were it not for the fear of hell, would probably say so. i admit that there was such a man as mohammed, such a city as mecca, such a general as omar, but i do not admit that god made known his will to mohammed in any substantial manner. of course the _gazette_ would answer all this by saying that mohammed did exist, and that therefore god must have talked with him. i admit that there was such a general as washington, but i do not admit that god kept him from being shot. i admit that there is a portrait of the virgin mary in rome, but i do not admit that it shed tears. i admit that there was such a man as moses, but i do not admit that god hunted for him in a tavern to kill him. i admit that there was such a priest as st. denis, but i do not admit that he carried his head in his hand, after it was cut off, and swam the river, and put his head on again and eventually recovered. i admit that the article appeared in the _gazette_, but i do not admit that it amounted to anything whatever. _question_. did you notice what the _catholic telegraph_ said about your lecture being ungrammatical? _answer._ yes; i saw an extract from it. in the _catholic telegraph_ occurs the following: "the lecture was a failure as brilliant as ingersoll's flashes of ungrammatical rhetoric." after making this statement with the hereditary arrogance of a priest, after finding fault with my "ungrammatical rhetoric" he then writes the following sentence: "it could not boast neither of novelty in argument or of attractive language." after this, nothing should be noticed that this gentleman says on the subject of grammar. in this connection it may be proper for me to say that nothing is more remarkable than the fact that christianity destroys manners. with one exception, no priest has ever written about me, so far as i know, except in an arrogant and insolent manner. they seem utterly devoid of the usual amenities of life. every one who differs with them is vile, ignorant and malicious. but, after all, what can you expect of a gentleman who worships a god who will damn dimpled babes to an eternity of fire, simply because they were not baptized. _question_. this catholic writer says that the oldest page of history and the newest page of science are nothing more than commentaries on the mosaic record. he says the cosmogony of moses has been believed in, and has been received as the highest truth by the very brightest names in science. what do you think of that statement? _answer._ i think it is without the least foundation in fact, and is substantially like the gentleman's theology, depending simply upon persistent assertion. i see he quotes cuvier as great authority. cuvier denied that the fossil animals were in any way related to the animals now living, and believed that god had frequently destroyed all life upon the earth and then produced other forms. agassiz was the last scientist of any standing who ventured to throw a crumb of comfort to this idea. _question_. do you mean to say that all the great living scientists regard the cosmogony of moses as a myth? _answer._ i do. i say this: all men of science and men of sense look upon the mosaic account as a simple myth. humboldt, who stands in the same relation to science that shakespeare did to the drama, held this opinion. the same is held by the best minds in germany, by huxley, tyndall and herbert spencer in england, by john w. draper and others in the united states. whoever agrees with moses is some poor frightened orthodox gentleman afraid of losing his soul or his salary, and as a rule, both are exceedingly small. _question_. some people say that you slander the bible in saying that god went into partnership with hornets, and declare that there is no such passage in the bible. _answer._ well, let them read the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-third chapter of exodus, "and i will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the hivite, the canaanite and the hittite from before thee." _question_. do you find in lecturing through the country that your ideas are generally received with favor? _answer._ astonishingly so. there are ten times as many freethinkers as there were five years ago. in five years more we will be in the majority. _question_. is it true that the churches, as a general thing, make strong efforts, as i have seen it stated, to prevent people from going to hear you? _answer._ yes; in many places ministers have advised their congregations to keep away, telling them i was an exceedingly dangerous man. the result has generally been a full house, and i have hardly ever failed to publicly return my thanks to the clergy for acting as my advance agents. _question_. do you ever meet christian people who try to convert you? _answer._ not often. but i do receive a great many anonymous letters, threatening me with the wrath of god, and calling my attention to the uncertainty of life and the certainty of damnation. these letters are nearly all written in the ordinary christian spirit; that is to say, full of hatred and impertinence. _question_. don't you think it remarkable that the _telegraph_, a catholic paper, should quote with extravagant praise, an article from such an orthodox sheet as the _gazette_? _answer._ i do not. all the churches must make common cause. all superstitions lead to rome; all facts lead to science. in a few years all the churches will be united. this will unite all forms of liberalism. when that is done the days of superstition, of arrogance, of theology, will be numbered. it is very laughable to see a catholic quoting scientific men in favor of moses, when the same men would have taken great pleasure in swearing that the catholic church was the worst possible organization. that church should forever hold its peace. wherever it has had authority it has destroyed human liberty. it reduced italy to a hand organ, spain to a guitar, ireland to exile, portugal to contempt. catholicism is the upas tree in whose shade the intellect of man has withered. the recollection of the massacre of st. bartholomew should make a priest silent, and the recollection of the same massacre should make a protestant careful. i can afford to be maligned by a priest, when the same party denounces garibaldi, the hero of italy, as a "pet tiger" to victor emmanuel. i could not afford to be praised by such a man. i thank him for his abuse. _question_. what do you think of the point that no one is able to judge of these things unless he is a hebrew scholar? _answer._ i do not think it is necessary to understand hebrew to decide as to the probability of springs gushing out of dead bones, or of the dead getting out of their graves, or of the probability of ravens keeping a hotel for wandering prophets. i hardly think it is necessary even to be a greek scholar to make up my mind as to whether devils actually left a person and took refuge in the bodies of swine. besides, if the bible is not properly translated, the circulation ought to stop until the corrections are made. i am not accountable if god made a revelation to me in a language that he knew i never would understand. if he wishes to convey any information to my mind, he certainly should do it in english before he eternally damns me for paying no attention to it. _question_. are not many of the contradictions in the bible owing to mistranslations? _answer._ no. nearly all of the mistranslations have been made to help out the text. it would be much worse, much more contradictory had it been correctly translated. nearly all of the _mistakes_, as mr. weller would say, have been made for the purposes of harmony. _question_. how many errors do you suppose there are? _answer._ well, i do not know. it has been reported that the american bible society appointed a committee to hunt for errors, and the said committee returned about twenty-four to twenty-five thousand. and thereupon the leading men said, to correct so many errors will destroy the confidence of the common people in the sacredness of the scriptures. thereupon it was decided not to correct any. i saw it stated the other day that a very prominent divine charged upon the bible society that they knew they were publishing a book full of errors. _question_. what is your opinion of the bible anyhow? _answer._ my first objection is, it is not true. second.--it is not inspired. third.--it upholds human slavery. fourth.--it sanctions concubinage. fifth.--it commands the most infamously cruel acts of war, such as the utter destruction of old men and little children. sixth.--after killing fathers, mothers and brothers, it commands the generals to divide the girls among the soldiers and priests. beyond this, infamy has never gone. if any god made this order i am opposed to him. seventh.--it upholds human sacrifice, or, at least, seems to, from the following: "notwithstanding no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the lord of all that he hath, both of _man_ and _beast_, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the lord." "none devoted, which shall be devoted, of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death." (twenty-seventh chapter of leviticus, th and th verses.) eighth.--its laws are absurd, and the punishments cruel and unjust. think of killing a man for making hair oil! think of killing a man for picking up sticks on sunday! ninth.--it upholds polygamy. tenth.--it knows nothing of astronomy, nothing of geology, nothing of any science whatever. eleventh.--it is opposed to religious liberty, and teaches a man to kill his own wife if she differs with him on religion; that is to say, if he is orthodox. there is no book in the world in which can be found so much that is thoroughly despicable and infamous. of course there are some good passages, some good sentiments. but they are, at least in the old testament, few and far between. twelfth.--it treats woman like a beast, and man like a slave. it fills heaven with tyranny, and earth with hypocrisy and grief. _question_. do you think any book inspired? _answer._ no. i do not think any book is inspired. but, if it had been the intention of this god to give to man an inspired book, he should have waited until shakespeare's time, and used shakespeare as the instrument. then there never would have been any doubt as to the inspiration of the book. there is more beauty, more goodness, more intelligence in shakespeare than in all the sacred books of this world. _question_. what do you think as a freethinker of the sunday question in cincinnati? _answer._ i think that it is a good thing to have a day of recreation, a day of rest, a day of joy, not a day of dyspepsia and theology. i am in favor of operas and theaters, music and happiness on sunday. i am opposed to all excesses on any day. if the clergy will take half the pains to make the people intelligent that they do to make them superstitious, the world will soon have advanced so far that it can enjoy itself without excess. the ministers want sunday for themselves. they want everybody to come to church because they can go no where else. it is like the story of a man coming home at three o'clock in the morning, who, upon being asked by his wife how he could come at such a time of night, replied, "the fact is, every other place is shut up." the orthodox clergy know that their churches will remain empty if any other place remains open. do not forget to say that i mean orthodox churches, orthodox clergy, because i have great respect for unitarians and universalists. an interview on chief justice comegys. * brooklyn eagle, . _question_. i understand, colonel ingersoll, that you have been indicted in the state of delaware for the crime of blasphemy? _answer._ well, not exactly indicted. the judge, who, i believe, is the chief justice of the state, dedicated the new court-house at wilmington to the service of the lord, by a charge to the grand jury, in which he almost commanded them to bring in a bill of indictment against me, for what he was pleased to call the crime of blasphemy. now, as a matter of fact, there can be no crime committed by man against god, provided always that a correct definition of the deity has been given by the orthodox churches. they say that he is infinite. if so, he is conditionless. i can injure a man by changing his conditions. take from a man water, and he perishes of thirst; take from him air, and he suffocates; he may die from too much, or too little heat. that is because he is a conditioned being. but if god is conditionless, he cannot in any way be affected by what anybody else may do; and, consequently, a sin against god is as impossible as a sin against the principle of the lever or inclined plane. this crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves. blasphemy is a kind of breastwork behind which hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. injustice is the only blasphemy that can be committed, and justice is the only true worship. man can sin against man, but not against god. but even if man could sin against god, it has always struck me that an infinite being would be entirely able to take care of himself without the assistance of a chief justice. men have always been violating the rights of men, under the plea of defending the rights of god, and nothing, for ages, was so perfectly delightful to the average christian as to gratify his revenge, and get god in his debt at the same time. chief justice comegys has taken this occasion to lay up for himself what he calls treasures in heaven, and on the last great day he will probably rely on a certified copy of this charge. the fact that he thinks the lord needs help satisfies me that in that particular neighborhood i am a little ahead. the fact is, i never delivered but one lecture in delaware. that lecture, however, had been preceded by a republican stump speech; and, to tell you the truth, i imagine that the stump speech is what a yankee would call the heft of the offence. it is really hard for me to tell whether i have blasphemed the deity or the democracy. of course i have no personal feeling whatever against the judge. in fact he has done me a favor. he has called the attention of the civilized world to certain barbarian laws that disfigure and disgrace the statute books of most of the states. these laws were passed when our honest ancestors were burning witches, trading quaker children to the barbadoes for rum and molasses, branding people upon the forehead, boring their tongues with hot irons, putting one another in the pillory, and, generally, in the name of god, making their neighbors as uncomfortable as possible. we have outgrown these laws without repealing them. they are, as a matter of fact, in most communities actually dead; but in some of the states, like delaware, i suppose they could be enforced, though there might be trouble in selecting twelve men, even in delaware, without getting one man broad enough, sensible enough, and honest enough, to do justice. i hardly think it would be possible in any state to select a jury in the ordinary way that would convict any person charged with what is commonly known as blasphemy. all the so-called christian churches have accused each other of being blasphemers, in turn. the catholics denounced the presbyterians as blasphemers, the presbyterians denounced the baptists; the baptists, the presbyterians, and the catholics all united in denouncing the quakers, and they all together denounced the unitarians--called them blasphemers because they did not acknowledge the divinity of jesus christ--the unitarians only insisting that three infinite beings were not necessary, that one infinite being could do all the business, and that the other two were absolutely useless. this was called blasphemy. then all the churches united to call the universalists blasphemers. i can remember when a uni-versalist was regarded with a thousand times more horror than an infidel is to-day. there is this strange thing about the history of theology--nobody has ever been charged with blasphemy who thought god bad. for instance, it never would have excited any theological hatred if a man had insisted that god would finally damn everybody. nearly all heresy has consisted in making god better than the majority in the churches thought him to be. the orthodox christian never will forgive the univer-salist for saying that god is too good to damn anybody eternally. now, all these sects have charged each other with blasphemy, without anyone of them knowing really what blasphemy is. i suppose they have occasionally been honest, because they have mostly been ignorant. it is said that torquemada used to shed tears over the agonies of his victims and that he recommended slow burning, not because he wished to inflict pain, but because he really desired to give the gentleman or lady he was burning a chance to repent of his or her sins, and make his or her peace with god previous to becoming a cinder. the root, foundation, germ and cause of nearly all religious persecution is the idea that some certain belief is necessary to salvation. if orthodox christians are right in this idea, then persecution of all heretics and infidels is a duty. if i have the right to defend my body from attack, surely i should have a like right to defend my soul. under our laws i could kill any man who was endeavoring, for example, to take the life of my child. how much more would i be justified in killing any wretch who was endeavoring to convince my child of the truth of a doctrine which, if believed, would result in the eternal damnation of that child's soul? if the christian religion, as it is commonly understood, is true, no infidel should be allowed to live; every heretic should be hunted from the wide world as you would hunt a wild beast. they should not be allowed to speak, they should not be allowed to poison the minds of women and children; in other words, they should not be allowed to empty heaven and fill hell. the reason i have liberty in this country is because the christians of this country do not believe their doctrine. the passage from the bible, "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," coupled with the assurance that, "whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned," is the foundation of most religious persecution. every word in that passage has been fire and fagot, whip and sword, chain and dungeon. that one passage has probably caused more agony among men, women and children, than all the passages of all other books that were ever printed. now, this passage was not in the book of mark when originally written, but was put there many years after the gentleman who evolved the book of mark from his inner consciousness, had passed away. it was put there by the church--that is to say, by hypocrisy and priestly craft, to bind the consciences of men and force them to come under ecclesiastical and spiritual power; and that passage has been received and believed, and been made binding by law in most countries ever since. what would you think of a law compelling a man to admire shakespeare, or calling it blasphemy to laugh at hamlet? why is not a statute necessary to uphold the reputation of raphael or of michael angelo? is it possible that god cannot write a book good enough and great enough and grand enough not to excite the laughter of his children? is it possible that he is compelled to have his literary reputation supported by the state of delaware? there is another very strange thing about this business. admitting that the bible is the work of god, it is not any more his work than are the sun, the moon and the stars or the earth, and if for disbelieving this bible we are to be damned forever, we ought to be equally damned for a mistake in geology or astronomy. the idea of allowing a man to go to heaven who swears that the earth is flat, and damning a fellow who thinks it is round, but who-has his honest doubts about joshua, seems to me to be perfectly absurd. it seems to me that in this view of it, it is just as necessary to be right on the subject of the equator as on the doctrine of infant baptism. _question_. what was in your judgment the motive of judge comegys? is he a personal enemy of yours? have you ever met him? have you any idea what reason he had for attacking you? _answer._ i do not know the gentleman, personally. outside of the political reason i have intimated, i do not know why he attacked me. i once delivered a lecture entitled "what must we do to be saved?" in the city of wilmington, and in that lecture i proceeded to show, or at least tried to show, that matthew, mark and luke knew nothing about christianity, as it is understood in delaware; and i also endeavored to show that all men have an equal right to think, and that a man is only under obligations to be honest with himself, and with all men, and that he is not accountable for the amount of mind that he has been endowed with--otherwise it might be judge comegys himself would be damned--but that he is only accountable for the use he makes of what little mind he has received. i held that the safest thing for every man was to be absolutely honest, and to express his honest thought. after the delivery of this lecture various ministers in wilmington began replying, and after the preaching of twenty or thirty sermons, not one of which, considered as a reply, was a success, i presume it occurred to these ministers that the shortest and easiest way would be to have me indicted and imprisoned. in this i entirely agree with them. it is the old and time-honored way. i believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill two infidels than to answer one; and if christianity expects to stem the tide that is now slowly rising over the intellectual world, it must be done by brute force, and by brute force alone. and it must be done pretty soon, or they will not have the brute force. it is doubtful if they have a majority of the civilized world on their side to-day. no heretic ever would have been burned if he could have been answered. no theologian ever called for the help of the law until his logic gave out. i suppose judge comegys to be a presbyterian. where did he get his right to be a presbyterian? where did he get his right to decide which creed is the correct one? how did he dare to pit his little brain against the word of god? he may say that his father was a presbyterian. but what was his grandfather? if he will only go back far enough he will, in all probability, find that his ancestors were catholics, and if he will go back a little farther still, that they were barbarians; that at one time they were naked, and had snakes tattooed on their bodies. what right had they to change? does he not perceive that had the savages passed the same kind of laws that now exist in delaware, they could have prevented any change in belief? they would have had a whipping-post, too, and they would have said: "any gentleman found without snakes tattooed upon his body shall be held guilty of blasphemy;" and all the ancestors of this judge, and of these ministers, would have said, amen! what right had the first presbyterian to be a presbyterian? he must have been a blasphemer first. a small dose of pillory might have changed his religion. does this judge think that delaware is incapable of any improvement in a religious point of view? does he think that the presbyterians of delaware are not only the best now, but that they will forever be the best that god can make? is there to be no advancement? has there been no advancement? are the pillory and the whipping-post to be used to prevent an excess of thought in the county of new castle? has the county ever been troubled that way? has this judge ever had symptoms of any such disease? now, i want it understood that i like this judge, and my principal reason for liking him is that he is the last of his race. he will be so inundated with the ridicule of mankind that no other chief justice in delaware, or anywhere else, will ever follow his illustrious example. the next judge will say: "so far as i am concerned, the lord may attend to his own business, and deal with infidels as he may see proper." thus great good has been accomplished by this judge, which shows, as burns puts it, "that a pot can be boiled, even if the devil tries to prevent it." _question_. how will this action of delaware, in your opinion, affect the other states? _answer._ probably a few other states needed an example exactly of this kind. new jersey, in all probability, will say: "delaware is perfectly ridiculous," and yet, had delaware waited awhile, new jersey might have done the same thing. maryland will exclaim: "did you ever see such a fool!" and yet i was threatened in that state. the average american citizen, taking into consideration the fact that we are blest, or cursed, with about one hundred thousand preachers, and that these preachers preach on the average one hundred thousand sermons a week--some of which are heard clear through--will unquestionably hold that a man who happens to differ with all these parsons, ought to have and shall have the privilege of expressing his mind; and that the one hundred thousand clergymen ought to be able to put down the one man who happens to disagree with them, without calling on the army or navy to do it, especially when it is taken into consideration that an infinite god is already on their side. under these circumstances, the average american will say: "let him talk, and let the hundred thousand preachers answer him to their hearts' content." so that in my judgment the result of the action of delaware will be: first, to liberalize all other states, and second, finally to liberalize delaware itself. in many of the states they have the same idiotic kind of laws as those found in delaware--with the exception of those blessed institutions for the spread of the gospel, known as the pillory and the whipping-post. there is a law in maine by which a man can be put into the penitentiary for denying the providence of god, and the day of judgment. there are similar laws in most of the new england states. one can be imprisoned in maryland for a like offence. in north carolina no man can hold office that has not a certain religious belief; and so in several other of the southern states. in half the states of this union, if my wife and children should be murdered before my eyes, i would not be allowed in a court of justice to tell who the murderer was. you see that, for hundreds of years, christianity has endeavored to put the brand of infamy on every intellectual brow. _question_. i see that one objection to your lectures urged by judge comegys on the grand jury is, that they tend to a breach of the peace--to riot and bloodshed. _answer._ yes; judge comegys seems to be afraid that people who love their enemies will mob their friends. he is afraid that those disciples who, when smitten on one cheek turn the other to be smitten also, will get up a riot. he seems to imagine that good christians feel called upon to violate the commands of the lord in defence of the lord's reputation. if christianity produces people who cannot hear their doctrines discussed without raising mobs, and shedding blood, the sooner it is stopped being preached the better. there is not the slightest danger of any infidel attacking a christian for his belief, and there never will be an infidel mob for such a purpose. christians can teach and preach their views to their hearts' content. they can send all unbelievers to an eternal hell, if it gives them the least pleasure, and they may bang their bibles as long as their fists last, but no infidel will be in danger of raising a riot to stop them, or put them down by brute force, or even by an appeal to the law, and i would advise judge comegys, if he wishes to compliment christianity, to change his language and say that he feared a breach of the peace might be committed by the infidels--not by the christians. he may possibly have thought that it was my intention to attack his state. but i can assure him, that if ever i start a warfare of that kind, i shall take some state of my size. there is no glory to be won in wringing the neck of a "blue hen!" _question_. i should judge, colonel, that you are prejudiced against the state of delaware? _answer._ not by any means. oh, no! i know a great many splendid people in delaware, and since i have known more of their surroundings, my admiration for them has increased. they are, on the whole, a very good people in that state. i heard a story the other day: an old fellow in delaware has been for the last twenty or thirty years gathering peaches there in their season--a kind of peach tramp. one day last fall, just as the season closed, he was leaning sadly against a tree, "boys!" said he, "i'd like to come back to delaware a hundred years from now." the boys asked, "what for?" the old fellow replied: "just to see how damned little they'd get the baskets by that time." and it occurred to me that people who insist that twenty-two quarts make a bushel, should be as quiet as possible on the subject of blasphemy. an interview on chief justice comegys. * chicago times, feb. , . _question_. have you read chief justice comegys' compliments to you before the delaware grand jury? _answer._ yes, i have read his charge, in which he relies upon the law passed in . after reading his charge it seemed to me as though he had died about the date of the law, had risen from the dead, and had gone right on where he had left off. i presume he is a good man, but compared with other men, is something like his state when compared with other states. a great many people will probably regard the charge of judge comegys as unchristian, but i do not. i consider that the law of delaware is in exact accord with the bible, and that the pillory, the whip-ping-post, and the suppression of free speech are the natural fruit of the old and new testament. delaware is right. christianity can not succeed, can not exist, without the protection of law. take from orthodox christianity the protection of law, and all church property would be taxed like other property. the sabbath would be no longer a day devoted to superstition. everyone could express his honest thought upon every possible subject. everyone, notwithstanding his belief, could testify in a court of justice. in other words, honesty would be on an equality with hypocrisy. science would stand on a level, so far as the law is concerned, with superstition. whenever this happens the end of orthodox christianity will be near. by christianity i do not mean charity, mercy, kindness, forgiveness. i mean no natural virtue, because all the natural virtues existed and had been practiced by hundreds and thousands of millions before christ was born. there certainly were some good men even in the days of christ in jerusalem, before his death. by christianity i mean the ideas of redemption, atonement, a good man dying for a bad man, and the bad man getting a receipt in full. by christianity i mean that system that insists that in the next world a few will be forever happy, while the many will be eternally miserable. christianity, as i have explained it, must be protected, guarded, and sustained by law. it was founded by the sword that is to say, by physical force,--and must be preserved by like means. in many of the states of the union an infidel is not allowed to testify. in the state of delaware, if alexander von humboldt were living, he could not be a witness, although he had more brains than the state of delaware has ever produced, or is likely to produce as long as the laws of remain in force. such men as huxley, tyndall and haeckel could be fined and imprisoned in the state of delaware, and, in fact, in many states of this union. christianity, in order to defend itself, puts the brand of infamy on the brow of honesty. christianity marks with a letter "c," standing for "convict" every brain that is great enough to discover the frauds. i have no doubt that judge comegys is a good and sincere christian. i believe that he, in his charge, gives an exact reflection of the jewish jehovah. i believe that every word he said was in exact accord with the spirit of orthodox christianity. against this man personally i have nothing to say. i know nothing of his character except as i gather it from this charge, and after reading the charge i am forced simply to say, judge comegys is a christian. it seems, however, that the grand jury dared to take no action, notwithstanding they had been counseled to do so by the judge. although the judge had quoted to them the words of george i. of blessed memory; although he had quoted to them the words of lord mansfield, who became a judge simply because of his hatred of the english colonists, simply because he despised liberty in the new world; notwithstanding the fact that i could have been punished with insult, with imprisonment, and with stripes, and with every form of degradation; notwithstanding that only a few years ago i could have been branded upon the forehead, bored through the tongue, maimed and disfigured, still, such has been the advance even in the state of delaware, owing, it may be, in great part to the one lecture delivered by me, that the grand jury absolutely refused to indict me. the grand jury satisfied themselves and their consciences simply by making a report in which they declared that my lecture had "no parallel in the habits of respectable vagabondism" that i was "an arch-blasphemer and reviler of god and religion," and recommended that should i ever attempt to lecture again i should be taught that in delaware blasphemy is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment. i have no doubt that every member of the grand jury signing this report was entirely honest; that he acted in exact accord with what he understood to be the demand of the christian religion. i must admit that for christians, the report is exceedingly mild and gentle. i have now in the house, letters that passed between certain bishops in the fifteenth century, in which they discussed the propriety of cutting out the tongues of heretics before they were burned. some of the bishops were in favor of and some against it. one argument for cutting out their tongues which seemed to have settled the question was, that unless the tongues of heretics were cut out they might scandalize the gentlemen who were burning them, by blasphemous remarks during the fire. i would commend these letters to judge comegys and the members of the grand jury. i want it distinctly understood that i have nothing against judge comegys or the grand jury. they act as 'most anybody would, raised in delaware, in the shadow of the whipping-post and the pillory. we must remember that delaware was a slave state; that the bible became extremely dear to the people because it upheld that peculiar institution. we must remember that the bible was the block on which mother and child stood for sale when they were separated by the christians of delaware. the bible was regarded as the title-pages to slavery, and as the book of all books that gave the right to masters to whip mothers and to sell children. there are many offences now for which the punishment is whipping and standing in the pillory; where persons are convicted of certain crimes and sent to the penitentiary, and upon being discharged from the penitentiary are furnished by the state with a dark jacket plainly marked on the back with a large roman "c," the letter to be of a light color. this they are to wear for six months after being discharged, and if they are found at any time without the dark jacket and the illuminated "c" they are to be punished with twenty lashes upon the bare back. the object, i presume, of this law, is to drive from the state all the discharged convicts for the benefit of new jersey, pennsylvania and maryland--that is to say, other christian communities. a cruel people make cruel laws. the objection i have to the whipping-post is that it is a punishment which cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. the person who administers the punishment must, of necessity, be fully as degraded as the person who receives it. i am opposed to any kind of punishment that cannot be administered by a gentleman. i am opposed to corporal punishment everywhere. it should be taken from the asylums and penitentiaries, and any man who would apply the lash to the naked back of another is beneath the contempt of honest people. _question_. have you seen that henry bergh has introduced in the new york legislature a bill providing for whipping as a punishment for wife-beating? _answer._ the objection i have mentioned is fatal to mr. bergh's bill. he will be able to get persons to beat wife-beaters, who, under the same circumstances, would be wife-beaters themselves. if they are not wife-beaters when they commence the business of beating others, they soon will be. i think that wife-beating in great cities could be stopped by putting all the wife-beaters at work at some government employment, the value of the work, however, to go to the wives and children. the trouble now is that most of the wife-beating is among the extremely poor, so that the wife by informing against her husband, takes the last crust out of her own mouth. if you substitute whipping or flogging for the prison here, you will in the first place prevent thousands of wives from informing, and in many cases, where the wife would inform, she would afterward be murdered by the flogged brute. this brute would naturally resort to the same means to reform his wife that the state had resorted to for the purpose of reforming him. flogging would beget flogging. mr. bergh is a man of great kindness of heart. when he reads that a wife has been beaten, he says the husband deserves to be beaten himself. but if mr. bergh was to be the executioner, i imagine you could not prove by the back of the man that the punishment had been inflicted. another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the catholic church. we should also do away with the idea that a marriage is a sacrament, and that there is any god who is rendered happy by seeing a husband and wife live together, although the husband gets most of his earthly enjoyment from whipping his wife. no woman should live with a man a moment after he has struck her. just as the idea of liberty enlarges, confidence in the whip and fist, in the kick and blow, will diminish. delaware occupies toward freethinkers precisely the same position that a wife-beater does toward the wife. delaware knows that there are no reasons sufficient to uphold christianity, consequently these reasons are supplemented with the pillory and the whipping-post. the whipping-post is considered one of god's arguments, and the pillory is a kind of moral suasion, the use of which fills heaven with a kind of holy and serene delight. i am opposed to the religion of brute force, but all these frightful things have grown principally out of a belief in eternal punishment and out of the further idea that a certain belief is necessary to avoid eternal pain. if christianity is right, delaware is right. if god will damn every body forever simply for being intellectually honest, surely he ought to allow the good people of delaware to imprison the same gentleman for two months. of course there are thousands and thousands of good people in delaware, people who have been in other states, people who have listened to republican speeches, people who have read the works of scientists, who hold the laws of in utter abhorrence; people who pity judge comegys and who have a kind of sympathy for the grand jury. you will see that at the last election delaware lacked only six or seven hundred of being a civilized state, and probably in will stand redeemed and regenerated, with the laws of expunged from the statute book. delaware has not had the best of opportunities. you must remember that it is next to new jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of progress. it is just beyond maryland, which is another obstacle. i heard the other day that god originally made oysters with legs, and afterward took them off, knowing that the people of delaware would starve to death before they would run to catch anything. judge comegys is the last judge who will make such a charge in the united states. he has immortalized himself as the last mile-stone on that road. he is the last of his race. no more can be born. outside of this he probably was a very clever man, and it may be, he does not believe a word he utters. the probability is that he has underestimated the intelligence of the people of delaware. i am afraid to think that he is entirely honest, for fear that i may underestimate him intellectually, and overestimate him morally. nothing could tempt me to do this man injustice, though i could hardly add to the injury he has done himself. he has called attention to laws that ought to be repealed, and to lectures that ought to be repeated. i feel in my heart that he has done me a great service, second only to that for which i am indebted to the grand jury. had the judge known me personally he probably would have said nothing. should i have the misfortune to be arrested in his state and sentenced to two months of solitary confinement, the judge having become acquainted with me during the trial, would probably insist on spending most of his time in my cell. at the end of the two months he would, i think, lay himself liable to the charge of blasphemy, providing he had honor enough to express his honest thought. after all, it is all a question of honesty. every man is right. i cannot convince myself there is any god who will ever damn a man for having been honest. this gives me a certain hope for the judge and the grand jury. for two or three days i have been thinking what joy there must have been in heaven when jehovah heard that delaware was on his side, and remarked to the angels in the language of the late adjt. gen. thomas: "the eyes of all delaware are upon you." a reply to rev. drs. thomas and lorimer. * col. ingersoll filled mcvickor's theatre again yesterday afternoon, when he answered the question "what must we do to be saved?" but before doing so he replied to the recent criticisms of city clergymen on his "talmagian theology"-- chicago tribune, nov. , . _ladies and gentlemen_: wherever i lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their duty to reply for the purpose of showing either that i am unfair, or that i am blasphemous, or that i laugh. and laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime. ministers have always said you will have no respect for our ideas unless you are solemn. solemnity is a condition precedent to believing anything without evidence. and if you can only get a man solemn enough, awed enough, he will believe anything. in this city the rev. dr. thomas has made a few remarks, and i may say by way of preface that i have always held him in the highest esteem. he struggles, according to his statement, with the problem of my sincerity, and he about half concludes that i am not sincere. there is a little of the minister left in dr. thomas. ministers always account for a difference of opinion by attacking the motive. now, to him, it makes no difference whether i am sincere or insincere; the question is, can my argument be answered? suppose you could prove that the maker of the multiplication table held mathematics in contempt; what of it? ten times ten would be a hundred still. my sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument--not the slightest. but this gentleman begins to suspect that i am doing what i do for the sake of applause. what a commentary on the christian religion, that, after they have been preaching it for sixteen or eighteen hundred years, a man attacks it for the sake of popularity--a man attacks it for the purpose of winning applause! when i commenced to speak upon this subject there was no appreciable applause; most of my fellow-citizens differed with me; and i was denounced as though i had been a wild beast. but i have lived to see the majority of the men and women of intellect in the united states on my side; i have lived to see the church deny her creed; i have lived to see ministers apologize in public for what they preached; and a great and glorious work is going on until, in a little while, you will not find one of them, unless it is some old petrifaction of the red-stone period, who will admit that he ever believed in the trinity, in the atonement, or in the doctrine of eternal agony. the religion preached in the pulpits does not satisfy the intellect of america, and if dr. thomas wishes to know why people go to hear infidelity it is this: because they are not satisfied with the orthodox christianity of the day. that is the reason. they are beginning to hold it in contempt. but this gentleman imagines that i am insincere because i attacked certain doctrines of the bible. i attacked the doctrine of eternal pain. i hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. and if there be a god in this universe who made a hell; if there be a god in this universe who denies to any human being the right of reformation, then that god is not good, that god is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. i despise that doctrine, and i have done what little i could to get that horror from the cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. it is a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all the hopes of mankind. i despise it. and the gentleman also charges that i am wanting in reverence. i admit here to-day that i have no reverence for a falsehood. i do not care how old it is, and i do not care who told it, whether the men were inspired or not. i have no reverence for what i believe to be false, and in determining what is false i go by my reason. and whenever another man gives me an argument i examine it. if it is good i follow it. if it is bad i throw it away. i have no reverence for any book that upholds human slavery. i despise such a book. i have no reverence for any book that upholds or palliates the infamous institution of polygamy. i have no reverence for any book that tells a husband to kill his wife if she differs with him upon the subject of religion. i have no reverence for any book that defends wars of conquest and extermination. i have no reverence for a god that orders his legions to slay the old and helpless, and to whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers and babes. i have no reverence for such a book; neither have i any reverence for the author of that book. no matter whether he be god or man, i have no reverence. i have no reverence for the miracles of the bible. i have no reverence for the story that god allowed bears to tear children in pieces. i have no reverence for the miraculous, but i have reverence for the truth, for justice, for charity, for humanity, for intellectual liberty, and for human progress. i have the right to do my own thinking. i am going to do it. i have never met any minister that i thought had brain enough to think for himself and for me too. i do my own. i have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the old testament; no reverence for the malice of the new. and let me tell you here to-night that the old testament is a thousand times better than the new. the old testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. god was satisfied when his enemy was? dead. it was reserved for the new testament--it was reserved for universal benevolence--to rend the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. the new testament is just as much worse than the old, as hell is worse than sleep. and yet it is the fashion to say that the old testament is bad and that the new testament is good. i have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, i have no reverence for that book, and i am glad of it. dr. thomas seems to think that i should approach these things with infinite care, that i should not attack slavery, or polygamy, or religious persecution, but that i should "mildly suggest"--mildly,--should not hurt anybody's feelings. when i go to church the ministers tell me i am going to hell. when i meet one i tell him, "there is no hell," and he says: "what do you want to hurt our feelings for?" he wishes me mildly to suggest that the sun and moon did not stop, that may be the bears only frightened the children, and that, after all, lot's wife was only scared. why, there was a minister in this city of chicago who imagined that his congregation were progressive, and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not believe the story of lot's wife--said that he did not think that any sensible man would believe that a woman was changed into salt; and they tried him, and the congregation thought he was entirely too fresh. and finally he went before that church and admitted that he was mistaken, and owned up to the chloride of sodium, and said: "i not only take the bible _cum grano salis_, but with a whole barrelful." my doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so, say so; no need of going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps, possibly, peradventure. that is the ministerial way, but i do not like it. i am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good as well as the bad. i say here today that never in my life have i said one word against honesty, one word against liberty, one word against charity, one word against any institution that is good. i attack the bad, not the good, and i would like to have some minister point out in some lecture or speech that i have delivered, one word against the good, against the highest happiness of the human race. i have said all i was able to say in favor of justice, in favor of liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children, in favor of progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not one word in favor of the bad, and i never expect to. dr. thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in spite of us. doesn't it? can any man tell what he is going to think to-morrow? you see, you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell--these are the avenues by which nature approaches the brain, the consequence of this is thought, and you cannot by any possibility help thinking. neither can you determine what you will think. these impressions are made independently of your will. "but," says this reverend doctor, "whence comes this conception of space?" i can tell him. there is such a thing as matter. we conceive that matter occupies room--space--and, in our minds, space is simply the opposite of matter. and it comes naturally--not supernaturally. does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of god for us to conceive of a place where there is nothing? we know there is something. we can think of the opposite of something, and therefore we say space. "but," says this gentleman, "where do we get the idea of good and bad?" i can tell him; no trouble about that. every man has the capacity to enjoy and the capacity to suffer--every man. whenever a man enjoys himself he calls that good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad. the animals that are useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the hurtful, he calls bad. the vegetables that he can eat and use he calls good; those that are of no use except to choke the growth of the good ones, he calls bad. when the sun shines, when everything in nature is out that ministers to him, he says "this is good;" when the storm comes and blows down his hut, when the frost comes and lays down his crop, he says "this is bad." and all phenomena that affect men well he calls good; all that affect him ill he calls bad. now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is the effect in nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of suffering. that is the foundation of conscience; and if man could not suffer, if man could not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of the word conscience; and the words right and wrong never could have passed human lips. there are no supernatural fields. we get our ideas from experience--some of them from our forefathers, many from experience. a man works--food does not come of itself. a man works to raise it, and, after he has worked in the sun and heat, do you think it is necessary that he should have a revelation from heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it than the man who did not work? and yet, according to these gentlemen, we never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the ten commandments been given from mount sinai. you go into a savage country where they never heard of the bible, and let a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one little bird, and the hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take it from him, and you would see whether he would need a direct revelation from god in order to make up his mind who had the better right to that bird. our ideas of right and wrong are born of our surroundings, and if a man will think for a moment he will see it. but they deny that the mind thinks in spite of us. i heard a story of a man who said, "no man can think of one thing a minute, he will think of something else." well, there was a little methodist preacher. he said he could think of a thing a minute--that he could say the lord's prayer and never think of another thing. "well," said the man, "i'll tell you what i will do. there is the best road-horse in the country. i will give you that horse if you will just say the lord's prayer, and not think of another thing." and the little fellow shut up his eyes: "our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come, thy will be done--i suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?" i have always insisted, and i shall always insist, until i find some fact in nature correcting the statement, that nature sows the seeds of thought--that every brain is a kind of field where the seeds are sown, and that some are very poor, and some are very barren, and some are very rich. that is my opinion. again he asks: "if one is not responsible for his thought, why is any one blamed for thinking as he does?" it is not a question of blame, it is a question of who is right--a question of who is wrong. admit that every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought. admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. i hold men responsible not for their thoughts; i hold men responsible for their actions. and i have said a thousand times: physical liberty is this--the right to do anything that does not interfere with another--in other words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this--the right to think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to think right. i have always said it, and i expect to say it always. the reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. i believe in that theory. if you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct interference of an infinite god, the gradual theory is right. it is a theory of evolution. i admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came from the black art; and i also contend that religion will be lost in science. i believe in evolution. i believe in the budding of the seed, the shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; i believe in the spreading and the growing; and that is as true in every other department of the world as it is in vegetation. i believe it; but that does not account for the bible doctrine. we are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it will not do to say god gradually grows. if he is infinite now, he knows as much as he ever will. if he has been always infinite, he knew as much at the time he wrote the bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently, whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. you see they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with religion--a little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the supernatural. hear this: i said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. i insist on it. all the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. i also said all the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. they tried it last year. they tried it in the united states. the christian world upon its knees implored god to save one life, and the man died. the man died! had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in answer to prayer. the man having died, what does the church say now? what is the answer to this? the rev. dr. thomas says: "there is prayer and there is rain." good. "can he that is himself or any one else say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" i do. let us put it another way. there is rain and there is infidelity; can any one say there is no possible relation between the two? how does dr. thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's crops? and yet this gentleman really throws out the idea that there is some possible relation between prayer and rain, between rain and health; and he tells us that he would have died twenty-five years ago had it not been for prayer. i doubt it. prayer is not a medicine. life depends upon certain facts--not upon prayer. all the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of the blood. all the prayer in the world is no substitute for digestion. all the prayer in the world cannot take the place of food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he eats considerable besides. it will not do. again: this reverend doctor says: "shall we say that all the love of the unseen world"--how does he know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love of god"--how does he know there is any love in god? "heed not the cries and tears of earth?" i do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious persecution. let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons, of those who lifted their chained hands to god and mingled prayer with the clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving this god, simply for worshiping this god. and what did god do? nothing. the chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. they remained in the dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did god do? nothing. thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did god do? nothing. the sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perished. women lifted their hands to god and implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and what did god do? nothing. whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the naked back of toil. what did god do? nothing. children were sold from the arms of mothers. all the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the brutal foot of creed; and what did god do? nothing. human beings, his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what did god do? nothing. wild storms sweep over the earth and the shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does god do? nothing. there come plague and pestilence and famine. what does god do? thousands and thousands perish. little children die upon the withered breasts of mothers; and what does god do? nothing. what evidence has dr. thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever touched the heart of god? let us be honest. i appeal to the history of the world; i appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and best. have they ever touched the heart of the infinite? has the hand of help ever been reached from heaven? i do not know; but i do not believe it. dr. thomas tells me that is orthodox christianity. what right has he to tell what is orthodox christianity? he is a heretic. he had too much brain to remain in the methodist pulpit. he had a doubt--and a doubt is born of an idea. and his doctrine has been declared by his own church to be unorthodox. they have passed on his case and they have found him unconstitutional. what right has he to state what is orthodox? and here is what he says: "christianity"--orthodox christianity i suppose he means--"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of the government of god are the same there as here; that character, and not profession determines destiny; and that humboldt, and dickens, and all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their just rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the time, be it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. that is what christianity teaches." if it does, never will i have another word to say against christianity. it never has taught it. christianity--orthodox christianity--teaches that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity for reformation. christianity teaches that this little world is the eternal line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion in this life, you will be eternally damned in the next. that is christianity. they say: "now is the accepted time." if you put it off until you die, that is too late; and the doctrine of the christian world is that there is no opportunity for reformation in another world. the doctrine of orthodox christianity is that you must believe on the lord jesus christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in the next world. you must believe on him here and that if you fail here, god in his infinite wisdom will never give you another chance. that is orthodox christianity; and according to orthodox christianity, the greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world are now in hell. and why is it that they say it is not orthodox christianity? i have made them ashamed of their doctrine. when i called to their attention the fact that such men as darwin, such men as emerson, dickens, longfellow, laplace, shakespeare, and humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company in heaven would not be very interesting with such men left out. and now they begin to say: "we think the lord will give those men another chance." i have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine expectations. i have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; i have made them ashamed of their doctrine--and that is glory enough. they will let me in, a few years after i am dead. i admit that the doctrine that god will treat us as we treat others--i admit that is taught by matthew, mark, and luke; but it is not taught by the orthodox church. i want that understood. i admit also that dr. thomas is not orthodox, and that he was driven out of the church because he thought god too good to damn men forever without giving them the slightest chance. why, the catholic church is a thousand times better than your protestant church upon that question. the catholic church believes in purgatory--that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial. dr. thomas, all i ask of you is to tell all that you think. tell your congregation whether you believe the bible was written by divine inspiration. have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people whether, in your judgment, god ever upheld slavery. do not shrink. do not shirk. tell your people whether god ever upheld polygamy. do not shrink. tell them whether god was ever in favor of religious persecution. stand right to it. then tell your people whether you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the bad one get the credit. be honor bright. tell what you really think and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you imagine. the next gentleman, i believe, is the rev. dr. lorimer. he comes to the rescue, and i have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he is a baptist. he believes that the infinite god has a choice as to the manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. this gentleman regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "pitifully shallow!" what is the modern conception of the universe? the modern conception is that the universe always has been and forever will be. the modern conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has been, all that can be. that is the modern conception of this universe. and this is called "pitiful." what is the christian conception? it is that all the matter in the universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a jewish jehovah who made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world. and they even go so far as to say that that being made experiments in which he signally failed. that being made man and woman and put them in a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. that being of infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he would have to drown them. that being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire. that is a pitiful conception of the universe. that is an infamous conception of the universe. give me rather the conception of spinoza, the conception of humboldt, of darwin, of huxley, of tyndall and of every other man who has thought. i love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. i love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. i love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. i love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity. another thing to which this gentleman objects is that i propose to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought. i have never said so. never. i have said, one world at a time. why? do not make yourself miserable about another. why? because i do not know anything about it, and it may be good. so do not worry. that is all. y or do not know where you are going to land. it may be the happy port of heaven. wait until you get there. it will be time enough to make trouble then. this is what i have said. i have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. i do not know. i admit it. life is a shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is "good-night!" whether there is a good morning i do not know, but i am willing to wait. let us think these high and splendid thoughts. let us build palaces for the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who happen to differ from us. i am willing to take the conceptions of humboldt and darwin, of haeckel and spinoza, and i am willing to compare their splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the baptist creed. this gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that, "no one has a right to say that dickens, longfellow, and darwin are castaways!" why not? they were not christians. they did not believe in the lord jesus christ. they did not believe in the inspiration of the scriptures. and, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. but he says: "no one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." that is what i say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of god, or in the divinity of christ, will be eternally lost. does it not say it? is there an orthodox minister in this town now who will stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? he will not. let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy. i will tell you what orthodoxy is. a man goes to the day of judgment, and they cross-examine him, and they say to him: "did you believe the bible?" "no." "did you belong to the church?" "no." "did you take care of your wife and children?" "yes?" "pay your debts?" "yes." "love your country?" "yes." "love the whole world?" "yes." "never made anybody unhappy?" "not that i know of. if there is any man or woman that i ever wronged let them stand up and say so. that is the kind of man i am; but," said he, "i did not believe the bible. i did not believe in the divinity of jesus christ, and, to tell you the truth, i did not believe in the existence of god. i now find i was mistaken; but that was my doctrine." now, i want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with that man? he is sent to hell. that is their doctrine. then the next fellow comes. he says: "where did you come from?" and he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says: "i came from the gallows. i was just hung." "what were you hung for?" "murdering my wife. she wasn't a christian either, she got left. the day i was hung i was washed in the blood of the lamb." that is christianity. and they say to him: "come in! let the band play!" that is orthodox christianity. every man that is hanged--there is a minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. all he has to do is just to believe on the lord. another objection this gentleman has, and that is that i am scurrilous. scurrilous! and the gentleman, in order to show that he is not scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." that is simply to show that he is not scurrilous. dr. lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of the will; and i propose to prove by him that it does. he is the last man in the world to controvert that doctrine--the last man. in spite of himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it as his own. i am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind acted independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. i am infinitely obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered. he also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and that we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow calvinism. what is calvinism? it is the doctrine that an infinite god made millions of people, knowing that they would be damned. i have answered that a thousand times. i answer it again. no god has a right to make a mistake, and then damn the mistake. no god has a right to make a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. no god has a right to make an investment that will not finally pay a dividend. the world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong, that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world has steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than ever before. and there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever before. a reply to rev. john hall and warner van norden. * the attention of the morning advertiser readers was, in the issue of february th, called to two sets of facts transpiring contemporaneously in this city. one was the starving condition of four hundred cloakmakers who had struck because they could not live on reduced wages. arbitration had failed; two hundred of the number, seeing starvation staring them in the face, were forced to give up the fight, and the remaining number continued to do battle for higher wages while these cloakmakers were in the extremity of destitution, millionaires were engaged in subscribing to a fund "for the extension of the church." the extension committee, received at the home of jay gould, had met with such signal success as to cause comment throughout the city. the host subscribed ten thousand dollars, his daughter twenty-five hundred and the assembled guests sums ranging between five hundred and one thousand. the morning advertiser made inquiry as to whether any of the money contributed for the extension of the church would find its way into the pockets of the hungry cloakmakers. dr. john hall said he did not have time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, as there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention. mr. warner van norden, treasurer of the church extension committee, was seen at his office in the north american bank, of which institution he is president. he took the view that the cloakmakers had brought their trouble upon themselves, and it was not the duty of the charitable to extend to them direct aid. generally speaking, he was not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church. "the experience of centuries, said he, "teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourage them in their idleness and their crimes. the duty of the church is to save men's a souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally. "it is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. if the poor felt that they could get material help, they would want it always. in these days if a man or woman can't get along it's their own fault. there is my typewriter. she was brought up in a tenement house. now she gets two dollars a day, and dresses better than did the lords and ladies of other times. you'll find that where people are poor, it's their own fault. "after all, happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of material things--it is the soul that makes life worth living. you should come to our working girls' club and see this fact illustrated. there you will see girls who have been working all day, singing hymns and following the leader in prayer." don't you think there are many worthy poor in this city who need material help?" was asked. "no, sir; i do not," said mr. van norden. "if a man or woman wants money, they should work for it." "but is employment always to be had?" "i think it is by americans. you'll find that most of the people out of work are those who are not adapted to the conditions of this country. colonel robert ingersoll was asked what he thought of such philosophy.--new york morning advertiser, march , . _question_. have you read the article in the morning advertiser entitled "workers starving"? _answer._ i have read it, and was greatly surprised at the answers made to the reporter of the advertiser. _question_. what do you think of the remarks of the rev. john hall and by mr. warner van norden, treasurer of the "church extension committee"? _answer._ my opinion is that dr. hall must have answered under some irritation, or that the reporter did not happen to take down all he said. it hardly seems probable that dr. hall should have said that he had no time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, giving as a reason that there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention. the church is always insisting that it is, above all things, a charitable institution; that it collects and distributes many millions every year for the relief of the needy, and it is always quoting: "sell that thou hast and give to the poor." it is hard to imagine anything of more importance than to relieve the needy, or to succor the oppressed. of course, i know that the church itself produces nothing, and that it lives on contributions; but its claim is that it receives from those who are able to give, and gives to those who are in urgent need. i have sometimes thought, that the most uncharitable thing in the world is an organized charity. it seems to have the peculiarities of a corporation, and becomes as soulless as its kindred. to use a very old phrase, it generally acts like "a beggar on horseback." probably dr. hall, in fact, does a great deal for the poor, and i imagine that he must have been irritated or annoyed when he made the answer attributed to him in the _advertiser_. the good samaritan may have been in a hurry, but he said nothing about it. the levites that passed by on the other side seemed to have had other business. understand me, i am saying nothing against dr. hall, but it does seem to me that there are few other matters more important than assisting our needy fellow-men. _question_. what do you think of mr. warner van norden's sentiments as expressed to the reporter? _answer._ in the first place, i think he is entirely mistaken. i do not think the cloakmakers brought their trouble upon themselves. the wages they receive were and are insufficient to support reasonable human beings. they work for almost nothing, and it is hard for me to understand why they live at all, when life is so expensive and death so cheap. all they can possibly do is to earn enough one day to buy food to enable them to work the next. life with them is a perpetual struggle. they live on the edge of death. under their feet they must feel the side of the grave crumbling, and thus they go through, day by day, month by month, year by year. they are, i presume, sustained by a hope that is never realized. mr. van norden says that he is not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church, and that the experience of centuries teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourages them in their idleness and their crimes. is mr. van norden ready to take the ground that when christ said: "sell that thou hast and give to the poor," he intended to encourage idleness and crime? is it possible that when it was said, "it is better to give than to receive," the real meaning was, it is better to encourage idleness and crime than to receive assistance? for instance, a man falls into the water. why should one standing on the shore attempt to rescue him? could he not properly say: "if all who fall into the water are rescued, it will only encourage people to fall into the water; it will make sailors careless, and persons who stand on wharves, will care very little whether they fall in or not. therefore, in order to make people careful who have not fallen into the water, let those in the water drown." in other words, why should anybody be assisted, if assistance encourages carelessness, or idleness, or negligence? according to mr. van norden, charity is out of place in this world, kindness is a mistake, and hospitality springs from a lack of philosophy. in other words, all should take the consequences of their acts, not only, but the consequences of the acts of others. if i knew this doctrine to be true, i should still insist that men should be charitable on their own account. a man without pity, no matter how intelligent he may be, is at best only an intellectual beast, and if by withholding all assistance we could finally people the world with those who are actually self-supporting, we would have a population without sympathy, without charity--that is to say, without goodness. in my judgment, it would be far better that none should exist. mr. van norden takes the ground that the duty of the church is to save men's souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally. i think that conditions have a vast deal to do with morality and goodness. if you wish to change the conduct of your fellow-men, the first thing to do is to change their conditions, their surroundings; in other words, to help them to help themselves--help them to get away from bad influences, away from the darkness of ignorance, away from the temptations of poverty and want, not only into the light intellectually, but into the climate of prosperity. it is useless to give a hungry man a religious tract, and it is almost useless to preach morality to those who are so situated that the necessity of the present, the hunger of the moment, overrides every other consideration. there is a vast deal of sophistry in hunger, and a good deal of persuasion in necessity. prosperity is apt to make men selfish. they imagine that because they have succeeded, others and all others, might or may succeed. if any man will go over his own life honestly, he will find that he has not always succeeded because he was good, or that he has always failed because he was bad. he will find that many things happened with which he had nothing to do, for his benefit, and that, after all is said and done, he cannot account for all of his successes by his absolute goodness. so, if a man will think of all the bad things he has done--of all the bad things he wanted to do--of all the bad things he would have done had he had the chance, and had he known that detection was impossible, he will find but little foundation for egotism. _question_. what do you say to this language of mr. van norden. "it is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. if the poor felt that they could get material help they would want it always, and in this day, if a man and woman cannot get along, it is their own fault"? _answer._ all i can say is that i do not agree with him. often there are many more men in a certain trade than there is work for such men. often great factories shut down, leaving many thousands out of employment. you may say that it was the fault of these men that they learned that trade; that they might have known it would be overcrowded; so you may say it was the fault of the capitalist to start a factory in that particular line, because he should have known that it was to be overdone. as no man can look very far into the future, the truth is it was nobody's fault, and without fault thousands and thousands are thrown out of employment. competition is so sharp, wages are so small, that to be out of employment for a few weeks means want. you cannot say that this is the fault of the man who wants bread. he certainly did not wish to go hungry; neither did he deliberately plan a failure. he did the best he could. there are plenty of bankers who fail in business, not because they wish to fail; so there are plenty of professional men who cannot make a living, yet it may not be their fault; and there are others who get rich, and it may not be by reason of their virtues. without doubt, there are many people in the city of new york who cannot make a living. competition is too sharp; life is too complex; consequently the percentage of failures is large. in savage life there are few failures, but in civilized life there are many. there are many thousands out of work and out of food in berlin to-day. it can hardly be said to be their fault. so there are many thousands in london, and every other great city of the world. you cannot account for all this want by saying that the people who want are entirely to blame. a man gets rich, and he is often egotistic enough to think that his wealth was the result of his own unaided efforts; and he is sometimes heartless enough to say that others should get rich by following his example. mr. van norden states that he has a typewriter who gets two dollars a day, and that she dresses better than the lords and ladies did of olden times. he must refer to the times of the garden of eden. out of two dollars a day one must live, and there is very little left for gorgeous robes. i hardly think a lady is to be envied because she receives two dollars a day, and the probability is that the manner in which she dresses on that sum--having first deducted the expenses of living--is not calculated to excite envy. the philosophy of mr. van norden seems to be concentrated into this line: "where people are poor it is their own fault." of course this is the death of all charity. we are then informed by this gentleman that "happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of material things--that it is the soul that makes life worth living." is it the soul without pity that makes life worth living? is it the soul in which the blossom of charity has never shed its perfume that makes life so desirable? is it the soul, having all material things, wrapped in the robes of prosperity, and that says to all the poor: it is your own fault; die of hunger if you must--that makes life worth living? it may be asked whether it is worth while for such a soul to live. if this is the philosophy of mr. van norden, i do not wish to visit his working girls' club, or to "hear girls who have been working all day singing hymns and following the leader in prayer." why should a soul without pity pray? why should any one ask god to be merciful to the poor if he is not merciful himself? for my own part, i would rather see poor people eat than to hear them pray. i would rather see them clothed comfortably than to see them shivering, and at the same time hear them sing hymns. it does not seem possible that any man can say that there are no worthy poor in this city who need material help. neither does it seem possible that any man can say to one who is starving that if he wants money he must work for it. there are hundreds and thousands in this city willing to work who can find no employment. there are good and pure women standing between their children and starvation, living in rooms worse than cells in penitentiaries--giving their own lives to their children--hundreds and hundreds of martyrs bearing the cross of every suffering, worthy of the reverence and love of mankind. so there are men wandering about these streets in search of work, willing to do anything to feed the ones they love. mr. van norden has not done himself justice. i do not believe that he expresses his real sentiments. but, after all, why should we expect charity in a church that believes in the dogma of eternal pain? why cannot the rich be happy here in their palaces, while the poor suffer and starve in huts, when these same rich expect to enjoy heaven forever, with all the unbelievers in hell? why should the agony of time interfere with their happiness, when the agonies of eternity will not and cannot affect their joy? but i have nothing against dr. john hall or mr. van norden--only against their ideas. a reply to the rev. dr. plumb. * boston, . _question_. last sunday the rev. dr. plumb paid some attention to the lecture which you delivered here on the rd of october. have you read a report of it, and what have you to say? _answer._ dr. plumb attacks not only myself, but the rev. mr. mills. i do not know the position that mr. mills takes, but from what dr. plumb says, i suppose that he has mingled a little philosophy with his religion and some science with his superstition. dr. plumb appears to have successfully avoided both. his manners do not appear to me to be of the best. why should he call an opponent coarse and blasphemous, simply because he does not happen to believe as he does? is it blasphemous to say that this "poor" world never was visited by a redeemer from heaven, a majestic being--unique--peculiar--who "trod the sea and hushed the storm and raised the dead"? why does dr. plumb call this world a "poor" world? according to his creed, it was created by infinite wisdom, infinite goodness and infinite power. how dare he call the work of such a being "poor"? is it not blasphemous for a boston minister to denounce the work of the infinite and say to god that he made a "poor" world? if i believed this world had been made by an infinitely wise and good being, i should certainly insist that this is not a poor world, but, on the contrary, a perfect world. i would insist that everything that happens is for the best. whether it looks wise or foolish to us, i would insist that the fault we thought we saw, lies in us and not in the infinitely wise and benevolent creator. dr. plumb may love god, but he certainly regards him as a poor mechanic and a failure as a manufacturer. there dr. plumb, like all religious preachers, takes several things for granted; things that have not been established by evidence, and things which in their nature cannot be established. he tells us that this poor world was visited by a mighty redeemer from heaven. how does he know? does he know where heaven is? does he know that any such place exists? is he perfectly sure that an infinite god would be foolish enough to make people who needed a redeemer? he also says that this being "trod the sea, hushed the storm and raised the dead." is there any evidence that this being trod the sea? any more evidence than that venus rose from the foam of the ocean? any evidence that he hushed the storm any more than there is that the storm comes from the cave of Ã�olus? is there any evidence that he raised the dead? how would it be possible to prove that the dead were raised? how could we prove such a thing if it happened now? who would believe the evidence? as a matter of fact, the witnesses themselves would not believe and could not believe until raising of the dead became so general as to be regarded as natural. dr. plumb knows, if he knows anything, that gospel gossip is the only evidence he has, or anybody has, that christ trod the sea, hushed the storm and raised the dead. he also knows, if he knows anything, that these stories were not written until christ himself had been dead for at least four generations. he knows also that these accounts were written at a time when the belief in miracles was almost universal, and when everything that actually happened was regarded of no particular importance, and only the things that did not happen were carefully written out with all the details. so dr. plumb says that this man who hushed the storm "spake as never man spake." did the doctor ever read zeno? zeno, who denounced human slavery many years before christ was born? did he ever read epicurus, one of the greatest of the greeks? has he read anything from buddha? has he read the dialogues between arjuna and krishna? if he has, he knows that every great and splendid utterance of christ was uttered centuries before he lived. did he ever read lao-tsze? if he did--and this man lived many centuries before the coming of our lord--he knows that lao-tsze said "we should render benefits for injuries. we should love our enemies, and we should not resist evil." so it will hardly do now to say that christ spake as never man spake, because he repeated the very things that other men had said. so he says that i am endeavoring to carry people back to a dimly groping socrates or a vague confucius. did dr. plumb ever read confucius? only a little while ago a book was published by mr. for-long showing the origin of the principal religion and the creeds that have been taught. in this book you will find the cream of buddha, of christ, of zoroaster, and you will also find a few pages devoted to the philosophy of confucius; and after you have read the others, then read what confucius says, and you will find that his philosophy rises like a monolith touching the clouds, while the creeds and sayings of the others appear like heaps of stone or piles of rubbish. the reason of this is that confucius was not simply a sentimentalist. he was not controlled entirely by feeling, but he had intelligence--a great brain in which burned the torch of reason. read confucius, and you will think that he must have known the sciences of to-day; that is to say, the conclusions that have been reached by modern thinkers. it could have been easily said of confucius in his day that he spake as never man had spoken, and it may be that after you read him you will change your mind just a little as to the wisdom and the intelligence contained in many of the sayings of our lord. dr. plumb charges that mr. mills is trying to reconstruct theology. whether he is right in this charge i do not know, but i do know that i am not trying to reconstruct theology. i am endeavoring to destroy it. i have no more confidence in theology than i have in astrology or in the black art. theology is a science that exists wholly independent of facts, and that reaches conclusions without the assistance of evidence. it also scorns experience and does what little it can to do away with thought. i make a very great distinction between theology and real religion. i can conceive of no religion except usefulness. now, here we are, men and women in this world, and we have certain faculties, certain senses. there are things that we can ascertain, and by developing our brain we can avoid mistakes, keep a few thorns out of our feet, a few thistles out of our hands, a few diseases from our flesh. in my judgment, we should use all our senses, gathering information from every possible quarter, and this information should be only used for the purpose of ascertaining the facts, for finding out the conditions of well-being, to the end that we may add to the happiness of ourselves and fellows. in other words, i believe in intellectual veracity and also in mental hospitality. to me reason is the final arbiter, and when i say reason, i mean my reason. it may be a very poor light, the flame small and flickering, but, after all, it is the only light i have, and never with my consent shall any preacher blow it out. now, dr. plumb thinks that i am trying to despoil my fellow-men of their greatest inheritance; that is to say, divine christ. why do you call christ good? is it because he was merciful? then why do you put him above mercy? why do you call christ good? is it because he was just? why do you put him before justice? suppose it should turn out that no such person as christ ever lived. what harm would that do justice or mercy? wouldn't the tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice, holding aloft her scales, from which she blows even the dust of prejudice, be as noble, as admirable as now? is it not better to love, justice and mercy than to love a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure that you are benefiting your fellow-men? if dr. plumb wanted to answer me, why did he not take my argument instead of my motive? why did he not point out my weakness instead of telling the consequences that would follow from my action? we have nothing to do with the consequences. i said that to believe without evidence, or in spite of evidence, was superstition. if that definition is correct, dr. plumb is a superstitious man, because he believes at least without evidence. what evidence has he that christ was god? in the nature of things, how could he have evidence? the only evidence he pretends to have is the dream of joseph, and he does not know that joseph ever dreamed the dream, because joseph did not write an account of his dream, so that dr. plumb has only hearsay for the dream, and the dream is the foundation of his creed. now, when i say that that is superstition, dr. plumb charges me with being a burglar--a coarse, blasphemous burglar--who wishes to rob somebody of some great blessing. dr. plumb would not hesitate to tell a mohammedan that mohammed was an impostor. he would tell a mormon in utah that joseph smith was a vulgar liar and that brigham young was no better. in other words, if in turkey, he would be a coarse and blasphemous burglar, and he would follow the same profession in utah. so probably he would tell the chinese that confucius was an ignorant wretch and that their religion was idiotic, and the chinese priest would denounce dr. plumb as a very coarse and blasphemous burglar, and dr. plumb would be perfectly astonished that a priest could be so low, so impudent and malicious. of course my wonder is not excited. i have become used to it. if dr. plumb would think, if he would exercise his imagination a little and put himself in the place of others, he would think, in all probability, better things of his opponents. i do not know dr. plumb, and yet i have no doubt that he is a good and sincere man; a little superstitious, superficial, and possibly, mingled with his many virtues, there may be a little righteous malice. the rev. mr. mills used to believe as dr. plumb does now, and i suppose he has changed for reasons that were sufficient for him. so i believe him to be an honest, conscientious man, and so far as i am concerned, i have no objection to mr. mills doing what little he can to get all the churches to act together. he may never succeed, but i am not responsible for that. so i have no objection to dr. plumb preaching what he believes to be the gospel. i admit that he is honest when he says that an infinitely good god made a poor world; that he made man and woman and put them in the garden of eden, and that this same god before that time had manufactured a devil, and that when he manufactured this devil, he knew that he would corrupt the man and woman that he had determined to make; that he could have defeated the devil, but that for a wise purpose, he allowed his satanic majesty to succeed; that at the time he allowed him to succeed, he knew that in consequence of his success that he (god) in about fifteen or sixteen hundred years would be compelled to drown the whole world with the exception of eight people. these eight people he kept for seed. at the time he kept them for seed, he knew that they were totally depraved, that they were saturated with the sin of adam and eve, and that their children would be their natural heirs. he also knew at the time he allowed the devil to succeed, that he (god), some four thousand years afterward, would be compelled to be born in palestine as a babe, to learn the carpenter's trade, and to go about the country for three years preaching to the people and discussing with the rabbis of his chosen people, and he also knew that these chosen people--these people who had been governed and educated by him, to whom he had sent a multitude of prophets, would at that time be so savage that they would crucify him, although he would be at that time the only sinless being who had ever stood upon the earth. this he knew would be the effect of his government, of his education of his chosen people. he also knew at the time he allowed the devil to succeed, that in consequence of that success a vast majority of the human race would become eternal convicts in the prison of hell. all this he knew, and yet dr. plumb insists that he was and is infinitely wise, infinitely powerful and infinitely good. what would this god have done if he had lacked wisdom, or power, or goodness? of all the religions that man has produced, of all the creeds of savagery, there is none more perfectly absurd than christianity. a reply to the new york clergy on superstition. * new york journal, . an interview. _question_. have you followed the controversy, or rather, the interest manifested in the letters to the _journal_ which have followed your lecture of sunday, and what do you think of them? _answer._ i have read the letters and reports that have been published in the _journal_. some of them seem to be very sincere, some not quite honest, and some a little of both. the rev. robert s. macarthur takes the ground that very many christians do not believe in a personal devil, but are still christians. he states that they hold that the references in the new testament to the devil are simply to personifications of evil, and do not apply to any personal existence. he says that he could give the names of a number of pastors who hold such views. he does not state what his view is. consequently, i do not know whether he is a believer in a personal devil or not. the statement that the references in the new testament to a devil are simply to personifications of evil, not applying to any personal existence, seems to me utterly absurd. the references to devils in the new testament are certainly as good and satisfactory as the references to angels. now, are the angels referred to in the new testament simply personifications of good, and are there no such personal existences? if devils are only personifications of evil, how is it that these personifications of evil could hold arguments with jesus christ? how could they talk back? how could they publicly acknowledge the divinity of christ? as a matter of fact, the best evidences of christ's divinity in the new testament are the declarations of devils. these devils were supposed to be acquainted with supernatural things, and consequently knew a god when they saw one, whereas the average jew, not having been a citizen of the celestial world, was unable to recognize a deity when he met him. now, these personifications of evil, as dr. mac-arthur calls them, were of various kinds. some of them were dumb, while others could talk, and christ said, speaking of the dumb devils, that they were very difficult to expel from the bodies of men; that it required fasting and prayer to get them out. now, did christ mean that these dumb devils did not exist? that they were only "personifications of evil"? now, we are also told in the new testament that christ was tempted by the devil; that is, by a "personification of evil," and that this personification took him to the pinnacle of the temple and tried to induce him to jump off. now, where did this personification of evil come from? was it an actual existence? dr. macarthur says that it may not have been. then it did not come from the outside of christ. if it existed it came from the inside of christ, so that, according to macarthur, christ was the creator of his own devil. i do not know that i have a right to say that this is dr. macarthur's opinion, as he has wisely refrained from giving his opinion. i hope some time he will tell us whether he really believes in a devil or not, or whether he thinks all allusions and references to devils in the new testament can be explained away by calling the devils "personifications of evil." then, of course, he will tell us whether it was a "personification of evil" that offered christ all the kingdoms of the world, and whether christ expelled seven "personifications of evil" from mary magdalene, and how did they come to count these "personifications of evil"? if the devils, after all, are only "personifications of evil," then, of course, they cannot be numbered. they are all one. there may be different manifestations, but, in fact, there can be but one, and yet mary magdalene had seven. dr. macarthur states that i put up a man of straw, and then vigorously beat him down. now, the question is, do i attack a man of straw? i take it for granted that christians to some extent, at least, believe in their creeds. i suppose they regard the bible as the inspired word of god; that they believe in the fall of man, in the atonement, in salvation by faith, in the resurrection and ascension of christ. i take it for granted that they believe these things. of course, the only evidence i have is what they say. possibly that cannot be depended upon. they may be dealing only in the "personification of truth." when i charge the orthodox christians with believing these things, i am told that i am far behind the religious thinking of the hour, but after all, this "man of straw" is quite powerful. prof. briggs attacked this "man of straw," and the straw man turned on him and put him out. a preacher by the name of smith, a teacher in some seminary out in ohio, challenged this "man of straw," and the straw man put him out. both these reverend gentlemen were defeated by the straw man, and if the rev. dr. macarthur will explain to his congregation, i mean only explain what he calls the "religious thinking of the hour," the "straw man" will put him out too. dr. macarthur finds fault with me because i put into the minds of representative thinkers of to-day the opinions of medieval monks, which leading religious teachers long ago discarded. will dr. macarthur have the goodness to point out one opinion that i have put into the minds of representative thinkers--that is, of orthodox thinkers--that any orthodox religious teacher of to-day has discarded? will he have the kindness to give just one? in my lecture on "superstition" i did say that to deny the existence of evil spirits, or to deny the existence of the devil, is to deny the truth of the new testament; and that to deny the existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of jesus christ. i did say that if we give up the belief in devils we must give up the inspiration of the old and new testaments, and we must give up the divinity of christ. upon that declaration i stand, because if devils do not exist, then jesus christ was mistaken, or we have not in the new testament a true account of what he said and of what he pretended to do. if the new testament gives a true account of his words and pretended actions, then he did claim to cast out devils. that was his principal business. that was his certificate of divinity, casting out devils. that authenticated his mission and proved that he was superior to the hosts of darkness. now, take the devil out of the new testament, and you also take the veracity of christ; with that veracity you take the divinity; with that divinity you take the atonement, and when you take the atonement, the great fabric known as christianity becomes a shapeless ruin. now, let dr. mac arthur answer this, and answer it not like a minister, but like a man. ministers are unconsciously a little unfair. they have a little tendency to what might be called a natural crook. they become spiritual when they ought to be candid. they become a little ingenious and pious when they ought to be frank; and when really driven into a corner, they clasp their hands, they look upward, and they cry "_blasphemy!_" i do not mean by this that they are dishonest. i simply mean that they are illogical. dr. macarthur tells us also that spain is not a representative of progressive religious teachers. i admit that. there are no progressive religious teachers in spain, and right here let me make a remark. if religion rests on an inspired revelation, it is incapable of progress. it may be said that year after year we get to understand it better, but if it is not understood when given, why is it called a "revelation"? there is no progress in the multiplication table. some men are better mathematicians than others, but the old multiplication table remains the same. so there can be no progress in a revelation from god. now, spain--and that is the great mistake, the great misfortune--has remained orthodox. that is to say, the spaniards have been true to their superstition. of course the rev. dr. macarthur will not admit that catholicism is christianity, and i suppose that the pope would hardly admit that a baptist is a very successful christian. the trouble with spain is, and the trouble with the baptist church is, that neither of them has progressed to any great extent. now, in my judgment, what is called religion must grow better as man grows better, simply because it was produced by man and the better man is, the nearer civilized he is, the better, the nearer civilized, will be what he calls his religion; and if the baptist religion has progressed, it is a demonstration that it was not originally founded on a revelation from god. in my lecture i stated that we had no right to make any distinction between the actions of infinite wisdom and goodness, and that if god created and governs this world we ought to thank him, if we thanked him at all, for all that happens; that we should thank him just as heartily for famine and cyclone as for sunshine and harvest, and that if president mckinley thanked god for the victory at santiago, he also should have thanked him for sending the yellow fever. i stand by these words. a finite being has no right to make any distinction between the actions of the infinitely good and wise. if god governs this world, then everything that happens is the very best that could happen. when a murders b, the best thing that could happen to a is to be a murderer and the best thing that could have happened to b was to be murdered. there is no escape from this if the world is governed by infinite wisdom and goodness. it will not do to try and dodge by saying that man is free. this god who made man and made him free knew exactly how he would use his freedom, and consequently this god cannot escape the responsibility for the actions of men. he made them. he knew exactly what they would do. he is responsible. if i could turn a piece of wood into a human being, and i knew that he would murder a man, who is the real murderer? but if dr. macarthur would think as much as he preaches, he would come much nearer agreeing with me. the rev. dr. j. lewis parks is very sorry that he cannot discuss ingersoll's address, because to do so would be dignifying ingersoll. of course i deeply regret the refusal of dr. j. lewis parks to discuss the address. i dislike to be compelled to go to the end of my life without being dignified. at the same time i will forgive the rev. dr. j. lewis parks for not answering me, because i know that he cannot. the rev. dr. moldehnke, whose name seems chiefly made of consonants, denounces me as a scoffer and as illogical, and says that christianity is not founded upon the devil, but upon christ. he further says that we do not believe in such a thing as a devil in human form, but we know that there is evil, and that evil we call the devil. he hides his head under the same leaf with dr. macarthur by calling the devil evil. now, is this gentleman willing to say that all the allusions to the devil in the old and new testaments can be harmonized with the idea that the devil is simply a personification of evil? can he say this and say it honestly? but the rev. dr. moldehnke, i think, seems to be consistent; seems to go along with the logic of his creed. he says that the yellow fever, if it visited our soldiers, came from god, and that we should thank god for it. he does not say the soldiers should thank god for it, or that those who had it should thank god for it, but that we should thank god for it, and there is this wonderful thing about christianity. it enables us to bear with great fortitude, with a kind of sublime patience, the misfortunes of others. he says that this yellow fever works out god's purposes. of course i am not as well acquainted with the deity as the rev. moldehnke appears to be. i have not the faintest idea of what god's purposes are. he works, even according to his messengers, in such a mysterious way, that with the little reason i have i find it impossible to follow him. why god should have any purpose that could be worked out with yellow fever, or cholera, or why he should ever ask the assistance of tapeworms, or go in partnership with cancers, or take in the plague as an assistant, i have never been able to understand. i do not pretend to know. i admit my ignorance, and after all, the rev. dr. moldehnke may be right. it may be that everything that happens is for the best. at the same time, i do not believe it. there is a little old story on this subject that throws some light on the workings of the average orthodox mind. one morning the son of an old farmer came in and said to his father, "one of the ewe lambs is dead." "well," said the father; "that is all for the best. twins never do very well, any how." the next morning the son reported the death of the other lamb, and the old man said, "well, that is all for the best; the old ewe will have more wool." the next morning the son said, "the old ewe is dead." "well," replied the old man; "that may be for the best, but i don't see it this morning." the rev. mr. hamlin has the goodness to say that my influence is on the wane. this is an admission that i have some, for which i am greatly obliged to him. he further states that all my arguments are easily refuted, but fails to refute them on the ground that such refutation might be an advertisement for me. now, if mr. hamlin would think a little, he would see that there are some things in the lecture on "superstition" worth the while even of a methodist minister to answer. does mr. hamlin believe in the existence of the devil? if he does, will he have the goodness to say who created the devil? he may say that god created him, as he is the creator of all. then i ask mr. hamlin this question: why did god create a successful rival? when god created the devil, did he not know at that time that he was to make this world? that he was to create adam and eve and put them in the garden of eden, and did he not know that this devil would tempt this adam and eve? that in consequence of that they would fall? that in consequence of that he would have to drown all their descendants except eight? that in consequence of that he himself would have to be born into this world as a judean peasant? that he would have to be crucified and suffer for the sins of these people who had been misled by this devil that he deliberately created, and that after all he would be able only to save a few methodists? will the rev. mr. hamlin have the goodness to answer this? he can answer it as mildly as he pleases, so that in any event it will be no advertisement for him. the rev. mr. f. j. belcher pays me a great compliment, for which i now return my thanks. he has the goodness to say, "ingersoll in many respects is like voltaire." i think no finer compliment has been paid me by any gentleman occupying a pulpit, for many years, and again i thank the rev. mr. belcher. the rev. w. d. buchanan, does not seem to be quite fair. he says that every utterance of mine impresses men with my insincerity, and that every argument i bring forward is specious, and that i spend my time in ringing the changes on arguments that have been answered over and over again for hundreds of years. now, dr. buchanan should remember that he ought not to attack motives; that you cannot answer an argument by vilifying the man who makes it. you must answer not the man, but the argument. another thing this reverend gentleman should remember, and that is that no argument is old until it has been answered. an argument that has not been answered, although it has been put forward for many centuries, is still as fresh as a flower with the dew on its breast. it never is old until it has been answered. it is well enough for this gentleman to say that these arguments have been answered, and if they have and he knows that they have, of course it will be but a little trouble to him to repeat these answers. now, my dear dr. buchanan, i wish to ask you some questions. do you believe in a personal devil? do you believe that the bodies of men and women become tenements for little imps and goblins and demons? do you believe that the devil used to lead men and women astray? do you believe the stories about devils that you find in the old and new testaments? now, do not tell me that these questions have been answered long ago. answer them now. and if you say the devil does exist, that he is a person, that he is an enemy of god, then let me ask you another question: why should this devil punish souls in hell for rebelling against god? why should the devil, who is an enemy of god, help punish god's enemies? this may have been answered many times, but one more repetition will do but little harm. another thing: do you believe in the eternity of punishment? do you believe that god is the keeper of an eternal prison, the doors of which open only to receive sinners, and do you believe that eternal punishment is the highest expression of justice and mercy? if you had the power to change a stone into a human being, and you knew that that human being would be a sinner and finally go to hell and suffer eternal torture, would you not leave it stone? and if, knowing this, you changed the stone into a man, would you not be a fiend? now, answer this fairly. i want nothing spiritual; nothing with the presbyterian flavor; just good, honest talk, and tell us how that is. i say to you that if there is a place of eternal torment or misery for any of the children of men--i say to you that your god is a wild beast, an insane fiend, whom i abhor and despise with every drop of my blood. at the same time you may say whether you are up, according to dr. mac arthur, with the religious thinking of the hour. the rev. j. w. campbell i rather like. he appears to be absolutely sincere. he is orthodox--true blue. he believes in a devil; in an acting, thinking devil, and a clever devil. of course he does not think this devil is as stout as god, but he is quicker; not quite as wise, but a little more cunning. according to mr. campbell, the devil is the bunco steerer of the universe--king of the green goods men; but, after all, mr. campbell will not admit that if this devil does not exist the christian creeds all crumble, but i think he will admit that if the devil does not exist, then christ was mistaken, or that the writers of the new testament did not truthfully give us his utterances. now, if christ was mistaken about the existence of the devil, may be he was mistaken about the existence of god. in other words, if christ made a mistake, then he was ignorant. then we cannot say he was divine, although ignorance has generally believed in divinity. so i do not see exactly how mr. campbell can say that if the devil does not exist the christian creeds do not crumble, and when i say christian creeds i mean orthodox creeds. is there any orthodox christian creed without the devil in it? now, if we throw away the devil we throw away original sin, the fall of man, and we throw away the atonement. of this arch the devil is the keystone. remove him, the arch falls. now, how can you say that an orthodox christian creed remains intact without crumbling when original sin, the fall of man, the atonement and the existence of the devil are all thrown aside? of course if you mean by christianity, acting like christ, being good, forgiving, that is another matter, but that is not christianity. orthodox christians say that a man must believe on christ, must have faith, and that to act as christ did, is not enough; that a man who acts exactly as christ did, dying without faith, would go to hell. so when mr. campbell speaks of a christian, i suppose he means an orthodox christian. now, dr. campbell not only knows that the devil exists, but he knows a good deal about him. he knows that he can assume every conceivable disguise or shape; that he can go about like a roaring lion; that at another time he is a god of this world; on another occasion a dragon, and in the afternoon of the same day may be lucifer, an angel of light, and all the time, i guess, a prince of lies. so he often assumes the disguise of the serpent. so the doctor thinks that when the devil invited christ into the wilderness to tempt him, that he adopted some disguise that made him more than usually attractive. does the doctor think that christ could not see through the disguise? was it possible for the devil with a mask to fool god, his creator? was it possible for the devil to tempt christ by offering him the kingdoms of the earth when they already belonged to christ, and when christ knew that the devil had no title, and when the devil knew that christ knew that he had no title, and when the devil knew that christ knew that he was the devil, and when the devil knew that he was christ? does the reverend gentleman still think that it was the disguise of the devil that tempted christ? i would like some of these questions answered, because i have a very inquiring mind. so mr. campbell tells us--and it is very good and comforting of him--that there is a time coming when the devil shall deceive the nations no more. he also tells us that god is more powerful than the devil, and that he is going to put an end to him. will mr. campbell have the goodness to tell me why god made the devil? if he is going to put an end to him why did he start him? was it not a waste of raw material to make him? was it not unfair to let this devil, so powerful, so cunning, so attractive, into the garden of eden, and put adam and eve, who were then scarcely half dry, within his power, and not only adam and eve within his power, but their descendants, so that the slime of the serpent has been on every babe, and so that, in consequence of what happened in the garden of eden, flames will surround countless millions in the presence of the most merciful god? now, it may be that the rev. dr. campbell can explain all these things. he may not care to do it for my benefit, but let him think of his own congregation; of the lambs he is protecting from the wolves of doubt and thought. the rev. henry frank appears to be a man of exceedingly good sense; one who thinks for himself, and who has the courage of his convictions. of course i am sorry that he does not agree with me, but i have become used to that, and so i thank him for the truths he utters. he does not believe in the existence of a personal devil, and i guess by following him up we would find that he did not believe in the existence of a personal god, or in the inspiration of the scriptures. in fact, he tells us that he has given up the infallibility of the bible. at the same time, he says it is the most perfect compendium of religious and moral thought. in that i think he is a little mistaken. there is a vast deal of irreligion in the bible, and there is a good deal of immoral thought in the bible; but i agree with him that it is neither inspired nor infallible. the rev. e. c. j. kraeling, pastor of the zion lutheran church, declares that those who do not believe in a personal god do not believe in a personal satan, and _vice versa_. the one, he says, necessitates the other. in this i do not think he is quite correct. i think many people believe in a personal god who do not believe in a personal devil, but i know of none who do believe in a personal devil who do not also believe in a personal god. the orthodox generally believe in both of them, and for many centuries christians spoke with great respect of the devil. they were afraid of him. but i agree with the rev. mr. kraeling when he says that to deny a personal satan is to deny the infallibility of god's word. i agree with this because i suppose by "god's word" he means the bible. he further says, and i agree with him, that a "christian" needs no scientific argument on which to base his belief in the personality of satan. that certainly is true, and if a christian does need a scientific argument it is equally true that he never will have one. you see this word "science" means something that somebody knows; not something that somebody guesses, or wishes, or hopes, or believes, but something that somebody knows. of course there cannot be any scientific argument proving the existence of the devil. at the same time i admit, as the rev. mr. kraeling says, and i thank him for his candor, that the bible does prove the existence of the devil from genesis to the. apocalypse, and i do agree with him that the "revealed word" teaches the existence of a personal devil, and that all truly orthodox christians believe that there is a personal devil, and the rev. mr. kraeling proves this by the fall of man, and he proves that without this devil there could be no redemption for the evil spirits; so he brings forward the temptation of christ in the wilderness. at the same time that mr. kraeling agrees with me as to what the bible says, he insists that i bring no arguments, that i blaspheme, and then he drops into humor and says that if any further arguments are needed to prove the existence of the devil, that i furnish them. how a man believing the creed of the orthodox mr. kraeling can have anything like a sense of humor is beyond even my imagination. now, i want to ask mr. kraeling a few questions, and i will ask him the same questions that i ask all orthodox people in my lecture on "superstition." now, mr. kraeling believes that this world was created by a being of infinite wisdom, power and goodness, and that the world he created has been governed by him. now, let me ask the reverend gentleman a few plain questions, with the request that he answer them without mist or mystery. if you, mr. kraeling, had the power to make a world, would you make an exact copy of this? would you make a man and woman, put them in a garden, knowing that they would be deceived, knowing that they would fall? knowing that all the consequences believed in by orthodox christians would follow from that fall? would you do it? and would you make your world so as to provide for earthquakes and cyclones? would you create the seeds of disease and scatter them in the air and water? would you so arrange matters as to produce cancers? would you provide for plague and pestilence? would you so make your world that life should feed on life, that the quivering flesh should be torn by tooth and beak and claw? would you? now, answer fairly. do not quote scripture; just answer, and be honest. would you make different races of men? would you make them of different colors, and would you so make them that they would persecute and enslave each other? would you so arrange matters that millions and millions should toil through many generations, paid only by the lash on the back? would you have it so that millions and millions of babes would be sold from the breasts of mothers? be honest, would you provide for religious persecution? for the invention and use of instruments of torture? would you see to it that the rack was not forgotten, and that the fagot was not overlooked or unlighted? would you make a world in which the wrong would triumph? would you make a world in which innocence would not be a shield? would you make a world where the best would be loaded with chains? where the best would die in the darkness of dungeons? where the best would make scaffolds sacred with their blood? would you make a world where hypocrisy and cunning and fraud should represent god, and where meanness would suck the blood of honest credulity? would you provide for the settlement of all difficulties by war? would you so make your world that the weak would bear the burdens, so that woman would be a slave, so that children would be trampled upon as though they were poisonous reptiles? would you fill the woods with wild beasts? would you make a few volcanoes to overwhelm your children? would you provide for earthquakes that would swallow them? would you make them ignorant, savage, and fill their minds with all the phantoms of horror? would you? now, it will only take you a few moments to answer these questions, and if you say you would, then i shall be satisfied that you believe in the orthodox god, and that you are as bad as he. if you say you would not, i will admit that there is a little dawn of intelligence in your brain. at the same time i want it understood with regard to all these ministers that i am a friend of theirs. i am trying to civilize their congregations, so that the congregations may allow the ministers to develop, to grow, to become really and truly intelligent. the process is slow, but it is sure. the works of robert g. ingersoll "there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven." in twelve volumes, volume v. discussions dresden edition contents of volume v. six interviews on talmage. ( .) preface--first interview: great men as witnesses to the truth of the gospel--no man should quote the words of another unless he is willing to accept all the opinions of that man--reasons of more weight than reputations--would a general acceptance of unbelief fill the penitentiaries?-- my creed--most criminals orthodox--relig-ion and morality not necessarily associates--on the creation of the universe out of omnipotence--mr. talmage's theory about the pro-duction of light prior to the creation of the sun--the deluge and the ark--mr. talmage's tendency to belittle the bible miracles--his chemical, geological, and agricultural views--his disregard of good manners- -second interview: an insulting text--god's design in creating guiteau to be the assassin of garfield--mr. talmage brings the charge of blasphemy--some real blasphemers--the tabernacle pastor tells the exact opposite of the truth about col. ingersoll's attitude toward the circulation of immoral books--"assassinating" god--mr. talmage finds nearly all the invention of modern times mentioned in the bible--the reverend gentleman corrects the translators of the bible in the matter of the rib story--denies that polygamy is permitted by the old testament--his de-fence of queen victoria and violation of the grave of george eliot--exhibits a christian spirit--third interview: mr. talmage's partiality in the bestowal of his love--denies the right of laymen to examine the scriptures--thinks the infidels victims of bibliophobia --he explains the stopping of the sun and moon at the command of joshua-- instances a dark day in the early part of the century--charges that holy things are made light of--reaffirms his confidence in the whale and jonah story--the commandment which forbids the making of graven images--affirmation that the bible is the friend of woman--the present condition of woman--fourth interview: colonel ingersoll compared by mr. talmage tojehoiakim, who consigned writings of jeremiah to the flames--an intimation that infidels wish to have all copies of the bible destroyed by fire--laughter deprecated--col. ingersoll accused of denouncing his father--mr. talmage holds that a man may be perfectly happy in heaven with his mother in hell- -challenges the infidel to read a chapter from st. john--on the "chief solace of the world"--dis- covers an attempt is being made to put out the light-houses of the farther shore--affirms our debt to christianity for schools, hospitals, etc.--denies that infidels have ever done any good-- fifth interview: inquiries if men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles, and is answered in the negative--resents the charge that the bible is a cruel book--demands to know where the cruelty of the bible crops out in the lives of christians-- col. ingersoll accused of saying that the bible is a collection of polluted writings--mr. talmage asserts the orchestral harmony of the scriptures from genesis to revelation, and repudiates the theory of contradictions--his view of mankind indicated in quotations from his confession of faith--he insists that the bible is scientific-- traces the new testament to its source with st. john--pledges his word that no man ever died for a lie cheerfully and triumphantly--as to prophecies and predictions--alleged "prophetic" fate of the jewish people--sixth interview: dr. talmage takes the ground that the unrivalled circulation of the bible proves that it is inspired--forgets' that a scientific fact does not depend on the vote of numbers--names some christian millions--his arguments characterized as the poor-est, weakest, and best possible in support of the doctrine of inspira-tion--will god, in judging a man, take into consideration the cir-cumstances of that man's life?--satisfactory reasons for not believ- ing that the bible is inspired. the talmagian catechism. the pith and marrow of what mr. talmage has been pleased to say, set forth in the form of a shorter catechism. a vindication of thomas paine. ( .) letter to the new york observer--an offer to pay one thousand dollars in gold for proof that thomas paine or voltaire died in terror because of any religious opinions either had expressed-- proposition to create a tribunal to hear the evidence--the ob-server, after having called upon col. ingersoll to deposit the money, and characterized his talk as "infidel 'buncombe,'" denies its own words, but attempts to prove them-- its memory refreshed by col. ingersoll and the slander refuted--proof that paine did not recant - -testimony of thomas nixon, daniel pelton, mr. jarvis, b. f. has-kin, dr. manley, amasa woodsworth, gilbert vale, philip graves, m. d., willet hicks, a. c. hankinson, john hogeboom, w. j. hilton, tames cheetham, revs. milledollar and cunningham, mrs. hedden, andrew a. dean, william carver,--the statements of mary roscoe and mary hindsdale examined--william cobbett's account of a call upon mary hinsdale--did thomas paine live the life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death?--grant thorbum's charges examined--statement of the rev. j. d. wickham, d.d., shown to be utterly false--false witness of the rev. charles hawley, d.d.--w. h. ladd, james cheetham, and mary hinsdale--paine's note to cheetham--mr-staple, mr. purdy, col. john fellows, james wilburn, walter morton, clio rickman, judge herttell, h. margary, elihu palmer, mr. xv lovett, all these testified that paine was a temperate man--washington's letter to paine-- thomas jefferson's--adams and washing-ton on "common sense"---james monroe's tribute-- quotations from paine--paine's estate and his will--the observer's second attack (p. ): statements of elkana watson, william carver, rev. e. f. hatfield, d.d., james cheetham, dr. j. w. francis, dr. manley, bishop fenwick--ingersoll's second reply (p. ): testimony garbled by the editor of the observer--mary roscoeand mary hins- dale the same person--her reputation for veracity- -letter from rev. a. w. cornell--grant thorburn exposed by james parton--the observer's admission that paine did not recant--affidavit of william b. barnes. preface. several people, having read the sermons of mr. talmage in which he reviews some of my lectures, have advised me not to pay the slightest attention to the brooklyn divine. they think that no new arguments have been brought forward, and they have even gone so far as to say that some of the best of the old ones have been left out. after thinking the matter over, i became satisfied that my friends were mistaken, that they had been car- ried away by the general current of modern thought, and were not in a frame of mind to feel the force of the arguments of mr. talmage, or to clearly see the candor that characterizes his utterances. at the first reading, the logic of these sermons does not impress you. the style is of a character calculated vi to throw the searcher after facts and arguments off his guard. the imagination of the preacher is so lurid; he is so free from the ordinary forms of ex- pression; his statements are so much stranger than truth, and his conclusions so utterly independent of his premises, that the reader is too astonished to be convinced. not until i had read with great care the six discourses delivered for my benefit had i any clear and well-defined idea of the logical force of mr. talmage. i had but little conception of his candor, was almost totally ignorant of his power to render the simple complex and the plain obscure by the mutilation of metaphor and the incoherence of inspired declamation. neither did i know the generous accuracy with which he states the position of an opponent, and the fairness he exhibits in a religious discussion. he has without doubt studied the bible as closely and critically as he has the works of buckle and darwin, and he seems to have paid as much attention to scientific subjects as most theologians. his theory of light and his views upon geology are strikingly original, and his astronomical theories are certainly as profound as practical. if his statements can be relied upon, he has successfully refuted the teachings of vii humboldt and haeckel, and exploded the blunders of spencer and tyndall. besides all this, he has the courage of his convictions--he does not quail before a fact, and he does not strike his colors even to a dem- onstration. he cares nothing for human experience. he cannot be put down with statistics, nor driven from his position by the certainties of science. he cares neither for the persistence of force, nor the indestructibility of matter. he believes in the bible, and he has the bravery to defend his belief. in this, he proudly stands almost alone. he knows that the salvation of the world depends upon a belief in his creed. he knows that what are called "the sciences" are of no importance in the other world. he clearly sees that it is better to live and die ignorant here, if you can wear a crown of glory hereafter. he knows it is useless to be perfectly familiar with all the sciences in this world, and then in the next "lift up your eyes, being in torment." he knows, too, that god will not punish any man for denying a fact in science. a man can deny the rotundity of the earth, the attraction of gravitation, the form of the earths orbit, or the nebular hypothesis, with perfect impunity. he is not bound to be correct upon any philo- viii sophical subject. he is at liberty to deny and ridi- cule the rule of three, conic sections, and even the multiplication table. god permits every human being to be mistaken upon every subject but one. no man can lose his soul by denying physical facts. jehovah does not take the slightest pride in his geology, or in his astronomy, or in mathematics, or in any school of philosophy--he is jealous only of his reputation as the author of the bible. you may deny everything else in the universe except that book. this being so, mr. talmage takes the safe side, and insists that the bible is inspired. he knows that at the day of judgment, not a scientific question will be asked. he knows that the hæckels and huxleys will, on that terrible day, regret that they ever learned to read. he knows that there is no "saving grace" in any department of human knowledge; that mathematics and all the exact sciences and all the philosophies will be worse than useless. he knows that inventors, discoverers, thinkers and investigators, have no claim upon the mercy of jehovah; that the educated will envy the ignorant, and that the writers and thinkers will curse their books. he knows that man cannot be saved through what he knows--but only by means of what he ix believes. theology is not a science. if it were, god would forgive his children for being mistaken about it. if it could be proved like geology, or astronomy, there would be no merit in believing it. from a belief in the bible, mr. talmage is not to be driven by uninspired evidence. he knows that his logic is liable to lead him astray, and that his reason cannot be depended upon. he believes that scien- tific men are no authority in matters concerning which nothing can be known, and he does not wish to put his soul in peril, by examining by the light of reason, the evidences of the supernatural. he is perfectly consistent with his creed. what happens to us here is of no consequence compared with eternal joy or pain. the ambitions, honors, glories and triumphs of this world, compared with eternal things, are less than naught. better a cross here and a crown there, than a feast here and a fire there. lazarus was far more fortunate than dives. the purple and fine linen of this short life are as nothing compared with the robes of the redeemed. mr. talmage knows that philosophy is unsafe-- that the sciences are sirens luring souls to eternal wreck. he knows that the deluded searchers after x facts are planting thorns in their own pillows--that the geologists are digging pits for themselves, and that the astronomers are robbing their souls of the heaven they explore. he knows that thought, capa- city, and intellectual courage are dangerous, and this belief gives him a feeling of personal security. the bible is adapted to the world as it is. most people are ignorant, and but few have the capacity to comprehend philosophical and scientific subjects, and if salvation depended upon understanding even one of the sciences, nearly everybody would be lost. mr. talmage sees that it was exceedingly merciful in god to base salvation on belief instead of on brain. millions can believe, while only a few can understand. even the effort to understand is a kind of treason born of pride and ingratitude. this being so, it is far safer, far better, to be credulous than critical. you are offered an infinite reward for believing the bible. if you examine it you may find it impossible for you to believe it. consequently, examination is dangerous. mr. talmage knows that it is not necessary to under- stand the bible in order to believe it. you must be- lieve it first. then, if on reading it you find anything that appears false, absurd, or impossible, you may be sure that it is only an appearance, and that the real xi fault is in yourself. it is certain that persons wholly incapable of reasoning are absolutely safe, and that to be born brainless is to be saved in advance. mr. talmage takes the ground,--and certainly from his point of view nothing can be more reasonable --that thought should be avoided, after one has "experienced religion" and has been the subject of "regeneration." every sinner should listen to ser- mons, read religious books, and keep thinking, until he becomes a christian. then he should stop. after that, thinking is not the road to heaven. the real point and the real difficulty is to stop thinking just at the right time. young christians, who have no idea of what they are doing, often go on thinking after joining the church, and in this way heresy is born, and heresy is often the father of infidelity. if christians would follow the advice and example of mr. talmage all disagreements about doctrine would be avoided. in this way the church could secure absolute in- tellectual peace and all the disputes, heartburnings, jealousies and hatreds born of thought, discussion and reasoning, would be impossible. in the estimation of mr. talmage, the man who doubts and examines is not fit for the society of angels. there are no disputes, no discussions in xii heaven. the angels do not think; they believe, they enjoy. the highest form of religion is re- pression. we should conquer the passions and destroy desire. we should control the mind and stop thinking. in this way we "offer ourselves a "living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto god." when desire dies, when thought ceases, we shall be pure. --this is heaven. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c, april; . ingersoll's interviews on talmage. first interview. _polonius. my lord, i will use them according to their desert. hamlet. god's bodikins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? use them after your own honor and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty._ _question_. have you read the sermon of mr. talmage, in which he exposes your mis- representations? _answer_. i have read such reports as appeared in some of the new york papers. _question_. what do you think of what he has to say? _answer_. some time ago i gave it as my opinion of mr. talmage that, while he was a man of most excellent judgment, he was somewhat deficient in imagination. i find that he has the disease that seems to afflict most theologians, and that is, a kind of intel- lectual toadyism, that uses the names of supposed great men instead of arguments. it is perfectly astonishing to the average preacher that any one should have the temerity to differ, on the subject of theology, with andrew jackson, daniel webster, and other gentlemen eminent for piety during their lives, but who, as a rule, expressed their theological opinions a few minutes before dissolution. these ministers are per- fectly delighted to have some great politician, some judge, soldier, or president, certify to the truth of the bible and to the moral character of jesus christ. mr. talmage insists that if a witness is false in one particular, his entire testimony must be thrown away. daniel webster was in favor of the fugitive slave law, and thought it the duty of the north to capture the poor slave-mother. he was willing to stand between a human being and his freedom. he was willing to assist in compelling persons to work without any pay except such marks of the lash as they might receive. yet this man is brought forward as a witness for the truth of the gospel. if he was false in his testimony as to liberty, what is his affidavit worth as to the value of christianity? andrew jackson was a brave man, a good general, a patriot second to none, an excellent judge of horses, and a brave duelist. i admit that in his old age he relied considerably upon the atonement. i think jackson was really a very great man, and probably no president impressed himself more deeply upon the american people than the hero of new orleans, but as a theologian he was, in my judgment, a most decided failure, and his opinion as to the authenticity of the scriptures is of no earthly value. it was a subject upon which he knew probably as little as mr. talmage does about modern infidelity. thousands of people will quote jackson in favor of religion, about which he knew nothing, and yet have no confidence in his political opinions, although he devoted the best part of his life to politics. no man should quote the words of another, in place of an argument, unless he is willing to accept all the opinions of that man. lord bacon denied the copernican system of astronomy, and, according to mr. talmage, having made that mistake, his opinions upon other subjects are equally worthless. mr. wesley believed in ghosts, witches, and personal devils, yet upon many subjects i have no doubt his opinions were correct. the truth is, that nearly everybody is right about some things and wrong about most things; and if a man's testimony is not to be taken until he is right on every subject, witnesses will be extremely scarce. personally, i care nothing about names. it makes no difference to me what the supposed great men of the past have said, except as what they have said contains an argument; and that argument is worth to me the force it naturally has upon my mind. chris- tians forget that in the realm of reason there are no serfs and no monarchs. when you submit to an argument, you do not submit to the man who made it. christianity demands a certain obedience, a certain blind, unreasoning faith, and parades before the eyes of the ignorant, with great pomp and pride, the names of kings, soldiers, and statesmen who have admitted the truth of the bible. mr. talmage introduces as a witness the rev. theodore parker. this same the- odore parker denounced the presbyterian creed as the most infamous of all creeds, and said that the worst heathen god, wearing a necklace of live snakes, was a representation of mercy when compared with the god of john calvin. now, if this witness is false in any particular, of course he cannot be believed, according to mr. talmage, upon any subject, and yet mr. talmage introduces him upon the stand as a good witness. although i care but little for names, still i will sug- gest that, in all probability, humboldt knew more upon this subject than all the pastors in the world. i cer- tainly would have as much confidence in the opinion of goethe as in that of william h. seward; and as between seward and lincoln, i should take lincoln; and when you come to presidents, for my part, if i were compelled to pin my faith on the sleeve of any- body, i should take jefferson's coat in preference to jackson's. i believe that haeckel is, to say the least, the equal of any theologian we have in this country, and the late john w. draper certainly knew as much upon these great questions as the average parson. i believe that darwin has investigated some of these things, that tyndall and huxley have turned their minds somewhat in the same direction, that helmholtz has a few opinions, and that, in fact, thousands of able, intelligent and honest men differ almost entirely with webster and jackson. so far as i am concerned, i think more of reasons than of reputations, more of principles than of persons, more of nature than of names, more of facts, than of faiths. it is the same with books as with persons. proba- bly there is not a book in the world entirely destitute of truth, and not one entirely exempt from error. the bible is like other books. there are mistakes in it, side by side with truths,--passages inculcating murder, and others exalting mercy; laws devilish and tyrannical, and others filled with wisdom and justice. it is foolish to say that if you accept a part, you must accept the whole. you must accept that which com- mends itself to your heart and brain. there never was a doctrine that a witness, or a book, should be thrown entirely away, because false in one particular. if in any particular the book, or the man, tells the truth, to that extent the truth should be accepted. truth is made no worse by the one who tells it, and a lie gets no real benefit from the reputation of its author. _question_. what do you think of the statement that a general belief in your teachings would fill all the penitentiaries, and that in twenty years there would be a hell in this world worse than the one expected in the other? _answer_. my creed is this: . happiness is the only good. . the way to be happy, is to make others happy. other things being equal, that man is happiest who is nearest just--who is truthful, merciful and intelligent-- in other words, the one who lives in accordance with the conditions of life. . the time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy, is here. . reason is the lamp of the mind--the only torch of progress; and instead of blowing that out and de- pending upon darkness and dogma, it is far better to increase that sacred light. . every man should be the intellectual proprietor of himself, honest with himself, and intellectually hospitable; and upon every brain reason should be enthroned as king. . every man must bear the consequences, at least of his own actions. if he puts his hands in the fire, his hands must smart, and not the hands of another. in other words: each man must eat the fruit of the tree he plants. i can not conceive that the teaching of these doc- trines would fill penitentiaries, or crowd the gallows. the doctrine of forgiveness--the idea that somebody else can suffer in place of the guilty--the notion that just at the last the whole account can be settled-- these ideas, doctrines, and notions are calculated to fill penitentiaries. nothing breeds extravagance like the credit system. most criminals of the present day are orthodox be- lievers, and the gallows seems to be the last round of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. the rev. dr. sunderland, of this city, in his sermon on the assas- sination of garfield, takes the ground that god per- mitted the murder for the purpose of opening the eyes of the people to the evil effects of infidelity. accord- ing to this minister, god, in order to show his hatred of infidelity, "inspired," or allowed, one christian to assassinate another. religion and morality do not necessarily go together. mr. talmage will insist to-day that morality is not sufficient to save any man from eternal punishment. as a matter of fact, religion has often been the enemy of morality. the moralist has been denounced by the theologians. he sustains the same relation to chris- tianity that the moderate drinker does to the total- abstinence society. the total-abstinence people say that the example of the moderate drinker is far worse upon the young than that of the drunkard--that the drunkard is a warning, while the moderate drinker is a perpetual temptation. so christians say of moral- ists. according to them, the moralist sets a worse example than the criminal. the moralist not only in- sists that a man can be a good citizen, a kind husband, an affectionate father, without religion, but demon- strates the truth of his doctrine by his own life; whereas the criminal admits that in and of himself he is nothing, and can do nothing, but that he needs assistance from the church and its ministers. the worst criminals of the modern world have been christians--i mean by that, believers in christianity-- and the most monstrous crimes of the modern world have been committed by the most zealous believers. there is nothing in orthodox religion, apart from the morality it teaches, to prevent the commission of crime. on the other hand, the perpetual proffer of forgiveness is a direct premium upon what christians are pleased to call the commission of sin. christianity has produced no greater character than epictetus, no greater sovereign than marcus aurelius. the wickedness of the past was a good deal like that of the present. as a rule, kings have been wicked in direct proportion to their power--their power having been lessened, their crimes have decreased. as a matter of fact, paganism, of itself, did not produce any great men; neither has christianity. millions of in- fluences determine individual character, and the re- ligion of the country in which a man happens to be born may determine many of his opinions, without influencing, to any great extent, his real character. there have been brave, honest, and intelligent men in and out of every church. _question_. mr. talmage says that you insist that, according to the bible, the universe was made out of nothing, and he denounces your statement as a gross misrepresentation. what have you stated upon that subject? _answer_. what i said was substantially this: "we "are told in the first chapter of genesis, that in the "beginning god created the heaven and the earth. "if this means anything, it means that god pro- "duced--caused to exist, called into being--the "heaven and the earth. it will not do to say that "god formed the heaven and the earth of previously "existing matter. moses conveys, and intended to "convey, the idea that the matter of which the "universe is composed was created." this has always been my position. i did not sup- pose that nothing was used as the raw material; but if the mosaic account means anything, it means that whereas there was nothing, god caused something to exist--created what we know as matter. i can not conceive of something being made, created, without anything to make anything with. i have no more confidence in fiat worlds than i have in fiat money. mr. talmage tells us that god did not make the uni- verse out of _nothing_, but out of "omnipotence." exactly how god changed "omnipotence" into matter is not stated. if there was _nothing_ in the universe, _omnipotence_ could do you no good. the weakest man in the world can lift as much _nothing_ as god. mr. talmage seems to think that to create something from nothing is simply a question of strength--that it requires infinite muscle--that it is only a question of biceps. of course, omnipotence is an attribute, not an entity, not a raw material; and the idea that something can be made out of omnipotence--using that as the raw material--is infinitely absurd. it would have been equally logical to say that god made the universe out of his omniscience, or his omnipresence, or his unchangeableness, or out of his honesty, his holiness, or his incapacity to do evil. i confess my utter in- ability to understand, or even to suspect, what the reverend gentleman means, when he says that god created the universe out of his "omnipotence." i admit that the bible does not tell when god created the universe. it is simply said that he did this "in the beginning." we are left, however, to infer that "the beginning" was monday morning, and that on the first monday god created the matter in an exceedingly chaotic state; that on tuesday he made a firmament to divide the waters from the waters; that on wednes- day he gathered the waters together in seas and allowed the dry land to appear. we are also told that on that day "the earth brought forth grass and herb "yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding "fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." this was before the creation of the sun, but mr. talmage takes the ground that there are many other sources of light; that "there may have been volcanoes in active operation on other planets." i have my doubts, however, about the light of volcanoes being sufficient to produce or sustain vegetable life, and think it a little doubtful about trees growing only by "volcanic glare." neither do i think one could depend upon "three thousand miles of liquid granite" for the pro- duction of grass and trees, nor upon "light that rocks might emit in the process of crystallization." i doubt whether trees would succeed simply with the assistance of the "aurora borealis or the aurora australis." there are other sources of light, not mentioned by mr. talmage--lightning-bugs, phosphorescent beetles, and fox-fire. i should think that it would be humili- ating, in this age, for an orthodox preacher to insist that vegetation could exist upon this planet without the light of the sun--that trees could grow, blossom and bear fruit, having no light but the flames of volcanoes, or that emitted by liquid granite, or thrown off by the crystallization of rocks. there is another thing, also, that should not be for- gotten, and that is, that there is an even balance for- ever kept between the totals of animal and vegetable life--that certain forms of animal life go with certain forms of vegetable life. mr. haeckel has shown that "in the first epoch, algæ and skull-less vertebrates were found together; in the second, ferns and fishes; in the third, pines and reptiles; in the fourth, foliaceous forests and mammals." vegetable and animal life sustain a necessary relation; they exist together; they act and interact, and each depends upon the other. the real point of difference between mr. talmage and myself is this: he says that god made the universe out of his "omnipotence," and i say that, although i know nothing whatever upon the subject, my opinion is, that the universe has existed from eternity--that it continually changes in form, but that it never was created or called into being by any power. i think that all that is, is all the god there is. _question_. mr. talmage charges you with having misrepresented the bible story of the deluge. has he correctly stated your position? _answer_. mr. talmage takes the ground that the flood was only partial, and was, after all, not much of a flood. the bible tells us that god said he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from "under heaven, and that everything that is in the "earth shall die;" that god also said: "i will destroy "man, whom i have created, from the face of the "earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing "and the fowls of the air, and every living substance "that i have made will i destroy from off the face of "the earth." i did not suppose that there was any miracle in the bible larger than the credulity of mr. talmage. the flood story, however, seems to be a little more than he can bear. he is like the witness who stated that he had read _gullivers travels_, the _stories of mun- chausen_, and the _flying wife_, including _robinson crusoe_, and believed them all; but that wirt's _life of patrick henry_ was a litde more than he could stand. it is strange that a man who believes that god created the universe out of "omnipotence" should believe that he had not enough omnipotence left to drown a world the size of this. mr. talmage seeks to make the story of the flood reasonable. the moment it is reasonable, it ceases to be miraculous. certainly god cannot afford to reward a man with eternal joy for believing a reasonable story. faith is only necessary when the story is unreasonable, and if the flood only gets small enough, i can believe it myself. i ask for evidence, and mr. talmage seeks to make the story so little that it can be believed without evidence. he tells us that it was a kind of "local option" flood--a little wet for that part of the country. why was it necessary to save the birds? they certainly could have gotten out of the way of a real small flood. of the birds, noah took fourteen of each species. he was commanded to take of the fowls of the air by sevens--seven of each sex--and, as there are at least , species, noah collected an aviary of about , birds, provided the flood was general. if it was local, there are no means of determining the number. but why, if the flood was local, should he have taken any of the fowls of the air into his ark? all they had to do was to fly away, or "roost high;" and it would have been just as easy for god to have implanted in them, for the moment, the instinct of getting out of the way as the instinct of hunting the ark. it would have been quite a saving of room and pro- visions, and would have materially lessened the labor and anxiety of noah and his sons. besides, if it had been a partial flood, and great enough to cover the highest mountains in that country, the highest mountain being about seventeen thousand feet, the flood would have been covered with a sheet of ice several thousand feet in thickness. if a column of water could have been thrown seventeen thousand feet high and kept stationary, several thousand feet of the upper end would have frozen. if, however, the deluge was general, then the atmosphere would have been forced out the same on all sides, and the climate remained substantially normal. nothing can be more absurd than to attempt to explain the flood by calling it partial. mr. talmage also says that the window ran clear round the ark, and that if i had only known as much hebrew as a man could put on his little finger, i would have known that the window went clear round. to this i reply that, if his position is correct, then the original translators of king james' edition did not know as much hebrew as they could have put on their little fingers; and yet i am obliged to believe their translation or be eternally damned. if the window went clear round, the inspired writer should have said so, and the learned translators should have given us the truth. no one pretends that there was more than one door, and yet the same language is used about the door, except this--that the exact size of the window is given, and the only peculiarity men- tioned as to the door is that it shut from the outside. for any one to see that mr. talmage is wrong on the window question, it is only necessary to read the story of the deluge. mr. talmage also endeavors to decrease the depth of the flood. if the flood did not cover the highest hills, many people might have been saved. he also insists that all the water did not come from the rains, but that "the fountains of the great deep were broken "up." what are "the fountains of the great deep"? how would their being "broken up" increase the depth of the water? he seems to imagine that these "fountains" were in some way imprisoned--anxious to get to the surface, and that, at that time, an oppor- tunity was given for water to run up hill, or in some mysterious way to rise above its level. according to the account, the ark was at the mercy of the waves for at least seven months. if this flood was only partial, it seems a little curious that the water did not seek its level in less than seven months. with anything like a fair chance, by that time most of it would have found its way to the sea again. there is in the literature of ignorance no more perfectly absurd and cruel story than that of the deluge. i am very sorry that mr. talmage should disagree with some of the great commentators. dr. scott tells us that, in all probability, the angels assisted in getting the animals into the ark. dr. henry insists that the waters in the bowels of the earth, at god's command, sprung up and flooded the earth. dr. clark tells us that it would have been much easier for god to have destroyed all the people and made some new ones, but that he did not want to waste anything. dr. henry also tells us that the lions, while in the ark, ate straw like oxen. nothing could be more amusing than to see a few lions eating good, dry straw. this commentator assures us that the waters rose so high that the loftiest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits, so that salvation was not hoped for from any hills or mountains. he tells us that some of the people got on top of the ark, and hoped to shift for themselves, but that, in all proba- bility, they were washed off by the rain. when we consider that the rain must have fallen at the rate of about eight hundred feet a day, i am inclined to think that they were washed off. mr. talmage has clearly misrepresented the bible. he is not prepared to believe the story as it is told. the seeds of infidelity seem to be germinating in his mind. his position no doubt will be a great relief to most of his hearers. after this, their credulity will not be strained. they can say that there was probably quite a storm, some rain, to an extent that rendered it necessary for noah and his family--his dogs, cats, and chickens--to get in a boat. this would not be unreasonable. the same thing happens almost every year on the shores of great rivers, and consequently the story of the flood is an exceedingly reasonable one. mr. talmage also endeavors to account for the miraculous collection of the animals in the ark by the universal instinct to get out of the rain. there are at least two objections to this: . the animals went into the ark before the rain commenced; . i have never noticed any great desire on the part of ducks, geese, and loons to get out of the water. mr. talmage must have been misled by a line from an old nursery book that says: "and the little fishes got "under the bridge to keep out of the rain." he tells us that noah described what he saw. he is the first theologian who claims that genesis was written by noah, or that noah wrote any account of the flood. most christians insist that the account of the flood was written by moses, and that he was inspired to write it. of course, it will not do for me to say that mr. talmage has misrepresented the facts. _question_. you are also charged with misrepresen- tation in your statement as to where the ark at last rested. it is claimed by mr. talmage that there is nothing in the bible to show that the ark rested on the highest mountains. _answer_. of course i have no knowledge as to where the ark really came to anchor, but after it struck bottom, we are told that a dove was sent out, and that the dove found no place whereon to rest her foot. if the ark touched ground in the low country, surely the mountains were out of water, and an or- dinary mountain furnishes, as a rule, space enough for a dove's foot. we must infer that the ark rested on the only land then above water, or near enough above water to strike the keel of noah's boat. mount ararat is about seventeen thousand feet high; so i take it that the top of that mountain was where noah ran aground--otherwise, the account means nothing. here mr. talmage again shows his tendency to belittle the miracles of the bible. i am astonished that he should doubt the power of god to keep an ark on a mountain seventeen thousand feet high. he could have changed the climate for that occasion. he could have made all the rocks and glaciers pro- duce wheat and corn in abundance. certainly god, who could overwhelm a world with a flood, had the power to change every law and fact in nature. i am surprised that mr. talmage is not willing to believe the story as it is told. what right has he to question the statements of an inspired writer? why should he set up his judgment against the websters and jacksons? is it not infinitely impudent in him to contrast his penny-dip with the sun of inspiration? what right has he to any opinion upon the subject? he must take the bible as it reads. he should remember that the greater the miracle the greater should be his faith. _question_. you do not seem to have any great opinion of the chemical, geological, and agricultural views expressed by mr. talmage? _answer_. you must remember that mr. talmage has a certain thing to defend. he takes the bible as actually true, and with the bible as his standard, he compares and measures all sciences. he does not study geology to find whether the mosaic account is true, but he reads the mosaic account for the purpose of showing that geology can not be depended upon. his idea that "one day is as a thousand years with "god," and that therefore the "days" mentioned in the mosaic account are not days of twenty-four hours, but long periods, is contradicted by the bible itself. the great reason given for keeping the sabbath day is, that "god rested on the seventh day and was refreshed." now, it does not say that he rested on the "seventh "period," or the "seventh good--while," or the "seventh long-time," but on the "seventh day." in imitation of this example we are also to rest--not on the seventh good-while, but on the seventh day. nothing delights the average minister more than to find that a passage of scripture is capable of several interpretations. nothing in the inspired book is so dangerous as accuracy. if the holy writer uses general terms, an ingenious theologian can harmonize a seemingly preposterous statement with the most obdurate fact. an "inspired" book should contain neither statistics nor dates--as few names as possible, and not one word about geology or astronomy. mr. talmage is doing the best he can to uphold the fables of the jews. they are the foundation of his faith. he believes in the water of the past and the fire of the future--in the god of flood and flame--the eternal torturer of his helpless children. it is exceedingly unfortunate that mr. talmage does not appreciate the importance of good manners, that he does not rightly estimate the convincing power of kindness and good nature. it is unfortunate that a christian, believing in universal forgiveness, should exhibit so much of the spirit of detraction, that he should run so easily and naturally into epithets, and that he should mistake vituperation for logic. thou- sands of people, knowing but little of the mysteries of christianity--never having studied theology,--may become prejudiced against the church, and doubt the divine origin of a religion whose defenders seem to rely, at least to a great degree, upon malignant per- sonalities. mr. talmage should remember that in a discussion of this kind, he is supposed to represent a being of infinite wisdom and goodness. surely, the representative of the infinite can afford to be candid, can afford to be kind. when he contemplates the condition of a fellow-being destitute of religion, a fellow-being now travelling the thorny path to eternal fire, he should be filled with pity instead of hate. instead of deforming his mouth with scorn, his eyes should be filled with tears. he should take into consideration the vast difference between an infidel and a minister of the gospel,--knowing, as he does, that a crown of glory has been prepared for the minister, and that flames are waiting for the soul of the unbeliever. he should bear with philosophic fortitude the apparent success of the skeptic, for a few days in this brief life, since he knows that in a little while the question will be eternally settled in his favor, and that the humiliation of a day is as nothing compared with the victory of eternity. in this world, the skeptic appears to have the best of the argument; logic seems to be on the side of blasphemy; common sense apparently goes hand in hand with infidelity, and the few things we are absolutely certain of, seem inconsistent with the christian creeds. this, however, as mr. talmage well knows, is but apparent. god has arranged the world in this way for the purpose of testing the christian's faith. beyond all these facts, beyond logic, beyond reason, mr. talmage, by the light of faith, clearly sees the eternal truth. this clearness of vision should give him the serenity of candor and the kindness born of absolute knowledge. he, being a child of the light, should not expect the perfect from the children of darkness. he should not judge humboldt and wesley by the same standard. he should remember that wesley was especially set apart and illuminated by divine wisdom, while humboldt was left to grope in the shadows of nature. he should also remember that ministers are not like other people. they have been "called." they have been "chosen" by infinite wisdom. they have been "set apart," and they have bread to eat that we know not of. while other people are forced to pursue the difficult paths of investigation, they fly with the wings of faith. mr. talmage is perfectly aware of the advantages he enjoys, and yet he deems it dangerous to be fair. this, in my judgment, is his mistake. if he cannot easily point out the absurdities and contradictions in infidel lectures, surely god would never have selected him for that task. we cannot believe that imperfect instruments would be chosen by infinite wisdom. certain lambs have been entrusted to the care of mr. talmage, the shepherd. certainly god would not select a shepherd unable to cope with an average wolf. such a shepherd is only the appearance of protection. when the wolf is not there, he is a useless expense, and when the wolf comes, he goes. i cannot believe that god would select a shepherd of that kind. neither can the shepherd justify his selection by abusing the wolf when out of sight. the fear ought to be on the other side. a divinely appointed shepherd ought to be able to convince his sheep that a wolf is a dangerous animal, and ought to be able to give his reasons. it may be that the shepherd has a certain interest in exaggerating the cruelty and ferocity of the wolf, and even the number of the wolves. should it turn out that the wolves exist only in the imagination of the shepherd, the sheep might refuse to pay the salary of their pro- tector. it will, however, be hard to calculate the extent to which the sheep will lose confidence in a shepherd who has not even the courage to state the facts about the wolf. but what must be the result when the sheep find that the supposed wolf is, in fact, their friend, and that he is endeavoring to rescue them from the exactions of the pretended shepherd, who creates, by falsehood, the fear on which he lives? second interview. _por. why, man, what's the matter? don't tear your hair. sir hugh. i have been beaten in a discussion, overwhelmed and humiliated. por. why didn't you call your adversary a fool? sir hugh. my god! i forgot it!_ _question_. i want to ask you a few questions about the second sermon of mr. talmage; have you read it, and what do you think of it? _answer_. the text taken by the reverend gentle- man is an insult, and was probably intended as such: "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god." mr. talmage seeks to apply this text to any one who denies that the jehovah of the jews was and is the infinite and eternal creator of all. he is per- fectly satisfied that any man who differs with him on this question is a "fool," and he has the christian forbearance and kindness to say so. i presume he is honest in this opinion, and no doubt regards bruno, spinoza and humboldt as driveling imbeciles. he entertains the same opinion of some of the greatest, wisest and best of greece and rome. no man is fitted to reason upon this question who has not the intelligence to see the difficulties in all theories. no man has yet evolved a theory that satisfactorily accounts for all that is. no matter what his opinion may be, he is beset by a thousand difficulties, and innumerable things insist upon an explanation. the best that any man can do is to take that theory which to his mind presents the fewest difficulties. mr. talmage has been educated in a certain way--has a brain of a certain quantity, quality and form--and accepts, in spite it may be, of himself, a certain theory. others, formed differ- ently, having lived under different circumstances, cannot accept the talmagian view, and thereupon he denounces them as fools. in this he follows the example of david the murderer; of david, who advised one of his children to assassinate another; of david, whose last words were those of hate and crime. mr. talmage insists that it takes no especial brain to reason out a "design" in nature, and in a moment afterward says that "when the world slew "jesus, it showed what it would do with the eternal "god, if once it could get its hands on him." why should a god of infinite wisdom create people who would gladly murder their creator? was there any particular "design" in that? does the existence of such people conclusively prove the existence of a good designer? it seems to me--and i take it that my thought is natural, as i have only been born once--that an infinitely wise and good god would naturally create good people, and if he has not, cer- tainly the fault is his. the god of mr. talmage knew, when he created guiteau, that he would assassinate garfield. why did he create him? did he want garfield assassinated? will somebody be kind enough to show the "design" in this trans- action? is it possible to see "design" in earth- quakes, in volcanoes, in pestilence, in famine, in ruthless and relentless war? can we find "design" in the fact that every animal lives upon some other-- that every drop of every sea is a battlefield where the strong devour the weak? over the precipice of cruelty rolls a perpetual niagara of blood. is there "design" in this? why should a good god people a world with men capable of burning their fellow-men--and capable of burning the greatest and best? why does a good god permit these things? it is said of christ that he was infinitely kind and generous, infinitely merciful, because when on earth he cured the sick, the lame and blind. has he not as much power now as he had then? if he was and is the god of all worlds, why does he not now give back to the widow her son? why does he with- hold light from the eyes of the blind? and why does one who had the power miraculously to feed thousands, allow millions to die for want of food? did christ only have pity when he was part human? are we indebted for his kindness to the flesh that clothed his spirit? where is he now? where has he been through all the centuries of slavery and crime? if this universe was "designed," then all that happens was "designed." if a man constructs an engine, the boiler of which explodes, we say either that he did not know the strength of his materials, or that he was reckless of human life. if an infinite being should construct a weak or imperfect machine, he must be held accountable for all that happens. he cannot be permitted to say that he did not know the strength of the materials. he is directly and absolutely re- sponsible. so, if this world was designed by a being of infinite power and wisdom, he is responsible for the result of that design. my position is this: i do not know. but there are so many objections to the personal-god theory, that it is impossible for me to accept it. i prefer to say that the universe is all the god there is. i prefer to make no being responsible. i prefer to say: if the naked are clothed, man must clothe them; if the hungry are fed, man must feed them. i prefer to rely upon human endeavor, upon human intelligence, upon the heart and brain of man. there is no evidence that god has ever interfered in the affairs of man. the hand of earth is stretched uselessly toward heaven. from the clouds there comes no help. in vain the shipwrecked cry to god. in vain the imprisoned ask for liberty and light--the world moves on, and the heavens are deaf and dumb and blind. the frost freezes, the fire burns, slander smites, the wrong triumphs, the good suffer, and prayer dies upon the lips of faith. _question_. mr. talmage charges you with being "the champion blasphemer of america"--what do you understand blasphemy to be? _answer_. blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by su- perstition upon common sense. whoever investi- gates a religion as he would any department of science, is called a blasphemer. whoever contradicts a priest, whoever has the impudence to use his own reason, whoever is brave enough to express his honest thought, is a blasphemer in the eyes of the religionist. when a missionary speaks slightingly of the wooden god of a savage, the savage regards him as a blasphemer. to laugh at the pretensions of mohammed in constantinople is blasphemy. to say in st. petersburg that mohammed was a prophet of god is also blasphemy. there was a time when to acknowledge the divinity of christ in jerusalem was blasphemy. to deny his divinity is now blasphemy in new york. blasphemy is to a considerable extent a geographical question. it depends not only on what you say, but where you are when you say it. blas- phemy is what the old calls the new,--what last year's leaf says to this year's bud. the founder of every religion was a blasphemer. the jews so re- garded christ, and the athenians had the same opinion of socrates. catholics have always looked upon protestants as blasphemers, and protestants have always held the same generous opinion of catholics. to deny that mary is the mother of god is blas- phemy. to say that she is the mother of god is blasphemy. some savages think that a dried snake- skin stuffed with leaves is sacred, and he who thinks otherwise is a blasphemer. it was once blasphemy to laugh at diana, of the ephesians. many people think that it is blasphemous to tell your real opinion of the jewish jehovah. others imagine that words can be printed upon paper, and the paper bound into a book covered with sheepskin, and that the book is sacred, and that to question its sacredness is blas- phemy. blasphemy is also a crime against god, but nothing can be more absurd than a crime against god. if god is infinite, you cannot injure him. you cannot commit a crime against any being that you cannot injure. of course, the infinite cannot be in- jured. man is a conditioned being. by changing his conditions, his surroundings, you can injure him; but if god is infinite, he is conditionless. if he is conditionless, he cannot by any possibility be injured. you can neither increase, nor decrease, the well-being of the infinite. consequently, a crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility. the cry of blasphemy means only that the argument of the blasphemer can- not be answered. the sleight-of-hand performer, when some one tries to raise the curtain behind which he operates, cries "blasphemer!" the priest, find- ing that he has been attacked by common sense,-- by a fact,--resorts to the same cry. blasphemy is the black flag of theology, and it means: no argument and no quarter! it is an appeal to prejudice, to passions, to ignorance. it is the last resort of a defeated priest. blasphemy marks the point where argument stops and slander begins. in old times, it was the signal for throwing stones, for gathering fagots and for tearing flesh; now it means falsehood and calumny. _question_. then you think that there is no such thing as the crime of blasphemy, and that no such offence can be committed? _answer_. any one who knowingly speaks in favor of injustice is a blasphemer. whoever wishes to destroy liberty of thought,--the honest expression of ideas,--is a blasphemer. whoever is willing to malign his neighbor, simply because he differs with him upon a subject about which neither of them knows anything for certain, is a blasphemer. if a crime can be com- mitted against god, he commits it who imputes to god the commission of crime. the man who says that god ordered the assassination of women and babes, that he gave maidens to satisfy the lust of soldiers, that he enslaved his own children,--that man is a blasphemer. in my judgment, it would be far better to deny the existence of god entirely. it seems to me that every man ought to give his honest opinion. no man should suppose that any infinite god requires him to tell as truth that which he knows nothing about. mr. talmage, in order to make a point against infidelity, states from his pulpit that i am in favor of poisoning the minds of children by the circulation of immoral books. the statement is entirely false. he ought to have known that i withdrew from the liberal league upon the very question whether the law should be repealed or modified. i favored a modification of that law, so that books and papers could not be thrown from the mails simply because they were "infidel." i was and am in favor of the destruction of every immoral book in the world. i was and am in favor, not only of the law against the circulation of such filth, but want it executed to the letter in every state of this union. long before he made that state- ment, i had introduced a resolution to that effect, and supported the resolution in a speech. notwithstand- ing these facts, hundreds of clergymen have made haste to tell the exact opposite of the truth. this they have done in the name of christianity, under the pretence of pleasing their god. in my judgment, it is far better to tell your honest opinions, even upon the subject of theology, than to knowingly tell a false- hood about a fellow-man. mr. talmage may have been ignorant of the truth. he may have been misled by other ministers, and for his benefit i make this ex- planation. i wanted the laws modified so that bigotry could not interfere with the literature of intelligence; but i did not want, in any way, to shield the writers or publishers of immoral books. upon this subject i used, at the last meeting of the liberal league that i attended, the following language: "but there is a distinction wide as the mississippi, "yes, wider than the atlantic, wider than all oceans, "between the literature of immorality and the litera- "ture of free thought. one is a crawling, slimy lizard, "and the other an angel with wings of light. let us "draw this distinction. let us understand ourselves. "do not make the wholesale statement that all these "laws ought to be repealed. they ought not to be "repealed. some of them are good, and the law "against sending instruments of vice through the "mails is good. the law against sending obscene "pictures and books is good. the law against send- "ing bogus diplomas through the mails, to allow a "lot of ignorant hyenas to prey upon the sick people "of the world, is a good law. the law against rascals "who are getting up bogus lotteries, and sending their "circulars in the mails is a good law. you know, as "well as i, that there are certain books not fit to go "through the mails. you know that. you know there "are certain pictures not fit to be transmitted, not fit "to be delivered to any human being. when these "books and pictures come into the control of the "united states, i say, burn them up! and when any "man has been indicted who has been trying to make "money by pandering to the lowest passions in the "human breast, then i say, prosecute him! let the "law take its course." i can hardly convince myself that when mr. talmage made the charge, he was acquainted with the facts. it seems incredible that any man, pre- tending to be governed by the law of common honesty, could make a charge like this knowing it to be untrue. under no circumstances, would i charge mr. talmage with being an infamous man, unless the evidence was complete and over- whelming. even then, i should hesitate long before making the charge. the side i take on theological questions does not render a resort to slander or calumny a necessity. if mr. talmage is an honor- able man, he will take back the statement he has made. even if there is a god, i hardly think that he will reward one of his children for maligning another; and to one who has told falsehoods about "infidels," that having been his only virtue, i doubt whether he will say: "well done good and faithful "servant." _question_. what have you to say to the charge that you are endeavoring to "assassinate god," and that you are "far worse than the man who at- "tempts to kill his father, or his mother, or his sister, "or his brother"? _answer_. well, i think that is about as reason- able as anything he says. no one wishes, so far as i know, to assassinate god. the idea of assassinating an infinite being is of course infinitely absurd. one would think mr. talmage had lost his reason! and yet this man stands at the head of the presbyterian clergy. it is for this reason that i answer him. he is the only presbyterian minister in the united states, so far as i know, able to draw an audience. he is, without doubt, the leader of that denomination. he is orthodox and conservative. he believes im- plicitly in the "five points" of calvin, and says nothing simply for the purpose of attracting attention. he believes that god damns a man for his own glory; that he sends babes to hell to establish his mercy, and that he filled the world with disease and crime simply to demonstrate his wisdom. he believes that billions of years before the earth was, god had made up his mind as to the exact number that he would eternally damn, and had counted his saints. this doctrine he calls "glad tidings of great joy." he really believes that every man who is true to himself is waging war against god; that every infidel is a rebel; that every freethinker is a traitor, and that only those are good subjects who have joined the presbyterian church, know the shorter catechism by heart, and subscribe liberally toward lifting the mort- gage on the brooklyn tabernacle. all the rest are endeavoring to assassinate god, plotting the murder of the holy ghost, and applauding the jews for the crucifixion of christ. if mr. talmage is correct in his views as to the power and wisdom of god, i imagine that his enemies at last will be overthrown, that the assassins and murderers will not succeed, and that the infinite, with mr. talmage s assistance, will finally triumph. if there is an infinite god, certainly he ought to have made man grand enough to have and express an opinion of his own. is it possible that god can be gratified with the applause of moral cowards? does he seek to enhance his glory by receiving the adulation of cringing slaves? is god satisfied with the adoration of the frightened? _question_. you notice that mr. talmage finds nearly all the inventions of modern times mentioned in the bible? _answer_: yes; mr. talmage has made an ex- ceedingly important discovery. i admit that i am somewhat amazed at the wisdom of the ancients. this discovery has been made just in the nick of time. millions of people were losing their respect for the old testament. they were beginning to think that there was some discrepancy between the prophecies of ezekiel and daniel and the latest devel- opments in physical science. thousands of preachers were telling their flocks that the bible is not a scientific book; that joshua was not an inspired as- tronomer, that god never enlightened moses about geology, and that ezekiel did not understand the entire art of cookery. these admissions caused some young people to suspect that the bible, after all, was not inspired; that the prophets of antiquity did not know as much as the discoverers of to-day. the bible was falling into disrepute. mr. talmage has rushed to the rescue. he shows, and shows conclu- sively as anything can be shown from the bible, that job understood all the laws of light thousands of years before newton lived; that he anticipated the discoveries of descartes, huxley and tyndall; that he was familiar with the telegraph and telephone; that morse, bell and edison simply put his discov- eries in successful operation; that nahum was, in fact, a master-mechanic; that he understood perfectly the modern railway and described it so accurately that trevethick, foster and stephenson had no diffi- culty in constructing a locomotive. he also has discovered that job was well acquainted with the trade winds, and understood the mysterious currents, tides and pulses of the sea; that lieutenant maury was a plagiarist; that humboldt was simply a biblical student. he finds that isaiah and solomon were far in advance of galileo, morse, meyer and watt. this is a discovery wholly unexpected to me. if mr. talmage is right, i am satisfied the bible is an inspired book. if it shall turn out that joshua was superior to laplace, that moses knew more about geology than humboldt, that job as a scientist was the superior of kepler, that isaiah knew more than copernicus, and that even the minor prophets ex- celled the inventors and discoverers of our time-- then i will admit that infidelity must become speech- less forever. until i read this sermon, i had never even suspected that the inventions of modern times were known to the ancient jews. i never supposed that nahum knew the least thing about railroads, or that job would have known a telegraph if he had seen it. i never supposed that joshua comprehended the three laws of kepler. of course i have not read the old testament with as much care as some other people have, and when i did read it, i was not looking for inventions and discoveries. i had been told so often that the bible was no authority upon scientific questions, that i was lulled into a state of lethargy. what is amazing to me is, that so many men did read it without getting the slightest hint of the smallest invention. to think that the jews read that book for hundreds and hundreds of years, and yet went to their graves without the slightest notion of astronomy, or geology, of railroads, telegraphs, or steamboats! and then to think that the early fathers made it the study of their lives and died without in- venting anything! i am astonished that mr. talmage himself does not figure in the records of the patent office. i cannot account for this, except upon the supposition that he is too honest to infringe on the patents of the patriarchs. after this, i shall read the old testament with more care. _question_. do you see that mr. talmage endeav- ors to convict you of great ignorance in not knowing that the word translated "rib" should have been translated "side," and that eve, after all, was not made out of a rib, but out of adam's side? _answer_. i may have been misled by taking the bible as it is translated. the bible account is simply this: "and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall "upon adam, and he slept. and he took one of "his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; "and the rib which the lord god had taken from "man made he a woman, and brought her unto the "man. and adam said: this is now bone of my "bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called "woman, because she was taken out of man." if mr. talmage is right, then the account should be as follows: "and the lord god caused a deep sleep "to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took one "of his sides, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; "and the side which the lord god had taken from "man made he a woman, and brought her unto the "man. and adam said: this is now side of my "side, and flesh of my flesh." i do not see that the story is made any better by using the word "side" instead of "rib." it would be just as hard for god to make a woman out of a man's side as out of a rib. mr. talmage ought not to question the power of god to make a woman out of a bone, and he must recollect that the less the material the greater the miracle. there are two accounts of the creation of man, in genesis, the first being in the twenty-first verse of the first chapter and the second being in the twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the sec- ond chapter. according to the second account, "god formed "man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into "his nostrils the breath of life." and after this, "god planted a garden eastward in eden and put "the man" in this garden. after this, "he made "every tree to grow that was good for food and "pleasant to the sight," and, in addition, "the tree "of life in the midst of the garden," beside "the tree "of the knowledge of good and evil." and he "put "the man in the garden to dress it and keep it," telling him that he might eat of everything he saw except of "the tree of the knowledge of good and "evil." after this, god having noticed that it "was not "good for man to be alone, formed out of the ground "every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and "brought them to adam to see what he would call "them, and adam gave names to all cattle, and to "the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. "but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for "him." we are not told how adam learned the language, or how he understood what god said. i can hardly believe that any man can be created with the know- ledge of a language. education cannot be ready made and stuffed into a brain. each person must learn a language for himself. yet in this account we find a language ready made for man's use. and not only man was enabled to speak, but a serpent also has the power of speech, and the woman holds a conversation with this animal and with her husband; and yet no account is given of how any language was learned. god is described as walking in the garden in the cool of the day, speaking like a man--holding conversations with the man and woman, and occa- sionally addressing the serpent. in the nursery rhymes of the world there is nothing more childish than this "inspired" account of the creation of man and woman. the early fathers of the church held that woman was inferior to man, because man was not made for woman, but woman for man; because adam was made first and eve afterward. they had not the gallantry of robert burns, who accounted for the beauty of woman from the fact that god practiced on man first, and then gave woman the benefit of his experience. think, in this age of the world, of a well-educated, intelligent gentleman telling his little child that about six thousand years ago a mysterious being called god made the world out of his "omnipotence;" then made a man out of some dust which he is supposed to have moulded into form; that he put this man in a garden for the pur- pose of keeping the trees trimmed; that after a little while he noticed that the man seemed lonesome, not particularly happy, almost homesick; that then it oc- curred to this god, that it would be a good thing for the man to have some company, somebody to help him trim the trees, to talk to him and cheer him up on rainy days; that, thereupon, this god caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, took a knife, or a long, sharp piece of "omnipotence," and took out one of the man's sides, or a rib, and of that made a woman; that then this man and woman got along real well till a snake got into the garden and induced the woman to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; that the woman got the man to take a bite; that afterwards both of them were detected by god, who was walking around in the cool of the evening, and thereupon they were turned out of the garden, lest they should put forth their hands and eat of the tree of life, and live forever. this foolish story has been regarded as the sacred, inspired truth; as an account substantially written by god himself; and thousands and millions of people have supposed it necessary to believe this childish falsehood, in order to save their souls. nothing more laughable can be found in the fairy tales and folk-lore of savages. yet this is defended by the leading presbyterian divine, and those who fail to believe in the truth of this story are called "brazen "faced fools," "deicides," and "blasphemers." by this story woman in all christian countries was degraded. she was considered too impure to preach the gospel, too impure to distribute the sacramental bread, too impure to hand about the sacred wine, too impure to step within the "holy of holies," in the catholic churches, too impure to be touched by a priest. unmarried men were considered purer than husbands and fathers. nuns were regarded as su- perior to mothers, a monastery holier than a home, a nunnery nearer sacred than the cradle. and through all these years it has been thought better to love god than to love man, better to love god than to love your wife and children, better to worship an imaginary deity than to help your fellow-men. i regard the rights of men and women equal. in love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne. _question_. do you still insist that the old testa- ment upholds polygamy? mr. talmage denies this charge, and shows how terribly god punished those who were not satisfied with one wife. _answer_. i see nothing in what mr. talmage has said calculated to change my opinion. it has been admitted by thousands of theologians that the old testament upholds polygamy. mr. talmage is among the first to deny it. it will not do to say that david was punished for the crime of polygamy or concubinage. he was "a man after god's own "heart." he was made a king. he was a successful general, and his blood is said to have flowed in the veins of god. solomon was, according to the ac- count, enriched with wisdom above all human beings. was that a punishment for having had so many wives? was abraham pursued by the justice of god because of the crime against hagar, or for the crime against his own wife? the verse quoted by mr. talmage to show that god was opposed to polygamy, namely, the eighteenth verse of the eight- eenth chapter of leviticus, cannot by any ingenuity be tortured into a command against polygamy. the most that can be possibly said of it is, that you shall not marry the sister of your wife, while your wife is living. yet this passage is quoted by mr. talmage as "a thunder of prohibition against having more "than one wife." in the twentieth chapter of leviticus it is enacted: "that if a man take a wife "and her mother they shall be burned with fire." a commandment like this shows that he might take his wife and somebody else's mother. these passages have nothing to do with polygamy. they show whom you may marry, not how many; and there is not in leviticus a solitary word against polygamy-- not one. nor is there such a word in genesis, nor exodus, nor in the entire pentateuch--not one word. these books are filled with the most minute directions about killing sheep, and goats and doves; about making clothes for priests, about fashioning tongs and snuffers; and yet, they contain not one word against polygamy. it never occurred to the in- spired writers that polygamy was a crime. polygamy was accepted as a matter of course. women were simple property. mr. talmage, however, insists that, although god was against polygamy, he permitted it, and at the same time threw his moral influence against it. upon this subject he says: "no doubt god per- "mitted polygamy to continue for sometime, just "as he permits murder and arson, theft and gam- "bling to-day to continue, although he is against "them." if god is the author of the ten com- mandments, he prohibited murder and theft, but he said nothing about polygamy. if he was so terribly against that crime, why did he forget to mention it? was there not room enough on the tables of stone for just one word on this subject? had he no time to give a commandment against slavery? mr. talmage of course insists that god had to deal with these things gradually, his idea being that if god had made a commandment against them all at once, the jews would have had nothing more to do with him. for instance: if we wanted to break cannibals of eating missionaries, we should not tell them all at once that it was wrong, that it was wicked, to eat missionaries raw; we should induce them first to cook the missionaries, and gradually wean them from raw flesh. this would be the first great step. we would stew the missionaries, and after a time put a little mutton in the stew, not enough to excite the suspicion of the cannibal, but just enough to get him in the habit of eating mutton without knowing it. day after day we would put in more mutton and less missionary, until finally, the cannibal would be perfectly satisfied with clear mutton. then we would tell him that it was wrong to eat missionary. after the can- nibal got so that he liked mutton, and cared nothing for missionary, then it would be safe to have a law upon the subject. mr. talmage insists that polygamy cannot exist among people who believe the bible. in this he is mistaken. the mormons all believe the bible. there is not a single polygamist in utah who does not insist upon the inspiration of the old and new testaments. the rev. mr. newman, a kind of peripatetic consu- lar theologian, once had a discussion, i believe, with elder orson pratt, at salt lake city, upon the question of polygamy. it is sufficient to say of this discussion that it is now circulated by the mormons as a campaign document. the elder overwhelmed the parson. passages of scripture in favor of polygamy were quoted by the hundred. the lives of all the patriarchs were brought forward, and poor parson newman was driven from the field. the truth is, the jews at that time were much like our forefathers. they were barbarians, and many of their laws were unjust and cruel. polygamy was the right of all; practiced, as a matter of fact, by the rich and powerful, and the rich and powerful were envied by the poor. in such esteem did the ancient jews hold polygamy, that the number of solomons wives was given, simply to en- hance his glory. my own opinion is, that solomon had very few wives, and that polygamy was not general in palestine. the country was too poor, and solomon, in all his glory was hardly able to support one wife. he was a poor barbarian king with a limited revenue, with a poor soil, with a sparse popu- lation, without art, without science and without power. he sustained about the same relation to other kings that delaware does to other states. mr. talmage says that god persecuted solomon, and yet, if he will turn to the twenty-second chapter of first chronicles, he will find what god promised to solomon. god, speaking to david, says: "behold a son shall be born "to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and i will give him "rest from his enemies around about; for his name shall "be solomon, and i will give peace and quietness "unto israel in his days. he shall build a house in my "name, and he shall be my son and i will be his father, "and i will establish the throne of his kingdom over "israel forever." did god keep his promise? so he tells us that david was persecuted by god, on account of his offences, and yet i find in the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-ninth chapter of first chronicles, the following account of the death of david: "and he died in a good old age, full of "days, riches and honor." is this true? _question_. what have you to say to the charge that you were mistaken in the number of years that the hebrews were in egypt? mr. talmage says that they were there years, instead of years. _answer_. if you will read the third chapter of galatians, sixteenth and seventeenth verses, you will find that it was years from the time god made the promise to abraham to the giving of the law from mount sinai. the hebrews did not go to egypt for years after the promise was made to abraham, and consequently did not remain in egypt more than years. if galatians is true, i am right. strange that mr. talmage should belittle the mira- cles. the trouble with this defender of the faith is that he cares nothing for facts. he makes the strangest statements, and cares the least for proof, of any man i know. i can account for what he says of me only upon the supposition that he has not read my lectures. he may have been misled by the pirated editions; persons have stolen my lectures, printed the same ones under various names, and filled them with mistakes and things i never said. mr. c. p. farrell, of washington, is my only authorized publisher. yet mr. talmage prefers to answer the mistakes of literary thieves, and charge their ignorance to me. _question_. did you ever attack the character of queen victoria, or did you draw any parallel between her and george eliot, calculated to depreciate the reputation of the queen? _answer_. i never said a word against victoria. the fact is, i am not acquainted with her--never met her in my life, and know but little of her. i never happened to see her "in plain clothes, reading the "bible to the poor in the lane,"--neither did i ever hear her sing. i most cheerfully admit that her reputation is good in the neighborhood where she resides. in one of my lectures i drew a parallel between george eliot and victoria. i was showing the difference between a woman who had won her position in the world of thought, and one who was queen by chance. this is what i said: "it no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man "to be a king or emperor. the last napoleon was "not satisfied with being the emperor of the french. "he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold "about his head--he wanted some evidence that he "had something of value in his head. so he wrote "the life of julius cæsar that he might become a "member of the french academy. the emperors, "the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their "fellows. compare king william with the philoso- "pher hæckel. the king is one of the 'anointed "'of the most high'--as they claim--one upon "whose head has been poured the divine petroleum "of authority. compare this king with hæckel, who "towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned "mediocrity. compare george eliot with queen "victoria. the queen is clothed in garments given "her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while "george eliot wears robes of glory, woven in the "loom of her own genius. the world is beginning "to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart." i said not one word against queen victoria, and did not intend to even intimate that she was not an ex- cellent woman, wife and mother. i was simply trying to show that the world was getting great enough to place a genius above an accidental queen. mr. tal- mage, true to the fawning, cringing spirit of ortho- doxy, lauds the living queen and cruelly maligns the genius dead. he digs open the grave of george eliot, and tries to stain the sacred dust of one who was the greatest woman england has produced. he calls her "an adultress." he attacks her because she was an atheist--because she abhorred jehovah, denied the inspiration of the bible, denied the dogma of eternal pain, and with all her heart despised the presbyterian creed. he hates her because she was great and brave and free--because she lived without "faith" and died without fear--because she dared to give her honest thought, and grandly bore the taunts and slanders of the christian world. george eliot tenderly carried in her heart the burdens of our race. she looked through pity's tears upon the faults and frailties of mankind. she knew the springs and seeds of thought and deed, and saw, with cloudless eyes, through all the winding ways of greed, ambition and deceit, where folly vainly plucks with thorn-pierced hands the fading flowers of selfish joy--the highway of eternal right. whatever her relations may have been--no matter what i think, or others say, or how much all regret the one mistake in all her self-denying, loving life--i feel and know that in the court where her own conscience sat as judge, she stood acquitted--pure as light and stainless as a star. how appropriate here, with some slight change, the wondrously poetic and pathetic words of laertes at ophelia's grave: _leave her i' the earth; and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring! i tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering angel shall this woman be, when thou liest howling!_ i have no words with which to tell my loathing for a man who violates a noble woman's grave. _question_. do you think that the spirit in which mr. talmage reviews your lectures is in accordance with the teachings of christianity? _answer_. i think that he talks like a true presby- terian. if you will read the arguments of calvin against the doctrines of castalio and servetus, you will see that mr. talmage follows closely in the footsteps of the founder of his church. castalio was such a wicked and abandoned wretch, that he taught the innocence of honest error. he insisted that god would not eternally damn a man for being honestly mistaken. for the utterance of such blasphemous sentiments, abhorrent to every christian mind, calvin called him "a dog of satan, and a child of hell." in short, he used the usual arguments. castalio was banished, and died in exile. in the case of servetus, after all the epithets had been exhausted, an appeal was made to the stake, and the blasphemous wretch was burned to ashes. if you will read the life of john knox, you will find that mr. talmage is as orthodox in his methods of dealing with infidels, as he is in his creed. in my opinion, he would gladly treat unbelievers now, as the puritans did the quakers, as the episcopalians did the presbyterians, as the presbyterians did the baptists, and as the catholics have treated all heretics. of course, all these sects will settle their differences in heaven. in the next world, they will laugh at the crimes they committed in this. the course pursued by mr. talmage is consistent. the pulpit cannot afford to abandon the weapons of falsehood and defamation. candor sows the seeds of doubt. fairness is weakness. the only way to suc- cessfully uphold the religion of universal love, is to denounce all freethinkers as blasphemers, adulterers, and criminals. no matter how generous they may appear to be, no matter how fairly they may deal with their fellow-men, rest assured that they are actuated by the lowest and basest motives. infidels who out- wardly live honest and virtuous lives, are inwardly vicious, virulent and vile. after all, morality is only a veneering. god is not deceived with the varnish of good works. we know that the natural man is totally depraved, and that until he has been regene- rated by the spirit of god, he is utterly incapable of a good action. the generosity of the unbeliever is, in fact, avarice. his honesty is only a form of larceny. his love is only hatred. no matter how sincerely he may love his wife,--how devoted he may be to his children,--no matter how ready he may be 'to sacrifice even his life for the good of mankind, god, looking into his very heart, finds it only a den of hissing snakes, a lair of wild, ferocious beasts, a cage of unclean birds. the idea that god will save a man simply because he is honest and generous, is almost too preposterous for serious refutation. no man should rely upon his own goodness. he should plead the virtue of another. god, in his infinite justice, damns a good man on his own merits, and saves a bad man on the merits of another. the repentant murderer will be an angel of light, while his honest and unoffending victim will be a fiend in hell. a little while ago, a ship, disabled, was blown about the atlantic for eighty days. everything had been eaten. nothing remained but bare decks and hunger. the crew consisted of captain kruger and nine others. for nine days, nothing had been eaten. the captain, taking a revolver in his hand, said: "mates, some "one must die for the rest. i am willing to sacrifice "myself for you." one of his comrades grasped his hand, and implored him to wait one more day. the next morning, a sail was seen upon the horizon, and the dying men were rescued. to an ordinary man,--to one guided by the light of reason,--it is perfectly clear that captain kruger was about to do an infinitely generous action. yet mr. talmage will tell us that if that captain was not a christian, and if he had sent the bullet crashing through his brain in order that his comrades might eat his body, and live to reach their wives and homes,-- his soul, from that ship, would have gone, by dark and tortuous ways, down to the prison of eternal pain. is it possible that christ would eternally damn a man for doing exactly what christ would have done, had he been infinitely generous, under the same cir- cumstances? is not self-denial in a man as praise- worthy as in a god? should a god be worshiped, and a man be damned, for the same action? according to mr. talmage, every soldier who fought for our country in the revolutionary war, who was not a christian, is now in hell. every soldier, not a christian, who carried the flag of his country to vic- tory--either upon the land or sea, in the war of , is now in hell. every soldier, not a christian, who fought for the preservation of this union,--to break the chains of slavery--to free four millions of people --to keep the whip from the naked back--every man who did this--every one who died at andersonville and libby, dreaming that his death would help make the lives of others worth living, is now a lost and wretched soul. these men are now in the prison of god,--a prison in which the cruelties of libby and andersonville would be regarded as mercies,--in which famine would be a joy. third interview. _sinner. is god infinite in wisdom and power? parson. he is. sinner. does he at all times know just what ought to be done? parson. he does. sinner. does he always do just what ought to be done? parson. he does. sinner. why do you pray to him? parson. because he is unchangeable._ _question_. i want to ask you a few questions about mr. talmage's third sermon. what do you think of it? _answer_. i often ask myself the questions: is there anything in the occupation of a minister,--any- thing in his surroundings, that makes him incapable of treating an opponent fairly, or decently? is there anything in the doctrine of universal forgiveness that compels a man to speak of one who differs with him only in terms of disrespect and hatred? is it neces- sary for those who profess to love the whole world, to hate the few they come in actual contact with? mr. talmage, no doubt, professes to love all man- kind,--jew and gentile, christian and pagan. no doubt, he believes in the missionary effort, and thinks we should do all in our power to save the soul of the most benighted savage; and yet he shows anything but affection for the "heathen" at home. he loves the ones he never saw,--is real anxious for their wel- fare,--but for the ones he knows, he exhibits only scorn and hatred. in one breath, he tells us that christ loves us, and in the next, that we are "wolves "and dogs." we are informed that christ forgave even his murderers, but that now he hates an honest unbeliever with all his heart. he can forgive the ones who drove the nails into his hands and feet,-- the one who thrust the spear through his quivering flesh,--but he cannot forgive the man who entertains an honest doubt about the "scheme of salvation." he regards the man who thinks, as a "mouth-maker "at heaven." is it possible that christ is less for- giving in heaven than he was in jerusalem? did he excuse murderers then, and does he damn thinkers now? once he pitied even thieves; does he now abhor an intellectually honest man? _question_. mr. talmage seems to think that you have no right to give your opinion about the bible. do you think that laymen have the same right as ministers to examine the scriptures? _answer_. if god only made a revelation for preachers, of course we will have to depend on the preachers for information. but the preachers have made the mistake of showing the revelation. they ask us, the laymen, to read it, and certainly there is no use of reading it, unless we are permitted to think for ourselves while we read. if after reading the bible we believe it to be true, we will say so, if we are honest. if we do not believe it, we will say so, if we are honest. but why should god be so particular about our believing the stories in his book? why should god object to having his book examined? we do not have to call upon legislators, or courts, to protect shakespeare from the derision of mankind. was not god able to write a book that would command the love and admiration of the world? if the god of mr. talmage is infinite, he knew exactly how the stories of the old testament would strike a gentle- man of the nineteenth century. he knew that many would have their doubts,--that thousands of them-- and i may say most of them,--would refuse to believe that a miracle had ever been performed. now, it seems to me that he should either have left the stories out, or furnished evidence enough to con- vince the world. according to mr. talmage, thou- sands of people are pouring over the niagara of unbelief into the gulf of eternal pain. why does not god furnish more evidence? just in proportion as man has developed intellectually, he has demanded additional testimony. that which satisfies a barbarian, excites only the laughter of a civilized man. cer- tainly god should furnish evidence in harmony with the spirit of the age. if god wrote his bible for the average man, he should have written it in such a way that it would have carried conviction to the brain and heart of the average man; and he should have made no man in such a way that he could not, by any possibility, believe it. there certainly should be a harmony between the bible and the human brain. if i do not believe the bible, whose fault is it? mr. talmage insists that his god wrote the bible for me. and made me. if this is true, the book and the man should agree. there is no sense in god writing a book for me and then making me in such a way that i cannot believe his book. _question_. but mr. talmage says the reason why you hate the bible is, that your soul is poisoned; that the bible "throws you into a rage precisely as pure "water brings on a paroxysm of hydrophobia." _answer_. is it because the mind of the infidel is poisoned, that he refuses to believe that an infinite god commanded the murder of mothers, maidens and babes? is it because their minds are impure, that they refuse to believe that a good god established the institution of human slavery, or that he protected it when established? is it because their minds are vile, that they refuse to believe that an infinite god established or protected polygamy? is it a sure sign of an impure mind, when a man insists that god never waged wars of extermination against his helpless children? does it show that a man has been entirely given over to the devil, because he refuses to believe that god ordered a father to sacri- fice his son? does it show that a heart is entirely without mercy, simply because a man denies the justice of eternal pain? i denounce many parts of the old testament because they are infinitely repugnant to my sense of justice,--because they are bloody, brutal and in- famous,--because they uphold crime and destroy human liberty. it is impossible for me to imagine a greater monster than the god of the old testa- ment. he is unworthy of my worship. he com- mands only my detestation, my execration, and my passionate hatred. the god who commanded the murder of children is an infamous fiend. the god who believed in polygamy, is worthy only of con- tempt. the god who established slavery should be hated by every free man. the jehovah of the jews was simply a barbarian, and the old testament is mostly the barbarous record of a barbarous people. if the jehovah of the jews is the real god, i do not wish to be his friend. from him i neither ask, nor expect, nor would i be willing to receive, even an eternity of joy. according to the old testament, he established a government,--a political state,--and yet, no civilized country to-day would re-enact these laws of god. _question_. what do you think of the explanation given by mr. talmage of the stopping of the sun and moon in the time of joshua, in order that a battle might be completed? _answer_. of course, if there is an infinite god, he could have stopped the sun and moon. no one pretends to prescribe limits to the power of the infinite. even admitting that such a being existed, the question whether he did stop the sun and moon, or not, still remains. according to the account, these planets were stopped, in order that joshua might con- tinue the pursuit of a routed enemy. i take it for granted that a being of infinite wisdom would not waste any force,--that he would not throw away any "omnipotence," and that, under ordinary circum- stances, he would husband his resources. i find that this spirit exists, at least in embryo, in mr. talmage. he proceeds to explain this miracle. he does not assert that the earth was stopped on its axis, but sug- gests "refraction" as a way out of the difficulty. now, while the stopping of the earth on its axis accounts for the sun remaining in the same relative position, it does not account for the stoppage of the moon. the moon has a motion of its own, and even if the earth had been stopped in its rotary motion, the moon would have gone on. the bible tells us that the moon was stopped. one would suppose that the sun would have given sufficient light for all practical purposes. will mr. talmage be kind enough to explain the stoppage of the moon? every one knows that the moon is somewhat obscure when the sun is in the midst of the heavens. the moon when compared with the sun at such a time, is much like one of the discourses of mr. talmage side by side with a chapter from humboldt;--it is useless. in the same chapter in which the account of the stoppage of the sun and moon is given, we find that god cast down from heaven great hailstones on joshua's enemies. did he get out of hailstones? had he no "omnipotence" left? was it necessary for him to stop the sun and moon and depend entirely upon the efforts of joshua? would not the force employed in stopping the rotary motion of the earth have been sufficient to destroy the enemy? would not a millionth part of the force necessary to stop the moon, have pierced the enemy's centre, and rolled up both his flanks? a resort to lightning would have been, in my judgment, much more economical and rather more effective. if he had simply opened the earth, and swallowed them, as he did korah and his company, it would have been a vast saving of "omnipotent" muscle. yet, the foremost orthodox minister of the presbyterian church,--the one who calls all unbelievers "wolves and dogs," and "brazen "fools," in his effort to account for this miracle, is driven to the subterfuge of an "optical illusion." we are seriously informed that "god probably "changed the nature of the air," and performed this feat of ledgerdemain through the instrumentality of "refraction." it seems to me it would have been fully as easy to have changed the nature of the air breathed by the enemy, so that it would not have supported life. he could have accomplished this by changing only a little air, in that vicinity; whereas, according to the talmagian view, he changed the atmosphere of the world. or, a small "local flood" might have done the work. the optical illusion and refraction view, ingenious as it may appear, was not original with mr. talmage. the rev. henry m. morey, of south bend, indiana, used, upon this subject, the fol- lowing language; "the phenomenon was simply "optical. the rotary motion of the earth was not "disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by "the same laws of refraction and reflection by which "the sun now appears to be above the horizon when "it is really below. the medium through which the "sun's rays passed, might have been miraculously "influenced so as to have caused the sun to linger "above the horizon long after its usual time for dis- "appearance." i pronounce the opinion of mr. morey to be the ripest product of christian scholarship. according to the morey-talmage view, the sun lingered somewhat above the horizon. but this is inconsistent with the bible account. we are not told in the scriptures that the sun "lingered above the horizon," but that it "stood "still in the midst of heaven for about a whole day." the trouble about the optical-illusion view is, that it makes the day too long. if the air was miraculously changed, so that it refracted the rays of the sun, while the earth turned over as usual for about a whole day, then, at the end of that time, the sun must have been again visible in the east. it would then naturally shine twelve hours more, so that this miraculous day must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. there were first twelve hours of natural light, then twelve hours of refracted and reflected light, and then twelve hours more of natural light. this makes the day too long. so, i say to mr. talmage, as i said to mr. morey: if you will depend a little less on refraction, and a little more on reflection, you will see that the whole story is a barbaric myth and foolish fable. for my part, i do not see why god should be pleased to have me believe a story of this character. i can hardly think that there is great joy in heaven over another falsehood swallowed. i can imagine that a man may deny this story, and still be an excel- lent citizen, a good father, an obliging neighbor, and in all respects a just and truthful man. i can also imagine that a man may believe this story, and yet assassinate a president of the united states. i am afraid that mr. talmage is beginning to be touched, in spite of himself, with some new ideas. he tells us that worlds are born and that worlds die. this is not exactly the bible view. you would think that he imagined that a world was naturally pro- duced,--that the aggregation of atoms was natural, and that disintegration came to worlds, as to men, through old age. yet this is not the bible view. according to the bible, these worlds were not born,-- they were created out of "nothing," or out of "omnipotence," which is much the same. according to the bible, it took this infinite god six days to make this atom called earth; and according to the account, he did not work nights,--he worked from the morn- ings to the evenings,--and i suppose rested nights, as he has since that time on sundays. admitting that the battle which joshua fought was exceedingly important--which i do not think-- is it not a little strange that this god, in all subse- quent battles of the world's history, of which we know anything, has maintained the strictest neu- trality? the earth turned as usual at yorktown, and at gettysburg the moon pursued her usual course; and so far as i know, neither at waterloo nor at sedan were there any peculiar freaks of "re- "fraction" or "reflection." _question_. mr. talmage tells us that there was in the early part of this century a dark day, when workmen went home from their fields, and legis- latures and courts adjourned, and that the darkness of that day has not yet been explained. what is your opinion about that? _answer_. my opinion is, that if at that time we had been at war with england, and a battle had been commenced in the morning, and in the after- noon the american forces had been driven from their position and were hard pressed by the enemy, and if the day had become suddenly dark, and so dark that the americans were thereby enabled to escape, thousands of theologians of the calibre of mr. tal- mage would have honestly believed that there had been an interposition of divine providence. no battle was fought that day, and consequently, even the ministers are looking for natural causes. in olden times, when the heavens were visited by comets, war, pestilence and famine were predicted. if wars came, the prediction was remembered; if nothing happened, it was forgotten. when eclipses visited the sun and moon, the barbarian fell upon his knees, and accounted for the phenomena by the wickedness of his neighbor. mr. talmage tells us that his father was terrified by the meteoric shower that visited our earth in . the terror of the father may account for the credulity of the son. astronomers will be surprised to read the declaration of mr. talmage that the meteoric shower has never been explained. meteors visit the earth every year of its life, and in a certain portion of the orbit they are always expected, and they always come. mr. newcomb has written a work on astronomy that all ministers ought to read. _question_. mr. talmage also charges you with "making light of holy things," and seems to be aston- ished that you should ridicule the anointing oil of aaron? _answer_. i find that the god who had no time to say anything on the subject of slavery, and who found no room upon the tables of stone to say a word against polygamy, and in favor of the rights of woman, wife and mother, took time to give a recipe for making hair oil. and in order that the priests might have the exclusive right to manufacture this oil, decreed the penalty of death on all who should infringe. i admit that i am incapable of seeing the beauty of this symbol. neither could i ever see the necessity of masons putting oil on the corner-stone of a building. of course, i do not know the exact chemical effect that oil has on stone, and i see no harm in laughing at such a ceremony. if the oil does good, the laughter will do no harm; and if the oil will do no harm, the laughter will do no good. personally, i am willing that masons should put oil on all stones; but, if masons should insist that i must believe in the effi- cacy of the ceremony, or be eternally damned, i would have about the same feeling toward the masons that i now have toward mr. talmage. i presume that at one time the putting of oil on a corner-stone had some meaning; but that it ever did any good, no sensible man will insist. it is a custom to break a bottle of champagne over the bow of a newly-launched ship, but i have never considered this ceremony important to the commercial interests of the world. i have the same opinion about putting oil on stones, as about putting water on heads. for my part, i see no good in the rite of baptism. still, it may do no harm, unless people are immersed during cold weather. neither have i the slightest objection to the baptism of anybody; but if people tell me that i must be baptized or suffer eternal agony, then i deny it. if they say that baptism does any earthly good, i deny it. no one objects to any harmless ceremony; but the moment it is insisted that a ceremony is neces- sary, the reason of which no man can see, then the practice of the ceremony becomes hurtful, for the reason that it is maintained only at the expense of intelligence and manhood. it is hurtful for people to imagine that they can please god by any ceremony whatever. if there is any god, there is only one way to please him, and that is, by a conscientious discharge of your obliga- tions to your fellow-men. millions of people imagine that they can please god by wearing certain kinds of cloth. think of a god who can be pleased with a coat of a certain cut! others, to earn a smile of heaven, shave their heads, or trim their beards, or perforate their ears or lips or noses. others maim and mutilate their bodies. others think to please god by simply shutting their eyes, by swinging censers, by lighting candles, by repeating poor latin, by making a sign of the cross with holy water, by ringing bells, by going without meat, by eating fish, by getting hungry, by counting beads, by making themselves miserable sundays, by looking solemn, by refusing to marry, by hearing sermons; and others imagine that they can please god by calumni- ating unbelievers. there is an old story of an irishman who, when dying, sent for a priest. the reputation of the dying man was so perfectly miserable, that the priest refused to administer the rite of extreme unction. the priest therefore asked him if he could recollect any decent action that he had ever done. the dying man said that he could not. "very well," said the priest, "then you will have to be damned." in a moment, the pinched and pale face brightened, and he said to the priest: "i have thought of one good "action." "what is it?" asked the priest. and the dying man said, "once i killed a gauger." i suppose that in the next world some ministers, driven to extremes, may reply: "once i told a lie "about an infidel." _question_. you see that mr. talmage still sticks to the whale and jonah story. what do you think of his argument, or of his explanation, rather, of that miracle? _answer_. the edge of his orthodoxy seems to be crumbling. he tells us that "there is in the mouth "of the common whale a cavity large enough for a "man to live in without descent into his stomach,"-- and yet christ says, that jonah was in the whale's belly, not in his mouth. but why should mr. tal- mage say that? we are told in the sacred account that "god prepared a great fish" for the sole pur- pose of having jonah swallowed. the size of the present whale has nothing to do with the story. no matter whether the throat of the whale of to-day is large or small,--that has nothing to do with it. the simple story is, that god prepared a fish and had jonah swallowed. and yet mr. talmage throws out the suggestion that probably this whale held jonah in his mouth for three days and nights. i admit that jonah's chance for air would have been a little better in his mouth, and his chance for water a little worse. probably the whale that swallowed jonah was the same fish spoken of by procopius,--both accounts being entitled, in my judgment, to equal credence. i am a little surprised that mr. talmage forgot to mention the fish spoken of by munchausen--an equally reliable author,--and who has given, not simply the bald fact that a fish swallowed a ship, but was good enough to furnish the details. mr. talmage should remember that out of jonah's biography grew the habit of calling any remarkable lie, "a fish "story." there is one thing that mr. talmage should not forget; and that is, that miracles should not be explained. miracles are told simply to be believed, not to be understood. somebody suggested to mr. talmage that, in all probability, a person in the stomach of a whale would be digested in less than three days. mr. tal- mage, again showing his lack of confidence in god, refusing to believe that god could change the nature of gastric juice,--having no opportunity to rely upon "refraction or reflection," frankly admits that jonah had to save himself by keeping on the constant go and jump. this gastric-juice theory of mr. talmage is an abandonment of his mouth hy- pothesis. i do not wonder that mr. talmage thought of the mouth theory. possibly, the two theories had better be united--so that we may say that jonah, when he got tired of the activity necessary to avoid the gastric juice, could have strolled into the mouth for a rest. what a picture! jonah sitting on the edge of the lower jaw, wiping the perspiration and the gastric juice from his anxious face, and vainly looking through the open mouth for signs of land! in this story of jonah, we are told that "the lord "spake unto the fish." in what language? it must be remembered that this fish was only a few hours old. he had been prepared during the storm, for the sole purpose of swallowing jonah. he was a fish of exceedingly limited experience. he had no hereditary knowledge, because he did not spring from ancestors; consequently, he had no instincts. would such a fish understand any language? it may be contended that the fish, having been made for the occasion, was given a sufficient knowledge of language to understand an ordinary command- ment; but, if mr. talmage is right, i think an order to the fish would have been entirely unnecessary. when we take into consideration that a thing the size of a man had been promenading up and down the stomach of this fish for three days and three nights, successfully baffling the efforts of gastric juice, we can readily believe that the fish was as anxious to have jonah go, as jonah was to leave. but the whale part is, after all, not the most won- derful portion of the book of jonah. according to this wonderful account, "the word of the lord came "to jonah," telling him to "go and cry against the "city of nineveh;" but jonah, instead of going, endeavored to evade the lord by taking ship for tarshish. as soon as the lord heard of this, he "sent out a great wind into the sea," and frightened the sailors to that extent that after assuring them- selves, by casting lots, that jonah was the man, they threw him into the sea. after escaping from the whale, he went to nineveh, and delivered his pre- tended message from god. in consequence of his message, jonah having no credentials from god,-- nothing certifying to his official character, the king of nineveh covered himself with sack-cloth and sat down in some ashes. he then caused a decree to be issued that every man and beast should abstain from food and water; and further, that every man and beast should be covered with sack-cloth. this was done in the hope that jonah's god would repent, and turn away his fierce anger. when we take into con- sideration the fact that the people of nineveh were not hebrews, and had not the slightest confidence in the god of the jews--knew no more of, and cared no more for, jehovah than we now care for jupiter, or neptune; the effect produced by the proclamation of jonah is, to say the least of it, almost incredible. we are also informed, in this book, that the moment god saw all the people sitting in the ashes, and all the animals covered with sack-cloth, he repented. this failure on the part of god to destroy the unbelievers displeased jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. jonah was much like the modern minister, who seems always to be personally aggrieved if the pestilence and famine prophesied by him do not come. jonah was displeased to that degree, that he asked god to kill him. jonah then went out of the city, even after god had repented, made him a booth and sat under it, in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. god then "prepared a gourd, and made it to come up "over jonah that it might be a shadow over his "head to deliver him from his grief." and then we have this pathetic line: "so jonah was exceedingly "glad of the gourd." god having prepared a fish, and also prepared a gourd, proposed next morning to prepare a worm. and when the sun rose next day, the worm that god had prepared, "smote the gourd, so that "it withered." i can hardly believe that an in- finite being prepared a worm to smite a gourd so that it withered, in order to keep the sun from the bald head of a prophet. according to the account, after sunrise, and after the worm had smitten the gourd, "god prepared a vehement east "wind." this was not an ordinary wind, but one prepared expressly for that occasion. after the wind had been prepared, "the sun beat upon the head of "jonah, and he fainted, and wished in himself to "die." all this was done in order to convince jonah that a man who would deplore the loss of a gourd, ought not to wish for the destruction of a city. is it possible for any intelligent man now to believe that the history of jonah is literally true? for my part, i cannot see the necessity either of believing it, or of preaching it. it has nothing to do with honesty, with mercy, or with morality. the bad may believe it, and the good may hold it in contempt. i do not see that civilization has the slightest interest in the fish, the gourd, the worm, or the vehement east wind. does mr. talmage think that it is absolutely neces- sary to believe _all_ the story? does he not think it probable that a god of infinite mercy, rather than damn the soul of an honest man to hell forever, would waive, for instance, the worm,--provided he believed in the vehement east wind, the gourd and the fish? mr. talmage, by insisting on the literal truth of the bible stories, is doing christianity great harm. thousands of young men will say: "i can't become "a christian if it is necessary to believe the adven- "tures of jonah." mr. talmage will put into the paths of multitudes of people willing to do right, anxious to make the world a little better than it is,-- this stumbling block. he could have explained it, called it an allegory, poetical license, a child of the oriental imagination, a symbol, a parable, a poem, a dream, a legend, a myth, a divine figure, or a great truth wrapped in the rags and shreds and patches of seeming falsehood. his efforts to belittle the miracle, to suggest the mouth instead of the stomach,--to suggest that jonah took deck passage, or lodged in the forecastle instead of in the cabin or steerage,-- to suggest motion as a means of avoiding digestion, is a serious theological blunder, and may cause the loss of many souls. if mr. talmage will consult with other ministers, they will tell him to let this story alone--that he will simply "provoke investigation and discussion"--two things to be avoided. they will tell him that they are not willing their salary should hang on so slender a thread, and will advise him not to bother his gourd about jonah's. they will also tell him that in this age of the world, arguments cannot be answered by "a vehement east wind." some people will think that it would have been just as easy for god to have pulled the gourd up, as to have prepared a worm to bite it. _question_. mr. talmage charges that you have said there are indecencies in the bible. are you still of that opinion? _answer_. mr. talmage endeavors to evade the charge, by saying that "there are things in the bible "not intended to be read, either in the family circle, "or in the pulpit, but nevertheless they are to be "read." my own judgment is, that an infinite being should not inspire the writing of indecent things. it will not do to say, that the bible description of sin "warns and saves." there is nothing in the history of tamar calculated to "warn and save and the same may be said of many other passages in the old testament. most christians would be glad to know that all such passages are interpolations. i regret that shakespeare ever wrote a line that could not be read any where, and by any person. but shakespeare, great as he was, did not rise en- tirely above his time. so of most poets. nearly all have stained their pages with some vulgarity; and i am sorry for it, and hope the time will come when we shall have an edition of all the great writers and poets from which every such passage is elimi- nated. it is with the bible as with most other books. it is a mingling of good and bad. there are many exquisite passages in the bible,--many good laws,-- many wise sayings,--and there are many passages that should never have been written. i do not pro- pose to throw away the good on account of the bad, neither do i propose to accept the bad on account of the good. the bible need not be taken as an entirety. it is the business of every man who reads it, to discriminate between that which is good and that which is bad. there are also many passages neither good nor bad,--wholly and totally indifferent --conveying information--utterly destitute of ideas,--and as to these passages, my only objection to them is that they waste time and paper. i am in favor of every passage in the bible that conveys information. i am in favor of every wise proverb, of every verse coming from human ex- perience and that appeals to the heart of man. i am in favor of every passage that inculcates justice, generosity, purity, and mercy. i am satisfied that much of the historical part is false. some of it is probably true. let us have the courage to take the true, and throw the false away. i am satisfied that many of the passages are barbaric, and many of them are good. let us have the wisdom to accept the good and to reject the barbaric. no system of religion should go in partnership with barbarism. neither should any christian feel it his duty to defend the savagery of the past. the philosophy of christ must stand independently of the mistakes of the old testament. we should do jus- tice whether a woman was made from a rib or from "omnipotence." we should be merciful whether the flood was general, or local. we should be kind and obliging whether jonah was swallowed by a fish or not. the miraculous has nothing to do with the moral. intelligence is of more value than inspiration. brain is better than bible. reason is above all religion. i do not believe that any civilized human being clings to the bible on account of its barbaric passages. i am candid enough to believe that every christian in the world would think more of the bible, if it had not upheld slavery, if it had denounced polygamy, if it had cried out against wars of exter- mination, if it had spared women and babes, if it had upheld everywhere, and at all times, the standard of justice and mercy. but when it is claimed that the book is perfect, that it is inspired, that it is, in fact, the work of an infinitely wise and good god,--then it should be without a defect. there should not be within its lids an impure word; it should not express an impure thought. there should not be one word in favor of injustice, not one word in favor of slavery, not one word in favor of wars of extermination. there must be another revision of the scriptures. the chaff must be thrown away. the dross must be rejected; and only that be retained which is in exact harmony with the brain and heart of the greatest and the best. _question_. mr. talmage charges you with unfair- ness, because you account for the death of art in palestine, by the commandment which forbids the making of graven images. _answer_. i have said that that commandment was the death of art, and i say so still. i insist that by reason of that commandment, palestine produced no painter and no sculptor until after the destruction of jerusalem. mr. talmage, in order to answer that statement, goes on to show that hundreds and thou- sands of pictures were produced in the middle ages. that is a departure in pleading. will he give us the names of the painters that existed in palestine from mount sinai to the destruction of the temple? will he give us the names of the sculptors between those times? mohammed prohibited his followers from making any representation of human or animal life, and as a result, mohammedans have never produced a painter nor a sculptor, except in the portrayal and chiseling of vegetable forms. they were confined to trees and vines, and flowers. no mohammedan has portrayed the human face or form. but the commandment of jehovah went farther than that of momammed, and prevented portraying the image of anything. the assassination of art was complete. there is another thing that should not be forgotten. we are indebted for the encouragement of art, not to the protestant church; if indebted to any, it is to the catholic. the catholic adorned the cathedral with painting and statue--not the protestant. the protestants opposed music and painting, and refused to decorate their temples. but if mr. tal- mage wishes to know to whom we are indebted for art, let him read the mythology of greece and rome. the early christians destroyed paintings and statues. they were the enemies of all beauty. they hated and detested every expression of art. they looked upon the love of statues as a form of idolatry. they looked upon every painting as a remnant of pagan- ism. they destroyed all upon which they could lay their ignorant hands. hundred of years afterwards, the world was compelled to search for the fragments that christian fury had left. the greeks filled the world with beauty. for every stream and mountain and cataract they had a god or goddess. their sculptors impersonated every dream and hope, and their mythology feeds, to-day, the imagination of mankind. the venus de milo is the impersonation of beauty, in ruin--the sublimest fragment of the ancient world. our mythology is infinitely unpoetic and barren--our deity an old bachelor from eternity, who once believed in indiscriminate massacre. upon the throne of our heaven, woman finds no place. our mythology is destitute of the maternal. _question_. mr. talmage denies your statement that the old testament humiliates woman. he also denies that the new testament says anything against woman. how is it? _answer_. of course, i never considered a book up- holding polygamy to be the friend of woman. eve, according to that book, is the mother of us all, and yet the inspired writer does not tell us how long she lived,--does not even mention her death,--makes not the slightest reference as to what finally became of her. methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty- nine years, and yet, there is not the slightest mention made of mrs. methuselah. enoch was translated, and his widow is not mentioned. there is not a word about mrs. seth, or mrs. enos, or mrs. cainan, or mrs. mahalaleel, or mrs. jared. we do not know the name of mrs. noah, and i believe not the name of a solitary woman is given from the creation of eve--with the exception of two of lamech's wives--until sarai is mentioned as being the wife of abram. if you wish really to know the bible estimation of woman, turn to the fourth and fifth verses of the twelfth chapter of leviticus, in which a woman, for the crime of having borne a son, is unfit to touch a hallowed thing, or to come in the holy sanctuary for thirty-three days; but if a woman was the mother of a girl, then she became totally unfit to enter the sanctuary, or pollute with her touch a hallowed thing, for sixty-six days. the pollution was twice as great when she had borne a daughter. it is a little difficult to see why it is a greater crime to give birth to a daughter than to a son. surely, a law like that did not tend to the elevation of woman. you will also find in the same chapter that a woman had to offer a pigeon, or a turtle-dove, as a sin offer- ing, in order to expiate the crime of having become a mother. by the levitical law, a mother was unclean. the priest had to make an atonement for her. if there is, beneath the stars, a figure of complete and perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her arms her child. the laws respecting women, given by commandment of jehovah to the jews, were born of barbarism, and in this day and age should be re- garded only with detestation and contempt. the twentieth and twenty-first verses of the nineteenth chapter of leviticus show that the same punishment was not meted to men and women guilty of the same crime. the real explanation of what we find in the old testament degrading to woman, lies in the fact, that the overflow of love's mysterious nile--the sacred source of life--was, by its savage authors, deemed unclean. _question_. but what have you to say about the women of the bible, mentioned by mr. talmage, and held up as examples for all time of all that is sweet and womanly? _answer_. i believe that esther is his principal heroine. let us see who she was. according to the book of esther, ahasuerus who was king of persia, or some such place, ordered vashti his queen to show herself to the people and the princes, because she was "exceedingly fair "to look upon." for some reason--modesty per- haps--she refused to appear. and thereupon the king "sent letters into all his provinces and to every "people after their language, that every man should "bear rule in his own house;" it being feared that if it should become public that vashti had disobeyed, all other wives might follow her example. the king also, for the purpose of impressing upon all women the necessity of obeying their husbands, issued a decree that "vashti should come no more before "him," and that he would "give her royal estate "unto another." this was done that "all the "wives should give to their husbands honor, both to "great and small." after this, "the king appointed officers in all the "provinces of his kingdom that they might gather "together all the fair young virgins," and bring them to his palace, put them in the custody of his chamberlain, and have them thoroughly washed. then the king was to look over the lot and take each day the one that pleased him best until he found the one to put in the place of vashti. a fellow by the name of mordecai, living in that part of the country, hearing of the opportunity to sell a girl, brought esther, his uncle's daughter,--she being an orphan, and very beautiful--to see whether she might not be the lucky one. the remainder of the second chapter of this book, i do not care to repeat. it is sufficient to say that esther at last was chosen. the king at this time did not know that esther was a jewess. mordecai her kinsman, however, discovered a plot to assassinate the king, and esther told the king, and the two plotting gentlemen were hanged on a tree. after a while, a man by the name of haman was made secretary of state, and everybody coming in his presence bowed except mordecai. mordecai was probably depending on the influence of esther. haman finally became so vexed, that he made up his mind to have all the jews in the kingdom destroyed. (the number of jews at that time in persia must have been immense.) haman there- upon requested the king to have an order issued to destroy all the jews, and in consideration of the order, proposed to pay ten thousand talents of silver. and thereupon, letters were written to the governors of the various provinces, sealed with the king's ring, sent by post in all directions, with instructions to kill all the jews, both young and old--little children and women,--in one day. (one would think that the king copied this order from another part of the old testament, or had found an original by jehovah.) the people immediately made preparations for the killing. mordecai clothed himself with sack-cloth, and esther called upon one of the king's chamberlains, and she finally got the history of the affair, as well as a copy of the writing, and thereupon made up her mind to go in and ask the king to save her people. at that time, bismarck's idea of government being in full force, any one entering the king's presence with- out an invitation, was liable to be put to death. and in case any one did go in to see the king, if the king failed to hold out his golden sceptre, his life was not spared. notwithstanding this order, esther put on her best clothes, and stood in the inner court of the king's house, while the king sat on his royal throne. when the king saw her standing in the court, he held out his sceptre, and esther drew near, and he asked her what she wished; and thereupon she asked that the king and haman might take dinner with her that day, and it was done. while they were feasting, the king again asked esther what she wanted; and her second request was, that they would come and dine with her once more. when haman left the palace that day, he saw mordecai again at the gate, standing as stiffly as usual, and it filled haman with indignation. so haman, taking the advice of his wife, made a gallows fifty cubits high, for the special benefit of mordecai. the next day, when haman went to see the king, the king, having the night before refreshed his memory in respect to the service done him by mordecai, asked haman what ought to be done for the man whom the king wished to honor. haman, supposing of course that the king referred to him, said that royal purple ought to be brought forth, such as the king wore, and the horse that the king rode on, and the crown-royal should be set on the man's head;--that one of the most noble princes should lead the horse, and as he went through the streets, proclaim: "thus "shall it be done to the man whom the king de- "lighteth to honor." thereupon the king told haman that mordecai was the man that the king wished to honor. and haman was forced to lead this horse, backed by mordecai, through the streets, shouting: "this shall "be done to the man whom the king delighteth to "honor." immediately afterward, he went to the banquet that esther had prepared, and the king again asked esther her petition. she then asked for the salvation of her people; stating at the same time, that if her people had been sold into slavery, she would have held her tongue; but since they were about to be killed, she could not keep silent. the king asked her who had done this thing; and esther replied that it was the wicked haman. thereupon one of the chamberlains, remembering the gallows that had been made for mordecai, men- tioned it, and the king immediately ordered that haman be hanged thereon; which was done. and mordecai immediately became secretary of state. the order against the jews was then rescinded; and ahasuerus, willing to do anything that esther de- sired, hanged all of haman's folks. he not only did this, but he immediately issued an order to all the jews allowing them to kill the other folks. and the jews got together throughout one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, "and such was their power, "that no man could stand against them; and there- "upon the jews smote all their enemies with the "stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and de- "struction, and did whatever they pleased to those "who hated them." and in the palace of the king, the jews slew and destroyed five hundred men, besides ten sons of haman; and in the rest of the provinces, they slew seventy-five thousand people. and after this work of slaughter, the jews had a day of glad- ness and feasting. one can see from this, what a beautiful bible character esther was--how filled with all that is womanly, gentle, kind and tender! this story is one of the most unreasonable, as well as one of the most heartless and revengeful, in the whole bible. ahasuerus was a monster, and esther equally infamous; and yet, this woman is held up for the admiration of mankind by a brooklyn pastor. there is this peculiarity about the book of esther: the name of god is not mentioned in it, and the deity is not referred to, directly or indirectly;--yet it is claimed to be an inspired book. if jehovah wrote it, he certainly cannot be charged with egotism. i most cheerfully admit that the book of ruth is quite a pleasant story, and the affection of ruth for her mother-in-law exceedingly touching, but i am of opinion that ruth did many things that would be re- garded as somewhat indiscreet, even in the city of brooklyn. all i can find about hannah is, that she made a little coat for her boy samuel, and brought it to him from year to year. where he got his vest and pantaloons we are not told. but this fact seems hardly enough to make her name immortal. so also mr. talmage refers us to the wonderful woman abigail. the story about abigail, told in plain english, is this: david sent some of his fol- lowers to nabal, abigail's husband, and demanded food. nabal, who knew nothing about david, and cared less, refused. abigail heard about it, and took food to david and his servants. she was very much struck, apparently, with david and david with her. a few days afterward nabal died--supposed to have been killed by the lord--but probably poisoned; and thereupon david took abigail to wife. the whole matter should have been investigated by the grand jury. we are also referred to dorcas, who no doubt was a good woman--made clothes for the poor and gave alms, as millions have done since then. it seems that this woman died. peter was sent for, and there- upon raised her from the dead, and she is never men- tioned any more. is it not a little strange that a woman who had been actually raised from the dead, should have so completely passed out of the memory of her time, that when she died the second time, she was entirely unnoticed? is it not astonishing that so little is in the new testament concerning the mother of christ? my own opinion is, that she was an excellent woman, and the wife of joseph; and that joseph was the actual father of christ. i think there can be no reasonable doubt that such was the opinion of the authors of the original gospels. upon any other hypothesis, it is impossible to account for their having given the genealogy of joseph to prove that christ was of the blood of david. the idea that he was the son of god, or in any way miraculously produced, was an afterthought, and is hardly entitled now to serious consideration. the gospels were written so long after the death of christ, that very little was known of him, and substantially nothing of his parents. how is it that not one word is said about the death of mary-- not one word about the death of joseph? how did it happen that christ did not visit his mother after his resurrection? the first time he speaks to his mother is when he was twelve years old. his mother having told him that she and his father had been seeking him, he replied: "how is it that ye sought me: wist "ye not that i must be about my father s business?" the second time was at the marriage feast in cana, when he said to her: "woman, what have i to do "with thee?" and the third time was at the cross, when "jesus, seeing his mother standing by the "disciple whom he loved, said to her: woman, be- "hold thy son;" and to the disciple: "behold thy "mother." and this is all. the best thing about the catholic church is the deification of mary,--and yet this is denounced by protestantism as idolatry. there is something in the human heart that prompts man to tell his faults more freely to the mother than to the father. the cruelty of jehovah is softened by the mercy of mary. is it not strange that none of the disciples of christ said anything about their parents,--that we know absolutely nothing of them? is there any evidence that they showed any particular respect even for the mother of christ? mary magdalen is, in many respects, the tenderest and most loving character in the new testament. according to the account, her love for christ knew no abatement,--no change--true even in the hopeless shadow of the cross. neither did it die with his death. she waited at the sepulchre; she hasted in the early morning to his tomb, and yet the only comfort christ gave to this true and loving soul lies in these strangely cold and heartless words: "touch "me not." there is nothing tending to show that the women spoken of in the bible were superior to the ones we know. there are to-day millions of women making coats for their sons,--hundreds of thousands of women, true not simply to innocent people, falsely accused, but to criminals. many a loving heart is as true to the gallows as mary was to the cross. there are hundreds of thousands of women accept- ing poverty and want and dishonor, for the love they bear unworthy men; hundreds and thousands, hun- dreds and thousands, working day and night, with strained eyes and tired hands, for husbands and children,--clothed in rags, housed in huts and hovels, hoping day after day for the angel of death. there are thousands of women in christian england, working in iron, laboring in the fields and toiling in mines. there are hundreds and thousands in europe, everywhere, doing the work of men--deformed by toil, and who would become simply wild and ferocious beasts, except for the love they bear for home and child. you need not go back four thousand years for heroines. the world is filled with them to-day. they do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion, nor exclusively to any race. wherever woman is found, they are found. there is no description of any women in the bible that equal thousands and thousands of women known to-day. the women mentioned by mr. talmage fall almost infinitely below, not simply those in real life, but the creations of the imagination found in the world of fiction. they will not compare with the women born of shakespeare's brain. you will find none like isabella, in whose spotless life, love and reason blended into perfect truth; nor juliet, within whose heart passion and purity met, like white and red within the bosom of a rose; nor cordelia, who chose to suffer loss rather than show her wealth of love with those who gilded dross with golden words in hope of gain; nor miranda, who told her love as freely as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun; nor imogene, who asked: "what is it to be false?" nor hermione, who bore with perfect faith and hope the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart; nor desdemona, her innocence so perfect and her love so pure, that she was incapable of sus- pecting that another could suspect, and sought with dying words to hide her lover's crime. if we wish to find what the bible thinks of woman, all that is necessary to do is to read it. we will find that everywhere she is spoken of simply as property,--as belonging absolutely to the man. we will find that whenever a man got tired of his wife, all he had to do was to give her a writing of divorcement, and that then the mother of his children became a houseless and a homeless wanderer. we will find that men were allowed to have as many wives as they could get, either by courtship, purchase, or conquest. the jewish people in the olden time were in many respects like their barbarian neighbors. if we read the new testament, we will find in the epistle of paul to timothy, the following gallant passages: "let the woman learn in silence, with all "subjection." "but i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp "authority over the man, but to be in silence." and for these kind, gentle and civilized remarks, the apostle paul gives the following reasons: "for adam was first formed, then eve." "and adam was not deceived, but the woman "being deceived was in the transgression." certainly women ought to feel under great obli- gation to the apostle paul. in the fifth chapter of the same epistle, paul, advising timothy as to what kind of people he should admit into his society or church, uses the following language: "let not a widow be taken into the number under "threescore years old, having been the wife of one "man." "but the younger widows refuse, for when they "have begun to wax wanton against christ, they will "marry." this same paul did not seem to think polygamy wrong, except in a bishop. he tells timothy that: "a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one "wife." he also lays down the rule that a deacon should be the husband of one wife, leaving us to infer that the other members might have as many as they could get. in the second epistle to timothy, paul speaks of "grandmother lois," who was referred to in such extravagant language by mr. talmage, and nothing is said touching her character in the least. all her virtues live in the imagination, and in the imagina- tion alone. paul, also, in his epistle to the ephesians, says: "wives, submit yourselves unto your own hus- "bands, as unto the lord. for the husband is the "head of the wife, even as christ is the head of the "church." "therefore, as the church is subject unto christ, "so let the wives be to their own husbands, in "everything." you will find, too, that in the seventh chapter of first corinthians, paul laments that all men are not bachelors like himself, and in the second verse of that chapter he gives the only reason for which he was willing that men and women should marry. he advised all the unmarried, and all widows, to remain as he was. in the ninth verse of this same chapter is a slander too vulgar for repetition,--an estimate of woman and of woman's love so low and vile, that every woman should hold the inspired author in infinite abhorrence. paul sums up the whole matter, however, by telling those who have wives or husbands, to stay with them--as necessary evils only to be tolerated--but sincerely regrets that anybody was ever married; and finally says that: "they that have wives should be as though they "had none;" because, in his opinion: "he that is unmarried careth for the things that "belong to the lord, how he may please the lord; "but he that is married careth for the things that are "of the world, how he may please his wife." "there is this difference also," he tells us, "be- "tween a wife and a virgin. the unmarried woman "careth for the things of the lord, that she may be "holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is "married careth for the things of the world, how she " may please her husband." of course, it is contended that these things have tended to the elevation of woman. the idea that it is better to love the lord than to love your wife, or your husband, is infinitely absurd. nobody ever did love the lord,--nobody can--until he becomes acquainted with him. saint paul also tells us that "man is the image "and glory of god; but woman is the glory of "man;" and for the purpose of sustaining this posi- tion, says: "for the man is not of the woman, but the woman "of the man; neither was the man created for the "woman, but the woman for the man." of course, we can all see that man could have gotten along well enough without woman, but woman, by no possibility, could have gotten along without man. and yet, this is called "inspired;" and this apostle paul is supposed to have known more than all the people now upon the earth. no wonder paul at last was constrained to say: "we are fools for "christ's sake." _question_. how do you account for the present condition of woman in what is known as "the civilized "world," unless the bible has bettered her condition? _answer_. we must remember that thousands of things enter into the problem of civilization. soil, climate, and geographical position, united with count- less other influences, have resulted in the civilization of our time. if we want to find what the influence of the bible has been, we must ascertain the condition of europe when the bible was considered as abso- lutely true, and when it wielded its greatest influence. christianity as a form of religion had actual posses- sion of europe during the middle ages. at that time, it exerted its greatest power. then it had the opportunity of breaking the shackles from the limbs of woman. christianity found the roman matron a free woman. polygamy was never known in rome; and although divorces were allowed by law, the roman state had been founded for more than five hundred years before either a husband or a wife asked for a divorce. from the foundation of chris- tianity,--i mean from the time it became the force in the roman state,--woman, as such, went down in the scale of civilization. the sceptre was taken from her hands, and she became once more the slave and serf of man. the men also were made slaves, and woman has regained her liberty by the same means that man has regained his,--by wresting authority from the hands of the church. while the church had power, the wife and mother was not considered as good as the begging nun; the husband and father was far below the vermin-covered monk; homes were of no value compared with the cathedral; for god had to have a house, no matter how many of his children were wanderers. during all the years in which woman has struggled for equal liberty with man, she has been met with the bible doctrine that she is the inferior of the man; that adam was made first, and eve afterwards; that man was not made for woman, but that woman was made for man. i find that in this day and generation, the meanest men have the lowest estimate of woman; that the greater the man is, the grander he is, the more he thinks of mother, wife and daughter. i also find that just in the proportion that he has lost confidence in the polygamy of jehovah and in the advice and philosophy of saint paul, he believes in the rights and liberties of woman. as a matter of fact, men have risen from a perusal of the bible, and murdered their wives. they have risen from reading its pages, and inflicted cruel and even mortal blows upon their children. men have risen from reading the bible and torn the flesh of others with red-hot pincers. they have laid down the sacred volume long enough to pour molten lead into the ears of others. they have stopped reading the sacred scriptures for a sufficient time to incarcerate their fellow-men, to load them with chains, and then they have gone back to their reading, allowing their victims to die in darkness and despair. men have stopped reading the old testament long enough to drive a stake into the ground and collect a few fagots and burn an honest man. even ministers have denied themselves the privilege of reading the sacred book long enough to tell falsehoods about their fellow-men. there is no crime that bible readers and bible believers and bible worshipers and bible defenders have not committed. there is no meanness of which some bible reader, believer, and defender, has not been guilty. bible believers and bible defenders have filled the world with calumnies and slanders. bible believers and bible defenders have not only whipped their wives, but they have murdered them; they have murdered their children. i do not say that reading the bible will necessarily make men dishonest, but i do say, that reading the bible will not prevent their committing crimes. i do not say that believing the bible will necessarily make men commit burglary, but i do say that a belief in the bible has caused men to persecute each other, to imprison each other, and to burn each other. only a little while ago, a british clergyman mur- dered his wife. only a little while ago, an american protestant clergyman whipped his boy to death be- cause the boy refused to say a prayer. the rev. mr. crowley not only believed the bible, but was licensed to expound it. he had been "called" to the ministry, and upon his head had been laid the holy hands; and yet, he deliberately starved orphans, and while looking upon their sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, sung pious hymns and quoted with great unction: "suffer little chil- "dren to come unto me." as a matter of fact, in the last twenty years, more money has been stolen by christian cashiers, christian presidents, christian directors, christian trustees and christian statesmen, than by all other convicts in all the penitentiaries in all the christian world. the assassin of henry the fourth was a bible reader and a bible believer. the instigators of the massacre of st. bartholomew were believers in your sacred scriptures. the men who invested their money in the slave-trade believed themselves filled with the holy ghost, and read with rapture the psalms of david and the sermon on the mount. the murderers of scotch presbyterians were believers in revelation, and the presbyterians, when they murdered others, were also believers. nearly every man who expiates a crime upon the gallows is a believer in the bible. for a thousand years, the daggers of assassination and the swords of war were blest by priests--by the believers in the sacred scriptures. the assassin of president garfield is a believer in the bible, a hater of infidelity, a believer in personal inspiration, and he expects in a few weeks to join the winged and redeemed in heaven. if a man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the old testament, he would be a criminal. if he would follow strictly the teachings of the new, he would be insane. fourth interview. _son. there is no devil. mother. i know there is. son. how do you know? mother. because they make pictures that look just like him. son. but, mother-- mother. don't "mother" me! you are trying to disgrace your parents._ _question_. i want to ask you a few questions about mr. talmage's fourth sermon against you, entitled: "the meanness of infidelity," in which he compares you to jehoiakim, who had the temerity to throw some of the writings of the weeping jeremiah into the fire? _answer_. so far as i am concerned, i really re- gret that a second edition of jeremiah's roll was gotten out. it would have been far better for us all, if it had been left in ashes. there was nothing but curses and prophecies of evil, in the sacred roll that jehoiakim burned. the bible tells us that jehovah became exceedingly wroth because of the destruction of this roll, and pronounced a curse upon jehoiakim and upon palestine. i presume it was on account of the burning of that roll that the king of babylon destroyed the chosen people of god. it was on account of that sacrilege that the lord said of jehoiakim: "he shall have none to sit upon the "throne of david; and his dead body shall be cast "out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the "frost." any one can see how much a dead body would suffer under such circumstances. imagine an infinitely wise, good and powerful god taking ven- geance on the corpse of a barbarian king! what joy there must have been in heaven as the angels watched the alternate melting and freezing of the dead body of jehoiakim! jeremiah was probably the most accomplished croaker of all time. nothing satisfied him. he was a prophetic pessimist,--an ancient bourbon. he was only happy when predicting war, pestilence and famine. no wonder jehoiakim despised him, and hated all he wrote. one can easily see the character of jeremiah from the following occurrence: when the babylonians had succeeded in taking jerusalem, and in sacking the city, jeremiah was unfortunately taken prisoner; but captain nebuzaradan came to jeremiah, and told him that he would let him go, because he had pro- phesied against his own country. he was regarded as a friend by the enemy. there was, at that time, as now, the old fight between the church and the civil power. whenever a king failed to do what the priests wanted, they immediately prophesied overthrow, disaster, and de- feat. whenever the kings would hearken to their voice, and would see to it that the priests had plenty to eat and drink and wear, then they all declared that jehovah would love that king, would let him live out all his days, and allow his son to reign in his stead. it was simply the old conflict that is still being waged, and it will be carried on until universal civil- ization does away with priestcraft and superstition. the priests in the days of jeremiah were the same as now. they sought to rule the state. they pre- tended that, at their request, jehovah would withhold or send the rain; that the seasons were within their power; that they with bitter words could blight the fields and curse the land with want and death. they gloried then, as now, in the exhibition of god's wrath. in prosperity, the priests were forgotten. success scorned them; famine flattered them; health laughed at them; pestilence prayed to them; disaster was their only friend. these old prophets prophesied nothing but evil, and consequently, when anything bad happened, they claimed it as a fulfillment, and pointed with pride to the fact that they had, weeks or months, or years before, foretold something of that kind. they were really the originators of the phrase, "i told you so!" there was a good old methodist class-leader that lived down near a place called liverpool, on the illinois river. in the spring of the old man, telling his experience, among other things said, that he had lived there by the river for more than thirty years, and he did not believe that a year had passed that there were not hundreds of people during the hunting season shooting ducks on sunday; that he had told his wife thousands of times that no good would come of it; that evil would come of it; "and "now, said the old man, raising his voice with the importance of the announcement, "war is upon us!" _question_. do you wish, as mr. talmage says, to de- stroy the bible--to have all the copies burned to ashes? what do you wish to have done with the bible? _answer_. i want the bible treated exactly as we treat other books--preserve the good and throw away the foolish and the hurtful. i am fighting the doctrine of inspiration. as long as it is believed that the bible is inspired, that book is the master--no mind is free. with that belief, intellectual liberty is impossible. with that belief, you can investigate only at the risk of losing your soul. the catholics have a pope. protestants laugh at them, and yet the pope is capable of intellectual advancement. in addition to this, the pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. the protestants have a book for their pope. the book cannot advance. year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever. it is only made better by those who believe in its inspira- tion giving better meanings to the words than their ancestors did. in this way it may be said that the bible grows a little better. why should we have a book for a master? that which otherwise might be a blessing, remains a curse. if every copy of the bible were destroyed, all that is good in that book would be reproduced in a single day. leave every copy of the bible as it is, and have every human being believe in its inspiration, and intellectual liberty would cease to exist. the whole race, from that moment, would go back to- ward the night of intellectual death. the bible would do more harm if more people really believed it, and acted in accordance with its teachings. now and then a freeman puts the knife to the heart of his child. now and then an assassin relies upon some sacred passage; but, as a rule, few men believe the bible to be absolutely true. there are about fifteen hundred million people in the world. there are not two million who have read the bible through. there are not two hundred million who ever saw the bible. there are not five hundred million who ever heard that such a book exists. christianity is claimed to be a religion for all mankind. it was founded more than eighteen cen- turies ago; and yet, not one human being in three has ever heard of it. as a matter of fact, for more than fourteen centuries and-a-half after the crucifixion of christ, this hemisphere was absolutely unknown. there was not a christian in the world who knew there was such a continent as ours, and all the inhabitants of this, the new world, were deprived of the gospel for fourteen centuries and-a-half, and knew nothing of its blessings until they were in- formed by spanish murderers and marauders. even in the united states, christianity is not keeping pace with the increase of population. when we take into consideration that it is aided by the momentum of eighteen centuries, is it not wonderful that it is not to-day holding its own? the reason of this is, that we are beginning to understand the scriptures. we are beginningto see, and to see clearly, that they are simply of human origin, and that the bible bears the marks of the barbarians who wrote it. the best educated among the clergy admit that we know but little as to the origin of the gospels; that we do not positively know the author of one of them; that it is really a matter of doubt as to who wrote the five books attributed to moses. they admit now, that isaiah was written by more than one person; that solomon's song was not written by that king; that job is, in all probability, not a jewish book; that ecclesiastes must have been written by a freethinker, and by one who had his doubts about the immortality of the soul. the best biblical students of the so- called orthodox world now admit that several stories were united to make the gospel of saint luke; that hebrews is a selection from many fragments, and that no human being, not afflicted with delirium tremens, can understand the book of revelation. i am not the only one engaged in the work of destruction. every protestant who expresses a doubt as to the genuineness of a passage, is destroying the bible. the gentlemen who have endeavored to treat hell as a question of syntax, and to prove that eternal punishment depends upon grammar, are helping to bring the scriptures into contempt. hundreds of years ago, the catholics told the protestant world that it was dangerous to give the bible to the people. the catholics were right; the protestants were wrong. to read is to think. to think is to investi- gate. to investigate is, finally, to deny. that book should have been read only by priests. every copy should have been under the lock and key of bishop, cardinal and pope. the common people should have received the bible from the lips of the ministers. the world should have been kept in ignorance. in that way, and in that way only, could the pulpit have maintained its power. he who teaches a child the alphabet sows the seeds of heresy. i have lived to see the schoolhouse in many a village larger than the church. every man who finds a fact, is the enemy of theology. every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty. _question_. mr. talmage thinks that you laugh too much,--that you exhibit too much mirth, and that no one should smile at sacred things? _answer_. the church has always feared ridicule. the minister despises laughter. he who builds upon ignorance and awe, fears intelligence and mirth. the theologians always begin by saying: "let us be "solemn." they know that credulity and awe are twins. they also know that while reason is the pilot of the soul, humor carries the lamp. whoever has the sense of humor fully developed, cannot, by any possibility, be an orthodox theologian. he would be his own laughing stock. the most absurd stories, the most laughable miracles, read in a solemn, stately way, sound to the ears of ignorance and awe like truth. it has been the object of the church for eighteen hundred years to prevent laughter. a smile is the dawn of a doubt. ministers are always talking about death, and coffins, and dust, and worms,--the cross in this life, and the fires of another. they have been the enemies of human happiness. they hate to hear even the laughter of children. there seems to have been a bond of sympathy between divinity and dyspepsia, between theology and indigestion. there is a certain pious hatred of pleasure, and those who have been "born again" are expected to despise "the transitory joys of this fleeting life." in this, they follow the example of their prophets, of whom they proudly say: "they never smiled." whoever laughs at a holy falsehood, is called a "scoffer." whoever gives vent to his natural feel- ings is regarded as a "blasphemer," and whoever examines the bible as he examines other books, and relies upon his reason to interpret it, is denounced as a "reprobate." let us respect the truth, let us laugh at miracles, and above all, let us be candid with each other. 'question. mr. talmage charges that you have, in your lectures, satirized your early home; that you have described with bitterness the sundays that were forced upon you in your youth; and that in various ways you have denounced your father as a "tyrant," or a "bigot," or a "fool"? _answer_. i have described the manner in which sunday was kept when i was a boy. my father for many years regarded the sabbath as a sacred day. we kept sunday as most other christians did. i think that my father made a mistake about that day. i have no doubt he was honest about it, and really believed that it was pleasing to god for him to keep the sabbath as he did. i think that sunday should not be a day of gloom, of silence and despair, or a day in which to hear that the chances are largely in favor of your being eternally damned. that day, in my opinion, should be one of joy; a day to get acquainted with your wife and children; a day to visit the woods, or the sea, or the murmuring stream; a day to gather flowers, to visit the graves of your dead, to read old poems, old letters, old books; a day to rekindle the fires of friendship and love. mr. talmage says that my father was a christian, and he then proceeds to malign his memory. it seems to me that a living christian should at least tell the truth about one who sleeps the silent sleep of death. i have said nothing, in any of my lectures, about my father, or about my mother, or about any of my relatives. i have not the egotism to bring them forward. they have nothing to do with the subject in hand. that my father was mistaken upon the subject of religion, i have no doubt. he was a good, a brave and honest man. i loved him living, and i love him dead. i never said to him an unkind word, and in my heart there never was of him an unkind thought. he was grand enough to say to me, that i had the same right to my opinion that he had to his. he was great enough to tell me to read the bible for myself, to be honest with myself, and if after reading it i concluded it was not the word of god, that it was my duty to say so. my mother died when i was but a child; and from that day--the darkest of my life--her memory has been within my heart a sacred thing, and i have felt, through all these years, her kisses on my lips. i know that my parents--if they are conscious now --do not wish me to honor them at the expense of my manhood. i know that neither my father nor my mother would have me sacrifice upon their graves my honest thought. i know that i can only please them by being true to myself, by defending what i believe is good, by attacking what i believe is bad. yet this min- ister of christ is cruel enough, and malicious enough, to attack the reputation of the dead. what he says about my father is utterly and unqualifiedly false. right here, it may be well enough for me to say, that long before my father died, he threw aside, as unworthy of a place in the mind of an intelligent man, the infamous dogma of eternal fire; that he regarded with abhorrence many passages in the old testament; that he believed man, in another world, would have the eternal opportunity of doing right, and that the pity of god would last as long as the suffering of man. my father and my mother were good, in spite of the old testament. they were mer- ciful, in spite of the one frightful doctrine in the new. they did not need the religion of presbyterianism. presbyterianism never made a human being better. if there is anything that will freeze the generous current of the soul, it is calvinism. if there is any creed that will destroy charity, that will keep the tears of pity from the cheeks of men and women, it is presbyterianism. if there is any doctrine calcu- lated to make man bigoted, unsympathetic, and cruel, it is the doctrine of predestination. neither my father, nor my mother, believed in the damnation of babes, nor in the inspiration of john calvin. mr. talmage professes to be a christian. what effect has the religion of jesus christ had upon him? is he the product--the natural product--of chris- tianity? does the real christian violate the sanctity of death? does the real christian malign the memory of the dead? does the good christian defame unanswering and unresisting dust? but why should i expect kindness from a chris- tian? can a minister be expected to treat with fairness a man whom his god intends to damn? if a good god is going to burn an infidel forever, in the world to come, surely a christian should have the right to persecute him a little here. what right has a christian to ask anybody to love his father, or mother, or wife, or child? according to the gospels, christ offered a reward to any one who would desert his father or his mother. he offered a premium to gentlemen for leaving their wives, and tried to bribe people to abandon their little children. he offered them happiness in this world, and a hundred fold in the next, if they would turn a deaf ear to the supplications of a father, the beseeching cry of a wife, and would leave the out- stretched arms of babes. they were not even allowed to bury their fathers and their mothers. at that time they were expected to prefer jesus to their wives and children. and now an orthodox minister says that a man ought not to express his honest thoughts, because they do not happen to be in accord with the belief of his father or mother. suppose mr. talmage should read the bible care- fully and without fear, and should come to the honest conclusion that it is not inspired, what course would he pursue for the purpose of honoring his parents? would he say, "i cannot tell the truth, i must lie, "for the purpose of shedding a halo of glory around "the memory of my mother"? would he say: "of "course, my father and mother would a thousand "times rather have their son a hypocritical christian "than an honest, manly unbeliever"? this might please mr. talmage, and accord perfectly with his view, but i prefer to say, that my father wished me to be an honest man. if he is in "heaven" now, i am sure that he would rather hear me attack the "inspired" word of god, honestly and bravely, than to hear me, in the solemn accents of hypocrisy, defend what i believe to be untrue. i may be mistaken in the estimate angels put upon human beings. it may be that god likes a pretended follower better than an honest, outspoken man--one who is an infidel simply because he does not under- stand this god. but it seems to me, in my unregenerate condition, touched and tainted as i am by original sin, that a god of infinite power and wisdom ought to be able to make a man brave enough to have an opinion of his own. i cannot conceive of god taking any particular pride in any hypocrite he has ever made. whatever he may say through his ministers, or whatever the angels may repeat, a manly devil stands higher in my estimation than an unmanly angel. i do not mean by this, that there are any unmanly angels, neither do i pretend that there are any manly devils. my meaning is this: if i have a creator, i can only honor him by being true to myself, and kind and just to my fellow-men. if i wish to shed lustre upon my father and mother, i can only do so by being absolutely true to myself. never will i lay the wreath of hypocrisy upon the tombs of those i love. mr. talmage takes the ground that we must defend the religious belief of our parents. he seems to forget that all parents do not believe exactly alike, and that everybody has at least two parents. now, suppose that the father is an infidel, and the mother a christian, what must the son do? must he "drive "the ploughshare of contempt through the grave of "the father," for the purpose of honoring the mother; or must he drive the ploughshare through the grave of the mother to honor the father; or must he com- promise, and talk one way and believe another? if mr. talmage's doctrine is correct, only persons who have no knowledge of their parents can have liberty of opinion. foundlings would be the only free people. i do not suppose that mr. talmage would go so far as to say that a child would be bound by the religion of the person upon whose door-steps he was found. if he does not, then over every foundling hospital should be these words: "home of intel- "lectual liberty." _question_. do you suppose that we will care nothing in the next world for those we loved in this? is it worse in a man than in an angel, to care nothing for his mother? _answer_. according to mr. talmage, a man can be perfectly happy in heaven, with his mother in hell. he will be so entranced with the society of christ, that he will not even inquire what has become of his wife. the holy ghost will keep him in such a state of happy wonder, of ecstatic joy, that the names, even, of his children will never invade his memory. it may be that i am lacking in filial affection, but i would much rather be in hell, with my parents in heaven, than be in heaven with my parents in hell. i think a thousand times more of my parents than i do of christ. they knew me, they worked for me, they loved me, and i can imagine no heaven, no state of perfect bliss for me, in which they have no share. if god hates me, because i love them, i cannot love him. i cannot truthfully say that i look forward with any great degree of joy, to meeting with haggai and habakkuk; with jeremiah, nehemiah, obadiah, zechariah or zephaniah; with ezekiel, micah, or malachi; or even with jonah. from what little i have read of their writings, i have not formed a very high opinion of the social qualities of these gentlemen. i want to meet the persons i have known; and if there is another life, i want to meet the really and the truly great--men who have been broad enough to be tender, and great enough to be kind. because i differ with my parents, because i am convinced that my father was wrong in some of his religious opinions, mr. talmage insists that i dis- grace my parents. how did the christian religion commence? did not the first disciples advocate theories that their parents denied? were they not false,--in his sense of the word,--to their fathers and mothers? how could there have been any progress in this world, if children had not gone beyond their parents? do you consider that the inventor of a steel plow cast a slur upon his father who scratched the ground with a wooden one? i do not consider that an invention by the son is a slander upon the father; i regard each invention simply as an improvement; and every father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious son. if mr. talmage has a son, it will be impossible for him to honor his father except by differing with him. it is very strange that mr. talmage, a believer in christ, should object to any man for not loving his mother and his father, when his master, according to the gospel of saint luke, says: "if any man "come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, "and wife, and children, and brethren, and sis- "ters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my "disciple." according to this, i have to make my choice be- tween my wife, my children, and jesus christ. i have concluded to stand by my folks--both in this world, and in "the world to come." _question_. mr. talmage asks you whether, in your judgment, the bible was a good, or an evil, to your parents? _answer_. i think it was an evil. the worst thing about my father was his religion. he would have been far happier, in my judgment, without it. i think i get more real joy out of life than he did. he was a man of a very great and tender heart. he was continually thinking--for many years of his life--of the thousands and thousands going down to eternal fire. that doctrine filled his days with gloom, and his eyes with tears. i think that my father and mother would have been far happier had they believed as i do. how any one can get any joy out of the christian religion is past my compre- hension. if that religion is true, hundreds of mil- lions are now in hell, and thousands of millions yet unborn will be. how such a fact can form any part of the "glad tidings of great joy," is amazing to me. it is impossible for me to love a being who would create countless millions for eternal pain. it is impossible for me to worship the god of the bible, or the god of calvin, or the god of the westminster catechism. _question_. i see that mr. talmage challenges you to read the fourteenth chapter of saint john. are you willing to accept the challenge; or have you ever read that chapter? _answer_. i do not claim to be very courageous, but i have read that chapter, and am very glad that mr. talmage has called attention to it. according to the gospels, christ did many miracles. he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk, and raised the dead. in the fourteenth chapter of saint john, twelfth verse, i find the following: "verily, verily, i say unto you: he that believeth "on me, the works that i do shall he do also; and "greater works than these shall he do, because i go "unto my father." i am willing to accept that as a true test of a believer. if mr. talmage really believes in jesus christ, he ought to be able to do at least as great miracles as christ is said to have done. will mr. talmage have the kindness to read the fourteenth chapter of john, and then give me some proof, in accordance with that chapter, that he is a believer in jesus christ? will he have the kindness to perform a miracle?--for instance, produce a "local flood," make a worm to smite a gourd, or "prepare a fish"? can he do anything of that nature? can he even cause a "vehement east wind"? what evidence, according to the bible, can mr. talmage give of his belief? how does he prove that he is a christian? by hating infidels and maligning christians? let mr. talmage furnish the evidence, according to the fourteenth chapter of saint john, or forever after hold his peace. he has my thanks for calling my attention to the fourteenth chapter of saint john. _question_. mr. talmage charges that you are at- tempting to destroy the "chief solace of the world," without offering any substitute. how do you answer this? _answer_. if he calls christianity the "chief solace "of the world," and if by christianity he means that all who do not believe in the inspiration of the scrip- tures, and have no faith in jesus christ, are to be eternally damned, then i admit that i am doing the best i can to take that "solace" from the human heart. i do not believe that the bible, when prop- erly understood, is, or ever has been, a comfort to any human being. surely, no good man can be comforted by reading a book in which he finds that a large majority of mankind have been sentenced to eternal fire. in the doctrine of total depravity there is no "solace." in the doctrine of "election" there can be no joy until the returns are in, and a majority found for you. _question_. mr. talmage says that you are taking away the world's medicines, and in place of anaes- thetics, in place of laudanum drops, you read an essay to the man in pain, on the absurdities of mor- phine and nervines in general. _answer_. it is exactly the other way. i say, let us depend upon morphine, not upon prayer. do not send for the minister--take a little laudanum. do not read your bible,--chloroform is better. do not waste your time listening to meaningless ser- mons, but take real, genuine soporifics. i regard the discoverer of ether as a benefactor. i look upon every great surgeon as a blessing to mankind. i regard one doctor, skilled in his profes- sion, of more importance to the world than all the orthodox ministers. mr. talmage should remember that for hundreds of years, the church fought, with all its power, the science of medicine. priests used to cure diseases by selling little pieces of paper covered with cabalistic marks. they filled their treasuries by the sale of holy water. they healed the sick by relics--the teeth and ribs of saints, the finger-nails of departed wor- thies, and the hair of glorified virgins. infidelity said: "send for the doctor." theology said: "stick "to the priest." infidelity,--that is to say, science,-- said: "vaccinate him." the priest said: "pray;-- "i will sell you a charm." the doctor was regarded as a man who was endeavoring to take from god his means of punishment. he was supposed to spike the artillery of jehovah, to wet the powder of the almighty, and to steal the flint from the musket of heavenly retribution. infidelity has never relied upon essays, it has never relied upon words, it has never relied upon prayers, it has never relied upon angels or gods; it has relied upon the honest efforts of men and women. it has relied upon investigation, observation, experi- ence, and above all, upon human reason. we, in america, know how much prayers are worth. we have lately seen millions of people upon their knees. what was the result? in the olden times, when a plague made its ap- pearance, the people fell upon their knees and died. when pestilence came, they rushed to their ca- thedrals, they implored their priests--and died. god had no pity upon his ignorant children. at last, science came to the rescue. science,--not in the attitude of prayer, with closed eyes, but in the atti- tude of investigation, with open eyes,--looked for and discovered some of the laws of health. science found that cleanliness was far better than godliness. it said: do not spend your time in praying;--clean your houses, clean your streets, clean yourselves. this pest- ilence is not a punishment. health is not simply a favor of the gods. health depends upon conditions, and when the conditions are violated, disease is inevitable, and no god can save you. health depends upon your surroundings, and when these are favorable, the roses are in your cheeks. we find in the old testament that god gave to moses a thousand directions for ascertaining the presence of leprosy. yet it never occurred to this god to tell moses how to cure the disease. within the lids of the old testament, we have no information upon a subject of such vital importance to mankind. it may, however, be claimed by mr. talmage, that this statement is a little too broad, and i will therefore give one recipe that i find in the fourteenth chapter of leviticus: "then shall the priest command to take for him " that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and "cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and the priest "shall command that one of the birds be killed in an "earthen vessel over running water. as for the "living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, "and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them "and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was "killed over the running water. and he shall "sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the "leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, "and shall let the living bird loose into the open "field." prophets were predicting evil--filling the country with their wails and cries, and yet it never occurred to them to tell one solitary thing of the slightest importance to mankind. why did not these inspired men tell us how to cure some of the diseases that have decimated the world? instead of spending forty days and forty nights with moses, telling him how to build a large tent, and how to cut the gar- ments of priests, why did god not give him a little useful information in respect to the laws of health? mr. talmage must remember that the church has invented no anodynes, no anaesthetics, no medicines, and has affected no cures. the doctors have not been inspired. all these useful things men have discovered for themselves, aided by no prophet and by no divine savior. just to the extent that man has depended upon the other world, he has failed to make the best of this. just in the proportion that he has depended on his own efforts, he has advanced. the church has always said: "consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, "neither do they spin." "take no thought for the "morrow." whereas, the real common sense of this world has said: "no matter whether lilies toil and spin, or not, if you would succeed, you must work; you must take thought for the morrow, you must look beyond the present day, you must provide for your wife and your children." what can i be expected to give as a substitute for perdition? it is enough to show that it does not exist. what does a man want in place of a disease? health. and what is better calculated to increase the happiness of mankind than to know that the doctrine of eternal pain is infinitely and absurdly false? take theology from the world, and natural love remains, science is still here, music will not be lost, the page of history will still be open, the walls of the world will still be adorned with art, and the niches rich with sculpture. take theology from the world, and we all shall have a common hope,--and the fear of hell will be removed from every human heart. take theology from the world, and millions of men will be compelled to earn an honest living. impudence will not tax credulity. the vampire of hypocrisy will not suck the blood of honest toil. take theology from the world, and the churches can be schools, and the cathedrals universities. take theology from the world, and the money wasted on superstition will do away with want. take theology from the world, and every brain will find itself without a chain. there is a vast difference between what is called infidelity and theology. infidelity is honest. when it reaches the confines of reason, it says: "i know no further." infidelity does not palm its guess upon an ignorant world as a demonstration. infidelity proves nothing by slander--establishes nothing by abuse. infidelity has nothing to hide. it has no "holy "of holies," except the abode of truth. it has no curtain that the hand of investigation has not the right to draw aside. it lives in the cloudless light, in the very noon, of human eyes. infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed. it does not cringe before an angry god. infidelity says to every man: investigate for yourself. there is no punishment for unbelief. infidelity asks no protection from legislatures. it wants no man fined because he contradicts its doc- trines. infidelity relies simply upon evidence--not evi- dence of the dead, but of the living. infidelity has no infallible pope. it relies only upon infallible fact. it has no priest except the interpreter of nature. the universe is its church. its bible is everything that is true. it implores every man to verify every word for himself, and it implores him to say, if he does not believe it, that he does not. infidelity does not fear contradiction. it is not afraid of being laughed at. it invites the scrutiny of all doubters, of all unbelievers. it does not rely upon awe, but upon reason. it says to the whole world: it is dangerous not to think. it is dan- gerous not to be honest. it is dangerous not to investigate. it is dangerous not to follow where your reason leads. infidelity requires every man to judge for himself. infidelity preserves the manhood of man. _question_. mr. talmage also says that you are trying to put out the light-houses on the coast of the next world; that you are "about to leave everybody "in darkness at the narrows of death"? _answer_. there can be no necessity for these light-houses, unless the god of mr. talmage has planted rocks and reefs within that unknown sea. if there is no hell, there is no need of any light- house on the shores of the next world; and only those are interested in keeping up these pretended light-houses who are paid for trimming invisible wicks and supplying the lamps with allegorical oil. mr. talmage is one of these light-house keepers, and he knows that if it is ascertained that the coast is not dangerous, the light-house will be abandoned, and the keeper will have to find employment else- where. as a matter of fact, every church is a use- less light-house. it warns us only against breakers that do not exist. whenever a mariner tells one of the keepers that there is no danger, then all the keepers combine to destroy the reputation of that mariner. no one has returned from the other world to tell us whether they have light-houses on that shore or not; or whether the light-houses on this shore--one of which mr. talmage is tending--have ever sent a cheering ray across the sea. nature has furnished every human being with a light more or less brilliant, more or less powerful. that light is reason; and he who blows that light out, is in utter darkness. it has been the business of the church for centuries to extinguish the lamp of the mind, and to convince the people that their own reason is utterly unreliable. the church has asked all men to rely only upon the light of the church. every priest has been not only a light-house but a guide-board. he has threatened eternal damna- tion to all who travel on some other road. these guide-boards have been toll-gates, and the principal reason why the churches have wanted people to go their road is, that tolls might be collected. they have regarded unbelievers as the owners of turnpikes do people who go 'cross lots. the toll-gate man always tells you that other roads are dangerous-- filled with quagmires and quicksands. every church is a kind of insurance society, and proposes, for a small premium, to keep you from eternal fire. of course, the man who tells you that there is to be no fire, interferes with the business, and is denounced as a malicious meddler and blas- phemer. the fires of this world sustain the same relation to insurance companies that the fires of the next do to the churches. mr. talmage also insists that i am breaking up the "life-boats." why should a ship built by infinite wisdom, by an infinite shipbuilder, carry life-boats? the reason we have life-boats now is, that we are not entirely sure of the ship. we know that man has not yet found out how to make a ship that can certainly brave all the dangers of the deep. for this reason we carry life-boats. but infinite wisdom must surely build ships that do not need life-boats. is there to be a wreck at last? is god's ship to go down in storm and darkness? will it be necessary at last to forsake his ship and depend upon life-boats? for my part, i do not wish to be rescued by a life- boat. when the ship, bearing the whole world, goes down, i am willing to go down with it--with my wife, with my children, and with those i have loved. i will not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with somebody else's folks,--i will stay with my own. what a picture is presented by the church! a few in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved, when they reach shore, are to look back with joy upon the great ship going down to the eternal depths! this is what i call the unutterable meanness of or- thodox christianity. mr. talmage speaks of the "meanness of in- "fidelity." the meanness of orthodox christianity permits the husband to be saved, and to be ineffably happy, while the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell. the meanness of orthodox christianity tells the boy that he can go to heaven and have an eternity of bliss, and that this bliss will not even be clouded by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes in eternal pain. the meanness of orthodox christianity allows a soul to be so captivated with the companionship of angels as to forget all the old loves and friend- ships of this world. the meanness of orthodox christianity, its un- speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time to care nothing for the damnation of all the rest. the orthodox christian says that if he can only save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into heaven, if he can only get past saint peter's gate, if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite bank of jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it matters not to him what becomes of brother or sister, father or mother, wife or child. he is willing that they should burn if he can sing. oh, the unutterable meanness of orthodox chris- tianity, the infinite heartlessness of the orthodox angels, who with tearless eyes will forever gaze upon the agonies of those who were once blood of their blood and flesh of their flesh! mr. talmage describes a picture of the scourging of christ, painted by rubens, and he tells us that he was so appalled by this picture--by the sight of the naked back, swollen and bleeding--that he could not have lived had he continued to look; yet this same man, who could not bear to gaze upon a painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven, while countiess billions of actual--not painted--men, women, and children writhe--not in a pictured flame, but in the real and quenchless fires of hell. _question_. mr. talmage also claims that we are indebted to christianity for schools, colleges, univer- sities, hospitals and asylums? _answer_. this shows that mr. talmage has not read the history of the world. long before chris- tianity had a place, there were vast libraries. there were thousands of schools before a christian existed on the earth. there were hundreds of hospitals before a line of the new testament was written. hundreds of years before christ, there were hospitals in india,--not only for men, women and children, but even for beasts. there were hospitals in egypt long before moses was born. they knew enough then to cure insanity with music. they surrounded the insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness. the great libraries at alexandria were not chris- tian. the most intellectual nation of the middle ages was not christian. while christians were imprisoning people for saying that the earth is round, the moors in spain were teaching geography with globes. they had even calculated the circumference of the earth by the tides of the red sea. where did education come from? for a thousand years christianity destroyed books and paintings and statues. for a thousand years christianity was filled with hatred toward every effort of the human mind. we got paper from the moors. printing had been known thousands of years before, in china. a few manuscripts, containing a portion of the literature of greece, a few enriched with the best thoughts of the roman world, had been preserved from the general wreck and ruin wrought by christian hate. these became the seeds of intellectual progress. for a thousand years christianity controlled europe. the mohammedans were far in advance of the christians with hospitals and asylums and institutions of learning. just in proportion that we have done away with what is known as orthodox christianity, humanity has taken its place. humanity has built all the asy- lums, all the hospitals. humanity, not christianity, has done these things. the people of this country are all willing to be taxed that the insane may be cared for, that the sick, the helpless, and the desti- tute may be provided for, not because they are christians, but because they are humane; and they are not humane because they are christians. the colleges of this country have been poisoned by theology, and their usefulness almost destroyed. just in proportion that they have gotten from ecclesiastical control, they have become a good. that college, to- day, which has the most religion has the least true learning; and that college which is the nearest free, does the most good. colleges that pit moses against modern geology, that undertake to overthrow the copernican system by appealing to joshua, have done, and are doing, very little good in this world. suppose that in the first century pagans had said to christians: where are your hospitals, where are your asylums, where are your works of charity, where are your colleges and universities? the christians undoubtedly would have replied: we have not been in power. there are but few of us. we have been persecuted to that degree that it has been about as much as we could do to maintain ourselves. reasonable pagans would have regarded such an answer as perfectly satisfactory. yet that question could have been asked of christianity after it had held the reins of power for a thousand years, and christians would have been compelled to say: we have no universities, we have no colleges, we have no real asylums. the christian now asks of the atheist: where is your asylum, where is your hospital, where is your university? and the atheist answers: there have been but few atheists. the world is not yet suffi- ciently advanced to produce them. for hundreds and hundreds of years, the minds of men have been darkened by the superstitions of christianity. priests have thundered against human knowledge, have de- nounced human reason, and have done all within their power to prevent the real progress of mankind. you must also remember that christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for. christianity has driven more men and women crazy than all other religions combined. hundreds and thousands and millions have lost their reason in contemplating the monstrous falsehoods of chris- tianity. thousands of mothers, thinking of their sons in hell--thousands of fathers, believing their boys and girls in perdition, have lost their reason. so, let it be distinctly understood, that christianity has made ten lunatics--twenty--one hundred-- where it has provided an asylum for one. mr. talmage also speaks of the hospitals. when we take into consideration the wars that have been waged on account of religion, the countless thou- sands who have been maimed and wounded, through all the years, by wars produced by theology--then i say that christianity has not built hospitals enough to take care of her own wounded--not enough to take care of one in a hundred. where christianity has bound up the wounds of one, it has pierced the bodies of a hundred others with sword and spear, with bayonet and ball. where she has provided one bed in a hospital, she has laid away a hundred bodies in bloody graves. of course i do not expect the church to do anything but beg. churches produce nothing. they are like the lilies of the field. "they toil not, neither "do they spin, yet solomon in all his glory was not "arrayed like most of them." the churches raise no corn nor wheat. they simply collect tithes. they carry the alms' dish. they pass the plate. they take toll. of course a mendicant is not expected to produce anything. he does not support,--he is supported. the church does not help. she receives, she devours, she consumes, and she produces only discord. she ex- changes mistakes for provisions, faith for food, prayers for pence. the church is a beggar. but we have this consolation: in this age of the world, this beggar is not on horseback, and even the walking is not good. _question_. mr. talmage says that infidels have done no good? _answer_. well, let us see. in the first place, what is an "infidel"? he is simply a man in advance of his time. he is an intellectual pioneer. he is the dawn of a new day. he is a gentleman with an idea of his own, for which he gave no receipt to the church. he is a man who has not been branded as the property of some one else. an "infidel" is one who has made a declaration of independence. in other words, he is a man who has had a doubt. to have a doubt means that you have thought upon the subject--that you have investigated the question; and he who investigates any religion will doubt. all the advance that has been made in the religious world has been made by "infidels," by "heretics," by "skeptics," by doubters,--that is to say, by thoughtful men. the doubt does not come from the ignorant members of your congregations. heresy is not born of stupidity,--it is not the child of the brain- less. he who is so afraid of hurting the reputation of his father and mother that he refuses to advance, is not a "heretic." the "heretic" is not true to falsehood. orthodoxy is. he who stands faithfully by a mistake is "orthodox." he who, discovering that it is a mistake, has the courage to say so, is an "infidel." an infidel is an intellectual discoverer--one who finds new isles, new continents, in the vast realm of thought. the dwellers on the orthodox shore de- nounce this brave sailor of the seas as a buccaneer. and yet we are told that the thinkers of new thoughts have never been of value to the world. voltaire did more for human liberty than all the orthodox ministers living and dead. he broke a thousand times more chains than luther. luther simply substituted his chain for that of the catholics. voltaire had none. the encyclopaedists of france did more for liberty than all the writers upon theology. bruno did more for mankind than millions of "be- "lievers." spinoza contributed more to the growth of the human intellect than all the orthodox theolo- gians. men have not done good simply because they have believed this or that doctrine. they have done good in the intellectual world as they have thought and secured for others the liberty to think and to ex- press their thoughts. they have done good in the physical world by teaching their fellows how to triumph over the obstructions of nature. every man who has taught his fellow-man to think, has been a benefactor. every one who has supplied his fellow-men with facts, and insisted upon their right to think, has been a blessing to his kind. mr. talmage, in order to show what christians have done, points us to whitefield, luther, oberlin, judson, martyn, bishop mcllvaine and hannah more. i would not for one moment compare george whitefield with the inventor of movable type, and there is no parallel between frederick oberlin and the inventor of paper; not the slightest between martin luther and the discoverer of the new world; not the least between adoniram judson and the in- ventor of the reaper, nor between henry martyn and the discoverer of photography. of what use to the world was bishop mcllvaine, compared with the inventor of needles? of what use were a hundred such priests compared with the inventor of matches, or even of clothes-pins? suppose that hannah more had never lived? about the same number would read her writings now. it is hardly fair to compare her with the inventor of the steamship? the progress of the world--its present improved condition--can be accounted for only by the discov- eries of genius, only by men who have had the courage to express their honest thoughts. after all, the man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer had ever discovered. i feel absolutely certain that the inventor of the steam engine was a greater benefactor to mankind than the writer of the presby- terian creed. i may be mistaken, but i think that railways have done more to civilize mankind, than any system of theology. i believe that the printing press has done more for the world than the pulpit. it is my opinion that the discoveries of kepler did a thousand times more to enlarge the minds of men than the prophecies of daniel. i feel under far greater obligation to humboldt than to haggai. the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary--because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying; we can live by plowing without praying, but we can not live by praying without plowing. so i put my faith in the plow. as jehovah has ceased to make garments for his children,--as he has stopped making coats of skins, i have great respect for the inventors of the spinning- jenny and the sewing machine. as no more laws are given from sinai, i have admiration for the real statesmen. as miracles have ceased, i rely on medicine, and on a reasonable compliance with the conditions of health. i have infinite respect for the inventors, the thinkers, the discoverers, and above all, for the un- known millions who have, without the hope of fame, lived and labored for the ones they loved. fifth interview, _parson. you had belter join the church; it is the safer way. sinner. i can't live up to your doctrines, and you know it. parson. well, you can come as near it in the church as out; and forgiveness will be easier if you join us. sinner. what do you mean by that? parson. i will tell you. if you join the church, and happen to back-slide now and then, christ will say to his father: "that man is a "friend of mine, and you may charge his account to me."_ _question_. what have you to say about the fifth sermon of the rev. mr. talmage in reply to you? _answer_. the text from which he preached is: "do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" i am compelled to answer these questions in the negative. that is one reason why i am an infidel. i do not believe that anybody can gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. that is exactly my doctrine. but the doctrine of the church is, that you can. the church says, that just at the last, no matter if you have spent your whole life in raising thorns and thistles, in planting and watering and hoeing and plowing thorns and thistles--that just at the last, if you will repent, between hoeing the last thistle and taking the last breath, you can reach out the white and palsied hand of death and gather from every thorn a cluster of grapes and from every thistle an abundance of figs. the church insists that in this way you can gather enough grapes and figs to last you through all eternity. my doctrine is, that he who raises thorns must harvest thorns. if you sow thorns, you must reap thorns; and there is no way by which an innocent being can have the thorns you raise thrust into his brow, while you gather his grapes. but christianity goes even further than this. it insists that a man can plant grapes and gather thorns. mr. talmage insists that, no matter how good you are, no matter how kind, no matter how much you love your wife and children, no matter how many self-denying acts you do, you will not be allowed to eat of the grapes you raise; that god will step be- tween you and the natural consequences of your goodness, and not allow you to reap what you sow. mr. talmage insists, that if you have no faith in the lord jesus christ, although you have been good here, you will reap eternal pain as your harvest; that the effect of honesty and kindness will not be peace and joy, but agony and pain. so that the church does insist not only that you can gather grapes from thorns, but thorns from grapes. i believe exactly the other way. if a man is a good man here, dying will not change him, and he will land on the shore of another world--if there is one--the same good man that he was when he left this; and i do not believe there is any god in this universe who can afford to damn a good man. this god will say to this man: you loved your wife, your children, and your friends, and i love you. you treated others with kindness; i will treat you in the same way. but mr. talmage steps up to his god, nudges his elbow, and says: although he was a very good man, he belonged to no church; he was a blasphemer; he denied the whale story, and after i explained that jonah was only in the whale's mouth, he still denied it; and thereupon mr. tal- mage expects that his infinite god will fly in a passion, and in a perfect rage will say: what! did he deny that story? let him be eternally damned! not only this, but mr. talmage insists that a man may have treated his wife like a wild beast; may have trampled his child beneath the feet of his rage; may have lived a life of dishonesty, of infamy, and yet, having repented on his dying bed, having made his peace with god through the intercession of his son, he will be welcomed in heaven with shouts of joy. i deny it. i do not believe that angels can be so quickly made from rascals. i have but little confi- dence in repentance without restitution, and a hus- band who has driven a wife to insanity and death by his cruelty--afterward repenting and finding himself in heaven, and missing his wife,--were he worthy to be an angel, would wander through all the gulfs of hell until he clasped her once again.. now, the next question is, what must be done with those who are sometimes good and sometimes bad? that is my condition. if there is another world, i expect to have the same opportunity of behaving myself that i have here. if, when i get there, i fail to act as i should, i expect to reap what i sow. if, when i arrive at the new jerusalem, i go into the thorn business, i expect to harvest what i plant. if i am wise enough to start a vineyard, i expect to have grapes in the early fall. but if i do there as i have done here--plant some grapes and some thorns, and harvest them together--i expect to fare very much as i have fared here. but i expect year by year to grow wiser, to plant fewer thorns every spring, and more grapes. _question_. mr. talmage charges that you have taken the ground that the bible is a cruel book, and has produced cruel people? _answer_. yes, i have taken that ground, and i maintain it. the bible was produced by cruel people, and in its turn it has produced people like its authors. the extermination of the canaanites was cruel. most of the laws of moses were bloodthirsty and cruel. hundreds of offences were punishable by death, while now, in civilized countries, there are only two crimes for which the punishment is capital. i charge that moses and joshua and david and samuel and solomon were cruel. i believe that to read and believe the old testament naturally makes a man careless of human life. that book has produced hundreds of religious wars, and it has furnished the battle-cries of bigotry for fifteen hundred years. the old testament is filled with cruelty, but its cruelty stops with this world, its malice ends with death; whenever its victim has reached the grave, revenge is satisfied. not so with the new testament. it pursues its victim forever. after death, comes hell; after the grave, the worm that never dies. so that, as a matter of fact, the new testament is in- finitely more cruel than the old. nothing has so tended to harden the human heart as the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that passage: "he that believeth and is baptized shall be "saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," has shed more blood than all the other so-called "sacred books" of all this world. i insist that the bible is cruel. the bible invented instruments of torture. the bible laid the foundations of the inquisition. the bible furnished the fagots and the martyrs. the bible forged chains not only for the hands, but for the brains of men. the bible was at the bottom of the massacre of st. bartholomew. every man who has been persecuted for religion's sake has been persecuted by the bible. that sacred book has been a beast of prey. the truth is, christians have been good in spite of the bible. the bible has lived upon the reputations of good men and good women,--men and women who were good notwithstanding the brutality they found upon the inspired page. men have said: "my mother "believed in the bible; my mother was good; there- "fore, the bible is good," when probably the mother never read a chapter in it. the bible produced the church of rome, and torquemada was a product of the bible. philip of spain and the duke of alva were produced by the bible. for thirty years europe was one vast battle- field, and the war was produced by the bible. the re- vocation of the edict of nantes was produced by the sacred scriptures. the instruments of torture--the pincers, the thumb-screws, the racks, were produced by the word of god. the quakers of new england were whipped and burned by the bible--their children were stolen by the bible. the slave-ship had for its sails the leaves of the bible. slavery was upheld in the united states by the bible. the bible was the auction-block. more than this, worse than this, infinitely beyond the computation of imagination, the despotisms of the old world all rested and still rest upon the bible. "the powers that be" were sup- posed to have been "ordained of god;" and he who rose against his king periled his soul. in this connection, and in order to show the state of society when the church had entire control of civil and ecclesiastical affairs, it may be well enough to read the following, taken from the _new york sun_ of march , . from this little extract, it will be easy in the imagination to re-organize the government that then existed, and to see clearly the state of so- ciety at that time. this can be done upon the same principle that one scale tells of the entire fish, or one bone of the complete animal: "from records in the state archives of hesse- "darmstadt, dating back to the thirteenth century, "it appears that the public executioner's fee for boiling "a criminal in oil was twenty-four florins; for decapi- "tating with the sword, fifteen florins and-a-half; for "quartering, the same; for breaking on the wheel, "five florins, thirty kreuzers; for tearing a man to "pieces, eighteen florins. ten florins per head was "his charge for hanging, and he burned delinquents "alive at the rate of fourteen florins apiece. for ap- "plying the 'spanish boot' his fee was only two "florins. five florins were paid to him every time he "subjected a refractory witness to the torture of the "rack. the same amount was his due for 'branding "'the sign of the gallows with a red-hot iron upon "'the back, forehead, or cheek of a thief,' as well as "for 'cutting off the nose and ears of a slanderer or "'blasphemer.' flogging with rods was a cheap "punishment, its remuneration being fixed at three "florins, thirty kreuzers." the bible has made men cruel. it is a cruel book. and yet, amidst its thorns, amidst its thistles, amidst its nettles and its swords and pikes, there are some flowers, and these i wish, in common with all good men, to save. i do not believe that men have ever been made merciful in war by reading the old testament. i do not believe that men have ever been prompted to break the chain of a slave by reading the pentateuch. the question is not whether florence nightingale and miss dix were cruel. i have said nothing about john howard, nothing about abbott lawrence. i say nothing about people in this connection. the question is: is the bible a cruel book? not: was miss nightingale a cruel woman? there have been thousands and thousands of loving, tender and char- itable mohammedans. mohammedan mothers love their children as well as christian mothers can. mohammedans have died in defence of the koran-- died for the honor of an impostor. there were millions of charitable people in india--millions in egypt--and i am not sure that the world has ever produced people who loved one another better than the egyptians. i think there are many things in the old testament calculated to make man cruel. mr. talmage asks: "what has been the effect upon your children? as "they have become more and more fond of the "scriptures have they become more and more fond "of tearing off the wings of flies and pinning grass- "hoppers and robbing birds' nests?" i do not believe that reading the bible would make them tender toward flies or grasshoppers. according to that book, god used to punish animals for the crimes of their owners. he drowned the animals in a flood. he visited cattle with disease. he bruised them to death with hailstones--killed them by the thousand. will the reading of these things make children kind to animals? so, the whole system of sacrifices in the old testament is calculated to harden the heart. the butchery of oxen and lambs, the killing of doves, the perpetual destruction of life, the con- tinual shedding of blood--these things, if they have any tendency, tend only to harden the heart of child- hood. the bible does not stop simply with the killing of animals. the jews were commanded to kill their neighbors--not only the men, but the women; not only the women, but the babes. in accordance with the command of god, the jews killed not only their neighbors, but their own brothers; and according to this book, which is the foundation, as mr. talmage believes, of all mercy, men were commanded to kill their wives because they differed with them on the subject of religion. nowhere in the world can be found laws more un- just and cruel than in the old testament. _question_. mr. talmage wants you to tell where the cruelty of the bible crops out in the lives of chris- tians? _answer_. in the first place, millions of christians have been persecutors. did they get the idea of persecution from the bible? will not every honest man admit that the early christians, by reading the old testament, became convinced that it was not only their privilege, but their duty, to destroy heathen nations? did they not, by reading the same book, come to the conclusion that it was their solemn duty to extirpate heresy and heretics? according to the new testament, nobody could be saved unless he believed in the lord jesus christ. the early chris- tians believed this dogma. they also believed that they had a right to defend themselves and their children from "heretics." we all admit that a man has a right to defend his children against the assaults of a would-be murderer, and he has the right to carry this defence to the extent of killing the assailant. if we have the right to kill people who are simply trying to kill the bodies of our children, of course we have the right to kill them when they are endeavoring to assassinate, not simply their bodies, but their souls. it was in this way christians reasoned. if the testament is right, their reasoning was correct. whoever believes the new testament literally--whoever is satisfied that it is absolutely the word of god, will become a perse- cutor. all religious persecution has been, and is, in exact harmony with the teachings of the old and new testaments. of course i mean with some of the teachings. i admit that there are passages in both the old and new testaments against persecu- tion. these are passages quoted only in time of peace. others are repeated to feed the flames of war. i find, too, that reading the bible and believing the bible do not prevent even ministers from telling false- hoods about their opponents. i find that the rev. mr. talmage is willing even to slander the dead,-- that he is willing to stain the memory of a christian, and that he does not hesitate to give circulation to what he knows to be untrue. mr. talmage has himself, i believe, been the subject of a church trial. how many of the christian witnesses against him, in his judgment, told the truth? yet they were all bible readers and bible believers. what effect, in his judgment, did the reading of the bible have upon his enemies? is he willing to admit that the testi- mony of a bible, reader and believer is true? is he willing to accept the testimony even of ministers? --of his brother ministers? did reading the bible make them bad people? was it a belief in the bible that colored their testimony? or, was it a belief in the bible that made mr. talmage deny the truth of their statements? _question_. mr. talmage charges you with having said that the scriptures are a collection of polluted writings? _answer_. i have never said such a thing. i have said, and i still say, that there are passages in the bible unfit to be read--passages that never should have been written--passages, whether inspired or uninspired, that can by no possibility do any human being any good. i have always admitted that there are good passages in the bible--many good, wise and just laws--many things calculated to make men better--many things calculated to make men worse. i admit that the bible is a mixture of good and bad, of truth and falsehood, of history and fiction, of sense and nonsense, of virtue and vice, of aspiration and revenge, of liberty and tyranny. i have never said anything against solomon's song. i like it better than i do any book that pre- cedes it, because it touches upon the human. in the desert of murder, wars of extermination, polygamy, concubinage and slavery, it is an oasis where the trees grow, where the birds sing, and where human love blossoms and fills the air with perfume. i do not regard that book as obscene. there are many things in it that are beautiful and tender, and it is calculated to do good rather than harm. neither have i any objection to the book of eccle- siastes--except a few interpolations in it. that book was written by a freethinker, by a philosopher. there is not the slightest mention of god in it, nor of another state of existence. all portions in which god is mentioned are interpolations. with some of this book i agree heartily. i believe in the doctrine of enjoying yourself, if you can, to-day. i think it foolish to spend all your years in heaping up treas- ures, not knowing but he who will spend them is to be an idiot. i believe it is far better to be happy with your wife and child now, than to be miserable here, with angelic expectations in some other world. mr. talmage is mistaken when he supposes that all bible believers have good homes, that all bible readers are kind in their families. as a matter of fact, nearly all the wife-whippers of the united states are orthodox. nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries are believers. scotland is one of the most orthodox countries in the world, and one of the most intem- perate. hundreds and hundreds of women are arrested every year in glasgow for drunkenness. visit the christian homes in the manufacturing dis- tricts of england. talk with the beaters of children and whippers of wives, and you will find them be- lievers. go into what is known as the "black "country," and you will have an idea of the chris- tian civilization of england. let me tell you something about the "black "country." there women work in iron; there women do the work of men. let me give you an instance: a commission was appointed by parliament to ex- amine into the condition of the women in the "black "country," and a report was made. in that report i read the following: "a superintendent of a brickyard where women "were engaged in carrying bricks from the yard to "the kiln, said to one of the women: "'eliza, you don't appear to be very uppish this "morning.'" "'neither would you be very uppish, sir,' she re- "plied, 'if you had had a child last night.'" this gives you an idea of the christian civilization of england. england and ireland produce most of the prize- fighters. the scientific burglar is a product of great britain. there is not the great difference that mr. talmage supposes, between the morality of pekin and of new york. i doubt if there is a city in the world with more crime according to the population than new york, unless it be london, or it may be dublin, or brooklyn, or possibly glasgow, where a man too pious to read a newspaper published on sunday, stole millions from the poor. i do not believe there is a country in the world where there is more robbery than in christian lands-- no country where more cashiers are defaulters, where more presidents of banks take the money of depositors, where there is more adulteration of food, where fewer ounces make a pound, where fewer inches make a yard, where there is more breach of trust, more respectable larceny under the name of embezzlement, or more slander circulated as gospel. _question_. mr. talmage insists that there are no contradictions in the bible--that it is a perfect har- mony from genesis to revelation--a harmony as perfect as any piece of music ever written by beethoven or handel? _answer_. of course, if god wrote it, the bible ought to be perfect. i do not see why a minister should be so perfectly astonished to find that an inspired book is consistent with itself throughout. yet the truth is, the bible is infinitely inconsistent. compare the two systems--the system of jehovah and that of jesus. in the old testament the doctrine of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was taught. in the new testament, "forgive your "enemies," and "pray for those who despitefully "use you and persecute you." in the old testament it is kill, burn, massacre, destroy; in the new forgive. the two systems are inconsistent, and one is just about as far wrong as the other. to live for and thirst for revenge, to gloat over the agony of an enemy, is one extreme; to "resist not evil" is the other extreme; and both these extremes are equally distant from the golden mean of justice. the four gospels do not even agree as to the terms of salvation. and yet, mr. talmage tells us that there are four cardinal doctrines taught in the bible-- the goodness of god, the fall of man, the sympathetic and forgiving nature of the savior, and two desti- nies--one for believers and the other for unbelievers. that is to say: . that god is good, holy and forgiving. . that man is a lost sinner. . that christ is "all sympathetic," and ready to take the whole world to his heart. . heaven for believers and hell for unbelievers. _first_. i admit that the bible says that god is good and holy. but this bible also tells what god did, and if god did what the bible says he did, then i insist that god is not good, and that he is not holy, or forgiving. according to the bible, this good god believed in religious persecution; this good god believed in extermination, in polygamy, in con- cubinage, in human slavery; this good god com- manded murder and massacre, and this good god could only be mollified by the shedding of blood. this good god wanted a butcher for a priest. this good god wanted husbands to kill their wives-- wanted fathers and mothers to kill their children. this good god persecuted animals on account of the crimes of their owners. this good god killed the common people because the king had displeased him. this good god killed the babe even of the maid behind the mill, in order that he might get even with a king. this good god committed every possible crime. _second_. the statement that man is a lost sinner is not true. there are thousands and thousands of magnificent pagans--men ready to die for wife, or child, or even for friend, and the history of pagan countries is filled with self-denying and heroic acts. if man is a failure, the infinite god, if there be one, is to blame. is it possible that the god of mr. tal- mage could not have made man a success? accord- ing to the bible, his god made man knowing that in about fifteen hundred years he would have to drown all his descendants. why would a good god create a man that he knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds of thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at last would be doomed to an eternity of suffering? can such a god be good? how could a devil have done worse? _third._ if god is infinitely good, is he not fully as sympathetic as christ? do you have to employ christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? is christ any more willing to take to his heart the whole world than his father is? personally, i have not the slightest objection in the world to anybody believing in an infinitely good and kind god--not the slightest objection to any human being worshiping an infi- nitely tender and merciful christ--not the slightest objection to people preaching about heaven, or about the glories of the future state--not the slightest. _fourth_. i object to the doctrine of two destinies for the human race. i object to the infamous false- hood of eternal fire. and yet, mr. talmage is en- deavoring to poison the imagination of men, women and children with the doctrine of an eternal hell. here is what he preaches, taken from the "constitu- "tion of the presbyterian church of the united "states:" "by the decrees of god, for the manifestation of "his glory, some men and angels are predestinated "to everlasting life, and others foreordained to ever- "lasting death." that is the doctrine of mr. talmage. he wor- ships a god who damns people "for the manifesta- "tion of his glory,"--a god who made men, knowing that they would be damned--a god who damns babes simply to increase his reputation with the angels. this is the god of mr. talmage. such a god i abhor, despise and execrate. _question_. what does mr. talmage think of man- kind? what is his opinion of the "unconverted"? how does he regard the great and glorious of the earth, who have not been the victims of his particular superstition? what does he think of some of the best the earth has produced? _answer_. i will tell you how he looks upon all such. read this from his "confession of faith:" "our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety "of the tempter, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. "by this sin, they fell from their original righteous- "ness and communion with god, and so became "dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties "and parts of soul and body; and they being the "root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was "imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted "nature conveyed to all their posterity. from this "original corruption--whereby we are utterly indis- "posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, "and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual "transgressions." this is mr. talmage's view of humanity. why did his god make a devil? why did he allow the devil to tempt adam and eve? why did he leave innocence and ignorance at the mercy of subtlety and wickedness? why did he put "the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the garden? for what reason did he place temptation in the way of his children? was it kind, was it just, was it noble, was it worthy of a good god? no wonder christ put into his prayer: "lead us not "into temptation." at the time god told adam and eve not to eat, why did he not tell them of the existence of satan? why were they not put upon their guard against the serpent? why did not god make his appearance just before the sin, instead of just after. why did he not play the role of a savior instead of that of a detective? after he found that adam and eve had sinned--knowing as he did that they were then totally corrupt--knowing that all their children would be corrupt, knowing that in fifteen hundred years he would have to drown millions of them, why did he not allow adam and eve to perish in accord- ance with natural law, then kill the devil, and make a new pair? when the flood came, why did he not drown all? why did he save for seed that which was "perfectly "and thoroughly corrupt in all its parts and facul- "ties"? if god had drowned noah and his sons and their families, he could have then made a new pair, and peopled the world with men not "wholly "defiled in all their faculties and parts of soul and "body." jehovah learned nothing by experience. he per- sisted in his original mistake. what would we think of a man who finding that a field of wheat was worthless, and that such wheat never could be raised with profit, should burn all of the field with the exception of a few sheaves, which he saved for seed? why save such seed? why should god have pre- served noah, knowing that he was totally corrupt, and that he would again fill the world with infamous people--people incapable of a good action? he must have known at that time, that by preserving noah, the canaanites would be produced, that these same canaanites would have to be murdered, that the babes in the cradles would have to be strangled. why did he produce them? he knew at that time, that egypt would result from the salvation of noah, that the egyptians would have to be nearly de- stroyed, that he would have to kill their first-born, that he would have to visit even their cattle with disease and hailstones. he knew also that the egyptians would oppress his chosen people for two hundred and fifteen years, that they would upon the back of toil inflict the lash. why did he preserve noah? he should have drowned all, and started with a new pair. he should have warned them against the devil, and he might have succeeded, in that way, in covering the world with gentlemen and ladies, with real men and real women. we know that most of the people now in the world are not christians. most who have heard the gospel of christ have rejected it, and the presby- terian church tells us what is to become of all these people. this is the "glad tidings of great joy." let us see: "all mankind, by their fall, lost communion with "god, are under his wrath and curse, and so made "liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, "and to the pains of hell forever." according to this good presbyterian doctrine, all that we suffer in this world, is the result of adam's fall. the babes of to-day suffer for the crime of the first parents. not only so; but god is angry at us for what adam did. we are under the wrath of an infinite god, whose brows are corrugated with eternal hatred. why should god hate us for being what we are and necessarily must have been? a being that god made--the devil--for whose work god is responsible, according to the bible wrought this woe. god of his own free will must have made the devil. what did he make him for? was it necessary to have a devil in heaven? god, having infinite power, can of course destroy this devil to-day. why does he per- mit him to live? why did he allow him to thwart his plans? why did he permit him to pollute the inno- cence of eden? why does he allow him now to wrest souls by the million from the redeeming hand of christ? according to the scriptures, the devil has always been successful. he enjoys himself. he is called "the prince of the power of the air." he has no conscientious scruples. he has miraculous power. all miraculous power must come of god, otherwise it is simply in accordance with nature. if the devil can work a miracle, it is only with the consent and by the assistance of the almighty. is the god of mr. talmage in partnership with the devil? do they divide profits? we are also told by the presbyterian church-- i quote from their confession of faith--that "there "is no sin so small but it deserves damnation.'' yet mr. talmage tells us that god is good, that he is filled with mercy and loving-kindness. a child nine or ten years of age commits a sin, and thereupon it deserves eternal damnation. that is what mr. talmage calls, not simply justice, but mercy; and the sympathetic heart of christ is not touched. the same being who said: "suffer little children to come unto me," tells us that a child, for the smallest sin, deserves to be eternally damned. the presbyterian church tells us that infants, as well as adults, in order to be saved, need redemption by the blood of christ, and regen- eration by the holy ghost. i am charged with trying to take the consolation of this doctrine from the world. i am a criminal because i am endeavoring to convince the mother that her child does not deserve eternal punishment. i stand by the graves of those who "died in their "sins," by the tombs of the "unregenerate," over the ashes of men who have spent their lives working for their wives and children, and over the sacred dust of soldiers who died in defence of flag and country, and i say to their friends--i say to the living who loved them, i say to the men and women for whom they worked, i say to the children whom they edu- cated, i say to the country for which they died: these fathers, these mothers, these wives, these husbands, these soldiers are not in hell. _question_. mr. talmage insists that the bible is scientific, and that the real scientific man sees no contradiction between revelation and science; that, on the contrary, they are in harmony. what is your understanding of this matter? _answer_. i do not believe the bible to be a sci- entific book. in fact, most of the ministers now admit that it was not written to teach any science. they admit that the first chapter of genesis is not geo- logically true. they admit that joshua knew nothing of science. they admit that four-footed birds did not exist in the days of moses. in fact, the only way they can avoid the unscientific statements of the bible, is to assert that the writers simply used the common language of their day, and used it, not with the intention of teaching any scientific truth, but for the purpose of teaching some moral truth. as a matter of fact, we find that moral truths have been taught in all parts of this world. they were taught in india long before moses lived; in egypt long be- fore abraham was born; in china thousands of years before the flood. they were taught by hundreds and thousands and millions before the garden of eden was planted. it would be impossible to prove the truth of a revelation simply because it contained moral truths. if it taught immorality, it would be absolutely certain that it was not a revelation from an infinitely good being. if it taught morality, it would be no reason for even suspecting that it had a divine origin. but if the bible had given us scientific truths; if the ignorant jews had given us the true theory of our solar system; if from moses we had learned the nature of light and heat; if from joshua we had learned something of electricity; if the minor pro- phets had given us the distances to other planets; if the orbits of the stars had been marked by the barbarians of that day, we might have admitted that they must have been inspired. if they had said any- thing in advance of their day; if they had plucked from the night of ignorance one star of truth, we might have admitted the claim of inspiration; but the scriptures did not rise above their source, did not rise above their ignorant authors--above the people who believed in wars of extermination, in polygamy, in concubinage, in slavery, and who taught these things in their "sacred scriptures." the greatest men in the scientific world have not been, and are not, believers in the inspiration of the scriptures. there has been no greater astronomer than laplace. there is no greater name than humboldt. there is no living scientist who stands higher than charles darwin. all the professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled into one, would not equal charles darwin. all the cow- ardly apologists for the cosmogony of moses do not amount to as much in the world of thought as ernst haeckel. there is no orthodox scientist the equal of tyndall or huxley. there is not one in this country the equal of john fiske. i insist, that the foremost men to-day in the scientific world reject the dogma of inspiration. they reject the science of the bible, and hold in utter contempt the astronomy of joshua, and the geology of moses. mr. talmage tells us "that science is a boy and "revelation is a man." of course, like the most he says, it is substantially the other way. revelation, so-called, was the boy. religion was the lullaby of the cradle, the ghost-story told by the old woman, superstition. science is the man. science asks for demonstration. science impels us to investigation, and to verify everything for ourselves. most pro- fessors of american colleges, if they were not afraid of losing their places, if they did not know that christians were bad enough now to take the bread from their mouths, would tell their students that the bible is not a scientific book. i admit that i have said: . that the bible is cruel. . that in many passages it is impure. . that it is contradictory. . that it is unscientific. let me now prove these propositions one by one. first. the bible is cruel. i have opened it at random, and the very first chapter that has struck my eye is the sixth of first samuel. in the nineteenth verse of that chapter, i find the following: "and he smote the men of bethshemesh, because "they had looked into the ark of the lord; even he "smote of the people fifty thousand and three-score "and ten men." all this slaughter was because some people had looked into a box that was carried upon a cart. was that cruel? i find, also, in the twenty-fourth chapter of second samuel, that david was moved by god to number israel and judah. god put it into his heart to take a census of his people, and thereupon david said to joab, the captain of his host: "go now through all the tribes of israel, from "dan even to beersheba, and number ye the people, "that i may know the number of the people." at the end of nine months and twenty days, joab gave the number of the people to the king, and there were at that time, according to that census, "eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the "sword," in israel, and in judah, "five hundred "thousand men," making a total of thirteen hundred thousand men of war. the moment this census was taken, the wrath of the lord waxed hot against david, and thereupon he sent a seer, by the name of gad, to david, and asked him to choose whether he would have seven years of famine, or fly three months before his enemies, or have three days of pestilence. david concluded that as god was so merciful as to give him a choice, he would be more merciful than man, and he chose the pestilence. now, it must be remembered that the sin of taking the census had not been committed by the people, but by david himself, inspired by god, yet the people were to be punished for david's sin. so,, when david chose the pestilence, god immediately killed "seventy thousand men, from dan even to "beersheba." "and when the angel stretched out his hand upon "jerusalem to destroy it, the lord repented him of "the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the "people, it is enough; stay now thine hand." was this cruel? why did a god of infinite mercy destroy seventy thousand men? why did he fill his land with widows and orphans, because king david had taken the cen- sus? if he wanted to kill anybody, why did he not kill david? i will tell you why. because at that time, the people were considered as the property of the king. he killed the people precisely as he killed the cattle. and yet, i am told that the bible is not a cruel book. in the twenty-first chapter of second samuel, i find that there were three years of famine in the days of david, and that david inquired of the lord the reason of the famine; and the lord told him that it was because saul had slain the gibeonites. why did not god punish saul instead of the people? and david asked the gibeonites how he should make atonement, and the gibeonites replied that they wanted no silver nor gold, but they asked that seven of the sons of saul might be delivered unto them, so that they could hang them before the lord, in gibeah. and david agreed to the proposition, and thereupon he delivered to the gibeonites the two sons of rizpah, saul's concubine, and the five sons of michal, the daughter of saul, and the gibeonites hanged all seven of them together. and rizpah, more tender than them all, with a woman's heart of love kept lonely vigil by the dead, "from the beginning of har- "vest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, "and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon "them by day, nor the beast of the field by night." i want to know if the following, from the fifteenth chapter of first samuel, is inspired: "thus saith the lord of hosts; i remember that "which amalek did to israel, how he laid wait for "him in the way when he came up from egypt. now "go and smite amalek, and utterly destroy all that "they have, and spare them not, but slay both man "and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, "camel and ass." we must remember that those he was commanded to slay had done nothing to israel. it was something done by their forefathers, hundreds of years before; and yet they are commanded to slay the women and children and even the animals, and to spare none. it seems that saul only partially carried into exe- cution this merciful command of jehovah. he spared the life of the king. he "utterly destroyed all the "people with the edge of the sword," but he kept alive the best of the sheep and oxen and of the fat- lings and lambs. then god spake unto samuel and told him that he was very sorry he had made saul king, because he had not killed all the animals, and because he had spared agag; and samuel asked saul: "what meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine "ears, and the lowing of the oxen which i hear?" are stories like this calculated to make soldiers merciful? so i read in the sixth chapter of joshua, the fate of the city of jericho: "and they utterly destroyed "all that was in the city, both man and woman, "young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the "edge of the sword. and they burnt the city with "fire, and all that was therein." but we are told that one family was saved by joshua, out of the general destruction: "and joshua saved rahab, the harlot, "alive, and her father's household, and all that she "had." was this fearful destruction an act of mercy? it seems that they saved the money of their victims: "the silver and gold and the vessels of brass "and of iron they put into the treasury of the house "of the lord." after all this pillage and carnage, it appears that there was a suspicion in joshua's mind that somebody was keeping back a part of the treasure. search was made, and a man by the name of achan admitted that he had sinned against the lord, that he had seen a babylonish garment among the spoils, and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels' weight, and that he took them and hid l them in his tent. for this atrocious crime it seems that the lord denied any victories to the jews until they found out the wicked criminal. when they dis- covered poor achan, "they took him and his sons "and his daughters, and his oxen and his asses and "his sheep, and all that he had, and brought them unto "the valley of achor; and all israel stoned him with "stones and burned them with fire after they had "stoned them with stones." after achan and his sons and his daughters and his herds had been stoned and burned to death, we are told that "the lord turned from the fierceness of "his anger." and yet it is insisted that this god "is merciful, "and that his loving-kindness is over all his works." in the eighth chapter of this same book, the infi- nite god, "creator of heaven and earth and all that is "therein," told his general, joshua, to lay an ambush for a city--to "lie in wait against the city, even be- "hind the city; go not very far from the city, but be "ye all ready." he told him to make an attack and then to run, as though he had been beaten, in order that the inhabitants of the city might follow, and thereupon his reserves that he had ambushed might rush into the city and set it on fire. god almighty planned the battle. god himself laid the snare. the whole programme was carried out. joshua made believe that he was beaten, and fled, and then the soldiers in ambush rose out of their places, enter- ed the city, and set it on fire. then came the slaughter. they "utterly destroyed all the inhabit- "ants of ai," men and maidens, women and babes, sparing only their king till evening, when they hanged him on a tree, then "took his carcase down "from the tree and cast it at the entering of the "gate, and raised thereon a great heap of stones "which remaineth unto this day." after having done all this, "joshua built an altar unto the lord "god of israel, and offered burnt offerings unto the "lord." i ask again, was this cruel? again i ask, was the treatment of the gibeonites cruel when they sought to make peace but were denied, and cursed instead; and although permitted to live, were yet made slaves? read the mandate consigning them to bondage: "now therefore ye "are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed "from being bondmen and hewers of wood and "drawers of water for the house of my god." is it possible, as recorded in the tenth chapter of joshua, that the lord took part in these battles, and cast down great hail-stones from the battlements of heaven upon the enemies of the israelites, so that "they were more who died with hail-stones, than "they whom the children of israel slew with the "sword"? is it possible that a being of infinite power would exercise it in that way instead of in the interest of kindness and peace? i find, also, in this same chapter, that joshua took makkedah and smote it with the edge of the sword, that he utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein, that he allowed none to remain. i find that he fought against libnah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein, and allowed none to remain, and did unto the king as he did unto the king of jericho. i find that he also encamped against lachish, and that god gave him that city, and that he "smote it "with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that "were therein," sparing neither old nor young, help- less women nor prattling babes. he also vanquished horam, king of gezer, "and "smote him and his people until he left him none "remaining." he encamped against the city of eglon, and killed every soul that was in it, at the edge of the sword, just as he had done to lachish and all the others. he fought against hebron, "and took it and "smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king "thereof,"--and it appears that several cities, their number not named, were included in this slaughter, for hebron "and all the cities thereof and all the "souls that were therein," were utterly destroyed. he then waged war against debir and took it, and more unnumbered cities with it, and all the souls that were therein shared the same horrible fate--he did not leave a soul alive. and this chapter of horrors concludes with this song of victory: "so joshua smote all the country of the hills, and "of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, "and all their kings: he left none remaining, but "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the lord "god of israel commanded. and joshua smote "them from kadeshbarnea even unto gaza, and all the "country of goshen, even unto gibeon. and all these "kings and their land did joshua take at one time, "because the lord god of israel fought for israel." was god, at that time, merciful? i find, also, in the twenty-first chapter that many icings met, with their armies, for the purpose of overwhelming israel, and the lord said unto joshua: "be not afraid because of them, for to-morrow about "this time i will deliver them all slain before israel. "i will hough their horses and burn their chariots "with fire." were animals so treated by the com- mand of a merciful god? joshua captured razor, and smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, there was not one left to breathe; and he took all the cities of all the kings that took up arms against him, and utterly destroyed all the inhabitants thereof. he took the cattle and spoils as prey unto himself, and smote every man with the edge of the sword; and not only so, but left not a human being to breathe. i find the following directions given to the israel- ites who were waging a war of conquest. they are in the twentieth chapter of deuteronomy, from the tenth to the eighteenth verses: "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight "against it, then proclaim peace unto it. and it "shall be, if it make thee an answer of peace, and "open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people "that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, "and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no "peace with thee, but will war against thee, then "thou shalt besiege it. and when the lord thy "god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt "smite every male thereof with the edge of the "sword; but the women, and the little ones, and "the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil "thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou "shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the "lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou "do unto all the cities which are very far off from "thee, which are not of the cities of these nations." it will be seen from this that people could take their choice between death and slavery, provided these people lived a good ways from the israelites. now, let us see how they were to treat the inhabit- ants of the cities near to them: "but of the cities of these people which the lord "thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou "shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. but thou "shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the hittites, "and the amorites, the canaanites, and the perizzites, "the hivites and the jebusites, as the lord thy god "hath commanded thee." it never occurred to this merciful god to send missionaries to these people. he built them no schoolhouses, taught them no alphabet, gave them no book; they were not supplied even with a copy of the ten commandments. he did not say "reform," but "kill;" not "educate," but "destroy." he gave them no bible, built them no church, sent them no preachers. he knew when he made them that he would have to have them murdered. when he created them he knew that they were not fit to live; and yet, this is the infinite god who is infinitely merciful and loves his children better than an earthly mother loves her babe. in order to find just how merciful god is, read the twenty-eighth chapter of deuteronomy, and see what he promises to do with people who do not keep all of his commandments and all of his statutes. he curses them in their basket and store, in the fruit of their body, in the fruit of their land, in the increase of their cattle and sheep. he curses them in the city and in the field, in their coming in and their going out. he curses them with pestilence, with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with extreme burning, with sword, with blasting, with mildew. he tells them that the heavens shall be as brass over their heads and the earth as iron under their feet; that the rain shall be powder and dust and shall come down on them and destroy them; that they shall flee seven ways before their enemies; that their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth; that he will smite them with the botch of egypt, and with the scab, and with the itch, and with madness and blindness and astonishment; that he will make them grope at noonday; that they shall be oppressed and spoiled evermore; that one shall be- troth a wife and another shall have her; that they shall build a house and not dwell in it; plant a vine- yard and others shall eat the grapes; that their sons and daughters shall be given to their enemies; that he will make them mad for the sight of their eyes; that he will smite them in the knees and in the legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, and from the sole of the foot to the top of the head; that they shall be a by-word among all nations; that they shall sow much seed and gather but little; that the locusts shall consume their crops; that they shall plant vineyards and drink no wine,--that they shall gather grapes, but worms shall eat them; that they shall raise olives but have no oil; beget sons and daughters, but they shall go into captivity; that all the trees and fruit of the land shall be devoured by locusts, and that all these curses shall pursue them and overtake them, until they be destroyed; that they shall be slaves to their enemies, and be constantly in hunger and thirst and nakedness, and in want of all things. and as though this were not enough, the lord tells them that he will bring a nation against them swift as eagles, a nation fierce and savage, that will show no mercy and no favor to old or young, and leave them neither corn, nor wine, nor oil, nor flocks, nor herds; and this nation shall besiege them in their cities until they are reduced to the necessity of eating the flesh of their own sons and daughters; so that the men would eat their wives and their children, and women eat their husbands and their own sons and daughters, and their own babes. all these curses god pronounced upon them if they did not observe to do all the words of the law that were written in his book. this same merciful god threatened that he would bring upon them all the diseases of egypt--every sickness and every plague; that he would scatter them from one end of the earth to the other; that they should find no rest; that their lives should hang in perpetual doubt; that in the morning they would say: would god it were evening! and in the even- ing, would god it were morning! and that he would finally take them back to egypt where they should be again sold for bondmen and bondwomen. this curse, the foundation of the _anathema maranatha_; this curse, used by the pope of rome to prevent the spread of thought; this curse used even by the protestant church; this curse born of barba- rism and of infinite cruelty, is now said to have issued from the lips of an infinitely merciful god. one would suppose that jehovah had gone insane; that he had divided his kingdom like lear, and from the darkness of insanity had launched his curses upon a world. in order that there may be no doubt as to the mercy of jehovah, read the thirteenth chapter of deuteronomy: "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy "son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or "thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee "secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, "which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; " * * * thou shalt not consent unto him, nor "hearken unto him; neither shall thine eyes pity him, "neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal "him; but thou shalt surely kill him: thine hand "shall be first upon him to put him to death, and "afterwards the hand of all the people; and thou "shalt stone him with stones that he die, because he "hath sought to entice thee away from the lord thy "god." this, according to mr. talmage, is a commandment of the infinite god. according to him, god ordered a man to murder his own son, his own wife, his own brother, his own daughter, if they dared even to sug- gest the worship of some other god than jehovah. for my part, it is impossible not to despise such a god--a god not willing that one should worship what he must. no one can control his admiration, and if a savage at sunrise falls upon his knees and offers homage to the great light of the east, he can- not help it. if he worships the moon, he cannot help it. if he worships fire, it is because he cannot control his own spirit. a picture is beautiful to me in spite of myself. a statue compels the applause of my brain. the worship of the sun was an exceedingly natural religion, and why should a man or woman be destroyed for kneeling at the fireside of the world? no wonder that this same god, in the very next chapter of deuteronomy to that quoted, says to his chosen people: "ye shall not eat of anything that "dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger "that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou "mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art a holy "people unto the lord thy god." what a mingling of heartlessness and thrift--the religion of sword and trade! in the seventh chapter of deuteronomy, jehovah gives his own character. he tells the israelites that there are seven nations greater and mightier than themselves, but that he will deliver them to his chosen people, and that they shall smite them and utterly destroy them; and having some fear that a drop of pity might remain in the jewish heart, he says: "thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor "show mercy unto them. * * * know therefore "that the lord thy god, he is god, the faithful god, "which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that "love him and keep his commandments to a thousand "generations, and repayeth them that hate him to "their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to "him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face." this is the description which the merciful, long-suffer- ing jehovah gives of himself. so, he promises great prosperity to the jews if they will only obey his commandments, and says: "and the lord will take away from thee all sickness, "and will put none of the evil diseases of egypt "upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that "hate thee. and thou shalt consume all the people "which the lord thy god shall deliver thee; thine "eye shall have no pity upon them." under the immediate government of jehovah, mercy was a crime. according to the law of god, pity was weakness, tenderness was treason, kindness was blasphemy, while hatred and massacre were virtues. in the second chapter of deuteronomy we find another account tending to prove that jehovah is a merciful god. we find that sihon, king of heshbon, would not let the hebrews pass by him, and the reason given is, that "the lord god hardened his "spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might "deliver him into the hand" of the hebrews. sihon, his heart having been hardened by god, came out against the chosen people, and god delivered him to them, and "they smote him, and his sons, and all his "people, and took all his cities, and utterly destroyed "the men and the women, and the little ones of "every city: they left none to remain." and in this same chapter this same god promises that the dread and fear of his chosen people should be "upon all the "nations that are under the whole heaven," and that "they should "tremble and be in anguish because of" the hebrews. read the thirty-first chapter of numbers, and see how the midianites were slain. you will find that "the children of israel took all the women of midian "captives, and their little ones," that they took "all "their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods," that they slew all the males, and burnt all their cities and castles with fire, that they brought the captives and the prey and the spoil unto moses and eleazar the priest; that moses was wroth with the officers of his host because they had saved all the women alive, and thereupon this order was given: "kill "every male among the little ones, and kill every "woman, * * * but all the women children "keep alive for yourselves." after this, god himself spake unto moses, and said: "take the sum of the prey that was taken, "both of man and of beast, thou and eleazar the "priest * * * and divide the prey into two "parts, between those who went to war, and between "all the congregation, and levy a tribute unto the "lord, one soul of five hundred of the persons, "and the cattle; take it of their half and give it to "the priest for an offering * * * and of the "children of israel's half, take one portion of fifty of "the persons and the animals and give them unto "the levites. * * * and moses and the priest "did as the lord had commanded." it seems that they had taken six hundred and seventy-five thou- sand sheep, seventy-two thousand beeves, sixty-one thousand asses, and thirty-two thousand women children and maidens. and it seems, by the fortieth verse, _that the lord's tribute of the maidens was thirty- two_,--the rest were given to the soldiers and to the congregation of the lord. was anything more infamous ever recorded in the annals of barbarism? and yet we are told that the bible is an inspired book, that it is not a cruel book, and that jehovah is a being of infinite mercy. in the twenty-fifth chapter of numbers we find that the israelites had joined themselves unto baal- peor, and thereupon the anger of the lord was kindled against them, as usual. no being ever lost his temper more frequently than this jehovah. upon this particular occasion, "the lord said unto moses, "take all the heads of the people, and hang them "up before the lord against the sun, that the fierce "anger of the lord may be turned away from israel." and thereupon "moses said unto the judges of israel, "slay ye every one his men that were joined unto "baal-peor." just as soon as these people were killed, and their heads hung up before the lord against the sun, and a horrible double murder of a too merciful israelite and a midianitish woman, had been committed by phinehas, the son of eleazar, "the plague was stayed "from the children of israel." twenty-four thousand had died. thereupon, "the lord spake unto moses "and said"--and it is a very merciful commandment --"vex the midianites and smite them." in the twenty-first chapter of numbers is more evi- dence that god is merciful and compassionate. the children of israel had become discouraged. they had wandered so long in the desert that they finally cried out: "wherefore have ye brought us "up out of egypt to die in the wilderness? there "is no bread, there is no water, and our soul loatheth "this light bread." of course they were hungry and thirsty. who would not complain under similar cir- cumstances? and yet, on account of this complaint, the god of infinite tenderness and compassion sent serpents among them, and these serpents bit them-- bit the cheeks of children, the breasts of maidens, and the withered faces of age. why would a god do such an infamous thing? why did he not, as the leader of this people, his chosen children, feed them better? certainly an infinite god had the power to satisfy their hunger and to quench their thirst. he who overwhelmed a world with water, certainly could have made a few brooks, cool and babbling, to follow his chosen people through all their jour- neying. he could have supplied them with miracu- lous food. how fortunate for the jews that jehovah was not revengeful, that he was so slow to anger, so patient, so easily pleased. what would they have done had he been exacting, easily incensed, revengeful, cruel, or blood-thirsty? in the sixteenth chapter of numbers, an account is given of a rebellion. it seems that korah, dathan and abiram got tired of moses and aaron. they thought the priests were taking a little too much upon themselves. so moses told them to have two hundred and fifty of their men bring their censers and put incense in them before the lord, and stand in the door of the tabernacle of the congregation with moses and aaron. that being done, the lord appeared, and told moses and aaron to separate themselves from the people, that he might consume them all in a moment. moses and aaron, having a little compassion, begged god not to kill everybody. the people were then divided, and dathan and abiram came out and stood in the door of their tents with their wives and their sons and their little children. and moses said: "hereby ye shall know that the lord hath sent "me to do all these works; for i have not done them "of my mine own mind. if these men die the "common death of all men, or if they be visited "after the common visitation of all men, then the "lord hath not sent me. but if the lord make a "new thing, and the earth open her mouth and "swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, "and they go down quick into the pit, then ye shall "understand that these men have provoked the "lord." the moment he ceased speaking, "the "ground clave asunder that was under them; and "the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, "and their houses, and all the men that appertained "unto korah, and all their goods. they, and all that "appertained to them went down alive into the pit, "and the earth closed upon them, and they perished "from among the congregation." this, according to mr. talmage, was the act of an exceedingly merciful god, prompted by infinite kind- ness, and moved by eternal pity. what would he have done had he acted from motives of revenge? what would he jiave done had he been remorse- lessly cruel and wicked? in addition to those swallowed by the earth, the two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense were consumed by "a fire that came out from the "lord." and not only this, but the same merciful jehovah wished to consume all the people, and he would have consumed them all, only that moses pre- vailed upon aaron to take a censer and put fire therein from off the altar of incense and go quickly to the congregation and make an atonement for them. he was not quick enough. the plague had already begun; and before he could possibly get the censers and incense among the people, fourteen thousand and seven hundred had died of the plague. how many more might have died, if jehovah had not been so slow to anger and so merciful and tender to his children, we have no means of knowing. in the thirteenth chapter of the same book of numbers, we find that some spies were sent over into the promised land, and that they brought back grapes and figs and pomegranates, and reported that the whole land was flowing with milk and honey, but that the people were strong, that the cities were walled, and that the nations in the promised land were mightier than the hebrews. they reported that all the people they met were men of a great stature, that they had seen "the giants, the sons of anak "which come of giants," compared with whom the israelites were "in their own sight as grasshoppers, "and so were we in their sight." entirely discour- aged by these reports, "all the congregation lifted up "their voice and cried, and the people wept that "night * * * and murmured against moses and "against aaron, and said unto them: would god "that we had died in the land of egypt! or would "god we had died in this wilderness!" some of them thought that it would be better to go back,-- that they might as well be slaves in egypt as to be food for giants in the promised land. they did not want their bones crunched between the teeth of the sons of anak. jehovah got angry again, and said to moses: "how long will these people provoke me? * * * "i will smite them with pestilence, and disinherit "them." but moses said: lord, if you do this, the egyptians will hear of it, and they will say that you were not able to bring your people into the promised land. then he proceeded to flatter him by telling him how merciful and long-suffering he had been. finally, jehovah concluded to pardon the people this time, but his pardon depended upon the violation of his promise, for he said: "they shall "not see the land which i sware unto their fathers, "neither shall any of them that provoked me see it; "but my servant caleb, * * * him will i bring "into the land." and jehovah said to the people: "your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all "that were numbered of you according to your "whole number, from twenty years old and upward, "which have murmured against me, ye shall not "come into the land concerning which i sware to "make you dwell therein, save caleb the son of "jephunneh, and joshua the son of nun. but your "little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them "will i bring in, and they shall know the land "which ye have despised. but as for you, your "carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. and your "children shall wander in the wilderness forty "years * * * until your carcasses be wasted in "the wilderness." and all this because the people were afraid of giants, compared with whom they were but as grass- hoppers. so we find that at one time the people became exceedingly hungry. they had no flesh to eat. there were six hundred thousand men of war, and they had nothing to feed on but manna. they naturally murmured and complained, and thereupon a wind from the lord went forth and brought quails from the sea, (quails are generally found in the sea,) "and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's "journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey "on the other side, round about the camp, and as it "were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. "and the people stood up all that day, and all that "night, and all the next day, and they gathered the "quails. * * * and while the flesh was yet be- "tween their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of "the lord was kindled against the people, and the "lord smote the people with a very great plague." yet he is slow to anger, long-suffering, merciful and just. in the thirty-second chapter of exodus, is the ac- count of the golden calf. it must be borne in mind that the worship of this calf by the people was before the ten commandments had been given to them. christians now insist that these commandments must have been inspired, because no human being could have constructed them,--could have conceived of them. it seems, according to this account, that moses had been up in the mount with god, getting the ten com- mandments, and that while he was there the people had made the golden calf. when he came down and saw them, and found what they had done, having in his hands the two tables, the work of god, he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. he then took the calf which they had made, ground it to powder, strewed it in the water, and made the children of israel drink of it. and in the twenty-seventh verse we are told what the lord did: "thus saith the lord god of israel: put every man "his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate "to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man "his brother, and every man his companion, and "every man his neighbor. and the children of levi "did according to the word of moses; and there fell "of the people that day about three thousand men." the reason for this slaughter is thus given: "for "moses had said: consecrate yourselves to-day to "the lord, even every man upon his son, and upon " his brother, that he may bestow upon you a blessing "this day." now, it must be remembered that there had not been as yet a promulgation of the commandment u thou shalt have no other gods before me." this was a punishment for the infraction of a law before the law was known--before the commandment had been given. was it cruel, or unjust? does the following sound as though spoken by a god of mercy: "i will make mine arrows drunk "with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh"? and yet this is but a small part of the vengeance and destruction which god threatens to his enemies, as recorded in the thirty-second chapter of the book of deuteronomy. in the sixty-eighth psalm is found this merciful passage: "that thy foot may be dipped in the blood "of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the "same. so we find in the eleventh chapter of joshua the reason why the canaanites and other nations made war upon the jews. it is as follows: "for it was of "the lord to harden their hearts that they should "come against israel in battle, that he might destroy "them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but "that he might destroy them." read the thirtieth chapter of exodus and you will find that god gave to moses a recipe for making the oil of holy anointment, and in the thirty-second verse we find that no one was to make any oil like it and in the next verse it is declared that whoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be cut off from the lord's people. in the same chapter, a recipe is given for per- fumery, and it is declared that whoever shall make any like it, or that smells like it, shall suffer death. in the next chapter, it is decreed that if any one fails to keep the sabbath "he shall be surely put to death." there are in the pentateuch hundreds and hun- dreds of passages showing the cruelty of jehovah. what could have been more cruel than the flood? what more heartless than to overwhelm a world? what more merciless than to cover a shoreless sea with the corpses of men, women and children? the pentateuch is filled with anathemas, with curses, with words of vengeance, of jealousy, of hatred, and brutality. by reason of these passages, millions of people have plucked from their hearts the flowers of pity and justified the murder of women and the assassination of babes. in the second chapter of second kings we find that the prophet elisha was on his way to a place called bethel, and as he was going, there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him and said: "go up thou bald head; go up thou bald "head! and he turned back and looked on them "and cursed them in the name of the lord. and "there came forth two she bears out of the wood and "tare forty and two children of them." of course he obtained his miraculous power from jehovah; and there must have been some communi- cation between jehovah and the bears. why did the bears come? how did they happen to be there? here is a prophet of god cursing children in the name of the lord, and thereupon these children are torn in fragments by wild beasts. this is the mercy of jehovah; and yet i am told that the bible has nothing cruel in it; that it preaches only mercy, justice, charity, peace; that all hearts are softened by reading it; that the savage nature of man is melted into tenderness and pity by it, and that only the totally depraved can find evil in it. and so i might go on, page after page, book after book, in the old testament, and describe the cruelties committed in accordance with the commands of jehovah. but all the cruelties in the old testament are ab- solute mercies compared with the hell of the new testament. in the old testament god stops with the grave. he seems to have been satisfied when he saw his enemies dead, when he saw their flesh rotting in the open air, or in the beaks of birds, or in the teeth of wild beasts. but in the new testament, ven- geance does not stop with the grave. it begins there, and stops never. the enemies of jehovah are to be pursued through all the ages of eternity. there is to be no forgiveness--no cessation, no mercy, nothing but everlasting pain. and yet we are told that the author of hell is a being of infinite mercy. _second_; all intelligent christians will admit that there are many passages in the bible that, if found in the koran, they would regard as impure and immoral. it is not necessary for me to specify the passages, nor to call the attention of the public to such things. i am willing to trust the judgment of every honest reader, and the memory of every biblical student. the old testament upholds polygamy. that is infinitely impure. it sanctions concubinage. that is impure; nothing could or can be worse. hun- dreds of things are publicly told that should have re- mained unsaid. no one is made better by reading the history of tamar, or the biography of lot, or the memoirs of noah, of dinah, of sarah and abraham, or of jacob and leah and rachel and others that i do not care to mention. no one is improved in his morals by reading these things. all i mean to say is, that the bible is like other books produced by other nations in the same stage of civilization. what one age considers pure, the next considers impure. what one age may consider just, the next may look upon as infamous. civiliza- tion is a growth. it is continually dying, and continu- ally being born. old branches rot and fall, new buds appear. it is a perpetual twilight, and a perpetual dawn--the death of the old, and the birth of the new. i do not say, throw away the bible because there are some foolish passages in it, but i say, throw away the foolish passages. don't throw away wisdom because it is found in company with folly; but do not say that folly is wisdom, because it is found in its company. all that is true in the bible is true whether it is inspired or not. all that is true did not need to be inspired. only that which is not true needs the assistance of miracles and wonders. i read the bible as i read other books. what i believe to be good, i admit is good; what i think is bad, i say is bad; what i believe to be true, i say is true, and what i believe to be false, i denounce as false. _third_. let us see whether there are any contra- dictions in the bible. a little book has been published, called "self "contradictions of the bible," by j. p. mendum, of the boston investigator. i find many of the apparent contradictions of the bible noted in this book. we all know that the pentateuch is filled with the commandments of god upon the subject of sacrificing animals. we know that god declared, again and again, that the smell of burning flesh was a sweet savor to him. chapter after chapter is filled with direc- tions how to kill the beasts that were set apart for sacrifices; what to do with their blood, their flesh and their fat. and yet, in the seventh chapter of jeremiah, all this is expressly denied, in the following language: "for i spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded "them in the day that i brought them out of the land "of egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices." and in the sixth chapter of jeremiah, the same jehovah says; "your burnt offerings are not ac- "ceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me." in the psalms, jehovah derides the idea of sacrifices, and says: "will i eat of the flesh of "bulls, or drink the blood of goats? offer unto god "thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the most "high." so i find in isaiah the following: "bring no more "vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; "the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of as- "semblies, i cannot away with; it is iniquity, even "the solemn meeting. your new moons and your "appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble "to me; i am weary to bear them." "to what "purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? "saith the lord. i am full of the burnt offerings of "rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and i delight not "in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. "when ye come to appear before me, who hath re- "quired this at your hand?" so i find in james: "let no man say when he is "tempted: i am tempted of god; for god cannot be "tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man;" and yet in the twenty-second chapter of genesis i find this: "and it came to pass after these things, "that god did tempt abraham." in second samuel we see that he tempted david. he also tempted job, and jeremiah says: "o lord, "thou hast deceived me, and i was deceived." to such an extent was jeremiah deceived, that in the fourteenth chapter and eighteenth verse we find him crying out to the lord: "wilt thou be altogether "unto me as a liar?" so in second thessalonians: "for these things "god shall send them strong delusions, that they "should believe a lie." so in first kings, twenty-second chapter: "behold, "the lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all "these thy prophets, and the lord hath spoken evil "concerning thee." so in ezekiel: "and if the prophet be deceived "when he hath spoken a thing, i, the lord, have de- "ceived that prophet." so i find: "thou shalt not bear false witness;" and in the book of revelation: "all liars shall have "their part in the lake which burneth with fire and "brimstone;" yet in first kings, twenty-second chapter, i find the following: "and the lord said: "who shall persuade ahab, that he may go up and "fall at ramoth-gilead? and one said on this "manner, and another said on that manner. and "there came forth a spirit and stood before the lord, "and said: i will persuade him. and the lord said "unto him: wherewith? and he said: i will go "forth, and i will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all "his prophets. and he said: thou shalt persuade "him, and prevail also. go forth, and do so." in the old testament we find contradictory laws about the same thing, and contradictory accounts of the same occurrences. in the twentieth chapter of exodus we find the first account of the giving of the ten commandments. in the thirty-fourth chapter another account of the same transaction is given. these two accounts could not have been written by the same person. read them, and you will be forced to admit that both of them cannot by any possibility be true. they differ in so many particulars, and the commandments themselves are so different, that it is impossible that both can be true. so there are two histories of the creation. if you will read the first and second chapters of genesis, you will find two accounts inconsistent with each other, both of which cannot be true. the first account ends with the third verse of the second chapter of genesis. by the first account, man and woman were made at the same time, and made last of all. in the second account, not to be too critical, all the beasts of the field were made before eve was, and adam was made before the beasts of the field; whereas in the first account, god made all the animals before he made adam. in the first account there is nothing about the rib or the bone or the side,--that is only found in the second account. in the first account, there is nothing about the garden of eden, nothing about the four rivers, nothing about the mist that went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground; nothing said about making man from dust; nothing about god breathing into his nostrils the breath of life; yet according to the second ac- count, the garden of eden was planted, and all the animals were made before eve was formed. it is impossible to harmonize the two accounts. so, in the first account, only the word god is used--"god said so and so,--god did so and so." in the second account he is called lord god,--"the "lord god formed man,"--"the lord god caused "it to rain,"--"the lord god planted a garden." it is now admitted that the book of genesis is made up of two stories, and it is very easy to take them apart and show exactly how they were put together. so there are two stories of the flood, differing almost entirely from each other--that is to say, so contradictory that both cannot be true. there are two accounts of the manner in which saul was made king, and the accounts are inconsistent with each other. scholars now everywhere admit that the copyists made many changes, pieced out fragments, and made additions, interpolations, and meaningless repetitions. it is now generally conceded that the speeches of elihu, in job, were interpolated, and most of the prophecies were made by persons whose names even are not known. the manuscripts of the old testament were not alike. the greek version differed from the hebrew, and there was no generally received text of the old testament until after the beginning of the christian era. marks and points to denote vowels were in- vented probably in the seventh century after christ; and whether these marks and points were put in the proper places, is still an open question. the alex- andrian version, or what is known as the septuagint, translated by seventy-two learned jews assisted by miraculous power, about two hundred years before christ, could not, it is now said, have been translated from the hebrew text that we now have. this can only be accounted for by supposing that we have a different hebrew text. the early christians adopted the septuagint and were satisfied for a time; but so many errors were found, and so many were scanning every word in search of something to assist their peculiar views, that new versions were produced, and the new versions all differed somewhat from the septuagint as well as from each other. these ver- sions were mostly in greek. the first latin bible was produced in africa, and no one has ever found out which latin manuscript was original. many were produced, and all differed from each other. these latin versions were compared with each other and with the hebrew, and a new latin version was made in the fifth century, and the old ones held their own for about four hundred years, and no one knows which version was right. besides, there were ethi- opie, egyptian, armenian and several other ver- sions, all differing from each other as well as from all others. it was not until the fourteenth century that the bible was translated into german, and not until the fifteenth that bibles were printed in the principal languages of europe; and most of these bibles differed from each other, and gave rise to endless disputes and to almost numberless crimes. no man in the world is learned enough, nor has he time enough, even if he could live a thousand years, to find what books belonged to and consti- tuted the old testament. he could not ascertain the authors of the books, nor when they were written, nor what they mean. until a man has sufficient time to do all this, no one can tell whether he be- lieves the bible or not. it is sufficient, however, to say that the old testament is filled with contradic- tions as to the number of men slain in battle, as to the number of years certain kings reigned, as to the number of a woman's children, as to dates of events, and as to locations of towns and cities. besides all this, many of its laws are contradictory, often commanding and prohibiting the same thing. the new testament also is filled with contradic- tions. the gospels do not even agree upon the terms of salvation. they do not even agree as to the gospel of christ, as to the mission of christ. they do not tell the same story regarding the be- trayal, the crucifixion, the resurrection or the ascen- sion of christ. john is the only one that ever heard of being "born again." the evangelists do not give the same account of the same miracles, and the miracles are not given in the same order. they do not agree even in the genealogy of christ. _fourth_. is the bible scientific? in my judgment it is not it is unscientific to say that this world was "cre- "ated that the universe was produced by an infinite being, who had existed an eternity prior to such "creation." my mind is such that i cannot possibly conceive of a "creation." neither can i conceive of an infinite being who dwelt in infinite space an infi- nite length of time. i do not think it is scientific to say that the uni- verse was made in six days, or that this world is only about six thousand years old, or that man has only been upon the earth for about six thousand years. if the bible is true, adam was the first man. the age of adam is given, the age of his children, and the time, according to the bible, was kept and known from adam, so that if the bible is true, man has only been in this world about six thousand years. in my judgment, and in the judgment of every scientific man whose judgment is worth having or quoting, man inhabited this earth for thousands of ages prior to the creation of adam. on one point the bible is at least certain, and that is, as to the life of adam. the genealogy is given, the pedigree is there, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that, according to the bible, man has only been upon this earth about six thousand years. there is no chance there to say "long periods of time," or "geological ages." there we have the years. and as to the time of the creation of man, the bible does not tell the truth. what is generally called "the fall of man" is unscientific. god could not have made a moral character for adam. even admitting the rest of the story to be true, adam certainly had to make char- acter for himself. the idea that there never would have been any disease or death in this world had it not been for the eating of the forbidden fruit is preposterously unsci- entific. admitting that adam was made only six thousand years ago, death was in the world millions of years before that time. the old rocks are filled with re- mains of what were once living and breathing animals. continents were built up with the petrified corpses of animals. we know, therefore, that death did not enter the world because of adam's sin. we know that life and death are but successive links in an eternal chain. so it is unscientific to say that thorns and brambles were produced by adam's sin. it is also unscientific to say that labor was pro- nounced as a curse upon man. labor is not a curse. labor is a blessing. idleness is a curse. it is unscientific to say that the sons of god, living, we suppose, in heaven, fell in love with the daughters of men, and that on account of this a flood was sent upon the earth that covered the highest mountains. the whole story of the flood is unscientific, and no scientific man worthy of the name, believes it. neither is the story of the tower of babel a scien- tific thing. does any scientific man believe that god confounded the language of men for fear they would succeed in building a tower high enough to reach to heaven? it is not scientific to say that angels were in the habit of walking about the earth, eating veal dressed with butter and milk, and making bargains about the destruction of cities. the story of lot's wife having been turned into a pillar of salt is extremely unscientific. it is unscientific to say that people at one time lived to be nearly a thousand years of age. the history of the world shows that human life is lengthening instead of shortening. it is unscientific to say that the infinite god wrestled with jacob and got the better of him, put- ting his thigh out of joint. it is unscientific to say that god, in the likeness of a flame of fire, inhabited a bush. it is unscientific to say that a stick could be changed into a living snake. living snakes can not be made out of sticks. there are not the necessary elements in a stick to make a snake. it is not scientific to say that god changed water into blood. all the elements of blood are not in water. it is unscientific to declare that dust was changed into lice. it is not scientific to say that god caused a thick darkness over the land of egypt, and yet allowed it to be light in the houses of the jews. it is not scientific to say that about seventy people could, in two hundred and fifteen years increase to three millions. it is not scientific to say that an infinitely good god would destroy innocent people to get revenge upon a king. it is not scientific to say that slavery was once right, that polygamy was once a virtue, and that ex- termination was mercy. it is not scientific to assert that a being of infinite power and goodness went into partnership with in- sects,--granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets. it is unscientific to insist that bread was really rained from heaven. it is not scientific to suppose that an infinite being spent forty days and nights furnishing moses with plans and specifications for a tabernacle, an ark, a mercy seat, cherubs of gold, a table, four rings, some dishes, some spoons, one candlestick, several bowls, a few knobs, seven lamps, some snuffers, a pair of tongs, some cur- tains, a roof for a tent of rams' skins dyed red, a few boards, an altar with horns, ash pans, basins and flesh hooks, shovels and pots and sockets of silver and ouches of gold and pins of brass--for all of which this god brought with him patterns from heaven. it is not scientific to say that when a man commits a sin, he can settle with god by killing a sheep. it is not scientific to say that a priest, by laying his hands on the head of a goat, can transfer the sins of a people to the animal. was it scientific to endeavor to ascertain whether a woman was virtuous or not, by compelling her to drink water mixed with dirt from the floor of the sanctuary? is it scientific to say that a dry stick budded, blossomed, and bore almonds; or that the ashes of a red heifer mixed with water can cleanse us of sin; or that a good being gave cities into the hands of the jews in consideration of their murdering all the in- habitants? is it scientific to say that an animal saw an angel, and conversed with a man? is it scientific to imagine that thrusting a spear through the body of a woman ever stayed a plague? is it scientific to say that a river cut itself in two and allowed the lower end to run off? is it scientific to assert that seven priests blew seven rams' horns loud enough to blow down the walls of a city? is it scientific to say that the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down for about a whole day, and that the moon also stayed? is it scientifically probable that an angel of the lord devoured unleavened cakes and broth with fire that came out of the end of a stick, as he sat under an oak tree; or that god made known his will by letting dew fall on wool without wetting the ground around it; or that an angel of god appeared to manoah in the absence of her husband, and that this angel afterwards went up in a flame of fire, and as the result of this visit a child was born whose strength was in his hair? is it scientific to say that the muscle of a man de- pended upon the length of his locks? is it unscientific to deny that water gushed from a hollow place in a dry bone? is it evidence of a thoroughly scientific mind to believe that one man turned over a house so large that three thousand people were on its roof? is it purely scientific to say that a man was once fed by the birds of the air, who brought him bread and meat every morning and evening, and that after- ward an angel turned cook and prepared two sup- pers in one night, for the same prophet, who ate enough to last him forty days and forty nights? is it scientific to say that a river divided because the water had been struck with a cloak; or that a man actually went to heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire; or that a being of infinite mercy would destroy children for laughing at a bald- headed prophet; or curse children and childrens children with leprosy for a father's fault; or that he made iron float in water; or that when one corpse touched another it came to life; or that the sun went backward in heaven so that the shadow on a sun- dial went back ten degrees, as a sign that a miserable barbarian king would get well? is it scientific to say that the earth not only stopped in its rotary motion, but absolutely turned the other way,--that its motion was reversed simply as a sign to a petty king? is it scientific to say that solomon made gold and silver at jerusalem as plentiful as stones, when we know that there were kings in his day who could have thrown away the value of the whole of palestine without missing the amount? is it scientific to say that solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in glory, when his country was barren, without roads, when his people were few, without commerce, without the arts, without the sciences, without education, without luxuries? according to the bible, as long as jehovah attended to the affairs of the jews, they had nothing but war, pestilence and famine; after jehovah abandoned them, and the christians ceased, in a measure, to persecute them, the jews became the most prosperous of people. since jehovah in his anger cast them away, they have produced painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen, composers, soldiers and philosophers. it is not scientific to believe that god ever pre- vented rain, that he ever caused famine, that he ever sent locusts to devour the wheat and corn, that he ever relied on pestilence for the government of man- kind; or that he ever killed children to get even with their parents. it is not scientific to believe that the king of egypt invaded palestine with seventy thousand horsemen and twelve hundred chariots of war. there was not, at that time, a road in palestine over which a chariot could be driven. it is not scientific to believe that in a battle between jeroboam and abijah, the army of abijah slew in one day five hundred thousand chosen men. it is not scientific to believe that zerah, the ethio- pian, invaded palestine with a million of men who were overthrown and destroyed; or that jehoshaphat had a standing army of nine hundred and sixty thousand men. it is unscientific to believe that jehovah advertised for a liar, as is related in second chronicles. it is not scientific to believe that fire refused to burn, or that water refused to wet. it is not scientific to believe in dreams, in visions, and in miracles. it is not scientific to believe that children have been born without fathers, that the dead have ever been raised to life, or that people have bodily as- cended to heaven taking their clothes with them. it is not scientific to believe in the supernatural. science dwells in the realm of fact, in the realm of demonstration. science depends upon human ex- perience, upon observation, upon reason. it is unscientific to say that an innocent man can be punished in place of a criminal, and for a criminal, and that the criminal, on account of such punishment, can be justified. it is unscientific to say that a finite sin deserves infinite punishment. it is unscientific to believe that devils can inhabit human beings, or that they can take possession of swine, or that the devil could bodily take a man, or the son of god, and carry him to the pinnacle of a temple. in short, the foolish, the unreasonable, the false, the miraculous and the supernatural are unscientific. _question_. mr. talmage gives his reason for accepting the new testament, and says: "you "can trace it right out. jerome and eusebius in the "first century, and origen in the second century, "gave lists of the writers of the new testament. "these lists correspond with our list of the writers "of the new testament, showing that precisely as "we have it, they had it in the third and fourth cen- "turies. where did they get it? from irenæus. "where did he get it? from polycarp. where did "polycarp get it? from saint john, who was a per- "sonal associate of jesus. the line is just as clear "as anything ever was clear." how do you under- stand this matter, and has mr. talmage stated the facts? _answer_. let us examine first the witnesses pro- duced by mr. talmage. we will also call attention to the great principle laid down by mr. talmage for the examination of evidence,--that where a witness is found false in one particular, his entire testimony must be thrown away. eusebius was born somewhere about two hundred and seventy years after christ. after many vicissi- tudes he became, it is said, the friend of constantine. he made an oration in which he extolled the virtues of this murderer, and had the honor of sitting at the right hand of the man who had shed the blood of his wife and son. in the great controversy with regard to the position that christ should occupy in the trinity, he sided with arius, "and lent himself to the perse- "cution of the orthodox with athanasius." he in- sisted that jesus christ was not the same as god, and that he was not of equal power and glory. will mr. talmage admit that his witness told the truth in this? "he would not even call the son co-eternal "with god." eusebius must have been an exceedingly truthful man. he declared that the tracks of pharaoh's chariots were in his day visible upon the shores of the red sea; that these tracks had been through all the years miraculously preserved from the action of wind and wave, as a supernatural testimony to the fact that god miraculously overwhelmed pharaoh and his hosts. eusebius also relates that when joseph and mary arrived in eygpt they took up their abode in hermopolis, a city of thebæus, in which was the superb temple of serapis. when joseph and mary entered the temple, not only the great idol, but all the lesser idols fell down before him. "it is believed by the learned dr. lardner, that "eusebius was the one guilty of the forgery in the "passage found in josephus concerning christ. un- "blushing falsehoods and literary forgeries of the "vilest character darkened the pages of his historical "writings." (waites history.) from the same authority i learn that eusebius invented an eclipse, and some earthquakes, to agree with the account of the crucifixion. it is also be- lieved that eusebius quoted from works that never existed, and that he pretended a work had been written by porphyry, entitled: "the philosophy of "oracles," and then quoted from it for the purpose of proving the truth of the christian religion. the fact is, eusebius was utterly destitute of truth. he believed, as many still believe, that he could please god by the fabrication of lies. irenæus lived somewhere about the end of the second century. "very little is known of his early "history, and the accounts given in various biogra- "phies are for the most part conjectural." the writings of irenæus are known to us principally through eusebius, and we know the value of his testimony. now, if we are to take the testimony of irenæus, why not take it? he says that the ministry of christ lasted for twenty years, and that christ was fifty years old at the time of his crucifixion. he also insisted that the "gospel of paul" was written by luke, "a "statement made to give sanction to the gospel of "luke." irenæus insisted that there were four gospels, that there must be, and "he speaks frequently of these "gospels, and argues that they should be four in "number, neither more nor less, because there are "four universal winds, and four quarters of the "world;" and he might have added: because donkeys have four legs. these facts can be found in "the history of the "christian religion to a. d. ," by charles b. waite,--a book that mr. talmage ought to read. according to mr. waite, irenæus, in the thirty- third chapter of his fifth book, _adversus hæreses_, cites from papias the following sayings of christ: "the days will come in which vines shall grow "which shall have ten thousand branches, and on "each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each twig "ten thousand shoots, and in each shoot ten thousand "clusters, and in every one of the clusters ten "thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed "will give five and twenty metrets of wine." also that "one thousand million pounds of clear, pure, fine "flour will be produced from one grain of wheat." irenæus adds that "these things were borne witness "to by papias the hearer of john and the companion "of polycarp." is it possible that the eternal welfare of a human being depends upon believing the testimony of poly- carp and irenæus? are people to be saved or lost on the reputation of eusebius? suppose a man is firmly convinced that polycarp knew nothing about saint john, and that saint john knew nothing about christ,--what then? suppose he is convinced that eusebius is utterly unworthy of credit,--what then? must a man believe statements that he has every reason to think are false? the question arises as to the witnesses named by mr. talmage, whether they were competent to decide as to the truth or falsehood of the gospels. we have the right to inquire into their mental traits for the purpose of giving only due weight to what they have said. mr. bronson c. keeler is the author of a book called: "a short history of the bible." i avail myself of a few of the facts he has there collected. i find in this book, that irenæus, clement and origen believed in the fable of the phoenix, and insisted that god produced the bird on purpose to prove the probability of the resurrection of the body. some of the early fathers believed that the hyena changed its sex every year. others of them gave as a reason why good people should eat only animals with a cloven foot, the fact that righteous people lived not only in this world, but had expectations in the next. they also believed that insane people were pos- sessed by devils; that angels ate manna; that some angels loved the daughters of men and fell; that the pains of women in childbirth, and the fact that ser- pents crawl on their bellies, were proofs that the account of the fall, as given in genesis, is true; that the stag renewed its youth by eating poisonous snakes; that eclipses and comets were signs of god's anger; that volcanoes were openings into hell; that demons blighted apples; that a corpse in a cemetery moved to make room for another corpse to be placed beside it. clement of alexandria believed that hail storms, tempests and plagues were caused by demons. he also believed, with mr. talmage, that the events in the life of abraham were typical and prophetical of arithmetic and astronomy. origen, another of the witnesses of mr. talmage, said that the sun, moon and stars were living crea- tures, endowed with reason and free will, and occa- sionally inclined to sin. that they had free will, he proved by quoting from job; that they were rational creatures, he inferred from the fact that they moved. the sun, moon and stars, according to him, were "subject to vanity," and he believed that they prayed to god through his only begotten son. these intelligent witnesses believed that the blight- ing of vines and fruit trees, and the disease and de- struction that came upon animals and men, were all the work of demons; but that when they had entered into men, the sign of the cross would drive them out. they derided the idea that the earth is round, and one of them said: "about the antipodes also, one "can neither hear nor speak without laughter. it is "asserted as something serious that we should be- "lieve that there are men who have their feet oppo- "site to ours. the ravings of anaxagoras are more "tolerable, who said that snow was black." concerning these early fathers, professor davidson, as quoted by mr. keeler, uses the following lan- guage: "of the three fathers who contributed "most to the growth of the canon, irenæus was "credulous and blundering; tertullian passionate "and one-sided; and clement of alexandria, im- "bued with the treasures of greek wisdom, was "mainly occupied with ecclesiastical ethics. their "assertions show both ignorance and exaggeration." these early fathers relied upon by mr. talmage, quoted from books now regarded as apocryphal-- books that have been thrown away by the church and are no longer considered as of the slightest authority. upon this subject i again quote mr. keeler: "clement quoted the 'gospel according to "'the hebrews,' which is now thrown away by the "church; he also quoted from the sibylline books "and the pentateuch in the same sentence. origen "frequently cited the gospel of the hebrews. jerome "did the same, and clement believed in the 'gospel "'according to the egyptians.' the shepherd of "hermas, a book in high repute in the early church, "and one which distinctly claims to have been "inspired, was quoted by irenæus as scripture. "clement of alexandria said it was a divine revela- "tion. origen said it was divinely inspired, and "quoted it as holy scripture at the same time that "he cited the psalms and epistles of paul. jerome "quoted the 'wisdom of jesus, the son of sirach,' "as divine scripture. origen quotes the 'wisdom "of solomon' as the 'word of god' and 'the "'words of christ himself.' eusebius of cæsarea "cites it as a * divine oracle,' and st. chrysostom "used it as scripture. so eusebius quotes the "thirteenth chapter of daniel as scripture, but as a "matter of fact, daniel has not a thirteenth chapter,-- "the church has taken it away. clement spoke of "the writer of the fourth book of esdras as a prophet; "he thought baruch as much the word of god as "any other book, and he quotes it as divine scripture. "clement cites barnabas as an apostle. origen "quotes from the epistle of barnabas, calls it 'holy " 'scripture,' and places it on a level with the psalms "and the epistles of paul; and clement of alexan- "dria believed in the 'epistle of barnabas,' and the "'revelation, of peter,' and wrote comments upon "these holy books." nothing can exceed the credulity of the early fathers, unless it may be their ignorance. they be- lieved everything that was miraculous. they believed everything except the truth. anything that really happened was considered of no importance by them. they looked for wonders, miracles, and monstrous things, and--generally found them. they revelled in the misshapen and the repulsive. they did not think it wrong to swear falsely in a good cause. they interpolated, forged, and changed the records to suit themselves, for the sake of christ. they quoted from persons who never wrote. they misrepresented those who had written, and their evidence is abso- lutely worthless. they were ignorant, credulous, mendacious, fanatical, pious, unreasonable, bigoted, hypocritical, and for the most part, insane. read the book of revelation, and you will agree with me that nothing that ever emanated from a madhouse can more than equal it for incoherence. most of the writings of the early fathers are of the same kind. as to saint john, the real truth is, that we know nothing certainly of him. we do not know that he ever lived. we know nothing certainly of jesus christ. we know nothing of his infancy, nothing of his youth, and we are not sure that such a person ever existed. we know nothing of polycarp. we do not know where he was born, or where, or how he died. we know nothing for certain about irenæus. all the names quoted by mr. talmage as his witnesses are surrounded by clouds and doubts, by mist and darkness. we only know that many of their statements are false, and do not know that any of them are true. _question_. what do you think of the following state- ment by mr. talmage: "oh, i have to tell you that no "man ever died for a lie cheerfully and triumphantly"? _answer_. there was a time when men "cheerfully "and triumphantly died" in defence of the doctrine of the "real presence" of god in the wafer and wine. does mr. talmage believe in the doctrine of "tran- "substantiation"? yet hundreds have died "cheer- "fully and triumphantly" for it. men have died for the idea that baptism by immersion is the only scriptural baptism. did they die for a lie? if not, is mr. talmage a baptist? giordano bruno was an atheist, yet he perished at the stake rather than retract his opinions. he did not expect to be welcomed by angels and by god. he did not look for a crown of glory. he expected simply death and eternal extinction. does the fact that he died for that belief prove its truth? thousands upon thousands have died in defence of the religion of mohammed. was mohammed an im- postor? thousands have welcomed death in defence of the doctrines of buddha. is buddhism true? so i might make a tour of the world, and of all ages of human history, and find that millions and millions have died "cheerfully and triumphantly" in defence of their opinions. there is not the slightest truth in mr. talmage's statement. a little while ago, a man shot at the czar of russia. on the day of his execution he was asked if he wished religious consolation. he replied that he believed in no religion. what did that prove? it proved only the man's honesty of opinion. all the martyrs in the world cannot change, never did change, a falsehood into a truth, nor a truth into a falsehood. martyrdom proves nothing but the sincerity of the martyr and the cruelty and mean- ness of his murderers. thousands and thousands of people have imagined that they knew things, that they were certain, and have died rather than retract their honest beliefs. mr. talmage now says that he knows all about the old testament, that the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet he does not know when the prophecies were made--whether they were made before or after the fact. he does not know whether the destruction of babylon was told before it happened, or after. he knows nothing upon the subject. he does not know who made the pretended prophecies. he does not know that isaiah, or jeremiah, or habakkuk, or hosea ever lived in this world. he does not know who wrote a single book of the old testament. he knows nothing on the subject. he believes in the inspiration of the old testament because ancient cities finally fell into decay--were overrun and de- stroyed by enemies, and he accounts for the fact that the jew does not lose his nationality by saying that the old testament is true. the jews have been persecuted by the christians, and they are still persecuted by them; and mr. tal- mage seems to think that this persecution was a part of gods plan, that the jews might, by persecution, be prevented from mingling with other nationalities, and so might stand, through the instrumentality of perpetual hate and cruelty, the suffering witnesses of the divine truth of the bible. the jews do not testify to the truth of the bible, but to the barbarism and inhumanity of christians-- to the meanness and hatred of what we are pleased to call the "civilized world." they testify to the fact that nothing so hardens the human heart as religion. there is no prophecy in the old testament fore- telling the coming of jesus christ. there is not one word in the old testament referring to him in any way--not one word. the only way to prove this is to take your bible, and wherever you find these words: "that it might be fulfilled," and "which "was spoken," turn to the old testament and find what was written, and you will see that it had not the slightest possible reference to the thing re- counted in the new testament--not the slightest. let us take some of the prophecies of the bible, and see how plain they are, and how beautiful they are. let us see whether any human being can tell whether they have ever been fulfilled or not. here is a vision of ezekiel: "i looked, and be- "hold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great "cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness "was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the "color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. also "out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four "living creatures. and this was their appearance; "they had the likeness of a man. and every one "had four faces, and every one had four wings. "and their feet were straight feet; and the sole of "their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they "sparkled like the color of burnished brass. and "they had the hands of a man under their wings on "their four sides; and they four had their faces and "their wings. their wings were joined one to "another; they turned not when-they went; they "went every one straight forward. as for the like- "ness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, "and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they "four had the face of an ox on the left side; they "four also had the face of an eagle. "thus were their faces: and their wings were "stretched upward; two wings of every one were "joined one to another, and two covered their bodies. "and they went every one straight forward: whither "the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not "when they went. "as for the likeness of the living creatures, their "appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like "the appearance of lamps: it went up and down "among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, "and out of the fire went forth lightning. and the "living creatures ran and returned as the appearance "of a flash of lightning. "now as i beheld the living creatures, behold one "wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with "his four faces. the appearance of the wheels and "their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and "they four had one likeness: and their appearance "and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle "of a wheel. when they went, they went upon "their four sides: and they turned not when they "went. as for their rings, they were so high that "they were dreadful; and their rings were full of "eyes round about them four. and when the living "creatures went, the wheels went by them: and "when the living creatures were lifted up from the "earth, the wheels were lifted up. whithersoever "the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their "spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over "against them: for the spirit of the living creature "was in the wheels. when those went, these went; "and when those stood, these stood; and when those "were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were "lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the "living creature was in the wheels. and the like- "ness of the firmament upon the heads of the living "creature was as the color of the terrible crystal, "stretched forth over their heads above. and under "the firmament were their wings straight, the one "toward the other; every one had two, which "covered on this side, and every one had two, "which covered on that side, their bodies." is such a vision a prophecy? is it calculated to convey the slightest information? if so, what? so, the following vision of the prophet daniel is exceedingly important and instructive: "daniel spake and said: i saw in my vision by "night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven "strove upon the great sea. and four great beasts "came up from the sea, diverse one from another. "the first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: "i beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it "was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon "the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to "it. and behold another beast, a second, like to a "bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had "three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of "it: and they said thus unto it, arise, devour much "flesh. "after this i beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, "which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; "the beast had also four heads, and dominion was "given to it. "after this i saw in the night visions, and behold "a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong ex- "ceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured "and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with "the feet of it; and it was diverse from all the beasts "that were before it, and it had ten horns. i con- "sidered the horns, and, behold, there came up "among them another little horn, before whom "there were three of the first horns plucked up by "the roots: and behold, in this horn were eyes like "the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great "things." i have no doubt that this prophecy has been liter- ally fulfilled, but i am not at present in condition to give the time, place, or circumstances. a few moments ago, my attention was called to the following extract from _the new york herald_ of the thirteenth of march, instant: "at the fifth avenue baptist church, dr. armi- "tage took as his text, 'a wheel in the middle of a "'wheel'--ezekiel, i., . here, said the preacher, "are three distinct visions in one--the living crea- "tures, the moving wheels and the fiery throne. we "have time only to stop the wheels of this mystic "chariot of jehovah, that we may hold holy converse "with him who rides upon the wings of the wind. "in this vision of the prophet we have a minute and "amplified account of these magnificent symbols or "hieroglyphics, this wondrous machinery which de- "notes immense attributes and agencies and voli- "tions, passing their awful and mysterious course of "power and intelligence in revolution after revolu- "tion of the emblematical mechanism, in steady and "harmonious advancement to the object after which "they are reaching. we are compelled to look "upon the whole as symbolical of that tender and "endearing providence of which jesus spoke when "he said, 'the very hairs of your head are num- "* bered.'" certainly, an ordinary person, not having been illuminated by the spirit of prophecy, would never have even dreamed that there was the slightest re- ference in ezekiel's vision to anything like counting hairs. as a commentator, the rev. dr. armitage has no equal; and, in my judgment, no rival. he has placed himself beyond the reach of ridicule. it is impossible to say anything about his sermon as laughable as his sermon. _question_. have you no confidence in any pro- phecies? do you take the ground that there never has been a human being who could predict the future? _answer_. i admit that a man of average intelli- gence knows that a certain course, when pursued long enough, will bring national disaster, and it is perfectly safe to predict the downfall of any and every country in the world. in my judgment, nations, like individuals, have an average life. every nation is mortal. an immortal nation cannot be constructed of mortal individuals. a nation has a reason for existing, and that reason sustains the same relation to the nation that the acorn does to the oak. the nation will attain its growth--other things being equal. it will reach its manhood and its prime, but it will sink into old age, and at last must die. probably, in a few thousand years, men will be able to calculate the average life of nations, as they now calculate the average life of persons. there has been no period since the morning of his- tory until now, that men did not know of dead and dying nations. there has always been a national cemetery. poland is dead, turkey is dying. in every nation are the seeds of dissolution. not only nations die, but races of men. a nation is born, becomes powerful, luxurious, at last grows weak, is overcome, dies, and another takes its place, in this way civilization and barbarism, like day and night, alternate through all of history's years. in every nation there are at least two classes of men: first, the enthusiastic, the patriotic, who be- lieve that the nation will live forever,--that its flag will float while the earth has air; second, the owls and ravens and croakers, who are always predicting disaster, defeat, and death. to the last class belong the jeremiahs, ezekiels, and isaiahs of the jews. they were always predicting the downfall of jeru- salem. they revelled in defeat and captivity. they loved to paint the horrors of famine and war. for the most part, they were envious, hateful, misan- thropic and unjust. there seems to have been a war between church and state. the prophets were endeavoring to pre- serve the ecclesiastical power. every king who would listen to them, was chosen of god. he instantly became the model of virtue, and the prophets assured him that he was in the keeping of jehovah. but if the king had a mind of his own, the prophets im- mediately called down upon him all the curses of heaven, and predicted the speedy destruction of his kingdom. if our own country should be divided, if an empire should rise upon the ruins of the republic, it would be very easy to find that hundreds and thousands of people had foretold that very thing. if you will read the political speeches of the last twenty-two years, you will find prophecies to fit any possible future state of affairs in our country. no matter what happens, you will find that somebody predicted it. if the city of london should lose her trade, if the parliament house should become the abode of moles and bats, if "the new zealander should sit upon the "ruins of london bridge," all these things would be simply the fulfillment of prophecy. the fall of every nation under the sun has been predicted by hundreds and thousands of people. the prophecies of the old testament can be made to fit anything that may happen, or that may not happen. they will apply to the death of a king, or to the destruction of a people,--to the loss of com- merce, or the discovery of a continent. each pro- phecy is a jugglery of words, of figures, of symbols, so put together, so used, so interpreted, that they can mean anything, everything, or nothing. _question_. do you see anything "prophetic" in the fate of the jewish people themselves? do you think that god made the jewish people wanderers, so that they might be perpetual witnesses to the truth of the scriptures? _answer_. i cannot believe that an infinitely good god would make anybody a wanderer. neither can i believe that he would keep millions of people with- out country and without home, and allow them to be persecuted for thousands of years, simply that they might be used as witnesses. nothing could be more absurdly cruel than this. the christians justify their treatment of the jews on the ground that they are simply fulfilling prophecy. the jews have suffered because of the horrid story that their ancestors crucified the son of god. chris- tianity, coming into power, looked with horror upon the jews, who denied the truth of the gospel. each jew was regarded as a dangerous witness against christianity. the early christians saw how neces- sary it was that the people who lived in jerusalem at the time of christ should be convinced that he was god, and should testify to the miracles he wrought. whenever a jew denied it, the christian was filled with malignity and hatred, and immediately excited the prejudice of other christians against the man simply because he was a jew. they forgot, in their general hatred, that mary, the mother of christ, was a jewess; that christ himself was of jewish blood; and with an inconsistency of which, of all religions, christianity alone could have been guilty, the jew became an object of especial hatred and aversion. when we remember that christianity pretends to be a religion of love and kindness, of charity and for- giveness, must not every intelligent man be shocked by the persecution of the jews? even now, in learned and cultivated germany, the jew is treated as though he were a wild beast. the reputation of this great people has been stained by a persecution spring- ing only from ignorance and barbarian prejudice. so in russia, the christians are anxious to shed every drop of jewish blood, and thousands are to-day fleeing from their homes to seek a refuge from chris- tian hate. and mr. talmage believes that all these persecutions are kept up by the perpetual intervention of god, in order that the homeless wanderers of the seed of abraham may testify to the truth of the old and new testaments. he thinks that every burning jewish home sheds light upon the gospel,--that every gash in jewish flesh cries out in favor of the bible,--that every violated jewish maiden shows the interest that god still takes in the preservation of his holy word. i am endeavoring to do away with religious prejudice. i wish to substitute humanity for super- stition, the love of our fellow-men, for the fear of god. in the place of ignorant worship, let us put good deeds. we should be great enough and grand enough to know that the rights of the jew are pre- cisely the same as our own. we cannot trample upon their rights, without endangering our own; and no man who will take liberty from another, is great enough to enjoy liberty himself. day by day christians are laying the foundation of future persecution. in every sunday school little children are taught that jews killed the god of this universe. their little hearts are filled with hatred against the jewish people. they are taught as a part of the creed to despise the descendants of the only people with whom god is ever said to have had any conversation whatever. when we take into consideration what the jewish people have suffered, it is amazing that every one of them does not hate with all his heart and soul and strength the entire christian world. but in spite of the persecutions they have endured, they are to-day, where they are permitted to enjoy reasonable liberty, the most prosperous people on the globe. the idea that their condition shows, or tends to show, that upon them abides the wrath of jehovah, cannot be substantiated by the facts. the jews to-day control the commerce of the world. they control the money of the world. it is for them to say whether nations shall or shall not go to war. they are the people of whom nations borrow money. to their offices kings come with their hats in their hands. emperors beg them to discount their notes. is all this a consequence of the wrath of god? we find upon our streets no jewish beggars. it is a rare sight to find one of these people standing as a criminal before a court. they do not fill our alms- houses, nor our penitentiaries, nor our jails. in- tellectually and morally they are the equal of any people. they have become illustrious in every de- partment of art and science. the old cry against them is at last perceived to be ignorant. only a few years ago, christians would rob a jew, strip him of his possessions, steal his money, declare him an out- cast, and drive him forth. then they would point to him as a fulfillment of prophecy. if you wish to see the difference between some jews and some christians, compare the addresses of felix adler with the sermons of mr. talmage. i cannot convince myself that an infinitely good and wise god holds a jewish babe in the cradle of to-day responsible for the crimes of caiaphas the high priest. i hardly think that an infinitely good being would pursue this little babe through all its life simply to get revenge on those who died two thou- sand years ago. an infinite being ought certainly to know that the child is not to blame; and an infinite being who does not know this, is not entitled to the love or adoration of any honest man. there is a strange inconsistency in what mr. tal- mage says. for instance, he finds great fault with me because i do not agree with the religious ideas of my father; and he finds fault equally with the jews who do. the jews who were true to the re- ligion of their fathers, according to mr. talmage, have been made a by-word and a hissing and a re- proach among all nations, and only those jews were fortunate and blest who abandoned the religion of their fathers. the real reason for this inconsistency is this: mr. talmage really thinks that a man can believe as he wishes. he imagines that evidence de- pends simply upon volition; consequently, he holds every one responsible for his belief. being satisfied that he has the exact truth in this matter, he meas- ures all other people by his standard, and if they fail by that measurement, he holds them personally responsible, and believes that his god does the same. if mr. talmage had been born in turkey, he would in all probability have been a mohammedan, and would now be denouncing some man who had denied the inspiration of the koran, as the "champion blas- "phemer" of constantinople. certainly he would have been, had his parents been mohammedans; because, according to his doctrine, he would have been utterly lacking in respect and love for his father and mother had he failed to perpetuate their errors. so, had he been born in utah, of mormon parents, he would now have been a defender of polygamy. he would not "run the ploughshare of contempt "through the graves of his parents," by taking the ground that polygamy is wrong. i presume that all of mr. talmage's forefathers were not presbyterians. there must have been a time when one of his progenitors left the faith of his father, and joined the presbyterian church. ac- cording to the reasoning of mr. talmage, that particular progenitor was an exceedingly bad man; but had it not been for the crime of that bad man, mr. talmage might not now have been on the road to heaven. i hardly think that all the inventors, the thinkers, the philosophers, the discoverers, dishonored their parents. fathers and mothers have been made immortal by such sons. and yet these sons demon- strated the errors of their parents. a good father wishes to be excelled by his children. sixth interview. _it is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second- hand, either verbally or in writing. revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication-- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and i have only his word for it that it was made to him.--thomas paine._ _question_. what do you think of the argu- ments presented by mr. talmage in favor of the inspiration of the bible? _answer_. mr. talmage takes the ground that there are more copies of the bible than of any other book, and that consequently it must be in- spired. it seems to me that this kind of reasoning proves entirely too much. if the bible is the inspired word of god, it was certainly just as true when there was only one copy, as it is to-day; and the facts con- tained in it were just as true before they were written, as afterwards. we all know that it is a fact in human nature, that a man can tell a falsehood so often that he finally believes it himself; but i never suspected, until now, that a mistake could be printed enough times to make it true. there may have been a time, and probably there was, when there were more copies of the koran than of the bible. when most christians were ut- terly ignorant, thousands of moors were educated; and it is well known that the arts and sciences flourished in mohammedan countries in a far greater degree than in christian. now, at that time, it may be that there were more copies of the koran than of the bible. if some enterprising mohammedan had only seen the force of such a fact, he might have established the inspiration of the koran beyond a doubt; or, if it had been found by actual count that the koran was a little behind, a few years of in- dustry spent in the multiplication of copies, might have furnished the evidence of its inspiration. is it not simply amazing that a doctor of divinity, a presbyterian clergyman, in this day and age, should seriously rely upon the number of copies of the bible to substantiate the inspiration of that book? is it possible to conceive of anything more fig-leaflessly absurd? if there is anything at all in this argument, it is, that all books are true in proportion to the number of copies that exist. of course, the same rule will work with newspapers; so that the news- paper having the largest circulation can consistently claim infallibility. suppose that an exceedingly absurd statement should appear in _the new york herald_, and some one should denounce it as utterly without any foundation in fact or probability; what would mr. talmage think if the editor of the herald, as an evidence of the truth of the statement, should rely on the fact that his paper had the largest circulation of any in the city? one would think that the whole church had acted upon the theory that a falsehood re- peated often enough was as good as the truth. another evidence brought forward by the reverend gentleman to prove the inspiration of the scriptures, is the assertion that if congress should undertake to pass a law to take the bible from the people, thirty, millions would rise in defence of that book. this argument also seems to me to prove too much, and as a consequence, to prove nothing. if con- gress should pass a law prohibiting the reading of shakespeare, every american would rise in defence of his right to read the works of the greatest man this world has known. still, that would not even tend to show that shakespeare was inspired. the fact is, the american people would not allow con- gress to pass a law preventing them from reading any good book. such action would not prove the book to be inspired; it would prove that the american people believe in liberty. there are millions of people in turkey who would peril their lives in defence of the koran. a fact like this does not prove the truth of the koran; it simply proves what mohammedans think of that book, and what they are willing to do for its preservation. it can not be too often repeated, that martyrdom does not prove the truth of the thing for which the martyr dies; it only proves the sincerity of the martyr and the cruelty of his murderers. no matter how many people regard the bible as inspired,--that fact furnishes no evidence that it is inspired. just as many people have regarded other books as inspired; just as many millions have been deluded about the inspiration of books ages and ages before christianity was born. the simple belief of one man, or of millions of men, is no evidence to another. evidence must be based, not upon the belief of other people, but upon facts. a believer may state the facts upon which his belief is founded, and the person to whom he states them gives them the weight that according to the con- struction and constitution of his mind he must. but simple, bare belief is not testimony. we should build upon facts, not upon beliefs of others, nor upon the shifting sands of public opinion. so much for this argument. the next point made by the reverend gentleman is, that an infidel cannot be elected to any office in the united states, in any county, precinct, or ward. for the sake of the argument, let us admit that this is true. what does it prove? there was a time when no protestant could have been elected to any office. what did that prove? there was a time when no presbyterian could have been chosen to fill any public station. what did that prove? the same may be said of the members of each religious denomination. what does that prove? mr. talmage says that christianity must be true, because an infidel cannot be elected to office. now, suppose that enough infidels should happen to settle in one precinct to elect one of their own number to office; would that prove that christianity was not true in that precinct? there was a time when no man could have been elected to any office, who in- sisted on the rotundity of the earth; what did that prove? there was a time when no man who denied the existence of witches, wizards, spooks and devils, could hold any position of honor; what did that prove? there was a time when an abolitionist could not be elected to office in any state in this union; what did that prove? there was a time when they were not allowed to express their honest thoughts; what does that prove? there was a time when a quaker could not have been elected to any office; there was a time in the history of this country when but few of them were allowed to live; what does that prove? is it necessary, in order to ascertain the truth of christianity, to look over the election re- turns? is "inspiration" a question to be settled by the ballot? i admit that it was once, in the first place, settled that way. i admit that books were voted in and voted out, and that the bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote; but does mr. talmage insist that the question is not still open? does he not know, that a fact cannot by any possi- bility be affected by opinion? we make laws for the whole people, by the whole people. we agree that a majority shall rule, but nobody ever pretended that a question of taste could be settled by an appeal to majorities, or that a question of logic could be affected by numbers. in the world of thought, each man is an absolute monarch, each brain is a king- dom, that cannot be invaded even by the tyranny of majorities. no man can avoid the intellectual responsibility of deciding for himself. suppose that the christian religion had been put to vote in jerusalem? suppose that the doctrine of the "fall" had been settled in athens, by an appeal to the people, would mr. talmage have been willing to abide by their decision? if he settles the inspira- tion of the bible by a popular vote, he must settle the meaning of the bible by the same means. there are more methodists than presbyterians--why does the gentleman remain a presbyterian? there are more buddhists than christians--why does he vote against majorities? he will remember that christianity was once settled by a popular vote--that the divinity of christ was submitted to the people, and the people said: "crucify him!" the next, and about the strongest, argument mr. talmage makes is, that i am an infidel because i was defeated for governor of illinois. when put in plain english, his statement is this: that i was defeated because i was an infidel, and that i am an infidel because i was defeated. this, i be- lieve, is called reasoning in a circle. the truth is, that a good many people did object to me because i was an infidel, and the probability is, that if i had denied being an infidel, i might have obtained an office. the wonderful part is, that any christian should deride me because i preferred honor to po- litical success. he who dishonors himself for the sake of being honored by others, will find that two mistakes have been made--one by himself, and the other, by the people. i presume that mr.talmage really thinks that i was extremely foolish to avow my real opinions. after all, men are apt to judge others somewhat by them- selves. according to him, i made the mistake of preserving my manhood and losing an office. now, if i had in fact been an infidel, and had denied it, for the sake of position, then i admit that every christian might have pointed at me the finger of contempt. but i was an infidel, and admitted it. surely, i should not be held in contempt by christians for having made the admission. i was not a believer in the bible, and i said so. i was not a christian, and i said so. i was not willing to receive the support of any man under a false impression. i thought it better to be honestly beaten, than to dishonestly succeed. according to the ethics of mr. talmage i made a mistake, and this mistake is brought forward as another evidence of the inspiration of the scriptures. if i had only been elected governor of illinois,--that is to say, if i had been a successful hypocrite, i might now be basking in the sunshine of this gentleman's respect. i preferred to tell the truth--to be an honest man,--and i have never regretted the course i pursued. there are many men now in office who, had they pursued a nobler course, would be private citizens. nominally, they are christians; actually, they are nothing; and this is the combination that generally insures political success. mr. talmage is exceedingly proud of the fact that christians will not vote for infidels. in other words, he does not believe that in our government the church has been absolutely divorced from the state. he believes that it is still the christian's duty to make the religious test. probably he wishes to get his god into the constitution. my position is this: religion is an individual matter--a something for each individual to settle for himself, and with which no other human being has any concern, provided the religion of each human being allows liberty to every other. when called upon to vote for men to fill the offices of this country, i do not inquire as to the re- ligion of the candidates. it is none of my business. i ask the questions asked by jefferson: "is he "honest; is he capable?" it makes no difference to me, if he is willing that others should be free, what creed he may profess. the moment i inquire into his religious belief, i found a little inquisition of my own; i repeat, in a small way, the errors of the past, and reproduce, in so far as i am capable, the infamy of the ignorant orthodox years. mr. talmage will accept my thanks for his frankness. i now know what controls a presbyterian when he casts his vote. he cares nothing for the capacity, nothing for the fitness, of the candidate to discharge the duties of the office to which he aspires; he simply asks: is he a presbyterian, is he a protestant, does he believe our creed? and then, no matter how ignorant he may be, how utterly unfit, he receives the presbyterian vote. according to mr. talmage, he would vote for a catholic who, if he had the power, would destroy all liberty of conscience, rather than vote for an infidel who, had he the power, would destroy all the religious tyranny of the world, and allow every human being to think for himself, and to worship god, or not, as and how he pleased. mr. talmage makes the serious mistake of placing the bible above the laws and constitution of his country. he places jehovah above humanity. such men are not entirely safe citizens of any republic. and yet, i am in favor of giving to such men all the liberty i ask for myself, trusting to education and the spirit of progress to overcome any injury they may do, or seek to do. when this country was founded, when the con- stitution was adopted, the churches agreed to let the state alone. they agreed that all citizens should have equal civil rights. nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this republic than to introduce religion into politics. the american theory is, that governments are founded, not by gods, but by men, and that the right to govern does not come from god, but "from the consent of the governed." our fathers concluded that the people were sufficiently intelligent to take care of themselves--to make good laws and to execute them. prior to that time, all authority was supposed to come from the clouds. kings were set upon thrones by god, and it was the business of the people simply to submit. in all really civilized countries, that doctrine has been abandoned. the source of political power is here, not in heaven. we are willing that those in heaven should control affairs there; we are willing that the angels should have a government to suit themselves; but while we live here, and while our interests are upon this earth, we propose to make and execute our own laws. if the doctrine of mr. talmage is the true doctrine, if no man should be voted for unless he is a christian, then no man should vote unless he is a christian. it will not do to say that sinners may vote, that an infidel may be the repository of political power, but must not be voted for. a decent christian who is not willing that an infidel should be elected to an office, would not be willing to be elected to an office by infidel votes. if infidels are too bad to be voted for, they are certainly not good enough to vote, and no christian should be willing to represent such an infamous constituency. if the political theory of mr. talmage is carried out, of course the question will arise in a little while, what is a christian? it will then be necessary to write a creed to be subscribed by every person before he is fit to vote or to be voted for. this of course must be done by the state, and must be settled, under our form of government, by a majority vote. is mr. talmage willing that the question, what is christianity? should be so settled? will he pledge himself in advance to subscribe to such a creed? of course he will not. he will insist that he has the right to read the bible for himself, and that he must be bound by his own conscience. in this he would be right. if he has the right to read the bible for himself, so have i. if he is to be bound by his con- science, so am i. if he honestly believes the bible to be true, he must say so, in order to preserve his man- hood; and if i honestly believe it to be uninspired,-- filled with mistakes,--i must say so, or lose my man- hood. how infamous i would be should i endeavor to deprive him of his vote, or of his right to be voted for, because he had been true to his conscience! and how infamous he is to try to deprive me of the right to vote, or to be voted for, because i am true to my conscience! when we were engaged in civil war, did mr. tal- mage object to any man's enlisting in the ranks who was not a christian? was he willing, at that time, that sinners should vote to keep our flag in heaven? was he willing that the "unconverted" should cover the fields of victory with their corpses, that this nation might not die? at the same time, mr. talmage knew that every "unconverted" soldier killed, went down to eternal fire. does mr. talmage believe that it is the duty of a man to fight for a government in which he has no rights? is the man who shoulders his musket in the defence of human freedom good enough to cast a ballot? there is in the heart of this priest the safne hatred of real liberty that drew the sword of persecution, that built dungeons, that forged chains and made instruments of torture. nobody, with the exception of priests, would be willing to trust the liberties of this country in the hands of any church. in order to show the political estimation in which the clergy are held, in order to show the confidence the people at large have in the sincerity and wisdom of the clergy, it is sufficient to state, that no priest, no bishop, could by any possi- bility be elected president of the united states. no party could carry that load. a fear would fall upon the mind and heart of every honest man that this country was about to drift back to the middle ages, and that the old battles were to be refought. if the bishop running for president was of the methodist church, every other church would oppose him. if he was a catholic, the protestants would as a body combine against him. why? the churches have no confidence in each other. why? because they are acquainted with each other. as a matter of fact, the infidel has a thousand times more reason to vote against the christian, than the christian has to vote against the infidel. the christian believes in a book superior to the constitution--superior to all constitutions and all laws. the infidel believes that the constitution and laws are superior to any book. he is not controlled by any power beyond the seas or above the clouds. he does not receive his orders from rome, or sinai. he receives them from his fellow-citizens, legally and constitutionally expressed. the christian believes in a power greater than man, to which, upon the peril of eternal pain, he must bow. his allegiance, to say the best of it, is divided. the christian puts the for- tune of his own soul over and above the temporal welfare of the entire world; the infidel puts the good of mankind here and now, beyond and over all. there was a time in new england when only church members were allowed to vote, and it may be instructive to state the fact that during that time quakers were hanged, women were stripped, tied to carts, and whipped from town to town, and their babes sold into slavery, or exchanged for rum. now in that same country, thousands and thousands of infidels vote, and yet the laws are nearer just, women are not whipped and children are not sold. if all the convicts in all the penitentiaries of the united states could be transported to some island in the sea, and there allowed to make a government for themselves, they would pass better laws than john calvin did in geneva. they would have clearer and better views of the rights of men, than unconvicted christians used to have. i do not say that these convicts are better people, but i do say that, in my judgment, they would make better laws. they cer- tainly could not make worse. if these convicts were taken from the prisons of the united states, they would not dream of uniting church and state. they would have no religious test. they would allow every man to vote and to be voted for, no matter what his religious views might be. they would not dream of whipping quakers, of burning unitarians, of imprisoning or burning uni- versalists or infidels. they would allow all the people to guess for themselves. some of these convicts, of course, would believe in the old ideas, and would insist upon the suppression of free thought. those coming from delaware would probably repeat with great gusto the opinions of justice comegys, and insist that the whipping-post was the handmaid of christianity. it would be hard to conceive of a much worse government than that founded by the puritans. they took the bible for the foundation of their political structure. they copied the laws given to moses from sinai, and the result was one of the worst governments that ever disgraced this world. they believed the old testament to be inspired. they believed that jehovah made laws for all people and for all time. they had not learned the hypoc- risy that believes and avoids. they did not say: this law was once just, but is now unjust; it was once good, but now it is infamous; it was given by god once, but now it can only be obeyed by the devil. they had not reached the height of biblical exegesis on which we find the modern theologian perched, and who tells us that jehovah has reformed. the puritans were consistent. they did what people must do who honestly believe in the inspiration of the old testament. if god gave laws from sinai what right have we to repeal them? as people have gained confidence in each other, they have lost confidence in the sacred scriptures. we know now that the bible can not be used as the foundation of government. it is capable of too many meanings. nobody can find out exactly what it upholds, what it permits, what it denounces, what it denies. these things depend upon what part you read. if it is all true, it upholds everything bad and denounces everything good, and it also denounces the bad and upholds the good. then there are passages where the good is denounced and the bad commanded; so that any one can go to the bible and find some text, some passage, to uphold anything he may desire. if he wishes to enslave his fellow- men, he will find hundreds of passages in his favor. if he wishes to be a polygamist, he can find his authority there. if he wishes to make war, to exter- minate his neighbors, there his warrant can be found. if, on the other hand, he is oppressed himself, and wishes to make war upon his king, he can find a battle-cry. and if the king wishes to put him down, he can find text for text on the other side. so, too, upon all questions of reform. the teetotaler goes there to get his verse, and the moderate drinker finds within the sacred lids his best excuse. most intelligent people are now convinced that the bible is not a guide; that in reading it you must exercise your reason; that you can neither safely reject nor accept all; that he who takes one passage for a staff, trips upon another; that while one text is a light, another blows it out; that it is such a ming- ling of rocks and quicksands, such a labyrinth of clews and snares--so few flowers among so many nettles and thorns, that it misleads rather than di- rects, and taken altogether, is a hindrance and not a help. another important point made by mr. talmage is, that if the bible is thrown away, we will have nothing left to swear witnesses on, and that consequently the administration of justice will become impossible. there was a time when the bible did not exist, and if mr. talmage is correct, of course justice was im- possible then, and truth must have been a stranger to human lips. how can we depend upon the testi- mony of those who wrote the bible, as there was no bible in existence while they were writing, and con- sequently there was no way to take their testimony, and we have no account of their having been sworn on the bible after they got it finished. it is extremely sad to think that all the nations of antiquity were left entirely without the means of eliciting truth. no wonder that justice was painted blindfolded. what perfect fetichism it is, to imagine that a man will tell the truth simply because he has kissed an old piece of sheepskin stained with the saliva of all classes. a farce of this kind adds nothing to the testimony of an honest man; it simply allows a rogue to give weight to his false testimony. this is really the only result that can be accomplished by kissing the bible. a desperate villain, for the purpose of getting revenge, or making money, will gladly go through the ceremony, and ignorant juries and su- perstitious judges will be imposed upon. the whole system of oaths is false, and does harm instead of good. let every man walk into court and tell his story, and let the truth of the story be judged by its reasonableness, taking into consideration the charac- ter of the witness, the interest he has, and the posi- tion he occupies in the controversy, and then let it be the business of the jury to ascertain the real truth --to throw away the unreasonable and the impossi- ble, and make up their verdict only upon what they believe to be reasonable and true. an honest man does not need the oath, and a rascal uses it simply to accomplish his purpose. if the history of courts proved that every man, after kissing the bible, told the truth, and that those who failed to kiss it some- times lied, i should be in favor of swearing all people on the bible; but the experience of every lawyer is, that kissing the bible is not always the preface of a true story. it is often the ceremonial embroidery of a falsehood. if there is an infinite god who attends to the affairs of men, it seems to me almost a sacrilege to publicly appeal to him in every petty trial. if one will go into any court, and notice the manner in which oaths are administered,--the utter lack of solemnity--the matter-of-course air with which the whole thing is done, he will be convinced that it is a form of no importance. mr. talmage would probably agree with the judge of whom the following story is told: a witness was being sworn. the judge noticed that he was not holding up his hand. he said to the clerk: "let the witness hold up his right hand." "his right arm was shot off," replied the clerk. "let "him hold up his left, then." "that was shot off, too, "your honor." "well, then, let him raise one foot; "no man can be sworn in this court without holding "something up." my own opinion is, that if every copy of the bible in the world were destroyed, there would be some way to ascertain the truth in judicial proceedings; and any other book would do just as well to swear witnesses upon, or a block in the shape of a book covered with some kind of calfskin could do equally well, or just the calfskin would do. nothing is more laughable than the performance of this ceremony, and i have never seen in court one calf kissing the skin of another, that i did not feel humiliated that such things were done in the name of justice. mr. talmage has still another argument in favor of the preservation of the bible. he wants to know what book could take its place on the centre- table. i admit that there is much force in this. suppose we all admitted the bible to be an uninspired book, it could still be kept on the centre-table. it would be just as true then as it is now. inspiration can not add anything to a fact; neither can inspiration make the immoral moral, the unjust just, or the cruel merci- ful. if it is a fact that god established human slavery, that does not prove slavery to be right; it simply shows that god was wrong. if i have the right to use my reason in determining whether the bible is inspired or not, and if in accordance with my reason i conclude that it is inspired, i have still the right to use my reason in determining whether the command- ments of god are good or bad. now, suppose we take from the bible every word upholding slavery, every passage in favor of polygamy, every verse commanding soldiers to kill women and children, it would be just as fit for the centre-table as now. sup- pose every impure word was taken from it; suppose that the history of tamar was left out, the biography of lot, and all other barbarous accounts of a barbarous people, it would look just as well upon the centre- table as now. suppose that we should become convinced that the writers of the new testament were mistaken as to the eternity of punishment, or that all the passages now relied upon to prove the existence of perdition were shown to be interpolations, and were thereupon expunged, would not the book be dearer still to every human being with a heart? i would like to see every good passage in the bible preserved. i would like to see, with all these passages from the bible, the loftiest sentiments from all other books that have ever been uttered by men in all ages and of all races, bound in one volume, and to see that volume, filled with the greatest, the purest and the best, become the household book. the average bible, on the average centre-table, is about as much used as though it were a solid block. it is scarcely ever opened, and people who see its covers every day are unfamiliar with its every page. i admit that some things have happened some- what hard to explain, and tending to show that the bible is no ordinary book. i heard a story, not long ago, bearing upon this very subject. a man was a member of the church, but after a time, having had bad luck in business affairs, became somewhat discouraged. not feeling able to con- tribute his share to the support of the church, he ceased going to meeting, and finally became an average sinner. his bad luck pursued him until he found himself and his family without even a crust to eat. at this point, his wife told him that she be- lieved they were suffering from a visitation of god, and begged him to restore family worship, and see if god would not do something for them. feeling that he could not possibly make matters worse, he took the bible from its resting place on a shelf where it had quietly slumbered and collected the dust of many months, and gathered his family about him. he opened the sacred volume, and to his utter as- tonishment, there, between the divine leaves, was a ten-dollar bill. he immediately dropped on his knees. his wife dropped on hers, and the children on theirs, and with streaming eyes they returned thanks to god. he rushed to the butcher's and bought some steak, to the baker's and bought some bread, to the grocer's and got some eggs and butter and tea, and joyfully hastened home. the supper was cooked, it was on the table, grace was said, and every face was radiant with joy. just at that happy moment a knock was heard, the door was opened, and a police- man entered and arrested the father for passing counterfeit money. mr. talmage is also convinced that the bible is inspired and should be preserved because there is no other book that à mother could give her son as he leaves the old home to make his way in the world. thousands and thousands of mothers have pre- sented their sons with bibles without knowing really what the book contains. they simply followed the custom, and the sons as a rule honored the bible, not because they knew anything of it, but because it was a gift from mother. but surely, if all the passages upholding polygamy were out, the mother would give the book to her son just as readily, and he would re- ceive it just as joyfully. if there were not one word in it tending to degrade the mother, the gift would cer- tainly be as appropriate. the fact that mothers have presented bibles to their sons does not prove that the book is inspired. the most that can be proved by this fact is that the mothers believed it to be inspired. it does not even tend to show what the book is, neither does it tend to establish the truth of one miracle recorded upon its pages. we cannot believe that fire refused to burn, simply because the state- ment happens to be in a book presented to a son by his mother, and if all the mothers of the entire world should give bibles to all their children, this would not prove that it was once right to murder mothers, or to enslave mothers, or to sell their babes. the inspiration of the bible is not a question of natural affection. it can not be decided by the love a mother bears her son. it is a question of fact, to be substantiated like other facts. if the turkish mother should give a copy of the koran to her son, i would still have my doubts about the in- spiration of that book; and if some turkish soldier saved his life by having in his pocket a copy of the koran that accidentally stopped a bullet just opposite his heart, i should still deny that mohammed was a prophet of god. nothing can be more childish than to ascribe mysterious powers to inanimate objects. to imagine that old rags made into pulp, manufactured into paper, covered with words, and bound with the skin of a calf or a sheep, can have any virtues when thus put together that did not belong to the articles out of which the book was constructed, is of course infinitely absurd. in the days of slavery, negroes used to buy dried roots of other negroes, and put these roots in their pockets, so that a whipping would not give them pain. kings have bought diamonds to give them luck. crosses and scapularies are still worn for the purpose of affecting the inevitable march of events. people still imagine that a verse in the bible can step in between a cause and its effect; really believe that an amulet, a charm, the bone of some saint, a piece of a cross, a little image of the virgin, a picture of a priest, will affect the weather, will delay frost, will prevent disease, will insure safety at sea, and in some cases prevent hanging. the banditti of italy have great confidence in these things, and whenever they start upon an expedition of theft and plunder, they take images and pictures of saints with them, such as have been blest by a priest or pope. they pray sincerely to the virgin, to give them luck, and see not the slightest inconsistency in appealing to all the saints in the calendar to assist them in robbing honest people. edmund about tells a story that illustrates the belief of the modern italian. a young man was gambling. fortune was against him. in the room was a little picture representing the virgin and her child. before this picture he crossed himself, and asked the assist- ance of the child. again he put down his money and again lost. returning to the picture, he told the child that he had lost all but one piece, that he was about to hazard that, and made a very urgent request that he would favor him with divine assistance. he put down the last piece. he lost. going to the picture and shaking his fist at the child, he cried out: "miserable bambino, i am glad they crucified you!" the confidence that one has in an image, in a relic, in a book, comes from the same source,--fetichism. to ascribe supernatural virtues to the skin of a snake, to a picture, or to a bound volume, is intellectually the same. mr. talmage has still another argument in favor of the inspiration of the scriptures. he takes the ground that the bible must be inspired, because so many people believe it. mr. talmage should remember that a scientific fact does not depend upon the vote of numbers;-- it depends simply upon demonstration; it depends upon intelligence and investigation, not upon an ignorant multitude; it appeals to the highest, in- stead of to the lowest. nothing can be settled by popular prejudice. according to mr. talmage, there are about three hundred million christians in the world. is this true? in all countries claiming to be christian--including all of civilized europe, russia in asia, and every country on the western hemisphere, we have nearly four hundred millions of people. mr. talmage claims that three hundred millions are christians. i sup- pose he means by this, that if all should perish to- night, about three hundred millions would wake up in heaven--having lived and died good and consist- ent christians. there are in russia about eighty millions of people --how many christians? i admit that they have re- cently given more evidence of orthodox christianity than formerly. they have been murdering old men; they have thrust daggers into the breasts of women; they have violated maidens--because they were jews. thousands and thousands are sent each year to the mines of siberia, by the christian government of russia. girls eighteen years of age, for having ex- pressed a word in favor of human liberty, are to-day working like beasts of burden, with chains upon their limbs and with the marks of whips upon their backs. russia, of course, is considered by mr. talmage as a christian country--a country utterly destitute of liberty--without freedom of the press, without freedom of speech, where every mouth is locked and every tongue a prisoner--a country filled with victims, soldiers, spies, thieves and executioners. what would russia be, in the opinion of mr. tal- mage, but for christianity? how could it be worse, when assassins are among the best people in it? the truth is, that the people in russia, to-day, who are in favor of human liberty, are not christians. the men willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of others, are not believers in the christian religion. the men who wish to break chains are infidels; the men who make chains are christians. every good and sincere catholic of the greek church is a bad citizen, an enemy of progress, a foe of human liberty. yet mr. talmage regards russia as a christian country. the sixteen millions of people in spain are claimed as christians. spain, that for centuries was the as- sassin of human rights; spain, that endeavored to spread christianity by flame and fagot; spain, the soil where the inquisition flourished, where bigotry grew, and where cruelty was worship,--where murder was prayer. i admit that spain is a chris- tian nation. i admit that infidelity has gained no foothold beyond the pyrenees. the spaniards are orthodox. they believe in the inspiration of the old and new testaments. they have no doubts about miracles--no doubts about heaven, no doubts about hell. i admit that the priests, the highway- men, the bishops and thieves, are equally true be- lievers. the man who takes your purse on the highway, and the priest who forgives the robber, are alike orthodox. it gives me pleasure, however, to say that even in spain there is a dawn. some great men, some men of genius, are protesting against the tyranny of cath- olicism. some men have lost confidence in the cathedral, and are beginningto ask the state to erect the schoolhouse. they are beginning to suspect that priests are for the most part impostors and plunderers. according to mr. talmage, the twenty-eight mil- lions in italy are christians. there the christian church was early established, and the popes are to- day the successors of st. peter. for hundreds and hundreds of years, italy was the beggar of the world, and to her, from every land, flowed streams of gold and silver. the country was covered with convents, and monasteries, and churches, and cathedrals filled with monks and nuns. its roads were crowded with pilgrims, and its dust was on the feet of the world. what has christianity done for italy--italy, its soil a blessing, its sky a smile--italy, with memories great enough to kindle the fires of enthusiasm in any human breast? had it not been for a few freethinkers, for a few infidels, for such men as garibaldi and mazzini, the heaven of italy would still have been without a star. i admit that italy, with its popes and bandits, with its superstition and ignorance, with its sanctified beggars, is a christian nation; but in a little while,-- in a few days,--when according to the prophecy of garibaldi priests, with spades in their hands, will dig ditches to drain the pontine marshes; in a little while, when the pope leaves the vatican, and seeks the protection of a nation he has denounced,--asking alms of intended victims; when the nuns shall marry, and the monasteries shall become factories, and the whirl of wheels shall take the place of drowsy prayers --then, and not until then, will italy be,--not a christian nation, but great, prosperous, and free. in italy, giordano bruno was burned. some day, his monument will rise above the cross of rome. we have in our day one example,--and so far as i know, history records no other,--of the resurrection of a nation. italy has been called from the grave of superstition. she is "the first fruits of them that "slept." i admit with mr. talmage that portugal is a chris- tian country--that she engaged for hundreds of years in the slave trade, and that she justified the infamous traffic by passages in the old testament. i admit, also, that she persecuted the jews in accordance with the same divine volume. i admit that all the crime, ignorance, destitution, and superstition in that country were produced by the catholic church. i also admit that portugal would be better if it were protestant. every catholic is in favor of education enough to change a barbarian into a catholic; every protestant is in favor of education enough to change a catholic into a protestant; but protestants and catholics alike are opposed to education that will lead to any real philosophy and science. i admit that portugal is what it is, on account of the preaching of the gospel. i admit that portugal can point with pride to the triumphs of what she calls civilization within her borders, and truthfully ascribe the glory to the church. but in a litde while, when more railroads are built, when telegraphs connect her people with the civilized world, a spirit of doubt, of investigation, will manifest itself in portugal. when the people stop counting beads, and go to the study of mathematics; when they think more of plows than of prayers for agricultural purposes; when they find that one fact gives more light to the mind than a thousand tapers, and that nothing can by any possibility be more useless than a priest,--then por- tugal will begin to cease to be what is called a christian nation. i admit that austria, with her thirty-seven millions, is a christian nation--including her croats, hungar- ians, servians, and gypsies. austria was one of the assassins of poland. when we remember that john sobieski drove the mohammedans from the gates of vienna, and rescued from the hand of the "infidel" the beleagured city, the propriety of calling austria a christian nation becomes still more apparent. if one wishes to know exactly how "christian" austria is, let him read the history of hungary, let him read the speeches of kossuth. there is one good thing about austria: slowly but surely she is undermining the church by education. education is the enemy of superstition. universal education does away with the classes born of the tyranny of ecclesiasticism-- classes founded upon cunning, greed, and brute strength. education also tends to do away with intellectual cowardice. the educated man is his own priest, his own pope, his own church. when cunning collects tolls from fear, the church prospers. germany is another christian nation. bismarck is celebrated for his christian virtues. only a little while ago, bismarck, when a bill was under consideration for ameliorating the condition of the jews, stated publicly that germany was a christian nation, that her business was to extend and protect the religion of jesus christ, and that being a christian nation, no laws should be passed ameliorating the condition of the jews. certainly a remark like this could not have been made in any other than a christian nation. there is no freedom of the press, there is no freedom of speech, in ger- many. the chancellor has gone so far as to declare that the king is not responsible to the people. ger- many must be a christian nation. the king gets his right to govern, not from his subjects, but from god. he relies upon the new testament. he is satisfied that "the powers that be in germany are ordained "of god." he is satisfied that treason against the german throne is treason against jehovah. there are millions of freethinkers in germany. they are not in the majority, otherwise there would be more liberty in that country. germany is not an infidel nation, or speech would be free, and every man would be allowed to express his honest thoughts. wherever i see liberty in chains, wherever the expression of opinion is a crime, i know that that country is not infidel; i know that the people are not ruled by reason. i also know that the greatest men of germany--her freethinkers, her scientists, her writers, her philosophers, are, for the most part, in- fidel. yet germany is called a christian nation, and ought to be so called until her citizens are free. france is also claimed as a christian country. this is not entirely true. france once was thoroughly catholic, completely christian. at the time of the massacre of saint bartholomew, the french were christians. christian france made exiles of the huguenots. christian france for years and years was the property of the jesuits. christian france was ignorant, cruel, orthodox and infamous. when france was christian, witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture. now france is not entirely under catholic control, and yet she is by far the most prosperous nation in europe. i saw, only the other day, a letter from a protestant bishop, in which he states that there are only about a million protestants in france, and only four or five millions of catholics, and admits, in a very melancholy way, that thirty-four or thirty-five millions are freethinkers. the bishop is probably mistaken in his figures, but france is the best housed, the best fed, the best clad country in europe. only a little while ago, france was overrun, trampled into the very earth, by the victorious hosts of ger- many, and france purchased her peace with the savings of centuries. and yet france is now rich and prosperous and free, and germany poor, discontented and enslaved. hundreds and thousands of germans, unable to find liberty at home, are coming to the united states. i admit that england is a christian country. any doubts upon this point can be dispelled by reading her history--her career in india, what she has done in china, her treatment of ireland, of the american colonies, her attitude during our civil war; all these things show conclusively that england is a christian nation. religion has filled great britain with war. the history of the catholics, of the episcopalians, of cromwell--all the burnings, the maimings, the brand- ings, the imprisonments, the confiscations, the civil wars, the bigotry, the crime--show conclusively that great britain has enjoyed to the full the blessings of "our most holy religion." of course, mr. talmage claims the united states as a christian country. the truth is, our country is not as christian as it once was. when heretics were hanged in new england, when the laws of virginia and maryland provided that the tongue of any man who denied the doctrine of the trinity should be bored with hot iron,, and that for the second offence he should suffer death, i admit that this country was christian. when we engaged in the slave trade, when our flag protected piracy and murder in every sea, there is not the slightest doubt that the united states was a christian country. when we believed in slavery, and when we deliberately stole the labor of four millions of people; when we sold women and babes, and when the people of the north enacted a law by virtue of which every northern man was bound to turn hound and pursue a human being who was endeavoring to regain his liberty, i admit that the united states was a christian nation. i admit that all these things were upheld by the bible --that the slave trader was justified by the old testa- ment, that the bloodhound was a kind of missionary in disguise, that the auction block was an altar, the slave pen a kind of church, and that the whipping- post was considered almost as sacred as the cross. at that time, our country was a christian nation. i heard frederick douglass say that he lectured against slavery for twenty years before the doors of a single church were opened to him. in new england, hundreds of ministers were driven from their pulpits because they preached against the crime of human slavery. at that time, this country was a christian nation. only a few years ago, any man speaking in favor of the rights of man, endeavoring to break a chain from a human limb, was in danger of being mobbed by the christians of this country. i admit that dela- ware is still a christian state. i heard a story about that state the other day. about fifty years ago, an old revolutionary soldier applied for a pension. he was asked his age, and he replied that he was fifty years old. he was told that if that was his age, he could not have been in the revolutionary war, and consequently was not en- titled to any pension. he insisted, however, that he was only fifty years old. again they told him that there must be some mistake. he was so wrinkled, so bowed, had so many marks of age, that he must certainly be more than fifty years old. "well," said the old man, "if i must explain, i will: i lived forty "years in delaware; but i never counted that time, "and i hope god won't." the fact is, we have grown less and less christian every year from until now, and the fact is that we have grown more and more civilized, more and more charitable, nearer and nearer just. mr. talmage speaks as though all the people in what he calls the civilized world were christians. ad- mitting this to be true, i find that in these countries millions of men are educated, trained and drilled to kill their fellow christians. i find europe covered with forts to protect christians from christians, and the seas filled with men-of-war for the purpose of ravaging the coasts and destroying the cities of chris- tian nations. these countries are filled with prisons, with workhouses, with jails and with toiling, ignorant and suffering millions. i find that christians have invented most of the instruments of death, that christians are the greatest soldiers, fighters, de- stroyers. i find that every christian country is taxed to its utmost to support these soldiers; that every christian nation is now groaning beneath the grievous burden of monstrous debt, and that nearly all these debts were contracted in waging war. these bonds, these millions, these almost incalculable amounts, were given to pay for shot and shell, for rifle and torpedo, for men-of-war, for forts and arsenals, and all the devilish enginery of death. i find that each of these nations prays to god to assist it as against all others; and when one nation has overrun, ravaged and pillaged another, it immediately returns thanks to the almighty, and the ravaged and pillaged kneel and thank god that it is no worse. mr. talmage is welcome to all the evidence he can find in the history of what he is pleased to call the civilized nations of the world, tending to show the inspiration of the bible. and right here it may be well enough to say again, that the question of inspiration can not be settled by the votes of the superstitious millions. it can not be affected by numbers. it must be decided by each human being for himself. if every man in this world, with one exception, believed the bible to be the in- spired word of god, the man who was the exception could not lose his right to think, to investigate, and to judge for himself. _question_. you do not think, then, that any of the arguments brought forward by mr. talmage for the purpose of establishing the inspiration of the bible, are of any weight whatever? _answer_. i do not. i do not see how it is possible to make poorer, weaker or better arguments than he has made. of course, there can be no "evidence" of the in- spiration of the scriptures. what is "inspiration"? did god use the prophets simply as instruments? did he put his thoughts in their minds, and use their hands to make a record? probably few christians will agree as to what they mean by "inspiration." the general idea is, that the minds of the writers of the books of the bible were controlled by the divine will in such a way that they expressed, independently of their own opinions, the thought of god. i believe it is admitted that god did not choose the exact words, and is not responsible for the punctuation or syntax. it is hard to give any reason for claiming more for the bible than is claimed by those who wrote it. there is no claim of "inspiration" made by the writer of first and second kings. not one word about the author having been "inspired" is found in the book of job, or in ruth, or in chronicles, or in the psalms, or ecclesiastes, or in solomon's song, and nothing is said about the author of the book of esther having been "inspired." christians now say that matthew, mark, luke and john were "inspired" to write the four gospels, and yet neither mark, nor luke, nor john, nor matthew claims to have been "inspired." if they were "inspired," certainly they should have stated that fact. the very first thing stated in each of the gospels should have been a declaration by the writer that he had been "inspired," and that he was about to write the book under the guidance of god, and at the conclusion of each gospel there should have been a solemn statement that the writer had put down nothing of himself, but had in all things followed the direction and guidance of the divine will. the church now endeavors to establish the inspiration of the bible by force, by social ostracism, and by attacking the reputation of every man who denies or doubts. in all christian countries, they begin with the child in the cradle. each infant is told by its mother, by its father, or by some of its relatives, that "the bible is an inspired book." this pretended fact, by repetition "in season and out of "season," is finally burned and branded into the brain to such a degree that the child of average intelligence never outgrows the conviction that the bible is, in some peculiar sense, an "inspired" book. the question has to be settled for each generation. the evidence is not sufficient, and the foundation of christianity is perpetually insecure. beneath this great religious fabric there is no rock. for eighteen centu- ries, hundreds and thousands and millions of people have been endeavoring to establish the fact that the scriptures are inspired, and since the dawn of science, since the first star appeared in the night of the middle ages, until this moment, the number of people who have doubted the fact of inspiration has steadily increased. these doubts have not been born of ignorance, they have not been suggested by the unthinking. they have forced themselves upon the thoughtful, upon the educated, and now the ver- dict of the intellectual world is, that the bible is not inspired. notwithstanding the fact that the church has taken advantage of infancy, has endeavored to control education, has filled all primers and spelling- books and readers and text books with superstition-- feeding all minds with the miraculous and super- natural, the growth toward a belief in the natural and toward the rejection of the miraculous has been steady and sturdy since the sixteenth century. there has been, too, a moral growth, until many passages in the bible have become barbarous, inhuman and infamous. the bible has remained the same, while the world has changed. in the light of physical and moral discovery, "the inspired volume" seems in many respects absurd. if the same progress is made in the next, as in the last, century, it is very easy to predict the place that will then be occupied by the bible. by comparing long periods of time, it is easy to measure the advance of the human race. com- pare the average sermon of to-day with the average sermon of one hundred years ago. compare what ministers teach to-day with the creeds they profess to believe, and you will see the immense distance that even the church has traveled in the last century. the christians tell us that scientific men have made mistakes, and that there is very little certainty in the domain of human knowledge. this i admit. the man who thought the world was flat, and who had a way of accounting for the movement of the heavenly bodies, had what he was pleased to call a philosophy. he was, in his way, a geologist and an astronomer. we admit that he was mistaken; but if we claimed that the first geologist and the first astronomer were inspired, it would not do for us to admit that any advance had been made, or that any errors of theirs had been corrected. we do not claim that the first scientists were inspired. we do not claim that the last are inspired. we admit that all scientific men are fallible. we admit that they do not know everything. we insist that they know but little, and that even in that little which they are sup- posed to know, there is the possibility of error. the first geologist said: "the earth is flat." suppose that the geologists of to-day should insist that that man was inspired, and then endeavor to show that the word "flat," in the "hebrew," did not mean quite flat, but just a little rounded; what would we think of their honesty? the first astronomer in- sisted that the sun and moon and stars revolved around this earth--that this little earth was the centre of the entire system. suppose that the astronomers of to-day should insist that that astronomer was in- spired, and should try to explain, and say that he simply used the language of the common people, and when he stated that the sun and moon and stars re- volved around the earth, he merely meant that they "apparently revolved," and that the earth, in fact, turned over, would we consider them honest men? you might as well say that the first painter was in- spired, or that the first sculptor had the assistance of god, as to say that the first writer, or the first book- maker, was divinely inspired. it is more probable that the modern geologist is inspired than that the an- cient one was, because the modern geologist is nearer right. it is more probable that william lloyd gar- rison was inspired upon the question of slavery than that moses was. it is more probable that the author of the declaration of independence spoke by divine authority than that the author of the pentateuch did. in other words, if there can be any evidence of "inspiration," it must lie in the fact of doing or saying the best possible thing that could have been done or said at that time or upon that subject. to make myself clear: the only possible evidence of "inspiration" would be perfection--a perfection ex- celling anything that man unaided had ever attained. an "inspired" book should excel all other books; an inspired statue should be the best in this world; an in- spired painting should be beyond all others. if the bible has been improved in any particular, it was not, in that particular, ''inspired." if slavery is wrong, the bible is not inspired. if polygamy is vile and loathsome, the bible is not inspired. if wars of extermination are cruel and heartless, the bible is not "inspired." if there is within that book a contradiction of any natural fact; if there is one ignorant falsehood, if there is one mistake, then it is not "inspired." i do not mean mistakes that have grown out of translations; but if there was in the original manuscript one mistake, then it is not "inspired." i do not demand a miracle; i do not demand a knowledge of the future; i simply demand an absolute knowledge of the past. i demand an ab- solute knowledge of the then present; i demand a knowledge of the constitution of the human mind-- of the facts in nature, and that is all i demand. _question_. if i understand you, you think that all political power should come from the people; do you not believe in any "special providence," and do you take the ground that god does not interest himself in the affairs of nations and individuals? _answer_. the christian idea is that god made the world, and made certain laws for the government of matter and mind, and that he never interferes except upon special occasions, when the ordinary laws fail to work out the desired end. their notion is, that the lord now and then stops the horses simply to show that he is driving. it seems to me that if an infinitely wise being made the world, he must have made it the best possible; and that if he made laws for the government of matter and mind, he must have made the best possible laws. if this is true, not one of these laws can be violated without producing a posi- tive injury. it does not seem probable that infinite wisdom would violate a law that infinite wisdom had made. most ministers insist that god now and then in- terferes in the affairs of this world; that he has not interfered as much lately as he did formerly. when the world was comparatively new, it required alto- gether more tinkering and fixing than at present. things are at last in a reasonably good condition, and consequently a great amount of interference is not necessary. in old times it was found necessary fre- quently to raise the dead, to change the nature of fire and water, to punish people with plagues and famine, to destroy cities by storms of fire and brimstone, to change women into salt, to cast hailstones upon heathen, to interfere with the movements of our planetary system, to stop the earth not only, but sometimes to make it turn the other way, to arrest the moon, and to make water stand up like a wall. now and then, rivers were divided by striking them with a coat, and people were taken to heaven in chariots of fire. these miracles, in addition to curing the sick, the halt, the deaf and blind, were in former times found necessary, but since the "apostolic age," nothing of the kind has been resorted to except in catholic countries. since the death of the last apostle, god has appeared only to members of the catholic church, and all modern miracles have been performed for the benefit of catholicism. there is no authentic account of the virgin mary having ever appeared to a protestant. the bones of protestant saints have never cured a solitary disease. protest- ants now say that the testimony of the catholics can not be relied upon, and yet, the authenticity of every book in the new testament was established by cath- olic testimony. some few miracles were performed in scotland, and in fact in england and the united states, but they were so small that they are hardly worth mentioning. now and then, a man was struck dead for taking the name of the lord in vain. now and then, people were drowned who were found in boats on sunday. whenever anybody was about to commit murder, god has not interfered--the reason being that he gave man free-will, and expects to hold him accountable in another world, and there is no exception to this free-will doctrine, but in cases where men swear or violate the sabbath. they are allowed to commit all other crimes without any in- terference on the part of the lord. my own opinion is, that the clergy found it neces- sary to preserve the sabbath for their own uses, and for that reason endeavored to impress the people with the enormity of its violation, and for that purpose gave instances of people being drowned and suddenly struck dead for working or amusing themselves on that day. the clergy have objected to any other places of amusement except their own, being opened on that day. they wished to compel people either to go to church or stay at home. they have also known that profanity tended to do away with the feelings of awe they wished to cultivate, and for that reason they have insisted that swearing was one of the most terrible of crimes, exciting above all others the wrath of god. there was a time when people fell dead for having spoken disrespectfully to a priest. the priest at that time pretended to be the visible representative of god, and as such, entitled to a degree of reverence amounting almost to worship. several cases are given in the ecclesiastical history of scotland where men were deprived of speech for having spoken rudely to a parson. these stories were calculated to increase the im- portance of the clergy and to convince people that they were under the special care of the deity. the story about the bears devouring the little children was told in the first place, and has been repeated since, simply to protect ministers from the laughter of children. there ought to be carved on each side of every pulpit a bear with fragments of children in its mouth, as this animal has done so much to protect the dignity of the clergy. besides the protection of ministers, the drowning of breakers of the sabbath, and striking a few people dead for using profane language, i think there is no evidence of any providential interference in the affairs of this world in what may be called modern times. ministers have endeavored to show that great calam- ities have been brought upon nations and cities as a punishment for the wickedness of the people. they have insisted that some countries have been visited with earthquakes because the people had failed to discharge their religious duties; but as earthquakes happened in uninhabited countries, and often at sea, where no one is hurt, most people have concluded that they are not sent as punishments. they have insisted that cities have been burned as a punish- ment, and to show the indignation of the lord, but at the same time they have admitted that if the streets had been wider, the fire departments better organized, and wooden buildings fewer, the design of the lord would have been frustrated. after reading the history of the world, it is some- what difficult to find which side the lord is really on. he has allowed catholics to overwhelm and de- stroy protestants, and then he has allowed protestants to overwhelm and destroy catholics. he has allowed christianity to triumph over paganism, and he allowed mohammedans to drive back the hosts of the cross from the sepulchre of his son. it is curious that this god would allow the slave trade to go on, and yet punish the violators of the sabbath. it is simply wonderful that he would allow kings to wage cruel and remorseless war, to sacrifice millions upon the altar of heartless ambition, and at the same time strike a man dead for taking his name in vain. it is wonderful that he allowed slavery to exist for centu- ries in the united states; that he allows polygamy now in utah; that he cares nothing for liberty in russia, nothing for free speech in germany, nothing for the sorrows of the overworked, underpaid millions of the world; that he cares nothing for the innocent languishing in prisons, nothing for the patriots con- demned to death, nothing for the heart-broken widows and orphans, nothing for the starving, and yet has ample time to note a sparrow's fall. if he would only strike dead the would-be murderers; if he would only palsy the hands of husbands' uplifted to strike their wives; if he would render speechless the cursers of children, he could afford to overlook the swearers and breakers of his sabbath. for one, i am not satisfied with the government of this world, and i am going to do what little i can to make it better. i want more thought and less fear, more manhood and less superstition, less prayer and more help, more education, more reason, more intellectual hospitality, and above all, and over all, more liberty and kindness. _question_. do you think that god, if there be one, when he saves or damns a man, will take into con- sideration all the circumstances of the man's life? _answer_. suppose that two orphan boys, james and john, are given homes. james is taken into a christian family and john into an infidel. james becomes a christian, and dies in the faith. john be- comes an infidel, and dies without faith in christ. according to the christian religion, as commonly preached, james will go to heaven, and john to hell. now, suppose that god knew that if james had been raised by the infidel family, he would have died an infidel, and that if john had been raised by the christian family, he would have died a christian. what then? recollect that the boys did not choose the families in which they were placed. suppose that a child, cast away upon an island in which he found plenty of food, grew to manhood; and suppose that after he had reached mature years, the island was visited by a missionary who taught a false religion; and suppose that this islander was con- vinced that he ought to worship a wooden idol; and suppose, further, that the worship consisted in sacri- ficing animals; and suppose the islander, actuated only by what he conceived to be his duty and by thankfulness, sacrificed a toad every night and every morning upon the altar of his wooden god; that when the sky looked black and threatening he sacri- ficed two toads; that when feeling unwell he sacrificed three; and suppose that in all this he was honest, that he really believed that the shedding of toad-blood would soften the heart of his god toward him? and suppose that after he had become fully-convinced of the truth of his religion, a missionary of the "true religion" should visit the island, and tell the history of the jews--unfold the whole scheme of salvation? and suppose that the islander should honestly reject the true religion? suppose he should say that he had "internal evidence" not only, but that many miracles had been performed by his god, in his behalf; that often when the sky was black with storm, he had sacrificed a toad, and in a few moments the sun was again visible, the heavens blue, and without a cloud; that on several occasions, having forgotten at evening to sacrifice his toad, he found himself unable to sleep--that his conscience smote him, he had risen, made the sacrifice, returned to his bed, and in a few moments sunk into a serene and happy slumber? and suppose, further, that the man honestly believed that the efficacy of the sacrifice depended largely on the size of the toad? now suppose that in this belief the man had died,--what then? it must be remembered that god knew when the missionary of the false religion went to the island; and knew that the islander would be convinced of the truth of the false religion; and he also knew that the missionary of the true religion could not, by any possibility, convince the islander of the error of his way; what then? if god is infinite, we cannot speak of him as making efforts, as being tired. we cannot con- sistently say that one thing is easy to him, and another thing is hard, providing both are possible. this being so, why did not god reveal himself to every human being? instead of having an inspired book, why did he not make inspired folks? instead of having his commandments put on tables of stone, why did he not write them on each human brain? why was not the mind of each man so made that every religious truth necessary to his salvation was an axiom? do we not know absolutely that man is greatly influenced by his surroundings? if mr. talmage had been born in turkey, is it not probable that he would now be a whirling dervish? if he had first seen the light in central africa, he might now have been prostrate before some enormous serpent; if in india, he might have been a brahmin, running a prayer-machine; if in spain, he would probably have been a priest, with his beads and holy water. had he been born among the north american indians, he would speak of the "great spirit," and solemnly smoke the the pipe of peace. mr. talmage teaches that it is the duty of children to perpetuate the errors of their parents; conse- quently, the religion of his parents determined his theology. it is with him not a question of reason, but of parents; not a question of argument, but of filial affection. he does not wish to be a philoso- pher, but an obedient son. suppose his father had been a catholic, and his mother a protestant,--what then? would he show contempt for his mother by following the path of his father; or would he show disrespect for his father, by accepting the religion of his mother; or would he have become a protestant with catholic proclivities, or a catholic with protest- ant leanings? suppose his parents had both been infidels--what then? is it not better for each one to decide honestly for himself? admitting that your parents were good and kind; admitting that they were honest in their views, why not have the courage to say, that in your opinion, father and mother were both mistaken? no one can honor his parents by being a hypocrite, or an intellectu- al coward. whoever is absolutely true to himself, is true to his parents, and true to the whole world. who- ever is untrue to himself, is false to all mankind. re- ligion must be an individual matter. if there is a god, and if there is a day of judgment, the church that a man belongs to will not be tried, but the man will be tried. it is a fact that the religion of most people was made for them by others; that they have accepted certain dogmas, not because they have examined them, but because they were told that they were true. most of the people in the united states, had they been born in turkey, would now be mohammedans, and most of the turks, had they been born in spain, would now be catholics. it is almost, if not quite, impossible for a man to rise entirely above the ideas, views, doctrines and re- ligions of his tribe or country. no one expects to find philosophers in central africa, or scientists among the fejees. no one expects to find philoso- phers or scientists in any country where the church has absolute control. if there is an infinitely good and wise god, of course he will take into consideration the surround- ings of every human being. he understands the philosophy of environment, and of heredity. he knows exactly the influence of the mother, of all associates, of all associations. he will also take into consideration the amount, quality and form of each brain, and whether the brain was healthy or diseased. he will take into consideration the strength of the passions, the weakness of the judgment. he will know exactly the force of all temptation--what was resisted. he will take an account of every effort made in the right direction, and will understand all the winds and waves and quicksands and shores and shallows in, upon and around the sea of every life. my own opinion is, that if such a being exists, and all these things are taken into consideration, we will be absolutely amazed to see how small the difference is between the "good" and the "bad." certainly there is no such difference as would justify a being of infinite wisdom and benevolence in rewarding one with eternal joy and punishing the other with eternal pain. _question_. what are the principal reasons that have satisfied you that the bible is not an inspired book? _answer_. the great evils that have afflicted this world are: _first_. human slavery--where men have bought and sold their fellow-men--sold babes from mothers, and have practiced) every conceivable cruelty upon the helpless. _second_. polygamy--an institution that destroys the home, that treats woman as a simple chattel, that does away with the sanctity of marriage, and with all that is sacred in love. _third_. wars of conquest and extermination-- by which nations have been made the food of the sword. _fourth_. the idea entertained by each nation that all other nations are destitute of rights--in other words, patriotism founded upon egotism, prejudice, and love of plunder. _fifth_. religious persecution. _sixth_. the divine right of kings--an idea that rests upon the inequality of human rights, and insists that people should be governed without their con- sent; that the right of one man to govern another comes from god, and not from the consent of the governed. this is caste--one of the most odious forms of slavery. _seventh_. a belief in malicious supernatural be- ings--devils, witches, and wizards. _eighth_. a belief in an infinite being who or- dered, commanded, established and approved all these evils. _ninth_. the idea that one man can be good for another, or bad for another--that is to say, that one can be rewarded for the goodness of another, or justly punished for the sins of another. _tenth_. the dogma that a finite being can commit an infinite sin, and thereby incur the eternal dis- pleasure of an infinitely good being, and be justly subjected to eternal torment. my principal objection to the bible is that it sus- tains all of these ten evils--that it is the advocate of human slavery, the friend of polygamy; that within its pages i find the command to wage wars of ex- termination; that i find also that the jews were taught to hate foreigners--to consider all human beings as inferior to themselves; i also find persecu- tion commanded as a religious duty; that kings were seated upon their thrones by the direct act of god, and that to rebel against a king was rebellion against god. i object to the bible also because i find within its pages the infamous spirit of caste--i see the sons of levi set apart as the perpetual beggars and governors of a people; because i find the air filled with demons seeking to injure and betray the sons of men; because this book is the fountain of modern superstition, the bulwark of tyranny and the fortress of caste. this book also subverts the idea of justice by threatening infinite punishment for the sins of a finite being. at the same time, i admit--as i always have ad- mitted--that there are good passages in the bible-- good laws, good teachings, with now and then a true line of history. but when it is asserted that every word was written by inspiration--that a being of in- finite wisdom and goodness is its author,--then i raise the standard of revolt. _question_. what do you think of the declaration of mr. talmage that the bible will be read in heaven throughout all the endless ages of eternity? _answer_. of course i know but very little as to what is or will be done in heaven. my knowledge of that country is somewhat limited, and it may be possible that the angels will spend most of their time in turning over the sacred leaves of the old testa- ment. i can not positively deny the statement of the reverend mr. talmage as i have but very little idea as to how the angels manage to kill time. the reverend mr. spurgeon stated in a sermon that some people wondered what they would do through all eternity in heaven. he said that, as for himself, for the first hundred thousand years he would look at the wound in one of the savior's feet, and for the next hundred thousand years he would look at the wound in his other foot, and for the next hundred thousand years he would look at the wound in one of his hands, and for the next hundred thousand years he would look at the wound in the other hand, and for the next hundred thousand years he would look at the wound in his side. surely, nothing could be more delightful than this a man capable of being happy in such employment, could of course take great delight in reading even the genealogies of the old testament. it is very easy to see what a glow of joy would naturally over- spread the face of an angel while reading the history of the jewish wars, how the seraphim and cherubim would clasp their rosy palms in ecstasy over the fate of korah and his company, and what laughter would wake the echoes of the new jerusalem as some one told again the story of the children and the bears; and what happy groups, with folded pinions, would smilingly listen to the th psalm. [illustration: ] an orthodox "state of mind" the talmagian catechism. _as mr. talmage delivered the series of sermons referred to in these interviews, for the purpose of furnishing arguments to the young, so that they might not be misled by the sophistry of modern infi-delity, i have thought it best to set forth, for use in sunday schools, the pith and marrow of what he has been pleased to say, in the form of_ a shorter catechism. _question_. who made you? _answer_. jehovah, the original presbyterian. _question_. what else did he make? _answer_. he made the world and all things. _question_. did he make the world out of nothing? _answer_. no. _question_. what did he make it out of? _answer_. out of his "omnipotence." many infidels have pretended that if god made the universe, and if there was nothing until he did make it, he had nothing to make it out of. of course this is perfectly absurd when we remember that he always had his "omnipo- tence and that is, undoubtedly, the material used. _question_. did he create his own "omnipotence"? _answer_. certainly not, he was always omnipo- tent. _question_. then if he always had "omnipotence," he did not "create" the material of which the uni- verse is made; he simply took a portion of his "omnipotence" and changed it to "universe"? _answer_. certainly, that is the way i under- stand it. _question_. is he still omnipotent, and has he as much "omnipotence" now as he ever had? _answer_. well, i suppose he has. _question_. how long did it take god to make the universe? _answer_. six "good-whiles." _question_. how long is a "good-while"? _answer_. that will depend upon the future dis- coveries of geologists. "good-whiles" are of such a nature that they can be pulled out, or pushed up; and it is utterly impossible for any infidel, or scien- tific geologist, to make any period that a "good-while" won't fit. _question_. what do you understand by "the "morning and evening" of a "good-while"? _answer_. of course the words "morning and "evening" are used figuratively, and mean simply the beginning and the ending, of each "good-while." _question_. on what day did god make vegetation? _answer_. on the third day. _question_. was that before the sun was made? _answer_. yes; a "good-while" before. _question_. how did vegetation grow without sun- light? _answer_. my own opinion is, that it was either "nourished by the glare of volcanoes in the moon or "it may have gotten sufficient light from rivers "of molten granite;" or, "sufficient light might have "been emitted by the crystallization of rocks." it has been suggested that light might have been fur- nished by fire-flies and phosphorescent bugs and worms, but this i regard as going too far. _question_. do you think that light emitted by rocks would be sufficient to produce trees? _answer_. yes, with the assistance of the "aurora "borealis, or even the aurora australis;" but with both, most assuredly. _question_. if the light of which you speak was sufficient, why was the sun made? _answer_. to keep time with. _question_. what did god make man of? _answer_. he made man of dust and "omnipo- "tence." _question_. did he make a woman at the same time that he made a man? _answer_. no; he thought at one time to avoid the necessity of making a woman, and he caused all the animals to pass before adam, to see what he would call them, and to see whether a fit companion could be found for him. among them all, not one suited adam, and jehovah immediately saw that he would have to make an help-meet on purpose. _question_. what was woman made of? _answer_. she was made out of "man's side, out of his right side," and some more "omnipotence." infi- dels say that she was made out of a rib, or a bone, but that is because they do not understand hebrew. _question_. what was the object of making woman out of man's side? _answer_. so that a young man would think more of a neighbor's girl than of his own uncle or grand- father. _question_. what did god do with adam and eve after he got them done? _answer_. he put them into a garden to see what they would do. _question_. do we know where the garden of eden was, and have we ever found any place where a "river parted and became into four heads"? _answer_. we are not certain where this garden was, and the river that parted into four heads cannot at present be found. infidels have had a great deal to say about these four rivers, but they will wish they had even one, one of these days. _question_. what happened to adam and eve in the garden? _answer_. they were tempted by a snake who was an exceedingly good talker, and who probably came in walking on the end of his tail. this supposition is based upon the fact that, as a punishment, he was condemned to crawl on his belly. before that time, of course, he walked upright. _question_. what happened then? _answer_. our first parents gave way, ate of the forbidden fruit, and in consequence, disease and death entered the world. had it not been for this, there would have been no death and no disease. suicide would have been impossible, and a man could have been blown into a thousand atoms by dynamite, and the pieces would immediately have come together again. fire would have refused to burn and water to drown; there could have been no hunger, no thirst; all things would have been equally healthy. _question_. do you mean to say that there would have been no death in the world, either of animals, insects, or persons? _answer_. of course. _question_. do you also think that all briers and thorns sprang from the same source, and that had the apple not been eaten, no bush in the world would have had a thorn, and brambles and thistles would have been unknown? _answer_. certainly. _question_. would there have been no poisonous plants, no poisonous reptiles? _answer_. no, sir; there would have been none; there would have been no evil in the world if adam and eve had not partaken of the forbidden fruit. _question_. was the snake who tempted them to eat, evil? _answer_. certainly. ' _question_. was he in the world before the for- bidden fruit was eaten? _answer_. of course he was; he tempted them to eat it _question_. how, then, do you account for the fact that, before the forbidden fruit was eaten, an evil serpent was in the world? _answer_. perhaps apples had been eaten in other worlds. _question_. is it not wonderful that such awful con- sequences flowed from so small an act? _answer_. it is not for you to reason about it; you should simply remember that god is omnipotent. there is but one way to answer these things, and that is to admit their truth. nothing so puts the infinite out of temper as to see a human being impudent enough to rely upon his reason. the moment we rely upon our reason, we abandon god, and try to take care of ourselves. whoever relies entirely upon god, has no need of reason, and reason has no need of him. _question_. were our first parents under the im- mediate protection of an infinite god? _answer_. they were. _question_. why did he not protect them? why did he not warn them of this snake? why did he not put them on their guard? why did he not make them so sharp, intellectually, that they could not be deceived? why did he not destroy that snake; or how did he come to make him; what did he make him for? _answer_. you must remember that, although god made adam and eve perfectly good, still he was very anxious to test them. he also gave them the power of choice, knowing at the same time exactly what they would choose, and knowing that he had made them so that they must choose in a certain way. a being of infinite wisdom tries experiments. knowing ex- actly what will happen, he wishes to see if it will. _question_. what punishment did god inflict upon adam and eve for the sin of having eaten the for- bidden fruit? _answer_. he pronounced a curse upon the woman, saying that in sorrow she should bring forth children, and that her husband should rule over her; that she, having tempted her husband, was made his slave; and through her, all married women have been de- prived of their natural liberty. on account of the sin of adam and eve, god cursed the ground, saying that it should bring forth thorns and thistles, and that man should eat his bread in sorrow, and that he should eat the herb of the field. _question_. did he turn them out of the garden because of their sin? _answer_. no. the reason god gave for turning them out of the garden was: "behold the man is "become as one of us, to know good and evil; and "now, lest he put forth his hand and take of the "tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore, the "lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden "to till the ground from whence he was taken." _question_. if the man had eaten of the tree of life, would he have lived forever? _answer_. certainly. _question_. was he turned out to prevent his eating? _answer_. he was. _question_. then the old testament tells us how we lost immortality, not that we are immortal, does it? _answer_. yes; it tells us how we lost it. _question_. was god afraid that adam and eve might get back into the garden, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life? _answer_. i suppose he was, as he placed "cher- "ubim and a flaming sword which turned every "way to guard the tree of life." _question_. has any one ever seen any of these cherubim? _answer_. not that i know of. _question_. where is the flaming sword now? _answer_. some angel has it in heaven. _question_. do you understand that god made coats of skins, and clothed adam and eve when he turned them out of the garden? _answer_. yes, sir. _question_. do you really believe that the infinite god killed some animals, took their skins from them, cut out and sewed up clothes for adam and eve? _answer_. the bible says so; we know that he had patterns for clothes, because he showed some to moses on mount sinai. _question_. about how long did god continue to pay particular attention to his children in this world? _answer_. for about fifteen hundred years; and some of the people lived to be nearly a thousand years of age. _question_. did this god establish any schools or institutions of learning? did he establish any church? did he ordain any ministers, or did he have any re- vivals? _answer_. no; he allowed the world to go on pretty much in its own way. he did not even keep his own boys at home. they came down and made love to the daughters of men, and finally the world got exceedingly bad. _question_. what did god do then? _answer_. he made up his mind that he would drown them. you see they were all totally depraved,--in every joint and sinew of their bodies, in every drop of their blood, and in every thought of their brains. _question_. did he drown them all? _answer_. no, he saved eight, to start with again. _question_. were these eight persons totally de- praved? _answer_. yes. _question_. why did he not kill them, and start over again with a perfect pair? would it not have been better to have had his flood at first, before he made anybody, and drowned the snake? _answer_. "god's way are not our ways;" and besides, you must remember that "a thousand years "are as one day" with god. _question_. how did god destroy the people? _answer_. by water; it rained forty days and forty nights, and "the fountains of the great deep were "broken up." _question_. how deep was the water? _answer_. about five miles. _question_. how much did it rain each day? _answer_. about eight hundred feet; though the better opinion now is, that it was a local flood. in- fidels have raised objections and pressed them to that degree that most orthodox people admit that the flood was rather local. _question_. if it was a local flood, why did they put birds of the air into the ark? certainly, birds could have avoided a local flood? _answer_. if you take this away from us, what do you propose to give us in its place? some of the best people of the world have believed this story. kind husbands, loving mothers, and earnest patriots have believed it, and that is sufficient. _question_. at the time god made these people, did he know that he would have to drown them all? _answer_. of course he did. _question_. did he know when he made them that they would all be failures? _answer_. of course. _question_. why, then, did he make them? _answer_. he made them for his own glory, and no man should disgrace his parents by denying it. _question_. were the people after the flood just as bad as they were before? _answer_. about the same. _question_. did they try to circumvent god? _answer_. they did. _question_. how? _answer_. they got together for the purpose of build- ing a tower, the top of which should reach to heaven, so that they could laugh at any future floods, and go to heaven at any time they desired. _question_. did god hear about this? _answer_. he did. _question_. what did he say? _answer_. he said: "go to; let us go down," and see what the people are doing; i am satisfied they will succeed. _question_. how were the people prevented from succeeding? _answer_. god confounded their language, so that the mason on top could not cry "mort'!" to the hod-carrier below; he could not think of the word to use, to save his life, and the building stopped. _question_. if it had not been for the confusion of tongues at babel, do you really think that all the people in the world would have spoken just the same language, and would have pronounced every word precisely the same? _answer_. of course. _question_. if it had not been, then, for the con- fusion of languages, spelling books, grammars and dictionaries would have been useless? _answer_. i suppose so. _question_. do any two people in the whole world speak the same language, now? _answer_. of course they don't, and this is one of the great evidences that god introduced confusion into the languages. every error in grammar, every mistake in spelling, every blunder in pronunciation, proves the truth of the babel story. _question_. this being so, this miracle is the best attested of all? _answer_. i suppose it is. _question_. do you not think that a confusion of tongues would bring men together instead of separa- ting them? would not a man unable to converse with his fellow feel weak instead of strong; and would not people whose language had been con- founded cling together for mutual support? _answer_. according to nature, yes; according to theology, no; and these questions must be answered according to theology. and right here, it may be well enough to state, that in theology the unnatural is the probable, and the impossible is what has always happened. if theology were simply natural, anybody could be a theologian. _question_. did god ever make any other special efforts to convert the people, or to reform the world? _answer_. yes, he destroyed the cities of sodom and gomorrah with a storm of fire and brimstone. _question_. do you suppose it was really brim- stone? _answer_. undoubtedly. _question_. do you think this brimstone came from the clouds? _answer_. let me tell you that you have no right to examine the bible in the light of what people are pleased to call "science." the natural has nothing to do with the supernatural. naturally there would be no brimstone in the clouds, but supernaturally there might be. god could make brimstone out of his "omnipotence." we do not know really what brimstone is, and nobody knows exactly how brim- stone is made. as a matter of fact, all the brimstone in the world might have fallen at that time. _question_. do you think that lot's wife was changed into salt? _answer_. of course she was. a miracle was per- formed. a few centuries ago, the statue of salt made by changing lot's wife into that article, was standing. christian travelers have seen it. _question_. why do you think she was changed into salt? _answer_. for the purpose of keeping the event fresh in the minds of men. _question_. god having failed to keep people in- nocent in a garden; having failed to govern them outside of a garden; having failed to reform them by water; having failed to produce any good result by a confusion of tongues; having failed to reform them with fire and brimstone, what did he then do? _answer_. he concluded that he had no time to waste on them all, but that he would have to select one tribe, and turn his entire attention to just a few folks. _question_. whom did he select? _answer_. a man by the name of abram. _question_. what kind of man was abram? _answer_. if you wish to know, read the twelfth chapter of genesis; and if you still have any doubts as to his character, read the twentieth chapter of the same book, and you will see that he was a man who made merchandise of his wife's body. he had had such good fortune in egypt, that he tried the experi- ment again on abimelech. _question_. did abraham show any gratitude? _answer_. yes; he offered to sacrifice his son, to show his confidence in jehovah. _question_. what became of abraham and his people? _answer_. god took such care of them, that in about two hundred and fifteen years they were all slaves in the land of egypt. _question_. how long did they remain in slavery? _answer_. two hundred and fifteen years. _question_. were they the same people that god had promised to take care of? _answer_. they were. _question_. was god at that time, in favor of slavery? _answer_. not at that time. he was angry at the egyptians for enslaving the jews, but he afterwards authorized the jews to enslave other people. _question_. what means did he take to liberate the jews? _answer_. he sent his agents to pharaoh, and de- manded their freedom; and upon pharaoh s refusing, he afflicted the people, who had nothing to do with it, with various plagues,--killed children, and tor- mented and tortured beasts. _question_. was such conduct godlike? _answer_. certainly. if you have anything against your neighbor, it is perfectly proper to torture his horse, or torment his dog. nothing can be nobler than this. you see it is much better to injure his animals than to injure him. to punish animals for the sins of their owners must be just, or god would not have done it. pharaoh insisted on keeping the people in slavery, and therefore god covered the bodies of oxen and cows with boils. he also bruised them to death with hailstones. from this we infer, that "the loving kindness of god is over all his works." _question_. do you consider such treatment of ani- mals consistent with divine mercy? _answer_. certainly. you know that under the mosaic dispensation, when a man did a wrong, he could settle with god by killing an ox, or a sheep, or some doves. if the man failed to kill them, of course god would kill them. it was upon this prin- ciple that he destroyed the animals of the egyptians. they had sinned, and he merely took his pay. _question_. how was it possible, under the old dis- pensation, to please a being of infinite kindness? _answer_. all you had to do was to take an innocent animal, bring it to the altar, cut its throat, and sprinkle the altar with its blood. certain parts of it were to be given to the butcher as his share, and the rest was to be burnt on the altar. when god saw an animal thus butchered, and smelt the warm blood mingled with the odor of burning flesh, he was pacified, and the smile of forgiveness shed its light upon his face. of course, infidels laugh at these things; but what can you expect of men who have not been "born "again"? "the carnal mind is enmity with god." _question_. what else did god do in order to in- duce pharaoh to liberate the jews? _answer_. he had his agents throw down a cane in the presence of pharaoh and thereupon jehovah changed this cane into a serpent. _question_. did this convince pharaoh? _answer_. no; he sent for his own magicians. _question_. what did they do? _answer_. they threw down some canes and they also were changed into serpents. _question_. did jehovah change the canes of the egyptian magicians into snakes? _answer_. i suppose he did, as he is the only one capable of performing such a miracle. _question_. if the rod of aaron was changed into a serpent in order to convince pharaoh that god had sent aaron and moses, why did god change the sticks of the egyptian magicians into serpents--why did he discredit his own agents, and render worth- less their only credentials? _answer_. well, we cannot explain the conduct of jehovah; we are perfectly satisfied that it was for the best. even in this age of the world god allows infidels to overwhelm his chosen people with argu- ments; he allows them to discover facts that his ministers can not answer, and yet we are satisfied that in the end god will give the victory to us. all these things are tests of faith. it is upon this prin- ciple that god allows geology to laugh at genesis, that he permits astronomy apparently to contradict his holy word. _question_. what did god do with these people after pharaoh allowed them to go? _answer_. finding that they were not fit to settle a new country, owing to the fact that when hungry they longed for food, and sometimes when their lips were cracked with thirst insisted on having water, god in his infinite mercy had them marched round and round, back and forth, through a barren wilder- ness, until all, with the exception of two persons, died. _question_. why did he do this? _answer_. because he had promised these people that he would take them "to a land flowing with "milk and honey." _question_. was god always patient and kind and merciful toward his children while they were in the wilderness? _answer_. yes, he always was merciful and kind and patient. infidels have taken the ground that he visited them with plagues and disease and famine; that he had them bitten by serpents, and now and then allowed the ground to swallow a few thousands of them, and in other ways saw to it that they were kept as comfortable and happy as was consistent with good government; but all these things were for their good; and the fact is, infidels have no real sense of justice. _question_. how did god happen to treat the is- raelites in this way, when he had promised abraham that he would take care of his progeny, and when he had promised the same to the poor wretches while they were slaves in egypt? _answer_. because god is unchangeable in his na- ture, and wished to convince them that every being should be perfectly faithful to his promise. _question_. was god driven to madness by the conduct of his chosen people? _answer_. almost. _question_. did he know exactly what they would do when he chose them? _answer_. exactly. _question_. were the jews guilty of idolatry? _answer_. they were. they worshiped other gods --gods made of wood and stone. _question_. is it not wonderful that they were not convinced of the power of god, by the many mira- cles wrought in egypt and in the wilderness? _answer_. yes, it is very wonderful; but the jews, who must have seen bread rained from heaven; who saw water gush from the rocks and follow them up hill and down; who noticed that their clothes did not wear out, and did not even get shiny at the knees, while the elbows defied the ravages of time, and their shoes remained perfect for forty years; it is wonderful that when they saw the ground open and swallow their comrades; when they saw god talking face to face with moses as a man talks with his friend; after they saw the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night,--it is absolutely astonishing that they had more faith in a golden calf that they made themselves, than in jehovah. _question_. how is it that the jews had no confi- dence in these miracles? _answer_. because they were there and saw them. _question_. do you think that it is necessary for us to believe all the miracles of the old testament in order to be saved? _answer_. the old testament is the foundation of the new. if the old testament is not inspired, then the new is of no value. if the old testament is inspired, all the miracles are true, and we cannot believe that god would allow any errors, or false statements, to creep into an inspired volume, and to be perpetuated through all these years. _question_. should we believe the miracles, whether they are reasonable or not? _answer_. certainly; if they were reasonable, they would not be miracles. it is their unreasonableness that appeals to our credulity and our faith. it is im- possible to have theological faith in anything that can be demonstrated. it is the office of faith to believe, not only without evidence, but in spite of evidence. it is impossible for the carnal mind to believe that samsons muscle depended upon the length of his hair. "god has made the wisdom of "this world foolishness." neither can the uncon- verted believe that elijah stopped at a hotel kept by ravens. neither can they believe that a barrel would in and of itself produce meal, or that an earthen pot could create oil. but to a christian, in order that a widow might feed a preacher, the truth of these stories is perfectly apparent. _question_. how should we regard the wonderful stories of the old testament? _answer_. they should be looked upon as "types" and "symbols." they all have a spiritual signifi- cance. the reason i believe the story of jonah is, that jonah is a type of christ. _question_. do you believe the story of jonah to be a true account of a literal fact? _answer_. certainly. you must remember that jonah was not swallowed by a whale. god "pre- "pared a great fish" for that occasion. neither is it by any means certain that jonah was in the belly of this whale. "he probably stayed in his mouth." even if he was in his stomach, it was very easy for him to defy the ordinary action of gastric juice by rapidly walking up and down.. _question_. do you think that jonah was really in the whale's stomach? _answer_. my own opinion is that he stayed in his mouth. the only objection to this theory is, that it is more reasonable than the other and requires less faith. nothing could be easier than for god to make a fish large enough to furnish ample room for one passenger in his mouth. i throw out this suggestion simply that you may be able to answer the objections of infidels who are always laughing at this story. _question_. do you really believe that elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of fire? _answer_. of course he did. _question_. what was this miracle performed for? _answer_. to convince the people of the power of god. _question_. who saw the miracle? _answer_. nobody but elisha. _question_. was he convinced before that time? _answer_. oh yes; he was one of god's prophets. _question_. suppose that in these days two men should leave a town together, and after a while one of them should come back having on the clothes of the other, and should account for the fact that he had his friend's clothes by saying that while they were going along the road together a chariot of fire came down from heaven drawn by fiery steeds, and there- upon his friend got into the carriage, threw him his clothes, and departed,--would you believe it? _answer_. of course things like that don't happen in these days; god does not have to rely on wonders now. _question_. do you mean that he performs no miracles at the present day? _answer_. we cannot say that he does not perform miracles now, but we are not in position to call atten- tion to any particular one. of course he supervises the affairs of nations and men and does whatever in his judgment is necessary. _question_. do you think that samson's strength depended on the length of his hair? _answer_. the bible so states, and the bible is true. a physiologist might say that a man could not use the muscle in his hair for lifting purposes, but these same physiologists could not tell you how you move a finger, nor how you lift a feather; still, actuated by the pride of intellect, they insist that the length of a man's hair could not determine his strength. god says it did; the physiologist says that it did not; we can not hesitate whom to believe. for the purpose of avoiding eternal agony i am willing to believe anything; i am willing to say that strength depends upon the length of hair, or faith upon the length of ears. i am perfectly willing to believe that a man caught three hundred foxes, and put fire brands be- tween their tails; that he slew thousands with a bone, and that he made a bee hive out of a lion. i will believe, if necessary, that when this man's hair was short he hardly had strength enough to stand, and that when it was long, he could carry away the gates of a city, or overthrow a temple filled with people. if the infidel is right, i will lose nothing by believing, but if he is wrong, i shall gain an eternity of joy. if god did not intend that we should believe these stories, he never would have told them, and why should a man put his soul in peril by trying to dis- prove one of the statements of the lord? _question_. suppose it should turn out that some of these miracles depend upon mistranslations of the original hebrew, should we still believe them? _answer_. the safe side is the best side. it is far better to err on the side of belief, than on the side of infidelity. god does not threaten anybody with eternal punishment for believing too much. danger lies on the side of investigation, on the side of thought. the perfectly idiotic are absolutely safe. as they diverge from that point,--as they rise in the intellectual scale, as the brain develops, as the faculties enlarge, the danger increases. i know that some biblical students now take the ground that samson caught no foxes,--that he only took sheaves of wheat that had been already cut and bound, set them on fire, and threw them into the grain still standing. if this is what he did, of course there is nothing miraculous about it, and the value of the story is lost. so, others contend that elijah was not fed by the ravens, but by the arabs. they tell us that the hebrew word standing for "arab" also stands for "bird," and that the word really means "migratory--going from place to place--homeless." but i prefer the old version. it certainly will do no harm to believe that ravens brought bread and flesh to a prophet of god. where they got their bread and flesh is none of my business; how they knew where the prophet was, and recognized him; or how god talks to ravens, or how he gave them directions, i have no right to inquire. i leave these questions to the scientists, the blasphemers, and thinkers. there are many people in the church anxious to get the miracles out of the bible, and thousands, i have no doubt, would be greatly gratified to learn that there is, in fact, nothing miraculous in scripture; but when you take away the miraculous, you take away the supernatural; when you take away the supernatural, you destroy the ministry; and when you take away the ministry, hundreds of thousands of men will be left without employment. _question_. is it not wonderful that the egyptians were not converted by the miracles wrought in their country? _answer_. yes, they all would have been, if god had not purposely hardened their hearts to prevent it. jehovah always took great delight in furnishing the evidence, and then hardening the man's heart so that he would not believe it. after all the miracles that had been performed in egypt,--the most won- derful that were ever done in any country, the egyptians were as unbelieving as at first; they pur- sued the israelites, knowing that they were protected by an infinite god, and failing to overwhelm them, came back and worshiped their own false gods just as firmly as before. all of which shows the unreason- ableness of a pagan, and the natural depravity of human nature. _question_. how did it happen that the canaanites were never convinced that the jews were assisted by jehovah? _answer_. they must have been an exceedingly brave people to contend so many years with the chosen people of god. notwithstanding all their cities were burned time and time again; notwith- standing all the men, women and children were put to the edge of the sword; notwithstanding the taking of all their cattle and sheep, they went right on fighting just as valiantly and desperately as ever. each one lost his life many times, and was just as ready for the next conflict. my own opinion is, that god kept them alive by raising them from the dead after each battle, for the purpose of punishing the jews. god used his enemies as instruments for the civilization of the jewish people. he did not wish to convert them, because they would give him much more trouble as jews than they did as canaanites. he had all the jews he could conveniently take care of. he found it much easier to kill a hundred canaanites than to civilize one jew. _question_. how do you account for the fact that the heathen were not surprised at the stopping of the sun and moon? _answer_. they were so ignorant that they had not the slightest conception of the real cause of the phenomenon. had they known the size of the earth, and the relation it sustained to the other heavenly bodies; had they known the magnitude of the sun, and the motion of the moon, they would, in all probability, have been as greatly astonished as the jews were; but being densely ignorant of as- tronomy, it must have produced upon them not the slightest impression. but we must remember that the sun and moon were not stopped for the purpose of converting these people, but to give joshua more time to kill them. as soon as we see clearly the purpose of jehovah, we instantly perceive how ad- mirable were the means adopted. _question_. do you not consider the treatment of the canaanites to have been cruel and ferocious? _answer_. to a totally depraved man, it does look cruel; to a being without any good in him,--to one who has inherited the rascality of many generations, the murder of innocent women and little children does seem horrible; to one who is "contaminated in "all his parts," by original sin,--who was "conceived "in sin, and brought forth in iniquity," the assassina- tion of men, and the violation of captive maidens, do not seem consistent with infinite goodness. but when one has been "born again," when "the love "of god has been shed abroad in his heart," when he loves all mankind, when he "overcomes evil with "good," when he "prays for those who despite- "fully use him and persecute him,"--to such a man, the extermination of the canaanites, the violation of women, the slaughter of babes, and the destruc- tion of countless thousands, is the highest evidence of the goodness, the mercy, and the long-suffering of god. when a man has been "born again," all the passages of the old testament that appear so horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state, become the dearest, the most consoling, and the most beautiful of truths. the real christian reads the accounts of these ancient battles with the greatest possible satisfaction. to one who really loves his enemies, the groans of men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of babes, make music sweeter than the zephyr's breath. _question_. in your judgment, why did god destroy the canaanites? _answer_. to prevent their contaminating his chosen people. he knew that if the jews were allowed to live with such neighbors, they would finally become as bad as the canaanites themselves. he wished to civilize his chosen people, and it was therefore necessary for him to destroy the heathen. _question_. did god succeed in civilizing the jews after he had "removed" the canaanites? _answer_. well, not entirely. he had to allow the heathen he had not destroyed to overrun the whole land and make captives of the jews. this was done for the good of his chosen people. _question_. did he then succeed in civilizing them? _answer_. not quite. _question_. did he ever quite succeed in civilizing them? _answer_. well, we must admit that the experi- ment never was a conspicuous success. the jews were chosen by the almighty years before he appeared to moses on mount sinai. he was their direct governor. he attended personally to their religion and politics, and gave up a great part of his valuable time for about two thousand years, to the management of their affairs; and yet, such was the condition of the jewish people, after they had had all these advantages, that when there arose among them a perfectly kind, just, generous and honest man, these people, with whom god had been laboring for so many centuries, deliberately put to death that good and loving man. _question_. do you think that god really endeav- ored to civilize the jews? _answer_. this is an exceedingly hard question. if he had really tried to do it, of course he could have done it. we must not think of limiting the power of the infinite. but you must remember that if he had succeeded in civilizing the jews, if he had educated them up to the plane of intellectual liberty, and made them just and kind and merciful, like him- self, they would not have crucified christ, and you can see at once the awful condition in which we would all be to-day. no atonement could have been made; and if no atonement had been made, then, according to the christian system, the whole world would have been lost. we must admit that there was no time in the history of the jews from sinai to jerusalem, that they would not have put a man like christ to death. _question_. so you think that, after all, it was not god's intention that the jews should become civilized? _answer_. we do not know. we can only say that "god's ways are not our ways." it may be that god took them in his special charge, for the purpose of keeping them bad enough to make the necessary sacrifice. that may have been the divine plan. in any event, it is safer to believe the explana- tion that is the most unreasonable. _question_. do you think that christ knew the jews would crucify him? _answer_. certainly. _question_. do you think that when he chose judas he knew that he would betray him? _answer_. certainly. _question_. did he know when judas went to the chief priest and made the bargain for the delivery of christ? _answer_. certainly. _question_. why did he allow himself to be be- trayed, if he knew the plot? _answer_. infidelity is a very good doctrine to live by, but you should read the last words of paine and voltaire. _question_. if christ knew that judas would betray him, why did he choose him? _answer_. nothing can exceed the atrocities of the french revolution--when they carried a woman through the streets and worshiped her as the goddess of reason. _question_. would not the mission of christ have been a failure had no one betrayed him? _answer_. thomas paine was a drunkard, and re- canted on his death-bed, and died a blaspheming infidel besides. _question_. is it not clear that an atonement was necessary; and is it not equally clear that the atone- ment could not have been made unless somebody had betrayed christ; and unless the jews had been wicked and orthodox enough to crucify him? _answer_. of course the atonement had to be made. it was a part of the "divine plan" that christ should be betrayed, and that the jews should be wicked enough to kill him. otherwise, the world would have been lost. _question_. suppose judas had understood the divine plan, what ought he to have done? should he have betrayed christ, or let somebody else do it; or should he have allowed the world to perish, in- cluding his own soul? _answer_. if you take the bible away from the world, "how would it be possible to have witnesses "sworn in courts;" how would it be possible to ad- minister justice? _question_. if christ had not been betrayed and crucified, is it true that his own mother would be in perdition to-day? _answer_. most assuredly. there was but one way by which she could be saved, and that was by the death of her son--through the blood of the atonement. she was totally depraved through the sin of adam, and deserved eternal death. even her love for the infant christ was, in the sight of god,-- that is to say, of her babe,--wickedness. it can not be repeated too often that there is only one way to be saved, and that is, to believe in the lord jesus christ. _question_. could christ have prevented the jews from crucifying him? _answer_. he could. _question_. if he could have saved his life and did not, was he not guilty of suicide? _answer_. no one can understand these questions who has not read the prophecies of daniel, and has not a clear conception of what is meant by "the full- "ness of time." _question_. what became of all the canaanites, the egyptians, the hindus, the greeks and romans and chinese? what became of the billions who died before the promise was made to abraham; of the billions and billions who never heard of the bible, who never heard the name, even, of jesus christ-- never knew of "the scheme of salvation"? what became of the millions and billions who lived in this hemisphere, and of whose existence jehovah himself seemed perfectly ignorant? _answer_. they were undoubtedly lost. god having made them, had a right to do with them as he pleased. they are probably all in hell to-day, and the fact that they are damned, only adds to the joy of the redeemed. it is by contrast that we are able to perceive the infinite kindness with which god has treated us. _question_. is it not possible that something can be done for a human soul in another world as well as in this? _answer_. no; this is the only world in which god even attempts to reform anybody. in the other world, nothing is done for the purpose of making anybody better. here in this world, where man lives but a few days, is the only opportunity for moral improvement. a minister can do a thou- sand times more for a soul than its creator; and this country is much better adapted to moral growth than heaven itself. a person who lived on this earth a few years, and died without having been converted, has no hope in another world. the moment he arrives at the judgment seat, nothing remains but to damn him. neither god, nor the holy ghost, nor jesus christ, can have the least possible influence with him there. _question_. when god created each human being, did he know exactly what would be his eternal fate? _answer_. most assuredly he did. _question_. did he know that hundreds and millions and billions would suffer eternal pain? _answer_. certainly. but he gave them freedom of choice between good and evil. _question_. did he know exactly how they would use that freedom? _answer_. yes. _question_. did he know that billions would use it wrong? _answer_. yes. _question_. was it optional with him whether he should make such people or not? _answer_. certainly. _question_. had these people any option as to whether they would be made or not? _answer_, no. _question_. would it not have been far better to leave them unconscious dust? _answer_. these questions show how foolish it is to judge god according to a human standard. what to us seems just and merciful, god may regard in an exactly opposite light; and we may hereafter be developed to such a degree that we will regard the agonies of the damned as the highest possible evi- dence of the goodness and mercy of god. _question_. how do you account for the fact that god did not make himself known except to abra- ham and his descendants? why did he fail to reveal himself to the other nations--nations that, compared with the jews, were learned, cultivated and powerful? would you regard a revelation now made to the esquimaux as intended for us; and would it be a revelation of which we would be obliged to take notice? _answer_. of course, god could have revealed him- self, not only to all the great nations, but to each individual. he could have had the ten command- ments engraved on every heart and brain; or he could have raised up prophets in every land; but he chose, rather, to allow countless millions of his children to wander in the darkness and blackness of nature; chose, rather, that they should redden their hands in each other's blood; chose, rather, that they should live without light, and die without hope; chose, rather, that they should suffer, not only in this world, but forever in the next. of course we have no right to find fault with the choice of god. _question_. now you can tell a sinner to "believe "on the lord jesus christ;" what could a sinner have been told in egypt, three thousand years ago; and in what language would you have addressed a hindu in the days of buddha--the "divine scheme" at that time being a secret in the divine breast? _answer_. it is not for us to think upon these questions. the moment we examine the christian system, we begin to doubt. in a little while, we shall be infidels, and shall lose the respect of those who refuse to think. it is better to go with the majority. these doctrines are too sacred to be touched. you should be satisfied with the religion of your father and your mother. "you want some book on the "centre-table," in the parlor; it is extremely handy to have a family record; and what book, other than the bible, could a mother give a son as he leaves the old homestead? _question_. is it not wonderful that all the writers of the four gospels do not give an account of the ascension of jesus christ? _answer_. this question has been answered long ago, time and time again. _question_. perhaps it has, but would it not be well enough to answer it once more? some may not have seen the answer? _answer_. show me the hospitals that infidels have built; show me the asylums that infidels have founded. _question_. i know you have given the usual an- swer; but after all, is it not singular that a miracle so wonderful as the bodily ascension of a man, should not have been mentioned by all the writers of that man's life? is it not wonderful that some of them said that he did ascend, and others that he agreed to stay with his disciples always? _answer_. people unacquainted with the hebrew, can have no conception of these things. a story in plain english, does not sound as it does in hebrew. miracles seem altogether more credible, when told in a dead language. _question_. what, in your judgment, became of the dead who were raised by christ? is it not singular that they were never mentioned afterward? would not a man who had been raised from the dead naturally be an object of considerable interest, especially to his friends and acquaintances? and is it not also wonderful that christ, after having wrought so many miracles, cured so many lame and halt and blind, fed so many thousands miraculously, and after having entered jerusalem in triumph as a conqueror and king, had to be pointed out by one of his own disciples who was bribed for the purpose? _answer_. of course, all these things are exceed- ingly wonderful, and if found in any other book, would be absolutely incredible; but we have no right to apply the same kind of reasoning to the bible that we apply to the koran or to the sacred books of the hindus. for the ordinary affairs of this world, god has given us reason; but in the examination of religious questions, we should de- pend upon credulity and faith. _question_. if christ came to offer himself a sacri- fice, for the purpose of making atonement for the sins of such as might believe on him, why did he not make this fact known to all of his disciples? _answer_. he did. this was, and is, the gospel. _question_. how is it that matthew says nothing about "salvation by faith," but simply says that god will be merciful to the merciful, that he will forgive the forgiving, and says not one word about the necessity of believing anything? _answer_. but you will remember that mark says, in the last chapter of his gospel, that "whoso be- "lieveth not shall be damned." _question_. do you admit that matthew says nothing on the subject? _answer_. yes, i suppose i must. _question_. is not that passage in mark generally admitted to be an interpolation? _answer_. some biblical scholars say that it is. _question_. is that portion of the last chapter of mark found in the syriac version of the bible? _answer_. it is not. _question_. if it was necessary to believe on jesus christ, in order to be saved, how is it that matthew failed to say so? _answer_. "there are more copies of the bible "printed to-day, than of any other book in the world, "and it is printed in more languages than any other "book." _question_. do you consider it necessary to be "regenerated"--to be "born again"--in order to be saved? _answer_. certainly. _question_. did matthew say anything on the sub- ject of "regeneration"? _answer_. no. _question_. did mark? _answer_. no. _question_. did luke? _answer_. no. _question_. is saint john the only one who speaks of the necessity of being "born again"? _answer_. he is. _question_. do you think that matthew, mark and luke knew anything about the necessity of "regen- "eration"? _answer_. of course they did. _question_. why did they fail to speak of it? _answer_. there is no civilization without the bible. the moment you throw away the sacred scriptures, you are all at sea--you are without an anchor and without a compass. _question_. you will remember that, according to mark, christ said to his disciples: "go ye into all "the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." did he refer to the gospel set forth by mark? _answer_. of course he did. _question_. well, in the gospel set forth by mark, there is not a word about "regeneration," and no word about the necessity of believing anything--ex- cept in an interpolated passage. would it not seem from this, that "regeneration" and a "belief in the "lord jesus christ," are no part of the gospel? _answer_. nothing can exceed in horror the last moments of the infidel; nothing can be more ter- rible than the death of the doubter. when the glories of this world fade from the vision; when am- bition becomes an empty name; when wealth turns to dust in the palsied hand of death, of what use is philosophy then? who cares then for the pride of intellect? in that dread moment, man needs some- thing to rely on, whether it is true or not. _question_. would it not have been more con- vincing if christ, after his resurrection, had shown himself to his enemies as well as to his friends? would it not have greatly strengthened the evidence in the case, if he had visited pilate; had presented himself before caiaphas, the high priest; if he had again entered the temple, and again walked the streets of jerusalem? _answer_. if the evidence had been complete and overwhelming, there would have been no praise- worthiness in belief; even publicans and sinners would have believed, if the evidence had been suffi- cient. the amount of evidence required is the test of the true christian spirit. _question_. would it not also have been better had the ascension taken place in the presence of unbelieving thousands; it seems such a pity to have wasted such a demonstration upon those already convinced? _answer_. these questions are the natural fruit of the carnal mind, and can be accounted for only by the doctrine of total depravity. nothing has given the church more trouble than just such questions. unholy curiosity, a disposition to pry into the divine mysteries, a desire to know, to investigate, to explain --in short, to understand, are all evidences of a re- probate mind. _question_. how can we account for the fact that matthew alone speaks of the wise men of the east coming with gifts to the infant christ; that he alone speaks of the little babes being killed by herod? is it possible that the other writers never heard of these things? _answer_. nobody can get any good out of the bible by reading it in a critical spirit. the contra- dictions and discrepancies are only apparent, and melt away before the light of faith. that which in other books would be absolute and palpable contradiction, is, in the bible, when spiritually discerned, a perfect and beautiful harmony. my own opinion is, that seeming contradictions are in the bible for the pur- pose of testing and strengthening the faith of chris- tians, and for the further purpose of ensnaring infidels, "that they might believe a lie and be damned." _question_. is it possible that a good god would take pains to deceive his children? _answer_. the bible is filled with instances of that kind, and all orthodox ministers now know that fossil animals--that is, representations of animals in stone, were placed in the rocks on purpose to mis- lead men like darwin and humboldt, huxley and tyndall. it is also now known that god, for the purpose of misleading the so-called men of science, had hairy elephants preserved in ice, made stomachs for them, and allowed twigs of trees to be found in these stomachs, when, as a matter of fact, no such elephants ever lived or ever died. these men who are endeavoring to overturn the scriptures with the lever of science will find that they have been de- ceived. through all eternity they will regret their philosophy. they will wish, in the next world, that they had thrown away geology and physiology and all other "ologies" except theology. the time is coming when jehovah will "mock at their fears and "laugh at their calamity." _question_. if joseph was not the father of christ, why was his genealogy given to show that christ was of the blood of david; why would not the genealogy of any other jew have done as well? _answer_. that objection was raised and answered hundreds of years ago. _question_. if they wanted to show that christ was of the blood of david, why did they not give the gene- alogy of his mother if joseph was not his father? _answer_. that objection was answered hundreds of years ago. _question_. how was it answered? _answer_. when voltaire was dying, he sent for a priest. _question_. how does it happen that the two gene- alogies given do not agree? _answer_. perhaps they were written by different persons. _question_. were both these persons inspired by the same god? _answer_. of course. _question_. why were the miracles recorded in the new testament performed? _answer_. the miracles were the evidence relied on to prove the supernatural origin and the divine mission of jesus christ. _question_. aside from the miracles, is there any evidence to show the supernatural origin or character of jesus christ? _answer_. some have considered that his moral precepts are sufficient, of themselves, to show that he was divine. _question_. had all of his moral precepts been taught before he lived? _answer_. the same things had been said, but they did not have the same meaning. _question_. does the fact that buddha taught the same tend to show that he was of divine origin? _answer_. certainly not. the rules of evidence applicable to the bible are not applicable to other books. we examine other books in the light of reason; the bible is the only exception. so, we should not judge of christ as we do of any other man. _question_. do you think that christ wrought many of his miracles because he was good, charitable, and filled with pity? _answer_. certainly _question_. has he as much power now as he had when on earth? _answer_. most assuredly. _question_. is he as charitable and pitiful now, as he was then? _answer_. yes. _question_. why does he not now cure the lame and the halt and the blind? _answer_. it is well known that, when julian the apostate was dying, catching some of his own blood in his hand and throwing it into the air he exclaimed: "galileean, thou hast conquered!" _question_. do you consider it our duty to love our neighbor? _answer_. certainly. _question_. is virtue the same in all worlds? _answer_. most assuredly. _question_. are we under obligation to render good for evil, and to "pray for those who despitefully use us"? _answer_. yes. _question_. will christians in heaven love their neighbors? _answer_. y es; if their neighbors are not in hell. _question_. do good christians pity sinners in this world? _answer_. yes. _question_. why? _answer_. because they regard them as being in great danger of the eternal wrath of god. _question_. after these sinners have died, and been sent to hell, will the christians in heaven then pity them? _answer_. no. angels have no pity. _question_. if we are under obligation to love our enemies, is not god under obligation to love his? if we forgive our enemies, ought not god to forgive his? if we forgive those who injure us, ought not god to forgive those who have not injured him? _answer_. god made us, and he has therefore the right to do with us as he pleases. justice demands that he should damn all of us, and the few that he will save will be saved through mercy and without the slightest respect to anything they may have done themselves. such is the justice of god, that those in hell will have no right to complain, and those in heaven will have no right to be there. hell is justice, and salvation is charity. _question_. do you consider it possible for a law to be jusdy satisfied by the punishment of an innocent person? _answer_. such is the scheme of the atonement. as man is held responsible for the sin of adam, so he will be credited with the virtues of christ; and you can readily see that one is exactly as reasonable as the other. _question_. suppose a man honestly reads the new testament, and honestly concludes that it is not an inspired book; suppose he honestly makes up his mind that the miracles are not true; that the devil never really carried christ to the pinnacle of the temple; that devils were really never cast out of a man and allowed to take refuge in swine;--i say, suppose that he is honestly convinced that these things are not true, what ought he to say? _answer_. he ought to say nothing. _question_. suppose that the same man should read the koran, and come to the conclusion that it is not an inspired book; what ought he to say? _answer_. he ought to say that it is not inspired; his fellow-men are entitled to his honest opinion, and it is his duty to do what he can do to destroy a per- nicious superstition. _question_. suppose then, that a reader of the bible, having become convinced that it is not inspired-- honestly convinced--says nothing--keeps his con- clusion absolutely to himself, and suppose he dies in that belief, can he be saved? _answer_. certainly not. _question_. has the honesty of his belief anything to do with his future condition? _answer_. nothing whatever., _question_. suppose that he tried to believe, that he hated to disagree with his friends, and with his parents, but that in spite of himself he was forced to the conclusion that the bible is not the inspired word of god, would he then deserve eternal punishment? _answer_. certainly he would. _question_. can a man control his belief? _answer_. he cannot--except as to the bible. _question_. do you consider it just in god to create a man who cannot believe the bible, and then damn him because he does not? _answer_. such is my belief. _question_. is it your candid opinion that a man who does not believe the bible should keep his belief a secret from his fellow-men? _answer_. it is. _question_. how do i know that you believe the bible? you have told me that if you did not be- lieve it, you would not tell me? _answer_. there is no way for you to ascertain, except by taking my word for it. _question_. what will be the fate of a man who does not believe it, and yet pretends to believe it? _answer_. he will be damned. _question_. then hypocrisy will not save him? _answer_. no. _question_. and if he does not believe it, and ad- mits that he does not believe it, then his honesty will not save him? _answer_. no. honesty on the wrong side is no better than hypocrisy on the right side. _question_. do we know who wrote the gospels? _answer_. yes; we do. _question_. are we absolutely sure who wrote them? _answer_. of course; we have the evidence as it has come to us through the catholic church. _question_. can we rely upon the catholic church now? _answer_. no; assuredly no! but we have the testimony of polycarp and irenæus and clement, and others of the early fathers, together with that of the christian historian, eusebius. _question_. what do we really know about polycarp? _answer_. we know that he suffered martyrdom un- der marcus aurelius, and that for quite a time the fire refused to burn his body, the flames arching over him, leaving him in a kind of fiery tent; and we also know that from his body came a fragrance like frankincense, and that the pagans were so exasperated at seeing the miracle, that one of them thrust a sword through the body of polycarp; that the blood flowed out and extinguished the flames and that out of the wound flew the soul of the martyr in the form of a dove. _question_. is that all we know about polycarp? _answer_. yes, with the exception of a few more like incidents. _question_. do we know that polycarp ever met st. john? _answer_. yes; eusebius says so. _question_. are we absolutely certain that he ever lived? _answer_. yes, or eusebius could not have written about him. _question_. do we know anything of the character of eusebius? _answer_. yes; we know that he was untruthful only when he wished to do good. but god can use even the dishonest. other books have to be sub- stantiated by truthful men, but such is the power of god, that he can establish the inspiration of the bible by the most untruthful witnesses. if god's witnesses were honest, anybody could believe, and what be- comes of faith, one of the greatest virtues? _question_. is the new testament now the same as it was in the days of the early fathers? _answer_. certainly not. many books now thrown out, and not esteemed of divine origin, were esteemed divine by polycarp and irenæus and clement and many of the early churches. these books are now called "apocryphal." _question_. have you not the same witnesses in favor of their authenticity, that you have in favor of the gospels? _answer_. precisely the same. except that they were thrown out. _question_. why were they thrown out? _answer_. because the catholic church did not es- teem them inspired. _question_. did the catholics decide for us which are the true gospels and which are the true epistles? _answer_. yes. the catholic church was then the only church, and consequently must have been the true church. _question_. how did the catholic church select the true books? _answer_. councils were called, and votes were taken, very much as we now pass resolutions in political meetings. _question_. was the catholic church infallible then? _answer_. it was then, but it is not now. _question_. if the catholic church at that time had thrown out the book of revelation, would it now be our duty to believe that book to have been inspired? _answer_. no, i suppose not. _question_. is it not true that some of these books were adopted by exceedingly small majorities? _answer_. it is. _question_. if the epistle to the hebrews and to the romans, and the book of revelation had been thrown out, could a man now be saved who honestly believes the rest of the books? _answer_. this is doubtful. _question_. were the men who picked out the in- spired books inspired? _answer_. we cannot tell, but the probability is that they were. _question_. do we know that they picked out the right ones? _answer_. well, not exactly, but we believe that they did. _question_. are we certain that some of the books that were thrown out were not inspired? _answer_. well, the only way to tell is to read them carefully. _question_. if upon reading these apocryphal books a man concludes that they are not inspired, will he be damned for that reason? _answer_. no. certainly not. _question_. if he concludes that some of them are inspired, and believes them, will he then be damned for that belief? _answer_. oh, no! nobody is ever damned for believing too much. _question_. does the fact that the books now com- prising the new testament were picked out by the catholic church prevent their being examined now by an honest man, as they were examined at the time they were picked out? _answer_. no; not if the man comes to the con- clusion that they are inspired. _question_. does the fact that the catholic church picked them out and declared them to be inspired, render it a crime to examine them precisely as you would examine the books that the catholic church threw out and declared were not inspired? _answer_. i think it does. _question_. at the time the council was held in which it was determined which of the books of the new testament are inspired, a respectable minority voted against some that were finally decided to be inspired. if they were honest in the vote they gave, and died without changing their opinions, are they now in hell? _answer_. well, they ought to be. _question_. if those who voted to leave the book of revelation out of the canon, and the gospel of saint john out of the canon, believed honestly that these were not inspired books, how should they have voted? _answer_. well, i suppose a man ought to vote as he honestly believes--except in matters of religion. _question_. if the catholic church was not infal- lible, is the question still open as to what books are, and what are not, inspired? _answer_. i suppose the question is still open-- but it would be dangerous to decide it. _question_. if, then, i examine all the books again, and come to the conclusion that some that were thrown out were inspired, and some that were ac- cepted were not inspired, ought i to say so? _answer_. not if it is contrary to the faith of your father, or calculated to interfere with your own po- litical prospects. _question_. is it as great a sin to admit into the bible books that are uninspired as to reject those that are inspired? _answer_. well, it is a crime to reject an inspired book, no matter how unsatisfactory the evidence is for its inspiration, but it is not a crime to receive an uninspired book. god damns nobody for believing too much. an excess of credulity is simply to err in the direction of salvation. _question_. suppose a man disbelieves in the inspira- tion of the new testament--believes it to be entirely the work of uninspired men; and suppose he also be- lieves--but not from any evidence obtained in the new testament--that jesus christ was the son of god, and that he made atonement for his soul, can he then be saved without a belief in the inspiration of the bible? _answer_. this has not yet been decided by our church, and i do not wish to venture an opinion. _question_. suppose a man denies the inspiration of the scriptures; suppose that he also denies the divinity of jesus christ; and suppose, further, that he acts precisely as christ is said to have acted; suppose he loves his enemies, prays for those who despitefully use him, and does all the good he pos- sibly can, is it your opinion that such a man will be saved? _answer_. no, sir. there is "none other name "given under heaven and among men," whereby a sinner can be saved but the name of christ. _question_. then it is your opinion that god would save a murderer who believed in christ, and would damn another man, exactly like christ, who failed to believe in him? _answer_. yes; because we have the blessed promise that, out of christ, "our god is a consuming "fire." _question_. suppose a man read the bible care- fully and honestly, and was not quite convinced that it was true, and that while examining the subject, he died; what then? _answer_. i do not believe that god would allow him to examine the matter in another world, or to make up his mind in heaven. of course, he would eternally perish. _question_. could christ now furnish evidence enough to convince every human being of the truth of the bible? _answer_. of course he could, because he is in- finite. _question_. are any miracles performed now? _answer_. oh, no! _question_. have we any testimony, except human testimony, to substantiate any miracle? _answer_. only human testimony. _question_. do all men give the same force to the same evidence? _answer_. by no means. _question_. have all honest men who have exam- ined the bible believed it to be inspired? _answer_. of course they have. infidels are not honest. _question_. could any additional evidence have been furnished? _answer_. with perfect ease. _question_. would god allow a soul to suffer eternal agony rather than furnish evidence of the truth of his bible? _answer_. god has furnished plenty of evidence, and altogether more than was really necessary. we should read the bible in a believing spirit. _question_. are all parts of the inspired books equally true? _answer_. necessarily. _question_. according to saint matthew, god promises to forgive all who will forgive others; not one word is said about believing in christ, or believ- ing in the miracles, or in any bible; did matthew tell the truth? _answer_. the bible must be taken as a whole; and if other conditions are added somewhere else, then you must comply with those other conditions. matthew may not have stated all the conditions. _question_. i find in another part of the new testament, that a young man came to christ and asked him what was necessary for him to do in order that he might inherit eternal life. christ did not tell him that he must believe the bible, or that he must believe in him, or that he must keep the sabbath- day; was christ honest with that young man? _answer_. well, i suppose he was. _question_. you will also recollect that zaccheus said to christ, that where he had wronged any man he had made restitution, and further, that half his goods he had given to the poor; and you will re- member that christ said to zaccheus: "this day "hath salvation come to thy house." why did not christ tell zaccheus that he "must be born again;" that he must "believe on the lord jesus christ"? _answer_. of course there are mysteries in our holy religion that only those who have been "born "again" can understand. you must remember that "the carnal mind is enmity with god." _question_. is it not strange that christ, in his ser- mon on the mount, did not speak of "regeneration," or of the "scheme of salvation"? _answer_. well, it may be. _question_. can a man be saved now by living exactly in accordance with the sermon on the mount? _answer_. he can not. _question_. would then a man, by following the course of conduct prescribed by christ in the sermon on the mount, lose his soul? _answer_. he most certainly would, because there is not one word in the sermon on the mount about believing on the lord jesus christ; not one word about believing in the bible; not one word about the "atonement;" not one word about "regeneration." so that, if the presbyterian church is right, it is abso- lutely certain that a man might follow the teachings of the sermon on the mount, and live in accordance with its every word, and yet deserve and receive the eternal condemnation of god. but we must remem- ber that the sermon on the mount was preached be- fore christianity existed. christ was talking to jews. _question_. did christ write anything himself, in the new testament? _answer_. not a word. _question_. did he tell any of his disciples to write any of his words? _answer_. there is no account of it, if he did. _question_. do we know whether any of the dis- ciples wrote anything? _answer_. of course they did. _question_. how do you know? _answer_. because the gospels bear their names. _question_. are you satisfied that christ was abso- lutely god? _answer_. of course he was. we believe that christ and god and the holy ghost are all the same, that the three form one, and that each one is three. _question_. was christ the god of the universe at the time of his birth? _answer_. he certainly was. _question_. was he the infinite god, creator and controller of the entire universe, before he was born? _answer_. of course he was. this is the mystery of "god manifest in the flesh." the infidels have pretended that he was like any other child, and was in fact supported by nature instead of being the supporter of nature. they have insisted that like other children, he had to be cared for by his mother. of course he appeared to be cared for by his mother. it was a part of the plan that in all respects he should appear to be like other children. _question_. did he know just as much before he was born as after? _answer_. if he was god of course he did. _question_. how do you account for the fact that saint luke tells us, in the last verse of the second chapter of his gospel, that "jesus increased in wis- "dom and stature"? _answer_. that i presume is a figure of speech; because, if he was god, he certainly could not have increased in wisdom. the physical part of him could increase in stature, but the intellectual part must have been infinite all the time. _question_. do you think that luke was mistaken? _answer_. no; i believe what luke said. if it appears untrue, or impossible, then i know that it is figurative or symbolical. _question_. did i understand you to say that christ was actually god? _answer_. of course he was. _question_. then why did luke say in the same verse of the same chapter that "jesus increased in "favor with god"? _answer_. i dare you to go into a room by your- self and read the fourteenth chapter of saint john! _question_. is it necessary to understand the bible in order to be saved? _answer_. certainly not; it is only necessary that you believe it. _question_. is it necessary to believe all the miracles? _answer_. it may not be necessary, but as it is im- possible to tell which ones can safely be left out, you had better believe them all. _question_. then you regard belief as the safe way? _answer_. of course it is better to be fooled in this world than to be damned in the next. _question_. do you think that there are any cruel- ties on god's part recorded in the bible? _answer_. at first flush, many things done by god himself, as well as by his prophets, appear to be cruel; but if we examine them closely, we will find them to be exactly the opposite. _question_. how do you explain the story of elisha and the children,--where the two she-bears destroyed forty-two children on account of their impudence? _answer_. this miracle, in my judgment, estab- lishes two things: . that children should be polite to ministers, and . that god is kind to animals-- "giving them their meat in due season." these bears have been great educators--they are the foundation of the respect entertained by the young for theologians. no child ever sees a minister now without thinking of a bear. _question_. what do you think of the story of daniel--you no doubt remember it? some men told the king that daniel was praying contrary to law, and thereupon daniel was cast into a den of lions; but the lions could not touch him, their mouths having been shut by angels. the next morning, the king, finding that daniel was still intact, had him taken out; and then, for the purpose of gratifying daniels god, the king had all the men who had made the complaint against daniel, and their wives and their little children, brought and cast into the lions' den. according to the account, the lions were so hungry that they caught these wives and children as they dropped, and broke all their bones in pieces before they had even touched the ground. is it not wonderful that god failed to pro- tect these innocent wives and children? _answer_. these wives and children were heathen; they were totally depraved. and besides, they were used as witnesses. the fact that they were devoured with such quickness shows that the lions were hungry. had it not been for this, infidels would have accounted for the safety of daniel by saying that the lions had been fed. _question_. do you believe that shadrach, meshach and abednego were cast "into a burning fiery furnace "heated one seven times hotter than it was wont to "be heated," and that they had on "their coats, their "hosen and their hats," and that when they came out "not a hair of their heads was singed, nor was "the smell of fire upon their garments"? _answer_. the evidence of this miracle is exceed- ingly satisfactory. it resulted in the conversion of nebuchadnezzar. _question_. how do you know he was converted? _answer_. because immediately after the miracle the king issued a decree that "every people, nation "and language that spoke anything amiss against "the god of shadrach and company, should be cut "in pieces." this decree shows that he had become a true disciple and worshiper of jehovah. _question_. if god in those days preserved from the fury of the fire men who were true to him and would not deny his name, why is it that he has failed to protect thousands of martyrs since that time? _answer_. this is one of the divine mysteries. god has in many instances allowed his enemies to kill his friends. i suppose this was allowed for the good of his enemies, that the heroism of the mar- tyrs might convert them. _question_. do you believe all the miracles? _answer_. i believe them all, because i believe the bible to be inspired. _question_. what makes you think it is inspired? _answer_. i have never seen anybody who knew it was not; besides, my father and mother believed it. _question_. have you any other reasons for be- lieving it to be inspired? _answer_. yes; there are more copies of the bible printed than of any other book; and it is printed in more languages. and besides, it would be impossible to get along without it. _question_. why could we not get along without it? _answer_. we would have nothing to swear wit- nesses by; no book in which to keep the family record; nothing for the centre-table, and nothing for a mother to give her son. no nation can be civilized without the bible. _question_. did god always know that a bible was necessary to civilize a country? _answer_. certainly he did. _question_. why did he not give a bible to the egyptians, the hindus, the greeks and the romans? _answer_. it is astonishing what perfect fools in- fidels are. _question_. why do you call infidels "fools"? _answer_. because i find in the fifth chapter of the gospel according to matthew the following: "who- "soever shall say 'thou fool!' shall be in danger of "hell fire." _question_. have i the right to read the bible? _answer_. yes. you not only have the right, but it is your duty. _question_. in reading the bible the words make certain impressions on my mind. these impressions depend upon my brain,--upon my intelligence. is not this true? _answer_. of course, when you read the bible, im- pressions are made upon your mind. _question_. can i control these impressions? _answer_. i do not think you can, as long as you remain in a sinful state. _question_. how am i to get out of this sinful state? _answer_. you must believe on the lord jesus christ, and you must read the bible in a prayerful spirit and with a believing heart. _question_. suppose that doubts force themselves upon my mind? _answer_. then you will know that you are a sin- ner, and that you are depraved. _question_. if i have the right to read the bible, have i the right to try to understand it? _answer_. most assuredly. _question_. do you admit that i have the right to reason about it and to investigate it? _answer_. yes; i admit that. of course you can- not help reasoning about what you read. _question_. does the right to read a book include the right to give your opinion as to the truth of what the book contains? _answer_. of course,--if the book is not inspired. infidels hate the bible because it is inspired, and christians know that it is inspired because infidels say that it is not. _question_. have i the right to decide for myself whether or not the book is inspired? _answer_. you have no right to deny the truth of god's holy word. _question_. is god the author of all books? _answer_. certainly not. _question_. have i the right to say that god did not write the koran? _answer_. yes. _question_. why? _answer_. because the koran was written by an impostor. _question_. how do you know? _answer_. my reason tells me so. _question_. have you the right to be guided by your reason? _answer_. i must be. _question_. have you the same right to follow your reason after reading the bible? _answer_. no. the bible is the standard of reason. the bible is not to be judged or corrected by your reason. your reason is to be weighed and measured by the bible. the bible is different from other books and must not be read in the same critical spirit, nor judged by the same standard. _question_. what did god give us reason for? _answer_. so that we might investigate other religions, and examine other so-called sacred books. _question_. if a man honestly thinks that the bible is not inspired, what should he say? _answer_. he should admit that he is mistaken. _question_. when he thinks he is right? _answer_. yes. the bible is different from other books. it is the master of reason. you read the bible, not to see if that is wrong, but to see whether your reason is right. it is the only book about which a man has no right to reason. he must believe. the bible is addressed, not to the reason, but to the ears: "he that hath ears to hear, let "him hear." _question_. do you think we have the right to tell what the bible means--what ideas god intended to convey, or has conveyed to us, through the medium of the bible? _answer_. well, i suppose you have that right. yes, that must be your duty. you certainly ought to tell others what god has said to you. _question_. do all men get the same ideas from the bible? _answer_. no. _question_. how do you account for that? _answer_. because all men are not alike; they differ in intellect, in education, and in experience. _question_. who has the right to decide as to the real ideas that god intended to convey? _answer_. i am a protestant, and believe in the right of private judgment. whoever does not is a catholic. each man must be his own judge, but god will hold him responsible. _question_. does god believe in the right of private judgment? _answer_. of course he does. _question_. is he willing that i should exercise my judgment in deciding whether the bible is inspired or not? _answer_. no. he believes in the exercise of private judgment only in the examination and rejec- tion of other books than the bible. _question_. is he a catholic? _answer_. i cannot answer blasphemy! let me tell you that god will "laugh at your calamity, and "will mock when your fear cometh." you will be accursed. _question_. why do you curse infidels? _answer_. because i am a christian. _question_. did not christ say that we ought to "bless those who curse us," and that we should "love our enemies"? _answer_. yes, but he cursed the pharisees and called them "hypocrites" and "vipers." _question_. how do you account for that? _answer_. it simply shows the difference between theory and practice. _question_. what do you consider the best way to answer infidels. _answer_. the old way is the best. you should say that their arguments are ancient, and have been answered over and over again. if this does not satisfy your hearers, then you should attack the character of the infidel--then that of his parents-- then that of his children. _question_. suppose that the infidel is a good man, how will you answer him then? _answer_. but an infidel cannot be a good man. even if he is, it is better that he should lose his reputation, than that thousands should lose their souls. we know that all infidels are vile and infa- mous. we may not have the evidence, but we know that it exists. _question_. how should infidels be treated? should christians try to convert them? _answer_. christians should have nothing to do with infidels. it is not safe even to converse with them. they are always talking about reason, and facts, and experience. they are filled with sophistry and should be avoided. _question_. should christians pray for the con- version of infidels? _answer_. yes; but such prayers should be made in public and the name of the infidel should be given and his vile and hideous heart portrayed so that the young may be warned. _question_. whom do you regard as infidels? _answer_. the scientists--the geologists, the as- tronomers, the naturalists, the philosophers. no one can overestimate the evil that has been wrought by laplace, humboldt, darwin, huxley, haeckel, renan, emerson, strauss, bikhner, tyndall, and their wretched followers. these men pretended to know more than moses and the prophets. they were "dogs baying at the moon." they were "wolves" and "fools." they tried to "assassinate "god," and worse than all, they actually laughed at the clergy, _question_. do you think they did, and are doing great harm? _answer_. certainly. of what use are all the sciences, if you lose your own soul? people in hell will care nothing about education. the rich man said nothing about science, he wanted water. neither will they care about books and theories in heaven. if a man is perfectly happy, it makes no difference how ignorant he is. _question_. but how can he answer these scientists? _answer_. well, my advice is to let their argu- ments alone. of course, you will deny all their facts; but the most effective way is to attack their character. _question_. but suppose they are good men,-- what then? _answer_. the better they are, the worse they are. we cannot admit that the infidel is really good. he may appear to be good, and it is our duty to strip the mask of appearance from the face of unbelief. if a man is not a christian, he is totally depraved, and why should we hesitate to make a misstatement about a man whom god is going to make miserable forever? _question_. are we not commanded to love our enemies? _answer_. yes, but not the enemies of god. _question_. do you fear the final triumph of infi- delity? _answer_. no. we have no fear. we believe that the bible can be revised often enough to agree with anything that may really be necessary to the preservation of the church. we can always rely upon revision. let me tell you that the bible is the most peculiar of books. at the time god inspired his holy prophets to write it, he knew exactly what the discoveries and demonstrations of the future would be, and he wrote his bible in such a way that the words could always be interpreted in accordance with the intelligence of each age, and so that the words used are capable of several meanings, so that, no matter what may hereafter be discovered, the bible will be found to agree with it,--for the reason that the knowledge of hebrew will grow in the exact proportion that discoveries are made in other depart- ments of knowledge. you will therefore see, that all efforts of infidelity to destroy the bible will simply result in giving a better translation. _question_. what do you consider is the strongest argument in favor of the inspiration of the scrip- tures? _answer_. the dying words of christians. _question_. what do you consider the strongest argument against the truth of infidelity? _answer_. the dying words of infidels. you know how terrible were the death-bed scenes of hume, voltaire, paine and hobbes, as described by hundreds of persons who were not present; while all christians have died with the utmost serenity, and with their last words have testified to the sustaining power of faith in the goodness of god. _question_. what were the last words of jesus christ? _answer_. "my god, my god, why hast thou for- "saken me?" a vindication of thomas paine. _"to argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, is like administering medicine to the dead."--thomas paine._ peoria, october , . to the editor of the n y. observer: sir: last june in san francisco, i offered a thousand dollars in gold--not as a wager, but as a gift--to any one who would substantiate the absurd story that thomas paine died in agony and fear, frightened by the clanking chains of devils. i also offered the same amount to any minister who would prove that voltaire did not pass away as serenely as the coming of the dawn. afterward i was informed that you had accepted the offer, and had called upon me to deposit the money. acting upon this inform- ation, i sent you the following letter: peoria, ill., august st, . to the editor of the new york observer: i have been informed that you accepted, in your paper, an offer made by me to any clergyman in san francisco. that offer was, that i would pay one thousand dollars in gold to any minister in that city who would prove that thomas paine died in terror because of religious opinions he had ex- pressed, or that voltaire did not pass away serenely as the coming of the dawn. for many years religious journals and ministers have been circulating certain pretended accounts of the frightful agonies endured by paine and voltaire when dying; that these great men at the moment of death were terrified because they had given their honest opinions upon the subject of religion to their fellow-men. the imagination of the religious world has been taxed to the utmost in inventing absurd and infamous accounts of the last moments of these intellectual giants. every sunday school paper, thousands of idiotic tracts, and countless stupidities called sermons, have been filled with these calumnies. paine and voltaire both believed in god--both hoped for immortality--both believed in special providence. but both denied the inspiration of the scriptures--both denied the divinity of jesus christ. while theologians most cheerfully admit that most murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility of any man who has expressed his disbelief in the inspiration of the bible dying except in an agony of terror. these stories are used in revivals and in sunday schools, and have long been considered of great value. i am anxious that these slanders shall cease. i am desirous of seeing justice done, even at this late day, to the dead. for the purpose of ascertaining the evidence upon which these death-bed accounts really rest, i make to you the following proposition:-- first.--as to thomas paine: i will deposit with the first national bank of peoria, illinois, one thou- sand dollars in gold, upon the following conditions: this money shall be subject to your order when you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided, sub- stantiate that thomas paine admitted the bible to be an inspired book, or that he recanted his infidel opinions--or that he died regretting that he had dis- believed the bible--or that he died calling upon jesus christ in any religious sense whatever. in order that a tribunal may be created to try this question, you may select one man, i will select another, and the two thus chosen shall select a third, and any two of the three may decide the matter. as there will be certain costs and expenditures on both sides, such costs and expenditures shall be paid by the defeated party. in addition to the one thousand dollars in gold, i will deposit a bond with good and sufficient security in the sum of two thousand dollars, conditioned for the payment of all costs in case i am defeated. i shall require of you a like bond. from the date of accepting this offer you may have ninety days to collect and present your testi- mony, giving me notice of time and place of taking depositions. i shall have a like time to take evi- dence upon my side, giving you like notice, and you shall then have thirty days to take further testimony in reply to what i may offer. the case shall then be argued before the persons chosen; and their decisions shall be final as to us. if the arbitrator chosen by me shall die, i shall have the right to choose another. you shall have the same right. if the third one, chosen by our two, shall die, the two shall choose another; and all va- cancies, from whatever cause, shall be filled upon the same principle. the arbitrators shall sit when and where a major- ity shall determine, and shall have full power to pass upon all questions arising as to competency of evidence, and upon all subjects. _second_.--as to voltaire: i make the same prop- osition, if you will substantiate that voltaire died expressing remorse or showing in any way that he was in mental agony because he had attacked catholi- cism--or because he had denied the inspiration of the bible--or because he had denied the divinity of christ. i make these propositions because i want you to stop slandering the dead. if the propositions do not suit you in any particu- lar, please state your objections, and i will modify them in any way consistent with the object in view. if paine and voltaire died filled with childish and silly fear, i want to know it, and i want the world to know it. on the other hand, if the believers in superstition have made and circulated these cruel slanders concerning the mighty dead, i want the world to know that. as soon as you notify me of the acceptance of these propositions i will send you the certificate of the bank that the money has been deposited upon the foregoing conditions, together with copies of bonds for costs. yours truly, r. g. ingersoll. in your paper of september , , you acknowl- edge the receipt of the foregoing letter, and after giving an outline of its contents, say: "as not one of the affirmations, in the form stated in this letter, was contained in the offer we made, we have no occasion to substantiate them. but we are prepared to produce the evidence of the truth of our own statement, and even to go further; to show not only that tom paine 'died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death,' but that for many years previous, and up to that event he lived a drunken and beastly life." in order to refresh your memory as to what you had published, i call your attention to the following, which appeared in the n. y. observer, july , : "put down the money. "col. bob ingersoll, in a speech full of ribaldry and blasphemy, made in san francisco recently, said: "i will give $ , in gold coin to any clergyman who can substantiate that the death of voltaire was not as peaceful as the dawn; and of tom paine whom they assert died in fear and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils--in fact frightened to death by god. i will give $ , likewise to any one who can substantiate this 'absurd story'--a story without a word of truth in it." "we have published the testimony, and the wit- nesses are on hand to prove that tom paine died a drunken, cowardly and beastly death. let the colo- nel deposit the money with any honest man, and the absurd story, as he terms it, shall be shown to be an ower true tale. but he wont do it. his talk is infi- del 'buncombe' and nothing more." on the st of august i sent you my letter, and on the th of september you say in your paper: "as not one of the affirmations in the form stated in this letter was contained in the offer we made, we have no occasion to substantiate them." what were the affirmations contained in the offer you made? i had offered a thousand dollars in gold to any one who would substantiate "the absurd story" that thomas paine died in fear and agony,frightened by the clanking chains of devils--in fact, frightened to death by god. in response to this offer you said: "let the colo- nel deposit the money with an honest man and the 'absurd story' as he terms it, shall be shown to be an 'ower true tale.' but he won't do it. his talk is infidel 'buncombe' and nothing more." did you not offer to prove that paine died in fear and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils? did you not ask me to deposit the money that you might prove the "absurd story" to be an "ower true tale" and obtain the money? did you not in your paper of the twenty-seventh of september in effect deny that you had offered to prove this "absurd story"? as soon as i offered to deposit the gold and give bonds besides to cover costs, did you not publish a falsehood? you have eaten your own words, and, for my part, i would rather have dined with ezekiel than with you. you have not met the issue. you have know- ingly avoided it. the question was not as to the personal habits of paine. the real question was and is, whether paine was filled with fear and horror at the time of his death on account of his religious opinions. that is the question. you avoid this. in effect, you abandon that charge and make others. to you belongs the honor of having made the most cruel and infamous charges against thomas paine that have ever been made. of what you have said you cannot prove the truth of one word. you say that thomas paine died a drunken, cowardly and beastly death. i pronounce this charge to be a cowardly and beastly falsehood. have you any evidence that he was in a drunken condition when he died? what did he say or do of a cowardly character just before, or at about the time of his death? in what way was his death cowardly? you must answer these questions, and give your proof, or all honest men will hold you in abhorrence. you have made these charges. the man against whom you vindication of thomas paine. make them is dead. he cannot answer you. i can. he cannot compel you to produce your testi- mony, or admit by your silence that you have cruelly slandered the defenceless dead. i can and i will. you say that his death was cowardly. in what respect? was it cowardly in him to hold the thirty-nine articles in contempt? was it cowardly not to call on your lord? was it cowardly not to be afraid? you say that his death was beastly. again i ask, in what respect? was it beastly to submit to the inevitable with tranquillity? was it beastly to look with composure upon the approach of death? was it beastly to die without a com- plaint, without a murmur--to pass from life without a fear? did thomas paine recant? mr. paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last mo- ments. he believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of death. when the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, messrs. milledollar and cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. mr. cunningham had the politeness to say, "you have now a full view of death you cannot live long, and whosoever does not believe in the lord jesus christ will asuredly be damned." mr. paine replied, "let me have none of your popish stuff. get away with you. good morning." on another occasion a methodist minister ob- truded himself when willet hicks was present. this minister declared to mr. paine "that unless he repented of his unbelief he would be damned." paine, although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave his room. on another occasion, two brothers by the name of pigott, sought to convert him. he was displeased and requested their departure. after- ward thomas nixon and captain daniel pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he had, in any manner, changed his relig- ious opinions. they were assured by the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed in his writings. afterward, these gentlemen hearing that william cobbett was about to write a life of paine, sent him the following note: new york, april , . "sir: we have been informed that you have a de- sign to write a history of the life and writings of thomas paine. if you have been furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions, or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his death, all you have heard of his recanting is false. being aware that such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who infested his house at the time it was expected he would die, we, the subscrib- ers, intimate acquaintances of thomas paine since the year , went to his house. he was sitting up in a chair, and apparently in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. we interrogated him upon his religious opinions, and if he had changed his mind, or repented of anything he had said or wrote on that subject. he answered, "not at all," and appeared rather offended at our supposition that any change should take place in his mind. we took down in writing the questions put to him and his answers thereto before a number of persons then in his room, among whom were his doctor, mrs. bonneville, &c. this paper is mislaid and cannot be found at present, but the above is the substance which can be attested by many living witnesses." thomas nixon. daniel pelton. mr. jarvis, the artist, saw mr. paine one or two days before his death. to mr. jarvis he expressed his belief in his written opinions upon the subject of religion. b. f. haskin, an attorney of the city of new york, also visited him and inquired as to his religious opinions. paine was then upon the thresh- old of death, but he did not tremble. he was not a coward. he expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the religious ideas he had given to the world. dr. manley was with him when he spoke his last words. dr. manley asked the dying man if he did not wish to believe that jesus was the son of god, and the dying philosopher answered: "i have no wish to believe on that subject." amasa woodsworth sat up with thomas paine the night before his death. in gilbert vale hearing that mr. woodsworth was living in or near boston, visited him for the purpose of getting his statement. the statement was published in the beacon of june , , while thousands who had been acquainted with mr. paine were living. the following is the article referred to. "we have just returned from boston. one ob- ject of our visit to that city, was to see a mr. amasa woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a hand- some cottage and garden at east cambridge, boston. this gentleman owned the house occupied by paine at his death--while he lived next door. as an act of kindness mr. woodsworth visited mr. paine every day for six weeks before his death. he frequently sat up with him, and did so on the last two nights of his life. he was always there with dr. manley, the physician, and assisted in removing mr. paine while his bed was prepared. he was present when dr. manley asked mr. paine "if he wished to believe that jesus christ was the son of god," and he de- scribes mr. paine's answer as animated. he says that lying on his back he used some action and with much emphasis, replied, "i have no wish to believe on that subject." he lived some time after this, but was not known to speak, for he died tranquilly. he accounts for the insinuating style of dr. manley's letter, by stating that that gentleman just after its publication joined a church. he informs us that he has openly reproved the doctor for the falsity con- tained in the spirit of that letter, boldly declaring be- fore dr. manley, who is yet living, that nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. mr. woods- worth assures us that he neither heard nor saw any- thing to justify the belief of any mental change in the opinions of mr. paine previous to his death; but that being very ill and in pain chiefly arising from the skin being removed in some parts by long lying, he was generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation on abstract subjects. this, then, is the best evidence that can be procured on this subject, and we publish it while the contravening parties are yet alive, and with the authority of mr. woodsworth. gilbert vale. a few weeks ago i received the following letter which confirms the statement of mr. vale: near stockton, cal., green- wood cottage, july , . col. ingersoll: in i talked with a gentle- man in boston. i have forgotten his name; but he was then an engineer of the charleston navy yard. i am thus particular so that you can find his name on the books. he told me that he nursed thomas paine in his last illness, and closed his eyes when dead. i asked him if he recanted and called upon god to save him. he replied, "no. he died as he had taught. he had a sore upon his side and when we turned him it was very painful and he would cry out 'o god!' or something like that." "but," said the narrator, "that was nothing, for he believed in a god." i told him that i had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that mr. paine had recanted in his last moments. the gentleman said that it was not true, and he appeared to be an intelligent, truthful man. with respect, i remain, &c., philip graves, m. d. the next witness is willet hicks, a quaker preacher. he says that during the last illness of mr. paine he visited him almost daily, and that paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the relig- ious opinions he had given to his fellow-men. it was to this same willet hicks that paine applied for permission to be buried in the cemetery of the quakers. permission was refused. this refusal settles the question of recantation. if he had re- canted, of course there could have been no objection to his body being buried by the side of the best hypocrites on the earth. if paine recanted why should he be denied "a little earth for charity"? had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast and splendid triumph for the gospel. it would with much noise and pomp and ostentation have been heralded about the world. i received the following letter to-day. the writer is well know in this city, and is a man of high character: peoria, oct. th, . robert g. ingersoll, esteemed friend: my parents were friends (quakers). my father died when i was very young. the elderly and middle- aged friends visited at my mother's house. we lived in the city of new york. among the number i distinctly remember elias hicks, willet hicks, and a mr.-day, who was a bookseller in pearl street. there were many others, whose names i do not now remember. the subject of the recanta- tion by thomas paine of his views about the bible in his last illness, or at any other time, was dis- cussed by them in my presence at different times. i learned from them that some of them had attended upon thomas paine in his last sickness and minis- tered to his wants up to the time of his death. and upon the question of whether he did recant there was but one expression. they all said that he did not recant in any manner. i often heard them say they wished he had recanted. in fact, according to them, the nearer he approached death the more positive he appeared to be in his con- victions. these conversations were from to . i was at that time from ten to twelve years old, but these conversations impressed themselves upon me because many thoughtless people then blamed the society of friends for their kindness to that "arch infidel," thomas paine.. truly yours, a. c. hankinson. a few days ago i received the following letter: albany, new york, sept. , . dear sir: it is over twenty years ago that pro- fessionally i made the acquaintance of john hogeboom, a justice of the peace of the county of rensselaer, new york. he was then over seventy years of age and had the reputation of being a man of candor and integrity. he was a great admirer of paine. he told me that he was personally ac- quainted with him, and used to see him frequently during the last years of his life in the city of new york, where hogeboom then resided. i asked him if there was any truth in the charge that paine was in the habit of getting drunk. he said that it was utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing during the life-time of mr. paine, and did not believe any one else did. i asked him about the recantation of his religious opinions on his death-bed, and the revolting death-bed scenes that the world had heard so much about. he said there was no truth in them, that he had received his information from persons who attended paine in his last illness, "and that he passed peacefully away, as we may say, in the sunshine of a great soul."... yours truly, w. j. hilton, the witnesses by whom i substantiate the fact that thomas paine did not recant, and that he died holding the religious opinions he had published, are: first--thomas nixon, captain daniel pelton, b. f. haskin. these gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had in any respect changed his views upon relig- ion. he told them that he had not. second--james cheetham. this man was the most malicious enemy mr. paine had, and yet he admits that "thomas paine died placidly, and al- most without a struggle." (see life of thomas paine, by james cheetham). third--the ministers, milledollar and cunning- ham. these gentlemen told mr. paine that if he died without believing in the lord jesus christ he would be damned, and paine replied, "let me have none of your popish stuff. good morning." (see sherwin's life of paine, p. ). fourth--mrs. hedden. she told these same preachers when they attempted to obtrude them- selves upon mr. paine again, that the attempt to convert mr. paine was useless--"that if god did not change his mind no human power could." fifth--andrew a. dean. this man lived upon paine's farm at new rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious subjects. (see paine's theological works, p. .) sixth--mr. jarvis, the artist with whom paine lived. he gives an account of an old lady coming to paine and telling him that god almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented and be- lieved in the blessed savior, he would be damned. paine replied that god would not send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message. (see clio rickman's life of paine.) seventh--wm. carver, with whom paine boarded. mr. carver said again and again that paine did not recant. he knew him well, and had every opportun- ity of knowing. (see life of paine by gilbert vale.) eighth--dr. manley, who attended him in his last sickness, and to whom paine spoke his last words. dr. manley asked him if he did not wish to believe in jesus christ, and he replied, "i have no wish to believe on that subject." ninth--willet hicks and elias hicks, who were with him frequently during his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. ac- cording to their testimony, mr. paine died as he had lived--a believer in god, and a friend of man. willet hicks was offered money to say something false against thomas paine. he was even offered money to remain silent and allow others to slander the dead. mr. hicks, speaking of thomas paine, said: "he was a good man--an honest man." (vale's life of paine.) tenth--amasa woodsworth, who was with him every day for some six weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the last two nights of his life. this man declares that paine did not recant and that he died tranquilly. the evidence of mr. woodsworth is conclusive. eleventh--thomas paine himself. the will of thomas paine, written by himself, commences as follows: "the last will and testament of me, the subscriber, thomas paine, reposing confidence in my creator god, and in no other being, for i know of no other, nor believe in any other;" and closes in these words; "i have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good, and i die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my creator god." twelfth--if thomas paine recanted, why do you pursue him? if he recanted, he died substantially in your belief, for what reason then do you denounce his death as cowardly? if upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he had published, the busi- ness of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by christians. i ask you if it is honest to throw away the testi- mony of his friends--the evidence of fair and honor- able men--and take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? when thomas paine was dying, he was infested by fanatics--by the snaky spies of bigotry. in the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey waiting to tear with beak and claw the corpse of him who wrote the "rights of man." and there lurk- ing and crouching in the darkness were the jackals and hyenas of superstition ready to violate his grave. these birds of prey--these unclean beasts are the witnesses produced and relied upon by you. one by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one weapon--slander. against the witnesses that i have produced you can bring just two--mary roscoe and mary hins- dale. the first is referred to in the memoir of stephen grellet. she had once been a servant in his house. grellet tells what happened between this girl and paine. according to this account paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer. let us examine this falsehood. why would paine expect a correct answer about his writings from one who had read very little of them? does not such a statement devour itself? this young lady further said that the "age of reason" was put in her hands and that the more she read in it the more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the fire. whereupon mr. paine remarked, "i wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had it in my writing that book." the next is mary hinsdale. she was a servant in the family of willet hicks. she, like mary ros- coe, was sent to carry some delicacy to mr. paine. to this young lady paine, according to her account, said precisely the same that he did to mary roscoe, and she said the same thing to mr. paine. my own opinion is that mary roscoe and mary hinsdale are one and the same person, or the same story has been by mistake put in the mouth of both. it is not possible that the same conversation should have taken place between paine and mary roscoe, and between him and mary hinsdale. mary hinsdale lived with willet hicks and he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication. he said that thomas paine never said any such thing to mary hinsdale. (see vale's life of paine.) another thing about this witness. a woman by the name of mary lockwood, a hicksite quaker, died. mary hinsdale met her brother about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to say so at her funeral. this turned out to be false. it has been claimed that mary hinsdale made her statement to charles collins. long after the alleged occurrence gilbert vale, one of the biographers of paine, had a conversation with collins concerning mary hinsdale. vale asked him what he thought of her. he replied that some of the friends be- lieved that she used opiates, and that they did not give credit to her statements. he also said that he believed what the friends said, but thought that when a young woman, she might have told the truth. in william cobbett came to new york. he began collecting materials for a life of thomas paine. in this he became acquainted with mary hinsdale and charles collins. mr. cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to the norwich mercury in . from this ac- count it seems that charles collins told cobbett that paine had recanted. cobbett called for the testi- mony, and told mr. collins that he must give time, place, and the circumstances. he finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by mary hinsdale. armed with this document cobbett, in october of that year, called upon the said mary hinsdale, at no. anthony street, new york, and showed her the statement. upon being questioned by mr. cobbett she said, "that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter--that she would not say that any part of the paper was true--that she had never seen the paper --and that she had never given charles collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name." and so in the month of october, in the year of grace , in the mist and fog of forgetful- ness disappeared forever one mary hinsdale--the last and only witness against the intellectual honesty of thomas paine. _did thomas paine live the life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly and beastly death?_ upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous charges. you have, i suppose, produced the best evidence in your possession, and that evidence i will now pro- ceed to examine. your first witness is grant thor- burn. he makes three charges against thomas paine, st. that his wife obtained a divorce from him in england for cruelty and neglect. d. that he was a defaulter and fled from england to amer- ica. d. that he was a drunkard. these three charges stand upon the same evidence --the word of grant thorburn. if they are not all true mr. thorburn stands impeached. the charge that mrs. paine obtained a divorce on account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. there is no such record in the world, and never was. paine and his wife separated by mutual consent. each respected the other. they remained friends. this charge is without any foun- dation in fact. i challenge the christian world to produce the record of this decree of divorce. accord- ing to mr. thorburn it was granted in england. in that country public records are kept of all such de- crees. have the kindness to produce this decree showing that it was given on account of cruelty or admit that mr. thorburn was mistaken. thomas paine was a just man. although sepa- rated from his wife, he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and frequently sent her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. was this the conduct of a drunken beast? the second charge, that paine was a defaulter in england and fled to america, is equally false. he did not flee from england. he came to america, not as a fugitive, but as a free man. he came with a letter of introduction signed by another infidel, benjamin franklin. he came as a soldier of free- dom--an apostle of liberty. in this second charge there is not one word of truth. he held a small office in england. if he was a defaulter the records of that country will show that fact. mr. thorburn, unless the record can be produced to substantiate him, stands convicted of at least two mistakes. now, as to the third: he says that in paine was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep." can any one believe this to be a true account of the personal appearance of mr. paine in ? he had just returned from france. he had been wel- comed home by thomas jefferson, who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every american. in mr. paine was honored with a public din- ner in the city of new york. he was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such men as dewitt clinton. in mr. paine wrote a letter to andrew a. dean upon the subject of religion. read that letter and then say that the writer of it was an "old rem- nant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep." search the files of the new york observer from the first issue to the last, and you will find nothing supe- rior to this letter. in mr. paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great force, to his friend samuel adams. such letters are not written by drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. it was about the same time that he wrote his "remarks on robert hall's sermons." these "remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by a clear-headed and thoughtful man. in he published an essay on the invasion of england, and a treatise on gunboats, full of valuable maritime information:--in , a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. in short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. he sympa- thized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. he looked upon monarchy as a species of physical slavery. he had the goodness to attack that form of government. he regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery. he had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. his reasons filled the churches with hatred. instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. men who were not fit to blacken his shoes, blackened his character. there is too much religious cant in the statement of mr. thorburn. he exhibited too much anxiety to tell what grant thorburn said to thomas paine. he names thomas jefferson as one of the disreputa- ble men who welcomed paine with open arms. the testimony of a man who regarded thomas jefferson as a disreputable person, as to the character of any- body, is utterly without value. in my judgment, the testimony of mr. thorburn should be thrown aside as wholly unworthy of belief. your next witness is the rev. j. d. wickham, d. d., who tells what an elder in his church said. this elder said that paine passed his last days on his farm at new rochelle with a solitary female attendant. this is not true. he did not pass his last days at new rochelle. consequently this pious elder did not see him during his last days at that place. upon this elder we prove an alibi. mr. paine passed his last days in the city of new york, in a house upon columbia street. the story of the rev. j. d. wick- ham, d.d., is simply false. the next competent false witness is the rev. charles hawley, d.d., who proceeds to state that the story of the rev. j. d. wickham, d.d., is cor- roborated by older citizens of new rochelle. the names of these ancient residents are withheld. ac- cording to these unknown witnesses, the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct. but as the particulars of mr. paine's conduct "were too loathsome to be described in print," we are left entirely in the dark as to what he really did. while at new rochelle mr. paine lived with mr. purdy--with mr. dean--with captain pelton, and with mr. staple. it is worthy of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements of "older residents" and ancient citizens spoken of by the rev. charles hawley, d.d., and leave him with his "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own mind. the next gentleman you bring upon the stand is w. h. ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of stephen grellet. this gentleman also has the mis- fortune to be dead. according to his account, mr. paine made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of mary roscoe. to this girl, accord- ing to the account, mr. paine uttered the wish that all who read his book had burned it. i believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. her name was probably mary hinsdale, as it was once claimed that paine made the same remark to her, but this point i shall notice hereafter. these are your witnesses, and the only ones you bring forward, to support your charge that thomas paine lived a drunken and beastly life and died a drunken, cowardly and beastly death. all these calumnies are found in a life of paine by a mr. cheetham, the convicted libeler already referred to. mr. cheetham was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write. in order to show you the estimation in which mr. cheetham was held by mr. paine, i will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point: october , . "mr. cheetham: unless you make a public apol- ogy for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of tuesday, october th, respecting me, i will prose- cute you for lying." thomas paine. in another letter, speaking of this same man, mr. paine says: "if an unprincipled bully cannot be re- formed, he can be punished." "cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth is to him like a foreign language." mr. cheetham wrote the life of paine to gratify his malice and to support religion. he was prose- cuted for libel--was convicted and fined. yet the life of paine written by this man is referred to by the christian world as the highest authority. as to the personal habits of mr. paine, we have the testimony of william carver, with whom he lived; of mr. jarvis, the artist, with whom he lived; of mr. staple, with whom he lived; of mr. purdy, who was a tenant of paine's; of mr. burger, with whom he was intimate; of thomas nixon and captain daniel pelton, both of whom knew him well; of amasa woodsworth, who was with him when he died; of john fellows, who boarded at the same house; of james wilburn, with whom he boarded; of b. f. haskin, a lawyer, who was well acquainted with him and called upon him during his last illness; of walter morton, a friend; of clio rickman, who had known him for many years; of willet and elias hicks, quakers, who knew him in- timately and well; of judge herttell, h. margary, elihu palmer, and many others. all these testified to the fact that mr. paine was a temperate man. in those days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. paine was not an exception; but he did not drink to excess. mr. lovett, who kept the city hotel where paine stopped, in a note to caleb bingham, declared that paine drank less than any boarder he had. against all this evidence you produce the story of grant thorburn--the story of the rev. j. d. wick- ham that an elder in his church told him that paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the rev. charles hawley, and an extract from lossing's history to the same effect. the evidence is overwhelmingly against you. will you have the fairness to admit it? your witnesses are merely the repeaters of the false- hoods of james cheetham, the convicted libeler. after all, drinking is not as bad as lying. an honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the dead. "a remnant of old mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep" is better than a perfectly sober defender of human slavery. to become drunk is a virtue compared with steal- ing a babe from the breast of its mother. drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the defence of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine insti- tution. do you really think that paine was a drunken beast when he wrote "common sense"--a pamphlet that aroused three millions of people, as people were never aroused by a pamphlet before? was he a drunken beast when he wrote the "crisis"? was it to a drunken beast that the following letter was addressed: rocky hill, september , . "i have learned since i have been at this place, that you are at bordentown.--whether for the sake of retirement or economy i know not. be it for either or both, or whatever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me i shall be exceed- ingly happy to see you at it. your presence may remind congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who with much pleasure subscribes himself, "your sincere friend, "george washington." did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that? do you think that paine was a drunken beast when the following letter was received by him? "you express a wish in your letter to return to america in a national ship; mr. dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the captain of the maryland to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. you will in general find us returned to sentiments worthy of former times; _in these it will be your glory to have steadily labored and with as much effect as any man living._ that you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the _thankfulness of nations_, is my sincere prayer. accept the assur- ances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment." thomas jefferson. did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that? "it has been very generally propagated through the continent that i wrote the pamphlet 'common sense.' i could not have written anything in so manly and striking a style."--john adams. "a few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at falmouth and norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning con- tained in the pamphlet 'common sense,' will not leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation."--george washington. "it is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen--i speak of the great mass of the people--are interested in your welfare. they have not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. the crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and i trust never will stain, our national character. you are considered by them as not only having rendered important services in our own revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale the friend of human rights, and a distinguished and able defender of public liberty. to the welfare of thomas paine the americans are not, nor can they be indifferent.".. james monroe. did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that? "no writer has exceeded paine in ease and famil- iarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming lan- guage."'--thomas jefferson. was ever a letter like that written about an editor of the _new york observer?_ was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the legislature of pennsylvania presented thomas paine with five hundred pounds sterling? did the state of new york feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer upon thomas paine an estate of several hundred acres? "i believe in the equality of man, and i believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creat- ures happy." "my own mind is my own church." "it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself." "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system." "the word of god is the creation which we behold." "the age of ignorance commenced with the christian system." "it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action--it begets a calamitous necessity of going on." "to read the bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benev- olent in the heart of man." "the man does not exist who can say i have per- secuted him, or that i have in any case returned evil for evil." "of all tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." "my own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter." "the belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man." "the intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man and his maker, and in which no third party has any right to interfere. the practical part consists in our doing good to each other." "no man ought to make a living by religion. one person cannot act religion for another--every person must perform it for himself." "one good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests." "let us propagate morality unfettered by super- stition." "god is the power, or first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon." "i believe in one god and no more, and i hope for happiness beyond this life." "the key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by any." "my religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the deity and universal philanthropy." "i have yet, i believe, some years in store, for i have a good state of health and a happy mind. i take care of both, by nourishing the first with tem- perance and the latter with abundance." "he lives immured within the bastile of a word." how perfectly that sentence describes you! the bastile in which you are immured is the word "calvinism." "man has no property in man." what a splendid motto that would have made for the _new york observer_ in the olden time! "the world is my country; to do good, my religion." i ask you again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast? _did thomas paine die in destitution and want?_ the charge has been made, over and over again, that thomas paine died in want and destitution-- that he was an abandoned pauper--an outcast with- out friends and without money. this charge is just as false as the rest. upon his return to this country in , he was worth $ , , according to his own statement made at that time in the following letter addressed to clio rickman: "my dear friend: mr. monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to france, takes charge of this, to be delivered to mr. este, banker in paris, to be forwarded to you. "i arrived at baltimore the th of october, and you can have no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. from new hampshire to georgia (an extent of , miles) every newspaper was filled with applause or abuse. "my property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling; which put in the funds will bring me £ sterling a year. "remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family, and in the circle of your friends." thomas paine. a man in those days worth thirty thousand dol- lars was not a pauper. that amount would bring an income of at least two thousand dollars per annum. two thousand dollars then would be fully equal to five thousand dollars now. on the th of july, , the year in which he died, mr. paine made his will. from this instru- ment we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of new york. he also was the owner of thirty shares in the new york phoenix insurance company, worth upwards of fif- teen hundred dollars. besides this, some personal property and ready money. by his will he gave to walter morton, and thomas addis emmett, brother of robert emmett, two hundred dollars each, and one hundred to the widow of elihu palmer. is it possible that this will was made by a pauper --by a destitute outcast--by a man who suffered for the ordinary necessaries of life? but suppose, for the sake of the argument, that he was poor and that he died a beggar, does that tend to show that the bible is an inspired book and that calvin did not burn servetus? do you really regard poverty as a crime? if paine had died a millionaire, would you have accepted his religious opinions? if paine had drank nothing but cold water would you have repudiated the five cardinal points of calvin- ism? does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary condition of the person making it? as a matter of fact, most reformers--most men and women of genius, have been acquainted with poverty. beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the tenderest and bravest hearts. owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen hundred years, truth-telling has not been a very lucrative business. as a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the rags. that day is passing away. you cannot now answer the argu- ments of a man by pointing at holes in his coat. thomas paine attacked the church when it was powerful--when it had what was called honors to bestow--when it was the keeper of the public con- science--when it was strong and cruel. the church waited till he was dead then attacked his reputation and his clothes. once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. the lion was dead. conclusion. from the persistence with which the orthodox have charged for the last sixty-eight years that thomas paine recanted, and that when dying he was filled with remorse and fear; from the malignity of the attacks upon his personal character, i had con- cluded that there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. even with my ideas of the average honor of believers in superstition-- the disciples of fear--i did not quite believe that all these infamies rested solely upon poorly attested lies. i had charity enough to suppose that some- thing had been said or done by thomas paine capa- ble of being tortured into a foundation for these calumnies. and i was foolish enough to think that even you would be willing to fairly examine the pre- tended evidence said to sustain these charges, and give your honest conclusion to the world. i sup- posed that you, being acquainted with the history of your country, felt under a certain obligation to thomas paine for the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the revolution. it was only reasonable to suppose that you were aware that in the midnight of valley forge the "crisis," by thomas paine, was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. i took it for granted that you knew of the bold stand taken and the brave words spoken by thomas paine, in the french con- vention, against the death of the king. i thought it probable that you, being an editor, had read the "rights of man;" that you knew that thomas paine was a champion of human liberty; that he was one of the founders and fathers of this republic; that he was one of the foremost men of his age; that he had never written a word in favor of injustice; that he was a despiser of slavery; that he abhorred tyr- anny in all its forms; that he was in the widest and highest sense a friend of his race; that his head was as clear as his heart was good, and that he had the courage to speak his honest thought. under these circumstances i had hoped that you would for the moment forget your religious prejudices and submit to the enlightened judgment of the world the evi- dence you had, or could obtain, affecting in any way the character of so great and so generous a man. this you have refused to do. in my judgment, you have mistaken the temper of even your own readers. a large majority of the religious people of this country have, to a considerable extent, outgrown the preju- dices of their fathers. they are willing to know the truth and the whole truth, about the life and death of thomas paine. they will not thank you for having presented them the moss-covered, the maimed and dis- torted traditions of ignorance, prejudice, and credulity. by this course you will convince them not of the wickedness of paine, but of your own unfairness. what crime had thomas paine committed that he should have feared to die? the only answer you can give is, that he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. if this is a crime, the civilized world is filled with criminals. the pioneers of human thought --the intellectual leaders of the world--the foremost men in every science--the kings of literature and art--those who stand in the front rank of investiga- tion--the men who are civilizing, elevating, instruct- ing, and refining mankind, are to-day unbelievers in the dogma of inspiration. upon this question, the intellect of christendom agrees with the conclusions reached by the genius of thomas paine. centuries ago a noise was made for the purpose of frightening mankind. orthodoxy is the echo of that noise. the man who now regards the old testament as in any sense a sacred or inspired book is, in my judg- ment, an intellectual and moral deformity. there is in it so much that is cruel, ignorant, and ferocious that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was ever thought to be the work of a most merciful deity. upon the question of inspiration thomas paine gave his honest opinion. can it be that to give an honest opinion causes one to die in terror and de- spair? have you in your writings been actuated by the fear of such a consequence? why should it be taken for granted that thomas paine, who devoted his life to the sacred cause of freedom, should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while editors of presbyterian papers who defended slavery as a divine institution, and cheer- fully justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of angels? why should you think that the heroic author of the "rights of man" should shudderingly dread to leave this "bank and shoal of time," while calvin, dripping with the blood of servetus, was anxious to be judged of god? is it possible that the persecutors--the instigators of the massacre of st. bartholomew--the inventors and users of thumb-screws, and iron boots, and racks-- the burners and tearers of human flesh--the stealers, whippers and enslavers of men--the buyers and beaters of babes and mothers--the founders of inquisitions--the makers of chains, the builders of dungeons, the slanderers of the living and the calum- niators of the dead, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice--the apostles of humanity--the soldiers of liberty--the breakers of fetters--the creators of light--died sur- rounded with the fierce fiends of fear? in your attempt to destroy the character of thomas paine you have failed, and have succeeded only in leaving a stain upon your own. you have written words as cruel, bitter and heartless as the creed of calvin. hereafter you will stand in the pillory of history as a defamer--a calumniator of the dead. you will be known as the man who said that thomas paine, the "author hero," lived a drunken, coward- ly and beastly life, and died a drunken and beastly death. these infamous words will be branded upon the forehead of your reputation. they will be re- membered against you when all else you may have uttered shall have passed from the memory of men. robert g. ingersoll. the observer's second attack _* from the ny. observer of nov. , ._ tom paine again. in the observer of september th, in response to numerous calls from different parts of the country for information, and in fulfillment of a promise, we presented a mass of testimony, chiefly from persons with whom we had been personally acquainted, establishing the truth of our assertions in regard to the dissolute life and miserable end of paine. it was not a pleasing subject for discussion, and an apology, or at least an explanation, is due to our readers for resuming it, and for occupying so much space, or any space, in exhibiting the truth and the proofs in regard to the character of a man who had become so debased by his intemperance, and so vile in his habits, as to be excluded, for many years before and up to the time of his death, from all decent society. our reasons for taking up the subject at all, and for presenting at this time so much additional testi- mony in regard to the facts of the case, are these: at different periods for the last fifty years, efforts have been made by infidels to revive and honor the memory of one whose friends would honor him most by suffering his name to sink into oblivion, if that were possible. about two years since, rev. o. b. frothingham, of this city, came to their aid, and undertook a sort of championship of paine, making in a public discourse this statement: "no private character has been more foully calumniated in the name of god than that of thomas paine." (mr. frothingham, it will be remembered, is the one who recently, in a public discourse, announced the down- fall of christianity, although he very kindly made the allowance that, "it may be a thousand years before its decay will be visible to all eyes." it is our private opinion that it will be at least a thousand and one.) rev. john w. chadwick, a minister of the same order of unbelief, who signs himself, "min- ister of the second unitarian society in brooklyn," has devoted two discourses to the same end, eulogiz- ing paine. in one of these, which we have before us in a handsomely printed pamphlet, entitled, "method and value of his (paine's) religious teachings," he says: "christian usage has determ- ined that an infidel means one who does not believe in christianity as a supernatural religion; in the bible as a supernatural book; in jesus as a super- natural person. and in this sense paine was an infidel, and so, thank god, am i." it is proper to add that unitarians generally decline all responsibil- ity for the utterances of both of these men, and that they compose a denomination, or rather two denom- inations, of their own. there is also a certain class of infidels who are not quite prepared to meet the odium that attaches to the name; they call themselves christians, but their sympathies are all with the enemies of chris- tianity, and they are not always able to conceal it. they have not the courage of their opinions, like mr. frothingham and mr. chadwick, and they work only sideways toward the same end. we have been no little amused since our last article on this subject appeared, to read some of the articles that have been written on the other side, though professedly on no side, and to observe how sincerely these men depre- cate the discussion of the character of paine, as an unprofitable topic. it never appeared to them un- profitable when the discussion was on the other side. then, too, we have for months past been receiving letters from different parts of the country, asking authentic information on the subject and stating that the followers of paine are making extraordinary efforts to circulate his writings against the christian religion, and in order to give currency to these writ- ings they are endeavoring to rescue his name from the disgrace into which it sank during the latter years of his life. paine spent several of his last years in furnishing a commentary upon his infidel principles. this commentary was contained in his besotted, degraded life and miserable end, but his friends do not wish the commentary to go out in connection with his writings. they prefer to have them read without the comments by their author. hence this anxiety to free the great apostle of infidelity from the obloquy which his life brought upon his name; to represent him as a pure, noble, virtuous man, and to make it appear that he died a peaceful, happy death, just like a philosopher. but what makes the publication of the facts in the case still more imperative at this time is the whole- sale accusation brought against the christian public by the friends and admirers of paine. christian ministers as a class, and christian journals are expressly accused of falsifying history, of defaming "the mighty dead!" (meaning paine,) &c., &c. in the face of all these accusations it cannot be out of place to state the facts and to fortify the statement by satisfactory evidence, as we are abundantly able to do. the two points on which we proposed to produce the testimony are, the character of paine's life (refer- ring of course to his last residence in this country, for no one has intimated that he had sunk into such besotted drunkenness until about the time of his return to the united states in ), and the real character of his death as consistent with such a life, and as marked further by the cowardliness, which has been often exhibited by infidels in the same circumstances. it is nothing at all to the purpose to show, as his friends are fond of doing, that paine rendered important service to the cause of american inde- pendence. this is not the point under discussion and is not denied. no one ever called in question the valuable service that benedict arnold rendered to the country in the early part of the revolutionary war; but this, with true americans, does not suffice to cast a shade of loveliness or even to spread a man- tle of charity over his subsequent career. whatever share paine had in the personal friendship of the fathers of the revolution he forfeited by his subse- quent life of beastly drunkenness and degradation, and on this account as well as on account of his blasphemy he was shunned by all decent people. we wish to make one or two corrections of mis- statements by paine's advocates, on which a vast amount of argument has been simply wasted. we have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that paine actually renounced his infidel- ity. the accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel, and his horrible death we regard as one of the fruits, the fitting complement of his infidelity. we have never seen anything that encouraged the hope that he was not abandoned of god in his last hours. but we have no doubt, on the other hand, that having become a wreck in body and mind through his intemperance, abandoned of god, deserted by his infidel companions, and de- pendent upon christian charity for the attentions he received, miserable beyond description in his condi- tion, and seeing nothing to hope for in the future, he was afraid to die, and was ready to call upon god and upon christ for mercy, and ready perhaps in the next minute to blaspheme. this is what we referred to in speaking of paine's death as cowardly. it is shown in the testimony we have produced, and still more fully in that which we now present. the most wicked men are ready to call upon god in seasons of great peril, and sometimes ask for christian min- istrations when in extreme illness; but they are often ready on any alleviation of distress to turn to their wickedness again, in the expressive language of scripture, "as the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." we have never stated or intimated, nor, so far as we are aware, has any one of our correspondents stated, that paine died in poverty. it has been frequently and truthfully stated that paine was de- pendent on christian charity for the attentions he received in his last days, and so he was. his infidel companions forsook him and christian hearts and hands ministered to his wants, notwithstanding the blasphemies of his death-bed. nor has one of our correspondents stated, as alleged, that paine died at new rochelle. the rev. dr. wickham, who was a resident of that place nearly fifty years ago, and who was perfectly familiar with the facts of his life, wrote that paine spent "his latter days" on the farm presented to him by the state of new york, which was strictly true, but made no reference to it as the place of his death. such misrepresentations serve to show how much the advocates of paine admire "truth." with these explanations we produce further evi- dence in regard to the manner of paine's life and the character of his death, both of which we have already characterized in appropriate terms, as the following testimony will show. in regard to paine's "personal habits," even before his return to this country, and particularly his aver- sion to soap and water, elkana watson, a gentleman of the highest social position, who resided in france during a part of the revolutionary war, and who was the personal friend of washington, franklin, and other patriots of the period, makes some inci- dental statements in his "men and times of the revolution." though eulogizing paine's efforts in behalf of american independence, he describes him as "coarse and uncouth in his manners, loathsome in his appearance, and a disgusting egotist." on paine's arrival at nantes, the mayor and other dis- tinguished citizens called upon him to pay their respects to the american patriot. mr. watson says: "he was soon rid of his respectable visitors, who left the room with marks of astonishment and dis- gust." mr. w., after much entreaty, and only by promising him a bundle of newspapers to read while undergoing the operation, succeeded in prevailing on paine to "stew, for an hour, in a hot bath." mr. w. accompanied paine to the bath, and "instructed the keeper, in french, (which paine did not under- stand,) gradually to increase the heat of the water until 'le monsieur serait bien bouille (until the gentle- man shall be well boiled;) and adds that "he became so much absorbed in his reading that he was nearly- parboiled before leaving the bath, much to his im- provement and my satisfaction." william carver has been cited as a witness in be- half of paine, and particularly as to his "personal habits." in a letter to paine, dated december , , he bears the following testimony: "a respectable gentlemen from new rochelle called to see me a few days back, and said that everybody was tired of you there, and no one would undertake to board and lodge you. i thought this was the case, as i found you at a tavern in a most miserable situation. you appeared as if you had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shirt, it could not be said that you had one on. it was only the remains of one, and this, likewise, appeared not to have been off your back for a fortnight, and was nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had the most disagreeable smell possible; just like that of our poor beggars in england. do you remember the pains i took to clean you? that i got a tub of warm water and soap and washed you from head to foot, and this i had to do three times before i could get you clean." (and then follow more disgusting details.) "you say, also, that you found your own liquors during the time you boarded with me; but you should have said, 'i found only a small part of the liquor i drank during my stay with you; this part i purchased of john fellows, which was a demijohn of brandy containing four gallons, and this did not serve me three weeks.' this can be proved, and i mean not to say anything that i cannot prove; for i hold truth as a precious jewel. it is a well-known fact, that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense, during the different times that you have boarded with me, the demijohn above mentioned excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick. is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper?" this chosen witness in behalf of paine, closes his letter, which is full of loathsome descriptions of paine's manner of life, as follows: "now, sir, i think i have drawn a complete por- trait of your character; yet to enter upon every minutiae would be to give a history of your life, and to develop the fallacious mask of hypocrisy and de- ception under which you have acted in your political as well as moral capacity of life." (signed) "william carver." carver had the same opinion of paine to his dying day. when an old man, and an infidel of the paine type and habits, he was visited by the rev. e. f. hatfield, d.d., of this city, who writes to us of his interview with carver, under date of sept. , : "i conversed with him nearly an hour. i took special pains to learn from him all that i could about paine, whose landlord he had been for eighteen months. he spoke of him as a base and shameless drunkard, utterly destitute of moral principle. his denunciations of the man were perfectly fearful, and fully confirmed, in my apprehension, all that had been written of paine's immorality and repulsiveness." cheetham's life of paine, which was published the year that he died, and which has passed through several editions (we have three of them now before us) describes a man lost to all moral sensibility and to all sense of decency, a habitual drunkard, and it is simply incredible that a book should have appeared so soon after the death of its subject and should have been so frequently republished without being at once refuted, if the testimony were not substantially true. many years later, when it was found necessary to bolster up the reputation of paine, cheetham's memoirs were called a pack of lies. if only one- tenth part of what he publishes circumstantially in his volume, as facts in regard to paine, were true, all that has been written against him in later years does not begin to set forth the degraded character of the man's life. and with all that has been written on the subject we see no good reason to doubt the sub- stantial accuracy of cheetham's portrait of the man whom he knew so well. dr. j. w. francis, well-known as an eminent phy- sician, of this city, in his reminiscences of new york, says of paine: "he who, in his early days, had been associated with, and had received counsel from franklin, was, in his old age, deserted by the humblest menial; he, whose pen has proved a very sword among nations, had shaken empires, and made kings tremble, now yielded up the mastery to the most treacherous of tyrants, king alcohol." the physician who attended paine during his last illness was dr. james r. manley, a gentleman of the highest character. a letter of his, written in octo- ber of the year that paine died, fully corroborates the account of his state as recorded by stephen grellet in his memoirs, which we have already printed. he writes: "new york, october , : i was called upon by accident to visit mr. paine, on the th of feb- ruary last, and found him indisposed with fever, and very apprehensive of an attack of apoplexy, as he stated that he had that disease before, and at this time felt a great degree of vertigo, and was unable to help himself as he had hitherto done, on account of an intense pain above the eyes. on inquiry of the attendants i was told that three or four days previously he had concluded to dispense with his usual quantity of accustomed stimulus and that he had on that day resumed it. to the want of his usual drink they attributed his illness, and it is highly probable that the usual quantity operating upon a state of system more excited from the above priva- tions, was the cause of the symptoms of which he then complained.... and here let me be per- mitted to observe (lest blame might attach to those whose business it was to pay any particular attention to his cleanliness of person) that it was absolutely impossible to effect that purpose. cleanliness ap- peared to make no part of his comfort; he seemed to have a singular aversion to soap and water; he would never ask to be washed, and when he was he would always make objections; and it was not un- usual to wash and to dress him clean very much against his inclinations. in this deplorable state, with confirmed dropsy, attended with frequent cough, vomiting and hiccough, he continued growing from bad to worse till the morning of the th of june, when he died. though i may remark that during the last three weeks of his life his situation was such that his decease was confidently expected every day, his ulcers having assumed a gangrenous appearance, being excessively fetid, and discolored blisters hav- ing taken place on the soles of his feet without any ostensible cause, which baffled the usual attempts to arrest their progress; and when we consider his former habits, his advanced age, the feebleness of his constitution, his constant habit of using ardent spirits ad libitum till the commencement of his last illness, so far from wondering that he died so soon, we are constrained to ask, how did he live so long? con- cerning his conduct during his disease i have not much to remark, though the little i have may be somewhat interesting. mr. paine professed to be above the fear of death, and a great part of his con- versation was principally directed to give the impres- sion that he was perfectly willing to leave this world, and yet some parts of his conduct were with difficulty reconcilable with his belief. in the first stages of his illness he was satisfied to be left alone during the day, but he required some person to be with him at night, urging as his reason that he was afraid that he should die when unattended, and at this period his deportment and his principle seemed to be con- sistent; so much so that a stranger would judge from some of the remarks he would make that he was an infidel. i recollect being with him at night, watch- ing; he was very apprehensive of a speedy dissolu- tion, and suffered great distress of body, and perhaps of mind (for he was waiting the event of an applica- tion to the society of friends for permission that his corpse might be deposited in their grave-ground, and had reason to believe that the request might be refused), when he remarked in these words, 'i think i can say what they made jesus christ to say--"my god, my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" he went on to observe on the want of that respect which he conceived he merited, when i observed to him that i thought his corpse should be matter of least concern to him; that those whom he would leave behind him would see that he was properly interred, and, further, that it would be of little consequence to me where i was deposited provided i was buried; upon which he answered that he had nothing else to talk about, and that he would as lief talk of his death as of anything, but that he was not so indifferent about his corpse as i appeared to be. "during the latter part of his life, though his con- versation was equivocal, his conduct was singular; he could not be left alone night or day; he not only required to have some person with him, but he must see that he or she was there, and would not allow his curtain to be closed at any time; and if, as it would sometimes unavoidably happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo until some person came to him. when relief from pain would admit, he seemed thoughtful and contemplative, his eyes being generally closed, and his hands folded upon his breast, although he never slept without the assist- ance of an anodyne. there was something remark- able in his conduct about this period (which comprises about two weeks immediately preceding his death), particularly when we reflect that thomas paine was the author of the 'age of reason.' he would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without inter- mission, 'o lord help me! god help me! jesus christ help me! lord help me!' etc., repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. it was this conduct which induced me to think that he had abandoned his former opinions, and i was more inclined to that belief when i understood from his nurse (who is a very serious and, i believe, pious woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading, and, being answered, and at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented, and would appear to give particular attention. "i took occasion during the nights of the fifth and sixth of june to test the strength of his opinions respecting revelation. i purposely made him a very late visit; it was a time which seemed to suit exactly with my errand; it was midnight, he was in great distress, constantly exclaiming in the words above mentioned, when, after a considerable preface, i addressed him in the following manner, the nurse being present: 'mr. paine, your opinions, by a large portion of the community, have been treated with deference, you have never been in the habit of mix- ing in your conversation words of coarse meaning; you have never indulged in the practice of profane swearing; you must be sensible that we are ac- quainted with your religious opinions as they are given to the world. what must we think of your present conduct? why do you call upon jesus christ to help you? do you believe that he can help you? do you believe in the divinity of jesus christ? come, now, answer me honestly. i want an answer from the lips of a dying man, for i verily believe that you will not live twenty-four hours.' i waited some time at the end of every question; he did not answer, but ceased to exclaim in the above manner. again i addressed him; 'mr. paine, you have not answered my questions; will you answer them? allow me to ask again, do you believe? or let me qualify the question, do you wish to believe that jesus christ is the son of god?' after a pause of some minutes, he answered, 'i have no wish to believe on that subject.' i then left him, and knew not whether he afterward spoke to any person on any subject, though he lived, as i before observed, till the morning of the th. such conduct, under usual circumstances, i conceive absolutely unaccount- able, though, with diffidence, i would remark, not so much so in the present instance; for though the first necessary and general result of conviction be a sin- cere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it may be a question worthy of able consideration whether excessive pride of opinion, consummate vanity, and inordinate self-love might not prevent or retard that otherwise natural consequence. for my own part, i believe that had not thomas paine been such a distinguished infidel he would have left less equivo- cal evidences of a change of opinion. concerning the persons who visited mr. paine in his distress as his personal friends, i heard very little, though i may observe that their number was small, and of that number there were not wanting those who endeavor- ed to support him in his deistical opinions, and to encourage him to 'die like a man,' to 'hold fast his integrity,' lest christians, or, as they were pleased to term them, hypocrites, might take advantage of his weakness, and furnish themselves with a weapon by which they might hope to destroy their glorious sys- tem of morals. numbers visited him from motives of benevolence and christian charity, endeavoring to effect a change of mind in respect to his religious sentiments. the labor of such was apparently lost, and they pretty generally received such treatment from him as none but good men would risk a second time, though some of those persons called frequently." the following testimony will be new to most of our readers. it is from a letter written by bishop fenwick (roman catholic bishop of boston), con- taining a full account of a visit which he paid to paine in his last illness. it was printed in the _united states catholic magazine_ for ; in the _catholic herald_ of philadelphia, october , ; in a sup- plement to the _hartford courant_, october , ; and in _littell's living age_ for january , , from which we copy. bishop fenwick writes: "a short time before paine died i was sent for by him. he was prompted to this by a poor catholic woman who went to see him in his sickness, and who told him, among other things, that in his wretched condition if anybody could do him any good it would be a roman catholic priest. this woman was an american convert (formerly a shak- ing quakeress) whom i had received into the church but a few weeks before. she was the bearer of this message to me from paine. i stated this circum- stance to f. kohlmann, at breakfast, and requested him to accompany me. after some solicitation on my part he agreed to do so? at which i was greatly rejoiced, because i was at the time quite young and inexperienced in the ministry, and was glad to have his assistance, as i knew, from the great reputation of paine, that i should have to do with one of the most impious as well as infamous of men. we shortly after set out for the house at greenwich where paine lodged, and on the way agreed on a mode of proceeding with him. "we arrived at the house; a decent-looking elderly woman (probably his housekeeper,) came to the door and inquired whether we were the catholic priests, for said she, 'mr. paine has been so much annoyed of late by other denominations calling upon him that he has left express orders with me to admit no one to-day but the clergymen of the catholic church. upon assuring her that we were catholic clergymen she opened the door and showed us into the parlor. she then left the room and shortly after returned to inform us that paine was asleep, and, at the same time, expressed a wish that we would not disturb him, 'for,' said she, 'he is always in a bad humor when roused out of his sleep. it is better we wait a little till he be awake.' we accordingly sat down and resolved to await a more favorable moment. 'gentlemen,' said the lady, after having taken her seat also, 'i really wish you may succeed with mr. paine, for he is laboring under great distress of mind ever since he was informed by his physicians that he cannot possibly live and must die shortly. he sent for you to-day because he was told that if any one could do him good you might. possibly he may think you know of some remedy which his physicians are ignorant of. he is truly to be pitied. his cries when he is left alone are heart-rending. 'o lord help me!' he will exclaim during his paroxysms of distress--'god help me--jesus christ help me!' repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. sometimes he will say, 'o god, what have i done to suffer so much!' then, shortly after, 'but there is no god,' and again a little after, 'yet if there should be, what would become of me hereafter.' thus he will continue for some time, when on a sud- den he will scream, as if in terror and agony, and call out for me by name. on one of these occasions, which are very frequent, i went to him and inquired what he wanted. 'stay with me,' he replied, 'for god's sake, for i cannot bear to be left alone.' i then observed that i could not always be with him, as i had much to attend to in the house. 'then,' said he, 'send even a child to stay with me, for it is a hell to be alone.' 'i never saw,' she concluded, 'a more unhappy, a more forsaken man. it seems he cannot reconcile himself to die.' "such was the conversation of the woman who had received us, and who probably had been employ- ed to nurse and take care of him during his illness. she was a protestant, yet seemed very desirous that we should afford him some relief in his state of abandonment, bordering on complete despair. hav- ing remained thus some time in the parlor, we at length heard a noise in the adjoining passage-way, which induced us to believe that mr. paine, who was sick in that room, had awoke. we accordingly pro- posed to proceed thither, which was assented to by the woman, and she opened the door for us. on entering, we found him just getting out of his slumber. a more wretched being in appearance i never beheld. he was lying in a bed sufficiently decent of itself, but at present besmeared with filth; his look was that of a man greatly tortured in mind; his eyes haggard, his countenance forbidding, and his whole appearance that of one whose better days had been one continued scene of debauch. his only nourishment at this time, as we were informed, was nothing more than milk punch, in which he indulged to the full extent of his weak state. he had par- taken, undoubtedly, but very recently of it, as the sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very un- equivocal traces of it, as well as of blood, which had also followed in the track and left its mark on the pillow. his face, to a certain extent, had also been besmeared with it." immediately upon their making known the object of their visit, paine interrupted the speaker by say- ing: "that's enough, sir; that's enough," and again interrupting him, "i see what you would be about. i wish to hear no more from you, sir. my mind is made up on that subject. i look upon the whole of the christian scheme to be a tissue of absurdities and lies, and jesus christ to be nothing more than a cunning knave and impostor." he drove them out of the room, exclaiming: away with you and your god, too; leave the room instantly; all that you have uttered are lies--filthy lies; and if i had a little more time i would prove it, as i did about your impostor, jesus christ." this, we think, will suffice. we have a mass of letters containing statements confirmatory of what we have published in regard to the life and death of paine, but nothing more can be required. ingersoll's second reply. peoria, nov. d, . to the editor of the new york observer: you ought to have honesty enough to admit that you did, in your paper of july th, offer to prove that the absurd story that thomas paine died in terror and agony on account of the religious opinions he had expressed, was true. you ought to have fairness enough to admit that you called upon me to deposit one thousand dollars with an honest man, that you might, by proving that thomas paine did die in terror, obtain the money. you ought to have honor enough to admit that you challenged me and that you commenced the controversy concerning thomas paine. you ought to have goodness enough to admit that you were mistaken in the charges you made. you ought to have manhood enough to do what you falsely asserted that thomas paine did:--you ought to recant. you ought to admit publicly that you slandered the dead; that you falsified history; that you defamed the defenceless; that you deliber- ately denied what you had published in your own paper. there is an old saying to the effect that open confession is good for the soul. to you is presented a splendid opportunity of testing the truth of this saying. nothing has astonished me more than your lack of common honesty exhibited in this controversy. in your last, you quote from dr. j. w. francis. why did you leave out that portion in which dr. francis says _that cheetham with settled malignity wrote the life of paine?_ why did you leave out that part in which dr. francis says that cheetham in the same way _slandered alexander hamilton and de witt clinton?_ is it your business to suppress the truth? why did you not publish the entire letter of bishop fenwick? was it because it proved beyond all cavil that thomas paine did not recant? was it because in the light of that letter mary roscoe, mary hinsdale and grant thorburn appeared un- worthy of belief? dr. j. w. francis says in the same article from which you quoted, "_paine clung to his infidelity until the last moment of his life!'_ why did you not publish that? it was the first line im- mediately above what you did quote. you must have seen it. why did you suppress it? a lawyer, doing a thing of this character, is denominated a shyster. i do not know the appropriate word to designate a theologian guilty of such an act. you brought forward three witnesses, pretending to have personal knowledge about the life and death of thomas paine: grant thorburn, mary roscoe and mary hinsdale. in my reply i took the ground that mary roscoe and mary hinsdale must have been the same person. i thought it impossible that paine should have had a conversation with mary roscoe, and then one precisely like it with mary hinsdale. acting upon this conviction, i proceeded to show that the conversation never could have hap- pened, that it was absurdly false to say that paine asked the opinion of a girl as to his works who had never read but little of them. i then showed by the testimony of william cobbett, that he visited mary hinsdale in , taking with him a statement con- cerning the recantation of paine, given him by mr. collins, and that upon being shown this statement she said that "it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter--that she would not say any part of the paper was true." at that time she knew nothing, and remembered noth- ing. i also showed that she was a kind of standing witness to prove that others recanted. willett hicks denounced her as unworthy of belief. to-day the following from the new york _world_ was received, showing that i was right in my conjecture: tom paine's death-bed. _to the editor of the world_: sir: i see by your paper that bob ingersoll dis- credits mary hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death-bed of thomas paine. no one who knew that good lady would for one moment doubt her veracity or question her testimony. both she and her husband were quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants of new york city, _ingersoll is right in his conjecture that mary roscoe and mary hinsdale was the same person_. her maiden name was roscoe, and she married henry hinsdale. my mother was a roscoe, a niece of mary roscoe, and lived with her for some time. i have heard her relate the story of tom paine's dying remorse, as told her by her aunt, who was a witness to it. she says (in a letter i have just received from her), "he (tom paine) suffered fearfully from remorse, and renounced his infidel principles, calling on god to forgive him, and wishing his pamphlets and books to be burned, saying he could not die in peace until it was done." (rev.) a. w. cornell. harpersville, new york. you will notice that the testimony of mary hins- dale has been drawing interest since , and has materially increased. if paine "suffered fearfully from remorse, renounced his infidel opinions and called on god to forgive him," it is hardly generous for the christian world to fasten the fangs of malice in the flesh of his reputation. so mary roscoe was mary hinsdale, and as mary hinsdale has been shown by her own admis- sion to mr. cobbett to have known nothing of the matter; and as mary hinsdale was not, according to willet hicks, worthy of belief--as she told a false- hood of the same kind about mary lockwood, and was, according to mr. collins, addicted to the use of opium--this disposes of her and her testimony. there remains upon the stand grant thorburn. concerning this witness, i received, yesterday, from the eminent biographer and essayist, james parton, the following epistle: newburyport, mass. col. r. g. ingersoll: touching grant thorburn, i personally know him to have been a dishonest man. at the age of ninety- two he copied, with trembling hand, a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of the _home journal, as his own_. it was i who received it and detected the deliberate forgery. if you are ever go- ing to continue this subject, i will give you the exact facts. fervently yours, james parton. after this, you are welcome to what remains of grant thorburn. there is one thing that i have noticed during this controversy regarding thomas paine. in no instance that i now call to mind has any christian writer spoken respectfully of mr. paine. all have taken particular pains to call him "tom" paine. is it not a little strange that religion should make men so coarse and ill-mannered? i have often wondered what these same gentle- men would say if i should speak of the men eminent in the annals of christianity in the same way. what would they say if i should write about "tim" dwight, old "ad" clark, "tom" scott, "jim" mcknight, "bill" hamilton, "dick" whately, "bill" paley, and "jack" calvin? they would _say_ of me then, just what i _think_ of them now. even if we have religion, do not let us try to get along without good manners. rudeness is exceed- ingly unbecoming, even in a saint. persons who forgive their enemies ought, to say the least, to treat with politeness those who have never injured them. it is exceedingly gratifying to me that i have com- pelled you to say that "paine died a blaspheming infidel." hereafter it is to be hoped nothing will be heard about his having recanted. as an answer to such slander his friends can confidently quote the following from the _new york observer_ of november ist, : "we have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed that paine actually re- nounced his infidelity. the accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel." this for all coming time will refute the slanders of the churches yet to be. right here allow me to ask: if you never supposed that paine renounced his infidelity, why did you try to prove by mary hinsdale that which you believed to be untrue? from the bottom of my heart i thank myself for having compelled you to admit that thomas paine did not recant. for the purpose of verifying your own admission concerning the death of mr. paine, permit me to call your attention to the following affidavit: wabash, indiana, october , . col. r. g. ingersoll: dear sir: the following statement of facts is at your disposal. in the year willet hicks made a visit to indiana and stayed over night at my father's house, four miles east of richmond. in the morn- ing at breakfast my mother asked willet hicks the following questions: "was thee with thomas paine during his last sickness?" mr. hicks said: "i was with him every day dur- ing the latter part of his last sickness." "did he express any regret in regard to writing the 'age of reason,' as the published accounts say he did--those accounts that have the credit of ema- nating from his catholic housekeeper?" mr. hicks replied: "he did not in any way by word or action." "did he call on god or jesus christ, asking either of them to forgive his sins, or did he curse them or either of them?" mr. hicks answered: "he did not. he died as easy as any one i ever saw die, and i have seen many die in my time." william b barnes. subscribed and sworn to before me oct. , . warren bigler, notary public. you say in your last that "thomas paine was abandoned of god." so far as this controversy is concerned, it seems to me that in that sentence you have most graphically described your own condi- tion. wishing you success in all honest undertakings, i remain, yours truly, robert g. ingersoll. the works of robert g. ingersoll "give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. banish me from eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge." in twelve volumes, volume iii. lectures the dresden edition contents of volume iii. shakespeare ( .) i. the greatest genius of our world--not of supernatural origin or of royal blood--illiteracy of his parents--education--his father--his mother a great woman--stratford unconscious of the immortal child--social position of shakespeare--of his personal peculiarities--birth, marriage, and death--what we know of him--no line written by him to be found--the absurd epitaph--ii. contemporaries by whom he was mentioned--iii. no direct mention of any of his contemporaries in the plays--events and personages of his time--iv. position of the actor in shakespeare's time--fortunately he was not educated at oxford--an idealist--his indifference to stage-carpentry and plot--he belonged to all lands--knew the brain and heart of man--an intellectual spendthrift--v. the baconian theory--vi. dramatists before and during the time of shakespeare--dramatic incidents illustrated in passages from "macbeth" and "julius cæsar"--vii. his use of the work of others--the pontic sea--a passage from "lear"--viii. extravagance that touches the infinite--the greatest compliment--"let me not live after my flame lacks oil"--where pathos almost touches the grotesque--ix. an innovator and iconoclast--disregard of the "unities"--nature forgets--violation of the classic model--x. types--the secret of shakespeare--characters who act from reason and motive--what they say not the opinion of shakespeare--xi. the procession that issued from shakespeare's brain--his great women--lovable clowns--his men--talent and genius--xii. the greatest of all philosophers--master of the human heart--love--xiii. in the realm of comparison--xiv. definitions: suicide, drama, death, memory, the body, life, echo, the world, rumor--the confidant of nature--xv. humor and pathos--illustrations--xvi. not a physician, lawyer, or botanist--he was a man of imagination--he lived the life of all--the imagination had a stage in shakespeare's brain. robert burns. ( .) poetry and poets--milton, dante, petrarch--old-time poetry in scotland--influence of scenery on literature--lives that are poems--birth of burns--early life and education--scotland emerging from the gloom of calvinism--a metaphysical peasantry--power of the scotch preacher--famous scotch names--john barleycorn vs. calvinism--why robert burns is loved--his reading--made goddesses of women--poet of love: his "vision," "bonnie doon," "to mary in heaven"--poet of home: "cotter's saturday night," "john anderson, my jo"--friendship: "auld lang-syne"--scotch drink: "willie brew'd a peck o' maut"--burns the artist: the "brook," "tam o'shanter"--a real democrat: "a man's a man for a' that"--his theology: the dogma of eternal pain, "morality," "hypocrisy," "holy willie's prayer"--on the bible--a statement of his religion--contrasted with tennyson--from cradle to coffin--his last words--lines on the birth-place of burns. abraham lincoln. ( .) i. simultaneous birth of lincoln and darwin--heroes of every generation--slavery--principle sacrificed to success--lincoln's childhood--his first speech--a candidate for the senate against douglass--ii. a crisis in the affairs of the republic--the south not alone responsible for slavery--lincoln's prophetic words--nominated for president and elected in spite of his fitness--iii. secession and civil war--the thought uppermost in his mind--iv. a crisis in the north--proposition to purchase the slaves--v. the proclamation of emancipation--his letter to horace greeley--waited on by clergymen--vi. surrounded by enemies--hostile attitude of gladstone, salisbury, louis napoleon, and the vatican--vii. slavery the perpetual stumbling-block--confiscation--viii. his letter to a republican meeting in illinois--its effect--ix. the power of his personality--the embodiment of mercy--use of the pardoning power--x. the vallandigham affair--the horace greeley incident--triumphs of humor--xi. promotion of general hooker--a prophecy and its fulfillment--xii.--states rights vs. territorial integrity--xiii. his military genius--the foremost man in all the world: and then the horror came--xiv. strange mingling of mirth and tears--deformation of great historic characters--washington now only a steel engraving--lincoln not a type--virtues necessary in a new country--laws of cultivated society--in the country is the idea of home--lincoln always a pupil--a great lawyer--many-sided--wit and humor--as an orator--his speech at gettysburg contrasted with the oration of edward everett--apologetic in his kindness--no official robes--the gentlest memory of our world. voltaire. ( .) i. changes wrought by time--throne and altar twin vultures--the king and the priest--what is greatness?--effect of voltaire's name on clergyman and priest--born and baptized--state of france in --the church at the head--efficacy of prayers and dead saints--bells and holy water--prevalence of belief in witches, devils, and fiends--seeds of the revolution scattered by noble and priest--condition in england--the inquisition in full control in spain--portugal and germany burning women--italy prostrate beneath the priests, the puritans in america persecuting quakers, and stealing children--ii. the days of youth--his education--chooses literature as a profession and becomes a diplomat--in love and disinherited--unsuccessful poem competition--jansenists and molinists--the bull unigenitus--exiled to tulle--sent to the bastile--exiled to england--acquaintances made there--iii. the morn of manhood--his attention turned to the history of the church--the "triumphant beast" attacked--europe filled with the product of his brain--what he mocked--the weapon of ridicule--his theology--his "retractions"--what goethe said of voltaire--iv. the scheme of nature--his belief in the optimism of pope destroyed by the lisbon earthquake--v. his humanity--case of jean calas--the sirven family--the espenasse case--case of chevalier de la barre and d'etallonde--voltaire abandons france--a friend of education--an abolitionist--not a saint--vi. the return--his reception--his death--burial at romilli-on-the-seine--vii. the death-bed argument--serene demise of the infamous--god has no time to defend the good and protect the pure--eloquence of the clergy on the death-bed subject--the second return--throned upon the bastile--the grave desecrated by priests--voltaire. a testimonial to walt whitman--let us put wreaths on the brows of the living--literary ideals of the american people in --"leaves of grass"--its reception by the provincial prudes--the religion of the body--appeal to manhood and womanhood--books written for the market--the index expurgatorius--whitman a believer in democracy--individuality--humanity--an old-time sea-fight--what is poetry?--rhyme a hindrance to expression--rhythm the comrade of the poetic--whitman's attitude toward religion--philosophy--the two poems--"a word out of the sea"--"when lilacs last in the door"--"a chant for death"-- the history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels--the king and the priest--the origin of god and heaven, of the devil and hell--the idea of hell born of ignorance, brutality, cowardice, and revenge--the limitations of our ancestors--the devil and god--egotism of barbarians--the doctrine of hell not an exclusive possession of christianity--the appeal to the cemetery--religion and wealth, christ and poverty--the "great" not on the side of christ and his disciples--epitaphs as battle-cries--some great men in favor of almost every sect--mistakes and superstitions of eminent men--sacred books--the claim that all moral laws came from god through the jews--fear--martyrdom--god's ways toward men--the emperor constantine--the death test--theological comity between protestants and catholics--julian--a childish fable still believed--bruno--his crime, his imprisonment and liberty in literature. ( .) "old age"--"leaves of grass" the great infidels. ( .) martyrdom--the first to die for truth without expectation of reward--the church in the time of voltaire--voltaire--diderot--david hume--benedict spinoza--our infidels--thomas paine--conclusion. which way? ( .) i. the natural and the supernatural--living for the benefit of your fellow-man and living for ghosts--the beginning of doubt--two philosophies of life--two theories of government--ii. is our god superior to the gods of the heathen?--what our god has done--iii. two theories about the cause and cure of disease--the first physician--the bones of st. anne exhibited in new york--archbishop corrigan and cardinal gibbons countenance a theological fraud--a japanese story--the monk and the miraculous cures performed by the bones of a donkey represented as those of a saint--iv.--two ways of accounting for sacred books and religions--v-two theories about morals--nothing miraculous about morality--the test of all actions--vi. search for the impossible--alchemy--"perpetual motion"--astrology--fountain of perpetual youth--vii. "great men" and the superstitions in which they have believed--viii. follies and imbecilities of great men--we do not know what they thought, only what they said--names of great unbelievers--most men controlled by their surroundings--ix. living for god in switzerland, scotland, new england--in the dark ages--let us live for man--x. the narrow road of superstition--the wide and ample way--let us squeeze the orange dry--this was, this is, this shall be. about the holy bible. ( .) the truth about the bible ought to be told--i. the origin of the bible--establishment of the mosaic code--moses not the author of the pentateuch--some old testament books of unknown origin--ii. is the old testament inspired?--what an inspired book ought to be--what the bible is--admission of orthodox christians that it is not inspired as to science--the enemy of art--iii. the ten commandments--omissions and redundancies--the story of achan--the story of elisha--the story of daniel--the story of joseph--iv. what is it all worth?--not true, and contradictory--its myths older than the pentateuch--other accounts of the creation, the fall, etc.--books of the old testament named and characterized--v. was jehovah a god of love?--vi. jehovah's administration--vii. the new testament--many other gospels besides our four--disagreements--belief in devils--raising of the dead--other miracles--would a real miracle-worker have been crucified?--viii. the philosophy of christ--love of enemies--improvidence--self-mutilation--the earth as a footstool--justice--a bringer of war--division of families--ix. is christ our example?--x. why should we place christ at the top and summit of the human race?--how did he surpass other teachers?--what he left unsaid, and why--inspiration--rejected books of the new testament--the bible and the crimes it has caused. shakespeare i. william shakespeare was the greatest genius of our world. he left to us the richest legacy of all the dead--the treasures of the rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures, robes and gems of thought. it is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked--meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless chance. shakespeare is too great a theme. i feel as though endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. he who would worthily speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest heaven of invention"--he should have "a kingdom for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene." more than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race was born. he was not of supernatural origin. at his birth there were no celestial pyrotechnics. his father and mother were both english, and both had the cheerful habit of living in this world. the cradle in which he was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins there was no drop of royal blood. this babe became the wonder of mankind. neither of his parents could read or write. he grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks of the avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years ago. there was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, and nothing in the murmuring stream, to excite the imagination--nothing, so far as we can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sublimest thought. so there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of education, that in any way accounts for what he did. it is supposed that he attended school in his native town--but of this we are not certain. many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood, but the fact seems to be the other way. some of his biographers have sought to do him honor by showing that he was patronized by queen elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest proof. as a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne a king, queen, or emperor who could have honored william shakespeare. ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. the sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy. on the other hand, the children of the rich, finding that gold does not produce happiness, are apt to underrate the value of wealth. so the children of the educated often care but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. the children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers. nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself. possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys of savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing for knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, genius is born. it may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for generations, gathers strength. shakespeare's father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and class. about the only thing we know of him is that he was officially reported for not coming monthly to church. this is good as far as it goes. we can hardly blame him, because at that time richard bifield was the minister at stratford, and an extreme puritan, one who read the psalter by sternhold and hopkins. the church was at one time catholic, but in john shakespeare's day it was puritan, and in , the year of shakespeare's birth, they had the images defaced. it is greatly to the honor of john shakespeare that he refused to listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the puritan bifield. nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name--mary arden. in those days but little attention was given to the biographies of women. they were born, married, had children, and died. no matter how celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. in old times, when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find out about the father and grandfather--the idea being that genius is inherited from the father's side. the truth is, that all great men have had great mothers. great women have had, as a rule, great fathers. the mother of shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of women. she dowered her son with passion and imagination and the higher qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. it has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care--and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. the children of the great are often small. pigmies are born in palaces, while over the children of genius is the roof of straw. most of the great are like mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and the depression of posterity on the other. in his day shakespeare was of no particular importance. it may be that his mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but stratford was unconscious of the immortal child. he was never engaged in a reputable business. socially he occupied a position below servants. the law described him as "a sturdy vagabond." he was neither a noble, a soldier, nor a priest. among the half-civilized people of england, he who amused and instructed them was regarded as a menial. kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. it is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. mozart was patronized by an archbishop--lived in the palace,--but was compelled to eat with the scullions. the composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of the composer. we know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or of what may be called the outward shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that so little is known. he might have been belittled by friendly fools. what silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have been remembered by those who scarcely saw him! we have his best--his sublimest--and we have probably lost only the trivial and the worthless. all that is known can be written on a page. we are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and of his death. we think he went to london in , when he was twenty-two years old. we think that three years afterward he was part owner of blackfriars' theatre. we have a few signatures, some of which are supposed to be genuine. we know that he bought some land--that he had two or three law-suits. we know the names of his children. we also know that this incomparable man--so apart from, and so familiar with, all the world--lived during his literary life in london--that he was an actor, dramatist and manager--that he returned to stratford, the place of his birth,--that he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children of his brain--that he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church where the images had been defaced, and that on his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph. no letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written by him can be shown. and here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. shakespeare was an actor--a disreputable business--but he made money--always reputable. he came back from london a rich man. he bought land, and built houses. some of the supposed great probably treated him with deference. when he died he was buried in the church. then came a reaction. the pious thought the church had been profaned. they did not feel that the ashes of an actor were fit to lie in holy ground. the people began to say the body ought to be removed. then it was, as i believe, that dr. john hall, shakespeare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb: "good friend, for jesus' sake forbeare to digg the dust enclosed heare: blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, and curst be he yt moves my bones." certainly shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be violated. how could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a threat and a blessing, upon his grave? but the ignorant people of that day were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so feeling they feared to invade the tomb. in this way the dust was left in peace. this epitaph gave me great trouble for years. it puzzled me to explain why he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,--great ranges of mountains--should put such a pebble at his tomb. but when i stood beside the grave and read the ignorant words, the explanation i have given flashed upon me. ii. it has been said that shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. this is a mistake. in a book was published called _england's parnassus_, and it contained ninety extracts from shakespeare. in the same year was published the _garden of the muses_, containing several pieces from shakespeare, chapman, marston and ben jonson. _england's helicon_ was printed in the same year, and contained poems from spenser, greene, harvey and shakespeare. in a play was acted at cambridge, in which shakespeare was alluded to as follows: "why, here's our fellow shakespeare who puts them all down." john weaver published a book of poems in , in which there was a sonnet to shakespeare. in richard bamfield wrote a poem to shakespeare. francis meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both universities, compiler of school books," was the author of the _wits treasury_. in this he compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and mentions marlowe, peele, kyd and shakespeare. so he compares the writers of comedies, and mentions lilly, lodge, greene and shakespeare. he speaks of elegiac poets, and names surrey, wyatt, sidney, raleigh and shakespeare. he compares the lyric poets, and names spenser, drayton, shakespeare and others. this same writer, speaking of horace, says that england has sidney, shakespeare and others, and that "as the soul of euphorbus was thought to live in pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul of ovid lives in the mellifluous and honey-tongued shakespeare." he also says: "if the muses could speak english, they would speak in shakespeare's phrase." this was in . in , john davies alludes in a poem to shakespeare. of course we are all familiar with what rare ben jonson wrote. henry chettle took shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death of queen elizabeth. it may be wonderful that he was not better known. but is it not wonderful that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, and that twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the first? iii. but there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of shakespeare: in the plays there is no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. we do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, statesman, priest, nobleman, king, or queen, that shakespeare directly mentioned. is it not marvelous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of adventures in far-off lands and unknown seas--in a time of religious wars--in the days of the armada--the massacre of st. bartholomew--the edict of nantes--the assassination of henry iii.--the victory of lepanto--the execution of marie stuart--did not mention the name of any man or woman of his time? some have insisted that the paragraph ending with the lines: "the imperial votress passed on in maiden meditation fancy-free," referred to queen elizabeth; but it is impossible for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of queen elizabeth could by any possibility have inspired these marvelous lines. it is perfectly apparent from shakespeare's writings that he knew but little of the nobility, little of kings and queens. he gives to these supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their mouths and makes them speak--not as they really did--but as shakespeare thought such people should. this demonstrates that he did not know them personally. some have insisted that shakespeare mentions queen elizabeth in the last scene of henry viii. the answer to this is that shakespeare did not write the last scene in that play. the probability is that fletcher was the author. shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when europe emerged from the darkness of the middle ages, when the discovery of america had made england, that blossom of the gulf-stream, the centre of commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, thinkers, soldiers and discoverers were produced. cervantes was born in , dying on the same day that shakespeare died. he was undoubtedly the greatest writer that spain has produced. rubens was born in . camoens, the portuguese, the author of the _lusiad_, died in . giordano bruno--greatest of martyrs--was born in --visited london in shakespeare's time--delivered lectures at oxford, and called that institution "the widow of learning." drake circled the globe in . galileo was born in --the same year with shakespeare. michael angelo died in . kepler--he of the three laws--born in . calderon, the spanish dramatist, born in . corneille, the french poet, in . rembrandt, greatest of painters, . shakespeare was born in . in that year john calvin died. what a glorious exchange! seventy-two years after the discovery of america shakespeare was born, and england was filled with the voyages and discoveries written by hakluyt, and the wonders that had been seen by raleigh, by drake, by frobisher and hawkins. london had become the centre of the world, and representatives from all known countries were in the new metropolis. the world had been doubled. the imagination had been touched and kindled by discovery. in the far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores beyond untraversed seas. toward every part of the world were turned the prows of adventure. all these things fanned the imagination into flame, and this had its effect upon the literary and dramatic world. and yet shakespeare--the master spirit of mankind--in the midst of these discoveries, of these adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no discoverer, no philosopher. galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, but shakespeare did not mention him. this to me is the most marvelous thing connected with this most marvelous man. at that time england was prosperous--was then laying the foundation of her future greatness and power. when men are prosperous, they are in love with life. nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected--and this life with which men are in love, is represented in a thousand forms. nature, or fate, or chance prepared a stage for shakespeare, and shakespeare prepared a stage for nature. famine and faith go together. in disaster and want the gaze of man is fixed upon another world. he that eats a crust has a creed. hunger falls upon its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is the mirage of misery. but prosperity brings joy and wealth and leisure--and the beautiful is born. one of the effects of the world's awakening was shakespeare. we account for this man as we do for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the most perfect gem. we can only say: he was. "it hath been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were." iv. in shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the dramatist a disreputable person--and yet the greatest dramas were then written. in spite of law, and social ostracism, shakespeare reared the many-colored dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual heavens. now the whole civilized world believes in the theatre--asks for some great dramatist--is hungry for a play worthy of the century, is anxious to give gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our age upon the stage--and yet no great play has been written since shakespeare died. shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. he did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong. he was sound and healthy to the centre. it never occurred to him to write a play in which a wife's lover should be jealous of her husband. there was in his blood the courage of his thought. he was true to himself and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. he did not write according to rules--but smaller men make rules from what he wrote. how fortunate that shakespeare was not educated at oxford--that the winged god within him never knelt to the professor. how fortunate that this giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the literary lilliputians of his time. he was an idealist. he did not--like most writers of our time--take refuge in the real, hiding a lack of genius behind a pretended love of truth. all realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth knowing. the real sustains the same relation to the ideal that a stone does to a statue--or that paint does to a painting. realism degrades and impoverishes. in no event can a realist be more than an imitator and copyist. according to the realist's philosophy, the wax that receives and retains an image is an artist. shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, or the scenic painter. he put his scenery in his lines. there you will find mountains and rivers and seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over all "the firmament fretted with gold and fire." he cared little for plot, little for surprise. he did not rely on stage effects, or red fire. the plays grow before your eyes, and they come as the morning comes. plot surprises but once. there must be something in a play besides surprise. plot in an author is a kind of strategy--that is to say, a sort of cunning, and cunning does not belong to the highest natures. there is in shakespeare such a wealth of thought that the plot becomes almost immaterial--and such is this wealth that you can hardly know the play--there is too much. after you have heard it again and again, it seems as pathless as an untrodden forest. he belonged to all lands. "timon of athens" is as greek as any tragedy of eschylus. "julius cæsar" and "coriolanus" are perfect roman, and as you read, the mighty ruins rise and the eternal city once again becomes the mistress of the world. no play is more egyptian than "antony and cleopatra"--the nile runs through it, the shadows of the pyramids fall upon it, and from its scenes the sphinx gazes forever on the outstretched sands. in "lear" is the true pagan spirit. "romeo and juliet" is italian--everything is sudden, love bursts into immediate flower, and in every scene is the climate of the land of poetry and passion. the reason of this is that shakespeare dealt with elemental things, with universal man. he knew that locality colors without changing, and that in all surroundings the human heart is substantially the same. not all the poetry written before his time would make his sum--not all that has been written since, added to all that was written before, would equal his. there was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon of intellectual effort, that he did not touch. he knew the brain and heart of man--the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, hatreds, vices and virtues of the human race. he knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the savage joys of hatred and revenge. he heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of ambition soar. there was no hope that did not put its star above his head--no fear he had not felt--no joy that had not shed its sunshine on his face. he experienced the emotions of mankind. he was the intellectual spendthrift of the world. he gave with the generosity, the extravagance, of madness. read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth of the brain of a god has been exhausted--that there are no more comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words--and yet, the next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day. the outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. he was the intellectual crown o' the earth. v. the plays of shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning, that many people--those who imagine that universities furnish capacity--contend that bacon must have been the author. we know bacon. we know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, a time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. we know that he never admitted the truth of the copernican system--that he was doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific investigation--that he was ignorant of the higher branches of mathematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but little to the knowledge of the world. when he was more than sixty years of age he turned his attention to poetry, and dedicated his verses to george herbert. if you will read these verses you will say that the author of "lear" and "hamlet" did not write them. bacon dedicated his work on the _advancement of learning, divine and human_, to james i., and in his dedication he stated that there had not been, since the time of christ, any king or monarch so learned in all erudition, divine or human. he placed james the first before marcus aurelius and all other kings and emperors since christ, and concluded by saying that james the first had "the power and fortune of a king, the illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher." this was written of james the first, described by macaulay as a "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were deformed by the grossest and vilest superstitions--witches being the special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution." it seems to have been taken for granted that if shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas, lord bacon must have been. it has been claimed that bacon was the greatest philosopher of his time. and yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a strange mingling of foolishness and philosophy. he takes pains to tell us, and to write it down for the benefit of posterity, that "snow is colder than water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver is the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of spirit." he stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting opium on top of the weather glass, and gave the following reason: "i conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity than by cold." this great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood: "thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and bleeding. this will staunch the blood. the blood, as it seemeth, sucking and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and so itself going back." the philosopher also records this important fact: "divers witches among heathen and christians have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth, their imagination with high and foul vapors." lord bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as appears from the following: "as for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some fixing, will." now and then the inventor of deduction reasons by analogy. he says: "as snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into stone." bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and solemnly gives a formula for changing silver or copper into gold. he also believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such a height in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no blood." it is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this he recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses weight" that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they eat nothing" that "tortoises have no bones" that "there is a kind of stone, if ground and put in water where cattle drink, the cows will give more milk" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in a frenchman's head, but easy in his leg;" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in an englishman's leg, but easy in his head;" that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier to cure than those made with iron;" that "lead will multiply and increase, as in statues buried in the ground" and that "the rainbow touching anything causeth a sweet smell." bacon seems also to have turned his attention to ornithology, and says that "eggs laid in the full of the moon breed better birds," and that "you can make swallows white by putting ointment on the eggs before they are hatched." he also informs us "that witches cannot hurt kings as easily as they can common people" that "perfumes dry and strengthen the brain" that "any one in the moment of triumph can be injured by another who casts an envious eye, and the injury is greatest when the envious glance comes from the oblique eye." lord bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that "bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps" that "the skin of a wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion" that "eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory" that "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that "the moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for staunching blood." he expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the wound itself." it is claimed by the advocates of the baconian theory that their hero stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he was ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although the law had been made known and printed by galileo thirty years before bacon wrote upon the subject. neither did this great man understand the principle of the lever. he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made." after kepler discovered his third law, which was on the th of may, , bacon was more than ever opposed to the copernican system. this great man was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in mathematics. in the preface to the "de-scriptio globi intellectualis," it is admitted either that bacon had never heard of the correction of the parallax, or was unable to understand it. he complained on account of the want of some method for shortening mathematical calculations; and yet "napier's logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of his complaint. he attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process of his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in spite of the fact that a far better method existed. we have the right to compare what bacon wrote with what it is claimed shakespeare produced. i call attention to one thing--to bacon's opinion of human love. it is this: "the stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life it doth much mischief--sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion." the author of "romeo and juliet" never wrote that. it seems certain that the author of the wondrous plays was one of the noblest of men. let us see what sense of honor bacon had. in writing commentaries on certain passages of scripture, lord bacon tells a courtier, who has committed some offence, how to get back into the graces of his prince or king. among other things he tells him not to appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get his friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, feels; and then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to transfer the fault to others." it is true that we know but little of shakespeare, and consequently do not positively know that he did not have the ability to write the plays--but we do know bacon, and we know that he could not have written these plays--consequently, they must have been written by a comparatively unknown man--that is to say, by a man who was known by no other writings. the fact that we do not know shakespeare, except through the plays and sonnets, makes it possible for us to believe that he was the author. some people have imagined that the plays were written by several--but this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity. bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. naturally, he would have claimed his best. is it possible that bacon left the wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of shakespeare, and kept the deformed ones at home? is it possible that he fathered the failures and deserted the perfect? of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching shakespeare--but is it not equally wonderful, if bacon was the author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these plays? is it not wonderful that no fragment of any scene--no line--no word--has been found? some have insisted that bacon kept the authorship secret because it was disgraceful to write plays. this argument does not cover the sonnets--and besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office for receiving bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional disgrace of having written "hamlet." the fact that bacon did not claim to be the author, demonstrates that he was not. shakespeare claimed to be the author, and no one in his time or day denied the claim. this demonstrates that he was. bacon published his works, and said to the world: this is what i have done. suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to john smith, inventor of the smith-churn, and suppose you were told that mr. smith provided for the monument in his will, and dictated the inscription--would it be possible to convince you that mr. smith was also the inventor of the locomotive and telegraph? bacon's best can be compared with shakespeare's common, but shakespeare's best rises above bacon's best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut. vi. of course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and during the time of shakespeare--but they were only the foot hills of that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. chapman and marlowe, heywood and jonson, webster, beaumont and fletcher wrote some great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then is found a strain of genuine music--but all of them together constituted only a herald of shakespeare. in all these plays there is but a hint, a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic thought of the world. shakespeare was the greatest of poets. what greece and rome produced was great until his time. "lions make leopards tame." the great poet is a great artist. he is painter and sculptor. the greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. they outlast all others. all the galleries of the world are poor and cheap compared with the statues and pictures in shakespeare's book. language is made of pictures represented by sounds. the outer world is a dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and invisible world of thought. first a sound represents something in the outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at last is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, and every brain is a gallery, and the artists--that is to say, the souls--exchange pictures and statues. all art is of the same parentage. the poet uses words--makes pictures and statues of sounds. the sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and color. the dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only paints these pictures, but he expresses his thought in action. shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the ideal, the poetic, not only in words, but in action. there are the wit, the humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. the dramatist speaks and acts through others--his personality is lost. the poet lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds the world of action. he creates characters that seem to act in accordance with their own natures and independently of him. he compresses lives into hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the springs of action--how desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the will--how weak the reason is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand for right against the world. it is not enough to say fine things,--great things, dramatic things, must be done. let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the highest form of poetic expression: macbeth having returned from the murder of duncan says to his wife: "methought i heard a voice cry: sleep no more, macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep; sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast."... "still it cried: sleep no more, to all the house, glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore cawdor shall sleep no more--macbeth shall sleep no more." she exclaims: "who was it that thus cried? why, worthy thane, you do unbend your noble strength to think so brain-sickly of things; get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hand. why did you bring the daggers from the place?" macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away and beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers--the evidence of his guilt--the daggers that he should have left with the dead. this is dramatic. in the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. when macbeth is on his way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whispers: "hear it not, duncan, for it is a knell." afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries: "wake duncan with thy knocking. i would thou couldst." let me give one more instance of dramatic action. when antony speaks above the body of cæsar he says: "you all do know this mantle: i remember the first time ever cæsar put it on-- 'twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, that day he overcame the nervii: look! in this place ran cassius' dagger through: see what a rent the envious casca made! through this the well-beloved brutus stabbed, and as he plucked his cursed steel away, mark how the blood of cæsar followed it." vii. there are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,--that the poem is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by a subordinate. of course shakespeare made use of the work of others--and, we might almost say, of all others. every writer must use the work of others. the only question is, how the accomplishments of other minds are used, whether as a foundation to build higher, or whether stolen to the end that the thief may make a reputation for himself, without adding to the great structure of literature. thousands of people have stolen stones from the coliseum to make huts for themselves. so thousands of writers have taken the thoughts of others with which to adorn themselves. these are plagiarists. but the man who takes the thought of another, adds to it, gives it intensity and poetic form, throb and life,--is in the highest sense original. shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the writings of others, and was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays. the question is not: who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, but who chiseled the statue? we now know all the books that shakespeare could have read, and consequently know many of the sources of his information. we find in pliny's _natural history_, published in , the following: "the sea pontis evermore floweth and runneth out into the propontis; but the sea never retireth back again with the impontis." this was the raw material, and out of it shakespeare made the following: "like to the pontic sea, whose icy current and compulsive course ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on to the propontic and the hellespont-- even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love, till that a capable and wide revenge swallow them up." perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between shakespeare and other poets, by a passage from "lear." when cordelia places her hand upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary poet might have said: "on such a night, a dog should have stood against my fire." a very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed: "on such a night, mine enemy's dog should have stood against my fire." but shakespeare said: "mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, should have stood, that night, against my fire." of all the poets--of all the writers--shakespeare is the most original. he is as original as nature. it may truthfully be said that "nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another." viii. there is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the infinite, and in this shakespeare exceeds all others. you will remember the description given of the voyage of paris in search of helen: "the seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce, and did him service; he touched the ports desired, and for an old aunt, whom the greeks held captive, he brought a grecian queen whose youth and freshness wrinkles apollo, and makes stale the morning." so, in pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out: "o helicanus! strike me, honored sir; give me a gash, put me to present pain, lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me, o'erbear the shores of my mortality." the greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line: "eyes that do mislead the morn." nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. in that marvelous play, the "midsummer night's dream," is one of the most extravagant things in literature: "thou rememberest since once i sat upon a promontory, and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath that the rude sea grew civil at her song, and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea-maid's music." this is so marvelously told that it almost seems probable. so the description of mark antony: "for his bounty there was no winter in't--an autumn t'was that grew the more by reaping. his delights were dolphin-like--they showed his back above the element they lived in." think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this: "her bed is india--there she lies a pearl." is there anything more intense than these words of cleopatra? "rather on nilus mud lay me stark naked and let the water-flies blow me into abhorring." or this of isabella: "the impression of keen whips i'd wear as rubies, and strip myself to death as to a bed that longing i've been sick for, ere i yield my body up to shame." is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this? "let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits." can anything exceed the words of troilus when parting with cressida: "we two, that with so many thousand sighs did buy each other, most poorly sell ourselves with the rude brevity and discharge of one. injurious time now with a robber's haste crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how; as many farewells as be stars in heaven, with distinct breath and consigned kisses to them, he fumbles up into a loos'e adieu, and scants us with a single famished kiss, distasted with the salt of broken tears." take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque. "o dear juliet, why art thou yet so fair? shall i believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here. i' the dark, to be his paramour?" often when reading the marvelous lines of shakespeare, i feel that his thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the capacity of my ruder powers." sometimes i cry out, "o churl!--write all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow after." ix. shakespeare was an innovator, an iconoclast. he cared nothing for the authority of men or of schools. he violated the "unities," and cared nothing for the models of the ancient world. the greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend to the catastrophe. they did not believe in the episode--in the sudden contrasts of light and shade--in mingling the comic and the tragic. the sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake their laughter. they believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony with the events of the play. when crime was about to be committed--some horror to be perpetrated--the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event. shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and currents of universal life--that nature cares neither for smiles nor tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as on cradles. the first time i visited the place de la concorde, where during the french revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an egyptian obelisk--a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its might.--nature forgets. one of the most notable instances of the violation by shakespeare of the classic model, is found in the th scene of the i. act of macbeth. when the king and banquo approach the castle in which the king is to be murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. so beautiful is the scene that the king says: "this castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses." and banquo adds: "this guest of summer, the temple-haunting martlet, does approve by his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze, buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle. where they most breed and haunt, i have observed the air is delicate." another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following the murder. so, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning. i know of one paragraph in the greek drama worthy of shakespeare. this is in "medea." when medea kills her children she curses jason, using the ordinary billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "i pray the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the pang that i inflict." shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. he was intense. he put noons and midnights side by side. no other dramatist would have dreamed of adding to the pathos--of increasing our appreciation of lear's agony, by supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a loving clown. x. the ordinary dramatists--the men of talent--(and there is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone-mason and a sculptor) create characters that become types. types are of necessity caricatures--actual men and women are to some extent contradictory in their actions. types are blown in the one direction by the one wind--characters have pilots. in real people, good and evil mingle. types are all one way, or all the other--all good, or all bad, all wise, or all foolish. pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite--and will remain a type as long as language lives--a hypocrite that even drunkenness could not change. everybody understands pecksniff, and compared with him tartuffe was an honest man. hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being--and for that reason there is a difference of opinion as to his motives and as to his character. we differ about hamlet as we do about cæsar, or about shakespeare himself. hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his fathers voice, and yet, afterward, he speaks of "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." in this there is no contradiction. the reason outweighs the senses. if we should see a dead man rise from his grave, we would not, the next day, believe that we did. no one can credit a miracle until it becomes so common that it ceases to be miraculous. types are puppets--controlled from without--characters act from within. there is the same difference between characters and types that there is between springs and water-works, between canals and rivers, between wooden soldiers and heroes. in most plays and in most novels the characters are so shadowy that we have to piece them out with the imagination. one waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a strange figure--it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with the expression of garrulous and fussy old age--but when the light gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on a chair. the dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character delineated. the great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as an individual. i once had a dream, and in this dream i was discussing a subject with another man. it occurred to me that i was dreaming, and i then said to myself: if this is a dream, i am doing the talking for both sides--consequently i ought to know in advance what the other man is going to say. in my dream i tried the experiment. i then asked the other man a question, and before he answered made up my mind what the answer was to be. to my surprise, the man did not say what i expected he would, and so great was my astonishment that i awoke. it then occurred to me that i had discovered the secret of shakespeare. he did, when awake, what i did when asleep--that is, he threw off a character so perfect that it acted independently of him. in the delineation of character shakespeare has no rivals. he creates no monsters. his characters do not act without reason, without motive. iago had his reasons. in caliban, nature was not destroyed--and lady macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying: "had he not resembled my father as he slept, i had done it." shakespeare's characters act from within. they are centres of energy. they are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. they have objects, desires. they are persons--real, living beings. few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the canvas--their backs stick to the wall--they do not have free and independent action--they have no background, no unexpressed motives--no untold desires. they lack the complexity of the real. shakespeare makes the character true to itself. christopher sly, surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a pot of the smallest ale. take one expression by lady macbeth. you remember that after the murder is discovered--after the alarm bell is rung--she appears upon the scene wanting to know what has happened. macduff refuses to tell her, saying that the slightest word would murder as it fell. at this moment banquo comes upon the scene and macduff cries out to him: "our royal master's murdered." what does lady macbeth then say? she in fact makes a confession of guilt. the weak point in the terrible tragedy is that duncan was murdered in macbeth's castle. so when lady macbeth hears what they suppose is news to her, she cries: "what! in our house!" had she been innocent, her horror of the crime would have made her forget the place--the venue. banquo sees through this, and sees through her. her expression was a light, by which he saw her guilt--and he answers: "too cruel anywhere." no matter whether shakespeare delineated clown or king, warrior or maiden--no matter whether his characters are taken from the gutter or the throne--each is a work of consummate art, and when he is unnatural, he is so splendid that the defect is forgotten. when romeo is told of the death of juliet, and thereupon makes up his mind to die upon her grave, he gives a description of the shop where poison could be purchased. he goes into particulars and tells of the alligators stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, of the beggarly account of empty boxes, of the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses--and while it is hardly possible to believe that under such circumstances a man would take the trouble to make an inventory of a strange kind of drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect--the picture is so marvelously drawn--that we forget to think whether it is natural or not. in making the frame of a great picture--of a great scene--shakespeare was often careless, but the picture is perfect. in making the sides of the arch he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, it burst into blossom. of course there are many lines in shakespeare that never should have been written. in other words, there are imperfections in his plays. but we must remember that shakespeare furnished the torch that enables us to see these imperfections. shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we must not mistake what the characters say, for the opinion of shakespeare. no one can believe that shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." that was the opinion of a murderer, surrounded by avengers, and whose wife--partner in his crimes--troubled with thick-coming fancies--had gone down to her death. most actors and writers seem to suppose that the lines called "the seven ages" contain shakespeare's view of human life. nothing could be further from the truth. the lines were uttered by a cynic, in contempt and scorn of the human race. shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery and uniform of some weakness, peculiarity or passion. he did not use names as tags or brands. he did not write under the picture, "this is a villain." his characters need no suggestive names to tell us what they are--we see them and we know them for ourselves. it may be that in the greatest utterances of the greatest characters in the supreme moments, we have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions of shakespeare. of all writers shakespeare is the most impersonal. he speaks through others, and the others seem to speak for themselves. the didactic is lost in the dramatic. he does not use the stage as a pulpit to enforce some maxim. he is as reticent as nature. he idealizes the common and transfigures all he touches--but he does not preach. he was interested in men and things as they were. he did not seek to change them--but to portray. he was natures mirror--and in that mirror nature saw herself. when i stood amid the great trees of california that lift their spreading capitals against the clouds, looking like nature's columns to support the sky, i thought of the poetry of shakespeare. ix. that a procession of men and women--statesmen and warriors--kings and clowns--issued from shakespeare's brain! what women! _isabella_--in whose spotless life love and reason blended into perfect truth. _juliet_--within whose heart passion and purity met like white and red within the bosom of a rose. _cordelia_--who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her wealth of love with those who gilded lies in hope of gain. _hermione_--"tender as infancy and grace"--who bore with perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart. _desdemona_--so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she was incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying words sought to hide her lover's crime--and with her last faint breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her pallid lips. _perdita_--"a violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of juno's eyes"--"the sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward." and _helena_--who said: "i know i love in vain, strive against hope-- yet in this captious and intenable sieve i still pour in the waters of my love, and lack not to lose still, thus, indian-like, religious in mine error, i adore the sun that looks upon his worshiper, but knows of him no more." _miranda_--who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun. and _cordelia_--whose kisses cured and whose tears restored. and stainless _imogen_--who cried: "what is it to be false?" and here is the description of the perfect woman: "to feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; to keep her constancy in plight and youth-- outliving beauty's outward with a mind that doth renew swifter than blood decays." shakespeare has done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the world. for my part, i love the clowns. i love _launce_ and his dog crabb, and _gobbo_, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, and _touchstone_, with his lie seven times removed; and dear old _dogberry_--a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. and _bottom_, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in; and _autolycus_, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. and great _sir john_, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed--and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. and ancient _pistol_, the world his oyster. and _bardolph_, with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. and the poor _pool_, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at noon." and the clown who carried the worm of nilus, whose "biting was immortal." and _corin_, the shepherd--who described the perfect man: "i am a true laborer: i earn that i eat--get that i wear--owe no man aught--envy no man's happiness--glad of other men's good--content." and mingling in this motley throng, lear, within whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given back to memory?--and then by madness thrown to storm and night--and when i read the living lines i feel as though i looked upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the shores. and _othello_--who like the base indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe. and _hamlet_--thought-entangled--hesitating between two worlds. and _macbeth_--strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime--"curses not loud but deep--mouth-honor--breath." and _brutus_, falling on his sword that cæsar might be still. and _romeo_, dreaming of the white wonder of juliet's hand. and _ferdinand_, the patient log-man for miranda's sake. and _florizel_, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. and _constance_, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." and in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil--and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill. from every side the characters crowd upon us--the men and women born of shakespeare's brain. they utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us. shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase--has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. i do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "romeo and juliet." it is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. the heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume. in the alembic of shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold--passions became virtues--weeds became exotics from some diviner land--and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the olympian gods. in his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite--that belongs to genius. talent is measured and mathematical--dominated by prudence and the thought of use. genius is tropical. the creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems. some things are immortal: the plays of shakespeare, the marbles of the greeks, and the music of wagner. xii. shakespeare was the greatest of philosophers. he knew the conditions of success--of happiness--the relations that men sustain to each other, and the duties of all. he knew the tides and currents of the heart--the cliffs and caverns of the brain. he knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire--and "that pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision." he knew that the soul lives in an invisible world--that flesh is but a mask, and that "there is no art to find the mind's construction in the face." he knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that "when valor preys on reason it eats the sword it fights with." he knew that man is never master of the event, that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that "in the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men." feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says: "let determined things to destiny hold unbewailed their way." shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. looking in pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and good enough to say: "there is no darkness but ignorance." in all the philosophies there is no greater line. this great truth fills the heart with pity. he knew that place and power do not give happiness--that the crowned are subject as the lowest to fate and chance. "for within the hollow crown, that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court; and there the antick sits, scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; allowing him a breath, a little scene to monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; infusing him with self and vain conceit.-- as if this flesh, which walls about our life, were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus; comes at the last, and with a little pin bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king!" so, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy--that death and misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because: "if thou art rich thou art poor; for like an ass whose back with ingots bows thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee." in some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn--a hidden meaning that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. you will remember that laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime--and in the mouth of such a king shakespeare puts these words: "there's such divinity doth hedge a king." so, in macbeth: "how he solicits heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people all swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, the mere despairs of surgery, he cures; hanging a golden stamp about their necks, put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken to the succeeding royalty--he leaves the healing benediction. with this strange virtue he hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, and sundry blessings hang about his throne, that speak him full of grace." shakespeare was the master of the human heart--knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he declared that "love is not love that alters when it alteration finds." this is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world. shakespeare seems to give the generalization--the result--without the process of thought. he seems always to be at the conclusion--standing where all truths meet. in one of the sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the highest possible truth: "conscience is born of love." if man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never could have been spoken. if man were destitute of imagination, the flower of pity never could have blossomed in his heart. we suffer--we cause others to suffer--those that we love--and of this fact conscience is born. love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. it is the mingled spring and autumn--the perfect climate of the soul. xiii. in the realm of comparison shakespeare seems to have exhausted the relations, parallels and similitudes of things, he only could have said: "tedious as a twice-told tale vexing the ears of a drowsy man." "duller than a great thaw. dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." in the words of ulysses, spoken to achilles, we find the most wonderful collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same number of lines: "time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion,-- a great-sized monster of ingratitudes-- those scraps are good deeds past; which are devoured as fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done; perseverance, dear my lord, keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail in monumental mockery. take the instant way; for honor travels in a strait so narrow where one but goes abreast; keep then the path; for emulation hath a thousand sons that one by one pursue; if you give way, or hedge aside from the direct forthright, like to an entered tide, they all rush by and leave you hindmost: or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, lie there for pavement to the abject rear, o'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present, tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; for time is like a fashionable host that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, and with his arms outstretched as he would fly, grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing." so the words of cleopatra, when charmain speaks: "peace, peace: dost thou not see my baby at my breast that sucks the nurse asleep?" xiv. nothing is more difficult than a definition--a crystallization of thought so perfect that it emits light. shakespeare says of suicide: "it is great to do that thing that ends all other deeds, which shackles accident, and bolts up change." he defines drama to be: "turning the accomplishments of many years into an hour glass." of death: "this sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod, to lie in cold obstruction and to rot." of memory: "the warder of the brain." of the body: "this muddy vesture of decay." and he declares that "our little life is rounded with a sleep." he speaks of echo as: "the babbling gossip of the air"-- romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to take, says: "come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide, thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark." he describes the world as "this bank and shoal of time." he says of rumor-- "that it doubles, like the voice and echo." it would take days to call attention to the perfect definitions, comparisons and generalizations of shakespeare. he gave us the deeper meanings of our words--taught us the art of speech. he was the lord of language--master of expression and compression. he put the greatest thoughts into the shortest words--made the poor rich and the common royal. production enriched his brain. nothing exhausted him. the moment his attention was called to any subject--comparisons, definitions, metaphors and generalizations filled his mind and begged for utterance. his thoughts like bees robbed every blossom in the world, and then with "merry march" brought the rich booty home "to the tent royal of their emperor." shakespeare was the confidant of nature. to him she opened her "infinite book of secrecy," and in his brain were "the hatch and brood of time." xv. there is in shakespeare the mingling of laughter and tears, humor and pathos. humor is the rose, wit the thorn. wit is a crystallization, humor an efflorescence. wit comes from the brain, humor from the heart. wit is the lightning of the soul. in shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. he saw and felt the sunny side even of the saddest things. you have seen sunshine and rain at once. so shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. in moments of peril--on the very darkness of death--there comes a touch of humor that falls like a fleck of sunshine. gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having seen the boatswain, exclaims: "i have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows." shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of grief and laughter. while poor hero is supposed to be dead--wrapped in the shroud of dishonor--dogberry and verges unconsciously put again the wedding wreath upon her pure brow. the soliloquy of launcelot--great as hamlet's--offsets the bitter and burning words of shylock. there is only time to speak of maria in "twelfth night," of autolycus in the "winter's tale," of the parallel drawn by fluellen between alexander of macedon and harry of monmouth, or of the marvelous humor of falstaff, who never had the faintest thought of right or wrong--or of mercutio, that embodiment of wit and humor--or of the gravediggers who lamented that "great folk should have countenance in this world to drown and hang themselves, more than their even christian," and who reached the generalization that "the gallows does well because it does well to those who do ill." there is also an example of grim humor--an example without a parallel in literature, so far as i know. hamlet having killed polonius is asked: "where's polonius?" "at supper." "at supper! where?" "not where he eats, but where he is eaten." above all others, shakespeare appreciated the pathos of situation. nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in "lear." no one has ever bent above his dead who did not feel the words uttered by the mad king,--words born of a despair deeper than tears: "oh, that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life and thou no breath!" so iago, after he has been wounded, says: "i bleed, sir; but not killed." and othello answers from the wreck and shattered remnant of his life: "i would have thee live; for in my sense it is happiness to die." when troilus finds cressida has been false, he cries: "let it not be believed for womanhood; think! we had mothers." ophelia, in her madness, "_the sweet bells jangled out o' tune,_" says softly: "i would give you some violets; but they withered all when my father died." when macbeth has reaped the harvest, the seeds of which were sown by his murderous hand, he exclaims,--and what could be more pitiful? "i 'gin to be aweary of the sun." richard the second feels how small a thing it is to be, or to have been, a king, or to receive honors before or after power is lost; and so, of those who stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous question: "i live with bread, like you; feel want, taste grief, need friends; subjected thus, how can you say to me i am a king?" think of the salutation of antony to the dead cæsar: "pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth." when pisanio informs imogen that he had been ordered by posthumus to murder her, she bares her neck and cries: "the lamb entreats the butcher: where is thy knife? thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding when i desire it." antony, as the last drops are falling from his self-inflicted wound, utters with his dying breath to cleopatra, this: "i here importune death awhile, until of many thousand kisses the poor last i lay upon thy lips." to me, the last words of hamlet are full of pathos: "i die, horatio. the potent poison quite o' er crows my spirit... the rest is silence." xvi. some have insisted that shakespeare must have been a physician, for the reason that he shows such knowledge of medicine--of the symptoms of disease and death--was so familiar with the brain, and with insanity in all its forms. i do not think he was a physician. he knew too much--his generalizations were too splendid. he had none of the prejudices of that profession in his time. we might as well say that he was a musician, a composer, because we find in "the two gentlemen of verona" nearly every musical term known in shakespeare's time. others maintain that he was a lawyer, perfectly acquainted with the forms, with the expressions familiar to that profession--yet there is nothing to show that he was a lawyer, or that he knew more about law than any intelligent man should know. he was not a lawyer. his sense of justice was never dulled by reading english law. some think that he was a botanist, because he named nearly all known plants. others, that he was an astronomer, a naturalist, because he gave hints and suggestions of nearly all discoveries. some have thought that he must have been a sailor, for the reason that the orders given in the opening of "the tempest" were the best that could, under the circumstances, have been given to save the ship. for my part, i think there is nothing in the plays to show that he was a lawyer, doctor, botanist or scientist. he had the observant eyes that really see, the ears that really hear, the brain that retains all pictures, all thoughts, logic as unerring as light,-the imagination that supplies defects and builds the perfect from a fragment. and these faculties, these aptitudes, working together, account for what he did. he exceeded all the sons of men in the splendor of his imagination. to him the whole world paid tribute, and nature poured her treasures at his feet. in him all races lived again, and even those to be were pictured in his brain. he was a man of imagination--that is to say, of genius, and having seen a leaf, and a drop of water, he could construct the forests, the rivers, and the seas--and in his presence all the cataracts would fall and foam, the mists rise, the clouds form and float. if shakespeare knew one fact, he knew its kindred and its neighbors. looking at a coat of mail, he instantly imagined the society, the conditions, that produced it and what it, in turn, produced. he saw the castle, the moat, the draw-bridge, the lady in the tower, and the knightly lover spurring across the plain. he saw the bold baron and the rude retainer, the trampled serf, and all the glory and the grief of feudal life. he lived the life of all. he was a citizen of athens in the days of pericles. he listened to the eager eloquence of the great orators, and sat upon the cliffs, and with the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of the sea." he saw socrates thrust the spear of question through the shield and heart of falsehood. he was present when the great man drank hemlock, and met the night of death, tranquil as a star meets morning. he listened to the peripatetic philosophers, and was unpuzzled by the sophists. he watched phidias as he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and awe. he lived by the mysterious nile, amid the vast and monstrous. he knew the very thought that wrought the form and features of the sphinx. he heard great memnon's morning song when marble lips were smitten by the sun. he laid him down with the embalmed and waiting dead, and felt within their dust the expectation of another life, mingled with cold and suffocating doubts--the children born of long delay. he walked the ways of mighty rome, and saw great cæsar with his legions in the field. he stood with vast and motley throngs and watched the triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned kings, the captured hosts, and all the spoils of ruthless war. he heard the shout that shook the coliseum's roofless walls, when from the reeling gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the stream of wasted life. he lived the life of savage men. he trod the forests' silent depths, and in the desperate game of life or death he matched his thought against the instinct of the beast. he knew all crimes and all regrets, all virtues and their rich rewards. he was victim and victor, pursuer and pursued, outcast and king. he heard the applause and curses of the world, and on his heart had fallen all the nights and noons of failure and success. he knew the unspoken thoughts, the dumb desires, the wants and ways of beasts. he felt the crouching tiger's thrill, the terror of the ambushed prey, and with the eagles he had shared the ecstasy of flight and poise and swoop, and he had lain with sluggish serpents on the barren rocks uncoiling slowly in the heat of noon. he sat beneath the bo-tree's contemplative shade, wrapped in buddha's mighty thought, and dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, has wrought from dust and dew, and stored within the slumbrous poppy's subtle blood. he knelt with awe and dread at every shrine--he offered every sacrifice, and every prayer--felt the consolation and the shuddering fear--mocked and worshiped all the gods--enjoyed all heavens, and felt the pangs of every hell. he lived all lives, and through his blood and brain there crept the shadow and the chill of every death, and his soul, like mazeppa, was lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate. the imagination had a stage in. shakespeare's brain, whereon were set all scenes that lie between the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and where his players bodied forth the false and true, the joys and griefs, the careless shallows and the tragic deeps of universal life. from shakespeare's brain there poured a niagara of gems spanned by fancy's seven-hued arch. he was as many-sided as clouds are many-formed. to him giving was hoarding--sowing was harvest--and waste itself the source of wealth. within his marvelous mind were the fruits of all thought past, the seeds of all to be. as a drop of dew contains the image of the earth and sky, so all there is of life was mirrored forth in shakespeare's brain. shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal stars--an intellectual ocean--towards which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain. robert burns.* * this lecture is printed from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for publication. a facsimile of the original manuscript as written by colonel ingersoll in the burns' cottage at ayr, august , . [illustration: burn's manuscript] we have met to-night to honor the memory of that has ever written in our language. i would place one above him, and only one--shakespeare. it may be well enough at the beginning to inquire, what is a poet? what is poetry? every one has some idea of the poetic, and this idea is born of his experience--of his education--of his surroundings. there have been more nations than poets. many people suppose that poetry is a kind of art depending upon certain rules, and that it is only necessary to find out these rules to be a poet. but these rules have never been found. the great poet follows them unconsciously. the great poet seems as unconscious as nature, and the product of the highest art seems to have been felt instead of thought. the finest definition perhaps that has been given is this: a poet--possibly the next to the greatest. "as nature unconsciously produces that which appears to be the result of consciousness, so the greatest artist consciously produces that which appears the unconscious result." poetry must rest on the experience of men--the history of heart and brain. it must sit by the fireside of the heart. it must have to do with this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we know, with their loves, their hopes, their fears and their joys. after all, we care nothing about gods and goddesses, or folks with wings. the cloud-compelling jupiters, the ox-eyed junos, the feather-heeled mercurys, or the minervas that leaped full-armed from the thick skull of some imaginary god, are nothing to us. we know nothing of their fears or loves, and for that reason, the poetry that deals with them, no matter how ingenious it may be, can never touch the human heart. i was taught that milton was a wonderful poet, and above all others sublime. i have read milton once. few have read him twice. with splendid words, with magnificent mythological imagery, he musters the heavenly militia--puts epaulets on the shoulders of god, and describes the devil as an artillery officer of the highest rank. then he describes the battles in which immortals undertake the impossible task of killing each other. take this line: "flying with indefatigable wings over the vast abrupt." this is called sublime, but what does it mean? we have been taught that dante was a wonderful poet. he described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by the damned in the torture--dungeons of god. the vicious twins of superstition--malignity and solemnity--struggle for the mastery in his revengeful lines. but there was one good thing about dante: he had the courage, and what might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell. that is something to be thankful for. so, the sonnets of petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of candidates. they are filled not with genuine passion, but with the feelings that lovers are supposed to have. poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. let the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all. by rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh, put blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their hearts. this can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged fancies of the brain--by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood. in the olden time in scotland, most of the so-called poetry was written by pedagogues and parsons--gentlemen who found out what little they knew of the living world by reading the dead languages--by studying epitaphs in the cemeteries of literature. they knew nothing of any life that they thought poetic. they kept as far from the common people as they could. they wrote countless verses, but no poems. they tried to put metaphysics, that is to say, calvinism, in poetry. as a matter of fact, a calvinist cannot be a poet. calvinism takes all the poetry out of the world. if the existence of the calvinistic, the christian, hell could be demonstrated, another poem never could be written. . in those days they made poetry about geography, and the beauties of the scotch kirk, and even about law. the critics have always been looking for mistakes, not beauties--not for the perfection of expression and feeling. they would object to the lark and nightingale because they do not sing by note--to the clouds because they are not square. at one time it was thought that scenery, the grand in nature, made the poet. we now know that the poet makes the scenery. holland has produced far more genius than the alps. where nature is prodigal--where the crags tower above the clouds--man is overcome, or overawed. in england and scotland the hills are low, and there is nothing in the scenery calculated to rouse poetic blood, and yet these countries have produced the greatest literature of all time. the truth is that poets and heroes make the scenery. the place where man has died for man is grander than all the snow-crowned summits of the world. a poem is something like a mountain stream that flashes in light, then lost in shadow, leaps with a kind of wild joy into the abyss, emerges victorious, and winding runs amid meadows, lingers in quiet places, holding within its breast the hills and vales and clouds--then running by the cottage door, babbling of joy, and murmuring delight, then sweeping on to join its old mother, the sea. thousands, millions of men live poems, but do not write them; but every great poem has been lived. i say to-night that every good and self-denying man, every one who lives and labors for those he loves, for wife and child, is living a poem. the loving mother rocking a cradle, singing the slumber song, lives a poem pure and tender as the dawn; the man who bares his breast to shot and shell lives a poem, and all the great men of the world, and all the brave and loving women have been poets in action, whether they have written one word or not. the poor woman of the tenement, sewing, blinded by tears, lives a poem holier, it may be, than the fortunate can know. the pioneers--the home builders, the heroes of toil, are all poets, and their deeds are filled with the pathos and perfection of the highest art. but to-night we are going to talk of a poet--one who poured out his soul in song. how does a country become great? by producing great poets. why is it that scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up and proudly answer "here"? because robert burns has lived. it is robert burns that put scotland in the front rank. on the th of january, , robert burns was born. william burns, a gardener, his father; agnes brown, his mother. he was born near the little town of ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched with straw. from the first, poverty was his portion,--"poverty, the half-sister of death." the father struggled as best he could, but at last overcome more by misfortunes than by disease, died in , at the age of . robert attended school at alloway mill, and had been taught a little by john murdock, and some by his father. that was his education--with this exception, that whenever nature produces a genius, the old mother holds him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his ears that others do not know. he had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor crops, getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of his father left him to struggle as best he might for himself. in the year , scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of calvinism. the attention of the people had been drawn from the other world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. the commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of god. mechanics and manufacturers were undermining theology. the influence of the clergy was gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were beginning to attract the attention of the scotch. the people at that time were mostly poor. they had made but little progress in art and science. they had been engaged for many years fighting for their political or theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others. they had great energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit, and it may be well enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave. several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. it is true of parts of switzerland about the time of calvin. in holland, after the people had suffered all the cruelties that spain could inflict, they began to discuss as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions destroyed each other. the same is true of new england, and peculiarly true of scotland--a metaphysical peasantry--men who lived in mud houses thatched with straw and discussed the motives of god and the means by which the infinite being was to accomplish his ends. for many years the scotch had been ruled by the clergy. the power of the scotch preacher was unlimited. it so happened that the religion of scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting scotland were also fighting her religion. this drew priest and people together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. they not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but they went into every detail of life. and in this world there has never been established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of government than that of the scotch kirk. a few men had made themselves famous--david hume, adam smith, doctor hugh blair, he of the grave, beattie and ramsay, reid and robertson--but the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their blood. nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing sermons. before communion sabbath they frequently met on friday, having two or three sermons on that day, three or four on saturday, more if possible on sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on monday. they loved it. i think it was heinrich heine who said, "it is not true, it is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the sermons preached on earth." he says this is not true. this shows that there is some mercy even in hell. they were infinitely interested in these questions. and yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports, full of song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier smile. sometimes i have thought that they were saved from the gloom of calvinism by the use of intoxicating liquors. it may be that john barleycorn redeemed the scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia of the calvinistic creed. so, too, it may be that the puritan was saved by rum, and the hollander by schnapps. yet, in spite of the gloom of the creed, in spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac winters, the songs of scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all the world. robert burns was a peasant--a ploughman--a poet. why is it that millions and millions of men and women love this man? he was a scotchman, and all the tendrils of his heart struck deep in scotland's soil. he voiced the ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. and yet he is as dear to the citizens of this great republic as to scotia's sons and daughters. all great poetry has a national flavor. it tastes of the soil. no matter how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is never lost. burns made common life beautiful. he idealized the sun-burnt girls who worked in the fields. he put honest labor above titled idleness. he made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. he painted the simple joys and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. he put native sense above the polish of schools. we love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social, generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity, carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of animals; hating to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of everything--even of trees and flowers. we love him because he was a natural democrat, and hated tyranny in every form. we love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the throb of progress. burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what is called education; had only an outline of history, a little of philosophy, in its highest sense. his library consisted of the _life of hannibal_, the _history of wallace_, ray's _wisdom of god_, stackhouse's _history of the bible_; two or three plays of shakespeare, ferguson's _scottish poems_, pope's _homer_, shenstone, mckenzie's _man of feeling_ and ossian. burns was a man of genius. he was like a spring--something that suggests no labor. a spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. there is no thought of toil. the water comes whispering to the pebbles without effort. there is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no water-works, nothing that suggests expense or trouble. so a natural poet is, when compared with the educated, with the polished, with the industrious. burns seems to have done everything without effort. his poems wrote themselves. he was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with ideas, in every possible direction. there is no midnight oil. there is nothing of the student--no suggestion of their having been re-written or re-cast. there is in his heart a poetic april and may, and all the poetic seeds burst into sudden life. in a moment the seed is a plant, and the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world. he looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of the men and women with whom he was acquainted. he cares nothing for mythology, nothing for the legends of the greeks and romans. he draws but little from history. everything that he uses is within his reach, and he knows it from centre to circumference. all his figures and comparisons are perfectly natural. he does not endeavor to make angels of fine ladies. he takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy maids that he knows. he puts wings upon them and makes the very angels envious. and yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the breast of nature, strangely enough thought that pope and churchill and shenstone and thomson and lyttelton and beattie were great poets. his first poem was addressed to nellie kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith. he was in love with ellison begbie, offered her his heart and was refused. she was a servant, working in a family and living on the banks of the cessnock. jean armour, his wife, was the daughter of a tailor, and highland mary, a servant--a milk-maid. he did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women. poet of love. burns was the poet of love. to him woman was divine. in the light of her eyes he stood transfigured. love changed this peasant to a king; the plaid became a robe of purple; the ploughman became a poet; the poor laborer an inspired lover. in his "vision" his native muse tells the story of his verse: "when youthful love, warm-blushing strong, keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, those accents, grateful to thy tongue, th' adored name, i taught thee how to pour in song, to soothe thy flame." ah, this light from heaven: how it has purified the heart of man! was there ever a sweeter song than "bonnie doon"? "thou'lt break my heart thou bonnie bird that sings beside thy mate, for sae i sat and sae i sang, and wist na o' my fate." or, "o, my luve's like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in june; o, my luve's like the melodie that's sweetly play'd in tune." it would consume days to give the intense and tender lines--lines wet with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss. but the most perfect love-poem that i know--pure the tear of gratitude--is "to mary in heaven:" "thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, that lov'st to greet the early morn, again thou usher'st in the day my mary from my soul was torn. o mary! dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? seest thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? "that sacred hour can i forget? can i forget the hallow'd grove where, by the winding ayr, we met, to live one day of parting love? eternity will not efface those records dear of transports past; thy image at our last embrace; ah! little thought we 'twas our last! "ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, o'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green; the fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene. the flowers sprang wanton to be prest, the birds sang love on ev'ry spray, till too, too soon, the glowing west proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day. "still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, and fondly broods with miser care! time but the impression stronger makes, as streams their channels deeper wear. my mary, dear departed shade! where is thy blissful place of rest? seest thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?" above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of scotland's queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of robert burns. poet of home he was the poet of the home--of father, mother, child--of the purest wedded love. in the "cotter's saturday night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going from his labor to his home: "at length his lonely cot appears in view, beneath the shelter of an aged tree; th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through to meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee. his wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie, his clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, the lisping infant prattling on his knee, does a' his weary carking cares beguile, and makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil." and in the same poem, after having described the courtship, burns bursts into this perfect flower: "o happy love! where love like this is found! o heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! i've pacèd much this weary, mortal round, and sage experience bids me this declare: if heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare one cordial in this melancholy vale, 'tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, in other's arms, breathe out the tender tale beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." is there in the world a more beautiful--a more touching picture than the old couple sitting by the ingleside with clasped hands, and the pure, patient, loving old wife saying to the white-haired man who won her heart when the world was young: "john anderson, my jo, john, when we were first acquent; your locks were like the raven, your bonnie brow was brent; but now your brow is beld, john, your locks are like the snaw; but blessings on your frosty pow, john anderson, my jo. "john anderson, my jo, john, we clamb the hill thegither; and monie a canty day, john, we've had wi' ane anither; now we maun totter down, john, but hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, john anderson, my jo." burns taught that the love of wife and children was the highest--that to toil for them was the noblest. "the sacred lowe o' weel placed love, luxuriantly indulge it; but never tempt the illicit rove, though naething should divulge it." "i waine the quantum of the sin, the hazzard o'concealing; but och! it hardens all within, and petrifies the feeling." "to make a happy fireside clime to weans and wife, that's the true pathos, and sublime, of human life." friendship. he was the poet of friendship: "should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to min'? should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days o' auld lang syne?" wherever those who speak the english language assemble--wherever the anglo-saxon people meet with clasp and smile--these words are given to the air. scotch drink. the poet of good scotch drink, of merry meetings, of the cup that cheers, author of the best drinking song in the world: "o, willie brew'd a peck o' maut, and rob and allen came to see; three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, ye wadna find in christendie. chorus. "we are na fou, we're no that fou, but just a drappie in our ee; the cock may craw, the day may daw, and aye we'll taste the barley bree. "here are we met, three merry boys, three merry boys, i trow, are we; and monie a night we've merry been, and monie mae we hope to be! we are na fou, &c. "it is the moon, i ken her horn, that's blinkin in the lift say hie; she shines sae bright to wyle us hame, but by my sooth she'll wait a wee! we are na fou, &c. "wha first shall rise to gang awa, a cuckold, coward loun is he! wha last beside his chair shall fa', he is the king amang us three! we are na fou, &c." poets born, not made. he did not think the poet could be made--that colleges could furnish feeling, capacity, genius. he gave his opinion of these manufactured minstrels: "a set o' dull, conceited hashes, confuse their brains in college classes! they gang in stirks, and come out asses, plain truth to speak; an' syne they think to climb parnassus by dint o' greek!" "gie me ane spark o' nature's fire, that's a' the learning i desire; then tho' i drudge thro' dub an' mire at pleugh or cart, my muse, though hamely in attire, may touch the heart." burns, the artist. he was an artist--a painter of pictures. this of the brook: "whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, as thro' the glen it wimpl't; whyles round a rocky scaur it strays; whyles in a wiel it dimpl't; whyles glitter's to the nightly rays, wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; whyles cookit underneath the braes, below the spreading hazel, unseen that night." or this from tam o'shanter: "but pleasures are like poppies spread, you seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed, or, like the snow falls in the river, a moment white--then melts forever; or, like the borealis race, that flit ere you can point their place; or, like the rainbow's lovely form, evanishing amid the storm." this: "as in the bosom of the stream the moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en; so, trembling, pure, was tender love, within the breast o' bonnie jean." "the sun had clos'd the winter day, the curlers quat their roarin play, an' hunger's maukin ta'en her way to kail-yards green, while faithless snaws ilk step betray whare she had been." "o, sweet are coila's haughs an' woods, when lintwhites chant amang the buds, and jinkin' hares, in amorous whids, their loves enjoy, while thro' the braes the cushat croons wi' wailfu' cry!" "ev'n winter bleak has charms to me when winds rave thro' the naked tree; or frosts on hills of ochiltree are hoary gray; or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, dark'ning the day!" this of the lark and daisy--the daintiest and nearest perfect in our language: "alas! it's no' thy neebor sweet, the bonnie lark, companion meet! bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! wi' spreckl'd breast, when upward-springing, blythe, to greet the purpling east." a real democrat. he was in every fibre of his being a sincere democrat. he was a believer in the people--in the sacred rights of man. he believed that honest peasants were superior to titled parasites. he knew the so-called "gentrv" of his time. in one of his letters to dr. moore is this passage: "it takes a few dashes into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils--the mechanics and peasantry around him--who were born in the same village." he knew the infinitely cruel spirit of caste--a spirit that despises the useful--the children of toil--those who bear the burdens of the world. "if i'm design'd yon lordling's slave, by nature's law design'd, why was an independent wish e'er planted in my mind? if not, why am i subject to . his cruelty, or scorn? or why has man the will and pow'r to make his fellow mourn?" against the political injustice of his time--against the artificial distinctions among men by which the lowest were regarded as the highest--he protested in the great poem, "a man's a man for a' that," every line of which came like lava from his heart. "is there, for honest poverty, that hangs his head, and a' that? the coward-slave, we pass him by, we dare be poor for a' that! for a' that, and a' that, our toils obscure, and a' that; the rank is but the guinea stamp; the man's the gowd for a' that." "what tho' on hamely fare we dine, wear hodden-gray, and a' that; gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, a man's a man for a' that. for a' that, and a' that, their tinsel show, and a' that; the honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that." "ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, wha struts, and stares, and a' that; tho' hundreds worship at his word, he's but a coof for a' that; for a' that, and a' that, his riband, star, and a' that, the man' o' independent mind, he looks and laughs at a' that." "a prince can mak' a belted knight, a marquis, duke, and a' that; but an honest man's aboon his might, guid faith he mauna fa' that! for a' that, and a' that, their dignities, and a' that, the pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, are higher ranks than a' that. "then let us pray that come it may, as come it will for a' that; that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, may bear the gree and a' that. for a' that, and a' that; it's cornin' yet for a' that that man to man, the warld o'er, shall brithers be for a' that." no grander declaration of independence was ever uttered. it stirs the blood like a declaration of war. it is the apotheosis of honesty, independence, sense and worth. and it is a prophecy of that better day when men will be brothers the world over. his theology. burns was superior in heart and brain to the theologians of his time. he knew that the creed of calvin was infinitely cruel and absurd, and he attacked it with every weapon that his brain could forge. he was not awed by the clergy, and he cared nothing for what was called "authority." he insisted on thinking for himself. sometimes he faltered, and now and then, fearing that some friend might take offence, he would say or write a word in favor of the bible, and sometimes he praised the scriptures in words of scorn. he laughed at the dogma of eternal pain--at hell as described by the preacher: "a vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat wad melt the hardest whun-stane! the half asleep start up wi' fear, an' think they hear it roarin', when presently it does appear, 'twas but some neebor snorin'. asleep that day." the dear old doctrine that man is totally depraved, that morality is a snare--a flowery path leading to perdition--excited the indignation of burns. he put the doctrine in verse: "morality, thou deadly bane, thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is in moral mercy, truth and justice." he understood the hypocrites of his day: "hypocrisy, in mercy spare it! that holy robe, o dinna tear it! spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it, the lads in black; but your curst wit, when it comes near it, rives't aff their back." "then orthodoxy yet may prance, and learning in a woody dance, and that fell cur ca'd common sense, that bites sae sair, be banish'd owre the seas to france; let him bark there." "they talk religion in their mouth; they talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth, for what? to gie their malice skouth on some puir wight, an' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth, to ruin straight." "doctor mac, doctor mac, ye should stretch on a rack, to strike evil doers wi' terror; to join faith and sense upon any pretence, was heretic damnable error, doctor mac, was heretic damnable error." but the greatest, the sharpest, the deadliest, the keenest, the wittiest thing ever said or written against calvinism is holy willie's prayer:-- "o thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, wha, as it pleases best thysel', sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, a' for thy glory, and no for onie guid or ill they've done afore thee! "i bless and praise thy matchless might, when thousands thou has left in night, that i am here afore thy sight for gifts an' grace, a burnin' an' a shinin' light, to a' this place. "what was i, or my generation, that i should get sic exaltation? i, wha deserve sic just damnation, for broken laws, five thousand years 'fore my creation, thro' adam's cause? "when frae my mither's womb i fell, thou might hae plunged me into hell, to gnash my gums, to weep and wail, in burnin' lake, where damnèd devils roar and yell, chained to a stake. "yet i am here a chosen sample, to show thy grace is great and ample; i'm here a pillar in thy temple, strong as a rock, a guide, a buckler, an example to a' thy flock." in this poem you will find the creed stated just as it is--with fairness and accuracy--and at the same time stated so perfectly that its absurdity fills the mind with inextinguishable laughter. in this poem burns nailed calvinism to the cross, put it on the rack, subjected it to every instrument of torture, flayed it alive, burned it at the stake, and scattered its ashes to the winds. in burns wrote this curious letter to miss chalmers: "i have taken tooth and nail to the bible, and have got through the five books of moses and half way in joshua. "it is really a glorious book." this must have been written in the spirit of voltaire. think of burns, with his loving, tender heart, half way in joshua, standing in blood to his knees, surrounded by the mangled bodies of old men, women and babes, the swords of the victors dripping with innocent blood, shouting--"this is really a glorious sight." a letter written on the seventh of march, , contains the clearest, broadest and most philosophical statement of the religion of burns to be found in his works: "an honest man has nothing to fear. if we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley--be it so; at least there is an end of pain and care, woes and wants. if that part of us called mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man, away with old-wife prejudices and tales! "every age and every nation has a different set of stories; and, as the many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been deceived. "a man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow creatures, even granting that he may have been the sport at times of passions and instincts, he goes to a great unknown being, who could have had no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy; who gave him those passions and instincts and well knows their force. "these, my worthy friend, are my ideas. "it becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark." "religious nonsense is the most nonsensical nonsense." "why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden the heart?" "all my fears and cares are for this world." we have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. we have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders--there are millions of miracles under our feet. nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. the phantoms have been cast aside. men and women are enough for men and women. in their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend. the painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible--he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "the angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell--two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for--nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears--nothing. and yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for--that they have life, love, and hope--and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts. let me give you the difference between culture and nature--between educated talent and real genius. a little while ago one of the great poets died. i was reading some of his volumes and during the same period was reading a little from robert burns. and the difference between these two poets struck me forcibly. tennyson was a piece of rare china decorated by the highest art. burns was made of honest, human clay, moulded by sympathy and love. tennyson dwelt in his fancy, for the most part, with kings and queens, with lords and ladies, with knights and nobles. burns lingered by the fireside of the poor and humble, in the thatched cottage of the peasant, with the imprisoned and despised. he loved men and women in spite of their titles, and without regard to the outward. through robes and rags he saw and loved the man. tennyson was touched by place and power, the insignia given by chance or birth. as he grew old he grew narrower, lost interest in the race, and gave his heart to the class to which he had been lowered as a reward for melodious flattery. burns broadened and ripened with the flight of his few years. his sympathies widened and increased to the last. tennyson had the art born of intellectual taste, of the sense of mental proportion, knowing the color of adjectives and the gradations of emphasis. his pictures were born in his brain, exquisitely shaded by details, carefully wrought by painful and conscious art. burns's brain was the servant of his heart. his melody was a rhythm taught by love. he was touched by the miseries, the injustice, the agony of his time. while tennyson wrote of the past--of kings long dead, of ladies who had been dust for many centuries, burns melted with his love the walls of caste--the cruel walls that divide the rich and the poor. tennyson celebrated the birth of royal babes, the death of the titled useless; gave wings to degraded dust, wearing the laurels given by those who lived upon the toil of men whom they despised. burns poured poems from his heart, filled with tears and sobs for the suffering poor; poems that helped to break the chains of millions; poems that the enfranchised love to repeat; poems that liberty loves to hear. tennyson was the poet of the past, of the twilight, of the sunset, of decorous regret, of the vanished glories of barbarous times, of the age of chivalry in which great nobles clad in steel smote to death with battle axe and sword the unarmed peasants of the field. burns was the poet of the dawn, glad that the night was fading from the east. he kept his face toward the sunrise, caring nothing for the midnight of the past, but loved with all the depth and sincerity of his nature the few great souls--the lustrous stars--that darkness cannot quench. tennyson was surrounded with what gold can give, touched with the selfishness of wealth. he was educated at oxford, and had what are called the advantages of his time, and in maturer years was somewhat swayed by the spirit of caste, by the descendants of the ancient pharisees, and at last became a lord. burns had but little knowledge of the world. what he knew was taught him by his sympathies. being a genius, he absorbed the good and noble of which he heard or dreamed, and thus he happily outgrew the smaller things with which he came in contact, and journeyed toward the great--the wider world, until he reached the end. tennyson was what is called religious. he believed in the divinity of decorum, not falling on his face before the eternal king, but bowing gracefully, as all lords should, while uttering thanks for favors partly undeserved, and thanks more fervid still for those to come. burns had the deepest and the tenderest feelings in his heart. the winding stream, the flowering shrub, the shady vale--these were trysting places where the real god met those he loved, and where his spirit prompted thoughts and words of thankfulness and praise, took from their hearts the dross of selfishness and hate, leaving the gold of love. in the religion of burns, form was nothing, creed was nothing, feeling was everything. he had the religious climate of the soul, the april that receives the seed, the june of blossom, and the month of harvest. burns was a real poet of nature. he put fields and woods in his lines. there were principles like oaks, and there were thoughts, hints and suggestions as shy as violets beneath the withered leaves. there were the warmth of home, the social virtues born of equal state, that touched the heart and softened grief; that make breaches in the cruel walls of pride; that make the rich and poor clasp hands and feel like comrades, warm and true. the house in which his spirit lived was not large. it enclosed only space enough for common needs, built near the barren land of want; but through the open door the sunlight streamed, and from its windows all the stars were seen, while in the garden grew the common flowers--the flowers that all the ages through have been the messengers of honest love; and in the fields were heard the rustling corn, and reapers songs, telling of well-requited toil; and there were trees whose branches rose and fell and swayed while birds filled all the air with music born of joy. he read with tear-filled eyes the human page, and found within his breast the history of hearts. tennyson's imagination lived in a palace ample, wondrous fair, with dome and spire and galleries, where eyes of proud old pedigree grew dim with gazing at the portraits of the worthless dead; and there were parks and labyrinths of walks and ways and artificial lakes where sailed the "double swans;" and there were flowers from far-off lands with strange perfume, and men and women of the grander sort, telling of better days and nobler deeds than men in these poor times of commerce, trade and toil have hearts to do; and, yet, from this fair dwelling--too vast, too finely wrought, to be a home--he uttered wondrous words, painting pictures that will never fade, and told, with every aid of art, old tales of love and war, sometimes beguiling men of tears, enchanting all with melody of speech, and sometimes rousing blood and planting seeds of high resolve and noble deeds; and sometimes thoughts were woven like tapestries in patterns beautiful, involved and strange, where dreams and fancies interlaced like tendrils of a vine, like harmonies that wander and return to catch the music of the central theme, yet cold as traceries in frost wrought on glass by winter's subtle art. tennyson was ingenious--burns ingenuous. one was exclusive, and in his exclusiveness a little disdain. the other pressed the world against his heart. tennyson touched art on many sides, dealing with vast poetic themes, and satisfied in many ways the intellectual tastes of cultured men. tennyson is always perfectly self-possessed. he has poetic sympathy, but not the fire and flame. no one thinks of him as having been excited, as being borne away by passion's storm. his pulse never rises. in artistic calm, he turns, polishes, perfects, embroiders and beautifies. in him there is nothing of the storm and chaos, nothing of the creative genius, no sea wrought to fury, filling the heavens with its shattered cry. burns dwelt with simple things--with those that touch the heart; that tell of joy; that spring from labor done; that lift the burdens of despair from fainting souls; that soften hearts until the pearls of pity fall from eyes unused to weep. to illustrate his thought, he used the things he knew--the things familiar to the world--not caring for the vanished things--the legends told by artful tongues to artless ears--but clinging to the common things of life and love and death, adorning them with countless gems; and, over all, he placed the bow of hope. with him the man was greater than the king, the woman than the queen. the greatest were the noblest, and the noblest were those who loved their fellow-men the best, the ones who filled their lives with generous deeds. men admire tennyson. men love robert burns. he was a believer in god, and had confidence that this god was sitting at the loom weaving with warp and woof of cause and effect, of fear and fancy, pain and hope, of dream and shadows, of despair and death, mingled with the light of love, the tapestries in which at last all souls will see that all was perfect from the first. he believed or hoped that the spirit of infinite goodness, soft as the autumn air, filled all of heaven's dome with love. such a religion is easy to understand when it includes all races through all times. it is consistent, if not with the highest thought, with the deepest and the tenderest feelings of the heart. from cradle to coffin. there is no time to follow the steps of burns from old alloway, by the bonnie doon in the clay-built hut, where the january wind blew hansel in on robin--to mt. oliphant, with its cold and stingy soil, the hard factor, whose letters made the children weep--working in the fields, or tired with "the thresher's weary flinging tree," where he was thrilled, for the first time with love's sweet pain that set his heart to music. to lochlea, still giving wings to thought--still working in the unproductive fields, lochlea where his father died, and reached the rest that life denied. to mossgiel, where burns reached the top and summit of his art and wrote like one enrapt, inspired. here he met and loved and gave to immortality his highland mary. to edinburgh and fame, and back to mauchline to jean armour and honor, the noblest deed of all his life. to ellisland, by the winding nith. to dumfries, a poor exciseman, wearing out his heart in the disgusting details of degrading drudgery--suspected of treason because he preferred washington to pitt--because he sympathized with the french revolution--because he was glad that the american colonies had become a free nation. at a banquet once, being asked to drink the health of pitt, burns said: "i will give you a better toast--george washington." a little while after, when they wanted him to drink to the success of the english arms, burns said: "no; i will drink this: may their success equal the justice of their cause." he sent three or four little cannon to the french convention, because he sympathized with the french revolution, and because of these little things, his love of liberty, of freedom and justice, at dumfries he was suspected of being a traitor, and, as a result of these trivial things, as a result of that suspicion, burns was obliged to join the dumfries volunteers. how pitiful that the author of "scots wha hae with wallace bled," should be thought an enemy of scotland! poor burns! old and broken before his time--surrounded by the walking lumps of dumfries' clay! to appease the anger of his fellow-citizens--to convince them that he was a patriot, he actually joined the dumfries volunteers,--bought his uniform on credit--amount about seven pounds--was unable to pay--was threatened with arrest and a jail by matthew penn. these threats embittered his last hours. a little while before his death, he said: "do not let that awkward squad--the dumfries volunteers--fire over my grave." we have a true insight into what his feelings were. but they fired. they were bound to fire or die. the last words uttered by robert burns were these: "that damned scoundrel matthew penn." burns had another art, the art of ending--of stopping at the right place. nothing is more difficult than this. it is hard to end a play--to get the right kind of roof on a house. not one story-teller in a thousand knows just the spot where the rocket should explode. they go on talking after the stick has fallen. burns wrote short poems, and why? all great poems are short. there cannot be a long poem any more than there can be a long joke. i believe the best example of an ending perfectly accomplished you will find in his "vision." there comes into his house, into that "auld clay biggin," his muse, the spirit of a beautiful woman, and tells him what he can do, and what he can't do, as a poet. he has a long talk with her and now the thing is how to get her out of the house. you may think that it is an easy thing. it is easy to get yourself into difficulty, but not to get out. i was struck with the beautiful manner in which burns got that angel out of the house. nothing could be happier than the ending of the "vision"--the leave-taking of the muse: "and wear thou this, she solemn said, and bound the holly round my head: the polished leaves and berries red did rustling play; and, like a passing thought she fled. in light away." how that man rose above all his fellows in death! do you know, there is something wonderful in death. what a repose! what a piece of sculpture! the common man dead looks royal; a genius dead, sublime. when a few years ago i visited all the places where burns had been, from the little house of clay with one room where he was born, to the little house with one room where he now sleeps, i thought of this. yes, i visited them all, all the places made immortal by his genius, the field where love first touched his heart, the field where he ploughed up the home of the mouse. i saw the cottage where robert and jean first lived as man and wife, and walked on "the banks and braes of bonnie doon." and when i stood by his grave, i said: this man was a radical, a real genuine man. this man believed in the dignity of labor, in the nobility of the useful. this man believed in human love, in making a heaven here, in judging men by their deeds instead of creeds and titles. this man believed in the liberty of the soul, of thought and speech. this man believed in the sacred rights of the individual; he sympathized with the suffering and oppressed. this man had the genius to change suffering and toil into song, to enrich poverty, to make a peasant feel like a prince of the blood, to fill the lives of the lowly with love and light. this man had the genius to make robes of glory out of squalid rags. this man had the genius to make cleopatras, and sapphos and helens out of the freckled girls of the villages and fields--and he had the genius to make auld ayr, and bonnie doon, and sweet afton and the winding nith murmur the name of robert burns forever. this man left a legacy of glory to scotland and the whole world; he enriched our language, and with a generous hand scattered the gems of thought. this man was the companion of poverty, and wept the tears of grief, and yet he has caused millions to shed the happy tears of joy. his heart blossomed in a thousand songs--songs for all times and all seasons--suited to every experience of the heart--songs for the dawn of love--for the glance and clasp and kiss of courtship--for "favors secret, sweet and precious"--for the glow and flame, the ecstasy and rapture of wedded life--songs of parting and despair--songs of hope and simple joy--songs for the vanished days--songs for birth and burial--songs for wild war's deadly blast, and songs for gentle peace--songs for the dying and the dead--songs for labor and content--songs for the spinning wheel, the sickle and the plow--songs for sunshine and for storm, for laughter and for tears--songs that will be sung as long as language lives and passion sways the heart of man. and when i was at his birth-place, at that little clay house where he was born, standing in that sacred place, i wrote these lines: though scotland boasts a thousand names, of patriot, king and peer, the noblest, grandest of them all, was loved and cradled here. here lived the gentle peasant-prince, the loving cotter-king, compared with whom the greatest lord is but a titled thing. 'tis but a cot roofed in with straw, a hovel made of clay; one door shuts out the snow and storm, one window greets the day; and yet i stand within this room, and hold all thrones in scorn; for here beneath this lowly thatch, love's sweetest bard was born. within this hallowed hut i feel like one who clasps a shrine, when the glad lips at last have touched the something deemed divine. and here the world through all the years, as long as day returns, the tribute of its love and tears, will pay to robert burns. abraham lincoln i. on the th of february, , two babes were born--one in the woods of kentucky, amid the hardships and poverty of pioneers; one in england, surrounded by wealth and culture. one was educated in the university of nature, the other at cambridge. one associated his name with the enfranchisement of labor, with the emancipation of millions, with the salvation of the republic. he is known to us as abraham lincoln. the other broke the chains of superstition and filled the world with intellectual light, and he is known as charles darwin. nothing is grander than to break chains from the bodies of men--nothing nobler than to destroy the phantoms of the soul. because of these two men the nineteenth century is illustrious. a few men and women make a nation glorious--shakespeare made england immortal, voltaire civilized and humanized france; goethe, schiller and humboldt lifted germany into the light. angelo, raphael, galileo and bruno crowned with fadeless laurel the italian brow, and now the most precious treasure of the great republic is the memory of abraham lincoln. every generation has its heroes, its iconoclasts, its pioneers, its ideals. the people always have been and still are divided, at least into classes--the many, who with their backs to the sunrise worship the past, and the few, who keep their faces toward the dawn--the many, who are satisfied with the world as it is; the few, who labor and suffer for the future, for those to be, and who seek to rescue the oppressed, to destroy the cruel distinctions of caste, and to civilize mankind. yet it sometimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the oppressor of the next. his reputation becomes so great--he is so revered and worshiped--that his followers, in his name, attack the hero who endeavors to take another step in advance. the heroes of the revolution, forgetting the justice for which they fought, put chains upon the limbs of others, and in their names the lovers of liberty were denounced as ingrates and traitors. during the revolution our fathers to justify their rebellion dug down to the bed-rock of human rights and planted their standard there. they declared that all men were entitled to liberty and that government derived its power from the consent of the governed. but when victory came, the great principles were forgotten and chains were put upon the limbs of men. both of the great political parties were controlled by greed and selfishness. both were the defenders and protectors of slavery. for nearly three-quarters of a century these parties had control of the republic. the principal object of both parties was the protection of the infamous institution. both were eager to secure the southern vote and both sacrificed principle and honor upon the altar of success. at last the whig party died and the republican was born. this party was opposed to the further extension of slavery. the democratic party of the south wished to make the "divine institution" national--while the democrats of the north wanted the question decided by each territory for itself. each of these parties had conservatives and extremists. the extremists of the democratic party were in the rear and wished to go back; the extremists of the republican party were in the front, and wished to go forward. the extreme democrat was willing to destroy the union for the sake of slavery, and the extreme republican was willing to destroy the union for the sake of liberty. neither party could succeed without the votes of its extremists. this was the condition in - . when lincoln was a child his parents removed from kentucky to indiana. a few trees were felled--a log hut open to the south, no floor, no window, was built--a little land plowed and here the lincolns lived. here the patient, thoughtful, silent, loving mother died--died in the wide forest as a leaf dies, leaving nothing to her son but the memory of her love. in a few years the family moved to illinois. lincoln then almost grown, clad in skins, with no woven stitch upon his body--walking and driving the cattle. another farm was opened--a few acres subdued and enough raised to keep the wolf from the door. lincoln quit the farm--went down the ohio and mississippi as a hand on a flat-boat--afterward clerked in a country store--then in partnership with another bought the store--failed. nothing left but a few debts--learned the art of surveying--made about half a living and paid something on the debts--read law--admitted to the bar--tried a few small cases--nominated for the legislature and made a speech. this speech was in favor of a tariff, not only for revenue, but to encourage american manufacturers and to protect american workingmen. lincoln knew then as well as we do now, that everything, to the limits of the possible, that americans use should be produced by the energy, skill and ingenuity of americans. he knew that the more industries we had, the greater variety of things we made, the greater would be the development of the american brain. and he knew that great men and great women are the best things that a nation can produce,--the finest crop a country can possibly raise. he knew that a nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor, while the people who manufacture will grow intelligent and rich. to dig, to chop, to plow, requires more muscle than mind, more strength than thought. to invent, to manufacture, to take advantage of the forces of nature--this requires thought, talent, genius. this develops the brain and gives wings to the imagination. it is better for americans to purchase from americans, even if the things purchased cost more. if we purchase a ton of steel rails from england for twenty dollars, then we have the rails and england the money; but if we buy a ton of steel rails from an american for twenty-five dollars, then america has both the rails and the money. judging from the present universal depression and the recent elections, lincoln, in his first speech, stood on solid rock and was absolutely right. lincoln was educated in the university of nature--educated by cloud and star--by field and winding stream--by billowed plains and solemn forests--by morning's birth and death of day--by storm and night--by the ever eager spring--by summer's wealth of leaf and vine and flower--the sad and transient glories of the autumn woods--and winter, builder of home and fireside, and whose storms without, create the social warmth within. he was perfectly acquainted with the political questions of the day--heard them discussed at taverns and country stores, at voting places and courts and on the stump. he knew all the arguments for and against, and no man of his time was better equipped for intellectual conflict. he knew the average mind--the thoughts of the people, the hopes and prejudices of his fellow-men. he had the power of accurate statement. he was logical, candid and sincere. in addition, he had the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin." in he was a candidate for the senate against stephen a. douglas. the extreme democrats would not vote for douglas, but the extreme republicans did vote for lincoln. lincoln occupied the middle ground, and was the compromise candidate of his own party. he had lived for many years in the intellectual territory of compromise--in a part of our country settled by northern and southern men--where northern and southern ideas met, and the ideas of the two sections were brought together and compared. the sympathies of lincoln, his ties of kindred, were with the south. his convictions, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the north. he knew the horrors of slavery, and he felt the unspeakable ecstasies and glories of freedom. he had the kindness, the gentleness, of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. he was just, and was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself would not willingly bear. he was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation, or in the same brain. lincoln was a statesman.. and there is this difference between a politician and a statesman. a politician schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. a statesman wishes to do something for the people. with him place and power are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country. in this campaign lincoln demonstrated three things--first, that he was the intellectual superior of his opponent; second, that he was right; and third, that a majority of the voters of illinois were on his side. ii. in the republic reached a crisis. the conflict between liberty and slavery could no longer be delayed. for three-quarters of a century the forces had been gathering for the battle. after the revolution, principle was sacrificed for the sake of gain. the constitution contradicted the declaration. liberty as a principle was held in contempt. slavery took possession of the government. slavery made the laws, corrupted courts, dominated presidents and demoralized the people. i do not hold the south responsible for slavery any more than i do the north. the fact is, that individuals and nations act as they must. there is no chance. back of every event--of every hope, prejudice, fancy and dream--of every opinion and belief--of every vice and virtue--of every smile and curse, is the efficient cause. the present moment is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past. northern politicians wanted office, and so they defended slavery; northern merchants wanted to sell their goods to the south, and so they were the enemies of freedom. the preacher wished to please the people who paid his salary, and so he denounced the slave for not being satisfied with the position in which the good god had placed him. the respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers for office, held liberty in contempt. they regarded the constitution as far more sacred than the rights of men. candidates for the presidency were applauded because they had tried to make slave states of free territory, and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and women had no rights. men who insisted that freedom was better than slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated, despised and mobbed. mr. douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. upon this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. honor, manhood, conscience, principle--all sacrificed for the sake of gain or office. from the heights of philosophy--standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day--lincoln was great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words: "a house divided against itself cannot stand. i believe this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. i do not expect the union to be dissolved; i do not expect the house to fall; but i do expect it will cease to be divided. it will become all the one thing or the other. either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it further until it becomes alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south." this declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made lincoln the leader of that vast host. in this, the first great crisis, lincoln uttered the victorious truth that made him the foremost man in the republic. the republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough. it is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. i do not say that the great presidents have been chosen by accident. probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance. the average man is afraid of genius. he feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. he admires and suspects. genius appears to carry too much sail--to lack prudence, has too much courage. the ballast of dullness inspires confidence. by a happy chance lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness--and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne. iii. then came another crisis--the crisis of secession and civil war. again lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the nation. in his first message he said: "the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy." he also showed conclusively that the north and south, in spite of secession, must remain face to face--that physically they could not separate--that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or as aliens. this situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words: "can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?" after having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed himself to the hearts of america. probably there are few finer passages in literature than the close of lincoln's inaugural address: "i am loth to close. we are not enemies, but friends. we must not be enemies. though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." these noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators--surrounded by but few friends, most of whom were unknown, and some of whom were wavering in their fidelity--at a time when secession was arrogant and organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive words of lincoln himself, "sinners were calling the righteous to repentance." when lincoln became president, he was held in contempt by the south--underrated by the north and east--not appreciated even by his cabinet--and yet he was not only one of the wisest, but one of the shrewdest of mankind. knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the union in all parts of the united states, and territories--knowing, as he did, that the secessionists were in the wrong, he also knew that they had sympathizers not only in the north, but in other lands. consequently, he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the south should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the north, and gain for us the justification of the civilized world. he proposed to give food to the soldiers at sumter. he asked the advice of all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of montgomery blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in writing. in spite of this, lincoln took his own course--endeavored to send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the south commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. the course pursued by lincoln was absolutely right, and the act of the south to a great extent solidified the north, and gained for the republic the justification of a great number of people in other lands. at that time lincoln appreciated the scope and consequences of the impending conflict. above all other thoughts in his mind was this: "this conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come, whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of greater importance to the free than to the enslaved." he knew what depended on the issue and he said: "we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth." hen came a crisis in the north. it became clearer and clearer to lincoln's mind, day by day, that the rebellion was slavery, and that it was necessary to keep the border states on the side of the union. for this purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipation and colonization--a scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what they called their "property." he knew that if the border states agreed to gradual emancipation, and received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. it was objected at the time, by some, that the scheme was far too expensive; but lincoln, wiser than his advisers--far wiser than his enemies--demonstrated that from an economical point of view, his course was best. iv. he proposed that $ be paid for slaves, including men, women and children. this was a large price, and yet he showed how much cheaper it was to purchase than to carry on the war. at that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $ , worth of slaves in delaware. the cost of carrying on the war was at least two millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses, all the slaves in delaware could be purchased. he also showed that all the slaves in delaware, maryland, kentucky and missouri could be bought, at the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for eighty-seven days. this was the wisest thing that could have been proposed, and yet such was the madness of the south, such the indignation of the north, that the advice was unheeded. again, in july, , he urged on the representatives of the border states a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the representatives were too deaf to hear, too blind to see. lincoln always hated slavery, and yet he felt the obligations and duties of his position. in his first message he assured the south that the laws, including the most odious of all--the law for the return of fugitive slaves--would be enforced. the south would not hear. afterward he proposed to purchase the slaves of the border states, but the proposition was hardly discussed--hardly heard. events came thick and fast; theories gave way to facts, and everything was left to force. the extreme democrat of the north was fearful that slavery might be destroyed, that the constitution might be broken, and that lincoln, after all, could not be trusted; and at the same time the radical republican feared that lincoln loved the union more than he did liberty. the fact is, that he tried to discharge the obligations of his great office, knowing from the first that slavery must perish. the course pursued by lincoln was so gentle, so kind and persistent, so wise and logical, that millions of northern democrats sprang to the defence, not only of the union, but of his administration. lincoln refused to be led or hurried by fremont or hunter, by greeley or sumner. from first to last he was the real leader, and he kept step with events. v. on the d of july, , lincoln sent word to the members of his cabinet that he wished to see them. it so happened that secretary chase was the first to arrive. he found lincoln reading a book. looking up from the page, the president said: "chase, did you ever read this book?" "what book is it?" asked chase. "artemus ward," replied lincoln. "let me read you this chapter, entitled '_wax wurx in albany_.'" and so he began reading while the other members of the cabinet one by one came in. at last stanton told mr. lincoln that he was in a great hurry, and if any business was to be done he would like to do it at once. whereupon mr. lincoln laid down the open book, opened a drawer, took out a paper and said: "gentlemen, i have called you together to notify you what i have determined to do. i want no advice. nothing can change my mind." he then read the proclamation of emancipation. chase thought there ought to be something about god at the close, to which lincoln replied: "put it in, it won't hurt it." it was also agreed that the president would wait for a victory in the field before giving the proclamation to the world. the meeting was over, the members went their way. mr. chase was the last to go, and as he went through the door looked back and saw that mr. lincoln had taken up the book and was again engrossed in the _wax wurx at albany._ this was on the d of july, . on the d of august of the same year--after lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to horace greeley, in which he stated that his object was to save the union; _that he would save it with slavery if he could_; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in order to save the union, he would; in other words, he would do what was necessary to save the union. this letter disheartened, to a great degree, thousands and millions of the friends of freedom. they felt that mr. lincoln had not attained the moral height upon which they supposed he stood. and yet, when this letter was written, the emancipation proclamation was in his hands, and had been for thirty days, waiting only an opportunity to give it to the world. some two weeks after the letter to greeley, lincoln was waited on by a committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was god's will that he should issue a proclamation of emancipation. he replied to them, in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. he also mildly and kindly suggested that if it were god's will this proclamation should be issued, certainly god would have made known that will to him--to the person whose duty it was to issue it. on the d day of september, , the most glorious date in the history of the republic, the proclamation of emancipation was issued. lincoln had reached the generalization of all argument upon the question of slavery and freedom--a generalization that never has been, and probably never will be, excelled: "in giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free." this is absolutely true. liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by giving it to others. the spendthrift saves, the miser is prodigal. in the realm of freedom, waste is husbandry. he who puts chains upon the body of another shackles his own soul. the moment the proclamation was issued the cause of the republic became sacred. from that moment the north fought for the human race. from that moment the north stood under the blue and stars, the flag of nature, sublime and free. in , lincoln went down the mississippi on a flat-boat. he received the extravagant salary of ten dollars a month. when he reached new orleans, he and some of his companions went about the city. among other places, they visited a slave market, where men and women were being sold at auction. a young colored girl was on the block. lincoln heard the brutal words of the auctioneer--the savage remarks of bidders. the scene filled his soul with indignation and horror. turning to his companions, he said, "boys, if i ever get a chance to hit slavery, by god i'll hit it hard!" the helpless girl, unconsciously, had planted in a great heart the seeds of the proclamation. thirty-one years afterward the chance came, the oath was kept, and to four millions of slaves, of men, women and children, was restored liberty, the jewel of the soul. in the history, in the fiction of the world, there is nothing more intensely dramatic than this. lincoln held within his brain the grandest truths, and he held them as unconsciously, as easily, as naturally, as a waveless pool holds within its stainless breast a thousand stars. in these two years we had traveled from the ordinance of secession to the proclamation of emancipation. vi. we were surrounded by enemies. many of the so-called great in europe and england were against us. they hated the republic, despised our institutions, and sought in many ways to aid the south. mr. gladstone announced that jefferson davis had made a nation, and that he did not believe the restoration of the american union by force attainable. from the vatican came words of encouragement for the south. it was declared that the north was fighting for empire and the south for independence. the marquis of salisbury said: "the people of the south are the natural allies of england. the north keeps an opposition shop in the same department of trade as ourselves." not a very elevated sentiment--but english. some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the south by the north would be a calamity to the world. louis napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in mexico, to the end that the great north might be destroyed. but the patience, the uncommon common sense, the statesmanship of lincoln--in spite of foreign hate and northern division--triumphed over all. and now we forgive all foes. victory makes forgiveness easy. lincoln was by nature a diplomat. he knew the art of sailing against the wind. he had as much shrewdness as is consistent with honesty. he understood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. in all his correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a line which afterward was used to tie his hands. in the use of perfect english he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows. no one claims that lincoln did all. he could have done nothing without the generals in the field, and the generals could have done nothing without their armies. the praise is due to all--to the private as much as to the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest. my heart goes out to the brave private as much as to the leader of the host. but lincoln stood at the centre and with infinite patience, with consummate skill, with the genius of goodness, directed, cheered, consoled and conquered. vii. slavery was the cause of the war, and slavery was the perpetual stumbling-block. as the war went on, question after question arose--questions that could not be answered by theories. should we hand back the slave to his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the union? if the south was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by us. events did not wait for discussion. general butler denominated the negro as "a contraband." congress provided that the property of the rebels might be confiscated. the extreme democrats of the north regarded the slave as more sacred than life. it was no harm to kill the master--to burn his house, to ravage his fields--but you must not free his slave. if in war a nation has the right to take the property of its citizens--of its friends--certainly it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill. lincoln was wise enough to know that war is governed by the laws of war, and that during the conflict constitutions are silent. all that he could do he did in the interests of peace. he offered to execute every law--including the most infamous of all--to buy the slaves in the border states--to establish gradual, compensated emancipation; but the south would not hear. then he confiscated the property of rebels--treated the slaves as contraband of war, used them to put down the rebellion, armed them and clothed them in the uniform of the republic--was in favor of making them citizens and allowing them to stand on an equality with their white brethren under the flag of the nation. during these years lincoln moved with events, and every step he took has been justified by the considerate judgment of mankind. viii. lincoln not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political pulse. in a tide set in against the administration. a republican meeting was to be held in springfield, illinois, and lincoln wrote a letter to be read at this convention. it was in his happiest vein. it was a perfect defence of his administration, including the proclamation of emancipation. among other things he said: "but the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. if it is not valid it needs no retraction, but if it is valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life." to the northern democrats who said they would not fight for negroes, lincoln replied: "some of them seem willing to fight for you--but no matter." of negro soldiers: "but negroes, like other people, act upon motives. why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? if they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. and the promise, being made, must be kept." there is one line in this letter that will give it immortality: "the father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea." this line is worthy of shakespeare. another: "among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet." he draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men for us: "and then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while i fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it." under the influence of this letter, the love of country, of the union, and above all, the love of liberty, took possession of the heroic north. there was the greatest moral exaltation ever known. the spirit of liberty took possession of the people. the masses became sublime. to fight for yourself is natural--to fight for others is grand; to fight for your country is noble--to fight for the human race--for the liberty of hand and brain--is nobler still. as a matter of fact, the defenders of slavery had sown the seeds of their own defeat. they dug the pit in which they fell. clay and webster and thousands of others had by their eloquence made the union almost sacred. the union was the very tree of life, the source and stream and sea of liberty and law. for the sake of slavery millions stood by the union, for the sake of liberty millions knelt at the altar of the union; and this love of the union is what, at last, overwhelmed the confederate hosts. it does not seem possible that only a few years ago our constitution, our laws, our courts, the pulpit and the press defended and upheld the institution of slavery--that it was a crime to feed the hungry--to give water to the lips of thirst--shelter to a woman flying from the whip and chain! the old flag still flies--the stars are there--the stains have gone. ix. lincoln always saw the end. he was unmoved by the storms and currents of the times. he advanced too rapidly for the conservative politicians, too slowly for the radical enthusiasts. he occupied the line of safety, and held by his personality--by the force of his great character, by his charming candor--the masses on his side. the soldiers thought of him as a father. all who had lost their sons in battle felt that they had his sympathy--felt that his face was as sad as theirs. they knew that lincoln was actuated by one motive, and that his energies were bent to the attainment of one end--the salvation of the republic. they knew that he was kind, sincere and merciful. they knew that in his veins there was no drop of tyrants' blood. they knew that he used his power to protect the innocent, to save reputation and life--that he had the brain of a philosopher--the heart of a mother. during all the years of war, lincoln stood the embodiment of mercy, between discipline and death. he pitied the imprisoned and condemned. he took the unfortunate in his arms, and was the friend even of the convict. he knew temptation's strength--the weakness of the will--and how in fury's sudden flame the judgment drops the scales, and passion--blind and deaf--usurps the throne. one day a woman, accompanied by a senator, called on the president. the woman was the wife of one of mosby's men. her husband had been captured, tried and condemned to be shot. she came to ask for the pardon of her husband. the president heard her story and then asked what kind of man her husband was. "is he intemperate, does he abuse the children and beat you?" "no, no," said the wife, "he is a good man, a good husband, he loves me and he loves the children, and we cannot live without him. the only trouble is that he is a fool about politics--i live in the north, born there, and if i get him home, he will do no more fighting for the south." "well," said mr. lincoln, after examining the papers, "i will pardon your husband and turn him over to you for safe keeping." the poor woman, overcome with joy, sobbed as though her heart would break. "my dear woman," said lincoln, "if i had known how badly it was going to make you feel, i never would have pardoned him." "you do not understand me," she cried between her sobs. "you do not understand me." "yes, yes, i do," answered the president, "and if you do not go away at once i shall be crying with you." on another occasion, a member of congress, on his way to see lincoln, found in one of the anterooms of the white house an old white-haired man, sobbing--his wrinkled face wet with tears. the old man told him that for several days he had tried to see the president--that he wanted a pardon for his son. the congressman told the old man to come with him and he would introduce him to mr. lincoln. on being introduced, the old man said: "mr. lincoln, my wife sent me to you. we had three boys. they all joined your army. one of 'em has been killed, one's a fighting now, and one of 'em, the youngest, has been tried for deserting and he's going to be shot day after to-morrow. he never deserted. he's wild, and he may have drunk too much and wandered off, but he never deserted. 'taint in the blood. he's his mother's favorite, and if he's shot, i know she'll die." the president, turning to his secretary, said: "telegraph general butler to suspend the execution in the case of--------[giving the name] until further orders from me, and ask him to answer--------." the congressman congratulated the old man on his success--but the old man did not respond. he was not satisfied. "mr. president," he began, "i can't take that news home. it won't satisfy his mother. how do i know but what you'll give further orders to-morrow?" "my good man," said mr. lincoln, "i have to do the best i can. the generals are complaining because i pardon so many. they say that my mercy destroys discipline. now, when you get home you tell his mother what you said to me about my giving further orders, and then you tell her that i said this: 'if your son lives until they get further orders from me, that when he does die people will say that old methusaleh was a baby compared to him.'" the pardoning power is the only remnant of absolute sovereignty that a president has. through all the years, lincoln will be known as lincoln the loving, lincoln the merciful. x. lincoln had the keenest sense of humor, and always saw the laughable side even of disaster. in his humor there was logic and the best of sense. no matter how complicated the question, or how embarrassing the situation, his humor furnished an answer and a door of escape. vallandigham was a friend of the south, and did what he could to sow the seeds of failure. in his opinion everything, except rebellion, was unconstitutional. he was arrested, convicted by a court martial, and sentenced to imprisonment. there was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the north denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. at the same time millions demanded that vallandigham should be punished. lincoln's humor came to the rescue. he disapproved of the findings of the court, changed the punishment, and ordered that mr. vallandigham should be sent to his friends in the south. those who regarded the act as unconstitutional almost forgave it for the sake of its humor. horace greeley always had the idea that he was greatly superior to lincoln, because he lived in a larger town, and for a long time insisted that the people of the north and the people of the south desired peace. he took it upon himself to lecture lincoln. lincoln, with that wonderful sense of humor, united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told greeley that, if the south really wanted peace, he (lincoln) desired the same thing, and was doing all he could to bring it about. greeley insisted that a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the representatives of the confederacy. this was lincoln's opportunity. he authorized greeley to act as such commissioner. the great editor felt that he was caught. for a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that the southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any offers of peace that lincoln might make, consistent with the independence of the confederacy. the failure of greeley was humiliating, and the position in which he was left, absurd. again the humor of lincoln had triumphed. lincoln, to satisfy a few fault-finders in the north, went to grant's headquarters and met some confederate commissioners. he urged that it was hardly proper for him to negotiate with the representatives of rebels in arms--that if the south wanted peace, all they had to do was to stop fighting. one of the commissioners cited as a precedent the fact that charles the first negotiated with rebels in arms. to which lincoln replied that charles the first lost his head. the conference came to nothing, as mr. lincoln expected. the commissioners, one of them being alexander h. stephens, who, when in good health, weighed about ninety pounds, dined with the president and gen. grant. after dinner, as they were leaving, stephens put on an english ulster, the tails of which reached the ground, while the collar was somewhat above the wearer's head. as stephens went out, lincoln touched grant and said: "grant, look at stephens. did you ever see as little a nubbin with as much shuck?" lincoln always tried to do things in the easiest way. he did not waste his strength. he was not particular about moving along straight lines. he did not tunnel the mountains. he was willing to go around, and reach the end desired as a river reaches the sea. xi. one of the most wonderful things ever done by lincoln was the promotion of general hooker. after the battle of fredericksburg, general burnside found great fault with hooker, and wished to have him removed from the army of the potomac. lincoln disapproved of burnside's order, and gave hooker the command. he then wrote hooker this memorable letter: "i have placed you at the head of the army of the potomac. of course i have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet i think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which i am not quite satisfied with you. i believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier--which, of course, i like. i also believe you do not mix politics with your profession--in which you are right. you have confidence--which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. you are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but i think that during general burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could--in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. i have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that i have given you command. only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. what i now ask of you is military successes, and i will risk the dictatorship. the government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. i much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you. i shall assist you, so far as i can, to put it down. neither you, nor napoleon, if he were alive, can get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. and now beware of rashness. beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories." this letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. the mistaken magnanimity is almost equal to the prophecy: "i much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their command and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you." chancellorsville was the fulfillment. xii. mr. lincoln was a statesman. the great stumbling-block--the great obstruction--in lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old doctrine of states rights. this doctrine was first established to protect slavery. it was clung to to protect the inter-state slave trade. it became sacred in connection with the fugitive slave law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone of secession. this doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right--always in support of the wrong. for many years politicians upon both sides of this question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between the federal government and the states, and i know of no one who succeeded, except lincoln. in his message of , delivered on july the th, the definition is given, and it is perfect: "whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole--to the general government. whatever concerns only the state should be left exclusively to the state." when that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a nation. then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is not to his state, but to the republic, and that the first duty of the republic is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but at home, and that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the states. lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people--in the supremacy of the nation--in the territorial integrity of the republic. xiii. a great actor can be known only when he has assumed the principal character in a great drama. possibly the greatest actors have never appeared, and it may be that the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of perfect peace. lincoln assumed the leading part in the greatest drama ever enacted upon the stage of this continent. his criticisms of military movements, his correspondence with his generals and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master of the situation--that he was a natural strategist, that he appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath the flag. had mcclellan followed his advice, he would have taken richmond. had hooker acted in accordance with his suggestions, chancellorsville would have been a victory for the nation. lincoln's political prophecies were all fulfilled. we know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the centre, from first to last, and that he did this by reason of his intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage and his patriotism. in passion's storm he stood, unmoved, patient, just and candid. in his brain there was no cloud, and in his heart no hate. he longed to save the south as well as north, to see the nation one and free. he lived until the end was known. he lived until the confederacy was dead--until lee surrendered, until davis fled, until the doors of libby prison were opened, until the republic was supreme. he lived until lincoln and liberty were united forever. he lived to cross the desert--to reach the palms of victory--to hear the murmured music of the welcome waves. he lived until all loyal hearts were his--until the history of his deeds made music in the souls of men--until he knew that on columbia's calendar of worth and fame his name stood first. he lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had done. what he did was worth living for, worth dying for. he lived until he stood in the midst of universal joy, beneath the outstretched wings of peace--the foremost man in all the world. and then the horror came. night fell on noon. the savior of the republic, the breaker of chains, the liberator of millions, he who had "assured freedom to the free," was dead. upon his brow fame placed the immortal wreath, and for the first time in the history of the world a nation bowed and wept. the memory of lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all hearts together now, and holds all states beneath a nation's flag. xiv. abraham lincoln--strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of socrates and democritus, of Æsop and marcus aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the shadow of the tragic end. nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. we know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. about these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity. washington is now only a steel engraving. about the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. the glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct. hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mould--so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been. lincoln was not a type. he stands alone--no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors. he had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. he preserved his individuality and his self-respect. he knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. he became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. he was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. he loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons. in a new country a man must possess at least three virtues--honesty, courage and generosity. in cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. a well-executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. it is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society--to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public--where the subscription can be defended as an investment. in a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. in the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. people separated only by distance are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of caste. it is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. the fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys. in the country is the idea of home. there you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. the constellations are your friends. you hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. you are thrilled by the resurrection called spring, touched and saddened by autumn--the grace and poetry of death. every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. in the country you preserve your identity--your personality. there you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation. in the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of nature. you are calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky--by the constancy of the stars. lincoln never finished his education. to the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. you have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. for the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. if shakespeare had graduated at oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson. lincoln was a great lawyer. there is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. perfect candor is sword and shield. he understood the nature of man. as a lawyer he endeavored to get at the truth, at the very heart of a case. he was not willing even to deceive himself. no matter what his interest said, what his passion demanded, he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce judgment against his own desires. lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. he was never afraid to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. no man had keener wit, or kinder humor. it may be that humor is the pilot of reason. people without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. humor sees the other side--stands in the mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion before judgment is reached. humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason. in anger, reason abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch. such was the humor of lincoln that he could tell even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we wish to hear. he was not solemn. solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. he was natural in his life and thought--master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect. he was a logician. his logic shed light. in its presence the obscure became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. it cannot be learned. it is the child of a clear head and a good heart. lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. he had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit. he was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. he did not pretend. he did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought. if you wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to the grass. you must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. you must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests insincerity. the great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift hope, enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. between his lips words bud and blossom. if you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read lincoln's wondrous speech at gettysburg, and then the oration of edward everett. the speech of lincoln will never be forgotten. it will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. the oration of everett will never be read. the elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture. the orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. he places the thought above all. he knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words--that the greatest statues need the least drapery. lincoln was an immense personality--firm but not obstinate. obstinacy is egotism--firmness, heroism. he influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature--unconsciously. he was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others. he appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. he did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes. almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty. as a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretence of payment, so lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew. a great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean. by his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. he was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal. he wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. he never pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he really was. he had the unconscious naturalness of nature's self. he built upon the rock. the foundation was secure and broad. the structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice towards none, with charity for all," with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. stone after stone was laid, until at last the proclamation found its place. on that the goddess stands. he knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. he cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but everything for independence. where no principle was involved, easily swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. he was willing to wait. he knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. he knew that slavery had defenders, but no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves. he was neither tyrant nor slave. he neither knelt nor scorned. with him, men were neither great nor small--they were right or wrong. through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real--that which is. beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end. he was patient as destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face. nothing discloses real character like the use of power. it is easy for the weak to be gentle. most people can bear adversity. but if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. this is the supreme test. it is the glory of lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy. wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man. he knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. hating slavery, pitying the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a nation. he spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. he raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. he longed to pardon. he loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. he is the gentlest memory of our world. voltaire. i. the infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next. the destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. as time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes old. there is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy. the history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels. political rights have been preserved by traitors, the liberty of mind by heretics. to attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy. for many centuries the sword and cross were allies. together they attacked the rights of man. they defended each other. the throne and altar were twins--two vultures from the same egg. james i. said: "no bishop, no king." he might have added: "no cross, no crown." the king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. one lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear--both robbers, both beggars. these robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. the king made laws, the priest made creeds. both obtained their authority from god, both were the agents of the infinite. with bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the dogmas of the other. if the people aspired to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. the king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both. the king said to the people: "god made you peasants, and he made me king; he made you to labor, and me to enjoy; he made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. he made you to obey, and me to command. such is the justice of god." and the priest said: "god made you ignorant and vile; he made me holy and wise; you are the sheep, i am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. if you do not obey me here, god will punish you now and torment you forever in another world. such is the mercy of god." "you must not reason. reason is a rebel. you must not contradict--contradiction is born of egotism; you must believe. he that hath ears to hear let him hear." heaven was a question of ears. fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men. it may be well enough here to ask the question: what is greatness? a great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. a great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. a great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. if the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now. a great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy. greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness. the place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. greatness is from within. the great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of many millions with love and song. they are the artists who have covered the bare walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius. they are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones. they are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of the useful who have civilized this world. at the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands voltaire, whose memory we are honoring tonight. voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war. pronounce that name, and from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a niagara of vituperation and calumny. and yet voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men. on sunday, the st of november, , a babe was born--a babe so exceedingly frail that the breath hesitated about remaining, and the parents had him baptized as soon as possible. they were anxious to save the soul of this babe, and they knew that if death came before baptism the child would be doomed to an eternity of pain. they knew that god despised an unsprinkled child. the priest who, with a few drops of water, gave the name of francois-marie arouet to this babe and saved his soul--little thought that before him, wrapped in many folds, weakly wailing, scarcely breathing, was the one destined to tear from the white throat of liberty the cruel, murderous claws of the "triumphant beast." when voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been christianized--not civilized--for about fourteen hundred years. for a thousand years the religion of peace and good-will had been supreme. the laws had been given by christian kings, and sanctioned by "wise and holy men." under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumb-screw and rack. such had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an outcast. to speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow-men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these were all crimes, and the "holy-mother church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame. the believers in a god of love--an infinite father--punished hundreds of offences with torture and death. suspected persons were tortured to make them confess. convicted persons were tortured to make them give the names of their accomplices. under the leadership of the church, cruelty had become the only reforming power. in this blessed year, , all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. the most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or executed. the little time that hangmen could snatch from professional duties was occupied in burning books. the courts of justice were traps, in which the innocent were caught. the judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops or saints. there was no trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay. the witnesses, being liable to be tortured, generally told what the judges wished to hear. the supernatural and the miraculous controlled the world. everything was explained, but nothing was understood. the church was at the head. the sick bought from monks little amulets of consecrated paper. they did not send for a doctor, but for a priest, and the priest sold the diseased and the dying these magical amulets. these little pieces of paper with the help of some saint would cure diseases of every kind. if you would put one in a cradle, it would keep the child from being bewitched. if you would put one in the barn, the rats would not eat your corn. if you would keep one in the house, evil spirits would not enter your doors, and if you buried them in the fields, you would have good weather, the frost would be delayed, rain would come when needed, and abundant crops would bless your labor. the church insisted that all diseases could be cured in the name of god, and that these cures could be effected by prayers, exorcism, by touching bones of saints, pieces of the true cross; by being sprinkled with holy water or with sanctified salt, or touched with magical oil. in that day the dead saints were the best physicians; st. valentine cured the epilepsy; st. gervasius was exceedingly good for rheumatism; st. michael for cancer; st. judas for coughs and colds; st. ovidius restored the hearing; st. sebastian was good for the bites of snakes and the stings of poisonous insects; st. apollonia for toothache; st. clara for any trouble with the eyes; and st. hubert for hydrophobia. it was known that doctors reduced the revenues of the church; that was enough--science was the enemy of religion. the church thought that the air was filled with devils; that every sinner was a kind of tenement house inhabited by evil spirits; that angels were on one side of men and evil spirits on the other, and that god would, when the subscriptions and donations justified the effort, drive the evil spirits from the field. satan had power over the air; consequently he controlled the frost, the mildew, the lightning and the flood; and the principal business of the church was with bells, and holy water, and incense, and crosses, to defeat the machinations of that prince of the power of the air. great reliance was placed upon the bells; they were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. and bells also protected the people from storms and lightning. in that day the church used to anathematize insects. suits were commenced against rats, and judgment rendered. every monastery had its master magician, who sold incense and salt and tapers and consecrated palms and relics. every science was regarded as an enemy; every fact held the creed of the church in scorn. investigators were regarded as dangerous; thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power to prevent the intellectual progress of man. there was no real liberty, no real education, no real philosophy, no real science---nothing but credulity and superstition. the world was under the control of satan and the church. the church firmly believed in the existence of witches and devils and fiends. in this way the church had every enemy within her power. it simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communications with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces. so prevalent was this belief, this belief in the supernatural, that the poor people were finally driven to make the best possible terms they could with the spirit of evil. this frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend; it made the husband denounce the wife, children their parents, parents their children. it destroyed the amenities of humanity; it did away with justice in courts; it broke the bond of friendship; it filled with poison the golden cup of life; it turned earth into a very perdition peopled with abominable, malicious and hideous fiends. such was the result of a belief in the supernatural; such was the result of giving up the evidence of their own senses and relying upon dreams, visions and fears. such was the result of the attack upon the human reason; such the result of depending on the imagination, on the supernatural; such the result of living in this world for another; of depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. the protestants vied with catholics; luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. to the catholic every protestant was possessed by a devil; to the protestant every catholic was the home of a fiend. all order, all regular succession of causes and effects were known no more; the natural ceased to exist; the learned and the ignorant were on a level. the priest was caught in the net he had spread for the peasant, and christendom became a vast madhouse, with the insane for keepers. when voltaire was born the church ruled and owned france. it was a period of almost universal corruption. the priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal. the royal palace was a house of prostitution. the nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. the common people were treated as beasts. it took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things. the seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest. they were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. there was a faint longing for blood. workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them. in those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as lies. in order to appreciate a great man we must know his surroundings. we must understand the scope of the drama in which he played--the part he acted, and we must also know his audience. in england george i. was disporting with the "may-pole" and "elephant," and then george ii., jealous and choleric, hating the english and their language, making, however, an excellent image or idol before whom the english were glad to bow--snobbery triumphant--the criminal code getting bloodier every day-- offences punishable with death--the prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded--efforts on every hand to repress the ambition of men to be men--the church relying on superstition and ceremony to make men good--and the state dependent on the whip, the rope and axe to make men patriotic. in spain the inquisition in full control--all the instruments of torture used to prevent the development of the mind, spain, that had driven out the jews, that is to say, her talent; that had driven out the moors, that is to say, her taste and her industry, was still endeavoring by all religious means to reduce the land to the imbecility of the true faith. in portugal they were burning women and children for having eaten meat on a holy day, and this to please the most merciful god. in italy the nation prostrate, covered with swarms of cardinals and bishops and priests and monks and nuns and every representative of holy sloth. the inquisition there also--while hands that were clasped in prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with eagerness and joy the lever of the rack, or gathered fagots for the holy flame. in germany they were burning men and women charged with having made a compact with the enemy of man. and in our own fair land, persecuting quakers, stealing men and women from another shore, stealing children from their mother's breasts, and paying labor with the cruel lash. superstition ruled the world! there is but one use for law, but one excuse for government--the preservation of liberty--to give to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his thoughts. liberty is the breath of progress. in france, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. everywhere was the shadow of the bastile. it fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home. with the king walked the headsman; back of the throne was the chamber of torture. the church appealed to the rack, and faith relied on the fagot. science was an outcast, and philosophy, so-called, was the pander of superstition. nobles and priests were sacred. peasants were vermin. idleness sat at the banquet, and industry gathered the crumbs and the crusts. ii. the days of youth. voltaire was of the people. in the language of that day, he had no ancestors. his real name was francois-marie arouet. his mother was marguerite d'aumard. this mother died when he was seven years of age. he had an elder brother, armand, who was a devotee, very religious and exceedingly disagreeable. this brother used to present offerings to the church, hoping to make amends for the unbelief of his brother. so far as we know, none of his ancestors were literary people. the arouets had never written a line. the abbe de chaulieu was his godfather, and, although an abbe, was a deist who cared nothing about religion except in connection with his salary. voltaire's father wanted to make a lawyer of him, but he had no taste for law. at the age of ten he entered the college of louis le grand. this was a jesuit school, and here he remained for seven years, leaving at seventeen, and never attending any other school. according to voltaire, he learned nothing at this school but a little greek, a good deal of latin and a vast amount of nonsense. in this college of louis le grand they did not teach geography, history, mathematics or any science. this was a catholic institution, controlled by the jesuits. in that day the religion was defended, was protected or supported by the state. behind the entire creed were the bayonet, the axe, the wheel, the fagot and the torture chamber. while voltaire was attending the college of louis le grand the soldiers of the king were hunting protestants in the mountains of cevennes for magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the wheel, or to burn at the stake. at seventeen voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. the father said, speaking of his two sons armand and francois, "i have a pair of fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose." in , voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. he went to the hague attached to the french minister, and there he fell in love. the girl's mother objected. voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she might visit him. everything was discovered and he was dismissed. to this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the key note of voltaire: "do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. you know what she is capable of. you have experienced it too well. dissemble; it is your only chance. tell her that you have forgotten me, that you hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more." on account of this episode voltaire was formally disinherited by his father. the father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the choice of going to prison or beyond the seas. he finally consented to become a lawyer, and says: "i have already been a week at work in the office of a solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger." about this time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's generosity in building the new choir in the cathedral notre dame. he did not win it. after being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the law, began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. great questions were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of light upon that epoch. in dr. baius took it into his head to sustain a number of propositions touching predestination to the prejudice of the doctrine of free will. the cordelian monks selected seventy-six of the propositions and denounced them to the pope as heretical, and from the pope obtained what was called a bull. this bull contained a doubtful passage, the meaning of which was dependent upon the position of a comma. the friends of dr. baius wrote to rome to find where the comma ought to be placed. rome, busy with other matter, sent as an answer a copy of the bull in which the doubtful sentence was left without any comma. so the dispute continued. then there was the great controversy between the jansenists and molinists. molini was a spanish jesuit, who sustained the doctrine of free will with a subtlety of his own, "man's will is free, but god sees exactly how he will use it." the presbyterians of our country are still wrestling with this important absurdity. jansenius was a french jesuit who carried the doctrine of predestination to the extreme, asserting that god commands things that are impossible, and that christ did not die for all. in the jesuits obtained a bull condemning five propositions of jansenius. the jansenists there upon denied that the five propositions--or any of them--were found in the works of jansenius. this question of jansenism and molinism occupied france for about two hundred years. in voltaire's time the question had finally dwindled down to whether the five propositions condemned by the papal bull were in fact in the works of jansenius. the jansenists proved that the five propositions were not in his book, because a niece of pascal had a diseased eye cured by the application of a thorn from the crown of christ. the bull unigenitus was launched in , and then all the prisons were filled with jansenists. this great question of predestination and free will, of free moral agency and accountability, and being saved by the grace of god, and damned for the glory of god, have occupied the mind of what we call the civilized world for many centuries. all these questions were argued pro and con through switzerland; all of them in holland for centuries; in scotland and england and new england, and millions of people are still busy harmonizing foreordination and free will, necessity and morality, predestination and accountability. louis xiv. having died, the regent took possession, and then the prisons were opened. the regent called for a list of all persons then in the prisons sent there at the will of the king. he found that, as to many prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. they had been forgotten. many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and could not guess why they had been arrested. one italian had been in the bastile thirty-three years without ever knowing why. on his arrival in paris, thirty-three years before, he was arrested and sent to prison. he had grown old. he had survived his family and friends. when the rest were liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived there the rest of his life. the old prisoners were pardoned, but in a little while their places were taken by new ones. at this time voltaire was not interested in the great world--knew very little of religion or of government. he was busy writing poetry, busy thinking of comedies and tragedies. he was full of life. all his fancies were winged like moths. he was charged with having written some cutting epigrams. he was exiled to tulle, three hundred miles away. from this place he wrote in the true vein--"i am at a chateau, a place that would be the most agreeable in the world if i had not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting for my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. it would be delicious to remain, if i only were allowed to go." at last the exile was allowed to return. again he was arrested; this time sent to the bastile, where he remained for nearly a year. while in prison he changed his name from francois-marie arouet to voltaire, and by that name he has since been known. voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to england. from sunny france he took his way to the mists and fogs of albion. he became acquainted with the highest and the best in britain. he met pope, a most wonderful verbal mechanic, a maker of artificial flowers, very much like natural ones, except that they lack perfume and the seeds of suggestion. he made the acquaintance of young, who wrote the "night thoughts;" young, a fine old hypocrite with a virtuous imagination, a gentleman who electioneered with the king's mistress that he might be made a bishop. he became acquainted with chesterfield--all manners, no man; with thomson, author of "the seasons," who loved to see the sun rise in bed and visit the country in town; with swift, whose poisoned arrows were then festering in the flesh of mr. bull--swift, as wicked as he was witty, and as heartless as he was humorous--with swift, a dean and a devil; with congreve, whom addison thought superior to shakespeare, and who never wrote but one great line, "the cathedral looking tranquillity." iii. the morn of manhood. voltaire began to think, to doubt, to inquire. he studied the history of the church, of the creed. he found that the religion of his time rested on the inspiration of the scriptures--the infallibility of the church--the dreams of insane hermits--the absurdities of the fathers--the mistakes and falsehoods of saints--the hysteria of nuns--the cunning of priests and the stupidity of the people. he found that the emperor constantine, who lifted christianity into power, murdered his wife fausta and his eldest son crispus, the same year that he convened the council of nice, to decide whether christ was a man or the son of god. the council decided, in the year , that christ was consubstantial with the father. he found that the church was indebted to a husband who assassinated his wife--a father who murdered his son, for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the savior. he found that theodosius called a council at constantinople in , by which it was decided that the holy ghost proceeded from the father--that theodosius, the younger, assembled a council at ephesus in , that declared the virgin mary to be the mother of god--that the emperor marcian called another council at chalcedon in , that decided that christ had two wills--that pognatius called another in , that declared that christ had two natures to go with his two wills--and that in , at the council of lyons, the important fact was found that the holy ghost "proceeded," not only from the father, but also from the son at the same time. so, it took about , years to find out a few things that had been revealed by an infinite god to his infallible church. voltaire found that this insane creed had filled the world with cruelty and fear. he found that vestments were more sacred than virtues--that images and crosses--pieces of old bones and bits of wood were more precious than the rights and lives of men, and that the keepers of these relics were the enemies of the human race. with all the energy of his nature--with every faculty of his mind--he attacked this "triumphant beast." voltaire was the apostle of common sense. he knew that there could have been no primitive or first language from which all other languages had been formed. he knew that every language had been influenced by the surroundings of the people. he knew that the language of snow and ice was not the language of palm and flower. he knew also that there had been no miracle in language. he knew that it was impossible that the story of the tower of babel should be true. he knew that everything in the whole world had been natural. he was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language but in science. one passage from him is enough to show his philosophy in this regard. he says; "to transmute iron into gold, two things are necessary: first, the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of gold." voltaire gave us the philosophy of history. voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. he despised with all his heart the philosophy of calvin, the creed of the sombre, of the severe, of the unnatural. he pitied those who needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. he had the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear what the future might bring. and yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the christian world has fought this man and has maligned his memory. in every christian pulpit his name has been pronounced with scorn, and every pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. he is one man of whom no orthodox minister has ever told the truth. he has been denounced equally by catholics and protestants. priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding elders and popes have filled the world with slanders, with calumnies about voltaire. i am amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the truth about an enemy of the church. as a matter of fact, for more than one thousand years, almost every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders have been coined. voltaire made up his mind to destroy the superstition of his time. he fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. he was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy. for pure crystallized wit, he had no equal. the art of flattery was carried by him to the height of an exact science. he knew and practiced every subterfuge. he fought the army of hypocrisy and pretence, the army of faith and falsehood. voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to gain the favor of priests, the patronage of nobles. sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed by these wretches; sometimes he attacked them. and, but for these attacks, long ago they would have been forgotten. in the amber of his genius voltaire preserved these insects, these tarantulas, these scorpions. it is fashionable to say that he was not profound. this is because he was not stupid. in the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. he thought god would not damn even a priest forever--this was regarded as blasphemy. he endeavored to prevent christians from murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples of christ. had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love of the christian world. had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, had he mumbled latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured now and then the flesh of god, and carried fagots to the feet of philosophy in the name of christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned. if he had only adopted the creed of his time--if he had asserted that a god of infinite power and mercy had created millions and billions of human beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his glorious justice--that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning and cruel italian pope, authorizing him to save the soul of his mistress and send honest wives to hell--if he had given to the nostril's of this god the odor of burning flesh--the incense of the fagot--if he had filled his ears with the shrieks of the tortured--the music of the rack, he would now be known as saint voltaire. for many years this restless man filled europe with the product of his brain. essays, epigrams, epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems, novels, representing every phase and every faculty of the human mind. at the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation, making money like a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with the scandals of priests. at the same time alive to all the discoveries of science and the theories of philosophers, and in this babel never forgetting for one moment to assail the monster of superstition. sleeping and waking he hated the church. with the eyes of argus he watched, and with the arms of briareus he struck. for sixty years he waged continuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes striking from the hedges of opportunity--taking care during all this time to remain independent of all men. he was in the highest sense successful. he lived like a prince, became one of the powers of europe, and in him, for the first time, literature was crowned. it has been claimed by the christian critics that voltaire was irreverent; that he examined sacred things without solemnity; that he refused to remove his shoes in the presence of the burning bush; that he smiled at the geology of moses, the astronomical ideas of joshua, and that the biography of jonah filled him with laughter. they say that these stories, these sacred impossibilities, these inspired falsehoods, should be read and studied with a believing mind in humbleness of spirit; that they should be examined prayerfully, asking god at the same time to give us strength to triumph over the conclusions of our reason. these critics imagine that a falsehood can be old enough to be venerable, and that to stand covered in its presence is the act of an irreverent scoffer. voltaire approached the mythology of the jews precisely as he did the mythology of the greeks and romans, or the mythology of the chinese or the iroquois indians. there is nothing in this world too sacred to be investigated, to be understood. the philosopher does not hide. secrecy is not the friend of truth. no man should be reverent at the expense of his reason. nothing should be worshiped until the reason has been convinced that it is worthy of worship. against all miracles, against all holy superstition, against sacred mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridicule. these arrows, winged by fancy, sharpened by wit, poisoned by truth, always reached the centre. it is claimed by many that anything, the best and holiest, can be ridiculed. as a matter of fact, he who attempts to ridicule the truth, ridicules himself. he becomes the food of his own laughter. the mind of man is many-sided. truth must be and is willing to be tested in every way, tested by all the senses. but in what way can the absurdity of the "real presence" be answered, except by banter, by raillery, by ridicule, by persiflage? how are you going to convince a man who believes that when he swallows the sacred wafer he has eaten the entire trinity, and that a priest drinking a drop of wine has devoured the infinite? how are you to reason with a man who believes that if any of the sacred wafers are left over they should be put in a secure place, so that mice should not eat god? what effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes that a god of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet? how are such people to be answered? how can they be brought to a sense of their absurdity? they must feel in their flesh the arrows of ridicule.. so voltaire has been called a mocker. what did he mock? he mocked kings that were unjust; kings who cared nothing for the sufferings of their subjects. he mocked the titled fools of his day. he mocked the corruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny and the brutality of judges. he mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous customs. he mocked popes and cardinals and bishops and priests, and all the hypocrites on the earth. he mocked historians who filled their books with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition. he mocked the haters of liberty, the persecutors of their fellow-men. he mocked the arrogance, the cruelty, the impudence, and the unspeakable baseness of his time. he has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule. hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always will. absurdity detests humor, and stupidity despises wit. voltaire was the master of ridicule. he ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. he ridiculed the mythologies and the miracles, the stupid lives and lies of the saints. he found pretence and mendacity crowned by credulity. he found the ignorant many controlled by the cunning and cruel few. he found the historian, saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with the details of the impossible, and he found the scientists satisfied with "they say." voltaire had the instinct of the probable. he knew the law of average, the sea level; he had the idea of proportion, and so he ridiculed the mental monstrosities and deformities--the _non sequiturs_--of his day. aristotle said women had more teeth than men. this was repeated again and again by the catholic scientists of the eighteenth century. voltaire counted the teeth. the rest were satisfied with "they say." voltaire for many years, in spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost universal tyranny and oppression, was a believer in god and what he was pleased to call the religion of nature. he attacked the creed of his time because it was dishonorable to his god. he thought of the deity as a father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and the creed of the catholic church made him a monster of cruelty and stupidity. he attacked the bible with all the weapons at his command. he assailed its geology, its astronomy, its ideas of justice, its laws and customs, its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel threats and its extravagant promises. at the same time he praised the god of nature, the god who gives us rain and light and food and flowers and health and happiness--who fills the world with youth and beauty. attacked on every side, he fought with every weapon that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos and indignation could sharpen, form, devise or use. he often apologized, and the apology was an insult. he often recanted, and the recantation was a thousand times worse than the thing recanted. he took it back by giving more. in the name of eulogy he flayed his victim. in his praise there was poison. he often advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction. he did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or suffer. upon this very point of recanting he wrote: "they say i must retract. very willingly. i will declare that pascal is always right. that if st. luke and st. mark contradict one another, it is only another proof of the truth of religion to those who know how to understand such things; and that another lovely proof of religion is that it is unintelligible. i will even avow that all priests are gentle and disinterested; that jesuits are honest people; that monks are neither proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the holy inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance. in a word, i will say all that may be desired of me, provided they leave me in repose, and will not persecute a man who has done harm to none." he gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor the oppressed, to shield the defenceless, to reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the innocent, to reform the laws of france, to do away with torture, to soften the hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings, to civilize the people, and to banish from the heart of man the love and lust of war. you may think that i have said too much; that i have placed this man too high. let me tell you what goethe, the great german, said of this man: "if you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, clearness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity and universality, perfection indeed, behold voltaire." even carlyle, that old scotch terrier, with the growl of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as i have sometimes thought, because he hated rivals, was forced to admit that voltaire gave the death stab to modern superstition. it is the duty of every man to destroy the superstitions of his time, and yet there are thousands of men and women, fathers and mothers, who repudiate with their whole hearts the creeds of superstition, and still allow their children to be taught these lies. they allow their imaginations to be poisoned with the dogma of eternal pain. they allow arrogant and ignorant parsons, meek and foolish teachers, to sow the seeds of barbarism in the minds of their children--seeds that will fill their lives with fear and pain. nothing can be more important to a human being than to be free and to live without fear. it is far better to be a mortal free man than an immortal slave. fathers and mothers should do their utmost to make their children free. they should teach them to doubt, to investigate, to inquire, and every father and mother should know that by the cradle of every child, as by the cradle of the infant hercules, crawls the serpent of superstition. iv. the scheme of nature. at that time it was pretended by the believers in god that the plan, or the scheme of nature, was not cruel; that the lower was sacrificed for the benefit of the higher; that while life lived upon life, while animals lived upon each other, and while man was the king or sovereign of all, still the higher lived upon the lower. consequently, a lower life was sacrificed that a higher life might exist. this reasoning satisfied many. yet there were thousands that could not see why the lower should be sacrificed, or why all joy should be born of pain. but, since the construction of the microscope, since man has been allowed to look toward the infinitely small, as well as toward the infinitely great, he finds that our fathers were mistaken when they laid down the proposition that only the lower life was sacrificed for the sake of the higher. now we find that the lives of all visible animals are liable to be, and in countless cases are, destroyed by a far lower life; that man himself is destroyed by the microbes, the bacilli, the infinitesimal. we find that for the sake of preserving the yellow fever germs millions and millions have died, and that whole nations have been decimated for the sake of the little beast that gives us the cholera. we have also found that there are animals, call them what you please, that live on the substance of the human heart, others that prefer the lungs, others again so delicate in their palate that they insist on devouring the optic nerve, and when they have destroyed the sight of one eye have sense enough to bore through the cartilage of the nose to attack the other. thus we find the other side of this proposition. at first sight the lower seemed to be sacrificed for the sake of the higher, but on closer inspection the highest are sacrificed for the sake of the lowest. voltaire was, for a long time, a believer in the optimism of pope--"all partial evil, universal good." this is a very fine philosophy for the fortunate. it suits the rich. it is flattering to kings and priests. it sounds well. it is a fine stone to throw at a beggar. it enables you to bear with great fortitude the misfortunes of others. it is not the philosophy for those who suffer--for industry clothed in rags, for patriotism in prison, for honesty in want, or for virtuous outcasts. it is a philosophy of a class, of a few, and of the few who are fortunate; and, when misfortune overtakes them, this philosophy fades and withers. in came the earthquake at lisbon. this frightful disaster became an immense interrogation. the optimist was compelled to ask, "what was my god doing? why did the universal father crush to shapelessness thousands of his poor children, even at the moment when they were upon their knees returning thanks to him?" what could be done with this horror? if earthquake there must be, why did it not occur in some uninhabited desert, on some wide waste of sea? this frightful fact changed the theology of voltaire. he became convinced that this is not the best possible of all worlds. he became convinced that evil is evil here, now, and forever. the theist was silent. the earthquake denied the existence of god. v. his humanity. toulouse was a favored town. it was rich in relics. the people were as ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the dried bodies of seven apostles--the bones of many of the infants slain by herod--part of a dress of the virgin mary, and lots of skulls and skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints. in this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy events: the expulsion of the huguenots, and the blessed massacre of st. bartholomew. the citizens of toulouse had been educated and civilized by the church. a few protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals and tigers. one of these protestants was jean calas--a small dealer in dry goods. for forty years he had been in this business, and his character was without a stain. he was honest, kind and agreeable. he had a wife and six children--four sons and two daughters. one of the sons became a catholic. the eldest son, marc antoine, disliked his father's business and studied law. he could not be allowed to practice unless he became a catholic. he tried to get his license by concealing that he was a protestant. he was discovered--grew morose. finally he became discouraged and committed suicide, by hanging himself one evening in his father's store. the bigots of toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him to prevent his becoming a catholic. on this frightful charge the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at their house, were arrested. the dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of the body. this happened in . there was what was called a trial. there was no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. all the facts were in favor of the accused. the united strength of the defendants could not have done the deed. jean calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. this was on the th of march, , and the sentence was to be carried out the next day. on the morning of the th the father was taken to the torture room. the executioner and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the torture according to the judgment of the court. they bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet from the ground, and his feet to another ring in the floor. then they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and legs was dislocated. then he was questioned. he declared that he was innocent. then the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body; but he remained firm. this was called "the question ordinaire." again the magistrates exhorted the victim to confess, and again he refused, saying that there was nothing to confess. then came "the question extraordinaire." into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three pints of water. in this way thirty pints of water were forced into the body of the sufferer. the pain was beyond description, and yet jean calas remained firm. he was then carried to the scaffold in a tumbril. he was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the scaffold. the executioner then took a bar of iron, broke each leg and each arm in two places, striking eleven blows in all. he was then left to die if he could. he lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. he was slow to die, and so the executioner strangled him. then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake and burned. all this was a spectacle--a festival for the savages of toulouse. what would they have done if their hearts had not been softened by the glad tidings of great joy--peace on earth and good will to men? but this was not all. the property of the family was confiscated; the son was released on condition that he become a catholic; the servant if she would enter a convent. the two daughters were consigned to a convent, and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she would. voltaire heard of this case. in a moment his soul was on fire. he took one of the sons under his roof. he wrote a history of the case. he corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. if money was needed, he advanced it. for years he filled europe with the echoes of the groans of jean calas. he succeeded. the horrible judgment was annulled--the poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to support the mother and family. this was the work of voltaire. the sirven family. sirven, a protestant, lived in languedoc with his wife and three daughters. the housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the daughters a catholic. the law allowed the bishop to take the child of protestants from their parents for the sake of its soul. this little girl was so taken and placed in a convent. she ran away and came back to her parents. her poor little body was covered with the marks of the convent whip. "suffer little children to come unto me." the child was out of her mind--suddenly she disappeared, and a few days after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home. the cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming a catholic. this happened only a little way from the christian city of toulouse while jean calas was in prison. the sirvens knew that a trial would end in conviction. they fled. in their absence they were convicted, their property confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother, and then to be exiled. the family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of the alps; the mother died, and, at last reaching switzerland, the father found himself without means of support. they went to voltaire. he espoused their cause. he took care of them, gave them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. he appealed to kings for money, to catharine ii. of russia, and to hundreds of others. he was successful. he said of this case: the sirvens were tried and condemned in two hours in january, , and now in january, , after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights. this was the work of voltaire. why should the worshipers of god hate the lovers of men? the espenasse case. espenasse was a protestant, of good estate. in he received into his house a protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging. in a country where priests repeated the parable of the "good samaritan," this was a crime. for this crime espenasse was tried, convicted and sentenced to the galleys for life. when he had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came to the knowledge of voltaire, and he was, through the efforts of voltaire, released and restored to his family. this was the work of voltaire. there is not time to tell of the case of general lally, of the english general byng, of the niece of corneille, of the jesuit adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time. but i will tell another case: in , at the town of abbeville, an old wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated--whittled with a knife--a terrible crime. sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh and blood. two young men were suspected--the chevalier de la barre and d'etallonde. d'etallonde fled to prussia and enlisted as a common soldier. la barre remained and stood his trial. he was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and d'etallonde were both sentenced: _first_, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary. _second_, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron. _third_, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church. _fourth_, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire. "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames. the case was appealed to paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges, learned in the law, and the judgment was confirmed. the sentence was carried out on the first day of july, . when voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon france. he wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were possible. he wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case. he ascertained the whereabouts of d'etallonde, wrote in his behalf to the king of prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his own house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed in drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of seeing him a captain of engineers in the army of frederick the great. such a man was voltaire. he was the champion of the oppressed and the helpless. he was the cæsar to whom the victims of church and state appealed. he stood for the intellect and heart of his time. and yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity, in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of voltaire. from a great height he surveyed the world. his horizon was large. he had some vices--these he shared in common with priests--his virtues were his own. he was in favor of universal education--of the development of the brain. the church despised him. he wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within the reach of all. every priest was his enemy. he wished to drive from the gate of eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the children of adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. the church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree of ignorance for sale. he was one of the foremost friends of the encyclopedia--of diderot, and did all in his power to give information to all. so far as principles were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. i do not mean that he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not only what the law should be, but its application and administration. he understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and statesmen of his time. at school, he read and studied the works of cicero--the lord of language--probably the greatest orator that has uttered speech, and the words of the roman remained in his brain. he became, in spite of the spirit of caste, a believer in the equality of men. he said: "men are born equal." "let us respect virtue and merit." "let us have it in the heart that men are equal." he was an abolitionist--the enemy of slavery in all its forms. he did not think that the color of one man gave him the right to steal from another man on account of that man's color. he was the friend of serf and peasant, and did what he could to protect animals, wives and children from the fury of those who loved their neighbors as themselves. it was voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of franklin, of jefferson and thomas paine. pufendorf had taken the ground that slavery was, in part, founded on contract. voltaire said: "show me the contract, and if it is signed by the party to be the slave, i may believe." he thought it absurd that god should drown the fathers, and then come and die for the children. this is as good as the remark of diderot: "if christ had the power to defend himself from the jews and refused to use it, he was guilty of suicide." he had sense enough to know that the flame of the fagot does not enlighten the mind. he hated the cruel and pitied the victims of church and state. he was the friend of the unfortunate--the helper of the striving. he laughed at the pomp of kings--the pretensions of priests. he was a believer in the natural and abhorred with all his heart the miraculous and absurd. voltaire was not a saint. he was educated by the jesuits. he was never troubled about the salvation of his soul. all the theological disputes excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his contempt. he was much better than a saint. most of the christians in his day kept their religion not for every day use but for disaster, as ships carry life boats to be used only in the stress of storm. voltaire believed in the religion of humanity--of good and generous deeds. for many centuries the church had painted virtue so ugly, sour and cold, that vice was regarded as beautiful. voltaire taught the beauty of the useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition. he was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the greatest man of his time, the greatest friend of freedom and the deadliest foe of superstition. he did more to break the chains of superstition--to drive the phantoms of fear from the heart and brain, to destroy the authority of the church and to give liberty to the world than any other of the sons of men. in the highest, the holiest sense he was the most profoundly religious man of his time. vi. the return. after an exile of twenty-seven years, occupying during all that time a first place in the civilized world, voltaire returned to paris. his journey was a triumphal march. he was received as a conqueror. the academy, the immortals, came to meet him--a compliment that had never been paid to royalty. his tragedy of "irene" was performed. at the theatre he was crowned with laurel, covered with flowers; he was intoxicated with perfume and with incense of worship. he was the supreme french poet, standing above them all. among the literary men of the world he stood first--a monarch by the divine right of genius. there were three mighty forces in france--the throne, the altar and voltaire. the king was the enemy of voltaire. the court could have nothing to do with him. the church, malign and morose, was waiting for her revenge, and yet, such was the reputation of this man--such the hold he had upon the people--that he became, in spite of throne, in spite of church, the idol of france. he was an old man of eighty-four. he had been surrounded with the comforts, the luxuries of life. he was a man of great wealth, the richest writer that the world had known. among the literary men of the earth he stood first. he was an intellectual king--one who had built his own throne and had woven the purple of his own power. he was a man of genius. the catholic god had allowed him the appearance of success. his last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery--of almost worship. he stood at the summit of his age. the priests became anxious. they began to fear that god would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of voltaire. towards the last of may, , it was whispered in paris that voltaire was dying. upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey. "two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the curé of saint sulpice and the abbé gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick chamber. 'ah, well!' said voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' the abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. the curé of saint sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our lord jesus christ. the sick man pushed one of his hands against the curés coif, shoving him back and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, 'let me die in peace.' the curé seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of a philosopher. he made the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the abbé gautier." he expired, says wagnière, on the th of may, , at about a quarter-past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. a few minutes before his last breath he took the hand of morand, his _valet de chambre_, who was watching by him, pressed it, and said: "adieu, my dear morand, i am gone." these were his last words. like a peaceful river with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless sea, where life is rest. from this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and tender, so natural and peaceful; from these words, so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances, have been drawn and made. from these materials, and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the shameless lies about the death of this great and wonderful man. a man, compared with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but dust and vermin. let us be honest. did all the priests of rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as bruno? did all the priests of france do as great a work for the civilization of the world as voltaire or diderot? did all the ministers of scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as david hume? have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as thomas paine? what would the world be if infidels had never been? the infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be. why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery--practiced polygamy---justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of st. bartholomew; the inventors and users of thumb-screws, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers and babes; the founders of the inquisition; the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of jesus christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of god? in those days the philosophers--that is to say, the thinkers--were not buried in holy ground. it was feared that their principles might contaminate the ashes of the just. and they also feared that on the morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip into heaven. some were burned, and their ashes scattered; and the bodies of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy earth. voltaire knew the history of adrienne le couvreur, a beautiful actress, denied burial. after all, we do feel an interest in what is to become of our bodies. there is a modesty that belongs to death. upon this subject voltaire was infinitely sensitive. it was that he might be buried that he went through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last sacrament. the priests knew that he was not in earnest, and voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of paris. his death was kept a secret. the abbé mignot made arrangements for the burial at romilli-on-the-seine, more than miles from paris. on sunday evening, on the last day of may, , the body of voltaire, clad in a dressing gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was placed in a carriage; at its side, a servant, whose business it was to keep it in position. to this carriage were attached six horses, so that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. another carriage followed, in which were a grand nephew and two cousins of voltaire. all night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at the courtyard of the abbey. the necessary papers were shown, the mass was performed in the presence of the body, and voltaire found burial. a few moments afterwards, the prior, who "for charity had given a little earth," received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial of voltaire. it was too late. voltaire was dead. the foundations of state and throne had been sapped. the people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and with the actual priests. unknown men born in misery and want, men whose fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising toward the light, and their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness. labor and thought became friends. that is, the gutter and the attic fraternized. the monsters of the night and the angels of the dawn--the first thinking of revenge, and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity. vii. the death-bed argument. all kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. as a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. the murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. the man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of christ, or the eternal "procession" of the holy ghost. the king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint. all the believing kings are in heaven--all the doubting philosophers in perdition. all the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground. libraries could hardly contain the names of the christian wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest, no minister, describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. these men had never doubted--they had never thought--they accepted the creed as they did the fashion of their clothes. they were not infidels, they could not be--they had been baptized, they had not denied the divinity of christ, they had partaken of the "last supper." they respected priests, they admitted that christ had two natures and the same number of wills; they admitted that the holy ghost had "proceeded," and that, according to the multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and three times one is one, and these things put pillows beneath their heads and covered them with the drapery of peace. they admitted that while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, god would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real god leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul. there is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent child being shielded by god. thousands of crimes are being committed every day--men are at this moment lying in wait for their human prey--wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death--little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers--sweet girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but god has no time to prevent these things--no time to defend the good and protect the pure. he is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. he listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology of moses and the astronomy of joshua. he does not particularly object to stealing, if you won't swear. a great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking god's name in vain, but millions of men, women and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of god. now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has appeared. such men have denounced the superstitions of their day. they have pitied the multitude. to see priests devour the substance of the people--priests who made begging one of the learned professions--filled them with loathing and contempt. these men were honest enough to tell their thoughts, brave enough to speak the truth. then they were denounced, tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. but some escaped the fury of the fiends who love their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. it would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. that would show that religion was not essential at the last moment. superstition gets its power from the terror of death. it would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the bible--refuse to kiss the cross--contend that humanity was greater than christ, and then die as sweetly as torquemada did, after pouring molten lead into the ears of an honest man; or as calmly as calvin after he had burned servetus; or as peacefully as king david after advising with his last breath one son to assassinate another. the church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels (that christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. it was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. every good christian was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. they have been told and retold in every pulpit of the world. protestant ministers have repeated the lies invented by catholic priests, and catholics, by a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the protestants. upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same falsehood can be used by both. instead of doing these things, voltaire wilfully closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and defended the oppressed. he demonstrated that the origin of all religions is the same--the same mysteries--the same miracles--the same imposture--the same temples and ceremonies--the same kind of founders, apostles and dupes--the same promises and threats--the same pretence of goodness and forgiveness and the practice of the same persecution and murder. he proved that religion made enemies--philosophy friends--and that above the rights of gods were the rights of man. these were his crimes. such a man god would not suffer to die in peace. if allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy fires of the _auto da fe_. it would not do for so great, so successful, an enemy of the church to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror uttered by lips covered with blood and foam. for many centuries the theologians have taught that an unbeliever--an infidel--one who spoke or wrote against their creed, could not meet death with composure; that in his last moments god would fill his conscience with the serpents of remorse. for a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this theory--this infamous conception of the duty of man and the justice of god. the theologians have insisted that crimes against man were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes against god. upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. when describing the shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with delight. it is a festival. they are no longer men. they become hyenas. they dig open graves. they devour the dead. it is a banquet. unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. they gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. they see them in flames--in oceans of fire--in gulfs of pain--in abysses of despair. they shout with joy. they applaud. it is an _auto da fe_, presided over by god. viii. the second return. for four hundred years the bastile had been the outward symbol of oppression. within its walls the noblest had perished. it was a perpetual threat. it was the last, and often the first, argument of king and priest. its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of god. in , on the th of july, the people, the multitude, frenzied by suffering, stormed and captured the bastile. the battle-cry was "vive voltaire." in permission was given to place in the pantheon the ashes of voltaire. he had been buried miles from paris. buried by stealth, he was to be removed by a nation. a funeral procession of a hundred miles; every village with its flags and arches; all the people anxious to honor the philosopher of france--the savior of calas--the destroyer of superstition. on reaching paris the great procession moved along the rue st. antoine. here it paused, and for one night upon the ruins of the bastile rested the body of voltaire--rested in triumph, in glory--rested on fallen wall and broken arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain and bar and useless bolt--above the dungeons dark and deep, where light had faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts. the conqueror resting upon the conquered.--throned upon the bastile, the fallen fortress of night, the body of voltaire, from whose brain had issued the dawn. for a moment his ashes must have felt the promethean fire, and the old smile must have illumined once more the face of death. the vast multitude bowed in reverence, hushed with love and awe heard these words uttered by a priest: "god shall be avenged." the cry of the priest was a prophecy. priests skulking in the shadows with faces sinister as night, ghouls in the name of the gospel, desecrated the grave. they carried away the ashes of voltaire. the tomb is empty. god is avenged. the world is filled with his fame. man has conquered. was there in the eighteenth century, a man wearing the vestments of the church, the equal of voltaire? what cardinal, what bishop, what priest in france raised his voice for the rights of men? what ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the oppressed--of the peasant? who denounced the frightful criminal code--the torture of suspected persons? what priest pleaded for the liberty of the citizen? what bishop pitied the victims of the rack? is there the grave of a priest in france on which a lover of liberty would now drop a flower or a tear? is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint from which emerges one ray of light? if there be another life--a day of judgment, no god can afford to torture in another world the man who abolished torture in this. if god be the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison there the men who broke the chains of slavery here. he cannot afford to make an eternal convict of voltaire. voltaire was a perfect master of the french language, knowing all its moods, tenses and declinations, in fact and in feeling--playing upon it as skillfully as paganini on his violin, finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing on the most serious subjects with the gayety of a harlequin, plucking jests from the crumbling mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows, dealing in double meanings that covered the asp with flowers and flattery--master of satire and compliment--mingling them often in the same line, always interested himself, and therefore interesting others--handling thoughts, questions, subjects as a juggler does balls, keeping them in the air with perfect ease--dressing old words in new meanings, charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit and wisdom, and sometimes wickedness, logic and laughter. with a woman's instinct knowing the sensitive nerves--just where to touch--hating arrogance of place, the stupidity of the solemn--snatching masks from priest and king, knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends--perfectly familiar with the great world--the intimate of kings and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving liberty with all his heart. such was voltaire writing "odipus" at seventeen, "irene" at eighty-three, and crowding between these two tragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives. from his throne at the foot of the alps, he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. for half a century, past rack and stake, past dungeon and cathedral, past altar and throne, he carried with brave hands the sacred torch of reason, whose light at last will flood the world. liberty in literature. (a testimonial to walt whitman.) * an address delivered in philadelphia, oct. , . used by permission of the truth seeker co. i. let us put wreaths on the brows of the living. in the year the american people knew but little of books. their ideals, their models, were english. young and pollok, addison and watts, were regarded as great poets. some of the more reckless read thomson's "seasons" and the poems and novels of sir walter scott. a few, not quite orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of pope, and the really wicked--those lost to all religious shame--were worshipers of shakespeare. the really orthodox protestant, untroubled by doubts, considered milton the greatest poet of them all. byron and shelley were hardly respectable--not to be read by young persons. it was admitted on all hands that burns was a child of nature of whom his mother was ashamed and proud. in the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were under the ban. creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, prejudice, custom, ignorance, stupidity, puritanism and slavery; that is to say, slavery of mind and body. of course it always has been, and forever will be, impossible for slavery, or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. there are hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of wrong--enemies of progress--but they are not poets, they are not men of genius. at this time a young man--he to whom this testimonial is given--he upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters--this man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "leaves of grass." this book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. the man is unmasked. no drapery of hypocrisy, no pretence, no fear. the book was as original in form as in thought. all customs were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken--nothing mechanical--no imitation--spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the waves of the sea--nothing mathematical or measured--in everything a touch of chaos; lacking what is called form, as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. it was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows and constellations. his book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with indignation and protest--by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, message to the world--full of thought, philosophy, poetry and music. in the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. a great soul appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. in his words is the old promethean flame. the heart of nature beats and throbs in his line. the respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the alarm, and cry, or rather screech: "is this a book for a young person?" a poem true to life as a greek statue--candid as nature--fills these barren souls with fear. they forget that drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty. the provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a duty rather than a passion--a kind of self-denial--not an over-mastering joy. they preach the gospel of pretence and pantalettes, in the presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and endeavor to feel immodest. to them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy adorned with a blush. they have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its strength--intense, intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and idealizes the object of its adoration. they do not walk the streets of the city of life--they explore the sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "unclean!" they pretend that beauty is a snare; that love is a delilah; that the highway of joy is the broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to the city of eternal sorrow. since the year the american people have developed; they are somewhat acquainted with the literature of the world. they have witnessed the most tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields of battle, but in the world of thought. the american citizen has concluded that it is hardly worth while being a sovereign unless he has the right to think for himself. and now, from this height, with the vantage-ground of to-day, i propose to examine this book and to state, in a general way, what walt whitman has done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the world of thought. ii. the religion of the body. walt whitman stood when he published his book, where all stand to-night, on the perpetually moving line where history ends and prophecy begins. he was full of life to the very tips of his fingers--brave, eager, candid, joyous with health. he was acquainted with the past. he knew something of song and story, of philosophy and art; much of the heroic dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of men, the habits of the people--rich as well as poor--familiar with labor, a friend of wind and wave, touched by love and friendship, liking the open road, enjoying the fields and paths, the crags, friend of the forest--feeling that he was free--neither master nor slave; willing that all should know his thoughts; open as the sky, candid as nature, and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his conclusions, his hopes and his mental portrait to his fellow-men. walt whitman announced the gospel of the body. he confronted the people. he denied the depravity of man. he insisted that love is not a crime; that men and women should be proudly natural; that they need not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame, he taught the dignity and glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity. maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering--the crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love! people had been taught from bibles and from creeds that maternity was a kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in some temple built in honor of some god. this barbarism was attacked in "leaves of grass." the glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was made for each and all. and yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. it was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of nature. to me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy. it was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. we were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. the writers did not faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. they endeavored to make a fashionable world. they pretended that the cottage or the hut in which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in which they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. they were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. they imitated; that is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the literature of most lands. walt whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion--the passion that builds every home and fills the world with art and song. they cried out: "he is a defender of passion--he is a libertine! he lives in the mire. he lacks spirituality!" whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led multitude--that is to say, with a multitude of taggers--will find out from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. it is a crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up guide-boards for the information of others. many, many centuries ago epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and of many centuries before and after, said: "happiness is the only good; happiness is the supreme end." this man was temperate, frugal, generous, noble--and yet through all these years he has been denounced by the hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker. it was said that whitman had exaggerated the importance of love--that he had made too much of this passion. let me say that no poet--not excepting shakespeare--has had imagination enough to exaggerate the importance of human love--a passion that contains all heights and all depths--ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations, and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable. no writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. he is to be measured by his work--by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of all. which way does the great stream tend? is it for good or evil? are the motives high and noble, or low and infamous? we cannot measure shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure the bible by a few chapters, nor "leaves of grass" by a few paragraphs. in each there are many things that i neither approve nor believe--but in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of prophecies and mistakes--in other words, among the excellencies there will be defects. the mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all diamonds--there are baser metals. the trees of the forest are not all of one size. on some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, and there may be growing beneath the bushes weeds, and now and then a poisonous vine. if i were to edit the great books of the world, i might leave out some lines and i might leave out the best. i have no right to make of my brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to the rest of the human race. i claim the right to choose. i give that right to all. walt whitman had the courage to express his thought--the candor to tell the truth. and here let me say it gives me joy--a kind of perfect satisfaction--to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher and higher, unconscious of their existence. and it gives me joy, a kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and jealousies of small and respectable people, above the considerations of place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man. it must be remembered that the american people had separated from the old world--that we had declared not only the independence of colonies, but the independence of the individual. we had done more--we had declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the church, and that the church could not be ruled by the state, and that the individual could not be ruled by the church. these declarations were in danger of being forgotten. we needed a new voice, sonorous, loud and clear, a new poet for america, for the new epoch, somebody to chant the morning song of the new day. the great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and instructs. most writers suppress individuality. they wish to please the public. they flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of their readers. they write for the market, making books as other mechanics make shoes. they have no message, they bear no torch, they are simply the slaves of customers. the books they manufacture are handled by "the trade;" they are regarded as harmless. the pulpit does not object; the young person can read the monotonous pages without a blush--or a thought. on the title pages of these books you will find the imprint of the great publishers; on the rest of the pages, nothing. these books might be prescribed for insomnia. iii. men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. they travel but the beaten path. the creative spirit is not in them. they regard with suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. they have little confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims and the feelings of all others. in all genius there is the touch of chaos--a little of the vagabond; and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for collaterals; they have a little fear of such people, and regard them as the awkward countryman does a sleight-of-hand performer. in every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. if what are known as the best people could have had their way, if the pulpit had been consulted--the provincial moralists--the works of shakespeare would have been suppressed. not a line would have reached our time. and the same may be said of every dramatist of his age. if the scotch kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of robert burns. if the good people, the orthodox, could have had their say, not one line of voltaire would now be known. all the plates of the french encyclopedia would have been destroyed with the thousands that were destroyed. nothing would have been known of d'alembert, grimm, diderot, or any of the titans who warred against the thrones and altars and laid the foundation of modern literature not only, but what is of far greater moment, universal education. it is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will. every book of modern times that has a real value, that has enlarged the intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that has furnished real food for thought, can be found in the index expurgatorius of the papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to the free minds of men by the denunciations of protestants. if the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could have had their way, we should have known nothing of byron or shelley. the voices that thrill the world would now be silent. if authority could have had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it was when our ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their prehensile tails. but we are not forced to go very far back. if shakespeare had been published for the first time now, those divine plays--greater than continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the midnight sky--would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the present enlightened postmaster-general. the poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has always been far better than the real world. as a consequence, they have forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies--the enthusiasm of the human race. the great poets have been on the side of the oppressed--of the downtrodden. they have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, and whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the hero has been stricken down--whether on field or scaffold--some man of genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations. from the greek and roman world we still hear the voices of a few. the poets, the philosophers, the artists and the orators still speak. countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the few who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole human race, and who were great enough to prophesy a grander day, are as alive to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their living voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow-men. think of the respectable people, of the men of wealth and position, those who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the grave voiceless, and whose names we do not know. think of the vast multitudes, the endless processions, that entered the caverns of eternal night, leaving no thought, no truth as a legacy to mankind! the great poets have sympathized with the people. they have uttered in all ages the human cry. unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have lifted high the torch that illuminates the world. iv. walt whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. he knows that there is but one excuse for government--the preservation of liberty, to the end that man may be happy. he knows that there is but one excuse for any institution, secular or religious--the preservation of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, lor universal education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of liberty. he resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. he has sworn never to be tyrant or slave. he has solemnly declared: "_i speak the pass-word primeval, i give the sign of democracy, by god! i will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms_." this one declaration covers the entire ground. it is a declaration of independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration that all shall be free. the man who has this spirit can truthfully say: "_i have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. i am for those that have never been master'd._" there is in whitman what he calls "the boundless impatience of restraint," together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say, "neither a servant nor a master am i." he was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: "as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same." he felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless the liberty of each is safe. there is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of the bowing and cringing to others. many americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people. nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. whitman has reminded the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to them: "_the president is there in the white house for you, it is not you who are here for him, the secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them. doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you_." he describes the ideal american citizen--the one who "_says indifferently and alike 'how are you, friend?' to the president at his levee, and he says 'good-day, my brother,' to cudge that hoes in the sugar-field_." long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, walt whitman shouted: "_man shall not hold property in man._" "_the least develop'd person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself as the most develop'd person is to himself or herself._" this is the very soul of true democracy. beauty is not all there is of poetry. it must contain the truth. it is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. it is both. around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty. walt whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. he is also the poet of individuality. v. individuality. in order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the individual. a democracy is a nation of free individuals. the individuals are not to be sacrificed to the nation. the nation exists only for the purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of men and women. walt whitman has told us that: "the whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual--namely to you." and he has also told us that the greatest city--the greatest nation--is "where the citizen is always the head and ideal." and that "_a great city is that which has the greatest men and women, if it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world._" by this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is camden. this poet has asked of us this question: "_what do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?_" the man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the dust, and has no dirt upon his knees. he was great enough to say: "_the soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own._" he carries the idea of individuality to its utmost height: "_what do you suppose i would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as god? and that there is no god any more divine than yourself?_" glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out: "o to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! to be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! to look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! to mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! to be indeed a god!" and again: "o the joy of a manly self-hood! to be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, to walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, to look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, to speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, to confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth." walt whitman is willing to stand alone. he is sufficient unto himself, and he says: "henceforth i ask not good-fortune, i myself am good-fortune. strong and content i travel the open road." he is one of "those that look carelessly in the faces of presidents and governors, as to say 'who are you? '" and not only this, but he has the courage to say: "nothing, not god, is greater to one than one's self." walt whitman is the poet of individuality--the defender of the rights of each for the sake of all--and his sympathies are as wide as the world. he is the defender of the whole race. vi. humanity. the great poet is intensely human, infinitely sympathetic, entering into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their sorrows. brain without heart is not much; they must act together. when the respectable people of the north, the rich, the successful, were willing to carry out the fugitive slave law, walt whitman said: "i am the hounded slave, i wince at the bite of the dogs, hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, i clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, i fall on the weeds and stones, the riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks. agonies are one of my changes of garments, i do not ask the wounded person how he feels, i myself become the wounded person.... i... see myself in prison shaped like another man, and feel the dull unintermitted pain. for me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch, it is i let out in the morning and barr'd at night. not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but i am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side. judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing." of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "not until the sun excludes you will i exclude you." in this age of greed when houses and lands and stocks and bonds outrank human life; when gold is of more value than blood, these words should be read by all: "when the psalm sings instead of the singer, when the script preaches instead of the preacher, when the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, when i can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again," when a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, when the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter, when warrantee deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, i intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as i do of men and women like you." vii. the poet is also a painter, a sculptor--he, too, deals in form and color. the great poet is of necessity a great artist. with a few words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women--with those who feel and speak. have you ever read the account of the stage-driver's funeral? let me read it: "cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets, a gray discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of december, a hearse and stages, the funeral of an old broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses. the coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in, the mound above is flatted with the spades--silence, a minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done, he is decently put away--is there anything more? he was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, died, aged forty-one years--and that was his funeral." let me read you another description, one of a woman: "behold a woman! she looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky. she sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, the sun just shines on her old white head. her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel. the melodious character of the earth. the finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, the justified mother of men." would you hear of an old-time sea-fight? "would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? list to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. our foe was no skulk in his ship i tell you, (said he,) his was the surly english pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. we closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, my captain lash'd fast with his own hands. we had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, on our lower gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, the master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves. the transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, they see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust. our frigate takes fire, the other asks if we demand quarter? if our colors are struck and the fighting done? now i laugh content, for i hear the voice of my little captain, 'we have not struck,' he composedly cries, 'we have just begun our part of the fighting.' only three guns are in use, one is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast, two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks. the tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top, they hold out bravely during the whole of the action. not a moment's cease, the leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazines. one of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking. serene stands the little captain, he is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, his eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns. toward twelve there in the beams of the moon the surrender to us. stretch'd and still lies the midnight, two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness. our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd, the captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet, near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, the dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers, the flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, the husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars, cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves, black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, a few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, the hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan." some people say that this is not poetry--that it lacks measure and rhyme. viii. what is poetry? the whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. that is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors and forms. the motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and thought flames--that contains all seeds of action--are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and qualities, so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce of thought. each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain. the greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. each man occupies a world of his own. he is the only citizen of his world. he is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. no two of these worlds are alike. they are of all kinds, from the flat, barren, and uninteresting--from the small and shriveled and worthless--to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. the inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech--the creators of art. and here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator tells what passes in his own world--the imitator does not. the imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. he is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled. in nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged. for the sake of beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even the pity of tyrants. he, above all others, has added to the intellectual beauty of the world. he has been the true creator of language, and has left his impress on mankind. what i have said is not only true of poetry--it is true of all speech. all are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. words have been invented and are being invented, for the reason that new powers are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings. the growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the human mind. the savage needs but few symbols--the civilized many--the poet most of all. the old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. before printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. that excuse no longer exists. is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? in my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance to expression. the rhymer is compelled to wander from his subject, to say more or less than he means, to introduce irrelevant matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance. all poems, of necessity, must be short. the highly and purely poetic is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. the planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. the spring must be quick and warm, the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain enough--everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. in poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden. the greatest poems are rhythmical. while rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm seems to be the comrade of the poetic. rhythm has a natural foundation. under emotion the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the sea. in the highest form of expression the thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow. the highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. i have sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself. the great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves. i do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured intervals. perfect time is the death of music. there should always be room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom. a word more about rhythm. i believe that certain feelings and passions---joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the brain--that every thought is accompanied by certain physical phenomena. now, it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements. so that what we call heroic music produces the same molecular action in the brain--the same physical changes--that are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief, actually produces. there may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular movements. all arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in different ways--that is to say, they produce like states of mind and feeling. the sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator, work to the same end, with different materials. the painter expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and relation. the poet also paints and chisels--his words give form, relation and color. his statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. the composer touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. in all these there must be rhythm--that is to say, proportion--that is to say, harmony, melody. so that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of life. he must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the people. the poetic is not the exceptional. a perfect poem is like a perfect day. it has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. it must not appear to be the result of great labor. we feel, in spite of ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest. the great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of his race. the sublimer he is, the simpler he is. the thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling--the words must be known, apt, familiar. the height must be in the thought, in the sympathy. in the olden time they used to have may day parties, and the prettiest child was crowned queen of may. imagine an old blacksmith and his wife looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. they would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so beautiful a child. it is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual children or ideals of the people. they must not be gemmed and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. out from all the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know. we have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. we have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders--there are millions of miracles under our feet. nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. the phantoms have been cast aside. men and women are enough for men and women. in their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend. the painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible--he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "the angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell--two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for, nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears--nothing. and yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for--that they have life, love, and hope--and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts. ix. the attitude of whitman toward religion has not been understood. toward all forms of worship, toward all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. he does not believe that nature has given her last message to man. he does not believe that all has been ascertained. he denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. he believes in progress, and so believing he says: "we consider bibles and religions divine--i do not say they are not divine, i say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, it is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life." "his [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, in the dispute on god and eternity he is silent." "have you thought there could be but a single supreme? there can be any number of supremes--one does not countervail another anymore than one eyesight countervails another." upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul: "no array of terms can say how much i am at peace about god and about death. i hear and behold god in every object, yet understand god not in the least, nor do i understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.... in the faces of men and women i see god, and in my own face in the glass, i find letters from god dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by god's name." the whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes: "not objecting to special revelations--considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation." the creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, whitman says: "magnifying and applying come i, outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, taking myself the exact dimensions of jehovah, lithographing kronos, zeus his son, and hercules his grandson, buying drafts of osiris, isis, belus, brahma, buddha, in my portfolio placing manito loose, allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, with odin and the hideous-faced mexitli, and every idol and image, taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more." whitman keeps open house. he is intellectually hospitable. he extends his hand to a new idea. he does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. he knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks, on stupidity and fear. neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. he wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are. x. philosophy. walt whitman is a philosopher. the more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. to the common man the great problems are easy. he has no trouble in accounting for the universe. he can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. as a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him. a colony of red ants lived at the foot of the alps. it happened one day that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?" walt whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he said: "i too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, a few sands and dead leaves to gather, gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me i have not once had the least idea who or what i am, but that before all my arrogant poems the real me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, with peals of distant ironical laughter at every word i have written, pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.... i perceive i have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can." there is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled "elemental drifts." the effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, fruitless. those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass. the latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows: "to me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main outline to something further. somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the worldly affairs of life and sense. that is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings of leaves of grass." as a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. we can see a certain distance; beyond that, everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. in the presence of these mysteries--and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned--the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "i do not know." in the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever, and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light, a few momentary sparks. some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together. but none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter. the materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. these spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. y ou take in your hand a little earth--a little dust. do you know what it is? in this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit. what is this dust--this womb? do you understand it? is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this? take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret--an impregnable fortress. bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. the citadel does not fall. over the battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts. walt whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit--the end of the road traveled by the human race. he knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. this truth was in his mind when he said: "understand me well; it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." this is the generalization of all history. xi. the two poems. there are two of these poems to which i will call special attention. the first is entitled, "a word out of the sea." the boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries--from the memories of birds--from the thousand responses of his heart--goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence. two guests from alabama--two birds--build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy: "shine! shine! shine! pour down your warmth, great sun! while we bask, we two together. two together! winds blow south, or winds blow north, day come white, or night come black, . home, or rivers and mountains from home, singing all time, minding no time, while we two keep together." in a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the lost: "blow! blow! blow! blow up sea-winds along paumanok's shore; i wait and i wait till you blow my mate to me." and the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes. and the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer; waiting and then crying again: "here i am! and this gentle call is for you. do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are the shadows;" and at last crying: "o past! o happy life! o songs of joy! in the air, in the woods, over fields, loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! but my mate no more, no more with me! we two together no more." and then the 'boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the birds, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low delicious word "death!" "ever death!" the next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: "when lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd," is on the death of lincoln, "the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands." one who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous western star" and "the gray-brown bird singing in the pines and cedars." in this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event. never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the tolling bells--and the sprig of lilac. and then for a moment they will hear the gray-brown bird singing in the cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the west, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the burial house--pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold--of the gorgeous indolent sinking sun--the sweet herbage under foot--the green leaves of the trees prolific--the breast of the river with the wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land--and the most excellent sun so calm and haughty--the violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes--the gentle soft-born measureless light--the miracle spreading, bathing all--the fulfill'd noon--the coming eve delicious, and the welcome night and the stars. and then again they will hear the song of the gray-brown bird in the limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. again they will remember the star, and again the odor of the lilac. but most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant for death: a chant for death. "come lovely and soothing death, undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, in the day, in the night, to all, to each, sooner or later delicate death. prais'd be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, and for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! for the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? then i chant it for thee, i glorify thee above all, i bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. approach strong deliveress, when it is so, when thou hast taken them i joyously sing the dead, lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, laved in the flood of thy bliss, o death. from me to thee glad serenades, dances for thee i propose saluting thee, adornments and 'feastings for thee, and the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting, and life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. the night in silence under many a star, the ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice i know, and the soul turning to thee o vast and well-veil'd death, and the body gratefully nestling close to thee. over the tree-tops i float thee a song, over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, i float this carol with joy, with joy to thee o death." this poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last as long as the memory of lincoln. xii. old age. walt whitman is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but, above all, of old age. he has not been soured by slander or petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or arrogant. now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life, "his jocund heart still beating in his breast," he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks. he has taken life's seven steps. now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet," he is enjoying "old age, expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying days." he is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters thanks: "for health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life, for precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear--you, father--you, brothers, sisters, friends,) for all my days--not those of peace alone--the days of war the same, for gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands, for shelter, wine and meat--for sweet appreciation, (you distant, dim unknown--or young or old--countless, unspecified, readers belov'd, we never met, and ne'er shall meet--and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long;) for beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books--for colors, forms, for all the brave strong men--devoted, hardy men--who've forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands, for braver, stronger, more devoted men--(a special laurel ere i go, to life's war's chosen ones, the cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists-- the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:" it is a great thing to preach philosophy--far greater to live it. the highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as though it were desired. to be satisfied: this is wealth--success. the real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have happened--consequently he accepts. he is glad that he has lived--glad that he has had his moment on the stage. in this spirit whitman has accepted life. "i shall go forth, i shall traverse the states awhile, but i cannot tell whither or how long, perhaps soon some day or night while i am singing my v voice will suddenly cease. o book, o chants! must all then amount to but this? must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?--and yet it is enough, o soul; o soul, we have positively appear'd--that is enough." yes, walt whitman has appeared. he has his place upon the stage. the drama is not ended. his voice is still heard. he is the poet of democracy--of all people. he is the poet of the body and soul. he has sounded the note of individuality. he has given the pass-word primeval. he is the poet of humanity--of intellectual hospitality. he has voiced the aspirations of america--and, above all, he is the poet of love and death. how grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is his farewell--his leave-taking: "after the supper and talk--after the day is done, as a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, good-bye and good-bye with emotional lips repeating, (so hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet, no more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, a far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,) shunning, postponing severance--seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, e'en at the exit-door turning--charges superfluous calling back-- e'en as he descends the steps, something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall deepening, farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form, soon to be lost for aye in the darkness--loth, o so loth to depart!" and is this all? will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? is death the end? over the grave bends love sobbing, and by her side stands hope and whispers: we shall meet again. before all life is death, and after all death is life. the falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. walt whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered sublime thoughts. he has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way. as you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "leaves of grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the morning, of the first great singers--voices elemental as those of sea and storm. the horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are forgotten--the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. obstructions become petty and disappear. the chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. the soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars--the flag of nature. creeds, theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, reconstructed. prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom abdicates. the sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. authority drops the scepter, the priest the mitre, and the purple falls from kings. the inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech, and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. a feeling of independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes rich, royal, and superb. the world becomes a personal possession, and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. you are in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and throbs the pulse of all life. you become a rover, careless and free. you wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. you feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over-arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. you are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. you traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. you stand in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. you live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. you are in the great cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. you are on the wide plains--the prairies--with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. you sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. you travel many roads, and countless paths. you visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the infamous. you hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. you become familiar with men and women of all employments, trades and professions--with birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. you see the cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace. in this one book, in these wondrous "leaves of grass," you find hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, with a smile, extends his hand to death. we have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "leaves of grass." the great infidels.* * this lecture is printed from notes found among colonel ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for publication. i have sometimes thought that it will not make great and splendid character to rock children in the cradle of hypocrisy. i do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a god who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. for my part, i believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art--in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion. neither do i believe thought to be dangerous. it is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. it is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. there can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions. we have passed midnight in the great struggle between fact and faith, between science and superstition. the brand of intellectual inferiority is now upon the orthodox brain. there is nothing grander than to rescue from the leprosy of slander the reputation of a good and generous man. nothing can be nearer just than to benefit our benefactors. the infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. the destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. the old passes away, and the new becomes old. there is in the intellectual world, as in the material, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy. the history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels. political rights have been preserved by traitors--the liberty of the mind by heretics. to attack the king was treason--to dispute the priest was blasphemy. the sword and cross were allies. they defended each other. the throne and altar were twins--vultures from the same egg. it was james i. who said: "no bishop, no king." he might have said: "no cross, no crown." the king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men. one lived on taxes, the other on alms. one was a robber, the other a beggar, and each was both. these robbers and beggars controlled two worlds. the king made laws, the priest made creeds. with bowed backs the people received the burdens of the one, and with wonder's open mouth the dogmas of the other. if any aspired to be free they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. the king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both. the king said to the people: "god made you peasants, and he made me king. he made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. such is the justice of god." and the priest said: "god made you ignorant and vile. he made me holy and wise. if you do not obey me, god will punish you here and torment you hereafter. such is the mercy of god." infidels are intellectual discoverers. they sail the unknown seas and find new isles and continents in the infinite realms of thought. an infidel is one who has found a new fact, who has an idea of his own, and who in the mental sky has seen another star. he is an intellectual capitalist, and for that reason excites the envy and hatred of the theological pauper. the origin of god and heaven, of the devil and hell. in the estimation of good orthodox christians i am a criminal, because i am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. i want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the god that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure--a god made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. i shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend. is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light from the glare of hell? infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. to worship an eternal goaler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. while there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy. against the heartlessness of the christian religion every grand and tender soul should enter solemn protest. the god of hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. a god who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved--cursed, not worshiped. a heaven presided over by such a god must be below the lowest hell. i want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell--in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss. the idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. this idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas. our barbarian ancestors knew but little of nature. they were too astonished to investigate. they could not divest themselves of the idea that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. they made up their minds that at least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that both demanded praise and worship; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the next. the devil has paid cash--god buys on credit. man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward him. when his poor hut was torn and broken by the wind, he thought it a punishment. when some town or city was swept away by flood or sea, he imagined that the crimes of the inhabitants had been avenged. when the land was filled with plenty, when the seasons were kind, he thought that he had pleased the tyrant of the skies. it must be remembered that both gods and devils were supposed to be presided over by the greatest god and the greatest devil. the god could give infinite rewards and could inflict infinite torments. the devil could assist man here; could give him wealth and place in this world, in consideration of owning his soul hereafter. each human soul was a prize contended for by these deities. of course this god and this devil had innumerable spirits at their command, to execute their decrees. the god lived in heaven and the devil in hell. both were mon-archs and were infinitely jealous of each other. the priests pretended to be the agents and recruiting sergeants of this god, and they were duly authorized to promise and threaten in his name; they had power to forgive and curse. these priests sought to govern the world by force and fear. believing that men could be frightened into obedience, they magnified the tortures and terrors of perdition. believing also that man could in part be influenced by the hope of reward, they magnified the joys of heaven. in other words, they promised eternal joy and threatened everlasting pain. most of these priests, born of the ignorance of the time, believed what they taught. they proved that god was good by sunlight and harvest, by health and happiness; that he was angry, by disease and death. man, according to this doctrine, was led astray by the devil, who delighted only in evil. it was supposed that god demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters and heretics, and that he regarded all investigation as rebellion. now and then believers in these ideas, those who had gained great reputation for learning and sanctity, or had enjoyed great power, wrote books, and these books after a time were considered sacred. most of them were written to frighten mankind, and were filled with threatenings and curses for unbelievers and promises for the faithful. the more frightful the curses, the more extravagant the promises, the more sacred the books were considered. all of the gods were cruel and vindictive, unforgiving and relentless, and the devils were substantially the same. it was also believed that certain things must be accepted as true, no matter whether they were reasonable or not; that it was pleasing to god to believe a certain creed, especially if it happened to be the creed of the majority. each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of god were converted or killed. to allow a heretic to live in peace was to invite the wrath of god. every public evil--every misfortune--was accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. when epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the vengeance of god. from the knowledge they had--from their premises--they reasoned well. they said, if god will inflict such frightful torments upon us here, simply for allowing a few heretics to live, what will he do with the heretics? of course the heretics would be punished forever. they knew how cruel was the barbarian king when he had the traitor in his power. they had seen every horror that man could inflict on man. of course a god could do more than a king. he could punish forever. the fires he would kindle never could be quenched. the torments he would inflict would be eternal. they thought the amount of punishment would be measured only by the power of god. these ideas were not only prevalent in what are called barbarous times, but they are received by the religious world of to-day. no death could be conceived more horrible than that produced by flames. to these flames they added eternity, and hell was produced. they exhausted the idea of personal torture. by putting intention behind what man called good, god was produced. by putting intention behind what man called bad, the devil was created. leave this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away. if not a human being existed the sun would continue to shine, and tempests now and then would devastate the world; the rain would fall in pleasant showers, and the bow of promise would adorn the cloud; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, and the earthquake would devour; birds would sing, and daisies bloom, and roses blush, and the volcanoes would fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine just as serenely as though the world was filled with loving hearts and happy homes. but in the olden time man thought otherwise. he imagined that he was of great importance. barbarians are always egotistic. they think that the stars are watching them; that the sun shines on their account; that the rain falls for them, and that gods and devils are really troubling themselves about their poor and ignorant souls. in those days men fought for their god as they did for their king. they killed the enemies of both. for this their king would reward them here, and their god hereafter. with them it was loyalty to destroy the disloyal. they did not regard god as a vague "spirit," nor as an "essence" without body or parts, but as a being, a person, an infinite man, a king, the monarch of the universe, who had garments of glory for believers and robes of flame for the heretic and infidel. do not imagine that this doctrine of hell belongs to christianity alone. nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. upon this burning foundation nearly all have built. over the abyss of pain rose the glittering dome of pleasure. this world was regarded as one of trial. here a god of infinite wisdom experimented with man. between the outstretched paws of the infinite the mouse, man, was allowed to play. here man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. here he could read and hear read the sacred books. here he could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. here he could build churches and cathedrals. here he could burn incense, fast, wear haircloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, count beads, be miserable one day in seven, make creeds, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images, eat little square pieces of bread, sprinkle water on the heads of babes, shut his eyes and say words to the clouds, and slander and defame all who have the courage to despise superstition, and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. after death, nothing could be done to make him better. when he should come into the presence of god, nothing was left except to damn him. priests might convert him here, but god could do nothing there,--all of which shows how much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator; how much more potent is the example of your average christian than that of all the angels, and how much superior earth is to heaven for the moral development of the soul. in heaven the devil is not allowed to enter. there all are pure and perfect, yet they cannot influence a soul for good. only here, on the earth, where the devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement. strange! that a world cursed by god, filled with temptations and thick with fiends, should be the only place where hope exists, the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! strange! that heaven, filled with angels and presided over by god, is the only place where reformation is utterly impossible! yet these are the teachings of all the believers in the eternity of punishment. masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. the poor have damned the rich and the rich the poor. the imprisoned imagined a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker, religion for reason, superstition for science. all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word--hell. for the nourishment of this dogma cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light. christians have placed upon the throne of the universe a god of eternal hate. i cannot worship a being whose vengeance is boundless, whose cruelty is shoreless, and whose malice is increased by the agonies he inflicts. the appeal to the cemetery. whoever attacks a custom or a creed, will be confronted with a list of the names of the dead who upheld the custom, or believed the creed. he is asked in a very triumphant and sneering way, if he knows more than all the great and honored of the past every defender of a creed has graven upon his memory the names of all "great" men whose actions or words can be tortured into evidence for his doctrine. the church is always anxious to have some king or president certify to the moral character of christ, the authority of the scriptures, and the justice of the jewish god. of late years, confessions of gentlemen about to be hanged have been considered of great value, and the scaffold is regarded as a means of grace. all the churches of our day seek the rich. they are no longer the friends and defenders of the poor. poverty no longer feels at home in the house of god. in the temple of the most high, garments out of fashion are considered out of place. people now, before confessing to god what worthless souls they have, enrich their bodies. now words of penitence mingle with the rustle of silk, and light thrown from diamonds adorns the repentant tear. we are told that the rich, the fortunate, the holders of place and office, the fashionable, the respectable, are all within the churches. and yet all these people grow eloquent over the poverty of christ--boast that he was born in a manger--that the holy ghost passed by all the ladies of titled wealth and fashion and selected the wife of a poor and unknown mechanic for the mother of god. they admit that all the men of jerusalem who held high positions--all the people of wealth, influence and power--were the enemies of the savior and held his pretensions in contempt. they admit that he had influence only with the poor, and that he was so utterly unknown--so indigent in acquaintance, that it was necessary to bribe one of his disciples to point him out to the police. they assert that he had done a great number of miracles--had cured the sick, and raised the dead--that he had preached to vast multitudes--had made a kind of triumphal entry into jerusalem--had scourged from the temple the changers of money--had disputed with the doctors--and yet, notwithstanding all these things, he remained in the very depths of obscurity. surely he and his disciples could have been met with the argument that the "great" dead were opposed to the new religion. the apostles, it is claimed, preached the doctrines of christ in rome and athens, and the people of those cities could have used the arguments against christianity that christians now use in its support. they could have asked the apostles if they were wiser than all the philosophers, poets, orators, and statesmen dead--if they knew more, coming as they did from a weak and barbarous nation, than the greatest men produced by the highest civilization of the known world. with what scorn would the greeks listen to a barbarian's criticisms upon socrates and plato. how a roman would laugh to hear a vagrant hebrew attack a mythology that had been believed by cato and virgil. every new religion has to overcome this argument of the cemetery--this logic of the grave. old ideas take shelter behind a barricade of corpses and tombstones. they have epitaphs for battle-cries, and malign the living in the name of the dead. the moment, however, that a new religion succeeds, it becomes the old religion and uses the same argument against a new idea that it once so gallantly refuted. the arguments used to-day against what they are pleased to call infidelity would have shut the mouth of every religious reformer, from christ to the founder of the last sect. the general objection to the new is, that it differs somewhat from the old, and the fact that it does differ is urged as an argument against its truth. every man is forced to admit that he does not agree with all the great men, living or dead. the average catholic, if not a priest, as a rule will admit that sir isaac newton was in some things his superior, that demosthenes had the advantage of him in expressing his ideas in public, and that as a sculptor he is far below the unknown man of whose hand and brain was born the venus de milo, but he will not, on account of these admissions, change his views upon the important question of transubstantiation. most protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and genius to some men who have lived and died in the catholic church; that in the matter of preaching funeral sermons they do not pretend to equal bossuet; that their letters are not so interesting and polished as those of pascal; that torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment dispute the palm with catherine de medici. and yet, after all these admissions, they would insist that the pope is an unblushing impostor, and that the catholic church is a vampire fattened by the best blood of a thousand years. the truth is, that in favor of almost every sect, the names of some great men can be pronounced. in almost every church there have been men whose only weakness was their religion, and who in other directions achieved distinction. if you call men great because they were emperors, kings, noblemen, statesmen, millionaires--because they commanded vast armies and wielded great influence in their day, then more names can be found to support and prop the church of rome than any other christian sect. is protestantism willing to rest its claims upon the "great man" argument? give me the ideas, the religions, not that have been advanced and believed by the so-called great of the past, but that will be defended and believed by the great souls of the future. it gives me pleasure to say that lord bacon was a great man; but i do not for that reason abandon the copernican system of astronomy, and insist that the earth is stationary. samuel johnson was an excellent writer of latinized english, but i am confident that he never saw a real ghost. matthew hale was a reasonably good judge of law, but he was mistaken about witches causing children to vomit crooked pins. john wesley was quite a man, in a kind of religious way, but in this country few people sympathize with his hatred of republican government, or with his contempt for the revolutionary fathers. sir isaac newton, in the domain of science, was the colossus of his time, but his commentary on the book of revelation would hardly excite envy, even in the breast of a spurgeon or a talmage. upon many questions, the opinions of napoleon were of great value, and yet about his bed, when dying, he wanted to see burning the holy candles of rome. john calvin has been called a logician, and reasoned well from his premises, but the burning of servetus did not make murder a virtue. luther weakened somewhat the power of the catholic church, and to that extent was a reformer, and yet lord brougham affirmed that his "table talk" was so obscene that no respectable english publisher would soil paper with a translation. he was a kind of religious rabelais; and yet a man can defend luther in his attack upon the church without justifying his obscenity. if every man in the catholic church was a good man, that would not convince me that ignatius loyola ever met and conversed with the virgin mary. the fact is, very few men are right in everything. great virtues may draw attention from defects, but they cannot sanctify them. a pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem. no one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and beliefs of that man. it is better to give reasons and facts than names. an argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author. facts need no pedigree; logic has no heraldry, and the living should not be awed by the mistakes of the dead. the greatest men the world has produced have known but little. they had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. in some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind. daniel webster had great respect for the scriptures, but very little for the claims of his creditors. most men are strangely inconsistent. two propositions were introduced into the confederate congress by the same man. one was to hoist the black flag, and the other was to prevent carrying the mails on sunday. george whitefield defended the slave trade, because it brought the negroes within the sound of the gospel, and gave them the advantage of associating with the gentlemen who stole them. and yet this same whitefield believed and taught the dogma of predestination. volumes might be written upon the follies and imbecilities of great men. a full rounded man--a man of sterling sense and natural logic--is just as rare as a great painter, poet, or sculptor. if you tell your friend that he is not a painter, that he has no genius for poetry, he will probably admit the truth of what you say, without feeling that he has been insulted in the least. but if you tell him that he is not a logician, that he has but little idea of the value of a fact, that he has no real conception of what evidence is, and that he never had an original thought in his life, he will cut your acquaintance. thousands of men are most wonderful in mechanics, in trade, in certain professions, keen in business, knowing well the men among whom they live, and yet satisfied with religions infinitely stupid, with politics perfectly senseless, and they will believe that wonderful things were common long ago, such things as no amount of evidence could convince them had happened in their day. a man may be a successful merchant, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, statesman, or theologian without one particle of originality, and almost without the ability to think logically upon any subject whatever. other men display in some directions the most marvelous intellectual power, astonish mankind with their grasp and vigor, and at the same time, upon religious subjects drool and drivel like david at the gates of gath. sacred books. we have found, at last, that other nations have sacred books much older than our own, and that these books and records were and are substantiated by traditions and monuments, by miracles and martyrs, christs and apostles, as well as by prophecies fulfilled. in all of these nations differences of opinion as to the authenticity and meaning of these books arose from time to time, precisely as they have done and still do with us, and upon these differences were founded sects that manufactured creeds. these sects denounced each other, and preached with the sword and endeavored to convince with the fagot. our theologians were greatly astonished to find in other bibles the same stories, precepts, laws, customs and commands that adorn and stain our own. at first they accounted for this, by saying that these books were in part copies of the jewish scriptures, mingled with barbaric myths. to such an extent did they impose upon and insult probability, that they declared that all the morality of the world, all laws commanding right and prohibiting wrong, all ideas respecting the unity of a supreme being, were borrowed from the jews, who obtained them directly from god. the christian world asserts with warmth, not always born of candor, that the bible is the source, origin, and fountain of law, liberty, love, charity, and justice; that it is the intellectual and moral sun of the world; that it alone gives happiness here, and alone points out the way to joy hereafter; that it contains the only revelation from the infinite; that all others are the work of dishonest and mistaken men. they say these things in spite of the fact that the jewish nation was one of the weakest and most barbaric of the past; in spite of the fact that the civilization of egypt and india had commenced to wane before that of palestine existed. to account for all the morality contained in the sacred books of the hindus, by saying that it was borrowed from the wanderers in the desert of sinai, from the escaped slaves of the egyptians, taxes to the utmost the credulity of ignorance, bigotry, and zeal. the men who make these assertions are not superior to other men. they have only the facts common to all, and they must admit that these facts do not force the same conclusions upon all. they must admit that men equally honest, equally well informed as themselves, deny their premises and conclusions. they must admit that had they been born and educated in some other country, they would have had a different religion, and would have regarded with reverence and awe the books they now hold as false and foolish. most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. they mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the titlepage and preface to a most learned volume. so they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. and when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. in each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged. there is the same evidence in favor of the inspiration of the koran and bible. both are substantiated in exactly the same way. it is just as wicked and unreasonable to be a heretic in constantinople as in new york. to deny the claims of christ and mohammed is alike blasphemous. it all depends upon where you are when you make the denial. no religion has ever fallen that carried with it down to dumb death a solitary fact. mistakes moulder with the temples in which they were taught, and countless superstitions sleep with their dead priests. yet christians insist that the religions of all nations that have fallen from wealth and power were false, with of course the solitary exception of the jewish, simply because the nations teaching them dropped from their dying hands the swords of power. this argument drawn from the fate of nations proves no more than would one based upon the history of persons. with nations as with individuals, the struggle for life is perpetual, and the law of the survival of the fittest applies equally to both. it may be that the fabric of our civilization will crumbling fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even memory forgets. perhaps the blind samson of some imprisoned force, released by thoughtless chance, may so wreck and strand the world that man, in stress and strain of want and fear, will shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. the time may come in which this thrilled and throbbing earth, shorn of all life, will in its soundless orbit wheel a barren star, on which the light will fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love upon the cold, pathetic face of death. fear. 't'here is a view quite prevalent, that in some way you can prove whether the theories defended or advanced by a man are right or not, by showing what kind of man he was, what kind of life he lived, and what manner of death he died. a man entertains certain opinions; he is persecuted. he refuses to change his mind; he is burned, and in the midst of flames cries out that he dies without change. hundreds then say that he has sealed his testimony with his blood, and his doctrines must be true. all the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr,--never the correctness of his thought. things are true or false in themselves. truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. an error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth. no christian will admit that any amount of heroism displayed by a mormon is sufficient to prove that joseph smith was divinely inspired. all the courage and culture, all the poetry and art of ancient greece, do not even tend to establish the truth of any myth. the testimony of the dying concerning some other world, or in regard to the supernatural, cannot be any better, to say the least, than that of the living. in the early days of christianity a serene and intrepid death was regarded as a testimony in favor of the church. at that time pagans were being converted to christianity--were throwing jupiter away and taking the hebrew god instead. in the moment of death many of these converts, without doubt, retraced their steps and died in the faith of their ancestors. but whenever one died clinging to the cross of the new religion, this was seized upon as an evidence of the truth of the gospel. after a time the christians taught that an unbeliever, one who spoke or wrote against their doctrines, could not meet death with composure--that the infidel in his last moments would necessarily be a prey to the serpent of remorse. for more than a thousand years they have made the "facts" to fit this theory. crimes against men have been considered as nothing when compared with a denial of the truth of the bible, the divinity of christ, or the existence of god. according to the theologians, god has always acted in this way. as long as men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, god maintained the strictest and most heartless neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real god leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul. there is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent being shielded by god. thousands of crimes are committed every day--men are this moment lying in wait for their human prey--wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death--little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers--sweet girls are deceived, lured, and outraged, but god has no time to prevent these things--no time to defend the good and to protect the pure. he is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. he listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers; watches professors in colleges who begin to doubt the geology of moses and the astronomy of joshua. he does not particularly object to stealing if you won't swear. a great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking god's name in vain, but millions of men, women, and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of god. all kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. as a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. the murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. the man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of christ, or the eternal "procession" of the holy ghost. the king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint. the emperor constantine, who lifted christianity into power, murdered his wife fausta, and his eldest son crispus, the same year that he convened the council of nice to decide whether jesus christ was a man or the son of god. the council decided that christ was consubstantial with the father. this was in the year . we are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the savior. theodosius called a council at constantinople in , and this council decided that the holy ghost proceeded from the father. theodosius, the younger, assembled another council at ephesus to ascertain who the virgin mary really was, and it was solemnly decided in the year that she was the mother of god. in it was decided by a council held at chalcedon, called together by the emperor marcian, that christ had two natures--the human and divine. in , in another general council, held at constantinople, convened by order of pognatius, it was also decided that christ had two wills, and in the year it was decided at the council of lyons, that the holy ghost proceeded not only from the father, but from the son as well. had it not been for these councils, we might have been without a trinity even unto this day. when we take into consideration the fact that a belief in the trinity is absolutely essential to salvation, how unfortunate it was for the world that this doctrine was not established until the year . think of the millions that dropped into hell while these questions were being discussed. this, however, is a digression. let us go back to constantine. this emperor, stained with every crime, is supposed to have died like a christian. we hear nothing of fiends leering at him in the shadows of death. he does not see the forms of his murdered wife and son covered with the blood he shed. from his white and shrivelled lips issued no shrieks of terror. he does not cover his glazed eyes with thin and trembling hands to shut out the visions of hell. his chamber is filled with the rustle of wings--of wings waiting to bear his soul to the thrilling realms of joy. against the emperor constantine the church has hurled no anathema. she has accepted the story of his vision in the clouds, and his holy memory has been guarded by priest and pope. all the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers in the name of christ rest in consecrated ground. whole libraries could not contain even the names of the wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest or minister describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror, with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. these men had never doubted--they accepted the creed--they were not infidels--they had not denied the divinity of christ--they had been baptized--they had partaken of the last supper--they had respected priests--they admitted that the holy ghost had "proceeded," and these things put pillows beneath their dying heads, and covered them with the drapery of peace. now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty has appeared. these men have denounced the superstitions of their day. they pitied the multitude. to see priests devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. these men were honest enough to tell their thoughts. then they were denounced, tried, condemned, executed. some of them escaped the fury of the people who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. it would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. that would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment. religion got much of its power from the terror of death. the death test. you had better live well and die wicked. you had better live well and die cursing than live badly and die praying. it would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that christ was only a man, and yet die as calmly as calvin did after he had murdered servetus, or as did king david after advising one son to kill another. the church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels (that christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. it was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. every good christian was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. they have been told and retold in every pulpit of the world. protestant ministers have repeated the inventions of catholic priests, and catholics, by a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the falsehoods told by protestants. upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same calumny can be used by both. upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. when describing the shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with delight. it is a festival. they are no longer men. they become hyenas. they dig open graves. they devour the reputations of the dead. it is a banquet. unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. they gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. they see them in flames--in oceans of fire--in gulfs of pain--in abysses of despair. they shout with joy. they applaud. it is an _auto da fe_, presided over by god and his angels. the men they thus describe were not atheists; they were all believers in god, in special providence, and in the immortality of the soul. they believed in the accountability of man--in the practice of virtue, in justice, and liberty, but they did not believe in that collection of follies and fables called the bible. in order to show that an infidel must die overwhelmed with remorse and fear, they have generally selected from all the "unbelievers" since the day of christ five men--the emperor julian, spinoza, voltaire, diderot, david hume, and thomas paine. hardly a minister in the united states has attempted to "answer" me without referring to the death of one or more of these men. in vain have these calumniators of the dead been called upon to prove their statements. in vain have rewards been offered to any priestly maligner to bring forward the evidence. let us once for all dispose of these slanders--of these pious calumnies. julian. they say that the emperor julian was an apostate that he was once a christian; that he fell from grace, and that in his last moments, throwing some of his own blood into the air, he cried out to jesus christ, "galilean, thou hast conquered!" it must be remembered that the christians had persecuted and imprisoned this very julian; that they had exiled him; that they had threatened him with death. many of his relatives were murdered by the christians. he became emperor, and christians conspired to take his life. the conspirators were discovered and they were pardoned. he did what he could to prevent the christians from destroying each other. he held pomp and pride and luxury in contempt, and led his army on foot, sharing the privations of the meanest soldier. upon ascending the throne he published an edict proclaiming universal religious toleration. he was then a pagan. it is claimed by some that he never did entirely forget his christian education. in this i am inclined to think there is some truth, because he revoked his edict of toleration, and for a time was nearly as unjust as though he had been a saint. he was emperor one year and seven months. in a battle with the persians he was mortally wounded. "brought back to his tent, and feeling that he had but a short time to live, he spent his last hours in discoursing with his friends on the immortality of the soul. he reviewed his reign and declared that he was satisfied with his conduct, and had neither penitence nor remorse to express for anything that he had done." his last words were: "i submit willingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced that he who is captivated with life, when his last hour has arrived is more weak and pusillanimous than he who would rush to voluntary death when it is his duty still to live." when we remember that a christian emperor murdered julian's father and most of his kindred, and that he narrowly escaped the same fate, we can hardly blame him for having a little prejudice against a church whose members were fierce, ignorant, and bloody--whose priests were hypocrites, and whose bishops were assassins. if julian had said he was a christian--no matter what he actually was, he would have satisfied the church. the story that the dying emperor acknowledged that he was conquered by the galilean was originated by some of the so-called fathers of the church, probably by gregory or theodoret. they are the same wretches who said that julian sacrificed a woman to the moon, tearing out her entrails with his own hands. we are also informed by these hypocrites that he endeavored to rebuild the temple of jerusalem, and that fire came out of the earth and consumed the laborers employed in the sacrilegious undertaking. i did not suppose that an intelligent man could be found in the world who believed this childish fable, and yet in the january number for , of the _princeton review_, the rev. stuart robinson (whoever he may be) distinctly certifies to the truth of this story. he says: "throughout the entire era of the planting of the christian church, the gospel preached was assailed not only by the malignant fanaticism of the jew and the violence of roman statecraft, but also by the intellectual weapons of philosophers, wits, and poets. now celsus denounced the new religion as base imposture. now tacitus described it as but another phase of the _odium generis humani. now julian proposed to bring into contempt the prophetic claims of its founder by the practical test of rebuilding the temple_." here then in the year of grace is a presbyterian preacher, who really believes that julian tried to rebuild the temple, and that god caused fire to issue from the earth and consume the innocent workmen. all these stories rest upon the same foundation--the mendacity of priests. julian changed the religion of the empire, and diverted the revenues of the church. whoever steps between a priest and his salary, will find that he has committed every crime. no matter how often the slanders may be refuted, they will be repeated until the last priest has lost his body and found his wings. these falsehoods about julian were invented some fifteen hundred years ago, and they are repeated to-day by just as honest and just as respectable people as those who told them at first. whenever the church cannot answer the arguments of an opponent, she attacks his character. she resorts to falsehood, and in the domain of calumny she has stood for fifteen hundred years without a rival. the great empire was crumbling to its fall. the literature of the world was being destroyed by priests. the gods and goddesses were driven from the earth and sky. the paintings were torn and defaced. the statues were broken. the walls were left desolate, and the niches empty. art, like rachel, wept for her children, and would not be comforted. the streams and forests were deserted by the children of the imagination, and the whole earth was barren, poor and mean. christian ignorance, bigotry and hatred, in blind unreasoning zeal, had destroyed the treasures of our race. art was abhorred, knowledge was despised, reason was an outcast. the sun was blotted from the intellectual heaven, every star extinguished, and there fell upon the world that shadow--that midnight,--known as "the dark ages." this night lasted for a thousand years. the first great star--herald of the dawn--was bruno. bruno. the night of the middle ages lasted for a thousand years. the first star that enriched the horizon of this universal gloom was giordano bruno. he was the herald of the dawn. he was born in , was educated for a priest, became a dominican friar. at last his reason revolted against the doctrine of transubstantiation. he could not believe that the entire trinity was in a wafer, or in a swallow of wine. he could not believe that a man could devour the creator of the universe by eating a piece of bread. this led him to investigate other dogmas of the catholic church, and in every direction he found the same contradictions and impossibilities supported, not by reason, but by faith. those who loved their enemies threatened his life. he was obliged to flee from his native land, and he became a vagabond in nearly every nation of europe. he declared that he fought, not what priests believed, but what they pretended to believe. he was driven from his native country because of his astronomical opinions. he had lost confidence in the bible as a scientific work. he was in danger because he had discovered a truth. he fled to england. he gave some lectures at oxford. he found that institution controlled by priests. he found that they were teaching nothing of importance--only the impossible and the hurtful. he called oxford "the widow of true learning." there were in england, at that time, two men who knew more than the rest of the world. shakespeare was then alive. bruno was driven from england. he was regarded as a dangerous man,--he had opinions, he inquired after reasons, he expressed confidence in facts. he fled to france. he was not allowed to remain in that country. he discussed things--that was enough. the church said, "move on." he went to germany. he was not a believer--he was an investigator. the germans wanted believers; they regarded the whole christian system as settled; they wanted witnesses; they wanted men who would assert. so he was driven from germany. he returned at last to his native land. he found himself without friends, because he had been true, not only to himself, but to the human race. but the world was false to him because he refused to crucify the christ of his own soul between the two thieves of hypocrisy and bigotry. he was arrested for teaching that there are other worlds than this; that many of the stars are suns, around which other worlds revolve; that nature did not exhaust all her energies on this grain of sand called the earth. he believed in a plurality of worlds, in the rotation of this, in the heliocentric theory. for these crimes, and for these alone, he was imprisoned for six years. he was kept in solitary confinement. he was allowed no books, no friends, no visitors. he was denied pen and paper. in the darkness, in the loneliness, he had time to examine the great questions of origin, of existence, of destiny. he put to the test what is called the goodness of god. he found that he could neither depend upon man nor upon any deity. at last, the inquisition demanded him. he was tried, condemned, excommunicated and sentenced to be burned. according to professor draper, he believed that this world is animated by an intelligent soul--the cause of forms, but not of matter; that it lives in all things, even in such as seem not to live; that everything is ready to become organized; that matter is the mother of forms, and then their grave; that matter and the soul of things, together, constitute god. he was a pantheist--that is to say, an atheist. he was a lover of nature,--a reaction from the asceticism of the church. he was tired of the gloom of the monastery. he loved the fields, the woods, the streams. he said to his brother-priests: come out of your cells, out of your dungeons: come into the air and light. throw away your beads and your crosses. gather flowers; mingle with your fellow-men; have wives and children; scatter the seeds of joy; throw away the thorns and nettles of your creeds; enjoy the perpetual miracle of life. on the sixteenth day of february, in the year of grace , by "the triumphant beast," the church of rome, this philosopher, this great and splendid man, was burned. he was offered his liberty if he would recant. there was no god to be offended by his recantation, and yet, as an apostle of what he believed to be the truth, he refused this offer. to those who passed the sentence upon him he said: "it is with greater fear that ye pass this sentence upon me than i receive it." this man, greater than any naturalist of his day; grander than the martyr of any religion, died willingly in defence of what he believed to be the sacred truth. he was great enough to know that real religion will not destroy the joy of life on earth; great enough to know that investigation is not a crime--that the really useful is not hidden in the mysteries of faith. he knew that the jewish records were below the level of the greek and roman myths; that there is no such thing as special providence; that prayer is useless; that liberty and necessity are the same, and that good and evil are but relative. he was the first real martyr,--neither frightened by perdition, nor bribed by heaven. he was the first of all the world who died for truth without expectation of reward. he did not anticipate a crown of glory. his imagination had not peopled the heavens with angels waiting for his soul. he had not been promised an eternity of joy if he stood firm, nor had he been threatened with the fires of hell if he wavered and recanted. he expected as his reward an eternal nothing! death was to him an everlasting end--nothing beyond but a sleep without a dream, a night without a star, without a dawn--nothing but extinction, blank, utter, and eternal. no crown, no palm, no "well done, good and faithful servant," no shout of welcome, no song of praise, no smile of god, no kiss of christ, no mansion in the fair skies--not even a grave within the earth--nothing but ashes, wind-blown and priest-scattered, mixed with earth and trampled beneath the feet of men and beasts. the murder of this man will never be completely and perfectly avenged until from rome shall be swept every vestige of priest and pope, until over the shapeless ruin of st. peter's, the crumbled vatican and the fallen cross, shall rise a monument to bruno,--the thinker, philosopher, philanthropist, atheist, martyr. the church in the time of voltaire. when voltaire was born, the natural was about the only thing in which the church did not believe. the monks sold little amulets of consecrated paper. they would cure diseases. if laid in a cradle they would prevent a child being bewitched. so, they could be put into houses and barns to keep devils away, or buried in a field to prevent bad weather, to delay frost, and to insure good crops. there was a regular formulary by which they were made, ending with a prayer, after which the amulets were sprinkled with holy water. the church contended that its servants were the only legitimate physicians. the priests cured in the name of the church, and in the name of god, by exorcism, relics, water, salt, and oil. st. valentine cured epilepsy, st. gervasius was good for rheumatism, st. michael de sanatis for cancer, st. judas for coughs, st. ovidius for deafness, st. sebastian for poisonous bites, st. apollonia for toothache, st. clara for rheum in the eye, st. hubert for hydrophobia. devils were driven out with wax tapers, with incense, with holy water, by pronouncing prayers. the church, as late as the middle of the twelfth century, prohibited good catholics from having anything to do with physicians. it was believed that the devils produced storms of wind, of rain and of fire from heaven; that the atmosphere was a battlefield between angels and devils; that lucifer had power to destroy fields and vineyards and dwellings, and the principal business of the church was to protect the people from the devil. this was the origin of church bells. these bells were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. the bells also prevented storms and lightning. the church used to anathematize insects. in the sixteenth century, regular suits were commenced against rats, and judgment was rendered. every monastery had its master magician, who sold magic incense, salt, and tapers, consecrated palms and relics. every science was regarded as an outcast, an enemy. every fact held the creed of the church in scorn. investigators were enemies in disguise. thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power for centuries to prevent the intellectual progress of man. there was no liberty, no education, no philosophy, no science; nothing but credulity, ignorance, and superstition. the world was really under the control of satan and his agents. the church, for the purpose of increasing her power, exhausted every means to convince the people of the existence of witches, devils, and fiends. in this way the church had every enemy within her power. she simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communication with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces. to such an extent was this frightful course pursued, and such was the prevalence of the belief in the supernatural, that the worship of the devil was absolutely established. the poor people, brutalized by the church, filled with fear of satanic influence, finding that the church did not protect, as a last resort began to worship the devil. the power of the devil was proven by the bible. the history of job, the temptation of christ in the desert, the carrying of christ to the top of the temple, and hundreds of other instances, were relied upon as establishing his power; and when people laughed about witches riding upon anointed sticks in the air, invisible, they were reminded of a like voyage when the devil carried jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. this frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend. it the husband denounce the wife, the children the parents, and the parents the children it destroyed all the sweet relations of humanity. it did away with justice in the courts. it destroyed the charity of religion. it broke the bond of friendship. it filled with poison the golden cup of life. it turned earth into a very hell, peopled with ignorant, tyrannical, and malicious demons. such was the result of a few centuries of christianity. such was the result of a belief in the supernatural. such was the result of giving up the evidence of our own senses, and relying upon dreams, visions, and fears. such was the result of destroying human reason, of depending upon the supernatural, of living here for another world instead of for this, of depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. the protestants vied with the catholics. luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted, in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. to the catholic, every protestant was possessed by a devil. to the protestant, every catholic was the homestead of a fiend. all order, all regular succession of causes and effects, were known no more. the natural ceased to exist. the learned and the ignorant were on a level. the priest had been caught in the net spread for the peasant, and christendom was a vast madhouse, with insane priests for keepers. voltaire when voltaire was born, the church ruled and owned france. it was a period of almost universal corruption. the priests were mostly libertines. the judges were nearly as cruel as venal. the royal palace was simply a house of assignation. the nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant, and cruel to the last degree. the common people were treated as beasts. it took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things. the seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest. they germinated in the hearts of the helpless. they were watered by the tears of agony. blows began to bear interest. there was a faint longing for blood. workmen, blackened by the sun, bent by labor, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them. in those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture. the church was the arsenal of superstition. miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as rags. voltaire laughed at the evidences, attacked the pretended facts, held the bible up to ridicule, and filled europe with indignant protests against the cruelty, bigotry, and injustice of the time. he was a believer in god, and in some ingenious way excused this god for allowing the catholic church to exist. he had an idea that, originally, mankind were believers in one god, and practiced all the virtues. of course this was a mistake. he imagined that the church had corrupted the human race. in this he was right. it may be that, at one time, the church relatively stood for progress, but when it gained power, it became an obstruction. the system of voltaire was contradictory. he described a being of infinite goodness, who not only destroyed his children with pestilence and famine, but allowed them to destroy each other. while rejecting the god of the bible, he accepted another god, who, to say the least, allowed the innocent to be burned for love of him. voltaire hated tyranny, and loved liberty. his arguments to prove the existence of a god were just as groundless as those of the reverend fathers of his day to prove the divinity of christ, or that mary was the mother of god. the theologians of his time maligned and feared him. he regarded them as a spider does flies. he spread nets for them. they were caught, and he devoured them for the amusement and benefit of the public. he was educated by the jesuits, and sometimes acted like one. it is fashionable to say that he was not profound, this is because he was not stupid. in the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. he thought god would not damn even a priest forever: this was regarded as blasphemy. he endeavored to prevent christians from murdering each other and did what he could to civilize the disciples of christ. had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love of the christian world. had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, had he mumbled latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured the flesh of god, and carried fagots to the feet of philosophy in the name of christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned. instead of doing these things, he willfully closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and defended the oppressed. these were his crimes. such a man god would not suffer to die in peace. if allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto da fe. it would not do for so great, so successful an enemy of the church, to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered with blood and foam. he was an old man of eighty-four. he had been surrounded with the comforts of life; he was a man of wealth, of genius. among the literary men of the world he stood first. god had allowed him to have the appearance of success. his last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. he stood at the summit of his age. the priests became anxious. they began to fear that god would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of voltaire. toward the last of may, , it was whispered in paris that voltaire was dying. upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey. "two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the curé of saint sulpice and the abbé gautier and brought them into his uncle's sick chamber, who was informed that they were there. 'ah, well!' said voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' the abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. the curé of saint sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our lord jesus christ. the sick man pushed one of his hands against the curé's coif, shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, 'let me die in peace.' the curé seemingly considered his person soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of the philosopher. he made the nurse give him a little brushing, and went out with the abbé gautier." he expired, says wagniere, on the th of may, , at about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of morand, his _valet de chambre_, who was watching by him, pressed it and said: "adieu, my dear morand, i am gone." these were his last words. from this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful; from these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances, have been drawn and made. from these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed all the shameless lies about the death of this great and wonderful man, compared with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were and are but dust and vermin. voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. from his throne at the foot of the alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. he was the pioneer of his century. he was the assassin of superstition. he left the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. through the shadows of faith and fable, through the darkness of myth and miracle, through the midnight of christianity, through the blackness of bigotry, past cathedral and dungeon, past rack and stake, past altar and throne, he carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch of reason. diderot. doubt is the first step toward truth. diderot was born in . his parents were in what may be called the humbler walks of life. like voltaire he was educated by the jesuits. he had in him something of the vagabond, and was for several years almost a beggar in paris. he was endeavoring to live by his pen. in that day and generation, a man without a patron, endeavoring to live by literature, was necessarily almost a beggar. he nearly starved--frequently going for days without food. afterward, when he had something himself, he was as generous as the air. no man ever was more willing to give, and no man less willing to receive, than diderot. he wrote upon all conceivable subjects, that he might have bread. he even wrote sermons, and regretted it all his life. he and d'alembert were the life and soul of the encyclopaedia. with infinite enthusiasm he helped to gather the knowledge of the world for the use of each and all. he harvested the fields of thought, separated the grain from the straw and chaff, and endeavored to throw away the seeds and fruit of superstition. his motto was, "_incredulity is the first step towards philosophy_." he had the vices of most christians--was nearly as immoral as the majority of priests. his vices he shared in common, his virtues were his own. all who knew him united in saying that he had the pity of a woman, the generosity of a prince, the self-denial of an anchorite, the courage of cæsar, and the enthusiasm of a poet. he attacked with every power of his mind the superstition of his day. he said what he thought. the priests hated him. he was in favor of universal education--the church despised it. he wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within reach of the poorest. he wished to drive from the gate of the garden of eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the child of adam might return to eat once more the fruit of the tree of knowledge. every catholic was his enemy. his poor little desk was ransacked by the police searching for manuscripts in which something might be found that would justify the imprisonment of such a dangerous man. whoever, in , wished to increase the knowledge of mankind was regarded as the enemy of social order. the intellectual superstructure of france rests upon the encyclopaedia. the knowledge given to the people was the impulse, the commencement, of the revolution that left the church without an altar and the king without a throne. diderot thought for himself, and bravely gave his thoughts to others. for this reason he was regarded as a criminal. he did not expect his reward in another world. he did not do what he did to please some imaginary god. he labored for mankind. he wished to lighten the burdens of those who should live after him. hear these noble words: "the more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? this: that prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. o posterity! holy and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith never, never abandon me!" posterity is for the philosopher what the other world is for the devotee. diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true christ was guilty of suicide. having the power to defend himself he should have used it. of course it would not do for the church to allow a man to die in peace who had added to the intellectual wealth of the world. the moment diderot was dead, catholic priests began painting and recounting the horrors of his expiring moments. they described him as overcome with remorse, as insane with fear; and these falsehoods have been repeated by the protestant world, and will probably be repeated by thousands of ministers after we are dead. the truth is, he had passed his three-score years and ten. he had lived for seventy-one years. he had eaten his supper. he had been conversing with his wife. he was reclining in his easy chair. his mind was at perfect rest. he had entered, without knowing it, the twilight of his last day. above the horizon was the evening star, telling of sleep. the room grew still and the stillness was lulled by the murmur of the street. there were a few moments of perfect peace. the wife said, "he is asleep." she enjoyed his repose, and breathed softly that he might not be disturbed. the moments wore on, and still he slept. lovingly, softly, at last she touched him. yes, he was asleep. he had become a part of the eternal silence. david hume. the worst religion of the world was the presbyterianism of scotland as it existed in the beginning of the eighteenth century. the kirk had all the faults of the church of rome without a redeeming feature. the kirk hated music, painting, statuary, and architecture. anything touched with humanity--with the dimples of joy--was detested and accursed. god was to be feared--not loved. life was a long battle with the devil. every desire was of satan. happiness was a snare, and human love was wicked, weak and vain. the presbyterian priest of scotland was as cruel, bigoted and heartless as the familiar of the inquisition. one case will tell it all: in the beginning of this, the nineteenth century, a boy seventeen years of age, thomas aikenhead, was indicted and tried at edinburgh for blasphemy. he had denied the inspiration of the bible. he had on several occasions, when cold, jocularly wished himself in hell that he might get warm. the poor, frightened boy recanted--begged for mercy; but he was found guilty, hanged, thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold, and his weeping mother vainly begged that his bruised and bleeding body might be given to her. this one case, multiplied again and again, gives you the condition of scotland when, on the th of april, , david hume was born. david hume was one of the few scotchmen of his day who were not owned by the church. he had the manliness to examine historical and religious questions for himself, and the courage to give his conclusions to the world. he was singularly capable of governing himself. he was a philosopher, and lived a calm and cheerful life, unstained by an unjust act, free from all excess, and devoted in a reasonable degree to benefiting his fellow-men. after examining the bible he became convinced that it was not true. for failing to suppress his real opinion, for failing to tell a deliberate falsehood, he brought upon himself the hatred of the church. intellectual honesty is the sin against the holy ghost, and whether god will forgive this sin or not his church has not, and never will. hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until the fact that it had happened was established. but how can a miracle be established? take any miracle recorded in the bible, and how could it be established now? you may say: upon the testimony of those who wrote the account. who were they? no one knows. how could you prove the resurrection of lazarus? or of the widow's son? how could you substantiate, today, the ascension of jesus christ? in what way could you prove that the river jordan was divided upon being struck by the coat of a prophet? how is it possible now to establish the fact that the fires of a furnace refused to burn three men? where are the witnesses? who, upon the whole earth, has the slightest knowledge upon this subject? he insisted that at the bottom of all good was the useful; that human happiness was an end worth working and living for; that origin and destiny were alike unknown; that the best religion was to live temperately and to deal justly with our fellow-men; that the dogma of inspiration was absurd, and that an honest man had nothing to fear. of course the kirk hated him. he laughed at the creed. to the lot of hume fell ease, respect, success, and honor. while many disciples of god were the sport and prey of misfortune, he kept steadily advancing. envious christians bided their time. they waited as patiently as possible for the horrors of death to fall upon the heart and brain of david hume. they knew that all the furies would be there, and that god would get his revenge. adam smith, author of the "wealth of nations," speaking of hume in his last sickness, says that in the presence of death "his cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much in the usual strain, that, notwithstanding all his bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying. a few days before his death hume said: 'i am dying as fast as my enemies--if i have any--could wish, and as easily and tranquilly as my best friends could desire.'" col. edmondstoune shortly afterward wrote hume a letter, of which the following is an extract: "my heart is full. i could not see you this morning. i thought it was better for us both. you cannot die--you must live in the memory of your friends and acquaintances; and your works will render you immortal. i cannot conceive that it was possible for any one to dislike you, or hate you. he must be more than savage who could be an enemy to a man with the best head and heart and the most amiable manners." adam smith happened to go into his room while he was reading the above letter, which he immediately showed him. smith said to hume that he was sensible of how much he was weakening, and that appearances were in many respects bad; yet, that his cheerfulness was so great and the spirit of life still seemed to be so strong in him, that he could not keep from entertaining some hopes. hume answered, "when i lie down in the evening i feel myself weaker than when i arose in the morning; and when i rise in the morning, weaker than when i lay down in the evening. i am sensible, besides, that some of my vital parts are affected so that i must soon die." "well," said mr. smith, "if it must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, and the members of your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity." he replied that he was so sensible of his situation that when he was reading lucian's dialogues of the dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted him. he had no house to finish; he had no daughter to provide for; he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself; "and i could not well," said he, "imagine what excuse i could make to charon in order to obtain a little delay. i have done everything of consequence which i ever meant to do, and i could, at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which i am now likely to leave them; and i have, therefore, every reason to die contented." "upon further consideration," said he, "i thought i might say to him, 'good charon, i have been correcting my works for a new edition. allow me a little time that i may see how the public receives the alterations.' 'but,' charon would answer, 'when you have seen the effect of this, you will be for making other alterations. there will be no end to such excuses; so, my honest friend, please step into the boat.' 'but,' i might still urge, 'have a little patience, good charon; i have been endeavoring to open the eyes of the public; if i live a few years longer, i may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.' and charon would then lose all temper and decency, and would cry out, 'you loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. do you fancy i will grant you a lease for so long a time? get into the boat this instant.'" to the comtesse de boufflers, the dying man, with the perfect serenity that springs from an honest and loving life, writes: "i see death approach gradually without any anxiety or regret.... i salute you with great affection and regard, for the last time." on the th of august, , the philosopher, the historian, the infidel, the honest man, and a benefactor of his race, in the composure born of a noble life, passed quietly and panglessly away. dr. black wrote the following account of his death: "monday, august, . "dear sir: yesterday, about four o'clock in the afternoon, mr. hume expired. the near approach of his death became evident on the evening between thursday and friday, when his disease became exhaustive, and soon weakened him so much that he could no longer rise from his bed. he continued to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feeling of distress. he never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it with affection and tenderness.... when he became very weak, it cost him an effort to speak, and he died in such happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it." dr. cullen writes dr. hunter on the th of september, , from which the following extracts are made: "you desire an account of mr. hume's last days, and i give it to you with great pleasure.... it was truly an example _des grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant_; and to me, who have been so often shocked with the horrors of superstition, the reflection on such a death is truly agreeable. for many weeks before his death he was very sensible of his gradual decay; and his answer to inquiries after his health was, several times, that he was going as fast as his enemies could wish, and as easily as his friends could desire. he passed most of the time in his drawing-room, admitting the visits of his friends, and with his usual spirit conversed with them upon literature and politics and whatever else was started. in conversation he seemed to be perfectly at ease; and to the last abounded with that pleasantry and those curious and entertaining anecdotes which ever distinguished him.... his senses and judgment did not fail him to the last hour of his life. he constantly discovered a strong sensibility of the attention and care of his friends; and midst great uneasiness and languor never betrayed any peevishness or impatience." (here follows the conversation with charon.) "these are a few particulars which may, perhaps, appear trivial; but to me, no particulars seem trivial which relate to so great a man. it is perhaps from trifles that we can best distinguish the tranquilness and cheerfulness of the philosopher at a time when the most part of mankind are under disquiet, and sometimes even horror. i consider the sacrifice of the cock as a more certain evidence of the tranquillity of socrates than his discourse on immortality." the christians took it for granted that this serene and placid man died filled with remorse for having given his real opinions, and proceeded to describe, with every incident and detail of horror, the terrors of his last moments. brainless clergymen, incapable of understanding what hume had written, knowing only in a general way that he had held their creeds in contempt, answered his arguments by maligning his character. christians took it for granted that he died in horror and recounted the terrible scenes. when the facts of his death became generally known to intelligent men, the ministers redoubled their efforts to maintain the old calumnies, and most of them are in this employment even unto this day. finding it impossible to tell enough falsehoods to hide the truth, a few of the more intelligent among the priests admitted that hume not only died without showing any particular fear, but was guilty of unbecoming levity. the first charge was that he died like a coward; the next that he did not care enough, and went through the shadowy doors of the dread unknown with a smile upon his lips. the dying smile of david hume scandalized the believers in a god of love. they felt shocked to see a man dying without fear who denied the miracles of the bible; who had spent a life investigating the opinions of men; in endeavoring to prove to the world that the right way is the best way; that happiness is a real and substantial good, and that virtue is not a termagant with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. christians hated to admit that a philosopher had died serenely without the aid of superstition--one who had taught that man could not make god happy by making himself miserable, and that a useful life, after all, was the best possible religion. they imagined that death would fill such a man with remorse and terror. he had never persecuted his fellow-men for the honor of god, and must needs die in despair. they were mistaken. he died as he had lived. like a peaceful river with green and shaded banks he passed, without a murmur, into that waveless sea where life at last is rest. benedict spinoza. one of the greatest thinkers was benedict spinoza, a jew, born at amsterdam, in . he studied medicine and afterward theology. he endeavored to understand what he studied. in theology he necessarily failed. theology is not intended to be understood,--it is only to be believed. it is an act, not of reason, but of faith. spinoza put to the rabbis so many questions, and so persistently asked for reasons, that he became the most troublesome of students. when the rabbis found it impossible to answer the questions, they concluded to silence the questioner. he was tried, found guilty, and excommunicated from the synagogue. by the terrible curse of the jewish religion, he was made an outcast from every jewish home. his father could not give him shelter. his mother could not give him bread--could not speak to him, without becoming an outcast herself. all the cruelty of jehovah, all the infamy of the old testament, was in this curse. in the darkness of the synagogue the rabbis lighted their torches, and while pronouncing the curse, extinguished them in blood, imploring god that in like manner the soul of benedict spinoza might be extinguished. spinoza was but twenty-four years old when he found himself without kindred, without friends, surrounded only by enemies. he uttered no complaint. he earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully divided his crust with those still poorer than himself. he tried to solve the problem of existence. to him, the universe was one. the infinite embraced the all. the all was god. according to his belief, the universe did not commence to be. it is; from eternity it was; to eternity it will be. he was right. the universe is all there is, or was, or will be. it is both subject and object, contemplator and contemplated, creator and created, destroyer and destroyed, preserver and preserved, and hath within itself all causes, modes, motions and effects. in this there is hope. this is a foundation and a star. the infinite is the all. without the all, the infinite cannot be. i am something. without me, the infinite cannot exist. spinoza was a naturalist--that is to say, a pantheist. he took the ground that the supernatural is, and forever will be, an infinite impossibility. his propositions are luminous as stars, and each of his demonstrations is a gibraltar, behind which logic sits and smiles at all the sophistries of superstition. spinoza has been hated because he has not been answered. he was a real republican. he regarded the people as the true and only source of political power. he put the state above the church, the people above the priest. he believed in the absolute liberty of worship, thought and speech. in every relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient, modest and loving. he respected the rights of others, and endeavored to enjoy his own, and yet he brought upon himself the hatred of the jewish and the christian world. in his day, logic was blasphemy, and to think was the unpardonable sin. the priest hated the philosopher, revelation reviled reason, and faith was the sworn foe of every fact. spinoza was a philosopher, a philanthropist. he lived in a world of his own. he avoided men. his life was an intellectual solitude. he was a mental hermit. only in his own brain he found the liberty he loved. and yet the rabbis and the priests, the ignorant zealot and the cruel bigot, feeling that this quiet, thoughtful, modest man was in some way forging weapons to be used against the church, hated him with all their hearts. he did not retaliate. he found excuses for their acts. their ignorance, their malice, their misguided and revengeful zeal excited only pity in his breast. he injured no man. he did not live on alms. he was poor--and yet, with the wealth of his brain, he enriched the world. on sunday, february , , spinoza, one of the greatest and subtlest of metaphysicians--one of the noblest and purest of human beings,--at the age of forty-four, passed tranquilly away; and notwithstanding the curse of the synagogue under which he had lived and most lovingly labored, death left upon his lips the smile of perfect peace. our infidels. in our country there were three infidels--paine, franklin and jefferson. the colonies were filled with superstition, the puritans with the spirit of persecution. laws savage, ignorant and malignant had been passed in every colony, for the purpose of destroying intellectual liberty. mental freedom was absolutely unknown. the toleration acts of maryland tolerated only christians--not infidels, not thinkers, not investigators. the charity of roger williams was not extended to those who denied the bible, or suspected the divinity of christ. it was not based upon the rights of man, but upon the rights of believers, who differed in non-essential points. the moment the colonies began to deny the rights of the king they suspected the power of the priest. in digging down to find an excuse for fighting george the third, they unwittingly undermined the church. they went through the revolution together. they found that all denominations fought equally well. they also found that persons without religion had patriotism and courage, and were willing to die that a new nation might be born. as a matter of fact the pulpit was not in hearty sympathy with our fathers. many priests were imprisoned because they would not pray for the continental congress. after victory had enriched our standard, and it became necessary to make a constitution--to establish a government--the infidels--the men like paine, like jefferson, and like franklin, saw that the church must be left out; that a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed could make no contract with a church pretending to derive its powers from an infinite god. by the efforts of these infidels, the name of god was left out of the constitution of the united states. they knew that if an infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people. they knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy. washington wished a church established by law in virginia. he was prevented by thomas jefferson. it was only a little while ago that people were compelled to attend church by law in the eastern states, and taxes were raised for the support of churches the same as for the construction of highways and bridges. the great principle enunciated in the constitution has silently repealed most of these laws. in the presence of this great instrument, the constitutions of the states grew small and mean, and in a few years every law that puts a chain upon the mind, except in delaware, will be repealed, and for these our children may thank the infidels of . the church never has pretended that jefferson or franklin died in fear. franklin wrote no books against the fables of the ancient jews. he thought it useless to cast the pearls of thought before the swine of ignorance and fear. jefferson was a statesman. he was the father of a great party. he gave his views in letters and to trusted friends. he was a virginian, author of the declaration of independence, founder of a university, father of a political party, president of the united states, a statesman and philosopher. he was too powerful for the divided churches of his day. paine was a foreigner, a citizen of the world. he had attacked washington and the bible. he had done these things openly, and what he had said could not be answered. his arguments were so good that his character was bad. thomas paine thomas paine was born in thetford, england. he came from the common people. at the age of thirty-seven he left england for america. he was the first to perceive the destiny of the new world. he wrote the pamphlet "common sense," and in a few months the continental congress declared the colonies free and independent states--a new nation was born. paine having aroused the spirit of independence, gave every energy of his soul to keep the spirit alive. he was with the army. he shared its defeats and its glory. when the situation became desperate, he gave them "the crisis." it was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and to victory. the writings of paine are gemmed with compact statements that carry conviction to the dullest. day and night he labored for america, until there was a government of the people and for the people. at the close of the revolution, no one stood higher than thomas paine. had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies. having done so much for man in america, he went to france. the seeds sown by the great infidels were bearing fruit in europe. the eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress. upon his arrival in france he was elected a member of the french convention--in fact, he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments. he was one of the committee to draft a constitution for france. in the assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king, he had the courage to vote against death. to vote against the death of the king was to vote against his own life. this was the sublimity of devotion to principle. for this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. while under sentence of death, while in the gloomy cell of his prison, thomas paine wrote to washington, asking him to say one word to robespierre in favor of the author of "common sense." washington did not reply. he wrote again. washington, the president, paid no attention to thomas paine, the prisoner. the letter was thrown into the wastebasket of forgetfulness, and thomas paine remained condemned to death. afterward he gave his opinion of washington at length, and i must say, that i have never found it in my heart to greatly blame him. thomas paine, having done so much for political liberty, turned his attention to the superstitions of his age. he published "the age of reason;" and from that day to this, his character has been maligned by almost every priest in christendom. he has been held up as the terrible example. every man who has expressed an honest thought, has been warningly referred to thomas paine. all his services were forgotten. no kind word fell from any pulpit. his devotion to principle, his zeal for human rights, were no longer remembered. paine simply took the ground that it is a contradiction to call a thing a revelation that comes to us second-hand. there can be no revelation beyond the first communication. all after that is hearsay. he also showed that the prophecies of the old testament had no relation whatever to jesus christ, and contended that jesus christ was simply a man. in other words, paine was an enlightened unitarian. paine thought the old testament too barbarous to have been the work of an infinitely benevolent god. he attacked the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief. he insisted that every man has the right to think. after the publication of these views every falsehood that malignity could coin and malice pass was given to the world. on his return to america, after the election to the presidency of another infidel, thomas jefferson, it was not safe for him to appear in the public streets. he was in danger of being mobbed. under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven his rights were not respected. under the constitution that he had suggested, his life was insecure. he had helped to give liberty to more than three millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto him. he was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned, and cursed. he enjoyed the seclusion of a leper; but he maintained through it all his integrity. he stood by the convictions of his mind. never for one moment did he hesitate or waver. he died almost alone. the moment he died christians commenced manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. they had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and these ancient lies are annually certified to by the respectable christians of the present day. the truth is, he died as he had lived. some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his will. several of them he ordered from his room. a couple of catholic priests, in all the meekness of hypocrisy, called that they might enjoy the agonies of a dying friend of man. thomas paine, rising in his bed, the few embers of expiring life blown into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both. his physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dull ear of the dying man: "do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that jesus christ is the son of god?" and the reply was: "i have no wish to believe on that subject." these were the last remembered words of thomas paine. he died as serenely as ever christian passed away. he died in the full possession of his mind, and on the very brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life. every christian, every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, should feel under obligation to thomas paine for the splendid service rendered by him in the darkest days of the american revolution. in the midnight of valley forge, "the crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. every good man should remember with gratitude the brave words spoken by thomas paine in the french convention against the death of louis. he said: "we will kill the king, but not the man. we will destroy monarchy, not the monarch." thomas paine was a champion, in both hemispheres, of human liberty; one of the founders and fathers of this republic; one of the foremost men of his age. he never wrote a word in favor of injustice. he was a despiser of slavery. he abhorred tyranny in every form. he was, in the widest and best sense, a friend of all his race. his head was as clear as his heart was good, and he had the courage to speak his honest thought. he was the first man to write these words: "the united states of america." he proposed the present federal constitution. he furnished every thought that now glitters in the declaration of independence. he believed in one god and no more. he was a believer even in special providence, and he hoped for immortality. how can the world abhor the man who said: "i believe in the equality of man, and that religious duties consist in doing justice, in loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."-- "it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself."-- "the word of god is the creation which we behold."-- "belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man."-- "my opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter."-- "one good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."-- "i believe in one god, and no more, and i hope for happiness beyond this life."-- "man has no property in man"--and "the key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect!" had it not been for thomas paine i could not deliver this lecture here to-night.. it is still fashionable to calumniate this man--and yet channing, theodore parker, longfellow, emerson, and in fact all the liberal unitarians and universalists of the world have adopted the opinions of thomas paine. let us compare these infidels with the christians of their time: compare julian with constantine,--the murderer of his wife,--the murderer of his son,--and who established christianity with the same sword he had wet with their blood. compare him with all the christian emperors--with all the robbers and murderers and thieves--the parricides and fratricides and matricides that ever wore the imperial purple on the banks of the tiber or the shores of the bosphorus. let us compare bruno with the christians who burned him; and we will compare spinoza, voltaire, diderot, hume, jefferson, paine--with the men who it is claimed have been the visible representatives of god. let it be remembered that the popes have committed every crime of which human nature is capable, and that not one of them was the friend of intellectual liberty--that not one of them ever shed one ray of light. let us compare these infidels with the founders of sectarian churches; you will see how narrow, how bigoted, how cruel were their founders, and how broad, how generous, how noble, were these infidels. let us be honest. the great effort of the human mind is to ascertain the order of facts by which we are surrounded--the history of things. who has accomplished the most in this direction--the church, or the unbelievers? upon one side write all that the church has discovered--every phenomenon that has been explained by a creed, every new fact in nature that has been discovered by a church, and on the other side write the discoveries of humboldt, and the observations and demonstrations of darwin! who has made germany famous--her priests, or her scientists? goethe. kant: that immortal man who said: "whoever thinks that he can please god in any way except by discharging his obligations to his fellows, is superstitious." and that greatest and bravest of thinkers, ernst haeckel. humboldt. italy:--mazzini. garibaldi. in france who are and were the friends of freedom--the catholic priests, or renan? the bishops, or gambetta?--dupanloup, or victor hugo? michelet--taine--auguste comte. england:--let us compare her priests with john stuart mill,--harriet martineau, that "free rover on the breezy common of the universe."--george eliot--with huxley and tyndall, with holyoake and harrison--and above and over all--with charles darwin. conclusion. let us be honest. did all the priests of rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as bruno? did all the priests of france do as great a work for the civilization of the world as diderot and voltaire? did all the ministers of scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as david hume? have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as thomas paine?--as much for science as charles darwin? what would the world be if infidels had never been? the infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be. why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery, practiced polygamy, justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of st. bartholomew; the inventors and users of thumbscrews, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers, and babes; the founders of the inquisition; the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of jesus christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of god? which way? i. there are two ways,--the natural and the supernatural. one way is to live for the world we are in, to develop the brain by study and investigation, to take, by invention, advantage of the forces of nature, to the end that we may have good houses, raiment and food, to the end that the hunger of the mind may be fed through art and science. the other way is to live for another world that we expect, to sacrifice this life that we have for another that we know not of. the other way is by prayer and ceremony to obtain the assistance, the protection of some phantom above the clouds. one way is to think--to investigate, to observe, and follow the light of reason. the other way is to believe, to accept, to follow, to deny the authority of your own senses, your own reason, and bow down to those who are impudent enough to declare that they know. one way is to live for the benefit of your fellow-men--for your wife and children--to make those you love happy and to shield them from the sorrows of life. the other way is to live for ghosts, goblins, phantoms and gods with the hope that they will reward you in another world. one way is to enthrone reason and rely on facts, the other to crown credulity and live on faith. one way is to walk by the light within--by the flame that illumines the brain, verifying all by the senses--by touch and sight and sound. the other way is to extinguish the sacred light and follow blindly the steps of another. one way is to be an honest man, giving to others your thought, standing erect, intrepid, careless of phantoms and hells. the other way is to cringe and crawl, to betray your nobler self, and to deprive others of the liberty that you have not the courage to enjoy. do not imagine that i hate the ones who have taken the wrong side and traveled the wrong road. our fathers did the best they could. they believed in the supernatural, and they thought that sacrifices and prayer, fasting and weeping, would induce the supernatural to give them sunshine, rain and harvest--long life in this world and eternal joy in another. to them, god was an absolute monarch, quick to take offence, sudden in anger, terrible in punishment, jealous, hateful to his enemies, generous to his favorites. they believed also in the existence of an evil god, almost the equal of the other god in strength, and a little superior in cunning. between these two gods was the soul of man like a mouse between two paws. both of these gods inspired fear. our fathers did not quite love god, nor quite hate the devil, but they were afraid of both. they really wished to enjoy themselves with god in the next world and with the devil in this. they believed that the course of nature was affected by their conduct; that floods and storms, diseases, earthquakes and tempests were sent as punishments, and that all good phenomena were rewards. everything was under the direction and control of supernatural powers. the air, the darkness, were filled with angels and devils; witches and wizards planned and plotted against the pious--against the true believers. eclipses were produced by the sins of the people, and the unusual was regarded as the miraculous. in the good old times christendom was an insane asylum, and insane priests and prelates were the keepers. there was no science. the people did not investigate--did not think. they trembled and believed. ignorance and superstition ruled the christian world. at last a few began to observe, to make records, and to think. it was found that eclipses came at certain intervals, and that their coming could be foretold. this demonstrated that the actions of men had nothing to do with eclipses. a few began to suspect that earthquakes and storms had natural causes, and happened without the slightest reference to mankind. some began to doubt the existence of evil spirits, or the interference of good ones in the affairs of the world. finding out something about astronomy, the great number of the stars, the certain and continuous motions of the planets, and the fact that many of them were vastly larger than the earth; ascertaining something about the earth, the slow development of forms, the growth and distribution of plants, the formation of islands and continents, the parts played by fire, water and air through countless centuries; the kinship of all life; fixing the earth's place in the constellation of the sun; by experiment and research discovering a few secrets of chemistry; by the invention of printing, and the preservation and dissemination of facts, theories and thoughts, they were enabled to break a few chains of superstition, to free themselves a little from the dominion of the supernatural, and to set their faces toward the light. slowly the number of investigators and thinkers increased, slowly the real facts were gathered, the sciences began to appear, the old beliefs grew a little absurd, the supernatural retreated and ceased to interfere in the ordinary affairs of men. schools were founded, children were taught, books were printed and the thinkers increased. day by day confidence lessened in the supernatural, and day by day men were more and more impressed with the idea that man must be his own protector, his own providence. from the mists and darkness of savagery and superstition emerged the dawn of the natural. a sense of freedom took possession of the mind, and the soul began to dream of its power. on every side were invention and discovery, and bolder thought. the church began to regard the friends of science as its foes: theologians resorted to chain and fagot--to mutilation and torture. the thinkers were denounced as heretics and atheists--as the minions of satan and the defamers of christ. all the ignorance, prejudice and malice of superstition were aroused and all united for the destruction of investigation and thought. for centuries this conflict was waged. every outrage was perpetrated, every crime committed by the believers in the supernatural. but, in spite of all, the disciples of the natural increased, and the power of the church waned. now the intelligence of the world is on the side of the natural. still the conflict goes on--the supernatural constantly losing, and the natural constantly gaining. in a few years the victory of science over superstition will be complete and universal. so, there have been for many centuries two philosophies of life; one in favor of the destruction of the passions--the lessening of wants,--and absolute reliance on some higher power; the other, in favor of the reasonable gratification of the passions, the increase of wants, and their supply by industry, ingenuity and invention, and the reliance of man on his own efforts. diogenes, epictetus, socrates to some extent, buddha and christ, all taught the first philosophy. all despised riches and luxury, all were the enemies of art and music, the despisers of good clothes and good food and good homes. they were the philosophers of poverty and rags, of huts and hovels, of ignorance and faith. they preached the glories of another world and the miseries of this. they derided the prosperous, the industrious, those who enjoyed life, and reserved heaven for beggars. this philosophy is losing authority, and now most people are anxious to be happy here in this life. most people want food and roof and raiment--books and pictures, luxury and leisure. they believe in developing the brain--in making servants and slaves of the forces of nature. now the intelligent men of the world have cast aside the teachings, the philosophy of the ascetics. they no longer believe in the virtue of fasting and self-torture. they believe that happiness is the only good, and that the time to be happy is now--here, in this world. they no longer believe in the rewards and punishments of the supernatural. they believe in consequences, and that the consequences of bad actions are evil, and the consequences of good actions are good. they believe that man by investigation, by reason, should find out the conditions of happiness, and then live and act in accordance with such conditions. they do not believe that earthquakes, or tempests, or volcanoes, or eclipses are caused by the conduct of men. they no longer believe in the supernatural. they do not regard themselves as the serfs, servants, or favorites of any celestial king. they feel that many evils can be avoided by knowledge, and for that reason they believe in the development of the brain. the schoolhouse is their church and the university their cathedral. so, there have been for some centuries two theories of government,--one theological, the other secular. the king received his power directly from god. it was the business of the people to obey. the priests received their creeds from god and it was the duty of the people to believe. the theological government is growing somewhat unpopular. in england, parliament has taken the place of god, and in the united states, government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. probably emperor william is the only man in germany who really believes that god placed him on the throne and will keep him there whether the german people are satisfied or not. italy has retired the catholic god from politics, france belongs to and is governed by the french, and even in russia there are millions who hold the czar and all his divine pretensions in contempt. the theological governments are passing away and the secular are slowly taking their places. man is growing greater and the gods are becoming vague and indistinct. these "divine" governments rest on the fear and ignorance of the many, the cunning, the impudence and the mendacity of the few. a secular government is born of the intelligence, the honesty and the courage, not only of the few, but of the many. we have found that man can govern himself without the assistance of priest or pope, of ghost or god. we have found that religion is not self-evident, and that to believe without evidence is not a praiseworthy action. we know that the self-evident is the square and compass of the brain, the polar star in the firmament of mind. and we know that no one denies the self-evident. we also know that there is no particular goodness in believing when the evidence is sufficient, and certainly there is' none in saying; that you believe when the evidence is insufficient. the believers have not all been good. some of the worst people in the whole world have been believers. the gentlemen who made socrates drink hemlock were believers. the jews who crucified christ were believers in and worshipers of god. the devil believes in the trinity, the father, son and holy ghost, and yet it does not seem to have affected his moral character. according to the bible, he trembles, but he does not reform. at last we have concluded that we have a right to examine the religion of our fathers. ii. all christians know that all the gods, except jehovah, were created by man; that they were, and are, false, foolish and monstrous; that all the heathen temples were built and all their altars erected in vain; that the sacrifices were wasted, that the priests were hypocrites, that their prayers were unanswered and that the poor people were deceived, robbed and enslaved. but after all, is our god superior to the gods of the heathen? we can ask this question now because we are prosperous, and prosperity gives courage. if we should have a few earthquakes or a pestilence we might fall on our knees, shut our eyes and ask the forgiveness of god for ever having had a thought. we know that famine is the friend of faith and that calamity is the sunshine of superstition. but as we have no pestilence or famine, and as the crust of the earth is reasonably quiet, we can afford to examine into the real character of our god. it must be admitted that the use of power is an excellent test of character. would a good god appeal to prejudice, the armor, fortress, sword and shield of ignorance? to credulity, the ring in the priest-led nose of stupidity? to fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever of hypocrisy? would a good god frighten or enlighten his children? would a good god appeal to reason or ignorance, to justice or selfishness, to liberty or the lash? to our first parents in the garden of eden, our god said nothing about the sacredness of love, nothing about children, nothing about education, about justice or liberty. after they had violated his command he became ferocious as a wild beast. he cursed the earth and to eve he said:--"i will greatly multiply thy sorrow. in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. thy husband shall rule over thee." our god made love the slave of pain, made wives serfs, and brutalized the firesides of the world. our god drowned the whole world, with the exception of eight people; made the earth one vast and shoreless sea covered with corpses. why did he cover the world with men, women and children knowing that he would destroy them? why did he not try to reform them? why would he create people, knowing that they could not be reformed? is it possible that our god was intelligent and good? after the flood our god selected the jews and abandoned the rest of his children. he paid no attention to the hindoos, neglected the egyptians, ignored the persians, forgot the assyrians and failed to remember the greeks. and yet he was the father of them all. for many centuries he was only a tribal god, protecting the few and despising the many. our god was ignorant, knew nothing of astronomy or geology. he did not even know the shape of the earth, and thought the stars were only specks. he knew nothing of disease. he thought that the blood of a bird that had been killed over running water was good medicine. he was revengeful and cruel, and assisted some of his children to butcher and destroy others. he commanded them to murder men, wives and children, and to keep alive the maidens and distribute them among his soldiers. our god established slavery--commanded men to buy their fellow-men, to make merchandise of wives and babes. our god sanctioned polygamy and made wives the property of their husbands. our god murdered the people for the crimes of kings. no man of intelligence, no one whose brain has not been poisoned by superstition, paralyzed by fear, can read the old testament without being forced to the conclusion that our god was, a wild beast. if we must have a god, let him be merciful. let us remember that "the quality of mercy is not strained." let us remember that when the sword of justice becomes a staff to support the weak, it bursts into blossom, and that the perfume of that flower is the only incense, the only offering, the only sacrifice that mercy will accept. iii. so, there have been two theories about the cause and cure of disease. one is the theological, the other the scientific. according to the theological idea, diseases were produced by evil spirits, by devils who entered into the bodies of people. these devils could be cast out by prophets, inspired men and priests. while christ was upon earth his principal business was to cast out evil spirits. for many centuries the priests followed his example, and during the middle ages millions of devils were driven from the bodies of men. diseases were cured with little images of consecrated pewter, with pieces of paper, with crosses worn about the neck--by having plaster of paris virgins and clay christs at the head of the bed, by touching the bones of dead saints, or pieces of the true cross, or one of the nails that was driven through the flesh of christ, or a garment that had been worn by the virgin mary, or by sprinkling the breast with holy water, or saying prayers, or counting beads, or making the stations of the cross, or by going without meat, or wearing haircloth, or in some way torturing the body. all diseases were supposed to be of supernatural origin and all cures were of the same nature. pestilences were stopped by processions, led by priests carrying the host. nothing was known of natural causes and effects. everything was miraculous and mysterious. the priests were cunning and the people credulous. slowly another theory as to the cause and cure of disease took possession of the mind. a few discarded the idea of devils, and took the ground that diseases were naturally produced, and that many of them could be cured by natural means. at first the physician was exceedingly ignorant, but he knew more than the priest. slowly but surely he pushed the priest from the bedside. some people finally became intelligent enough to trust their bodies to the doctors, and remained ignorant enough to leave the care of their souls with the priests. among civilized people the theological theory has been cast aside, and the miraculous, the supernatural, no longer has a place in medicine. in catholic countries the peasants are still cured by images, prayers, holy water and the bones of saints, but when the priests are sick they send for a physician, and now even the pope, god's agent, gives his sacred body to the care of a doctor. the scientific has triumphed to a great extent over the theological. no intelligent person now believes that devils inhabit the bodies of men. no intelligent person now believes that devils are trying to control the actions of men. no intelligent person now believes that devils exist. and yet, at the present time, in the city of new york, catholic priests are exhibiting a piece of one of the bones of saint anne, the supposed mother of the virgin mary. some of these priests may be credulous imbeciles and some may be pious rogues. if they have any real intelligence they must know that there is no possible way of proving that the piece of bone ever belonged to saint anne. and if they have any real intelligence they must know that even the bones of saint anne were substantially like the bones of other people, made of substantially the same material, and that the medical and miraculous qualities of all human bones must be substantially the same. and yet these priests are obtaining from their credulous dupes thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege of seeing this bone and kissing the box that contains the "sacred relic." archbishop corrigan knows that no one knows who the mother of the virgin mary was, that no one knows about any of the bones of this unknown mother, knows that the whole thing is a theological fraud, knows that his priests, or priests under his jurisdiction, are obtaining money under false pretences. cardinal gibbons knows the same, but neither of these pious gentlemen has one word to say against this shameless crime. they are willing that priests for the benefit of the church should make merchandise of the hopes and fears of ignorant believers; willing that fraud that produces revenue should live and thrive. this is the honesty of the theologian. if these gentlemen should be taken sick they would not touch the relic. they would send for a physician. let me tell you a japanese story that is exactly in point: an old monk was in charge of a monastery that had been built above the bones of a saint. these bones had the power to cure diseases and they were so placed that by thrusting the arm through an orifice they could be touched by the hand of the pilgrim. many people, afflicted in many ways, came and touched these bones. many thought they had been benefited or cured, and many in gratitude left large sums of money with the monk. one day the old monk addressed his assistant as follows: "my dear son, business has fallen off, and i can easily attend to all who come. you will have to find another place. i will give you the white donkey, a little money, and my blessing." so the young man mounted upon the beast and went his way. in a few days his money was gone and the white donkey died. an idea took possession of the young man's mind. by the side of the road he buried the donkey, and then to every passer-by held out his hands and said in solemn tones: "i pray thee give me a little money to build a temple above the bones of the sinless one." such was his success that he built the temple, and then thousands came to touch the bones of the sinless one. the young man became rich, gave employment to many assistants and lived in the greatest luxury. one day he made up his mind to visit his old master. taking with him a large retinue of servants he started for the old home. when he reached the place the old monk was seated by the doorway. with great astonishment he looked at the young man and his retinue. the young man dismounted and made himself known, and the old monk cried: "where hast thou been? tell me, i pray thee, the story of thy success." "ah," the young man replied, "old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts. wait until we are alone and i will tell you all." so that night the young man told his story, told about the death and burial of the donkey, the begging of money to build a temple over the bones of the sinless one, and of the sums of money he had received for the cures the bones had wrought. when he finished a satisfied smile crept over his pious face as he added: "old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts." "be not so fast," said the old monk, as he placed his trembling hand on the head of his visitor, "young man, this monastery in which your youth was passed, in which you have seen so many miracles performed, so many diseases cured, was built above the sacred bones of the mother of your little jackass." iv. there are two ways of accounting for the sacred books and religions of the world. one is to say that the sacred books were written by inspired men, and that our religion was revealed to us by god. the other is to say that all books have been written by men, without any aid from supernatural powers, and that all religions have been naturally produced. we find that other races and peoples have sacred books and prophets, priests and christs; we find too that their sacred books were written by men who had the prejudices and peculiarities of the race to which they belonged, and that they contain the mistakes and absurdities peculiar to the people who produced them. christians are perfectly satisfied that all the so-called sacred books, with the exception of the old and new testaments, were written by men, and that the claim of inspiration is perfectly absurd. so they believe that all religions, except judaism and christianity, were invented by men. the believers in other religions take the ground that their religion was revealed by god, and that all others, including judaism and christianity, were made by men. all are right and all are wrong. when they say that "other" religions were produced by men, they are right; when they say that their religion was revealed by god, they are wrong. now we know that all tribes and nations have had some kind of religion; that they have believed in the existence of good and evil beings, spirits or powers, that could be softened by gifts or prayer. now we know that at the foundation of every religion, of all worship, is the pale and bloodless face of fear. now we know that all religions and all sacred books have been naturally produced--all born of ignorance, fear and cunning. now we know that the gifts, sacrifices and prayers were all in vain; that no god received and that no god heard or answered. a few years ago prayers decided the issue of battle, and priests, through their influence with god, could give the victory. now no intelligent man expects any answer to prayer. he knows that nature pursues her course without reference to the wishes of men, that the clouds float, the winds blow, the rain falls and the sun shines without regard to the human race. yet millions are still praying, still hoping that they can gain the protection of some god, that some being will guard them from accident and disease. year after year the ministers make the same petitions, pray for the same things, and keep on in spite of the fact that nothing is accomplished. whenever good men do some noble thing the clergy give their god the credit, and when evil things are done they hold the men who did the evil responsible, and forget to blame their god. praying has become a business, a profession, a trade, a minister is never happier than when praying in public. most of them are exceedingly familiar with their god. knowing that he knows everything, they tell him the needs of the nation and the desires of the people, they advise him what to do and when to do it. they appeal to his pride, asking him to do certain things for his own glory. they often pray for the impossible. in the house of representatives in washington i once heard a chaplain pray for what he must have known was impossible. without a change of countenance, without a smile, with a face solemn as a sepulchre, he said: "i pray thee, o god, to give congress wisdom." it may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring. the men of thought now know that all religions and all sacred books have been made by men; that no revelation has come from any being superior to nature; that all the prophecies were either false or made after the event; that no miracle ever was or ever will be performed; that no god wants the worship or the assistance of man; that no-prayer has ever coaxed one drop of rain from the sky, one ray of light from the sun; that no prayer has stayed the flood, or the tides of the sea, or folded the wings of the storm; that no prayer has given water to the cracked and bleeding lips of thirst, or food to the famishing; that no prayer has stopped the pestilence, stilled the earthquake or quieted the volcano; that no prayer has shielded the innocent, succored the oppressed, unlocked the dungeon's door, broke the chains of slaves, rescued the good and noble from the scaffold, or extinguished the fagot's flame. the intelligent man now knows that we live in a natural world, that gods and devils and the sons of god are all phantoms, that our religion and our deity are much like the religion and deities of other nations, and that the stone god of a savage answers prayer and protects his worshipers precisely the same, and to just the same extent, as the father, son and holy ghost. v. there are two theories about morals. one theory is that the moral man obeys the commands of a supposed god, without stopping to think whether the commands are right or wrong. he believes that the will of the god is the source and fountain of right. he thinks a thing is wrong because the god prohibits it, not that the god prohibits it because it is wrong. this theory calls not for thought, but for obedience. it does not appeal to reason, but to the fear of punishment, the hope of reward. god is a king whose will is law, and men are serfs and slaves. many contend that without a belief in the existence of god morality is impossible and that virtue would perish from the earth. this absurd theory, with its "thus saith the lord" has been claimed to be independent of and superior to reason. the other theory is that right and wrong exist in the nature of things; that certain actions preserve or increase the happiness of man, and that other actions cause sorrow and misery; that all those actions that cause happiness are moral, and that all others are evil, or indifferent. right and wrong are not revelations from some supposed god, but have been discovered through the experience and intelligence of man. there is nothing miraculous or supernatural about morality. neither has morality anything to do with another world, or with an infinite being. it applies to conduct here, and the effect of that conduct on ourselves and others determines its nature. in this world people are obliged to supply their wants by labor. industry is a necessity, and those who work are the natural enemies of those who steal. it required no revelation from god to make larceny unpopular. human beings naturally object to being injured, maimed, or killed, and so everywhere, and at all times, they have tried to protect themselves. men did not require a revelation from god to put in their minds the thought of self-preservation. to defend yourself when attacked is as natural as to eat when you are hungry. to determine the quality of an action by showing that it is in accordance with, or contrary to the command of some supposed god, is superstition pure and simple. to test all actions by their consequences is scientific and in accord with reason. according to the supernatural theory, natural consequences are not taken into consideration. actions are wrong because they have been prohibited and right because they have been commanded. according to the catholic church, eating meat on friday is a sin that deserves eternal punishment. and yet, in the nature of things, the consequences of eating meat on that day must be exactly the same as eating meat on any other. so, all the churches teach that unbelief is a crime, not in the nature of things, but by reason of the will of god. of course this is absurd and idiotic. if there be an infinite god he cannot make that wrong which in the nature of things is right. neither can he make an action good the natural consequences of which are evil. even an infinite god cannot change a fact. in spite of him the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle would remain the same. all the relations of things to things, of forces to forces, of acts to acts, of causes to effects in the domain of what is called matter, and in the realm of what is called mind, are just as certain, just as unchangeable as the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle. an infinite god could not make ingratitude a virtue any easier than he could make a square triangle. so, the foundations of the moral and the immoral are in the nature of things--in the necessary relation between conduct and well-being, and an infinite god cannot change these foundations, and cannot increase or diminish the natural consequences of actions. in this world there is neither chance nor caprice, neither magic nor miracle. behind every event, every thought and dream, is the efficient, the natural and necessary cause. the effort to make the will of a supposed god the foundation of morality, has filled the world with misery and crime, extinguished in millions of minds the light of reason, and in countless ways hindered and delayed the progress of our race. intelligent men now know, that if there be an infinite god, man cannot in any way increase or decrease the happiness of such a being. they know that man can only commit crimes against sentient beings who, to some extent at least, are within his power, and that a crime by a finite being against an infinite being is an infinite impossibility. vi. for many thousands of years man has believed in and sought for the impossible. in chemistry he has searched for a universal solvent, for some way in which to change the baser metals into gold. even lord bacon was a believer in this absurdity. thousands of men, during many centuries, in thousands of ways, sought to change the nature of lead and iron so that they might be transformed to gold. they had no conception of the real nature of things. they supposed that they had originally been created by a kind of magic, and could by the same kind of magic be changed into something else. they were all believers in the supernatural. so, in mechanics, men sought for the impossible. they were believers in perpetual motion and they tried to make machines that would through a combination of levers furnish the force that propelled them. thousands of ingenious men wasted their lives in the vain effort to produce machines that would in some wonderful way create a force. they did not know that force is eternal, that it can neither be created nor destroyed. they did not know that a machine having perpetual motion would necessarily be a universe within itself, or independent of this, and in which the force called friction would be necessarily changed, without loss, into the force that propelled,--the machine itself causing or creating the original force that put it in motion. and yet in spite of all the absurdities involved, for many centuries men, regarded by their fellows as intelligent and learned, tried to discover the great principle of "perpetual motion." our ancestors studied the stars because in them they thought it possible to learn the fate of nations, the life and destiny of the individual. eclipses, wandering comets, the relations of certain stars were the forerunners or causes of prosperity or disaster, of the downfall or upbuilding of kingdoms. astrology was believed to be a science, and those who studied the stars were consulted by warriors, statesmen and kings. the account of the star that led the wise men of the east to the infant christ was written by a believer in astrology. it would be hard to overstate the time and talent wasted in the study of this so-called science. the men who believed in astrology thought that they lived in a supernatural world--a world in which causes and effects had no necessary connection with each other--in which all events were the result of magic and necromancy. even now, at the close of the nineteenth century, there are hundreds and hundreds of men who make their living by casting the horoscopes of idiots and imbeciles. the "perpetual motion" of the mechanic, the universal solvent of the chemist, the changing of lead into gold, the foretelling events by the relations of stars were all born of the same ignorance of nature that caused the theologian to imagine an uncaused cause as the cause of all causes and effects. the theologian insisted that there was something superior to nature, and that that something was the creator and preserver of nature. of course there is no more evidence of the existence of that "something" than there is of the philosopher's stone. the mechanics who now believe in perpetual motion are insane, so are the chemists who seek to change one metal into another, so are the honest astrologers, and in a few more years the same can truthfully be said of the honest theologians. many of our ancestors believed in the existence of and sought for the fountain of perpetual youth. they believed that an old man could stoop and drink from this fountain and that while he drank his gray hairs would slowly change, that the wrinkles would disappear, that his dim eyes would brighten and grow clear, his heart throb with manhood's force and rhythm, while in his pallid cheeks would burst into blossom the roses of health. they were believers in the supernatural, the miraculous, and nothing seemed more probable than the impossible. vii. most people use names in place of arguments. they are satisfied to be disciples, followers of the illustrious dead. each church, each party has a list of "great men," and they throw the names of these men at each other when discussing their dogmas and creeds. men prove the inspiration of the bible, the divinity of christ by the admissions of soldiers, statesmen and kings. and in the same way they establish the existence of heaven and hell. dispute one of their dogmas and you will instantly be told that isaac newton or matthew hale was on the other side, and you will be asked whether you claim to be superior to newton or hale. in our own country the ministers, to establish their absurdities, quote the opinions of webster and of other successful politicians as though such opinions were demonstrations. most protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and genius to some men who have lived and died in the catholic faith; that in the matter of preaching funeral sermons they are not equal to bossuet; that their letters are not as interesting and polished as those written by pascal; that torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment claim the palm from catherine de medici, and yet after these admissions, these same protestants would insist that the pope is an unblushing impostor, and the catholic church a vampire. the so-called "great men" of the world have been mistaken in many things. lord bacon denied the copernican system of astronomy and believed to the day of his death that the sun and stars journeyed about this little earth. matthew hale was a firm believer in the existence of witches and wizards. john wesley believed that earthquakes were caused by sin and that they could be prevented by believing in the lord jesus christ. john calvin regarded murder as one of the means to preserve the purity of the gospel. martin luther denounced galileo as a fool because he was opposed to the astronomy of moses. webster was in favor of the fugitive slave law and held the book of job in high esteem. he wanted votes and he knelt to the south. he wanted votes and he flattered the church. viii. volumes might be written on the follies and imbecilities of "great" men. only a few years ago the really great men were persecuted, imprisoned or burned. in this way the church was enabled to keep the "great" men on her side. as a matter of fact it is impossible to tell what the "great" men really thought. we only know what they said. these "great" men had families to support, they had a prejudice against prisons and objected to being burned, and it may be that they thought one way and talked another. the priests said to these men: "agree with the creed, talk on our side, or you will be persecuted to the death." then the priests turned to the people and cried: "hear what the great men say." for a few years we have had something like liberty of speech and many men have told their thoughts. now the theologians are not quite so apt to appeal to names as formerly. the really great are not on their side. the leaders of modern thought are not christians. now the unbelievers can repeat names--names that stand for intellectual triumphs. humboldt, helmholtz, haeckel and huxley, darwin, spencer and tyndall and many others, stand for investigation, discovery, for vast achievements in the world of thought. these men were and are thinkers and they had and have the courage to express their thoughts. they were not and are not puppets of priests, or the trembling worshipers of ghosts. for many years, most of the presidents of american colleges have been engaged in the pious work of trying to prevent the intellectual advancement of the race. to such an extent have they succeeded that none of their students have been or are great scientists. for the purpose of bolstering their creed the orthodox do not now repeat the names of the living, their witnesses are in the cemetery. all the "great" christians are dead. to-day we want arguments, not names, reasons, not opinions. it is degrading to blindly follow a man, or a church. nothing is nobler than to be governed by reason. to be vanquished by the truth is to be a victor. the man who follows is a slave. the man who thinks is free. we must remember that most men have been controlled by their surroundings. most of the intelligent men in turkey are followers of mahomet. they were rocked in the cradle of the koran, they received their religious opinions as they did their features--from their parents. their opinion on the subject of religion is of no possible value. the same may be said of the christians of our country. their belief is the result, not of thought, of investigation, but of surroundings. all religions have been the result of ignorance, and the seeds were sown and planted in the long night of savagery. in the decline of the roman power, in the times when prosperity died, when commerce almost ceased, when the sceptre of authority fell from weak and nerveless hands, when arts were lost and the achievements of the past forgotten or unknown, then christians came, and holding in contempt all earthly things, told their fellows of another world--of joy eternal beyond the clouds. if learning had not been lost, if the people had been educated, if they had known the literature of greece and rome, if they had been familiar with the tragedies of Æschylus, sophocles and euripides, with the philosophy of zeno and epicurus, with the orations of demosthenes; if they had known the works of art, the miracles of genius, the passions in marble, the dreams in stone; if they had known the history of rome; if they had understood lucretius, cicero and cæsar; if they had studied the laws, the decisions of the prætors; if they had known the thoughts of all the mighty dead, there would have been no soil on which the seeds of christian superstition could have taken root and grown. but the early christians hated art, and song, and joy. they slandered and maligned the human race, insisted that the world had been blighted by the curse of god, that this life should be used only in making preparation for the next, that education filled the mind with doubt, and science led the soul from god. ix. there are two ways. one is to live for god. that has been tried, and the result has always been the same. it was tried in palestine many years ago and the people who tried it were not protected by their god. they were conquered, overwhelmed and exiled. they lost their country and were scattered over the earth. for many centuries they expected assistance from their god. they believed that they would be gathered together again, that their cities and temples and altars would be rebuilt, that they would again be the favorites of jehovah, that with his help they would overcome their enemies and rule the world. century by century the hope has grown weaker and weaker, until now it is regarded by the intelligent as a foolish dream. living for god was tried in switzerland and it ended in slavery and torture. every avenue that led to improvement, to progress, was closed. only those in authority were allowed to express their thoughts. no one tried to increase the happiness of people in this world. innocent pleasure was regarded as sin, laughter was suppressed, all natural joy despised, and love itself denounced as sin. they amused themselves with fasting and prayer, hearing sermons, talking about endless pain, committing to memory the genealogies in the old testament, and now and then burning one of their fellow-men. living for god was tried in scotland. the people became the serfs and slaves of the blessed kirk. the ministers became petty tyrants. they poisoned the very springs of life. they interfered with every family, invaded the privacy of every home, sowed the seeds of superstition and fear, and filled the darkness with devils. they claimed to be divinely inspired, that they delivered the messages of god, that to deny their authority was blasphemy, and that all who refused to do their bidding would suffer eternal pain. under their government scotland was a land of sighing and sorrow, of grief and pain. the people were slaves. living for god was tried in new england. a government was formed in accordance with the old testament. the laws, for the most part, were petty and absurd, the penalties cruel and bloody to the last degree. religious liberty was regarded as a crime, as an insult to god. persons differing in belief from those in power, were persecuted, whipped, maimed and exiled. people supposed to be in league with the devil were imprisoned or killed. a theological government was established, ministers were the agents of god, they dictated the laws and fixed the penalties. everything was under the supervision of the clergy. they had no pity, no mercy. with all their hearts they hated the natural. they promised happiness in another world, and did all they could to destroy the pleasures of this. their greatest consolation, their purest joy was found in their belief that all who failed to obey their words, to wear their yoke, would suffer infinite torture in the eternal dungeons of hell. living for god was tried in the dark ages. thousands of scaffolds were wet with blood, countless swords were thrust through human hearts. the flames of fagots consumed the flesh of men, dungeons became the homes of those who thought. in the name of god every cruelty was practiced, every crime committed, and liberty perished from the earth. everywhere the result has been the same. living for god has filled the world with blood and flame. there is another way. let us live for man, for this world. let us develop the brain and civilize the heart. let us ascertain the conditions of happiness and live in accordance with them. let us do what we can for the destruction of ignorance, poverty and crime. let us do our best to supply the wants of the body, to satisfy the hunger of the mind, to ascertain the secrets of nature, to the end that we may make the invisible forces the tireless servants of the human race, and fill the world with happy homes. let the gods take care of themselves. let us live for man. let us remember that those who have sought for the truths of nature have never persecuted their fellow-men. the astronomers and chemists have forged no chains, built no dungeons. the geologists have invented no instrument of torture. the philosophers have not demonstrated the truth of their theories by burning their neighbors. the great infidels, the thinkers, have lived for the good of man. it is noble to seek for truth, to be intellectually honest, to give to others a true transcript of your mind, a photograph of your thoughts in honest words. x. here are two ways: the narrow way along which the selfish go in single file, not wide enough for husband and wife to walk side by side while children clasp their hands. the narrow road over the desert of superstition "with here and there a traveler." the narrow grass-grown path, filled with flints and broken glass, bordered by thistles and thorns, where the twice-born limping walk with bleeding feet. if by this path you see a flower, do not pick it. it is a temptation. beneath its leaves a serpent lies. keep your eyes on the new jerusalem. do not look back for wife or child or friend. think only of saving your own soul. you will be just as happy in heaven with all you love in hell. believe, have faith, and you will be rewarded for the goodness of another. look neither to the right nor left. keep on, straight on, and you will save your worthless, withered, selfish soul. this is the narrow road that leads from earth to the christian's heartless heaven. there is another way--the broad road. give me the wide and ample way, the way broad enough for us all to go together. the broad way where the birds sing, where the sun shines and the streams murmur. the broad way, through the fields where the flowers grow, over the daisied slopes where sunlight, lingering, seems to sleep and dream. let us go the broad way with the great world, with science and art, with music and the drama, with all that gladdens, thrills, refines and calms. let us go the wide road with husband and wife, with children and friends and with all there is of joy and love between the dawn and dusk of life's strange day. this world is a great orange tree filled with blossoms, with ripening and ripened fruit, while, underneath the bending boughs, the fallen slowly turn to dust. each orange is a life. let us squeeze it dry, get all the juice there is, so that when death comes we can say; "there is nothing left but withered peel." let us travel the broad and natural way. let us live for man. to think of what the world has suffered from superstition, from religion, from the worship of beast and stone and god, is almost enough to make one insane. think of the long, long night of ignorance and fear! think of the agony, the sufferings of the past, of the days that are dead! i look. in gloomy caves i see the sacred serpents coiled, waiting for their sacrificial prey. i see their open jaws, their restless tongues, their glittering eyes, their cruel fangs. i see them seize and crush in many horrid folds the helpless children given by fathers and mothers to appease the serpent-god. i look again. i see temples wrought of stone and gilded with barbaric gold. i see altars red with human blood. i see the solemn priests thrust knives in the white breasts of girls. i look again. i see other temples and other altars, where greedy flames devour the flesh and blood of babes. i see other temples and other priests and other altars dripping with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. i look again. i see other temples and other priests and other altars on which are sacrificed the liberties of man. i look. i see the cathedrals of god, the huts of peasants, the robes of priests and kings, the rags of honest men. i look again. the lovers of god are the murderers of men. i see dungeons filled with the noblest and the best. i see exiles, wanderers, outcasts, millions of martyrs, widows and orphans. i see the cunning instruments of torture and hear the shrieks and sobs and moans of millions dead. i see the dungeon's gloom, i hear the clank of chains. i see the fagot's flames, the scorched and blackened face, the writhing limbs. i hear the jeers and scoffs of pious fiends. i see the victim on the rack, i hear the tendons as they break. i see a world beneath the feet of priests, liberty in chains, every virtue a crime, every crime a virtue, intelligence despised, stupidity sainted, hypocrisy crowned and the white forehead of honor wearing the brand of shame. this was. i look again, and in the east of hope's fair sky the first pale light shed by the herald star gives promise of another dawn. i look, and from the ashes, blood and tears the heroes leap to bless the future and avenge the past. i see a world at war, and in the storm and chaos of the deadly strife thrones crumble, altars fall, chains break, creeds change. the highest peaks are touched with holy light. the dawn has blossomed. i look again. i see discoverers sailing across mysterious seas. i see inventors cunningly enslave the forces of the world. i see the houses being built for schools. teachers, interpreters of nature, slowly take the place of priests. philosophers arise, thinkers give the world their wealth of brain, and lips grow rich with words of truth. this is. i look again, but toward the future now. the popes and priests and kings are gone,--the altars and the thrones have mingled with the dust,--the aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and-air, and all the gods are dead. a new religion sheds its glory on mankind. it is the gospel of this world, the religion of the body, of the heart and brain, the evangel of health and joy. i see a world at peace, where labor reaps its true reward, a world without prisons, without workhouses, without asylums for the insane, a world on which the gibbets shadow does not fall, a world where the poor girl, trying to win bread with the needle, the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor," is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame. i see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the pallid face of crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. i see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony of form and use, and as i look life lengthens, fear dies, joy deepens, love intensifies. the world is free. this shall be. about the holy bible. somebody ought to tell the truth about the bible. the preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. politicians dare not. they would be defeated. editors dare not. they would lose subscribers. merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. and so i thought i would do it myself. there are many millions of people who believe the bible to be the inspired word of god--millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope--millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization--millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of god to the brain and heart of man--millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world--a world without a tear. they forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain. they forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. they forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. liberty is my religion. liberty of hand and brain--of thought and labor. liberty is a word hated by kings--loathed by popes. it is a word that shatters thrones and altars--that leaves the crowned without subjects, and the outstretched hand of superstition without alms. liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice--the perfume of mercy. liberty is the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of progress, love and joy. i. the origin of the bible. a few wandering families--poor, wretched, without education, art or power; descendants of those who had been enslaved for four hundred years; ignorant as the inhabitants of central africa, had just escaped from their masters to the desert of sinai. their leader was moses, a man who had been raised in the family of pharaoh and had been taught the law and mythology of egypt. for the purpose of controlling his followers he pretended that he was instructed and assisted by jehovah, the god of these wanderers. everything that happened was attributed to the interference of this god. moses declared that he met this god face to face; that on sinai's top from the hands of this god he had received the tables of stone on which, by the finger of this god, the ten commandments had been written, and that, in addition to this, jehovah had made known the sacrifices and ceremonies that were pleasing to him and the laws by which the people should be governed. in this way the jewish religion and the mosaic code were established. it is now claimed that this religion and these laws were and are revealed and established for all mankind. at that time these wanderers had no commerce with other nations, they had no written language, they could neither read nor write. they had no means by which they could make this revelation known to other nations, and so it remained buried in the jargon of a few ignorant, impoverished and unknown tribes for more than two thousand years. many centuries after moses, the leader, was dead--many centuries after all his followers had passed away--the pentateuch was written, the work of many writers, and to give it force and authority it was claimed that moses was the author. we now know that the pentateuch was not written by moses. towns are mentioned that were not in existence when moses lived. money, not coined until centuries after his death, is mentioned. so, many of the laws were not applicable to wanderers on the desert--laws about agriculture, about the sacrifice of oxen, sheep and doves, about the weaving of cloth, about ornaments of gold and silver, about the cultivation of land, about harvest, about the threshing of grain, about houses and temples, about cities of refuge, and about many other subjects of no possible application to a few starving wanderers over the sands and rocks. it is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that moses was not the author of the pentateuch, but they all admit that no one knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a chapter or a line. we know that the books were not written in the same generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are filled with mistakes and contradictions. it is also admitted that joshua did not write the book that bears his name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his death. no one knows, or pretends to know, the author of judges; all we know is that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. no one knows the author of ruth, nor of first and second samuel; all we know is that samuel did not write the books that bear his name. in the th chapter of first samuel is an account of samuel's death, and in the th chapter is an account of the raising of samuel by the witch of endor. no one knows the author of first and second kings or first and second chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value. we know that the psalms were not written by david. in the psalms the captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred years after david slept with his fathers. we know that solomon did not write the proverbs or the song; that isaiah was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the author of job, ecclesiastes, or esther, or of any book in the old testament, with the exception of ezra. we know that god is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of esther. we know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible. god is not mentioned in the song of solomon, the best book in the old testament. and we know that ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever. we know, too, that the jews themselves had not decided as to what books were inspired--were authentic--until the second century after christ. we know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish. ii. if it is, it should be a book that no man--no number of men--could produce. it should contain the perfection of philosophy. it should perfectly accord with every fact in nature. there should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or science. its morality should be the highest, the purest. its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired. it should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous. it should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and the spirit of liberty. it should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition. it should develop the brain and civilize the heart. it should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest. it should be true. does the old testament satisfy this standard? is there anything in the old testament--in history, in theory, in law, in government, in morality, in science--above and beyond the ideas, the beliefs, the customs and prejudices of its authors and the people among whom they lived? is there one ray of light from any supernatural source? the ancient hebrews believed that this earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun, moon and stars were specks in the sky. with this the bible agrees. they thought the earth was flat, with four corners; that the sky, the firmament, was solid--the floor of jehovah's house. the bible teaches the same. they imagined that the sun journeyed about the earth, and that by stopping the sun the day could be lengthened. the bible agrees with this. they believed that adam and eve were the first man and woman; that they had been created but a few years before, and that they, the hebrews, were their direct descendants. this the bible teaches. if anything is, or can be, certain, the writers of the bible were mistaken about creation, astronomy, geology; about the causes of phenomena, the origin of evil and the cause of death. now, it must be admitted that if an infinite being is the author of the bible, he knew all sciences, all facts, and could not have made a mistake. if, then, there are mistakes, misconceptions, false theories, ignorant myths and blunders in the bible, it must have been written by finite beings; that is to say, by ignorant and mistaken men. nothing can be clearer than this. for centuries the church insisted that the bible was absolutely true; that it contained no mistakes; that the story of creation was true; that its astronomy and geology were in accord with the facts; that the scientists who differed with the old testament were infidels and atheists. now this has changed. the educated christians admit that the writers of the bible were not inspired as to any science. they now say that god, or jehovah, did not inspire the writers of his book for the purpose of instructing the world about astronomy, geology, or any science. they now admit that the inspired men who wrote the old testament knew nothing about any science, and that they wrote about the earth and stars, the sun and moon, in accordance with the general ignorance of the time. it required many centuries to force the theologians to this admission. reluctantly, full of malice and hatred, the priests retired from the field, leaving the victory with science. they took another position: they declared that the authors, or rather the writers, of the bible were inspired in spiritual and moral things; that jehovah wanted to make known to his children his will and his infinite love for his children; that jehovah, seeing his people wicked, ignorant and depraved, wished to make them merciful and just, wise and spiritual, and that the bible is inspired in its laws, in the religion it teaches and in its ideas of government. this is the issue now. is the bible any nearer right in its ideas of justice, of mercy, of morality or of religion than in its conception of the sciences? is it moral? it upholds slavery--it sanctions polygamy. could a devil have done worse? is it merciful? in war it raised the black flag; it commanded the destruction, the massacre, of all--of the old, infirm, and helpless--of wives and babes. were its laws inspired? hundreds of offences were punished with death. to pick up sticks on sunday, to murder your father on monday, were equal crimes. there is in the literature of the world no bloodier code. the law of revenge--of retaliation--was the law of jehovah. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a limb for a limb. this is savagery--not philosophy. is it just and reasonable? the bible is opposed to religious toleration--to religious liberty. whoever differed with the majority was stoned to death. investigation was a crime. husbands were ordered to denounce and to assist in killing their unbelieving wives. it is the enemy of art. "thou shalt make no graven image." this was the death of art. palestine never produced a painter or a sculptor. is the bible civilized? it upholds lying, larceny, robbery, murder, the selling of diseased meat to strangers, and even the sacrifice of human beings to jehovah. is it philosophical? it teaches that the sins of a people can be transferred to an animal--to a goat. it makes maternity an offence for which a sin offering had to be made. it was wicked to give birth to a boy, and twice as wicked to give birth to a girl. to make hair-oil like that used by the priests was an offence punishable with death. the blood of a bird killed over running water was regarded as medicine. would a civilized god daub his altars with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves? would he make all his priests butchers? would he delight in the smell of burning flesh? iii. the ten commandments some christian lawyers--some eminent and stupid judges--have said and still say, that the ten commandments are the foundation of all law. nothing could be more absurd. long before these commandments were given there were codes of laws in india and egypt--laws against murder, perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. such laws are as old as human society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of prosperity; as old as human love. all of the ten commandments that are good were old; all that were new are foolish. if jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the sabbath, and in its place would have said: "thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men." he would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: "the man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband." he would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: "thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence." if jehovah, had been civilized, how much grander the ten commandments would have been. all that we call progress--the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the dark ages--has been done in spite of the old testament. let me further illustrate the morality, the mercy, the philosophy and goodness of the old testament: the story of achan. joshua took the city of jericho. before the fall of the city he declared that all the spoil taken should be given to the lord. in spite of this order achan secreted a garment, some silver and gold. afterward joshua tried to take the city of ai. he failed and many of his soldiers were slain. joshua sought for the cause of his defeat and he found that achan had secreted a garment, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold. to this achan confessed. and thereupon joshua took achan, his sons and his daughters, his oxen and his sheep--stoned them all to death and burned their bodies. there is nothing to show that the sons and daughters had committed any crime. certainly, the oxen and sheep should not have been stoned to death for the crime of their owner. this was the justice, the mercy, of jehovah! after joshua had committed this crime, with the help of jehovah he captured the city of ai. the story of elisha. "and he went up thence unto bethel, and as he was going up by the way there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, 'go up, thou baldhead.' "and he turned back and looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the lord. and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tore forty and two children of them." this was the work of the good god--the merciful jehovah! the story of daniel. king darius had honored and exalted daniel, and the native princes were jealous. so they induced the king to sign a decree to the effect that any man who should make a petition to any god or man except to king darius, for thirty days, should be cast into the den of lions. afterward these men found that daniel, with his face toward jerusalem, prayed three times a day to jehovah. thereupon daniel was cast into the den of lions; a stone was placed at the mouth of the den and sealed with the king's seal. the king passed a bad night. the next morning he went to the den and cried out to daniel. daniel answered and told the king that god had sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions. daniel was taken out alive and well, and the king was converted and believed in daniel's god. darius, being then a believer in the true god, sent for the men who had accused daniel, and for their wives and their children, and cast them all into the lions' den. "and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the pit." what had the wives and little children done? how had they offended king darius, the believer in jehovah? who protected daniel? jehovah! who failed to protect the innocent wives and children? jehovah! the story of joseph. pharaoh had a dream, and this dream was interpreted by joseph. according to this interpretation there was to be in egypt seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. joseph advised pharaoh to buy all the surplus of the seven plentiful years and store it up against the years of famine. pharaoh appointed joseph as his minister or agent, and ordered him to buy the grain of the plentiful years. then came the famine. the people came to the king for help. he told them to go to joseph and do as he said. joseph sold corn to the egyptians until all their money was gone--until he had it all. when the money was gone the people said: "give us corn and we will give you our cattle." joseph let them have corn until all their cattle, their horses and their flocks had been given to him. then the people said: "give us corn and we will give you our lands." so joseph let them have corn until all their lands were gone. but the famine continued, and so the poor wretches sold themselves, and they became the servants of pharoah. then joseph gave them seed, and made an agreement with them that they should forever give one-fifth of all they raised to pharaoh. who enabled joseph to interpret the dream of pharaoh? jehovah! did he know at the time that joseph would use the information thus given to rob and enslave the people of egypt? yes. who produced the famine? jehovah! it is perfectly apparent that the jews did not think of jehovah as the god of egypt--the god of all the world. he was their god, and theirs alone. other nations had gods, but jehovah was the greatest of all. he hated other nations and other gods, and abhorred all religions except the worship of himself. iv. what is it all worth? will some christian scholar tell us the value of genesis? we know that it is not true--that it contradicts itself. there are two accounts of the creation in the first and second chapters. in the first account birds and beasts were created before man. in the second, man was created before the birds and beasts. in the first, fowls are made out of the water. in the second, fowls are made out of the ground. in the first, adam and eve are created together. in the second, adam is made; then the beasts and birds, and then eve is created from one of adam's ribs. these stories are far older than the pentateuch. persian: god created the world in six days, a man called adama, a woman called evah, and then rested. the etruscan, babylonian, phoenician, chaldean and the egyptian stories are much the same. the persians, greeks, egyptians, chinese and hindus have their garden of eden and the tree of life. so the persians, the babylonians, the nubians, the people of southern india, all had the story of the fall of man and the subtle serpent. the chinese say that sin came into the world by the disobedience of woman. and even the tahitians tell us that man was created from the earth, and the first woman from one of his bones. all these stories are equally authentic and of equal value to the world, and all the authors were equally inspired. we know also that the story of the flood is much older than the book of genesis, and we know besides that it is not true. we know that this story in genesis was copied from the chaldean. there you find all about the rain, the ark, the animals, the dove that was sent out three times, and the mountain on which the ark rested. so the hindus, chinese, parsees, persians, greeks, mexicans and scandinavians have substantially the same story. we also know that the account of the tower of babel is an ignorant and childish fable. what then is left in this inspired book of genesis? is there a word calculated to develop the heart or brain? is there an elevated thought--any great principle--anything poetic--any word that bursts into blossom? is there anything except a dreary and detailed statement of things that never happened? is there anything in exodus calculated to make men generous, loving and noble? is it well to teach children that god tortured the innocent cattle of the egyptians--bruised them to death with hailstones--on account of the sins of pharoah? does it make us merciful to believe that god killed the firstborn of the egyptians--the firstborn of the poor and suffering people--of the poor girl working at the mill--because of the wickedness of the king? can we believe that the gods of egypt worked miracles? did they change water into blood, and sticks into serpents? in exodus there is not one original thought or line of value. we know, if we know anything, that this book was written by savages--savages who believed in slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination. we know that the story told is impossible, and that the miracles were never performed. this book admits that there are other gods besides jehovah. in the th chapter is this verse: "now i know that the lord is greater than all gods, for, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them." so, in this blessed book is taught the duty of human sacrifice--the sacrifice of babes. in the d chapter is this command: "thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors: the first-born of thy sons thou shalt give unto me." has exodus been a help or a hindrance to the human race? take from exodus the laws common to all nations, and is there anything of value left? is there anything in leviticus of importance? is there a chapter worth reading? what interest have we in the clothes of priests, the curtains and candles of the tabernacle, the tongs and shovels of the altar or the hair-oil used by the levites? of what use the cruel code, the frightful punishments, the curses, the falsehoods and the miracles of this ignorant and infamous book? and what is there in the book of numbers--with its sacrifices and water of jealousy, with its shew-bread and spoons, its kids and fine flour, its oil and candlesticks, its cucumbers, onions and manna--to assist and instruct mankind? what interest have we in the rebellion of korah, the water of separation, the ashes of a red heifer, the brazen serpent, the water that followed the people uphill and down for forty years, and the inspired donkey of the prophet balaam? have these absurdities and cruelties--these childish, savage superstitions--helped to civilize the world? is there anything in joshua--with its wars, its murders and massacres, its swords dripping with the blood of mothers and babes, its tortures, maimings and mutilations, its fraud and fury, its hatred and revenge--calculated to improve the world? does not every chapter shock the heart of a good man? is it a book to be read by children? the book of joshua is as merciless as famine, as ferocious as the heart of a wild beast. it is a history--a justification--a sanctification of nearly every crime. the book of judges is about the same, nothing but war and bloodshed; the horrible story of jael and sisera; of gideon and his trumpets and pitchers; of jephtha and his daughter, whom he murdered to please jehovah. here we find the story of samson, in which a sun-god is changed to a hebrew giant. read this book of joshua--read of the slaughter of women, of wives, of mothers and babes--read its impossible miracles, its ruthless crimes, and all done according to the commands of jehovah, and tell me whether this book is calculated to make us forgiving, generous and loving. i admit that the history of ruth is in some respects a beautiful and touching story; that it is naturally told, and that her love for naomi was deep and pure. but in the matter of courtship we would hardly advise our daughters to follow the example of ruth. still, we must remember that ruth was a widow. is there anything worth reading in the first and second books of samuel? ought a prophet of god to hew a captured king in pieces? is the story of the ark, its capture and return of importance to us? is it possible that it was right, just and merciful to kill fifty thousand men because they had looked into a box? of what use to us are the wars of saul and david, the stories of goliath and the witch of endor? why should jehovah have killed uzzah for putting forth his hand to steady the ark, and forgiven david for murdering uriah and stealing his wife? according to "samuel," david took a census of the people. this excited the wrath of jehovah, and as a punishment he allowed david to choose seven years of famine, a flight of three months from pursuing enemies, or three days of pestilence. david, having confidence in god, chose the three days of pestilence; and, thereupon, god, the compassionate, on account of the sin of david, killed seventy thousand innocent men! under the same circumstances, what would a devil have done? is there anything in first and second kings that suggests the idea of inspiration? when david is dying he tells his son solomon to murder joab--not to let his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. with his last breath he commands his son to bring down the hoar head of shimei to the grave with blood. having uttered these merciful words, the good david, the man after god's heart, slept with his fathers. was it necessary to inspire the man who wrote the history of the building of the temple, the story of the visit of the queen of sheba, or to tell the number of solomon's wives? what care we for the withering of jereboam's hand, the prophecy of jehu, or the story of elijah and the ravens? can we believe that elijah brought flames from heaven, or that he went at last to paradise in a chariot of fire? can we believe in the multiplication of the widow's oil by elisha, that an army was smitten with blindness, or that an axe floated in the water? does it civilize us to read about the beheading of the seventy sons of ahab, the putting out of the eyes of zedekiah and the murder of his sons? is there one word in first and second kings calculated to make men better? first and second chronicles is but a re-telling of what is told in first and second kings. the same old stories--a little left out, a little added, but in no respect made better or worse. the book of ezra is of no importance. he tells us that cyrus, king of persia, issued a proclamation for building a temple at jerusalem, and that he declared jehovah to be the real and only god. nothing could be more absurd. ezra tells us about the return from captivity, the building of the temple, the dedication, a few prayers, and this is all. this book is of no importance, of no use. nehemiah is about the same, only it tells of the building of the wall, the complaints of the people about taxes, a list of those who returned from babylon, a catalogue of those who dwelt at jerusalem, and the dedication of the walls. not a word in nehemiah worth reading. then comes the book of esther: in this we are told that king ahasueras was intoxicated; that he sent for his queen, vashti, to come and show herself to him and his guests. vashti refused to appear. this maddened the king, and he ordered that from every province the most beautiful girls should be brought before him that he might choose one in place of vashti. among others was brought esther, a jewess. she was chosen and became the wife of the king. then a gentleman by the name of haman wanted to have all the jews killed, and the king, not knowing that esther was of that race, signed a decree that all the jews should be killed. through the efforts of mordecai and esther the decree was annulled and the jews were saved. haman prepared a gallows on which to have mordecai hanged, but the good esther so managed matters that haman and his ten sons were hanged on the gallows that haman had built, and the jews were allowed to murder more than seventy-five thousand of the king's subjects. this is the inspired story of esther. in the book of job we find some elevated sentiments, some sublime and foolish thoughts, something of the wonder and sublimity of nature, the joys and sorrows of life; but the story is infamous. some of the psalms are good, many are indifferent, and a few are infamous. in them are mingled the vices and virtues. there are verses that elevate, verses that degrade. there are prayers for forgiveness and revenge. in the literature of the world there is nothing more heartless, more infamous, than the th psalm. in the proverbs there is much shrewdness, many pithy and prudent maxims, many wise sayings. the same ideas are expressed in many ways--the wisdom of economy and silence, the dangers of vanity and idleness. some are trivial, some are foolish, and many are wise. these proverbs are not generous--not altruistic. sayings to the same effect are found among all nations. ecclesiastes is the most thoughtful book in the bible. it was written by an unbeliever--a philosopher--an agnostic. take out the interpolations, and it is in accordance with the thought of the nineteenth century. in this book are found the most philosophic and poetic passages in the bible. after crossing the desert of death and crime--after reading the pentateuch, joshua, judges, samuel, kings and chronicles--it is delightful to reach this grove of palms, called the "song of solomon." a drama of love--of human love; a poem without jehovah--a poem born of the heart and true to the divine instincts of the soul. "i sleep, but my heart waketh." isaiah is the work of several. its swollen words, its vague imagery, its prophecies and curses, its ravings against kings and nations, its laughter at the wisdom of man, its hatred of joy, have not the slightest tendency to increase the well-being of man. in this book is recorded the absurdest of all miracles. the shadow on the dial is turned back ten degrees, in order to satisfy hezekiah that jehovah will add fifteen years to his life. in this miracle the world, turning from west to east at the rate of more than a thousand miles an hour, is not only stopped, but made to turn the other way until the shadow on the dial went back ten degrees! is there in the whole world an intelligent man or woman who believes this impossible falsehood? jeremiah contains nothing of importance--no facts of value; nothing but fault-finding, lamentations, croakings, wailings, curses and promises; nothing but famine and prayer, the prosperity of the wicked, the ruin of the jews, the captivity and return, and at last jeremiah, the traitor, in the stocks and in prison. and lamentations is simply a continuance of the ravings of the same insane pessimist; nothing but dust and sackcloth and ashes, tears and howls, railings and revilings. and ezekiel--eating manuscripts, prophesying siege and desolation, with visions of coals of fire, and cherubim, and wheels with eyes, and the type and figure of the boiling pot, and the resurrection of dry bones--is of no use, of no possible value. with voltaire, i say that any one who admires ezekiel should be compelled to dine with him. daniel is a disordered dream--a nightmare. what can be made of this book with its image with a golden head, with breast and arms of silver, with belly and thighs of brass, with legs of iron, and with feet of iron and clay; with its writing on the wall, its den of lions, and its vision of the ram and goat? is there anything to be learned from hosea and his wife? is there anything of use in joel, in amos, in obadiah? can we get any good from jonah and his gourd? is it possible that god is the real author of micah and nahum, of habakkuk and zephaniah, of haggai and malachi and zechariah, with his red horses, his four horns, his four carpenters, his flying roll, his mountains of brass and the stone with four eyes? is there anything in these "inspired" books that has been of benefit to man? have they taught us how to cultivate the earth, to build houses, to weave cloth, to prepare food? have they taught us to paint pictures, to chisel statues, to build bridges, or ships, or anything of beauty or of use? did we get our ideas of government, of religious freedom, of the liberty of thought, from the old testament? did we get from any of these books a hint of any science? is there in the "sacred volume" a word, a line, that has added to the wealth, the intelligence and the happiness of mankind? is there one of the books of the old testament as entertaining as "robinson crusoe," "the travels of gulliver," or "peter wilkins and his flying wife"? did the author of genesis know as much about nature as humboldt, or darwin, or haeckel? is what is called the mosaic code as wise or as merciful as the code of any civilized nation? were the writers of kings and chronicles as great historians, as great writers, as gibbon and draper? is jeremiah, or habakkuk equal to dickens or thackeray? can the authors of job and the psalms be compared with shakespeare? why should we attribute the best to man and the worst to god? v. was jehovah a god of love? did these words come from the heart of love?-- "when the lord thy god shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them." "i will heap mischief upon them. i will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction." "i will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust." "the sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." "let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." "and thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body--the flesh of thy sons and daughters." "and the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." "cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field." "i will make my arrows drunk with blood." "i will laugh at their calamity.". did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the mouth of savagery? was jehovah god or devil? why should we place jehovah above all the gods? has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster? have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshiped a more heartless god? brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was osiris and zeus and jupiter. so was the supreme god of the aztecs, to whom they offered only the perfume of flowers. the worst god of the hindus, with his necklace of skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared with jehovah. compared with marcus aurelius, how small jehovah seems. compared with abraham lincoln, how cruel, how contemptible, is this god. vi. jehovah's administration. he created the world, the hosts of heaven, a man and woman--placed them in a garden. then the serpent deceived them, and they were cast out and made to earn their bread. jehovah had been thwarted. then he tried again. he went on for about sixteen hundred years trying to civilize the people. no schools, no churches, no bible, no tracts--nobody taught to read or write. no ten commandments. the people grew worse and worse, until the merciful jehovah sent the flood and drowned all the people except noah and his family, eight in all. then he started again, and changed their diet. at first adam and eve were vegetarians. after the flood jehovah said: "every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you"--snakes and buzzards. then he failed again, and at the tower of babel he dispersed and scattered the people. finding that he could not succeed with all the people, he thought he would try a few, so he selected abraham and his descendants. again he failed, and his chosen people were captured by the egyptians and enslaved for four hundred years. then he tried again--rescued them from pharaoh and started for palestine. then he changed their diet, allowing them to eat only the beasts that parted the hoof and chewed the cud. again he failed. the people hated him, and preferred the slavery of egypt to the freedom of jehovah. so he kept them wandering until nearly all who came from egypt had died. then he tried again--took them into palestine and had them governed by judges. this, too, was a failure--no schools, no bible. then he tried kings, and the kings were mostly idolaters. then the chosen people were conquered and carried into captivity by the babylonians. another failure. then they returned, and jehovah tried prophets--howlers and wailers--but the people grew worse and worse. no schools, no sciences, no arts, no commerce. then jehovah took upon himself flesh, was born of a woman, and lived among the people that he had been trying to civilize for several thousand years. then these people, following the law that jehovah had given them in the wilderness, charged this jehovah-man--this christ--with blasphemy; tried, convicted and killed him. jehovah had failed again. then he deserted the jews and turned his attention to the rest of the world. and now the jews, deserted by jehovah, persecuted by christians, are the most prosperous people on the earth. again has jehovah failed. what an administration! vii. the new testament. who wrote the new testament? christian scholars admit that they do not know. they admit that, if the four gospels were written by matthew, mark, luke and john, they must have been written in hebrew. and yet a hebrew manuscript of any one of these gospels has never been found. all have been and are in greek. so, educated theologians admit that the epistles, james and jude, were written by persons who had never seen one of the four gospels. in these epistles--in james and jude--no reference is made to any of the gospels, nor to any miracle recorded in them. the first mention that has been found of one of our gospels was made about one hundred and eighty years after the birth of christ, and the four gospels were first named and quoted from at the beginning of the third century, about one hundred and seventy years after the death of christ. we now know that there were many other gospels besides our four, some of which have been lost. there were the gospels of paul, of the egyptians, of the hebrews, of perfection, of judas, of thaddeus, of the infancy, of thomas, of mary, of andrew, of nicodemus, of marcion and several others. so there were the acts of pilate, of andrew, of mary, of paul and thecla and of many others; also a book called the shepherd of hermas. at first not one of all the books was considered as inspired. the old testament was regarded as di vine; but the books that now constitute the new testament were regarded as human productions. we now know that we do not know who wrote the four gospels. the question is, were the authors of these four gospels inspired? if they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. if they are true, they must agree. the four gospels do not agree. matthew, mark and luke knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith. they knew only the gospel of good deeds--of charity. they teach that if we forgive others god will forgive us. with this the gospel of john does not agree. in that gospel we are taught that we must believe on the lord jesus christ; that we must be born again; that we must drink the blood and eat the flesh of christ. in this gospel we find the doctrine of the atonement and that christ died for us and suffered in our place. this gospel is utterly at variance with, the other three. if the other three are true, the gospel of john is false. if the gospel of john was written by an inspired man, the writers of the other three were uninspired. from this there is no possible escape. the four cannot be true. it is evident that there are many interpolations in the four gospels. for instance, in the th chapter of matthew is an account to the effect that the soldiers at the tomb of christ were bribed to say that the disciples of jesus stole away his body while they, the soldiers, slept. this is clearly an interpolation. it is a break in the narrative. the th verse should be followed by the th. the th verse is as follows: "then jesus said unto them, 'be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go unto galilee and there shall they see me.'" the th verse: "then the eleven disciples went away unto galilee into a mountain, where jesus had appointed them." the story about the soldiers contained in the th, th, th, th and th verses is an interpolation--an afterthought--long after. the th verse demonstrates this. fifteenth verse: "so they took the money and did as they were taught. and this saying is commonly reported among the jews until this day." certainly this account was not in the original gospel, and certainly the th verse was not written by a jew. no jew could have written this: "and this saying is commonly reported among the jews until this day." mark, john and luke never heard that the soldiers had been bribed by the priests; or, if they had, did not think it worth while recording. so the accounts of the ascension of jesus christ in mark and luke are interpolations. matthew says nothing about the ascension. certainly there never was a greater miracle, and yet matthew, who was present--who saw the lord rise, ascend and disappear--did not think it worth mentioning. on the other hand, the last words of christ, according to matthew, contradict the ascension: "lo i am with you always, even unto the end of the world." john, who was present, if christ really ascended, says not one word on the subject. as to the ascension, the gospels do not agree. mark gives the last conversation that christ had with his disciples, as follows: "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. and these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. so, then, after the lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of god." is it possible that this description was written by one who witnessed this miracle? this miracle is described by luke as follows: "and it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." "brevity is the soul of wit." in the acts we are told that: "when he had spoken, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight." neither luke, nor matthew, nor john, nor the writer of the acts, heard one word of the conversation attributed to christ by mark. the fact is that the ascension of christ was not claimed by his disciples. at first christ was a man--nothing more. mary was his mother, joseph his father. the genealogy of his father, joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of david. then the claim was made that he was the son of god, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death. then the claim was made that christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven. it required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men. if christ rose from the dead, why did he not appear to his enemies? why did he not call on caiaphas, the high priest? why did he not make another triumphal entry into jerusalem? if he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner? it was a miracle that could have been seen by a vast multitude--a miracle that could not be simulated--one that would have convinced hundreds of thousands. after the story of the resurrection, the ascension became a necessity. they had to dispose of the body. so there are many other interpolations in the gospels and epistles. again i ask: is the new testament true? does anybody now believe that at the birth of christ there was a celestial greeting; that a star led the wise men of the bast; that herod slew the babes of bethlehem of two years old and under? the gospels are filled with accounts of miracles. were they ever performed? matthew gives the particulars of about twenty-two miracles, mark of about nineteen, luke of about eighteen and john of about seven. according to the gospels, christ healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked the sea, cured the blind, fed multitudes with five loaves and two fishes, walked on the sea, cursed a fig tree, turned water into wine and raised the dead. matthew is the only one that tells about the star and the wise men--the only one that tells about the murder of babes. john is the only one who says anything about the resurrection of lazarus, and luke is the only one giving an account of the raising from the dead the widow of nain's son. how is it possible to substantiate these miracles? the jews, among whom they were said to have been performed, did not believe them. the diseased, the palsied, the leprous, the blind who were cured, did not become followers of christ. those that were raised from the dead were never heard of again. does any intelligent man believe in the existence of devils? the writer of three of the gospels certainly did. john says nothing about christ having cast out devils, but matthew, mark and luke give many instances. does any natural man now believe that christ cast out devils? if his disciples said he did, they were mistaken. if christ said he did, he was insane or an impostor. if the accounts of casting out devils are false, then the writers were ignorant or dishonest. if they wrote through ignorance, then they were not inspired. if they wrote what they knew to be false, they were not inspired. if what they wrote is untrue, whether they knew it or not, they were not inspired. at that time it was believed that palsy, epilepsy, deafness, insanity and many other diseases were caused by devils; that devils took possession of and lived in the bodies of men and women. christ believed this, taught this belief to others, and pretended to cure diseases by casting devils out of the sick and insane. we know now, if we know anything, that diseases are not caused by the presence of devils. we know, if we know anything, that devils do not reside in the bodies of men. if christ said and did what the writers of the three gospels say he said and did, then christ was mistaken. if he was mistaken, certainly he was not god. and if he was mistaken, certainly he was not inspired. is it a fact that the devil tried to bribe christ? is it a fact that the devil carried christ to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the ground? how can these miracles be established? the principals have written nothing, christ has written nothing, and the devil has remained silent. how can we know that the devil tried to bribe christ? who wrote the account? we do not know. how did the writer get his information? we do not know. somebody, some seventeen hundred years ago, said that the devil tried to bribe god; that the devil carried god to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the earth and that god was intellectually too keen for the devil. this is all the evidence we have. is there anything in the literature of the world more perfectly idiotic? intelligent people no longer believe in witches, wizards, spooks and devils, and they are perfectly satisfied that every word in the new testament about casting out devils is utterly false. can we believe that christ raised the dead? a widow living in nain is following the body of her son to the tomb. christ halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the dead and gives him back to the arms of his mother. this young man disappears. he is never heard of again. no one takes the slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. luke is the only one who tells the story. maybe matthew, mark and john never heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it. john says that lazarus was raised from the dead; matthew, mark and luke say nothing about it. it was more wonderful than the raising of the widow's son. he had not been laid in the tomb for days. he was only on his way to the grave, but lazarus was actually dead. he had begun to decay. lazarus did not excite the least interest. no one asked him about the other world. no one inquired of him about their dead friends. when he died the second time no one said: "he is not afraid. he has traveled that road twice and knows just where he is going." we do not believe in the miracles of mohammed, and yet they are as well attested as this. we have no confidence in the miracles performed by joseph smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better. if a man should go about now pretending to raise the dead, pretending to cast out devils, we would regard him as insane. what, then, can we say of christ? if we wish to save his reputation we are compelled to say that he never pretended to raise the dead; that he never claimed to have cast out devils. we must take the ground that these ignorant and impossible things were invented by zealous disciples, who sought to deify their leader. in those ignorant days these falsehoods added to the fame of christ. but now they put his character in peril and belittle the authors of the gospels. can we now believe that water was changed into wine? john tells of this childish miracle, and says that the other disciples were present, yet matthew, mark and luke say nothing about it. 'take the miracle of the man cured by the pool of bethseda. john says that an angel troubled the waters of the pool of bethseda, and that whoever got into the pool first after the waters were troubled was healed. does anybody now believe that an angel went into the pool and troubled the waters? does anybody now think that the poor wretch who got in first was healed? yet the author of the gospel according to john believed and asserted these absurdities. if he was mistaken about that he may have been about all the miracles he records. john is the only one who tells about this pool of bethseda. possibly the other disciples did not believe the story. how can we account for these pretended miracles? in the days of the disciples, and for many centuries after, the world was filled with the supernatural. nearly everything that happened was regarded as miraculous. god was the immediate governor of the world. if the people were good, god sent seed time and harvest; but if they were bad he sent flood and hail, frost and famine. if anything wonderful happened it was exaggerated until it became a miracle. of the order of events--of the unbroken and the unbreakable chain of causes and effects--the people had no knowledge and no thought. a miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. no miracle ever was performed. no intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will. if christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him; if he had cured the palsied and insane; if he had given hearing to the deaf, vision to the blind; if he had cleansed the leper with a word, and with a touch had given life and feeling to the withered limb; if he had given pulse and motion, warmth and thought, to cold and breathless clay; if he had conquered death and rescued from the grave its pallid prey--no word would have been uttered, no hand raised, except in praise and honor. in his presence all heads would have been uncovered--all knees upon the ground. is it not strange that at the trial of christ no one was found to say a word in his favor? no man stood forth and said: "i was a leper, and this man cured me with a touch." no woman said: "i am the widow of nain and this is my son whom this man raised from the dead." no man said: "i was blind, and this man gave me sight." all silent viii. the philosophy of christ millions assert that the philosophy of christ is perfect--that he was the wisest that ever littered speech. let us see: _resist not evil. if smitten on one cheek turn the other_. is there any philosophy, any wisdom in this? christ takes from goodness, from virtue, from the truth, the right of self-defence. vice becomes the master of the world, and the good become the victims of the infamous. no man has the right to protect himself, his property, his wife and children. government becomes impossible, and the world is at the mercy of criminals. is there any absurdity beyond this? _love your enemies_. is this possible? did any human being ever love his enemies? did christ love his, when he denounced them as whited sepulchers, hypocrites and vipers? we cannot love those who hate us. hatred in the hearts of others does not breed love in ours. not to resist evil is absurd; to love your enemies is impossible. _take no thought for the morrow_. the idea was that god would take care of us as he did of sparrows and lilies. is there the least sense in that belief? does god take care of anybody? can we live without taking thought for the morrow? to plow, to sow, to cultivate, to harvest, is to take thought for the morrow. we plan and work for the future, for our children, for the unborn generations to come. without this forethought there could be no progress, no civilization. the world would go back to the caves and dens of savagery. _if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off._ why? because it is better that one of our members should perish than that the whole body should be cast into hell. is there any wisdom in putting out your eyes or cutting off your hands? is it possible to extract from these extravagant sayings the smallest grain of common sense? _swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is god's throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by jerusalem, for it is his holy city._ here we find the astronomy and geology of christ. heaven is the throne of god, the monarch; the earth is his footstool. a footstool that turns over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and sweeps through space at the rate of over a thousand miles a minute! where did christ think heaven was? why was jerusalem a holy city? was it because the inhabitants were ignorant, cruel and superstitious? _if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also_. is there any philosophy, any good sense, in that commandment? would it not be just as sensible to say: "if a man obtains a judgment against you for one hundred dollars, give him two hundred." only the insane could give or follow this advice. _think not i am come to send peace on earth. i came not to send peace, but a sword. for i am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother._ if this is true, how much better it would have been had he remained away. is it possible that he who said, "resist not evil," came to bring a sword? that he who said, "love your enemies," came to destroy the peace of the world? to set father against son, and daughter against father--what a glorious mission! he did bring a sword, and the sword was wet for a thousand years with innocent blood. in millions of hearts he sowed the seeds of hatred and revenge. he divided nations and families, put out the light of reason, and petrified the hearts of men. _and every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, shall inherit everlasting life._ according to the writer of matthew, christ, the compassionate, the merciful, uttered these terrible words. is it possible that christ offered the bribe of eternal joy to those who would desert their fathers, their mothers, their wives and children? are we to win the happiness of heaven by deserting the ones we love? is a home to be ruined here for the sake of a mansion there? and yet it is said that christ is an example for all the world. did he desert his father and mother? he said, speaking to his mother: "woman, what have i to do with, thee?" the pharisees said unto christ: "is it lawful to pay tribute unto cæsar?" christ said: "show me the tribute money." they brought him a penny. and he saith unto them: "whose is the image and the superscription?" they said: "cæsar's." and christ said: "render unto cæsar the things that are cæsar's." did christ think that the money belonged to cæsar because his image and superscription were stamped upon it? did the penny belong to cæsar or to the man who had earned it? had cæsar the right to demand it because it was adorned with his image? does it appear from this conversation that christ understood the real nature and use of money? can we now say that christ was the greatest of philosophers? ix. is christ our example? he never said a word in favor of education. he never even hinted at the existence of any science. he never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. he was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich. lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor. christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music--nothing for any art. he said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. he said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of maternity. he never married. he wandered homeless from place to place with a few disciples. none of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business, and they seem to have lived on alms. . all human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the next; all human effort was discouraged. god would support and protect. at last, in the dusk of death, christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: "my god! my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" we have found that man must depend on himself. he must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions; he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may do the work of the world. x. why should we place christ at the top and summit of the human race? as he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than buddha? was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than socrates? was he more patient, more charitable, than epictetus? was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than epicurus? in what respect was he the superior of zoroaster? was he gentler than lao-tsze, more universal than confucius? were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of zeno? did he express grander truths than cicero? was his mind subtler than spinoza's? was his brain equal to kepler's or newton's? was he grander in death--a sublimer martyr than bruno? was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of shakespeare, the greatest of the human race? if christ was in fact god, he knew all the future. before him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. he knew how his words would be interpreted. he knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. he knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. he knew that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. he knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. he saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe. he knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. he saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. he saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. he saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. he saw his followers using the instruments of pain. he heard the groans--saw the faces white with agony. he heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. he knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. he knew that the inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him. he saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. he saw all wars that would be waged, and-he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. he knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned--that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star. he saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain. he knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold. and yet he died with voiceless lips. why did he fail to speak? why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "you shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. you shall not persecute your fellow-men." why did he not plainly say: "i am the son of god," or, "i am god"? why did he not explain the trinity? why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? why did he not write a creed? why did he not break the chains of slaves? why did he not say that the old testament was or was not the inspired word of god? why did he not write the new testament himself? why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain? why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? i will tell you why. he was a man, and did not know. xi. inspiration not before about the third century was it claimed or believed that the books composing the new testament were inspired. it will be remembered that there were a great number of books of gospels, epistles and acts, and that from these the "inspired" ones were selected by "uninspired" men. between the "fathers" there were great differences of opinion as to which books were inspired; much discussion and plenty of hatred. many of the books now deemed spurious were by many of the "fathers" regarded as divine, and some now regarded as inspired were believed to be spurious. many of the early christians and some of the "fathers" repudiated the gospel of john, the epistle to the hebrews, jude, james, peter, and the revelation of st. john. on the other hand, many of them regarded the gospel of the hebrews, of the egyptians, the preaching ol peter, the shepherd of hermas, the epistle of barnabas, the pastor of hermas, the revelation of peter, the revelation of paul, the epistle of clement, the gospel of nicodemus, inspired books, equal to the very best. from all these books, and many others, the christians selected the inspired ones. the men who did the selecting were ignorant and superstitious. they were firm believers in the miraculous. they thought that diseases had been cured by the aprons and handkerchiefs of the apostles, by the bones of the dead. they believed in the fable of the phoenix, and that the hyenas changed their sex every year. were the men who through many centuries made the selections inspired? were they--ignorant, credulous, stupid and malicious--as well qualified to judge of "inspiration" as the students of our time? how are we bound by their opinion? have we not the right to judge for ourselves? erasmus, one of the leaders of the reformation, declared that the epistle to the hebrews was not written by paul, and he denied the inspiration of second and third john, and also of revelation. luther was of the same opinion. he declared james to be an epistle of straw, and denied the inspiration of revelation. zwinglius rejected the book of revelation, and even calvin denied that paul was the author of hebrews. the truth is that the protestants did not agree as to what books are inspired until , by the assembly of westminster. to prove that a book is inspired you must prove the existence of god. you must also prove that this god thinks, acts, has objects, ends and aims. this is somewhat difficult. it is impossible to conceive of an infinite being. having no conception of an infinite being, it is impossible to tell whether all the facts we know tend to prove or disprove the existence of such a being. god is a guess. if the existence of god is admitted, how are we to prove that he inspired the writers of the books of the bible? how can one man establish the inspiration of another? how can an inspired man prove that he is inspired? how can he know himself that he is inspired? there is no way to prove the fact of inspiration. the only evidence is the word of some man who could by no possibility know anything on the subject. what is inspiration? did god use men as instruments? did he cause them to write his thoughts? did he take possession of their minds and destroy their wills? were these writers only partly controlled, so that their mistakes, their ignorance and their prejudices were mingled with the wisdom of god? how are we to separate the mistakes of man from the thoughts of god? can we do this without being inspired ourselves? if the original writers were inspired, then the translators should have been, and so should be the men who tell us what the bible means. how is it possible for a human being to know that he is inspired by an infinite being? but of one thing we may be certain: an inspired book should certainly excel all the books produced by uninspired men. it should, above all, be true, filled with wisdom, blossoming in beauty--perfect. ministers wonder how i can be wicked enough to attack the bible. i will tell them: this book, the bible, has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the best. this book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. this book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man. this book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. this book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished, the world. this book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants--the enslaver of women and children. this book has corrupted parliaments and courts. this book has made colleges and, universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. this book has filled christendom with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. this book taught men to kill their fellows for religion's sake. this book founded the inquisition, invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. this book piled fagots about the feet of the just. this book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane. this book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes. this book was the auction block on which the slave-mother stood when she was sold from her child. this book filled the sails of the slave-trader and made merchandise of human flesh. this book lighted the fires that, burned "witches" and "wizards." this book filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts, and the bodies of men and women with devils. this book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. this book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. this book filled nations with hermits, monks and nuns--with the pious and the useless. this book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist. this book taught man to despise the joys of this life, that he might be happy in another--to waste this world for the sake of the next. i attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty--the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress. let me ask the ministers one question: how can you be wicked enough to defend this book? xii. the real bible. or thousands of years men have been writing the real bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. all the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea. all the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life--all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain--all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love, the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls, the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years. these treasures of the heart and brain--these are the sacred scriptures of the human race. attributed to evil spirits--origin of the priesthood--temptation of christ--innate ideas--divine interference--special providence--the crane and the fish--cancer as a proof of design--matter and force--miracle--passing the hat for just one fact--sir william hamilton on cause and effect--the phenomena of mind--necessity and free will--the dark ages--the originality of repetition--of what use have the gods been to man?--paley and design--make good health contagious--periodicity of the universe and the commencement of intellectual freedom--lesson of the ineffectual attempt to rescue the tomb of christ from the mohammedans--the cemetery of the gods--taking away crutches--imperial reason humboldt. ( .) the universe is governed by law--the self-made man--poverty generally an advantage--humboldt's birth-place--his desire for travel--on what humboldt's fame depends--his companions and friends--investigations in the new world--a picture--subjects of his addresses--victory of the church over philosophy--influence of the discovery that the world is governed by law--on the term law--copernicus--astronomy--aryabhatta-- descartes--condition of the world and man when the morning of science dawned--reasons for honoring humboldt--the world his monument thomas paine. ( .) with his name left out the history of liberty cannot be written--paine's origin and condition--his arrival in america with a letter of introduction by franklin--condition of the colonies--"common sense"--a new nation born--paine the best of political writers--the "crisis"--war not to the interest of a trading nation--paine's standing at the close of the revolution--close of the eighteenth century in france-the "rights of man"--paine prosecuted in england--"the world is my country"--elected to the french assembly--votes against the death of the king--imprisoned--a look behind the altar--the "age of reason"--his argument against the bible as a revelation--christianity of paine's day--a blasphemy law in force in maryland--the scotch "kirk"--hanging of thomas aikenhead for denying the inspiration of the scriptures--"cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants"--science--"he died in the land his genius defended," individuality. ( .) "his soul was like a star and dwelt apart"--disobedience one of the conditions of progress.--magellan--the monarch and the hermit-why the church hates a thinker--the argument from grandeur and prosperity-travelers and guide-boards--a degrading saying--theological education--scotts, henrys and mcknights--the church the great robber--corrupting the reason of children--monotony of acquiescence: for god's sake, say no--protestant intolerance: luther and calvin--assertion of individual independence a step toward infidelity--salute to jupiter--the atheistic bug-little religious liberty in america--god in the constitution, man out--decision of the supreme court of illinois that an unbeliever could not testify in any court--dissimulation--nobody in this bed--the dignity of a unit heretics and heresies. ( .) liberty, a word without which all other words are vain--the church, the bible, and persecution--over the wild waves of war rose and fell the banner of jesus christ--highest type of the orthodox christian--heretics' tongues and why they should be removed before burning--the inquisition established--forms of torture--act of henry viii for abolishing diversity of opinion--what a good christian was obliged to believe--the church has carried the black flag--for what men and women have been burned--john calvin's advent into the world--his infamous acts--michael servetus--castalio--spread of presbyterianism--indictment of a presbyterian minister in illinois for heresy--specifications--the real bible the ghosts. ( .) dedication to ebon c. ingersoll--preface--mendacity of the religious press--"materialism"--ways of pleasing the ghosts--the idea of immortality not born of any book--witchcraft and demon-ology--witch trial before sir matthew hale--john wesley a firm believer in ghosts--"witch-spots"--lycanthropy--animals tried and convicted--the governor of minnesota and the grasshoppers--a papal bull against witchcraft--victims of the delusion--sir william blackstone's affirmation--trials in belgium--incubi and succubi--a bishop personated by the devil--the doctrine that diseases are caused by ghosts--treatment--timothy dwight against vaccination--ghosts as historians--the language of eden--leibnitz, founder of the science of language--cosmas on astronomy--vagaries of kepler and tycho brahe--discovery of printing, powder, and america--thanks to the inventors--the catholic murderer and the meat--let the ghosts go the liberty of man, woman, and child. ( .) liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter--the history of man a history of slavery--the infidel our fathers in the good old time--the iron arguments that christians used--instruments of torture--a vision of the inquisition--models of man's inventions--weapons, armor, musical instruments, paintings, books, skulls--the gentleman in the dug-out--homage to genius and intellect--abraham lincoln--what i mean by liberty--the man who cannot afford to speak his thought is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he resides--liberty of woman--marriage and the family--ornaments the souvenirs of bondage-the story of the garden of eden--adami and heva--equality of the sexes-the word "boss"--the cross man-the stingy man--wives who are beggars--how to spend money--by the tomb of the old napoleon--the woman you love will never grow old--liberty of children--when your child tells a lie--disowning children--beating your own flesh and blood--make home pleasant--sunday when i was a boy--the laugh of a child--the doctrine of eternal punishment--jonathan edwards on the happiness of believing husbands whose wives are in hell--the liberty of eating and sleeping--water in fever--soil and climate necessary to the production of genius--against annexing santo domingo--descent of man--conclusion about farming in illinois. ( .) to plow is to pray; to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and fulfills--the old way of farming--cooking an unknown art-houses, fuel, and crops--the farmer's boy--what a farmer should sell--beautifying the home--advantages of illinois as a farming state--advantages of the farmer over the mechanic--farm life too lonely-on early rising--sleep the best doctor--fashion--patriotism and boarding houses--the farmer and the railroads--money and confidence--demonetization of silver-area of illinois--mortgages and interest--kindness to wives and children--how a beefsteak should be cooked--decorations and comfort--let the children sleep--old age what must we do to be saved? ( .) preface--the synoptic gospels--only mark knew of the necessity of belief--three christs described--the jewish gentleman and the piece of bacon--who wrote the new testament?--why christ and the apostles wrote nothing--infinite respect for the man christ--different feeling for the theological christ--saved from what?--chapter on the gospel of matthew--what this gospel says we must do to be saved--jesus and the children--john calvin and jonathan edwards conceived of as dimpled darlings--christ and the man who inquired what good thing he should do that he might have eternal life--nothing said about belief--an interpolation--chapter on the gospel of mark--the believe or be damned passage, and why it was written--the last conversation of christ with his disciples--the signs that follow them that believe--chapter on the gospel of luke--substantial agreement with matthew and mark--how zaccheus achieved salvation--the two thieves on the cross--chapter on the gospel of john--the doctrine of regeneration, or the new birth--shall we love our enemies while god damns his?--chapter on the catholics--communication with heaven through decayed saints--nuns and nunneries--penitentiaries of god should be investigated--the athanasian creed expounded--the trinity and its members--chapter on the episcopalians--origin of the episcopal church--apostolic succession an imported article--episcopal creed like the catholic, with a few additional absurdities--chapter on the methodists--wesley and whitfield--their quarrel about predestination--much preaching for little money--adapted to new countries--chapter on the presbyterians--john calvin, murderer--meeting between calvin and knox--the infamy of calvinism--division in the church--the young presbyterian's resignation to the fate of his mother--a frightful, hideous, and hellish creed--chapter on the evangelical alliance--jeremy taylor's opinion of baptists--orthodoxy not dead--creed of the alliance--total depravity, eternal damnation--what do you propose?--the gospel of good-fellowship, cheerfulness, health, good living, justice--no forgiveness--god's forgiveness does not pay my debt to smith--gospel of liberty, of intelligence, of humanity--one world at a time--"upon that rock i stand" publisher's preface. in presenting to the public this edition of the late robert g. ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. no one can be more conscious than he of the magnitude of the task undertaken, or more keenly feel how far short it must fall of adequate accomplishment. when it is remembered that countless utterances of the author were never caught from his eloquent lips, it is matter for congratulation that so much has been preserved. the authorized addresses, arguments and articles that have already appeared in print and passed the review of the authors more or less careful inspection, will be readily recognized as accurate and complete; but in this latest and fullest compilation are many emanations from his heart and brain that have never had his scrutiny, were not revised by him, and that yet, by general judgment, should not be lost to the world. these unedited sundries consist of fragments of speeches and incompleted articles discovered amongst the authors literary remains and for unknown reasons left in more or less unfinished form. it has been the publisher's ambition to gather these fugitive pieces and place them in this edition by the side of the saved treasures. whether the work has been well or ill done a generous public must decide, while the sole responsibility must rest with, as it has been assumed by, the publisher. in carrying out the design of the present edition, the publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of mr. ingersoll's family, who have freely placed at his disposal many papers, inscriptions, monographs, memoranda and pages of valuable material. recognition is also here made of the kind courtesy of the press and of publishers of magazines who have generously permitted the publication of articles originally written for them. finally, the publisher gives his thanks to all the devoted friends of the author who in many ways, by suggestion and unselfish labor, have aided in getting out this work. of these, none have been more unremitting in service, and to none is the publisher more indebted, than to mr. i. newton baker, mr. ingersoll's former private secretary, to dr. edgar c. beall, and to mr. george e. macdonald for the fine tables of contents and the very valuable index to this edition. c. p. farrell. new york, july, . the gods an honest god is the noblest work of man. each nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. he hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. all these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. all these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together. these gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into holy ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. some were married--all ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. as they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment. these gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. none of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. all were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. as a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of american presidents. these deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. in order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters. nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence. few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. these gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. they presided over everybody and everything. they attended to every department. all was supposed to be under their immediate control. nothing was too small--nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. from their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. it is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird. when the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born. the priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them. these gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. for all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. for all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict. one of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following laws of war: "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, _then proclaim peace unto it_. and it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. "and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. but the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, _thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth_" is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend? remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. peace was offered upon condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled babe. and we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. we are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. because we refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. let the people hate, let the god threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him. the book, called the bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. this is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! this is the book to be recognized in our constitution as the source of all authority and justice! strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing god bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. the orthodox church never will forgive the universalist for saying "god is love." it has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. it has always been heresy to say, "god will at last save all." we are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of god. as a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. in the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. the instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. it is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. if we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action. the doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. it is the infamy of infamies. the notion that faith in christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." what man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease god? and yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. the jews pacified jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the christian system, the blood of jesus softened the heart of god a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. it is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. whether the bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. salvation through slavery is worthless. salvation from slavery is inestimable. as long as man believes the bible to be infallible, that book is his master. the civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief--the result of free thought. all that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention--of barbarian invention--is to read it read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition--then read the holy bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as well. these devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. some had headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods. these devils generally sympathized with man. there is in regard to them a most wonderful fact: in nearly all the theologies, mythologies and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. no devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods. the pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. the frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. no devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality. one of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. the old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. this, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. what a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil! one of the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people. was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery? one of these gods is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery: "if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife and my children; i will not go out free. then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." according to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would desert forever his wife and children. did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? who can worship such a god? who can bend the knee to such a monster? who can pray to such a fiend? all these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies. did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? the basest thing recorded of the devil, is what he did concerning job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the character of "my servant job." the first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called genesis, and is as follows: "now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the lord god had made, and he said unto the woman, yea, hath god said, ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? and the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden god hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.... and the lord god said, behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden to till the ground from which he was taken. so he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." according to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. adam and eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil. the account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. the church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. the priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." from every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." for this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods. if the account given in genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? he was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization. give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! banish me from eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge! some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled to say, is our own. the jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their devil at the same time. this borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our people. he is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our god. to me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. they are a perfectly natural production. man has created them all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. no god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. the negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. the mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. the jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. zeus was a perfect greek, and jove looked as though a member of the roman senate. the gods of egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. the gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. the gods of india were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice. in some countries? even at this day, if the people after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. 'how now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care, you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.' hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the street. if, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. 'of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. why should you bring this beating on yourself. but what is done cannot be undone. let us not think of it any more. if you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter again than before. man has never been at a loss for gods. he has worshiped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. he has worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. the todas worship a cow-bell. the kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. had woman been the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of nature would have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, lownecked dresses, laces and back-hair. nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities. man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his surroundings. he cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. he can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses; but he cannot create. having seen exhibitions of power, he can say, omnipotent. having lived, he can say, immortality. knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. conceiving something of intelligence, he can say, god. having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. a few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. the superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses. it is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. we have in imagination created an impossible monster. and yet the various parts of this monster really exist so it is with all the gods that man has made. beyond nature man cannot go even in thought--above nature he cannot rise--below nature he cannot fall. man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. to preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. he endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. the lightning and thunder terrified him. in the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. the great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. the strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. for some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power--that they were not all alike malevolent--that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. for this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice. these ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man. for ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. for thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. they would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. if the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit. to pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. the poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. with bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. it was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. it was with the barbarian then as with the civilized now--one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. this was the origin of the priesthood. the priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. he was man's attorney at the court of heaven. he carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. he came back with a command, with authority and with power. man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. even christ, the supposed son of god, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. the religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the new testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction. the fact that christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to man. st. matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of god; and it has always excited the wonder of christians that the temptation was so nobly and heroically withstood. the account to which i refer is as follows: "then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. and when the tempter came to him, he said: 'if thou be the son of god, command that these stones be made bread.' but he answered, and said: 'it is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god.' then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him: 'if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down; for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone,'jesus said unto him: 'it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god.' again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him: 'all these will i give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'" the christians now claim that jesus was god. if he was god, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took 'the omnipotent god and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. failing in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world--this grain of sand--if he, the god of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! is it possible the devil was such an idiot? should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? think of it! the devil--the prince of sharpers--the king of cunning--the master of finesse, trying to bribe god with a grain of sand that belonged to god! is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this? these devils, according to the bible, were of various kinds--some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. all could not be cast out in the same way. the deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. st. mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to christ. the boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. "jesus said unto the spirit: 'thou dumb and deaf spirit, i charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. the ease with which christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. to whom he replied: "this kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." is there a christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? the trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their bible. in the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. the people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. all founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. a prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness was regarded with contempt the utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits. this belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena. phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil spirits. it being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man. good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil--so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god. many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true; that all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be false. if the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the believers in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. the truth is, a god was inferred from good, and a devil from bad, phenomena. and it is just as natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a god would produce misery. consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. if phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. if they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power; but, as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and sometimes by malice; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man. the foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. that most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer. thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. some want health restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the lord to do as he may think best. thousands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like david, pray for revenge, and some implore even god, not to lead them into temptation. all these prayers rest upon, and are produced by, the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. this belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. all sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences, and our own bible is no exception to this rule. if we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. if there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be? the scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference: animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that general joshua may have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively declines to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes altogether easier than history; the sons of god become enamored of the world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and god himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dressmaker. the veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. the shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. man dwelt in an unreal world. he mistook his ideas, his dreams, for real things. his fears became terrible and malicious monsters. he lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. the obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing--with beak and hoof--with leering looks and sneering mouths--with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark. it is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. no wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees--that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. no wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. no wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear. the savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. as he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. at last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity--: finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure--finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless--he begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon himself. the people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. only upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere in the affairs of men. in most matters we are at last supposed to be free. since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business of producing famine. now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents. as a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. as a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for violating the sabbath. they still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth; but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best they may. in wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man with an honest referee, is almost sure to win. the church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. to give up that doctrine is to give up all. the church must insist that prayer is answered--that some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere and humble christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all. a devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "see," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! what a long slender bill he has! observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! he does not cause the slightest ripple. he is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "my son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of god, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "yes," replied the boy, "i think i see the goodness of god, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks, that in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. he believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with, than without, a lever; that this god so made matter, and so established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around, than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. he insists that it took a direct interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. like the old scotch divine, he thanks god that sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event these religious people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything. they insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. they point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the april rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? that what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the april rain? how beautiful the process of digestion! by what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! by what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! see by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! see how it gradually but surely expands and grows! by what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! what beautiful colors it presents! seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. all the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? we are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god has. if a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he commenced to create. back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing--absolutely nothing--except this supposed god. according to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness. admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it? it certainly was not made of nothing. nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. it follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. the universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material. with this very thought in his mind, anaximander of miletus said: "creation is the decomposition of the infinite." it has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for the fact, that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. this proves the material universe to be infinite. if an infinite universe has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left? the idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity. it is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. it is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. neither matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. force cannot exist apart from matter. matter exists only in connection with force, and consequently, a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility. force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been created. matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple motion to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control. thought is a form of force. we walk with the same force with which we think. man is an organism, that changes several forms of force into thought-force. man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and produce what we call thought. think of that wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine tragedy of hamlet! a god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of changing other forms of force into thought-force. this is what we call eating. therefore, if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to think. it is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus imparted. if neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then, of the existence of a power superior to nature? the theologian will probably reply, "we have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all this, matter could not have put itself in motion." suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior to nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. now, suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect? yes. suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the least. this would be an effect. if this is so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being superior to nature. now, suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly the same? yes. like causes, producing like effects, is what we mean by law and order. then we have matter, force, effect, law and order without a being superior to nature. now, we know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. the atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must as to something else have been a cause. then we have matter, force, law, order, cause and effect without a being superior to nature. nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. his throne is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force, without law, without cause, and without effect. but what put all this matter in motion? if matter and force have existed from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. there can be no force without motion. force is forever active, and there is, and there can be no cessation. if, therefore, matter and force have existed from eternity, so has motion. in the whole universe there is not even one atom in a state of rest. a deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. that which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a man. there is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. the rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. the founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. it was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. in times of ignorance this was easy to do. the credulity of the savage was almost boundless. to him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle--that is to say, a violation of nature--that is to say, a falsehood. no one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. truth scorns the assistance of miracle. nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. no miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to and independent of nature. the church wishes us to believe. let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. we are told that nature has a superior. let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions. we have heard talk enough. we have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. we have read your bible and the works of your best minds. we have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. all these amount to less than nothing. we want one fact. we beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact we pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact we know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. we want a this year's fact. we ask only one. give us one fact for charity. your miracles are too ancient. the witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. their reputation for "truth and veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. do not send us to jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with shadrach, meshech, and abednego. do not compel us to navigate the sea with captain jonah, nor dine with mr. ezekiel. there is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with samson. we have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by balaam's inspired donkey. it is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. we demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. let the church furnish at least one, or forever after hold her peace. in the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her god. at that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. they became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. and now this same church--the people having found some little sense--admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle, but insists that the absence of miracle--the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. the fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary. sir william hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following language: "the phenomena of matter taken by themselves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a god, would on the contrary ground even an argument to his negation. the phenomena of the material world are subjected to immutable laws; are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity." nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. she cannot create, but she eternally transforms. there was no beginning, and there can be no end. the best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. they find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. they insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "great first cause." they say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce matter. they tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. why not say, god has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? so far as we know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. we cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain. the science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power is called, metaphysics or theology. the theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient causes--nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity. they therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this superior power. the trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. every thought must have had an efficient cause. every motive, every desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. there is no room in the mind of man for providence or chance. the facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of the planets. a poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. you will seek in vain for a thought in man's brain without its efficient cause. every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. mental phenomena are considered more complicated than those of matter, and consequently more mysterious. being more mysterious, they are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. no one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and, incomprehensible. our ignorance is god; what we know is science. when we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. the real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. from that moment the church ceases to exist. the tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the bible will take its place with the shastras, puranas, vedas, eddas, sagas and korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men. "but," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my god." we are explaining more every day. we are understanding more every day; consequently your god is growing smaller every day. nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is god. to this we again reply: every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. every effect must in its turn become a cause. therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity becomes a cause. the converse of these propositions must be true. every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect. therefore there could have been no first cause. a first cause is just as impossible as a last effect. beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist. the moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in general or special providence become impossible. from that instant men will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. they will abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. the element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. the plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. the mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear. agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the jewish scriptures. the moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. the little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory--lasting and universal. if we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed. man should cease to expect aid from on high. by this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. the present is the necessary child of all the past. there has been no chance, and there can be no interference. if abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. if slaves are freed, man must free them. if new truths are discovered, man must discover them. if the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenceless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. the grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone. nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention, forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. she neither weeps nor rejoices. she produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. she knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. she is neither merciful nor cruel. she cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. she does not know even the attitude of prayer. she appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence. and yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. his best energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. the horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect independence of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. the history of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers, and to pacify the other. both powers have inspired little else than abject fear. the cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown of god, were equally terrible. in any event, man's fate was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact. until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of phantom masters--neither of whom promise liberty in this world nor in the next. man must learn to rely upon himself. reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. to prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world. although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and good ness of god, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures. immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been denounced as infidels, atheists and scoffers. the whole power of the church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to compel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to induce some judas to betray reason, one of the saviors of mankind. during that frightful period known as the "dark ages," faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. the great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. at her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. the scales of justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. she built cathedrals for god, and dungeons for men. she peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. for centuries the world was retracing its steps--going steadily back toward barbaric night! a few infidels--a few heretics cried, "halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind. the thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. as long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and god? under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth? the originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the christian world. as long as every question is answered by the word "god," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. as fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge. it is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations by saying, "it is the will of god." such an explanation puts ignorance and education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting for anything whatever. will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to ascertain how and why god acts? science, from such a standpoint would consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavor to ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice. from a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain. a belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort. why should man endeavor to thwart the designs of god? which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? under the influence of this belief, man, basking in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. believing himself in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. as long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition and misery. the energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. for countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. to please him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babes; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn the ecstasies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpetrated. through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived. most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. during all these years the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored, and heaven has been deaf and blind. of what use have the gods been to man? it is no answer to say that some god created the world, established certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his children weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone. it is no solution to declare that in some, other world this god will render a few, or even all, his subjects happy. what right have we to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do better than he has done, and is doing? the world is filled with imperfections. if it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? if the infinite "father" allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? will god have more power? will he become more merciful? will his love for his poor creatures increase? can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever? we are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous and grand. supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy? the little children, according to this philosophy, can never be developed. they were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. if the clergy are right on this question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and distressed. if evil is necessary to the development of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of paradise? since paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon as unanswerable. the church teaches that this world, and all that it contains, were created substantially as we now see them; that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. the most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea; that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. the theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of evolution did not occur to them. our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. the earth appeared to them fresh from the hands of a deity. they knew nothing of the slow evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first. suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. and suppose, further, that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand years of labor and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him, that by splitting the log, he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins; that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage, when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic? suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect? does not an improvement in the things created, show a corresponding improvement in the creator? would an infinitely wise, good and powerful god, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? who can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a tomb? is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage? what would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend? and yet this is exactly what the orthodox god has done. according to the theologians, god prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. the next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary god. a very pious friend of mine, having heard that i had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. he said that, in his judgment, it was impossible to point out an imperfection. "be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "well," said i, "i would make good health catching, instead of disease." the truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent god, who is superior to and independent of nature. the clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next. we are assured that all is perfection in heaven--there the skies are cloudless--there all is serenity and peace. here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. pestilences may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony--yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. the innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves while the angels play upon their golden harps. the streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. in heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. their eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. the saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a moment's thought to his drowning brothers. with the indifference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. the smiles of the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. the shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth. having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: how did he free himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these despots of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? how did he, even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the yoke of superstition? probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. from this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with reference to him. he noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical, and that even comets came at certain intervals. this convinced him that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to do with them. he perceived that they were not caused for his benefit or injury. he thus learned to regard them with admiration instead of fear. he began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity, but resuited often from the neglect and ignorance of man. he learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. he found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be cured by natural means. he demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. he found by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. at last, he began to discover that his individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough to stop one. after many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an earthquake. he noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. he was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the right did not always prevail. he noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent. he was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. he finally ascertained that there could be no possible connection between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. he began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. he observed that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized. he noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and that the worshipers of the same god, took delight in cutting each other's throats. he saw that these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. at last he had the courage to suspect, that no god at any time interferes with the order of events. he learned a few facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers. finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be shaken; finding his priests ignorant upon some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth. this was the commencement of intellectual freedom. the civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. the intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. the church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. in spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. by reading his bible, he found that the ideas of his god were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. he also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. in every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. these divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of god. religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards god and hatred towards man. the terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. a few began to compare christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. they also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. they began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value. for three hundred years the christian world endeavored to rescue from the "infidel" the empty sepulchre of christ. for three hundred years the armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. this immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust throughout all christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a god who had been vanquished by mohammed. the people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. they discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree. for ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. this is the war between science and faith. the few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. the many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. the few have said, "think!" the many have said, "believe!" the first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance. men began to investigate, and the church began to oppose. the astronomer scanned the heavens, while the church branded his grand forehead with the word, "infidel;" and now, not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a christian name. in spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, souvenirs of all the ages. old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their places. one by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. a new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without. these are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. these are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of priests. in that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. the sacred temples of india were ruins long ago. over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; kali, the goddess; draupadi, the white-armed, and chrishna, the christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. along the banks of the sacred nile, isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead osiris. the shadow of typhons scowl falls no more upon the waves. the sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of memnon, but mem-non is as voiceless as the sphinx. the sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. odin, the author of life and soul, vili and ve, and the mighty giant ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the north; and thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more. broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. the divine fires of persia and of the aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. the harp of orpheus is still; the drained cup of bacchus has been thrown aside; venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. the streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. the gods have flown from high olympus. not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and danæ lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. hushed forever are the thunders of sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste. one by one, the myths have faded from the clouds: one by one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. the supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. the gods have fled, but man is here. nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. religions are the same. the same inexorable destiny awaits them all. the gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. they were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. the deities of one age are the by-words of the next the religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others have been. when india was supreme, brahma sat upon the world's throne. when the sceptre passed to egypt, isis and osiris received the homage of mankind. greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and zeus put on the purple of authority. the earth trembled with the tread of rome's intrepid sons, and jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. rome fell, and christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now christ sits upon the old throne. who will be his successor? day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. day by day, the old spirit dies out of book and creed. the burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to return. the ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out of the human heart. the worn-out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. as time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small, and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. there is an "irrepressible conflict" between religion and science, and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world. while utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn. reason, observation and experience--the holy trinity of science--have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. this is enough for us. in this belief we are content to live and die. if by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. until then, let us stand erect. notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with tearing down without building again. the church should by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. the history of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence. the mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. the moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast aside. a surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him any assistance in his power. the surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. these remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, "do not, i pray you, take away my crutches. they are my only support, and without them i should be miserable indeed!" "i am not going," said the surgeon, "to take away your crutches. i am going to cure you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself." for the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose to substitute the realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and achievements of science; and for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of thought. we do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. we know of no end to the development of man. we cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. the history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars. we are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. we are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. we are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought this of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. philosophy has not the egotism of faith. while superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. we do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. we are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. we do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. we know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. it is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man. felling forests is not the end of agriculture. driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce. we are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future--not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people--wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of humanity. we are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants--gorged indolence and famished industry--truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. we are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the king of kings, and god of gods. humboldt. the universe is governed by law. great men seem to be a part of the infinite--brothers of the mountains and the seas. humboldt was one of these. he was one of those serene men, in some respects like our own franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a star. he was one of the few, great enough to rise above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and reason are the only basis of knowledge. he became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich and noble--in spite of position. i say in spite of these things, because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the destroyers of talent. it is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man--that he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every obstacle to overcome he became great. this is a mistake. poverty is generally an advantage. most of the intellectual giants of the world have been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. most of those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest round. they were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of europe; in the log-houses of america; in the factories of the great cities; in the midst of toil; in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of want. they were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel. it is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure, and so i say, that humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and high social position, became truly and grandly great. in the antiquated and romantic castle of tegel, by the side of the pine forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of berlin, the great humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and there he was educated after the method suggested by rousseau,--campe, the philologist and critic, and the intellectual kunth being his tutors. there he received the impressions that determined his career; there the great idea that the universe is governed by law, took possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime truth. he came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of nature. after having received the most thorough education at that time possible, and having determined to what end he would devote the labors of his life, he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining, mineralogy, botany, the distribution of plants, the distribution of animals, and the effect of climate upon man. all grand physical phenomena were investigated and explained. from his youth he had felt a great desire for travel. he felt, as he says, a violent passion for the sea, and longed to look upon nature in her wildest and most rugged forms. he longed to give a physical description of the universe--a grand picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called special providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is governed by law. to establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind. that fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the age of reason. the object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. for this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty the geographical distribution of plants. he investigated the laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the atmosphere. he studied the formation of the earth's crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered through the craters of extinct volcanoes. he became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so humboldt became acquainted with all the known sciences. his fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and splendid generalizations. he was to science what shakespeare was to the drama. he found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts--all portions of a vast system--parts of a great machine; he discovered the connection that each bears to all; put them together, and demonstrated beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law. he knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of all natural investigation. he was infinitely practical. origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do. his surroundings made him what he was. in accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of his time. great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation; they fulfill the prophecies of their age. nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same idea entertained by humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way. there was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all facts, _or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general fact_, and that the task of science is to discover this connection; to comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of things. germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge. humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time. he was the companion of schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the beautiful; of goethe, the grand patriarch of german literature; of weiland, who has been called the voltaire of germany; of herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man; of kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of schleiermacher, the pantheist; of schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the enchanted realm of shakespeare; of the sublime kant, author of the first work published in germany on pure reason; of fichte, the infinite idealist; of schopenhauer, the european buddhist who followed the great gautama to the painless and dreamless nirwana, and of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world. the german mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. guided by the holy light of reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and illustrated. humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought became courageous; the athlete, reason, challenged to mortal combat the monsters of superstition. no wonder that under these influences humboldt formed the great purpose of presenting to the world a picture of nature, in order that men might, for the first time, behold the face of their mother. europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in the new world, where in the most circumscribed limits he could find the greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate upon them all. he sailed along the gigantic amazon--the mysterious orinoco--traversed the pampas--climbed the andes until he stood upon the crags of chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. for nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid bonpland. nothing escaped his attention. he was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. he was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. his collections were immense, and valuable beyond calculation to every science. he endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning. upon his return to europe he was hailed as the second columbus; as the scientific discoverer of america; as the revealer of a new world; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed by law. i have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side--above him the eternal snow--below, the smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm--his forehead majestic--grander than the mountain upon which he sat--crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. not satisfied with his discoveries in america, he crossed the steppes of asia, the wastes of siberia, the great ural range, adding to the knowledge of mankind at every step. his energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought. he was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardor that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the polar star. in order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at berlin a course of lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following subjects: five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography. three, were devoted to a history of science. two, to inducements to a study of natural science. sixteen, on the heavens. five, on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the earth, and to the polar light. four, were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs earthquakes, and volcanoes. two, on mountains and the type of their formation. two, on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of continents, and the elevation of soil over ravines. three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth. ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on the distribution of heat. one, on the geographic distribution of organ ized matter in general. three, on the geography of plants. three, on the geography of animals, and two, on the races of men. these lectures are what is known as the cosmos, and present a scientific picture of the world--of infinite diversity in unity--of ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law. these lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation, and experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men, the effects of climate upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds, and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in accordance with inexorable law. there are some truths, however, that we never should forget: superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. since the murder of hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished blade of greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant catholicism, until to-day, superstition has detested every effort of reason. it is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory that the church achieved over philosophy. for ages science was utterly ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and god was supposed to be happy only when his children were miserable. the world was governed by an almighty's whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of nature, could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine and death in all its forms. there was no idea of the certain; all depended upon divine pleasure or displeasure rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. to the poor multitude, the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking with infinite power to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue. the very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the glittering vengeance of god, and the earth was thick with snares for the unwary feet of man. the soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a continual warfare being waged between the deity and the devil, for the possession of every soul; the latter generally being considered victorious. the flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the displeasure of heaven, and the sinfulness of man. the blight that withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the messengers of the creator. the world was governed by fear. against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defence of prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. _man in his helplessness endeavored to soften the heart of god_. the faces of the multitude were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites, kings and priests. my heart bleeds when i contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite horror who snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame. slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth, that the universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the lightning for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer; that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents famine; that pleasure is not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed power; that offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. slowly, grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind. from copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on the infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in accordance with law. true, the earth began to grow small, but man began to grow great. the moment the fact was, established that other worlds are governed by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under its dominion. the old theological method of accounting for physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the deity was, by the intellectual, abandoned. they found that disease, death, life, thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of animals,--in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable. let it be understood that by the term law is meant the same invariable relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing from like conditions. law is a fact--not a cause. it is a fact, that like conditions produce like results: this fact is law. when we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable fact, inseparable from all phenomena. law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. it could not have been otherwise than as it is. that which necessarily exists has no creator. only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this insignificant atom. the german mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece of egotism. purbach and mullerus, in the fifteenth century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. to the latter, the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the second of the three steps by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet, both of these men believed in the most childish absurdities, at least in enough of them, to die without their orthodoxy having ever been suspected. next came the great copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of experience, observation and reason. he removed the earth, so to speak, from the centre of the universe, and ascribed to it a two-fold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar system. at his bidding the earth began to revolve. at the command of his genius it commenced its grand flight mid the eternal constellations round the sun. for fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. all at once, by the exertions of galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as to consume the philosophy of aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon experience, observation, and reason. the earth was no longer considered a universe, governed by the caprices of some revengeful deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to adorn the night. i have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first splendid step forward! the first sublime blow that shattered the lance and shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that man received from heaven; because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the infinite to man; the first authoritative declaration, that the universe is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism, and because it is the sublimest victory that the reason has achieved. in speaking of astronomy, i have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. long ago, on the banks of the ganges, ages before copernicus lived, aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere, and revolves on its own axis. this, however, does not detract from the glory of the great german. the discovery of the hindu had been lost in the midnight of europe--in the age of faith, and copernicus was as much a discoverer as though aryabhatta had never lived. in this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each, to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of august comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of guttenberg, watt, stephenson, arkwright, all soldiers of science, in the grand army of the dead kings. the glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul--breaking the mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to thought--filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy. science found agriculture plowing with a stick reaping with a sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. it found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting protestants, and the burners of men. it found a world full of fear; ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation. it found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. it found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. it found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world. such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. for the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. to obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars. no wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. a man with a false diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that superstition abhors science. in all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. they have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder. imposture has always worn a crown. the world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. to think is to advance. everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men--the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. at the head of this great army of investigators stood humboldt--the serene leader of an intellectual host--a king by the suffrage of science, and the divine right of genius. and to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier--some wily politician called a statesman--some robber called a king, nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint we are honoring the grand humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error--not men; who shed light--not blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the happiness of all mankind. his life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast. we honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. we honor him because he honored us--because he labored for others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. for these reasons he is honored throughout the world. millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished. we associate the name of humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, and volcanoes--with the great palms--the wide deserts--the snow-lipped craters of the andes--with primeval forests and european capitals--with wildernesses and universities--with savages and savans--with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. he was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. he stood erect by the grand tranquil column of reason. he was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the universal mother--and with her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called death. history added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals. the world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: "the universe is governed by law!" thomas paine with his name left out, the history of liberty cannot be written. to speak the praises of the brave and thoughtful dead, is to me a labor of gratitude and love. through all the centuries gone, the mind of man has been beleaguered by the mailed hosts of superstition. slowly and painfully has advanced the army of deliverance. hated by those they wished to rescue, despised by those they were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these immortal deliverers, have fought without thanks, labored without applause, suffered without pity, and they have died execrated and abhorred. for the good of mankind they accepted isolation, poverty, and calumny. they gave up all, sacrificed all, lost all but truth and self-respect. one of the bravest soldiers in this army was thomas paine; and for one, i feel indebted to him for the liberty we are enjoying this day. born among the poor, where children are burdens; in a country where real liberty was unknown; where the privileges of class were guarded with infinite jealousy, and the rights of the individual trampled beneath the feet of priests and nobles; where to advocate justice was treason; where intellectual freedom was infidelity, it is wonderful that the idea of true liberty ever entered his brain. . poverty was his mother--necessity his master. he had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. he had no veneration for old mistakes--no admiration for ancient lies. he loved the truth for the truth's sake, and for man's sake. he saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong--of the enslaved many against the titled few. in england he was nothing. he belonged to the lower classes. there was no avenue open for him. the people hugged their chains, and the whole power of the government was ready to crush any man who endeavored to strike a blow for the right. at the age of thirty-seven, thomas paine left england for america, with the high hope of being instrumental in the establishment of a free government. in his own country he could accomplish nothing. those two vultures--church and state--were ready to tear in pieces and devour the heart of any one who might deny their divine right to enslave the world. upon his arrival in this country, he found himself possessed of a letter of introduction, signed by another infidel, the illustrious franklin. this, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital; and he needed no more. he found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, george the iii., by the grace of god, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. they were not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. they were perfectly willing to make brick if pharaoh would furnish the straw. the colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation they did not dream of independence. paine gave to the world his "common sense." it was the first argument for separation, the first assault upon the british form of government, the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's blast. he was the first to perceive the destiny of the new world. no other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. it was filled with argument, reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. it opened a new world. it filled the present with hope and the future with honor. everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the continental congress declared the colonies free and independent states. a new nation was born. it is simple justice to say that paine did more to cause the declaration of independence than any other man. neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon great britain were also attacks upon monarchy; and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best that can be instituted among men. in my judgment, thomas paine was the best political writer that ever lived. "what he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect upon him. he examined into the why and wherefore of things. he was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. his enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. during all the dark scenes of the revolution, never for one moment did he despair. year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "common sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of freedom. paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. he was with the army. he shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. when the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the "crisis." it was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. he shouted to them, "these are the times that try men's souls. the summer soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." to those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice he said: "every generous parent should say, 'if there must be war let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.'" to the cry that americans were rebels, he replied: "he that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'defender of the faith' than george the third." some said it was not to the interest of the colonies to be free. paine answered this by saying, "to know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: 'is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life?'" he found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, "that to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." this sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church. there is a world of political wisdom in this: "england lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles"; and there is real discrimination in saying, "the greeks and romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time that they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind." in his letter to the british people, in which he tried to convince them that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful of common sense: "war never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. but to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop-door." the writings of paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical statements, that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudiced. he had the happiest possible way of putting the case; in asking questions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided. day and night he labored for america; month after month, year after year, he gave himself to the great cause, until there was "a government of the people and for the people," and until the banner of the stars floated over a continent redeemed, and consecrated to the happiness of mankind. at the close of the revolution, no one stood higher in america than thomas paine. the best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in comfort and in ease. he could have been what the world is pleased to call "respectable." he could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors and statesmen. at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument covered with lies. he chose rather to benefit mankind. at that time the seeds sown by the great infidels were beginning to bear fruit in france. the people were beginning to think. the eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress. on every hand science was bearing testimony against the church. voltaire had filled europe with light; d'holbach was giving to the _élite_ of paris the principles contained in his "system of nature." the encyclopedists had attacked superstition with information for the masses. the foundation of things began to be examined. a few had the courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. miracles began to get scarce. everywhere the people began to inquire. america had set an example to the world. the word liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe the dust from their knees. the dawn of a new day had appeared. thomas paine went to france. into the new movement he threw all his energies. his fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the human race, and as a champion of free government. he had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his countrymen the defects, absurdities and abuses of the english government for this purpose he composed and published his greatest political work, "the rights of man." this work should be read by every man and woman. it is concise, accurate, natural, convincing, and unanswerable. it shows great thought; an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government; deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. the most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. the venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question--answered with a word. for forcible illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled. the fears of the administration were aroused, and paine was prosecuted for libel and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. it is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor, not only to thomas paine, but to human nature itself. it could have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the goodness to say, "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." there is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer sentiment. there is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment. it should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed upon every human heart: "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." in , paine was elected by the department of calais as their representative in the national assembly. so great was his popularity in france that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments. upon taking his place in the assembly he was appointed as one of a committee to draft a constitution for france. had the french people taken the advice of thomas paine there would have been no "reign of terror." the streets of paris would not have been filled with blood the revolution would have been the grandest success of the world. the truth is that paine was too conservative to suit the leaders of the french revolution. they, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred, and a desire to destroy. they had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory. besides all this, the french people had been so robbed by the government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material with which to construct a republic. many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for revenge. paine was filled with a real love for mankind. his philanthropy was boundless. he wished to destroy monarchy--not the monarch. he voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the king. he wished to establish a government on a new basis; one that would forget the past; one that would give privileges to none, and protection to all. in the assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king--where to differ from the majority was to be suspected, and, where to be suspected was almost certain death thomas paine had the courage, the goodness and the justice to vote against death. to vote against the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. this was the sublimity of devotion to principle. for this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts than that of thomas paine voting against the kings death. he, the hater of despotism, the abhorrer of monarchy, the champion of the rights of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed tyrant--of a throneless king. this was the last grand act of his political life--the sublime conclusion of his political career. all his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. he had labored--not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. he had aspired to no office; had asked no recognition of his services, but had ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of progress. confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field of action, filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save. had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the christian world. in this country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest names. on the anniversary of the declaration his name would have been upon the lips of all the orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the people. thomas paine had not finished his career. he had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and now he turned his attention to the priests. he knew that every abuse had been embalmed in scripture--that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text. he knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and both behind a pretended revelation from god. by this time he had found that it was of little use to free the body and leave the mind in chains. he had explored the foundations of despotism, and had found them infinitely rotten. he had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he would take a look behind the altar. the result of his investigations was given to the world in the "age of reason." from the moment of its publication he became infamous. he was calumniated beyond measure. to slander him was to secure the thanks of the church. all his services were instantly forgotten, disparaged or denied. he was shunned as though he had been a pestilence. most of his old friends forsook him. he was regarded as a moral plague, and at the bare mention of his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in horror. he was denounced as the most despicable of men. not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed; gloried in the fact that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death. it is wonderful that all his services were thus forgotten. it is amazing that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one did not accord to him, at least--honesty. strange, that in the general denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. he had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of progress. he had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his name left out he was one of the creators of light; one of the heralds of the dawn. he hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of god, with every drop of his noble blood. he believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. under these divine banners he fought the battle of his life. in both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. in the wilderness of america, in the french assembly, in the sombre cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. and for this he has been hated; for this the church has violated even his grave. this is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for men to devour their benefactors. the people in all ages have crucified and glorified. whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his commission, or questions the authority of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man and god. in all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. nothing has been considered so pleasing to the deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. self-reliance has been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. by some unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered of immense importance. all religions have been based upon the idea that god will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. belief is regarded as the one essential thing. to practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough. you must believe in some incomprehensible creed. you must say, "once one is three, and three times one is one." the man who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever--nothing so horrible as a charitable atheist. when paine was born, the world was religious, the pulpit was the real throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the brain the idea that it had the right to think. the splendid saying of lord bacon, that "the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, are the sovereign good of human nature," has been, and ever will be, rejected by religionists. intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either praise or blame-worthy, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in christendom. paine recognized this truth. he also saw that as long as the bible was considered inspired, this infamous doctrine of the virtue of belief would be believed and preached. he examined the scriptures for himself, and found them filled with cruelty, absurdity and immorality. he again made up his mind to sacrifice himself for the good of his fellow-men. he commenced with the assertion, "that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system." what a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! no wonder the church began to hate him. he believed in one god, and no more. after this life he hoped for happiness. he believed that true religion consisted in doing justice, loving mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in offering to god the fruit of the heart. he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. this was his crime. he contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a revelation that comes to us second-hand, either verbally or in writing. he asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication, and that after that it is only an account of something which another person says was a revelation to him. we have only his word for it, as it was never made to us. this argument never has been and probably never will be answered. he denied the divine origin of christ, and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the old testament had no reference to him whatever; and yet he believed that christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality he taught and practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and that it had not been exceeded by any. upon this point he entertained the same sentiments now held by the unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened christians. in his time the church believed and taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true. since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the old testament is concerned, false in almost everything. there are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the bible is literally true. who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the bible? the old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. the church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of thomas paine. the best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal deity. all other questions occupy a minor place. you are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in god, and pay your pew-rent. there is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. these follies have passed away, and the only reason that the religious world can now have for disliking paine is that they have been forced to adopt so many of his opinions. paine thought the barbarities of the old testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of god. he believed that murder, massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the deity. he regarded much of the bible as childish, unimportant and foolish the scientific world entertains the same opinion. paine attacked the bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. he used the same weapons. all the pomp in the world could not make him cower. his reason knew no "holy of holies," except the abode of truth. the sciences were then in their infancy. the attention of the really learned had not been directed to an impartial examination of our pretended revelation. it was accepted by most as a matter of course. the church was all-powerful, and no one, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental doctrines of christianity. the infamous doctrines that salvation depends upon belief--upon a mere intellectual conviction--was then believed and preached. to doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul. this absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of thomas paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. this doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as senseless. for the overthrow of this infamous tenet, paine exerted all his strength. he left few arguments to be used by those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted. the combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought. neither can they show why any one should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox world. can it be possible that we have been endowed with reason simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may be led by its false and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? is it possible that we have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its deductions, and avoid its conclusions? ought the sailor to throw away his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? if reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in respect of our duties to the deity, why should it be relied upon in matters respecting the rights of our fellows? why should we throw away the laws given to moses by god himself and have the audacity to make some of our own? how dare we drown the thunders of sinai by calling the ayes and noes in a petty legislature? if reason can determine what is merciful, what is just, the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or eternity? down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant altar the sacrifice of the goddess reason, that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes her the bond-woman of a senseless faith! if a man should tell you that he had the most beautiful painting in the world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your eyes shut, you would likely suspect, either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiable daub. should he tell you that he was a most excellent performer on the violin, and yet refuse to play unless your ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. but would his conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your reason? the first gentleman says, "keep your eyes shut, my picture will bear everything but being seen;" "keep your ears stopped, my music objects to nothing but being heard." the last says, "away with your reason, my religion dreads nothing but being understood." so far as i am concerned, i most cheerfully admit that most christians are honest, and most ministers sincere. we do not attack them; we attack their creed. we accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. we believe that their doctrines are hurtful. we believe that the frightful text, "he that believes shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. it has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty and murder. it has caused the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. it has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave infidels it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star. the maligners of paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine, because he was unacquainted with the dead languages; and for this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence in him to investigate the scriptures. is it necessary to understand hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? is it really essential to conjugate the greek verbs before you can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their graves? must one be versed in latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as to the genuineness of a pretended revelation from god? common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. logic is not confined to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. paine attacked the bible as it is translated. if the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct it. the christianity of paine's day is not the christianity of our time. there has been a great improvement since then. one hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of our time would have perished at the stake. a universalist would have been torn in pieces in england, scotland, and america. unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in maryland: "be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord proprietor, by and with the advice and consent of his lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses of the assembly, and the authority of the same: "that if any person shall hereafter, within this province, wittingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse god, or deny our saviour, jesus christ, to be the son of god, or shall deny the holy trinity, the father, son, and holy ghost, or the godhead of any of the three persons, or the unity of the godhead, or shall utter any profane words concerning the holy trinity, or any of the persons thereof, and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the first offence, be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds to be levied of his body. and for the second offence, the offender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead with the letter b, and fined forty pounds. and that for the third offence the offender shall suffer death without the benefit of clergy." the strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and is still in force in the district of columbia. laws like this were in force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the church had power. in the old testament, the death penalty is attached to hundreds of offences. it has been the same in all christian countries. to-day, in civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. what a commentary upon the divine systems of the world! in the day of thomas paine, the church was ignorant, bloody and relentless. in scotland the "kirk" was at the summit of its power. it was a full sister of the spanish inquisition. it waged war upon human nature. it was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty. it taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. if the mother held opinions of which the infamous "kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. it would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on sunday. it sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends. one of the most famous scotch divines said: "the kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." and this same scotch kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral grandeur to say, "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." and this same kirk abhorred the man who said, "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system." at that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless torment, and listening to the weak wailings of damned infants struggling in the slimy coils and poison-folds of the worm that never dies. about the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of thomas aikenhead, was indicted and tried at edinburgh for having denied the inspiration of the scriptures, and for having, on several occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. his body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with stones. prosecutions and executions like this were common in every christian country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime. no wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "age of reason." england was filled with puritan gloom and episcopal ceremony. all religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. the ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. milton had clothed christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods--had added to the story of christ the fables of mythology. he gave to the protestant church the most outrageously material ideas of the deity. he turned all the angels into soldiers--made heaven a battlefield, put christ in uniform, and described god as a militia general. his works were considered by the protestants nearly as sacred as the bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind milton. heaven and hell were realities--the judgment-day was expected--books of account would be opened. every man would hear the charges against him read. god was supposed to sit on a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. the goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and forever. the nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned. in europe, liberty was lying chained in the inquisition--her white bosom stained with blood. in the new world the puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of god, and selling white quaker children into slavery in the name of christ, who said, "suffer little children to come unto me." under such conditions progress was impossible. some one had to lead the way. the church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. religion always looks back. the church has already reduced spain to a guitar, italy to a hand-organ, and ireland to exile. some one not connected with the church had to attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the world. some one had to sacrifice himself for the good of all. the people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power. progress is born of doubt and inquiry. the church never doubts--never inquires. to doubt is heresy--to inquire is to admit that you do not know--the church does neither. more than a century ago catholisism, wrapped in robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, trampling beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud moment of almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger of voltaire. from that blow the church never can recover. livid with hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant protestants have echoed the curse of rome. in our country the church was all-powerful, and although divided into many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe. paine struck the first grand blow. the "age of reason" did more to undermine the power of the protestant church than all other books then known. it furnished an immense amount of food for thought. it was written for the average mind, and is a straightforward, honest investigation of the bible, and of the christian system. paine did not falter, from the first page to the last. he gives you his candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable. the "age of reason" has liberalized us all. it put arguments in the mouths of the people; it put the church on the defensive; it enabled somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser, and the church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it among the pews. just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost power. there is no exception to this rule. no nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders. no nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church without losing its power, its honor, and existence. every church pretends to have found the exact truth. this is the end of progress. why pursue that which you have? why investigate when you know? every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. every creed cries to the universe, "halt!" a creed is the ignorant past bullying the enlightened present. the ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. they demand completeness. a sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. they demand the complete circle--the entire structure. in music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods. in religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of creation and destiny. the alpha and omega of all things must be in the alphabet of their superstition. a religion that cannot answer every question, and guess every conundrum is, in their estimation, worse than worthless. they desire a kind of theological dictionary--a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns. they mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and bathos for inspiration. the beginning and the end are what they demand. the grand flight of the eagle is nothing to them. they want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the dry limb upon which he roosts. anything that can be learned is hardly worth knowing. the present is considered of no value in itself. happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be attained by self-denial and faith; not selfdenial for the good of others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self. paine denied the authority of bibles and creeds; this was his crime, and for this the world shut the door in his face, and emptied its slops upon him from the windows. i challenge the world to show that thomas paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny--in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty, and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell. his memory has been execrated as though he had murdered some uriah for his wife; driven some hagar into the desert to starve with his child upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, or had persecuted christians even unto strange cities. the church has pursued paine to deter others. no effort has been in any age of the world spared to crush out opposition. the church used painting, music and architecture, simply to degrade mankind. but there are men that nothing can awe. there have been at all times brave spirits that dared even the gods. some proud head has always been above the waves. in every age some diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. true genius never cowers, and there is always some samson feeling for the pillars of authority. cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants.--temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold--altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe--censer and chalice--chasuble, paten and alb--organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest--maniple, amice and stole--crosses and crosiers, tiaras and crowns--mitres and missals and masses--rosaries, relics and robes--martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of christ--never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the infidel. he knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with liberty--that priceless jewel of the soul. in looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. the music of the organ was not loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. he could not forget that the taper had lighted the fagot. he knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned. the doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been the saviors of liberty. this truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly intellectual are honoring the brave thinkers of the past. but the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power. i will tell the church why. you have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake--wasted us upon slow fires--torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains--treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. in the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your god to torment us forever. can you wonder that we hate your doctrines--that we despise your creeds--that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power--that we are free in spite of you--that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light? can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all? can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been disciples of reason, and soldiers of freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood? we deny that religion is the end or object of this life. when it is so considered it becomes destructive of happiness--the real end of life. it becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. it devours their substance, builds palaces for god, (who dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to die in huts and hovels. it fills the earth with mourning, heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with despair. virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. it is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. it does not consist in believing, but in doing. this is the sublime truth that the infidels in all ages have uttered. they have handed the torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. upon the altar of reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed the divine flame. infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. in every creed man is the slave of god--woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are the slaves of all. we do not want creeds; we want knowledge--we want happiness. and yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again. is it nothing to free the mind? is it nothing to civilize mankind? is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream; to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice? is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word--freedom? is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity--to unbind the martyr from the stake--break all the chains--put out the fires of civil war--stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the church from the white throat of science? is it a small thing to make men truly free--to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power--the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear? it does seem as though the most zealous christian must at times entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. for eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. for more than a thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? are the christian nations patterns of charity and forbearance? on the contrary, their principal business is to destroy each other. more than five millions of christians are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-christians. every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war against other christians, or defending itself from christian assault. the world is covered with forts to protect christians from christians, and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow christian brains into eternal froth. millions upon millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of christian warfare. there must be some other way to reform this world. we have tried creed, and dogma and fable, and they have failed; and they have failed in all the nations dead. the people perish for the lack of knowledge. nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. we must find out the laws of nature and conform to them. we need free bodies and free minds,--free labor and free thought,--chainless hands and fetterless brains. free labor will give us wealth. free thought will give us truth. we need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. we need have no fear of being too radical. the future will verify all grand and brave predictions. paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was orthodox compared with the infidels of to-day. science, the great iconoclast, has been busy since , and by the highway of progress are the broken images of the past. on every hand the people advance. the vicar of god has been pushed from the throne of the caesars, and upon the roofs of the eternal city falls once more the shadow of the eagle. all has been accomplished by the heroic few. the men of science have explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished the facts. the brave thinkers have used them. the gloomy caverns of superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the angels of to-day. science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it explored the starry depths of heaven. science wrested from the gods their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, created a giant that turns with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil. thomas paine was one of the intellectual heroes--one of the men to whom we are indebted. his name is associated forever with the great republic. as long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired and honored. he lived a long, laborious and useful life. the world is better for his having lived. for the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for his portion. he ate the bitter bread of sorrow. his friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. he lost the respect of what is called society, but kept his own. his life is what the world calls failure and what history calls success. if to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, thomas paine was good. if to be in advance of your time--to be a pioneer in the direction of right--is greatness, thomas paine was great. if to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is heroic, thomas paine was a hero. at the age of seventy-three, death touched his tired heart. he died in the land his genius defended--under the flag he gave to the skies. slander cannot touch him now--hatred cannot reach him more. he sleeps in the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars. a few more years--a few more brave men--a few more rays of light, and mankind will venerate the memory of him who said: "any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system;" "the world is my country, and to do good my religion." individuality. "his soul was like a star and dwelt apart." on every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. we are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. at every turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the eden of our desire. we are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. we are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid. we have all read accounts of christian gentlemen remarking, when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother's advice. but after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. how fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey. universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. suppose the church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? in defiance of advice, the world has advanced. suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the advice of paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because they are ordained of god;" suppose the church could control the world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. philosophy would be branded as infamous; science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame. it is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one who had the grandeur to say his say. i believe it was magellan who said, "the church says the earth is flat; but i have seen its shadow on the moon, and i have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." on the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success. the trouble with most people is, they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. they think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time. they think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. all these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book. it is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of superstition. you first teach children that a certain book is true--that it was written by god himself--that to question its truth is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy. the consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to be true. when they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to investigate its claims. they accept it as a matter of course. in this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge, and charity, with bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. in this way we are taught that the revenge of man is the justice of god; that mercy is not the same everywhere. in this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. in this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. in this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies. one great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. they teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. they do not say, "we _think_ this is so," but "we _know_ this is so." they do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. they keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. all this is infamous. in this way you may make christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make women. you can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no christs. you may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise. a monarch said to a hermit, "come with me and i will give you power." "i have all the power that i know how to use" replied the hermit. "come," said the king, "i will give you wealth." "i have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit. "i will give you honor," said the monarch. "ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer. "come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and i will give you happiness." "no," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free." "you shall have liberty too," said the king. "then i will stay where i am," said the old man. and all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool. now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. then the pious get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. the stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes by on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the church kills. the church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. the church demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. to worship another is to degrade yourself. worship is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. it is the spirit of worship that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. the spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. the worshiper always regrets that he is not the worshiped. we should all remember that the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect. whoever worships, abdicates. whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute. the despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. at one time the same thing could have been truly said in india, in egypt, in greece, in rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world, swept to empire. this argument proves too much not only, but the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. numberless circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity of the christian world. the truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. the church has won no victories for the rights of man. luther labored to reform the church--voltaire, to reform men. over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the church. wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the church has been wet. on every chain has been the sign of the cross. the altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other. all that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science. the church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. to prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith. who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for the human race? who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church that pretends to be the mouthpiece of god, and in his name threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? by what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? when a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. in the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to think. over the vast plain, called life, we are all travelers, and not one traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. true it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guide-boards. at every turn and crossing you will find them, and upon each one is written the exact direction and distance. one great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers are confused in proportion to the number they read. thousands of people are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the traveler that his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guide-boards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites and liars. "well," says a traveler, "you may be right in what you say, but allow me at least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into their claims. i wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance." "no, sir," shouts the zealot, "that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. you must go my way without investigation, or you are as good as damned already." "well," says the traveler, "if that is so, i believe i had better go your way." and so most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all. these travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others, as infidels and atheists. around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the rain and sun. they are the bones of murdered men and women--fathers, mothers and babes. in my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. every mind should be true to itself--should think, investigate and conclude for itself. this is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. every soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they come--from earth or heaven, from men or gods. besides, every traveler upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as to the road that should be taken. each is entitled to the honest opinion of all. and there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. the person giving the opinion must be free from fear. the merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit there can be no advance without liberty. suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night. the tendency of orthodox religion to-day is toward mental slavery and barbarism. not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. he knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. he knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? is any such thing possible? do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? no two, trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike? infinite diversity is the law. religion tries to force all minds into one mould. knowing that all cannot believe, the church endeavors to make all say they believe. she longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom. nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. in this sense, every church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph. we should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. the great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. after all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is called respectability. there is no saying more degrading than this: "it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a dog." it is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. most people hate responsibility; therefore they join something and become the tail of some lion. they say, "my party can act for me--my church can do my thinking. it is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which i belong, without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever." these people are respectable. they hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. they regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. they love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor is. besides this natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility, is and always has been, the fact, that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. the reason has been denounced by all christendom as the only unsafe guide. the church has left nothing undone to prevent man following the logic of his brain. the plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. the grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. the order of nature has been, as it were, reversed, that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. the man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of god and his holy church. from the organization of the first church until this moment, to think your own thoughts has been inconsistent with membership. every member has borne the marks of collar, and chain, and whip. no man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. the highest crime against a creed is to change it. reformation is treason. thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various churches. what for? in order that they may be prepared to investigate the phenomena by which we are surrounded? no! the object, and the only object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may learn the arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. if one, after being thus trained at the expense of the methodists, turns presbyterian or baptist, he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you. the consequence of this is, that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of fear, tyranny and hypocrisy. every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, "if i write that, my wife and children may want for bread. i will be covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if i write this, i will gain position, power, and honor. my church rewards defenders, and burns reformers." under these conditions all your scotts, hen-rys, and mcknights have written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth? they are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of the paid attorneys of superstition. who can tell what the world has lost by this infamous system of suppression? how many grand thinkers have died with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? how many splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the poison-coils of that python, the church! for thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict. to him who had braved the church, every door was shut, every knife was open. to shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all crimes, not one of which the church ever did forgive; and with the justice taught of her god, his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions and vipers. who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire,--to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell--her devil and her god? they were the noblest sons of earth. they were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of science. they were the real titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods. the church has been, and still is, the great robber. she has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. she is the stone at the sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. under her influence even the protestant mother expects to be happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man, shall writhe in hell. it is said that some of the indian tribes place the heads of their children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently changed. to us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet, after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the strait-jacket of a creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the god of the bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? every child in the christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage. all the machinery of the church is constantly employed in corrupting the reason of children. in every possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. every sunday school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality. the poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to god than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe god did an impossible act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. they are told that all religions have been simply the john-the-baptists of ours; that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the jehovah of the jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in the motto of the evangelical alliance, "liberty in non-essentials", that all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found in the apostles' creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers. it has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. he certainly would now and then be tempted to make the same remark made by an english gentleman to his poor guest. the gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. the man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman said he replied "yes." tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the gentleman cried out, "for god's sake, my good man, say 'no,' just once, so there will be two of us." is it possible that an infinite god created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising orthodox christians? that he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with baptist barnacles, petrified presbyterians and methodist mummies? i want no heaven for which i must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god. religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. she accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand erect. she cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. the wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. the star-lit heights of genius and individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. her subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience. they are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive glance the cruel face of power. no religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. there is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts, there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men, here or hereafter. and yet the protestant has vied with the catholic in denouncing freedom of thought; and while i was taught to hate catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion. luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of his nature; calvin despised, from the very bottom of his petrified heart, anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify christ afresh. all the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. the truth is, that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free thought a believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing. at present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious liberty. of these churches, we will ask this question: how can a man, who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a god who does not? they say to us: "we will not imprison you on account of your belief, but our god will." "we will not burn you because you throw away the sacred scriptures, but their author will." "we think it an infamous crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,--but the god, whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children forever." why is it that these christians not only detest the infidels, but cordially despise each other? why do they refuse to worship in the temples of each other? why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so much for the baptism of children? why will they adorn their churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of subscriptions? why will they attempt to bribe science to certify to the writings of god? why do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth of christianity? why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging, like lazarus, for a few crumbs of religious comfort? why are they so delighted to find an allusion to providence in the message of lincoln? why are they so afraid that some one will find out that paley wrote an essay in favor of the epicurean philosophy, and that sir isaac newton was once an infidel? why are they so anxious to show that voltaire recanted; that paine died palsied with fear; that the emperor julian cried out "galilean, thou hast conquered"; that gibbon died a catholic; that agassiz had a little confidence in moses; that the old napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought christ greater than himself or cæsar; that washington was caught on his knees at valley forge; that blunt old ethan allen told his child to believe the religion of her mother; that franklin said, "don't unchain the tiger," and that volney got frightened in a storm at sea? is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, upharsin--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions? every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. luther started toward humboldt,--wesley, toward john stuart mill. to really reform the church is to destroy it. every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time. i will not say the church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. its history is infamous and glorious. it has delighted in the production of extremes. it has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. it has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. it has been a charitable highwayman--a profligate beggar--a generous pirate. it has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. it has built more prisons than asylums. it made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. in one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a sword. it has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. it filled the world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own christ it crucified the individuality of man. it has sought to destroy the independence of the soul and put the world upon its knees. this is its crime. the commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. in order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth, and all the truth; that god had made it the keeper of his secrets; his agent and his vicegerent. it declared that all other religions were false and infamous. it rendered all compromise impossible and all thought superfluous. thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend. investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was suppressed. the holy of holies was behind the curtain. all this was upon the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an expert, and that imposture detests curiosity. "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite text of the church. in short, christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the human race. across the highway of progress it has always been building breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the christians have gathered together behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at the soldiers of freedom. and even the liberal christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. he still clings to a part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. we associate the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. it seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of barbarism. some throw away the old testament and cling to the new, while others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal god, and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care. even this, in my opinion, as science, the great iconoclast, marches onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest. the great ghost will surely share the fate of the little ones. they fled at the first appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day. until then the independence of man is little more than a dream. overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. beneath the frown of the absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,--beneath his smile he is at best only a fortunate serf. governed by a being whose arbitrary will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the pleasure of the unknown. under these circumstances, what wretched object can he have in lengthening out his aimless life? and yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods--a shrinking from the malice of the skies. our fathers were slaves, and nearly all their children are mental serfs. the enfranchisement of the soul is a slow and painful process. superstition, the mother of those hideous twins, fear and faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the world, and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of priests. when women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete. in the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as utterly fabulous the legends of the church, there still remains a lingering suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood, that after all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of theological mist, and that possibly the superstitious side is the side of safety. a gentleman, walking among the ruins of athens, came upon a fallen statue of jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "o jupiter! i salute thee." he then added: "should you ever sit upon the throne of heaven again, do not, i pray you, forget that i treated you politely when you were prostrate." we have all been taught by the church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of the deity as to express a doubt as to his existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. numerous well-attested instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead for denying the existence of god. according to these religious people, god is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. knowing, as he does, that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence, the most infamous of crimes. according to orthodox logic, god having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result. suppose mr. smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a discussion as to the existence of mr. smith, and suppose one should have the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of smith had ever lived. think then of mr. smith flying into an ecstasy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed, "i will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that smith is a diabolical fact!" what then can we think of a god who would open the artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? and what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of ennius: "if there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man." think of the millions of men and women who have been destroyed simply for loving and worshiping this god. is it possible that this god, having infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children languishing in the darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains when they lifted their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them stretched upon the bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the serpents of flame crawl hissing round their shrinking forms---saw all this for sixteen hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone? from such a god, why should man expect assistance? why should he waste his days in fruitless prayer? why should he fall upon his knees and implore a phantom--a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind? although we live in what is called a free government,--and politically we are free,--there is but little religious liberty in america. society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you suppress your opinions. it is contended by many that ours is a christian government, founded upon the bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. the truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. our constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of christ, but the sacredness of humanity. ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. it is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. and yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of jehovah. such judges are the jeffries of the church. they believe that decisions, made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever. they regard old law as far superior to modern justice. they are what might be called orthodox judges. they spend their days in finding out, not what ought to be, but what has been. with their backs to the sunrise they worship the night. there is only one future event with which they concern themselves, and that is their reelection. no honest court ever did, or ever will, decide that our constitution is christian. the bible teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of god. the bible teaches that god is the source of all authority, and that all kings have obtained their power from him. every tyrant has claimed to be the agent of the most high. the inquisition was founded, not in the name of man, but in the name of god. all the governments of europe recognize the greatness of god, and the littleness of the people. in all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings. the declaration of independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. this was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that god confers the right upon one man to govern others. it was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. it declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. through the ages of slavery--through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, god was the acknowledged ruler of the world. to enthrone man, was to dethrone him. to paine, jefferson, and franklin, are we indebted, more than to all others, for a human government, and for a constitution in which no god is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people. they knew that to put god in the constitution was to put man out. they knew that the recognition of a deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. they knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her god, the sacred rights of man. they intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. they intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. they wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few. notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our laws. in many of the states, only those who believe in the existence of some kind of god, are under the protection of the law. the supreme court of illinois decided, in the year of grace , that an unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent first cause could not be allowed to testify in any court. his wife and children might have been murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other witnesses, the murderer could not have even been indicted. the atheist was a legal outcast. to him, justice was not only blind, but deaf. he was liable, like other men, to support the government, and was forced to contribute his share towards paying the salaries of the very judges who decided that under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any court. this was the law of illinois, and so remained until the adoption of the new constitution. by such infamous means has the church endeavored to chain the human mind, and protect the majesty of her god. the fact is, we have no national religion, and no national god; but every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a god of his own, or to reject all religions and deny the existence of all gods. the church, however, never has, and never will understand and appreciate the genius of our government. last year, in a convention of protestant bigots, held in the city of new york for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious amendment to the federal constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity, speaking of atheists, said: "what are the rights of the atheist? i would tolerate him as i would tolerate a poor lunatic. i would tolerate him as i would tolerate a conspirator. he may live and go free, hold his lands and enjoy his home--he may even vote; but for any higher or more advanced citizenship, he is, as i hold, utterly disqualified." these are the sentiments of the church to-day. give the church a place in the constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men. in religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and steady development at the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times) is catholicism, and at the top is science. the intermediate rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion. but whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with-our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form. all that i ask, is the same right i freely accord to all others. a few years ago a methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a piece of friendly advice. "although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say so. that, you should keep to yourself." "do you believe the bible," said i. he replied, "most assuredly". to which i retorted, "your answer conveys no information to me. you may be following your own advice. you told me to suppress my opinions. of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth himself." there can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really valuable than the suppression of honest thought. no man, worthy of the form he bears, will at the command of church or state solemnly repeat a creed his reason scorns. it is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. "this above all, to thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." it is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. it is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say, "there is nobody in this bed." it is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed; that you are indebted to your memory for your principles; that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. it is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry "crucify him," because the others do; that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it. surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. surely it is worth something to be one, and to feel that the census of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself. heretics and heresies. liberty, a word without which all other words are vain. whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. this word was born of the hatred, arrogance and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. this word was born of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought it was an epithet used in the place of argument. from the commencement of the christian era, every art has been exhausted and every conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. this effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the soul. christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. god is supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed at this moment to be suffering the agonies of the damned. the church persecutes the living and her god burns the dead. it is claimed that god wrote a book called the bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. as long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. a few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. protestants and catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. for ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. they infested every country, every city, town, hamlet and family. they appealed to the worst passions of the human heart they sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in every land. brother denounced brother, wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains; the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful god, his children were exterminated with famine, sword, and fire. over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of jesus christ. for sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. the ingenuity of christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever. give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. as long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. why should the church pity a man whom her god hates? why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her god will burn in eternal fire? why should a christian be better than his god? it is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been perpetrated by the church. every nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the church. let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. from augustine until now the spirit of the christians has remained the same. there has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, and the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with an ignorant creed. every church pretends that it has a revelation from god, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation--not from god--but from the church. had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. it might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or investigate in order to forget. without heresy there could have been no progress. the highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget; neither does he learn. he neither advances nor recedes. he is a living fossil embedded in that rock called faith. he makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. the supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he denounces free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. when he had power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. it meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death. in those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. across the open bible lay the sword and fagot. not content with burning such heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might rob their wives and children. the property of all heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being heretical--indicted, as it were, their dust--to the end that the church might clutch the bread of orphans. learned divines discussed the propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned, and the general opinion was, that this ought to be done so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the christians who were burning them. with a mixture of ferocity and christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire, giving as a reason that more time was given them for repentance. no wonder that jesus christ said, "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." every priest regarded himself as the agent of god. he answered all questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult offered to god. no one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey. in the inquisition was established. seven years afterward, the fourth council of the lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. the sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. acting, as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of god; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception,--these infamous priests, in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. they crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed god to finish the holy work in hell. millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. the catholic burned the lutheran, the lutheran burned the catholic, the episcopalian tortured the presbyterian, the presbyterian tortured the episcopalian. every denomination killed all it could of every other; and each christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed. in the reign of henry viii.--that pious and moral founder of the apostolic episcopal church,--there was passed by the parliament of england an act entitled "an act for abolishing of diversity of opinion." and in this act was set forth what a good christian was obliged to believe: first, that in the sacrament was the real body and blood of jesus christ. second, that the body and blood of jesus christ was in the bread, and the blood and body of jesus christ was in the wine. third, that priests should not marry. fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation. fifth, that private masses ought to be continued; and, sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be maintained. this creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to believe by simply reading the statute. the church hated to see the people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. it was thought far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. the punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. for the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second offence--death. your attention is called to these six articles, established during the reign of henry viii., and by the church of england, simply because not one of these articles is believed by that church to-day. if the law then made by the church could be enforced now, every episcopalian would be burned at the stake. similar laws were passed in most christian countries, as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven. according to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to hell. it was claimed that god had founded the church, and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to god, and consequently an ally of the devil. to torture and destroy one of the soldiers of satan was a duty no good christian cared to neglect. nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of god by killing your own enemies. such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary christian never resists. according to the theologians, god, the father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. the children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. in consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. in every land, where this letter from god has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. they have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. in the name of god every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of jesus christ. for more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. her vengeance has been measured only by her power. during all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. with the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the church of god. i do not say, and i do not believe, that christians are as bad as their creeds. in spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. they have been true to their convictions, and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned every danger. and yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. they knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. they believed that religion was of god, and all heresy of the devil. they killed heretics in defence of their own souls and the souls of their children. they killed them because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of god, and because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven. nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the ganges. nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. these crimes have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. these religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny and hypocrisy. under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these crimes. men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one god; that there was none; that the holy ghost is younger than god; that god was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of god as though he had a nose; for denying that christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that god is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for god, and in the place of god; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking the virgin mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good-sized woman; for denying that god used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a catholic, and for being a protestant; for being an episcopalian, a presbyterian, a baptist, and for being a quaker. in short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. the church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. and all this, because it was commanded by a book--a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long, before they knew one word that was in it they had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book--to examine it, even--was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next the bible was the real persecutor. the bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. how long, o how long will mankind worship a book? how long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? how long, o how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, a man by the name of gerard chauvin was married to jeanne lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a son, called john chauvin, who afterwards became famous as john calvin, the founder of the presbyterian church. this man forged five fetters for the brain. these fetters he called points. that is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. about the neck of each follower he put a collar bristling with these five iron points. the presence of all these points on the collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. this man, when in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in geneva. he at once, in union with farel, drew up a condensed statement of the presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of geneva, on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they believed this statement. of this proceeding calvin very innocently remarked that it produced great satisfaction. a man named caroli had the audacity to dispute with calvin. for this outrage he was banished. to show you what great subjects occupied the attention of calvin, it is only necessary to state that he furiously discussed the question as to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. he drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing their diet, and all those whose garments were not in the calvin fashion were refused the sacrament. at last, the people becoming tired of this petty theological tyranny, banished calvin. in a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. after this he was supreme, and the will of calvin became the law of geneva. under his benign administration, james gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. the slightest word against calvin or his absurd doctrines was punished as a crime. in a man was tried at vienne by the catholic church for heresy. he was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. it was apparently his good fortune to escape. pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to geneva for protection. a dove flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. this fugitive from the cruelty of rome asked shelter from john calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious toleration. servetus had forgotten that this book was written by calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. he did not know that calvin had caused his arrest at vienne, in france, and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous, to the archbishop. he did not then know that the protestant calvin was acting as one of the detectives of the catholic church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very calvin. the maker of the presbyterian creed caused the fugitive serve-tus to be arrested for blasphemy. he was tried. calvin was his accuser. he was convicted and condemned to death by fire. on the morning of the fatal day, calvin saw him, and servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of calvin, the murderer. servetus was bound to the stake, and the fagots were lighted. the wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. vainly he implored a speedy death. at last the flames climbed round his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white heroic face. and there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass. liberty was banished from geneva, and nothing but presbyterianism was left. honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled, but the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained instead. calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the old testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied. against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. the name of this man should never be forgotten. it was castalio. this brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest error. he was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble ground. i wish i had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say, castalio was in all things the opposite of calvin. to plead for the right of individual judgment was considered a crime, and castalio was driven from geneva by john calvin. by him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death. upon the name of castalio, calvin heaped every epithet, until his malice was nearly satisfied and his imagination entirely exhausted. it is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is good, just, and generous. calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. he was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. in other words, he was as near like the god of the old testament as his health permitted. the best thing, however, about the presbyterians of geneva was, that they denied the power of the pope, and the best thing about the pope was, that he was not a presbyterian. the doctrines of calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent; but scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of presbyterianism. the scotch succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that flourished in geneva. the clergy took possession and control of everybody and everything. it is impossible to exaggerate the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of scotland during the reign of presbyterianism. heretics were hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. the gloomy insanity of presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. they regarded their ministers as the jews did moses and aaron. they believed that they were the especial agents of god, and that whatsoever they bound in scotland would be bound in heaven. there was not one particle of intellectual freedom. no man was allowed to differ with the church, or to even contradict a priest. had presbyterianism maintained its ascendency, scotland would have been peopled by savages to-day. the revengeful spirit of calvin took possession of the puritans, and caused them to redden the soil of the new world with the brave blood of honest men. clinging to the five points of calvin, they too established governments in accordance with the teachings of the old testament. they too attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought. they too believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was absurd. they believed with luther that universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell. toleration was denounced as a crime. fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect even upon the presbyterian church. to the ennobling influence of the arts and sciences the savage spirit of calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. true, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past. the cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured, now and then, to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. the fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous to the people. the fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. the preachers told the old stories while the congregations slept some of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. the five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. the outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while this church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old presbyterian ark rested on the ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age. lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of science, longing to feel the throb and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were compelled, by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the splendid ideas of to-day. these utterances have upon several occasions so nearly wakened some of the members that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical. these ministers found that just in the proportion that their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations increased. those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than they had points. stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. one of the presbyterian ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by the presbytery of illinois. he is charged-- _first_. with having neglected to preach that most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul. surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope! who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? think of the lives it has blighted--of the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. this doctrine renders god the basest and most cruel being in the universe. compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. there is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. lower than this the soul can never sink. if the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men. _second_. with having spoken a few kind words of robert collyer and john stuart mill. i have the honor of a slight acquaintance with robert collyer. i have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. he has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet and the sincere heart of a child. is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and candid adversary? is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who devotes his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believes to be right? can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and heroic life? is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of john stuart mill? is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? must the true presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave and ask his god to curse the silent dust? is presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its founder? is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that consumed servetus? does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling before its ignorant confession of faith? had such men as robert collyer and john stuart mill been present at the burning of servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. had the presbytery of chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed themselves. _third_. with having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of predestination. if there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is that doctrine. surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain. _fourth._ with failing to preach the efficacy of a "vicarious sacrifice." suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged--the governor acting as the executioner; and suppose that just as the doomed man was about to suffer death some one in the crowd should step forward and say, "i am willing to die in the place of that murderer. he has a family, and i have none." and suppose further, that the governor should reply, "come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. a murder has been committed and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the murderer." what would you then think of the doctrine of "vicarious sacrifice"? this doctrine is the consummation of two outrages--forgiving one crime and committing another. _fifth_. with having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known as "evolution," or "development". the church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine. according to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. to teach that there is that in nature which impels to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy, of course. the deity will damn spencer and his "evolution," darwin and his "origin of species," bastian and his "spontaneous generation," huxley and his "protoplasm," tyndall and his "prayer gauge," and will save those, and those only, who declare that the universe has been cursed, from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that everything tends to evil and to that only, and that the only perfect thing in nature is the presbyterian confession of faith. _sixth_. with having intimated that the reception of socrates and penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial than that of catharine ii. penelope, waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and unweaving the shroud of laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of greece. socrates, whose life was above reproach and whose death was beyond all praise, stands to-day, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of christ. catharine ii. assassinated her husband. stepping upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. she was the murderess of prince iwan, grand nephew of peter the great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who during all that time saw the sky but once. taken all in all, catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown. catharine, however, was the head of the greek church, socrates was a heretic and penelope lived and died without having once heard of "particular redemption" or of "irresistible grace." _seventh_. with repudiating the idea of a "call" to the ministry, and pretending that men were "called" to preach as they were to the other avocations of life. if this doctrine is true, god, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. it is more than a century since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. every minister is heretical just to the extent that intellect is above the average. the lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not. an old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry and turn his attention to something else. the preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had had a "call" to the ministry. to which the deacon replied, "that may be so, but it's very unfortunate for you, that when god called you to preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you." there is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense set apart to the service of the lord; that they have been chosen, and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. they teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that god allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the motts and coopers--the mansfields and marshalls--the wilberforces and sumners--the angelos and raphaels, were never honored by a "call." they chose their professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the lord. all these men were left free to follow their own inclinations, while god was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters. _eighth_. with having doubted that god was the author of the th psalm. the portion of that psalm which carries with it the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation to the presbyterian church, is as follows: set thou a wicked man over him; and let satan stand at his right hand. when he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin. let his days be few; and let another take his office. let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the stranger spoil his labor. let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. but do thou for me, o god the lord, for thy name's sake; because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.... i will greatly praise the lord with my_ mouth_. think of a god wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. think of one infamous enough to answer it. had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments. no wonder that the author of this inspired psalm coldly received socrates and penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for catharine the second. _ninth._ with having said that the battles in which the israelites engaged, with the approval and command of jehovah, surpassed in cruelty those of julius cæsar. was it julius cæsar who said, "and the lord our god delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. and we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain"? did julius cæsar send the following report to the roman senate? "and we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score cities, all the region of argob, the kingdom of og in bashan. all these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. and we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto sihon, king of heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city." did cæsar take the city of jericho "and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old"? did he smite "all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the lord god had commanded"? search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the bible's god commanded and approved. for such a god i have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. away with such a god! give me jupiter rather, with io and europa, or even siva with his skulls and snakes. _tenth_. with having repudiated the doctrine of "total depravity." what a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! how sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of god, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offence to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of god; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime! surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of hell. take from the christian the history of his own church--leave that entirely out of the question--and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man. _eleventh_. with having doubted the "perseverance of the saints." i suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is, that presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell. the real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of god, and not upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that god has the weakness to send presbyterians to paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire. it is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least particle of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous. it is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will--that they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that god forces them to persevere, while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of god, who does all things for his own glory. compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd. _twelfth_. with having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons. of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge, the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. the whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. we have nearly exterminated the indians, but we have converted none. from the days of john eliot to the execution of the last modoc, not one indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. the few red men who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of calvin. they are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the thirty-nine articles, the saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the evangelical alliance. no indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. this of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect why should we convert the heathen of china and kill our own? why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? why should we send bibles to the east and muskets to the west? if it is impossible to convert indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the holy ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and bibles and prophets and christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? can we hope with the story of daniel in the lions' den to rival the stupendous miracles of india? is there anything in our bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the buddhist? compare your "confession of faith" with the following: "never will i seek nor receive private individual salvation--never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will i live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. until all are delivered, never will i leave the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where i am." think of sending an average presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous, this incomparable prayer. think of reading the th psalm to a heathen who has a bible of his own in which is found this passage: "blessed is that man and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." why should you read even the new testament to a hindu, when his own chrishna has said, "if a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again"? why send a presbyterian to a sufi, who says, "better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship"? "whoso would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from god; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him god bursts all bounds above, below." why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "o god, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous"? compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the old testament--with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom we are taught to worship as a god--and with the following tender product of presbyterianism: "it may seem absurd to human wisdom that god should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that god would be never a whit less good even though he should destroy all men." of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, presbyterianism is the most hideous. but what shall i say more, for the time would fail me to tell of sabellianism, of a "modal trinity," and the "eternal procession of the holy ghost"? upon these charges, a minister is to be tried, here in chicago; in this city of pluck and progress--this marvel of energy--this miracle of nerve. the cry of "heresy," here, sounds like a wail from the dark ages--a shriek from the inquisition, or a groan from the grave of calvin. another effort is being made to enslave a man. it is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. with scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. what an intellectual feast the confession of faith must be! it reminds one of the dinner described by sydney smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar. every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say--stationary. growth is heresy. orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been moulted by the eagle of progress. they are the dead leaves under the majestic palm, while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top. imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. the end that grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox the dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. no thought, no progress, no heresy there. slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. there is only this difference--the dead do not persecute. and what does a trial for heresy mean? it means that the church says to a heretic, "believe as i do, or i will withdraw my support. i will not employ you. i will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. i will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my god will do the rest i will not imprison you. i will not burn you. the law prevents my doing that. i helped make the law, not however to protect you, nor to deprive me of the right to exterminate you but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me." a trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth, and that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. it means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. it means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. it means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed; that it would bring again the whips and chains and dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past. but let me tell the church it lacks the power. there have been, and still are, too many men who own themselves--too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. the church must abdicate. for the eglon of superstition science has a message from truth. the heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light. not in vain did voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the alps the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science. the church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. heresy cannot be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. it laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ecumenical councils and the impotent thunders of sinai. heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. heresy is the last and best thought. it is the perpetual new world, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. it is the eternal horizon of progress. heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin. why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? is it possible that an infinite deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? what glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! the ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly. go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! thrust the heretics out of the church--that is to say, throw away your brains,--put out your eyes. the infidels will thank you. they are willing to adopt your exiles. every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the th psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank god for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius. be true to your history. turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. with a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. we want them all. keep the ignorant, the superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications. keep them, and keep them all. repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. you are too weak to excite anger. we forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud--as the air forgives the breath you waste. how long, o how long, will man listen to the threats of god, and shut his eyes to the splendid possibilities of nature? how long, o how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed? by this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist. the real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of christs. every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. it is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. it makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. it has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. it appeals to man in the name of demonstration. it has nothing to conceal. it has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. it does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. it challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. it is incapable of being blasphemed. this book appeals to all the surroundings of man. each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. the earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth. the ghosts. to ebon c. ingersoll, my brother, from whose lips i heard the first applause, and with whose name i wish my own associated until both are forgotten, this volume is dedicated. preface these lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself i concluded to publish them. most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. they appeal, not to reason, but to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of scripture. they can conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon of their creed. whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to call "fundamental truths," is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man. to re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power. bigotry in all ages has been the same. christianity simply transferred the brutality of the colosseum to the inquisition. for the murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the _auto de fe_. what has been called religion is, after all, but the organization of the wild beast in man. the perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven. hell is the consummation of revenge. the chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and perdition. they have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and upon the ignorant altars of the past and the dead, they have endeavored to sacrifice the present and the living. nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. i have had some little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until i read the religious papers, i did not know what malicious and slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. the ingenuity with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language, is simply amazing. the average religious editor is intolerant and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives. by this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the nineteenth century needs no guardian. they should cease to regard themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. by this time they should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal past no longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain. men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. every chain of superstition should be broken. the rights of men and women should be equal and sacred--marriage should be a perfect partnership--children should be governed by kindness,--every family should be a republic--every fireside a democracy. it seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea of intellectual freedom. they seem to think that man is responsible for his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous guide. they cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of thought there must be government--authority and obedience--laws and penalties--rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe there is a penitentiary for the soul. in the republic of mind, _one_ is a majority. there, all are monarchs, and all are equals. the tyranny of a majority even is unknown. each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. upon every brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple. only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's sake, are the only traitors. there, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. the church contemplates this republic with a sneer. from the teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. she is filled with the spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. once she was egotistic; now she is envious. once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be real. they have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. she has the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed. we are told to investigate the bible for ourselves, and at the same time informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired word of god, we will most assuredly be damned. under such circumstances, if we believe this, investigation is impossible. whoever is held responsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial scales. fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of its trembling hand. i oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice--vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of. the free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me. those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate my motives. the sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving children will thank me: this is enough. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c., april , . the ghosts, let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imagination of men. here are three theories by which men account for all phenomena, for everything that happens: first, the supernatural; second, the supernatural and natural; third, the natural. between these theories there has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. in this great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural. the believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while naturalists maintain that nature acts from within; that nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that nature with infinite arms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. you say, "oh, this is materialism!" what is matter? i take in my hand some earth:--in this dust put seeds. let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it. the seeds will grow and a plant will bud and blossom. do you understand this? can you explain it better than you can the production of thought? have you the slightest conception of what it really is? and yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material existence. do you know what force is? can you account for molecular action? are you really familiar with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? is there not something in matter that forever eludes? after all, can you get beyond, above or below appearances? before you cry "materialism!" had you not better ascertain what matter really is? can you think even of anything without a material basis? is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of an atom? can you have a thought that was not suggested to you by what you call matter? our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by the caprice of gods and devils. for thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad, benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way, produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and failure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and displeased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow, the light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men; that they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that they controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing the brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or sent the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the bodies of men. formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. earth, air, and water were filled with these phantom hosts. in modern times they have greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,--a mingling of the supernatural and natural,--has generally been adopted. the remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same offices as the hosts of yore. it has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of men and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and prostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy, by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and children, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers, by putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing things without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating reason, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging investigation, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning candles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the eyes of the soul. all this has been done to appease and flatter these monsters of the air. in the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,--by the worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. and yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. they were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition. from these ghosts, our fathers received information. they were the schoolmasters of our ancestors. they were the scientists and philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians, metaphysicians and historians of the past. for ages these ghosts were supposed to be the only source of real knowledge. they inspired men to write books, and the books were considered sacred. if facts were found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts, and especially for their discoverers. it was then, and still is, believed that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce the idea of immortality. this i deny. the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. it was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow--hope shining upon the tears of grief. from the books written by the ghosts we have at last ascertained that they knew nothing about the world in which we live. did they know anything about the next? upon every point where contradiction is possible, they have been contradicted. by these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government were administered; all authority to govern came from them. the emperors, kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. man was not considered as the source of any power whatever. to rebel against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant. kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude. the prostrate were the good. those who stood erect were infidels and traitors. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. the many toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness. the many lived in huts, and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. the many covered themselves with rags, that the few might robe themselves in purple and in gold. the many crept, and cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their flesh with iron feet. from the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of every kind. they told us the form of this earth. they informed us that eclipses were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made in six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men, instigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity; that trying to be wise above what they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent spirit. they told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt; that investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor, eternal torment. they not only told us all about this world, but about two others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true as about this, no one can estimate the value of their information. for countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. to accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were exhausted. during these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and faith, called witchcraft. they believed that man was the sport and prey of devils. they really thought that the very air was thick with these enemies of man. with few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief was universal. under these conditions, progress was almost impossible. fear paralyzes the brain. progress is born of courage. fear believes--courage doubts. fear falls upon the earth and prays--courage stands erect and thinks. fear retreats--courage advances. fear is barbarism--courage is civilization. fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. fear is religion--courage is science. the facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over and over again in every court of europe. thousands confessed themselves guilty--admitted that they had sold themselves to the devil. they gave the particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. they confessed this, when they knew that confession was death; knew that their property would be confiscated, and their children left to beg their bread. this is one of the miracles of history--one of the strangest contradictions of the human mind. without doubt, they really believed themselves guilty. in the first place, they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they probably became insane. in their insanity they confessed their guilt. they found themselves abhorred and deserted--charged with a crime that they could not disprove. like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them deeper. caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders of superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of confession. the whole world appeared to be insane. in the time of james the first, a man was executed for causing a storm at sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. how could he disprove it? how could he show that he did not cause the storm? all storms were at that time generally supposed to be caused by the devil--the prince of the power of the air--and by those whom he assisted. i implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things were the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith. a woman was tried and convicted before sir matthew hale, one of the great judges and lawyers of england, for having caused children to vomit crooked pins. she was also charged with having nursed devils. the learned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches; that it was established by all history, and expressly taught by the bible. the woman was hanged and her body burned. sir thomas more declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the sacred scriptures. in my judgment, he was right. john wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in england. i beg of you to remember that john wesley was the founder of the methodist church. in new england, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having changed herself into a fox. while in that condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs. a committee of three men, by order of the court, examined this woman. they removed her clothing and searched for "witch spots." that is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without giving her pain. they reported to the court that such spots were found. she denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. upon the report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed. this was done by our puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the dangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping god and persecuting their fellow-men. in those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy--that is, that persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form of wolves. an instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. he defended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws. the wolf ran away. the man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and carried it home. there he found his wife with one of her hands gone. he took the paw from his pocket. it had changed to a human hand. he charged his wife with being a witch. she was tried. she confessed her guilt, and was burned. people were burned for causing frosts in summer--for destroying crops with hail--for causing storms--for making cows go dry, and even for souring beer. there was no impossibility for which some one was not tried and convicted. the life of no one was secure. to be charged, was to be convicted. every man was at the mercy of every other. this infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to express a doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. whoever denied the existence of witches and devils was denounced as an infidel. they believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. they absolutely tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts. at basle, in , a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an egg. rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,--this everybody knew. the rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was burned in the public square. so a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed and partially eaten a child. the hog was convicted,--but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. as late as , a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a devil. they used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. they used to go through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within a certain number of days. in case they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and penalties. but let us be careful how we laugh at these things. let us not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age. we must not forget that some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. only a little while ago, the governor of minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers, or send them into some other state. about the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement with regard to the existence of witchcraft that pope innocent viii. issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of this crime. forms for the trial were regularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "malleus maleficorum" (hammer of witches), which was issued by the roman see. popes alexander, leo, and adrian, issued like bulls. for two hundred and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children. protestants were as active as catholics, and in geneva five hundred witches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. about one thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of como. at least one hundred thousand victims suffered in germany alone: the last execution (in wurtzburg) taking place as late as . witches were burned in switzerland as late as . in england the same frightful scenes were enacted. statutes were passed from henry vi. to james i., defining the crime and its punishment. the last act passed by the british parliament was when lord bacon was a member of the house of commons; and this act was not repealed until . sir william blackstone, in his commentaries on the laws of england, says: "to deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of god in various passages both of the old and new testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits." in brown's dictionary of the bible, published at edinburg, scotland, in , it is said that: "a witch is a woman that has dealings with satan. that such persons are among men is abundantly plain from scripture, and that they ought to be put to death." this work was re-published in albany, new york, in . no wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day. in , mrs. hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. in england it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged and burned. the last victim executed in scotland, perished in . "she was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. she had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet--a circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a pony and getting her shod by the devil." in , nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in salem, massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. it was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the devil, orally and in writing. that they abjured god and jesus christ, and dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. the contracts were confirmed at a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of agreement with their own blood. these contracts were, in some instances, for a few years; in others, for life. general assemblies of the witches were held at least once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants. "to these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks, pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. here they did homage to the prince of hell, and offered him sacrifices of young children, and practiced all sorts of license until the break of day." "as late as , belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was established by the water ordeal." "in , the populace of hela, near dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress; and as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty, and beaten to death." "it was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. it was thought they were like clouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and penetrating into any orifice. the horrible tortures they endured in their place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist warmth in order to allay their pangs. it was for this reason they so frequently entered into men and women." the devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. he could beget children; and martin luther himself had come in contact with one of these children. he recommended the mother to throw the child into the river, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil. it was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he pleased. whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. all the believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the bible. their mouths were filled with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and their power over human beings. by the bible they proved that innumerable evil spirits were ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind; that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the limits of human faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that could befall the world; that their malice was superhuman. that they caused tempests was proved by the action of the devil toward job; by the passage in the book of revelation describing the four angels who held the four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. they believed the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few seconds, through the air. they believed this, because they knew that christ had been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on a pinnacle of the temple. "the prophet habakkuk had been transported by a spirit from judea to babylon; and philip, the evangelist, had been the object of a similar miracle; and in the same way saint paul had been carried in the body into the third heaven." "in those pious days, they believed that _incubi_ and _succubi_ were forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms, the unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often successful, against the virtue of the saints. sometimes the witches kindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. people told, with bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four successive abbots in a german monastery had been wasted away by an unholy flame." an instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when discovered, crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out, and was impudent enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. so perfectly had he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those who knew the bishop best were deceived. one can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during these long centuries of darkness and superstition. to them, these things were awful and frightful realities. hovering above them in the air, in their houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the darkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable hosts of unclean and malignant devils. from the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air, the church pretended to defend mankind. pursued by these phantoms, the frightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of robed hypocrisy and sceptered theft. take from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and it becomes an extinct volcano. take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the church, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what we are pleased to call the superstition of the past. religion has not civilized man--man has civilized religion. god improves as man advances. let me call your attention to what we have received from the followers of the ghosts. let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by these philosophers of the clouds. all diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts, or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. there were, properly speaking, no diseases. the sick were possessed by ghosts. the science of medicine consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises. for thousands of years the diseased were treated with incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs. everything was done to make the visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they generally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the patient did. these ghosts were supposed to be of different rank, power and dignity. now and then a man pretended to have won the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the little ones. such a man became an eminent physician. it was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of an ordinary ghost. with this smoke, the sick room would be filled until the ghost vanished or the patient died. it was also believed that certain words,--the names of the most powerful ghosts,--when properly pronounced, were very effective weapons. it was for a long time thought that latin words were the best,--latin being a dead language, and known by the clergy. others thought that two sticks laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause it instantly to flee in dread away. for thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving these evil spirits out of the bodies of men. in some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts. one case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd of swine. in this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine immediately drowned themselves in the sea. this idea of disease appears to have been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct. the contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the numberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were all seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled with unclean and malignant ghosts. whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes, whoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by the church as an infidel. to explain anything was a crime. it was to the interest of the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the will and power of gods and devils. the moment it is admitted that all phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a priest has disappeared. religion breathes the air of the supernatural. take from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist. for this, reason, the church has always despised the man who explained the wonderful. upon this principle, nothing was left undone to stay the science of medicine. as long as plagues and pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. the moment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance. the moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul. long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that god had nothing to do with ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the people. it was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. formerly, during the prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was boundless. he told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that they had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the church, and that god was now taking his revenge. the people for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft. they hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from their minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very dust of humility. the church never wanted disease to be under the control of man. timothy dwight, president of yale college, preached a sermon against vaccination. his idea was, that if god had decreed from all eternity that a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. small-pox being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven, to spike it was the height of presumption. plagues and pestilences were instrumentalities in the hands of god with which to gain the love and worship of mankind. to find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from the church. no one tries to cure the ague with prayer. quinine has been found altogether more reliable. just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. the number of diseases with which god from time to time afflicts mankind, is continually decreasing. in a few years all of them will be under the control of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their priests will excite only a smile. the science of medicine has had but one enemy--religion. man was afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his soul. is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment--a doctrine that makes god a heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave? the ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest absurdities. "tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." in those days the histories were written by the monks, who, as a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. they wrote as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. they wrote the history of every country of importance. they told all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence that amounted to sublimity. "they traced the order of st. michael, in france, to the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. they said that tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called tartars because tartarus was one of the names of perdition. they declared that scotland was so named after scota, a daughter of pharaoh, who landed in ireland, invaded scotland, and took it by force of arms. this statement was made in a letter addressed to the pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as a well-known fact. the letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries, and by the direction of the king himself." these gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the fact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell. matthew, of paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave the world the following piece of information: "it is well known that mohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in his effort to be elected pope;" and that having drank to excess, he fell by the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. "and for that reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day." another eminent historian informs us that nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. when i read this, i said to myself: some of the croakers of the present day against progress would be the better for such a vomit. the history of charlemagne was written by turpin, of rheims. he was a bishop. he assures us that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer. that there were giants in those days who could take fifty ordinary men under their arms and walk away with them. "with the greatest of these, a direct descendant of goliath, one orlando had a theological discussion, and that in the heat of the debate, when the giant was overwhelmed with the argument, orlando rushed forward and inflicted a fatal stab." the history of britain, written by the archdeacons of monmouth and oxford, was wonderfully popular. according to them, brutus conquered england and built the city of london. during his time, it rained pure blood for three days. at another time, a monster came from the sea, and, after having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the king and disappeared. they tell us that king arthur was not born like other mortals, but was the result of a magical contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants; that he killed one in france that had the cheerful habit of eating some thirty men a day. that this giant had clothes woven of the beards of the kings he had devoured. to cap the climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written the only reliable history of his country. in all the histories of those days there is hardly a single truth. facts were considered unworthy of preservation. anything that really happened was not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded. the great religious historian, eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory. the same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by all the historians of that time. they wrote, and the people believed, that the tracks of pharoah's chariots were still visible on the sands of the red sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved from the winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of the great miracle there performed. it is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times is the result of accident or mistake. they accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits. with cause and effect they had nothing to do. facts were in no way related to each other. god, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and disconnected events. from the quiver of his hatred came the arrows of famine, pestilence, and death. the moment that the idea is abandoned that all is natural; that all phenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain of being, the conception of history becomes impossible. with the ghosts, the present is not the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. in the domain of religion all is chance, accident, and caprice. do not forget, i pray you, that our creeds were written by the cotemporaries of these historians. the same idea was applied to law. it was believed by our intelligent ancestors that all law derived its sacredness and its binding force from the fact that it had been communicated to man by the ghosts. of course it was not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they told it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. it was thousands of ages before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and strange as it may appear, most of these laws were vastly superior to the ghost article. through the web and woof of human legislation began to run and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice. during these years of darkness it was believed that rather than see an act of injustice done; rather than see the innocent suffer; rather than see the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere. this belief, as a rule, gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and as the other man was dead, no complaint was heard from him. this doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and chance. they had trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by lot. persons were made to grasp hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established. others, with tied hands and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank, the verdict of guilty was unanimous,--if they did not sink, they were in league with devils. so in england, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned. the corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. if the defendant could swallow this piece he went acquit. godwin, earl of kent, in the time of edward the confessor, appealed to the corsned. he failed to swallow it and was choked to death. the ghosts and their followers always took delight in torture, in cruel and unusual punishments. for the infraction of most of their laws, death was the penalty--death produced by stoning and by fire. sometimes, when man committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city of refuge. murder was a crime against man. but for saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines, or for picking up sticks on certain days, or for worshiping the wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one, or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood, or that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram's horns as artillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to take the place of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor landlord:--death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity of hatred could devise, was the penalty. law is a growth--it is a science. right and wrong exist in the nature of things. things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibited. there are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. all progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts. the idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer. if man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have entered his brain. but for this, the word conscience never would have passed the lips of man. there is one good--happiness. there is but one sin--selfishness. all law should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of the other. under the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed to exist in the nature of things. they were supposed to be simply the irresponsible command of a ghost. these commands were not supposed to rest upon reason, they were the product of arbitrary will. the penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as the laws were senseless and absurd. working on the sabbath and murder were both punished with death. the tendency of such laws is to blot from the human heart the sense of justice. to show you how perfectly every department of knowledge, or ignorance rather, was saturated with superstition, i will for a moment refer to the science of language. it was thought by our fathers, that hebrew was the original language; that it was taught to adam in the garden of eden by the almighty, and that consequently all languages came from, and could be traced to, the hebrew. every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. according to the ghosts, the trouble at the tower of babel accounted for the fact that all people did not speak hebrew. the babel business settled all questions in the science of language. after a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent with the hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages began to compete for the honor of being the original. andre kempe, in , published a work on the language of paradise, in which he maintained that god spoke to adam in swedish; that adam answered in danish; and that the serpent--which appears to me quite probable--spoke to eve in french. erro, in a work published at madrid, took the ground that basque was the language spoken in the garden of eden; but in goropius published his celebrated work at antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by showing, beyond all doubt, that the language spoken in paradise was neither more nor less than plain holland dutch. the real founder of the science of language was liebnitz, a cotemporary of sir isaac newton. he discarded the idea that all languages could be traced to one language. he maintained that language was a natural growth. experience teaches us that this must be so. words are continually dying and continually being born. words are naturally and necessarily produced. words are the garments of thought, the robes of ideas. some are as rude as the skins of wild beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and gold. they have been born of hatred and revenge; of love and self-sacrifice; of hope and fear, of agony and joy. these words are born of the terror and beauty of nature. the stars have fashioned them. in them mingle the darkness and the dawn. from everything they have taken something. words are the crystalizations of human history, of all that man has enjoyed and suffered--his victories and defeats--all that he has lost and won. words are the shadows of all that has been--the mirrors of all that is. the ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology. according to them the earth was made out of nothing, and a little more nothing having been taken than was used in the construction of this world, the stars were made out of what was left over. cosmas, in the sixth century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either carried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew them after. he also taught that each angel that pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the stars might always remain the same. he also gave his idea as to the form of the world. he stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on the outside was a strip of land, like the frame of a common slate; that then there was a strip of water, and in the middle a great piece of land; that adam and eve lived on the outer strip; that their descendants, with the exception of the noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip; that the ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where we now are. he accounted for night and day by saying that on the outside strip of land there was a high mountain, around which the sun and moon revolved, and that when the sun was on the other side of the mountain, it was night; and when on this side, it was day. he also declared that the earth was flat. this he proved by many passages from the bible. among other reasons for believing the earth to be flat, he brought forward the following: we are told in the new testament that christ shall come again in glory and power, and all the world shall see him. now, if the world is round, how are the people on the other side going to see christ when he comes? that settled the question, and the church not only endorsed the book, but declared that whoever believed less or more than stated by cosmas, was a heretic. in those blessed days, ignorance was a king and science an outcast. they knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry heaven of existence, that their religion would become a childish fable of the past. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their fellow-men; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. in the name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed each other; they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the present with despair and the future with horror. in the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind, polluted the conscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice, crowned robbery, sainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a thousand years the torch of reason. i have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what has happened, and what always will happen when men are governed by superstition and fear; when they desert the sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of others and do not investigate for themselves. even the great men of those days were nearly as weak in this matter as the most ignorant. kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. this great man breathed, so to speak, the atmosphere of his time. he believed in the music of the spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars. tycho brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in such manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them fulfilled. luther believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had discussed points of theology with him. the human mind was in chains. every idea almost was a monster. thought was deformed. facts were looked upon as worthless. only the wonderful was worth preserving. things that actually happened were not considered worth recording;--real occurrences were too common. everybody expected the miraculous. the ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought to be the most industrious things in the universe, and with these imps, every occurrence of an unusual character was in some way connected. there was no order, no serenity, no certainty in anything. everything depended upon ghosts and phantoms. man was, for the most part, at the mercy of malevolent spirits. he protected himself as best he could with holy water and tapers and wafers and cathedrals. he made noises and rung bells to frighten the ghosts, and he made music to charm them. he used smoke to choke them, and incense to please them. he wore beads and crosses. he said prayers, and hired others to say them. he fasted when he was hungry, and feasted when he was not. he believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to appease the ghosts. he humbled himself. he crawled in the dust. he shut the doors and windows, and excluded every ray of light from the temple of the soul. he debauched and polluted his own mind, and toiled night and day to repair the walls of his own prison. from the garden of his heart he plucked and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity. the priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. concerning the wrath of god, they grew eloquent. they denounced man as totally depraved. they made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. nothing so delighted them as painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. over the worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled them with a kind of holy delight. according to them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell were the perfume and music of heaven. at the risk of being tiresome, i have said what i have to show you the productions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread ignorance--the results of fear. i want to convince you that every form of slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison fangs into the bosoms of men. the first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his own creation--of the ghosts and phantoms of the air. for ages the human race was imprisoned. through the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. against these grates and bars science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. men found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better than what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy. they found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be cured by frightening them away. they found that death was as natural as life. they began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body, and found that all was natural and within the domain of law. the conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon employed. they found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were not mere specks. they found that being born under a particular planet had nothing to do with the fortunes of men. the astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place. they found that the earth had swept through the constellations for millions of ages. they found that good and evil were produced by natural causes, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad enough to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally as grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to believe a certain creed. they found that man, through intelligence, could take advantage of the forces of nature--that he could make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings of heaven do his bidding and minister to his wants. they found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology--of astronomy--of geography;--that they knew nothing of history;--that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons;--that they knew nothing of law and less of justice; that they were without brains, and utterly destitute of hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights of men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty. the condition of the world during the dark ages shows exactly the result of enslaving the bodies and souls of men. in those days there was no freedom. labor was despised, and a laborer was considered but little above a beast. ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world, and superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. the air was filled with angels, with demons and monsters. credulity sat upon the throne of the soul, and reason was an exiled king. a man to be distinguished must be a soldier or a monk. war and theology, that is to say, murder and hypocrisy, were the principal employments of man. industry was a slave, theft was commerce; murder was war, hypocrisy was religion. every christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owners. lord bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. reading and writing were considered dangerous arts. every layman who could read and write was suspected of being a heretic. all thought was discouraged. they forged chains of superstition for the minds, and manacles of iron for the bodies of men. the earth was ruled by the cowl and sword,--by the mitre and scepter,--by the altar and throne,--by fear and force,--by ignorance and faith,--by ghouls and ghosts. in the fifteenth century the following law was in force in england: "that whosoever reads the scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to god, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." during the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies burned. in the sixteenth century men were burned because they failed to kneel to a procession of monks. the slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was punished with death. even the reformers, so-called, of those days, had no idea of intellectual liberty--no idea even of toleration. luther, knox, calvin, believed in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. the moment they were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire and sword. castalio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul. he was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he had committed the crime of crimes. bodinus, a lawyer of france, about the same time, wrote a few words in favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. the people were ready, anxious, and willing, with whip, and chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy that he had a right to think. montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most uncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture in france. but what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? it was the cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea. in spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of human beings--fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters--with hopes, loves, and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant faith. they perished in every way by which death can be produced. every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the believers in ghosts. for my part i glory in the fact, that here in the new world,--in the united states,--liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man, and that the constitution of the united states was the first great decree entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing church and state,--the first injunction granted against the interference of the ghosts. this was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race in the direction of progress. you will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred years. and i answer--the inventions and discoveries of the few;--the brave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;--the acquisition of a few facts. besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish itself. it is hard to make a lie stand always. a lie will not fit a fact. it will only fit another lie made for the purpose. the life of a lie is simply a question of time. nothing but truth is immortal. the nobles and kings quarreled;--the priests began to dispute;--the ideas of government began to change. in printing was discovered. at that time the past was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. the ideas of men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them. the lips of the human race had been sealed. printing gave pinions to thought. it preserved ideas. it made it possible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the wealth of his soul. at first, it was used to flood the world with the mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the world with light. when people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they progress. this was another grand step in the direction of progress. the discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with the prince;--that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;--that released a vast number of men from the armies;--that gave pluck and nerve a chance with brute strength. the discovery of america, whose shores were trod by the restless feet of adventure;--that brought people holding every shade of superstition together;--that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and to laugh at the follies of each other. out of this strange mingling of all creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless opinions, came the great republic. every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the clouds. every mechanic art is an educator. every loom, every reaper and mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press, every telegraph, is a missionary of science and an apostle of progress. every mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers, in which something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the comfort and elevation of man, is a church, and every school-house is a temple. education is the most radical thing in the world. to teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution. to build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort. every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of progress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of steel. i thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. i thank columbus and magellan. i thank galileo, and copernicus, and kepler, and descartes, and newton, and laplace. i thank locke, and hume, and bacon, and shakespeare, and kant, and fichte, and leibnitz, and goethe. i thank fulton, and watts, and volta, and galvani, and franklin, and morse, who made lightning the messenger of man. i thank humboldt, the shakespeare of science. i thank crompton and arkwright, from whose brains leaped the looms and spindles that clothe the world. i thank luther for protesting against the abuses of the church, and i denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. i thank calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and i abhor him because he burned servetus. i thank knox for resisting episcopal persecution, and i hate him because he persecuted in his turn. i thank the puritans for saying "resistance to tyrants is obedience to god," and yet i am compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves. i thank thomas paine because he was a believer in liberty, and because he did as much to make my country free as any other human being. i thank voltaire, that great man who, for half a century, was the intellectual emperor of europe, and who, from his throne at the foot of the alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in christendom. i thank darwin, haeckel and büchner, spencer, tyndall and huxley, draper, lecky and buckle. i thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the scientists, the explorers, i thank the honest millions who have toiled. i thank the brave men with brave thoughts. they are the atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization. they are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of superstition. they are the titans who carried olympus by assault, and who will soon stand victors upon sinai's crags. we are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake for the truth--a superstition for a fact--to ascertain the real--is to progress. happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to the happiness of man is right, and is of value. all that tends to develop the bodies and minds of men; all that gives us better houses, better clothes, better food, better pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts; all that renders us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that makes us better husbands and wives, better children, better citizens--all these things combined produce what i call progress. man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of nature, and this can be done only by labor and by thought. labor is the foundation of all. without labor, and without great labor, progress is impossible. the progress of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and reap; upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace fires; upon the delvers in the mines, and the workers in shops; upon those who give to the winter air the ringing music of the axe; upon those who battle with the boisterous billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon the brave thinkers. from the surplus produced by labor, schools and universities are built and fostered. from this surplus the painter is paid for the productions of the pencil; the sculptor for chiseling shapeless rock into forms divinely beautiful, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories, and the aspirations of the world. this surplus has given us the books in which we converse with the dead and living kings of the human race. it has given us all there is of beauty, of elegance, and of refined happiness. i am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to what progress really is; that many denounce the ideas of to-day as destructive of all happiness--of all good, i know that there are many worshipers of the past. they venerate the ancient because it is ancient. they see no beauty in anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise. they say, no masters like the old; no religion, no governments like the ancient; no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. others love the modern simply because it is modern. we should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations we are under to the great and heroic of antiquity, and independence enough not to believe what they said simply because they said it. with the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the truth that labor must be free. the laborer must be a free man. the free man, working for wife and child, gets his head and hands in partnership. to do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time, is the problem of free labor. slavery does the least work in the longest space of time. free labor will give us wealth. free thought will give us truth. slowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these sexless phantoms, of these cruel ghosts. slowly but surely he is rising above the superstitions of the past. he is learning to rely upon himself. he is beginning to find that labor is the only prayer that ought to be answered, and that hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of more importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through the fenceless fields of space. the believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only wise and virtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that there is a difference between them and unbelievers so vast, that they will be infinitely rewarded, and the others infinitely punished. i ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the theologians satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth century? have the churches the confidence of mankind? does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs to a church? does the banker loan money to a man because he is a methodist or baptist? will a certificate of good standing in any church be taken as collateral security for one dollar? will you take the word of a church member, or his note, or his oath, simply because he is a church member? are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous to their families--to their fellow-men--than doctors, lawyers, merchants and farmers? does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily make people honest? when a man loses confidence in moses, must the people lose confidence in him? does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin? why send missionaries to other lands while every penitentiary in ours is filled with criminals? is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross? is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destination of nearly all of the children of men? is it worth while to quarrel about original sin--when there is so much copy? does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the trinity, and predestination, and apostolic succession and the infallibility of churches, of popes and of books? does all this do any good? are the theologians welcomers of new truths? are they noted for their candor? do they treat an opponent with common fairness? are they investigators? do they pull forward, or do they hold back? is science indebted to the church for a solitary fact? what church is an asylum for a persecuted truth? what great reform has been inaugurated by the church? did the church abolish slavery? has the church raised its voice against war? i used to think that there was in religion no real restraining force. upon this point my mind has changed. religion will prevent man from committing artificial crimes and offences. a man committed murder. the evidence was so conclusive that he confessed his guilt. he was asked why he killed his fellow-man. he replied: "for money." "did you get any?" "yes." "how much?" "fifteen cents." "what did you do with this money?" "spent it." "what for?" "liquor." "what else did you find upon the dead man?" "he had his dinner in a bucket--some meat and bread." "what did you do with that?" "i ate the bread." "what did you do with the meat?" "i threw it away." "why?" "it was friday." just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of ghosts he has advanced. just to the extent that he has freed himself from the tyrants of his own creation he has progressed. just to the extent that he has investigated for himself he has lost confidence in superstition. with knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence--it is no longer degrading. acquiescence in the understood--in the known--is the act of a sovereign, not of a slave. it ennobles, it does not degrade. man has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it himself. he has found that a master is also a slave;--that a tyrant is himself a serf. he has found that governments should be founded and administered by man and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that the powers that be are not ordained by god; that woman is at least the equal of man; that men existed before books; that religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is an impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has the right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that all have a right to think. true religion must be free. without perfect liberty of the mind there can be no true religion. without liberty the brain is a dungeon--the mind a convict. the slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore--he cannot love. true religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart. true religion is a subordination of the passions to the perceptions of the intellect. true religion is not a theory--it is a practice. it is not a creed--it is a life. a theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a place in the human mind. i do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. i do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with the dim heights of thought. i simply plead for freedom. i denounce the cruelties and horrors of slavery. i ask for light and air for the souls of men. i say, take off those chains--break those manacles--free those limbs--release that brain! i plead for the right to think--to reason--to investigate. i ask that the future may be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. i implore every human being to be a soldier in the army of progress. i will not invade the rights of others. you have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought. you have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human race. you have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of ghosts. believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your liberty in your own way but extend to all others the same right. i will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. if they hold thought to be dangerous--if they aver that doubt is a crime, then i attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men. i attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. i attack slavery. i ask for room--room for the human mind. why should we sacrifice a real world that we have, for one we know not of? why should we enslave ourselves? why should we forge fetters for our own hands? why should we be the slaves of phantoms. the darkness of barbarism was the womb of these shadows. in the light of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. they have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. they made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment. they blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. they subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite virtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offences. they filled the future with heavens and with hells, with the shining peaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame. for ages they kept the world in ignorance and awe, in want and misery, in fear and chains. i plead for light, for air, for opportunity. i plead for individual independence. i plead for the rights of labor and of thought. i plead for a chainless future. let the ghosts go--justice remains. let them disappear--men and women and children are left. let the monsters fade away--the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its seasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color what they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her tapestries of gold and brown. the world remains with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. all these are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope and love and aspiration high. all these remain. let the ghosts go--we will worship them no more. man is greater than these phantoms. humanity is grander than all the creeds, than all the books. humanity is the great sea, and these creeds, and books, and religions, are but the waves of a day. humanity is the sky, and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds changing continually, destined finally to melt away. that which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignorance, cannot endure. in the religion of the future there will be men and women and children, all the aspirations of the soul, and all the tender humanities of the heart. let the ghosts go. we will worship them no more. let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imaginations of men. the liberty of man, woman, and child. liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter. there is no slavery but ignorance. liberty is the child of intelligence. the history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. he has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. hypocrisy and tyranny--two vultures--have fed upon the liberties of man. from all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape--intellectual development. upon the back of industry has been the whip. upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. in this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes. every science has been an outcast. all the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. the king said that mankind must not work for themselves. the priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. one forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. under this infamous _regime_ the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy. the human race was imprisoned. through some of the prison bars came a few struggling rays of light. against these bars science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. bar after bar was broken away. a few grand men escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellows. only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. men began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him? the man who asked this question was called a traitor. others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? such men were called infidels. the priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit of investigation to stop? they said then and they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. i deny it. out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for every sail. in the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing. the man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men. every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man. standing in the presence of the unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. all i claim, all i plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. that is all. i do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what i think is true. i do not pretend to tell all the truth. i do not claim that i have floated level with the heights of thought, or that i have descended to the very depths of things. i simply claim that what ideas i have, i have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. that is all. take those chains from the human soul. break those fetters. if i have no right to think, why have i a brain? if i have no such right, have three or four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it--have they the right to think? the good men, the good women are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought. they remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. they are free, and they give liberty to others. whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous. in the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make people believe to suit them. our ancestors, in the ages that are gone, really believed that by force you could convince a man. you cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. but i will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. you can make hypocrites by the million. you can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still. our fathers in the good old times--and the best thing i can say about them is, that they have passed away--had an idea that they could force men to think their way. that idea is still prevalent in many parts, even of this country. even in our day some extremely religious people say, "we will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not hire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially ostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our doctrines; he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute to his support." in the old times of which i have spoken, they desired to make all men think exactly alike. all the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh--how are you going to make them think and feel alike? if there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent intellectual development to another? why is it that we have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that all should think and feel alike? i used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. but i never appreciated it. i read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul. i did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until i saw the iron arguments that christians used. i saw the thumbscrew--two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. and when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, "i do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. when this was done most men said, "i will recant." probably i should have done the same. probably i would have said: "stop; i will admit anything that you wish; i will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop." but there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. there was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich. let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth. heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. the man who would not recant was not forgiven. they screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. this was done in the name of love--in the name of mercy--in the name of the compassionate christ. i saw, too, what they called the collar of torture. imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. this argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured, by these points. in a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. this man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "i do not believe that god, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men." i saw another instrument, called the scavenger's daughter. think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. in the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. in this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain. this was done by gentlemen who said: "whosoever smiteth thee upon one cheek turn to him the other also." i saw the rack. this was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. and then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. and they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. what for? to save his life? yes. in mercy? no; simply that they might rack him once again. this was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of the most merciful christ. sometimes, when i read and think about these frightful things, it seems to me that i have suffered all these horrors myself. it seems sometimes, as though i had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though i had been chained in the cell of the inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though i had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though i had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though i had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds, by all the countless hands of hate. and when i so feel, i swear that while i live i will do what little i can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child. it is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual development. if there is a man in the world who is not willing to give to every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than i am. it is a question of honesty. the man who is not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights he claims for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal. it is a question of intellectual development. whoever holds another man responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain. it is a question of intellectual development. a little while ago i saw models of nearly everything that man has made. i saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his head--i saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas--from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of new york, with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart. i saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. i saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail, that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel. i saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the tom-tom--that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn across it--from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make the common air blossom with melody. i saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great works which now adorn the galleries of the world. i saw also their sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of to-day--to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction. i saw their books--books written upon skins of wild beasts--upon shoulder-blades of sheep--books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. when i speak of libraries, i think of the remark of plato: "a house that has a library in it has a soul." i saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. while looking upon these things i was forced to say that man advanced only as he mingled his thought with his labor,--only as he got into partnership with the forces of nature,--only as he learned to take advantage of his surroundings--only as he freed himself from the bondage of fear,--only as he depended upon himself--only as he lost confidence in the gods. i saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has been found, the neanderthal skull--skulls from central africa, skulls from the bushmen of australia--skulls from the farthest isles of the pacific sea--up to the best skulls of the last generation;--and i noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, and i said to myself, "after all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." there was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the krupp gun, between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by verdi. the first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty, and love. it is all a question of brain, of intellectual development. if we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have better heads upon the average, and more brains in them. now, i ask you to be honest with me. it makes no difference to you what i believe, nor what i wish to prove. i simply ask you to be honest. divest your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice. act, for a few moments, as though you were men and women. suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one, at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "that dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment--honor bright--would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and i presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose this king and priest had said: "that tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it--that is how we obtained it; and any man who says that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,"--i ask you, what effect would that have had upon music? if that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of beethoven? suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: "that crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the _ne plus ultra_ of all twisted things, and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture? but the people said, and the king and priest said: "we want better weapons with which to kill our fellow-christians; we want better plows, better music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons, and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe him in wealth, and crown him with honor." every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things. that is the reason the club has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone finally became a glorified statue. you must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out, the gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and cultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own. that gentlemen in the dug-out was orthodox. he was never troubled with doubts. he lived and died settled in his mind. he believed in hell; and he thought he would be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean over and see certain people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his creed, gently but everlastingly broiled and burned. it is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many intellectual descendants. it is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. this fellow in the dug-out believed in a personal devil. his devil had a cloven hoof, a long tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone. this devil was at least the equal of god; not quite so stout but a little shrewder. and do you know there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil for six thousand years. this gentleman in the dug-out believed that god was a tyrant; that he would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest and grandest ideal. he believed that the earth was flat. he believed in a literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. he had also his idea of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. and it will take thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly say, "right makes might." all i ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon his politics as upon his dug-out. that is all. i ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. that is the only crime i have committed. i say, let us think. let each one express his thought. let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. if there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites. honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench. this is my doctrine: give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. keep your mind open to the influences of nature. receive new thoughts with hospitality. let us advance. the religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. he delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. he loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "do not disturb my opinions. do not unsettle my mind; i have it all made up, and i want no infidelity. let me go backward rather than forward." as far as i am concerned i wish to be out on the high seas. i wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. and i had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox harbor whatever. after all, we are improving from age to age. the most orthodox people in this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime of heresy. the ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would have been in the inquisition themselves. where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the church. the religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. the church has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. it has followed the army of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance. if the church had not made great progress i could not express my thoughts. man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he has mingled his thought with his labor. the sailor, without control of the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious currents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. so also is the agriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot control. but the mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. he knows there is a reason. he knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it were, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements,--of the heat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning,--just to the extent that he has gotten control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and intellectually. as man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. as he values his own rights, he begins to value the rights of others. and when all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized. a few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think. before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. all this is slowly but surely changing. we no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. our fathers worshiped the golden calf. the worst you can say of an american now is, he worships the gold of the calf. even the calf is beginning to see this distinction. it no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor. the last napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the french. he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head. he wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head. so he wrote the life of julius cæsar, that he might become a member of the french academy. the emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. compare king william with the philosopher haeckel. the king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim--one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. compare this king with haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. compare george eliot with queen victoria. the queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while george eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius. the world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart. we have advanced. we have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. when i think of how much this world has suffered; when i think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, i am amazed. this world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. it was not until the year that great britain abolished the slave trade. up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. it was not until the same year that the united states of america abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the states. it was not until the th day of august, , that great britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the st day of january, , that abraham lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic north, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. abraham lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the united states. upon his monument these words should be written: "here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy." think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. think of it. the pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a hundred years, turned the cross of christ into a whipping post. with every drop of my blood i hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. i hate dictation. i love liberty. what do i mean by liberty? by physical liberty i mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. by intellectual liberty i mean the right to think right and the right to think wrong. thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at truth. if we know the truth already, we need not think. all that can be required is honesty of purpose. you ask my opinion about anything; i examine it honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should i tell you? should i tell you my real thought? what should i do? there is a book put in my hands. i am told this is the koran; it was written by inspiration. i read it, and when i get through, suppose that i think in my heart and in my brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask me, what do you think? now, admitting that i live in turkey, and have no chance to get any office unless i am on the side of the koran, what should i say? should i make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor i do not believe it? what would you think then of my fellow-citizens if they said: "that man is dangerous, he is dishonest." suppose i read the book called the bible, and when i get through i make up my mind that it was written by men. a minister asks me, "did you read the bible?" i answer, that i did. "do you think it divinely inspired?" what should i reply? should i say to myself, "if i deny the inspiration of the scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power." what ought i to answer? ought i not to say like a man: "i have read it; i do not believe it." should i not give the real transcript of my mind? or should i turn hypocrite and pretend what i do not feel, and hate myself forever after for being a cringing coward. for my part i would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks. i would rather he would preserve his manhood. i had a thousand times rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. and if there is a judgment day, a time when all will stand before some supreme being, i believe i will stand higher, and stand a better chance of getting my case decided in my favor, than any man sneaking through life pretending to believe what he does not. i have made up my mind to say my say. i shall do it kindly, distinctly; but i am going to do it. i know there are thousands of men who substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition to express their thoughts. they are poor; they are in business; and they know that should they tell their honest thought, persons will refuse to patronize them--to trade with them; they wish to get bread for their little children; they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. every such person is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he resides. and yet i do not blame these people for not expressing their thought. i say to them: "keep your ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you love; i will do your talking for you. the church can not touch, can not crush, can not starve, cannot stop or stay me; i will express your thoughts." as an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has taught that man is totally depraved. of the truth of that doctrine, the church has furnished the only evidence there is. the truth is, we are both good and bad. the worst are capable of some good deeds, and the best are capable of bad. the lowest can rise, and the highest may fall. that mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints, is an utter falsehood. in times of great disaster, called it may be, by the despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally depraved, rush to death as to a festival. by such men, deeds are done so filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay to them the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. above all creeds, above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,--humanity; and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. all these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade and to enslave mankind. away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. down with the idea that thought is dangerous! perish the infamous doctrine that man can have property in man. let us resent with indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds. if there is no god, certainly we should not bow and cringe and crawl. if there is a god, there should be no slaves. liberty of woman. women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. let me say right here, that i regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no life worth living. every good government is made up of good families. the unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. i believe in marriage, and i hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage. the grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. that is my idea. there is no success in life without love and marriage. you had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. the man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, i do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success. i say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. the chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. but nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this world by the crime of woman. what a gallant thing that is! and if it is true, i had rather live with the woman i love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men. i read in a book--and i will say now that i cannot give the exact language, as my memory does not retain the words, but i can give the substance--i read in a book that the supreme being concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden. in a little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train. there was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the supreme being made up his mind to make him a companion. having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. so he caused a sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, i do not say this story is true. after the sleep fell upon this man, the supreme being took a rib, or as the french would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and from that he made a woman. and considering the amount of raw material used, i look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. he liked her, and they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do--and of course they did it. i would have done it in fifteen minutes, and i know it. there wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of clubs. and then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back. devilment commenced. the mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. they began to have the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this. nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that! i read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. it was written about four thousand years before the other. all commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last. but i would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. in this other story, brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. he made the world, and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island of ceylon. according to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. such birds, such songs, such flowers and such verdure! and the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand Ã�olian harps. brahma, when he put them there, said: "let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." when i read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that i said to myself, "if either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, i hope it will be this one." then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. imagine that courtship! no prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "young man, how do you expect to support her?" nothing of that kind. they were married by the supreme brahma, and he said to them: "remain here; you must never leave this island." well, after a little while the man--and his name was adami, and the woman's name was heva--said to heva: "i believe i'll look about a little." he went to the northern extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there, that he went back and told heva: "the country over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." she, like every other woman that ever lived, said: "let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." but he said "no, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. but the moment they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. the mirage had disappeared, and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the supreme brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell. then it was that the man spoke,--and i have liked him ever since for it--"curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine." that's the kind of man to start a world with. the supreme brahma said: "i will save her, but not thee." and then she spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: "if thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; i do not wish to live without him; i love him." then the supreme brahma said--and i have liked him ever since i read it--"i will spare you both and watch over you and your children forever." honor bright, is not that the better and grander story? and from that same book i want to show you what ideas some of these miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. we send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen here. if we can convert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home? why not convert those we can get at? why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer? but to show you the men we are trying to convert: in this book it says: "man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love. when the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." they are the men we are converting. think of it! i tell you, when i read these things, i say that love is not of any country; nobility does not belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have been a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity. in my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. she has all the rights i have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. that is my doctrine. you are married; try and make the woman you love happy. whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says "i will make her happy," makes no mistake. and so with the woman who says, "i will make him happy." there is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road. if there is any man i detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a family--the man who thinks he is "boss!" the fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions. imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart--imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "now, here, let us settle who is 'boss!'" i tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling--i abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. do you know i dislike this man unspeakably? i hate above all things a cross man. what right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? what right has he to assassinate the joy of life? when you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will, even in the night, bursty out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. a woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this gentleman--the head of the family--the boss! do you know another thing? i despise a stingy man. i do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. how a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. i do not see how he can do it. i should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. do you know that i have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. when i see a man of that kind, i always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable. think of making your wife a beggar! think of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or fifty cents! "what did you do with that dollar i gave you last week?" think of having a wife that is afraid of you! what kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? oh, i tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests! that's the way to spend it! i had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar! if it has got to go, let it go! get the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can yourself. when you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! ah, your eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince. do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! think of it! any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best. some people tell me, "your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." i tell you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich. the meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. that is my doctrine! you cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody. good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. do not tell me that you have got to be rich! we have a false standard of greatness in the united states. we think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. it is all a mistake. it is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. the happy man is the successful man. happiness is the legal tender of the soul. joy is wealth. a little while ago, i stood by the grave of the old napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. i leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. i saw him walking upon the banks of the seine, contemplating suicide. i saw him at toulon--i saw him putting down the mob in the streets of paris--i saw him at the head of the army of italy--i saw him crossing the bridge of lodi with the tri-color in his hand--i saw him in egypt in the shadows of the pyramids--i saw him conquer the alps and mingle the eagles of france with the eagles of the crags. i saw him at marengo--at ulm and austerlitz. i saw him in russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. i saw him at leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to elba. i saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. i saw him upon the frightful field of waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. and i saw him at st. helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. i thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. and i said i would rather have been a french peasant and worn wooden shoes. i would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. i would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their arms about me--i would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as "napoleon the great." it is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection. no matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and with joy. and do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. and a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. i like to think of it in that way; i like to think that love is eternal. and to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age. i believe in the fireside. i believe in the democracy of home. i believe in the republicanism of the family. i believe in liberty, equality and love. the liberty of children. if women have been slaves, what shall i say of children; of the little children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale when they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away when they only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little children--the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children of brutality, wherever they are--flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life--my heart goes out to them, one and all. i tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to treat them as though they were human beings. they should be reared with love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. that is my idea of children. when your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. be honest with him. a tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? a lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. i thank thee, mother nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. when one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. tell him as the man did in maine when his boy left home: "john, honesty is the best policy; i have tried both." be honest with him. suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger than a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "who broke that plate?" there is not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was cracked when you got it. why not be honest with these children? just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for putting false rumors afloat! think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that way! think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! just think of it! when your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely love it. yet some christians, good christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "never do you darken this house again." think of that! and then these same people will get down on their knees and ask god to take care of the child they have driven from home. i will never ask god to take care of my children unless i am doing my level best in that same direction. but i will tell you what i say to my children: "go where you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my heart to you. as long as i live you shall have one sincere friend." do you know that i have seen some people who acted as though they thought that when the savior said "suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his mande, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance? i do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever expects to whip your children again, i want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. have the picture taken. if that little child should die, i cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth--and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat. i tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! make your home happy. be honest with them. divide fairly with them in everything. give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of your house. they will want to stay there. make home pleasant. let them play any game they wish. do not be so foolish as to say: "you may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. you may knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. you may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written on them, but you must not have 'cards.'" think of it! "you may go to a minstrel show where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below them, but you must not go to a theatre and see the characters created by immortal genius put upon the stage." why? well, i can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables, and "theatre" has three. let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there, and do not commence at the cradle and shout "don't!" "don't!" "stop!" that is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "don't!" and the church says "don't!" and the party he belongs to says "don't!" i despise that way of going through this world. let us have liberty--just a little. call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, i intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: "he who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. from his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word." people justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that they are totally depraved. at the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. religion contemplates a child as a living crime--heir to an infinite curse--doomed to eternal fire. in the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself. when i was a boy sunday was considered altogether too holy to be happy in. sunday used to commence then when the sun went down on saturday night. we commenced at that time for the purpose of getting a good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on saturday evening, there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times deeper than that of night. nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. that night you could not even crack hickory nuts. if you were caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. it was an exceedingly solemn night. dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. everybody looked sad and mournful. i have noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. if there could be found an absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the church has ever received. on sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. then we went to church. the minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." then he made a few remarks by way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the last chapter in revelation. in those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in the church. it was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking god. the first church that ever had a stove in it in new england, divided on that account. so the first church in which they sang by note, was torn in fragments. after the sermon we had an intermission. then came the catechism with the chief end of man. we went through with that. we sat in a row with our feet coming in about six inches of the floor. the minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered "yes." then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was god's will, and every little liar shouted "yes." then the same sermon was preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back. after that, we started for home, sad and solemn--overpowered with the wisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement. when we got home, if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. it did cheer me. when i looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was a great comfort. the reflection came to my mind that the observance of the sabbath could not last always. sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these cheerful lines: "where congregations ne'er break up, and sabbaths never end." these lines, i think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. then we had good books that we read on sundays by way of keeping us happy and contented. there were milners' "history of the waldenses," baxter's "call to the unconverted," yahn's "archaeology of the jews," and jenkyns' "on the atonement." i used to read jenkyns' "on the atonement." i have often thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy. but at last the sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we were free. between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the sun was coming on. sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from pure meanness. but finally it went down. it had to. and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once more. sabbaths used to be prisons. every sunday was a bastile. every christian was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,--a convict. in that dungeon, a smile was a crime. it was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. think of that! a little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate,--singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies. i have heard them preach, when i sat in the pew and my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. in order to impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the following illustration: "suppose that once in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even be sun up in hell." think of such an infamous doctrine being taught to children! the laugh of a child will make the holiest day-more sacred still. strike, with hand of fire, o weird musician, thy harp strung with apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh--the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. o rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. o laughter, rose-lipped daughter of joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. and yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. i denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the infamy of which no language is sufficient to express. where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and children come from? it came from the low and beastly skull of that wretch in the dug-out. where did he get it? it was a souvenir from the animals. the doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering eyes of snakes--snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. it was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. it was born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean baboons. i despise it with every drop of my blood. tell me there is a god in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! more men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! i denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies. when the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, i am willing to go down with the ship. i will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling away in some orthodox canoe. i will go down with the ship, with those who love me, and with those whom i have loved. if there is a god who will damn his children forever, i would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. i make my choice now. i despise that doctrine. it has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. it has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. it has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. it has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. it has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. this doctrine never should be preached again. what right have you, sir, mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? i do not believe this doctrine: neither do you. if you did, you could not sleep one moment. any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. a man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena. jonathan edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is now in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries of the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: "can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? can the believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell?" and he replies: "i tell you, yea. such will be their sense of justice, that it will increase rather than diminish their bliss." there is no wild beast in the jungles of africa whose reputation would not be tarnished by the expression of such a doctrine. these doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. do not, i pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. let them read for themselves; let them think for themselves. do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. treat them like trees that need light and sun and air. be fair and honest with them; give them a chance. recollect that their rights are equal to yours. do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they must obey. throw away forever the idea of master and slave. in old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not sleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. i say let them go to bed when they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy. but you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor. well, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. give your children freedom; let them preserve their individuality. let your children eat what they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. that is their business and not yours. they know what they wish to eat. if they are given their liberty from the first, they know what they want better than any doctor in the world can prescribe. do you know that all the improvement that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients and not by the doctors? for thousands and thousands of years the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever have a drop of water. water they looked upon as poison. but every now and then some man got reckless and said, "i had rather die than not to slake my thirst." then he would drink two or three quarts of water and get well. and when the doctor was told of what the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still alive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear such a frightful strain. the reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water, and persisted in getting well. and finally the doctors said: "in a fever, water is the very best thing you can take." so, i have more confidence in the voice of nature about such things than i have in the conclusions of the medical schools. let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be driven. and do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened for this world, that people are that way. what would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? they would have all been dead. what would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? they would have all been idiots. it is a splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for himself. i believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. i believe in the democracy of the family. if in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals. you will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their children to "let their victuals stop their mouths." they used to eat as though it were a religious ceremony--a very solemn thing. life should not be treated as a solemn matter. i like to see the children at table, and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard. i like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with their happy voices. i had rather hear it than any opera that was ever put upon the boards. let the children have liberty. be honest and fair with them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy. men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers. the human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but i have some excuse for mankind. this world, after all, is not very well adapted to raising good people. in the first place, nearly all of it is water. it is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of folks. of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil and climate to produce great men and women. you cannot raise men and women of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you can raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the arctic sea. you must have the necessary conditions and surroundings. man is a product; you must have the soil and food. the obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. there is upon this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of talent. in the southern hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. in the far north there is no genius--it is too cold. in the far south there is no genius--it is too warm. there must be winter, and there must be summer. in a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his normal condition. winter is the mother of industry and prudence. above all, it is the mother of the family relation. winter holds in its icy arms the husband and wife and the sweet children. if upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. i never passed such a house without feeling that i had received a benediction. civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow. i do not know that i can better illustrate the great truth that only part of the world is adapted to the production of great men and women than by calling your attention to the difference between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. in the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed--every limb twisted as though in pain--getting a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. you go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. you might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. you must have the proper climate and soil. a few years ago we were talking about the annexation of santo domingo to this country. i was in washington at the time. i was opposed to it i was told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced everything. but i said: "we do not want it; it is not the right kind of country in which to raise american citizens. such a climate would debauch us. you might go there with five thousand congregational preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in colleges, five thousand of the solid men of boston and their wives; settle them all in santo domingo, and you will see the second generation riding upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on sunday." such is the influence of climate. science, however, is gradually widening the area within which men of genius can be produced. we are conquering the north with houses, clothing, food and fuel. we are in many ways overcoming the heat of the south. if we attend to this world instead of another, we may in time cover the land with men and women of genius. i have still another excuse. i believe that man came up from the lower animals. i do not say this as a fact. i simply say i believe it to be a fact. upon that question i stand about eight to seven, which, for all practical purposes, is very near a certainty. when i first heard of that doctrine i did not like it. my heart was filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. i thought, how terrible this will be upon the nobility of the old world. think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke orang outang, or to the princess chimpanzee. after thinking it all over, i came to the conclusion that i liked that doctrine. i became convinced in spite of myself. i read about rudimentary bones and muscles. i was told that everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. i asked "what are they?" i was told: "they are the remains of muscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into bankruptcy. they are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears." i do not now so much wonder that we once had them as that we have outgrown them. after all i had rather belong to a race that started from the skull-less vertebrates in the dim laurentian seas, vertebrates wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going, but that in some way began to develop, and began to get a little higher and a little higher in the scale of existence; that came up by degrees through millions of ages through all the animal world, through all that crawls and swims and floats and climbs and walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the dug-out; and then from this man, getting a little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist--for in the history of this world the man who is ahead has always been called a heretic--i would rather come from a race that started from that skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up and finally produced shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace domed and pinnacled; shakespeare, who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there have been only gleaners of straw and chaff--i would rather belong to that race that commenced a skull-less vertebrate and produced shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward and onward forever--i had rather belong to such a race, commencing there, producing this, and with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon which the lord has lost money every moment from that day to this. conclusion. i have given you my honest thought. surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. surely reason is a better guide than fear. this world should be controlled by the living, not by the dead. the grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. man should not try to live on ashes. the theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. more than this cannot be said. about this world little is known,--about another world, nothing. our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. the makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. every dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot. our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. they believed in the logic of fire and sword. they hated reason. they despised thought. they abhorred liberty. superstition is the child of slavery. free thought will give us truth. when all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every brain will give to all the best it has. the world will then be filled with intellectual wealth. as long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because they do not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your self-respect, as long as the church has power, as long as mankind worship a book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants, covered with the soiled and faded rags of superstition. as long as woman regards the bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. the bible was not written by a woman. within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. she is regarded as the property of man. she is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. she is as much below her husband, as her husband is below christ. she is not allowed to speak. the gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips. woman should learn in silence. in the bible will be found no description of a civilized home. the free mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the bible. they did not believe in the democracy of home--in the republicanism of the fireside. these inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. they were the advocates of brute force--the disciples of the lash. they knew nothing of human rights. their doctrines have brutalized the homes of millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears. let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of dead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air. there has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. it is not yet time to write a creed. wait until the chains are broken--until dungeons are not regarded as temples. wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom--until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead--until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. wait until teachers take the place of preachers--until followers become investigators. wait until the world is free before you write a creed. in this creed there will be but one word--liberty. oh liberty, float not forever in the far horizon--remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and make thy home among the children of men! i know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. i know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. i cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but i do know, that coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for child. about farming in illinois to plow is to pray--to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and fulfills. i am not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. i imagine, however, that i know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground. i know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth, prosperity and luxury. i know that in a country where the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. happy is that country where those who cultivate the land own it. patriotism is born in the woods and fields--by lakes and streams--by crags and plains. the old way of farming was a great mistake. everything was done the wrong way. it was all work and waste, weariness and want. they used to fence a hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. everything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake. when i was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. they would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake. in those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. cooking was an unknown art. eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. it was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. we had poor houses. the rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. they had no barns. the horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. food is fuel. when the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation. in those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. there is nothing like sociability. women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. the wood pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. there was nothing to kindle a fire with. pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. everything was done in the hardest way. everything about the farm was disagreeable. nothing was kept in order. nothing was preserved. the wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. there was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. it was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. the crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs. and when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between, the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. and when the roads got good, then the prices went down. everything worked together for evil. nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate the soil. the moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. they wanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. nearly every boy acquainted with the three r's--reading, writing, and arithmetic--imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. they made haste to get into some other business. those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away. a few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. they wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. they built railways, established banks and insurance companies. they speculated in stocks in wall street, and gambled in grain at chicago. they became rich. they lived in palaces. they rode in carriages. they pitied their poor brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them. but time has brought its revenge. the farmers have seen the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. they have seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined fraud. the only solvent people, as a class, the only independent people, are the tillers of the soil. farming must be made more attractive. the comforts of the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. the sociability of the city must be rendered possible in the country. farming has been made repulsive. the farmers have been unsociable and their homes have been lonely. they have been wasteful and careless. they have not been proud of their business. in the first place, farming ought to be reasonably profitable. the farmers have not attended to their own interests. they have been robbed and plundered in a hundred ways. no farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. he should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. he should make every profit possible out of what he produces. so long as the farmers of illinois ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor,--just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the east,--just so long will they do the work and others reap the benefit,--just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich,--just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of honest toil. when the farmers of the west ship beef and pork instead of grain,--when we manufacture here,--when we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in the world. another thing--it is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of cattle. scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. if you are not able to buy durhams and alderneys, you can raise the corn breed. by "corn breed" i mean the cattle that have, for several generations, had enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on his farm. all blooded stock has been produced in this way. you can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. if you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, and treat him with kindness. in this way, and in this way only, can good cattle or good people be produced. another thing--you must beautify your homes. when i was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to plant vines. when you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. there is no sense--there is no profit in such a life. it is not living. the farmers ought to beautify their homes. there should be trees and grass and flowers and running vines. everything should be kept in order--gates should be on their hinges, and about all there should be the pleasant air of thrift. in every house there should be a bath-room. the bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier. when you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so refreshing. above all things, keep clean. it is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. in the cool of the evening, after a day in the field, put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman. in no part of the globe will farming pay better than in illinois. you are in the best portion of the earth. from the atlantic to the pacific, there is no such country as yours. the east is hard and stony; the soil is stingy. the far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate as perdition would be with the fires out. it is better to dig wheat and corn from the soil than gold. only a few days ago, i was where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. when i saw the mountains, treeless, shrub-less, flowerless, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for that. it affects the land as it does the man. it leaves the heart barren without a flower of kindness--without a blossom of pity. the farmer in illinois has the best soil--the greatest return for the least labor--more leisure--more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. his hard work ceases with autumn. he has the long winters in which to become acquainted with his family--with his neighbors--in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. he has the time and means for self-culture. he has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. if the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man. in many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. in our time we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. in the sub-division of labor we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in only one. we have, say, in a shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not one shoemaker. it takes them all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. each does a particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. the result is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment. out of employment means out of bread--out of bread means famine and horror. the mechanic of to-day has but little independence. his prosperity often depends upon the good will of one man. he is liable to be discharged for a look, for a word. he lays by but little for his declining years. he is, at the best, the slave of capital. it is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a mechanic. it is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to be hired by corporations. every man should endeavor to belong to himself. about seven hundred years ago, khayyam, a persian, said: "why should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water--why should such a man be commanded by another, and why should such a man serve another?" young men should not be satisfied with a salary. do not mortgage the possibilities of your future. have the courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of finding one for another man. how would you feel then? we are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. i had a thousand times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be president of the united states without independence, filled with doubt and trembling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and artifice, enquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my self-respect without gaining the respect of others. man needs more manliness, more real independence. we must take care of ourselves. this we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our independence. we should try and choose that business or profession the pursuit of which will give us the most happiness. happiness is wealth. we can be happy without being rich--without holding office--without being famous. i am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with office, or with fame. there is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. a professional man is doomed sometime to feel that his powers are waning. he is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. he looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. he will be last where once he was the first. but the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature--he lives with trees and flowers--he breathes the sweet air of the fields. there is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. his nights are filled with sleep and rest. he watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. he hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be. our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: what shall be done with these men? what shall these men do? to this there is but one answer: they must cultivate the soil. farming must be rendered more attractive. those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. they must educate their children to cultivate the soil. they must make farming easier, so that their children will not hate it--so that they will not hate it themselves. the boys must not be taught that tilling the ground is a curse and almost a disgrace. they must not suppose that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, or statesmen. it must be understood that education can be used to advantage on a farm. we must get rid of the idea that a little learning unfits one for work. there is no real conflict between latin and labor. there are hundreds of graduates of yale and harvard and other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. they seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work--anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. such an education ought to be called ignorance. it is a thousand times better to have common sense without education, than education without the sense. boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. they should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless. i say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm life pleasant. one great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. people write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. he who lives long alone becomes insane. a hermit is a madman. without friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth living for. the unsocial are the enemies of joy. they are filled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. people who live much alone become narrow and suspicious. they are apt to be the property of one idea. they begin to think there is no use in anything. they look upon the happiness of others as a kind of folly. they hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts, they envy them. in our country, farm-life is too lonely. the farms are large, and neighbors are too far apart. in these days, when the roads are filled with "tramps," the wives and children need protection. when the farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is upon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home. in the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild forest, and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. he saw the smoke from his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky. but this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. with the improved machinery which you have--with your generous soil--with your markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live together. it is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. this getting up so early in the morning is a relic of barbarism. it has made hundreds and thousands of young men curse the business. there is no need of getting up at three or four o'clock in the winter morning. the farmer who persists in doing it and persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be visited by a missionary. it is time enough to rise after the sun has set the example. for what purpose do you get up? to feed the cattle? why not feed them more the night before? it is a waste of life. in the old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it now. the man who cannot get a living upon illinois soil without rising before daylight ought to starve. eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. when you rise at four and work till dark what is life worth? of what use are all the improvements in farming? of what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure? what is harvesting now, compared with what it was in the old time? think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and mowing. think of threshing with the flail and winnowing with the wind. and now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. if, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle of the night, go into some other business. you should not rob your families of sleep. sleep is the best medicine in the world. it is the best doctor upon the earth. there is no such thing as health without plenty of sleep. sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. when you work, work; and when you get through take a good, long, and refreshing rest. you should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of social life. you can have a reading-room--you can take the best papers and magazines--you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the benefit of them all. some of the young men and women can cultivate music. you can have social gatherings--you can learn from each other--you can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can make farming a delightful business. you must keep up with the age. the way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. they must live intelligent and happy lives. they must know something of books and something of what is going on in the world. they must not be satisfied with knowing something of the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about the rest of the earth. the business must be made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure. another thing--i am a believer in fashion. it is the duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can. "handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. every man should look his very best. i am a believer in good clothes. the time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears. i say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. i believe in jewelry. some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. to adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire seems to be everywhere and in everything. i have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. it is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. oh daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn yourselves--if you would be adored, be beautiful! there is another fault common with the farmers of our country--they want too much land. you cannot, at present, when taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not cultivate. sell it and let others make farms and homes. in this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate what they own. renters can hardly be called farmers. there can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. there must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. it elevates a man to own a home. it gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. a man without a home feels like a passenger. there is in such a man a little of the vagrant. homes make patriots. he who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children will defend it. when he hears the word country pronounced, he thinks of his home. few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence of a boarding house. the prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of our people who are the owners of homes. around the fireside cluster the private and the public virtues of our race. raise your sons to be independent through labor--to pursue some business for themselves and upon their own account--to be self-reliant--to act upon their own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. teach them above all things to be good, true and tender husbands--winners of love and builders of homes. a great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers in the world. this is a very foolish thing. farmers cannot get along without the mechanic. you are not independent of the man of genius. your prosperity depends upon the inventor. the world advances by the assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius. the inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. all laboring men should be brothers. you are in partnership with the mechanics who make your reapers, your mowers and your plows; and you should take into your granges all the men who make their living by honest labor. the laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. you can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. all laborers should be brothers. the laborers should have equal rights before the world and before the law. and i want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such thing as prosperity among men. every reaper and mower, every agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows grander with every invention. in the olden time the agriculturist was ignorant; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of superstition. he was always trying to appease some imaginary power by fasting and prayer. he supposed that some being actuated by malice, sent the untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode. to him the seasons were mysteries. the thunder told him of an enraged god--the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. the tiller of the soil lived in perpetual and abject fear. he knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause and effect. he was a superstitious savage. he invented prayers instead of plows, creeds instead of reapers and mowers. he was unable to devote all his time to the gods, and so he hired others to assist him, and for their influence with the gentlemen supposed to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of all he could produce. the farmer has been elevated through science and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. he should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family--that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility. another idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some mysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business--that they are devoured by monopolies, especially by railroads. of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. without them illinois would be almost worthless. a few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad companies. the principal complaint you had was that they charged too much for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the east. you should remember that all freights are paid by the consumer; and that it made little difference to you what the railroad charged for transportation to the east, as that transportation had to be paid by the consumers of the grain. you were really interested in transportation from the east to the west and in local freights. the result is that while you have put down through freights you have not succeeded so well in local freights. the exact opposite should be the policy of illinois. put down local freights; put them down, if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through rates take care of themselves. if all the corn raised in illinois could be transported to new york absolutely free, it would enhance but little the price that you would receive. what we want is the lowest possible local rate. instead of this you have simply succeeded in helping the east at the expense of the west. the railroads are your friends. they are your partners. they can prosper only where the country through which they run prospers. all intelligent railroad men know this. they know that present robbery is future bankruptcy. they know that the interest of the farmer and of the railroad is the same. we must have railroads. what can we do without them? when we had no railroads, we drew, as i said before, our grain two hundred miles to market. in those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. they slept under their wagons--took with them their food--fried their own bacon, made their coffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. those were the days when they received ten cents a bushel for corn--when they sold four bushels of potatoes for a quarter--thirty-three dozen eggs for a dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half. what has made the difference? the railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets of the world. they brought new york and liverpool and london into illinois, and the state has been clothed with prosperity as with a mantle. it is the interest of the farmer to protect every great interest in the state. you should feel proud that illinois has more railroads than any other state in this union. her main tracks and side tracks would furnish iron enough to belt the globe. in illinois there are ten thousand miles of railways. in these iron highways more than three hundred million dollars have been invested--a sum equal to ten times the original cost of all the land in the state. to make war upon the railroads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. they should be treated fairly and should be taxed by the same standard that farms are taxed, and in no other way. if we wish to prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of labor is protected. there has been a long period of depression in all business. the farmers have suffered least of all. your land is just as rich and productive as ever. prices have been reasonable. the towns and cities have suffered. stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. princes have become paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into the oblivion of bankruptcy. the period of depression is slowly passing away, and we are entering upon better times. a great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty. in my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other and in the future. there has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, that the people are afraid to trust anybody. there is plenty of money, but there seems to be a scarcity of business. if you were to go to the owner of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore, should say, "there is a superabundance of ferryboat," he would probably reply, "no, but there is a scarcity of water." so with us there is not a scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. and this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. so many presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the young men's christian association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. slowly, but surely we are coming back to honest methods in business. confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hiding places and every one will be seeking investment. for my part, i do not ask any interference on the part of the government except to undo the wrong it has done. i do not ask that money be made out of nothing. i do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. but i do ask for the remonetization of silver. silver was demonetized by fraud. it was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the united states. it assassinated labor. it was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men. the farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. we should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon canada lumber, when every farmer in illinois is a purchaser of lumber. people who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. we should protect ourselves. we ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. the real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. by laboring men, i do not mean only the farmers. i mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare. they should forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests of the people. let us see if we cannot, in illinois, protect every department of industry. let us see if all property cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or corporations. where industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells. let me tell you something more about illinois. we have fifty-six thousand square miles of land--nearly thirty-six million acres. upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people. beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by that old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. the aggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. think of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! all this came from the sun. what a sunbeam such a column would be! think of the engines and machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! think of all this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world! think of the firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to be! think of the sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames! we have the best country in the world, and illinois is the best state in that country. is there any reason that our farmers should not be prosperous and happy men? they have every advantage, and within their reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life. do not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you. get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. a mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. there is no business under the sun that can pay ten per cent. ainsworth r. spofford gives the following facts about interest: "one dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. at eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. at three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. at ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. at twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. at eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. at twenty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand four hundred and four dollars." one dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. the farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. if he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. you have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough. above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite kindness. give your sons and daughters every advantage within your power. in the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers. they will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy. do not try to rule by force. a blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. i should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children i had whipped. think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck. see to it that your wife has every convenience. make her life worth living. never allow her to become a servant. wives, weary and worn, mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and shame. if you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them yourselves. see that they have the best utensils to work with. women cannot create things by magic. have plenty of wood and coal--good cellars and plenty in them. have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain water for washing. do not rely on a barrel and a board. when the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel. farmers should live like princes. eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. have good things to cook and good things to cook with. of all people in our country, you should live the best. throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. the beef, not the cook, should be roasted. it is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way. cooking is one of the fine arts. give your wives and daughters things to cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent cooks. good cooking is the basis of civilization. the man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well cooked food, has pluck, courage, endurance and and noble impulses. the inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. the doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia. remember that your wife should have the things to cook with. in the good old days there would be eleven children in the family and only one skillet. everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost. there ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is delicious. fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. you can broil even on a stove. shut the front damper--open the back one--then take off a griddle. there will then be a draft downwards through this opening. put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. if you try to broil it with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. for broiling, coal, even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood. there is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year round. there is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt meat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for the rest of the day. every farmer should have an ice house. upon or near every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and the long summer days made delightful. dr. draper, one of the world's greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has done away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. ice has become one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it there is very little comfort. make your homes pleasant. have your houses warm and comfortable for the winter. do not build a story-and-a-half house. the half story is simply an oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left. decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. the cheapest are far better than none. have books--have papers, and read them. you have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. beautify your grounds with plants and flowers and vines. have good gardens. remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. every little morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. do not judge of the value of everything by the market reports. every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. every vine climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy. make your houses comfortable. do not huddle together in a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies, put a piece in the papers commencing with, "whereas, it has pleased divine providence to remove from our midst--." have plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. comfort is health. do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because it is pleasant. that is an old and foolish idea. let your children sleep. do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. in this way you bring farming into hatred and disrepute. treat your children with infinite kindness--treat them as equals. there is no happiness in a home not filled with love. where the husband hates his wife--where the wife hates the husband; where children hate their parents and each other--there is a hell upon earth. there is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. there is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. to look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. to work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. selfishness is ignorance. speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. in the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. the harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. for him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. the same is true of all producers--of all laborers. i can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. he has his cellar filled--he has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm--he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort. when the life of the farmer is such as i have described, the cities and towns will not be filled with want--the streets will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. the fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and vines and flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nestle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain. the idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. nothing can be nobler than to be useful. idleness should not be respectable. if farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability; if they will come together often; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music; if they will have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if their wives can have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an opportunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of the world; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delighful years. remember, i pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor--that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family. for my part, i envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. i can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life what must we do to be saved? preface if what is known as the christian religion is true, nothing can be more wonderful than the fact that matthew, mark and luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another. for a good many years it has been claimed that the writers of these gospels knew something about the teachings of christ, and had, at least, a general knowledge of the conditions of salvation. it now seems to be substantiated that the early christians did not place implicit confidence in the gospels, and did not hesitate to make such changes and additions as they thought proper. such changes and additions are about the only passages in the new testament that the evangelical churches now consider sacred. that portion of the last chapter of mark, in which unbelievers are so cheerfully and promptly damned, has been shown to be an interpolation, and it is asserted that in the revised edition of the new testament, soon to be issued, the infamous passages will not appear. with these expunged, there is not one word in matthew, mark, or luke, even tending to show that belief in christ has, or can have, any effect upon the destiny of the soul. the four gospels are the four corner-stones upon which rests the fabric of orthodox christianity. three of these stones have crumbled, and the fourth is not likely to outlast this generation. the gospel of john cannot alone uphold the infinite absurdity of vicarious virtue and vice, and it cannot, without the aid of "interpolation," sustain the illogical and immoral dogma of salvation by faith. these frightful doctrines must be abandoned; the miraculous must be given up, the wonderful stories must be expunged, and from the creed of noble deeds the forgeries of superstition must be blotted out. from the temple of morality and truth--from the great windows towards the sun--the parasitic and poisonous vines of faith and fable must be torn. the church will be compelled at last to rest its case, not upon the wonders christ is said to have performed, but upon the system of morality he taught. all the miracles, including the resurrection and ascension, are, when compared with portions of the "sermon on the mount," but dust and darkness. the careful reader of the new testament will find three christs described:--one who wished to preserve judaism--one who wished to reform it, and one who built a system of his own. the apostles and their disciples, utterly unable to comprehend a religion that did away with sacrifices, churches, priests, and creeds, constructed a christianity for themselves, so that the orthodox churches of to-day rest--first, upon what christ endeavored to destroy--second, upon what he never said, and, third, upon a misunderstanding of what he did say. if a certain belief is necessary to insure the salvation of the soul, the church ought to explain, and without any unnecessary delay, why such an infinitely important fact was utterly ignored by matthew, mark and luke. there are only two explanations possible. either belief is unnecessary, or the writers of these three gospels did not understand the christian system. the "sacredness" of the subject cannot longer hide the absurdity of the "scheme of salvation," nor the failure of matthew, mark and luke to mention, what is now claimed to have been, the entire mission of christ. the church must take from the new testament the supernatural'; the idea that an intellectual conviction can subject an honest man to eternal pain--the awful doctrine that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and allow the remainder to be discussed, denied or believed without punishment and without reward. no one will object to the preaching of kindness, honesty and justice. to preach less is a crime, and to practice more is impossible. there is one thing that ought to be again impressed upon the average theologian, and that is the utter futility of trying to answer arguments with personal abuse. it should be understood once for all that these questions are in no sense personal. if it should turn out that all the professed christians in the world are sinless saints, the question of how matthew, mark, and luke, came to say nothing about the atonement and the scheme of salvation by faith, would still be asked. and if it should then be shown that all the doubters, deists, and atheists, are vile and vicious wretches, the question still would wait for a reply. the origin of all religions, creeds, and sacred books, is substantially the same, and the history of one, is, in the main, the history of all. thus far these religions have been the mistaken explanations of our surroundings. the appearances of nature have imposed upon the ignorance and fear of man. but back of all honest creeds was, and is, the desire to know, to understand, and to explain, and that desire will, as i most fervently hope and earnestly believe, be gratified at last by the discovery of the truth. until then, let us bear with the theories, hopes, dreams, mistakes, and honest thoughts of all. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c., october, . what must we do to be saved? "the nuremberg man was operated by a combination of pipes and levers, and though he could breathe and digest perfectly, and even reason as well as most theologians, was made of nothing but wood and leather." the whole world has been filled with fear. ignorance has been the refuge of the soul. for thousands of years the intellectual ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of reason. pious souls clung to the shore and looked at the lighthouse. the seas were filled with monsters and the islands with sirens. the people were driven in the middle of a narrow road while priests went before, beating the hedges on either side to frighten the robbers from their lairs. the poor followers seeing no robbers, thanked their brave leaders with all their hearts. i. what we must do to be saved huddled in folds they listened with wide eyes while the shepherds told of ravening wolves. with great gladness they exchanged their fleeces for security. shorn and shivering, they had the happiness of seeing their protectors comfortable and warm. through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy. fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates the soul. courage is liberty. i am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. in the realm of mind every one is monarch; every one is robed, sceptered, and crowned, and every one wears the purple of authority. i belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force. now, i beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that you are methodists or baptists or catholics or presbyterians, and let us for an hour or two remember only that we are men and women. and allow me to say "man" and "woman" are the highest titles that can be bestowed upon humanity. let us, if possible, banish all fear from the mind. do not imagine that there is some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing that every man and woman should think for himself and herself. do not imagine that there is any being who would give to his children the holy torch of reason, and then damn them for following that sacred light. let us have courage. priests have invented a crime called "blasphemy," and behind that crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. there is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice. there is but one worship, and that is justice! you need not fear the anger of a god that you cannot injure. rather fear to injure your fellow-men. do not be afraid of a crime you can not commit. rather be afraid of the one that you may commit. the reason that you cannot injure god is that the infinite is conditionless. you cannot increase or diminish the happiness of any being without changing that being's condition. if god is conditionless, you can neither injure nor benefit him. there was a jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear: "eat some bacon." he knew if there was anything in the universe calculated to excite the wrath of an infinite being, who made every shining star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon. he knew it, and he knew the infinite being was looking, that he was the eternal eavesdropper of the universe. but his appetite got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us all, and he ate that bacon. he knew it was wrong, and his conscience felt the blood of shame in its cheek. when he went into that restaurant the weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as june, and when he came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the lightning leaping from one to the other, and the earth shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. he went back into that restaurant with a face as white as milk, and he said to one of the keepers: "my god, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon?" as long as we harbor such opinions of infinity; as long as we imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny, just so long the sons of men will be cringing, intellectual cowards. let us think, and let us honestly express our thought. do not imagine for a moment that i think people who disagree with me are bad people. i admit, and i cheerfully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind, and a very large majority, a vast number are reasonably honest. i believe that most christians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to make this world better. i do not pretend to be better than they are. it is an intellectual question. it is a question, first, of intellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar of human reason. i do not pretend to be better than they are. probably i am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not the question. the question is: bad as i am, have i the right to think? and i think i have for two reasons: first, i cannot help it. and secondly, i like it. the whole question is right at a point. if i have not a right to express my thoughts, who has? "oh," they say, "we will allow you to think, we will not burn you." "all right; why won't you burn me?" "because we think a decent man will allow others to think and to express his thought." "then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would be infamous in you?" "yes." "and yet you worship a god who will, as you declare, punish me forever?" surely an infinite god ought to be as just as man. surely no god can have the right to punish his children for being honest. he should not reward hypocrisy with heaven, and punish candor with eternal pain. the next question then is: can i commit a sin against god by thinking? if god did not intend i should think, why did he give me a thinker? for one, i am convinced, not only that i have the right to think, but that it is my duty to express my honest thoughts. whatever the gods may say we must be true to ourselves. we have got what they call the christian system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how i can be wicked enough to attack that system. there are many good things about it, and i shall never attack anything that i believe to be good! i shall never fear to attack anything i honestly believe to be wrong! we have what they call the christian religion, and i find, just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have clung to the religion of their founders, they have gone back to barbarism. i find that spain, portugal, italy, are the three worst nations in europe. i find that the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous--france. and so i say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute intellectual freedom. i find among ourselves the men who think are at least as good as those who do not. we have, i say, a christian system, and that system is founded upon what they are pleased to call the "new testament." who wrote the new testament? i do not know. who does know? nobody. we have found many manuscripts containing portions of the new testament. some of these manuscripts leave out five or six books--many of them. others more; others less. no two of these manuscripts agree. nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts. they are all written in greek. the disciples of christ, so far as we know, knew only hebrew. nobody ever saw so far as we know, one of the original hebrew manuscripts. nobody ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original hebrew manuscripts. no doubt the clergy of your city have told you these facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having repeated them once more. these manuscripts are written in what are called capital greek letters. they are called uncial manuscripts, and the new testament was not divided into chapters and verses, even, until the year of grace . in the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by nobody. the epistles are addressed to nobody; and they are signed by the same person. all the addresses, all the pretended ear-marks showing to whom they were written, and by whom they were written, are simply interpolations, and everybody who has studied the subject knows it. it is further admitted that even these manuscripts have not been properly translated, and they have a syndicate now making a new translation; and i suppose that i can not tell whether i really believe the new testament or not until i see that new translation. you must remember, also, one other thing. christ never wrote a solitary word of the new testament--not one word. there is an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand, but that has not been preserved. he never told anybody to write a word. he never said: "matthew, remember this. mark, do not forget to put that down. luke, be sure that in your gospel you have this. john, do not forget it." not one word. and it has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. is it not wonderful that not one word was written by christ? is it not strange that he gave no orders to have his words preserved--words upon which hung the salvation of a world? why was nothing written? i will tell you. in my judgment they expected the end of the world in a few days. that generation was not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up as a scroll, and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. that was their belief. they believed that the world was to be destroyed, and that there was to be another coming, and that the saints were then to govern the earth. and they even went so far among the apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to divide out the offices in advance. this testament, as it now is, was not written for hundreds of years after the apostles were dust. many of the pretended facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. they were in the wastebaskets of forgetfulness. they depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant winds. and when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of the text. and, when it was mostly written, and the church got into trouble, and wanted a passage to help it out, one was interpolated to order. so that now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hundred interpolations in the testament. and i will pick some of them out before i get through. and let me say here, once for all, that for the man christ i have infinite respect. let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground. and let me say, once for all, that to that great and serene man i gladly pay, i gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration and my tears. he was a reformer in his day. he was an infidel in his time. he was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom and manhood out of the human mind. had i lived at that time i would have been his friend, and should he come again he will not find a better friend than i will be. that is for the man. for the theological creation i have a different feeling. if he was, in fact, god, he knew there was no such thing as death. he knew that what we called death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a death that was eternal life. but when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven, not knowing but that death ends all; not knowing but that when the shadows creep over him, the darkness will be eternal, there is heroism. for the man who, in the darkness, said: "my god, why hast thou forsaken me?"--for that man i have nothing but respect, admiration, and love. back of the theological shreds, rags, and patches, hiding the real christ, i see a genuine man. a while ago i made up my mind to find out what was necessary for me to do in order to be saved. if i have got a soul, i want it saved. i do not wish to lose anything that is of value. for thousands of years the world has been asking that question: "what must we do to be saved?" saved from poverty? no. saved from crime? no. tyranny? no. but "what must we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the god who made us all?" if god made us, he will not destroy us. infinite wisdom never made a poor investment. upon all the works of an infinite god, a dividend must finally be declared. why should god make failures? why should he waste material? why should he not correct his mistakes, instead of damning them? the pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. the doctrine of endless punishment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. i despise it, and i defy it. i made up my mind, i say, to see what i had to do in order to save my soul according to the testament, and thereupon i read it. i read the gospels, matthew, mark, luke, and john, and found that the church had been deceiving me. i found that the clergy did not understand their own book; that they had been building upon passages that had been interpolated; upon passages that were entirely untrue, and i will tell you why i think so. ii. the gospel of matthew according to the church, the first gospel was written by matthew. as a matter of fact he never wrote a word of it--never saw it, never heard of it and probably never will. but for the purposes of this lecture i admit that he wrote years; that he was his constant companion; that he shared his sorrows and his triumphs; that he heard his words by the lonely lakes, the barren hills, in synagogue and street, and that he knew his heart and became acquainted with his thoughts and aims. now let us see what matthew says we must do in order to be saved. and i take it that, if this is true, matthew is as good authority as any minister in the world. i will admit that he was with christ for three years. the first thing i find upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth chapter of matthew, and is embraced in what is commonly known as the sermon on the mount. it is as follows: "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." good! "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." good! whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the bible or not? "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." good! "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god. blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of god. blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." good! in the same sermon he says: "think not that i am come to destroy the law or the prophets. i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." and then he makes use of this remarkable language, almost as applicable to-day as it was then: "for i say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." good! in the sixth chapter i find the following, and it comes directly after the prayer known as the lord's prayer: "for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses." i accept the condition. there is an offer; i accept it. if you will forgive men that trespass against you, god will forgive your trespasses against him. i accept the terms, and i never will ask any god to treat me better than i treat my fellow-men. there is a square promise. there is a contract. if you will forgive others god will forgive you. and it does not say you must believe in the old testament, or be baptized, or join the church, or keep sunday; that you must count beads, or pray, or become a nun, or a priest; that you must preach sermons or hear them, build churches or fill them. not one word is said about eating or fasting, denying or believing. it simply says, if you forgive others god will forgive you; and it must of necessity be true. no god could afford to damn a forgiving man. suppose god should damn to everlasting fire a man so great and good, that he, looking from the abyss of hell, would forgive god,--how would a god feel then? now let me make myself plain upon one subject, perfectly plain. for instance, i hate presbyterianism, but i know hundreds of splendid presbyterians. understand me. i hate methodism, and yet i know hundreds of splendid methodists. i hate catholicism, and like catholics. i hate insanity but not the insane. i do not war against men. i do not war against persons. i war against certain doctrines that i believe to be wrong. but i give to every other human being every right that i claim for myself. the next thing that i find is in the seventh chapter and the second verse: "for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." good! that suits me! and in the twelfth chapter of matthew: "for whosoever shall do the will of my father that is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. for the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according.... to the church he belongs to? no. to the manner in which he was baptized? no. according to his creed? no. then he shall reward every man according to his works." good! i subscribe to that doctrine. and in the eighteenth chapter: "and jesus called a little child to him and stood him in the midst; and said, 'verily i say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" i do not wonder that in his day, surrounded by scribes and pharisees, he turned lovingly to little children. and yet, see what children the little children of god have been. what an interesting dimpled darling john calvin was. think of that prattling babe, jonathan edwards! think of the infants that founded the inquisition, that invented instruments of torture to tear human flesh. they were the ones who had become as little children. they were the children of faith. so i find in the nineteenth chapter: "and behold, one came and said unto him: 'good master, what good thing shall i do that i may have eternal life?' and he said unto him, 'why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is god: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' he saith unto him, 'which?'" now, there is a fair issue. here is a child of god asking god what is necessary for him to do in order to inherit eternal life. and god said to him: keep the commandments. and the child said to the almighty: "which?" now, if there ever has been an opportunity given to the almighty to furnish a man of an inquiring mind with the necessary information upon that subject, here was the opportunity. "he said unto him, which? and jesus said: thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." he did not say to him: "you must believe in me--that i am the only begotten son of the living god." he did not say: "you must be born again." he did not say: "you must believe the bible." he did not say: "you must remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." he simply said: "thou shalt do no murder. thou shalt not commit adultery. thou shalt not steal. thou shalt not bear false witness. honor thy father and thy mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." and thereupon the young man, who i think was mistaken, said unto him: "all these things have i kept from my youth up." what right has the church to add conditions of salvation? why should we suppose that christ failed to tell the young man all that was necessary for him to do? is it possible that he left out some important thing simply to mislead? will some minister tell us why he thinks that christ kept back the "scheme"? now comes an interpolation. in the old times when the church got a little scarce of money, they always put in a passage praising poverty. so they had this young man ask: "what lack i yet? and jesus said unto him: if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." the church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. and when the next verse was written the church must have been nearly bankrupt. "and again i say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god." did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on account of that verse? and then comes another verse, which i believe is an interpolation: "and everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." christ never said it. never. "whosoever shall forsake father and mother." why, he said to this man that asked him, "what shall i do to inherit eternal life?" among other things, he said: "honor thy father and thy mother." and we turn over the page and he says again: "if you will desert your father and mother you shall have everlasting life." it will not do. if you will desert your wife and your little children, or your lands--the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and children! think of that! i do not accept the terms. i will never desert the one i love for the promise of any god. it is far more important to love your wife than to love god, and i will tell you why. you cannot help him, but you can help her. you can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. it is far more important that you love your children than that you love jesus christ. and why? if he is god you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. the holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. and the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes. there was a time when people believed the infamy commanded in this frightful passage. there was a time when they did desert fathers and mothers and wives and children. st. augustine says to the devotee: fly to the desert, and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. though your father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step over them; and though your children pursue, and with weeping' eyes beseech you to return, listen not. it is the temptation of the evil one. fly to the desert and save your soul. think of such a soul being worth saving. while i live i propose to stand by the ones i love. there is another condition of salvation. i find it in the twenty-fifth chapter: "then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. for i was an hungered and ye gave me meat; i was thirsty and ye gave me drink; i was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me; i was sick and ye visited me; i was in prison and ye came unto me." good! i tell you to-night that god will not punish with eternal thirst the man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor. god will not leave in the eternal nakedness of pain the man who has clothed his fellow-men. for instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor who stands aside and allows a woman whom he never saw before to take his place in the boat, and he stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down. do you tell me that there is any god who will push the lifeboat from the shore of eternal life, when that man wishes to step in? do you tell me that god can be unpitying to the pitiful, that he can be unforgiving to the forgiving? i deny it; and from the aspersions of the pulpit i seek to rescue the reputation of the deity. now, i have read you substantially everything in matthew on the subject of salvation. that is all there is. not one word about believing anything. it is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial; and if only that gospel had been preached, persecution never would have shed one drop of blood. not one. according to the testimony matthew was well acquainted with christ. according to the testimony, he had been with him, and his companion for years, and if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get to heaven, matthew should have told us. but he forgot it, or he did not believe it, or he never heard of it. you can take your choice. in matthew, we find that heaven is promised, first, to the poor in spirit. second, to the merciful. third, to the pure in heart. fourth, to the peacemakers. fifth, to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. sixth, to those who keep and teach the commandments. seventh, to those who forgive men that trespass against them. eighth, that we will be judged as we judge others. ninth, that they who receive prophets and righteous men shall receive a prophet's reward. tenth, to those who do the will of god. eleventh, that every man shall be rewarded according to his works. twelfth, to those who become as little children. thirteenth, to those who forgive the trespasses of others. fourteenth, to the perfect: they who sell all that they have and give to the poor. fifteenth, to them who forsake houses, and brethren, and sisters, and father, and mother, and wife, and children, and lands for the sake of christ's name. sixteenth, to those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter to the stranger, clothes to the naked, comfort to the sick, and who visit the prisoner. nothing else is said with regard to salvation in the gospel according to st. matthew. not one word about believing the old testament to have been inspired; not one word about being baptized or joining a church; not one word about believing in any miracle; not even a hint that it was necessary to believe that christ was the son of god, or that he did any wonderful or miraculous things, or that he was born of a virgin, or that his coming had been foretold by the jewish prophets. not one word about believing in the trinity, or in foreordination or predestination. matthew had not understood from christ that any such things were necessary to ensure the salvation of the soul. according to the testimony, matthew had been in the company of christ, some say three years and some say one, but at least he had been with him long enough to find out some of his ideas upon this great subject. and yet matthew never got the impression that it was necessary to believe something in order to get to heaven. he supposed that if a man forgave others god would forgive him; he believed that god would show mercy to the merciful; that he would not allow those who fed the hungry to starve; that he would not put in the flames of hell those who had given cold water to the thirsty; that he would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his wrath those who had visited the imprisoned; and that he would not damn men who forgave others. matthew had it in his mind that god would treat us very much as we treated other people; and that in the next world he would treat with kindness those who had been loving and gentle in their lives. it may be the apostle was mistaken; but evidently that was his opinion. iii. the gospel of mark et us now see what mark thought it necessary for a man to do to save his soul. in the fourth chapter, after jesus had given to the multitude by the sea the parable of the sower, his disciples, when they were again alone, asked him the meaning of the parable. jesus replied: "unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of god: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: "that seeing, they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." it is a little hard to understand why he should have preached to people that he did not intend should know his meaning. neither is it quite clear why he objected to their being converted. this, i suppose, is one of the mysteries that we should simply believe without endeavoring to comprehend. with the above exception, and one other that i will mention hereafter, mark substantially agrees with matthew, and says that god will be merciful to the merciful, that he will be kind to the kind, that he will pity the pitying, and love the loving. mark upholds the religion of matthew until we come to the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the sixteenth chapter, and then i strike an interpolation put in by hypocrisy, put in by priests who longed to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of universal power. let me read it to you. it is the most infamous passage in the bible. christ never said it. no sensible man ever said it. "and he said unto them" (that is, unto his disciples), "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." that passage was written so that fear would give alms to hypocrisy. now, i propose to prove to you that this is an interpolation. how will i do it? in the first place, not one word is said about belief, in matthew. in the next place, not one word about belief, in mark, until i come to that verse, and where is that said to have been spoken? according to mark, it is a part of the last conversation of jesus christ,--just before, according to the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes. if there ever was any important thing happened in this world that was it. if there is any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last conversation with a god before he rose visibly through the air and seated himself upon the throne of the infinite. we have in this testament five accounts of the last conversation happening between jesus christ and his apostles. matthew gives it, and yet matthew does not state that in that conversation christ said: "whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned." and if he did say those words they were the most important that ever fell from lips. matthew did not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it. then i turn to luke, and he gives an account of this same last conversation, and not one word does he say upon that subject. luke does not pretend that christ said that whoso believeth not shall be damned. luke certainly did not hear it. may be he forgot it. perhaps he did not think that it was worth recording. now, it is the most important thing, if christ said it, that he ever said. then i turn to john, and he gives an account of the last conversation, but not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbelief. not one solitary word on the subject of damnation. not one. john might not have been listening. then i turn to the first chapter of the acts, and there i find an account of the last conversation; and in that conversation there is not one word upon this subject. this is a demonstration that the passage in mark is an interpolation. what other reason have i got? there is not one particle of sense in it. why? no man can control his belief. you hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. you can not believe as you wish. you must believe as you must. and he might as well have said: "go into the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved, and whosoever hath not shall be damned." i have another reason. i am much obliged to the gentleman who interpolated these passages. i am much obliged to him that he put in some more--two more. now hear: "and these signs shall follow them that believe." good! "in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." bring on your believer! let him cast out a devil. i do not ask for a large one. just a little one for a cent. let him take up serpents. "and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." let me mix up a dose for the believer, and if it does not hurt him i will join a church. "oh! but," they say, "those things only lasted through the apostolic age." let us see. "go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, and these signs shall follow them that believe." how long? i think at least until they had gone into all the world. certainly those signs should follow until all the world had been visited. and yet if that declaration was in the mouth of christ, he then knew that one-half of the world was unknown, and that he would be dead fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before his disciples would know that there was another continent. and yet he said, "go into all the world and preach the gospel," and he knew then that it would be fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before anybody could go. well, if it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the old world, surely it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the new. and the very reason that signs should follow would be to convince the unbeliever, and there are as many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as necessary to-day as they ever were. i would like a few myself. this frightful declaration, "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has filled the world with agony and crime. every letter of this passage has been sword and fagot; every word has been dungeon and chain. that passage made the sword of persecution drip with innocent blood through centuries of agony and crime. that passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagot's flames. that passage contradicts the sermon on the mount; travesties the lord's prayer; turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into the superstition of creed and cruelty. i deny it. it is infamous! christ never said it! iv. the gospel of luke. it is sufficient to say that luke agrees substantially with matthew and mark. "be ye therefore merciful, as your father also is merciful." good! "judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven." good! "give and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." good! i like it. "for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." he agrees substantially with mark; he agrees substantially with matthew; and i come at last to the nineteenth chapter. "and zaccheus stood and said unto the lord, 'behold, lord, the half of my goods i give to the poor, and if i have taken anything from any man by false accusation, i restore him four fold.' and jesus said unto him, 'this day is salvation come to this house.'" that is good doctrine. he did not ask zaccheus what he believed. he did not ask him, "do you believe in the bible? do you believe in the five points? have you ever been baptized--sprinkled? or immersed?" "half of my goods i give to the poor, and if i have taken anything from any man by false accusation, i restore him four fold." "and christ said, this day is salvation come to this house." good! i read also in luke that christ when upon the cross forgave his murderers, and that is considered the shining gem in the crown of his mercy. he forgave his murderers. he forgave the men who drove the nails in his hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side; the soldier that in the hour of death offered him in mockery the bitterness to drink. he forgave them all freely, and yet, although he would forgive them, he will in the nineteenth century, as we are told by the orthodox church, damn to eternal fire a noble man for the expression of his honest thoughts. that will not do. i find, too, in luke, an account of two thieves that were crucified at the same time. the other gospels speak of them. one says they both railed upon him. another says nothing about it. in luke we are told that one railed upon him, but one of the thieves looked and pitied christ, and christ said to that thief: "to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." why did he say that? because the thief pitied him. god can not afford to trample beneath the feet of his infinite wrath the smallest blossom of pity that ever shed its perfume in the human heart! who was this thief? to what church did he belong? i do not know. the fact that he was a thief throws no light on that question. who was he? what did he believe? i do not know. did he believe in the old testament? in the miracles? i do not know. did he believe that christ was god? i do not know. why then was the promise made to him that he should meet christ in paradise? simply because he pitied suffering innocence upon the cross. god can not afford to damn any man who is capable of pitying anybody. v. the gospel of john and now we come to john, and that is where the trouble commences. the other gospels teach that god will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good. now we come to john, and here is another doctrine. and allow me to say that john was not written until long after the others. john was mostly written by the church. "jesus answered and said unto him: verily, verily, i say unto thee, except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of god." why did he not tell matthew that? why did he not tell luke that? why did he not tell mark that? they never heard of it, or forgot it, or they did not believe it. "except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of god." why? "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. marvel not that i said unto thee, ye must be born again." "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit," and he might have added, that which is born of water is water. "marvel not that i said unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" and then the reason is given, and i admit i did not understand it myself until i read the reason, and when you hear the reason, you will understand it as well as i do; and here it is: "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." so, i find in the book of john the idea of the real presence. "and as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." "for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. "for god sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. "he that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of god." "he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the son, shall not see life; but the wrath of god abideth on him." "verily, verily, i say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. "verily, verily, i say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of god; and they that hear shall live." "and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."-"and this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and i will raise him up at the last day." "no man can come to me, except the father, which hath sent me, draw him; and i will raise him up at the last day." "verily, verily, i say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. "i am that bread of life. "your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. "this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. "i am the living bread which came down from heaven. if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that i will give is my flesh, which i will give for the life of the world." "then jesus said unto them, verily, verily, i say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. "whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and i will raise him up at the last day. "for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. "he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and i in him. "as the living father hath sent me, and i live by the father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. "this is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." "and he said, therefore said i unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my father." "jesus said unto her, i am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. "and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." "he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal." so i find in the book of john, that in order to be saved we must not only believe in jesus christ, but we must eat the flesh and we must drink the blood of jesus christ. if that gospel is true, the catholic church is right. but it is not true. i can not believe it, and yet for all that, it may be true. but i do not believe it. neither do i believe there is any god in the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief. "why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to be true. what would you do then?" i would walk up like a man, and say, "i was mistaken." "and suppose god was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?" i would say to him, "do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." why not? i am told that i must render good for evil. i am told that if smitten on one cheek i must turn the other. i am told that i must overcome evil with good. i am told that i must love my enemies; and will it do for this god who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? no, it will not do. it will not do. in the book of john all these doctrines of regeneration--that it is necessary to believe in the lord jesus christ; that salvation depends upon belief--in this book of john all these doctrines find their warrant; nowhere else. read matthew, mark, and luke, and then read john, and you will agree with me that the three first gospels teach that if we are kind and forgiving to our fellows, god will be kind and forgiving to us. in john we are told that another man can be good for us, or bad for us, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe something that we know is not so. all these passages about believing in christ, drinking his blood and eating his flesh, are afterthoughts. they were written by the theologians, and in a few years they will be considered unworthy of the lips of christ. vi. the catholics now, upon these gospels that i have read the churches rest; and out of these things, mistakes and interpolations, they have made their creeds. and the first church to make a creed, so far as i know, was the catholic. it was the first church that had any power. that is the church that has preserved all these miracles for us. that is the church that preserved the manuscripts for us. that is the church whose word we have to take. that church is the first witness that protestantism brought to the bar of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred years ago; and while the witness is there protestantism takes pains to say: "you cannot believe one word that witness says, _now_." that church is the only one that keeps up a constant communication with heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints. that church has an agent of god on earth, has a person who stands in the place of deity; and that church is infallible. that church has persecuted to the exact extent of her power--and always will. in spain that church stands erect, and is arrogant. in the united states that church crawls; but the object in both countries is the same--and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty. that church teaches us that we can make god happy by being miserable ourselves; that a nun is holier in the sight of god than a loving mother with her child in her thrilled and thrilling arms; that a priest is better than a father; that celibacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world. that church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years of age, with eyes like dew and light; that girl with the red of health in the white of her beautiful cheeks--tells that girl, "put on the veil, woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please god." i tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil and renounce the joys and beauties of this life. i am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave webs to catch the loving maidens of the world. there ought to be a law appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year and release every person who expresses a desire to be released. i do not believe in keeping the penitentiaries of god. no doubt they are honest about it. that is not the question. these ignorant superstitions fill millions of lives with weariness and pain, with agony and tears. this church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the foundation of the orthodox religion. let me read it to you: "whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; which faith except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." now the faith is this: "that we worship one god in trinity and trinity in unity." of course you understand how that is done, and there is no need of my explaining it. "neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." you see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if you divided the substance. "for one is the person of the father, another of the son, and another of the holy ghost; but the godhead of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost is all one"--you know what i mean by godhead. "in glory equal, and in majesty coëternal. such as the father is, such is the son, such is the holy ghost. the father is uncreated, the son uncreated, the holy ghost uncreated. the father incomprehensible, the son incomprehensible, the holy ghost incomprehensible." and that is the reason we know so much about the thing. "the father is eternal, the son eternal, the holy ghost eternal, and yet there are not three eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible." "in like manner, the father is almighty, the son almighty, the holy ghost almighty. yet there are not three almighties, only one almighty. so the father is god, the son god, the holy ghost god, and yet not three gods; and so, likewise, the father is lord, the son is lord, the holy ghost is lord, yet there are not three lords, for as we are compelled by the christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be god and lord, so we are all forbidden by the catholic religion to say there are three gods, or three lords. the father is made of no one; not created or begotten. the son is from the father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. the holy ghost is from the father and the son, not made nor begotten, but proceeding." you know what proceeding is. "so there is one father, not three fathers." why should there be three fathers, and only one son? "one son, and not three sons; one holy ghost, not three holy ghosts; and in this trinity there is nothing before or afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are coëternal with one another and coëqual, so that in all things the unity is to be worshiped in trinity, and the trinity is to be worshiped in unity. those who will be saved must thus think of the trinity. furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our lord jesus christ. now the right of this thing is this: that we believe and confess that our lord jesus christ, the son of god, is both god and man. he is god of the substance of his father begotten before the world was." that was a good while before his mother lived. "and he is man of the substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect god and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh, subsisting equal to the father according to his godhead, but less than the father according to his manhood, who being both god and man is not two but one, one not by conversion of god into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into god." you see that is a great deal easier than the other way would be. "one altogether, not by a confusion of substance but by unity of person, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so god and man is one christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the right hand of god, the father almighty, and he shall come to judge the living and the dead." in order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. what a blessing that we do not have to understand it. and in order to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies; thousands and thousands have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones of all the victims of the catholic church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise, in the presence of which the eyes even of priests would be wet with tears. that church covered europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men of the jewel of the soul. that church had ignorance upon its knees. that church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured. of course i have met, and cheerfully admit that there are thousands of good catholics; but catholicism is contrary to human liberty. catholicism bases salvation upon belief. catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. and for that reason it is wrong. thousands of volumes could not contain the crimes of the catholic church. they could not contain even the names of her victims. with sword and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she endeavored to convert the world. in weakness a beggar--in power a highwayman,--alms dish or dagger--tramp or tyrant. vii. the episcopalians the next church i wish to speak of is the episcopalian. that was founded by henry viii., now in heaven. he cast off queen catherine and catholicism together, and he accepted episcopalianism and annie boleyn at the same time. that church, if it had a few more ceremonies, would be catholic. if it had a few less, nothing. we have an episcopalian church in this country, and it has all the imperfections of a poor relation. it is always boasting of its rich relative. in england the creed is made by law, the same as we pass statutes here. and when a gentleman dies in england, in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the acts of parliament. it becomes a question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point. lost on demurrer. a few years ago, a gentleman by the name of seabury, samuel seabury, was sent over to england to get some apostolic succession. we had not a drop in the house. it was necessary for the bishops of the english church to put their hands upon his head. they refused. there was no act of parliament justifying it. he had then to go to the scotch bishops; and, had the scotch bishops refused, we never would have had any apostolic succession in the new world, and god would have been driven out of half the earth, and the true church never could have been founded upon this continent. but the scotch bishops put their hands on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of heads and hands from st. paul to the last bishop. in this country the episcopalians have done some good, and i want to thank that church. having on an average less religion than the others--on an average you have done more good to mankind. you preserved some of the humanities. you did not hate music; you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. and some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and that god would overlook it, or would look the other way. for all these things accept my thanks. when i was a boy, the other churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious sin against the holy ghost; and they used to teach that when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing seven-up, that the eternal god stood whetting the sword of his eternal wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest hell. that church has done some good. the episcopal creed is substantially like the catholic, containing a few additional absurdities. the episcopalians teach that it is easier to get forgiveness for sin after you have been baptized. they seem to think that the moment you are baptized you become a member of the firm, and as such are entitled to wickedness at cost. this church is utterly unsuited to a free people. its government is tyrannical, supercilious and absurd. bishops talk as though they were responsible for the souls in their charge. they wear vests that button on one side. nothing is so essential to the clergy of this denomination as a good voice. the episcopalians have persecuted just to the extent of their power. their treatment of the irish has been a crime--a crime lasting for three hundred years. that church persecuted the puritans of england and the presbyterians of scotland. in england the altar is the mistress of the throne, and this mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn. viii. the methodists about a hundred and fifty years ago, two men, john wesley and george whitfield, said, if everybody is going to hell, somebody ought to mention it. the episcopal clergy said: keep still; do not tear your gown. wesley and whitfield said: this frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetop of every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion. they were good, honest men. they believed their doctrine. and they said: if there is a hell, and a niagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say something. they were right; somebody ought, if such a thing is true. wesley was a believer in the bible. he believed in the actual presence of the almighty. god used to do miracles for him; used to put off a rain several days to give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of lameness; used to cure mr. wesley's headaches. and mr. wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. he believed that devils had possession of people. he talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave; and that he was going into another person. that he would be there at a certain time; and wesley went to that other person, and there the devil was, prompt to the minute. he regarded every conversion as warfare between god and this devil for the possession of that human soul, and that in the warfare god had gained the victory. honest, no doubt. mr. wesley did not believe in human liberty. honest, no doubt. was opposed to the liberty of the colonies. honestly so. mr. wesley preached a sermon entitled: "the cause and cure of earthquakes," in which he took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin; and the only way to stop them was to believe in the lord jesus christ. no doubt an honest man. wesley and whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. wesley insisted that god invited everybody to the feast. whitfield said he did not invite those he knew would not come. wesley said he did. whitfield said: well, he did not put plates for them, anyway. wesley said he did. so that, when they were in hell he could show them that there was a seat left for them. the church that they founded is still active. and probably no church in the world has done so much preaching for as little money as the methodists. whitfield believed in slavery, and advocated the slave-trade. and it was of whitfield that whittier made the two lines: "he bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, fanned by the wings of the holy ghost." we have lately had a meeting of the methodists, and i find by their statistics that they believe that they have converted , folks in a year. that, in order to do this, they have , preachers, , sunday school scholars, and about $ , , invested in church property. i find, in looking over the history of the world, that there are , , or , , of people born a year, and if they are saved at the rate of , a year, about how long will it take that doctrine to save this world? good, honest people; but they are mistaken. in old times they were very simple. churches used to be like barns. they used to have them divided--men on that side, and women on this. a little barbarous. we have advanced since then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank god as heartily as though sitting between two men that he has never been introduced to. there is another thing the methodists should remember, and that is that the episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. and they should remember that the freethinkers have always treated them kindly and well. there is one thing about the methodist church in the north that i like. but i find that it is not methodism that does that. i find that the methodist church in the south is as much opposed to liberty as the methodist church north is in favor of liberty. so it is not methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. they differ a little in their creed from the rest. they do not believe that god does everything. they believe that he does his part, and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a partnership business. the methodist church is adapted to new countries--its ministers are generally uncultured, and with them zeal takes the place of knowledge. they convert people with noise. in the silence that follows most of the converts backslide. in a little while a struggle will commence between the few who are growing and the orthodox many. the few will be driven out, and the church will be governed by those who believe without understanding. ix. the presbyterians the next church is the presbyterian, and in my judgment the worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. this church was founded by john calvin, a murderer! john calvin, having power in geneva, inaugurated human torture. voltaire abolished torture in france. the man who abolished torture, if the christian religion be true, god is now torturing in hell, and the man who inaugurated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. it will not do. john knox started this doctrine in scotland, and there is this peculiarity about presbyterianism--it grows best where the soil is poorest. i read the other day an account of a meeting between john knox and john calvin. imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! as i read their conversation it seemed to me as though john knox and john calvin were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. they believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy; and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death. they taught the doctrine that god had a right to damn us because he made us. that is just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. there is some dust. unconscious dust! what right has god to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? why not leave him in the unconscious dust? what right has an infinite god to add to the sum of human agony? suppose i knew that i could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient human being, and i knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. if i did it, i would be a fiend. i would leave that being in the unconscious dust. and yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be eternally damned! it will not do. in there was a division in this church, and they had a lawsuit to see which was the church of god. and they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury decided that the new school was the church of god, and then they got a new trial, and the next jury decided that the old school was the church of god, and that settled it. that church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me! i do not want it! i do not wish to go to heaven unless i can settle by the books, and go there because i ought to go there. i have said, and i say again, i do not wish to be a charity angel. i have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies. the other day a young gentleman, a presbyterian who had just been converted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told me he was perfectly happy. said i, "do you think a great many people are going to hell?" "oh, yes." "and you are perfectly happy?" well, he did not know as he was, quite. "would not you be happier if they were all going to heaven?" "oh, yes." "well, then, you are not perfectly happy?" no, he did not think he was. "when you get to heaven, then you will be perfectly happy?" "oh, yes." "now, when we are only going to hell, you are not quite happy; but when we are in hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy? you will not be as decent when you get to be an angel as you are now, will you?" "well," he said, "that was not exactly it." said i, "suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven then?" "well," he says, "i suppose god would know the best place for mother." and i thought to myself, then, if i was a woman, i would like to have five or six boys like that. it will not do. heaven is where those are we love, and those who love us. and i wish to go to no world unless i can be accompanied by those who love me here. talk about the consolations of this infamous doctrine. the consolations of a doctrine that makes a father say, "i can be happy with my daughter in hell;" that makes a mother say, "i can be happy with my generous, brave boy in hell;" that makes a boy say, "i can enjoy the glory of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman _who would have died for me_, in eternal agony." and they call that tidings of great joy. no church has done more to fill the world with gloom than the presbyterian. its creed is frightful, hideous, and hellish. the presbyterian god is the monster of monsters. he is an eternal executioner, jailer and turnkey. he will enjoy forever the shrieks of the lost,--the wails of the damned. hell is the festival of the presbyterian god. x. the evangelical alliance. i have not time to speak of the baptists,--that jeremy taylor said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance on the earth. he hated the baptists because they represented, in some little degree, the liberty of thought. nor have i time to speak of the quakers, the best of all, and abused by all. i cannot forget that john fox, in the year of grace , was put in the pillory and whipped from town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon, and what for? simply because he preached the doctrine: "thou shalt not resist evil with evil." "thou shalt love thy enemies." think of what the church must have been that day to scar the flesh of that loving man! just think of it! i say i have not time to speak of all these sects--the varieties of presbyterians and campbellites. there are hundreds and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed that i read, differing simply in degree. ah! but they say to me: you are fighting something that is dead. nobody believes this now. the preachers do not believe what they preach in the pulpit. the people in the pews do not believe what they hear preached. and they say to me: you are fighting something that is dead. this is all a form, we do not believe a solitary creed in the world. we sign them and swear that we believe them, but we do not. and none of us do. and all the ministers, they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not quite. i do not know whether this is so or not. i take it that they believe what they preach. i take it that when they meet and solemnly agree to a creed, they are honest and really believe in that creed. but let us see if i am waging a war against the ideas of the dead. let us see if i am simply storming a cemetery. the evangelical alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations of the world, met only a few years ago, and here is their creed: they believe in the divine inspiration, authority and sufficiency of the holy scriptures; the right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the holy scriptures, but if you interpret wrong you are damned. they believe in the unity of the godhead and the trinity of the persons therein. they believe in the utter depravity of human nature. there can be no more infamous doctrine than that. they look upon a little child as a lump of depravity. i look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, in the air and light of love and joy, blossom into rich and glorious life. total depravity of human nature! here is a woman whose husband has been lost at sea; the news comes that he has been drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. there is something in her heart that tells her he is alive. and she waits. and years afterward as she looks down toward the little gate she sees him; he has been given back by the sea, and she rushes to his arms, and covers his face with kisses and with tears. and if that infamous doctrine is true every tear is a crime, and every kiss a blasphemy. it will not do. according to that doctrine, if a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the repentance and the taking back of the property are two other crimes. it is an infamy. what else do they believe? "the justification of a sinner by faith alone," without works--just faith. believing something that you do not understand. of course god can not afford to reward a man for believing anything that is reasonable. god rewards only for believing something that is unreasonable. if you believe something that is improbable and unreasonable, you are a christian; but if you believe something that you know is not so, then,--you are a saint. they believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the eternal punishment of the wicked. tidings of great joy! they are so good that they will not associate with universalists. they will not associate with unitarians; they will not associate with scientists; they will only associate with those who believe that god so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. the evangelical alliance reiterates the absurdities of the dark ages--repeats the five points of calvin--replenishes the fires of hell--certifies to the mistakes and miracles of the bible--maligns the human race, and kneels to a god who accepted the agony of the innocent as an atonement for the guilty. xi. what do you propose? then they say to me: "what do you propose? you have torn this down, what do you propose to give us in place of it?" i have not torn the good down. i have only endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. i do not tear away the passage: "god will be merciful to the merciful." i do not destroy the promise; "if you will forgive others, god will forgive you." i would not for anything blot out the faintest star that shines in the horizon of human despair, nor in the sky of human hope; but i will do what i can to get that infinite shadow out of the heart of man. "what do you propose in place of this?" well, in the first place, i propose good fellowship--good friends all around. no matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. that is your opinion; this is mine: let us be friends. science makes friends; religion, superstition, makes enemies. they say: belief is important. i say: no, actions are important. judge by deed, not by creed. good fellowship--good friends--sincere men and women--mutual forbearance, born of mutual respect. we have had too many of these solemn people. whenever i see an exceedingly solemn man, i know he is an exceedingly stupid man. no man of any humor ever founded a religion--never. humor sees both sides. while reason is the holy light, humor carries the lantern, and the man with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of superstition. i like a man who has got good feeling for everybody; good fellowship. one man said to another: "will you take a glass of wine?" "i do not drink." "will you smoke a cigar?" "i do not smoke." "maybe you will chew something?" "i do not chew." "let us eat some hay." "i tell you i do not eat hay." "well, then, good-by, for you are no company for man or beast." i believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of good nature; the gospel of good health. let us pay some attention to our bodies. take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves. good health! and i believe the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. i believe the time will come when man will not fill the future with consumption and insanity. i believe the time will come when we will study ourselves, and understand the laws of health and then we will say: we are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children. even if i got to heaven, and had a harp, i would hate to look back upon my children and grandchildren, and see them diseased, deformed, crazed--all suffering the penalties of crimes i had committed. i believe in the gospel of good living. you can not make any god happy by fasting. let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked--and it is a thousand times better to know how to cook than it is to understand any theology in the world. i believe in the gospel of good clothes; i believe in the gospel of good houses; in the gospel of water and soap. i believe in the gospel of intelligence; in the gospel of education. the school-house is my cathedral. the universe is my bible. i believe in that gospel of justice, that we must reap what we sow. i do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the church. we do not need the forgiveness of god, but of each other and of ourselves. if i rob mr. smith and god forgives me, how does that help smith? if i, by slander, cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower and afterward i get the forgiveness of god, how does that help her? if there is another world, we have got to settle with the people we have wronged in this. no bankrupt court there. every cent must be paid. the christians say, that among the ancient jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. now they say "charge it." "put it on the slate." it will not do. for every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and to the one you injure. and if you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing. no forgiveness by the gods. eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice, so far as nature is concerned. you must reap the result of your acts. even when forgiven by the one you have injured, it is not as though the injury had not been done. that is what i believe in. and if it goes hard with me, i will stand it, and i will cling to my logic, and i will bear it like a man. and i believe, too, in the gospel of liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. i believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away, the more you will have. in liberty extravagance is economy. let us be just. let us be generous to each other. i believe in the gospel of intelligence. that is the only lever capable of raising mankind. intelligence must be the savior of this world. humanity is the grand religion, and no god can put a man in hell in another world, who has made a little heaven in this. god cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. god cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody. humanity--that word embraces all there is. so i believe in this great gospel of humanity. "ah! but," they say, "it will not do. you must believe." i say, no. my gospel of health will bring life. my gospel of intelligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. my doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. my doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. my doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of ignorance and superstition. my doctrine will give us health, wealth and happiness. that is what i want. that is what i believe in. give us intelligence. in a little while a man will find that he can not steal without robbing himself. he will find that he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. he will find that every crime is a mistake. he will find that only that man carries the cross who does wrong, and that upon the man who does right the cross turns to wings that will bear him upward forever. he will find that even intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all the human race. "oh," but they say to me, "you take away immortality." i do not. if we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief. as long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love we will say: "oh, that we could meet again," and whether we do or not it will not be the work of theology. it will be a fact in nature. i would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but i want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell. one world at a time is my doctrine. it is said in this testament, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and i say: sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof. and suppose after all that death does end all. next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. next to eternal life is eternal sleep. upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. hearts of dust do not break. the dead do not weep. within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the ray-less gloom is crouched no shuddering fear. i had rather think of those i have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world--i would rather think of them as unconscious dust, i would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, i would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god. i will leave my dead where nature leaves them. whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart i will cherish, i will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. but i can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. i would rather that every god would destroy himself; i would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. i have made up my mind that if there is a god, he will be merciful to the merciful. upon that rock i stand.-- that he will not torture the forgiving.-- upon that rock i stand.-- that every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. upon that rock i stand. the honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come. upon that rock i stand. the works of robert g. ingersoll by robert g. ingersoll "the hands that help are better far than lips that pray." in twelve volumes, volume iv. the dresden edition contents of volume iv. why i am an agnostic. ( .) i. influence of birth in determining religious belief--scotch, irish, english, and americans inherit their faith--religions of nations not suddenly changed--people who knew--what they were certain about--revivals--character of sermons preached--effect of conversion--a vermont farmer for whom perdition had no terrors--the man and his dog--backsliding and re-birth--ministers who were sincere--a free will baptist on the rich man and lazarus--ii. the orthodox god--the two dispensations--the infinite horror--iii. religious books--the commentators--paley's watch argument--milton, young, and pollok--iv. studying astronomy--geology--denial and evasion by the clergy--v. the poems of robert burns--byron, shelley, keats, and shakespeare--vi. volney, gibbon, and thomas paine--voltaire's services to liberty--pagans compared with patriarchs--vii. other gods and other religions--dogmas, myths, and symbols of christianity older than our era--viii. the men of science, humboldt, darwin, spencer, huxley, haeckel--ix. matter and force indestructible and uncreatable--the theory of design--x. god an impossible being--the panorama of the past--xi. free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies. the truth. ( .) i. the martyrdom of man--how is truth to be found--every man should be mentally honest--he should be intellectually hospitable--geologists, chemists, mechanics, and professional men are seeking for the truth--ii. those who say that slavery is better than liberty--promises are not evidence--horace greeley and the cold stove--iii. "the science of theology" the only dishonest science--moses and brigham young--minds poisoned and paralyzed in youth--sunday schools and theological seminaries--orthodox slanderers of scientists--religion has nothing to do with charity--hospitals built in self-defence--what good has the church accomplished?--of what use are the orthodox ministers, and what are they doing for the good of mankind--the harm they are doing--delusions they teach--truths they should tell about the bible--conclusions--our christs and our miracles. how to reform mankind. ( .) i. "there is no darkness but ignorance"--false notions concerning all departments of life--changed ideas about science, government and morals--ii. how can we reform the world?--intellectual light the first necessity--avoid waste of wealth in war--iii. another waste--vast amount of money spent on the church--iv. plow can we lessen crime?--frightful laws for the punishment of minor crimes--a penitentiary should be a school--professional criminals should not be allowed to populate the earth--v. homes for all-make a nation of householders--marriage and divorce-vi. the labor question--employers cannot govern prices--railroads should pay pensions--what has been accomplished for the improvement of the condition of labor--vii. educate the children--useless knowledge--liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of anything--false worship of wealth--viii. we must work and wait. a thanksgiving sermon. ( .) i. our fathers ages ago--from savagery to civilization--for the blessings we enjoy, whom should we thank?--what good has the church done?-did christ add to the sum of useful knowledge--the saints--what have the councils and synods done?--what they gave us, and what they did not--shall we thank them for the hell here and for the hell of the future?--ii. what does god do?--the infinite juggler and his puppets--what the puppets have done--shall we thank these gods?--shall we thank nature?--iii. men who deserve our thanks--the infidels, philanthropists and scientists--the discoverers and inventors--magellan--copernicus--bruno--galileo--kepler, herschel, newton, and laplace--lyell--what the worldly have done--origin and vicissitudes of the bible--the septuagint--investigating the phenomena of nature--iv. we thank the good men and good women of the past--the poets, dramatists, and artists--the statesmen--paine, jefferson, ericsson, lincoln. grant--voltaire, humboldt, darwin. a lay sermon. ( .) prayer of king lear--when honesty wears a rag and rascality a robe-the nonsense of "free moral agency "--doing right is not self-denial-wealth often a gilded hell--the log house--insanity of getting more--great wealth the mother of crime--separation of rich and poor--emulation--invention of machines to save labor--production and destitution--the remedy a division of the land--evils of tenement houses--ownership and use--the great weapon is the ballot--sewing women--strikes and boycotts of no avail--anarchy, communism, and socialism--the children of the rich a punishment for wealth--workingmen not a danger--the criminals a necessary product--society's right to punish--the efficacy of kindness--labor is honorable--mental independence. the foundations of faith. ( .) i. the old testament--story of the creation--age of the earth and of man--astronomical calculations of the egyptians--the flood--the firmament a fiction--israelites who went into egypt--battles of the jews--area of palestine--gold collected by david for the temple--ii. the new testament--discrepancies about the birth of christ--herod and the wise men--the murder of the babes of bethlehem--when was christ born--cyrenius and the census of the world--genealogy of christ according to matthew and luke--the slaying of zacharias--appearance of the saints at the crucifixion--the death of judas iscariot--did christ wish to be convicted?--iii. jehovah--iv. the trinity--the incarnation--was christ god?--the trinity expounded--"let us pray"--v. the theological christ--sayings of a contradictory character--christ a devout jew--an ascetic--his philosophy--the ascension--the best that can be said about christ--the part that is beautiful and glorious--the other side--vi. the scheme of redemption--vii. belief--eternal pain--no hope in hell, pity in heaven, or mercy in the heart of god--viii. conclusion. superstition. ( .) i. what is superstition?--popular beliefs about the significance of signs, lucky and unlucky numbers, days, accidents, jewels, etc.--eclipses, earthquakes, and cyclones as omens--signs and wonders of the heavens--efficacy of bones and rags of saints--diseases and devils--ii. witchcraft--necromancers--what is a miracle?--the uniformity of nature--iii. belief in the existence of good spirits or angels--god and the devil--when everything was done by the supernatural--iv. all these beliefs now rejected by men of intelligence--the devil's success made the coming of christ a necessity--"thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"--some biblical angels--vanished visions--v. where are heaven and hell?--prayers never answered--the doctrine of design--why worship our ignorance?--would god lead us into temptation?--president mckinley's thanks giving for the santiago victory--vi. what harm does superstition do?--the heart hardens and the brain softens--what superstition has done and taught--fate of spain--of portugal, austria, germany--vii. inspired books--mysteries added to by the explanations of theologians--the inspired bible the greatest curse of christendom--viii. modifications of jehovah--changing the bible--ix. centuries of darkness--the church triumphant--when men began to think--x. possibly these superstitions are true, but we have no evidence--we believe in the natural--science is the real redeemer. the devil. ( .) i. if the devil should die, would god make another?--how was the idea of a devil produced--other devils than ours--natural origin of these monsters--ii. the atlas of christianity is the devil--the devil of the old testament--the serpent in eden--"personifications" of evil--satan and job--satan and david--iii. take the devil from the drama of christianity and the plot is gone--jesus tempted by the evil one--demoniac possession--mary magdalene--satan and judas--incubi and succubi--the apostles believed in miracles and magic--the pool of bethesda--iv. the evidence of the church--the devil was forced to father the failures of god--belief of the fathers of the church in devils--exorcism at the baptism of an infant in the sixteenth century--belief in devils made the universe a madhouse presided over by an insane god--v. personifications of the devil--the orthodox ostrich thrusts his head into the sand--if devils are personifications so are all the other characters of the bible--vi. some queries about the devil, his place of residence, his manner of living, and his object in life--interrogatories to the clergy--vii. the man of straw the master of the orthodox ministers--his recent accomplishments--viii. keep the devils out of children--ix. conclusion.--declaration of the free. progress. ( - .) the prosperity of the world depends upon its workers--veneration for the ancient--credulity and faith of the middle ages--penalty for reading the scripture in the mother tongue--unjust, bloody, and cruel laws--the reformers too were persecutors--bigotry of luther and knox--persecution of castalio--montaigne against torture in france--"witchcraft" (chapter on)--confessed wizards--a case before sir matthew hale--belief in lycanthropy--animals tried and executed--animals received as witnesses--the corsned or morsel of execution--kepler an astrologer--luther's encounter with the devil--mathematician stoefflers, astronomical prediction of a flood--histories filled with falsehood--legend about the daughter of pharaoh invading scotland and giving the country her name--a story about mohammed--a history of the britains written by archdeacons--ingenuous remark of eusebius--progress in the mechanic arts--england at the beginning of the eighteenth century--barbarous punishments--queen elizabeth's order concerning clergymen and servant girls--inventions of watt, arkwright, and others--solomon's deprivations--language (chapter on)--belief that the hebrew was< the original tongue--speculations about the language of paradise--geography (chapter on)--the works of cosmas--printing invented--church's opposition to books--the inquisition--the reformation--"slavery" (chapter on)--voltaire's remark on slavery as a contract--white slaves in greece, rome, england, scotland, and france--free minds make free bodies--causes of the abolition of white slavery in europe--the french revolution--the african slave trade, its beginning and end--liberty triumphed (chapter head)--abolition of chattel slavery--conclusion. what is religion? ( .) i. belief in god and sacrifice--did an infinite god create the children of men and is he the governor of the universe?--ii. if this god exists, how do we know he is good?--should both the inferior and the superior thank god for their condition?--iii. the power that works for righteousness--what is this power?--the accumulated experience of the world is a power working for good?--love the commencement of the higher virtues--iv. what has our religion done?--would christians have been worse had they adopted another faith?--v. how can mankind be reformed without religion?--vi. the four corner-stones of my theory--vii. matter and force eternal--links in the chain of evolution--viii. reform--the gutter as a nursery--can we prevent the unfit from filling the world with their children?--science must make woman the owner and mistress of herself--morality born of intelligence--ix. real religion and real worship. why i am an agnostic. i. for the most part we inherit our opinions. we are the heirs of habits and mental customs. our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. we are moulded and fashioned by our surroundings. environment is a sculptor--a painter. if we had been born in constantinople, the most of us would have said: "there is no god but allah, and mohammed is his prophet." if our parents had lived on the banks of the ganges, we would have been worshipers of siva, longing for the heaven of nirvana. as a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them. most people love peace. they do not like to differ with their neighbors. they like company. they are social. they enjoy traveling on the highway with the multitude. they hate to walk alone. the scotch are calvinists because their fathers were. the irish are catholics because their fathers were. the english are episcopalians because their fathers were, and the americans are divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. this is the general rule, to which there are many exceptions. children sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. but this is generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and those who change usually insist that they are still following the fathers. it is claimed by christian historians that the religion of a nation was sometimes suddenly changed, and that millions of pagans were made into christians by the command of a king. philosophers do not agree with these historians. names have been changed, altars have been overthrown, but opinions, customs and beliefs remained the same. a pagan, beneath the drawn sword of a christian, would probably change his religious views, and a christian, with a scimitar above his head, might suddenly become a mohammedan, but as a matter of fact both would remain exactly as they were before--except in speech. belief is not subject to the will. men think as they must. children do not, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. they are not exactly like their parents. they differ in temperament, in experience, in capacity, in surroundings. and so there is a continual, though almost imperceptible change. there is development, conscious and unconscious growth, and by comparing long periods of time we find that the old has been almost abandoned, almost lost in the new. men cannot remain stationary. the mind cannot be securely anchored. if we do not advance, we go backward. if we do not grow, we decay. if we do not develop, we shrink and shrivel. like the most of you, i was raised among people who knew--who were certain. they did not reason or investigate. they had no doubts. they knew that they had the truth. in their creed there was no guess--no perhaps. they had a revelation from god. they knew the beginning of things. they knew that god commenced to create one monday morning, four thousand and four years before christ. they knew that in the eternity--back of that morning, he had done nothing. they knew that it took him six days to make the earth--all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that wheel in space. they knew exactly what he did each day and when he rested. they knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death. they not only knew the beginning, but they knew the end. they knew that life had one path and one road. they knew that the path, grass-grown and narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested with vipers, wet with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, bordered with fruits and flowers, filled with laughter and song and all the happiness of human love, led straight to hell. they knew that god was doing his best to make you take the path and that the devil used every art to keep you in the road. they knew that there was a perpetual battle waged between the great powers of good and evil for the possession of human souls. they knew that many centuries ago god had left his throne and had been born a babe into this poor world--that he had suffered death for the sake of man--for the sake of saving a few. they also knew that the human heart was utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in love with wrong and hated god with all his might. at the same time they knew that god created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work. they also knew that he had been thwarted by the devil, who with wiles and lies had deceived the first of human kind. they knew that in consequence of that, god cursed the man and woman; the man with toil, the woman with slavery and pain, and both with death; and that he cursed the earth itself with briers and thorns, brambles and thistles. all these blessed things they knew. they knew too all that god had done to purify and elevate the race. they knew all about the flood--knew that god, with the exception of eight, drowned all his children--the old and young--the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe--the young man and the merry maiden--the loving mother and the laughing child--because his mercy endureth forever. they knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds--everything that walked or crawled or flew--because his loving kindness is over all his works. they knew that god, for the purpose of civilizing his children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. they knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love god. they knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of jesus christ. all who doubted or denied would be lost. to live a moral and honest life--to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child--to make a happy home--to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell. god did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the act of faith. without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins, and the men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain. all of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits--by teachers in sunday schools and by parents at home. the children were victims. they were assaulted in the cradle--in their mother's arms. then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. the poor children were helpless. the atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies--lies that mingled with their blood. in those days ministers depended on revivals to save souls and reform the world. in the winter, navigation having closed, business was mostly suspended. there were no railways and the only means of communication were wagons and boats. generally the roads were so bad that the wagons were laid up with the boats. there were no operas, no theatres, no amusement except parties and balls. the parties were regarded as worldly and the balls as wicked. for real and virtuous enjoyment the good people depended on revivals. the sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies of hell, the joys and ecstasies of heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy of the atonement. the little churches, in which the services were held, were generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly warm. the emotional sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical amens, the hope of heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose the little sense they had. they became substantially insane. in this condition they flocked to the "mourners bench"--asked for the prayers of the faithful--had strange feelings, prayed and wept and thought they had been "born again." then they would tell their experience--how wicked they had been--how evil had been their thoughts, their desires, and how good they had suddenly become. they used to tell the story of an old woman who, in telling her experience, said:--"before i was converted, before i gave my heart to god, i used to lie and steal, but now, thanks to the grace and blood of jesus christ, i have quit 'em both, in a great measure." of course all the people were not exactly of one mind. there were some scoffers, and now and then some man had sense enough to laugh at the threats of priests and make a jest of hell. some would tell of unbelievers who had lived and died in peace. when i was a boy i heard them tell of an old farmer in vermont. he was dying. the minister was at his bedside--asked him if he was a christian --if he was prepared to die. the old man answered that he had made no preparation, that he was not a christian--that he had never done anything but work. the preacher said that he could give him no hope unless he had faith in christ, and that if he had no faith his soul would certainly be lost. the old man was not frightened. he was perfectly calm. in a weak and broken voice he said: "mr. preacher, i suppose you noticed my farm. my wife and i came here more than fifty years ago. we were just married. it was a forest then and the land was covered with stones. i cut down the trees, burned the logs, picked up the stones and laid the walls. my wife spun and wove and worked every moment. we raised and educated our children--denied ourselves. during all these years my wife never had a good dress, or a decent bonnet. i never had a good suit of clothes. we lived on the plainest food. our hands, our bodies are deformed by toil. we never had a vacation. we loved each other and the children. that is the only luxury we ever had. now i am about to die and you ask me if i am prepared. mr. preacher, i have no fear of the future, no terror of any other world. there may be such a place as hell--but if there is, you never can make me believe that it's any worse than old vermont." so, they told of a man who compared himself with his dog. "my dog," he said, "just barks and plays--has all he wants to eat. he never works--has no trouble about business. in a little while he dies, and that is all. i work with all my strength. i have no time to play. i have trouble every day. in a little while i will die, and then i go to hell. i wish that i had been a dog." well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows fell, the revival went on, but when the winter was over, when the steamboat's whistle was heard, when business started again, most of the converts "backslid" and fell again into their old ways. but the next winter they were on hand, ready to be "born again." they formed a kind of stock company, playing the same parts every winter and backsliding every spring. the ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. they were zealous and sincere. they were not philosophers. to them science was the name of a vague dread--a dangerous enemy. they did not know much, but they believed a great deal. to them hell was a burning reality--they could see the smoke and flames. the devil was no myth. he was an actual person, a rival of god, an enemy of mankind. they thought that the important business of this life was to save your soul--that all should resist and scorn the pleasures of sense, and keep their eyes steadily fixed on the golden gate of the new jerusalem. they were unbalanced, emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, loving, and insane. they really believed the bible to be the actual word of god--a book without mistake or contradiction. they called its cruelties, justice--its absurdities, mysteries--its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages were regarded as profoundly spiritual. they dwelt on the pangs, the regrets, the infinite agonies of the lost, and showed how easily they could be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be obtained. they told their hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their hearts to god, their sins to christ, who would bear their burdens and make their souls as white as snow. all this the ministers really believed. they were absolutely certain. in their minds the devil had tried in vain to sow the seeds of doubt. i heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons--heard hundreds of the most fearful and vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted in hell, of the horrible state of the lost. i supposed that what i heard was true and yet i did not believe it. i said: "it is," and then i thought: "it cannot be." these sermons made but faint impressions on my mind. i was not convinced. i had no desire to be "converted," did not want a "new heart" and had no wish to be "born again." but i heard one sermon that touched my heart, that left its mark, like a scar, on my brain. one sunday i went with my brother to hear a free will baptist preacher. he was a large man, dressed like a farmer, but he was an orator. he could paint a picture with words. he took for his text the parable of "the rich man and lazarus." he described dives, the rich man--his manner of life, the excesses in which he indulged, his extravagance, his riotous nights, his purple and fine linen, his feasts, his wines, and his beautiful women. then he described lazarus, his poverty, his rags and wretchedness, his poor body eaten by disease, the crusts and crumbs he devoured, the dogs that pitied him. he pictured his lonely life, his friendless death. then, changing his tone of pity to one of triumph--leaping from tears to the heights of exultation--from defeat to victory--he described the glorious company of angels, who with white and outspread wings carried the soul of the despised pauper to paradise--to the bosom of abraham. then, changing his voice to one of scorn and loathing, he told of the rich man's death. he was in his palace, on his costly couch, the air heavy with perfume, the room filled with servants and physicians. his gold was worthless then. he could not buy another breath. he died, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. then, assuming a dramatic attitude, putting his right hand to his ear, he whispered, "hark! i hear the rich man's voice. what does he say? hark! 'father abraham! father abraham! i pray thee send lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for i am tormented in this flame.'" "oh, my hearers, he has been making that request for more than eighteen hundred years. and millions of ages hence that wail will cross the gulf that lies between the saved and lost and still will be heard the cry: 'father abraham! father abraham! i pray thee send lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for i am tormented in this flame.'" for the first time i understood the dogma of eternal pain--appreciated "the glad tidings of great joy." for the first time my imagination grasped the height and depth of the christian horror. then i said: "it is a lie, and i hate your religion. if it is true, i hate your god." from that day i have had no fear, no doubt. for me, on that day, the flames of hell were quenched. from that day i have passionately hated every orthodox creed. that sermon did some good. ii. from my childhood i had heard read and read the bible. morning and evening the sacred volume was opened and prayers were said. the bible was my first history, the jews were the first people, and the events narrated by moses and the other inspired writers, and those predicted by prophets were the all important things. in other books were found the thoughts and dreams of men, but in the bible were the sacred truths of god. yet in spite of my surroundings, of my education, i had no love for god. he was so saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, so anxious to kill, so ready to assassinate, that i hated him with all my heart. at his command, babes were butchered, women violated, and the white hair of trembling age stained with blood. this god visited the people with pestilence--filled the houses and covered the streets with the dying and the dead--saw babes starving on the empty breasts of pallid mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new made graves, and remained as pitiless as the pestilence. this god withheld the rain--caused the famine--saw the fierce eyes of hunger--the wasted forms, the white lips, saw mothers eating babes, and remained ferocious as famine. it seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the god of the old testament. a really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a god in abhorrence and contempt. but in the old days the good people justified jehovah in his treatment of the heathen. the wretches who were murdered were idolaters and therefore unfit to live. according to the bible, god had never revealed himself to these people and he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true god. whose fault was it then that they were heathen? the christians said that god had the right to destroy them because he created them. what did he create them for? he knew when he made them that they would be food for the sword. he knew that he would have the pleasure of seeing them murdered. as a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of jehovah said that all these horrible things happened under the "old dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now under the "new dispensation," all had been changed--the sword of justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. in the old testament, they said, god is the judge--but in the new, christ is the merciful. as a matter of fact, the new testament is infinitely worse than the old. in the old there is no threat of eternal pain. jehovah had no eternal prison--no everlasting fire. his hatred ended at the grave. his revenge was satisfied when his enemy was dead. in the new testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. in the new testament the malice of god is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal. the orthodox god, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that this same god, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words: "depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." these are the words of "eternal love." no human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror. all that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood,--all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death--all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul. this is the consolation of the christian religion. this is the justice of god--the mercy of christ. this frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of christianity. the truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. it founded the inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. it has darkened the lives of many millions. it made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. it enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. it sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. it subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain. like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. it makes man an eternal victim and god an eternal fiend. it is the one infinite horror. every church in which it is taught is a public curse. every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. below this christian dogma, savagery cannot go. it is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, god. while i have life, as long as i draw breath, i shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie. nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day--that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. it gives me joy to know that christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of hell are burning low--flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever. for centuries christendom was a madhouse. popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and heretics were all insane. only a few--four or five in a century were sound in heart and brain. only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage cries, heard reason's voice. only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives. we have advanced. in a few years the christians will become--let us hope--humane and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the endless years with pain. they ought to know now that this dogma is utterly inconsistent with the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of their god. they ought to know that their belief in hell, gives to the holy ghost--the dove--the beak of a vulture, and fills the mouth of the lamb of god with the fangs of a viper. iii. in my youth i read religious books--books about god, about the atonement--about salvation by faith, and about the other worlds. i became familiar with the commentators--with adam clark, who thought that the serpent seduced our mother eve, and was in fact the father of cain. he also believed that the animals, while in the ark, had their natures' changed to that degree that they devoured straw together and enjoyed each other's society--thus prefiguring the blessed millennium. i read scott, who was such a natural theologian that he really thought the story of phaeton--of the wild steeds dashing across the sky--corroborated the story of joshua having stopped the sun and moon. so, i read henry and macknight and found that god so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. i read cruden, who made the great concordance, and made the miracles as small and probable as he could. i remember that he explained the miracle of feeding the wandering jews with quails, by saying that even at this day immense numbers of quails crossed the red sea, and that sometimes when tired, they settled on ships that sank beneath their weight. the fact that the explanation was as hard to believe as the miracle made no difference to the devout cruden. to while away the time i read calvin's institutes, a book calculated to produce, in any natural mind, considerable respect for the devil. i read paley's evidences and found that the evidence of ingenuity in producing the evil, in contriving the hurtful, was at least equal to the evidence tending to show the use of intelligence in the creation of what we call good. you know the watch argument was paley's greatest effort. a man finds a watch and it is so wonderful that he concludes that it must have had a maker. he finds the maker and he is so much more wonderful than the watch that he says he must have had a maker. then he finds god, the maker of the man, and he is so much more wonderful than the man that he could _not_ have had a maker. this is what the lawyers call a departure in pleading. according to paley there can be no design without a designer--but there can be a designer without a design. the wonder of the watch suggested the watchmaker, and the wonder of the watchmaker, suggested the creator, and the wonder of the creator demonstrated that he was not created--but was uncaused and eternal. we had edwards on the will, in which the reverend author shows that necessity has no effect on accountability--and that when god creates a human being, and at the same time determines and decrees exactly what that being shall do and be, the human being is responsible, and god in his justice and mercy has the right to torture the soul of that human being forever. yet edwards said that he loved god. the fact is that if you believe in an infinite god, and also in eternal punishment, then you must admit that edwards and calvin were absolutely right. there is no escape from their conclusions if you admit their premises. they were infinitely cruel, their premises infinitely absurd, their god infinitely fiendish, and their logic perfect. and yet i have kindness and candor enough to say that calvin and edwards were both insane. we had plenty of theological literature. there was jenkyn on the atonement, who demonstrated the wisdom of god in devising a way in which the sufferings of innocence could justify the guilty. he tried to show that children could justly be punished for the sins of their ancestors, and that men could, if they had faith, be justly credited with the virtues of others. nothing could be more devout, orthodox, and idiotic. but all of our theology was not in prose. we had milton with his celestial militia--with his great and blundering god, his proud and cunning devil--his wars between immortals, and all the sublime absurdities that religion wrought within the blind man's brain. the theology taught by milton was dear to the puritan heart. it was accepted by new england, and it poisoned the souls and ruined the lives of thousands. the genius of shakespeare could not make the theology of milton poetic. in the literature of the world there is nothing, outside of the "sacred books," more perfectly absurd. we had young's night thoughts, and i supposed that the author was an exceedingly devout and loving follower of the lord. yet young had a great desire to be a bishop, and to accomplish that end he electioneered with the king's mistress. in other words, he was a fine old hypocrite. in the "night thoughts" there is scarcely a genuinely honest, natural line. it is pretence from beginning to end. he did not write what he felt, but what he thought he ought to feel. we had pollok's course of time, with its worm that never dies, its quenchless flames, its endless pangs, its leering devils, and its gloating god. this frightful poem should have been written in a madhouse. in it you find all the cries and groans and shrieks of maniacs, when they tear and rend each other's flesh. it is as heartless, as hideous, as hellish as the thirty-second chapter of deuteronomy. we all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "hark from the tombs, a doleful sound." nothing could have been more appropriate for children. it is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. when a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. this would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable. god hates laughter and despises mirth. to feel free, untrammeled, irresponsible, joyous,--to forget care and death--to be flooded with sunshine without a fear of night--to forget the past, to have no thought of the future, no dream of god, or heaven, or hell--to be intoxicated with the present--to be conscious only of the clasp and kiss of the one you love--this is the sin against the holy ghost. but we had cowper's poems. cowper was sincere. he was the opposite of young. he had an observing eye, a gentle heart and a sense of the artistic. he sympathized with all who suffered--with the imprisoned, the enslaved, the outcasts. he loved the beautiful. no wonder that the belief in eternal punishment made this loving soul insane. no wonder that the "tidings of great joy" quenched hope's great star and left his broken heart in the darkness of despair. we had many volumes of orthodox sermons, filled with wrath and the terrors of the judgment to come--sermons that had been delivered by savage saints. we had the book of martyrs, showing that christians had for many centuries imitated the god they worshiped. w|e had the history of the waldenses--of the reformation of the church. we had pilgrim's progress, baxter's call and butler's analogy. to use a western phrase or saying, i found that bishop butler dug up more snakes than he killed--suggested more difficulties than he explained--more doubts than he dispelled. iv. among such books my youth was passed. all the seeds of christianity--of superstition, were sown in my mind and cultivated with great diligence and care. all that time i knew nothing of any science--nothing about the other side--nothing of the objections that had been urged against the blessed scriptures, or against the perfect congregational creed. of course i had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches, of scoffers who laughed at holy things. they did not answer their arguments, but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated by the fury of assertion that they had done the devil's work. and yet in spite of all i heard--of all i read, i could not quite believe. my brain and heart said no. for a time i left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and delusions, the nightmares of theology. i studied astronomy, just a little--i examined maps of the heavens--learned the names of some of the constellations--of some of the stars--found something of their size and the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits--obtained a faint conception of astronomical spaces--found that some of the known stars were so far away in the depths of space that their light, traveling at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, required many years to reach this little world--found that, compared with the great stars, our earth was but a grain of sand--an atom--found that the old belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the benefit of man, was infinitely absurd. i compared what was really known about the stars with the account of creation as told in genesis. i found that the writer of the inspired book had no knowledge of astronomy--that he was as ignorant as a choctaw chief--as an eskimo driver of dogs. does any one imagine that the author of genesis knew anything about the sun--its size? that he was acquainted with sirius, the north star, with capella, or that he knew anything of the clusters of stars so far away that their light, now visiting our eyes, has been traveling for two million years? if he had known these facts would he have said that jehovah worked nearly six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of the fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars? yet millions of people insist that the writer of genesis was inspired by the creator of all worlds. now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by an ignorant savage. the story is inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian. i admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he believed to be true--that he did the best he could. he did not claim to be inspired--did not pretend that the story had been told to him by jehovah. he simply stated the "facts" as he understood them. after i had learned a little about the stars i concluded that this writer, this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and that he knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my day. in other words, that he knew absolutely nothing. and here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are turning their guns in the wrong direction. these reverend gentlemen should attack the astronomers. they should malign and vilify kepler, copernicus, newton, herschel and laplace. these men were the real destroyers of the sacred story. then, after having disposed of them, they can wage a war against the stars, and against jehovah himself for having furnished evidence against the truthfulness of his book. then i studied geology--not much, just a little--just enough to find in a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and some of the conclusions that had been reached. i learned something of the action of fire--of water--of the formation of islands and continents--of the sedimentary and igneous rocks--of the coal measures--of the chalk cliffs, something about coral reefs--about the deposits made by rivers, the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding sea--just enough to know that the laurentian rocks were millions of ages older than the grass beneath my feet--just enough to feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about the sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years--just enough to know that the "inspired" writer knew nothing of the history of the earth--nothing of the great forces of nature--of wind and wave and fire--forces that have destroyed and built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless years. and let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their time in answering me. they should attack the geologists. they should deny the facts that have been discovered. they should launch their curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel rocks. then i studied biology--not much--just enough to know something of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the laurentian rocks were made--just enough to know that implements of stone, implements that had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled with the bones of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these implements, and that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years before the manufacture of adam and eve. then i felt sure that the "inspired" record was false--that many millions of people had been deceived and that all i had been taught about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. i felt that i knew that the old testament was the work of ignorant men--that it was a mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and kindness, of philosophy and absurdity--that it contained some elevated thoughts, some poetry,---a good deal of the solemn and commonplace,--some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams. of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred scriptures. they mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly proved that "there were giants in those days." they accounted for the fossils by saying that god had made them to try our faith, or that the devil had imitated the works of the creator. they answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local. they told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. and that the appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light. they excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in the old testament by saying that the people were so degraded that jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice. in every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed. at first they flatly denied the facts--then they belittled them--then they harmonized them--then they denied that they had denied them. then they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book to fit the facts. at first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the bible was false and christianity itself a superstition. afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion. anything they could not dodge, they swallowed, and anything they could not swallow, they dodged. i gave up the old testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. i gave up the new because it vouched for the truth of the old. i gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because christ and his disciples believed in the existence of devils--talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from people and animals. this, of itself, is enough. we know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist--that christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. these stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the new testament. i gave up the new testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave and honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain. v. having spent my youth in reading books about religion--about the "new birth"--the disobedience of our first parents, the atonement, salvation by faith, the wickedness of pleasure, the degrading consequences of love, and the impossibility of getting to heaven by being honest and generous, and having become somewhat weary of the frayed and raveled thoughts, you can imagine my surprise, my delight when i read the poems of robert burns. i was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere, the pious and petrified, the pure and heartless. here was a natural honest man. i knew the works of those who regarded all nature as depraved, and looked upon love as the legacy and perpetual witness of original sin. here was a man who plucked joy from the mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and enthroned the honest man. one whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced all forms of suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as natural as heaven's blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as sharp as ithuriel's spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon's breath. a man who loved this world, this life, the things of every day, and placed above all else the thrilling ecstasies of human love. i read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling that a great heart was throbbing in the lines. the religious, the lugubrious, the artificial, the spiritual poets were forgotten or remained only as the fragments, the half remembered horrors of monstrous and distorted dreams. i had found at last a natural man, one who despised his country's cruel creed, and was brave and sensible enough to say: "all religions are auld wives' fables, but an honest man has nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come." one who had the genius to write holy willie's prayer--a poem that crucified calvinism and through its bloodless heart thrust the spear of common sense--a poem that made every orthodox creed the food of scorn--of inextinguishable laughter. burns had his faults, his frailties. he was intensely human. still, i would rather appear at the "judgment seat" drunk, and be able to say that i was the author of "a man's a man for 'a that," than to be perfectly sober and admit that i had lived and died a scotch presbyterian. i read byron--read his cain, in which, as in paradise lost, the devil seems to be the better god--read his beautiful, sublime and bitter lines--read his prisoner of chillon--his best--a poem that filled my heart with tenderness, with pity, and with an eternal hatred of tyranny. i read shelley's queen mab--a poem filled with beauty, courage, thought, sympathy, tears and scorn, in which a brave soul tears down the prison walls and floods the cells with light. i read his skylark--a winged flame--passionate as blood--tender as tears--pure as light. i read keats, "whose name was writ in water"--read st. agnes eve, a story told with such an artless art that this poor common world is changed to fairy land--the grecian urn, that fills the soul with ever eager love, with all the rapture of imagined song--the nightingale--a melody in which there is the memory of morn--a melody that dies away in dusk and tears, paining the senses with its perfectness. and then i read shakespeare, the plays, the sonnets, the poems--read all. i beheld a new heaven and a new earth; shakespeare, who knew the brain and heart of man--the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds, the vices and the virtues of the human race; whose imagination read the tear-blurred records, the blood-stained pages of all the past, and saw falling athwart the outspread scroll the light of hope and love; shakespeare, who sounded every depth--while on the loftiest peak there fell the shadow of his wings. i compared the plays with the "inspired" books--romeo and juliet with the song of solomon, lear with job, and the sonnets with the psalms, and i found that jehovah did not understand the art of speech. i compared shakespeare's women--his perfect women--with the women of the bible. i found that jehovah was not a sculptor, not a painter--not an artist--that he lacked the power that changes clay to flesh--the art, the plastic touch, that moulds the perfect form--the breath that gives it free and joyous life--the genius that creates the faultless. the sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems. vi. up to this time i had read nothing against our blessed religion except what i had found in burns, byron and shelley. by some accident i read volney, who shows that all religions are, and have been, established in the same way--that all had their christs, their apostles, miracles and sacred books, and then asked how it is possible to decide which is the true one. a question that is still waiting for an answer. i read gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as skillfully as cæsar did his legions, and i learned that christianity is only a name for paganism--for the old religion, shorn of its beauty--that some absurdities had been exchanged for others--that some gods had been killed--a vast multitude of devils created, and that hell had been enlarged. and then i read the age of reason, by thomas paine. let me tell you something about this sublime and slandered man. he came to this country just before the revolution. he brought a letter of introduction from benjamin franklin, at that time the greatest american. in philadelphia, paine was employed to write for the _pennsylvania magazine_. we know that he wrote at least five articles. the first was against slavery, the second against duelling, the third on the treatment of prisoners--showing that the object should be to reform, not to punish and degrade--the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals. from this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century. the truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men, and did as much to found the great republic as any man who ever stood beneath our flag. he gave his thoughts about religion--about the blessed scriptures, about the superstitions of his time. he was perfectly sincere and what he said was kind and fair. the age of reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a passionate maligner of thomas paine. no one has answered--no one will answer, his argument against the dogma of inspiration--his objections to the bible. he did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. while he hated jehovah, he praised the god of nature, the creator and preserver of all. in this he was wrong, because, as watson said in his reply to paine, the god of nature is as heartless, as cruel as the god of the bible. but paine was one of the pioneers--one of the titans, one of the heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and civilize mankind. i read voltaire--voltaire, the greatest man of his century, and who did more for liberty of thought and speech than any other being, human or "divine." voltaire, who tore the mask from hypocrisy and found behind the painted smile the fangs of hate. voltaire, who attacked the savagery of the law, the cruel decisions of venal courts, and rescued victims from the wheel and rack. voltaire, who waged war against the tyranny of thrones, the greed and heartlessness of power. voltaire, who filled the flesh of priests with the barbed and poisoned arrows of his wit and made the pious jugglers, who cursed him in public, laugh at themselves in private. voltaire, who sided with the oppressed, rescued the unfortunate, championed the obscure and weak, civilized judges, repealed laws and abolished torture in his native land. in every direction this tireless man fought the absurd, the miraculous, the supernatural, the idiotic, the unjust. he had no reverence for the ancient. he was not awed by pageantry and pomp, by crowned crime or mitered pretence. beneath the crown he saw the criminal, under the miter, the hypocrite. to the bar of his conscience, his reason, he summoned the barbarism and the barbarians of his time. he pronounced judgment against them all, and that judgment has been affirmed by the intelligent world. voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. the light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth. i read zeno, the man who said, centuries before our christ was born, that man could not own his fellow-man. "no matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is bad. they who claim to own their fellow-men, look down into the pit and forget the justice that should rule the world." i became acquainted with epicurus, who taught the religion of usefulness, of temperance, of courage and wisdom, and who said: "why should i fear death? if i am, death is not. if death is, i am not. why should i fear that which cannot exist when i do?" i read about socrates, who when on trial for his life, said, among other things, to his judges, these wondrous words: "i have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but i have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty." so, i read about diogenes, the philosopher who hated the superfluous--the enemy of waste and greed, and who one day entered the temple, reverently approached the altar, crushed a louse between the nails of his thumbs, and solemnly said: "the sacrifice of diogenes to all the gods." this parodied the worship of the world--satirized all creeds, and in one act put the essence of religion. diogenes must have know of this "inspired" passage--"without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." i compared zeno, epicurus and socrates, three heathen wretches who had never heard of the old testament or the ten commandments, with abraham, isaac and jacob, three favorites of jehovah, and i was depraved enough to think that the pagans were superior to the patriarchs--and to jehovah himself. vii. my attention was turned to other religions, to the sacred books, the creeds and ceremonies of other lands--of india, egypt, assyria, persia, of the dead and dying nations. i concluded that all religions had the same foundation--a belief in the supernatural--a power above nature that man could influence by worship--by sacrifice and prayer. i found that all religions rested on a mistaken conception of nature--that the religion of a people was the science of that people, that is to say, their explanation of the world--of life and death--of origin and destiny. i concluded that all religions had substantially the same origin, and that in fact there has never been but one religion in the world. the twigs and leaves may differ, but the trunk is the same. the poor african that pours out his heart to his deity of stone is on an exact religious level with the robed priest who supplicates his god. the same mistake, the same superstition, bends the knees and shuts the eyes of both. both ask for supernatural aid, and neither has the slightest thought of the absolute uniformity of nature. it seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was the worship of the sun. the sun was the "sky father," the "all seeing," the source of life--the fireside of the world. the sun was regarded as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man. there have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief deities in the ancient religions. they have been worshiped in many lands--by many nations that have passed to death and dust. apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. baldur was a sun-god. he was in love with the dawn--a maiden. chrishna was a sun-god. at his birth the ganges was thrilled from its source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. hercules was a sun-god and so was samson, whose strength was in his hair--that is to say, in his beams. he was shorn of his strength by delilah, the shadow--the darkness. osiris, bacchus, and mithra, hermes, buddha, and quetzalcoatl, prometheus, zoroaster, and perseus, cadom, lao-tsze, fo-hi, horus and rameses, were all sun-gods. all of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. the births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. all of these gods were born in humble places--in caves, under trees, in common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. all of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice--on christmas. nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." all of them fasted for forty days--all of them taught in parables--all of them wrought miracles--all met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead. the history of these gods is the exact history of our christ. this is not a coincidence--an accident. christ was a sun-god. christ was a new name for an old biography--a survival--the last of the sun-gods. christ was not a man, but a myth--not a life, but a legend. i found that we had not only borrowed our christ--but that all our sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the buried past. there is nothing original in christianity. the cross was a symbol thousands of years before our era. it was a symbol of life, of immortality--of the god agni, and it was chiseled upon tombs many ages before a line of our bible was written. baptism is far older than christianity--than judaism. the hindus, egyptians, greeks and romans had holy water long before a catholic lived. the eucharist was borrowed from the pagans. ceres was the goddess of the fields--bacchus of the vine. at the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: "this is the flesh of the goddess." they drank wine and cried: "this is the blood of our god." the egyptians had a trinity. they worshiped osiris, isis and horus, thousands of years before the father, son, and holy ghost were known. the tree of life grew in india, in china, and among the aztecs, long before the garden of eden was planted. long before our bible was known, other nations had their sacred books. the dogmas of the fall of man, the atonement and salvation by faith, are far older than our religion. in our blessed gospel,--in our "divine scheme,"--there is nothing new--nothing original. all old--all borrowed, pieced and patched. then i concluded that all religions had been naturally produced, and that all were variations, modifications of one,--then i felt that i knew that all were the work of man. viii. the theologians had always insisted that their god was the creator of all living things--that the forms, parts, functions, colors and varieties of animals were the expressions of his fancy, taste and wisdom--that he made them all precisely as they are to-day--that he invented fins and legs and wings--that he furnished them with the weapons of attack, the shields of defence--that he formed them with reference to food and climate, taking into consideration all facts affecting life. they insisted that man was a special creation, not related in any way to the animals below him. they also asserted that all the forms of vegetation, from mosses to forests, were just the same to-day as the moment they were made. men of genius, who were for the most part free from religious prejudice, were examining these things--were looking for facts. they were examining the fossils of animals and plants--studying the forms of animals--their bones and muscles--the effect of climate and food--the strange modifications through which they had passed. humboldt had published his lectures--filled with great thoughts--with splendid generalizations--with suggestions that stimulated the spirit of investigation, and with conclusions that satisfied the mind. he demonstrated the uniformity of nature--the kinship of all that lives and grows--that breathes and thinks. darwin, with his origin of species, his theories about natural selection, the survival of the fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life. these things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many others, but darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor, found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of the guesses, hints and assertions. he was, in my judgment, the keenest observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest naturalist the world has produced. the theological view began to look small and mean. spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts. he stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound thinker, surveyed the world. he has influenced the thought of the wisest. theology looked more absurd than ever. huxley entered the lists for darwin. no man ever had a sharper sword--a better shield. he challenged the world. the great theologians and the small scientists--those who had more courage than sense, accepted the challenge. their poor bodies were carried away by their friends. huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his thought. he was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. without prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life from the lowest to the highest forms. theology looked smaller still. haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change--from form to form--followed the line of development, the path of life, until he reached the human race. it was all natural. there had been no interference from without. i read the works of these great men--of many others--and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians--all the believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong. the garden of eden faded away, adam and eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and jehovah became a miserable myth. ix. i took another step. what is matter--substance? can it be destroyed--annihilated? is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of substance? it can be ground to powder--changed from a solid to a liquid--from a liquid to a gas--but it all remains. nothing is lost--nothing destroyed. let an infinite god, if there be one, attack a grain of sand--attack it with infinite power. it cannot be destroyed. it cannot surrender. it defies all force. substance cannot be destroyed. then i took another step. if matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created. the indestructible must be uncreateable. and then i asked myself: what is force? we cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. force may be changed from one form to another--from motion to heat--but it cannot be destroyed--annihilated. if force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. it is eternal. another thing--matter cannot exist apart from force. force cannot exist apart from matter. matter could not have existed before force. force could not have existed before matter. matter and force can only be conceived of together. this has been shown by several scientists, but most clearly, most forcibly by büchner. thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or created matter. intelligence is a form of force and could not have existed without or apart from matter. without substance there could have been no mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been no substance without force. matter and force were not created. they have existed from eternity. they cannot be destroyed. there was, there is, no creator. then came the question: is there a god? is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who governs the world? there can be goodness without much intelligence--but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together. in nature i see, or seem to see, good and evil--intelligence and ignorance--goodness and cruelty--care and carelessness--economy and waste. i see means that do not accomplish the ends--designs that seem to fail. to me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life--to create animals that devour others. the teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. what can be more frightful than a world at-war? every leaf a battle-field--every flower a golgotha--in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. on every blade of grass, something that kills,--something that suffers. everywhere the strong living on the weak--the superior on the inferior. everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong--the inferior on the superior--the highest food for the lowest--man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. murder universal. everywhere pain, disease and death--death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child--death that fills the world with grief and tears. how can the orthodox christian explain these things? i know that life is good. i remember the sunshine and rain. then i think of the earthquake and flood. i do not forget health and harvest, home and love--but what of pestilence and famine? i cannot harmonize all these contradictions--these blessings and agonies--with the existence of an infinitely good, wise and powerful god. the theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit--that we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. if this is true i ask why the infant dies? millions and millions draw a few breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. they are not allowed to develop character. the theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves from their enemies. why did the god who made them, make enemies? why is it that many species of serpents have no fangs? the theologian says that god armored the hippopotamus, covered his body, except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could not pierce with tooth or tusk. but the same god made the rhinoceros and supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the hippopotamus. the same god made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless prey. on every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. if god created man--if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? should the inferior man thank god? should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank god? should the slave thank god? the theologian says that god governs the wind, the rain, the lightning. how then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the glittering bolt that kills? suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the rain and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things, and suppose that he allowed whole states to dry and wither, and at the same time wasted the rain in the sea. suppose that he allowed the winds to destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and women, and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and babes. what would we say? what would we think of such a savage? and yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course pursued by god. what do we think of a man, who will not, when he has the power, protect his friends? yet the christian's god allowed his enemies to torture and burn his friends, his worshipers. who has ingenuity enough to explain this? what good man, having the power to prevent it, would allow the innocent to be imprisoned, chained in dungeons, and sigh against the dripping walls their weary lives away? if god governs the world, why is innocence not a perfect shield? why does injustice triumph? who can answer these questions? in answer, the intelligent, honest man must say: i do not know. x. this god must be, if he exists, a person--a conscious being. who can imagine an infinite personality? this god must have force, and we cannot conceive of force apart from matter. this god must be material. he must have the means by which he changes force to what we call thought. when he thinks he uses force, force that must be replaced. yet we are told that he is infinitely wise. if he is, he does not think. thought is a ladder--a process by which we reach a conclusion. he who knows all conclusions cannot think. he cannot hope or fear. when knowledge is perfect there can be no passion, no emotion. if god is infinite he does not want. he has all. he who does not want does not act. the infinite must dwell in eternal calm. it is as impossible to conceive of such a being as to imagine a square triangle, or to think of a circle without a diameter. yet we are told that it is our duty to love this god. can we love the unknown, the inconceivable? can it be our duty to love anybody? it is our duty to act justly, honestly, but it cannot be our duty to love. we cannot be under obligation to admire a painting--to be charmed with a poem--or thrilled with music. admiration cannot be controlled. taste and love are not the servants of the will. love is, and must be free. it rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. for thousands of ages men and women have been trying to love the gods--trying to soften their hearts--trying to get their aid. i see them all. the panorama passes before me. i see them with outstretched hands--with reverently closed eyes--worshiping the sun. i see them bowing, in their fear and need, to meteoric stones--imploring serpents, beasts and sacred trees--praying to idols wrought of wood and stone. i see them building altars to the unseen powers, staining them with blood of child and beast. i see the countless priests and hear their solemn chants. i see the dying victims, the smoking altars, the swinging censers, and the rising clouds. i see the half-god men--the mournful christs, in many lands. i see the common things of life change to miracles as they speed from mouth to mouth. i see the insane prophets reading the secret book of fate by signs and dreams. i see them all--the assyrians chanting the praises of asshur and ishtar--the hindus worshiping brahma, vishnu and draupadi, the whitearmed--the chaldeans sacrificing to bel and hea--the egyptians bowing to ptah and ra, osiris and isis--the medes placating the storm, worshiping the fire--the babylonians supplicating bel and morodach--i see them all by the euphrates, the tigris, the ganges and the nile. i see the greeks building temples for zeus, neptune and venus. i see the romans kneeling to a hundred gods. i see others spurning idols and pouring out their hopes and fears to a vague image in the mind. i see the multitudes, with open mouths, receive as truths the myths and fables of the vanished years. i see them give their toil, their wealth to robe the priests, to build the vaulted roofs, the spacious aisles, the glittering domes. i see them clad in rags, huddled in dens and huts, devouring crusts and scraps, that they may give the more to ghosts and gods. i see them make their cruel creeds and fill the world with hatred, war, and death. i see them with their faces in the dust in the dark days of plague and sudden death, when cheeks are wan and lips are white for lack of bread. i hear their prayers, their sighs, their sobs. i see them kiss the unconscious lips as their hot tears fall on the pallid faces of the dead. i see the nations as they fade and fail. i see them captured and enslaved. i see their altars mingle with the common earth, their temples crumble slowly back to dust. i see their gods grow old and weak, infirm and faint. i see them fall from vague and misty thrones, helpless and dead. the worshipers receive no help. injustice triumphs. toilers are paid with the lash,--babes are sold,--the innocent stand on scaffolds, and the heroic perish in flames. i see the earthquakes devour, the volcanoes overwhelm, the cyclones wreck, the floods destroy, and the lightnings kill. the nations perished. the gods died. the toil and wealth were lost. the temples were built in vain, and all the prayers died unanswered in the heedless air. then i asked myself the question: is there a supernatural power--an arbitrary mind--an enthroned god--a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world--to which all causes bow? i do not deny. i do not know--but i do not believe. i believe that the natural is supreme--that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken--that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer--no power that worship can persuade or change--no power that cares for man. i believe that with infinite arms nature embraces the all--that there is no interference--no chance--that behind every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effects. man must protect himself. he cannot depend upon the supernatural--upon an imaginary father in the skies. he must protect himself by finding the facts in nature, by developing his brain, to the end that he may overcome the obstructions and take advantage of the forces of nature. is there a god? i do not know. is man immortal? i do not know. one thing i do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. it is as it is, and it will be as it must be. we wait and hope. xi. when i became convinced that the universe is natural--that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. the walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. i was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. there was for me no master in all the wide world--not even in infinite space. i was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free to live to my own ideal--free to live for myself and those i loved--free to use all my faculties, all my senses--free to spread imagination's wings--free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope--free to judge and determine for myself--free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past--free from popes and priests--free from all the "called" and "set apart"--free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies--free from the fear of eternal pain--free from the winged monsters of the night--free from devils, ghosts and gods. for the first time i was free. there were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought--no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings--no chains for my limbs--no lashes for my back--no fires for my flesh--no master's frown or threat--no following another's steps--no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. i was free. i stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. and then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain--for the freedom of labor and thought--to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains--to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs--to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn--to those by fire consumed--to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. and then i vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still. let us be true to ourselves--true to the facts we know, and let us, above all things, preserve the veracity of our souls. if there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow-men. we cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend. we can be as honest as we are ignorant. if we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. we can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. we can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. we can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. we can civilize our fellow-men. we can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. we can flood our years with sunshine--with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy. the truth. i. through millions of ages, by countless efforts to satisfy his wants, to gratify his passions, his appetites, man slowly developed his brain, changed two of his feet into hands and forced into the darkness of his brain a few gleams and glimmerings of reason. he was hindered by ignorance, by fear, by mistakes, and he advanced only as he found the truth--the absolute facts. through countless years he has groped and crawled and struggled and climbed and stumbled toward the light. he has been hindered and delayed and deceived by augurs and prophets--by popes and priests. he has been betrayed by saints, misled by apostles and christs, frightened by devils and ghosts--enslaved by chiefs and kings--robbed by altars and thrones. in the name of education his mind has been filled with mistakes, with miracles, and lies, with the impossible, the absurd and infamous. in the name of religion he has been taught humility and arrogance, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge. but the world is changing. we are tired of barbarian bibles and savage creeds. nothing is greater, nothing is of more importance, than to find amid the errors and darkness of this life, a shining truth. truth is the intellectual wealth of the world. the noblest of occupations is to search for truth. truth is the foundation, the superstructure, and the glittering dome of progress. truth is the mother of joy. truth civilizes, ennobles, and purifies. the grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth. truth gives man the greatest power for good. truth is sword and shield. it is the sacred light of the soul. the man who finds a truth lights a torch. how is truth to be found? by investigation, experiment and reason. every human being should be allowed to investigate to the extent of his desire--his ability. the literature of the world should be open to him--nothing prohibited, sealed or hidden. no subject can be too sacred to be understood. each person should be allowed to reach his own conclusions and to speak his honest thought. he who threatens the investigator with punishment here, or hereafter, is an enemy of the human race. and he who tries to bribe the investigator with the promise of eternal joy is a traitor to his fellow-men. there is no real investigation without freedom--freedom from the fear of gods and men. so, all investigation--all experiment--should be pursued in the light of reason. every man should be true to himself--true to the inward light. each man, in the laboratory of his own mind, and for himself alone, should test the so-called facts--the theories of all the world. truth, _in accordance with his reason_, should be his guide and master. to love the truth, thus perceived, is mental virtue--intellectual purity. this is true manhood. this is freedom. to throw away your reason at the command of churches, popes, parties, kings or gods, is to be a serf, a slave. it is not simply the right, but it is the duty of every man to think--to investigate for himself--and every man who tries to prevent this by force or fear, is doing all he can to degrade and enslave his fellow-men. every man should be mentally honest. he should preserve as his most precious jewel the perfect veracity of his soul. he should examine all questions presented to his mind, without prejudice,--unbiased by hatred or love--by desire or fear. his object and his only object should be to find the truth. he knows, if he listens to reason, that truth is not dangerous and that error is. he should weigh the evidence, the arguments, in honest scales--scales that passion or interest cannot change. he should care nothing for authority--nothing for names, customs or creeds--nothing for anything that his reason does not say is true. of his world he should be the sovereign, and his soul should wear the purple. from his dominions should be banished the hosts of force and fear. he should be intellectually hospitable. prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth and progress. the real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. he will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. with him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. he may have been a king or serf--a philosopher or servant,--but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world. nothing but falsehood needs the assistance of fame and place, of robes and mitres, of tiaras and crowns. the wise, the really honest and intelligent, are not swayed or governed by numbers--by majorities. they accept what they really believe to be true. they care nothing for the opinions of ancestors, nothing for creeds, assertions and theories, unless they satisfy the reason. in all directions they seek for truth, and when found, accept it with joy--accept it in spite of preconceived opinions--in spite of prejudice and hatred. this is the course pursued by wise and honest men, and no other course is possible for them. in every department of human endeavor men are seeking for the truth--for the facts. the statesman reads the history of the world, gathers the statistics of all nations to the end that his country may avoid the mistakes of the past. the geologist penetrates the rocks in search of facts--climbs mountains, visits the extinct craters, traverses islands and continents that he may know something of the history of the world. he wants the truth. the chemist, with crucible and retort, with countless experiments, is trying to find the qualities of substances--to ravel what nature has woven. the great mechanics dwell in the realm of the real. they seek by natural means to conquer and use the forces of nature. they want the truth--the actual facts. the physicians, the surgeons, rely on observation, experiment and reason. they become acquainted with the human body--with muscle, blood and nerve--with the wonders of the brain. they want nothing but the truth. and so it is with the students of every science. on every hand they look for facts, and it is of the utmost importance that they give to the world the facts they find. their courage should equal their intelligence. no matter what the dead have said, or the living believe, they should tell what they know. they should have intellectual courage. if it be good for man to find the truth--good for him to be intellectually honest and hospitable, then it is good for others to know the truths thus found. every man should have the courage to give his honest thought. this makes the finder and publisher of truth a public benefactor. those who prevent, or try to prevent, the expression of honest thought, are the foes of civilization--the enemies of truth. nothing can exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims the right to express his thought and denies the same right to others. it will not do to say that certain ideas are sacred, and that man has not the right to investigate and test these ideas for himself. who knows that they are sacred? can anything be sacred to us that we do not know to be true? for many centuries free speech has been an insult to god. nothing has been more blasphemous than the expression of honest thought. for many ages the lips of the wise were sealed. the torches that truth had lighted, that courage carried and held aloft, were extinguished with blood. truth has always been in favor of free speech--has always asked to be investigated--has always longed to be known and understood. freedom, discussion, honesty, investigation and courage are the friends and allies of truth. truth loves the light and the open field. it appeals to the senses--to the judgment, the reason, to all the higher and nobler faculties and powers of the mind. it seeks to calm the passions, to destroy prejudice and to increase the volume and intensity of reason's flame. it does not ask man to cringe or crawl. it does not desire the worship of the ignorant or the prayers and praises of the frightened. it says to every human being, "think for yourself. enjoy the freedom of a god, and have the goodness and the courage to express your honest thought." why should we pursue the truth? and why should we investigate and reason? and why should we be mentally honest and hospitable? and why should we express our honest thoughts? to this there is but one answer: for the benefit of mankind. the brain must be developed. the world must think. speech must be free. the world must learn that credulity is not a virtue and that no question is settled until reason is fully satisfied. by these means man will overcome many of the obstructions of nature. he will cure or avoid many diseases. he will lessen pain. he will lengthen, ennoble and enrich life. in every direction he will increase his power. he will satisfy his wants, gratify his tastes. he will put roof and raiment, food and fuel, home and happiness within the reach of all. he will drive want and crime from the world. he will destroy the serpents of fear, the monsters of superstition. he will become intelligent and free, honest and serene. the monarch of the skies will be dethroned--the flames of hell will be extinguished. pious beggars will become honest and useful men. hypocrisy will collect no tolls from fear, lies will not be regarded as sacred, this life will not be sacrificed for another, human beings will love each other instead of gods, men will do right, not for the sake of reward in some other world, but for the sake of happiness here. man will find that nature is the only revelation, and that he, by his own efforts, must learn to read the stories told by star and cloud, by rock and soil, by sea and stream, by rain and fire, by plant and flower, by life in all its curious forms, and all the things and forces of the world. when he reads these stories, these records, he will know that man must rely on himself,--that the supernatural does not exist, and that man must be the providence of man. it is impossible to conceive of an argument against the freedom of thought--against maintaining your self-respect and preserving the spotless and stainless veracity of the soul. ii. all that i have said seems to be true--almost self-evident,--and you may ask who it is that says slavery is better than liberty. let me tell you. all the popes and priests, all the orthodox churches and clergymen, say that they have a revelation from god. the protestants say that it is the duty of every person to read, to understand, and to believe this revelation--that a man should use his reason; but if he honestly concludes that the bible is not a revelation from god, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented forever. they say:--"read," and then add: "believe, or be damned." "no matter how unreasonable the bible may appear to you, you must believe. no matter how impossible the miracles may seem, you must believe. no matter how cruel the laws, your heart must approve them all!" this is what the church calls the liberty of thought. we read the bible under the scowl and threat of god. we read by the glare of hell. on one side is the devil, with the instruments of torture in his hands. on the other, god, ready to launch the infinite curse. and the church says to the readers: "you are free to decide. god is good, and he gives you the liberty to choose." the popes and the priests say to the poor people: "you need not read the bible. you cannot understand it. that is the reason it is called a revelation. we will read it for you, and you must believe what we say. we carry the key of hell. contradict us and you will become eternal convicts in the prison of god." this is the freedom of the catholic church. and all these priests and clergymen insist that the bible is superior to human reason--that it is the duty of man to accept it--to believe it, whether he really thinks it is true or not, and without the slightest regard to evidence or reason. it is his duty to cast out from the temple of his soul the goddess reason, and bow before the coiled serpent of fear. this is what the church calls virtue. under these conditions what can thought be worth? the brain, swept by the sirocco of god's curse, becomes a desert. but this is not all. to compel man to desert the standard of reason, the church does not entirely rely on the threat of eternal pain to be endured in another world, but holds out the reward of everlasting joy. to those who believe, it promises the endless ecstasies of heaven. if it cannot frighten, it will bribe. it relies on fear and hope. a religion, to command the respect of intelligent men, should rest on a foundation of established facts. it should appeal, not to passion, not to hope and fear, but to the judgment. it should ask that all the faculties of the mind, all the senses, should assemble and take counsel together, and that its claims be passed upon and tested without prejudice, without fear, in the calm of perfect candor. but the church cries: "believe on the lord jesus christ and thou shalt be saved." without this belief there is no salvation. salvation is the reward for belief. belief is, and forever must be, the result of evidence. a promised reward is not evidence. it sheds no intellectual light. it establishes no fact, answers no objection, and dissipates no doubt. is it honest to offer a reward for belief? the man who gives money to a judge or juror for a decision or verdict is guilty of a crime. why? because he induces the judge, the juror, to decide, not according to the law, to the facts, the right, but according to the bribe. the bribe is not evidence. so, the promise of christ to reward those who will believe is a bribe. it is an attempt to make a promise take the place of evidence. he who says that he believes, and does this for the sake of the reward, corrupts his soul. suppose i should say that at the center of the earth there is a diamond one hundred miles in diameter, and that i would give ten thousand dollars to any man who would believe my statement. could such a promise be regarded as evidence? intelligent people would ask not for rewards, but reasons. only hypocrites would ask for the money. yet, according to the new testament, christ offered a reward to those who would believe, and this promised reward was to take the place of evidence. when christ made this promise he forgot, ignored, or held in contempt the rectitude of a brave, free and natural soul. the declaration that salvation is the reward for belief is inconsistent with mental freedom, and could have been made by no man who thought that evidence sustained the slightest relation to belief. every sermon in which men have been told that they could save their souls by believing, has been an injury. such sermons dull the moral sense and subvert the true conception of virtue and duty. the true man, when asked to believe, asks for evidence. the true man, who asks another to believe, offers evidence. but this is not all. in spite of the threat of eternal pain--of the promise of everlasting joy, unbelievers increased, and the churches took another step. the churches said to the unbelievers, the heretics: "although our god will punish you forever in another world--in his prison--the doors of which open only to receive, we, unless you believe, will torment you now." and then the members of these churches, led by priests, popes, and clergymen, sought out their unbelieving neighbors--chained them in dungeons, stretched them on racks, crushed their bones, cut out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, flayed them alive and consumed their poor bodies in flames. all this was done because these christian savages believed in the dogma of eternal pain. because they believed that heaven was the reward for belief. so believing, they were the enemies of free thought and speech--they cared nothing for conscience, nothing for the veracity of a soul,--nothing for the manhood of a man. in all ages most priests have been heartless and relentless. they have calumniated and tortured. in defeat they have crawled and whined. in victory they have killed. the flower of pity never blossomed in their hearts and in their brain. justice never held aloft the scales. now they are not as cruel. they have lost their power, but they are still trying to accomplish the impossible. they fill their pockets with "fool's gold" and think they are rich. they stuff their minds with mistakes and think they are wise. they console themselves with legends and myths, have faith in fiction and forgery--give their hearts to ghosts and phantoms and seek the aid of the non-existent. they put a monster--a master--a tyrant in the sky, and seek to enslave their fellow-men. they teach the cringing virtues of serfs. they abhor the courage of manly men. they hate the man who thinks. they long for revenge. they warm their hands at the imaginary fires of hell. i show them that hell does not exist and they denounce me for destroying their consolation. horace greeley, as the story goes, one cold day went into a country store, took a seat by the stove, unbuttoned his coat and spread out his hands. in a few minutes, a little boy who clerked in the store said: "mr. greeley, there aint no fire in that stove." "you d----d little rascal," said greeley, "what did you tell me for, i was getting real warm." iii. "the science of theology." all the sciences--except theology--are eager for facts--hungry for the truth. on the brow of a finder of a fact the laurel is placed. in a theological seminary, if a professor finds a fact inconsistent with the creed, he must keep it secret or deny it, or lose his place. mental veracity is a crime, cowardice and hypocrisy are virtues. a fact, inconsistent with the creed, is denounced as a lie, and the man who declares or announces the fact is a blasphemer. every professor breathes the air of insincerity. every one is mentally dishonest. every one is a pious fraud. theology is the only dishonest science--the only one that is based on belief--on credulity,--the only one that abhors investigation, that despises thought and denounces reason. all the great theologians in the catholic church have denounced reason as the light furnished by the enemy of mankind--as the road that leads to perdition. all the great protestant theologians, from luther to the orthodox clergy of our time, have been the enemies of reason. all orthodox churches of all ages have been the enemies of science. they attacked the astronomers as though they were criminals--the geologists as though they were assassins. they regarded physicians as the enemies of god--as men who were trying to defeat the decrees of providence. the biologists, the anthropologists, the archaeologists, the readers of ancient inscriptions, the delvers in buried cities, were all hated by the theologians. they were afraid that these men might find something inconsistent with the bible. the theologians attacked those who studied other religions. they insisted that christianity was not a growth--not an evolution--but a revelation. they denied that it was in any way connected with any natural religion. the facts now show beyond all doubt that all religions came from substantially the same source--but there is not an orthodox christian theologian who will admit the facts. he must defend his creed--his revelation. he cannot afford to be honest. he was not educated in an honest school. he was not taught to be honest. he was taught to believe and to defend his belief, not only against argument but against facts. there is not a theologian in the whole world who can produce the slightest, the least particle of evidence tending to show that the bible is the inspired word of god. where is the evidence that the book of ruth was written by an inspired man? where is the evidence that god is the author of the song of solomon? where is the evidence that any human being has been inspired? where is the evidence that christ was and is god? where is the evidence that the places called heaven and hell exist? where is the evidence that a miracle was ever wrought? there is none. theology is entirely independent of evidence. where is the evidence that angels and ghosts--that devils and gods exist? have these beings been seen or touched? does one of our senses certify to their existence? the theologians depend on assertions. they have no evidence. they claim that their inspired book is superior to reason and independent of evidence. they talk about probability--analogy--inferences--but they present no evidence. they say that they know that christ lived, in the same way that they know that cæsar lived. they might add that they know moses talked with jehovah on sinai the same way they know that brigham young talked with god in utah. the evidence in both cases is the same,--none in either. how do they prove that christ rose from the dead? they find the account in a book. who wrote the book? they do not know. what evidence is this? none, unless all things found in books are true. it is impossible to establish one miracle except by another--and that would have to be established by another still, and so on without end. human testimony is not sufficient to establish a miracle. each human being, to be really convinced, must witness the miracle for himself. they say that christianity was established, proven to be true, by miracles wrought nearly two thousand years ago. not one of these miracles can be established except by impudent and ignorant assertion--except by poisoning and deforming the minds of the ignorant and the young. to succeed, the theologians invade the cradle, the nursery. in the brain of innocence they plant the seeds of superstition. they pollute the minds and imaginations of children. they frighten the happy with threats of pain--they soothe the wretched with gilded lies. this perpetual insincerity stamps itself on the face--affects every feature. we all know the theological countenance,--cold, unsympathetic, cruel, lighted with a pious smirk,--no line of laughter--no dimpled mirth--no touch of humor--nothing human. this face is a rebuke, a reprimand to natural joy. it says to the happy: "beware of the dog"--"prepare for death." this face, like the fabled gorgon, turns cheerfulness to stone. it is a protest against pleasure--a warning and a threat. you see every soul is a sculptor that fashions the features, and in this way reveals itself. every thought leaves its impress. the student of this science of theology must be taught in youth,--in his mother's arms. these lies must be sown and planted in his brain the first of all. he must be taught to believe, to accept without question. he must be told that it is wicked to doubt, that it is sinful to inquire--that faith is a virtue and unbelief a crime. in this way his mind is poisoned, paralyzed. on all other subjects he has liberty--and in all other directions he is urged to study and think. from his mother's arms he goes to the sunday school. his poor little mind is filled with miracles and wonders. he is told about a god who made the world and who rewards and punishes. he is told that this god is the author of the bible--that christ is his son. he is told about original sin and the atonement, and he believes what he hears. no reasons are given--no facts--no evidence is presented--nothing but assertion. if he asks questions, he is silenced by more solemn assertions and warned against the devices of the evil one. every sunday school is a kind of inquisition where they torture and deform the minds of children--where they force their souls into catholic or protestant moulds--and do all they can to destroy the originality, the individuality, and the veracity of the soul. in the theological seminary the destruction is complete. when the minister leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth. he has it. he has a revelation from god, and he has a creed in exact accordance with that revelation. his business is to stand by that revelation and to defend that creed. arguments against the revelation and the creed he will not read, he will not hear. all facts that are against his religion he will deny. it is impossible for him to be candid. the tremendous "verities" of eternal joy, of everlasting pain are in his creed, and they result from believing the false and denying the true. investigation is an infinite danger, unbelief is an infinite offence and deserves and will receive infinite punishment. in the shadow of this tremendous "fact" his courage dies, his manhood is lost, and in his fear he cries out that he believes, whether he does or not. he says and teaches that credulity is safe and thought dangerous. yet he pretends to be a teacher--a leader, one selected by god to educate his fellow-men. these orthodox ministers have been the slanderers of the really great men of our century. they denounced lyell, the great geologist, for giving facts to the world. they hated and belittled humboldt, one of the greatest and most intellectual of the race. they ridiculed and derided darwin, the greatest naturalist, the keenest observer, the best judge of the value of a fact, the most wonderful discoverer of truth that the world has produced. in every orthodox pulpit stood a traducer of the greatest of scientists--of one who filled the world with intellectual light. the church has been the enemy of every science, of every real thinker, and for many centuries has used her power to prevent intellectual progress. ministers ought to be free. they should be the heralds of the ever coming day, but they are the bats, the owls that inhabit ruins, that hate the light. they denounce honest men who express their thoughts, as blasphemers, and do what they can to close their mouths. for their bible they ask the protection of law. they wish to be shielded from laughter by the legislature. they ask that the arguments of their opponents be answered by the courts. this is the result of a due admixture of cowardice, hypocrisy and malice. what valuable fact has been proclaimed from an orthodox pulpit? what ecclesiastical council has added to the intellectual wealth of the world? many centuries ago the church gave to christendom a code of laws, stupid, unphilosophic and brutal to the last degree. the church insists that it has made man merciful and just. did it do this by torturing heretics--by extinguishing their eyes--by flaying them alive? did it accomplish this result through the inquisition--by the use of the thumb-screw, the rack and the fagot? of what science has the church been the friend and champion? what orthodox church has opened its doors to a persecuted truth? of what use has christianity been to man? they tell us that the church has been and is the friend of education. i deny it. the church founded colleges not to educate men, but to make proselytes, converts, defenders. this was in accordance with the instinct of self-preservation. no orthodox church ever was, or ever will be in favor of real education. a catholic is in favor of enough education to make a catholic out of a savage, and the protestant is in favor of enough education to make a protestant out of a catholic, but both are opposed to the education that makes free and manly men. so, ministers say that they teach charity. this is natural. they live on alms. all beggars teach that others should give. so, they tell us that the church has built hospitals. this is not true. men have not built hospitals because they were christians, but because they were men. they have not built them for charity--but in self-defence. if a man comes to your door with the smallpox, you cannot let him in, you cannot kill him. as a necessity, you provide a place for him. and you do this to protect yourself. with this christianity has had nothing to do. the church cannot give, because it does not produce. it is claimed that the church has made men and women forgiving. i admit that the church has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven an enemy--never. against the great and brave thinkers it has coined and circulated countless lies. never has the church told, or tried to tell, the truth about an honest foe. the church teaches the existence of the supernatural. it believes in the divine sleight-of-hand--in the "presto" and "open sesame" of the infinite; in some invisible being who produces effects without causes and causes without effects; whose caprice governs the world and who can be persuaded by prayer, softened by ceremony, and who will, as a reward for faith, save men from the natural consequences of their actions. the church denies the eternal, inexorable sequence of events. what good has the church accomplished? it claims to have preached peace because its founder said, "i came not to bring peace but a sword." it claims to have preserved the family because its founder offered a hundred-fold here and life everlasting to those who would desert wife and children. so, it claims to have taught the brotherhood of man and that the gospel is for all the world, because christ said to the woman of samaria that he came only to the lost sheep of the house of israel, and declared that it was not meet to take the bread of the children and cast it unto dogs. in the name of christ, who threatened eternal revenge, it has preached forgiveness. of what use are the orthodox ministers? they are the enemies of pleasure. they denounce dancing as one of the deadly sins. they are shocked at the wickedness of the waltz--the pollution of the polka. they are the enemies of the theatre. they slander actors and actresses. they hate them because they are rivals. they are trying to preserve the sacredness of the sabbath. it fills them with malice to see the people happy on that day. they preach against excursions and picnics--against those who seek the woods and the sea, the shadows and the waves. they are filled with holy wrath against bicycles and bloomers. they are opposed to divorces. they insist that for the glory of god, husbands and wives who loathe each other should be compelled to live together. they abhor all works of fiction, and love the bible. they declare that the literary master-pieces of the world are unfit to be read. they think that the people should be satisfied with sermons and poems about death and hell. they hate art--abhor the marbles of the greeks, and all representations of the human form. they want nothing painted or sculptured but hands, faces and clothes. most of the priests are prudes, and publicly denounce what they secretly admire and enjoy. in the presence of the nude they cover their faces with their holy hands, but keep their fingers apart. they pretend to believe in moral suasion, and want everything regulated by law. if they had the power, they would prohibit everything that men and women really enjoy. they want libraries, museums and art galleries closed on the sabbath. they would abolish the sunday paper--stop the running of cars and all public conveyances on the holy day, and compel all the people to enjoy sermons, prayers and psalms. these dear ministers, when they have poor congregations, thunder against trusts, syndicates, and corporations--against wealth, fashion and luxury. they tell about dives and lazarus, paint rich men in hell and beggars in heaven. if their congregations are rich they turn their guns in the other direction. they have no confidence in education--in the development of the brain. they appeal to hopes and fears. they ask no one to think--to investigate. they insist that all shall believe. credulity is the greatest of virtues, and doubt the deadliest of sins. these men are the enemies of science--of intellectual progress. they ridicule and calumniate the great thinkers. they deny everything that conflicts with the "sacred scriptures." they still believe in the astronomy of joshua and the geology of moses. they believe in the miracles of the past, and deny the demonstrations of the present. they are the foes of facts--the enemies of knowledge. a desire to be happy here, they regard as wicked and worldly--but a desire to be happy in another world, as virtuous and spiritual. every orthodox church is founded on mistake and falsehood. every good orthodox minister asserts what he does not know, and denies what he does know. what are the orthodox clergy doing for the good of mankind? absolutely nothing. what harm are they doing? on every hand they sow the seeds of superstition. they paralyze the minds, and pollute the imaginations of children. they fill their hearts with fear. by their teachings, thousands become insane. with them, hypocrisy is respectable and candor infamous. they enslave the minds of men. under their teachings men waste and misdirect their energies, abandon the ends that can be accomplished, dedicate their lives to the impossible, worship the unknown, pray to the inconceivable, and become the trembling slaves of a monstrous myth born of ignorance and fashioned by the trembling hands of fear. superstition is the serpent that crawls and hisses in every eden and fastens its poisonous fangs in the hearts of men. it is the deadliest foe of the human race. superstition is a beggar--a robber, a tyrant. science is a benefactor. superstition sheds blood. science sheds light. the dear preachers must give up the account of creation--the garden of eden, the mud-man, the rib-woman, and the walking, talking, snake. they must throw away the apple, the fall of man, the expulsion, and the gate guarded by angels armed with swords. they must give up the flood and the tower of babel and the confusion of tongues. they must give up abraham and the wrestling match between jacob and the lord. so, the story of joseph, the enslavement of the hebrews by the egyptians, the story of moses in the bullrushes, the burning bush, the turning of sticks into serpents, of water into blood, the miraculous creation of frogs, the killing of cattle with hail and changing dust into lice, all must be given up. the sojourn of forty years in the desert, the opening of the red sea, the clothes and shoes that refused to wear out, the manna, the quails and the serpents, the water that ran up hill, the talking of jehovah with moses face to face, the giving of the ten commandments, the opening of the earth to swallow the enemies of moses--all must be thrown away. these good preachers must admit that blowing horns could not throw down the walls of a city, that it was horrible for jephthah to sacrifice his daughter, that the day was not lengthened and the moon stopped for the sake of joshua, that the dead samuel was not raised by a witch, that a man was not carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, that the river jordan was not divided by the stroke of a cloak, that the bears did not destroy children for laughing at a prophet, that a wandering soothsayer did not collect lightnings from heaven to destroy the lives of innocent men, that he did not cause rain and make iron float, that ravens did not keep a hotel where preachers got board and lodging free, that the shadow on a dial was not turned back ten degrees to show that a king was going to recover from a boil, that ezekiel was not told by god how to prepare a dinner, that jonah did not take cabin passage in a fish--and that all the miracles in the old testament are not allegories, or poems, but just old-fashioned lies. and the dear preachers will be compelled to admit that there never was a miraculous babe without a natural father, that christ, if he lived, was a man and nothing more. that he did not cast devils out of folks--that he did not cure blindness with spittle and clay, nor turn water into wine, nor make fishes and loaves of bread out of nothing--that he did not know where to catch fishes with money in their mouths--that he did not take a walk on the water--that he did not at will become invisible--that he did not pass through closed doors--that he did not raise the dead--that angels never rolled stones from a sepulchre--that christ did not rise from the dead and did not ascend to heaven. all these mistakes and illusions and delusions--all these miracles and myths must fade from the minds of intelligent men. my dear preachers, i beg you to tell the truth. tell your congregations that moses was not the author of the pentateuch. tell them that nobody knows who wrote the five books. tell them that deuteronomy was not written until about six hundred years before christ. tell them that nobody knows who wrote joshua, or judges, or ruth, samuel, kings, or chronicles, job, or the psalms, or the song of solomon. be honest, tell the truth. tell them that nobody knows who wrote esther--that ecclesiastes was written long after christ--that many of the prophecies were written after the events pretended to be foretold had happened. tell them that ezekiel and daniel were insane. tell them that nobody knows who wrote the gospels, and tell them that no line about christ written by a contemporary has been found. tell them it is all guess--and may be, and perhaps. be honest. tell the truth, develop your brains, use all your senses and hold high the torch of reason. in a few years the pulpits will be filled with teachers instead of preachers--with thoughtful, brave, and honest men. the congregations will be civilized--intellectually honest and hospitable. now, most of the ministers insist that the old falsehoods shall be treated with reverence--that ancient lies with long white beards--wrinkled and bald-headed frauds--round-shouldered and toothless miracles, and palsied mistakes on crutches, shall be called allegories, parables, oriental imagery, inspired poems. in their presence the ungodly should remove their hats. they should respect the mould and moss of antiquity. they should remember that these lies, these frauds, the miracles and mistakes, have for thousands of years ruled, enslaved, and corrupted the human race. these ministers ought to know that their creeds are based on imagined facts and demonstrated by assertion. they ought to know that they have no evidence,--nothing but promises and threats. they ought to know that it is impossible to conceive of force existing without and before matter--that it is equally impossible to conceive of matter without force--that it is impossible to conceive of the creation or destruction of matter or force,--that it is impossible to conceive of infinite intelligence dwelling from eternity in infinite space, and that it is impossible to conceive of the creator, or creation, of substance. the god of the christian is an enthroned guess--a perhaps--an inference. no man, and no body of men, can answer the questions of the whence and whither. the mystery of existence cannot be explained by the intellect of man. back of life, of existence, we cannot go--beyond death we cannot see. all duties, all obligations, all knowledge, all experience, are for this life, for this world. we know that men and women and children exist. we know that happiness, for the most part, depends on conduct. we are satisfied that all the gods are phantoms and that the supernatural does not exist. we know the difference between hope and knowledge, we hope for happiness here and we dream of joy hereafter, but we do not know. we cannot assert, we can only hope. we can have our dream. in the wide night our star can shine and shed its radiance on the graves of those we love. we can bend above our pallid dead and say that beyond this life there are no sighs--no tears--no breaking hearts. conclusion. let us be honest. let us preserve the veracity of our souls. let education commence in the cradle--in the lap of the loving mother. this is the first school. the teacher, the mother, should be absolutely honest. the nursery should not be an asylum for lies. parents should be modest enough to be truthful--honest enough to admit their ignorance. nothing should be taught as true that cannot be demonstrated. every child should be taught to doubt, to inquire, to demand reasons. every soul should defend itself--should be on its guard against falsehood, deceit, and mistake, and should beware of all kinds of confidence men, including those in the pulpit. children should be taught to express their doubts--to demand reasons. the object of education should be to develop the brain, to quicken the senses. every school should be a mental gymnasium. the child should be equipped for the battle of life. credulity, implicit obedience, are the virtues of slaves and the enslavers of the free. all should be taught that there is nothing too sacred to be investigated--too holy to be understood. each mind has the right to lift all curtains, withdraw all veils, scale all walls, explore all recesses, all heights, all depths for itself, in spite of church or priest, or creed or book. the great volume of nature should be open to all. none but the intelligent and honest can really read this book. prejudice clouds and darkens every page. hypocrisy reads and misquotes, and credulity accepts the quotation. superstition cannot read a line or spell the shortest word. and yet this volume holds all knowledge, all truth, and is the only source of thought. mental liberty means the right of all to read this book. here the pope and peasant are equal. each must read for himself--and each ought honestly and fearlessly to give to his fellow-men what he learns. there is no authority in churches or priests--no authority in numbers or majorities. the only authority is nature--the facts we know. facts are the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the servants and friends of the intelligent. ignorance is the mother of mystery and misery, of superstition and sorrow, of waste and want. intelligence is the only light. it enables us to keep the highway, to avoid the obstructions, and to take advantage of the forces of nature. it is the only lever capable of raising mankind. to develop the brain is to civilize the world. intelligence reaves the heavens of winged and frightful monsters--drives ghosts and leering fiends from the darkness, and floods with light the dungeons of fear. all should be taught that there is no evidence of the existence of the supernatural--that the man who bows before an idol of wood or stone is just as foolish as the one who prays to an imagined god,--that all worship has for its foundation the same mistake--the same ignorance, the same fear--that it is just as foolish to believe in a personal god as in a personal devil--just as foolish to believe in great ghosts as little ones. so, all should be taught that the forces, the facts in nature, cannot be controlled or changed by prayer or praise, by supplication, ceremony, or sacrifice; that there is no magic, no miracle; that force can be overcome only by force, and that the whole world is natural. all should be taught that man must protect himself--that there is no power superior to nature that cares for man--that nature has neither pity nor hatred--that her forces act without the slightest regard for man--that she produces without intention and destroys without regret. all should be taught that usefulness is the bud and flower and fruit of real religion. the popes and cardinals, the bishops, priests and parsons are all useless. they produce nothing. they live on the labor of others. they are parasites that feed on the frightened. they are vampires that suck the blood of honest toil. every church is an organized beggar. every one lives on alms--on alms collected by force and fear. every orthodox church promises heaven and threatens hell, and these promises and threats are made for the sake of alms, for revenue. every church cries: "believe and give." a new era is dawning on the world. we are beginning to believe in the religion of usefulness. the men who felled the forests, cultivated the earth, spanned the rivers with bridges of steel, built the railways and canals, the great ships, invented the locomotives and engines, supplying the countless wants of man; the men who invented the telegraphs and cables, and freighted the electric spark with thought and love; the men who invented the looms and spindles that clothe the world, the inventors of printing and the great presses that fill the earth with poetry, fiction and fact, that save and keep all knowledge for the children yet to be; the inventors of all the wonderful machines that deftly mould from wood and steel the things we use; the men who have explored the heavens and traced the orbits of the stars--who have read the story of the world in mountain range and billowed sea; the men who have lengthened life and conquered pain; the great philosophers and naturalists who have filled the world with light; the great poets whose thoughts have charmed the souls, the great painters and sculptors who have made the canvas speak, the marble live; the great orators who have swayed the world, the composers who have given their souls to sound, the captains of industry, the producers, the soldiers who have battled for the right, the vast host of useful men--these are our christs, our apostles and our saints. the triumphs of science are our miracles. the books filled with the facts of nature are our sacred scriptures, and the force that is in every atom and in every star--in everything that lives and grows and thinks, that hopes and suffers, is the only possible god. the absolute we cannot know--beyond the horizon of the natural we cannot go. all our duties are within our reach--all our obligations must be discharged here, in this world. let us love and labor. let us wait and work. let us cultivate courage and cheerfulness--open our hearts to the good--our minds to the true. let us live free lives. let us hope that the future will bring peace and joy to all the children of men, and above all, let us preserve the veracity of our souls. how to reform mankind. * this address was delivered before the militant church at the columbia theatre, chicago, ills., april , . i. "there is no darkness but ignorance." every human being is a necessary product of conditions, and every one is born with defects for which he cannot be held responsible. nature seems to care nothing for the individual, nothing for the species. life pursuing life and in its turn pursued by death, presses to the snow line of the possible, and every form of life, of instinct, thought and action is fixed and determined by conditions, by countless antecedent and co-existing facts. the present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past, and the mother of all the future. every human being longs to be happy, to satisfy the wants of the body with food, with roof and raiment, and to feed the hunger of the mind, according to his capacity, with love, wisdom, philosophy, art and song. the wants of the savage are few; but with civilization the wants of the body increase, the intellectual horizon widens and the brain demands more and more. the savage feels, but scarcely thinks. the passion of the savage is uninfluenced by his thought, while the thought of the philosopher is uninfluenced by passion. children have wants and passions before they are capable of reasoning. so, in the infancy of the race, wants and passions dominate. the savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he was mentally weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path of least resistance. things were to him as they appeared to be. he was a natural believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself beset by dangers and evils, he sought in many ways the aid of unseen powers. his children followed his example, and for many ages, in many lands, millions and millions of human beings, many of them the kindest and the best, asked for supernatural help. countless altars and temples have been built, and the supernatural has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with self-denial, ceremony, thankfulness and prayer. during all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and painfully developed. gradually mind came to the assistance of muscle, and thought became the friend of labor. man has advanced just in the proportion that he has mingled thought with his work, just in the proportion that he has succeeded in getting his head and hands into partnership. all this was the result of experience. nature, generous and heartless, extravagant and miserly as she is, is our mother and our only teacher, and she is also the deceiver of men. above her we cannot rise, below her we cannot fall. in her we find the seed and soil of all that is good, of all that is evil. nature originates, nourishes, preserves and destroys. good deeds bear fruit, and in the fruit are seeds that in their turn bear fruit and seeds. great thoughts are never lost, and words of kindness do not perish from the earth. every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and the crop depends upon the soil. every flower that gives its fragrance to the wandering air leaves its influence on the soul of man. the wheel and swoop of the winged creatures of the air suggest the flowing lines of subtle art. the roar and murmur of the restless sea, the cataract's solemn chant, the thunder's voice, the happy babble of the brook, the whispering leaves, the thrilling notes of mating birds, the sighing winds, taught man to pour his heart in song and gave a voice to grief and hope, to love and death. in all that is, in mountain range and billowed plain, in winding stream and desert sand, in cloud and star, in snow and rain, in calm and storm, in night and day, in woods and vales, in all the colors of divided light, in all there is of growth and life, decay and death, in all that flies and floats and swims, in all that moves, in all the forms and qualities of things, man found the seeds and symbols of his thoughts; and all that man has wrought becomes a part of nature's self, forming the lives of those to be. the marbles of the greeks, like strains of music, suggest the perfect, and teach the melody of life. the great poems, paintings, inventions, theories and philosophies, enlarge and mould the mind of man. all that is is natural. all is naturally produced. beyond the horizon of the natural man cannot go. yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and sincerely believed in, the existence of the supernatural. he did not believe in the uniformity of nature; he had no conception of cause and effect, of the indestructibility of force. in medicine he believed in charms, magic, amulets, and incantations. it never occurred to the savage that diseases were natural. in chemistry he sought for the elixir of life, for the philosopher's stone, and for some way of changing the baser metals into gold. in mechanics he searched for perpetual motion, believing that he, by some curious combinations of levers, could produce, could create a force. in government, he found the source of authority in the will of the supernatural. for many centuries his only conception of morality was the idea of obedience, not to facts as they exist in nature, but to the supposed command of some being superior to nature. during all these years religion consisted in the praise and worship of the invisible and infinite, of some vast and incomprehensible power, that is to say, of the supernatural. by experience, by experiment, possibly by accident, man found that some diseases could be cured by natural means; that he could be relieved in many instances of pain by certain kinds of leaves or bark. this was the beginning. gradually his confidence increased in the direction of the natural, and began to decrease in charms and amulets, the war was waged for many centuries, but the natural gained the victory. now we know that all diseases are naturally produced, and that all remedies, all curatives, act in accordance with the facts in nature. now we know that charms, magic, amulets and incantations are just as useless in the practice of medicine as they would be in solving a problem in mathematics. we now know that there are no supernatural remedies. in chemistry the war was long and bitter; but we now no longer seek for the elixir of life, and no one is trying to find the philosopher's stone. we are satisfied that there is nothing supernatural in all the realm of chemistry. we know that substances are always true to their natures; we know that just so many atoms of one substance will unite with just so many of another. the miraculous has departed from chemistry; in that science there is no magic, no caprice and no possible use for the supernatural. we are satisfied that there can be no change, that we can absolutely rely on the uniformity of nature; that the attraction of gravitation will always remain the same; and we feel that we know this as certainly as we know that the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle can never change. we now know that in mechanics the natural is supreme. we know that man can by no possibility create a force; that by no possibility can he destroy a force. no mechanic dreams of depending upon or asking for any supernatural aid. he knows that he works in accordance with certain facts that no power can change. so we in the united states believe that the authority to govern, the authority to make and execute laws, comes from the consent of the governed and not from any supernatural source. we do not believe that the king occupied his throne because of the will of the supernatural. neither do we believe that others are subjects or serfs or slaves by reason of any supernatural will. so, our ideas of morality have changed, and millions now believe that whatever produces happiness and well-being is in the highest sense moral. unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or the essence of morality. that is the result of mental slavery. to act in accordance with obligation perceived is to be free and noble. to simply obey is to practice what might be called a slave virtue; but real morality is the flower and fruit of liberty and wisdom. there are very many who have reached the conclusion that the supernatural has nothing to do with real religion. religion does not consist in believing without evidence or against evidence. it does not consist in worshiping the unknown or in trying to do something for the infinite. ceremonies, prayers and inspired books, miracles, special providence, and divine interference all belong to the supernatural and form no part of real religion. every science rests on the natural, on demonstrated facts. so, morality and religion must find their foundations in the necessary nature of things. ii. how can we reform the world? ignorance being darkness, what we need is intellectual light. the most important things to teach, as the basis of all progress, are that the universe is natural; that man must be the providence of man; that, by the development of the brain, we can avoid some of the dangers, some of the evils, overcome some of the obstructions, and take advantage of some of the facts and forces of nature; that, by invention and industry, we can supply, to a reasonable degree, the wants of the body, and by thought, study and effort, we can in part satisfy the hunger of the mind. man should cease to expect any aid from any supernatural source. by this time he should be satisfied that worship has not created wealth, and that prosperity is not the child of prayer. he should know that the supernatural has not succored the oppressed, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, shielded the innocent, stayed the pestilence, or freed the slave. being satisfied that the supernatural does not exist, man should turn his entire attention to the affairs of this world, to the facts in nature. and, first of all, he should avoid waste--waste of energy, waste of wealth. every good man, every good woman, should try to do away with war, to stop the appeal to savage force. man in a savage state relies upon his strength, and decides for himself what is right and what is wrong. civilized men do not settle their differences by a resort to arms. they submit the quarrel to arbitrators and courts. this is the great difference between the savage and the civilized. nations, however, sustain the relations of savages to each other. there is no way of settling their disputes. each nation decides for itself, and each nation endeavors to carry its decision into effect. this produces war. thousands of men at this moment are trying to invent more deadly weapons to destroy their fellow-men. for eighteen hundred years peace has been preached, and yet the civilized nations are the most warlike of the world. there are in europe to-day between eleven and twelve millions of soldiers, ready to take the field, and the frontiers of every civilized nation are protected by breastwork and fort. the sea is covered with steel clad ships, filled with missiles of death. the civilized world has impoverished itself, and the debt of christendom, mostly for war, is now nearly thirty thousand million dollars. the interest on this vast sum has to be paid; it has to be paid by labor, much of it by the poor, by those who are compelled to deny themselves almost the necessities of life. this debt is growing year by year. there must come a change, or christendom will become bankrupt. the interest on this debt amounts at least to nine hundred million dollars a year; and the cost of supporting armies and navies, of repairing ships, of manufacturing new engines of death, probably amounts, including the interest on the debt, to at least six million dollars a day. allowing ten hours for a day, that is for a working day, the waste of war is at least six hundred thousand dollars an hour, that is to say, ten thousand dollars a minute. think of all this being paid for the purpose of killing and preparing to kill our fellow-men. think of the good that could be done with this vast sum of money; the schools that could be built, the wants that could be supplied. think of the homes it would build, the children it would clothe. if we wish to do away with war, we must provide for the settlement of national differences by an international court. this court should be in perpetual session; its members should be selected by the various governments to be affected by its decisions, and, at the command and disposal of this court, the rest of christendom being disarmed, there should be a military force sufficient to carry its judgments into effect. there should be no other excuse, no other business for an army or a navy in the civilized world. no man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors and cruelties of war. think of sending shot and shell crashing through the bodies of men! think of the widows and orphans! think of the maimed, the mutilated, the mangled! iii. another waste. let us be perfectly candid with each other. we are seeking the truth, trying to find what ought to be done to increase the well-being of man. i must give you my honest thought. you have the right to demand it, and i must maintain the integrity of my soul. there is another direction in which the wealth and energies of man are wasted. from the beginning of history until now man has been seeking the aid of the supernatural. for many centuries the wealth of the world was used to propitiate the unseen powers. in our own country, the property dedicated to this purpose is worth at least one thousand million dollars. the interest on this sum is fifty million dollars a year, and the cost of employing persons, whose business it is to seek the aid of the supernatural and to maintain the property, is certainly as much more. so that the cost in our country is about two million dollars a week, and, counting ten hours as a working day, this amounts to about five hundred dollars a minute. for this vast amount of money the returns are remarkably small. the good accomplished does not appear to be great. there is no great diminution in crime. the decrease of immorality and poverty is hardly perceptible. in spite, however, of the apparent failure here, a vast sum of money is expended every year to carry our ideas of the supernatural to other races. our churches, for the most part, are closed during the week, being used only a part of one day in seven. no one wishes to destroy churches or church organizations. the only desire is that they shall accomplish substantial good for the world. in many of our small towns--towns of three or four thousand people--will be found four or five churches, sometimes more. these churches are founded upon immaterial differences; a difference as to the mode of baptism; a difference as to who shall be entitled to partake of the lord's supper; a difference of ceremony; of government; a difference about fore-ordination; a difference about fate and free will. and it must be admitted that all the arguments on all sides of these differences have been presented countless millions of times. upon these subjects nothing new is produced or anticipated, and yet the discussion is maintained by the repetition of the old arguments. now, it seems to me that it would be far better for the people of a town, having a population of four or five thousand, to have one church, and the edifice should be of use, not only on sunday, but on every day of the week. in this building should be the library of the town. it should be the clubhouse of the people, where they could find the principal newspapers and periodicals of the world. its auditorium should be like a theatre. plays should be presented by home talent; an orchestra formed, music cultivated. the people should meet there at any time they desire. the women could carry their knitting and sewing; and connected with it should be rooms for the playing of games, billiards, cards, and chess. everything should be made as agreeable as possible. the citizens should take pride in this building. they should adorn its niches with statues and its walls with pictures. it should be the intellectual centre. they could employ a gentleman of ability, possibly of genius, to address them on sundays, on subjects that would be of real interest, of real importance. they could say to this minister: "we are engaged in business during the week; while we are working at our trades and professions, we want you to study, and on sunday tell us what you have found out." let such a minister take for a series of sermons the history, the philosophy, the art and the genius of the greeks. let him tell of the wondrous metaphysics, myths and religions of india and egypt. let him make his congregation conversant with the philosophies of the world, with the great thinkers, the great poets, the great artists, the great actors, the great orators, the great inventors, the captains of industry, the soldiers of progress. let them have a sunday school in which the children shall be made acquainted with the facts of nature; with botany, entomology, something of geology and astronomy. let them be made familiar with the greatest of poems, the finest paragraphs of literature, with stories of the heroic, the self-denying and generous. now, it seems to me that such a congregation in a few years would become the most intelligent people in the united states. the truth is that people are tired of the old theories. they have lost confidence in the miraculous, in the supernatural, and they have ceased to take interest in "facts" that they do not quite believe. "there is no darkness but ignorance." there is no light but intelligence, as often as we can exchange a mistake for a fact, a falsehood for a truth, we advance. we add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and in this way, and in this way alone, can be laid the foundation for the future prosperity and civilization of the race. i blame no one; i call in question the motives of no person; i admit that the world has acted as it must. but hope for the future depends upon the intelligence of the present. man must husband his resources. he must not waste his energies in endeavoring to accomplish the impossible. he must take advantage of the forces of nature. he must depend on education, on what he can ascertain by the use of his senses, by observation, by experiment and reason. he must break the chains of prejudice and custom. he must be free to express his thoughts on all questions. he must find the conditions of happiness and become wise enough to live in accordance with them. iv. how can we lessen crime? in spite of all that has been done for the reformation of the world, in spite of all the inventions, in spite of all the forces of nature that are now the tireless slaves of man, in spite of all improvements in agriculture, in mechanics, in every department of human labor, the world is still cursed with poverty and with crime. the prisons are full, the courts are crowded, the officers of the law are busy, and there seems to be no material decrease in crime. for many thousands of years man has endeavored to reform his fellow-men by imprisonment, torture, mutilation and death, and yet the history of the world shows that there has been and is no reforming power in punishment. it is impossible to make the penalty great enough, horrible enough to lessen crime. only a few years ago, in civilized countries, larceny and many offences even below larceny, were punished by death; and yet the number of thieves and criminals of all grades increased. traitors were hanged and quartered or drawn into fragments by horses; and yet treason flourished. most of these frightful laws have been repealed, and the repeal certainly did not increase crime. in our own country we rely upon the gallows, the penitentiary and the jail. when a murder is committed, the man is hanged, shocked to death by electricity, or lynched, and in a few minutes a new murderer is ready to suffer a like fate. men steal; they are sent to the penitentiary for a certain number of years, treated like wild beasts, frequently tortured. at the end of the term they are discharged, having only enough money to return to the place from which they were sent. they are thrown upon the world without means--without friends--they are convicts. they are shunned, suspected and despised. if they obtain a place, they are discharged as soon as it is found that they were in prison. they do the best they can to retain the respect of their fellow-men by denying their imprisonment and their identity. in a little while, unable to gain a living by honest means, they resort to crime, they again appear in court, and again are taken within the dungeon walls. no reformation, no chance to reform, nothing to give them bread while making new friends. all this is infamous. men should not be sent to the pentitentiary as a punishment, because we must remember that men do as they must. nature does not frequently produce the perfect. in the human race there is a large percentage of failures. under certain conditions, with certain appetites and passions and with a certain quality, quantity and shape of brain, men will become thieves, forgers and counterfeiters. the question is whether reformation is possible, whether a change can be produced in the person by producing a change in the conditions. the criminal is dangerous and society has the right to protect itself. the criminal should be confined, and, if possible, should be reformed. a pentitentiary should be a school; the convicts should be educated. so, prisoners should work, and they should be paid a reasonable sum for their labor. the best men should have charge of prisons. they should be philanthropists and philosophers; they should know something of human nature. the prisoner, having been taught, we will say, for five years--taught the underlying principles of conduct, of the naturalness and harmony of virtue, of the discord of crime; having been convinced that society has no hatred, that nobody wishes to punish, to degrade, or to rob him; and being at the time of his discharge paid a reasonable price for his labor; being allowed by law to change his name, so that his identity will not be preserved, he could go out of the prison a friend of the government. he would have the feeling that he had been made a better man; that he had been treated with justice, with mercy, and the money he carried with him would be a breastwork behind which he could defy temptation, a breastwork that would support and take care of him until he could find some means by which to support himself. and this man, instead of making crime a business, would become a good, honorable and useful-citizen. as it is now, there is but little reform. the same faces appear again and again at the bar; the same men hear again and again the verdict of guilty and the sentence of the court, and the same men return again and again to the prison cell. murderers, those belonging to the dangerous classes, those who are so formed by nature that they rush to the crimes of desperation, should be imprisoned for life; or they should be put upon some island, some place where they can be guarded, where it may be that by proper effort they could support themselves; the men on one island, the women on another. and to these islands should be sent professional criminals, those who have deliberately adopted a life of crime for the purpose of supporting themselves, the women upon one island, the men upon another. such people should not populate the earth. neither the diseases nor the deformities of the mind or body should be perpetuated. life at the fountain should not be polluted. v. homes for all. the home is the unit of the nation. the more homes the broader the foundation of the nation and the more secure. everything that is possible should be done to keep this from being a nation of tenants. the men who cultivate the earth should own it. something has already been done in our country in that direction, and probably in every state there is a homestead exemption. this exemption has thus far done no harm to the creditor class. when we imprisoned people for debt, debts were as insecure, to say the least, as now. by the homestead laws, a home of a certain value or of a certain extent, is exempt from forced levy or sale; and these laws have done great good. undoubtedly they have trebled the homes of the nation. i wish to go a step further. i want, if possible, to get the people out of the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to homes where there can be privacy, where these people can feel that they are in partnership with nature; that they have an interest in good government. with the means we now have of transportation, there is no necessity for poor people being huddled in festering masses in the vile, filthy and loathsome parts of cities, where poverty breeds rags, and the rags breed diseases. i would exempt a homestead of a reasonable value, say of the value of two or three thousand dollars, not only from sale under execution, but from sale for taxes of every description. these homes should be absolutely exempt; they should belong to the family, so that every mother should feel that the roof above her head was hers; that her house was her castle, and that in its possession she could not be disturbed, even by the nation. under certain conditions i would allow the sale of this homestead, and exempt the proceeds of the sale for a certain time, during which they might be invested in another home; and all this could be done to make a nation of householders, a nation of land-owners, a nation of home-builders. i would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to acquire these homes, that i would invoke for acquiring lands for building railways. every state should fix the amount of land that could be owned by an individual, not liable to be taken from him for the purpose of giving a home to another, and when any man owned more acres than the law allowed, and another should ask to purchase them, and he should refuse, i would have the law so that the person wishing to purchase could file his petition in court. the court would appoint commissioners, or a jury would be called, to determine the value of the land the petitioner wished for a home, and, upon the amount being paid, found by such commission, or jury, the land should vest absolutely in the petitioner. this right of eminent domain should be used not only for the benefit of the person wishing a home, but for the benefit of all the people. nothing is more important to america than that the babes of america should be born around the firesides of homes. there is another question in which i take great interest, and it ought, in my judgment, to be answered by the intelligence and kindness of our century. we all know that for many, many ages, men have been slaves, and we all know that during all these years, women have, to some extent been the slaves of slaves. it is of the utmost importance to the human race that women, that mothers, should be free. without doubt, the contract of marriage is the most important and the most sacred that human beings can make. marriage is the most important of all institutions. of course, the ceremony of marriage is not the real marriage. it is only evidence of the mutual flames that burn within. there can be no real marriage without mutual love. so i believe in the ceremony of marriage, that it should be public; that records should be kept. besides, the ceremony says to all the world that those who marry are in love with each other. then arises the question of divorce. millions of people imagine that the married are joined together by some supernatural power, and that they should remain together, or at least married, during life. if all who have been married were joined together by the supernatural, we must admit that the supernatural is not infinitely wise. after all, marriage is a contract, and the parties to the contract are bound to keep its provisions; and neither should be released from such a contract unless, in some way, the interests of society are involved. i would have the law so that any husband could obtain a divorce when the wife had persistently and flagrantly violated the contract; such divorce to be granted on equitable terms. i would give the wife a divorce if she requested it, if she wanted it. and i would do this, not only for her sake, but for the sake of the community, of the nation. all children should be children of love. all that are born should be sincerely welcomed. the children of mothers who dislike, or hate, or loathe the fathers, will fill the world with insanity and crime. no woman should by law, or by public opinion, be forced to live with a man whom she abhors. there is no danger of demoralizing the world through divorce. neither is there any danger of destroying in the human heart that divine thing called love. as long as the human race exists, men and women will love each other, and just so long there will be true and perfect marriage. slavery is not the soil or rain of virtue. i make a difference between granting divorce to a man and to a woman, and for this reason: a woman dowers her husband with her youth and beauty. he should not be allowed to desert her because she has grown wrinkled and old. her capital is gone; her prospects in life lessened; while, on the contrary, he may be far better able to succeed than when he married her. as a rule, the man can take care of himself, and as a rule, the woman needs help. so, i would not allow him to cast her off unless she had flagrantly violated the contract. but, for the sake of the community, and especially for the sake of the babes, i would give her a divorce for the asking. there will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women--of free mothers. the tenderest word in our language is maternity. in this word is the divine mingling of ecstasy and agony--of love and self-sacrifice. this word is holy! vi. the labor question. here has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what is called the labor question; the conflict between the workingman and the capitalist. many ways have been devised, some experiments have been tried for the purpose of solving this question. profit-sharing would not work, because it is impossible to share profits with those who are incapable of sharing losses. communities have been formed, the object being to pay the expenses and share the profits among all the persons belonging to the society. for the most part these have failed. others have advocated arbitration. and, while it may be that the employers could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, there has been no way discovered by which the employees could be held by such decision. in other words, the question has not been solved. for my own part, i see no final and satisfactory solution except through the civilization of employers and employed. the question is so complicated, the ramifications are so countless, that a solution by law, or by force, seems at least improbable. employers are supposed to pay according to their profits. they may or may not. profits may be destroyed by competition. the employer is at the mercy of other employers, and as much so as his employees are at his mercy. the employers cannot govern prices; they cannot fix demand; they cannot control supply; and at present, in the world of trade, the laws of supply and demand, except when interfered with by conspiracy, are in absolute control. will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing the brain, except by the aid of intellectual light, when the purchaser will wish to give what a thing is worth, when the employer will be satisfied with a reasonable profit, when the employer will be anxious to give the real value for raw material; when he will be really anxious to pay the laborer the full value of his labor? will the employer ever become civilized enough to know that the law of supply and demand should not absolutely apply in the labor market of the world? will he ever become civilized enough not to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, of the hunger and rags and want of poverty? will he ever become civilized enough to say: "i will pay the man who labors for me enough to give him a reasonable support, enough for him to assist in taking care of wife and children, enough for him to do this, and lay aside something to feed and clothe him when old age comes; to lay aside something, enough to give him house and hearth during the december of his life, so that he can warm his worn and shriveled hands at the fire of home"? of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of labor. all there is of value in the world is the product of labor. the laboring man pays all the expenses. no matter whether taxes are laid on luxuries or on the necessaries of life, labor pays every cent. so we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming intelligent. so, i believe the employer is gradually becoming civilized, gradually becoming kinder; and many men who have made large fortunes from the labor of their fellows have given of their millions to what they regarded as objects of charity, or for the interests of education. this is a kind of penance, because the men that have made this money from the brain and muscle of their fellow-men have ever felt that it was not quite their own. many of these employers have sought to balance their accounts by leaving something for universities, for the establishment of libraries, drinking fountains, or to build monuments to departed greatness. it would have been, i think, far better had they used this money to better the condition of the men who really earned it. so, i think that when we become civilized, great corporations will make provision for men who have given their lives to their service. i think the great railroads should pay pensions to their worn out employees. they should take care of them in old age. they should not maim and wear out their servants and then discharge them, and allow them to be supported in poorhouses. these great companies should take care of the men they maim; they should look out for the ones whose lives they have used and whose labor has been the foundation of their prosperity. upon this question, public sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that these corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw away the broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie. it may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally become intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute concert. could this be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of compensation could be fixed and enforced. now such efforts are local, and the result up to this time has been failure. but, if all could unite, they could obtain what is reasonable, what is just, and they would have the sympathy of a very large majority of their fellow-men, provided they were reasonable. but, before they can act in this way, they must become really intelligent, intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and honest enough to ask for no more. so much has already been accomplished for the workingman that i have hope, and great hope, of the future. the hours of labor have been shortened, and materially shortened, in many countries. there was a time when men worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. now, generally, a day's work is not longer than ten hours, and the tendency is to still further decrease the hours. by comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance that has been made. in , the average amount earned by the laboring men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two hundred and eighty-five dollars. it is now about five hundred dollars, and a dollar to-day will purchase more of the necessaries of life, more food, clothing and fuel, than it would in . these facts are full of hope for the future. all our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil; for the women who labor for themselves and children; because we know that labor is the foundation of all, and that those who labor are the caryatides that support the structure and glittering dome of civilization and progress. vii. educate the children. every child should be taught to be self-supporting, and every one should be taught to avoid being a burden on others, as they would shun death. every child should be taught that the useful are the honorable, and that they who live on the labor of others are the enemies of society. every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer. children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely upon the light of reason, of observation and experience; should be taught to use all their senses; and they should be taught only that which in some sense is really useful. they should be taught the use of tools, to use their hands, to embody their thoughts in the construction of things. their lives should not be wasted in the acquisition of the useless, or of the almost useless. years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages, or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. it is useless to fill the mind with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. they should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences. so, they should be taught the importance, not only of financial, but of mental honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to utter their real thoughts, and to give their actual opinions; and, if parents want honest children, they should be honest themselves. it may be that hypocrites transmit their failing to their offspring. men and women who pretend to agree with the majority, who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect their children to be absolutely sincere. nothing should be taught in any school that the teacher does not know. beliefs, superstitions, theories, should not be treated like demonstrated facts. the child should be taught to investigate, not to believe. too much doubt is better than too much credulity. so, children should be taught that it is their duty to think for themselves, to understand, and, if possible, to know. real education is the hope of the future. the development of the brain, the civilization of the heart, will drive want and crime from the world. the schoolhouse is the real cathedral, and science the only possible savior of the human race. education, real education, is the friend of honesty, of morality, of temperance. we cannot rely upon legislative enactments to make people wise and good; neither can we expect to make human beings manly and womanly by keeping them out of temptation. temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. the great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it. all the forces of civilization are in favor of morality and temperance. little can be accomplished by law, because law, for the most part, about such things, is a destruction of personal liberty. liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. it is of more value than everything else. yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life. the world had better go back to barbarism, to the dens, the caves and lairs of savagery; better lose all art, all inventions, than to lose liberty. liberty is the breath of progress; it is the seed and soil, the heat and rain of love and joy. so, all should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy, and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind of insanity. they should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste of thought, a waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what you do not really use for the benefit of yourself or others. neither mendicants nor millionaires are the happiest of mankind. the man at the bottom of the ladder hopes to rise; the man at the top fears to fall. the one asks; the other refuses; and, by frequent refusal, the heart becomes hard enough and the hand greedy enough to clutch and hold. few men have intelligence enough, real greatness enough, to own a great fortune. as a rule, the fortune owns them. their fortune is their master, for whom they work and toil like slaves. the man who has a good business and who can make a reasonable living and lay aside something for the future, who can educate his children and can leave enough to keep the wolf of want from the door of those he loves, ought to be the happiest of men. now, society bows and kneels at the feet of wealth. wealth gives power. wealth commands flattery and adulation. and so, millions of men give all their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of gold. and this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the slightest regard to the character of the man. in judging of the rich, two things should be considered: how did they get it, and what are they doing with it? was it honestly acquired? is it being used for the benefit of mankind? when people become really intelligent, when the brain is really developed, no human being will give his life to the acquisition of what he does not need or what he cannot intelligently use. the time will come when the truly intelligent man cannot be happy, cannot be satisfied, when millions of his fellow-men are hungry and naked. the time will come when in every heart will be the perfume of pity's sacred flower. the time will come when the world will be anxious to ascertain the truth, to find out the conditions of happiness, and to live in accordance with such conditions; and the time will come when in the brain of every human being will be the climate of intellectual hospitality. man will be civilized when the passions are dominated by the intellect, when reason occupies the throne, and when the hot blood of passion no longer rises in successful revolt. to civilize the world, to hasten the coming of the golden dawn of the perfect day, we must educate the children, we must commence at the cradle, at the lap of the loving mother. viii. we must work and wait. the reforms that i have mentioned cannot be accomplished in a day, possibly not for many centuries; and in the meantime there is much crime, much poverty, much want, and consequently something must be done now. let each human being, within the limits of the possible be self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the morrow; and if a human being supports himself and acquires a surplus, let him use a part of that surplus for the unfortunate; and let each one to the extent of his ability help his fellow-men. let him do what he can in the circle of his own acquaintance to rescue the fallen, to help those who are trying to help themselves, to give work to the idle. let him distribute kind words, words of wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. in other words, let every human being do all the good he can, and let him bind up the wounds of his fellow-creatures, and at the same time put forth every effort, to hasten the coming of a better day. this, in my judgment, is real religion. to do all the good you can is to be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. to do all the good you can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. to relieve suffering, to put the star of hope in the midnight of despair, this is true holiness. this is the religion of science. the old creeds are too narrow, they are not for the world in which we live. the old dogmas lack breadth and tenderness; they are too cruel, too merciless, too savage. we are growing grander and nobler. the firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real cathedral. the interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. in the great creed are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will be found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for nobler, fuller life. the real church, the real edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that art has done. in the real choir is all the thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit aisles have been, and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime. "there is no darkness but ignorance." let us flood the world with intellectual light. a thanksgiving sermon. many ages ago our fathers were living in dens and caves. their bodies, their low foreheads, were covered with hair. they were eating berries, roots, bark and vermin. they were fond of snakes and raw fish. they discovered fire and, probably by accident, learned how to cause it by friction. they found how to warm themselves--to fight the frost and storm. they fashioned clubs and rude weapons of stone with which they killed the larger beasts and now and then each other. slowly, painfully, almost imperceptibly they advanced. they crawled and stumbled, staggered and struggled toward the light. to them the world was unknown. on every hand was the mysterious, the sinister, the hurtful. the forests were filled with monsters, and the darkness was crowded with ghosts, devils, and fiendish gods. these poor wretches were the slaves of fear, the sport of dreams. now and then, one rose a little above his fellows--used his senses--the little reason that he had--found something new--some better way. then the people killed him and afterward knelt with reverence at his grave. then another thinker gave his thought--was murdered--another tomb became sacred--another step was taken in advance. and so through countless years of ignorance and cruelty--of thought and crime--of murder and worship, of heroism, suffering, and self-denial, the race has reached the heights where now we stand. looking back over the long and devious roads that lie between the barbarism of the past and the civilization of to-day, thinking of the centuries that rolled like waves between these distant shores, we can form some idea of what our fathers suffered--of the mistakes they made--some idea of their ignorance, their stupidity--and some idea of their sense, their goodness, their heroism. it is a long road from the savage to the scientist--from a den to a mansion--from leaves to clothes--from a flickering rush to the arc-light--from a hammer of stone to the modern mill--a long distance from the pipe of pan to the violin--to the orchestra--from a floating log to the steamship--from a sickle to a reaper--from a flail to a threshing machine---from a crooked stick to a plow--from a spinning wheel to a spinning jenny--from a hand loom to a jacquard--a jacquard that weaves fair forms and wondrous flowers beyond arachne's utmost dream--from a few hieroglyphics on the skins of beasts--on bricks of clay--to a printing press, to a library--a long distance from the messenger, traveling on foot, to the electric spark--from knives and tools of stone to those of steel--a long distance from sand to telescopes--from echo to the phonograph, the phonograph that buries in indented lines and dots the sounds of living speech, and then gives back to life the very words and voices of the dead--a long way from the trumpet to the telephone, the telephone that transports speech as swift as thought and drops the words, perfect as minted coins, in listening ears--a long way from a fallen tree to the suspension bridge--from the dried sinews of beasts to the cables of steel--from the oar to the propeller--from the sling to the rifle--from the catapult to the cannon--a long distance from revenge to law--from the club to the legislature--from slavery to freedom--from appearance to fact--from fear to reason. and yet the distance has been traveled by the human race. countless obstructions have been overcome--numberless enemies have been conquered--thousands and thousands of victories have been won for the right, and millions have lived, labored and died for their fellow-men. for the blessings we enjoy--for the happiness that is ours, we ought to be grateful. our hearts should blossom with thankfulness. whom, what, should we thank? let us be honest--generous. should we thank the church? christianity has controlled christendom for at least fifteen hundred years. during these centuries what have the orthodox churches accomplished, for the good of man? in this life man needs raiment and roof, food and fuel. he must be protected from heat and cold, from snow and storm. he must take thought for the morrow. in the summer of youth he must prepare for the winter of age. he must know something of the causes of disease--of the conditions of health. if possible he must conquer pain, increase happiness and lengthen life. he must supply the wants of the body--and feed the hunger of the mind. what good has the church done? has it taught men to cultivate the earth? to build homes? to weave cloth to cure or prevent disease? to build ships, to navigate the seas? to conquer pain, or to lengthen life? did christ or any of his apostles add to the sum of useful knowledge? did they say one word in favor of any science, of any art? did they teach their fellow-men how to make a living, how to overcome the obstructions of nature, how to prevent sickness--how to protect themselves from pain, from famine, from misery and rags? did they explain any of the phenomena of nature? any of the facts that affect the life of man? did they say anything in favor of investigation--of study--of thought? did they teach the gospel of self-reliance, of industry--of honest effort? can any farmer, mechanic, or scientist find in the new testament one useful fact? is there anything in the sacred book that can help the geologist, the astronomer, the biologist, the physician, the inventor--the manufacturer of any useful thing? what has the church done? from the very first it taught the vanity--the worthlessness of all earthly things. it taught the wickedness of wealth, the blessedness of poverty. it taught that the business of this life was to prepare for death. it insisted that a certain belief was necessary to insure salvation, and that all who failed to believe, or doubted in the least would suffer eternal pain. according to the church the natural desires, ambitions and passions of man were all wicked and depraved. to love god, to practice self-denial, to overcome desire, to despise wealth, to hate prosperity, to desert wife and children, to live on roots and berries, to repeat prayers, to wear rags, to live in filth, and drive love from the heart--these, for centuries, were the highest and most perfect virtues, and those who practiced them were saints. the saints did not assist their fellow-men. their fellow-men assisted them. they did not labor for others. they were beggars--parasites--vermin. they were insane. they followed the teachings of christ. they took no thought for the morrow. they mutilated their bodies--scarred their flesh and destroyed their minds for the sake of happiness in another world. during the journey of life they kept their eyes on the grave. they gathered no flowers by the way--they walked in the dust of the road--avoided the green fields. their moans made all the music they wished to hear. the babble of brooks, the songs of birds, the laughter of children, were nothing to them. pleasure was the child of sin, and the happy needed a change of heart. they were sinless and miserable--but they had faith--they were pious and wretched--but they were limping towards heaven. what has the church done? it has denounced pride and luxury--all things that adorn and enrich life--all the pleasures of sense--the ecstasies of love--the happiness of the hearth--the clasp and kiss of wife and child. and the church has done this because it regarded this life as a period of probation--a time to prepare--to become spiritual--to overcome the natural--to fix the affections on the invisible--to become passionless--to subdue the flesh--to congeal the blood--to fold the wings of fancy--to become dead to the world--so that when you appeared before god you would be the exact opposite of what he made you. what has the church done? it pretended to have a revelation from god. it knew the road to eternal joy, the way to death. it preached salvation by faith, and declared that only orthodox believers could become angels, and all doubters would be damned. it knew this, and so knowing it became the enemy of discussion, of investigation, of thought. why investigate, why discuss, why think when you know? it sought to enslave the world. it appealed to force. it unsheathed the sword, lighted the fagot, forged the chain, built the dungeon, erected the scaffold, invented and used the instruments of torture. it branded, maimed and mutilated--it imprisoned and tortured--it blinded and burned, hanged and crucified, and utterly destroyed millions and millions of human beings. it touched every nerve of the body--produced every pain that can be felt, every agony that can be endured. and it did all this to preserve what it called the truth--to destroy heresy and doubt, and to save, if possible, the souls of a few. it was honest. it was necessary to prevent the development of the brain--to arrest all progress--and to do this the church used all its power. if men were allowed to think and express their thoughts they would fill their minds and the minds of others with doubts. if they were allowed to think they would investigate, and then they might contradict the creed, dispute the words of priests and defy the church. the priests cried to the people: "it is for us to talk. it is for you to hear. our duty is to preach and yours is to believe." what has the church done? there have been thousands of councils and synods--thousands and thousands of occasions when the clergy have met and discussed and quarreled--when pope and cardinals, bishops and priests have added to or explained their creeds--and denied the rights of others. what useful truth did they discover? what fact did they find? did they add to the intellectual wealth of the world? did they increase the sum of knowledge? i admit that they looked over a number of jewish books and picked out the ones that jehovah wrote. did they find the medicinal virtue that dwells in any weed or flower? i know that they decided that the holy ghost was not created--not begotten--but that he proceeded. did they teach us the mysteries of the metals and how to purify the ores in furnace flames? they shouted: "great is the mystery of godliness." did they show us how to improve our condition in this world? they informed us that christ had two natures and two wills. did they give us even a hint as to any useful thing? they gave us predestination, foreordination and just enough "free will" to go to hell. did they discover or show us how to produce anything for food? did they produce anything to satisfy the hunger of man? instead of this they discovered that a peasant girl who lived in palestine, was the mother of god. this they proved by a book, and to make the book evidence they called it inspired. did they tell us anything about chemistry--how to combine and separate substances--how to subtract the hurtful--how to produce the useful? they told us that bread, by making certain motions and mumbling certain prayers, could be changed into the flesh of god, and that in the same way wine could be changed to his blood. and this, notwithstanding the fact that god never had any flesh or blood, but has always been a spirit without body, parts or passions. what has the church done? it gave us the history of the world--of the stars, and the beginning of all things. it taught the geology of moses--the astronomy of joshua and elijah. it taught the fall of man and the atonement--proved that a jewish peasant was god--established the existence of hell, purgatory and heaven. it pretended to have a revelation from god--the scriptures, in which could be found all knowledge--everything that man could need in the journey of life. nothing outside of the inspired book--except legends and prayers--could be of any value. books that contradicted the bible were hurtful, those that agreed with it--useless. nothing was of importance except faith, credulity--belief. the church said: "let philosophy alone, count your beads. ask no questions, fall upon your knees. shut your eyes, and save your souls." what has the church done? for centuries it kept the earth flat, for centuries it made all the hosts of heaven travel around this world--for centuries it clung to "sacred" knowledge, and fought facts with the ferocity of a fiend. for centuries it hated the useful. it was the deadly enemy of medicine. disease was produced by devils and could be cured only by priests, decaying bones, and holy water. doctors were the rivals of priests. they diverted the revenues. the church opposed the study of anatomy--was against the dissection of the dead. man had no right to cure disease--god would do that through his priests. man had no right to prevent disease--diseases were sent by god as judgments. the church opposed inoculation--vaccination, and the use of chloroform and ether. it was declared to be a sin, a crime for a woman to lessen the pangs of motherhood. the church declared that woman must bear the curse of the merciful jehovah. what has the church done? it taught that the insane were inhabited by devils. insanity was not a disease. it was produced by demons. it could be cured by prayers--gifts, amulets and charms. all these had to be paid for. this enriched the church. these ideas were honestly entertained by protestants as well as catholics--by luther, calvin, knox and wesley. what has the church done? it taught the awful doctrine of witchcraft. it filled the darkness with demons--the air with devils, and the world with grief and shame. it charged men, women and children with being in league with satan to injure their fellows. old women were convicted for causing storms at sea--for preventing rain and for bringing frost. girls were convicted for having changed themselves into wolves, snakes and toads. these witches were burned for causing diseases--for selling their souls and for souring beer. all these things were done with the aid of the devil who sought to persecute the faithful, the lambs of god. satan sought in many ways to scandalize the church. he sometimes assumed the appearance of a priest and committed crimes. on one occasion he personated a bishop--a bishop renowned for his sanctity--allowed himself to be discovered and dragged from the room of a beautiful widow. so perfectly did he counterfeit the features and form of the bishop, that many who were well acquainted with the prelate, were actually deceived, and the widow herself thought her lover was the bishop. all this was done by the devil to bring reproach upon holy men. hundreds of like instances could be given, as the war waged between demons and priests was long and bitter. these popes and priests--these clergymen, were not hypocrites. they believed in the new testament--in the teachings of christ, and they knew that the principal business of the savior was casting out devils. what has the church done? it made the wife a slave--the property of the husband, and it placed the husband as much above the wife as christ was above the husband. it taught that a nun is purer, nobler than a mother. it induced millions of pure and conscientious girls to renounce the joys of life--to take the veil woven of night and death, to wear the habiliments of the dead--made them believe that they were the brides of christ. for my part, i would as soon be a widow as the bride of a man who had been dead for eighteen hundred years. the poor deluded girls imagined that they, in some mysterious way, were in spiritual wedlock united with god. all worldly desires were driven from their hearts. they filled their lives with fastings--with prayers--with self-accusings. they forgot fathers and mothers and gave their love to the invisible. they were the victims, the convicts of superstition--prisoners in the penitentiaries of god. conscientious, good, sincere--insane. these loving women gave their hearts to a phantom, their lives to a dream. a few years ago, at a revival, a fine buxom girl was "converted," "born again." in her excitement she cried, "i'm married to christ--i'm married to christ." in her delirium she threw her arms around the neck of an old man and again cried, "i'm married to christ." the old man, who happened to be a kind of skeptic, gently removed her hands, saying at the same time: "i don't know much about your husband, but i have great respect for your father-in-law." priests, theologians, have taken advantage of women--of their gentleness--their love of approbation. they have lived upon their hopes and fears. like vampires, they have sucked their blood. they have made them responsible for the sins of the world. they have taught them the slave virtues--meekness, humility--implicit obedience. they have fed their minds with mistakes, mysteries and absurdities. they have endeavored to weaken and shrivel their brains, until, to them, there would be no possible connection between evidence and belief--between fact and faith. what has the church done? it was the enemy of commerce--of business. it denounced the taking of interest for money. without taking interest for money, progress is impossible. the steamships, the great factories, the railroads have all been built with borrowed money, money on which interest was promised and for the most part paid. the church was opposed to fire insurance--to life insurance. it denounced insurance in any form as gambling, as immoral. to insure your life was to declare that you had no confidence in god--that you relied on a corporation instead of divine providence. it was declared that god would provide for your widow and your fatherless children. to insure your life was to insult heaven. what has the church done? the church regarded epidemics as the messengers of the good god. the "black death" was sent by the eternal father, whose mercy spared some and whose justice murdered the rest. to stop the scourge, they tried to soften the heart of god by kneelings and prostrations--by processions and prayers--by burning incense and by making vows. they did not try to remove the cause. the cause was god. they did not ask for pure water, but for holy water. faith and filth lived or rather died together. religion and rags, piety and pollution kept company. sanctity kept its odor. what has the church done? it was the enemy of art and literature. it destroyed the marbles of greece and rome. beauty was pagan. it destroyed so far as it could the best literature of the world. it feared thought--but it preserved the scriptures, the ravings of insane saints, the falsehoods of the fathers, the bulls of popes, the accounts of miracles performed by shrines, by dried blood and faded hair, by pieces of bones and wood, by rusty nails and thorns, by handkerchiefs and rags, by water and beads and by a finger of the holy ghost. this was the literature of the church. i admit that the priests were honest--as honest as ignorant. more could not be said. what has the church done? christianity claims, with great pride, that it established asylums for the insane. yes, it did. but the insane were treated as criminals. they were regarded as the homes--as the tenement-houses of devils. they were persecuted and tormented. they were chained and flogged, starved and killed. the asylums were prisons, dungeons, the insane were victims and the keepers were ignorant, conscientious, pious fiends. they were not trying to help men, they were fighting devils--destroying demons. they were not actuated by love--but by hate and fear. what has the church done? it founded schools where facts were denied, where science was denounced and philosophy despised. schools, where priests were made--where they were taught to hate reason and to look upon doubts as the suggestions of the devil. schools where the heart was hardened and the brain shriveled. schools in which lies were sacred and truths profane. schools for the more general diffusion of ignorance--schools to prevent thought--to suppress knowledge. schools for the purpose of enslaving the world. schools in which teachers knew less than pupils. what has the church done? it has used its influence with god to get rain and sunshine--to stop flood and storm--to kill insects, rats, snakes and wild beasts--to stay pestilence and famine--to delay frost and snow--to lengthen the lives of kings and queens--to protect presidents--to give legislators wisdom--to increase collections and subscriptions. in marriages it has made god the party of the third part. it has sprinkled water on babes when they were named. it has put oil on the dying and repeated prayers for the dead. it has tried to protect the people from the malice of the devil--from ghosts and spooks, from witches and wizards and all the leering fiends that seek to poison the souls of men. it has endeavored to protect the sheep of god from the wolves of science--from the wild beasts of doubt and investigation. it has tried to wean the lambs of the lord from the delights, the pleasures, the joys, of life. according to the philosophy of the church, the virtuous weep and suffer, the vicious laugh and thrive, the good carry a cross, and the wicked fly. but in the next life this will be reversed. then the good will be happy, and the bad will be damned. the church filled the world with faith and crime. it polluted the fountains of joy. it gave us an ignorant, jealous, revengeful and cruel god--sometimes merciful--sometimes ferocious. now just, now infamous--sometimes wise--generally foolish. it gave us a devil, cunning, malicious, almost the equal of god, not quite as strong--but quicker--not as profound--but sharper. it gave us angels with wings--cherubim and seraphim and a heaven with harps and hallelujahs--with streets of gold and gates of pearl. it gave us fiends and imps with wings like bats. it gave us ghosts and goblins, spooks and sprites, and little devils that swarmed in the bodies of men, and it gave us hell where the souls of men will roast in eternal flames. shall we thank the church? shall we thank the orthodox churches? shall we thank them for the hell they made here? shall we thank them for the hell of the future? ii. we must remember that the church was founded and has been protected by god, that all the popes, and cardinals, all the bishops, priests and monks, all the ministers and exhorters were selected and set apart--all sanctified and enlightened by the infinite god--that the holy scriptures were inspired by the same being, and that all the orthodox creeds were really made by him. we know what these men--filled with the holy ghost--have done. we know the part they have played. we know the souls they have saved and the bodies they have destroyed. we know the consolation they have given and the pain they have inflicted--the lies they have defended--the truths they have denied. we know that they convinced millions that celibacy is the greatest of all virtues--that women are perpetual temptations, the enemies of true holiness--that monks and priests are nobler than fathers, that nuns are purer than mothers. we know that they taught the blessed absurdity of the trinity--that god once worked at the trade of a carpenter in palestine. we know that they divided knowledge into sacred and profane--taught that revelation was sacred--that reason was blasphemous--that faith was holy and facts false. that the sin of adam and eve brought disease and pain, vice and death into the world. we know that they have taught the dogma of special providence--that all events are ordered and regulated by god--that he crowns and uncrowns kings--preserves and destroys--guards and kills--that it is the duty of man to submit to the divine will, and that no matter how much evil there may be--no matter how much suffering--how much pain and death, man should pour out-his heart in thankfulness that it is no worse. let me be understood. i do not say and i do not think that the church was dishonest, that the clergy were insincere. i admit that all religions, all creeds, all priests, have been naturally produced. i admit, and cheerfully admit, that the believers in the supernatural have done some good--not because they believed in gods and devils--but in spite of it. i know that thousands and thousands of clergymen are honest, self-denying and humane--that they are doing what they believe to be their duty--doing what they can to induce men and women to live pure and noble lives. this is not the result of their creeds--it is because they are human. what i say is that every honest teacher of the supernatural has been and is an unconscious enemy of the human race. what is the philosophy of the church--of those who believe in the supernatural? back of all that is--back of all events--christians put an infinite juggler who with a wish creates, preserves, destroys. the world is his stage and mankind his puppets. he fills them with wants and desires, with appetites and ambitions--with hopes and fears--with love and hate. he touches the springs. he pulls the strings--baits the hooks, sets the traps and digs the pits. the play is a continuous performance. he watches these puppets as they struggle and fail. sees them outwit each other and themselves--leads them to every crime, watches the births and deaths--hears lullabies at cradles and the fall of clods on coffins. he has no pity. he enjoys the tragedies--the desperation--the despair--the suicides. he smiles at the murders, the assassinations,--the seductions, the desertions--the abandoned babes of shame. he sees the weak enslaved--mothers robbed of babes--the innocent in dungeons--on scaffolds. he sees crime crowned and hypocrisy robed. he withholds the rain and his puppets starve. he opens the earth and they are devoured. he sends the flood and they are drowned. he empties the volcano and they perish in fire. he sends the cyclone and they are torn and mangled. with quick lightnings they are dashed to death. he fills the air and water with the invisible enemies of life--the messengers of pain, and watches the puppets as they breathe and drink. he creates cancers to feed upon their flesh--their quivering nerves--serpents, to fill their veins with venom,--beasts to crunch their bones--to lap their blood. some of the poor puppets he makes insane--makes them struggle in the darkness with imagined monsters with glaring eyes and dripping jaws, and some are made without the flame of thought, to drool and drivel through the darkened days. he sees all the agony, the injustice, the rags of poverty, the withered hands of want--the motherless babes--the deformed--the maimed--the leprous, knows the tears that flow--hears the sobs and moans--sees the gleam of swords, hears the roar of the guns--sees the fields reddened with blood--the white faces of the dead. but he mocks when their fear cometh, and at their calamity he fills the heavens with laughter. and the poor puppets who are left alive, fall on their knees and thank the juggler with all their hearts. but after all, the gods have not supported the children of men, men have supported the gods. they have built the temples. they have sacrificed their babes, their lambs, their cattle. they have drenched the altars with blood. they have given their silver, their gold, their gems. they have fed and clothed their priests--but the gods have given nothing in return. hidden in the shadows they have answered no prayer--heard no cry--given no sign--extended no hand--uttered no word. unseen and unheard they have sat on their thrones, deaf and dumb--paralyzed and blind. in vain the steeples rise--in vain the prayers ascend. and think what man has done to please the gods. he has renounced his reason--extinguished the torch of his brain, he has believed without evidence and against evidence. he has slandered and maligned himself. he has fasted and starved. he has mutilated his body--scarred his flesh--given his blood to vermin. he has persecuted, imprisoned and destroyed his fellows. he has deserted wife and child. he has lived alone in the desert. he has swung-censers and burned incense, counted beads and sprinkled himself with holy water--shut his eyes, clasped his hands--fallen upon his knees and groveled in the dust--but the gods have been silent--silent as stones. have these cringings and crawlings--these cruelties and absurdities--this faith and foolishness pleased the gods? we do not know. has any disaster been averted--any blessing obtained? we do not know. shall we thank these gods? shall we thank the church's god? who and what is he? they say that he is the creator and preserver of all that has been--of all that is--of all that will be--that he is the father of angels and devils, the architect of heaven and hell--that he made the earth--a man and woman--that he made the serpent who tempted them, made his own rival--gave victory to his enemy--that he repented of what he had done--that he sent a flood and destroyed all of the children of men with the exception of eight persons--that he tried to civilize the survivors and their children--tried to do this with earthquakes and fiery serpents --with pestilence and famine. but he failed. he intended to fail. then he was born into the world, preached for three years, and allowed some savages to kill him. then he rose from the dead and went back to heaven. he knew that he would fail, knew that he would be killed. in fact he arranged everything himself and brought everything to pass just as he had predestined it an eternity before the world was. all who believe these things will be saved and they who doubt or deny will be lost. has this god good sense? not always. he creates his own enemies and plots against himself. nothing lives, except in accordance with his will, and yet the devils do not die. what is the matter with this god? well, sometimes he is foolish--sometimes he is cruel and sometimes he is insane. does this god exist? is there any intelligence back of nature? is there any being anywhere among the stars who pities the suffering children of men? we do not know. shall we thank nature? does nature care for us more than for leaves, or grass, or flies? does nature know that we exist? we do not know. but we do know that nature is going to murder us all. why should we thank nature? if we thank god or nature for the sunshine and rain, for health and happiness, whom shall we curse for famine and pestilence, for earthquake and cyclone--for disease and death? iii. if we cannot thank the orthodox churches--if we cannot thank the unknown, the incomprehensible, the supernatural--if we cannot thank nature--if we can not kneel to a guess, or prostrate ourselves before a perhaps--whom shall we thank? let us see what the worldly have done--what has been accomplished by those not "called," not "set apart," not "inspired," not filled with the holy ghost--by those who were neglected by all the gods. passing over the hindus, the egyptians, the greeks and romans, their poets, philosophers and metaphysicians--we will come to modern times. in the th century after christ the saracens--governors of a vast empire--"established colleges in mongolia, tartary, persia, mesopotamia, syria, egypt, north africa, morocco, fez and in spain." the region owned by the saracens was greater than the roman empire. they had not only colleges--but observatories. the sciences were taught. they introduced the ten numerals--taught algebra and trigonometry--understood cubic equations--knew the art of surveying--they made catalogues and maps of the stars--gave the great stars the names they still bear--they ascertained the size of the earth--determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. they calculated eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars. they constructed astronomical instruments. they made clocks of various kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. they originated chemistry--discovered sulphuric and nitric acid and alcohol. "they were the first to publish pharmacopoeias and dispensatories. "in mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. they understood the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation. "they taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies. "in optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the eye to an object--but from the object to the eye." "they were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel. "they gave us the game of chess. "they produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects. "in their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and development." they anticipated darwin and spencer. these people were not christians. they were the followers, for the most part, of an impostor--of a pretended prophet of a false god. and yet while the true christians, the men selected by the true god and filled with the holy ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. while the true believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of thinkers, these godless followers of mohammed were founding colleges, collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their attention to science. afterward the followers of mohammed became the enemies of science and hated facts as intensely and honestly as christians. whoever has a revelation from god will defend it with all his strength--will abhor reason and deny facts. but it is well to know that we are indebted to the moors--to the followers of mohammed--for having laid the foundations of modern science. it is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to christianity, for any useful fact. it is well to know that the seeds of thought were sown in our minds by the greeks and romans, and that our literature came from those seeds. the great literature of our language is pagan in its thought--pagan in its beauty--pagan in its perfection. it is well to know that when mohammedans were the friends of science, christians were its enemies. how consoling it is to think that the friends of science--the men who educated their fellows--are now in hell, and that the men who persecuted and killed philosophers are now in heaven! such is the justice of god. the christians of the middle ages, the men who were filled with the holy ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the world in which they lived. they thought the earth was flat--a little dishing if anything--that it was about five thousand years old, and that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night. the fact is that christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years before there was an astronomer in christendom. no follower of christ knew the shape of the earth. the earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal--not by a collection of clergymen--not by the "called" or the "set apart," but by a sailor. magellan left seville, spain, august th, , sailed west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached seville, the port it left, on sept. th, . the world had been circumnavigated. the earth was known to be round. there had been a dispute between the scriptures and a sailor. the fact took the sailor's side. in copernicus published his book, "on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies." he had some idea of the vastness of the stars--of the astronomical spaces--of the insignificance of this world. toward the close of the sixteenth century, bruno, one of the greatest men this world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellow-men. he taught the plurality of worlds. he was a pantheist, an atheist, an honest man. he called the catholic church the "triumphant beast." he was imprisoned for many years, tried, convicted, and on the th day of february, , burned in rome by men filled with the holy ghost, burned on the spot where now his monument rises. bruno, the noblest, the greatest of all the martyrs. the only one who suffered death for what he believed to be the truth. the only martyr who had no heaven to gain, no hell to shun, no god to please. he was nobler than inspired men, grander than prophets, greater and purer than apostles. above all the theologians of the world, above the makers of creeds, above the founders of religions rose this serene, unselfish and intrepid man. yet christians, followers of christ, murdered this incomparable man. these christians were true to their creed. they believed that faith would be rewarded with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. they were logical. they were pious and pitiless--devout and devilish--meek and malicious--religious and revengeful--christ-like and cruel--loving with their mouths and hating with their hearts. and yet, honest victims of ignorance and fear. what have the wordly done? in , lippersheim, a hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were exaggerated. he invented the telescope. he gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made us citizens of the universe. in , on the night of january th, galileo demonstrated the truth of the copernican system, and in , published his work on "the system of the world." what did the church do? galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon his knees, put his hand on the bible, and recant. for ten years he was kept in prison--for ten years until released by the pity of death. then the church--men filled with the holy ghost--denied his body burial in consecrated ground. it was feared that his dust might corrupt the bodies of those who had persecuted him. in , kepler published his book "motions of the planet mars." he, too, knew of the attraction of gravitation and that it acted in proportion to mass and distance. kepler announced his three laws. he found and mathematically expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion. nothing greater has been accomplished by the human mind. astronomy became a science and christianity a superstition. then came newton, herscheland laplace. the astronomy of joshua and elijah faded from the minds of intelligent men, and jehovah became an ignorant tribal god. men began to see that the operations of nature were not subject to interference. that eclipses were not caused by the wrath of god--that comets had nothing to do with the destruction of empires or the death of kings, that the stars wheeled in their orbits without regard to the actions of men. in the sacred east the dawn appeared. what have the wordly done? a few years ago a few men became wicked enough to use their senses. they began to look and listen. they began to really see and then they began to reason. they forgot heaven and hell long enough to take some interest in this world. they began to examine soils and rocks. they noticed what had been done by rivers and seas. they found out something about the crust of the earth. they found that most of the rocks had been deposited and stratified in the water--rocks , feet in thickness. they found that the coal was once vegetable matter. they made the best calculations they could of the time required to make the coal, and concluded that it must have taken at least six or seven millions of years. they examined the chalk cliffs, found that they were composed of the microscopic shells of minute organisms, that is to say, the dust of these shells. this dust settled over areas as large as europe and in some places the chalk is a mile in depth. this must have required many millions of years. lyell, the highest authority on the subject, says that it must have required, to cause the changes that we know, at least two hundred million years. think of these vast deposits caused by the slow falling of infinitesimal atoms of impalpable dust through the silent depths of ancient seas! think of the microscopical forms of life, constructing their minute houses of lime, giving life to others, leaving their mansions beneath the waves, and so through countless generations building the foundations of continents and islands. go back of all life that we now know--back of all the flying lizards, the armored monsters, the hissing serpents, the winged and fanged horrors--back to the laurentian rocks--to the eozoon, the first of living things that we have found--back of all mountains, seas and rivers--back to the first incrustation of the molten world--back of wave of fire and robe of flame--back to the time when all the substance of the earth blazed in the glowing sun with all the stars that wheel about the central fire. think of the days and nights that lie between!--think of the centuries, the withered leaves of time, that strew the desert of the past! nature does not hurry. time cannot be wasted--cannot be lost. the future remains eternal and all the past is as though it had not been--as though it were to be. the infinite knows neither loss nor gain. we know something of the history of the world--something of the human race; and we know that man has lived and struggled through want and war, through pestilence and famine, through ignorance and crime, through fear and hope, on the old earth for millions and millions of years. at last we know that infallible popes, and countless priests and clergymen, who had been "called," filled with the holy ghost, and presidents of colleges, kings, emperors and executives of nations had mistaken the blundering guesses of ignorant savages for the wisdom of an infinite god. at last we know that the story of creation, of the beginning of things, as told in the "sacred book," is not only untrue, but utterly absurd and idiotic. now we know that the inspired writers did not know and that the god who inspired them did not know. we are no longer misled by myths and legends. we rely upon facts. the world is our witness and the stars testify for us. what have the worldly done? they have investigated the religions of the world--have read the sacred books, the prophecies, the commandments, the rules of conduct. they have studied the symbols, the ceremonies, the prayers and sacrifices. and they have shown that all religions are substantially the same--produced by the same causes--that all rest on a misconception of the facts in nature--that all are founded on ignorance and fear, on mistake and mystery. they have found that christianity is like the rest--that it was not a revelation, but a natural growth--that its gods and devils, its heavens and hells, were borrowed--that its ceremonies and sacraments were souvenirs of other religions--that no part of it came from heaven, but that it was all made by savage man. they found that jehovah was a tribal god and that his ancestors had lived on the banks of the euphrates, the tigris, the ganges and the nile, and these ancestors were traced back to still more savage forms. they found that all the sacred books were filled with inspired mistake and sacred absurdity. but, say the christians, we have the only inspired book. we have the old testament and the new. where did you get the old testament? from the jews?--yes. let me tell you about it. after the jews returned from babylon, about years before christ, ezra commenced making the bible. you will find an account of this in the bible. we know that genesis was written after the captivity--because it was from the babylonians that the jews got the story of the creation--of adam and eve, of the garden--of the serpent, and the tree of life--of the flood--and from them they learned about the sabbath. you find nothing about that holy day in judges, joshua, samuel, kings or chronicles--nothing in job, the psalms, in esther, solomon's song or ecclesiastes. only in books written by ezra after the return from babylon. when ezra finished the inspired book, he placed it in the temple. it was written on the skins of beasts, and, so far as we know, there was but one. what became of this bible? jerusalem was taken by titus about years after christ. the temple was destroyed and, at the request of josephus, the holy bible was sent to vespasian the emperor, at rome. and this holy bible has never been seen or heard of since. so much for that. then there was a copy, or rather a translation, called the septuagint. how was that made? it is said that ptolemy soter and his son ptolemy philadelphus obtained a translation of the jewish bible. this translation was made by seventy persons. at that time the jewish bible did not contain daniel, ecclesiastes, but few of the psalms and only a part of isaiah. what became of this translation known as the septuagint? it was burned in the bruchium library forty-seven years before christ. then there was another so-called copy of part of the bible, known as the samaritan roll of the pentateuch. but this is not considered of any value. have we a true copy of the bible that was in the temple at jerusalem--the one sent to vespasian? nobody knows. have we a true copy of the septuagint? nobody knows. what is the oldest manuscript of the bible we have in hebrew? the oldest manuscript we have in hebrew was written in the th century after christ. the oldest pretended copy we have of the septuagint written in greek was made in the th century after christ. if the bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of god, we have no authenticated copy. the original has been lost and we are left in the darkness of nature. it is impossible for us to show that our bible is correct. we have no standard. many of the books in our bible contradict each other. many chapters appear to be incomplete and parts of different books are written in the same words, showing that both could not have been original. the th and th chapters of nd kings and the th and th chapters of isaiah are exactly the same. so is the th chapter of isaiah from the nd verse the same as the th chapter of nd kings from the nd verse. so, it is perfectly apparent that there could have been no possible propriety in inspiring the writers of kings and the writers of chronicles. the books are substantially the same, differing in a few mistakes--in a few falsehoods. the same is true of leviticus and numbers. the books do not agree either in facts or philosophy. they differ as the men differed who wrote them. what have the worldly done? they have investigated the phenomena of nature. they have invented ways to use the forces of the world, the weight of falling water--of moving air. they have changed water to steam, invented engines--the tireless giants that work for man. they have made lightning a messenger and slave. they invented movable type, taught us the art of printing and made it possible to save and transmit the intellectual wealth of the world. they connected continents with cables, cities and towns with the telegraph--brought the world into one family--made intelligence independent of distance. they taught us how to build homes, to obtain food, to weave cloth. they covered the seas with iron ships and the land with roads and steeds of steel. they gave us the tools of all the trades--the implements of labor. they chiseled statues, painted pictures and "witched the world" with form and color. they have found the cause of and the cure for many maladies that afflict the flesh and minds of men. they have given us the instruments of music and the great composers and performers have changed the common air to tones and harmonies that intoxicate, exalt and purify the soul. they have rescued us from the prisons of fear, and snatched our souls from the fangs and claws of superstition's loathsome, crawling, flying beasts. they have given us the liberty to think and the courage to express our thoughts. they have changed the frightened, the enslaved, the kneeling, the prostrate into men and women--clothed them in their right minds and made them truly free. they have uncrowned the phantoms, wrested the scepters from the ghosts and given this world to the children of men. they have driven from the heart the fiends of fear and extinguished the flames of hell. they have read a few leaves of the great volume--deciphered some of the records written on stone by the tireless hands of time in the dim past. they have told us something of what has been done by wind and wave, by fire and frost, by life and death, the ceaseless workers, the pauseless forces of the world. they have enlarged the horizon of the known, changed the glittering specks that shine above us to wheeling worlds, and filled all space with countless suns. they have found the qualities of substances, the nature of things--how to analyze, separate and combine, and have enabled us to use the good and avoid the hurtful. they have given us mathematics in the higher forms, by means of which we measure the astronomical spaces, the distances to stars, the velocity at which the heavenly bodies move, their density and weight, and by which the mariner navigates the waste and trackless seas. they have given us all we have of knowledge, of literature and art. they have made life worth living. they have filled the world with conveniences, comforts and luxuries. all this has been done by the worldly--by those, who were not "called" or "set apart" or filled with the holy ghost or had the slightest claim to "apostolic succession." the men who accomplished these things were not "inspired." they had no revelation--no supernatural aid. they were not clad in sacred vestments, and tiaras were not upon their brows. they were not even ordained. they used their senses, observed and recorded facts. they had confidence in reason. they were patient searchers for the truth. they turned their attention to the affairs of this world. they were not saints. they were sensible men. they worked for themselves, for wife and child and for the benefit of all. to these men we are indebted for all we are, for all we know, for all we have. they were the creators of civilization--the founders of free states--the saviors of liberty--the destroyers of superstition and the great captains in the army of progress. iv. whom shall we thank? standing here at the close of the th century--amid the trophies of thought--the triumphs of genius--here under the flag of the great republic--knowing something of the history of man--here on this day that has been set apart for thanksgiving, i most reverently thank the good men, the good women of the past, i thank the kind fathers, the loving mothers of the savage days. i thank the father who spoke the first gentle word, the mother who first smiled upon her babe. i thank the first true friend. i thank the savages who hunted and fished that they and their babes might live. i thank those who cultivated the ground and changed the forests into farms--those who built rude homes and watched the faces of their happy children in the glow of fireside flames--those who domesticated horses, cattle and sheep--those who invented wheels and looms and taught us to spin and weave--those who by cultivation changed wild grasses into wheat and corn, changed bitter things to fruit, and worthless weeds to flowers, that sowed within our souls the seeds of art. i thank the poets of the dawn--the tellers of legends--the makers of myths--the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love. i thank the artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and shade the face of man. i thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught us how to use our minds in the great search for truth. i thank the astronomers who explored the heavens, told us the secrets of the stars, the glories of the constellations--the geologists who found the story of the world in fossil forms, in memoranda kept in ancient rocks, in lines written by waves, by frost and fire--the anatomists who sought in muscle, nerve and bone for all the mysteries of life--the chemists who unraveled nature's work that they might learn her art--the physicians who have laid the hand of science on the brow of pain, the hand whose magic touch restores--the surgeons who have defeated nature's self and forced her to preserve the lives of those she labored to destroy. i thank the discoverers of chloroform and ether, the two angels who give to their beloved sleep, and wrap the throbbing brain in the soft robes of dreams. i thank the great inventors--those who gave us movable type and the press, by means of which great thoughts and all discovered facts are made immortal--the inventors of engines, of the great ships, of the railways, the cables and telegraphs. i thank the great mechanics, the workers in iron and steel, in wood and stone. i thank the inventors and makers of the numberless things of use and luxury. i thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful women. they are the benefactors of our race. the inventor of pins did a thousand times more good than all the popes and cardinals, the bishops and priests--than all the clergymen and parsons, exhorters and theologians that ever lived. the inventor of matches did more for the comfort and convenience of mankind than all the founders of religions and the makers of all creeds--than all malicious monks and selfish saints. i thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the veracity of their souls. i thank the thinkers of greece and rome, zeno and epicurus, cicero and lucretius. i thank bruno, the bravest, and spinoza, the subtlest of men. i thank voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of man, unlocked the doors of superstition's cells and gave liberty to many millions of his fellow-men. voltaire--a name that sheds light. voltaire--a star that superstition's darkness cannot quench. i thank the great poets--the dramatists. i thank homer and aeschylus, and i thank shakespeare above them all. i thank burns for the heart-throbs he changed into songs, for his lyrics of flame. i thank shelley for his skylark, keats for his grecian urn and byron for his prisoner of chillon. i thank the great novelists. i thank the great sculptors. i thank the unknown man who moulded and chiseled the venus de milo. i thank the great painters. i thank rembrandt and corot. i thank all who have adorned, enriched and ennobled life--all who have created the great, the noble, the heroic and artistic ideals. i thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. i thank paine whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the hearts of ' . i thank jefferson whose mighty words for liberty have made the circuit of the globe. i thank the founders, the defenders, the saviors of the republic. i thank ericsson, the greatest mechanic of his century, for the monitor. i thank lincoln for the proclamation. i thank grant for his victories and the vast host that fought for the right,--for the freedom of man. i thank them all--the living and the dead. i thank the great scientists--those who have reached the foundation, the bed-rock--who have built upon facts--the great scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious. the scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow-men. they forged no chains, built no dungeons, erected no scaffolds--tore no flesh with red hot pincers--dislocated no joints on racks--crushed no bones in iron boots--extinguished no eyes--tore out no tongues and lighted no fagots. they did not pretend to be inspired--did not claim to be prophets or saints or to have been born again. they were only intelligent and honest men. they did not appeal to force or fear. they did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies. they did not wound--they healed. they did not kill--they lengthened life. they did not enslave--they broke the chains and made men free. they sowed the seeds of knowledge, and many millions have reaped, are reaping, and will reap the harvest of joy. i thank humboldt and helmholtz and haeckel and büchner. i thank lamarck and darwin--darwin who revolutionized the thought of the intellectual world. i thank huxley and spencer. i thank the scientists one and all. i thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear--the dethroners of savage gods--the extinguishers of hate's eternal fire--the heroes, the breakers of chains--the founders of free states--the makers of just laws--the heroes who fought and fell on countless fields--the heroes whose dungeons became shrines--the heroes whose blood made scaffolds sacred--the heroes, the apostles of reason, the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom--the heroes who held high the holy torch and filled the world with light. with all my heart i thank them all. a lay sermon. * delivered before the congress of the american secular union, at chickering hall, new york, nov. , . ladies and gentlemen: in the greatest tragedy that has ever been written by man--in the fourth scene of the third act--is the best prayer that i have ever read; and when i say "the greatest tragedy," everybody familiar with shakespeare will know that i refer to "king lear." after he has been on the heath, touched with insanity, coming suddenly to the place of shelter, he says: "i'll pray, and then i'll sleep." and this prayer is my text: "poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, how shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides, your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you from seasons such as these? oh, i have ta'en too little care of this. take physic, pomp; expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, that thou may'st shake the superflux to them, and show the heavens more just." that is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from human lips. if nobody has too much, everybody will have enough! i propose to say a few words upon subjects that are near to us all, and in which every human being ought to be interested--and if he is not, it may be that his wife will be, it may be that his orphans will be; and i would like to see this world, at last, so that a man could die and not feel that he left his wife and children a prey to the greed, the avarice, or the cruelties of mankind. there is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. there is something wrong, when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. i cannot do much, but i can at least sympathize with those who suffer. there is one thing that we should remember at the start, and if i can only teach you that, to-night--unless you know it already--i shall consider the few words i may have to say a wonderful success. i want you to remember that everybody is as he _must_ be. i want you to get out of your minds the old nonsense of "free moral agency;" and then you will have charity for the whole human race. when you know that they are not responsible for their dispositions, any more than for their height; not responsible for their acts, any more than for their dreams; when you finally understand the philosophy that everything exists as the result of an efficient cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever fluttered its painted wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily produced as the planet that in its orbit wheels about the sun--when you understand this, i believe you will have charity for all mankind--including even yourself. wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue--although the virtuous have generally been poor. there is only one good, and that is human happiness; and he only is a wise man who makes himself and others happy. i have heard all my life about self-denial. there never was anything more idiotic than that. no man who does right practices self-denial. to do right is the bud and blossom and fruit of wisdom. to do right should always be dictated by the highest possible selfishness and the most perfect generosity. no man practices self-denial unless he does wrong. to inflict an injury upon yourself is an act of self-denial. he who denies justice to another denies it to himself. to plant seeds that will forever bear the fruit of joy, is not an act of self-denial. so this idea of doing good to others only for their sake is absurd. you want to do it, not simply for their sake, but for your own; because a perfectly civilized man can never be perfectly happy while there is one unhappy being in this universe. let us take another step. the barbaric world was to be rewarded in some other world for acting sensibly in this. they were promised rewards in another world, if they would only have self-denial enough to be virtuous in this. if they would forego the pleasures of larceny and murder; if they would forego the thrill and bliss of meanness here, they would be rewarded hereafter for that self-denial. i have exactly the opposite idea. do right, not to deny yourself, but because you love yourself and because you love others. be generous, because it is better for you. be just, because any other course is the suicide of the soul. whoever does wrong plagues himself, and when he reaps that harvest, he will find that he was not practicing self-denial when he did right. if you want to be happy yourself, if you are truly civilized, you want others to be happy. every man ought, to the extent of his ability, to increase the happiness of mankind, for the reason that that will increase his own. no one can be really prosperous unless those with whom he lives share the sunshine and the joy. the first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is when he has got enough. most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but, as a rule, it is only a gilded hell. there is not a man in the city of new york with genius enough, with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. why? the money will own him. he becomes the key to a safe. that money will get him up at daylight; that money will separate him from his friends; that money will fill his heart with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his nights of pleasant dreams. he cannot own it. he becomes the property of that money. and he goes right on making more. what for? he does not know. it becomes a kind of insanity. no one is happier in a palace than in a cabin. i love to see a log house. it is associated in my mind always with pure, unalloyed happiness. it is the only house in the world that looks as though it had no mortgage on it. it looks as if you could spend there long, tranquil autumn days; the air filled with serenity; no trouble, no thoughts about notes, about interest--nothing of the kind; just breathing free air, watching the hollyhocks, listening to the birds and to the music of the spring that comes like a poem from the earth. it is an insanity to get more than you want. imagine a man in this city, an intelligent man, say with two or three millions of coats, eight or ten millions of hats, vast warehouses full of shoes, billions of neckties, and imagine that man getting up at four o'clock in the morning, in the rain and snow and sleet, working like a dog all day to get another necktie! is not that exactly what the man of twenty or thirty millions, or of five millions, does to-day? wearing his life out that somebody may say, "how rich he is!" what can he do with the surplus? nothing. can he eat it? no. make friends? no. purchase flattery and lies? yes. make all his poor relations hate him? yes. and then, what worry! annoyed, nervous, tormented, until his poor little brain becomes inflamed, and you see in the morning paper, "died of apoplexy." this man finally began to worry for fear he would not have enough neckties to last him through. so we ought to teach our children that great wealth is a curse. great wealth is the mother of crime. on the other hand are the abject poor. and let me ask, to-night: is the world forever to remain as it was when lear made his prayer? is it ever to remain as it is now? i hope not. are there always to be millions whose lips are white with famine? is the withered palm to be always extended, imploring from the stony heart of respectable charity, alms? must every man who sits down to a decent dinner always think of the starving? must every one sitting by the fireside think of some poor mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in the storm? i hope not. are the rich always to be divided from the poor,--not only in fact, but in feeling? and that division is growing more and more every day the gulf between lazarus and dives widens year by year, only their positions are changed--lazarus is in hell, and he thinks dives is in the bosom of abraham. and there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf. in nearly every city of the united states you will find the fashionable part, and the poor part. the poor know nothing of the fashionable part, except the outside splendor; and as they go by the palaces, that poison plant called envy, springs and grows in their poor hearts. the rich know nothing of the poor, except the squalor and rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the police records, and they say, "thank god, we are not like those people!" their hearts are filled with scorn and contempt, and the hearts of the others with envy and hatred. there must be some way devised for the rich and poor to get acquainted. the poor do not know how many well-dressed people sympathize with them, and the rich do not know how many noble hearts beat beneath the rags. if we can ever get the loving poor acquainted with the sympathizing rich, this question will be nearly solved. in a hundred other ways they are divided. if anything should bring mankind together it ought to be a common belief. in catholic countries, that does have a softening influence upon the rich and upon the poor. they believe the same. so in mohammedan countries they can kneel in the same mosque, and pray to the same god. but how is it with us? the church is not free. there is no welcome in the velvet for the velveteen. poverty does not feel at home there, and the consequence is, the rich and poor are kept apart, even by their religion. i am not saying anything against religion. i am not on that question; but i would think more of any religion, provided that even for one day in the week, or for one hour in the year, it allowed wealth to clasp the hand of poverty and to have, for one moment even, the thrill of genuine friendship. in the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple' thing to get a living. a little hunting, a little fishing, pulling a little fruit, and digging for roots--all simple; and they were nearly all on an equality, and comparatively there were fewer failures. living has at last become complex. all the avenues are filled with men struggling for the accomplishment of the same thing: "for emulation hath a thousand sons that one by one pursue: if you give way, or hedge aside from the direct forthright, like to an entered tide, they all rush by, and leave you hindmost;-- or, like a gallant horse, fallen in first rank, lie there for pavement to the abject rear." the struggle is so hard. and just exactly as we have risen in the scale of being, the per cent, of failures has increased. it is so that all men are not capable of getting a living. they have not cunning enough, intellect enough, muscle enough--they are not strong enough. they are too generous, or they are too negligent; and then some people seem to have what is called "bad luck"--that is to say, when anything falls, they are under it; when anything bad happens, it happens to them. and now there is another trouble. just as life becomes complex and as everyone is trying to accomplish certain objects, all the ingenuity of the brain is at work to get there by a shorter way, and, in consequence, this has become an age of invention. myriads of machines have been invented--every one of them to save labor. if these machines helped the laborer, what a blessing they would be! but the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him. that is the trouble. in the olden time, when i was a boy, even, you know how it was in the little towns. there was a shoemaker--two of them--a tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. i remember just how the shops used to look. i used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on the forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes. many a night have i seen the sparks fly and heard the stories that were told. there was a great deal of human nature in those days! everybody was known. if times got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling, straightening up the heels. the same with the blacksmith; the same with the tailor. they could get credit--they did not have to pay till the next january, and if they could not pay then, they took another year, and they were happy enough. now one man is not a shoemaker. there is a great building--several hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery, three or four thousand people--not a single mechanic in the whole building. one sews on straps, another greases the machines, cuts out soles, waxes threads. and what is the result? when the machines stop, three thousand men are out of employment. credit goes. then come want and famine, and if they happen to have a little child die, it would take them years to save enough of their earnings to pay the expense of putting away that little sacred piece of flesh. and yet, by this machinery we can produce enough to flood the world. by the inventions in agricultural machinery the united states can feed all the mouths upon the earth. there is not a thing that man uses that can not instantly be over-produced to such an extent as to become almost worthless; and yet, with all this production, with all this power to create, there are millions and millions in abject want. granaries bursting, and famine looking into the doors of the poor! millions of everything, and yet millions wanting everything and having substantially nothing! now, there is something wrong there. we have got into that contest between machines-and men, and if extravagance does not keep pace with ingenuity, it is going to be the most terrible question that man has ever settled. i tell you, to-night, that these things are worth thinking about. nothing that touches the future of our race, nothing that touches the happiness of ourselves or our children, should be beneath our notice. we should think of these things--must think of them--and we should endeavor to see that justice is finally done between man and man. my sympathies are with the poor. my sympathies are with the workingmen of the united states. understand me distinctly. i am not an anarchist. anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. i am not a socialist. i am not a communist. i am an individualist. i do not believe in tyranny of government, but i do believe in justice as between man and man. what is the remedy? or, what can we think of--for do not imagine that i think i know. it is an immense, an almost infinite, question, and all we can do is to guess. you have heard a great deal lately upon the land subject. let me say a word or two upon that. in the first place i do not want to take, and i would not take, an inch of land from any human being that belonged to him. if we ever take it, we must pay for it--condemn it and take it--do not rob anybody. whenever any man advocates justice, and robbery as the means, i suspect him. no man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use. everybody knows that--i do not care whether he has thousands or millions. i have owned a great deal of land, but i know just as well as i know i am living that i should not be allowed to have it unless i use it. and why? don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? don't you know that there would be an american air-bottling association? and don't you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? i am not blaming anybody. i am just telling how it is. now, the land belongs to the children of nature. nature invites into this world every babe that is born. and what would you think of me, for instance, to-night, if i had invited you here--nobody had charged you anything, but you had been invited--and when you got here you had found one man pretending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty, and another seventy-five, and thereupon you were compelled to stand up--what would you think of the invitation? it seems to me that every child of nature is entitled to his share of the land, and that he should not be compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil, of a babe that happened to be born before him. and why do i say this? because it is not to our interest to have a few landlords and millions of tenants. the tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the enemy of virtue, the enemy of patriotism. home is where the virtues grow. i would like to see the law so that every home, to a small amount, should be free not only from sale for debts, but should be absolutely free from taxation, so that every man could have a home. then we will have a nation of patriots. now, suppose that every man were to have all the land he is able to buy. the vanderbilts could buy to-day all the land that is in farms in the state of ohio--every foot of it. would it be for the best interest of that state to have a few landlords and four or five millions of serfs? so, i am in favor of a law finally to be carried out--not by robbery, but by compensation, under the right, as the lawyers call it, of eminent domain--so that no person would be allowed to own more land than he uses. i am not blaming these rich men for being rich. i pity the most of them. i had rather be poor, with a little sympathy in my heart, than to be rich as all the mines of earth and not have that little flower of pity in my breast. i do not see how a man can have hundreds of millions and pass every day people that have not enough to eat. i do not understand it. i might be just the same way myself. there is something in money that dries up the sources of affection, and the probability is, it is this: the moment a man gets money, so many men are trying to get it away from him that in a little while he regards the whole human race as his enemy, and he generally thinks that they could be rich, too, if they would only attend to business as he has. understand, i am not blaming these people. there is a good deal of human nature in us all. you remember the story of the man who made a speech at a socialist meeting, and closed it by saying, "thank god, i am no monopolist," but as he sank to his seat said, "but i wish to the lord i was!" we must remember that these rich men are naturally produced. do not blame them. blame the system! certain privileges have been granted to the few by the government, ostensibly for the benefit of the many; and whenever that grant is not for the good of the many, it should be taken from the few--not by force, not by robbery, but by estimating fairly the value of that property, and paying to them its value; because everything should be done according to law and order. what remedy, then, is there? first, the great weapon in this country is the ballot. each voter is a sovereign. there the poorest is the equal of the richest. his vote will count just as many as though the hand that cast it controlled millions. the poor are in the majority in this country. if there is any law that oppresses them, it is their fault. they have followed the fife and drum of some party. they have been misled by others. no man should go an inch with a party--no matter if that party is half the world and has in it the greatest intellects of the earth--unless that party is going his way. no honest man should ever turn round to join anything. if it overtakes him, good. if he has to hurry up a little to get to it, good. but do not go with anything that is not going your way; no matter whether they call it republican, or democrat, or progressive democracy--do not go with it unless it goes your way. the ballot is the power. the law should settle many of these questions between capital and labor. but i expect the greatest good to come from civilization, from the growth of a sense of justice; for i tell you to-night, a civilized man will never want anything for less than it is worth--a civilized man, when he sells a thing, will never want more than it is worth--a really and truly civilized man, would rather be cheated than to cheat. and yet, in the united states, good as we are, nearly everybody wants to get everything for a little less than it is worth, and the man that sells it to him wants to get a little more than it is worth? and this breeds rascality on both sides. that ought to be done away with. there is one step toward it that we will take: we will finally say that human flesh, human labor, shall not depend entirely on "supply and demand." that is infinitely cruel. every man should give to another according to his ability to give--and enough that he may make his living and lay something by for the winter of old age. go to england. civilized country they call it. it is not. it never was. i am afraid it never will be. go to london, the greatest city of this world, where there is the most wealth--the greatest glittering piles of gold. and yet, one out of every six in that city dies in a hospital, a workhouse or a prison. is that the best that we are ever to know? is that the last word that civilization has to say? look at the women in this town sewing for a living, making cloaks for less than forty-five cents, that sell for $ ! right here--here, amid all the palaces, amid the thousands of millions of property--here! is that all that civilization can do? must a poor woman support herself, or her child, or her children, by that kind of labor, and with such pay--and do we call ourselves civilized? did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing woman? let me tell you the last verse: "winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story of the young life by the needle that bled, making a bridge over death's soundless waters out of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread-- over it going, all the world knowing that thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before: god protect all of us! god pity all of us, should she look back from the opposite shore!" i cannot call this civilization. there must be something nearer a fairer division in this world. you can never get it by strikes. never. the first strike that is a great success will be the last, because the people who believe in law and order will put the strikers down. the strike is no remedy. boycotting is no remedy. brute force is no remedy. these questions have to be settled by reason, by candor, by intelligence, by kindness; and nothing is permanently settled in this world that has not for its corner-stone justice, and is not protected by the profound conviction of the human mind. this is no country for anarchy, no country for communism, no country for the socialist. why? because the political power is equally divided. what other reason? speech is free. what other? the press is untrammeled. and that is all that the right should ever ask--a free press, free speech, and the protection of person. that is enough. that is all i ask. in a country like russia, where every mouth is a bastile and every tongue a convict, there may be some excuse. where the noblest and the best are driven to siberia, there may be a reason for the nihilist. in a country where no man is allowed to petition for redress, there is a reason, but not here. this--say what you will against it--this is the best government ever founded by the human race! say what you will of parties, say what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the air is ours! only a few years ago morally we were a low people--before we abolished slavery--but now, when there is no chain except that of custom, when every man has an opportunity, this is the grandest government of the earth. there is hardly a man in the united states to-day, of any importance, whose voice anybody cares to hear, who was not nursed at the loving breast of poverty. look at the children of the rich. my god, what a punishment for being rich! so, whatever happens, let every man say that this government, and this form of government, shall stand. "but," say some, "these workingmen are dangerous." i deny it. we are all in their power. they run all the cars. our lives are in their hands almost every day. they are working in all our homes. they do the labor of this world. we are all at their mercy, and yet they do not commit more crimes, according to number, than the rich. remember that. i am not afraid of them. neither am i afraid of the monopolists, because, under our institutions, when they become hurtful to the general good, the people will stand it just to a certain point, and then comes the end--not in anger, not in hate, but from a love of liberty and justice. now, we have in this country another class. we call them "criminals." let me take another step: "'tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after." recollect what i said in the first place--that every man is as he must be. every crime is a necessary product. the seeds were all sown, the land thoroughly plowed, the crop well attended to, and carefully harvested. every crime is born of necessity. if you want less crime, you must change the conditions. poverty makes crime. want, rags, crusts, failure, misfortune--all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. and what do you do with him? you punish him. why not punish a man for having the consumption? the time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. what do you do with the criminal? you send him to the penitentiary. is he made better? worse. the first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. you mark him. you put him in stripes. at night you put him in darkness. his feeling for revenge grows. you make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he wants to. you put on airs above him, because he has been in the penitentiary. the next time you look with scorn upon a convict, let me beg of you to do one thing. maybe you are not as bad as i am, but do one thing: think of all the crimes you have wanted to commit; think of all the crimes you would have committed if you had had the opportunity; think of all the temptations to which you would have yielded had nobody been looking; and then put your hand on your heart and say whether you can justly look with contempt even upon a convict. none but the noblest should inflict punishment, even on the basest. society has no right to punish any man in revenge--no right to punish any man except for two objects--one, the prevention of crime; the other, the reformation of the criminal. how can you reform him? kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. let it be understood by these men that there is no revenge; let it be understood, too, that they can reform. only a little while ago i read of a case of a young man who had been in a penitentiary and came out. he kept it a secret, and went to work for a farmer. he got in love with the daughter, and wanted to marry her. he had nobility enough to tell the truth--he told the father that he had been in the penitentiary. the father said, "you cannot have my daughter, because it would stain her life." the young man said, "yes, it would stain her life, therefore i will not marry her." he went out. in a few moments afterward they heard the report of a pistol, and he was dead. he left just a little note saying: "i am through. there is no need of my living longer, when i stain with my life the one i love." and yet we call our society civilized. there is a mistake. i want that question thought of. i want all my fellow-citizens to think of it. i want you to do what you can to do away with all cruelty. there are, of course, some cases that have to be treated with what might be called almost cruelty; but if there is the smallest seed of good in any human heart, let kindness fall upon it until it grows, and in that way i know, and so do you, that the world will get better and better day by day. let us, above all things, get acquainted with each other. let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable. let us say to our children: it is your business to see that you never become a burden on others. your first duty is to take care of yourselves, and if there is a surplus, with that surplus help your fellow-man. you owe it to yourself above all things not to be a burden upon others. teach your son that it is his duty not only, but his highest joy, to become a home-builder, a home-owner. teach your children that the fireside is the happiest place in this world. teach them that whoever is an idler, whoever lives upon the labor of others, whether he is a pirate or a king, is a dishonorable person. teach them that no civilized man wants anything for nothing, or for less than it is worth; that he wants to go through this world paying his way as he goes, and if he gets a little ahead, an extra joy, it should be divided with another, if that other is doing something for himself. help others help themselves. and let us teach that great wealth is not great happiness; that money will not purchase love; it never did and never can purchase respect; it never did and never can purchase the highest happiness. i believe with robert burns: "if happiness have not her seat and center in the breast, we may be wise, or rich, or great, but never can be blest." we must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that we give them every right that we claim for ourselves. we must discuss these questions and have charity--and we will have it whenever we have the philosophy that all men are as they must be, and that intelligence and kindness are the only levers capable of raising mankind. then there is another thing. let each one be true to himself. no matter what his class, no matter what his circumstances, let him tell his thought. don't let his class bribe him. don't let him talk like a banker because he is a banker. don't let him talk like the rest of the merchants because he is a merchant. let him be true to the human race instead of to his little business--be true to the ideal in his heart and brain, instead of to his little present and apparent selfishness--let him have a larger and more intelligent selfishness--a generous philosophy, that includes not only others but himself. so far as i am concerned, i have made up my mind that no organization, secular or religious, shall be my master. i have made up my mind that no necessity of bread, or roof, or raiment shall ever put a padlock on my lips. i have made up my mind that no hope of preferment, no honor, no wealth, shall ever make me for one moment swerve from what i really believe, no matter whether it is to my immediate interest, as one would think, or not. and while i live, i am going to do what little i can to help my fellow-men who have not been as fortunate as i have been. i shall talk on their side, i shall vote on their side, and do what little i can to convince men that happiness does not lie in the direction of great wealth, but in the direction of achievement for the good of themselves and for the good of their fellow-men. i shall do what little i can to hasten the day when this earth shall be covered with homes, and when by countless firesides shall sit the happy and the loving families of the world. the foundations of faith. i. the old testament. one of the foundation stones of our faith is the old testament. if that book is not true, if its authors were unaided men, if it contains blunders and falsehoods, then that stone crumbles to dust. the geologists demonstrated that the author of genesis was mistaken as to the age of the world, and that the story of the universe having been created in six days, about six thousand years ago could not be true. the theologians then took the ground that the "days" spoken of in genesis were periods of time, epochs, six "long whiles," and that the work of creation might have been commenced millions of years ago. the change of days into epochs was considered by the believers of the bible as a great triumph over the hosts of infidelity. the fact that jehovah had ordered the jews to keep the sabbath, giving as a reason that he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, did not interfere with the acceptance of the "epoch" theory. but there is still another question. how long has man been upon the earth? according to the bible, adam was certainly the first man, and in his case the epoch theory cannot change the account. the bible gives the age at which adam died, and gives the generations to the flood--then to abraham and so on, and shows that from the creation of adam to the birth of christ it was about four thousand and four years. according to the sacred scriptures man has been on this earth five thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years and no more. is this true? geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods, reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. with most of these periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known that the lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and the higher with the more recent. it is also known that certain forms of life existed in europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years ago these forms disappeared. for instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in europe, and in the british islands some of the most gigantic mammals, the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the irish elk, elephants and other forms that have in those countries become extinct. geologists say that many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to inhabit those countries. it was during the drift period that these forms of life existed in europe and england, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago. in caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and the bones of these extinct animals. with the flint tools man had split the bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food. many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been found. and we now know that in the drift period man was the companion of these extinct monsters. it is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before adam lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth. it is certain that the account in the bible of the creation of the first man is a mistake. it is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing about the origin of man. let me give you another fact: the egyptians were astronomers. a few years ago representations of the stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered by calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as represented about seven hundred and fifty years before christ. afterward another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in the same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions represented about three thousand eight hundred years before christ. according to the bible the first man was created four thousand and four years before christ if this is true then egypt was founded, its language formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man. in other words, adam was two or three hundred years old when the egyptian astronomers made these representations. nothing can be more absurd. again i say that the writers of the bible were mistaken. how do i know? according to that same bible there was a flood some fifteen or sixteen hundred years after adam was created that destroyed the entire human race with the exception of eight persons, and according to the bible the egyptians descended from one of the sons of noah. how then did the egyptians represent the stars in the position they occupied twelve hundred years before the flood? no one pretends that egypt existed as a nation before the flood. yet the astronomical representations found, must have been made more than a thousand years before the world was drowned. there is another mistake in the bible. according to that book the sun was made after the earth was created. is this true? did the earth exist before the sun? the men of science are believers in the exact opposite. they believe that the earth is a child of the sun--that the earth, as well as the other planets belonging to our constellation, came from the sun. the writers of the bible were mistaken. there is another point: according to the bible, jehovah made the world in six days, and the work done each day is described. what did jehovah do on the second day? this is the record: "and god said: let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. and god made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. and it was so, and god called the firmament heaven. and the evening and the morning were the second day." the writer of this believed in a solid firmament--the floor of jehovah's house. he believed that the waters had been divided, and that the rain came from above the firmament. he did not understand the fact of evaporation--did not know that the rain came from the water on the earth. now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are not divided by a firmament. consequently we know that, according to the bible, jehovah did nothing on the second day. he must have rested on tuesday. this being so, we ought to have two sundays a week. can we rely on the historical parts of the bible? seventy souls went down into egypt, and in two hundred and fifteen years increased to three millions. they could not have doubled more than four times a century. say nine times in two hundred and fifteen years. this makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty, ( , .) instead of three millions. can we believe the accounts of the battles? take one instance: jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men, abijah of four hundred thousand. they fought. the lord was on abijah's side, and he killed five hundred thousand of jereboam's men. all these soldiers were jews--all lived in palestine, a poor miserable little country about one-quarter as large as the state of new york. yet one million two hundred thousand soldiers were put in the field. this required a population in the country of ten or twelve millions. of course this is absurd. palestine in its palmiest days could not have supported two millions of people. the soil is poor. if the bible is inspired, is it true? we are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver collected by king david for the temple--the temple afterward completed by the virtuous solomon. according to the blessed bible, david collected about two thousand million dollars in silver, and five thousand million dollars in gold, making a total of seven thousand million dollars. is this true? there is in the bank of france at the present time ( ) nearly six hundred million dollars, and so far as we know, it is the greatest amount that was ever gathered together. all the gold now known, coined and in bullion, does not amount to much more than the sum collected by david. seven thousand millions. where did david get this gold? the jews had no commerce. they owned no ships. they had no great factories, they produced nothing for other countries. there were no gold or silver mines in palestine. where then was this gold, this silver found? i will tell you: in the imagination of a writer who had more patriotism than intelligence, and who wrote, not for the sake of truth, but for the glory of the jews. is it possible that david collected nearly eight thousand tons of gold--that he by economy got together about sixty thousand tons of silver, making a total of gold and silver of sixty-eight thousand tons? the average freight car carries about fifteen tons--david's gold and silver would load about four thousand five hundred and thirty-three cars, making a train about thirty-two miles in length. and all this for the temple at jerusalem, a building ninety feet long and forty-five feet high and thirty wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide, ninety feet long and one hundred and eighty feet high. probably the architect was inspired. is there a sensible man in the world who believes that david collected seven thousand million dollars worth of gold or silver? there is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now used as money in the whole world. think of the millions taken from the mines of california, australia and africa during the present century and yet the total scarcely exceeds the amount collected by king david more than a thousand years before the birth of christ. evidently the inspired historian made a mistake. it required a little imagination and a few ciphers to change seven million dollars or seven hundred thousand dollars into seven thousand million dollars. drop four ciphers and the story becomes fairly reasonable. the old testament must be thrown aside. it is no longer a foundation. it has crumbled. ii. the new testament but we have the new testament, the sequel of the old, in which christians find the fulfillment of prophecies made by inspired jews. the new testament vouches for the truth, the inspiration, of the old, and if the old is false, the new cannot be true. in the new testament we find all that we know about the life and teachings of jesus christ. it is claimed that the writers were divinely inspired, and that all they wrote is true. let us see if these writers agree. certainly there should be no difference about the birth of christ. from the christian's point of view, nothing could have been of greater importance than that event. matthew says: "now when jesus was born in bethlehem of judea, in the days of herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to jerusalem. "saying, where is he that is born king of the jews? for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him." matthew does not tell us who these wise men were, from what country they came, to what race they belonged. he did not even know their names. we are also informed that when herod heard these things he was troubled and all jerusalem with him; that he gathered the chief priests and asked of them where christ should be born and they told him that he was to be born in bethlehem. then herod called the wise men and asked them when the star appeared, and told them to go to bethlehem and report to him. when they left herod, the star again appeared and went before them until it stood over the place where the child was. when they came to the child they worshiped him,--gave him gifts, and being warned by god in a dream, they went back to their own country without calling on herod. then the angel of the lord appeared to joseph in a dream and told him to take mary and the child into egypt for fear of herod. so joseph took mary and the child to egypt and remained there until the death of herod. then herod, finding that he was mocked by the wise men, "sent forth and slew all the children that were in bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under." after the death of herod an angel again appeared in a dream to joseph and told him to take mother and child and go back to palestine. so he went back and dwelt in nazareth. is this story true? must we believe in the star and the wise men? who were these wise men? from what country did they come? what interest had they in the birth of the king of the jews? what became of them and their star? of course i know that the holy catholic church has in her keeping the three skulls that belonged to these wise men, but i do not know where the church obtained these relics, nor exactly how their genuineness has been established. must we believe that herod murdered the babes of bethlehem? is it not wonderful that the enemies of herod did not charge him with this horror? is it not marvelous that mark and luke and john forgot to mention this most heartless of massacres? luke also gives an account of the birth of christ. he says that there went out a decree from cæsar augustus that all the world should be taxed; that this was when cyrenius was governor of syria; that in accordance with this decree, joseph and mary went to bethlehem to be taxed; that at that place christ was born and laid in a manger. he also says that shepherds, in the neighborhood, were told of the birth by an angel, with whom was a multitude of the heavenly host; that these shepherds visited mary and the child, and told others what they had seen and heard. he tells us that after eight days the child was named, jesus; that forty days after his birth he was taken by joseph and mary to jerusalem, and that after they had performed all things according to the law they returned to nazareth. luke also says that the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and that his parents went every year to jerusalem. do the accounts in matthew and luke agree? can both accounts be true? luke never heard of the star, and matthew knew nothing of the heavenly host. luke never heard of the wise men, nor matthew of the shepherds. luke knew nothing of the hatred of herod, the murder of the babes or the flight into egypt. according to matthew, joseph, warned by an angel, took mary and the child and fled into egypt. according to luke they all went to jerusalem, and from there back to nazareth. both of these accounts cannot be true. will some christian scholar tell us which to believe? when was christ born? luke says that it took place when cyrenius was governor. here is another mistake. cyrenius was not appointed governor until after the death of herod, and the taxing could not have taken place until ten years after the alleged birth of christ. according to luke, joseph and mary lived in nazareth, and for the purpose of getting them to bethlehem, so that the child could be born in the right place, the taxing under cyrenius was used, but the writer, being "inspired" made a mistake of about ten years as to the time of the taxing and of the birth. matthew says nothing about the date of the birth, except that he was born when herod was king. it is now known that herod had been dead ten years before the taxing under cyrenius. so, if luke tells the truth, joseph, being warned by an angel, fled from the hatred of herod ten years after herod was dead. if matthew and luke are both right christ was taken to egypt ten years before he was born, and herod killed the babes ten years after he was dead. will some christian scholar have the goodness to harmonize these "inspired" accounts? there is another thing. matthew and luke both try to show that christ was of the blood of david, that he was a descendant of that virtuous king. as both of these writers were inspired and as both received their information from god, they ought to agree. according to matthew there was between david and jesus twenty-seven generations, and he gives all the names. according to luke there were between david and jesus forty-two generations, and he gives all the names. in these genealogies--both inspired--there is a difference between david and jesus, a difference of some fourteen or fifteen generations. besides, the names of all the ancestors are different, with two exceptions. matthew says that joseph's father was jacob. luke says that heli was joseph's father. both of these genealogies cannot be true, and the probability is that both are false. there is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these ignorant and stupid contradictions. there are many curious mistakes in the words attributed to christ. we are told in matthew, chapter xxiii, verse , that christ said: "that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous abel unto the blood of zacharias, son of barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." it is certain that these words were not spoken by christ. he could not by any possibility have known that the blood of zacharias had been shed. as a matter of fact, zacharias was killed by the jews, during the seige of jerusalem by titus, and this seige took place seventy-one years after the birth of christ, thirty-eight years after he was dead. there is still another mistake. zacharias was not the son of barachias--no such zacharias was killed. the zacharias that was slain was the son of baruch. but we must not expect the "inspired" to be accurate. matthew says that at the time of the crucifixion--"the graves were opened and that many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of their graves _after_ his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many." according to this the graves were opened at the time of the crucifixion, but the dead did not arise and come out until after the resurrection of christ. they were polite enough to sit in their open graves and wait for christ to rise first. to whom did these saints appear? what became of them? did they slip back into their graves and commit suicide? is it not wonderful that mark, luke and john never heard of these saints? what kind of saints were they? certainly they were not christian saints. so, the inspired writers do not agree in regard to judas. certainly the inspired writers ought to have known what happened to judas, the betrayer. matthew being duly "inspired" says that when judas saw that jesus had been condemned, he repented and took back the money to the chief priests and elders, saying that he had sinned in betraying the innocent blood. they said to him: "what is that to us? see thou to that." then judas threw down the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself. the chief priests then took the pieces of silver and bought the potter's field to bury strangers in, and it is called the field of blood. we are told in acts of the apostles that peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said: "now this man, (judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity--and falling headlong he burst asunder and all his bowels gushed out--that field is called the field of blood." matthew says judas repented and gave back the money. peter says that he bought a field with the money. matthew says that judas hanged himself. peter says that he fell down and burst asunder. which of these accounts is true? besides, it is hard to see why christians hate, loathe and despise judas. according to their scheme of salvation, it was absolutely necessary that christ should be killed--necessary that he should be betrayed, and had it not been for judas, all the world, including christ's mother, and the part of christ that was human, would have gone to hell. yet, according to the new testament, christ did not know that one of his disciples was to betray him. jesus, when on his way to jerusalem, for the last time, said, speaking to the twelve disciples, judas being present, that they, the disciples should thereafter sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of israel. yet, more than a year before this journey, john says that christ said, speaking to the twelve disciples: "have not i chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil." and john adds: "he spake of judas iscariot, for it was he that should betray him." why did christ a year afterward, tell judas that he should sit on a throne and judge one of the tribes of israel? there is still another trouble. paul says that jesus after his resurrection appeared to the twelve disciples. according to paul, jesus appeared to judas with the rest. certainly paul had not heard the story of the betrayal. why did christ select judas as one of his disciples, knowing that he would betray him? did he desire to be betrayed? was it his intention to be put to death? why did he fail to defend himself before pilate? according to the accounts, pilate wanted to save him. did christ wish to be convicted? the christians are compelled to say that christ intended to be sacrificed--that he selected judas with that end in view, and that he refused to defend himself because he desired to be crucified. all this is in accordance with the horrible idea that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. iii. jehovah. god the father. the jehovah of the old testament is the god of the christians. he it was who created the universe, who made all substance, all force, all life, from nothing. he it is who has governed and still governs the world. he has established and destroyed empires and kingdoms, despotisms and republics. he has enslaved and liberated the sons of men. he has caused the sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. this shows his goodness. he has caused his volcanoes to devour the good and the bad, his cyclones to wreck and rend the generous and the cruel, his floods to drown the loving and the hateful, his lightning to kill the virtuous and the vicious, his famines to starve the innocent and criminal and his plagues to destroy the wise and good, the ignorant and wicked. he has allowed his enemies to imprison, to torture and to kill his friends. he has permitted blasphemers to flay his worshipers alive, to dislocate their joints upon racks, and to burn them at the stake. he has allowed men to enslave their brothers and to sell babes from the breasts of mothers. this shows his impartiality. the pious negro who commenced his prayer: "o thou great and unscrupulous god," was nearer right than he knew. ministers ask: is it possible for god to forgive man? and when i think of what has been suffered--of the centuries of agony and tears, i ask: is it possible for man to forgive god? how do christians prove the existence of their god? is it possible to think of an infinite being? does the word god correspond with any image in the mind? does the word god stand for what we know or for what we do not know? is not this unthinkable god a guess, an inference? can we think of a being without form, without body, without parts, without passions? why should we speak of a being without body as of the masculine gender? why should the bible speak of this god as a man?--of his walking in the garden in the cool of the evening--of his talking, hearing and smelling? if he has no passions why is he spoken of as jealous, revengeful, angry, pleased and loving? in the bible god is spoken of as a person in the form of man, journeying from place to place, as having a home and occupying a throne. these ideas have been abandoned, and now the christian's god is the infinite, the incomprehensible, the formless, bodiless and passionless. of the existence of such a being there can be, in the nature of things, no evidence. confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny of all, replies: "i do not know. these questions are beyond the powers of my mind." the wise man is thoughtful and modest. he clings to facts. beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. he does not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. he is honest. he neither deceives himself nor others. the theologian arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and he calls this god. the scientist arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and calls it the unknown. the theologian insists that his inconceivable governs the world, that it, or he, or they, can be influenced by prayers and ceremonies, that it, or he, or they, punishes and rewards, that it, or he, or they, has priests and temples. the scientist insist that the unknown is not changed so far as he knows by prayers of people or priests. he admits that he does not know whether the unknown is good or bad--whether he, or it, wants or whether he, or it, is worthy of worship. he does not say that the unknown is god, that it created substance and force, life and thought. he simply says that of the unknown he knows nothing. why should christians insist that a god of infinite wisdom, goodness and power governs the world? why did he allow millions of his children to be enslaved? why did he allow millions of mothers to be robbed of their babes? why has he allowed injustice to triumph? why has he permitted the innocent to be imprisoned and the good to be burned? why has he withheld his rain and starved millions of the children of men? why has he allowed the volcanoes to destroy, the earthquakes to devour, and the tempest to wreck and rend? iv. the trinity the new testament informs us that christ was the son of joseph and the son of god, and that mary was his mother. how is it established that christ was the son of god? it is said that joseph was told so in a dream by an angel. but joseph wrote nothing on that subject--said nothing so far as we know. mary wrote nothing, said nothing. the angel that appeared to joseph or that informed joseph said nothing to anybody else. neither has the holy ghost, the supposed father, ever said or written one word. we have received no information from the parties who could have known anything on the subject. we get all our facts from those who could not have known. how is it possible to prove that the holy ghost was the father of christ? who knows that such a being as the holy ghost ever existed? how was it possible for mary to know anything about the holy ghost? how could joseph know that he had been visited by an angel in a dream? could he know that the visitor was an angel? it all occurred in a dream and poor joseph was asleep. what is the testimony of one who was asleep worth? all the evidence we have is that somebody who wrote part of the new testament says that the holy ghost was the father of christ, and that somebody who wrote another part of the new testament says that joseph was the father of christ. matthew and luke give the genealogy and both show that christ was the son of joseph. the "incarnation" has to be believed without evidence. there is no way in which it can be established. it is beyond the reach and realm of reason. it defies observation and is independent of experience. it is claimed not only that christ was the son of god, but that he was, and is, god. was he god before he was born? was the body of mary the dwelling place of god? what evidence have we that christ was god? somebody has said that christ claimed that god was his father and that he and his father were one. we do not know who this somebody was and do not know from whom he received his information. somebody who was "inspired" has said that christ was of the blood of david through his father joseph. this is all the evidence we have. can we believe that god, the creator of the universe, learned the trade of a carpenter in palestine, that he gathered a few disciples about him, and after teaching for about three years, suffered himself to be crucified by a few ignorant and pious jews? christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the trinity, the father being the first and the holy ghost the third. each of these three persons is god. christ is his own father and his own son. the holy ghost is neither father nor son, but both. the son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. the holy ghost proceeded from the father and son, but was equal to the father and son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he existed, but he is of the same age of the other two. so, it is declared that the father is god, and the son god and the holy ghost god, and that these three gods make one god. according to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. the addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. each one is equal to himself and the other two. nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the trinity. how is it possible to prove the existence of the trinity? is it possible for a human being, who has been born but once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is equal to the three? think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one as half human and all god, and think of the third as having proceeded from the other two, and then think of all three as one. think that after the father begot the son, the father was still alone, and after the holy ghost proceeded from the father and the son, the father was still alone--because there never was and never will be but one god. at this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing more can be said except: "let us pray." v. the theological christ in the new testament we find the teachings and sayings of christ. if we say that the book is inspired, then we must admit that christ really said all the things attributed to him by the various writers. if the book is inspired we must accept it all. we have no right to reject the contradictory and absurd and accept the reasonable and good. we must take it all just as it is. my own observation has led me to believe that men are generally consistent in their theories and inconsistent in their lives. so, i think that christ in his utterances was true to his theory, to his philosophy. if i find in the testament sayings of a contradictory character, i conclude that some of those sayings were never uttered by him. the sayings that are, in my judgment, in accordance with what i believe to have been his philosophy, i accept, and the others i throw away. there are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout jew, others that he wished to destroy judaism, others showing that he held all people except the jews in contempt and that he wished to save no others, others showing that he wished to convert the world, still others showing that he was forgiving, self-denying and loving, others that he was revengeful and malicious, others, that he was an ascetic, holding all human ties in utter contempt. the following passages show that christ was a devout jew. "swear not, neither by heaven, for it is god's throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, neither by jerusalem for it is his holy city." "think not that i am come to destroy the law or the prophets, i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." "for after all these things, (clothing, food and drink) do the gentiles seek." so, when he cured a leper, he said: "go thy way, show thyself unto the priest and offer the gift that moses commanded." jesus sent his disciples forth saying: "go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of israel." a woman came out of canaan and cried to jesus: "have mercy on me, my daughter is sorely vexed with a devil"--but he would not answer. then the disciples asked him to send her away, and he said: "i am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of israel." then the woman worshiped him and said: "lord help me." but he answered and said: "it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto dogs." yet for her faith he cured her child. so, when the young man asked him what he must do to be saved, he said: "keep the commandments." christ said: "the scribes and the pharisees sit in moses' seat, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." "and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." christ went into the temple and cast out them that sold and bought there, and said: "it is written, my house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves." "we know what we worship for salvation is of the jews." certainly all these passages were written by persons who regarded christ as the messiah. many of the sayings attributed to christ show that he was an ascetic, that he cared nothing for kindred, nothing for father and mother, nothing for brothers or sisters, and nothing for the pleasures of life. christ said to a man: "follow me." the man said: "suffer me first to go and bury my father." christ answered: "let the dead bury their dead." another said: "i will follow thee, but first let me go bid them farewell which are at home." jesus said: "no man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of god. if thine right eye offend thee pluck it out. if thy right hand offend thee cut it off." one said unto him: "behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee." and he answered: "who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" then he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said: "behold my mother and my brethren." "and every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my name's sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life." "he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." christ it seems had a philosophy. he believed that god was a loving father, that he would take care of his children, that they need do nothing except to rely implicitly on god. "blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." "ask and it shall be given you. whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you. the very hairs of your head are all numbered." christ seemed to rely absolutely on the protection of god until the darkness of death gathered about him, and then he cried: "my god! my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" while there are many passages in the new testament showing christ to have been forgiving and tender, there are many others, showing that he was exactly the opposite. what must have been the spirit of one who said: "i am come to send fire on the earth? suppose ye that i am come to give peace on earth? i tell you, nay, but rather division. for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. the father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." "if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." "but those mine enemies, which would not that i should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me." this passage built dungeons and lighted fagots. "depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." "i came not to bring peace but a sword." all these sayings could not have been uttered by the same person. they are inconsistent with each other. love does not speak the words of hatred. the real philanthropist does not despise all nations but his own. the teacher of universal forgiveness cannot believe in eternal torture. from the interpolations, legends, accretions, mistakes and falsehoods in the new testament is it possible to free the actual man? clad in mist and myth, hidden by the draperies of gods, deformed, indistinct as faces in clouds, is it possible to find and recognize the features, the natural face of the actual christ? for many centuries our fathers closed their eyes to the contradictions and inconsistencies of the testament and in spite of their reason harmonized the interpolations and mistakes. this is no longer possible. the contradictions are too many, too glaring. there are contradictions of fact not only, but of philosophy, of theory. the accounts of the trial, the crucifixion, and ascension of christ do not agree. they are full of mistakes and contradictions. according to one account christ ascended the day of, or the day after his resurrection. according to another he remained forty days after rising from the dead. according to one account, he was seen after his resurrection only by a few women and his disciples. according to another he was seen by the women, by his disciples on several occasions and by hundreds of others. according to matthew, luke and mark, christ remained for the most part in the country, seldom going to jerusalem. according to john he remained mostly in jerusalem, going occasionally into the country, and then generally to avoid his enemies. according to matthew, mark and luke, christ taught that if you would forgive others god would forgive you. according to john, christ said that the only way to get to heaven was to believe on him and be born again. these contradictions are gross and palpable and demonstrate that the new testament is not inspired, and that many of its statements must be false. if we wish to save the character of christ, many of the passages must be thrown away. we must discard the miracles or admit that he was insane or an impostor. we must discard the passages that breathe the spirit of hatred and revenge, or admit that he was malevolent. if matthew was mistaken about the genealogy of christ, about the wise men, the star, the flight into egypt and the massacre of the babes by herod,--then he may have been mistaken in many passages that he put in the mouth of christ. the same may be said in regard to mark, luke and john. the church must admit that the writers of the new testament were uninspired men--that they made many mistakes, that they accepted impossible legends as historical facts, that they were ignorant and superstitious, that they put malevolent, stupid, insane and unworthy words in the mouth of christ, described him as the worker of impossible miracles and in many ways stained and belittled his character. the best that can be said about christ is that nearly nineteen centuries ago he was born in the land of palestine in a country without wealth, without commerce, in the midst of a people who knew nothing of the greater world--a people enslaved, crushed by the mighty power of rome. that this babe, this child of poverty and want grew to manhood without education, knowing nothing of art, or science, and at about the age of thirty began wandering about the hills and hamlets of his native land, discussing with priests, talking with the poor and sorrowful, writing nothing, but leaving his words in the memory or forgetfulness of those to whom he spoke. that he attacked the religion of his time because it was cruel. that this excited the hatred of those in power, and that christ was arrested, tried and crucified. for many centuries this great peasant of palestine has been worshiped as god. millions and millions have given their lives to his service. the wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. his name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. his name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. his name gave courage to the martyr, and in the midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again, and again. the outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings. the poor mother, holding her dead babe in her arms, lovingly whispered his name. his gospel has been carried by millions to all parts of the globe, and his story has been told by the self-denying and faithful to countless thousands of the sons of men. in his name have been preached charity,--forgiveness and love. he it was, who according to the faith, brought immortality to light, and many millions have entered the valley of the shadow with their hands in his. all this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. but it is not all. there is another side. in his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. in his name millions and millions have been enslaved. in his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best. in his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. in his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. his gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man. it would have been far better had the new testament never been written--far better had the theological christ never lived. had the writers of the testament been regarded as uninspired, had christ been thought of only as a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the tortures, the scaffolds, the dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows of a thousand years. vi. the "scheme" we have also the scheme of redemption. according to this "scheme," by the sin of adam and eve in the garden of eden, human nature became evil, corrupt and depraved. it became impossible for human beings to keep, in all things, the law of god. in spite of this, god allowed the people to live and multiply for some fifteen hundred years, and then on account of their wickedness drowned them all with the exception of eight persons. the nature of these eight persons was evil, corrupt and depraved, and in the nature of things their children would be cursed with the same nature. yet god gave them another trial, knowing exactly what the result would be. a few of these wretches he selected and made them objects of his love and care, the rest of the world he gave to indifference and neglect. to civilize the people he had chosen, he assisted them in conquering and killing their neighbors, and gave them the assistance of priests and inspired prophets. for their preservation and punishment he wrought countless miracles, gave them many laws and a great deal of advice. he taught them to sacrifice oxen, sheep, and doves, to the end that their sins might be forgiven. the idea was inculcated that there was a certain relation between the sin and the sacrifice,--the greater the sin, the greater the sacrifice. he also taught the savagery that without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sin. in spite of all his efforts, the people grew gradually worse. they would not, they could not keep his laws. a sacrifice had to be made for the sins of the people. the sins were too great to be washed out by the blood of animals or men. it became necessary for. god himself to be sacrificed. all mankind were under the curse of the law. either all the world must be lost or god must die. in only one way could the guilty be justified, and that was by the death, the sacrifice of the innocent. and the innocent being sacrificed must be great enough to atone for the world; there was but one such being--god. thereupon god took upon himself flesh, was born into the world--was known as christ--was murdered, sacrificed by the jews, and became an atonement for the sins of the human race. this is the scheme of redemption,--the atonement. it is impossible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd. a man steals, and then sacrifices a dove, or gives a lamb to a priest. his crime remains the same. he need not kill something. let him give back the thing stolen, and in future live an honest life. a man slanders his neighbor and then kills an ox. what has that to do with the slander. let him take back his slander, make all the reparation that he can, and let the ox alone. there is no sense in sacrifice, never was and never will be. make restitution, reparation, undo the wrong and you need shed no blood. a good law, one springing from the nature of things, cannot demand, and cannot accept, and cannot be satisfied with the punishment, or the agony of the innocent. a god could not accept his own sufferings in justification of the guilty.--this is a complete subversion of all ideas of justice and morality. a god could not make a law for man, then suffer in the place of the man who had violated it, and say that the law had been carried out, and the penalty duly enforced. a man has committed murder, has been tried, convicted and condemned to death. another man goes to the governor and says that he is willing to die in place of the murderer. the governor says: "all right, i accept your offer, a murder has been committed, somebody must be hung and your death will satisfy the law." but that is not the law. the law says, not that somebody shall be hanged, but that the murderer shall suffer death. even if the governor should die in the place of the criminal, it would be no better. there would be two murders instead of one, two innocent men killed, one by the first murderer and one by the state, and the real murderer free. this, christians call, "satisfying the law." vii. belief. we are told that all who believe in this scheme of redemption and have faith in the redeemer will be rewarded with eternal joy. some think that men can be saved by faith without works, and some think that faith and works are both essential, but all agree that without faith there is no salvation. if you repent and believe on jesus christ, then his goodness will be imputed to you and the penalty of the law, so far as you are concerned, will be satisfied by the sufferings of christ. you may repent and reform, you may make restitution, you may practice all the virtues, but without this belief in christ, the gates of heaven will be shut against you forever. where is this heaven? the christians do not know. does the christian go there at death, or must he wait for the general resurrection? they do not know. the testament teaches that the bodies of the dead are to be raised? where are their souls in the meantime? they do not know. can the dead be raised? the atoms composing their bodies enter into new combinations, into new forms, into wheat and corn, into the flesh of animals and into the bodies of other men. where one man dies, and some of his atoms pass into the body of another man and he dies, to whom will these atoms belong in the day of resurrection? if christianity were only stupid and unscientific, if its god was ignorant and kind, if it promised eternal joy to believers and if the believers practiced the forgiveness they teach, for one i should let the faith alone. but there is another side to christianity. it is not only stupid, but malicious. it is not only unscientific, but it is heartless. its god is not only ignorant, but infinitely cruel. it not only promises the faithful an eternal reward, but declares that nearly all of the children of men, imprisoned in the dungeons of god will suffer eternal pain. this is the savagery of christianity. this is why i hate its unthinkable god, its impossible christ, its inspired lies, and its selfish, heartless heaven. christians believe in infinite torture, in eternal pain. eternal pain! all the meanness of which the heart of man is capable is in that one word--hell. that word is a den, a cave, in which crawl the slimy reptiles of revenge. that word certifies to the savagery of primitive man. that word is the depth, the dungeon, the abyss, from which civilized man has emerged. that word is the disgrace, the shame, the infamy, of our revealed religion. that word fills all the future with the shrieks of the damned. that word brutalizes the new testament, changes the sermon on the mount to hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes and hardens the very heart of christ. that word adds an infinite horror to death, and makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin. that word is the assassin of joy, the mocking murderer of hope. that word extinguishes the light of life and wraps the world in gloom. that word drives reason from his throne, and gives the crown to madness. that word drove pity from the hearts of men, stained countless swords with blood, lighted fagots, forged chains, built dungeons, erected scaffolds, and filled the world with poverty and pain. that word is a coiled serpent in the mother's breast, that lifts its fanged head and hisses in her ear:--"your child will be the fuel of eternal fire." that word blots from the firmament the star of hope and leaves the heavens black. that word makes the christian's god an eternal torturer, an everlasting inquisitor--an infinite wild beast. this is the christian prophecy of the eternal future: no hope in hell. no pity in heaven. no mercy in the heart of god. viii. conclusion the old testament is absurd, ignorant and cruel,--the new testament is a mingling of the false and true--it is good and bad. the jehovah of the jews is an impossible monster. the trinity absurd and idiotic, christ is a myth or a man. the fall of man is contradicted by every fact concerning human history that we know. the scheme of redemption--through the atonement--is immoral and senseless. hell was imagined by revenge, and the orthodox heaven is the selfish dream of heartless serfs and slaves. the foundations of the faith have crumbled and faded away. they were miracles, mistakes, and myths, ignorant and untrue, absurd, impossible, immoral, unnatural, cruel, childish, savage. beneath the gaze of the scientist they vanished, confronted by facts they disappeared. the orthodox religion of our day has no foundation in truth. beneath the superstructure can be found no fact. some may ask, "are you trying to take our religion away?" i answer, no--superstition is not religion. belief without evidence is not religion. faith without facts is not religion. to love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits--to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. this satisfies the brain and heart. but, says the prejudiced priest, the malicious minister, "you take away a future life." i am not trying to destroy another world, but i am endeavoring to prevent the theologians from destroying this. if we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, or christs, or priests or creeds. the hope of another life was in the heart, long before the "sacred books" were written, and will remain there long after all the "sacred books" are known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. hope is the consolation of the world. the wanderers hope for home.--hope builds the house and plants the flowers and fills the air with song. the sick and suffering hope for health.--hope gives them health and paints the roses in their cheeks. the lonely, the forsaken, hope for love.--hope brings the lover to their arms. they feel the kisses on their eager lips. the poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger hope for wealth.--hope fills their thin and trembling hands with gold. the dying hopes that death is but another birth, and love leans above the pallid face and whispers, "we shall meet again." hope is the consolation of the world. let us hope, if there be a god that he is wise and good. let us hope that if there be another life it will bring peace and joy to all the children of men. and let us hope that this poor earth on which we live, may be a perfect world--a world without a crime--without a tear. superstition. i. what is superstition? to believe in spite of evidence or without evidence. to account for one mystery by another. to believe that the world is governed by chance or caprice. to disregard the true relation between cause and effect. to put thought, intention and design back of nature. to believe that mind created and controls matter. to believe in force apart from substance, or in substance apart from force. to believe in miracles, spells and charms, in dreams and prophecies. to believe in the supernatural. the foundation of superstition is ignorance, the superstructure is faith and the dome is a vain hope. superstition is the child of ignorance and the mother of misery. in nearly every brain is found some cloud of superstition. a woman drops a cloth with which she is washing dishes, and she exclaims: "that means company." most people will admit that there is no possible connection between dropping the cloth and the coming of visitors. the falling cloth could not have put the visit desire in the minds of people not present, and how could the cloth produce the desire to visit the particular person who dropped it? there is no possible connection between the dropping of the cloth and the anticipated effects. a man catches a glimpse of the new moon over his left shoulder, and he says: "this is bad luck." to see the moon over the right or left shoulder, or not to see it, could not by any possibility affect the moon, neither could it change the effect or influence of the moon on any earthly thing. certainly the left-shoulder glance could in no way affect the nature of things. all the facts in nature would remain the same as though the glance had been over the right shoulder. we see no connection between the left-shoulder glance and any possible evil effects upon the one who saw the moon in this way. a girl counts the leaves of a flower, and she says: "one, he comes; two, he tarries; three, he courts; four, he marries; five, he goes away." of course the flower did not grow, and the number of its leaves was not determined with reference to the courtship or marriage of this girl, neither could there have been any intelligence that guided her hand when she selected that particular flower. so, count' ing the seeds in an apple cannot in any way determine whether the future of an individual is to be happy or miserable. thousands of persons believe in lucky and unlucky days, numbers, signs and jewels. many people regard friday as an unlucky day--as a bad day to commence a journey, to marry, to make any investment. the only reason given is that friday is an unlucky day. starting across the sea on friday could have no possible effect upon the winds, or waves, or tides, any more than starting on any other day, and the only possible reason for thinking friday unlucky is the assertion that it is so. so it is thought by many that it is dangerous for thirteen people to dine together. now, if thirteen is a dangerous number, twenty-six ought to be twice as dangerous, and fifty-two four times as terrible. it is said that one of the thirteen will die in a year. now, there is no possible relation between the number and the digestion of each, between the number and the individual diseases. if fourteen dine together there is greater probability, if we take into account only the number, of a death within the year, than there would be if only thirteen were at the table. overturning the salt is very unlucky, but spilling the vinegar makes no difference. why salt should be revengeful and vinegar forgiving has never been told. if the first person who enters a theatre is crosseyed, the audience will be small and the "run" a failure. how the peculiarity of the eyes of the first one who enters, changes the intention of a community, or how the intentions of a community cause the cross-eyed man to go early, has never been satisfactorily explained. between this so-called cause and the so-called effect there is, so far as we can see, no possible relation. to wear an opal is bad luck, but rubies bring health. how these stones affect the future, how they destroy causes and defeat effects, no one pretends to know. so, there are thousands of lucky and unlucky tilings, warnings, omens and prophecies, but all sensible, sane and reasoning human beings know that every one is an absurd and idiotic superstition. let us take another step: for many centuries it was believed that eclipses of the sun and moon were prophetic of pestilence or famine, and that comets foretold the death of kings, or the destruction of nations, the coming of war or plague. all strange appearances in the heavens--the northern lights, circles about the moon, sun dogs, falling stars--filled our intelligent ancestors with terror. they fell upon their knees--did their best with sacrifice and prayer to avoid the threatened disaster. their faces were ashen with fear as they closed their eyes and cried to the heavens for help. the clergy, who were as familiar with god then as the orthodox preachers are now, knew exactly the meaning of eclipses and sun dogs and northern lights; knew that god's patience was nearly exhausted; that he was then whetting the sword of his wrath, and that the people could save themselves only by obeying the priests, by counting their beads and doubling their subscriptions. earthquakes and cyclones filled the coffers of the church. in the midst of disasters the miser, with trembling hands, opened his purse. in the gloom of eclipses thieves and robbers divided their booty with god, and poor, honest, ignorant girls, remembering that they had forgotten to say a prayer, gave their little earnings to soften the heart of god. now we know that all these signs and wonders in the heavens have nothing to do with the fate of kings, nations or individuals; that they had no more reference to human beings than to colonies of ants, hives of bees or the eggs of insects. we now know that the signs and eclipses, the comets, and the falling stars, would have been just the same if not a human being had been upon the earth. we know now that eclipses come at certain times and that their coming can be exactly foretold. a little while ago the belief was general that there were certain healing virtues in inanimate things, in the bones of holy men and women, in the rags that had been tom from the foul clothing of still fouler saints, in hairs from martyrs, in bits of wood and rusty nails from the true cross, in the teeth and finger nails of pious men, and in a thousand other sacred things. the diseased were cured by kissing a box in which was kept some bone, or rag, or bit of wood, some holy hairs, provided the kiss was preceded or followed by a gift--a something for the church. in some mysterious way the virtue in the bone, or rag, or piece of wood, crept or flowed from the box, took possession of the sick who had the necessary faith, and in the name of god drove out the devils who were the real disease. this belief in the efficacy of bones or rags and holy hair was born of another belief--the belief that all diseases were produced by evil spirits. the insane were supposed to be possessed by devils. epilepsy and hysteria were produced by the imps of satan. in short, every human affliction was the work of the malicious emissaries of the god of hell. this belief was almost universal, and even in our time the sacred bones are believed in by millions of people. but to-day no intelligent man believes in the existence of devils--no intelligent man believes that evil spirits cause disease--consequently, no intelligent person believes that holy bones or rags, sacred hairs or pieces of wood, can drive disease out, or in any way bring back to the pallid cheek the rose of health. intelligent people now know that the bone of a saint has in it no greater virtue than the bone of any animal. that a rag from a wandering beggar is just as good as one from a saint, and that the hair of a horse will cure disease just as quickly and surely as the hair of a martyr. we now know that all the sacred relics are religious rubbish; that those who use them are for the most part dishonest, and that those who rely on them are almost idiotic. this belief in amulets and charms, in ghosts and devils, is superstition, pure and simple. our ancestors did not regard these relics as medicine, having a curative power, but the idea was that evil spirits stood in dread of holy things--that they fled from the bone of a saint, that they feared a piece of the true cross, and that when holy water was sprinkled on a man they immediately left the premises. so, these devils hated and dreaded the sound of holy bells, the light of sacred tapers, and, above all, the ever-blessed cross. in those days the priests were fishers for money, and they used these relics for bait. ii. let us take another step: this belief in the devil and evil spirits laid the foundation for another belief: witchcraft. it was believed that the devil had certain things to give in exchange for a soul. the old man, bowed and broken, could get back his youth--the rounded form, the brown hair, the leaping heart of life's morning--if he would sign and seal away his soul. so, it was thought that the malicious could by charm and spell obtain revenge, that the poor could be enriched, and that the ambitious could rise to place and power. all the good things of this life were at the disposal of the devil. for those who resisted the temptations of the evil one, rewards were waiting in another world, but the devil rewarded here in this life. no one has imagination enough to paint the agonies that were endured by reason of this belief in witchcraft. think of the families destroyed, of the fathers and mothers cast in prison, tortured and burned, of the firesides darkened, of the children murdered, of the old, the poor and helpless that were stretched on racks mangled and flayed! think of the days when superstition and fear were in every house, in every mind, when accusation was conviction, when assertion of innocence was regarded as a confession of guilt, and when christendom was insane! now we know that all of these horrors were the result of superstition. now we know that ignorance was the mother of all the agonies endured. now we know that witches never lived, that human beings never bargained with any devil, and that our pious savage ancestors were mistaken. let us take another step: our fathers believed in miracles, in signs and wonders, eclipses and comets, in the virtues of bones, and in the powers attributed to evil spirits. all these belonged to the miraculous. the world was supposed to be full of magic; the spirits were sleight-of-hand performers--necromancers. there were no natural causes behind events. a devil wished, and it happened. one who had sold his soul to satan made a few motions, uttered some strange words, and the event was present. natural causes were not believed in. delusion and illusion, the monstrous and miraculous, ruled the world. the foundation was gone--reason had abdicated. credulity gave tongues and wings to lies, while the dumb and limping facts were left behind--were disregarded and remained untold. what is a miracle? an act performed by a master of nature without reference to the facts in nature. this is the only honest definition of a miracle. if a man could make a perfect circle, the diameter of which was exactly one-half the circumference, that would be a miracle in geometry. if a man could make twice four, nine, that would be a miracle in mathematics. if a man could make a stone, falling in the air, pass through a space of ten feet the first second, twenty-five feet the second second, and five feet the third second, that would be a miracle in physics. if a man could put together hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen and produce pure gold, that would be a miracle in chemistry. if a minister were to prove his creed, that would be a theological miracle. if congress by law would make fifty cents worth of silver worth a dollar, that would be a financial miracle. to make a square triangle would be a most wonderful miracle. to cause a mirror to reflect the faces of persons who stand behind it, instead of those who stand in front, would be a miracle. to make echo answer a question would be a miracle. in other words, to do anything contrary to or without regard to the facts in nature is to perform a miracle. now we are convinced of what is called the "uniformity of nature." we believe that all things act and are acted upon in accordance with their nature; that under like conditions the results will always be substantially the same; that like ever has and ever will produce like. we now believe that events have natural parents and that none die childless. miracles are not simply impossible, but they are unthinkable by any man capable of thinking. now an intelligent man cannot believe that a miracle ever was, or ever will be, performed. ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows. iii. let us take another step: while our ancestors filled the darkness with evil spirits, enemies of mankind, they also believed in the existence of good spirits. these good spirits sustained the same relation to god that the evil ones did to the devil. these good spirits protected the faithful from the temptations and snares of the evil one. they took care of those who carried amulets and charms, of those who repeated prayers and counted beads, of those who fasted and performed ceremonies. these good spirits would turn aside the sword and arrow from the breast of the faithful. they made poison harmless, they protected the credulous, and in a thousand ways defended and rescued the true believer. they drove doubts from the minds of the pious, sowed the seeds of credulity and faith, saved saints from the wiles of women, painted the glories of heaven for those who fasted and prayed, made it possible for the really good to dispense with the pleasures of sense and to hate the devil. these angels watched over infants who had been baptized, over persons who had made holy vows, over priests and nuns and wandering beggars who believed. these spirits were of various kinds: some had once been men or women, some had never lived in this world, and some had been angels from the commencement. nobody pretended to know exactly what they were, or exactly how they looked, or in what way they went from place to place, or how they affected or controlled the minds of men. it was believed that the king of all these evil spirits was the devil, and that the king of all the good spirits was god. it was also believed that god was in fact the king of all, and that the devil himself was one of the children of this god. this god and this devil were at war, each trying to secure the souls of men. god offered the rewards of eternal joy and threatened eternal pain. the devil baited his traps with present pleasure, with the gratification of the senses, with the ecstasies of love, and laughed at the joys of heaven and the pangs of hell. with malicious hand he sowed the seeds of doubt--induced men to investigate, to reason, to call for evidence, to rely upon themselves; planted in their hearts the love of liberty, assisted them to break their chains, to escape from their prisons and besought them to think. in this way he corrupted the children of men. our fathers believed that they could by prayer, by sacrifice, by fasting, by performing certain ceremonies, gain the assistance of this god and of these good spirits. they were not quite logical. they did not believe that the devil was the author of all evil. they thought that flood and famine, plague and cyclone, earthquake and war, were sometimes sent by god as punishment for unbelief. they fell upon their knees and with white lips, prayed the good god to stay his hand. they humbled themselves, confessed their sins, and filled the heavens with their vows and cries. with priests and prayers they tried to stay the plague. they kissed the relics, fell at shrines, besought the virgin and the saints, but the prayers all died in the heartless air, and the plague swept on to its natural end. our poor fathers knew nothing of any science. back of all events they put spirits, good or bad, angels or demons, gods or devils. to them nothing had what we call a natural cause. everything was the work of spirits. all was done by the supernatural, and everything was done by evil spirits that they could do to ruin, punish, mislead and damn the children of men. this world was a field of battle, and here the hosts of heaven and hell waged war. iv. now no man in whose brain the torch of reason bums, no man who investigates, who really thinks, who is capable of weighing evidence, believes in signs, in lucky or unlucky days, in lucky or unlucky numbers. he knows that fridays and thursdays are alike; that thirteen is no more deadly than twelve. he knows that opals affect the wearer the same as rubies, diamonds or common glass. he knows that the matrimonial chances of a maiden are not increased or decreased by the number of leaves of a flower or seeds in an apple. he knows that a glance at the moon over the left shoulder is as healthful and lucky as one over the right. he does not care whether the first comer to a theatre is crosseyed or hump-backed, bow-legged, or as well-proportioned as apollo. he knows that a strange cat could be denied asylum without bringing any misfortune to the family. he knows that an owl does not hoot in the full of the moon because a distinguished man is about to die. he knows that comets and eclipses would come if all the folks were dead. he is not frightened by sun dogs, or the morning of the north when the glittering lances pierce the shield of night. he knows that all these things occur without the slightest reference to the human race. he feels certain that floods would destroy and cyclones rend and earthquakes devour; that the stars would shine; that day and night would still pursue each other around the world; that flowers would give their perfume to the air, and light would paint the seven-hued arch upon the dusky bosom of the cloud if every human being was unconscious dust. a man of thought and sense does not believe in the existence of the devil. he feels certain that imps, goblins, demons and evil spirits exist only in the imagination of the ignorant and frightened. he knows how these malevolent myths were made. he knows the part they have played in all religions. he knows that for many centuries a belief in these devils, these evil spirits, was substantially universal. he knows that the priest believed as firmly as the peasant. in those days the best educated and the most ignorant were equal dupes. kings and courtiers, ladies and clowns, soldiers and artists, slaves and convicts, believed as firmly in the devil as they did in god. back of this belief there is no evidence, and there never has been. this belief did not rest on any fact. it was supported by mistakes, exaggerations and lies. the mistakes were natural, the exaggerations were mostly unconscious and the lies were generally honest. back of these mistakes, these exaggerations, these lies, was the love of the marvelous. wonder listened with greedy ears, with wide eyes, and ignorance with open mouth. the man of sense knows the history of this belief, and he knows, also, that for many centuries its truth was established by the holy bible. he knows that the old testament is filled with allusions to the devil, to evil spirits, and that the new testament is the same. he knows that christ himself was a believer in the devil, in evil spirits, and that his principal business was casting out devils from the bodies of men and women. he knows that christ himself, according to the new testament, was not only tempted by the devil, but was carried by his satanic highness to the top of the temple. if the new testament is the inspired word of god, then i admit that these devils, these imps, do actually exist and that they do take possession of human beings. to deny the existence of these evil spirits, to deny the existence of the devil, is to deny the truth of the new testament. to deny the existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of jesus christ. if these devils do not exist, if they do not cause disease, if they do not tempt and mislead their victims, then christ was an ignorant, superstitious man, insane, an impostor, or the new testament is not a true record of what he said and what he pretended to do. if we give up the belief in devils, we must give up the inspiration of the old and new testament. we must give up the divinity of christ. to deny the existence of evil spirits is to utterly destroy the foundation of christianity. there is no half-way ground. compromise is impossible. if all the accounts in the new testament of casting out devils are false, what part of the blessed book is true? as a matter of fact, the success of the devil in the garden of eden made the coming of christ a necessity, laid the foundation for the atonement, crucified the savior and gave us the trinity. if the devil does not exist, the christian creeds all crumble, and the superstructure known as "christianity," built by the fathers, by popes, by priests and theologians--built with mistakes and falsehoods, with miracles and wonders, with blood and flame, with lies and legends borrowed from the savage world, becomes a shapeless ruin. if we give up the belief in devils and evil spirits, we are compelled to say that a witch never lived. no sensible human being now believes in witchcraft. we know that it was a delusion. we now know that thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children were tortured and burned for having been found guilty of an impossible crime, and we also know, if our minds have not been deformed by faith, that all the books in which the existence of witches is taught were written by ignorant and superstitious men. we also know that the old testament asserted the existence of witches. according to that holy book, jehovah was a believer in witchcraft, and said to his chosen people: "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." this one commandment--this simple line--demonstrates that jehovah was not only not god, but that he was a poor, ignorant, superstitious savage. this one line proves beyond all possible doubt that the old testament was written by men, by barbarians. john wesley was right when he said that to give up a belief in witchcraft was to give up the bible. give up the devil, and what can you do with the book of job? how will you account for the lying spirits that jehovah sent to mislead ahab? ministers who admit that witchcraft is a superstition will read the story of the witch of endor--will read it in a solemn, reverential voice--with a theological voice--and will have the impudence to say that they believe it. it would be delightful to know that angels hover in the air; that they guard the innocent, protect the good; that they bend over the cradles and give health and happy dreams to pallid babes; that they fill dungeons with the light of their presence and give hope to the imprisoned; that they follow the fallen, the erring, the outcasts, the friendless, and win them back to virtue, love and joy. but we have no more evidence of the existence of good spirits than of bad. the angels that visited abraham and the mother of samson are as unreal as the ghosts and goblins of the middle ages. the angel that stopped the donkey of balaam, the one who walked in the furnace flames with meshech, shadrack and abed-nego, the one who slew the assyrians and the one who in a dream removed the suspicions of joseph, were all created by the imagination of the credulous, by the lovers of the marvelous, and they have been handed down from dotage to infancy, from ignorance to ignorance, through all the years. except in catholic countries, no winged citizen of the celestial realm has visited the world for hundreds of years. only those who are blind to facts can see these beautiful creatures, and only those who reach conclusions without the assistance of evidence can believe in their existence. it is told that the great angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. a cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: "whoever saw angels with sandals?" angelo answered with another question: "whoever saw an angel barefooted?" the existence of angels has never been established. of course, we know that millions and millions have believed in seraphim and cherubim; have believed that the angel gabriel contended with the devil for the body of moses; that angels shut the mouths of the lions for the protection of daniel; that angels ministered unto christ, and that countless angels will accompany the savior when he comes to take possession of the world. and we know that all these millions believe through blind, unreasoning faith, holding all evidence and all facts in theological contempt. but the angels come no more. they bring no balm to any wounded heart. long ago they folded their pinions and faded from the earth and air. these winged guardians no longer protect the innocent; no longer cheer the suffering; no longer whisper words of comfort to the helpless. they have become dreams--vanished visions. v. in the dear old religious days the earth was flat--a little dishing, if anything--and just above it was jehovah's house, and just below it was where the devil lived. god and his angels inhabited the third story, the devil and his imps the basement, and the human race the second floor. then they knew where heaven was. they could almost hear the harps and hallelujahs. they knew where hell was, and they could almost hear the groans and smell the sulphurous fumes. they regarded the volcanoes as chimneys. they were perfectly acquainted with the celestial, the terrestrial and the infernal. they were quite familiar with the new jerusalem, with its golden streets and gates of pearl. then the translation of enoch seemed reasonable enough, and no one doubted that before the flood the sons of god came down and made love to the daughters of men. the theologians thought that the builders of babel would have succeeded if god had not come down and caused them to forget the meaning of words. in those blessed days the priests knew all about heaven and hell. they knew that god governed the world by hope and fear, by promise and threat, by reward and punishment. the reward was to be eternal and so was the punishment. it was not god's plan to develop the human brain, so that man would perceive and comprehend the right and avoid the wrong. he taught ignorance nothing but obedience, and for obedience he offered eternal joy. he loved the submissive--the kneelers and crawlers. he hated the doubters, the investigators, the thinkers, the philosophers. for them he created the eternal prison where he could feed forever the hunger of his hate. he loved the credulous--those who believed without evidence--and for them he prepared a home in the realm of fadeless light. he delighted in the company of the questionless. but where is this heaven, and where is this hell? we now know that heaven is not just above the clouds and that hell is not just below the earth. the telescope has done away with the ancient heaven, and the revolving world has quenched the flames of the ancient hell. these theological countries, these imagined worlds, have disappeared. no one knows, and no one pretends to know, where heaven is; and no one knows, and no one pretends to know, the locality of hell. now the theologians say that hell and heaven are not places, but states of mind--conditions. the belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. back of the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health, sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and death he placed a malicious fiend. is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? the evidence of the existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. both of these deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. they have not been seen--they are invisible--and they have not ventured within the horizon of the senses. the old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian--like a doctor of divinity. now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil--no longer fears the leering fiend. most people who think have given up a personal god, a creative deity. they now talk about the "unknown," the "infinite energy," but they put jehovah with jupiter. they regard them both as broken dolls from the nursery of the past. the men or women who ask for evidence--who desire to know the truth--care nothing for signs; nothing for what are called wonders; nothing for lucky or unlucky jewels, days or numbers; nothing for charms or amulets; nothing for comets or eclipses, and have no belief in good or evil spirits, in gods or devils. they place no reliance on general or special providence--on any power that rescues, protects and saves the good or punishes the vile and vicious. they do not believe that in the whole history of mankind a prayer has been answered. they think that all the sacrifices have been wasted, and that all the incense has ascended in vain. they do not believe that the world was created and prepared for man any more than it was created and prepared for insects. they do not think it probable that whales were invented to supply the eskimo with blubber, or that flames were created to attract and destroy moths. on every hand there seems to be evidence of design--design for the accomplishment of good, design for the accomplishment of evil. on every side are the benevolent and malicious--something toiling to preserve, something laboring to destroy. everything surrounded by friends and enemies--by the love that protects, by the hate that kills. design is as apparent in decay, as in growth; in failure, as in success; in grief, as in joy. nature with one hand building, with one hand tearing down, armed with sword and shield--slaying and protecting, and protecting but to slay. all life journeying toward death, and all death hastening back to life. everywhere waste and economy, care and negligence. we watch the flow and ebb of life and death--the great drama that forever holds the stage, where players act their parts and disappear; the great drama in which all must act--ignorant and learned, idiotic and insane--without rehearsal and without the slightest knowledge of a part, or of any plot or purpose in the play. the scene shifts; some actors disappear and others come, and again the scene shifts; mystery everywhere. we try to explain, and the explanation of one fact contradicts another. behind each veil removed, another. all things equal in wonder. one drop of water as wonderful as all the seas; one grain of sand as all the world; one moth with painted wings as all the things that live; one egg from which warmth, in darkness, woos to life an organized and breathing form--a form with sinews, bones and nerves, with blood and brain, with instincts, passions, thoughts and wants--as all the stars that wheel in space. the smallest seed that, wrapped in soil, has dreams of april rains and days of june, withholds its secret from the wisest men. the wisdom of the world cannot explain one blade of grass, the faintest motion of the smallest leaf. and yet theologians, popes, priests, parsons, who speechless stand before the wonder of the smallest thing that is, know all about the origin of worlds, know when the beginning was, when the end will be, know all about the god who with a wish created all, know what his plan and purpose was, the means he uses and the end he seeks. to them all mysteries have been revealed, except the mystery of things that touch the senses of a living man. but honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "we do not know." after all, why should we worship our ignorance, why should we kneel to the unknown, why should we prostrate ourselves before a guess? if god exists, how do we know that he is good, that he cares for us? the christians say that their god has existed from eternity; that he forever has been, and forever will be, infinite, wise and good. could this god have avoided being god? could he have avoided being good? was he wise and good without his wish or will? being from eternity, he was not produced. he was back of all cause. what he is, he was, and will be, unchanged, unchangeable. he had nothing to do with the making or developing of his character. nothing to do with the development of his mind. what he was, he is. he has made no progress. what he is, he will be, there can be no change. why then, i ask, should we praise him? he could not have been different from what he was and is. why should we pray to him? he cannot change. and yet christians implore their god not to do wrong. the meanest thing charged against the devil is that he leads the children of men into temptation, and yet, in the lord's prayer, god is insultingly asked not to imitate the king of fiends. "lead us not into temptation." why should god demand praise? he is as lie was. he has never learned anything; has never practiced any self-denial; was never tempted, never touched by fear or hope, and never had a want. why should he demand our praise? does anyone know that this god exists; that he ever heard or answered any prayer? is it known that he governs the world; that he interferes in the affairs of men; that he protects the good or punishes the wicked? can evidence of this be found in the history of mankind? if god governs the world, why should we credit him for the good and not charge him with the evil? to justify this god we must say that good is good and that evil is also good. if all is done by this god we should make no distinction between his actions--between the actions of the infinitely wise, powerful and good. if we thank him for sunshine and harvest we should also thank him for plague and famine. if we thank him for liberty, the slave should raise his chained hands in worship and thank god that he toils unpaid with the lash upon his naked back. if we thank him for victory we should thank him for defeat. only a few days ago our president, by proclamation, thanked god for giving us the victory at santiago. he did not thank him for sending the yellow fever. to be consistent the president should have thanked him equally for both. the truth is that good and evil spirits--gods and devils--are beyond the realm of experience; beyond the horizon of our senses; beyond the limits of our thoughts; beyond imagination's utmost flight. man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine; he should reason. the man who cannot think is less than man; the man who will not think is traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is superstition's slave. vi. what harm does superstition do? what harm in believing in fables, in legends? to believe in signs and wonders, in amulets, charms and miracles, in gods and devils, in heavens and hells, makes the brain an insane ward, the world a madhouse, takes all certainty from the mind, makes experience a snare, destroys the kinship of effect and cause--the unity of nature--and makes man a trembling serf and slave. with this belief a knowledge of nature sheds no light upon the path to be pursued. nature becomes a puppet of the unseen powers. the fairy, called the supernatural, touches with her wand a fact, it disappears. causes are barren of effects, and effects are independent of all natural causes. caprice is king. the foundation is gone. the great dome rests on air. there is no constancy in qualities, relations or results. reason abdicates and superstition wears her crown. the heart hardens and the brain softens. the energies of man are wasted in a vain effort to secure the protection of the supernatural. credulity, ceremony, worship, sacrifice and prayer take the place of honest work, of investigation, of intellectual effort, of observation, of experience. progress becomes impossible. superstition is, always lias been, and forever will be, the enemy of liberty. superstition created all the gods and angels, all the devils and ghosts, all the witches, demons and goblins, gave us all the augurs, soothsayers and prophets, filled the heavens with signs and wonders, broke the chain of cause and effect, and wrote the history of man in miracles and lies. superstition made all the popes, cardinals, bishops and priests, all the monks and nuns, the begging friars and the filthy saints, all the preachers and exhorters, all the "called" and "set apart." superstition made men fall upon their knees before beasts and stones, caused them to worship snakes and trees and insane phantoms of the air, beguiled them of their gold and toil, and made them shed their children's blood and give their babes to flames. superstition built the cathedrals and temples, all the altars, mosques and churches, filled the world with amulets and charms, with images and idols, with sacred bones and holy hairs, with martyrs' blood and rags, with bits, of wood that frighten devils from the breasts of men. superstition invented and used the instruments of torture, flayed men and women alive, loaded millions, with chains and destroyed hundreds of thousands with fire. superstition mistook insanity for inspiration and the ravings of maniacs for prophesy, for the wisdom of god. superstition imprisoned the virtuous, tortured the thoughtful, killed the heroic, put chains on the body, manacles on the brain, and utterly destroyed the liberty of speech. superstition gave us all the prayers and ceremonies; taught all the kneelings, genuflections and prostrations; taught men to hate themselves, to despise pleasure, to scar their flesh, to grovel in the dust, to desert their wives and children, to shun their fellow-men, and to spend their lives in useless pain and prayer. superstition taught that human love is degrading, low and vile; taught that monks are purer than fathers, that nuns are holier than mothers, that faith is superior to fact, that credulity leads to heaven, that doubt is the road to hell, that belief is better than knowledge, and that to ask for evidence is to insult god. superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom. it sacrifices the known to the unknown, the present to the future, this actual world to the shadowy next. it has given us a selfish heaven, and a hell of infinite revenge; it has filled the world with hatred, war and crime, with the malice of meekness and the arrogance of humility. superstition is the only enemy of science in all the world. nations, races, have been destroyed by this monster. for nearly two thousand years the infallible agent of god has lived in italy. that country has been covered with nunneries, monasteries, cathedrals and temples--filled with all varieties of priests and holy men. for centuries italy was enriched with the gold of the faithful. all roads led to rome, and these roads were filled with pilgrims bearing gifts, and yet italy, in spite of all the prayers, steadily pursued the downward path, died and was buried, and would at this moment be in her grave had it not been for cavour, mazzini and garibaldi. for her poverty, her misery, she is indebted to the holy catholic church, to the infallible agents of god. for the life she has she is indebted to the enemies of superstition. a few years ago italy was great enough to build a monument to giordano bruno--bruno, the victim of the "triumphant beast;"--bruno, the sublimest of her sons. spain was at one time owner of half the earth, and held within her greedy hands the gold and silver of the world. at that time all nations were in the darkness of superstition. at that time the world was governed by priests. spain clung to her creed. some nations began to think, but spain continued to believe. in some countries, priests lost power, but not in spain. the power behind her throne was the cowled monk. in some countries men began to interest themselves in science, but not in spain. spain told her beads and continued to pray to the virgin. spain was busy-saving her soul. in her zeal she destroyed herself. she relied on the supernatural; not on knowledge, but superstition. her prayers were never answered. the saints were dead. they could not help, and the blessed virgin did not hear. some countries were in the dawn of a new day, but spain gladly remained in the night. with fire and sword she exterminated the men who thought. her greatest festival was the _auto da fe_. other nations grew great while spain grew small. day by day her power waned, but her faith increased. one by one her colonies were lost, but she kept her creed. she gave her gold to superstition, her brain to priests, but she faithfully counted her beads. only a few days ago, relying on her god and his priests, on charms and amulets, on holy water and pieces of the true cross, she waged war against the great republic. bishops blessed her armies and sprinkled holy water on her ships, and yet her armies were defeated and captured, lier ships battered, beached and burned, and in her helplessness she sued for peace. but she has her creed; her superstition is not lost. poor spain, wrecked by faith, the victim of religion! portugal, slowly dying, growing poorer every day, still clings to the faith. her prayers are never answered, but she makes them still. austria is nearly gone, a victim of superstition. germany is traveling toward the night. god placed her kaiser on the throne. the people must obey. philosophers and scientists fall upon, their knees and become the puppets of the divinely crowned. vii. the believers in the supernatural, in a power superior to nature, in god, have what they call "inspired books." these books contain the absolute truth. they must be believed. he who denies them will be punished with eternal pain. these books are not addressed to human reason. they are above reason. they care nothing for what a man calls "facts." facts that do not agree with these books are mistakes. these books are independent of human experience, of human reason. our inspired books constitute what we call the "bible." the man who reads this inspired book, looking for contradictions, mistakes and interpolations, imperils the salvation of his soul. while he reads he has no right to think, no right to reason. to believe is his only duty. millions of men have wasted their lives in the study of this book--in trying to harmonize contradictions and to explain the obscure and seemingly absurd. in doing this they have justified nearly every crime and every cruelty. in its follies they have found the profoundest wisdom. hundreds of creeds have been constructed from its inspired passages. probably no two of its readers have agreed as to its meaning. thousands have studied hebrew and greek that they might read the old and new testament in the languages in which they were written. the more they studied, the more they differed. by the same book they proved that nearly everybody is to be lost, and that all are to be saved; that slavery is a divine institution, and that all men should be free; that polygamy is right, and that no man should have more than one wife; that the powers that be are ordained of god, and that the people have a right to overturn and destroy the powers that be; that all the actions of men were predestined--preordained from eternity, and yet that man is free; that all the heathen will be lost; that all the heathen will be saved; that all men who live according to the light of nature will be damned for their pains; that you must be baptized by sprinkling; that you must be baptized by immersion; that there is no salvation without baptism; that baptism is useless; that you must believe in the trinity; that it is sufficient to believe in god; that you must believe that a hebrew peasant was god; that at the same time he was half man, that he was of the blood of david through his supposed father joseph, who was not his father, and that it is not necessary to believe that christ was god; that you must believe that the holy ghost proceeded; that it makes no difference whether you do or not; that you must keep the sabbath holy; that christ taught nothing of the kind; that christ established a church; that he established no church; that the dead are to be raised; that there is to be no resurrection; that christ is coming again; that he has made his last visit; that christ went to hell and preached to the spirits in prison; that he did nothing of the kind; that all the jews are going to perdition; that they are all going to heaven; that all the miracles described in the bible were performed; that some of them were not, because they are foolish, childish and idiotic; that all the bible is inspired; that some of the books are not inspired; that there is to be a general judgment, when the sheep and goats are to be divided; that there never will be any general judgment; that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into the flesh and blood of god and the trinity; that they are not changed; that god has no flesh or blood; that there is a place called "purgatory;" that there is no such place; that unbaptized infants will be lost; that they will be saved; that we must believe the apostles' creed; that the apostles made no creed; that the holy ghost was the father of christ; that joseph was his father; that the holy ghost had the form of a dove; that there is no holy ghost; that heretics should be killed; that you must not resist evil; that you should murder unbelievers; that you must love your enemies; that you should take no thought for the morrow, but should be diligent in business; that you should lend to all who ask, and that one who does not provide for his own household is worse than an infidel. in defence of all these creeds, all these contradictions, thousands of volumes have been written, millions of sermons have been preached, countless swords reddened with blood, and thousands and thousands of nights made lurid with the faggot's flames. hundreds and hundreds of commentators have obscured and darkened the meaning of the plainest texts, spiritualized dates, names, numbers and even genealogies. they have degraded the poetic, changed parables to history, and imagery to stupid and impossible facts. they have wrestled with rhapsody and prophecy, with visions and dreams, with illusions and delusions, with myths and miracles, with the blunders of ignorance, the ravings of insanity and the ecstasy of hysterics. millions of priests and preachers have added to the mysteries of the inspired book by explanation, by showing the wisdom of foolishness, the foolishness of wisdom, the mercy of cruelty and the probability of the impossible. the theologians made the bible a master and the people its slaves. with this book they destroyed intellectual veracity, the natural manliness of man. with this book they banished pity from the heart, subverted all ideas of justice and fairness, imprisoned the soul in the dungeon of fear and made honest doubt a crime. think of what the world has suffered from fear. think of the millions who were driven to insanity. think of the fearful nights--nights filled with phantoms, with flying, crawling monsters, with hissing serpents that slowly uncoiled, with vague and formless horrors, with burning and malicious eyes. think of the fear of death, of infinite wrath, of everlasting revenge in the prisons of fire, of an eternity, of thirst, of endless regret, of the sobs and sighs, the shrieks and groans of eternal pain! think of the hearts hardened, of the hearts broken, of the cruelties inflicted, of the agonies endured, of the lives darkened. the inspired bible has been and is the greatest curse of christendom, and will so remain as long as it is held to be inspired. viii. our god was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they could. they made our god somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their passions, their ideas of right and wrong. as man advanced he slowly changed his god--took a little ferocity from his heart, and put the light of kindness in his eyes. as man progressed he obtained a wider view, extended the intellectual horizon, and again he changed his god, making him as nearly perfect as he could, and yet this god was patterned after those who made him. as man became civilized, as he became merciful, he began to love justice, and as his mind expanded his ideal became purer, nobler, and so his god became more merciful, more loving. in our day jehovah has been outgrown. he is no longer the perfect. now theologians talk, not about jehovah, but about a god of love, call him the eternal father and the perpetual friend and providence of man. but, while they talk about this god of love, cyclones wreck and rend, the earthquake devours, the flood destroys, the red bolt leaping from the cloud still crashes the life out of men, and plague and fever still are tireless reapers in the harvest fields of death. they tell us now that all is good; that evil is but blessing in disguise, that pain makes strong and virtuous men--makes character--while pleasure enfeebles and degrades. if this be so, the souls in hell should grow to greatness, while those in heaven should shrink and shrivel. but we know that good is good. we know that good is not evil, and that evil is not good. we know that light is not darkness, and that darkness is not light. but we do not feel that good and evil were planned and caused by a supernatural god. we regard them both as necessities. we neither thank nor curse. we know that some evil can be avoided and that the good can be increased. we know that this can be done by increasing knowledge, by developing the brain. as christians have changed their god, so they have accordingly changed their bible. the impossible and absurd, the cruel and the infamous, have been mostly thrown aside, and thousands are now engaged in trying to save the inspired word. of course, the orthodox still cling to every word, and still insist that every line is true. they are literalists. to them the bible means exactly what it says. they want no explanation. they care nothing for commentators. contradictions cannot disturb their faith. they deny that any contradictions exist. they loyally stand by the sacred text, and they give it the narrowest possible interpretation. they are like the janitor of an apartment house who refused to rent a flat to a gentleman because he said he had children. "but," said the gentleman, "my children are both married and live in iowa." "that makes no difference," said the janitor, "i am not allowed to rent a flat to any man who has children." all the orthodox churches are obstructions on the highway of progress. every orthodox creed is a chain, a dungeon. every believer in the "inspired book" is a slave who drives reason from her throne, and in her stead crowns fear. reason is the light, the sun, of the brain. it is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant northern star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds. ix. there were centuries of darkness when religion had control of christendom. superstition was almost universal. not one in twenty thousand could read or write. during these centuries the people lived with their back to the sunrise, and pursued their way toward the dens of ignorance and faith. there was no progress, no invention, no discovery. on every hand cruelty and worship, persecution and prayer. the priests were the enemies of thought, of investigation. they were the shepherds, and the people were their sheep and it was their business to guard the flock from the wolves of thought and doubt. this world was of no importance compared with the next. this life was to be spent in preparing for the life to come. the gold and labor of men were wasted in building cathedrals and in supporting the pious and the useless. during these dark ages of christianity, as i said before, nothing was invented, nothing was discovered, calculated to increase the well-being of men. the energies of christendom were wasted in the vain effort to obtain assistance from the supernatural. for centuries the business of christians was to wrest from the followers of mohammed the empty sepulcher of christ. upon the altar of this folly millions of lives were sacrificed, and yet the soldiers of the impostor were victorious, and the wretches who carried the banner of christ were scattered like leaves before the storm. there was, i believe, one invention during these ages. it is said that, in the thirteenth century, roger bacon, a franciscan monk, invented gunpowder, but this invention was without a fellow. yet we cannot give christianity the credit, because bacon was an infidel, and was great enough to say that in all things reason must be the standard. he was persecuted and imprisoned, as most sensible men were in those blessed days. the church was triumphant. the sceptre and mitre were in her hands, and yet her success was the result of force and fraud, and it carried within itself the seeds of its defeat. the church attempted the impossible. it endeavored to make the world of one belief; to force all minds to a common form, and utterly destroy the individuality of man. to accomplish this it employed every art and artifice that cunning could suggest it inflicted every cruelty by every means that malice could invent. but, in spite of all, a few men began to think. they became interested in the affairs of this world--in the great panorama of nature. they began to seek for causes, for the explanations of phenomena. they were not satisfied with the assertions of the church. these thinkers withdrew their gaze from the skies and looked at their own surroundings. they were unspiritual enough to desire comfort here. they became sensible and secular, worldly and wise. what was the result? they began to invent, to discover, to find the relation between facts, the conditions of happiness and the means that would increase the well-being of their fellow-men. movable types were invented, paper was borrowed from the moors, books appeared, and it became possible to save the intellectual wealth so that each generation could hand it to the next. history began to take the place of legend and rumor. the telescope was invented. the orbits of the stars were traced, and men became citizens of the universe. the steam engine was constructed, and now steam, the great slave, does the work of hundreds of millions of men. the black art, the impossible, was abandoned, and chemistry, the useful, took its place. astrology became astronomy. kepler discovered the three great laws, one of the greatest triumphs of human genius, and our constellation became a poem, a symphony. newton gave us the mathematical expression of the attraction of gravitation. harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. he gave us the fact, and draper gave us the reason. steamships conquered the seas and railways covered the land. houses and streets were lighted with gas. through the invention of matches fire became the companion of man. the art of photography became known; the sun became an artist. telegraphs and cables were invented. the lightning became a carrier of thought, and the nations became neighbors. anaesthetics were discovered and pain was lost in sleep. surgery became a science. the telephone was invented--the telephone that carries and deposits in listening ears the waves of words. the phonograph, that catches and retains in marks and dots and gives again the echoes of our speech. then came electric light that fills the night with day, and all the wonderful machines that use the subtle force--the same force that leaps from the summer cloud to ravage and destroy. the spectrum analysis that tells us of the substance of the sun; the röntgen rays that change the opaque to the transparent. the great thinkers demonstrated the indestructibility of force and matter--demonstrated that the indestructible could not have been created. the geologist, in rocks and deposits and mountains and continents, read a little of the story of the world--of its changes, of the glacial epoch--the story of vegetable and animal life. the biologists, through the fossil forms of life, established the antiquity of man and demonstrated the worthlessness of holy writ. then came evolution, the survival of the fittest and natural selection. thousands of mysteries were explained and science wrested the sceptre from superstition. the cell theory was advanced, and embryology was studied; the microscope discovered germs of disease and taught us how to stay the plague. these great theories and discoveries, together with countless inventions, are the children of intellectual liberty. x. after all we know but little. in the darkness of life there are a few gleams of light. possibly the dropping of a dishcloth prophesies the coming of company, but we have no evidence. possibly it is dangerous for thirteen to dine together, but we have no evidence. possibly a maiden's matrimonial chances are determined by the number of seeds in an apple, or by the number of leaves on a flower, but we have no evidence. possibly certain stones give good luck to the wearer, while the wearing of others brings loss and death. possibly a glimpse of the new moon over the left shoulder brings misfortune. possibly there are curative virtues in old bones, in sacred rags and holy hairs, in images and bits of wood, in rusty nails and dried blood, but the trouble is we have no evidence. possibly comets, eclipses and shooting stars foretell the death of kings, the destruction of nations or the coming of plague. possibly devils take possession of the bodies and minds of men. possibly witches, with the devil's help, control the winds, breed storms on sea and land, fill summer's lap with frosts and snow, and work with charm and spell against the public weal, but of this we have no evidence. it may be that all the miracles described in the old and new testament were performed; that the pallid flesh of the dead felt once more the thrill of life; that the corpse arose and felt upon his smiling lips the kiss of wife and child. possibly water was turned into wine, loaves and fishes increased, and possibly devils were expelled from men and women; possibly fishes were found with money in their mouths; possibly clay and spittle brought back the light to sightless eyes, and possibly words cured disease and made the leper clean, but of this we have no evidence. possibly iron floated, rivers divided, waters burst from dry bones, birds carried food to prophets and angels flourished drawn swords, but of this we have no evidence. possibly jehovah employed lying spirits to deceive a king, and all the wonders of the savage world may have happened, but the trouble is there is no proof. so there may be a devil, almost infinite in cunning and power, and he may have a countless number of imps whose only business is to sow the seeds of evil and to vex, mislead, capture and imprison in eternal flames the souls of men. all this, so far as we know, is possible. all we know is that we have no evidence except the assertions of ignorant priests. possibly there is a place called "hell," where all the devils live--a hell whose flames are waiting for, all the men who think and have the courage to express their thoughts, for all who fail to credit priests and sacred books, for all who walk the path that reason lights, for all the good and brave who lack credulity and faith--but of this, i am happy to say, there is no proof. and so there may be a place called "heaven," the home of god, where angels float and fly and play on harps and hear with joy the groans and shrieks of the lost in hell, but of this there is no evidence. it all rests on dreams and visions of the insane. there may be a power superior to nature, a power that governs and directs all things, but the existence of this power has not been established. in the presence of the mysteries of life and thought, of force and substance, of growth and decay, of birth and death, of joy and pain, of the sufferings of the good, the triumphs of wrong, the intelligent honest man is compelled to say: "i do not know." but we do know how gods and devils, heavens and hells, have been made. we know the history of inspired books--the origin of religions. we know how the seeds of superstition were planted and what made them grow. we know that all superstitions, all creeds, all follies and mistakes, all crimes and cruelties, all virtues, vices, hopes and fears, all discoveries and inventions, have been naturally produced. by the light of reason we divide the useful from the hurtful, the false from the true. we know the past--the paths that man has traveled--his mistakes, his triumphs. we know a few facts, a few fragments, and the imagination, the artist of the mind, with these facts, these fragments, rebuilds the past, and on the canvas of the future deftly paints the things to be. we believe in the natural, in the unbroken and unbreakable succession of causes and effects. we deny the existence of the supernatural. we do not believe in any god who can be pleased with incense, with kneeling, with bell-ringing, psalm-singing, bead-counting, fasting or prayer--in any god who can be flattered by words of faith or fear. we believe in the natural. we have no fear of devils, ghosts or hells. we believe that mahatmas, astral bodies, materializations of spirits, crystal gazing, seeing the future, telepathy, mind reading and christian science are only cunning frauds, the genuineness of which is established by the testimony of incompetent, honest witnesses. we believe that cunning plates fraud with the gold of honesty, and veneers vice with virtue. we know that millions are seeking the impossible--trying to secure the aid of the supernatural--to solve the problem of life--to guess the riddle of destiny, and to pluck from the future its secret. we know that all their efforts are in vain. we believe in the natural. we believe in home and fireside--in wife and child and friend--in the realities of this world. we have faith in facts--in knowledge--in the development of the brain. we throw away superstition and welcome science. we banish the phantoms, the mistakes and lies and cling to the truth. we do not enthrone the unknown and crown our ignorance. we do not stand with our backs to the sun and mistake our shadow for god. we do not create a master and thankfully wear his chains. we do not enslave ourselves. we want no leaders--no followers. our desire is that every human being shall be true to himself, to his ideal, unbribed by promises, careless of threats. we want no tyrant on the earth or in the air. we know that superstition has given us delusions and illusions, dreams and visions, ceremonies and cruelties, faith and fanaticism, beggars and bigots, persecutions and prayers, theology and torture, piety and poverty, saints and slaves, miracles and mummeries, disease and death. we know that science has given us all we have of value. science is the only civilizer. it has freed the slave, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, lengthened life, given us homes and hearths, pictures and books, ships and railways, telegraphs and cables, engines that tirelessly turn the countless wheels, and it has destroyed the monsters, the phantoms, the winged horrors that filled the savage brain. science is the real redeemer. it will put honesty above hypocrisy; mental veracity above all belief. it will teach the religion of usefulness. it will destroy bigotry in all its forms. it will put thoughtful doubt above thoughtless faith. it will give us philosophers, thinkers and savants, instead of priests, theologians and saints. it will abolish poverty and crime, and greater, grander, nobler than all else, it will make the whole world free. the devil. if the devil should die would god make another? a little while ago i delivered a lecture on "superstition," in which, among other things, i said that the christian world could not deny the existence of the devil; that the devil was really the keystone of the arch, and that to take him away was to destroy the entire system. a great many clergymen answered or criticised this statement. some of these ministers avowed their belief in the existence of his satanic majesty, while others actually denied his existence; but some, without stating their own position, said that others believed, not in the existence of a personal devil, but in the personification of evil, and that all references to the devil in the scriptures could be explained on the hypothesis that the devil thus alluded to was simply a personification of evil. when i read these answers i thought of this line from heine: "christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on christ." now, the questions are, first, whether the devil does really exist; second, whether the sacred scriptures teach the existence of the devil and of unclean spirits, and third, whether this belief in devils is a necessary part of what is known as "orthodox christianity." now, where did the idea that a devil exists come from? how was it produced? fear is an artist--a sculptor--a painter. all tribes and nations, having suffered, having been the sport and prey of natural phenomena, having been struck by lightning, poisoned by weeds, overwhelmed by volcanoes, destroyed by earthquakes, believed in the existence of a devil, who was the king--the ruler--of innumerable smaller devils, and all these devils have been from time immemorial regarded as the enemies of men. along the banks of the ganges wandered the asuras, the most powerful of evil spirits. their business was to war against the devas--that is to say, the gods--and at the same time against human beings. there, too, were the ogres, the jakshas and many others who killed and devoured human beings. the persians turned this around, and with them the asuras were good and the devas bad. ormuzd was the good--the god--ahriman the evil--the devil --and between the god and the devil was waged a perpetual war. some of the persians thought that the evil would finally triumph, but others insisted that the good would be the victor. in egypt the devil was set--or, as usually called, typhon--and the good god was osiris. set and his legions fought against osiris and against the human race. among the greeks, the titans were the enemies of the gods. ate was the spirit that tempted, and such was her power that at one time she tempted and misled the god of gods, even zeus himself. these ideas about gods and devils often changed, because in the days of socrates a demon was not a devil, but a guardian angel. we obtain our devil from the jews, and they got him from babylon. the jews cultivated the science of demonology, and at one time it was believed that there were nine kinds of demons: beelzebub, prince of the false gods of the other nations; the pythian apollo, prince of liars; belial, prince of mischief-makers; asmodeus, prince of revengeful devils; satan, prince of witches and magicians; meresin, prince of aerial devils, who caused thunderstorms and plagues; abaddon, who caused wars, tumults and combustions; diabolus, who drives to despair, and mammon, prince of the tempters. it was believed that demons and sorcerers frequently came together and held what were called "sabbats;" that is to say, orgies. it was also known that sorcerers and witches had marks on their bodies that had been imprinted by the devil. of course these devils were all made by the people, and in these devils we find the prejudices of their makers. the europeans always represent their devils as black, while the africans believed that theirs were white. so, it was believed that people by the aid of the devil could assume any shape that they wished. witches and wizards were changed into wolves, dogs, cats and serpents. this change to animal form was exceedingly common. within two years, between and , in one district of france, the district of jura, more than six hundred men and women were tried and convicted before one judge of having changed themselves into wolves, and all were put to death. this is only one instance. there are thousands. there is no time to give the history of this belief in devils. it has been universal. the consequences have been terrible beyond the imagination. millions and millions of men, women and children, of fathers and mothers, have been sacrificed upon the altar of this ignorant and idiotic belief. of course, the christians of to-day do not believe that the devils of the hindus, egyptians, persians or babylonians existed. they think that those nations created their own devils, precisely the same as they did their own gods. but the christians of to-day admit that for many centuries christians did believe in the existence of countless devils; that the fathers of the church believed as sincerely in the devil and his demons as in god and his angels; that they were just as sure about hell as heaven. i admit that people did the best they could to account for what they saw, for what they experienced. i admit that the devils as well as the gods were naturally produced--the effect of nature upon the human brain. the cause of phenomena filled our ancestors not only with wonder, but with terror. the miraculous, the supernatural, was not only believed in, but was always expected. a man walking in the woods at night--just a glimmering of the moon--everything uncertain and shadowy--sees a monstrous form. one arm is raised. his blood grows cold, his hair lifts. in the gloom he sees the eyes of an ogre--eyes that flame with malice. he feels that the something is approaching. he turns, and with a cry of horror takes to his heels. he is afraid to look back. spent, out of breath, shaking with fear, he reaches his hut and falls at the door. when he regains consciousness, he tells his story and, of course, the children believe. when they become men and women they tell father's story of having seen the devil to their children, and so the children and grandchildren not only believe, but think they know, that their father--their grandfather--actually saw a devil. an old woman sitting by the fire at night--a storm raging without--hears the mournful sough of the wind. to her it becomes a voice. her imagination is touched, and the voice seems to utter words. out of these words she constructs a message or a warning from the unseen world. if the words are good, she has heard an angel; if they are threatening and malicious, she has heard a devil. she tells this to her children and they believe. they say that mother's religion is good enough for them. a girl suffering from hysteria falls into a trance--has visions of the infernal world. the priest sprinkles holy water on her pallid face, saying: "she hath a devil." a man utters a terrible cry; falls to the ground; foam and blood issue from his mouth; his limbs are convulsed. the spectators say: "this is the devil's work." through all the ages people have mistaken dreams and visions of fear for realities. to them the insane were inspired; epileptics were possessed by devils; apoplexy was the work of an unclean spirit. for many centuries people believed that they had actually seen the malicious phantoms of the night, and so thorough was this belief--so vivid--that they made pictures of them. they knew how they looked. they drew and chiseled their hoofs, their horns--all their malicious deformities. now, i admit that all these monsters were naturally produced. the people believed that hell was their native land; that the devil was a king, and that lie and his imps waged war against the children of men. curiously enough some of these devils were made out of degraded gods, and, naturally enough, many devils were made out of the gods of other nations. so that frequently the gods of one people were the devils of another. in nature there are opposing forces. some of the forces work for what man calls good; some for what he calls evil. back of these forces our ancestors put will, intelligence and design. they could not believe that the good and evil came from the same being. so back of the good they put god; back of the evil, the devil. ii. the atlas of christianity is the devil. the religion known as "christianity" was invented by god himself to repair in part the wreck and ruin that had resulted from the devil's work. take the devil from the scheme of salvation--from the atonement--from the dogma of eternal pain--and the foundation is gone. the devil is the keystone of the arch. he inflicted the wounds that christ came to heal. he corrupted the human race. the question now is: does the old testament teach the existence of the devil? if the old testament teaches anything, it does teach the existence of the devil, of satan, of the serpent, of the enemy of god and man, the deceiver of men and women. those who believe the scriptures are compelled to say that this devil was created by god, and that god knew when he created him just what he would do--the exact measure of his success; knew that he would be a successful rival; knew that he would deceive and corrupt the children of men; knew that, by reason of this devil, countless millions of human beings would suffer eternal torment in the prison of pain. and this god also knew when he created the devil, that he, god, would be compelled to leave his throne, to be bom a babe in palestine, and to suffer a cruel death. all this he knew when he created the devil. why did he create him? it is no answer to say that this devil was once an angel of light and fell from his high estate because he was free. god knew what he would do with his freedom when he made him and gave him liberty of action, and as a matter of fact must have made him with the intention that he should rebel; that he should fall; that he should become a devil; that he should tempt and corrupt the father and mother of the human race; that he should make hell a necessity, and that, in consequence of his creation, countless millions of the children of men would suffer eternal pain. why did he create him? admit that god is infinitely wise. has he ingenuity enough to frame an excuse for the creation of the devil? does the old testament teach the existence of a real, living devil? the first account of this being is found in genesis, and in that account he is called the "serpent." he is declared to have been more subtle than any beast of the field. according to the account, this serpent had a conversation with eve, the first woman. we are not told in what language they conversed, or how they understood each other, as this was the first time they had met. where did eve get her language? where did the serpent get his? of course, such questions are impudent, but at the same time they are natural. the result of this conversation was that eve ate the forbidden fruit and induced adam to do the same. this is what is called the "fall," and for this they were expelled from the garden of eden. on account of this, god cursed the earth with weeds and thorns and brambles, cursed man with toil, made woman a slave, and cursed maternity with pain and sorrow. how men--good men--can worship this god; how women--good women--can love this jehovah, is beyond my imagination. in addition to the other curses the serpent was cursed--condemned to crawl on his belly and to eat dust. we do not know by what means, before that time, he moved from place to place--whether he walked or flew; neither do we know on what food he lived; all we know is that after that time he crawled and lived on dust. jehovah told him that this he should do all the days of his life. it would seem from this that the serpent was not at that time immortal--that there was somewhere in the future a milepost at which the life of this serpent stopped. whether he is living yet or not, i am not certain. it will not do to say that this is allegory, or a poem, because this proves too much. if the serpent did not in fact exist, how do we know that adam and eve existed? is all that is said about god allegory, and poetic, or mythical? is the whole account, after all, an ignorant dream? neither will it do to say that the devil--the serpent--was a personification of evil. do personifications of evil talk? can a personification of evil crawl on its belly? can a personification of evil eat dust? if we say that the devil was a personification of evil, are we not at the same time compelled to say that jehovah was a personification of good; that the garden of eden was the personification of a place, and that the whole story is a personification of something that did not happen? maybe that adam and eve were not driven out of the garden; they may have suffered only the personification of exile. and maybe the cherubim placed at the gate of eden, with flaming swords, were only personifications of policemen. there is no escape. if the old testament is true, the devil does exist, and it is impossible to explain him away without at the same time explaining god away. so there are many references to devils, and spirits of divination and of evil which i have not the time to call attention to; but, in the book of job, satan, the devil has a conversation with god. it is this devil that brings the sorrows and losses on the upright man. it is this devil that raises the storm that wrecks the homes of job's children. it is this devil that kills the children of job. take this devil from that book, and all meaning, plot and purpose fade away. is it possible to say that the devil in job was only a personification of evil? in chronicles we are told that satan provoked david to number israel. for this act of david, caused by the devil, god did not smite the devil, did not punish david, but he killed , poor innocent jews who had done nothing but stand up and be counted. was this devil who tempted david a personification of evil, or was jehovah a personification of the devilish? in zachariah we are told that joshua stood before the angel of the lord, and that satan stood at his right hand to resist him, and that the lord rebuked satan. if words convey any meaning, the old testament teaches the existence of the devil. all the passages about witches and those having familiar spirits were born of a belief in the devil. when a man who loved jehovah wanted revenge on his enemy he fell on his holy knees, and from a heart full of religion he cried: "let satan stand at his right hand." iii. take the devil from the drama of christianity and the plot is gone. the next question is: does the new testament teach the existence of the devil? as a matter of fact, the new testament is far more explicit than the old. the jews, believing that jehovah was god, had very little business for a devil. jehovah was wicked enough and malicious enough to take the devil's place. the first reference in the new testament to the devil is in the fourth chapter of matthew. we are told that jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. it seems that he was not led by the devil into the wilderness, but by the spirit; that the spirit and the devil were acting together in a kind of pious conspiracy. in the wilderness jesus fasted forty days, and then the devil asked him to turn stones into bread. the devil also took him to jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and tried to induce him to leap to the earth. the devil also took him to the top of a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and offered them all to him in exchange for his worship. jesus refused. the devil went away and angels came and ministered to christ. now, the question is: did the author of this account believe in the existence of the devil, or did he regard this devil as a personification of evil, and did he intend that his account should be understood as an allegory, or as a poem, or as a myth. was jesus tempted? if he was tempted, who tempted him? did anybody offer him the kingdoms of the world? did the writer of the account try to convey to the reader the thought that christ was tempted by the devil? if christ was not tempted by the devil, then the temptation was bom in his own heart. if that be true, can it be said that he was divine? if these adders, these vipers, were coiled in his bosom, was he the son of god? was he pure? in the same chapter we are told that christ healed "those which were possessed of devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy." from this it is evident that a distinction was made between those possessed with devils and those whose minds were affected and those who were afflicted with diseases. in the eighth chapter we are told that people brought unto christ many that were possessed with devils, and that he cast out the spirits with his word. now, can we say that these people were possessed with personifications of evil, and that these personifications of evil were cast out? are these personifications entities? have they form and shape? do they occupy space? then comes the story of the two men possessed with devils who came from the tombs, and were exceeding fierce. it is said that when they saw jesus they cried out: "what have we to do with thee, jesus, thou son of god? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" if these were simply personifications of evil, how did they know that jesus was the son of god, and how can a personification of evil be tormented? we are told that at the same time, a good way off, many swine were feeding, and that the devils besought christ, saying: "if thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine." and he said unto them: "go." is it possible that personifications of evil would desire to enter the bodies of swine, and is it possible that it was necessary for them to have the consent of christ before they could enter the swine? the question naturally arises: how did they enter into the body of the man? did they do that without christ's consent, and is it a fact that christ protects swine and neglects human beings? can personifications have desires? in the ninth chapter of matthew there was a dumb man brought to jesus, possessed with a devil. jesus cast out the devil and the dumb man spake. did a personification of evil prevent the dumb man from talking? did it in some way paralyze his organs of speech? could it have done this had it only been a personification of evil? in the tenth chapter jesus gives his twelve disciples power to cast out unclean spirits. what were unclean spirits supposed to be? did they really exist? were they shadows, impersonations, allegories? when jesus sent his disciples forth on the great mission to convert the world, among other things he told them to heal the sick, to raise the dead and to cast out devils. here a distinction is made between the sick and those who were possessed by evil spirits. now, what did christ mean by devils? in the twelfth chapter we are told of a very remarkable case. there was brought unto jesus one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and jesus healed him. the blind and dumb both spake and saw. thereupon the pharisees said: "this fellow doth not cast out devils but by beelzebub, the prince of devils." jesus answered by saying: "every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. if satan cast out satan, he is divided against himself." why did not christ tell the pharisees that he did not cast out devils--only personifications of evil; and that with these personifications beelzebub had nothing to do? another question: did the pharisees believe in the existence of devils, or had they the personification idea? at the same time christ said: "if i cast out devils by the spirit of god, then the kingdom of god is come unto you." if he meant anything by these words he certainly intended to convey the idea that what he did demonstrated the superiority of god over the devil. did christ believe in the existence of the devil? in the fifteenth chapter is the account of the woman of canaan who cried unto jesus, saying: "have mercy on me, o lord, thou son of david. my daughter is sorely vexed with a devil." on account of her faith christ made the daughter whole. in the sixteenth chapter a man brought his son to jesus. the boy was a lunatic, sore vexed, oftentimes falling in the fire and water. the disciples had tried to cure him and had failed. jesus rebuked the devil, and the devil departed out of him and the boy was cured. was the devil in this case a personification of evil? the disciples then asked jesus why they could not cast that devil out. jesus told them that it was because of their unbelief, and then added: "howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." from this it would seem that some personifications were easier to expel than others. the first chapter of mark throws a little light on the story of the temptation of christ. matthew tells us that jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. in mark we are told who this spirit was: "and straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens opened, and the spirit like a dove descending upon him. "and there came a voice from heaven, saying: 'thou art my beloved son, in whom i am well pleased.' "and immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness." why the holy ghost should hand christ over to the tender mercies of the devil is not explained. and it is all the more wonderful when we remember that the holy ghost was the third person in the trinity and christ the second, and that this holy ghost was, in fact, god, and that christ also was, in fact, god, so that god led god into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. we are told that christ was in the wilderness forty days tempted of satan, and was with the wild beasts, and that the angels ministered unto him. were these angels real angels, or were they personifications of good, of comfort? so we see that the same spirit that came out of heaven, the same spirit that said "this is my beloved son," drove christ into the wilderness to be tempted of satan. was this devil a real being? was this spirit who claimed to be the father of christ a real being, or was he a personification? are the heavens a real place? are they a personification? did the wild beasts live and did the angels minister unto christ? in other words, is the story true, or is it poetry, or metaphor, or mistake, or falsehood? it might be asked: why did god wish to be tempted by the devil? was god ambitious to obtain a victory over satan? was satan foolish enough to think that he could mislead god, and is it possible that the devil offered to give the world as a bribe to its creator and owner, knowing at the same time that christ was the creator and owner, and also knowing that he (christ) knew that he (the devil) knew that he (christ) was the creator and owner? is not the whole story absurdly idiotic? the devil knew that christ was god, and knew that christ knew that the tempter was the devil. it may be asked how i know that the devil knew that christ was god. my answer is found in the same chapter. there is an account of what a devil said to christ: "let us alone. what have we to do with thee, thou jesus of nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? i know thee. thou art the holy one of god." certainly, if the little devils knew this, the devil himself must have had like information. jesus rebuked this devil and said to him: "hold thy peace, and come out of him." and when the unclean spirit had torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. so we are told that jesus cast out many devils, and suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him. so it is said in the third chapter that "unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him and cried, saying, 'thou art the son of god.'" in the fifth chapter is an account of casting out the devils that went into the swine, and we are told that "all the devils besought him saying, 'send us into the swine.' and jesus gave them leave." again i ask: was it necessary for the devils to get the permission of christ before they could enter swine? again i ask: by whose permission did they enter into the man? could personifications of evil enter a herd of swine, or could personifications of evil make a bargain with christ? in the sixth chapter we are told that the disciples "cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick." here again the distinction is made between those possessed by devils and those afflicted by disease. it will not do to say that the devils were diseases or personifications. in the seventh chapter a greek woman whose daughter was possessed by a devil besought christ to cast this devil out. at last christ said: "the devil is gone out of thy daughter." in the ninth chapter one of the multitude said unto christ: "i have brought unto thee my son which hath a dumb spirit. i spoke unto thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not." so they brought this boy before christ, and when the boy saw him, the spirit tare him, and he fell on the ground and "wallowed, foaming." christ asked the father: "how long is it ago since this came unto him?" and he answered: "of a child, and ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him." then christ said: "thou dumb and deaf spirit, i charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him." "and the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him; and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, 'he is dead.'" then the disciples asked jesus why they could not cast them out, and jesus said: "this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting." is there any doubt about the belief of the man who wrote this account? is there any allegory, or poetry, or myth in this story? the devil, in this case, was not an ordinary, every-day devil. he was dumb and deaf; it was no use to order him out, because he could not hear. the only way was to pray and fast. is there such a thing as a dumb and deaf devil? if so, the devils must be organized. they must have ears and organs of speech, and they must be dumb because there is something the matter with the apparatus of speaking, and they must be deaf because something is the matter with their ears. it would seem from this that they are not simply spiritual beings, but organized on a physical basis. now, we know that the ears do not hear. it is the brain that hears. so these devils must have brains; that is to say, they must have been what we call "organized beings." now, it is hardly possible that personifications of evil are dumb or deaf. that is to say, that they have physical imperfections. in the same chapter john tells christ that he saw one casting out devils in christ's name who did not follow with them, and jesus said: "forbid him not." by this he seemed to admit that some one, not a follower of his, was casting out devils in his name, and he was willing that he should go on, because, as he said: "for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." in the fourth chapter of luke the story of the temptation of christ by the devil is again told with a few additions. all the writers, having been inspired, did not remember exactly the same things. luke tells us that the devil said unto christ, having shown him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time: "all this power will i give thee and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever i will i give it. if thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine." we are also told that when the devil had ended all the temptation he departed from him for a season. the date of his return is not given. in the same chapter we are told that a man in the synagogue had a "spirit of an unclean devil." this devil recognized jesus and admitted that he was the holy one of god. as a matter of fact, the apostles seemed to have relied upon the evidence of devils to substantiate the divinity of their lord. jesus said to this devil: "hold thy peace and come out of him." and the devil, after throwing the man down, came out. in the forty-first verse of the same chapter it is said: "and devils also came out of many, crying out and saying, 'thou art christ, the son of god.'" it is also said that christ rebuked them and suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was christ. now, it will not do to say that these devils were diseases, because diseases could not talk, and diseases would not recognize christ as the son of god. after all, epilepsy is not a theologian. i admit that lunacy comes nearer. in the eighth chapter is told again the story of the devils and the swine. in this account, jesus asked the devil his name, and the devil replied "legion." in the ninth chapter is told the story of the devil that the disciples could not cast out, but was cast out by christ, and in the thirteenth chapter it is said that the pharisees came to jesus, telling him to go away, because herod would kill him, and jesus said unto these pharisees; "go ye, and tell that fox, behold, i cast out devils." what did he mean by this? did he mean that he cured diseases? no. because in the same sentence he says, "and i do cures to-day," making a distinction between devils and diseases. in the twenty-second chapter an account of the betrayal of christ by judas is given in these words: "then entered satan into judas iscariot, being of the number of the twelve." "and he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him unto them. "and they were glad, and covenanted to give him money." according to christ the little devils knew that he was the son of god. certainly, then, satan, king of all the fiends, knew that christ was divine. and he not only knew that, but he knew all about the scheme of salvation. he knew that christ wished to make an atonement of blood by the sacrifice of himself. according to christian theologians, the devil has always done his utmost to gain possession of the souls of men. at the time he entered into judas, persuading him to betray christ, he knew that if christ was betrayed he would be crucified, and that he would make an atonement for all believers, and that, as a result, he, the devil, would lose all the souls that christ gained. what interest had the devil in defeating himself? if he could have prevented the betrayal, then christ would not have been crucified. no atonement would have been made, and the whole world would have gone to hell. the success of the devil would have been complete. but, according to this story, the devil outwitted himself. how thankful we should be to his satanic majesty. he opened for us the gates of paradise and made it possible for us to obtain eternal life. without satan, without judas, not a single human being could have become an angel of light. all would have been wingless devils in the prison of flame. in jerusalem, to the extent of his power, satan repaired the wreck and ruin he had wrought in the garden of eden. certainly the writers of the new testament believed in the existence of the devil. in the eighth chapter it is said that out of mary magdalene were cast seven devils. to me mary magdalene is the most beautiful character in the new testament. she is the one true disciple. in the darkness of the crucifixion she lingered near. she was the first at the sepulcher. defeat, disaster, disgrace, could not conquer her love. and yet, according to the account, when she met the risen christ, he said: "touch me not." this was the reward of her infinite devotion. in the gospel of john we are told that john the baptist said that he saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and that it abode upon christ. but in the gospel of john nothing is said about the spirit driving christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. possibly john never heard of that, or forgot it, or did not believe it. but in the thirteenth chapter i find this: "and supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of judas iscariot, simon's son, to betray him."... in john there are no accounts of the casting out of devils by christ or his apostles. on that subject there is no word. possibly john had his doubts. in the fifth chapter of acts we are told that the people brought the sick and those which were vexed with unclean spirits to the apostles, and the apostles healed them. here again there is made a clear distinction between the sick and those possessed by devils. and in the eighth chapter we are told that "unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of them." in the thirteen chapter paul calls elymas the child of the devil, and in the sixteenth chapter an account is given of "a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination, who brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." paul and silas, it would seem, cast out this spirit, and by reason of that suffered great persecution. in the nineteenth chapter certain vagabond jews pronounced over those who had evil spirits the name of jesus, and the evil spirits answered: "jesus i know, and paul i know, but who are ye?" "and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them so that they fled naked and wounded." paul, writing to the corinthians, in the eighth chapter says; "i would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. ye cannot drink the cup of the lord and the cup of devils. ye cannot be partakers of the lord's table and the table of devils. do we provoke the lord to jealousy?" in the eleventh chapter he says that long hair is the glory of woman, but that she ought to keep her head covered because of the angels. in those intellectual days people believed in what were called the incubi and the succubi. the incubi were male angels and the succubi were female angels, and according to the belief of that time nothing so attracted the incubi as the beautiful hair of women, and for this reason paul said that women should keep their heads covered. paul calls the devil the "prince of the power of the air." so in jude we are told "that michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, 'the lord rebuke thee.'" was this devil with whom michael contended a personification of evil, or a poem, or a myth? in first peter we are told to be sober, vigilant, "because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." are people devoured by personifications or myths? has an allegory an appetite, or is a poem a cannibal? so in ephesians we are warned not to give place to the devil, and in the same book we are told: "put on the whole armor of god, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." and in hebrews it is said that "him that had the power of death--that is, the devil;" showing that the devil has the power of death. and in james it is said that if we resist the devil he will flee from us; and in first john we are told that he that committeth sin is of the devil, for the reason that the devil sinneth from the beginning; and we are also told that "for this purpose was the son of god manifested, that he may destroy the works of the devil." no devil--no christ. in revelation, the insanest of all books, i find the following: "and there was war in heaven. michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels. "and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. "and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. "therefore, rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea; for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." from this it would appear that the devil once lived in heaven, raised a rebellion, was defeated and cast out, and the inspired writer congratulates the angels that they are rid of him and commiserates us that we have him. in the twentieth chapter of revelation is the following: "and i saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. "and he laid hold on the dragon--that old serpent, which is the devil and satan--and bound him a thousand years. "and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after he must be loosed a little season." it is hard to understand how one could be confined in a pit without a bottom, and how a chain of iron could hold one in eternal fire, or what use there would be to lock a bottomless pit; but these are questions probably suggested by the devil. we are further told that "when the thousand years are expired satan shall be loosed out of his prison." "and the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever." in the light of the passages that i have read we can clearly see what the writers of the new testament believed. about this there can be no honest difference. if the gospels teach the existence of god--of christ--they teach the existence of the devil. if the devil does not exist--if little devils do not enter the bodies of men--the new testament may be inspired, but it is not true. the early christians proved that christ was divine because he cast out devils. the evidence they offered was more absurd than the statement they sought to prove. they were like the old man who said that he saw a grindstone floating down the river. some one said that a grindstone would not float. "ah," said the old man, "but the one i saw had an iron crank in it." of course, i do not blame the authors of the gospels. they lived in' a superstitious age, at a time when rumor was the historian, when gossip corrected the "proof," and when everything was believed except the facts. the apostles, like their fellows, believed in miracles and magic. credulity was regarded as a virtue. the rev. mr. parkhurst denounces the apostles as worthless cravens. certainly i do not agree with him. i think that they were good men. i do not believe that any one of them ever tried to reform jerusalem on the parkhurst plan. i admit that they honestly believed in devils--that they were credulous and superstitious. there is one story in the new testament that illustrates my meaning. in the fifth chapter of john is the following: "now, there is at jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the hebrew tongue 'bethesda,' having five porches. "in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk--of blind, halt, withered--waiting for the moving of the water. "for an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. "and a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. "when jesus saw him he and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him: 'wilt thou be made whole??' "the impotent man answered him: 'sir, i have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while i am coming another steppeth down before me.' "jesus saith unto him: 'rise, take up thy bed and walk.' "and immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked." does any sensible human being now believe this story? was the water of bethesda troubled by an angel? where did the angel come from? where do angels live? did the angel put medicine in the water--just enough to cure one? did he put in different medicines for different diseases, or did he have a medicine, like those that are patented now, that cured all diseases just the same? was the water troubled by an angel? possibly, what apostles and theologians call an angel a scientist knows as carbonic acid gas. john does not say that the people thought the water was troubled by an angel, but he states it as a fact. and he tells us, also, as a fact, that the first invalid that got in the water after it had been troubled was cured of what disease he had. what is the evidence of john worth? again i say that if the devil does not exist the gospels are not inspired. if devils do not exist christ was either honestly mistaken, insane or an impostor. if devils do not exist the fall of man is a mistake and the atonement an absurdity. if devils do not exist hell becomes only a dream of revenge. beneath the structure called "christianity" are four corner-stones--the father, son, holy ghost and devil. iv. the evidence of the church. the devil, was forced to father the failures of god. all the fathers of the church believed in devils. all the saints won their crowns by overcoming devils. all the popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, believed in devils. most of their time was occupied in fighting devils. the whole catholic world, from the lowest layman to the highest priest, believed in devils. they proved the existence of devils by the new testament. they knew that these devils were citizens of hell. they knew that satan was their king. they knew that hell was made for the devil and his angels. the founders of all the protestant churches--the makers of all the orthodox creeds--all the leading protestant theologians, from luther to the president of princeton college--were, and are, firm believers in the devil. all the great commentators believed in the devil as firmly as they did in god. under the "scheme of salvation" the devil was a necessity. somebody had to be responsible for the thorns and thistles, for the cruelties and crimes. somebody had to father the mistakes of god. the devil was the scapegoat of jehovah. for hundreds of years, good, honest, zealous christians contended against the devil. they fought him day and night, and the thought that they had beaten him gave to their dying lips the smile of victory. for centuries the church taught that the natural man was totally depraved; that he was by nature a child of the devil, and that new-born babes were tenanted by unclean spirits. as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, every infant that was baptized was, by that ceremony, freed from a devil. when the holy water was applied the priest said: "i command thee, thou unclean spirit, in the name of the father, of the son, and of the holy ghost, that thou come out and depart from this infant, whom our lord jesus christ has vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism, to be made a member of his body, and of his holy congregation." at that time the fathers--the theologians, the commentators--agreed that unbaptized children, including those that were born dead, went to hell. and these same fathers--theologians and commentators--said: "god is love." these babes were pure as pity's tears, innocent as their mother's loving smiles, and yet the makers of our creeds believed and taught that leering, unclean fiends inhabited their dimpled flesh. o, the unsearchable riches of christianity! for many centuries the church filled the world with devils--with malicious spirits that caused storm and tempest, disease, accident and death--that filled the night with visions of despair; with prophecies that drove the dreamers mad. these devils assumed a thousand forms--countless disguises in their efforts to capture souls and destroy the church. they deceived sometimes the wisest and the best; made priests forget their vows. they melted virtue's snow in passion's fire, and in cunning ways entrapped and smirched the innocent and good. these devils gave witches and wizards their supernatural powers, and told them the secrets of the future. millions of men and women were destroyed because they had sold themselves to the devil. at that time christians really believed the new testament. they knew it was the inspired word of god, and so believing, so knowing--as they thought--they became insane. no man has genius enough to describe the agonies that have been inflicted on innocent men and women because of this absurd belief. how it darkened the mind, hardened the heart, and poisoned life! it made the universe a madhouse presided over by an insane god. think! why would a merciful god allow his children to be the victims of devils? why would a decent god allow his worshipers to believe in devils, and by reason of that belief to persecute, torture and burn their fellow-men? christians did not ask these questions. they believed the bible; they had confidence in the words of christ. v. personifications of evil. the orthodox ostrich thrusts his head into the sand. many of the clergy are now ashamed to say that they believe in devils. the belief has become ignorant and vulgar. they are ashamed of the lake of fire and brimstone. it is too savage. at the same time they do not wish to give up the inspiration of the bible. they give new meanings to the inspired words. now they say that devils were only personifications of evil. if the devils were only personifications of evil, what were the angels? was the angel who told joseph who the father of christ was, a personification? was the holy ghost only the personification of a father? was the angel who told joseph that herod was dead a personification of news? were the angels who rolled away the stone and sat clothed in shining garments in the empty sepulcher of christ a couple of personifications? were all the angels described in the old testament imaginary shadows--bodiless personifications? if the angels of the bible are real angels, the devils are real devils. let us be honest with ourselves and each other and give to the bible its natural, obvious meaning. let us admit that the writers believed what they wrote. if we believe that they were mistaken, let us have the honesty and courage to say so. certainly we have no right to change or avoid their meaning, or to dishonestly correct their mistakes. timid preachers sully their own souls when they change what the writers of the bible believed to be facts to allegories, parables, poems and myths. it is impossible for any man who believes in the inspiration of the bible to explain away the devil. if the bible is true the devil exists. there is no escape from this. if the devil does not exist the bible is not true. there is no escape from this. i admit that the devil of the bible is an impossible contradiction; an impossible being. this devil is the enemy of god and god is his. now, why should this devil, in another world, torment sinners, who are his friends, to please god, his enemy? if the devil is a personification, so is hell and the lake of fire and brimstone. all these horrors fade into allegories; into ignorant lies. any clergyman who can read the bible and then say that devils are personifications of evil is himself a personification of stupidity or hypocrisy. vi. does any intelligent man now, whose brain has not been deformed by superstition, believe in the existence of the devil? what evidence have we that he exists? where does this devil live? what does he do for a livelihood? what does he eat? if he does not eat, he cannot think. he cannot think without the expenditure of force. he cannot create force; he must borrow it--that is to say, he must eat. how does lie move from place to place? does he walk or does he fly, or has he invented some machine? what object has he in life? what idea of success? this devil, according to the bible, knows that he is to be defeated; knows that the end is absolute and eternal failure; knows that every step he takes leads to the infinite catastrophe. why does he act as he does? our fathers thought that everything in this world came from some other realm; that all ideas of right and wrong came from above; that conscience dropped from the clouds; that the darkness was filled with imps from perdition, and the day with angels from heaven; that souls had been breathed into man by jehovah. what there is in this world that lives and breathes was produced here. life was not imported. mind is not an exotic. of this planet man is a native. this world is his mother. the maker did not descend from the heavens. the maker was and is here. matter and force in their countless forms, affinities and repulsions produced the living, breathing world. how can we account for devils? is it possible that they creep into the bodies of men and swine? do they stay in the stomach or brain, in the heart or liver? are these devils immortal or do they multiply and die? were they all created at the same time or did they spring from a single pair? if they are subject to death what becomes of them after death? do they go to some other world, are they annihilated, or can they get to heaven by believing on christ? in the brain of science the devils have never lived. there you will find no goblins, ghosts, wraiths or imps--no witches, spooks or sorcerers. there the supernatural does not exist. no man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies or the anthropophagi--any more than he does in the fountain of youth, the philosopher's stone, perpetual motion or fiat money. there is the same difference between religion and science that there is between a madhouse and a university--between a fortune teller and a mathematician--between emotion and philosophy--between guess and demonstration. the devils have gone, and with them they have taken the miracles of christ. they have carried away our lord. they have taken away the inspiration of the bible, and we are left in the darkness of nature without the consolation of hell. but let me ask the clergy a few questions: how did your devil, who was at one time an angel of light, come to sin? there was no other devil to tempt him. he was in perfectly good society--in the company of god--of the trinity. all of his associates were perfect. how did he fall? he knew that god was infinite, and yet he waged war against him and induced about a third of the angels to volunteer. he knew that he could not succeed; knew that he would be defeated and cast out; knew that he was fighting for failure. why was god so unpopular? why were the angels so bad? according to the christians, these angels were spirits. they had never been corrupted by flesh--by the passion of love. why were they so wicked? why did god create those angels, knowing that they would rebel? why did he deliberately sow the seeds of discord in heaven, knowing that he would cast them into the lake of eternal fire--knowing that for them he would create the eternal prison, whose dungeons would echo forever the sobs and shrieks of endless pain? how foolish is infinite wisdom! how malicious is mercy! how revengeful is boundless love! again, i say that no sensible man in all the world believes in devils. why does god allow these devils to enjoy themselves at the expense of his ignorant children? why does he allow them to leave their prison? does he give them furloughs or tickets-of-leave? does he want his children misled and corrupted so that he can have the pleasure of damning their souls? vii. the man of straw. some of the preachers who have answered me say that i am fighting a man of straw. i am fighting the supernatural--the dogma of inspiration--the belief in devils--the atonement, salvation by faith--the forgiveness of sins and the savagery of eternal pain. i am fighting the absurd,-the monstrous, the cruel. the ministers pretend that they have advanced--that they do not believe the things that i attack. in this they are not honest. who is the "man of straw"? the man of straw is their master. in every orthodox pulpit stands this man of straw--stands beside the preacher--stands with a club, called a "creed," in his upraised hand. the shadow of this club falls athwart the open bible--falls upon the preacher's brain, darkens the light of his reason and compels him to betray himself. the man of straw rules every sectarian school and college--every orthodox church. he is the censor who passes on every sermon. now and then some minister puts a little sense in his discourse--tries to take a forward step. down comes the club, and the man of straw demands an explanation--a retraction. if the minister takes it back--good. if he does not, he is brought to book. the man of straw put the plaster of silence on the lips of prof. briggs, and he was forced to leave the church or remain dumb. the man of straw closed the mouth of prof. smith, and he has not opened it since. the man of straw would not allow the presbyterian creed to be changed. the man of straw took father mcglynn by the collar, forced him to his knees, made him take back his words and ask forgiveness for having been abused. the man of straw pitched prof. swing out of the pulpit and drove the rev. mr. thomas from the methodist church. let me tell the orthodox ministers that they are trying to cover their retreat. you have given up the geology and astronomy of the bible. you have admitted that its history is untrue. you are retreating still. you are giving up the dogma of inspiration; you have your doubts about the flood and babel; you have given up the witches and wizards; you are beginning to throw away the miraculous; you have killed the little devils, and in a little while you will murder the devil himself. in a few years you will take the bible for what it is worth. the good and true will be treasured in the heart; the foolish, the infamous, will be thrown away. the man of straw will then be dead. of course, the real old petrified, orthodox christian will cling to the devil. he expects to have all of his sins charged to the devil, and at the same time he will be credited with all the virtues of christ. upon this showing on the books, upon this balance, he will be entitled to his halo and harp. what a glorious, what an equitable, transaction! the sorcerer superstition changes debt to credit. he waves his wand, and he who deserves the tortures of hell receives an eternal reward. but if a man lacks faith the scheme is exactly reversed. while in one case a soul is rewarded for the virtues of another, in the other case a soul is damned for the sins of another. this is justice when it blossoms in mercy. beyond this idiocy cannot go. viii. keep the devils out of children. william kingdon clifford, one of the greatest men of this century, said: "if there is one lesson that history forces upon us in every page, it is this: keep your children away from the priest, or he will make them the enemies of mankind." in every orthodox sunday school children are taught to believe in devils. every little brain becomes a menagerie, filled with wild beasts from hell. the imagination is polluted with the deformed, the monstrous and malicious. to fill the minds of children with leering fiends--with mocking devils--is one of the meanest and basest of crimes. in these pious prisons--these divine dungeons--these protestant and catholic inquisitions--children are tortured with these cruel lies. here they are taught that to really think is wicked; that to express your honest thought is blasphemy; and that to live a free and joyous life, depending on fact instead of faith, is the sin against the holy ghost. children thus taught--thus corrupted and deformed--become the enemies of investigation--of progress. they are no longer true to themselves. they have lost the veracity of the soul. in the language of prof. clifford, "they are the enemies of the human race." so i say to all fathers and mothers, keep your children away from priests; away from orthodox sunday schools; away from the slaves of superstition. they will teach them to believe in the devil; in hell; in the prison of god; in the eternal dungeon, where the souls of men are to suffer forever. these frightful things are a part of christianity. take these lies from the creed and the whole scheme falls into shapeless ruin. this dogma of hell is the infinite of savagery--the dream of insane revenge. it makes god a wild beast--an infinite hyena. it makes christ as merciless as the fangs of a viper. save poor children from the pollution of this horror. protect them from this infinite lie. ix. conclusion. i admit that there are many good and beautiful passages in the old and new testament; that from the lips of christ dropped many pearls of kindness--of love. every verse that is true and tender i treasure in my heart. every thought, behind which is the tear of pity, i appreciate and love. but i cannot accept it all. many utterances attributed to christ shock my brain and heart. they are absurd and cruel. take from the new testament the infinite savagery, the shoreless malevolence of eternal pain, the absurdity of salvation by faith, the ignorant belief in the existence of devils, the immorality and cruelty of the atonement, the doctrine of non-resistance that denies to virtue the right of self-defence, and how glorious it would be to know that the remainder is true! compared with this knowledge, how everything else in nature would shrink and shrivel! what ecstasy it would be to know that god exists; that he is our father and that he loves and cares for the children of men! to know that all the paths that human beings travel, turn and wind as they may, lead to the gates of stainless peace! how the heart would thrill and throb to know that christ was the conqueror of death; that at his grave the all-devouring monster was baffled and beaten forever; that from that moment the tomb became the door that opens on eternal life! to know this would change all sorrow into gladness. poverty, failure, disaster, defeat, power, place and wealth would become meaningless sounds. to take your babe upon your knee and say: "mine and mine forever!" what joy! to clasp the woman you love in your arms and to know that she is yours and forever--yours though suns darken and constellations vanish! this is enough: to know that the loved and dead are not lost; that they still live and love and wait for you. to know that christ dispelled the darkness of death and filled the grave with eternal light. to know this would be all that the heart could bear. beyond this joy cannot go. beyond this there is no place for hope. how beautiful, how enchanting, death would be! how we would long to see his fleshless skull! what rays of glory would stream from his sightless sockets, and how the heart would long for the touch of his stilling hand! the shroud would become a robe of glory, the funeral procession a harvest home, and the grave would mark the end of sorrow, the beginning of eternal joy. and yet it were better far that all this should be false than that all of the new testament should be true. it is far better to have no heaven than to have heaven and hell; better to have no god than god and devil; better to rest iii eternal sleep than to be an angel and know that the ones you love are suffering eternal pain; better to live a free and loving life--a life that ends forever at the grave--than to be an immortal slave. the master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet. i have no ambition to become a winged servant, a winged slave. better eternal sleep. but they say, "if you give up these superstitions, what have you left?" let me now give you the declaration of a creed. declaration of the free we have no falsehoods to defend-- we want the facts; our force, our thought, we do not spend in vain attacks. and we will never meanly try to save some fair and pleasing lie. the simple truth is what we ask, not the ideal; we've set ourselves the noble task to find the real. if all there is is naught but dross, we want to know and bear our loss. we will not willingly be fooled, by fables nursed; our hearts, by earnest thought, are schooled to bear the worst; and we can stand erect and dare all things, all facts that really are. we have no god to serve or fear, no hell to shun, no devil with malicious leer. when life is done an endless sleep may close our eyes, a sleep with neither dreams nor sighs. we have no master on the land-- no king in air-- without a manacle we stand, without a prayer, without a fear of coming night, we seek the truth, we love the light. we do not bow before a guess, a vague unknown; a senseless force we do not bless in solemn tone. when evil comes we do not curse, or thank because it is no worse. when cyclones rend--when lightning blights, 'tis naught but fate; there is no god of wrath who smites in heartless hate. behind the things that injure man there is no purpose, thought, or plan. we waste no time in useless dread, in trembling fear; the present lives, the past is dead, and we are here, all welcome guests at life's great feast-- we need no help from ghost or priest. our life is joyous, jocund, free-- not one a slave who bends in fear the trembling knee, and seeks to save a coward soul from future pain; not one will cringe or crawl for gain. the jeweled cup of love we drain, and friendship's wine now swiftly flows in every vein with warmth divine. and so we love and hope and dream that in death's sky there is a gleam. we walk according to our light, pursue the path that leads to honor's stainless height, careless of wrath or curse of god, or priestly spite, longing to know and do the right. we love our fellow-man, our kind, wife, child, and friend. to phantoms we are deaf and blind, but we extend the helping hand to the distressed; by lifting others we are blessed. love's sacred flame within the heart and friendship's glow; while all the miracles of art their wealth bestow upon the thrilled and joyous brain, and present raptures banish pain. we love no phantoms of the skies, but living flesh, with passion's soft and soulful eyes, lips warm and fresh, and cheeks with health's red flag unfurled, the breathing angels of this world. the hands that help are better far than lips that pray. love is the ever gleaming star that leads the way, that shines, not on vague worlds of bliss, but on a paradise in this. we do not pray, or weep, or wail; we have no dread, no fear to pass beyond the veil that hides the dead. and yet we question, dream, and guess, but knowledge we do not possess. we ask, yet nothing seems to know; we cry in vain. there is no "master of the show" who will explain, or from the future tear the mask; and yet we dream, and still we ask is there beyond the silent night an endless day? is death a door that leads to light? we cannot say. the tongueless secret locked in fate we do not know.-- we hope and wait. progress. * this is the first lecture ever delivered by mr. ingersoll. the stars indicate the words missing in the manuscript. it was delivered in pekin, ., in , and again in bloomington, ., in . it is admitted by all that happiness is the only good, happiness in its highest and grandest sense and the most * * springs * * of * * refined * * generous * * conscience * * tends * * indirectly * * truly we * * physically * * to develop the wonderful powers of the mind is progress. it is impossible for men to become educated and refined without leisure and there can be no leisure without wealth and all wealth is produced by labor, nothing else. nothing can * * the hands * * and * * fabrics * * service of civil * * and crumbles * * of all, and yet even in free america labor is not honored as it deserves. we should remember that the prosperity of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn, upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnaces, upon the delvers in dark mines, the workers in shops, upon those who give to the wintry air the ringing music of the axe, and upon those who wrestle with the wild waves of the raging sea. and it is from the surplus produced by labor that schools are built, that colleges and universities are founded and endowed. from this surplus the painter is paid for the immortal productions of the pencil. this pays the sculptor for chiseling the shapeless rock into forms of beauty almost divine, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves and aspirations of the world. this surplus has erected all the palaces and temples, all the galleries of art, has given to us all the books in which we converse, as it were, with the dead kings of the human race, and has supplied us with all there is of elegance, of beauty and of refined happiness in the world. i am aware that the subject chosen by me is almost infinite and that in its broadest sense it is absolutely beyond the present comprehension of man. i am also aware that there are many opinions as to what progress really is, that what one calls progress, another denominates barbarism; that many have a wonderful veneration for all that is ancient, merely because it is ancient, and they see no beauty in anything from which they do not have to blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise. they say, no masters like the old, no governments like the ancient, no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. others despise antiquity and admire only the modern, merely because it is modern. they find so much to condemn in the past, that they condemn all. i hope, however, that i have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations i am under to the great and heroic minds of antiquity, and that i have manliness and independence enough not to believe what they said merely because they said it, and that i have moral courage enough to advocate ideas, however modern they may be, if i believe that they are right. truth is neither young nor old, is neither ancient nor modern, but is the same for all times and places and should be sought for with ceaseless activity, eagerly acknowledged, loved more than life, and abandoned--never. in accordance with the idea that labor is the basis of all prosperity and happiness, is another idea or truth, and that is, that labor in order to make the laborer and the world at large happy, must be free. that the laborer must be a free man, the thinker must be free. i do not intend in what i may say upon this subject to carry you back to the remotest antiquity,--back to asia, the cradle of the world, where we could stand in the ashes and ruins of a civilization so old that history has not recorded even its decay. it will answer my present purpose to commence with the middle ages. in those times there was no freedom of either mind or body in europe. labor was despised, and a laborer was considered as scarcely above the beasts. ignorance like a mantle covered the world, and superstition ran riot with the human imagination. the air was filled with angels, demons and monsters. everything assumed the air of the miraculous. credulity occupied the throne of reason and faith put out the eyes of the soul. a man to be distinguished had either to be a soldier or a monk. he could take his choice between killing and lying. you must remember that in those days nations carried on war as an end, not as a means. war and theology were the business of mankind. no man could win more than a bare existence by industry, much less fame and glory. comparatively speaking, there was no commerce. nations instead of buying and selling from and to each other, took what they wanted by brute force. and every christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of mohammedans, and no murder to kill the owners with or without just cause of quarrel. lord bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel one. in those days reading and writing were considered very dangerous arts, and any layman who had acquired the art of reading was suspected of being a heretic or a wizard. it is almost impossible for us to conceive of the ignorance, the cruelty, the superstition and the mental blindness of that period. in reading the history of those dark and bloody years, i am amazed at the wickedness, the folly and presumption of mankind. and yet, the solution of the whole matter is, they despised liberty; they hated freedom of mind and of body. they forged chains of superstition for the one and of iron for the other. they were ruled by that terrible trinity, the cowl, the sword and chain. you cannot form a correct opinion of those ages without reading the standard authors, so to speak, of that time, the laws then in force, and by ascertaining the habits and customs of the people, their mode of administering the laws, and the ideas that were commonly received as correct. no one believed that honest error could be innocent; no one dreamed of such a thing as religious freedom. in the fifteenth century the following law was in force in england: "that whatsoever they were that should read the scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, cattle, body, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to god, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." the next year after this law was in force, in one day thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies afterward burned. laws equally unjust, bloody and cruel were in force in all parts of europe. in the sixteenth century a man was burned in france because he refused to kneel to a procession of dirty monks. i could enumerate thousands of instances of the most horrid cruelty perpetrated upon men, women and even little children, for no other reason in the world than for a difference of opinion upon a subject that neither party knew anything about. but you are all, no doubt, perfectly familiar with the history of religious persecution. there is one thing, however, that is strange indeed, and that is that the reformers of those days, the men who rose against the horrid tyranny of the times, the moment they attained power, persecuted with a zeal and bitterness never excelled. luther, one of the grand men of the world, cast in the heroic mould, although he gave utterance to the following sublime sentiment: "every one has the right to read for himself that he may prepare himself to live and to die," still had no idea of what we call religious freedom. he considered universal toleration an error, so did melancthon, and erasmus, and yet, strange as it may appear, they were exercising the very right they denied to others, and maintaining their right with a courage and energy absolutely sublime. john knox was only in favor of religious freedom when he was in the minority, and baxter entertained the same sentiment. castalio, a professor at geneva, in switzerland, was the first clergyman in europe who declared the innocence of honest error, and who proclaimed himself in favor of universal toleration. the name of this man should never be forgotten. he had the goodness, the courage, although surrounded with prisons and inquisitions, and in the midst of millions of fierce bigots, to declare the innocence of honest error, and that every man had a right to worship the good god in his own way. for the utterance of this sublime sentiment his professorship was taken from him, he was driven from geneva by john calvin and his adherents, although he had belonged to their sect. he was denounced as a child of the devil, a dog of satan, as a murderer of souls, as a corrupter of the faith, and as one who by his doctrines crucified the savior afresh. not content with merely driving him from his home, they pursued him absolutely to the grave, with a malignity that increased rather than diminished. you must not think that calvin was alone in this; on the contrary he was fully sustained by public opinion, and would have been sustained even though he had procured the burning of the noble castalio at the stake. i cite this instance not merely for the purpose of casting odium upon calvin, but to show you what public opinion was at that time, when such things were ordinary transactions. bodi-nus, a lawyer in france, about the same time advocated something like religious liberty, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him and the people were at all times ready with torch and brand, chain, and fagot to get the abominable heresy out of the human mind, that a man had a right to think for himself. and yet luther, calvin, knox and baxter, in spite, as it were, of themselves, conferred a great and lasting benefit upon mankind; for what they did was at least in favor of individual judgment, and one successful stand against the church produced others, all of which tended to establish universal toleration. in those times you will remember that failing to convert a man or woman by the ordinary means, they resorted to every engine of torture that the ingenuity of bigotry could devise; they crushed their feet in what they called iron boots; they roasted them upon slow fires; they plucked out their nails, and then into the bleeding quick thrust needles; and all this to convince them of the truth. i suppose that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. montaigne was the first man who raised his voice against torture in france; a man blessed with so much common sense, that he was the most uncommon man of the age in which he lived. but what was one voice against the terrible cry of ignorant millions?--a drowning man in the wild roar of the infinite sea. it is impossible to read the history of the long and seemingly hopeless war waged for religious freedom, without being filled with horror and disgust. millions of men, women and children, at least one hundred millions of human beings with hopes and loves and aspirations like ourselves, have been sacrificed upon the altar of bigotry. they have perished at the stake, in prisons, by famine and by sword; they have died wandering, homeless, in deserts, groping in caves, until their blood cried from the earth for vengeance. but the principle, gathering strength from their weakness, nourished by blood and flame, rendered holier still by their sufferings--grander by their heroism, and immortal by their death, triumphed at last, and is now acknowledged by the whole civilized world. enormous as the cost has been the principle is worth a thousand times as much. there must be freedom in religion, for without freedom there can be no real religion. and as for myself i glory in the fact that upon american soil that principle was first firmly established, and that the constitution of the united states was the first of any great nation in which religious toleration was made one of the fundamental laws of the land. and it is not only the law of our country but the law is sustained by an enlightened public opinion. without liberty there is no religion--no worship. what light is to the eyes--what air is to the lungs--what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. without liberty, the brain is a dungeon, where the chained thoughts die with their pinions pressed against the hingeless doors. witchcraft the next fact to which i call your attention is, that during the middle ages the people, the whole people, the learned and the ignorant, the masters and the slaves, the clergy, the lawyers, doctors and statesmen, all believed in witchcraft--in the evil eye, and that the devil entered into people, into animals and even into insects to accomplish his dark designs. and all the people believed it their solemn duty to thwart the devil by all means in their power, and they accordingly set themselves at work hanging and burning everybody suspected of being in league with the enemy of mankind. if you grant their premises, you justify their actions. if these persons had actually entered into partnership with the devil for the purpose of injuring their neighbors, the people would have been justified in exterminating them all. and the crime of witchcraft was proven over and over again in court after court in every town of europe. thousands of people who were charged with being in league with the devil confessed the crime, gave all the particulars of the bargain, told just what the devil said and what they replied, and exactly how the bargain was consummated, admitted in the presence of death, on the very edge of the grave, when they knew that the confession would confiscate all their property and leave their children homeless wanderers, and render their own names infamous after death. we can account for a man suffering death for what he believes to be right. he knows that he has the sympathy of all the truly good, and he hopes that his name will be gratefully remembered in the far future, and above all, he hopes to win the approval of a just god. but the man who confessed himself guilty of being a wizard, knew that his memory would be execrated and expected that his soul would be eternally lost. what motive could then have induced so many to confess? strange as it is, i believe that they actually believed themselves guilty. they considered their case hopeless; they confessed and died without a prayer. these things are enough to make one think that sometimes the world becomes insane and that the earth is a vast asylum without a keeper. i repeat that i am convinced that the people that confessed themselves guilty believed that they were so. in the first place, they believed in witchcraft and that people often were possessed of satan, and when they were accused the fright and consternation produced by the accusation, in connection with their belief, often produced insanity or something akin to it, and the poor creatures charged with a crime that it was impossible to disprove, deserted and abhorred by their friends, left alone with their superstitions and fears, driven to despair, looked upon death as a blessed relief from a torture that you and i cannot at this day understand. people were charged with the most impossible crimes. in the time of james the first, a man was burned in scotland for having produced a storm at sea for the purpose of drowning one of the royal family. a woman was tried before sir matthew hale, one of the most learned and celebrated lawyers of england, for having caused children to vomit-crooked pins. she was also charged with nursing demons. of course she was found guilty, and the learned judge charged the jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that all history, sacred and profane, and that the experience of every country proved it beyond any manner of doubt. and the woman was either hanged or burned for a crime for which it was impossible for her to be guilty. in those times they also believed in lycanthropy--that is, that persons of whom the devil had taken possession could assume the appearance of wolves. one instance is related where a man was attacked by what appeared to be a wolf. he defended himself and succeeded in cutting off one of the wolf's paws, whereupon the wolf ran and the man picked up the paw and putting it in his pocket went home. when he took the paw out of his pocket it had changed to a human hand, and his wife sat in the house with one of her hands gone and the stump of her arm bleeding. he denounced his wife as a witch, she confessed the crime and was burned at the stake. people were burned for causing frosts in the summer, for destroying crops with hail, for causing cows to become dry, and even for souring beer. the life of no one was secure, malicious enemies had only to charge one with witchcraft, prove a few odd sayings and queer actions to secure the death of their victim. and this belief in witchcraft was so intense that to express a doubt upon the subject was to be suspected and probably executed. believing that animals were also taken possession of by evil spirits and also believing that if they killed an animal containing one of the evil spirits that they caused the death of the spirit, they absolutely tried animals, convicted and executed them. at basle, in , a rooster was tried, charged with having laid an egg, and as rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment it was a serious charge, and everyone of course admitted that the devil must have been the cause, as roosters could not very well lay eggs without some help. and the egg having been produced in court, the rooster was duly convicted and he together with his miraculous egg were publicly and with all due solemnity burned in the public square. so a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed, and partially eaten a child, the hog was convicted and executed, but the pigs were acquitted on the ground of their extreme youth. asiate as a cow was absolutely tried on a charge of being possessed of the devil. our forefathers used to rid themselves of rats, leeches, locusts and vermin by pronouncing what they called a public exorcism. on some occasions animals were received as witnesses in judicial proceedings. the law was in some of the countries of europe, that if a man's house was broken into between sunset and sunrise and the owner killed the intruder, it should be considered justifiable homicide. but it was also considered that it was just possible that a man living alone might entice another to his house in the night-time, kill him and then pretend that his victim was a robber. in order to prevent this, it was enacted that when a person was killed by a man living alone and under such circumstances, the solitary householder should not be held innocent unless he produced in court some animal, a dog or a cat, that had been an inmate of the house and had witnessed the death of the person killed. the prisoner was then compelled in the presence of such animal to make a solemn declaration of his innocence, and if the animal failed to contradict him, he was declared guiltless,--the law taking it for granted that the deity would cause a miraculous manifestation by a dumb animal, rather than allow a murderer to escape. it was the law in england that any one convicted of a crime, could appeal to what was called corsned or morsel of execration. this was a piece of cheese or bread of about an ounce in weight, which was first consecrated with a form of exorcism desiring that the almighty, if the man were guilty, would cause convulsions and paleness, and that it might stick in his throat, but that it might if the man were innocent, turn to health and nourishment. godwin, the earl of kent, during the reign of edward the confessor, appealed to the corsned, which sticking in his throat, produced death. there were also trials by water and by fire. persons were made to handle red hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established; so their hands and feet were tied, and they were thrown into the water, and if they sank they were pronounced guilty and allowed to drown. i give these instances to show you what has happened, and what always will happen, in countries where ignorance prevails, and people abandon the great standard of reason. and also to show to you that scarcely any man, however great, can free himself of the superstitions of his time. kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, and an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer and thought he could predict the career of any man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. this infinitely foolish stuff was religiously believed by him, merely because he had been raised in an atmosphere of boundless credulity. tycho brahe, another astronomer who has been, and is called the prince of astronomers--not only believed in astrology, but actually kept an idiot in his service, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully wrote down and then put them together in such a manner as to make prophecies, and then he patiently and confidently awaited their fulfillment. luther believed that he had actually seen the devil not only, but that he had had discussions with him upon points of theology. on one occasion getting excited, he threw an inkstand at his majesty's head, and the ink stain is still to be seen on the wall where the stand was broken. the devil i believe, was untouched, he probably having an inkling of luther's intention, made a successful dodge. in the time of charles the fifth, emperor of germany, stoefflerer, a noted mathematician and astronomer, a man of great learning, made an astronomical calculation according to the great science of astrology and ascertained that the world was to be visited by another deluge. this prediction was absolutely believed by the leading men of the empire not only, but of all europe. the commissioner general of the army of charles the fifth recommended that a survey be made of the country by competent men in order to find out the highest land. but as it was uncertain how high the water would rise this idea was abandoned. thousands of people left their homes in low lands, by the rivers and near the sea and sought the more elevated ground. immense suffering was produced. people in some instances abandoned the aged, the sick and the infirm to the tender mercies of the expected flood, so anxious were they to reach some place of security. at toulouse, in france, the people actually built an ark and stocked it with provisions, and it was not till long after the day upon which the flood was to have come, had passed, that the people recovered from their fright and returned to their homes. about the same time it was currently reported and believed that a child had been born in silesia with a golden tooth. the people were again filled with wonder and consternation. they were satisfied that some great evil was coming upon mankind. at last it was solved by some chapter in daniel wherein is predicted somebody with a golden head. such stories would never have gained credence only for the reason that the supernatural was expected. anything in the ordinary course of nature was not worth telling. the human mind was in chains; it had been deformed by slavery. reason was a trembling coward, and every production of the mind was deformed, every idea was a monster. almost every law was unjust. their religion was nothing more or less than monsters worshiping an imaginary monster. science could not, properly speaking, exist. their histories were the grossest and most palpable falsehoods, and they filled all europe with the most shocking absurdities. the histories were all written by the monks and bishops, all of whom were intensely superstitious, and equally dishonest. everything they did was a pious fraud. they wrote as if they had been eye-witnesses of every occurrence that they related. they entertained, and consequently expressed, no doubt as to any particular, and in case of any difficulty they always had a few miracles ready just suited for the occasion, and the people never for an instant doubted the absolute truth of every statement that they made. they wrote the history of every country of any importance. they related all the past and present, and predicted nearly all the future, with an ignorant impudence actually sublime. they traced the order of st. michael in france back to the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. they also said that the tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called tartars because tartarus was one of the names of perdition. they declared that scotland was so called after scota, a daughter of pharaoh, who landed in ireland and afterward invaded scotland and took it by force of arms. this statement was made in a letter addressed to the pope in the th century and was alluded to as a well-known fact. the letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries of the church and by direction of the king himself. matthew, of paris, an eminent historian of the th century, gave the world the following piece of valuable information: "it is well known that mohammed originally was a cardinal and became a heretic because he failed in his design of being elected pope." the same gentleman informs us that mohammed having drank to excess fell drunk by the roadside, and in that condition was killed by pigs. and this is the reason, says he, that his followers abhor pork even unto this day. another historian of about the same period, tells us that one of the popes cut off his hand because it had been kissed by an improper person, and that the hand was still in the lateran at rome, where it had been miraculously preserved from corruption for over five hundred years. after that occurrence, says he, the pope's toe was substituted, which accounts for this practice. he also has the goodness to inform his readers that nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. some of the croakers of the present day against progress would, i think, be the better of such a vomit. the history of charlemagne was written by turpin the archbishop of rheims, and received the formal approbation of the pope. in this it is asserted that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer; that charlemagne was opposed by a giant called fenacute who was a descendant of the ancient goliath; that forty men were sent to attack this giant, and that he took them under his arms and quietly carried them away. at last orlando engaged him singly; not meeting with the success that he anticipated, he changed his tactics and commenced a theological discussion; warming with his subject he pressed forward and suddenly stabbed his opponent, inflicting a mortal wound. after the death of the giant, charlemagne easily conquered the whole country and divided it among his sons. the history of the britons, written by the archdeacons of monmouth and oxford, was immensely popular. according to their account, brutus, a roman, conquered england, built london, called the country britain after himself. during his time it rained blood for three days. at another time a monster came from the sea, and after having devoured a great many common people, finally swallowed the king himself. they say that king arthur was not born like ordinary mortals, but was formed by a magical contrivance made by a wizard. that he was particularly lucky in killing giants, that he killed one in france who used to eat several people every day, and that this giant was clothed with garments made entirely of the beards of kings that he had killed and eaten. to cap the climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written an authentic history of his country. another writer of the th century says that after ignatius was dead they found impressed upon his heart the greek word theos. in all historical compositions there was an incredible want of common honesty. the great historian eusebius ingenuously remarks that in his history he omitted whatever tended to discredit the church and magnified whatever conduced to her glory. the same glorious principle was adhered to by most, if not all, of the writers of those days. they wrote and the people believed that the tracks of pharaoh's chariot wheels, were still impressed upon the sands of the red sea and could not be obliterated either by the winds or waves. the next subject to which i call your attention is the wonderful progress in the mechanical arts. animals use the weapons nature has furnished, and those only--the beak, the claw, the tusk, the teeth. the barbarian uses a club, a stone. as man advances he makes tools with which to fashion his weapons; he discovers the best material to be used in their construction. the next thing was to find some power to assist him--that is to say, the weight of falling water, or the force of the wind. he then creates a force, so to speak, by changing water to steam, and with that he impels machines that can do almost everything but think. you will observe that the ingenuity of man is first exercised in the construction of weapons. there were splendid damascus blades when plowing was done with a crooked stick. there were complete suits of armor on backs that had never felt a shirt. the world was full of inventions to destroy life before there were any to prolong it or make it endurable. murder was always a science--medicine is not one yet. scalping was known and practiced long before barret discovered the hair regenerator. the destroyers have always been honored. the useful have always been despised. in ancient times agriculture was known only to slaves. the low, the ignorant, the contemptible, cultivated the soil. to work was to be nobody. mechanics were only one degree above the farmer. in short, labor was disgraceful. idleness was the badge of gentle blood. the fields being poorly cultivated produced but little at the best. only a few kinds of crops were raised. the result was frequent famine and constant suffering. one country could not be supplied from another as now; the roads were always horrible, and besides all this, every country was at war with nearly every other. this state of things lasted until a few years ago. let me show you the condition of england at the beginning of the eighteenth century. at that time london was the most populous capital in europe, yet it was dirty, ill built, without any sanitary provisions whatever. the deaths were one in each year. now in a much more crowded population they are not one in forty. much of the country was then heath and swamp. almost within sight of london there was a tract, twenty-five miles round, almost in a state of nature; there were but three houses upon it. in the rainy season the roads were almost impassable. through gullies filled with mud, carriages were dragged by oxen. between places of great importance the roads were little known, and a principal mode of transport was by pack horses, of which passengers took advantage by stowing themselves away between the packs. the usual charge for freight was cents per ton a mile. after a while, what they were pleased to call flying coaches were established. they could move from thirty to fifty miles a day. many persons thought the risk so great that it was tempting providence to get into one of them. the mail bag was carried on horseback at five miles an hour. a penny post had been established in the city, but many long-headed men, who knew what they were saying, denounced it as a popish contrivance. only a few years before, parliament had resolved that all pictures in the royal collection which contained representations of jesus or the virgin mary should be burned. greek statues were handed over to puritan stone masons to be made decent. lewis meggleton had given himself out as the last and the greatest of the prophets, having power to save or damn. he had also discovered that god was only six feet high and the sun four miles off. there were people in england as savage as our indians. the women, half naked, would chant some wild measure, while the men would brandish their dirks and dance. there were thirty-four counties without a printer. social discipline was wretched. the master flogged his apprentice, the pedagogue his scholar, the husband his wife; and i am ashamed to say that whipping has not been abolished in our schools. it is a relic of barbarism and should not be tolerated one moment. it is brutal, low and contemptible. the teacher that administers such punishment is no more to blame than the parents that allow it. every gentleman and lady should use his or her influence to do away with this vile and infamous practice. in those days public punishments were all brutal. men and women were put in the pillory and then pelted with brick-bats, rotten eggs and dead cats, by the rabble. the whipping-post was then an institution in england as it is now in the enlightened state of delaware. criminals were drawn and quartered; others were disemboweled and hung and their bodies suspended in chains to rot in the air. the houses of the people in the country were huts, thatched with straw. anybody who could get fresh meat once a week was considered rich. children six years old had to labor. in london the houses were of wood or plaster, the streets filthy beyond expression, even muddier than bloomington is now. after nightfall a passenger went about at his peril, for chamber windows were opened and slop pails unceremoniously emptied. there were no lamps in the streets, but plenty of highwaymen and robbers. the morals of the people corresponded, as they generally do, to their physical condition. it is said that the clergy did what they could to make the people pious, but they could not accomplish much. you cannot convert a man when he is hungry. he will not accept better doctrines until he gets better clothes, and he won't have more faith till he gets more food. besides this, the clergy were a little below par, so much so that queen elizabeth issued an order that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant girl without the consent of her master or mistress. during the same time the condition of france and indeed of all europe was even worse than england. what has changed the condition of great britain? more than any and everything else, the inventions of her mechanics. the old moral method was and always will be a failure. if you wish to better the condition of a people morally, better them physically. about the close of the th century, watt, arkwright, hargreave, crompton, cartwright, invented the steam engine, the spring frame, the jenny, the mule, the power loom, the carding machine and a hundred other minor inventions, and put it in the power of england to monopolize the markets of the world. her machinery soon became equal to , , of men. in a few years the population was doubled and the wealth quadrupled; and england became the first nation of the world through her inventors, her merchants, her mechanics, and in spite of her statesmen, her priests and her nobles. england began to spin for the world, cotton began to be universally worn, clean shirts began to be seen. the most cunning spinners of india could make a thread over miles long from one pound of cotton. the machines of england have produced one over miles in length from the same quantity. in a short time stephenson invented the locomotive. railroads began to be built. fulton gave to the world the steamboat, and commerce became independent of the winds. there are already railroads enough in the united states to make a double track around the world. man has lengthened his arms. he reaches to every country and takes what he wants; the world is before him; he helps himself. there can be no more famine. if there is no food in this country, the boat and the car will bring it from another. we can have the luxuries of every climate. a majority of the people now live better than the king used to do. poor solomon with his thousand wives, and no carpets, his great temple, and no gas light! a thousand women, and not a pin in the house; no stoves, no cooking range, no baking powder, no potatoes--think of it! breakfast without potatoes! plenty of wisdom and old saws--but no green corn; never heard of succotash in his whole life. no clean clothes, no music, if you except a jew's-harp, no ice water, no skates, no carriages, because there was not a decent road in all his dominions. plenty of theology but no tobacco, no books, no pictures, not a picture in all palestine, not a piece of statuary, not a plough that would scour. no tea, no coffee; he never heard of any place of amusement, never was at a theatre, or a circus. "seven up" was then unknown to the world. he couldn't even play billiards, with all his knowledge, never had an idea of woman's rights, or universal suffrage; never went to school a day in his life, and cared no more about the will of the people than andy johnson. the inventors have helped more than any other class to make the world what it is; the workers and the thinkers, the poor and the grand; labor and learning, industry and intelligence; watt and descartes, fulton and montaigne, stephenson and kepler, crompton and comte, franklin and voltaire, morse and buckle, draper and spencer, and hundreds more that i could mention. the inventors, the workers, the thinkers, the mechanics, the surgeons, the philosophers--these are the atlases upon whose shoulders rests the great fabric of modern civilization. language. in order to show you that the most abject superstition pervaded every department of human knowledge, or of ignorance rather, allow me to give you a few of their ideas upon language. it was universally believed that all languages could be traced back to the hebrew; that the hebrew was the original language, and every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. in consequence of this belief all efforts to investigate the science of language were utterly fruitless. after a time, the hebrew idea falling into disrepute, other languages claimed the honor of being the original ones. andré kempe published a work in , on the language of paradise, in which he maintained that god spoke to adam in swedish; that adam answered in danish and that the serpent (which appears quite probable) spoke to eve in french. erro, in a book published at madrid, took the ground that basque was the language spoken in the garden of eden. but in , goropius published his celebrated work at antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by proving that the language spoken in paradise was nothing more or less than plain holland dutch. the real founder of the present science of language was a german, leibnitz--a contemporary of sir isaac newton. he discarded the idea that all language could be traced to an original one. that language was, so to speak, a natural growth. actual experience teaches us that this must be true. the ancient sages of egypt had a vocabulary, according to bunsen, of only about six hundred and eighty-five words, exclusive of proper names. the english language has at least one hundred thousand. geography. in the th century a monk by the name of cosmas wrote a kind of orthodox geography and astronomy combined. he pretended that it was all in accordance with the bible. according to him, the world was composed, first, of a flat piece of land and circular; this piece of land was entirely surrounded by water which was the ocean, and beyond the strip of water was another circle of land; this outside circle was the land inhabited by the old world before the flood; noah crossed the strip of water and landed on the central piece where we now are; on the outside land was a high mountain around which the sun and moon revolved; when the sun was behind the mountain it was night, and when on the side next us it was day. he also taught that on the outer edge of the outside circle of land the firmament or sky was fastened, that it was made of some solid material and turned over the world like an immense kettle. and it was declared at that time that anyone who believed either more or less on that subject than that book contained was a heretic and deserved to be exterminated from the face of the earth. this was authority until the discovery of america by columbus. cosmas said the earth was flat; if it was round how could men on the other side at the day of judgment see the coming of the lord? at the risk of being tiresome, i have said what i have, to show you the productions of the mind when enslaved--the consequences of abandoning judgment and reason--the effects of wide spread ignorance and universal bigotry. i want to convince you that every wrong is a viper that will sooner or later strike with poisoned fangs the bosom that nourishes it. you will ask what has produced this wonderful change in only three hundred years. you will remember that in those days it was said that all ghosts vanished at the dawn of day; that the sprites, the spooks, the hobgoblins and all the monsters of the imagination fled from the approaching sun. in , printing was invented. in the next century it became a power, and it has been flooding the world with light from that time to this. the press has been the true prometheus. it has been, so to speak, the trumpet blown by the gabriel of progress, until, from the graves of ignorance and superstition, the people have leaped to grand and glorious life, spurning with swift feet the dust of an infamous past. when people read, they reason, when they reason they progress. you must not think that the enemies of progress allowed books to be published or read when they had the power to prevent it. the whole power of the church, of the government, was arrayed upon the side of ignorance. people found in the possession of books were often executed. printing, reading and writing were crimes. anathemas were hurled from the vatican against all who dared to publish a word in favor of liberty or the sacred rights of man. the inquisition was founded on purpose to crush out every noble aspiration of the heart. it was a war of darkness against light, of slavery against liberty, of superstition against reason. i shall not attempt to recount the horrors and tortures of the inquisition. suffice it to say that they were equal to the most terrible and vivid pictures even of hell, and the inquisitors were even more horrid fiends than even a real perdition could boast. but in spite of priests, in spite of kings, in spite of mitres, in spite of crowns, in spite of cardinals and popes, books were published and books were read. beam after beam of light penetrated the darkness. star after star arose in the firmament of ignorance. the morning of freedom began to dawn. driven to madness by the prospect of ultimate defeat, the enemies of light persecuted with redoubled fury. people were burned for saying that the earth was round, for saying that the sun was the center of a system. a woman was executed because she endeavored to allay the pains of a fever by singing. the very name of philosopher became a title of proscription, and the slightest offences were punished by death. about the beginning of the sixteenth century luther and jerome, of prague, inaugurated the great reformation in germany, ziska was at work in hungary, zwinglius in switzerland. the grand work went forward in denmark, in sweden and in england. all this was accomplished as early as . they unmasked the corruption and withstood the tyranny of the church. with a zeal amounting to enthusiasm, with a courage that was heroic, with an energy that never flagged, a determination that brooked no opposition, with a firmness that defied torture and death, this sublime band of reformers sprang to the attack. stronghold after stronghold was carried, and in a few short but terrible years, the banner of the reformation waved in triumph over the bloody ensign of saint peter. the soul roused from the slumbers of a thousand years began to think. when slaves begin to reason, slavery begins to die. the invention of powder had released millions from the army, and left them to prosecute the arts of peace. industry began to be remunerative and respectable. science began to unfold the wings that will finally fill the heavens. descartes announced to the world the sublime truth that the universe is governed by law. commerce began to unfold her wings. people of different countries began to get acquainted. christians found that mohammedan gold was not the less valuable on account of the doctrines of its owners. telescopes began to be pointed toward the stars. the universe was getting immense. the earth was growing small. it was discovered that a man could be healthy without being a catholic. innumerable agencies were at work dispelling darkness and creating light. the supernatural began to be abandoned, and mankind endeavored to account for all physical phenomena by physical laws. the light of reason was irradiating the world, and from that light, as from the approach of the sun, the ghosts and spectres of superstition wrapped their sheets around their attenuated bodies and vanished into thin air. other inventions rapidly followed. the wonderful power of steam was made known to the world by watts and by fulton. neptune was frightened from the sea. the locomotive was given to mankind by stephenson; the telegraph by franklin and morse. the rush of the ship, the scream of the locomotive, and the electric flash have frightened the monsters of ignorance from the world, and have left nothing above us but the heaven's eternal blue, filled with glittering planets wheeling through immensity in accordance with _law_. true religion is a subordination of the passions and interests to the perceptions of the intellect. but when religion was considered the end of life instead of a means of happiness, it overshadowed all other interests and became the destroyer of mankind. it became a hydra-headed monster--a serpent reaching in terrible coils from the heavens and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. slavery. i have endeavored thus far to show you some of the results produced by enslaving the human mind. i now call your attention to another terrible phase of this subject; the enslavement of the body. slavery is a very ancient institution, yes, about as ancient as robbery, theft and murder, and is based upon them all. springing from the same fountain, that a man is not the owner of his soul, is the doctrine that he is not the owner of his body. the two are always found together, supported by precisely the same arguments, and attended by the same infamous acts of cruelty. from the earliest time, slavery has existed in all countries, and among all people until recently. pufendorf said that slavery was originally established by contract. voltaire replied, "show me the original contract, and if it is signed by the party that was to be a slave i will believe you." you will bear in mind that the slavery of which i am now speaking is white slavery. greeks enslaved one another as well as those captured in war. coriolanus scrupled not to make slaves of his own countrymen captured in civil war. julius cæsar sold to the highest bidder at onetime fifty-three thousand prisoners of war all of whom were white. hannibal exposed to sale thirty thousand captives at one time, all of whom were roman citizens. in rome, men were sold into bondage in order to pay their debts. in germany, men often hazarded their freedom on the throwing of dice. the barbary states held white christians in slavery in this, the th century. there were white slaves in england as late as . there were white slaves in scotland until the end of the th century. these scotch slaves were colliers and salters. they were treated as real estate and passed with a deed to the mines in which they worked. it was also the law that no collier could work in any mine except the one to which he belonged. it was also the law that their children could follow no other occupation than that of their fathers. this slavery absolutely existed in scotland until the beginning of the glorious th century. some of the roman nobles were the owners of as many as twenty thousand slaves. the common people of france were in slavery for fourteen hundred years. they were transferred with land, and women were often seen assisting cattle to pull the plough, and yet people have the impudence to say that black slavery is right, because the blacks have always been slaves in their own country. i answer, so have the whites until very recently. in the good old days when might was right and when kings and popes stood by the people, and protected the people, and talked about "holy oil and divine right," the world was filled with slaves. the traveler standing amid the ruins of ancient cities and empires, seeing on every side the fallen pillar and the prostrate wall, asks why did these cities fall, why did these empires crumble? and the ghost of the past, the wisdom of ages, answers: these temples, these palaces, these cities, the ruins of which you stand upon were built by tyranny and injustice. the hands that built them were unpaid. the backs that bore the burdens also bore the marks of the lash. they were built by slaves to satisfy the vanity and ambition of thieves and robbers. for these reasons they are dust. their civilization was a lie. their laws merely regulated robbery and established theft. they bought and sold the bodies and souls of men, and the mournful winds of desolation, sighing amid their crumbling ruins, is a voice of prophetic warning to those who would repeat the infamous experiment. from the ruins of babylon, of carthage, of athens, of palmyra, of thebes, of rome, and across the great desert, over that sad and solemn sea of sand, from the land of the pyramids, over the fallen sphinx and from the lips of memnon the same voice, the same warning and uttering the great truth, that no nation founded upon slavery, either of body or mind, can stand. and yet, to-day, there are thousands upon thousands endeavoring to build the temples and cities and to administer our government upon the old plan. they are makers of brick without straw. they are bowing themselves beneath hods of untempered mortar. they are the babbling builders of another babel, a babel of mud upon a foundation of sand. nothwithstanding the experience of antiquity as to the terrible effects of slavery, bondage was the rule, and liberty the exception, during the middle ages not only, but for ages afterward. the same causes that led to the liberation of mind also liberated the body. free the mind, allow men to write and publish and read, and one by one the shackles will drop, broken, in the dust. this truth was always known, and for that reason slaves have never been allowed to read. it has always been a crime to teach a slave. the intelligent prefer death to slavery. education is the most radical abolitionist in the world. to teach the alphabet is to inaugurate revolution. to build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort. every library is an arsenal, and every truth is a monitor, iron-clad and steel-plated. do not think that white slavery was abolished without a struggle. the men who opposed white slavery were ridiculed, were persecuted, driven from their homes, mobbed, hanged, tortured and burned. they were denounced as having only one idea, by men who had none. they were called fanatics by men who were so insane as to suppose that the laws of a petty prince were greater than those of the universe. crime made faces at virtue, and honesty was an outcast beggar. in short, i cannot better describe to you the manner in which the friends of slavery acted at that time, than by saying that they acted precisely as they used to do in the united states. white slavery, established by kidnapping and piracy, sustained by torture and infinite cruelty, was defended to the very last. let me now call your attention to one of the most immediate causes of the abolition of white slavery in europe. there were during the middle ages three great classes of people: the common people, the clergy and the nobility. all these people could, however, be divided into two classes, namely, the robbed and the robbers. the feudal lords were jealous of the king, the king afraid of the lords, the clergy always siding with the stronger party. the common people had only to do the work, the fighting, and to pay the taxes, as by the law the property of the nobles was exempt from taxation. the consequence was, in every war between the nobles and the king, each party endeavored by conciliation to get the peasants upon their side. when the clergy were on the side of the king they created dissension between the people and the nobles by telling them that the nobles were tyrants. when they were on the side of the nobles they told the people that the king was a tyrant. at last the people believed both, and the old adage was verified, that when thieves fall out honest men get their dues. by virtue of the civil and religious wars of europe, slavery was abolished, and the french revolution, one of the grandest pages in all history, was, so to speak, the exterminator of white slavery. in that terrible period the people who had borne the yoke for fourteen hundred years, rising from the dust, casting their shackles from them, fiercely avenged their wrongs. a mob of twenty millions driven to desperation, in the sublimity of despair, in the sacred name of liberty cried for vengeance. they reddened the earth with the blood of their masters. they trampled beneath their feet the great army of human vermin that had lived upon their labor. they filled the air with the ruins of temples and thrones, and with bloody hands tore in pieces the altar upon which their rights had been offered by an impious church. they scorned the superstitions of the past not only, but they scorned the past; for the past to them was only wrong, imposition and outrage. the french revolution was the inauguration of a new era. the lava of freedom long buried beneath a mountain of wrong and injustice at last burst forth, overwhelming the pompeii and herculaneum of priestcraft and tyranny. as soon as white slavery began to decay in europe, and while the condition of the white slaves was improving about the middle of the th century in , alonzo gonzales, of portugal, pointed out to his countrymen a new field of operations, a new market for human flesh, and in a short time the african slave-trade with all its unspeakable horrors was inaugurated. this trade has been the great crime of modern times. it is almost impossible to conceive that nations who professed to be christian, or even in any degree civilized, should have engaged in this infamous traffic. yet nearly all of the nations of europe engaged in the slave-trade, legalized it, protected it, fostered the practice, and vied with each other in acts, the bare recital of which is enough to make the heart stand still. it has been calculated that for years, at least , africans were either killed or enslaved annually. they crammed their ships so full of these unfortunate wretches, that, as a general thing, about ten per cent, died of suffocation on the voyage. they were treated like wild beasts. in times of danger they were thrown into the sea. remember that this horrible traffic commenced in the middle of the th century, was carried on by nations pretending to christian civilization, and when do you think it was abolished by some of the principal countries? in england, wilberforce and clarkson dedicated their lives to the abolition of the slave-trade. they were hated and despised. they persevered for twenty years, and it was not until the th of march, , that england pronounced the infamous traffic in human flesh illegal, and the rejoicing in england was redoubled on receiving the news that the united states had done the same thing. after a time, those engaged in the slave-trade were declared pirates. on the th day of august, , england abolished slavery throughout the british colonies, thus giving liberty to nearly one million slaves. the united states was then the greatest slave-holding power in the civilized world. we are all acquainted with the history of slavery in this country. we know that it corrupted our people, that it has drenched our land in fraternal blood, that it has clad our country in mourning for the loss of , of her bravest sons; that it carried us back to the darkest ages of the world, that it led us to the very brink of destruction, forced us to the shattered gates of eternal ruin, death and annihilation. but liberty rising above party prejudice, freedom lifting itself above all other considerations, "as some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,-- though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, eternal sunshine settles on its head." and on the st day of january, , the grandest new year that ever dawned upon this continent, in accordance with the will of the heroic north, by the sublime act of one whose name will be sacred through all the coming years, the justice so long delayed was accomplished, and four millions of slaves became chainless. liberty triumphed. liberty, that most sacred word, without which all other words are vain, without which, life is worse than death, and men are beasts! i never see the word liberty without seeing a halo of glory around it. it is a word worthy of the lips of a god. can you realize the fact that only a few years ago, the most shocking system of slavery--the most barbarous--existed in our country, and that you and i were bound by the laws of the united states to stand between a human being and his liberty? that we were absolutely compelled by law to hand back that human being to the lash and chain? that by our laws children were sold from the arms of mothers, wives sold from their husbands? that we executed our laws with the assistance of bloodhounds, owned and trained by human bloodhounds fiercer still, and that all this was not only upheld by politicians, but by the pretended ministers of christ? that the pulpit was in partnership with the auction block--that the bloodhound's bark was only an echo from many of the churches? and that this was all done under the sacred name of liberty, by a republican government that was founded upon the sublime declaration that all men are equal? this all seems to me like a horrible dream, a nightmare of terror, a hellish impossibility. and yet, with cheeks glowing and burning with shame, before the bar of history, we are forced to plead guilty to this terrible charge. we made a whip-ping-post of the cross of christ. it is true that in a great degree we have atoned for this national crime. our bravest and our best have been sacrificed. we have borne the bloody burden of war. the good and the true have been with us, and the women of the north have won glory imperishable. they robbed war of half its terrors. not content with binding the wreath of victory upon the leader's brow, they bandaged the soldiers' wounds, they nerved the living, comforted the dying, and smiled upon the great victory through their tears. they have consoled the hero's widow and are educating his orphans. they have erected a monument to enlightened charity to which time can add only grandeur. there is much, however, to be accomplished still. slavery has been abolished, but progress requires more. we are called upon to make this a free government in the broadest sense, to give liberty to all. standing in the presence of all history, knowing the experience of mankind, knowing that the earth is covered with countless wrecks of cruel failures; appealed to by the great army of martyrs and heroes who have gone before; by the sacred dust filling innumerable graves; by the memory of our own noble dead; by all the suffering of the past; by all the hopes for the future; by all the glorious dead and the countless millions yet to be, i pray, i beseech, i implore the american people to lay the foundation of the government upon the principles of eternal justice. i pray, i beseech, i implore them to take for the corner-stone, universal human liberty--the stone which has been heretofore rejected by all the builders of nations. the government will then stand, and the swelling dome of the temple will touch the stars. conclusion i have thus endeavored to show you some of the effects of slavery, and to prove to you that a step in order to be in the direction of progress must be in the direction of freedom; that slavery either of body or mind is barbarism and is practiced and defended only by infamous tyrants or their dupes. i have endeavored to point out some of the causes of the abolition of slavery, both of body and mind. there is one truth, however, that you must not forget, and that is, that every evil tends to correct and abolish itself. i believe, however, that the diffusion of knowledge, more than everything else combined, has ameliorated the condition of mankind. when there was no freedom of speech and no press, then every idea perished in the brain that gave it birth. one man could not profit by the thought of another. the experience of the past was in a great degree unknown. and this state of things produced the same effect in the mental world, that confining all the water to the springs would in the physical. confine the water to the springs, the rivulets would cease to murmur, the rivers to flow, and the ocean itself would become a desert of sand. but with the invention of printing, ideas began to circulate, born of the busy brain of the million--little rivulets of facts running into rivers of information, and they all flowing into the great ocean of human knowledge. this exchange of ideas, this comparison of thought, has given to each generation the advantage of all the past. this, more than all else, has enabled man to improve his condition. it is by this that from the log or piece of bark on which a naked savage floated, we have by successive improvements created a man-of-war carrying a hundred guns and miles of canvas. by these means we have changed a handful of sand into a telescope. in the hands of science a drop of water has become a giant, turning with swift and tireless arm the countless wheels. the sun has become an artist painting with shining beams the very thoughts within our eyes. the elements have been taught to do our bidding, and the electric spark, freighted with human thought and love, defies distance, and devours time as it sweeps under all the waves of the sea. these are some of the results of free thought and free labor. i have barely alluded to a few--where is improvement to stop? science is only in its infancy. it has accomplished all this and is in its cradle still. we are standing on the shore of an infinite ocean whose countless waves, freighted with blessings, are welcoming our adventurous feet. progress has been written on every soul. the human race is advancing. forward, oh sublime army of progress, forward until law is justice, forward until ignorance is unknown, forward while there is a spiritual or temporal throne, forward until superstition is a forgotten dream, forward until the world is free, forward until human reason, clothed in the purple of authority, is king of kings. what is religion? * this was col. ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the american free religious association, in the hollis street theatre, boston, june , . it is asserted that an infinite god created all things, governs all things, and that the creature should be obedient and thankful to the creator; that the creator demands certain things, and that the person who complies with these demands is religious. this kind of religion has been substantially universal. for many centuries and by many peoples it was believed that this god demanded sacrifices; that he was pleased when parents shed the blood of their babes. afterward it was supposed that he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves, and that in exchange for or on account of these sacrifices, this god gave rain, sunshine and harvest. it was also believed that if the sacrifices were not made, this god sent pestilence, famine, flood and earthquake. the last phase of this belief in sacrifice was, according to the christian doctrine, that god accepted the blood of his son, and that after his son had been murdered, he, god, was satisfied, and wanted no more blood. during all these years and by all these peoples it was believed that this god heard and answered prayer, that he forgave sins and saved the souls of true believers. this, in a general way, is the definition of religion. now, the questions are, whether religion was founded on any known fact? whether such a being as god exists? whether he was the creator of yourself and myself? whether any prayer was ever answered? whether any sacrifice of babe or ox secured the favor of this unseen god? _first_.--did an infinite god create the children of men? why did he create the intellectually inferior? why did he create the deformed and helpless? why did he create the criminal, the idiotic, the insane? can infinite wisdom and power make any excuse for the creation of failures? are the failures under obligation to their creator? _second_.--is an infinite god the governor of this world? is he responsible for all the chiefs, kings, emperors, and queens? is he responsible for all the wars that have been waged, for all the innocent blood that has been shed? is he responsible for the centuries of slavery, for the backs that have been scarred with the lash, for the babes that have been sold from the breasts of mothers, for the families that have been separated and destroyed? is this god responsible for religious persecution, for the inquisition, for the thumb-screw and rack, and for all the instruments of torture? did this god allow the cruel and vile to destroy the brave and virtuous? did he allow tyrants to shed the blood of patriots? did he allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends? what is such a god worth? would a decent man, having the power to prevent it, allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends? can we conceive of a devil base enough to prefer his enemies to his friends? if a good and infinitely powerful god governs this world, how can we account for cyclones, earthquakes, pestilence and famine? how can we account for cancers, for microbes, for diphtheria and the thousand diseases that prey on infancy? how can we account for the wild beasts that devour human beings, for the fanged serpents whose bite is death? how can we account for a world where life feeds on life? were beak and claw, tooth and fang, invented and produced by infinite mercy? did infinite goodness fashion the wings of the eagles so that their fleeing prey could be overtaken? did infinite goodness create the beasts of prey with the intention that they should devour the weak and helpless? did infinite goodness create the countless worthless living things that breed within and feed upon the flesh of higher forms? did infinite wisdom intentionally produce the microscopic beasts that feed upon the optic nerve? think of blinding a man to satisfy the appetite of a microbe! think of life feeding on life! think of the victims! think of the niagara of blood pouring over the precipice of cruelty! in view of these facts, what, after all, is religion? it is fear. fear builds the altar and offers the sacrifice. fear erects the cathedral and bows the head of man in worship. fear bends the knees and utters the prayer. fear pretends to love. religion teaches the slave-virtues--obedience, humility, self-denial, forgiveness, non-resistance. lips, religious and fearful, tremblingly repeat this passage: "though he slay me, yet will i trust him." this is the abyss of degradation. religion does not teach self-reliance, independence, manliness, courage, self-defence. religion makes god a master and man his serf. the master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet. ii. if this god exists, how do we know that he is-i good? how can we prove that he is merciful, that he cares for the children of men? if this god exists, he has on many occasions seen millions of his poor children plowing the fields, sowing and planting the grain, and when he saw them he knew that they depended on the expected crop for life, and yet this good god, this merciful being, withheld the rain. he caused the sun to rise, to steal all moisture from the land, but gave no rain. he saw the seeds that man had planted wither and perish, but he sent no rain. he saw the people look with sad eyes upon the barren earth, and he sent no rain. he saw them slowly devour the little that they had, and saw them when the days of hunger came--saw them slowly waste away, saw their hungry, sunken eyes, heard their prayers, saw them devour the miserable animals that they had, saw fathers and mothers, insane with hunger, kill and eat their shriveled babes, and yet the heaven above them was as brass and the earth beneath as iron, and he sent no rain. can we say that in the heart of this god there blossomed the flower of pity? can we say that he cared for the children of men? can we say that his mercy endureth forever? do we prove that this god is good because he sends the cyclone that wrecks villages and covers the fields with the mangled bodies of fathers, mothers and babes? do we prove his goodness by showing that he has opened the earth and swallowed thousands of his helpless children, or that with the volcanoes he has overwhelmed them with rivers of fire? can we infer the goodness of god from the facts we know? if these calamities did not happen, would we suspect that god cared nothing for human beings? if there were no famine, no pestilence, no cyclone, no earthquake, would we think that god is not good? according to the theologians, god did not make all men alike. he made races differing in intelligence, stature and color. was there goodness, was there wisdom in this? ought the superior races to thank god that they are not the inferior? if we say yes, then i ask another question: should the inferior races thank god that they are not superior, or should they thank god that they are not beasts? when god made these different races he knew that the superior would enslave the inferior, knew that the inferior would be conquered, and finally destroyed. if god did this, and knew the blood that would be shed, the agonies that would be endured, saw the countless fields covered with the corpses of the slain, saw all the bleeding backs of slaves, all the broken hearts of mothers bereft of babes, if he saw and knew all this, can we conceive of a more malicious fiend? why, then, should we say that god is good? the dungeons against whose dripping walls the brave and generous have sighed their souls away, the scaffolds stained and glorified with noble blood, the hopeless slaves with scarred and bleeding backs, the writhing martyrs clothed in flame, the virtuous stretched on racks, their joints and muscles torn apart, the flayed and bleeding bodies of the just, the extinguished eyes of those who sought for truth, the countless patriots who fought and died in vain, the burdened, beaten, weeping wives, the shriveled faces of neglected babes, the murdered millions of the vanished years, the victims of the winds and waves, of flood and flame, of imprisoned forces in the earth, of lightning's stroke, of lava's molten stream, of famine, plague and lingering pain, the mouths that drip with blood, the fangs that poison, the beaks that wound and tear, the triumphs of the base, the rule and sway of wrong, the crowns that cruelty has worn and the robed hypocrites, with clasped and bloody hands, who thanked their god--a phantom fiend--that liberty had been banished from the world, these souvenirs of the dreadful past, these horrors that still exist, these frightful facts deny that any god exists who has the will and power to guard and bless the human race. iii. the power that works for righteousness. most people cling to the supernatural. if they give up one god, they imagine another. having outgrown jehovah, they talk about the power that works for righteousness. what is this power? man advances, and necessarily advances through experience. a man wishing to go to a certain place comes to where the road divides. he takes the left hand, believing it to be the right road, and travels until he finds that it is the wrong one. he retraces his steps and takes the right hand road and reaches the place desired. the next time he goes to the same place, he does not take the left hand road. he has tried that road, and knows that it is the wrong road. he takes the right road, and thereupon these theologians say, "there is a power that works for righteousness." a child, charmed by the beauty of the flame, grasps it with its dimpled hand. the hand is burned, and after that the child keeps its hand out of the fire. the power that works for righteousness has taught the child a lesson. the accumulated experience of the world is a power and force that works for righteousness. this force is not conscious, not intelligent. it has no will, no purpose. it is a result. so thousands have endeavored to establish the existence of god by the fact that we have what is called the moral sense; that is to say, a conscience. it is insisted by these theologians, and by many of the so-called philosophers, that this moral sense, this sense of duty, of obligation, was imported, and that conscience is an exotic. taking the ground that it was not produced here, was not produced by man, they then imagine a god from whom it came. man is a social being. we live together in families, tribes and nations. the members of a family, of a tribe, of a nation, who increase the happiness of the family, of the tribe or of the nation, are considered good members. they are praised, admired and respected. they are regarded as good; that is to say, as moral. the members who add to the misery of the family, the tribe or the nation, are considered bad members. they are blamed, despised, punished. they are regarded as immoral. the family, the tribe, the nation, creates a standard of conduct, of morality. there is nothing supernatural in this. the greatest of human beings has said, "conscience is born of love." the sense of obligation, of duty, was naturally produced. among savages, the immediate consequences of actions are taken into consideration. as people advance, the remote consequences are perceived. the standard of conduct becomes higher. the imagination is cultivated. a man puts himself in the place of another. the sense of duty becomes stronger, more imperative. man judges himself. he loves, and love is the commencement, the foundation of the highest virtues. he injures one that he loves. then comes regret, repentance, sorrow, conscience. in all this there is nothing supernatural. man has deceived himself. nature is a mirror in which man sees his own image, and all supernatural religions rest on the pretence that the image, which appears to be behind this mirror, has been caught. all the metaphysicians of the spiritual type, from plato to swedenborg, have manufactured their facts, and all founders of religion have done the same. suppose that an infinite god exists, what can we do for him? being infinite, he is conditionless; being conditionless, he cannot be benefited or injured. he cannot want. he has. think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise! iv. what has our religion done? of course, it is admitted by christians that all other religions are false, and consequently we need examine only our own. has christianity done good? has it made men nobler, more merciful, nearer honest? when the church had control, were men made better and happier? what has been the effect of christianity in italy, in spain, in portugal, in ireland? what has religion done for hungary or austria? what was the effect of christianity in switzerland, in holland, in scotland, in england, in america? let us be honest. could these countries have been worse without religion? could they have been worse had they had any other religion than christianity? would torquemada have been worse had he been a follower of zoroaster? would calvin have been more bloodthirsty if he had believed in the religion of the south sea islanders? would the dutch have been more idiotic if they had denied the father, son and holy ghost, and worshiped the blessed trinity of sausage, beer and cheese? would john knox have been any worse had he deserted christ and become a follower of confucius? take our own dear, merciful puritan fathers? what did christianity do for them? they hated pleasure. on the door of life they hung the crape of death. they muffled all the bells of gladness. they made cradles by putting rockers on coffins. in the puritan year there were twelve decembers. they tried to do away with infancy and youth, with prattle of babes and the song of the morning. the religion of the puritan was an unadulterated curse. the puritan believed the bible to be the word of god, and this belief has always made those who held it cruel and wretched. would the puritan have been worse if he had adopted the religion of the north american indians? let me refer to just one fact showing the influence of a belief in the bible on human beings. "on the day of the coronation of queen elizabeth she was presented with a geneva bible by an old man representing time, with truth standing by his side as a child. the queen received the bible, kissed it, and pledged herself to diligently read therein. in the dedication of this blessed bible the queen was piously exhorted to put all papists to the sword." in this incident we see the real spirit of protestant lovers of the bible. in other words, it was just as fiendish, just as infamous as the catholic spirit. has the bible made the people of georgia kind and merciful? would the lynchers be more ferocious if they worshiped gods of wood and stone? vii. how can mankind be reformed without religion? religion has been tried, and in all countries, in all times, has failed. religion has never made man merciful. remember the inquisition. what effect did religion have on slavery? what effect upon libby, saulsbury and andersonville? religion has always been the enemy of science, of investigation and thought. religion has never made man free. it has never made man moral, temperate, industrious and honest. are christians more temperate, nearer virtuous, nearer honest than savages? among savages do we not find that their vices and cruelties are the fruits of their superstitions? to those who believe in the uniformity of nature, religion is impossible. can we affect the nature and qualities of substance by prayer? can we hasten or delay the tides by worship? can we change winds by sacrifice? will kneelings give us wealth? can we cure disease by supplication? can we add to our knowledge by ceremony? can we receive virtue or honor as alms? are not the facts in the mental world just as stubborn--just as necessarily produced--as the facts in the material world? is not what we call mind just as natural as what we call body? religion rests on the idea that nature has a master and that this master will listen to prayer; that this master punishes and rewards; that he loves praise and flattery and hates the brave and free. has man obtained any help from heaven? vi. if we have a theory, we must have facts for the foundation. we must have corner-stones. we must not build on guesses, fancies, analogies or inferences. the structure must have a basement. if we build, we must begin at the bottom. i have a theory and i have four corner-stones. the first stone is that matter--substance--cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated. the second stone is that force cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated. the third stone is that matter and force cannot exist apart--no matter without force--no force without matter. the fourth stone is that that which cannot be destroyed could not have been created; that the indestructible is the uncreatable. if these corner-stones are facts, it follows as a necessity that matter and force are from and to eternity; that they can neither be increased nor diminished. it follows that nothing has been or can be created; that there never has been or can be a creator. it follows that there could not have been any intelligence, any design back of matter and force. there is no intelligence without force. there is no force without matter. consequently there could not by any possibility have been any intelligence, any force, back of matter. it therefore follows that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. if these four corner-stones are facts, nature has no master. if matter and force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no god exists; that no god created or governs the universe; that no god exists who answers prayer; no god who succors the oppressed; no god who pities the sufferings of innocence; no god who cares for the slaves with scarred flesh, the mothers robbed of their babes; no god who rescues the tortured, and no god that saves a martyr from the flames. in other words, it proves that man has never received any help from heaven; that all sacrifices have been in vain, and that all prayers have died unanswered in the heedless air. i do not pretend to know. i say what i think. if matter and force have existed from eternity, it then follows that all that has been possible has happened, all that is possible is happening, and all that will be possible will happen. in the universe there is no chance, no caprice. every event has parents. that which has not happened, could not. the present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future. in the infinite chain there is, and there can be, no broken, no missing link. the form and motion of every star, the climate of every world, all forms of vegetable and animal life, all instinct, intelligence and conscience, all assertions and denials, all vices and virtues, all thoughts and dreams, all hopes and fears, are necessities. not one of the countless things and relations in the universe could have been different. vii. if matter and force are from eternity, then we can say that man had no intelligent creator--that man was not a special creation. we now know, if we know anything, that jehovah, the divine potter, did not mix and mould clay into the forms of men and women, and then breathe the breath of life into these forms. we now know that our first parents were not foreigners. we know that they were natives of this world, produced here, and that their life did not come from the breath of any god. we now know, if we know anything, that the universe is natural, and that men and women have been naturally produced. we now know our ancestors, our pedigree. we have the family tree. we have all the links of the chain, twenty-six links inclusive from moner to man. we did not get our information from inspired books. we have fossil facts and living forms. from the simplest creatures, from blind sensation, from organism from one vague want, to a single cell with a nucleus, to a hollow ball filled with fluid, to a cup with double walls, to a flat worm, to a something that begins to breathe, to an organism that has a spinal chord, to a link between the invertebrate to the vertebrate, to one that has a cranium--a house for a brain--to one with fins, still onward to one with fore and hinder fins, to the reptile mammalia, to the marsupials, to the lemures, dwellers in trees, to the simiæ, to the pithecanthropi, and lastly, to man. we know the paths that life has traveled. we know the footsteps of advance. they have been traced. the last link has been found. for this we are indebted, more than to all others, to the greatest of biologists, ernst haeckel. we now believe that the universe is natural and we deny the existence of the supernatural. viii. reform. for thousands of years men and women have been trying to reform the world. they have created gods and devils, heavens and hells; they have written sacred books, performed miracles, built cathedrals and dungeons; they have crowned and uncrowned kings and queens; they have tortured and imprisoned, flayed alive and burned; they have preached and prayed; they have tried promises and threats; they have coaxed and persuaded; they have preached and taught, and in countless ways have endeavored to make people honest, temperate, industrious and virtuous; they have built hospitals and asylums, universities and schools, and seem to have done their very best to make mankind better and happier, and yet they have not succeeded. why have the reformers failed? i will tell them why. ignorance, poverty and vice are populating the world. the gutter is a nursery. people unable even to support themselves fill the tenements, the huts and hovels with children. they depend on the lord, on luck and charity. they are not intelligent enough to think about consequences or to feel responsibility. at the same time they do not want children, because a child is a curse, a curse to them and to itself. the babe is not welcome, because it is a burden. these unwelcome children fill the jails and prisons, the asylums and hospitals, and they crowd the scaffolds. a few are rescued by chance or charity, but the great majority are failures, they become vicious, ferocious. they live by fraud and violence, and bequeath their vices to their children. against this inundation of vice the forces of reform are helpless, and charity itself becomes an unconscious promoter of crime. failure seems to be the trademark of nature. why? nature has no design, no intelligence. nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention and destroys without thought. man has a little intelligence, and he should use it. intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. the real question is, can we prevent the ignorant, the poor, the vicious, from filling the world with their children? can we prevent this missouri of ignorance and vice from emptying into the mississippi of civilization? must the world forever remain the victim of ignorant passion? can the world be civilized to that degree that consequences will be taken into consideration by all? why should men and women have children that they cannot take care of, children that are burdens and curses? why? because they have more passion than intelligence, more passion than conscience, more passion than reason. you cannot reform these people with tracts and talk. you cannot reform these people with preach and creed. passion is, and always has been, deaf. these weapons of reform are substantially useless. criminals, tramps, beggars and failures are increasing every day. the prisons, jails, poorhouses and asylums are crowded. religion is helpless. law can punish, but it can neither reform criminals nor prevent crime. the tide of vice is rising. the war that is now being waged against the forces of evil is as hopeless as the battle of the fireflies against the darkness of night. there is but one hope. ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating the world. this cannot be done by moral suasion. this cannot be done by talk or example. this cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest or by hangman. this cannot be done by force, physical or moral. to accomplish this there is but one way. science must make woman the owner, the mistress of herself. science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother. this is the solution of the whole question. this frees woman. the babes that are then born will be welcome. they will be clasped with glad hands to happy breasts. they will fill homes with light and joy. men and women who believe that slaves are purer, truer, than the free, who believe that fear is a safer guide than knowledge, that only those are really good who obey the commands of others, and that ignorance is the soil in which the perfect, perfumed flower of virtue grows, will with protesting hands hide their shocked faces. men and women who think that light is the enemy of virtue, that purity dwells in darkness, that it is dangerous for human beings to know themselves and the facts in nature that affect their well being, will be horrified at the thought of making intelligence the master of passion. but i look forward to the time when men and women by reason of their knowledge of consequences, of the morality born of intelligence, will refuse to perpetuate disease and pain, will refuse to fill the world with failures. when that time comes the prison walls will fall, the dungeons will be flooded with light, and the shadow of the scaffold will cease to curse the earth. poverty and crime will be childless. the withered hands of want will not be stretched for alms. they will be dust. the whole world will be intelligent, virtuous and free. ix. religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. it is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. it is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. and then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. this is real religion. this is real worship. mistakes of moses by robert g. ingersoll. the destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns, is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not. . mrs. sue m. farrell in law my sister; and in fact my friend, this volume, as a token of respect and love, is dedicated. preface. for many years i have regarded the pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. to me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite intelligence, justice, and mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes. to me it seemed more reasonable that savage men had made these laws; and i endeavored in a lecture, entitled "some mistakes of moses," to point out some of the errors, contradictions, and impossibilities contained in the pentateuch. the lecture was never written and consequently never delivered twice the same. on several occasions it was reported and published without consent, and without revision. all these publications were grossly and glaringly incorrect. as published, they have been answered several hundred times, and many of the clergy are still engaged in the great work. to keep these reverend gentlemen from wasting their talents on the mistakes of reporters and printers, i concluded to publish the principal points in all my lectures on this subject. and here, it may be proper for me to say, that arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; that there is no logic in slander, and that falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself. people who love their enemies should, at least, tell the truth about their friends. should it turn out that i am the worst man in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of the pentateuch will still demand an explanation. there was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from the pulpit, smote like a sword; but, the supply having greatly exceeded the demand, clerical misrepresentation has at last become almost an innocent amusement. remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, i congratulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort. the old instruments of torture are kept only to gratify curiosity; the chains are rusting away, and the demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of the inquisition to be visited by light. the church, impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. if that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. such a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and insolent. christianity has held all other creeds and forms in infinite contempt, divided the world into enemies and friends, and verified the awful declaration of its founder--a declaration that wet with blood the sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagots' flames. too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see. were we allowed to read the bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. but we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of god; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in nature's night. these claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free, unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt. we read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. with myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. we find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the whence and whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of nature's perfect self. these myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. they clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. in them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. they thrilled the veins of spring with tremulous desire; made tawny summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured winter as a weak old king who felt, like lear upon his withered face, cordelia's tears. these myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. but if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of god, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the fable world would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c, _oct. th, _ i. some mistakes of moses he who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave. i want to do what little i can to make my country truly free, to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people, to destroy the prejudices born of ignorance and fear, to do away with the blind worship of the ignoble past, with the idea that all the great and good are dead, that the living are totally depraved, that all pleasures are sins, that sighs and groans are alone pleasing to god, that thought is dangerous, that intellectual courage is a crime, that cowardice is a virtue, that a certain belief is necessary to secure salvation, that to carry a cross in this world will give us a palm in the next, and that we must allow some priest to be the pilot of our souls. until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. this earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. it is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. why should a believer in god hate an atheist? surely the atheist has not injured god, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us? christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all i ask is--not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. we do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. if all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. to hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds. that which has happened in most countries, has happened in ours. when a religion is founded, the educated, the powerful--that is to say, the priests and nobles, tell the ignorant and superstitious--that is to say, the people, that the religion of their country was given to their fathers by god himself; that it is the only true religion; that all others were conceived in falsehood and brought forth in fraud, and that all who believe in the true religion will be happy forever, while all others will burn in hell. for the purpose of governing the people, that is to say, for the purpose of being supported by the people, the priests and nobles declare this religion to be sacred, and that whoever adds to, or takes from it, will be burned here by man, and hereafter by god. the result of this is, that the priests and nobles will not allow the people to change; and when, after a time, the priests, having intellectually advanced, wish to take a step in the direction of progress, the people will not allow them to change. at first, the rabble are enslaved by the priests, and afterwards the rabble become the masters. one of the first things i wish to do, is to free the orthodox clergy. i am a great friend of theirs, and in spite of all they may say against me, i am going to do them a great and lasting service. upon their necks are visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those of the lash. they are not allowed to read and think for themselves. they are taught like parrots, and the best are those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes, the sentences they have been taught. they sit like owls upon some dead limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. their congregations are not grand enough, nor sufficiently civilized, to be willing that the poor preachers shall think for themselves. they are not employed for that purpose. investigation is regarded as a dangerous experiment, and the ministers are warned that none of that kind of work will be tolerated. they are notified to stand by the old creed, and to avoid all original thought, as a mortal pestilence. every minister is employed like an attorney--either for plaintiff or defendant,--and he is expected to be true to his client. if he changes his mind, he is regarded as a deserter, and denounced, hated, and slandered accordingly. every orthodox clergyman agrees not to change. he contracts not to find new facts, and makes a bargain that he will deny them if he does. such is the position of a protestant minister in this nineteenth century. his condition excites my pity; and to better it, i am going to do what little i can. some of the clergy have the independence to break away, and the intellect to maintain themselves as free men, but the most are compelled to submit to the dictation of the orthodox, and the dead. they are not employed to give their thoughts, but simply to repeat the ideas of others. they are not expected to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but are required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden by the ignorance of the past. the forests and fields on either side are nothing to them. they must not even look at the purple hills, nor pause to hear the babble of the brooks. they must remain in the dusty road where the guide-boards are. they must confine themselves to the "fall of man" the expulsion from the garden, the "scheme of salvation," the "second birth," the atonement, the happiness of the redeemed, and the misery of the lost. they must be careful not to express any new ideas upon these great questions. it is much safer for them to quote from the works of the dead. the more vividly they describe the sufferings of the unregenerate, of those who attended theatres and balls, and drank wine in summer gardens on the sabbath-day, and laughed at priests, the better ministers they are supposed to be. they must show that misery fits the good for heaven, while happiness prepares the bad for hell; that the wicked get all their good things in this life, and the good all their evil; that in this world god punishes the people he loves, and in the next, the ones he hates; that happiness makes us bad here, but not in heaven; that pain makes us good here, but not in hell. no matter how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind, they must be preached and they must be believed. if they were reasonable, there would be no virtue in believing. even the publicans and sinners believe reasonable things. to believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is accounted as righteousness to the sincere and humble christian. the ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to god as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay; that we are so infamous that we like to enjoy ourselves; that we love our wives and children better than our god; that we are generous only because we are vile; that we are honest from the meanest motives, and that sometimes we have fallen so low that we have had doubts about the inspiration of the jewish scriptures. in short, they are expected to denounce all pleasant paths and rustling trees, to curse the grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and weeds. they are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs or climb the hills and wander as they will. they are expected to point out the dangers of freedom, the safety of implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness of philosophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and the purity of ignorance. now and then, a few pious people discover some young man of a religious turn of mind and a consumptive habit of body, not quite sickly enough to die, nor healthy enough to be wicked. the idea occurs to them that he would make a good orthodox minister. they take up a contribution, and send the young man to some theological school where he can be taught to repeat a creed and despise reason. should it turn out that the young man had some mind of his own, and, after graduating, should change his opinions and preach a different doctrine from that taught in the school, every man who contributed a dollar towards his education would feel that he had been robbed, and would denounce him as a dishonest and ungrateful wretch. the pulpit should not be a pillory. congregations should allow the minister a little liberty. they should, at least, permit him to tell the truth. they have, in massachusetts, at a place called andover, a kind of minister factory, where each professor takes an oath once in five years--that time being considered the life of an oath--that he has not, during the last five years, and will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance. there is probably no oath that they could easier keep. probably, since the foundation stone of that institution was laid there has not been a single case of perjury. the old creed is still taught. they still insist that god is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. they insist that the best man god ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished. andover puts its brand upon every minister it turns out, the same as sheffield and birmingham brand their wares, and all who see the brand know exactly what the minister believes, the books he has read, the arguments he relies on, and just what he intellectually is. they know just what he can be depended on to preach, and that he will continue to shrink and shrivel, and grow solemnly stupid day by day until he reaches the andover of the grave and becomes truly orthodox forever. i have not singled out the andover factory because it is worse than the others. they are all about the same. the professors, for the most part, are ministers who failed in the pulpit and were retired to the seminary on account of their deficiency in reason and their excess of faith. as a rule, they know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear. something should be done for the liberation of these men. they should be allowed to grow--to have sunlight and air. they should no longer be chained and tied to confessions of faith, to mouldy books and musty creeds. thousands of ministers are anxious to give their honest thoughts. the hands of wives and babes now stop their mouths. they must have bread, and so the husbands and fathers are forced to preach a doctrine that they hold in scorn. for the sake of shelter, food and clothes, they are obliged to defend the childish miracles of the past, and denounce the sublime discoveries of to-day. they are compelled to attack all modern thought, to point out the dangers of science, the wickedness of investigation and the corrupting influence of logic. it is for them to show that virtue rests upon ignorance and faith, while vice impudently feeds and fattens upon fact and demonstration. it is a part of their business to malign and vilify the voltaires, humes, paines, humboldts, tyndals, hæckels, darwins, spencers, and drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. they are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason. these orthodox ministers do not add to the sum of knowledge. they produce nothing. they live upon alms. they hate laughter and joy. they officiate at weddings, sprinkle water upon babes, and utter meaningless words and barren promises above the dead. they laugh at the agony of unbelievers, mock at their tears, and of their sorrows make a jest. there are some noble exceptions. now and then a pulpit holds a brave and honest man. their congregations are willing that they should think--willing that their ministers should have a little freedom. as we become civilized, more and more liberty will be accorded to these men, until finally ministers will give their best and highest thoughts. the congregations will finally get tired of hearing about the patriarchs and saints, the miracles and wonders, and will insist upon knowing something about the men and women of our day, and the accomplishments and discoveries of our time. they will finally insist upon knowing how to escape the evils of this world instead of the next. they will ask light upon the enigmas of this life. they will wish to know what we shall do with our criminals instead of what god will do with his--how we shall do away with beggary and want--with crime and misery--with prostitution, disease and famine,--with tyranny in all its cruel forms--with prisons and scaffolds, and how we shall reward the honest workers, and fill the world with happy homes! these are the problems for the pulpits and congregations of an enlightened future. if science cannot finally answer these questions, it is a vain and worthless thing. the clergy, however, will continue to answer them in the old way, until their congregations are good enough to set them free. they will still talk about believing in the lord jesus christ, as though that were the only remedy for all human ills. they will still teach that retrogression is the only path that leads to light; that we must go back, that faith is the only sure guide, and that reason is a delusive glare, lighting only the road to eternal pain. until the clergy are free they cannot be intellectually honest. we can never tell what they really believe until they know that they can safely speak. they console themselves now by a secret resolution to be as liberal as they dare, with the hope that they can finally educate their congregations to the point of allowing them to think a little for themselves. they hardly know what they ought to do. the best part of their lives has been wasted in studying subjects of no possible value. most of them are married, have families, and know but one way of making their living. some of them say that if they do not preach these foolish dogmas, others will, and that they may through fear, after all, restrain mankind. besides, they hate publicly to admit that they are mistaken, that the whole thing is a delusion, that the "scheme of salvation" is absurd, and that the bible is no better than some other books, and worse than most. you can hardly expect a bishop to leave his palace, or the pope to vacate the vatican. as long as people want popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take the place. and as long as labor fatigues, there will be found a good many men willing to preach once a week, if other folks will work and give them bread. in other words, while the demand lasts, the supply will never fail. if the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish--if a little more enlightened, religion would perish! ii. free schools it is also my desire to free the schools. when a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with something moses said. public opinion must not compel the professor to hide a fact, and, "like the base indian, throw the pearl away." with the single exception of cornell, there is not a college in the united states where truth has ever been a welcome guest. the moment one of the teachers denies the inspiration of the bible, he is discharged. if he discovers a fact inconsistent with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and especially for the discoverer of the fact. he must not corrupt the minds of his pupils with demonstrations. he must beware of every truth that cannot, in some way be made to harmonize with the superstitions of the jews. science has nothing in common with religion. facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. they are not in the least related. they are deadly foes. what has religion to do with facts? nothing. can there be methodist mathematics, catholic astronomy, presbyterian geology, baptist biology, or episcopal botany? why, then, should a sectarian college exist? only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. we should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. the common school is the bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition. our country will never be filled with great institutions of learning until there is an absolute divorce between church and school. as long as the mutilated records of a barbarous people are placed by priest and professor above the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from church or school. instead of dismissing professors for finding something out, let us rather discharge those who do not. let each teacher understand that investigation is not dangerous for him; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth he may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced, simply because he finds that the ancient jews did not know the entire history of the world. besides, it is not fair to make the catholic support a protestant school, nor is it just to collect taxes from infidels and atheists to support schools in which any system of religion is taught. the sciences are not sectarian. people do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. it is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. science will bring, not a sword, but peace. just as long as religion has control of the schools, science will be an outcast. let us free our institutions of learning. let us dedicate them to the science of eternal truth. let us tell every teacher to ascertain all the facts he can--to give us light, to follow nature, no matter where she leads; to be infinitely true to himself and us; to feel that he is without a chain, except the obligation to be honest; that he is bound by no books, by no creed, neither by the sayings of the dead nor of the living; that he is asked to look with his own eyes, to reason for himself without fear, to investigate in every possible direction, and to bring us the fruit of all his work. at present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the "harmony of genesis and geology." like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies. surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. the time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of nature will outrank the "sacred" falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of holy writ. who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind? when every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth. iii. the politicians. i would like also to liberate the politician. at present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. there are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career. candidates are forced to pretend that they are catholics with protest-ant proclivities, or christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. the result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking. our government should be entirely and purely secular. the religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. he should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. all these things are private and personal. he should be allowed to settle such things for himself, and should he decide contrary to the law and will of god, let him settle the matter with god. the people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country. if we were in a storm at sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent with storm, and it was necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on the five points of calvinism. our government has nothing to do with religion. it is neither christian nor pagan; it is secular. but as long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust--hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot. churches are becoming political organizations. nearly every catholic is a democrat; nearly every methodist in the north is a republican. it probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this government will be destroyed. the liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. wherever the bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. all laws for the purpose of making man worship god, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the _auto da fe_, and lovingly built the dungeons of the inquisition. all laws defining and punishing blasphemy--making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient jews, or to enjoy yourself on the sabbath, or to give your opinion of jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. an infinite god ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with state legislatures. certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. no one thinks of protecting shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. it strikes me that god might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. in fact, i think it would be safe to say that a real god could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the jewish god. iv. man and woman let us forget that we are baptists, methodists, catholics, presbyterians, or free-thinkers, and remember only that we are men and women. after all, _man_ and _woman_ are the highest possible titles. all other names belittle us, and show that we have, to a certain extent, given up our individuality, and have consented to wear the collar of authority--that we are followers. throwing away these names, let us examine these questions not as partisans, but as human beings with hopes and fears in common. we know that our opinions depend, to a great degree, upon our surroundings--upon race, country, and education. we are all the result of numberless conditions, and inherit vices and virtues, truths and prejudices. if we had been born in england, surrounded by wealth and clothed with power, most of us would have been episcopalians, and believed in church and state. we should have insisted that the people needed a religion, and that not having intellect enough to provide one for themselves, it was our duty to make one for them, and then compel them to support it. we should have believed it indecent to officiate in a pulpit without wearing a gown, and that prayers should be read from a book. had we belonged to the lower classes, we might have been dissenters and protested against the mummeries of the high church. had we been born in turkey, most of us would have been mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the koran. we should have believed that mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an angel by the name of gabriel, who was so broad between the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very smart camel to travel the distance. if some man had denied this story we should probably have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinction between virtue and vice. we should have said to him, "what do you propose to give us in place of that angel? we cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing." we would have insisted that the best and wisest men believed the koran. we would have quoted from the works and letters of philosophers, generals and sultans, to show that the koran was the best of books, and that turkey was indebted to that book and to that alone for its greatness and prosperity. we would have asked that man whether he knew more than all the great minds of his country, whether he was so much wiser than his fathers? we would have pointed out to him the fact that thousands had been consoled in the hour of death by passages from the koran; that they had died with glazed eyes brightened by visions of the heavenly harem, and gladly left this world of grief and tears. we would have regarded christians as the vilest of men, and on all occasions would have repeated "there is but one god, and mohammed is his prophet!" so, if we had been born in india, we should in all probability have believed in the religion of that country. we should have regarded the old records as true and sacred, and looked upon a wandering priest as better than the men from whom he begged, and by whose labor he lived. we should have believed in a god with three heads instead of three gods with one head, as we do now. now and then some one says that the religion of his father and mother is good enough for him, and wonders why anybody should desire a better. surely we are not bound to follow our parents in religion any more than in politics, science or art. china has been petrified by the worship of ancestors. if our parents had been satisfied with the religion of theirs, we would be still less advanced than we are. if we are, in any way, bound by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought now to be believers in that first religion. in other words, we would all be barbarians. you cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors. good fathers and mothers wish their children to advance, to overcome obstacles which baffled them, and to correct the errors of their education. if you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew. to sacrifice your manhood upon the grave of your father is an honor to neither. why should a son who has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his mother? is not such a course dishonorable to both? we must remember that this "ancestor" argument is as old at least as the second generation of men, that it has served no purpose except to enslave mankind, and results mostly from the fact that acquiescence is easier than investigation. this argument pushed to its logical conclusion, would prevent the advance of all people whose parents were not free-thinkers. it is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables. but when we look for a moment at the world, we find that each nation has its "sacred records"--its religion, and its ideas of worship. certainly all cannot be right; and as it would require a life time to investigate the claims of these various systems, it is hardly fair to damn a man forever, simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. all these religions were produced by barbarians. civilized nations have contented themselves with changing the religions of their barbaric ancestors, but they have made none. nearly all these religions are intensely selfish. each one was made by some contemptible little nation that regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked upon the other nations as beneath the notice of their god. in all these countries it was a crime to deny the sacred records, to laugh at the priests, to speak disrespectfully of the gods, to fail to divide your substance with the lazy hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world upon condition that you would support them in this. in the olden time these theological people who quartered themselves upon the honest and industrious, were called soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers, and impostors, but now, they are known as clergymen. we are no exception to the general rule, and consequently have our sacred books as well as the rest. of course, it is claimed by many of our people that our books are the only true ones, the only ones that the real god ever wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. they insist that all other sacred books were written by hypocrites and impostors; that the jews were the only people that god ever had any personal intercourse with, and that all other prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and mendacity. true, it seems somewhat strange that god should have chosen a barbarous and unknown people who had little or nothing to do with the other nations of the earth, as his messengers to the rest of mankind. it is not easy to account for an infinite god making people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revelation. neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a few. of course, i know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these thoughts, and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually protect you from the wrath of god. i am aware that investigators with all their genius, never find the road to heaven; that those who look where they are going are sure to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily put out their eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep the narrow path. whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it or suffer forever the torments of the lost. we are told that we have the privilege of examining it for ourselves; but this privilege is only extended to us on the condition that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not. we may disagree with others as much as we please upon the meaning of all passages in the bible, but we must not deny the truth of a single word. we must believe that the book is inspired. if we obey its every precept without believing in its inspiration we will be damned just as certainly as though we disobeyed its every word. we have no right to weigh it in the scales of reason--to test it by the laws of nature, or the facts of observation and experience. to do this, we are told, is to put ourselves above the word of god, and sit in judgment on the works of our creator. for my part, i cannot admit that belief is a voluntary thing. it seems to me that evidence, even in spite of ourselves, will have its weight, and that whatever our wish may be, we are compelled to stand with fairness by the scales, and give the exact result. it will not do to say that we reject the bible because we are wicked. our wickedness must be ascertained not from our belief but from our acts. i am told by the clergy that i ought not to attack the bible; that i am leading thousands to perdition and rendering certain the damnation of my own soul. they have had the kindness to advise me that, if my object is to make converts, i am pursuing the wrong course. they tell me to use gentler expressions, and more cunning words. do they really wish me to make more converts? if their advice is honest, they are traitors to their trust. if their advice is not honest, then they are unfair with me. certainly they should wish me to pursue the course that will make the fewest converts, and yet they pretend to tell me how my influence could be increased. it may be, that upon this principle john bright advises america to adopt free trade, so that our country can become a successful rival of great britain. sometimes i think that even ministers are not entirely candid. notwithstanding the advice of the clergy, i have concluded to pursue my own course, to tell my honest thoughts, and to have my freedom in this world whatever my fate may be in the next. the real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the bible. that book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. that book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. that book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. that book unmans the politician and degrades the people. that book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. it plays the same part in our country that has been played by "sacred records" in all the nations of the world. a little while ago i saw one of the bibles of the middle ages. it was about two feet in length, and one and a half in width. it had immense oaken covers, with hasps, and clasps, and hinges large enough almost for the doors of a penitentiary. it was covered with pictures of winged angels and aureoled saints. in my imagination i saw this book carried to the cathedral altar in solemn pomp--heard the chant of robed and kneeling priests, felt the strange tremor of the organ's peal; saw the colored light streaming through windows stained and touched by blood and flame--the swinging censer with its perfumed incense rising to the mighty roof, dim with height and rich with legend carved in stone, while on the walls was hung, written in light, and shade, and all the colors that can tell of joy and tears, the pictured history of the martyred christ. the people fell upon their knees. the book was opened, and the priest read the messages from god to man. to the multitude, the book itself was evidence enough that it was not the work of human hands. how could those little marks and lines and dots contain, like tombs, the thoughts of men, and how could they, touched by a ray of light from human eyes, give up their dead? how could these characters span the vast chasm dividing the present from the past, and make it possible for the living still to hear the voices of the dead? v. the pentateuch the first five books in our bible are known as the pentateuch. for a long time it was supposed that moses was the author, and among the ignorant the supposition still prevails. as a matter of fact, it seems to be well settled that moses had nothing to do with these books, and that they were not written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. but, as all the churches still insist that he was the author, that he wrote even an account of his own death and burial, let us speak of him as though these books were in fact written by him. as the christians maintain that god was the real author, it makes but little difference whom he employed as his pen, or clerk. nearly all authors of sacred books have given an account of the creation of the universe, the origin of matter, and the destiny of the human race. nearly all have pointed out the obligation that man is under to his creator for having placed him upon the earth, and allowed him to live and suffer, and have taught that nothing short of the most abject worship could possibly compensate god for his trouble and labor suffered and done for the good of man. they have nearly all insisted that we should thank god for all that is good in life; but they have not all informed us as to whom we should hold responsible for the evils we endure. moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books by his failure to say anything of a future life, by failing to promise heaven, and to threaten hell. upon the subject of a future state, there is not one word in the pentateuch. probably at that early day god did not deem it important to make a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. he seems to have thought that he could control the jews, at least, by rewards and punishments in this world, and so he kept the frightful realities of eternal joy and torment a profound secret from the people of his choice. he thought it far more important to tell the jews their origin than to enlighten them as to their destiny. we must remember that every tribe and nation has some way in which, the more striking phenomena of nature are accounted for. these accounts are handed down by tradition, changed by numberless narrators as intelligence increases, or to account for newly discovered facts, or for the purpose of satisfying the appetite for the marvelous. the way in which a tribe or nation accounts for day and night, the change of seasons, the fall of snow and rain, the flight of birds, the origin of the rainbow, the peculiarities of animals, the dreams of sleep, the visions of the insane, the existence of earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, lightning and the thousand things that attract the attention and excite the wonder, fear or admiration of mankind, may be called the philosophy of that tribe or nation. and as all phenomena are, by savage and barbaric man accounted for as the action of intelligent beings for the accomplishment of certain objects, and as these beings were supposed to have the power to assist or injure man, certain things were supposed necessary for man to do in order to gain the assistance, and avoid the anger of these gods. out of this belief grew certain ceremonies, and these ceremonies united with the belief, formed religion; and consequently every religion has for its foundation a misconception of the cause of phenomena. all worship is necessarily based upon the belief that some being exists who can, if he will, change the natural order of events. the savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the christian prays to a god that he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful. the savage and the christian put behind the universe an intelligent cause, and this cause whether represented by one god or many, has been, in all ages, the object of all worship. to carry a fetich, to utter a prayer, to count beads, to abstain from food, to sacrifice a lamb, a child or an enemy, are simply different ways by which the accomplishment of the same object is sought, and are all the offspring of the same error. many systems of religion must have existed many ages before the art of writing was discovered, and must have passed through many changes before the stories, miracles, histories, prophesies and mistakes became fixed and petrified in written words. after that, change was possible only by giving new meanings to old words, a process rendered necessary by the continual acquisition of facts somewhat inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the "sacred records." in this way an honest faith often prolongs its life by dishonest methods; and in this way the christians of to-day are trying to harmonize the mosaic account of creation with the theories and discoveries of modern science. admitting that moses was the author of the pentateuch, or that he gave to the jews a religion, the question arises as to where he obtained his information. we are told by the theologians that he received his knowledge from god, and that every word he wrote was and is the exact truth. it is admitted at the same time that he was an adopted son of pharaoh's daughter, and enjoyed the rank and privilege of a prince. under such circumstances, he must have been well acquainted with the literature, philosophy and religion of the egyptians, and must have known what they believed and taught as to the creation of the world. now, if the account of the origin of this earth as given by moses is substantially like that given by the egyptians, then we must conclude that he learned it from them. should we imagine that he was divinely inspired because he gave to the jews what the egyptians had given him? the egyptian priests taught _first_, that a god created the original matter, leaving it in a state of chaos; _second_, that a god moulded it into form; _third_, that the breath of a god moved upon the face of the deep; _fourth_, that a god created simply by saying "let it be;" _fifth_, that a god created light before the sun existed. nothing can be clearer than that moses received from the egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people. if some man at the present day should assert that he had received from god the theories of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and the law of heredity, and we should afterwards find that he was not only an englishman, but had lived in the family of charles darwin, we certainly would account for his having these theories in a natural way, so, if darwin himself should pretend that he was inspired, and had obtained his peculiar theories from god, we should probably reply that his grandfather suggested the the same ideas, and that lamarck published substantially the same theories the same year that mr. darwin was born. now, if we have sufficient courage, we will, by the same course of reasoning, account for the story of creation found in the bible. we will say that it contains the belief of moses, and that he received his information from the egyptians, and not from god. if we take the account as the absolute truth and use it for the purpose of determining the value of modern thought, scientific advancement becomes impossible. and even if the account of the creation as given by moses should turn out to be true, and should be so admitted by all the scientific world, the claim that he was inspired would still be without the least particle of proof. we would be forced to admit that he knew more than we had supposed. it certainly is no proof that a man is inspired simply because he is right. no one pretends that shakespeare was inspired, and yet all the writers of the books of the old testament put together, could not have produced hamlet. why should we, looking upon some rough and awkward thing, or god in stone, say that it must have been produced by some inspired sculptor, and with the same breath pronounce the _venus de milo_ to be the work of man? why should we, looking at some ancient daub of angel, saint or virgin, say its painter must have been assisted by a god? let us account for all we see by the facts we know. if there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. to account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. theology is not what we know about god, but what we do not know about nature. in order to increase our respect for the bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. the whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself--to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. the church has said, "believe, and obey! if you reason, you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. if you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like adam and eve, be thrust from paradise forever!" for my part, i care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what i think or know. all books should be examined in the same spirit, and truth should be welcomed and falsehood exposed, no matter in what volume they may be found. let us in this spirit examine the pentateuch; and if anything appears unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us have the honesty and courage to admit it. certainly no good can result either from deceiving ourselves or others. many millions have implicitly believed this book, and have just as implicitly believed that polygamy was sanctioned by god. millions have regarded this book as the foundation of all human progress, and at the same time looked upon slavery as a divine institution. millions have declared this book to have been infinitely holy, and to prove that they were right, have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow men. the inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword and fire, by dungeon, chain and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed with promises of heaven. let us examine a portion of this book, not in the darkness of our fear, but in the light of reason. and first, let us examine the account given of the creation of this world, commenced, according to the bible, on monday morning about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. vi. monday moses commences his story by telling us that in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. if this means anything, it means that god produced, caused to exist, called into being, the heaven and the earth. it will not do to say that he formed the heaven and the earth of previously existing matter. moses conveys, and intended to convey the idea that the matter of which the heaven and the earth are composed, was created. it is impossible for me to conceive of something being created from nothing. nothing, regarded in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. i cannot conceive of matter apart from force. neither is it possible to think of force disconnected with matter. you cannot imagine matter going back to absolute nothing. neither can you imagine nothing being changed into something. you may be eternally damned if you do not say that you can conceive these things, but you cannot conceive them. such is the constitution of the human mind that it cannot even think of a commencement or an end of matter, or force. if god created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. in that eternity what was this god doing? he certainly did not think. there was nothing to think about. he did not remember. nothing had ever happened. what did he do? can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity? i do not pretend to tell how all these things really are; but i do insist that a statement that cannot possibly be comprehended by any human being, and that appears utterly impossible, repugnant to every fact of experience, and contrary to everything that we really know, must be rejected by every honest man. we can conceive of eternity, because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. we can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star, and see infinite space beyond. in other words, we cannot conceive of a cessation of time; therefore eternity is a necessity of the mind. eternity sustains the same relation to time that space does to matter. in the time of moses, it was perfectly safe for him to write an account of the creation of the world. he had simply to put in form the crude notions of the people. at that time, no other jew could have written a better account. upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination full play. there was no one who could authoritatively contradict anything he might say. it was substantially the same story that had been imprinted in curious characters upon the clay records of babylon, the gigantic monuments of egypt, and the gloomy temples of india. in those days there was an almost infinite difference between the educated and ignorant. the people were controlled almost entirely by signs and wonders. by the lever of fear, priests moved the world. the sacred records were made and kept, and altered by them. the people could not read, and looked upon one who could, as almost a god. in our day it is hard to conceive of the influence of an educated class in a barbarous age. it was only necessary to produce the "sacred record," and ignorance fell upon its face. the people were taught that the record was inspired, and therefore true. they were not taught that it was true, and therefore inspired. after all, the real question is not whether the bible is inspired, but whether it is true. if it is true, it does not need to be inspired. if it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. the multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though god had arranged the figures himself. if the bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. as a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. where truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration begins. a fact never went into partnership with a miracle. truth does not need the assistance of miracle. a fact will fit every other fact in the universe, because it is the product of all other facts. a lie will fit nothing except another lie made for the express purpose of fitting it. after a while the man gets tired of lying, and then the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is an opportunity to use a miracle. just at that point, it is necessary to have a little inspiration. it seems to me that reason is the highest attribute of man, and that if there can be any communication from god to man, it must be addressed to his reason. it does not seem possible that in order to understand a message from god it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away. how could god make known his will to any being destitute of reason? how can any man accept as a revelation from god that which is unreasonable to him? god cannot make a revelation to another man for me. he must make it to me, and until he convinces my reason that it is true, i cannot receive it. the statement that in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth, i cannot accept. it is contrary to my reason, and i cannot believe it. it appears reasonable to me that force has existed from eternity. force cannot, as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. force, in its nature, is forever active, and without matter it could not act; and so i think matter must have existed forever. to conceive of matter without force, or of force without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or of a being who existed for an eternity without either, and who out of nothing created both, is to me utterly impossible. i may be damned on this account, but i cannot help it. in my judgment, moses was mistaken. it will not do to say that moses merely intended to tell what god did, in making the heavens and the earth out of matter then in existence. he distinctly states that in the _beginning_ god created them. if this account is true, we must believe that god, existing in infinite space surrounded by eternal nothing, naught and void, created, produced, called into being, willed into existence this universe of countless stars. the next thing we are told by this inspired gentleman is, that god created light, and proceeded to divide it from the darkness. certainly, the person who wrote this believed that darkness was a thing, an entity, a material that could get mixed and tangled up with light, and that these entities, light and darkness, had to be separated. in his imagination he probably saw god throwing pieces and chunks of darkness on one side, and rays and beams of light on the other. it is hard for a man who has been born but once to understand these things. for my part i cannot understand how light can be separated from darkness. i had always supposed that darkness was simply the absence of light, and that under no circumstances could it be necessary to take the darkness away from the light. it is certain, however, that moses believed darkness to be a form of matter, because i find that in another place he speaks of a darkness that could be felt. they used to have on exhibition at rome a bottle of the darkness that overspread egypt. you cannot divide light from darkness any more than you can divide heat from cold. cold is an absence of heat, and darkness is an absence of light. i suppose that we have no conception of absolute cold. we know only degrees of heat. twenty degrees below zero is just twenty degrees warmer than forty degrees below zero. neither cold nor darkness are entities, and these words express simply either the absolute or partial absence of heat or light. i cannot conceive how light can be divided from darkness, but i can conceive how a barbarian several thousand years ago, writing upon a subject about which he knew nothing, could make a mistake. the creator of light could not have written in this way. if such a being exists, he must have known the nature of that "mode of motion" that paints the earth on every eye, and clothes in garments seven-hued this universe of worlds. vii. tuesday we are next informed by moses that "god said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters;" and that "god made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." what did the writer mean by the word firmament? theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." this will not do. how could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? the truth is that moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. it was where god lived, and where water was kept. it was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. they supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. it was with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the windows of heaven were opened. it was in this firmament that the sons of god lived--the sons who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose." the issue of such marriages were giants, and "the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." nothing is clearer than that moses regarded the firmament as a vast material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon whose floor god lived, surrounded by his sons. in no other way could he account for rain. where did the water come from? he knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. he did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kisses the waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain. the idea that the firmament was the abode of the deity must have been in the mind of moses when he related the dream of jacob. "and he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of god ascending and descending on it; and behold the lord stood above it and said, i am the lord god." so, when the people were building the tower of babel "the lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the children of men builded. and the lord said, behold the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do; and nothing will be restrained from them which they imagined to do. go to, let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech." the man who wrote that absurd account must have believed that god lived above the earth, in the firmament. the same idea was in the mind of the psalmist when he said that god "bowed the heavens and came down." of course, god could easily remove any person bodily to heaven, as it was but a little way above the earth. "enoch walked with god, and he was not, for god took him." the accounts in the bible of the ascension of elijah, christ and st. paul were born of the belief that the firmament was the dwelling-place of god. it probably never occurred to these writers that if the firmament was seven or eight miles away, enoch and the rest would have been frozen perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been completed. possibly elijah might have made the voyage, as he was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire "by a whirlwind." the truth is, that moses was mistaken, and upon that mistake the christians located their heaven and their hell. the telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the heaven of the new testament, rendered the ascension of our lord and the assumption of his mother infinitely absurd, crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the new jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of worlds. viii. wednesday we are next informed by the historian of creation, that after god had finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing the waters by means of an "expanse," he proceeded "to gather the waters on the earth together in seas, so that the dry land might appear." certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real form of the earth. he could not have known anything of the attraction of gravitation. he must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave the mountains and collect in the valleys. just as soon as the water was forced to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to grow, and the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and the trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were laden with fruit. and all this happened before a ray had left the quiver of the sun, before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before the dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of the east and welcomed to her arms the eager god of day. it does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow and ripen into seed and fruit without the sun. according to the account, this all happened on the third day. now, if, as the christians say, moses did not mean by the word day a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and almost measureless space of time, and as god did not, according to this view make any animals until the fifth day, that is, not for millions of years after he made the grass and trees, for what purpose did he cause the trees to bear fruit? moses says that god said on the third day, "let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so. and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and god saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day." there was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with painted wings sought the honey of the flowers; not a single living, breathing thing upon the earth. plenty of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance of fruit, but not a mouth in all the world. if moses is right, this state of things lasted only two days; but if the modern theologians are correct, it continued for millions of ages. "it is now well known that the organic history of the earth can be properly divided into five epochs--the primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary. each of these epochs is characterized by animal and vegetable life peculiar to itself.. in the first will be found algae and skull-less vertebrates, in the second, ferns and fishes, in the third, pine forests and reptiles, in the fourth, foliaceous forests and mammals, and in the fifth, man." how much more reasonable this is than the idea that the earth was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees loaded with fruit for millions of years before an animal existed. there is, in nature, an even balance forever kept between the total amounts of animal and vegetable life. "in her wonderful economy she must form and bountifully nourish her vegetable progeny--twin-brother life to her, with that of animals. the perfect balance between plant existences and animal existences must always be maintained, while matter courses through the eternal circle, becoming each in turn. if an animal be resolved into its ultimate constituents in a period according to the surrounding circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four years, or even of four thousand years,--for it is impossible to deny that there may be instances of all these periods during which the process has continued--those elements which assume the gaseous form mingle at once with the atmosphere and are taken up from it without delay by the ever-open mouths of vegetable life. by a thousand pores in every leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to form the vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses and ships, is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. all this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as animal existences from monad up to man. our mahogany of to-day has been many negroes in its turn, and before the african existed, was integral portions of many a generation of extinct species." it seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of vegetation and certain kinds of animals should exist together, and that as the character of the vegetation changed, a corresponding change would take place in the animal world. it may be that i am led to these conclusions by "total depravity," or that i lack the necessary humility of spirit to satisfactorily harmonize haeckel and moses; or that i am carried away by pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that i might be damned, but i never can believe that the earth was covered with leaves, and buds, and flowers, and fruits before the sun with glittering spear had driven back the hosts of night. ix. thursday after the world was covered with vegetation, it occurred to moses that it was about time to make a sun and moon; and so we are told that on the fourth day god said, "let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also." can we believe that the inspired writer had any idea of the size of the sun? draw a circle five inches in diameter, and by its side thrust a pin through the paper. the hole made by the pin will sustain about the same relation to the circle that the earth does to the sun. did he know that the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in diameter; that it was enveloped in an ocean of fire thousands of miles in depth, hotter even than the christian's hell, over which sweep tempests of flame moving at the rate of one hundred miles a second, compared with which the wildest storm that ever wrecked the forests of this world was but a calm? did he know that the sun every moment of time throws out as much heat as could be generated by the combustion of millions upon millions of tons of coal? did he know that the volume of the earth is less than one-millionth of that of the sun? did he know of the one hundred and four planets belonging to our solar system, all children of the sun? did he know of jupiter eighty-five thousand miles in diameter, hundreds of times as large as our earth, turning on his axis at the rate of twenty-five thousand miles an hour accompanied by four moons, making the tour of his orbit in fifty years, a distance of three thousand million miles? did he know anything about saturn, his rings and his eight moons? did he have the faintest idea that all these planets were once a part of the sun; that the vast luminary was once thousands of millions of miles in diameter; that neptune, uranus, saturn, jupiter and mars were all born before our earth, and that by no possibility could this world have existed three days, nor three periods, nor three "good whiles" before its source, the sun? moses supposed the sun to be about three or four feet in diameter and the moon about half that size. compared with the earth they were but simple specks. this idea seems to have been shared by all the "inspired" men. we find in the book of joshua that the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. "so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." we are told that the sacred writer wrote in common speech as we do when we talk about the rising and setting of the sun, and that all he intended to say was that the earth ceased to turn on its axis "for about a whole day." my own opinion is that general joshua knew no more about the motions of the earth than he did about mercy and justice. if he had known that the earth turned upon its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and swept in its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken of in the same chapter, that the lord cast down from heaven, and allowed the sun and moon to rise and set in the usual way. it is impossible to conceive of a more absurd story than this about the stopping of the sun and moon, and yet nothing so excites the malice of the orthodox preacher as to call its truth in question. some endeavor to account for the phenomenon by natural causes, while others attempt to show that god could, by the refraction of light have made the sun visible although actually shining on the opposite side of the earth. the last hypothesis has been seriously urged by ministers within the last few months. the rev. henry m. morey of south bend, indiana, says "that the phenomenon was simply optical. the rotary motion of the earth was not disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by the same laws of refraction and reflection by which the sun now appears to be above the horizon when it is really below. the medium through which the sun's rays passed may have been miraculously influenced so as to have caused the sun to linger above the horizon long after its usual time for disappearance." this is the latest and ripest product of christian scholarship upon this question no doubt, but still it is not entirely satisfactory to me. according to the sacred account the sun did not linger, merely, above the horizon, but stood still "in the midst of heaven for about a whole day," that is to say, for about twelve hours. if the air was miraculously changed, so that it would refract the rays of the sun while the earth turned over as usual for "about a whole day," then, at the end of that time the sun must have been visible in the east, that is, it must by that time have been the next morning. according to this, that most wonderful day must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. we have first, the twelve hours of natural light, then twelve hours of "refracted and reflected" light. by that time it would again be morning, and the sun would shine for twelve hours more in the natural way, making thirty-six hours in all. if the rev. morey would depend a little less on "refraction" and a little more on "reflection," he would conclude that the whole story is simply a barbaric myth and fable. it hardly seems reasonable that god, if there is one, would either stop the globe, change the constitution of the atmosphere or the nature of light simply to afford joshua an opportunity to kill people on that day when he could just as easily have waited until the next morning. it certainly cannot be very gratifying to god for us to believe such childish things. it has been demonstrated that force is eternal; that it is forever active, and eludes destruction by change of form. motion is a form of force, and all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. the earth turns upon its axis at about one thousand miles an hour. let it be stopped and a force beyond our imagination is changed to heat. it has been calculated that to stop the world would produce as much heat as the burning of a solid piece of coal three times the size of the earth. and yet we are asked to believe that this was done in order that one barbarian might defeat another. such stories never would have been written, had not the belief been general that the heavenly bodies were as nothing compared with the earth. the view of moses was acquiesced in by the jewish people and by the christian world for thousands of years. it is supposed that moses lived about fifteen hundred years before christ, and although he was "inspired," and obtained his information directly from god, he did not know as much about our solar system as the chinese did a thousand years before he was born. "the emperor chwenhio adopted as an epoch, a conjunction of the planets mercury, mars, jupiter and saturn, which has been shown by m. bailly to have occurred no less than years before christ." the ancient chinese knew not only the motions of the planets, but they could calculate eclipses. "in the reign of the emperor chow-kang, the chief astronomers, ho and hi were condemned to death for neglecting to announce a solar eclipse which took place b. c, a clear proof that the prediction of eclipses was a part of the duty of the imperial astronomers." is it not strange that a chinaman should find out by his own exertions more about the material universe than moses could when assisted by its creator? about eight hundred years after god gave moses the principal facts about the creation of the "heaven and the earth" he performed another miracle far more wonderful than stopping the world. on this occasion he not only stopped the earth, but actually caused it to turn the other way. a jewish king was sick, and god, in order to convince him that he would ultimately recover, offered to make the shadow on the dial go forward, or backward ten degrees. the king thought it was too easy a thing to make the shadow go forward, and asked that it be turned back. thereupon, "isaiah the prophet cried unto the lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of ahaz." i hardly see how this miracle could be accounted for even by "refraction" and "reflection." it seems, from the account, that this stupendous miracle was performed after the king had been cured. the account of the shadow going backward is given in the eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of second kings, while the cure is given in the seventh verse of the same chapter. "and isaiah said, take a lump of figs. and they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." stopping the world and causing it to turn back ten degrees after that, seems to have been, as the boil was already cured by the figs, a useless display of power. the easiest way to account for all these wonders is to say that the "inspired" writers were mistaken. in this way a fearful burden is lifted from the credulity of man, and he is left free to believe the evidences of his own senses, and the demonstrations of science. in this way he can emancipate himself from the slavery of superstition, the control of the barbaric dead, and the despotism of the church. only about a hundred years ago, buffon, the naturalist, was compelled by the faculty of theology at paris to publicly renounce fourteen "errors" in his work on natural history because they were at variance with the mosaic account of creation. the pentateuch is still the scientific standard of the church, and ignorant priests, armed with that, pronounce sentence upon the vast accomplishments of modern thought. x. "he made the stars also." moses came very near forgetting about the stars, and only gave five words to all the hosts of heaven. can it be possible that he knew anything about the stars beyond the mere fact that he saw them shining above him? did he know that the nearest star, the one we ought to be the best acquainted with, is twenty-one billion of miles away, and that it is a sun shining by its own light? did he know of the next, that is thirty-seven billion miles distant? is it possible that he was acquainted with sirius, a sun two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight times larger than our own, surrounded by a system of heavenly bodies, several of which are already known, and distant from us eighty-two billion miles? did he know that the polar star that tells the mariner his course and guided slaves to liberty and joy, is distant from this little world two hundred and ninety-two billion miles, and that capella wheels and shines one hundred and thirty-three billion miles beyond? did he know that it would require about seventy-two years for light to reach us from this star? did he know that light travels one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second? did he know that some stars are so far away in the infinite abysses that five millions of years are required for their light to reach this globe? if this is true, and if as the bible tells us, the stars were made after the earth, then this world has been wheeling in its orbit for at least five million years. it may be replied that it was not the intention of god to teach geology and astronomy. then why did he say anything upon these subjects? and if he did say anything, why did he not give the facts? according to the sacred records god created, on the first day, the heaven and the earth, "moved upon the face of the waters," and made the light. on the second day he made the firmament or the "expanse" and divided the waters. on the third day he gathered the waters into seas, let the dry land appear and caused the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and fruit trees, and on the fourth day he made the sun, moon and stars and set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. this division of labor is very striking. the work of the other days is as nothing when compared with that of the fourth. is it possible that it required the same time and labor to make the grass, herbs and fruit trees, that it did to fill with countless constellations the infinite expanse of space? xi. friday we are then told that on the next day "god said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. and god created great whales and every living creature which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and god saw that it was good. and god blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely devoid of life, and so remained for millions of years? if moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then it would make but little difference on which of the six days animals were made; but if the word day was used to express millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from monad up to man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd, puerile and foolish. there is not a scientist of high standing who will say that in his judgment the earth was covered with fruit bearing trees before the moners, the ancestors it may be of the human race, felt in laurentian seas the first faint throb of life. nor is there one who will declare that there was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured upon the world his flood of gold. why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between nature and a book? why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told? if there is a god, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is-the author of the bible. why then should we not place greater confidence in nature than in a book? and even if this god made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. it seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of jonah or the diet of ezekiel. for my part, i would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as moses was. supposing the bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for free-thinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? why should we be damned for laughing at samson and his foxes, while others, holding the nebular hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? it seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. we are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to god even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the copernican system, the three laws of kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. and we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost. xii. saturday on this, the last day of creation, god said:--"let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so. and god made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and god saw that it was good." now, is it true that the seas were filled with fish, the sky with fowls, and the earth covered with grass, and herbs, and fruit bearing trees, millions of ages before there was a creeping thing in existence? must we admit that plants and animals were the result of the fiat of some incomprehensible intelligence independent of the operation of what are known as natural causes? why is a miracle any more necessary to account for yesterday than for to-day or for to-morrow? if there is an infinite power, nothing can be more certain than that this power works in accordance with what we call law, that is, by and through natural causes. if anything can be found without a pedigree of natural antecedents, it will then be time enough to talk about the fiat of creation. there must have been a time when plants and animals did not exist upon this globe. the question, and the only question is, whether they were naturally produced. if the account given by moses is true, then the vegetable and animal existences are the result of certain special fiats of creation entirely independent of the operation of natural causes. this is so grossly improbable, so at variance with the experience and observation of mankind, that it cannot be adopted without abandoning forever the basis of scientific thought and action. it may be urged that we do not understand the sacred record correctly. to this it may be replied that for thousands of years the account of the creation has, by the jewish and christian world, been regarded as literally true. if it was inspired, of course god must have known just how it would be understood, and consequently must have intended that it should be understood just as he knew it would be. one man writing to another, may mean one thing, and yet be understood as meaning something else. now, if the writer knew that he would be misunderstood, and also knew that he could use other words that would convey his real meaning, but did not, we would say that he used words on purpose to mislead, and was not an honest man. if a being of infinite wisdom wrote the bible, or caused it to be written, he must have known exactly how his words would be interpreted by all the world, and he must have intended to convey the very meaning that was conveyed. he must have known that by reading that book, man would form erroneous views as to the shape, antiquity, and size of this world; that he would be misled as to the time and order of creation; that he would have the most childish and contemptible views of the creator; that the "sacred word" would be used to support slavery and polygamy; that it would build dungeons for the good, and light fagots to consume the brave, and therefore he must have intended that these results should follow. he also must have known that thousands and millions of men and women never could believe his bible, and that the number of unbelievers would increase in the exact ratio of civilization, and therefore, he must have intended that result. let us understand this. an honest finite being uses the best words, in his judgment, to convey his meaning. this is the best he can do, because he cannot certainly know the exact effect of his words on others. but an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. he must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. he must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. if an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from god through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly. it may be urged that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in the plainest words. to this it seems a sufficient reply to ask, why a being of infinite power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any means make known to them his will? we are told that it is exceedingly plain, and that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. this statement is refuted by the religious history of the christian world. every sect is a certificate that god has not plainly revealed his will to man. to each reader the bible conveys a different meaning. about the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. if written by an infinite god, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all. is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its time?" if there are mistakes in the bible, certainly they were made by man. if there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. if there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind. xiii. let us make man we are next informed by the author of the pentateuch that god said "let us make man in our image, after our likeness," and that "god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him--male and female created he them." if this account means anything, it means that man was created in the physical image and likeness of god. moses while he speaks of man as having been made in the image of god, never speaks of god except as having the form of a man. he speaks of god as "walking in the garden in the cool of the day;" and that adam and eve "heard his voice." he is constantly telling what god said, and in a thousand passages he refers to him as not only having the human form, but as performing actions, such as man performs. the god of moses was a god with hands, with feet, with the organs of speech. a god of passion, of hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance; a god who made mistakes:--in other words, an immense and powerful man. it will not do to say that moses meant to convey the idea that god made man in his mental or moral image. some have insisted that man was made in the moral image of god because he was made pure. purity cannot be manufactured. a moral character cannot be made for man by a god. every man must make his own moral character. consequently, if god is infinitely pure, adam and eve were not made in his image in that respect. others say that adam and eve were made in the mental image of god. if it is meant by that, that they were created with reasoning powers like, but not to the extent of those possessed by a god, then this may be admitted. but certainly this idea was not in the mind of moses. he regarded the human form as being in the image of god, and for that reason always spoke of god as having that form. no one can read the pentateuch without coming to the conclusion that the author supposed that man was created in the physical likeness of deity. god said "go to, let us go down." "god smelled a sweet savor;" "god repented him that he had made man;" "and god said;" and "walked;" and "talked;" and "rested." all these expressions are inconsistent with any other idea than that the person using them regarded god as having the form of man. as a matter of fact, it is impossible for a man to conceive of a personal god, other than as a being having the human form. no one can think of an infinite being having the form of a horse, or of a bird, or of any animal beneath man. it is one of the necessities of the mind to associate forms with intellectual capacities. the highest form of which we have any conception is man's, and consequently, his is the only form that we can find in imagination to give to a personal god, because all other forms are, in our minds, connected with lower intelligences. it is impossible to think of a personal god as a spirit without form. we can use these words, but they do not convey to the mind any real and tangible meaning. every one who thinks of a personal god at all, thinks of him as having the human form. take from god the idea of form; speak of him simply as an all pervading spirit--which means an all pervading something about which we know nothing--and pantheism is the result. we are told that god made man; and the question naturally arises, how was this done? was it by a process of "evolution," "development;" the "transmission of acquired habits;" the "survival of the fittest," or was the necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consistency, and then by the hands of god moulded into form? modern science tells that man has been evolved, through countless epochs, from the lower forms; that he is the result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions, experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. did moses intend to convey such a meaning, or did he believe that god took a sufficient amount of dust, made it the proper shape, and breathed into it the breath of life? can any believer in the bible give any reasonable account of this process of creation? is it possible to imagine what was really done? is there any theologian who will contend that man was created directly from the earth? will he say that man was made substantially as he now is, with all his muscles properly developed for walking and speaking, and performing every variety of human action? that all his bones were formed as they now are, and all the relations of nerve, ligament, brain and motion as they are to-day? looking back over the history of animal life from the lowest to the highest forms, we find that there has been a slow and gradual development; a certain but constant relation between want and production; between use and form. the moner is said to be the simplest form of animal life that has yet been found. it has been described as "an organism without organs." it is a kind of structureless structure; a little mass of transparent jelly that can flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its food. it can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. by taking this moner as the commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of life to man himself. in this way finally every muscle, bone and joint, every organ, form and function may be accounted for. in this way, and in this way only, can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained. blot from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity, adaptation, and "the survival of the fittest," with which it has been enriched by lamarck, goethe, darwin, hæckel and spencer, and all the facts in the history of animal life become utterly disconnected and meaningless. shall we throw away all that has been discovered with regard to organic life, and in its place take the statements of one who lived in the rude morning of a barbaric day? will anybody now contend that man was a direct and independent creation, and sustains and bears no relation to the animals below him? belief upon this subject must be governed at last by evidence. man cannot believe as he pleases. he can control his speech, and can say that he believes or disbelieves; but after all, his will cannot depress or raise the scales with which his reason finds the worth and weight of facts. if this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment and reason are but empty words. i ask again, how were adam and eve created? in one account they are created male and female, and apparently at the same time. in the next account, adam is made first, and eve a long time afterwards, and from a part of the man. did god simply by his creative fiat cause a rib slowly to expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage and flesh? how was the woman created from a rib? how was man created simply from dust? for my part, i cannot believe this statement. i may suffer for this in the world to come; and may millions of years hence, sincerely wish that i had never investigated the subject, but had been content to take the ideas of the dead. i do not believe that any deity works in that way. so far as my experience goes, there is an unbroken procession of cause and effect. each thing is a necessary link in an infinite chain; and i cannot conceive of this chain being broken even for one instant. back of the simplest moner there is a cause, and back of that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever. in my philosophy i postulate neither beginning nor ending. if the mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this earth. if that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. sixteen hundred and fifty-six years after the making of the first man, the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of eight people, were destroyed by a flood. this flood occurred only about four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. if this account is correct, at that time, only one kind of men existed: noah and his family were certainly of the same blood. it therefore follows that all the differences we see between the various races of men have been caused in about four thousand years. if the account of the deluge is true, then since that event all the ancient kingdoms of the earth were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric and semi-civilized life; through the epochs of stone, bronze and iron; established commerce, cultivated the arts, built cities, filled them with palaces and temples, invented writing, produced a literature and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. we must believe that all this has happened within a period of four thousand years. from representations found upon egyptian granite made more than three thousand years ago, we know that the negro was as black, his lips as full, and his hair as closely curled then as now. if we know anything, we know that there was at that time substantially the same difference between the egyptian and the negro as now. if we know anything, we know that magnificent statues were made in egypt four thousand years before our era--that is to say, about six thousand years ago. there was at the world's exposition, in the egyptian department, a statue of king cephren, known to have been chiseled more than six thousand years ago. in other words, if the mosaic account must be believed, this statue was made before the world. we also know, if we know anything, that men lived in europe with the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyena. among the bones of these animals have been found the stone hatchets and flint arrows of our ancestors. in the caves where they lived have been discovered the remains of these animals that had been conquered, killed and devoured as food, hundreds of thousands of years ago. if these facts are true, moses was mistaken. for my part, i have infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of to-day, than in the records of a barbarous people. it will not now do to say that man has existed upon this earth for only about six thousand years. one can hardly compute in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge from the barbarous state, naked and helpless, surrounded by animals far more powerful than he, to progress and finally create the civilizations of india, egypt and athens. the distance from savagery to shakespeare must be measured not by hundreds, but by millions of years. xiv. sunday "and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which god created and made." the great work had been accomplished, the world, the sun, and moon, and all the hosts of heaven were finished; the earth was clothed in green, the seas were filled with life, the cattle wandered by the brooks--insects with painted wings were in the happy air, adam and eve were making each other's acquaintance, and god was resting from his work. he was contemplating the accomplishments of a week. because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for that reason and for that alone, it was by the jews considered a holy day. if he only rested on that day, there ought to be some account of what he did the following monday. did he rest on that day? what did he do after he got rested? has he done anything in the way of creation since saturday evening of the first week? it is, now claimed by the "scientific" christians that the "days" of creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but immensely long periods of time. if they are right, then how long was the seventh day? was that, too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages? that cannot be, because adam and eve were created the saturday evening before, and according to the bible that was about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. i cannot state the time exactly, because there have been as many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by learned biblical students as to the time between the creation of the world and the birth of christ. we are quite certain, however, that, according to the bible, it is not more than six thousand years since the creation of adam. from this it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic epoch, but was in fact a period of less than six thousand years, and probably of only twenty-four hours. the theologians who "answer" these things may take their choice. if they take the ground that the "days" were periods of twenty-four hours, then geology will force them to throw away the whole account. if, on the other hand, they admit that the days were vast "periods," then the sacredness of the sabbath must be given up. there is found in the bible no intimation that there was the least difference in the days. they are all spoken of in the same way. it may be replied that our translation is incorrect. if this is so, then only those who understand hebrew, have had a revelation from god, and all the rest have been deceived. how is it possible to sanctify a space of time? is rest holier than labor? if there is any difference between days, ought not that to be considered best in which the most useful labor has been performed? of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred sabbath" is the most absurd. the idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the time! to think that we can please an infinite being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the perfumed fields! why should god hate to see a man happy? why should it excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking, laughing and loving? nature works on that "sacred" day. the earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song. why should we look sad, and think about death, and hear about hell? why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy? a poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood--a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength for toils to come. and his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air, away from street and wall, amid the hills or by the margin of the sea, where she can sit and prattle with her babe, and fill with happy dreams the long, glad day. the "sabbath" was born of asceticism, hatred of human joy, fanaticism, ignorance, egotism of priests and the cowardice of the people. this day, for thousands of years, has been dedicated to superstition, to the dissemination of mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. every freethinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. he should assert his independence, and do all within his power to wrest the sabbath from the gloomy church and give it back to liberty and joy. freethinkers should make the sabbath a day of mirth and music; a day to spend with wife and child--a day of games, and books, and dreams--a day to put fresh flowers above our sleeping dead--a day of memory and hope, of love and rest. why should we in this age of the world be dominated by the dead? why should barbarian jews who went down to death and dust three thousand years ago, control the living world? why should we care for the superstition of men who began the sabbath by paring their nails, "beginning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then to the fifth, then to the third, and ending with the thumb?" how pleasing to god this must have been. the jews were very careful of these nail parings. they who threw them upon the ground were wicked, because satan used them to work evil upon the earth. they believed that upon the sabbath, souls were allowed to leave purgatory and cool their burning souls in water. fires were neither allowed to be kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was a sin to bind up wounds. "the lame might use a staff, but the blind could not." so strict was the sabbath kept, that at one time "if a jew on a journey was overtaken by the 'sacred day' in a wood, or on the highway, no matter where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down," and there remain until the day was gone. "if he fell down in the dirt, there he was compelled to stay until the day was done." for violating the sabbath, the punishment was death, for nothing short of the offender's blood could satisfy the wrath of god. there are, in the old testament, two reasons given for abstaining from labor on the sabbath:--the resting of god, and the redemption of the jews from the bondage of egypt. since the establishment of the christian religion, the day has been changed, and christians do not regard the day as holy upon which god actually rested, and which he sanctified. the christian sabbath, or the "lord's day" was legally established by the murderer constantine, because upon that day christ was supposed to have risen from the dead. it is not easy to see where christians got the right to disregard the direct command of god, to labor on the day he sanctified, and keep as sacred, a day upon which he commanded men to labor. the sabbath of god is saturday, and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the sunday of the christian. let us throw away these superstitions and take the higher, nobler ground, that every day should be rendered sacred by some loving act, by increasing the happinesss of man, giving birth to noble thoughts, putting in the path of toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the fallen, dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending the helpless and filling homes with light and love. xv. the necessity for a good memory it must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in genesis. the first account stops with the third verse of the second chapter. the chapters have been improperly divided. in the original hebrew the pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. there was not even any system of punctuation. it was written wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them. these accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. let us see wherein they differ. the second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and is as follows: "these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens. "and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the lord god had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. "but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. "and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. "and the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. "and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. "and a river went out of eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. "the name of the first is pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of havilah, where there is gold. "and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. "and the name of the second river is gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of ethiopia. "and the name of the third river is hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of assyria. and the fourth river is euphrates. "and the lord god took the man, and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it. "and the lord god commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. "and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him an helpmeet for him. "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "and adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for adam there was not found a helpmeet for him. "and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. "and the rib, which the lord god had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. "and adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. "therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. "and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." order of creation in the first account: . the heaven and the earth, and light were made. . the firmament was constructed and the waters divided. . the waters gathered into seas--and then came dry land, grass, herbs and fruit trees. . the sun and moon. he made the stars also. . fishes, fowls, and great whales. . beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman. order of creation in the second account: . the heavens and the earth. . a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. . created a man out of dust, by the name of adam. . planted a garden eastward in eden, and put the man in it. . created the beasts and fowls. . created a woman out of one of the man's ribs. in the second account, man was made _before_ the beasts and fowls. if this is true, the first account is false. and if the theologians of our time are correct in their view that the mosaic day means thousands of ages, then, according to the second account, adam existed millions of years before eve was formed. he must have lived one mosaic day before there were any trees, and another mosaic day before the beasts and fowls were created. will some kind clergymen tell us upon what kind of food adam subsisted during these immense periods? in the second account a man is made, and the fact that he was without a helpmeet did not occur to the lord god until a couple "of vast periods" afterwards. the lord god suddenly coming to an appreciation of the situation said, "it is not good that the man should be alone. i will make him a helpmeet for him." now, after concluding to make "an helpmeet" for adam, what did the lord god do? did he at once proceed to make a woman? no. what did he do? he made the beasts, and tried to induce adam to take one of them for "an helpmeet." if i am incorrect, read the following account, and tell me what it means: "and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him an helpmeet for him. "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "and adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for him." unless the lord god was looking for an helpmeet for adam, why did he cause the animals to pass before him? and why did he, after the menagerie had passed by, pathetically exclaim, "but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for him?" it seems that adam saw nothing that struck his fancy. the fairest ape, the sprightliest chimpanzee, the loveliest baboon, the most bewitching orangoutang, the most fascinating gorilla failed to touch with love's sweet pain, poor adam's lonely heart. let us rejoice that this was so. had he fallen in love then, there never would have been a freethinker in this world. dr. adam clark, speaking of this remarkable proceeding says:--"god caused the animals to pass before adam to show him that no creature yet formed could make him a suitable companion; that adam was convinced that none of these animals could be a suitable companion for him, and that therefore he must continue in a state that was not good (celibacy) unless he became a further debtor to the bounty of his maker, for among all the animals which he had formed, there was not a helpmeet for adam." upon this same subject, dr. scott informs us "that it was not conducive to the happiness of the man to remain without the consoling society, and endearment of tender friendship, nor consistent with the end of his creation to be without marriage by which the earth might be replenished and worshipers and servants raised up to render him praise and glory. adam seems to have been vastly better acquainted by intuition or revelation with the distinct properties of every creature than the most sagacious observer since the fall of man. "upon this review of the animals, not one was found in outward form his counterpart, nor one suited to engage his affections, participate in his enjoyments, or associate with him in the worship of god." dr. matthew henry admits that "god brought all the animals together to see if there was a suitable match for adam in any of the numerous families of the inferior creatures, but there was none. they were all looked over, but adam could not be matched among them all. therefore god created a new thing to be a helpmeet for him." failing to satisfy adam with any of the inferior animals, the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in this sleep took out one of adam's ribs and "closed up the flesh instead thereof." and out of this rib, the lord god made a woman, and brought her to the man. was the lord god compelled to take a part of the man because he had used up all the original "nothing" out of which the universe was made? is it possible for any sane and intelligent man to believe this story? must a man be born a second time before this account seems reasonable? imagine the lord god with a bone in his hand with which to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette! just at this point it may be proper for me to warn all persons from laughing at or making light of, any stories found in the "holy bible." when you come to die, every laugh will be a thorn in your pillow. at that solemn moment, as you look back upon the records of your life, no matter how many men you may have wrecked and ruined; no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted, all that can be forgiven; but if you remember then that you have laughed at even one story in god's "sacred book" you will see through the gathering shadows of death the forked tongues of devils, and the leering eyes of fiends. these stories must be believed, or the work of regeneration can never be commenced. no matter how well you act your part, live as honestly as you may, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, divide your last farthing with the poor, and you are simply traveling the broad road that leads inevitably to eternal death, unless at the same time you implicitly believe the bible to be the inspired word of god. let me show you the result of unbelief. let us suppose, for a moment, that we are at the day of judgment, listening to the trial of souls as they arrive. the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, says to a soul: where are you from? i am from the earth. what kind of a man were you? well, i don't like to talk about myself. i suppose you can tell by looking at your books. no sir. you must tell what kind of a man you were. well, i was what you might call a first-rate fellow. i loved my wife and children. my home was my heaven. my fireside was a paradise to me. to sit there and see the lights and shadows fall upon the faces of those i loved, was to me a perfect joy. how did you treat your family? i never said an unkind word. i never caused my wife, nor one of my children, a moment's pain. did you pay your debts? i did not owe a dollar when i died, and left enough to pay my funeral expenses, and to keep the fierce wolf of want from the door of those i loved. did you belong to any church? no sir. they were too narrow, pinched and bigoted for me, i never thought that i could be very happy if other folks were damned. did you believe in eternal punishment? well, no. i always thought that god could get his revenge in far less time. did you believe the rib story? do you mean the adam and eve business? yes! did you believe that? to tell you the god's truth, that was just a little more than i could swallow. away with him to hell! next! where are you from? i am from the world too. did you belong to any church? yes sir, and to the young men's christian association besides. what was your business? cashier in a savings bank. did you ever run away with any money? where i came from, a witness could not be compelled to criminate himself. the law is different here. answer the question. did you run away with any money? yes sir. how much? one hundred thousand dollars. did you take anything else with you? yes sir. well, what else? i took my neighbor's wife--we sang together in the choir. did you have a wife and children of your own? yes sir. and you deserted them? yes sir, but such was my confidence in god that i believed he would take care of them. have you heard of them since? no sir. did you believe in the rib story? bless your soul, of course i did. a thousand times i regretted that there were no harder stories in the bible, so that i could have shown my wealth of faith. do you believe the rib story yet? yes, with all my heart. give him a harp! well, as i was saying, god made a woman from adam's rib. of course, i do not know exactly how this was done, but when he got the woman finished, he presented her to adam. he liked her, and they commenced house-keeping in the celebrated garden of eden. must we, in order to be good, gentle and loving in our lives, believe that the creation of woman was a second thought? that jehovah really endeavored to induce adam to take one of the lower animals as an helpmeet for him? after all, is it not possible to live honest and courageous lives without believing these fables? it is said that from mount sinai god gave, amid thunderings and lightnings, ten commandments for the guidance of mankind; and yet among them is not found--"thou shalt believe the bible." xvi. the garden in the first account we are told that god made man, male and female, and said to them "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." in the second account only the man is made, and he is put in a garden "to dress it and to keep it." he is not told to subdue the earth, but to dress and keep a garden. in the first account man is given every herb bearing seed upon the face of the earth and the fruit of every tree for food, and in the second, he is given only the fruit of all the trees in the garden with the exception "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which was a deadly poison. there was issuing from this garden a river that was parted into four heads. the first of these, pison, compassed the whole land of havilah, the second, gihon, that compassed the whole land of ethiopia, the third, heddekel, that flowed toward the east of assyria, and the fourth, the euphrates. where are these four rivers now? the brave prow of discovery has visited every sea; the traveler has pressed with weary feet the soil of every clime; and yet there has been found no place from which four rivers sprang. the euphrates still journeys to the gulf, but where are pison, gihon and the mighty heddekel? surely by going to the source of the euphrates we ought to find either these three rivers or their ancient beds. will some minister when he answers the "mistakes of moses" tell us where these rivers are or were? the maps of the world are incomplete without these mighty streams. we have discovered the sources of the nile; the north pole will soon be touched by an american; but these three rivers still rise in unknown hills, still flow through unknown lands, and empty still in unknown seas. the account of these four rivers is what the rev. david swing would call "a geographical poem." the orthodox clergy cover the whole affair with the blanket of allegory, while the "scientific" christian folks talk about cataclysms, upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the earth's crust. the question, then arises, whether within the last six thousand years there have been such upheavals and displacements? talk as you will about the vast "creative periods" that preceded the appearance of man; it is, according to the bible, only about six thousand years since man was created. moses gives us the generations of men from adam until his day, and this account cannot be explained away by calling centuries, days. according to the second account of creation, these four rivers were made after the creation of man, and consequently they must have been obliterated by convulsions of nature within six thousand years. can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods by simply saying that although the writer may have done his level best, he failed because he was limited in knowledge, led away by tradition, and depended too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination? is not such a course far more reasonable than to insist that all these things are true and must stand though every science shall fall to mental dust? can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? what kind of tree was that? if it is all an allegory, what truth is sought to be conveyed? why should god object to that fruit being eaten by man? why did he put it in the midst of the garden? there was certainly plenty of room outside. if he wished to keep man and this tree apart, why did he put them together? and why, after he had eaten, was he thrust out? the only answer that we have a right to give, is the one given in the bible. "and the lord god said, behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." will some minister, some graduate of andover, tell us what this means? are we bound to believe it without knowing what the meaning is? if it is a revelation, what does it reveal? did god object to education then, and does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by theologians towards all scientific truth? was there in the garden a tree of life, the eating of which would have rendered adam and eve immortal? is it true, that after the lord god drove them from the garden that he placed upon its eastern side "cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life?" are the cherubims and the flaming sword guarding that tree yet, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting trunk, as the rev. robert collyer suggests "nourish a bank of violets?" what objection could god have had to the immortality of man? you see that after all, this sacred record, instead of assuring us of immortality, shows us only how we lost it. in this there is assuredly but little consolation. according to this story we have lost one eden, but nowhere in the mosaic books are we told how we may gain another. i know that the christians tell us there is another, in which all true believers will finally be gathered, and enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing the unbelievers in hell; but they do not tell us where it is. some commentators say that the garden of eden was in the third heaven--some in the fourth, others have located it in the moon, some in the air beyond the attraction of the earth, some on the earth, some under the earth, some inside the earth, some at the north pole, others at the south, some in tartary, some in china, some on the borders of the ganges, some in the island of ceylon, some in armenia, some in africa, some under the equator, others in mesopotamia, in syria, persia, arabia, babylon, assyria, palestine and europe. others have contended that it was invisible, that it was an allegory, and must be spiritually understood. but whether you understand these things or not, you must believe them. you may be laughed at in this world for insisting that god put adam into a deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be crowned and glorified in the next you will also have the pleasure of hearing the gentlemen howl there, who laughed at you here. while you will not be permitted to take any revenge, you will be allowed to smilingly express your entire acquiescence in the will of god. but where is the new eden? no one knows. the one was lost, and the other has not been found. is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent, and that he became degenerate by disobedience? no. the real truth is, and the history of man shows, that he has advanced. events, like the pendulum of a clock have swung forward and backward, but after all, man, like the hands, has gone steadily on. man is growing grander. he is not degenerating. nations and individuals fail and die, and make room for higher forms. the intellectual horizon of the world widens as the centuries pass. ideals grow grander and purer; the difference between justice and mercy becomes less and less; liberty enlarges, and love intensifies as the years sweep on. the ages of force and fear, of cruelty and wrong, are behind us and the real eden is beyond. it is said that a desire for knowledge lost us the eden of the past; but whether that is true or not, it will certainly give us the eden of the future. xvii. the fall we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, that he had a conversation with eve, in which he gave his opinion about the effect of eating certain fruit; that he assured her it was good to eat, that it was pleasant to the eye, that it would make her wise; that she was induced to take some; that she persuaded her husband to try it; that god found it out, that he then cursed the snake; condemning it to crawl and eat the dust; that he multiplied the sorrows of eve, cursed the ground for adam's sake, started thistles and thorns, condemned man to eat the herb of the field in the sweat of his face, pronounced the curse of death, "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," made coats of skins for adam and eve, and drove them out of eden. who, and what was this serpent? dr. adam clark says:--"the serpent must have walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment. that he was endued with the gift of speech, also with reason. that these things were given to this creature. the woman no doubt having often seen him walking erect, and talking and reasoning, therefore she testifies no sort of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text. it therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or orangoutang kind is here intended, and that satan made use of this creature as the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against the life of the soul of man. under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he seduced our first parents. such a creature answers to every part of the description in the text. it is evident from the structure of its limbs and its muscles that it might have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing else than the sovereign controlling power could induce it to put down hands--in every respect formed like those of man--and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed parts prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours. the stealthy cunning, and endless variety of the pranks and tricks of these creatures show them even now to be wiser and more intelligent than any other creature man alone excepted. being obliged to walk on all fours and gather their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though exceeding cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety. add to this their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything offends or irritates them more than to be obliged to do it. long observation of these animals enables me to state these facts. for earnest, attentive watching, and for chattering and babbling they (the ape) have no fellows in the animal world. indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter, is all they have left of their original gift of speech, of which they appear to have been deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment." here then is the "connecting link" between man and the lower creation. the serpent was simply an orang-outang that spoke hebrew with the greatest ease, and had the outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in manner, plausible, polite, and most admirably calculated to deceive. it never did seem reasonable to me that a long, cold and disgusting snake with an apple in his mouth, could deceive anybody; and i am glad, even at this late date to know that the something that persuaded eve to taste the forbidden fruit was, at least, in the shape of a man. dr. henry does not agree with the zoological explanation of mr. clark, but insists that "it is certain that the devil that beguiled eve is the old serpent, a malignant by creation, an angel of light, an immediate attendant upon god's throne, but by sin an apostate from his first state, and a rebel against god's crown and dignity. he who attacked our first parents was surely the prince of devils, the ring leader in rebellion. the devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a specious creature, has a spotted, dappled skin, and then, went erect. perhaps it was a flying serpent which seemed to come from on high, as a messenger from the upper world, one of the seraphim; because the serpent is a subtile creature. what eve thought of this serpent speaking to her, we are not likely to tell, and, i believe, she herself did not know what to think of it. at first, perhaps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet afterwards might suspect something amiss. the person tempted was a woman, now-alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden tree. it was the devil's subtlety to assault the weaker vessel with his temptations, as we may suppose her inferior to adam in knowledge, strength and presence of mind. some think that eve received the command not immediately from god, but at second hand from her husband, and might, therefore, be the more easily persuaded to discredit it. it was the policy of the devil to enter into discussion with her when she was alone. he took advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree. god permitted satan to prevail over eve, for wise and holy ends. satan teaches men first to doubt, and then to deny. he makes skeptics first, and by degrees makes them atheists." we are compelled to admit that nothing could be more attractive to a woman than a snake walking erect, with a "spotted, dappled skin," unless it were a serpent with wings. is it not humiliating to know that our ancestors believed these things? why should we object to the darwinian doctrine of descent after this? our fathers thought it their duty to believe, thought it a sin to entertain the slightest doubt, and really supposed that their credulity was exceedingly gratifying to god. to them, the story was entirely real. they could see the garden, hear the babble of waters, smell the perfume of flowers. they believed there was a tree where knowledge grew like plums or pears; and they could plainly see the serpent coiled amid its rustling leaves, coaxing eve to violate the laws of god. where did the serpent come from? on which of the six days was he created? who made him? is it possible that god would make a successful rival? he must have known that adam and eve would fall. he knew what a snake with a "spotted, dappled skin" could do with an inexperienced woman. why did he not defend his children? he knew that if the serpent got into the garden, adam and eve would sin, that he would have to drive them out, that afterwards the world would be destroyed, and that he himself would die upon the cross. again, i ask what and who was this serpent? he was not a man, for only one man had been made. he was not a woman. he was not a beast of the field, because "he was more subtile than any beast of the field which the lord god had made." he was neither fish nor fowl, nor snake, because he had the power of speech, and did not crawl upon his belly until after he was cursed. where did this serpent come from? why was he not kept out of the garden? why did not the lord god take him by the tail and snap his head off? why did he not put adam and eve on their guard about this serpent? they, of course, were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and knew nothing about the serpent's reputation for truth and veracity among his neighbors. probably adam saw him when he was looking for "an helpmeet," and gave him a name, but eve had never met him before. she was not surprised to hear a serpent talk, as that was the first one she had ever met. every thing being new to her, and her husband not being with her just at that moment, it need hardly excite our wonder that she tasted the fruit by way of experiment. neither should we be surprised that when she saw it was good and pleasant to the eye, and a fruit to be desired to make one wise, she had the generosity to divide with her husband. theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse of this serpent, but it seems that he told the exact truth. we are told that this serpent was, in fact, satan, the greatest enemy of mankind, and that he entered the serpent, appearing to our first parents in its body. if this is so, why should the serpent have been cursed? why should god curse the serpent for what had really been done by the devil? did satan remain in the body of the serpent, and in some mysterious manner share his punishment? is it true that when we kill a snake we also destroy an evil spirit, or is there but one devil, and did he perish at the death of the first serpent? is it on account of that transaction in the garden of eden, that all the descendents of adam and eve known as jews and christians hate serpents? do you account for the snake-worship in mexico, africa and india in the same way? what was the form of the serpent when he entered the garden, and in what way did he move from place to place? did he walk or fly? certainly he did not crawl, because that mode of locomotion was pronounced upon him as a curse. upon what food did he subsist before his conversation with eve? we know that after that he lived upon dust, but what did he eat before? it may be that this is all poetic; and the truest poetry is, according to touchstone, "the most feigning." in this same chapter we are informed that "unto adam also and to his wife did the lord god make coats of skins and clothed them." where did the lord god get those skins? he must have taken them from the animals; he was a butcher. then he had to prepare them; he was a tanner. then he made them into coats; he was a tailor. how did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? did the "fall" produce a change in the climate? is it really necessary to believe this account in order to be happy here, or hereafter? does it tend to the elevation of the human race to speak of "god" as a butcher, tanner and tailor? and here, let me say once for all, that when i speak of god, i mean the being described by moses: the jehovah of the jews. there may be for aught i--know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. about this being, if such an one exists, i have nothing to say. he has written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth. when i speak of god, i mean that god who prevented man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world--of that god whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned. xviii. dampness. and it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. "that the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. "and the lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. "there were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when the sons of god came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. "and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. "and it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. "and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that i have made them." from this account it seems that driving adam and eve out of eden did not have the effect to improve them or their children. on the contrary, the world grew worse and worse. they were under the immediate control and government of god, and he from time to time made known his will; but in spite of this, man continued to increase in crime. nothing in particular seems to have been done. not a school was established. there was no written language. there was not a bible in the world. the "scheme of salvation" was kept a profound secret. the five points of calvinism had not been taught. sunday schools had not been opened. in short, nothing had been done for the reformation of the world. god did not even keep his own sons at home, but allowed them to leave their abode in the firmament, and make love to the daughters of men. as a result of this, the world was filled with wickedness and giants to such an extent that god regretted "that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." of course god knew when he made man, that he would afterwards regret it. he knew that the people would grow worse and worse until destruction would be the only remedy. he knew that he would have to kill all except noah and his family, and it is hard to see why he did not make noah and his family in the first place, and leave adam and eve in the original dust. he knew that they would be tempted, that he would have to drive them out of the garden to keep them from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing would be a failure; that satan would defeat his plan; that he could not reform the people; that his own sons would corrupt them, and that at last he would have to drown them all except noah and his family. why was the garden of eden planted? why was the experiment made? why were adam and eve exposed to the seductive arts of the serpent? why did god wait until the cool of the day before looking after his children? why was he not on hand in the morning? why did he fill the world with his own children, knowing that he would have to destroy them? and why does this same god tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his? it is a little curious that when god wished to reform the ante-diluvian world he said nothing about hell; that he had no revivals, no camp-meetings, no tracts, no outpourings of the holy ghost, no baptisms, no noon prayer meetings, and never mentioned the great doctrine of salvation by faith. if the orthodox creeds of the world are true, all those people went to hell without ever having heard that such a place existed. if eternal torment is a fact, surely these miserable wretches ought to have been n warned. they were threatened only with water when they were in fact doomed to eternal fire! is it not strange that god said nothing to adam and eve about a future life; that he should have kept these "infinite verities" to himself and allowed millions to live and die without the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell? it may be that hell was not made at that time. in the six days of creation nothing is said about the construction of a bottomless pit, and the serpent himself did not make his appearance until after the creation of man and woman. perhaps he was made on the first sunday, and from that fact came, it may be, the old couplet, "and satan still some mischief finds for idle hands to do." the sacred historian failed also to tell us when the cherubim and the flaming sword were made, and said nothing about two of the persons composing the trinity. it certainly would have been an easy thing to enlighten adam and his immediate descendants. the world was then only about fifteen hundred and thirty-six years old, and only about three or four generations of men had lived. adam had been dead only about six hundred and six years, and some of his grand children must, at that time, have been alive and well. it is hard to see why god did not civilize these people. he certainly had the power to use, and the wisdom to devise the proper means. what right has a god to fill a world with fiends? can there be goodness in this? why should he make experiments that he knows must fail? is there wisdom in this? and what right has a man to charge an infinite being with wickedness and folly? according to moses, god made up his mind not only to destroy the people, but the beasts and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. what had the beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds done to excite the anger of god? why did he repent having made them? will some christian give us an explanation of this matter? no good man will inflict unnecessary pain upon a beast; how then can we worship a god who cares nothing for the agonies of the dumb creatures that he made? why did he make animals that he knew he would destroy? does god delight in causing pain? he had the power to make the beasts, and fowls, and creeping things in his own good time and way, and it is to be presumed that he made them according to his wish. why should he destroy them? they had committed no sin. they had eaten no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to reach the tree of life. yet this god, in blind unreasoning wrath destroyed "all flesh wherein was the breath of life, and every living thing beneath the sky, and every substance wherein was life that he had made." jehovah, having made up his mind to drown the world, told noah to make an ark of gopher wood three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. a cubit is twenty-two inches; so that the ark was five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet and eight inches wide and fifty-five feet high. this ark was divided into three stories, and had on top, one window twenty-two inches square. ventilation must have been one of jehovah's hobbies. think of a ship larger than the great eastern with only one window, and that but twenty-two inches square! the ark also had one door set in the side thereof that shut from the outside. as soon as this ship was finished, and properly victualed, noah received seven days notice to get the animals in the ark. it is claimed by some of the scientific theologians that the flood was partial, that the waters covered only a small portion of the world, and that consequently only a few animals were in the ark. it is impossible to conceive of language that can more clearly convey the idea of a universal flood than that found in the inspired account. if the flood was only partial, why did god say he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and that every thing that is in the earth shall die?" why did he say "i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air?" why did he say "and every living substance that i have made will i destroy from off the face of the earth?" would a partial, local flood have fulfilled these threats? nothing can be clearer than that the writer of this account intended to convey, and did convey the idea that the flood was universal. why should christians try to deprive god of the glory of having wrought the most stupendous of miracles? is it possible that the infinite could not overwhelm with waves this atom called the earth? do you doubt his power, his wisdom or his justice? believers in miracles should not endeavor to explain them. there is but one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural agencies. the moment you explain a miracle, it disappears. you should depend not upon explanation, but assertion. you should not be driven from the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. you should reply that all miracles are unreasonable. neither should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. the possible is not miraculous. you should take the ground that if miracles were reasonable, and possible, there would be no reward paid for believing them. the christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence. it is enough for god to work miracles without being called upon to substantiate them for the benefit of unbelievers. only a few years ago, the christians believed implicitly in the literal truth of every miracle recorded in the bible. whoever tried to explain them in some natural way, was looked upon as an infidel in disguise, but now he is regarded as a benefactor. the credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are now either "explained," or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory. in the sixth chapter, noah is ordered to take "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort into the ark--male and female." in the seventh chapter the order is changed, and noah is commanded, according to the protestant bible, as follows: "of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean, by two, the male and his female. of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female." according to the catholic bible, noah was commanded--"of all clean beasts take seven and seven, the male and the female. but of the beasts that are unclean two and two, the male and the female. of the fowls also of the air seven and seven, the male and the female." for the purpose of belittling this miracle, many commentators have taken the ground that noah was not ordered to take seven males and seven females of each kind of clean beasts, but seven in all. many christians contend that only seven clean beasts of each kind were taken into the ark--three and a half of each sex. if the account in the seventh chapter means anything, it means _first_, that of each kind of clean beasts, fourteen were to be taken, seven males, and seven females; _second_, that of unclean beasts should be taken, two of each kind, one of each sex, and _third_, that he should take of every kind of fowls, seven of each sex. it is equally clear that the command in the th and th verses of the th chapter, is to take two of each sort, one male and one female. and this agrees exactly with the account in the th, th, th, th. th, and th verses of the th chapter. the next question is, how many beasts, fowls and creeping things did noah take into the ark? there are now known and classified at least twelve thousand five hundred species of birds. there are still vast territories in china, south america, and africa unknown to the ornithologist. of the birds, noah took fourteen of each species, according to the d verse of the th chapter, "of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female," making a total of , birds. and right here allow me to ask a question. if the flood was simply a partial flood, why were birds taken into the ark? it seems to me that most birds, attending strictly to business, might avoid a partial flood. there are at least sixteen hundred and fifty-eight kinds of beasts. let us suppose that twenty-five of these are clean. of the clean, fourteen of each kind--seven of each sex--were taken. these amount to . of the unclean--two of each kind, amounting to , . there are some six hundred and fifty species of reptiles. two of each kind amount to- , . and lastly, there are of insects including the creeping things, at least one million species, so that noah and his folks had to get of these into the ark about , , . animalculae have not been taken into consideration. there are probably many hundreds of thousands of species; many of them invisible; and yet noah had to pick them out by pairs. very few people have any just conception of the trouble noah had. we know that there are many animals on this continent not found in the old world. these must have been carried from here to the ark, and then brought back afterwards. were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti, vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed monkey, the raccoon and muskrat carried by the angels from america to asia? how did they get there? did the polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the tropics? how did he know where the ark was? did the kangaroo swim or jump from australia to asia? did the giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and orang-outang journey from africa in search of the ark? can absurdities go farther than this? what had these animals to eat while on the journey? what did they eat while in the ark? what did they drink? when the rain came, of course the rivers ran to the seas, and these seas rose and finally covered the world. the waters of the seas, mingled with those of the flood, would make all salt. it has been calculated that it required, to drown the world, about eight times as much water as was in all the seas. to find how salt the waters of the flood must have been, take eight quarts of fresh water, and add one quart from the sea. such water would create instead of allaying thirst. noah had to take in his ark fresh water for all his beasts, birds and living things. he had to take the proper food for all. how long was he in the ark? three hundred and seventy-seven days! think of the food necessary for the monsters of the ante-diluvian world! eight persons did all the work. they attended to the wants of , birds, , beasts, , reptiles, and , , insects, saying nothing of countless animalculae. well, after they all got in, noah pulled down the window, god shut the door, and the rain commenced. how long did it rain? forty days. how deep did the water get? about five miles and a half. how much did it rain a day? enough to cover the whole world to a depth of about seven hundred and forty-two feet. some christians say that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. will they be kind enough to tell us what the fountains of the great deep are? others say that god had vast stores of water in the center of the earth that he used on that occasion. how did these waters happen to run up hill? gentlemen, allow me to tell you once more that you must not try to explain these things. your efforts in that direction do no good, because your explanations are harder to believe than the miracle itself. take my advice, stick to assertion, and let explanation alone. then, as now, dhawalagiri lifted its crown of snow twenty-nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and on the cloudless cliffs of chimborazo then, as now, sat the condor; and yet the waters rising seven hundred and twenty-six feet a day--thirty feet an hour, six inches a minute,--rose over the hills, over the volcanoes, filled the vast craters, extinguished all the fires, rose above every mountain peak until the vast world was but one shoreless sea covered with the innumerable dead. was this the work of the most merciful god, the father of us all? if there is a god, can there be the slightest danger of incurring his displeasure by doubting even in a reverential way, the truth of such a cruel lie? if we think that god is kinder than he really is, will our poor souls be burned for that? how many trees can live under miles of water for a year? what became of the soil washed, scattered, dissolved, and covered with the _debris_ of a world? how were the tender plants and herbs preserved? how were the animals preserved after leaving the ark? there was no grass except such as had been submerged for a year. there were no animals to be devoured by the carnivorous beasts. what became of the birds that fed on worms and insects? what became of the birds that devoured other birds? it must be remembered that the pressure of the water when at the highest point--say twenty-nine thousand feet, would have been about eight hundred tons on each square foot. such a pressure certainly would have destroyed nearly every vestige of vegetable life, so that when the animals came out of the ark, there was not a mouthful of food in the wide world. how were they supported until the world was again clothed with grass? how were those animals taken care of that subsisted on others? where did the bees get honey, and the ants seeds? there was not a creeping thing upon the whole earth; not a breathing creature beneath the whole heavens; not a living substance. where did the tenants of the ark get food? there is but one answer, if the story is true. the food necessary not only during the year of the flood, but sufficient for many months afterwards, must have been stored in the ark. there is probably not an animal in the world that will not, in a year, eat and drink ten times its weight. noah must have provided food and water for a year while in the ark, and food for at least six months after they got ashore. it must have required for a pair of elephants, about one hundred and fifty tons of food and water. a couple of mammoths would have required about twice that amount. of course there were other monsters that lived on trees; and in a year would have devoured quite a forest. how could eight persons have distributed this food, even if the ark had been large enough to hold it? how was the ark kept clean? we know how it was ventilated; but what was done with the filth? how were the animals watered? how were some portions of the ark heated for animals from the tropics, and others kept cool for the polar bears? how did the animals get back to their respective countries? some had to creep back about six thousand miles, and they could only go a few feet a day. some of the creeping things must have started for the ark just as soon as they were made, and kept up a steady jog for sixteen hundred years. think of a couple of the slowest snails leaving a point opposite the ark and starting for the plains of shinar, a distance of twelve thousand miles. going at the rate of a mile a month, it would take them a thousand years. how did they get there? polar bears must have gone several thousand miles, and so sudden a change in climate must have been exceedingly trying upon their health. how did they know the way to go? of course, all the polar bears did not go. only two were required. who selected these? two sloths had to make the journey from south america. these creatures cannot travel to exceed three rods a day. at this rate, they would make a mile in about a hundred days. they must have gone about six thousand five hundred miles, to reach the ark. supposing them to have traveled by a reasonably direct route, in order to complete the journey before noah hauled in the plank, they must have started several years before the world was created. we must also consider that these sloths had to board themselves on the way, and that most of their time had to be taken up getting food and water. it is exceedingly doubtful whether a sloth could travel six thousand miles and board himself in less than three thousand years. volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that repository of the impossible, called the bible. to me it is a matter of amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human being. dr. adam clark says that "the animals were brought to the ark by the power of god, and their enmities were so removed or suspended, that the lion could dwell peaceably with the lamb, and the wolf sleep happily by the side of the kid. there is no positive evidence that animal food was ever used before the flood. noah had the first grant of this kind." dr. scott remarks, "there seems to have been a very extraordinary miracle, perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to noah, and rendering them submissive, and peaceful with each other. yet it seems not to have made any impression upon the hardened spectators. the suspension of the ferocity of the savage beasts during their continuance in the ark, is generally considered as an apt figure of the change that takes place in the disposition of sinners when they enter the true church of christ." he believed the deluge to have been universal. in his day science had not demonstrated the absurdity of this belief, and he was not compelled to resort to some theory not found in the bible. he insisted that "by some vast convulsion, the very bowels of the earth were forced upwards, and rain poured down in cataracts and water-spouts, with no intermission for forty days and nights, and until in every place a universal deluge was effected. "the presence of god was the only comfort of noah in his dreary confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the earth and its inhabitants, and especially of the human species--of his companions, his neighbors, his relatives--all those to whom he had preached, for whom he had prayed and over whom he had wept, and even of many who had helped to build the ark. "it seems that by a peculiar providential interposition, no animal of any sort died, although they had been shut up in the ark above a year; and it does not appear that there had been any increase of them during that time. "the ark was flat-bottomed--square at each end--roofed like a house so that it terminated at the top in the breadth of a cubit. it was divided into many little cabins for its intended inhabitants. pitched within and without to keep it tight and sweet, and lighted from the upper part. but it must, at first sight, be evident that so large a vessel, thus constructed, with so few persons on board, was utterly unfitted to weather out the deluge, except it was under the immediate guidance and protection of the almighty." dr. henry furnished the christian world with the following:-- "as our bodies have in them the humors which, when god pleases, become the springs and seeds of mortal disease, so the earth had, in its bowels, those waters which, at god's command, sprung up and flooded it. "god made the world in six days, but he was forty days in destroying it, because he is slow to anger. "the hostilities between the animals in the ark ceased, and ravenous creatures became mild and manageable, so that the wolf lay down with the lamb, and the lion ate straw like an ox. "god shut the door of the ark to secure noah and to keep him safe, and because it was necessary that the door should be shut very close lest the water should break in and sink the ark, and very fast lest others might break it down. "the waters rose so high that not only the low flat countries were deluged, but to make sure work and that none might escape, the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits. that is, seven and a half yards, so that salvation was not hoped for from hills or mountains. "perhaps some of the people got to the top of the ark, and hoped to shift for themselves there. but either they perished there for want of food, or the dashing rain washed them off the top. others, it may be, hoped to prevail with noah for admission into the ark, and plead old acquaintance. "'have we not eaten and drank in thy presence? hast thou not preached in our streets? 'yea,' said noah, 'many a time, but to little purpose. i called but ye refused; and now it is not in my power to help you. god has shut the door and i cannot open it.' "we may suppose that some of those who perished in the deluge had themselves assisted noah, or were employed by him in building the ark. "hitherto, man had been confined to feed only upon the products of the earth. fruits, herbs and roots, and all sorts of greens, and milk, which was the first grant; but the flood having perhaps washed away much of the fruits of the earth, and rendered them much less pleasant and nourishing, god enlarged the grant and allowed him to eat flesh, which perhaps man never thought of until now, that god directed him to it. nor had he any more desire to it than the sheep has to suck blood like the wolf. but now, man is allowed to feed upon flesh as freely and safely as upon the green herb." such was the debasing influence of a belief in the literal truth of the bible upon these men, that their commentaries are filled with passages utterly devoid of common sense. dr. clark speaking of the mammoth says: "this animal, an astonishing proof of god's power, he seems to have produced merely to show what he could do. and after suffering a few of them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a merciful providence, that they might not destroy both man and beast. "we are told that it would have been much easier for god to destroy all the people and make new ones, but he would not want to waste anything and no power or skill should be lavished where no necessity exists. "the animals were brought to the ark by the power of god." again gentlemen, let me warn you of the danger of trying to explain a miracle. let it alone. say that you do not understand it, and do not expect to until taught in the schools of the new jerusalem. the more reasons you give, the more unreasonable the miracle will appear. through what you say in defence people are led to think, and as soon as they really think, the miracle is thrown away. among the most ignorant nations you will find the most wonders, among the most enlightened, the least. it is with individuals, the same as with nations. ignorance believes, intelligence examines and explains. for about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men, animals and insects, tossed and wandered without rudder or sail upon a boundless sea. at last it grounded on the mountains of ararat; and about three months afterwards the tops of the mountains became visible. it must not be forgotten that the mountain where the ark is supposed to have first touched bottom, was about seventeen thousand feet high. how were the animals from the tropics kept warm? when the waters were abated it would be intensely cold at a point seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. may be there were stoves, furnaces, fire places and steam coils in the ark, but they are not mentioned in the inspired narrative. how were the animals kept from freezing? it will not do to say that ararat was not very high after all. if you will read the fourth and fifth verses of the eight chapter you will see that although the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of ararat, it was not until the first day of the tenth month "that the tops of the mountains could be seen." from this it would seem that the ark must have rested upon about the highest peak in that country. noah waited forty days more, and then for the first time opened the window and took a breath of fresh air. he then sent out a raven that did not return, then a dove that returned. he then waited seven days and sent forth a dove that returned not. from this he knew that the waters were abated. is it possible that he could not see whether the waters had gone? is it possible to conceive of a more perfectly childish way of ascertaining whether the earth was dry? at last noah "removed the covering of the ark, and looked and behold the face of the ground was dry," and thereupon god told him to disembark. in his gratitude noah built an altar and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered "burnt offerings". and the lord smelled a sweet savor and said in his heart that he would not any more curse the ground for man's sake. for saying this in his heart the lord gives as a reason, not that man is, or will be good, but because "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." god destroyed man because "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and _because every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually_." and he promised for the same reason not to destroy him again. will some gentleman skilled in theology give us an explanation? after god had smelled the sweet savor of sacrifice, he seems to have changed his idea as to the proper diet for man. when adam and eve were created they were allowed to eat herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of trees. when they were turned out of eden, god said to them "thou shalt eat the herb of the field." in the first chapter of genesis the "green herb" was given for food to the beasts, fowls and creeping things. upon being expelled from the garden, adam and eve, as to their food, were put upon an equality with the lower animals. according to this, the ante-diluvians were vegetarians. this may account for their wickedness and longevity. after noah sacrificed, and god smelled the sweet savor; he said--"every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have i given you all things." afterwards this same god changed his mind again, and divided the beasts and birds into clean and unclean, and made it a crime for man to eat the unclean. probably food was so scarce when noah was let out of the ark that jehovah generously allowed him to eat anything and everything he could find. according to the account, god then made a covenant with noah to the effect that he would not again destroy the world with a flood, and as the attesting witness of this contract, a rainbow was set in the cloud. this bow was placed in the sky so that it might perpetually remind god of his promise and covenant. without this visible witness and reminder, it would seem that jehovah was liable to forget the contract, and drown the world again. did the rainbow originate in this way? did god put it in the cloud simply to keep his agreement in his memory? for me it is impossible to believe the story of the deluge. it seems so cruel, so barbaric, so crude in detail, so absurd in all its parts, and so contrary to all we know of law, that even credulity itself is shocked. many nations have preserved accounts of a deluge in which all people, except a family or two, were destroyed. babylon was certainly a city before jerusalem was founded. egypt was in the height of her power when there were only seventy jews in the world, and india had a literature before the name of jehovah had passed the lips of superstition. an account of a general deluge "was discovered by george smith, translated from another account that was written about two thousand years before christ." of course it is impossible to tell how long the story had lived in the memory of tradition before it was reduced to writing by the babylonians. according to this account, which is, without doubt, much older than the one given by moses, tamzi built a ship at the command of the god hea, and put in it his family and the beasts of the field. he pitched the ship inside and outside with bitumen, and as soon as it was finished, there came a flood of rain and "destroyed all life from the face of the whole earth. on the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on the mountain nizir." tamzi waited for seven days more, and then let out a dove. afterwards, he let out a swallow, and that, as well as the dove returned. then he let out a raven, and as that did not return, he concluded that the water had dried away, and thereupon left the ship. then he made an offering to god, or the gods, and "hea interceded with bel," so that the earth might never again be drowned. this is the babylonian story, told without the contradictions of the original. for in that, it seems, there are two accounts, as well as in the bible. is it not a strange coincidence that there should be contradictory accounts mingled in both the babylonian and jewish stories? in the bible there are two accounts. in one account, noah was to take two of all beasts, birds, and creeping things into the ark, while in the other he was commanded to take of clean beasts, and all birds by sevens of each kind. according to one account, the flood only lasted one hundred and fifty days--as related in the third verse of the eighth chapter; while the other account fixes the time at three hundred and seventy-seven days. both of these accounts cannot be true. yet in order to be saved, it is not sufficient to believe one of them--you must believe both. among the egyptians there was a story to the effect that the great god ra became utterly maddened with the people, and deliberately made up his mind that he would exterminate mankind. thereupon he began to destroy, and continued in the terrible work until blood flowed in streams, when suddenly he ceased, and took an oath that he would not again destroy the human race. this myth was probably thousands of years old when moses was born. so, in india, there was a fable about the flood. a fish warned manu that a flood was coming. manu built a "box" and the fish towed it to a mountain and saved all hands. the same kind of stories were told in greece, and among our own indian tribes. at one time the christian pointed to the fact that many nations told of a flood, as evidence of the truth of the mosaic account; but now, it having been shown that other accounts are much older, and equally reasonable, that argument has ceased to be of any great value. it is probable that all these accounts had a common origin. they were likely born of something in nature visible to all nations. the idea of a universal flood, produced by a god to drown the world on account of the sins of the people, is infinitely absurd. the solution of all these stories has been supposed to be, the existence of partial floods in most countries; and for a long time this solution was satisfactory. but the fact that these stories are greatly alike, that only one man is warned, that only one family is saved, that a boat is built, that birds are sent out to find if the water had abated, tend to show that they had a common origin. admitting that there were severe floods in all countries; it certainly cannot follow that in each instance only one family would be saved, or that the same story would in each instance be told. it may be urged that the natural tendency of man to exaggerate calamities, might account for this agreement in all the accounts, and it must be admitted that there is some force in the suggestion, i believe, though, that the real origin of all these myths is the same, and that it was originally an effort to account for the sun, moon and stars. the sun and moon were the man and wife, or the god and goddess, and the stars were their children. from a celestial myth, it became a terrestrial one; the air, or ether-ocean became a flood, produced by rain, and the sun moon and stars became man, woman and children. in the original story, the mountain was the place where in the far east the sky was supposed to touch the earth, and it was there that the ship containing the celestial passengers finally rested from its voyage. but whatever may be the origin of the stories of the flood, whether told first by hindu, babylonian or hebrew, we may rest perfectly assured that they are all equally false. xix. bacchus and babel as soon as noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant a vineyard, and began to be a husbandman; and when the grapes were ripe he made wine and drank of it to excess; cursed his grandson, blessed shem and japheth, and after that lived for three hundred and fifty years. what he did during these three hundred and fifty years, we are not told. we never hear of him again. for three hundred and fifty years he lived among his sons, and daughters, and their descendants. he must have been a venerable man. he was the man to whom god had made known his intention of drowning the world. by his efforts, the human race had been saved. he must have been acquainted with methuselah for six hundred years, and methuselah was about two hundred and forty years old, when adam died. noah must himself have known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost infinite interest; and yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither directly nor indirectly mentioned. when noah died, abraham must have been more than fifty years old; and shem, the son of noah, lived for several hundred years after the death of abraham; and yet he is never mentioned. noah when he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about five hundred years; and everybody living at the time of his death knew that they were indebted to him, and yet no account is given of his burial. no monument was raised to mark the spot. this, however, is no more wonderful than the fact that no account is given of the death of adam or of eve, nor of the place of their burial. this may all be accounted for by the fact that the language of man was confounded at the building of the tower of babel, whereby all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of noah could not give an account of their voyage in the ark; and, consequently, some one had to be directly inspired to tell the story, after new languages had been formed. it has always been a mystery to me how adam, eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. where did they get it? we know now, that it requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of exceedingly slow growth. we also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. we know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. many centuries are required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. it does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain of man. these ideas must be the result of observation and experience. does anybody believe that god directly taught a language to adam and eve, or that he so made them that they, by intuition spoke hebrew, or some language capable of conveying to each other their thoughts? how did the serpent learn the same language? did god teach it to him, or did he happen to overhear god, when he was teaching adam and eve? we are told in the second chapter of genesis that god caused all the animals to pass before adam to see what he would call them. we cannot infer from this that god named the animals and informed adam what to call them. adam named them himself. where did he get his words? we cannot imagine a man just made out of dust, without the experience of a moment, having the power to put his thoughts in language. in the first place, we cannot conceive of his having any thoughts until he has combined, through experience and observation, the impressions that nature had made upon him through the medium of his senses. we cannot imagine of his knowing anything, in the first instance, about different degrees of heat, nor about darkness, if he was made in the day-time, nor about light, if created at night, until the next morning. before a man can have what we call thoughts, he must have had a little experience. something must have happened to him before he can have a thought, and before he can express himself in language. language is a growth, not a gift. we account now for the diversity of language by the fact that tribes and nations have had different experiences, different wants, different surroundings, and, one result of all these differences is, among other things, a difference in language. nothing can be more absurd than to account for the different languages of the world by saying that the original language was confounded at the tower of babel. according to the bible, up to the time of the building of that tower, the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, and would have so remained until the present time had not an effort been made to build a tower whose top should reach into heaven. can any one imagine what objection god would have to the building of such a tower? and how could the confusion of tongues prevent its construction? how could language be confounded? it could be confounded only by the destruction of memory. did god destroy the memory of mankind at that time, and if so, how? did he paralyze that portion of the brain presiding over the organs of articulation, so that they could not speak the words, although they remembered them clearly, or did he so touch the brain that they could not hear? will some theologian, versed in the machinery of the miraculous, tell us in what way god confounded the language of mankind? why would the confounding of the language make them separate? why would they not stay together until they could understand each other? people will not separate, from weakness. when in trouble they come together and desire the assistance of each other. why, in this instance, did they separate? what particular ones would naturally come together if nobody understood the language of any other person? would it not have been just as hard to agree when and where to go, without any language to express the agreement, as to go on with the building of the tower? is it possible that any one now believes that the whole world would be of one speech had the language not been confounded at babel? do we not know that every word was suggested in some way by the experience of men? do we not know that words are continually dying, and continually being born; that every language has its cradle and its cemetery--its buds, its blossoms, its fruits and its withered leaves? man has loved, enjoyed, hated, suffered and hoped, and all words have been born of these experiences. why did "the lord come down to see the city and the tower?" could he not see them from where he lived or from where he was? where did he come down from? did he come in the daytime, or in the night? we are taught now that god is everywhere; that he inhabits immensity; that he is in every atom, and in every star. if this is true, why did he "come down to see the city and the tower?" will some theologian explain this? after all, is it not much easier and altogether more reasonable to say that moses was mistaken, that he knew little of the science of language, and that he guessed a great deal more than he investigated? xx. faith in filth no light whatever is shed upon what passed in the world after the confounding of language at babel, until the birth of abraham. but, before speaking of the history of the jewish people, it may be proper for me to say that many things are recounted in genesis, and other books attributed to moses, of which i do not wish to speak. there are many pages of these books unfit to read, many stories not calculated, in my judgment, to improve the morals of mankind. i do not wish even to call the attention of my readers to these things, except in a general way. it is to be hoped that the time will come when such chapters and passages as cannot be read without leaving the blush of shame upon the cheek of modesty, will be left out, and not published as a part of the bible. if there is a god, it certainly is blasphemous to attribute to him the authorship of pages too obscene, beastly and vulgar to be read in the presence of men and women. the believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of god. these stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. they never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. for one, i cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the scriptures i leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. until these passages are expunged from the old testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. it contains pages that no minister in the united states would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. there are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. there are chapters that no father would read to his child. there are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired. i know that in many books besides the bible there are immodest lines. some of the greatest writers have soiled their pages with indecent words. we account for this by saying that the authors were human; that they catered to the taste and spirit of their times. we make excuses, but at the same time regret that in their works they left an impure word. but what shall we say of god? is it possible that a being of infinite purity--the author of modesty, would smirch the pages of his book with stories lewd, licentious and obscene? if god is the author of the bible, it is, of course, the standard by which all other books can, and should be measured. if the bible is not obscene, what book is? why should men be imprisoned simply for imitating god? the christian world should never say another word against immoral books until it makes the inspired volume clean. these vile and filthy things were not written for the purpose of conveying and enforcing moral truth, but seem to have been written because the author loved an unclean thing. there is no moral depth below that occupied by the writer or publisher of obscene books, that stain with lust, the loving heart of youth. such men should be imprisoned and their books destroyed. the literature of the world should be rendered decent, and no book should be published that cannot be read by, and in the hearing of the best and purest people. but as long as the bible is considered as the work of god, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. the literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god. we are continually told that the bible is the very foundation of modesty and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an unclean wretch. every woman would leave the church, and if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister. is there any saving grace in hypocrisy? will men become clean in speech by believing that god is unclean? would it not be far better to admit that the bible was written by barbarians in a barbarous, coarse and vulgar age? would it not be safer to charge moses with vulgarity, instead of god? is it not altogether more probable that some ignorant hebrew would write the vulgar words? the christians tell me that god is the author of these vile and stupid things? i have examined the question to the best of my ability, and as to god my verdict is:--not guilty. faith should not rest in filth. every foolish and immodest thing should be expunged from the bible. let us keep the good. let us preserve every great and splendid thought, every wise and prudent maxim, every just law, every elevated idea, and every word calculated to make man nobler and purer, and let us have the courage to throw the rest away. the souls of children should not be stained and soiled. the charming instincts of youth should not be corrupted and defiled. the girls and boys should not be taught that unclean words were uttered by "inspired" lips. teach them that these words were born of savagery and lust. teach them that the unclean is the unholy, and that only the pure is sacred. xxi. the hebrews after language had been confounded and the people scattered, there appeared in the land of canaan a tribe of hebrews ruled by a chief or sheik called abraham. they had a few cattle, lived in tents, practiced polygamy, wandered from place to place, and were the only folks in the whole world to whom god paid the slightest attention. at this time there were hundreds of cities in india filled with temples and palaces; millions of egyptians worshiped isis and osiris, and had covered their land with marvelous monuments of industry, power and skill. but these civilizations were entirely neglected by the deity, his whole attention being taken up with abraham and his family. it seems, from the account, that god and abraham were intimately acquainted, and conversed frequently upon a great variety of subjects. by the twelfth chapter of genesis it appears that he made the following promises to abraham. "i will make of thee a great nation, and i will bless thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing. and i will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee." after receiving this communication from the almighty, abraham went into the land of canaan, and again god appeared to him and told him to take a heifer three years old, a goat of the same age, a sheep of equal antiquity, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. whereupon abraham killed the animals "and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another." and it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the raw and bleeding meat. the killing of these animals was a preparation for receiving a visit from god. should an american missionary in central africa find a negro chief surrounded by a butchered heifer, a goat and a sheep, with which to receive a communication from the infinite god, my opinion is, that the missionary would regard the proceeding as the direct result of savagery. and if the chief insisted that he had seen a smoking furnace and a burning lamp going up and down between the pieces of meat, the missionary would certainly conclude that the chief was not altogether right in his mind. if the bible is true, this same god told abraham to take and sacrifice his only son, or rather the only son of his wife, and a murder would have been committed had not god, just at the right moment, directed him to stay his hand and take a sheep instead. god made a great number of promises to abraham, but few of them were ever kept. he agreed to make him the father of a great nation, but he did not. he solemnly promised to give him a great country, including all the land between the river of egypt and the euphrates, but he did not. in due time abraham passed away, and his son isaac took his place at the head of the tribe. then came jacob, who "watered stock" and enriched himself with the spoil of laban. joseph was sold into egypt by his jealous brethren, where he became one of the chief men of the kingdom, and in a few years his father and brothers left their own country and settled in egypt. at this time there were seventy hebrews in the world, counting joseph and his children. they remained in egypt two hundred and fifteen years. it is claimed by some that they were in that country for four hundred and thirty years. this is a mistake. josephus says they were in egypt two hundred and fifteen years, and this statement is sustained by the best biblical scholars of all denominations. according to the th verse of the rd chapter of galatians, it was four hundred and thirty years from the time the promise was made to abraham to the giving of the law, and as the hebrews did not go to egypt for two hundred and fifteen years after the making of the promise to abraham, they could in no event have been in egypt more than two hundred and fifteen years. in our bible the th verse of the th chapter of exodus, is as follows:-- "now the sojourning of the children of israel, who dwelt in egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." this passage does not say that the sojourning was all done in egypt; neither does it say that the children of israel dwelt in egypt four hundred and thirty years; but it does say that the sojourning of the children of israel who dwelt in egypt was four hundred and thirty years. the vatican copy of the septuagint renders the same passage as follows:-- "the sojourning of the children of israel which they sojourned in egypt, and in the land of canaan, was four hundred and thirty years." the alexandrian version says:--"the sojourning of the children of israel which they and their fathers sojourned in egypt, and in the land of canaan, was four hundred and thirty years." and in the samaritan bible we have:--"the sojourning of the children of israel and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of canaan, and in the land of egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." there were seventy souls when they went down into egypt, and they remained two hundred and fifteen years, and at the end of that time they had increased to about three million. how do we know that there were three million at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? we know it because we are informed by moses that "there were six hundred thousand men of war." now, to each man of war, there must have been at least five other people. in every state in this union there will be to each voter, five other persons at least, and we all know that there are always more voters than men of war. if there were six hundred thousand men of war, there must have been a population of at least three million. is it possible that seventy people could increase to that extent in two hundred and fifteen years? you may say that it was a miracle; but what need was there of working a miracle? why should god miraculously increase the number of slaves? if he wished miraculously to increase the population, why did he not wait until the people were free? in , we had in the american colonies about three millions of people. in one hundred years we doubled four times: that is to say, six, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight million,--our present population. we must not forget that during all these years there has been pouring into our country a vast stream of emigration, and that this, taken in connection with the fact that our country is productive beyond all others, gave us only four doubles in one hundred years. admitting that the hebrews increased as rapidly without emigration as we, in this country, have with it, we will give to them four doubles each century, commencing with seventy people, and they would have, at the end of two hundred years, a population of seventeen thousand nine hundred and twenty. giving them another double for the odd fifteen years and there would be, provided no deaths had occurred, thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty people. and yet we are told that instead of having this number, they had increased to such an extent that they had six hundred thousand men of war: that is to say, a population of more than three millions! every sensible man knows that this account is not, and cannot be true. we know that seventy people could not increase to three million in two hundred and fifteen years. about this time the hebrews took a census, and found that there were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first born males. it is reasonable to suppose that there were about as many first born females. this would make forty-four thousand five hundred and forty-six first born children. now, there must have been about as many mothers as there were first born children. if there were only about forty-five thousand mothers and three millions of people, the mothers must have had on an average about sixty-six children apiece. at this time, the hebrews were slaves, and had been for two hundred and fifteen years. a little while before, an order had been made by the egyptians that all the male children of the hebrews should be killed. one, contrary to this order, was saved in an ark made of bullrushes daubed with slime. this child was found by the daughter of pharaoh, and was adopted, it seems, as her own, and, may be, was. he grew to be a man, sided with the hebrews, killed an egyptian that was smiting a slave, hid the body in the sand, and fled from egypt to the land of midian, became acquainted with a priest who had seven daughters, took the side of the daughters against the ill-mannered shepherds of that country, and married zipporah, one of the girls, and became a shepherd for her father. afterward, while tending his flock, the lord appeared to him in a burning bush, and commanded him to go to the king of egypt and demand from him the liberation of the hebrews. in order to convince him that the something burning in the bush was actually god, the rod in his hand was changed into a serpent, which, upon being caught by the tail, became again a rod. moses was also told to put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out it was as leprous as snow. quite a number of strange things were performed, and others promised. moses then agreed to go back to egypt provided his brother could go with him. whereupon the lord appeared to aaron, and directed him to meet moses in the wilderness. they met at the mount of god, went to egypt, gathered together all the elders of the children of israel, spake all the words which god had spoken unto moses, and did all the signs in the sight of the people. the israelites believed, bowed their heads and worshiped; and moses and aaron went in and told their message to pharaoh the king. xxii. the plagues three millions of people were in slavery. they were treated with the utmost rigor, and so fearful were their masters that they might, in time, increase in numbers sufficient to avenge themselves, that they took from the arms of mothers all the male children and destroyed them. if the account given is true, the egyptians were the most cruel, heartless and infamous people of which history gives any record. god finally made up his mind to free the hebrews; and for the accomplishment of this purpose he sent, as his agents, moses and aaron, to the king of egypt. in order that the king might know that these men had a divine mission, god gave moses the power of changing a stick into a serpent, and water into blood. moses and aaron went before the king, stating that the lord god of israel ordered the king of egypt to let the hebrews go that they might hold a feast with god in the wilderness. thereupon pharaoh, the king, enquired who the lord was, at the same time stating that he had never made his acquaintance, and knew nothing about him. to this they replied that the god of the hebrews had met with them, and they asked to go a three days journey into the desert and sacrifice unto this god, fearing that if they did not he would fall upon them with pestilence or the sword. this interview seems to have hardened pharaoh, for he ordered the tasks of the children of israel to be increased; so that the only effect of the first appeal was to render still worse the condition of the hebrews. thereupon, moses returned unto the lord and said "lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? for since i came to pharaoh to speak in thy name he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all." apparently stung by this reproach, god answered:-- "now shalt thou see what i will do to pharoah; for with a strong hand shall he let them go; and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." god then recounts the fact that he had appeared unto abraham, isaac and jacob, that he had established a covenant with them to give them the land of canaan, that he had heard the groanings of the children of israel in egyptian bondage; that their groanings had put him in mind of his covenant, and that he had made up his mind to redeem the children of israel with a stretched out arm and with great judgments. moses then spoke to the children' of israel again, but they would listen to him no more. his first effort in their behalf had simply doubled their trouble and they seemed to have lost confidence in his power. thereupon jehovah promised moses that he would make him a god unto pharaoh, and that aaron should be his prophet, but at the same time informed him that his message would be of no avail; that he would harden the heart of pharaoh so that he would not listen; that he would so harden his heart that he might have an excuse for destroying the egyptians. accordingly, moses and aaron again went before pharaoh. moses said to aaron;--"cast down your rod before pharaoh," which he did, and it became a serpent. then pharaoh not in the least surprised, called for his wise men and his sorcerers, and they threw down their rods and changed them into serpents. the serpent that had been changed from aaron's rod was, at this time crawling upon the floor, and it proceeded to swallow the serpents that had been produced by the magicians of egypt. what became of these serpents that were swallowed, whether they turned back into sticks again, is not stated. can we believe that the stick was changed into a real living serpent, or did it assume simply the appearance of a serpent? if it bore only the appearance of a serpent it was a deception, and could not rise above the dignity of legerdemain. is it necessary to believe that god is a kind of prestigiator--a sleight-of-hand per-former, a magician or sorcerer? can it be possible that an infinite being would endeavor to secure the liberation of a race by performing a miracle that could be equally performed by the sorcerers and magicians of a barbarian king? not one word was said by moses or aaron as to the wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. not a word was said in favor of liberty. not the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the product of his own labor. not a word about the cruelty of masters who would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. it seems to me wonderful that this god did not tell the king of egypt that no nation could enslave another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain of the master. why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand? instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery. suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the president should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? would we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a president? and what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? if such things would appear puerile and foolish in the president of a great republic, what shall be said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? how small, how contemptible such a god appears! pharaoh, it seems, took about this view of the matter, and he would not be persuaded that such tricks were performed by an infinite being. again, moses and aaron came before pharaoh as he was going to the river s bank, and the same rod which had changed to a serpent, and, by this time changed back, was taken by aaron, who, in the presence of pharaoh, smote the water of the river, which was immediately turned to blood, as well as all the water in all the streams, ponds, and pools, as well as all water in vessels of wood and vessels of stone in the entire land of egypt. as soon as all the waters in egypt had been turned into blood, the magicians of that country did the same with their enchantments. we are not informed where they got the water to turn into blood, since all the water in egypt had already been so changed. it seems from the account that the fish in the nile died, and the river emitted a stench, and there was not a drop of water in the land of egypt that had not been changed into blood. in consequence of this, the egyptians digged "around about the river" for water to drink. can we believe this story? is it necessary to salvation to admit that all the rivers, pools, ponds and lakes of a country were changed into blood, in order that a king might be induced to allow the children of israel the privilege of going a three days journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to their god? it seems from the account that pharaoh was told that the god of the hebrews would, if he refused to let the israelites go, change all the waters of egypt into blood, and that, upon his refusal, they were so changed. this had, however, no influence upon him, for the reason that his own magicians did the same. it does not appear that moses and aaron expressed the least surprise at the success of the egyptian sorcerers. at that time it was believed that each nation had its own god. the only claim that moses and aaron made for their god was, that he was the greatest and most powerful of all the gods, and that with anything like an equal chance he could vanquish the deity of any other nation. after the waters were changed to blood moses and aaron waited for seven days. at the end of that time god told moses to again go to pharaoh and demand the release of his people, and to inform him that, if he refused, god would strike all the borders of egypt with frogs. that he would make frogs so plentiful that they would go into the houses of pharaoh, into his bedchamber, upon his bed, into the houses of his servants, upon his people, into their ovens, and even into their kneading troughs, this threat had no effect whatever upon pharaoh, and thereupon aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. the magicians of egypt did the same, and with their enchantments brought more frogs upon the land of egypt these magicians do not seem to have been original in their ideas, but so far as imitation is concerned, were perfect masters of their art. the frogs seem to have made such an impression upon pharaoh that he sent for moses and asked him to entreat the lord that he would take away the frogs. moses agreed to remove them from the houses and the land, and allow them to remain only in the rivers. accordingly the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields, and the people gathered them together in heaps. as soon as the frogs had left the houses and fields, the heart of pharaoh became again hardened, and he refused to let the people go. aaron then, according to the command of god, stretched out his hand, holding the rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast, and all the dust became lice throughout the land of egypt. pharaoh again sent for his magicians, and they sought to do the same with their enchantments, but they could not. whereupon the sorcerers said unto pharaoh: "this is the finger of god." notwithstanding this, however, pharaoh refused to let the hebrews go. god then caused a grievous swarm of flies to come into the house of pharaoh and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of egypt, to such an extent that the whole land was corrupted by reason of the flies. but into that part of the country occupied by the children of israel there came no flies. thereupon pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and said to them: "go, and sacrifice to your god in this land." they were not willing to sacrifice in egypt, and asked permission to go on a journey of three days into the wilderness. to this pharaoh acceded, and in consideration of this moses agreed to use his influence with the lord to induce him to send the flies out of the country. he accordingly told the lord of the bargain he had made with pharaoh, and the lord agreed to the compromise, and removed the flies from pharaoh and from his servants and from his people, and there remained not a single fly in the land of egypt. as soon as the flies were gone, pharaoh again changed his mind, and concluded not to permit the children of israel to depart. the lord then directed moses to go to pharaoh and tell him that if he did not allow the children of israel to depart, he would destroy his cattle, his horses, his camels and his sheep; that these animals would be afflicted with a grievous disease, but that the animals belonging to the hebrews should not be so afflicted. moses did as he was bid. on the next day all the cattle of egypt died; that is to say, all the horses, all the asses, all the camels, all the oxen and all the sheep; but of the animals owned by the israelites, not one perished. this disaster had no effect upon pharaoh, and he still refused to let the children of israel go. the lord then told moses and aaron to take some ashes out of a furnace, and told moses to sprinkle them toward the heavens in the sight of pharaoh; saying that the ashes should become small dust in all the land of egypt, and should be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast throughout all the land. how these boils breaking out with blains, upon cattle that were already dead, should affect pharaoh, is a little hard to understand. it must not be forgotten that all the cattle and all beasts had died with the murrain before the boils had broken out this was a most decisive victory for moses and aaron. the boils were upon the magicians to that extent that they could not stand before moses. but it had no effect upon pharaoh, who seems to have been a man of great firmness. the lord then instructed moses to get up early in the morning and tell pharaoh that he would stretch out his hand and smite his people with a pestilence, and would, on the morrow, cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as had never been known in the land of egypt. he also told moses to give notice, so that they might get all the cattle that were in the fields under cover. it must be remembered that all these cattle had recently died of the murrain, and their dead bodies had been covered with boils and blains. this, however, had no effect, and moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and the lord sent thunder, and hail and lightning, and fire that ran along the ground, and the hail fell upon all the land of egypt, and all that were in the fields, both man and beast, were smitten, and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the country except that portion inhabited by the children of israel; there, there was no hail. during this hail storm pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and admitted that he had sinned, that the lord was righteous, and that the egyptians were wicked, and requested them to ask the lord that there be no more thunderings and hail, and that he would let the hebrews go. moses agreed that as soon as he got out of the city he would stretch forth his hands unto the lord, and that the thunderings should cease and the hail should stop. but, when the rain and the hail and the thundering ceased, pharaoh concluded that he would not let the children of israel go. again, god sent moses and aaron, instructing them to tell pharaoh that if he refused to let the people go, the face of the earth would be covered with locusts, so that man would not be able to see the ground, and that these locusts would eat the residue of that which escaped from the hail; that they would eat every tree out of the field; that they would fill the houses of pharaoh and the houses of all his servants, and the houses of all the egyptians. moses delivered the message, and went out from pharaoh. some of pharaoh's servants entreated their master to let the children of israel go. pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and asked them, who wished to go into the wilderness to sacrifice. they replied that they wished to go with the young and old; with their sons and daughters, with flocks and herds. pharaoh would not consent to this, but agreed that the men might go. there upon pharaoh drove moses and aaron out of his sight. then god told moses to stretch forth his hand upon the land of egypt for the locusts, that they might come up and eat every herb, even all that the hail had left. "and moses stretched out his rod over the land of egypt, and the lord brought an east wind all that day and all that night; and and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts; and they came up over all the land of egypt and rested upon all the coasts covering the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing on the trees or in the herbs of the field throughout the land of egypt." pharaoh then called for moses and aaron in great haste, admitted that he had sinned against the lord their god and against them, asked their forgiveness and requested them to intercede with god that he might take away the locusts. they went out from his presence and asked the lord to drive the locusts away, "and the lord made a strong west wind which took away the locusts, and cast them into the red sea so that there remained not one locust in all the coasts of egypt." as soon as the locusts were gone, pharaoh changed his mind, and, in the language of the sacred text, "the lord hardened pharaoh's heart so that he would not let the children of israel go." the lord then told moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven that there might be darkness over the land of egypt, "even darkness which might be felt." "and moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness over the land of egypt for three days during which time they saw not each other, neither arose any of the people from their places for three days; but the children of israel had light in their dwellings." it strikes me that when the land of egypt was covered with thick darkness--so thick that it could be felt, and when light was in the dwellings of the israelites, there could have been no better time for the hebrews to have left the country. pharaoh again called for moses, and told him that his people could go and serve the lord, provided they would leave their flocks and herds. moses would not agree to this, for the reason that they needed the flocks and herds for sacrifices and burnt offerings, and he did not know how many of the animals god might require, and for that reason he could not leave a single hoof. upon the question of the cattle, they divided, and pharaoh again refused to let the people go. god then commanded moses to tell the hebrews to borrow, each of his neighbor, jewels of silver and gold. by a miraculous interposition the hebrews found favor in the sight of the egyptians so that they loaned the articles asked for. after this, moses again went to pharaoh and told him that all the first-born in the land of egypt, from the first-born of pharaoh upon the throne, unto the first-born of the maid-servant who was behind the mill, as well as the first-born of beasts, should die. as all the beasts had been destroyed by disease and hail, it is troublesome to understand the meaning of the threat as to their first-born. preparations were accordingly made for carrying this frightful threat into execution. blood was put on the door-posts of all houses inhabited by hebrews, so that god, as he passed through that land, might not be mistaken and destroy the first-born of the jews. "and it came to pass that at midnight the lord smote all the first-born in the land of egypt, the first-born of pharaoh who sat on the throne, and the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon. and pharaoh rose up in the night, and all his servants, and all the egyptians, and there was a great cry in egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead." what had these children done? why should the babes in the cradle be destroyed on account of the crime of pharaoh? why should the cattle be destroyed because man had enslaved his brother? in those days women and children and cattle were put upon an exact equality, and all considered as the property of the men; and when man in some way excited the wrath of god, he punished them by destroying all their cattle, their wives, and their little ones. where can words be found bitter enough to describe a god who would kill wives and babes because husbands and fathers had failed to keep his law? every good man, and every good woman, must hate and despise such a deity. upon the death of all the first-born pharaoh sent for moses and aaron, and not only gave his consent that they might go with the hebrews into the wilderness, but besought them to go at once. is it possible that an infinite god, creator of all worlds and sustainer of all life, said to pharaoh, "if you do not let my people go, i will turn all the water of your country into blood," and that upon the refusal of pharaoh to release the people, god did turn all the waters into blood? do you believe this? do you believe that pharaoh even after all the water was turned to blood, refused to let the hebrews go, and that thereupon god told him he would cover his land with frogs? do you believe this? do you believe that after the land was covered with frogs pharaoh still refused to let the people go, and that god then said to him, "i will cover you and all your people with lice?" do you believe god would make this threat? do you also believe that god told pharaoh, "if you do not let these people go, i will fill all your houses and cover your country with flies?" do you believe god makes such threats as this? of course god must have known that turning the waters into blood, covering the country with frogs, infesting all flesh with lice, and filling all houses with flies, would not accomplish his object, and that all these plagues would have no effect whatever upon the egyptian king. do you believe that, failing to accomplish anything by the flies, god told pharaoh that if he did not let the people go he would kill his cattle with murrain? does such a threat sound god-like? do you believe that, failing to effect anything by killing the cattle, this same god then threatened to afflict all the people with boils, including the magicians who had been rivaling him in the matter of miracles; and failing to do anything by boils, that he resorted to hail? does this sound reasonable? the hail experiment having accomplished nothing, do you believe that god murdered the first-born of animals and men? is it possible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd, stupid, revolting, cruel and senseless, than the miracles said to have been wrought by the almighty for the purpose of inducing pharaoh to liberate the children of israel? is it not altogether more reasonable to say that the jewish people, being in slavery, accounted for the misfortunes and calamities, suffered by the egyptians, by saying that they were the judgments of god? when the armada of spain was wrecked and scattered by the storm, the english people believed that god had interposed in their behalf, and publicly gave thanks. when the battle of lepanto was won, it was believed by the catholic world that the victory was given in answer to prayer. so, our fore-fathers in their revolutionary struggle saw, or thought they saw, the hand of god, and most firmly believed that they achieved their independence by the interposition of the most high. now, it may be that while the hebrews were enslaved by the egyptians, there were plagues of locusts and flies. it may be that there were some diseases by which many of the cattle perished. it may be that a pestilence visited that country so that in nearly every house there was some one dead. if so, it was but natural for the enslaved and superstitious jews to account for these calamities by saying that they were punishments sent by their god. such ideas will be found in the history of every country. for a long time the jews held these opinions, and they were handed from father to son simply by tradition. by the time a written language had been produced, thousands of additions had been made, and numberless details invented; so that we have not only an account of the plagues suffered by the egyptians, but the whole woven into a connected story, containing the threats made by moses and aaron, the miracles wrought by them, the promises of pharaoh, and finally the release of the hebrews, as a result of the marvelous things performed in their behalf by jehovah. in any event it is infinitely more probable that the author was misinformed, than that the god of this universe was guilty of these childish, heartless and infamous things. the solution of the whole matter is this:--moses was mistaken. xxiii. the flight three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, with borrowed jewelry and raiment, with unleavened dough in kneading troughs bound in their clothes upon their shoulders, in one night commenced their journey for the land of promise. we are not told how they were informed of the precise time to start. with all the modern appliances, it would require months of time to inform three millions of people of any fact. in this vast assemblage there were six hundred thousand men of war, and with them were the old, the young, the diseased and helpless. where were those people going? they were going to the desert of sinai, compared with which sahara is a garden. imagine an ocean of lava torn by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a gorgon and changed instantly to stone! such was the desert of sinai. all of the civilized nations of the world could not feed and support three millions of people on the desert of sinai for forty years. it would cost more than one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt christendom. they had with them their flocks and herds, and the sheep were so numerous that the israelites sacrificed, at one time, more than one hundred and fifty thousand first-born lambs. how were these flocks supported? what did they eat? where were meadows and pastures for them? there was no grass, no forests--nothing! there is no account of its having rained baled hay, nor is it even claimed that they were miraculously fed. to support these flocks, millions of acres of pasture would have been required. god did not take the israelites through the land of the philistines, for fear that when they saw the people of that country they would return to egypt, but he took them by the way of the wilderness to the red sea, going before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night, in a pillar of fire. when it was told pharaoh that the people had fled, he made ready and took six hundred chosen chariots of egypt, and pursued after the children of israel, overtaking them by the sea. as all the animals had long before that time been destroyed, we are not informed where pharaoh obtained the horses for his chariots. the moment the children of israel saw the hosts of pharaoh, although they had six hundred thousand men of war, they immediately cried unto the lord for protection. it is wonderful to me that a land that had been ravaged by the plagues described in the bible, still had the power to put in the field an army that would carry terror to the hearts of six hundred thousand men of war. even with the help of god, it seems, they were not strong enough to meet the egyptians in the open field, but resorted to strategy. moses again stretched forth his wonderful rod over the waters of the red sea, and they were divided, and the hebrews passed through on dry land, the waters standing up like a wall on either side. the egyptians pursued them; "and in the morning watch the lord looked into the hosts of the egyptians, through the pillar of fire," and proceeded to take the wheels off their chariots. as soon as the wheels were off, god told moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. moses did so, and immediately "the waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen and all the hosts of pharaoh that came into the sea, and there remained not so much as one of them." this account may be true, but still it hardly looks reasonable that god would take the wheels off the chariots. how did he do it? did he pull out the linch-pins, or did he just take them off by main force? what a picture this presents to the mind! god the creator of the universe, maker of every shining, glittering star, engaged in pulling off the wheels of wagons, that he might convince pharaoh of his greatness and power! where were these people going? they were going to the promised land. how large a country was that? about twelve thousand square miles. about one-fifth the size of the state of illinois. it was a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. how many people were in the promised land already? moses tells us there were seven nations in that country mightier than the jews. as there were at least three millions of jews, there must have been at least twenty-one millions of people already in that country. these had to be driven out in order that room might be made for the chosen people of god. it seems, however, that god was not willing to take the children of israel into the promised land immediately. they were not fit to inhabit the land of canaan; so he made up his mind to allow them to wander upon the desert until all except two, who had left egypt, should perish. of all the slaves released from egyptian bondage, only two were allowed to reach the promised land! as soon as the hebrews crossed the red sea, they found themselves without food, and with water unfit to drink by reason of its bitterness, and they began to murmur against moses, who cried unto the lord, and "the lord showed him a tree." moses cast this tree into the waters, and they became sweet. "and it came to pass in the morning the dew lay around about the camp; and when the dew that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness lay a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon the ground. and moses said unto them, this is the bread which the lord hath given you to eat." this manna was a very peculiar thing. it would melt in the sun, and yet they could cook it by seething and baking. one would as soon think of frying snow or of broiling icicles. but this manna had another remarkable quality. no matter how much or little any person gathered, he would have an exact omer; if he gathered more, it would shrink to that amount, and if he gathered less, it would swell exactly to that amount. what a magnificent substance manna would be with which to make a currency--shrinking and swelling according to the great laws of supply and demand! "upon this manna the children of israel lived for forty years, until they came to a habitable land. with this meat were they fed until they reached the borders of the land of canaan." we are told in the twenty-first chapter of numbers, that the people at last became tired of the manna, complained of god, and asked moses why he brought them out of the land of egypt to die in the wilderness. and they said:--"there is no bread, nor have we any water. our soul loatheth this light food." we are told by some commentators that the jews lived on manna for forty years; by others that they lived upon it for only a short time. as a matter of fact the accounts differ, and this difference is the opportunity for commentators. it also allows us to exercise faith in believing that both accounts are true. if the accounts agreed, and were reasonable, they would be believed by the wicked and unregenerated. but as they are different and unreasonable, they are believed only by the good. whenever a statement in the bible is unreasonable, and you believe it, you are considered quite a good christian. if the statement is grossly absurd and infinitely impossible, and you still believe it, you are a saint. the children of israel were in the desert, and they were out of water. they had nothing to eat but manna, and this they had had so long that the soul of every person abhorred it. under these circumstances they complained to moses. now, as god is infinite, he could just as well have furnished them with an abundance of the purest and coolest of water, and could, without the slightest trouble to himself, have given them three excellent meals a day, with a generous variety of meats and vegetables, it is very hard to see why he did not do so. it is still harder to conceive why he fell into a rage when the people mildly suggested that they would like a change of diet. day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, nothing but manna. no doubt they did the best they could by cooking it in different ways, but in spite of themselves they began to loathe its sight and taste, and so they asked moses to use his influence to secure a change in the bill of fare. now, i ask, whether it was unreasonable for the jews to suggest that a little meat would be very gratefully received? it seems, however, that as soon as the request was made, this god of infinite mercy became infinitely enraged, and instead of granting it, went into, partnership with serpents, for the purpose of punishing the hungry wretches to whom he had promised a land flowing with milk and honey. where did these serpents come from? how did god convey the information to the serpents, that he wished them to go to the desert of sinai and bite some jews? it may be urged that these serpents were created for the express purpose of punishing the children of israel for having had the presumption, like oliver twist, to ask for more. there is another account in the eleventh chapter of numbers, of the people murmuring because of their food. they remembered the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic of egypt, and they asked for meat the people went to the tent of moses and asked him for flesh. moses cried unto the lord and asked him why he did not take care of the multitude. god thereupon agreed that they should have meat, not for a day or two, but for a month, until the meat should come out of their nostrils and become loathsome to them. he then caused a wind to bring quails from beyond the sea, and cast them into the camp, on every side of the camp around about for the space of a days journey. and the people gathered them, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth the wrath of god being provoked against them, struck them with an exceeding great plague. serpents, also, were sent among them, and thousands perished for the crime of having been hungry. the rev. alexander cruden commenting upon this account says:-- "god caused a wind to rise that drove the quails within and about the camp of the israelites; and it is in this that the miracle consists, that they were brought so seasonably to this place, and in so great numbers as to suffice above a million of persons above a month. some authors affirm, that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so that in one part of italy within the compass of five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their weight." no wonder mr. cruden believed the mosaic account. must we believe that god made an arrangement with hornets for the purpose of securing their services in driving the canaanites from the land of promise? is this belief necessary unto salvation? must we believe that god said to the jews that he would send hornets before them to drive out the canaanites, as related in the twenty-third chapter of exodus, and the seventh chapter of deuteronomy? how would the hornets know a canaanite? in what way would god put it in the mind of a hornet to attack a canaanite? did god create hornets for that especial purpose, implanting an instinct to attack a canaanite, but not a hebrew? can we conceive of the almighty granting letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? of course it is admitted that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native land than a few hornets. is it possible for us to believe that an infinite being would resort to such expedients in order to drive the canaanites from their country? he could just as easily have spoken the canaanites out of existence as to have spoken the hornets in. in this way a vast amount of trouble, pain and suffering would have been saved. is it possible that there is, in this country, an intelligent clergyman who will insist that these stories are true; that we must believe them in in order to be good people in this world, and glorified souls in the next? we are also told that god instructed the hebrews to kill the canaanites slowly, giving as a reason that the beasts of the field might increase upon his chosen people. when we take into consideration the fact that the holy land contained only about eleven or twelve thousand square miles, and was at that time inhabited by at least twenty-one millions of people, it does not seem reasonable that the wild beasts could have been numerous enough to cause any great alarm. the same ratio of population would give to the state of illinois at least one hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants. can anybody believe that, under such circumstances, the danger from wild beasts could be very great? what would we think of a general, invading such a state, if he should order his soldiers to kill the people slowly, lest the wild beasts might increase upon them? is it possible that a god capable of doing the miracles recounted in the old testament could not, in some way, have disposed of the wild beasts? after the canaanites were driven out, could he not have employed the hornets to drive out the wild beasts? think of a god that could drive twenty-one millions of people out of the promised land, could raise up innumerable stinging flies, and could cover the earth with fiery serpents, and yet seems to have been perfectly powerless against the wild beasts of the land of canaan! speaking of these hornets, one of the good old commentators, whose views have long been considered of great value by the believers in the inspiration of the bible, uses the following language:--"hornets are a sort of strong flies, which the lord used as instruments to plague the enemies of his people. they are of themselves very troublesome and mischievous, and those the lord made use of were, it is thought, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. it is said they live as the wasps, and that they have a king or captain, and pestilent stings as bees, and that, if twenty-seven of them sting man or beast, it is certain death to either. nor is it strange that such creatures did drive out the canaanites from their habitations; for many heathen writers give instances of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps. and it is said that a christian city, being besieged by sapores, king of persia, was delivered by hornets; for the elephants and beasts being stung by them, waxed unruly, and so the whole army fled." only a few years ago, all such stories were believed by the christian world; and it is a historical fact, that voltaire was the third man of any note in europe, who took the ground that the mythologies of greece and rome were without foundation. until his time, most christians believed as thoroughly in the miracles ascribed to the greek and roman gods as in those of christ and jehovah. the christian world cultivated credulity, not only as one of the virtues, but as the greatest of them all. but, when luther and his followers left the church of rome, they were compelled to deny the power of the catholic church, at that time, to suspend the laws of nature, but took the ground that such power ceased with the apostolic age. they insisted that all things now happened in accordance with the laws of nature, with the exception of a few special interferences in favor of the protestant church in answer to prayer. they taught their children a double philosophy: by one, they were to show the impossibility of catholic miracles, because opposed to the laws of nature; by the other, the probability of the miracles of the apostolic age, because they were in conformity with the statements of the scriptures. they had two foundations: one, the law of nature, and the other, the word of god. the protestants have endeavored to carry on this double process of reasoning, and the result has been a gradual increase of confidence in the law of nature, and a gradual decrease of confidence in the word of god. we are told, in this inspired account, that the clothing of the jewish people did not wax old, and that their shoes refused to wear out. some commentators have insisted that angels attended to the wardrobes of the hebrews, patched their garments, and mended their shoes. certain it is, however, that the same clothes lasted them for forty years, during the entire journey from egypt to the holy land. little boys starting out with their first pantaloons, grew as they traveled, and their clothes grew with them. can it be necessary to believe a story like this? will men make better husbands, fathers, neighbors, and citizens, simply by giving credence to these childish and impossible things? certainly an infinite god could have transported the jews to the holy land in a moment, and could, as easily, have removed the canaanites to some other country. surely there was no necessity for doing thousands and thousands of petty miracles, day after day for forty years, looking after the clothes of three millions of people, changing the nature of wool, and linen, and leather, so that they would not "wax old." every step, every motion, would wear away some part of the clothing, some part of the shoes. were these parts, so worn away, perpetually renewed, or was the nature of things so changed that they could not wear away? we know that whenever matter comes in contact with matter, certain atoms, by abrasion, are lost. were these atoms gathered up every night by angels, and replaced on the soles of the shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons, so that the next morning they would be precisely in the condition they were on the morning before? there must be a mistake somewhere. can we believe that the real god, if there is one, ever ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? we are told in the thirtieth chapter of exodus, that the lord commanded moses to take myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and other utensils, as well as aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time, that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be put to death. in the same chapter, the lord furnishes moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. this, to me, sounds so unreasonable that i cannot believe it. why should an infinite god care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? why should the creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached his altar without having washed his hands and feet? these commandments and these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by chance, upon a throne. there must be some mistake. i cannot believe that an infinite intelligence appeared to moses upon mount sinai having with him a variety of patterns for making a tabernacle, tongs, snuffers and dishes. neither can i believe that god told moses how to cut and trim a coat for a priest. why should a god care about such things? why should he insist on having buttons sewed in certain rows, and fringes of a certain color? suppose an intelligent civilized man was to overhear, on mount sinai, the following instructions from god to moses:-- "you must consecrate my priests as follows:--you must kill a bullock for a sin offering, and have aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. then you must take the blood and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with your finger, and pour some blood at the bottom of the altar to make a reconciliation; and of the fat that is upon the inwards, the caul above the liver and two kidneys, and their fat, and burn them upon the altar. you must get a ram for a burnt offering, and aaron and his sons must lay their hands upon the head of the ram. then you must kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and cut the ram into pieces, and burn the head, and the pieces, and the fat, and wash the inwards and the lungs in water and then burn the whole ram upon the altar for a sweet savor unto me. then you must get another ram, and have aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of that, then kill it and take of its blood, and put it on the top of aaron s right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. and you must also put a little of the blood upon the top of the right ears of aaron's sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet. and then you must take of the fat that is on the inwards, and the caul above the liver and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder, and out of a basket of unleavened bread you must take one unleavened cake and another of oil bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat of the right shoulder. and you must take of the anointing oil, and of the blood, and sprinkle it on aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons garments, and sanctify them and all their clothes."--do you believe that he would have even suspected that the creator of the universe was talking? can any one now tell why god commanded the jews, when they were upon the desert of sinai, to plant trees, telling them at the same time that they must not eat any of the fruit of such trees until after the fourth year? trees could not have been planted in that desert, and if they had been, they could not have lived. why did god tell moses, while in the desert, to make curtains of fine linen? where could he have obtained his flax? there was no land upon which it could have been produced. why did he tell him to make things of gold, and silver, and precious stones, when they could not have been in possession of these things? there is but one answer, and that is, the pentateuch was written hundreds of years after the jews had settled in the holy land, and hundreds of years after moses was dust and ashes. when the jews had a written language, and that must have been long after their flight from egypt, they wrote out their history and their laws. tradition had filled the infancy of the nation with miracles and special interpositions in their behalf by jehovah. patriotism would not allow these wonders to grow small, and priestcraft never denied a miracle. there were traditions to the effect that god had spoken face to face with moses; that he had given him the tables of the law, and had, in a thousand ways, made known his will; and whenever the priests wished to make new laws, or amend old ones, they pretended to have found something more that god said to moses at sinai. in this way obedience was more easily secured. only a very few of the people could read, and, as a consequence, additions, interpolations and erasures had no fear of detection. in this way we account for the fact that moses is made to speak of things that did not exist in his day, and were unknown for hundreds of years after his death. in the thirtieth chapter of exodus, we are told that the people, when numbered, must give each one a half shekel after the shekel of the _sanctuary_. at that time no such money existed, and consequently the account could not, by any possibility, have been written until after there was a shekel of the sanctuary, and there was no such thing until long after the death of moses. if we should read that cæsar paid his troops in pounds, shillings and pence, we would certainly know that the account was not written by cæsar, nor in his time, but we would know that it was written after the english had given these names to certain coins. so, we find, that when the jews were upon the desert it was commanded that every mother should bring, as a sin offering, a couple of doves to the priests, and the priests were compelled to eat these doves in the most holy place. at the time this law appears to have been given, there were three million people, and only three priests, aaron, eleazer and ithamar. among three million people there would be, at least, three hundred births a day. certainly we are not expected to believe that these three priests devoured six hundred pigeons every twenty-four hours. why should a woman ask pardon of god for having been a mother? why should that be considered a crime in exodus, which is commanded as a duty in genesis? why should a mother be declared unclean? why should giving birth to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? can we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and intelligent god? if there is anything in this poor world suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe. read the twelfth chapter of leviticus, and you will see that when a woman became the mother of a boy she was so unclean that she was not allowed to touch a hallowed thing, nor to enter the sanctuary for forty days. if the babe was a girl, then the mother was unfit for eighty days, to enter the house of god, or to touch the sacred tongs and snuffers. these laws, born of barbarism, are unworthy of our day, and should be regarded simply as the mistakes of savages. just as low in the scale of intelligence are the directions given in the fifth chapter of numbers, for the trial of a wife of whom the husband was jealous. this foolish chapter has been the foundation of all appeals to god for the ascertainment of facts, such as the corsned, trial by battle, by water, and by fire, the last of which is our judicial oath. it is very easy to believe that in those days a guilty woman would be afraid to drink the water of jealousy and take the oath, and that, through fear, she might be made to confess. admitting that the deception tended not only to prevent crime, but to discover it when committed, still, we cannot admit that an honest god would, for any purpose, resort to dishonest means. in all countries fear is employed as a means of getting at the truth, and in this there is nothing dishonest, provided falsehood is not resorted to for the purpose of producing the fear. protestants laugh at catholics because of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and yet they teach their children that a little holy water, in which had been thrown some dust from the floor of the sanctuary, would work a miracle in a woman's flesh. for hundreds of years our fathers believed that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread. such stories belong to the childhood of our race, and are now believed only by mental infants and intellectual babes. i cannot believe that moses had in his hands a couple of tables of stone, upon which god had written the ten commandments, and that when he saw the golden calf, and the dancing, that he dashed the tables to the earth and broke them in pieces. neither do i believe that moses took a golden calf, burnt it, ground it to powder, and made the people drink it with water, as related in the thirty-second chapter of exodus. there is another account of the giving of the ten commandments to moses, in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of exodus. in this account not one word is said about the people having made a golden calf, nor about the breaking of the tables of stone. in the thirty-fourth chapter of exodus, there is an account of the renewal of the broken tables of the law, and the commandments are given, but they are not the same commandments mentioned in the twentieth chapter. there are two accounts of the same transaction. both of these stories cannot be true, and yet both must be believed. any one who will take the trouble to read the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, and the last verse of the thirty-first chapter, the thirty-second, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth chapters of exodus, will be compelled to admit that both accounts cannot be true. from the last account it appears that while moses was upon mount sinai receiving the commandments from god, the people brought their jewelry to aaron, and he cast for them a golden calf. this happened before any commandment against idolatry had been given. a god ought, certainly, to publish his laws before inflicting penalties for their violation. to inflict punishment for breaking unknown and unpublished laws is, in the last degree, cruel and unjust. it may be replied that the jews knew better than to worship idols, before the law was given. if this is so, why should the law have been given? in all civilized countries, laws are made and promulgated, not simply for the purpose of informing the people as to what is right and wrong, but to inform them of the penalties to be visited upon those who violate the laws. when the ten commandments were given, no penalties were attached. not one word was written on the tables of stone as to the punishments that would be inflicted for breaking any or all of the inspired laws. the people should not have been punished for violating a commandment before it was given. and yet, in this case, moses commanded the sons of levi to take their swords and slay every man his brother, his companion, and his neighbor. the brutal order was obeyed, and three thousand men were butchered. the levites consecrated themselves unto the lord by murdering their sons, and their brothers, for having violated a commandment before it had been given. it has been contended for many years that the ten commandments are the foundation of all ideas of justice and of law. eminent jurists have bowed to popular prejudice, and deformed their works by statements to the effect that the mosaic laws are the fountains from which sprang all ideas of right and wrong. nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions. thousands of years before moses was born, the egyptians had a code of laws. they had laws against blasphemy, murder, adultery, larceny, perjury, laws for the collection of debts, the enforcement of contracts, the ascertainment of damages, the redemption of property pawned, and upon nearly every subject of human interest. the egyptian code was far better than the mosaic. laws spring from the instinct of self-preservation, industry objected to supporting idleness, and laws were made against theft. laws were made against murder, because a very large majority of the people have always objected to being murdered. all fundamental laws were born simply of the instinct of self-defence. long before the jewish savages assembled at the foot of sinai, laws had been made and enforced, not only in egypt and india, but by every tribe that ever existed. it is impossible for human beings to exist together, without certain rules of conduct, certain ideas of the proper and improper, of the right and wrong, growing out of the relation. certain rules must be made, and must be enforced. this implies law, trial and punishment. whoever produces anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced. not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force. nothing can be more wonderful than the medical ideas of jehovah. he had the strangest notions about the cause and cure of disease. with him everything was miracle and wonder. in the fourteenth chapter of leviticus, we find the law for cleansing a leper:--"then shall the priest take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. and the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an _earthen_ vessel, over _running_ water. as for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living bird, in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy, seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." we are told that god himself gave these directions to moses. does anybody believe this? why should the bird be killed in an _earthen_ vessel? would the charm be broken if the vessel was of wood? why over _running_ water? what would be thought of a physician now, who would give a prescription like that? is it not strange that god, although he gave hundreds of directions for the purpose of discovering the presence of leprosy, and for cleansing the leper after he was healed, forgot to tell how that disease could be cured? is it not wonderful that while god told his people what animals were fit for food, he failed to give a list of plants that man might eat? why did he leave his children to find out the hurtful and the poisonous by experiment, knowing that experiment, in millions of cases, must be death? when reading the history of the jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, i must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. they were cheated, deceived and abused. their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. he was always promising but never performed. he wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. it is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the hebrew god. he had solemnly promised the jews that he would take them from egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. he had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of egypt. after promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this god, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:--"your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted." this curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of god. into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of jehovah. i cannot believe these things. they are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. a book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from god. when we think of the poor jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of god. no wonder that they longed for the slavery of egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. compared with jehovah, pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of god. while reading the pentateuch, i am filled with indignation, pity and horror. nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. god was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. it is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the jewish god. he is without a redeeming feature. in the mythology of the world he has no parallel. he, only, is never touched by agony and tears. he delights only in blood and pain. human affections are naught to him. he cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. a false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:--such is the god of the pentateuch. xxiv. confess and avoid the scientific christians now admit that the bible is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in any science. in other words, they admit that on these subjects, the bible cannot be depended upon. if all the statements in the scriptures were true, there would be no necessity for admitting that some of them are not inspired. a christian will not admit that a passage in the bible is uninspired, until he is satisfied that it is untrue. orthodoxy itself has at last been compelled to say, that while a passage may be true and uninspired, it cannot be inspired if false. if the people of europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when the bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. if the writers of the various parts of the bible had known as much about the sciences as is now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been written. it was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended by its author. it has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge. a few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. for the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of god. in the world of science, jehovah was superseded by copernicus, galileo, and kepler. all that god told moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of des cartes, la place, and humboldt. in matters of fact, the bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. a few years ago, science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the bible. the tables have been turned, and now, religion is endeavoring to prove that the bible is not inconsistent with science. the standard has been changed. for many ages, the christians contended that the bible, viewed simply as a literary performance, was beyond all other books, and that man without the assistance of god could not produce its equal. this claim was made when but few books existed, and the bible, being the only book generally known, had no rival. but this claim, like the other, has been abandoned by many, and soon will be, by all. compared with shakespeare's "book and volume of the brain," the "sacred" bible shrinks and seems as feebly impotent and vain, as would a pipe of pan, when some great organ, voiced with every tone, from the hoarse thunder of the sea to the winged warble of a mated bird, floods and fills cathedral aisles with all the wealth of sound. it is now maintained--and this appears to be the last fortification behind which the doctrine of inspiration skulks and crouches--that the bible, although false and mistaken in its astronomy, geology, geography, history and philosophy, is inspired in its morality. it is now claimed that had it not been for this book, the world would have been inhabited only by savages, and that had it not been for the holy scriptures, man never would have even dreamed of the unity of god. a belief in one god is claimed to be a dogma of almost infinite importance, that without this belief civilization is impossible, and that this fact is the sun around which all the virtues revolve, for my part, i think it infinitely more important to believe in man. theology is a superstition--humanity a religion. xxv. "inspired" slavery perhaps the bible was inspired upon the subject of human slavery. is there, in the civilized world, today, a clergyman who believes in the divinity of slavery? does the bible teach man to enslave his brother? if it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of god? if you find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written by god, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil? would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? modern christians, ashamed of the god of the old testament, endeavor now to show that slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by jehovah. nothing can be plainer than the following passages from the twenty-fifth chapter of leviticus. "moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever. both thy bond-men, and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bond-men, and bond-maids." can we believe in this, the nineteenth century, that these infamous passages were inspired by god? that god approved not only of human slavery, but instructed his chosen people to buy the women, children and babes of the heathen round about them? if it was right for the hebrews to buy, it was also right for the heathen to sell. this god, by commanding the hebrews to buy, approved of the selling of sons and daughters. the canaanite who, tempted by gold, lured by avarice, sold from the arms of his wife the dimpled babe, simply made it possible for the hebrews to obey the orders of their god. if god is the author of the bible, the reading of these passages ought to cover his cheeks with shame. i ask the christian world to-day, was it right for the heathen to sell their children? was it right for god not only to uphold, but to command the infamous traffic in human flesh? could the most revengeful fiend, the most malicious vagrant in the gloom of hell, sink to a lower moral depth than this? according to this god, his chosen people were not only commanded to buy of the heathen round about them, but were also permitted to buy each other for a term of years. the law governing the purchase of jews is laid down in the twenty-first chapter of exodus. "if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and my children; i will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post: and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl: and he shall serve him forever." do you believe that god was the author of this infamous law? do you believe that the loving father of us all, turned the dimpled arms of babes into manacles of iron? do you believe that he baited the dungeon of servitude with wife and child? is it possible to love a god who would make such laws? is it possible not to hate and despise him? the heathen are not spoken of as human beings. their rights are never mentioned. they were the rightful food of the sword, and their bodies were made for stripes and chains. in the same chapter of the same inspired book, we are told that, "if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall be surely punished. notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." must we believe that god called some of his children the money of others? can we believe that god made lashes upon the naked back, a legal tender for labor performed? must we regard the auction block as an altar? were blood hounds apostles? was the slave-pen a temple? were the stealers and whippers of babes and women the justified children of god? it is now contended that while the old testament is touched with the barbarism of its time, that the new testament is morally perfect, and that on its pages can be found no blot or stain. as a matter of fact, the new testament is more decidedly in favor of human slavery than the old. for my part, i never will, i never can, worship a god who upholds the institution of slavery. such a god i hate and defy. i neither want his heaven, nor fear his hell. xxvi. "inspired" marriage is there an orthodox clergyman in the world, who will now declare that he believes the institution of polygamy to be right? is there one who will publicly declare that, in his judgment, that institution ever was right? was there ever a time in the history of the world when it was right to treat woman simply as property? do not attempt to answer these questions by saying, that the bible is an exceedingly good book, that we are indebted for our civilization to the sacred volume, and that without it, man would lapse into savagery, and mental night. this is no answer. was there a time when the institution of polygamy was the highest expression of human virtue? is there a christian woman, civilized, intelligent, and free, who believes in the institution of polygamy? are we better, purer, and more intelligent than god was four thousand years ago? why should we imprison mormons, and worship god? polygamy is just as pure in utah, as it could have been in the promised land. love and virtue are the same the whole world round, and justice is the same in every star. all the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. it makes of man, a beast, of woman, a trembling slave. it destroys the fireside, makes virtue an outcast, takes from human speech its sweetest words, and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. civilization rests upon the family. the good family is the unit of good government. the virtues grow about the holy hearth of home--they cluster, bloom, and shed their perfume round the fireside where the one man loves the one woman. lover--husband--wife--mother--father--child--home!--without these sacred words, the world is but a lair, and men and women merely beasts. why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother worship the heartless jewish god? why should they, with pure and stainless lips, read the vile record of inspired lust? the marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress of civilization. without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of lust and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime. from the bottom of my heart i hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life, of which the pure and sacred home is not the corner-stone. take from the world the family, the fireside, the children born of wedded love, and there is nothing left. the home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all the world. xxvii. "inspired" war if the bible be true, god commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. they were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. they were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. "our heavenly father" commanded the hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. why were not the maidens also killed? why were they spared? read the thirty-first chapter of numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? is it possible that god permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? if this was the order of god, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? when, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. a general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite god was once a savage. a little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. her breast was filled with wounds received in the defence of her darlings. they had been murdered by the savages. suppose when looking at their lifeless forms, some one had said, "this was done by the command of god!" in canaan there were countless scenes like this. there was no pity in inspired war. god raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. who is the blasphemer; the man who denies the existence of god, or he who covers the robes of the infinite with innocent blood? we are told in the pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. if there be a god, i pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that i denied this lie for him. xxviii. "inspired" religious liberty according to the bible, god selected the jewish people through whom to make known the great fact, that he was the only true and living god. for this purpose, he appeared on several occasions to moses--came down to sinai's top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand miracles for the preservation and education of the jewish people. in their presence he opened the waters of the sea. for them he caused bread to rain from heaven. to quench their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock. their enemies were miraculously destroyed; and for forty years, at least, this god took upon himself the government of the jews. but, after all this, many of the people had less confidence in him than in gods of wood and stone. in moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the darkness of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead of asking this god for aid, they turned and sought the help of senseless things. this god, with all his power and wisdom, could not even convince a few wandering and wretched savages that he was more potent than the idols of egypt. this god was not willing that the jews should think and investigate for themselves. for heresy, the penalty was death. where this god reigned, intellectual liberty was unknown. he appealed only to brute force; he collected taxes by threatening plagues; he demanded worship on pain of sword and fire; acting as spy, inquisitor, judge and executioner. in the thirteenth chapter of deuteronomy, we have the ideas of god as to mental freedom. "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; _namely_ of the gods of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare him, neither shalt thou conceal him. but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die." this is the religious liberty of god; the toleration of jehovah. if i had lived in palestine at that time, and my wife, the mother of my children, had said to me, "i am tired of jehovah, he is always asking for blood; he is never weary of killing; he is always telling of his might and strength; always telling what he has done for the jews, always asking for sacrifices; for doves and lambs--blood, nothing but blood.--let us worship the sun. jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too exacting. let us worship the sun. the sun has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with flowers; by its divine light i first saw your face, and my beautiful babe."--if i had obeyed the command of god, i would have killed her. my hand would have been first upon her, and after that the hands of all the people, and she would have been stoned with stones until she died. for my part, i would never kill my wife, even if commanded so to do by the real god of this universe. think of taking up some ragged rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love for you; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips of the death wound, the red current of her sweet life--think of looking up to heaven and receiving the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandment you had obeyed! can we believe that any such command was ever given by a merciful and intelligent god? suppose, however, that god did give this law to the jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other god that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same god took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the jews crucified him; i ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? what right would this god have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command? nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. to put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. no god is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself. if the pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. the dungeons of the inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of god. if the pentateuch was inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and flame. in the old testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon intellectual development--nothing except simple brute force. is there to-day a christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the subject of religion? is there one who will now say that, under such circumstances, the wife ought to have been killed? why should god be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? could he not compete with baal? was he envious of the success of the egyptian magicians? was it not possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to silence forever the voice of unbelief? did this god have to resort to force to make converts? was he so ignorant of the structure of the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? if he wished to do away with the idolatry of the canaanites, why did he not appear to them? why did he not give them the tables of the law? why did he only make known his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of sinai? will some theologian have the kindness to answer these questions? will some minister, who now believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he worships an intolerant god? is a god who will burn a soul forever in another world, better than a christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? is there no intellectual liberty in heaven? do the angels all discuss questions on the same side? are all the investigators in perdition? will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in hell? will the agony of the damned increase or decrease the happiness of god? will there be, in the universe, an eternal _auto da fe?_ xxix. conclusion if the pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is it inspired in, or about? the unity of god?--that was believed long before moses was born. special providence?--that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. the rights of property?--theft was always a crime. the sacrifice of animals?--that was a custom thousands of years before a jew existed. the sacredness of life?--there have always been laws against murder. the wickedness of perjury?--truthfulness has always been a virtue. the beauty of chastity?--the pentateuch does not teach it. thou shalt worship no other god?--that has been the burden of all religions. is it possible that the pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the assistance of god was necessary to produce these books? is it possible that galileo ascertained the mechanical principles of "virtual velocity," the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that kepler discovered his three laws--discoveries of such importance that the th of may, , may be called the birth-day of modern science; that newton gave to the world the method of fluxions, the theory of universal gravitation, and the decomposition of light; that euclid, cavalieri, des cartes, and leibnitz, almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of galvani, volta, franklin and morse, of trevethick, watt and fulton and of all the pioneers of progress--that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite god? is it possible that the codes of china, india, egypt, greece and rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded in the pentateuch were alone given by god? is it possible that �schylus and shakespeare, burns, and beranger, goethe and schiller, and all the poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs are but the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite god could be the author of the pentateuch? is it possible that of all the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? is it possible that of all these, the bible only is the work of god? if the pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of of our day is a mistake and crime. there should be no political liberty. heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. husbands should divorce their wives at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping wanderers. polygamy ought to be practiced; women should become slaves; we should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and bondwomen forever. we should sell our own flesh and blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. men and women should be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh day. "mediums," such as have familiar spirits, should be burned with fire. every vestige of mental liberty should be destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished in the martyr's blood. is it not far better and wiser to say that the pentateuch while containing some good laws, some truths, some wise and useful things is, after all, deformed and blackened by the savagery of its time? is it not far better and wiser to take the good and throw the bad away? let us admit what we know to be true; that moses was mistaken about a thousand things; that the story of creation is not true; that the garden of eden is a myth; that the serpent and the tree of knowledge, and the fall of man are but fragments of old mythologies lost and dead; that woman was not made out of a rib; that serpents never had the power of speech; that the sons of god did not marry the daughters of men; that the story of the flood and ark is not exactly true; that the tower of babel is a mistake; that the confusion of tongues is a childish thing; that the origin of the rainbow is a foolish fancy; that methuselah did not live nine hundred and sixty-nine years; that enoch did not leave this world, taking with him his flesh and bones; that the story of sodom and gomorrah is somewhat improbable; that burning brimstone never fell like rain; that lot's wife was not changed into chloride of sodium; that jacob did not, in fact, put his hip out of joint wrestling with god; that the history of tamar might just as well have been left out; that a belief in pharaoh's dreams is not essential to salvation; that it makes but little difference whether the rod of aaron was changed to a serpent or not; that of all the wonders said to have been performed in egypt, the greatest is, that anybody ever believed the absurd account; that god did not torment the innocent cattle on account of the sins of their owners; that he did not kill the first born of the poor maid behind the mill because of pharaoh's crimes; that flies and frogs were not ministers of god's wrath; that lice and locusts were not the executors of his will; that seventy people did not, in two hundred and fifteen years, increase to three million; that three priests could not eat six hundred pigeons in a day; that gazing at a brass serpent could not extract poison from the blood; that god did not go in partnership with hornets; that he did not murder people simply because they asked for something to eat; that he did not declare the making of hair oil and ointment an offence to be punished with death; that he did not miraculously preserve cloth and leather; that he was not afraid of wild beasts; that he did not punish heresy with sword and fire; that he was not jealous, revengeful, and unjust; that he knew all about the sun, moon, and stars; that he did not threaten to kill people for eating the fat of an ox; that he never told aaron to draw cuts to see which of two goats should be killed; that he never objected to clothes made of woolen mixed with linen; that if he objected to dwarfs, people with flat noses and too many fingers, he ought not to have created such folks; that he did not demand human sacrifices as set forth in the last chapter of leviticus; that he did not object to the raising of horses; that he never commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; that several contradictory accounts of the same transaction cannot all be true; that god did not talk to abraham as one man talks to another; that angels were not in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with milk and butter, and making bargains about the destruction of cities; that god never turned himself into a flame of fire, and lived in a bush; that he never met moses in a hotel and tried to kill him; that it was absurd to perform miracles to induce a king to act in a certain way and then harden his heart so that he would refuse; that god was not kept from killing the jews by the fear that the egyptians would laugh at him; that he did not secretly bury a man and then allow the corpse to write an account of the funeral; that he never believed the firmament to be solid; that he knew slavery was and always would be a frightful crime; that polygamy is but stench and filth; that the brave soldier will always spare an unarmed foe; that only cruel cowards slay the conquered and the helpless; that no language can describe the murderer of a smiling babe; that god did not want the blood of doves and lambs; that he did not love the smell of burning flesh; that he did not want his altars daubed with blood; that he did not pretend that the sins of a people could be transferred to a goat; that he did not believe in witches, wizards, spooks, and devils; that he did not test the virtue of woman with dirty water; that he did not suppose that rabbits chewed the cud; that he never thought there were any four-footed birds; that he did not boast for several hundred years that he had vanquished an egyptian king; that a dry stick did not bud, blossom, and bear almonds in one night; that manna did not shrink and swell, so that each man could gather only just one omer; that it was never wrong to "countenance the poor man in his cause;" that god never told a people not to live in peace with their neighbors; that he did not spend forty days with moses on mount sinai giving him patterns for making clothes, tongs, basins, and snuffers; that maternity is not a sin; that physical deformity is not a crime; that an atonement cannot be made for the soul by shedding innocent blood; that killing a dove over running water will not make its blood a medicine; that a god who demands love knows nothing of the human heart; that one who frightens savages with loud noises is unworthy the love of civilized men; that one who destroys children on account of the sins of their fathers is a monster; that an infinite god never threatened to give people the itch; that he never sent wild beasts to devour babes; that he never ordered the violation of maidens; that he never regarded patriotism as a crime; that he never ordered the destruction of unborn children; that he never opened the earth and swallowed wives and babes because husbands and fathers had displeased him; that he never demanded that men should kill their sons and brothers, for the purpose of sanctifying themselves; that we cannot please god by believing the improbable; that credulity is not a virtue; that investigation is not a crime; that every mind should be free; that all religious persecution is infamous in god, as well as man; that without liberty, virtue is impossible; that without freedom, even love cannot exist; that every man should be allowed to think and to express his thoughts; that woman is the equal of man; that children should be governed by love and reason; that the family relation is sacred; that war is a hideous crime; that all intolerance is born of ignorance and hate; that the freedom of today is the hope of to-morrow; that the enlightened present ought not to fall upon its knees and blindly worship the barbaric past; and that every free, brave and enlightened man should publicly declare that all the ignorant, infamous, heartless, hideous things recorded in the "inspired" pentateuch are not the words of god, but simply "some mistakes of moses." a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll, by his brother robert. dec. , . may , . a tribute to ebon c. ingersoll, by his brother robert. the record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. dear friends: i am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. the loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. he had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. while yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. for whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. and every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. this brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. he was the friend of all heroic souls. he climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning, of the grander day. he loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. he sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. with loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. he was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. a thousand times i have heard him quote these words: "_for justice all place a temple, and all season, summer!_" he believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. he added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. we strive in vain to look beyond the heights. we cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. from the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. he who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "i am better now." let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. and now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. speech cannot contain our love. there was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man. the gods by robert g. ingersoll give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. banish me from eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. . to eva a. ingersoll my wife, a woman without superstition, this volume is dedicated. the gods an honest god is the noblest work of man. each nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. he hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. all these gods demanded praise, flattery, worship. most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. all these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together. these gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into holy ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. some were married--all ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. as they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment. these gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. none of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. all were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. as a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of american presidents. these deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. in order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters. nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence. few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. these gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. they presided over everybody and everything. they attended to every department. all was supposed to be under their immediate control. nothing was too small--nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. from their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. it is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird. when the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born. the priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them. these gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. for all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. for all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict. one of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following laws of war: "when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, _then proclaim peace unto it_. and it shall be if it make thee answer, of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. "and when the lord thy god hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. but the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, _thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth?_" is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend? remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. peace was offered upon condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled babe. and we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. we are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart because we refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. let the people hate, let the god threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him. the book, called the bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. this is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! this is the book to be recognized in our constitution as the source of all authority and justice! strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing god bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. the orthodox church never will forgive the universalist for saying "god is love." it has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefined religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. it has always been heresy to say, "god will at last save all." we are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of god. as a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. in the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. the instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. it is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. if we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action. the doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. it is the infamy of infamies. the notion that faith in christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." what man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease god? and yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. the jews pacified jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the christian system, the blood of jesus softened the heart of god a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. it is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. whether the bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. salvation through slavery is worthless. salvation from slavery is inestimable. as long as man believes the bible to be infallible, that book is his master. the civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief--the result of free thought. all that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention--of barbarian invention--is to read it. read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition--then read the holy bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as well. these devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. some had headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods. these devils generally sympathized with man. there is in regard to them a most wonderful fact: in nearly all the theologies, mythologies and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. no devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods. the pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. the frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. no devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality. one of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. the old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. this, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. what a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil! one of the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people. was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery? one of these gods is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery: "if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife and my children; i will not go out free. then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." according to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would desert forever his wife and children. did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? who can worship such a god? who can bend the knee to such a monster? who can pray to such a fiend? all these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies. did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? the basest thing recorded of the devil, is what he did concerning job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the character of "my servant job." the first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called genesis, and is as follows: "now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the lord god had made, and he said unto the woman, yea, hath god said, ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? and the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden god hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. * * and the lord god said, behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden to till the ground from which he was taken. so he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." according to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. adam and eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil. the account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. the church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. the priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." from every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." for this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods. if the account given in genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? he was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization. give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! banish me from eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge! some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled to say, is our own. the jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their devil at the same time. this borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our people. he is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our god. to me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. they are a perfectly natural production. man has created them all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. each nation, made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. no god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. the negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. the mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. the jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. zeus was a perfect greek, and jove looked as though a member of the roman senate. the gods of egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. the gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. the gods of india were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice. "in some countries, even at this day, if the people after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. 'how now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care, you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.' "hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the street. if, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. 'of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. why should you bring this beating on yourself. but what is done cannot be undone. let us not think of it any more. if you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter again than before.'" man has never been at a loss for gods. he has worshiped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. he has worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. the to-das worship a cow-bell. the kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. had woman been the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of nature would have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low-necked dresses, laces and back-hair. nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities. man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his surroundings. he cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. he can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses; but he cannot create. having seen exhibitions of power, he can say, omnipotent. having lived, he can say, immortality. knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. conceiving something of intelligence, he can say, god having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. a few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. the superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses. it is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. we have in imagination created an impossible monster. and yet the various parts of this monster really exist. so it is with all the gods that man has made. beyond nature man cannot go even in thought--above nature he cannot rise--below nature he cannot fall. man, in his# ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. to preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. he endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. the lightning and thunder terrified him. in the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. the great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. the strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. for some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power--that they were not all alike malevolent--that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. for this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice. these ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man. for ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. for thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. they would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. if the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit. to pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. the poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. with bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. it was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. it was with the barbarian then as with the civilized now--one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. this was the origin of the priesthood. the priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. he was man's attorney at the court of heaven. he carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. he came back with a command, with authority and with power. man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. even christ, the supposed son of god, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. the religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the new testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction. the fact that christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to man. st. matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of god; and it has always excited the wonder of christians that the temptation was so nobly and heroically withstood. the account to which i refer is as follows: "then was jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. and when the tempter came to him, he said: 'if thou be the son of god, command that these stones be made bread.' but he answered, and said: 'it is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god.' then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him: 'if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.' jesus said unto him: 'it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the lord thy god.' again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him: 'all these will i give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'" the christians now claim that jesus was god. if he was god, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took the omnipotent god and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. failing in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world--this grain of sand--if he, the god of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! is it possible the devil was such an idiot? should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? think of it! the devil--the prince of sharpers--the king of cunning--the master of finesse, trying to bribe god with a grain of sand that belonged to god! is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this? these devils, according to the bible, were of various kinds--some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. all could not be cast out in the same way. the deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. st. mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to christ the boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. "jesus said unto the spirit: 'thou dumb and deaf spirit, i charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. the ease with which christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. to whom he replied: "this kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." is there a christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? the trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their bible. in the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. the people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. all founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. a prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness was regarded with contempt the utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits. this belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena. phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil spirits. it being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man. good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil--so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god. many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true; that all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be false. if the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the believers in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. the truth is, a god was inferred from good; and a devil from bad, phenomena. and it is just as natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a god would produce misery. consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. if phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. if they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power; but, as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and sometimes by malice; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man. the foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. that most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer. thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. some want health restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the lord to do as he may think best. thousands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like david, pray for revenge, and some implore, even god, not to lead them into temptation. all these prayers rest upon, and are produced by, the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. this belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. all sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences, and our own bible is no exception to this rule. if we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. if there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be? the scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference: animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that general joshua may have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively declines to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes altogether easier than history; the sons of god become enamored of the world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and god himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dressmaker. the veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. the shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. man dwelt in an unreal world. he mistook his ideas, his dreams, for real things. his fears became terrible and malicious monsters. he lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. the obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing--with beak and hoof--with leering looks and sneering mouths--with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark. it is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. no wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees--that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. no wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. no wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear. the savage, as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. as he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. at last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity--finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure--finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless--he begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon himself the people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. only upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere in the affairs of men. in most matters we are at last supposed to be free. since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business of producing famine. now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents. as a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. as a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for violating the sabbath. they still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth; but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best they may. in wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man with an honest referee, is almost sure to win. the church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. to give up that doctrine is to give up all. the church must insist that prayer is answered--that some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere and humble christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all. a devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "see," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! what a long slender bill he has! observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! he does not cause the slightest ripple. he is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "my son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of god, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "yes," replied the boy, "i think i see the goodness of god, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks, that in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. he believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with, than without, a lever; that this god so made matter, and so established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around, than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. he insists that it took a direct interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. like the old scotch divine, he thanks god that sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event these religious people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything. they insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. they point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the april rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? that what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the april rain? how beautiful the process of digestion! by what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! by what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! see by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! see how it gradually but surely expands and grows! by what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! what beautiful colors it presents! seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. all the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? we are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god has. if a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he commenced to create. back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing--absolutely nothing--except this supposed god. according to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness. admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it? it certainly was not made of nothing. nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. it follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. the universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material. with this very thought in his mind, anaximander of miletus said: "creation is the decomposition of the infinite." it has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for the fact, that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. this proves the material universe to be infinite. if an infinite universe has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left? the idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity. it is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. it is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. neither matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. force cannot exist apart from matter. matter exists only in connection with force, and consequently, a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility. force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been created. matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple motion to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control. thought is a form of force. we walk with the same force with which we think. man is an organism, that changes several forms of force into thought-force. man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and produce what we call thought. think of that wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine tragedy of hamlet! a god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of changing other forms of force into thought-force. this is what we call eating. therefore, if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to think. it is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus imparted. if neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then, of the existence of a power superior to nature? the theologian will probably reply, "we have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all this, matter could not have put itself in motion." suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior to nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. now suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect? yes. suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the least. this would be an effect. if this is so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being superior to nature. now suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly the same? yes. like causes, producing like effects, is what we mean by law and order. then we have matter, force, effect, law and order without a being superior to nature. now, we know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. the atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must as to something else have been a cause. then we have matter, force, law, order, cause and effect without a being superior to-nature. nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. his throne is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force without law, without cause, and without effect. but what put all this matter in motion? if matter and force have existed from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. there can be no force without motion. force is forever active, and there is, and there can be no cessation. if, therefore, matter and force have existed from eternity, so has motion. in the whole universe there is not even one atom in a state of rest. a deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. that which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a man. there is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. the rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. the founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. it was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. in times of ignorance this was easy to do. the credulity of the savage was almost boundless. to him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle--that is to say, a violation of nature--that is to say, a falsehood. no one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. truth scorns the assistance of miracle. nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. no miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature. the church wishes us to believe. let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. we are told that nature has a superior, let this superior, for # one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions. we have heard talk enough. we have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. we have read your bible and the works of your best minds. we have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. all these amount to less than nothing. we want one fact. we beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact we pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact we know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. we want a this year's fact we ask only one. give us one fact for charity. your miracles are too ancient the witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. their reputation for "truth and veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. do not send us to jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with shadrach, meshech, and abednego. do not compel us to navigate the sea with captain jonah, nor dine with mr. ezekiel. there is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with samson. we have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by balaam's inspired donkey. it is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. we demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. let the church furnish at least one, or forever after hold her peace. in the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her god. at that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. they became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. and now this same church--the people having found some little sense--admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle, but insists that the absence of miracle--the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. the fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary. sir william hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following language: "the phenomena of matter taken by themselves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a god, would on the contrary ground even an argument to his negation. the phenomena of the material world are subjected to immutable laws; are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity." nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. she cannot create, but she eternally transforms. there was no beginning, and there can be no end. the best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. they find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. they insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "great first cause." they say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce matter. they tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. why not say, god has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? so far as we know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. we cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain. the science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power is called, metaphysics or theology. the theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient causes--nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity. they therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this superior power. the trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. every thought must have had an efficient cause. every motive, every desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. there is no room in the mind of man for providence or chance. the facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of the planets. a poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. you will seek in vain for a thought in man's brain without its efficient cause. every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. mental phenomena are considered more complicated than those of matter, and consequently more mysterious. being more mysterious, they are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. no one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. our ignorance is god; what we know is science. when we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. the real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. from that moment the church ceases to exist the tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the bible will take its place with the shastras, puranas, vedas, eddas, sagas and korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men. "but," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my god." we are explaining more every day. we are understanding more every day; consequently your god is growing smaller every day. nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is god. to this we again reply: every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. every effect must in its turn become a cause. therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity become a cause. the converse of these propositions must be true. every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect. therefore, there could have been no first cause. a first cause is just as impossible as a last effect beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist the moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in general or special providence becomes impossible. from that instant men will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. they will abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. the element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. the plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. the mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear. agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the jewish scriptures. the moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. the little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory--lasting and universal. if we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed. man should cease to expect aid from on high. by this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. the present is the necessary child of all the past. there has been no chance, and there can be no interference. if abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. if slaves are freed, man must free them. if new truths are discovered, man must discover them. if the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. the grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone. nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention, forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. she neither weeps nor rejoices. she produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. she knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. she is neither merciful nor cruel. she cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. she does not know even the attitude of prayer. she appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence. and yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. his best energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. the horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect independence of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. the history of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers, and to pacify the other. both powers have inspired little else than, abject fear. the cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown of, god, were equally terrible. in any event, man's fate was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact. until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of phantom masters--neither of whom promise liberty in this world nor in the next. man must learn to rely upon himself. reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. to prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world. although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and goodness of god, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures. immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been denounced as infidels, atheists and scoffers. the whole power of the church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to compel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to induce some judas to betray reason, one of the saviors of mankind. during that frightful period known as the "dark ages" faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. the great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. at her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. the scales of justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. she built cathedrals for god, and dungeons for men. she peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. for centuries the world was retracing its steps--going steadily back towards barbaric night! a few infidels--a few heretics cried, "halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind. the thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. as long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and god? under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth? the originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the christian world. as long as every question is answered by the word "god," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. as fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge. it is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations by saying, "it is the will of god." such an explanation puts ignorance and education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting for anything whatever. will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to ascertain how and why god acts? science, from such a standpoint would consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavor to ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice. from a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain. a belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort why should man endeavor to thwart the designs of god? which of your by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? under the influence of this belief, man, basking in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to take any-thought for the morrow. believing himself in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. as long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition and misery. the energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. for countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. to please him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babes; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn the ecstacies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpetrated. through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. during all these years the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored, and heaven has been deaf and blind. of what use have the gods been to man? it is no answer to say that some god created the world, established certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his children weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone. it is no solution to declare that in some other world this god will render a few, or even all, his subjects happy. what right have we to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do better than he has done, and is doing? the world is filled with imperfections. if it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? if the infinite "father" allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? will god have more power? will he become more merciful? will his love for his poor creatures increase? can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever? we are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous and grand. supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy? the little children, according to this philosophy, can never be developed. they were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. if the clergy are right on this question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and distressed. if evil is necessary to the development of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of paradise? since paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon as unanswerable. the church teaches that this world, and all that it contains, were created substantially as we now see them; that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. the most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea; that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. the theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of evolution did not occur to them. our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal arrangement the earth appeared to them fresh from the hands of a deity. they knew nothing of the slow evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first. suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. and suppose, further, that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand years of labor and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him, that by splitting the log, he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins; that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage, when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic? suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect? does not an improvement in the things created, show a corresponding improvement in the creator? would an infinitely wise, good and powerful god, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? who can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a tomb? is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage? what would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend? and yet this is exactly what the orthodox god has done. according to the theologians, god prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. the next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary god. a very pious friend of mine, having heard that i had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. he said that, in his judgment, it was impossible to point out an imperfection. "be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "well," said i, "i would make good health catching, instead of disease." the truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent god, who is superior to and independent of nature. the clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next we are assured that all is perfection in heaven--there the skies are cloudless--there all is serenity and peace. here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. pestilences may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony--yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. the innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves while the angels play upon their golden harps. the streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. in heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. their eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. the saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a moment's thought to his drowning brothers. with the indifference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. the smiles of the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. the shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth. having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: how did he free himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these despots of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? how did he, even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the yoke of superstition? probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. from this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with reference to him. he noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical, and that even comets came at certain intervals. this convinced him that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to do with them. he perceived that they were not caused for his benefit or injury. he thus learned to regard them with admiration instead of fear. he began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity, but resulted often from the neglect and ignorance of man. he learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. he found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be cured by natural means. he demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. he found by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. at last, he began to discover that his individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough to stop one. after many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an earthquake. he noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. he was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the right did not always prevail. he noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent. he was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. he finally ascertained that, there could be no possible connection between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. he began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. he observed that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized. he noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and that the worshipers of the same god, took delight in cutting each other's throats. he saw that these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. at last he had the courage to suspect, that no god at any time interferes with the order of events. he learned a few facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers. finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be shaken; finding his priests ignorant upon some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth. this was the commencement of intellectual freedom. the civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. the intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. the church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. in spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. by reading his bible, he found that the ideas of his god were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. he also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. in every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. these divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of god. religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards god and hatred towards man. the terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. a few began to compare christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. they also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. they began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value. for three hundred years the christian world endeavored to rescue from the "infidel" the empty sepulchre of christ for three hundred years the armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. this immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust throughout all christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a god who had been vanquished by-mohammed. the people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. they discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree. for ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. this is the war between science and faith. the few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom to the known, and to happiness here in this world. the many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. the few have said, "think!" the many have said, "believe!" the first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance. men began to investigate, and the church began to oppose. the astronomer scanned the heavens, while the church branded his grand forehead with the word, "infidel;" and now, not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a christian name. in spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, souvenirs of all the ages. old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their places. one by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. a new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored, and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without. these are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. these are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of priests. in that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. the sacred temples of india were ruins long ago. over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; kali, the goddess; draupadi, the white-armed, and chrishna, the christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. along the banks of the sacred nile, isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead osiris. the shadow of typhon's scowl falls no more upon the waves. the sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of memnon, but mem-non is as voiceless as the sphinx. the sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. odin, the author of life and soul, vili and ve, and the mighty giant ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the north; and thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more. broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. the divine fires of persia and of the aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. the harp of orpheus is still; the drained cup of bacchus has been thrown aside; venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. the streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. the gods have flown from high olympus. not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and danse lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. hushed forever are the thunders of sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste. one by one, the myths have faded from the clouds; one by one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. the supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. the gods have fled, but man is here. nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. religions are the same. the same inexorable destiny awaits them all. the gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. they were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. the deities of one age are the by-words of the next. the religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others have been. when india was supreme, brahma sat upon the world's throne. when the sceptre passed to egypt, isis and osiris received the homage of mankind. greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and zeus put on the purple of authority. the earth trembled with the tread of rome's intrepid sons, and jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. rome fell, and christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now christ sits upon the old throne. who will be his successor? day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. day by day, the old spirit dies out of book and creed. the burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to return. the ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out of the human heart. the worn-out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. as time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small, and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. there is an "irrepressible conflict" between religion and science, and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world. while utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn. reason, observation and experience--the holy trinity of science--have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. this is enough for us. in this belief we are content to live and die. if by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. until then, let us stand erect. notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with tearing down without building again. the church should by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. the history of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence. the mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. the moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast aside. a surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him any assistance in his power. the surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. these remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, "do not, i pray you, take away my crutches. they are my only support, and without them i should be miserable indeed!" "i am not going," said the surgeon, "to take away your crutches. i am going to cure you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself." for the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose to substitute the realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and achievements of science; and for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of thought. we do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. we know of no end to the development of man. we cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. the history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars. we are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. we are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. we are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. this of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. philosophy has not the egotism of faith. while superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. we do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. we are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. we do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. we know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. it is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man. felling forests is not the end of agriculture. driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce. we are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future--not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people--wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of humanity. we are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants--gorged indolence and famished industry--truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. we are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the king of kings, and god of gods. individuality by robert g. ingersoll individuality "his soul was like a star and dwelt apart." on every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. we are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. at every turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the eden of our desire. we are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. we are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid. we have all read accounts of christian gentlemen remarking, when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother's advice. but after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. how fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey. universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. suppose the church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? in defiance of advice, the world has advanced. suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the advice of paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because they are ordained of god;" suppose the church could control the world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. philosophy would be branded as infamous; science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame. it is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one who had the grandeur to say his say. i believe it was magellan who said, "the church says the earth is flat; but i have seen its shadow on the moon, and i have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." on the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success. the trouble with most people is they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. they think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time. they think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. all these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book. it is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of superstition. you first teach children that a certain book is true--that it was written by god himself--that to question its truth is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy. the consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to be true. when they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to investigate its claims. they accept it as a matter of course. in this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge and charity, with bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. in this way we are taught that the revenge of man is the justice of god; that mercy is not the same everywhere. in this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. in this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. in this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies. one great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. they teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. they do not say, "we _think_ this is so," but "we _know_ this is so." they do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. they keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. all this is infamous. in this way you may make christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make women. you can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no christs. you may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise. a monarch said to a hermit, "come with me and i will give you power." "i have all the power that i know how to use," replied the hermit "come," said the king, "i will give you wealth." "i have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit "i will give you honor," said the monarch. "ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer. "come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and i will give you happiness." "no," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free." "you shall have liberty too," said the king. "then i will stay where i am," said the old man. and all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool. now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. then the pious get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. the stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes by on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the church kills. the church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. the church demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. to worship another is to degrade yourself. worship is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. it is the spirit of worship that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. the spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. the worshiper always regrets that he is not the worshiped. we should all remember that the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect whoever worships, abdicates. whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute. the despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. at one time the same thing could have been truly said in india, in egypt, in greece, in rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world, swept to empire. this argument proves too much not only, but the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. numberless circumstances and countless conditions have pro-duced the prosperity of the christian world. the truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. the church has won no victories for the rights of man. luther labored to reform the church--voltaire, to reform men. over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the church. wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the church has been wet. on every chain has been the sign of the cross. the altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other. all that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science. the church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. to prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith. who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for the human race? who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church that pretends to be the mouthpiece of god, and in his name, threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? by what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? when a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. in the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to think. over the vast plain, called life, we are all travelers, and not one traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. true it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guide-boards. at every turn and crossing you will find them, and upon each one is written the exact direction and distance. one great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers are confused in proportion to the number they read. thousands of people are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the traveler that his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guide-boards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites and liars. "well," says a traveler, "you may be right in what you say, but allow me at least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into their claims. i wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance." "no, sir," shouts the zealot, "that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. you must go my way without investigation, or you are as good as damned already." "well," says the traveler, "if that is so, i believe i had better go your way." and so most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all. these travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others, as infidels and atheists. around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the rain and sun. they are the bones of murdered men and women--fathers, mothers and babes. in my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. every mind should be true to itself--should think, investigate and conclude for itself. this is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. every soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they come--from earth or heaven, from men or gods. besides, every traveler upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as, to the road that should be taken. each is entitled to the honest opinion of all. and there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. the person giving the opinion must be free from fear. the merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit there can be no advance without liberty. suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night. the tendency of orthodox religion to-day is toward mental slavery and barbarism. not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. he knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. he knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? is any such thing possible? do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? no two trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike? infinite diversity is the law. religion tries to force all minds into one mould. knowing that all cannot believe, the church endeavors to make all say they believe. she longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom. nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. in this sense, every church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph. we should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. the great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. after all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is called respectability. there is no saying more degrading than this: "it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a dog." it is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. most people hate responsibility; therefore they join something and become the tail of some lion. they say, "my party can act for me--my church can do my thinking. it is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which i belong, without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever." these people are respectable. they hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. they regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. they love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor is. besides this natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility, is and always has been, the fact, that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. the reason has been denounced by all christendom as the only unsafe guide. the church has left nothing undone to prevent man following the logic of his brain. the plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. the grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. the order of nature has been, as it were, reversed, that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. the man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of god and his holy church. from the organization of the first church until this moment, to think your own thoughts has been inconsistent with membership. every member has borne the marks of collar, and chain, and whip. no man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. the highest crime against a creed is to change it. reformation is treason. thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various churches. what for? in order that they may be prepared to investigate the phenomena by which we are surrounded? no! the object, and the only object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may learn the arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. if one, after being thus trained at the expense of the methodists, turns presbyterian or baptist, he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you. the consequence of this is, that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of fear, tyranny and hypocrisy. every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, "if i write that, my wife and children may want for bread. i will be covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if i write this, i will gain position, power, and honor. my church rewards defenders, and burns reformers." under these conditions all your scotts, henrys, and mcknights have written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth? they are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of the paid attorneys of superstition. who can tell what the world has lost by this infamous system of suppression? how many grand thinkers have died with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? how many splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the poison-coils of that python, the church! for thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict. to him who had braved the church, every door was shut, every knife was open. to shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all crimes, not one of which the church ever did forgive; and with the justice taught of her god, his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions and vipers. who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire,--to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell--her devil and her god? they were the noblest sons of earth. they were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of science. they were the real titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods. the church has been, and still is, the great robber. she has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. she is the stone at the sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. under her influence even the protestant mother expects to be happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man, shall writhe in hell. it is said that some of the indian tribes place the heads of their children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently changed. to us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet, after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the strait-jacket of a creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the god of the bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? every child in the christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage. all the machinery of the church is constantly employed in corrupting the reason of children. in every possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. every sunday school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality. the poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to god than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe god did an impossible act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. they are told that all religions have been simply the john-the-baptists of ours; that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the jehovah of the jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in the motto of the evangelical alliance, "liberty in non-essentials;" that all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found in the apostles' creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers. it has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during' all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. he certainly would now and then be tempted to make the same remark made by an english gentleman to his poor guest. the gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. the man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman said he replied "yes." tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the gentleman cried out, "for god's sake, my good man, say 'no,' just once, so there will be two of us." is it possible that an infinite god created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising orthodox christians? that he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with baptist barnacles, petrified presbyterians and methodist mummies? i want no heaven for which i must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god. religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. she accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand erect. she cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. the wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. the star-lit heights of genius and individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. her subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience. they are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive glance the cruel face of power. no religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. there is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts, there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men, here or hereafter. and yet the protestant has vied with the catholic in denouncing freedom of thought; and while i was taught to hate catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion, luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of his nature; calvin despised, from the very bottom of his petrified heart, anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify christ afresh. all the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. the truth is that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free thought. a believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing. at present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious liberty. of these churches, we will ask this question: how can a man, who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a god who does not? they say to us: "we will not imprison you on account of your belief, but our god will." "we will not burn you because you throw away the sacred scriptures, but their author will." "we think it an infamous crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,--but the god, whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children forever." why is it that these christians not only detest the infidels, but cordially despise each other? why do they refuse to worship in the temples of each other? why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so much for the baptism of children? why will they adorn their churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of subscriptions? why will they attempt to bribe science to certify to the writings of god? why do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth of christianity? why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging, like lazarus, for a few crumbs, of religious comfort? why are they so delighted to find an allusion to providence in the message of lincoln? why are they so afraid that some one will find out that paley wrote an essay in favor of the epicurean philosophy, and that sir isaac newton was once an infidel? why are they so anxious to show that voltaire recanted; that paine died palsied with fear; that the emperor julian cried out "galilean, thou hast conquered"; that gibbon died a catholic; that agassiz had a little confidence in moses; that the old napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought christ greater than himself or cæsar; that washington was caught on his knees at valley forge; that blunt old ethan allen told his child to believe the religion of her mother; that franklin said, "don't unchain the tiger," and that volney got frightened in a storm at sea? is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because science has written over the high altar its mené, mené, tekel, upharsin--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions? every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. luther started toward humboldt,--wesley, toward john stuart mill. to really reform the church is to destroy it. every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time i will not say the church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. its history is infamous and glorious. it has delighted in the production of extremes. it has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. it has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. it has been a charitable highwayman--a profligate beggar--a generous pirate. it has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. it has built more prisons than asylums. it made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. in one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a sword. it has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. it filled the world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own christ it crucified the individuality of man. it has sought to destroy the independence of the soul and put the world upon its knees. this is its crime. the commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. in order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth, and all the truth; that god had made it the keeper of his secrets; his agent and his vicegerent. it declared that all other religions were false and infamous. it rendered all compromise impossible and all thought superfluous. thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend. investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was suppressed. the holy of holies was behind the curtain. all this was upon the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an expert, and that imposture detests curiosity. "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite text of the church. in short, christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the human race. across the highway of progress it has always been building breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the christians have gathered together behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at the soldiers of freedom. and even the liberal christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. he still clings to a part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. we associate the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. it seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of barbarism. some throw away the old testament and cling to the new, while others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal god, and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care. even this, in my opinion, as science, the great iconoclast, marches onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest the great ghost will surely share the fate of the little ones. they fled at the first appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day. until then the independence of man is little more than a dream. overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. beneath the frown of the absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,--beneath his smile he is at best only a fortunate serf. governed by a being whose arbitrary will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the pleasure of the unknown. under these circumstances, what wretched object can he have in lengthening out his aimless life? and yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods--a shrinking from the malice of the skies. our fathers were slaves, and nearly all their children are mental serfs. the enfranchisement of the soul is a slow and painful process. superstition, the mother of those hideous twins, fear and faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the world, and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of priests. when women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete. in the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as utterly fabulous the legends of the church, there still remains a lingering suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood, that after all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of theological mist, and that possibly the superstitious side is the side of safety. a gentleman, walking among the ruins of athens, came upon a fallen statue of jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "o jupiter! i salute thee." he then added: "should you ever sit upon the throne of heaven again, do not, i pray you, forget that i treated you politely when you were prostrate." we have all been taught by the church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of the deity as to express a doubt as to his existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. numerous well-attested instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead for denying the existence of god. according to these, religious people, god is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. knowing, as he does, that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence, the most infamous of crimes. according to orthodox logic, god having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result. suppose mr. smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a discussion as to the existence of mr. smith, and suppose one should have the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of smith had ever lived. think then of mr. smith flying into an ecstacy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed, "i will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that smith is a diabolical fact!" what then can we think of a god who would open the artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? and what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of ennius: "if there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man." think of the millions of men and women who have been destroyed simply for loving and worshiping this god. is it possible that this god, having infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children languishing in the darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains when they lifted their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them stretched upon the bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the serpents of flame crawl hissing round their shrinking forms--saw all this for sixteen hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone? from such a god, why should man expect assistance? why should he waste his days in fruitless prayer? why should he fall upon his knees and implore a phantom--a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind? although we live in what is called a free government,--and politically we are free,--there is but little religious liberty in america. society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you suppress your opinions. it is contended by many that ours is a christian government, founded upon the bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. the truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. our constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of christ, but the sacredness of humanity. ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. it is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. and yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of jehovah. such judges are the jeffries of the church. they believe that decisions, made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever. they regard old law as far superior to modern justice. they are what might be called orthodox judges. they spend their days in finding out, not what ought to be, but what has been. with their backs to the sunrise they worship the night. there is only one future event with which they concern themselves, and that is their reelection. no honest court ever did, or ever will, decide that our constitution is christian. the bible teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of god. the bible teaches that god is the source of all authority, and that all kings have obtained their power from him. every tyrant has claimed to be the agent of the most high. the inquisition was founded, not in the name of man, but in the name of god. all the governments of europe recognize the greatness of god, and the littleness of the people. in all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings. the declaration of independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. this was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that god confers the right upon one man to govern others. it was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. it declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. through the ages of slavery--through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, god was the acknowledged ruler of the world. to enthrone man, was to dethrone him. to paine, jefferson, and franklin, are we indebted, more than to all others, for a human government, and for a constitution in which no god is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people. they knew that to put god in the constitution was to put man out. they knew that the recognition of a deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. they knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her god, the sacred rights of man. they intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. they intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. they wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few. notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our laws. in many of the states, only those who believe in the existence of some kind of god, are under the protection of the law. the supreme court of illinois decided, in the year of grace , that an unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent first cause could not be allowed to testify in any court. his wife and children might have been murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other witnesses, the murderer could not have even been indicted. the atheist was a legal outcast. to him, justice was not only blind, but deaf. he was liable, like other men, to support the government, and was forced to contribute his share towards paying the salaries of the very judges who decided that under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any court. this was the law of illinois, and so remained until the adoption of the new constitution. by such infamous means has the church endeavored to chain the human mind, and protect the majesty of her god. the fact is, we have no national religion, and no national god; but every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a god of his own, or to reject all religions and deny the existence of all gods. the church, however, never has, and never will understand and appreciate the genius of our government. last year, in a convention of protestant bigots, held in the city of new york for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious amendment to the federal constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity, speaking of atheists, said: "what are the rights of the atheist? i would tolerate him as i would tolerate a poor lunatic. i would tolerate him as i would tolerate a conspirator. he may live and go free, hold his lands and enjoy his home--he may even vote; but for any higher or more advanced citizenship, he is, as i hold, utterly disqualified." these are the sentiments of the church to-day. give the church a place in the constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men. in religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and steady development. at the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times) is catholicism, and at the top is science. the intermediate rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion. but whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form. all that i ask, is the same right i freely accord to all others. a few years ago a methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a piece of friendly advice. "although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say so. that, you should keep to yourself." "do you believe the bible," said i. he replied, "most assuredly." to which i retorted, "your answer conveys no information to me. you may be following your own advice. you told me to suppress my opinions. of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth himself." there can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really valuable than the suppression of honest thought. no man, worthy of the form he bears, will at the command of church or state solemnly repeat a creed his reason scorns. it is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. "this, above all, to thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." it is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. it is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say, "there is nobody in this bed." it is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed; that you are indebted to your memory for your principles; that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. it is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry "crucify him," because the others do; that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it. surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the _unit_. surely it is worth something to be _one_, and to feel that the census of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself. heretics and heresies by robert g. ingersoll heretics and heresies liberty, a word without which all other words are vain. whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. this word was born of the hatred, arrogance and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. this word was born of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought. it was an epithet used in the place of argument. from the commencement of the christian era, every art has been exhausted and every conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. this effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the soul. christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. god is supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed at this moment to be suffering the agonies of the damned. the church persecutes the living and her god burns the dead. it is claimed that god wrote a book called the bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. as long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. a few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. protestants and catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. for ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. they infested every country, every city, town, hamlet and family. they appealed to the worst passions of the human heart. they sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in every land. brother denounced brother, wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains; the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful god, his children were exterminated with famine, sword, and fire. over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of jesus christ. for sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. the ingenuity of christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever. give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. as long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. why should the church pity a man whom her god hates? why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her god will burn in eternal fire? why should a christian be better than his god? it is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been perpetrated by the church. every nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the church. let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. from augustine until now the spirit of the christians has remained the same. there has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, and the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with an ignorant creed. every church pretends that it has a revelation from god, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation--not from god--but from the church. had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. it might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or investigate in order to forget. without heresy there could have been no progress. the highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget; neither does he learn. he neither advances nor recedes. he is a living fossil embedded in that rock called faith. he makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. the supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he denounces free-thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. when he had power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. it meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death. in those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. across the open bible lay the sword and fagot. not content with burning such heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might rob their wives and children. the property of all heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being heretical--indicted, as it were, their dust--to the end that the church might clutch the bread of orphans. learned divines discussed the propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned, and the general opinion was, that this ought to be done so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the christians who were burning them. with a mixture of ferocity and christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire, giving as a reason that more time was given them for repentance. no wonder that jesus christ said, "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." every priest regarded himself as the agent of god. he answered all questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult offered to god. no one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey. in the inquisition was established. seven years afterward, the fourth council of the lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. the sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. acting, as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of god; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception,--these infamous priests, in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. they crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed god to finish the holy work in hell. millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. the catholic burned the lutheran, the lutheran burned the catholic, the episcopalian tortured the presbyterian, the presbyterian tortured the episcopalian. every denomination killed all it could of every other; and each christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed. in the reign of henry viii--that pious and moral founder of the apostolic episcopal church,--there was passed by the parliament of england an act entitled "an act for abolishing of diversity of opinion." and in this act was set forth what a good christian was obliged to believe: first, that in the sacrament was the real body and blood of jesus christ. second, that the body and blood of jesus christ was in the bread, and the blood and body of jesus christ was in the wine. third, that priests should not marry. fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation. fifth, that private masses ought to be continued; and, sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be maintained. this creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to believe by simply reading the statute. the church hated to see the people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. it was thought far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. the punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. for the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second offense--death. your attention is called to these six articles, established during the reign of henry viii, and by the church of england, simply because not one of these articles is believed by that church to-day. if the law then made by the church could be enforced now, every episcopalian would be burned at the stake. similar laws were passed in most christian countries, as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven. according to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to hell. it was claimed that god had founded the church, and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to god, and consequently an ally of the devil. to torture and destroy one of the soldiers of satan was a duty no good christian cared to neglect. nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of god by killing your own enemies. such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary christian never resists. according to the theologians, god, the father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. the children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. in consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. in every land, where this letter from god has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. they have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. in the name of god every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of jesus christ. for more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. her vengeance has been measured only by her power. during all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. with the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the church of god. i do not say, and i do not believe, that christians are as bad as their creeds. in spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. they have been true to their convictions, and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned every danger. and yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. they knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. they believed that religion was of god, and all heresy of the devil. they killed heretics in defense of their own souls and the souls of their children. they killed them because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of god, and because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven. nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the ganges. nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. these crimes have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. these religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny and hypocrisy. under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these crimes. men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one god; that there was none; that the holy ghost is younger than god; that god was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of god as though he had a nose; for denying that christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that god is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for god, and in the place of god; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking the virgin mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good-sized woman; for denying that god used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a catholic, and for being a protestant; for being an episcopalian, a presbyterian, a baptist, and for being a quaker. in short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. the church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. and all this, because it was commanded by a book--a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. they had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book--to examine it, even--was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next. the bible was the real persecutor. the bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. how long, o how long will mankind worship a book? how long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? how long, o how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, a man by the name of gerard chauvin was married to jeanne lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a son, called john chauvin, who afterwards became famous as john calvin, the founder of the presbyterian church. #this man forged five fetters for the brain. these fetters he called points. that is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. about the neck of each follower he put a collar bristling with these five iron points. the presence of all these points on the collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. this man, when in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in geneva. he at once, in union with farel, drew up a condensed statement of the presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of geneva, on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they believed this statement. of this proceeding calvin very innocently remarked that it produced great satisfaction. a man named caroli had the audacity to dispute with calvin. for this outrage he was banished. to show you what great subjects occupied the attention of calvin, it is only necessary to state that he furiously discussed the question as to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. he drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing their diet, and all those whose garments were not in the calvin fashion were refused the sacrament at last, the people becoming tired of this petty theological tyranny, banished calvin. in a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. after this he was supreme, and the will of calvin became the law of geneva. under his benign administration, james gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. the slightest word against calvin or his absurd doctrines was punished as a crime. in a man was tried at vienne by the catholic church for heresy. he was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. it was apparently his good fortune to escape. pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to geneva for protection. a dove flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. this fugitive from the cruelty of rome asked shelter from john calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious toleration. servetus had forgotten that this book was written by calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. he did not know that calvin had caused his arrest at vienne, in france, and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous, to the archbishop, he did not then know that the protestant calvin was acting as one of the detectives of the catholic church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very calvin. the maker of the presbyterian creed caused the fugitive serve-tus to be arrested for blasphemy. he was tried. calvin was his accuser. he was convicted and condemned to death by fire. on the morning of the fatal day, calvin saw him, and servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of calvin, the murderer. servetus was bound to the stake, and the fagots were lighted. the wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. vainly he implored a speedy death. at last the flames climbed round his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white heroic face. and there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass. liberty was banished from geneva, and nothing but presbyterianism was left. honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled; but the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained instead. calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the old testament, and succeeded in erect-ing the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied. against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. the name of this man should never be forgotten. it was castellio. this brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest error. he was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble ground. i wish i had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say, castellio was in all things the opposite of calvin. to plead for the right of individual judgment was considered a crime, and castellio was driven from geneva by john calvin. by him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death. upon the name of castellio, calvin heaped every epithet, until his malice was nearly satisfied and his imagination entirely exhausted. it is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a fellow man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is good, just, and generous calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. he was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. in other words, he was as near like the god of the old testament as his health permitted. the best thing, however, about the presbyterians of geneva was, that they denied the power of the pope, and the best thing about the pope was, that he was not a presbyterian. the doctrines of calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent; but scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of presbyterianism. the scotch succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that flourished in geneva. the clergy took possession and control of everybody and everything. it is impossible to exaggerate the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of scotland during the reign of presbyterianism. heretics were hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. the gloomy insanity of presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. they regarded their ministers as the jews did moses and aaron. they believed that they were the especial agents of god, and that whatsoever they bound in scotland would be bound in heaven. there was not one particle of intellectual freedom. no man was allowed to differ with the church, or to even contradict a priest. had presbyterianism maintained its ascendency, scotland would have been peopled by savages to-day. the revengeful spirit of calvin took possession of the puritans, and caused them to redden the soil of the new world with the brave blood of honest men. clinging to the five points of calvin, they too established governments in accordance with the teachings of the old testament. they too attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought. they too believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was absurd. they believed with luther that universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell. toleration was denounced as a crime. fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect even upon the presbyterian church. to the ennobling influence of the arts and sciences the savage spirit of calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. true, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past. the cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured, now and then, to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. the fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous to the people. the fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. the preachers told the old stories while the congregations slept. some of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. the five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. the outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while this church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old presbyterian ark rested on the ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age. lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of science, longing to feel the throb and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were compelled, by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the splendid ideas of to-day. these utterances have upon several occasions so nearly wakened some of the members that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical. these ministers found that just in the proportion that their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations increased. those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than they had points. stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. one of the presbyterian ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by the presbytery of illinois. he is charged-- first. with having neglected to preach that most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul. surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope! who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? think of the lives it has blighted--of the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. this doctrine renders god the basest and most cruel being in the universe. compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. there is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. lower than this the soul can never sink. if the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men. second. with having spoken a few kind words of robert collyer and john stuart mill. i have the honor of a slight acquaintance with robert collyer. i have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. he has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet and the sincere heart of a child. is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and candid adversary? is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who devotes his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believes to be right? can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and heroic life? is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of john stuart mill? is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? must the true presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave and ask his god to curse the silent dust? is presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its founder? is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that consumed servetus? does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling before its ignorant confession of faith? had such men as robert collyer and john stuart mill been present at the burning of servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. had the presbytery of chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed themselves. third, with having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of predestination. if there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is that doctrine. surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain. fourth. with failing to preach the efficacy of a "vicarious sacrifice." suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged--the governor acting as the executioner; and suppose that just as the doomed man was about to suffer death some one in the crowd should step forward and say, "i am willing to die in the place of that murderer. he has a family, and i have none." and suppose further, that the governor should reply, "come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. a murder has been committed and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the murderer." what would you then think of the doctrine of "vicarious sacrifice?" this doctrine is the consummation of two outrages--forgiving one crime and committing another. fifth, with having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known as "evolution," or "development". the church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine. according to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. to teach that there is that in nature which impels to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy, of course. the deity will damn spencer and his "evolution," darwin and his "origin of species," bastian and his "spontaneous generation," huxley and his "protoplasm" tyndall and his "prayer gauge" and will save those, and those only, who declare that the universe has been cursed, from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that everything tends to evil and to that only, and that the only perfect thing in nature is the presbyterian confession of faith. sixth, with having intimated that the reception of socrates and penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial than that of catharine ii. penelope, waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and unweaving the shroud of laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of greece. socrates, whose life was above reproach and whose death was beyond all praise, stands to-day, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of christ. catharine ii assassinated her husband. stepping upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. she was the murderess of prince iwan, grand nephew of peter the great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who during all that time saw the sky but once. taken all in all, catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown. catharine, however, was the head of the greek church, socrates was a heretic and penelope lived and died without having once heard of "particular redemption" or of "irresistible grace." seventh, with repudiating the idea of a "call" to the ministry, and pretending that men were "called" to preach as they were to the other avocations of life. if this doctrine is true, god, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. it is more than a century since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit every minister is heretical just to the extent that his intellect is above, the average. the lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not. an old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry and turn his attention to something else. the preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had had a "call" to the ministry. to which the deacon replied, "that may be so, but it's very unfortunate for you, that when god called you to preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you." there is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense, set apart to the service of the lord; that they have been chosen, and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. they teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that god allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the motts and coopers--the mansfields and marshalls--the wilberforces and sumners--the angelos and raphaels, were never honored by a "call." they chose their professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the lord. all these men were left free to follow their own inclinations, while god was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters. eighth. with having doubted that god was the author of the th psalm. the portion of that psalm which carries with it the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation to the presbyterian church, is as follows: set thou a wicked man over him; and let satan stand at his right hand. when he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin. let his days be few; and let another take his office. let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. ***** but do thou for me, o god the lord, for thy name's sake; because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me. * * i will greatly praise the lord with my _mouth_. think of a god wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. think of one infamous enough to answer it. had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments. no wonder that the author of this inspired psalm coldly received socrates and penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for catharine the second. ninth. with having said that the battles in which the israelites engaged, with the approval and command of jehovah, surpassed in cruelty those of julius cæsar. was it julius cæsar who said, "and the lord our god delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. and we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain"? did julius caesar send the following report to the roman senate? "and we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score cities, all the region of argob, the kingdom of og in bashan. all these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. and we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto. sihon, king of heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city." did caesar take the city of jericho "and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old"? did he smite "all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the lord god had commanded"? search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you cart find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the bible's god commanded and approved. for such a god i have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. away with such a god! give me jupiter rather, with io and europa, or even siva with his skulls and snakes. tenth. with having repudiated the doctrine of "total depravity." what a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! how sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of god, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offense to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of god; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime! surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of hell. take from the christian the history of his own church--leave that entirely out of the question--and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man. eleventh. with having doubted the "perseverance of the saints." i suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is, that presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell. the real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of god, and not upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that god has the weakness to send presbyterians to paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire. it is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least particle of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous. it is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will--that they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that god forces them to persevere, while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of god, who does all things for his own glory. compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd. twelfth, with having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons. of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge, the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. the whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. we have nearly exterminated the indians, but we have converted none. from the days of john eliot to the execution of the last modoc, not one indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. the few red men who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of calvin. they are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the thirty-nine articles, the saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the evangelical alliance. no indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. this of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect. why should we convert the heathen of china and kill our own? why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? why should we send bibles to the east and muskets to the west? if it is impossible to convert indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the holy ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and bibles and prophets and christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? can we hope with the story of daniel in the lions' den to rival the stupendous miracles of india? is there anything in our bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the buddhist? compare your "confession of faith" with the following: "never will i seek nor receive private individual salvation--never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will i live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. until all are delivered, never will i leave the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where i am." think of sending an average presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous, this incomparable prayer. think of reading the th psalm to a heathen who has a bible of his own in which is found this passage: "blessed is that man and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." why should you read even the new testament to a hindu, when his own chrishna has said, "if a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again"? why send a presbyterian to a sufi, who says, "better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship"? "whoso would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from god; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him god bursts all bounds above, below." why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "o god, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous"? compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the old testament--with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom we are taught to worship as a god--and with the following tender product of presbyterianism: "it may seem absurd to human wisdom that god should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that god would be never a whit less good even though he should destroy all men." of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, presbyterianism is the most hideous. but what shall i say more, for the time would fail me to tell of sabellianism, of a "modal trinity," and the "eternal procession of the holy ghost"? upon these charges, a minister is to be tried, here in chicago; in this city of pluck and progress--this marvel of energy--this miracle of nerve. the cry of "heresy," here, sounds like a wail from the dark ages--a shriek from the inquisition, or a groan from the grave of calvin. another effort is being made to enslave a man. it is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. with scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. what an intellectual feast the confession of faith must be! it reminds one of the dinner described by sydney smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar. every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say--stationary. growth is heresy. orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been moulted by the eagle of progress. they are the dead leaves under the majestic palm, while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top. imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. the end that grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox. the dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. no thought, no progress, no heresy there. slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. there is only this difference--the dead do not persecute. and what does a trial for heresy mean? it means that the church says to a heretic, "believe as i do, or i will withdraw my support. i will not employ you. i will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. i will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my god will do the rest i will not imprison you. i will not burn you. the law prevents my doing that. i helped make the law, not however to protect you, nor to deprive me of the right to exterminate you; but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me." a trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth, and that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. it means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. it means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. it means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed; that it would bring again the whips and chains and dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past but let me tell the church it lacks the power. there have been, and still are, too many men who own themselves--too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. the church must abdicate. for the eglon of superstition science has a message from truth. the heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light not in vain did voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the alps the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in europe. not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science. the church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. heresy cannot be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. it laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ecumenical councils and the impotent thunders of sinai. heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. heresy is the last and best thought. it is the perpetual new world, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. it is the eternal horizon of progress. heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin. why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? is it possible that an infinite deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? what glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! the ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly. go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! thrust the heretics out of the church--that is to say, throw away your brains,--put out your eyes. the infidels will thank you. they are willing to adopt your exiles. every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the th psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank god for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius. be true to your history. turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. with a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. we want them all. keep the ignorant, the superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications. keep them, and keep them all. repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. you are too weak to excite anger. we forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud--as the air forgives the breath you waste. how long, o how long, will man listen to the threats of god, and shut his eyes to the splendid possibilities of nature? how long, o how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed? by this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist. the real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of christs. every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. it is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. it makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. it has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. it appeals to man in the name of demonstration. it has nothing to conceal. it has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. it does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. it challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. it is incapable of being blasphemed. this book appeals to all the surroundings of man. each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. the earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of it's truth. humboldt by robert g. ingersoll humboldt the universe is governed by law. great men seem to be a part of the infinite--brothers of the mountains and the seas. humboldt was one of these. he was one of those serene men, in some respects like our own franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a star. he was one of the few, great enough to rise above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and reason are the only basis of knowledge. he became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich and noble--in spite of position. i say in spite of these things, because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the destroyers of talent. it is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man--that he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every obstacle to overcome he became great. this is a mistake. poverty is generally an advantage. most of the intellectual giants of the world have been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. most of those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest round. they were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of europe; in the log-houses of america; in the factories of the great cities; in the midst of toil; in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of want. they were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel. it is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure, and so i say, that humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and high social position, became truly and grandly great. in the antiquated and romantic castle of tegel, by the side of the pine forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of berlin, the great humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and there he was educated after the method suggested by rousseau,--campe, the philologist and critic, and the intellectual kunth being his tutors. there he received the impressions that determined his career; there the great idea that the universe is governed by law, took possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime truth. he came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of nature. after having received the most thorough education, at that time possible, and having determined to what end he would devote the labors of his life, he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining, mineralogy, botany, the distribution of plants, the distribution of animals, and the effect of climate upon man. all grand physical phenomena were investigated and explained. from his youth he had felt a great desire for travel. he felt, as he says, a violent passion for the sea, and longed to look upon nature in her wildest and most rugged forms. he longed to give a physical description of the universe--a grand picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called special providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is governed by law. to establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind. that fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the age of reason. the object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. for this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty the geographical distribution of plants. he investigated the laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the atmosphere. he studied the formation of the earth's crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered through the craters of extinct volcanoes. he became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so humboldt became acquainted with all the known sciences. his fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and splendid generalizations. he was to science what shakespeare was to the drama. he found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts--all portions of a vast system--parts of a great machine; he discovered the connection that each bears to all; put them together, and demonstrated beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law. he knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of all natural investigation. he was infinitely practical. origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do. his surroundings made him what he was. in accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of his time. great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation; they fulfill the prophecies of their age. nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same idea entertained by humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way. there was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all facts, _or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general fact_, and that the task of science is to discover this connection; to comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of things. germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge. humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time. he was the companion of schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the beautiful; of goethe, the grand patriarch of german literature; of wei-land, who has been called the voltaire of germany; of herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man; of kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of schleiermacher, the pantheist; of schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the enchanted realm of shakespeare; of the sublime kant, author of the first work published in germany on pure reason; of fichte, the infinite idealist; of schopenhauer, the european buddhist who followed the great gautama to the painless and dreamless nirwana, and of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world. the german mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. guided by the holy light of reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and illustrated. humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought became courageous; the athlete, reason, challenged to mortal combat the monsters of superstition. no wonder that under these influences humboldt formed the great purpose of presenting to the world a picture of nature, in order that men might, for the first time, behold the face of their mother. europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in the new world, where in the most circumscribed limits he could find the greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate upon them all. he sailed along the gigantic amazon--the mysterious orinoco --traversed the pampas--climbed the andes until he stood upon the crags of chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. for nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid bonpland. nothing escaped his attention. he was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. he was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. his collections were immense, and valuable be-yond calculation to every science. he endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning. upon his return to europe he was hailed as the second columbus; as the scientific discoverer of america; as the revealer of a new world; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed by law. i have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side--above him the eternal snow--below, the smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm--his forehead majestic--grander than the mountain upon which he sat--crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. not satisfied with his discoveries in america, he crossed the steppes of asia, the wastes of siberia, the great ural range, adding to the knowledge of mankind at every step. his energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought. he was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardor that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the polar star. in order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at berlin a course of lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following subjects: five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography. three, were devoted to a history of science. two, to inducements to a study of natural science. sixteen, on the heavens. five, on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the earth, and to the polar light. four, were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs earthquakes, and volcanoes. two, on mountains and the type of their formation. two, on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of continents, and the elevation of soil over ravines. three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth. ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on the distribution of heat one, on the geographic distribution of organized matter in general. three, on the geography of plants. three, on the geography of animals, and two, on the races of men. these lectures are what is known as the cosmos, and present a scientific picture of the world--of infinite diversity in unity--of ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law. these lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation, and experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men, the effects of climate upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds, and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in accordance with inexorable law. there are some truths, however, that we never should forget: superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. since the murder of hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished blade of greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant catholicism, until to-day, superstition has detested every effort of reason. it is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory that the church achieved over philosophy. for ages science was utterly ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and god was supposed to be happy only when his children were miserable. the world was governed by an almighty's whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of nature, could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine and death in all its forms. there was no idea of the certain all depended upon divine pleasure--or displeasure rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. to the poor multitude, the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking with infinite power to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. 'life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue. the very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the glittering vengeance of god, and the earth was thick with snares for the unwary feet of man. the soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a continual warfare being waged between the deity and the devil, for the possession of every soul; the latter generally being considered victorious. the flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the displeasure of heaven, and the sinfulness of man. the blight that withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the messengers of the creator. the world was governed by fear. against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defense of prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. _man in his helplessness endeavored to soften the heart of god_. the faces of the multitude were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites, kings and priests. my heart bleeds when i contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite horror who snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame. slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth, that the universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the lightning for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer; that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents famine; that pleasure is not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed power; that offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. slowly, grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind. from copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on the infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in accordance with law. true, the earth began to grow small, but man began to grow great. the moment the fact was established that other worlds are governed by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under its dominion. the old theological method of accounting for physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the deity was, by the intellectual, abandoned. they found that disease, death, life, thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of animals,--in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable. let it be understood that by the term law is meant the same invariable relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing from like conditions. law is a fact--not a cause. it is a fact, that like conditions produce like results: this fact is law. when we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable fact, inseparable from all phenomena. law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. it could not have been otherwise than as it is. that which necessarily exists has no creator. only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this insignificant atom. the german mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece of egotism. purbach and mullerus, in the fifteenth century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. to the latter, the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the second of the three steps by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet, both of these men believed in the most childish absurdities, at least in enough of them, to die without their orthodoxy having ever been suspected. next came the great copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of experience, observation and reason. he removed the earth, so to speak, from the centre-of the universe, and ascribed to it a two-fold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar system. at his bidding the earth began to revolve. at the command of his genius it commenced its grand flight mid the eternal constellations round the sun. for fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. all at once, by the exertions of galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as to consume the philosophy of aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon experience, observation, and reason. the earth was no longer considered a universe, governed by the caprices of some revengeful deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to adorn the night. i have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first splendid step forward! the first sublime blow that shattered the lance and shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that man received from heaven; because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the infinite to man; the first authoritative declaration, that the universe is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism, and because it is the sublimest victory that the reason has achieved. in speaking of astronomy, i have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. long ago, on the banks of the ganges, ages before copernicus lived, aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere, and revolves on its own axis. this, however, does not detract from the glory of the great german. the discovery of the hindu had been lost in the midnight of europe--in the age of faith, and copernicus was as much a discoverer as though aryabhatta had never lived. in this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each, to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of august comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of guttenberg, watt, stephenson, arkwright, all soldiers of science, in the grand army of the dead kings. the glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul--breaking the mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to thought--filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy. science found agriculture plowing with a stick--reaping with a sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools--man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. it found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting protestants, and the burners of men. it found a world full of fear; ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation. it found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. it found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. it found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world. such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. for the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. to obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars. no wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. a man with a false diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that superstition abhors science. in all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. they have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder. imposture has always worn a crown. the world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. to think is to advance. everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men--the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. at the head of this great army of investigators stood humboldt--the serene leader of an intellectual host--a king by the suffrage of science, and the divine right of genius. and to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier--some wily politician called a statesman--some robber called a king, nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint. we are honoring the grand humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error--not men; who shed light--not blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the happiness of all mankind. his life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast we honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. we honor him because he honored us--because he labored for others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. for these reasons he is honored throughout the world. millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished. we associate the name of humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, and volcanoes--with the great palms--the wide deserts--the snow-lipped craters of the andes--with primeval forests and european capitals--with wildernesses and universities--with savages and savans--with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. he was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. he stood erect by the grand tranquil column of reason. he was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the universal mother--and with her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called death. history added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals. the world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: "the universe is governed by law!" the works of robert g. ingersoll "the clergy know, that i know, that they know, that they do not know." in twelve volumes, volume ii. lectures the dresden edition to mrs. sue. m. farrell, in law my sister, and in fact my friend, this volume, as a token of respect and love, is dedicated. contents of volume ii. some mistakes of moses. ( .) preface--i. he who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave--all i ask--when a religion is founded--freedom for the orthodox clergy--every minister an attorney--submission to the orthodox and the dead--bounden duty of the ministry--the minister factory at andover--ii. free schools--no sectarian sciences--religion and the schools--scientific hypocrites--iii. the politicians and the churches--iv. man and woman the highest possible titles--belief dependent on surroundings--worship of ancestors--blindness necessary to keeping the narrow path--the bible the chain that binds--a bible of the middle ages and the awe it inspired--v. the pentateuch--moses not the author--belief out of which grew religious ceremonies--egypt the source of the information of moses--vi. monday--nothing, in the light of raw material--the story of creation begun--the same story, substantially, found in the records of babylon, egypt, and india--inspiration unnecessary to the truth--usefulness of miracles to fit lies to facts--division of darkness and light--vii. tuesday--the firmament and some biblical notions about it--laws of evaporation unknown to the inspired writer--viii. wednesday--the waters gathered into seas--fruit and nothing to eat it--five epochs in the organic history of the earth--balance between the total amounts of animal and vegetable life--vegetation prior to the appearance of the sun--ix. thursday--sun and moon manufactured--magnitude of the solar orb--dimensions of some of the planets--moses' guess at the size of sun and moon--joshua's control of the heavenly bodies--a hypothesis urged by ministers--the theory of "refraction"--rev. henry morey--astronomical knowledge of chinese savants--the motion of the earth reversed by jehovah for the reassurance of ahaz--"errors" renounced by button--x. "he made the stars also"--distance of the nearest star--xi. friday--whales and other living creatures produced--xii. saturday--reproduction inaugurated--xiii. "let us make man"--human beings created in the physical image and likeness of god--inquiry as to the process adopted--development of living forms according to evolution--how were adam and eve created?--the rib story--age of man upon the earth--a statue apparently made before the world--xiv. sunday--sacredness of the sabbath destroyed by the theory of vast "periods"--reflections on the sabbath--xv. the necessity for a good memory--the two accounts of the creation in genesis i and ii--order of creation in the first account--order of creation in the second account--fastidiousness of adam in the choice of a helpmeet--dr. adam clark's commentary--dr. scott's guess--dr. matthew henry's admission--the blonde and brunette problem--the result of unbelief and the reward of faith--"give him a harp"--xvi. the garden--location of eden--the four rivers--the tree of knowledge--andover appealed to--xvii. the fall--the serpent--dr. adam clark gives a zoological explanation--dr. henry dissents--whence this serpent?--xviii. dampness--a race of giants--wickedness of mankind--an ark constructed--a universal flood indicated--animals probably admitted to the ark--how did they get there?--problem of food and service--a shoreless sea covered with innumerable dead--drs. clark and henry on the situation--the ark takes ground--new difficulties--noah's sacrifice--the rainbow as a memorandum--babylonian, egyptian, and indian legends of a flood--xix. bacchus and babel--interest attaching to noah--where did our first parents and the serpent acquire a common language?--babel and the confusion of tongues--xx. faith in filth--immodesty of biblical diction--xxi. the hebrews--god's promises to abraham--the sojourning of israel in egypt--marvelous increase--moses and aaron--xxii. the plagues--competitive miracle working--defeat of the local magicians--xxiii. the flight out of egypt--three million people in a desert--destruction of pharaoh ana his host--manna--a superfluity of quails--rev. alexander cruden's commentary--hornets as allies of the israelites--durability of the clothing of the jewish people--an ointment monopoly--consecration of priests--the crime of becoming a mother--the ten commandments--medical ideas of jehovah--character of the god of the pentateuch--xxiv. confess and avoid--xxv. "inspired" slavery--xxvi. "inspired" marriage-xxvii. "inspired" war-xxviii. "inspired" religious liberty--xxix. conclusion. some reasons why. ( .) i--religion makes enemies--hatred in the name of universal benevolence--no respect for the rights of barbarians--literal fulfillment of a new testament prophecy--ii. duties to god--can we assist god?--an infinite personality an infinite impossibility-ill. inspiration--what it really is--indication of clams--multitudinous laughter of the sea--horace greeley and the mammoth trees--a landscape compared to a table-cloth--the supernatural is the deformed--inspiration in the man as well as in the book--our inspired bible--iv. god's experiment with the jews--miracles of one religion never astonish the priests of another--"i am a liar myself"--v. civilized countries--crimes once regarded as divine institutions--what the believer in the inspiration of the bible is compelled to say--passages apparently written by the devil--vi. a comparison of books--advancing a cannibal from missionary to mutton--contrast between the utterances of jehovah and those of reputable heathen--epictetus, cicero, zeno, seneca--the hindu, antoninus, marcus aurelius--the avesta--vii. monotheism--egyptians before moses taught there was but one god and married but one wife--persians and hindoos had a single supreme deity--rights of roman women--marvels of art achieved without the assistance of heaven--probable action of the jewish jehovah incarnated as man--viii. the new testament--doctrine of eternal pain brought to light--discrepancies--human weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom--why there are four gospels according to irenæus--the atonement--remission of sins under the mosaic dispensation--christians say, "charge it"--god's forgiveness does not repair an injury--suffering of innocence for the guilty--salvation made possible by jehovah's failure to civilize the jews--necessity of belief not taught in the synoptic gospels--non-resistance the offspring of weakness--ix. christ's mission--all the virtues had been taught before his advent--perfect and beautiful thoughts of his pagan predecessors--st. paul contrasted with heathen writers--"the quality of mercy"--x. eternal pain--an illustration of eternal punishment--captain kreuger of the barque tiger--xi. civilizing influence of the bible--its effects on the jews--if christ was god, did he not, in his crucifixion, reap what he had sown?--nothing can add to the misery of a nation whose king is jehovah orthodoxy. ( .) orthodox religion dying out--religious deaths and births--the religion of reciprocity--every language has a cemetery--orthodox institutions survive through the money invested in them--"let us tell our real names"--the blows that have shattered the shield and shivered the lance of superstition--mohammed's successful defence of the sepulchre of christ--the destruction of art--the discovery of america--although he made it himself, the holy ghost was ignorant of the form of this earth--copernicus and kepler--special providence--the man and the ship he did not take--a thanksgiving proclamation contradicted--charles darwin--henry ward beecher--the creeds--the latest creed--god as a governor--the love of god--the fall of man--we are bound by representatives without a chance to vote against them--the atonement--the doctrine of depravity a libel on the human race--the second birth--a unitarian universalist--inspiration of the scriptures--god a victim of his own tyranny--in the new testament trouble commences at death--the reign of truth and love--the old spaniard who died without an enemy--the wars it brought--consolation should be denied to murderers--at the rate at which heathen are being converted, how long will it take to establish christ's kingdom on earth?--the resurrection--the judgment day--pious evasions--"we shall not die, but we shall all be hanged"--"no bible, no civilization" miracles of the new testament--nothing written by christ or his contemporaries--genealogy of jesus--more miracles--a master of death--improbable that he would be crucified--the loaves and fishes--how did it happen that the miracles convinced so few?--the resurrection--the ascension--was the body spiritual--parting from the disciples--casting out devils--necessity of belief--god should be consistent in the matter of forgiving enemies--eternal punishment--some good men who are damned--another objection--love the only bow on life's dark cloud--"now is the accepted time"--rather than this doctrine of eternal punishment should be true--i would rather that every planet should in its orbit wheel a barren star--what i believe--immortality--it existed long before moses--consolation--the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near--death a wall or a door--a fable--orpheus and eurydice. myth and miracle. ( .) i. happiness the true end and aim of life--spiritual people and their literature--shakespeare's clowns superior to inspired writers--beethoven's sixth symphony preferred to the five books of moses--venus of milo more pleasing than the presbyterian creed--ii. religions naturally produced--poets the myth-makers--the sleeping beauty--orpheus and eurydice--red riding hood--the golden age--elysian fields--the flood myth--myths of the seasons--iii. the sun-god--jonah, buddha, chrisnna, horus, zoroaster--december th as a birthday of gods--christ a sun-god--the cross a symbol of the life to come--when nature rocked the cradle of the infant world--iv. difference between a myth and a miracle--raising the dead, past and present--miracles of jehovah--miracles of christ--everything told except the truth--the mistake of the world--v. beginning of investigation--the stars as witnesses against superstition--martyrdom of bruno--geology--steam and electricity--nature forever the same--persistence of force--cathedral, mosque, and joss house have the same foundation--science the providence of man--vi. to soften the heart of god--martyrs--the god was silent--credulity a vice--develop the imagination--"the skylark" and "the daisy"--vii. how are we to civilize the world?--put theology out of religion--divorce of church and state--secular education--godless schools--viii. the new jerusalem--knowledge of the supernatural possessed by savages--beliefs of primitive peoples--science is modest--theology arrogant--torque-mada and bruno on the day of judgment--ix. poison of superstition in the mother's milk--ability of mistakes to take care of themselves--longevity of religious lies--mother's religion pleaded by the cannibal--the religion of freedom--o liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry preface. for many years i have regarded the pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. to me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite intelligence, justice, and mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes. to me it seemed more reasonable that savage men had made these laws; and i endeavored in a lecture, entitled "some mistakes of moses," to point out some of the errors, contradictions, and impossibilities contained in the pentateuch. the lecture was never written and consequently never delivered twice the same. on several occasions it was reported and published without consent, and without revision. all these publications were grossly and glaringly incorrect as published, they have been answered several hundred times, and many of the clergy are still engaged in the great work. to keep these reverend gentlemen from wasting their talents on the mistakes of reporters and printers, i concluded to publish the principal points in all my lectures on this subject. and here, it may be proper for me to say, that arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; that there is no logic in slander, and that falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself. people who love their enemies should, at least, tell the truth about their friends. should it turn out that i am the worst man in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of the pentateuch will still demand an explanation. there was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from the pulpit, smote like a sword; but, the supply having greatly exceeded the demand, clerical misrepresentation has at last become almost an innocent amusement. remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, i congratulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort. the old instruments of torture are kept only to gratify curiosity; the chains are rusting away, and the demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of the inquisition to be visited by light. the church, impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. if that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. such a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and insolent. christianity has held all other creeds and forms in infinite contempt, divided the world into enemies and friends, and verified the awful declaration of its founder--a declaration that wet with blood the sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagots' flames. too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see. were we allowed to read the bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. but we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of god; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in nature's night. these claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt. we read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. with myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. we find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the whence and whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of nature's perfect self. these myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and deaths sad night. they clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. in them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. they thrilled the veins of spring with tremulous desire; made tawny summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured winter as a weak old king who felt, like lear upon his withered face, cordelia's tears. these myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. but if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of god, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the fable world would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. robert g. ingersoll. washington, d. c., oct. th, . some mistakes of moses. he who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave. i. i want to do what little i can to make my country truly free, to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people, to destroy the prejudices born of ignorance and fear, to do away with the blind worship of the ignoble past, with the idea that all the great and good are dead, that the living are totally depraved, that all pleasures are sins, that sighs and groans are alone pleasing to god, that thought is dangerous, that intellectual courage is a crime, that cowardice is a virtue, that a certain belief is necessary to secure salvation, that to carry a cross in this world will give us a palm in the next, and that we must allow some priest to be the pilot of our souls. until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. this earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. it is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. why should a believer in god hate an atheist? surely the atheist has not injured god, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us? christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all i ask is--not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. we do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. if all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. to hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds. that which has happened in most countries has happened in ours. when a religion is founded, the educated, the powerful--that is to say, the priests and nobles, tell the ignorant and superstitious--that is to say, the people, that the religion of their country was given to their fathers by god himself; that it is the only true religion; that all others were conceived in falsehood and brought forth in fraud, and that all who believe in the true religion will be happy forever, while all others will burn in hell. for the purpose of governing the people, that is to say, for the purpose of being supported by the people, the priests and nobles declare this religion to be sacred, and that whoever adds to, or takes from it, will be burned here by man, and hereafter by god. the result of this is, that the priests and nobles will not allow the people to change; and when, after a time, the priests, having intellectually advanced, wish to take a step in the direction of progress, the people will not allow them to change. at first, the rabble are enslaved by the priests, and afterwards the rabble become the masters. one of the first things i wish to do, is to free the orthodox clergy. i am a great friend of theirs, and in spite of all they may say against me, i am going to do them a great and lasting service. upon their necks are visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those of the lash. they are not allowed to read and think for themselves. they are taught like parrots, and the best are those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes, the sentences they have been taught. they sit like owls upon some dead limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. their congregations are not grand enough, nor sufficiently civilized, to be willing that the poor preachers shall think for themselves. they are not employed for that purpose. investigation regarded as a dangerous experiment, and the ministers are warned that none of that kind of work will be tolerated. they are notified to stand by the old creed, and to avoid all original thought, as a mortal pestilence. every minister is employed like an attorney--either for plaintiff or defendant,--and he is expected to be true to his client. if he changes his mind, he is regarded as a deserter, and denounced, hated, and slandered accordingly. every orthodox clergyman agrees not to change. he contracts not to find new facts, and makes a bargain that he will deny them if he does. such is the position of a protestant minister in this nineteenth century. his condition excites my pity; and to better it, i am going to do what little i can. some of the clergy have the independence to break away, and the intellect to maintain themselves as free men, but the most are compelled to submit to the dictation of the orthodox, and the dead. they are not employed to give their thoughts, but simply to repeat the ideas of others. they are not expected to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but are required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden by the ignorance of the past. the forests and fields on either side are nothing to them. they must not even look at the purple hills, nor pause to hear the babble of the brooks. they must remain in the dusty road where the guide-boards are. they must confine themselves to the "fall of man," the expulsion from the garden, the "scheme of salvation," the "second birth," the atonement, the happiness of the redeemed, and the misery of the lost. they must be careful not to express any new ideas upon these great questions. it is much safer for them to quote from the works of the dead. the more vividly they describe the sufferings of the unregenerate, of those who attended theatres and balls, and drank wine in summer gardens on the sabbath-day, and laughed at priests, the better ministers they are supposed to be. they must show that misery fits the good for heaven, while happiness prepares the bad for hell; that the wicked get all their good things in this life, and the good all their evil; that in this world god punishes the people he loves, and in the next, the ones he hates; that happiness makes us bad here, but not in heaven; that pain makes us good here, but not in hell. no matter how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind, they must be preached and they must be believed. if they were reasonable, there would be no virtue in believing. even the publicans and sinners believe reasonable things. to believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is accounted as righteousness to the sincere and humble christian. the ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to god as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay; that we are so infamous that we like to enjoy ourselves; that we love our wives and children better than our god; that we are generous only because we are vile; that we are honest from the meanest motives, and that sometimes we have fallen so low that we have had doubts about the inspiration of the jewish scriptures. in short, they are expected to denounce all pleasant paths and rustling trees, to curse the grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and weeds. they are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs or climb the hills and wander as they will. they are expected to point out the dangers of freedom, the safety of implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness of philosophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and the purity of ignorance. now and then a few pious people discover some young man of a religious turn of mind and a consumptive habit of body, not quite sickly enough to die, nor healthy enough to be wicked. the idea occurs to them that he would make a good orthodox minister. they take up a contribution, and send the young man to some theological school where he can be taught to repeat a creed and despise reason. should it turn out that the young man had some mind of his own, and, after graduating, should change his opinions and preach a different doctrine from that taught in the school, every man who contributed a dollar towards his education would feel that he had been robbed, and would denounce him as a dishonest and ungrateful wretch. the pulpit should not be a pillory. congregations should allow the minister a little liberty. they should, at least, permit him to tell the truth. they have, in massachusetts, at a place called andover, a kind of minister factory, where each professor takes an oath once in five years--that time being considered the life of an oath--that he has not, during the last five years, and will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance. there is probably no oath that they could easier keep. probably, since the foundation stone of that institution was laid there has not been a single case of perjury. the old creed is still taught. they still insist that god is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. they insist that the best man god ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished. andover puts its brand upon every minister it turns out, the same as sheffield and birmingham brand their wares, and all who see the brand know exactly what the minister believes, the books he has read, the arguments he relies on, and just what he intellectually is. they know just what he can be depended on to preach, and that he will continue to shrink and shrivel, and grow solemnly stupid day by day until he reaches the andover of the grave and becomes truly orthodox forever. i have not singled out the andover factory because it is worse than the others. they are all about the same. the professors, for the most part, are ministers who failed in the pulpit and were retired to the seminary on account of their deficiency in reason and their excess of faith. as a rule, they know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear. something should be done for the liberation of these men. they should be allowed to grow--to have sunlight and air. they should no longer be chained and tied to confessions of faith, to mouldy books and musty creeds. thousands of ministers are anxious to give their honest thoughts. the hands of wives and babes now stop their mouths. they must have bread, and so the husbands and fathers are forced to preach a doctrine that they hold in scorn. for the sake of shelter, food and clothes, they are obliged to defend the childish miracles of the past, and denounce the sublime discoveries of to-day. they are compelled to attack all modern thought, to point out the dangers of science, the wickedness of investigation and the corrupting influence of logic. it is for them to show that virtue rests upon ignorance and faith, while vice impudently feeds and fattens upon fact and demonstration. it is a part of their business to malign and vilify the voltaires, humes, paines, humboldts, tyndalls, haeckels, darwins, spencers, and drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. they are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason. these orthodox ministers do not add to the sum of knowledge. they produce nothing. they live upon alms. they hate laughter and joy. they officiate at weddings, sprinkle water upon babes, and utter meaningless words and barren promises above the dead. they laugh at the agony of unbelievers, mock at their tears, and of their sorrows make a jest. there are some noble exceptions. now and then a pulpit holds a brave and honest man. their congregations are willing that they should think--willing that their ministers should have a little freedom. as we become civilized, more and more liberty will be accorded to these men, until finally ministers will give their best and highest thoughts. the congregations will finally get tired of hearing about the patriarchs and saints, the miracles and wonders, and will insist upon knowing something about the men and women of our day, and the accomplishments and discoveries of our time. they will finally insist upon knowing how to escape the evils of this world instead of the next. they will ask light upon the enigmas of this life. they will wish to know what we shall do with our criminals instead of what god will do with his--how we shall do away with beggary and want--with crime and misery--with prostitution, disease and famine,--with tyranny in all its cruel forms--with prisons and scaffolds, and how we shall reward the honest workers, and fill the world with happy homes! these are the problems for the pulpits and congregations of an enlightened future. if science cannot finally answer these questions, it is a vain and worthless thing. the clergy, however, will continue to answer them in the old way, until their congregations are good enough to set them free. they will still talk about believing in the lord jesus christ, as though that were the only remedy for all human ills. they will still teach that retrogression is the only path that leads to light; that we must go back, that faith is the only sure guide, and that reason is a delusive glare, lighting only the road to eternal pain. until the clergy are free they cannot be intellectually honest. we can never tell what they really believe until they know that they can safely speak. they console themselves now by a secret resolution to be as liberal as they dare, with the hope that they can finally educate their congregations to the point of allowing them to think a little for themselves. they hardly know what they ought to do. the best part of their lives has been wasted in studying subjects of no possible value. most of them are married, have families, and know but one way of making their living. some of them say that if they do not preach these foolish dogmas, others will, and that they may through fear, after all, restrain mankind. besides, they hate publicly to admit that they are mistaken, that the whole thing is a delusion, that the "scheme of salvation" is absurd, and that the bible is no better than some other books, and worse than most. you can hardly expect a bishop to leave his palace, or the pope to vacate the vatican. as long as people want popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take the place. and as long as labor fatigues, there will be found a good many men willing to preach once a week, if other folks will work and give them bread. in other words, while the demand lasts, the supply will never fail. if the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish--if a little more enlightened, religion would perish! ii. free schools. it is also my desire to free the schools. when a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with something moses said. public opinion must not compel the professor to hide a fact, and, "like the base indian, throw the pearl away." with the single exception of cornell, there is not a college in the united states where truth has ever been a welcome guest. the moment one of the teachers denies the inspiration of the bible, he is discharged. if he discovers a fact inconsistent with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and especially for the discoverer of the fact. he must not corrupt the minds of his pupils with demonstrations. he must beware of every truth that cannot, in some way be made to harmonize with the superstitions of the jews. science has nothing in common with religion. facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. they are not in the least related. they are deadly foes. what has religion to do with facts? nothing. can there be methodist mathematics, catholic astronomy, presbyterian geology, baptist biology, or episcopal botany? why, then, should a sectarian college exist? only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. we should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. the common school is the bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition. our country will never be filled with great institutions of learning until there is an absolute divorce between church and school. as long as the mutilated records of a barbarous people are placed by priest and professor above the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from church or school. instead of dismissing professors for finding something out, let us rather discharge those who do not. let each teacher understand that investigation is not dangerous for him; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth he may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced, simply because he finds that the ancient jews did not know the entire history of the world. besides, it is not fair to make the catholic support a protestant school, nor is it just to collect taxes from infidels and atheists to support schools in which any system of religion is taught. the sciences are not sectarian. people do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. it is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. science will bring, not a sword, but peace. just as long as religion has control of the schools, science will be an outcast. let us free our institutions of learning. let us dedicate them to the science of eternal truth. let us tell every teacher to ascertain all the facts he can--to give us light, to follow nature, no matter where she leads; to be infinitely true to himself and us; to feel that he is without a chain, except the obligation to be honest; that he is bound by no books, by no creed, neither by the sayings of the dead nor of the living; that he is asked to look with his own eyes, to reason for himself without fear, to investigate in every possible direction, and to bring us the fruit of all his work. at present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the "harmony of genesis and geology." like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies. surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. the time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of nature will outrank the "sacred" falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of holy writ. who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind? when every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth. iii. the politicians. i would like also to liberate the politician. at present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. there are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career. candidates are forced to pretend that they are catholics with protestant proclivities, or christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. the result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking, our government should be entirely and purely secular. the religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. he should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. all these things are private and personal. he should be allowed to settle such things for himself, and should he decide contrary to the law and will of god, let him settle the matter with god. the people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country. if we were in a storm at sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent with storm, and it was necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on the five points of calvinism. our government has nothing to do with religion. it is neither christian nor pagan; it is secular. but as long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust--hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot. churches are becoming political organizations. nearly every catholic is a democrat; nearly every methodist in the north is a republican. it probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this government will be destroyed. the liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. wherever the bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. all laws for the purpose of making man worship god, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the _auto da fe_, and lovingly built the dungeons of the inquisition. all laws defining and punishing blasphemy--making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient jews, or to enjoy yourself on the sabbath, or to give your opinion of jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. an infinite god ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with state legislatures. certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. no one thinks of protecting shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. it strikes me that god might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. in fact, i think it would be safe to say that a real god could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the jewish god. iv. man and woman let us forget that we are baptists, methodists, catholics, presbyterians, or freethinkers, and remember only that we are men and women. after all, man and woman are the highest possible titles. all other names belittle us, and show that we have, to a certain extent, given up our individuality, and have consented to wear the collar of authority--that we are followers. throwing away these names, let us examine these questions not as partisans, but as human beings with hopes and fears in common. we know that our opinions depend, to a great degree, upon our surroundings--upon race, country, and education. we are all the result of numberless conditions, and inherit vices and virtues, truths and prejudices. if we had been born in england, surrounded by wealth and clothed with power, most of us would have been episcopalians, and believed in church and state. we should have insisted that the people needed a religion, and that not having intellect enough to provide one for themselves, it was our duty to make one for them, and then compel them to support it. we should have believed it indecent to officiate in a pulpit without wearing a gown, and that prayers should be read from a book. had we belonged to the lower classes, we might have been dissenters and protested against the mummeries of the high church. had we been born in turkey, most of us would have been mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the koran. we should have believed that mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an angel by the name of gabriel, who was so broad between the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very smart camel to travel the distance. if some man had denied this story we should probably have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinction between virtue and vice. we should have said to him, "what do you propose to give us in place of that angel? we cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing." we would have insisted that the best and wisest men believed the koran. we would have quoted from the works and letters of philosophers, generals and sultans, to show that the koran was the best of books, and that turkey was indebted to that book and to that alone for its greatness and prosperity. we would have asked that man whether he knew more than all the great minds of his country, whether he was so much wiser than his fathers? we would have pointed out to him the fact that thousands had been consoled in the hour of death by passages from the koran; that they had died with glazed eyes brightened by visions of the heavenly harem, and gladly left this world of grief and tears. we would have regarded christians as the vilest of men, and on all occasions would have repeated "there is but one god, and mohammed is his prophet!" so, if we had been born in india, we should in all probability have believed in the religion of that country. we should have regarded the old records as true and sacred, and looked upon a wandering priest as better than the men from whom he begged, and by whose labor he lived. we should have believed in a god with three heads instead of three gods with one head, as we do now. now and then some one says that the religion of his father and mother is good enough for him, and wonders why anybody should desire a better. surely we are not bound to follow our parents in religion any more than in politics, science or art. china has been petrified by the worship of ancestors. if our parents had been satisfied with the religion of theirs, we would be still less advanced than we are. if we are, in any way, bound by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought now to be believers in that first religion. in other words, we would all be barbarians. you cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors. good fathers and mothers wish their children to advance, to overcome obstacles which baffled them, and to correct the errors of their education. if you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew. to sacrifice your manhood upon the grave of your father is an honor to neither. why should a son who has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his mother? is not such a course dishonorable to both? we must remember that this "ancestor" argument is as old at least as the second generation of men, that it has served no purpose except to enslave mankind, and results mostly from the fact that acquiescence is easier than investigation. this argument pushed to its logical conclusion, would prevent the advance of all people whose parents were not freethinkers. it is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables. but when we look for a moment at the world, we find that each nation has its "sacred records"--its religion, and its ideas of worship. certainly all cannot be right; and as it would require a life time to investigate the claims of these various systems, it is hardly fair to damn a man forever, simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. all these religions were produced by barbarians. civilized nations have contented themselves with changing the religions of their barbaric ancestors, but they have made none. nearly all these religions are intensely selfish. each one was made by some contemptible little nation that regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked upon the other nations as beneath the notice of their god. in all these countries it was a crime to deny the sacred records, to laugh at the priests, to speak disrespectfully of the gods, to fail to divide your substance with the lazy hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world upon condition that you would support them in this. in the olden time these theological people who quartered themselves upon the honest and industrious, were called soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers, and impostors, but now, they are known as clergymen. we are no exception to the general rule, and consequently have our sacred books as well as the rest. of course, it is claimed by many of our people that our books are the only true ones, the only ones that the real god ever wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. they insist that all other sacred books were written by hypocrites and impostors; that the jews were the only people that god ever had any personal intercourse with, and that all other prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and mendacity. true, it seems somewhat strange that god should have chosen a barbarous and unknown people who had little or nothing to do with the other nations of the earth, as his messengers to the rest of mankind. it is not easy to account for an infinite god making people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revelation. neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a few. of course, i know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these thoughts, and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually protect you from the wrath of god. i am aware that investigators with all their genius, never find the road to heaven; that those who look where they are going are sure to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily put out their eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep the narrow path. whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it or suffer forever the torments of the lost. we are told that we have the privilege of examining it for ourselves; but this privilege is only extended to us on the condition that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not. we may disagree with others as much as we please upon the meaning of all passages in the bible, but we must not deny the truth of a single word. we must believe that the book is inspired. if we obey its every precept without believing in its inspiration we will be damned just as certainly as though we disobeyed its every word. we have no right to weigh it in the scales of reason--to test it by the laws of nature, or the facts of observation and experience. to do this, we are told, is to put ourselves above the word of god, and sit in judgment on the works of our creator. for my part, i cannot admit that belief is a voluntary thing. it seems to me that evidence, even in spite of ourselves, will have its weight, and that whatever our wish may be, we are compelled to stand with fairness by the scales, and give the exact result. it will not do to say that we reject the bible because we are wicked. our wickedness must be ascertained not from our belief but from our acts. i am told by the clergy that i ought not to attack the bible; that i am leading thousands to perdition and rendering certain the damnation of my own soul. they have had the kindness to advise me that, if my object is to make converts, i am pursuing the wrong course. they tell me to use gentler expressions, and more cunning words. do they really wish me to make more converts? if their advice is honest, they are traitors to their trust. if their advice is not honest, then they are unfair with me. certainly they should wish me to pursue the course that will make the fewest converts, and yet they pretend to tell me how my influence could be increased. it may be, that upon this principle john bright advises america to adopt free trade, so that our country can become a successful rival of great britain. sometimes i think that even ministers are not entirely candid. notwithstanding the advice of the clergy, i have concluded to pursue my own course, to tell my honest thoughts, and to have my freedom in this world whatever my fate may be in the next. the real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the bible. that book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. that book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. that book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. that book unmans the politician and degrades the people. that book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. it plays the same part in our country that has been played by "sacred records" in all the nations of the world. a little while ago i saw one of the bibles of the middle ages. it was about two feet in length, and one and a half in width. it had immense oaken covers, with hasps, and clasps, and hinges large enough almost for the doors of a penitentiary. it was covered with pictures of winged angels and aureoled saints. in my imagination i saw this book carried to the cathedral altar in solemn pomp--heard the chant of robed and kneeling priests, felt the strange tremor of the organ's peal; saw the colored light streaming through windows stained and touched by blood and flame--the swinging censer with its perfumed incense rising to the mighty roof, dim with height and rich with legend carved in stone, while on the walls was hung, written in light, and shade, and all the colors that can tell of joy and tears, the pictured history of the martyred christ. the people fell upon their knees. the book was opened, and the priest read the messages from god to man. to the multitude, the book itself was evidence enough that it was not the work of human hands. how could those little marks and lines and dots contain, like tombs, the thoughts of men, and how could they, touched by a ray of light from human eyes, give up their dead? how could these characters span the vast chasm dividing the present from the past, and make it possible for the living still to hear the voices of the dead? v. the pentateuch the first five books in our bible are known as the pentateuch. for a long time it was supposed that moses was the author, and among the ignorant the supposition still prevails. as a matter of fact, it seems to be well settled that moses had nothing to do with these books, and that they were not written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. but, as all the churches still insist that he was the author, that he wrote even an account of his own death and burial, let us speak of him as though these books were in fact written by him. as the christians maintain that god was the real author, it makes but little difference whom he employed as his pen. nearly all authors of sacred books have given an account of the creation of the universe, the origin of matter, and the destiny of the human race, all have pointed out the obligation that man is under to his creator for having placed him upon the earth, and allowed him to live and suffer, and have taught that nothing short of the most abject worship could possibly compensate god for his trouble and labor suffered and done for the good of man. they have nearly all insisted that we should thank god for all that is good in life; but they have not all informed us as to whom we should hold responsible for the evils we endure. moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books by his failure to say anything of a future life, by failing to promise heaven, and to threaten hell. upon the subject of a future state, there is not one word in the pentateuch. probably at that early day god did not deem it important to make a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. he seems to have thought that he could control the jews, at least, by rewards and punishments in this world, and so he kept the frightful realities of eternal joy and torment a profound secret from the people of his choice. he thought it far more important to tell the jews their origin than to enlighten them as to their destiny. we must remember that every tribe and nation has some way in which, the more striking phenomena of nature are accounted for. these accounts are handed down by tradition, changed by numberless narrators as intelligence increases, or to account for newly discovered facts, or for the purpose of satisfying the appetite for the marvelous. the way in which a tribe or nation accounts for day and night, the change of seasons, the fall of snow and rain, the flight of birds, the origin of the rainbow, the peculiarities of animals, the dreams of sleep, the visions of the insane, the existence of earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, lightning and the thousand things that attract the attention and excite the wonder, fear or admiration of mankind, may be called the philosophy of that tribe or nation. and as all phenomena are, by savage and barbaric man accounted for as the action of intelligent beings for the accomplishment of certain objects, and as these beings were supposed to have the power to assist or injure man, certain things were supposed necessary for man to do in order to gain the assistance, and avoid the anger of these gods. out of this belief grew certain ceremonies, and these ceremonies united with the belief, formed religion; and consequently every religion has for its foundation a misconception of the cause of phenomena. all worship is necessarily based upon the belief that some being exists who can, if he will, change the natural order of events. the savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the christian prays to a god that he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful. the savage and the christian put behind the universe an intelligent cause, and this cause whether represented by one god or many, has been, in all ages, the object of all worship. to carry a fetich, to utter a prayer, to count beads, to abstain from food, to sacrifice a lamb, a child or an enemy, are simply different ways by which the accomplishment of the same object is sought, and are all the offspring of the same error. many systems of religion must have existed many ages before the art of writing was discovered, and must have passed through many changes before the stories, miracles, histories, prophecies and mistakes became fixed and petrified in written words. after that, change was possible only by giving new meanings to old words, a process rendered necessary by the continual acquisition of facts somewhat inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the "sacred records." in this way an honest faith often prolongs its life by dishonest methods; and in this way the christians of to-day are trying to harmonize the mosaic account of creation with the theories and discoveries of modern science. admitting that moses was the author of the pentateuch, or that he gave to the jews a religion, the question arises as to where he obtained his information. we are told by the theologians that he received his knowledge from god, and that every word he wrote was and is the exact truth. it is admitted at the same time that he was an adopted son of pharaoh's daughter, and enjoyed the rank and privilege of a prince. under such circumstances, he must have been well acquainted with the literature, philosophy and religion of the egyptians, and must have known what they believed and taught as to the creation of the world. now, if the account of the origin of this earth as given by moses is substantially like that given by the egyptians, then we must conclude that he learned it from them. should we imagine that he was divinely inspired because he gave to the jews what the egyptians had given him? the egyptian priests taught _first_, that a god created the original matter, leaving it in a state of chaos; _second_, that a god moulded it into form; _third_, that the breath of a god moved upon the face of the deep; _fourth_, that a god created simply by saying "let it be;" _fifth_, that a god created light before the sun existed. nothing can be clearer than that moses received from the egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people. if some man at the present day should assert that he had received from god the theories of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and the law of heredity, and we should afterwards find that he was not only an englishman, but had lived in the family of charles darwin, we certainly would account for his having these theories in a natural way, so, if darwin himself should pretend that he was inspired, and had obtained his peculiar theories from god, we should probably reply that his grandfather suggested the same ideas, and that lamarck published substantially the same theories the same year that mr. darwin was born. now, if we have sufficient courage, we will, by the same course of reasoning, account for the story of creation found in the bible. we will say that it contains the belief of moses, and that he received his information from the egyptians, and not from god. if we take the account as the absolute truth and use it for the purpose of determining the value of modern thought, scientific advancement becomes impossible. and even if the account of the creation as given by moses should turn out to be true, and should be so admitted by all the scientific world, the claim that he was inspired would still be without the least particle of proof. we would be forced to admit that he knew more than we had supposed. it certainly is no proof that a man is inspired simply because he is right. no one pretends that shakespeare was inspired, and yet all the writers of the books of the old testament put together, could not have produced hamlet. why should we, looking upon some rough and awkward thing, or god in stone, say that it must have been produced by some inspired sculptor, and with the same breath pronounce the _venus de milo_ to be the work of man? why should we, looking at some ancient daub of angel, saint or virgin, say its painter must have been assisted by a god? let us account for all we see by the facts we know. if there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. to account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. theology is not what we know about god, but what we do not know about nature. in order to increase our respect for the bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. the whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself--to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. the church has said, "believe, and obey! if you reason, you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. if you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like adam and eve, be thrust from paradise forever!" for my part, i care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what i think or know. all books should be examined in the same spirit, and truth should be welcomed and falsehood exposed, no matter in what volume they may be found. let us in this spirit examine the pentateuch; and if anything appears unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us have the honesty and courage to admit it. certainly no good can result either from deceiving ourselves or others. many millions have implicitly believed this book, and have just as implicitly believed that polygamy was sanctioned by god. millions have regarded this book as the foundation of all human progress, and at the same time looked upon slavery as a divine institution. millions have declared this book to have been infinitely holy, and to prove that they were right, have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow-men. the inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword and fire, by dungeon, chain and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed with promises of heaven. let us examine a portion of this book, not in the darkness of our fear, but in the light of reason. and first, let us examine the account given of the creation of this world, commenced, according to the bible, on monday morning about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. vi. monday. moses commences his story by telling us that in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. if this means anything, it means that god produced, caused to exist, called into being, the heaven and the earth. it will not do to say that he formed the heaven and the earth of previously existing matter. moses conveys, and intended to convey the idea that the matter of which the heaven and the earth are composed, was created. it is impossible for me to conceive of something being created from nothing. nothing, regarded in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. i cannot conceive of matter apart from force. neither is it possible to think of force disconnected with matter. you cannot imagine matter going back to absolute nothing. neither can you imagine nothing being changed into something. you may be eternally damned if you do not say that you can conceive these things, but you cannot conceive them. such is the constitution of the human mind that it cannot even think of a commencement or an end of matter, or force. if god created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. in that eternity what was this god doing? he certainly did not think. there was nothing to think about. he did not remember. nothing had ever happened. what did he do? can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity? i do not pretend to tell how all these things really are; but i do insist that a statement that cannot possibly be comprehended by any human being, and that appears utterly impossible, repugnant to every fact of experience, and contrary to everything that we really know, must be rejected by every honest man. we can conceive of eternity, because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. we can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star, and see infinite space beyond. in other words, we cannot conceive of a cessation of time; therefore eternity is a necessity of the mind. eternity sustains the same relation to time that space does to matter. in the time of moses, it was perfectly safe for him to write an account of the creation of the world. he had simply to put in form the crude notions of the people. at that time, no other jew could have written a better account. upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination full play. there was no one who could authoritatively contradict anything he might say. it was substantially the same story that had been imprinted in curious characters upon the clay records of babylon, the gigantic monuments of egypt, and the gloomy temples of india. in those days there was an almost infinite difference between the educated and ignorant. the people were controlled almost entirely by signs and wonders. by the lever of fear, priests moved the world. the sacred records were made and kept, and altered by them. the people could not read, and looked upon one who could, as almost a god. in our day it is hard to conceive of the influence of an educated class in a barbarous age. it was only necessary to produce the "sacred record," and ignorance fell upon its face. the people were taught that the record was inspired, and therefore true. they were not taught that it was true, and therefore inspired. after all, the real question is not whether the bible is inspired, but whether it is true. if it is true, it does not need to be inspired. if it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. the multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though god had arranged the figures himself. if the bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. as a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. where truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration begins. a fact never went into partnership with a miracle. truth does not need the assistance of miracle. a fact will fit every other fact in the universe, because it is the product of all other facts. a lie will fit nothing except another lie made for the express purpose of fitting it. after a while the man gets tired of lying, and then the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is an opportunity to use a miracle. just at that point, it is necessary to have a little inspiration. it seems to me that reason is the highest attribute of man, and that if there can be any communication from god to man, it must be addressed to his reason. it does not seem possible that in order to understand a message from god it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away. how could god make known his will to any being destitute of reason? how can any man accept as a revelation from god that which is unreasonable to him? god cannot make a revelation to another man for me. he must make it to me, and until he convinces my reason that it is true, i cannot receive it. the statement that in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth, i cannot accept. it is contrary to my reason, and i cannot believe it. it appears reasonable to me that force has existed from eternity. force cannot, as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. force, in its nature, is forever active, and without matter it could not act; and so i think matter must have existed forever. to conceive of matter without force, or of force without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or of a being who existed for an eternity without either, and who out of nothing created both, is to me utterly impossible. i may be damned on this account, but i cannot help it. in my judgment, moses was mistaken. it will not do to say that moses merely intended to tell what god did, in making the heavens and the earth out of matter then in existence. he distinctly states that in the _beginning_ god created them. if this account is true, we must believe that god, existing in infinite space surrounded by eternal nothing, naught and void, created, produced, called into being, willed into existence this universe of countless stars. the next thing we are told by this inspired gentleman is, that god created light, and proceeded to divide it from the darkness. certainly, the person who wrote this believed that darkness was a thing, an entity, a material that could get mixed and tangled up with light, and that these entities, light and darkness, had to be separated. in his imagination he probably saw god throwing pieces and chunks of darkness on one side, and rays and beams of light on the other. it is hard for a man who has been born but once to understand these things. for my part, i cannot understand how light can be separated from darkness. i had always supposed that darkness was simply the absence of light, and that under no circumstances could it be necessary to take the darkness away from the light. it is certain, however, that moses believed darkness to be a form of matter, because i find that in another place he speaks of a darkness that could be felt. they used to have on exhibition at rome a bottle of the darkness that overspread egypt. you cannot divide light from darkness any more than you can divide heat from cold. cold is an absence of heat, and darkness is an absence of light. i suppose that we have no conception of absolute cold. we know only degrees of heat. twenty degrees below zero is just twenty degrees warmer than forty degrees below zero. neither cold nor darkness are entities, and these words express simply either the absolute or partial absence of heat or light. i cannot conceive how light can be divided from darkness, but i can conceive how a barbarian several thousand years ago, writing upon a subject about which he knew nothing, could make a mistake. the creator of light could not have written in this way. if such a being exists, he must have known the nature of that "mode of motion" that paints the earth on every eye, and clothes in garments seven-hued this universe of worlds. vii. tuesday. we are next informed by moses that "god of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters;" and that "god made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." what did the writer mean by the word firmament? theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." this will not do. how could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? the truth is that moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. it was where god lived, and where water was kept. it was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. they supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. it was with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the windows of heaven were opened. it was in this said let there be a firmament in the midst firmament that the sons of god lived--the sons who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose." the issue of such marriages were giants, and "the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." nothing is clearer than that moses regarded the firmament as a vast material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon whose floor god lived, surrounded by his sons. in no other way could he account for rain. where did the water come from? he knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. he did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kisses the waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain. the idea that the firmament was the abode of the deity must have been in the mind of moses when he related the dream of jacob. "and he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of god ascending and descending on it; and behold the lord stood above it and said, i am the lord god." so, when the people were building the tower of babel "the lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the children of men builded. and the lord said, behold the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do; and nothing will be restrained from them which they imagined to do. go to, let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech." the man who wrote that absurd account must have believed that god lived above the earth, in the firmament. the same idea was in the mind of the psalmist when he said that god "bowed the heavens and came down." of course, god could easily remove any person bodily to heaven, as it was but a little way above the earth. "enoch walked with god, and he was not, for god took him." the accounts in the bible of the ascension of elijah, christ and st. paul were born of the belief that the firmament was the dwelling-place of god. it probably never occurred to these writers that if the firmament was seven or eight miles away, enoch and the rest would have been frozen perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been completed. possibly elijah might have made the voyage, as he was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire "by a whirlwind." the truth is, that moses was mistaken, and upon that mistake the christians located their heaven and their hell. the telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the heaven of the new testament, rendered the ascension of our lord and the assumption of his mother infinitely absurd, crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the new jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of worlds. viii. wednesday. we are next informed by the historian of creation, that after god had finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing the waters by means of an "expanse," he proceeded "to gather the waters on the earth together in seas, so that the dry land might appear." certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real form of the earth. he could not have known anything of the attraction of gravitation. he must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave the mountains and collect in the valleys. just as soon as the water was forced to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to grow, and the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and the trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were laden with fruit. and all this happened before a ray had left the quiver of the sun, before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before the dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of the east and welcomed to her arms the eager god of day. it does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow and ripen into seed and fruit without the sun. according to the account, this all happened on the third day. now, if, as the christians say, moses did not mean by the word day a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and almost measureless space of time, and as god did not, according to this view make any animals until the fifth day, that is, not for millions of years after he made the grass and trees, for what purpose did he cause the trees to bear fruit? moses says that god said on the third day, "let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so. and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and god saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day." there was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with painted wings sought the honey of the flowers; not a single living, breathing thing upon the earth. plenty of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance of fruit, but not a mouth in all the world. if moses is right, this state of things lasted only two days; but if the modern theologians are correct, it continued for millions of ages. "it is now well known that the organic history of the earth can be properly divided into five epochs--the primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary. each of these epochs is characterized by animal and vegetable life peculiar to itself. in the first will be found algæ and skulless vertebrates, in the second, ferns and fishes, in the third, pine forests and reptiles, in the fourth, foliaceous forests and mammals, and in the fifth, man." how much more reasonable this is than the idea that the earth was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees loaded with fruit for millions of years before an animal existed. there is, in nature, an even balance forever kept between the total amounts of animal and vegetable life. "in her wonderful economy she must form and bountifully nourish her vegetable progeny--twin-brother life to her, with that of animals. the perfect balance between plant existences and animal existences must always be maintained, while matter courses through the eternal circle, becoming each in turn. if an animal be resolved into its ultimate constituents in a period according to the surrounding circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four years, or even of four thousand years,--for it is impossible to deny that there may be instances of all these periods during which the process has continued--those elements which assume the gaseous form mingle at once with the atmosphere and are taken up from it without delay by the ever-open mouths of vegetable life. by a thousand pores in every leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to form the vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses and ships, is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. all this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as animal existences from monad up to man. our mahogany of to-day has been many negroes in its turn, and before the african existed, was integral portions of many a generation of extinct species." it seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of vegetation-and certain kinds of animals should exist together, and that as the character of the vegetation changed, a corresponding change would take place in the animal world. it may be that i am led to these conclusions by "total depravity," or that i lack the necessary humility of spirit to satisfactorily harmonize haeckel and moses; or that i am carried away by pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that i might be damned, but i never can believe that the earth was covered with leaves, and buds, and flowers, and fruits before the sun with glittering spear had driven back the hosts of night. ix. thursday. after the world was covered with vegetation, it occurred to moses that it was about time to make a sun and moon; and so we are told that on the fourth day god said, "let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also." can we believe that the inspired writer had any idea of the size of the sun? draw a circle five inches in diameter, and by its side thrust a pin through the paper. the hole made by the pin will sustain about the same relation to the circle that the earth does to the sun. did he know that the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in diameter; that it was enveloped in an ocean of fire thousands of miles in depth, hotter even than the christian's hell, over which sweep tempests of flame moving at the rate of one hundred miles a second, compared with which the wildest storm that ever wrecked the forests of this world was but a calm? did he know that the sun every moment of time throws out as much heat as could be generated by the combustion of millions upon millions of tons of coal? did he know that the volume of the earth is less than one-millionth of that of the sun? did he know of the one hundred and four planets belonging to our solar system, all children of the sun? did he know of jupiter eighty-five thousand miles in diameter, hundreds of times as large as our earth, turning on his axis at the rate of twenty-five thousand miles an hour accompanied by four moons, making the tour of his orbit in fifty years, a distance of three thousand million miles? did he know anything about saturn, his rings and his eight moons? did he have the faintest idea that all these planets were once a part of the sun; that the vast luminary was once thousands of millions of miles in diameter; that neptune, uranus, saturn, jupiter and mars were all born before our earth, and that by no possibility could this world have existed three days, nor three periods, nor three "good whiles" before its source, the sun? moses supposed the sun to be about three or four feet in diameter and the moon about half that size. compared with the earth they were but simple specks. this idea seems to have been shared by all the "inspired" men. we find in the book of joshua that the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. "so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." we are told that the sacred writer wrote in common speech as we do when we talk about the rising and setting of the sun, and that all he intended to say was that the earth ceased to turn on its axis "for about a whole day." my own opinion is that general joshua knew no more about the motions of the earth than he did about mercy and justice. if he had known that the earth turned upon its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and swept in its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken of in the same chapter, that the lord cast down from heaven, and allowed the sun and moon to rise and set in the usual way. it is impossible to conceive of a more absurd story than this about the stopping of the sun and moon, and yet nothing so excites the malice of the orthodox preacher as to call its truth in question. some endeavor to account for the phenomenon by natural causes, while others attempt to show that god could, by the refraction of light have made the sun visible although actually shining on the opposite side of the earth. the last hypothesis has been seriously urged by ministers within the last few months. the rev. henry m. morey of south bend, indiana, says "that the phenomenon was simply optical. the rotary motion of the earth was not disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by the same laws of refraction and reflection by which the sun now appears to be above the horizon when it is really below. the medium through which the sun's rays passed may have been miraculously influenced so as to have caused the sun to linger above the horizon long after its usual time for disappearance." this is the latest and ripest product of christian scholarship upon this question no doubt, but still it is not entirely satisfactory to me. according to the sacred account the sun did not linger, merely, above the horizon, but stood still "in the midst of heaven for about a whole day," that is to say, for about twelve hours. if the air was miraculously changed, so that it would refract the rays of the sun while the earth turned over as usual for "about a whole day," then, at the end of that time the sun must have been visible in the east, that is, it must by that time have been the next morning. according to this, that most wonderful day must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. we have first, the twelve hours of natural light, then twelve hours of "refracted and reflected" light. by that time it would again be morning, and the sun would shine for twelve hours more in the natural way, making thirty-six hours in all. if the rev. morey would depend a little less on "refraction" and a little more on "reflection," he would conclude that the whole story is simply a barbaric myth and fable. it hardly seems reasonable that god, if there is one, would either stop the globe, change the constitution of the atmosphere or the nature of light simply to afford joshua an opportunity to kill people on that day when he could just as easily have waited until the next morning. it certainly cannot be very gratifying to god for us to believe such childish things. it has been demonstrated that force is eternal; that it is forever active, and eludes destruction by change of form. motion is a form of force, and all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. the earth turns upon its axis at about one thousand miles an hour. let it be stopped and a force beyond our imagination is changed to heat. it has been calculated that to stop the world would produce as much heat as the burning of a solid piece of coal three times the size of the earth. and yet we are asked to believe that this was done in order that one barbarian might defeat another. such stories never would have been written, had not the belief been general that the heavenly bodies were as nothing compared with the earth. the view of moses was acquiesced in by the jewish people and by the christian world for thousands of years. it is supposed that moses lived about fifteen hundred years before christ, and although he was "inspired," and obtained his information directly from god, he did not know as much about our solar system as the chinese did a thousand years before he was born. "the emperor chwenhio adopted as an epoch, a conjunction of the planets mercury, mars, jupiter and saturn, which has been shown by m. bailly to have occurred no less than years before christ." the ancient chinese knew not only the motions of the planets, but they could calculate eclipses. "in the reign of the emperor chow-kang, the chief astronomers, ho and hi were condemned to death for neglecting to announce a solar eclipse which took place b. c., a clear proof that the prediction of eclipses was a part of the duty of the imperial astronomers." is it not strange that a chinaman should find out by his own exertions more about the material universe than moses could when assisted by its creator? about eight hundred years after god gave moses the principal facts about the creation of the "heaven and the earth" he performed another miracle far more wonderful than stopping the world. on this occasion he not only stopped the earth, but actually caused it to turn the other way. a jewish king was sick, and god, in order to convince him that he would ultimately recover, offered to make the shadow on the dial go forward, or backward ten degrees. the king thought it was too easy a thing to make the shadow go forward, and asked that it be turned back. thereupon, "isaiah the prophet cried unto the lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of ahaz." i hardly see how this miracle could be accounted for even by "refraction" and "reflection." it seems, from the account, that this stupendous miracle was performed after the king had been cured. the account of the shadow going backward is given in the eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of second kings, while the cure is given in the seventh verse of the same chapter. "and isaiah said, take a lump of figs. and they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." stopping the world and causing it to turn back ten degrees after that, seems to have been, as the boil was already cured by the figs, a useless display of power. the easiest way to account for all these wonders is to say that the "inspired" writers were mistaken. in this way a fearful burden is lifted from the credulity of man, and he is left free to believe the evidences of his own senses, and the demonstrations of science. in this way he can emancipate himself from the slavery of superstition, the control of the barbaric dead, and the despotism of the church. only about a hundred years ago, buffon, the naturalist, was compelled by the faculty of theology at paris to publicly renounce fourteen "errors" in his work on natural history because they were at variance with the mosaic account of creation. the pentateuch is still the scientific standard of the church, and ignorant priests, armed with that, pronounce sentence upon the vast accomplishments of modern thought. x. "he made the stars also." moses came very near forgetting about the stars, and only gave five words to all the hosts of heaven. can it be possible that he knew anything about the stars beyond the mere fact that he saw them shining above him? did he know that the nearest star, the one we ought to be the best acquainted with, is twenty-one billion of miles away, and that it is a sun shining by its own light? did he know of the next, that is thirty-seven billion miles distant? is it possible that he was acquainted with sirius, a sun two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight times larger than our own, surrounded by a system of heavenly bodies, several of which are already known, and distant from us eighty-two billion miles? did he know that the polar star that tells the mariner his course and guided slaves to liberty and joy, is distant from this little world two hundred and ninety-two billion miles, and that capella wheels and shines one hundred and thirty-three billion miles beyond? did he know that it would require about seventy-two years for light to reach us from this star? did he know that light travels one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second? did he know that some stars are so far away in the infinite abysses that five millions of years are required for their light to reach this globe? if this is true, and if as the bible tells us, the stars were made after the earth, then this world has been wheeling in its orbit for at least five million years. it may be replied that it was not the intention of god to teach geology and astronomy. then why did he say anything upon these subjects? and if he did say anything, why did he not give the facts? according to the sacred records god created, on the first day, the heaven and the earth, "moved upon the face of the waters," and made the light. on the second day he made the firmament or the "expanse" and divided the waters. on the third day he gathered the waters into seas, let the dry land appear and caused the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and fruit trees, and on the fourth day he made the sun, moon and stars and set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. this division of labor is very striking. the work of the other days is as nothing when compared with that of the fourth. is it possible that it required the same time and labor to make the grass, herbs and fruit trees, that it did to fill with countless constellations the infinite expanse of space? xi. friday. we are then told that on the next day "god the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. and god created great whales and every living creature which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and god saw that it was good. and god blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely devoid of life, and so remained for millions of years? if moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then it would make but little difference on which of the six days animals were made; but if the word said, let the waters bring forth abundantly day was used to express millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from monad up to man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd, puerile and foolish. there is not a scientist of high standing who will say that in his judgment the earth was covered with fruit-bearing trees before the moners, the ancestors it may be of the human race, felt in laurentian seas the first faint throb of life. nor is there one who will declare that there was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured upon the world his flood of gold. why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between nature and a book? why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told? if there is a god, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the bible. why then should we not place greater confidence in nature than in a book? and even if this god made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. it seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of jonah or the diet of ezekiel. for my part, i would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as moses was. supposing the bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for freethinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? why should we be damned for laughing at samson and his foxes, while others, holding the nebular hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? it seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. we are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to god even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the copernican system, the three laws of kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. and we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost. xii. saturday. on this, the last day of creation, god said;-- "let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so. and god made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and god saw that it was good." now, is it true that the seas were filled with fish, the sky with fowls, and the earth covered with grass, and herbs, and fruit bearing trees, millions of ages before there was a creeping thing in existence? must we admit that plants and animals were the result of the fiat of some incomprehensible intelligence independent of the operation of what are known as natural causes? why is a miracle any more necessary to account for yesterday than for to-day or for to-morrow? if there is an infinite power, nothing can be more certain than that this power works in accordance with what we call law, that is, by and through natural causes. if anything can be found without a pedigree of natural antecedents, it will then be time enough to talk about the fiat of creation. there must have been a time when plants and animals did not exist upon this globe. the question, and the only question is, whether they were naturally produced. if the account given by moses is true, then the vegetable and animal existences are the result of certain special fiats of creation entirely independent of the operation of natural causes. this is so grossly improbable, so at variance with the experience and observation of mankind, that it cannot be adopted without abandoning forever the basis of scientific thought and action. it may be urged that we do not understand the sacred record correctly. to this it may be replied that for thousands of years the account of the creation has, by the jewish and christian world, been regarded as literally true. if it was inspired, of course god must have known just how it would be understood, and consequently must have intended that it should be understood just as he knew it would be. one man writing to another, may mean one thing, and yet be understood as meaning something else. now, if the writer knew that he would be misunderstood, and also knew that he could use other words that would convey his real meaning, but did not, we would say that he used words on purpose to mislead, and was not an honest man. if a being of infinite wisdom wrote the bible, or caused it to be written, he must have known exactly how his words would be interpreted by all the world, and he must have intended to convey the very meaning that was conveyed. he must have known that by reading that book, man would form erroneous views as to the shape, antiquity, and size of this world; that he would be misled as to the time and order of creation; that he would have the most childish and contemptible views of the creator; that the "sacred word" would be used to support slavery and polygamy; that it would build dungeons for the good, and light fagots to consume the brave, and therefore he must have intended that these results should follow. he also must have known that thousands and millions of men and women never could believe his bible, and that the number of unbelievers would increase in the exact ratio of civilization, and therefore, he must have intended that result. let us understand this. an honest finite being uses the best words, in his judgment, to convey his meaning. this is the best he can do, because he cannot certainly know the exact effect of his words on others. but an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. he must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. he must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. if an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from god through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly. it may be urged that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in the plainest words. to this it seems a sufficient reply to ask, why a being of infinite power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any means make known to them his will? we are told that it is exceedingly plain, and that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. this statement is refuted by the religious history of the christian world. every sect is a certificate that god has not plainly revealed his will to man. to each reader the bible conveys a different meaning. about the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. if written by an infinite god, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all. is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its time"? if there are mistakes in the bible, certainly they were made by man. if there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. if there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind. xiii. let us make man. we are next informed by the author of the pentateuch that god said "let us make man in our image, after our likeness," and that "god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him--male and female created he them." if this account means anything, it means that man was created in the physical image and likeness of god. moses while he speaks of man as having been made in the image of god, never speaks of god except as having the form of a man. he speaks of god as "walking in the garden in the cool of the day;" and that adam and eve "heard his voice." he is constantly telling what god said, and in a thousand passages he refers to him as not only having the human form, but as performing actions, such as man performs. the god of moses was a god with hands, with feet, with the organs of speech. a god of passion, of hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance; a god who made mistakes:--in other words, an immense and powerful man. it will not do to say that moses meant to convey the idea that god made man in his mental or moral image. some have insisted that man was made in the moral image of god because he was made pure. purity cannot be manufactured. a moral character cannot be made for man by a god. every man must make his own moral character. consequently, if god is infinitely pure, adam and eve were not made in his image in that respect. others say that adam and eve were made in the mental image of god. if it is meant by that, that they were created with reasoning powers like, but not to the extent of those possessed by a god, then this may be admitted. but certainly this idea was not in the mind of moses. he regarded the human form as being in the image of god, and for that reason always spoke of god as having that form. no one can read the pentateuch without coming to the conclusion that the author supposed that man was created in the physical likeness of deity. god said "go to, let us go down." "god smelled a sweet savor;" "god repented him that he had made man;" "and god said;" and "walked;" and "talked;" and "rested." all these expressions are inconsistent with any other idea than that the person using them regarded god as having the form of man. as a matter of fact, it is impossible for a man to conceive of a personal god, other than as a being having the human form. no one can think of an infinite being having the form of a horse, or of a bird, or of any animal beneath man. it is one of the necessities of the mind to associate forms with intellectual capacities. the highest form of which we have any conception is man's, and consequently, his is the only form that we can find in imagination to give to a personal god, because all other forms are, in our minds, connected with lower intelligences. it is impossible to think of a personal god as a spirit without form. we can use these words, but they do not convey to the mind any real and tangible meaning. every one who thinks of a personal god at all, thinks of him as having the human form. take from god the idea of form; speak of him simply as an all pervading spirit--which means an all pervading something about which we know nothing--and pantheism is the result. we are told that god made man; and the question naturally arises, how was this done? was it by a process of "evolution," "development;" the "transmission of acquired habits;" the "survival of the fittest," or was the necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consistency, and then by the hands of god moulded into form? modern science tells that man has been evolved, through countless epochs, from the lower forms; that he is the result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions, experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. did moses intend to convey such a meaning, or did he believe that god took a sufficient amount of dust, made it the proper shape, and breathed into it the breath of life? can any believer in the bible give any reasonable account of this process of creation? is it possible to imagine what was really done? is there any theologian who will contend that man was created directly from the earth? will he say that man was made substantially as he now is, with all his muscles properly developed for walking and speaking, and performing every variety of human action? that all his bones were formed as they now are, and all the relations of nerve, ligament, brain and motion as they are to-day? looking back over the history of animal life from the lowest to the highest forms, we find that there has been a slow and gradual development; a certain but constant relation between want and production; between use and form. the moner is said to be the simplest form of animal life that has yet been found. it has been described as "an organism without organs." it is a kind of structureless structure; a little mass of transparent jelly that can flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its food. it can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. by taking this moner as the commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of life to man himself. in this way finally every muscle, bone and joint, every organ, form and function may be accounted for. in this way, and in this way only, can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained. blot from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity, adaptation, and "the survival of the fittest," with which it has been enriched by lamarck, goethe, darwin, haeckel and spencer, and all the facts in the history of animal life become utterly disconnected and meaningless. shall we throw away all that has been discovered with regard to organic life, and in its place take the statements of one who lived in the rude morning of a barbaric day? will anybody now contend that man was a direct and independent creation, and sustains and bears no relation to the animals below him? belief upon this subject must be governed at last by evidence. man cannot believe as he pleases. he can control his speech, and can say that he believes or disbelieves; but after all, his will cannot depress or raise the scales with which his reason finds the worth and weight of facts. if this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment and reason are but empty words. i ask again, how were adam and eve created? in one account they are created male and female, and apparently at the same time. in the next account, adam is made first, and eve a long time afterwards, and from a part of the man. did god simply by his creative fiat cause a rib slowly to expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage and flesh? how was the woman created from a rib? how was man created simply from dust? for my part, i cannot believe this statement. i may suffer for this in the world to come; and may, millions of years hence, sincerely wish that i had never investigated the subject, but had been content to take the ideas of the dead. i do not believe that any deity works in that way. so far as my experience goes, there is an unbroken procession of cause and effect. each thing is a necessary link in an infinite chain; and i cannot conceive of this chain being broken even for one instant. back of the simplest moner there is a cause, and back of that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever. in my philosophy i postulate neither beginning nor ending. if the mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this earth. if that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. sixteen hundred and fifty-six years after the making of the first man, the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of eight people, were destroyed by a flood. this flood occurred only about four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. if this account is correct, at that time, only one kind of men existed. noah and his family were certainly of the same blood. it therefore follows that all the differences we see between the various races of men have been caused in about four thousand years. if the account of the deluge is true, then since that event all the ancient kingdoms of the earth were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric and semi-civilized life; through the epochs of stone, bronze and iron; established commerce, cultivated the arts, built cities, filled them with palaces and temples, invented writing, produced a literature and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. we must believe that all this has happened within a period of four thousand years. from representations found upon egyptian granite made more than three thousand years ago, we know that the negro was as black, his lips as full, and his hair as closely curled then as now. if we know anything, we know that there was at that time substantially the same difference between the egyptian and the negro as now. if we know anything, we know that magnificent statues were made in egypt four thousand years before our era--that is to say, about six thousand years ago. there was at the world's exposition, in the egyptian department, a statue of king cephren, known to have been chiseled more than six thousand years ago. in other words, if the mosaic account must be believed, this statue was made before the world. we also know, if we know anything, that men lived in v europe with the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyena. among the bones of these animals have been found the stone hatchets and flint arrows of our ancestors. in the caves where they lived have been discovered the remains of these animals that had been conquered, killed and devoured as food, hundreds of thousands of years ago. if these facts are true, moses was mistaken. for my part, i have infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of to-day, than in the records of a barbarous people. it will not now do to say that man has existed upon this earth for only about six thousand years. one can hardly compute in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge from the barbarous state, naked and helpless, surrounded by animals far more powerful than he, to progress and finally create the civilizations of india, egypt and athens. the distance from savagery to shakespeare must be measured not by hundreds, but by millions of years. xiv. sunday. "and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which god created and made." the great work had been accomplished, the world, the sun, and moon, and all the hosts of heaven were finished; the earth was clothed in green, the seas were filled with life, the cattle wandered by the brooks--insects with painted wings were in the happy air, adam and eve were making each others acquaintance, and god was resting from his work. he was contemplating the accomplishments of a week. because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for that reason and for that alone, it was by the jews considered a holy day. if he only rested on that day, there ought to be some account of what he did the following monday. did he rest on that day? what did he do after he got rested? has he done anything in the way of creation since saturday evening of the first week? it is now claimed by the "scientific" christians that the "days" of creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but immensely long periods of time. if they are right, then how long was the seventh day? was that, too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages? that cannot be, because adam and eve were created the saturday evening before, and according to the bible that was about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. i cannot state the time exactly, because there have been as many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by learned biblical students as to the time between the creation of the world and the birth of christ. we are quite certain, however, that, according to the bible, it is not more than six thousand years since the creation of adam. from this it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic epoch, but was in fact a period of less than six thousand years, and probably of only twenty-four hours. the theologians who "answer" these things may take their choice. if they take the ground that the "days" were periods of twenty-four hours, then geology will force them to throw away the whole account. if, on the other hand, they admit that the days were vast "periods," then the sacredness of the sabbath must be given up. there is found in the bible no intimation that there was the least difference in the days. they are all spoken of in the same way. it may be replied that our translation is incorrect. if this is so, then only those who understand hebrew, have had a revelation from god, and all the rest have been deceived. how is it possible to sanctify a space of time? is rest holier than labor? if there is any difference between days, ought not that to be considered best in which the most useful labor has been performed? of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred sabbath" is the most absurd. the idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the time! to think that we can please an infinite being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the perfumed fields! why should god hate to see a man happy? why should it excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking, laughing and loving? nature works on that "sacred" day. the earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song. why should we look sad, and think about death, and hear about hell? why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy? a poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood--a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength for toils to come. and his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air, away from street and wall, amid the hills or by the margin of the sea, where she can sit and prattle with her babe, and fill with happy dreams the long, glad day. the "sabbath" was born of asceticism, hatred of human joy, fanaticism, ignorance, egotism of priests and the cowardice of the people. this day, for thousands of years, has been dedicated to superstition, to the dissemination of mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. every freethinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. he should assert his independence, and do all within his power to wrest the sabbath from the gloomy church and give it back to liberty and joy. freethinkers should make the sabbath a day of mirth and music; a day to spend with wife and child--a day of games, and books, and dreams--a day to put fresh flowers above our sleeping dead--a day of memory and hope, of love and rest. why should we in this age of the world be dominated by the dead? why should barbarian jews who went down to death and dust three thousand years ago, control the living world? why should we care for the superstition of men who began the sabbath by paring their nails, "beginning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then to the fifth, then to the third, and ending with the thumb?" how pleasing to god this must have been. the jews were very careful of these nail parings. they who threw them upon the ground were wicked, because satan used them to work evil upon the earth. they believed that upon the sabbath, souls were allowed to leave purgatory and cool their burning souls in water. fires were neither allowed to be kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was a sin to bind up wounds. "the lame might use a staff, but the blind could not." so strict was the sabbath kept, that at one time "if a jew on a journey was overtaken by the 'sacred day' in a wood, or on the highway, no matter where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down," and there remain until the day was gone. "if he fell down in the dirt, there he was compelled to stay until the day was done." for violating the sabbath, the punishment was death, for nothing short of the offender's blood could satisfy the wrath of god. there are, in the old testament, two reasons given for abstaining from labor on the sabbath:--the resting of god, and the redemption of the jews from the bondage of egypt. since the establishment of the christian religion, the day has been changed, and christians do not regard the day as holy upon which god actually rested, and which he sanctified. the christian sabbath, or the "lord's day" was legally established by the murderer constantine, because upon that day christ was supposed to have risen from the dead. it is not easy to see where christians got the right to disregard the direct command of god, to labor on the day he sanctified, and keep as sacred, a day upon which he commanded men to labor. the sabbath of god is saturday, and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the sunday of the christian. let us throw away these superstitions and take the higher, nobler ground, that every day should be rendered sacred by some loving act, by increasing the happinesss of man, giving birth to noble thoughts, putting in the path of toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the fallen, dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending the helpless and filling homes with light and love. xv. the necessity for a good memory. it must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in genesis. the first account stops with the third verse of the second chapter. the chapters have been improperly divided. in the original hebrew the pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. there was not even any system of punctuation. it was written wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them. these accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. let us see wherein they differ. the second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and is as follows: "these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens. "and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the lord god had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. "but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. "and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. "and the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. "and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. "and a river went out of eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. "the name of the first is pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of havilah, where there is gold. "and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. "and the name of the second river is gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of ethiopia. "and the name of the third river is hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of assyria. and the fourth river is euphrates. "and the lord god took the man, and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it. "and the lord god commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. "and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him an helpmeet for him. "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "and adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for adam there was not found a helpmeet for him. "and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; "and the rib, which the lord god had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. "and adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. "therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. "and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." order of creation in the first account: . the heaven and the earth, and light were made. . the firmament was constructed and the waters divided. . the waters gathered into seas--and then came dry land, grass, herbs and fruit trees. . the sun and moon. he made the stars also. . fishes, fowls, and great whales. . beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman. order of creation in the second account: . the heavens and the earth. . a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. . created a man out of dust, by the name of adam. . planted a garden eastward in eden, and put the man in it. . created the beasts and fowls. . created a woman out of one of the man's ribs. in the second account, man was made _before_ the beasts and fowls. if this is true, the first account is false. and if the theologians of our time are correct in their view that the mosaic day means thousands of ages, then, according to the second account, adam existed millions of years before eve was formed. he must have lived one mosaic day before there were any trees, and another mosaic day before the beasts and fowls were created. will some kind clergymen tell us upon what kind of food adam subsisted during these immense periods? in the second account a man is made, and the fact that he was without a helpmeet did not occur to the lord god until a couple "of vast periods" afterwards. the lord god suddenly coming to an appreciation of the situation said, "it is not good that the man should be alone. i will make him an helpmeet for him." now, after concluding to make "an helpmeet" for adam, what did the lord god do? did he at once proceed to make a woman? no. what did he do? he made the beasts, and tried to induce adam to take one of them for "an helpmeet." if i am incorrect, read the following account, and tell me what it means: "and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him an helpmeet for him. "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "and adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for him." unless the lord god was looking for an helpmeet for adam, why did he cause the animals to pass before him? and why did he, after the menagerie had passed by, pathetically exclaim, "but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for him"? it seems that adam saw nothing that struck his fancy. the fairest ape, the sprightliest chimpanzee, the loveliest baboon, the most bewitching orangoutang, the most fascinating gorilla failed to touch with love's sweet pain, poor adam's lonely heart. let us rejoice that this was so. had he fallen in love then, there never would have been a freethinker in this world. dr. adam clarke, speaking of this remarkable proceeding says:--"god caused the animals to pass before adam to show him that no creature yet formed could make him a suitable companion; that adam was convinced that none of these animals could be a suitable companion for him, and that therefore he must continue in a state that was not good (celibacy) unless he became a further debtor to the bounty of his maker, for among all the animals which he had formed, there was not a helpmeet for adam." upon this same subject, dr. scott informs us "that it was not conducive to the happiness of the man to remain without the consoling society, and endearment of tender friendship, nor consistent with the end of his creation to be without marriage by which the earth might be replenished and worshipers and servants raised up to render him praise and glory. adam seems to have been vastly better acquainted by intuition or revelation with the distinct properties of every creature than the most sagacious observer since the fall of man. "upon this review of the animals, not one was found in outward form his counterpart, nor one suited to engage his affections, participate in his enjoyments, or associate with him in the worship of god." dr. matthew henry admits that "god brought all the animals together to see if there was a suitable match for adam in any of the numerous families of the inferior creatures, but there was none. they were all looked over, but adam could not be matched among them all. therefore god created a new thing to be a helpmeet for him." failing to satisfy adam with any of the inferior animals, the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in this sleep took out one of adam's ribs and "closed up the flesh instead thereof." and out of this rib, the lord god made a woman, and brought her to the man. was the lord god compelled to take a part of the man because he had used up all the original "nothing" out of which the universe was made? is it possible for any sane and intelligent man to believe this story? must a man be born a second time before this account seems reasonable? imagine the lord god with a bone in his hand with which to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette! just at this point it may be proper for me to warn all persons from laughing at or making light of, any stories found in the "holy bible." when you come to die, every laugh will be a thorn in your pillow. at that solemn moment, as you look back upon the records of your life, no matter how many men you may have wrecked and ruined; no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted, all that can be forgiven; but if you remember then that you have laughed at even one story in god's "sacred book" you will see through the gathering shadows of death the forked tongues of devils, and the leering eyes of fiends. these stories must be believed, or the work of regeneration can never be commenced. no matter how well you act your part, live as honestly as you may, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, divide your last farthing with the poor, and you are simply traveling the broad road that leads inevitably to eternal death, unless at the same time you implicitly believe the bible to be the inspired word of god. let me show you the result of unbelief. let us suppose, for a moment, that we are at the day of judgment, listening to the trial of souls as they arrive. the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, says to a soul: where are you from? i am from the earth. what kind of a man were you? well, i don't like to talk about myself. i suppose you can tell by looking at your books. no, sir. you must tell what kind of a man you were. well, i was what you might call a first-rate fellow. i loved my wife and children. my home was my heaven. my fireside was a paradise to me. to sit there and see the lights and shadows fall upon the faces of those i loved, was to me a perfect joy. how did you treat your family? i never said an unkind word. i never caused my wife, nor one of my children, a moments pain. did you pay your debts? i did not owe a dollar when i died, and left enough to pay my funeral expenses, and to keep the fierce wolf of want from the door of those i loved. did you belong to any church? no, sir. they were too narrow, pinched and bigoted for me, i never thought that i could be very happy if other folks were damned. did you believe in eternal punishment? well, no. i always thought that god could get his revenge in far less time. did you believe the rib story? do you mean the adam and eve business? yes! did you believe that? to tell you the god's truth, that was just a little more than i could swallow. away with him to hell! next! where are you from? i am from the world too. did you belong to any church? yes, sir, and to the young men's christian association besides. what was your business? cashier in a savings bank. did you ever run away with any money? where i came from, a witness could not be compelled to criminate himself. the law is different here. answer the question. did you run away with any money? yes, sir. how much? one hundred thousand dollars. did you take anything else with you? yes, sir. well, what else? i took my neighbor's wife--we sang together in the choir. did you have a wife and children of your own? yes, sir. and you deserted them? yes, sir, but such was my confidence in god that i believed he would take care of them. have you heard of them since? no, sir. did you believe in the rib story? bless your soul, of course i did. a thousand times i regretted that there were no harder stories in the bible, so that i could have shown my wealth of faith. do you believe the rib story yet? yes, with all my heart. give him a harp! well, as i was saying, god made a woman from adam's rib. of course, i do not know exactly how this was done, but when he got the woman finished, he presented her to adam. he liked her, and they commenced house-keeping in the celebrated garden of eden. must we, in order to be good, gentle and loving in our lives, believe that the creation of woman was a second thought? that jehovah really endeavored to induce adam to take one of the lower animals as an helpmeet for him? after all, is it not possible to live honest and courageous lives without believing these fables? it is said that from mount sinai god gave, amid thunderings and lightnings, ten commandments for the guidance of mankind; and yet among them is not found--"thou shalt believe the bible." xvi. the garden. in the first account we are told that god made man, male and female, and said to them "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." in the second account only the man is made, and he is put in a garden "to dress it and to keep it." he is not told to subdue the earth, but to dress and keep a garden. in the first account man is given every herb bearing seed upon the face of the earth and the fruit of every tree for food, and in the second, he is given only the fruit of all the trees in the garden with the exception "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which was a deadly poison. there was issuing from this garden a river that was parted into four heads. the first of these, pison, compassed the whole land of havilah, the second, gihon, that compassed the whole land of ethiopia. the third, heddekel, that flowed toward the east of assyria, and the fourth, the euphrates. where are these four rivers now? the brave prow of discovery has visited every sea; the traveler has pressed with weary feet the soil of every clime; and yet there has been found no place from which four rivers sprang. the euphrates still journeys to the gulf, but where are pison, gihon and the mighty heddekel? surely by going to the source of the euphrates we ought to find either these three rivers or their ancient beds. will some minister when he answers the "mistakes of moses" tell us where these rivers are or were? the maps of the world are incomplete without these mighty streams. we have discovered the sources of the nile; the north pole will soon be touched by an american; but these three rivers still rise in unknown hills, still flow through unknown lands, and empty still in unknown seas. the account of these four rivers is what the rev. david swing would call "a geographical poem." the orthodox clergy cover the whole affair with the blanket of allegory, while the "scientific" christian folks talk about cataclysms, upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the earth's crust. the question, then arises, whether within the last six thousand years there have been such upheavals and displacements? talk as you will about the vast "creative periods" that preceded the appearance of man; it is, according to the bible, only about six thousand years since man was created. moses gives us the generations of men from adam until his day, and this account cannot be explained away by calling centuries, days. according to the second account of creation, these four rivers were made after the creation of man, and consequently they must have been obliterated by convulsions of nature within six thousand years. can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods by simply saying that although the writer may have done his level best, he failed because he was limited in knowledge, led away by tradition, and depended too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination? is not such a course far more reasonable than to insist that all these things are true and must stand though every science shall fall to mental dust? can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? what kind of tree was that? if it is all an allegory, what truth is sought to be conveyed? why should god object to that fruit being eaten by man? why did he put it in the midst of the garden? there was certainly plenty of room outside. if he wished to keep man and this tree apart, why did he put them together? and why, after he had eaten, was he thrust out? the only answer that we have a right to give, is the one given in the bible. "and the lord god said, behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." will some minister, some graduate of andover, tell us what this means? are we bound to believe it without knowing what the meaning is? if it is a revelation, what does it reveal? did god object to education then, and does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by theologians toward all scientific truth? was there in the garden a tree of life, the eating of which would have rendered adam and eve immortal? is it true, that after the lord god drove them from the garden that he placed upon its eastern side "cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life?" are the cherubim and the flaming sword guarding that tree still, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting trunk, as the rev. robert collyer suggests, "nourish a bank of violets"? what objection could god have had to the immortality of man? you see that after all, this sacred record, instead of assuring us of immortality, shows us only how we lost it. in this there is assuredly but little consolation. according to this story we have lost one eden, but nowhere in the mosaic books are we told how we may gain another. i know that the christians tell us there is another, in which all true believers will finally be gathered, and enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing the unbelievers in hell; but they do not tell us where it is. some commentators say that the garden of eden was in the third heaven--some in the fourth, others have located it in the moon, some in the air beyond the attraction of the earth, some on the earth, some under the earth, some inside the earth, some at the north pole, others at the south, some in tartary, some in china, some on the borders of the ganges, some in the island of ceylon, some in armenia, some in africa, some under the equator, others in mesopotamia, in syria, persia, arabia, babylon, assyria, palestine and europe. others have contended that it was invisible, that it was an allegory, and must be spiritually understood. but whether you understand these things or not, you must believe them. you may be laughed at in this world for insisting that god put adam into a deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be crowned and glorified in the next. you will also have the pleasure of hearing the gentlemen howl there, who laughed at you here. while you will not be permitted to take any revenge, you will be allowed to smilingly express your entire acquiescence in the will of god. but where is the new eden? no one knows. the one was lost, and the other has not been found. is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent, and that he became degenerate by disobedience? no. the real truth is, and the history of man shows, that he has advanced. events, like the pendulum of a clock have swung forward and back ward, but after all, man, like the hands, has gone steadily on. man is growing grander. he is not degenerating. nations and individuals fail and die, and make room for higher forms. the intellectual horizon of the world widens as the centuries pass. ideals grow grander and purer; the difference between justice and mercy becomes less and less; liberty enlarges, and love intensifies as the years sweep on. the ages of force and fear, of cruelty and wrong, are behind us and the real eden is beyond. it is said that a desire for knowledge lost us the eden of the past; but whether that is true or not, it will certainly give us the eden of the future. xvii. the fall. we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, that he had a conversation with eve, in which he gave his opinion about the effect of eating certain fruit; that he assured her it was good to eat, that it was pleasant to the eye, that it would make her wise; that she was induced to take some; that she persuaded her husband to try it; that god found it out, that he then cursed the snake; condemning it to crawl and eat the dust; that he multiplied the sorrows of eve, cursed the ground for adam's sake, started thistles and thorns, condemned man to eat the herb of the field in the sweat of his face, pronounced the curse of death, "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," made coats of skins for adam and eve, and drove them out of eden. who, and what was this serpent? dr. adam clarke says:--"the serpent must have walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment. that he was endued with the gift of speech, also with reason. that these things were given to this creature. the woman no doubt having often seen him walking erect, and talking and reasoning, therefore she testifies no sort of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text. it therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or orangoutang kind is here intended, and that satan made use of this creature as the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against the life of the soul of man. under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he seduced our first parents. such a creature answers to every part of the description in the text. it is evident from the structure of its limbs and its muscles that it might have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing else than the sovereign controlling power could induce it to put down hands--in every respect formed like those of man--and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed parts prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours. the stealthy cunning, and endless variety of the pranks and tricks of these creatures show them even now to be wiser and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone excepted. being obliged to walk on all fours and gather their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though exceeding cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety. add to this their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything offends or irritates them more than to be obliged to do it. long observation of these animals enables me to state these facts. for earnest, attentive watching, and for chattering and babbling they (the ape) have no fellows in the animal world. indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter, is all they have left of their original gift of speech, of which they appear to have been deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment." here then is the "connecting link" between man and the lower creation. the serpent was simply an orang-outang that spoke hebrew with the greatest ease, and had the outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in manner, plausible, polite, and most admirably calculated to deceive. it never did seem reasonable' to me that a long, cold and disgusting snake with an apple in his mouth, could deceive anybody; and i am glad, even at this late date to know that the something that persuaded eve to taste the forbidden fruit was, at least, in the shape of a man. dr. henry does not agree with the zoological explanation of mr. clark, but insists that "it is certain that the devil that beguiled eve is the old serpent, a malignant by creation, an angel of light, an immediate attendant upon god's throne, but by sin an apostate from his first state, and a rebel against god's crown and dignity. he who attacked our first parents was surely the prince of devils, the ring leader in rebellion. the devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a specious creature, has a spotted, dappled skin, and then, went erect. perhaps it was a flying serpent which seemed to come from on high, as a messenger from the upper world, one of the seraphim; because the serpent is a subtile creature. what eve thought of this serpent speaking to her, we are not likely to tell, and, i believe, she herself did not know what to think of it. at first, perhaps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet afterwards might suspect something amiss. the person tempted was a woman, now alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden tree. it was the devil's subtlety to assault the weaker vessel with his temptations, as we may suppose her inferior to adam in knowledge, strength and presence of mind. some think that eve received the command not immediately from god, but at second hand from her husband, and might, therefore, be the more easily persuaded to discredit it. it was the policy of the devil to enter into discussion with her when she was alone. he took advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree. god permitted satan to prevail over eve, for wise and holy ends. satan teaches men first to doubt, and then to deny. he makes skeptics first, and by degrees makes them atheists." we are compelled to admit that nothing could be more attractive to a woman than a snake walking erect, with a "spotted, dappled skin," unless it were a serpent with wings. is it not humiliating to know that our ancestors believed these things? why should we object to the darwinian doctrine of descent after this? our fathers thought it their duty to believe, thought it a sin to entertain the slightest doubt, and really supposed that their credulity was exceedingly, gratifying to god. to them, the story was entirely real. they could see the garden, hear the babble of waters, smell the perfume of flowers. they believed there was a tree where knowledge grew like plums or pears; and they could plainly see the serpent coiled amid its rustling leaves, coaxing eve to violate the laws of god. where did the serpent come from? on which of the six days was he created? who made him? is it possible that god would make a successful rival? he must have known that adam and eve would fall. he knew what a snake with a "spotted, dappled skin" could do with an inexperienced woman. why did he not defend his children? he knew that if the serpent got into the garden, adam and eve would sin, that he would have to drive them out, that afterwards the world would be destroyed, and that he himself would die upon the cross. again, i ask what and who was this serpent? he was not a man, for only one man had been made. he was not a woman. he was not a beast of the field, because "he was more subtile than any beast of the field which the lord god had made." he was neither fish nor fowl, nor snake, because he had the power of speech, and did not crawl upon his belly until after he was cursed. where did this serpent come from? why was he not kept out of the garden? why did not the lord god take him by the tail and snap his head off? why did he not put adam and eve on their guard about this serpent? they, of course, were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and knew nothing about the serpent's reputation for truth and veracity among his neighbors. probably adam saw him when he was looking for "an helpmeet" and gave him a name, but eve had never met him before. she was not surprised to hear a serpent talk, as that was the first one she had ever met. every thing being new to her, and her husband not being with her just at that moment, it need hardly excite our wonder that she tasted the fruit by way of experiment. neither should we be surprised that when she saw it was good and pleasant to the eye, and a fruit to be desired to make one wise, she had the generosity to divide with her husband. theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse of this serpent, but it seems that he told the exact truth. we are told that this serpent was, in fact, satan, the greatest enemy of mankind, and that he entered the serpent, appearing to our first parents in its body. if this is so, why should the serpent have been cursed? why should god curse the serpent for what had really been done by the devil? did satan remain in the body of the serpent, and in some mysterious manner share his punishment? is it true that when we kill a snake we also destroy an evil spirit, or is there but one devil, and did he perish at the death of the first serpent? is it on account of that transaction in the garden of eden, that all the descendants of adam and eve known as jews and christians hate serpents? do you account for the snake-worship in mexico, africa and india in the same way? what was the form of the serpent when he entered the garden, and in what way did he move from place to place? did he walk or fly? certainly he did not crawl, because that mode of locomotion was pronounced upon him as a curse. upon what food did he subsist before his conversation with eve? we know that after that he lived upon dust, but what did he eat before? it may be that this is all poetic; and the truest poetry is, according to touchstone, "the most feigning." in this same chapter we are informed that "unto adam also and to his wife did the lord god make coats of skins and clothed them." where did the lord god get those skins? he must have taken them from the animals; he was a butcher. then he had to prepare them; he was a tanner. then he made them into coats; he was a tailor. how did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? did the "fall" produce a change in the climate? is it really necessary to believe this account in order to be happy here, or hereafter? does it tend to the elevation of the human race to speak of "god" as a butcher, tanner and tailor? and here, let me say once for all, that when i speak of god, i mean the being described by moses; the jehovah of the jews. there may be for aught i know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. about this being, if such an one exists, i have nothing to say. he has written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth. when i speak of god, i mean that god who prevented man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world--of that god whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned. xviii. dampness. "and it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. "that the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. "and the lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. "there were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when the sons of god came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. "and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. "and it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. "and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that i have made them." from this account it seems that driving adam and eve out of eden did not have the effect to improve them or their children. on the contrary, the world grew worse and worse. they were under the immediate control and government of god, and he from time to time made known his will; but in spite of this, man continued to increase in crime. nothing in particular seems to have been done. not a school was established. there was no written language. there was not a bible in the world. the "scheme of salvation" was kept a profound secret. the five points of calvinism had not been taught. sunday schools had not been opened. in short, nothing had been done for the reformation of the world. god did not even keep his own sons at home, but allowed them to leave their abode in the firmament, and make love to the daughters of men. as a result of this, the world was filled with wickedness and giants to such an extent that god regretted "that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." of course god knew when he made man, that he would afterwards regret it. he knew that the people would grow worse and worse until destruction would be the only remedy. he knew that he would have to kill all except noah and his family, and it is hard to see why he did not make noah and his family in the first place, and leave adam and eve in the original dust. he knew that they would be tempted, that he would have to drive them out of the garden to keep them from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing would be a failure; that satan would defeat his plan; that he could not reform the people; that his own sons would corrupt them, and that at last he would have to drown them all except noah and his family. why was the garden of eden planted? why was the experiment made? why were adam and eve exposed to the seductive arts of the serpent? why did god wait until the cool of the day before looking after his children? why was he not on hand in the morning? why did he fill the world with his own children, knowing that he would have to destroy them? and why does this same god tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his? it is a little curious that when god wished to reform the ante-diluvian world he said nothing about hell; that he had no revivals, no camp-meetings, no tracts, no outpourings of the holy ghost, no baptisms, no noon prayer meetings, and never mentioned the great doctrine of salvation by faith. if the orthodox creeds of the world are true, all those people went to hell without ever having heard that such a place existed. if eternal torment is a fact, surely these miserable wretches ought to have been warned. they were threatened only with water when they were in fact doomed to eternal fire! is it not strange that god said nothing to adam and eve about a future life; that he should have kept these "infinite verities" to himself and allowed millions to live and die without the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell? it may be that hell was not made at that time. in the six days of creation nothing is said about the construction of a bottomless pit, and the serpent himself did not make his appearance until after the creation of man and woman. perhaps he was made on the first sunday, and from that fact came, it may be, the old couplet, "and satan still some mischief finds for idle hands to do." the sacred historian failed also to tell us when the cherubim and the flaming sword were made, and said nothing about two of the persons composing the trinity. it certainly would have been an easy thing to enlighten adam and his immediate descendants. the world was then only about fifteen hundred and thirty-six years old, and only about three or four generations of men had lived. adam had been dead only about six hundred and six years, and some of his grandchildren must, at that time, have been alive and well. it is hard to see why god did not civilize these people. he certainly had the power to use, and the wisdom to devise the proper means. what right has a god to fill a world with fiends? can there be goodness in this? why should he make experiments that he knows must fail? is there wisdom in this? and what right has a man to charge an infinite being with wickedness and folly? according to moses, god made up his mind not only to destroy the people, but the beasts and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. what had the beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds done to excite the anger of god? why did he repent having made them? will some christian give us an explanation of this matter? no good man will inflict unnecessary pain upon a beast; how then can we worship a god who cares nothing for the agonies of the dumb creatures that he made? why did he make animals that he knew he would destroy? does god delight in causing pain? he had the power to make the beasts, and fowls, and creeping things in his own good time and way, and it is to be presumed that he made them according to his wish. why should he destroy them? they had committed no sin. they had eaten no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to reach the tree of life. yet this god, in blind unreasoning wrath destroyed "all flesh wherein was the breath of life, and every living thing beneath the sky, and every substance wherein was life that he had made." jehovah having made up his mind to drown the world, told noah to make an ark of gopher wood three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. a cubit is twenty-two inches; so that the ark was five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet and eight inches wide and fifty-five feet high. this ark was divided into three stories, and had on top, one window twenty-two inches square. ventilation must have been one of jehovah's hobbies. think of a ship larger than the great eastern with only one window, and that but twenty-two inches square! the ark also had one door set in the side thereof that shut from the outside. as soon as this ship was finished, and properly victualed, noah received seven days notice to get the animals in the ark. it is claimed by some of the scientific theologians that the flood was partial, that the waters covered only a small portion of the world, and that consequently only a few animals were in the ark. it is impossible to conceive of language that can more clearly convey the idea of a universal flood than that found in the inspired account. if the flood was only partial, why did god say he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and that every thing that is in the earth shall die"? why did he say "i will destroy man whom i have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air"? why did he say "and every living substance that i have made will i destroy from off the face of the earth"? would a partial, local flood have fulfilled these threats? nothing can be clearer than that the writer of this account intended to convey, and did convey the idea that the flood was universal. why should christians try to deprive god of the glory of having wrought the most stupendous of miracles? is it possible that the infinite could not overwhelm with waves this atom called the earth? do you doubt his power, his wisdom or his justice? believers in miracles should not endeavor to explain them. there is but one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural agencies. the moment you explain a miracle, it disappears. you should depend not upon explanation, but assertion. you should not be driven from the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. you should reply that all miracles are unreasonable. neither should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. the possible is not miraculous. you should take the ground that if miracles were reasonable, and possible, there would be no reward paid for believing them. the christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence. it is enough for god to work miracles without being called upon to substantiate them for the benefit of unbelievers. only a few years ago, the christians believed implicitly in the literal truth of every miracle recorded in the bible. whoever tried to explain them in some natural way, was looked upon as an infidel in disguise, but now he is regarded as a benefactor. the credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are now either "explained," or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory. in the sixth chapter, noah is ordered to take "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort into the ark--male and female." in the seventh chapter the order is changed, and noah is commanded, according to the protestant bible, as follows: "of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean, by two, the male and his female. of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female." according to the catholic bible, noah was commanded---"of all clean beasts take seven and seven, the male and the female. but of the beasts that are unclean two and two, the male and the female. of the fowls also of the air seven and seven, the male and the female." for the purpose of belittling this miracle, many commentators have taken the ground that noah was not ordered to take seven males and seven females of each kind of clean beasts, but seven in all. many christians contend that only seven clean beasts of each kind were taken into the ark--three and a half of each sex. if the account in the seventh chapter means anything, it means _first_, that of each kind of clean beasts, fourteen were to be taken, seven males, and seven females; _second_, that of unclean beasts should be taken, two of each kind, one of each sex, and _third_, that he should take of every kind of fowls, seven of each sex. it is equally clear that the command in the th and th verses of the th chapter, is to take two of each sort, one male and one female. and this agrees exactly with the account in the th, th, th, th, th, and th verses of the th chapter. the next question is, how many beasts, fowls and creeping things did noah take into the ark? there are now known and classified at least twelve thousand five hundred species of birds. there are still vast territories in china, south america, and africa unknown to the ornithologist. of the birds, noah took fourteen of each species, according to the d verse of the th chapter, "of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female," making a total of , birds. and right here allow me to ask a question. if the flood was simply a partial flood, why were birds taken into the ark? it seems to me that most birds, attending strictly to business, might avoid a partial flood. there are at least sixteen hundred and fifty-eight kinds of beasts. let us suppose that twenty-five of these are clean. of the clean, fourteen of each kind--seven of each sex--were taken. these amount to . of the unclean--two of each kind, amounting to , . there are some six hundred and fifty species of reptiles. two of each kind amount to , . and lastly, there are of insects including the creeping things, at least one million species, so that noah and his folks had to get of these into the ark about , , . animalculæ have not been taken into consideration. there are probably many hundreds of thousands of species; many of them invisible; and yet noah had to pick them out by pairs. very few people have any just conception of the trouble noah had. we know that there are many animals on this continent not found in the old world. these must have been carried from here to the ark, and then brought back afterwards. were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti, vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed monkey, the raccoon and muskrat carried by the angels from america to asia? how did they get there? did the polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the tropics? how did he know where the ark was? did the kangaroo swim or jump from australia to asia? did the giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and orang-outang journey from africa in search of the ark? can absurdities go farther than this? what had these animals to eat while on the journey? what did they eat while in the ark? what did they drink? when the rain came, of course the rivers ran to the seas, and these seas rose and finally covered the world. the waters of the seas, mingled with those of the flood, would make all salt. it has been calculated that it required, to drown the world, about eight times as much water as was in all the seas. to find how salt the waters of the flood must have been, take eight quarts of fresh water, and add one quart from the sea. such water would create instead of allaying thirst. noah had to take in his ark fresh water for all his beasts, birds and living things. he had to take the proper food for all. how long was he in the ark? three hundred and seventy-seven days! think of the food necessary for the monsters of the ante-diluvian world! eight persons did all the work. they attended to the wants of , birds, , beasts, , reptiles, and , , insects, saying nothing of countless animalculæ. well, after they all got in, noah pulled down the window, god shut the door, and the rain commenced. how long did it rain? forty days. how deep did the water get? about five miles and a half. how much did it rain a day? enough to cover the whole world to a depth of about seven hundred and forty-two feet. some christians say that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. will they be kind enough to tell us what the fountains of the great deep are? others say that god had vast stores of water in the center of the earth that he used on that occasion. how did these waters happen to run up hill? gentlemen, allow me to tell you once more that you must not try to explain these things. your efforts in that direction do no good, because your explanations are harder to believe than the miracle itself. take my advice, stick to assertion, and let explanation alone. then, as now, dhawalagiri lifted its crown of snow twenty-nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and on the cloudless cliffs of chimborazo then, as now, sat the condor; and yet the waters rising seven hundred and twenty-six feet a day--thirty feet an hour, six inches a minute,--rose over the hills, over the volcanoes, filled the vast craters, extinguished all the fires, rose above every mountain peak until the vast world was but one shoreless sea covered with the innumerable dead. was this the work of the most merciful god, the father of us all? if there is a god, can there be the slightest danger of incurring his displeasure by doubting even in a reverential way, the truth of such a cruel lie? if we think that god is kinder than he really is, will our poor souls be burned for that? how many trees can live under miles of water for a year? what became of the soil washed, scattered, dissolved, and covered with the _debris_ of a world? how were the tender plants and herbs preserved? how were the animals preserved after leaving the ark? there was no grass except such as had been submerged for a year. there were no animals to be devoured by the carnivorous beasts. what became of the birds that fed on worms and insects? what became of the birds that devoured other birds? it must be remembered that the pressure of the water when at the highest point--say twenty-nine thousand feet, would have been about eight hundred tons on each square foot. such a pressure certainly would have destroyed nearly every vestige of vegetable life, so that when the animals came out of the ark, there was not a mouthful of food in the wide world. how were they supported until the world was again clothed with grass? how were those animals taken care of that subsisted on others? where did the bees get honey, and the ants seeds? there was not a creeping thing upon the whole earth; not a breathing creature beneath the whole heavens; not a living substance. where did the tenants of the ark get food? there is but one answer, if the story is true. the food necessary not only during the year of the flood, but sufficient for many months afterwards, must have been stored in the ark. there is probably not an animal in the world that will not, in a year, eat and drink ten times its weight. noah must have provided food and water for a year while in the ark, and food for at least six months after they got ashore. it must have required for a pair of elephants, about one hundred and fifty tons of food and water. a couple of mammoths would have required about twice that amount. of course there were other monsters that lived on trees; and in a year would have devoured quite a forest. how could eight persons have distributed this food, even if the ark had been large enough to hold it? how was the ark kept clean? we know how it was ventilated; but what was done with the filth? how were the animals watered? how were some portions of the ark heated for animals from the tropics, and others kept cool for the polar bears? how did the animals get back to their respective countries? some had to creep back about six thousand miles, and they could only go a few feet a day. some of the creeping things must have started for the ark just as soon as they were made, and kept up a steady jog for sixteen hundred years. think of a couple of the slowest snails leaving a point opposite the ark and starting for the plains of shinar, a distance of twelve thousand miles. going at the rate of a mile a month, it would take them a thousand years. how did they get there? polar bears must have gone several thousand miles, and so sudden a change in climate must have been exceedingly trying upon their health. how did they know the way to go? of course, all the polar bears did not go. only two were required. who selected these? two sloths had to make the journey from south america. these creatures cannot travel to exceed three rods a day. at this rate, they would make a mile in about a hundred days. they must have gone about six thousand five hundred miles, to reach the ark. supposing them to have traveled by a reasonably direct route, in order to complete the journey before noah hauled in the plank, they must have started several years before the world was created. we must also consider that these sloths had to board themselves on the way, and that most of their time had to be taken up getting food and water. it is exceedingly doubtful whether a sloth could travel six thousand miles and board himself in less than three thousand years. volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that repository of the impossible, called the bible. to me it is a matter of amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human being. dr. adam clarke says that "the animals were brought to the ark by the power of god, and their enmities were so removed or suspended, that the lion could dwell peaceably with the lamb, and the wolf sleep happily by the side of the kid. there is no positive evidence that animal food was ever used before the flood. noah had the first grant of this kind." dr. scott remarks, "there seems to have been a very extraordinary miracle, perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to noah, and rendering them submissive, and peaceful with each other. yet it seems not to have made any impression upon the hardened spectators. the suspension of the ferocity of the savage beasts during their continuance in the ark, is generally considered as an apt figure of the change that takes place in the disposition of sinners when they enter the true church of christ." he believed the deluge to have been universal. in his day science had not demonstrated the absurdity of this belief, and he was not compelled to resort to some theory not found in the bible. he insisted that "by some vast convulsion, the very bowels of the earth were forced upwards, and rain poured down in cataracts and water-spouts, with no intermission for forty days and nights, and until in every place a universal deluge was effected. "the presence of god was the only comfort of noah in his dreary confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the earth and its inhabitants, and especially of the human species--of his companions, his neighbors, his relatives--all those to whom he had preached, for whom he had prayed and over whom he had wept, and even of many who had helped to build the ark. "it seems that by a peculiar providential interposition, no animal of any sort died, although they had been shut up in the ark above a year; and it does not appear that there had been any increase of them during that time. "the ark was flat-bottomed--square at each end--roofed like a house so that it terminated at the top in the breadth of a cubit. it was divided into many little cabins for its intended inhabitants. pitched within and without to keep it tight and sweet, and lighted from the upper part. but it must, at first sight, be evident that so large a vessel, thus constructed, with so few persons on board, was utterly unfitted to weather out the deluge, except it was under the immediate guidance and protection of the almighty." dr. henry furnished the christian world with the following:-- "as our bodies have in them the humors which, when god pleases, become the springs and seeds of mortal disease, so the earth had, in its bowels, those waters which, at god's command, sprung up and flooded it. "god made the world in six days, but he was forty days in destroying it, because he is slow to anger. "the hostilities between the animals in the ark ceased, and ravenous creatures became mild and manageable, so that the wolf lay down with the lamb, and the lion ate straw like an ox. "god shut the door of the ark to secure noah and to keep him safe, and because it was necessary that the door should be shut very close lest the water should break in and sink the ark, and very fast lest others might break it down. "the waters rose so high that not only the low flat countries were deluged, but to make sure work and that none might escape, the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits. that is, seven and a half yards, so that salvation was not hoped for from hills or mountains. "perhaps some of the people got to the top of the ark, and hoped to shift for themselves there. but either they perished there for want of food, or the dashing rain washed them off the top. others, it may be, hoped to prevail with noah for admission into the ark, and plead old acquaintance. "'have we not eaten and drank in thy presence? hast thou not preached in our streets?' 'yea,' said noah, 'many a time, but to little purpose. i called but ye refused; and now it is not in my power to help you. god has shut the door and i cannot open it.' "we may suppose that some of those who perished in the deluge had themselves assisted noah, or were employed by him in building the ark. "hitherto, man had been confined to feed only upon the products of the earth. fruits, herbs and roots, and all sorts of greens, and milk, which was the first grant; but the flood having perhaps washed away much of the fruits of the earth, and rendered them much less pleasant and nourishing, god enlarged the grant and allowed him to eat flesh, which perhaps man never thought of until now, that god directed him to it. nor had he any more desire to it than the sheep has to suck blood like the wolf. but now, man is allowed to feed upon flesh as freely and safely as upon the green herb." such was the debasing influence of a belief in the literal truth of the bible upon these men, that their commentaries are filled with passages utterly devoid of common sense. dr. clarke speaking of the mammoth says: "this animal, an astonishing proof of god's power, he seems to have produced merely to show what he could do. and after suffering a few of them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a merciful providence, that they might not destroy both man and beast. "we are told that it would have been much easier for god to destroy all the people and make new ones, but he would not want to waste anything and no power or skill should be lavished where no necessity exists. "the animals were brought to the ark by the power of god." again gentlemen, let me warn you of the danger of trying to explain a miracle. let it alone. say that you do not understand it, and do not expect to until taught in the schools of the new jerusalem. the more reasons you give, the more unreasonable the miracle will appear. through what you say in defence, people are led to think, and as soon as they really think, the miracle is thrown away. among the most ignorant nations you will find the most wonders, among the most enlightened, the least. it is with individuals, the same as with nations. ignorance believes, intelligence examines and explains. for about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men, animals and insects, tossed and wandered without rudder or sail upon a boundless sea. at last it grounded on the mountains of ararat; and about three months afterward the tops of the mountains became visible. it must not be forgotten that the mountain where the ark is supposed to have first touched bottom, was about seventeen thousand feet high. how were the animals from the tropics kept warm? when the waters were abated it would be intensely cold at a point seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. may be there were stoves, furnaces, fire places and steam coils in the ark, but they are not mentioned in the inspired narrative. how were the animals kept from freezing? it will not do to say that ararat was not very high after all. if you will read the fourth and fifth verses of the eight chapter you will see that although "the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of ararat, it was not until the first day of the tenth month that the tops of the mountains could be seen." from this it would seem that the ark must have rested upon about the highest peak in that country. noah waited forty days more, and then for the first time opened the window and took a breath of fresh air. he then sent out a raven that did not return, then a dove that returned. he then waited seven days and sent forth a dove that returned not. from this he knew that the waters were abated. is it possible that he could not see whether the waters had gone? is it possible to conceive of a more perfectly childish way of ascertaining whether the earth was dry? at last noah "removed the covering of the ark, and looked and behold the face of the ground was dry," and thereupon god told him to disembark. in his gratitude noah built an altar and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings. and the lord smelled a sweet savor and said in his heart that he would not any more curse the ground for man's sake. for saying this in his heart the lord gives as a reason, not that man is, or will be good, but because "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." god destroyed man because "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and _because every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually_." and he promised for the same reason not to destroy him again. will some gentleman skilled in theology give us an explanation? after god had smelled the sweet savor of sacrifice, he seems to have changed his idea as to the proper diet for man. when adam and eve were created they were allowed to eat herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of trees. when they were turned out of eden, god said to them "thou shalt eat the herb of the field." in the first chapter of genesis the "green herb" was given for food to the beasts, fowls and creeping things. upon being expelled from the garden, adam and eve, as to their food, were put upon an equality with the lower animals. according to this, the ante-diluvians were vegetarians. this may account for their wickedness and longevity. after noah sacrificed, and god smelled the sweet savor; he said--"every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have i given you all things." afterward this same god changed his mind again, and divided the beasts and birds into clean and unclean, and made it a crime for man to eat the unclean. probably food was so scarce when noah was let out of the ark that jehovah generously allowed him to eat anything and everything he could find. according to the account, god then made a covenant with noah to the effect that he would not again destroy the world with a flood, and as the attesting witness of this contract, a rainbow was set in the cloud. this bow was placed in the sky so that it might perpetually remind god of his promise and covenant. without this visible witness and reminder, it would seem that jehovah was liable to forget the contract, and drown the world again. did the rainbow originate in this way? did god put it in the cloud simply to keep his agreement in his memory? for me it is impossible to believe the story of the deluge. it seems so cruel, so barbaric, so crude in detail, so absurd in all its parts, and so contrary to all we know of law, that even credulity itself is shocked. many nations have preserved accounts of a deluge in which all people, except a family or two, were destroyed. babylon was certainly a city before jerusalem was founded. egypt was in the height of her power when there were only seventy jews in the world, and india had a literature before the name of jehovah had passed the lips of superstition. an account of a general deluge "was discovered by george smith, translated from another account that was written about two thousand years before christ." of course it is impossible to tell how long the story had lived in the memory of tradition before it was reduced to writing by the babylonians. according to this account, which is, without doubt, much older than the one given by moses, tamzi built a ship at the command of the god hea, and put in it his family and the beasts of the field. he pitched the ship inside and outside with bitumen, and as soon as it was finished, there came a flood of rain and "destroyed all life from the face of the whole earth. on the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on the mountain nizir." tamzi waited for seven days more, and then let out a dove. afterwards, he let out a swallow, and that, as well as the dove returned. then he let out a raven, and as that did not return, he concluded that the water had dried away, and thereupon left the ship. then he made an offering to god, or the gods, and "hea interceded with bel," so that the earth might never again be drowned. this is the babylonian story, told without the contradictions of the original. for in that, it seems, there are two accounts, as well as in the bible. is it not a strange coincidence that there should be contradictory accounts mingled in both the babylonian and jewish stories? in the bible there are two accounts. in one account, noah was to take two of all beasts, birds, and creeping things into the ark, while in the other, he was commanded to take of clean beasts, and all birds by sevens of each kind. according to one account, the flood only lasted one hundred and fifty days--as related in the third verse of the eighth chapter; while the other account fixes the time at three hundred and seventy-seven days. both of these accounts cannot be true. yet in order to be saved, it is not sufficient to believe one of them--you must believe both. among the egyptians there was a story to the effect that the great god ra became utterly maddened with the people, and deliberately made up his mind that he would exterminate mankind. thereupon he began to destroy, and continued in the terrible work until blood flowed in streams, when suddenly he ceased, and took an oath that he would not again destroy the human race. this myth was probably thousands of years old when moses was born. so, in india, there was a fable about the flood. a fish warned manu that a flood was coming. manu built a "box" and the fish towed it to a mountain and saved all hands. the same kind of stories were told in greece, and among our own indian tribes. at one time the christian pointed to the fact that many nations told of a flood, as evidence of the truth of the mosaic account; but now, it having been shown that other accounts are much older, and equally reasonable, that argument has ceased to be of any great value. it is probable that all these accounts had a common origin. they were likely born of something in nature visible to all nations. the idea of a universal flood, produced by a god to drown the world on account of the sins of the people, is infinitely absurd. the solution of all these stories has been supposed to be, the existence of partial floods in most countries; and for a long time this solution was satisfactory. but the fact that these stories are greatly alike, that only one man is warned, that only one family is saved, that a boat is built, that birds are sent out to find if the water had abated, tend to show that they had a common origin. admitting that there were severe floods in all countries; it certainly cannot follow that in each instance only one family would be saved, or that the same story would in each instance be told. it may be urged that the natural tendency of man to exaggerate calamities, might account for this agreement in all the accounts, and it must be admitted that there is some force in the suggestion. i believe, though, that the real origin of all these myths is the same, and that it was originally an effort to account for the sun, moon and stars. the sun and moon were the man and wife, or the god and goddess, and the stars were their children. from a celestial myth, it became a terrestrial one; the air, or ether-ocean became a flood, produced by rain, and the sun moon and stars became man, woman and children. in the original story, the mountain was the place where in the far east the sky was supposed to touch the earth, and it was there that the ship containing the celestial passengers finally rested from its voyage. but whatever may be the origin of the stories of the flood, whether told first by hindu, babylonian or hebrew, we may rest perfectly assured that they are all equally false. xix. bacchus and babel. as soon as noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant a vineyard, and began to be a husbandman; and when the grapes were ripe he made wine and drank of it to excess; cursed his grandson, blessed shem and japheth, and after that lived for three hundred and fifty years. what he did during these three hundred and fifty years, we are not told. we never hear of him again. for three hundred and fifty years he lived among his sons, and daughters, and their descendants. he must have been a venerable man. he was the man to whom god had made known his intention of drowning the world. by his efforts, the human race had been saved. he must have been acquainted with methuselah for six hundred years, and methuselah was about two hundred and forty years old, when adam died. noah must himself have known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost infinite interest; and yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither directly nor indirectly mentioned. when noah died, abraham must have been more than fifty years old; and shem, the son of noah, lived for several hundred years after the death of abraham; and yet he is never mentioned. noah when he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about five hundred years; and everybody living at the time of his death knew that they were indebted to him, and yet no account is given of his burial. no monument was raised to mark the spot. this, however, is no more wonderful than the fact that no account is given of the death of adam or of eve, nor of the place of their burial. this may all be accounted for by the fact that the language of man was confounded at the building of the tower of babel, whereby all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of noah could not give an account of their voyage in the ark; and, consequently, some one had to be directly inspired to tell the story, after new languages had been formed. it has always been a mystery to me how adam, eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. where did they get it? we know now, that it requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of exceedingly slow growth. we also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. we know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. many centuries are required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. it does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain of man. these ideas must be the result of observation and experience. does anybody believe that god directly taught a language to adam and eve, or that he so made them that they, by intuition spoke hebrew, or some language capable of conveying to each other their thoughts? how did the serpent learn the same language? did god teach it to him, or did he happen to overhear god, when he was teaching adam and eve? we are told in the second chapter of genesis that god caused all the animals to pass before adam to see what he would call them. we cannot infer from this that god named the animals and informed adam what to call them. adam named them himself. where did he get his words? we cannot imagine a man just made out of dust, without the experience of a moment, having the power to put his thoughts in language. in the first place, we cannot conceive of his having any thoughts until he has combined, through experience and observation, the impressions that nature had made upon him through the medium of his senses. we cannot imagine of his knowing anything, in the first instance, about different degrees of heat, nor about darkness, if he was made in the day-time, nor about light, if created at night, until the next morning. before a man can have what we call thoughts, he must have had a little experience. something must have happened to him before he can have a thought, and before he can express himself in language. language is a growth, not a gift. we account now for the diversity of language by the fact that tribes and nations have had different experiences, different wants, different surroundings, and, one result of all these differences is, among other things, a difference in language. nothing can be more absurd than to account for the different languages of the world by saying that the original language was confounded at the tower of babel. according to the bible, up to the time of the building of that tower, the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, and would have so remained until the present time had not an effort been made to build a tower whose top should reach into heaven. can any one imagine what objection god would have to the building of such a tower? and how could the confusion of tongues prevent its construction? how could language be confounded? it could be confounded only by the destruction of memory. did god destroy the memory of mankind at that time, and if so, how? did he paralyze that portion of the brain presiding over the organs of articulation, so that they could not speak the words, although they remembered them clearly, or did he so touch the brain that they could not hear? will some theologian, versed in the machinery of the miraculous, tell us in what way god confounded the language of mankind? why would the confounding of the language make them separate? why would they not stay together until they could understand each other? people will not separate, from weakness. when in trouble they come together and desire the assistance of each other. why, in this instance, did they separate? what particular ones would naturally come together if nobody understood the language of any other person? would it not have been just as hard to agree when and where to go, without any language to express the agreement, as to go on with the building of the tower? is it possible that any one now believes that the whole world would be of one speech had the language not been confounded at babel? do we not know that every word was suggested in some way by the experience of men? do we not know that words are continually dying, and continually being born; that every language has its cradle and its cemetery--its buds, its blossoms, its fruits and its withered leaves? man has loved, enjoyed, hated, suffered and hoped, and all words have been born of these experiences. why did "the lord come down to see the city and the tower"? could he not see them from where he lived or from where he was? where did he come down from? did he come in the daytime, or in the night? we are taught now that god is everywhere; that he inhabits immensity; that he is in every atom, and in every star. if this is true, why did he "come down to see the city and the tower?" will some theologian explain this? after all, is it not much easier and altogether more reasonable to say that moses was mistaken, that he knew little of the science of language, and that he guessed a great deal more than he investigated? xx. faith in filth. no light whatever is shed upon what passed in the world after the confounding of language at babel, until the birth of abraham. but, before speaking of the history of the jewish people, it may be proper for me to say that many things are recounted in genesis, and other books attributed to moses, of which i do not wish to speak. there are many pages of these books unfit to read, many stories not calculated, in my judgment, to improve the morals of mankind. i do not wish even to call the attention of my readers to these things, except in a general way. it is to be hoped that the time will come when such chapters and passages as cannot be read without leaving the blush of shame upon the cheek of modesty, will be left out, and not published as a part of the bible. if there is a god, it certainly is blasphemous to attribute to him the authorship of pages too obscene, beastly and vulgar to be read in the presence of men and women. the believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of god. these stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. they never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. for one, i cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the scriptures i leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. until these passages are expunged from the old testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. it contains pages that no minister in the united states would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. there are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. there are chapters that no father would read to his child. there are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired. i know that in many books besides the bible, there are immodest lines. some of the greatest writers have soiled their pages with indecent words. we account for this by saying that the authors were human; that they catered to the taste and spirit of their times. we make excuses, but at the same time regret that in their works they left an impure word. but what shall we say of god? is it possible that a being of infinite purity--the author of modesty, would smirch the pages of his book with stories lewd, licentious and obscene? if god is the author of the bible, it is, of course, the standard by which all other books can, and should be measured. if the bible is not obscene, what book is? why should men be imprisoned simply for imitating god? the christian world should never say another word against immoral books until it makes the inspired volume clean. these vile and filthy things were not written for the purpose of conveying and enforcing moral truth, but seem to have been written because the author loved an unclean thing. there is no moral depth below that occupied by the writer or publisher of obscene books, that stain with lust, the loving heart of youth. such men should be imprisoned and their books destroyed. the literature of the world should be rendered decent, and no book should be published that cannot be read by, and in the hearing of the best and purest people. but as long as the bible is considered as the work of god, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. the literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god. we are continually told that the bible is the very foundation of modesty and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an unclean wretch. every woman would leave the church, and if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister. is there any saving grace in hypocrisy? will men become clean in speech by believing that god is unclean? would it not be far better to admit that the bible was written by barbarians in a barbarous, coarse and vulgar age? would it not be safer to charge moses with vulgarity, instead of god? is it not altogether more probable that some ignorant hebrew would write the vulgar words? the christians tell me that god is the author of these vile and stupid things? i have examined the question to the best of my ability, and as to god my verdict is:--not guilty. faith should not rest in filth. every foolish and immodest thing should be expunged from the bible. let us keep the good. let us preserve every great and splendid thought, every wise and prudent maxim, every just law, every elevated idea, and every word calculated to make man nobler and purer, and let us have the courage to throw the rest away. the souls of children should not be stained and soiled. the charming instincts of youth should not be corrupted and defiled. the girls and boys should not be taught that unclean words were uttered by "inspired" lips. teach them that these words were born of savagery and lust. teach them that the unclean is the unholy, and that only the pure is sacred. xxi. the hebrews. after language had been confounded and the people scattered, there appeared in the land of canaan a tribe of hebrews ruled by a chief or sheik called abraham. they had a few cattle, lived in tents, practiced polygamy, wandered from place to place, and were the only folks in the whole world to whom god paid the slightest attention. at this time there were hundreds of cities in india filled with temples and palaces; millions of egyptians worshiped isis and osiris, and had covered their land with marvelous monuments of industry, power and skill. but these civilizations were entirely neglected by the deity, his whole attention being taken up with abraham and his family. it seems, from the account, that god and abraham were intimately acquainted, and conversed frequently upon a great variety of subjects. by the twelfth chapter of genesis it appears that he made the following promises to abraham. "i will make of thee a great nation, and i will bless thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing. and i will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee." after receiving this communication from the almighty, abraham went into the land of canaan, and again god appeared to him and told him to take a heifer three years old, a goat of the same age, a sheep of equal antiquity, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. whereupon abraham killed the animals "and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another." and it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the raw and bleeding meat. the killing of these animals was a preparation for receiving a visit from god. should an american missionary in central africa find a negro chief surrounded by a butchered heifer, a goat and a sheep, with which to receive a communication from the infinite god, my opinion is, that the missionary would regard the proceeding as the direct result of savagery. and if the chief insisted that he had seen a smoking furnace and a burning lamp going up and down between the pieces of meat, the missionary would certainly conclude that the chief was not altogether right in his mind. if the bible is true, this same god told abraham to take and sacrifice his only son, or rather the only son of his wife, and a murder would have been committed had not god, just at the right moment, directed him to stay his hand and take a sheep instead. god made a great number of promises to abraham, but few of them were ever kept. he agreed to make him the father of a great nation, but he did not. he solemnly promised to give him a great country, including all the land between the river of egypt and the euphrates, but he did not. in due time abraham passed away, and his son isaac took his place at the head of the tribe. then came jacob, who "watered stock" and enriched himself with the spoil of laban. joseph was sold into egypt by his jealous brethren, where he became one of the chief men of the kingdom, and in a few years his father and brothers left their own country and settled in egypt. at this time there were seventy hebrews in the world, counting joseph and his children. they remained in egypt two hundred and fifteen years. it is claimed by some that they were in that country for four hundred and thirty years. this is a mistake. josephus says they were in egypt two hundred and fifteen years, and this statement is sustained by the best biblical scholars of all denominations. according to the th verse of the rd chapter of galatians, it was four hundred and thirty years from the time the promise was made to abraham to the giving of the law, and as the hebrews did not go to egypt for two hundred and fifteen years after the making of the promise to abraham, they could in no event have been in egypt more than two hundred and fifteen years. in our bible the th verse of the th chapter of exodus, is as follows:-- "now the sojourning of the children of israel, who dwelt in egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." this passage does not say that the sojourning was all done in egypt; neither does it say that the children of israel dwelt in egypt four hundred and thirty years; but it does say that the sojourning of the children of israel who dwelt in egypt was four hundred and thirty years. the vatican copy of the septuagint renders the same passage as follows:-- "the sojourning of the children of israel which they sojourned in egypt, and in the land of canaan, was four hundred and thirty years." the alexandrian version says:--"the sojourning of the children of israel which they and their fathers sojourned in egypt, and in the land of canaan, was four hundred and thirty years." and in the samaritan bible we have:--"the sojourning of the children of israel and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of canaan, and in the land of egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." there were seventy souls when they went down into egypt, and they remained two hundred and fifteen years, and at the end of that time they had increased to about three million. how do we know that there were three million at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? we know it because we are informed by moses that "there were six hundred thousand men of war." now, to each man of war, there must have been at least five other people. in every state in this union there will be to each voter, five other persons at least, and we all know that there are always more voters than men of war. if there were six hundred thousand men of war, there must have been a population of at least three million. is it possible that seventy people could increase to that extent in two hundred and fifteen years? you may say that it was a miracle; but what need was there of working a miracle? why should god miraculously increase the number of slaves? if he wished miraculously to increase the population, why did he not wait until the people were free? in , we had in the american colonies about three millions of people. in one hundred years we doubled four times: that is to say, six, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight million,--our present population. we must not forget that during all these years there has been pouring into our country a vast stream of emigration, and that this, taken in connection with the fact that our country is productive beyond all others, gave us only four doubles in one hundred years. admitting that the hebrews increased as rapidly without emigration as we, in this country, have with it, we will give to them four doubles each century, commencing with seventy people, and they would have, at the end of two hundred years, a population of seventeen thousand nine hundred and twenty. giving them another double for the odd fifteen years and there would be, provided no deaths had occurred, thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty people. and yet we are told that instead of having this number, they had increased to such an extent that they had six hundred thousand men of war; that is to say, a population of more than three millions? every sensible man knows that this account is not, and cannot be true. we know that seventy people could not increase to three million in two hundred and fifteen years. about this time the hebrews took a census, and found that there were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first-born males. it is reasonable to suppose that there were about as many first-born females. this would make forty-four thousand five hundred and forty-six first-born children. now, there must have been about as many mothers as there were first-born children. if there were only about forty-five thousand mothers and three millions of people, the mothers must have had on an average about sixty-six children apiece. at this time, the hebrews were slaves, and had been for two hundred and fifteen years. a little while before, an order had been made by the egyptians that all the male children of the hebrews should be killed. one, contrary to this order, was saved in an ark made of bullrushes daubed with slime. this child was found by the daughter of pharaoh, and was adopted, it seems, as her own, and, may be, was. he grew to be a man, sided with the hebrews, killed an egyptian that was smiting a slave, hid the body in the sand, and fled from egypt to the land of midian, became acquainted with a priest who had seven daughters, took the side of the daughters against the ill-mannered shepherds of that country, and married zipporah, one of the girls, and became a shepherd for her father. afterward, while tending his flock, the lord appeared to him in a burning bush, and commanded him to go to the king of egypt and demand from him the liberation of the hebrews. in order to convince him that the something burning in the bush was actually god, the rod in his hand was changed into a serpent, which, upon being caught by the tail, became again a rod. moses was also told to put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out it was as leprous as snow. quite a number of strange things were performed, and others promised. moses then agreed to go back to egypt provided his brother could go with him. whereupon the lord appeared to aaron, and directed him to meet moses in the wilderness. they met at the mount of god, went to egypt, gathered together all the elders of the children of israel, spake all the words which god had spoken unto moses, and did all the signs in the sight of the people. the israelites believed, bowed their heads and worshiped; and moses and aaron went in and told their message to pharaoh the king. xxii. the plagues. three millions of people were in slavery. they were treated with the utmost rigor, and so fearful were their masters that they might, in time, increase in numbers sufficient to avenge themselves, that they took from the arms of mothers all the male children and destroyed them. if the account given is true, the egyptians were the most cruel, heartless and infamous people of which history gives any record. god finally made up his mind to free the hebrews; and for the accomplishment of this purpose he sent, as his agents, moses and aaron, to the king of egypt. in order that the king might know that these men had a divine mission, god gave moses the power of changing a stick into a serpent, and water into blood. moses and aaron went before the king, stating that the lord god of israel ordered the king of egypt to let the hebrews go that they might hold a feast with god in the wilderness. thereupon pharaoh, the king, enquired who the lord was, at the same time stating that he had never made his acquaintance, and knew nothing about him. to this they replied that the god of the hebrews had met with them, and they asked to go a three days journey into the desert and sacrifice unto this god, fearing that if they did not he would fall upon them with pestilence or the sword. this interview seems to have hardened pharaoh, for he ordered the tasks of the children of israel to be increased; so that the only effect of the first appeal was to render still worse the condition of the hebrews. thereupon, moses returned unto the lord and said, "lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? for since i came to pharaoh to speak in thy name he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all." apparently stung by this reproach, god answered:-- "now shalt thou see what i will do to pharoah; for with a strong hand shall he let them go; and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." god then recounts the fact that he had appeared unto abraham, isaac and jacob, that he had established a covenant with them to give them the land of canaan, that he had heard the groanings of the children of israel in egyptian bondage; that their groanings had put him in mind of his covenant, and that he had made up his mind to redeem the children of israel with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments. moses then spoke to the children of israel again, but they would listen to him no more. his first effort in their behalf had simply doubled their trouble and they seemed to have lost confidence in his power. thereupon jehovah promised moses that he would make him a god unto pharaoh, and that aaron should be his prophet, but at the same time informed him that his message would be of no avail; that he would harden the heart of pharaoh so that he would not listen; that he would so harden his heart that he might have an excuse for destroying the egyptians. accordingly, moses and aaron again went before pharaoh. moses said to aaron;--"cast down your rod before pharaoh," which he did, and it became a serpent. then pharaoh not in the least surprised, called for his wise men and his sorcerers, and they threw down their rods and changed them into serpents. the serpent that had been changed from aaron's rod was, at this time crawling upon the floor, and it proceeded to swallow the serpents that had been produced by the magicians of egypt. what became of these serpents that were swallowed, whether they turned back into sticks again, is not stated. can we believe that the stick was changed into a real living serpent, or did it assume simply the appearance of a serpent? if it bore only the appearance of a serpent it was a deception, and could not rise above the dignity of legerdemain. is it necessary to believe that god is a kind of prestigiator--a sleight-of-hand performer, a magician or sorcerer? can it be possible that an infinite being would endeavor to secure the liberation of a race by performing a miracle that could be equally performed by the sorcerers and magicians of a barbarian king? not one word was said by moses or aaron as to the wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. not a word was said in favor of liberty. not the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the product of his own labor. not a word about the cruelty of masters who would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. it seems to me wonderful that this god did not tell the king of egypt that no nation could enslave another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain of the master. why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand? instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery. suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the president should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? would we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a president? and what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? if such things would appear puerile and foolish in the president of a great republic, what shall be said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? how small, how contemptible such a god appears! pharaoh, it seems, took about this view of the matter, and he would not be persuaded that such tricks were performed by an infinite being. again, moses and aaron came before pharaoh as he was going to the river's bank, and the same rod which had changed to a serpent, and, by this time changed back, was taken by aaron, who, in the presence of pharaoh, smote the water of the river, which was immediately turned to blood, as well as all the water in all the streams, ponds, and pools, as well as all water in vessels of wood and vessels of stone in the entire land of egypt. as soon as all the waters in egypt had been turned into blood, the magicians of that country did the same with their enchantments. we are not informed where they got the water to turn into blood, since all the water in egypt had already been so changed. it seems from the account that the fish in the nile died, and the river emitted a stench, and there was not a drop of water in the land of egypt that had not been changed into blood. in consequence of this, the egyptians digged "around about the river" for water to drink. can we believe this story? is it necessary to salvation to admit that all the rivers, pools, ponds and lakes of a country were changed into blood, in order that a king might be induced to allow the children of israel the privilege of going a three days journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to their god? it seems from the account that pharaoh was told that the god of the hebrews would, if he refused to let the israelites go, change all the waters of egypt into blood, and that, upon his refusal, they were so changed. this had, however, no influence upon him, for the reason that his own magicians did the same. it does not appear that moses and aaron expressed the least surprise at the success of the egyptian sorcerers. at that time it was believed that each nation had its own god. the only claim that moses and aaron made for their god was, that he was the greatest and most powerful of all the gods, and that with anything like an equal chance he could vanquish the deity of any other nation. after the waters were changed to blood moses and aaron waited for seven days. at the end of that time god told moses to again go to pharaoh and demand the release of his people, and to inform him that, if he refused, god would strike all the borders of egypt with frogs. that he would make frogs so plentiful that they would go into the houses of pharaoh, into his bedchamber, upon his bed, into the houses of his servants, upon his people, into their ovens, and even into their kneading troughs. this threat had no effect whatever upon pharaoh. and thereupon aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. the magicians of egypt did the same, and with their enchantments brought more frogs upon the land of egypt. these magicians do not seem to have been original in their ideas, but so far as imitation is concerned, were perfect masters of their art. the frogs seem to have made such an impression upon pharaoh that he sent for moses and asked him to entreat the lord that he would take away the frogs. moses agreed to remove them from the houses and the land, and allow them to remain only in the rivers. accordingly the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields, and the people gathered them together in heaps. as soon as the frogs had left the houses and fields, the heart of pharaoh became again hardened, and he refused to let the people go. aaron then, according to the command of god, stretched out his hand, holding the rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast, and all the dust became lice throughout the land of egypt. pharaoh again sent for his magicians, and they sought to do the same with their enchantments, but they could not. whereupon the sorcerers said unto pharaoh: "this is the finger of god." notwithstanding this, however, pharaoh refused to let the hebrews go. god then caused a grievous swarm of flies to come into the house of pharaoh and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of egypt, to such an extent that the whole land was corrupted by reason of the flies. but into that part of the country occupied by the children of israel there came no flies. thereupon pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and said to them: "go, and sacrifice to your god in this land." they were not willing to sacrifice in egypt, and asked permission to go on a journey of three days into the wilderness. to this pharaoh acceded, and in consideration of this moses agreed to use his influence with the lord to induce him to send the flies out of the country. he accordingly told the lord of the bargain he had made with pharaoh, and the lord agreed to the compromise, and removed the flies from pharaoh and from his servants and from his people, and there remained not a single fly in the land of egypt. as soon as the flies were gone, pharaoh again changed his mind, and concluded not to permit the children of israel to depart. the lord then directed moses to go to pharaoh and tell him that if he did not allow the children of israel to depart, he would destroy his cattle, his horses, his camels and his sheep; that these animals would be afflicted with a grievous disease, but that the animals belonging to the hebrews should not be so afflicted. moses did as he was bid. on the next day all the cattle of egypt died; that is to say, all the horses, all the asses, all the camels, all the oxen and all the sheep; but of the animals owned by the israelites, not one perished. this disaster had no effect upon pharaoh, and he still refused to let the children of israel go. the lord then told moses and aaron to take some ashes out of a furnace, and told moses to sprinkle them toward the heavens in the sight of pharaoh; saying that the ashes should become small dust in all the land of egypt, and should be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast throughout all the land. how these boils breaking out with blains, upon cattle that were already dead, should affect pharaoh, is a little hard to understand. it must not be forgotten that all the cattle and all beasts had died with the murrain before the boils had broken out. this was a most decisive victory for moses and aaron. the boils were upon the magicians to that extent that they could not stand before moses. but it had no effect upon pharaoh, who seems to have been a man of great firmness. the lord then instructed moses to get up early in the morning and tell pharaoh that he would stretch out his hand and smite his people with a pestilence, and would, on the morrow, cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as had never been known in the land of egypt. he also told moses to give notice, so that they might get all the cattle that were in the fields under cover. it must be remembered that all these cattle had recently died of the murrain, and their dead bodies had been covered with boils and blains. this, however, had no effect, and moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and the lord sent thunder, and hail and lightning, and fire that ran along the ground, and the hail fell upon all the land of egypt, and all that were in the fields, both man and beast, were smitten, and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the country except that portion inhabited by the children of israel; there, there was no hail. during this hail storm pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and admitted that he had sinned, that the lord was righteous, and that the egyptians were wicked, and requested them to ask the lord that there be no more thunderings and hail, and that he would let the hebrews go. moses agreed that as soon as he got out of the city he would stretch forth his hands unto the lord, and that the thunderings should cease and the hail should stop. but, when the rain and the hail and the thundering ceased, pharaoh concluded that he would not let the children of israel go. again, god sent moses and aaron, instructing them to tell pharaoh that if he refused to let the people go, the face of the earth would be covered with locusts, so that man would not be able to see the ground, and that these locusts would eat the residue of that which escaped from the hail; that they would eat every tree out of the field; that they would fill the houses of pharaoh and the houses of all his servants, and the houses of all the egyptians. moses delivered the message, and went out from pharaoh. some of pharaoh's servants entreated their master to let the children of israel go. pharaoh sent for moses and aaron and asked them, who wished to go into the wilderness to sacrifice. they replied that they wished to go with the young and old; with their sons and daughters, with flocks and herds. pharaoh would not consent to this, but agreed that the men might go. thereupon pharaoh drove moses and aaron out of his sight. then god told moses to stretch forth his hand upon the land of egypt for the locusts, that they might come up and eat every herb, even all that the hail had left. "and moses stretched out his rod over the land of egypt, and the lord brought an east wind all that day and all that night; and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts; and they came up over all the land of egypt and rested upon all the coasts covering the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing on the trees or in the herbs of the field throughout the land of egypt." pharaoh then called for moses and aaron in great haste, admitted that he had sinned against the lord their god and against them, asked their forgiveness and requested them to intercede with god that he might take away the locusts. they went out from his presence and asked the lord to drive the locusts away, "and the lord made a strong west wind which took away the locusts, and cast them into the red sea so that there remained not one locust in all the coasts of egypt." as soon as the locusts were gone, pharaoh changed his mind, and, in the language of the sacred text, "the lord hardened pharaoh's heart so that he would not let the children of israel go." the lord then told moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven that there might be darkness over the land of egypt, "even darkness which might be felt." "and moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness over the land of egypt for three days during which time they saw not each other, neither arose any of the people from their places for three days; but the children of israel had light in their dwellings." it strikes me that when the land of egypt was covered with thick darkness--so thick that it could be felt, and when light was in the dwellings of the israelites, there could have been no better time for the hebrews to have left the country. pharaoh again called for moses, and told him that his people could go and serve the lord, provided they would leave their flocks and herds. moses would not agree to this, for the reason that they needed the flocks and herds for sacrifices and burnt offerings, and he did not know how many of the animals god might require, and for that reason he could not leave a single hoof. upon the question of the cattle, they divided, and pharaoh again refused to let the people go. god then commanded moses to tell the hebrews to borrow, each of his neighbor, jewels of silver and gold. by a miraculous interposition the hebrews found favor in the sight of the egyptians so that they loaned the articles asked for. after this, moses again went to pharaoh and told him that all the first-born in the land of egypt, from the first-born of pharaoh upon the throne, unto the first-born of the maid-servant who was behind the mill, as well as the first-born of beasts, should die. as all the beasts had been destroyed by disease and hail, it is troublesome to understand the meaning of the threat as to their first-born. preparations were accordingly made for carrying this frightful threat into execution. blood was put on the door-posts of all houses inhabited by hebrews, so that god, as he passed through that land, might not be mistaken and destroy the first-born of the jews. "and it came to pass that at midnight the lord smote all the first-born in the land of egypt, the first-born of pharaoh who sat on the throne, and the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon. and pharaoh rose up in the night, and all his servants, and all the egyptians, and there was a great cry in egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead." what had these children done? why should the babes in the cradle be destroyed on account of the crime of pharaoh? why should the cattle be destroyed because man had enslaved his brother? in those days women and children and cattle were put upon an exact equality, and all considered as the property of the men; and when man in some way excited the wrath of god, he punished them by destroying all their cattle, their wives, and their little ones. where can words be found bitter enough to describe a god who would kill wives and babes because husbands and fathers had failed to keep his law? every good man, and every good woman, must hate and despise such a deity. upon the death of all the first-born pharaoh sent for moses and aaron, and not only gave his consent that they might go with the hebrews into the wilderness, but besought them to go at once. is it possible that an infinite god, creator of all worlds and sustainer of all life, said to pharaoh, "if you do not let my people go, i will turn all the water of your country into blood," and that upon the refusal of pharaoh to release the people, god did turn all the waters into blood? do you believe this? do you believe that pharaoh even after all the water was turned to blood, refused to let the hebrews go, and that thereupon god told him he would cover his land with frogs? do you believe this? do you believe that after the land was covered with frogs pharaoh still refused to let the people go, and that god then said to him, "i will cover you and all your people with lice?" do you believe god would make this threat? do you also believe that god told pharaoh, "it you do not let these people go, i will fill all your houses and cover your country with flies?" do you believe god makes such threats as this? of course god must have known that turning the waters into blood, covering the country with frogs, infesting all flesh with lice, and filling all houses with flies, would not accomplish his object, and that all these plagues would have no effect whatever upon the egyptian king. do you believe that, failing to accomplish anything by the flies, god told pharaoh that if he did not let the people go he would kill his cattle with murrain? does such a threat sound god-like? do you believe that, failing to effect anything by killing the cattle, this same god then threatened to afflict all the people with boils, including the magicians who had been rivaling him in the matter of miracles; and failing to do anything by boils, that he resorted to hail? does this sound reasonable? the hail experiment having accomplished nothing, do you believe that god murdered the first-born of animals and men? is it possible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd, stupid, revolting, cruel and senseless, than the miracles said to have been wrought by the almighty for the purpose of inducing pharaoh to liberate the children of israel? is it not altogether more reasonable to say that the jewish people, being in slavery, accounted for the misfortunes and calamities, suffered by the egyptians, by saying that they were the judgments of god? when the armada of spain was wrecked and scattered by the storm, the english people believed that god had interposed in their behalf, and publicly gave thanks. when the battle of lepanto was won, it was believed by the catholic world that the victory was given in answer to prayer. so, our fore-fathers in their revolutionary struggle saw, or thought they saw, the hand of god, and most firmly believed that they achieved their independence by the interposition of the most high. now, it may be that while the hebrews were enslaved by the egyptians, there were plagues of locusts and flies. it may be that there were some diseases by which many of the cattle perished. it may be that a pestilence visited that country so that in nearly every house there was some one dead. if so, it was but natural for the enslaved and superstitious jews to account for these calamities by saying that they were punishments sent by their god. such ideas will be found in the history of every country. for a long time the jews held these opinions, and they were handed from father to son simply by tradition. by the time a written language had been produced, thousands of additions had been made, and numberless details invented; so that we have not only an account of the plagues suffered by the egyptians, but the whole woven into a connected story, containing the threats made by moses and aaron, the miracles wrought by them, the promises of pharaoh, and finally the release of the hebrews, as a result of the marvelous things performed in their behalf by jehovah. in any event it is infinitely more probable that the author was misinformed, than that the god of this universe was guilty of these childish, heartless and infamous things. the solution of the whole matter is this:--moses was mistaken. xxiii. the flight. three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, with borrowed jewelry and raiment, with unleavened dough in kneading troughs bound in their clothes upon their shoulders, in one night commenced their journey for the land of promise. we are not told how they were informed of the precise time to start. with all the modern appliances, it would require months of time to inform three millions of people of any fact. in this vast assemblage there were six hundred thousand men of war, and with them were the old, the young, the diseased and helpless. where were those people going? they were going to the desert of sinai, compared with which sahara is a garden. imagine an ocean of lava torn by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a gorgon and changed instantly to stone! such was the desert of sinai. all of the civilized nations of the world could not feed and support three millions of people on the desert of sinai for forty years. it would cost more than one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt christendom. they had with them their flocks and herds, and the sheep were so numerous that the israelites sacrificed, at one time, more than one hundred and fifty thousand first-born lambs. how were these flocks supported? what did they eat? where were meadows and pastures for them? there was no grass, no forests--nothing! there is no account of its having rained baled hay, nor is it even claimed that they were miraculously fed. to support these flocks, millions of acres of pasture would have been required. god did not take the israelites through the land of the philistines, for fear that when they saw the people of that country they would return to egypt, but he took them by the way of the wilderness to the red sea, going before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night, in a pillar of fire. when it was told pharaoh that the people had fled, he made ready and took six hundred chosen chariots of egypt, and pursued after the children of israel, overtaking them by the sea. as all the animals had long before that time been destroyed, we are not informed where pharaoh obtained the horses for his chariots. the moment the children of israel saw the hosts of pharaoh, although they had six hundred thousand men of war, they immediately cried unto the lord for protection. it is wonderful to me that a land that had been ravaged by the plagues described in the bible, still had the power to put in the field an army that would carry terror to the hearts of six hundred thousand men of war. even with the help of god, it seems, they were not strong enough to meet the egyptians in the open field, but resorted to strategy. moses again stretched forth his wonderful rod over the waters of the red sea, and they were divided, and the hebrews passed through on dry land, the waters standing up like a wall on either side. the egyptians pursued them; "and in the morning watch the lord looked into the hosts of the egyptians, through the pillar of fire," and proceeded to take the wheels off their chariots. as soon as the wheels were off, god told moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. moses did so, and immediately "the waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen and all the hosts of pharaoh that came into the sea, and there remained not so much as one of them." this account may be true, but still it hardly looks reasonable that god would take the wheels off the chariots. how did he do it? did he pull out the linch-pins, or did he just take them off by main force? what a picture this presents to the mind! god the creator of the universe, maker of every shining, glittering star, engaged in pulling off the wheels of wagons, that he might convince pharaoh of his greatness and power! where were these people going? they were going to the promised land. how large a country was that? about twelve thousand square miles. about one-fifth the size of the state of illinois. it was a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. how many people were in the promised land already? moses tells us there were seven nations in that country mightier than the jews. as there were at least three millions of jews, there must have been at least twenty-one millions of people already in that country. these had to be driven out in order that room might be made for the chosen people of god. it seems, however, that god was not willing to take the children of israel into the promised land immediately. they were not fit to inhabit the land of canaan; so he made up his mind to allow them to wander upon the desert until all except two, who had left egypt, should perish. of all the slaves released from egyptian bondage, only two were allowed to reach the promised land! as soon as the hebrews crossed the red sea, they found themselves without food, and with water unfit to drink by reason of its bitterness, and they began to murmur against moses, who cried unto the lord, and "the lord showed him a tree." moses cast this tree into the waters, and they became sweet. "and it came to pass in the morning the dew lay around about the camp; and when the dew that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness lay a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon the ground. and moses said unto them, this is the bread which the lord hath given you to eat." this manna was a very peculiar thing. it would melt in the sun, and yet they could cook it by seething and baking. one would as soon think of frying snow or of broiling icicles. but this manna had another remarkable quality. no matter how much or little any person gathered, he would have an exact omer; if he gathered more, it would shrink to that amount, and if he gathered less, it would swell exactly to that amount. what a magnificent substance manna would be with which to make a currency--shrinking and swelling according to the great laws of supply and demand! "upon this manna the children of israel lived for forty years, until they came to a habitable land. with this meat were they fed until they reached the borders of the land of canaan." we are told in the twenty-first chapter of numbers, that the people at last became tired of' the manna, complained of god, and asked moses why he brought them out of the land of egypt to die in the wilderness. and they said:--"there is no bread, nor have we any water. our soul loatheth this light food." we are told by some commentators that the jews lived on manna for forty years; by others that they lived upon it for only a short time. as a matter of fact the accounts differ, and this difference is the opportunity for commentators. it also allows us to exercise faith in believing that both accounts are true. if the accounts agreed, and were reasonable, they would be believed by the wicked and unregenerated. but as they are different and unreasonable, they are believed only by the good. whenever a statement in the bible is unreasonable, and you believe it, you are considered quite a good christian. if the statement is grossly absurd and infinitely impossible, and you still believe it, you are a saint. the children of israel were in the desert, and they were out of water. they had nothing to eat but manna, and this they had had so long that the soul of every person abhorred it. under these circumstances they complained to moses. now, as god is infinite, he could just as well have furnished them with an abundance of the purest and coolest of water, and could, without the slightest trouble to himself, have given them three excellent meals a day, with a generous variety of meats and vegetables, it is very hard to see why he did not do so. it is still harder to conceive why he fell into a rage when the people mildly suggested that they would like a change of diet. day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, nothing but manna. no doubt they did the best they could by cooking it in different ways, but in spite of themselves they began to loathe its sight and taste, and so they asked moses to use his influence to secure a change in the bill of fare. now, i ask, whether it was unreasonable for the jews to suggest that a little meat would be very gratefully received? it seems, however, that as soon as the request was made, this god of infinite mercy became infinitely enraged, and instead of granting it, went into partnership with serpents, for the purpose of punishing the hungry wretches to whom he had promised a land flowing with milk and honey. where did these serpents come from? how did god convey the information to the serpents, that he wished them to go to the desert of sinai and bite some jews? it may be urged that these serpents were created for the express purpose of punishing the children of israel for having had the presumption, like oliver twist, to ask for more. there is another account in the eleventh chapter of numbers, of the people murmuring because of their food. they remembered the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic of egypt, and they asked for meat. the people went to the tent of moses and asked him for flesh. moses cried unto the lord and asked him why he did not take care of the multitude. god thereupon agreed that they should have meat, not for a day or two, but for a month, until the meat should come out of their nostrils and become loathsome to them. he then caused a wind to bring quails from beyond the sea, and cast them into the camp, on every side of the camp around about for the space of a days journey. and the people gathered them, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth the wrath of god being provoked against them, struck them with an exceeding great plague. serpents, also, were sent among them, and thousands perished for the crime of having been hungry. the rev. alexander cruden commenting upon this account says:-- "god caused a wind to rise that drove the quails within and about the camp of the israelites; and it is in this that the miracle consists, that they were brought so seasonably to this place, and in so great numbers as to suffice above a million of persons above a month. some authors affirm, that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so that in one part of italy within the compass of five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their weight." no wonder mr. cruden believed the mosaic account. must we believe that god made an arrangement with hornets for the purpose af securing their services in driving the canaanites from the land of promise? is this belief necessary unto salvation? must we believe that god said to the jews that he would send hornets before them to drive out the canaanites, as related in the twenty-third chapter of exodus, and the second chapter of deuteronomy? how would the hornets know a canaanite? in what way would god put it in the mind of a hornet to attack a canaanite? did god create hornets for that especial purpose, implanting an instinct to attack a canaanite, but not a hebrew? can we conceive of the almighty granting letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? of course it is admitted that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native land than a few hornets. is it possible for us to believe that an infinite being would resort to such expedients in order to drive the canaanites from their country? he could just as easily have spoken the canaanites out of existence as to have spoken the hornets in. in this way a vast amount of trouble, pain and suffering would have been saved. is it possible that there is, in this country, an intelligent clergyman who will insist that these stories are true; that we must believe them in in order to be good people in this world, and glorified souls in the next? we are also told that god instructed the hebrews to kill the canaanites slowly, giving as a reason that the beasts of the field might increase upon his chosen people. when we take into consideration the fact that the holy land contained only about eleven or twelve thousand square miles, and was at that time inhabited by at least twenty-one millions of people, it does not seem reasonable that the wild beasts could have been numerous enough to cause any great alarm. the same ratio of population would give to the state of illinois at least one hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants. can anybody believe that, under such circumstances, the danger from wild beasts could be very great? what would we think of a general, invading such a state, if he should order his soldiers to kill the people slowly, lest the wild beasts might increase upon them? is it possible that a god capable of doing the miracles recounted in the old testament could not, in some way, have disposed of the wild beasts? after the canaanites were driven out, could he not have employed the hornets to drive out the wild beasts? think of a god that could drive twenty-one millions of people out of the promised land, could raise up innumerable stinging flies, and could cover the earth with fiery serpents, and yet seems to have been perfectly powerless against the wild beasts of the land of canaan! speaking of these hornets, one of the good old commentators, whose views have long been considered of great value by the believers in the inspiration of the bible, uses the following language:--"hornets are a sort of strong flies, which the lord used as instruments to plague the enemies of his people. they are of themselves very troublesome and mischievous, and those the lord made use of were, it is thought, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. it is said they live as the wasps, and that they have a king or captain, and pestilent stings as bees, and that, if twenty-seven of them sting man or beast, it is certain death to either. nor is it strange that such creatures did drive out the canaanites from their habitations; for many heathen writers give instances of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps. and it is said that a christian city, being besieged by sapores, king of persia, was delivered by hornets; for the elephants and beasts being stung by them, waxed unruly, and so the whole army fled." only a few years ago, all such stories were believed by the christian world; and it is a historical fact, that voltaire was the third man of any note in europe, who took the ground that the mythologies of greece and rome were without foundation. until his time, most christians believed as thoroughly in the miracles ascribed to the greek and roman gods as in those of christ and jehovah. the christian world cultivated credulity, not only as one of the virtues, but as the greatest of them all. but, when luther and his followers left the church of rome, they were compelled to deny the power of the catholic church, at that time, to suspend the laws of nature, but took the ground that such power ceased with the apostolic age. they insisted that all things now happened in accordance with the laws of nature, with the exception of a few special interferences in favor of the protestant church in answer to prayer. they taught their children a double philosophy: by one, they were to show the impossibility of catholic miracles, because opposed to the laws of nature; by the other, the probability of the miracles of the apostolic age, because they were in conformity with the statements of the scriptures. they had two foundations: one, the law of nature, and the other, the word of god. the protestants have endeavored to carry on this double process of reasoning, and the result has been a gradual increase of confidence in the law of nature, and a gradual decrease of confidence in the word of god. we are told, in this inspired account, that the clothing of the jewish people did not wax old, and that their shoes refused to wear out. some commentators have insisted that angels attended to the wardrobes of the hebrews, patched their garments, and mended their shoes. certain it is, however, that the same clothes lasted them for forty years, during the entire journey from egypt to the holy land. little boys starting out with their first pantaloons, grew as they traveled, and their clothes grew with them. can it be necessary to believe a story like this? will men make better husbands, fathers, neighbors, and citizens, simply by giving credence to these childish and impossible things? certainly an infinite god could have transported the jews to the holy land in a moment, and could, as easily, have removed the canaanites to some other country. surely there was no necessity for doing thousands and thousands of petty miracles, day after day for forty years, looking after the clothes of three millions of people, changing the nature of wool and linen and leather, so that they would not "wax old." every step, every motion, would wear away some part of the clothing, some part of the shoes. were these parts, so worn away, perpetually renewed, or was the nature of things so changed that they could not wear away? we know that whenever matter comes in contact with matter, certain atoms, by abrasion, are lost. were these atoms gathered up every night by angels, and replaced on the soles of the shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons, so that the next morning they would be precisely in the condition they were on the morning before? there must be a mistake somewhere. can we believe that the real god, if there is one, ever ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? we are told in the thirtieth chapter of exodus, that the lord commanded moses to take myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and other utensils, as well as aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time, that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be put to death. in the same chapter, the lord furnishes moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. this, to me, sounds so unreasonable that i cannot believe it. why should an infinite god care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? why should the creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached his altar without having washed his hands and feet? these commandments and these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by chance, upon a throne. there must be some mistake. i cannot believe that an infinite intelligence appeared to moses upon mount sinai having with him a variety of patterns for making a tabernacle, tongs, snuffers and dishes. neither can i believe that god told moses how to cut and trim a coat for a priest. why should a god care about such things? why should he insist on having buttons sewed in certain rows, and fringes of a certain color? suppose an intelligent civilized man was to overhear, on mount sinai, the following instructions from god to moses:-- "you must consecrate my priests as follows:--you must kill a bullock for a sin offering, and have aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. then you must take the blood and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with your finger, and pour some blood at the bottom of the altar to make a reconciliation; and of the fat that is upon the inwards, the caul above the liver and two kidneys, and their fat, and burn them upon the altar. you must get a ram for a burnt offering, and aaron and his sons must lay their hands upon the head of the ram. then you must kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and cut the ram into pieces, and burn the head, and the pieces, and the fat, and wash the inwards and the lungs in water and then burn the whole ram upon the altar for a sweet savor unto me. then you must get another ram, and have aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of that, then kill it and take of its blood, and put it on the top of aaron's right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. and you must also put a little of the blood upon the top of the right ears of aaron's sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet. and then you must take of the fat that is on the inwards, and the caul above the liver and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder, and out of a basket of unleavened bread you must take one unleavened cake and another of oil bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat of the right shoulder. and you must take of the anointing oil, and of the blood, and sprinkle it on aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons' garments, and sanctify them and all their clothes."--do you believe that he would have even suspected that the creator of the universe was talking? can any one now tell why god commanded the jews, when they were upon the desert of sinai, to plant trees, telling them at the same time that they must not eat any of the fruit of such trees until after the fourth year? trees could not have been planted in that desert, and if they had been, they could not have lived. why did god tell moses, while in the desert, to make curtains of fine linen? where could he have obtained his flax? there was no land upon which it could have been produced. why did he tell him to make things of gold, and silver, and precious stones, when they could not have been in possession of these things? there is but one answer, and that is, the pentateuch was written hundreds of years after the jews had settled in the holy land, and hundreds of years after moses was dust and ashes. when the jews had a written language, and that must have been long after their flight from egypt, they wrote out their history and their laws. tradition had filled the infancy of the nation with miracles and special interpositions in their behalf by jehovah. patriotism would not allow these wonders to grow small, and priestcraft never denied a miracle. there were traditions to the effect that god had spoken face to face with moses; that he had given him the tables of the law, and had, in a thousand ways, made known his will; and whenever the priests wished to make new laws, or amend old ones, they pretended to have found something more that god said to moses at sinai. in this way obedience was more easily secured. only a very few of the people could read, and, as a consequence, additions, interpolations and erasures had no fear of detection. in this way we account for the fact that moses is made to speak of things that did not exist in his day, and were unknown for hundreds of years after his death. in the thirtieth chapter of exodus, we are told that the people, when numbered, must give each one a half shekel after the shekel of the _sanctuary_. at that time no such money existed, and consequently the account could not, by any possibility, have been written until after there was a shekel of the sanctuary, and there was no such thing until long after the death of moses. if we should read that cæsar paid his troops in pounds, shillings and pence, we would certainly know that the account was not written by cæsar, nor in his time, but we would know that it was written after the english had given these names to certain coins. so, we find, that when the jews were upon the desert it was commanded that every mother should bring, as a sin offering, a couple of doves to the priests, and the priests were compelled to eat these doves in the most holy place. at the time this law appears to have been given, there were three million people, and only three priests, aaron, eleazer and ithamar. among three million people there would be, at least, three hundred births a day. certainly we are not expected to believe that these three priests devoured six hundred pigeons every twenty-four hours. why should a woman ask pardon of god for having been a mother? why should that be considered a crime in exodus, which is commanded as a duty in genesis? why should a mother be declared unclean? why should giving birth to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? can we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and intelligent god? if there is anything in this poor world suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe. read the twelfth chapter of leviticus, and you will see that when a woman became the mother of a boy she was so unclean that she was not allowed to touch a hallowed thing, nor to enter the sanctuary for forty days. if the babe was a girl, then the mother was unfit for eighty days, to enter the house of god, or to touch the sacred tongs and snuffers. these laws, born of barbarism, are unworthy of our day, and should be regarded simply as the mistakes of savages. just as low in the scale of intelligence are the directions given in the fifth chapter of numbers, for the trial of a wife of whom the husband was jealous. this foolish chapter has been the foundation of all appeals to god for the ascertainment of facts, such as the corsned, trial by battle, by water, and by fire, the last of which is our judicial oath. it is very easy to believe that in those days a guilty woman would be afraid to drink the water of jealousy and take the oath, and that, through fear, she might be made to confess. admitting that the deception tended not only to prevent crime, but to discover it when committed, still, we cannot admit that an honest god would, for any purpose, resort to dishonest means. in all countries fear is employed as a means of getting at the truth, and in this there is nothing dishonest, provided falsehood is not resorted to for the purpose of producing the fear. protestants laugh at catholics because of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and yet they teach their children that a little holy water, in which had been thrown some dust from the floor of the sanctuary, would, work a miracle in a woman's flesh. for hundreds of years our fathers believed that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread. such stories belong to the childhood of our race, and are now believed only by mental infants and intellectual babes. i cannot believe that moses had in his hands a couple of tables of stone, upon which god had written the ten commandments, and that when he saw the golden calf, and the dancing, that he dashed the tables to the earth and broke them in pieces. neither do i believe that moses took a golden calf, burnt it, ground it to powder, and made the people drink it with water, as related in the thirty-second chapter of exodus. there is another account of the giving of the ten commandments to moses, in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of exodus. in this account not one word is said about the people having made a golden calf, nor about the breaking of the tables of stone. in the thirty-fourth chapter of exodus, there is an account of the renewal of the broken tables of the law, and the commandments are given, but they are not the same commandments mentioned in the twentieth chapter. there are two accounts of the same transaction. both of these stories cannot be true, and yet both must be believed. any one who will take the trouble to read the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, and the last verse of the thirty-first chapter, the thirty-second, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth chapters of exodus, will be compelled to admit that both accounts cannot be true. from the last account it appears that while moses was upon mount sinai receiving the commandments from god, the people brought their jewelry to aaron and he cast for them a golden calf. this happened before any commandment against idolatry had been given. a god ought, certainly, to publish his laws before inflicting penalties for their violation. to inflict punishment for breaking unknown and unpublished laws is, in the last degree, cruel and unjust. it may be replied that the jews knew better than to worship idols, before the law was given. if this is so, why should the law have been given? in all civilized countries, laws are made and promulgated, not simply for the purpose of informing the people as to what is right and wrong, but to inform them of the penalties to be visited upon those who violate the laws. when the ten commandments were given, no penalties were attached. not one word was written on the tables of stone as to the punishments that would be inflicted for breaking any or all of the inspired laws. the people should not have been punished for violating a commandment before it was given. and yet, in this case, moses commanded the sons of levi to take their swords and slay every man his brother, his companion, and his neighbor. the brutal order was obeyed, and three thousand men were butchered.. the levites consecrated themselves unto the lord by murdering their sons, and their brothers, for having violated a commandment before it had been given. it has been contended for many years that the ten commandments are the foundation of all ideas of justice and of law. eminent jurists have bowed to popular prejudice, and deformed their works by statements to the effect that the mosaic laws are the fountains from which sprang all ideas of right and wrong. nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions. thousands of years before moses was born, the egyptians had a code of laws. they had laws against blasphemy, murder, adultery, larceny, perjury, laws for the collection of debts, the enforcement of contracts, the ascertainment of damages, the redemption of property pawned, and upon nearly every subject of human interest. the egyptian code was far better than the mosaic. laws spring from the instinct of self-preservation. industry objected to supporting idleness, and laws were made against theft. laws were made against murder, because a very large majority of the people have always objected to being murdered. all fundamental laws were born simply of the instinct of self-defence. long before the jewish savages assembled at the foot of sinai, laws had been made and enforced, not only in egypt and india, but by every tribe that ever existed. it is impossible for human beings to exist together, without certain rules of conduct, certain ideas of the proper and improper, of the right and wrong, growing out of the relation. certain rules must be made, and must be enforced. this implies law, trial and punishment. whoever produces anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced. not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force. nothing can be more wonderful than the medical ideas of jehovah. he had the strangest notions about the cause and cure of disease. with him everything was miracle and wonder. in the fourteenth chapter of leviticus, we find the law for cleansing a leper:--"then shall the priest take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. and the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an _earthen_ vessel, over _running_ water. as for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living bird, in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy, seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." we are told that god himself gave these directions to moses. does anybody believe this? why should the bird be killed in an _earthen_ vessel? would the charm be broken if the vessel was of wood? why over _running_ water? what would be thought of a physician now, who would give a prescription like that? is it not strange that god, although he gave hundreds of directions for the purpose of discovering the presence of leprosy, and for cleansing the leper after he was healed, forgot to tell how that disease could be cured? is it not wonderful that while god told his people what animals were fit for food, he failed to give a list of plants that man might eat? why did he leave his children to find out the hurtful and the poisonous by experiment, knowing that experiment, in millions of cases, must be death? when reading the history of the jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, i must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. they were cheated, deceived and abused. their god was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. he was always promising but never performed. he wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. it is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the hebrew god. he had solemnly promised the jews that he would take them from egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. he had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget, the stripes and tears of egypt. after promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this god, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:--"your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted." this curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of god. into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of jehovah. i cannot believe these things. they are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. a book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from god. when we think of the poor jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of god. no wonder that they longed for the slavery of egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. compared with jehovah, pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of god. while reading the pentateuch, i am filled with indignation, pity and horror. nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. god was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. it is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the jewish god. he is without a redeeming feature. in the mythology of the world he has no parallel. he, only, is never touched by agony and tears. he delights only in blood and pain. human affections are naught to him. he cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. a false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:--such is the god of the pentateuch. xxiv. confess and avoid the scientific christians now admit that the bible is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in any science. in other words, they admit that on these subjects, the bible cannot be depended upon. if all the statements in the scriptures were true, there would be no necessity for admitting that some of them are not inspired. a christian will not admit that a passage in the bible is uninspired, until he is satisfied that it is untrue. orthodoxy itself has at last been compelled to say, that while a passage may be true and uninspired, it cannot be inspired if false. if the people of europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when the bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. if the writers of the various parts of the bible had known as much about the sciences as is now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been written. it was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended by its author. it has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge. a few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. for the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of god. in the world of science, jehovah was superseded by copernicus, galileo, and kepler. all that god told moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of descartes, laplace, and humboldt. in matters of fact, the bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. a few years ago, science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the bible. the tables have been turned, and now, religion is endeavoring to prove that the bible is not inconsistent with science. the standard has been changed. for many ages, the christians contended that the bible, viewed simply as a literary performance, was beyond all other books, and that man without the assistance of god could not produce its equal. this claim was made when but few books existed, and the bible, being the only book generally known, had no rival. but this claim, like the other, has been abandoned by many, and soon will be, by all. com pared with shakespeare's "book and volume of the brain," the "sacred" bible shrinks and seems as feebly impotent and vain, as would a pipe of fan, when some great organ, voiced with every tone, from the hoarse thunder of the sea to the winged warble of a mated bird, floods and fills cathedral aisles with all the wealth of sound. it is now maintained--and this appears to be the last fortification behind which the doctrine of inspiration skulks and crouches--that the bible, although false and mistaken in its astronomy, geology, geography, history and philosophy, is inspired in its morality. it is now claimed that had it not been for this book, the world would have been inhabited only by savages, and that had it not been for the holy scriptures, man never would have even dreamed of the unity of god. a belief in one god is claimed to be a dogma of almost infinite importance, that with out this belief civilization is impossible, and that this fact is the sun around which all the virtues revolve. for my part, i think it infinitely more important to believe in man. theology is a superstition--humanity a religion. xxv. "inspired" slavery perhaps the bible was inspired upon the subject of human slavery. is there, in the civilized world, to-day, a clergyman who believes in the divinity of slavery? does the bible teach man to enslave his brother? if it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of god? if you find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written by god, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil? would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? modern christians, ashamed of the god of the old testament, endeavor now to show that slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by jehovah. nothing can be plainer than the following passages from the twenty-fifth chapter of leviticus. "moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen forever. both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen, and bondmaids." can we believe in this, the nineteenth century, that these infamous passages were inspired by god? that god approved not only of human slavery, but instructed his chosen people to buy the women, children and babes of the heathen round about them? if it was right for the hebrews to buy, it was also right for the heathen to sell. this god, by commanding the hebrews to buy, approved of the selling of sons and daughters. the canaanite who, tempted by gold, lured by avarice, sold from the arms of his wife the dimpled babe, simply made it possible for the hebrews to obey the orders of their god. if god is the author of the bible, the reading of these passages ought to cover his cheeks with shame. i ask the christian world to-day, was it right for the heathen to sell their children? was it right for god not only to uphold, but to command the infamous traffic in human flesh? could the most revengeful fiend, the most malicious vagrant in the gloom of hell, sink to a lower moral depth than this? according to this god, his chosen people were not only commanded to buy of the heathen round about them, but were also permitted to buy each other for a term of years. the law governing the purchase of jews is laid down in the twenty-first chapter of exodus. "if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and my children; i will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post: and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl: and he shall serve him forever." do you believe that god was the author of this infamous law? do you believe that the loving father of us all, turned the dimpled arms of babes into manacles of iron? do you believe that he baited the dungeon of servitude with wife and child? is it possible to love a god who would make such laws? is it possible not to hate and despise him? the heathen are not spoken of as human beings. their rights are never mentioned. they were the rightful food of the sword, and their bodies were made for stripes and chains. in the same chapter of the same inspired book, we are told that, "if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall be surely punished. notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." must we believe that god called some of his children the money of others? can we believe that god made lashes upon the naked back, a legal tender for labor performed? must we regard the auction block as an altar? were blood hounds apostles? was the slave-pen a temple? were the stealers and whippers of babes and women the justified children of god? it is now contended that while the old testament is touched with the barbarism of its time, that the new testament is morally perfect, and that on its pages can be found no blot or stain. as a matter of fact, the new testament is more decidedly in favor of human slavery than the old. for my part, i never will, i never can, worship a god who upholds the institution of slavery. such a god i hate and defy. i neither want his heaven, nor fear his hell. xxxvi. "inspired" marriage is there an orthodox clergyman in the world, who will now declare that he believes the institution of polygamy to be right? is there one who will publicly declare that, in his judgment, that institution ever was right? was there ever a time in the history of the world when it was right to treat woman simply as property? do not attempt to answer these questions by saying, that the bible is an exceedingly good book, that we are indebted for our civilization to the sacred volume, and that without it, man would lapse into savagery, and mental night. this is no answer. was there a time when the institution of polygamy was the highest expression of human virtue? is there a christian woman, civilized, intelligent, and free, who believes in the institution of polygamy? are we better, purer, and more intelligent than god was four thousand years ago? why should we imprison mormons, and worship god? polygamy is just as pure in utah, as it could have been in the promised land. love and virtue are the same the whole world round, and justice is the same in every star. all the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. it makes of man, a beast, of woman, a trembling slave. it destroys the fireside, makes virtue an outcast, takes from human speech its sweetest words, and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. civilization rests upon the family. the good family is the unit of good government. the virtues grow about the holy hearth of home--they cluster, bloom, and shed their perfume round the fireside where the one man loves the one woman. lover--husband--wife--mother--father--child--home!--? without these sacred words, the world is but a lair, and men and women merely beasts. why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother worship the heartless jewish god? why should they, with pure and stainless lips, read the vile record of inspired lust? the marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress of civilization. without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of lust and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime. from the bottom of my heart i hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life, of which the pure and sacred home is not the corner-stone. take from the world the family, the fireside, the children born of wedded love, and there is nothing left. the home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all the world. xxvii. "inspired" war if the bible be true, god commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. they were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. they were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. "our heavenly father" commanded the hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. why were not the maidens also killed? why were they spared? read the thirty-first chapter of numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? is it possible that god permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? if this was the order of god, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? when, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. a general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite god was once a savage. a little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. her breast was filled with wounds received in the defence of her darlings. they had been murdered by the savages. suppose when looking at their lifeless forms, some one had said, "this was done by the command of god!" in canaan there were countless scenes like this. there was no pity in inspired war. god raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. who is the blasphemer; the man who denies the existence of god, or he who covers the robes of the infinite with innocent blood? we are told in the pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. if there be a god, i pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that i denied this lie for him. xxviii. "inspired" religious liberty. according to the bible, god selected the jewish people through whom to make known the great fact, that he was the only true and living god. for this purpose, he appeared on several occasions to moses--came down to sinai's top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand miracles for the preservation and education of the jewish people. in their presence he opened the waters of the sea. for them he caused bread to rain from heaven. to quench their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock. their enemies were miraculously destroyed; and for forty years, at least, this god took upon himself the government of the jews. but, after all this, many of the people had less confidence in him than in gods of wood and stone. in moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the darkness of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead of asking this god for aid, they turned and sought the help of senseless things. this god, with all his power and wisdom, could not even convince a few wandering and wretched savages that he was more potent than the idols of egypt. this god was not willing that the jews should think and investigate for themselves. for heresy, the penalty was death. where this god reigned, intellectual liberty was unknown. he appealed only to brute force; he collected taxes by threatening plagues; he demanded worship on pain of sword and fire; acting as spy, inquisitor, judge and executioner. in the thirteenth chapter of deuteronomy, we have the ideas of god as to mental freedom. "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; namely of the gods of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare him, neither shalt thou conceal him. but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die." this is the religious liberty of god; the toleration of jehovah. if i had lived in palestine at that time, and my wife, the mother of my children, had said to me, "i am tired of jehovah, he is always asking for blood; he is never weary of killing; he is always telling of his might and strength; always telling what he has done for the jews, always asking for sacrifices; for doves and lambs--blood, nothing but blood.--let us worship the sun. jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too exacting. let us worship the sun. the sun has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with flowers; by its divine light i first saw your face, and my beautiful babe."--if i had obeyed the command of god, i would have killed her. my hand would have been first upon her, and after that the hands of all the people, and she would have been stoned with stones until she died. for my part, i would never kill my wife, even if commanded so to do by the real god of this universe. think of taking up some ragged rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love for you; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips of the death wound, the red current of her sweet life--think of looking up to heaven and receiving the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandment you had obeyed! can we believe that any such command was ever given by a merciful and intelligent god? suppose, however, that god did give this law to the jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other god that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same god took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the jews crucified him; i ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? what right would this god have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command? nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. to put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. no god is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself. if the pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. the dungeons of the inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of god. if the pentateuch was inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and flame. in the old testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon intellectual development--nothing except simple brute force. is there to-day a christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the subject of religion? is there one who will now say that, under such circumstances, the wife ought to have been killed? why should god be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? could he not compete with baal? was he envious of the success of the egyptian magicians? was it not possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to silence forever the voice of unbelief? did this god have to resort to force to make converts? was he so ignorant of the structure of the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? if he wished to do away with the idolatry of the canaanites, why did he not appear to them? why did he not give them the tables of the law? why did he only make known his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of sinai? will some theologian have the kindness to answer these questions? will some minister, who now believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he worships an intolerant god? is a god who will burn a soul forever in another world, better than a christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? is there no intellectual liberty in heaven? do the angels all discuss questions on the same side? are all the investigators in perdition? will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in hell? will the agony of the damned increase or decrease the happiness of god? will there be, in the universe, an eternal _auto da fe?_ xxix. conclusion if the pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is it inspired in, or about? the unity of god?--that was believed long before moses was born. special providence?--that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. the rights of property?--theft was always a crime. the sacrifice of animals?--that was a custom thousands of years before a jew existed. the sacredness of life?--there have always been laws against murder. the wickedness of perjury?--truthfulness has always been a virtue. the beauty of chastity?--the pentateuch does not teach it. thou shalt worship no other god?--that has been the burden of all religions. is it possible that the pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the assistance of god was necessary to produce these books? is it possible that galileo ascertained the mechanical principles of "virtual velocity," the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that kepler discovered his three laws--discoveries of such importance that the th of may, , may be called the birthday of modern science; that newton gave to the world the method of fluxions, the theory of universal gravitation, and the decomposition of light; that euclid, cavalieri, descartes, and leibnitz, almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of galvani, volta, franklin and morse, of trevethick, watt and fulton and of all the pioneers of progress--that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite god? is it possible that the codes of china, india, egypt, greece and rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded in the pentateuch were alone given by god? is it possible that Æschylus and shakespeare, burns, and beranger, goethe and schiller, and all the poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs, are but the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite god could be the author of the pentateuch? is it possible that of all the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? is it possible that of all these, the bible only is the work of god? if the pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of our day is a mistake and crime. there should be no political liberty. heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. husbands should divorce their wives at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping wanderers. polygamy ought to be practiced; women should become slaves; we should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and bondwomen forever. we should sell our own flesh and blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. men and women should be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh day. "mediums," such as have familiar spirits, should be burned with fire. every vestige of mental liberty should be destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished in the martyr's blood. is it not far better and wiser to say that the pentateuch while containing some good laws, some truths, some wise and useful things is, after all, deformed and blackened by the savagery of its time? is it not far better and wiser to take the good and throw the bad away? let us admit what we know to be true; that moses was mistaken about a thousand things; that the story of creation is not true; that the garden of eden is a myth; that the serpent and the tree of knowledge, and the fall of man are but fragments of old mythologies lost and dead; that woman was not made out of a rib; that serpents never had the power of speech; that the sons of god did not marry the daughters of men; that the story of the flood and ark is not exactly true; that the tower of babel is a mistake; that the confusion of tongues is a childish thing; that the origin of the rainbow is a foolish fancy; that methuselah did not live nine hundred and sixty-nine years; that enoch did not leave this world, taking with him his flesh and bones; that the story of sodom and gomorrah is somewhat improbable; that burning brimstone never fell like rain; that lot's wife was not changed into chloride of sodium; that jacob did not, in fact, put his hip out of joint wrestling with god; that the history of tamar might just as well have been left out; that a belief in pharaoh's dreams is not essential to salvation; that it makes but little difference whether the rod of aaron was changed to a serpent or not; that of all the wonders said to have been performed in egypt, the greatest is, that anybody ever believed the absurd account; that god did not torment the innocent cattle on account of the sins of their owners; that he did not kill the first born of the poor maid behind the mill because of pharaoh's crimes; that flies and frogs were not ministers of god's wrath; that lice and locusts were not the executors of his will; that seventy people did not, in two hundred and fifteen years, increase to three million; that three priests could not eat six hundred pigeons in a day; that gazing at a brass serpent could not extract poison from the blood; that god did not go in partnership with hornets; that he did not murder people simply because they asked for something to eat; that he did not declare the making of hair oil and ointment an offence to be punished with death; that he did not miraculously preserve cloth and leather; that he was not afraid of wild beasts; that he did not punish heresy with sword and fire; that he was not jealous, revengeful, and unjust; that he knew all about the sun, moon, and stars; that he did not threaten to kill people for eating the fat of an ox; that he never told aaron to draw cuts to see which of two goats should be killed; that he never objected to clothes made of woolen mixed with linen; that if he objected to dwarfs, people with flat noses and too many fingers, he ought not to have created such folks; that he did not demand human sacrifices as set forth in the last chapter of leviticus; that he did not object to the raising of horses; that he never commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; that several contradictory accounts of the same transaction cannot all be true; that god did not talk to abraham as one man talks to another; that angels were not in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with milk and butter, and making bargains about the destruction of cities; that god never turned himself into a flame of fire, and lived in a bush; that he never met moses in a hotel and tried to kill him; that it was absurd to perform miracles to induce a king to act in a certain way and then harden his heart so that he would refuse; that god was not kept from killing the jews by the fear that the egyptians would laugh at him; that he did not secretly bury a man and then allow the corpse to write an account of the funeral; that he never believed the firmament to be solid; that he knew slavery was and always would be a frightful crime; that polygamy is but stench and filth; that the brave soldier will always spare an unarmed foe; that only cruel cowards slay the conquered and the helpless; that no language can describe the murderer of a smiling babe; that god did not want the blood of doves and lambs; that he did not love the smell of burning flesh; that he did not want his altars daubed with blood; that he did not pretend that the sins of a people could be transferred to a goat; that he did not believe in witches, wizards, spooks, and devils; that he did not test the virtue of woman with dirty water; that he did not suppose that rabbits chewed the cud; that he never thought there were any four-footed birds; that he did not boast for several hundred years that he had vanquished an egyptian king; that a dry stick did not bud, blossom, and bear almonds in one night; that manna did not shrink and swell, so that each man could gather only just one omer; that it was never wrong to "countenance the poor man in his cause;" that god never told a people not to live in peace with their neighbors; that he did not spend forty days with moses on mount sinai giving him patterns for making clothes, tongs, basins, and snuffers; that maternity is not a sin; that physical deformity is not a crime; that an atonement cannot be made for the soul by shedding innocent blood; that killing a dove over running water will not make its blood a medicine; that a god who demands love knows nothing of the human heart; that one who frightens savages with loud noises is unworthy the love of civilized men; that one who destroys children on account of the sins of their fathers is a monster; that an infinite god never threatened to give people the itch; that he never sent wild beasts to devour babes; that he never ordered the violation of maidens; that he never regarded patriotism as a crime; that he never ordered the destruction of unborn children; that he never opened the earth and swallowed wives and babes because husbands and fathers had displeased him; that he never demanded that men should kill their sons and brothers, for the purpose of sanctifying themselves; that we cannot please god by believing the improbable; that credulity is not a virtue; that investigation is not a crime; that every mind should be free; that all religious persecution is infamous in god, as well as man; that without liberty, virtue is impossible; that without freedom, even love cannot exist; that every man should be allowed to think and to express his thoughts; that woman is the equal of man; that children should be governed by love and reason; that the family relation is sacred; that war is a hideous crime; that all intolerance is born of ignorance and hate; that the freedom of today is the hope of to-morrow; that the enlightened present ought not to fall upon its knees and blindly worship the barbaric past; and that every free, brave and enlightened man should publicly declare that all the ignorant, infamous, heartless, hideous things recorded in the "inspired" pentateuch are not the words of god, but simply "some mistakes of moses." some reasons why i. religion makes enemies instead of friends. that one word, "religion," covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death. that one word brings to the mind every instrument with which man has tortured man. in that one word are all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word is the infinite and eternal hell of the future. in the name of universal benevolence christians have hated their fellow-men. although they have been preaching universal love, the christian nations are the warlike nations of the world. the most destructive weapons of war have been invented by christians. the musket, the revolver, the rifled canon, the bombshell, the torpedo, the explosive bullet, have been invented by christian brains. above all other arts, the christian world has placed the art of war. a christian nation has never had the slightest respect for the rights of barbarians; neither has any christian sect any respect for the rights of other sects. anciently, the sects discussed with fire and sword, and even now, something happens almost every day to show that the old spirit that was in the inquisition still slumbers in the christian breast. whoever imagines himself a favorite with god, holds other people in contempt. whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from god, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. he has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. believing himself to be the slave of god, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power. when a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. he divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into god's sheep and devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who will be damned. a christian nation can make no compromise with one not christian; it will either compel that nation to accept its doctrine, or it will wage war. if christ, in fact, said "i came not to bring peace but a sword," it is the only prophecy in the new testament that has been literally fulfilled. ii. duties to god. religion is supposed to consist in a discharge of the duties we owe to god. in other words, we are taught that god is exceedingly anxious that we should believe a certain thing. for my part, i do not believe that there is any infinite being to whom we owe anything. the reason i say this is, we can not owe any duty to any being who requires nothing--to any being that we cannot possibly help, to any being whose happiness we cannot increase. if god is infinite, we cannot make him happier than he is. if god is infinite, we can neither give, nor can he receive, anything. anything that we do or fail to do, cannot, in the slightest degree, affect an infinite god; consequently, no relations can exist between the finite and the infinite, if by relations is meant mutual duties and obligations. some tell us that it is the desire of god that we should worship him. what for? why does he desire worship? others tell us that we should sacrifice something to him. what for? is he in want? can we assist him? is he unhappy? is he in trouble? does he need human sympathy? we cannot assist the infinite, but we can assist our fellow-men. we can feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and enlighten the ignorant, and we can help, in some degree at least, toward covering this world with the mantle of joy. i do not believe there is any being in this universe who gives rain for praise, who gives sunshine for prayer, or who blesses a man simply because he kneels. the infinite cannot receive praise or worship. the infinite can neither hear nor answer prayer. an infinite personality is an infinite impossibility. iii. inspiration. we are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of god. what is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the true. if it is true, there is, in fact, no need of its being inspired--the truth will take care of itself. the church is forced to say that the bible differs from all other books; it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of god. let us then see what inspiration really is. a man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. it makes an impression upon his mind. it awakens memory, and this impression depends upon the man's experience--upon his intellectual capacity. another looks upon the same sea. he has a different brain; he has had a different experience. the sea may speak to him of joy, to the other of grief and tears. the sea cannot tell the same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. a year ago, while the cars were going from boston to gloucester, we passed through manchester. as the cars stopped, a lady sitting opposite, speaking to her husband, looking out of the window and catching, for the first time, a view of the sea, cried out, "is it not beautiful!" and the husband replied, "i'll bet you could dig clams right here!" another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great greek tragedian called "the multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: every drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and icy north; every one has fallen in snow, has been whirled by storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to vapor by the sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light; every one has fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed with mighty rivers back to the sea's embrace. everything in nature tells a different story to all eyes that see and to all ears that hear. once in my life, and once only, i heard horace greeley deliver a lecture. i think its title was, "across the continent." at last he reached the mammoth trees of california, and i thought "here is an opportunity for the old man to indulge his fancy. here are trees that have outlived a thousand human governments. there are limbs above his head older than the pyramids. while man was emerging from barbarism to something like civilization, these trees were growing. older than history, every one appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy. the same wind that filled the sails of the argonauts had swayed these trees." but these trees said nothing of this kind to mr. greeley. upon these subjects not a word was told to him. instead, he took his pencil, and after figuring awhile, remarked: "one of these trees, sawed into inch-boards, would make more than three hundred thousand feet of lumber." i was once riding on the cars in illinois. there had been a violent thunder-storm. the rain had ceased, the sun was going down. the great clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most wonderful architectural shapes. there were temples and palaces domed and turreted, and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold. they looked like the homes of the titans, or the palaces of the gods. a man was sitting near me. i touched him and said, "did you ever see anything so beautiful!" he looked out. he saw nothing of the cloud, nothing of the sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country and replied, "yes, it is beautiful; i always did like rolling land." on another occasion i was riding in a stage. there had been a snow, and after the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs were arched. every fence, every log cabin had been transfigured, touched with a glory almost beyond this world. the great fields were a pure and perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems, made wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of fairies come. the whole world looked like a bride, jewelled from head to foot. a german on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations of wonder leaned forward, looked out of the stage window and said: "yes, it looks like a clean table cloth!" so, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember, the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet has to tell. nature says to me all that i am capable of understanding--gives all that i can receive. as with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. a man reads shakespeare. what does he get from him? all that he has the mind to understand. he gets his little cup full. let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? almost nothing. shakespeare has a different story for each reader. he is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances--he may know a few, he may know all. the impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. leaving out for the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends--the natural food of thought must be the impression made upon the brain by coming in contact through the medium of the five senses with what we call the outward world. the brain is natural. its food is natural. the result, thought, must be natural. the supernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. of the supernatural we can have no conception. thought may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. it may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. above the natural man cannot rise, even with the aid of fancy's wings. there can can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed persons. there can be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they must be naturally produced. some people have ideas about what they are pleased to call the supernatural; but what they call the supernatural is simply the deformed. the world is to each man according to each man. it takes the world as it really is and that man to make that man's world, and that man's world cannot exist without that man. you may ask, and what of all this? i reply, as with everything in nature, so with the bible. it has a different story for each reader. is then the bible a different book to every human being who reads it? it is. can god then, through the bible, make the same revelation to two persons? he cannot. why? because the man who reads it is the man who inspires. inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. god should have inspired readers as well as writers. you may reply: "god knew that his book would be understood differently by each one, and that he really intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each." if this is so, then my understanding of the bible is the real revelation to me. if this is so, i have no right to take the understanding of another. i must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation i must stand. suppose then, that i do read this bible honestly, fairly, and when i get through i am compelled to say, "the book is not true." if this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that god has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true, is the revelation made to me, and by which i am bound. if the book and my brain are both the work of the same infinite god, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree? either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. the inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads. there was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history, were inspired. that time has passed. there was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled mankind. that time has passed. there was a time when the tyrant regarded its laws as good; when the master believed in its liberty; when strength gloried in its passages; but these laws never satisfied the oppressed, they were never quoted by the slave. we have a sacred book, an inspired bible, and i am told that this book was written by the same being who made every star, and who peopled infinite space with infinite worlds. i am also told that god created man, and that man is totally depraved. it has always seemed to me that an infinite being has no right to make imperfect things. i may be mistaken; but this is the only planet i have ever been on; i live in what might be called one of the rural districts of this universe, consequently i may be mistaken; i simply give the best and largest thought i have. iv. god's experiment with the jews the bible tells us that men became so bad that god destroyed them all with the exception of eight persons; that afterwards he chose abraham and some of his kindred, a wandering tribe, for the purpose of seeing whether or no they could be civilized. he had no time to waste with all the world. the egyptians at that time, a vast and splendid nation, having a system of laws and free schools, believing in the marriage of the one man to the one woman; believing, too, in the rights of woman--a nation that had courts of justice and understood the philosophy of damages--these people had received no revelation from god,--they were left to grope in nature's night. he had no time to civilize india, wherein had grown a civilization that fills the world with wonder still--a people with a language as perfect as ours, a people who had produced philosophers, scientists, poets. he had no time to waste on them; but he took a few, the tribe of abraham. he established a perfect despotism--with no schools, with no philosophy, with no art, with no music--nothing but the sacrifices of dumb beasts--nothing but the abject worship of a slave. not a word upon geology, upon astronomy; nothing, even, upon the science of medicine. thus god spent hours and hours with moses upon the top of sinai, giving directions for ascertaining the presence of leprosy and for preventing its spread, but it never occurred to jehovah to tell moses how it could be cured. he told them a few things about what they might eat--prohibiting among other things four-footed birds, and one thing upon the subject of cooking. from the thunders and lightnings of sinai he proclaimed this vast and wonderful fact: "thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." he took these people, according to our sacred scriptures, under his immediate care, and for the purpose of controlling them he wrought wonderful miracles in their sight. is it not a little curious that no priest of one religion has ever been able to astonish a priest of another religion by telling a miracle? our missionaries tell the hindoos the miracles of the bible, and the hindoo priests, without the movement of a muscle, hear them and then recite theirs, and theirs do not astonish our missionaries in the least! is it not a little curious that the priests of one religion never believe the priests of another? is it not a little strange that the believers in sacred books regard all except their own as having been made by hypocrites and fools? i heard the other day a story. a gentleman was telling some wonderful things and the listeners, with one exception, were saying, as he proceeded with his tale, "is it possible?" "did you ever hear anything so wonderful?" and when he had concluded, there was a kind of chorus of "is it possible?" and "can it be?" one man, however, sat perfectly quiet, utterly unmoved. another listener said to him "did you hear that?" and he replied "yes." "well," said the other, "you did not manifest much astonishment." "oh, no," was the answer, "i am a liar myself." i am told by the sacred scriptures that, as a matter of fact, god, even with the help of miracles, failed to civilize the jews, and this shows of how little real benefit, after all, it is, to have a ruler much above the people, or to simply excite the wonder of mankind. infinite wisdom, if the account be true, could not civilize a single tribe. laws made by jehovah himself were not obeyed, and every effort of jehovah failed. it is claimed that god made known his law and inspired men to write and teach his will, and yet, it was found utterly impossible to reform mankind. v. civilized countries in all civilized countries, it is now passionately asserted that slavery is a crime; that a war of conquest is murder; that polygamy enslaves woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless mothers, and of prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to their captors; that wives should not be stoned to death for differing with their husbands on the subject of religion. we know that there was a time, in the history of most nations, when all these crimes were regarded as divine institutions. nations entertaining this view now are regarded as savage, and, with the exception of the south sea islanders, feejees, a few tribes in central africa, and some citizens of delaware, no human beings are found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects with jehovah. the only evidence we can have that a nation has ceased to be savage, is that it has abandoned these doctrines of savagery. to every one except a theologian, it is easy to account for these mistakes and crimes by saying that civilization is a painful growth; that the moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the golden scales of justice. conscience is born of suffering. mercy is the child of the imagination. man advances as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the forces of nature. the believer in the inspiration of the bible is compelled to say, that there was a time when slavery was right, when women could sell their babes, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. he is compelled to insist that jehovah is as bad now as he was then; that he is as good now as he was then. once, all the crimes that i have mentioned were commanded by god; now they are prohibited. once, god was in favor of them all; now the devil is their defender. in other words, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that god held four thousand years ago. the devil is as good now as jehovah was then, and god was as bad then as the devil is now. other nations besides the jews had similar laws and ideas--believed in and practiced the same crimes, and yet, it is not claimed that they received a revelation. they had no knowledge of the true god, and yet they practiced the same crimes, of their own motion, that the jews did by command of jehovah. from this it would seem that man can do wrong without a special revelation. the passages upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution are certainly not evidences of the inspiration of that book. suppose nothing had been in the old testament upholding these crimes, would the modern christian suspect that it was not inspired on that account? suppose nothing had been in the old testament except laws in favor of these crimes, would it still be insisted that it was inspired? if the devil had inspired a book, will some christian tell us in what respect, on the subjects of slavery, polygamy, war and liberty, it would have differed from some parts of the old testament? suppose we knew that after inspired men had finished the bible the devil had gotten possession of it and had written a few passages, what part would christians now pick out as being probably his work? which of the following passages would be selected as having been written by the devil: "love thy neighbor as thyself," or "kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman, but all the women children keep alive for yourselves"? is there a believer in the bible who does not now wish that god, amid the thunders and lightnings of sinai, had said to moses that man should not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that all men should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the sword never should be unsheathed to shed innocent blood? is there a believer who would not be delighted to find that every one of the infamous passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of god were never reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? is there an honest man who does not regret that god commanded a husband to stone his wife for suggesting the worship of some other god? surely we do not need an inspired book to teach us that slavery is right, that polygamy is virtue, and that intellectual liberty is a crime. vi. a comparison of books let us compare the gems of jehovah with pagan paste. it may be that the best way to illustrate what i have said, is to compare the supposed teachings of jehovah with those of persons who never wrote an inspired line. in all ages of which any record has been preserved, men have given their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. if the bible is the work of god, it should contain the sublimest truths, it should excel the works of man, it should contain the loftiest definitions of justice, the best conceptions of human liberty, the clearest outlines of duty, the tenderest and noblest thoughts. upon every page should be found the luminous evidence of its divine origin. it should contain grander and more wonderful things than man has written. it may be said that it is unfair to call attention to bad things in the bible. to this it may be replied that a divine being ought not to put bad things in his book. if the bible now upholds what we call crimes, it will not do to say that it is not verbally inspired. if the words are not inspired, what is? it may be said, that the thoughts are inspired. this would include only thoughts expressed without words. if ideas are inspired, they must be expressed by inspired words--that is to say, by an inspired arrangement of words. if a sculptor were inspired of god to make a statue, we would not say that the marble was inspired, but the statue--that is to say, the relation of part to part, the married harmony of form and function. the language, the words, take the place of the marble, and it is the arrangement of the words that christians claim to be inspired. if there is an uninspired word, or a word in the wrong place, until that word is known a doubt is cast on every word the book contains. if it was worth god's while to make a revelation at all, it was certainly worth his while to see that it was correctly made--that it was absolutely preserved. why should god allow an inspired book to be interpolated? if it was worth while to inspire men to write it, it was worth while to inspire men to preserve it; and why should he allow another person to interpolate in it that which was not inspired? he certainly would not have allowed the man he inspired to write contrary to the inspiration. he should have preserved his revelation. neither will it do to say that god adapted his revelation to the prejudices of man. it was necessary for him to adapt his revelation to the capacity of man, but certainly god would not confirm a barbarian in his prejudices. he would not fortify a heathen in his crimes.... if a revelation is of any importance, it is to eradicate prejudice. they tell us now that the jews were so ignorant, so bad, that god was compelled to justify their crimes, in order to have any influence with them. they say that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be crimes, the jews would have refused to receive the ten commandments. they tell us that god did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along slowly, so that in a few hundred years they would be induced to admit that larceny and murder and polygamy and slavery were not virtues. i suppose if we now wished to break a cannibal of the bad habit of devouring missionaries, we would first induce him to cook them in a certain way, saying: "to eat cooked missionary is one step in advance of eating your missionary raw. after a few years, a little mutton could be cooked with missionary, and year after year the amount of mutton could be increased and the amount of missionary decreased, until in the fullness of time the dish could be entirely mutton, and after that the missionaries would be absolutely safe." if there is anything of value, it is liberty--liberty of body, liberty of mind. the liberty of body is the reward of labor. intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe a dungeon. if the bible is really inspired, jehovah commanded the jewish people to buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of the jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. yet epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was ever made, a man whose soul followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the jewish god, was great enough to say: "will you not remember that your servants are by nature your brothers, the children of god? in saying that you have bought them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods." we find that jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round about them." "of them," said jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." and yet cicero, a pagan, cicero, who had never been enlightened by reading the old testament, had the moral grandeur to declare: "they who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever." if the bible is inspired, jehovah, god of all worlds, actually said: "and if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be sorely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." and yet zeno, founder of the stoics, centuries before christ was born, insisted that no man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the slave had become so by conquest or by purchase. jehovah ordered a jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this command: "when the lord thy god shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." and yet epictetus, whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the guidance of human conduct: "live with thy inferiors as thou wouldst have thy superiors live with thee." is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom said: "i will heap mischief upon them; i will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction. i will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. the sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs" while seneca, an uninspired roman, said: "the wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. he will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. his clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly." can we believe that god ever said to any one: "let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." if he ever said these words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music from the hindu: "sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children." jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of sinai," said to the jews: "thou shalt have no other gods before me.... though shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." contrast this with the words put by the hindu in the mouth of brahma: "i am the same to all mankind. they who honestly serve other gods involuntarily worship me. i am he who partakest of all worship, and i am the reward of all worshipers." compare these passages; the first a dungeon where crawl the things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with suns. is it possible that the real god ever said: "and if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, i, the lord, have deceived that prophet; and i will stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of my people." compare that passage with one from a pagan. "it is better to keep silence for the remainder of your life than to speak falsely." can we believe that a being of infinite mercy gave this command: "put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate, throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor; consecrate yourselves to-day to the lord, even every man upon his son and upon his brother, that he may bestow a blessing upon you this day." surely, that god was not animated by so great and magnanimous a spirit as was antoninus, a roman emperor, who declared that, "he had rather keep a single roman citizen alive than slay a thousand enemies." compare the laws given to the children of israel, as it is claimed by the creator of us all, with the following from marcus aurelius: "i have formed the ideal of a state, in which there is the same law for all, and equal rights, and equal liberty of speech established; an empire where nothing is honored so much as the freedom of the citizen." in the avesta i find this: "i belong to five: to those who think good, to those who speak good, to those who do good, to those who hear, and to those who are pure." "which is the one prayer which in greatness, goodness, and beauty is worth all that is between heaven and earth and between this earth and the stars? and he replied: to renounce all evil thoughts and words and works." vii. it is claimed by the christian world that one of the great reasons for giving an inspired book to the jews was, that through them the world might learn that there is but one god. this piece of information has been supposed to be of infinite value. as a matter of fact, long before moses was born, the egyptians believed and taught that there was but one god--that is to say, that above all intelligences there was the one supreme. they were guilty, too, of the same inconsistencies of modern christians. they taught the doctrine of the trinity--god the father, god the mother, and god the son. god was frequently represented as father, mother and babe. they also taught that the soul had a divine origin; that after death it was to be judged according to the deeds done in the body; that those who had done well passed into perpetual joy, and those who had done evil into endless pain. in this they agreed with the most approved divine of the nineteenth century. women were the equals of men, and egypt was often governed by queens. in this, her government was vastly better than the one established by god. the laws were administered by courts much like ours. in egypt there was a system of schools that gave the son of poverty a chance of advancement, and the highest offices were open to the successful scholar. the egyptian married one wife. the wife was called "the lady of the house." the women were not secluded. the people were not divided into castes. there was nothing to prevent the rise of able and intelligent egyptians. but like the jehovah of the jews, they made slaves of the captives of war. the ancient persians believed in one god; and women helped to found the parsee religion. nothing can exceed some of the maxims of zoroaster. the hindoos taught that above all, and over all, was one eternal supreme. they had a code of laws. they understood the philosophy of evidence and of damages. they knew better than to teach the doctrine of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. they knew that when one man maimed another, it was not to the interest of society to have that man maimed, thus burdening the people with two cripples, but that it was better to make the man who maimed the other work to support him. in india, upon the death of a father, the daughters received twice as much from the estate as the sons. the romans built temples to truth, faith, valor, concord, modesty, and charity, in which they offered sacrifices to the highest conceptions of human excellence. women had rights; they presided in the temple; they officiated in holy offices; they guarded the sacred fires upon which the safety of rome depended; and when christ came, the grandest figure in the known world was the roman mother. it will not do to say that some rude statue was made by an inspired sculptor, and that the apollo of belvidere, venus de milo, and the gladiator were made by unaided men; that the daubs of the early ages were painted by divine assistance, while the raphaels, the angelos, and the rembrandts did what they did without the help of heaven. it will not do to say, that the first hut was built by god, and the last palace by degraded man; that the hoarse songs of the savage tribes were made by the deity, but that hamlet and lear were written by man; that the pipes of pan were invented in heaven, and all other musical instruments on the earth. if the jehovah of the jews had taken upon himself flesh, and dwelt as a man among the people had he endeavored to govern, had he followed his own teachings, he would have been a slaveholder, a buyer of babes, and a beater of women. he would have waged wars of extermination. he would have killed grey-haired and trembling age, and would have sheathed his sword, in prattling, dimpled babes. he would have been a polygamist, and would have butchered his wife for differing with him on the subject of religion. viii. the new testament. ne great objection to the old testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by god. all these cruelties ceased with death. the vengeance of jehovah stopped at the tomb. he never threatened to punish the dead; and there is not one word, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse of malachi, containing the slightest intimation that god will take his revenge in another world. it was reserved for the new testament to make known the doctrine of eternal pain. the teacher of universal benevolence rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man upon the lurid gulf of hell. within the breast of non-resistance coiled the worm that never dies. compared with this, the doctrine of slavery, the wars of extermination, the curses, the punishments of the old testament were all merciful and just. there is no time to speak of the conflicting statements in the various books composing the new testament--no time to give the history of the manuscripts, the errors in translation, the interpolations made by the fathers and by their successors, the priests, and only time to speak of a few objections, including some absurdities and some contradictions. where several witnesses testify to the same transaction, no matter how honest they may be, they will disagree upon minor matters, and such testimony is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not conspired among themselves. the differences in statement are accounted for from the facts that all do not see alike, and that all have not equally good memories; but when we claim that the witnesses are inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no disagreement, even in the minutest detail. the accounts should not only be substantially, but they should be actually, the same. the differences and contradictions can be accounted for by the weaknesses of human nature, but these weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom. and here let me ask: why should there have been more than one correct account of what really happened? why were four gospels necessary? it seems to me that one inspired gospel, containing all that happened, was enough. copies of the one correct one could have been furnished to any extent. according to doctor davidson, irenæus argues that the gospels were four in number, because there are four universal winds, four corners of the globe. others have said, because there are four seasons; and these gentlemen might have added, because a donkey has four legs. for my part, i cannot even conceive of a reason for more than one gospel. according to one of these gospels, and according to the prevalent christian belief, the christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. if this doctrine is without foundation, the fabric falls; and it is without foundation, for it is repugnant to justice and mercy. the church tells us that the first man committed a crime for which all others are responsible. this absurdity was the father and mother of another--that a man can be rewarded for the good action of another. we are told that god made a law, with the penalty of eternal death. all men, they tell us, have broken this law. the law had to be vindicated. this could be done by damning everybody, but through what is known as the atonement the salvation of a few was made possible. they insist that the law demands the extreme penalty, that justice calls for its victim, that mercy ceases to plead, and that god by allowing the innocent to suffer in the place of the guilty settled satisfactory with the law. to carry out this scheme god was born as a babe, grew in stature, increased in knowledge, and at the age of thirty-three years having lived a life filled with kindness, having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. it is claimed that he took our place, bore our sins, our guilt, and in this way satisfied the justice of god. under the mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sin except through the shedding of blood. when a man sinned he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves. the priest would lay his hand upon the animal and the sin of the man would be transferred to the beast. then the animal would be killed in place of the sinner, and the blood thus shed would be sprinkled upon the altar. in this way jehovah was satisfied. the greater the crime, the greater the sacrifice. there was a ratio between the value of the animal and the enormity of the sin. the most minute directions were given as to the killing of these animals. every priest became a butcher, every synagogue a slaughter-house. nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined soul, nothing better calculated to harden the heart, than the continual shedding of innocent blood. this terrible system culminated in the sacrifice of christ. his blood took the place of all other. it is not necessary to shed any more. the law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited. the idea that god wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery; and yet the mosaic dispensation was better adapted to prevent the commission of sin than the christian system. under that dispensation, if you committed a sin, you had to bring a sacrifice--dove, sheep, or bullock, now, when a sin is committed, the christian says, "charge it," "put it on the slate, if i don't pay it the savior will." in this way, rascality is sold on a credit, and the credit system of religion breeds extravagance in sin. the mosaic dispensation was based upon far better business principles. the debt had to be paid, and by the man who owed it. we are told that the sinner is in debt to god, and that the obligation is discharged by the savior. the best that can be said of such a transaction is that the debt is transferred, not paid. as a matter of fact, the sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. if you injure a man, it is not enough to get the forgiveness of god--you must get the man's forgiveness, you must get your own. if a man puts his hand in the fire and god forgives him, his hand will smart just as badly. you must reap what you sow. no god can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat. we must remember that in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences. the life and death of christ do not constitute an atonement. they are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence, and in so far as the life of christ produces emulation in the direction of goodness, it has been of value to mankind. to make innocence suffer is the greatest sin, and it may be the only sin. how, then, is it possible to make the consequences of sin an atonement for sin, when the consequences of sin are to be borne by one who has not sinned, and the one who has sinned is to reap the reward of virtue? no honorable man should be willing that another should suffer for him. no good law can accept the sufferings of innocence as an atonement for the guilty; and besides, if there was no atonement until the crucifixion of christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that time? we must remember that the jews did not kill animals for the gentiles. jehovah hated foreigners. there was no way provided for the forgiveness of a heathen. what has become of the millions who have died since, without having heard of the atonement? what becomes of those who hear and do not believe? can there be a law that demands that the guilty be rewarded. and yet, to reward the guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent. if the doctrine of the atonement is true, there would have been no heaven had no atonement been made. if judas had understood the christian system, if he knew that christ must be betrayed, and that god was depending on him to betray him, and that without the betrayal no human soul could be saved, what should judas have done? jehovah took special charge of the jewish people. he did this for the purpose of civilizing them. if he had succeeded in civilizing them, he would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty; because if the jews had been a civilized people when christ appeared--a people who had not been hardened by the laws of jehovah--they would not have crucified christ, and as a consequence, the world would have been lost. if the jews had believed in religious freedom, in the rights of thought and speech, if the christian religion is true, not a human soul ever could have been saved. if, when christ was on his way to calvary, some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only have been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being. the christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness here; that to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can repent between the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance washes every stain of the soul away? is it good to teach that the serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of their crimes; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against? another objection is, that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul. this doctrine, i admit, is taught in the gospel according to john, and in many of the epistles; i deny that it is taught in matthew, mark, or luke. it is, however, asserted by the church that to believe is the only safe way. to this, i reply: belief is not a voluntary thing. a man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. they tell us that to believe is the safe way; but i say, the safe way is to be honest. nothing can be safer than that. no man in the hour of death ever regretted having been honest. no man when the shadows of the last day were gathering about the pillow of death, ever regretted that he had given to his fellow-man his honest thought. no man, in the presence of eternity, ever wished that he had been a hypocrite. no man ever then regretted that he did not throw away his reason. it certainly cannot be necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul, because after that, your soul is not worth saving. the soul has a right to defend itself. my brain is my castle; and when i waive the right to defend it, i become an intellectual serf and slave. i do not admit that a man by doing me an injury can place me under obligations to do him a service. to render benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between actions. he who treats friends and enemies alike has neither love nor justice. the idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to defend himself. the mother of this doctrine was weakness. to allow a crime to be committed, even against yourself, when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. the church has preached the doctrine of non-resistance, and under that banner has shed the blood of millions. in the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed for centuries the daggers of assassination. with her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. for more than a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, hypocrisy wore the mitre and tiara, while beggars scorned the royal sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought. xi. christ's mission. he came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "love thy neighbor as thyself"? that was in the old testament. "love god with all thy heart"? that was in the old testament. "return good for evil"? that was said by buddha, seven hundred years before christ was born. "do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? that was the doctrine of lao-tsze. did he come to give a rule of action? zoroaster had done this long before: "whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." did he come to tell us of another world? the immortality of the soul had been taught by the hindoos, egyptians, greeks, and romans hundreds of years before he was born. what argument did he make in favor of immortality? what facts did he furnish? what star of hope did he put above the darkness of this world? did he come simply to tell us that we should not revenge ourselves upon our enemies? long before, socrates had said: "one who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him." and cicero had said: "let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." is there anything in the literature of the world more nearly perfect than this thought? was it from christ the world learned the first lesson of forbearance, when centuries and centuries before, chrishna had said, "if a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?" is it possible that the son of god threatened to say to a vast majority, of his children, "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," while the buddhist was great and tender enough to say: "never will i seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will i live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. never will i leave this world of sin and sorrow and struggle until all are delivered. until then, i will remain and suffer where i am?" is there anything in the new testament as beautiful as this, from a sufi?--"better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love than seventy thousand years of outward worship." is there anything comparable to this?--"whoever carelessly treads on a worm that crawls on the earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from god." is there anything in the new testament more beautiful than the story of the sufi? for seven years a sufi practised every virtue, and then he mounted the three steps that lead to the doors of paradise. he knocked and a voice said: "who is there?" the sufi replied: "thy servant, o god." but the doors remained closed. yet seven other years the sufi engaged in every good work. he comforted the sorrowing and divided his substance with the poor. again he mounted the three steps, again knocked at the doors of paradise, and again the voice asked: "who is there?" and the sufi replied: "thy slave, o god."--but the doors remained closed. yet seven other years the sufi spent in works of charity, in visiting the imprisoned and the sick. again he mounted the steps, again knocked at the celestial doors. again he heard the question: "who is there?" and he replied: "thyself, o god."--the gates wide open flew. is it possible that st. paul was inspired of god, when he said: "let the women learn in silence, with all subjection."--"neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man?" and is it possible that epictetus, without the slightest aid from heaven, gave to the world this gem of love: "what is more delightful than to be so dear to your wife, as to be on that account dearer to yourself?" did st. paul express the sentiments of god when he wrote-- "but i would have you know that the head of every man is christ, and the head of every woman is the man, and the head of christ is god. wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the lord?" and was the author of this, a poor despised heathen?-- "in whatever house the husband is contented with the wife, and the wife with the husband, in that house will fortune dwell; but upon the house where women are not honored, let a curse be pronounced. where the wife is honored, there the gods are truly worshiped." is there anything in the new testament as beautiful as this?-- "shall i tell thee where nature is most blest and fair? it is where those we love abide. though that space be small, it is ample above kingdoms; though it be a desert, through it run the rivers of paradise." after reading the curses pronounced in the old testament upon jew and heathen, the descriptions of slaughter, of treachery and of death, the destruction of women and babes; after you shall have read all the chapters of horror in the new testament, the threatenings of fire and flame, then read this, from the greatest of human beings: "the quality of mercy is not strained: it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. it is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown." x. eternal pain upon passages in the new testament rests the doctrine of eternal pain. this doctrine subverts every idea of justice. a finite being can neither commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the infinite. a being of infinite goodness and wisdom has no right to create any being whose life is not a blessing. infinite wisdom has no right to create a failure, and surely a man destined to everlasting failure is not a conspicuous success. the doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all doctrines--born of ignorance, cruelty and fear. around the angel of immortality, christianity has coiled this serpent. upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. and yet in the same book in which is taught this most frightful of dogmas, we are assured that "the lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." a few days ago upon the wide sea, was found a barque called "the tiger," captain kreuger, in command. the vessel had been one hundred and twenty-six days upon the sea. for days the crew had been without water, without food, and were starving. for nine days not a drop had passed their lips. the crew consisted of the captain, a mate, and eleven men. at the end of one hundred and eighteen days from liverpool they killed the captain's newfoundland dog. this lasted them four days. during the next five days they had nothing. for weeks they had had no light and were unable to see the compass at night. on the one hundred and twenty-fifth day captain kreuger, a german, took a revolver in his hand, stood up before the men, and placing the weapon at his temple said: "boys, we can't stand this much longer, and to save you all, i am willing to die." the mate grasped the revolver and begged the captain to wait another day. the next day, upon the horizon of their despair, they saw the smoke of the steamship nebo. they were rescued. suppose that captain kreuger was not a christian, and suppose that he had sent the ball crashing through his brain, and had done so simply to keep the crew from starvation, do you tell me that a god of infinite mercy would forever damn that man? do not misunderstand me. i insist that every passage in the bible upholding crime was written by savage man. i insist that if there is a god, he is not, never was, and never will be in favor of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, or religious persecution. does any christian believe that if the real god were to write a book now, he would uphold the crimes commanded in the old testament? has jehovah improved? has infinite mercy become more merciful? has infinite wisdom intellectually advanced? will any one claim that the passages upholding slavery have liberated mankind? are we indebted to polygamy for our modern homes? was religious liberty born of that infamous verse in which the husband is commanded to kill his wife for worshiping an unknown god? the usual answer to these objections is, that no country has ever been civilized without a bible. the jews were the only people to whom jehovah made his will directly known. were they better than other nations? they read the old testament and one of the effects of such reading was, that they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. certainly they could not have done worse, without a bible. in crucifying christ the jews followed the teachings of his father. if jehovah was in fact god, and if that god took upon himself flesh and came among the jews, and preached what the jews understood to be blasphemy; and if the jews in accordance with the laws given by this same jehovah to moses, crucified him, then i say, and i say it with infinite reverence, he reaped what he had sown. he became the victim of his own injustice. but i insist that these things are not true. i insist that the real god, if there is one, never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never told a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never urged one nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his wife because she suggested the worship of another god. from the aspersions of the pulpit, from the slanders of the church, i seek to rescue the reputation of the deity. i insist that the old testament would be a better book with all these passages left out; and whatever may be said of the rest of the bible, the passages to which i have called attention can, with vastly more propriety, be attributed to a devil than to a god. take from the new testament the idea that belief is necessary to salvation; that christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of mankind; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of honest investigation, and that the punishment of the human soul will go on forever; take from it all miracles and foolish stories, and i most cheerfully admit that the good passages are true. if they are true, it makes no difference whether they are inspired or not. inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. only that which never happened needs to be substantiated by a miracle. the universe is natural. the church must cease to insist that passages upholding the institutions of savage men were inspired of god. the dogma of atonement must be abandoned. good deeds must take the place of faith. the savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced. it must be admitted that credulity is not a virtue, and that investigation is not a crime. it must be admitted that miracles are the children of mendacity, and that nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal procession of causes and effects. reason must be the arbiter. inspired books attested by miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. a religion that does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in a little while, excite the mockery of all. a man who does not believe in intellectual liberty is a barbarian. is it possible that god is intolerant? could there be any progress, even in heaven, without intellectual liberty? is the freedom of the future to exist only in perdition? is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like christ can be saved? is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? are we to be saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous? is credulity to be winged and crowned, whilst honest doubt is chained and damned. if jehovah, was in fact god, he knew the end from the beginning. he knew that his bible would be a breast-work behind which all tyranny and hypocrisy would crouch. he knew that his bible would be the auction-block on which women would stand while their babes were sold from their arms. he knew that this bible would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the defence of robbers called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. he knew that he had taught the jewish people nothing of importance. he knew that he had found them free and left them slaves. he knew that he had never fulfilled a single promise made to them. he knew that while other nations had advanced in art and science his chosen people were savage still. he promised them the world, and gave them a desert. he promised them liberty and he made them slaves. he promised them victory and he gave them defeat. he said they should be kings and he made them serfs. he promised them universal empire and gave them exile. when one finishes the old testament he is compelled to say: "nothing can add to the misery of a nation whose king is jehovah!" the old testament filled this world with tyranny and injustice, and the new gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all of the sons of men. the old testament describes the hell of the past, and the new the hell of the future. the old testament tells us the frightful things that god has done, the new the frightful things that he will do. these two books give us the sufferings of the past and the future--the injustice, the agony and the tears of both worlds. orthodoxy. a lecture. it is utterly inconceivable that any man believing in the truth of the christian religion should publicly deny it, because he who believes in that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he would peril the eternal salvation of his soul. it is conceivable, and without any great effort of the mind, that millions who do not believe in the christian religion should openly say that they did. in a country where religion is supposed to be in power--where it has rewards for pretence, where it pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it at least is willing to purchase silence--it is easily conceivable that millions pretend to believe what they do not. and yet i believe it has been charged against myself not only that i was insincere, but that i took the side i am on for the sake of popularity; and the audience to-night goes far toward justifying the accusation. orthodox religion dying out. it gives me immense pleasure to say to this audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civilized world. it is a sick man. it has been attacked with two diseases--softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. it is a religion that no longer satisfies the intelligence of this country; that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. it is a religion that gives hope only to a few; that puts a shadow upon the cradle; that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. it is a religion that i am going to do what little i can while i live to destroy. in its place i want humanity, i want good fellowship, i want intellectual liberty--free lips, the discoveries and inventions of genius, the demonstrations of science--the religion of art, music and poetry--of good houses, good clothes, good wages--that is to say, the religion of this world. religious deaths and births. we must remember that this is a world of progress, a world of perpetual change--a succession of coffins and cradles. there is perpetual death, and there is perpetual birth. by the grave of the old, forever stand youth and joy; and when an old religion dies, a better one is born. when we find out that an assertion is a falsehood a shining truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. the more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true. there was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the stars the fate of men and nations. the astrologer has faded from the world, but the astronomer has taken his place. there was a time when the poor alchemist, bent and wrinkled and old, over his crucible endeavored to find some secret by which he could change the baser metals into purest gold. the alchemist has gone; the chemist took his place; and, although he finds nothing to change metals into gold, he finds something that covers the earth with wealth. there was a time when the soothsayer and augur flourished. after them came the parson and the priest; and the parson and the priest must go. the preacher must go, and in his place must come the teacher--the real interpreter of nature. we are done with the supernatural. we are through with the miraculous and the impossible. there was once the prophet who pretended to read the book of the future. his place has been taken by the philosopher, who reasons from cause to effect--who finds the facts by which we are surrounded and endeavors to reason from these premises and to tell what in all probability will happen. the prophet has gone, the philosopher is here. there was a time when man sought aid from heaven--when he prayed to the deaf sky. there was a time when everything depended on the supernaturalist. that time in christendom is passing away. we now depend upon the naturalist--not upon the believer in ancient falsehoods, but on the discoverer of facts--on the demonstrater of truths. at last we are beginning to build on a solid foundation, and as we progress, the supernatural dies. the leaders of the intellectual world deny the existence of the supernatural. they take from all superstition its foundation. the religion of reciprocity. supernatural religion will fade from this world, and in its place we shall have reason. in the place of the worship of something we know not of, will be the religion of mutual love and assistance--the great religion of reciprocity. superstition must go. science will remain. the church dies hard. the brain of the world is not yet developed. there are intellectual diseases as well as physical--there are pestilences and plagues of the mind. whenever the new comes the old protests, and fights for its place as long as it has a particle of power. we are now having the same warfare between superstition and science that there was between the stage coach and the locomotive. but the stage coach had to go. it had its day of glory and power, but it is gone. it went west. in a little while it will be driven into the pacific. so we find that there is the same conflict between the different sects and different schools not only of philosophy but of medicine. recollect that everything except the demonstrated truth is liable to die. that is the order of nature. words die. every language has a cemetery. every now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected, and across it is written "obsolete." new words are continually being born. there is a cradle in which a word is rocked. a thought is married to a sound, and a child-word is born. and there comes a time when the word gets old, and wrinkled, and expressionless, and is carried mournfully to the grave. so in the schools of medicine. you can remember, so can i, when the old allopathists, the bleeders and blisterers, reigned supreme. if there was anything the matter with a man they let out his blood. called to the bedside, they took him on the point of a lancet to the edge of eternity, and then practiced all their art to bring him back. one can hardly imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of a doctor. and long after the old practice was found to be a mistake hundreds and thousands of the ancient physicians clung to it, carried around with them, in one pocket a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty lancet, sorry that they could not find some patient with faith enough to allow the experiment to be made again. so these schools, and these theories, and these religions die hard. what else can they do? like the paintings of the old masters, they are kept alive because so much money has been invested in them. think of the amount of money that has been invested in superstition! think of the schools that have been founded for the more general diffusion of useless knowledge! think of the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous to think, and that they must never use their brains except in the act of faith! think of the millions and billions of dollars that have been expended in churches, in temples, and in cathedrals! think of the thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the ignorance of mankind! think of those who grow rich on credulity and who fatten on faith! do you suppose they are going to die without a struggle? what are they to do? from the bottom of my heart i sympathize with the poor clergyman that has had all his common sense educated out of him, and is now to be thrown upon the cold and unbelieving world. his prayers are not answered; he gets no help from on high, and the pews are beginning to criticise the pulpit. what is the man to do? if he suddenly changes he is gone. if he preaches what he really believes he will get notice to quit. and yet, if he and the congregation would come together and be perfectly honest, they would all admit that they believe little and know nothing. only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding together from a revival, late at night, and one said to the other, as they rode along: "i am going to say something that will shock you, and i beg of you never to tell it to anybody else. i am going to tell it to you." "well, what is it?" said she: "i do not believe the bible." the other replied: "neither do i." i have often thought how splendid it would be if the ministers could but come together and say: "now, let us be honest. let us tell each other, honor bright"--like dr. curry, of chicago, did in the meeting the other day--"just what we believe." they tell a story that in the old time a lot of people, about twenty, were in texas in a little hotel, and one fellow got up before the fire, put his hands behind him, and said: "boys, let us all tell our real names." if the ministers and their congregations would only tell their real thoughts they would find that they are nearly as bad as i am, and that they believe as little. orthodoxy dies hard, and its defenders tell us that this fact shows that it is of divine origin. judaism dies hard. it has lived several thousand years longer than christianity. the religion of mohammed dies hard. buddhism dies hard. why do all these religions die hard? because intelligence increases slowly. let me whisper in the ear of the protestant: catholicism dies hard. what does that prove? it proves that the people are ignorant and that the priests are cunning. let me whisper in the ear of the catholic: protestantism dies hard. what does that prove? it proves that the people are superstitious and the preachers stupid. let me whisper in all your ears: infidelity is not dying--it is growing--it increases every day. and what does that prove? it proves that the people are learning more and more--that they are advancing--that the mind is getting free, and that the race is being civilized. the clergy know that i know that they know that they do not know. the blows that have shattered the shield and shivered the lance of superstition. mohammed. mohammed wrested from the disciples of the cross the fairest part of europe. it was known that he was an impostor, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust and infidelity in the christian world. christians made an effort to rescue from the infidels the empty sepulchre of christ. that commenced in the eleventh century and ended at the close of the thirteenth. europe was almost depopulated. the fields were left waste, the villages were deserted, nations were impoverished, every man who owed a debt was discharged from payment if he put a cross upon his breast and joined the crusades. no matter what crime he had committed, the doors of the prison were open for him to join the hosts of the cross. they believed that god would give them victory, and they carried in front of the first crusade a goat and a goose, believing that both those animals were blessed by the indwelling of the holy ghost. and i may say that those same animals are in the lead to-day in the orthodox world. until the year they endeavored to gain possession of that sepulchre, and finally the hosts of christ were driven back, baffled and beaten,--a poor, miserable, religious rabble. they were driven back, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust in christendom. you know that at that time the world believed in trial by battle--that god would take the side of the right--and there had been a trial by battle between the cross and the crescent, and mohammed had been victorious. was god at that time governing the world? was he endeavoring to spread his gospel? the destruction of art. you know that when christianity came into power it destroyed every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. it defaced and obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it burned the manuscripts, both greek and latin; it destroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and reduced to ashes every library that it could reach with its torch. and the result was, that the night of the middle ages fell upon the human race. but by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts escaped the fury of religious zeal; and these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization of to-day. a few statues had been buried; a few forms of beauty were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the civilized world is filled with art, the walls are covered with paintings, and the niches filled with statuary. a few manuscripts were found and deciphered. the old languages were learned, and literature was again born. a new day dawned upon mankind. every effort at mental improvement had been opposed by the church, and yet, the few things saved from the general wreck--a few poems, a few works of the ancient thinkers, a few forms wrought in stone, produced a new civilization destined to overthrow and destroy the fabric of superstition. the discovery of america. what was the next blow that this church received? the discovery of america. the holy ghost who inspired men to write the bible did not know of the existence of this continent, never dreamed of the western hemisphere. the bible left out half the world. the holy ghost did not know that the earth is round. he did not dream that the earth is round. he believed it was flat, although he made it himself. at that time heaven was just beyond the clouds. it was there the gods lived, there the angels were, and it was against that heaven that jacob's ladder leaned when the angels went up and down. it was to that heaven that christ ascended after his resurrection. it was up there that the new jerusalem was, with its streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition. there was where the devils lived; where a pit was dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains. i say that for this reason: just in proportion that you have brains, your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this religion. and just in proportion that you lack brains your chances are increased. at last they found that the earth is round. it was circumnavigated by magellan. in that brave man set sail. the church told him: "the earth is flat, my friend; don't go, you may fall off the edge." magellan said: "i have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and i have more confidence in the shadow than i have in the church." the ship went round. the earth was circumnavigated. science passed its hand above it and beneath it, and where was the old heaven and where was the hell? vanished forever! and they dwell now only in the religion of superstition. we found there was no place there for jacob's ladder to lean against; no place there for the gods and angels to live; no place to hold the waters of the deluge; no place to which christ could have ascended. the foundations of the new jerusalem crumbled. the towers and domes fell, and in their places infinite space, sown with an infinite number of stars; not with new jerusalems, but with countless constellations. copernicus and kepler. then man began to grow great, and with that came astronomy, in copernicus was born. in his great work appeared. in the system of copernicus was condemned by the pope, by the infallible catholic church, and the church was about as near right upon that subject as upon any other. the system of copernicus was denounced. and how long do you suppose the church fought that? let me tell you. it was revoked by pius vii. in the year of grace . for two hundred and seventy-eight years after the death of copernicus the church insisted that his system was false, and that the old bible astronomy was true. astronomy is the first help that we ever received from heaven. then came kepler in , and you may almost date the birth of science from the night that kepler discovered his first law. that was the break of the day. his first law, that the planets do not move in circles but in ellipses; his second law, that they describe equal spaces in equal times; his third law, that the squares of their periodic times are proportional to the cubes of their distances. that man gave us the key to the heavens. he opened the infinite book, and in it read three lines. i have not time to speak of galileo, of leonardo da vinci, of bruno, and of hundreds of others who contributed to the intellectual wealth of the world. special providence. the next thing that gave the church a blow was statistics. we found by taking statistics that we could tell the average length of human life; that this human life did not depend upon infinite caprice; that it depended upon conditions, circumstances, laws and facts, and that these conditions, circumstances, and facts were during long periods of time substantially the same. and now, the man who depends entirely upon special providence gets his life insured. he has more confidence even in one of these companies than he has in the whole trinity. we found by statistics that there were just so many crimes on an average committed; just so many crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so many suicides, so many deaths by drowning, so many accidents on an average, so many men marrying women, for instance, older than themselves; so many murders of a particular kind; just the same number of mistakes; and i say to-night, statistics utterly demolish the idea of special providence. only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. he knew it. he had been the subject of it. a few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he was detained. he did not go, and the ship was lost with all on board. "yes!" i said, "do you think the people who were drowned believed in special providence?" think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers and they go down to the bottom of the sea--fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands and wives waiting upon the chores of expectation. here is one poor little wretch that did not happen to go! and he thinks that god, the infinite being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. that is special providence. why does special providence allow all the crimes? why are the wife-beaters protected, and why are the wives and children left defenceless if the hand of god is over us all? who protects the insane? why does providence permit insanity? but the church cannot give up special providence. if there is no such thing, then no prayers, no worship, no churches, no priests. what would become of national thanksgiving? you know we have a custom every year of issuing a proclamation of thanksgiving. we say to god, "although you have afflicted all the other countries, although you have sent war, and desolation, and famine on everybody else, we have been such good children that you have been kind to us, and we hope you will keep on." it does not make a bit of difference whether we have good times or not--the thanksgiving is always exactly the same. i remember a few years ago a governor of iowa got out a proclamation of that kind. he went on to tell how thankful the people were and how prosperous the state had been. there was a young fellow in that state who got out another proclamation, saying that he feared the lord might be misled by official correspondence; that the governor's proclamation was entirely false; that the state was not prosperous; that the crops had been an almost utter failure; that nearly every farm in the state was mortgaged, and that if the lord did not believe him, all he asked was that he would send some angel in whom he had confidence, to look the matter over and report. charles darwin. this century will be called darwin's century. he was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. he has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. write the name of charles darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. his doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox christianity. he has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the bible is a book written by ignorance--at the instigation of fear. think of the men who replied to him. only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer charles darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. he was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the christian world, and yet when he died, england was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. charles darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. his light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox: churches, henry ward beecher, is a believer in the theories of charles darwin--a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together. and yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion is about to conquer the world! it will be driven to the wilds of africa. it must go to some savage country; it has lost its hold upon civilization. it is unfortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a nation. it is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good and noble heart protests. let us have a good religion or none. my pity has been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the passages of scripture to fit the demonstrations of science. of course, i have not time to recount all the discoveries and events that have assisted in the destruction of superstition. every fact is an enemy of the church. every fact is a heretic. every demonstration is an infidel. everything that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural. the church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. darwin demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. he shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; that the garden of eden is an ignorant myth; that the doctrine of original sin has no foundation in fact; that the atonement is an absurdity; that the serpent did not tempt, and that man did not "fall." charles darwin destroyed the foundation of orthodox christianity. there is nothing left but faith in what we know could not and did not happen. religion and science are enemies. one is a superstition; the other is a fact. one rests upon the false, the other upon the true. one is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason. the creeds. i have been talking a great deal about the orthodox religion. often, after having delivered a lecture, i have met some good, religious person who has said to me: "you do not tell it as we believe it." "well, but i tell it as you have it written in your creed." "oh, we don't mind the creed any more." "then, why do you not change it?" "oh, well, we understand it as it is, and if we tried to change it, maybe we would not agree." possibly the creeds are in the best condition now. there is a tacit understanding that they do not believe them, that there is a way to get around them, and that they can read between the lines; that if they should meet now to form new creeds they would fail to agree; and that now they can say as they please, except in public. whenever they do so in public the church, in self-defence, must try them; and i believe in trying every minister that does not preach the doctrine he agrees to. i have not the slightest sympathy with a presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach infidelity from a presbyterian pulpit and receives presbyterian money. when he changes his views he should step down and out like a man, and say, "i do not believe your doctrine, and i will not preach it. you must hire some other man." the latest creed. but i find that i have correctly interpreted the creeds. there was put into my hands the new congregational creed. i have read it, and i will call your attention to it to-night, to find whether that church has made any advance; to find whether the sun of science has risen in the heavens in vain; whether they are still the children of intellectual darkness; whether they still consider it necessary for you to believe something that you by no possibility can understand, in order to be a winged angel forever. now, let us see what their creed is. i will read a little of it. they commence by saying that they "_believe in one god, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible_." they say, now, that there is the one personal god; that he is the maker of the universe and its ruler. i again ask the old question, of what did he make it? if matter has not existed through eternity, then this god made it. of what did he make it? what did he use for the purpose? there was nothing in the universe except this god. what had the god been doing for the eternity he had been living? he had made nothing--called nothing into existence; never had had an idea, because it is impossible to have an idea unless there is something to excite an idea. what had he been doing? why does not the congregational church tell us? how do they know about this infinite being? and if he is infinite how can they comprehend him? what good is it to believe in something that you know you do not understand, and that you never can understand? in the episcopalian creed god is described as follows: "_there is but one living and true god, everlasting, without body, parts or passions_." think of that!--without body, parts, or passions. i defy any man in the world to write a better description of nothing. you cannot conceive of a finer word-painting of a vacuum than "without body, parts, or passions." and yet this god, without passions, is angry at the wicked every day; this god, without passions, is a jealous god, whose anger burneth to the lowest hell. this god, without passions, loves the whole human race; and this god, without passions, damns a large majority of mankind. this god without body, walked in the garden of eden, in the cool of the day. this god, without body, talked with adam and eve. this god, without body, or parts met moses upon mount sinai, appeared at the door of the tabernacle, and talked with moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend. this description of god is simply an effort of the church to describe a something of which it has no conception. god as a governor. so, too, i find the following: "_we believe that the providence of god, by which he executes his eternal purposes in the government of the world, is in and over all events._" is god the governor of the world? is this established by the history of nations? what evidence can you find, if you are absolutely honest and not frightened, in the history of the world, that this universe is presided over by an infinitely wise and good god? how do you account for russia? how do you account for siberia? how do you account for the fact that whole races of men toiled beneath the master's lash for ages without recompense and without reward? how do you account for the fact that babes were sold from the arms of mothers--arms that had been reached toward god in supplication? how do you account for it? how do you account for the existence of martyrs? how do you account for the fact that this god allows people to be burned simply for loving him? is justice always done? is innocence always acquitted? do the good succeed? are the honest fed? are the charitable clothed? are the virtuous shielded? how do you account for the fact that the world has been filled with pain, and grief, and tears? how do you account for the fact that people have been swallowed by earthquakes, overwhelmned by volcanoes, and swept from the earth by storms? is it easy to account for famine, for pestilence and plague if there be above us all a ruler infinitely good, powerful and wise? i do not say there is none. i do not know. as i have said before, this is the only planet i was ever on. i live in one of the rural districts of the universe, and do not know about these things as much as the clergy pretend to, but if they know no more about the other world than they do about this, it is not worth mentioning. how do they answer all this? they say that god "permits" it. what would you say to me if i stood by and saw a ruffian beat out the brains of a child, when i had full and perfect power to prevent it? you would say truthfully that i was as bad as the murderer. is it possible for this god to prevent it? then, if he does not he is a fiend; he is no god. but they say he "permits" it. what for? so that we may have freedom of choice. what for? so that god may find, i suppose, who are good and who are bad. did he not know that when he made us? did he not know exactly just what he was making? why should he make those whom he knew would be criminals? if i should make a machine that would walk your streets and take the lives of people you would hang me. and if god made a man whom he knew would commit murder, then god is guilty of that murder. if god made a man knowing that he would beat his wife, that he would starve his children, that he would strew on either side of his path of life the wrecks of ruined homes, then i say the being who knowingly called that wretch into existence is directly responsible. and yet we are to find the providence of god in the history of nations. what little i have read shows me that when man has been helped, man has done it; when the chains of slavery have been broken, they have been broken by man; when something bad has been done in the government of mankind, it is easy to trace it to man, and to fix the responsibility upon human beings. you need not look to the sky; you need throw neither praise nor blame upon gods; you can find the efficient causes nearer home--right here. the love of god. what is the next thing i find in this creed? "_we believe that man was made in the image of god, that he might know, love, and obey god, and enjoy him forever._" i do not believe that anybody ever did love god, because nobody ever knew anything about him. we love each other. we love something that we know. we love something that our experience tells us is good and great and beautiful. we cannot by any possibility love the unknown. we can love truth, because truth adds to human happiness. we can love justice, because it preserves human joy. we can love charity. we can love every form of goodness that we know, or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love the infinitely unknown. and how can we be made in the image of something that has neither body, parts, nor passions? the fall of man. the congregational church has not outgrown the doctrine of "original sin." we are told that: "_our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation of god, and that all men are so alienated from god that there is no salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through god's redeeming power._" is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the garden of eden story? if you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. something is for rent. does any intelligent man now believe that god made man of dust, and woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the midst of it? was there not room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he did not want people to eat his apples? if i did not want a man to eat my fruit, i would not put him in my orchard. does anybody now believe in the story of the serpent? i pity any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. why did adam and eve disobey? why, they were tempted. by whom? the devil. who made the devil? god. what did god make him for? why did he not tell adam and eve about this serpent? why did he not watch the devil, instead of watching adam and eve? instead of turning them out, why did he not keep him from getting in? why did he not have his flood first, and drown the devil, before he made a man and woman. and yet, people who call themselves intelligent--professors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions--teach children and young men that the garden of eden story is an absolute historical fact. i defy any man to think of a more childish thing. this god, waiting around eden--knowing all the while what would happen--having made them on purpose so that it would happen, then does what? holds all of us responsible, and we were not there. here is a representative before the constituency had been born. before i am bound by a representative i want a chance to vote for or against him; and if i had been there, and known all the circumstances, i should have voted "no!" and yet, i am held responsible. we are told by the bible and by the churches that through this fall of man "_sin and death entered the world?_" according to this, just as soon as adam and eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, god began to contrive ways by which he could destroy the lives of his children. he invented all the diseases--all the fevers and coughs and colds--all the pains and plagues and pestilences--all the aches and agonies, the malaria and spores; so that when we take a breath of air we admit into our lungs unseen assassins; and, fearing that some might live too long, even under such circumstances, god invented the earthquake and volcano, the cyclone and lightning, animalcules to infest the heart and brain, so small that no eye can detect--no instrument reach. this was all owing to the disobedience of adam and eve! in his infinite goodness, god invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. not only this', but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. he caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. he changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. he cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. he poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure,--with a moment's joy. then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. and yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good god. increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination's farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called "the fall of man." the atonement. we are further told that: "_all men are so alienated from god that there is no alleviation from the guilt and power of sin except through god's redeeming grace;_" and that: "_we believe that the love of god to sinful man has found its highest expression in the redemptive work of his son, who became man, uniting his divine nature with our human nature in one person; who was tempted like other men and yet without sin, and by his humiliation, his holy obedience, his sufferings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection, became a perfect redeemer; whose sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world declares the righteousness of god, and is the sole and sufficient ground of forgiveness and of reconciliation with him_." the absurdity of the doctrine known as "the fall of man," gave birth to that other absurdity known as "the atonement." so that now it is insisted that, as we are rightfully charged with the sin of somebody else, we can rightfully be credited with the virtues of another. let us leave out of our philosophy both these absurdities. our creed will read a great deal better with both of them out, and will make far better sense. now, in consequence of adam's sin, everybody is alienated from god. how? why? oh, we are all depraved, you know; we all do wrong. well, why? is that because we are depraved? no. why do we make so many mistakes? because there is only one right way, and there is an almost infinite number of wrong ways; and as long as we are not perfect in our intellects we must make mistakes. "there is no darkness but ignorance," and alienation, as they call it, from god, is simply a lack of intellect. why were we not given better brains? that may account for the alienation. the church teaches that every soul that finds its way to the shore of this world is against god--naturally hates god; that the little dimpled child in the cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. everybody against god! it is a libel upon the human race; it is a libel upon all the men who have worked for wife and child; upon all mothers who have suffered and labored, wept and worked; upon all the men who have died for their country; upon all who have fought for human liberty. leave out the history of religion and there is little left to prove the depravity of man. everybody that comes is against god! every soul, they think, is like the wrecked irishman, who drifted to an unknown island, and as he climbed the shore saw a man and said to him, "have you a government here?" the man replied "we have." "well," said he, "i'm forninst it!" the church teaches us that such is the attitude of every soul in the universe of god. ought a god to take any credit to himself for making depraved people? a god that cannot make a soul that is not totally depraved, i respectfully suggest, should retire from the business. and if a god has made us, knowing that we are totally depraved, why should we go to the same being to be "born again?" the second birth. the church insists that we must be "born again" and that all who are not the subjects of this second birth are heirs of everlasting fire. would it not have been much better to have made another adam and eve? would it not have been better to change noah and his people, so that after that a second birth would not have been necessary? why not purify the fountain of all human life? why allow the earth to be peopled with depraved and monstrous beings, each one of whom must be re-made, re-formed, and born again? and yet, even reformation is not enough. if the man who steals becomes perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man who hates his fellow-man, changes and loves his fellow-man, that is not enough; he must go through that mysterious thing called the second birth; he must be born again. he must have faith; he must believe something that he does not understand, and experience what they call "conversion." according to the church, nothing so excites the wrath of god--nothing so corrugates the brows of jehovah with hatred--as a man relying on his own good works. he must admit that he ought to be damned, and that of the two he prefers it, before god will consent to save him. i met a man the other day, who said to me, "i am a unitarian universalist." "what do you mean by that?" i asked. "well," said he, "this is what i mean: the unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned, and the universalist thinks god is too good to damn him, and i believe them both." is it possible that the sacrifice of a perfect being was acceptable to god? will he accept the agony of innocence for the punishment of guilt? will he release barabbas and crucify christ? inspiration. what is the next thing in this great creed? "_we believe that the scriptures of the old and new testaments are the record of god's revelation of himself, the work of redemption; that they were written by men under the special guidance of the holy spirit; that they are able to make wise unto salvation; and that they constitute an authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged._" this is the creed of the congregational church; that is, the result reached by a high-joint commission appointed to draw up a creed for their churches; and there we have the statement that the bible was written "by men under the special guidance of the holy spirit." what part of the bible? all of it? all of it. and yet what is this old testament that was written by an infinitely good god? the being who wrote it did not know the shape of the world he had made; knew nothing of human nature. he commands men to love him, as if one could love upon command. the same god upheld the institution of human slavery; and the church says that the bible that upholds that institution was written by men under the guidance of the holy spirit. then i disagree with the holy spirit. this church tells us that men under the guidance of the holy spirit upheld the institution of polygamy--i deny it; that under the guidance of the holy spirit these men upheld wars of extermination and conquest--i deny it; that under the guidance of the holy spirit these men wrote that it was right for a man to destroy the life of his wife if she happened to differ with him on the subject of religion--i deny it. and yet that is the book now upheld in this creed of the congregational church. if the devil had written upon the subject of slavery, which side would he have taken? let every minister answer. if you knew the devil had written a work on human slavery, in your judgment, would he uphold slavery, or denounce it? would you regard it as any evidence that he ever wrote it, if it upheld slavery? and yet, here you have a work upholding slavery, and you say that it was written by an infinitely good god! if the devil upheld polygamy, would you be surprised? if the devil wanted to kill men for differing with him would you be astonished? if the devil told a man to kill his wife, would you be shocked? and yet, you say, that is exactly what god did. if there be a god, then that creed is blasphemy. that creed is a libel upon him who sits on heaven's throne. if there be a god, i ask him to write in the book in which my account is kept, that i denied these lies for him. i do not believe in a slaveholding god! i do not worship a polygamous holy ghost, nor a son who threatens eternal pain; i will not get upon my knees before any being who commands a husband to slay his wife because she expresses her honest thought. suppose a book should be found old as the old testament in which slavery, polygamy and war are all denounced, would christians think that it was written by the devil? did it ever occur to you that if god wrote the old testament, and told the jews to crucify or kill anybody that disagreed with them on religion, and that this god afterward took upon himself flesh and came to jerusalem, and taught a different religion, and the jews killed him--did it ever occur to you that he reaped exactly what he had sown? did it ever occur to you that he fell a victim to his own tyranny, and was destroyed by his own hand? of course i do not believe that any god ever was the author of the bible, or that any god was ever crucified, or that any god was ever killed, or ever will be, but i want to ask you that question. take this old testament, then, with all its stories of murder and massacre; with all its foolish and cruel fables; with all its infamous doctrines; with its spirit of caste; with its spirit of hatred, and tell me whether it was written by a good god. if you will read the maledictions and curses of that book, you will think that god, like lear, had divided heaven among his daughters, and then, in the insanity of despair, had launched his curses on the human race. and yet, i must say--i must admit--that the old testament is better than the new. in the old testament, when god had a man dead, he let him alone. when he saw him quietly in his grave he was satisfied. the muscles relaxed, and the frown gave place to a smile. but in the new testament the trouble commences at death. in the new testament god is to wreak his revenge forever and ever. it was reserved for one who said, "love your enemies," to tear asunder the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the gulfs of eternal fire. the new testament is just as much worse than the old, as hell is worse than sleep; just as much worse, as infinite cruelty is worse than dreamless rest; and yet, the new testament is claimed to be a gospel of love and peace. is it possible that: "_the scriptures constitute the authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged"?_ are we to judge of conduct by the old testament, by the new, or by both? according to the old, the slaveholder was a just and generous man; a polygamist was a model of virtue. according to the new, the worst can be forgiven and the best can be lost. how can any book be a standard, when the standard itself must be measured by human reason? is there a standard of a standard? must not the reason be convinced? and, if so, is not the reason of each man the final arbiter of that man? if he takes a book as a standard, does he so take it because it is to him reasonable? in what way is the human reason to be ignored? why should a book take its place, unless the reason has been convinced that the book is the proper standard? if this is so, the book rests upon the reason of those who adopt it. are they to be saved because they act in accordance with their reason, and are others to be damned because they act by the same standard--their reason? no two are alike. can we demand of all the same result? suppose the compasses were not constant to the pole--no two compasses exactly alike--would you expect all ships to reach the same harbor? the reign of truth and love. i also find in this creed the following: "_we believe that jesus christ came to establish among men the kingdom of god, the reign of truth and love, of righteousness and peace!_" well, that may have been the object of jesus christ. i do not deny it. but what was the result? the christian world has caused more war than all the rest of the world beside. most of the cunning instruments of death have been devised by christians. all the wonderful machinery by which the life is blown from men, by which nations are conquered and enslaved--all these machines have been born in christian brains. and yet he came to bring peace, they say; but the testament says otherwise: "i came not to bring peace, but a sword." and the sword was brought. what are the christian nations doing to-day in europe? is there a solitary christian nation that will trust any other? how many millions of christians are in the uniform of forgiveness, armed with the muskets of love? there was an old spaniard on the bed of death, who sent for a priest, and the priest told him that he would have to forgive his enemies before he died. he said, "i have none." "what! no enemies?" "not one," said the dying man; "i killed the last one three months ago." how many millions of christians are now armed and equipped to destroy their fellow-christians? who are the men in europe crying against war? who wishes to have the nations disarmed? is it the church? no; the men who do not believe in what they call this religion of peace. when there is a war, and when they make a few thousand widows and orphans; when they strew the plain with dead patriots, christians assemble in their churches and sing "te deum laudamus." why? because he has enabled a few of his children to kill some others of his children. this is the religion of peace--the religion that invented the krupp gun, that will hurl a ball weighing two thousand pounds through twenty-four inches of solid steel. this is the religion of peace that covers the sea with men-of-war, clad in mail, in the name of universal forgiveness. this is the religion that drills and uniforms five millions of men to kill their fellows. the wars it brought. what effect has this religion had upon the nations of the earth? what have the nations been fighting about? what was the thirty years' war in europe for? what was the war in holland for? why was it that england persecuted scotland? why is it that england persecutes ireland even to this day? at the bottom of every one of these conflicts you will find a religious question. the religion of jesus christ, as preached by his church, causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? because, they say, a certain belief is necessary to salvation. they do not say, if you behave yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. no matter how bad you are, you can instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah." what do they teach to-day? nearly every murderer goes to heaven; there is only one step from the gallows to god, only one jerk between the halter and heaven. that is taught by this church. i believe there ought to be a law to prevent the giving of the slightest religious consolation to any man who has been found guilty of murder. let a catholic understand that if he imbrues his hands in his brother's blood, he can have no extreme unction. let it be understood that he can have no forgiveness through the church; and let the protestant understand that when he has committed that crime the community will not pray him into heaven. let him go with his victim. the victim, dying in his sins, goes to hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. if heaven grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim. the truth is, christianity has not made friends; it has made enemies. it is not, as taught, the religion of peace, it is the religion of war. why should a christian hesitate to kill a man that his god is waiting to damn? why should a christian not destroy an infidel who is trying to assassinate his soul? why should a christian pity an unbeliever--one who has rejected the bible--when he knows that god will be pitiless forever? and yet we are told, in this creed, that "_we believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of christ over all the earth._" what makes you? do you judge from the manner in which you are getting along now? how many people are being born a year? about fifty millions. how many are you converting a year, really, truthfully? five or six thousand. i think i have overstated the number. is orthodox christianity on the increase? no. there are a hundred times as many unbelievers in orthodox christianity as there were ten years ago. what are you doing in the missionary world? how long is it since you converted a chinaman? a fine missionary religion, to send missionaries with their bibles and tracts to china, but if a chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show him the difference between the practical and theoretical workings of the christian religion. how long since you have had an intelligent convert in india? in my judgment, never; there never has been an intelligent hindoo converted from the time the first missionary put his foot on that soil; and never, in my judgment, has an intelligent chinaman been converted since the first missionary touched that shore. where are they? we hear nothing of them, except in the reports. they get money from poor old ladies, trembling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them stories, how hungry the average chinaman is for a copy of the new testament, and paint the sad condition of a gentleman in the interior of africa without the works of dr. mccosh, longing for a copy of _the princeton review_,--in my judgment, a pamphlet that would suit a savage. thus money is scared from the dying, and frightened from the old and feeble. about how long is it before this kingdom is to be established? no one objects to the establishment of peace and good will. every good man longs for the time when war shall cease. we are all hoping for a day of universal justice--a day of universal freedom--when man shall control himself, when the passions shall become obedient to the intelligent will. but the coming of that day will not be hastened by preaching the doctrines of total depravity and eternal revenge. that sun will not rise the quicker for preaching salvation by faith. the star that shines above that dawn, the herald of that day, is science, not superstition,--reason, not religion. to show you how little advance has been made, how many intellectual bats and mental owls still haunt the temple, still roost above the altar, i call your attention to the fact that the congregational church, according to this creed; still believes in the resurrection of the dead, and in their confession of faith, attached to the creed, i find that they also believe in the literal resurrection of the body. the resurrection. does anybody believe that, who has the courage to think for himself? here is a man, for instance, that weighs pounds and gets sick and dies weighing ; how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrection? here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and we know that the atoms you eat go into your body and become a part of you. after the cannibal has eaten the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then dies, to whom will the atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection? could the missionary maintain an action of replevin, and if so, what would the cannibal do for a body? it has been demonstrated, in so far as logic can demonstrate anything, that there is no creation and no destruction in nature. it has been demonstrated, again and again, that the atoms in us have been in millions of other beings; have grown in the forests and in the grass, have blossomed in flowers, and been in the metals. in other words, there are atoms in each one of us that have been in millions of others; and when we die, these atoms return to the earth, again appear in grass and trees, are again eaten by animals, and again devoured by countless vegetable mouths and turned into wood; and yet this church, in the nineteenth century,'in a council composed of, and presided over by, professors and presidents of colleges and theologians, solemnly tells us that it believes in the literal resurrection of the body. this is almost enough to make one despair of the future--almost enough to convince a man of the immortality of the absurd. they know better. there is not one so ignorant but knows better. the judgment-day. and what is the next thing? "_we believe in a final judgment, the issues of which are everlasting punishment and everlasting life!_" at the final judgment all of us will be there. the thousands, and millions, and billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there. the books will be opened, and each case will be called. the sheep and the goats will be divided. the unbelievers will be sent to the left, while the faithful will proudly walk to the right. the saved, without a tear, will bid an eternal farewell to those who loved them here--to those they loved. nearly all the human race will go away to everlasting punishment, and the fortunate few to eternal life. this is the consolation of the congregational church! this is the hope that dispels the gloom of life! pious evasions. when the clergy are caught, they give a different meaning to the words and say the world was not made in seven days. they say "good whiles"--"epochs." and in this same confession of faith and in this creed they say that the lord's day is holy--every seventh day. suppose you lived near the north pole where the day is three months long. then which day would you keep? if you could get to the north pole you could prevent sunday from ever overtaking you. you could walk around the other way faster than the world could revolve. how would you keep sunday then? suppose we invent something that can go one thousand miles an hour? we can chase sunday clear around the globe. is there anything that can be more perfectly absurd than that a space of time can be holy? you might as well talk about a virtuous vacuum. we are now told that the bible is not a scientific book, and that after all we cannot depend on what god said four thousand years ago--that his ways are not as our ways--that we must accept without evidence, and believe without understanding. i heard the other night of an old man. he was not very well educated, and he got into the notion that he must have reading of the bible and family worship. there was a bad boy in the family, and they were reading the bible by course. in the fifteenth chapter of corinthians is this passage: "behold, brethren, i show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed." this boy had rubbed out the "c" in "changed." so when the old man put on his spectacles, and got down his bible, he read: "behold, brethren, i show you a mystery, we shall not all die, but we shall all be hanged." the old lady said, "father, i don't think it reads that way." he said, "who is reading this?" "yes mother, it says 'hanged,' and, more than that, i see the sense of it. pride is the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging." it is in this way that ministers avoid and explain the discoveries of science. people ask me, if i take away the bible what are we going to do? how can we get along without the revelation that no one understands? what are we going to do if we have no bible to quarrel about what are we to do without hell? what are we going to do with our enemies? what are we going to do with the people we love but don't like? "no bible, no civilization." they tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had not been for this bible. the jews had a bible; the romans had not. which had the greater and the grander government? let us be honest. which of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? rome had no bible. god cared nothing for the roman empire. he let the men come up by chance. his time was taken up with the jewish people. and yet rome conquered the world, including the chosen people of god. the people who had the bible were defeated by the people who had not. how was it possible for lucretius to get along without the bible?--how did the great and glorious of that empire? and what shall we say of greece? no bible. compare athens with jerusalem. from athens come the beauty and intellectual grace of the world. compare the mythology of greece with the mythology of judea; one covering the earth with beauty, and the other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. the hindoos had no bible; they had been forsaken by the creator, and yet they became the greatest metaphysicians of the world. egypt had no bible. compare egypt with judea. what are we to do without the bible? what became of the jews who had a bible? their temple was destroyed and their city was taken; and they never found real prosperity until their god deserted them. the turks attributed all their victories to the koran. the koran gave them their victories over the believers in the bible. the priests of each nation have accounted for the prosperity of that nation by its religion. the christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine that the bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. they forget physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their inspired book. the foundations of our civilization were laid centuries before christianity was known. the intelligence of courage, of self-government, of energy, of industry, that uniting made the civilization of this century, did not come alone from judea, but from every nation of the ancient world. miracles of the new testament. there are many things in the new testament that i cannot accept as true. i cannot believe in the miraculous origin of jesus christ. i believe he was the son of joseph and mary; that joseph and mary had been duly and legally married; that he was the legitimate offspring of that union. nobody ever believed the contrary until he had been dead at least one hundred and fifty years. neither matthew, mark, nor luke ever dreamed that he was of divine origin. he did not say to either matthew, mark, or luke, or to any one in their hearing, that he was the son of god, or that he was miraculously conceived. he did not say it. it may be asserted that he said it to john, but john did not write the gospel that bears his name. the angel gabriel, who, they say, brought the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. the mother of christ never wrote a word upon the subject. his alleged father never wrote a word upon the subject, and joseph never admitted the story. we are lacking in the matter of witnesses. i would not believe such a story now. i cannot believe that it happened then. i would not believe people i know, much less would i believe people i do not know. at that time matthew and luke believed that christ was the son of joseph and mary. and why? they say he descended from david, and in order to show that he was of the blood of david, they gave the genealogy of joseph. and if joseph was not his father, why did they not give the genealogy of pontius pilate or of herod? could they, by giving the genealogy of joseph, show that he was of the blood of david if joseph was in no way related to christ? and yet that is the position into which the christian world is driven. in the new testament we find that in giving the genealogy of christ it says, "who was the son of joseph?" and the church has interpolated the words "as was supposed." why did they give a supposed genealogy? it will not do. and that is a thing that cannot in any way, by any human testimony, be established. if it is important for us to know that he was the son of god, i say, then, that it devolves upon god to give us the evidence. let him write it across the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. if it is necessary for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf next year. no man should be damned for not believing, unless the evidence is overwhelming. and he ought not to be made to depend upon say so, or upon "as was supposed." he should have it directly, for himself. a man says that god told him a certain thing, and he tells me, and i have only his word. he may have been deceived. if god has a message for me he ought to tell it to me, and not to somebody that has been dead four or five thousand years, and in another language. besides, god may have changed his mind on many things; he has on slavery, and polygamy at least, according to the church; and yet his church now wants to go and destroy polygamy in utah with the sword. why do they not send missionaries there with copies of the old testament? by reading the lives of abraham and isaac, and lot, and a few other patriarchs who ought to have been in the penitentiary, maybe they can soften their hearts. more miracles. there is another miracle i do not believe,--the resurrection. i want to speak about it as we would about any ordinary transaction. in the first place, i do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there was, you cannot prove it. why? because it is altogether more reasonable to believe that the people were mistaken about it than that it happened. and why? because, according to human experience, we know that people will not always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle ourselves, and we must be governed by our experience; and if we go by our experience, we must say that the miracle never happened--that the witnesses were mistaken. a man comes into jerusalem, and the first thing he does is to cure the blind. he lets the light of day visit the night of blindness. the eyes are opened, and the world is again pictured upon the brain. another man is clothed with leprosy. he touches him and the disease falls from him, and he stands pure, and clean, and whole. another man is deformed, wrinkled, and bent. he touches him, and throws around him again the garment of youth. a man is in his grave, and he says, "come forth!" and the man walks in life, feeling his heart throb and his blood going joyously through his veins. they say that actually happened. i do not know. there is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised--we do not hear of them any more. what became of them? if there was a man in this city who had been raised from the dead, i would go to see him to-night. i would say, "where were you when you got the notice to come back? what kind of a country is it? what kind of opening there for a young man? how did you like it? did you meet there the friends you had lost? is there a world without death, without pain, without a tear? is there a land without a grave, and where good-bye is never heard?" nobody ever paid the slightest attention to the dead who had been raised. they did not even excite interest when they died the second time. nobody said, "why, that man is not afraid. he has been there once. he has walked through the valley of the shadow." not a word. they pass quietly away. i do not believe these miracles. there is something wrong somewhere about that business. i may suffer eternal punishment for all this, but i cannot, i do not, believe. there was a man who did all these things, and thereupon they crucified him. let us be honest. suppose a man came into this city and should meet a funeral procession, and say, "who is dead?" and they should reply, "the son of a widow; her only support." suppose he should say to the procession, "halt!" and to the undertaker, "take out that coffin, unscrew that lid. young man, i say unto thee, arise!" and the dead should step from the coffin and in a moment afterward hold his mother in his arms. suppose this stranger should go to your cemetery and find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, "who lies buried here?" and she should reply, "my husband;" and he should cry, "i say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead!" and the husband should rise, and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little children with their arms around his neck; do you think that the people of this city would kill him? do you think any one would wish to crucify him? do you not rather believe that every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him to give back their dead? do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death? let me tell you to-night if there shall ever appear upon this earth the master, the monarch, of death, all human knees will touch the earth. he will not be crucified. all the living who fear death; all the living who have lost a loved one, will bow to him. and yet we are told that this worker of miracles, this man who could clothe the dead dust in the throbbing flesh of life, was crucified. i do not believe that he worked the miracles, i do not believe that he raised the dead, i do not believe that he claimed to be the son of god, these things were told long after he was dead; told because the ignorant multitude demanded mystery and wonder; told, because at that time the miraculous was believed of all the illustrious dead. stories that made christianity powerful then, weaken it now. he who gains a triumph in a conflict with a devil, will be defeated by science. there is another thing about these foolish miracles. all could have been imitated. men could pretend to be blind; confederates could feign sickness, and even death. it is not very difficult to limp or to hold an arm as though it were paralyzed; or to say that one is afflicted with "an issue of blood." it is easy to say that the son of a widow was raised from the dead, and if you fail to give the name of the son, or his mother, or the time and place where the wonder occurred, it is quite difficult to show that it did not happen. no one can be called upon to disprove anything that has not apparently been established. i say apparently, because there can be no real evidence in support of a miracle. how could we prove, for instance, the miracle of the loaves and fishes? there were plenty of other loaves and other fishes in the world? each one of the five thousand could have had a loaf and a fish with him. we would have to show that there was no other possible way for the people to get the bread and fish except by miracle, and then we are only half through. we must then show that they did, in fact, get enough to feed five thousand people, and that more was left than was had in the beginning. of course this is simply impossible. and let me ask, why was not the miracle substantiated by some of the multitude? would it not have been a greater wonder if christ had _created_ instead of multiplied the loaves and fishes? how can we now prove that a certain person more than eighteen hundred years ago was possessed by seven devils? how was it ever possible to prove a thing like that? how can it be established that some evil spirits could talk while others were dumb, and that the dumb ones were the hardest to control? if christ wished to convince his fellow-men by miracles, why did he not do something that could not by any means have been a counterfeit? instead of healing a withered arm, why did he not find some man whose arm had been cut off, and make another grow? if he wanted to raise the dead, why did he not raise some man of importance, some one known to all? why did he do his miracles in the obscurity of the village, in the darkness of the hovel? why call back to life people so insignificant that the public did not know of their death? suppose that in may, , a man had pretended to raise some person by the name of smith from the dead, and suppose a religion had been founded on that miracle, would it not be natural for people, hundreds of years after the pretended miracle, to ask why the founder of that religion did not raise from the dead abraham lincoln, instead of the unknown and obscure mr. smith? how could any man now, in any court, by any known rule of evidence, substantiate one of the miracles of christ? must we believe anything that cannot in any way be substantiated? if miracles were necessary to convince men eighteen centuries ago, are they not necessary now? after all, how many men did christ convince with his miracles? how many walked beneath the standard of the master of nature? how did it happen that so many miracles convinced so few? i will tell you. the miracles were never performed. no other explanation is possible. it is infinitely absurd to say that a man who cured the sick, the halt and blind, raised the dead, cast out devils, controlled the winds and waves, created food and held obedient to his will the forces of the world, was put to death by men who knew his superhuman power and who had seen his wondrous works. if the crucifixion was public, the miracles were private. if the miracles had been public, the crucifixion could not have been. do away with the miracles, and the superhuman character of christ is destroyed. he becomes what he really was--a man. do away with the wonders, and the teachings of christ cease to be authoritative. they are then worth the reason, the truth that is in them, and nothing more. do away with the miracles, and then we can measure the utterances of christ with the standard of our reason. we are no longer intellectual serfs, believing what is unreasonable in obedience to the command of a supposed god. we no longer take counsel of our fears, of our cowardice, but boldly defend what our reason maintains. christ takes his appropriate place with the other teachers of mankind. his life becomes reasonable and admirable. we have a man who hated oppression; who despised and denounced superstition and hypocrisy; who attacked the heartless church of his time; who excited the hatred of bigots and priests, and who rather than be false to his conception of truth, met and bravely suffered even death. the resurrection. the miracle of the resurrection i do not and cannot believe. if it was the fact, if the dead christ rose from the grave, why did he not appear to his enemies? why did he not visit pontius pilate? why did he not call upon caiaphas, the high priest? upon herod? why did he not again enter the temple and end the old dispute with demonstration? why did he not confront the roman soldiers who had taken money to falsely swear that his body had been stolen by his friends? why did he not make another triumphal entry into jerusalem? why did he not say to the multitude: "here are the wounds in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. i am the one you endeavored to kill, but death is my slave"? simply because the resurrection is a myth. it makes no difference with his teachings. they are just as good whether he wrought miracles or not. twice two are four; that needs no miracle. twice two are five--a miracle can not help that. christ's teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. it makes no difference about miracle or wonder. in that day every one believed in the impossible. nobody had any standing as teacher, philosopher, governor, king, general, about whom there was not supposed to be something miraculous. the earth was covered with the sons and daughters of gods and goddesses. in greece, in rome, in egypt, in india, every great man was supposed to have had either a god for his father, or a goddess for his mother. they accounted for genius by divine origin. earth and heaven were at that time near together. it was but a step for the gods from the blue arch to the green earth. every lake and valley and mountain top was made rich with legends of the loves of gods. how could the early christians have made converts to a man, among a people who believed so thoroughly in gods--in gods that had lived upon the earth; among a people who had erected temples to the sons and daughters of gods? such people could not have been induced to worship a man--a man born among barbarous people, citizen of a nation weak and poor and paying tribute to the roman power. the early christians therefore preached the gospel of a god. the ascension. i cannot believe in the miracle of the ascension, in the bodily ascension of jesus christ. where was he going? in the light shed upon this question by the telescope, i again ask, where was he going? the new jerusalem is not above us. the abode of the gods is not there. where was he going? which way did he go? of course that depends upon the time of day he left. if he left in the evening, he went exactly the opposite way from that he would have gone had he ascended in the morning. what did he do with his body? how high did he go? in what way did he overcome the intense cold? the nearest station is the moon, two hundred and forty thousand miles away. again i ask, where did he go? he must have had a natural body, for it was the same body that died. his body must have been material, otherwise he would not as he rose have circled with the earth, and he would have passed from the sight of his disciples at the rate of more than a thousand miles per hour. it may be said that his body was "spiritual." then what became of the body that died? just before his ascension we are told that he partook of broiled fish with his disciples. was the fish "spiritual?" who saw this miracle? they say the disciples saw it. let us see what they say. matthew did not think it was worth mentioning. he does not speak of it. on the contrary, he says that the last words of christ were: "lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." is it possible that matthew saw this, the most miraculous of miracles, and yet forgot to put it in his life of christ? think of the little miracles recorded by this saint, and then determine whether it is probable that he witnessed the ascension of jesus christ. mark says: "so, then, after the lord had spoken unto them he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of god." this is all he says about the most wonderful vision that ever astonished human eyes, a miracle great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet all we have is this one, poor, meagre verse. we know now that most of the last chapter of mark is an interpolation, and as a matter of fact, the author of mark's gospel said nothing about the ascension one way or the other. luke says: "and it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and was carried up into heaven." john does not mention it. he gives as christ's last words this address to peter: "follow thou me." of course, he did not say that as he ascended. it seems to have made very little impression upon him; he writes the account as though tired of the story. he concludes with an impatient wave of the hand. in the acts we have another account. a conversation is given not spoken of in any of the others, and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who said: "ye men of galilee why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? this same jesus that was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven." matthew did not see the men in white apparel, did not see the ascension. mark forgot the entire transaction, and luke did not think the men in white apparel worth mentioning. john had not confidence enough in the story to repeat it. and yet, upon such evidence, we are bound to believe in the bodily ascension, or suffer eternal pain. and here let me ask, why was not the ascension in public? casting out devils. most of the miracles said to have been wrought by christ were recorded to show his power over evil spirits. on many occasions, he is said to have "cast out devils"--devils who could speak, and devils who were dumb. for many years belief in the existence of evil spirits has been fading from the mind, and as this belief grew thin, ministers endeavored to give new meanings to the ancient words. they are inclined now to put "disease" in the place of "devils," and most of them say, that the poor wretches supposed to have been the homes of fiends, were simply suffering from epileptic fits! we must remember that christ and these devils often conversed together. is it possible that fits can talk? these devils often admitted that christ was god. can epilepsy certify to divinity? on one occasion the fits told their name, and made a contract to leave the body of a man provided they would be permitted to take possession of a herd of swine. is it possible that fits carried christ himself to the pinnacle of a temple? did fits pretend to be the owner of the whole earth? is christ to be praised for resisting such a temptation? is it conceivable that fits wanted christ to fall down and worship them? the church must not abandon its belief in devils. orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell. throw away a belief in the devil, and most of the miracles of the new testament become impossible, even if we admit the supernatural. if there is no devil, who was the original tempter in the garden of eden? if there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what purpose is the atonement? upon the obverse of the christian shield is god, upon the reverse, the devil. no devil, no hell. no hell, no atonement. no atonement, no preaching, no gospel. necessity of belief. does belief depend upon evidence? i think it does somewhat in some cases. how is it when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence, hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, are upon their oaths equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the defendant? evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. why? our brains are not alike. they are not the same shape. we have not the same intelligence, or the same experience, the same sense. and yet i am held accountable for my belief. i must believe in the trinity--three times one is one, once one is three, and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. that is the poison part of christianity--that salvation depends upon belief. that is the accursed part, and until that dogma is discarded christianity will be nothing but superstition. no man can control his belief. if i hear certain evidence i will believe a certain thing. if i fail to hear it i may never believe it. if it is adapted to my mind i may accept it; if it is not, i reject it. and what am i to go by? my brain. that is the only light i have from nature, and if there be a god it is the only torch that this god has given me to find my way through the darkness and night called life. i do not depend upon hearsay for that. i do not have to take the word of any other man nor get upon my knees before a book. here in the temple of the mind i consult the god, that is to say my reason, and the oracle speaks to me and i obey the oracle. what should i obey? another man's oracle? shall i take another man's word--not what he thinks, but what he says some god has said to him? i would not know a god if i should see one. i have said before, and i say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and i am not responsible for my thoughts. i cannot control the beating of my heart. i cannot stop the blood that flows through the rivers of my veins. and yet i am held responsible for my belief. then why does not god give me the evidence? they say he has. in what? in an inspired book. but i do not understand it as they do. must i be false to my understanding? they say: "when you come to die you will be sorry if you do not." will i be sorry when i come to die that i did not live a hypocrite? will i be sorry that i did not say i was a christian when i was not? will the fact that i was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? cannot god forgive me for being honest? they say that when he was in jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing from him on the subject of the trinity. they say that god says to me, "forgive your enemies." i say, "i do;" but he says, "i will damn mine." god should be consistent. if he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. i am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. god is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. he certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. and i want no god to forgive me unless i am willing to forgive others, and unless i do forgive others. all i ask, if that be true, is that this god should act according to his own doctrine. if i am to forgive my enemies, i ask him to forgive his. i do not believe in the religion of faith, but of kindness, of good deeds. the idea that man is responsible for his belief is at the bottom of religious intolerance and persecution. how inconsistent these christians are! in st. louis the other day i read an interview with a christian minister--one who is now holding a revival. they call him the boy preacher--a name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. the question was whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy seats with white people; and that revivalist, preaching the unsearchable riches of christ, said he would not allow the colored people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the church. these same christians tell us that in heaven there will be no distinction. that christ cares nothing for the color of the skin. that in paradise white and black will sit together, swap harps, and cry hallelujah in chorus; yet this minister, believing as he says he does, that all men who fail to believe in the lord jesus christ will eternally perish, was not willing that a colored man should sit by a white man and hear the gospel of everlasting peace. according to this revivalist, the ship of the world is going down; christ is the only life-boat; and yet he is not willing that a colored man, with a soul to save, shall sit by the side of a white brother, and be rescued from eternal death. he admits that the white brother is totally depraved; that if the white brother had justice done him he would be damned; that it is only through the wonderful mercy of god that the white man is not in hell; and yet such a being, totally depraved, is too good to sit by a colored man! total depravity becomes arrogant; total depravity draws the color line in religion, and an ambassador of christ says to the black man, "stand away; let your white brother hear first about the love of god." i believe in the religion of humanity. it is far better to love our fellow-men than to love god. we can help them. we cannot help him. we had better do what we can than to be always pretending to do what we cannot. virtue is of no color; kindness, justice and love, of no complexion. eternal punishment. now i come to the last part of this creed--the doctrine of eternal punishment. i have concluded that i will never deliver a lecture in which i will not attack the doctrine of eternal pain. that part of the congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that crouches and crawls in the jungles of africa. the man who now, in the nineteenth century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of an eternal hell, has lived in vain. think of that doctrine! the eternity of punishment! i find in this same creed--in this latest utterance of congregationalism--that christ is finally going to triumph in this world and establish his kingdom. this creed declares that "we believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of god over all the earth." if their doctrine is true he will never triumph in the other world. the congregational church does not believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of christ in the world to come. there he is to meet with eternal failure. he will have billions in hell forever. in this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the earth. as long as there is a penitentiary, within the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a perfectly civilized people. we shall never be perfectly civilized until we do away with crime. and yet, according to this christian religion, god is to have an eternal penitentiary; he is to be an everlasting jailer, an everlasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and he is going to keep prisoners there forever, not for the purpose of reforming them--because they are never going to get any better, only worse--but for the purpose of purposeless punishment. and for what? for something they failed to believe in this world. born in ignorance, supported by poverty, caught in the snares of temptation, deformed by toil, stupefied by want--and yet held responsible through the countless ages of eternity! no man can think of a greater horror; no man can dream of a greater absurdity. for the growth of that doctrine ignorance was soil and fear was rain. it came from the fanged mouths of serpents, and yet it is called "glad tidings of great joy." some who are damned. we are told "god so loved the world" that he is going to damn almost everybody. if this orthodox religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived are suffering god's torments to-night. it does not appear to make much difference with the members of the church. they go right on enjoying themselves about as well as ever. if this doctrine is true, benjamin franklin, one of the wisest and best of men, who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of god to-night, although he endeavored to establish freedom among men. if the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearers: "benjamin franklin is in hell, and we warn all the youth not to imitate benjamin franklin. thomas jefferson, author of the declaration of independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many years." that is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. talk as you believe. stand by your creed, or change it. i want to impress it upon your minds, because the thing i wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell. i will keep on as long as there is one little red coal left in the bottomless pit. as long as the ashes are warm i shall denounce this infamous doctrine. i want you to know that according to this creed the men who founded this great and splendid government are in hell to-night. most of the men who fought in the revolutionary war, and wrested from the clutch of great britain this continent, have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of god. thousands of the old revolutionary soldiers are in torment tonight. let the preachers have the courage to say so. the men who fought in , and gave to the united states the freedom of the seas, have nearly all been damned. thousands of heroes who served our country in the civil war, hundreds who starved in prisons, are now in the dungeons of god, compared with which, andersonville was paradise. the greatest of heroes are there; the greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the world beautiful--they are all among the damned if this creed is true. humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind; goethe, and schiller, and lessing, who almost created the german language--all gone--all suffering the wrath of god tonight, and every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra twang. laplace, who read the heavens like an open book--he is there. robert burns, the poet of human love--he is there. he wrote the "prayer of holy willie." he fastened on the cross the presbyterian creed, and there it is, a lingering crucifixion. robert burns increased the tenderness of the human heart. dickens put a shield of pity before the flesh of childhood--god is getting even with him. our own ralph waldo emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace, lived to his highest ideal, gave to his fellow-men his best and truest thought, and yet his spirit is the sport and prey of fiends to-night. longfellow, who has refined thousands of homes, did not believe in the miraculous origin of the savior, doubted the report of gabriel, loved his fellow-men, did what he could to free the slaves, to increase the happiness of man, yet god was waiting for his soul--waiting to cast him out and down forever. thomas paine, author of the "rights of man;" offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race; one of the founders of this republic, is now among the damned; and yet it seems to me that if he could only get god's attention long enough to point him to the american flag he would let him out. auguste comte, author of the "positive philosophy," who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he made of humanity a god, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered with tears--they are getting their revenge on him now. voltaire, who abolished torture in france; who did more for human liberty than any other man, living or dead; who was the assassin of superstition, and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of catholicism--he is with the rest. all the priests who have been translated have had their happiness increased by looking at voltaire. giordano bruno, the first star of the morning after the long night; benedict spinoza, the pantheist, the metaphysician, the pure and generous man; diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a small compass, so that he could put the peasant on an equality intellectually with the prince; diderot, who wished to sow all over the world the seed of knowledge, and loved to labor for mankind, while the priests wanted to burn; who did all he could to put out the fires--he was lost, long, long ago. his cry for water has become so common that his voice is now recognized through all the realms of heaven, and the angels laughing, say to one another, "that is diderot." david hume, the scotch philosopher, is there, with his inquiry about the "human understanding" and his argument against miracles. beethoven, master of music, and wagner, the shakespeare of harmony, who made the air of this world rich forever, they are there; and to-night they have better music in hell than in heaven! shelley, whose soul, like his own "skylark," was a winged joy, has been damned for many, many years; and shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who did more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived and died, he is there; but founders of inquisitions, builders of dungeons, makers of chains, inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes, and sellers of husbands and wives and children, and they who kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thousand years--are in heaven to-night. i wish heaven joy! that is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of children. that is the doctrine that puts a fiend by the dying bed and a prophecy of hell over every cradle. that is "glad tidings of great joy." only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon the ohio, sent by him who is ruling the world and paying particular attention to the affairs of nations, just in the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down and on its top a human being. a few men went out to the rescue. they found there a woman, a mother, and they wished to save her life. she said: "no, i am going to stay where i am. in this house i have three dead babes; i will not desert them." think of a love so limitless--stronger and deeper than despair and death! and yet, the christian religion says, that if that woman, that mother, did not happen to believe in their creed god would send her soul to eternal fire! if there is another world, and if in heaven they wear hats, when such a woman climbs the opposite bank of the jordan, christ should lift his to her. the doctrine of eternal pain is my trouble with this christian religion. i reject it on account of its infinite heartlessness. i cannot tell them too often, that during our last war christians, who knew that if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly willing that these men should go to hell provided they could stay at home. you see they are not honest in it, or they do not believe it, or as the people say, "they don't sense it." they have not imagination enough to conceive what it is they believe, and what a terrific falsehood they assert. and i beg of every one who hears me to-night, i beg, i implore, i beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them alone. what is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? let them alone. the idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he will not believe it, is monstrous. do not tell him here, and as quick as he gets to the other world and finds it is necessary to believe, he can say "yes." give him a chance. another objection. my objection to orthodox religion is that it destroys human love, and tells us that the love of this world is not necessary to make a heaven in the next. no matter about your wife, your children, your brother, your sister--no matter about all the affections of the human heart--when you get there, you will be with the angels. i do not know whether i would like the angels. i do not know whether the angels would like me. i would rather stand by the ones who have loved me and whom i know; and i can conceive of no heaven without the loved of this earth. that is the trouble with this christian relief-ion. leave your father, leave your mother, leave your wife, leave your children, leave everything and follow jesus christ. i will not. i will stay with my people. i will not sacrifice on the altar of a selfish fear all the grandest and noblest promptings of my heart. do away with human love and what are we? what would we be in another world, and what would we be here? can any one conceive of music without human love? of art, or joy? human love builds every home. human love is the author of all beauty. love paints every picture, and chisels every statue. love builds every fireside. what could heaven be without human love? and yet that is what we are promised--a heaven with your wife lost, your mother lost, some of your children gone. and you expect to be made happy by falling in with some angel! such a religion is infamous. christianity holds human love for naught; and yet love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. it is the morning and the evening star. it shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. it is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. it is the air and light of every heart--builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. it was the first to dream of immortality. it fills the world with melody--for music is the voice of love. love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. it is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. and how are you to get to this heaven? on the efforts of another. you are to be a perpetual heavenly pauper, and you will have to admit through all eternity that you never would have been there if you had not been frightened. "i am here," you will say, "i have these wings, i have this musical instrument, because i was scared. i am here. the ones who loved me are among the damned; the ones i loved are also there--but i am here, that is enough." what a glorious' world heaven must be! no reformation in that world--not the slightest. if you die in arkansas that is the end of you! think of telling a boy in the next world, who lived and died in delaware, that he had been fairly treated! can anything be more infamous? all on an equality--the rich and the poor, those with parents loving them, those with every opportunity for education, on an equality with the poor, the abject and the ignorant--and this little day called life, this moment with a hope, a shadow and a tear, this little space between your mother's arms and the grave, balances eternity. god can do nothing for you when you get there. a methodist preacher can do more for the soul here than its creator can there. the soul goes to heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples; and they are all there, father, son and holy ghost, and yet they can do nothing for that poor unfortunate except to damn him. is there any sense in that? why should this be a period of probation? it says in the bible, i believe, "now is the accepted time." when does that mean? that means whenever the passage is pronounced. "now is the accepted time." it will be the same to-morrow, will it not? and just as appropriate then as to-day, and if appropriate at any time, appropriate through all eternity. what i say is this: there is no world--there can be no world--in which every human being will not have the eternal opportunity of doing right. that is my objection to this christian religion; and if the love of earth is not the love of heaven, if those we love here are to be separated from us there, then i want eternal sleep. give me a good cool grave rather than the furnace of jehovah's wrath. i pray the angel of the resurrection to let me sleep. gabriel, do not blow! let me alone! if, when the grave bursts, i am not to meet the faces that have been my sunshine in this life, let me sleep. rather than that this doctrine of endless punishment should be true, i would gladly see the fabric of our civilization crumbling fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even memory forgets. i would rather that the blind samson of some imprisoned force, released by chance, should so wreck and strand the mighty world that man in stress and strain of want and fear should shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. i would rather that every planet should in its orbit wheel a barren star! what i believe. i think it is better to love your children than to love god, a thousand times better, because you can help them, and i am inclined to think that god can get along without you. certainly we cannot help a being without body, parts, or passions! i believe in the religion of the family. i believe that the roof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft cool clasp of earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. the home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all the world. and i tell you god cannot afford to damn a man in the next world who has made a happy family in this. god cannot afford to cast over the battlements of heaven the man who has a happy home upon this earth. god cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable of pity. god cannot clothe with fire the man who has clothed the naked here; and god cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. if he can, i had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep the company of such a god. immortality. they tell me that the next terrible thing i do is to take away the hope of immortality! i do not, i would not, i could not. immortality was first dreamed of by human love; and yet the church is going to take human love out of immortality. we love, therefore we wish to live. a loved one dies and we wish to meet again; and from the affection of the human heart grew the great oak of the hope of immortality. around that oak has climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. theologians, pretenders, soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken advantage of that. they have stood by graves and promised heaven. they have stood by graves and prophesied a future filled with pain. they have erected their toll-gates on the highway of life and have collected money from fear. neither the bible nor the church gave us the idea of immortality. the old testament tells us how we lost immortality, and it does not say a word about another world, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in malachi. there is not in the old testament a burial service. no man in the old testament stands by the dead and says, "we shall meet again." from the top of sinai came no hope of another world. and when we get to the new testament, what do we find? "they that are accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead." as though some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrection of the dead. and in another place. "seek for honor, glory, immortality." if you have it, why seek it? and in another place, "god, who alone hath immortality." yet they tell us that we get our idea of immortality from the bible. i deny it. i would not destroy the faintest ray of human hope, but i deny that we got our idea of immortality from the bible. it existed long before moses. we find it symbolized through all egypt, through all india. wherever man has lived he has made another world in which to meet the lost of this. the history of this belief we find in tombs and temples wrought and carved by those who wept and hoped. above their dead they laid the symbols of another life. we do not know. we do not prophesy a life of pain. we leave the dead with nature, the mother of us all. under the bow of hope, under the seven-hued arch, let the dead sleep. if christ was in fact god, why did he not plainly say there is another life? why did he not tell us something about it? why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life? why did he go dumbly to his death and leave the world in darkness and in doubt? why? because he was a man and did not know. what consolation has the orthodox religion for the widow of the unbeliever, the widow of a good, brave, kind man? what can the orthodox minister say to relieve the bursting heart of that woman? what can he say to relieve the aching hearts of the orphans as they kneel by the grave of that father, if that father did not happen to be an orthodox christian? what consolation have they? when a christian loses a friend the tears spring from his eyes as quickly as from the eyes of others. their tears are as bitter as ours. why? the echoes of the words spoken eighteen hundred years ago are so low, and the sounds of the clods upon the coffin are so loud; the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings the rapture of love to everyone. a fable. there is the fable of orpheus and eurydice. eurydice had been captured and taken to the infernal regions, and orpheus went after her, taking with him his harp and playing as he went. when he came to pluto's realm he began to play, and sysiphus, charmed by the music, sat down upon the stone that he had been heaving up the mountain's side for so many years, and which continually rolled back upon him; ixion paused upon his wheel of fire; tantalus ceased his vain efforts for water; the daughters of the danaides left off trying to fill their sieves with water; pluto smiled, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the furies were wet with tears. the god relented, and said, "eurydice may go with you, but you must not look back." so orpheus again threaded the caverns, playing as he went, and as he reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps of eurydice. he looked back, and in a moment she was gone. again and again orpheus sought his love. again and again looked back. this fable gives the idea of the perpetual effort made by the human mind to rescue truth from the clutch of error. some time orpheus will not look back. some day eurydice will reach the blessed light, and at last there will fade from the memory of men the monsters of superstition. myth and miracle. i. happiness is the true end and aim of life. it is the task of intelligence to ascertain the conditions of happiness, and when found the truly wise will live in accordance with them. by happiness is meant not simply the joy of eating and drinking--the gratification of the appetite--but good, wellbeing, in the highest and noblest forms. the joy that springs from obligation discharged, from duty done, from generous acts, from being true to the ideal, from a perception of the beautiful in nature, art and conduct. the happiness that is born of and gives birth to poetry and music, that follows the gratification of the highest wants. happiness is the result of all that is really right and sane. but there are many people who regard the desire to be happy as a very low and degrading ambition. these people call themselves spiritual. they pretend to care nothing for the pleasures of "sense." they hold this world, this life, in contempt. they do not want happiness in this world--but in another. here, happiness degrades--there, it purifies and ennobles. these spiritual people have been known as prophets, apostles, augurs, hermits, monks, priests, popes, bishops and parsons. they are devout and useless. they do not cultivate the soil. they produce nothing. they live on the labor of others. they are pious and parasitic. they pray for others, if the others will work for them. they claim to have been selected by the infinite to instruct and govern mankind. they are "meek" and arrogant, "long-suffering" and revengeful. they ever have been, now are, and always will be the enemies of liberty, of investigation and science. they are believers in the supernatural, the miraculous and the absurd. they have filled the world with hatred, bigotry and fear. in defence of their creeds they have committed every crime and practiced every cruelty. they denounce as worldly and sensual those who are gross enough to love wives and children, to build homes, to fell the forests, to navigate the seas, to cultivate the earth, to chisel statues, to paint pictures and fill the world with love and art. they have denounced and maligned the thinkers, the poets, the dramatists, the composers, the actors, the orators, the workers--those who have conquered the world for man. according to them this world is only the vestibule of the next, a kind of school, an ordeal, a place of probation. they have always insisted that this life should be spent in preparing for the next; that those who supported and obeyed the "spiritual guides"--the shepherds, would be rewarded with an eternity of joy, and that all others would suffer eternal pain. these spiritual people have always hated labor. they have added nothing to the wealth of the world. they have always lived on alms--on the labor of others. they have always been the enemies of innocent pleasure, and of human love. these spiritual people have produced a literature. the books they have written are called sacred. our sacred books are called the bible. the hindoos have the vedas and many others, the persians the zend avesta--the egyptians had the book of the dead--the aztecs the popol vuh, and the mohammedans have the koran. these books, for the most part, treat of the unknowable. they describe gods and winged phantoms of the air. they give accounts of the origin of the universe, the creation of man and the worlds beyond this. they contain nothing of value. millions and millions of people have wasted their lives studying these absurd and ignorant books. the "spiritual people" in each country claimed that their books had been written by inspired men--that god was the real author, and that all men and women who denied this would be, after death, tormented forever. and yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the wicked, have produced a far greater literature than the spiritual and the inspired. not all the sacred books of the world equal shakespeare's "volume of the brain." a purer philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the lips of shakespeare's clowns than the old testament, or the new, contains. the declaration of independence is nobler far than all the utterances from sinai's cloud and flame. "a man's a man for a' that," by robert burns, is better than anything the sacred books contain. for my part, i would rather hear beethoven's sixth symphony than to read the five books of moses. give me the sixth symphony--this sound-wrought picture of the fields and woods, of flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes build and swallows fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled lullaby of brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their daisied bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the laugh of children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering leaves; this strophe of peasant life; this perfect poem of content and love. i would rather listen to tristan and isolde--that mississippi of melody--where the great notes, winged like eagles, lift the soul above the cares and griefs of this weary world--than to all the orthodox sermons ever preached. i would rather look at the venus de milo than to read the presbyterian creed. the spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world through fear and faith--by the promise of reward and the threat of pain in other worlds. they taught men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. in all ages they have appealed to force. during all the years they have practiced fraud. they have pretended to have influence with the gods--that their prayers gave rain, sunshine and harvest--that their curses brought pestilence and famine, and that their blessings filled the world with plenty. they have subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. like poisonous vines, they have lived on the oak of labor. they have praised charity, but they never gave. they have denounced revenge, but they never forgave. whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has languished, science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and the brave have been murdered. the "spiritual" have been, are, and always will be the enemies of the human race. for all the blessings that we now enjoy--for progress in every form, for science and art--for all that has lengthened life, that has conquered disease, that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, for music in its highest forms--for the poetry that has ennobled and enriched our lives--for the marvellous machines now working for the world--for all this we are indebted to the worldly--to those who turned their attention to the affairs of this life. they have been the only benefactors of our race. ii. and yet all of these religions--these "sacred books," these priests, have been naturally produced. from the dens and caves of savagery to the palaces of civilization men have traveled by the necessary paths and roads. back of every step has been the efficient cause. in the history of the world there has been no chance, no interference from without, nothing miraculous. everything in accordance with and produced by the facts in nature. we need not blame the hypocritical and cruel. they thought and acted as they were compelled to think and act. in all ages man has tried to account for himself and his surroundings. he did the best he could. he wondered why the water ran, why the trees grew, why the clouds floated, why the stars shone, why the sun and moon journeyed through the heavens. he was troubled about life and death, about darkness and dreams. the seas, the volcanoes, the lightning and thunder, the earthquake and cyclone, filled him with fear. behind all life and growth and motion, and even inanimate things, he placed a spirit--an intelligent being--a fetich, a person, something like himself--a god, controlled by love and hate. to him causes and effects became gods--supernatural beings. the dawn was a maiden, wondrously fair, the sun, a warrior and lover; the night, a serpent, a wolf--the wind, a musician; winter, a wild beast; autumn, proserpine gathering flowers. poets were the makers of these myths. they were the first to account for what they saw and felt. the great multitude mistook these fancies for facts. myths strangely alike, were produced by most nations, and gradually took possession of the world. the sleeping beauty, a myth of the year, has been found among most peoples. in this myth, the earth was a maiden--the sun was her lover, she had fallen asleep in winter. her blood was still and her breath had gone. in the spring the lover came, clasped her in his arms, covered her lips and cheeks with kisses. she was thrilled, her heart began to beat, she breathed, her blood flowed, and she awoke to love and joy. this myth has made the circuit of the globe. so, red riding-hood is the history of a day. little red riding-hood--the morning, touched with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that is past. she is attacked by the wolf of night and is rescued by the hunter, apollo, who pierces the heart of the beast with an arrow of light. the beautiful myth of orpheus and eurydice is the story of the year. eurydice has been captured and carried to the infernal world. orpheus, playing upon his harp, goes after her. such is the effect of his music when he reaches the realm of pluto, the laughterless, that tantalus ceases his efforts to slake his thirst. he listens and forgets his withered lips, the daughters of the danaides cease their vain efforts to fill the sieve with water, sisyphus sits down on the stone that he so often had heaved against the mountain's misty side, ixion pauses upon his wheel of fire, even pluto smiles, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the furies are wet with tears. "give me back eurydice," cried orpheus, and pluto said: "take her, but look not back." orpheus led the way and eurydice followed. just as he reached the upper world, he missed her footsteps, turned, looked, and she vanished. and thus the summer comes, is lost, and comes again through all the years. so, our ancestors believed in the garden of eden, in the golden age, in the blessed time when all were good and pure--when nature satisfied the wants of all. the race, like the old man, has golden dreams of youth. the morning was filled with light and life and joy, and the evening is always sad. when the old man was young, girls were beautiful and men were honest. he remembers his eden. and so the whole world has had its age of gold. our fathers were believers in the elysian fields. they were in the far, far west. they saw them at the setting of the sun. they saw the floating isles of gold in sapphire seas; the templed mist with spires and domes of emerald and amethyst; the magic caverns of the clouds, resplendent with the rays of every gem. and as they looked, they thought the curtain had been drawn aside and that their eyes had for a moment feasted on the glories of another world. the myth of the flood has also been universal. finding shells of the seas on plain and mountain, and everywhere some traces of the waves, they thought the world had been submerged--that god in wrath had drowned the race, except a few his mercy saved. the hindus say that menu, a holy man, dipped from the ganges some water, and in the basin saw a little fish. the fish begged him to throw him back into the river, and menu, having pity, cast him back. the fish then told menu that there was to be a flood--told him to build an ark, to take on board, people, animals and food, and that when the flood came, he, the fish, would save him. the saint did as he was told, the flood came, the fish returned. by that time he had grown to be a whale with a horn in his head. about this horn menu fastened a rope, attached the other end to the ark, and the fish towed the boat across the raging waves to a mountain's top, where it rested until the waters subsided. the name of this wonderful fish was matsaya. many other nations told similar stories of floods and arks and the sending forth of doves. in all these myths and legends of the past we find philosophies and dreams and efforts, stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mysteries of life and death, to answer the questions of the whence and whither, and who vainly sought with bits of shattered glass to make a mirror that would in very truth reflect the face and form of nature's perfect self. these myths were born of hopes and fears, of tears and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth and death's sad night. they clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. in them the winds and waves were music, and all the springs, the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. they thrilled the veins of spring with tremulous desire, made tawny summer's billowy breast the throne and home of love, filled autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves, and pictured winter as a weak old king, who felt, like lear, upon his withered face, cordelia's tears. these myths, though false in fact, are beautiful and true in thought, and have for many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled thought. iii. in all probability the first religion was sun-worship. nothing could have been more natural. light was life and warmth and love. the sun was the fireside of the world. the sun was the "all-seeing"--the "sky father." darkness was grief and death, and in the shadows crawled the serpents of despair and fear. the sun was a great warrior, fighting the hosts of night. apollo was the sun, and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. agni, the generous, who loved the lowliest and visited the humblest, was the sun. he was the god of fire, and the crossed sticks that by friction leaped into flame were his emblem. it was said that, in spite of his goodness, he devoured his father and mother, the two pieces of wood being his parents. baldur was the sun. he was in love with the dawn--a maiden--he deserted her and traveled through the heavens alone. at the twilight they met, were reconciled, and the drops of dew were the tears of joy they shed. chrishna was the sun. at his birth the ganges thrilled from its source to the sea. all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. hercules was a sun-god. jonah the same, rescued from the fiends of night and carried by the fish through the under world. samson was a sun-god. his strength was in his hair--in his beams. he was shorn of his strength by delilah, the shadow--the darkness. so, osiris, bacchus, mithra, hermes, buddha, quelzalcoatle, prometheus, zoroaster, perseus, codom lao-tsze fo-hi, horus and rameses were all sun-gods. all these gods had gods for fathers and all their mothers were virgins. the births of nearly all were announced by stars. when they were born there was celestial music--voices declared that a blessing had come upon the earth. when buddha was born, the celestial choir sang: "this day is born for the good of men buddha, and to dispel the darkness of their ignorance--to give joy and peace to the world." chrishna was born in a cave, and protected by shepherds. bacchus, apollo, mithra and hermes were all born in caves. buddha was born in an inn--according to some, under a tree. tyrants sought to kill all of these gods when they were babes. when chrishna was born, a tyrant killed the babes of the neighborhood. buddha was the child of maya, a virgin, in the kingdom of madura. the king arrested maya before the child was born, imprisoned her in a tower. during the night when the child was born, a great wind wrecked the tower, and carried mother and child to a place of safety. the next morning the king sent his soldiers to kill the babes, and when they came to buddha and his mother, the babe appeared to be about twelve years of age, and the soldiers passed on. so typhon sought in many ways to destroy the babe horus. the king pursued the infant zoroaster. cadmus tried to kill the infant bacchus. all of these gods were born on the th of december. nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." all of them fasted for forty days. all met with a violent death. all rose from the dead. the history of these gods is the history of our christ. he had a god for a father, a virgin for a mother. he was born in a manger, or a cave--on the th of december. his birth was announced by angels. he was worshiped by wise men, guided by a star. herod, seeking his life, caused the death of many babes. christ fasted for forty days. so, it rained for forty days before the flood--moses was on mt. sinai for forty days. the temple had forty pillars and the jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years. christ met with a violent death, and rose from the dead. these things are not accidents--not coincidences. christ was a sun-god. all religions have been born of sun-worship. to-day, when priests pray, they shut their eyes. this is a survival of sun-worship. when men worshiped the sun, they had to shut their eyes. afterwards, to flatter idols, they pretended that the glory of their faces was more than the eyes could bear. in the religion of our day there is nothing original. all of its doctrines, its symbols and ceremonies are but the survivals of creeds that perished long ago. baptism is far older than christianity--than judaism. the hindus, the egyptians, the greeks and romans had holy water. the eucharist was borrowed from the pagans. ceres was the goddess of the fields, bacchus the god of the vine. at the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: "these are the flesh of the goddess." they drank wine and cried: "this is the blood of our god." the cross has been a symbol for many thousands of years. it was a symbol of immortality--of life, of the god agni, the form of the grave of a man. an ancient people of italy, who lived long before the romans, long before the etruscans, so long that not one word of their language is known, used the cross, and beneath that emblem, carved on stone, their dead still rest. in the forests of central america, ruined temples have been found, and on the walls the cross with the bleeding victim. on babylonian cylinders is the impression of the cross. the trinity came from egypt. osiris, isis and horus were worshiped thousands of years before our father, son and holy ghost were thought of. so the tree of life grew in india, china and among the aztecs long before the garden of eden was planted. long before our bible was known, other nations had their sacred books, temples and altars, sacrifices, ceremonies and priests. the "fall of man" is far older than our religion, and so are the "atonement" and the scheme of redemption. in our blessed religion there is nothing new, nothing original. among the egyptians the cross was a symbol of the life to come. and yet the first religion was, and all religions growing out of that, were naturally produced. every brain was a field in which nature sowed the seeds of thought. the rise and set of sun, the birth and death of day, the dawns of silver and the dusks of gold, the wonders of the rain and snow, the shroud of winter and the many colored robe of spring, the lonely moon with nightly loss or gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice, the tempest's fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat of storm and promise of the bow, cathedral clouds with dome and spire, earthquake and strange eclipse, frost and fire, the snow-crowned mountains with their tongues of flame, the fields of space sown thick with stars, the wandering comets hurrying past the fixed and sleepless sentinels of night, the marvels of the earth and air, the perfumed flower, the painted wing, the waveless pool that held within its magic breast the image of the startled face, the mimic echo that made a record in the viewless air, the pathless forests and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of tides--the slow, deep breathing of some vague and monstrous life--the miracle of birth, the mystery of dream and death, and over all the silent and immeasurable dome. these were the warp and woof, and at the loom sat love and fancy, hope and fear, and wove the wondrous tapestries whereon we find pictures of gods and fairy lands and all the legends that were told when nature rocked the cradle of the infant world. iv. we must remember that there is a great difference. myth is the idealization of a fact. a miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. there is the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood--between poetry and perjury. miracles belong to the far past and the far future. the little line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense, to the natural. if you should tell a man that the dead were raised two thousand years ago, he would probably say: "yes, i know that." if you should say that a hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised, he might say: "probably they will." but if you should tell him that you saw a dead man raised and given life that day, he would likely ask the name of the insane asylum from which you had escaped. our bible is filled with accounts of miracles and yet they always fail to convince. jehovah, according to the scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for the benefit of the jews. with many miracles he rescued them from slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and a miraculous pillar of fire by night--divided the sea that they might escape from the egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power, and yet the jews cared nothing for these wonders. not one of them seems to have been convinced that jehovah had done anything for the people. in spite of all these miracles, the jews had more confidence in a golden calf, made by themselves, than in jehovah. the reason of this is, that the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of years after those, who had wandered over the desert of sinai, were dust. the miracles attributed to christ had no effect. no human being seems to have been convinced by them. those whom he raised from the dead, cured of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. not one of them appeared at his trial. not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power. to this there is but one explanation: the miracles were never performed. these stories were the growth of centuries. the casting out of devils, the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water, the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations after christ was dead. in those days the world was filled with ignorance and fear. miracles happened every day. the supernatural was expected. gods were continually interfering with the affairs of this world. everything was told except the truth, everything believed except the facts. history was a circumstantial account of occurrences that never occurred. devils and goblins and ghosts were as plentiful as saints. the bones of the dead were used to cure the living. cemeteries were hospitals and corpses were physicians. the saints practiced magic, the pious communed with god in dreams, and the course of events was changed by prayer. the credulous demanded the marvelous, the miraculous, and the priests supplied the demand. the sky was full of signs, omens of death and disaster, and the darkness thick with devils endeavoring to mislead and enslave the souls of men. our fathers thought that everything had been made for man, and that demons and gods gave their entire attention to this world. the people believed that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or victims, of these phantoms. and they also believed that the creator, the god, could be influenced by sacrifice, by prayers and ceremonies. this has been the mistake of the world. all the temples have been reared, all the altars erected, all the sacrifices offered, all the prayers uttered in vain. no god has interfered, no prayer has been answered, no help received from heaven. nothing was created, nothing has happened for, or with reference to man. if not a human being lived,--if all were in' their graves, the sun would continue to shine, the wheeling world would still pursue its flight, violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the day, the spendthrift roses give their perfume to the air, the climbing vines would hide with leaf and flower the fallen and the dead, the changing seasons would come-and go,-time would repeat the poem of the year, storms would wreck and whispering rains repair, spring with deft and unseen hands would weave her robes of green, life with countless lips would seek fair summer's swelling breasts, autumn would reap the wealth of leaf and fruit and seed, winter, the artist, would etch in frost the pines and ferns, while wind and wave and fire, old architects, with ceaseless toil would still destroy and build, still wreck and change, and from the dust of death produce again the throb and breath of life. v. a few years ago a few men began to think, to investigate, to reason. they began to doubt the legends of the church, the miracles of the past. they began to notice what happened. they found that eclipses came at certain intervals and that their coming could be foretold. they became satisfied that the conduct of men had nothing to do with eclipses--and that the stars moved in their orbits unconscious of the sons of men. galileo, copernicus, and kepler' destroyed the astronomy of the bible, and demonstrated that the "inspired" story of creation could not be true, and that the church was as ignorant as the priests were dishonest. they found that the myth-makers were mistaken, that the sun and stars did not revolve about the earth, that the firmament was not solid, that the earth was not flat, and that the so-called philosophy of the theologians was absurd and idiotic. the stars became witnesses against the creeds of superstition. with the telescope the heavens were explored. the new jerusalem could not be found. it had faded away. the church persecuted the astronomers and denied the facts. in february, in the year of grace sixteen hundred, the catholic church, the "triumphant beast," having in her hands, her paws, the keys of heaven and hell, accused giordano bruno of having declared that there were other worlds than this. he was tried, convicted, imprisoned in a dungeon for seven years. he was offered his liberty if he would recant. bruno, the atheist, the philosopher, refused to stain his soul by denying what he believed to be true. he was taken from his cell by the priests, by those who loved their enemies, led to the place of execution. he was clad in a robe on which representations of devils had been painted--the devils that were soon to claim his soul. he was chained to a stake and about his body the wood was piled. then priests, followers of christ, lighted the fagots and flames consumed the greatest, the most perfect martyr, that ever suffered death. and yet the italian agent of god, the infallible leo xiii., only a few years ago, denounced bruno, the "bravest of the brave," as a coward. the church murdered him, and the pope maligned his memory. fagot and falsehood--two weapons of the church. a little while ago a few men began to examine rocks and soils, mountains, islands, reefs and seas. they noticed the valleys and deltas that had been formed by rivers, the many strata of lava that had been changed to soil, the vast deposits of metals and coal, the immense reefs that the coral had formed, the work of glaciers in the far past, the production of soil by the disintegration of rock, by the growth and decay of vegetation and the countless evidences of the countless ages through which the earth has passed. the geologists read the history of the world written by wave and flame, attested by fossils, by the formation of rocks, by mountain ranges, by volcanoes, by rivers, islands, continents and seas. the geology of the bible--of the "divinely inspired" church, of the "infallible" pope, was found to be utterly false and foolish. the earth became a witness against the creeds of superstition. then came watt and galvani with the miracles of steam and electricity, while countless inventors created the wonderful machines that do the work of the world. investigation took the place of credulity. men became dissatisfied with huts and rags, with crusts and creeds. they longed for the comforts, the luxuries of life. the intellectual horizon enlarged, new truths were discovered, old ideas were thrown aside, the brain was developed, the heart civilized and science was born. humboldt, laplace and hundreds of others explained the phenomena of nature, called attention to the ancient and venerable mistakes of sanctified ignorance and added to the sum of knowledge. darwin and haeckel gave their conclusions to the world. men began to really think, the myths began to fade, the miracles to grow mean and small, and the great structure, known as theology, fell with a crash. science denies the truth of myth and miracle, denies that human testimony can substantiate the miraculous, denies the existence of the supernatural. science asserts the absolute, the unvarying uniformity of nature. science insists that the present is the child of all the past,--that no power can change the past, and that nature is forever the same. the chemist has found that just so many atoms of one kind unite with just so many of another--no more, no less, always the same. no caprice in chemistry; no interference from without. the astronomers know that the planets remain in their orbits--that their forces are constant. they know that light is forever the same, always obeying the angle of incidence, traveling with the same rapidity,--casting the same shadow, under the same circumstances in all worlds. they know that the eclipses will occur at the times foretold--neither hastening nor delaying. they know that the attraction of gravitation is always the same, always in perfect proportion to mass and distance, neither weaker nor stronger, unvarying forever. they know that the facts in nature cannot be changed or destroyed, and that the qualities of all things are eternal. the men of science know that the atomic integrity of the metals is always the same, that each metal is true to its nature and that the particles cling to each other with the same tenacity,--the same force. they have demonstrated the persistence of force, that it is forever active, forever the same, and that it cannot be destroyed. these great truths have revolutionized the thought of the world. every art, every employment, all study, all experiment, the value of experience, of judgment, of hope, all rest on a belief in the uniformity of nature, on the eternal persistence and indestructibility of force. break one link in the infinite chain of cause and effect, and the master of nature appears. the broken link would become the throne of a god. the uniformity of nature denies the supernatural and demonstrates that there is no interference from without. there is no place, no office left for gods. ghosts fade from the brain and the shrivelled deities fall palsied from their thrones. the uniformity of nature renders a belief in "special providence" impossible. prayer becomes a useless agitation of the air, and religious ceremonies are but motions, pantomimes, mindless and meaningless. the naked savage, worshiping a wooden god, is the religious equal of the robed pope kneeling before an image of the virgin. the poor african who carries roots and bark to protect himself from evil spirits is on the same intellectual plane of one who sprinkles his body with "holy water." all the creeds of christendom, all the religions of the heathen world are equally absurd. the cathedral, the mosque and the joss house have the same foundation. their builders do not believe in the uniformity of nature, and the business of all priests is to induce a so-called infinite being to change the order of events, to make causes barren of effects and to produce effects without, and in spite of, natural causes. they all believe in the unthinkable and pray for the impossible. science teaches us that there was no creation and that there can be no destruction. the infinite denies creation and defies destruction. an infinite person, an "infinite being" is an infinite impossibility. to conceive of such a being is beyond the power of the mind. yet all religions rest upon the supposed existence of the unthinkable, the inconceivable. and the priests of these religions pretend to be perfectly familiar with the designs, will, and wishes of this unthinkable, this inconceivable. science teaches that that which really is has always been, that behind every effect is the efficient and necessary cause, that there is in the universe neither chance nor interference, and that energy is eternal. day by day the authority of the theologian grows weaker and weaker. as the people become intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers. their confidence in knowledge, in thought and investigation increases. they are eager to know the discoveries, the useful truths, the important facts made, ascertained and demonstrated by the explorers in the domain of the natural. they are no longer satisfied with the platitudes of the pulpit, and the assertions of theologians. they are losing confidence in the "sacred scriptures" and in the protecting power and goodness of the supernatural. they are satisfied that credulity is not a virtue and that investigation is not a crime. science is the providence of man, the worker of true miracles, of real wonders. science has "read a little in nature's infinite book of secrecy." science knows the circuits of the winds, the courses of the stars. fire is his servant, and lightning his messenger. science freed the slaves and gave liberty to their masters. science taught man to enchain, not his fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to break, forces that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. science is the great physician. his touch has given sight. he has made the lame to leap, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid face his hand has set the rose of health. science has given his beloved sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. science is the destroyer of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of life and love. science is the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice. science has given the true basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, revealed the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest forms, and has demonstrated that true happiness is the only possible good. science has slain the monsters of superstition, and destroyed the authority of inspired books. science has read the records of the rocks, records that priestcraft cannot change, and on his wondrous scales has weighed the atom and the star. science has founded the only true religion. science is the only savior of this world. vi. for many ages religion has been tried. for countless centuries man has sought for help from heaven. to soften the heart of god, mothers sacrificed their babes! but the god did not hear, did not see, and did not help. naked savages were devoured by beasts, bitten by serpents, killed by flood and frost. they prayed for help, but their god was deaf. they built temples and altars, employed priests and gave of their substance, but the volcano destroyed and the famine came. for the sake of god millions murdered their fellow-men, but the god was silent. millions of martyrs died for the honor of god, but the god was blind. he did not see the flames, the scaffolds. he did not hear the prayers, the groans. thousands of priests in the name of god tortured their fellow-men, stretched them on racks, crushed their feet in iron boots, tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes. the victims implored the protection of god, but their god did not hear, did not see. he was deaf and blind. he was willing that his enemies should torture his friends. nations tried to destroy each other for the sake of god, and the banner of the cross dripping with blood floated over a thousand fields--but the god was silent. he neither knew nor cared. pestilence covered the earth with dead, the priests prayed, the altars were heaped with sacrifices, but the god did not see, did not hear. the miseries of the world did not lessen the joys of heaven. the clouds gave no rain, the famine came, withered babes with pallid lips sought the breasts of dead mothers, while starving fathers knelt and prayed, but the god did not hear. through many centuries millions were enslaved, babes were sold from mothers, husbands from wives, backs were scarred with the lash. the poor wretches lifted their clasped hands toward heaven and prayed for justice, for liberty--but their god did not hear. he cared nothing for the sufferings of slaves, nothing for the tears of wives and mothers, nothing for the agony of men. he answered no prayers. he broke no chains. he freed no slaves. the miserable wretches appealed to the priests of god, but they were on the other side. they defended the masters. the slaves had nothing to give. during all these years it was claimed by the theologians that their god was governing the world, that he was infinitely powerful, wise and good--and that the "powers" of the earth were "ordained" by him. during all these years the church was the enemy of progress. it hated all physicians and told the people to rely on prayer, amulets and relics. it persecuted the astronomers and geologists, denounced them as infidels and atheists, as enemies of the human race. it poisoned the fountains of learning and insisted that teachers should distort the facts in nature to the end that they might harmonize with the "inspired" book. during all these years the church misdirected the energies of man, and when it reached the zenith of its power, darkness fell upon the world. in all nations and in all ages, religion has failed. the gods have never interfered. nature has produced and destroyed without mercy and without hatred. she has cared no more for man than for the leaves of the forest, no more for nations than for hills of ants, nothing for right or wrong, for life or death, for pain or joy. man through his intelligence must protect himself. he gets no help from any other world. the church has always claimed and still claims that it is the only reforming power, that it makes men honest, virtuous and merciful, that it prevents violence and war, and that without its influence the race would return to barbarism. nothing can exceed the absurdity of these claims. if we wish to improve the condition of mankind--if we wish for nobler men and women we must develop the brain, we must encourage thought and investigation. we must convince the world that credulity is a vice,--that there is no virtue in believing without, or against evidence, and that the really honest man is true to himself. we must fill the world with intellectual light. we must applaud mental courage. we must educate the children, rescue them from ignorance and crime. school-houses are the real temples, and teachers are the true priests. we must supply the wants of the mind, satisfy the hunger of the brain. the people should be familiar with the great poets, with the tragedies of Æschylus, the dramas of shakespeare, with the poetry of homer and virgil. shakespeare should be taught in every school, found in every house. through photography the whole world may become acquainted with the great statues, the great paintings, the victories of art. in this way the mind is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the appreciation of the beautiful intensified, the taste refined and the character ennobled. the great novels should be read by all. all should be acquainted with the men and women of fiction, with the ideal world. the imagination should be developed, trained and strengthened. superstition has degraded art and literature. it gave us winged monsters, scenes from heaven and hell, representations of gods and devils, sculptured the absurd and painted the impossible in the name of art. it gave us the dreams of the insane, the lives of fanatical saints, accounts of miracles and wonders, of cures wrought by the bones of the dead, descriptions of paradise, purgatory and the eternal dungeon, discourses on baptism, on changing wine and wafers into the the blood and flesh of god, on the forgiveness of sins by priests, on fore-ordination and accountability, predestination and free will, on devils, ghosts and goblins, the ministrations of guardian angels, the virtue of belief and the wickedness of doubt. and this was called "sacred literature." the church taught that those who believed, counted beads, mumbled prayers, and gave their time or property for the support of the gospel were the good and that all others were traveling the "broad road" to eternal pain. according to the theologians, the best people, the saints, were dead, and real beauty was to be found only in heaven. they denounced the joys of life as husks and filthy rags, declared that the world had been cursed, and that it brought forth thistles and thorns because of the sins of man. they regarded the earth as a kind of dock, running out into the sea of eternity,--on which the pious waited for the ship on which they were to be transported to another world. but the real poets and the real artists clung to this world, to this life. they described and represented things that exist. they expressed thoughts of the brain, emotions of the heart, the griefs and joys, the hope and despair of men and women. they found strength and beauty on every hand. they found their angels here. they were true to human experience and they touched the brain and heart of the world. in the tragedies and comedies of life, in the smiles and tears, in the ecstasies of love, in the darkness of death, in the dawn of hope, they found their materials for statue and song, for poem and painting. poetry and art are the children of this world, born and nourished here. they are human. they have left the winged monsters of heaven, the malicious deformities of hell, and have turned their attention to men and women, to the things of this life. there is a poem called "the skylark," by shelley, graceful as the motions of flames. another by robert burns, called "the daisy," exquisite, perfect as the pearl of virtue in the beautiful breast of a loving girl. between this lark and this daisy, neither above nor below, you will find all the poetry of the world. eloquence, sublimity, poetry and art must have the foundation of fact, of reality. imaginary worlds and beings are nothing to us. at last the old creeds are becoming cruel and vulgar. we now have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of others. believers in hell, in eternal pain, like murderers, lack imagination. the murderer has not imagination enough to see his victim dead. he does not see the sightless and pathetic eyes. he does not see the widow's arms about the corpse, her lips upon the dead. he does not hear the sobs of children. he does not see the funeral. he does not hear the clods as they fall on the coffin. he does not feel the hand of arrest, the scene of the trial is not before him. he does not hear the awful verdict, the sentence of the court, the last words. he does not see the scaffold, nor feel about his throat the deadly noose. let us develop the brain, civilize the heart, and give wings to the imagination. vii. if we abandon myth and miracle, if we discard the supernatural and the scheme of redemption, how are we to civilize the world? is falsehood a reforming power? is credulity the mother of virtue? is there any saving grace in the impossible and absurd? did wisdom perish with the dead? must the civilized accept the religion of savages? if we wish to reform the world we must rely on truth, on fact, on reason. we must teach men that they are good or bad for themselves, that others cannot be good or bad for them, that they cannot be charged with the crimes, or credited with the virtues of others. we must discard the doctrine of the atonement, because it is absurd and immoral. we are not accountable for the sins of "adam" and the virtues of christ cannot be transferred to us. there can be no vicarious virtue, no vicarious vice. why should the sufferings of the innocent atone for the crimes of the guilty. according to the doctrine of the atonement right and wrong do not exist in the nature of things, but in the arbitrary will of the infinite. this is a subversion of all ideas of justice and mercy. an act is good, bad, or indifferent, according to its consequences. no power can step between an act and its natural consequences. a governor may pardon the criminal, but the natural consequences of the crime remain untouched. a god may forgive, but the consequences of the act forgiven, are still the same. we must teach the world that the consequences of a bad action cannot be avoided, that they are the invisible police, the unseen avengers, that accept no gifts, that hear no prayers, that no cunning can deceive. we do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of ourselves and the ones we injure. restitution without repentance is far better than repentance without restitution. we know nothing of any god who rewards, punishes or forgives. we must teach our fellow-men that honor comes from within, not from without, that honor must be earned, that it is not alms, that even an infinite god could not enrich the beggar's palm with the gem of honor. teach them also that happiness is the bud, the blossom and the fruit of good and noble actions, that it is not the gift of any god; that it must be earned by man--must be deserved. in this world of ours there is no magic, no sleight-of-hand, by which consequences can be made to punish the good and reward the bad. teach men not to sacrifice this world for some other, but to turn their attention to the natural, to the affairs of this life. teach them that theology has no known foundation, that it was born of ignorance and fear, that it has hardened the heart, polluted the imagination and made fiends of men. theology is not for this world. it is no part of real religion. it has nothing to do with goodness or virtue. religion does not consist in worshiping gods, but in adding to the well-being, the happiness of man. no human being knows whether any god exists or not, and all that has been said and written about "our god," or the gods of other people, has no known fact for a foundation. words without thoughts, clouds without rain. let us put theology out of religion. church and state should be absolutely divorced. priests pretend that they have been selected by, and that they get their power from god. kings occupy their thrones in accordance with the will of god. the pope declares that he is the agent, the deputy of god and that by right he should rule the world. all these pretentions and assertions are perfectly absurd and yet they are acknowledged and believed by millions. get theology out of government and kings will descend from their thrones. all will admit that governments get their powers from the consent of the governed, and that all persons in office are the servants of the people. get theology out of government and chaplains will be dismissed from legislatures, from congress, from the army and navy. get theology out of government and people will be allowed to express their honest thoughts about "inspired books" and superstitious creeds. get theology out of government and priests will no longer steal a seventh of our time. get theology out of government and the clergy will soon take their places with augurs and soothsayers, with necromancers and medicine-men. get theology out of education. nothing should be taught in a school that somebody does not know. there are plenty of things to be learned about this world, about this life. every child should be taught to think, and that it is dangerous not to think. children should not be taught the absurdities, the cruelties and imbecilities of superstition. no church should be allowed to control the common school, and public money should not be divided between the hateful and warring sects. the public school should be secular, and only the useful should be taught. many of our colleges are under the control of churches. presidents and professors are mostly ministers of the gospel and the result is that all facts inconsistent with the creeds are either suppressed or denied. only those professors who are naturally stupid or mentally dishonest can retain their places. those who tell the truth, who teach the facts, are discharged. in every college truth should be a welcome guest. every professor should be a finder, and every student a learner, of facts. theology and intellectual dishonesty go together. the teacher of children should be intelligent and perfectly sincere. let us get theology out of education. the pious denounce the secular schools as godless. they should be. the sciences are all secular, all godless. theology bears the same relation to science that the black art does to chemistry, that magic does to mathematics. it is something that cannot be taught, because it cannot be known. it has no foundation in fact. it neither produces, nor accords with, any image in the mind. it is not only unknowable but unthinkable. through hundreds and thousands of generations men have been discussing, wrangling and fighting about theology. no advance has been made. the robed priest has only reached the point from which the savage tried to start. we know that theology always has and always will make enemies. it sows the seeds of hatred in families and nations. it is selfish, cruel, revengeful and malicious. it has heaven for the few and perdition for the many. we now know that credulity is not a virtue and that intellectual courage is. we must stop rewarding hypocrisy and bigotry. we must stop persecuting the thinkers, the investigators, the creators of light, the civilizers of the world. viii. will the unknown, the mysteries of life and itiations of the mind, forever furnish food for superstition? will the gods and ghosts perish or simply retreat before the advancing hosts of science, and continue to crouch and lurk just beyond the horizon of the known? will darkness forever be the womb and mother of the supernatural? a little while ago priests told peasants that the new jerusalem, the celestial city was just above the clouds. they said that its walls and domes and spires were just beyond the reach of human sight. the telescope was invented and those who looked at the wilderness of stars, saw no city, no throne. they said to the priests: "where is your new jerusalem?" the priests cheerfully and confidently replied. "it is just beyond where you see." at one time it was believed that a race of men existed "with their heads beneath their shoulders." returning travelers from distant lands were asked about these wonderful people and all replied that they had not seen them. "oh," said the believers in the monsters, "the men with heads beneath their shoulders live in a country that you did not visit." and so the monsters lived and flourished until all the world was known. we cannot know the universe. we cannot travel infinite distances, and so, somewhere in shoreless space there will always be room for gods and ghosts, for heavens and hells. and so it may be that superstition will live and linger until the world becomes intelligent enough to build upon the foundation of the known, to keep the imagination within the domain of the probable, and to believe in the natural--_until the supernatural shall have been demonstrated_. savages knew all about gods, about heavens and hells before they knew anything about the world in which they lived. they were perfectly familiar with evil spirits, with the invisible phantoms of the air, long before they had any true conception of themselves. so, they knew all about the origin and destiny of the human race. they were absolutely certain about the problems, the solution of which, philosophers know, is beyond the limitations of the mind. they understood astrology, but not astronomy, knew something of magic, but nothing about chemistry. they were wise only as to those things about which nothing can be known. the poor indian believed in the "great spirit" and saw "design" on every hand.--trees were made that he might have bows and arrows, wood for his fire and bark for his wigwam--rivers and lakes to give him fish, wild beasts and corn that he might have food, and the animals had skins that he might have clothes. primitive peoples all reasoned in the same way, and modern christians follow their example. they knew but little of the world and thought that it had been made expressly for the use of man. they did not know that it was mostly water, that vast regions were locked in eternal ice and that in most countries the conditions were unfavorable to human life. they knew nothing of the countless enemies of man that live unseen in water, food and air. back of the little good they knew they put gods and back of the evil, devils. they thought it of the greatest importance to gain the good will of the gods, who alone could protect them from the devils. those who worshiped these gods, offered sacrifices, and obeyed priests, were considered loyal members of the tribe or community, and those who refused to worship were regarded as enemies and traitors. the believers, in order to protect themselves from the anger of the gods, exiled or destroyed the infidels. believing as they did, the course they pursued was natural. they not only wished to protect themselves from disease and death, from pestilence and famine in this world but the souls of their children from eternal pain in the next. their gods were savages who demanded flattery and worship not only, but the acceptance of a certain creed. as long as christians believe in eternal punishment they will be the enemies of those who investigate and contend for the authority of reason, of those who demand evidence, who care nothing for the unsupported assertions of the dead or the illogical inferences of the living. science always has been, is, and always will be modest, thoughtful, truthful. it has but one object: the ascertainment of truth. it has no prejudice, no hatred. it is in the realm of the intellect and cannot be swayed or changed by passion. it does not try to please god, to gain heaven or avoid hell. it is for this world, for the use of man. it is perfectly candid. it does not try to conceal, but to reveal. it is the enemy of mystery, of pretence and canc. it does not ask people to be solemn, but sensible. it calls for and insists on the use of all the senses, of all the faculties of the mind. it does not pretend to be "holy" or "inspired." it courts investigation, criticism and even denial. it asks for the application of every test, for trial by every standard. it knows nothing of blasphemy and does not ask for the imprisonment of those who ignorantly or knowingly deny the truth. the good that springs from a knowledge of the truth is the only reward it offers, and the evil resulting from ignorance is the only punishment it threatens. its effort is to reform the world through intelligence. on the other hand theology is, always has been, and always will be, ignorant, arrogant, puerile and cruel. when the church had power, hypocrisy was crowned and honesty imprisoned. fraud wore the tiara and truth was a convict, liberty was in chains, theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell. let me give you a scene from the day of judgment. christ is upon his throne, his secretary by his side. a soul appears. this is what happens-- "what is your name?" torquemada. "were you a christian?" i was. "did you endeavor to convert your fellow-men?" i did. i tried to convert them by persuasion, by preaching and praying and even by force. "what did you do?" i put the heretics in prison, in chains. i tore out their tongues, put out their eyes, crushed their bones, stretched them upon racks, roasted their feet, and if they remained obdurate i flayed them alive or burned them at the stake. "and did you do all this for my glory?" yes, all for you. i wanted to save some, i wanted to protect the young and the weak minded. "did you believe the bible, the miracles--that i was god, that i was born of a virgin and kept money in the mouth of a fish?" yes, i believed it all. my reason was the slave of faith. "well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy lord. i was hungry and you gave me meat, naked and you clothed me.." another soul arises. "what is your name?" giordano bruno. "were you a christian?" at one time i was, but for many years i was a philosopher, a seeker after truth. "did you seek to convert your fellow-men?" not to christianity, but to the religion of reason. i tried to develop their minds, to free them from the slavery of ignorance and superstition. in my day the church taught the holiness of credulity--the virtue of unquestioning obedience, and in your name tortured and destroyed the intelligent and courageous. i did what i could to civilize the world, to make men tolerant and merciful, to soften the hearts of priests, and banish torture from the world. i expressed my honest thoughts and walked in the light of reason. "did you believe the bible, the miracles? did you believe that i was god, that i was born of a virgin and that i suffered myself to be killed by the jews to appease the wrath of god--that is, of myself--so that god could save the souls of a few?" "no, i did not. i did not believe that god was ever born into my world, or that god learned the trade of a carpenter, or that he 'increased in knowledge,' or that he cast devils out of men, or that his garments could cure diseases, or that he allowed himself to be murdered, and in the hour of death "forsook" himself. these things i did not and could not believe. but i did all the good i could. i enlightened the ignorant, comforted the afflicted, defended the innocent, divided even my poverty with the poor, and did the best i could to increase the happiness of my fellow-men. i was a soldier in the army of progress.--i was arrested, imprisoned, tried and convicted by the church--by the 'triumphant beast.' i was burned at the stake by ignorant and heartless priests and my ashes given to the winds." then christ, his face growing dark, his brows contracted with wrath, with uplifted hands, with half averted face, cries or rather shrieks: "depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." this is the justice of god--the mercy of the compassionate christ. this is the belief, the dream and hope of the orthodox theologian--"the consummation devoutly to be wished." theology makes god a monster, a tyrant, a savage; makes man a servant, a serf, a slave; promises heaven to the obedient, the meek, the frightened, and threatens the self-reliant with the tortures of hell. it denounces reason and appeals to the passions--to hope and fear. it does not answer the arguments of those who attack, but resorts to sophistry, falsehood and slander. it is incapable of advancement. it keeps its back to the sunrise, lives on myth and miracle, and guards with a misers care the "sacred" superstitions of the past. in the great struggle between the supernatural and the natural, between gods and men, we have passed midnight. all the forces of civilization, all the facts that have been found, all the truths that have been discovered are the allies of science--the enemies of the supernatural. we need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils. ix. for thousands of generations the myths have been taught and the miracles believed. every mother was a missionary and told with loving care the falsehoods of "faith" to her babe. the poison of superstition was in the mother's milk. she was honest and affectionate and her character, her goodness, her smiles and kisses, entered into, mingled with, and became a part of the superstition that she taught. fathers, friends and priests united with the mothers, and the children thus taught, became the teachers of their children and so the creeds were kept alive. childhood loves the romantic, the mysterious, the monstrous. it lives in a world where cause has nothing to do with effect, where the fairy waves her hand and the prince appears. where wish creates the thing desired and facts become the slaves of amulet and charm. the individual lives the life of the race, and the child is charmed with what the race in its infancy produced. there seems to be the same difference between mistakes and facts that there is between weeds and corn. mistakes seem to take care of themselves, while the facts have to be guarded with all possible care. falsehoods like weeds flourish without care. weeds care nothing for soil or rain. they not only ask no help but they almost defy destruction. in the minds of children, superstitions, legends, myths and miracles find a natural, and in most instances a lasting home. thrown aside in manhood, forgotten or denied, in old age they oft return and linger to the end. this in part accounts for the longevity of religious lies. ministers with clasped hands and uplifted eyes ask the man who is thinking for himself how he can be wicked and heartless enough to attack the religion of his mother. this question is regarded by the clergy as unanswerable. of course it is not to be asked by the missionaries, of the hindus and the chinese. the heathen are expected to desert the religion of their mothers as christ and his apostles deserted the religion of their mothers. it is right for jews and heathen, but not for thinkers and philosophers. a cannibal was about to kill a missionary for food. the missionary objected and asked the cannibal how he could be so cruel and wicked. the cannibal replied that he followed the example of his mother. "my mother," said he, "was good enough for me. her religion is my religion. the last time i saw her she was sitting, propped up against a tree, eating cold missionary." but now the mother argument has mostly lost its force, and men of mind are satisfied with nothing less than truth. the phenomena of nature have been investigated and the supernatural has not been found. the myths have faded from the imagination, and of them nothing remains but the poetic. the miraculous has become the absurd, the impossible. gods and phantoms have been driven from the earth and sky. we are living in a natural world. our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom of religion. we have taken another step. we demand the religion of freedom. o liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! thou art the only deity that hateth bended knees. in thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect! they do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their foreheads to the earth. the dust has never borne the impress of their lips. upon thy altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights. thou askest naught from man except the things that good men hate--the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. thou hast no popes, no priests, who stand between their fellow-men and thee. thou carest not for foolish forms, or selfish prayers. at thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does not tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but reason holds aloft her inextinguishable torch whose holy light will one day flood the world. the bible of bibles; or, twenty-seven "divine" revelations: containing a description of twenty-seven bibles, and an exposition of two thousand biblical errors in science, history, morals, religion, and general events; also a delineation of the characters of the principal personages of the christian bible, and an examination of their doctrines. by kersey graves, author of "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," "the biography of satan." fourth edition. boston: colby & rich, publishers, no. montgomery place. . by lydia m. graves, assistant authoress. notes and explanations for the third edition. . on page it is stated that no geologist or philosopher believes in either a creation or a creator. it is admitted that some men, called geologists, may believe so; but we hold that no man thoroughly versed in geology and philosophy can thus believe. . on page , contradiction , it should be stated in the first part that ahaziah's reign began in his thirty-second year, instead of the eleventh year of joram. the second part should state that he began in his forty-second year, instead of the twelfth year of joram. . on page , contradiction , the anointment of christ is spoken of but the text refers to the feast of the passover. . on page it is stated that the unitarians believe in a hell. it should be understood, however, that they believe in a hell merely as a state or condition, and not as a place. . on page it is stated that the weight of the tables of the law was fifty times as much as hilkiah could carry. this, of course, would depend upon the quality and condition of the stone used and the manner of engraving the law, if not, what is assumed, to constitute the law. it is stated that some considered the pentateuch the law. this, however, was only in a general sense. they, of course, knew that the law as described in deuteronomy was the law proper, or special law. . the charge of falsehood against christ, on page , is not intended to imply that it is certain he designed telling a falsehood. but, as he stated he would not go up to the feast at jerusalem, and yet did go, it shows that he either intended to deceive, or was ignorant of what he would do in the future; and either defect would prove he was not an omniscient god. . on page it is stated that a jew could not be a full roman citizen in the time of paul, and that tarsus was not at that time a roman city. but it may be stated also that authors differ on these points; and we leave the matter for them or their critical readers to settle. let it be noted that it is not claimed that paul, while professing to be first a roman citizen, and then a pharisee, and then a disciple of jesus christ, could not be all three at once; but it indicates his policy of changing. the personality of god. as the denial of the personality of god, as set forth in chapter, has been warmly assailed by orthodox professors since the work was issued, and as that dogma constitutes one of the principal pillars of the orthodox faith, i propose to examine it a little further in the light of reason and science. i will present other absurdities of the doctrine in the form of questions. . if god is an organized personality, what should we assume to be his form, size, shape, and color? . how large is his body? . does it occupy more than one planet? . if not, how can he be present in other worlds? . what is his physical type--malay, mongolian, anglo-saxon, or african? . what is his complexion--white, black, or tawny? . what is the color of his eyes and hair? . what are the dimensions of his body and the length of his arms and legs? . what is his position--lying, sitting, or standing? . how is his time occupied? . and as personality implies sex, and one sex not only implies the other sex, but creates a necessity lor the other sex, we are driven to ask, who is god's wife, and where is she? . are they both on the same planet? . and have they ever been divorced? or is he still a bachelor? . and as sex also implies offspring, we desire to ask, how many children have they had? . and whether they are all boys? . and, as personality also implies parentage, this brings up the question, who was god's father, grandfather, etc. . and as personality implies the susceptibility to anger, and the bible-god is often represented as getting angry, and anger has been shown to be a species of insanity, would not this imply and prove that heaven is ruled by an insane god--an omnipotent luuatic? . and would not this virtually make heaven a lunatic asylum, and consequently a very unsuitable and disagreeable place to live in? as all these and many other absurdities are involved in the assumption of a personal god, it is difficult to see how any reasonable being can swallow the doctrine. more bibles. as the notices of several bibles prepared for the first edition were left out from fear of making the book too large, i have concluded to insert a brief notice of some of them here. . _dhammapada,_ or "path of virtue." this sacred book has constituted the moral and religious guide of several hundred millions of hindoos for many centuries. it is probably the oldest record of the budhistic faith. it is assumed to be a collection from the _pitakas_, which are principally compilations from the discourses of the incarnate god gautama, written out by his disciples. it was pronounced genuine and canonical by a famous council which met in b. c., under the reign of king asoka. max müller says, "its moral code, taken by itself, is one of the most perfect the world has ever known." spence ilardy, and' johnson, both speak highly of the work. it contains many wise, beautiful, and lofty moral precepts, of which we will give a few specimens:--"haste to do good." "give to those who ask." "master thyself, and then thou canst control and teach others." "select for friend? the best of men." "be just, speak truly, act nobly," etc. . _tripitika_. this book is divided into three parts hence its name, which means "the three _pitikas_." like the _dhammanada_, it is a history of some of the gods, and sets forth their lives and precepts. it forbids the commission of sin, and enjoins the practice of the highest virtues. "in no system," says amherly, "is benevolence and charity more emphatically inculcated." chastity is recommended, and a life of spotless virtue in every respect enjoined. the former work appears to be made up principally by selections from this. . other sacred books might be mentioned, such as "the paradise of fo," "confucius and his disciple," "catena of the chinese budhistic scriptures" "the baghavat gita," "the sanhita," "sudras" (appendages to the sunhita), "divine opherisms of kanada," "the uphanishads" (a commentary on the vedas), "saddharma pundosika" (another commentary), "worship and psalmody of the maharades," etc. some of these works are either other titles for those previously described, or are additions, appendages, or commentaries. and thus it will be observed the world is full of bibles and scriptures. the leading positions of this work. we maintain, st, that man's mental faculties are susceptible of a threefold division and classification, as follows: first, the intellectual department; second, the moral and religious department; third, the animal department (which includes also the social). d, that all bibles and religions are an outgrowth from some or all of these faculties, and hence of natural origin. d, that all bibles and religions which originated prior to the dawn of civilization in the country which gave them birth (i.e., prior to the reign of moral and physical science) are an emanation from the combined action and co-operation of man's moral, religious, and _animal_ feelings and propensities. th, that the christian bible contains (as shown in this work) several thousand errors,--moral, religious, historical, and scientific. th, that this fact is easily accounted for by observing that it originated at a period when the moral and religious feelings of the nation which produced it co-operated with the _animal propensities_ instead of an _enlightened intellect_. th, that, although such a bible and religion may have been adapted to the minds which originated them, the _higher_ class of minds of the present age demands a religion which shall call into exercise the _intellect_, instead of the _animal_ propensities. th, that, as all the bibles and religions of the past are more of an emanation from the _animal propensities_ than the _intellect_, they are consequently not suited to this age, and are for this reason being rapidly abandoned. th, that true religion consists in the _true exercise_ of the moral and religious faculties. th, as the christian bible is shown in this work to inculcate bad morals, and to sanction, apparently, every species of crime prevalent in society in the age in which it was written, the language of remonstrance is frequently employed against placing such a book in the hands of the heathen, or the children of christian countries; and more especially against making "the bible the fountain of our laws and the supreme rule of our conduct," and acknowledging allegiance to its god in the constitution of the united states, as recommended by the american christian alliance. such measures, this work shows by a thousand facts, would be a deplorable check to the moral and intellectual progress of the world. th, if any clergyman or christian professor shall take any exceptions to any position laid down in this work, the author will discuss the matter with him in a friendly manner in the papers, or through the post-office, or before a public audience. kersey graves. richmond, indiana the bible of bibles. chapter i.--the signs of the times. we live in the most important age in the history of the world. no age preceding it was marked with such signal events. no other era in the history of civilization has been characterized by such agitation of human thought; such a universal tendency to investigation; such a general awakening upon all important subjects of human inquiry; such a determination to grow in knowledge, and cultivate the immortal intellect, and mount to higher plains of development. the world of mind is in commotion. all civilized nations are agitated from center to circumference with the great questions of the age. and what does all this prove? why, that man is a progressive being; that the tendency of the human mind is onward and upward; and that it will not always consent to be bound down in ignorance and superstition. and, thanks to the genius of the age, it is the prophecy of the glorious reformation and regeneration of society,--an index of a happier era in the history of the human race. old institutions are crumbling, and tumbling to the ground. the iron bands of creeds and dogmas, with which the people have been so long bound down, are bursting asunder, and permitting them to walk upright, and do their own thinking. in every department of science, in every arena of human thought and every theater of human action, we see a progressive spirit, we behold a disposition to lay aside the traditions and superstitions of the past, and grasp the living facts of the age. we everywhere see a disposition to abandon the defective institutions, political and religious, which were gotten up in the childhood of human experience, and supplant them with those better adapted to the wants of the age. in a word, there is everywhere manifested a disposition and determination to unshackle the human body, and set free the human mind, and place it with its living aspirations on the road to the temple of truth. an evidence of the truth of these statements the reader can gather by casting his eyes abroad, or by reading the periodicals of the day. at this very time nearly all the orthodox churches are in a state of commotion. the growing light and intelligence of the age, penetrating their dark creeds and dogmas, are producing a sort of moral effervescence. the question of "hell" is now the agitating theme of the churches. posterity will ridicule us, and class us with the unenlightened heathen, for discussing a question so far behind the times, and one so childish and so absurd in this intelligent and enlightened age. to condescend to discuss such a question now must be well enough for scientific and intelligent minds. and other important religious events mark the age. when the roman-catholic church, through its ecumenical council, dragged the pope from his lofty throne of usurped power, and robbed him of his attribute of infallibility, it proclaimed the downfall of the pope and the _death-knell_ of the church. already thousands of his subjects refuse longer to bow down and kiss the big toe of his sacred majesty. his scepter has departed, his spiritual power is gone, his temporal power is waning. and the same spirit of agitation is operating as a leaven in the protestant churches also. all the orthodox churches are declining and growing weaker by their members falling off. the methodist church has recently lost more than two hundred of its preachers; and the baptist church, according to the statement of a recent number of "the christian era," has lost twenty-two thousand of its members within a period of five years. the agitation in the churches is driving thousands from their ranks, while many who remain are becoming more liberal-minded. the orthodox quaker church has, in many localities, "run clear off the track." it has abandoned its old time-honored peculiarities in dress and language, once deemed by them sacred, and essential to true godliness. the use of "thee" and "thou" is laid aside by many of its members; and even leading members have given up the "shad-bellied coat," and the round-crowned hat with a brim broad enough to "cover a multitude of sins." they no longer wait for "the holy ghost" to move them to preach; but, as a member once remarked, "they go it on their own hook, like the methodists, hit or miss." music, once regarded by many of them as an emanation from "an emissary of the devil," is now admitted into many of their churches. thus it will be seen they are making some progress. the _light without_ is benefiting them _more_ than "the light _within_." all the orthodox systems committed a fatal error at the outset in assuming that their religions were derived directly from god, and consequently must be _perfect_ and _unalterable_, and a _finality_ in moral and religious progress. such an assumption will cause the downfall, sooner or later, of any religious body which persists in propagating the error. religious institutions, like all other institutions, are subject to the laws of growth and decay. hence, if their doctrines and creeds are not improved occasionally to make them conform to the growing light and intelligence of the age and the principles of science, they will fall behind the times, cease to answer the moral and religious wants of the age, and become a stumbling-block in the path of progress. common sense would teach us that the doctrines preached by the churches two hundred years ago must be as much out of place now as the wooden shoes and bearskin coats worn by the early disciples would be _for us. their spiritual food_ is by no means adapted to _our moral and religious wants_. we are under no more moral and religious obligation whatever to preach the doctrines of original sin, the fall of man, endless punishment, infant damnation, &c., because our religious forefathers believed in these doctrines, than we are morally bound to eat beetles, locusts, and grasshoppers, because our jewish ancestors feasted on there nasty vermin, as we learn by reading lev. xi. why is it that in modern times there has arisen great complaint in all the orthodox churches about the rapid inroads of infidelity into their ranks? it is simply because, that while the people are beginning to assume the liberty to do their own thinking, the churches refuse to recognize the great principle of universal progress as applicable to their religion, which _would_ and _should_ keep their doctrines and precepts improved up to the times. instead of adopting this wise policy, they try to compel their members to be content with the old stale _salt_ junk of bygone ages, in the shape of dilapidated, outgrown creeds and dogmas; but it will not do. it is as difficult to keep great minds tied down to unprogressive creeds as it would be to keep grown-up boys and girls in baby-jumpers. enlightened nations are as capable of making their own religion as their own laws; that is, of making its tenets conform to the natural outgrowth of their religious feelings as they become more expanded and enlightened. and it is a significant historical fact, that great minds in _all_ religious nations have wholly or partially outgrown and abandoned the current and popular religions of the country. it is only moral cowards, or the ignorant and uninformed, who throw themselves into the lap of the church, and depend upon the priest to pilot them to heaven. moses, jesus christ, mahomet, martin luther, john wesley, emanuel swedenborg, george fox, elias hicks, and many other superior minds, strove hard unconsciously to rise above the religion in which they were educated; and all succeeded in making some improvement in its stereotyped doctrines or practices. the implied assumption of the churches, that their doctrines and precepts are too perfect to be improved and too sacred to be investigated, and their bible too holy to be criticised, is contradicted both by history and science; and this false assumption has already driven many of the best minds of the age from their ranks. theodore parker declared that all the men of great intellects had left the church in his time, because, instead of improving their religion to keep it up to the times they bolt their doors, and hang curtains over their windows to keep out the light of the age. there could not be one inch of progress made in any thing in a thousand years with the principle of non-progression in religion adopted by the churches; for, if it will apply to religion, it will apply with still greater force to every thing else: and hence it would long ago have put a dead lock upon all improvement, had it not been counteracted by outside counter-influences. it is because a large portion, and the _most enlightened portion_, of the community have assumed the liberty and moral independence to _think_ and _act for themselves_, that society has made _any_ progress either in science, morals, or religion. a religion which sedulously opposes its _own improvement_ can do nothing essential toward improving _any thing else_, unless _forced_ into it by outside influences; and it can not feel a _proper degree of interest_ in those improvements essential to the progress of society. on the contrary, it must check the growth of every thing it touches with its palsied hands. here we can see the reason that no church in any age of the world has inaugurated any great system of reform for the improvement of society, but has _made war_ on nearly every reform set on foot by that class of people which it has chosen to stigmatize as "infidels." such a religion will _decline and die_ in the exact ratio of the enlightenment and progress of society. the coming revolution. that there is a general state of _unrest_ in the public mind, at the present time, on the subject of religion, must be apparent to every observing person. theological questions, long since regarded as settled for ever, are being overhauled and discussed with a freedom and general interest far transcending that known or practically realized at any previous period. this is premonitive of a _speedy_ religious revolution. that it will come sooner or later is as _certain_ as that seed-sowing is succeeded by harvest. reforms no longer move with the snail's pace they did a century ago. this is an age of steam and electricity; and every thing has to move with velocity. we cherish no unkindly feelings toward any church or people; but we must rejoice that the strongholds of orthodoxy are being shaken, and error exposed, and that creeds are loosening their iron grasp upon the immortal mind old, long-cherished dogmas, myths, and blinding superstitions are passing away, to make room for something better. yes, the signs of the times indicate the _dawning_ of a brighter day upon the world,--a day which shall be illuminated by the rays of reason and science. and, if this work shall contribute any thing toward _speeding_ the dawning of that glorious era, we shall feel amply rewarded for the labor and personal sacrifice required in its production. reason will soon triumph. the march of science and the rapid growth of the reasoning faculties peculiar to this progressive age are daily revealing the errors of our popular theology, and exposing their demoralizing effects in repressing the growth and healthy action of the intellect, and perverting the exercise of the moral faculties. and this progressive change and improvement must be a source of great rejoicing to every true-hearted philanthropist, and furnishes a strong incentive to labor with zeal in this field of reform. it should be borne in mind, that all the dogmas and doctrines of our current religious faith originated at a period before the sun of science had risen above the moral horizon, and anterior to the birth of moral science, and hence, like other productions of that age, are heavily laden with error. but rejoice, o ye _lovers of and laborers for_ truth and science! the dark clouds of our gloomy theology are _rapidly_ receding before the sunlight of our modern civilization, and will soon leave a clear and cloudless sky! and all will rejoice in having learned and practically experienced the glorious truth, that true religion is not incorporated in bibles, or inscribed on the pages of any book, and cannot be found therein, but is a natural and spontaneous outgrowth of man's moral and religious nature, and is "the _most beautiful flower of the soul_." chapter ii.--apology and explanation. although books are constantly issuing from the press, and the country kept literally flooded with new publications, yet but few of them meet the real wants of the age, and many of them are of no permanent practical benefit to the world. such a work as is comprised in "the bible of bibles" is a _desideratum_. it has been long and loudly called for. it is a moral necessity, and partially supplies one of the great moral wants of the times. it is true, hundreds of works have been published embracing criticisms on the bible, and attempting to expose some of its numerous errors, and portray some of its evil influences upon those who accept it as a moral guide. yet it is believed that the present work embraces the first attempt to arrange together, or make out any thing like a full list of, the numerous errors of "the holy book." and yet it falls far short of accomplishing this end; for, although more than two thousand errors are brought to notice, a critical research would bring to light several thousand more. it will be observed by the reader, that there has been a constant effort on the part of the author to abridge, contract, and compress the contents of the volume into the smallest compass possible to be attained compatible with perspicuity. every chapter, and almost every line, discloses this policy. in no other way than by the adoption of such an expedient could two thousand biblical errors have been brought to notice in a single volume. the adoption of the most rigid rules of abbreviation and compression alone could have accomplished it; and this policy has been carried out even in making citations from the bible. such superfluous words and phrases have been dropped as could be spared without impairing the sense or real meaning of the text. and yet, with this unceasing effort to compress and abridge the work, it falls so far short of portraying fully all the errors and evils which a critical investigation shows to be the legitimate outgrowth of our bible religion, that the author contemplates following it with another work, which may complete an exposition of nine thousand errors now known to be comprised in "the holy book." the title will probably be, "the bible in the light of history, reason, and science." he intends also to rewrite and republish soon, and probably enlarge, his "biography of satan," so as to make it entirely a new work. i. jehovah. the author desires the reader to bear it specially in mind that his criticisms on the erroneous conceptions and representations of god, as found in the christian bible, appertains in all cases to that mere imaginary being known as the jewish jehovah, and has no reference whatever to the god of the universe, who must be presumed to be a very different being. the god of moses, who is represented as coming down from heaven, and walking and talking, eating and sleeping, traveling on foot (and barefoot, so as to make it necessary for abraham to wash his feet); and who is also represented as eating barley-cakes and veal with abraham (gen. xviii.); wrestling all night with jacob, and putting his thigh out of place; trying to kill moses in a hotel, but failing in the attempt; and as getting vanquished in a battle with the canaanites; and also as frequently getting mad, cursing and swearing, &c.,--such was the character of jehovah, the god of the jews,--a mere figment of the imagination. hence he is a just subject of criticism. ii. the relationship of the old and new testaments. some of the representatives of the christian faith, when the shocking immoralities of the old testament are pointed out, attempt to evade the responsibility by alleging that they do not live under the _old_ dispensation, but the _new_, thereby intimating that they are not responsible for the errors of the former. but the following considerations will show that such a defense is fallacious and entirely untenable. . it takes both the old and the new testaments to constitute "the holy bible" which they accept as a whole. . both are bound together, and circulated by the million, as possessing equal credibility and equal authority. . both are quoted alike by clergymen and christian writers. . the new testament is inseparably connected with the old. . the prophecies of the old form the basis of the new. . both are canonized together under the word "holy." . nearly all the new-testament writers, including paul, indorse the old testament, and take no exception to any of its errors or any of its teachings. for these reasons, to accept one is to accept the other. both stand or fall together. note.--christ modified some of moses's error, but indorsed most of the old testament errors. chapter iii.--why this work was written, there are in this and other christian countries more than one hundred thousand clergymen who spend a portion of each recurring sabbath in presenting the claims, and dilating upon the beauties and benefits (some real and some imaginary), of the religion of the christian bible. they claim that it is the religion for this age, and a religion that should be adopted by the whole human race; but they present but one side of the picture, and but one phase of the argument. a witness before a jury is required to "tell the truth, and _the whole_ truth;" but the priesthood dare not do this with respect to the errors and defects of their religion. they would lose their congregations and their _salaries_ also. but few clergymen possess the moral courage to turn state's evidence against their pockets or their "bread and butter." it is a sad reflection that they are hired, and required to _conceal_ whatever errors may loom up before their moral vision in the investigation of the principles of their religion, or the bible on which it is founded. they are placed in the position of an attorney who is sworn to be true to his client at any sacrifice of truth and moral manhood. whatever may be their moral convictions with respect to the sinfulness or evil consequences or demoralizing effects of continuing to preach the _intellectually dwarfing and morally poisoning_ doctrines originated in, and adapted only to, the dark and undeveloped ages of the past, when the race was under the dominion of the animal and blind propensities, yet _they must do it_. they must continue to preach these errors, to sustain these evils, and maintain their false positions, or lose their salaries and their popular standing in society. it is a very unfortunate position to be placed in; but, self-interest being the ruling principle of the age, we cannot reasonably expect the clergy will do any thing toward enlightening the people on the errors and immoral influences of their religious doctrines, or the substitution of a better system, until human nature has advanced to a higher moral plane. on the contrary, we must expect they will continue to blind the people, pervert the truth, magnify every imaginable good quality of their religious system; while, on the other hand, they will as sedulously attempt to hide every defect which either they or others may discover in their bible. this state of things in the religious world imposes upon the moral reformer the solemn necessity of employing the most effectual lever, and of adopting every available moral means, to counteract this morally deleterious influence of the clergy, and arrest the tide of evil which follows in their wake as the legitimate fruits of a course of conduct dictated _by policy instead of principle_. ii. the moral truths of the bible. some of our readers will doubtless be disposed to ask why we have not occupied a larger portion of this work in exhibiting the beauties and benefits of the religion and system of morals set forth in the bible. the answer to the question is fully anticipated in the preceding remarks. it is simply because fifty thousand tongues and pens are almost constantly employed in this work. they do it and overdo it. this renders it a work of supererogation on our part; while, on the other hand, we find the errors and evils of the bible and its religion, which they overlook or neglect to expose, so very numerous, that we can not exhibit them in a single volume, unless we allow but a limited space to a repetition of what is done by them every week. this is our reason for appearing to pursue a one-sided policy. iii. why resort to ridicule? we hope we shall not be misunderstood or condemned by any reader for appearing to indulge frequently in a spirit of levity in attempting to expose the logical and moral absurdities of the bible. we have assumed this license more from an apprehended moral necessity than from a natural disposition. ridicule is now generally acknowledged by moralists to be a most potent weapon for the demolition of error. moral and religions absurdities, according to cicero, can be arrested and put down much sooner by "holding them up to the light of ridicule, than by any other means that can be employed." let no one, then, oppose the use of such means simply because it may disturb a sensitive feeling in his own mind, derived from a false education. a critical investigation of religious history discloses the important fact, that the conviction established in the popular mind that it is wrong to indulge in a feeling of levity when writing or discoursing on religious subjects is the work of the clergy. having discovered that many of the narrations of their bible, and likewise many of the tenets of their creeds, are really ridiculous when examined in the light of science, reason, and sound sense, in order to prevent these ridiculous features of their systems from being exposed, they taught the people that ridicule is entirely out of place in matters of religion, and that such feelings, or language _expressive_ of such feelings, should be entirely suppressed. and it is principally by the invention of this expedient, and the establishment of this conviction in the public mind, that the clergy have succeeded in keeping the ridiculous errors of their creeds concealed from age to age. and to continue this policy longer is only to yield to their interests, and prolong those evils still longer which have been perpetuated for centuries by the adoption of this expedient. no other argument or apology is necessary than this as a justification of the limited extent to which the language of ridicule has been employed in this work. it is an egregious error, which is the offspring of an erroneous education and habit, to suppose that ridicule is more out of place on religious subjects than on other subjects. o. s. fowler has fully established this as a scientific fact on phrenological grounds. we should be quite sorry to wound the feelings of any sensitive mind by any language made use of in this work, and hope this explanation, will prevent such results. the principal design of this work. as a critical examination of the christian bible discloses the fact that it contains several thousand moral and scientific errors, and as experience proves the tendency of such errors is to corrupt the moral feelings and check the intellectual growth of all who read and believe "the hoty book," we have, since arriving at this conviction, considered it to be our duty not only to expose these errors, but also to discourage the habitual reading of the bible with any other view than to learn its real character. and more especially do we earnestly advise parents not to place the bible in the hands of their children till they arrive at an age when a more mature judgment can enable them to discriminate between its truths and its errors. and we likewise entreat all moralists and philanthropists, and all lovers of truth and virtue, as they desire the moral growth and moral reformation of the world, to exert their influence to stop the shipment of the christian bible to foreign lands to be circulated among the uncultured and credulous heathen. here is disclosed one of our principal reasons for writing this work. we wish to make it a voice of remonstrance against placing any of those morally defective books called bibles in the hands of the ignorant and impressible heathen, or the children of christian countries, until their minds become sufficiently fortified by age and experience to resist or withstand the demoralizing influence of their bad precepts and bad examples as exposed in this work. don't read pernicious books. the quaker church (of which the author was once a member) have a clause in their discipline forbidding their members to read pernicious books, which are defined by one of the founders of the church (william penn) to be "such books and publications as contain language which appears to sanction crime or wrong practices, or teach bad morals." and hundreds of cases cited in this work prove that the christian bible may be ranked with works of this character. if the advice of the hindoo editor had been complied with many years ago,--to "revise all bibles, and leave out their bad precepts and examples," and change their obscene language,--the christian bible might now be a very useful and instructive book. but we are willing to leave it to the conscience of every honest reader, who places truth and morality above bibles and creeds, to decide, after reading this work, whether the bible, with all its ennobling precepts, does not contain too strong an admixture of bad morality to make it a safe or suitable book to be relied on as a guide in morals and religion. according to archbishop tillotson, bibles shape the morals and religion of the people in all religious countries,--they are derived from the examples and precepts of these "holy books." if this be true, we most solemnly and seriously put the question to every bible reader, what must be the effect upon the morals and religion of christian countries of such moral examples as abraham, moses, noah, isaac, jacob, david, solomon, and nearly all the prophets, with their long string of crimes, as shown in this work? let us not be guilty of the folly of suffering our inherited, stereotyped predilections, and exalted veneration for "the holy book," to rule our moral sense, and control our judgment in this matter, but muster the moral courage to look at the thing in its true light. let us be independent moralists and philanthropists, rather than slaves to bibles and creeds. "every book," says a writer, "has a spirit which it breathes into the minds of its readers;" and, if it contains bad morals or bad language, the habitual reading of it will gradually reconcile the mind to those immoral lessons, and finally cause them to be looked upon as god-given truths. such is the omnipotent force of habit. and we appeal to all bible readers to testify if this has not been their experience. all christian professors, when they first commenced reading the bible, doubtless found many things in it which shocked their moral sense, did violence to their reasoning faculties, and mortified their love of decorum. but a perseverance in reading it, through the force of habit and education, has finally reconciled their minds to those immoral lessons, and blinded the judgment, so that they are not now conscious of their real character and deleterious influence upon the mind. two thousand bible errors. one of the strongest and most solemn lessons of human experience, and proofs of the blinding effect of a false religious education, may be found in the fact that the two thousand bible errors brought to notice in this work have been overlooked from age to age by the great mass of bible readers. so absolutely and deplorably blinded have they been in some cases, as to lead them to conclude, like dr. cheever of new york, that "the bible does not contain the _shadow of a shade_ of error from genesis to revelation." such a perversion and stultification of the reasoning faculties was never excelled in any age or country. st. augustine furnishes another striking illustration of the total wreck of mind and moral principle which an obstinate determination to accept the bible with all its errors is capable of effecting. having found a great many absurdities in the bible which he could not reconcile with reason and sense, and hence discovering he must either give up his bible or his reason, he chose the latter alternative, and declared in his "book of sermons" (p. ), "i believe things in the bible because they are absurd. i believe them because they are impossible" (as glaring an absurdity as ever issued from human lips). such a desperate expedient to save his bible and creed from going overboard shows that they had demoralized his mind, and made a complete wreck of his reason. this is the writer who declared he found and preached to a nation of people who had but one eye, and that situated in their foreheads, and another nation who had no heads, but eyes in their breasts. it seems a pity that this single-eyed nation became extinct; for christ declared, "if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." such an embodiment of light might have done much to enlighten the world. and this st. augustine is the writer whom eusebius pronounces "the great moral light of the christian church." and st. irenaeus furnishes another deplorable example of the prostration or perversion of the moral faculties by accepting the bible as a standard for morals when he _justified the crime of incest_ by pointing to the example of "righteous lot" and his daughters. the celebrated albert barnes was made a victim of great mental suffering for many years by his laborious but ineffectual attempts to reconcile the bible with the dictates of reason. hear what he says about the matter. we will present the case in his own language: "these difficulties (of reconciling the teachings of the bible to reason) are probably felt by every mind that ever reflects on the subject; and they are unexplained, unmitigated, and unremoved. i confess, for one, that i feel them, and feel them more sensibly and powerfully the more i look at them, and the longer i live. i do not understand them, and i make no advance toward understanding them. i do not know that i have a ray of light upon this subject which i had not when the subject first flashed across my soul. i have read what wise and good men have written upon the subject; i have looked at their theories and explanations; i have endeavored to weigh their arguments,--for my whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions: but i get neither; and, in the anguish and distress of my soul, i confess i get no light whatever. i see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin came into the world, why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead, and why man must suffer to all eternity. i have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind.... i trust that other men... have not the anguish of spirit which i have. but i confess, when i look on a world of sinners and sufferers, upon death-beds and graveyards, and upon a world of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever; and when i see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens--when i look upon a whole race--all involved in this sin and danger; and when i see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned; and when i feel that god only can save them, and yet he does not do it,--i am struck dumb. it is all dark--dark--dark to my soul; and i cannot disguise it" (practical sermons, p. ). there, reader, you have the candid confession of an honest-minded, orthodox, and one of the ablest and most talented writers that ever wielded the pen in defense of the christian faith. and if such a talented and logical mind could find no reason, consistency, or moral principle in the dogmas of orthodoxy, we may readily ask, who can? thousands of other orthodox clergymen have doubtless been perplexed with the same difficulties, but have not had the honesty to confess it. those who do not now perceive them can find the reason by putting their hands on their own heads. they will find their intellects or logical brains defective. moral philosophers now find no difficulty in solving any of those problems which so much perplexed the mind of mr. barnes. they are all false and unfounded dogmas, except the prevalence of death and disease in the world. and these casualties are now known to be amongst the wisest and most useful dispensations of nature. (see chapter headed natural and moral evil.) and had mr. barnes ascended to the plane of mental and moral science, instead of remaining down in the dark, orthodox, theological cellar, trying to squeeze truth out of old, dead, dried-up, dusty, theological dogmas, he would have readily found the solution to all his problems, and would have rejoiced in thus emerging into the glorious sunlight of truth. bibles useful in their place. we do not question but that bibles served a useful purpose for those nations and tribes by whom and for whom they were written; but as they only represent the imperfect moral and religious conceptions of that age, and have always been sacredly guarded from improvement, to make them the rule of action for any subsequent age would be to stop all moral and religious improvement. it is strikingly evident that society can make no improvement while it follows a bible which is interdicted from improvement. it must remain stationary, with respect to religion and morals, so far as it is tied to an unchangeable book. bibles in this way become masters of human thought, and shackles for the soul, and thus inflict serious evils upon society by their tendency to stop all moral, and religious progress. three thousand or ten thousand years may elapse, and no improvement can be made in the religion or morals of the people while the bible from which they emanate is prohibited from improvement. thus bibles inflict a death-like torpor and stagnation upon the moral and intellectual progress of society so far as their precepts are lived up to; that is, so far as the assumption that there can be no improvement in the teachings of the bible is practically observed. it is the source of a pleasing reflection, however, to know that most bible believers habitually violate their own principles by trampling this assumption under foot. otherwise we would have remained eternally in a state of barbarism. chapter iv.--the beauties and benefits of bibles. thebe is displayed in all bibles a devout recognition of moral principles, and a strong manifestation of moral feeling. the disciples of all bibles manifest an ardent aspiration for something higher, something nobler,--a mental struggle to reach a higher plane. this moral aspiration is displayed in almost every chapter; and there are in all bibles veins of beautiful thought coursing through their pages. all of them contain moral precepts which are in their nature elevating and ennobling, and which, if practically recognized, would have done much to improve the morals and enhance the happiness of their disciples; and all bibles are valuable as fragments of religious history, and as indicating the state of religion and morals of the people who originated them. their numerous outbursts of religious feeling indicate the depth of their devotion; while their many noble moral aphorisms indicate an appreciation of, and a desire for, a higher moral life than they were able to practice because of the strength of their animal feelings. this is especially true of the jews, and also of the early christians. they had a partial perception of a true moral life, and a desire at times to practice it; but that desire was counteracted and held in check by their still stronger animal natures and animal propensities. a higher plane of development has been attained. there can be no question, from the light derived from the twofold avenues of science and history, but that the great principle of universal progress, which is carrying every thing forward to a higher plane and state of perfection, has elevated the most advanced nations of the present age _beyond and above_ the religion and morals prevalent in the world when the jewish and christian bible was written, which makes it very unsuitable for the _present_ advanced state of society. an investigation of the science of anthropology discloses the very significant and important fact, that the religious feelings of the founders and early representatives of the jewish and christian religions were under the control of their animal natures, which accounts for their frequent use of obscene language, and their frequent indulgence in the practice of every species of crime with the full sanction of the principles of their religion. and they cherished the conviction that those things had the divine sanction. look at the difference. the moral and religions feelings of the early jews and christians _co-operated_ with their _animal propensities_; and the _latter held supreme sway_ over the former: while the moral and religions feelings of the most advanced minds of the present day co-operate, not with the _animal_, but with the _intellectual_. this makes a very important and very marked difference, and makes the semi-animal religion of the past very unsuitable for the present age. please note this point, friendly reader. bible writers honest. it may readily be conceded that the writers and compilers of all bibles were honest, and that all the errors which those bibles embrace, and the crimes which they sanction, were honestly believed to be right, and in accordance with the will of god. for all sacred history teaches us, as an important lesson of human nature, that no errors are too gross, no crimes too enormous, no statements too false or absurd, no contradictions too glaring, and no stories too preposterous or too ridiculous, to receive the fullest indorsement of the most honest and pious minds, and to be even cherished by them as _god-given_ or divinely revealed _truths_, when such has been their teaching every day of their lives, in connection with the habitual _suppression_ of the voice of reason, and the inherited conviction of their truth deeply implanted in the mind, derived from a thou sand preceding generations. a strong and unyielding cord of religious conviction thus grows in the human mind, which no reason, no philosophy, and no science can ever sever or even shake. it becomes a moral canker, which no remedy can reach, or arrest in its progress. it seems to grow into the very heartstrings. such is the strength of religious prejudice, such the weak side of human nature. three hundred millions of people believe in the hindoo religion, one hundred millions in the chinese religion, two hundred millions in the mahomedan religion, and one hundred and fifty millions in the christian religion,--all for the same reasons, because their parents so believed, and taught them, and their neighbors still believe it; and surrounding influences have caused them to continue in their erroneous belief. after the illuminating rays of the sun of science had to some extent dispelled the religious errors of our early education, the case was so plain, that we entered upon the work of trying to convince others, with sanguine hopes of success. but experience has established the conviction in our mind, that if every text of the christian bible were a falsehood, and every line of their creeds an absurdity, there are many devout admirers of the book who could never be made to see it, because they are ruled by their _religious feelings_, and not by their _reasoning faculties_; and hence they will live and die in their moral and religious errors. but we rejoice in the omnipotent power of truth, which will finally dispel all error from progressive minds. general claims of bibles. more than twenty sacred books have been found in varions countries, which, if not in all cases denominated bibles, have at least been venerated and used as such, and, properly speaking, are bibles. hence we shall call them bibles. the list in this chapter comprises nearly all which recent research has brought to light. a brief synopsis of the character and contents of each will be presented, so far as a comparative view with the christian bible seems to make it requisite. all of these bibles possess some common characteristics:-- . all of them were claimed to be inspired. . all were claimed to be an embodiment of wisdom and knowledge far transcending the ordinary attainments of man. . all were penned by inspired men, who were shielded from the possibility of erring while writing them. . each bible is a finality in religious knowledge. . each one is an authority from which there is no appeal. . it is a sin to question or doubt the truth of any of them, or to suggest the possibility of their containing errors. . some of them were written by god, some by angels, and others by inspired men. . each one points out the only safe and certain road to heaven. . he who is a disbeliever in any one of these holy books is an infidel. . each one is to effect the salvation of the whole human race. chapter v.--twenty-seven bibles described. the hindoo bibles. i. the vedas. the veda is considered to be the oldest sacred book of the hindoos, and is evidently the oldest bible now extant. there is a vast amount of evidence to prove that it was written long before the time of moses, which establishes the fact that it borrowed nothing from the jews or jewish writings. they purport to be the inspired utterances of very ancient and holy saints and prophets, known as rishis, who received them directly from the mouth of the great god brahma about nine thousand years ago, after they had existed in his mind from all eternity. these "holy men," by their devout piety and unreserved devotion to the cause of god and religion, it was believed, had attained to true holiness and heavenly sanctity. the vedas treat of the attributes of god, and his dealings with the human race; his invisibility and spirituality; his unchangeableness, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence; the nature and binding force of his laws; the doctrine of future rewards and punishments; frequent and wonderful display of divine power, called miracles, &c. it contains, likewise, many noble, lofty, and beautiful moral precepts. it also treats, to some extent, of astronomy, medicines, and government. the may number of "the new-york tribune" for contains a very interesting account of the recent translation of the vedas into the english language, from which we will make a few extracts: "the whole of the veda is now being published for the first time by the east-india company, by which the reader will learn that most of the odious things which have been charged to it are false. they are not found therein. they are christian forgeries; such as the burning of widows on the funeral pile of their husbands, the marriage of children, the doctrine of caste, &c. none of these things are taught or countenanced by the vedas. the man who believes in the vedas approximates to a christian." (mark this statement, christian reader!) mr. greeley further says: "the highest authority for the religion of the brahmins is the vedas. the most elaborate arguments have been framed by its devout believers to establish its divine origin and absolute authority. they constantly appeal to its authority, and, in controversy with mahomedan and christian missionaries" (mahomedans have missionaries among them, observe), "they invariably fall back on the vedas,--referring to it with great confidence in support of any thing they wish to establish as divine. there is no doctrine of christianity which has not been anticipated by the vedas." what is that you say, mr. greeley? "they have all the doctrines of christianity!" is that possible? all the holy and inspired doctrines of jesus christ, the great divine lawgiver and savior of the world, found in an old heathen bible, written more than two thousand years before a single line of the doctrines of christ was penned! here is one of the most astounding announcements ever made to the world. the reader, perhaps, will suppose that mr. greeley was an infidel; but here, again, is something most astonishing: mr. greeley was up to this time a sound member of a christian church, and withal a truthful writer. such an announcement ought to have startled the whole christian world, and set them to investigating the matter. but, like the disciples of all the heathen religions, they are immovably fixed in the errors of their faith, and turn a deaf ear to all criticism, and all honest inquiry relating to the truth of its claims. such is the tenacity of their inherited convictions of being right, their assumption of infallibility, their aversion and opposition to investigation, that, if every line of their bible was a falsehood, but few of them would find it out. there are four works which come under the name of vedas, known as the rig veda, yojur veda, sama veda, and atharva veda. each of these bibles is constituted of various books, probably the work of different writers. each veda is accompanied by psalms or hymns, known as the "sanhita," and also by a sort of prose treatise or commentary, called the "brahmana," which possesses a ritualistic or didactic character,--all of which were believed to be inspired. "never has the theory of inspiration," says mr. amberly, "been pushed to such extremes as in the case of the vedas. they were believed by some to be the direct creation of brahma," while the hymns which accompany them were claimed to be the inspired productions of holy men and prophets (rishis). the vedas was the standard authority in all cases; and any doctrine, opinion, or statement at variance with the vedas was to be rejected as false. "and as for a contradiction in the holy book," says mr. amberly, "the thought was not to be entertained for a moment as possible." such a conclusion they ascribed to the reader's wrong interpretation of its language. such was the extreme veneration in which the book was held, that every text, word, and even syllable, was counted. a brahmin was not allowed to marry till after he had devoted several years to studying the holy book; and, to attain to complete holiness, the disciple must commit the rig veda to memory, or read it through on his bended knees. the vedas represent god as being "one and indivisible," and "merciful to sinners." and brahmins and budhists, when they pray for sinners or for their enemies, manifest a spirit of kindness and forgiveness not equalled by christians. the budhists had many churches and many priests, who taught the people to lead virtuous lives, and to avoid the commission of every species of crime, including the use of intoxicating drinks. and in no other system was ever benevolence and charity, and also chastity, more emphatically enjoined, or more consistently practiced. the vedas teach that every good act has its reward, and every bad act its punishment. its disciples are taught that many saviors (avators) have appeared on earth at different periods to suffer and die for the people; the last of which was salavahana, cotemporary with christ. god sakia is of great veneration amongst them, and prayers are often addressed to him. many tales are told of his goodness, self-denial, suffering, and sacrifice for the people, which leads to the conclusion that he was a pure, holy, and unselfish being. he gave utterance to many noble and morally exalting precepts. his principal precepts were comprised in six commandments: . "not to kill any living creature." . "not to steal." . "not to commit unchastity." . "not to lie." . "not to drink intoxicating drinks." . "not to lay up treasures upon earth." these are a few of his leading precepts, and which he himself practiced. in the observance of the last precept, he and his followers have excelled almost every christian on earth, as their bible contains the same precept, but none of them try to practice it. hence the hindoos are in this respect much better christians than the christians themselves. here it may be noted that the hindoos, like the disciples of the christian faith, have had various ecclesiastical councils to settle the canon of their bible or some controverted doctrinal questions. one of the most noted of these councils was called under the reign of king asoka in the year b.c. it was constituted of seven hundred "learned and accomplished priests." but they could not stop the progress of infidelity, as they essayed to do. it continued to increase till another council was called under the reign of king kanishka, and another revision of the sacred text took place. but, as in christian and mahomedan countries, it tended rather to unsettle than to settle the popular faith. nothing can arrest the intelligence and growth of progressive minds. skepticism and infidelity will continue to increase whenever the mind is unfettered by priestcraft, till the last credal institution is swept from the face of the earth, and ceases to curse the human family. ii. the institutes of menu. "the code of menu," or "institutes of menu," constitutes another sacred book of the hindoos. the rev. mr. allen says of it: "it is a code of religious and civil laws, and makes a part of the hindoo scriptures." it is in many respects similar to the vedas, and is almost equal to it in age; and, like the vedas, it is a standard of faith and a guide for moral action. hindoos call it _menu darma shastra_, "the ordinances of god." "as these ordinances, or divine laws," says mr. allen, "profess to be of divine origin, kings have no authority to change them. their duty was to administer their governments according to their teachings." all classes of people were required to live up to them. "in these respects," says mr. allen (p. ), "they resemble the laws given by moses, and contained in the old testament." these institutes treat on the subject of creation, the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and also define many of the duties of life. iii. ramayana. with respect to age, the ramayana is generally ranked next to the code of menu, and is equally adored as a holy and inspired book, and "may be classed," says mr. allen, "with the hindoo scriptures." it treats of the war in heaven, in which the dragon, or serpent-devil, was cast to the earth. to put an end to his ravages here, the savior and incarnate god chrishna was sent down. christ, we are told, "came to destroy the devil and his works." col. sherman tells us, in his "recollections of an indian official," that "the people (hindoos) assured us this bible was written, if not by the hand of the deity himself, at least by his inspiration; and, if asked if any absurdity that may be pointed out in the book be true, they reply with great _naivete_, 'is it not written in the holy book? and how could it be there, and not be true?'"--exactly the same defense that is often set up for the christian bible by its educationally warped admirers. it is believed the great hindoo prophet, vyas, wrote much of this bible, or "inspired poem," as some call it. iv. the mahabarat. the origin of this sacred book is considered to be very nearly co-eval with that of the ramayana. it has an appendix, or epistle, called the "_bagkavat gita_." which, on account of its high tone of spirituality, has attracted much attention in europe. the hindoos believe the mahabrat is highly inspired, and that every event noticed in it was recorded before it took place; thus making it in the highest degree prophetic. "its author, they claim," says mr. allen, "is no other than the incarnate god chrishna, of whose life it treats." that profound oriental scholar, mr. wilkins, thinks this and the other sacred books of india are more than three thousand years old, as is evidenced by sculptures in solid rocks. v. the purans, or poranas. some hindoo holy scriptures, when arranged together in one book, are known as the _barta skastra_, of which the poranas constitute a part. the last-named work treats of the creation of the world, and its final destruction and future renovation, the "great day of judgment," divine providence, &c.; also the ordinances and rules for worship, &c. vi. analogies of the brahmin and jewish religion. brahminism and judaism are each old forms of religion. each was superseded by a new and improved form of religion. each has a story of creation. jehovah and brahma both created the sun, moon, and stars (so believed by millions). . the spirit of both moved upon the face of the waters. . the world is spoken in to existence by both jehovah and brahma. . the hindoos had an adimo and iva, the hebrews an adam and eve. . in each case every thing is to produce after its kind. . man is in each case the last and crowning work of the whole creation. . both stories set man as a ruler over subordinate creation. . light in each case was spoken into existence. . jehovah and brahma each occupied six days in the work of creation. . there is a primitive paradise and state of moral purity in each story. . a tree whose fruit produced immortality is noticed in each cosmogony. . a serpent figures in each, and outwits brahma and jehovah. . man in each partakes of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. . the doctrine of the fall is found in each account. the means for man's restoration is provided in each case. . each sacred legend has a story of a war in heaven. . the soul is the breath of life, or breath of god, in each cosmogony. . labor is imposed as a curse in each case. . a moral code of ten commandments is found in each system. not to kill is a command in each decalogue. stealing is interdicted in each decalogue. adultery is condemned in each. bearing false witness is forbidden by each. . both brahmins and jews lost their "holy law," or "laws of god." one had a hilkiah, and the other a bisheu, to find the law. . each had an established order of priesthood. the priesthood was hereditary in each case: a tribe or family furnished the priests in each case. . both claimed to be god's pet and holy, or peculiar, people; and both styled other nations barbarians or aliens. . both holy nations were forbidden to marry with others; and both were too holy to eat with barbarians. . each had a ceremonial law prescribing numerous rites. the church ceremonies were performed by priests in each. . the priests were forbidden to eat meat in both cases. . both jews and brahmins worshiped by bloody sacrifices. both had their favorite sacred animals. animal sacrifices were by each to arrest public calamities. . one interdicted beef, and the other pork, as food. . both prescribed purification after touching dead bodies; and each religion had a law of purification. bathing was a mode of purification in each religion. . each has its "holy" places, times, days, cities, mountains, rivers, &c. india, as well as judea, was considered a holy land. . each had its holy ground. both drew off their shoes on entering upon holy ground or holy places. . both had their holy days, and the same in most cases. . mount mera was no less holy than mount sinai or mount horeb. jordan was a sacred river in one case, and ganges in the other. jerusalem was a "holy" city with the jews, and benares with the hindoos. . holy fasts and feasts were a part of each religion. both made u holy feast at full moon. . each had its holy fires. . both had their holy mysteries kept sacredly guarded. . each prepared and kept holy water for ceremonial purposes. . both anointed themselves with "holy ointment." . each claimed to have the only true and "holy faith." . "holy temples" were familiar terms to each. their temples were constructed in a similar manner. each had a "_sanctum sanctorum_," or "holy of holies." only the holy priest of both entered the interior sanctum. . both had their drink-offerings (called _turpin_ by the hindoos). . both sprinkled their door-posts with blood. . one had a scape-goat, and the other a scape-horse. . both taught that the sins of the father were visited upon the children. . religious pilgrimages were practiced by each. . both acknowledge and teach one supreme god. inferior deities, or angels, are believed in by each. god's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are taught in both bibles. . god is represented to be invisible by each. and "god is a spirit," and infinitely wise and good, is taught in each. . to love god supremely is recommended by each. . both taught that god was a god of power, and assisted them in their battles. . both taught that a knowledge of god is essential. . silent meditation upon the lord is recommended by each. . god was to each a refuge in danger and trouble. . the government of each was a theocracy, god the executive. . both religions were constituted largely of external rites. in each the priest was the expounder of the holy books and laws. "patriarchs" was one of the sacred orders of each system. holy "prophets" figure conspicuously in each system. both priests and people were in each case believed to be inspired. . and each had its witnesses to prove the truth and fulfillment of its prophecies. . both held their holy bibles as an inspired guide of right and wrong. . one bible was from jehovah, and the other from brahma. . ezra was inspired to compile the jewish bible, and vyas the brahmin. . each religious order had a holy ark containing something sacred. . a story of a deluge is found in the bible of each. . the corruption or wickedness of society caused the flood in each case. . the brahmins had their patriarch satyavrata, answering to noah. . each was forewarned of the flood. . eight persons were saved in each case. . in each story a large vessel is prepared. animals were saved by pairs in each case. a rainbow is spoken of in each flood story. . for shem, ham, and japhet, the hindoos have a sherma, charma, and jyapheta. . charma was condemned to be "a servant of servants," like ham. . human life was in each traditionally spun out to nearly a thousand years. . one day a thousand years with god, in each system. . both have stories of persons ascending to heaven. . budha was cast into the fiery furnace like the three holy children. . musavod was a giant in strength like samson. . rhambha was changed to a pillar of stone, like lot's wife to salt. . mahendra was carried through the air like habakkuk. . a story of budha answers to that of darnel in the lions' den. . idolatry is discouraged, but occasionally practiced by each . witchcraft was believed in by each. . here are presented eighty-eight striking analogies. vii. antiquity of india. having presented a long list of analogies between the hindoo and jewish religions, we will proceed to prove the prior existence of the hindoo system, and leave the reader to deduce his own inferences. "in times coeval with the earliest authentic records," says a writer, "the hindoos calculated eclipses, and were venerated for their attainments in some of the arts and sciences." according to the learned astronomer baily, their calculations in astronomy extended back to the remote period of seventeen hundred years before moses; and some of the ancient monuments and inscriptions of india bespeak for its religion a very remote antiquity. some of our modern learned antiquarians have expressed the opinion that the sanscrit language of the brahmins is the oldest language that can be traced in the history of the human race. they also state that this language was extant before the jews were known as a nation; and neither it nor their religion has _ever_ been known to _change_. these facts are sufficient to establish the existence of the brahmin and budhist systems of religion long prior to the earliest records of the jewish nation. note.--here we desire to call the attention of the reader to the very remarkable statement of col. dow in his "history of india." he tells us that "the hindoos give a _very particular account of the origin_ of the jewish religion" (pref. v.). they say that a pious hindoo by the name of rajah tara apostatized from the faith, for which he was banished to the west, where he established a system of religion, which became afterwards known as the jewish religion. tura only needs a change of one letter to make tera, the father of abraham. let the reader make a note of this. chapter vi.--the egyptian bible. the "hermas." the sacred books, the "hennas," or "books of hermas," were believed by the egyptians to have been dictated by the god isis, and inspired by him. in their collected capacity they constituted the egyptian bible, and were believed to contain "the sum total of human and divine wisdom." their great age is undisputed. they treat of the creation of the world, the attributes of god, and the theogony of the inferior deities, which answer to angels in the christian system, as they hold the same office, and are apparently the same kind of beings. the "hermas," like all other bibles, recognize but one supreme god, whom it declares to be just, holy, morally perfect, invisible, and indivisible, and whom it recommends to be worshiped in silence. this "holy book" contains some lofty and soul-inspiring moral sentiments and useful precepts. analogy of the egyptian and jewish religions. modern archaeological researches in egypt have disclosed a very striking resemblance between the ancient egyptian religion and that found in the jewish old testament, which, with the evidence of the greater antiquity of the former, has fastened the conviction upon the mind of every impartial reader of history, that the jewish religion was constructed from materials obtained in egypt and india; and this conclusion is corroborated by the bible itself, which tells us moses was skilled in all the wisdom and learning of egypt, and was by birth an egyptian. when we compare the doctrines, precepts, laws, and customs of the two religions, we find but little difference between them. even to the ten commandments there is a striking resemblance. the account of the creation and the order of its development is essentially the same in both. . the egyptians had a leader filling the place of moses by the name of hermes; and his writings were held in similar estimation, as they were believed to be inspired and dictated by infinite wisdom. . the egyptians had a priesthood of wealth and power, and possessing the same sacerdotal caste as those of the jews. . and the priesthood, mr. pritchard tells us (debate ), was hereditary, and confined to a certain tribe, as was that of the jews. according to diodorus siculus, and also mr. wilkinson, nearly all their ceremonies were essentially the same. . and their religious temples were constructed upon the same model, with an outer court and an inner court,--a _sanctum sanctorum_. . the egyptians had numerous prophets like the jews. and herodotus says, "the art of predicting future events came from the egyptians." . the egyptians had an ark, or shrine, which served as an oracle, and was carried about on a pole by a procession of priests, as the ark of the covenant of the jews was by the levites. the rev. john kendrick, in his "ancient egypt," acknowledged that he believed "the ark of the covenant of the hebrews was constructed on the model of the egyptian shrine." . kitto, in his "cyclopedia," says the egyptian sphinxes explain what is meant by the cherubims of the jews. . in their selection of animals for sacrifices, we find the same rules were adopted. each were controlled by the singular fancy of choosing a red heifer. . each had their scape-animals to carry away their sins,--the egyptians an ox, and the jews a goat. . both practiced circumcision. and we have the authority of herodotus for saying the jews and phoenicians borrowed the custom of the egyptians. . both jews and egyptians took off their shoes when approaching a holy place, which, with the egyptians, was in the temple. . both believed in one supreme, over-ruling god, and many subordinates, known either as angels or deities, which, in their character and their offices, were essentially the same. and a hundred other analogies might be pointed out, which indicate the oriental origin of judaism. antiquity of egypt. as a full comparison will show that the religion of ancient egypt and that of the jews were essentially alike, not only in their general features but in their most minute details, with respect to most of their doctrines, precepts, and customs, the question arises, how came this resemblance? it is out of the question to consider it merely fortuitous: that one grew out of the other, or both were derived from a common source, we are compelled to admit. to determine which was the parent system we have only to ascertain which possesses the greater antiquity. this question is very easily settled. a large volume of facts is at our command which tend to prove that the egyptians were in a high state of civilization before the jews were known to history. the bible itself partially recognizes this fact by its frequent allusion to egypt as a wise and powerful nation, able at all times to exercise superior sway over the jews, and whose wise men, or magicians, could compete with not only the jews, but their god, in the performance of miracles; that is, with the jews and their god to help them, in achieving the most astounding feats. they could make any thing that jehovah could, with the exception of lice. the remote antiquity of egypt can be proved by a few facts. the egyptians have a carefully preserved list of sixty-one kings, who ruled the empire between menes and amasis, with names and ages given, whose aggregate reign comprises a period of more than seven thousand years. herodotus says they computed with great care and accuracy. manetho tells us menes reigned seven thousand seven hundred years ago, which places him more than seventeen hundred years before adam. engravings on monuments, and writings on papyrus, confirm the statement of manetho. and then hieroglyphics on the pyramids of egypt, with names, dates, and figures which have recently been deciphered, enable us to trace the antiquity of egypt back eight thousand years, when she is shown to have been in a high state of civilization. another fact: layard and rawlinson, who recently visited egypt as commissioners or agents of the british government, state that fragments of pottery have been recently found by digging in the valley of the nile, which, by counting the successive layers, or deposits, made by the annual overflowing of the river, are shown to be not less than eleven thousand years old. such facts amount to demonstration, and can not be set aside. and mr wilkinson, in his "manners and customs of ancient egypt," adduces another kind of evidence to show the impossibility of egypt having obtained her religion from the jews. he says, "the first glimpse we obtain of egypt shows us a nation far advanced in the arts and customs and institutions of civilized life." and this was six or seven thousand years ago; while the most conclusive evidence can be adduced to show that no essential change has been made in her religion since the inscriptions were made on the monuments, some of which bear evidence of being eight thousand or nine thousand years old. if there has been no essential change in her religion for eight thousand or nine thousand years, it is _prima facie_ evidence that she did not borrow any of her religious tenets of the jews. such facts settle the question more conclusively than the most elaborate argument could do. chapter vii.--the persian bibles. i. the zend ayesta. the persians, properly speaking, had two bibles, or testaments, regarded as inspired and of divine authority,--the _zend avesta_ and the _sadder_, which may be denominated their old and new testaments. with these may be classed other sacred books of persia, known as the "desatur" (or revealed will of god), the "_g. javidan_" (or eternal wisdom), and the "_sophi ibraham"_ (wisdom of ibraham). hyde, in his biography of brittain, eighth chapter, pronounces the _g. javidan_ older than the writings of zoroaster, which were penned b.c. the zend avesta presents a detailed account of creation in six _kappas_, or indefinite periods of time; the temptation and fall of man, and his final restoration; the immortality of the soul, &c. ii. persian bible--the sadder. the sadder depicts "the war in heaven," in which the great dragon, or devil, ahrimanes, is finally slain. this sacred book, as well as the zenda avesta, contains many beautiful precepts. the persian sacred writings are all full of prayer and praise to god. one portion addresses him as _ormuzd_, another as _ahura mazda_. none of their holy books countenance or show any favor either for idolatry or polytheism. the persians have alway's opposed the making and worship of deific images; and they worship but one god, with the above names. one of their prayers, as a specimen, will show this: "o ahura mazda, thou true and happy being! aid us to think and speak of thee, and do only those things which promote the true welfare of body and soul. i believe in thee as the just and holy god, thou living wise one! thou art the author of creation, the true source of light and life. i will praise thee, thou holy spirit, thou glorious god mazda! thou givest with a liberal hand good things to the impious, as well as to the pious." in that portion of the zenda avesta called the "yacna," constituting seven chapters, it is declared, "we worship ahura mazda, and pray for the spread of his religion. we praise mazda's religion, and the pure brotherhood which it established. from the holy spirit mazda proceeds all good, and he is the source of perfection and immortality." here let it be noted that cyrus of persia was teaching the doctrine of immortality of the soul, while moses seems never to have thought of such a thing: he is silent on the subject. zenda avesta means "the living word of god." it has also been called by its disciples "the revealed word;" and ahura mazda has been called the "god of gods," as the jews called jehovah. who is to settle this counter-claim? sin, repentance, and forgiveness are all recognized in the sacred books of the persians. this is evinced by a devout disciple, when he says, in prayer, "i repent, o lord, of my wicked deeds in thought and words. forgive, o lord: i repent of my sins." a writer says, "upon the really fundamental duties of man, the zenda avesta upholds a high standard of morality and honesty, and seeks to inculcate the immense importance of leading an upright and virtuous life,--such a life alone as can be pleasing to god and useful to man." a text in this sacred book reads, "you can not be a worshiper of the one true god and of many gods at the same time;" which is a very explicit avowal of the belief in but one god. this persian bible declares, that one way to advance god's kingdom on earth is to confer benefit upon the poor. its spirit of kindness and sympathetic regard for suffering extends even to the brute creation. it forbids cruelty to any class of beings, and enjoins kindness to all. its psalms, hymns, and liturgies breathe forth a spirit of deep piety. a compliance with the divine law is urged as a means of saving the sinner from future punishment. the stern moral fortitude of the great teacher and moral exemplar zoroaster, in resisting, like christ, the temptations of the evil one, evinces a high appreciation of true virtue. as a whole, the sacred books of the persians, like those of other nations, contain a considerable amount of golden truth mixed with much rubbish and superstition. analogy of the persian and jewish religions. doctor pocoke says, "many things taught in the sacred books of the persians are the same as those taught in the pentateuch of moses, and other parts of the bible. they also contain many of the psalms erroneously called by the jews and christians the psalms of david." sir william jones, in his "asiatic researches," says, "the primeval religion of iran (persia) is called by newton the oldest, and it may justly be called the noblest, of all religions." it teaches "a firm belief that one supreme god made the world by his power, and governs it by his providence. it inculcates a pious fear, love, and adoration for god; also a due reverence for parents and aged persons, fraternal affection for the whole human species, and a compassionate tenderness even for the brute creation." can as much as this be said of the christian religion? mr. goodrich, after stating that the ancient hebrews evidently had no idea of astronomy as a science, says, "the chaldeans appear to have made observations on eclipses earlier than the commencement of written history" ("history of all nations," p. ). the chaldeans and persians have a story of creation essentially the same as that of the jews. it represents ormuzd as creating the world through the word in six kappas, or periods of time. previous to that period, nothing but chaos, or darkness, and water had existed. ormuzd created, first, the heavens and the earth; second, the firmament; third, the seas and waters; fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; fifth, birds, reptiles, quadrupeds, &c.; sixth, man. the persians and chaldeans have also a story of a deluge, in which xisuthra, being warned in a dream, built an ark, in which he saved himself, his wife and daughter, and the pilot, and a pair of every species of animals, reptiles, and birds. after the rain had ceased, he sent out a pigeon, which, finding no resting place, came back to the ark. the second time, it came with mud in its bill, which was a better evidence that the waters had subsided than the leaf which noah's dove returned with, as that might have been picked up while floating on the waters. they had a giant in strength (a gaza) answering to that of samson. they had a story of a lofty tower designed to reach to heaven, but the gods destroyed it, and confounded the language of the builders. the persians had their priests, their prophets, their angels, their twelve patriarchs, their holy fires, holy water, and rites of purification, like the jews; also their ordinance of water-baptism. their holy mountains, holy rivers, and holy waters, their animal sacrifices, and their sacrament or ceremony of bread and wine, were all similar to those of the jews. they had a soleimon and a soleimon's temple. their religion was a theocracy, and was violently opposed to idolatry; but, unlike the jewish religion, it taught the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the lofty idea that the human mind is an emanation from the divine nature. we find the principal elements of the christian system also mixed up with the doctrines and principles above set forth; such as two primary principles of good and evil (ormuzd and ahrimanes), termed by christians god and the devil,--two gods with their two kingdoms, which were always at war with each other, to moderate which stands mithra the mediator, who was born, like christ, of an immaculate virgin. for a further elucidation, see "the world's sixteen crucified saviors." antiquity of the persian religion. the historical facts to establish the existence of the persian religion long prior to that of the jews are numerous, cogent, and unanswerable. they have calculations in astronomy which, scientists admit, must have been made four hundred years anterior to the time of moses. according to berosus, fragments of their history have been found which extend it back fifteen thousand years; and he tells us it is computed with great care. chapter viii.--chinese bibles. kings and shoo. the chinese have varions sacred books, the principal of which are the five kings. they have also four holy books, known as shoo, and one called tao-te, though the word king is a term applied to all their sacred books. some of these holy bibles are attributed to confucius, one of them (ta-heo, the great learning) to his grandson, and others to his disciples. some of the sects recognize thirteen kings, or sacred books, others only seven, and the principal sect but five. some of these holy books bear a resemblance to the christian gospels, others to the epistles; and one of them bears a considerable resemblance to paul's epistle to the hebrews. they are believed to be divinely inspired; and all are regarded as authority in matters of faith, doctrine, and practice. all of them inculcate virtue, and condemn vice and immorality. i will present merely a brief exposition of a few of the leading books. i. ta-heo; or, great learning. this book forms the basis of the religious sect known as the tao-ists. it treats principally of doctrines, but enjoins many important duties,--such as family government, the cultivation of the natural faculties, the acquisition of knowledge, the duty of being honest and sincere and rectifying the heart, and the moral obligation of having good rulers and a righteous government as means of making all peaceful and happy. ii. the chung yung; or, the doctrine of the mean. this book contains the golden rule: "what you do not like others to do to you, do not so to them." it recommends a state of harmony in the mental faculties as the path of duty and the road to happiness and to heaven. it teaches that people should follow the dictates of their own consciences, and cultivate and fully develop their natures. on the whole, it admonishes a system of moral perfection. it declares that spiritual beings are constantly around us, and we do nothing without them, though we do not see nor hear them. pretty good spiritualism! iii. the book of mang, of mencius. mang, or mencius, the philosopher, lived about two hundred years after confucius. this holy book of his was not admitted into the chinese canon till several centuries after it was written. up to that date it was regarded as apocryphal, but is now held in high veneration as an inspired book. it affirms the essential goodness of human nature, instead of the christian doctrine of "total depravity." it teaches that all men are possessed of more or less goodness by nature, but are often corrupted by bad example and bad governments. it argues the moral right of the people to choose their own rulers. iv. shoo king; or, book of history. this work is constituted of fifty-eight books. it throws much light on the history of the chinese empire, and bears evidence of having been written in a very remote age, but was compiled about b.c. it argues that people are not bad by nature, and that it is the duty of governments to bless the good and punish the wicked. otherwise they need not expect the blessing of heaven, or the favor of the people. it relates the case of an emperor who was reformed by reading the holy book. v. the she king; or, book of poetry. this book is about as devoid of moral instruction as the books of ruth and esther in the christian bible. it is principally a display of human emotions and social feelings. yet almost every chinese has committed portions of it to memory. being gotten up in the style of a poem, it is well calculated to enlist the feelings of the devout disciple. vi. the chun tsen; or, spring and summer. this is principally a historical record, and is interpreted as representing spring and summer. it is held in high estimation as being the production of the "great divine man," confucius; and it is wonderful with what ingenuity its commentators and teachers have succeeded in extracting from its dry details about wars, marriages, deaths, travels, eclipses, battles, &c., the most profound lessons in morals. like the admirers and expounders of other holy books in all ages and countries, they bestow the most recondite spiritual meanings on texts containing nothing but nonsense, senseless verbiage, or immoral teachings. vii. the tao-te king; or, doctrine of reason. "tao" means _absolute_, and "te" means _virtue_; which indicates that it teaches _absolute virtue_. of all sacred books this is the most philosophical. it seems to constitute both a revelation and system of philosophy. it displays considerable wisdom and beauty, but is not free from those gross and repulsive elements which characterize the christian and some other bibles. it declares that god created, cherishes, and loves all the world. it has no angry god, but one enjoining love and benevolence, and the return of good for evil, upon all the human race. it declares god made all beings: his essence formed them, his might preserves them, his providence protects them, and his power perfects them. it condemns war and weapons of death: it says that tao does not employ them, and all good men abhor them. it also condemns the possession of worldly wealth as being in opposition to a spiritual life, and as denoting the absence of good from the soul. modesty, mercy, benevolence, and contentment are recommended as the highest of human virtues. an extensive commentary, written by a chinese saint about b.c., goes with this book to explain it, as all "divine revelations" have to be revealed over again by the priests, who seem to assume that infinite wisdom is too ignorant of human language to dictate a book that can be understood. must it not be mortifying to him to have his blunders thus exposed? analogy of the chinese and jewish religions. the christian historian, mr. milne, expressed a fear that he might be condemned for furnishing proof, that, before jesus was born, a morality as pure was inculcated in the celestial empire (china). as in the hindoo, egyptian, and persian religions, we find the jewish and christian religions here amalgamated together. the chinese had a cosmogony, or story of creation similar in some respects to those already noticed. these sacred books speak of a primitive paradise, in which was a tree of knowledge and a tree of life; also of a deluge and an ark. baptism, the cross, and the miter are emblematical rites of their religion. they also taught the doctrine of the eucharist and the trinity, and practiced circumcision. the chinese have a story or tradition of an incarnate god, natigai, who, like christ, was both creator and mediator. his system of religious faith taught the doctrine of special providences, future rewards and punishments, a general judgment-day, the duty of humility or self-abasement, and the moral and religious obligation to observe strict temperate habits, and to devote our whole lives to god, &c. the chinese religion inculcates many beautiful and sublime moral precepts, which we have not space to notice here. the historical books of china, comprising a hundred and fifty volumes, and called "the great annals," and recently translated by a scientific frenchman, have a regular chronology, beginning nearly two thousand six hundred years before the period assigned for the creation of adam. and they have calculations in astronomy at that remote period. the learned men of europe have decided that they made the calculation of an eclipse about seven hundred years before the time of moses. these facts are sufficient to prove the existence of their religion long anterior to the time of adam. concluding inference. in addition to the facts and authorities we have cited to show that the hindoo, egyptian, persian, and chinese religions were all established prior to that of the jews, there are other facts which demonstrate the absolute impossibility of any of these religions obtaining any of their religious elements or doctrines from the jews. . we find both the jewish and christian doctrine interwoven into each one of those oriental systems. hence, if they borrowed one, they borrowed both. but that is impossible: for the christian system is known to be much younger. . those oriental religions are all conservative in character; so that there has been scarcely any perceptible change in their doctrines during the thousands of years of their known existence. hence their very nature would preclude them from borrowing any new doctrines. . on the contrary, the jewish mind has been very vacillating. a disposition to change their religion has been constantly manifested through their whole history. such facts as these settle the question. chapter ix.--bibles i. the soffees' bible--the musnavi. the bible of the soffees, the "musnavi", teaches that god exists everywhere and in every thing; that the soul of man, and the principle of life throughout all nature, are not _from god_, but _of_ god, and constitute a part of his essence; that nothing exists essentially but god; and that "all nature abounds with divine life." mr. malcom, in his "history of the moguls" (p. ), says: "the soffees are incessantly occupied in adoring the almighty, and in a search after truth." they are passionately fond of poetry and music (two essential elements of civilization). their bible teaches many beautiful moral lessons. ii. the parsees' bible--"bour desot." the parsees' bible is entitled _bour desch_, which means "genesis; or, the beginning of things." its cosmogony is similar to that of moses, though more definite, and probably written at an earlier period. its eden, or primitive paradise, lasted three thousand years before kipo (the devil) entered, plucked the fruit, handed it to the woman, and thus caused her downfall, and, after her, that of the whole human race. iii. the tamalese bible. we have space for but little more than the titles of other bibles. the tamalese "holy book" was known as the "_kalivodkam_," and contains some excellent moral precepts. iv. scandinavian bible. saga, meaning "wisdom," is the name of the scandinavian "inspired volume," so called because it was believed to have emanated from the fountain of divine wisdom. v. the kalmucs' bible. kaliocham, the kalmucs' bible, was believed to contain in repletion "all the wisdom of god and man." vi. the athenian bible. the ancient athenians had what they claimed to be a "holy and god-derived book," called "the testament." dinarchus alludes to it in his speech against demosthenes. it was read with deep, solemn awe and devoutness. vii. the cabalists' bible. yohar, or "book of light," the bible of the cabalists, relates some wonderful cures and miracles performed by that sect. chapter x.--the mahomedan bible--the koran. the koran, or alkoran, is the most modern in its origin of in the list, having been penned six hundred years later than the christian bible. it differs from most other bibles in being the production of a single author, and, for this reason, possesses more uniformity of style and fewer contradictions than most other bibles. mahomet did not claim to be its author, and did not write it, but merely dictated it to his secretary zaid. like the founder of the christian religion, and nearly all the other great religions of the world, he was very illiterate. incarnate gods and religious chieftains possess no aspiration to become scholars, and no taste for science. they were governed by feeling and the impulse of religious enthusiasm, which have no affinity for science. mahomet, however, did not profess to be a god, but merely a prophet. the koran, having originated in a later and more enlightened age than the christian bible, possesses some superior features, and, of course, is superior to still older bibles. it is more consistent in its teachings on the subject of temperance, as it does not, like the christian bible, both sanction and condemn the use of intoxicating drinks; but uniformly forbids the use of it, and even prohibits the manufacture of it. it also shows more respect for the rights of woman by providing for her maintenance by dowry. it levies a tax on its disciples of two and one-fourth per cent for the support of the poor. it enjoins not only kindness and respect for enemies, but a careful provision for their wants. the disciples of the koran were taught and believed that the holy book was originated in heaven, and had long been preserved there by its divine author allah, and, in the fullness of time, was handed down, chapter at a time, by the angel gabriel to the prophet mahomet; and his scribe zaid recorded it. the leading doctrines of the koran are: the unity of the godhead, and the perfection of his attributes; the joys of paradise, and the terrors of hell; the awful fate of unbelievers in the koran. the day of judgment is held up as a terror to evildoers and skeptics, and an encouragement to the faithful. skeptics, or unbelievers in the koran and the mahomedan religion, are repeatedly consigned to the same terrible fate (the fires of hell) that christ consigns the unbeliever in the christian religion, and the same as that to which the founders of other religions doom those who reject or disbelieve their pretended revelations. the koran abounds in precepts of a high moral tone. mahomet holds out the idea that christ was created like adam, and therefore was but a man, though a true servant of god. this, he asserts, was the view of christ himself. the doctrine that god could have a son, or that there could be more than one person in the godhead, was to him profanity, infidelity, and downright blasphemy. it is repeatedly denounced in strong terms in the koran. all prayer and praises to god are addressed to him in the singular number. i will cite a few texts in illustration: "praise be to god, lord of all worlds, the compassionate and merciful king. thee only do we worship, and to thee only do we cry for help. guide us in the right path." "the sun is god's noonday brightness; the moon followeth him: the day revealeth his glory; and the night enshroudeth him." "he built the heavens, and spread forth the earth." "and whoso shall fear god, and do good works, no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they be put to grief. but those who turn away from him, he will consign to eternal fire." "to those who believe (the koran), and do things which are right, hath god promised forgiveness and a noble recompense." ii. the mormons' bible--the book of mormon; also "the revelations of joseph smith." this sacred book is claimed to have been found inscribed on gold plates, situated several feet below the surface of the earth, in wayne county, n.y., in the year , by joseph smith, a pious youth, then only fourteen years of age, who declared he received information with respect to the existence of the plates and their locality from an angel of the lord, with whom he had had frequent intercourse for several years. the following is a description of the plates and original records composing the book, as furnished by orson pratt, one of the "latter-day apostles" of jesus christ: "the records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold. each plate was not far from seven by eight inches in length and width, being not quite as thick as common tin. they were filled on both sides with engravings in egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, fastened at one edge with three rings running through the whole. this volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. the characters, or letters, upon the unsealed part were small and beautifully engraven. the whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, and skill in its engravings. with the records was found a curious instrument called by the ancients 'urim and thummim'; which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set in the two rims of a bow. it was used in ancient times by persons called seers, by means of which they received revelations of things past or future." mr. smith finally succeeded, with the aid of a profound linguist in new-york city by the name of anthon, in translating the whole work into the english language. several writers testify that the ground out of which the records were dug was solid, and covered with a thick and solid growth of grass, presenting no appearance of having ever been disturbed. the sect now constitutes about three hundred thousand disciples. the following testimony to the truth of the story is a voluntary offering by three witnesses:-- testimony of three witnesses. be it known unto all nations, tongues, kindred, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of god the father, and oar lord jesus christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of nephi, and also of the lamanites. men, brethren, and also of the people of jared. and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of god; for his voice hath declared it unto us: wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. and we also testify that we have seen engravings which are upon the plates; and they are shown unto us by the power of god, and not of man. and we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of god came down, and that he brought and laid before our eyes, and we beheld and saw, the plates and the engravings thereon. and we know it is by the grace of god and our lord jesus christ that we beheld and bare record that these things are true, and it is marvelous in oar eyes. nevertheless the voice of the lord commanded that we should bear record of it. wherefore, to be obedient to the commandments of god, we bear testimony of these things. and we know, that if we are faithful in christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in heaven. and the honor be to the father and the son and the holy ghost, which are one god. amen. oliver cowdery. david whitmer. martin harris. mormon sacred book, no. --the book of doctrines and covenants; or, the revelations of joseph smith. in addition to the book of mormon, joseph smith originated and partly composed a book of doctrines and covenants, purporting to be a direct revelation from heaven relative to the temporal government of their church. it enjoined the support of the poor, the taxation of members, the establishment of cities and temples, the education of the people, the emigration of saints, &c. this book has been venerated by the mormons as a "holy revelation from god," and hence is, in a strict sense, a bible. its title sufficiently indicates its character. as much as christians ridicule the idea of joseph smith receiving a revelation from god, it comes to us with exactly the same authority as the claimed-to-be revelation of moses. the evidence in each case is the same. iii. the shakers' bible. the bible of the shakers is entitled "a holy, sacred, and divine roll from the lord god of heaven to the inhabitants of the earth, revealed in the society of new lebanon, columbiana county, new york, united states of america." the testimony of eleven mighty angels is given, who are said to have attended the writing of the roll. a copy of the holy book has been sent to every king and potentate on earth. its contents and style bear some resemblance to the christian bible; and it contains texts which appear to have been drawn from that book, and then altered. it should be borne in mind that the shakers also profess to believe in the christian bible, with their own peculiar construction of the book, like other sects. chapter xi.--the jewish bible. in a practical sense, there are other books beside the old testament which go to make up the jewish bible. the talmud, or rather the two talmuds; the jerusalem talmu (comprising the mishna, or second law), compiled about b.c. by a jewish rabbi; and the babylonian talmud, compiled about six hundred and fifty years later,--are regarded by the jews as equally inspired and equally binding in their moral requisitions as that of the old testament. in fact, they compare the former to wine, and the latter to water, when speaking of their relative value. some "tall stories" are found in these jewish revelations, such as these: it tells of a bird so tall that the water of a river in which it stood came only to its knees, though the water was so deep that it took an ax, thrown into it, seven years to reach the bottom; and of an egg of such enormous dimensions, that, when broken, the white of it glued a whole town together and a forest of three hundred cedar-trees. these are but specimens of their miracles. such is the character of the jewish sacred writings, emanating from the same source as the old testament; and consequently of equal authority and reliability, and equally entitled to our belief. chapter xii.--the christians' bible. the christian bible, as now accepted by protestants (for it must be borne in mind that it has been altered and amended on various occasions, thus altering the canonical word of god), is composed of thirty-nine books in the old-testament department, and twenty-seven in the new; the whole constituting a multifarious collection of old oracles, obsolete dogmas, oriental legends, ancient myths, religious reveries, beautiful precepts, poetry, heart-touching pathos, wild fancies, preceptive admonitions, martial exploits, domestic regulations, broken, disjointed narratives, ritual rules, and spiritual ideas; including also cosmogony, history, theocracy, theology, annals, romance, prophecy, rhapsody, psalmody, mythology, allegory, dreams, tradition, legislation, ethics, politics, and religion, all jumbled together without arrangement, division, classification, or order; committed to writing in various ages and nations and countries, and by various writers, extending over a period of several thousand years, including nearly every form of composition known to human ingenuity,--gay, grave, tragical, logical, philosophical, religious, and romantic,--emanating from gods, angels, men, and devils; recorded, some of it in mountains, some of it in caves, some of it on the banks of rivers, some of it in forests, some of it in deserts, and some of it under the shadow of the pyramids. it commenced on mount horeb, and ended in the isle of patmos. from such circumstances we are not surprised to learn that its chronology is unreliable, chimerical, and incorrect; its history contradictory and incredible; its philosophy fallacious; its logic unsound; its cosmogony foolish and absurd; its astronomy fragmentary and childish; its religion pagan-derived; its morals defective, sometimes selfish, often extravagant, and in some cases pernicious. its government, both temporal and spiritual, is, to some extent, both barbarous and tyrannical; while its theocracy is mere brute force. it presents us with narratives without authorities, facts and figures without dates, and records without names. we find no order in its arrangement, no system in its subjects or the manner of presenting them, and no connection in its paragraphs, and often no agreement in its statements, and no sense in its logic. it seems to teach nearly every thing upon nearly every question of morals which it touches. it apparently both sanctions and condemns nearly every species of crime to which it refers, and pours fulsome laudations upon the heads of some of the most bloody-minded and licentious men,--such as david, solomon, &c.,--and holds them up as examples of true practical morality. it is often dark, ambiguous, and mysterious, as well as contradictory, not only in its lessons of morality, but in its account of the simplest occurrences, thus rendering it comparatively worthless as a moral guide; inasmuch as it is much easier to find out what is right and what is not without going to the bible, than it is to find out what the bible teaches upon the subject, or what it intends to teach in any given case. with respect to war, slavery, polygamy, and the use of intoxicating liquors, for example, it is much easier to determine whether they are right or wrong by the moral fitness of things than whether they are scriptural or anti-scriptural; while it is silent upon many crimes which now infest society. if we are compelled to determine the character of some actions without going to the bible, why not that of all other moral actions and duties? edmund burke says of the bible, "it is necessary to sort out what is intended as example, and what only as narrative; what is to be understood literally, and what figuratively, where one precept is to be controlled and modified by another; what is temporary, and what of perpetual obligation; what is appropriate to one state or set of men, and what is the general duty of men in all ages." now, who can not see that all this must require a quality of mind capable of determining or learning moral principles and moral duties without recurrence to the bible? and it must require a vast amount of time to accomplish this task, all of which is lost, inasmuch as it is consuming time in making the bible conform to what you have already learned of right outside its pages,--time that might be much better employed. such are the moral aspects of the bible. but it also has its beauties, which we need not occupy much space in depicting, as we have fifty thousand clergymen in this country who attend faithfully to that matter. suffice it to say, that portions of it are characterized by a high-toned spirituality, other portions by a deep, heart-stirring pathos. and then we have manifested in other parts the most devout piety, while the books of the prophets often breathe forth a spirit of the most elevating poetry. and there is scarcely a book, or even a chapter, in the whole bible, that does not evince a spirit of religious devotion, and an effort for the right, though often misdirected. taken as a whole, the bible may be regarded as an exposition of the condition of science, morals, religion, government, and domestic polity of the era in which it was written, and suited to the temporal and spiritual wants of the people of that age, for whom it was written, _but not for this age_. when regarded in this light, and as simply a human production of the best minds of the age and times in which it was written, many portions of it can be read with interest and instruction. but when read, as it has been for centuries, as a perfect, divine composition, designed for all time and as a finality in faith and practice and moral progress, it becomes a stumbling-block in the path of progress, an embargo upon free thought, a fetter upon the soul, a fog of bewilderment to the mind, and a drag-chain to the moral and intellectual reformation of the world. chapter xiii.---general analogies of bibles. from the foregoing brief analysis of the characters of the bibles of various nations, it will be observed that they are, in their main or leading features, essentially alike, including the holy books of jews, christians, and pagans; that they are alike in their ends and aims and main characteristics; that all inculcate the same fundamental doctrines; that all impart and enjoin the observance of intrinsically the same moral lessons, the same preceptive aphorisms. all teach substantially the same superstitions, the same kind of miraculous feats performed by gods, angels, and men and devils, the same marvelous stories and achievements over-ruling and over-riding the great laws of nature, often checking or stopping the ponderous wheels of the machinery of the universe. the revelations on the pages of each are claimed to be god-derived, and to have been inspired through prophets, oracles, angels, apostles, or "holy men;" or to have issued directly from the mouth of god, and descended from his immaculate throne to earth, without the intervention or employment of a medium. each puts forth similar notions and traditions concerning gods, deities, or angels, genii, demons, or evil spirits, priests, prophets, patriarchs, prayers, sacrifices, penances, ceremonies, rituals, messiahs, redeemers, intercessors, sin-atoning, crucified saviors, sons of god, &c. all recognize the doctrine of atonement for sin; all, or nearly all, approximate in their modes of propitiating the favor of an offended deity by oblations, sacrifices, and offerings of animals, men, or gods, or sons of god. each has its cosmogony; each proclaims the doctrine of one supreme god, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, of post-mortem rewards for "deeds done in the body,"--endless bliss for the righteous, and punishment for the wicked. each attests the truth and divine origin of its religion by the record of a long array of the most astonishing miracles, confirmed and ratified by the fulfillment of numerous prophecies. most of them teach the doctrine of the primeval innocence and moral elevation of man, and of his fall, and of his prospective subsequent restoration; and also of the necessity of a "change," or "being born again," in order to a full reconciliation with god, and a perfect state of righteousness. in a word, all had essentially the same religious institutions, and the same ecclesiastical orders of priests, pilgrims, monks, and missionaries; the same or similar prayers, liturgies, sermons, missionaries, and sacrificial offerings; similar holy orders of saints, angels, and martyrs. all had their "holy days," their "holy fasts and feasts," "holy rivers," "holy mountains," and "holy temples," &c.; and nearly all preached essentially the same doctrines relating to a spiritual birth, regeneration, predestination, and a future life, rewards, and punishments, and a final judgment, &c. all furnish a religion cut and dried (the great end of all bible creeds) so as to save the intellectual labor and mental toil of discovering the rule of right and the road to duty by an investigation of the great laws of cause and effect, the nature and constitution of the human mind, and the moral fitness of things. as a finale to creation, and a final consummation and triumph of their peculiar faith, each imagines and portrays a great prospective millennial epoch, at which juncture the heavens are to be "rolled together as a scroll;" the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers to take fire, and be reduced to ashes; "the new jerusalem to descend from god out of heaven;" and peace, righteousness, and happiness unalloyed to rule and to reign thenceforth and for ever. hence all bibles and religions are of divine origin, or none. note.--sir william jones says the ancient religions borrowed from each other. ii. superior features of heathen bibles. there is not one oriental bible in all the number but that is superior in some respects in its teachings to the christians' bible. none of them sanction so explicity every species of crime; none of them contain so much obscene language. on the contrary, the chinese bible, as mr. meadows says, "_contains not one sentence but that may be read with propriety in any drawing-room in england._" strikingly different from that of the christian bible, as shown in chap. xxiii. the mahomedan bible is quite superior in its teachings, both with respect to intemperance and the treatment of women. it forbids both the use and the traffic in intoxicating drinks, and also the manufacture; while the christian bible, although condemning one, sanctions both (see chap. lviii.). with respect to women, it contains some commendable precepts. it not only enjoins husbands to treat their wives properly, and provide for them, but provides for their divorce in case this is not done; while the christian bible, by the authority of christ, allows divorce for no crime, abuse, cruelty, or inhuman treatment on the part of tyrannical, wicked, or drunken husbands, but that of fornication (see matt, v. ). the koran also enjoins a tax of two and one-fourth p. ct. on its disciples to support the poor; while the christian bible says, "thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause" (ex. xxiii. ), though it is true it contains counter-precepts. these examples are sufficient to lead to the conclusion that nothing would be gained to the cause of practical morality by supplanting any of the oriental bibles with the christian bible. chapter xiv.--the infidels' bible. we find the remarkable admission in the christian bible, that the moral guide adopted by infidels is superior to that book which christians have adopted for a guide. paul, in his epistle to the romans, says, "the gentiles, who have not the bible, do by nature the things contained in the bible." an astonishing bible concession, truly! he, however, uses the word "law" for bible; but commentators tell us the law is contained in the bible, and some writers make "law" and "bible" synonymous terms. we therefore give the sense more fully by rendering it "bible" instead of "law." it is here admitted by paul, that the great bible of nature, written upon man's consciousness, and inscribed upon every thing around him, which is the infidels' bible and revelation, is superior to any printed bible. if man learns by nature the moral lessons taught by the bible or moral law (that is by nature's laws, as learned by observation and experience, which is the infidel's sole reliance for learning the great lessons and duties of life), then this _natural_ revelation, which paul commends so highly, is superior to any _written_ preprinted revelation. if, as paul teaches, the ignorant, illiterate gentile can learn by this _revelation_ of nature, or _law_ of nature, the duties of life, the great truths of salvation, and the right road to heaven, then it must be greatly superior to the christians' bible. for it is admitted by christians themselves (foreign missionaries), that, with all the aid that priests and commentators can render, there is a considerable portion of their bible which the heathen can not learn or be made to understand. but not so, according to paul, with god's natural bible, and the revelation inscribed on man's moral nature, and learned by the exercise of his common sense, natural judgment, and the experience of mankind in general. hence we have a bible which is not only easily read and easily understood by even the unlettered heathen, but a bible which possesses many advantages over all printed bibles, some of which i will mention. in the first place, it is a bible always open. it can not be kept closed under lock and key, as the christian bible has been in past ages. second, it is a bible that needs no translation in any language; for it is already written in the languages all the nations of the earth. third, it is a bible, thank god! that all, whether high or low, learned or unlearned, can read and understand. its glorious truths are easily read; for they are plainly and legibly inscribed upon every leaf and page of the soul of every human being. fourth, hence this revelation needs no priest to expound it, and no church to unravel its mysteries, by voluminous commentaries. sixth, no concordance is needed to enable its readers to find its golden gems, which glitter and sparkle upon every page. they are what the quakers call "the light within." seventh, neither moths nor mice can destroy this glorious bible. fire can not consume it, nor water wash it away. it is imperishable and eternal. it is a bible into which no errors have ever crept, either by printers, transcribers, or translators. and (soul-cheering thought!) it is a bible which contains all the important doctrines, principles, and precepts which can be found in any perishable paper-and-ink bible, and all the grand truths that god ever vouchsafed to man. they can all be found in this golden-leaved bible, this eternal, soul-saving revelation of god. jesus refers to this natural bible, or revelation, again when he say's, "know ye not of yourselves what is right? "--that is, by the bible planted in your own souls, the revelation stereotyped upon your own moral sense or moral nature. hence the virtual acknowledgment by jesus (who is bible authority), that there is no necessity of running to any printed or paste-board bible to learn the truths of the gospel or the duties of life; for he teaches the important lesson that we may learn them in our own inward selves. we can "know of ourselves what is right." and there are other texts which admit that god's first revelation, and his last and only revelation, to the human race, is far superior to that of any books of human origin; and which admit that this glorious revelation can not be found in the christian bible, or any other perishable book, but existed for ages before any paper-and-ink bible was ever thought of. i will quote one other text to prove these statements, and in further confirmation of the proposition that the christian bible itself admits that the infidels' bible, direct from the hand of god, is greatly superior to it in all the essential features and principles of a bible. paul concedes this when he says, in his epistle to the romans, "the invisible things of god are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead" (rom. i. ). now, here it is proved, if any thing can be proved by the bible, that every thing that can be learned about god and religion can be found written upon the tablets of nature, and inscribed upon every thing that is made. for it is declared, that even the "invisible things of god"--that is, the _great spiritual truths_ of the kingdom--can be seen and learned by the revelations, or lessons, written upon things "that are made." a wonderful admission, truly! it is stated, they can not only be seen, but "_clearly seen_ and understood," by studying the things "that are made," and learning their important lessons. if, then, they can be "clearly seen and understood," there is not the shadow of a doubt left upon the mind as to their truth or meaning: you are not annoyed with that perplexity, uncertainty, and painful anxiety about the meaning of moral lessons they teach, as you are with respect to hundreds of texts you find in the christian bible. this is a grand revelation and declaration and benefit, truly. and "even his eternal power and godhead,"--that is, god's character and attributes,--we are here told, can be learned by reading and studying this beautiful and easily comprehended bible, written by the finger of god upon every leaf and page of nature. was there ever a more important, more pleasing, or more beautiful revelation made to the world than this of paul's? and is it not surprising that christians have never noticed this most important admission? it is an important moral lesson that throws their pen-and-ink bible into the shade, and shows we would be better without than with it by substituting god's eternal and universal bible. it will be observed, then, that it is shown by different texts of the bible, that the "holy book" which came directly from the hands of god is greatly superior to that which came through the hands of man. and the fact that it is the only bible, or revelation, that can now be found in all countries, and the only bible that can be read by all nations, kingdoms, tongues, and people, and that not one man, woman, or child in a hundred, take the world over, can read any other bible but this, is very nearly _prima facie_ evidence that it is the only bible god ever designed for the human race, and that he never did impart, and never will impart, any other revelation to the world; that no other bible is necessary for the moral, religious, and spiritual welfare of the race, or to point the road to salvation. hence it is the only bible we would recommend for the reading of the young. it is the only bible we are certain they can understand. it is the only bible we are certain is free from errors. it is the only bible we are certain has never been altered or mistranslated. it is the only bible we are certain teaches no immoral lessons. it is the only bible which we are certain contains no vulgar or obscene language, calculated to raise a blush on the cheek of modesty, and outrage every feeling of decorum, as many of the texts found in the christian bible do. it is the only "holy scripture" we can be certain was given forth by divine inspiration, and the only sacred volume or "holy word" which has the full seal and sanction of almighty god. read, then, and study well, this open and widespread bible which infolds the universe. all the bibles and religions of the past claim to have been authorized by a _direct_ revelation or inspiration from god. but we are satisfied that no such revelation has ever been given forth to any nation in any age of the world. for inspiration is now known to be a universal law of the natural mind; an inborn principle of the human soul, which all ages and nations, and every human being, have possessed a greater or less share of. and the amount of true inspiration possessed by each individual depends upon his or her moral, intellectual, and spiritual elevation of the soul or mind into the higher enjoyment of spiritual bliss where it becomes _en rapport_ with all that is lovely, inspiring, and beautiful in god's universe; where it can take cognizance of great moral problems and spiritual truths; and where it can look through the long vista of futurity, and behold the events of coming years rolling up toward the threshold of time. this is true inspiration, and the spirit of true prophecy. but it is the work of our own minds, and not of deity, and is not confined to any age, nation, or religion. it depends upon the culture of the moral and intellectual faculties and the spiritual aspirations of the individual, and not upon his creed or religious belief. as for a divine revelation, it can not be found in any book of human origin. it could not be incorporated into a book, nor could all the books in the world contain it. it is inscribed all over the face of nature. we read it upon the outstretched earth and upon the shining heavens; we read it upon "every bush and every bower, every leaf and every flower." here, then, we have a bible with a revelation as broad as the universe. its lids are the heavens above, and the earth beneath. its golden-leaf pages are spread out at our feet; its lessons of wisdom, its truths of salvation, and its soul-inspiring beauties, are inscribed upon the soul, and written all over the face of nature. read and study it, o man! and become "wise onto salvation." chapter xv.--two thousand bible errors. old testament department. a hundred and twenty-three errors in the story of creation. as the old testament possesses no order, no arrangement, and no distinct system of either morals or religion, and no regular connection in its history, we have to treat it in the same unsystematic order in which we find it, and to expose many foolish errors and stories which seem almost beneath the dignity of any respectable writer to notice. but, as they constitute a large portion of the old testament, we have got to deal with _them_ or _nothing_. and, although trifling in _themselves_, they have done much mischief. hence we deem it of greater importance to expose their evil influence than to trace them to their heathen origin, as we originally designed doing. . the first text in the bible is evidently an error. "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth" (gen. ). no geologist and philosopher at the present day believes in either a creation or a creator. the assumption involves two impossibilities. first, a creation could not take place without something to create from: "_ex nihilo nihil fit_,"--"out of nothing nothing can come." second, to account for the origin of the earth, sun, moon, and stars, by assuming the existence of a creator, is throwing no light on the subject. we have made no progress towards solving the problem; for we are equally puzzled to account for the origin of the creator himself. it is as easy to assume that matter always existed as to assume that the creator always existed. hence there would be no creation possible, and none needed. this is now regarded as a settled scientific problem. . it is a scientific error to assert that matter had a beginning, as the bible assumes. many scientific facts have been developed to establish the conclusion that all beings and objects on earth were eliminated from its elements, and all the planets we can recognize were an outgrowth from some other worlds. the proposition is not only susceptible of much proof (which i have not space here to present), but is very beautiful and satisfactory. it "composes our reason to peace." all we lack of comprehending it is the capacity to grasp eternity and infinity, which finite mortals cannot do. . if god "created the heavens" (gen. i. ), and heaven is his "dwelling-place" (see kings viii. ), then where did he dwell before the heavens were made? here is a very puzzling question, and involves an absurdity equal to that of the tonga-islanders, who teach that the first goose was hatched from an egg, and that the same goose laid the egg. an idea equally ludicrous is involved in the assumption that god created the heavens and the earth about six thousand years ago; so that, previous to that era, there was nothing on which he could stand, sit, or lie, but must have been suspended in mid-air from all eternity. . if nothing existed prior to six thousand years ago, then there was nothing for god to do, and nothing for him to do it with. hence he must have spent an eternity in idleness, a solitary monarch without a kingdom. . as we are told god created the light (gen. i. ), the conclusion is forced upon us, that, prior to that period, he had spent an eternity in darkness. and it has been discovered that all beings originating in a state of darkness, or living in that condition, were formed without eyes, as is proved by blind fishes being found in dark caves. hence the thought is suggested, that god, prior to the era of creation (six thousand years ago), was perfectly blind. . "god saw the light that it was good" (gen. i. ). hence we must infer that god had just got his eyes open, and that he had never before discovered that light is good. of course it was good to be delivered from eternal darkness. . "and god divided the light from the darkness" (gen. i. ). hence, previous to that period, they must have been mixed together. philosophy teaches that light and darkness never can be separated, any more than heat and cold, as one is only a different degree of the other. . "and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night" (gen. i. ). and to whom did he call them? as no living being was in existence until several days afterwards. hence there was no need of calling them any thing, and, as we are told adam named every thing, he could as easily have found names for these as for other things. . the bible teaches us that day and night were created three days before the sun. every school-boy now knows that it is the revolution of the earth upon its axis that causes day and night; and, but for the existence of the sun, there could be no day and night. if moses' god was so ignorant, he had better never have wakened out of his eternity of darkness. . the bible teaches that the earth came into existence three days before the sun; but science teaches us that the earth is a child or offshoot of the sun. hence it could be equally true to say a son was born three days before his father. . "and the earth was without form, and void" (gen. i. ); but philosophy teaches that nothing can exist without form, or when void. the declaration brings to mind the scotchman's definition of "nothing,"--"a footless stocking without a leg." we have an idea of a thing which does not exist. . "and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters" (gen. i. ). here we are taught that the original state of the earth was that of water. but geology teaches its original constituents was fire or fusion; that water did not exist, and could not exist, in it, or on it, for millions of ages. professor agassiz says our earth was once in a state of igneous fusion, without water, without rain, and even without an atmosphere ("geological sketches," i. ). and even the pious, god-fearing hugh miller says that "the solid earth was at one time, from center to circumference, a mass of molten matter" ("lectures on geology," ). here we have geology against theology. . god spent a day making a firmament, by which he "divided the waters from the waters." if it had then stated that he spent a day in making moonshine, or one day in making breath for adam, it would have been as sensible; for the firmament is as truly a part of the earth (being eliminated from it) as our breath is a part of our bodies. . "divided the waters from the waters." here is disclosed a belief which prevailed in various oriental and heathen nations, that the earth exists between two large lakes, or sheets of water; and that the firmament is a solid floor, which holds the water up, and prevents it from falling, and inundating the earth; and, being supplied with doors and windows, when god wants it to rain he opens the windows (the bible says "the windows of heaven were opened," see gen. vii. ). he pours it down by opening the windows, and stops it by shutting them up. "the windows of heaven were stopped" (gen. viii. ). how fully is the heathen tradition disclosed here! . we are told that god gathered "the waters under heaven together unto one place" (gen. i. ). how ignorant he must have been of geography! he evidently had not studied the science, or had not traveled much, or he would have known the waters under heaven never have been "gathered together unto one place," but exist in many places, as the two hundred large lakes prove. . the bible tells us, that, when god created the vegetable kingdom, he ordered each species of vegetation to "bring forth after its kind" (gen. i. ). can we suppose that apple-trees would have borne buckeyes, or mullein-stalks produced pumpkins, or any thing foreign to their nature, if the command had not been given for each to bring forth after its kind? . according to the bible, the vegetable kingdom was created before the animal; but the learned geologist hitchcock, although a christian by profession, in his "elements of geology" says, "an examination of the rocks shows us that animals were created as early as vegetables" (and he might have said much earlier). and yet the bible says vegetables were created on the third day, and animals on the fifth (see gen. i.). . the bible represents vegetables as coming into existence before the sun, but philosophy teaches that they could neither germinate nor grow without the warming and vivifying influence of the sun. . the bible tells us that "god made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and god set them in the firmament to give light to the earth" (gen. i. , ). that is, he made two round balls, and then stuck them into a hole scooped out of the firmament for the purpose. this seems to be the idea. here is disclosed the most egregious ignorance of astronomy. think of that stupendous solar luminary, as much larger than this pygmy planet as a man is larger than a mouse, being hung up or stuck up above us for our sole accommodation! how sublimely ridiculous! . the bible represents the great world-builder, the almighty-, architect, as spending five days in plodding and toiling at this little mole-hill of ours before he got it finished up to his notion, and then made such a bad job of it that he repented for having undertaken it. . but when he came to make the countless worlds, the vast suns, and systems of suns, which roll their massive forms in every direction around the earth, these were all made in a few hours. "and he made the stars also." this text tells the whole story of the origin of the boundless planetary system, comprising millions of worlds larger than our planet. what superlative ignorance of astronomy moses' god manifests! . moses is awarded great credit by bible believers for opposing polytheism, and teaching the existence of but one god: but it would have been more to his credit if he had stuck to a belief in a plurality of gods; for it would take a million of such gods as his imagination has created a thousand years to make such a universe as astronomers have brought to light since he wrote. . the language, "let us make man in our own image" (gen. . ), seems to imply that there was an association of gods,--a company of almighty mechanics, who had formed a copartnership to do up a big job. . if man was made in the image of god, why was he cursed for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge in order to be like god? . according to the bible, god became so tired in the business of world-making that he had to take a rest of a whole day (and perhaps took a nap also) when the job was completed; but geology and philosophy both teach that creation never was begun, and never will be finished, but is going on all the time. hence new species of animals and vegetables are constantly coming into existence. . the bible represents the entire universe as being created less than six thousand years ago; but science teaches us that it has been in existence for millions of years. . a large volume of scientific facts has been accumulated by scientists, showing that even our earth, one of the youngest of the planets, is at least several hundred thousand years old. look at a few of the facts which go to prove it. the coral reefs of florida are estimated by professor agassiz to be one hundred and thirty-five thousand years old. charles lyell estimates the delta of the mississippi valley to be at least one hundred thousand years old. four growths of cypress-trees far below the surface of the ground, and situated one above another, have been discovered near new orleans, whose successive growths must have occupied a period of at least one hundred and fifty thousand years. so much for the agreement of geology and bible chronology. . but we are told that a day in the bible means a thousand years. then, as the sabbath day constitutes one of the days spoken of in the bible, and was provided as a day of rest, christians and bible believers should rest a thousand years at a time; and, as god rested a whole day (a thousand years), he must have been as tired of resting as he was of world-making. why do the figures " b.c." stand at the top of the first page of the bible, if a thousand years mean one day? . the bible teaches that whales, fishes, and birds were made on the same day; but geology assures us that fishes came into existence long before fowls. . the bible teaches that beasts and creeping, things were all made on the fifth day of creation; but geology tells us that reptiles and creeping things crawled upon the earth millions of years before beasts came into existence. . the bible represents man as coming into existence about six thousand years ago; but human bones have recently been discovered in the vicinity of new orleans which dr. dowler estimates to be at least fifty thousand years old. . a deity who becomes so tired and physically exhausted with six days' labor as to be compelled to stop and rest, physiology teaches would be liable to physical disease; and, if physically diseased, it might terminate in death, and thus leave the world without a god (godless). . the bible tells us "the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground" (gen. ii. ); but philosophy teaches that dust possesses no vital properties, and that it would have been less difficult to make man of a stone or a stump, owing to their possessing more adhesive properties. one writer suggests that the negro must have been made of coal-dust. . according to the bible, a serious blunder was made by jehovah in the work of creation, by exhausting all the materials in the process of world-making and man-making, so that nothing was left to make a "helpmeet" for adam; and this blunder caused the necessity of robbing adam of one of his ribs. . but common sense teaches us that a small crooked bone but a few ounces in weight could not furnish half the material necessary to constitute a woman. the parsees, with a little more show of sense, tell us that the rib was used merely as a back-bone, around which the woman was constructed; which revives in memory erin's mode of making cannon, which consisted in "taking a round hole, and pouring melted metal around it." the tonga-islanders have a tradition about as sensible as that of moses with respect to the origin of the first woman. their god made the first man with three legs, and amputated one of them to make a "helpmeet for him?" this is an improvement, as a leg can be better spared when there are three than a rib: it also possesses more material than a rib. . the bible teaches that man was created upright, but fell. if it means physically, it can be easily accounted for, and must be ascribed to his creator; for depriving him of one of his ribs would leave him in an unbalanced condition, so that he would be liable to fall. . the bible imparts to us the strange intelligence that "the lord god brought all the beasts and birds to adam to see what he would call them" (gen. ii. ). what an idea for omniscience or infinite wisdom to engage in the business of chasing bears, lions, tigers, elephants, and hyenas, and all manner of beasts great and small, and all manner of birds, also hissing, crawling, biting reptiles, and every living thing which he had created, and taking them to adam "to see what he would call them"! not having sufficient intelligence to find names for them himself (pardon the thought), his curiosity was no doubt aroused to see what an ignorant being of his own creation, who had not sufficient intelligence to clothe himself, would call the innumerable host of beasts, birds, &c., before any language was known, or even a single letter was invented to spell names with. (we are very far from desiring to wound the feelings or encroach upon the reverence that any man or woman may cherish for "a god of infinite love, wisdom, and goodness;" but let it be kept constantly in mind we are not presenting the history of such a being here, but the mere imaginary god of moses and the bible.) . as the bible teaches that adam named all the beasts, animals, and birds, it must have occupied a great number of years for the lord god of moses to have caught and taken the several hundred thousand species to adam to receive names in all the three thousand languages, and then convey them back to their respective climates. . the question naturally arises, why should adam give them names by saying, "this is a horse, that is an ass, the animal yonder shall be called a hippopotamus," &c., when there was nobody present to hear it and be benefited by it? and nobody could have remembered half the names had they been present. here we wish to call the attention of the reader specially to the fact that all the thoughts and language we have so far cited as being either that of god or moses sounds like the utterance of ignorant children, and unworthy the dignity of an intelligent and sensible man much less that of a god. . the bible teaches that "god made man in his own image." the reverse statement would have been true, "man made god in his own image;" for this is true of all nations who believe in a god. . here let it be noted the bible contains two contradictory accounts of creation; one found in the first chapter of genesis, the other in the second. in the first, animals are created before man; in the second, after man. . the first chapter of genesis says, "let the earth bring forth plants" (gen. i. ): the second says, "god created every plant... before it was in the earth" (gen. ii. ). a contradiction; and neither statement is true, there being no creation. . the first chapter has the earth created several days before the firmament, or heaven: the second chapter has it created on the same day (gen. ii. ). . the first represents fowls as originating in the water (gen. i. ): the second has them created out of the water. . after the first chapter says "god created man in his own image" (gen. i. ), the second says "there was not a man to till the ground" (gen. ii. ). . the first chapter represents man and woman as being created at the same time (gen. i. ): the second represents the woman as being created after the man. . the first implies that man has dominion over the whole earth: the second restricts his dominion to a garden. which is the inspired story of creation? . the mexicans claim that the first man and woman were created in their country. the hindoos aver that the original progenitors of the race (adimo and iva) first made their appearance amongst them. the chinese claim a similar honor. the persians contend that god landed the first human pair in the land of iran. and, finally, the jews affirm that jehovah created the first pair in eden. the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. moses tells us god planted two trees in eden, one of which he called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." this tree bore fruit which nobody was allowed to taste (gen. ii. ). . why the tree was planted, or why its fruit was forbidden to be used, are problems which the bible does not solve, and which set reason at defiance. . and then it looks like a senseless act to create a tree for the purpose of bearing fruit (as we can conceive of no other purpose for which it could have been created), and then decree that it should all go to waste. . it was worse still to create human beings with an appetite for this fruit, and place it in their sight, and then forbid them to taste it on penalty of death. nothing could be more opposed to our ideas of reason and justice. . did god create beings in his own image, and then treat them as if he wished to tantalize them and render them unhappy? . it would seem that he created man for no other purpose than to tease and torment him, and quarrel with him. . common sense would suggest it to be the act of an ignoramus or a tyrant to implant in man the desire to eat fruit which he did not allow him to eat. . and would it not be unjust to punish adam and eve for doing what he himself had implanted in them the desire to do? . god must have known they would eat the fruit, if he were omniscient. . if he were not omniscient, he was not a god in a supreme or divine sense. . god must have had the power without the will to prevent the act of disobedience, which would make him an unjust and unmerciful tyrant. . or else the will without the power, which would make him a weak and frail being, and not a god. (for a full elucidation of these points, see chapter sixty-nine.) we will notice a few other points. . as god declared eating the fruit would make adam "like one of us," that is, godlike (and all men are enjoined to become godlike), was not adam, therefore, justified in eating the fruit in order to become godlike? . in chapter sixty-nine it is shown, that, as adam and eve got their eyes open by eating the inhibited fruit, the act of disobedience turned out to be a great blessing, inasmuch as it saved the earth from being filled with a race of blind human beings. . and, as this blessing was obtained through the agency of the serpent-devil, we must admit "the father of lies" was a great benefactor of the human race, as shown in chapter sixty-nine. . as adam could not very well exercise "dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (gen. i. ) while shut up in a little eight-by-ten garden, we can observe here another practical benefit of the act of disobedience which drove him from the garden. . is it not a strange piece of moral incongruity to set adam to tilling the soil in the garden as a _blessing_, and then doom him to till it _outside_ as a curse? (gen. iii. .) he first embarked in the business as a blessing, and then as a curse. how the same act could be both a blessing and a curse is a "mystery of godliness" which swamps us. . the jews tell us the original tempter was a serpent (gen. iii. ); the mexicans say it was a demon; the hindoos call him a snake; the greeks declare it was a dragon; josephus supposes it was an ape; some of the east-india sects speak of him as a fish; but the persian revelations make it a lizard. which is right? . the mosaic or hebrew cosmogony represents the serpent as dealing out the fruit to the _genus homo_; while the mexicans, the egyptians, and the persians set the serpent or "evil genius" to guarding the tree to protect the fruit. which is right? . when god jehovah announced to the trinity of gods, "behold, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil" (gen. iii. ), exactly as the serpent had predicted, instead of dying as jehovah had predicted, does it not prove that the serpent was the best and most reliable prophet? . as adam and eve could know nothing of the nature of right and wrong until they attained that knowledge by eating the fruit, does not this fact prove it to be a justifiable if not a righteous act? . how could adam and eve know that any act was sinful before an act of any kind had been committed by which they could learn the character or consequences of human conduct? . is it not a logical conclusion, that, if god created every thing, he can control every thing, and hence, strictly speaking, is alone responsible for the right performance of every thing? . the christian bible tells us the first pair of human beings sewed fig-leaves together for clothing; but the chinese revelation say palm-leaves. which is right? who can tell? . as it is declared the voice of god was heard "walking in the garden" (gen. iii. ), we beg leave to ask, what kind of a thing is a "walking voice"? . we also beg leave to ask, who took charge of "the house of many mansions" while jehovah was down among the bushes hunting and hallooing for adam? . and who took charge of creation, and kept the machinery of the universe running during the thousand years' rest of god almighty, if the one day he rested means a thousand years? . was it necessary for an omnipresent god to come down from heaven to find adam when he hid among the bushes? and what would have been the result if he had not been found? . must we not conclude that the command to "multiply and replenish the earth" was rather superfluous, inasmuch as nations who never heard of the command perform the duty faithfully? . if the river gihon, one of the four rivers of paradise, "encompassed the whole land of ethiopia" (gen. ii. ), which is in africa, how did it manage to cross the red sea, so as to get into eden, which is in asia? . as bishop colenso shows the territory lying between the four rivers in eden, as mentioned in gen. ii. comprised an area of several hundred miles, we would suggest that father adam, while in eden, had rather a large garden to cultivate. . how could fig-leaves be sewed together for clothing before needles were invented? (see gen. iii. .) . how did eve see the tree as stated in genesis ("she saw the tree") before she ate the fruit which caused her eyes to be opened? . is it not calculated to destroy all ideas of justice in the minds of man and woman to believe that god cursed and ruined the happiness of the whole human race merely for one simple act prompted by a being destitute of moral perception or moral accountability? . and what should we think of a being who would suffer a grand scheme, on which is predicated the happiness of his innumerable family for untold ages, to be defeated by the wily machinations of a brainless creature of his own creation? . why should adam hide from god because he was naked, when, if god made him, he must have become accustomed to seeing him in that condition? . if god in the morning pronounced every thing good, and in the evening every thing bad, does it not imply not only a serious blunder in the job, but a serious mistake in his views either in the morning or in the evening? . as we are told "the lord god made clothing for adam out of goat-skins," the question naturally arises, who caught and killed the animals, and dressed the skins? does it not imply that god was both a butcher and a tanner? rather plebeian employment for a god. . and the statement that "the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden" (gen. ii. ) seems to imply that he was a horticulturist also. . it is pretty hard to believe that adam could sleep while god almighty (moses' god) was digging amongst his ribs, as stated in gen. ii. . . how could adam know what the word "die" meant before there had been any deaths in the world, when the lord told him he should _die_ if he ate the forbidden fruit? . as eve was pronounced "the mother of all living" when there were no human beings in existence but she and adam, the inference seems to be that she was the mother of herself, her husband, and all the animal tribes. . "in the image of god created he them" (adam and eve, see gen. i. ). if adam and eve were both created in the image of god, it would seem to follow that he was constituted of two genders, male and female. in concluding this section, we ask the reader to think of an infinitely wise god being defeated in his grand scheme of creation or salvation by a crawling serpent, and a frightful hell and all its horrors originating from this act. how sublimely ridiculous is the thought! ii. the scientists account of creation. . millions of years ago the sun in its revolution threw off, as it had done on previous occasions, a sort of fire-mist, or nebulous scintillations, which floated and rolled through space for countless ages, gradually accumulating from the atmosphere in its revolution, thus swelling in size until it became a conglomeration of gas; and, continuing to grow and progress, it ripened into a fiery, liquid mass possessing the most intense heat. . after innumerable ages this fiery liquid mass began to cool, and finally formed a crust upon its surface. . as its interior elements began to evolve or emanate from its bosom, it formed a dense, heavy, murky atmosphere, almost as heavy as water, in which no living thing could have breathed or lived for a moment. . this atmosphere contained moisture, which in the course of time became condensed into globules forming drops, which descended to the earth in the shape of rain. . this rain, descending to the earth, cooled its surface, and eventually filled its vast cavities with water, and thus formed lakes, seas, and oceans. the boiling, heaving mass in the bowels of the earth made it very irregular in shape. . as soon as the surface of the earth became sufficiently cool, small swellings began to appear upon its surface, presenting the appearance of blisters, or boils. these outgrowths finally began to exhibit vegetable life; but for a long period of time they presented the appearance of rocks or stones. . in the mean time the washings from the surface of the earth were deposited in the seas and oceans, and, sinking to the bottom, in the course of time formed rocks. . these rocks, as they hardened, gave off an element of life, which in the course of time supplied the waters with various forms of animal or finny life, and thus originated mollusks, fishes, &c. . as the surface of the earth cooled and grew thicker, the elements of life diffused through the liquid mass finally made their appearance on the surface in the character of the lowest forms of vegetable life? such as mosses, lichens, ferns, &c. . as the surface of the earth thickened, and consequently accumulated the elements of vitality gave forth higher and still higher forms of vegetable life, finally the most matured forms of matter began to exhibit animal life. . the first species was the zoophite, a compound of vegetable and animal life, but possessing scarcely any of the functions of animal life except those of absorption and respiration, and these functions were but slightly manifested. . succeeding the zoophite came the mollusks and various hard-shelled animal forms, which at first clung to the rocks, then fed on seaweeds and other vegetable substances, absorbing also from the atmosphere. . in this way various species of animals and birds and reptiles sprang up, ran their course, and then perished, to give place to higher forms. . and finally, when all the elements of life became sufficiently matured, they formed a combination, and turned loose upon the earth the animal man, who at first was nearly as ugly, clumsy, and awkward as a baboon, possessed of but little more sense or intelligence. . each one of these changes and outgrowths of the new forms of vegetable and animal life constituted an epoch of innumerable ages, thus showing the age of our planet to be beyond computation. we submit to the reader whether this is not a more rational, beautiful, and satisfactory solution of the great problem of mineral, vegetable, animal, and human existence, than the jumbled-up medley presented by moses. chapter xvi.--absurdities in the ark and flood story. if there were no other errors or absurdities in the bible, our faith in it would diminish at every step in the investigation of the ark and flood story as related in the sixth chapter of genesis. the avowed purpose of the flood, the means employed, and their failure to accomplish the end desired, are all at war with our reason and our moral sense. . the first question that naturally arises in considering this story is, why should so many millions of innocent beings--men, women, children, animals; birds, &c.--perish as a penalty for the sins of a few thousand people? . the reason given for this wholesale destruction was the wickedness and moral depravity of the human race. but is it true that the whole human race was in that state at that period? according to manetho and herodotus, egypt was in a state of high civilization and moral culture at the time; and, according to dr. hulde, china was also far advanced in the arts of civilization and in morality. col. dow and other writers represent india as being in a similar condition. there could, therefore, be no justice in drowning all these nations in order to punish a few thousand rambling jews: it was too much like "burning the barn to destroy the rats." . an enlightened moralist of the present day would decide that it was a species of injustice to destroy all the land animals, and let the fishes and aquatic animals live. it looks like partiality. . but god, having discovered that he made a signal failure in the work of creation, acknowledged that it "grieved him at his heart," and that he "repented" having undertaken it. however, he issued a proclamation, stating that "the end of all flesh is come: every thing that is in the earth shall die." . "i, even i, do bring a flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh" (gen. xi. ). the language seems to imply that somebody else had undertaken, or was about to undertake, the business. . but "noah found grace in the eyes of the lord," and was placed at the head of this grand scheme; being, as was assumed, although a drunkard, the most righteous man that could be found. . the lord instructed him to build an ark five hundred and fifty feet long, twenty feet wide, and fifty-five feet high,--about the size of an eastern warehouse. think of putting into this two of every species of animal, and seven of every species of clean beast, and fowls of the air!--there being one hundred and fifty thousand or, as some make it, five hundred thousand species of animal, one hundred and twelve thousand kinds of bird, and fifty thousand species of insect. . and god ordered to be taken into this ark food sufficient to supply these millions of mouths. this alone would have required forty such vessels. . as it was declared that god destroyed every living thing from the face of the earth, it would have been necessary to have food enough stored away to last several years, until the earth could have time to be replenished with a new crop of grass and vegetables to serve as food for the granivorous and herbivorous species, and animals for the carnivorous tribes. the weight of such a cargo would have been sufficient to sink the whole british navy! . consider for a moment what amount of food would be required for each species of animal. the four elephants (two of each species) would consume a ton of hay in two days, making more than one hundred and fifty tons in twelve months. the fourteen rhinoceroses would consume one thousand and fifty tons. and then the horses, cattle, sheep, goats, asses, zebras, antelopes, and other mammalia, would require at least two thousand tons more; making in the aggregate three thousand two hundred tons. this alone would have filled every inch of the vessel. . the seven hundred and eighty-four thousand birds (one hundred and twelve thousand species) would require grain, which would make it necessary to store several thousand bushels. . the three thousand flesh-eating animals, including lions (one lion could eat fifteen pounds a day), cats, dogs, jackals, hyenas, skunks, weasels, crocodiles, snakes, eagles, hawks, buzzards, &c., would require about forty wagon-loads to be slaughtered and fed to them each day; for all would require fresh meat but the buzzards. . and otters, minks, gulls, kingfishers, spoonbills, storks, &c., would require fish for food, which must either be preserved in tanks for the purpose, or one hundred and fifty persons would have to be employed all the time in catching them; and there were only four men to do this and perform all the other labor,--sufficient for five thousand hands. . there were nine hundred species of fly-catchers,--those that feed on flies, beetles, and other insects. we are not informed whether flies were included in the registered list or not; but they would, of course, be impudent enough to take up their quarters in the vessel without invitation. . about two hundred and fifty birds known as bee-catch-ers would have to be supplied with this kind of insect: this would be, to say the least, rather stinging business. . many cans of cockroaches must have been saved to feed the birds-of-paradise. . there are several kinds of ant-eaters also, which would have required much time to be spent in searching for ants in the cracks of the vessel, or in collecting then! off the water. . the four hundred and forty-two monkeys would require fresh fruit; and it is not probable anybody had the forethought to can it for them. . sixty-five species of animal feed on insects; and it would have been necessary for several persons to spend most of their time in crawling after millipeds, fleas, wood-lice, &c. . there would have been work for fifty boy's in providing leaves and flowers (if there were any possibility that they could be obtained while merged in twenty-seven feet of water) for the animals that feed on these things. . besides food, fresh water must have been stored up for most of these animals, as they could not have endured the salty water of the briny deep. . noah and his family must have studied ornithology and natural history many years to know what kind of food to save for the various kinds of birds and animals. . naturalists estimate that there are fourteen different climates, each with animals adapted only to the temperature and natural growth of that locality. how, then, could they all endure the change of being removed to the vicinity of mount ararat? animals from the frigid zones must have felt like fish out of water in the warm climate of armenia. . and think of the immense labor required to obtain this innumerable collection of animals! in the first place, either noah or his god must make a trip to the polar regions to obtain the white bear, the reindeer, the polar dog, &c. . and then the rocky mountains must be scaled to find and catch the grizzly bear. some time and labor must have been required to obtain the rattlesnakes, copperheads, vipers, cobras, snapping-turtles, &c., of the torrid zone. . and a great deal of strategy must have been employed to catch the fox, the deer, the antelope, the gazelle, the chimpanzee, of the temperate zone; also the eagle, hawk, buzzard, &c. . to do all this hunting and catching, and conveying to the ark, of the million and a half birds and animals, would have required a larger number of persons than napoleon or xerxes ever commanded; for, as the whole thing is related as a natural occurrence, we can not assume that they made the journey of their own accord. . the bible commentator scott supposes that angels were employed to aid in this business of storing away the animals in the ark; but it is certainly derogatory to that elevated order of beings to suppose they would stoop to such groveling work as bug-hunting, skunk-catching, snake-snaring, &c. . and how could this immense multitude of respiring and perspiring animals live and breathe in a vessel with but one little twenty-two-inch window, and that in the third story, and shut up most of the time to keep the rain out, especially if some giraffe had been disposed to monopolize it when it was open by thrusting his head out? how could they be kept thus for a whole year without breeding pestilence and death? . all animals require light; and total darkness must have reigned in the two lower stories, and only a partial light supplied the third story,--just what could come through a twenty-two-inch window. . the chorus of voices in the ark--consisting of bellowing, baying, howling, screaming, hissing, neighing, snorting, roaring, chattering, buzzing, &c.--suggests that deafness would have been a blessing to the human beings present. . we are told that "fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and the mountains were covered." fifteen cubits (twenty-seven feet) would not cover nine-tenths of the buildings now on the earth. ararat is seventeen thousand feet, and everest twenty-nine thousand feet high. . several scientists have shown by actual experiment that the atmosphere could not contain the fourteen-hundredth part of the water that is represented to have fallen in the time of the flood. . who or what conducted the ark to ararat when the waters subsided? in the brahminical flood story a fish is said to have performed this feat, and dragged it to mt. hinavat; but noah and moses are silent on this point. . the peak of ararat is perpetually covered with snow and ice; hence it must have been rather difficult and dangerous for the biped and quadruped cargo to descend from it. . and what was there to prevent the nine hundred carnivorous animals from devouring the sheep, hogs, poultry, rabbits, minks, hedgehogs, &o., as they tumbled pell-mell down the mountain together. . the same catastrophe must have ensued from the act of turning them loose upon the earth together, with nothing to subsist upon but the flesh and blood of each other. . many oriental nations have traditions of a flood, and some of them of several floods. xisuthrus of chaldea built a ship, in which he saved himself and family during a mighty flood which overflowed the world; also fohi of china, menu of the brahmins, satravarata of india, and deucalion of greece. hence it appears there were several families saved besides that of noah's. egypt and india have stories of two floods occurring. all these stories are evidently older than that recorded in the christian bible. . geologists and archaeologists have collected a whole volume of evidence, which shows that such a deluge could never have taken place as is embodied in the traditions of several nations. the fresh water of the lakes, and the salt water of the seas and oceans, would have been so mixed as never again to be separated as they are now. egyptian monuments and sculpture can be traced to a much earlier period than that assigned for noah's flood. . lepsius has traced the existence of several races or tribes of negroes up to a period within forty-eight years of noah's flood; this would seem to indicate that some of noah's family were negroes, and must have "multiplied and replenished" very rapidly to start several races in forty-eight years. . the dynasties of egyptian kings can be traced back several thousand years beyond noah's time. . it is true jesus christ and the apostles indorsed the truth of the flood story (matt. xxiv. ); but that is evidence against their intelligence, instead of being a proof of the truth of the story. . and the assumed divine author of the flood admitted it was an utter failure,--that it entirely failed to accomplish the end intended; for it was declared but a few centuries after, that "the imagination of man's heart is evil, and only evil, continually," which is an evidence that the wicked folks were not all drowned by the world's inundation. . with respect to the many difficulties and impossibilities i have enumerated as lying in the way of carrying out this experiment of the flood, it is sometimes argued in defense, that, as the whole thing was in the hands of god, such obstacles would not be a straw in his way. but such persons at different periods,--one ninety-five hundred years ago have failed to notice that it is nowhere stated or implied that it was to be accomplished by miracles. a miracle could have destroyed all the wicked inhabitants of the earth in a moment, without any flood or other means. . with regard to its being only a partial deluge, as argued by some bible defenders, we will say that it is only necessary to examine the language of the bible to settle this matter. it is declared over and over again, that the whole earth was covered with water, and _every living thing destroyed_. if it had been only a partial deluge, all that would have been necessary for noah to do to save himself and family would have been to migrate to some dry country; and the doomed sinners might have saved themselves in this way. . i will note here that the rainbow was for more than a thousand years looked upon both as evidence that there had been a universal deluge, and also that there never would be another. it is only at a recent period that the study of philosophy has disclosed the fact that the rainbow is caused by the reflection and refraction of the rays of light upon the falling rain, and the error thus exploded. . one thing in connection with this flood story is not clearly explained in the bible: methuselah's time was not out till ten months after the flood began, according to bible chronology. where was he during this ten months? chapter xvii.--the ten commandments, moral defects of. these commandments have always been regarded by bible believers as being a remarkable display of infinite wisdom, and as being morally perfect beyond criticism; and consequently they have passed from age to age without examination, when a little investigation would have shown any logical mind that they contain palpable errors both in logic and morals. first commandment: "thou shalt have no other gods before me" (exod. xx. ); that is, as commentators have interpreted it, "thou shalt prefer no gods to me." and why not? what harm can it do? supposing the people prefer a golden calf, as the jews did under the leadership of aaron, in the name of reason how can it injure either god or man? if not, where is the objection? the feeling of devotion is the same in all cases, whatever may be the object worshiped. hence the worshiper is as much benefited by worshiping one object as another. on the other hand, it would be a slander upon infinite wisdom to suppose he can desire the homage, adoration, and flattery of poor ignorant mortals, and desire them to crouch at his feet. it would make a mere coxcomb of him to suppose he can be pleased with such adulation, or that he desires such homage. we worship no such god. second commandment. the second commandment prohibits our making "the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth" (exod. xx. ). let us look, in the first place, at the effect of this prohibition, and then at the character of the act. it effectually cuts off the use of photographs, portraits, and pictures,--illustrations of every description; for all these are likenesses of something. hence thousands of oases of the violation of this commandment take place every day in all christian or civilized countries. books are issued every day containing likenesses of something in the heavens above or the earth beneath; especially are school-books illustrated with the likenesses of all kinds of living beings, and often with inanimate objects, by which children learn. the second commandment is utterly disregarded and trampled under foot by all christendom. third commandment. this commandment prohibits our bowing down to and worshiping any other god but jehovah, because "i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god" (exod. xx. ). as for "jealousy," it will make any being hateful and despised, according to william penn. but why not worship other gods (that is, beings supposed to represent or resemble god)? can any serious evil result from such an act, either to god or his worshipers? if so, what is it? let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that the heathen who bow down to images of wood and stone suppose them to be the veritable living and true god (which, however, is not true), yet it would be the very climax of folly to suppose that an infinite being, of such infinite perfection that it places him at an infinite distance beyond human flattery, can take the slightest offense at such an act. it is childish to entertain such a thought. a thousand times more sensible is the doctrine of the hindoos' vedas, which makes god (brahma) say, "those who worship other gods worship me, because i hear them, and correct their mistake." we will illustrate:-- a rebel soldier (son of a doctor) was wounded near his father's house, in kentucky, during the war, in which he immediately sought refuge. as he entered the hall (it being evening twilight), he observed some person at the farther end whom he supposed to be his father, and exclaimed, "father, i am wounded! can you aid me?" his father, being in a room above, overheard him, and responded, "yes, sir." had he had the vanity of jehovah, he should have replied, "no, sir: you mistook the servant in the hall for me: therefore i will not assist you, but punish you, and kill you." remember, jehovah is represented as killing the worshipers of other gods (deut. . iii. ). if an illiterate heathen in like manner should, in his ignorance, call upon idols or mere imaginary beings for aid, would not his heavenly father, "in the room above" or the heaven above, hear him and reply, "you are mistaken; i am here, not there; but no difference, the mistake is not important: your intention was good, and your motives honest; therefore i will grant your request"? this would be sensible. but jehovah is represented as saying, "if thy brother or son or daughter, or even the wife of thy bosom, shall say, let us go and serve other gods, thou shalt not pity nor spare, but kill them" (deut. xiii. ). here is the most shocking cruelty, combined with supreme nonsense. we are commanded to kill wives, sons, and daughters, if they entertain a different view of god from ours, no matter how honest they may be; and there is no question but that all worshipers are honest. they can not be otherwise. and yet there is no sin more frequently or more fearfully denounced in the christian bible than that of worshipping other gods. who can not see that it all grew out of the bitter sectarian bigotry of the jews, which engendered feelings of animosity toward all nations who refused to subscribe to their creed? this has been the fault of all creed worshipers. as "no man hath seen god at any time" (john i. ), it must be a matter of imagination with every human being as to what is the form, size, and character of god. and therefore it can make no difference what god, or what kind of god, we call upon in our prayers. we would be equally heard and answered, if there were a god answering prayer. the third commandment, therefore, is devoid of sound sense. fourth commandment: "thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain" (exod. xx. ). the word "vain" is defined to mean "worthless, fruitless;" that is, attended with no good results. and we can not conceive that it can be any more sinful to take the name of god in vain than that of a human being, or of any other object. it is not rational to suppose god, while superintending the movements of eighty-five millions of worlds, pays any attention to the manner in which the inhabitants of this little planet use his name, or that he cares any thing about it. and then how is it possible for us to know when we are using his name in vain, and when we are not? fifth commandment: "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." this commandment is universally laid aside by all christendom. nobody keeps the sabbath but the jews. and as god himself does not keep the sabbath, but lets all nature run and work (her laws operate the same on that day as on all other days of the week), we can not believe the sabbath was instituted by him. sixth commandment: "honor thy father and mother" (exod. xx. ). pretty good; but the reason assigned for it is devoid of sense,--"that thy days may be long upon the earth." we have never learned that long-lived persons have been more dutiful to parents than others. seventh commandment: "thou shalt not kill" (exod. xx. ). if the word "not" were left out, we would concede this commandment has been faithfully obeyed. his "holy people" were killing nearly all the time; and their successors (the christians) have inundated the earth with blood by a constant violation of this command. what good, therefore, we would ask, has resulted from this commandment? tenth commandment. the tenth commandment forbids us to covet our neighbor's house, wife, or servant, or any of his property (covet, "to desire earnestly"). we can not conceive how there can be any moral turpitude in the act of desiring to possess any of our neighbor's property, or even his wife, if no improper means are used to obtain them. the command was doubtless issued to keep the poor man from aping the rich, and to make him content with his own lot and condition. the above will be understood to be the true exposition of "the holy commandments of the lord," "the ten glorious laws of god," when people become accustomed to use their reason in matters of religion. chapter xviii.--foolish bible stories. i. talking serpents and talking asses.--gen. iii., num. xxii. the laws of nature appear to have possessed but little force, permanency, or reliability in the days of moses, as they were often brought to a dead halt, and set aside on the most trivial occasions, according to bible history; and nothing could be learned of the character, habits, or natural powers of animals by their form or physical conformation, if they possessed, as represented, minds and reasoning powers supposed to be peculiar to the human species. hence the study of natural history must have been useless. when naturalists at the present day find animals without the organs of speech, they assume they do not possess the ability to talk and reason. but the absence of the vocal organs in the days of moses appears to have furnished no criterion, and interposed no obstacle to becoming a fluent speaker and an able reasoner, as is illustrated in the case of a serpent and an ass talking and arguing like a lawyer. hence natural history could have possessed no attraction, as nothing certain could have been learned by studying it. . it is a singular reflection that the christian plan of salvation is based on a serpent, and with about as little show of sense as the hottentot tradition of the earth resting on the heads of four turtles. . the idea of god creating a serpent to thwart and defeat his plans and designs, or permitting him to do it, is absolutely ridiculous. . if god knew, when he created the serpent, that his machinations would bring "death and sin and all our woe" into the world, the act would prove him to be an unprincipled being. . and, if he did not know it, he must have been ignorant and short-sighted, and not fit to be a god. . it would imply that he made a wonderful mistake in creating a being that "turned right round," and made war on his own kingdom, crippled it, and defeated its success. . to assume that god could be outwitted by a serpent is to place him lower in the scale of intelligence than a snake. . it would seem that the serpent was superior to jehovah either in knowledge or veracity; for his statement relative to the effect of eating the fruit proved to be true, while that of jehovah proved to be false (gen. iii. ). . and, as we have shown in chapter liii, he was a greater friend and benefactor to the human race than jehovah, as a number of benefits and blessings were conferred upon adam and eve and their posterity by yielding to his advice instead of obeying the mandates of jehovah. . it would doubtless be a source of gratification to naturalists of the present age to learn what species of snake that was which possessed such a remarkable intellect and reasoning faculties and powers of speech; and also whether hebrew was its vernacular. . why is it that ladies of the present day possess none of the nerveless intrepidity and moral courage of old mother eve, who could stand and listen to a serpent talking without any signs of fainting, and with a perfect _nonchalance_, when our modern ladies would probably scream or run if a snake they should meet should assume the liberty to address them even in the most polite manner? mother eve must have been familiar with oddities. . if serpents and asses could talk in the days of moses, why not now? why have they lost the power of speech? . the species of serpents and asses which furnished such distinguished reasoners and orators should have been preserved, both as natural curiosities and on account of their practical benefits. it would be a source of instruction as well as amusement for a traveler, while journeying astride the back of an ass, to be able to enter into a friendly chitchat and exchange views with him, especially if the ass should be well posted on the topics of the day. . it seems singular that the heathen prophet balaam should be able to enlighten infinite wisdom when he called on him for information concerning balak, king of moab, or that he should have been better posted in the matter. . the circumstance of jehovah advising balaam to go at the call of balak to curse israel, then becoming very angry at him because he did go, and employing an ass to intercept his journey, evinces him to have been a fickle-minded and changeable being. (num. xxii. , .) . it appears that, with all of balaam's superior intelligence, he was inferior in spiritual discernment to that of his ass, as she could see the spirit standing in the road when he could not. . it has been contemptuously suggested as a slur on spiritualism, that perhaps the ass was a spiritual medium. but the fact that asses (of the biped species) can now be found endowed with the power of speech, renders the conclusion more rational that the ass talked without the aid of a spirit. such are some of the ridiculous features of these ridiculous stories. the expedient of disposing of these foolish stories as allegories, as some have attempted, will not avail any thing: for such figures are too low and groveling to be employed even as metaphors; and there is no hint in the bible that they are to be understood in an allegorical or metaphorical sense. ii. the story of cain, absurdities of. . did not eve dishonor god when, at the birth of cain, she said, "i have got a man from the lord" (gen. iv. ), inasmuch as he turned out to be a murderer? . did not god know that cain would become a murderer? if he did not, he is not an omniscient god. . and, if he did know it, would it not make him accountable for the murder? . why did god set a mark on cain that "whosoever should find him should not slay him" (gen. iv. ), when there was no "whosoever" in existence but his father and mother? and it can not be supposed they would have to hunt to find him, or that they would kill him when found. . and how could "whosoever" know what the mark meant? . where did or where could cain have gone when he "fled from the presence of the lord" (gen. iv. ), as david says he is present everywhere, even in hell? . how could cain find a wife in the land of nod (see gen. iv. ), when he himself had killed the whole human race excepting his father and mother? there were then no women to make wives of. . why did cain build a city (see gen. iv. ), when there was nobody to inhabit it? . as there were "workers of iron and brass" in this city, does it not furnish evidence that there was a race of people who had attained a high state of civilization before adam was made? . and as brass is not an ore, but a compound of copper and zinc, does it not furnish evidence that the mining business and the mechanic arts were carried on long before adam's time? . if cain did find a wife in the land of nod, is it not evidence that some ribs had been converted into women before adam's time? . where did cain find carpenters and masons to build his city, if his father and mother constituted the whole human race? . did not jehova know when he accepted abel's offering and rejected cain's, that he was sowing the seeds of discord that would lead to murder? . and did he not set a bad example by showing partiality, as there is no reason assigned for preferring abel's offering? . had not cain just ground for believing that his offering of herbs would be accepted, inasmuch as jehovah had ordered adam to use herbs for food? . must we conclude that jehovah had a carnivorous appetite, which caused him to prefer animals to vegetables for sacrifices? . what sense was there in dooming cain to be a vagabond among men, when there was but one man in the world, and that his father? iii. the ark of the covenant, absurdities of.-- sam. chap. vi. we find no case in any history of superstition reaching a more exalted climax than that illustrated in the history of the jewish ark of the covenant. it appears that up to the time of solomon the jews had no temple for their god to dwell in, but for some time previous hauled him about in box, about four feet long by thirty inches deep, known as the "ark of the covenant". let it not be supposed that we misrepresent in saying that jehovah was supposed to dwell in this box; for it is explicitly stated that he dwelt between the cherubims, which constituted a part of the accoutrements of the ark. (see sam. iv.) one of the most singular and ridiculous features connected with this story is, that jehovah, in giving instructions for the construction of the ark, told the people they must offer, among other curious things, badger-skins, goat's hair, and red ram's skins (i.e., ram's skins dyed red). what use god almighty could have had for the hides and hair of these dead animals is hard to conjecture. could superstition descend lower than this? as minute a description is given of the whole affair by jehovah and moses as if there were some sense in it. the box was hauled about by two cows; and it was enjoined that those selected by the philistines should be cows that had never been worked or harnessed, and that their calves should be shut up and left at home. this is descending to a "bill of particulars." the calves must have suffered, as their dams were driven far away and then slaughtered. what became of the calves is not stated; but we are told that the cows kept up a continual bellowing, or "lowing." perhaps this was designed as a kind of base or tenor for the music which accompanied them; and this accounts for the calves being left at home. it is curious to observe that the cows were not yoked to the cart on which the ark was drawn, but tied to it,--probably by their tails. the jews did not seem to possess sufficient mechanical skill or genius to invent an ox-yoke. another singular part of this singular story is, that the philistines constructed six golden mice to accompany the ark; and yet we are told that the jews were not allowed to have images of any thing (ex. xx. ). the most serious consideration connected with this affair was the vast destruction of human life. in the first place the philistines, in a battle with the lord's people, slew thirty thousand of them, and captured this box, as we must presume, with the lord in it. it seems strange that, when jehovah had fought so many successful battles, he would allow himself to be captured. it was some time, too, before he was recovered from the philistines. when this was effected, as the ark was being conveyed back under the superintendence of david, with a company of thirty thousand people, while passing over some rough ground, the cart jostled, and the ark came near being thrown off, with the lord jehovah in it, who would probably have been considerably bruised by the fall. but a very clever man by the name of uzzah clapped his hand upon the cart to prevent this awful catastrophe; and, although probably actuated by the best and most pious motives, he was immediately killed for it. this part of the story has a bad moral. on another occasion, on the arrival of the ark at bethshemesh, because one or two persons attempted to gratify a very natural curiosity by looking into the ark, jehovah became so much enraged that he killed fifty thousand of the people of bethshemesh. here is another of the many cases in which thousands of innocent people were punished for the sin of one man or a few persons. how can any good grow out of the relation of such unjust, unprincipled, and superstitious doings recorded in a book designed for the moral instruction and salvation of the world? we are told that at every place to which this box was carried, while in the hands of the philistines, it caused death and destruction, or some other serious calamity. at ashdod it produced disease and destruction among the people to an alarming extent; and similar results followed while the ark was at ekron. assuming that there is any truth in the story, the thought is here suggested that the box might have been affected with some malarious disease. while at jagon it caused the god of that place to fall down in the night from his resting-place; on the second night he lost both his hands. who that is acquainted with jewish history can not sec that this circumstance is related to show that the god of the jews was superior to other gods, as he excelled them in working miracles, in egypt and other places? that it was a borrowed tradition is quite evident from the fact that the hindoos and egyptians had practiced similar rites and customs anterior to that period. the hindoo ark was carried on a pole by four priests; and, wherever it touched ground, it wrought miracles in the shape of deaths and births, or the outgushing of springs of water. the egyptian ark was constructed of gold, which probably made the box more valuable than the god within. all such wooden or metal gods were supposed to operate as talisman, or protection against evil. when will the believers in divine revelation and divine prodigies learn that all such superstitious customs and inventions were the work of men, and not of god? iv. korah, dathan, and abiram, absurdities.--num. chap. xvi. these three leading men of israel, growing tired of the tyrannical usurpations of moses, concocted a mutiny, in which they succeeded in enlisting some two hundred and fifty persons. when moses learned what was on foot, this "meek man" became very angry, and reported the case to jehovah, and requested him not to accept their offering when they came to make their usual oblations. the lord took moses' advice, and not only refused their offering, but split the ground open where they stood, so that they fell in, and were seen no more. and, when their two hundred and fifty followers saw this, they fled, fearing they might share the same fate. but that expedient did not save them: "a fire came out from the lord," and consumed the whole number. it must have been a fearful fire to consume so many while they were running. the fire came from the lord; but where the lord was at the time we are not informed,--whether sitting on his throne in heaven, or standing beside the altar, as he frequently did. hence we can not tell whether the fire came from heaven, as it did on some other occasions, or from below. it must have been a very aggravated case of rebellion; for god and moses both got angry at once, which was something rather unusual. it was customary, when jehovah got angry and made severe threats of what he would do, for moses to interfere, and intercede for his people, and try to cool him down; and, by the power of his logic and eloquence, he mostly succeeded in convincing him that he was wrong, and got him to desist from carrying his threats into execution. but, on this occasion, moses, being angry himself, let him take his own course. but the most unjust and unmerciful act in the whole transaction was that of jehovah sending a plague, and destroying fourteen thousand more, merely because they mourned for their destroyed friends, and ventured to complain of the course he and moses were pursuing. it was certainly cruel to destroy them for so slight an offense. it appears that, by aaron's standing "between the dead and the living, the plague was stayed." but for this timely interference of jehovah's high priest, there is no knowing when or where the plague would have stopped. now, is it not something near akin to blasphemy to charge such nonsense--ay, worse than nonsense, _cruelty, injustice, and malignity_--to the just god of the universe? v. the story of daniel and nebuchadnezzar. we shall not attempt to present an exposition of all the absurdities which abound in the book of daniel, but will merely notice a few of its most incredible statements. the most amusing chapter in the history of daniel is his interpretation of the dreams of king nebuchednezzar. it appears that on one occasion the king had forgotten his dream, which made it ostensibly necessary for daniel, before interpreting it, to reproduce it. but who can not see it was not necessary for him to do either to save his reputation and his life, both of which it appears were at stake? if he were possessed of an active, fertile imagination, he could invent both, and palm them off on to the king as the original, who would be perfectly unable to detect the trick, as he knew nothing about either. it is stated that one of the dreams consigned the king to the fate of eating grass like an ox for three years. in all such incredible stories which abound in the christians' bible, we find glaring absurdities, which a little reflection would reveal to the reader if he would allow himself to think. there is a palpable absurdity in this story which shows that, the conversion of the king into an ox us a punishment could not have achieved that end. if he were converted into an ox, his reason was gone, and he was unconscious of his condition; and hence it was no punishment at all. or, if he still retained his reason, he had nothing to do but to walk away, and find food more congenial to his appetite than grass. and thus the story defeats itself. it is stated his hair became like eagles' feathers, and his nails like the claws of a bird (dan. iv. ),--a very singular-looking ox surely. it would have been more appropriate to call such a being an eagle or a dragon. such is the careless and disjointed manner in which all bible stories are told, as if related by mere ignorant children. the most conclusive "knock-down argument" to the truth of this story is found in the fact that no allusion to this astounding miracle can be found by any of the historians of that or any other nation. had the king been transformed into an ox, the history of his own nation (the persians) would abound in allusions to the marvelous fact. its silence on it settles the question. we will occupy sufficient space to allude to one incident in the story of "the three holy children," which we find related in the book of daniel. it is stated that a being who looked "like the son of god" was seen by the king walking in the furnace. to be sure! we are quite curious to know how he found out how the son of god looks. how long had he lived in heaven with him so as to become familiar with his countenance? what silly nonsense! vi. sodom and gomorrah. story of sodom and gomorrah. we are seemingly required by this story to believe that god keeps a manufactory of brimstone in heaven; for we are told that "the lord rained upon sodom and gomorrah brimstone and fire from the lord out of heaven" (gen. xix.). if we credit this story, we may infer that the lord keeps a supply of the article on hand, perhaps to be let down occasionally to replenish the bottomless pit. the science of chemistry has demonstrated within the present century that the air is composed of nitrogen and oxygen; and it has also demonstrated that oxygen gas and sulphur or brimstone, when brought into contact, are, with a moderate amount of heat, dissolved, united, and converted into oil of vitriol. hence, if fire and brimstone rained from heaven in that climate, it is scientifically and chemically certain that the people were pelted with a shower of the oil of vitriol. one square mile of the earth's surface in that locality would be supplied with about thirteen thousand million pounds of oxygen. the requisite amount of brimstone to convert this into oil of vitriol would be about ten thousand million pounds, making in the whole twenty-three thousand millions of pounds. this would have been sufficient to spoil all the sunday garments of the people, but could not have burned them up; for cold oil will not burn, and the fire and brimstone would have been converted into oil long before they reached the earth, and become too cool for the heat to injure any thing. we are told that several cities were destroyed by this divine judgment. and pray how many cities could exist in a hot and arid desert, where there was not a drop of water that a human being could drink? vii. tower of babel. of all the stories ever recorded in any book, disclosing on the part of the writer a profound ignorance of the sciences,--embracing, at least, astronomy, geography, and philosophy.--that of the tower of babel was probably never excelled. a brief enumeration of some of its absurdities will disclose this fact. . we are told (in chap. xi. of genesis), that, after god had discovered by some means that "the children of men" were building a city and a tower to reach to heaven, he "came down to see the city and the tower" (gen. xi. ). the statement that he "came down" implies that he was a local being, and not the omnipotent and omnipresent god. . if he were not already present, and had to travel and descend in order to be present, we should like to know what mode of travel he adopted. it appears from the story that, if he came down, he must have returned almost immediately, and descended a second time; for, after this, he is represented as saying, "go to, let us go down, and there confound their language" (gen. xi. ). . who was this "us?" the use of this plural pronoun "us" implies that there were several gods on hand. . and, if he came down, who did he leave in his place? must we assume there is a trinity of gods? but it would be superlative nonsense to assume that the three gods could be one (as christians claim) if one of them could leave the kingdom. . how did the writer know that he or they talked in this manner, as he could not have been present in person to hear it? . in this same chapter the "inspired writer" tells us, "the whole earth was of one language and one speech" (gen. xi. ). in the preceding chapter there is a long list of different tongues, or languages, and nations; and it is declared they were "divided in their lands, everyone after his tongue, families, and nations." how contradictory! . what a childish and ludicrous notion the writer entertained with respect to heaven when he cherished the belief that a tower could be erected to reach it! . according to st. jerome the tower of babel was twenty thousand feet high. a jewish writer says it was eighty thousand. in the first case it would be nearly four miles in height; in the other, over fifteen miles,--nearly three times the height of the highest mountain on the globe! no method has ever yet been discovered for elevating building materials to such a height. . taking st. jerome as authority, the hod-carriers, in ascending and descending, would have to perform a journey of more than seven miles each trip. . as the air becomes rarefied in proportion to its distance from the earth, the lungs of the workmen would have collapsed, and their blood have congealed, before they climbed half-way to the top. they could not have breathed at such a height. . as the earth is constantly revolving on its axis, the crazy tower-builders would only be in the direction of the point at which they aimed once in twenty-four hours, and then moving with a speed one hundred and forty times greater than that of a cannon-ball. it would require dexterous springing to leap into the door of heaven as they passed it. . and as the earth, in its orbit, moves at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, it would soon carry them millions of miles beyond any point they might be aiming to reach. . after all, we can not see any possible objection jehovah or any other god could have had to such an enterprise. . if the babelites had succeeded in climbing into heaven, what of it? was omnipotence afraid they would dispossess him of his throne, and seize the reins of government? if not, what could have been the objection? . and then it would not have taken the "heavenly host" fifteen minutes to tumble them out, as they did michael and the dragon. . the truth is, the imaginary god of the jews was a. suspicious, cowardly, and jealous being. he was constantly getting into hot water. he appeared to live in perpetual fear day and night that some other god, or some of his own creatures, would encroach upon his rights. in this case he seemed to be alarmed for fear those ignorant, deluded tower-builders and wild fanatics would succeed in reaching the heavenly home, perhaps bind him, and cast him out of his own kingdom. what superlative nonsense is the whole story! and yet millions believe it to be divinely inspired, and many thousands of dollars have been spent in printing it, and circulating it over the world. viii. stopping the sun and moon,--absurdities of the story. of all the stories that ever taxed the brain or credulity of a man of science, that of joshua stopping the sun and moon stands pre-eminent. think of bringing to a stand-still that magnificent and immense luminary which constitutes the center of a solar system of one hundred and thirty worlds, all of which move in harmony with it. such a catastrophe would have broken one hundred and thirty planets loose from their orbits, and dashed them together in utter confusion, and would thus have broken up our solar system. the shock produced upon this earth would have thrown every thing on its surface off into boundless space. for a pun, man, on a little planet like this, to command the mighty sun, which is fourteen hundred thousand times as large as the earth, to stop in its grand career, would be comparable to an ant saying to a mountain, "get out of my way." and, when we look at the cruel and wicked purpose for which this stupendous miracle is said to have been wrought, we are shocked at the demoralizing effect such lessons must have upon the millions who look upon it as the work of a just and righteous god. it savors too much of blasphemy to assume that a god of infinite justice would perform an act attended with such direful consequences, merely to allow the little, bloody-minded joshua more time to blow out the brains and tear out the hearts of his enemies, guilty of no crime but that of believing in a different religious creed. farewell to reason, justice, and morality, if we must subscribe to such moral lessons as this! and why did he have the moon stopped at midday, when it could not be seen, and was, perhaps, on the opposite side of the globe? egypt, india, greece, and mexico all have traditions of the sun stopping, but, in most cases, have too much sense to stop the moon. fohi of china had the sun stopped eight hundred and fifty years before joshua, the son of nun, ever saw the sun. bacchus and other god-men of egypt had it stopped four times. while in greece phaethon was set after it to hurry it up, and increase its speed. a "poor rule that will not work both ways!" the chinese annals state that the sun stopped ten days during the reign of the emperor yom. argoon of india stopped it several days for his own accommodation. but, unfortunately for the cause of religion, or rather religious superstition, no man of science, in any of these countries, has as much as noticed these world-astounding phenomena; and no writer, but one religious fanatic in each case, has spoken of them,--a circumstance of itself sufficient to render them utterly incredible. ix. the story of samson,--its absurdities. were the story of samson found in any other book than the christian bible, it would be looked upon by bible believers as one of those wild and incredible legends of heathen mythology with which all the holy books of that age abound. but it is accepted as true because found in the bible; and the bible is considered to be true, partly because it tells such marvelous stories. it is assumed that they prove each other. perhaps it is upon the presumption that "it is a poor rule that will not work both ways." . we are told (judg. chap. xiii.) that an angel appeared to the wife of manoah, and promised her a son; and manoah seemed to be as well pleased about the matter as his wife, and seemed to care but little whether the father was a man or an angel or a god, and we are left in the dark as to which it was. . it is rather a notable circumstance that the jewish god and his angels seemed to have a great deal to do in trying to accommodate and aid old women in becoming mothers, as in the case of abraham's wife and manoah's wife, also elizabeth and mary in the new testament, and other cases. . the man or angel or god, whichever it was (for he is called by each name), that appeared to mrs. manoah, advised her to abstain from strong drink, and to eat no unclean thing. very good advice to be observed at any time; but it seems to imply that she was in the habit of using such pernicious articles. . and, when her child was born, he was called samson, and was remarkable for his great strength, which is said to lie in his hair. the mighty denizens of the forest interposed no obstacle to his march; and houses were but playthings, to be tossed in the air like balls. he is reported to have seized a lion and slain him when yet a boy, without a weapon of any kind. it would have been well if this mighty hero had been present when jehovah had a battle with the canaanites (judg. i. ), as he would not probably have been defeated so easily because they had chariots of iron. those vehicles of iron would have been mere straws for samson. if their respective histories be true, he excelled jehovah, both with regard to strength and courage, in a severe contest. . it is stated that, a short time after this young bachelor-hero had slain the king of the forest, as he was returning home from a visit to his lady-love, he observed that a swarm of bees had taken possession of the carcass, and filled it with honey. those bees must have been very much less fastidious in their tastes and habits than the bees of modern times; for the latter shun a carcass as instinctively as death. . another remarkable circumstance connected with this case is, that the long-haired bachelor thrust his hands through the bees, and tore out the honey, regardless of their stinging mode of defending their rights. his skin must have been as remarkable for toughness as his muscles for strength. . one of the most cruel, ungodly, and fiendish acts of this young hero was that of murdering thirty men to get their garments, as a recompense to those thirty persons who solved his riddle; thus massacring thirty innocent persons in order to strip them of their garments,--an unprovoked and wanton murder. and yet it is declared, "the spirit of god was with him." what shocking ideas of deity! . samson was evidently a "free-lover," as he had intercourse with a number of women of doubtful character. . his next great feat consisted in chasing and catching three hundred foxes, and tying their tails together, and making a firebrand of them. it must have been a good time to raise poultry after so many foxes had disappeared, but certainly not before that event, if foxes were so numerous. . it seems strange that these "tail-bearers" of fire did not take to the woods, instead of running through all the fields in the country, and setting them on fire. . the next feat was the breaking of two strong cords, with which his arms had been bound by three thousand men. (see judg. xv. ). it is difficult to conceive how three thousand men could get to him to tie them, as it is intimated they did. his mode of being revenged after he had snapped the cords was to seize the jaw-bone of an ass, and slay a thousand men; and, after he had killed these thousand men with the bone, there was enough of it left to contain a considerable amount of water. it is related that the lord clave a hollow in it, and there came out of it water to quench samson's thirst. . asses seem to figure quite conspicuously in bible history. sometimes they talk and reason like a cicero, as in the case of balaam; and they serve other important ends in the histories of abram and job (who had a thousand) and samson, and also that of jesus christ, who is represented as riding two at once. in the hands of samson the jaw-bone of an ass was more destructive than a twenty-four pound cannon, besides furnishing him with water sufficient to supply his thirst. . another feat of this young hercules was that of carrying away the gate and gate-posts of the city of gaza, in which the keepers had shut him up while lodging with a harlot. most of his female companions seem to have been licentious characters; and yet "the lord favored him"! . it is said "the spirit of the lord moved samson" (judg. xiii. ). it would seem that the spirit of the devil did also; for he had a terrible propensity for lying. he lied even to his own wife three or four times. he once deceived her by telling her that his strength could be overcome by tying him with green withes; and yet he snapped them like cobwebs. he then virtually confessed to her that he had lied, but told her that new ropes would accomplish the thing; and yet he was no sooner bound with them, than he freed his limbs as easily as a lion would crawl out of a fish-net. the next experiment in lying and tying appertained to his hair. he told his sweet delilah, that, if she would weave his seven locks of hair into the web in the loom, he would be as weak as another man; but he walked off with the web and the whole accouterments hanging to his head, as easily as a wolf would with a steel trap dangling to his foot. why did not the hair pull out by the roots? he then told her the truth, as was assumed, but which was evidently the biggest falsehood he had uttered,--that his strength lay in his hair, and that his strength would depart if his hair were to be shorn off. but if there were any physical strength incorporated in the hair, so that it would flow into the brain and down into the muscles when wanted to be used, men would not frequent barber-shops, as they now do, but let it grow ten feet long if necessary. . the last great act in this drama of physical prowess was that of overthrowing a house with three thousand people on the roof. (modern architecture don't often produce a roof large enough or strong enough to sustain three thousand people. this feat would require more strength than to conquer the battalion armed with chariots of iron!) . and in all this unholy and wicked business of lying, cheating, and murdering, "the lord was with him." this is a slanderous imputation upon divine perfection and holiness. . no good that we can discover, but much evil, was accomplished by the practical life of this extraordinary man. he was ostensibly raised up to redeem israel; and yet, immediately after his death, the philistines gained a complete victory over the israelites, and took prisoner the ark of the lord, and reduced them to a worse condition than they were in before. . we can not escape the conviction that such stories have a demoralizing effect upon those who read them, and believe they have the divine approval. . for seeming to treat the subject in a spirit of ridicule, i will cite a christian writer as authority, who says, "he who treats absurdities with seriousness lowers his own dignity and manhood." . such stories as the foregoing can certainly do nothing toward improving the morals of the heathen by placing the book containing it in their hands. x. story of jonah,--its absurdities. the history of jonah is so much like numerous stories we find in heathen mythology that we are disposed to class it with them. its absurdities are numerous, a few of which we will point out:-- . it represents jonah as claiming to be a hebrew; but as it says nothing about the jews or hebrews, and treats entirely of the heathen or gentiles, that is probably its source, and it was perhaps intended as a fable. . the ship he boarded, when making his escape, was a heathen vessel, which implies that he had some affinity for that class of people. . it seems very singular, that if jonah did not believe jehovah to be a mere local personal deity, rather than the infinite and omnipresent god, he should entertain the thought of running away from him or escaping from his presence by flight. . the heathen who had charge of the vessel were evidently possessed of more humanity and more mercy than either jehovah or the leading men of israel, who seem to have made it a point to kill nearly all the heathen they could lay their hands on; as did abram, moses, joshua, &c. for it is stated, that after they had cast lots to find who was the cause of the storm which overtook the ship, and in this way discovered it was jonah, they strove with all their might to get the vessel to the shore, rather than resort to the desperate expedient of throwing jonah overboard. this bespeaks for these heathen a feeling of mercy and humanity. . we learn by the language these heathen used in their prayer to stop the storm, "we beseech thee, o lord," &c., that they believed in one supreme god. where, then, is the truth of the claim of the jews that they alone believed in one god, or the unity of the godhead? in this way their own bible often proves this claim was false; that the nations they had intercourse with believed in one supreme and overruling god. . it is stated, that after jonah was thrown overboard, and was swallowed by a fish, he prayed to the lord. how was this discovered? did he pray loud enough to be heard through the sides of the whale? or did the fish open its mouth for his accommodation? . as for the prayer, it appears to have been made up of scraps selected from the psalms of david without much connection, or relevancy to the case. . it is stated that the lord spake to the fish, and it vomited jonah upon the dry land. it must have been a very singular fish to understand hebrew or any human language. . in another respect the whale must have been a peculiar one, or of peculiar construction. the throat of an ordinary whale is about the diameter of a man's arm. it must therefore have been very much stretched to swallow jonah, or jonah must have been very much compressed and elongated. . the gourd that sheltered jonah must also have been of a peculiar species to have a vine that could grow several yards in one night, and stand erect so as to hold the gourd in a position to shelter the prophet; and the gourd would have to be as large as a cart or locomotive, or it would soon cease to afford him shade. . jonah seems to have been a very proud and selfish man, with but little of the feeling of mercy, as he preferred that the whole nation of ninevites should be destroyed rather than that his prediction should not be fulfilled, for he became very angry when he found the lord was going to spare them. . the reason the lord assigns for sparing nineveh is a very sensible one,--because "there are more than threescore thousand persons that can not discern between their right and their left hand." this is certainly very good reasoning; but why did he not think of this when millions of innocent persons perished in the act of drowning the whole human race, excepting four men and four women, or when sodom and gomorrah were swallowed up, or when seventy thousand were killed for a sin committed by david, or in the numerous cases in which a war of extermination was carried on against whole nations, with the order to slay men, women, and children, and "leave nothing alive that breathes"? why such partiality? but this is one of the two thousand bible inconsistencies. . this is a very poor story, with a very bad moral. it indicates fickleness, short-sightedness, and partiality on the part of jehovah; and selfishness and bad temper on the part of his prophet. . there are other absurdities in this story which we will bring to view by a few brief questions. . why did jehovah care any thing about the salvation or welfare of nineveh, a heathen city, when usually, instead of laboring to save the heathen, he was plotting their destruction? . what put the thought into the heads of the mariners, that the storm was caused by the misconduct of some person on board? can we suppose they ever knew of such a case? if the misconduct of human beings could produce storms or a disturbance of the elements, the world would be cursed by a perpetual hurricane. . we are told the sailors cast lots to ascertain who was the cause of the storm. rather a strange way of investigating the cause of natural events. . is it not strange that jehovah would bring on a violent storm on jonah's account, and continue it for hours, and let him sleep during the time; and still stranger that jonah was so indifferent that he could sleep in such a storm? . jonah must have been the most considerate and merciful sinner ever reported in history to propose himself that he should be thrown overboard as a means of allaying the storm, and saving a set of gambling heathen. what a wonderful freak of mercy and justice! but it seems to have been all exhausted on the mariners, so that he had none left for the poor ninevites; for he became very angry when he found jehovah was not going to destroy them, the innocent and guilty and all together. this was inconsistent, to say the least. . what must have been the astonishment of the crew of the hundreds of ships sailing on the same sea to observe a sudden storm to arise and stop without any natural cause! and when they afterwards learned that the whole thing was brought about by the misconduct of one man in one of the vessels, perhaps hundreds of miles distant, they must have abandoned all idea of ever looking again for natural causes for storms after that occurrence. how repressing such events would be to the growth and cultivation of the intellect, and the study of the natural sciences! . how could jonah remain three days in the whale's stomach without being digested, as fish have astonishing digestive powers? and, if he were not digested, both he and the fish must have been extremely hungry at the end of the three days' fast. . as a fish large enough to swallow jonah could not swim through the shoal-water to reach the land, it becomes an interesting query to know how it got jonah on to "the dry land." it must have required the use of a powerful emetic to inspire the fish with force sufficient to throw him fifty or a hundred feet. . is it not strange that jonah's message to the ninevites should have had such a marvelous effect upon the whole city, when it was evidently delivered in a language that none of them understood? . we are told the king issued orders for everybody, including men, women and children, and beasts, to stop eating and drinking, and to be covered with sackcloth. what sin can we suppose the beasts had committed that they must be doomed to starve, and be covered with sackcloth as an emblem of repentance? it must have required an enormous amount of sackcloth to cover two millions of people, and probably as many domestic animals. where it all came from, the lord jehovah only knows. and it seems singular that all of the animals should stand quietly while such an uncouth covering was thrown upon them. . it is also difficult to comprehend why a nation of people, who probably never heard of jehovah before, should all repent in sackcloth and ashes. it is the most effective missionary work we have ever read of. in modern times it requires two hundred missionaries a whole century to make half that many converts. . but the most conclusive argument against the truth of the story is found in the fact that it is falsified by the testimony of history. according to her history by diodorus, nineveh was destroyed by arbaces sixteen years before jonah's time. . i have noticed this senseless story at some length, because christian writers have invested it with great importance, and because it is indorsed by nearly all the new-testament writers. even christ himself indorses it, and compares jonah's case to his. their extreme ignorance is evinced by the foregoing exposition. . several similar stories are found in heathen mythology, a few of which we will briefly sketch here. the hindoo sacred book, the purans, states that chrishna was swallowed by a crocodile, and, after remaining three days in its stomach, was thrown upon dry land, much to his relief and also to that of the crocodile. a grecian demi-god (hercules), according to gales, was swallowed by a dog, and remained in his stomach three days. but the story entitled to the premium is one preserved in the legends of some of the eastern islanders. a man, for some misdemeanor on a voyage across the indus, was thrown over-board, and swallowed by a shark; but, as the fish still followed the vessel, it was finally caught, and search made for the man, when, to the surprise of the whole crew, he was found sitting bolt upright, playing the tune of "old hundred" on a fiddle he had in his possession when he went down the throat of the sea-monster. this was rather a pleasant way of putting in the time. jonah, it appears, was not so fortunate as to have a fiddle in his possession while in the stomach of the whale. the foregoing ten stories, from that of the serpent to jonah, have been for hundreds of years printed by the thousand, struck off in almost every known human language, and sent off by ship-loads to almost every nation on the globe, to be placed in the hands of the heathen as being _productions of infinite wisdom, the inspirations of an all-wise god_, and calculated to _enlighten_ them and _improve their morals_. what sublime nonsense! what egregious folly! and what a deplorable and sorrowful mistake has been thus committed by the blinded disciples of the christian faith! chapter xix.--bible prophecies not fulfilled. having devoted a chapter to this subject in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," we shall treat the subject but briefly in this work. the old testament has been thoroughly searched for prophecies, and more than a hundred texts selected, by various christian writers, and assumed to be prophetic of some future event. but a critical and impartial investigation of the subject will show that not one of them is, strictly speaking, a prophecy; but most of them refer to events either in the past, or events _naturally_ suggested by the circumstances under which the writer was placed. and in many cases the text has no reference whatever to the event which bible commentators assume they refer to. in treating the subject briefly, we will show,-- . that if one-fourth of the texts from genesis to revelation were prophecies, and it could be shown that every one of them has been fulfilled to the letter, it would not prove that there was any divine inspiration or divine aid in the matter; because many facts show that prophecy, or the power to discover future events, is a _natural_ and not a supernatural, gift. . many cases are reported in history of the prediction of future events by pagan or heathen seers, and also by persons not claiming to be inspired nor even religious. i will cite a few cases: josephine, wife of napoleon, relates that she had all the important events of her future life pointed out to her by an ignorant, illiterate fortune-teller, long before they occurred; such as her marriage, her unhappy life, and the death of her husband,--all of which was fulfilled to the letter. an astrologer predicted the great fire in london. rousseau foretold the french revolution. cicero made a remarkable prophecy, which was realized in the discovery of america and the history of george washington by consulting the sibylline oracles. these, and many other cases that might be cited, furnish satisfactory evidence that the capacity for foretelling the occurrence of future events is a natural and inherent power of the human mind, and hence can do nothing toward proving the divine origin of any religion, or the divine illumination of any prophet. therefore any further argument in the case would be superfluous. we will only briefly review a few of the jewish prophecies (or texts assumed to be prophecies) to show that the jewish nation occupied a lower moral plane, and possessed less of the gift of prophecy than some of the contemporary heathen nations. hence christian writers are wrong in assuming that the jews alone possessed this power, while they possessed it in a less degree than some of the oriental prophets. prophecies (assumed to be) relating to babylon, relating to damascus, relating to tyre, relating to the dispersion of the jews, relating to the advent of christ, &c., have been quoted time and again by christian writers and clergymen, and dwelt upon at great length in attempts to show their fulfillment, in order to deduce therefrom the argument and conclusion that the jewish nation were divinely commissioned to furnish the world with a true system of religion and morals. but we are prepared to show that _every one_ of these prophecies so called has _utterly failed_ of any fulfillment in the sense that writers and preachers assume. as it would require a large work to treat this subject fully, we shall only briefly refer to one or two cases as samples of the whole. as babylon and tyre are the most frequently referred to, and are regarded as the strongest cases, our attention will be confined to them. relative to babylon, isaiah says, "it shall not be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the arabian pitch his tent there" (isa. xiii. ): but he says, "it shall be inhabited by wild beasts of the desert and satyrs and dragons,"--not one of which predictions has ever been realized. it is still inhabited, though its name has been changed to hillah, which has now a population of about nine thousand. so far from the "arabian not pitching his tent there," it is the very thing they have done, and are now doing daily. mr. lay-ard, who recently visited the place, says, in his work ("nineveh and babylon"), "the arab settlement showed the activity of a hive of bees." what a singular rebuff to isaiah's prophecy, and also to that of jeremiah, who says it should become a "perpetual desolation" (xxv. ), and that it should not be dwelt in by man nor the son of man! (jer. . .) isaiah declared, "her days shall not be prolonged" (isa. xiii). and thus the prophecies have all failed which refer to babylon. speaking of tyre, ezekiel says, it should be taken by nebuchadnezzar, and trodden down by his chariots and horses; and "thou shalt be built no more, and thou shalt never be found again." and yet tyre never was destroyed by nebuchadnezzar, nor by any power; and, although it has suffered like other eastern cities, it is still a flourishing city with a population of about five thousand. st. jerome spoke of it in the fourth century as being "the most noble and beautiful city in phoenicia." and this was more than a thousand years after ezekiel's maledictions were pronounced against it, which declared it should be destroyed, and never be rebuilt. true, it has been partially destroyed several times,--and what ancient city has not?--but it has been rebuilt as often. we have, then, before us two illustrative cases of the failures of jewish prophecies pronounced against neighboring cities and kingdoms, probably prompted by a spirit of envy and animosity because they had either overruled the jewish nation, and subjected it to their power, or outstripped it in temporal prosperity. the jewish prophets were continually fulminating their thunders and curses upon those powers and principalities which had overpowered them, and held them in subjection. this was very natural; and occasionally an unpropitious prediction may have been realized. but it is a remarkable fact, that more than forty disastrous events, which the jewish prophets declared the lord would inflict upon egypt (the nation they so much contemned and envied because it held them in slavery for four hundred years), have never been realized in the history or experience of that nation. some of these cases are noticed in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," as also the prophecies and failures in regard to damascus and other cities, to which the reader is referred for a further elucidation this subject. chapter xx.--miracles, erroneous belief in. having treated the subject of miracles at some length in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," we shall give it but a brief notice in this work, and will comprehend the whole thing in a few points. . the history of miraculous achievements by gods and men form a very large chapter in the "inspired writings" of nearly all the ancient religious systems which have flourished in the world; and to notice all these cases would require volumes enough to make a library. . almost the only evidence we have in any case of the actual performance of a miracle is the report of the writer who relates it. . st. chrysostom declares that "miracles are not designed for men of sense, but only for sluggish minds." it will be understood, therefore, that what we write here on the subject will not be designed for persons of sense, but only for the ignorant and superstitious. . many things in the past which were set down as miracles are now known to be the result of natural causes; such as the rainbow, most cases of sickness, and, in fact, nearly every phenomenon of nature. and, as every age develops new light on natural causes, it has made the list of miracles not already explained so small, that we may reasonably conclude that they will all yet be explained and understood in this light, excepting those fabricated without any basis of truth. . as god appears to have regulated every thing in the beginning by fixed laws, if he should break one of those laws by the performance of a miracle, it would throw every thing into chaos and confusion, and prove that he is not a god of order and stability. . if god, as we are told, made every thing perfect, then the performance of a miracle must make them imperfect, or prove that they have always been imperfect. . the performance of a miracle would prove that god is an imperfect being in not having every thing regulated by the laws of nature. . if the performance of miracles can authenticate the truth of one religion, then it must prove the truth of all religions; for all report miracles of some kind, and furnish, in most cases, the same kind of evidence that these miracles were performed. . there is not a miracle related in either the old or new testament that has not a parallel reported in the bibles or sacred writings of the orientals; such as curing the halt and blind, raising the dead, crossing streams in a miraculous manner, &c. many cases are reported of the hindoo savior and son of god, chrishna, raising dead persons who had been drowned, murdered, or died a natural death. according to tacitus, vespasian performed a number of miraculous cures; such as curing the lame, restoring sight to the blind, &c., just as is related of jesus. according to josephus, alexander with his army passed through the sea of pamphylia in the same miraculous manner that moses did through the red sea. as alexander's army was engaged in the work of human butchery, we may assume that, if god could have had anything to do with it, he would have embraced the opportunity to drown them, and wash them all away. . _jewish miracles_.--the jewish talmud speaks of birds so large that they darkened the sun, and shut out the light of the sun from the earth. probably they supposed, like moses, that nearly all the earth was located between dan and beersheba. another kind of bird was so tall, that, when walking in a river seventy feet deep, the water only reached its knees. this is a tall story; but it should be remembered that it is related by the same people who tell us about sticks being converted into serpents, water into blood, dust into lice, &c., and a man (samson) overturning a house with several thousand people in it, &c. hence all these stones are equally reliable or unreliable. . _mahomedan miracles_.--mahomedans bear off the palm in miraculous prodigies. for instance, a cock is spoken of so large that the distance between its feet and head was five hundred days' journey. what a pity barnum could not obtain it! another example: an angel so large that the distance between his eyes was seventy thousand days' journey. the head of this tall ghost must have been among the planets. the earth would have been too small to furnish him with a seat; and the attempt to-use it for that purpose would probably have thrown it out of its orbit. . _christian miracles_.--the early christians seem to have had the whole miracle-making machinery of heaven under their control. their miracles were prodigious and numerous. they claimed they could cast out devils, call the dead from their graves, and make ghosts walk about either end up. we are told that when a mr. huntingdon was reduced to great poverty and suffering, and prayed for divine assistance, fishes came out of the water to him, and larks and leather breeches from heaven, to serve as food and clothing. it is difficult to conceive how leather breeches came to be stored in heaven. with these few specimens, selected at random, we will stop. they are too large even to excite our marvelousness. the most ignorant and superstitious nations have always had the longest creeds and the tallest miracles. . we have stated that the only evidence of the performance of any miracle in most cases is the simple narration of it by the writer who records it. the roman catholics, however, claim to have the testimony of thousands of reliable witnesses to attest to the performance of some extraordinary miracles which they have reported the history of; such as a picture of the virgin mary, hanging on the walls of the church, opening and shutting its eyes daily for six or seven months, which they declare was witnessed by sixty thousand people, including pope, cardinals, bishops, &c.,--leading men of the church. . there is as much evidence that esculapius raised hypolitus from the dead (as related by the roman historian pausanias), as that elijah or christ raised the dead; as much evidence that the serpent's egg inclosed in gold (as related by pliny in his "arguinum ovum") swam up stream when thrown into the river, as that elisha raised an ax to the surface of the water by casting a stick into it ( kings vi. ); as much evidence that mahomet opened a fountain of water in the end of his little finger, as that samson found a spring of water in the jaw-bone of an ass; as much evidence that mahomet's camel talked to him, as that balaam's ass was endowed with human speech; and as much evidence that esculapius cured the blind with spittle, as that christ performed such cures. all stand upon a level; all lack the proof. . here let it be noted that many of the miracles recorded in the christian bible are susceptible of an explanation upon natural principles; such as the shadow going back on the dial of ahaz, as the phenomenon has been witnessed in some of the eastern countries of the shadows appearing to recede, when the sun is near the solstice, once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon. the story of the devils entering the hogs may be explained by assuming the devils to have been frogs; for they are described as being like frogs. (see rev. xvi. .) the resurrection of lazarus may be explained by assuming him to have been in a state of coma, or trance; for christ once declared, "this sickness is not unto death," but "he sleepeth" (john xi). the bloody sweat of christ, and his transfiguration, can also be explained on natural principles; also paul's conversion, and his miraculous cures with a handkerchief. dr. newton, the great healer, has cured hundreds of cases in a similar manner. and the time will come when all real occurrences, now called miracles, will be accounted for, and understood as the operation of natural causes. chapter xxi.--errors of the bible in facts and figures. a spiritual or metaphorical interpretation, if allowable in any case, can not avail any thing towards either removing, explaining, or mitigating, in the least degree, the numerous palpable bible errors represented by _figures. "figures never lie_" and admit of no construction. the almost innumerable errors, therefore, of this character which abound in the bible utterly and for ever prostrate it as a work possessing any authority, reliability, or credibility in matters of history, science, or even theology. bible writers, when they have occasion to refer to numbers which they are interested in making _appear_ very large, seem to make almost a lawless use of figures. i will present some examples, stated in brief language, commencing with the pentateuch. the author of these five books, in speaking of the genealogy, population, armies, &c., of his own tribe, makes use of figures which are not only incredible, but utterly impossible. the number of valiant fighting men, for example, among the israelites, is frequently stated to be about six hundred thousand, and never less. (see exod. xii. and xxxviii.; num. xxvi., &c.) this number, as bishop colenso demonstrates, reaches far beyond the utmost limits of truth. if the regular army had been six hundred thousand, then the whole population (women and children included) could not have been less than two millions,--a number which many facts, cited by the bible writer himself, demonstrate to be impossible. i would ask, in the first place, how moses could address all this immense congregation at once, as he is often represented as doing. (see ex. xxiv. ; lev. xxiv ; num. xiv. , &c.) joshua makes "all the congregation" to include women and children. but how could moses address this vast multitude of people, some of whom must have been at least ten miles distant, unless he used a speaking-trumpet or a telephone, neither of which, however, had then come to light. the writer of deuteronomy says, "moses spake unto all israel" (deut. i. ). but not one in a hundred could have heard it, therefore it was very nearly "labor lost." and joshua says moses wrote out his commandments, and he read them "before all the congregation of israel" (josh. viii. ). but it would have required a voice as loud as thunder to make "all" of them hear. and it should be borne in mind that the people on these occasions were assembled in the tabernacle,--as we infer from many texts,--a building one hundred and eight yards square, and capable of holding about five thousand people, which would be just one to four thousand of the congregation; so there were five thousand people inside, and one million nine hundred and ninety-five thousand outside. these last, we are told, occupied the outer court, which was just eighteen feet wide. this would place the most distant hearers twenty miles off. how comforting the thought, that, when moses called them to the temple to worship (see josh. viii. ), they could get within twenty miles of him and "the tabernacle of the lord"! the lord had built a tabernacle for them to worship in, but only one or two in six thousand could get inside of it. this small number only could enjoy seeing and hearing moses and the lord. the rest--one million nine hundred and ninety-five thousand--were outside, waiting for admission. bishop colenso estimates, the size of the camp of israel at about twelve miles square. this camp was situated in a desert of sinai for at least a year; and the business of keeping this camp in order, waiting upon the people, and removing also, the remains of the daily sacrifice of two hundred thousand oxen, sheep, &c., devolved upon three priests,--aaron, eleazar, and ithamar. it would be quite an improvement of the sacerdotal order if the priests of to-day could be subjected occasionally to some such healthy exercise; but they have managed to get the rule reversed. they now have the people to wait upon them. but those three priests of the israelites must have achieved a herculean task to wait each one upon three hundred and thirty-three thousand people daily, and, after preparing their food outside the camp, travel twelve miles to supply each one of this vast multitude with food and water. if they carried provision for only one person at a time, they would have had to perform this journey of twelve miles five thousand five hundred times an hour, which would have required them to be rather fleet on foot. and, besides the labor of carrying away every day, to the distance of six or seven miles, five hundred cart-loads of the offal of the dead animals, there would be at least one pound of victuals to be carried to each person, making, in the aggregate, five thousand five hundred pounds. they must have enjoyed good health, if abundant exercise would produce it. they could not have been much troubled with dyspepsia or liver-complaint, as many of that order are nowadays. . we are told that moses gave notice to the children of israel at midnight, that they must take their departure from egypt the next morning for the promised land (exod. xii.); but, if they constituted the immense number represented, they would have made a column two hundred miles long, arranging them five abreast, so it would have taken several days for all to get started. how, then, could they all start the _next morning?_ and how did they keep their two millions of sheep and cattle alive for several days while passing over a sandy desert too poor to produce dog-fennel? and it is strange how the whole tribe of israelites, if two millions in number, could live forty years in a wild, barren desert, and keep their immense flocks and herds alive. . the number of first-born male children over a month old, on a certain occasion, is set down at twenty-two-thousand two hundred and ninety-three, which would make about eighty-eight children for each mother. this was "replenishing" rapidly. but their little tents, like the tabernacle of the lord, would not accommodate one-fourth of that number. this would necessitate the mothers to leave most of their children "out in the cold." the number of the children of israel that went down to egypt, according to exod. i. , was seventy souls; and they remained there during four generations, represented by levi, kohath, amram, and moses, making a period (as marginal notes state) of two hundred and fifteen years; though exod. xii. , gives it at four hundred and thirty years. but this is another case of incredible exaggeration four generations of ordinary length, in that age, would not exceed the marginal calculation of two hundred and fifteen years; and for those seventy souls to increase to two millions in that short period of time, of four generations, would have required each mother to have had twelve or fifteen children at a birth. . dan, in the first generation, had but one son (gen. xlvi. ); yet in the fourth generation he had increased to sixty-two thousand seven hundred, or, according to num. xxvi. , to sixty-four thousand, which would have required each son and grandson to have had about eighty children apiece. this would have been "multiplying and replenishing" on a rapid scale. . aaron and his two sons had to make all the offerings, and on an altar only nine feet square; and an offering had to be made at the birth of every child, which would require about five hundred sacrifices daily; and then there were thirteen cities where these offerings had to be made, and only three priests to do it. (see lev. i. .) and, besides, the priests had to eat a large portion of the burnt offerings (see num. xviii. ); and, as these offerings consisted of five hundred lambs and pigeons, it would subject them to the task of eating enormous quantities daily. . at the second passover, an offering had to be made for every family (exod. xii.), which would require the slaughter of about one hundred and fifty thousand lambs. the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of these lambs; and it had to be done in about two hours ( chron. xxx. ). the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of about one thousand two hundred and fifty a minute, and each priest had to sprinkle the blood of more than four hundred lambs per minute with their own hands, which would make the affair rather a bloody business, if it were not wholly impossible, and therefore an incredible story. . if we could credit the statements of "the inspired writer" of the book of numbers (see chap. xxxi.), we should have to believe twelve thousand israelites, in a war with the midianites, after selecting out thirty-two thousand young damsels, killed forty-eight thousand men, eight thousand women, and twenty thousand boys; burned all their cities, and captured all their stock, amounting to eight hundred and eight thousand, and all this without the loss of a single man. each israelite would have had to conquer seventy-five resisting enemies, including men, women, children, and stock. it is a story too incredible for serious reflection. we are told that the clothing of the israelites lasted forty years "without waxing old" (see deut. xxix. ),--another story too incredible to be entertained for a moment. . in deuteronomy the priests are always called sons of levi, or "levites;" but, in the other books of the pentateuch, they are always called "the sons of aaron," which is an evidence they were not written by the same hand. contradictions. according to exod. xviii. , moses appointed judges over israel before the giving forth of the law; but (deut. i. ) we are told that the appointment took place after the law was issued at sinai. . according to deuteronomy, chap. x., "the lord separated the tribe of levi" after the death of aaron; but, according to numbers, chap. iii., the separation took place before his death. . according exodus, god instituted the sabbath because he rested on that day; but, according to deuteronomy, it was because he brought the israelites out of egypt "by a stretched-out arm." in deuteronomy, chap. xiv., every creeping thing that flieth is declared to be unclean, and is forbidden to be eaten; but in leviticus, chap. xi., every creeping thing, including four kinds of locust, is allowed, and is prescribed as a part of their food. . in exodus, chap. vi., god is represented as saying, "by my name jehovah was i not known to them" (the patriarchs). but he was mistaken; for that name occurs frequently in genesis. in sam. chap. viii., we are told the name of samuel's first-born was joel; and the name of his second, abiah: but in chroniclcs, vi. ., we are told the name of samuel's eldest son was vashni. which is right? . _bad bible morals_.--persons mutilated by accident, or otherwise in helpless condition, were excluded from the congregation of the lord; while the guilty culprits who caused this mutilation were allowed free access to the holy sanctuary. (set lev. xxi.) we consider this bad morality. innocent base-born children were also excluded from the temple, while the guilty parents were allowed free admission. . by the law of moses and the will of god, as is claimed, parents were required to stone rebellious children to death; and yet the parents were often the cause of this rebellious disposition, and tenfold more guilty than the children, having corrupted them by bad influences. (see deut. xxi.) this is a specimen of bible justice and bible morality. . _the jews not civilized_.--the lord's chosen people possessed so little of the element of civilization, they had to go to the king of tyre to hire artisans and skilled workmen to build their temple. (see chron. ii. , and kings v. .) . it is stated that it took one hundred and fifty-three thousand men seven years to build solomon's temple,--and heathen at that. (see chron. ii. , .) strange, indeed, when it was only a hundred and ten feet long, thirty-six feet wide, and fifty-five feet high! ( kings vi. .) some of our modern churches are much larger buildings, and generally erected in less than a year by less than a dozen workmen. it is certainly very damaging to the exalted pretensions of "the lord's peculiar people" that they possessed minds and intelligence so far below the heathen, that no workmen could be found amongst them, and they had consequently to go to these same heathen to hire workmen to build the lord's house. such facts sink the reputation both of them and their god. chapter xxii.--bible contradictions-two hundred and seventy-seven. it is difficult to conceive how any real benefit or any reliable instruction can be derived from a book which contains statements with respect to doctrines or matters of fact that are contradicted on the next page, or in some other portion of the book; because it not only confuses the mind of the reader, but renders it impossible for him to know, as he reads a statement in one chapter of the book, that it is not contradicted and nullified in some other chapter, until he has sacrificed sufficient time to commit the whole book to memory: and but few persons have ever achieved that herculean task. hence it must be an unreliable book as an authority. we know it has been stated by many admirers of the "holy book" that it contains no conflicting statements when properly understood. but who is to decide when it is properly understood? here, again, is a conflict of ideas. all words have certain specific meanings attached to them by common consent. and certainly any man of good sense would not attempt to attach any other meaning to them, without stating the fact and clearly defining his new meaning, if he expects any reader to understand him, or any two readers to understand him alike; and, if he writes without giving a hint that he has invented or employed new meanings for the words he uses, we are compelled to assume that his words and language have the ordinary and universally adopted signification. with this view of the case (as the writers of the bible have given no hint that they employed new meanings), it is false to assume or say there are no contradictions in the bible, when, if we accept language with its ordinary and established signification, an honest and unbiased investigation will show that it contains several thousand statements which conflict with each other or with science, history or moral truth, and hence must be totally unreliable as an authority. to prove this, we will now enter upon the unpleasant task of arranging and classifying a large number of these contradictions found both in the old and new testaments. i. contradictions in matters of fact and in doctrines. . was it death to eat the forbidden fruit? yes: "in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (gen. ii. ). no: "and all the-days of adam were nine hundrcd and thirty years" (gen. v. ). . can a woman, according to scripture, ever speak on religious matters? yes: "the same man had four daughters--virgins--who did prophesy" (acts xxi. ). no: "i suffer not a woman to teach, but to be in silence" ( tim. ii. ). . should a man ever laugh? yes: "there is a time to weep and a time to laugh" (eccles. iii. ). no: "sorrow is better than laughter" (eccles. viii. ). yes: "i commend mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry" (eccles. vii. ). . what is our moral duty relative to trimming the hair on our heads? "there shall no razor come upon his head,... let the locks of his head grow" (num. vi. ). "if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him" ( cor. xi. ). . is there any remedy for a fool? yes: "the rod of correction will drive it far from him" (prov. xxii. ). no: "though thou bray a fool in a mortar, yet will his foolishness not depart from him" (prov. xxvi. ). . should we pay a fool in his own coin? yes: "answer a fool according to his folly" (prov. xxvi. ). no: "answer not a fool according to his folly" (prov. xxvi. ). . is man's life threescore years and ten? yes: "the days of our years are threescore years and ten" (ps. xc. ). no: "his days shall be a hundrcd and twenty years" (gen. vi. ). . is it desirable to be tempted? yes: "count it all joy to be tempted" (jas. i. ). no: "watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation" (matt. xxvi. ). . which is the tempter, god or the devil? the devil: the devil tempted christ and judas. (see matt. iv. ). god: god tempted david ( sam. xxiv. ). . does the lord ever tempt man? no: "neither tempteth he any man" (jas. i. ). yes: "and god did tempt abraham" (gen. xxii. ). no: "he blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts" (john xii. ). . can god be tempted? no: "god can not be tempted" (jas. i. ). yes: "they have tempted me, the lord, ten times" (num. xiv. ). . is any thing good? yes: every thing ( tim. iv. ). no: "every thing is corrupt" (gen. vi. ). . how many gods are there? one: "the lord our god is one lord" (deut. vi. ). several: "let us make man in our own image" (gen. i. ). three: "there are three that bear record in heaven, father, son, and holy ghost" ( john v. ). . is god omnipresent? yes: david declares the lord is everywhere, in heaven and earth, and even in hell (ps. cxxxix. ). no: "the lord came down to see sodom" (gen. xviii. ). yes: "there is no place where the workers of iniquity can hide themselves" (job xxxiv. ). no: "adam and eve hid themselves from the presence of the lord" (gen. iii. ). no: "cain fled from the presence of god" (gen. iv. ). yes: "man can not get out of his presence" (ps. cxxxix. ). . is god omniscient? yes: "he knoweth the hearts of all men" (acts i. ). no: "the lord had to prove the israelites, and also abraham, to know what was in their hearts" (deut. viii. and gen. xxii.). . is god omnipotent? yes: "with god all things are possible" (matt. xix. ). no: "he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because their chariots were made of iron" (judg. i. ). . is god unchangeable? yes: with him "there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning; i change not" (mal. iii. ). no: "and the lord repented of the evil he said he would inflict upon the ninevites" (jon. iii. ). . is god a merciful being? yes: "the lord is very pitiful, and full of mercy" (jas. v. ). no: "i will not pity nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy" (jer. xiii. ) yes: "his tender mercies are over all his works" (ps. cxiv. ). no: "have no pity on them, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling" (sam. xv. ). yes: "his mercy endureth for ever" ( chron. xvi. ). no: "i have taken away my loving kindness and mercies" (jer. xvi. ). . does god over hate? no: "god is love" ( john iv. ). yea: "he hated his own inheritance" (ps. cvi. ). . is god's anger perpetual? no: "his anger endureth but a moment" (ps. xxx ). yes: "mine anger shall burn for ever" (jer. xvii. ). . is god the author of evil? yes: "i make peace, and i create evil" (isa. xiv. ). no: "out of his mouth proceeds not evil" (lam. iii. ). . is god in favor of war? no: "he is the god of peace." yes: "the lord is a man of war" (exod. xv. ). no: "he is not the author of confusion, but of peace" ( cor. xiv. ). . is the spirit of god for peace? yes: it is "love, peace, joy, gentleness, and goodness" (gal. v. ). no: "the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he slew a thousand men" (judg. xv. ). yes: "the spirit of the lord begets love, peace, and goodness" (gal. v. ). no: "by the spirit of the lord samson slew thirty men" (judg. xiv. ). . has any man seen god? yes: "moses, aaron, nadab, and ablho, and the seventy elders of israel" saw the god of israel (exod. xxiv. ). no: "no man hath seen god at any time" (john i. ). yes: "i have seen god face to face, and my life has been preserved" (gen. xxxii. ). no: "there shall no man see me, and live" (exod. xxxiii. ). yes: "i saw also the lord standing upon the throne" (isa. vi. ). no: "ye have never seen his shape" (john v. ). . can any man hear god's voice? yes: "i heard thy voice in the garden" (gen. iii. ). no: "ye have never heard his voice at any time" (john v. ). . does god dwell in light? yes: "he dwelleth in light which no man can approach to" ( tim. vi. ). no: "the lord said he would dwell in thick darkness" ( kings viii. ). . does god dwell in temples? yes: "i have chosen this [solmon's] temple for a house" ( chron. viii. ). no: "the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (acts xvii. ). . does god ever tire? yes: "god rested, and was refreshed" (exod. xxxi. ). no: "god fainteth not, neither is he weary" (isa. xl. ). . is god a respecter of persons? no: "there is no respect of persons with god" (rom. ii. ). yes: "and god had respect to abel and his offering" (gen.). . can god always be found? yes: "those who seek me early shall find me" (prov. viii. ). no: "they shall seek me early, but shall not find me" (prov. i. ). . does the lord believe in burnt offerings? no: "i delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats" (isa. i. ). yes: "thou shall offer every day a bullock for a sin-offering" (exod. xxix. ). . does the lord believe in animal sacrifices of any kind? no: "your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me" (jer. vi. ). yes: "burnt sacrifices are sweet unto the lord" (lev i. ). . does god believe in human sacrifices? no: for he condemned the human sacrifices of the gentiles. (see deut. xii. .) yes: "for his anger was abated by david's hanging the five sons of michal in the hill before the lord." (see sam. xxi. , and judg. xi. .) . does god ever repent? yes: "it repenteth the lord that he had made man" (gen. vi. ). no: "the lord is not a man that he should repent" (num. xxiii. ). . is all scripture given by inspiration of god? yes: "all scripture is given by inspiration of god" ( tim. iii. ). no: "i speak it not after the lord" ( cor. xi. ). . is war and fighting right? no: "they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (matt, xxvi. ). yes: "he that hath no sword, let him sell his coat and by one" (luke xxii. ). no: "beat your swords into plowshares, and your spears into pruning-hooks" (mic. iv. ). yes: "beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears" (joel iii. ). yes: "cursed be he who keepeth back his sword from blood" (jer. xlviii. ). . shall nation war against nation? yes: "nation shall rise up against nation" (matt. xxiv. ). no: "nation shall not rise up against nation" (mic. iv. ). . shall we love our enemies? yes: "love your enemies" (luke vi. ). no: "bring my enemies, and lay them before me" (luke xix. ). . is hatred right? no: "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer"( john iii. ) yes: "you must hate father and mother, brother and sister, &c., or ye can not be true followers of christ" (luke xiv. ). . is anger commended? yes: "be ye angry, and sin not" (eph. iv. ). no "anger resteth in the bosom of fools" (ecclcs. vii ). . is it right to steal and rob? no: "thou shalt not steal" (exod. xx. ); "neither rob" (lev. xix. ). yea: the israelites took from the egyptians "jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment, and they spoiled the egyptians" (exod. xii. ). . is it right to kill? no: "thou shalt not kill" (exod. xx. ). yes: "kill every male child amongst them." yes: "go ye out and slay every man his companion and every man his neighbor, and every man his brother" (exod. xxxii. ). . is it right to lie on any occasion? no: "all liars are to be punished with fire and brimstone" (rev. xxi. ). yes: "go put a lying spirit into the mouths of all the prophets" ( i kings xxii. ). no: "lying lips are an abomination to the lord" (prov. xii. ). yes: "the harlot rahab lied, and was justified by works" (jas. ii. ). no: "say nothing but the truth" ( chron. xviii. ). yes: "if the truth of god hath more abounded through my lie for his glory, why am i adjudged a sinner?" (rom. iii. ). . is god in favor of lying and deception? no: "thou shalt not bear false wit-ness" (exod. ). yes: "if a prophet is deceived, i the lord deceived that prophet" (ezek. xiv. ). . is a pious life a happy life? yes: "come unto me, and i will give you rest" (matt. xi. ). no: "in the world ye shall have tribulation" (john xvi. ). . will righteousness make a man happy? yes: "there shall no evil happen to the just" (prov. xii. ). no: "it is through much tribulation the righteous enter the kingdom of heaven" (acts xiv. ). yes: "the righteous shall flourish" (ps. xcii. ). no: "the righteous shall perish" (isa. lvii. ). yes: "the prayer of the righteous availeth much" (jas. v. ). no: "there is none righteous; no, not one" (rom. iii. ). yes: the righteous to be slain with the wicked (ezek. xxi. ). no: the "righteous not to be slain" (exod. xxiii. ). . can we live without sinning? yes: "those born of god can not sin" ( john iii. ) no: "there is no man that sinneth not" (i kings viii. ). yes: "he that committeth sin is of the devil" ( john ill. ). no: "there are none that doeth good, and sinneth not" (eccles. vii. ). . does wickedness shorten a man's life? yes: "the years of the wicked shall be shortened" (prov. x. ). no: "the wicked live, and become old" (job xxi. ). shall we resist evil? yes: "put away the evil of your doings" (isa. i. ). no: "resist not evil" (matt. v. ). . who can know whether the golden rule is right or wrong? right: "whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them" (matt. vii. ). wrong: "spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling" ( sam. xv. ). . is wisdom desirable? yes: "happy is the man that findeth wisdom" (prov. iii. ). no: "much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (eccles. i. ). yes: "get wisdom with all thy gettings" (prov. iv. ). yes: "be wise as serpents" (matt. x. ). no: "the wisdom of the wise shall be destroyed" ( cor. i. ). . shall we aim at a good reputation? yes: "a good name is better than riches" (prov. xxii. ). no: "woe unto you when all men speak well of you" (luke vi. ). . are riches desirable? yes: "the rich man's wealth is his strong city" (prov. x. ). no: "woe unto you that are rich" (luke vi. ). yes: "blessed is the man that feareth the lord,... wealth and riches shall be in his house" (ps. cxii.). no: "blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of god" (luke vi. ). . can a righteous man be rich, or a rich man be saved? yes: "in the house of the righteous is much treasure" (prov. xv. ). no: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god" (matt. xix. ). . does the lord believe in riches? yes: "the lord blessed job with fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen," &c. (job xiii. ). no: "a rich man can not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (matt. xix. ). yes: "wealth and riches shall be in the house of the man that feareth god" (ps. cxii. ). no: "lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth" (matt. vi. ). . shall we use strong drink? no: "wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging" (prov. xx. ). yes: "give strong drink to him that is ready to perish" (prov. xxxi. ). . should we ever use wine? no: "do not use wine nor strong drink" (lev. x. ). yes: "use a little wine for the stomach's sake" (tim. v. ). no: "look not upon the wine when it is red" (prov. xxiii. ). yes: "give wine to him that is of heavy heart" (prov. xxxi. ). . is it right to eat all kinds of animals? yes: "there is nothing unclean of itself; eat every moving thing" (gen. ix. ). no: "swine, hares, and camels are unclean; ye shall not eat of their flesh" (deut. xiv. ). . is it good to eat flesh? yes: it is good to eat flesh (deut. xii. ). no; it is not good to eat flesh (rom. xiv. ). . is man justified by works? yes: "abraham was justified by works" (jas. ii. ). no: "a man can not be justified by works" (gal. ii. ). . is man saved by faith? yes: "man is saved by faith without works" (rom. iii. ). no: "man can not be justfied by faith without works" (james ii. ). . should our works be seen? yes: "let your light shine before men" (matt. v. ). no: "do not your alms before men" (matt. vi. ), . is public prayer right? no: "enter into thy closet, and shut thy door" (matt vi. ). yes: "solomon prayed before all the congregation" ( kings viii. ). . how can it be a moral duty to pray, there being no certainty of an answer? "every one that asketh receiveth" (matt. vii. ). "they that seek me early shall find me" (prov. viii. ). "then shall they call upon me, but i will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me" (prov. i. ). . is man to be rewarded in this life? yes: both the righteous and the wicked an to be rewarded on earth (prov. xi. ). no: they are to be rewarded after death (matt. xvi. ). . are children punished for the sins of their parents? yes: "the iniquities of the father are visited upon the children" (exod. xx. ). no "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" (ezek. xviii. ). . should marriage be encouraged? yes: "marriage is honorable to all" (heb. xiii. ). no: "it is good for a man not to touch a woman" ( cor. vii. ). . is divorce right or wrong according to the bible? right: "if thou have no delight in her (thy wife), then thou shalt let her go" (deut. xxi. ). wrong: "whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the crime of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery" (matt. v. ). . is it right to marry a brother's widow? yes: "if a man die childless, his brother shall marry his widow" (deut. xxv. ). no: "to marry a brother's widow is an unclean thing" (lev. xx. ). . is it ever right to marry a sister? no: "cursed shall he be who does so" (deut. xxvii. ). yes: "abraham married his sister, and was blessed" (gen. xx. ). . does the bible allow adultery? no: "whoremongers and adulterers god will judge" (heb. xiii. ). yes: "the lord commanded hosea to take a wife of whoredoms" (hos. i. ). . is fornication sinful? yes: "you should abstain from fornication" ( . thess. iv. ). no: "every woman who hath not known man by lying with him, save for yourselves" (num. xxxi. ). . should we always obey kings and rulers? yes: "to resist [them] is to resist the ordinance of god" (rom. xiii. ). no: "whether it is right to obey god or man, judge ye." yes: "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake" ( pet. ii. ). "whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (matt, xxiii. s). no: "we ought to obey god rather than man" (acts v. ). . is the obedience of servants a duty? yes: "servants, obey your masters" (col. iii. ). no: "be ye not the servants of men" ( cor. vii. ). . is slavery right? no: "be not called master;" "break every yoke" (isa. lviii. ). yes: "ye shall buy of the children of the stranger, &c., and they shall be your possession" (lev. xxv. ). no: "proclaim liberty throughout all the land" (lev. xxv. ). . who can tell if baptism is an obligatory ordinance? yes: "go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them," &c. (matt, xxviii. ). no: "christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel" ( cor. i. ). . is image-making right? no: "ye shall make no image of any thing" (exod. xx. ). yes: "moses made an image of a serpent" (num. xxi. ). . is circumcision right? yes: "except ye be circumcised after the manner of men, ye can not be saved" (acts xv. ). no: "if ye be circumcised, christ shall profit you nothing" (gal. v. ). yes: "ye must be circumcised" (acts xv. ). no: "circumcision is nothing" (cor. vii. ). . is it right to swear? no: "swear not at all" (matt. v. ). yes: god swore eleven times, says the bible. . why was the sabbath instituted? because "god rested on the sabbath day" (exod. xx. ). because "he delivered his people on that day" (deut. vi. ). . is it right to observe the sabbath? yes: "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." no: "your new moons and your sabbaths,... i can not away with. it is iniquity" (isa. i. ). . is it right to judge? yes: "judge righteous judgment" (john vii. ). no: "judge not, that ye be not judged" (matt. vii. ). . can a man work miracles without divine aid? no: "no man can work such miracles except god be with him" (john iii. ). yes: "the egyptians did in like manner with their enchantments" (exod. vii. ). . can any man ascend to heaven? yes: "elijah ascended in a chariot of fire" ( kings ii. ). no: "no man hath ascended up to heaven" (john iii. ). yes: "all men must see death" (heb. ix. ). no: "enoch did not see death" (heb. xi. ). . should we fear death? yes: "christ walked not in jewry because the jews sought to kill him" (john vii. ). no: "fear not them that kill the body" (matt. x. ). . will the earth ever be destroyed? yes: "the earth also shall be burned up" ( pet. iii ). no: "but the earth abideth for ever" (eccles. i. ). . does the bible teach a future life? yes: "they shall go away into everlasting punishment" (matt. xxv. ). no: "for that which befelleth men befalleth beasts;... as the one dieth, so dieth the other," &c. (eccles. iii. ). . does the bible teach a future resurrection? yes: "the dead shall be raised" (cor. xv. ). no: "they shall not rise" (isa. xxvi. ). yes: "the saints came up out of the ground" (matt, xxvii. ). no: "those who go down into the grave never come up again" (job vii. ). . are the actions of men ever to be judged according to the bible? first, "the father judgeth no man" (john v. ). second, "i [jesus christ] judge no man" (john viii. ). so there is to be no judgment. . no: "god saw every thing was corrupt" (gen. vi. ). yes: "god saw every thing he had made was good" (gen. i. ). . yes: "god forgives the sinner" (jer. xxxi. ). no: "god kills the sinner" (ezek. xviii. ). . yes: "god justifies the ungodly" (rom. iv. ). no: "god will not clear the guilty" (exod. xxxiv. ). . yes: "man is justified by the law" (rom. ii. ). no: "man can not be justified by the law" (gal. iii. ). . yes: "many have sinned without the law" (rom. ii. ). no: "where there is no law there is no transgression" (rom. iv. ). . yes: "heaven is a kingdom that can not be moved" (heb. xii. ). no: "i will shake heaven and earth" (heb. xii. ). . yes: "every thing is afraid of man" (gen. i. ). no: "the lion is not afraid of man" (prov. xxx. ). . yes: "every man in his own tongue" (gen. x. ). no: "the whole earth one tongue" (gen. xi. ). . yes: "all things are become new" ( cor. v. ). no: "there is nothing new under the sun" (eccles. i. ). . yes: "you shall make a likeness of a serpent and a cherubim" (exod. xxv. ). no: "make no likeness of any thing in heaven above or the earth beneath," &c. (exod. xx. ). . yes: "deborah the prophetess judged israel" (judg. iv. ). no: "a woman is not to judge or rule a man" ( tim. ii. ). . yes: "god's people shall be ashamed" (hos. x. ). no: "god's people shall never be ashamed" (ps. xxxvii. ). . yes: "blessed are the fruitful" (gen. i. ). no: "blessed are the barren" (luke xxiii. ). . yes: "edom being thy brother, do not abhor him" (deut. xxiii. ). no: "he slew of edom ten thousand" ( kings xiv. ). . yes: "bear ye one another's burdens" (gal. vi. ). no: "every man must bear his own burden" (gal. vi. ). . yes: "labor not for meat" (john vi. ). no: "he that labors not shall not eat" ( thess. iii. ). . in genesis vi. god declared he would pour out his curses because "the imagination of man's heart is evil, and only evil continually." in genesis viii. he gives the same reason for not cursing the world. and these are mere specimens of a vast number of similar kind. kings and chronicles especially are full of such discrepancies of dates, numbers, names, &c. in one case the author of chronicles makes a son two years older than his father, the father being forty and the son forty-two. for proof, compare chron. xxi. with xxii. , . and observe, the author of chron. xvi. has baasha, king of israel, fighting against judah ten years after the author of kings xvi. has him dead and buried. but we have not space to spare to continue the list, as it would comprise a large chapter. let the reader compare the names and numbers of the leaders, families, tribes, &c., of the children of israel, as recorded by ezra (chap. ii.), with those of nehemiah (chap, vii.), and he will find more than a dozen discrepancies and contradictions; the difference amounting in some cases to thousands. he will also find a difference with respect to the coronation, period of rule, and termination of the reign of various kings, and wide differences tracing genealogie, families, tribes, &c., if he will compare kings, chronicles, samuel, ezra, nehemiah, &c. such are the verbal discrepancies of the "word of god;" such is arithmetic when "inspired." two questions upon the above: . how much older can a son be than his father according to scripture, basing the inquiry upon chron. xxi. and xxii.? . how long can a man continue to fight after he is dead and buried, as is illustrated in the case of baasha, king of israel? (see contradictions , , and .) contradictions in history. . when was man created? gen. i. says after the other animal. gen. ii, says before the other animals. . were seed-time and harvest to be perpetual? yes: "seed-time and harvest shall not cease" (gen. viii. ). no: "there was neither earing nor harvest" for five years (gen. xiv. ). . did eve see before she ate the forbidden fruit? yes: "woman saw before she ate the fruit" (gen. iii. ). no: "her eyes were opened by eating the fruit" (gen. iii. ). . when did the earth become dry after the flood? "in the first month the waters of the flood were dried up" (gen. viii. ). "in the second month the waters of the flood were dried up" (gen. viii. ). . how old was abraham when he left haran? the eleventh chapter of genesis makes him one hundred and thirty-five years old; but the twelfth says he was only seventy-five. . did abraham know where he was going? yes: "he went forth to go into the land of canaan" (gen. xii. ). no: "he went out, not knowing whither he went" (heb. xi. ). . did god give abraham land? yes: "i give it to thy seed for ever" (gen. xiii. ). no: "abraham had none inheritance in it, not so much as to set his foot on" (acts vii. ). . did moses fear pharaoh? yes: "moses fled, fearing pharaoh" (exod. ii. and ). no: "moses did not fear pharaoh" (heb. xi. ). . who hardened pharaoh's heart? "the lord hardened the heart of pharaoh" (exod. ix. ). "pharaoh hardened his heart" (exod. viii. ). . how many fighting men in israel? samuel says eight hundred thousand ( sam. xxiv. ). chronicles says one million one hundred thousand ( chron. xxi. ). . how many fighting men in judah? samuel says five hundred thousand ( sam. xxiv. ). chronicles says four hundred and seventy thousand ( chron. xxi. ). . who moved david to number israel? god: "the lord moved david to number israel" ( sam. xxiv. ). the devil: "satan provoked him to do it" (chron. xxi. ). . did david sin more than once? yes: "i have sinned greatly in numbering israel" ( sam. . ). no: "he sinned only when he killed uriah" ( kings xv. ). . how many years of famine was david to suffer? chronicles says it was three years ( chron. xxi. ). samuel says it was seven years ( sam. xxiv. ). . how many horsemen did david capture? samuel says it was seven hundred ( sam. viii. ). chronicles says it was seven thousand ( chron. xviii. ). . what did david pay for his threshing-floor? samuel says fifty shekels of silver ( sam. xxiv. ). chronicles says six hundred shekels of gold ( chron. xxi. ). . was david's throne to come to an end? no: "it shall be established for ever" (ps. lxxxix. ). yes: "it was cast down to the ground" (ps. lxxxix. ). . was david really a man after god's own heart? yes: "david was a man after god's own heart" (acts xiii. ). no: "david displeased the lord" ( sam. xi. ). . was it a man or god that jacob wrestled with? "jacob wrestled all night with a man" (gen. xxxii. ). "jacob wrestled all night with god" (gen. xxxii. ). . how many were there of jacob's family? "jacob's family was only seventy souls" (gen. xlvi ). "jacob's family was seventy-five souls" (acts vii. ). . how long was israel in egypt? "israel was four hundred and thirty years in egypt" (exod. xii. ). "jacob was only four hundred years in egypt" (acts vii. ). . did they see what the lord did in egypt? yes: "you have seen all the lord did in egypt" (deut. xxix. ). no: "you have seen nothing he did in egypt" (deut. xxix. ). . who was the father of salah? arphaxad (gen. xi. ). cainan (luke iii. ). . had michal any children? no: "michal had no children unto the day of his death" ( sam. vi. ). yes: "the five sons of michal" ( sam. xxi. ). . where was the law written? exodus says it was written on mt. sinai. deuteronomy says it was written on mt. horeb. . how many died of the plague? numbers says it was twenty and four thousand (num. xxv. ). corinthians says three and twenty thousand ( cor. x. ). . when did zachariah begin to reign? "in the thirty-eighth year of azariah" ( kings xv. ). but a comparison of kings xlv. and xv. makes but fourteen years. . how many stalls for horses had solomon? we are told in kings iv. , he had forty thousand. but, according to chron. ix. , it was only four thousand. . how much oil did solomon give hiram? according to kings v. , it was twenty measures. but, according to chron. ii. , it was twenty thousand. . of what tribe was solomon's artificer, who came from tyre? according to kings vii. , he was of the tribe of naphthali. but, according to chron. ii. , he was of the tribe of dan. . how long were the two pillars of solomon's porch? according to kings vii. , they were eighteen cubits long. but, according to chron. iii. , they were thirty-five cubits long. . how many baths were contained in the brazen sea? according to kings vii. , it contained two thousand; but, according to chron. iv. , three thousand. . how many mothers had abijah? and who was she? according to kings xv. , she was the daughter of ablshalom. but chron. xi. says she was the daughter of absalom; and chron. xiii. says she was the daughter of uriel. the chronology of the kings of judah and israel are a mass of confusion. . where was ahazlah killed, and how often? according to chron. xxii. , he was killed at samaria; and, according to king ix. , he was killed again. . how many did jashobeam kill? "jashobeam slew eight hundred at one time" ( sam. xxiii. ). no: it was only three hundred he slew ( chron. xi. ). . who killed the amalekites? samuel says "saul utterly destroyed them" ( sam. xv. ). but, according to chapter twenty-seven of the same book, david killed them all, "left neither man nor woman" ( sam. xv. ). and yet it appears they were not well killed; for, forty years after, they fought a battle with ziklag (see sam. xxx. ), and they were all killed again, "save four hundred young men;" and simeon after-wards slew them. (see chron. iv. .) and yet, although destroyed three times, josephus says he was a descendant of the amalekites. they must have been a live people. . when did baasha fight a battle with judah? according to chron. xvi. , it was in asa's thirty-sixth year. but, according to kings xvi. , in the twenty-sixth year of asa, baasha died, or, at least, vacated the throne,--a difference of ten years. . how did asa and baasha stand toward each other? "there was war between asa and baasha all their days" ( kings xv. ). but, according to chron. xiv. , they were at peace ten years. . how long aid baasha reign? "baasha reigned over israel twenty-four years" ( kings xv. ). but, according to kings xvi. , it was twenty-three years. . how long did elah reign? according to kings xvi. , elah reigned two years, commencing in asa's twenty-sixth year. . when did ahazlah begin to reign over judah? kings says it was the eleventh year of joram ( kings viii. ). kings also says it was the twelfth ( kings viii. ). . when did omri begin to reign? "in the thirty-eighth year of asa began omri to reign" (kings xvi. ). but, as zimri only reigned seven days, and began in asa's twenty-seventh year, omri must also have commenced in his twenty-seventh year. . when did ahab commence his reign? "in the thirty-eighth year of asa began ahab, son of omri, to reign" ( kings xvi. ). how can that be if omri reigned twelve years? (see kings xvi. ). . when did jeboram, son of ahab, begin to reign? "in the eighteenth year of jehoshaphat, king of judah, began jeboram to reign" ( kings iii. ). impossible, if his son amaziah commenced in jehoshaphat's nineteenth year (see kings xxii. ), and reigned two years: seventeen and two are nineteen. and, according to kings . and kings, it was twelve years later, if jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years. (see kings). . when did azzlah, or uzzlah, begin to reign? in the twenty-seventh year of jeroboam, according to kings xv. . but, according to kings xvi. and , it was only sixteen years. . how long did jehu reign over israel? "jehu reigned over israel twenty-eight years" ( kings x. ). but, according to kings xiii. , he reigned thirty years. . "how long did jehoahaz reign? jehoahaz reigned seventeen years" ( kings xiii. ). but, according to kings xiii. , it was twenty years. . how old was ahaz when he began to reign? twenty years. ( kings xvi. .) a wording to the text ( chron. xxiv. ), his father was about eleven years old when he was born. new-testament contradictions. there is a continual conflict in the statements of christ's biographers with respect to the various events of his life as compared with each other; and in some cases they contradict themselves. we will present some examples:-- . who came to worship christ when he was born? matthew says, "wise men from the east" (matt. ii. ). luke says they were shepherds of the same country (luke ii. ). . how were they led? matthew says they were led by a star (matt. ii. ). lake says by on angel (luke ii. ). . what did the parents of jesus do when he was born? matthew (ii. ) says they fled into egypt. but, according to luke (ii. ), they staid there forty-one days. . to whom did god speak at christ's baptism? to him: "thou art my beloved son" (luke iii. ). to the bystanders: "this is my beloved son" (matt. iii. ). . where did christ go after being baptized? mark says he went immediately into the wilderness, and was there forty days (mark . ). john says three days after he was in cana (john ii. ). . where was john while christ was in galilee? "john was put in prison" (before that) (mark i. ). "john was baptizing in Ænon" (john iii. ). . where was christ when he called peter and andrew? matthew and mark say, "walking by the sea of galilee." luke says, "sitting in their ship" (luke v. ). . where were peter and andrew at the time? matthew and mark say, "in their ship, fishing." luke says, out "washing their nets" (luke v. ). . how came peter and andrew to follow jesus? matthew and mark say he "called them." but, according to luke, the draught of fishes caused them to go. . where did christ heal the leper? matthew says at the mount, after the sermon (viii. ). mark says when preaching in galilee. . who told jesus the centurion's servant was sick? luke says he sent the elders of israel to tell him (luke vii. ). but matthew says the centurion went himself (matt, viii. ). . where did christ go after curing peter's wife's mother? matthew says beyond the lake, and drowned a herd of swine (viii. ). lake says to nain, and raised the dead (luke vii. ). . where did christ drown the swine with devils? matthew says in the country of gergeasenes. mark and luke say in the country of gadarenes. . where did the devils remonstrate against going? mark (v. ) says against being sent out of the country. luke (viii. ) says it was against going into the deep. . were christ's disciples allowed to use staves? yes: "take nothing... save a staff only" ( mark vi. ). no: "take neither shoes or yet staves" (matt. x. ). . when did christ pluck the ears of corn? matthew (xii. ) says after he had appointed his twelve disciples. but luke and mark make it after that event. . what woman interceded for her daughter? "a woman of canaan... cried unto him" (matt. xv. ). the woman was a greek (mark vii. ). . how great was the multitude which jesus fed with seven loaves and a few fishes? matthew says four thousand, besides women and children (xv. ). mark says four thousand in all (viii. ). . how long was it after christ was transfigured that he took james and john up into the mountain? six days after (matt. xvii. ). eight days after (luke ix. ). . how much power did jesus say faith as big as a grain of mustard-seed can impart? matthew (xvii. ) says enough to remove mountains. luke says (xvii. ) enough to pluck up trees by the roots. both large jobs for one man. . who asked seats in the kingdom for zebedee's children? matthew says (xx. ) it was their mother. mark says (x. ) they asked it themselves. why did he refuse them two seats when he had promised them, with the other ten disciples, twelve thrones? (matt. xix. .) . how many blind men did jesus restore near jericho? matthew says (xx. ) two blind men. mark and luke say only one, bartimeus. . where did he perform this miracle? matthew says as he was going away from jericho. luke says as he was coming into the city (xviii. ). . when did christ drive out the money-changers? matthew and luke say the day he rode into the city. mark says not till the next day (xi. ). . what did jesus tell his disciples about the ass? matthew says (xxi. ) he told them they would find an ass and colt tied. mark and luke say they found tied only a colt. and john says it was a young ass, and jesus found it himself (xii. ). mark and luke say he rode the colt. but matthew (xxi. ) represents him as riding both the ass and the colt. . who answered christ's question in the parable of the vineyard? matthew says (xxi. ) his disciples answered the question. mark and luke both say he answered it himself. . when did christ tell the truth about lazarus? he first said his sickness was not unto death, but afterwards said he was dead. . when did the anointment of christ take place? matthew says (xxvi. ) it was two days before the passover. but john says it was six days after (john xii. ). and luke makes it much later (viii. and xxii. ). . where did the anointment take place? matthew says (xxvi. ) in the house of simon the leper. luke says (vii. ) in the house of a pharisee. but, according to john, it was in the house of lazarus (xii. ). . where was the ointment poured? matthew and mark say on his head. but luke and john say on his feet. . when did christ say one of his disciples would betray him? matthew says (xxvi. ) while they "did eat supper." but, according to luke (xxii. ), it was after supper was over. . where did jesus go after supper? john savs "over the brook cedron" (xviii. .). but the other three evangelists say to the mount of olives. . when did judas betray christ? john says (xii. ), after supper he went out and made the bargain. but the other three say it was before supper he made the bargain. . where and to whom did peter first deny christ? john says (xviii. ) to the damsel at the door. the other three say to the men in the ball. . to whom was the second denial made? matthew and mark say to a maid. luke says to a man. john says to those who stood by the fire (xviii.). . to whom was the third denial made? matthew and mark say to those who stood by. john says (xviii.) to the servant of the high priest. . where was christ crucified? john says at calvary. the other three say at golgotha. . at what hour was christ crucified? mark says (xv. ) it was the third hour. but, according to john (xix. ), it was after the sixth hour. . how was christ dressed for the crucifixion? "and put on him a scarlet robe" (matt, xxvii. ). "they put on him a purple robe" (john xix. ). . what was the drink offered to christ at the crucifixion? mark says it was wine mixed with myrrh (xv. ). matthew says it was vinegar mingled with gall. but luke represents it as being only vinegar (xxiii. ). matthew says christ tasted it; but, according to mark, he did not. . who bore christ's cross? matthew says simon of cyrene (xxvii. ). but john says jesus bore it himself (xix, ). . which of the thieves reviled him? mark says both of them (xv. ). luke says (xxiii. ) only one of them, and the other reviled him for it. . what were the words of the superscription on the cross? "this is jesus, the king of the jews" (matt, xxvii. ). "the king of the jews" (mark xv. ). "this is the king of the jews" (luke xix. ). "jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews" (john xix. ). but one of these can be right. . was it lawful for the jews to put christ to death? yes: "we have a law by which he ought to die" (john xix. ). no: "it is not lawful to put any man to death" (john xviii. ). . who came to christ's sepulcher? matthew says (xxviii. ) mary magdalene and another mary. according to john, it was mary magdalene only (xx. ). but lake says the two marys and joanna (xxiv. ) . was it daylight when they came to the tomb? no: "they came while it was yet dark" (john xx. ). yes: "they came at the rising of the sun" (mark xvi. ). . whom did the women see at the tomb? matthew says (xxviii. ) an angel sitting. mark says (xvi. ) a young man. luke says (xxiv. ) two men. john says (xx. ) two angels. . did any of the women enter the sepulcher? yes: they entered in (mark xvi. ). no: they did not (john xx. ). . who looked into the sepulcher? according to luke, it was peter (xxiv. ). according to john, it was another disciple (xx. ). . did peter go into the sepulcher? john says he did go in (xx. ). according to luke, he did not (xxiv. ). . did those who visited the tomb relate the case to any one? according to luke, they told the eleven disciples (xxiv. ). but mark tells us they said nothing to any man (xvi. ). . to whom did christ appear after his resurrection? matthew says to the two marys (xxviii. ). mark says to mary magdalene alone (xvi. ). according to luke, it was to two of his disciples at emmaus. . when did christ first appear to his disciples? matthew says it was at galilee (matt, xxviii. ). luke says it was at jerusalem (luke xxiv. ). . how did christ's disciples feel when they met him? luke says they were terrified (xxiv. ). but john says they were glad (xx. ). . how often did christ show himself to the disciples? john says, "this is now the third time." but, according to the other three, it was the sixth time. . where did christ part from his disciples? mark says (xvi. ) it was at jerusalem. but, according to luke, it was at bethany. . when did christ ascend? according to luke, it was the day of his resurrection (luke xxiv. ). john says it was nine days after (john xx. ). but, according to acta i. , it was forty days after. . from what place did christ ascend? luke says (xxiv. ) it was from bethany. acts says (i. ) it was from mount olivet. . did christ bear witness of himself? yes: "i am one that bear witness of myself" (john viii. ). no: "if i bear witness of myself, my witness is not true" (john v. ). . could man bear testimony for christ? yes: "ye also shall bear witness" (john xv. ). no: "i receive not testimony from man" (john v. ). . did christ come on a mission of peace? yes: "to preach glory to god,... and on earth peace" (luke ii. ). no: "i came not to send peace but a sword" (matt. x. ). . did christ have a dwelling-place? no: matthew says (viii. ), "he had not where to lay his head." but john says he had a house, and his disciples saw it ( . ). . was christ the savior? yes: "christ is the savior of all men" ( tim. iv. ). no: "beside me [jehovah] there is no savior" (isa. xiiii. ). . was christ omnipotent? yes: "i and my father are one" (john x. ). no: "my father is greater than i" (john xiv. ). . was christ equal to god? yes; "he thought it no robbery to be equal with god" (phil, ii. ). no: "mv father is greater than i" (john xiv. ). . was christ supreme god? yes: "he was god manifest in the flesh" ( tim. iii. ). no: "he was man approved of god" (acts ii. ). . how did judas die? matthew says he went out and hanged himself (matt. xxvii. ). the acta says he went out and fell headlong (acts i. ). . did the men at paul's conversion hear a voice? yes: "hearing a voice, but seeing no man" (acts ix. ). no: "they heard not the voice" (acts xxil. ). . did john see a book? yes. "i saw... a book written within," &c. (rev. v. ). no: "no man in heaven or earth could look on the book" (rev. v. ). . was john the baptist ellas? yes: "this is elias which was to come" (matt. xi. ). no: "and he said i am not ellas" (john . ). . when did herodias ask for the head of john the baptist? matthew says before herod's great promise to her; but mark says it was after (mark vi. ). . is the law of moses superseded? yes: "we are delivered from the law" (rom. vii. ). no: "i came not to destroy the law" (matt. v. ). . who was the father of joseph? "and jacob begat joseph, husband of mary" (matt. . ). "he was the son of hell" (luke iii. ). . who purchased the potter's field? "judas, with the reward of iniquity" (acts i. ). "the chief priests took the silver, and bought the potter's field" (matt, xxvii ). . yes: "the spirit led christ to jerusalem" (acts xx. ). no: "the spirit forbade him to so" (acts xxi. ). . yes: "i go to prepare a place for you" (john xiv. ). no: "it was prepared from the beginning" (matt. xxv. ). . yes: "the mission of the gospel began at jerusalem" (luke xxiv. ). no. "it began at galilee" (acts x. ). . yes: "i beseech you as strangers" ( pet. ii. ). no: "you are not strangers" (eph. ii. ). . yes: "christ died for his enemies" (rev. x). no: "for his friends" (john xv. ). . yes: "i write unto you, fathers" ( john ii. ). no: "call no man father" (matt, xxiii. ). . yes: "i am with you alway" (matt, xxviii. ). no: "it is expedient for you that i go away" ( john xvi. ). total, , including double contradictions. we will not attempt to argue that these conflicting statements prove that no such events as here referred to ever transpired, and that the whole thing is a fabrication. we only argue that it proves the writers were not inspired by infinite wisdom, or they would have told the exact truth in all cases, so that there could have been no mistakes. it also proves that we never can know the real facts, or arrive at an accurate knowledge or the exact truth, with respect to any ' those doctrines, duties, or events the contradictions appertain to; and, as these contradictions refer to almost every doctrine, precept, and event of any importance, it thus sinks all bible teaching into a labyrinth of uncertainty. hence not _one single statement_ in it can be set down as absolutely true without corroborative evidence. note.--the reader will observe, from the contradictions in the foregoing list with respect to all the duties of life, as well as all the crimes of society,--such as war, intemperance, slavery, theft, robbery, murder, falsehood, swearing, lying, &c.,--that it is _absolutely impossible_ to learn our moral and religious duties from the bible. chapter xxiii.--obscene language of the bible--two hundred cases. no person of refinement and good morals, who has not been warped and biased by education or religious training in favor of the christian bible, can read that book through without being often shocked and put to the blush by its obscene and vulgar language! indeed, there are more than two hundred texts calculated to raise a blush on the cheek of modesty. many of them are so obscene that we would not dare copy them into this work. it would not only outrage the feelings of the reader, but it would render the author liable to prosecution. a law has been recently passed by congress prohibiting the publication and circulation of obscene literature; and many persons have already been prosecuted under that law,--some of them for merely selecting and publishing some of the obscene texts of the bible. but, without being influenced by these considerations, we will, in order to spare the feelings of the reader, merely state the import of some of these texts. . omitting the history of adam, in which we find some not very refined language, we will commence with noah. we are told that noah became so drunk as to strip off all his clothing, and one of his sons, to avoid seeing him in that situation, walked backward, and covered him: for which act his father cursed him. thus it appears that noah, although "a righteous man," was not a very modest or decent one. and such a man being held up as a righteous example must have a demoralizing tendency upon those who accept him in this light. (see gen. ix. ) . the story of abraham and sarah, and the account of abraham's illicit intimacy with his servant-maid hagar, as related in genesis (chap. xvi.), and his and sarah's gossip over the affair, is any thing but modest. . the "holy man" lot: the story of lot's incest with his daughters, as set forth in genesis (chap. xix.), is both immodest and disgusting. . rachel and bilhah: the tea-table talk of jacob and rachel, about the act of jacob in seducing their maid-servant bilhah, must be morally repulsive to all only bible believers. . the story of leah and zilpah is not much better. (see gen. xxx.) . the bargain between leah and rachel about reuben's mandrakes (gen. xxx.) is too immodest to relate or contemplate. . jacob's trick of using peeled sticks and poplar-trees among his cattle is something more than a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. and were it not deemed "divine revelation, heavenly instruction," it would have been left out (gen. xxx.). . the account of rachel's stealing her father's images, and then telling an indecent falsehood to hide it, is not very suitable for a "holy book" (gen. xxxi.). . the story of the defilement of dinah we will not attempt to describe, as we can not do it without offending decency. (see gen. xxxiv.) . the story of reuben and bilhah, in the next chapter, may be instructive to the pious, but is not so to persons of refined taste. . if you read the narratives of judah, onan, and tamar, as related in the thirty-eighth chapter of genesis, for humanity's sake keep it out of the hands of your children, and use _your_ influence to prevent its circulation among the heathen; for it must have the effect to sink them still deeper in moral depravity and mental degradation. . the disgusting story of absalom's familiarity with his father's concubines, as related ( sam. xvi. ), is so disgusting, that we will barely allude to it. having referred to twelve cases more, we shall pursue the repulsive subject no further, except merely to indicate the chapter and verse where a long list of such cases may be found and examined by those who may need more evidence that the bible is an obscene book, not fit to be read in decent society. . vulgar language is used in representing men as acting like dogs. (see kings ix. .) . job describes disgusting conduct toward a woman (job xxxi. ). . solomon's song of songs contains much that is obscene language from the first to the eighth chapter. . isaiah makes revolting suggestions relative to stripping women. (see isa. xxxii. .) . ezekiel is represented as eating disgusting food (dung) (ezek. iv. ). . jehovah's command to hosea to marry a harlot is of immoral tendency. . isaiah frequently makes use of vulgar language. one case may be found in chap. lxvi. . . another case in hosea, describing horrible treatment of women and children. (see chap. xiii. .) . the conduct of sechem towards certain women, as told in gen. xxxiv. , is loathsome. . the conduct of parents toward their daughters, as described in deut. xxii. , and as enjoined by the mosaic law, is disgusting and shocking in the extreme. . and language no less disgusting, relative to the treatment of men, as prescribed by law, is found in deut. xxiii. . the account of paul's conversion, as described in acts ix., is extremely vulgar. the above-cited cases are mere samples of hundreds of similar ones to be found in god's holy book in the use of indecent language, calculated to make any person blush to read in private, much more if read in public. indeed, no person dare read them to a company of decent people. look, then, how the case stands. look at the mortifying condition in which every devout bible believer in christendom is placed. here is a book which, it is claimed, emanated from a pure and holy being; which contains so many passages couched in such obscene and offensive language, that any person who attempts to read the book to a company must be constantly and critically on his guard, and is liable to be kept in a state of fearful anxiety (as the writer knows by his own experience), lest he stumble on some of these offensive texts. what an uncomfortable situation to be placed in when reading a book which is claimed to be perfect in every respect! we have seen a bible class in school stopped suddenly by the teacher, with orders to close their bibles, because he had observed, by looking ahead, that the chapter contained language which would bring a blush to every cheek if read. in the same school we saw a modest boy, of refined feelings, burst into tears because he was required to read to the school a certain passage in the account of the conversion of paul. the teacher being a devout christian, whose piety overruled his decorum, attempted to enforce the reading by a threat of punishment, but failed. we have also seen the offer of one hundred dollars' reward, standing in a paper for a considerable time to any person who would read a dozen texts to a company of ladies, which the gentleman offering the reward might select, but no person dared to disgrace himself by accepting the offer. and what is the moral, or lesson, taught by these things? why, that the bible is a very unsuitable book for a refined nation of people to read habitually, or for a morally elevated and enlightened age of the world, though it was probably adapted to the age and to the people for which it was written. they had not attained to the present standard of morality and refinement. we cherish no disposition to censure them. they were probably honest, and lived up to their highest idea of right. if anybody deserves censure in the case, it is the professedly enlightened christians of the present age for going back to a savage, unenlightened age and nation for their religion and morals. a partial list of the obscene passages of the bible. the following figures point to texts, many of which are too vulgar to be described in any kind of language:-- gen. xvii. , very disgusting; xix. , , , a shocking case; xx. ; xxv. , disgusting; xxx. , very obscene; xxx. , ; xxxi. ; xxxiv. , , , ; xxxviii. , loathsome; xxxviii. ; lix. ; exod. . ; xix. ; xx. ; xxii. ; xxxiv. , ; lev. xii. ; xviii. , , , , , ; xxi. , , extremely vulgar; num. xiv. ; xix. , disgusting; xxv. ; xxxi. ; deut. xxi. ; xxii. , ; xxii. , , ; xxiii. , very disgusting; xxiii. , , ; xxv. , , ; xxxi. ; judg. xi. ; xix. , ; ruth i. , ; iii.; iv. ; sam. vi. , ; vii. ; xi. , ; xii. , , very disgusting; xiii. , , , , , ; kings i. ; iii. , , ; xi. ; xvi. , very filthy; xxi. ; kings xviii. , very filthy; chron. xxi. , ; esth. ii. , ; job iii. ; xvi. ; xxi. ; xxxi. , very disgusting, and ; xxxii. ; xi. ; ps. xxii. ; xlviii. ; cxxxix. ; prov. xxiii. ; xxx. , ; eccles. iv. ; xi. ; sol. . ; iii. ; vi. ; vii. , ; viii. ; isa. iii. ; xxvi. , very nasty; xlvii. ; xlix., very obscene; xlvi. ; jer. ii. ; iii. , , , , very filthy, and ; iv. ; xiiii. ; xiv. ; xvi. , ; xxix. ; xxx. ; xxxi. , ; lam. ii. ; vii.; ezek. iv. , , , , , , , , , , , ; xviii. ; xix. ; xxii. ; xxiii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; xliv. ; hos. i. ; ii. , , ; iv. , ; vii. : ix. , ; mic. , ; iv. ; nah. iii. ; hab. ii. ; esd. viii. ; ix. ; xvi. , ; jud. ix. ; wisd. of sol. iii. ; iv. ; ecclus. xx. ; xxvi. ; xxxviii. ; xiii. ; bar. vi. ; macc. vi. ; matt. . ; xxiv. ; xxv. ; luke i. , , , , , , ; ii. , , ; xi. ; john xvi. ; acts ii. ; rom. i. , ; iii. ; cor. vii. ; cor. vi. ; heb. xi. ; pet ii. ; rev. xii. ; xvii. ; xviii. . chapter xxiv.--circumcision a heathen custom. i. circumcision is a very ancient rite, and of heathen origin, though we are told in genesis that it was a command of god to abraham; and it was nationalized by moses. it was considered by the jews a very important religious rite, and has been practiced by them from their earliest history. so highly was this ordinance esteemed amongst them, that it was in some cases performed twice. according to herodotus and diodorus, instead of the jews getting the command direct from god, they borrowed the custom of the assyrians; and josephus silently assents to its truth; and j. g. wilkinson says, "it was established in egypt long before joseph was sold into that country," which furnishes evidence of its existence before the time of moses. among the jews this rite was performed on the eighth day after birth: all converts to their religion, and all servants, had to submit to the ordinance. jerome says that in his day a majority of the idumæans, moabites, ammonites, and ishmaelites were circumcised. the ancient phoenicians also observed this rite, and the aboriginal mexicans likewise. the mahomedans also practice it; and, although the koran does not enjoin it, it has been practiced wherever that religion has been adopted. the rite is performed on both sexes in arabia. this rite was practiced by the early christians. even the wise paul gave practical sanction to this ordinance in the case of timothy. the coptic and abyssinian christian churches still observe the custom. a circumcision festival was established in the church, and kept on the st of january in commemoration of the circumcision of jesus. the toleration of this rite by the jews and christians shows that they were dwelling on the animal plane,--that they had not risen to that high state of spirituality which would lead them to abandon such heathenish ordinances and customs. it is so repulsive to refined society, that some civilized nations have enacted laws interdicting the custom. yes, this senseless, cruel, heathenish rite has to some extent been abandoned, and must ere long entirely disappear from the earth. it can not withstand the lights of science and civilization: it is a childish, senseless, obscene, vulgar, heathenish, cruel, and disgusting superstition. ii. fasting and feasting. a total ignorance of the laws of health is indicated as existing amongst the disciples of all the ancient religions by the alternate extremes of fasting and feasting. the latter is injurious to health, and the former, also, if long continued, as was frequently the case. but the subject of health did not occupy the minds of religious enthusiasts. they knew nothing of the laws of health, and cared less if possible. fasting is reported, in some cases, as extending to an incredible period of time, continuing in some cases for months. hindoos often fasted for a week, and in some cases, if reports are time, for several weeks. pythagoras of greece fasted, it is said, forty days. both the fasts and the feasts were generally held to signalize or celebrate some astronomical epoch; such as the changes of the moon, changes in the seasons, &c. the ancient representatives of the christian faith were much given to fasting, as were also some of the jews; but, at the present day, christians, with others, are more addicted to feasting than fasting, although fasting is enjoined by the bible both by precept and practice. in this respect modern christianity bears no resemblance to ancient christianity. chapter xxv.--holy mountains, lands, cities, and rivers. i. holy mountains. those who have read the christian bible are familiar with the fact that the ancient jews and early christians had their holy mounts and holy mountains, and that they are often referred to in the bible. mount sinai and mount horeb were to the jews consecrated spots. they called forth their highest feelings of veneration; they occupied a place in their devout meditations, similar to that of heaven in the mind of the christian worshiper. it may be said to have been a substitute for heaven with the jews; for they knew no other heaven, and dreamed of no other in their earlier history. and mount zion was a place equally sacred in the devout meditations of the early christians. all the oriental nations had their holy mountains before the jews were known to history: merau was the holy mount of the ancient hindoos; olympus, of the greeks; athos, of the egyptians. it is therefore evident that the founders of the christian religion borrowed the idea of attaching sacredness to mountains. several of christ's important acts were represented as having been performed on mountains. his sermon was delivered on a mount; his march into jerusalem was from the "mount of olives." luke says he went and abode in the mount of olives (xxi. ). the devil took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world; and, finally, his earthly career culminated on mount calvary. "holy hill," holy mount, and holy mountain--the most important of which was mount zion--are terms often used in the old testament. history discloses very fully the origin of the custom of attaching sacredness to hills and mountains. one writer says it was partly from the conviction, that, the higher the earth ascends, the nearer it approaches the residence of the gods; and consequently they would the more certainly hear the prayers and invocations of mortals. prophets, seers, and anchorites were accustomed, from these considerations, to spend much time on the hills and mountains. in view of these facts, we may conclude that all persons acquainted with history will acknowledge that the jews and christians derived the tradition of regarding hills and mountains as "holy" from the orientals, and that it is consequently a heathen tradition. ii. holy lands and holy cities. jerusalem was the principal holy city of both jews and christians; and palestine was their holy land.. here, again, we find them anticipated by heathen nations. thebes was the holy city of egypt, ida the holy city of india, rome the holy city of the greeks and romans, mecca the holy city of the mahomedans. and, like the early christians who spent much time in visiting jerusalem, the mahomedans make frequent pilgrimages to mecca. syria was the holy land of the chaldeans and persians, wisdom the holy land of the hindoos, and benares the principal "holy city." and these holy places they visited very frequently, going in large companies, singing hymns, and reciting texts from their holy books as they traveled. and christians in the time of constantine spent much time in traveling to and from jerusalem and the holy land, prompted by the same superstitious notions and feelings. here we observe another analogy in the religious customs of the jews, christians, and heathens, all of which were derived from ancient india. iii. holy rivers and holy water. holy rivers were quite numerous among the devotees of the ancient religions. ganges, in india, appears to have been the first river invested with the title of "holy." its waters were used for the rite of baptism, and were supposed to impart a spiritual life to the subject of immersion. jordan and the euphrates were regarded as sacred by the jews, and the former was the chosen stream for the rite of baptism by that nation.. even christ appears to have believed he could receive some spiritual benefit by being dipped beneath its waves. the nile was a sacred river in egypt, and many repaired to it for spiritual benefit. thus the origin of holy rivers and holy waters is plainly indicated to be of heathen origin. chapter xxvi.--bible characters. i. character of jehovah. the old testament is principally a history of the jews and their god jehovah,--a narrative of their trials, troubles, treachery, quarrels, and faithless dealings toward each other. no other god ever had so much trouble with his people; and no other nation ever showed so little respect for their god, or so little disposition to obey him, or live up to his commands. there appears to have been almost a natural antipathy between them; so that they were constantly repelling each other. the relationship appears to have been a forced one, possessing but few of the adhesive ties of friendship. both parties were apparently happier when separated, as they were several times,--on one occasion for a long period (lam. v. ). and yet, according to the biblical history of the case, they got along as well, were as moral and as happy, as when their god was with them. hence it is evident, if he had never returned, they would have sustained no serious loss or disadvantage in any way. the case furnishes an argument in favor of that class of people who are frequently denounced by the priesthood for "living without god in the world." if "god's own people" could get along without him, why can not men and women of this intelligent age? and the reason he assigns for remaining with them as much as he did shows it was not from natural affinity or affection for them, but because he had "promised" to do so. did he not know that "a bad promise is better broken than kept?" another circumstance which implies that jehovah cherished but little respect for his people, and cared but little about them, is that, from his neglect (as it seems most natural to attribute it to this cause), they were literally broken up while he was apparently with them. one portion of them fell into the hands of shalmaneser, king of assyria, and the other portion into the hands of nebuchadnezzar, king of babylon; and they were never able to regain their political power as a nation afterwards. and, to cap the climax, ten out of the twelve tribes were lost entirely, thus leaving jehovah almost childless, and destitute of worshipers. and a search for them for several thousand years has failed to bring them to light. this circumstance is entirely irreconcilable with the idea that the jews were the special favorites of god. indeed, it prostrates the assumption entirely beyond defense. it proves, also, that jehovah's promise never to leave or forsake them was not adhered to. (see sam. xii. .) and the language and conduct of the god of the jews on several occasions imply that, if he ever did make choice of them as his pets, he was disappointed in them, and repented of the act. when he exclaimed, "i have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" (isa. i. ), he virtually confesses he had been short-sighted, or that he had erred in judgment in selecting the jews as special favorites. certainly this is the language of vexation and disappointment, and want of judgment or foresight. . we are told "he hated his own heritage" (jer. xii. ). here is evinced again a feeling of hatred, vexation, and disappointment, that no sensible being should manifest, much less a god. . "he gathered unto him the children of ammon and amalek, and went and smote israel" (judg. iii. ). this was a traitorous act, calculated to discredit any being. hence it could not have been the act of an all-wise and benevolent god. think of such a being getting into a squabble with his own children, and having to invoke the aid of heathen tribes to subdue them, and get him out of the difficulty! one day he heads an army composed of his "peculiar people" to fight the heathen, with the avowed determination to exterminate them, and "leave nothing alive that breathes," the next day he gets out of patience with their stubbornness and iniquity; his fury gets up to fever heat; and he traitorously abandons them, and joins those same enemies to fight them, and reduce them to slavery. it is scarcely necessary to say we do not believe such a god ever existed, excepting in the imagination of ignorant people. . again: jehovah is represented as selling his people several times to the neighboring heathen tribes, which again leads to the conclusion that he was disappointed in them, tired of them, and wished to get rid of them. he sold them once to jaban, king of canan (judg. iv. ), and twice to the philistines. wonder what he got, and what he did with the money! the first time he sold them to the philistines, he told them he never would deliver them again: but he seems either to have forgotten his promise, or forgot there is a moral obligation to stick to the truth; for he delivered them several times after that, if his own biographer and inspired writer tells the truth. here is more evidence that he is fickle-minded and unreliable, or that the bible writers have misrepresented his character. . if we could assume there is any truth in the bible history of jehovah, we should not wonder that the jews preferred worshiping a golden calf to paying their devotions to such a god, and, on the other hand, it is not surprising that he should manifest his displeasure toward them, and frequently steal away from them, and often confess grief, vexation, and regret for having made choice of such an ignorant, rebellious set of rambling nomads, who subsisted by war and plunder. . jehovah's jealousy of other gods which he so frequently manifested and so often confessed, and which is one of the most objectionable traits of his character, must be attributed to his own moral defects; for he acted in such a manner as to cause his own people to prefer other gods to him. he frequently scolded and punished them for worshiping other gods,--a circumstance which furnishes evidence that other gods were better, and therefore more worthy of being worshiped. what else could have caused them to prefer other other gods. he should have acted in such a loving and fatherly manner that other gods could not have been more venerated and sought after. then he would not have been so often vexed, harassed, and perplexed at the idolatrous proclivities of his worshipers, and so often resorted to retaliation by forsaking them, selling them, enslaving them, or delivering them into the hands of the spoiler! in judges ii. , it is declared, "the lord delivered them into the hands of the spoiler;" and, in judges vi. , we are told he delivered them into the hands of midian for seven years. this looks like an attempt to spoil his own plans, and to falsify his own promises to be with them, and protect them at all times. . much of jehovah's dealings with his people seemed to be by way of experiment, as in the case of trying abraham's faith by requiring him to offer up his son. what an idea for an allwise and omnipotent god, or whom it is said, "known unto him are all his works"! . but many circumstances prove that jehovah was not the god of the universe, but only a family or national god. . his acknowledgment of the existence of other gods (deut. vi. ). . his jealousy of other gods (exod. xxxiv. ). . his traveling on foot, lodging in tents, having his feet washed, eating veal and cakes (gen. xviii.), &c., all tend to prove this. . and the fact that he could not know what was going on in other nations, and not even his own until he visited the spot in person (as in the case of the tower of babel), is proof he was not the god of the universe. . we can not concede that the "creator of unnumbered worlds" is (like jehovah) an angry, malevolent being, addicted to feelings of revenge and retaliation, which seemed to banish the feeling of love and goodness entirely from his mind, and who is represented as being frequently thwarted in his designs and purposes by the caprices of his weak and ignorant children, who, so far from answering his expectations of being the best, turned out to be the worst, of his human heritage. such ideas would be derogatory to deity. and this is the god the "american christian alliance" are trying to obtain a recognition of in the constitution of the united states. what a moral calamity such a step would be! chapter xxvii.--character of god's "holy people," the jews. as the jews are reputedly "the chosen people of god,"--chosen by him out of all the nations of the earth to be the special recipients of his favors,--the chosen instruments through which to communicate his will and his laws to the whole human race, and chosen to be a moral example for all mankind, for that age, and for all future generations,--it becomes a matter of great importance to know their real character for morality, for intelligence, for honesty, and for reliability. and that we may, in the effort to present a brief sketch of their character, furnish no ground for suspecting any misrepresentation, we will present it in the language of jewish and christian writers of established reputation. it may reasonably be presumed that their own writers would be more likely to overrate than underrate their virtues. hear, then, what one of their leading prophets says of them. isaiah thus describes them (isa. lix.): "their hands are defiled with blood, and their fingers with iniquity; and their lips speak lies; their tongues mutter perverseness. none of them call for justice; none of them plead for truth. they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hand. their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths." such is a description of god's holy people by one of their number. and david completes the picture by declaring, "there is none righteous; no, not one." and christ calls them "a generation of vipers." rather a shocking picture of god's peculiar people! "peculiar" they were, if isaiah's description of them was true,--peculiar for defective character. it is rather strange that jehovah should have selected such moral outlaws as lawgivers and moral examples for the whole human race. there were, at the time, several nations superior to the jews in morals and intelligence, and much farther advanced in civilization. the greeks, egyptians, chaldeans, and a portion of the hindoos were in advance of the jews. the rev. mr. hilliard, in a sermon preached in new york in , says of the jews, "they were by nature, perhaps, the most _cruel and blood-thirsty_, as well as idolatrous, people in the world." and yet he says in the same sermon, "that the lord chose the israelites because of their adaptedness of character to the carrying out of his divine ends of mercy to the race." what cogent reasoning! why not select the devil at once, if beings the most _cruel and blood-thirsty_ were best calculated for "carrying out his divine ends of mercy to the race"? here is more proof of the evil effects of preaching, or adhering to, a religion which is so full of errors, absurdities, and immoral elements, that it blinds the moral vision, and weakens the reasoning faculties to give it a place in the mind, and leads to a system of false reasoning, and often corrupts the natural judgment. we have more orthodox testimony to show the defective morals of the lord's chosen people. dr. burnet (a christian writer), in his "archæologia philosophie," says, "they were of a gross and sluggish nature, not qualified for the contemplation of natural things, nor the perception of divine ones. and consequently," he tells us, "moses provided nothing for them of an intellectual nature, and promised them nothing beyond this life,--did not teach a future state of existence." lactantius says, "they were never visited by the learned men of other countries, because they were never famous for literature." st. cyril says, "moses never attempted to philosophize with the jews, because they were 'grossly ignorant,' and addicted to idolatry." dr. burnet further says, "they were depraved in their manners and discipline, and almost bereaved of humanity. if i may speak the truth,... they were a vile company of men,--an assembly of slaves brought out of egyptian prisons, who understood no art but that of making bricks." josephus, being a jew, was their friend and defender; and yet he says, "they were so illiterate, that they never wrote any thing, or held intercourse with the learned." st. cyril says, "some of them adored the sun as a deity; others, the moon and stars; and others, beasts, and birds." one writer says, "they hated all nations, and were hated by all nations," and they seemed determined to exterminate all nations but their own. they might also have used the language of an ancient christian sect, who declared, "we are the friends of god, and the enemies of all mankind." lot it be borne in mind that the testimonies here cited are not from infidel writers, but all from jews and christians, who, we should presume, could have no motive for exaggerating their moral defects, but rather inducements for concealing them. other similar testimony might be presented. some of the laws which moses adopted for the government of the jews corroborates still further the statement that they occupied a very low position in the scale of morals as well as intellect; for the laws of a nation are a true standard of their character. hence the law of moses prohibiting uncleanness (lev. xv.), the law against incest (lev. xviii.). laws against bestiality, to prohibit both sexes from carnal familiarity with beasts, and various other laws of a similar character, furnish a clear implication that they were addicted to all these vile habits; and a law to compel them to wash their hands leads to the conclusion that they were inclined to be filthy in their habits. and the following law shows that they were not very particular about their food: "ye may eat the locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind" (lev. xi. ). here were three kinds of rather repulsive insects which the jews were expected to eat, at least licensed to use as food. can such a nation be considered to be civilized? if so, where is a nation now existing that can not, with equal propriety, be said to be civilized? this portraiture of the jewish character is not here presented in any caviling spirit, or to show that they are justly objects of either censure or ridicule. far from it. they most probably acted up to the highest light they were in possession of. the primary motive of this exhibition of their character is to show that they possessed no qualifications and no traits of character calculated to fit them for moral lawgivers and moral exemplars for us, and for the _whole human race_; and we can not assume, without really dishonoring ourselves, that such a morally and intellectually inferior nation of people were the chosen instruments in the hands of god to communicate the revelation of his will to the human family. we are under no moral obligation to believe it. a revelation from a pure, perfect, and holy god must (if we assume a revelation necessary) come through a pure and holy channel: otherwise it would be contaminated and corrupted before it reached us. if god could consent to communicate a revelation to the human race through such a channel as the jewish nation furnished, we see not how he could escape a stigma upon his character for stooping to such ignoble means. and would not the act of familiarizing himself with such a people show that he kept bad company, and furnish a bad ex-ample to us who are enjoined to be "perfect as our father in heaven is perfect"? chapter xxviii.--character of moses; moral defects of. the history of moses is so intimately and thoroughly inter-blended with that of the jews, that, to present the character of one, is to present the character of the other. we shall therefore devote but a brief chapter to a special exposition of his character, as it will be found fully set forth in the history of the jews, and the practical illustration of their moral character. no religious chieftain ever claimed to be on more intimate terms with god, and no writer ever presented a more dishonorable exhibition of his character. he made god the author of nearly every thing he said and did, no matter how wicked, how cruel, how demoralizing, or how shocking to decency or refined moral sensibilities. if some of his characteristics of god are not blasphemous, we can have but little use for the word. some of his laws serve as an illustration of this statement. he says, "the lord spake unto moses," and told him that no person with a flat nose or crooked back or broken hand, a crooked eye, or who was lame or possessing any kind of a physical blemish, should be admitted into the congregation of the lord (lev. xxi.) this was punishing the unfortunate for defects they could not help, thus aggravating the misfortunes of a class who, above all others, had special claims upon his kindness on account of the very defects for which they were excluded. these laws, and many others no better, sufficiently illustrate the character of the man. his penal code, which inflicted death for two hundred acts, many of them no crime at all (such as picking up sticks on the sabbath to make a fire to cook their food with), furnishes conclusive evidence that he was a cruel and unmerciful lawgiver. and the fact that he was almost constantly engaged in a bloody warfare with neighboring nations, with the avowed determination to exterminate them, and "leave nothing alive that breathes," simply because they preferred to worship some other god than the cruel jehovah, leads to the conclusion that he was a bloody-minded warrior. had christ lived under the hebrew monarchy, moses' laws would have put him to death; and yet they both claimed to derive their moral code from the same god, the jewish jehovah. a circumstance is related of moses killing an egyptian, and hiding him in the sand. and it is stated, "he looked this way and that way" before committing the deed, and then concealed the dead body. this implies that he felt guilty, and that it was an act of murder in the first degree. although every chapter of moses' history proves him to have been a cruel and bloody-minded barbarian, with a moral code possessing but a slight exhibition of the elements of mercy, humanity, and justice, yet dr. gaussel, in his "theopneustia," calls him "a holy and divine man," and says, "he was such a prophet, that his holy books were placed above all the rest of the old testament." the doctor furnishes us one of the many cases of the blinding and biasing effect of a perverted religious education, and an argument in favor of laboring to supersede bible religion with something better. here we will notice it as a curious circumstance, that, after jehovah had occupied but six days in creating eighty-five millions of worlds, and made most of them in a few hours, it should have taken him and moses both forty days to write a law, and a very imperfect one at that. and then it would seem it took jehovah three thousand years to make a devil, as his satanic majesty does not figure in the jewish hierarchy till after the lapse of that period. one of the most conspicuous traits in moses' mental composition was an unbounded self-esteem. although he claimed to be in constant consultation with jehovah, he seldom yielded to his advice when it conflicted with his own judgment. on the contrary, he several times detected his god in error, and admonished him, and entered into an argument to convince him that he was wrong; and, of course, he always came out first best in the logical contest. take, for example, the case of aaron making the golden calf. it occurred while he and jehovah were engaged in writing "the holy law" on mount sinai. when the case became known to jehovah, it so disturbed and aggravated him, that he at once declared he would not only punish the guilty sinner,--the apostate aaron,--but would exterminate the whole race. but the better tempered and more considerate moses began to reason and remonstrate against such a rash act. he appealed to his honor and love of approbation, and told him the egyptians would report that he was not able to get his "holy people" to the promised land, and hence killed them to conceal the failure. "oh, yes, moses, you are right! i never thought of that," was the seeming reply of jehovah. and thus moses proved to be smarter than his god, and enlightened his ignorance. here we will call the attention of the reader to the resemblance between moses and the still more ancient egyptian mises, or bacchus. it is so striking, that we can not resist the conviction that they were originally closely connected with each other. . bacchus, like moses, was born in egypt. . bacchus, or mises, was also exposed to danger on the river nile, like moses. . bacchus lived on a mountain in arabia called nisas; moses sojourned on mount sinai in arabia. . bacchus passed through the red sea dry-shod with a multitude of men, women,, and children, as moses is represented as doing. . bacchus likewise parted the waters of the river orontes, as moses did those of jordan. . bacchus commanded the sun to stand still, as moses' friend joshua did. . bacchus, with his wand, caused a spring of wine to spring from the earth, as moses did a spring of water to flow from a rock with the "rod of god," or "the rod of divination." . mises, like moses, also engraved his laws on tables of stone. . both have been represented in pictures with rays coming out of their heads, indicative of the light of the sun. thus, it will be observed, the resemblance runs through nearly the whole line of their history. that bacchus figured in history anterior to the time of moses, no person versed in oriental history can doubt,--a fact which impels us to the conclusion that the two stories got mixed before the history of moses was written! there is one important chapter in the practical life of moses we can not omit to notice before we close his history, as it furnishes a still fuller illustration of his character. we allude to his deliverance of "the lord's holy people" from egyptian bondage. several of the incidents in this narrative are incredibly absurd; and some of them of such demoralizing tendency, that it becomes the duty of the moralist to expose them to view. the conduct of his god jehovah toward the king of egypt in this case is so repulsive and unjust, that it must call forth the condemnation of every honest-minded reader possessing a true sense of justice. . we are told that jehovah, through moses, frequently ordered pharaoh to let his people go, and then as often hardened his heart that he should _not_ let them go; and finally punished him with death because he was unwilling to let them go. it would certainly be difficult to discover any sense or any justice or any consistency in such conduct. . it looks like not only a strange kind of _justice_, but monstrous _injustice_, for jehovah or any god to kill a man for doing what he had purposely _compelled_ him to do. live frogs, lice, flies, blood, vengeance, and death were poured out upon the king and his subjects, ostensibly for the purpose of compelling him to liberate the jewish nation; and yet it was morally impossible for him to do so, because the same jehovah had planted in his mind the determination not to let them go. . when moses spake to pharaoh in the name of jehovah to release the israelites, the king asked, "who is the lord [thy lord] that i should obey his voice?" here let it be borne in mind that different nations had their own gods. and moses' god is here the same itinerant being who had been rambling about among the bushes, hunting his lost child (adam), eating griddle-cakes with abraham, wrestling all night with jacob, getting whipped in a fight with the canaanites, &c. pharaoh was therefore justified in calling for his credentials. . in nearly all the contests between jehovah and other gods, their power is fully admitted; and their success was only secondary to that of the god of israel. the question was not, shall jehovah succeed, and other gods fail? but, shall jehovah be awarded the first prize in the contest, and his name stand at the top of the list? . there are many texts in the bible which go to show that jehovah was jealous of other gods, and perpetually in fear of being outgeneraled by them. "ye shall know that i am the lord," was the constant burden of his song. in the case before us he is represented as saying to pharaoh, "in this thou shalt know that _i am the lord_" (exod. vii. ). "it is true you have a god, and he is very smart and powerful; but he can't come up to me." . jehovah seems to have been actuated by an aspiration for fame and power, as well as by a sympathy for his people in this contest with pharaoh; for he is represented as saying, "i will get me _honor_ upon pharaoh and his host" (exod. xiv. ). here seems to be displayed a spirit of vanity, and a thirst for glory,--the aspiration of vain rulers and petty tyrants. . the magicians kept up with moses' god in the performance of miracles till it came to making lice: here they failed. we might conjecture it was because all the dust had been already converted into lice by jehovah, were it not that they had previously converted the water into blood just after jehovah had performed that miracle, and left not a pint to drink. . in the achievement of all the ten prodigies, there is no intimation but that the heathen magicians performed the miracles in the same manner that moses did, and with equal success in most cases and in all the most difficult ones; thus leaving jehovah no laurels worth boasting of. . there must have been a great many thousand honest men and women in egypt; and yet jehovah is represented as killing the first-born of all egyptian parents without any distinction of character, or any regard to their innocence; and even the first-born of beasts also. in the name of justice and mercy, what sin had the beasts committed that they had to be punished? . we are somewhat puzzled to see how the magicians could turn all the waters of egypt into blood, when it was already blood, having been converted into blood a short time before by moses and jehovah. . and it seems strange that pharaoh should have horses enough for six hundred "chosen chariots" (exod. xiv. ) after they had all been killed, three or four times by some of the plagues of egypt. . it is not strange that aaron's rod should swallow up the others as represented; for he had such a start in the business, and had made such a large serpent, he had probably used up most of the materials, and left nothing but scraps for making others. . the christian who can lay down his bible after reading such stories as this, and not feel his natural and instinctive love of honesty, justice, and morality weakened, must be wrongly fortified by nature against moral corruption. chapter xxix.--character of abraham, moral defects of. a brief history of the father of the jewish tribe will tend to illustrate and indicate the character of the whole nation, as children usually inherit the qualities of their parents. . we will first notice the great promise which jehovah made to abraham with respect to the boundless extent of his future dominion. his seed were to be as the dust of the earth or the sands of the sea for multitude (gen. xiii. ). and how has this promise been fulfilled? why, after a faithful compliance with the command to "multiply and replenish the earth" for more than three thousand years, his whole tribe only numbers about six million souls, which is less than one in two hundred of the entire population of the globe. it would take but a few handfuls of dust to furnish the particles to represent the number, instead of all the dust of the earth as promised or predicted. . jehovah promised abraham, in the second place, all the country "from the river of egypt to the great river,--the river euphrates" (gen. xv. ). and yet, after the lapse of three thousand years, we do not find many occupying a foot of it. another failure to execute his promise. . "to thee will i give it [the promised land], and to thy seed for ever" (gen. xiii. ). it will be observed here, that the title and possession was to be perpetual,--to the end of the world, "_for ever_." and yet it has been in the possession of other nations five or six times; and now not many of the lord's holy people can be found there. another signal failure. . jehovah promised abraham all the land "from the river of egypt to the river euphrates;" but they have never had possession of the country within two hundred miles of the river of egypt (nile). a writer quaintly suggests that jehovah could never have previously seen the country he selected for his holy people, or he would not have chosen it; for all modern travelers agree in describing it as being a poor, mountainous, rocky, barren, and desolate country. one writer says, "it is a country of rocks and mountains, stones, cliffs, bounded by vast, dreary, and uninhabitable deserts." st. jerome describes it as being "the refuse and rubbish of nature." and this is the country, let it be remembered, that jehovah promised his people as the chosen spot of the earth. how little he knew of geography! . jehovah and abraham appear to have been very intimate friends, as they ate and slept together; and the "judge of all the earth" was often a guest in the little, narrow, mud-built hut of the patriarch to eat veal, parched corn, and griddle-cakes with him, and have his feet washed also by the old man (gen. xviii. ). from such circumstances it would appear that jehovah traveled over the country in the character of a foot-pad or "tramp," and got into the mud occasionally. it is strange that christians can read their bible without noticing this disparaging caricature of their god. . abraham's conduct towards his servant-girl hagar is both i disgraceful and inhuman, as he first destroyed her character and virtue by criminal intimacy, and then turned her and her child into the wilderness to starve (gen. xxi.). such conduct is certainly very reprehensible. . and this is the man who is represented as being chosen by a god of infinite wisdom, infinite purity, and infinite holiness, to stand at the head of the moral regeneration and salvation of the whole human race. such a conception is derogatory to the divine character, and demoralizing to those who read and believe it. . among other immoral and disgraceful acts of "god's chosen servant," "the righteous patriarch," "the holy man of god," was that of uttering the most shameful and unblushing falsehood. he is charged with intentional lying on two different occasions, in representing his wife as being his sister,--once to pharaoh, and once to king abimelech; and his wife indorsed \ his falsehood. (see gen. chap. xii. and xx.) . and yet, in the face of all these immoral deeds, god is represented as saying, "abraham kept all my commands, all my statutes, and all my laws." (see gen. xxvi. .) hence the inevitable conclusion that abraham was living up to the commands, statutes, and laws of god, while committing these crimes and outrages upon humanity. what a moral, or rather immoral lesson, is this to place before the heathen of foreign countries, and the children of our own, who read the bible! it must have a tendency to demoralize them, and encourage them in the commission of similar crimes, as certainly as they are beings endowed with human frailties. note these facts. . and we find other disgraceful, as well as incredible, deeds charged to the father of "the faithful." the account of the surrender of his manhood, and the obliteration of every impulse parental feeling required to obtain his consent to butcher his son isaac upon the altar, imparts a humiliating moral lesson (gent. xxii.). it matters not that he did not commit the deed. he consented to do it, and was ready to do it; which proves a state of mind calculated to make humanity shudder. the new-zealanders have been known to point the missionaries to this example as a justification of their cruel practices of slaughtering human beings. if a father in this age of civilization should do such a thing, or even attempt it as abraham did, he would be looked upon as a monster in human shape, or perfectly insane, even if he should claim that god called upon him to perform the act. it would have been infinitely better to disobey such a god than to disobey and outrage every parental and kindly im-pulse of his nature. but the case furnishes _prima-facie_ evidence that abraham was under a religious delusion in supposing god required the performance of such an inhuman deed. to assume that he did would make him more of a demon than a god. any man or woman is to be pitied whose education has misled him or her, and blinded them so that they can not see that the reading of a book teaching such lessons must prove morally injurious to the mind. . the injunction on abraham to slay his son is said to have been imposed upon him to try his faith. his faith in what? i would ask. faith in his own humanity? faith in his love and affection for his son? nothing of the kind! but faith in his susceptibility of rendering himself an inhuman monster. let us suppose a father says to his son, "richard, i want you to draw a knife, and cut your brother robert's throat;" and afterwards explains the matter by telling him he issued this order to try whether he would obey him. but his son would evince more manhood, and a better moral character, by refusing to obey him. it is much better to obey the dictates of conscience, humanity, and mercy, than to obey a father or a god in a case like this. . and jehovah is represented as saying, through an angel, "now i know that thou fearest god" (gen. xxii. ); equivalent to saying, "if i had not tried this experiment, i should not have known any thing about it." what blind mortals human beings can become, to suppose that a god of infinite wisdom, who "searcheth the hearts of all men," must resort to cruel and shocking experiments to find out the the state of their minds! . but the history of the case discloses the fact that it did not effect the end desired,--that of proving abraham's faith,--not in the least, unless we assume that abraham lied in the case. for he said to the young men while on the road to the altar, "abide here until we [myself and son] go yonder and worship, and come again to you." here is evidence that abraham knew he would bring his son back alive; that is, that isaac would return with him, or that he told a falsehood in order to deceive. the reader can seize which horn of the dilemma he prefers. if he knew what the issue of the case would be, it would, of course, be no trial of his faith whatever. and yet paul and other new-testament writers laud the act as being one of great merit and a proof of his faith. . we must hasten on. we can only give a passing notice of a few other acts of this illustrious patriarch, in whom "all the nations of the earth were to be blessed." jehovah is represented as saying to abraham, on a certain occasion, "i will go down now, and see whether they [the sodomites] have done according" to my desire. "if not, i will know" (gen. xviii. ). this is one of several cases in which "the judge of' all the earth" is represented as abandoning the throne of heaven, and coming down to learn what was going on below. what a contracted and ignorant being was the jewish jehovah! . the mission of jehovah at one time, when he called upon abraham, was to inform him that his gray-headed wife, approaching a hundred years, was to be blessed with a son in her old age. has it never occurred to bible admirers that this and other similar cases represented the almighty, whom "the heaven of heavens can not contain," as traveling over the country in the character of a fortune-teller, notifying old women that the laws of nature would be suspended long enough to allow them to be blessed or cursed with the care and perplexity of children in their old age? . it should be noticed that abraham's god never reproved him for any of his misdeeds; while, on the other hand, the heathen king abimelech called the man of god to account for his moral defects (gen. xx.). . one of the most dishonorable acts recorded in the history of abraham's god was that of bringing a plague upon pharaoh and his household for receiving, abaham's wife, when it was brought about wholly through his treachery and misrepresentation, and when it appears that pharaoh treated her in the most respectful manner. . but, with all these moral stains upon the character of abraham, it becomes a pleasant task to record one good act in his life. he seems to have presented the practical proof that he was a better man than his god; for, when jehovah threatened the destruction of sodom for her wickedness, abraham remonstrated, and suggested that it would be an act of injustice to destroy the righteous with the wicked. it appears that this moral consideration had escaped the mind of jehovah. what an inconsiderate, reckless being bible writers represent the almighty as being! . abraham, according to his history, was a man of valor, and achieved some great exploits. for instance, with the assistance of his regiment of one hundred and eighteen servants, he chased at one time four great kings, with their mighty hosts,--the king of babylon, the king of persia, the king of pontus, and the king of nations (gen. xiv.). he drove them, we are told, more than a hundred miles, and recovered his brother lot from their grasp. a few such daring heroes could have put down the american rebellion without a battle. . we will only observe further, that this "true servant of the lord" was both a polygamist and an idolater; at least we have the authority of the jewish writer, philo, for saying that his father was a maker of images, and that abraham worshiped them? such is a brief outline of the character of the man who is held up as an example for us to imitate, and through whom "all the nations of the earth are to be blessed," and the man who stands at the head of that nation through which, we are told, a revelation has been given to the world which is to effect the moral regeneration and salvation of the whole human race. whether the means are adapted to the ends, the reader is left to judge. ii. character of isaac. . in accordance with the adage, "like father, like son," we find isaac carrying out the same spirit of fraud and deception practiced by his father. when "the men of the plain asked him about his wife, he said, she is my sister" (gen. xxvi.); "and this man isaac was another of the faithful servants of the lord." . if the statement is true that the lord struck ananias and sapphira with sudden death for telling a falsehood, as related in acts v., the question naturally arises, why did abraham and isaac escape the same fate, as they were guilty of the same sin? why this partiality? manifestly, this is a bad lesson in morals. iii. character of jacob, moral defects of. . "like father, like son," is again verified in the practical life of jacob. we find this patriarch excels, in moral defects, both his father and his grandfather. . his conduct toward his brother esau, in robbing him of his just and inherited rights, is an act which stamps an eternal stigma upon his character. when jacob's father, old and blind, asked him, "art thou my son esau?" he replied, "i am" (gen. xxvii. ), thus telling a base falsehood, and deceiving his old father; and this deceptive and underhanded act caused his brother "to cry an exceedingly bitter cry" (gen. xxvii. ). what an unfeeling brother was this "true servant of the lord"! it appears that isaac and jehovah both intended that esau should inherit the blessing; but jacob outwitted them by the aid and connivance of his mother. this is but a sample of the character and conduct of the family throughout their whole history. . jacob seems to have entertained very singular and selfish ideas in regard to his religious obligation to serve and worship his god. he made it entirely a question of bread and butter, or, rather, of bread and raiment. he proposed to strike up a trade with jehovah relative to his future allegiance to his government, and to fix the terms of the contract himself (gen. xxviii.). he kindly and condescendingly told jehovah, that if he would provide him with food and raiment, and be his constant companion in the future, "then shall the lord be _my_ god, and this _stone_ shall be _god's house_; and i will give _one-tenth_ to the lord of what he giveth me" (gen. xxviii. ). here is the attempt to drive a bargain with jehovah on the _quid-pro-quo_ principle. we are not informed how jehovah appreciated this kindly offer. this is an unfortunate omission, as every reader must feel interested in knowing whether he accepted the proposition; and henceforth he whom "the heaven of heavens can not contain" took up his abode in the patriarch's little stone hut. we are led to infer, that, if jehovah refused to accept his terms, jacob would henceforth refuse to be a subject of god's kingdom, and thus bring him to grief. this is a sample of the childish conception entertained by the whole jewish nation of "the god of the universe," if we may presume their god was any thing more than a family or national deity. . the proneness of the lord's holy people to falsify, and deceive is well illustrated in the case of laban, who, after jacob had by a fair contract, labored seven years for him for his daughter rachel, would not let him have her, but forced his older daughter leah upon him; and, when jacob complained he told him he must serve seven years more if he got rachel; and his love for her prompted him to accept the terms. but he seems not to have been well compensated for his fourteen long years of toil for these two sisters. their subsequent conduct indicates that he "paid dear for the whistle;" and one month's labor ought to have paid for both, even at ten cents a day, for they both turned out to be failures. they were, however, a fair specimen of the race. rachel stole her father's images; and, when pursued and overtaken by him, she hid them, and told him a falsehood to conceal the act. the circumstance of her father _having_ images, and of her _stealing_ them, is an evidence that both were idolaters (gen. xxxi.). . it is easy to see, from the foregoing facts, from what source the jewish proclivity to idolatry and also to falsehood was derived. the latter was practically manifested by four hundred prophets at one time. it is true the lord was charged with putting the lie in their mouths ( kings xxii. ). . we are told, that, on a certain occasion, "the sons of jacob answered shechem, and hamor his father, deceitfully" (gen. xxxiv. ); by which it appears the spirit or propensity to fraud and deception was still transmitted to their posterity. chapter xxx.--character of david-his numerous crimes. here is one of the illustrious bible characters who has been held up to the world for several thousand years as the "sweet singer of israel," and "the man after god's own heart;" whose life is stained by the commission of a long list of crimes of the blackest character, some of which would send him to the state prison for life if committed in this morally enlightened age. . one of his first acts of moral delinquency was that of turning traitor to achish, king of gath. after the king had kindly given him a rulership over the city of ziklag, he manifested his ingratitude by waging an unprovoked war for plunder upon the king's friends and relatives, to rob them of their cattle ( sam. xxvii.). . david, with an army, committed a similar act of aggression and spoliation upon the rights and property of nabal, to attain his cattle by robbery ( sam. xxv.). . david at one time turned traitor to his own nation by joining the army of achish to fight them ( sam. xxix.). . david obtained possession of the kingdom of ishboshett by bribery and intrigue, after acknowledging him to be a righteous man ( sam. iii.). . david robbed mephibosheth, the son of his bosom-friend jonathan, and a poor cripple, of one-half of his estate, upon the plea that might makes right ( sam. xvi.). . david connived at some of the most abominable and atrocious crimes of his sons ( sam.). . the manner in which david obtained his first wife michal is shocking to all who possess kind and philanthropic feelings. saul had proposed a hundred foreskins of the philistines as the price of his daughter; but david, in wanton cruelty, killed two hundred for this purpose. . the manner in which david obtained his beautiful wife bathsheba, to add to his list of wives, might be tolerated in that era of barbarism; but it must be looked upon at the present time as an act of cruelty and wickedness. he said to joab, "set uriah in the front of the battle... that he may be smitten and die" ( sam. xi. ); which was equivalent to slaying him with his own hands, and for no crime, but solely to get his widow for a wife. . thus, we see, david was not only a polygamist, but he obtained his wives by fraud, murder, and intrigue. . david's _dancing naked_ in public was an indecent act, although several cases are reported of "the holy" men of that age appearing in public in a state of nudity. his wife michal upbraided him for "uncovering himself to the eyes of the handmaids, his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself" ( sam. vi.). it is said that "david danced before the lord with all his might." can we suppose the lord would fancy such sights? . david's treatment of the moabites in killing two-thirds of them without any just provocation is an act that would hang any man of the present day ( sam. viii.). . the fiendish act of david in placing the moabites under saws and harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and making them walk through brick-kilns ( sam. xii.), bespeaks a heart callous with cruelty, unmerciful as a tiger. the very thought of it is calculated to chill the blood of a person with the feelings of common humanity. . david's murder of five step-sons and two brothers-in-law, to gratify a malignant grudge toward the house of saul, is another act showing the fiendish character of the man. . when david was so old and stricken in years that no amount of bed-clothing could keep him warm, he made this a plea for marrying another wife--and a young maid at that--to lie in his bosom him warm ( kings i. ). lust knows no failure in expedients. . david's advice to his son solomon on his death-bed, to assassinate joab and his other enemies, shows that his ruling passions--animosity and revenge--were strong in death. . and finally david's wicked prayer, as found in the hun-dred and ninth psalm, in which he invokes a string of the most horrid curses upon his enemies, culminates his immoral history. it completes the demoralizing picture of the "man after god's own heart." now, we ask in solemn earnest, is it not evident that a book indorsing such characters as david, placed in the hands of the heathen of other countries or the children of our own, must have a demoralizing tendency? most certainly, if franklin was right in saying, "the reading of bad examples will make bad morals." remember, the perpetrator of all these crimes is said to be "a man after god's own heart." if so, then god must have approved of all his crimes. but such a god will not do for this age; and to teach children and heathen such a lesson is calculated to effect their moral ruin. ii. character of solomon. solomon's writings and history both show that he was a libertine, a tyrant, and a polygamist. his tyrannical monopoly-of seven hundred wives and three hundred prostitutes, making him a practica "free-lover" on a large scale, is an indelible stigma upon his character. it was a usurpation of the rights, and a trespass upon the liberties, of nearly two thousand men and women. it prevented them from filling the mission or sphere in life that god designed them to enjoy. the organization of the sexes shows they were designed to be husbands and wives and parents. and the nearly equal number of the sexes is an evidence that nearly a thousand men were deprived of wives by solomon's monopoly of women; while, on the other hand, those women were prevented from sustaining the true relation of wives. when he could not see those women more than once in three years by calling on one of them each day, it is a farce, and an insult to reason, to call them wives. could a woman sustain the practical relation of wife to a man she only saw as husband once in three years? the very idea is ridiculous, and a mockery of the true marriage relation. and yet this is the man who is represented as being such a special favorite of god as to receive a portion of his divine wisdom. it is a slander, if any thing can be, upon infinite wisdom. by reading his amorous song, we can learn his motives for enslaving such a large number of women. if this "wise man" is to be accepted as authority (and he should be if he got his wisdom directly from god), then we must relinquish all hope of an immortal existence. hear him: "for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts:... as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast" (eccles. iii. ). here is a plain and unequivocal denial of man's conscious existence beyond the grave. nor does the old-testament writer teach the doctrine. job denies it in still more explicit terms, if possible. (see job xiv. .) iii. lot and his wife and daughters. the act of abram's brother lot delivering up his two daughters to the sodomites, "to do to them as is good in your eyes" (gen. xix. ), must excite reflections in the highest degree revolting to the mind of every father who has daughters. the act of a father voluntarily offering up his virtuous daughters to gratify the depraved passions of a mob is too shocking to contemplate. and to accept such a character as a "righteous man" must certainly weaken the faith of the bible believer in a true system of morality, and plant in his mind a very low standard of the moral perfections of god. we are told (gen. xix. ) that lot's wife was converted into a pillar of salt as a penalty for the simple act of looking back. several absurdities are observable in this story:-- . it is difficult to conceive how any sin or crime could be attached to the natural act of turning the head to look in any direction, especially when no injunction had been laid upon the act. . if there were any thing so inherently wrong in the act of looking back as to be visited with such direful penalties, pillars of salt would soon become more numerous than frogs were in egypt. . reason would suggest that, to put the thing in shape to be believed by future generations, the woman should have been converted into some imperishable substance, such as granite, gold, silver, or pig-iron. a woman made of salt, or salt of a woman, would soon dissolve and disappear. . the hindoos relate that a woman in india was once converted into a pillar of stone for an act of unchastity; and "the stone is there unto this day." here is a story with a better foundation: the egyptians have the tradition of a woman being converted into a tree for the act of plucking some fruit after it had been interdicted. how many of these stories should we credit? chapter xxxi.--character of the jewish prophets. it is a circumstance indicative of the natural moral defects of the jewish character, that their most "holy men," who were assumed to be familiar with the counsels of infinite wisdom, and on terms of daily intercourse with jehovah, yet were, according to their own history, men of such defective moral habits and moral character as to be unreliable either as examples of moral rectitude, or with respect to their prophetic utterances. we will here present a brief sketch of the character of the principal prophets, drawn from their own "inspired writings:"-- the leading prophet isaiah says, "the priest and the _prophet_ have erred through strong drink. they are swallowed up of wine. they are out of the way through strong drink. they err in vision. they stumble in judgment" (isa. xxiv. ). here is a sweeping charge against _all_ the prophets,--_not one_ of them excepted. if they err in vision (of course he means _spiritual_ vision), then what reliance can be placed in their prophecies, especially if it is true, as he declares in chap. ix., that "the prophets teach lies"? then we can not confide implicitly in any thing they say. this conclusion, and also the foregoing portraiture of their character, is confirmed by hosea. ; who says, in chap. ix., that "the lord will punish the _prophets for their sins and their iniquities_;" also, "the _prophet_ is a _snare_ in all his ways; the _prophet is a fool_," &c. (hos. ix. , ). micah says that they _divined for money_, and _made the people err_. what confidence, we ask, can be placed in men, either for truthfulness or as moral teachers, who are thus represented by their own historians and their own friends to be almost destitute of moral principle? each one denounces all the others. the implied meaning in each case seems to be, "take my pills, and beware of counterfeits." zechariah, who was one of them, declared the lord would drive them all out of the land with the unclean spirits (zech. xiii. ). we should not, however, be surprised to find them possessing such a character, when their god, jehovah, is represented as being no better, and is on the same moral plane. they, in fact, make him responsible for all their moral derelictions and sinful acts by representing him as being the author or instigator. "if a prophet be deceived,... i the lord have deceived that prophet" (ezek. xiv. ). here the word prophet is used in a general sense, so as to imply that none are excepted. jeremiah takes god at his word when he exclaims, "o lord, thou hast deceived me" (jer. xx. ). here, it will be observed, the moral character of jehovah and his prophets were all cast in the same imperfect mold. that superstition reigned supreme in the very _highest order_ of the jewish minds, to the exclusion of science, is shown by some of the wild, superstitious freaks of the prophets. isaiah traveled through egypt and ethiopia three years stark naked (isa. xx. ). such a disgusting exhibition, if attempted in this age of civilization, would terminate in a few hours by the lodgment of the lunatic in the calaboose. jehovah, it appears, first prompted the act, and afterwards spoke approving of it by saying it was performed by "my servant isaiah" (isa. xx. ). ezekiel and habakkuk both would have us believe that god seized them by the hair of the head, and carried them,--the former, the distance of eight miles; and the latter, three hundred, miles. how jehovah himself traveled while performing this feat of carrying the prophets is not explained. it must have been rather an unpleasant way of traveling, and must have caused some serious perturbation of mind lest the hair-hold should slip, and precipitate them to the ground. if this mode of travel could have been continued, it would have superseded the necessity of railroads. ezekiel, we are told, lay three hundred and ninety days on his left side, and forty days on his right side; and then, having swallowed a roll of parchment with the aid of jehovah (ezek. iii. ), he was prepared for business. we are not told what was the object in swallowing such a formidable document, or how he managed to get into his stomach an article having a diameter four times that of his throat. jeremiah wore cords around his neck, and a yoke on his back (rather a singular place for a yoke). hosea claimed that god commanded him twice to go and marry a whore (hos. i. z). this looks like a connivance at, if not a tacit indorsement of, whoredom. ezekiel relates a "story" about being carried by "the hand of the lord," and set down among some old dry bones, which he proceeded to invest with human flesh and sinews, and then drew skins over them to hold the flesh and bones together (ezek. xxx vii.). having thus manufactured a new supply of the _genus homo_, he invoked the four winds to inflate their bodies with breath, when, lo! there "stood upon their feet an exceeding great army." we use his own language. here is a story that casts all the wild and weird tales of heathen mythology in the shade. there would have been no necessity for drafting soldiers in the recent rebellion if the country could have been blessed with such a creative genius as ezekiel. such stories set all logic at defiance. if the first commandment, "multiply and replenish the earth," had been neglected so as to render it necessary to adopt another process for increasing the number of human beings, certainly a more rational and decent mode might have been invented. we will not relate any more of the curious capers of these "inspired men of god." some christian writers have disposed of such erratic conduct, and such wild freaks of fancy, by assuming them to be the garb or metaphor of some great spiritual truth. this is explained by the proverb, "necessity is the mother of invention;" but the common mind knows nothing of these inventions of the priesthood to save the credit of the bible. hence, whether true or false, such an explanation does not destroy the demoralizing influence of such ideas and language upon the public mind; and then it is derogatory to the character of god to assume he would do such senseless and unrighteous things as are related in some of the above cases. we insist that it would be a serious calamity upon the country to make a book containing such moral lessons, or rather immoral lessons, "the fountain of our laws and the supreme rule of our conduct," as urged by the evangelical alliance; and it is a sorrowful and deplorable circumstance that such a book is circulated among the heathen by the thousand as guides for their moral conduct. we wish they would refuse to accept it, as the japanese have done in the past. ii. the prophets elijah and elisha. there are some peculiar features in the history of these two hebrew prophets, for which they seem to merit a special notice. they appear to have been on very familiar terms with jehovah; and the whole machinery of heaven, we are led to conclude, was under their control, with no special reason why they should merit such divine partiality, as they were not overstocked with practical righteousness. the acts of raising the dead and controlling the elements appear to have been to them very common-place performances. one of elijah's greatest miraculous feats was that of "shutting up the heavens," so that there was no dew nor rain for three years ( kings xvii. ). aside from the absolute impossibility of intercepting the action of the laws which control and regulate the entire machinery of the universe, there are several considerations which render this story wholly incredible. it appears, from the language used, that this drought extended over the whole earth, and all nations must have suffered the direful consequences; and yet none of their histories allude to it. the absence of rain and dew for three years must have caused the surface of the earth to become dry and parched to a considerable depth, particularly in the torrid zone. the creeks and rivulets must have been dried up. every spear of grass, every tree, every plant, must have withered and perished; and all the cattle must have died for want of food and drink; and the people must have shared the same fate. indeed, not a living thing could have been left upon the face of the earth where this drought prevailed. and yet no other history makes any allusion to such a calamity; and a circumstance which renders it more incredible is, that the moisture which is constantly ascending from the earth could not have been held in the upper strata of the atmosphere for half that period of time. when it ascends and accumulates, and becomes sufficiently condensed, it must fall in the shape of rain. . it appears that the prophet himself, in order to escape the fatal consequences of this terrible visitation of divine wrath, was instructed to flee, and hide near the brook cherith, which was in the vicinity of jordan. here, we are told, he was fed by a raven, which brought him both bread and water. the queries naturally arise here, where did the raven obtain those articles of food? why can not suffering and starvation be prevented at the present day by a similar expedient? why should several millions of human beings have suffered a terrible death by starvation in india within a recent period, if ravens can be employed as messengers of mercy? why should god be partial? the preservation of the life of the prophet could not have been of so much more importance, judging from his subsequent history, as he achieved but little good afterward; and, as nobody claims to have seen the raven but elijah, the case looks a little doubtful. . the next miraculous feat of elijah was that of increasing a widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil after they were nearly exhausted, so that they lasted for many months. in nearly all such cases we find incredible features, in addition to the impossibility of performing the act. no reason can be found, in the history of this case, for bestowing such miraculous favors upon this woman that would not apply to thousands of women now, some of them even in a worse state of suffering, and in greater need of divine aid. it does not appear that the miracle had the effect to convince anybody of the might and power of his god, nor that it was designed to produce such an effect. hence nothing was accomplished by it but the relief of the poor widow's wants, which was a very good thing; but, as we have already remarked, she had no more claim upon the benevolence and munificence of god than thousands of poor widows and others of the present day who receive no such aid. . the prophet performed, we are told, another miracle for the benefit of this woman, though we do not learn that she was more righteous than other women. her son sickened and died (perhaps the meal was not in a very healthy condition); and elijah restored him to life. if there were any truth in the story, it could be accounted for by supposing the boy was in a state of catalepsy, or trance, as life has been revived in numerous cases in persons in this condition in modern times; and the conduct of elijah furnishes some evidence that he understood it in this light. he took the body into an upper room, so the performance should not be witnessed by any of the company (perhaps for fear of being disturbed; and he was probably apprehensive that they would suspicion, from his actions, that the boy was not dead). in fact the narrator does not say he was dead, but only that the breath had gone out of him; and this could be said in any case of swooning, trance, or catalepsy. . ahab is reported as reproving elijah for bringing so much suffering upon the people by the great drought. the reason the prophet assigns for this divine judgment is worthy of note. it was because ahab and his subjects worshiped a false god (baalim). this explains the whole affair. the jews were always assuming that those who did not worship as they did worshipers of false gods: but there is no evidence of were this, and no reason in the assumption. as st. john (i. ) declares, "no man has seen god at any time," it follows that each worshiper, under every system of religion, pictures on the form, size, shape, and character of god for himself; and certainly, other nations had as much right to form their own mental conceptions of god as the jews had, and were as likely to form a correct idea of him as they. they could not picture out a worse god than jehovah. here we have a true explanation of the reason the jews were perpetually denouncing and would not subscribe to the jewish creed. the jews were creed-worshipers. . this conclusion is confirmed by the relation, in the next contest between the god of elijah and the god of the prophets of baal: we are told that elijah's god could kindle a fire upon the altar, while theirs could not. here is admitted the existence of other gods. the only difference between them is, elijah's god was a little smarter. the same thing is aimed to be shown in numerous other contests between jehovah and other gods. it is merely a trial of skill, strength, and knowledge. . and because the god of the prophets of baal fell a little behind, and could not quite equal the achievements of jehovah, we are told that elijah put the prophets all to death. here is another circumstance tending to show that elijah could not have been a true servant of a lust god; for such a god would not sanction such cruelty. but the story carries an absurdity upon the face of it. to suppose that four hundred and fifty men would stand quietly, and submit to be slain by one man single-handed and alone, without any resistance, is altogether too incredible to be entertained for a moment. . the next achievement of elijah, after eating a barley cake, baked on the coals, and drinking a cruse of water ( kings xix. ), was to walk forty days and forty nights, without stopping to eat or sleep. this performance was almost equal to that of the hindoo, yalpa, who walked round the sun in eleven hours. one story is just as credible as the other. . we are told that, when ahaziah, who succeeded his father making war on other nations: it was simply because ahab upon the throne, got crippled by falling, and sent to consult the god of ekron, elijah, on hearing of it, asked why he did not consult the god of israel ( kings i. g); and, when the king's messengers reported to him what the prophet elijah had said, he sent fifty messengers to the prophet to invite him to come and see him, that he might consult with him. these messengers treated him very respectfully, and called him "the man of god;" but the prophet, we are told, instead of complying with the king's request, called down fire from heaven, which consumed the whole number. when the king heard of the circumstance, he sent fifty more messengers, who shared the same fate, and were likewise consumed by fire from heaven. an uncivil and very wicked thing for a righteous prophet to do. . we are told that elijah, in the course of his travels, came to a stream of water, and took off his mantle, and smote it. the water parted hither and thither, and permitted him to walk in the bottom of the stream. another display of his great miraculous power; but it is void of truth. . the last astounding feat reported of this miraculous prophet was that of ascending to heaven in a chariot of fire, with horses made of the same material. rather a hazardous mode of traveling. this story is contradicted both by the laws of nature, and the express declaration of the bible itself. the former teaches us that the fire would have been extinguished for want of oxygen before he had ascended many miles from the earth; and the latter declares, "flesh and blood can not enter the kingdom of heaven;" and also that "no man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven,"--christ jesus (john iii. ). there are several circumstances which render these marvelous achievements of elijah wholly incredible, in addition to their setting aside the laws of nature. we can not learn that any good was accomplished by it. it does not appear that anybody was converted to a life of practical righteousness; while we must assume that god must have had some great purpose in view to cause him to thus set aside and trample under foot his own laws. on the other hand, a great deal of bad feeling was engendered, and a great many lives destroyed. and then there is no allusion whatever to these astonishing miracles in any other history. all these circumstances and considerations warrant us in discarding the whole affair, though christian writers attach great importance to it. the feats or elisha. the marvelous deeds of elisha appear to be, to a considerable extent, a mere repetition of those of elijah. like his predecessor, he raised a dead child to life, increased the supply of oil for a widow after it had run short, and also increased the quantity of good water for the people by a supernatural process, though not by a shower of rain, as elijah did, after a three years drought. there is evidently a disposition to imitate and outdo his predecessor: hence he brings water without the process of rain. there are two or three incidents in his history worthy of notice:-- . when elijah took his perilous flight heavenward, and left him alone, we are told he rent his garments. this act, although customary among "the lord's holy people," was rather an insane way of manifesting his grief. a man in this age doing so would be taken to the insane asylum. . the second performance of elisha, deserving particular notice, was an act of malignant revenge upon some frolicsome boys reminding him that he was bald-headed. for this simple, childish, though rude, act of calling him "bald-head," we are told he caused "two bears to come out of the woods, and tear forty-two of them to pieces." why the other children escaped this fate, we are not told. this conduct on the part of the prophet evinces a morose, cruel, and revengeful disposition, instead of a philanthropic and benevolent one, as we should have expected the lord's chosen prophet to manifest. if the story were a credible one, it would be a stigma upon his character while it stands on the page of history. . there is one circumstance related in the history of elisha which seems to indicate that he was a man of rather gross habits. it is stated, that, when he killed a yoke of oxen for food, he "boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen," and gave the people to eat ( kings xix. ). we infer, from this lan guage, that the oxen were thrown into the cooking-vessel whole, without being skinned or cleaned. it most have been rather a rare dish, and a tough one also. . we will notice one more remarkable incident in the history of this remarkable prophet. we are told, that, as some men were felling some trees on the banks of the jordan, one of them, by accident, let his ax fall into the stream. on the case being reported to elisha, he soon relieved the man of his trouble by throwing a stick into the water, which caused the ax to swim. here is another specimen of the philosophy of the christian bible. heathen mythology is full of such lawless stories. when the boat in which a hindoo was rowing capsized, and threw his dinner into the indus, a fish was accommodating enough to arrest it in its descent, and bring it to the surface, and restore it to the hungry boatman. a very accommodating fish! as much so as the stick! we will now take a view of the moral bearing of the stories of these great "god-chosen" and "god-favored prophets," as one christian writer styles them. we must assume that god would not suspend the action of those laws which secure order and harmony throughout nature to perform such miracles as these prophets are represented as performing, unless some great and important end was to be accomplished by it. well, let us see if this was the result; if not, we must assume that these miracles were never performed. according to dr. lardner, miracles were always designed to accomplish some great good, and generally to remove the skepticism of unbelievers, and to convince them of the mighty power of god. but we do not find that any such effects were produced by any of the miracles here reported. the performance of elijah did not convert ahab nor jezebel, nor the worshipers of baal, either to the faith or to a life of practical righteousness; nor did those of elisha convert naaman; nor did either of the prophets convert or reform any of the thousands of heathen in the countries through which they traveled. the contemporary kings of judah and israel still continued in their ungodly course as before. in a word, nobody was benefited, nobody reformed, and no good effected by any of these miracles, only to a few individuals, which could have been accommodated in the usual way,--by ordinary means. on the other hand, bad feelings were engendered, many lives lost, and much suffering caused by their miraculous proceedings. we must conclude, then, that, so far as any agency of god is claimed in the several cases, these miracles were never performed; and we have the negative testimony of history to prove still further that these miracles were never wrought. the history of no other nation mentions them, not even the three years of drought; yet christ speaks of it, and indorses it with all its impossibilities and all its bad consequences, which is an evidence of his ignorance of natural law. as these stories, by their stultifying absurdities, do violence to our reason, and also to our moral faculties, on account of the cruelty, injustice, bloodshed (for it shows both prophets were murderers), we hold, from these considerations, that the influence of these stories is demoralizing, and that they should not be put into the hands of the heathen, as they are every year by the thousand. chapter xxxii.--progressive ideas of deity. idolatry: its character, uses, harmlessness, and primary origin. there is no act, no species, of human conduct, nothing recognized as a sin within the lids of the christian bible, which is perhaps more fearfully or more frequently condemned, or denounced with more awful and terrible penalties, than that of idolatry. those who practiced it are ranked with murderers and liars (rev. xxii. ); and it is declared, "they shall not inherit the kingdom of god" ( cor. vi. ), but "shall have their portion in the lake of fire and brimstone" (rev. xxi. ). now, we propose to bestow a brief examination upon the origin, character, and practical moral effect of this ancient practice, that we may learn the nature of the custom which is thus placed at the head of the list of the acts of human depravity, and regarded as the blackest and most infamous crime ever perpetrated by sinful man. we find it manifested under various forms, the original or most primitive aspect of which, so far as disclosed by the light of history, is known as _fetichism_,--the worship of inanimate objects. stretching the imagination far away in the rearward of time,--far back along the receding pathway of human history, over a series of many thousands, not to say millions, of years,--we arrive at a period in which man is found occupying a plane of mere animal, sensorial existence, connected with which was an imperfect development of perception and reflection. in this era of his mental growth he began to perceive and recognize the motions of objects around him. he observed bright and shining bodies rolling over his head,--one by day, and ten thousand more by night. at least he observed that they changed positions,--being in one locality in the morning, and in the opposite direction in the evening. what conclusion from these observations could be more natural, more childlike (for, bear in mind, this was really the childhood of the race), or more reasonable, than that these bodies possessed life,--that they inherently possessed the power of locomotion, the same ability to move that he did himself,--just as the infant, now gazing out upon the sky from the lap of its mother, fancies the darting meteor to be a bird or an animal? wherever the ignorant, illiterate, primitive inhabitants of our globe perceived motion,--whether it was displayed in the revolution of the planets, the falling tree, or the rippling stream,--there they associated life and motion. and, soon learning that these adjuncts of nature possessed a power and force superior to that with which they themselves were endowed, their feelings of awe and veneration were thereby excited; and to the highest degree their deep in-wrought devotional feelings first found an outlet by bowing in humble acknowledgment to the superior greatness of the shining orbs wheeling in such majestic grandeur along the deep blue sky, and "bidding defiance to all below." this is believed to have been the first form, the first practical manifestation, of religious worship, and the first form or phase of idolatry now denominated fetichism. polytheism.--this word is from _polus_, "many," and _theos_, "god;" and hence is used to denote a belief in many or several gods, which comprehends the second form and stage of idolatry! we have spoken of the early recognition by the primitive inhabitants of the earth of the motion of the heavenly bodies as giving rise to the belief that they possessed self-constituted life and volition. but, progressing a step farther, their attention was turned to motion where there was no visible agent to produce it,--action without a visible actor. the thunder rolled and reverberated along the great archway of heaven, the winds whistled and moaned through the thick foliage of the trees, and rushed along the valleys, oft-times with such violence as to overturn their rude tenements, and prostrate the towering oak at their feet. yet nothing could be seen of the agent which produced these direful effects. no being, no agent, no cause adequate for their production, was visible. hence they very naturally concluded that they were produced by invisible beings who could wing their way through space without being seen. this assumed discovery soon gave rise to the thought that the stars might be moved by these beings, instead of possessing, as they had previously been supposed to do, an inherent power of motion of their own. and these prime movers of the planets they concluded to be gods, or moving spirits. thus originated the notion of a plurality of gods, each planet having a separate ruling deity. and the sun--being greatly superior to, transcending in magnitude, light, power, and influence, all the other luminaries, with their qualities all combined--was, with the most childlike naturalness, supposed to be ruled by the chief of the gods, "the lord of lords and king of kings." it was he who, every morning throwing open the magnificent portals of the orient,--the huge golden gates of the eastern horizon,--slowly lifted aloft his stupendous body of light to dispel the deep dark gloom which fur many hours had been spread like a pall over universal nature. it was he who, plowing his way through the heavens, despite the mist and clouds piled upon the great highway of his wonted march, rolled down at eventide the western declivity of the cerulean causeway to give place to luna, queen of night, realizing that, "soon as the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale;" and that "ten thousand marshaled stars, a silver zone, diffuse their blended radiance round the throne." it was this mighty solar orb, "the king of day," who, having performed his wonted journey to the south, returned in early spring to banish the chilling blasts of the drear cold season; to drive from off the earth the biting frosts and freezing snows of gloom-dispensing winter, and pour down, in lieu thereof, his genial and vivifying rays to waken the flowers; to call forth vegetation, and ultimately ripen the golden harvest. in a word, he dispensed heat, light, life, and blessings innumerable over all the earth. how easy, how natural, then, it was for the untutored savage to conclude that the indwelling or on-dwelling spirit of the sun was "the chief of the gods," to whom all the inferior deities (those who presided over the stars) bowed in humble allegiance, acknowledging his superior sway, his right to rule over the boundless universe! the sun, being thus the great central wheel of all recognized power,--i.e., the tabernacle or dwelling-place of the supreme, omnipotent god,--became the principal object of admiration and adoration, the pivot around which clustered their deepest devotional aspirations; the subordinate deities of the planets holding but a second place in their devout contemplations and uprising venerations. the worship of these imaginary beings, including the ruling and overruling "god of all," with his tabernacle pitched in the blazing sun, is now termed idolatry, and may be regarded as the second phase or form of this species of worship. hence we may note it as a remarkable circumstance, that all the principal systems of religion now existing, as well as most of those which have passed away, exhibit very strong marks of this ancient solar worship; and it is more especially remarkable, that both judaism and christianity, with all their exalted claims to a supernatural origin, should be, as they seemingly are, deeply tinctured with this ancient sabean or solar worship. distinct traces of it are observable in the whole religious nomenclature of christianity. it, in fact, pervades the whole system. this declaration is borne out by the fact that nearly every divine epithet, nearly every name applied to the deity in the christian scriptures, including those addressed to jesus christ, and also nearly every theological term in both the old and new testaments, are traceable to the ancient solar worship; that is, the words, when traced to their roots, or original form, are found to have been solar titles. we will present some samples by way of proof: the divine title lord, in the new testament, is translated from the greek _kuros_, which is the persian name for the sun; god is from _gad_, an ammonian name for the sun; jehovah, by translation and declension, becomes jupiter, which, according to macrobius, is "the sun itself;" deity is from the latin _deus_, which is traceable to _dies_, a day,--a period of time measured by the sun; jesus is from _jes_ or _j-es_ (with the latin termination _us_), which means "the one great fire of the sun;" and christ is derived from _chris_, a chaldean term for the sun; and so on of other divine titles. and whole phrases of scripture-texts disclose the same idolatrous solar origin. why is jesus christ called "the sun of righteousness"? (spelled _s-u-n_, let it be noticed), as this text, quoted from malachi, is assumed to apply to him; and why is the term "light," so frequently used and preferred throughout the christian scriptures, to denote the spiritual condition of man? why are nations, whose minds are cultivated and stored with knowledge, said to be "enlightened"? certainly, to our external vision, they are as opaque as the most grossly ignorant barbarians. but they are called enlightened when advanced in knowledge, simply because all knowledge was once supposed to be imparted by the god of the sun through its descending rays of light. hence light and knowledge are now synonymous terms. david says, "the lord is my light and my salvation" (ps. xxvii. ),--just what the ancient pagans used to say of the sun. isaiah says, "the lord shall be to thee an everlasting light" (isa. lx. ),--exactly such a conception as the ancient heathen entertained of the sun, to which its application is more obviously appropriate. habakkuk says, "his brightness was as light" (iii. ). apply this language to the sun, and its meaning becomes strikingly significant. christ is said to be "a light to lighten the gentiles," "the true light," "the light of the world," &c.; and yet we can not discover that those who have embraced his doctrines, and thus come into possession of this "true light," shed any more light upon a devious pathway, traveled in the darkness of night, than the veriest jewish pharisee or infidel. the christian reader will reply, "these phrases are mere figures of speech." to be sure they are: we admit it. but then their derivation and origin are none the less obvious, and, when scrutinizingly examined, disclose remote traces of oriental idolatry; and, moreover, they most unmistakably prove christianity to be of heathen extraction with respect to its verbal habiliments, or external vestment, as well as the main drift and scope of its doctrines and teachings, as shown elsewhere. we will observe further, that such conceptions (found in the christian bible) as "god is a consuming fire," "god is light," &c. (john i. ), originated in the primeval ages, when god was supposed to reside in the sun; also such ejaculations as "o lord, the gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising" (isa. ix. ). the words "light," "brightness," and "rising" apply with striking force to the sun, and were used by the ancient persians in such a relation, while, on the other hand, it is difficult to discover any sense or appropriateness in applying them--at least the word "rising"--to the supreme being; for he is represented as always occupying "the highest heavens:" so there can be no higher point to rise to. we might also ask, why are "the lord's day" and "sunday" used as synonymous terms? or why is the lord now worshiped on the very day anciently set apart for the worship of the sun or solar deities? do not these facts prove that many remnants of the ancient idolatrous religions are still retained in christian theology? _monotheism_.--this word--from _monos_, one, or alone, and _theos_, god--represents a belief in but one god. we have shown in the preceding section how a belief in a plurality of gods originated. we will now trace the progress of this idea to a unitary conception of the deity. it will be observed, by the study of ancient theology, that, as the human mind becomes enlightened and expanded by the discovery of the laws governing the heavenly bodies, the lesser or inferior deities gradually fall into disbelief and disuse, and "the supreme holy one" proportionally becomes exalted in the devout affections of the worshiping multitude, until most religious nations become, in one view, virtually and practically monotheists. and it may be remarked here, that, as neither the imaginary god nor carved images of god were objects of worship by the most enlightened classes of any nation, they can not strictly and truthfully be termed idolaters. hence some writers are bold to affirm there never was a nation of idolaters; and we incline to this opinion. we are also bold to affirm that there never was, properly speaking, a nation of monotheists,--believing in but one god, and no more,--neither jews nor christians excepted; and we are likewise prepared to exhibit the proof of the affirmation, that every nation, reported in history making a profession of religion, has acknowledged the existence of _one supreme god_. this is true even of those who believe in a multiplicity of gods,--a circumstance which places both jews and christians in rather an awkward position, claiming as they do, and always have done, a monopoly of this faith; and the fact that they have long professedly labored to bring other nations to this belief, while some of those nations have, as we shall show, been much more consistent, both in the belief and practice of this doctrine, than themselves, places them, as we conceive, in rather a ludicrous aspect. the christian bible and the christian world have arrogated vastly too much to themselves, and overstepped the bounds of truth, in claiming to be the only propagators of the unitary conception of a god, as the following citations from historical authorities will clearly manifest:-- . christians have a numerous _cortege_, or retinue, of angels in their system of inspired theology, as is shown in various parts of the bible, which, in theological parlance, must be regarded as so many secondary gods, inasmuch as they are assigned the same duties, perform the same functions, and sustain precisely the same relation to the supernal deity as did the subordinate gods of the pagans under the ancient systems. it is, in fact, only a change of name, in order to get rid of the illogical dilemma of holding to the existence of but one god, while virtually acknowledging the existence of many. we might cite many facts and testimonies from history in proof of this statement, but will restrict ourselves to one. mr. higgins says, "all nations believed in one supreme god, and many subordinates. the latter some termed angels; others called them gods." more anciently than the jews, we find that the babylonians, chaldeans, persians, and syrians all vested these subordinate beings with the properties of mere angels. "angels," then, with christians, we legitimately infer, is only another name for second-class gods, or subordinate deities of the orientals. . even if we should pass over, as unworthy of consideration, the historical facts which go to identify the christian angels with the subordinate deities of the ancient pagans, there is yet spread out before us a broad and tenable ground for charging christians with being polytheists,--that is, for rejecting their pretensions of worshiping and preaching a unitary god; for it is a very striking and depreciating fact, that, notwithstanding their boastful and arrogating claims, there are many texts in the old testament which imply, in the most distinct manner, a belief in a plurality of gods. indeed the first passage in the book, according to mr. parkhurst, would read, if correctly translated, "in the beginning the _gods_ created the heavens and the earth," thus disclosing an acknowledgment of more than one god. and we find many other passages which are made to conceal the old polytheistic idea by a wrong translation. fortunately, however, for the disclosure of truth, there are many texts in which it comes very distinctly to the surface. as for example, in genesis i. , we have the undisguised language, "let us make man in our own image." now "us" and "our" being plural pronouns, it would be folly and nonsense to deny that they refer to a plurality of _gods_. "let us make man" means, "let us gods make man;" for no sophistry, shifting, or dodging can make sense of it with any other construction. and several times, in this and other chapters, is similar language used. we will cut the matter short by observing, upon the authority of parkhurst, that _aleim_ and _elohim_ are the hebrew plurals used to represent god in the old testament; that these are much more frequently employed than the singular forms, _al_ and _el_, thus disclosing the conception of a plurality of gods beyond dispute. . and this argumentation acquires additional logical strength when based on the fact that the jews did not claim jehovah as the _only_ god, but merely as supreme to other gods. he was "god of gods" and "lord of lords." nor was he claimed to be a god of any but the jewish nation. jethro is made to say, "now i know that jehovah is greater than all gods" (exod. xviii. ). and in exodus xv. it is asked, "who is like unto jehovah among the gods?" just such a claim as is put forth for jupiter by homer in his iliad:-- "o first and greatest god, by gods adored, we own thy power, our father and our lord!" hence it will be observed, that if there were any merit or any honor in professing faith in a unitary deity, or any truth forming a basis for such a claim, neither jews nor christians could justly arrogate a monopoly of such faith, inasmuch as there is an older claim to the doctrine. . but we find that the professors of the christian faith occupy still more untenable and more palpably erroneous ground than the jews with respect to the profession of holding strictly to the unitary conception of deity; for they not only tacitly accept the contradictory phases of this doctrine, which we have pointed out above, in the jewish writings, but they add thereto a new installment or chapter of errors by having accepted into their creed the old oriental doctrine of a trinity of gods. they have "god the father, god the son, and god the holy ghost," which present us with a family of gods as complete and absolute as the confederated union of gods in either the ancient hindoo or grecian pantheon. to allege, in defense, that these three gods were all one, while we find each in various parts of the bible spoken of separately, and discriminated by peculiar and distinct properties and titles, instead of mitigating the error and contradiction, such a plea only aggravates it. in the same sense the hindoos claimed that their thousand gods were one. and all the triads or trinities of gods swarming through the ancient mythologies were proclaimed to be each "a trinity in unity;" so that such a defense only lands the professor of christianity amongst heathen myths. . the absurdity of the christian church in professing to worship a single god, also making a profession of rising above and contemning the idolatrous, polytheistic conception of deity, culminates in their act of embodying and incorporating the infinite deityship in "the man christ jesus," and declaring him to possess "the fullness of the godhead bodily" for we thus have one _full_ and absolute god perambulating the earth in the person of christ during his temporary sojourn here, while another absolute god (the father) occupied the throne of heaven, thus presenting us with a plurality of gods too marked and undisguised to admit a rational defense. a profession of monotheism arrayed with such facts bespeaks folly supreme. the polytheism of the ancient heathen is science and sense compared with such jargon. for, with all their gods, they never paid divine honors, or prayed to but one god ("the supreme ruler"); while christians, on the contrary, worship all of theirs,--father, son, and holy ghost,--frequently naming each one separately in their supplications to the throne of grace, thus rendering themselves more open to the charge of polytheism, and that species of idolatry which consists in worshiping several gods, than those whom they condemn as heathen for committing similar acts. we will prove this statement. the reverend missionary, d. o. allen, says of a large body of heathen professors, "they believe in the existence of beings whom they call gods, but do not recognize them as possessing any qualities, or as having any agencies in human affairs, which properly make them objects of worship. they resemble the angels in the christian system. brahma with them is the supreme god, and all the other gods offer him worship." it is evident, then, that they virtually worship but one god, the inferior deities being but angels; while christians, on the contrary, have placed two, if not three, gods on the throne. which, then, have the best claim to be considered monotheists? . and what sense, we would ask, can attach to the profession of monotheism with such a god as the bible sets forth,--a limited, local, personal god. no doctrine stands out more prominently as a fundamental tenet of the christian faith than that which makes god appear a circumscribed, finite being. he is represented in their "inspired" book as possessing those qualities, properties, faculties, and functions which only a local, organized being can possess,--such as a body, head, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, fingers, feet, stomach, bowels, heart, &c.; as eating, sleeping, walking, talking, riding, laboring, resting, laughing, crying; and as getting angry and jealous, and cursing, swearing, smiting, fighting, &c., and on one occasion getting whipped or vanquished in a fight because the enemy were fortified with chariots of iron. (see josh. - .) and hardly was creation completed before he was down in eden striding over the bushes, hunting for his lost child adam,--the first sample of the _genus homo_. and several times he had to leave his golden throne, and descend to earth before he could be posted in human affairs. now it must be evident to any person possessing a moiety of common sense that such a limited, local, circumscribed being, limited in size, and restricted in powers and qualities as jehovah is represented in the bible to be, could neither be omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. true, christians consider him so; but the bible fails to make him so. and hence there would be room in infinite space for countless millions of such gods, and the doctrine of polytheism would be perfectly consistent. indeed, such a dwarfish and circumscribed god would need thousands of such confederates to aid him in governing the countless worlds of the vast universe; so that the polytheistic doctrine from the christian stand-point becomes a necessity, as it does also from another plane of view. we are told in gen. i. that the work of creation was completed in six days; that the myriads of worlds which now chase each other through the sky were all rolled out of the vortex of infinitude in a week. but it is evident to every scientific or reflecting mind that a million of years would not have sufficed for the work, especially for such a god as moses describes and sets to the task hence the period of creation should be extended, or the number of gods increased _ad infinitum_, to save the credibility of the cosmologic traditions. we would say, then, that, for the following reasons, the more gods christians acknowledge, the better for the consistency of their cause:-- . their conception of the divine essence is that of a local, limited, anthropomorphic, organized being, in exact conformity with the notion of the ancient pagans; with which, in order to have every part of the infinite universe supplied, would require more in number than the most fertile imagination of the heathen ever created. . a countless host of such finite gods would have been required to complete the work of creation in six days. . there is room enough for any number of such finite gods to exist without encroaching on each other's dominions. . there should have been at least one such god to be assigned the creation of each planetary world, which would require many millions of creative entities. . and the superintendence of the endlessly complicated machinery of each planet, and the supply, specifically and individually, of the various wants of its swarming millions of diversified inhabitants, would require an infinite host more of such local gods as jehovah of the jews. . and, as christians already practically acknowledge the worship of three gods, the addition of three hundred or three thousand more would only be an extension of the principle, and could not be a whit more objectionable. for it is not any specific number of gods they object to, but a "plurality;" and three is as certainly and absolutely a plurality as three hundred or three thousand. from the above considerations, founded on views of consistency, we think christians should ground their arms, and cease their moral warfare upon the votaries of other religions for being polytheistic or idolatrous. and "the sin of worshiping many gods," which they declaim so much on, is all a mere phantom. we can not see how the divine mind could possibly be offended at the simple mistake of over-numbering the godhead. we will illustrate the case. we will suppose a merchant in cincinnati orders a bill of goods from new york, addressing the order to john ap john & co. the latter opens and examines it, then returns it unfilled, with the following quaint protest: "sir, there is no 'co.' attached to my address. it is simply john ap john; and you have insulted my dignity by this mistake, thus assuming that i have not the brain and bullion to do business on my own hook, but must have partners. i therefore return it with contempt for your insolent blunder." now, we ask if there can be a man found who would be guilty of displaying such coxcomb vanity as this. we trow not. then, why charge it upon an infinite god--an all-wise deity--by supposing that a prayer addressed, by an innocent mistake, to a hundred or a thousand gods would not be as acceptable to him as if addressed to him alone, or even if erroneously addressed to the christian trinity of father, son, and holy ghost? _the construction and worship of images_.--in exod. xx. we find the following command: "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness _of any thing_ that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." here, it will be observed, is a sweeping interdiction against image-making; and, as it prohibits the likeness of _any thing_ that "is in heaven above or the earth beneath," it is a dead-lock upon the fine arts. all engravings, paintings, photographs, &c., with which the civilized world is now flooded, and which hold high rank among the arts and sciences, involve an open infraction of this command. and hence, this biblical interdiction being devoid of reason, and of an anti-civilizing tendency, the enlightened portion of christendom, by common consent, tramples it heedlessly under foot. and we are bold to say that this command is both foolish and of impracticable application; for a living, thinking human being can no more avoid forming images of every thing that comes within the range of his mental vision, whether situated in heaven above or the earth beneath, than he can stop the entire machinery of his thoughts, or the blood from circulating through his veins. it is as natural as eating, and as inevitable as breathing. to be sure, he does not give expression with wood, metal, or canvas to every image formed in the mind; but the nature of the act, morally speaking, is precisely the same as if he did. st. clemens admits this when he declares it to be a sin for women to look in the glass, because they form images of themselves. all true! viewed from the christian stand-point, which regards image-making as a sin. the most sinful or reprehensible act of image-making, however, in the view of christians, is the construction of idols or images to represent the deity. living in a civilized age, they would be ashamed to occupy the broad ground assumed by the command which we have quoted above, which forbids the likeness of every thing that exists; yet they still hold that it is wrong to make images of the deity,--not anymore so, according to the above command, than the acceptance of engravings of animals and photographs of friends. but where is the man now living, or when did the man live, who has not formed images of the deity, or who does not instinctively and habitually do it every day of his life? every man makes a likeness of god, or what he supposes to be such, every time he thinks of such a being. it is impossible to make him the subject of thought without constructing a mental image of him,--i.e., without constructing an image of him in the brain. and can it be more sinful to make an image of him with the hand than with the head?--in other words, to construct a likeness of him externally, than to construct it internally. certainly not. one is shaped out in the mind; the other is shaped out of a block of wood or metal: and most certainly, if the latter is idolatry, the former is also. the christian kneels in supplication with the image of god set up in his mind; the pagan worships with the image set up in the temple or on the altar. one is externally represented with words; the other, with wood. the only difference between the christian and pagan idolatry is, that, after each has sketched out a likeness of the creator upon the tablet or dial-plate of his mind according to his conception of the form of deity, the christian stops short with his work but half completed, while the pagan goes on and gives practical expression to his by representing it with wood, stone, or other material, by which it is more thoroughly impressed upon the memory, and "the devout contemplation," "the remembrance of god," kept more constantly in the mind; and thus the savage is proved to be the most practically religious of the two. we have shown that the representation and delineation upon canvas, paper, wood, or steel, of the various objects of art,--of human creation,--are set down as the highest marks and the most distinguishing proofs of civilization. and can it be right and laudable to thus represent or image the works of the creator, and wrong to image the creator himself? not according to the above command. or can one be pleasing to him, and the other offensive? there is neither sense nor science, logic nor lore, in such conclusions. christian reader, do you not know that your little innocent daughter 'violates the command every day of her happy life by nursing, dressing, and caressing her wax doll, her _image_ miniature man? for if it be true--and the bible teaches it--that "man was created in the image of god," then these artificial human likenesses, these images of the infant man, are also images of god; and your little girl daily commits "the awful sin of idolatry," and you, too, for countenancing her in the act. it may be noticed here that the pious christian confers upon himself an honor which he denies to the creator when he has his photograph struck off for the accommodation of a friend, while he denounces as idolatry all attempts to construct an imaginary likeness of god. but consistency is a jewel rarely found. _image worship_.--we may be met here with the answer that "it is not the making of images, but the worship of images, in lieu of the worship of god, that constitutes idolatry." to this we reply, we have no proof that any nation or people reported in history were ever obnoxious to the charge. true, the people of many countries have been in the habit of prostrating themselves before idols in their daily worship. yet in no case which we have examined do we find that those idols were worshiped with the thought of their being the true and living god, or of their being endowed with divine attributes, but only as types or representations of god. it is possible that some of the lower stratum of society--some of the debased and ignorant--may have been deluded into the idea that god had taken up his abode in those lifeless images. in fact we are assured that the priest, in some cases, labored to instill this belief into their minds. some of them may have been ignorant and pliable enough to be misled by his artful misrepresentation. but, by a large proportion of the idol-worshipers of every nation, we have the highest authority for asserting that these artificial images were not regarded as any thing more than the mere representation, or outward type, of the deity, and were venerated with the same religious conviction which christians experience in part aking of the body and blood of christ with the images of bread and wine, and without the suspicion of incurring the charge of idolatry. the two acts are precisely the same in spirit and essence. but the untutored denizens of the pacific isles do not conceive that the dumb and lifeless sylvan figure before which they prostrate themselves in worship is the omnipotent, self-existent god, the creator of heaven and earth, more truly than the christians believe they are really eating and drinking "the body and blood of christ" when partaking of the sacrament. they are both mere symbols, or representations, of something higher. it is irrational to suppose that beings endowed with minds believe that inanimate figures of gold, silver, iron, &c., possess omnipotent thought, power, and feeling. that able, pious mahomedan writer, abel fezzel, declares (in his "aren akberry") that "the opinion that the hindoos (who make many idols) are idolaters has no foundation in fact; but they are worshipers of god, and only one god." "this," says the modern traveler, mr. ditson of new york, "i know to be true; for i had it from the lips of the hindoos themselves." and this will apply with undiminished force to other nations habitually styled idolaters. "even the most savage nations," says mr. parker, "regard their idols only as types of god." and we might quote whole pages from heathen writers to that effect. the ancient grecian poet ovid says, "it is jove we adore in the image of god." "the gods inhabit our minds and bodies," says statius, a latin writer, "and not the images made to represent them." hence it is evident they had a perception of their true character. and the missionary, rev. d. o. allen, tells us that even those who have been represented as worshiping the sun, moon, and stars, only contemplate these planets as symbols of the deity, and that "their worship is really aimed to the invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent god." it appears, then, that whatever external objects the most ignorant and savage tribes have addressed, or have been supposed to worship, have been used merely as types and symbols to enhance their devotion in the worship of the true god. though, as cicero remarks (in his philosophical works), "a few may have been so feeble in their perceptions as to confound and identify the statues and gods together." but another writer avers, "there is not in all antiquity the least trace of a prayer addressed to a statue." he also says, "all paganism does not offer a single fact which can lead to the conclusion that they ever adored idols; nor was there ever a law compelling them to do so." when paul declared to the athenians, "whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare i unto you," he confessed most explicitly that they worshiped the true god through their idols. where, then, is the sin of idolatry? in one of the hindoo bibles (the baghavat gita) god is made to say, "they who serve other gods with a firm belief of being right do really involuntarily serve me, and shall be rewarded." how admirable, how noble, how magnanimous and merciful is this sentiment compared with the damning, death-dealing denunciations against idolatry by the jewish jehovah! and the mahomedan bible (the koran) contains a similar sentiment to the above. thus, we observe, both the hindoo and mahomedan bibles evince in this respect a higher degree of moral sense than that of the christian bible, whose violent interdictions against idolatry have caused many nations to be butchered, and their lands deluged with blood. "there is nothing in the christian bible," says mr. higgins, "of one-twentieth part of the value of this text of the hindoo bible in the way of preventing a foolish persecution and bloodied." it may be remembered here that christians inherited their extreme hatred of idolatry from the jews, which is fostered by the jewish bible, and that the jews derived their feelings of opposition to it from the two nations under which they were long enslaved,--the persians and egyptians,--both of which, according to herodotus, forbid the making of idols, the former interdicting it by law; as did also the roman emperor, numa pompilius, b.c. the parsees of india to this day oppose idolatry; and the learned among the chinese have always discountenanced it. strabo and other grecian philosophers wrote against it. "and many sects arose among the ancient heathen," says the "hierophant," "who rejected all external symbols of the deity." on the other hand, neither jews nor christians have been entirely free from this "sin" so called. as for "the lord's holy people," there probably never was a nation who manifested a stronger or more invincible proclivity to idolatry than they, or who indulged more eagerly in the practice of it whenever opportunity presented; and frequently did they break over all restraint to plunge into this seemingly untiring luxury, not even withholding their ear-rings when a molten image or golden calf was to be constructed. and even their lawgiver moses consented to the construction of a number of imitations or substitutes for the carved images of the pagans. their brazen serpent displayed upon a pole; their carved cherubims with the body of a man, the head of an animal, and the wings of a bird; and the ark of the covenant, which was borne about in the same manner the heathen carried their idols,--were all compromises with and concessions to idolatry, and were all venerated with the same spirit and in the same fashion the heathen adored their carved or molten images. as for the holy ark, the jews as solemnly believed that god almighty was shut up in that little box of shittim-wood as truly as ever the pagans believed that he sometimes condescended to a transient abode in their idols; while it was death to touch it with "unholy hands," and sixty thousand were butchered because one man (the pious iliza), on a certain occasion, instinctively and devoutly clapped his hand on it to keep it from falling. in fact, the golden image which it contained was an idol to all intents and purposes; nor were the brazen serpent and cherubim of the altar much less so. hence the vindictive condemnation of other nations for making and adoring images came with an ill grace from the jews. nor are the skirts of the disciples of christ any freer from the stain of idolatry. in fact, it constitutes the very substratum of their religion. in the first place, they quote approvingly such texts as the following: "the lord is my rock" (ps. xviii. ); "who is a rock save our god?" (ps. xviii. ); "the shepherd the stone of israel" (gen. xlix. ). peter calls him "a living stone" ( pet. ii. ). and there are a number of other similar texts, all of which disclose real fetichism, or the first form of idolatry. the ancient laplanders. arabians, phoenicians, and several tribes of asia minor used rocks and stones as representative images of deity. and here we find the same association of ideas in the christian bible. do you reply, "they must be considered figurative"? very well: prove that the ancient heathen tribes did not also consider them figurative. but we have a much more serious and conclusive proof than tins that nearly the entire retinue of christian professors are practical idolaters, and that their "holy religion," in all its essential characteristics, comprises, in its very nature, the highest species of idolatry. some christian professors tell us that those who worship idols must have a limited conception of the character and attributes of the deity; thus conceding that idolatry consists in ascribing to god a false character. well, now, this is the very objection which we would urge as one of the first, and one of the most serious charges against the christian system. it presents us with a cramped, dwarfish, and childish conception of deity. in the first place, the disciples of christianity still cling to the old tradition, which they inherited from the heathen, of investing god with the form and characteristics of a man. for if the deity possesses the human form, as they and their bible teach, then he must possess the human characteristics,--a logical sequence, which science defies all christendom to overturn, as it is the infallible testimony of the natural history of all time that nothing can possess the form of one being and the characteristics of another. as is form, so is and must be the character, is an axiom supported by numberless proofs of daily and hourly observation. hence, jesus christ possessing, according to the scriptures, the form of a man,--"the form of a servant,"--must inevitably have possessed the character of a man. hence we are not surprised to find, that, in spite of the combined efforts of his evangelical biographers to make him a god (if they are really to be understood as designing to elevate him to the godhead), his finite human qualities are dis-played in his history in every chapter. every saying and every credible incident of his life prove him to have been a man, notwithstanding some of them are apparently set forth as _prima-facie_ evidence of his being a god. therefore the conclusion that, as jesus christ had the form of a man, he could not have been a god; and to worship him as such was and is idolatry in the highest and fullest sense. and, besides the form, there are other evidences of his having been a man. he walked, talked, ate, slept, wept, shed tears, &c., and finally died just as other men do. and, furthermore, he believed and taught some of the traditions and superstitions of finite, ignorant men,--such as a vengeful god, an endless hell, disease produced by demons, a personal devil, the speedy conflagration of the world, &c. thus we have a threefold proof of his manhood, and disproof of his godhead, and a proof that those who worship him are idolaters. and as the primitive or primordial bible god jehovah is represented as possessing, as we have already shown, a comprehensible body, eyes, nose, mouth, hands, arms, legs, feet, bowels, &c., and as being a jealous, angry, revengeful, fighting god (the god of battles), and inferior in several respects to some of the men who worshiped him, such worship is consequently idolatry. we observe, then, that the jews worshiped one idol (jehovah); and the christians, three ("father, son, and holy ghost"),--the two former possessing the form of man, and the latter the form of a bird (a dove). there is exactly the same objection, and it is to exactly the same extent idolatry, to worship jesus christ as to worship chrishna, confucius, mahomet, or any of the wooden gods or graven images of the idolatrous pagans. in each case it is assuming that god, instead of being eternally infinite in all his attributes, has been invested with the finite, limited, and comprehensible form of man, to say nothing of the corresponding finite qualities which his worshipers have assigned him. and this narrow, childish assumption, with its attendant conceptions, keeps the mind of the worshiper in an intellectually cramped and dwarfish condition, besides perpetuating their dishonorable and disparaging views of deity. and herein lies the great objection to idolatry. if any of these venerated beings could possess divine attributes, there would be less moral objection to worshiping them as gods. the error is not in ascribing divine attributes to the wrong being, but in the conception of wrong qualities and attributes as comprehensible in a divine being. for god is not possessed of the vanity to be offended by the simple mistakes of men and women directing their prayers and devotions to another being or object instead of to him. the grand error consists in mistaking the real character and attributes of deity; that is, in constructing false images of him,--whether _mental or material is all the same_. in other words, idolatry consists in worshiping, for god, beings or objects possessing finite forms, with whom, consequently, infinite and divine attributes could not be properly associated, and through whom they could not possibly be displayed. and so self-evident was the proof that these beings, possessing the form, size, and physical outline of men, and presenting every appearance of men (as christ, chrishna, confucius, &c.), were nothing but men, that even those who were habitually taught to adore them as the supreme, omnipotent deity, naturally and instinctively, in their intercourse with them and their descriptions of them, invested them with human qualities as well as divine. and thus they came to present to the world the awkward and ludicrous figure of beings displaying both finite and infinite attributes,--i.e., of being demi-gods, half god and half man. this is especially true of "the man christ jesus." and it may be safely assumed as an incontrovertible proposition, that just so long as men are in the habit of worshiping beings in the human form, whether jehovah or jesus christ, or beings possessing any conceivable form as the great "i am," just so long will they entertain, to their own injury and to the disgrace of religion, inferior and dishonorable views of god. they must learn that a finite body can not contain an infinite spirit, nor possess an infinite attribute; and that to worship an object or being known to possess or even supposed to possess any conceivable form, size, or shape within the comprehension of man, whether the materials composing this adored object or being are gold, silver, wood, brass, iron, or flesh and blood (as in the case of jesus christ), constitutes the highest species of idolatry. it can make no difference what the materials are, as it is just as impossible to associate divine and infinite attributes with an image of flesh and blood or a finite body, as to associate them with an image of wood, stone, or metal. all is alike idolatry. the christian world have an image or idol, constructed in part of flesh and blood, restricted, as they tell us, to a spiritual body, which they call jesus christ, and which they place upon an imaginary throne situated in or above the clouds, and worship it as god; while the babylonians had the same image carved from wood and metal, which they called dagon, and set upon a throne in the temple: and, in both cases, we are told, by way of apology, that it was not the external form, or outward body, which constituted the divinity, but the spirit within. now, as there is room in infinite space for millions of such beings (such finite gods), there could be no moral objection to multiplying their number, and worshiping as many of them as the imagination could conjure up, or the polytheist's fancy could create. we worship none but the infinite god; the living, moving, all-pervading, and all-energizing spirit of the infinite universe, who has no finite or comprehensible body, and never had; and hence, being infinite in extent and in all his attributes, but one such being can possibly exist, and monotheism thus becomes a virtue and a necessity. we will only remark further, that the man who can worship a being with the human form or any form as the infinite god, no matter if he swells his proportions by imagination to the size of the planet jupiter or the whole solar system, yet still, as this is not one step of an approach toward infinitude or omnipresence, his conceptions of deity are puerile, childish, belittling, and dishonorable, if not blasphemous. if there is such a thing as blasphemy, it is found here. and his ignorance of the essential characteristics of an infinite being, or the scientific view of god, is on a par with the child's ignorance of astronomy, who exclaims, "give me the moon!" here we desire to apprise the reader more distinctly that we do not regard idolatry as a crime or blameworthy act in those who originated it, but actually useful when restricted to its legitimate uses. to those groveling in spiritual darkness, on the lower plane of religious development, it is as "eyes to the blind, and crutches to the lame." it is only in those, who, like christians, profess to be enlightened, that it becomes a culpable act. several writers have shown that idols were really practically useful, in a religious point of view, in the primitive spiritual condition of mankind, and are yet so to the lower classes in various countries; that is, to those who dwell upon the sensorial plane, and whose spiritual _perceptions_ are hence too feeble to soar to an ethereal world to find the great object of spiritual worship. the learned hindoo, roh mun roy, who wrote a work against idolatry, and who condemned the christian churches for "worshiping an idol in the person of jesus christ," beautifully sets forth the true nature and purpose of idolatry when he says (after stating that idols were not made for the learned), "the vedas [hindoo bible] directs those who are spiritually incapable of adoring the invisible supreme being to apply their minds to some visible object as an external manifestation of the only true god, rather than lose themselves in the mazes of irreligion, the bane of society. as god exists everywhere, and pervades every thing (even idols), such means were mercifully provided for the ignorant and untrained to lead them on to true mental adoration and spiritual worship." and thus idols were used as aids and stepping-stones to the true worship for those who were mentally incapable of raising their minds from "nature up to nature's god," as taught by this heathen writer. thus they served the same purpose as pictures do for children, and were equally innocent and useful. it is, therefore, no more sinful to be an idolater than to be a child. in fact, idolatry was a necessity of man's religious nature. the vedas makes god say, "the ignorant believe me visible while i am invisible." the able, pious abel fezzel (a mahomedan writer) says, in his "aren akberry," "the brahmins and hindoos all believe in the unity of the god-head; yet they hold images in high veneration, because they represent celestial beings, and prevent the mind from wandering." swedenborg says in like manner, "the heathen kept images not only in their temples, but in their houses, not to worship them, but to call to mind the heavenly being they represented." thus it will be observed that the idol was the sanctuary where man, in his childhood, met to commune with his god, just as the christian now seeks his spiritual presence at the communion-table or the altar. the pagan, who was a child in religious experience, was morally necessitated to have a god, or representation of god, he could see, feel, and handle. and it is remarkable that the christian world, after two thousand years' religious experience, still occupy the same plane,--are still pagans or children with respect to believing in visible external gods, as they virtually worship two, jehovah and jesus christ, who, according to the teaching of their bible and their established creeds, were often seen in the human form, and one of them with a human body. thus it will be observed they have not outgrown or advanced beyond the essential principle of idolatry,--that of worshiping a visible or imaginary form for an invisible god, who, the "positive philosophy" teaches, never has been and never can be seen under any circumstances, because, being omnipresent (that is, present everywhere, and everywhere alike), if he could be seen at all, he could be seen at all times and in all places. this is a self-evident, axiomatic truth. _origin of idolatry_.--here we deem it proper to speak more directly and specifically of the primary origin of idolatry, or image-worship, than is disclosed in the preceding pages. after the primitive inhabitants of the earth had conceived the notion that the sun, moon, and stars are moved in their orbits through the heavens by beings who occupied them (as has already been shown), they were in the habit of gazing upon these tower-lights of the elvsian fields (the home of the gods) with the most intense delight, the most reverential awe and devotion. but ever and anon this pleasing reverie was interrupted, and subjected to sad suspense, by "the departure of the heavenly host to other and distant lands." first of all, the solar god, mounted upon his gem-wheeled chariot drawn by his fleet steeds, after plowing his way through the deep-blue vault of the sky, was off on his swift-sped journey behind the western hills, but followed almost immediately by the whole retinue of stellar orbs (the homes of the lesser gods), who danced along in his wake; but, ever true to the line of march, followed on apace, and were soon beyond the bounds of human vision. this left an aching void in their devout minds. hence the invention and construction of images as imaginary likenesses of the gods, to serve as substitutes for them, to be venerated in their stead daring their absence, as we secure the likeness of a friend when about to leave us for a journey, or to be long absent. and here we may date the primary origin of idolatry, which is nothing more nor less than the first rude germination of man's religious nature. ii. all christians atheists or idolaters. it seems most strikingly strange that atheism and idolatry should be considered by the orthodox representatives of the christian faith as "the most god-defying and heaven-daring sins that man can be guilty of" (as one christian writer represents them to be), when there is not a professor of the christian faith, and never has been, who was not guilty most unquestionably of one of these sins. it requires but a few words to prove this statement. nearly all the early christian writers defined atheism to be "disbelief in a personal god," and idolatry as "image-making." how obtuse must have been their perceptions that they could not see that their definition of these terms made them all either atheists or idolaters, and that it is impossible to escape one of these charges without becoming obnoxious to the other! no person can believe in a personal god without forming an image of him in the mind; and this is just as much idolatry as though that mental image should find expression in wood or stone or brass, as shown in the preceding chapter. on the other hand, to believe in an infinite and spiritual god, instead of a personal god, is, as shown above, atheism. it will be seen, then, to believe in a personal, organized deity is, to all intents and purposes, idolatry; while to reject this anthropomorphic and sensuous idea, and accept the belief in a spiritual god in its stead, is atheism. and thus the position is reduced to a demonstrated problem, that all christians are either atheists or idolaters. chapter xxxiii.--new-testament errors. i. divine revelation impossible and unnecessary. the hindoos, egyptians, persians, chaldeans, jews, and mahomedans, and various other nations, claim to have had a special revelation of god's will communicated to them for the benefit of the whole human race. but the following facts and arguments will tend to show that no such revelations have ever been made, and that there is none necessary:-- we will inquire, in the first place, what a divine revelation would be. coming from a perfect being, it would of course be perfect, and perfectly adapted to the moral and spiritual wants of the whole human race. such a revelation would be so clear, explicit, and unequivocal in its language with respect to every doctrine, principle, and precept, and every statement of fact, that no person of ordinary mind could possibly misunderstand it; and no two persons could differ for a moment with respect to the meaning of any text embraced in it. it would need no priest and no commentator to explain it; and, if any attempt should be made to explain it, it would only "darken counsel," render the matter more obscure, and would amount to the blasphemous assumption that omniscience can be enlightened, and his works improved. and a _divine_ revelation should be communicated to the whole human race; for, if restricted to one nation, it would render god obnoxious to the charge of partiality. and, in order to make it practicable to communicate it to all nations, it would be necessary to comprehend it in a universal language constructed for the purpose, or else impart it to the world through all the three thousand languages in use by different nations and tribes. but, as such a revelation has never been made or known on the earth, it is at once evident that no such revelation has ever been communicated to man by infinite wisdom. ii. revelation for one age and nation no revelation for another. a revelation issued two or three thousand years ago could be no revelation for this age. the rev. jeremiah jones admits that "a revelation can only be a revelation to him who receives it," and can not be made use of to convince another (canon, p. ). bishop burnet admits that a revelation to one man is no revelation to another. you can neither see nor feel a revelation made to another person. you can merely see the marks on the paper on which he has recorded what he claims to have been a revelation to him. and this is all the proof you can have in the case, which is no proof at all. iii. a revelation on the brain called reason. i know that god has inscribed a revelation on my brain called reason, as it is ever present with me. hence i know that it was _designed for me_. but i can not have this testimony with regard to a written revelation, as it was not communicated to me. hence, as a matter of certainty and safety, i should hold to my own revelation in preference _to any other._ i can only be certain of my own revelation. indeed i can not know that any other revelation was designed for me, because a dozen revelations are brought forward by different nations for my acceptance; and i can not determine to an absolute certainty which is divine and which is human. to settle the matter, i must have another revelation made expressly to me to inform me which is the true revelation. to save this extra labor, i might as well have had the original revelation itself. iv. the human brain superior to any revelation. as an idiot can not be made to understand a revelation, it is evident that a revelation presupposes a rational mind for its reception; otherwise the revelation would be perfectly useless. hence it is evident the brain must be right before the revelation is given, or it will not be able to understand it. this makes the brain superior to, and of higher authority, than revelation. the moment we begin to reason on the revelation of the bible, which we are compelled to do to determine which is the true one, that moment we transfer the authority of the bible to the brain, and the brain thus becomes its judge and jury. the reason sits in judgment over the bible, and is thus proved to be superior to it. this is realized in the experience of every man who is superior to an idiot; and thus the question of bible authority and superiority is at once and for ever settled. it is proved to be inferior to reason, and subordinate to it, and dare not advance a step beyond it. v. infallible revelation impossible. a bible or revelation could only be infallible to a man or woman of infallible understanding; that is, to an infallible being. and, as no such being has ever existed, it is evident that no infallible revelation has ever been issued. vi. every thing must be infallible. no infallible revelation could be of any practical use to any person unless all the circumstances connected with it were infallible. the language in which it is written must be infallible; the person receiving it must be infallible; and the reader, or his understanding, must also be infallible. but, as no such state of things has ever existed, it follows that no infallible revelation has ever been given to man, and is absolutely impracticable. vii. no divine revelation without a series of miracles. a divine revelation must be miraculously inspired; and then it must be miraculously preserved from the slightest alteration by the translator or the transcriber, and from any error on the part of the printer. and, finally, the reader's mind and understanding and judgment must be miraculously guarded from any mistake or misunderstanding or wrong conclusions relative to every text in the book. otherwise there is no absolute certainty that the revelation is a true one, or superior to s mere human production. viii. our moral and religious duties can not be learned from any bible or revelation. a critical investigation of the matter will show that our moral and religious duties are not half of them enumerated in the bible; and to suppose that god would reveal only a portion of them, and leave us in the dark with respect to others, and compel us to find them out by chance and conjecture, is to trifle with omniscience, and assume that he is short-sighted and imperfect. ix. no moral duty clearly defined by the bible. as the circumstances of each case of moral duty differ from every other case, so our courses of action must be different. hence revelation, to be of any practical use, should have foreseen those circumstances, pointed them out, and instructed us how to act in the case. but this is not done in any case. we will illustrate: we are enjoined by the bible to "bring up a child in the way he should go;" but that way is not pointed out or defined. we are not told which one of the thousand churches he should join; we are not told, when a man's leg is broken, how it should be mended; we are not told what means we should use to restore the sick to health, nor instructed as to the best means to be used for the preservation of health and life. and, as these are among the first and most important duties, we should have been instructed as to the best means to be used for that purpose; but these things are omitted, and left to the province of reason. there is no case in which we are not compelled to make reason our supreme judge to decide how we shall practice the duties of revelation; and thus revelation is made a servant or subsidiary agent. christians sometimes tell us, "give us something better in the place of our religion before you take it from us." but the bible tells them, "cease to do evil [before you] learn to do well." doom error to destruction, and truth will spring out of the ashes. what would you think of a man who should say to a physician, "stop, sir! before you administer that medicine to my child, i want to know what you are going to let it have in place of its pains and aches"? we do not propose or desire to destroy any religion as a whole, but only the deleterious weeds which are choking and poisoning the healthy plants. we do not wish to put down or arrest the progress of any truth. the clergy sometimes assert that "we could not distinguish right from wrong, but for the bible." and was nothing known to the world about right and wrong, or the means of distinguishing between them, during the two thousand years which elapsed before the bible was written? christians place moses, its first writer, about fourteen hundred years before christ, while the bible dates back b.c. and then what about those millions of the inhabitants of the globe who never had our bible? and millions of them never had a bible of any kind. are they destitute of moral perception? on the contrary, reliable authority, and even christian writers, assure us that the morals of many of those nations will put to shame the morals of any nation professing the religion of christ. take, for example, the kalaos tribe of africa, who appear to have no formal religion whatever; and yet, as dr. livingstone informs us, they maintain strict honesty in all their dealings with each other, and have made considerable progress in the arts and manufactures. they have never had a bible or revelation of any kind. look also at the inhabitants of the arru islands. "these people," says dr. livingstone, "appear to have no religion whatever; and yet they live in brotherly peace, and respect each other's rights,"--the rights of property in the fullest sense. the rev. w. h. clark, speaking of the yoruba nation in central africa, says, "their moral and even their civil rights in some respects would put to shame any christian nation in the world." we might present a hundred more cases of this kind; but these three cases are sufficient to show that nations witt no bible, no revelation, and even no religion, transcend any christian nation with respect to strict honesty and a practical sense of right and wrong. how absurd, therefore, is the idea shown to be, that a knowledge of the christian bible is essential to the knowledge and practice of good morals! (see chap. .) x. our duties are all recorded in the bible of nature. there is not a moral or religious duty that is not inscribed on the tablet of man's soul or consciousness which he would not soon learn if his attention were not constantly directed to, and his mind occupied with, the erroneous theories of the dark, illiterate ages. the god of nature has endowed every human being with two sensations,--one of pleasure, and the other of pain,--which serve as guides in all his actions, both physical and moral. they stand as sentinels at the door of his soul to warn him of the approach of evil of every kind. the moment their kingdom is invaded, they raise an alarm, which he soon learns he must heed or suffer a penalty. if he drinks intoxicating drinks, or improperly indulges his appetites and propensities in any way, he learns, by suffering, that is the penalty affixed to the violation of the law of health, and that he can not escape it, and that no one can suffer for him, or make any "atonement for his sins." if he attempts to handle fire, he is soon apprized that he is meddling with something that will injure him; if he commits a moral wrong against a neighbor, it re-acts upon himself in various ways, as explained in chap. . it thus acts as a two-edged sword, which cuts both ways, punishes both the victim and the perpetrator. man learns by experience that crime will not only injure him, but, in many cases, will destroy him. on the other hand, when he practices virtue, she greets him with her smiles, and fills his soul with pleasure. let me illustrate: the bells in some city toll the alarm of fire at midnight. in a few minutes thousands of men and boys are congregated on the spot, many of them half-dressed, and without hats or shoes, in order to aid a fellow-being in rescuing his dwelling from the all-devouring element. what prompts them to this act? it is not an injunction of their bible. no: it was the well-spring of philanthropy leaping up through their souls that prompted to the deed, and not a written bible. again: why is a mother's loving, watchful care ever exercised for the protection and welfare of her child? she will endure almost any hardship or privation which its welfare requires. why does she do this? her bible is silent on the subject. it is the impulse of nature welling up from the fountain of maternal affection which prompts to these acts of loving care,--to this moral duty. and this is true of all the other moral duties of life. they are all imbibed al her fountain,--at the fountain of nature. a man with a good moral development needs no revelation to teach him what is right, no bible to prompt him to the performance of his duties. we rejoice "with joy unspeakable" that the world is fast learning this moral axiom. the bible truly teaches us that our moral duties are revealed in the book of nature (chap. ). and christian writers also admit this. tertullian says, "why pain yourselves in searching for a divine law while you have that which is common to mankind, and engraven upon the tablet of nature?" this is a wonderful admission for a christian writer to make, as it virtually concedes there is no moral or religious necessity for a written bible or revelation. xi. a divine revelation adverse to human progress. one argument against the belief in a divine revelation is found in the fact that it would tend to paralyze human effort, and thus make man a mental sloth. if a man could find all his moral and religious duties "cut and dried," and laid out before him, he would be thus robbed of the motive to study and learn his duties by the exercise of his mental powers. and having no incentives to healthy, energetic action, he would become a drone and mental sloth. we can not believe god ever made such a blunder as this. xii. a divine revelation would imply imperfection on the part of deity. it is admitted that no revelation was ever given to man for more than two thousand years after creation. this would imply that it was forgotten by infinite wisdom, or else the moral necessity for it overlooked. either assumption would make god an imperfect and short-sighted being. it would appear like an after-thought. after man had lived so many years upon the earth, it just occurred to god that he had not given him a written revelation instructing him what to do and believe. the assumption of a divine revelation presupposes such a blunder as this on the part of omniscience, and is therefore derogatory to his character. now, we ask seriously, do not the foregoing facts and arguments show that there is no moral or religious necessity for a divine revelation to man? let the believers in the necessity of the bible, or a divine revelation, show their fallacy, or for ever abandon the old mythological assumption that it is necessary. another conclusive argument: a mind that could comprehend a truth divinely revealed could originate that truth. we will give an illustrative proof: a teacher works out a mathematical problem on the blackboard for the benefit of his school. now, every teacher and every logical mind will admit that every pupil, possessing the mental capacity to understand the mathematical truth thus revealed, could, by his own unaided powers, have developed it himself sooner or later. in like manner, the mind that could comprehend a truth revealed from god, could originate it without the aid of revelation. hence revelation would be worse than useless, as it would furnish a pretext for mental or intellectual sloth, and thus have a tendency to stop human progress by doing for us what we could and should do ourselves. a logical investigation of the case will show that we possess the mental capacity to discover _every truth we need_, whether it be scientific, moral, or _religious_; and such exercise furnishes the only means to keep the mind in a healthy condition. and thus the problem is proved again. chapter xxxiv.--primeval innocency of man not true. the tradition so universally prevalent among the disciples of all the oriental systems of religious faith, as well as those of a more modern origin, and which is still a conspicuous element of the christian system,--that man commenced his career in a state of moral perfection,--is so obviously at war with every principle of anthropology, and every page of human history tending to demonstrate the moral character of the primitive inhabitants of the earth, that i shall employ but little time and space in exposing its absurdity and falsity. . all the organic remains of the _earliest_ types of the human species that have been found demonstrate conclusively that man started on the animal plane with animal feelings, propensities, and habits, almost totally devoid of moral feelings, and "consequently victim to his passions, propensities, and lusts." where, then, were his moral purity and angelic holiness? the idea is a mere chimera. . it is now a settled problem in mental science that the character of every species of animate being corresponds with its organization; that the organic structure of the being, whether dead or alive, always indicates its true character. if it possesses the form and type of the tiger it will always be found with the disposition and habits of the tiger; or, if it is a sheep in form, it will be a sheep in character. there is no deviation from this rule. hence, when we find the bones of the early types of the human species resembling those of the lower order of animals, there is no escaping the conclusion that they possessed an analogous character. . look, then, at the fact that the skulls and facial bones of human beings, found embedded in the rocks of gibraltar, belonging to a race which naturalists have decided existed upon the earth sixty-five thousand years ago, closely approximate those of an animal. they possessed retreating foreheads, prognathous jaws, extremely coarse features, and skulls nearly an inch in thickness; hands resembling those of a monkey, feet resembling those of a bear, and cranial receptacle showing a very small amount of moral brain. now, it is evident that this early race, with such a gross, brutal organization, could not have possessed fine moral sensibilities and lofty virtue, purity, and perfection. . and we find that nations whose organizations indicate a higher moral character are of more modern origin, as shown by their organic remains being found in more recently formed strata,--the tertiary formation. it is thus scientifically demonstrated that man's tendency toward moral perfection is inversely to the remoteness of time,--that, the nearer we retrace his history to his origin, the lower position he occupies in the scale of morals. . we will cite one more historical fact to establish this theory the existence of a tribe of negroes has been traced (as stated in chap. .) to near the date of noah's flood, whose organization indicates a very near approach to the animal; thus showing, that, if they are descendants of adam, he himself must have possessed an inferior or defective moral organization and character. . let the reader, after noting these facts, read the history of the practical lives of the earliest races or nations whose deeds have been recorded, and he will find they sustain the same proportion; that their defective moral character corresponds (_ceteris paribus_) to the remoteness of the era in which they lived. the history of the jews themselves illustrates and corroborates the proposition, as the character of the modern jews is far superior to those of the era of abraham and moses. . once more: the fact that the moral character of nearly all nations is constantly improving, proves beyond question that man once occupied a much lower plane, and that, instead of falling from a state of moral purity, he is constantly ascending toward that condition. . the current belief of man's primitive moral perfection is easily traced to its origin. nearly all the oriental nations had a tradition of a "golden age," when the most sublime and unalloyed bliss was the lot and enjoyment of the _genus homo_. but the serpent that beguiled eve to eat of the forbidden fruit in eden, the serpent who stole the recipe of immortal life in assyria, the entering of typhon into the golden paradise of osirus in egypt, the opening of pandora's box in greece, the piercing of the evil egg by ahrimanes in chaldea, the machinations of the snake in india, of the lizard in persia, and the demon in mexico, seem to have all had an agency in defeating the omniscient designs of deity, and placing the reins of government in the hands of the world's omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient evil genius, thus prostrating for ever the great and glorious plans of infinite wisdom. chapter xxxv.--original sin and fall of man. having shown that man commenced his earthly career on a low moral and intellectual plane, and that therefore the assumption of his original moral perfection is a fallacy, the correlative dogma of his fall into a state of moral depravity falls to the ground of its own weight. it would be a work of supererogation to attempt to show that man never fell in a moral sense, after having shown that he never occupied an elevated moral position to fall from. it is self-evident that he could not fall if there was no lower position for him to fall to; and this has been shown. nevertheless we will expose its absurdity from other logical stand-points. according to the westminster catechism, "god placed man in the garden of eden, and forbade him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; and, because he disobeyed, he became the victim of god's eternal wrath, an accursed and totally depraved being." such doctrine is not only morally revolting, but replete with logical absurdities. we will recount some of them:-- . god formed and fashioned man, according to the bible, after his own image, the product of his infinite wisdom; and if he had not possessed infinite wisdom, which must enable him to do every thing to perfection, he had had an eternity to study the matter, and get it fully matured, so as to make every thing work in harmony, and endow every sentient being with happiness. . and, as happiness is the highest end and aim of every living being, it is hence evident that, where there is a want of happiness, there is a want of perfection in the being who established such a state of things; and such a being could not by any possibility be infinitely good and infinitely wise. . a few points considered will show very clearly, that, if man sinned and fell, god has to sustain the responsibility of it. we are told that god made man; and, being all-wise, he would, of course, endow him with exactly such faculties and inclinations and appetites as were best adapted to his situation, and calculated to make him happy. but, according to orthodoxy, god had planted a tree near the spot where he placed adam, and furnished it with some beautiful and luscious fruit, and implanted in man an appetite and relish for it, and, as if to tantalize him with perpetual hanger, forbade him to eat the fruit; and apparently, for fear adam would obey his command and abstain from eating the fruit, he created a serpent-devil to persuade him (or rather his wife) with bland smiles (assuming that a snake can smile, which is rather doubtful) to partake of the fruit, and satisfy their appetites. all this appear's to have been the work of their creator, and not theirs. but the conspicuous features of the absurdity do not stop here. . we are told that the prohibition to eat the fruit was issued to adam before eve was released from her imprisonment in adam's side, or from performing the functions of a rib-bone, before she became a woman and a wife; and it is not even implied that it was intended to extend to her. why, then, in the name of god, should such curses be heaped upon her devoted head for eating the fruit when she had not been forbidden to do so? and it does not appear to have been wrong in any sense, only that jehovah had issued an order forbidding it. . jehovah professed great sympathy for adam's lonely condition, and made a help meet for him; and yet the first meat she helped him to, it would seem, damned him and his posterity for ever. in view of this fact, it is probable adam would have preferred to let her remain a bone in his side. . here let it be noted that adam and eve were ignorant and inexperienced beings. they had had no experience in any thing, and hence could not know that such an act, or any other act, was wrong and sinful. . nor could adam know what the word "die" meant when jehovah told him he would die the day he ate the fruit, as he had seen nothing die. . it may here be said in reply, that they should, in their ignorance, have obeyed the command which was given them to this we reply, they did obey the command of one being. god told them not to eat, and the serpent told them to eat, the fruit; and, not having lived with or had any experience with either of those omnipresent beings, how could they know what would be the consequence of obeying or disobeying either of them? this question of itself is sufficient to settle the matter. they could not possibly know, with no experience in either case, that the consequence would be more serious or more fatal in disobeying jehovah than the serpent. . and as they got their eyes open by eating the fruit, and did not die as jehovah told them they would (while the serpent told them they would not), it is not to be wondered at that ever after they and their posterity should be more inclined to serve the serpent-devil than jehovah, seeing that all the happy consequences which the former predicted as the result of eating the fruit were realized, while those of jehovah were falsified. for proof see chap. . . the most artful sophistry can not disguise the fact that the doctrine of moral depravity is a slanderous imputation upon divine mercy, goodness, and justice, and challenges not only his goodness, but his good sense. . and every page of history and every principle of science demonstrate it to be both false and demoralizing. man _fell up_, and not _down_. chapter xxxvi.--the moral depravity of man a delusion. it is alleged by the orthodox world that man's moral nature and reasoning faculties, both became depraved by the fall. "totally depraved" has been the doctrine; but the gradual expansion and enlightenment of the mind by progressive science have modified the doctrine with some of the churches, and they have substituted "moral depravity" for "total depravity." but neither assumption can be scientifically or logically sustained. the assumption that our reason is depraved is made the pretext for urging the superiority of revelation, and making reason subordinate to it. we are told, that, as our reason is depraved, we can not safely rely upon it to judge and criticise the bible or the doctrine of the churches. mr. moody recently exclaimed, in a religious controversy, "i never reason on religion. none but the disciples of devils reason. it is dangerous to reason on religion." unconscious of his ignorance, mr. moody assumed a very ludicrous position.--by the _exercise_ of his reason on religion, mr. moody came to the conclusion that it is _wrong_ to reason on religion, thus committing the very sin he condemns in others. he _reasons_ on religion to convince people that it is _wrong_ to reason on religion, and thus violates his own principles. his case is analogous to that of the town council which attempted to keep the prisoners of the county in the old jail while they erected a new jail with the timbers of the old one,--rather a difficult task to achieve, but not more so than mr. moody's attempt to keep his reason in chains while he is trying to exercise it. or, rather, he insults his auditors by saying to them virtually, "i will use my reason on matters of religion, but you must not use _yours_." as a reasoning being he reasons with reasonable beings, and addresses their reason to convince them they ought not to reason on certain subjects. he uses logic to prove that logic is dangerous, and should not be used. by reasoning against reason he pulls _both ways_, like the scotchman who attempted to lift himself by his ears. he commits logical suicide when he attempts to show there is any case in which reason should not be used. the truth is, a person can not _think_ on the subject of religion without beginning to _reason_ on it, because his _reasoning faculties and his thinking faculties are both one_. he _thinks_ with his intellect, and he _reasons_ with his intellect; and, the very moment _he begins to think, he begins to reason_. and therefore, if it is _wrong to reason on religion, it is wrong to have any religion_. we should not allow it to occupy our thoughts for a single moment, and thus we would banish religion from the world; which, however, would be no great loss if it is too absurd to bear the test of reason. and, if it is wrong to _reason on religion_, it is wrong to _reason on any subject_. the more _important_ the subject, the more _necessary_ to use reason upon it, that we may make no mistakes in regard to it. the truth is, reason is the _only faculty_ with which a man can comprehend religion, revelation, or the bible. this would prove again that it is _wrong to have any religion_, if it is wrong to submit it to the judgment, and test it by our reasoning faculties. reason is the principal faculty which distinguishes us from the brute; and, therefore, to discard it if to approximate to the condition of the brute. what a pity mr. moody had not been consulted in his creation that he might have had his reasoning faculties left out! then he would not be under the necessity of sinning daily by exercising his reason in his attempts to stop its exercise. and then there are other serious difficulties growing out of the reverend gentleman's position. his reason being "depraved," we can place no confidence in its exercise or decision in this case, so as to assume that his judgment and conclusions are correct when he declares against reason. if he reaches his conclusions through a depraved reason, they can be of no account. the verdict can not transcend the judge or court which makes it. the reasoner being depraved, his reasoning and decision in the case must be depraved also, and therefore worthless. verily the gentleman is in a bad position, and rather a serious quandary; and every struggle to get out only sinks him deeper. he is in the predicament of a dog running round after his tail. and then we should like to ask the gentleman, if our reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, how is it to be depended upon in any case? and how does he know, or how can he know, but that, his reason being depraved, it has lead him off the track, in this case, in his attempts to put it in chains? will the reverend gentleman furnish a rule by which we can know in what case our reason can be trusted, and in what cases we are to doff our moral manhood, and lie prostrate in the dust with the brute? and then the rule, being the product of a depraved reason, could not be relied upon. really the reverend gentleman is in an inextricable quandary. the case furnishes an illustrative proof of the extent a man can make a fool of himself when he attempts to shipwreck his reason, and a proof that orthodoxy is a conglomeration of absurdities, and is entirely out of place in an age of progressive thought, and an age of reason and science. the only evidence we have ever had of the truth of the depravity of human reason is found in the fact that men professing to have common sense and reason can believe it to be true. and the fact that our moral sense instinctively repels the doctrine of total depravity or moral depravity, and our reason rises up in rebellion against it, is proof positive of its absurdity. the thought is here suggested, that, if god could not get along without the adoption of an expedient calculated to corrupt our moral nature and deprave our reason, he should not and would not have implanted in us such an instinctive horror to the doctrine. this natural feeling of repugnance is alone sufficient to condemn it, and prove that it is a slander upon infinite wisdom, and a libel upon human nature, to assume its existence. and such doctrine is evidently calculated to demoralize society. an old roman proverb teaches us, "call a man a dog, and he will be a dog." call a child depraved, and it will feel depraved; and, feeling so, it will act so. on the other hand, teach the child he possesses the grand principle and feeling of an inherent nobility, and he will rise to the dignity of moral manhood. such is the difference in the moral value of the two doctrines. chapter xxxvii.--free agency and moral accountability. one of the cardinal doctrines of the christian faith is the free agency of man; but the very term is a logical contradiction. an agent must act in accordance with the will and wishes of his employer, or he will be called to account, and perhaps dismissed. where, then, is his moral freedom? it may be assumed that his employer licenses him to take his own course; but this must be with certain conditions, or else he will act for himself, and be no agent at all. certain alternatives are placed before an agent, which he is privileged to choose; but that does not make him free in any rational or practical sense. if he does not act as required or desired, he will be either punished or dismissed. that is a singular kind of freedom. it is the freedom of a slave, which is no freedom at all; and this is exactly the kind of freedom orthodoxy grants to the sinner, and to the whole human race. it marks out the road to heaven, and says, "this is the road to eternal bliss; and you must walk in it, or eternal misery will be your portion." and, to escape such a terrible doom, millions tremblingly travel the road impelled and propelled by fear. and this painful alternative christians are pleased to term free agency, or moral freedom. it is simply the freedom of a slave to clank his chains. it is a perversion of language to apply the term "free agency" to such a case. the orthodox give us our choice to accept their terms of salvation or reject them; but they attach to the consequence of rejecting them the most awful penalties. we will illustrate: a father says to his son some sabbath morning, "john, i am going to leave you free to-day either to go to church or go a-fishing." he instantly darts away to the river or the lake with the glee of a humming-bird, and is seen no more until nightfall. as he approaches the door, his father says to him, "john, where have you been to-day?"--"why, father, i have been fishing, to be sure."--"well now, john, i am going to give you one of the most terrible floggings you ever had in your life for not going to church."--"why, father, you told me i might take my choice, and go either to church, or go a-fishing."--"that is true, john; but it was with the implied understanding that, if _you did not choose_ to go to church, i would give you an unmerciful whipping." this is free agency indeed! it is the free agency of orthodoxy illustrated, and applied to practice. free agency coupled with a penalty is moral slavery and moral tyranny. there is no moral freedom about it. you are simply free to take your choice between two systems of slavery and two systems of punishment or suffering. a hare pursued by a hound enjoys a similar kind of freedom,--the freedom to stand and be caught, or the freedom to run. of all the absurdities that ever entered the brain of a human being, that of setting god and the devil both after man, as orthodoxy does, and then call him a free agent, is not excelled. we are told that we can not think a thought of ourselves. all our good thoughts and actions are prompted by a good being; and all our bad thoughts' and actions by a bad being (god and the devil). where, then, is our moral freedom or our moral accountability, if neither our thoughts nor our actions are our own, as they can not be if they are prompted by other beings? when a man performs a good act, it is assumed that god is the author of it; and he is told that he must give god praise for it. on the other hand, all wicked actions are assigned to the devil. he is thus a target between these two cross-fires. such an assumption sweeps away the last vestige of free agency and moral accountability. some christian professors accept the doctrine of free agency to escape the dreaded alternative of assuming man to be a mere machine, which they call fatality. but here you have fatality to repletion. if to place man between two all-powerful beings, and have them both trying to direct his actions at once, don't make him a machine, then we have no use for the word. it is strange that christian professors have never discovered that, according to the teachings of the bible, god himself is not a free agent. a free agent is one who can have things as he wills or wishes, so far as he has the power to make them so. look, then, at the fact that, according to their own bible, god himself does not enjoy this desirable boon. it is declared by that book that "god wills not the death (destruction) of the sinner, but that all shall be saved." and it is elsewhere declared that "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life; and few there be that find it." according to the first text, god desires to save all; but, according to the second, he succeeds in saving but very few. hence, not having things as he desires or wishes them to be, it is evident he is not a free agent, according to the orthodox or technical sense of that term. why, then, talk of men being free agents, if a being with infinite power can not be a free agent? to make man a free agent strictly or truly, he should have been consulted beforehand as to how, when, and where he would be born, or whether he would be born at all or not. douglas jerrold significantly remarks that, "if i had foreknown that a portion of mankind would be born to be damned, i'll be d----d if i would have been born at all." this expression, although profane, contains a good moral. certainly nothing could be more preposterous or unreasonable than to hold one being accountable to another when the former had no agency in creating his mind or originating his inclinations, out of which all his actions grow. true accountability can only appertain to beings who created their own natural inclinations, or consented to receive those they are in possession of. this is clear and unanswerable logic. if man was made by god, or infinite wisdom, as christians affirm, then common sense would teach that god alone is accountable for his actions. the man would be a fool who should blame a watch for not running right, knowing that the maker conferred upon it all the properties and powers it possessed. the maker of the watch alone is held responsible for all its perfections and imperfections. and, if man has a maker, it is a very clear case that that maker is equally responsible for his running wrong. there is no resisting this conclusion. the true assumption in the case is, that man has no creator in the orthodox sense, and is only responsible to himself, and to society so far as he is a voluntary member of it. but orthodoxy makes his salvation depend not only upon his resisting the natural inclinations implanted in his system, but also upon the position of his birth. as an argument in favor of sending the bible to the heathen, they declare that millions perish every year because they have not the opportunity of reading that "holy book," and learning the name of jesus. this makes their salvation depend upon the locality of their birth; as some sections furnish the opportunity, and others do not, of becoming acquainted with their bible, and the name of their savior. we must imagine, therefore, in "the day of judgment" every human being will have a geographical question to answer. after being interrogated as to their conduct and practical lives, the next question will be, "where were you born?" if the answer is, "in arabia," the reply of the judge will be, "oh yes! you are a mahomedan. our religion only saves those born in christian countries. i must therefore set you aside among the goats." if the applicant is from india, he will be rejected from the kingdom, and consigned to perdition, because he is a "heathen." and thus christianity is shown to be a geographical system of salvation, and makes a man's eternal destiny depend upon whether he is born in this country or that country, which strips it of all claim to either justice, impartiality, or good sense. the doctrine of free agency and moral accountability is one in a long list of geological absurdities, which originated in an age of scientific ignorance, when nothing was known of the natural powers, or the philosophy of the human mind, or the laws which control its action. _moral accountability_.--what is it? and where is it? it is certainly one of the greatest moral puzzles ever submitted to a philosopher, as to how a being, forced into existence by an omnipotent creative power, without his consultation or consent, can be responsible to that creative power for his conduct, when he had no agency and no volition in his own creation, and no power of resisting it, or in shaping its conditions. if god possesses omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, and _is a creator_, he could and should have made man to act just as he wished him to act; and, if he did not do so, common sense would suggest that it was his own fault. it will be seen from the force of this logic, that christians must either give up the doctrine of a voluntary personal creator, or that of moral accountability. the two doctrines _can not_ be made to harmonize together. chapter xxxviii.--repentance,--the doctrine erroneous. having treated this subject somewhat lengthily and critically in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," we shall devote but a brief space to its elucidation here. nearly all religious nations have attached great importance to the act of repentance; but such an act does not repair the injury or wrong repented of. the repentance of a murderer does not restore his murdered victim to life; nor does the repentance and tears of the incendiary rebuild the dwelling he has destroyed by fire. what, then, is its practical value? we would ask, also, what moral value or merit can attach to an act of repentance when it is not claimed to be an act of the sinner, but "the power of god upon the soul"? (luther.) it appears then, according to orthodox logic,-- . that god won't save the sinner unless he repents. . that he can't repent only as god moves him to do so. this places him in a bad predicament. hence, when he does repent, it is an act of god. . and then god saves him because he makes him repent. here is a jumble of logical incongruities and moral contradictions that can find no lodgment in a scientific mind. a few brief questions will set the doctrine of repentance in its true light. . repentance consists in merely a revival of early impressions, that may be either right or wrong, true or false, and almost as likely to be one as the other. . who ever knew a person to embrace more rational doctrines, or become more intelligent, or have a stronger taste for scientific pursuits, by repentance? . is it not a fact that repentance usually causes a person to cling more tenaciously to the errors and superstitions in which he was educated? . who ever knew a person by repenting, either in health or sickness, to condemn one wrong act which he had erroneously been taught to believe was right? if not, does it not prove that repentance always conforms to education, whether that education is right or wrong, and hence does nothing toward enlightening the convert or anybody else? . on the contrary, when a man repents with his mind full of religious errors, is it not evident that the act of repentance will have the effect to rivet these errors more strongly upon his mind, and thus effect a moral injury instead of a moral benefit? . if a man may abandon some of his immoral habits, which he has been taught to believe are wrong, by an act of repentance, are not the good effects to some extent counterbalanced by his clinging more strongly to his religious errors? . who ever knew a person to abandon a false religion by repentance? does a hindoo or mahomedan ever embrace christianity by repenting? . who ever knew a roman catholic to become a protestant, or a protestant a catholic, by repentance? and yet orthodox christians will cite the belief and testimony of a dying man as an evidence of the truth of their doctrines. . how can an act of repentance do any thing toward proving what is right and what is wrong in any case, when one person repents for doing what another repents for not doing? we have such cases recorded in history. we have known a campbellite to leave his dying testimony in favor of water baptism, and a quaker to leave his dying testimony against it. does one case prove it to be wrong, and the other right? if not, why do christians cite such cases? what do they prove? for a further illustration of this subject, see "the world's sixteen crucified saviors." death-bed repentance. if there is any class of people who need to repent for misspent time, and for leading false and foolish lives, it is the colporteurs who travel over the country distributing pious tracts, containing doleful accounts of death-bed repentance, which, whether right or wrong, prove nothing. such cases of repentance as are reported do not appertain to the moral conduct, but to the religious belief, of the sinner. it is the abandonment and condemnation of his past creeds, and not of his past conduct, which makes the tract so valuable. such a case contains no moral instruction whatever. if his early education was mahomedan, his repentance will establish that religion again in his mind; but, if mormonism was the religion of his childhood, he would again have full faith in that religion. what nonsense! who ever knew repentance to divorce or emancipate a man from all or any of the religious errors of his past life, and plant in his soul a better and more rational religion, or lead him to advocate any religion only that in which he had been educated? such repentance is worth nothing, and absolutely foolish. let us assume that the numerous cases of death-bed repentance published in religious tracts are all true; and what would it prove? why, simply this: that the converts had all been educated to believe in christianity, and had gone back to that religion. had budhism or mahomedanism been their early religion, they would have returned to that. it is merely old errors and old truths revived and re-established in the mind. but many facts afterwards gathered by honest investigation, appertaining to some of these cases, show that they have either been manufactured or greatly exaggerated. as for example, the case of thomas paine is proved to be without foundation. his close was calm and peaceful. many times has it been declared, in the pulpit and elsewhere, that "tom paine repented, and died a miserable death." and yet we have the testimony of those christian professors who were present with him almost constantly during his last illness, that he never manifested the least compunction of conscience, or the least disposition to condemn any thing he had said or written in opposition to christianity or the bible. take, for example, the testimony of willet hicks, a reliable quaker preacher. on being interrogated by a neighbor of the author of this work as to the truth of the statement that he repented, he replied, "i was with paine every day during the latter part of his sickness, and can affirm that he did not express any regret for having written 'the age of reason,' as has been reported, nor for any thing he had said or written in opposition to the bible, nor ask forgiveness of god. he died as easy as any one i ever saw die; and i have seen a great many die." and yet this mr. hicks was in hopes he would repent. other similar testimony might be adduced; but this is sufficient. the story of ethan allen's daughter calling upon her father during her last illness, and asking him if he would recommend her to die in his religious belief, and his feeling so conscience-smitten by the question, that he exclaimed, "no: die in the belief of your mother!" (who was a christian) has gone the rounds of the christian pulpits. and yet we have the statement of his nephew, col. hitchcock, that he had no daughter to die during his lifetime. there is not one word of truth in the report. these two cases furnish samples of the manner in which a dying cause will grasp at straws. we will subjoin here the testimony of a clergyman, in proof that infidels are not more likely to die in a state of mental distress than christians: the rev. theodore clap, in his autobiography, says, "in all my experience i never saw an unbeliever die in fear. i have seen them expire without any hope or expectation of the future, but never in agitation from dread or misgiving as to what might befall them hereafter. we know that the idea is prevalent that this final event passes with some dreadful terror or agony of soul. it is imagined, that, in the infidel's case, the pangs of dissolution are greatly augmented by the upbraidings of a guilty conscience, and by the reluctance of the spirit to be torn from its mortal tenement, and hurried into the presence of an avenging judge; but this is all a superstitious fancy. it is a superstitious fear, from a false education, that causes any one to die in fear." the rev. w. h. spenser, of the first parish church (massachusetts), says, "some of the men most bitterly stigmatized as infidels have been among the most brilliant and useful minds the world has ever known, and, when dying and suffering from calumny and scorn, have only to wait for time to do them justice, and place them in history with the world's benefactors or saviors. there is not to be found on record one purely infidel man, in the sense now referred to, whose death-bed was attended by recantations and remorse." thus testifies a clergyman. we will now show from reliable authority that the most ardent faith in christ and the bible, and the most rigid and conscientious observance of their doctrines and precepts, do not guarantee permanent acquiescence or satisfaction, or protect the mind from the most violent mental perturbation in the hour of death. john calvin stood in the first ranks of the church militant in his time, and was considered by many the leading clergyman in christendom. hear what martin luther, his co-laborer, says with respect to his mortal exit: "he died forlorn and forsaken of god, blaspheming to the very end.... he died of scarlet fever, overrun and eaten up by ulcerous abscesses, the stench of which drove every person away. he gave up the ghost, despairing of salvation, and evoking devils from the abyss, and uttering oaths most horrible, and blasphemies most frightful." then tell us no more about infidels recanting and dying unhappy, after reading this case. yet all the cases and evidences cited above only tend to show that no forms of religious belief have any thing specially to do with the condition of mind in the hour of mortal dissolution, except so far as that belief has been invested with groundless, superstitious fears. hence persons who distribute death-bed tracts are in rather small business. we like the answer of a liberal-minded man, who, when in his dying moments he was asked by a priest if he had made his peace with his god, replied, "we have never had any unfriendly words." we don't believe there can be a case found in all christendom of an infidel repenting whose parents were unbelievers, so that he was not educated and biased in favor of any form of religious faith or belief. chapter xxxix.--forgiveness for sin, an immoral doctrine. the doctrine of divine forgiveness for sin is another illogical and immoral doctrine of the orthodox school, as well as that of heathen nations, which a logical analysis and the practical experience of nearly all religious countries show has been pernicious in its effects upon the morals of society. a little reflection must convince any unbiased mind that, while men and women are taught to believe that the consequences of sin or crime can be arrested or mitigated by an act of forgiveness by the divine law-maker, they will feel the less restrained from the commission of crime and wickedness. they naturally look upon it as a sort of license for the indulgence of their passions and propensities. they are taught that none of the evil consequences of wrong-doing can follow them to another world if they repent in time, and ask forgiveness. this they accept as a broad license to take their swing in vice and villainy. and thus they are partially demoralized by the doctrine. much more rational is the doctrine of the swedenborgians and harmonialists, that every sin or wrong act we commit makes its impress upon the soul, or immortal spirit, which will be carried with it to the life eternal, and will there long operate to impair the happiness, and retard the spiritual growth, of every person who in this life indulges in crime or immoral conduct. they teach us that the character we form for ourselves on this plane of existence will be carried with us to the spirit-world; that our character undergoes no radical change by merely passing through the gates of death. hence, whatever defective moral qualities we permit to de incorporated into our characters here will operate to sink us to a lower plane of happiness in the after-death world. this is a plausible and rational doctrine, to say the least, and can have no effect to demoralize the community, as the sentiments breathed forth by some of the orthodox hymns have evidently done. "there is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from immanuel's veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." could any doctrine be more demoralizing than that here set forth,--that the deep-dyed stains of a life of crime, debauchery, and wickedness can all be wiped out by the simple act of plunging into a pool of blood, or rather by believing that the atoning blood of christ will cleanse from all sin? the same idea is incorporated into watts's well-known hymn,-- "while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return." the idea here set forth is shocking to the moralist, as well as demoralizing in its effects on the community. "the vilest sinner" must feel very little concern about "returning" to the path of virtue, or abandoning his wicked deeds, while the conviction is established in his mind that he is losing nothing by leading such a life, and will have nothing to do at the end of a long life of the most shocking crimes, villainies, and vices, to escape entirely their legitimate punitive consequences, but to take a flip in "the blood of jesus." every scientific moralist can see very plainly that the world can never be reformed while such license for sin and wickedness is issued from the christian pulpit. practically speaking, god could not forgive a sin. an act of forgiveness implies that the legitimate consequence of the evil deed or sinful act can be set aside, and escaped. the principles of moral science teach us that this is impossible. it demonstrates that the moral law is a part of our being; and, consequently, an act of forgiveness for the violation or that law could not suspend its operation, or stop the infliction of its penalty upon the perpetrator. it could then, of course, effect nothing. hence it will be seen that no sin can be forgiven, but must work out its legitimate consequences. scientifically speaking, the law is the cause, and the penalty the effect: when the cause is set in operation, the effect must follow. it would be as easy to arrest the thunderbolt in its descent from the clouds as to evade the penalty of this law. god could not if he would, and would not if he could, forgive the violation of his laws. he could not, because he has wisely arranged those laws to operate without his interference. on the other hand, he would not if he could, because it would encourage their future and further violation. and then a god who would confer on us an inclination to commit certain acts, and then require us to ask his forgiveness for committing them, would not be a very consistent being. forgiveness is, theologically speaking, "a free ticket to heaven." buy a through ticket of the priest, and you can go on "the strait-line" road, direct to the orthodox "house of many mansions," without having to switch off at any station to unload your burden of sins. "all is well that ends well" is their motto. the orthodox clergy tell the most vile and debauched villain and bloody assassin, after he has inhumanly butchered and murdered his innocent and virtuous wife, can, by an act of repentance and forgiveness, swing from the end of the hangman's rope directly into a heaven of pure and unalloyed bliss, and, with his fingers all dripping with human blood, join the white-robed saints in shouting, "glory hallelujah to the lord god and the lamb for ever and ever!" spare me, oh, spare me, from ever believing in such a demoralizing religion as this! chapter xl.--can god be subject to anger? all bibles, and nearly every religious nation known to history, have taught that god often gets angry at the creatures of his own creation. but, in the light of modern science, nothing could be more transcendently absurd, or more absolutely impossible, than that a being possessing all knowledge--a being infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and filling all space throughout the boundless universe--should be a victim to the weakness and ungovernable impulse of passion. the very idea is revolting and blasphemous, and presents to every reflecting and unbiased mind a self-evident impossibility. the emotion of anger can only be the weakness of finite and imperfect beings. it is self-evidently impossible for a being possessing infinite perfection, and consequently infinite self-government, to cherish the feeling of anger for a moment, as the following consideration will show:-- . the modern study of mental philosophy has demonstrated anger to be a species of moral weakness; and hence it could not, for a single moment, occupy a mind possessing infinite perfection. a being, therefore, who is assumed to possess such a weakness is self-evidently not a god, but merely an imaginary being, fit only to be worshiped by ignorant slaves. . the practical experience of every person demonstrates anger to be a species of unhappiness, and often of absolute misery; and the indulgence of this passion not only makes the possessor unhappy, but destroys the happiness of every one around him. if, therefore, god were an angry being, instead of heaven being a place or state of happiness, it would be the most miserable place imaginable; for god is represented by the christian bible as getting angry every day (see ps. vii. ), and so angry that the "fury comes up in his face." as a yankee would say, "he gets mad all over." i frankly confess i don't want to live in such a heaven, or with such a god. indeed, it would be no heaven at all for anybody; for heaven is a state of happiness. . in the third place, the modern study of the science of philosophy has discovered that anger is a species of disease, which may result in mental and even physical suicide if carried far enough. it produces a congested state of the blood-vessels of the brain, which, if not arrested in its progress, will produce death. dr. gunn, in his work on domestic medicine, reports several cases in which an inquest was held over a dead body by a coroner's jury, and the verdict rendered, "came to his death in a fit of anger." however irreverent, the thought forces itself upon us, that such a verdict might be given over the dead body of jehovah if we were compelled to believe all we read of his getting angry; for it is a scientific deduction that can not be resisted, that, if anger can produce death in one being, it may in all beings subject to its influence. . again: as the result of the study of mental philosophy, anger is now known to be a species of insanity. it deranges, more or less, all the faculties of the mind, and often disqualifies the possessor for doing any thing right, or acting rationally, while under its influence. it often causes him to act without reason or judgment, and is liable to drive him to the commission of crime. as well think of entering the cage of a tiger as to take up our abode in a heaven ruled by such a god,--a heaven controlled by a god bereft of reason by the ungovernable action of his own passions. we could not be happy in such a heaven: we should be constantly under the influence of fear and apprehension, lest he should become enraged, and his vengeance fall upon us. where there is fear there is no heaven or happiness. if, as the bible tells us, he is liable to repent, he might experience this mental perturbation at any time, and repent for having admitted us into the heavenly kingdom, and consequently expel us. under such circumstances our motives would be very much weakened for laboring to reach such a heaven, not knowing that we should be permitted to remain there a single hour. how supremely ridiculous, when logically analyzed, is the conception of an angry god! it is entirely behind the age, and adapted only to the lowest stages of barbarism; and yet thousands of christian clergymen preach this demoralizing doctrine from the pulpit every sabbath day. it is demoralizing, because no person can believe in an angry, sin-punishing god, without cherishing such feelings in his own bosom. it is impossible for him to avoid it. indeed, he has no motives for trying to avoid it; but, on the contrary, he possesses the strongest motives for cultivating such feelings. for archbishop whately says, "religious people always try to be like the god they worship." they consider it not only their privilege, but their duty, to imitate him. hence, if they believe he gets mad occasionally, and pours out his vengeance upon his offending children (his disobedient subjects), they will naturally feel like following his example, and be cruel and revengeful to those who excite their anger. this preaching the doctrine of an angry god has a tendency to foster vengeful and vindictive feelings amongst the people; when, if the clergy would preach only a god of infinite love, infinite goodness, infinite perfection in all his attributes, we should soon see a marked change in society. kindness, love, and good-will would be manifested between man and man; and cruel, vengeful, and vindictive feelings would gradually die out, and be numbered amongst the things which have been and are not. then would the kingdom of peace be established on earth, and the millennium be ushered in. but we can not expect the priests to be better than their god, nor the people to be better than their priests. "like god like priest, and like priest like people." the priest deals out damnation upon the people to be like his god; and the people follow in his foot steps, and exercise cruel and revengeful feelings toward each other. it seems astonishing that such an immoral and blasphemous doctrine should have been so long and so extensively tolerated in professedly enlightened countries, as it is evident it must have had a bad effect; and past experience proves it has had a demoralizing effect upon the people where the doctrine has been preached. it furnishes an illustration of the omnipotent power of custom. chapter xli.--atonement for sin, an immoral doctrine. having appropriated a portion of two chapters in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors" to an exposition of the doctrine of the atonement, we shall treat the subject but briefly in this work. . it is shown in the work above mentioned, that the doctrine of the atonement is of heathen origin, and that it is predicated upon the assumption that no sin can be fully expiated without the shedding of blood. in the language of paul, "without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission for sin." a barbarous and bloody doctrine truly! but this doctrine was almost universally prevalent amongst the orientals long before paul's time. . christians predicate the dogma of atonement for sin upon the assumption that christ's death and sufferings were a substitute for adam's death, incurred by the fall. but as adam's sentence was death, and he suffered that penalty, this assumption can not be true. . if the penalty for sin was death, as taught in gen. iii., and christ suffered that penalty for man, then man should not die; but, as he does, it makes the doctrine preposterous. it could not have meant spiritual death, as some argue, because a part of the penalty was that of being doomed to return to dust (gen. r. ). . if crucifixion was indispensably necessary as a penalty, then the punishment should have been inflicted either upon the instigator or perpetrator of the deed: either the serpent or adam should have been nailed to the cross. . we are told in reply, that, as an infinite sin was committed, it required an infinite sacrifice. but adam, being a finite being, could not commit an infinite sin; and christ's sacrifice and sufferings could not be infinite, unless he had continued to suffer to all eternity. therefore the assumption is false. . an all-wise god would not let things get into such a condition as to require the murder of his only son from any consideration whatever. . and no father, cherishing a proper regard and love for his son, could have required him to be, or consented to have him, put to death in a cruel manner; for the claims of mercy and paternal affection are as imperative as justice. . to put an intelligent and innocent being to death for any purpose is a violation of the moral law, and as great a sin as that for which he died. hecatombs of victims can not atone for the infraction of the moral law which is engraven upon our souls. . if it were necessary for christ to be put to death, then judas is entitled to one-half the merit of it for inaugurating the act, as it could not have taken place without his aid; and no one who took part in it should be censured, but praised. . it is evident, that, if everybody had been quakers, no atonement would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed. . the atonement is either one god putting another to death, or god putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science or reason can indorse. . anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin. . the atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty; which is a double or twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. if a father should catch four of his children steeling, and the fifth one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would commit a double crime: st, that of punishing an innocent child; d, that of exonerating and encouraging the four guilty children in the commission of crime. the atonement involves the same principle. . no person with true moral manhood would consent to be saved on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins, rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. and the man who would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward, with a soul not worth saving. . who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through blood to get to the heavenly mansion? i want neither animals, men, nor gods murdered to save my soul. . if there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first atonement,--that of murdering an innocent being, "in whose mouth was no guile;" and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this atonement, and so on. and thus it would be atonement after atonement, murder after murder, _ad infinitum_. what shocking consequences and absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition! . it seems strange that any person can cherish the thought for a moment that the infinite father would require a sacrificial offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering "his only-begotten son." another monstrous absurdity! . the advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward his creator in the relation of a debtor; and the atonement cancels the debt. to be sure! how does it do it? we will illustrate: a man says to his neighbor, "i owe you a thousand dollars; but i won't pay it."--"very well," says the creditor, "i will tell you what i will do: i will forgive the debt by seizing on my own son, strip him of all he has, and then put him to death. the claims of justice will then be satisfied." a monstrous idea of justice! . the jewish and chaldean law of atonement required the offender to place his hand on the head of the beast while being consumed in sacrifice; and this was accepted as an atonement for his transgressions. such a conception is both senseless and demoralizing. he was thereby taught that he would escape the legitimate consequences of his crime. and the christian atonement is no better. the sin-atoning offering of christ furnishes an open door through which the sinner escapes the just punishment of law. it is at least a partial liquidation of his sins. when one being is punished for another, this is, to the latter, an immunity from punishment; and the ends of justice are thus completely thwarted, and the moral law broken and trampled under foot. if a culprit were sentenced to the penalty of death for murder, and the punishment of another man were accepted in his stead, every court in the civilized world would decide that two wrongs were committed,--the punishment of the innocent, and the pardon of the guilty. such doctrines are repugnant to ali ideas of justice, and are most certainly demoralizing. . the wrong-doer should be taught that he is just as guilty, and just as certain of punishment for his crime, as if all the gods in heaven were put to death to atone for his sin; the penalty being inseparable from the act. . what would be thought of the government that should punish the law-maker instead of the law-breaker? this is exactly what the atonement amounts to; so that the law-maker falls a victim to the penalty of his own laws. it is god the law-maker dying for man the law-breaker. such ideas and such doctrines are monstrous, and completely overthrow every principle of civil jurisprudence. . a god who could resort to such desperate expedients to appease his anger, and satisfy the demands of justice, is not a god, but merely an imaginary being which was conjured up in an age of ignorance and superstition. the belief in such a god is, nevertheless, demoralizing. we will here relate an anecdote, showing that such ideas of the supreme being are repulsive even to the unenlightened heathen: in smith's "gulf of guinea" it is stated, that, as a christian missionary was presenting the doctrine of the christian religion to pepples, king of bonny, and told him that god gave his only-begotten son to die for us,--to be put to death for our sins,--the king stopped him by saying, "do you think me a fool to believe such palaver as that,--that god would kill his own son to please himself; get mad at man, and then kill his own son, instead of killing him? never! never can i believe such fool palaver as that, it is a big fool lie." "i tried," says the missionary, "to impress upon his mind that nothing would satisfy divine justice but such a sacrifice; but he cut me short by exclaiming, 'that will do; that will do: i have got enough of such fool palaver.'" quite a sensible "heathen" was king pepples. chapter xlii.--special providence, an erroneous doctrine. all the holy books, and nearly all holy men who have figured in the world, have cherished a belief in what is termed "special providences,"--a doctrine which teaches that god individually and personally superintends the affairs, not only of all nations, but of each individual human being, now amounting in number to about fourteen hundred millions. it seems strange that the striking absurdity of such an assumption has not struck every mind possessing the power to reflect or investigate. the thought of his looking after the affairs and happiness of fourteen hundred millions of human beings at a time, besides running several thousand millions of worlds, far excels any of the astounding feats of the evil genii of gulliver. in the sublimity of its absurdity and impossibility, it stands without a rival. it expands beyond the utmost stretch of human credulity. like all the other doctrines of the popular creed, it sprang up in an age of the world when the human mind accepted every thing presented to it without investigation,--when nothing was rejected on the ground of its being too absurd to be believed. and an absurdity, when once established, no matter how monstrous or how stultifying to the intellectual or reasoning faculties, can bid defiance to the efforts of the few men of the world whose minds are too much expanded and enlightened to accept such gross absurdities. there are several objections to the doctrine of "special providences," both of a logical or scientific character, and also upon moral grounds, which shows that it should have no place in an age of scientific intelligence. one of these objections is the one just brought to notice,--that of its extreme absurdity and practical impossibility. it does not require a great mind, but only a reflecting one, to see that no rational conception of the supreme being could render it practicable for one mind, however boundless in knowledge and infinite in power, to be so divided as to look after the interest of each individual of a countless number, scattered over a world of more than a hundred and seventy-five thousand millions of miles in extent. a scientific investigation of the operations of nature has settled the conviction in every scientific mind that the life, actions, and destiny of every human being are under the control of fixed and immutable laws, which need only to be studied and observed to guard him effectually from personal accidents, and those physical disasters to which he often falls a victim through ignorance of the proper means of avoiding them. it is now patent to all critical observers that the serious disasters and numerous causes of physical suffering to which the larger portion of the human family were so frequently subjected in past ages, have largely diminished, and are constantly decreasing as the march of science dispels the ignorance of the people,--such as the sinking of ships, attributable to imperfect mechanical construction; pestilential diseases, caused by the general ignorance of the causes of and means of preventing; the explosion of steam-boilers on rivers, railroads, &c. and, from the present rates of improvement in these respects, we may reasonably calculate that the time is not far in the future when such disasters will be unknown. then we will have no need of "special providence" to save the people from the fatal consequences of their ignorance. the conviction seems now to be generally established in the public mind, that when a boat is wrecked, or a locomotive strays from the track, and a few persons escape with their lives from the general wreck and ruin, it is to be ascribed to the interposition of the hand of providence. but common sense would suggest, that, if providence had any thing to do with it, he should have commenced a little sooner, and put some more brains or common sense into the heads of the managers of these cargoes of human beings, or kept the whiskey out of their stomachs till they reached their point of destination. in the thousands of cases annually reported of providence interposing his aid to save some reckless mariners, or some heedless passengers on a pleasure-boat, from a watery grave, or rescuing a few persons from the wreck of a railroad bridge, or some similar calamity, the disasters might all have been avoided by providence simply acting upon the wisdom of the proverb, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." it would be considered an act of criminal neglect on the part of a father who could stand by and see his children, from ignorance of the danger of such a situation, fall from a precipice, and get crippled: for which his diligence in taking care of them, and trying to heal their bruises, would by no means excuse him, as he should have commenced sooner, and prevented the accident from taking place. and nearly all the cases of providential interposition are liable to the same objection: the assistance is too long delayed. a collision of two ships recently occurred on the atlantic, by which both vessels were reduced almost to wrecks; but "providentially but few lives were lost," though most of the passengers were injured. now the question naturally arises, why did not god, when he perceived the vessels were approaching each other, interpose his providential care, and prevent the disaster? he either could not, or would not; and, in either case, he is not infinite in all his attributes, according to the general ideas of the matter. if he could not, he is either not omnipresent or not infinite in power; and, if he could and would not, he is not infinite in kindness and benevolence, or he would have put forth his hand, and saved his children from such a terrible fate. it is time mankind would learn that god governs the universe by general laws, fixed and unalterable, and ever harmonious, and that he never interferes immediately or personally in the affairs of men. that finite human spirits do, in many cases, aid in human affairs by warning of danger, &c., is fully believed by many persons. if this be true, their interposition would be liable to be mistaken for that of the infinite spirit. but that any being can perform millions of finite acts at once, or that god should suspend the operation of his laws, which control the universe, for the purpose of attending personally to the wants and prayers of each and every individual the world over,--many of the petitions running counter to, or in direct conflict with, each other,--is an idea too absurd to find lodgment in any truly enlightened mind. but we entertain the pleasing thought that men are beginning to learn that god governs by general laws, and not by personal or special agency. these laws are so perfect in their operations that no special laws or personal interference is necessary in any case. a critical investigation of any case of special providences would satisfy any scientific investigator that it was governed entirely by natural causes; but such scrutinizing investigations are seldom made. the great mass of pious people in all past ages have been so ignorant, and so little accustomed to reasoning or observation, that they have never observed, that, although many cases are reported of providence interfering to save the life of a child who fell from the window of a basement-story, none are recorded of his saving a child that fell from the fifth story. why is this? does not this fact suggest a scientific lesson? but the heads of the great mass of the people have been so filled with creeds and catechisms that they have no room for science. it will be time enough to talk about special providences after a case is known of a man escaping with his life after a cannonball has passed through his head, or a bullet through his heart. the belief in special providences is calculated to paralyze human effort in times of danger, and thus suffer the consequences to be more frequently fatal. let a man believe, while a ship is being wrecked in a storm, dashing against rocks and billows, and her deck overflowed with water, that there is a providence in the case, and he will naturally labor with less zeal and effort to save the vessel. if the case is in the hands of god, and it is his good pleasure that they should be lost, it is of but little use to work the pumps; and, if it is his will that they should be saved, they will be saved without much effort on their part. there can be no doubt but that millions of pious people have been restrained on various occasions from putting forth their strongest efforts to arrest a threatening disaster, from the conviction that the hand of god was in it, and that no human efforts could change the fate he had decreed for them. and thus the doctrine, in its practical consequences, has been pernicious. but, in this age of reason and scientific illumination, men are beginning to learn, that, in cases of threatening danger and destruction, muscle is more necessary than "providence;" that, when a ship is sinking in mid-ocean, pumps are more efficacious than prayers; and, when a building is on fire, they can better do without the assistance of providence than without water, firemen, and engines. chapter xliii.--faith and belief, bible errors respecting. "faith" and "belief" seem to be among the most important words in the christian new testament. no words are much more frequently used. they occur in nearly every chapter, and are used more than two hundred times. the following is a specimen of the manner in which these words are used:-- "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." this text, and the sentiment it contains, have caused more misery, cruelty, and more butchery than all the edicts of any king that ever sat on the throne of england. never did a more delusive and fatal error find lodgment in the human mind than the idea couched in this text. terrible have been the denunciations, punishments, and cruelties poured upon the unbelievers in the popular creed, though that creed has been one thing one day, and something else the next. no matter how honest, how upright, how benevolent, or how righteous a man proved himself in his practical life, he was doomed to the dungeon, the fagot, and the halter, if his creed was not conformable to the orthodox faith then in power. men and women have been condemned and punished for assuming the right to doubt the truth of any doctrine of the popular creed,--an egregious mistake, showing a profound ignorance of the nature of the human mind. all persons versed in the science of mental philosophy now know that a man has no more control over his doubts and beliefs than he has over the blood that courses through his veins: for, without evidence, he can not believe; and, with it, he can not disbelieve, as every one will find who will examine this matter critically. consequently it is as unreasonable to condemn a man for his belief or disbelief, as to condemn him for the color of his hair. doubt, so far from being restrained, should be cultivated, as being the first step toward the attainment of knowledge and progress; for a man never makes any advancement or improvement in his views on any subject till he begins to doubt the correctness of his present views, or, at least, doubts their being perfect, or being incapable of improvement. who, then, can not see that to threaten a man for disbelief is tyranny and injustice, inasmuch as it has a tendency to make him a slave, and to repress the growth of his mind? condemning a man for disbelief is virtually offering a premium for hypocrisy, as it has the effect to make thousands _profess_ to believe doctrines which they do not, and which their consciences really condemn, in order to avoid the frowns and ill-will of their neighbors. and, as hypocrisy is a greater evil in its practical effects upon society than unbelief, it can be seen that the practice of erecting a standard for belief and disbelief is wrong, and mischievous in its effects. the bible declares that "faith is the gift of god." it is evident, that, if this be true, no responsibility can attach to faith or religious belief; but all responsibility rests with the being who gives it. two great blunders have been committed by faith-dealers: first, in assuming that belief is of the nature of a coat, which can be put on and off at pleasure,--i.e., that a man can believe what he pleases or wishes to believe. the second is, that knowledge and belief are synonymous terms, which is very far from being true. knowledge begins where faith and belief end. belief is that uncertain state of the mind which is experienced in the absence of knowledge; and, when that knowledge is obtained, the belief may prove to have been entirely erroneous. belief implies _uncertainty_; knowledge implies _certainty_. there is this wide difference between them. we believe a thing when we do not know whether it is so or not; consequently the belief may be true or false. how egregious, then, the blunder of the orthodox world in condemning for disbelief! belief, then, is a state of guessing. we will illustrate the position of orthodox christendom: a boy throws up a copper coin, and cries, "heads, or tails?" a by-stander, believing from its construction that "heads" will come up, cries out, "heads!" now, according to the logic of the orthodox, if he guesses wrong, he should be damned eternally for it. when you say to a man, "you shall believe this, or you shall believe that," you bind his soul in chains, and reverse the wheels of his progress, and push him toward the "dark ages." the fear that it would be a sin to doubt, causes religious ignorance; and a man will never abandon his religious errors and superstitions while he fears to doubt their truth. a man's belief and creed grow shorter as his knowledge increases. and the time is not far distant when philosophers and men of science will have no religious belief: all will be knowledge. it can be seen from the above exposition, that it is folly and consummate ignorance to attach so much importance to religious belief, inasmuch as it is impossible to know whether it is right or wrong. as the doctrine that belief is a virtue, and unbelief a crime has inundated the world with persecution, misery, and blood, it is time to abandon it. those christians who assume that belief is under the control of the will can settle the matter by trying the following experiment upon themselves: let them try to believe, for only five minutes, that mahomet was a true prophet, and jesus christ was an impostor. if they can do this, it will settle the question, and prove that man is responsible for his belief: otherwise he is not. some persons adhere to the bible upon the plea that "it is safest to believe it, and unsafe to disbelieve it." but he who can believe an error or absurdity, or, rather, profess to believe it because he is afraid to disbelieve it, has not a soul big enough to be saved, and will be certain to miss it; or, if he could be saved, no man of sense would want to live in a heaven made up of such moral cowards and moral dwarfs. and, besides, the only way to make a safe thing of being saved on this ground, is to swallow all the two thousand systems of religion in the world,--six hundred christian creeds, and fourteen hundred heathen traditions; and, to do this, a person must have a very capacious stomach. chapter xliv.--a personal god impossible. most of the bibles, and nearly all the religious teachers of the world, have represented god as being a personal being, and, at the same time, an infinite spirit. but that is another of the "thousand and one" absurdities that have been taught and believed in the name of religion. a personal being must, in all cases, be an organized being. this is so self-evident as to need no argument; and that an organized being can not be an infinite being is almost equality self-evident. an organized being must be a finite being. the word "finite" is used to express the opposite of "infinite." to assume, therefore, that a finite being, or a being with a finite body, can also be infinite, is equivalent to assuming that a thing can be white and black, large and small, long and short, light and heavy, &c., at the same time; which is a self-evident absurdity. a personal being must be constituted of different parts, or members,--as a head, heart, body, feet, &c.; and, if such a being could be infinite, then each member must be infinite. but as it is self-evident that a being to be infinite must fill all space, and that nothing can be infinite unless it does occupy all space, it can be seen at once, that, if one member were infinite, it would occupy all space, which would preclude the possibility of another member being infinite. thus we are completely swamped at the first step toward making a personal god infinite. here let it be noted that the god of the bible is represented as possessing all the members of the human body,--eyes ( pet. iii. ), ears (ibid.), nose (isa. , ), mouth (isa. xiv. ), feet (rev. i. ), arms (isa. xxx. ), hands (exod. xiii. ), fingers (exod. viii. ), head (dan. vii. ), heart (isa. lxiii. ), lips (ps. xvii. ), &c. now, it is evidently impossible that such a being could be infinite. we may be told that these members are all to be taken in a spiritual sense. granted, and the thing is equally impossible; for they must still be separate members. there could be no possible sense in applying all these terms to the whole being. they must apply to separate parts; and, the moment we use terms which imply the existence of more than one part, we concede the impossibility of such a god being infinite: for only one part, one being, or one thing can be infinite. there can not be two infinite beings,--self-evidently not. and there are other logical difficulties in the way of admitting the existence of an infinite personal god. if there could be such a thing as an infinite personality or organized being, it is evident that only one such being could exist. what, then, becomes of the father, son, and holy ghost, and also the devil? they are all spoken of in the bible as being omnipresent. hence they must all be infinite, which is another self-evident impossibility. we could as easily conceive of two heads wearing the same hat at the same time, as two such beings being infinite. if one of them is infinite, the others can not be; and yet each is represented as being omnipresent, which would make them infinite. and thus we fail in every attempt to make a personal god infinite. david, in speaking of the god jehovah, says, "if i descend into hell, behold thou art there." then he would not find the devil there; for two infinite beings could not be found there. and, if god's dwelling-place is in hell as well as in heaven, it can make but little difference which of the two places we go to, as we are told our happiness will consist in being in his presence. the defenders of a personal god sometimes have recourse to an illustrative argument. they tell us that the sun is a local, circumscribed body, and yet shines to a boundless extent. it is here assumed that the rays of the sun are a part of the sun; but this is not true. they once constituted a part of the sun, it is true; but to assume that they are still a part of the sun, after they have left it, is as absurd as to assume that the breath is still a part of the human body after it has escaped from the mouth. thus every argument and every illustration fail to establish the self-evident absurdity of a personal god of the orthodox world being an infinite being; or, in other words, of their conception of a god conforming to the teachings of science and good sense. those who assume the existence of a personal god must hold him accountable for all the crime and all the misery existing in the world. for such a god could not be controlled or circumscribed in his actions by any arbitrary laws; and hence could and should, by personal interference, put a stop to all the crime, misery, suffering, and wrong of every description existing on earth; and the fact that he does not do it we hold to be _prima-facie_ evidence that there is no personal god, but that every thing is governed by fixed, immutable laws, which control god himself, and which no god can alter. note.--we have shown in the twelve preceding chapters that all the leading doctrines of christianity are wrong,--from that of a belief in divine revelation to that of the conception of a personal god. hence a better religion is needed for this age. chapter xlv.--evil, natural and moral, explained. the problem of the origin of evil has been the great theological puzzle to all theologians and with all religious systems, and has turned the heads of more good people, and sent more devout christians to the lunatic asylum, than any other theological question, excepting that of endless punishment; and yet modern science, which furnishes the principles for solving all the "holy mysteries" and miracles embodied in the religious creeds and bibles of the past ages, shows the question to be quite simple and easily understood. the true signification of the word _evil_, in a moral sense, can be expressed in a few words. it is only another name for _imperfection or negation_. it is the negative pole of the _great moral battery_; and without it the battery could not be run. and without it there could be no morality, no moral principle or accountability, while man exists upon the present animal plane. in fact, morality without evil would be an unmeaning word. evil is a state of imperfection running through every vein of nature, from the igneous rock to the brain of man. some writers attempt to discriminate between natural and moral evil; but there is no dividing line. moral evil is as natural as any phenomenon in nature, and is, strictly speaking, the phenomenal action of the brain. moral evil is governed as rigidly by natural laws as physical evil; because (as science demonstrates) it has its basis in man's moral nature. and, practically speaking, there will be neither natural nor moral evil when nature (now in a crude state) grows to a state of maturity. evil or imperfection, which now characterizes every thing, diminishes in its ratio to goodness or perfection as we ascend from inanimate matter to man,--the crowning work of nature. the theological world assumes that man alone bears the impress of imperfection, and that his imperfection is restricted principally to his moral action. "man alone is imperfect: all else bears the mark of divine perfection." so says archbishop whately. but the converse assumption is nearer true: man is the crowning work of nature, and his moral attributes constitute the keystone of the arch. he is occasionally erratic, and often wicked, but not universally and continually so, like some of the lower animal tribes. the hyena will murder at all times when opportunity offers; but man only occasionally, and when driven to it by the pressure of circumstances. all monkeys are thieves; but only a small portion of the _genus homo_ are such. man derives all his propensity to evil and wickedness from the lower animals. his propensity to rob is exhibited in the eagle; his inclination to steal, in the monkey; his disposition to murder, in the hyena, alligator, rattlesnake, &c.; his disposition to enslave, in the red ant, which makes a slave of the black ant, as has often been observed by naturalists. such was the wickedness among the lower animals in their earlier stage of development, that, by theft, robbery, and murder, they effected the entire extinction of many species of animals. and if we descend still lower, and learn the practical history of the mineral kingdom, we shall find that its operations are marked by a a still more ruinous and destructive form of evil. the hideous and devouring earthquake; the heaving and overflowing volcano, burying whole cities beneath its deep and merciless waves of running fire; the roaring and furious tornado, destroying hundreds of dwellings, and dooming the inmates to a terrible death; and the swift-sped lightning, which, with no note of warning, strikes down hundreds of people every year,--all these violent operations of nature are the manifestation of evil, and a proof that imperfection exists everywhere. and man is the last and least manifestation of this multifarious destructive outburst of nature; and he will never outgrow it, and escape its operation entirely, till all nature arrives at manhood. while nature is imperfect, man will be imperfect; for he is a child of nature, and all things move forward in correlated order. he can, however (and it is a necessity of his nature that he should), battle with opposing forces, and modify the circumstances around him. his nature impels him to this as naturally as it urges him to eat food when hungry; but, as at present constituted and situated, it will be the work of time to rid the earth of moral evil. the only way to accomplish the extinction of evil is to labor for the elevation of the whole race. we are only rowing against the current in attempting to put down evil with our present system of moral ethics, which treats the criminal as a wicked being instead of an unfortunate, sin-sick brother. he should be sent to a moral hospital instead of to the gallows, the jail, and the dungeon. he should be treated as an unfortunate brother, rather than as a being to be spurned from society as a viper. he should be treated kindly, not cruelly; fed, and not starved. his moral nature should be warmed by affection, and not congealed by frowns. his instinctive respect for virtue should be developed by a sound moral education, and not crushed by pursuing him with a malignant spirit. moral evils must be treated as the fruits of the imperfections of our nature, and not as the product of sin-punishing devils, who first originate and stimulate crimes, and then join with cod in punishing the criminal with fiendish cruelty; thus applying a remedy which is a thousand times worse than the disease. the science of phrenology explains most beautifully the cause and nature of sin or crime, and demonstrates that it is simply the perverted or unbalanced action of the natural faculties of the mind. combativeness when excessively developed or unduly excited, prompts to quarrels and fighting; destructiveness, under similar circumstances, leads to war and bloodshed; amativeness, when not properly restrained, leads to the various forms of licentiousness; over-active acquisitiveness is the main-spring in most cases of theft and robbery, and all crimes committed for the acquisition of property or money. and other crimes are prompted by the over-active condition of these and, other mental faculties unrestrained by the moral faculties, every act and every species of crime are in this way most satisfactorily accounted for by this now generally received and thoroughly established science of mental philosophy; so that "the mystery of godliness," comprehended in the word sin, which for ages perplexed the student of theology, is now unraveled and understood by the scientific men of the age, and known to have a natural basis and natural origin. and this all-important discovery has driven the old orthodox devil from the arena of human action. he no longer walks "to and fro in the earth, seeking whom he may devour." he is dead--dead,--killed by the sledge-hammer of science. and yet the fifty thousand clergymen who still "defend the faith once delivered to the saints" are (many of them) so far behind the march of human progress that the news of the mortal exit of his satanic majesty seems not yet to have reached them; or, if it has, it is because they are unwilling to lose the services of a long-cherished and highly valued friend that they refuse to credit the report of his demise. take away their devil, and their whole theological scaffolding falls to the ground. revivals could no more be carried on without his aid, than a watch could be kept running without a main-spring. and with the departure of the devil must go "salvation by christ," as there is then nothing, in a theological sense, to be saved from. it is an important fact, of which the clergy seem to be ignorant, that the march of science has exploded all their old theological dogmas. phrenology has banished the devil; physiology explains the _modus operandi_ of repentance; psychology, the process of "getting religion;" philosophy analyzes their bible miracles; geology has expanded their six days of creation into six thousand years; astronomy has displaced moses' theory of creation, and demolished st. john's little eight-by-ten heaven. (see rev. chap. .) and yet the orthodox clergy refuse to shorten their creeds by leaving out these old, exploded dogmas. like moles, they continue rooting and digging away among their musty creeds, dogmas, and catechisms, seemingly unconscious that the sun of science is now shining with dazzling brilliancy in the moral heavens. some of them manifest a tenacity in holding on to musty and antiquated dogmas equal to that of the butcher's dog in the army which seized a slaughtered ox by the caudal appendage, with the intention of monopolizing the meat, and held on with a "manly grip" till limb after limb had been torn off, and piece after piece had been cut away from the body by the hungry soldiers, and nothing was left but the tail and the backbone; and then his canine majesty growled at passers-by, as much as to say, "i am master of the situation." the fossilized clergy are "masters of the situation," while the old orthodox carcass is now minus every part but the tail and naked backbone, to which they cling with a deathly grasp worthy of a better cause. they remind us of the hotel-keeper in vermont, who, in answer to the interrogatories of some travelers, stated that he did not keep any kind of food for either men or horses. "what in the name of god, then, do you keep?" inquired one of the hungry guests. he replied, "i keep union hotel." the stand-still clergy still keep the old theological hotel minus any spiritual food, or supplied only with old salt junk handed down from the camp of moses or father abraham. a word more with respect to the origin of evil: is it not strange that christians should deny their god to be the author of evil, when it is expressly so declared in their bible? "i make peace, and _i create evil_. i jehovah do all these things." here is the positive declaration that god is the author of evil; and, if it were not thus unequivocally taught, we could prove that the bible teaches this doctrine _indirectly_ by various texts if "god made every thing that was made," then he either made evil or the author of evil, whether that was a devil or a serpent or a fallen angel; and this is substantially the same thing as originating evil,--to originate the author of evil. we challenge refutation of the proposition. but a philosophical analysis of the question will show there is no such thing as evil in either the _abstract or absolute_ sense. good and evil are but relative terms, like heat and cold, light and darkness, &c. there is no distinct line of demarkation between any of these correlative terms. it is impossible to tell where one ends, and the other begins. and then there is no act but that may become either right or wrong under different circumstances. the bible says, "thou shalt not kill." but the man who should see an assassin pointing a pistol to the head of his wife, or a dagger to her breast, and refrain from killing him as the only means of saving her life, would be virtually himself a murderer. "thou shalt not steal" (exod. xx.); and yet stealing would become a _moral right_, as well as a physical necessity, to avoid starvation. and so of all other acts called crime and sin: they may become _absolute virtues_. how foolish, therefore, to erect inflexible standards for human action or conduct! and then it should be noted that what is regarded as sin in one age or country may be imposed as a moral or religious duty in another. it is a sin to disbelieve the koran in arabia, and a sin to believe it in america. it is a sinful act to disbelieve the christian bible in this country, and a moral and religious duty in japan. it is blasphemy and atheism to disbelieve in jehovah and jesus christ in this country, but a still greater blasphemy and sin to believe in them in arabia. and thus all human actions are modified by the circumstances under which, and the locality in which, they are committed. chapter xlvi.--true salvation, ok the rational view of sin. we will now attempt to show what reason, science, and god's eternal bible teach as the nature of sin and its consequences. the orthodox world represents sin to be a personal affront against a personal god. but we take a broader, and, we think, a more rational view of the matter. we believe that no act of ours, whether good or bad, can possibly affect an infinite, omnipresent, and impersonal deity in any way whatever. nothing we can do can either offend or gratify such a being. he is infinitely too far removed from our little narrow sphere of action. but every thing we do can and _does affect ourselves_, and generally our friends and all connected with us. every wrong act we perform inflicts an injury upon our moral consciousness, and a wound upon our sense of right, and inflicts a lasting injury upon our moral dignity, if it does not create a painful sense of wrong. and, when once committed, no repentance, no forgiveness, no prayer, no atonement, no pardon, can do any thing toward arresting the baneful effects, or toward healing the wound it has inflicted upon our moral consciousness, or the injury it has inflicted upon others. hence we never ask for forgiveness, nor rely upon any atonement by men, animals, or gods to cancel the effects, or mitigate the wrong, or alleviate the injury in the case. when you put your finger into fire, and burn it, you violate one of god's laws written upon your own constitution,--the law of self-preservation; and it inflicts a wound which the longest and loudest prayer ever uttered can do nothing towards healing. the effect will remain until healed by the working of nature's inherent laws. a similar effect is produced by every wrong act you inflict upon yourself or your fellow-beings. it inflicts a wound which is beyond the reach of prayer, pardon, repentance, or forgiveness. it most work ita natural cure, as in the case of physical injury. all bodily suffering comes through the mind, and hence affects the mind as well as the body; and every moral wrong we commit inflicts punishment or suffering upon the moral feelings. hence it will be seen that sin does not have to wait for god to point out the penalty or punishment, but contains its own punishment, which no power in heaven or earth can arrest, avert, or set aside. this is evidently the only true doctrine respecting the punishment for sin; and it is the only doctrine that can stop the commission of crime, and the only doctrine that can ever reform the world; for, while the people are taught that sin can be atoned for by any power in heaven or earth, they will the more easily yield to the temptations to commit sin. their will feel that this doctrine is a kind of license for sin: at least it weakens the motive for abstaining from sin. for if a man may lead a life of crime, sin, wickedness, and debauchery, destitute of all moral principle, for ninety-nine years, as orthodoxy teaches, and then have the effect entirely canceled, and the sin entirely erased from his soul, by one short hour of prayer and repentance and forgiveness, and by acknowledging his faith in the atoning blood of christ, and then stand before god without a moral blot upon his soul, all purified and ready to join the pure in heart--the white-robed angels who lived a life of self-denial and purity--in shouting glory to god, where is the motive for leading a virtuous life? it is entirely too weak to restrain from the commission of crime while the temptation is as strong as we usually find it in all countries, especially as there is apparently a large premium offered to sinners. christ says, "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent-eth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance" (luke xv. ). no wonder that sin abounds in all christian countries; and it always will abound while people are taught such pernicious doctrines. therefore we hold the doctrines of repentance, atonement, forgiveness, &c., to be all wrong. they are subversive of the first principles of moral justice, and pernicious in their effects upon society. let the wrong-doer, instead of being taught these pernicious doctrines, be instructed in the true system of salvation, which will teach him there is no possibility of evading or escaping the punitive effects of wrong-doing; that every wrong act he commits will inevitably drive the iron into his soul,--the two-edged sword of moral conviction; and that the blood of no goats or no gods can do any thing toward washing away the sin, or mitigating the punishment. and let him be rescued also from the pernicious error of the churches, that "sin is a sweet morsel to be rolled under the tongue," or that "there is a pleasure in the commission of sin." we hold no such views; we believe in no such doctrines. we do not believe there is any real pleasure in the commission of a moral wrong of any kind. we believe that only a life of virtue is productive of real happiness. let the wrongdoer be taught this moral lesson; and let him be also taught that every humane and virtuous act of this life will expand his soul, and elevate him to a higher plane of happiness, and bring him one step nearer the door of the heavenly kingdom. let the world of mankind all be taught these beautiful and soul-elevating doctrines, which many now know by experience to be golden truths; and we will soon witness a great moral revolution and renovation in society by the propagation of these doctrines. we shall soon see the proof that our system of faith, embracing these beautiful, philosophical, and elevating doctrines, is much better calculated to moralize and reform the world than the morally weak and unjust doctrines of repentance, atonement, and pardon now daily preached from the christian pulpits. many cases could be cited to show that they do have a pernicious influence. i will adduce one example: when that _christian_ emperor, constantine, had murdered his wife, son, nephew, and several other relatives, he raised his hands toward heaven, and exclaimed, "the blood of christ cleanseth from all sin." here is an example of the pernicious and demoralizing effect of the christian doctrines of atonement and forgiveness. we repeat, then, that such doctrines are demoralizing, as they must operate to retard the progress of truth and true religion, and the moral reformation of the world. people should be taught that it is as impossible to escape the penalty for sin or wrong-doing as it is to escape the darts of death; and that any act of forgiveness or atonement by some other being is only calculated to aggravate the wrong, and augment the sin, and open the door for a future commission of the act. all should understand that there is no one to pardon sins, and no savior but themselves. "the new religion," as it is sometimes called,--though it is the oldest religion in the world, being founded in the moral and religious nature of man, and an outgrowth of his moral, religious, and spiritual elements,--this religion, which is the religion of all the truly enlightened and scientific minds of the age, teaches that every person must be his own savior; that every man and woman must work out their own salvation, not with fear and trembling', however, but with joy and rejoicing. hence we ask no bleeding saviors, no atonements, no acquittals by pardon or forgiveness. we offer no such bribery for crime or sin,--no such allurements and inducements for leading a life of vice; for many can testify, from their own experience, that they were more easily tempted from the path of virtue when they believed in these old heathenish, morally deformed, and morally dwarfing doctrines. on the other hand, they have felt much more strongly wedded to a life of virtue, and more powerfully restrained from wrong-doing since they abandoned these pernicious doctrines, and embraced the healthful, beautiful, and elevating doctrines of the "harmonial philosophy." this system teaches we have to suffer the penalty in full for every wrong act we commit; that we _can not escape in any case_ by either _repentance, atonement, or pardon_; that we can not swim off to heaven through the blood of a murdered or crucified god, and leave our sins behind unpunished, or pack them on the back of a savior as the jews did theirs of the back of a goat. it teaches us that the penalty is as certain as the commission of the crime; because one is the cause, and the other the effect. hence we could as easily replace a lost arm, torn off in the field of battle, by prayer, or stop the descending lightning from splintering yonder tree into a thousand fragments, as to avert or set aside the penalty for crime by "supplicating the throne of grace." we hold that every wrong act we commit, if it does not destroy our happiness at the time, and operate as a barbed arrow sticking in the soul, will at least weaken our capacity for happiness in the future, weaken our moral strength and resolution to abstain from crime, weaken our natural detestation of crime, and weaken our moral ability to resist the temptation to commit the same and other crimes in the future, and finally destroy our moral manhood and true dignity. now, here is a series of powerful motives for eschewing evil, and leading a life of virtue, which will operate to arrest that river of crime and iniquity now flowing through all christian countries as soon as the people are taught these rational and beautiful doctrines in lieu of those weak and foolish incentives to virtue which are taught them from the christian pulpit. they possess a much greater moral force than the fear of angry gods and horned devils. _reader ponder these maxims._ _the true theory of reform_.--it requires but a few words to show what kind of moral teaching is required to reform the world. as happiness is the predominant desire and inalienable right of every human being, all aim to pursue that course best calculated to attain it; but, as men are now organized and circumstanced, they often pursue a course of life which infringes upon and destroys the happiness of others: and some of them commit acts known as crimes, which are simply trespasses upon the rights, peace, and happiness of their neighbors. if, in thus pursuing happiness, they must destroy the happiness of others, then it follows that the happiness of others is incompatible with their own. if so, then god has made a serious blunder in making one man's happiness depend upon destroying the happiness of others; and, as their happiness would depend equally upon destroying his, the happiness of all would thus be destroyed. hence the theory won't work. it follows, then, that men lead a life of crime calculated to destroy the happiness of others, because they are ignorant of the fact that they can pursue a course of life that will secure their own happiness without destroying that of others. all that is necessary to reform them, therefore, is to convince them of this fact. this is the true theory, and the whole theory, of reform. and when people become acquainted with the modern discovery in moral philosophy, which teaches us that we can not attain to complete happiness without consulting the happiness of others in every act which affects them, there will be a double motive for leading a virtuous and honorable life. even christian professors will profit by it when they find that the grasping avarice which prompts them to try to monopolize wealth, and thus withhold the means of comfort and happiness from their neighbors, is not the way to attain real happiness for themselves. when the glorious era arrives that men will daily look after the happiness of others as well as their own, then we shall have a true religion, and a true state of society, and a happy world. chapter xlvii.--the bible sanctions every species of crime. "be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect" (matt, v. ). all christian professors admit that this perfection is to be attained by following his practical example, and that the way to become acquainted with this practical example is to read the bible. let us see, then, where a practical compliance with this precept, as thus understood, will lead us. if the god of the bible is to be accepted as our "heavenly father," then a compliance with this precept will leave no crime uncommitted, and no sin not perpetrated; for he is represented as either committing or sanctioning every species of crime, wickedness, and immorality known to society in the age in which the bible was written. that the truth of this statement may not be called in question, we will proceed to bring forward evidence to prove it. i. the bible sanctions murder. we find a scriptural warrant for the highest crime known to the law,--that of murder. god is represented as saying to his holy people, "go ye out and slay every man his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor" (exod. xxii. ). and, relative to the dissenter from the faith, he is represented as saying, "ye shall stone him with stones that he die." now, if such texts are not calculated to foster the spirit of murder, and to extinguish the natural repugnance to cruelty and bloodshed in the human mind, we can conceive of no language that would have such an effect, especially when it is taken in connection with christ's injunction, "he that hath not a sword, let him sell his coat, and buy one." and the practical lives of christian professors, from the earliest establishment of the church, furnishes proof of the demoralizing influence of such texts as these upon the readers of the bible. these injunctions to murder and slaughter have been faithfully obeyed; and the effect has been to submerge christendom in a sea of blood. look, for proof, at the war among the churches for many years about the doctrine of the eucharist, which resulted in the destruction of three hundred thousand lives; the fight about images, in which fifty thousand men, women, and children were murdered; the war of a dozen churches against the sect of the manicheans in the ninth century (a.d. ) about some trivial doctrine of the christian creed, and which left on the battle-field no less than a hundred thousand murdered human beings; the church schism, in the time of john huss and jerome of prague, followed by the war of the hussites, which resulted in a bloody slaughter of a hundred and fifty thousand fellow-christians; the war known as "the holy inquisition," established in the year , made a record in its history of human butchery of two hundred thousand christian professors who had to atone in blood for assuming the liberty to differ from the popular creed; and, finally, the thirty years' war which strewed the earth with bloody corpses to the frightful number of five millions of human beings, the whole makes a sum total of eighteen millions, a large portion of which were christian professors,--all the work of christian hands and christian churches, professed followers of the "prince of peace." but, if the text quoted above means any thing (requiring his followers to buy swords), he appears also to have been the prince of war. all the bloody tragedies cited above, which form but a small number of the cases which indelibly stain the records of the christian church,' show how faithfully christian professors have lived out the demoralizing injunctions of their bible, and prove that the book has been a powerful lever for evil as well as for good. even the _shocking cruelties_ displayed in the execution of these bloody tragedies finds a warrant in the bible. in their efforts to carry out the bible injunction to exterminate heretics, no species of cruelty was left untried as a punishment for the honest dissenter from the faith. the sword of the church was unsheathed, and plunged with a fierce and relentless ferocity into the bosoms and bowels of their neighbors and fellow-christian professors, whose only offense was that of believing and worshiping god according to the dictates of their consciences. with a burning hatred for heretics, stimulated by reading the bible injunction to put them to death in a cruel manner, they leaped upon them with the ferocity of tigers, and tortured them to death with every species of cruelty their ingenuity could invent. they tied them to the whipping-post, or chained them to the fiery fagot; lacerated their bodies; cut their tongues from their mouths; tore their flesh from their bones with iron hooks, tongs, and pincers; cut off their lips, and tore out their tongues, so that their piercing cries and heart-rending agonies could convey no intelligible sound; tore their nails from their fingers, and thrust needles into the bleeding wounds; melted red-hot metal, and poured it down their throats; plucked out their eyes, and threw them to beasts; and, in some cases, their bodies were "stretched upon the rack, and flayed alive, or torn limb from limb". but i forbear: the picture is too shocking. oh that the waves of oblivion could roll over and cover such deeds of cruelty for ever! i rejoice that the age for such atrocities is passed, and, i trust, can never return. i hope the churches will never again hold the reins of government, and shape all the laws of the country. the reason we do not witness such horrible scenes now is, that many church-members have outgrown their bible; and, if there are any who have not, they are restrained by laws enacted by liberal minds of too much good feeling and good sense to permit the churches to thus cruelly persecute each other, or those who conscientiously differ from them. i have stated that the shocking cruelties and barbarities practiced by christians upon each other in past ages, find a warrant in the bible. the act of david, "the man after god's own heart," in placing the children of ammon under saws and harrows of iron, is scarcely equaled in atrocity by any act recorded in the history of the fiji cannibals. it is revolting to every impulse of benevolence, every feeling of humanity, and all ideas of mercy or justice. and his wicked prayer, contained in the one hundred and ninth psalm, breathes forth the same spirit. it is a series of fiendish imprecations poured out upon the heads of those who differed from his creed, and worshiped a different god. we will quote some of his language: "set thou a wicked man over him. let there be none to extend mercy unto him; let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let his posterity be cut off, and their name blotted out; let the extortioner get all that he hath; let his prayer become sin; let the stranger spoil his land; let not the sin of his mother be blotted out." here is a series of most malignant imprecations issuing from a mind rankling and burning with a feeling of implacable revenge, which is shocking to contemplate. it is murderous in its intent, and demoralizing in its effect upon those who accept it as being in accordance with the will of god. no person can contemplate the cruelties practiced by this "man of god" upon his unoffending neighbors, or read his vengeful prayer, and accept it as emanating from "the man after god's own heart," without having his moral strength and resolution weakened, his moral standard lowered, and his ideas of the moral perfection of deity degraded. and it was by deriving their conceptions of god from such a source that the christian world has come to entertain such low, belittling, and dishonorable views of "the supreme ruler of the universe," as is shown in their preaching and their writings; and it furnishes their children with a low and imperfect standard of morality. and this must always be the condition of things while the bible, with its numerous bad examples and bad morality, is accepted as a guide by those teachers and preachers who mold the moral sentiments of the people. it will be observed, that "the man after god's own heart" invokes the divine vengeance upon innocent children, and prays that they may beg and starve, merely because their father was not a worshiper of the savage jewish jehovah which exhibits a mind devoid of all idea of justice or humanity. and this is a part of the religion of the christian's "holy bible," claimed as the product of divine inspiration. now, who can not see that such a religion as this is calculated to engender bad feelings, bad ideas, and bad morals, and to repress the lofty moral emotions of the human mind? ii. the bible sanctions theft or robbery. robbery, practiced under the false pretense of borrowing, is another crime claiming the sanction of god's "holy word" and that "holy being" whose morality we are taught to imitate by the injunction, "be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect." we are told (in exod. xii.) that the jews, or hebrews, when leaving egypt, robbed or stole from the inhabitants to such an extent, that "they spoiled the egyptians," which leads to the conclusion that the robbery must have been very extensive: and for this merciless, wholesale robbery, they claimed the sanction of a just and righteous god; for we are told he sanctioned or commanded the act. and this is a part of the code of morals "the evangelical christian union" would have us incorporate into the constitution of the united states; but it is evident, from the facts already presented, that such an act would be a step towards barbarism. iii. the bible sanctions war. another immoral feature of the christian bible, and one which proves it to be a relic or record of barbarism, and a very unsuitable book to "constitute the fountain of our laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct" (as recommended and urged by the evangelical christian union), is found in its frequent sanction of human butchery; and a just and righteous god is represented as leaving his throne "in the heavens" to come down to take a part in their savage and bloody battles with different nations about their religious creeds.. he is represented as standing in the front ranks during every battle fought by his "holy people." and, by long experience on the field of human butchery, he came to receive the military title of "god of war," "a man of war," "the lord of hosts," &c.; and his success in destroying human beings won for him the reputation of a great and skillful general, and placed him above other gods in valor in his own estimation. he is represented as becoming so excited with anger, so blood-thirsty and revengeful in spirit, that he commanded his holy people to strike down every living creature with the sword, whether men or animals. the word of command was "to spare nothing;" "save nothing alive that breathes." he is even represented as commanding the slaughter of innocent babes. the order was, so says samuel ( sam. xv. ), "spare them not, but slay both men and women, infants and sucklings." now, of all the blood-dyed mandates that ever issued from human lips, or was heard on the plains of human butchery, none ever excelled it in cruelty and malignant barbarity, claimed as coming from the mouth of a god of infinite justice and infinite benevolence. think of the murder, in cold blood, of thousands of little innocent, prattling babies, who never lisped an evil word, or conceived an evil thought, in their lives! and this by command of the loving father of the human family! who believes it? who can believe it? ay, who dare believe it, if he would escape the charge of blasphemy? neither nero nor caligula was ever guilty of any thing so ruthless, so fiendish, so cruel, and so vindictive. and this is the god the evangelical union tell us the constitution of the united states should recognize as the supreme ruler of nations. this is the bible which they tell us should become "the fountain of our laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct." this is the religion which they are trying to revive and fasten upon us in this enlightened nineteenth century. this is the religion we are required to believe came from a god of infinite justice, infinite mercy, and loving kindness, or be denounced as infidels, and be eternally damned. but could a person be more damned than to believe in such a religion? now, those who have studied the philosophy and impressibility of the human mind know that no extortion or contortion of the language of the text, no symbolical or spiritual construction that can be forced upon it, can prevent the reading and believing a book from producing pernicious effects, which represents such barbarous deeds as having the divine sanction. nothing can prevent it from exercising a demoralizing influence upon a christian community. the sooner, therefore, it can cease to be placed in the hands of the heathen and the young people of christian lands, and cease to constitute the basis of our religion, the better for the progress of true morality, and a virtuous system of religion. iv. the bible sanctions the evil of intemperance. there are a number of texts in the bible, which, if human language can mean any thing, most unquestionably furnish a warrant for drunkenness, whatever might have been the intention of the writer; and that they have had the effect to sustain and promote this evil, the practical history of christian countries furnish proof that can not be gainsaid. that teacher of bible morality--that wise man who is said to have received his wisdom directly from god, and must consequently be considered good authority--is represented as saying, "give to him that is athirst, and wine to those of heavy heart. let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." here we are virtually recommended to drown our sorrows, and benumb the pangs of poverty, by becoming dead drunk; for it is only after the inebriate has quaffed the contents of the intoxicating bowl, or swung the bottle to his lips till he becomes stupefied and insensible (i.e., "dead drunk"), that he can "forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." we dare not deny, then, that solomon recommended a state of beastly intoxication as a means of drowning our troubles; for no other meaning can be forced upon the text than that which we have assigned it, without assuming an unwarrantable use of language. away, then, with such a book as "the source of moral and religious instruction for the heathen," or as a reading-book for youth and children! the question is not what the bible can be made to teach; but what is it naturally understood to teach, and what are the moral consequences of so understanding it? and we find in exodus a still more explicit license, not only for drinking, but for buying and selling, intoxicating drinks it is proclaimed, upon the authority of jehovah, "thou shalt spend thy money for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after" (dent, xiv. ). we are sometimes told, but without reliable authority, that the wine here referred to did not possess very intoxicating properties. but it will be observed that the text did not stop at wine, but "strong drink;" thus leaving no doubt upon the mind of the reader but that they used strong liquors, even if we were warranted in assuming the wine was not of this character, which, however, we are not, and which we know is not true: for, although like the wine of the grape in other countries, it would not intoxicate while new, yet in that warm climate, as travelers affirm, it will ferment in a few hours. it is evident, then, that wine was one of their intoxicating beverages in addition to "strong drinks." and here we find a license for buying and selling and using both in a book which the orthodox churches would have us adopt as "the fountain of our laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct," ostensibly for the improvement of the morals of the people; when it is known to unbiased investigators of the subject that these and similar texts have been a stumbling-block in the progress of the temperance reform among that class of people who take the bible as it reads without studying the art of extracting the old meaning with the clerical force-pump, and coining a new meaning of their own especially adapted to the occasion,--an art studied and practiced by the spiritually blinded devotees of all "the holy bibles" which god is assumed to have inspired for the salvation of the human race. i will cite one case in proof of the statement that a bible containing such texts as i have cited is calculated to do much mischief in the way of retarding the temperance reform by furnishing the plainest authority for drinking and trafficking in intoxicating liquors. a friend, upon whom i can rely, related to me the following case: a man addicted to intemperate habits was converted to religion and induced to sign a temperance pledge, partly by the influence of a speaker who quoted from "the word of god" such texts as these: "woe unto him who holds the bottle to his neighbor's mouth" (hab. ii. ); "wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging" (prov, xx. ). but a few days after his conversion, as he was turning the leaves of the bible, his eye accidentally caught sight of one of the texts i have quoted,--"thou shalt spend thy money for strong drink," &c. here he discovered that his bible and his god both declared that buying and drinking intoxicating beverages was all right. it was enough. his resolution gave way; his firmness was unmanned, his moral manhood prostrated, his pledge overruled; and, in less than two hours, he was again lying in the ditch "dead drunk." here is a proof of the mischief that can be wrought by one single text upon those who have accepted the bible as "the supreme rule of their conduct." you may proclaim the evil of intemperance with the tongue of a cicero, or paint it with the pencil of a raphael, and muster all the texts you can find in the book condemning the practice, yet one such text as i have quoted will poison the moral force, of it all while the bible is read and adored as "the rule of their conduct." as one drop of belladonna or prussic acid will poison a whole pint of water, in like manner will one immoral text, when found in a book accepted by the people as their highest authority in practical morals, have the effect to neutralize the moral force of every sound precept that may be found in the book. it is useless, and labor comparatively lost, for a book or a moral teacher to inculcate good precepts, while it is known they are morally capable of teaching or preaching bad ones. one spark of fire is sufficient to explode a powder-magazine. bad precepts and bad examples are both very contagious in a morally undeveloped and unenlightened age; and their pernicious effects can not be wholly counteracted or prevented by any number of precepts of an opposite character. but we are told the precepts above quoted are in the old testament, and not the new, which is now accepted as higher authority. but then it should be borne in mind, that the old testament is still being printed and bound with the new as a part of "the holy bible," and "god's perfect revelation to man" for "the guidance of his moral conduct." it is still circulated both in christian and heathen countries by the million with the new, and as of equal authority with the new testament. it takes both to make "the holy bible." it will be in vain, then, to plead any extenuation or apology for the immoralities of the old testament on this ground. they will both stand or fall together. the "new dispensation" could not stand a day without the old testament as a basis. and then, when we push our investigations a step further, we find the new testament lending its sanction to most of the evils and crimes which are supported by the old testament; and among this number is that under review,--the vice or sin of intemperance. paul, one of the principal founders and expounders of the religion of the new testament, and one of the leading examples and teachers of its morals, in his letter of exhortation to timothy, advises him to "drink no longer water, but take a little wine for the stomach's sake" ( tim. v. ). as for the plea or purpose for which the intoxicating beverage was to be used on this occasion "for the stomach's sake," it is the same that dram-drinkers and drunkards have always had recourse to to justify the use of strong drink. it is always drunk for "the stomach's sake." and, when we find christ himself converting a large quantity of water into wine (see john ii.), we must conclude that the new testament does not teach a system of morals calculated to arrest the sin of intemperance. those, then, who wish still to continue floundering in the cesspool of drunkenness, can find in the new testament, as well as the old, a justification for this sin. v. the crime of slave-holding sanctioned by the bible. the bible contains a warrant for the perpetual enslavement of men, women, and children. it is well known to the pioneer-laborers in the antislavery reform, that this book constituted a strong bulwark in support of the system; that it was one of the principal obstacles in the way of effecting its extermination. its defenders quoted such texts as the following: "of the heathen round about you, shall ye buy bondmen and bond maids, and they shall be your possession for ever" (lev. xxv. ). among christian professors, such positive and explicit license for the practice of slave-holding was hard to be set aside; and it undoubtedly had an influence to perpetuate the accursed system of slavery. vi. the bible sanctions polygamy. the practice of polygamy is indorsed by the christian bible. it is frequently sanctioned in the old testament, both by precept and example, while it is nowhere condemned by the book, either in the old or new testament. this fact makes mormonisin an impregnable institution; and this is the reason it bids defiance to the efforts of a christian nation to put it down. it is a bible institution. hence a bible-believing nation dare not attack it. the hand of the government is powerless to put it down, because it is justified by the "holy book." hence it continues to exist, a stigma upon the nation. were it as explicitly and strongly condemned by the bible as idolatry is, it would have been banished from the country long ago. vii. licentiousness is sanctioned by the bible. it can hardly be wondered at that so many christian professors fall victims to licentious habits, as is evident from reports almost daily published in the periodicals, from which one traveler has collected more than two thousand cases of priests, the professed teachers of morality, who have fallen victims to the vice of illegal sexual intercourse within a few years; and probably the number whose deeds are never brought to light is much greater. as we have already remarked, this licentiousness among bible believers and bible teachers is no cause of wonder when we reflect that it is taught in their bible, both by example and precept, and even, we are told, commanded by jehovah himself. in the thirty-first chapter of numbers it is written, that the lord commanded moses to slay all the midianites, except the women and girls who "had never known man," amounting to about thirty thousand. they were even ordered to kill every male among the little ones; and it is declared they left "nothing alive that breathes," except the thirty thousand maids saved to gratify the lust of those murderous libertines. who that has any mercy, justice, or refinement in their nature, can believe that such cruelty and licentiousness was the work of a righteous god? christian professors contemplate these revolting pictures with an anxious desire to save the credit of the book, until, by dint of determination to believe (for they are afraid even to doubt), they finally persuade themselves, that, somehow or other, they must be right, notwithstanding their revolting nature. they conclude they don't understand them, or that it is our fine moral sensibilities, and our natural love of virtue, that is at fault. and thus our moral manhood is deadened and sacrificed to our barbarous religion. it is an evident fact, and a sorrowful truth, that the moral sensibilities of all christendom are more or less blunted and seared in this way, and their standard of virtue lowered. such is the demoralizing influence of the "holy book" when idolized and regarded as the source of our morals, and "the supreme rule of our conduct." it is evident we never can reach that elevated standard of morals and true refinement which is the natural outgrowth of civilization till the bible is lowered to a more subordinate position, and is no longer allowed to shape our morals, and mold our religion, and retard our civilization. the texts i have cited are but samples of many similar passages which evince a sickly, licentious state of morals amongst "the lord's holy people." by the moral code of moses and jehovah, a jew was authorized to seize a beautiful woman (if he should see one amongst the captives taken in war), and take her to his house for his wife; but, if he finds upon trial that she don't suit him, then he can turn her out, and let her go whither she will. he was licensed to turn her adrift upon the cold charities of the world. "if it shall be that thou find no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will" (deut. xxi. ). it does not appear that her wishes were consulted in any case. she was a captive at first, and a slave to the end. and these hard-hearted, licentious men were "god's holy people." those pious and devout christians who are so inveterately opposed to, and horrified at, "free-lovism" should not let it be known they believe in the bible, lest they should get into the same difficulty the rev. mr. hitchkiss did while in arabia. having stated to a mahomedan that there was a class of people in america known as "free-lovers," and that they were infidels and spiritualists, the disciple of the koran remarked, in reply, "i suppose you are a free-lover also."--"what makes you entertain that supposition?" asked the reverend. "because," said the mussulman, "you are a believer in the christian bible; and i have observed, by reading that its leading men were practical free-lovers.' the wise solomon was so highly esteemed by god, that he opened to him the fountain of wisdom; and hence he must have been looked up to by the jews as a leading authority in matters of religion and morals, and an example be followed in practical life; and he practiced 'free-lovism,' or licentiousness, on a very large scale. his subjects and victims were numbered by the thousand; and with three hundred of them he maintained no legal relation. hence they were what are now called prostitutes. and his father david, 'the man after god's own heart,' was also a 'f ree-lover, and indirectly committed murder in order to increase his number of victims; and abraham, the father and founder of the jewish nation, also belonged to that class. i suppose, therefore, you consider it all right." the reverend gentleman replied, "i believe it was right for them, but would not be right for us." "then," said the mahomedan, "you believe that moral principles change,--that what is right to day may be wrong tomorrow, and _vice versa_. now, it is evident, that, if they can change once, they can change again, and may thus be perpetually changing; so that it would be impossible to know what true morality is, for it would be one thing to-day and another tomorrow. i hold that the principles of morality are perfect, and hence can not change without becoming immorality." thus reasoned the "unconverted heathen;" and thus closed his controversy with the christian missionary. the reader can judge which had the better end of the argument. viii. the bible sanctions wife-catching. in the book of judges (judges xxi. ) we learn that the israelites of the tribe of benjamin were instructed in the art of wife-catching. "go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and behold, if the daughters of shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man a wife" (judges xxi. ). "and they did so." now it was certainty rather shameful business for god's oracles to be engaged in,--that of advising rude and lustful men to hide in ambush in the vineyards, and, when they saw the young maidens approaching, to pounce upon them while dancing, and carry or drag them off without a moment's warning. it was called catching a wife; but, in this age of a higher moral development, it would not be designated by such respectful language, but would be placed in the list of crimes, and punished as a state-prison offense. ix. the crimes of treachery and assassination. in the fourth chapter of judges we find a case of barbarity related, comprising the double crime of treachery and murder, for which a parallel can scarcely be found in the annals of any heathen nation, and which appears to have received the approval of the jewish jehovah. it is exhibited in the history of jael, the wife of heber the kenite. we read, that as a poor fugitive by the name of sisera was fleeing from "the lord's holy people," who were pursuing him with uplifted swords with the determination to kill him, not for any crime whatever, but because he professed a different religion, and refused to worship their cruel god (for they seemed to consider themselves authorized by their god to exterminate all nations who dissented from their creed),--as this fugitive was flying from the swords of the worshipers of jehovah, jael went out to meet him (sisera), and said unto him, "turn in, my lord: turn in to me. fear not." and, when he had turned in unto her in the tent, she covered him with a mantle, and feigned much pity for him; and, when he asked for a little water, she gave him milk: but, as soon as he had fallen asleep, "she took a nail of the tent and a hammer, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temple, and fastened it into the ground." who can read this deed of treachery and cruelty without emotions of horror, and thrilling chilly sensations at the heart? and yet jehovah, the god of israel, is represented as saying, "blessed above women shall jael, the wife of heber the kenite, be" (judg. v. ). now, what is this but a premium offered for treachery and cold-blooded murder? i believe, with lord bacon, that "it is better to believe in no god than to believe in one possessing dishonorable traits of character;" and i can not see how it would be possible to ascribe more dishonorable traits of character to any being than are ascribed to the jewish jehovah. and this is the god the orthodox world wants put into the constitution of the united states; but most unfortunate for our progress in morals and civilization would it be to adopt such a measure. and this is the book which the churches are constantly appealing to the people for aid to circulate among the heathen as necessary to improve their morals, and save their souls; but no other book could be put into their hands so completely calculated to deaden and obliterate every feeling of humanity, every natural impulse of justice and mercy, and kindle feelings of murder and revenge. such a book should not be admitted into their families to corrupt their natural sense of right and justice. i will cite another case evincing the same spirit, and teaching the same kind of moral lesson. we are told in judges (chap. iii.) that the lord sent a man by the name of ehud to murder eglon, king of moab, and sent him with a lie upon his lips. as he came near to the king, he said unto him, "i have a message from god unto thee" (judg. iii. , ). and, while conversing with him under the guise of a friend, he drew out a dagger which he had concealed under his garments, and plunged it into his body, and killed him. and the lord, "the god of israel," is represented as raising up the bloody-minded ehud for the special purpose of perpetrating this shocking deed of murder. to circulate a book among the heathen, detailing such revolting deeds of cruelty as consistent with sound morality, and approved by a just and righteous god, is an evil of no small magnitude. i will cite one other case illustrative of bible intolerance. it is found in the history of the godly phinehas, related in the twenty-fifth chapter of numbers. he was one of "the lord's peculiar people," who were such violent sectarians that they showed no mercy towards any nation or any individual who dissented from their creed. hence, when it was reported to moses and his god that zimri and his wife cozbi had become converts to the baal-peor religion, they sent phinehas after them with deadly weapons to slay them for heresy; and he chased them into their tents, and slew them with a javelin upon their own hearthstone for no crime whatever against the moral law, but for simply exercising their god-given right to worship god according to the dictates of their consciences. it was a feeling of sectarianism, intolerance, and bitter animosity which prompted the act. we can not wonder, therefore, that christian bible believers, who have chosen this book as "the supreme rule of their conduct," should have written their history in blood, and that the whole pathway of their pilgrimage is strewn with the bones of their murdered victims, who were slain for being true to their consciences, and for believing in and worshiping god according to their convictions of right and duty. in addition to the long list of crimes already enumerated as being sanctioned by the bible, we will name a few others:-- _lying_.--we find that nearly all the leading characters who figure in bible history, and who are held up as moral exemplars of the human race, were guilty of lying either directly or indirectly. we will cite a few cases:-- it is shown that abraham and his wife (gen. xx.), and isaac (gen. xxvi.), and jacob (gen. xxxi.), were all guilty of falsehood; also rachel, jacob's wife (gen. xxxi.), jacob's sons (gen. xxxvii.), and samson (judg. xvi.), and elisha ( kings), and four hundred prophets ( kings xxii.). and jeremiah makes out all the prophets were virtual liars (jer. vi. ). peter lied three times in about seventy-five minutes (luke xxii.). and paul justifies lying (rom. iii-- ). with so many examples of lying by "inspired and holy men of old," the custom became popular among the early christians, and was upheld and justified by them, as stated by the popular christian writer, mosheim. and some of "the heathen nations," for this reason, were accustomed to calling the jews "the sons of falsehood." now, we appeal to the moral consciousness of every honest reader to decide in his own mind whether it is possible for a book containing such defective moral inculcations to be calculated to promote true virtue, or a love of truth, in either christian or heathen nations, and whether it should not, on this account, be kept out of the hands of the heathen, as being calculated to weaken their natural appreciation of truth. _swearing_.--let the reader turn to his bible concordance, and observe the hundreds of cases in which god and his people are represented as swearing. he can then understand why profanity is now more prevalent in christian than in heathen countries. god himself is several times represented as swearing in his wrath (ps. xcv. ). it should therefore be expected to be prevalent amongst christian bible believers. as a christian missionary was recently returning from india on board a british vessel, observing a christian professor frequently swearing, he stepped to him, and observed, "here, sir, is my son, twenty-one years old, born and raised in a heathen land, and to-day is the first time he ever heard a profane oath." rather a withering lesson for a christian professor. there are obviously two causes for the great prevalency of profane swearing in all christian countries. one is its frequent indorsement in the bible, and the other is the common custom of the priesthood apparently indulging in the practice in the pulpit. in their godly zeal to convert sinners, they exclaim, "god will damn you." the boys in the congregation catch the refrain, run into the street, and repeat the oath (dropping one word), "god damn you." before we can expect this foolish and demoralizing practice to be abandoned, we must have a different bible and different religious teachers; and also before we can prevent the heathen who read our bible from imitating our example in swearing, or using profane language. _cursing_.--the numerous cases of cursing recorded in the bible-from jehovah to elisha, who cursed the sportive, saucy boys, and then destroyed them with bears, are calculated to engender and foster the worst and most malignant passions of the human mind. the very name of the jews' god, jehovah (elohim), is derived from a root which signifies "to curse and to swear." and the immoral practice of cursing is continued from the old testament through the new. _murder_.--we have spoken of murders perpetrated by the jews under the authority of a theocratic government. we will now cite some cases of a more private character: cain, the first man born into the world, was a murderer; and, instead of being punished for it, he appears to have been honored. he went into the land nod, and built a great city. "the man after god's own heart" (david) indirectly killed uriah; judith cut off the head of holofernes while in bed with him,--a most shocking case; jehoiada, the priest, murdered his queen at the high gate in cold blood; jael, the wife of heber, murdered the flying fugitive sisera by driving a nail though his head; ehud murdered the king of eglon under the guise of friendship; absalom murdered ammon; joab murdered absalom; solomon murdered his brother adonijah; baasha murdered nadab; zimri murdered elah; omri murdered zimri ahab murdered naboth; jehu murdered ahab and joram. shallum murdered zachariah; hoshea murdered pekah. numerous other cases might be cited. some of these murderers were leading men among the jews,--men whose life and character exercised great influence; and consequently such examples were very pernicious, and the moral lesson they impart to bible readers must be corrupting to their moral feelings, if not their moral conduct. _flogging_.--the practice of flogging is regarded as a relic of barbarism by all modern writers on moral ethics. we find it was prescribed by law under the hebrew monarchy. forty lashes, in some cases, while the victim was tied or held down was the penalty for certain crimes. (see deut. xxv.) if they were schooled in the councils of infinite wisdom as they claimed to be, their god should have taught them a less severe and more enlightened method of treating offenders. _witchcraft_.--"thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (exod. xxii. ) has been the watchword and the authority for the slaughter of great numbers of human beings. figures can not compute the tortures, the shocking cruelties, and the heart-crushing sufferings which have been endured as the legitimate fruit of this superstitious, barbarous law of "god's holy people." it was continued in force to a late period, and has been more extensively practiced by christians than by jews. the number of victims in christian england alone amounts to hundreds of thousands. a large portion of them were tied hand and foot, and thrown into the water. if they sank, that terminated the case, guilty or not guilty; if they swam or floated, that was regarded as an evidence of guilt, and they were taken out, and burned or hanged. during its reign in england, thirty thousand harmless women were burned as witches, mostly poor women who had no means of self-defense. even the learned sir matthew hale, one of england's most enlightened christian jurists, sentenced a "number of poor women to be hanged in as witches;" and the reason he assigned for it was, that "the bible leaves no doubt as to the reality of witchcraft, and the duty of putting its subjects to death." thus we have an illustration of the enormous evils which have grown out of bible superstitions, perpetuated by those who were so ignorant as to accept the book as authority. witchcraft, which was believed by bible writers and bible christians to be the work of the devil or of evil spirits, is now well understood in the light of modern science as to its causes, of which bible revelation was ignorant. as the want of space will permit no farther exposition or enumeration of bible crimes, we will sum up the whole thus: murder, theft, robbery, war, slavery, intemperance, polygamy, concubinage, fornication, rape, piracy, lying, assassination, treachery, tyranny, revenge, persecution for religious opinions, vagabondism, degradation and enslavement of women, hypocrisy, breach of faith, suicide, vulgarity or obscenity, witchcraft, flogging, cursing, swearing, &c. we have cited texts and examples in proof of the statement that all these crimes, and others not here enumerated, are sanctioned by god's "holy word," and were perpetrated by god's "holy people," as they are called. and yet a christian writer declares, "the lord kept his people pure, holy, and upright through every period of their history." a statement could hardly be made that would be farther from the truth. it is another evidence of the blinding effect of a false religion. again we ask, should a book, lending its sanction to the long catalogue of crimes herein enumerated, and which represents them as being in accordance with the will of a holy and a righteous god, be placed in the hands of the illiterate and credulous heathen as a guide for their moral conduct? most certainly it must have a deleterious effect upon their morals; and yet hundreds of thousands are distributed amongst them every year by the christian churches and missionary societies. and then think of making such a book "the fountain of our laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct," as urged by the evangelical alliance and the orthodox churches. we almost tremble at the thought of such a step toward barbarism and demoralization. chapter xlviii.--immoral influence of the bible. with the characteristic moral teaching of the christian bible, presented in the preceding chapter and throughout this work, we see not how to escape the conviction that the bible has inflicted, and must necessarily inflict, a demoralizing influence on society wherever it is read and _believed_. it is morally impossible for _any person_ to read and believe a book sanctioning, or appearing to sanction, so many species of crime and immorality without sustaining more or less moral and mental injury by it. for whatever views he may entertain with respect to the numerous crimes therein reported as having been committed with the approval, and often at the command, of a just god, it must naturally and inevitably have the tendency to weaken his detestation of those crimes, and also weaken his zeal and effort to extinguish them and other similar crimes now existing in society. it must also lower his conception of the moral attributes of deity. however honest, and however naturally opposed to such immoralities at the outset, it is impossible for him to entertain the belief that they were once approved, or even connived at, by a morally perfect being, without becoming unconsciously weakened in his feelings of opposition to, and his hatred of, such deeds. it may be alleged that these practices are at war with those precepts which enjoin us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and that of loving our neighbors as ourselves, &c. this is true; but reason and experience both teach us, as an important lesson in moral and mental philosophy, that, when a book which is accepted as a guide for the conduct and moral actions of men contains contradictory precepts, the people will seize on and reduce to practice those most consonant with their natures, and most congenial to their natural feelings and inclinations. hence it can easily be seen, that as the animal feelings and propensities which lead to the commission of crime, when unduly exercised, have always been stronger with the masses or the populace than the moral feelings, they have consequently always been more disposed to yield a compliance with those precepts which sanction, or appear to sanction, the commission of crime, than those which are condemnatory of crime. all persons in whose minds the animal propensities are the strongest will seize with eagerness the least authority, or appearance of authority, for committing those crimes which they are naturally inclined to commit, and for which they are glad to find a license or encouragement to commit. under such circumstances they will ignore the virtuous precepts, and yield a compliance with those of an opposite character. therefore christian professors who expect the bible to exert a moral influence in reforming the world and freeing it from crime, because it contains some beautiful and sound moral precepts, will be disappointed; for those precepts will be neutralized, and their effects destroyed, by those of an opposite character. a majority of the people in all countries have always possessed a strong inclination for committing those crimes which, we have shown, the christian bible appears to sanction. hence the bible, with all its counteracting precepts, will only add fuel to the fire, for the reason already pointed out. those who do not know this must be ignorant of the most important principles of moral science, and the elements of human nature. right here is where christians commit a serious mistake. they scatter their bibles among the heathen by the thousand, assuming that it will have the effect to moralize and civilize them, while they can find a warrant in it (as shown in the preceding chapter) for every species of crime they have been in the habit of committing. this is a solemn error they have been committing for ages. hence their missionary labors, instead of reforming the heathen, have only tended to demoralize them, where they have not been counteracted by the more rational religion of science and nature, as they have been in many cases. many facts could be adduced to prove this statement, some of which may be found in chapter . ("bible a moral necessity"). wherever the bible has been introduced, without the arts and sciences to counteract its influence (as in abyssinia and the samoan islands), crime has increased. history proves that wherever the bible has been circulated without any counteracting influences, both in christian and heathen nations, it has had the effect to weaken the moral strength of the people, lower their natural appreciation of virtue and a true moral life, and has had a tendency to popularize crime by making it more respectable. it is therefore an _unsuitable book_ to circulate as a guide for the moral conduct of man _in any country_. chapter xlix.--the bible at war with eighteen sciences. the word "science" is from the latin _scire_ ("to know"). hence every statement incompatible with the teachings and principles of science is simply _ignorance_ arrayed against _knowledge_. it may surprise some who have been taught that the bible contains "a perfect embodiment of truth," or who believe, with the redoubtable dr. cheever, that "the bible does not contain the shadow of a shade of error from genesis to revelations,"--it will doubtless surprise all such persons to be told, that, so far from dr. cheever's statement being correct, "the holy book," by a fair estimate, is found to contain more than nine thousand scientific errors alone; i.e., more than nine thousand statements and assumptions which conflict with the established principles of modern science, besides errors in morals and history, &c. this, perhaps, should not be a matter of surprise to any person after viewing the character and condition of philosophy and the wide-spread scientific ignorance which reigned over the world at that period. let it be borne in mind that science was the book which does not contain several errors of this character but just budding into life, and philosophy had attained but a feeble growth amongst that portion of the earth's inhabitants who constituted the representatives of the jewish and christian religion. not only does their history and their writings show that they were, for the most part, ignorant of what little science there was in the world,--which was small compared with the present period,--but they opposed it whenever they came in contact with it. every thing was ascribed to supernatural power. the word "science" only occurs twice in the bible,--once in the old testament, and once in the new; and, in the latter case, it was used for the purpose of condemning it. paul advises timothy to "beware of the babblings of science" ( tim. vi. ). the word "philosophy" is used but once in the bible, and then not to recommend it; but paul uses it to condemn it, as he does science, or at least to discourage it: "beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain conceit" (col. ii. ). it will be observed, then, that there is apparently a veto placed upon the study of science and philosophy in the only two instances in which reference is made to them in the bible. we can not wonder, therefore, that its devout disciples have in all ages, until a very recent period, set themselves squarely against the propagation of science and philosophy. it was but carrying out the spirit of their bible. the early christians, almost to a man, discouraged the study of science, and condemned and persecuted those who attempted to propagate its principles, and even put some of them to death. copernicus was persecuted for setting forth principles of astronomy which conflicted with the teachings of the bible; galileo was sentenced to death because he taught the rotundity and revolution of the earth in opposition to the bible, which declares, "the earth has foundations, and can not be removed" (ps. civ. ); and bruno suffered the penalty of death for teaching substantially the same doctrine. and every discoverer in science was condemned and persecuted. much was written by the early fathers in acknowledgment of the incompatibility of science with religion and the teachings of the bible, and to warn the pious disciple of the danger of occupying his mind in the investigation and study of science. even eusebius, the popular ecclesiastical writer of the third century, and one of the most intelligent christians of that age, acknowledged he had a contempt for "the useless baubles of the philosophers:" "we think little of these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things." and lactantius, a christian of the same century, pronounced the study of physical causes of natural things "empty and false." and st. augustine, "a shining light of the church," treated with contempt the notion that the earth is round, as "trees on the other side would hang with their tops down, and the men there would have their feet higher than their heads." he condemns it as false, "because _no such race is recorded in scripture_ among the descendants of adam." what profound reasoning! martin luther utters his malediction against astronomy in the following language: "this false copernicus will turn the whole art of astronomy upside down; but the scripture teacheth another lesson, when joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." of course joshua's order for the sun to stop knocks the science of astronomy on the head, and extinguishes it for ever with all true bible believers; and men have had to outgrow their bibles before they could accept the teachings of astronomy. when we take into consideration the almost boundless acquisitions that have been made in the field of science since the invention of the printing art, and the many discoveries evolved in every department of science and art, now classified into a long list of new sciences, and which throw a flood of light on almost every thing taught by the ancients in morals, religion, or science, we should not be surprised to find more or less error in every thing they taught. let us look for a moment at the long list of sciences now taught in our schools, most of which were unknown two hundred years ago: astronomy, geology, chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology, pneumatics, hydrostatics, mechanics, psychology, paleontology, anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, biology, history, chronology, botany, zoology, philosophy, physiology, ornithology, geography, mathematics, optics, acoustics, phrenology, animal magnetism, &c. the facts and principles now comprised in these several branches of science have mostly been developed within a comparatively recent period of time; and almost every department of science here enumerated embraces facts and discoveries which reveal important errors in the religious creeds of the ancient representatives of the christian faith. to illustrate this statement, we will cite some examples:-- . _astronomy_.--more than forty errors in astronomy will be found exposed in chapter , treating on the mosaic account of creation; and here may be added a few more to the number. several texts in the bible speak of the stars falling to the earth, or traveling in some lawless direction. even christ committed this error. (see mark xiii. .) how ridiculous is this conception when viewed in connection with the fact that these stars are many of them larger than the earth! saturn is about a thousand times larger, and jupiter twelve hundred times larger, than our planet. john speaks of one-third of the stars falling at once (rev. xii. ). if these two large planets (jupiter and saturn) should be of the number, our little earth would fare rather badly, though it is evident they could not all have room to strike it. if they should strike it from opposite sides, they would effectually grind it to powder. the inspired writers of the bible seem to have had their minds so filled with heavenly things, that there was but little room left for scientific knowledge appertaining to the earth. the idea of the sun being made "to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by night," as taught in gen. i. , discloses still further the ignorance of bible writers on astronomy. . _geological errors_.--the story of the creation in genesis (as exposed in chapter of this work) contains many geological errors. almost every statement, in fact, conflicts with the teachings of geology, and especially the assumption that the earth, with the retinue of worlds which roll through infinite space, was brought into existence by a fiat of omnipotence, and only about six thousand years ago; while many facts in geological science disprove its creation, and prove that it existed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. for the numerous bible errors under this head, see chapter . . _errors in geography_.--the language applied to the earth by various writers of the bible show quite plainly that they entertained very erroneous conceptions of its form and size, and the laws that govern it. such language as "the foundations of the earth" (ps. civ. ; job xxxviii. ), "the ends of earth," "the corners of the earth," "the pillars of the earth" ( sam. ii. ), clearly indicate that bible writers entertained the common erroneous conceptions of that age, that the earth is a flat, square, angular figure, only inhabited on one side. matthew, who represents christ as seeing all the kingdoms of the earth from the top of a mountain, plainly discloses the same error. . _errors in ethnology_.--the bible assumption of the origin of man within a period of six thousand years, and the descent of the whole race from a single pair, is directly at variance with the teachings of ethnological science, which discloses the true history of man, and proves, according to agassiz and other modern naturalists, that the human race has descended from at least five pairs of original progenitors. see a work entitled "types of mankind," compiled from the writings of the ablest naturalists of the age. . _archæology_, which treats of antiquity, presents us with nearly the same series of scientific facts to disprove the bible history of man. it presents us with many facts in the history of the ancient empires of india, egypt, greece, china, and persia, which directly contradict many statements found in the christian bible, which the want of space compels us to omit any notice of here. (see chapters on bibles.) . _biology_.--the bible statements which make a son two years older than his father ( chron. xxi. and xxii.), a girl only three years old when she married, and two millions of people spring from seventy persons in two hundred and fifteen years, are all at variance with the teachings of biology. . _botany_.--the origin of thorns and thistles, and the preservation of the whole vegetable kingdom during noah's flood, as inferentially taught by the christian bible, conflict with the present established principles of botany. . _zoology_.--this science, which discloses the true history of animal life, completely disproves some statements of the bible relative to the animal kingdom. the hare is pronounced unclean in leviticus, "because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof" (lev. xi. ). here are three incorrect statements. the hare does not chew the cud, and does divide the hoof, and is not unclean (i.e., not unsuitable for food). . _ornithology_.--the writer who represents god as showering down nine hundred square miles of quails, three feet thick, around the jewish camp to serve as food (see numb. xi. ), must have been ignorant of the size of this bird, if not of the whole feathered tribe. . _physiology_.--the apostle james must have been ignorant of the science of physiology when he declares the prayers of the elders of the church would heal the sick (jas. v. ). it is not denied but that the presence of the elders could exercise a healing influence on the sick; but it should be ascribed to their magnetism, and not to their prayers. the numerous cases in which disease is represented by christ and his disciples as being produced by devils or evil spirits, and a cure effected by ejecting the diabolical intruder, shows them to have been ignorant of physiology; as does also the story of the sons of god cohabiting with the daughters of men (gen. vi. ), and producing a race of giants which, according to the book of enoch, were three hundred cubits high. rather tall specimens of humanity. their heads would be above the clouds, so that they could not see which way they were traveling. this story finds a parallel in the traditions of india, which once produced a race of giants so tall that they could neither sit down in the house, nor stand up out of doors. their eyes were so far from the ground that they could not see their feet. all these stories originated in an age which was destitute of a knowledge of physiology; and, as this amalgamation of gods with human beings did nothing to improve the race, the story is destitute of a moral, and proves (if it proves any thing) that the gods were no better than men. . _mental science_.--the two hundred texts which represent the heart as being the seat of the mind or soul furnish conclusive evidence that the writers were ignorant of the first principles of mental science. "my heart uttereth understand ing," and "a pure heart," are examples. "an upright liver," or "a pure liver," would be just as sensible language. there is not one text in the book that implies a knowledge of the brain as being the organ of the mind, which is a scientific fact now well established. . _animal magnetism_.--the exposition of this science by mesmer, deluse, townsend, and other writers, renders it clearly evident that the phenomena of witchcraft, trance, and many cases of spiritual vision, were nothing more nor less than the products of animal magnetism superinduced by the action of mind on mind, or the control of the mind by magnetic substances,--the science of magnetism being entirely unknown in that era of the world. every case reported of restoring life to a dead person by christ, elijah, elisha, and other god-men, if they had any foundation in truth, are explained by the principles of this science. similar cases have been witnessed in modern times. . _philosophy_.--the science of philosophy, in its matured aspect, is of modern origin, and furnishes the true explanation for many of the "mysteries of godliness," and other mysteries of the christian bible, which, by the illiterate writers of that age, were ascribed to the direct manifestation of deific powers. they are now known to be natural occurrences, instead of supernatural, as assumed by the writers. the bible story of the rainbow furnishes one example. moses must have been ignorant of philosophy when he selected the rainbow as an evidence there should be no rain in the future insufficient quantities to inundate the earth again, when it is known that the rainbow is a certain evidence of rain, as it is produced by the rain in the act of falling. this is but one of many errors which the ignorant, illiterate bible writers have made for want of knowledge on scientific subjects, such as the history of creation, the story of the flood, &c. the several cases in which thunder is spoken of as being the voice of god disclose great ignorance of philosophy; and several instances in which god promises to take away the sickness of the people evince an entire ignorance of the natural laws which control health and disease. (see exod. xxiii. ; deut. vii. .) . _mathematics_.--the bible is deficient in many cases with respect to the correct observance of the rules and principles of mathematics. its assumption that there can be but one god, and at the same time acknowledging three, furnishes a striking proof of this. its enumeration of the families and tribes furnishes another evidence of this. its calculation of numbers rarely coincides with the names. for example: matth., in his gospel, states there are forty-two generations from david to joseph; but his list of names only makes forty-one. and matthew says, "from adam to david are fourteen generations;" but, by counting his list of names, we find but thirteen. the date of methuselah's birth and his age, when compared together, extend his age ten months beyond the inauguration of the flood. how he sustained life, and avoided drowning during that time, must be one of the "mysteries of godliness." these are a few specimens of bible mathematics. . _chemistry_.--a specimen of bible chemistry is found in the story of "fire and brimstone descending from heaven together" without a coalescence, or the chemical combination and product which usually result from a contact of these two elements. another specimen is presented in the process of manufacturing a golden calf by merely casting gold ear-rings, finger-rings, &c., into the fire; and also moses' invention for grinding the same gold into powder, and sprinkling it on the water, and compelling the people to drink it. no process is known in modern times by which gold can be ground to powder, nor for holding it in solution if ground and thrown into water. the specific gravity of all gold now in use causes it to sink to the bottom as soon as it is thrown into water. bible chemistry seems to differ from natural chemistry. . _pneumatics_.--had jehovah been acquainted with this science, he could not have become alarmed about having his kingdom invaded by the builders of babel; for we learn, by an acquaintance with the principles of this science, that the air becomes so rarefied as we ascend, that we soon reach a point where human life must cease. hence it was unnecessary to confound the language of the people in order to arrest the completion of the tower. they would have been compelled to desist before they had got many miles from the earth. . _acoustics._--moses must have been ignorant of this science, or presumed his readers would be, when he related the numerous cases of himself and joshua and others reading and talking to two millions of people, some of whom must have been several miles distant. no human voice in modern times could reach one-half of such an audience. . _hydrostatics_.--this science teaches us that several cases reported in the bible of the waters of rivers and seas being separated and erected in perpendicular columns so as to form embankments, are contradicted by all the laws governing fluids, and hence are wholly incredible. the sciences of optics, meteorology, philology, and psychology might also be included in the above list as being ignored and practically set aside by bible writers. and yet, in the face of all these facts, dr. cheever says, "there is a beautiful harmony between the principles of science and the teachings of the bible throughout the whole book." and this seems to have been the universal conviction of the disciples of the christian faith before the progress of scientific discovery in modern times laid bare the errors of the holy book. since that juncture in biblical theology culminated, a new theory has been set on foot to dispose of the scientific errors of the bible. we are told, as an apology for these errors, that "the bible was designed to teach religion and morality, and not science." this is too true; but a true system of religion must be based on the principles of science. the plea also discloses a scientific ignorance on the part of the objector in not knowing "there is science in every thing." hence it is impossible to write on any subject without coming in contact with the principles of science, which you must either conform to or violate. persons destitute of scientific knowledge, as were bible writers, are liable, in their ignorance, to stumble into scientific errors in writing on any subject. chapter l.--the bible as a moral necessity. the question is frequently asked by bible adherents, what would be the moral condition of society without the bible? would it not again relapse into barbarism? such questions manifest an ignorance of history and the moral instincts of the human mind, and are easily met and answered by other questions indicating broader views. we ask, then, what was the moral condition of the world, or that portion of it included in the jewish nation, during the two thousand years which elapsed before any part of our bible was written? was it any worse than the next two thousand years after it was written? and what is the moral condition of five-sixths of the human family now, who never had our bible? facts in history prove that the morals of some of the nations included in this class are superior to that of any bible nation, either now existing, or figuring in past history. take, for example, the japanese. we will present the testimony of an english officer, col. hall. reporting his own observations and experience, he says, "during more than a year's residence in japan, i never saw a quarrel among young or old. i have never seen an angry blow struck, and have scarcely heard an angry word. i have seen the children at their sports, flying their kites on the hill; and no amount of entangled strings, or kites lodged in the trees, provoked angry words or impatience. in their games of jackstones and marbles, i have never seen an approach to a quarrel among them. they are taught implicit obedience to their parents; but i have never seen one of them chastised. respect and reverence for the aged is universal. a crying child is seldom seen. we have nothing to teach them out of the abundance of our civilization." and a description of this nation by dr. oliphant fully confirms the above. he says, "universal testimony assures us, that, in their domestic relations, the men are gentle and forbearing; the women, obedient and virtuous. every department of crime is less in proportion to the population than in christian countries. the native tribunals prove their competency to deal with criminals by giving general satisfaction. unlike any christian country, locks and keys are never used; yet theft and robbery are almost unknown. although we had the most tempting curiosities with us, and left them laying about our lodgings for months, not one of them was carried off, though our room was sometimes crowded with people. during the whole of our stay in yeddo, we never heard a scolding woman, nor saw a disturbance in the streets, nor a child struck or otherwise maltreated. in case of disputes between neighbors, their children are often selected as arbiters, and always give satisfaction. and parents in their old age often give their properly and the entire management of their affairs into the hands of their children, who never betray their trust." now, it must be evident to every reader, that no such a moral picture of society can be presented of any christian country. and yet the christian bible is not only scarcely known among them, but they have resisted the most determined efforts of the christian f missionaries, for more than two hundred years, to introduce it and circulate it amongst them, and have kept it out by positive prohibition most of the time. do such facts tend to confirm the statement often made by devout christians, that "the bible must be introduced and read by the people before they can have good morals in any country"? as a still further proof of the erroneousness of this statement, we will now contrast the state of morals in the most religious christian countries with that of the heathen nation just referred to. and this moral picture of our country is from the pen of a christian writer, the celebrated parson brownlow. he tells us, "the gospel is preached to the people regularly all over the country.... and yet, notwithstanding all this, rascality abounds in all classes of society.... cheating and misrepresentation are the order of the day. in politics there is very little patriotism! or love of country. in religion there is more hypocrisy than grace; and the biggest scoundrels living, crowd the church with a view to hide their rascally designs, and more effectually serve the devil. pious villains, as sanctified as the moral law, are keeping false accounts, and resort to them for the sake of gain.... in a word, rascality abounds among all classes." now look on this picture, and then on that. we will now present another contrast. we will look at another specimen of morality among the heathen. the portraiture is furnished us by the celebrated christian missionary, dr. livingstone. speaking of some of the african tribes he encountered in his travels, he says, "the inhabitants have many wise laws and politic institutions, which would not discredit any nation in europe. they are not a warlike people, but appear to hold martial achievements in great contempt or abhorrence. they have such a nice sense of justice and equity, that they will by no means make any encroachments on the territory of their neighbors. their dealings with each other are characterized by mutual confidence, which _chris-tians would do well to imitate_." no man is afraid of being cheated. no precautions are used to prevent theft and robbery; and yet no theft and robbery are committed. their goods to be sold are stored in an open bazaar, left without any attendants, and the purchaser fixes his own price, and leaves what he considers a fair equivalent in its stead; and all parties are satisfied. it would seem, then, that, while in christian countries "it requires two to make a bargain," in heathen countries it requires but one. here, then, we have the morals of a heathen nation, who not only knew nothing of christianity, but would not condescend to talk with the missionary on the subject, but put him off with the plea, "it makes no difference what a man's religion is, if his morals and practical life are right." _sensible reasoning_ we will now turn another leaf in christian history with the inquiry, is every country honored with the name of christian distinguished for morality, and every nation stigmatized as heathen practically immoral? we will present another specimen of christian morality from the pen of that popular christian writer, mr. goodrich. speaking of the moral condition of one of the oldest christian nations now existing (the abyssinians), he says, "they are restless, savage, and brutal, almost beyond any known tribes of men." the scotch traveler, mr. bruce, was at gondar, the capital; and he tells us that he seldom went out without seeing dead human bodies lying in the streets, left to be devoured by the dogs and hyenas. alnary, who lived there some years since, says he was invited to a feast, where, amongst the dishes he was offered, was flesh with warm blood. we are told the people eat the flesh from the cattle while alive; and sometimes, after a large piece has been cut out, the skin is drawn over it, and the bleeding beast driven on its way. sometimes, when a party is assembled for a feast, and are seated, the oxen are brought to the door, the flesh is cut off the living animal, and the meat devoured while the agonized brutes are filling the air with their bellowings.... and the manners of the people in other respects are horrible in the extreme. yet, strange to say, _they profess christianity, and have numerous churches_. their saints are almost innumerable, and surpass in miraculous power those of the romish church. the clergy do not attempt to prevent divorces, nor even polygamy. in confirmation of the above graphic picture, we will quote also from an english geography by guthrie and ferguson, f.r.s. (p. ): "the inhabitants of abyssinia _consist of christians_. some ecclesiastical writers would persuade us that the conversion of abyssinia to christianity happened in the time of the apostles; but others state that this was after,--: in the year . there is no such thing as marriage in abyssinia, and no distinction made between legitimate and illegitimate children, from the king to the beggar." _here, then, is "christian" morality, and here is a specimen of christian "free-lovism" too, in a country where the christian bible has been circulated by the thousand, and read and adored for at least fifteen hundred years_. such facts furnish a complete refutation of the popular christian assumption that "true and pure morality is inseparable from christianity and the bible." the truth is, the bible alone has _never done any thing_ to advance the cause of _either morality or civilization in any country_, because it is interdicted from improvement. it may be asked here, why is it, then, that both religion and morality prosper in most countries where the bible has been introduced? the answer to this question is found in the _important fact, overlooked by the christian world_, that the _arts and sciences_ generally accompany, or soon follow, the introduction of the bible; but, where this has not been the case, and the bible has been circulated alone, as in the case of abyssinia, no progress whatever has been made towards the establishment of true morality or a rational religion, or any of the adjuncts of civilization, thus proving that the causes for the moral growth and improvement of society are outside of, and independent of, the bible, and, we will add (in view of the many immoral lessons taught in the book), in spite of the bible. a little rational reflection must convince any unbiased person that bibles, in the very nature of things, must retard the moral and intellectual advancement and prosperity of society in every respect, notwithstanding they contain many good and beautiful precepts, for representing, as they do, the imperfect state of morals in the age and country in which they were written; while their teachings are assumed to be a finality in moral and religious progress, and hence are not allowed to be transcended in precept or practice. the consequence is, society would be pinned down immovably and perpetually to the same barbarous religion and morals of that age, if it were not pushed forward by the irresistible influences of the arts and sciences. hence we owe our advancement and prosperity _not to bibles, but to causes adequate to counteract and overcome their adverse influences_. the moral benefits of infidelity. an additional argument to prove the bible is not a moral necessity to teach the practical duties of life is the fact that that class of persons known as "infidels," who entirely reject the book as a guide or as a moral instructor on account of its very defective and contradictory system of morals, are admitted by leading orthodox journals and representative men in the nation to possess better moral characters and habits, and to lead better moral lives, than bible believers. as a proof of this statement, we will here present the most wonderful and humiliating concessions of that leading religious journal of the nation, "the new-york evangelist." on this subject it speaks thus: "to the shame of the church it must be confessed that the foremost men in all our philanthropic movements, in the interpretation of the spirit of the age, in the practical application of genuine christianity, in the reformation of abuses in high and in low places, in the vindication of the rights of man and in practically redressing his wrongs, in the moral and intellectual regeneration of the race, _are the so-called infidels in our land_. the church has pusillanimously left not only the working oar, but the very reins of salutary reform, in the hands of men she denounces as inimical to christianity, and who are doing with all their might, for _humanity's_ sake, that which the church ought to be doing for _christ's_ sake; and if they succeed, as succeed they will, in abolishing slavery, banishing rum, restraining licentiousness, reforming abuses, and elevating the masses, then must the recoil upon christianity be disastrous in the extreme. woe! woe! woe to christianity when infidels, by force of nature or the tendencies of the age, _get ahead of the church in morals_, and in the practical work of christianity. in some instances they are already far in advance. in the vindication of truth, righteousness, and liberty, they are the pioneers beckoning to a sluggish church to follow in the rear." to this we will add the testimony of another orthodox writer (the eminent catherine beecher) as to the superior practical morality of infidels as compared with that of christians. she says, in her "appeal to the people" (p. ), "it has come to pass that the world has been improving in practical virtue, while the church has been deteriorating. the writer, in her very extensive travels and intercourse with the religious world, has had unusual opportunity to notice how surely and how extensively this fact has been observed and acknowledged by the best class of clergymen and laymen." she says one of the most laborious episcopal bishops of the western states declares, that "the world is growing better, and the church is growing worse." she next cites the testimony of an eminent lawyer and church-member who is carrying on an extensive financial business throughout the country, and who makes the remarkable statement, that "the better class of _worldly men are more honorable and reliable in business than the majority of church-members_." (let the reader mark this statement.) and this declaration was concurred in by another eminent lawyer, banker, and church-member, who is doing a more extensive business in the north-western states than any other man. and he states that the most extensive business-man in central new york has arrived at the same conclusion as the result of his observation. and the greatest business-man in boston is also referred to, whose experience led him to this conclusion. and other business-men in different parts of the country testify to the same effect. we may, then, set it down as the universal testimony of business-men that infidels and outsiders are more honest, more reliable, more truthful, and more honorable than church-members. what a fatal argument these facts furnish against the religion and morality of the christian bible! they indicate that the religion and morality of nature and science are superior. burning the world's benefactors as infidels. it will be perceived, from the preceding orthodox testimonies, that the class of people usually stigmatized as infidels are the true exemplars in practical morality, and the true benefactors of society. and christian countries owe them a debt of gratitude for all the reforms and improvements which have proved such signal blessings to society within the last few hundred years, and for their own elevation out of the groveling ignorance of barbarism into the glorious sunlight of civilization. what withering self-reproach, what shameful mortification and self-condemnation, they ought therefore to feel in view of having committed so many of them to the flames, or otherwise maltreated and killed them! for, according to the above christian testimonies, they were the world's real benefactors; and the following list will show that those victims _perished at the hands of christians as infidel martyrs_: in herman of ryswick was burned for heresy; in aonius polearius was hung, and then burned for skepticism; in geofroi vallie was burned for publishing a heretical book; in stephen dolet, a printer and bookseller, was burned at paris for atheism; in matthew hamont had his ears cut off, and was then burned alive, in england, for denying that christ is god; in john lewes was burned at norwich, eng., for "denying the godhead of christ;" in francis kett, a member of a college in cambridge, eng., was burned for holding "divers detestable opinions against christ, our savior;" in bartholomew legate was burned to ashes at smithfield for denying that christ was god; in edward wightman was burned at litchfield for denying the divinity of christ; in lucilio yanini, an italian, was burned for atheistical opinions; in john gonganelle was poisoned for his infidelity by the holy sacrament; in alexander leighton had his nose slit and his ears cut off, and was imprisoned for eleven years for publishing a work against miracles. to make the matter short, without extending the list, it has been estimated that _forty thousand_ perished at the hands of christians in _forty y ears for infidelity, heresy,_ or other opinions deemed unsound by orthodox. and thus it will be perceived that infidelity has had its martyrs as well as christianity; and that christians, in putting these men to death, were robbing the world (according to "the new-york evangelist")of its real benefactors. oh, shame! christianity, where is thy blush? chapter li.--send no moke bibles to the heathen. a recent work by a christian writer states that there are now employed in the work of converting the heathen to christianity fifteen thousand missionaries, and that they succeed in converting about ten thousand a year. from this statement, it appears that ten thousand missionaries make annually one convert apiece, while five thousand make none. and the cost the writer estimates to be about twenty thousand dollars for each convert. c. wiseman estimated it, about thirty years ago, to be ten thousand dollars apiece. and, while these ten thousand converts were made, the heathen population increased in numbers five millions. thus it appears they increase two hundred times faster than they are converted. how long will it take, at such rates, to effect the entire conversion of the world? and what will be the cost? all the gold ever dug from the mines of golconda and california would be but a drop in the bucket compared with the requisite amount. the question naturally arises here, do the results justify such an enormous expenditure of time and treasure, say nothing of the loss of health on the part of the missionaries? a learned hindoo stated, in a speech made in london in , that the conversions made in india are confined principally to the low, ignorant, superstitious class, who do not possess sufficient sense and intelligence to know the difference between the religion they are converted to and the religion they are converted from. are such converts worth ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars apiece? the case suggests the story of the hibernian who stated his horse had but two faults: "first, he is hard to catch; second, he is no account when caught." the heathen must be hard to convert if it requires an expense of ten thousand dollars apiece, and of but little account when converted if they know nothing about the nature of the religion they are converted to. there are various considerations which go to prove that the hundreds of millions of dollars expended annually in this enterprise are worse than wasted:-- . one missionary, becoming discouraged at the prospect, once made the statement that nine-tenths of the converts have not sense enough to understand the christian religion, nor moral principle enough to live up to its precepts, and that a considerable portion of them relapsed into heathenism. it should be borne in mind that it is not the most intelligent nor the most moral portion of the heathen who profess to embrace christianity, but generally the credulous, ignorant, and fickle-minded class, who are ready for any change that may be offered. . no real good seems to be accomplished by the introduction of the christian bible among the heathen, but much evil. its thousands of bad moral precepts and bad moral examples, and its sanction of every species of crime, must inevitably have the effect to weaken their moral resolutions, and deepen them in the commission of crime. and hence, as missionaries themselves indirectly confess, crime has increased in almost every nation where missions have been established. it is true, that, in those nations where the arts and sciences have been cultivated, they have operated to some extent in counteracting the bad moral lessons they learn by reading the bible; and in some cases, in this way, some improvement has been made. but no instance can be found in the history of the missionary enterprise where any improvement has been made in the morals of the people, where their instruction has been confined to the bible, without the arts and sciences. on the contrary, their morals have grown worse, or remained unimproved, as in abyssinia and the samoan islands, where, after more than a thousand years' instruction in bible religion, without the arts and sciences, they are still in the lowest stages of barbarism. (see chapter .) "the bible as a moral necessity." . it is a policy that must be deplored by every true philanthropist, that the christian world expends millions of dollars every year to convert the heathen to a religion that can neither improve their morals or their intellect, but inculcates bad lessons in morals and science, and, in many cases, is a worse religion than that already established in those countries. (for evidence, see chapter .) . and this policy becomes still more reprehensible when coupled with the fact that there are sixty thousand christians living in a state of want, beggary, destitution, and suffering, in christian cellars in new-york city; and two hundred thousand, including boston and philadelphia, who are in a state of degradation and suffering almost beyond description, who might be relieved and placed in a situation to improve their morals and their physical condition comfortably if the millions of money, time, and labor were spent on them which are uselessly expended on foreign missions. think of two hundred thousand church-members living in dark, damp, dreary, sickly cellars, with grim starvation daily staring them in the face, while their purse-proud christian landlords are living in luxury over their heads. no such cruel, inhuman religion can be found in any heathen nation. . and then the missionary enterprise inflicts physical evils, as well as moral, upon the foreign heathen. it introduces habits and customs amongst them, which, in some cases, destroy their health, as well as corrupt their morals. look, for example, at the sandwich islands. since the establishment of christian missions amongst them, the population has decreased thirty per cent. twenty thousand children in schools in are dwindled down to eleven thousand. marriages have decreased, and divorces have increased. nine hundred divorces took place in four years, while previous to the introduction of christianity, we are told, divorces were almost unknown. missionaries, ignorant of physiology and the laws of mental science, and in total disregard of natural law, establish habits among the heathen which destroy both their health and their happiness. . the people in several heathen countries have proved to be sharp-sighted and intelligent enough to detect the errors in the bible and religious system presented to them by the missionaries. bishop colenso states, that, while serving as missionary among the zulus tribe, some of the natives started objections to statements found in the bible which had not occurred to his own mind. and this fact made him resign his mission and return home, and read his bible with more care, which resulted in detecting hundreds of errors in the holy book, which he has published to the world in a large volume. we are informed that the hindoos told some of the missionaries while among them, that such a god as the christian bible describes would not be allowed to run at large in their country. he would be taken up as a criminal. . the natives in several countries where the missionaries have been operating, on becoming acquainted with the character of the teachings of the christian bible, have raised objections to its being circulated amongst them, and, in some cases, have besought the missionaries to leave. the rev. mr. hall, a missionary in india, states that a public meeting was called at madras by the natives to draw up a petition to lord stanley of england to send no more missionaries, and also entreat him to withdraw those then operating there; and such was the interest manifested that the meeting called out ten thousand people. the chinese, also, have manifested strong opposition to the movements of the missionaries among them; while the japanese have kept out from amongst them both bible and missionaries by positive law until a recent period. . the inhabitants of the friendly isles, of honolulu, of india, and also of japan, have all discussed the subject of sending missionaries to this country to improve the morals of the christians; and it is certain that some of them are practically acquainted with a better system of morals than that which prevails in this country. here we will note the remarkable circumstance that a learned hindoo has recently held a two days' debate with a christian missionary, which excited such an interest that it drew together from five to seven thousand of the natives, who desired to see the missionary beat in the debate. a writer states that the hindoo handled the missionary's arguments as a cat would a mouse, thus intimating that the missionary was completely vanquished in the logical contest; and yet this hindoo is called a "heathen." pshaw! it would be a blessing to christian countries to be supplied with a few millions of such heathen. it would improve both their morals and their intelligence. note.--many anecdotes are afloat tending to prove the superior moral honesty of the hindoos and other "heathen." as a traveler was walking the streets of an asiatic city with one of the natives, he proposed to step into a store and purchase some article. "no," said the native: "see that chair in the door to let us know the merchant is absent."--"what!" exclaimed the traveler: "do merchants go away and leave their goods exposed in that way?"--"yes," responded the honest native, "where there are no christians about." chapter lii.--what shall we believe and do to be saved? "what shall we believe and do in order to be saved?" is an all-important query, and one which daily occupies the minds of millions of earth's inhabitants of all countries and all climes. there are ten thousand answers to this question, and they are as conflicting as the confusion of tongues at the tower of babel no two religious orders, and scarcely any two religious believers agree with respect to the all-important answer to be rendered to this all-important question. to prove this, we will interrogate the disciples of all the leading religious orders who have found a place in the world's history, and compare their answers, and observe the result. commencing in the order of time, the disciples of the vedas will be the first we will interrogate, as they represent the oldest religious faith that has ever been promulgated in the world. i. hindoo's answer to the question. well, brother hindoo, will you be so good as to answer this question, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" "oh, yes!" responds the devout worshiper of brahma, pointing to a stone arched pagoda. "go and prostrate yourself in that holy building, made venerable by a thousand years' devotion, and offer up prayer and praise to brahma, and, if you have committed any sins, implore his forgiveness. you must also believe in his holy book, the vedas, and obey its precepts, which enjoin virtue and holiness, and forbid theft, robbery, murder, lying, dishonesty, adultery, and other crimes; and you must not only believe in the holy book as god's revealed will to mankind, but you must believe _it is all true,--every word of it_. you must believe, also, that it existed in the mind of the great god brahma _from all eternity_; and some nine thousand years ago was revealed by him to certain holy men, known as rishis, or prophets, who recorded it in a book for the instruction and salvation of the world; and that this divinely revealed and perfect book contains all knowledge, past, present, and future, and _all the religion necessary to save the whole human race_. and, if you would become a true-born saint [i.e., in christian language, "regenerated and born again"], you must read the holy book through upon your bended knees. [and thousands of its most pious and devout disciples have performed this humble and laborious task.] and if you would advance still farther in soul-purification and true sanctity, so as to become a thrice-born saint [for they hold that the oftener you are born the better], then you must commit the divine volume all to memory. [and many of them, we are assured, have accomplished this herculean task.] but you can not attain to complete and perfect holiness as a hindoo saint, unless you forsake the busy scenes of life, retire to lonely places, and devote yourselves to a life of religious contemplation." by leading this austere, self-denying life, they hold that men and women can attain to complete holiness, and draw near to the spirit of god, and become so exalted in his favor as to receive important revelations from him, and be enabled by him to perform great miracles, such as casting out devils, raising the dead, handling fire without being burned, and swallowing poison without being killed or injured, and finally become gods, and ascend to heaven in mortal bodies after the manner of enoch and elijah. in one respect some of the sects are much more consistent than christian professors. believing, as christians have always professed to do, that sickness is often sent by god as a punishment for sin, they never send for a physician, nor allow one to treat the case; because, as they argue, trying to cure it would be trying to counteract the judgment of god, and thus bring down his vengeance upon the heads of those guilty of this sin. here christians might learn an important moral lesson of the heathen,--that of living up to the doctrines they preach. we have, then, the hindoo answer to the question, "what must we do and believe in order to be saved?" the egyptian's answer. well, brother disciple of the old egyptian religion, let us hear your answer to the question, "what must we do and believe in order to be saved?"--"well," replies the believer in this ancient order of faith, "if you would make a sure thing of escaping the pangs of hell, and being saved in the heavenly mansion, you must not neglect to pray daily to the great god tulis, crucified some twenty-eight hundred years ago for the sins of mankind; and, if you have committed any sin, you must pray to him to have them canceled from 'the book of life.' [for the ancient egyptians believed and taught that our evil deeds, as well as our good deeds, are recorded in 'the book of life,' in which st. john represents (see rev. - .) our good deeds alone as being registered.] and, if you would make a sure thing of being saved in 'the day of judgment,' you must intercede with divine mercy to erase your evil deeds from this book of life, so that they will not stand against you in that solemn hour." here we find a few of the duties enumerated which the disciples of that ancient system of religion believed and taught were necessary to be comprised in your religious creed in order to be saved in the great day of accounts. the chinese answer. we will now interrogate the representative of the religion of "the five volumes," and hear his answer to this most important question that ever occupied the thoughts of the human mind. well, then, brother chinaman, please tell us what we shall do and believe in order to reach the heavenly kingdom when compelled to quit the things of time. "why, the most important thing of all is, to perform your daily vows to god, and worship him through images prepared to represent him, whether those images are made of wood or stone or metal, though you are not to consider these images as the veritable living and true god." for no nation was ever so brainless or stupid as to believe that idols or images made of mere inanimate matter were living beings, much less a living god. no! the images which have been represented by christian writers as being objects of worship in numerous heathen countries have been nothing more than mere imaginary likenesses of the divine being, and were gotten up for the same purpose that christian men obtain photograph likenesses of their absent friends, and hang them on the walls of their dwellings. the object is simply to keep the images of our friends impressed on our minds in their absence; and the same motive actuates the idolater in making supposed images of an absent god. the object is simply to have something before them that will keep them in remembrance of him, and his laws and commandments,--a very laudable motive, most certainly. they are idolaters, it is true; and so are all nations who believe in a personal god, whether called jew, pagan, or christian: for idolatry is defined to be "image-making and image-worship;" and both of these acts all religious nations have been addicted to (christians not excepted). this can be seen in a moment, when we look at the essential nature of idolatry; that is, the making and worship of images. all images are first formed in the mind. the christian forms his conception of a personal god in his mind; and the pagan does the same. both thus make their mental images of god. the only difference in the two cases is, the pagan goes one step farther, and represents his image in wood, stone, or metal; but it is no more an image than while it existed only in the mind. then it is evident there is no essential difference between them. both are idolaters. for a further elucidation of this subject, see the chapter on idolatry. and, if you would be saved by the chinese religion, there are some practical duties you must perform. you must live up to the golden rule incorporated in their bible nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. you must also observe the rite of water-baptism; for it has been a religious ordinance amongst them for several thousand years. and, if you would attain to complete holiness, you must be kind to all human beings, and even all animals. kill no living thing, and eat nothing after sundown. then you can be saved by their religion. the persian's and chaldean's answer. brothers of the religion of iran, can you tell us what to do and believe in order to be saved? "yes, indeed. first of all, you must believe 'god's living word,' the zenda avesta; for that is the meaning of the term. _zenda_ means 'the life' or 'the living,' and avesta, 'the word of god.' and you must live up to its holy precepts, which will keep you from committing sin, and prompt you to lead a virtuous life. you must also say grace, both before and after eating, as that was their ancient custom. but you are forbidden to speculate in any of the necessaries of life so as to cause suffering among the poor. and their bible declares that he who hoards up grain, and holds it for a high price, is responsible for all the famine and all the misery that may take place among the people. [i would recommend modern christian speculators to borrow this heathen code, and learn from it some important moral lessons.] to insure salvation under this religion, you most also believe in 'mithra the mediator,' crucified for the sins of the world some three thousand three hundred years ago by wicked hands, but in no case make any idols or images of god; for their religion practically condemns idolatry." the japanese answer to the question. we will now hear from a "heathen" nation distinguished for good sense, good morals, and practical honesty. tell us, then, brother japanese, what we must do and believe in order to be saved. "well, first of all, you must keep the christian bible out of your houses. don't suffer it to enter your doors. let all bibles alone, and obey the inward monitions of your own souls. your own conscience and experience and moral sense will teach you that it is wrong to lie, wrong to swear, wrong to steal, wrong to cheat, wrong to get drunk, wrong to fight, and wrong to kill." now let us learn something about the moral character and practical lives of this "heathen nation," who, for more than two hundred years, have kept christian bibles and christian missionaries out from among them, most of the time by positive law. dr. oliphant and col. hall, who both spent some considerable time amongst them, state that they are an honest, upright, moral, and sober people. with respect to honesty of dealing, sobriety, and abstinence from swearing, quarreling, fighting, or any of the common vices of society, the best authorities assure us that no christian nation on earth will compare with them; and yet they conscientiously refrain from reading the christian bible. (see chapter l. of this work.) what a startling disproof is here furnished to the declaration of christian writers that the introduction of the christian bible, and the establishment of the christian religion amongst the heathen, are essential to the existence of good morals amongst them! in many cases more good would be effected by reversing the practice, and sending heathen missionaries into christian nations, as the pious pagans of china, india, and the friendly isles have all been talking of doing; and some of the godly people of india have already entered upon the work. the mahomedan answer to the question. brother disciple of the koran, will you please to tell us what the one hundred and fifty million of followers of the great prophet believe is necessary to do and believe in order to be saved? "yes, certainly. the devout believers in this soul-saving religion have understood this question for more than a thousand years, and know exactly how to answer it. you must believe that the holy book (the koran) is god's last revelation, and his last will and testament to mankind; and you must shape your practical lives by its precepts, which will make you 'true saints,' and honest, upright, and righteous men and women. you must also believe that the great prophet is the true, holy, and appointed messenger of god, and that allah is the only true god. to believe, as christians do, that god is divided into three persons or beings, or three attributes, or three branches, known as father, son, and holy ghost, is not only a monstrous absurdity, but a monstrous sin and an unpardonable blasphemy; and no man or woman who holds such doctrine can be saved. god is but one, and allah is his name, and you must worship him seven times a day; and on the sabbath day (friday) you must present yourselves at the mosque with the holy book in your hand, which, having kissed, you are then to place it upon the holy altar, and listen while the priest explains its great truths and its profound and godly mysteries." and "on such occasions," says major denham, "tears flow in abundance, as under christian preaching." here, then, you have the terms of salvation and the road marked cut to heaven by the believers in the koran. the christian churches' answer to the question. and now, brethren of the christian faith, we will listen with attention to your answer to the important question, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" but christian sects are so numerous, and their views so conflicting, we can only find room for the answers of a few of the leading churches. the catholic's answer. well, brother roman catholic, as you represent the oldest christian denomination in existence, we will first hear from your church in answer to this great question, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?"--"well, the question is easily answered. you must believe that the bible is the inspired word of god; that jesus christ is the son of god; and that st. peter, succeeded by the pope, is his vicegerent on the earth. you must also worship, or at least believe in the divinity of, the father, son, and holy ghost, and the virgin mary; and adhere to the various rites and ceremonies of the church." the greek christian's answer. well, brother disciple of the greek church, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" what do you think of the roman catholic's answer? is it correct? "no, indeed: far from it. it is an insult to god the father and god the son both to put either st. peter or the pope at the head of the church. that is the office and mission of jesus christ the savior; and he will never save you while you believe such blasphemous doctrine." away then goes the old mother-church, with her hundred and fifty millions of souls, down into the bottomless pit, being ruled out of heaven by the greek church; that is, doomed to eternal perdition, according to the testimony of the greek church. the presbyterian's answer to the question. well, brother of the presbyterian order, we will now listen to your answer to the great question, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" how about the greek christian's answer to the question? is it right? does he hold the true doctrine, or not? "no: very far from it, indeed. like the roman christian, he believes in the divinity of the virgin mary, and consequently he is an idolater and no idolater can be admitted into the kingdom of 'heaven." so away goes the old greek church, with her seventy million disciples, down into the world of endless woe, if the testimony of our presbyterian brother is to be relied upon. and thus two-thirds of all christendom, comprising the disciples of the romish church and the greek church, are doomed to an endless hell, according to their own witnesses. the unitarian christian's answer. our unitarian brother will now please come forward, and tell us "what we must do and believe in order to be saved." do you indorse any of the answers already obtained, or agree with any of the churches which have been interrogated upon this subject, or not? "no: very far from it." what! you don't dissent from the views of the presbyterian church upon this question, do you? "yes, i do: for they worship 'the man christ jesus' (as paul truly calls him), and, being but a man, they are idolaters (like the roman and greek christians) for worshiping him as a god, and therefore cannot be saved, according to the bible. he was born as a man; he lived as a man; he ate as a man; he walked as a man; he talked as a man; he slept as a man, and finally died as a man. and he calls himself 'the son of man' more than forty times, which would make him a man. for these and various other reasons we believe he could not have been a god, but only a man; and therefore those who worship him as a god are guilty of idolatry,--the most heinous sin a man can commit, according to the bible. and hence they can not possibly be saved, if the bible teaches truly." away then goes four hundred protestant sects to the regions of eternal torment, if the testimony of christian witnesses is to be believed and accepted in the case. the jew's answer to the question. brother jew, can you show us the road to salvation, or tell us what to do and believe in order to be saved? "oh, yes! it is a plain question, and easily answered. you must believe that the old-testament scriptures are the inspired word of god, and believe in its miracles and prophecies, though you are not to interpret or construe any of its prophecies as foretelling the coming and mission of christ; for, as we wrote them, we of course know exactly what they teach, and how to understand them. and we know most positively that they do not foretell the coming and mission of any such a being as jesus christ as the promised messiah." "now, look here, you wicked jews," exclaim a hundred christian sects, "you are denying 'the lord who bought you' and therefore can not be saved." so six millions of jews are consigned by their protestant brethren to endless torment,--given over to the buffetings of satan to all eternity. brother methodist, perhaps you can do something towards settling this vexed and puzzling question, "what must we do and believe in order to be saved?"--"certainly," exclaims the pious disciple of wesley. "it is perfectly plain, and easily answered. you must believe in the bible as the revealed will and word of god, and in jesus christ 'the son and sent of god;' and pour out your souls in prayer and praises to god, and shout 'glory' to his holy name."--"stop! stop!" cries out the good, pious, quiet, broad-brimmed quaker. "you can not be saved in that way. you drown the inward monitor of the holy spirit, which must be listened to and obeyed in order to insure salvation. you, by your noisy way of worshiping god, drown the voice of this inward monitor, and consequently hear and heed not its admonitions; thus proving that you know nothing about the true way of worshiping god, or what true religion is. and therefore there is no chance for you to be saved." and thus two millions of methodists are doomed to eternal woe by their quaker brethren. the baptist's answer brother baptist, will you give us your opinion, or answer the question, "what shall we do and believe in order to be saved?" --"oh, yes! the bible is so plain upon that subject that no honest reader can misunderstand it. you are to believe in the bible; believe in jesus christ, and live up to his precepts; and believe in, and practically observe, the sacred ordinance of water-baptism,--without which, according to the bible, it is impossible to reach the kingdom, or inherit life everlasting."--"stop, stop!" exclaims the drab-cloth quaker again. "i perceive that the baptists, as well as the methodists, are not on the road to salvation. no man or woman can be saved who believes in, and relies upon, the external and carnal rite of water-baptism. it is a reliance of such outward performances that causes millions of ignorant and unconverted heathen to sink to endless ruin every year. they and you are dwelling in the outer court, and practically know nothing about the true religion essential to salvation, and hence can not be saved." --"now, look here," exclaims the campbellite baptist, "water-baptism is one of the positive ordinances; and the bible declares that no man or woman can be saved without a compliance with all the ordinances, from the least to the greatest. therefore there is no chance for you infidel quakers to get to heaven; but you will, sooner or later, be consigned to the pit 'where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'" and thus we might pursue the conflicting jargon of answers through all the churches. but we stop confused and confounded amid chaos, confusion, and contradiction. all seems to be wild conjecture and blind guess-work with regard to what we must do and believe in order to be saved. there appears to be no way of learning any thing about the road to salvation by the churches. what is to be done? the quaker's answer. brother quaker, as you profess to get light from above, perhaps you can throw some light on this dark question. we have not yet heard your answer to this puzzling question. can you tell us "what to do and believe in order to be saved"? "most certainly i can," replies the inspired disciple of fox and penn. "there can be no mistake about what the bible teaches on the subject. it is perfectly plain, and easily understood. you are to retire into the quiet, and turn your minds inward with a prayerful desire to know the will of god. in this state of mind, open your bible and you will learn that you are to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with god, and become established in the true faith: for the bible declares that, 'without faith, it is impossible to please god;' that is, faith in his beloved son, whom he sent into the world to die a propitiatory offering for the sins of man."--"what!" exclaims the hicksite quaker, "do you mean to teach the dark and bloody doctrine of the atonement? do you mean to say that we have to swim through blood to get to 'the house of many mansions'? if you do, you are egregiously mistaken. you are teaching and preaching an old, worn-out, bloody, heathen doctrine that never did and never can save a single soul."--"now, look here," cries the orthodox quaker, "the bible declares, 'there is no other name given under heaven whereby men can be saved than that of jesus christ;' and you are blaspheming his name by denying the efficacy of his death and sufferings. therefore your chance for salvation is a hopeless one. you will be lost, and consigned to the pit where there is eternal weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." so away go both the quaker orders, each booked by the other for eternal perdition. but we most stop, or we will swell this chapter on the war of conflicting creeds to a volume. we have now interrogated all the leading churches relative to what it is necessary to do and believe in order to make a sure thing of salvation, and escape the awful and dreadful fate of endless damnation. and what is the result? no two churches--and it could easily be shown that scarcely any two christians--agree upon this all-important question, upon which they tell us is hung the salvation of the world. as we have shown, the churches all virtually shut the door of heaven against each other. they are _all off the track, all on the road_ to eternal damnation, according to the testimony of their own witnesses. in the name of god, what is the use or sense, then, of professing to believe in the bible, or claiming to be christians, when it is thus demonstrably proved that nobody knows any thing about what the bible teaches, or what it takes to make a christian? the picture we have presented is no mere fancy sketch. it is not the work of mere imagination. hundreds, if not thousands, of quotations could be furnished from the writings of eminent christian writers of the different churches to show that it is a solemn reality, and that they differ in the way, and as widely, as we have represented. and what is the solemn lesson taught by it? why, the absolute impossibility of our finding the road to heaven through the churches and it is an entire waste of time, besides being demoralizing to the mind, to attempt it. we are often told by the orthodox christians, by way of defending their creeds, that the churches are agreed upon all the leading doctrines of the christian faith. well, let us see how this is, and whether they in reality agree upon _any thing_. we will institute another court of inquiry, and briefly examine and compare the views of the various churches relative to the cardinal doctrines of the christian religion. . _moral depravity_.--the first in order will be the fall and depravity of man. well, brother calvinist, as you hail from the oldest protestant church, we will first solicit your views upon this all-important question. we wish to know whether you believe that man fell from a state of purity, and became morally depraved by the fall. "oh, yes! we believe he fell so low that he became _totally depraved_ by the fall; so that _all men_ are now the children of wrath, born in sin, and conceived in iniquity, and covered with corruption from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot." brother arminian, what do you think of this view of the matter? is it bible doctrine, or not? "no: it is neither according to the bible, nor according to common sense, but a damnable doctrine, that will send any man's soul to hell who believes in such outrageous doctrine. it is not only untrue, but it is demoralizing to rob man so completely of his moral attributes as to make him feel like a brute, and, consequently, act like one." . _man's restoration._--how is this to be effected, brother calvinist? "why, by the outpouring of the blood of christ, the propitiatory offering." brother arminian, is this true christian doctrine? "no, it is not. man's salvation is effected in no such a way. every man is to work out his own salvation. i can prove it by the bible." . _endless punishment_.--most protestant sects hold and preach that the wicked, when they die, are consigned to a place or state called "the bottomless pit." (how they are kept in it with the bottom out, the lord only knows, or perhaps we should say the devil). but the universalists affirm that the bible teaches no such doctrine, but tells us that, "as in adam all die, so in christ shall all be made alive;" which proves, as they affirm, the ultimate salvation of all the human race. but the restorationists prove that there is "a mediate place for souls, which is neither heaven nor hell, but a preliminary and a temporary abode for all souls, good and bad." and there is another class of christians who find in the same book a still different doctrine, that of the _absolute and total destruction_ of the wicked. they quote phil. - . which of these four christian sects teach the true bible doctrine? who can tell? . _divinity of christ_.--most of the protestant sects tell us that the bible makes a belief in the supreme divinity of jesus christ essential to salvation; but the parkerite christian, the hicksite christian, and the unitarian christian affirm that it does not, that it only makes him a perfect or superior specimen of manhood. which is right? who can tell? . _polygamy_.--most of the churches once believed that polygamy is a bible doctrine, and practiced it for eight hundred years. but now they tell us it is not. the mormons, however, declare that it is sanctioned in the old testament, and not condemned in the new, and hence is a bible doctrine. which is right? how can we tell? . _marriage_.--nearly all the sects hold that marriage is a bible institution. but the shakers declare that it is not, and quote christ's own words to prove it as found in luke - . "the children of this world marry and are given in marriage; but they who shall be counted worthy of that world, and the resurrection, neither marry nor are given in marriage." they reasonably conclude that those who shall not be considered worthy of being saved (which includes all married people) will not be saved, being cut off by christ's positive prohibition of marriage. which is right? who can tell? the text, however, furnishes a consoling hope for old bachelors and old maids, to say the least. . _the sabbath_.--most of the churches keep the first day of the week as the bible sabbath. but the seventh-day baptists affirm that it is not, that the seventh day of the week is the true sabbath of the lord; while other sects tell us that christ, both by precept and example, labored to do away with all sabbath observances and all holy days. which is right? who can tell? . _the godhead._--all trinitarians teach that there are _three persons in the godhead_. the paulite christians say there are but two, while the unitarians affirm there is but one. which is right? who can tell? . _baptism_.--the churches are not agreed with regard to baptism as to what it is, how, and when it should be applied, and on whom it should be administered. some hold to dipping, some to douching, and some to sprinkling, as the scripture mode of administering it. which is right? who can tell? i should prefer the dipping process. it would do something toward saving the body of the sinner from disease, if not the soul from hell, _if frequently applied_. he should be baptized once a week, if not once a day, with water and soap. we have now enumerated nearly all the leading doctrines of the christian faith, and shown that the views of the churches, with respect to them, are about as different as day from night. the important query then arises, what progress have we made towards determining, by the bible or by the churches, what we must do and believe in order to be saved? why, about the same progress the boy had made toward reaching the schoolhouse, who, on being interrogated by the teacher as to the cause of his late appearance, replied, "why, master, you see the road was so slippery, that, when i attempted to take one step forward, i slipped two steps backward."--"how did you manage to get here, then?" asked the teacher. "why," replied tom, "i turned round and went the other way." i would suggest that the churches try this policy of turning round, and going the other way. my conviction is they would find the true road to salvation much sooner, and be better prepared to settle the question as to what they should do and believe in order to be saved. it is a question, however, they never can settle. the bible is a very old book; and, the farther we get away from the age in which it was written, the more difficult it will become to understand it: for human language, and even human thought and the meaning of words, are constantly changing. these circumstances will constantly augment the difficulty of ever understanding any old bible, or of determining what it teaches or designed to teach with respect to an important doctrine. . _the number of hells_.--when the disciple of the christian faith talks of a hell in the presence of a hindoo, he tells him he don't know any thing about the matter: that there are no less than three institutions of this kind. but here the mahomedan rises up, and says, "you, too, are totally ignorant on the subject; for there are no less than seven institutions of this character. one of them is set apart for christians who believe in the divinity and atonement of christ." lieut. lynch, of the united-states navy, says that a mahomedan told him, "no man or woman can be saved who believes that god was born of a woman, and then became a malefactor to a human tribunal; for the doctrine is blasphemous." which of all these opinions is right? who can tell? . _bible doctrines constantly changing_.--the increase of intelligence, and the growth and expansion of the human mind, have the effect to change the views of the people generally and constantly upon almost every subject that occupies the mind; so that the creeds of the churches are constantly changing. hence the bible is made to teach widely different doctrines in different ages; and what is christianity to-day is infidelity to-morrow, and _vice versâ_. (see chapter lviii.) and so thorough is the change wrought upon the meaning or interpretation of nearly all the important texts in "god's perfect revelation," that it virtually makes a new bible for each generation. i will present some proofs and illustrations of this statement by comparing the doctrine of the churches of the last century with those of the present. in the days of jonathan edwards, a hell, constituted of a lake of fire and brimstone, was preached in nearly all the christian churches; also the doctrine of infant damnation, when the methodists sang that beautiful and charming hymn,-- "for hell is crammed with infants damned, without a day of grace;" also the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of election and reprobation, the doctrine of purgatory, the doctrine of christ's descent into hell, &c. all these and other similar doctrines were preached in nearly every pulpit nearly every sabbath; and the preacher who would have neglected to preach these doctrines would have been denounced as on the road to hell. but now the clergyman who should attempt to preach these old calvinistic tenets would be denounced as "an old fogy." hence the important query arises, when were the churches preaching bible doctrine, _then or now?_ who can tell? such changes are unceasingly going on. important changes are sometimes made in the popular creed in a few years' time, as we will cite a case to prove. just before the last war the peace doctrine was becoming quite popular in nearly all the churches, and sermons were often preached from such texts as the following: "nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more." but, when the war broke out, new texts were hunted up, and the preaching all ran in the opposite direction. "cursed be he who holseth back his sword from blood" (jer. xlviii. ); "he who hath not a sword, let him sell his coat, and buy one,"--then constituted the texts for a sound sermon. _now it is evident that a book which thus teaches opposite doctrines virtually teaches nothing. its moral force is destroyed. if a man wants to perform a certain act to-day, and an act of an opposite character to-morrow, and can find a warrant for both in the bible, then it is evident the bible can have no effect whatever towards changing his course of life_. when every moral duty is both commanded and countermanded, and every crime both sanctioned and condemned, as appears to be the case with the christian bible, then it is evident that a man with the bible would act exactly as the man without the bible; for _whatever he may naturally feel inclined to do, or whatever he wants to do, he finds bible authority for_. hence it is evident the bible can't change his conduct in the least; for it merely tells him to do what he wishes to do, and had made up his mind to do. i will prove this position by citing several cases for illustration. we will suppose a man has become convinced by observation, or his own experience, that it is wrong to drink intoxicating liquors, and wants bible authority for preaching temperance. he can find it by turning to isa. v. : "woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine." but a friend of his, a member of the same church, living in the city, where there is great demand for intoxicating beverages, wants to make some money by selling it. he finds the authority for that act also in deut. xiv. : "thou shalt spend thy money for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever thy soul lusteth after." another christian becomes very angry, and filled with the spirit of a murderer towards a neighbor, and concludes to kill him. he finds bible authority for it in the text, "go ye out and slay every man his companion, every man his brother, and every man his neighbor" (exod. xxxii. ). another pious christian has become convinced, by "the logic of history," that all war and fighting is wrong, and hence concludes to preach the doctrine of peace. he finds bible authority for that in the decalogue: "thou shalt not kill." another devout christian, whose common sense has taught him that it is wrong for one human being to enslave another, wants bible authority against the practice. he finds it in the text, "thou shalt proclaim liberty through all the land," &c. another godly saint, living in a slave-holding country, and being both a tyrant and a mammon worshiper, wants bible authority for trafficking in the blood and bones of his fellow-beings. he finds it in lev. xxv. : "of the heathen round about you shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids, and they shall be your possession for ever;" so he knows it is all right. and thus this exposition might be continued so as to show that there is no crime, no sin, no vice, and no wicked deed but that is both sanctioned and condemned by "god's holy word," and no moral duty that is not both commanded and countermanded; thus proving it to be absolutely impossible to follow it as a guide without being led into the commission of every species of sin, crime, and abomination, as well as prompted to the practice of virtue. every person who has not made shipwreck of common sense must see at once that it is utterly impossible to learn any thing about what is right and what is wrong, what is sin and wickedness, and what is virtue, what is morality and what is immorality, or what he should approve, and what condemn, what he should do and what leave undone, or, finally, any thing about the duties of life or the rules and principles of morality, by such a book. what can such a book, then, be worth, either in the cause of religion or morality? where, oh! where is the common sense of christendom? it is wonderful to what extent rationality and good sense have been banished from the human mind in all bible countries by a false and perverted education. it can not be wondered at that we have so many antagonistic churches with innumerable conflicting creeds, when we examine and learn something about the endless contradictions and confusion of the teachings of the book on which they are founded. six hundred roads to heaven. we are swamped with endless difficulties in determining what to do and believe in order to be saved either by the bible or the churches, when we look at the fact that there are, as some writers have computed, more than six hundred conflicting churches, each one claiming to preach and to teach the only true and saving faith of the gospel and yet differing heaven-wide with respect to what constitutes that true and saving faith. they point out six hundred roads to heaven, when christ says there is but one,--"one lord, one faith, and one baptism." the churches are simply guessing institutions, and their creeds so many stereotyped systems of guess-work. how much has been learned, or what important questions have been settled, either in religion or morals, by the nearly two thousand years' reading and study of the christian bible? the six hundred jarring churches, and their constantly increasing number, furnish a sufficient answer to this question. what a ludicrous aspect would the cause of science now be in, and what torrents of ridicule and contempt would be poured upon our institutions of learning, if they differed in their principles, or with respect to the principles of any branch of science, as the churches differ with respect to the doctrine of the bible! we will illustrate by an imaginary examination of the students of one of our institutions of learning with respect to their attainments in mathematics. a class having recited, we will interrogate each one separately. "well, john, as you have been studying figures several years, can you now tell us how many are twice two?"--"yes, sir: twice two are six."--"very well: take your seat. the next student will rise. james, can you tell us how many are twice two?"--"yes, i can: twice two are eleven."--"very well: be seated, and let tommy rise. tommy, as you are a diligent student, and have been through the arithmetic and the principal text-books, please tell us how many are twice two."--"i will. it is a plain case: twice two are fourteen."--"very well: stand aside. that intelligent-looking boy yonder we will hear from now. well, moses, can you tell us, as the result of your five years' close study of mathematics, how many are twice two?"--"certainly i can. to be nice and exact about the matter, twice two are nine and a half."--"very well: i am done with you. there is one more student to be interrogated. well, solomon, can you do any thing towards settling the disputed question, how many are twice two?"--"yes: i am astonished there should be any difference of opinion about the matter, when it is plain that no person who is really in earnest to understand it can fail to see that twice two are seventeen." such an institution of learning as this would be broken up as a nuisance in less than two hours after it was known to exist; and yet it furnishes a striking illustration of the character and condition of our theological institutions in which are professedly taught the science of christianity and the bible. the difference among the professors and students of theology is as great and important as in the former supposed case; and were not the eyes of the soul put out, and the christian sectarians rendered blind by their false or mistaken teachers, they would see that this is a true picture of their condition. we will institute another illustration. the christian churches are virtually six hundred guide-boards professedly pointing the way to heaven. let us suppose a traveler, hunting his way to "the queen city of the west," finds on a hill a tree or post, to which are nailed six hundred guide-boards pointing in six hundred different directions, and all labeled "to cincinnati." how much would he learn from them about the proper road to travel to reach the city? the chance of striking the right course would lay within six hundred guesses; and those guesses could be made as well without the guide-boards as with them. and it is equally certain, and most self-evidently certain, that the road to heaven could be found as well if there were no churches and no bibles pointing six hundred different directions. indeed, the chances of finding it would be much better without them, because the minds of the people are confused and confounded, and their time wasted, their mental and spiritual vision darkened, and their judgments weakened, by attempting to grope their way through such a labyrinth of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, which really incapacitates them for searching and finding the right way and the sure road "to the kingdom." one hundred and fifty bible translations and commentaries. when we learn that there have been no less than one hundred and fifty different translations and commentaries upon the bible put in circulation, we can see at once that this is calculated to greatly augment the difficulty of ever arriving at any thing like a unity of belief among the churches, or of settling the question as to what it is necessary to do and believe in order to be saved, or of finding the road to heaven through the churches. translation after translation of the bible has been made by different churches, each one alleging that all preceding translations were full of errors. the learned dr. robinson of england has estimated that some of the modern translations of the bible, made for the special purpose of getting the errors out of "the holy book," contain the frightful number of one hundred and fifty thousand errors; and the american christian union, now engaged in translating the bible, declare that our present popular version, translated by fifty-four of the most learned christian scholars, and which has long been an established standard authority in a large portion of christendom and regarded as nearly perfect, yet contains twenty-four thousand errors. how many more translations we are to have, god only knows. the thought occurs here, that, by the time all the errors are gotten out of the bible in this way, there will not be much of it left,--that it will not be much larger than "poor richard's maxims," or a common-sized almanac. now, to show the utter impossibility of establishing any doctrine or settling any question in theology by the bible, or of learning any thing about what constitutes christianity, or what we are to do and believe in order to be saved, we have only to compare some of these translations together, and observe the wide difference in their teachings, and the fatal contradictions in their doctrines and precepts. we will cite a few examples by way of proof and illustration. in our translation, known as "king james's bible," a text makes christ say, "a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see i have" (luke xxiv. ); but, in the most popular translation in europe (the royal), this text is made to read, "a spirit hath not flesh and blood, as you see i have not." here is a direct contradiction. one of these bibles makes christ say he is a spirit, and the other that he is not, which is a flat, and almost a fatal, contradiction. now, where on earth is the tribunal to which we can appeal to find out which of these translations is right? or how can the matter be settled? again: the text which in our own version is made to read, "there are three that bare record in heaven,--the father, son, and holy ghost," reads in another translation, "there are three witnesses,--the water, the blood, and the spirit," which knocks the trinity and divinity of jesus christ both out of the bible, so far as they are founded upon this text. we will cite one more example: "the wonderful messianic prophesy" as it is called (found in isa. ix. .),--which reads in our translation, "unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, he shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty god, the everlasting father," &c.,--is made in another translation to say, instead of "the mighty god," "the mighty hero," and, instead of "the everlasting father," "the father of the everlasting age," &c., which shows that the text is not a prophecy at all, and has no more reference to jesus christ than to mahomet. "the mighty hero" is not a term that is ever applied to god but to bloody warriors. now, who is to settle the question as to which of these translations is the right one? it will be observed, then, that we have, in the fifty contradictory translations of the bible, no-less than fifty contradictory moral codes and fifty contradictory systems of doctrines, which are virtually fifty assumed-to-be-perfect revelations from god (of course, all infallible). now, let us multiply the number of christian sects (six hundred) by the number of bible translations and commentaries (one hundred and fifty), and we will have indicated the number of roads marked out to heaven by the churches. the result is ninety thousand ( x = , ). here, then, we have ninety thousand roads leading to "the house of many mansions," which suggests the conclusion that nobody can possibly miss getting there; for we must presume that it would be impossible to travel in any direction without striking one of these numerous roads: so that the world of sinners may be comforted with the assurance they will all be saved. "the broad road" they are traveling must be intersected at many points by some of these many pathways to paradise; and they have only to turn off at the last crossing to be landed safe in "kingdom come." they have therefore ninety thousand chances of being saved by traveling "the broad road," if they prefer that to one of "the straight and narrow roads." this soul-saving system may be regarded as a lottery scheme in which there are eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine blanks, and but one prize. who would risk a farthing in such an investment, with eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine chances against drawing any thing? certainly no person with common sense or any intelligence. we will use an illustration. we will suppose the proprietor of a brick building comprising ninety thousand, bricks, one of which contains a gold medal worth one thousand dollars, says to one of his neighbors, "sir, the walls of this building comprise ninety thousand bricks, and one of them contains a gold medal worth one thousand dollars. if you will step to it, and put your finger on it, you can have it." can we suppose he would be very sanguine about winning the gold medal? certainly not. we will make another illustration. we will suppose the queen of england sends a company of a thousand men to australia to dig for a treasure known to have been buried there during a war, the locality of which she describes in writing so accurately that she presumes there can be no difficulty in finding it. in a few weeks she dispatches a messenger to the island to ascertain what progress the miners are making. but imagine his surprise, on reaching the place, to learn that the laborers are divided up into six hundred companies, and each company stoutly insisting that the spot where they are digging answers exactly to the locality described by the written instrument. now, on the messenger reporting the case to the queen, what would she conclude--ay, what could she conclude--but that she had made some serious blunder or omission in her attempted description of the place? it is not possible that an explicit revelation of the matter could have led to such endless confusion and disputes. in like manner we are morally compelled to conclude--yes, every principle of reasoning and common sense impels us to the conclusion--that god has made a serious blunder in attempting to give forth a perfect revelation to the world, if (as it seems) he has left it so ambiguous, so unintelligible, and so contradictory in its doctrines and teachings, that six hundred churches have risen up, and are now disputing about what its doctrines and teachings are. these six hundred churches comprise a hundred and fifty millions of guessing christians, all guessing their way to heaven, with ninety-thousand chances against their ever reaching the heavenly kingdom. to "the angel host" looking down, observing this infinite diversity, demoralization, and conflict among the disciples of the christian faith, it must be regarded as a species of religious monomania; for we may assume that no intelligent mind, which is not blinded by religious superstition, could be drawn into such a delusion as to conclude that such a book or such a religion or revelation is from an all-wise and all-powerful god, or that it is necessary to believe it, or that it is possible to believe it in any rational sense, or that it can have the remotest connection with our salvation. it makes god a fool, man a lunatic, religion a farce, and the bible superlative nonsense. revelation is defined to be "the act of making known." but what is made known by a book whose language is so contradictory and so ambiguous that no two persons in a million agree with respect to all it teaches? every preacher and teacher simply makes known his ignorance whenever he assumes to know what the bible teaches; and yet i is called "a perfect revelation of god's will." it is an assumption that makes god an ignoramus and a tyrant to suppose he would give forth a perfect revelation to the world, and require us to accept it as such on pain of endless damnation, and yet leave it in such a jumbled, bungling, and unintelligent condition that it is impossible to understand it. such an assumption certainly borders on blasphemy. we would charge him with no such driveling nonsense. it is the legitimate prerogative of reason to assume that a perfect being could make a perfect revelation or bible, the language of which should be so absolutely perfect and plain that no person of ordinary understanding could possibly fail to understand every text, every word, and every syllable of it, and no two persons could possibly differ about the meaning of one text in the whole book. such a revelation or bible, and only such, could be ascribed to an all-wise god. even men and women can now be found who are so far master of human language that they can write books so plainly that there can be no dispute about the meaning of one sentence in them. to assume, then, that an infinitely wise god could not produce such a book is to place him lower in the scale of intelligence than a common schoolboy. when, therefore, i find the christian bible so far from possessing such characteristics, i set it down as _prima-facie_ evidence that an intelligent and all-wise god had nothing to do in originating it. and if he were not superior to, or incapable of, such human weakness, he would reject with contempt and disdain the honor, or rather dishonor, ascribed to him in the authorship of such a book,--such a medley of contradiction, ignorance, superstition, and barbarism as is ascribed to him. it is sometimes alleged (as we have already observed) in defence or mitigation of the endless disputes among christian professors about the teachings of the bible, that this disagreement does not appertain to any of the essential doctrines of christianity, but only to minor points, or doctrines of minor importance. but such an admission is fatal either to their honesty or to their good sense. it concedes that the quarrels among the churches for ages has been about mere trifles, not worth spending breath about. it concedes that it is "non-essentials," or mere trifles, that keep them apart, and that have led them to build five or six churches, and hire five or six priests, in every little village throughout the country, at an expense of many thousand dollars. it is certainly a criminal waste of time and money to spend it by the million for churches and priests to propagate doctrines which they themselves admit possess no real intrinsic importance. it shows they have been actuated by selfish, dishonorable, and ignoble motives in fighting each other for a thousand years, and in some cases murdering each other by the thousand, for a difference of opinion they admit to be of no importance. those murdered christians and devout bible-believers were charged with preaching damnable doctrines and devilish heresies; but now we are told it was minor and unimportant doctrines that they were quarreling about, and for which they were tortured and killed for preaching. yes, non-essential doctrine! _o tempora! o mores!_ but they make a serious blunder when they talk about non-essential doctrine; for their bible teaches that all doctrines are essential,--that there is no such thing as a non-essential doctrine; for it first proclaims "one lord, one faith, and one baptism," and then declares that "he who offends in the least, offends in the whole." these two declarations taken together prove (if they prove any thing) that there is no "non-essential doctrine," and that the slightest departure from the right faith, or the least disregard of the _most trivial doctrine_ of the christian creed, will land the soul of the man or woman in endless perdition who is guilty of it. the solemn question arises here, then, who can escape eternal damnation? for, if there is only one true faith, then the hundred and forty thousand different and conflicting faiths cherished and propagated among christians must all be wrong but one,--a fact which impels us to the awful and inevitable conclusion that not one christian in a thousand--no, not in ten thousand--can be saved by these terms of the gospel. the thought sometimes occurs to the writer, that no truly enlightened person, possessing a true moral dignity of character, could consent to hang his salvation upon a book which, after eighteen hundred years of the most critical investigation and explanation by the most learned minds in christendom, still remains a mystery with regard to all its most important doctrines, so that more than six hundred churches are now disputing about what it teaches; and the difficulty is still increasing by the uprising of new churches with new creeds and new interpretations of the bible. let the reader observe the striking difference in the harmony of views which prevail in the various scientific societies throughout the country and those of the churches, and he will discover at once that there is no science in our religion. take for example the astronomical societies. they are all perfectly agreed with respect to what the great bible of nature teaches concerning that science. there is no contention and no dispute with respect to the doctrines and principles of that grand revelation of nature, because they are all susceptible of proof and demonstration. were it otherwise,--were the amateurs and students of that science divided into six hundred conflicting factions, like the churches, each with a different theory with respect to what it teaches,--one contending that the sun rises in the east, another that it rises in the west; one arguing that the sun is the revolving center of our solar system, another contending that the earth is; one teaching that the starry orbs which roll their massive forms through infinite space are mere wax tapers stuck in the azure vault to light this pigmy planet, or mere peep-holes for gods to look out upon our world; and one arguing that they were all knocked up in a single day out of that singular substance called nothing, and another that they are the outgrowth of other worlds, or have existed from all eternity. had the author, who was once a member of one of those societies, observed such a chaos of confusion and conflict of opinion, he would have discovered at once that nothing is realty known about the science of astronomy,--that what is called such is nothing but a jargon of conflicting dogmas and wild speculations. hence he would not have remained with them a single day after making such a discovery. having learned that the churches are in such a condition, he withdrew, and has not been a member of one of those discordant institutions for many years. he considers it a waste of time to be a member of a religious body which only increases this difficulty and confusion. he has but one life to live, and does not wish to waste that in a mere wild-goose chase after religious speculations that can never be settled. why fool away our lives in chasing theological butterflies that can never be caught, when there is a hundred times as much to be learned within the domain of positive science as can be acquired in a lifetime, that is practically useful and calculated to enlarge the boundaries of our knowledge and elevate us to a higher plane of happiness, while the occupancy of the mind with theological dogmas is only calculated to "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind"? chapter liii.--the three plans of salvation. yes, we shall make more progress in learning our duties, in learning "what we must do in order to be saved," if we would look about us and forward, and endeavor to read the great bible or book of nature illuminated by the rules of science, in which there are no contradictions, no confusion, and where we may learn of, and, in our finite measure, grow into and partake of the attributes of the infinite father, instead of looking backward and searching amongst the jarring contradictious, the creeds, dogmas, myths, and traditions of the past, covered as they are with the mold and dust of ages. "without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin." the doctrine of this text constitutes the basis of all the plans of salvation which various ages and nations have founded on dead gods and living devils. nearly every religious nation known to history cherished the belief that god is an irritable, irascible, and vindictive being, subject to fits or paroxysms of anger; and, when in this furious and unbalanced and ungovernable state of mind, he frequently poured out his vengeance upon his disobedient children, often subjecting them to the most terrible penalties in this life, and then threatened them with a still worse doom in the next. to avert this direful calamity,--at least so far as it appertained to the life beyond the grave,--most religious nations invented schemes which came to be known as systems or plans of salvation. the original model seems to have been furnished by the hindoos, and borrowed from them by the egyptians, and thence transmitted to the persians and grecians, and was finally incorporated into the christian system, and now constitutes what is known as "the christian plan of salvation." each system was composed of three cardinal principles: . the primeval innocency and moral perfection of man. . his temptation and downfall into a state of moral depravity. . his restoration to the divine favor by the voluntary sacrifice and atoning offering of a god (one of the three members of the trinity). these three cardinal doctrines constitute what christians denominate "the great and glorious plan of salvation," and on which a thousand volumes have been written, and ten thousand sermons are preached every year. as it professes to point out the road, and the only road, to heaven, it merits a somewhat critical examination. we will therefore analyze and examine its several principles, to see whether it has a true moral basis, or is in strict accordance with the principles of natural justice. the first proposition assumes that man primordially occupied the highest plane of moral perfection, and that all his animal propensities were held in strict abeyance to his moral convictions, and that he consequently led a morally pure, perfect, and holy life. the first and most important query to which this proposition or assumption gives rise is, can it be shown to be true? can it be sustained by either the principles of natural or moral science, or by the facts of history comprised in man's practical life? now, it so happens that facts have been accumulating for thousands of years, gathered from almost every department of science and history, to prove and demonstrate that the proposition is entirety untenable,--that it is not true. geology alone demonstrates its falsity. it has written its negative verdict upon a thousand rocks beneath our feet. these rocks contain the fossiliferous and organic remains of the early and primitive inhabitants of the earth, and indicate the order of man's moral and intellectual development; for as each successive layer or stratum of fossiliferous rocks, in which the organic remains of man are found, marks a distinct period in his history, and the growth of his moral and intellectual brain is found in all cases to correspond to the age and growth of these strata, the question is thus settled and demonstrate! by the facts of geological science. as, the older the rocks, the more remote period they mark in man's history; and, the more remote the period to which it is thus traced, the lower the position in the scale of moral and intellectual development his organic remains prove him to have occupied. the question is thus reduced to a scientific problem, which admits of no disproof or refutation. it is, then, a settled scientific truth, that, the further we trace the past history of man by the footprints of geological science, the nearer he approaches to the condition of an animal,--when he was almost totally devoid of intellectual perceptions and moral feelings, and was consequently a victim to his lusts and animal propensities. where, then, was his moral purity and perfection, or his angelic holiness? the doctrine is thus shown to be false and fabulous. all the skulls of the primitive races that have been found by geological research show that man, in his first rude type, had scarcely any moral brain; and the history of the race at that period shows that he possessed a correspondingly low, weak, defective moral character, so much so that he could scarcely be considered a moral, accountable being. to talk, then, of his occupying a high moral plane at that early period, is to contradict every principle of science and every page of history. his animal propensities and selfish feelings must have held complete sway over the whole empire of mind for thousands, if not for millions, of years; so that his moral status was but little above that of the brute. the facts of science and history to prove this proposition are abundant; but, as we are compelled to constantly observe the most rigid rules of brevity, we can only find space for one or two proof-illustrations. human skulls have been found embedded in the rocks of gibraltar with retreating foreheads, prognathous jaws, and frontal bones an inch thick, and the receptacles for both the moral and intellectual brain very small,--all of which denote very weak moral and intellectual minds, and a preponderance of the animal feelings; and geologists have decided that sixty-five thousand years must have elapsed since those bones and skulls were deposited in those rocks. hundreds of similar facts have been gathered by geologists, and might be cited: but this one case is amply sufficient, and furnishes as conclusive proof as a thousand could do that the primitive inhabitants of the earth were on a low mental status, and that they were greatly inferior in morals and intellect to the least-developed minds of the present age; and consequently man's course has been upward, and not downward. there has been no falling, but a gradual rising, in both the moral and intellectual scale. it shows that man was at the very foot of the ladder at the commencement of his moral and intellectual career,--that he was flat on his back in the ditch; and, consequently, there was no lower place to fall to. the first proposition, then, is shown to be false,--that man originally occupied a high moral position, and that he was in a state of moral purity and perfection. the second proposition--that of man's fall and moral degeneracy--is likewise shown to be false by the same facts; for, if he was never in a state of moral purity and perfection, then it is evident he never could have fallen from such a state. it would be superfluous, then, to attempt to show that man never fell, after having shown that he never occupied a high moral position to fall from. he could only fall in the sense the scotchman did, who stated he fell up a well sixty feet in a bucket. it is settled, then, geologically, scientifically, and demonstrably, that man never fell in a moral sense. we will now proceed to present what is presumed and assumed to be the scriptural exposition of man's original condition and fall. we are told in the first chapter of genesis, that, when god had completed the work of creation, he pronounced it all, not only good, but "very good," which indicates a state of perfection; but it appears the words were hardly out of his mouth till a very bad being, called a serpent, came crawling into the garden on his back, to furnish practical evidence that moses' god was mistaken in having pronounced every thing so very "good." we have to assume that he came into the garden of paradise on his back, because the reverse mode of traveling was not adopted until after the fall; that is, till after he was doomed to that mode of travel as a punishment for having tempted and beguiled mother eve to try her new molars and incisors on some fruit (supposed to be pippins) hanging on a tree, which, it appears, underwent the rapid process of blossoming, and bearing fruit that ripened in a few hours after it was planted. and thus the serpent, although a senseless reptile, committed the first sin,--the first violation of moral law. the first question that naturally arises here is, why was not the fence around the garden of paradise made snake-proof, so as to keep his snakeship out? or shall we presume the gate was left open, and that he entered in that way? this, however, would indicate a blundering carelessness on the part of jehovah, which we dare not assume. another question arising here is, why was not the angel with the flaming sword, which, we are told, was placed over the door or gateway to guard it from intruders,--why was he not placed there sooner? why was he not placed there before the fall, instead of after, so as to bruise the serpent's head, or behead him, on his attempting to enter? to place a guard over the gate after the devil had entered, and caused the effectual downfall and ruin of the human race, and thus perpetrated all the mischief he could, looks very much like "locking the stable-door after the horse is stolen." and the query also arises here, are we not compelled to conclude that moses' god was a little short-sighted, and rather hasty in his conclusion that every thing was so "very good" when the serpent proved to be so very bad? the only way to escape this dilemma is to assume that god did not make him, and that consequently he was not included in the original invoice of goods and chattels which were pronounced "very good;" but, in adopting this expedient, we only leap "from the frying-pan into the fire:" for the assumption does not do away with the difficulty, because it is declared that god made every thing that was made. hence it is evident that, if he were made at all, the god of moses made him; and, if he were not made, then it follows that he is a self-created or self-existent being, and invested with all the attributes, powers, and prerogatives of god almighty himself. and thus we would place two omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent beings on the throne of the universe; which is not only a moral contradiction, but a moral impossibility. we will assume, then, for the sake of the argument, that god did create the devil,--an assumption, however, which brings us into still greater difficulty. christ says, by way of illustrating human character, that "a tree is known by its fruit. a good tree can not bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." in this case god the creator is the tree, and the devil the fruit; and one is good, and the other evil. here, then, is a good tree bearing evil fruit, which seems to furnish the most positive proof that christ's moral axiom, "a good tree can not bear evil fruit," is false. there is evidently something wrong somewhere in this moral picture. either christ was mistaken, or the christian world is wrong in assuming the existence of this omnipotent and independent being of an opposite character. it presents us with a moral paradox which no theologian in christendom has yet been able to solve. we are compelled to assume that both beings are good, or both evil, and that they co-operate and act in harmony; or that a good god made a wicked devil,--i.e., "a good tree brought forth evil fruit;" or else we must reject the christian system of salvation, and assume the existence of but one invisible and almighty being, who orders every thing for the best. the absurdity we have just noticed is but one of many, both of a moral and of a scientific nature, equally senseless and foolish, which we find involved in the christian plan of salvation. we will notice a few others. according to christian theology and christian logic, all evil or sin that is committed is prompted by an evil tempter. scientists and harmonialists account for such actions by tracing them to the abnormal or perverted action of natural faculties, powers, and propensities, which, in their healthy state, are productive of good alone, and not evil; and thus making them the product of the mind itself in its unhealthy condition. but christian theologians tell us it is a separate, evil genius operating in the "inner man" which does all the mischief, and prompts the possessor to the commission of sin. but this assumption gives rise to endless difficulties, some of which we will state in the form of questions. we would ask, then, in the first place, if all sin or evil is prompted by an evil tempter, how came the original tempter himself to fall victim to sin? who put him up to it, seeing there was no tempter in existence but himself? in such a dilemma, we must either assume that divine goodness was his tempter, or that he tempted himself. to make him his own tempter would involve us in an egregious absurdity, equal to that of guy faux lifting himself by the straps of his boots; and to make god the tempter would relieve his satanic majesty of all responsibility in the case, and make god alone accountable for the sin, and also the author of sin. this, however, they do by other assumptions. books enough have been written to form a library by orthodox writers in the attempt to rescue their god from the odium and responsibility' of being the author of sin; but, under their system of theology, he can not escape the stigma. no sensible construction of any orthodox system can save god from the authorship and responsibility of sin. they all teach that god created man, and man committed sin. this makes god the author of sin, either directly or indirectly, in spite of all the logic and lore that ever has been, or ever can be, made use of to escape the conclusion; for even if it could be successfully shown that god did not implant in man the desire or inclination to commit sin, and he derived this inclination from the devil, it can not be denied that god is responsible for allowing the devil to exist, or, if this could be denied, would still be responsible for leaving man so morally weak as to be overcome by the devil. if he is infinite in goodness and infinite in power, as they teach, then, if he did not fortify man with sufficient moral strength to resist all temptation to sin, the act of sinning becomes his own. no logic and no sophistry can resist this conclusion. it is now a settled principle in moral ethics, that what any being does through an agent he does himself, and is as responsible for it as if he performed the act with his own hands _de facto_. if, then, god created the devil, and he turned out to be the agent of evil or sin, it was only a roundabout and indirect mode of performing the act himself. this is a logical syllogism which defies the ingenuity of the orthodox world to overturn. the most plausible plea in the case is, that the devil was originally a good being, but fell from grace. according to several bibles, he is a fallen angel; but it is evident that he could not fall unless he possessed some inherent moral weakness that caused him to fall. a perfect being could not fall. it is, then, self-evident that inherent moral weakness was implanted in him by his creator. this would make his creator responsible for his moral weakness, which caused him to fall. and thus the question is settled logically, philosophically, and morally. we will now proceed to examine the nature of the diabolical act which caused the downfall of the human race,--"the original sin," as it is called. we are told it consisted in eating some fruit which grew on a tree god himself had planted in the garden of eden, and forbidden to be used. why it was interdicted from use is not explained in the christian bible; but it is rendered plain by the relation of the same story in other bibles. in the persian version it is stated that the tree bore the twelve apples of immortality, and that the devil, in the shape of a monkey, guarded the tree, to prevent the _genus homo_ from partaking of the fruit; as tradition had taught them, that, by so doing, man would become immortal like the gods, and live forever. this the gods deprecated, as they allowed no other beings to become equal to them, and hence had the tree guarded to save the immortal fruit. but the christian bible is entirely silent as to the purpose of planting the tree, or forbidding its fruit to be eaten. it cuts short many stories which we find more amplified and in fuller detail in older bibles. no reflecting or unbiased mind can see any wisdom or any sense in permitting or causing a tree to bear fruit, and then decreeing that it shall all go to waste by interdicting it from being used, as jehovah is represented as having done. certainly no sensible god would act thus. and if adam and eve were "very good," as he himself declared them to be, must we not consider it an ungodly and a tantalizing act to place fruit within their reach, and then forbid them to touch or taste it? it looks more like the act of a fiend than that of a kind and loving father, who we would naturally suppose, would be so pleased with his newly made children that he would do every thing possible to please them and make them happy. if the fruit was an improper article of diet, it should have been placed out of sight, or rendered unpalatable, so that they should not desire to eat it. if adam and eve were very good beings, and god both infinitely good and infinitely wise, he could and should have placed them in a condition from which they could not fall, and in which they would have possessed no inclination to do any thing wrong. i can see no possible benefit to arise from surrounding them with temptations to commit an act that would ruin them eternally, and their posterity after them. the plea is sometimes urged that it was morally necessary for the original progenitors of the race to possess the power and liability to sin, in order to make them free agents. free agents, indeed! that is certainly a novel kind of free agency, which not only makes a man free to commit an act which it is known will lead to his own destruction and the ruin of the entire human race, but implants in him the inclination to do it. this is free agency run mad. we will illustrate the principle. a mother sees her little child approaching an open well, and turns heedlessly away, and lets the child rush into the jaws of death; and, when reproved for the act, she raises the plea, "oh, i did not want to interfere with its free agency!" here is the christian logic of free agency put in practice. god is represented as setting traps around the human family, knowing they will be caught; and this is called moral freedom or free agency. the rat enjoys the same kind of moral freedom when he creeps beneath the deadfall in quest of food, and takes the chance of misplacing the triggers. there is no free agency in any rational sense in furnishing a man with a rope to hang himself, knowing that it would be used for that purpose; and this the orthodox god has done for the whole human family, so that we are all now suspended on the gallows of total depravity and moral death. the fall and curse. we will now notice some of the awful consequences said to have resulted from eating the forbidden fruit,--"the _worldwide curse_" pronounced upon the human race as the penalty for that act. several distinct effects are enumerated as consequences of the deed. but a critical investigation of the matter in the light of the present age will show, that instead of being curses, they are blessings, and have added greatly to the enjoyment and happiness of the human family; and, consequently, we should now be in a more deplorable condition than we are if "our primitive parents" had heeded the divine interdiction, and let the fruit alone. we will look briefly at some of the consequences, and observe whether they have really turned out to be curses, or not. the first effect produced by the act of father adam and mother eve eating the forbidden fruit appears to have been that of opening their eyes so that they could see and distinguish objects around them. it certainly was a very singular way of cursing human beings to grant them the glorious boon of vision, and thus relieve them from the necessity of groping their way through life. as to the gift of sight being a curse, there are thousands of human beings now in the world who would like to be cursed in that way--those who were born blind, or have lost their sight. "the rest of mankind" would consider it to be a great misfortune or curse to be placed in the original condition of adam and eve in this respect. we must admit, then, that this curse turned out to be a blessing, and that we are indebted to the serpent-devil for it; and, consequently, he should not have been doomed to dine on dust as a penalty for conferring this blessing upon the human race. the second consequence growing out of the act of eating the interdicted fruit appears to have been the acquisition of a knowledge of good and evil; that is, the power of distinguishing between good and evil. but this, so far from being a curse, was an inestimable and indispensable blessing; for, without the attainment of this knowledge, they could not have known that any act was evil, and hence would have been liable to plunge into all manner of crime, pillage, debauchery, murder, &c., until they effected the entire extinction of the human race. the acquisition, then, of the knowledge of the moral difference between good and evil was an invaluable blessing, and no curse at all; and, having been brought about through the agency of the serpent-devil, he should have the credit of it. the third effect produced by plucking and eating the prescribed fruit was the discovery that they were naked. why they had not made the discovery before is a mystery of godliness. the people of the present age, although presumed to be in a state of degeneracy, if not total depravity, do not require the use of their eyes to know when they are naked; but it seems, that, before the fall in a state of moral perfection, such knowledge could only be acquired through the optic nerves. hence "the perfection of our first parents," so often spoken of and lauded by the orthodox world, must simply have been the perfection of ignorance; and it is true, if their history is true, that they were most consummately ignorant until they were enlightened by the serpent. they were too ignorant to clothe themselves. god almighty had to forsake the throne of heaven, and come down to earth, to make garments of goatskins for them, before they could be sufficiently habilitated to go abroad, or admit company. their two sons, however, were the only company they were permitted to enjoy at that time. and one of these turned out to be a murderer; and, having killed his only brother, he fled to the land of nod, and married a wife, although, according to the "inspired account," his mother was the only woman then living. it seems strange, under such circumstances, that he should marry a wife when there were no women to make wives of. after he had killed his brother, and repented of it, a mark was set upon him, that "whosoever found him should not slay him." but how could this "whosoever" know what the mark meant? and who was this "whosoever," when he himself had killed off the whole human race, excepting his father and mother? and we presume they would not be likely to slay their own and only son if there were no mark set upon him to prevent it. up to this period the conduct of the serpent-devil had been very respectful, and every act performed had resulted in a direct benefit to the human family. even his conduct towards mother eve seems to have been marked by politeness; for he served her with fruit before partaking of it himself. for these good acts he deserved the use of his legs, which, we must presume, he lost by the fall, when he transgressed, fell, and was cursed; and a part of this curse consisted in taking his legs from him, and compelling him to crawl. but it appears his legs were afterwards restored to him; for, when he came with the sons of god to attend a picnic at the house of job, and was asked where he came from, replied, "from walking to and fro in the earth." this feat of walking he could not very well have performed without legs. hence we naturally conclude they had grown out again, or had been restored to him in some way, notwithstanding it had been decreed he should "crawl on his belly all the days of his life." the whole story of the serpent, as presented in genesis, is a borrowed and laughable fiction; and the reader will excuse us for presenting it in that light. we have shown that the violation of the command of jehovah to adam and eve not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, so far from being attended with any evil result, gave rise to several important benefits, and was therefore a praiseworthy act. and if they had carried the act of disobedience a little further, and plucked and eaten of the fruit from the "tree of life" also, it would, according to the context, have produced results still more important, as it would have immortalized their physical bodies, and prevented the ingress of death into the world; and we should have been spared that dreadful calamity. but a worse calamity would have overtaken us; for it is easily seen, that, in the course of a few centuries, our planet would be overstocked with inhabitants. and, as a part of adam's curse consisted in being doomed to eat the ground (see gen. iii. ), it follows, that, if none of his posterity had died, they would have become so numerous in the course of time as to have eaten up all the ground (there being nothing else for them to eat), and leave not a mole-hill of _terra firma_ for a living being to stand upon. the conception is really ludicrous, and yet a legitimate inference from the story which presents us with a series of laughable ideas from beginning to end. we will now notice the sentence pronounced upon the several participants in this fabled rebellion against the divine government, and observe how, or to what extent, they were realized. adam, eve, and the snake were the culprits arraigned at the bar under charge of being rebels; and, all being found guilty, a sentence was pronounced upon each separately. we will examine them in their order. the first part of adam's curse consisted in being doomed to die,--"the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (gen. ii. ). the serpent, however, took the liberty to contradict and counteract the sentence, and told him he should not die, but that partaking of the fruit would make him "wise as the gods, knowing good and evil." now, the first question which arises here is, who told the truth in the case,--jehovah, or "the father of lies"? in the eighth chapter of genesis we read, "all the days of adam were nine hundred and thirty years, and he begat sons and daughters." it will be seen, then, that he did not die in "the day thereof," nor the year thereof, nor the century thereof; so it appears the serpent told the truth and moses' god told the falsehood, or was mistaken. hundreds of christian writers and commentators have racked their brains to find some plausible mode of disposing of these difficulties. the most specious one they have resorted to is that of assigning the text a spiritual signification, and alleging that it was a spiritual death that was intended in this case. but the text does not say so; and the context shows it was not so: for it is declared, "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (gen. iii. ), which shows it was not spiritual but physical death that was meant; and this did not take place for more than nine hundred years after the sentence was pronounced. the second part of adam's curse consisted in being driven out of the garden, and compelled to engage in agricultural pursuits; that is, he was sentenced to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. (see gen. iii. ). but the experience of nearly the whole human race, from that period to the present time, proves that the sweating part of the operation is no curse at all, but a real blessing; for no person in warm climates can enjoy good health without perspiring occasionally; and as for labor being a curse, because said to have been pronounced upon adam as a penalty for transgression, the experience of all who have tried it, and the present condition of the civilized world, proclaim it to be untrue. indeed, we must consider it a very fortunate circumstance that he was driven out of the garden, and compelled to embark in agricultural pursuits, not only on account of such employments being conducive to health, but because the very existence of human life depends upon it in all civilized countries. it is the source whence we derive all our food, all our clothing, and nearly all the comforts of life. no: it is laziness, not labor, that curses the race; and the most accursed set of beings are the drones, the soft-handed gentry, who are almost as afraid of a hoe, axe, or spade, as they are of the measles or small-pox, having been erroneously taught that labor is a curse. the third item in adam's curse consisted in being doomed to eat the ground,--"cursed is the ground for thy sake, and in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life" (gen. iii. ); but we have never seen any report of either adam or any of his posterity eating the ground, or making it an article of diet. it will be observed, then, that no part of the sentence pronounced upon adam turned out to be a curse, but, when realized at all, was realized as a blessing. the sentence pronounced upon the woman was also of a threefold character. in the first place, she was doomed to "bring forth children in sorrow" (gen. iii. ). and her posterity, we are told, inherited the curse, and must suffer in this same way; but the history of the human family shows that many individuals, and whole nations in some cases, have never suffered this affliction. it is well known that the mothers of some of the african tribes, also some of the tribes of americans, never suffer in childbirth. hence it will be seen that the curse in the general sense implied by the text is a failure in this case also. the second punishment to which woman was to be subjected was that of being ruled over by her husband. this portion of her curse, we must confess, has not been an entire failure. many women, even in civilized countries, are not only ruled over, but tyrannized over, by their husbands. yet this state of things has by no means been universal. on the contrary, in many cases, woman has been the ruling party; and, in some instances, they have not merely ruled their own husbands, but all the husbands in the nation. queen mary, queen anne, and queen victoria, and many others, are examples of this kind; and then there have been thousands of women in all ages and countries who never had any husbands. consequently the curse is a failure in their cases. the curse of husband-dominion, then, has not fallen upon woman as a sex. there was to be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (i.e., their offspring) as the third part of woman's curse; but we find no evidence that this part of the curse has ever been fulfilled. we observe no more enmity between men and serpents than between men and other noxious reptiles and ravenous beasts. how much enmity exists between the hindoo juggler and the serpent that twines around his arm and neck, and crawls through his bosom? we may be told in reply that it is not the common serpent that is referred to here, but the serpent-devil that beguiled eve; but we do not learn that his devilish majesty ever had any offspring. so this part of the curse, in a general sense, is a failure also. the curse of the serpent. the curse pronounced upon the serpent was of a twofold character. he was doomed to crawl upon his belly. how he traveled previous to that period we have no means of knowing, as revelation is silent on this momentous subject. he must have crawled on his back, or hopped on his head or tail,--either of which we should consider a much more difficult mode of traveling than that inflicted on him by the curse. i can see no curse or punishment in an animal or reptile traveling in its natural way, and by the easiest mode known in the whole animal kingdom. to make a curse of his mode of travel, he should have been turned the other side up, so that, while wiggling or wriggling along on his back, his eyes and mouth would get full of dust and mud. this would have been much more like a punishment,--a more real and sensible curse than his present mode of traveling. the second mode of punishing the serpent was to compel him to eat dust as an article of diet; but some difficulty must have arisen in attempting to comply with the injunction. when the ground is saturated with water, he would have to take a meal occasionally of mud, which would not be more nutritious than dust, and would not be fulfilling the law. but it is needless to speculate. it is evident he does not subsist in that way, but, like the other culprits, escaped the penalties or punishments due to his crime. i have now examined all the items of the curse--eight in number--said to have been visited upon adam, eve, and the serpent; and what do they all amount to? not one of them has been realized as such; but most of those which were practically realized turned out to be real blessings. and yet they have been proclaimed to the world by the clergy as the missiles of wrath hurled upon a guilty world for the sin of rebellion against the divine government; and, whether any of these so-called "visitations of divine displeasure" were designed as penalties for disobedience or not, it is evident they have not in a moral sense been realized, or had any beneficial effect whatever. and we must conclude that it was rather short-sighted in moses' god to attempt to bring his children into obedience by pronouncing curses upon them. he himself virtually acknowledges it; for, after having tried these expedients and found they availed nothing, he became so discouraged, that he said, "it grieved him to the heart" (see gen. vi. ) that he had made so rebellious a creature as man. the second scheme of redemption. the god of moses, after having tried the expedient of cursing his children,--the cunning workmanship of his hands,--and grieved over the failure for more than a thousand years,--he (the god of moses) came to the conclusion to try another expedient. he concluded to select a few of the choicest specimens of the _genus homo_, in order to preserve the race and start anew with some of the best stock or material that could be found. accordingly, old drunken noah--the most righteous man that could be found amongst the millions of the inhabit ants of the globe--was chosen to build a schooner, yacht, canoe, or some kind of a vessel, called an arc into which he stowed millions of birds, bipeds, and insects of all species and all sizes, from the ostrich and condor down to fleas, flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and bed-bugs; and millions of animals and reptiles of all kinds and all sizes, from the mammoth and the mastodon down to skunks, lizards, snakes, gophers, and grasshoppers; together with himself and family of eight persons, and food sufficient to last them ten months while in the ark, and several years afterwards, as we must presume was done from the fact that it is declared that the waters destroyed every living thing upon the face of the earth. and it must have required several years to restock it with grass and animals to serve as food for the granivorous, herbivorous, and carnivorous species; and this would make a bulk sufficient to fill forty such vessels, and a weight sufficient to sink the whole british navy. and all this living mass of respiring and perspiring animals were dependent upon one little window twelve inches by fifteen for light and air, and which had to be kept shut most of the time to keep out the rain. if some giraffe or cameleopard had been disposed to monopolize the window by thrusting his head out, we can easily imagine what would have been the fatal consequence to this living, breathing cargo. and then we have to entertain the thought that lions and lambs, wolves and sheep, dogs and skunks, hawks and chickens, owls and doves, cats and mice, men and monkeys, all ate and slept together in immediate juxtaposition like a band of brothers. perhaps more glorious times never were realized since "the sons of god shouted for joy." but it appears the whole thing turned out to be a failure. the drowning process was no more effectual in producing the desired reformation than the first scheme that had been tried; for, only a few hundred years after the culmination of this world-drowning experiment, moses' god is represented as crying out in despair, "the imagination of man's heart is evil, and only evil continually." this was certainly a deplorable and disheartening state of things witnessed so soon after it had been presumed that all the bad folks had been drowned; but it appears, that, if all that class had been drowned, there would have been no human beings left. david, therefore, was probably right when he exclaims, "there is none that doeth good, no not one" (ps. xiv. ). the third and last plan of salvation. the atonement was the third and last resort. the third experiment in any case generally ends the siege whether successful or unsuccessful. after a few thousand years more had elapsed of grief, anger, and disappointment in the practical history of moses' god, he ventured to try one more experiment in the effort to get his people in the right track,--not so much, however, to get them in the right way, as to have his own wrath appeased. in this way he sanctions the greatest crime ever perpetrated by the hand of man,--that of murder. god the "father," in order to cancel the sins of his disobedient and rebellious children, and mitigate his own wrath, is represented as proposing to have his "only-begotten son" killed,--at least, as consenting to the act. this looks like "doing evil that good may come of it;" which is a very objectionable principle of moral ethics, according to paul. how the commission of the greatest of all sins can do any thing towards reforming other sins, or how the punishment of an innocent being can do any thing towards atoning for the sins of the guilty, presents us with a moral problem, shocking both to our common sense and common reason. if the father's anger could not be appeased or his vengeance satisfied without the perpetration of a horrible murder, and the knowledge that some victim had died a slow and agonizing death, we are forced to the conclusion that he is a cruel and revengeful god, and that his passions overrule his love of justice and his paternal regard for his son. but it appears that this last experiment, whether right or wrong, was attended with as complete a failure as the two preceding ones; and yet it assumes to be the best that "infinite wisdom" could devise. and the resources of divine knowledge and skill were apparently exhausted when this scheme culminated. and yet it also failed, according to the admission of its own friends and ardent supporters (the clergy); for they tell us, that, notwithstanding all the schemes and systems that omniscience and infinite prescience could devise to save man, he does not get saved: at least but few are saved, and they have to "work out, their own salvation with fear and trembling." nineteen-twentieths of the human family, the clergy tell us, are still traveling "the broad road," and are finally lost, notwithstanding all the labored experiments and expedients of omniscient or jehovahistic wisdom to save them. with this view of the case, the thought is suggested that it was hardly worth while to have gone to the trouble and expense of fitting up a heaven for the few that are saved. it certainly "doesn't pay." and this conclusion is the more forcible in view of the fact that it must be rather a lonesome place, and consequently not a very desirable home or situation to live in; for we are told it is "a house of many mansions," "and yet few there be that find the strait and narrow road" leading to it. hence we may conclude that many of the rooms or mansions are empty. such a lonesome heaven could not be congenial or adapted to any class of saints but monks and hermits. we have now briefly examined the three plans of salvation which lie at the foundation of the christian religion, and shown that they are all failures according to their own witnesses. in view of this fact, we can not wonder that moses' god is represented as saying that he repented for having made man, and that it grieved him to the heart (gen. vi. ). such a series of signal failures is enough to discourage even a saint or a god. true religion sees god in every thing, reads his scriptures on every page of nature's open bible, and feels him in the inspiration of the soul. it calls god father, not king; christ a brother, not a redeemer. it loves all men, but fears no god. its god is not a tyrant, but a loving father. it looks upon jesus christ as a truly good man, but not a god; as a noble, loving, benevolent being, but endowed with human frailties. it considers him a martyr to truth and right, but not a just victim to his father's wrath, or the just object of a bloody sacrifice. it regards the laws of nature as sufficient, if diligently studied and strictly observed, to serve as a guide for man's earthly life without any special revelation. it holds that man's natural love of goodness, justice, mercy, and honesty is capable of endless expansion and augmentation. it walks by the light of science. the many grand truths of the age, developed by the onward march of mind, form its infallible laws, and constitute its living virtues. it uses reason for a lamp, and an enlightened intellect for a guide. it ties no martyr to the stake, piles the faggots around no heretics. it issues no dogmas, no bulls, no canons, and hangs man's salvation upon no infallible revelation. christians say, give us a better revelation; christ said, "cease to do evil, and [then] learn to do well." all wrong and hurtful institutions should be pulled down or abandoned, and trust to finding better ones. remove the weeds from the soil, and a healthy and useful vegetation will spring up in their place. the true religion grants perfect freedom to all human beings; leaves human thought as free and unfettered as the wind, as free as the rays of sunlight which fall upon every hill and every valley, and rest upon the bosom of the deep. chapter liv.--the true religion. true religion does not regard god as a personal monarch, governing the universe by the caprices of an angry and fickle mind, but as the living, moving, all-pervading, self-sustaining, energizing, vivifying power which moves and sustains the machinery of the whole universe, and controls, by a concatenation of laws, the myriads of worlds which move in majestic grandeur through infinite space, and causes them to act in concert and harmony without a discordant jar. it does not write its inspiration and revelation in a dead language or unintelligible hebrew, but in living characters, which all can read and understand. it indulges in no spirit of bigotry, consigns no man or woman to endless torment, never talks of total depravity or original sin. it is a natural and godlike religion, calculated to satisfy the deep, unutterable longings of the soul, and bring blessings and happiness to all who live up to its requirements. it is a tree bearing the fruit of practical righteousness. it does not teach that all of god's truth is shut up in a printed book. it knows no sects, no creeds, and no thirty-nine articles. it does not pilot the pilgrim through life with a dark lantern, nor search for living truths among the religious mummies of the dark ages, but regales itself upon the living truths of the age. its devotees do not require temples made with hands in which to worship the father. it does not require holy houses, holy days, or holy sacraments. it recommends all to search for truth as a pearl of great price. it teaches all to worship god by a life of practical goodness, and by cherishing kindly feelings toward every human being. this is a religion that will impart true pleasure in life, and afford sure comfort in a dying hour. the religion for this age is a religion founded upon truth and goodness;--a religion freed from the old, worn-out superstitious, oriental myths. the people are becoming too enlightened to tolerate them much longer; they are becoming tired of being fed on the stale food of past ages; they have been kept in a state of spiritual stagnation long enough. they are becoming too intelligent to wish to listen to old mythological doctrines which have been preached by christians for centuries. we want a religion better adapted to the wants of the age. we want a religion that will furnish better nourishment for man's moral and spiritual nature,--a religion calculated to develop true manhood, instead of repressing it; a religion whose doctrines do not conflict with established principles of science; a religion which our moral sense does not condemn, and against which our reason will not rebel. we want a religion that builds no walls between reason and revelation, and forms no creeds and no barriers to the spontaneous outgrowth of every faculty of the soul. we want a religion that does not require men and women to be born several times before they can be honest, truthful, and reliable, or "good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven." we want a religion which acknowledges no law but truth and justice,--a religion that will tolerate no wrong, and forgive no sin. we want a religion whose bond is love, whose temple is truth, and whose altar is a guiltless conscience, and whose creed is a life of practical righteousness. we want a religion which will teach us to cherish kindly feelings toward all mankind, and which will prompt us to labor to spread flowers instead of thorns in the pathway of every one with whom we come in contact, and thus make them better and happier beings; for this is the true end of all true religion and all true preaching. "for modes of faith let zealous bigots fight: he can't be wrong whose life is in the right." we want a religion which will estimate men and women for what they are, and not for what they believe,--a religion that does not measure their moral worth by their creeds, but by their practical lives. we want a religion that will banish all creeds and mind-enslaving dogmas from the earth, and substitute in their place brotherly love and goodness. we want a religion that will do away with ignorance and poverty, that will labor to prevent any one from suffering for the needful things of life, and that will bind all together in the ties of universal brotherhood. in fine, we want a religion which will make truth and love and true practical righteousness the pole-star of every man and woman who embrace it. this is the religion we need; this is the religion for the age; this is the religion that would and will banish all unrighteousness from the earth, and elevate the race to a higher plane than they ever have or ever can attain under their soul-cramping, creed-bound religions; this is the religion the author is laboring for, and has earnestly desired for twenty-three years to see established among "all nations, tongues, kindred, and people." this religion is not derived from any bible, but is an outgrowth of man's moral and religious nature, as all true religions in all countries have been. a religion derived from this source would prompt us to labor daily to promote the happiness of our neighbors and fellow-beings generally, instead of studying every hour of our lives to practically rob them, as do most men in civilized countries, including nearly all christian professors, who are _positively for bidden_ by their bible and lawgiver (christ) to _lay up any treasure_ on earth; yet it is their constant study how to draw all the money possible out of the pockets of their neighbors, with but little regard to their wants, necessities, or even sufferings, that they may die in the midst of wealth. it is a strange, yet almost universal, infatuation, that the inauguration of the true religion will banish from the earth. chapter lv.--"all scripture is given by inspiration of god." if this statement be true, then god must have "led a very busy life;" for the world is literally loaded down with scriptures. there are not less than eleven hundred and fifty pious effusions that may come under this head, and at least that number claiming to have originated from the fountain of divine inspiration; but the religious sects and religious orders will tell us that but one of those eleven hundred and fifty scriptures is the product of the divine mind, and but one of them has received the seal and sanction of almighty god. then our salvation hangs by a very slender thread; for no rule has been furnished us by infinite wisdom by which we can distinguish which is the spurious and which the genuine, or which is the scripture given by inspiration of god. all pious nations have had their scriptures in profusion. let us hold a court, and hear the testimony of some of the witnesses with respect to the validity of their respective claims. here is a hindoo, a pious soul of the brahmin order. "well, brother, we wish you to tell us whether you know any thing about the scriptures given by inspiration of god."--"most certainly i do." well, where and what are they? "why, after existing in the mind of the great god brahma from all eternity, they were revealed by him, about nine thousand years ago, to the holy richis (prophets), who penned them into a holy book for the instruction and salvation of the world, now known as the vedas. they are pure, holy and divine, and point out the only sure road to salvation." here comes a chinese mandarin. well, brother, what light can you throw upon this subject? have you ever seen "the scriptures given by inspiration of god"? "that is a question easily answered. the five volumes are the purest, the holiest, and the most sublime production ever given to the world. there is nothing immoral, no obscene language, to be found in this 'holy book.' its precepts are matchless; and it is the only book whose teachings are calculated to 'make wise unto salvation.' it will save all men who receive it, and obey it." take a seat: we want now to hear from a disciple representing the land of iran. brother persian, the question is, where is "the scripture given by inspiration of god"? "your question surprises me. the holy zenda avesta has been circulating for thousands of years; and have you not seen it? it points out the only sure road to the kingdom of eternal bliss, and contains the only true religion for the human race." very well: be seated. there is yet another class of devout worshipers we wish to interrogate on this all-important subject. brother mahomedan, will you please to step forward, and help us solve this difficult problem? where are "the scriptures given by inspiration of god"? "have you never read that holy and inspired book, the koran? if so, you ought to be able to answer the question; and, if not, you are risking your eternal salvation by remaining ignorant of its beautiful truths: for it consigns to an endless fiery hell all who disbelieve and reject its sublime teachings, and refuse to travel the road it has marked out to paradise and eternal bliss." thus we are making but little progress toward settling the question, where is "the scripture given by inspiration of god"? we will now question the christian church. here we are met at the very threshold with two hundred answers. "join our church, and beware of counterfeits," meets us at every church-door. we do not mean to say that every church has a separate bible, though virtually it almost amounts to this, as each denies to all others that use of the bible and construction of its doctrine and teachings which alone can insure salvation. but, in a broader sense, there are two hundred answers to the question, where are we to find "the only scriptures given by inspiration of god"? the two hundred translators and four hundred commentators make out more than two hundred distinct systems of faith, and virtually more than two hundred bibles. when we look at the numerous and widely different translations of the bible, and the numerous collection of books by different churches which have been made to constitute the bible at different periods, and the numerous alterations which christian writers tell us have been made in all of the books of the bible, and the great number of gospels and epistles floating over the world at one period and afterwards denounced as spurious, and the constant alteration of the bible by adding some books and rejecting others, we can see at once that it is impossible ever to find any way of determining which are "the scriptures given by inspiration of god." here let it be noted, that, for nearly three hundred years, the christian world had no bible but the old testament, and that, during that period, hundreds of gospels and epistles were written, and thirty-six acts of the apostles, by all kinds of scribblers, or, as one christian writer calls them, "ignorant asses." these were put in circulation as constituting "the only scriptures given by inspiration of god." most of them were afterwards condemned by the church fathers as being the product of the devil, and as being calculated to lead every soul down to hell who should read and believe them. but there never was any agreement among church-leaders as to which of the three hundred gospels and epistles in circulation were spurious, and which were genuine; nor has there ever been any rule for distinguishing them, or determining which was which. how, then, was it possible to know which were "the scriptures given by inspiration of god"? here arises a query of most striking import, which should sink deep into the mind of every honest investigator of this subject. should it not be set down as a moral impossibility that an all-wise god would inspire men to write gospels and epistles for the instruction of mankind and the salvation of the world, and then let them get mixed up with hundreds of others "inspired by the devil," and calculated to lead to perdition"? it must have been the means of effecting the eternal ruin of thousands, if not millions, of immortal souls. and nearly all christian writers admit there was no way of distinguishing the poisonous and pernicious productions from the "inspired." it is also admitted that the former were more read than the latter. now, we must assume that a god would be essentially lacking in the ingredients of good sense (or rather would be a mere imaginary being) who would do business in such a bungling and reckless manner as to furnish man with a revelation of his will, hang his salvation upon it, and then abandon the field for three hundred years, and let every thing run to ruin. such a god _ought to "repent, and be grieved to the heart_." look what kind of stuff the people swallowed for gospel during that period! the gospel of the infancy, which was afterwards condemned as the work of devils and impostors, was, during this period, accepted as inspired by nearly the whole christian world; and see what it contains. in the first chapter it is related that a woman had a son who was, by the intervention of some witches, turned into an ass, when she hastened off to the mother of the young messiah (jesus), and related her grievance to that amiable personage, which so excited her compassion that she forthwith seized the young child jesus, and set him astride the ass's neck, when, "lo and behold!" it took all the ass properties out of the animal, and restored him back to manhood, or rather boyhood. and all the biped asses then in christendom swallowed this assinine story as "scripture given by inspiration of god," the same book relates that various sick and impotent persons visited the child jesus, and were cured of their diseases by having his swaddling-clothes wrapped about their heads, necks, or other portions of the body, and forthwith the devils departed (on one occasion in the shape of a dog). if there is a lower plane of senseless superstition than this, i pray god i may never know it. and all this was gospel and "inspired scripture," for whole centuries, with the _majority_ of christendom. both preachers and laymen read and believed those "holy scriptures." this is about as senseless as the story of some devils coming out of a woman, and taking up their abode in a herd of swine. these stories are all "chips of the same block," and all equally incredible. character of the voters who decided what scriptures should be considered inspired. it is now well known that the first authentic collection of gospels and epistles, called "the bible," was made by the council of nice a.d.,--a body of drunken bishops and lawless bacchanalians. the christian writer, mr. tyndal, says they got drunk, came to blows, and kicked and cuffed each other; and that "the love of contention and ambition overcame their reason." they claimed to be under the influence of "the spirit." undoubtedly they were; but it was a kind of spirit that men hold intercourse with by uncorking the bottle, and not the spirit of gentleness and peace. he says, "they fell afoul of each other;" and such was the severity of their blows, that one member was mortally wounded, and died a short time after. it was simply a disgusting and disgraceful row,--a scene of rowdyism of at first seventeen hundred, and finally about three hundred, christian bishops, without a character for either virtue, sobriety, or honesty. one-writer says, "they were abandoned to every species of immorality, and addicted to the most abominable crimes:" and such was their extreme ignorance, that but few of them could write their names. their method of deciding which gospels ana epistles were divinely inspired was quite unique. it is stated they were all placed under the communion-table; and, when the proper signal was given (so says irenæus), the inspired gospels "hopped on to the table," which separated them from the spurious. why the spurious gospels did not possess the hopping power and propensity is not stated. two of the bishops, crysante, and musanius, died during the council, before the vote was taken; but such was the importance of the occasion, that they did not withhold their votes on that account. the proper documents being prepared and carried and placed near their defunct bodies, they mustered all the force their dead bodies could command, and signed them; and thus, between the living and the dead, we have got a bible which, it is presumed, contains all the scripture given by "inspiration of god" under the new dispensation. the gospels and epistles thus voted into favor were not arranged together in the form of an authentic bible until nearly sixty years after. this was done by the council of laodicea in the year . after this, council after council was called to _vote in or vote out_ some of the books adopted by previous councils, and to settle some important church dogmas. the first council voted the acts of the apostles and revelation out of the bible (i.e., voted them down); but the second council, which met in , voted them in again. another council, which met in , voted them, with several other books, out of the bible again. and thus were books and dogmas voted in and voted out of "the infallible and inspired word of god," and altered and corrected, time after time and century after century, by twenty-four different councils, composed of bigoted bishops and clergymen, so quarrelsome and belligerent that they resorted to fisticuff fighting in several of the councils; and thus was "god's holy word" and "perfect revelation" tossed to and fro like a battledore,--this book voted in, and that one voted out, and sometimes half a dozen at a time. and where was the "all scripture given by inspiration of god" at the end of this revolutionary and demolishing clerical crusade? and where was its author, that he would suffer the whole thing to be taken out of his hands, altered and corrupted till he could not know his own book, and would not have been willing to father it if he had been able to recognize it? william penn says, that "some of the scriptures which were taken in by one council as inspired were rejected by another council as uninspired; and that which was left out by the former council as apocryphal was taken in by the latter as canonical. and certain it is that they contradict each other. and how do we know that the council which first collected and voted on the scriptures--voting some up, and some down--were able to discern the true from the false?" here the whole thing is set in its proper light by a devout quaker preacher. the extract contains a volume of instruction, and shows the impossibility of our determining the "all scripture given by inspiration of god." additions, alterations, and interpolations. we have a vast amount of testimony to prove that councils, churches, and clergymen arrogated to themselves a lawless license to change, insert, and leave out various texts, chapters, and even whole books, from "god's unchangeable word," till it may now be assumed to be thoroughly changed. from a large volume of testimonies we will cite a few: the version of the old testament made under ptolemy philadelphus, b.c.,--the most reliable version extant,--bishop usher pronounces a spurious copy, full of interpolations, additions, and alterations. he says, "the translators of the septuagint added to, and took from, and changed at pleasure;" and st. jerome says that origen did the same thing with the new testament. bishop marsh testifies, in like manner, that origen, who first collected the bible books together, confessed that he made many alterations in them before they fell into the hands of the council of nice. dr. bentley admits that the best copy of the new testament contains hundreds of irreparable omissions, errors, and mistakes. the rev. dr. whitby says, "many corruptions and interpolations were made almost in the apostolic age." dupin says, "several authors took the liberty to add, retrench, correct divers things." some of the clergy and churches rejected books which did not suit them, while others altered them to suit their fancy. we are told that lanfranc, archbishop of canterbury, made countless numbers of alterations in the bible in the sixth century for the purpose of making them suit his church. eusebius says he found so much proof that the gospel of matthew had been altered and corrupted, that he rejected it as being unworthy of confidence. victor wilson informs us that a general alteration of the gospels took place at constantinople in the year by order of the emperor anastasius. st. jerome complains that in his time many alterations had been made in the bible, and that its different translations were so essentially changed that "no one copy or translation resembled another." scaliger testifies that the clergy and the churches put into their scriptures whatever they thought would serve their purpose. michaelis says, "they thrust in and thrust out as best suits fancy." in the name of god, we would ask how any person in his sober reason can think of finding "all scripture given by inspiration of god" in the midst of such a general wreck, ruin, and demolition of the original scriptures. it is as impossible as to raise the dead or to find charlie ross. the rev. dr. gregory says that no profane author has suffered like the bible by profane hands. where, then, can we find "all scripture given by inspiration of god"? forged gospels and epistles. the unitarian bible says, in its preface, "it is notorious that forged writings, under the name of the apostles, were in circulation almost from the apostolic age." mosheim testifies that "several histories of christ's life and doctrines, fall of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were put in circulation before the meeting of the council of nice;" and he states, like william penn, that he had no confidence in their ability to distinguish the true from the false. we will here quote another statement of william penn: "there are many errors in the bible. the learned know it: the unlearned had better not know it." here is another sad proof of the blinding effect of reading and believing a book which abounds in errors. he would have the unlearned and honest reader swallow all the errors of the bible, and be thereby morally poisoned by them, rather than have the book brought into discredit by having its errors exposed. this circumstance of itself is sufficient to seal its condemnation. belsham says, "the genuine books of the bible were but few compared with the spurious ones." this would be inferred from the circumstance of only four gospels being adopted out of fifty, and only seventeen epistles out of more than one hundred. daille says, "the christian fathers forged whole books; but neither he nor anybody else can furnish any rule for determining which they are." lost books found or re-written. dupin says a portion of the books of the old testament were burned in wars, and others lost by the jews themselves; and in the second book of chronicles (xxxiv. ) we are told that hilkiah found the book of the law after it had been lost eight hundred years. this law appears to have constituted the most important portion of the jewish sacred writings. the circumstance gives rise to some very strange reflections and conclusions. it appears from this circumstance that the lord's holy people had been without any law to guide or govern them for eight long centuries. now, can we suppose for a moment that their god, jehovah, was a being of infinite wisdom to write or dictate a law, and base the happiness and welfare of his people if not the world on that law, and then, through carelessness or otherwise, suffer it to get lost, and remain unfound for eight hundred years, so that nobody could have the benefit of it during that long period? the very thought is a trespass upon our good sense, and does violence to our reason. and where was the law during all that time? and how was it preserved for so long a period of time? if written on papyrus or parchment, it would have perished in less than a century from being exposed to the weather: for we can't assume it was preserved in a drawer or box, as, in that case, it would not have been lost; and, if engraven on stone, the weight would have been fifty times as much as hilkiah could carry. we are told that when josiah the king heard the law read, he rent his clothes ( chron. xxxiv. ). well, that is strange indeed. it must have been a very curious law, or he must have been a very curious man. why the reading of a few plain moral precepts should drive a man to insanity, and cause him to tear his clothes, is something hard to understand. and it is evidence that the whole jewish tribe had never known or read much about the law: otherwise a knowledge of it would have been preserved by tradition, and the king would not have been so profoundly ignorant of it. if the law was the pentateuch, as some writers assume, the king would have had to stand a week to hear it all read; and it seems strange that "shaphan the scribe" could pick up a document covered with the mold, rust, and dust of eight centuries, and read it off with sufficient expertness for the king to listen to with patience. but the wonder and difficulty don't stop here. it was only about a quarter of a century until this great "holy and divine law" was lost again; which left "the lord's holy people" again without any moral code to guide them, or a governing law, for six centuries longer. no wonder they preferred worshiping a calf (see exod. xxxii.) to paying homage to a god so reckless of their welfare and happiness. on this occasion it became so thoroughly lost, that it never "turned up" again; and there seemed to be no way to remedy the deplorable loss but to have it written over again. at least that appears to have been the impression of ezra the priest, who set himself to the onerous task of reproducing the long-lost document from memory or from a second installment of divine inspiration. (see esdras.) such a memory does not often fall to the lot of mortals to possess,--a memory that could enable a man to reproduce a document which neither he nor any other person had read for six hundred years. if the world could be furnished with such a mental prodigy at the present day, we might again have the benefit of the numerous books and libraries which have been destroyed by fire in modern times. it would require no previous knowledge of any of those works to achieve the task of reproducing them. perhaps we may be told that we are becoming "wise above what is written." it would require no mental effort to attain to this eminence, and become obnoxious to such a charge. in this case, a few brief sentences, and the whole thing is dismissed: no details are given. the story of hilkiah finding the book of the law sounds very much like joe smith finding the mormon bible; and the case of ezra's re-writing it is matched by the story of "vyass the holy" finding the divine law of the brahmins some three thousand years before hilkiah was born. mr. higgins says that nearly all ancient religious nations had the tradition of losing and finding their holy books, holy laws, and holy languages. the query is here suggested, that if such an important document could be restored to the people in the manner adopted by ezra, why was not this expedient resorted to a thousand years sooner, and thus save the demoralization of the jews? the policy adopted is too much like "locking the stall after the horse is stolen." impossibility of possessing a reliable translation. it is quite evident, from the facts presented and from others which will hereafter be presented, that, if god ever gave forth a revelation of his will to the founders of the jewish and christian religions, the world is not in possession of it now, and can not find it in a book as old as the christian bible, and written by simply stringing consonants together in a line without any vowels, and without any distinction of words, and which must necessarily be an enigma that would puzzle any scholar to decipher. hence the learned le clere says, "even the learned guess at the sense in an infinity of places, which has produced a prodigious number of discordant interpretations." and simonton, in his "critical history," says, "it is unquestionable that the greater part of the hebrew words of the old testament are equivocal in their signification, and utterly uncertain; and that even the most learned jews doubt almost every thing in regard to their proper meaning." to talk of finding "all scripture given by inspiration of god" environed with such difficulties, is to talk nonsense. we will illustrate the nature of these difficulties by citing a case. we will look at the random guessing at the meaning of a single word of a single text by the most learned students and scholars in biblical literature. the word indicating the material of which noah's ark was com-posed, our translation says, was gophir-wood: but the arabic translation says it was box-wood; the persian translation says it was pine-wood; another translation makes it red ebony; and still another declares it was wicker-work; davidson, assuming to be "wise above what is written" the case, says it was bulrushes cemented with pitch; another writer translates it cedar-wood, &c. and thus god's holy book, designed for the guidance of man, has been the sport and the bauble of learned guessers in all ages of christendom, who evidently know as much about it, in many cases, as a goose does about greek. many different christian bibles. owing to the multiplicity of bible translations, which differ widely in their doctrines, precepts, and the relation of general events, making a different collection of books to constitute "the word of god," various churches, and even individual professors, have assumed the liberty to compile and make a bible for themselves. the roman-catholic bible differs essentially from that of the protestants', having fourteen more books. the bible of the greek church differs from both. the campbellites have a translation of their own. the samaritan bible contains only the five books of moses. the unitarians, having found twenty-four thousand errors in the popular translation, made another translation containing still many thousand errors. the american christian union, having found many thousand errors in king james's translation, are now engaged in a new translation. how many more we are to have, god only knows. martin luther condemned eleven books of the bible, as we have already stated, and thus made a bible for himself. paul's epistle to the hebrews he denounced in strong terms. eusebius, the learned ecclesiastical writer, throws eight bible-books overboard, and had a bible to his own fancy. dr. lardner and john calvin each condemned five or six books, and had a bible peculiar to themselves. grotius places the heel of condemnation on several books of the bible. bishop baxter voted down eight books as uninspired, and unworthy of confidence. swedenborg accepted only the four gospels and revelation as inspired. the german fathers rejected the gospel of st. matthew, and i know not how many other books. the bible of the learned christian writer evanson did not contain either matthew, mark, or john. the unitarian bible does not contain hebrews, james, jude, or revelation. the catholics denounce the protestant bible, and the protestants condemn the catholic bible, as being full of errors. a number of other churches and learned christians might be named who had bibles of their own selection and construction. and thus every book in the bible has passed under the flaming sword of condemnation, and has been voted down by some ecclesiastical body or learned and devout christian. each church has either made out a bible for itself, or accepted that which came the nearest teaching the doctrine of their own peculiar creed. in the midst of this rejection, expulsion, and expurgation of bibles and bible-books, where can we find "the scripture given by inspiration of god"? we have it upon the authority of dr. adam clark, eusebius, bishop marsh, and other writers, that many texts and passages contained in our bible can not be found in the earlier editions; thus showing that many gross interpolations and forgeries have been practiced by the christian fathers. christ's prayer on the cross, "father, forgive them," &c., the story of the woman taken in adultery, the passage relative to the three that bare record in heaven, &c., they assure us, can not be found in any early translation of the bible. where, then, are "the scriptures given by inspiration of god"? who can tell? chapter lvi.--infidels under the oriental systems, it is an interesting and instructive historical fact, that in all religious countries,--christian, heathen, and mahomedan,--as the people become educated and enlightened, a portion of them improve the teachings of their bible by new interpretations; while another portion, possessed of still more intelligence, abandon the book altogether, and become infidels to the prevailing religion of the country. i have spoken of the former class in another chapter. in this chapter i shall present a brief history of the latter class, who are known as infidels under different systems of religion. we find, by our historical researches, that in india, egypt, persia, chaldea, china, mexico, arabia, &c., a portion of the people outgrow the religion of the country in which they have been educated. and it is an important fact, observable in all religious countries, that _that_ portion of the population who become dissatisfied with the established religion of the country are the most intellectual, the most intelligent, and very generally the most moral also. we desire the reader to notice this, as it tends to prove that the cause of infidelity in all countries is intelligence and intellect, and to establish the converse proposition that the mass of people who adhere so rigidly to the religion in which they were educated are people of limited intellect, large veneration, and not very progressive by nature, and very generally have but little historical or scientific knowledge. they consequently have not observed the errors and defects of their religion, or its cramping and stultifying effect upon the mind, or its effect upon the morals of the country. they prefer having somebody else to do their thinking for them. this will be fully illustrated by the brief historical sketch we will now present of the practical operation of infidelity under several forms of religion. i. the religious skeptics of india. it is generally assumed by the disciples of the christian faith that the people of india are on a low scale of mind and intelligence, and that this accounts for the tardy success of the missionaries in the work of converting them to the christian faith, and the obstacles which lie in their pathway, which makes the cost of conversion bear an enormous proportion to the few proselytes won over to the religion of jesus. this matter is interestingly controverted by the rev. david o. allen, who spent twenty-five years in that country as a missionary. we will make an extract from his work, "india, ancient and modern." speaking of the obstacles the two hundred missionaries have to encounter in the work of conversion, he says, "it is now some years since a spirit of infidelity and skepticism began to take strong hold of the _educated_ native minds of india. this spirit was first manifested in calcutta, madras, and bombay; and it is making rapid progress in all the large cities" (p. ). let the reader mark the word "_educated_" in this extract. most cogently does it sustain the assumption we have several times made in this work, that it is intellect and intelligence that cause infidelity under every form and system of religion. it denotes an upward tendency from the brute creation, which is devoid of intellectual brain. mr. allen says, "this class of persons [the infidels] have associations and societies for debates, discussions, and lectures; and, among the subjects which engage their attention at such times, religion, in some of its forms and claims, has a prominent place. their libraries are well furnished with infidel and deistical works, which have been provided from europe and america. the historical facts and doctrines of the bible, the ordinances of the gospel, and certain facts and periods of the history of christianity are made the subjects of inquiry, discussion, and lectures. at such times christianity and all connected with it--the scriptures, doctrines, and characters, as well as parts of its history--are often treated with levity, scurrility, and blasphemy." let the reader bear in mind that it is a christian missionary that is speaking, who is in the habit of styling every thing "blasphemy" in the shape of argument against his idolized and superstitious religion. we are assured from other sources that their language, although freighted with argument and wit, is always respectable. "on such occasions," continues mr. allen, "they make a free use of the works of infidel writings, and the sneers and cavils and arguments of deists in europe and america.... this same class has also, to a great extent, the management and control of the national press of india. [this statement suggests that infidelity in india is becoming deep, wide-spread, and popular.] in their journals much appears of an infidel and scurrilous nature against christianity in perverted and distorted statements of its doctrines and duties, of its principles and its precepts, of the conduct and character of its professors, and of the ways and means used for propagating it.... the following facts show the state of the native mind in india: the proprietor and editor of one of _the oldest and best-supported_ newspapers in bombay some time ago expressed his views of the state of religion among all classes, and suggested what course should be pursued. after inserting two or three articles in his paper, to prepare the minds of his readers, he said it was obvious to all that the state of religion was very sad, and becoming more so, and that all classes of people appeared to have lost all confidence in their sacred books; that christians do not believe in their bible, or they would practice its precepts; that the jews, mahomedans, hindoos, and the zoroastrians do not believe in their sacred books, because, if they did, they would not do so many things which their bibles forbid, and neglect so many things which they command. he then proceeds to say that the sacred books of all these different classes may have been of divine origin, and when first given they may have been adapted to the the state and circumstances of the people, and may have been very useful, but that they had become unsuitable to the present advanced state of knowledge and improved state of society; and that none of these sacred books could ever again have the confidence of the people, and become the rule of their faith and practice.... he then suggested that a religious convention be called in bombay, and that each class of people send a delegation of their learned and devout men with copies of their sacred books, and that the men of this convention should prepare from all these sacred books a shastra suited to the present state of the world, and adapted to all classes of people. and he expressed his belief that a shastra thus prepared and recommended would soon be generally adopted. in his next paper he proceeded to mention some of the doctrines which such a shastra should contain; and among them he said it should inculcate the existence of only one god, and the worship of him without any kind of idol or material symbol. and then he would have no distinction of caste, which he thought was one of the greatest evils and absurd things in the hindoo religion. now, these opinions and suggestions are chiefly remarkable as exhibiting the state of the native mind. [do you mean to say, mr. allen, that the hundred and fifty millions of the native minds in india are all tinctured with these doctrines? if so, it is glorious news indeed.] it is unnecessary to say that these views are entirely subversive of hindooism, invoking the rejection of its sacred books as well as its preceptive rites and most cherished practices. the writer of these articles for the public _was a respectable and well-educated_ hindoo.... he was proprietor as well as editor of his paper; so he had much interest in sustaining its popularity and increasing its circulation. indeed, i was told he had but little property besides his paper, and that he relied chiefly upon it for his support. he knew the state of religious opinions among the hindoos; and he was well assured that such opinions and suggestions would not be to the prejudice of his character, nor to the injury of his paper. [glad to hear this, mr. allen, on his account, and as showing that a remarkable amount of good sense, intelligence, and infidelity predominate over the christian religion in india.] now, this man, the readers of his paper, and the circle of his acquaintance, show the state of hundreds of thousands in india, who are dissatisfied with the hindoo religion, and, having no confidence in it, would gladly embrace something better, more reasonable, and calculated to exert a better influence upon society and the character of their nation." all hail to such intelligence as this! it shows that the heathen of india have more reason, sense, and intelligence than many professors of christianity. now, mark the cause which mr. allen assigns for this intellectual skepticism of india. he says, "it is in part the effect of the knowledge they acquire which removes their stupidity and ignorance, and imparts power to think, compare, reason, and judge on religious subjects; and in part from the principles and facts of modern astronomy, history, geography, &c., being utterly at variance with the declarations and doctrines of the hindoo shastras: so that no person who believes in the former can retain any confidence in the latter. [and, if he had included the christian bible with the shastras, the statement would have been almost equally true.] the natural consequence of this course of education is to produce a spirit of skepticism in _respect to all religions_. [another wonderful admission, and more proof that infidelity, brains, and intelligence are correlative terms.] the effect is now seen in the religious, or rather the irreligious, views of a proportion of the young men who have been educated in european science and literature in the institutions established by the government of india. they are strongly opposed to christianity, and often ridicule its most sacred and solemn truths [errors more probably]. they openly avow their skepticism and deistical sentiments; but they have hitherto generally conformed to the popular superstitions so far as to avoid persecution, and retain their sacred positions, and to secure and enjoy their property rights.... motives of worldly policy may lead most of the present generation of educated young men through life to show some respect to notions, rites, and ceremonies which they regard as false, unmeaning, and superstitious; but, should these views pervade the masses of the native population (which they are now doing rapidly), they may be expected to develop their genuine spirit in very painful consequence, unless christianity acquires sufficient power to restrain them" (pp. and ). the painful consequence here apprehended is simply the triumph of religious skepticism based on, and growing out of, a broad and thorough literary and scientific education over the senseless dogmas and superstitions of christianity. such "painful consequences" will always follow in any country the enlightenment and expansion of the minds of the people by a thorough acquaintance with the principles of science and literature. it is just as natural as that light should dispel darkness; and that is exactly what is realized in such cases. mr. allen's statement that motives of worldly policy restrains many of the educated young men of india from avowing their real convictions on the subject of religion shows that the same spirit of mental _surveillance_ and priestly despotism prevails in india that prevails in all christian countries, and prevents thousands from letting their real sentiments be known. and this mental slavery has filled the world with hypocrites; but it will soon burst its bonds in india, or would, if the two hundred christian missionaries could be called home. and then i would suggest that the tide of missionary emigration be reversed, and that some of those highly enlightened, educated men of india be sent to throw some light upon this country. mr. allen, in the continuation of his subject, states that the government councils of education in india are publishing various works on science and literature,--the production of the minds of its own citizens,--and that they have published a large number of works of this character within a few years past. and he states that, "if this course is continued, india will soon have a valuable indigenous literature" (p. ). this statement tends to enlighten us still further as to the cause of the recent rapid spread of infidelity in that country; for science and literature are certain to precede infidelity. but he complains that the government system of education, which simply teaches science without superstition, while "it is destroying the confidence of the people in their own system of religion, is also introducing speculation, skepticism, and deism" (p. ). if he were an enlightened philosopher, he would understand that this is the legitimate operation of cause and effect. mr. allen, in concluding this sketch of the rapid progress of skepticism in india, says there are many thousands in india who have passed from conviction of the falsehood of the hindoo religion into a state of skepticism and indifference to all religion, unless when the progress of christianity now and then rouses them to oppose it. this must be cheering news to every enlightened philanthropist. this whole sketch of mr. allen's is very interesting, as it discloses the real causes of infidelity or skepticism in all religion? countries, and shows that every form of superstition is giving way and sinking before the march of science, literature, and education in the most populous nation on the globe. it is indeed a soul-cheering thought. and where is there a christian professor who is so bigoted as not to derive the hint from these historical facts that he can find the cause of his rigid adherence to his own religion, with all its errors, by simply placing his hands on his head? it is true. there are, however, many persons who still believe in an erroneous system of religion, simply because they have had no opportunity of obtaining light on the subject. ii. sects and infidels in greece and rome. when we arrive at greece we find a nation possessing a mental caliber seldom equaled, and furnishing many philosophers with brains sufficient to enable them to see through the errors and the absurdities of any system of religion. hence infidels were more numerous than sectarians; and those infidels (better known as philosophers) nearly succeeded, by the force of superior logic and wisdom, in banishing all systems of religious superstition from the nation. but questions of controversy were more on philosophical subjects than on religious themes; because the dogmas of the popular religion of greece, like that of all other countries, were so absurd that the grecian philosophers could dispose of them without much mental effort. as a proof and illustration of this statement, we will cite the case of stilpo, who, on being asked by crates (b.c. ) whether he believed that god took any pleasure in being worshiped by mortals, replied, "thou fool, don't question me upon such absurdities in the public streets, but wait till we are alone." greece, and also rome, furnished intellectual minds of a high order; and all their numerous philosophers were skeptical on the prevailing forms of religion in those and other nations. it will be observed, then, that nearly all the religious orders of antiquity gave rise to numerous sects, and also numerous infidels and skeptics, _alias_ philosophers. iii. sects and skeptics in egypt. ancient egypt was characterized by a considerable amount of intellectual mind, and no inconsiderable proficiency in the arts and sciences. and hence, as would naturally be expected, a considerable portion of her people, in the course of time, broke from the trammels of the popular religious faith, and became infidel to all the systems and sects in the nation; while those of a secondary order of intellect abandoned some dogmas, modified others, and started new sects. this gave offense to the parental religious order, which resulted in one or two cases in a serious quarrel, though not with the bloody and deadly results which have marked the religious quarrels among the sects and followers of "the prince of peace," which have been so sanguine, cruel, and bloody, as to leave eighteen million human beings on the battle-field, or consumed by fire, or consigned to a watery grave. religious wars among the heathen have not been half so fiendish or fatal as those waged by the disciples of the cross. the number of sects in egypt is not known, but they were numerous. iv. sects and skeptics in china. china, though characterized by less mental activity than most other religious nations, has had her sects and her skeptics, and not a very small number of the former, though less in proportion to her religious population than either egypt, india, persia, chaldea, or arabia. some of her sects manifested a disposition to borrow dogmas from other religions; while others attempted an improvement on the ancient faith established by confucius, although in its moral aspects it was the best system of religion extant. the oldest sect known was founded by laotse, and was known as taotse. his religion differed more from that of confucius with respect to its ceremonies than its doctrines. on the whole, there has not been sufficient intellectual growth in china to produce any very marked changes in the long-established religion of the country. innovation and religious improvement in china are checked and almost prevented by a sort of ecclesiastical tribunal, which has existed from time immemorial, known as "the court of rites," which is invested with authority to suppress religious innovation, and thus put an extinguisher on infidelity. v. persian sects and skeptics. persia has possessed sufficient intellectual mind to make very considerable changes in her religion. according to tradition, she was once overrun with idolatry. but now, and for at least three or four thousand years (and before the time of moses), that nation has manifested the greatest abhorrence to images, excelling in this respect even moses, who probably borrowed his antipathy to idolatry from that country. sects have arisen which have condemned not only the doctrines of the primary system, but its mode of worship. there has been considerable controversy among the sects in persia upon the question whether god should be worshiped in temples made with hands, or in the open air; also with respect to the origin of evil, and whether the devil (ahrimanes) was eternal, or co-eternal with god (ormuzd). these questions of dispute, and various others, have given rise to more than seventy different sects; while the most intellectual and best improved minds have outgrown and renounced them all, and assumed the character of infidels. vi. mahomedan skeptics and sects. mahomedans have paid very particular attention to education, and the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and have produced and published a number of literary works. a number of scientific men have arisen among them from time to time; and schools and colleges have been established, in which many have obtained a literary and scientific education, hence there will be no difficulty in understanding why thousands of infidels or skeptics have arisen amongst them, and avowed their disbelief in the religion of the koran. some of them have spent much time in writing and speaking in their attempts to expose its errors and absurdities; and a large number of sects have sprung up amongst them from time to time, numbering, on the whole, not less than fifty. all these sects mark the progress of religious thought; and each sect made some improvement in the prevailing creeds and dogmas, or some of the religious customs and ceremonials. one of the oldest and principal sects was the sabeans, who claim to be the original founders of the mahomedan religion. they are very devout, pray three times a day,--morning, noon, and evening. they also observe three annual fasts, offer animal sacrifices, and practice circumcision, and cherish other foolish customs, and preach other superstitious doctrines, which the cultivation of the sciences has had the effect to open the eyes of some of its devotees to see the absurdity of. hence they have left, and founded new sects with new and improved creeds. in this way a great many new sects have sprung up from time to time, as in christian countries, which marks the progress of religious improvement. a great amount of religious controversy has been carried on between these belligerent sects, which has had the effect, to some extent, to liberalize all. one of the largest and most important of these sects has arisen in modern times,--"the anti-ramazan" sect,--which now numbers not less than forty thousand adherents. they discard the feast of ramazan, condemn polygamy, and contend that no man ought to be persecuted for his religious opinions or his infidelity. it will be perceived they are somewhat radical; and this is easily accounted for. their origin dates since the dawn of literature in that country; and they number in their ranks the best educated, most enlightened and intelligent professors of the mahomedan faith. here is suggested again the cause of infidelity, or the act of outgrowing the popular faith, which has characterized a portion of the disciples of nearly every form of religion known to history. some of the mahomedan sects rose up against one form of popular superstition, and some another. one sect opposed the prevailing belief in a physical resurrection, and argued that the soul rises only as a spiritual entity. another sect opposed and exposed the absurdity and obscenity of the rite of circumcision. another argued that punishment after death would be but for a limited period. another sect opposed the savage superstition of animal sacrifice, &c. while the mother institution, which worshiped in the ancient, moss-covered mosque, condemned them all as infidels; but none of them seem to have possessed the amount of intellectual acumen or scientific intelligence to enable them to perceive that the whole system was defective. hence they labored to improve it, instead of laboring to destroy it, and supply the place with something better; though hundreds and thousands of the educated classes had their mental vision sufficiently enlightened and expanded to enable them to see truth beyond the narrow confines of creeds and dogmas. hence they abandoned their long-cherished religious errors, and have since lent their influence to expose them, and put them down. "thus round and round we run; and ever the truth comes uppermost, and ever is justice done." chapter lvii.--sects, schisms, and skeptics in christian countries. the practical history of christianity, ever since the dawn of civilization, has been that of schisms, sects, and divisions, all indicating the natural growth of the human mind, and its thirst for knowledge, its struggles for freedom, and its unalterable determination to be as free as the eagle that soars above the clouds. the number of church sects is estimated to be more than five hundred, and the number is still increasing. and the multiplication of infidels has kept pace with the increase of the churches; and skeptics are now increasing much more rapidly than converts to the churches. this fact accounts for the lamentations with which church organs and religious magazines an now filled with respect to the rapid falling off of church membership, and the decline of church attendance. the people are rapidly outgrowing their creeds and dogmas. this causes the decline of the churches. we will cite a few facts by way of illustration: a recent number of "the christian era" states that there has been twenty-two thousand more deserters from the baptist church than conversions to it within the brief period of five years. this does not look like converting the world, as they have avowed their determination to do. and the methodist church, according to "the watchman and reflector." is losing its members still faster: several thousand have left within the past year. "zion's watchman" presents us with a still sadder picture of the evangelical churches in general. it states that religion is on the decline in all those churches, and that in some of them it is rapidly dying out. it states, that, where one new church is erected, two are shut up; and concludes by saying, "zion indeed languisheth, and religion is at a low ebb." it means churchianity religion; "for pure religion and undefiled," the outgrowth of modern intelligence, is on the increase, and increases in the ratio of the decline of the churches. the cause of zion in old england appears to be in as lamentable a condition as in this country. a recent number of "the english recorder" makes the solemn declaration that there are five millions of people living without the means of grace in that one province, and that, if arranged in a continuous line in single file, they would reach the distance of fourteen miles. this is rather a large number of immortal souls to be traveling the broad road in one nation. and we are informed that in canada a large number of the people have no religion, and are on the road to infidelity. to return to this country: a colporteur of the american bible society informs us that three-fourths of the citizens of philadelphia, and four-fifths of those of new york and vicinity, have no religion, and no faith in the religion of the bible. they must therefore be set down as infidels. and the american christian commission, which assembled not long since in new york, has made some startling developments with respect to the decline of church attendance throughout the country. this body, i believe, represents nearly all the evangelical churches, and is composed principally of clergymen. they have had census committees traveling the whole country over to ascertain the proportionate number of church-members and church-goers in every city, town, and village in the country. their report is really astonishing; and, as figures will not lie, these reports prove that the orthodox churches are rapidly declining. as indicative of the state of the whole country, look at the condition of some of our large cities. this vigilance committee tells us that three-fourths of the citizens of st. louis never attend church, making about two hundred thousand out of the whole population. and in boston, according to their figures, the proportion of church-members and church-goers is still smaller, being only about one-fifth, which leaves two hundred thousand persons "out in the cold;" but it is a kind of cold that is very comfortable compared with the cold, chilling dogmas of orthodoxy. statistics similar to the above are furnished for many of the cities, towns, and villages throughout the country, by which it appears that many people are forsaking these old, obsolete institutions, and that the credal churches are really in a dying condition. the state of vermont, taking it at large, furnishes a moral lesson worthy of imitation. it is one of the best educated, moral, enlightened, and intelligent states in the union. crime is but little known compared with the world at large; and yet only about one in twenty of her citizens is a sound church-member. thus we see that vermont is about the best educated and most moral state in the union, and, at the same time, the most infidel state. put this and that together. it will be seen at once that education, intelligence, morality, and infidelity go hand in hand; and that morality grows out of infidelity, instead of christianity; and that science and infidelity, and not the bible or christianity, are to be the great levers and instrumentalities for reforming the world. where, then, is the moral force of christianity, so much talked of by the clergy? and we have it, upon the authority of this national body of clergymen, that there are not a sufficient number of church edifices in the country to hold one-half of the people if they wished to attend "divine service;" and that, on an an average, the churches are not half filled on the sabbath. from this statement it is evident that only about one-fifth are church-goers; and a large number of these are not church-members, but attend, as the committees state, for mere pastime. this state of things forms a striking contrast with the condition of things only eighty or a hundred years ago, when nearly everybody attended church. to sum up the thing in a few words, the case stands about thus: a hundred years ago from three-fourths to nine-tenths of the people were church-attendants, and the most of them church-members; but now not more than one in eight or ten is a church-adherent, and not the half of these are sound or full believers. a gentleman: who has recently traveled in every state in the union for the purpose of critically investigating the matter, concludes, as the result of his inquiries; that not one in fifteen of the entire population of the united states is a sound orthodox believer. this, contrasted with the state of the country and churches a hundred years ago, shows the difference is great, and that the decline of the orthodox faith is rapid, and their approach to their final destiny swift and sure. calculating from the present rates of decrease in church interest and belief in church creeds, there will not be an orthodox church in existence sixty years from this time. truly does the committee making this report say, "the state of the churches is alarming", but it is only alarming to the unprogressive adherents to old, musty, mind-crushing creeds and dogmas. to us it is not alarming, but cause of rejoicing, in view of the fact that the disappearance of these old soul-crushing institutions will give place to the glorious and grand truths of the harmonial philosophy,--a religion adapted to the true wants of the soul, and calculated to save both soul and body from every thing which now mars their health, beauty, and happiness. then every one can "sit under his own vine and fig-tree, where none can make him afraid" of orthodox devils or an angry god. we bring these things to notice for the purpose of showing that a religious body which persists in preaching, from year to year and from age to age, the same creed, dogmas, and catechisms, without any improvement, or even conceding the possibility that they can be improved, will fall behind the times, and finally be abandoned by all growing and intelligent minds. they cease to answer the moral and spiritual wants of the people, and become as cramping to their souls as the chinese wooden shoes would be to their feet. "excelsior, onward and upward," is the motto for this age. and that institution, whether moral, religious, or political, which obstinately refuses to live out this motto, will die as certainly as that the stopping the circulation of the blood will produce death. having spoken of the decadence of the churches, we will now look at the counter-picture,--the progress of infidelity. and here we observe that leading church-members not only confess to the decline of the churches, but concede, on the other hand, that what they are pleased to stigmatize as infidelity is rapidly increasing. we will refer to some of their alarming reports. a recent number of "scribner's monthly" says, that "at this very moment a black cloud of skepticism covers the whole moral horizon;" and the right reverend bishop of winchester corroborates the statement by exclaiming, "infidelity is everywhere: it colors all our philosophy and our commonplace religion." professor fisher, in a warning note to christian professors, says but few religious teachers are aware of the strength of the infidel party, and the alarming prevalence of infidelity throughout the country,--that "it pervades all classes of society, and is in the very atmosphere we breathe." if this be true, that infidelity pervades the atmosphere, then all must inhale it, and become contaminated by it, and thus become infidels naturally, and in spite of any godly resistance. hence they should not be blamed for what they can not help. the rev. david k. nelson, author of "the cause and cure of infidelity," makes some wonderful concessions in regard to the alarming prevalence of infidelity among the higher classes. he tells us that three-fourths of the editors of our popular newspapers are infidels, that nearly all our law-makers are infidels, and that "even the church itself is full of infidels." if these statements are to be credited, the reverend gentleman may as well abandon all efforts to arrest it; for it evidently has the reins of government, and can't be stopped, and will ultimately rule the nation, and finally the world. then will we have a rational religion; then will the millennium, so long predicted by seers and sung of by poets, be ushered in as an earthly paradise. this statement of mr. nelson's is corroborated by the religious magazines of the day. "the american quarterly review" asserts that seventeen-twentieths or the people are tinctured with infidelity. this leaves but a small handful of the faithful and zealous defenders of the "faith once delivered to the saints." the editor of "the baptist examiner" says that a member of the united-states senate remarked to him, "there are, i assure you, but very few members of this body who believe in your evangelical religion." this is confirmatory of the statement frequently made in this work, that our current religion is not adapted to the times; that it is practically outgrown by the better informed classes of society. mr. beecher says, "four-fifths of the educated young men of the age are infidels." take notice, "the _educated_." here is further evidence that infidelity and intelligence are almost synonymous terms,--further proof that education and intelligence alone are needed to banish christian superstition from the world. let it be borne in mind that infidelity, in its true sense, simply means want of faith in the worn-out creeds and dogmas of past ages, but no lack of faith in any thing good and true. if we were to accept the orthodox definition of infidelity,--"want of faith in the precepts and practice of christ,"--then it would apply to every christian professor on earth. there is not one of them that is not tinctured more or less with this kind of infidelity. there is not a christian professor who believes as jesus christ did, or who practices the life he did. for example: no civilized christian in this enlightened age believes with christ that disease is produced by devils, and that, to cure the "obsessed," the diabolical intruder must be cast out "of the inner man." in this and other respects all enlightened christian professors of the present day differ from the precepts and examples of christ; hence, strictly speaking, are not christians, but infidels. and we are warranted in saying that christ himself, if living in this more enlightened and scientific age, would reject some of the superstitious notions which he cherished in common with the religions professors of that dark and illiterate era. he was most devoutly honest, but very ignorant on scientific subjects. here permit us to note the fact that a very great change has taken place within half a century in the practical lives, as well as the religious views, of those who still profess to believe in the christian faith. the time has been when nearly all religious professors, including even officers under the government, kept a diary of their religious experience, about which they talked whenever they met together; daily engaged in vocal prayer, and daily read their bibles and catechisms; and the latter many of them committed to memory. but now it is doubtful whether one-half of even the clergy themselves ever read it. and as for the bible, which used to be read every day by christian professors, probably not one-half of them ever see inside of it once in six months, unless it is when they wish to settle some controverted question in theology. some modern works of fiction or of travel have taken the place of "the holy book" on the centre-table, while the newspaper has supplanted the catechism. these are some of the extraordinary changes which have recently taken place, and are still rapidly going on, in the practical lives of christian professors, which tend to show that their faith is daily growing weaker in the soul-saving efficacy of their religion, or in the belief that it possesses any intrinsic importance. this rapid decline in practical christianity will land nearly all its professors on the shores of infidelity in less than half a century. chapter lviii.--modern christianity one-half infidelity. when martin luther left the roman-catholic church, and adopted the motto, "liberty to investigate," he sounded the death-knell of every orthodox church that should afterwards spring up outside the jurisdiction of the pope. luther was bigotedly orthodox, and something of a tyrant: but he had more intellectual brain and mind than most men of his time; and that intellectual ability, though warped by education and enchained by bigotry and superstition, struggled for freedom as minds of that character always do. luther commenced reasoning (most unfortunate for his orthodoxy); but he had been living in the murky atmosphere of superstition all his life, and preaching a creed that had been stereotyped for a thousand years: so that his reasoning powers had been much weakened, and he had not sufficient intellectual light to see his way out of the dark prison-house of superstition in which the whole christian church was then enslaved. but he had intellect enough, when exercised, to convince him there was something wrong in the popular religion of the times; and he commenced reasoning, though in a very narrow circle. he did not attack orthodoxy, but only the tyranny of its misrule and the audacity of the pope. it was only a reasoning mind beginning to feel the impulse of intellectual growth. the method which he adopted--"liberty to investigate"--was a dangerous experiment for orthodoxy, and will yet prove the death-warrant of all protestant churches. the pope has adopted the only true policy for keeping the light of the grand truths of science and infidelity from entering the darkened doors and windows of the church, and producing schisms and disputes,--that of binding the intellect in chains, and laying it at the feet of the pope. but luther, by adopting the motto, "liberty to investigate," set some orthodox minds to thinking and reasoning; and a religious mind that is allowed to think for itself will eventually think and reason its way out of its soul-enslaving creed, or at least make some progress in that direction. hence, ever since luther adopted this grand motto, the christian church (except that part kept in fetters by the pope) has been gradually moving every hour since luther entered upon this hazardous experiment of allowing religionists to reason and think for themselves. orthodoxy has been growing weaker. it is becoming gradually diluted with the grand truths of science, and now entertains broader and more enlightened views, thus this bigoted spirit of orthodoxy is dying by inches. its days are numbered; and the last orthodox protestant church will die in less than a century. this is no mere visionary dream or random guess-work: it is a scientific problem, which can be proved and demonstrated by figures. the progress of the churches in the past, in permitting the truths of science and the infidelity of the age to displace its mind-crushing dogmas, and modify its creeds, furnishes a certain criterion for calculating their final destiny; and, by this rule, we are assured its years will be few. let us look and see what progress the protestant churches have already made towards "abandoning the faith once delivered to the saints." some of them are much farther advanced in the line of progress than others; and each new church that has sprung up since the days of luther dates a new era in the religious progress and onward march of infidelity; and yet each one professed to be sound in the faith, and forbid any one to advance beyond its landmarks. every one proclaimed, thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, in the line of religious progress. we will notice them in their order. the old romish church held all chris-tians in its iron grasp for eleven hundred years, and hung its dark curtains in the moral heavens to exclude the light of science. reason was held in chains, and the intellect crushed beneath the foot of popish infallibility. but, after this night of intellectual darkness, luther rebelled, and broke the spell, and set what little intellect there was left in the church to thinking. its doctrines were heathenish. it taught the infallibility of the pope, and the divinity of the virgin mary. in this respect they were more consistent than the protestant churches; for the divinity of christ presupposes the divinity of both his parents, otherwise he would be half human and half divine. it also teaches the doctrine of election and reprobation, endless punishment, and other silly superstitions. in this state of mental darkness greek literature made an attempt to invade its ranks and dispel its ignorance with the light of science, but failed,--not, however, until it had let a few gleams of light into the intellectual brain of some of the best minds, and set them to thinking. this caused a few members to reject the infallibility of the pope, and a division in the church was the consequence. a new church was instituted, which received the name of "the greek church." here we find a slight improvement in the christian creed. the greek christians rejected the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope, but still held to the divinity of the virgin mary, and all the other senseless dogmas of the church. but, as it abandoned one of the most popular but unreasonable doctrines of the church, it was an important step toward advancement. they did not, however, look upon it in that light, but declared it was the true doctrine of the bible, and here planted their stakes, and forbade any further improvement. after gathering a church of seventy million souls, another night of intellectual darkness set in, and continued for four hundred years; which brings us down to the fifteenth century, when luther rebelled against the pope, and again broke the spell of mental lethargy and intellectual darkness, and set what little intellectual mind there was left in the church to thinking. another slight improvement was made in the christian creed. the lutherans not only rejected the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope but also the divinity of the virgin mary, but here stopped, and planted their stakes, and issued a bull to interdict further progress; but the ball, once set in motion, can not be stopped. as well attempt to bind the ocean with a rope of sand as to attempt to stop the march of thought when one link is broken which binds it to the juggernaut of superstition. this is true, however, of but few minds. but few church-members possess thought and independence enough to advance faster than their leaders. luther did not live long enough to outgrow all the superstitious dogmas in which he had been educated; but he made such rapid progress in infidelity that he condemned the doctrines of eleven books of, the bible, and consequently rejected them; viz., chronicles, job, ecclesiastes, proverbs, esther, joshua, jonah, hebrews, james, jude, and revelation. he was then an infidel with respect to eleven books of the bible; and, had he lived in an age of progress like the present, he would have become an out-and-out infidel. but the mass of his followers did not possess minds so susceptible of intellectual growth: hence they lived and died in faith with the creeds he made for them. there were, however, a few exceptions to this rule. in all ages and all religious countries, and under every form of religion, there have been a few minds gifted with thought and reason beyond that of the multitude. a few of this class figured under lutherism, who eventually, by virtue of their tendency to mental growth, discovered some defects in his creed and system of faith. among this number was arminius, who rejected the doctrine of total depravity, original sin, the eucharist, purgatory, &c., and, with this change of lutherism, founded what became known as the arminian church: but as no mind and no set of minds in any age have possessed the mental capacity to discover all error, or to grasp all truth, so arminius only outgrew a few of the erroneous dogmas of the christian faith, and then stopped, and planted his stakes, and stereotyped his creed; and any opinion or doctrine that advanced beyond that was infidelity. he did not live quite long enough to discover the absurdity of the atonement and an endless hell, and hence those doctrines are found in his creed; but the change he made in the popular religion furnishes another indubitable proof of the progress of mind, and the progressive improvement of the religion of christianity, and another proof of the steady progress christianity has made towards infidelity. so distinct and marked have been these changes, that they furnish data for calculating proximately the period when the last dogma shall drop out of the creeds of the churches, and bring them into conformity to the teachings of reason and science,--in other words, when christianity shall merge into infidelity. and what is meant by infidelity is the want of faith in the false and morally injurious dogmas of the superstitious ages. another step in the road of religious progress brings us to the unitarian church. here we find still longer strides in the direction of the christian faith towards infidelity. the unitarians rejected the doctrine of the divinity of jesus christ. and why? simply because the founders of that church had expansive intellectual minds that enabled them to perceive the absurdity and logical impossibility of the truth of the doctrine. their enlightened reasoning powers enabled them to discover these objections to the doctrine: viz. ( ) the impossibility of incorporating an infinite being into a finite body or into the human body; ( ) the absurdity of considering any being on earth a god while there was acknowledged to be one in heaven, making at least two gods; ( ) the difficulty of accepting the bible history of christ as furnishing proof of his divinity, while it invests him with all the qualities of a human being. these and numerous other absurdities, which are treated of in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," lead them to reject the doctrine of the divinity of christ, while most other protestant churches consider a belief in the doctrine essential to salvation. thus they make a long leap towards infidelity. having intellectually outgrown the doctrine, they set themselves to work to get it out of the bible. this was no difficult task: for as many texts as may be found in the new testament in favor of the doctrine, a much larger number may be cited in opposition to it. and a similar history may be given of the universalist church. it, too, has run into infidelity. the doctrine of universal salvation is a beautiful doctrine: it had its origin in the noblest and kindest feelings of the human mind. messrs. murray and ballou, founders of the church, were men of broad philanthropy and human sympathy, and possessed the kindest feelings. such men could not brook the idea of endless misery for a single soul in god's universe. they were also men of a liberal endowment of reason and logical perception, and hence rejected the doctrine from logical considerations also. being intellectual and intelligent men, they became convinced that the doctrine was wrong. they set themselves to work to get it out of the bible. their object in doing this was more to save the credit of the bible than to make it an authority to sustain their own position. the bible being a many-stringed instrument, on which you can play any tune, they found about as little difficulty in disproving the doctrine by the bible as others do in establishing the doctrine by that authority. it is wonderful with what ease and facility a dozen conflicting doctrines may be drawn from the same text. this is because all human language is ambiguous, and that of the bible pre-eminently so; and this fact demonstrates the absolute impossibility of settling any controverted theological question by the bible. controversialists who should argue a question before a jury on bible ground, for a week or a month, should, in most cases, have a verdict given in favor of both parties; for, usually, both "beat," and also get beaten. universalists, taking advantage of this ambiguity and uncertainty of bible language, are now able to show that the doctrine of endless punishment is not taught in the book. they succeeded in ruling the doctrine out of all the punitive terms to be found in "holy writ." the word "devil," on being traced to its origin, was found to be a contraction of "do evil." with this discovery they cast the "devil" out of their bible. the word "hell" was found to be derived from the saxon word "hole;" and hence, if it have any application in the case, must mean "symm's hole." "hell-fire" originally meant a fire kindled in the vicinity of jerusalem to consume the offal of the city. and thus, according to universalism, the doctrine of future endless torment is no longer a christian doctrine; and, whether their position is correct or not, it is rather comforting to believe that none of us are to be eternally roasted in the future life, and that even satan himself has been released from the "painful duty" of ruling that kingdom. the history of both the unitarian and universalist churches furnishes evidence of the rapid advancement of christianity toward infidelity; and also the conclusion that the natural desires and moral feelings, and also the reasoning faculties, have much to do in forming the opinions of christian professors as to whether certain doctrines are taught in the bible,--whether they are scriptural or antiscriptural. the wish is often father to the belief. just let a certain bible doctrine become repugnant to the natural feelings of some pious professor, or at war with his enlightened reason, or instinctively repulsive to his moral sense, and he will find some way to convince himself that it is not a bible doctrine. a new light springing up in the mind has, in many cases, led to new and improved interpretations of the bible. it seems strange, indeed, that none of the two hundred millions of christian professors have been able to discover that it is the improvement of the moral and intellectual faculties that has done so much to improve the doctrines and general teachings of the bible in modern times. the old absurdities and heathenish ideas of the bible are pumped out by the clerical force-pump, and a new set of ideas substituted in their place. this keeps it from falling immeasurably behind the times. it is a work of moral necessity to keep it from being condemned and set aside, or trampled under foot. christian professors can all find abundant scripture to prove any thing they desire to prove; but let them change their belief, and adopt the opposite doctrine, and they can find as much scripture to prove that also. there is no difficulty in making out any kind of a creed or code of faith that may be desired. hence a man may change his creed or his conduct as often as he pleases, and still be a christian, or fit least pass for one. who that is not blinded by priestcraft, or a false religious education, can not see that it was the natural growth of the moral and intellectual faculties which gave rise to those new churches to which i have referred, with their new and improved interpretation of the bible? step by step along the pathway of human progress, the churches are forced against all resistance to make occasional improvements in their creeds; but so strong is their resistance to any change, and so determined to keep their creeds and dogmas unalterably stereotyped, that their improvements are too slow to suit the most progressive minds amongst them. hence they leave the churches to which they have been tied, and in some cases form new ones, with new creeds, better adapted to the improved taste and improved moral code of the times. there is not a protestant church in existence that does not furnish incontestable proof that christian doctrines are perpetually changing. there is not a protestant church that is not on the high road to infidelity. they have all unconsciously broken loose from the old landmarks. there is not one of them that is not now preaching doctrines which they would fifty or sixty years ago have denounced as infidelity. this may be to some a startling statement, but i will prove it. i have pointed out numerous changes in doctrines made by all the modern churches, and their rapid tendency to infidelity. i will now show that the churches from which they emanated, on account of their immobility and conservativeness, have also made radical changes in their creeds, and are moving on in the same direction, being pushed forward by the irresistible tide of modern innovation and improvement. they have made more or less change in nearly all the doctrines of their creeds. then look at the numerous doctrines once regarded as the very essence of christianity, which they have entirely abandoned. we will enumerate some of them: the doctrine of casting out devils; the doctrine of a lake of fire and brimstone; the doctrine of christ's descent into hell; the doctrine of purgatory (these two last-named doctrines, mr. sears says, "were once the doctrines of the church universal, which nobody called in dispute"); the doctrine of election and reprobation, fore-ordination; the doctrine of infant damnation; the doctrine of polygamy, &c. these were all once regarded as prime articles of the christian faith; and most of them were preached by all the churches: and now they are all abandoned by most of the churches; thus showing that they improve their creeds as they advance in light and knowledge. thus the enlightenment of their own minds leads them to preach more enlightened doctrines, which they erroneously suppose are the teachings of the book, when they are really the product of their own minds. the indian, when he halloos to the distant hills and receives back the echo of his own voice, erroneously supposes some one is responding to him. in like manner, christians, when reading and interpreting their bible, receive the echo of their own minds, which they mistake for the response of the bible writers, and the true meaning of the text. each new church, springing up from time to time, is founded on some new interpretation of the bible, and flatters itself, that, for the first time since the establishment of christianity, it has found the true key for unlocking all the mysteries and explaining all the doctrines of the bible; and that all the churches which preceded it were in the dark, each of which interpreted the same texts differently, with the same conviction that they had found the true key for laying open the hidden mysteries of the "word of god." but the probability is, that if the bible writers could be called up from their graves, and interrogated about the matter, they would declare that not one of the churches had guessed at the real meaning of those texts which they are quarreling about the meaning of; that they are all far from the mark; and that they have all saddled a meaning on the texts which the writers never intended, and never thought of, and would make them smile to hear of,--though, in many cases, they have made decided improvements on the original meaning, so as to make them more acceptable to the enlightened and thinking and intelligent minds of the age. this saves the book from being rejected. did the clergy preach the same doctrine they did fifty or a hundred years ago, they would find themselves minus a congregation. it is the improvement they are constantly making in the bible that keeps up its reputation, and saves it from the ruinous criticisms and condemnations of the scientific men of the age. and yet these changes are wrought unconsciously to the great mass of christian professors; and many of them would have been startled had they been told in early life that the time would come when they would believe as they do now,--perhaps horrified at the thought,--and would have denounced it as the rankest infidelity. the question, then, naturally arises here, where is the use of erecting standards of faith, when you believe one thing to-day and another to-morrow? you admit you were mistaken in the belief you entertained a few years ago; and in a few years more, if you have a progressive mind, you will admit that your present position is wrong, and susceptible of improvement. every christian professor of much intelligence makes some improvement in his creed in the course of his life. hence it is impossible for him to know what he will believe to-morrow, or how much more of an infidel he will be than he is to-day. one change makes way for another. the wheels of progress move steadily onward: they never stop, and never run backward. it is impossible, after you have made the slightest change and improvement in your religious belief, which is a step in the direction of infidelity, to know how many steps you will take in the future. you may resolve and re-resolve, as most religious professors do, that there shall be no change in your present views; but that will not prevent it. one change proves not only the possibility, but the probability, of another change. martin luther once believed, like rev. dr. cheever of new york that, "there is not the shadow of a shade of error in the bible from genesis to revelation;" and yet he afterwards found eleven books of the bible so full of errors, that he decided they were not divinely inspired, and rejected them from his creed: and, had he lived fifty years later, he might have rejected all the other books of the bible, and become as rank an infidel as paine and voltaire. they became infidel to the whole bible in the same way he became infidel to nearly a fourth of it. the mind which loosens itself from the trammels of its early education, and begins to think for itself, has launched its bark on the sea of infidelity. one free thought is one step toward infidelity; that is, a disbelief in the dogmas, superstitions, and traditions of the dark ages. it is just as useless and just as foolish for a man to resolve he will never be an infidel, as to resolve it shall never rain, or that the hair on his head shall never turn gray; for he has just as much control over one as the other. we have shown that the protestant churches are sailing out on the ocean of infidelity, and are making steady progress in that direction; and it is only a question of time when they will be entirely infidel. it is true, that, owing to the conservative character of the church creeds, and the inveterate hostility the priests have ever manifested to changing them, upon the assumption that they are too holy and too sacred to be criticised and too perfect to be improved, the churches have made slow progress in the way of improving their creeds compared with what would have been witnessed in this respect under a more liberal and tolerant spirit. owing to this impediment the improvement in christian doctrine has not kept pace with improvements in other things. the progress in the arts, science, agriculture, political economy, the mechanic arts, the fine arts, &c., has far outstripped the improvement of our religious institutions, and their relinquishment of the errors and superstitions of the past, and nothing but the most absolute compulsion by the moral force of the progressive spirit of the age has induced the churches to make any improvement in their creeds and doctrines. the spirit of improvement is manifested in every department of business, and in all our numerous institutions but that of our religion. when it comes to that, it is. "hands off! there shall be no changes here." it must still continue to wear the same old garments it has worn for nearly two thousand years, though they have become musty, soiled, and worn, and directly opposed to the spirit of the age. in view of this strongly opposing conservative spirit, it is remarkable that so much improvement has been realized in our national religion as we now witness. this improvement has been effected more by the process of changing the meaning of words and language than that of changing the text by a new translation, as i have already shown. this surgical operation has been inflicted upon thousands of texts; and so frequently and so generally has this expedient been adopted by churches to get rid of the errors of the "holy book," that the meaning of some texts has been changed hundreds of times. there is one text in galatians (iii. ), which, christian writers inform us, has received no less than two hundred and forty interpretations at different times by different writers; that is, two hundred and forty guesses have been made at the meaning of this one text. "revelation" is defined as "the act of making known." but what is made known by a book, one text of which you have to guess two hundred and forty times at the meaning of, and then don't know whether it is right or not? and this is but a sample of many texts scattered through the book, which have been overburdened with meanings in a similar manner in order to get a sufficient amount of science and sense into them to make them acceptable to the enlightened minds of the age. this renovating and revolutionizing process makes christianity a mere system of guess-work, and salvation a mere lottery-scheme; and thousands, in view of this ambiguity and precariousness, have come to the conclusion that it is easier to find what is right in any question of morals, without recourse to the bible, than it is to find out what the bible writers desired to teach in the case. why, then, waste such a vast amount of time in attempting to find out the meaning of thousands of texts, as many christian writers have done in all ages of the church, when, if the meaning could be determined with certainty, there would be but little accomplished by it? for, after all, we have to test the truth of the doctrine or precept by our own experience, in the same manner they proved it,--if they proved it at all. there has been time enough wasted in this kind of speculation to build the pyramids; and the world is no wiser or better for it. as there is no certain rule for interpreting one text in the bible (and every word originally written in hebrew had from four to forty meanings), we may guess at the meanings till our heads are gray, and then die in doubt. to show how the meaning of bible texts has been improved by successive constructions, i will cite one case. for more than a thousand years the various texts which refer to casting out devils were accepted as literally true. it was supposed they mean just what they say, and that "the old fellow" (king beelzebub) is to be cast out of the inner man,--body, head, horns, and hoofs. but, when the age of reason dawned upon the world, it began to be discovered that the notion of casting out devils was an old heathen tradition, and too senseless for sensible people to believe in. hence, to save the credit of the book and the credit of the church, casting out devils was interpreted to mean cast-ing out our evil propensities, which, although a perversion of the meaning of the writer, was an improvement on the original. the further acquisition of scientific knowledge, accelerated by the invention of the printing-press, revealed the fact that man never parts with his evil propensities, or any other propensities, however much they may be subdued. hence bible-mongers set themselves to work to ferret out another meaning for the text. they finally decided that casting out devils means _restraining_ our evil propensities. this, although far from the meaning of the writer, is another improvement on "god's perfect revelation." in this way, step by step, this and thousands of other texts have been improved from time to time by successive translations and interpretations, until "god's book" has become partially purged of the errors it would seem he put into it; and it may yet, in this way, become a sensible book. the interpretation of the bible has been (as already stated) an art in all christian countries for ages. the original object was to obtain the meaning of the bible writers; but, in modern times, the object seems to be to obtain a meaning to suit the reader, without much regard to the meaning of the writer. this statement may be, to some readers, rather startling; but there can be no question of its truth. some of our most popular christian writers have avowed it, though in rather an indirect way. hear what the rev. john pye smith, the leading christian clergyman of england, and one of the ablest and most popular in all christendom, says with respect to bible interpretations: "i would advise the clergy everywhere to interpret the bible according to the spirit of the age." most wonderful advice truly, and a dead shot at the bible. let it be understood, then, that, according to this christian divine, bible readers hereafter are to pay no attention to the plain and obvious meaning of the bible language, or to the writer's intended meaning (which is the only true meaning), but force a meaning into the text which you know will be acceptable "to the spirit of the age;" that is, to men of reason and of scientific attainments. the bible, then, is to be venerated henceforth, not for what it teaches, but for what it ought to teach, or what the fanciful reader would have it teach. verily, verily, we have fallen upon strange times when "god's word," like a nose of wax, is to be molded into any shape to suit "the spirit of the times;" but don't let it be supposed that the rev. john pye smith is the only christian professor who makes god's infallible revelation succumb to the good sense and intelligence of the age,--"the spirit of the times." there is not an orthodox clergyman, not a christian church, and scarcely a christian professor, who does not make the bible a mere tool in that way. none of them, in all cases, accept the literal meaning of the bible. none of them take the dictionary for a guide in all cases to determine the meaning of the words of the text. as we have said, there is not an orthodox church or clergyman who does not frequently abandon the dictionary, and travel outside of it, and coin a new meaning of his own for many of the words of the bible, and ingraft into those words a meaning they never possessed before. they thus assume a license that would not be tolerated with respect to any other book; and yet, notwithstanding these countless alterations and changes in "god's unchangeable word,"--changes in the language, changes in the meaning of its words, changes by translation, changes in the import of its doctrine, and changes in the teaching of its precepts; yet millions cling to it as "god's perfect, unalterable revelation," his "pure and unadulterated word." they seem to take the same view of it the old lady did of the carving-knife, which, although it had been mended sixteen times, had had seven new blades and nine new handles, yet it was the same old keepsake which her father had given her forty years before. the bible, in like manner, has been altered and amended by fifty translations and a hundred and fifty thousand alterations, according to the learned dr. robinson of england, and is still believed by millions to be the same old book,--just as god gave it to man. what superstitious infatuation! it is an instructive fact, which we will note here, that all this labor of amending and enlightening the bible is the work of the very best minds in the churches,--the growing, thinking, intellectual minds in those institutions; minds that are in a state of unrest, that are hungering and thirsting for something better; minds which are unconsciously struggling to get free from the trammels of priestcraft and superstition, and the religious creeds in which they were educated, and are unconsciously aspiring for something better, something higher, holier, and purer, but can not give up the idolized book which has been so long enwrapped among their heart-strings that it has seemingly become a part and parcel of their souls. hence, rather than abandon it and leave it behind them, they prefer to remodel and reconstruct it, and bring it up to their own moral standard, and thus make a better and more sensible thing of it than god himself did in the first place; that is, assuming that he had any thing to do with it. and they generally put newer and better ideas into the book, and better morals, than they ever got out of it; and finally, in many cases, outgrow the current theology, and become more enlightened, more intelligent, and more useful members of society, than they were in any period of their lives. chapter lix.--character of the christian's god. the object in selecting and presenting the list of texts quoted in this chapter is to show that bible writers entertained a very low and dishonorable conception of the "all-loving father," and that, on this account, the reading of these caricatures of infinite wisdom must have a demoralizing effect upon those who habitually read them, and accept them as truth. even if they were all accepted as metaphors, or mere figures of speech, that would not prevent or destroy their injurious effect upon the mind; for descriptions by metaphor or pictures have the same effect upon the mind as literal descriptions or representations. and what must be the effect upon the mind of the ignorant heathen who read the book with no suspicion of its being aught but reality, as much of it was unquestionably designed to be? . "there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it" ( sam. xxil. ). suggestion of a volcano. . "he had horns coming out of his hand" (hab. ill. ). . "out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword" (rev. . ). rather a frightful monster to look at. . "he shall mightily roar from his habitation" (jer. xxv. ). wonder if it frightened the saints in glory. . "he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes" (jer. xxv. ). . "he awaked as one out of sleep" (ps. lxxviii. ). the presumption would be he had been asleep. . "and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine" (ps. lxxviii. ). would not this lead to the conclusion he was drunk? . in his anger he persecuted and slew without pity (lam. iii. ). good authority for persecuting and killing enemies. no wonder all christendom is noted for persecution and bloodshed. . "his fury is poured out like fire" (nah. i. ). rather a frightful god. . "the rocks are thrown down by him" (nah. i. ). throwing stones is rather a ludicrous business for a god to engage in. . he became angry, and sware (ps. xcv. ). it is easy to see why swearing is so common in christian countries. . he burns with anger (isa. xxx. ). who would wish to live in heaven with such a being? . "his lips are full of indignation" (isa. xxx. ). who saw his lips? and what peculiar aspect did they present to lead to this conclusion? . "and his tongue as a devouring fire" (isa. xxx. ). how came the writer to see his tongue? . he "is a jealous god" (exod. xxxiv. ). jealous of what? "jealousy is a hateful fiend" (cato). . "he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war" (isa. xiii. ). of course, if he indulged in jealousy himself, his example would stir up this vile passion in others. . he rides upon horses (ilab. iii. ). in what part of the universe are those horses kept? and how many does he ride at a time? . "he shall cry, yea, roar" (isa. xlii. ). rather a frightful object. . "he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the lord shall have them in derision" (ps. ii. ). "but thou, o lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision" (ps. iii. ). who ever heard him laugh? . "the lord is a man of war" (exod. xv. ). what kind of arms does he use? . "i will make mine arrows drunk with blood" (deut. xxx . ). a good archer. . "they have provoked me to anger."--"anger shows great weakness of mind" (william penn). . "i will heap mischief upon them."--"mischief-makers are enemies to society" (socrates). . "i will spend my arrows upon them" (deut. xxxii. ). "arrows are the weapons of savages" (goodrich). . "a fire is kindled in mine anger" (deut. xxxii. ). "anger resteth in the bosom of tools" (solomon). . "i will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents" (deut. xxxii. ). this exhibits a more fiendish spirit than that of nero. . "i myself will fight against you in anger and fury and great wrath" (jer. xxi. ). "anger and fury disclose a weak and unbalanced mind" (publius syrus). . "i will laugh at your calamity" (prov. . ). "only brutal savages can be happy while others are miserable" (publius syrus). . "i frame evil against you" (jer. xviii. ). who, then, can deny that god is the author of evil? . the spirit said, "i will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets" ( kings xxii. ). of course, then, all the lies they told would be his, and not theirs. . "if i whet my glittering sword" (deut. xxxii. ). what a frightful picture for the all-loving father! . "spare them not, but destroy both men and beasts, infant and suckling" ( sam. xv. ). we would neither worship such a god on earth, or dwell with him in heaven. . "he was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places" (lam. ill. ). think of the god of the universe descending from heaven, and crouching in ambush, like bears and lions, to spring upon the unsuspecting traveler! the tendency of such a thought is to weaken both moral and intellectual growth. . he will "cry like a travailing woman" (isa. xlii. ). . he is full of vengeance and wrath, and is furious (nah. . ). a savage monster. who would worship such a god? . "the sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs" (deut. xxxii. ). . "the sword shall devour, and make drunk with their blood" (jer. ). the language of the above is blasphemous and shocking to refined feelings, whether accepted as literal or figurative. though but just begun, we will pursue this sickening theme no further at present. it is an unpleasant task to pen these shocking pictures of "divine goodness;" but the time has arrived when these evils should be fully exposed, that christian professors may see the error of preaching the doctrines of the semi-barbarous ages, which have the effect to dwarf the intellect and repress the growth of every healthy moral emotion of the mind, and thus retard the moral and intellectual progress of society. such considerations loudly call for a full exposition of the errors and evils of biblical theology, so long concealed under the sacred garb of "inspiration." note.--this chapter might easily be extended to a hundred pages of similar examples. chapter lx.--one hundred and fifty errors of jesus christ. in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," under the head of "the two hundred errors of christ," the author has pointed out sixty errors in his teachings and practical life. it was the intention or the author to have completed the exposition in this chapter; but he has discovered that a full and thorough elucidation of all the errors would swell this volume beyond its proper size. he has therefore concluded to present a mere abstract of one hundred and fifty of those errors in this work, and reserve a fuller exposition to be comprised in a pamphlet to be published soon, and to contain also thirteen powerful and unanswerable arguments exposing the numerous absurdities and impossibilities of the orthodox theory that christ possessed two natures, human and divine,--that he was both god and man. this assumption is known as "the hypostatic union," or dual nature of christ. the pamphlet, comprising these two subjects, can be had when published, of the usual booksellers or the author, for twenty-five cents. the admirers and worshipers of jesus christ adore him as a being of absolute perfection,--perfect in intelligence, perfect in wisdom? perfect in power, perfect in judgment, perfect in his practical life, and perfect in his moral inculcations. we are told, "he spake as never man spake;" and, finally, that he taught a system of religion and morals so absolutely faultless as to challenge the criticism of the world, and so perfect as to defy improvement: and to doubt or disbelieve this dogmatic assumption is to peril our eternal salvation. with this kind of teaching and preaching in the christian pulpit for nearly two thousand years, it is not strange that the great mass of christian professors have been blinded and kept in ignorance with respect to his numerous errors, which modern science has brought to light both in teachings and his practical life, a portion of which will be found briefly noticed in this chapter under three heads: viz., ( ) "christ's moral and religious errors," ( ) "christ's scientific errors," ( ) "christ's errors of omission." i. the moral and religious errors of christ. in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors" we have, under the above heading, shown ( ) that christ possessed a very ardent religious nature; ( ) that he was unenlightened by scientific culture, ( ) and that consequently he often indulged in the most extravagant views of the duties of life; ( ) that he inculcated a moral and religious system carried to such extremes as to render its obligations utterly impossible to be reduced to practice; ( ) that his injunction, "take no thought for to-morrow," is of impracticable application, and never has been lived up to by any of his disciples in that age or since; ( ) that, if reduced to practice, it would starve the world to death in less than twelve months; ( ) that his injunction, "lay not up treasures on earth" (matt. vi. ), has been ignored and trampled under foot by the whole christian world; ( ) that his injunction to his disciples to part with all their property (matt. xix. ) would soon fill the world with paupers; ( ) that his promise to supply all the necessaries of life to those who shall "seek first the kingdom of heaven" (matt. vi. ) has never been fulfilled; ( ) that his injunctions, "resist not evil," ( ) when smitten on one cheek, turn the other also, are virtual invitations to personal abuse; ( ) that his mandate, "love not the world;" ( ) also, "to hate father and mother, brother and sister," &c. (luke xiv. ); ( ) also, to give up voluntarily our garments when attacked by a robber (matt. v. ); ( ) also, to make no defense of our lives when they are sought by murderers (luke xvii. ), are all extravagant, unnatural, and unreasonable moral obligations; ( ) that his declaration to his disciples, that they would be "hated by all men" (matt. x. ). ( ) and his injunction to shake off the dust of their feet against their skeptical hearers, ( ) and "go and teach all nations," ( ) and "take nothing for your journey" (mark. vi. ), are all indications of a mind run wild with religious fanaticism; ( ) as is also the declaration, "he that believeth not shall be damned;" ( ) and "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" is equally unreasonable; ( ) that all things asked for in prayer believing has never been realized by any person; ( ) that it sets aside all natural laws. ( ) it is calculated to encourage idleness and sloth, ( ) and thus bring on misery and starvation. ( ) the commands to "call no man 'father;'" ( ) also, "call no man 'a fool;'" ( ) also, to "pray without ceasing;" ( ) also, to forgive our enemies four hundred and ninety times ("seventy times seven"); ( ) also, to "love your enemies" (matt. v. ); ( ) also, to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands if they offend us; ( ) and, also, to become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, are utterances which bespeak a mind devoid of a knowledge of either natural or moral philosophy; ( ) as does also the injunction to become perfect as (god) our father in heaven (matt. v. ). ( ) his belief in an angry god; ( ) his injunction to fear god (matt. x. ); ( ) his advice to his followers to live like the lilies of the field (matt. vi. ); ( ) his statement that "the meek should inherit the earth," ( ) that his disciples would be hated by all men; ( ) his reasons for forbidding them to swear; ( ) his blessing on the poor; ( ) his denunciation of the rich; ( ) his parable of dives; ( ) his encouragement to mourn; ( ) his blessing on the pure in heart, ( ) and on the hungry and thirsty; ( ) his choosing the ignorant for companions; ( ) his setting the mother against the daughter (matt. x. ); ( ) his getting angry (matt, xxi. ); ( ) his treatment of his mother, ( ) also of the money-changers, ( ) and of the pharisees; ( ) his usurpation of property (matt. xxi. ); ( ) his calling men "fools and hypocrites," ( ) also "vipers," ( ) and "children of the devil" (john viii. "); ( ) his enjoining his disciples to shake off the dust of their feet against them, ( ) and to call no man "rabbi," ( ) and no man "master;" ( ) his falsehood about going to jerusalem (john vii. ); ( ) his substituting water for wine; ( ) his strong sectarianism (john x. ); ( ) his treatment of the gentiles (matt. x. ); ( ) his threat toward jerusalem; ( ) his calling honest men "robbers" (john x. ); ( ) his denunciation of sodom and gomorrah, ( ) and chorazin and bethsaida (matt, xi. ), ( ) and capernaum; ( ) his answer to the woman of samaria, ( ) and his calling peter "satan;" ( ) his hatred of the world, ( ) and contempt of life,--all these precepts and practices, when critically examined, are found to be at variance with the laws of moral science as taught in this enlightened age, which establishes the fact that christ was no moral philosopher. ii. scientific errors of christ. the following scientific errors of christ, a portion of which are exposed in "the world's sixteen crucified saviors," show that he was neither a natural nor a moral philosopher: ( ) he assumed that disease is produced by demons, or evil spirits. ( ) he generally treated disease, not as the result of natural causes, but as produced by evil beings. ( ) his rebuking a fever (luke iv. ) discloses an ignorance of the science of physiology. ( ) his declaration about the stars falling (matt. xxiv. ) evinces his ignorance of astronomy; ( ) as does also his belief in the conflagration of the world (matt. xxiv. ). ( ) his belief in a personal devil (matt. xvii. ), ( ) also his belief in a literal hell (matt. xviii. ), ( ) also a belief in the unphilosophical doctrine of repentance (mark ii. ), ( ) and also that of divine forgiveness (matt. vi. ); ( ) his repeated assumption that belief is a voluntary act of the mind; ( ) his frequent reference to the heart as being the seat of consciousness; ( ) the great importance he attaches to a right faith; ( ) his unpardonable sin against the holy ghost; ( ) his superstitious idea of casting out devils; ( ) his comparing faith to a grain of mustard-seed (matt. xi. ); ( ) the promise of "well done" (matt. xxv. ) as a reward for well-doing; ( ) his statement about man increasing his stature, ( ) and about two men joining in prayer (matt, xviii. ); ( ) his promise to come in the clouds of heaven (matt, xxiv. ); ( ) the time that event was to take place (matt. x. ); ( ) his penalty for wrong-doing, or sin; ( ) his penalty for falsehood (john viii. ); ( ) his superstitious belief in an undying worm; ( ) his penalty for idle words; ( ) his statement about speaking in new tongues (mark xvi. ), ( ) about handling poisonous serpents, ( ) also swallowing deadly poisons, ( ) and that these acts should furnish a proof of divine power; ( ) his frequent confabs with imaginary devils; ( ) his views of the marriage relation (luke xx. ); ( ) why a certain man was born blind (matt. vii. ); ( ) his ignorance of the natural causes of physical defects; ( ) his conduct toward the fig-tree (matt. xxi. ); ( ) his statement relative to the queen of sheba, ( ) and relative to noah's flood (luke xvii. ); ( ) his frequent denunciation of unbelievers; ( ) his injunction to become perfect as god; ( ) his erroneous views of love, ( ) and of the peacemakers, ( ) and of the tax-gatherers, ( ) and of divorce; ( ) his views of alms; ( ) his statement about moses (john v. ), ( ) about nicodemus, ( ) about bearing witness, ( ) about letting our light shine, ( ) about his disciples praying, ( ) about praying for the kingdom of heaven, ( ) about the law (matt. v. ), ( ) about his being the christ (matt, x. ), ( ) about performing miracles, ( ) about bringing a sword, ( ) about his disciples sitting on the twelve thrones, ( ) about judges in heaven, ( ) about the fate of judas; ( ) his deception by judas; ( ) his mistake about peter; ( ) his promise to the sons of zebedee (matt. xx. ); ( ) his parable of the unjust judge; ( ) his new commandment; ( ) his promise of a hundred-fold reward; ( ) his ideas about paying tribute, ( ) also about marrying a divorced woman; ( ) his promising peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven; ( ) his declaration relative to binding things in heaven; ( ) his notion of merit in religious belief, ( ) and that faith is the gift of god; ( ) his ideas of lust, ( ) and about earthly treasures, ( ) also treasure in heaven, ( ) about tombstones, ( ) and about an arbitrary personal god; ( ) his ignorance of science and natural law. ( ) he never spoke of a natural law, ( ) nor used the word "science," ( ) nor "natural philosophy." ( ) and, finally, his spending nine-tenths of his time in idleness or obscurity is historic, scientific, and practical proof against his divinity. from all the facts and precepts enumerated above, we are compelled to conclude he was no philosopher, and was ignorant of the principles of natural science. and this accounts for the numerous scientific errors which abound in all his teachings and preachings and his whole practical life, as set forth in the work of which this is a synopsis. iii. christ's errors of omission. had christ been an all-wise and omniscient god,--the character his orthodox disciples claim for him,--he would have noticed and understood, and consequently have condemned, various demoralizing practices, customs, and institutions then existing in society. he would also have discovered and taught the grand moral and scientific truths and principles which have since been brought to light, and have proved such signal blessings to society, so that the world could have enjoyed them two thousand years ago. ( ) he would, in the first place, have discovered and exposed the evils of the despotic form of government which he lived, ( ) and have suggested a better system. ( ) he would have taught the people the beauties and benefits of a true democracy, ( ) and would have exposed the evils of physical as well as mental slavery; ( ) also the deleterious and demoralizing effects of intoxicating drink, instead of manufacturing it. (see john ii. - .) ( ) he would also have exposed the errors and evils of the many popular religious superstitions then and there prevalent, instead of indorsing them. ( ) he would have taught the science of anthropology as essential to human happiness, ( ) including the principles of mental science; ( ) and likewise the true principles of moral science, ( ) and the necessity of mental culture, ( ) and the most important lesson of all,--that of self-development. ( ) he would have taught the people that every thing is controlled by natural law, ( ) instead of by the caprices of an angry god. ( ) he would have taught the people that right and wrong are natural principles; ( ) that virtue contains its own reward, ( ) and sin or crime its own punishment. ( ) he would have taught the science of life and the laws of health as essential to human happiness; ( ) and that the violation of natural law must be attended with suffering; ( ) and that every immoral act a man commits against another must injure himself, ( ) and destroy his true happiness, ( ) and tend to make him a victim to his own passions. ( ) he would have taught the true principles of mental freedom, ( ) and the rights of conscience in matters of belief; ( ) and that man is responsible to himself alone for his belief. ( ) and, finally, he would have taught the modern doctrine of evolution as furnishing the true and philosophical solution of all human actions, both good and bad. certainty a being possessing infinite wisdom could have discovered and brought to light these grand practical truths, and thus greatly augmented the sum of human happiness, instead of leaving the world to drag on in suffering ignorance. and his omitting to do it must be characterized as an error of omission. for a fuller exposition, see the pamphlet. chapter lxi.--character and erroneous doctrines of the apostles. christ's apostles, although reputedly inspired, were very far from being exemplary characters. quarrels, jealousies, and emulations are frequently disclosed in their practical lives. we are told there were "envyings and jealousies and divisions" among them ( cor. iii. ), and that "they disputed among themselves who should be the greatest" (mark ix. ). this implies that there was selfishness and worldly ambition at the bottom of their movements. paul also represents them as "_defrauding_" and lawing each other ( cor. vi. , ); and paul himself had a serious quarrel with barnabas, as we are told: "the contention was so sharp that they departed asunder one from the other" (acts xv. ). these incidents in the practical lives of the apostles show that they were frail and fallible mortals, and under the control of selfish feelings like the rest of us, and that their "inspiration," if they possessed any, was not of a very high order. such men are very unsuitable examples for the heathen to imitate, as they are impliedly recommended to do when the bible is placed in their hands. with respect to the doctrines taught by the apostles or new-testament writers, we will here assume the liberty to say they contain more errors than we can allow space to enumerate. for those of paul and peter we shall appropriate a separate chapter, but will only cite a few of the errors of the other new-testament writers as mere samples of others. james's superstitious idea of curing the sick by prayer and oil we have already noticed (chapter xli.). he also indorses the foolish and incredible story of elijah controlling the elements so as to cause a three-years' drought (chap. v. ). he tells us we can get wisdom by simply asking it of god (chap. i. ). then why do millions of people devote years to hard mental labor to acquire it? he speaks approvingly of the practical life of abraham, also of the miserable harlot rahab (chap. ii. , ), and avows his belief in a devil, &c. john also avows his belief in this superstition ( john ii. ), and likewise in the bloody atonement ( john i. ) and the doctrine of predestination ( john v. ); and, worse than all, he issues the bigoted mandate, "receive no man into your house" who does not preach the doctrine i do ( john i. ). jude indorses the foolish story of sodom and gomorrah, the contest between michael and the devil, the second advent, a day of general judgment, &c. these will do for specimens of apostolic errors. chapter lxii.--character of paul, and his doctrines. paul, standing at the head of the church in the apostolic age, and being the principal new-testament writer and the principal teacher and doctrinal expounder of the new covenant, or gospel dispensation, his practical life and his doctrines must therefore be regarded as constituting a part, if not the principal part, of the basis of the christian religion. we shall therefore make no apology for presenting here a brief exposition of his character and his doctrines; and we shall show that both present numerous defects and inconsistent and contradictory features. . in his first epistle to timothy (i. ) he states that he had been "a blasphemer and persecutor, and injurious", and confesses that he was _particeps criminis_ in the martyrdom of stephen; yet, in the acts of the apostles, he declares, "i have lived in all good conscience before god unto this day" (acts xxiii. ). here is one specimen of his many incongruous statements. . he relates the account of his miraculous conversion three times, and in three different ways. in the first statement he says, "the men stood speechless, _hearing a voice_, but seeing no man" (acts ix. ). in the second account he says, "_they heard not the voice_ that spake to me" (acts xxii. ). in the third statement, when relating the case to king agrippa, he says, "they were all fallen to the earth" (acts xxvi. ); while, in the first account, he had stated, "the men stood speechless." it is evident they could not stand speechless while they were all fallen to the earth. . in one account he states that jesus told him to stand up, and receive his mission; but in another place he says he was ordered to go to damascus to receive the message. . he told the king that he showed himself first at damascus, and then at jerusalem (acts xxvi. ); but in his epistle to the galatians he declares that he did not go to jerusalem. . again he says he went to jerusalem, and barnabas took him by the hand, and brought him to the apostles (acts ix. ). . and then, again, to the galatians he declares he saw none of the apostles,n"save james, the lord's brother" (gal. i. ). . in cor. x. he says, "i please all men in all things;" but in gal. i. he says, "if i yet pleased men, i should not be the servant of god." here, then, is another palpable contradiction. . in rom. xi. he speaks of the "election of grace;" but in tit. xi. he says the grace of god has appeared to all. . in his letter to timothy he says, "god will have all men to be saved" ( tim. ii. ): but in rom. ix. he speaks of "the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction;" and in rom. ix. he says, "a remnant shall be saved." all will not be saved if only a remnant are saved. . when about embarking for rome he stated, "i perceive the voyage will be of much hurt and damage to life" (acts xxvii. ); yet on the voyage he declared, "there shall be no loss of any man's life among you" (acts xxvii. ). an "inspired apostle" and oracle of god should be punctiliously accurate in all cases, or all his statements will be brought under distrust, and it will be impossible to arrive at the truth in the case; or, in any case, all will be involved in doubt and conjecture. . paul's errors in doctrinal inculcations are numerous. his confession to the corinthians, that, "being crafty, i caught you with guile" ( cor. xii. ), sets forth a bad example, and indicates a bad system of morals, which is calculated to have a demoralizing effect upon bible readers and believers, especially the heathen and the youth of christian countries. . and his statement that the truth of god "hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory" (rom. iii. ), is still more demoralizing in its tendencies. many have looked upon it as a justification for lying. it seems to imply that lying is all right if done for the glory of god; and as he states in cor. x. , that whatsoever we do should be done to the glory of god, it logically follows that lying is justifiable in all cases. and mr. higgins states that such doctrine had the effect to reduce lying to a system among the early christians, and that they considered it a duty to lie when the interest of the church could be promoted by it. a book inculcating such bad morality should not be circulated amongst the heathen. . paul's reason for recommending a life of single blessedness is deserving of notice. he says the unmarried man careth for the things of the lord; but the married man careth for the things of the world,--"how he may please his wife" ( cor. vii. ). the last act he named here does not trouble men much nowadays, at least after the honeymoon is passed; and a man who considers god worthy of more attention than wives, as paul did, would not be likely to bestow a very high appreciation on the latter. but the greatest objection to the doctrine is, that, if practically carried out in accordance with his recommendation, there would soon be no wives to please. . we must notice another objectionable doctrine of paul with respect to marriage. instead of acknowledging an honorable and virtuous motive for marriage, he would tolerate it as the least of two evils; that is, as a means of mitigating a burning lust ( cor. vii. ). this makes marriage a mere animal attraction,--the union of a man and woman drawn together from lustful motives. paul advises bachelors not to marry or touch a woman, but remain single like himself ( cor. vii? ). but such advice, if practically complied with, would soon depopulate the globe. if not so strongly adverse to human nature, it would doubtless ere this have filled the world, first with shakers, and then with the graves of an extinct race. . paul says to the romans (rom. vii. ), "it is no more i that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. for i prove... that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing." here are taught two erroneous doctrines: ( ) the essentially corrupt and sinful nature of the human body, taught anciently by the hindoo ascetics; ( ) that sin or the devil operates on the mind independent of the human will or volition, which savors of fatalism. and his statement that some vessels are made to honor, and some to dishonor (rom. ix. ), seems unequivocally to set forth the same doctrine. many commentators have puzzled their brains over it to make it mean something else, but with ill success the declaration is not, that men _become_ vessels of honor and dishonor, but that they _are made so_. . paul's exhortation to servants to be obedient to their masters has furnished pious christian slaveholders a good text to preach from throughout slaveholding christendom, and has done much to rivet the chains tighter upon the limbs of the slave. . when paul calls the cretans "liars, evil beasts," &c., he descends to a low position, both in the scale of manners and morals: he is not only uncivil, but exhibits bad passions. they did not merit such personal abuse, as they had never done him an injury, at least we have no proof of it. . paul tells us that god sends people a strong delusion, that they may believe a lie and be damned ( thess. ii. ). more fatalism. to delude people with lies in order to damn them is worse than hardening pharaoh's heart in order to find a pretext for drowning him. let it be borne in mind, that, if there is any spiritual signification justly assignable to, this text, it can only benefit the few, as the common people always accept language with its common signification. but can we assume that paul was such a blunderer that he frequently used language conveying exactly the opposite meaning from that intended, and that in this way he taught fatalism and when he did not intend to do so? and then, he was inspired, is it not a slander upon infinite wisdom to assume that god was so ignorant of human language that he put these pernicious doctrines in paul's mouth by mistake? one or the other of these conclusions we are driven to accept, in order to save paul from condemnation; but this only saves his moral character at the expense of his good sense. the most rational assumption appears to be, that paul lived in an age and country which knew nothing of mental or moral science, and honestly believed and taught these pernicious doctrines. we will now learn something about the moral code of bachelors. . "i suffer not a woman to speak in the church." "it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church" ( cor. xiv. ). he says, if they want to know any thing, let them ask their husbands at home. but this, in some cases, would be the blind leading the blind; and, in other cases, only the leaders would be blind. paul should have learned the lesson of o'connell, the irish agitator, who said, "since i have learned that my mother was a woman, i have great respect for women, and advocate their rights." . we will now notice the reason paul assigns for having immoral doctrines as it is claimed wives subject to their husbands: it is simply because man was created before woman ( tim. ii. ). what profound logic! worthy a locke or a newton! but, if there is any logical force in the argument, then monkeys should have the preference of men in the churches, as they came still earlier in the order of creation. . paul's doctrine that all governments are ordained of god, and that those who resist them shall receive to themselves damnation (rom. xiii. ), is a virtual condemnation of those noble philanthropists who in various ages and countries resisted the authority of tyrants. it makes washington, jefferson, franklin, and others sinners and criminals for opposing the tyranny of king george. . paul evinced a very intolerant spirit when he said, "if any man preach any other doctrine than that which i declare onto you, let him be accursed" ( gal. i. ). this is the spirit of intolerance, persecution, and bigotry,--the spirit which has erected the scaffold, piled the fiery fagots around the stake, wielded the guillotine, adjusted the halter around the neck of the martyr, and crimsoned the earth with the blood of the righteous. this very text has had the effect to fire up such a spirit; and it has frequently been quoted as authority for such cruel deeds as those just cited. . paul gives utterance to a very singular doctrine when he says that even nature teaches that it is a shame for a man to wear long hair, but the glory for a woman, because nature gave it to her for a covering. (see cor. xi. .) he was certainly not much of a philosopher, or he would have made the discovery that nature promotes the growth of the hair upon the heads of men and women exactly alike. if nature did not permit any hair to grow upon the head of man, or did not allow it to grow more than an inch in length, there might be some plausibility in the assertion. but, as the case stands, it is the shears, and not nature, which teaches that it is a shame for a man to wear long hair; or rather, if there is any shame in the case, it consists in man cutting off his hair after nature has been so kind as to supply him with such a useful covering. . paul's indorsement of the doctrine of the atonement, and his declaration that "without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin" (heb. ix. ), show that he had not advanced beyond the old jewish and pagan superstition of "blood for blood." the doctrine is a relic of heathen barbarism, and is shocking to persons of fine moral sensibilities; but this subject is treated in another chapter. . paul also indorses the old heathen tradition that god is an angry, revengeful being. (see eph. ii. .) he lent the influence of his powerful mind and pen to perpetuate this demoralizing and blasphemous doctrine, which has had an injurious effect upon the minds and morals of the people in all post ages. . we again call attention to paul's declaration that god sent the people a strong delusion that they might believe a lie and be damned. think of a just and righteous god deluding people in order to damn them! the doctrine is certainly blasphemous. it is enough to charge a demon with such acts as this. some writers suppose that paul did not mean what is here literally expressed; but it is probable he did, for it is the old jewish idea that every thing that takes place is the achievement of a god. we must assume that the devil who now attends to such business, had not been sworn into office at that time. hence he supposed that jehovah still attended to such business. . one indelible stigma on paul's character is found in his indorsement of the pagan and jewish rite of circumcision,--a cruel and bloody custom,--which no truly enlightened and sensible man would lend his sanction to perpetuate, much less perform with his own hands, as paul did on timotheus (acts xvi. ). paul also contradicts himself with respect to the matter. he says, "if ye be circumcised, christ shall profit you nothing" (gal. v. ). yet he afterward performed the act on timotheus, as stated above. this is preaching one doctrine and practicing another. . paul said that he was a roman citizen; but no jew could be a full roman citizen till the reign of philip or decius, long after. he also passed for paul of tarsus; but tarsus was not a roman city at that time, nor until about a hundred years after ward. this was being all things to all men in order to gain a few proselytes; and truly he carries out the doctrine quite well. at one time he professes to be a roman (acts xxii. ); at another time he professes to be a pharisee, and says that his parents were pharisees (see acts xxiii. ); and then, again, he was an apostle of jesus christ (acts xv. ). . paul uses some rather doughy arguments on the subject of the resurrection. he says that on the last day, at the sound of the trumpet, we shall all be raised, the dead in christ first ( cor. xv. ). we are also told that "this mortal shall put on immortality." we are compelled to believe, from the language here used, that paul believed in the sleep of the soul in the grave; and the resurrection of the natural body is a ridiculous absurdity and a physical impossibility. the sleep of the soul is a still worse assumption. why should the soul lay in the ground covered with filth and worms? what possible benefit could it derive from laying in a state of insensibility for centuries? and what would become of it if some one should remove the decomposed remains of the body, and all the earth contiguous, to some other locality, or toss it into a running stream? and this has been done. what becomes of the soul in such a case? does it float down the stream with the physical debris? if so, where will it stop? and how will it be found in the day of resurrection? . and the doctrine of the resurrection is attended with still greater difficulties and logical obstructions. the physical body, according to paul, is to become a spiritual body. but a portion of the body is consumed by worms during the process of decomposition in the grave; and those worms, when they die, are consumed by other worms. will it not, then, require a search-warrant in the day of resurrection to find all those worms, and to gather every minute particle of the old body together to form the spiritual body? why not make the new body of a stone or a stump, or some other material, instead of the old, decayed, decomposed body? it would require a miracle in either case. cases have been reported of christian missionaries being eaten up by cannibals. the flesh of the christian in such cases becomes a part of the physical body of the cannibal; and the cannibal will, according to christian theology, come forth unto "the resurrection of damnation," and will take a portion of the body of the missionary with him to the bottomless pit. how will it be obtained? a serious difficulty, certainly! how is it to be met and surmounted? many other logical difficulties lie in the way of making a practical application of the doctrine. . when paul calls our physical tenements "vile bodies" (see phil. iii. ), he reveals the old pagan idea of the body being sinful. they looked upon it as a kind of prison for the soul, and a thing to be hated and contemned as you would a tyrant with a rope around your neck. this error discloses great ignorance of the functions of the human body, and its relation to the soul or mind. it would be impossible to have a pure soul in a vile body. here paul discloses still further ignorance of science. there are other acts and other erroneous doctrines, which mark the practical life of paul, that are quite obnoxious to criticism; as, for example, the curse he pronounced upon ely mas, whom he stigmatized as a sorcerer, though he does not prove he was one, but says that was his name by interpretation (acts xiii. ). this act, which it is stated produced total blindness, must be regarded as an act of bigotry and intolerance. elymas is not charged with any crime or immoral conduct; and, so far as we can learn his history, he was an honest, upright man: but he sought "to turn away the deputy from the faith" (acts xiii. ); that is, like the greek philosophers, he attempted to point out the absurdity of some of paul's doctrines. there is something very significant in the statement of paul, that some of his doctrines were "to the greeks foolishness" ( cor. i. ); for they were a learned, intelligent, and sensible nation of people. and no such nation ever has, or ever will, accept as true and sound doctrine some of the theological nonsense and absurd doctrines which paul preached. future generations will wonder that such doctrines were ever taught by people claiming to be sensible and intelligent. the circumstance which paul relates of a viper coming out of a bundle of sticks, and fastening on his hand without inflicting a deadly wound, evinces a degree of superstition which no philosopher could entertain. the assumption is, that god, after bestowing upon the reptile the disposition and means of defending itself, interposed by a divine act to prevent their action. christ and his apostles (including paul), instead of studying and understanding the laws of nature, were constantly looking for something to contravene them, and set them aside. of course they were honest in this; but it shows their want of scientific knowledge, which was characteristic of the age. the circumstance of paul's handkerchief and apron healing the sick, as related in acts xix. , is evidently regarded as another interposition of divine power. but cases are frequently performed in this manner in various parts of this country by dr. newton and other healers, who impart their magnetic aura to a handkerchief, or some article of clothing, or a piece of paper, and send it to the sick, who are cured as effectually as those were by paul's magnetized handkerchief; for it was undoubtedly his magnetism imparted to the handkerchief that effected the cures. modern science is solving the mysteries and miracles of the past. we will only observe further, that paul lays down three systems of salvation, which, when arranged side by side, certainly make the road broad enough to enable nearly every son and daughter of adam to reach the heavenly kingdom:-- _salvation by faith_.--"by faith ye are saved, and not of yourselves: it is the gift of god" (eph. ii. ). it being the gift of god, we, of course, can have no agency in the matter. "a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (rom. iii. ). this is a direct contradiction of james, who declares, "faith, if it hath not works, is dead" (jas. ii. ). _salvation by works_,--"god will render to every man according to his deeds" (rom. ii. ). "the doers of the law shall be justified" (rom. ii. ). thus, it will be observed, paul, in the above-cited texts, not only contradicts james, but contradicts himself. _salvation by divine predestination_,--"as many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (acts xiii. ). this is not given as paul's language; but it is spoken with respect to his preaching. and paul sets forth the same doctrine in rom. xi. when he speaks of a remnant being "saved by the election of grace." here, then, are three roads to heaven, which so multiply the chances of being saved that but few can be lost. such conflicting statements show that confusion and ambiguity characterize the bible, and render it impossible to learn any thing definite from its statements. note.--how can christians believe in the immortality of the soul after reading paul's declaration that "god alone hath life and immortality dwelling in the light "? if so, then man is not an immortal being (see tim. ri. ). . character and erroneous doctrines of peter. in his practical life st. peter was a singular and angular being. he presents us with the opposite extremes of virtue and vice. he appears to have been about as distinguished for wickedness as for piety. he told the same falsehood repeatedly, and backed it up with an oath (matt, xxvi.): hence lying, cursing, and swearing are laid to his charge. and then, we are told, he was put in possession of the keys of the kingdom of heaven (matt. xvi. ). how a man, guilty of such moral derelictions, could have had a higher honor bestowed upon him than was ever bestowed upon any other human being, or how he could have been considered a safe custodian for such an important charge, it is difficult to see; and then it looks too much like a bribe for immoral conduct. it weakens the incentives to a virtuous life to reward the criminal, and shows imperfection in the moral system which he was allowed to represent. as for his doctrines, they are characterized by the same moral and scientific errors and defects as those of st. paul, and embrace some of the same doctrines of heathen mythology. . he speaks of the earth as "standing out of the water and in the water" ( pet. iii. ). here is the old hindoo tradition which taught that the earth floated on a sea of water, traces of which are also found in genesis. . he tells us, also, that the earth has been once destroyed by water, and in the day of judgment will be destroyed by fire ( pet. iii. , ). it has been from time immemorial a very prevalent tradition amongst the oriental nations that the world had been, and would be again, alternately destroyed by water and fire. peter and josephus also seem to indorse this tradition. . peter also indorses and teaches the absurd and unphilosophical doctrine of fore-ordination ( pet. i. ). . he also enjoins "servants to be in subjection to their masters," not only the good, but the froward ( pet. ii. ). this is absolute tyranny. there is to be no resistance to the bloody lash. the motto of patrick henry is much better,--"resistance to tyrants is obedience to god." . wives are to be in subjection to their husbands ( pet. iii. ), even as sarah obeyed abraham (verse ). there is nothing said about husbands obeying wives, probably because, as he says, woman is the weaker vessel ( pet. iii. ). wonderful logic! a sage conclusion for a christian moralist. he thus places christian morality below that of the ancient druids, who placed women on a level with men in both church and state. . peter tells us, "christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree" ( pet. ii. ). this is the old jewish idea of carrying away sins by scapegoats, and the oriental heathen doctrine of putting innocent gods to death as a punishment for the sins of the people,--a doctrine which posterity will condemn as barbarous. (see "the sixteen crucified saviors," chapter xxi.) . peter says a "dumb ass spoke with man's voice" ( pet. ii. ). he thus indorses the story of balaam's ass becoming endowed with human speech. . peter, like paul and christ, indorses the absurd story of noah and the flood ( pet. iii. ). . but space will not permit us to notice all the erroneous doctrines set forth by peter. he teaches the doctrine of a general judgment ( pet. ii. ), the doctrine of election and reprobation ( pet. i. ), the doctrine of a general conflagration of all things terrestrial ( pet. iii. ). . but the most remarkable incident in the life of peter is his connection with the fate of ananias and sapphira. we find many logical absurdities and moral errors in this story recorded in acts v. . it is very strange that peter, who denied his lord and master three times, and hence was repeatedly guilty of telling positive falsehoods, should be the chosen instrument under christ's religion to pronounce sentence of death upon ananias and sapphira for the same sin. . why should ananias and sapphira be punished with death for a crime that peter, abraham, and isaac were all guilty of several times? . is it not strange that jehovah should be considered as being strongly opposed to lying, if he himself, as stated in kings xxii., converted four hundred of his prophets into liars, and then indorsed the lying peter? . is not the crime of ananias and sapphira--that of attempting to withhold a little money from the priests by lying--of less magnitude than that of ruining a whole nation by robbery, as we are told god's holy people did? they robbed and "spoiled the egyptians" (exod. xii. ). . is it not probable they needed it more than the priests did? the moral law teaches that it is necessity, and not might, that makes right. . does it not look rather unreasonable that sapphira should repeat the same falsehood for which her husband had just been struck dead, as it must have been known to her? who can believe it? . and can we suppose that god would be so partial as to kill a man and woman for the first offense of lying, and let abraham, isaac, and peter, and others, escape after committing the sin several times! these considerations seriously damage the credibility of the story. chapter lxiii.--idolatrous veneration for bibles. "should reason, science, and philosophic lore against my faith combine, i'd clasp the bible to my breast, believing still that it's divine. here i am told how christ hath died to save my soul from hell: not all the books on earth beside such heavenly wonders tell. this simple book i'd rather own than all the gold and gems that e'er in monarch's coffers shone, than all their diadems. nay, were the seas one chrysolite, the earth a golden ball, and diadems the stars of night, this book were worth them all." a christian writer, in attempting to portray the protestant view of the bible, says, "it is a miraculous collection of miraculous books. every word it contains was written by miraculous inspiration from god, which was so full, complete, and infallible, that the authors delivered the truth, and nothing but the truth. the bible contains no false statements of doctrine or faith, but sets forth all religious and moral truth which man needs to know, or which it is possible for him to receive, and not a particle of error; and therefore the bible is the only authoritative rule of faith and practice." these two pious effusions--one in prose, the other in poetry--exhibit the views and feelings very prevalent among the disciples of the christian faith only a few centuries ago; and they are cherished yet, to a considerable extent, by a large portion of christian professors. this blind, idolatrous veneration is gradually giving way to the light of science and general intelligence; and the thick mental gloom and darkness of superstition out of which they grow is being dispelled. when the intellectual mind becomes fully developed and enlightened, the bible will find its true level, and will command no more homage than other books. it will be read and estimated, like other human productions, according to its real merits. in this enlightened and scientific age, bible devotees never go to such extreme lengths in pouring fulsome adulations upon the idolized book. they would be laughed at for their ignorance and superstition if they should attempt it. but the time has been when every religious nation which possessed a "iloly book" attached extreme sacredness and exalted holiness to the book and all its contents, and often indulged in the most extravagant language and the wildest rhapsodies in their attempts to eulogize and idolize its virtues. in this respect there was but little difference between jews, pagans, and christians: all idolized their holy books. a sacred regard was shown not only for the book, but often for every manuscript, scrap of paper, or text which it contained, or which was supposed to contain a message or revelation from god. but few religious nations have existed, even in the remote past, who have not possessed some kind of bible or sacred record which they treated with an enthusiastic veneration bordering on idolatry. the hindoos, the egyptians, the persians, the chinese, the mahomedans, and the early christians were all bible idolaters. the hindoos, like the christians, were religiously enjoined to read and study "the holy scriptures;" and the priests, as those in christian countries do now, made them a study, and reduced the interpretation of them to an art. and, like christians in another respect, they were interdicted from transcending in knowledge what was taught in their assumed-to-be divinely illuminated pages. the disciple of the hindoo faith was not allowed to become "wise above what was written" in the vedas (see chapter vi.); and the same solemn prohibition, "add not to, or take not from, the word of god," was reverently obeyed by the devout disciple of the vedas. the mahomedans believe the koran has been received and transmitted from generation to generation by the direct agency of god. they claim that it is not only an infallible rule of faith and practice, but "god's last will and testament to man," and that it is designed by god for the whole human family; and they pray and hope for its universal extension and adoption. one pious mussulman (sadak), on being asked why the koran appeared to be newer every time it was read, replied, "because god did not reveal it for any particular age or nation, but for all mankind down to the judgment day." mahomedans tell us that, "such is the innate efficacy of the koran, it removes all pains of body and all sorrows of mind. it annihilates what is wrong in carnal desires, delivers us from the temptations of satan and from fears. it removes all doubts raised by satanic influences, sanctifies the heart, imparts health to the soul, and produces union with the lord of holiness." with the ancient persians the great test and touchstone of all faith and all moral action was their "holy word of god." to know whether a thing was right or wrong, they had only to inquire, "is it taught, or is it forbidden, by the zenda avesta?" the persians, like the jews, had four days set apart in each month for religious festivals, on which occasions, mr. hyde informs os, "they met in their temples, and read portions of their holy books, and preached and inculcated morality and virtue" (chap. xxxviii. p. ). but bible exaltation and adoration ran much higher than is here indicated in some countries. they were not only believed to be "words" or "the word of god," but to have a portion of the spirit of god impressed into every chapter, every verse, and every word; and hence they received a portion of that veneration and adoration usually ascribed to deity. and here we find both jews and christians have been strict imitators of the heathen in the practical exhibition of this species of book idolatry. we are told that the ancient budhists ascribed inherent sacredness and supernatural power to the identical sanscrit word of their scriptures. hence it was considered sacrilegious to make any alteration in the arrangement of those words; and, for fear some alteration of this kind might be made, they objected to the missionaries translating "the holy book" into the english language. mr. hyde informs us, they not only read their bible in their temples, but at their festivals and in their families; and, like the jews and primitive christians and the mahomedans, they carried them in their travels, and slept with the holy book under their pillows. nearly all bibles in that age were treated with this kind of veneration. brahmins, persians, jews, mahomedans, and christians, in their earlier history, were in the habit of attaching texts or detached portions of scripture to their clothes, or inserting them into their hats or shoes,--an act prompted by the belief that they would impart some supernatural charm; and the persians, hindoos, and mahomedans have been seen covered from head to foot with scripture texts. in the days of st. justin and st. jerome such scenes were often witnessed among christians also. even the handling of the bible was believed to impart a supernatural or miraculous power, manifested in the cure of diseases, driving away devils, &c. several bibles were thus deified. in some nations they were kept under lock and key, or cloistered in a golden box, to prevent unsanctified hands from opening them. the notion was prevalent with the devotees of several bibles, that they should be read differently, if not held differently, from other books. kissing the "holy book" was also prevalent among the hindoos, mahomedans, and early christians,--indeed, in nearly all religious countries. bible worship knew no bounds in the days of ignorance and superstition, when people had more piety than philosophy. believing that the spirit of god permeated their bibles, nearly all the blessings of life were ascribed to their influence. such a belief, fostered from age to age, and transmitted from parent to child, could but operate to blind the judgment of all bible believers so as to disqualify them for detecting defects or perceiving their errors, though they may abound on every page. and these bibles have been read by millions of their disciples with a kind of solemn awe or holy fervor, which not only wholly incapacitates the mind for perceiving its errors, but shuts out the possibility of a doubt of its truth. indeed, they glory in assuming it to be "a perfect embodiment of divine truth," "without the shadow of a shade of error from genesis to revelation," to use the language of dr. cheviot with respect to the christian bible. the reasoning faculties are put to sleep, and the intellect bound fast in chains, before "god's iloly book" is opened; and if the reasoning faculties should by chance arouse, and rebel against such tyranny, and try to assert their rights by permitting a doubt to spring up in the mind that some statement or text is not true, the bible devotee becomes alarmed, and exclaims, with trembling fear, "lord, i believe: help thou mine unbelief." in this state of fearful and prayerful mental strife against reason, doubt, and disbelief, he again sinks into the "darkness of devotion," determined still longer to hug his canonized and idolized book to his bosom with all its errors and immoralities. this has been virtually the experience of thousands of bible believers, to a greater or less extent, in all ages and all countries in possession of "holy books." in this way bibles have been an obstacle to the progress of mind and the progress of society. an unchangeable and infallible book must inevitably cramp the mind, and hold it in chains. hence a bible-believing community can make no progress in morals, science, or civilization, only so far as they violate their own principles by transcending its teachings. society would remain for ever in an ignorant, uncultured state, were there not some minds in it possessing a sufficient amount of intellect to outgrow their bibles; and, but for the publication and perusal of other books, society would make but little progress. a mind which is religiously and conscientiously bound to believe in a bible is bound to all its errors and all its ignorance, and hence can make no progress while it adheres rigidly to its own principles or its own scruples; but, thanks to the progressive genius of the age, the "holy books" which embody the moral and religious errors of the past are nearly outgrown, so that they are seldom read now even by their professed admirers. people are assuming the liberty of becoming "wise above what is written" in "god's holy book." even christians themselves often assume this liberty: otherwise we should have a community characterized by ignorance and superstition; and our writers would be as liable to stumble into errors and contradictions as the bible writers when they penned "god's perfect revelation." it requires the acquisition of but little knowledge and intelligence to become "wise above that which was written" in that illiterate and ignorant age. chapter lxiv.--spiritual or implied sense of bibles. the practice seems to have been very early conceived and adopted in various countries by the disciples of different bibles, which have been long extant in the world, of attaching to all the offensive texts of their sacred books (which, when taken literally, convey either a vulgar, immoral, or foolish sense) a new and more acceptable meaning than earlier custom had sanctioned, or more devout minds had ever thought of. as the growing intelligence of the people was constantly disclosing long-unnoticed and important errors in the holy book, this expedient was adopted to cover them up, or put them out of sight. as jesus, if not paul, by virtue of the growth of the moral and intellectual perceptions, was able to distinguish some errors and moral defects in the first installment of bible revelation as found in the jewish old testament, so the people in every age since, in those countries where any cultivation has been bestowed upon the mind, have been capable of bringing to light numerous errors incorporated into the sacred books of past ages; and as some of those books called bibles were claimed by their disciples to be perfect, divinely inspired, and infallible, and consequently free from error, some expedient had to be devised to sustain this claim, and show that the man of science was guilty of falsehood when he charged "god's holy book" with containing errors. the expedient finally adopted was to take the long-established signification of the words of the text out, and put in a new meaning, coined by the prolific brain of the devout defender of the book for the occasion; and this new sense was called "the spiritual sense." it was presumed it would be more acceptable to the intelligent minds of the age. in this way, whenever a new scientific discovery has been announced, demonstrating some of the statements of the venerated volume to be erroneous, the clergy have set themselves to work with their clerical force-pumps to extract the meaning which our standard dictionaries assign to the words of every text that seemed to conflict with the newly discovered scientific truth, and ingraft into it a new meaning of their own invention. this practice finally became, and has long been, an established practice and art in nearly every country where a bible has been known, whether jewish, pagan, or christian. in fact, no nation having a bible has omitted to practice it. no matter how vulgar, how disgusting, or how shocking to the better feelings, or how immoral the literal reading of the text, a hundred ways could be found to get rid of its offensive signification; a hundred spiritual interpretations could be thrust under its verbal coverings. the most senseless, the most indecorous, and the most demoralizing verbiage could thus be made to pass for great "spiritual truths." the pagans and the jews practiced this art laboriously and extensively; and the disciples of the christian faith, in all ages of the church have been their strict imitators. that it is a very ancient heathen custom is evident from the declaration of "the nineteenth century," which quotes plutarch as saying, "the spiritual or allegorical mode of interpreting words and language was applied to the poems of orpheus, the egyptian writers, and the phrygian traditions" (p. ). grote tells us that the plain and literal meaning would not have been listened to, as it did not suit the mental demands of the people. (see grote's "history of greece.") he assigns this mode of interpreting sacred books to ancient egypt; and mr. wilson says the christians caught the passion for spiritualizing and allegorizing their bible at an early date, and of converting them on all occasions into spiritual mysteries, from the later platonists, the example of philo, and the jewish rabbis. "the mahomedans," mr. kant informs us, "gave a spiritual sense to the sensual descriptions of their paradise," and thus the hindoos also interpreted their vedas. "the mahomedans," says another writer, "indulge in glowing allegories concerning love and intoxication, which, like some of the hindoo devotional writings, seem sensual to those who perceive only the external sense, while the initiated find in them an interior meaning." the greeks and romans, according to the testimony of mr. kant, explained away some of the silliest legends of their polytheism by spiritualizing them, or giving them a mystical sense. speaking in general terms, mr. taylor says, "an allegorical sense was the apology offered for the manifest absurdities of paganism." the roman julian once remarked, that the poetic stories concerning the gods, though regarded as fables, he supposed contained a spiritual treasury. kant declares, in like manner, that the ancient pagans "gave a mystical sense to the many vicious actions of their gods, and to the wildest dreams of their poets, in order to bring the popular faith into agreement with their doctrines of morality;" that is, they resorted to a spiritual interpretation in order to save them from being condemned as popular intelligence advanced. "all the learned ancients," says mr. higgins, "gave their sacred writings two meanings,--one literal, and the other spiritual." philo confessed that the literal sense of the old testament is "shocking:" hence "a divine science, believed by intuition, is necessary to penetrate the hidden meaning." the essenes declared, the literal sense of their scriptures was devoid of all power. origen, finding moses' writings replete with error and immorality, got rid of the difficulty by declaring, "it is all allegory." he makes the remarkable confession, that "there were some things inserted in the bible as history which were never transacted:" hence he concludes they must be interpreted spiritually, or set down as false. and st. hillary declares, "there are many historical passages in the new testament, which, if taken literally, are contrary to sense and reason; and therefore there is a necessity for a mystical interpretation." not that we have any evidence that such an interpretation was ever thought of by the writer; but this new and forced interpretation is the only alternative to save the credit of the book. any senseless expedient or subterfuge that could be invented was dragged in, rather than admit the holy book contained errors; for this would prove it to be the work of man, and not of god. this has been the policy from time immemorial of the votaries of all sacred books. origen--after declaring, "there is no literal truth in the story of christ driving out the money-changers"--asserts that it is an allegory, indicating that we are to cast out our evil propensities. he says the early christians seldom used the literal sense of the scriptures, because it taught something objectionable; and, ever since the inauguration of this mode for concealing the errors and defective moral teachings of the bible, all kinds of ridiculous interpretations of scripture have been resorted to by orthodox writers to make it teach what each one desired. since they arrogated to themselves the liberty to depart from the literal meaning of the text, hundreds of meanings have been ingrafted upon the same text by as many writers and readers; thus launching all scripture import upon the quicksands of uncertainty. the rev. mr. mcnaught of england points to one text in galatians--on which, he says, two hundred and forty meanings have been saddled by different bible interpreters--as a specimen of this kind of license, that is, two hundred and forty guesses at the meaning: thus making bible interpretation, and the system of salvation founded on it, an entire system of _guess-work_; and i would suggest, that, if we have thus to guess our way to heaven, we can do so as well without the bible as with it. a god who is so ignorant of human language as to give forth a revelation to the world couched in such unintelligible and ambiguous terms that no two people can understand it alike, it seems to us, should not have attempted it. all will be chaos and confusion and wild guess-work with respect to the meaning of a large portion of the bible, while its readers are allowed to depart from the established meaning of words as defined by our dictionaries, and fabricate new meanings of their own. as for example: st. andrew tells us, that, when christ spoke of removing mountains, he meant the devil; and, when he spoke of selling two sparrows for a farthing, bishop hillary says he meant "sinners selling themselves to the devil." the red heifer offered by moses on the day of pentecost was "spiritually jesus christ;" thus identifying gods with beasts. the wool and hyssop used-for sprinkling the people, we are told, means spiritually, "the cross of christ." christ's injunction to hate father, mother, brother, and sister, &c., we are told, means that we must love them; and many similar examples of manufacturing new meanings for obnoxious texts might be cited. now, we ask, of what practical value can the bible be, when there is no certain clew to its meaning, or when any of its readers, on finding a word or text whose literal signification does not suit their religious fancy, can assume the liberty to renounce the dictionary, ignore the common and established acceptation of words, and fabricate a new meaning contrary to, and in direct conflict with, the common signification? to get rid of some obvious error in the text, they bestow upon it any kind of fanciful, and sometimes ridiculous, signification their imagination can invent, and then insist with a godly zeal that it is the in-ten led meaning of the writer. if such lawless license in the use of words is to be tolerated, as bible believers are in the habit of assuming, in order to make it teach something which they devoutly desire it should teach, then all rules with respect to the employment of language and the use of words are at an end: our dictionaries may be banished from the schoolroom. we will no longer have use for them if words are no longer the symbols of ideas, which must be the case if people are allowed to attach any signification to them they please, or assign them a meaning at variance with common custom; and a person can learn as much by casting his eyes over the blank pages of the book as by tracing its printed lines. and the art and labor of printing, so far as he is concerned, is superseded; for, as he fabricates his own meaning, this can be done as well without type as with it. mr. ernstein, in his "principles of biblical interpretation" (p. ), affirms that "a proposition may be strictly true which is not contained in the words of the text;" which is tantamount to saying, "the meaning exists independent of the text, and is to be found outside of it:" so the text is not needed, and is of no practical use; for the sentiment of the text can be traced as well on the blank page. the unwarrantable license which bible adherents assume of ingrafting new meanings into the words of a text when its literal reading shocks their moral sense by its immodesty, its falsity, or its puerility, would not be tolerated with respect to any other book; and, if it is just and warrantable in this case, why not adopt it for interpreting the pagan bibles, and thus spiritualize them into truth and harmony? it would take every objectionable statement out of them, and make them pure, un-mixed truth. with this kind of license a book can be made to teach any thing desired. grant me the liberty that christians assume in deviating from the established use of language, and coining a new meaning for words, and i will take all the infidelity out of "tom paine's writings," and make them chime with the smoothest and soundest orthodoxy. it should be borne in mind that the custom of spiritualizing the apparently immoral and obscene portions of the bible is something the common people know nothing about, but suppose that bible writers, in all cases, mean just what they say. hence it is evident the practice has been attended with no practical benefit to society; and infinite wisdom should have foreseen (and would if it had been his production) that the use of such language would have a demoralizing effect upon the world, and consequently would have made use of better language. bishop holbrook says that the notion of an inner sense to the bible is a mere creation of fancy, and will take the errors out of any book. and, as different writers differ in their mode of spiritualizing the bible, it proves it is a mere invention and forced expedient to save the credit of the book. the resort to a spiritual sense for the bible was simply an attempt to conceal _its bad sense,--its nonsense_, its vulgarity, its immoral teachings, and its numerous contradictions, which scientific and progressive minds are constantly bringing to light. but it is as illusory and ineffectual as the ostrich hiding its head in the sand to evade its pursuers. in both cases the danger is blinked out of sight, but not removed. any sense of a text not clearly expressed or unequivocally indicated by the language, we claim, is a slander and a derogation upon infinite wisdom, as it assumes he was too ignorant of language to be able to say what he meant, thus placing him lower in the scale of intelligence than a common schoolboy; and assumes his priesthood are infinitely wiser, as they are able to reveal his "holy book" all over again, and thus make the numerous blunders of infinite wisdom plain and intelligible to common sense and the poorest understanding. i can not conclude this chapter without bestowing my thanks upon emanuel swedenborg for the service he has rendered the cause of truth and theological reform by an improved system of theology he has made out of the bible, or rather out of his own brain. being a man of unusual intellect and moral aspirations, and a man of considerable literary attainments, he could not brook the absurd system of theology taught in the pulpits, professedly drawn from the bible. and whether his system is more conformable to the teachings of "the holy book" is a matter of no importance. it is in many respects a rational and beautiful system, and is thus far very acceptable, and must be very beneficial as a substitute for the irrational, and in some respects immoral, system taught by the orthodox churches; and, were it universally adopted by christian professors, it would be a great improvement on the popular system, and a step toward the attainment of a true and perfect system. chapter lxv.--what shall we substitute for the bible? the disbelievers in christianity in all past time, when objecting to it as being fraught with too many moral defects to constitute a basis or guide for the religious opinions and moral actions of men in an age more free from superstition, and much farther advanced in a knowledge of the true science of morals and the general principles of philosophy, have been met with the reply, "show us a better system before you pull down christianity and throw aside the bible. let us know what you are going to substitute in their place." very well, good friend, we will meet your objection, and hope we can remove the difficulty. we think that either of the following answers should prove satisfactory, and, all taken together, more than satisfactory:-- . we do not propose or desire to destroy or supersede any valuable truth, precept, principle, or doctrine taught in the bible, or to set aside any thing that can in any way prove to be practically useful. we only propose to sift out the errors from the truth, rejecting the former and retaining the latter, and to employ as many of the old timbers in constructing the new superstructure as are not rotten or otherwise defective. . truth can not be "pulled down" or destroyed, as it possesses an omnipotency of principle that is indestructible. like gold in the refiner's crucible, it shines the brighter for every effort to destroy it. . it must be presumed, therefore, that whatever portion of your religion is susceptible of destruction is false, and should be destroyed. . it is the nature of truth to spring up voluntarily the moment error is removed, as naturally as air or water rushes in to fill a vacuum. the instant the clouds are rifted, the sun darts down its vivifying rays. upon the earth. you want no substitute for weeds when exterminated from your garden. when eradicated, those plants which are more useful and beautiful, and which they have been choking and repressing the growth of, will then assume a more healthy appearance. you ask no substitute for sickness or disease, but desire it removed that you may again enjoy the blessings of health. moral health will likewise ensue by the removal of noxious weeds from the mind. and, finally, you can find a complete answer to this objection in your own bible: "cease to do evil, and (then) learn to do well;" that is, the moment you discover an error in your faith or practice, abandon it, and you will soon "learn" what its proper substitute is. truth is always at hand as a substitute for error. we may assume, then, that, if any of the erroneous doctrines now propagated were abandoned, they would find their own substitute immediately, as sickness finds its substitute in health. but we will not leave the pious christian in this negative condition, but will furnish him with a "substitute" which holds out much better hopes and promises than he has anchored in his idolized system, whether those hopes appertain to a virtuous and happy life here, or to an ever-blessed eternity beyond the confines of time. that substitute will be found fully explained in chapter xiv., under the head of "the infidel's bible." or, if he desires a system in fuller detail, and one possessing great beauty, let him examine the principles of "the harmonial philosophy." chapter lxvi.--religious reconstruction; or, the moral necessity for a scientific basis for religion. a philosophical analysis of the human mind, viewed in connection with the practical history of man from the early morning of his existence, fully demonstrates it as an important truth, that individual happiness and the moral welfare of society depend essentially upon the uniform action and harmonious cooperation of all the mental faculties; and that, on the other hand, their individually excessive and inharmonious action constitutes the primary source of nearly all the crime, misery, and discord of society. and it may be well to note here, as another important preliminary truth, that the progressive development of the science of mental philosophy has settled the division of the mental faculties into the following classification: viz., . the animal, which imparts energy and impulsive strength to the whole character, mental and physical. . the social, which is the source of family ties and the social and co-operative institutions of society. . the moral, which makes us regardful of the happiness and welfare of other beings than ourselves. . the intellectual, which is the great pilot-chamber or lighthouse of the whole mind; though it is but recently that discoveries in mental philosophy have fully disclosed this as being its natural and legitimate office. it has thus demonstrated it to be the most important department of the mind. its position in the cerebrum--occupying, as it does, the superior frontal lobe of the brain--might, however, have suggested this. now this is no fanciful delineation, no mere ideal mapping of the mind, but has been demonstrated thousands of times, since the discoveries of gall, to be the true condition and classified analysis of the mental faculties. the religious faculties constituting that department of the mind which often controls our actions anil conduct toward others, and being situated at the apex of the brain,--the point where the most intensified feelings and impulses are supposed to concentrate their misdirection or abnormal exercise, is consequently attended with more direful consequences to society than that of any other portion of the mind. all history demonstrates this as a tragical fact; for religion, more especially, is always born blind. this being a tenable fact, and the religious faculties being awakened to action at an early period of human society,--before the intellectual chambers of the mind were lighted up by the illuminating rays of science, or supplied by a philosophical education and a thorough and untrammeled study of nature's laws,--their natural intensity of feeling, thus uncurbed and unenlightened, drove their honest but dark-minded possessors into the most senseless and childish superstitions, the most absurd doctrines, the most relentless intolerance of belief, and the most bloody and murderous persecutions; thus proving that conscience unenlightened is a very unsafe and a very dangerous moral and religions guide. the popular christian proverb, that "man can not be too religious," comprehends a very fatal error in moral ethics: for the man who possesses more religion than intellect, or more devotional piety than intellectual cultivation and philosophical enlightenment, is sometimes a more dangerous man to society than the highway robber or the midnight assassin; because, always finding many accomplices to aid him in his direful deeds of bloody persecutions, and frequently being able, also, to invoke the strong arm of the law, his work of defamation and spoliation, if not of open persecution and bloodshed, is wider spread than that of the burglar or the stealthy assassin. a review of history shows us: . that, up to the installation of the era of science, which dates back less than three centuries ago, the world--that is, the christian world--was literally a vast prison-house of chains, and a theater of butchery and blood,--the result of a practical effort of men, devoutly pious, to "promote the glory of god," and the establishment of a supposed-to-be-true religion. . the perpetrators of those tragical deeds upon men and women were, many of them, as religiously honest and conscientious "as ever breathed the breath of life;" and they verily believed they were doing god service in thus punishing and exterminating dissenters and heretics. the very fact that some of these pious persecutors perished themselves at the fiery stake in the conscientious and unflinching maintenance of their principles, shouting "hallelujah" while the burning fagots consumed their bodies, leaves no possible ground for doubt that a deep religious conviction had actuated them in the work of persecuting and punishing the enemies of their religion, and in attempting to convert the world to its "saving truth" by the sword. much is said about "conscience," "the internal monitor," "the still, small voice," &c., as a guide for man's moral actions; but, if experience and history ever proved or can prove any thing, they demonstrate most conclusively that conscience unenlightened by the intellectual department of the mind, or a conscience grown up amid the weeds of scientific ignorance, is as dangerous a pilot upon the moral ocean as the helmsman of a ship, in midnight darkness, surrounded by dangerous shoals and resistless whirlpools. conscience without science or philosophy is a lamp without oil, which consequently, being without light, is more likely to lead us astray than to guide us to the temple of truth. science is the pilot-lamp by which we discern our way on the pilgrim-voyage of life; while religion is the feeling, the motive-power, which impels us onward. hence the latter should at all times be subservient to the former, and should be checked and restrained from spontaneous development and exercise until the former is duly installed upon the mental throne as ruler of the moral empire. it is as dangerous to cultivate and stimulate the religious feelings, until the fires of science or practical philosophy have been kindled up in the intellectual chambers to furnish the light necessary to guide them in their impulsive course, as it would be to steam up the boilers of a boat when approaching a precipice in the night, with the pilot asleep upon his hammock, and all the lights extinguished in his chamber. neither religion nor conscience possesses primordially any light of its own. both are born blind; and all the light they ever possess is by reflection from the intellectual light-house. prolific, indeed, of the proof of this statement, are human nature, human experience, and universal history. let the policy, then, be, in all cases, to cultivate science before religion. the intellectual mind, we repeat, should be thoroughly cultivated and enlightened before the religious feelings are called into action. query. reader, what do you now think of dr. cheviot's statement, "the bible does not contain the _shadow of a shade of error from genesis to revelation._" conclusion.--several important points. . as this work was announced several years ago, it seems proper to explain the causes of the long delay in its publication. want of health for completing it, and want of means for publishing it, furnish the true explanation. but by the practical application of a remedy constituting a new and extraordinary discovery in the healing art, the author's health has so far improved as to enable him to resume the work, and re-write nearly the whole of it in a few weeks time. the work advertised embraced but forty pages. the present volume comprises nearly eleven times that number of pages, and includes only two chapters of the original, except the small portion which has been re-written. . while "the world's sixteen crucified saviors" was designed principally to trace the doctrines, traditions, and miraculous events of the christian bible to their primary pagan or oriental origin, the main object of "the bible of bibles" is to expose their logical absurdity, and the evils resulting from their propagation and practical application. . the objection is frequently raised in this work against placing the bible in the hands of children, and also in possession of the heathen. this would, of course, keep it out of our common schools; and the author rejoices in knowing, that, although the bible was used as a regular school-book in his youthful days, it has been banished as a text-book from nearly every schoolroom throughout the country. this denotes progress. . christian professors regard it as a sufficient refutation of all the arguments and facts designed to prove and demonstrate the immoral influence of the bible upon society, to assert that christian countries are superior in morals to those not in possession of their bible. but many facts cited in this work tend to prove, that, if the assumption were correct, it could not with any show of reason or sense be attributed to the influence of the bible. it is clearly, if not self-evidently, impossible that such moral or immoral lessons as are derived from the history of such characters as the father and founder of the jewish nation (abraham), who is represented as living up to all the commands, all the statutes, and all the laws of god (see gen. xxvi. ), while practicing the abominable crimes of treachery, deceit, falsehood, incest or adultery, and polygamy, &c,--i say it is morally impossible for such examples and such lessons to exert other than a demoralizing influence upon society; or that of david, pronounced "the man after god's own heart," while practicing a long catalogue of the most shocking crimes (see chap. xxx). such cases blasphemously represent god as sanctioning the most atrocious crimes and the most revolting deeds, which is a virtual licence to the whole human race to practice them. if a book containing such lessons does not exert an immoral influence upon society, then human language, when employed in writing bibles, fails to make its ordinary impression upon the mind. but we will here cite three cogent and incontrovertible historical facts, which will settle the matter at once and for ever, by proving the truth of our oft-repeated proposition, that the christian bible, notwithstanding the apparent improvement in morals of most christian countries in modern times, has, on the whole, tended to demoralize every nation where it has been generally read, believed, and practiced. first, look at the moral condition of the whole christian world during the period known as "the dark ages," and you will see the proof in overwhelming torrents. during that long night of moral darkness and human depravity, which lasted nearly a thousand years, all christendom was reeking with moral corruption, and practicing the most abominable crimes. lying, deceit, hypocrisy, moral treason, licentiousness, adultery, fornication, fighting, and drunkenness were the order of the day among all classes, including the clergy and the deacons, simply because the light of science had not reached them, and the bible was their sole guide in morals and religion. this state of things continued until the introduction of greek literature dispelled the thick clouds of mental darkness, and arrested the swift tide of moral corruption. second, the greeks without our bible were both morally and intellectually superior to any christian nation. third, "the dark ages" were brought to a close by the introduction of greek learning and greek morals into christian nations. this dates their first tendency to rise out of the sloughs of heathen barbarism, and their first appearance of moral improvement. and thus the proposition is proved and demonstrated by the facts of history that the bible continued to demoralize society till its influence was arrested by the dawn of moral and physical science. in no nation has there been any marked improvement in morals with the use of the bible alone. . it will doubtless be regarded as an extraordinary circumstance that so many thousand biblical errors as are disclosed in this work should have passed from age to age unnoticed by the millions of disciples of the christian faith, and more especially the startling fact that all the cardinal doctrines of the christian religion are founded in error. but it should be borne in mind that it was regarded and taught as a religious duty to suppress and conceal all such errors, and absolutely wicked, sinful, and dangerous to admit the possibility that the holy book can con-tain errors. and this negative policy alone was sufficient to keep them concealed and out of sight. . it is stated in chapter thirty that none of st. old testament writers teach the doctrine of immortality or the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. the proof and a full elucidation of this subject will be found in "the biography of satan." . it is stated in chapter fifty-five that all human language is more or less ambiguous and uncertain, and in chapter fifty-two that skillful linguists of this age can construct language whose meaning can not be misunderstood; and hence god should have been able to do so when the bible was written. the first statement refers to language as ordinarily used when the bible was written, and especially the imperfect hebrew of the bible. the last statement implies that with the modern improvements language can be so employed as to leave no doubt of its meaning in any case. both statements, then, are correct. : the author, in abridging citations from history and the bible, has in some cases deviated from custom in using quotation-marks. this is especially true of chapter twenty-two (on bible contradictions). . it is believed that no errors of any importance can be found in this work, unless some mistakes have been committed in making scriptural references. . each reader of this work is desired to examine carefully and critically the author's exposition of "the twelve cardinal doctrines of the christian faith," and report to him his views of that exposition. those twelve leading doctrines are embraced in the twelve chapters commencing at chapter (on revelation) and ending at chapter (on a personal god). the bible i. authenticity ii. credibility iii. morality by john e. remsburg "somebody ought to tell the truth about the bible." --ingersoll. new york the truth seeker company vesey street in memory of my mother, sarah a. bruner. preface. in january, , the following announcement appeared in the truth seeker, of new york: to the readers of the truth seeker: two years ago that able and sagacious liberal leader, l. k. washburn, wrote: "the next great moral revolution of the world will be a crusade against the christian bible." the church expects this and is preparing for it. in an address before the methodist ministers of chicago, the rev. dr. curry, a distinguished methodist divine, said: "we are standing on the eve of the most stupendous revolution in reference to the doctrines of the bible that the church has ever known." in this long war with bibliolaters the younger readers of the truth seeker will take a prominent part. to call their attention to the impending struggle, and to aid in a small way in fitting them for it, the editor of the truth seeker has invited me to open a sort of bible school in his paper. for nearly a quarter of a century i have been writing and lecturing and debating against the divinity of the bible. my opposition from the trained defenders of the book has been at times both keen and bitter. i was compelled to become and remain a diligent student of the bible and of biblical criticism. as far as possible i collected all of the damaging facts obtainable. i digested and classified them and filed them away in the labeled pigeon-holes of my brain for use when needed. i am growing old. my hair which was black when i began my work will soon be white. i have at the most but a few more years to labor. this arsenal of facts which i have gathered and the arguments that i have formulated from them i wish to place within the reach of others. whether the thought be a spiritualistic assurance or an irish bull, it will be a pleasure to me when i am dead to know that i am still of some service to the cause. in the next issue of the truth seeker i shall begin a series of some thirty lessons or chapters on "the bible." the chief purpose of the work will be to combat the dogmas of the divine origin and infallibility of the christian bible. the points of attack will be three: . its authenticity; . its credibility; . its morality. i shall endeavor to disprove in a large degree the authenticity of its books, the credibility of its statements, and the morality of its teachings. john e. remsburg. these chapters were published in weekly installments in the truth seeker, their publication extending through a period of twenty months. the matter was electrotyped as published and the work will now be given to the public in book form. to those interested in biblical criticism, and especially to the freethought propagandist and to the christian investigator, it is hoped that its contents may be useful. the facts presented in this volume, while known to many christian scholars, are, as far as possible, kept from the lower orders of the clergy and from the laity. divines enjoying high honors and large salaries may be cognizant of them without endangering their faith; but the humbler ministers who receive small pay, and the laity who support the church, are liable to have their faith impaired by a knowledge of them. in part ii., devoted to the credibility of the bible, less space is given to the errors of the new testament than to those of the old testament. this is not because the new contains less errors than the old, but because the author has prepared another volume on this subject. in "the christ," a sequel to "the bible," a more exhaustive exposition of the errors of the new testament, particularly of the four gospels, is given. while denying the infallibility of the writers of the bible the author is not unconscious of his own fallibility. contents. part i. authenticity. chapter i. sacred books of the world, chapter ii. the christian bible, chapter iii. formation of the canon, chapter iv. different versions of the bible, chapter v. authorship and dates, chapter vi. the pentateuch, chapter vii. the prophets, chapter viii. the hagiographa, chapter ix. the four gospels, chapter x. acts, catholic epistles, and revelation, chapter xi. pauline epistles, part ii. credibility. chapter xii. textual errors, chapter xiii. two cosmogonies of genesis, chapter xiv. the patriarchal age, chapter xv. the jewish kings, chapter xvi. when did jehoshaphat die? chapter xvii. inspired numbers, chapter xviii. harmony of the gospels, chapter xix. paul and the apostles, chapter xx. the bible and history, chapter xxi. the bible and science, chapter xxii. prophecies, chapter xxiii. miracles, chapter xxiv. the bible god, part iii. morality. chapter xxv. the bible not a moral guide, chapter xxvi. lying--cheating--stealing, chapter xxvii. murder--war, chapter xxviii. human sacrifices--cannibalism--witchcraft chapter xxix. slavery--polygamy, chapter xxx. adultery--obscenity chapter xxxi. intemperance--vagrancy--ignorance, chapter xxxii. injustice to women--unkindness to children--cruelty to animals, chapter xxxiii. tyranny--intolerance, chapter xxxiv. conclusion, appendix. arguments against the divine origin and in support of the human origin of the bible, index, the bible. part i.--authenticity. chapter i. sacred books of the world. asia has been the fruitful source of religions and bibles. the seven great religions of the world, brahmanism, buddhism, confucianism, zoroastrianism, mohammedanism, judaism, and christianity--all had their birth in asia; and the so-called sacred books which are used to uphold and propagate these faiths were nearly all written by asiatic priests and prophets. a brief description of the most important of these books will be presented in this chapter. sacred books of india. vedas.--the vedas are the oldest bibles in the world. there are four of them, the rigveda, the yajurveda, the samaveda, and the atharvaveda. devout hindoos believe that these books have always existed--that they are co-eternal with god. scholars agree that they are very old, that the rigveda, the oldest of the four, and one of the oldest books extant, was composed between , and , years ago. each veda is complete in itself, and consists of religious teachings, prayers, and hymns. puranas.--the vedas and puranas are the most important of the sacred books of the hindoos. the puranas, more than any other works, have contributed to mould the doctrines of the popular brahmanical religion of india. they are eighteen in number, of which the bhagavata, containing a history of chrisna, is the one best known. tripitaka.--this is the buddhist bible. it was compiled years before the christian era. self conquest and universal charity are its fundamental teachings. upanishads.--these are sacred books which treat of the creation, of the supreme being or spirit, brahma, and of the nature of the human soul and its relation to brahma. tantras.--the tantras are sacred books relating chiefly to the god siva. ramayana.--the ramayana is one of the great epic poems of the world. it gives the history of rama, one of the incarnations of the god vishnu. mahabharata.--this is another epic poem, a larger one, containing more than , verses. like the ramayana, it is believed to be of divine origin. it has been described as "the great manual of all that is moral, useful, and agreeable." institutes of menu.--menu is regarded as the law-giver of the hindoos, as moses is of the jews. the institutes of menu are in many respects similar to the so-called laws of moses. sacred books of china. yih king.--this book contains a cosmological treatise and a compendium on morals. it was written b.c. shu king.--this contains the teachings and maxims of certain ancient chinese kings. there are documents in it over , years old. shi king.--this is the chinese hymn book. it contains three hundred sacred songs and poems, some of which are very old. le king.--the le king is a text book on manners, customs, and ceremonies. it has been one of the chief agents in moulding the social and religious life of china. chun tsien.--the chun tsien is a historical work compiled by confucius. it gives a record of his own times and those immediately preceding him. the above books, called the five kings, are the canonical books of confucianism, the religion of the educated classes of china. with the exceptions noted, they were mostly written or compiled about b.c. they are considered sacred by the chinese, but not, like other sacred books, a revelation from god. confucius recognized no god. his religion is preeminently the religion of this world, and is thus summed up by him: "the observance of the three fundamental laws of relation between sovereign and subject, father and child, husband and wife, and the five capital virtues--universal charity, impartial justice, conformity to ceremonies and established usages, rectitude of heart and mind, and pure sincerity." sacred books of persia. zend avesta.--this is one of the most important of all the bibles of the world, although the religion which it teaches numbers but a few adherents. it was written by zoroaster and his disciples about , years ago. it was an enormous work in size, covering, it is said, , parchments. the zend avesta proper consisted of twenty-one books. all of these, save one and some fragments of the others, have perished. they dealt chiefly with religion, but touched upon almost every subject of interest to mankind. they were believed to be a faithful record of the words spoken to the great prophet by god himself. both jews and christians borrowed much from the zend avesta. sadder.--the sadder is the bible of the modern parsees, and contains, in an abridged form, the religious teachings of zoroaster. sacred books of islam. koran.--the mohammedans believe that divine revelations were given to adam, seth, enoch, abraham, moses, david, jesus, and mohammed, and that each successive revelation in a measure superseded the preceding one. the books given to adam, seth, enoch, and abraham have been lost. the pentateuch, the psalms, and the four gospels are accepted by them, but the interpolations and corruptions of jews and christians, they claim, have greatly impaired their value. the koran is with them the book of books--god's last and best revelation to man. it was written in rays of light on a tablet before the throne of god. a copy bound in white silk and bedecked with gems was carried by gabriel to the lowest heaven, where from time to time, during a period of twenty years, portions of it were transmitted to mohammed until the whole was given to the world. the book is divided into chapters. it is elegant in style, and, like most other bibles, contains, along with a great deal that is fabulous and puerile, some admirable moral teachings. sunna.--the sunna is a large work containing many thousand legends of mohammed. it is a sacred book, but of less authority than the koran. sacred books of the jews. torah.--the book of the law, now commonly called the pentateuch, is the most sacred of all jewish books. jews as well as christians believe that it was written by moses and dictated by god. it was not divided into five books as we have it. in the oldest hebrew manuscripts the entire work forms but one book. it was subsequently divided into parshiyoth, or chapters, and these into sedarim, or sections. nebiim.--the law and the prophets were the chief authorities of the jews. the books of the prophets, called nebiim, were believed by the orthodox jews to be divinely inspired, but were esteemed of less importance than the torah. cethubim.--this collection of writings comprised the hymns, poems, and other books now known as the hagiographa. talmud.--the talmud, while not regarded as a divine revelation, like the law and the prophets, is in some respects the most important of jewish works. it is almost a library in itself, and constitutes a vast storehouse of information pertaining to jewish history and theology. sacred book of christians. holy bible.--the christian bible consists of two collections of small books, one called the old testament, the other the new testament. the old testament comprises the torah, nebiim, and cethubim of the jews. it is divided into books (including the apocryphal books accepted by the greek and roman catholic churches, about ). the new testament is a collection of early christian writings, which originally appeared in the various churches of asia, africa and europe. the bible is but one of many books for which divinity is claimed. christians deny the divinity of the other books, however, and affirm that they are of human origin--that their book is god's only revelation to mankind. the orthodox claim respecting its divinity is expressed in the following words: "behind the human authors stood the divine spirit, controlling, guiding, and suggesting every part of their different messages" (birks). chapter ii. the christian bible. the title bible, from ta biblia, meaning the book, or more properly the books, was given to the sacred book of christians, it is claimed, by chrysostom in the fifth century. for a period of one hundred and fifty years the sacred books of the jews alone constituted the christian bible. they consisted of the following three collections of books which form the old testament. the law. genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy. the prophets. joshua, judges, samuel, samuel, kings, kings, isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, hosea, joel, amos, obadiah, jonah, micah, nahum, habakkuk, zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, malachi. hagiographa. psalms, proverbs, job, song of solomon, ruth, lamentations, ecclesiastes, esther, daniel, ezra, nehemiah, chronicles, chronicles. to the above thirty-nine books of the old testament were subsequently added the following twenty-seven books of the new testament. matthew, mark, luke, john, acts, romans, corinthians, corinthians, galatians, ephesians, philippians, colossians, thessalonians, thessalonians, timothy, timothy, titus, philemon, hebrews, james, peter, peter, john, john, john, jude, revelation. the books of the old testament were called the scripture, or scriptures, by early christians. after the books of the new testament were recognized as canonical and inspired, the terms old and new testaments were employed to distinguish the two divisions. tertullian, at the beginning of the third century, was the first to use the term new testament. the proper arrangement of the books of the old testament is in the order named in the foregoing list. both jews and christians, however, have varied the order. the books of the hagiographa, with the exceptions of ruth which follows judges, lamentations which follows jeremiah, and daniel which appears among the prophets, have been placed between the earlier and later prophets. in later jewish versions the song of solomon, ruth, lamentations, ecclesiastes, and esther, called the five rolls, come immediately after the pentateuch. in the christian bibles of the eastern churches, including the two most noted ancient manuscripts, the vatican and alexandrian, the seven catholic epistles, james, peter, peter, john, john, john, and jude, follow acts and precede the pauline epistles. in the accepted hebrew the thirty-nine books of the old testament formed but twenty-two, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the hebrew alphabet. judges and ruth formed one book, first and second samuel one, first and second kings one, first and second chronicles one, ezra and nehemiah one, jeremiah and lamentations one, and the twelve minor prophets one. the books of the pentateuch (pente, five; teuchos, volume) now bear the greek names given them by the septuagint translators, with the exception of the fourth, arithmoi, which is called by the english name, numbers. the hebrew names for these, as well as many other books of the old testament, are the initial words of the books. the name of genesis, as translated, is "in the beginning;" exodus, "these are the words;" leviticus, "and he called;" numbers, "and he spake;" deuteronomy, "these are the words." joshua originally belonged to this collection, and to the six books modern scholars have given the name hexateuch. about one-half of the books of the bible, joshua, isaiah, matthew, etc., are named after their alleged authors. a few, like ruth and esther, take their names from the leading characters of the books. the pauline epistles bear the names of the churches, people, or persons to whom they are addressed. the titles of judges, kings, chronicles, psalms, proverbs, and a few others, indicate the subjects of the books. the division of the books of the bible into chapters was made in the thirteenth century; the division into verses, in the sixteenth century. these divisions are to a great extent mechanical rather than logical. paragraphs are frequently divided in the formation of chapters, and sentences in the formation of verses. canonical and apocryphal books of the old and new testaments. in addition to the canonical books of the bible, there are many jewish and christian books known as the apocryphal books of the old and new testaments. a critical review of the bible demands a consideration of the apocryphal as well as the canonical books, and the subject will be made more intelligible to the reader by giving a list of both. in making a classification of them they will be divided into ten groups, as follows: . books accepted as canonical and divine by all jews and christians. genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy. . books accepted as canonical and divine by a part of the jews and by all christians. joshua, judges, samuel, samuel, kings, kings, isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, hosea, joel, amos, obadiah, jonah, micah, nahum, habakkuk, zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, malachi. . books accepted by a part of the jews as canonical, but not divine; by most christians as canonical and divine. ruth, chronicles, chronicles, ezra, nehemiah, esther, job, psalms, proverbs, ecclesiastes, song of solomon, lamentations, daniel. . books accepted as canonical by some jews, and for most part by the greek and roman catholic churches, but rejected by the protestants. baruch, tobit, judith, book of wisdom, song of the three children, history of susanna, bel and the dragon, prayer of manasseh, ecclesiasticus, esdras, esdras, maccabees, maccabees, maccabees, maccabees, maccabees. . lost books cited by writers of the bible. book of the wars of the lord, book of jasher, book of the covenant, book of nathan, book of gad, book of samuel, prophecy of ahijah, visions of iddo, acts of uzziah, acts of solomon, three thousand proverbs of solomon, a thousand and five songs of solomon, chronicles of the kings of judah, chronicles of the kings of israel, book of jehu, book of enoch. . books which formed the original canon of the new testament and which have always been accepted by christians. matthew, mark, luke, john, acts, romans, corinthians, corinthians, galatians, ephesians, philippians, colossians, thessalonians, thessalonians, timothy, timothy, titus, philemon, john. . books which are now generally accepted by christians, but which were for a time rejected. hebrews, james, peter, peter, john, john, jude, revelation. . books now excluded from the canon, but which are found in some of the older manuscripts of the new testament. shepherd of hermas, epistle of barnabas, clement, clement, paul's epistle to laodiceans, apostolic constitutions. . other apocryphal books of the new testament which are extant. gospel of the infancy, protevangelion of james, acts of pilate, nativity of mary, fifteen epistles of ignatius, epistle of polycarp, gospel of marcion (in part), clementine recognitions, clementine homilies. . apocryphal books of the new testament which are lost. oracles of christ, gospel according to the hebrews, gospel according to the egyptians, gospel of peter, gospel of paul, gospel of philip, gospel of matthias, gospel of andrew, gospel of perfection, gospel of tatian, gospel of basilides, gospel of apelles, gospel of cerinthus, gospel of bartholomew, acts of paul, acts of peter, revelation of paul, revelation of peter, preaching of peter, memoirs of the apostles. here is a list of one hundred and fifty books. in the apocryphal groups have been included only the most important of this class. to these might be added at least one hundred other apocryphal books of the old and new testaments. of these two hundred and fifty jewish and christian writings, sixty-six--about one-fourth--have been declared canonical and divine by protestants. in the mind of the devout protestant there is as great a difference between the canonical and apocryphal books of the old and new testaments as there is between light and darkness. the former he regards as the work of a wise and good god, the latter, with a few exceptions, as the work of ignorant and wicked men. and yet there is no such difference. the two classes are of much the same character. the worst canonical books are, perhaps, better than the worst apocryphal books; while, on the other hand, the best apocryphal books, if not equal to the best canonical books, are far superior to a majority of them. circumstances rather than merit determined the fate of these books. books of real merit and of high authority in some of the early churches were cast aside because these churches either ceased to exist or changed their creeds; while books of little merit survived as authorities because their teachings supported the doctrines which survived. the religion of the primitive churches underwent many radical changes. the christianity of the second century was not the christianity of the first. books teaching the new theology superseded those which taught the old; and thus the earlier writings became obsolete. of all the christian books written prior to the middle of the second century only a few epistles have been retained as authorities. chapter iii. formation of the canon. second in interest and importance only to the origin of the individual books composing the bible are the facts relating to the manner in which these books were collected into one great volume and declared canonical or authoritative. the formation of the canon required centuries of time to complete. the jewish canon. the jewish canon, it is claimed, was chiefly the work of ezra, completed by nehemiah. "all antiquity," says dr. adam clarke, "is nearly unanimous in giving ezra the honor of collecting the different writings of moses and the prophets and reducing them into the form in which they are now found in the bible." this opinion, shared alike by jews and christians, is simply a tradition. there is no conclusive evidence that ezra founded the canon of the old testament. nehemiah could not have completed it, because a part of the books were written after his time. there is no proof that all the books of the old testament existed in a collected form before the beginning of the christian era. there is no proof that even the law and the prophets existed in such a form before the maccabean period. the rev. frederick myers, an able authority on the bible, makes this candid admission: "by whom the books of the old testament were collected into one volume, and by what authority made canonical, we do not know" ("catholic thoughts on the bible," p. ). another prevalent belief is that all of the jewish scriptures were lost during the captivity, and that ezra was divinely inspired to rewrite them. irenæus says: "god ... inspired esdras, the priest of the tribe of levi, to compose anew all the discourses of the ancient prophets, and to restore to the people the laws given them by moses" ("ecclesiastical history," book v., chap. viii). this is a myth. the books of the old testament which were written before the captivity were not lost. many books, it is true, were written after the captivity, but these books were not reproductions of lost writings. they were original compositions, or compilations of documents which had not been lost. if ezra was inspired, as claimed, to rewrite the hebrew scriptures, he did not complete his task, for the books that were really lost have never been restored, and the old testament is but a part of the hebrew scriptures that once existed. st. chrysostom says: "the jews having been at some time careless, and at others profane, they suffered some of the sacred books to be lost through their carelessness, and have burnt and destroyed others." the list of books given in the preceding chapter, under the head of "lost books cited by writers of the bible," would nearly all be deemed canonical were they extant. referring to these books, the rev. dr. campbell, in his "introduction to matthew," says: "the book of the wars of the lord, the book of jasher, the book of nathan the prophet, the book of gad the seer, and several others, are referred to in the old testament, manifestly as of equal authority with the book which refers to them, and as fuller in point of information. yet these are to all appearances irrecoverably lost." god's revelation in its entirety, then, no longer exists. the ten hebrew tribes which formed the kingdom of israel, and whose remnants were afterwards called samaritans, accepted only the first six books of the old testament. the other jews generally accepted the pentateuch and the prophets, and, in a less degree, the hagiographa as canonical. some of them also attached more or less importance to the apocryphal books. the christian canon. respecting the formation of the new testament canon, the rev. dr. roswell d. hitchcock says: "the new book of records was, like the old, set down by eye-witnesses of and actors in its scenes, closely after their occurrence; its successive portions were cautiously scrutinized and clearly distinguished as entitled to reception; when the record, properly so-called, was completed, the new canon was closed" ("analysis of the bible," p. ). "this process was rapid and decisive; it had in all probability become substantially complete before the death of john, the last of the apostles" (ibid, p. ). that these statements, popularly supposed to be true, are wholly untrue will be demonstrated by the facts presented in this and succeeding chapters. the christian canon was not completed before the death of the last apostle. the new testament did not exist in the time of the apostles. it did not exist in the time of the apostolic fathers. it was not in existence in the middle of the second century. there was no new testament in the time of papias. dr. samuel davidson, the highest christian authority on the canon, says: "papias ( a.d.) knew nothing, so far as we can learn, of a new testament canon" ("canon of the bible," p. ). justin martyr knew nothing of a new testament canon. i quote again from dr. davidson: "justin martyr's canon ( a.d.), so far as divine authority and inspiration are concerned, was the old testament" (ibid, p. ). for nearly two centuries after the beginning of the christian era, the old testament--the old testament alone--constituted the christian canon. no other books were called scripture; no other books were considered inspired; no other books were deemed canonical. founding of the canon. to irenæus, more than to any other man, belongs the credit of founding the roman catholic church; and to him also belongs the credit of founding the new testament canon, which is a roman catholic work. no collection of books corresponding to our new testament existed before the time of irenæus. he was the first to make such a collection, and he was the first to claim inspiration and divine authority for its books. dr. davidson says: "the conception of canonicity and inspiration attaching to new testament books did not exist till the time of irenæus" ("canon," p. ). at the close of the second century the christian world was divided into a hundred different sects. irenæus and others conceived the plan of uniting these sects, or the more orthodox of them, into one great catholic church, with rome at the head; for rome was at this time the largest and most influential of all the christian churches. "it is a matter of necessity," says irenæus, "that every church should agree with this church on account of its preeminent authority" ("heresies," book ). in connection with this work irenæus made a collection of books for use in the church. his collection comprised the following: matthew, mark, luke, john, acts, romans, first corinthians, second corinthians, galatians, ephesians, philippians, colossians, first thessalonians, second thessalonians, first timothy, second timothy, titus, philemon, first john, and revelation--twenty books in all. in the work of establishing the roman catholic church and the new testament canon irenæus was succeeded, early in the third century, by tertullian and clement of alexandria. they adopted the list of books made by him. the books adopted by these fathers were selected from a large number of christian writings then extant--forty or more gospels, nearly as many acts of apostles, a score of revelations, and a hundred epistles. each church had one or more books which were used in that church. no divine authority, however, was ascribed to any of them. why did the fathers choose these particular books? above all, why did they choose four gospels instead of one? we never see four biographies of washington, of cromwell, or of napoleon, bound in one volume; yet here we have four different biographies of jesus in one book. irenæus says it is because "there are four quarters of the earth in which we live, and four universal winds." instead of this artificial reason he could have given a natural, a rational, and a truthful reason. while primitive christians, as we have seen, were divided into many sects, the principal sects may be grouped into three divisions: . the petrine churches, comprising the church of rome and other churches which recognized peter as the chief of the apostles and the visible head of the church on earth; . the pauline sects, which accepted paul as the true exponent of christianity; . the johannine or eastern churches, which regarded john as their founder. a collection of books to be acceptable to all of these churches must contain the favorite books of each. the first gospel, written about the time this church union movement was inaugurated, was adopted by the petrine churches. the second gospel was also highly valued by the church of rome. the third gospel, a revised and enlarged edition of the pauline gospel of marcion, had become the standard authority of pauline christians. the fourth gospel, which had superseded other and older gospels, was generally read in the johannine churches. the acts of the apostles, written for the purpose of healing the dissensions that had arisen between the followers of peter and paul, was acceptable to both petrines and paulines. the epistles of paul were of course received by the pauline churches, while the first epistle of john was generally received by the eastern churches. the collection would not be complete without a revelation, and the revelation of john was selected. the work instituted by irenæus was successful. the three divisions of christendom were united, and the catholic church was established. but this cementing, although it held for centuries, did not last, as was hoped, for all time. the seams gave way, the divisions separated, and to-day stand out as distinctly as they did in the second century; the roman catholic church representing the petrine, the greek church the johannine, and the protestant churches to a great extent the pauline christians of that early age. but while the church separated, each retained all of the sixty-six canonical books, save revelation, which for a time was rejected by the greek church. the new testament originally contained but twenty books. to first peter, second john, and the shepherd of hermas irenæus attached some importance, but did not place them in his canon. hebrews, james, second peter, third john, and jude he ignored. tertullian placed in an appendix hebrews, first peter, second john, jude, and the shepherd of hermas. clement of alexandria classed as having inferior authority, hebrews, second john, jude, first and second epistles of clement (of rome), epistle of barnabas, shepherd of hermas, and revelation of peter. regarding the competency of the founders of the new testament canon, davidson says: "of the three fathers who contributed most to its early growth, irenæus was credulous and blundering, tertullian passionate and one-sided, and clement of alexandria, imbued with the treasures of greek wisdom, was mainly occupied with ecclesiastical ethics" (canon, p. ). "the three fathers of whom we are speaking had neither the ability nor the inclination to examine the genesis of documents surrounded with an apostolic halo. no analysis of their authenticity was seriously contemplated" (ibid, p. ). completion of the canon. the christian canon, including the new testament canon, assumed something like its present form under the labors of augustine and jerome toward the close of the fourth century. st. augustine's canon contained all of the books now contained in the old and new testaments, excepting lamentations, which was excluded. it contained, in addition to these, the apocryphal pieces belonging to daniel, and the books of tobit, judith, wisdom, ecclesiasticus, and first and second maccabees. st. jerome's canon contained lamentations, which augustine's canon excluded, and omitted tobit, judith, wisdom, ecclesiasticus, and first and second maccabees, which augustine's included. roman catholics accept the canon of augustine, including lamentations; protestants, generally, accept the canon of jerome. while jerome included in his canon all the books of the new testament, he admitted that philemon, hebrews, second peter, second and third john, jude, and revelation were of doubtful authority. referring to the work of augustine and jerome, davidson, says: "both were unfitted for the critical examination of such a topic" (canon, p. ). christian councils. many believe that the council of nice, held in a.d., determined what books should constitute the bible. this council did not determine the canon. so far as is known, the first church council which acted upon this question was the synod of laodicea which met in . this council rejected the apocryphal books contained in augustine's list, but admitted baruch and the epistle of jeremiah. it excluded revelation. various councils, following this, adopted canonical lists. one council would admit certain books and the next council would reject them. the third council of carthage in adopted the list of augustine which admitted the apocryphal books and revelation and rejected lamentations. the actions of none of these councils were unanimous or decisive. the list of books adopted was adopted simply by a majority vote. a large minority of every council refused to accept the list of the majority. some advocated the admission of books that were rejected; others opposed the admission of books that were accepted. as late as the seventh century ( ), at the sixth council of constantinople, many different canonical lists were presented for ratification. the damaging facts that i have adduced concerning the formation of the christian canon are admitted in a large degree by one of the most orthodox of authorities, mcclintock and strong's "cyclopedia of biblical and ecclesiastical literature." dr. mcclintock says: "the new testament canon presents a remarkable analogy to the canon of the old testament. the beginnings of both are obscure.... the history of the canon may be divided into three periods. the first, extending to , includes the era of circulation and gradual collection of the apostolic writings. the second is closed in , separating the sacred from other ecclesiastical writings. the third may be defined by the third council of carthage, a.d., in which a catalogue of the books of the scriptures was formally ratified by conciliar authority. the first is characteristically a period of tradition, the second of speculation, and the third of authority, and we may trace the features of the successive ages in the course of the history of the canon. but however all this may have been, the complete canon of the new testament, as we now have it, was ratified by the third council of carthage, a.d., from which time it was generally accepted by the latin church, some of the books remaining in doubt and disputed." concerning the work of these councils, william penn writes as follows: "i say how do they know that these men discerned true from spurious? now, sure it is, that some of the scriptures taken in by one council were rejected by another for apocryphal, and that which was left out by the former for apocryphal was taken in by the latter for canonical" (penn's works, vol. i., p. ). in regard to the character of these councils, dean milman writes: "it might have been supposed that nowhere would christianity appear in such commanding majesty as in a council.... history shows the melancholy reverse. nowhere is christianity less attractive, and if we look to the ordinary tone and character of the proceedings, less authoritative, than in the councils of the church. it is in general a fierce collision of two rival factions, neither of which will yield, each of which is solemnly pledged against conviction" (history of latin christianity, vol. i., p. ). the roman catholic, greek catholic, and protestant canons, no two of which are alike, were fixed by modern councils. the council of trent ( - ) determined the roman catholic canon. while a majority were in favor of the canon of augustine they were not agreed in regard to the character and classification of the books. there were four parties. the first advocated two divisions of the books, one to comprise the acknowledged books, the other the disputed books. the second party proposed three divisions--the acknowledged books, the disputed books of the new testament, and the apocryphal books of the old testament. the third party desired the list of books to be named without determining their authority. the fourth party demanded that all the books, acknowledged, disputed, and apocryphal, be declared canonical. this party triumphed. at a council of the greek church held in jerusalem in , this church, which had always refused to accept revelation, finally placed it in the canon. the greek canon contains several apocryphal books not contained in the roman catholic canon. both divisions of the protestant church, german and english, declared against the authority of the apocryphal books. the westminster assembly ( ) formally adopted the list of books contained in our authorized version of the bible. ancient christian scholars. most christians believe that all of the books of the bible, and only the books of the bible, have been accepted as canonical by all christians. and yet, how far from this is the truth! in every age of the church there have been christians, eminent for their piety and learning, who either rejected some of these books, or who accepted as canonical books not contained in the bible. not one of the five men who contributed most to form the canon, irenæus, tertullian, clement, jerome, and augustine, accepted all of these books. late in the second century melito, bishop of sardis, a contemporary of irenæus, was deputed to make a list of the books belonging to the old testament. his list omitted esther and lamentations. the muratori canon, which is supposed to belong to the third century, omitted hebrews, james, first and second peter, and third john. the apostolic canon omitted revelation, and included first and second clement and the apostolic constitutions. of origen, the great christian father of the third century, "chambers' encyclopedia" says: "origen doubted the authority of the epistle to the hebrews, of the epistle of james, of jude, of the second of peter, and the second and third of john; while, at the same time, he was disposed to recognize as canonical certain apocryphal scriptures, such as those of hermas and barnabas." in addition to the apocryphal books named, origen also accepted as authoritative the gospel of the hebrews, gospel of the egyptians, acts of paul, and preaching of peter. the rev. jeremiah jones, a leading authority on the canon, says: "justin martyr, clemens alexandrinus, tertullian, and the rest of the primitive writers were wont to approve and cite books which now all men know to be apocryphal" (canon, p. ). theodoret says that as late as the fifth century many churches used the gospel of tatian instead of the canonical gospels. gregory the great, at the beginning of the seventh, and alfric, at the close of the tenth century, accepted as canonical paul's epistle to the laodiceans. early in the fourth century the celebrated church historian, eusebius, gave a list of the acknowledged and disputed books of the new testament. the disputed books--books which some accepted and others rejected--were hebrews, james, second and third john, jude, revelation, shepherd of hermas, epistle of barnabas, acts of paul, and revelation of peter. athanasius rejected esther, and epiphanius accepted the epistle of jeremiah. cyril, bishop of jerusalem, and gregory, bishop of constantinople, both rejected revelation. chrysostom, one of the greatest of church divines, and, who gave to the sacred book of christians its name, omitted ten books from his canon--first and second chronicles, esther, job, and lamentations, five books in the old testament; and second peter, second and third john, jude, and revelation, five books in the new testament. protestant scholars. many protestant scholars have questioned or denied the correctness of the protestant canon. calvin doubted second and third john and revelation. erasmus doubted hebrews, second and third john, and revelation. zwingle and beza rejected revelation. dr. lardner questioned the authority of hebrews, james, second peter, second and third john, jude and revelation. evanson rejected matthew, mark, luke, and nearly half of the epistles. schleiermacher rejected first timothy. scaliger rejected second peter. davidson thinks that esther should be excluded from the canon. eichorn rejected daniel and jonah in the old testament, and second timothy and titus in the new. dr. whiston excluded the song of solomon, and accepted as canonical more than twenty books not found in the bible. he says: "can anyone be so weak as to imagine mark, and luke, and james, and jude, who were none of them more than companions of the apostles, to be our sacred and unerring guides, while barnabas, thaddeus, clement, timothy, hermas, ignatius, and polycarp, who were equally companions of the same apostles, to be of no authority at all?" (exact time, p. ). the rev. james martineau, of england, says: "if we could recover the gospel of the hebrews, and that of the egyptians, it would be difficult to give a reason why they should not form a part of the new testament; and an epistle by clement, the fellow laborer of paul, which has as good a claim to stand there as the epistle to the hebrews, or the gospel of luke" (rationale of religious enquiry). archbishop wake pronounces the writings of the apostolic fathers "inspired," and says that they contain "an authoritative declaration of the gospel of christ" (apostolic fathers). the church of latter day saints, numbering one half million adherents, and including some able bible scholars, believe that the modern book of mormon is a part of god's word, equal in authority and importance to the pentateuch or the four gospels. martin luther. the greatest name in the records of the protestant church is martin luther. he is generally recognized as its founder; he is considered one of the highest authorities on the bible; he devoted a large portion of his life to its study; he made a translation of it for his people, a work which is accepted as one of the classics of german literature. with luther the bible superseded the church as a divine authority. and yet this greatest of protestants rejected no less than six of the sixty-six books composing the protestant bible. luther rejected the book of esther. he says: "i am such an enemy to the book of esther that i wish it did not exist." in his "bondage of the will," he severely criticises the book. he rejected the book of jonah. he says: "the history of jonah is so monstrous as to be absolutely incredible" (colloquia, chap. lx., sec. ). he rejected hebrews: "the epistle to the hebrews is not by st. paul; nor, indeed, by any apostle" (standing preface to luther's new testament). he rejected the epistle of james: "st. james' epistle is truly an epistle of straw" (preface to edition of ). he rejected jude. "the epistle of jude," he says, "allegeth stories and sayings which have no place in scripture" (standing preface). he rejected revelation. he says: "i can discover no trace that it is established by the holy spirit" (preface to edition of ). chapter iv. different versions of the bible. the following is a brief description of the principal versions, translations, and manuscripts of the bible: versions of the jewish scriptures. hebrew.--the greater portion of the jewish scriptures was written in the ancient hebrew language, while a smaller portion was written in the aramaic or chaldaic dialect of this language. the written language of the hebrew contained no vowels. the meaning of many words was mere conjecture. about one thousand years ago jewish scholars developed a system of vowel points and made a revision of the hebrew scriptures in what is known as the masoretic text. the early christian versions of the old testament, including that of the roman catholic church, are based upon the earlier or consonantal text; the protestant versions are based upon the later or masoretic text. the accepted hebrew versions generally omitted the apocryphal books. samaritan.--the samaritan bible, the canonical scriptures of the samaritan israelites, contained but six books--the pentateuch and what is styled a corrupt version of joshua. some scholars believe that the samaritan pentateuch is the most correct version we have of this work. septuagint.--the septuagint was a greek translation of the jewish scriptures, including the apocryphal books. we are told that about b. c. seventy scholars, each in a separate cell, translated all of these books. the translations, it is stated, were exactly alike, a proof of divine supervision. this story is a fiction. instead of seventy translations of fifty books, there was one translation of five books. the pentateuch alone was translated at this time. the prophets, the hagiographa, and the apocrypha were translated at various times during the succeeding three hundred years. the septuagint was the version used by the hellenistic jews and by the primitive christians. ancient christian versions. peshito.--the peshito is probably the oldest version of the christian bible. it is in aramaic, and is the bible of syrian christians. it omits second peter, second and third john, jude, and revelation. egyptian.--there were two versions of the egyptian bible, the thebaic, written in the language of upper egypt, and the memphitic or coptic, written in the language of lower egypt. these versions included the apocrypha and excluded revelation. ethiopic.--this was the bible of ethiopian christians. the old testament contained four divisions: . the law; . kings; . solomon; . the prophets. it also contained the book of enoch, a book found in no other version. the new testament omitted revelation and included the apostolic constitutions. gothic.--this version was made by a gothic bishop in the fourth century. it omitted four of the principal books of the old testament, first and second samuel, and first and second kings. italic.--the italic version was one of the earliest latin versions of the bible. the new testament contained but twenty-four books. it omitted hebrews, james, and second peter. vulgate.--the vulgate, one of the most important versions of the bible, is the latin version made by jerome about the beginning of the fifth century. it is the standard version of the roman catholic church. it has undergone many revisions and consequently many changes. it now includes the apocryphal books which jerome did not accept as canonical. ancient manuscripts. the three most important greek manuscripts, those which are recognized as the highest authorities in determining the text of the bible, are the sinaitic, the vatican, and the alexandrian. sinaitic.--the sinaitic manuscript, now preserved in st. petersburg, was discovered by dr. tischendorf at a convent near mount sinai. it is believed by many to be the oldest manuscript of the new testament extant, dating back, it is supposed by some, to the fourth century. it contains twenty-nine books--the twenty-seven canonical books, the epistle of barnabas, and the shepherd of hermas. vatican.--this manuscript, now in the vatican library at rome, belongs, it is claimed, to the fourth century. the old testament contains the apocrypha. the new testament is a mutilated copy, containing only the four gospels, acts, and a part of the epistles. alexandrian.--the alexandrian manuscript, now in the british museum, belongs, it is said, to the fifth or sixth century. the old testament includes the apocryphal books. the new testament includes the canonical books, and in addition to these the first and second epistles of clement. modern versions. luther's.--the principal german version of the bible was made by the leader of the protestant reformation. on account of its superior literary merits and its large circulation it is, next to our authorized version, the most important of the protestant versions. luther placed the apocryphal books in an appendix at the end of the old testament, and the books of the new testament which he rejected in an appendix at the end of the new. wicliffe's.--the translation of wicliffe, which appeared in the latter part of the fourteenth century, was the first english translation of the bible. tyndale's.--tyndale commenced his english translation of the bible about the same time that luther commenced his german translation. he did not live to complete it, and a portion of the old testament was translated by others. king james.--the authorized english version, commonly called the king james bible, was published in . it was made by forty-seven english scholars, working in six companies--two at oxford, two at cambridge, and two at westminster. the basis of this version is tyndale's translation. the apocryphal books, which were not accepted as canonical by the english church, were placed in an appendix. they are now generally omitted. the king james bible is admittedly one of the most incorrect versions; but dressed in the strong, quaint english of shakespeare's time it possesses considerable literary merit. it has been translated into nearly every tongue, and has had a larger circulation than all others combined. new version.--the new or revised version of the bible is a revision of the king james version. the revision was made by a committee of twenty-seven english scholars, whose work was revised by an american committee. it was begun in and finished in . in this version the matter is divided into paragraphs instead of chapters and verses. douay.--the douay bible is an english translation of the vulgate. it is the standard english version of the roman catholic church. the foregoing are but a few of the numerous versions of the bible, ancient and modern, that have appeared. nearly every nation of europe has from one to a score. luther's version is nearly years old, and yet germany had seventeen translations, and consequently seventeen versions, before luther's was published. england had many versions besides those named. chapter v. authorship and dates. upon the authenticity of the books of the bible depends in a large measure their value as authorities. these books are filled with strange and marvelous stories. are these stories true or false? if true, we should accept them; if false, reject them. from whence do these writings come? if you hear a startling statement on the street your disposition to accept or reject it will depend largely upon the character of its author. if he is a reputable person you will be disposed to accept it; if it does not come from a reputable person, or if you are unable to discover its author, you will be disposed to reject it. christian priests demand the acceptance of these books as infallible truth. what evidence do they adduce to justify this demand? where did they obtain these books? when were they written? who wrote them? what is the reputation of their authors for intelligence and veracity? were they learned and astute men, or were they weak and credulous men? were they good men, or were they bad men? if able men wrote them, may they not have been impostors? if good men wrote them, may they not have been mistaken? these priests claim to have a knowledge of the authorship of all, or nearly all, the books of the bible. with one or two exceptions, they have assigned authors to all the books of the old testament, and to these exceptions they have even assigned "probable" authors. they also claim a great antiquity for them--claim that they were written from four hundred to fifteen hundred years before the christian era. the books of the new testament, they affirm, were all written in the first century, and by those whose names they bear. the following table gives the authorship and date of composition, according to orthodox authorities, of the books composing the protestant canon. it is not claimed that every book was written in the year assigned for its composition, but that it was written in or prior to the year assigned. old testament. book author date genesis moses b.c. exodus ,, ,, ,, leviticus ,, ,, ,, numbers ,, ,, ,, deuteronomy ,, ,, ,, joshua joshua ,, judges samuel ,, ruth ,, (?) ,, ,, samuel ,, ,, ,, samuel gad & nathan b.c. kings jeremiah ,, kings ,, ,, ,, chronicles ezra ,, chronicles ,, ,, ,, ezra ,, ,, ,, nehemiah nehemiah ,, esther mordecai (?) ,, job job ,, psalms david ,, proverbs solomon ,, ecclesiastes ,, ,, ,, s. of solomon ,, ,, isaiah isaiah ,, jeremiah jeremiah ,, lamentations ,, ,, ,, ezekiel ezekiel ,, daniel daniel ,, hosea hosea ,, joel joel ,, amos amos ,, obadiah obadiah ,, jonah jonah ,, micah micah ,, nahum nahum ,, habakkuk habakkuk ,, zephaniah zephaniah ,, haggai haggai ,, zechariah zechariah ,, malachi malachi ,, new testament. book author date matthew matthew a.d. mark mark ,, luke luke ,, ,, john john a.d. acts luke ,, romans paul ,, corinthians ,, ,, ,, corinthians ,, ,, ,, galatians ,, ,, ephesians ,, ,, philippians ,, ,, ,, colossians ,, ,, thessalonians ,, ,, thessalonians ,, ,, ,, timothy ,, ,, timothy ,, ,, titus ,, ,, ,, philemon ,, ,, hebrews ,, ,, james james ,, ,, peter peter ,, peter ,, ,, ,, john john ,, john ,, ,, ,, john ,, ,, jude jude ,, revelation john ,, the names and dates given in the foregoing table are, with a few exceptions, paraded as established facts. and yet the greater portion of them are mere assumptions, without even the shadow of proof upon which to base them. many of them are self-evidently false--are contradicted by the contents of the books themselves. the authorship of at least fifty books of the bible--thirty in the old testament and twenty in the new--is unknown. these books are not as old as claimed. the books of the old testament, instead of having been written from to b.c., were probably written from to b.c. the books of the new testament, instead of having all been written in the first century, were, many of them, not written until the second century. in regard to this subject, prof. george t. ladd of yale college writes: "the authorship and date of most of the old testament writings, and of some of the new testament, will never be known with certainty" (what is the bible? p. ). the following six chapters will be devoted to an examination of the question of the authenticity of the books of the bible. i shall attempt to show that the greater portion of these books, including the most important ones, are not authentic--were not written by the authors claimed, nor at the time claimed; that they are anonymous documents, written or compiled for the most part at a later age than that in which their reputed authors are supposed to have lived. chapter vi. the pentateuch. the first five books of the bible, genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, and deuteronomy--collectively called the pentateuch--are the most important books of the old testament. the three great semitic religions, judaism, christianity, and mohammedanism, are all, to a great extent, based upon them. these books, orthodox christians affirm, were written by moses at least , years before the christian era. "this sacred code," says dr. adam clarke, "moses delivered complete to the hebrews sometime before his death." in modern versions of the bible, genesis is styled the first book of moses; exodus, the second book of moses; leviticus, the third book of moses; numbers, the fourth book of moses, and deuteronomy, the fifth book of moses. their very high authority rests upon the supposed fact of their mosaic authorship and great antiquity. to disprove these--to show that the pentateuch was not written by moses, nor at this early age, but centuries later by unknown writers--is to largely impair, if not entirely destroy, its authority as a religious oracle. and this is what modern criticism has done. arguments for mosaic authorship. the following passage is the chief argument relied upon to prove the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch: "and it came to pass, that when moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that moses commanded the levites, which bore the ark of the covenant of the lord, saying, take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the lord your god, that it may be there for a witness against thee" (deut. xxxi, - ). this was written for a purpose. its sequel appears in kings. during the reign of josiah, hilkiah the high priest discovered a "book of the law" in the temple. "and hilkiah the high priest said unto shaphan the scribe, i have found the book of the law in the house of the lord" ( kings xxii, ). this book was the book of deuteronomy, written, not in the time of moses, but in the time of josiah, more than eight centuries later. hilkiah needed the book and he "found" it. it was written by him or for him. holland's great critic, dr. kuenen, says: "there is no room to doubt that the book was written with a view to the use that hilkiah made of it" (kuenen's hexateuch, p. ). dr. oort, another able dutch scholar, professor of oriental languages at amsterdam, says: "the book was certainly written about the time of its discovery. it is true that it introduces moses as uttering the precepts and exhortations of which it consists, just before the people enter canaan. but this is no more than a literary fiction. the position of affairs assumed throughout the book is that of judah in the time of josiah" (bible for learners, vol. ii, p. ). in support of this unanimous conclusion of the critics, dr. briggs presents the following long array of irrefutable arguments: "the reasons for the composition of deuteronomy in the time of josiah according to the later hypothesis are: ( ) expressions which indicate a period subsequent to the conquest (ii, ; xix, ); ( ) the law of the king, which implies the reign of solomon (xvii, - ); ( ) the one supreme judicatory of the time of jehoshaphat (xvii, ); ( ) the one central altar of the times of hezekiah (xii, seq.); ( ) the return to egypt in ships not conceivable before the time of manasseh (xxviii, ); ( ) the forms of idolatry of the middle period of the monarchy (iv, ; xvii, ); ( ) no trace of deuteronomy in writings prior to jeremiah; ( ) the point of view indicates an advanced style of theological reflection; ( ) the prohibition of mazzebah (xvi, ) regarded as lawful in isaiah (xix, ); ( ) the style implies a long development of the art of hebrew oratory, and the language is free from archaism, and suits the times preceding jeremiah; ( ) the doctrine of the love of god and his faithfulness with the term 'yahweh thy god' presuppose the experience of the prophet hosea; ( ) the humanitarianism of deuteronomy shows an ethical advance beyond amos and isaiah and prepares the way for jeremiah and ezekiel; ( ) ancient laws embedded in the code account for the penalties for their infraction in kings xxii; ( ) ancient laws of war are associated with laws which imply the wars of the monarchy, and have been influenced by amos" (the hexateuch, p. ). no book had been deposited in the ark as the writer stated. at the dedication of solomon's temple the ark was opened, but it contained no book. "there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which moses put there at horeb" ( kings viii, - ). in the pentateuch it is also stated that moses, at the command of god, wrote certain covenants (ex. xxxiv, ), recorded the curse of amalek (ex. xvii, ), and made a list of the stations between the red sea and the jordan (num. xxxiii); likewise that he wrote a song (deut. xxxi, ). the absurdity of adducing these to prove that moses wrote the pentateuch is thus exposed by briggs: "when the author of the pentateuch says that moses wrote one or more codes of law, that he wrote a song, that he recorded a certain memorandum, it would appear that having specified such of his materials as were written by moses, he would have us infer that the other materials came from other sources of information. but it has been urged the other way; namely, that, because it is said that moses wrote the codes of the covenant and the deuteronomic code, he also wrote all the laws of the pentateuch; that because he wrote the song deut. xxxii, he wrote all the other pieces of poetry in the pentateuch, that because he recorded the list of stations and the memorial against amalek, he recorded all the other historical events of the pentateuch. it is probable that no one would so argue did he not suppose it was necessary to maintain the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch at every cost" (hexateuch, pp. , ). again, it has been argued that christ and some of the writers of the new testament recognize moses as the author of the pentateuch. such expressions as "the law of moses," "the book of moses," "moses said," etc., occur a few times. these expressions are explained and this argument answered by the following: . it is not denied by critics that moses was the legislator of the jews and promulgated certain laws. . an anonymous book is usually called after the leading character of the book. . at this time the traditional theory of the mosaic authorship was generally accepted. of christ's mention of moses, dr. davidson says: "the venerable authority of christ himself has no proper bearing on the question." arguments against mosaic authorship. that the pentateuch was not written by moses, that it is an anonymous work belonging to a later age, is clearly proven by the following: . there is no proof that moses ever claimed to be the author of the pentateuch. there is nothing in the work, neither is there anything outside of it, to indicate that he was its author. . the ancient hebrews did not believe that he wrote it. renan says: "the opinion which attributes the composition of the pentateuch to moses seems quite modern; it is very certain that the ancient hebrews never dreamed of regarding their legislator as their historian. the ancient documents appeared to them absolutely impersonal, and they attached to them no author's name" (history of semitic languages, book ii., chapter i). . the pentateuch was written in the hebrew language. the hebrew of the bible did not exist in the time of moses. language is a growth. it takes centuries to develop it. it took a thousand years to develop the english language. the hebrew of the bible was not brought from egypt, but grew in palestine. referring to this language, de wette says: "without doubt it originated in the land [canaan] or was still further developed therein after the hebrew and other canaanitish people had migrated thither from the northern country" (old testament, part ii.). gesenius says that the hebrew language scarcely antedates the time of david. . not only is it true that the hebrew language did not exist, but it is urged by critics that no written language, as we understand it, existed in western asia in the time of moses. prof. andrew norton says: "for a long time after the supposed date of the pentateuch we find no proof of the existence of a book or even an inscription in proper alphabetical characters among the nations by whom the hebrews were surrounded" (the pentateuch, p. ). hieroglyphics were then in use, and it is not to be supposed that a work as large as the pentateuch was written or engraved in hieroglyphics and carried about by this wandering tribe of ignorant israelites. . much of the pentateuch is devoted to the history of moses; but excepting a few brief compositions attributed to him and quoted by the author he is always referred to in the third person. the pentateuch contains a biography, not an autobiography of moses. . it contains an account of the death and burial of moses which he could not have written: "so moses, the servant of the lord, died there in the land of moab.... and he buried him in a valley of the land of moab" (deut. xxxiv, , ). "and the children of israel wept for moses in the plains of moab thirty days" ( ). orthodox commentators attempt to remove this difficulty by supposing that the last chapter of deuteronomy belongs to the book of joshua, and that joshua recorded the death of moses. the same writer, referring to the appointment of joshua as the successor of moses, says: "and joshua the son of nun was full of the spirit of wisdom" (deut. xxxiv, ). if joshua wrote this, however full of the spirit of wisdom he may have been, he certainly was not full of the spirit of modesty. joshua did not write this chapter. . "no man knoweth of his [moses'] sepulchre unto this day" (deut. xxxiv, ). that the authorship of this chapter should ever have been attributed to either moses or joshua is incomprehensible. the language plainly shows that not merely one but many generations had elapsed between the time of moses and the time that it was written. . while the advocates of the mosaic authorship have, without proof, asserted that joshua wrote the book of joshua and the conclusion of deuteronomy, the higher critics have demonstrated the common authorship of deuteronomy and a large portion of joshua. as all the events recorded in joshua occurred after the death of moses, he could not have been the author of deuteronomy. . "they [the israelites] did eat manna until they came unto the borders of canaan" (ex. xvi, ). this passage was written after the israelites settled in canaan and ceased to subsist on manna. and this was not until after the death of moses. . "the horims also dwelt in seir beforetime; but the children of esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as israel did unto the land of his possession, which the lord gave unto them" (deut. ii, ). this refers to the conquest of canaan and was written after that event. . "and while the children of israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day" (num. xv, ). when this was written the children of israel were no longer in the wilderness. their sojourn there is referred to as a past event. as moses died while they were still in the wilderness--that is, before they had entered the promised land--it could not have been written by him. . "thou shalt eat it within thy gates" (deut. xv, ). the phrase, "within thy gates," occurs in the pentateuch about twenty-five times. it refers to the gates of the cities of the israelites, which they did not inhabit until after the death of moses. . "ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, ... that the land spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you" (lev. xviii, , ). when moses died the nations alluded to still occupied the land and had not been expelled. . "and abraham called the name of the place jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, in the mount of the lord it shall be seen" (gen. xxii, ). this is one of the passages adduced by the critics of the seventeenth century against the mosaic authorship of these books. it implies the conquest and a long occupancy of the land by the israelites. . "and sarah died in kirjath-arba; the same is hebron in the land of canaan" (gen. xxiii, ). "and jacob came ... unto the city of arbah, which is hebron" (xxxv, ). moses' uncle was named hebron, and from him the hebronites were descended. after the conquest this family settled in kirjath-arba and changed the name of the city to hebron. . "and rachel died and was buried in the way to ephrath, which is bethlehem" (gen. xxxv, ). the hebrew name of bethlehem was not given to this city until after the israelites had conquered and occupied it. . "for only og, king of bashan, remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in rabbath of the children of ammon?" (deut. iii, .) this is another passage relied upon by the early critics to disprove the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch. the writer's reference to the bedstead of og, which was still preserved as a relic at rabbath, indicates a time long subsequent to the conquest of bashan. . "thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance" (deut. xix, ). this refers to the ancient landmarks set by the israelites when they obtained possession of canaan, and was written centuries after that time. . "and jair the son of manasseh went and took the small towns thereof, and called them havoth-jair" (num. xxxii, ). the above is evidently a misstatement of an event recorded in judges: "and after him [tola] arose jair, a gileadite, and judged israel twenty and two years. and he had thirty sons, ... and they had thirty cities, which are called havoth-jair unto this day" (jud. x, , ). jair was judge of israel from to b.c., or from to years after the date assigned for the writing of the pentateuch. . "and nobah went and took kenath, and the villages thereof, and called it nobah, after his own name" (num. xxxii, ). referring to this and the preceding passage, dr. oort says: "it is certain that jair, the gileadite, the conqueror of bashan, after whom thirty places were called jair's villages, lived in the time of the judges, and that a part of bashan was conquered at a still later period by a certain nobah" (bible for learners, vol. i, p. ). . "jair the son of manasseh took all the country of argob unto the coasts of geshuri and maachathi; and called them after his own name, bashan-havoth-jair, unto this day" (deut. iii, ). even if jair had lived in the time of moses, the phrase "unto this day" shows that it was written long after the event described. . "and when abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto dan" (gen. xiv, ). this passage could not have been written before dan existed. in judges (xviii, - ) the following account of the origin of this place is given: "and the children of dan went their way; ... and came unto laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with fire.... and they built a city, and dwelt therein. and they called the name of the city dan." this is placed after the death of samson, and samson died, according to bible chronology, b.c.-- years after moses died. . "and these are the kings that reigned in the land of edom before there reigned any king over the children of israel" (gen. xxxvi, ). this could not have been written before the kingdom of israel was established; for the writer is familiar with the fact that kings have reigned in israel. saul, the first king of israel, began to reign years after moses. . "and his [israel's] king shall be higher than agag" (num. xxiv, ). this refers to saul's defeat of agag. "and he [saul] took agag the king of the amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword" ( sam. xv, ). the defeat of agag is placed in b.c., years after moses. . "the sceptre shall not depart from judah, ... until shiloh come" (gen. xlix, ). these words are ascribed to jacob; but they could not have been written before judah received the sceptre, which was not until david ascended the throne, years after the death of moses. . "and the canaanite was then in the land" (gen. xii, ). when this was written the canaanite had ceased to be an inhabitant of palestine. as a remnant of the canaanites inhabited this country up to the time of david, it could not have been written prior to his time. . "the canaanite and the perizzite dwelt then in the land" (gen. xiii, ). this, like the preceding passage, could not have been written before the time of david. the perizzites, also, inhabited palestine for a long period after the conquest. in the time of the judges "the children of israel dwelt among the ... perizzites" (jud. iii, ). . "the first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the lord thy god" (ex. xxiii, ). this was not written before the time of solomon; for god had no house prior to the erection of the temple, b.c., years after moses. when david proposed to build him a house, he forbade it and said: "i have not dwelt in any house since the time that i brought up the children of israel out of egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle" ( sam. vii, ). the tabernacle itself was a tent (tent of meeting). during all this time no house was ever used as a sanctuary. . "one from among the brethren shalt thou set king over thee.... but he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses.... neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold" (deut. xvii, - ). "and solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses" ( kings iv, ). "and solomon had horses brought out of egypt" (x, ). "and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart" (xi, ). "the weight of gold that came to solomon in one year was six hundred three score and six talents of gold" (x, ). "and the king made silver to be in jerusalem as stones" ( ). nothing can be plainer than that this statute in deuteronomy was written after solomon's reign. the extravagance and debaucheries of this monarch had greatly impoverished and corrupted the kingdom, and to prevent a recurrence of such excesses this law was enacted. . "if there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, ... thou shalt come unto the priests the levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment" (deut. xvii, , ). this court was established by jehoshaphat ( chron. xix, - ). jehoshaphat commenced his reign b.c., years after moses. . "but in the place which the lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there shalt thou do all that i command thee" (deut. xii, ). "is it not he [the lord] whose high places and whose altars hezekiah hath taken away, and said to judah and jerusalem, ye shall worship before this altar?" (is. xxxvi, ). up to the time of hezekiah the hebrews worshiped at many altars. hezekiah removed these altars and established the one central altar at jerusalem. this was in b.c.-- years after moses. . "and the lord shall bring thee into egypt again with ships" (deut. xxviii, ). this, critics affirm, was written when psameticus was king of egypt. he reigned from to b.c. . "neither shalt thou set thee up any image [pillar]" (deut. xvi, ). this proves the late origin of the pentateuch, or at least of deuteronomy. isaiah (xix, ) instructs them to do the very thing which they are here forbidden to do, and as he would not have advised a violation of the law it is evident that this statute could not have existed in his time. isaiah died about years after moses died. . the worship of the sun, moon, and stars by the jews, is mentioned and condemned (deut. iv, ; xvii, ). this nature worship was adopted by them in the reign of manasseh, years after moses. . "wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the lord, what he did in the red sea, and in the brooks of arnon" (num. xxi, ). the author of the pentateuch here cites a book older than the pentateuch, which gives an account of the journeyings of the israelites from egypt to moab--from the exodus to the end of moses' career. . "and thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly" (deut. xxvii, ). "and he [joshua] wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of moses" (josh. viii, ). christians affirm that the law of moses and the pentateuch are one. that this law of moses was not the one hundred and fifty thousand words of the pentateuch is shown by the fact that after the death of moses it was all engraved upon a stone altar. . "now the man moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (num. xii, ). no writer would bestow such fulsome praise upon himself. this was written by a devout admirer of moses, but it was not written by moses. . "and this is the blessing wherewith moses the man of god blessed the children of israel before his death" (deut. xxxiii, ). there are three reasons for rejecting the mosaic authorship of this: moses is spoken of in laudatory terms; he is spoken of in the third person; his death is referred to as an event that is already past. . "and there arose not a prophet since in israel like unto moses" (deut. xxxiv, ). not only is the highest praise bestowed upon moses, a thing which he would not have done, but the language clearly shows that it was written centuries after the time he lived. . the religious history of the hebrews embraces three periods of time, each covering centuries. during the first period the worship of jehovah was confined to no particular place; during the second it was confined to the holy city, jerusalem; during the third it was confined, not merely to jerusalem, but to the temple itself. there are writings in the pentateuch belonging to each of these periods. the encyclopedia britannica declares that this fact alone affords overwhelming disproof of mosaic authorship. . the religion of the pentateuch was not a revelation, but an evolution. the priestly offices, the feasts, the sacrifices, and other religious observances underwent many changes, these changes representing different stages of development in israel's religion and requiring centuries of time to effect. . the legislation of the pentateuch was also the growth of centuries. some of the minor codes are much older than the documents containing them. there is legislation older than david, b.c.--probably as old as moses, b.c. there is legislation belonging to the time of josiah, b.c., of ezekiel, b.c., of ezra, b.c. would it not be absurd to claim that all the laws of england from alfred to victoria were the work of one mind, alfred? and is it less absurd to claim that all the laws of the jews from moses to ezra were instituted by moses? . the pentateuch abounds with repetitions and contradictions. the first two chapters of genesis contain two accounts of the creation differing in every important particular. in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of genesis two different and contradictory accounts of the deluge are intermingled. exodus and deuteronomy each contain a copy of the decalogue, the two differing as to the reason assigned for the institution of the sabbath. there are several different versions of the call of abraham; different and conflicting stories of the egyptian plagues; contradictory accounts of the conquest of canaan. the work of various authors and compilers. . the four preceding arguments suggest the concluding and most important one. the character of the writings of the pentateuch preclude the possibility of unity of authorship, and consequently the mosaic authorship of the work as a whole. the books of the pentateuch were not all composed by one author. the book of genesis is not the work of one author. the first two chapters of genesis were not written by the same writer. the pentateuch was written by various writers and at various times. the pentateuch comprises four large documents known as the elohistic and jehovistic documents, and the deuteronomic and priestly codes. they are distinguished by the initial letters e, j, d, and p. e and j include the greater portion of genesis and extend through the other books of the pentateuch, as well as through joshua, judges, samuel, and kings. d includes the greater portion of deuteronomy, fragments of the preceding books, and a large portion of joshua. p includes the greater portion of the middle books of the pentateuch and smaller portions of the other books. the author of each of these documents incorporated into his work one or more older documents. these four works were afterwards united by successive editors or redactors. e and j were first fused into one. a subsequent redactor united d with this, and still later another united this compilation with p. in addition to these principal documents there are several minor codes, chief of which is the holiness code comprising ten chapters of leviticus, xvii-xxvi. there are also several poems written by various authors. thus the pentateuch instead of being the product of one mind is the work of many writers and compilers, probably twenty or more. these documents, especially the principal ones, notwithstanding the intermingling of their contents, are easily distinguished and separated from each other by bible critics. the thoughts of the human mind, like the features of the human face, controlled by the law of variation, assume different forms. we who are familiar with faces have no difficulty in distinguishing one face from another. no two faces are alike. critics who have devoted their lives to literature can distinguish the writings of individuals almost as readily as we distinguish the faces of individuals. there are certain idioms of language, certain peculiarities of style, belonging to each writer. the language and style of these documents are quite dissimilar. to quote dr. briggs: "there is as great a difference in style between the documents of the hexateuch as there is between the four gospels." the principal documents are thus described by this critic: "e is brief, terse, and archaic; graphic, plastic, and realistic; written in the theocratic interest of the kingdom of god. j is poetical and descriptive, the best narrative in the bible, giving us the history of the kingdom of redemption. d is rhetorical and hortatory, practical and earnest, written in the more theological interest of the training of the nation in the fatherly instruction of god. p is annalistic and diffuse, fond of names and dates, written in the interest of the priestly order, and emphasizing the sovereignty of the holy god and the sanctity of the divine institutions" (hexateuch, p. ). each document abounds with characteristic words and phrases peculiar to that document. holzinger notes belonging to e and belonging to j. canon driver gives belonging to d and belonging to p. one of the chief distinguishing marks is the term used to designate the deity. in e it is elohim, translated god; in j, jehovah (yahveh) elohim, translated lord god. in d the writer continually uses the phrase "the lord thy god," this phrase occurring more than times. "i am jehovah" is a phrase used by p, including the holiness code, times. it is never used by e or d. "god of the fathers" is frequently used by e and d; never by p. bishop colenso's analysis of genesis is as follows: elohist, verses; jehovist, , verses; deuteronomist, verses; priestly writer, verses. the pentateuch was chiefly written and compiled from seven to ten centuries after the time claimed. the elohistic and jehovistic documents, the oldest of the four, were written at least years after the time of david and years after the time of moses. they were probably written at about the same time. e belongs to the northern kingdom of israel, j to the southern kingdom of judah. the unanimous verdict of critics is that deuteronomy was written during the reign of josiah, about b.c., years after moses died. the holiness code belongs to the age of ezekiel, about fifty years later. the priestly code was written after the exile, in the time of ezra, , years after moses. important changes and additions were made as late as the third century b.c., so that, excepting the variations and interpolations of later times, the pentateuch in something like its present form appeared about , years after the time of moses. the higher criticism--its triumph and its consequences. the certainty and the consequences of the higher criticism of the pentateuch are thus expressed by hupfeld: "the discovery that the pentateuch is put together out of various sources, or original documents, is beyond all doubt not only one of the most important and most pregnant with consequences for the interpretation of the historical books of the old testament, or rather for the whole of theology and history, but it is also one of the most certain discoveries which have been made in the domain of criticism and the history of literature. whatever the anti-critical party may bring forward to the contrary, it will maintain itself, and not retrograde again through anything, so long as there exists such a thing as criticism, and it will not be easy for a reader upon the stage of culture on which we stand in the present day, if he goes to the examination unprejudiced, and with an uncorrupted power of appreciating the truth, to be able to ward off its influence." the critical labors of hobbes, spinoza, peyrerius, simon, astruc, eichorn, paine, bauer, (g. l.) de wette, ewald, geddes, vater, reuss, graf, davidson, colenso, hupfeld, wellhausen, kuenen, briggs, and others, have overthrown the old notions concerning the authenticity of the pentateuch. there is not one eminent bible scholar in europe, and scarcely one in america, who any longer contends that moses wrote this work. the pioneers in the field of the higher criticism were the rationalists hobbes and spinoza and the catholics peyrerius, simon, and astruc. more than two hundred years ago benedict spinoza, the greatest of modern jews, with his own race and the entire christian church against him, made this declaration, which the scholarship of the whole world now accepts: "it is as clear as the noonday light that the pentateuch was not written by moses" (tractatus theologico-politicus, chap, viii, sec. ). a century passed, and thomas paine in france, in the most potent volume of higher criticism ever penned, exposed in all their nakedness the wretched claims of the traditionalists. he read the pentateuch and wrote: "those books are spurious." "moses is not the author of them." "the style and manner in which those books are written give no room to believe, or even to suppose, they were written by moses." "they were not written in the time of moses, nor till several hundred years afterwards" (age of reason). about the same time german scholars, ever foremost in the domain of critical analysis, took up the work. the writings of eichorn, bauer, vater, and de wette, "swept the field in germany." de wette, one of her greatest theologians, thus presents the conclusion of german critics: "the opinion that moses composed these books is not only opposed by all the signs of a later date which occur in the work itself, but also by the entire analogy of the history of hebrew literature and language" (books of moses, sec. ). fifty years or more elapsed and davidson and colenso studied and wrote, and british scholarship was soon arrayed against the old in favor of the new. dr. davidson, in the following words, voices the opinion of england's learned: "there is little external evidence for the mosaic authorship, and what little there is does not stand the test of criticism. the succeeding writers of the old testament do not confirm it.... the objections derived from internal structure are conclusive against the mosaic authorship" (introduction to the old testament). at last, in our own land and in our own time, dr. briggs and others attack the mosaic theories, and, in spite of the efforts of princeton's fossils, the intelligence of america acknowledges the force of their reasoning and accepts their conclusions. the higher criticism has triumphed. spinoza's judgment is confirmed, and the american critic pronounces the verdict of the intellectual world: "in the field of scholarship the question is settled. it only remains for the ministry and people to accept it and adapt themselves to it" (hexateuch, p. ). but this is not the end. a victory has been achieved, but its full results remain to be realized. the clergy, against their will, and the laity, who are subservient to the clergy's will, are yet to be enlightened and convinced. even then, when the facts disclosed by the higher criticism have gained popular acceptance, another task remains--the task of showing men the real significance of these facts. the critics themselves, many of them, do not seem to realize the consequences of their work. the rationalistic critics, like hobbes, spinoza, paine, reuss, wellhausen, kuenen and others, have measured the consequences of their criticisms and accepted them. the orthodox critics have not. some of them, like dr. briggs, while denying the mosaic authorship and great antiquity of the pentateuch, while maintaining its anonymous and fragmentary character, and conceding its contradictions and errors, are yet loath to reject its divinity and authority. but these also must be given up. this work as a divine revelation and authentic record must go. its chief theological doctrine, the fall of man, is a myth. with this doctrine falls the atonement, and with the atonement orthodox christianity. this is the logical sequence of the higher criticism of the pentateuch. to these critics, and to all who are intelligent enough to discern the truth and courageous enough to meet it, i would repeat and press home the admonition of our critic, "to accept it and adapt themselves to it." chapter vii. the prophets. next to the pentateuch, the most important books of the old testament are the prophets. they are divided into two divisions, earlier and later. the earlier prophets comprise joshua, judges, first samuel, second samuel, first kings, and second kings. the later prophets are divided into greater and minor. the greater prophets are isaiah, jeremiah, and ezekiel; the minor prophets, hosea, joel, amos, obadiah, jonah, micah, nahum, habakkuk, zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, and malachi. joshua. the book of joshua, it is claimed, was written by joshua just before his death, which occurred, according to the accepted chronology, in b.c. this book for a time formed a part of the pentateuch (or hexateuch). in later times, to increase its authority, the pentateuch was ascribed to moses. a recognition of the fact that moses could not have written a history of the events that happened after his death caused that portion now known as joshua to be detached and credited to joshua. many of the arguments adduced against the mosaic authorship of the preceding books apply with equal force against the claim that joshua wrote the book which bears his name. the book contains no internal evidence of his authorship; he does not claim to be its author; the other writers of the old testament do not ascribe its authorship to him; he is spoken of in the third person; it is clearly the work of more than one writer; the language in which it was written was not in existence when he lived; much of it relates to events that occurred after his death. "and it came to pass after these things, that joshua, the son of nun, the servant of the lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old. and they buried him in the border of his inheritance in timnath-serah.... and israel served the lord all the days of joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived joshua" (josh. xxiv, - ). as the pentateuch gives an account of the death and burial of moses, so the book of joshua gives an account of the death and burial of joshua. "and eleazer the son of aaron died" (xxiv, ). the death of eleazer occurred six years after the death of joshua. "but the jebusites dwell with the children of judah at jerusalem unto this day" (xv, ). the children of judah did not dwell in jerusalem until nearly years after joshua. the phrase "unto this day" is frequently used in the book, and this shows that it was written long after the events it describes. in his account of the miracle of joshua causing the sun to stand still, the writer appeals to the book of jasher in support of his statement: "is not this written in the book of jasher?" (x, .) this could not have been written until after the book of jasher was written or compiled. when was jasher written? we do not know, but in his history of david the author of samuel thus refers to it: "he [david] bade them teach the children of judah the use of the bow; behold, it is written in the book of jasher" ( sam. i, ). this proves that the book of jasher was not written before the time of david. if the book of joshua was not written until after the book of jasher was written, then it could not have been written until the time of david or later. the book of joshua consists of two parts. the first, which originally formed a part of, or sequel to, deuteronomy, was probably written before the captivity; the latter part was written after the captivity-- years after the time of joshua. judges. the authorship of this book has been ascribed to samuel. in disproof of this i quote the following: "now the children of judah had fought against jerusalem and taken it" (i, ). jerusalem was taken by judah b.c.; samuel died b.c., twelve years before it was taken. "in those days there was no king in israel" (xviii, ; xix, ; xxi, ). this passage, which is repeated several times, was written after israel had become a kingdom, and evidently long subsequent to the time of saul and samuel. "and they forsook the lord, and served baal and ashtaroth" (ii, ). this was probably written as late as the reign of hoshea, b.c. the chapters relating to samson indicate a date as late as manasseh, to b.c. during the reign of this king the hebrews became sun-worshipers. samson was a sun-god--the name signifies "sun-god." all the stories related of him in judges are solar myths. "he and his sons were priests to the tribe of dan until the day of the captivity of the land" (xviii, ). the above passage denotes a date as late as the captivity. smith's "bible dictionary" says: "it is probable that the books of judges, ruth, samuel, and kings originally formed one work" (art. ruth). if these books originally formed one work, samuel was not the author of any of them, for kings, it is admitted, was written as late as the time of jeremiah, and possibly as late as the time of ezra, from to years after samuel. judges, like the pentateuch and joshua, is the work of several writers. it can scarcely be called even a compilation. it is a mere collection of historical and mythological fragments, thrown together without any regard to logical arrangement or chronological order. first and second samuel. it is popularly supposed, and many christian teachers affirm, that samuel wrote the books which bear his name. and yet the writer says, "samuel died," and seven chapters of the first book follow this announcement. the second book in no way pertains to him; his name is not once mentioned; the events narrated occurred from four to forty-four years after his death. others claim that the books were written by samuel, nathan, and gad, basing their claim on a passage in chronicles, which says that the acts of david "are written in the book of samuel the seer, and in the book of nathan the prophet, and in the book of gad the seer" ( chron. xxix, ). as samuel died while david was yet a young man--four years before he became king--he did not record the acts of david. nathan and gad are referred to in the books, but in a manner that forbids the supposition of their authorship. these books were not written by samuel; neither were they written by samuel, nathan, and gad. their authorship is unknown. concerning the books of samuel, dr. oort writes: "there is no book in the bible which shows so clearly that its contents are not all derived from the same source.... two conflicting traditions relating to the same subject are constantly placed side by side in perfect simplicity, and apparently with no idea that the one contradicts the other" (bible for learners, vol. i, pp. , ). first and second kings. in the catholic version, and in the subtitles of our versions of the bible, first and second samuel and first and second kings are called the first, second, third, and fourth books of kings. they are properly one book. the division of the work into four books is not only artificial, but illogical. regarding the authorship of the last two, smith's "bible dictionary" says: "as regards the authorship of the books, but little difficulty presents itself. the jewish tradition, which ascribes them to jeremiah, is borne out by the strongest internal evidence" (kings). is this true? the date assigned for jeremiah's composition of the books is b.c. and yet a considerable portion of the work is devoted to a presentation of the forty years of jewish history subsequent to this date. it records the death of jehoiakim, the first siege and taking of jerusalem by nebuchadnezzar, the elevation of zedekiah to the throne, his eleven years' reign, the second siege and capture of jerusalem, and a long list of events that followed. it records the reign of the babylonian king, evil-merodach. this, according to the popular chronology, and according to the "bible dictionary," was from to b.c.--forty years after the date assigned, and long after the time of jeremiah. these books are a mixture of history and fiction. they profess to be a history of the hebrew kings; and yet a dozen chapters are devoted to a fabulous account of the sayings and doings of two hebrew prophets, elijah and elisha. first and second chronicles, which give a history of the same kings, refer to elijah but once, and make no mention of elisha. the confused character of their contents, especially their chronology, has often been referred to. they are simply a compilation of ancient documents, written at various times, and by various authors. the encyclopedia britannica expresses the almost unanimous verdict of critics respecting the authorship of the four principal historical books of the old testament: "we cannot speak of the author of kings or samuel, but only of an editor or successive editors whose main work was to arrange in a continuous form extracts or abstracts from earlier books." isaiah. isaiah, the chief of the prophetic books, and, next to the pentateuch and the four gospels, the most important book of the bible, purports to be a series of prophecies uttered during the reigns of uzziah, jotham, ahaz, and hezekiah. uzziah's reign began b.c. , and ended b.c. ; hezekiah's reign began b.c. and ended b.c. . isaiah's ministry is supposed to have extended from about to b.c., and toward the close of this period, the book of isaiah, as it now appears, is said to have been written. in support of isaiah's authorship of the entire work the following arguments have been advanced: . its various prophecies exhibit a unity of design. . the style is the same throughout the work. . messianic prophecies abound in both its parts. . no other writer claimed its authorship. . the ancient jews all ascribe it to him. the above arguments for the authenticity of the work are partly true and partly untrue. so far as they conflict with the following arguments against its authenticity as a whole they are untrue: . the work is fragmentary in character. . the style of its several parts is quite unlike. . many of its events occurred after isaiah's death. . much of it relates to the babylonian captivity. . it records both the name and the deeds of cyrus. isaiah might very properly be divided into two books, the first comprising the first thirty-nine chapters; the second, the concluding twenty-seven chapters. impartial critics agree that while isaiah may have written a portion of the first part he could not have written all of it nor any of the second. this is the conclusion of cheyne, davidson, de wette, eichorn, ewald, gesenius, and others. that he wrote neither the first nor the second part of the book, as it now exists, is proven by the following passages taken from both: "babylon is fallen, is fallen" (xxi, ). "sennacherib king of assyria came up against all the defensed cities of judah, and took them" (xxxvi, ). "so sennacherib king of assyria departed, and went and returned and dwelt in nineveh. "and it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of nishrock his god, that addrammelech and sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of armenia; and esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead" (xxxvii, , ). sennacherib ascended the throne b.c. and died b.c. isaiah lived in the preceding century. "that saith of cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the temple, thy foundation shall be laid" (xliv, ). "thus saith the lord to his anointed, to cyrus" (xlv, ). "he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives" (xlv, ). cyrus conquered babylon b.c. , and released the jews from captivity and permitted them to return and rebuild jerusalem and the temple b.c. , nearly two centuries after the time of isaiah. regarding these passages, dr. lyman abbott, in a sermon on "the scientific conception of revelation," says: "if you take up a history and it refers to abraham lincoln, you are perfectly sure that it was not written in the time of george washington. now, if you take up the book of isaiah and read in it about cyrus the great, you are satisfied that the book was not written by isaiah one hundred years before cyrus was born." prof. t. k. cheyne of oxford university, the leading modern authority on isaiah, says: "that portion of the old testament which is known as the book of isaiah was, in fact, written by at least three writers--and possibly many more--who lived at different times and in different places." nearly all of the ninth chapter, which, on account of its supposed messianic prophecies, is, with christians, one of the most valued chapters of the bible, professor cheyne declares to be an interpolation. that four of the middle chapters, the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth, and thirty-ninth, originally formed a separate document is evident. concerning these four chapters, paine truthfully observes: "this fragment of history begins and ends abruptly; it has not the least connection with the chapter that precedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book" (age of reason, p. ). if isaiah wrote this book, and jeremiah wrote the books of kings, as claimed; then either isaiah or jeremiah was a plagiarist; for the language of the four chapters just mentioned is, with a few slight alterations, identical with that of a portion of the second book of kings. the integrity of this book cannot be maintained. it is not the product of one writer, but of many. how many, critics may never be able to determine; certainly not less than five, probably more than ten. jeremiah. the prophecies of jeremiah, it is affirmed, were delivered at various times between and b.c., and a final redaction of them was made by him about the latter date. the book, as it now appears, is in such a disordered condition that christian scholars have to separate it into numerous parts and rearrange them in order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative. dr. hitchcock, in his "analysis of the bible" (p , ), says: "so many changes have taken place, or else so many irregularities were originally admitted in the arrangement of the book, that dr. blayney, whose exposition we chiefly follow, was obliged to make fourteen different portions of the whole before he could throw it into consecutive order." the following is dr. blayney's arrangement of the book: chapters i-xii; xiii-xx; xxii, xxiii; xxv, xxvi; xxxv, xxxvi; xlv-xlviii; xlix ( - ); xxi; xxiv; xxvii-xxxiv; xxxvii-xxxix; xlix ( - ); l, li; xl-xliv. this disordered condition of jeremiah indicates one of two things: a plurality of authors, or a negligence, if nothing worse, on the part of the bible's custodians that christians will be loath to acknowledge. the book, as a whole, was not written by jeremiah. he did not write the following: "and it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of jehoiachin king of judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that evil-merodach king of babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of jehoiachin king of judah, and brought him forth out of prison" (lii, ). the release of jehoiachin by evil-merodach occurred or b.c. jeremiah had then been dead twenty years. this book is not the work of one author. the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth chapters were not written by the same person. much of the thirty-eighth is a mere repetition of the thirty-seventh; and yet the two are so filled with discrepancies that it is impossible to accept both as the writings of the same author. jeremiah, it is declared, wrote both kings and jeremiah. he could not have written the concluding portion of either. the last chapter of kings and the last chapter of jeremiah are the same, and were written after the time of jeremiah. ezekiel. the period assigned for ezekiel's prophecies is that beginning b.c. and ending b.c. . christians assert that the first twenty-four chapters of the work were written before the destruction of jerusalem by nebuchadnezzar. the whole work was undoubtedly written after this event. the talmud credits its authorship to the great synagogue. if this be correct, ezekiel had nothing to do with its composition; for he was not a member of the great synagogue. ewald, while claiming for him the utterance of its several prophecies, believes that the book in its present form is not his work, but that of a later author. referring to ezekiel, dr. oort says: "in his case, far more than in jeremiah's even, we must be on our guard against accepting the written account of his prophecies as a simple record of what he actually said" (bible for learners, vol. ii, p. ). zunz, a german critic, not only contends that the book is not authentic, but declares that no such prophet as ezekiel ever existed. while it must be admitted that the internal evidence against the integrity and authenticity of ezekiel is weaker than that of the other books thus far examined, it can be confidently asserted that bible apologists have been unable to establish either. one damaging fact they concede: no other writer of the bible ever mentions the book or its alleged author. minor prophets. the twelve minor prophets, hosea, joel, amos, obadiah, jonah, micah, nahum, habakkuk, zephaniah, haggai, zechariah, and malachi, require but a passing notice. compared with the other prophets, or even with the principal books of the hagiographa, they are of little importance. a part of them may be genuine--the writings of those to whom their authorship has been ascribed--but there is no external evidence, either in the bible or elsewhere, to support the claim, while the internal evidence of the books themselves is not convincing. the date assigned for the composition of jonah, the oldest of the later prophets, is --according to some, b.c. he is said to have prophesied during the reign of one pul, "king of assyria." but unfortunately pul's reign is placed in b.c., ninety years after the date assigned for the book. jonah is named in the four gospels, named by christ himself. this is adduced as proof of its authenticity and in support of a literal instead of an allegorical interpretation of its language. but christ's language, even if his divinity be admitted, proves neither the authenticity nor the historical character of the book. he taught in parables, and certainly would have no hesitancy in using an allegorical figure as a symbol. no scholar now contends for its authenticity, and no sane person believes its stories to be historical. luther rejected the book. four other books, hosea, micah, zechariah, and malachi, are quoted or supposed to be quoted, by the evangelists, and two, joel and amos, are mentioned in acts. this proves no more than that these books were in existence when the new testament was written--a fact which none disputes. matthew (ii, ) cites micah (v, ii) as a messianic prophecy. micah lived during the reign of hezekiah and wrote, not of an event years in the future, but of one near at hand, the expected invasions of the assyrians. the passage quoted by matthew (ii, ) from hosea (xi, ) refers to the exodus of the israelites which took place years before the time of hosea. zechariah is the work of at least three writers. davidson says: "to zechariah's authentic oracles were attached chapters ix-xiv, themselves made up of two parts (ix-xi, xii-xiv) belonging to different times and authors" (canon, p. ). the passage quoted by matthew (xxi, ) is not from the authentic portion of zechariah, but from one of the spurious chapters, ix, . mark ( , , ) quotes a prophecy which he applies to john the baptist. the passage quoted contains two sentences, one of which is found in malachi (iii, ), the other in isaiah (xl, ). whiston declares that both sentences originally belonged to isaiah. if whiston is correct the evangelist has not quoted malachi. this, the last book of the old testament, is an anonymous work, malachi being the name of the book and not of the author. the period assigned for the prophecies of amos is from to b.c. the book contains the following: "in that day will i raise up the tabernacle of david that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and i will raise up his ruins, and i will build it as in the days of old" (ix, ). "and i will bring again the captivity of my people of israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them" ( ). amos was not written until after the captivity. this commenced b.c. and continued fifty years. joel, it is asserted, was written b.c. that this writer also lived after the captivity is shown by the following: "i shall bring again the captivity of judah and jerusalem" (iii, ). this passage, it is claimed, was a prediction made centuries before the event occurred. joel's ability to predict future events, however, is negatived by his next effort: "but judah shall dwell forever, and jerusalem from generation to generation" ( ). "nineveh is laid waste: who shall bemoan her?" (nahum iii, ). the composition of nahum is placed between and b.c. nineveh was destroyed b.c., a century later. the first verse of zephaniah declares that the book was written "in the days of josiah," in the seventh century b.c.; the last verse shows that it was written in the days of cyrus, in the sixth century b.c. every chapter of habakkuk and obadiah's single chapter show that these books were written after the dates assigned. the book of haggai is ascribed to haggai, the last person in the world to whom it can reasonably be ascribed. it is not a book of haggai, but about haggai. excepting a few brief exhortations, of which it gives an account, it does not purport to contain a word from his tongue or pen. this argument applies with still greater force to jonah. the greater portion of the minor prophets are probably forgeries. the names of their alleged authors are attached to them, but in most cases in the form of a superscription only. each book opens with a brief introduction announcing the author. these introductions were not written by the authors themselves, but by others. the only authority for pronouncing the books authentic, then, is the assurance of some unknown jewish scribe or editor. a damaging argument against the authority, if not against the authenticity, of the prophets is the fact that while the historical records of the old testament cover the time during which all of them are said to have flourished, only a few of them are deemed worthy of mention. chapter viii. the hagiographa. the hagiographa comprises the remaining thirteen books of the old testament. it was divided into three divisions: . psalms, proverbs, job. . song of solomon, ruth, lamentations, ecclesiastes, esther. . daniel, ezra and nehemiah, first and second chronicles. the jews considered these books of less value than those of the law and the prophets. the books belonging to the third division possess little merit; but the first two divisions, omitting esther, together with a few poems in the pentateuch and the prophets, contain the cream of hebrew literature. psalms. the collection of hymns and prayers used in public worship by jews and christians, and called the psalms, stands first in importance as a religious book in the hagiographa. christians accept it not only as a book of praise, but as a prophetic revelation and doctrinal authority. it is popularly supposed that david wrote all, or nearly all, of the psalms. many commentators attribute to him the authorship of one hundred or more. he wrote, at the most, but a few of them. the jews divided them into five books: . chapters i-xli; . xlii-lxii; . lxiii-lxxxix; . xc-cvi; . cvii-cl. smith's "bible dictionary," a standard orthodox authority, claims for david the authorship of the first book only. the second book, while including a few of his psalms, was not compiled, it says, until the time of hezekiah, three hundred years after his reign. the psalms of the third book, it states, were composed during hezekiah's reign; those of the fourth book following these, and prior to the captivity; and those of the fifth book after the return from babylon, four hundred years after david's time. there are psalms in the third, fourth, and fifth books ascribed to david, but they are clearly of much later origin. the "bible dictionary" admits that they were not composed by him, and attempts to account for the davidic superscription by assuming that they were written by hezekiah, josiah, and others who were lineal descendants and belonged to the house of david. but there is nothing to warrant the assumption that they were written by these jewish kings. they were anonymous pieces to which the name of david was affixed to add to their authority. the second book concludes with these words: "the prayers of david, the son of jesse, are ended." this is accepted to mean that none of the psalms following this book belong to david. the korahite psalms, assigned to david's reign, belong to a later age. twelve psalms are ascribed to asaph, who lived in david's reign. this passage from one of them was written at least years after david's death: "o god, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled: they have laid jerusalem on heaps" (lxxix, ). in the second and third books the word god occurs times, while jehovah, translated "lord god," occurs but times; in the remaining three books, god occurs but times, while jehovah occurs times. psalms xlii and xliii are merely parts of the same psalm. psalm xix consists of two distinct psalms, the first eleven verses constituting one, the last three another. psalms xiv and liii are the same; lx and cviii, omitting the first four or five verses, are also the same. the septuagint version and the alexandrian manuscript contain psalms, the last one being omitted from other versions. some of the more conservative german critics credit david with as many as thirty psalms. dr. lyman abbott contends that he did not write more than fifteen. the dutch scholars, kuenen and oort, believe that he wrote none. and this is probably the truth. while collections of these psalms doubtless existed at an earlier period, the book, in its present form, was compiled during the maccabean age, about one hundred and fifty years before the christian era. many of these psalms are fine poetical compositions; but the greater portion of them are crude in construction, and some of them fiendish in sentiment. proverbs. the authorship of proverbs has been ascribed to solomon. he could have written but few of these proverbs, and probably wrote none. it is a compilation of maxims made many centuries after his time. tradition represented solomon as the wisest of men, and every wise saying whose origin was unknown was credited to him. dr. oort says: "the history of solomon's wisdom resembles that of david's music. in either case the imagination of posterity has given a thoroughly religious character to what was in reality purely secular; and just as david was made the author of a number of psalms, so various works of the so-called sages, or proverb-makers, were ascribed to solomon" (bible for learners, vol. ii, p. ). the book consists of seven different collections of proverbs, as follows: . i, -ix; . x-xxii, ; . xxii, -xxiv; . xxv-xxix; . xxx; . xxxi, - ; . xxxi, - . the first six verses are a preface. the first collection, it is admitted, was not the work of solomon. these proverbs were composed as late as b.c. the second collection is presented as "the proverbs of solomon." if any of solomon's proverbs exist they are contained in this collection. the third collection is anonymous. the fourth begins as follows: "these are also proverbs of solomon, which the men of hezekiah, king of judah, copied out" ( b.c.). the fifth contains "the words of agur the son of jakeh." the sixth, comprising the first nine verses of the last chapter, are "the words of king lemuel." the seventh, comprising the remainder of the chapter, is a poem, written after the captivity. job. it is remarkable that the book which, from a literary point of view, occupies the first place among the books of the bible, should be the only one in the collection that was not written by a believer in the religion of the bible. it is almost universally conceded that the book of job was not written by a jew, but by a gentile. most christians ascribe its authorship to job himself; but there is no more authority for ascribing it to job than there is for ascribing the pentateuch to moses. job is the name of the leading character of the book, not the name of its author. its authorship is unknown. the talmud asserts, and probably correctly, that job was not a real personage--that the book is an allegory. luther says, "it is merely the argument of a fable." regarding its antiquity, dr. hitchcock says: "the first written of all the books in the bible, and the oldest literary production in the world, is the book of job." the date assigned for its composition is b.c. had job been written a thousand years before the time claimed, it would not be the oldest literary production in the world. but it was probably written a thousand years after the time claimed. luther places its composition years after this time; renan says that it was written years later, ewald and davidson years later. grotius and de wette believe that it was written years after the date assigned, while hartmann and others contend that it was written still later. while its exact date cannot be determined, there is internal evidence pointing to a much later age than that named. "which maketh arcturus, orion, and pleiades, and the chambers of the south" (ix, ). the use of these greek astronomical names proves a later origin. so, too, does the following passage: "the chaldeans made out three bands" (i, ). of this people chambers' encyclopedia says: "the chaldeans are first heard of in the ninth century before christ as a small accadian tribe on the persian gulf." this was seven centuries after the date assigned for job, while the same authority states that chaldea did not exist until a still later period. the poem of job, as originally composed, comprised the following: chapters i-xxvii, ; xxviii-xxxi; xxviii-xli, ; xlii, - . all the rest of the book, about eight chapters--nearly one fifth of it--consists of clumsy forgeries. the poet is a radical thinker who boldly questions the wisdom and justice of god. to counteract the influence of his work these interpolations which controvert its teachings were inserted. nor is this all. our translators have still further mutilated the work. its most damaging lines they have mistranslated or glossed over. thus job (xiii, ) says: "he [god] will slay me; i have no hope." yet they make him say the very reverse of this: "though he slay me, yet will i trust in him." the five rolls. the second division of the hagiographa, known as the five rolls, or megilloth, contains five small books--the song of solomon, ecclesiastes, lamentations, ruth, and esther. the song of solomon, song of songs, or canticles, as it is variously called, and ecclesiastes, or the preacher, are said to be the works of solomon--the former a product of his youth, the latter of his old age. it is quite certain that the same author did not write both, and equally certain that solomon wrote neither. the song of solomon, ewald affirms, is an anonymous poem, written about the middle of the tenth century b.c..--after solomon's time. it is doubtless of much later origin. it belongs to northern, and not to southern palestine. this alone proves that solomon did not write it. the talmud says, "hezekiah and his company wrote isaiah, proverbs, ecclesiastes, and song of songs." hengstenberg, one of the most orthodox of commentators, says that ecclesiastes was written centuries after the time of solomon. davidson believes that it was written as late as b.c.; while hartmann and hitzig, german critics, contend that it was written still later. solomon's song is an amorous poem, beautiful in its way. but when we turn to it in the christian bible and find the running titles of every page and the table of contents of every chapter filled with sanctimonious drivel about christ and his bride, the church, we are reminded of a lecherous parson masquerading under the cloak of piety among his female parishioners. the preacher of ecclesiastes is something of a freethought preacher. he is a skeptic and a philosopher. lamentations, it is claimed, was composed by jeremiah. there is little evidence either for or against this claim. oort affirms that its ascription to jeremiah is a "mistaken tradition," that its five poems were written by five different authors and at different times. the habit of ascribing anonymous writings to eminent men was prevalent among the jews. moses, joshua, samuel, david, solomon, daniel, and probably jeremiah, have been declared the authors of books of which they never heard. ruth is the only book of the bible whose authorship is generally conceded by christians to be unknown. dr. hitchcock says: "there is nothing whatever by which the authorship of it can be determined." many orthodox scholars admit that esther's authorship, like that of ruth, is unknown. some credit it to mordecai. it was written as late as b.c., years after mordecai's time. the vulgate and modern catholic versions include six chapters not found in our authorized version. there are many books in the bible devoid of truth, but probably none so self-evidently false as esther. it has been described as "a tissue of glaring impossibilities from beginning to end." luther pronounces it a "heathenish extravagance." daniel. christians class daniel with the greater prophets, and assign its authorship to the sixth century b.c. it belongs to the hagiographa and was one of the last books of the old testament to be written. a considerable portion of the book relates to belshazzar. twenty times in one chapter is he referred to as the king of babylon, and five times is he called the son of nebuchadnezzar. yet belshazzar was not the son of nebuchadnezzar, neither was he king of babylon. again the author devotes several chapters to darius "the median," who, he says, defeated the chaldeans and conquered babylon. now, nearly everybody, excepting this writer, supposed that it was cyrus the persian who conquered babylon. darius "the median" was never king of babylon. this book was written by one ignorant of babylonian history, and not by daniel, who lived in babylon, and who is said to have been next to the king in authority. prof. a. h. sayce, professor of assyriology in oxford university, considered by many the greatest of archæologists, a believer in the divinity of the bible and an opponent of higher criticism, is compelled to reject daniel. in a recent article, he says: "the old view of the old book is correct excepting the book of daniel, which is composed of legends.... the historical facts as we know them from the contemporaneous records are irreconcilable with the statements found in the historical portions of daniel." this statement, aside from its rejection of daniel, is significant. here is a man whose life-long study and researches make him preeminently qualified to judge of one book's authenticity and credibility. this book he rejects. the books he accepts are those concerning which he is not specially qualified to judge. dr. arnold says: "i have long thought that the greater part of the book of daniel is most certainly a very late work, of the time of the maccabees" (life and correspondence, vol. ii., p. ). this conclusion of dr. arnold's, made seventy years ago, is confirmed by the later critics who place its composition in the reign of antiochus epiphanes, about b.c. a part, if not all of the book, was written in aramaic. in the greek version the three small apocryphal books, history of susannah, song of the three holy children, and bel and the dragon, are included in it. the fact that the jews placed daniel in the hagiographa, instead of the prophets, is fatal to the claims regarding its authorship and date. ezra and nehemiah. ezra and nehemiah for a time constituted one book, ezra. this was afterwards divided into two books and called the first and second books of ezra. both were ascribed to ezra. subsequently the names were changed to those by which they are now known, and the authorship assigned respectively to ezra and nehemiah. that both were not composed by the same author is shown by the fact that each contains a copy of the register of the jews that returned from babylon. critics agree that ezra did not write all of the book which now bears his name--that it is the work of various authors and was written, for the most part, long after ezra's time. a portion of it was written in hebrew and the remainder in aramaic. nehemiah wrote, at the most, but a part of the book ascribed to him. he did not write the following: "the levites in the days of eliashib, joiada, and johanan, and jaddua, were recorded chief of the fathers; also the priests to the reign of darius the persian" (xii, ). darius the persian began to reign b.c.; nehemiah wrote b.c. "there were in the days of ... nehemiah the governor" (xii, ). "in the days of nehemiah" ( ). these passages show that the book, as a whole, was not only not written by nehemiah, but not until long after the time of nehemiah. spinoza says that both ezra and nehemiah were written two or three hundred years after the time claimed. the later critics are generally agreed that neither ezra nor nehemiah had anything to do with the composition of these books. first and second chronicles. the concluding books of the hagiographa, and of the old testament, if arranged in their proper order, are first and second chronicles. theologians tell us that they were written or compiled by ezra b.c. by carefully comparing the genealogy given in the third chapter of chronicles with that given in the first chapter of matthew, it will be seen that the records of chronicles are brought down to within a few generations of jesus. these books are a compilation of documents made centuries after the time that ezra and nehemiah are supposed to have completed the canon of the old testament, and a hundred years after the date assigned for the septuagint translation. the fragmentary character of many of the books of the bible, and particularly of chronicles, is shown in the conclusion of the second book. it closes with an unfinished sentence, as follows: "the lord his god is with him and let him go up--." the concluding words may be found in another book of the bible--ezra (i, ): "to jerusalem, which is in judah, and build the house of the lord god of israel," etc. the first verses of ezra are identical with the last verses of chronicles. the compiler of chronicles had seemingly begun to copy the document which now forms a part of the book of ezra, and in the middle of a sentence was suddenly called away from his work, never to resume and complete it. we have now reviewed the books of the old testament. we have seen that the claims made in support of their authenticity are, for the most part, either untrue or incapable of proof. when and by whom genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy, joshua, judges, ruth, first and second samuel, first and second kings, first and second chronicles, ezra, nehemiah, esther, job, psalms, proverbs, ecclesiastes, song of solomon, lamentations, daniel, jonah, haggai, and malachi were written is unknown. isaiah, jeremiah, amos, and zechariah wrote, at the most, but portions of the books ascribed to them. the few remaining books may have been written by those whose names they bear, though even these are veiled in doubt. there is not one book in the old testament whose authenticity, like that of many ancient greek and roman books, is fully established. chapter ix. the four gospels. the lesser in size but the greater in importance of the two divisions of the bible is the new testament. the principal books of the new testament, and the most highly valued by christians of all the books of the bible, are the four gospels. these books, it is affirmed, were written by matthew, mark, luke, and john, in the first century; matthew between and , mark and luke between and , and john between and a.d. the orthodox claims regarding the origin of these books are thus expressed by dr. hitchcock: "the four gospels are the best authenticated ancient writings in the world; so clear, weighty, and extensive is the mass of testimony in favor of them" (analysis of the bible, p. ). "these four books, together constituting the best attested piece of history in the world, were written by four eye-witnesses of the facts narrated" (ibid, p. ). "matthew and john were apostles and mark and luke were companions and disciples of apostles" (ibid). if these books are authentic and divinely inspired, as claimed, christianity is built upon a rock, and the floods and winds of adverse criticism will beat against it in vain; but if they are not authentic--if they were not written by the evangelists named--if they are merely anonymous books, written one hundred and fifty years after the events they purport to record, as many contend, then it is built upon the sand and must fall. the apostles. christians claim to have an "unbroken chain of testimony" to the genuineness and credibility of the four gospels from the alleged dates of their composition down to the present time. i shall endeavor to show that they have no such chain of testimony--that the most important part of it is wanting. twenty books--all of the remaining books of the new testament but three--are ascribed to the apostles paul, peter, and john. all of these books, it is affirmed, were written after matthew was written, and about one-half of them after mark and luke were written. if this be true, some proofs of the existence of the synoptic gospels ought to be found in these books. of the fourteen epistles credited to paul all have been assigned later dates than matthew, and a portion of them later dates than mark and luke. but there is not a word to indicate that any one of these gospels was in existence when paul wrote. the two epistles of peter, it is claimed, were written after matthew, mark, and luke were written. but these epistles contain no mention of them. the four remaining books, first, second, and third john and revelation, are said to have been written after these gospels were composed. their reputed author, however, knows nothing of these gospels. the three great apostles are silent--three links at the very beginning of this chain are missing. the apostolic fathers. after the apostles, and contemporary with the oldest of them, come the apostolic fathers, clement of rome, ignatius, and polycarp. clement wrote about the close of the first century. there are two epistles credited to him, but in these epistles are to be found no evidences of the existence of the four gospels. ignatius is said to have suffered martyrdom in the year . there are fifteen epistles which bear his name. a few of these are believed to be genuine, while the remainder are conceded to be forgeries. but in none of them, neither in the genuine nor in the spurious, is there any evidence that the gospels had appeared when they were written. polycarp, bishop of smyrna, who is said to have been the companion of john, died at a very advanced age, about the year . his epistle to the philippians is extant, but it contains no reference to the gospels. hermas and barnabas are usually classed with the apostolic fathers. the shepherd of hermas and the epistle of barnabas make no mention of the evangelists. that the writings of the apostolic fathers contain no proofs of the existence of the four gospels is admitted even by christian writers. dr. westcott admits it: "reference in the sub-apostolic age to the discourses or actions of our lord, as we find them recorded in the gospels, show, as far as they go, that what the gospels relate was then held to be true; but it does not necessarily follow that they were already in use, and were the actual source of the passages in question. on the contrary, the mode in which clement refers to our lord's teaching--'the lord said,' not 'saith'--seems to imply that he was indebted to tradition, and not to any written accounts, for words most closely resembling those which are still found in our gospels. the main testimony of the apostolic fathers is, therefore, to the substance, and not to the authenticity of the gospels" (on the canon of the new testament, p. ). bishop marsh makes the following admission: "from the epistle of barnabas, no inference can be deduced that he had read any part of the new testament. from the genuine epistle, as it is called, of clement of rome, it may be inferred that clement had read the first epistle to the corinthians. from the shepherd of hermas no inference whatsoever can be drawn. from the epistles of ignatius it may be concluded that he had read st. paul's epistle to the ephesians, and that there existed in his time evangelical writings, though it cannot be shown that he has quoted them. from polycarp's epistle to the philippians it appears that he had heard of st. paul's epistle to that community, and he quotes a passage which is in the first epistle to the corinthians and another which is in the epistle to the ephesians; but no positive conclusion can be drawn with respect to any other epistle, or any of the four gospels" (michaelis, vol. i., p. ). dr. dodwell says: "we have at this day certain most authentic ecclesiastical writers of the times, as clemens romanus, barnabas, hermas, ignatius, and polycarp, who wrote in the order wherein i have named them, and after all the writers of the new testament. but in hermas you will not find one passage or any mention of the new testament, nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists named" (dissertations upon irenæus). professor norton says: "when we endeavor to strengthen this evidence by appealing to the writings ascribed to apostolic fathers we, in fact, weaken its force. at the very extremity of the chain of evidence, where it ought to be strongest, we are attaching defective links which will bear no weight" (genuineness of the gospels, vol i., p. ). clement, ignatius, and polycarp, all refer to the epistles of paul, showing that they were in existence when they wrote and that they were acquainted with them. but they never mention the four gospels, and this silence affords conclusive evidence that these books as authoritative documents did not exist in their time; for it is unreasonable to suppose that they would use the least important and make no use of the most important books of the new testament. three additional and three of the principal links in this "unbroken chain of testimony" are wanting, and must be supplied before the authenticity of the four gospels can be established. the christian fathers. the early christian fathers had no knowledge of the existence of the four gospels. one of the earliest and one of the most eminent of the christian fathers was justin martyr. he lived and wrote about the middle of the second century. his writings are rather voluminous, and are devoted to the task of proving to both jews and gentiles the divinity of christ and the divine origin of christianity. if a christian writer were to attempt to demonstrate this now, where would he go for his authority? to the four gospels. these would constitute his chief--almost his entire authority. now, had these books been extant when justin wrote, and valued as they are by christians to-day, he would have used them, he would have quoted from them, he would have named them. but he makes no use of them, he never mentions them. he makes more than three hundred quotations from the old testament--messianic prophecies, etc.--and in nearly two hundred instances he names the books from which he quotes. he makes nearly one hundred quotations from christian writings that are now considered apocryphal, but he makes none from the four gospels. this silence of justin is the most damaging argument that has been adduced against the authenticity of the gospels. this demonstrates one of two things: that these books were not in existence when justin martyr wrote, were not in existence at the middle of the second century, or if they were, the foremost christian scholar of his age rejected them. recognizing the significance of this damaging fact, christian apologists have attempted to show that justin was acquainted with our gospels by citing extracts from his writings similar to passages found in them. westcott adduces seven passages, but admits that two only are wholly identical. he says: "of the seven, five agree verbally with the text of st. matthew or st. luke, exhibiting, indeed, three slight various readings not elsewhere found, but such as are easily explicable. the sixth is a condensed summary of words related by st. matthew; the seventh alone presents an important variation in the text of a verse, which is, however, otherwise very uncertain" (canon of the new testament, p. ). think of this renowned defender of christianity, justin martyr, attempting to establish the divinity of christ by citing four hundred texts from the old testament and apocryphal books and two only from the evangelists! there is really but one passage in the gospels to be found in justin. but if it could be shown that they contain many passages similar to, or even identical with, passages found in his writings, this would not prove that he has quoted from them. it is not claimed that these gospels are mere fabrications of their authors, or that they are composed entirely of original matter. they consist largely of traditions, and these traditions, many of them, were embodied in other and older books which were used by the early fathers. while the four gospels were not extant in justin's time, some of the documents of which they are composed, particularly those containing the reputed sayings of jesus, had already appeared and were frequently cited by the fathers. these citations, paley, lardner, westcott, and others, in their evidences of christianity, have adduced as proofs of the early origin of the four gospels. justin's quotations are chiefly from what he calls the "memoirs of the apostles." these, it is claimed, were the four gospels. if so, then the gospels we have are not genuine, for the quotations from the "memoirs" are not to be found in our gospels. justin says that mary (not joseph) was descended from david; that jesus was born in a cave; that the magi came from arabia; that jesus made ploughs and yokes; that a fire was kindled in the jordan at his baptism; that he was called a magician. the "memoirs," or gospels, from which justin quotes are not our gospels. the rev. dr. giles repudiates the claim that justin martyr recognized the gospels. he says: "the very names of the evangelists, matthew, mark, luke, and john, are never mentioned by him--do not occur once in all his works. it is, therefore, childish to say that he has quoted from our existing gospels" (christian records, p. ). papias, a christian bishop and a contemporary of justin martyr, is cited as a witness for the gospels. he is quoted by eusebius as referring to writings of matthew and mark. but the books he mentions are plainly not the gospels of matthew and mark. of matthew he says: "matthew composed the oracles in the hebrew dialect, and every one interpreted them as he was able" (eusebius' ecclesiastical history, book iii, p. ). this was not the biographical narrative known as "matthew," but probably an apocryphal book called the "oracles of christ," which some ascribed to matthew. mark is referred to as follows: "mark having become the interpreter of peter, wrote accurately whatever he remembered, though he did not arrange in order the things which were either said or done by christ. for he neither heard the lord, nor followed him; but afterwards, as i said, accompanied peter, who adapted his teaching to the occasion, and not as making a consecutive record of the lord's discourses" (ecclesiastical history, book iii, p. ). this does not describe our gospel of mark, which, although a compilation, is a consecutive narrative of events, and not a collection of isolated fragments. but even if papias was acquainted with the gospels, he is a poor witness to their credibility, for he accepted the teachings of tradition in preference to the books which he knew: "i held that what was to be derived from books did not profit me as that from the living and abiding voice [tradition]" (ecclesiastical history, iii, ). dr. davidson admits that the books mentioned by papias were not our gospels. he says: "papias speaks of matthew and mark, but it is most probable that he had documents which either formed the basis of our present matthew and mark or were taken into them and written over" (canon of the bible, p. ). "he neither felt the want nor knew the existence of inspired gospels" (ibid, p. ). the writings of thirty christian authors who wrote prior to are still extant. in all these writings there is to be found no mention of the four gospels. in the writings of theophilus, bishop of antioch, occurs the following: "john says: 'in the beginning was the word, and the word was god.'" this was written in , after the middle of the latter half of the second century, and is the earliest proof of the existence of any one of the four gospels. irenæus, bishop of lyons, who wrote about , is the earliest writer who mentions all of the four gospels. he names them; he declares them to be inspired; he makes four hundred quotations from them. the four gospels were in existence when irenæus wrote, and they were undoubtedly composed between the time of justin martyr and the time of irenæus--that is, some time during the latter half of the second century. writers on the evidences of christianity endeavor to establish the genuineness of the four gospels by showing that the fathers who lived and wrote during the two centuries following the ministry and death of jesus accepted and quoted them as authorities. they credit these fathers with more than four thousand evangelical quotations. but where are these quotations to be found? nearly all of them in irenæus, clemens of alexandria, tertullian, and origen, while in clement of rome, ignatius, polycarp, and justin martyr few or none are claimed. the fact that the writings of the fathers which appeared immediately after contain thousands of evangelical references, while in all the writings which appeared before the evangelists are not even named, affords conclusive evidence that the four gospels were composed during or near the decade that elapsed between and a.d. internal evidence. the four gospels do not claim to have been composed by matthew, mark, luke, and john. the titles are not "the gospel of matthew," "the gospel of mark," "the gospel of luke," and "the gospel of john," but "the gospel according to matthew," "the gospel according to mark," "the gospel according to luke," and "the gospel according to john." the titles simply imply that they are according to the real or traditional teachings of these evangelists. so far as the textual authorship is concerned, they are, and do not purport to be other than, anonymous books. omit these titles, and not one word remains to indicate their authorship. now, it is admitted that these books did not originally bear these titles. st. chrysostom, who believes that they are genuine, says (homilies i) that the authors did not place their names at the head of their gospels, but that this was afterward done by the church. there is nothing in them to support the claim that they were written by those whose names have been prefixed. on the contrary, their contents furnish conclusive proofs that they were not written by these supposed authors, nor in the apostolic age. matthew. christians believe that matthew's gospel was written in hebrew. our matthew was written in greek. an attempt has been made to explain the discrepancy by assuming that matthew wrote his book in hebrew, and subsequently rewrote it in greek, or translated it into this language. but another difficulty remains. the quotations from the old testament in matthew, and there are many, are taken, not from the hebrew, but from the septuagint (greek) version. this proves that it was originally written in greek and not in hebrew. the gospel according to the hebrews, it is affirmed, was the hebrew form of matthew. if this be true, then our greek matthew cannot be a correct translation, for the passages from the gospel of the hebrews which have been preserved are not to be found in matthew. the following quotations are from the gospel of the hebrews, this supposed original gospel of matthew: "he who wonders shall reign, and he who reigns shall rest." "then the rich man began to smite his head, and it pleased him not." "the holy ghost, my mother, lately took me by one of my hairs, and bore me to the great mountain tabor." "i am a mason, who get my livelihood by my hands; i beseech thee, jesus, that thou wouldst restore to me my strength, that i may no longer thus scandalously beg my bread." if these passages are from the original gospel of matthew, then the accepted gospel of matthew is spurious. this hebrew gospel was the gospel of the ebionites and nazarenes. eusebius says: "they [the ebionites] made use only of that which is called the gospel according to the hebrews." epiphanius says: "they [the nazarenes] have the gospel of matthew most entire in the hebrew language." st. jerome refers to it as "the gospel which the nazarenes and ebionites use." referring to these sects, dr. hug, the eminent catholic critic, says: "the ebionites denied the miraculous conception of christ, and, with the nazarenes, looked upon him only as an ordinary man." the gospel which these sects accepted as their authority could not have been our gospel of matthew, because the most important part of this gospel is the story of the miraculous conception. while the claim that matthew wrote his gospel in hebrew is vigorously maintained, the claim that he afterwards translated it into greek himself is so manifestly untenable that many have conceded its improbability. jerome says: "who afterwards translated it [matthew] into greek is not sufficiently certain." the consequences of this admission are thus reluctantly expressed by michaelis: "if the original text of matthew is lost, and we have nothing but a greek translation: then, frankly, we cannot ascribe any divine inspiration to the words." two texts may be cited from matthew which prove a later date for the gospel than that claimed. jesus, in upbraiding the jews, is reported to have used the following language: "upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous abel unto the blood of zacharias, son of barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (xxiii, ). zacharias, the son of baruch (barouchos), who is undoubtedly meant, was slain in the temple about a.d. thus matthew makes jesus refer to an event that occurred forty years after his death and twenty or thirty years after the gospel of matthew is said to have been written. dr. hug admits that this is the zacharias referred to. he says: "there cannot be a doubt, if we attend to the name, the fact and its circumstances, and the object of jesus in citing it, that it was the same zacharias barouchos, who, according to josephus, a short time before the destruction of jerusalem, was unjustly slain in the temple." regarding this passage in matthew, professor newman, of university college, london, says: "there is no other man known in history to whom this verse can allude. if so, it shows how late, how ignorant, how rash, is the composer of a text passed off on us as sacred truth" (religion not history, p. ). "thou art peter, and upon this rock i will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. and i will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (xvi, , ). this passage was written at the beginning of the establishment of the roman catholic hierarchy, for the purpose of securing the recognition of the church of rome (the founding of which tradition assigned to peter) as the church of christ. bishop marsh, in his michaelis, says: "if the arguments in favor of a late date for the composition of st. matthew's gospel be compared with those in favor of an early date, it will be found that the former greatly outweigh the latter." dr. davidson admits that matthew is an anonymous work. he says: "the author, indeed, must ever remain unknown" (introduction to the new testament, p. ). mark. as to where the gospel of mark was written, whether in asia, in africa, or in europe, is unknown. some believe that it was written at antioch; chrysostom states that it was written at alexandria; irenæus says that it was written at rome. if it was written at rome it was probably written in latin instead of greek. smith's "bible dictionary" concedes that "it abounds in latin words." the following is an example: "and he asked him, what is thy name? and he answered, saying, my name is legion: for we are many" (v. ). commenting on this passage, the rev. dr. giles says: "the four gospels are written in greek, and the word 'legion' is latin; but in galilee and perea the people spoke neither latin nor greek, but hebrew, or a dialect of it. the word 'legion' would be perfectly unintelligible to the disciples of christ, and to almost everybody in the country" (christian records, p. ). if it was written in latin, then our greek mark, like matthew, instead of being an original gospel, is simply an unauthenticated translation. mark has generally been considered a petrine gospel; orthodox christians claiming that peter dictated the gospel to mark. discussing this claim, the author of "supernatural religion" says: "throughout the gospel there is the total absence of anything which is specially characteristic of petrine influence and teaching" (vol. i., p. ). volkmar and others declare it to be pauline. one thing can be affirmed with certainty; it was not written by john mark, neither was it dictated by peter. the last twelve verses of mark, it is claimed, are an interpolation, because they are not to be found in the older manuscripts of the book. the revision committee which prepared the new version of the new testament pronounced them spurious. if these verses are not genuine, then it must be admitted that the second gospel is either an unfinished or a mutilated work; for with these verses omitted, it ends abruptly with the visit of the women to the tomb, leaving the most important events at the close of christ's career, his appearance and ascension--the proofs of his resurrection--unrecorded. the greater portion of mark is to be found in matthew and luke, and much of it in the same or similar language. judge waite, in his review of the gospel, says: "mark has almost a complete parallel in luke and matthew taken together. there are but verses which have no parallel in either of the other synoptics" (history of christianity, p. ). regarding the origin of mark, strauss says: "our second gospel cannot have originated from recollections of peter's instructions, i. e., from a source peculiar to itself, since it is evidently a compilation, whether made from memory or otherwise, from the first and third gospels" (life of jesus, vol. i., p. ). that neither peter nor mark had anything to do with the composition of this book is admitted by davidson. referring to it he says: "it has therefore no relation to the apostle, and derives no sanction from his name. the author is unknown" (introduction to new testament, vol. ii, p. ). luke. in denying the authenticity of mark and luke, what i deny is that these books were written by the traditional mark and luke, the companions of peter and paul. i deny that they were written in the apostolic age and by apostolic authority. as stated by "chambers's encyclopedia," "the question as to their genuineness is in the main question as to the fact of their existence at this early period; the special authorship of each gospel is a comparatively less important question." the book of luke is anonymous; it does not claim to be written by luke. and yet the fathers may have been correct in ascribing its authorship to him. if so, who was this luke? where did he live? when did he write his book? "chambers's" says he "was born, according to the accounts of the church fathers, at antioch, in syria." smith's "bible dictionary" says, "he was born at antioch." the gospel is addressed to theophilus. who was theophilus? the "bible dictionary" says: "from the honorable epithet applied to him in luke i, , it has been argued with much probability that he was a person in high official position." there is but one theophilus known to history to whom the writer can possibly refer, and this is theophilus, bishop of antioch, who lived in the latter part of the second century. luke and theophilus, then, both belonged to antioch, and it is undoubtedly to this theophilus that luke's gospel is addressed. this proves that it was written more than one hundred years after the date assigned for its composition. when luke assumed the task of writing a gospel, matthew, it has been claimed, was the only gospel extant. and yet luke in his introduction declares that many had been written; all of which he admits were genuine. jerome says that one of the gospels which luke refers to was the gospel of appelles: "the evangelist, luke, declares that there were many who wrote gospels.... they were such as that according to the egyptians, and thomas, and matthias, and bartholomew, that of the twelve apostles, and basilides, and appelles, and others." the gospel of appelles was written about a.d. if luke's gospel was written after the gospel of appelles, it was written after the middle of the second century. dr. schleiermacher, one of the greatest of modern theologians, maintains that luke is a compilation of thirty-three different manuscripts; as follows: chapter i, - ; i, - ; ii, - ; ii, ; ii, - ; ii, - ; iii, iv, - ; iv, - ; iv, - ; v, - ; v, - ; v, - ; v, - , vi, - ; vi, - ; vii, - ; vii, - ; viii, - ; viii, - ; ix, - ; ix, - ; ix, - ; x, - ; x, - ; x, - ; xi, - ; xi, - ; xii, xiii, - ; xiii, - ; xiii, - ; xiv, - ; xiv, - ; xv, xvi, xvii, - ; xvii, - ; xviii, xix, xx; xxi; xxii, xxiii, - ; xxiii, - ; xxiv. bishop thirlwall's schleiermacher contains the following in regard to the composition of luke: "the main position is firmly established that luke is neither an independent writer, nor has made a compilation from works which extended over the whole course of the life of jesus. he is from beginning to end no more than the compiler and arranger of documents which he found in existence, and which he allows to pass unaltered through his hands" (p. ). the immediate source of luke's gospel was undoubtedly the gospel of marcion, itself a compilation of older documents. referring to this gospel, the rev. s. baring-gould says: "the arrangement is so similar that we are forced to the conclusion that it was either used by st. luke or that it was his original composition. if he used it, then his right to the title of author of the third gospel falls to the ground, as what he added was of small amount" (lost and hostile gospels). the synoptics. the synoptics matthew, mark, and luke, it is claimed, are original and independent compositions, and the oldest of all the gospels, both canonical and apocryphal. this claim is disproved by the form and character of their contents. one of two things is certain: either these writers copied from each other, or all copied from older documents. the following, which are but a few of the many passages that might be adduced, afford unmistakable evidence of this: matthew--"they were astonished at his doctrine" (xxii, ). mark--"they were astonished at his doctrine" (i, ). luke--"they were astonished at his doctrine" (iv, ). matthew--"for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (vii, ). mark--"for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes" (i, ). matthew--"while he yet spake, lo, judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude, with swords and staves, from the chief priests," etc. (xxvi, ). mark--"while he yet spake, cometh judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests," etc. (xiv, ). matthew--"and without a parable spake he not unto them" (xiii, ). mark--"but without a parable spake he not unto them" (iv, ). matthew--"sought opportunity to betray him" (xxvi, ). luke--"sought opportunity to betray him" (xxii, ). mark--"but they understood not that saying" (ix, ). luke--"but they understood not this saying" (ix, ). the theory that the synoptics borrowed from each other will account for the agreements in their books; but it will not account for the disagreements, and these are quite as numerous as the agreements. the following hypothesis, however, will account for both. when the synoptics were composed probably fifty gospels, some of recent and others of early origin, were already in existence. in addition to these were a hundred other documents pertaining to christ and his teachings. from this mass of gospel literature the synoptics were compiled. those portions that agree were taken from a common source; those that do not agree were taken from different documents. dean alford believes that in the early ages of the church there existed what he terms a "common substratum of apostolic teachings," "oral or partially documentary." this, he says, "i believe to have been the original source of the common part of our three gospels." canon westcott admits that "their substance is evidently much older than their form." professor ladd, of yale college, says: "in some respects each of the first three gospels must be regarded as a compilation; it consists of material which the others have in common with it, and which was of a traditional kind more or less prepared before the author of the particular gospel took it in hand to modify and rearrange it" (what is the bible? p. ). bishop marsh, in his michaelis, says: "the notion of an absolute independence, in respect to the composition of our three first gospels, is no longer tenable" (vol. iii, part , p. ). prof. robertson smith, of scotland, pronounces them "unapostolic digests of the second century." evanson goes further and declares them to be "spurious fictions of the second century." the encyclopedia britannica concedes the fact that protestant scholarship in europe has virtually abandoned the popular orthodox position regarding the origin of these books. it says: "it is certain that the synoptic gospels took their present form only by degrees, and that while they have their root in the apostolic age, they are fashioned by later influences and adapted to special wants in the early church. they are the deposits, in short, of christian traditions handed down first of all in an oral form, before being committed to writing in such a form as we have them; and this is now an accepted conclusion of every historical school of theologians in england no less than in germany, conservative no less than radical." john. in addition to what has already been adduced against the johannine authorship of the fourth gospel, i submit the following: . john, the disciple of jesus, was an unlettered fisherman. the author of the fourth gospel was an accomplished scholar and a polished writer. his book is one of the classics of christian literature. . the apostle john was born at bethsaida. the author of john says that bethsaida was in galilee (xii, ). bethsaida was not in galilee, but in perea, and to assert that john wrote this gospel is to assert that he was ignorant of the location of his own town. . "in bethany beyond jordan" (new ver. i, ). "in enon near to salim" (iii, ). "a city of samaria, called sychar" (iv, ). these passages were written by one little acquainted with the geography of palestine and unfamiliar with the scenes he attempts to describe. . john, the son of zebedee, was a jew. the manner in which the author of the fourth gospel always refers to the jews is conclusive evidence that he was not a jew. . the synoptics state that jesus celebrated the passover with his disciples, and was crucified on the following day. the author of john states that he was crucified on the previous day, and therefore did not partake of the paschal supper. in the second century a great controversy arose in the church regarding this. those who accepted the account given in the synoptics observed the feast, while those who accepted the account given in the fourth gospel rejected it. now, we have the testimony of irenæus that john himself observed this feast. "for neither could anicetus persuade polycarp not to observe it, because he had ever observed it with john, the disciple of our lord" (against heresies, iii, ). as john accepted the account which appears in the synoptics and rejected that which appears in the gospel of john, he could not have written the fourth gospel. . the disciple john is represented as standing at the cross and witnessing the crucifixion. the author of john does not claim to have been present, but appeals to the testimony of an eye-witness in support of his statements: "and he that saw it bare record, and his record is true" (xix, ). . "now, there was leaning on jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom he loved" (xiii, ). "the disciple standing by, whom he loved" (xix, ). "to simon peter, and to the other disciple, whom jesus loved" (xx, ). this beloved disciple is said to be john. the synoptics, however, do not represent john as the favorite disciple. if there was one disciple whom jesus loved more than the others, it was peter. to ascribe to john the authorship of the fourth gospel is to ascribe to him a spirit of self-glorification that is simply disgusting. . "and many other signs truly did jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that jesus is the christ, the son of god: and that believing ye might have life through his name" (xx, , ). thus concludes the original gospel according to st. john. this book was not written by john, but it was written by a disciple of john for johannine christians. when the roman catholic hierarchy was formed and the gospel of john was admitted to the new testament canon, there was appended another chapter--a forgery. the hero of this chapter is peter. a dozen times jesus calls him by name. to him jesus gives the oft repeated injunction, "feed my lambs;" "feed my sheep." this chapter was added to counteract the johannine influence and exalt the petrine teachings so dear to rome. to give an appearance of genuineness to this forgery, "the disciple whom jesus loved" is again introduced and declared the author of the gospel, thus making john himself a supporter of petrine supremacy. . some of the most important events in the life of jesus, the synoptics state, were witnessed by john. the author of the fourth gospel knows nothing about them. "all the events said to have been witnessed by john alone are omitted by john alone. this fact seems fatal either to the reality of the events in question or to the genuineness of the fourth gospel" (greg). . even christians have tacitly admitted the hopelessness of maintaining the authenticity of both the fourth gospel and the synoptics. if the synoptics are authentic, the fourth gospel cannot be. smith's "bible dictionary" says: "in the fourth gospel the narrative coincides with that of the other three in a few passages only. putting aside the account of the passion, there are only three facts which john relates in common with the other evangelists" (art. gospels). . the author of john declares jesus to be god. the complete deification of jesus was the growth of generations. the early christians, including the apostles, believed him to be a man. later, he became a demi-god, and the writings and traditions which represented him as such formed the materials from which the synoptics were compiled. not until the latter part of the second century was jesus placed among the gods, and not until this time was the fourth gospel written. alluding to the fourth gospel, canon westcott says: "the earliest account of the origin of the gospel is already legendary." professor davidson says: "the johannine authorship has receded before the tide of modern criticism, and though this tide is arbitrary at times it is here irresistible" (canon of the bible, p. ). from a work entitled "the new bible and its uses" prof. andrew d. white, our present minister to germany, in his "warfare of science" (vol. ii, p. ), quotes the following in relation to john, which shows how rapidly the supposed authenticity of bible books is disappearing before the investigations of the higher critics: "in the period of thirty years ending in , of the fifty great authorities in this line, four to one were in favor of the johannine authorship.... of those who have contributed important articles to the discussion from to , about two to one reject the johannine authorship of the gospel in its present shape--that is to say, while forty years ago great scholars were four to one in favor of, they are now two to one against, the claim that the apostle john wrote the gospel as we have it." the four gospels. the principal reason for rejecting both the reputed authorship and the credibility of the four gospels is the contradictory character of their contents. if jesus christ was a historical personage, as christians believe, these alleged biographies were not written by his apostles and their companions; neither were they compiled from authentic records. the greek text of the gospels disproves their authenticity. their assigned authors, or two of them at least, were unlearned jews. their work was confined chiefly to the lower classes of their countrymen, in a land where greek was almost unknown. the absurdity of this is shown by mrs. besant: "the only parallel for so curious a phenomenon as these greek gospels, written by ignorant jews, would be if a cornish fisherman and a low london attorney, both perfectly ignorant of german, wrote in german the sayings and doings of a middlesex carpenter, and as their work was entirely confined to the lower classes of the people, who knew nothing of german, and they desired to place within their reach full knowledge of the carpenter's life, they circulated it among them in german only, and never wrote anything about him in english." the doctrines of the immaculate conception and of a material resurrection, so prominent in the four gospels, are proofs of their late origin. these doctrines are not taught in the older books of the new testament, and were unknown to the christians of the first century. the scholarly author of "supernatural religion," after a patient and exhaustive examination of every accessible document relating to the subject, writes as follows: "after having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those gospels during the first century and a half after the death of jesus" (vol. ii., p. ). bishop faustus, a heretical theologian of the fifth century, referring to this so so-called gospel history, says: "it is allowed not to have been written by the son himself nor by his apostles, but long after by some unknown men who, lest they should be suspected of writing things they knew nothing of, gave to their books the names of the apostles." regarding these four books and their sequel, acts, rev. dr. hooykaas, the noted theologian and critic of holland, voices the opinion of himself and his renowned associates, dr. kuenen and dr. oort, in the following words: "our interest is more especially excited by the five historical books of the new testament. if we might really suppose them to have been written by the men whose names they bear, we could never be thankful enough for such precious authorities.... but, alas! not one of these five books was really written by the person whose name it bears--though for the sake of brevity we shall still call the writers matthew, mark, luke, and john--and they are all of more recent date than their headings would lead us to suppose.... we cannot say that the gospels and the book of acts are unauthentic, for not one of them professes to give the name of its author. they appeared anonymously. the titles placed above them in our bibles owe their origin to a later ecclesiastical tradition which deserves no confidence whatever" (bible for learners, vol. iii., p. ). the pentateuch was not written by moses, nor the four gospels by matthew, mark, luke, and john. the authenticity of the chief books of the new testament, like that of the chief books of the old, must be given up. the results of our review of them may be summed up in the words of the great german, ferdinand christian baur: "these gospels are spurious, and were written in the second century." chapter x. acts, catholic epistles, revelation. in this chapter will be reviewed the so-called historical book of acts, the catholic epistles, and revelation. in some versions of the new testament the catholic epistles come immediately after acts. acts of the apostles. the acts of the apostles is one of many books bearing this name which appeared during the early centuries of the church. concerning the origin of our canonical acts, dr. hitchcock says: "it was written by luke, in considerable part from his own observations of the facts narrated, and about a.d. , and at rome, during paul's stay there." the gospel of luke is addressed to theophilus; the book of acts is addressed to the same person, and as the author states that he has addressed a former work to him, it is inferred that both works were written by the same person. it has been shown that theophilus lived in the latter part of the second century, and that the gospel of luke was written at this time. if luke and acts, then, were written by the same person, and acts was written after luke, it also must have been written late in the second century, and consequently could not have been written by luke, the companion of paul. it is asserted that luke was the associate of paul, and that he was in rome with paul when his book was written. this implies paul's sanction of the book. but if the epistles of paul are genuine, and it is generally agreed that those bearing upon this question are, this can not be true; for the paul of these epistles and the paul of acts are two entirely different characters. the book is entitled the acts of the apostles; and yet the acts of peter and paul are almost the only apostolic acts recorded. besides the narrative of the author, the book consists largely of discourses attributed to peter and paul. but the style of the "unlearned and ignorant" (iv, ) peter is so similar to that of paul with his "much learning" (xxvi, ), and both so closely resemble the style of the author, that one not strongly imbued with faith must conclude that the whole is the product of one mind. the author cites a speech made by gamaliel before the jewish council, in which he uses the following language: "for before these days rose up theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, almost four hundred, joined themselves, who were slain," etc. (v, ). josephus, who gives an account of this event (antiq. bk. xx, ch. v, sec. ), says that it happened "while fadus was procurator of judea." this was or a.d. gamaliel's speech was delivered, according to the accepted chronology, a.d. thus the author of acts makes gamaliel refer to an event as long past which in reality did not happen until sixteen years after that time. continuing his speech, gamaliel refers to another event, as follows: "after this man [theudas] rose up judas of galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him; he also perished" ( ). here the author makes gamaliel state that the sedition of judas of galilee occurred after that of theudas, when in fact it occurred in a.d.--forty years before. such grave discrepancies could have been made only by one writing long after the date claimed. holtzmann, a german critic, has shown that the author of acts borrowed from the antiquities of josephus. the antiquities appeared a.d.--just thirty years after the date assigned to acts. this book will not be given up by orthodox christians without a struggle. the authenticity of primitive christianity depends largely upon the authenticity of this book. renan who was a rationalist, and, at the same time something of an apologist for christianity, affirms that the last pages of acts, which are devoted almost entirely to paul's missionary labors constitute the only historical record of the early church. at the same time, he admits that it is the most faulty book in the new testament. the rev. dr. hooykaas concedes the same. he says: "of the earliest fortunes of the community of jesus, the primitive history of the christian church and the whole of the apostolic age, we should know as good as nothing if we had not the book of acts. if only we could trust the writer fully! but we soon see that the utmost caution is necessary. for we have another account of some of the things about which this writer tells us--an account written by the very man to whom they refer, the best possible authority, therefore, as to what really took place. this man is paul himself. in the first two chapters of the epistle to the galatians he gives us several details of his own past life; and no sooner do we place his story side by side with that of the acts than we clearly perceive that this book contains an incorrect account, and that its inaccuracy is not the result of accident or ignorance, but of a deliberate design, an attempt--conceived no doubt with the best intentions--to hide in some degree the actual course of events" (bible for learners, vol. iii., p. ). the dissensions which arose in the first century between the jewish christians and the gentile christians had only increased with time, and these were among the chief obstacles in the way of uniting christians and establishing the catholic church. the composition of acts was one of the many attempts made toward the close of the second century to heal these dissensions. the author was a man who cared little for either petrine or pauline christianity--little for the so-called truths of christianity in any form--but a man who cared much for church unity and church power. the book of acts was little known at first. st. chrysostom, writing in the fifth century, says: "this book is not so much as known to many. they know neither the book nor by whom it was written." james and jude. the seven catholic epistles, james, first and second peter, first, second, and third john, and jude, have been declared spurious or doubtful by eminent christian scholars in every age of the church. the fathers were loath to admit them into the bible, and their right to a place there has always been disputed. james and jude, the first and the last of these epistles, orthodox christians believe, were written by james and jude, the brothers of jesus, in and a.d. three leading orthodox authorities, representing the three great divisions of the christian church, cajetan of the roman catholic church; lucar of the greek catholic church, and erasmus of the protestant church, have denied the authenticity of james. luther himself refused to accept it. he says: "the epistle of james i account the writing of no apostle." the composition of jude and second peter are both placed in a.d. . there is no proof that either was in existence in a.d. . it is only necessary to read jude and the second chapter of second peter to see that one borrowed from the other. while most believe that the author of second peter used jude in the construction of his epistle, luther contends that jude is the plagiarist. he says: "the epistle of jude is an abstract or copy of st. peter's second" (preface to luther's version). jude cites as authentic the apocryphal book of enoch, and the apocryphal story of michael the archangel contending with satan for the body of moses. origen, jerome, and others in ancient, and calvin, grotius and others in modern times, have doubted its authenticity. mayerhoff says it was written in the second century to combat the heresies of the carpocratians. epistles of peter. most christians contend that the first epistle of peter is genuine. some of the early christian fathers, however, rejected it. irenæus did not place it in his canon. not until the third century was it accepted as the writing of peter. the celebrated tubingen school of critics rejects the authenticity of the book. baur and zeller believe it to be a pauline document. schwegler believes that it was written to reconcile the pauline and petrine doctrines. the dutch critics say that it was borrowed largely from paul and james, and that it was probably written early in the second century. regarding its authorship, jules soury, of the university of france, says: "nobody, however, knows better than he [renan] that the so-called first epistle of peter, full of allusions to paul's writings, as well as the epistle to the hebrews and the epistle of james, dates in all probability from the year a.d., at the earliest, thus placing two generations between the time of its composition and the latter years of the reign of nero, when peter is fabled to have been in rome" (jesus and the gospels, p. ). all critics pronounce second peter a forgery. chambers's encyclopedia says: "so far as external authority is concerned, it has hardly any. the most critical and competent of the fathers were suspicious of its authenticity; it was rarely if ever quoted, and was not formally admitted into the canon till the council of hippo, a.d. the internal evidence is just as unsatisfactory." smith's "bible dictionary" contains the following relative to its authenticity: "we have few references to it in the writings of the early fathers; the style differs materially from that of the first epistle, and the resemblance amounting to a studied imitation between this epistle and that of jude, seems scarcely reconcilable with the position of peter.... many reject the epistle altogether as spurious." it is believed by some that the original title of second peter was the epistle of simeon. grotius argues that it is a compilation from two older epistles. the third chapter begins as follows: "this second epistle, beloved, i now write unto you." these words clearly denote the beginning of a document. those who affirm its genuineness consider the second chapter an interpolation. westcott says there is no evidence of the existence of this epistle prior to a.d. scaliger declares it to be a "fiction of some ancient christian misemploying his leisure time." epistles of john. the so-called epistles of john, so far as the books themselves are concerned, are anonymous. they do not purport to have been written by the apostle john, nor by anyone bearing the name of john. of first john, "chambers's encyclopedia" says: "of the epistles it is almost certain that the first proceeded from the same writer who composed the [fourth] gospel. in style, language, and doctrine, it is identical with it." if john did not write the fourth gospel, and it is conceded by most writers that he did not, then he did not write this epistle. referring to the gospel of john, whose authenticity he denies and whose composition he assigns to the second century, dr. hooykaas says: "the first epistle of john soon issued from the same school in imitation of the gospel" (bible for learners, vol. iii, p. ). of two passages in the first epistle, ii, , and v, , which teach the doctrine of the trinity, the "bible dictionary" says: "it would appear without doubt that they are not genuine." the revisers of the king james version pronounced them spurious. the second and third epistles were not written by the writer of the first. the early fathers rejected them. eusebius in the fourth century classed them with the doubtful books. it has been claimed that the second epistle was written for the purpose of counteracting the heretical teachings of basilides and his followers. basilides was a famous writer of the second century. these epistles have the following superscriptions: "the elder [presbyter] unto the elect lady" to the first, and "the elder unto the well-beloved gaius" to the second. the declaration that they are from an elder or presbyter proves that they are not from an apostle, and consequently not from the apostle john. if they were written by a writer named john, it was probably john the presbyter, who lived in the second century. jerome states that they were generally credited to him. in his account of john the presbyter, judge waite says: "he is also, not without reason, believed to have been the author of the epistles of john" (history of the christian religion, p. ). revelation. revelation is the last book of the bible, and the one least understood. christians themselves are not agreed as to its meaning. some believe it to be a series of prophecies which have had their fulfilment in the struggles between christianity and paganism; others believe that its prophecies are yet to be fulfilled; still others pronounce it a symbolical poem, representing the conflict between truth and error, while not a few consider it the recorded fancies of a diseased imagination. the book purports to be from "john to the seven churches of asia" (i, ). this john is declared to be the apostle john and its authority is based upon this claim. smith's "bible dictionary" says: "the question as to the canonical authority of the revelation resolves itself into a question of authorship. was st. john the apostle and evangelist the writer of the revelation?" if john the apostle and the author of the fourth gospel were one, as assumed by the "bible dictionary," then the question of its authenticity and canonical authority must be abandoned, for the author of the fourth gospel did not write it. there is nothing in common between them. the german theologian, lucke, says: "if all critical experience and rules in such literary questions do not deceive, it is certain that the evangelist and apocalyptist are two different persons." de wette says: "the apostle john, if he be the author of the fourth gospel and of the johannine epistles, did not write the apocalypse." regarding this conclusion, ewald says: "all men capable of forming a judgment are of the same opinion." among the eminent critics and commentators who take this position are luther, erasmus, michaelis, schleiermacher, credner, zeller, evanson, baur, renan, and davidson. the apostle john wrote neither the fourth gospel, the so-called epistles of john, nor revelation. that he did not write revelation is shown by the following: . the author does not claim to be an apostle. . he refers to the twelve apostles (xxi, ) in a way that forbids the supposition that he was one of them. . the apostle john is declared to have been illiterate and incapable of writing a book. . it is addressed to the seven churches of asia, and yet the seven churches of asia, to which it is addressed, rejected it. the alogi maintained that it was a forgery which came from corinth. dionysius, bishop of alexandria, writing in the third century, says: "divers of our predecessors have wholly refused and rejected this book, and by discussing the several parts thereof have found it obscure and void of reason and the title forged." concerning its rejection by modern churchmen, the edinburgh review (no. ) says: "the most learned and intelligent of protestant divines here almost all doubted or denied the canonicity of the book of revelation. calvin and beza pronounced the book unintelligible, and prohibited the pastors of geneva from all attempts at interpretation." dr. south described it as "a book that either found a man mad or left him so." luther, in the preface to his new testament (ed. of ) writes: "in the revelation of john much is wanting to let me deem it either prophetic or apostolical." chapter xi. pauline epistles. fourteen books--romans, first and second corinthians, galatians, ephesians, philippians, colossians, first and second thessalonians, first and second timothy, titus, philemon, and hebrews--are ascribed, some correctly, some doubtfully, and others falsely, to paul. they were all written, it is claimed, between and a.d. genuine epistles. the genuine epistles of paul, those whose authenticity is conceded by nearly all critics, are romans, first and second corinthians, and galatians. the term "genuine" is applied to the books as originally written, and not to the text as it now exists. it is probable that they have undergone various changes since they left paul's hand. the last two chapters of romans are believed to be interpolations. the fifteenth consists chiefly of irrelevant matter which detracts from the symmetry of the work. the sixteenth is mostly filled with salutations. in these several women are given a prominence in church affairs that is wholly at variance with paul's attitude toward woman. the subscription to the first epistle to the corinthians states that it "was written from philippi." the th verse of the last chapter shows that paul was in asia instead of europe, while the th verse expressly declares that he was at ephesus. the second epistle to corinthians, it is declared, "was written from philippi" also. that this is doubtful is admitted even by the most orthodox authorities. the subscription to galatians reads as follows: "unto the galatians, written from rome." this book was written between and a.d.; paul did not go to rome until a.d. this epistle was written from ephesus. while critics are nearly unanimous in acknowledging the genuineness of these books, a few, including professor thudichum of germany, prof. edwin johnson of england, and w. h. burr of this country, pronounce them forgeries, and contend that the paul of the new testament is a myth. doubtful epistles. the doubtful epistles, those whose authenticity is accepted by some critics and rejected by others, are philippians, first thessalonians, and philemon. sixty years ago to this list of doubtful books critics would have added three others--ephesians, colossians, and second thessalonians; but the critical labors of the tubingen school and others have relegated these to the already burdened shelf of spurious bible books. in regard to philippians, ferdinand baur, for thirty years head of the tubingen school and unquestionably the greatest of bible critics, says: "the epistles to the colossians and to the philippians ... are spurious, and were written by the catholic school near the end of the second century, to heal the strife between the jew and gentile factions" (paul the apostle of jesus christ). baur also rejects first thessalonians. he contends that this, as well as the second epistle, contains teachings quite at variance with the teachings of paul. the german critic schrader is confident that paul did not write first thessalonians. respecting philemon, dr. hitchcock says: "this brief epistle was written at the same time with those to the colossians and ephesians, and was sent along with them by tychicus and onesimus." as colossians and ephesians have both been declared spurious by the ablest christian scholars, philemon, to say the least, is placed in bad company. this epistle was written in behalf of one onesimus, a zealous christian, who is also mentioned in colossians. there was an onesimus, a zealous church worker, living in a.d. holland's critics, dr. kuenen, dr. oort, and dr. hooykaas, are disposed to accept philippians, first thessalonians, and philemon, but admit that there are grave doubts concerning the authenticity of each. spurious epistles. the spurious epistles, those whose authenticity is generally denied by the critics, are ephesians, colossians, second thessalonians, first and second timothy, titus, and hebrews. ewald and de wette both admit that ephesians was not written by st. paul. de wette thinks it was compiled from colossians. davidson and mayerhoff believe that neither ephesians nor colossians is genuine. i have quoted baur's rejection of colossians. the encyclopedia britannica says: "it is undeniable that the epistle to the colossians and the so-called epistle to the ephesians differ considerably in language and thought from other pauline epistles and that their relation to one another demands explanation." first and second thessalonians are pronounced the oldest of paul's writings, both belonging, it is claimed, to a.d. the author of the second epistle is very desirous of having his writing accepted as a genuine epistle of paul. several times he declares himself to be paul. he warns them not to be deceived "by letter as from us" (ii, ), and concludes with "the salutation of paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle." this epistle affirms the first to be a forgery. the first was probably written at an early date, and, whether genuine or spurious, was accepted as a pauline epistle. in it the early advent of christ--during paul's lifetime--is predicted. "we, which are alive and remain unto the coming of the lord shall not prevent them which are asleep" (iv, ). "then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds" ( ). generations passed, christ did not come, and the church was losing faith in paul and christianity. to restore confidence, another letter from paul to the thessalonians was "found," and this repudiates the first. he exhorts them not to be troubled, "neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of christ is at hand" (ii, ). it teaches the second coming of christ, but carefully leaves the time indefinite. whatever may be said of the first epistle, the second is clearly a forgery. with respect to these epistles, the britannica says: "the predominant opinion of modern criticism at present is that the genuineness of the first epistle is certain, while that of the second must be given up." first and second timothy and titus, known as the pastoral epistles, and hebrews were not written by paul. the pastoral epistles are forgeries, while hebrews is an anonymous work. the contents of these books betray a later date. their teachings are not the teachings of paul. their language is utterly unlike that of the genuine epistles. they contain two hundred words never used by paul. marcion, the most noted pauline christian of the second century, who made a collection of paul's epistles, excluded them. tatian and basilides also rejected them. against the authenticity of the pastoral epistles may be cited nearly every modern critic, including the four great names of baur, eichorn, de wette, and davidson. baur says they were written in the second century. while thirteen of the so-called pauline epistles claim to have been written by paul, hebrews alone is silent regarding its authorship. tertullian classed it with the apocryphal books, but thought it might have been written by barnabas. in the clermont codex it is called the epistle of barnabas. according to origen, some ascribe it to luke, others to clement of rome. origen himself says: "who it was that really wrote the epistle, god only knows." dr. westcott admits that there is no evidence that paul wrote it. grotius attributes it to luke, luther to apollos. luther says: "that the epistle to the hebrews is not by st. paul, nor, indeed, by any apostle, is shown by chapter ii, " (preface to luther's n. t.). concerning the seven books that we have been considering, dr. hooykaas says: "fourteen epistles are said to be paul's; but we must at once strike off one, namely, that to the hebrews, which does not bear his name at all.... the two letters to timothy and the letter to titus were certainly composed long after the death of paul.... it is more than probable that the letters to the ephesians and colossians are also unauthentic, and the same suspicion rests, perhaps, on the first, but certainly on the second of the epistles to the thessalonians" (bible for learners, vol. iii., p. ). the rev. john w. chadwick, in his "bible of to-day," says that the first four epistles "are his [paul's] with absolute certainty." four others, philippians, colossians, first thessalonians, and philemon, he is disposed to accept, but admits that their authenticity is doubtful. the remaining books he pronounces spurious. persons in this age have little conception of the prevalence of literary forgeries in the early centuries of the church. now, when books are printed in editions of , or more, such forgeries are nearly impossible and consequently rare. when books existed in manuscript only, they were neither difficult nor uncommon. books and letters purporting to have been written by paul, peter, john, and other apostles were readily "discovered" when wanted. of these apostolic forgeries prof. john tyndall says: "when arguments or proofs were needed, whether on the side of the jewish christians or of the gentile christians, a document was discovered which met the case, and on which the name of an apostle or of some authoritative contemporary of the apostles was boldly inscribed. the end being held to justify the means, there was no lack of manufactured testimony." conclusion. of these fourteen epistles ascribed to paul, four, then, romans, first and second corinthians, and galatians, are pronounced genuine; three, philippians, first thessalonians, and philemon, are of doubtful authenticity; while seven, ephesians, colossians, second thessalonians, first and second timothy, titus, and hebrews, are spurious. the genuine writings of paul are probably the oldest christian writings extant. admitting the authenticity of these four books, of course, is not admitting the authenticity of christianity. paul was not a witness of the alleged events upon which historical christianity rests. he was not a convert to christianity until many years after christ's death. he did not see christ (save in a vision); he did not listen to his teachings; he did not learn from his disciples. "the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for i neither received it of man, neither was i taught it" (gal. i, , ). paul accepted only to a small extent the religion of christ's disciples. he professed to derive his knowledge from supernatural sources--from trances and visions. regarding the value of such testimony, the author of "supernatural religion" says: "no one can deny, and medical and psychological annals prove, that many men have been subject to visions and hallucinations which have never been seriously attributed to supernatural causes. there is not one single valid reason removing the ecstatic visions and trances of the apostle paul from this class." we have now reviewed the books of the bible and presented some of the historical and internal evidences bearing upon the question of their authenticity. the authenticity of the books of the new testament, we have seen, is but little better attested than that of the old. the authors of twenty books--matthew, mark, luke, john, acts, ephesians, colossians, second thessalonians, first and second timothy, titus, hebrews, james, first and second peter, first, second, and third john, jude, and revelation--are unknown. three books--philippians, first thessalonians, and philemon--are of questionable authenticity. four books only--romans, first and second corinthians, and galatians--are generally admitted to be authentic. of the sixty-six books of the bible at least fifty are anonymous works or forgeries. to teach that these books are divine, and to accept them as such, denotes a degree of depravity on the one hand, and an amount of credulity on the other, that are not creditable to a moral and enlightened people. part ii. credibility. chapter xii. textual corruptions. "the bible does not contain the shadow of a shade of error from genesis to revelation"--cheever. "every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, is the direct utterance of the most high."--bunyan. such are the dogmatic assertions of bibliolaters. so much confidence do they pretend to repose in the doctrine of the bible's inerrancy that they propose the most crucial tests for its submission. the rev. jeremiah jones, one of the highest orthodox authorities on the canon, lays down this rule in determining the right of a book to a place in the canon: "that book is apocryphal which contains contradictions; or which contains histories, or proposes doctrines contrary to those which are known to be true; or which contains ludicrous trifling, fabulous, or silly relations; or which contains anachronisms; or wherein the style is clearly different from the known style of the author whose name it bears" (new methods, vol. i., p. ). the rev. t. hartwell horne, a standard authority in the orthodox church, submits this test in determining the divinity of the bible as a whole: "if real contradictions exist in the bible, it is sufficient proof that it is not divinely inspired, whatever pretenses it may make to such inspiration" (introduction to the scriptures, vol. i., p. ). i challenge the verity of cheever's and bunyan's claims and proceed to apply to this book the tests of jones and horne. instead of not containing the shadow of a shade of error, i shall show that it is so filled with the darkness of error that the truths existing in it are scarcely discernible. instead of being the direct utterance of the most high, i shall show that every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, is the direct utterance of man. i shall impeach the authority of the christian canon and show that all of its books are apocryphal; that they contain histories and propose doctrines that are contrary to what is known to be true; that they contain ludicrous, trifling, fabulous, and silly relations; that they abound with anachronisms. if i have not already shown that the style of these books is clearly different from the known style of the authors whose names they bear, it is because the "known style" of these authors is a myth. i shall adduce enough real contradictions from the bible to not only refute the claim that it is divinely inspired, but to destroy its credibility even as a human authority. errors of transcribers. if the bible were a divine revelation, as claimed, it would have been divinely preserved. not only the original writers, but the transcribers, translators, and printers, also, would have been divinely inspired. it is admitted that divine inspiration was confined to the original writers. consequently the bible, as we have it, cannot be an infallible revelation. if it be not an infallible revelation it cannot be a divine revelation. it is popularly supposed that the books of the bible, as originally written, have been preserved free from corruptions. that they are full of textual errors--that the books as they were originally written no longer exist and cannot be restored--is conceded even by the most orthodox of the lower critics. the principal causes of these corruptions are the following: . clerical errors. the invention of printing made it possible to preserve the original text of a writer comparatively free from errors. with the works of ancient writers this was impossible. for a period of from , to , years preceding the invention of printing the only means of preserving the books of the bible was the pen of the scribe. however careful the copyist might be, errors would creep into the text. but instead of being careful these copyists, many of them, were notoriously careless. this is especially evident in the case of numbers. hundreds of errors were made in the transcription of these alone. probably one-half of the numbers given in the old testament, and many in the new, are not those given in the original text, but are errors due to the carelessness of transcribers and a want of divine supervision. . interpolations. there are thousands of interpolations in the bible. a considerable portion of the words printed in italics in our version are acknowledged interpolations. many of them appeared first in the shape of marginal notes intended to explain or correct a statement in the text. later scribes incorporated these into the text. and thus, while god was engaged in watching sparrows and numbering the hairs in his children's heads, additions in this and various other ways were made to his word. in many instances whole chapters were added to the original documents. . omissions. much matter was carelessly omitted. to quote the bible for learners, "not only letters and words, but whole verses have fallen out." objectionable matter was intentionally omitted. chrysostom tells us that entire books were destroyed by the jews. they were on such familiar terms with the deity that they could obtain other and more desirable ones for the asking. . textual changes. in innumerable places the text has been wilfully changed to suit the religious and other notions of the priests. let me cite an example. in early copies, and probably in the original text, genesis xviii, , reads as follows: "the lord yet stood before abraham." they thought it detracted from god's dignity to stand before one of his creatures, and so they changed it to its present form, "abraham stood yet before the lord." concerning the corruptions of the scribes, dr. davidson says: "they did not refrain from changing what had been written, or inserting fresh matter" (canon, p. ). the facts that i have mentioned apply not merely to the old testament, but to the new testament as well. westcott, a very high authority on the canon, says: "it does not appear that any special care was taken in the first age to preserve the books of the new testament from the various injuries of time or to insure perfect accuracy of transcription.... the original copies seem to have soon perished." errors of translators. these errors of the transcribers have been immeasurably increased by the translators. a perfect translation is impossible, and for these reasons: . no language has words to express perfectly all the words of another language. . languages change with time and the words of one age have a different meaning in the next. . many writers do not express themselves clearly, and it is often impossible to fully comprehend their meaning. this is especially true of bible writers. . no two translators will grasp the meaning of a writer in exactly the same manner, or convey it in the same words. in regard to the old testament the hebrew language, as anciently written, was the most difficult of all languages to translate. it was written from right to left; the words contained no vowels; there were no intervening spaces between the words, and no punctuation marks. even with the introduction of vowel points many words in hebrew, as in english, have more than one meaning. without these points, as originally written, the number is increased a hundred fold. the five english words, bag, beg, big, bog, and bug, are quite unlike and easily distinguished. omit the vowels, as the ancient jews did, and we have five words exactly alike, or rather, one word with five different meanings. the hebrew language was thus largely composed of words with several meanings. as there were no spaces between words it was sometimes hard to tell where a word began or where it ended; and as there were no punctuation marks, and no spaces between sentences, paragraphs, or even sections, it was often difficult to determine the meaning of a writer after the words had been deciphered. here is the best known passage in the bible printed in english as the jews would have written it in hebrew: bllwhtmcmdgnkhtmnhtbdllhnvhntrhchwrhtfr vgrfwsstbdrsvgrfdndrbldrdshtsvgnvhnstshtrnnd nkhtsnhtrflvmrfsrvldtbnttpmttntnsdldnsrtbdrn nmrvrfrlghtdnrphtdnmdg in the printed text there is little danger of mistaking one letter for another; in the written text there is, especially if they resemble each other. the hebrew letters corresponding to our d and r were nearly alike and easily confounded. consequently in numbers i, , we have "eliasaph the son of deuel," and in numbers ii, , "eliasaph the son of reuel." only god knows which is correct, and he does not care to enlighten us. therefore we must believe that both are correct or be damned. st. jerome says: "when we translate the hebrew into latin we are sometimes guided by conjecture." le clerc says: "the learned merely guess at the sense of the old testament in an infinity of places" (sentim, p. ). the old testament as we have it, then, consists largely of guesses and conjectures. the title page of our authorized version of the bible contains these words: "translated out of the original tongues." the old testament is declared to be a correct translation of the accepted hebrew. in its preparation, however, the greek more than the hebrew version was followed. referring to the king james translators, the historian john clark ridpath says: "following the septuagint rather than the hebrew original, they fell into many errors which a riper scholarship would have avoided" (cyclopedia of universal history. vol. ii., p. ). instead of being a collection of original guesses and conjectures our old testament is, to a great extent, merely a bad english translation of a corrupted copy of a spurious greek translation of the original (?) hebrew. on the title page of the authorized version of the new testament appears another falsehood: "translated out of the original greek." the original greek of the new testament, it is claimed, belongs to the first century. the "original greek" out of which our version was translated is less than years old. the greek version from which it was translated was made by erasmus in . referring to the materials employed by erasmus in the preparation of his work, the rev. alexander roberts, d. d., in his "companion to the revised version of the english new testament," a work which the committee on revision delegated him to write and which was approved, makes the following admissions: "in the gospels he principally used a cursive ms. of the fifteenth or sixteenth century." "in the acts and epistles he chiefly followed a cursive ms. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century." "for the apocalypse he had only one mutilated manuscript." "there are words in the professed original for which no divine authority can be pleaded, but which are entirely due to the learning and imagination of erasmus." little do christians realize how much of the bible is due to the imagination of theologians. in view of the difficulties that i have mentioned, if the translators had earnestly tried to give us a faithful translation of the bible their work would have teemed with imperfections. but they did not even attempt to give us a faithful translation. we know that in numerous instances they purposely mistranslated its words. a hundred examples might be cited. one will suffice--sheol. the translators themselves ought to be the best judges of each other's work. of beza's new testament, castalio says: "it would require a large volume to mark down the multitude of errors which swarm in beza's translation." of castalio's translation, beza says: "it is sacrilegious, wicked, and downright pagan." reviewing luther's bible, zwingle writes: "thou corruptest, o luther, the word of god. thou art known to be an open and notorious perverter of the holy scriptures." luther, in turn, calls the translators of zwingle's bible "a set of fools, anti-christs, and impostors." our authorized version is certainly as faulty as any of the above, and its translators have been the recipients of as severe criticisms as those quoted. the committee on revision, while compelled to treat it respectfully, declared against its infallibility in the following words: "the studied variety adopted by the translators of has produced a degree of inconsistency that cannot be reconciled with the principles of faithfulness" (preface to n. v.). different versions contain different books. that the charges that i have made concerning the corruptions of the text of the bible are true, one fact alone amply proves--its many discordant versions and translations. hundreds have perished, all of them differing from the original and differing from each other. a hundred still exist; no two of them alike. excepting the english versions, which are mostly revisions of the same version, scarcely two of the principal versions contain the same books. the received hebrew contains books ( as divided), the samaritan (some copies but ); the septuagint about . of the christian versions of the old testament, some contain the apocryphal books, others do not. the gothic and ethiopic versions exclude a part of the canonical books. the syriac new testament contains but books; the italic (some copies ); the egyptian ; the vulgate . the ethiopic omits a canonical book and includes an apocryphal book. the sinaitic and alexandrian manuscripts each contain books. each contains two apocryphal books, but the books are not the same. the roman catholic and the greek catholic bibles do not contain the same number of books. the roman catholic and the protestant bibles do not contain the same number; the roman catholic contains , the protestant . different versions of the same book differ. no two versions of the same book are alike. the samaritan pentateuch does not agree with the hebrew pentateuch; the septuagint pentateuch agrees with neither. the hebrew and the septuagint have both been accepted by christians as authoritative. in a single chapter may be found a dozen important variations: hebrew.--"and arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begat salah" (gen. xi, ). septuagint.--"and arphaxad lived a hundred and thirty-five years and begat cainan." hebrew.--"and arphaxad lived after he begat salah four hundred and three years" ( ). septuagint.--"and cainan lived a hundred and thirty years and he begat salah, and he lived after the birth of salah three hundred and thirty years." hebrew.--"and salah lived thirty years and begat eber" ( ). septuagint.--"and salah lived a hundred and thirty years and begat eber." hebrew.--"and salah lived after he begat eber four hundred and three years" ( ). septuagint.--"and salah lived after he begat eber three hundred and thirty years." hebrew.--"and eber lived four and thirty years and begat peleg" ( ). septuagint.--"and eber lived a hundred and thirty-four years and begat peleg." hebrew.--"and eber lived after he begat peleg four hundred and thirty years" ( ). septuagint.--"and eber lived after he begat peleg two hundred and seventy years." hebrew.--"and peleg lived thirty years and begat reu" ( ). septuagint.--"and peleg lived a hundred and thirty years and begat ragad." hebrew.--"and reu lived two and thirty years and begat serug" ( ). septuagint.--"and ragad lived a hundred and thirty-two years and begat serug." hebrew.--"and serug lived thirty years and begat nahor" ( ). septuagint.--"and serug lived a hundred and thirty years and begat nahor." hebrew.--"and nahor lived nine and twenty years and begot terah" ( ). septuagint.--"and nahor lived a hundred and seventy-nine years and begat terah." hebrew.--"and nahor lived after he begat terah an hundred and nineteen years" ( ). septuagint.--"and nahor lived after he begat terah a hundred and twenty-five years." hebrew.--"and terah took abram his son and lot the son of haran, his son's son, and sarai his daughter-in-law, his son abram's wife" ( ). septuagint.--"and terah took abram and nahor his sons, and lot the son of haran his son's son, and sarai and melcha, his daughters-in-law, the wives of his sons abram and nahor." the early christian versions and manuscripts contain an immense number of different readings, at least , . dr. mill discovered , different readings in the new testament alone. origen, writing in the third century, says: "there is a vast difference betwixt the several editions of the scripture, happening either through the carelessness of the transcribers, or else the forwardness of some who pretend to correct and adulterate the scripture" (commentary on st. matthew). modern versions do not agree. the readings of the catholic and protestant versions are quite unlike: the protestant versions themselves contain a great variety of readings. the new version is supposed to be simply a revision of the authorized version. the committee that prepared it was governed by this rule: "to introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the authorized version consistent with faithfulness." how many alterations were made? more than one hundred thousand! the following are some of the changes made in the new testament: old version.--"all scripture is given by inspiration of god, and is profitable for doctrine," etc. ( tim. iii, ). new version.--"every scripture inspired of god is also profitable for teaching," etc. old.--"and joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him" (luke ii, ). new.--"and his father and his mother were marveling at the things which were spoken concerning him." old.--"these things were done in bethabara beyond jordan" (john i, ). new.--"these things were done in bethany beyond jordan." old.--"god was manifest in the flesh" ( tim. iii, ). new.--"he [christ] who was manifested in the flesh." old.--"no man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place" (luke xi, ). new.--"no man, when he hath lighted a lamp, putteth it in a cellar." old.--"because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life" (matt, vii, ). new.--"for narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth unto life." old.--"our father, which art in heaven. hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come. thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. amen" (matt, vi, - ). new.--"our father, which art in heaven. hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come. thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. and bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." one would suppose that if christians preserved any part of the bible free from corruption it would be the prayer of their lord, a little prayer containing but a few lines. and yet they have not. the so-called lord's prayer that our mother's taught us is not the lord's prayer. the prayer we learned contains sixty-six words. the lord's prayer contains but fifty-five. the revisers have expunged fifteen words, added some, and altered others. the last twelve verses of mark, the first eleven verses of john viii, and john v, , three important passages, are all admitted to be forgeries. different copies of the same version differ. different copies of the same version contain different readings. st. jerome's version was declared a forgery, because it differed so much from the italic version then in use. jerome anticipated the charge and met the objection in his preface addressed to pope damasus: "two things are my comfort under such a reproach: first, that 'tis you, the supreme pontiff, that have put me upon the task; and secondly, that by the confession even of the most envious, there needs be some falsity where there is so much variety. if they say that the latin copies are to be credited, let them tell me which. for there are almost as many different copies as there are manuscripts." prof. wilbur f. steele, a noted christian scholar, relates the following relative to our own version: "in there was such confusion in the office of the american bible society, and such impossibility of telling what should be the reading in many places, that a man was set to work to bring order out of chaos. he took four bibles from as many leading bible houses of england, a copy of the american bible society, and a copy of the original edition of , all claiming to be the same. these were carefully compared throughout; every variation, no matter how minute, was noted. the number of these variations was about , " (central christian advocate). twenty-four thousand variations found in six copies of the same version! thus we see that different versions of the bible do not contain the same books; different versions of the same book do not contain the same readings, while even different copies of the same versions disagree. which is the word of god? if the bible had originally consisted of authentic and credible documents its credibility would have been greatly impaired by these wholesale corruptions of the transcribers and translators. but if we had the originals, it is doubtful whether their credibility would be much greater than these distorted copies. enough remains to show the general character of them, and this is bad. they consist mostly of historical and biographical narratives, interwoven with legends, myths, and fables; crude poetical compositions; the ravings of diseased religious minds, called prophecies and revelations; and theological dissertations, no two of which agree in their doctrines. a few of the books possess genuine merit and deserve a place among the literary treasures of the world, but all of them are fallible. remarkable, as coming from a theological professor, but fraught with truth and confirmatory of the statements made in this chapter, are these words of professor steele: "evidently every letter of the english bible has not been miraculously watched over. he who has neither eyes nor conscience may affirm it, but persons provided with these can not. if the affirmer hedges by saying he did not refer to translations but to the 'original,' we note that ( ) translations are the only thing most people have to go to heaven on; and ( ) that scholars of truth and conscience find equally as much fault with the 'original.'" "there are hundreds, if not thousands, of places in which the scholar finds conflicting testimony." in discussing the credibility of the bible the question of authenticity will, for the most part, be waived. with christians all of its books are genuine--the writings of those to whom they are ascribed--and for the sake of argument, as well as convenience, these ascribed authors will be recognized. chapter xiii. two cosmogonies of genesis. a stereotyped claim of bible believers is this: "the account of creation given in genesis is in harmony with the accepted teachings of science." but which account? in the opening chapters of genesis are presented two ancient poems, written by different authors. the first comprises the first chapter and the first three verses of the second chapter; the second comprises the remainder of the second chapter. each poem contains a cosmogony. but neither of them agrees with the demonstrated truths of science. above all, they do not agree with each other. the points of disagreement are many, chief of which are the following: . in the first cosmogony the appellation of deity is uniformly "elohim" (the gods), translated "god." this term occurs thirty-five times. in the second, the appellation of deity is uniformly "jehovah (yahweh) elohim," translated "lord god." this term occurs eleven times. the first belongs to the priestly code, the second to the jehovistic document. they represent different schools of jewish thought and different periods of jewish history. . in the first, earth is a chaos covered with water. the waters must be assuaged before vegetation can appear. in the second, earth is at first a dry plain. vegetation cannot exist because there is no moisture. "for the lord god had not caused it to rain upon the earth" (ii, ). . in the first, plants are created from the earth--are a product of the earth. "and the earth brought forth grass and herb" (i, ). in the second, they are created independent of the earth--are created by god and then transferred to earth. "the lord god made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew" (ii, , ). . in the first, fowls, fish, and aquatic animals form one act of creation--land animals and reptiles another; the former being created on the fifth day, the latter on the sixth (i, - ). in the second, fowls and land animals are created at the same time--form one creation act (ii, ). . in the first, fowls are created out of the water. "and god said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth" (i, ). in the second, fowls are created out of the ground. "out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air" (ii, ). . in the first, trees are created before man. trees appear on the third day, while man does not appear until the sixth day. in the second, trees are created after man. "and the lord god formed man; ... planted a garden eastward in eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree," etc. (ii, , .) . in the first, fowls are created before man--are created on the fifth day, while the creation of man does not occur until the sixth day. in the second, fowls are created after man. "the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them" (ii, ). . in the first, man is created after the beasts. god's first work on the sixth day was the creation of beasts, his last work was the creation of man (i, - ). in the second, man is created before the beasts. god makes man before he plants the garden of eden, while beasts are not made until after the garden is planted (ii, - ). . in the first, man and woman are created at the same time. "so god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them" (i, ). in the second, woman is created after man. the writer supposes a considerable period of time to have elapsed between the creation of man and the creation of woman. god creates man; then he plants a garden and places the man there to tend it; next he makes the animals and birds and brings them to adam to name; finally he concludes that adam needs a helpmate, and taking a rib from his body, creates woman. . the first cosmogony comprises eight distinct creations: . light. . the firmament. . dry land. . vegetation. . sun, moon, and stars. . fish and fowls. . land animals. . man. the second comprises four creations: . man (adam). . trees. . animals. . woman (eve). . in the first, the heavens and the earth are created in six literal days. in the second, no mention is made of this six days' creation. on the contrary, the writer simply refers to "the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens" (ii, ). . in the first, god, from his throne in heaven, speaks earth's creation into being. "god said, let the earth bring forth, ... and it was so." in the second, god comes down on earth, plants a garden, molds man out of clay, breathes in his nostrils, makes woman out of a rib, makes birds and animals as a child makes mud pies, and brings them to adam to see what he will call them. . in the first, man at the creation is given both fruit and herbs to subsist upon. "behold i have given you every herb bearing seed, ... and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" (i, ). in the second, he is given fruit alone for food. not until after he sins and the curse is pronounced does god say, "thou shalt eat the herb of the field" (iii, ). according to this writer the use of herbs and grain for food was a consequence of man's fall. . in the first, man may partake of the fruit of all the trees. "every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" (i, ). in the second, he is not permitted to partake of the fruit of all the trees. "ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden" (iii, ). "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it" (ii, ). . in the first, "god made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament" (i, ). when moisture was needed "the windows of heaven were opened" and water discharged from the reservoir above. when enough was discharged "the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained" (viii, ). in the second, when moisture was needed, "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (ii, ). . in the first, man is given dominion over all the earth. "let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth" (i, ). in the second, his dominion is confined to a garden. "and the lord god took the man, and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and keep it" (ii, ). . both cosmogonies are theological rather than scientific. the real purpose of the first, in its present form at least, is not so much to explain the creation of the universe as to inculcate a belief in the divine institution of the sabbath. it belongs to the priestly code, and one of the chief pillars of priestcraft is the sabbath. the second contains no recognition of the sabbath. the chief purpose of this account of the creation, if we include the third chapter, which is really a continuation of it, is to establish the doctrine of the fall of man. . according to the first the creator is an optimist. he views all his works and declares them "good." according to the second the creator is a pessimist. he sees in his works both "good and evil;" the good continuing to diminish, and the evil continuing to increase. to establish the credibility and divine origin of genesis it is necessary not merely to harmonize its theories with science, but to reconcile its statements with each other. the latter is as impossible as the former. dean stanley, in his memorial sermon on sir charles lyell at westminster abbey, made this frank admission: "it is now clear to diligent students of the bible that the first and second chapters of genesis contain two narratives of the creation, side by side, differing from each other in most every particular of time, place, and order." chapter xiv. the patriarchal age. in disproof of the credibility of the so-called patriarchal history of the pentateuch, a few of its many incredible and contradictory statements will be presented here. . the following are the recorded ages of the patriarchs: adam, years (gen. v, ); seth, ( ); enos, ( ). cainan, ( ); mahalaleel, ( ); jared, ( ); enoch, ( ) methuselah, ( ); lamech, ( ); noah, (ix, ); shem, (xi, , ); arphaxad, ( , ); cainan, (omitted in hebrew version, but given in septuagint); salah, ( , ); eber, ( , ), peleg, ( , ); reu, ( , ); serug, , ( , ); nahor, ( , ); terah, ( ); abraham, , (xxv, ); isaac, (xxxv, ); jacob, (xlvii, ); joseph, (l, ). eleven generations of these patriarchs (twelve if cainan be included), noah, shem, arphaxad, (cainan), salah, eber, peleg, reu, serug, nahor, terah, and abraham, were all living at the same time. noah died in the year a.m. when adam died noah's father was years old. abraham was the twentieth generation from adam. when abraham was years old, noah, whose father was years old when adam died, was still living. when noah died, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson, abraham, was an old man. isaac was the eleventh generation from shem. when shem died isaac was years old. jacob was the thirteenth generation from noah. when noah's eldest son died jacob was years old. the combined ages of seven patriarchs equal a sum five hundred years greater than the time that has elapsed from the creation of the world to the present time. . "every one that findeth me shall slay me" (gen. iv, ). "and the lord set a mark upon cain, lest any finding him should kill him" ( ). "and cain went out from the presence of the lord, and dwelt in the land of nod" ( ). "and cain knew his wife: and she conceived, and bare enoch; and he [cain] builded a city" ( ). cain, believing that he had a plurality of lives, and fearing that every one who found him would take one, appealed to god, who set a mark on him so that his father and mother, the only persons in existence besides himself, would know him. then going out from the presence of omnipresence, he went to a country where nobody lived, married a wife, and built a city with a population of three inhabitants. . "and methuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and begat lamech: and methuselah lived after he begat lamech seven hundred eighty and two years.... and all the days of methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years" (gen. v, - ). "and lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: and he called his name noah" ( , ). "in the six hundredth year of noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened" (vii, ). "and it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth" (viii, ). "and noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. and all the days of noah were nine hundred and fifty years" (ix, , ). when the flood began noah was years (one month and seventeen days) old; when it ended he was exactly years old. it is commonly supposed that methuselah died before the flood. if the foregoing passages be correct, he did not, as will be shown by the following: . from the birth of lamech to the beginning of the flood was years + = years; and from the birth of lamech to the end of the flood was years + years = years. if methuselah lived after he begat lamech years, he lived until the end of the flood. . from the birth of methuselah to the beginning of the flood was years + years + years = years. from the birth of methuselah to the end of the flood was years + years + years = years. at the commencement of the flood he was but years old, and not until the end of it was he . . from the birth of methuselah to the death of noah was years + years + years = years. as noah died years after the flood, from the birth of methuselah to the end of the flood was years - years = years. if he lived years, he lived until the end of the flood. as methuselah was not one of the eight persons that went into the ark, where was he during the flood? according to the septuagint genesis, the flood occurred fourteen years before the death of methuselah. . "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee" (gen. vi, , ). "of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female" (vii, , ). referring to the above, the celebrated jewish commentator, dr. kalisch, says: "noah was commanded to take into the ark seven pairs of all clean, and one pair of all unclean, animals, whereas he had before been ordered to take one pair of every species, no distinction whatever between clean and unclean animals having been made.... we do not hesitate to acknowledge here the manifest contradiction." . "and noah was five hundred years old; and noah begat shem" (v, ). "and noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth" (vii, ). "shem was a hundred years old, and he begat arphaxad two years after the flood" (xi, ). if noah was five hundred years old when he begat shem, and six hundred years old at the time of the flood, shem was one hundred years old at the time of the flood. if shem begat arphaxad two years after the flood, he was one hundred and two years old when he begat arphaxad. . "and arphaxad begat salah" (gen. x, ). "and arphaxad begat shelah" ( chron. i, ). "and arphaxad begat cainan, and cainan begat salah" (genesis, sept. ver.). "which was the son of sala, which was the son of cainan, which was the son of arphaxad" (luke iii, , ). according to the hebrew genesis and chronicles, arphaxad was the father of salah; according to the septuagint genesis and luke, cainan was the father, and arphaxad the grandfather of salah. . "the woman [sarah] was taken into pharaoh's house" (gen. xii, ). "and pharaoh called abram, and said, what is this that thou hast done unto me?" ( ). "and abimelech king of gerar sent, and took sarah" (xx, ). "then abimelech called unto abraham, and said unto him, what hast thou done unto us?" ( ). it may be claimed that both pharaoh and abimelech took sarah. but it is evident that these are both legends of the same event, or, rather, different and conflicting forms of the same legend. the first belongs to the jehovist, the second to the elohist. . "and abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of haran.... and into the land of canaan they came" (gen. xii, , ). "and terah lived seventy years and begat abram" (xi, ). "and the days of terah were two hundred and five years" ( ). "when his father was dead, he [abram] removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell" (acts vii, ). if abram did not go to canaan until after the death of his father, he did not go until he was years old, years older than stated in the first account. . "and abram was four score and six years old when hagar bare ishmael to abram" (gen. xvi, ). "and abraham was a hundred years old when his son isaac was born unto him" (xxi, ). "and the child [isaac] grew, and was weaned" ( ). "and abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child [ishmael], and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of beersheba. and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs" ( , ). when isaac was weaned, and hagar was sent into the wilderness, ishmael, who was about sixteen years old, is represented as a babe in his mother's arms. . "and esau was forty years old when he took to wife judith the daughter of beeri the hittite, and bashemath the daughter of elon the hittite" (gen. xxvi, ). "esau took his wives of the daughters of canaan; adah the daughter of elon the hittite, and aholibamah the daughter of anah the daughter of zibeon the hivite; and bashemath ishmael's daughter" (xxxvi, , ). did esau marry two wives, according to the first account, or three, according to the second? was his first wife judith, the daughter of beeri, or adah, the daughter of elon? was bashemath the daughter of elon the hittite, or was she the daughter of his uncle ishmael? . "i appeared unto abraham, unto isaac, and unto jacob, by the name of god almighty: but by my name jehovah was i not known to them" (ex. vi, ). "i [abraham] have lifted up mine hand unto the lord [jehovah] the most high god" (gen. xiv, ). "he [isaac] said, for now the lord [jehovah] hath made room for us" (xxvi, ). "he [jacob] said, surely the lord [jehovah] is in this place" (xxviii, ). according to the writer in exodus, jehovah did not become the national god of israel until after the time of abraham, isaac, and jacob. according to the writer in genesis, he was known to each of these patriarchs. . "all the souls of the house of jacob, which came into egypt, were three score and ten" (xlvi, ). "then sent joseph, and called his father jacob to him, and all his kindred, three score and fifteen souls" (acts vii, ). . "and the midianites sold him [joseph] into egypt unto potiphar, an officer of pharaoh's, and captain of the guard" (gen. xxxvii, ). "and potiphar, an officer of pharaoh, captain of the guard, an egyptian, bought him [joseph] of the hands of the ishmaelites" (xxxix, ). . "now the sons of jacob were twelve: the sons of leah; reuben, jacob's firstborn, and simeon, and levi," etc. (gen. xxxv, , ). "and these are the names of the sons of levi, according to their generations: gershon, and kohath" etc. (ex. vi, ). "and the sons of kohath; amram," etc. ( ). "and amram took him jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him aaron and moses" ( ). "and the children of israel journeyed from ramases to succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children" (ex. xii, ). levi was the son of jacob, kohath was the son of levi, amram was the son of kohath, and moses was the son of amram. moses was the fourth generation from jacob. in the time of moses the adult male population of israel numbered , , representing a total population of about , , . thus in four generations the progeny of jacob increased from twelve persons to three millions. . judah, jacob's fourth son, married and had three sons--er, onan, and shelah. er grew to manhood, married tamar, and died. onan then married his widow, and died also. shelah, who was much younger than onan, grew to manhood and refused to marry his brother's widow. tamar then had two sons, pharez and zarah, by judah himself (gen. xxxviii). pharez grew to manhood, married, and had two sons, hezron and hamil (xlvi, ), before jacob and his family went to egypt. when they went to egypt, judah was but forty-two years old. chapter xv. the jewish kings. much of the bible is devoted to events which are narrated but once. these records may be true, or they may be false. we may question their truthfulness, but it is difficult to demonstrate their falsity. had all the events of the bible been recorded but once its credibility could the more easily be maintained. but wherever two or more accounts of the same events occur, such as in kings and chronicles, where two histories of the jewish kings are given, and in the four gospels, where four biographies of jesus are given, we find them so filled with discrepancies as to make them unworthy of credit. the following are some of the contradictory statements that occur in the books pertaining to the jewish kings: was david the seventh or the eighth son of jesse? "and jesse begat his first-born eliab, and abinadab the second, and shimma the third, nethaniel the fourth, raddai the fifth, ozem the sixth, david the seventh" ( chron. ii, - ). "again, jesse made seven of his sons to pass before samuel. and samuel said unto jesse, the lord hath not chosen these. and samuel said unto jesse, are here all thy children? and he said, there remaineth yet the youngest [david]" ( sam. xvi, , ). who gave david the shewbread to eat when he was a fugitive from saul? "then came david to nob to abimelech the [high] priest.... so the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the shewbread" ( sam. xxi, , ). "and he [jesus] said unto them, have ye never read what david did when he was ahungered, he, and they that were with him? how he went into the house of god in the days of abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread?" (mark ii, , ). what relation did the high priests abimelech and abiathar bear to each other? "abiathar the son of abimelech" ( sam. xxiii, ). "abimelech the son of abiathar" ( sam. viii, ). what sons were born to david in jerusalem? "and these be the names of those that were born unto him in jerusalem: shammuah, and shobab, and nathan, and solomon, ibhar also, and elishua, and nepheg, and japhia, and elishama, and eliada, and eliphalet" ( sam. v, - ). "now these are the names of his children which he had in jerusalem: shammua, and shobab, nathan, and solomon, and ibhar, and elishua, and elpalet, and nogah, and nepheg and japhia, and elishama, and beeliada, and eliphalet" ( chron. xiv, - ). what was the name of david's tenth son (twelfth according to chronicles)? eliada ( sam. v, ). beeliada ( chron. xiv, ). "eliada" means "god knows;" "beeliada" means "baal knows." did david name his son for the god of the jews, or for the god of the heathen? how many horsemen did david take from hadadezer? "david took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen" ( sam. viii, ). "david took from him a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen" ( chron. xviii, ). was it forty thousand horsemen or forty thousand footmen that david slew of the syrians? "david slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the syrians, and forty thousand horsemen" ( sam. x, ). "david slew of the syrians seven thousand men which fought in chariots and forty thousand footmen" ( chron. xix, ). who moved david to number the people, the lord or satan? "the anger of the lord was kindled against israel, and he moved david against them to say, go, number israel and judah" ( sam. xxiv, ). "and satan stood up against israel, and provoked david to number israel" ( chron. xxi, ). how many warriors had israel and judah? "and there were in israel eight hundred thousand [ , ] valiant men that drew the sword, and the men of judah were five hundred thousand [ , ] men" ( sam. xxiv, ). "and all they of israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand [ , , ] men that drew sword; and judah was four hundred three score and ten thousand [ , ] men" ( chron. xxi, ). was david to suffer three or seven years of famine? "so gad came to david and said unto him: thus saith the lord, choose thee either three years of famine, or three months to be destroyed before thy foes" ( chron. xxi, , ). "so gad came to david and told him, and said unto him, shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies?" ( sam. xxiv, ). what did david pay for the threshing floor? "and gad came that day to david, and said unto him, go up, rear an altar unto the lord in the threshing floor of araunah [ornan] the jebusite.... so david bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver [$ . ]" ( sam. xxiv, , ). "then the angel of the lord commanded gad to say to david, that david should go up, and set up an altar unto the lord in the threshing-floor of ornan the jebusite.... so david gave to ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold [$ , ]" ( chron. xxi, , ). how many overseers did solomon have while building the temple? "and solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and four score thousand hewers in the mountains; besides the chief of solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three hundred" ( kings, v, , ). "and he set three score and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens and four score thousand to be hewers in the mountains, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people awork" ( chron. ii, ). what was the height of the pillars before the house? "for he cast two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high apiece.... and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof boaz" ( kings vii, , ). "also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, ... and called the name of that on the right hand jachin, and the name of that on the left boaz" ( chron. iii, , ). what was the capacity of the molten sea? "and he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other.... and it was a hand-breadth thick, and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies: it contained two thousand baths" ( kings vii, , ). "also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim.... and the thickness of it was a handbreadth, and the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies; and it received and held three thousand baths" ( chron. iv, , ). how many overseers did solomon have over his other works? "these were the chief of the officers that were over solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work" ( kings ix, ). "and these were the chief of king solomon's officers, even two hundred and fifty, that bare rule over the people" ( chron. viii, ). how many stalls did solomon have for his horses? "and solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen" ( chron. ix, ). "and solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen" ( kings iv, ). how much gold did they bring solomon from ophir? "and they came to ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king solomon" ( kings ix, ). "and they went with the servants of solomon to ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king solomon" ( chron. viii, ). who was the first to die, jeroboam or abijah? "neither did jeroboam recover strength again in the days of abijah: and the lord struck him, and he died. but abijah waxed mighty" ( chron. xiii, , ). "and the days which jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years" ( kings xiv, ). "and abijam [abijah] slept with his fathers; and they buried him in the city of david: and asa his son reigned in his stead. and in the twentieth year of jeroboam king of israel reigned asa over judah" ( kings xv, , ). instead of abijah waxing mighty after jeroboam's death, jeroboam reigned two years after abijah's death. who was the mother of abijah? "he [rehoboam] took maachah the daughter of absalom; which bare him abijah" ( chron. xi, ). "his [abijah's] mother's name also was michaiah the daughter of uriel of gibeah" ( chron. xiii, ). was asa the son or the grandson of maachah? "forty and one years reigned he [asa] in jerusalem. and his mother's name was maachah, the daughter of abishalom" ( kings xv, ). "three years reigned he [abijam] in jerusalem. and his mother's name was maachah the daughter of abishalom.... and asa his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, , ). how long did omri reign? "in the thirty and first year of asa king of judah began omri to reign over israel twelve years.... so omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in samaria: and ahab his son reigned in his stead. and in the thirty and eighth year of asa king of judah began ahab the son of omri to reign" ( kings xvi, , , ). from the thirty-first to the thirty-eighth year of asa's reign omri is said to have reigned twelve years. when did baasha die? "baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in tirzah: and elah his son reigned in his stead.... in the twenty and sixth year of asa king of judah began elah the son of baasha to reign" ( kings xvi, , ). "in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of asa, baasha king of israel came up against judah" ( chron. xvi, ). when did jehoram king of israel and jehoram king of judah begin to reign? "and jehoram [of israel] reigned in his stead in the second year of jehoram the son of jehoshaphat king of judah" ( kings i, ). "and in the fifth year of joram [jehoram of israel].... jehoram the son of jehoshaphat king of judah began to reign" ( kings viii, ). according to the first account, jehoram of israel began to reign in the second year of jehoram of judah; according to the second, jehoram of judah began to reign in the fifth year of jehoram of israel. when did ahaziah begin to reign? "in the eleventh year of joram the son of ahab began ahaziah to reign over judah" ( kings ix, ). "in the twelfth year of joram the son of ahab king of israel did ahaziah the son of jehoram king of judah begin to reign" ( kings viii, ). how old was ahaziah when he began to reign? "two and twenty years old was ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in jerusalem" ( kings viii, ). "forty and two years old was ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in jerusalem" ( chron. xxii, ). how long did jotham reign? "in the second year of pekah ... began jotham the son of uzziah king of judah to reign. five and twenty years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in jerusalem" ( kings xv, , ). "and hoshea ... slew him [pekah] and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of jotham the son of uzziab" ( kings xv, ). who was josiah's successor? "then the people of the land took jehoahaz the son of josiah, and made him king in his father's stead" ( chron. xxxvi, ). "for thus saith the lord touching shallum the son of josiah king of judah which reigned instead of josiah his father" (jer. xxli, ). how old was jehoiachin when he began to reign? "jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign" ( chron. xxxvi, ). "jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign" ( kings xxiv, ). when did evil-merodach release jehoiachin from prison? "in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month" ( kings xxv, ). "in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month" (jer. lii, ). what relation did zedekiah, the last of the jewish kings, bear to jehoiachin, his predecessor? . he was his son. "jechoniah [jehoiachin] his son, zedekiah his son" ( chron. iii, ). . he was his brother. "nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him [jehoiachin] to babylon, ... and made zedekiah his brother king of judah" ( chron. xxxvi, ). . he was his uncle. "the king of babylon made mattaniah his [jehoiachin's] father's brother king in his stead and changed his name to zedekiah" ( kings xxiv, ). "that zedekiah, who in chron. iii, , is called 'his son,' is the same as zedekiah his uncle (called 'his brother,' chron. xxxvi, ), who was his [jehoiachin's] successor on the throne seems certain" (smith's bible dictionary, art. jehoiachin). chapter xvi. when did jehoshaphat die? at the end of solomon's reign the jewish nation was divided into two kingdoms. two tribes acknowledged the authority of solomon's successor, rehoboam. this was called the kingdom of judah, of which jerusalem was the capital. ten tribes revolted and made jeroboam king. this formed the kingdom of israel, of which samaria was the capital. the following is a brief summary of the reigns of the kings of the two kingdoms from the partition of the empire to the conquest of israel by the assyrians: kingdom of judah. "and rehoboam the son of solomon reigned in judah ... and he reigned seventeen years" ( kings xiv, ). "and rehoboam slept with his fathers ... and abijam his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xiv, ). "three years reigned he" (xv, ). "and abijam slept with his fathers ... and asa his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, ). "forty and one years reigned he" ( ). "and asa slept with his fathers ... and jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, ). "and he reigned twenty and five years in jerusalem" (xxii, ). "and jehoshaphat slept with his fathers ... and jehoram his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xxii, ). "and he reigned eight years" ( kings viii, ). "and joram [jehoram] slept with his fathers ... and ahaziah reigned in his stead" ( kings viii, ). "and he reigned one year" ( ). "and he [ahaziah] fled to megiddo and died there" ( kings xi, ). "and when athaliah the mother of ahaziah saw that her son was dead she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. but jehosheba took joash the son of ahaziah ... and he was with her [his nurse] hid in the house of the lord six years. and athaliah did reign over the land" (xi, - ). "they slew athaliah" ( kings xi, ). "and they brought down the king [joash] from the house of the lord.... and he sat on the throne of the kings" ( ). "forty years reigned he in jerusalem" (xii, ). "his servants smote him [joash] and he died, ... and amaziah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xii, )--"and reigned twenty and nine years" (xiv, ). "they made a conspiracy against him [amaziah] ... and slew him" ( kings xiv, ). "and all the people of judah took azariah ... and made him king instead of his father, amaziah" ( ). "and he reigned two and fifty years" (xv, ). "so azariah slept with his fathers ... and jotham his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, ). "and he reigned sixteen years" ( ). "and jotham slept with his fathers ... and ahaz his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, )--"and reigned sixteen years" (xvi, ). "and ahaz slept with his fathers ... and hezekiah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xvi, ) "in the sixth year of hezekiah ... samaria was taken" (xviii, ). from the division of the empire, then, to the conquest of israel by the assyrians, the reigns of judah's kings were as follows: rehoboam, seventeen years, abijam, three years, asa, forty-one years, jehoshaphat, twenty-five years, joram, eight years, ahaziah, one years, athaliah, six years, joash, forty years, amaziah, twenty-nine years, azariah, fifty-two years, jotham, sixteen years, ahaz, sixteen years, hezekiah, six years. kingdom of israel. "they ... made him [jeroboam] king over all israel" ( kings xii, ). "and the days which jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years" (xiv, ). "and he [jeroboam] slept with his fathers and nadab his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xiv, )--"and reigned over israel two years" (xv, ). "and baasha smote him [nadab] ... and reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, , )--"twenty and four years" ( ). "so baasha slept with his fathers ... and elah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xvi, )--"two years" ( ). "zimri went in and smote him, and killed him [elah] ... and reigned in his stead" ( kings xvi, )--"seven days" ( ). "wherefore all israel made omri ... king over israel" ( kings xvi, )--"to reign over israel twelve years" ( ). "so omri slept with his fathers ... and ahab his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xvi, )--"twenty and two years" ( ). "so ahab slept with his fathers and ahaziah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xxii, )--"and reigned two years over israel" ( ). "so he [ahaziah] died ... and jehoram [his brother] reigned in his stead" ( kings i, )--"and reigned twelve years" (iii, ). "i have anointed thee [jehu] king ... over israel" ( kings ix, ). "and jehu ... smote jehoram" ( ). "and the time that jehu reigned over israel in samaria was twenty and eight years" (x, ). "and jehu slept with his fathers ... and jehoahaz his son reigned in his stead" ( kings x, )--"and reigned seventeen years" (xiii, ). "and jehoahaz slept with his fathers ... and joash his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xiii, )--"and reigned sixteen years" ( ). "and joash slept with his fathers and jeroboam sat upon his throne" ( kings xiii, )--"and reigned forty and one years" (xiv, ). "and jeroboam slept with his fathers ... and zachariah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xiv, )--"six months" (xv, ). "and shallum ... slew him [zachariah] and reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, )--"a full month" ( ). "menahem ... slew him [shallum] and reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, )--"and reigned ten years" ( ). "and menahem slept with his fathers and pekahiah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, )--"and reigned two years" ( ). "pekah ... killed him [pekahiah] and reigned in his room" ( kings xv, )--"and reigned twenty years" ( ). "and hoshea ... slew him [pekah] and reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, )--"nine years" (xvii, ). "in the ninth year of hoshea the king of assyria took samaria, and carried israel away into assyria" ( ). from the division of the empire to the conquest of israel the reigns of israel's kings, omitting zimri's brief reign of seven days and calling the combined reigns of zachariah and shallum one year, as computed by chronologists, were as follows: jeroboam, twenty-two years, nadab, two years, baasha, twenty-four years, elah, two years, omri, twelve years, ahab, twenty-two years, ahaziah, two years, jehoram, twelve years, jehu, twenty-eight years, jehoahaz, seventeen years, joash, sixteen years, jeroboam ii., forty-one years, zachariah and shallum, one years, menahem, ten years, pekahiah, two years, pekah, twenty years, hoshea, nine years. the foregoing epitome of jewish history, gleaned from and kings, is presented in order that the reader may the more readily understand the following solutions (based upon statements that appear in these books) to the question that forms the topic of this chapter--when did jehoshaphat die? jehoshaphat is represented as one of judah's best and greatest kings. he did "that which was right in the eyes of the lord." "the lord was with jehoshaphat." "and jehoshaphat waxed great." "and he had riches and honor in abundance." he died at the age of sixty, after a reign of twenty-five years. ahaziah, king of israel, is represented as a very wicked king. "he did evil in the sight of the lord." "for he served baal, and worshiped him, and provoked to anger the lord." elijah prophesied his early death, which came after a brief reign of two years. the last chapter of the first book of kings chronicles the reign and death of judah's king, jehoshaphat; the first chapter of the second book of kings records the reign and death of israel's king, ahaziah. now when did jehoshaphat die? did he die before or after ahaziah died? . "and in the twentieth year of jeroboam king of israel reigned asa over judah" ( kings xv, ). as jeroboam reigned twenty-two years, he reigned two years after asa became king. from the commencement of asa's reign, then, to the death of ahaziah, the reigns of israel's kings were as follows: jeroboam years, nadab years, baasha years, elah years, omri years, ahab years, and ahaziah years. years + years + years + years + years + years + years = years. as asa reigned forty-one years and jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, from the commencement of asa's reign to the death of jehoshaphat was years + years = years. if from the commencement of asa's reign to the death of ahaziah was sixty-six years, and from the commencement of asa's reign to the death of jehoshaphat was sixty-six years, jehoshaphat therefore died in the same year that ahaziah died. . "now in the eighteenth year of king jeroboam the son of nebat reigned abijam over judah" ( kings xv, ). as jeroboam reigned years, he reigned four years after the beginning of abijam's reign. from the beginning of abijam's reign, then, to the death of ahaziah, the reigns of israel's kings were: jeroboam years, nadab years, baasha years, elah years, omri years ahab years, and ahaziah years. years + years + years + years + years + years + years = years. from the beginning of abijam's reign to the death of jehoshaphat the reigns of judah's kings were: abijam years, asa years, jehoshaphat years. years + years + years = years. if from the beginning of abijam's reign to the death of ahaziah was sixty-eight years, and from the beginning of abijam's reign to the death of jehoshaphat was sixty-nine years, jehoshaphat therefore died one year after ahaziah died. . "in the thirty and first year of asa king of judah began omri to reign over israel" ( kings xvi, ). from the accession of omri to the death of ahaziah the reigns of israel's kings were: omri years, ahab years, and ahaziah years. years + years + years = years. as omri became king in the thirty-first year of asa's reign, asa reigned ten years after omri became king, and this added to jehoshaphat's reign of twenty-five years makes thirty-five years from omri to the death of jehoshaphat. if from the accession of omri to the death of ahaziah was thirty-six years, and from the accession of omri to the death of jehoshaphat was thirty-five years, jehoshaphat therefore died one year before ahaziah died. . "in the three and twentieth year of joash the son of ahaziah king of judah, jehoahaz the son of jehu began to reign over israel" ( kings xiii, ). from the death of ahaziah king of israel to the accession of jehoahaz, jehoram reigned years, and jehu years, a total of years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of jehoahaz, judah's sovereigns reigned--joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years. years + year + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of jehoahaz was forty years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of jehoahaz was thirty-eight years, jehoshaphat therefore died two years after ahaziah died. . "and jehoram [of israel] reigned in his [ahaziah's] stead, in the second year of jehoram the son of jehoshaphat" ( kings i, ). if ahaziah died and jehoram of israel became king in the second year of jehoram of judah, jehoshaphat therefore died two years before ahaziah died. . "and joram [jehoram] king of israel and ahaziah king of judah went out, each in his chariot ... against jehu" ( kings ix, ), "and jehu drew a bow with his full strength, and smote jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out at his heart" ( ). "but when ahaziah the king of judah saw this he fled by way of the garden house. and jehu followed after him, and said, smite him also in the chariot. and they did so" ( ). jehoram, king of israel, and ahaziah, king of judah, were thus slain at the same time. jehu succeeded jehoram; athaliah succeeded ahaziah, reigned six years, and was in turn succeeded by joash. jehu had thus reigned six years over israel when joash became king of judah. as jehoram reigned twelve years, from the death of ahaziah [of israel] to the accession of joash then, was eighteen years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of joash, judah's sovereigns reigned as follows: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years--a total of fifteen years. if from the death of ahaziah to the reign of joash was eighteen years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the reign of joash was fifteen years, jehoshaphat therefore died three years after ahaziah died. . "in the second year of joash son of jehoahaz king of israel reigned amaziah the son of joash king of judah" ( kings xiv, ). from the death of ahaziah to the accession of amaziah the reigns of israel's kings were: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years. years + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of amaziah, judah's kings reigned--joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years. years + year + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of amaziah was fifty-nine years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of amaziah was fifty-five years, jehoshaphat therefore died four years after ahaziah died. . "and jehoshaphat the son of asa began to reign over judah in the fourth year of ahab king of israel" ( kings xxii, ). if ahab reigned twenty-two years and jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth year of ahab's reign, jehoshaphat had reigned eighteen years when ahab died, and twenty years when ahaziah died. as jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, he therefore died five years after ahaziah died. . "ahaziah the son of ahab began to reign over israel in samaria the seventeenth year of jehoshaphat king of judah, and reigned two years over israel" ( kings, xxii, ). if ahaziah began to reign in the seventeenth year of jehoshaphat and reigned two years before he died, he died in the nineteenth year of jehoshaphat's reign. as jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, he therefore died six years after ahaziah died. . "now jehoram the son of ahab began to reign over israel in samaria in the eighteenth year of jehoshaphat king of judah" ( kings iii, ). if ahaziah died and jehoram became king in the eighteenth year of jehoshaphat's reign, jehoshaphat therefore died seven years after ahaziah died. . "in the second year of pekah the son of remaliah king of israel began jotham the son of uzziah [azariah] king of judah to reign" ( kings xv, ). from the death of ahaziah to the beginning of jotham's reign the following were the reigns of israel's kings: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years, zachariah and shallum year, menahem years, pekahiah years, pekah years. years + years + years + years + years + year + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the beginning of jotham's reign the following were the reigns of judah's kings: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years, azariah years. years + year + years + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the beginning of jotham's reign was one hundred and twenty-nine years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the beginning of jotham's reign was one hundred and thirty-six years, jehoshaphat therefore died seven years before ahaziah died. . "in the thirty and eighth year of azariah king of judah did zachariah the son of jeroboam reign over israel" ( kings xv, ). from the death of ahaziah to the accession of zachariah the reigns of israel's kings were: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years. years + years + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of zachariah the reigns of judah's kings were: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years, azariah years. years + year + years + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of zachariah was one hundred and fourteen years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of zachariah was one hundred and twenty-two years, jehoshaphat therefore died eight years before ahaziah died. . "in the fiftieth year of azariah king of judah, pekahiah the son of menahem began to reign over israel" ( kings xv, ). from the death of ahaziah to the accession of pekahiah, israel's kings reigned as follows: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years, zachariah and shallum year, menahem years. years + years + years + years + years + year + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of pekahiah, judah's kings reigned as follows: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years, azariah years. years + year + years + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of pekahiah was one hundred and twenty-five years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of pekahiah was one hundred and thirty-four years, jehoshaphat therefore died nine years before ahaziah died. . "in the twelfth year of ahaz king of judah began hoshea the son of elah to reign in samaria over israel" ( kings xvii, ). from the death of ahaziah to the accession of hoshea the reigns of israel's kings were: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years, zachariah and shallum year, menahem years, pekahiah years, pekah years. years + years + years + years + years + year + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of hoshea the reigns of judah's kings were: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years, azariah years, jotham years, ahaz years. years + year + years + years + years + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of hoshea was one hundred and forty-seven years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of hoshea was one hundred and sixty-four years, jehoshaphat therefore died seventeen years before ahaziah died. . "and it came to pass in the fourth year of king hezekiah, which was the seventh year of hoshea son of elah king of israel, that shalmaneser king of assyria came up against samaria and besieged it" ( kings xviii, ). from the death of ahaziah to the commencement of the siege of samaria the reigns of israel's kings were: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years, zachariah and shallum year, menahem years, pekahiah years, pekah years, hoshea years. years + years + years + years + years + year + years + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the siege of samaria the reigns of judah's kings were: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years, azariah years, jotham years, ahaz years, hezekiah years. years + year + years + years + years + years + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the siege of samaria was one hundred and fifty-four years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the siege of samaria was one hundred and seventy-two years, jehoshaphat therefore died eighteen years before ahaziah died. . "in the twenty and seventh year of jeroboam king of israel began azariah son of amaziah king of judah to reign" ( kings xv, ). from the death of ahaziah to the accession of azariah the reigns of israel's kings were: jehoram years, jehu years, jehoahaz years, joash years, jeroboam years. years + years + years + years + years = years. from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of azariah the reigns of judah's kings were: joram years, ahaziah year, athaliah years, joash years, amaziah years. years + year + years + years + years = years. if from the death of ahaziah to the accession of azariah was one hundred years, and from the death of jehoshaphat to the accession of azariah was eighty-four years, jehoshaphat therefore died sixteen years after ahaziah died. recapitulation. when did jehoshaphat's death occur? did it occur before or after ahaziah's death occurred? the following is a recapitulation of the various answers to this question which the preceding solutions have disclosed: . the same year. . one year after. . one year before. . two years after. . two years before. . three years after. . four years after. . five years after. . six years after. . seven years after. . seven years before. . eight years before. . nine years before. . seventeen years before. . eighteen years before. . sixteen years after. here are sixteen different answers to a simple historical question. but one of them can possibly be correct; fifteen of them must necessarily be incorrect. and yet i challenge the theologian to demonstrate the incorrectness of one of them without at the same time demonstrating the fallibility of the bible and its unreliability as a historical record. notes and explanations. the history of judah's and of israel's sovereigns is recorded in kings and repeated in chronicles. had i used both kings and chronicles in the preparation of this chapter, the number of various answers would have been increased. some christian scholars, however, admit that chronicles is not entirely free from errors, while kings, on the other hand, is denominated a "marvel of accuracy." to avoid any objections that might be raised were chronicles used--to assail only that which is deemed unassailable--i have confined myself to kings. to prevent confusion in regard to names, the reader should remember that israel had two kings named jeroboam, and that israel and judah each had kings named ahaziah, jehoram, and jehoash. in israel jehoram succeeded ahaziah; in judah, ahaziah succeeded jehoram. the contracted form of jehoram is joram, and of jehoash, joash. both forms are used. azariah is also called uzziah. in computing time, ordinal numbers are reckoned the same as cardinal numbers. it may be urged that the phrase, "in the eighteenth year," does not denote the full period of eighteen completed years. in justification of the method pursued, i may say that it is not only the method generally followed by chronologists, but it is the method authorized by the bible. see kings xvii, ; kings xvii, . also kings xv, , ; chron. xvi, . its adoption simplifies the form without increasing the number of solutions. to reconcile other discrepancies, some bible chronologists have assumed an interregnum of eleven years between the reigns of jeroboam ii. and zachariah, and another of nine years between pekah and hosea. the language of the bible utterly precludes these assumptions. "and jeroboam slept with his fathers, even with the kings of israel, and zachariah his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xiv, ). "and hoshea the son of elah made a conspiracy against pekah the son of remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead" ( kings xv, ). that these interregnums did not occur, nor indeed any interregnums between the reigns of israel's kings, is attested by josephus, who by christians is esteemed an authority second only to the writers of the scriptures. the ninth book of his "antiquities" bears the following title: "containing the interval of one hundred and fifty-seven years from the death of ahab to the captivity of the ten tribes." this forbids the idea of any interregnum. but if it could be shown that these or other interregnums really did occur, the fact would increase rather than diminish the difficulties connected with the solution of this question. we search the writings of bible commentators in vain for an explanation or attempted reconciliation of many of the conflicting statements to be found in the passages that i have quoted. these exegetes have either been ignorant of their existence, or have purposely ignored them. some of the more noticeable ones they have attempted to reconcile; but the explanations offered are of such a character as to make it seemingly impossible for an honest scholar to advance them, or an intelligent reader to accept them. these pretended reconciliations have been abridged, and, in the shape of marginal notes, transferred to the popular editions of the bible. where different and conflicting dates are assigned for the commencement of a king's reign, opposite the first will be found such explanatory notes as "prorex," "viceroy," "in consort," or "in partnership with his father;" and opposite the last, "began to reign alone;" and all this without a word or hint, either in the bible or elsewhere, to authorize it. the demonstration of a single error in the bible destroys the dogmas of its divinity and infallibility. yet notwithstanding this single error, or even twenty errors, it might still be valuable as a historical record. but when it can be demonstrated that it abounds with glaring contradictions, that its every chapter teems with flagrant errors, it is utterly unworthy of credit, and must be rejected even as a human record of events. chapter xvii. inspired numbers. in the second chapter of ezra is given a register of the jews who returned from babylon to jerusalem. the register begins with these words: "now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon had carried away unto babylon, and came again unto jerusalem and judah, every one unto his city." in the seventh chapter of nehemiah, beginning with the sixth verse, is a copy of the same register. nehemiah says: "and i found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and found written therein, "these are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity, of those that had been carried away, whom nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon had carried away, and came again to jerusalem and to judah, every one unto his city." then follows in each a list of the families with the number of persons belonging to them. but in transcribing the numbers, either ezra or nehemiah has made many errors. a careful examination reveals no less than twenty, as shown by the following: . "the children of arah, seven hundred and seventy-five" (ez. ii, ). "the children of arah, six hundred fifty and two" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of pahath-moab, of the children of jeshua and joab, two thousand eight hundred and twelve" (ez. ii, ). "the children of pahath-moab, of the children of jeshua and joab, two thousand and eight hundred and eighteen" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of zattu, nine hundred forty and five" (ez. ii, ). "the children of zattu, eight hundred forty and five" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of bani, six hundred forty and two" (ez. ii, ). "the children of binnui, six hundred forty and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of bebai, six hundred twenty and three" (ez. ii, ). "the children of bebai, six hundred twenty and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of azgad, a thousand two hundred twenty and two" (ez. ii, ). "the children of azgad, two thousand three hundred twenty and two" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of adonikam, six hundred sixty and six" (ez. ii, ). "the children of adonikam, six hundred three score and seven" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of bigvai, two thousand fifty and six" (ez. ii, ). "the children of bigvai, two thousand three score and seven" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of adin, four hundred fifty and four" (ez. ii, ). "the children of adin, six hundred fifty and five" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of bezai, three hundred twenty and three" (ez. ii, ). "the children of bezai, three hundred twenty and four" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of hashum, two hundred twenty and three" (ez. ii, ). "the children of hashum, three hundred twenty and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of beth-lehem, a hundred twenty and three. "the men of netophah, fifty and six" (ez. ii, , ). [the number of both is one hundred and seventy-nine]. "the men of beth-lehem and netophah, a hundred four score and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the men of beth-el and ai, two hundred twenty and three" (ez. ii, ). "the men of beth-el and ai, a hundred twenty and three" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of magbish, a hundred fifty and six" (ez. ii, ). [this family is omitted from nehemiah's list.] . "the children of lod, hadid, and ono, seven hundred twenty and five" (ez. ii, ). "the children of lod, hadid, and ono, seven hundred twenty and one" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of senaah, three thousand and six hundred and thirty" (ez. ii, ). "the children of senaah, three thousand nine hundred and thirty" (neh. vii, ). . "the singers: the children of asaph, a hundred twenty and eight" (ez. ii, ). "the singers: the children of asaph, a hundred forty and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of the porters: the children of shallum, the children of ater, the children of talmon, the children of akkub, the children of hatita, the children of shobai, in all a hundred thirty and nine" (ez. ii, ). "the porters: the children of shallum, the children of ater, the children of talmon, the children of akkub, the children of hatita, the children of shobai, a hundred thirty and eight" (neh. vii, ). . "the children of delaiah, the children of tobiah, the children of nekoda, six hundred fifty and two" (ez. ii, ). "the children of delaiah, the children of tobiah, the children of nekoda, six hundred forty and two" (neh. vii, ). . "and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women" (ez. ii, ). "and they had two hundred forty and five singing men and singing women" (neh. vii, ). the following is a table of the census of all the families, as given by ezra and nehemiah respectively: family. ezra. nehemiah parosh , , shephatiah arah pahath-moab, etc , , elam , , zattu zaccai bani bebai azgad , , adonikam bigvai , , adin ater bezai jorah (hariph) hashum gibbar (gibeon) beth-lehem and netophah anathoth azmaveth kirjath-arim, etc ramah and gabah michmas bethel and ai nebo magbish elam , , harim lod, hadid, and ono jericho senaah , , jedaiah immer , , pashur , , harim , , jeshua, etc asaph shallum, etc the nethinim, etc delaiah, etc servants , , singers in the above table are twenty discrepancies. twenty errors in forty-three numerical statements is a bad showing for an infallible record. ezra and nehemiah both state that the whole congregation, exclusive of the servants and singers, numbered , . yet the sum total of each is much less than this, that of ezra being but , , and nehemiah, , . in the number of domestic animals ezra and nehemiah agree. in the oblations they disagree. according to ezra they gave , drams of gold, , pounds of silver, and priests' garments. according to nehemiah they gave in all , drams of gold, , pounds of silver, and priests' garments. when bibliolaters affirm that there is not one error in the bible, refer them to this register, where in two chapters may be found two dozen errors. chapter xviii. harmony of the gospels. the more intelligent of orthodox christians admit that the bible as a whole is not infallible and divine, but claim that it contains a divine revelation--that a part of it is the work of god and a part the work of man. and yet they cannot separate the one from the other, cannot agree as to which is divine and which human. concerning this claim prof. goldwin smith writes: "when we are told there are in the old testament scriptures both a human and a divine element, we must ask by what test the divine is to be distinguished from the human? nobody would have thought of 'partial inspiration' except as an expedient to cover retreat. we but tamper with our own understanding and consciences by such attempts at once to hold on and let go; to retain the shadow of the belief when the substance has passed away. far better it is, whatever the effort may cost, honestly to admit that the sacred books of the hebrews, granting their superiority to the sacred books of other nations, are, like the sacred books of other nations, the works of man and not of god." others admit the fallibility and human origin of the old testament and claim infallibility and divinity for the new testament alone. but they cannot consistently claim infallibility and divinity for the new and not for the old. the new testament is based upon the old. if the foundation be fallible the superstructure must be fallible also. both have been declared canonical; both are bound in the same volume and labeled holy bible. the chief apostles declared the writings of the old testament to be divine, a claim they did not make for the writings of the new. besides, the new testament is as full of errors as the old. it has been shown that the four gospels are not genuine--that they were not written by matthew, mark, luke, and john. it is to their credit that they were not. a knowledge of the fact relieves the apostles and their companions of a very discreditable imputation. were four witnesses to testify in a court of justice and contradict each other as the evangelists do, they would be prosecuted for perjury. in another work five hundred errors to be found in the four gospels will be exposed. in this chapter twenty, selected largely at random, will suffice to disprove the credibility of these books: . when was jesus born? "in the days of herod the king" (matt. ii, ). "when cyrenius was governor of syria" (luke ii, ). between matthew and luke there is a discrepancy of fully nine years. if jesus was born in the days of herod he was born at least three years before the beginning of the christian era: if he was born in the time of cyrenius he was born at least six years after the beginning of the christian era. . where was jesus born, in a house, or in a manger? "and when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with mary his mother" (matt. ii, ). "and they came with haste and found mary and joseph and the babe lying in a manger" (luke ii, ). . what did his parents do with him? "when he [joseph] arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into egypt; and was there until the death of herod" (matt. ii, , ). "and when the days of her [mary's] purification according to the law of moses were accomplished, they brought him to jerusalem to present him to the lord.... and when they had performed all things according to the law of the lord, they returned into galilee, to their own city nazareth" (luke ii, , ). . what were the names of the twelve apostles? "now the names of the twelve apostles are these: the first, simon, who is called peter, and andrew his brother; james the son of zebedee, and john his brother; philip and bartholomew; thomas, and matthew the publican; james the son of alpheus, and lebbeus, whose surname was thaddeus; simon the canaanite, and judas iscariot" (matt. x, - ). "he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles: simon (whom he also named peter), and andrew his brother, james and john, philip and bartholomew, matthew and thomas, james the son of alpheus, and simon called zelotes, and judas the brother of james, and judas iscariot" (luke vi, - ). . whom did jesus call from the receipt of custom? "he saw a man named matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom; and he saith unto him, follow me" (matt. ix, ). "he went forth, and saw a publican, named levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, follow me" (luke v, ). . when jesus sent out his apostles, did he command them to provide themselves with staves? "and he commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money" (mark vi, ). "and he said unto them, take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money" (luke ix, ). . what did jesus' neighbors say of him? "is not this the carpenter?" (mark vi, ). "is not this the carpenter's son?" (matt. xiii, .) . was it one man or two men possessed with devils who came out of the tombs? "there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit" (mark v, ). "there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs" (matt. viii, ). . as jesus was going to jerusalem, how many blind men sat by the wayside? "a certain blind man sat by the way side begging.... and he cried, saying, jesus thou son of david, have mercy on me" (luke xviii, ). "two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that jesus passed by, cried out, saying, have mercy on us, o lord, thou son of david" (matt. xx, ). . what was jesus' prediction regarding peter's denial? "before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice" (matt. xxvi, ). "before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice" (mark xiv, ). . what was the color of the robe placed on jesus during his trial? "and they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe" (matt. xxvii, ). "and they put on him a purple robe" (john xix, ). . at what time during the day was he crucified? "and it was the third hour [ a.m.], and they crucified him" (mark xv, ). "and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour [noon].... then delivered he him unto them to be crucified" (john xix, , ). . what did they give him to drink? "they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall" (matt. xxvii, ). "they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh" (mark xv, ). . did both thieves revile him on the cross? "and they that were crucified with him reviled him" (mark xv, ). "and one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him.... but the other answering rebuked him" (luke xxiii, , ). . certain words were inscribed on the cross; what were these words? "the king of the jews" (mark xv, ). "this is the king of the jews" (luke xxiii, ). "this is jesus the king of the jews" (matt. xxvii, ). "jesus of nazareth the king of the jews" (john xix, ). . was it lawful for the jews to put jesus to death? "the jews therefore said unto him, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death" (john xviii, ). "the jews answered him, we have a law, and by our law he ought to die" (john xix, ). . what women visited the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection? "the first day of the week cometh mary magdalene, early when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre" (john xx, ). "in the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came mary magdalene, and the other mary, to see the sepulchre" (matt. xxviii, ). "now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre.... it was mary magdalene, and joanna, and mary the mother of james, and other women" (luke xxiv, , ). . at what time in the morning did they visit the tomb? "at the rising of the sun" (mark xvi, ). "when it was yet dark" (john xx, ). . whom did they see at the tomb? "the angel" (matt. xxviii, ). "a young man" (mark xvi, ). "two men" (luke xxiv, ). "two angels" (john xx, ). . where did jesus first appear to his disciples? "then said jesus unto them [the women], be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go into galilee, and there shall they see me.... then the eleven disciples went away into galilee, into a mountain where jesus had appointed them. and when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted" (matt. xxviii, , , ). "and they rose up the same hour, and returned to jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, the lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to simon.... and as they thus spake, jesus himself stood in the midst of them" (luke xxiv, , , ). the first time i read paine's "age of reason" i was amazed to learn that the bible contains as many errors as he exposes. but when a little later i made a more thorough study and analysis of the pentateuch, the so-called historical books of the old testament, and the four gospels, i found that paine had only selected here and there one of a multitude of errors--that in a single book of the bible were to be found more errors than he had cited from its sixty-six. the briefest exposé of all the errors of the bible would require a larger volume than the bible itself. and yet, this book which contains more errors than any other book in christendom, is the only book for which christians claim inerrancy. chapter xix. paul and the apostles. in this chapter will be presented some passages from paul and the other apostles pertaining to their writings, their teachings, and their characters, which affect the credibility of the remaining books of the new testament. . it is popularly supposed that jesus and his twelve apostles formulated the doctrines of christianity and founded the christian church. paul was the real author of this religion and the founder of the church. "then departed barnabas to tarsus, for to seek saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto antioch. and it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. and the disciples were called christians first in antioch" (acts xi, , ). jesus christ was a jew. peter, john, james, and the other apostles in palestine were not christians, but jews--orthodox jews--who differed from other jews chiefly in accepting jesus as the expected jewish messiah. paul and his followers were the first christians. the dutch critics frankly admit that "christianity has to thank him more than any other for its existence," that he was "the founder of the christian church," and that "without him it would have remained an insignificant or forgotten jewish sect" (bible for learners, vol. iii. pp. , , ). . the conversion of paul is described as follows: "and as he journeyed, he came near damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, saul, saul, why persecutest thou me? and he said, who art thou, lord? and the lord said, i am jesus whom thou persecutest" (acts ix, - ). this was simply a hallucination; and upon this hallucination of the diseased mind of paul the whole system of christian theology is based. . the effect of paul's miraculous conversion upon his companions is thus related: "and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless" (acts ix, ). "we were all fallen to the earth" (xxvi, ). . "and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man" (acts ix, ). "and they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me" (xxii, ). . after his conversion acts states that "straight-way he preached christ in the synagogues" (ix, ) at damascus; that when, soon after, the jews sought to kill him he escaped and went immediately to jerusalem; that "barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles" ( ); "and he was with them coming in and going out at jerusalem" ( ). paul denies this. referring to his conversion he says: "immediately i conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went i up to jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but i went into arabia, and returned again unto damascus. then after three years i went up to jerusalem to see peter and abode with him fifteen days. but other of the apostles saw i none, save james the lord's brother" (gal. i, - ). . paul declares that his mission was to the gentiles alone. "i am the apostle of the gentiles" (rom. xi, ). "that i should be the minister of jesus christ to the gentiles" (xv, ). according to acts (ix, - ; xiii, , - ; xiv, ; xvii, , , ; xviii, , ; xxviii, ), from the beginning to the end of his ministry, he was continually preaching in the synagogues to the jews. . while paul proclaims himself the apostle to the gentiles he declares that peter's mission was confined to the jews. "the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto peter" (gal. ii, ). peter contends that his mission was to the gentiles. "and when there had been much disputing, peter rose up, and said unto them, men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago god made choice among us, that the gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel" (acts xv, ). . the chief of paul's theological teachings is justification by faith alone. "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of jesus christ, even we have believed in jesus christ, that we might be justified by the faith of christ and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified" (gal. ii, ). "if righteousness come by the law, then christ is dead in vain" ( ). "therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (rom. iii, ). james declares this doctrine to be false and pernicious. "but wilt thou know, o vain man, that faith without works is dead" (james ii, ). "for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" ( ). "ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" ( ). the two great miracles of the gospels are the immaculate conception and the bodily resurrection of jesus. the evangelists teach the doctrine of the immaculate conception. paul and peter declare jesus to be simply a man. paul: "the man christ jesus" ( tim. ii, ). peter: "a man approved of god" (acts ii, ). . the evangelists teach the resurrection of the natural body--a body of flesh and blood. paul teaches a spiritual resurrection only. "it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" ( cor. xv, ). "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god" ( ). . paul both affirms and denies the immortality of man: "glory and honor and immortality" (rom. ii, ). "this mortal must put on immortality" ( cor. xv, ). "the king of kings, and lord of lords [christ]; who only hath immortality" ( tim. vi, , ). . paul: "wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto christ, that we might be justified by faith. but after that faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster" (gal. iii, , ). "but now we are delivered from the law" (rom. vii, ). jesus: "think not that i am come to destroy the law.... i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. for verily i say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law" (matt. v, , ). . "we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. for the lord himself shall descend from heaven, ... and the dead in christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds" ( thes., iv, - ). paul believed that christ had appeared to him. it was a delusion. he expected christ to come again. he was mistaken. . the following is an example of paul's reasoning: "wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not; but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. if, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say ye are mad? but if all prophesy, and there cometh in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all" ( cor. xiv, - ). speaking with tongues is for the unbeliever. therefore if you speak with tongues the unbeliever is not convinced. prophesying is not for the unbeliever. therefore if you prophesy the unbeliever is convinced. "paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood" ( peter iii, , ). the duke of somerset says: "there is scarcely a single passage in the pauline epistles, or a single doctrine in the pauline theology, which is not darkened or embroiled by the ambiguity of the expression" (christian theology and modern scepticism, p. ). . the following passage of seven verses from paul (rom. iii, - ) is borrowed from six different chapters of the old testament. is it a medley of misquotations, or a mosaic of plagiarisms? "they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. "their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips. "whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. "their feet are swift to shed blood. "destruction and misery are in their ways. "and the way of peace have they not known. "there is no fear of god before their eyes." "they are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (ps. xiv, ). "their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with the tongue (ps. v, ). adders' poison is under their lips" (cxl, ). "his mouth is full of cursing and deceit" (ps. x, ). "their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood" (is. lix, ). "wasting and destruction are in their paths" (ibid). "the way of peace they know not" ( ). "there is no fear of god before his eyes" (ps. xxxvi, ). . the following words are ascribed to jesus by paul: "remember the words of the lord jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive" (acts xx, ). no such words are to be found in the recorded sayings of jesus. "but as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which god hath prepared for them that love him" ( cor. ii, ). the above is quoted by paul as scripture, but the scriptures do not contain this passage. . "who his [christ's] own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" ( peter ii, ). the epistles of peter are devoted largely to christ's suffering and death, but no mention is made of his crucifixion. the words "cross" and "crucify" are not to be found in them. in acts peter speaks of jesus' death as follows: "jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" (v, ). "god anointed jesus of nazareth ... whom they slew and hanged on a tree" (x, , ). . "for there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the word and the holy ghost; and these three are one" ( john v, ). this is the chief text relied upon to support the doctrine of the trinity, and this text all christian scholars admit to be a forgery. . "and enoch also, the seventh from adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold, the lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints" (jude ). jude's scriptural authority is an apocryphal book. genesis, chronicles, and luke all agree that enoch was not the seventh, but the sixth from adam. "adam ... begat ... seth" (gen. v, ); "seth ... begat enos" ( ); "enos ... begat cainan ( ); "cainan ... begat mahalaleel" ( ); "mahalaleel ... begat jared" ( ); "jared ... begat enoch" ( ). "adam, sheth, enoch, kenan, mahalaleel, jared, henoch" ( chron. i, - ). "which was the son of enoch, which was the son of jared, which was the son of maleleel, which was the son of cainan, which was the son of seth, which was the son of adam" (luke iii, , ). . "now peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, thou also wast with jesus of galilee. but he denied before them all, saying, i know not what thou sayest" (matt. xxvi, , ). "and again he denied with an oath, i do not know the man" ( ). "then began he to curse and to swear, saying, i know not the man" ( ). "but when peter was come to antioch, i [paul] withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. for before that certain came from james, he did eat with the gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. and the other jews dissembled likewise with him" (gal. ii, - ). "thou art peter, and upon this rock i will build my church" (matt. xvi, ). . "him [timothy] would paul have to go with him, and took and circumcised him because of the jews which were in those quarters" (acts xvi, ). "thou seest, brother [paul], how many thousands of jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the law.... do therefore this that we say to thee: we have four men which have a vow on them; them take and purify thyself with them. then paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple" (acts xxi, - ). paul rebuked peter for his hypocrisy. but if he practiced circumcision, and took the vow of a nazarite, as claimed, he was a greater hypocrite than peter; for saul the jew was not more violently opposed to the religion of christ than paul the christian was to the religion of the jews. that he was addicted to hypocrisy and dissimulation is shown by the following admissions in his genuine epistles: "being crafty i caught you with guile" ( cor. xii, ). "unto the jews i became as a jew, that i might gain the jews" ( cor. ix, ). "i am made all things to all men" ( ). . john impeaches the credibility of paul and denounces him as a liar. critics agree that portions of revelation, including the following, are aimed directly at paul: "thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars" (ii, ). . "and he saith unto me, seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand" (rev. xxii, ). among much that is unintelligible, the writer of revelation clearly predicts the destruction of rome (xvii, , ); asserts that nero, who was really dead, was yet alive (xiii, ); proclaims the immediate coming of christ (i, ; xxii, , ), the avenging of the persecuted prophets and apostles (xviii, ), the binding of satan for a thousand years (xx, ), and the establishment of god's kingdom (xxi). "we know how completely these expectations were disappointed. jerusalem, where the temple at least was never to be violated, fell utterly, and the sanctuary was laid low never to rise again; while rome, instead of being turned to a desert, still held her rank and fame. nero, the antichrist, was dead and never returned to life; but neither did the christ come back to earth. the martyrs were not avenged, but fresh persecutions awaited the faithful. the kingdom of satan held its own, and the kingdom of god came not" (bible for learners, vol. iii., p. ). chapter xx. the bible and history. about one-half of the books of the bible purport to be, to a considerable extent at least, historical. but from genesis to revelation there is scarcely a book which can be accepted as a reliable record of events. nearly all of them abound with manifest absurdities, exaggerations, and contradictions. their authors, for the most part, deal with matters concerning which the ancient profane historians take no cognizance; and this, in a measure, conceals their errors. but when they do refer to known historical events, they exhibit such an ignorance of the facts, or such a desire to pervert them, as to destroy their credibility. in this chapter will be presented some "sacred" history which reason rejects or the demonstrated facts of profane history disprove. . "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth." the bible, it is affirmed, contains a connected and reliable historical and chronological record of events from the creation down to the universally accepted dates of profane history. and yet between the three versions of the jewish bible there is an utter disagreement. the creation of the world, according to these versions, was as follows: hebrew, b.c. samaritan, b.c. septuagint, b.c. the talmud and josephus, based upon the above, agree with neither, nor with each other. according to the talmud, the creation occurred b.c.; according to josephus, b.c. . "and the children of israel journeyed from rameses to succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. and a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle. even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the lord went out from the land of egypt" (ex. xii, , , ). "and moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.... and the children of israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground.... thus the lord saved israel that day out of the hand of the egyptians" (ex. xiv, , , ). the exodus of the israelites from egypt is represented as having taken place in an incredibly brief space of time. it was after midnight when moses was ordered to notify his people to depart. before morning they were all en route from rameses to the red sea, which they reached in three days and crossed in a few hours. as there were , men, the total number of persons must have been nearly , , . three millions is a number easily spoken and quickly written. but neither the author of this story nor those who accept it as history have the slightest conception of its meaning. they evidently think that three million people--old and young; men, women, and children; the sick and the lame, together with their flocks and herds, their household effects and provisions--could be moved with the celerity of a few hundred men. when napoleon crossed the nieman in , it took his army of trained soldiers, inured to hardships and accustomed to rapid marches, three days and nights to cross the river in close file on three bridges. had his army been as large as this body of israelites, to have crossed the river on one bridge, allowing the necessary time for rest, would have taken six months. it would have required months to notify, assemble, and organize this vast population of slaves in readiness for their migration. and when the journey began, if the head of the column had left rameses in the spring the rear of the column would not have been able to move before autumn. . "behold the land of canaan, which i give unto the children of israel for a possession" (deut. xxxii, ). in the twelfth chapter of joshua is given a list of thirty-one kingdoms which were conquered by them. this was in the fifteenth century b.c. from this time forward they are represented as a mighty nation by bible historians. rameses iii. overran canaan and conquered it between and b.c. the egyptian records give a list of all the tribes inhabiting it. the children of israel--the hebrews--were not there. in the fifth century b.c., when herodotus, the father of history, was collecting materials for his immortal work, he traversed nearly every portion of western asia. he describes all its principal peoples and places; but the jews and jerusalem are of too little consequence to merit a line from his pen. not until b.c. do the jews appear upon the stage of history, and then only as the submissive vassals of a grecian king. . . "elhanan, the son of jair, the bethlehemite, slew goliath of gath, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" ( sam. xxi, , h. v.). . "elhanan the son of jair slew lahmi the brother of goliath the gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam" ( chron. xx, ). . "elhanan the son of jaare-oregim, a bethlehemite, slew the brother of goliath the gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" ( sam. xxi, , a. v.). the above are three versions of the same passage. the first is a correct translation of the passage as it appears in the hebrew. it is a part of one of the two discordant narratives used by the compiler of samuel. the compiler of chronicles saw the discrepancy and interpolated the words "lahmi the brother of." our translators interpolated the words "the brother of." critics admit that if the killing of goliath is a historical event, which is improbable, it was elkanah, and not david, who slew him. the story of david and goliath given by the other narrator in samuel is a myth. this writer says: "and david took the head of the philistine, and brought it to jerusalem," evidently believing that the israelites then occupied jerusalem, whereas the duel between david and goliath is said to have occurred b.c., while the conquest and occupancy of jerusalem by the israelites did not occur until b.c., fifteen years later. . "and solomon sent to hiram, saying, ... behold, i purpose to build an house unto the name of the lord my god, ... and my servants shall be with thy servants, and unto thee will i give hire for thy servants" ( kings v, , , ). "and solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and four score thousand hewers in the mountains; beside the chief of solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three hundred" ( , ). "so was he seven years in building it" (vi, ) "and the house which king solomon built for the lord, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits" ( ). the main building of solomon's temple, then, was about feet long, feet wide, and feet high. one hundred and fifty thousand men engaged seven years in building a house as large as a village church or a country store! the mountain labored and brought forth a mouse! . "and the children of israel fled before judah: and god delivered them into their hand. and abijah and his people slew them with great slaughter: so there fell down slain of israel five hundred thousand chosen men" ( chron. xiii, , ). five hundred thousand slain in one battle! at the battle of gettysburg, one of the greatest battles of modern times, for three long days, two mighty armies of america engaged in deadly conflict, and when it was ended, the defeated army had less than five thousand killed. and yet we are asked to believe that this puny race of hebrews, too insignificant to attract the notice of ancient historians, marshaled in battle two contending armies, the carnage of which equaled that of a hundred gettysburgs. talk about oriental exaggeration! if you wish to find its choicest specimens, search not the pages of persian and arabian romance, but read a chapter of sacred history. . "and pul the king of assyria came against the land; and menahem gave pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand" ( kings xv, ). the king who reigned in assyria at this time was iva-lush. assyria never had a king named pul. . "belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein" (dan. v, , ). "in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace" ( ). "and this is the writing that was written: mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" ( ). "in that night was belshazzar the king of the chaldeans [babylon] slain. and darius the median took the kingdom" ( , ). as a dramatic piece of fiction belshazzar's feast is good; as a chapter of ancient history it is bad. belshazzar was not the son of nebuchadnezzar; neither was he king of babylon. darius the mede did not take the kingdom. . "and it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from cæsar augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (and this taxing was first made when cyrenius was governor of syria.)... and joseph also went up from galilee, out of the city of nazareth, into judea, unto the city of david, which is called bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of david), to be taxed with mary his espoused wife, being great with child" (luke ii, - ). this cannot be accepted as historical for the following reasons: . cæsar augustus never issued a decree that all the world should be taxed, nor even one that all the roman world should be taxed. . if he had issued such a decree joseph and mary would not have been subject to taxation, because they lived in galilee, an independent province. . had they been subject to taxation they would have been enrolled in their own country and not in some distant kingdom. . cyrenius did not become governor of syria until nearly ten years after the death of herod, and jesus was born, it is claimed, in the days of herod. . "then herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under" (matt. ii, ). the statement that herod the great, who was firmly established in his government, and who had full-grown male heirs to succeed him, was afraid that the babe of an obscure nazareth carpenter would supplant him in his kingdom, is enough to cause a covenanter to laugh on sunday. had herod issued such a decree his friends, instead of executing it, would have had him confined in a madhouse. the fact that the roman and jewish historians of that age--one of whom, an enemy, gives a full and complete record of his life--know nothing of this awful tragedy, that an anonymous author writing nearly two centuries afterward is the only one who mentions it, is of itself sufficient to brand it as an atrocious falsehood. . "that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous abel unto the blood of zacharias son of barachias whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (matt. xxiii, ). the divine historian ascribes these words to jesus. jesus was crucified, it is claimed, about a.d. zacharias was slain in a.d., forty years after the death of jesus. some contend that jesus refers to the zachariah mentioned in chronicles (xxiv, , ). but this zachariah was the son of jehoiada. besides, the accusation of jesus is intended to cover all time from the first to the last offense, and to name this zachariah would be to admit that they had shed no righteous blood for years. . "for before these days rose up theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. "after this man rose up judas of galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished" (acts v, , ). according to acts the sedition of theudas occurred before the taxing, which was about a.d. it really occurred while fadus was procurator of judea, about a.d.--forty years after the date assigned in acts. the bible is largely a medley of fables, mythologies, and legends. these legends contain a modicum of truth--how much cannot be determined. the reliable historian faithfully presents the facts contained in the materials at his command. these so-called sacred historians do not. with them history is secondary to theology and made subservient to it. every event is represented as a special act of divine providence and is tortured to uphold and serve their theological notions. referring to the author or compiler of judges, dr. oort says: "the writer has drawn most of his narratives from trustworthy sources.... our gratitude to him would indeed be still greater than it is, if he had given us all that he found in his authorities unmixed and unaltered. but to an israelite historian this seems to have been a simple impossibility" (bible for learners, vol. i., p. ). chapter xxi. the bible and science. "there is a beautiful harmony between the principles of science and the teachings of the bible."--dr. cheever. bibliolaters, unacquainted with the principles of science, and scientists unacquainted with the teachings of the bible, may accept this statement; those conversant with both cannot. in the bible a thousand scientific errors may be found. the limits of this work preclude a presentation of them all. enough will be given, however, to show that the teachings of the bible conflict with the teachings of the ten principal sciences--astronomy, geology, geography, botany, zoology, ethnology, physiology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. astronomy. "and god said, let there be light, and there was light" (gen. i, ). "and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night. and the evening and the morning were the first day" ( ). "and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also ... and the evening and the morning were the fourth day" ( , ). the cause is supposed to precede the effect; but here the effect precedes the cause. light and darkness, morning and evening, day and night exist before the sun. the bible teaches us that the earth is older than the sun; science teaches us that the sun is older than the earth. in the creation of the universe god devoted five-sixths of his time to the creation of this little world of ours, while but a fragment of the remaining time was needed to create the countless worlds that exist outside of our solar system. five brief words, "he made the stars also," record the history of their creation. according to the bible, the oldest star is less than six thousand years old. what says the scientist? "i have observed stars, of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth."--sir william herschel. "sun, stand thou still upon gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of ajalon." "so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (josh. x, , ). "behold, i [the lord] will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of ahaz, ten degrees backward. so the sun returned ten degrees" (isaiah xxxviii, ). the bible teaches the geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth; science teaches the heliocentric theory that the earth revolves around the sun. luther, accepting the bible and rejecting science, wrote: "the fool [copernicus] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy. but sacred scripture tells us that joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth." "biblical astronomy," says the celebrated jewish commentator, dr. kalisch, "is derived from mere optical appearance." geology. "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth" (gen. i, ). "and god said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit" (i, ). "and god said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth" (i, ). "and god said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things" (i, ). "and god said, let us make man in our image" (i, ). "in six days the lord made heaven and earth" (ex. xx, ). according to the bible, the earth was created in six days about six thousand years ago. geology tells us that the earth was old six million years ago. to make room for the earth's development, theologians now contend that a vast period of time elapsed between the work recorded in the first verse and in those following. to this bishop colenso replies: "we are plainly taught in the book of genesis, according to the simple, straightforward meaning of the words, that elohim created the heaven and the earth in the beginning of these six days--that is, taking into account the chronological data of the bible, about six thousand years ago" (the pentateuch, part iv, p. ). again, theologians claim that these six days were not six literal days, but six long epochs of time. the rev. moses stuart, professor of sacred literature in andover theological seminary, one of the ablest hebrew scholars, says: "when the sacred writer in genesis i says, the first day, the second day, etc., there can be no possible doubt--none.... what puts this beyond all question in philology is that the writer says specifically, the evening and the morning were the first day, the second day, etc. now, is an evening and a morning a period of some thousands of years? is it, in any sense, when so employed, an indefinite period? the answer is so plain and certain that i need not repeat it. if moses has given us an erroneous account of the creation, so be it. let it come out, and let us leave the whole. but do not let us turn aside his language to get rid of difficulties that we may have in our speculations." the jewish scholar, dr. kalisch, not only rejects this interpretation of the word day, but admits that it would not reconcile genesis with science if allowed. he says: "the device that the days denote epochs is not only arbitrary, but ineffective, for the six epochs of the mosaic creation correspond in no manner with the gradual formation of cosmos." according to genesis the creation of organic life occupied but three of these six days. the order of creation for these three days, or periods, is as follows: . ( d day) land plants; . ( th day) aquatic animals, birds; . ( th day) mammals, reptiles, man. is this confirmed by science? passing lyell by, let us cite our more orthodox dana. dr. dana, who professed to believe that the study of geology tended "to strengthen faith in the book of books," gives the several geological ages, together with the successive appearances of organic life, as follows: . archæan age--lowest marine life, if any; . silurian age--invertebrates, marine plants; . devonian age--fish, earliest appearance of land plants; . carboniferous age--luxuriant vegetation, lowest forms of reptiles; . reptilian age--highest forms of reptiles; . tertiary age--birds, mammals; . quaternary age--man. even dana cannot reconcile genesis with geology. genesis tells us that the earliest organic life was terrestrial vegetation; geology tells us that ages of organic life passed before terrestrial plants appeared. genesis tells us that fish and fowls were created at the same time; geology tells us that the finny tribes existed ages before the feathered tribes appeared. genesis tells us that mammals and reptiles were created at the same time; geology tells us that while reptiles existed in the carboniferous age, mammals did not appear until the close of the reptilian age. genesis tells us that birds appeared before reptiles; geology tells us that reptiles existed first. genesis tells us that life existed first upon the land; geology tells us that the sea teemed with animal and vegetable life ages before it appeared upon the land. the seven ages of geology comprise twenty-five geological periods. genesis recognizes but six periods in the creation of the entire universe; geology recognizes twenty-five periods in the formation of earth's crust alone. according to bible chronology, the universe is less than six thousand years old; according to geology, the mere existence of life upon earth's crust, which is as but a day compared with the existence of the universe, is probably nearly fifty millions of years. dr. dana says: "if time from the commencement of the silurian included millions of years, which some geologists would pronounce much too low an estimate, the paleozoic part [silurian, devonian, and carboniferous], according to the above ratio, would comprise millions, the mesozoic [reptilian] millions, and the cenozoic [tertiary and quaternary] millions" (text book of geology, p. ). when geology was in its infancy scientists attempted to reconcile its teachings with the teachings of the bible. no scientist worthy of the name attempts to reconcile them now. writing over thirty years ago, carl vogt thus records the triumph of geology over genesis: "it is hardly twenty years since i learned from agassiz: transitional strata, palæozoic formations--kingdom of fishes; there are no reptiles in this period, and cannot be any, because it would be contrary to the plan of creation; secondary formations (trias, jura, chalk)--kingdom of reptiles; there are no mammals and cannot be any, for the same reason; tertiary strata--kingdom of mammals; there are no men and cannot be any; present creation--kingdom of man. what is become of this plan of creation, with its exclusiveness? reptiles in the devonian strata, reptiles in the coal, reptiles in the dyas. farewell, kingdom of fish! mammals in the jura, mammals in purbeck chalk, which some reckon as the lowest chalk formation; good-by, kingdom of reptiles! men in the highest tertiary strata, men in the diluvial forms--au revoir, kingdom of mammals!" geography. "the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved" ( chron. xvi, ). "who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed forever" (ps. civ, ). "for the pillars of the earth are the lord's, and he hath set the world upon them" ( sam. ii, ). "i saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth" (rev. vii, ). "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world" (matt. iv, ). the science of geography describes the earth as spherical in form, with a daily revolution on its axis and an annual revolution around the sun. the bible describes it as stable, flat, and angular. "and a river went out of eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. "the name of the first is pison" [indus or ganges] (gen. ii, , ). "and the name of the second river is gihon [nile]: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of ethiopia. "and the name of the third river is hiddekel [tigris]: ... and the fourth river is euphrates" (ii, , ). bible geography makes the nile and the euphrates both branches of the same river. "then cometh he to a city of samaria, which is called sychar" (john iv, ). samaria contained no city of this name. "these things were done in bethany beyond jordan" (john i, , new ver.). bethany was a suburb of jerusalem and not located beyond the jordan. "he departed from galilee, and came into the coasts of judea beyond jordan" (matt. xix, ). the dead sea and the jordan formed the eastern boundary of judea, and no coasts of judea existed beyond the jordan. "which was of bethsaida of galilee" (john xii, ). bethsaida was not of galilee, but of perea. botany. "and the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind" (gen. i, ). "and the evening and the morning were the third day" (i, ). "and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day" (i, ). "and the evening and the morning were the fourth day" (i, ). the bible states that the earth was covered with vegetation, that grass and herbs and trees flourished without the heat and light of the sun. science denies it. "cursed is the ground for thy sake.... thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee" (gen. iii, , ). thorns and thistles are represented as resulting from a curse. they are no more the result of a curse than are grapes and corn. "and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off" (gen. viii, , ). hebrew commentators state that it was a fresh olive leaf. the bible writer supposes that the earth could be submerged for nearly a year without the vegetable kingdom being destroyed. had this deluge really occurred, all vegetation, save, perhaps, a few aquatic plants, would have died. "he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it" (is. xliv, ). not in western asia, for the tree does not grow there. bible commentators believe that the pine is meant. the authors of genesis (xxx, ) and ezekiel (xxxi, ) both mention the chestnut-tree. but it is admitted that the chestnut did not grow where they stated. referring to this error, smith's bible dictionary says: "the 'plane-tree' ought probably to have been substituted. the context of the passages where the word occurs indicates some tree which thrives best in low and rather moist situations, whereas the chestnut-tree is a tree which prefers dry and hilly ground." "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (john xii, ). if it die it bringeth forth no fruit. zoology. "of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two [or by sevens of clean according to another account] unto noah into the ark" (gen. vii, , ). the animal kingdom, including insects, etc., comprises more than , , species. according to the bible, two or more of every species from every clime--polar animals accustomed to a temperature of fifty degrees below zero, and tropical, to one hundred degrees above--were brought together and preserved for a year in an ark. if the teachings of natural history be true, this bible story is false. the bible pronounces unclean and unfit for food the following animals: "the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof" (lev. xi, ). "the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof" (xi, v). "the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof" (xi, ). "the swine, though he divideth the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud" (xi, ). every statement proclaims the writer's ignorance of the simple facts of zoology. the camel does divide the hoof; the coney does not chew the cud; the hare does not chew the cud; the swine is not cloven-footed (bisulcate), but four-toed. "all ruminants have the foot cleft, and they only have it."--cuvier. "every one of the four instances or illustrations brought forward by the biblical writer is necessarily erroneous; any attempt at defending them implies an impotent struggle against science."--dr. kalisch. scarcely less erroneous are the following passages: "and these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls: ... the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing and the bat. "all fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. "yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; "even these of them may ye eat: the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. but all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you" (lev. xi, - ). "and the lord said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (gen. iii, ). the serpent does not eat dust, while science shows that it crawled upon its belly before the curse just as it did afterward. ethnology. according to the bible, all mankind have sprung from a single pair created by god six thousand years ago. science does not admit that man is the result of a divine creative act, that all the races have descended from a single pair, or that his existence here is confined to the brief period of sixty centuries. she is not able to tell yet, even approximately, when man's advent upon the earth occurred, but she has long since proved the biblical record false, and shown that instead of his having occupied the earth but six thousand years he has been here at the least from ten to fifty times six thousand years. referring to the biblical origin of man, professor huxley says: "five-sixths of the public are taught this adamitic monogenism as if it were an established truth, and believe it. i do not; and i am not acquainted with any man of science, or duly instructed person, who does" (methods and results of ethnology). "there were giants in the earth in those days" (gen. vi, ). the bible, like the mythical records of other early nations, represents the earth as peopled with a race of giants. yet the stature of man is as great to-day as it was five thousand years ago. "and all the days that adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years" (gen. v, ). the bible says that for a period of two thousand years men lived for centuries, that at least seven patriarchs attained to an age of nearly , years. the egyptian records of that period show that man's longevity was no greater then than it is now. not only the size and age of men, but their numbers are exaggerated by bible writers. the israelites, at the time they settled in palestine, numbered, it is claimed, two or three millions. out of this country, to make room for them, god cast "seven nations greater and mightier than" the israelite nation (deut. vii, ). palestine must then have sustained a population as great as spain does now with a territory thirty times as large. the census of israel and judah, taken in the time of david, places the number of warriors at , , ( ch. xxi, ). this makes the whole population twice as great as that of illinois with an area nine times as large as palestine and a soil ten times as fertile. "and the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech" (gen. xi, ): "let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech" (gen. xi, ). the origin of the various languages of men is here attributed to a miraculous confusion of tongues. science shows that languages had no such origin. renan says: "far from placing unity at the beginning of language, it is necessary to look at such a unity as the slow and tardy result of an advanced civilization. in the beginning there were as many dialects as families." this bible account of the confusion of tongues is contradicted by the preceding chapter of genesis (x, , , ), which, referring to the children of japheth, ham, and shem, says they were divided "every one after his tongue," "after their families, after their tongues." physiology. "and the ark rested in the seventh month ... upon the mountains of ararat" (gen. viii, ). "and in the second month [of the following year] was the earth dried" (viii, ). here on the top of ararat, three miles above the surrounding country, and three thousand feet above the region of perpetual snow, for months, the respiratory organs of man and all the animals of earth performed their functions without difficulty! "wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" (matt. ix, ). "what reason ye in your hearts?" (luke v, ). jesus recognizes the heart as the seat of reason and intelligence. "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children" (gen. iii, ). "she was found with child of the holy ghost" (matt. i, ). "come out of the man, thou unclean spirit" (mark v, ). "and the prayer of faith shall save the sick" (james v, ). attributing the pains of parturition to a curse, recording the generation of a child without a natural father, ascribing nervous and other disorders to demons, and healing the sick by prayer are biblical, but not scientific. "and all the first-born males [of israel] ... were twenty and two thousand two hundred and three score and thirteen" (num. iii, ). as the population of israel was about , , , this would give persons to each family and an average of children to each mother. faith may accept this, but physiological science rejects it. chemistry. "and he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river, ... and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood" (ex. vii, ). "jesus saith unto them, fill the water-pots with water. and they filled them up to the brim. and he saith unto them, draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. and they bare it. when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine," etc. (john ii, - ). "but his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt" (gen. xix, ). "and he took the [golden] calf which they had made and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of israel drink of it" (ex. xxxii, ). turning a river into blood, water into wine, flesh into salt, and burning and grinding gold into powder and holding it in solution, cannot be harmonized with the teachings of science. but it is not merely to a few biblical passages, to a few so-called miraculous changes in the elements of nature, that the science of chemistry is opposed. it is opposed to the entire bible as a divine revelation. the central ideas of this book, a creator, a providence, and a mediator, are all overthrown by this science. referring to this, comte truthfully observes: "however imperfect our chemical science is, its development has operated largely in the emancipation of the human mind. its opposition to all theological philosophy is marked by two general facts, ... first the prevision of phenomena, and next our voluntary modification of them" (positive philosophy, book iv., chap. i). "in this way, chemistry effectually discredits the notion of the rule of providential will among its phenomena. but there is another way in which it acts no less strongly: by abolishing the idea ... of creation in nature" (ibid). physics. "i do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. and it shall come to pass, when i bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and i will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood, to destroy all flesh" (gen. ix, - ). the bible writer did not know that it was the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays on the drops of water which produced the prismatic colors of the rainbow; he did not know that the phenomenon was as old as rain and sunshine, but believed it to be a postdiluvian sign thrown on the dark canvas of clouds by the almighty. "it seems plain," says the bishop of natal, "that the writer supposes the bow to have been seen for the first time when the deluge was over." "the words which moses spake unto all israel" (deut. i, ). "and moses called all israel and said unto them" (v, ). "there was not a word of all that moses commanded, which joshua read not before all the congregation of israel" (josh. viii, ). nature's temple must have possessed wonderful acoustic properties to enable moses and joshua to reach the ears of a multitude of three millions. "let us build a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" (gen. xi, ). god himself, ignorant of pneumatics, believes the project possible, and confounds their language to prevent it. "and the waters were divided. and the children of israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were as a wall unto them on the right hand, and on their left" (ex. xiv, , ). a fundamental principle of hydrostatics is the following: "when a pressure is exerted on any part of the surface of a liquid, that pressure is transmitted undiminished to all parts of the mass, and in all directions." mathematics. "for there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the word, and the holy ghost: and these three are one" ( john v, ). "the incomprehensible jargon of the trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one and one is three!"--thomas jefferson. matthew concludes his genealogy of jesus as follows: "so all the generations from abraham to david are fourteen generations; and from david until the carrying away into babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into babylon unto christ are fourteen generations" (matt. i, ). this genealogy, including both abraham and jesus, contains but forty-one generations. here we have an inspired scholar performing the mathematical solution of dividing forty-one generations by three and obtaining fourteen generations for a quotient. "the whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three score" (ezra ii, ). this number, , , is given as the whole number of persons belonging to the families that returned from babylon. adding together the numbers given in the census register, of which the above is declared to be the sum total, we find the whole number to be only , --a difference and a discrepancy of , . the foregoing are but three of three hundred mathematical errors to be found in the bible. it is not merely in a few unimportant scientific details, but in the fundamental principles of the most important sciences--of astronomy, of geology, of geography, and of man--that the bible errs. its writers evince no divine knowledge of the facts of nature. their works exhibit the crude notions of the age in which they lived. some of their teachings are in harmony with the accepted truths of science; but these prove no more than a human origin. the wisest of mankind do not know all; the most ignorant know something. while there are phenomena too complex for the mind of a newton or a darwin to grasp, there are others regarding which the first impressions of a child are correct. to assert that the bible is in harmony with the teachings of modern science is to assert that no advancement has been made in science for two thousand years, when all know that many of the most marvelous scientific discoveries are less than two hundred years old. the scientific attainments of bible writers were not above those of the age and country in which they lived, and probably far below; for the bible is largely the work of theologians, and theologians have ever been behind their age in scientific knowledge. the mission of theologians is not to advance, but to retard science. they have waged a relentless but ineffective warfare against it. in the words of huxley: "extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of hercules." "the hebrew pentateuch," says gerald massey, "has not only retarded the growth of science for eighteen centuries, but the ignorant believers in it as a book of revelation have tried to strangle every science at its birth. there could be and was but little or no progress in astronomy, geology, biology, or sociology until its teachings were repudiated by the more enlightened among men." of the bible and science thus writes america's eminent scientist and author, dr. john w. draper: "it is to be regretted that the christian church has burdened itself with the defense of these books, and voluntarily made itself answerable for their manifest contradictions and errors.... still more, it is to be deeply regretted that the pentateuch, a production so imperfect as to be unable to stand the touch of modern criticism, should be put forth as the arbiter of science" (conflict between religion and science, p. ). "the world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions that have brought down to us the opinions of men who lived in the morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought that they were inspired" (ibid, p. ). "for her [science] the volume of inspiration is the book of nature, of which the open scroll is ever spread forth before the eyes of every man. confronting all, it needs no societies for its dissemination. infinite in extent, eternal in duration, human ambition and human fanaticism have never been able to tamper with it. on the earth it is illustrated by all that is magnificent and beautiful, on the heavens its letters are suns and worlds" (ib., p. ). chapter xxii. prophecies. "prophecy is a demonstration of divine knowledge; as miracles, in the restricted acceptation of the word, are a demonstration of divine power. prophecies being true, revelation is established as a fact."--keith. "the predictions respecting christ are so clear, so detailed and circumstantial, as to constitute together one of the most important proofs of the inspiration of the bible and of the truth of christianity."--hitchcock. a prophet, according to the orthodox and popular signification of the term, is one who predicts. a prophecy is a prediction, and the writings of the prophets are a collection of predictions regarding future events. prophet and prophecy, as used in the bible, have no such meaning. the prophet might make a prediction, just as any one may make a prediction, but this was not necessarily any part of his office. the functions of the prophet were those of preacher, poet, and musician. there were not merely a score of them, but thousands of them. the more talented prophets became authors--composed the poems, recorded the history, and wrote the religious works of the hebrews. some of these prophets were moral reformers--labored earnestly to reform their people. the wicked were exhorted to forsake their sins, and threatened with divine retribution if they did not. when their countrymen were in bondage they consoled them with the promise that god would liberate them. the oppressed and the captive longed for a deliverer. the prophet gave utterance to these longings, and this gave birth to the messianic idea. the more important of these so-called prophecies will now be examined. . "and babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the chaldees' excellency, shall be as when god overthrew sodom and gomorrah. it shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged" (isaiah xiii, - ). had this prophecy been literally fulfilled, it would not have evinced supernatural prescience on the part of the prophet. it is the fate of cities to flourish for a time and then decay. the world contains the ruins, not of babylon alone, but of a thousand cities. the enemies of babylon wished for and hoped for its destruction. the prophet voiced that wish and hope. perhaps at that very moment the victorious armies of the persian were leveling its walls. but this prophecy has not been literally fulfilled. babylon was not as when god overthrew sodom and gomorrah; it has been inhabited; it has been dwelt in from generation to generation; the arabian has pitched his tent there; shepherds have made their fold there; satyrs have not danced there; dragons have not occupied her palaces; her days were prolonged. the ancient glory of babylon has faded, but a thriving city still exists there, a standing refutation of the claim that isaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled. . "for thus saith the lord god: behold i will bring upon tyrus nebuchadrezzar [nebuchadnezzar], king of babylon.... with the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrison shall go down to the ground. and they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise.... and i will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for i the lord have spoken it" (ezekiel xxvi, , , , ). here is a specific prediction. but it was not fulfilled. nebuchadnezzar did not destroy, nor even conquer, tyre. "he reduced the whole sea coast except tyre, which stood a thirteen years' siege by water and by land, ending, not in subjection, but ... leaving the native sovereigns on their thrones and their wealth and power untouched" (chambers's encyclopedia). a thousand years after ezekiel uttered his prophecy, jerome, the foremost christian of his age, declared it to be "the most noble and beautiful city in phoenicia." twenty-four hundred years have passed, and tyre still survives. . "behold, damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap" (isaiah xvii, ). this prophecy was spoken nearly twenty-seven hundred years ago, and yet during all these centuries damascus has flourished, and is to-day the most prosperous city of western asia. . "and i will make the land of egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of syene even unto the borders of ethiopia. no foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years" (ezekiel xxix, , ). this and a score of other prophecies concerning egypt have never been fulfilled. . "for thus amos saith, jeroboam shall die by the sword, and israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land" (amos vii, ). jeroboam did not not die by the sword, and israel was not led away captive, as predicted. "and the lord said not that he would blot out the name of israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of jeroboam the son of joash. now the rest of the acts of jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered damascus and hamath, which belonged to judah, for israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of israel? and jeroboam slept with his fathers, even with the kings of israel" ( kings xiv, - ). . "thus saith the lord of jehoiakim king of judah: he shall have none to sit upon the throne of david; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat and in the night to the frost" (jeremiah xxxvi, ). this prophecy was not fulfilled. "so jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead" ( kings xxiv, ). . "and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of babylon seventy years" (jeremiah xxv, ). it is now conceded by all critics that the book of jeremiah, as a whole, was not composed before the captivity. but even if these words were uttered before the captivity, they are fatal to the claim of bible inerrancy; for either the prophecy was not fulfilled, or bible history is false. according to the historical books of the bible, the captivity did not last seventy, but only about fifty years. referring to this and similar prophecies, matthew arnold says: "the great prophecies of isaiah and jeremiah are, critics can now see, not strictly predictions at all" (literature and dogma, p, ). . "and the lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other" (deut. xxviii, ). these words were uttered, not as a prophecy, but as a warning or threat. if they obey the lord's statutes a long list of blessings are promised; if they do not obey them, a hundred evils are threatened, among which is the one quoted. one of the most dreaded and one of the most common calamities in that age was the conquest or dispersion of one tribe or nation by another. in an enumeration of all known evils, it would be strange if this, the one most often threatened, had been omitted. . "behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name immanuel" (isaiah vii, ). this is cited as a prophecy of jesus christ. the only thing in it suggestive of the story of jesus is the word "virgin." the word thus translated, however, does not necessarily mean virgin in the common acceptation of this term, but simply "young woman," either married or single. correct this error and the text reads: "behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bear a son." all that is suggestive of the miraculous conception vanishes. but this is not the only error. the forms of the verbs have been changed. the passage should read as follows: "behold, a young woman is with child and beareth a son." the woman was with child when the prophet wrote. this precludes the possibility of a reference to jesus christ. not only this, the context utterly forbids it. all the events named by the prophet, including the birth of this child, occurred more than seven hundred years before christ. michaelis rejects this prophecy. he says: "i cannot be persuaded that the famous prophecy in isaiah (chap. vii, ) has the least reference to the messiah." . "i will raise unto david a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. in his days judah shall be saved, and israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the lord our righteousness" (jer. xxiii, , ). the correct rendering of this passage is as follows: "i will raise unto david a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the land. in his days judah shall be saved, and israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby they shall call themselves: the eternal is our righteousness." in order to make a messianic prophecy of this passage and give it effect, no less than eight pieces of trickery are employed: . the word "branch" is made to begin with a capital letter. . the word "king" also begins with a capital. . "the name" is rendered "his name." . the pronoun "they," relating to the people of judah and israel, is changed to "he." . the word "eternal" is translated "lord." . "the lord our righteousness" is printed in capitals. . in the table of contents at the head of the chapter are the words "christ shall rule and save them." . at the top of the page are the words "christ promised." . "the sceptre shall not depart from judah, ... until shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (gen. xlix, ). the meaning of shiloh being somewhat obscure, it was made to apply to christ. it is now known that shiloh was the national sanctuary before the jews occupied jerusalem. a correct translation of the passage reads as follows: "the pre-eminence shall not depart from judah so long as the people resort to shiloh; and the nations shall obey him." but even if the writer meant "the sceptre shall not depart from judah until christ comes," as claimed, the prediction was not fulfilled; for the sceptre departed from judah six hundred years before christ came. . "for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be declared wonderful, counsellor, the mighty god, the everlasting father, the prince of peace" (isaiah ix, ). this passage, even if genuine, is not applicable to jesus christ. but it is not genuine. professor cheyne, the highest authority on isaiah, pronounces it a forgery. . "know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build jerusalem, unto messiah the prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks" (daniel viii, ). it is claimed that "week" here means a period of seven years, and assumed, of course, that by messiah is meant christ. seven weeks and three score and two weeks are sixty-nine weeks, or years, the time that was to elapse from the command to rebuild jerusalem to the coming of christ, if the prophecy was fulfilled. the decree of cyrus to rebuild jerusalem and the temple was made b.c. according to the accepted chronology, christ was born b.c. from the decree of cyrus, then, to the coming of christ was years instead of , a period of seven weeks, or forty-nine years, longer than that named by daniel. ezra, the priest, went to jerusalem b.c. this event, however, had nothing whatever to do with the decree for rebuilding jerusalem and the temple. it occurred years after the decree was issued, and years after the temple was finished. but a searcher for messianic prophecies found that from the time of ezra to the beginning of christ's ministry was about years, or prophetic weeks; and notwithstanding there was a deficiency of years at one end of the period, and an excess of years at the other, it was declared to fit exactly. . "the days shall come, in the which there shall not be left one stone [of the temple] upon another, that shall not be thrown down." "and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and jerusalem shall be trodden down of the gentiles" (luke xxi, , ). it has been shown that the books containing this so-called prophecy of jesus were written one hundred years after the conquest and destruction of jerusalem. . "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. and then shall they see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.... verily i say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done" (mark xiii, - , ). that generation did pass, and more than eighteen centuries have followed, and yet the son of man has not come and these things have not been done. christ was a false prophet. . "and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet.... and upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, babylon the great, the mother of harlots" (revelation xvii, , ). protestant churches have no difficulty in recognizing in this mother of harlots the church of rome, apparently forgetting that they are her daughters. the following, relative to bible prophecies, is from the pen of william rathbone greg: "a prophecy, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, signifies a prediction of future events which could not have been foreseen by human sagacity, and the knowledge of which was supernaturally communicated to the prophet. it is clear, therefore, that in order to establish the claim of any anticipatory statement, promise, or denunciation to the rank and title of a prophecy, four points must be ascertained with precision, viz., what the event was to which the alleged prediction was intended to refer; that the prediction was uttered in specific, not vague, language before the event; that the event took place specifically, not loosely, as predicted; and that it could not have been foreseen by human sagacity." "it is probably not too much to affirm that we have no instance in the prophetical books of the old testament of a prediction in the case of which we possess, at once and combined, clear and unsuspicious proof of the date, the precise event predicted, the exact circumstances of that event, and the inability of human sagacity to foresee it. there is no case in which we can say with certainty--even where it is reasonable to suppose that the prediction was uttered before the event--that the narrative has not been tampered with to suit the prediction, or the prediction modified to correspond with the event" (creed of christendom, pp. , .) chapter xxiii. miracles. that curious volume of exaggerated fiction known as the baron munchausen stories has delighted many. works of this character fill a legitimate place in literature. the humorists have contributed much to the health and happiness of mankind. a charming store of wit and humor of the munchausen variety is to be found in the bible. here are a thousand and one stories as marvelous and amusing as are to be found in the whole realm of modern fiction. unfortunately those who profess to value this book the most derive the least benefit from it. they mistake the meaning and purpose of its writers. they accept as facts its most palpable fictions. its most laughable stories are read with the most solemn visages. this serious method of treating the ridiculous has produced an army of morose dyspeptics who mistake indigestion for religion, and intolerance for virtue. to afford a little relaxation from the duller chapters of this work, to furnish a few grains of pepsin to aid in the digestion of a sunday dinner, a small collection of these funny tales of ancient wits--the baron munchausen writers of old times--is given. he who can read them without a smile must be either dull of comprehension or without appreciation of humor. the first cutlet. practical joke played upon a sleepy man by his facetious creator. and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone. i will make him an help meet for him.... and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. and the rib which the lord god had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man (gen. ii, , , ). the great freshet. a story calculated to paralyze a kentucky colonel. the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.... and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered (gen. vii, , , , ). ringstreaked, speckled, and spotted. the doctrine of prenatal influences laughably burlesqued. and jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. and he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. and the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstreaked, speckled, and spotted (gen. xxx, - ). the waters were divided. moses tells, with a wink, about the strongest gale of wind known to history. and moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. and the children of israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left (ex. xiv, , ). quails!!! the modern bird hunter will say: "i love a liar, but this one suits me too well!" and there went forth a wind from the lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. and the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers [over bushels] (num. xi, , ). three good snake stories. "wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging." and the lord said unto him [moses], what is that in thine hand? and he said, a rod. and he said, cast it on the ground. and he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and moses fled from before it. and the lord said unto moses, put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. and he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand (ex. iv, - ). and the lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of israel died.... and the lord said unto moses, make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live. and moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived (num. xxi, , , ). and aaron cast down his rod before pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. then pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. for they cast down every man his rod and they became serpents: but aaron's rod swallowed up their rods (ex. vii, - ). more of aaron's tricks. including, among others, one very lousy trick. and he [aaron] lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of pharaoh and in the sight of the servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood (ex. vii, ). and aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of egypt; and the frogs came up and covered the land of egypt (viii, ). aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of egypt (viii, ). the sun stood still. "is not this written in the book of jasher?" and he [joshua] said in the sight of israel, sun, stand thou still upon gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of ajalon. and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. is not this written in the book of jasher? so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day (josh. x, , ). samson's feats. as described by the humorist who wrote the book of judges. and he [samson] found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. and samson said, with the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have i slain a thousand men (judges xv, , ). and samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. and when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the philistines and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives (judges xv, , ). the loquacious ass. remarks of a quadruped that stood on her record. and balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of moab.... and when the ass saw the angel of the lord, she fell down under balaam: and balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. and the lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto balaam, what have i done unto thee that thou hast smitten me these three times? and balaam said unto the ass, because thou hast mocked me: i would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would i kill thee. and the ass said unto balaam, am not i thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since i was thine unto this day? was i ever wont to do so unto thee? and he said, nay (num. xxii, , - ). a bear story. edifying tale of a baldheaded man, some naughty children, and two bears. and he [elisha] went up from thence unto beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, go up, thou baldhead; go up, thou baldhead. and he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the lord. and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them ( kings ii, , ). the boy sneezed. how a prophet's whiskers tickled a shamming kid and brought him out of his trance. and when elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. and he went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the lord. and he went up and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and he stretched himself upon the child: and the flesh of the child waxed warm. then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes ( kings, iv, - ). shadrach, meshach, and abed-nego. three of satan's subject astonish the officials of nebuchadnezzar. these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.... and the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them (dan. iii, , , ). take me up. a diverting yarn, calculated to cause much merriment among the marines. then they said unto him [jonah], what shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous. and he said unto them, take me up and cast me forth in the sea.... so they took up jonah, and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from her raging.... now the lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up jonah. and jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and nights.... and the lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out jonah upon the dry land (jonah i, - ; ii, ). the confiding husband. a timely dream saves the reputation of a young woman. now the birth of jesus christ was on this wise: when as his mother mary was espoused to joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the holy ghost. then joseph her husband being a just man, and not wishing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. but while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, joseph, thou son of david, fear not to take unto thee mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost.... then joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife; and knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son; and he called his name jesus (matt. i, - ). they did eat and were filled. interesting application of hypnotism by which a multitude were convinced that they had dined. and they say unto him, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. he said, bring them hither to me. and he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. and they did all eat, and were filled; and they took up the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. and they that had eaten were about five thousand men beside women and children (matt. xiv, - ). lazarus come forth. jesus apprises the brother of martha that the joke has been carried far enough. when jesus came, he found that he [lazarus] had lain in the grave four days already.... jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. jesus said, take ye away the stone. martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days.... he [jesus] cried with a loud voice, lazarus come forth. and he that was dead came forth (john xi, , , , , ). these bible stories, which christians profess to believe, are unworthy of serious consideration. they are not historical, but fabulous. a miracle is a fable. the miraculous is impossible; the impossible untrue. if miracles were possible and necessary in that age they are possible and necessary now. this is an age of unbelief. give us one miracle and we will believe. let jesus visit earth again and with his divine touch revivify the inanimate dust of lincoln and give him back to the nation that loved him so well, and we will acknowledge his divinity and believe that the bible is inspired. had he restored to life the decaying corpse of lazarus the jews would have believed in him. the jews did not believe in him, therefore the miracle was not performed. the divine origin of the bible cannot be established by miracles because the possibility of a miracle itself cannot be established. in the language of hume, "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined." chapter xxiv. the bible god. the bible, it is claimed, is the word of god--a revelation from god to man. it was written or inspired by god, and deals chiefly with god and his works. who and what is this god of the bible? what is the nature and character of this divine author? is he omnipresent, or has he a local habitation merely? is he omnipotent, or is he limited in power? is he omniscient, or is his knowledge circumscribed? is he immutable, or is he a changeable being? is he visible and comprehensible, or is he invisible and unknowable? is he the only god, or is he one of many gods? does he possess the form and attributes of man, or is he, as christians affirm, without body, parts, or passions? let god through his inspired penmen answer. is god omnipresent? do not i fill heaven and earth? saith the lord (jer. xxiii, ). the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him ( ch. ii, ). if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me (ps. cxxxix, - ). the lord was not in the wind: ... the lord was not in the earthquake ( kings xix, ). and cain went out from the presence of the lord, and dwelt in the land of nod (gen. iv, ). and he said unto balak, stand here by thy burnt offering, while i meet the lord yonder (num. xxiii, ). go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the lord to gaze (ex. xix, ). god is come into the camp. and they said, woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore ( sam. iv, ). is god omnipotent? with god all things are possible (matt. xix, ). i know that thou canst do everything (job xlii, ). there is nothing too hard for thee (jer. xxxii, ). for the lord god omnipotent reigneth (rev. xix, ). and the lord was with judah, and he [the lord] drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron (jud. i, ). is he omniscient? god ... knoweth all things ( john iii, ). the eyes of the lord are in every place (prov. xv, ). he knoweth the secrets of the heart (ps. xliv, ). no thought can be withholden from thee (job xlii, ). the lord thy god led thee these forty years in the wilderness, ... to know what was in thine heart (deut. viii, ). god left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart ( ch. xxxii, ). the lord said, because the cry of sodom and gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, i will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me: and if not i will know (gen. xviii, , ). is he immutable? i am the lord, i change not (mal. iii, ). with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (james i, ). my covenant will i not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips (ps. lxxxix, ). he is not a man that he should repent ( sam. xv, ). i [god] am weary with repenting (jer. xv, ). it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth (gen. vi, ). the lord repented that he had made saul king over israel ( sam. xv, ). and god repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them; and he did it not (jonah iii, ). the lord god of israel saith, i said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me forever: but now the lord saith, be it far from me ( sam. ii, ). is he visible and comprehensible? i have seen god face to face (gen. xxxii, ). and they saw the god of israel (ex. xxiv, ). for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead (rom. i, ). no man hath seen god at any time (john i, ). whom no man hath seen, nor can see ( tim. vi, ). there shall no man see me and live (ex. xxxiii, ). god is great, and we know him not (job xxxvi, ). touching the almighty, we cannot find him out (job xxxvii, ). is there one god only? there is one god; and there is none other but he (mark xii, ). before me there was no god formed, neither shall there be after me (is. xliii, ). i am the first, and i am the last; and besides me there is no god (is. xliv, ). thou shalt not revile the gods (ex. xxii, ). and the lord god said, behold, the man is become as one of us (gen. iii, ). who is like unto thee, o lord, among the gods? (ex. xv, ). among the gods, there is none like unto thee, o lord (ps. lxxxvi, ). the lord is a great god, and a great king above all gods (ps. xcv, ). god standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods (psalms lxxxii, ?). in what form does god exist? "there is but one living and true god, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions."--thirty-nine articles. compare the above conception of deity with the anthropomorphic character of god portrayed in the following one hundred passages: god created man in his own image (gen. i, ). the hair of his [god's] head (dan. vii, ). thou canst not see my [god's] face (ex. xxxiii, ). the eyes of the lord run to and fro ( ch. xvi, ). and his [god's] ears are open ( pet. iii, ). these are a smoke in my [god's] nose (is. lxv, ). there went up a smoke out of his [god's] nostrils ( sam. xxii, ). that proceedeth out of the mouth of god (matt. iv, ). his [god's] lips are full of indignation (is. xxx, ). and his [god's] tongue as a devouring fire (ibid). he shall dwell between his [god's] shoulders (deut. xxxiii, ). thou [god] hast a mighty arm (ps. lxxxix, ). the right hand of the lord (ps. cxviii, ). this is the finger of god (ex. viii, ). i [god] will show them the back (jer. xviii, ). out of thy [god's] bosom (ps. lxxiv, ). my [god's] heart maketh a noise in me (jer. iv, ). my [god's] bowels are troubled (jer. xxxi, ). the appearance of his [god's] loins (ezek. i, ). darkness was under his [god's] feet (ps. xviii, ). the mind of the lord (lev. xxiv, ). the breath of his [god's] nostrils ( sam. xxii, ). in the light of thy [god's] countenance (ps. lxxxix, ). thou god seest me (gen. xvi, ). my god will hear me (micah vii, ). the lord smelled a sweet savour (gen. viii, ). will i [god] eat the flesh of bulls? (ps. , .). will i [god] drink the blood of goats? (ibid.) the hand of god hath touched me (job xix, ). we have heard his [god's] voice (deut. v, ). god doth talk with man (ibid). the lord shall laugh at him (ps. xxxvii, ). now will i [god] cry (is. xlii, ). he [god] shall give a shout (jer. xxv, ). why sleepest thou, o lord? (ps. xliv, .) then the lord awaked (ps. lxxviii, ). god sitteth upon the throne (ps. xlvii, ). god riseth up (job xxxi, ). the lord stood by him (acts xxiii, ). i [god] will walk among you (lev. xxvi, ). thou [god] didst ride upon thine horses (hab. iii, ). he [god] wrestled with him (gen. xxxii, ). the lord will work ( sam. xiv, ). i [god] am weary (is. i, ). he [god] rested on the seventh day (gen. ii, ). the lord god planted a garden (gen. ii, ). god is able to graft (rom. xi, ). the father is a husbandman (john xv, ). he [god] hath fenced up my way (job xix, ). the lord is my shepherd (ps. xxiii, ). the lord build the house (ps. cxxvii, ). the tables were the work of god (ex. xxxii, ). thou [god] our potter (is. lxiv, ). the lord god made coats of skin (gen. iii, ). and [i god] shod thee with badger's skin (ezek. xvi, ). the lord shave with a razor (is. vii, ). i [god] will cure them (jer. xxxiii, ). and he [god] buried him (deut. xxxiv, ). thy god which teacheth thee (is. xlviii, ). musical instruments of god ( ch. xvi, ). he [god] wrote upon the tables (ex. xxxiv, ). thy book which thou [god] hast written (ex. xxxii, ). o lord, i have heard thy speech (hab. iii, ). the lord is our lawgiver (is. xxxiii, ). the lord is our judge (ibid). for god is the king of all the earth (ps. xlvii, ). he [god] is the governor (ps. xxii, ). god himself is ... our captain ( ch. xiii, ). the lord is a man of war (ex. xv, ). the lord hath opened his armory (jer. i, ). the lord shall blow the trumpet (zech. ix, ). i [god] myself will fight (jer. xxi, ). he [god] will whet his sword (ps. vii, ). he [god] hath bent his bow (lam. ii, ). god shall shoot at them (ps. lxiv, ). rocks are thrown down by him [god] (nahum i, ). i [god] will kill you (ex. xxii, ). thou [god] art become cruel to me (job. xxx, ). i [god] sware in my wrath (ps. xcv, ). i [god] have cursed them already (mal. ii, ). thy god hath blessed thee (deut. ii, ). the lord repented (amos vii, ). god did tempt abraham (gen. xxii, ). o lord thou hast deceived me (jer. xx, ). he [god] hath polluted the kingdom (lam. ii, ). he [god] is mighty in strength (job ix, ). with him [god] is wisdom (job xii, ). i [god] was a husband (jer. xxxi, ). the only begotten of the father (john i, ). the sons of god saw the daughters of men (gen. vi, ). the love that god hath to us ( john iv, ). these six things doth the lord hate (prov. vi, ). the joy of the lord (neh. viii, ). it grieved him [god] at his heart (gen. vi, ). the lord pitieth them that fear him (ps. ciii, ). i [god] feared the wrath of the enemy (deut. xxxii, ). the lord ... is a jealous god (ex. xxxiv, ). the fierce anger of the lord (num. xxv, ). with the lord there is mercy (ps. cxxx, ) vengeance is mine ... saith the lord (rom. xii, ). while many of these texts are simply metaphorical allusions to a deity, as a whole they clearly reveal the anthropomorphic conception of god that prevailed among bible writers generally. this god was represented as a being of power and glory, yet a being possessing the form, the attributes, and the limitations of man. he was a colossal despot--a king of kings. the god of the bible is a product of the human imagination. god did not make man in god's image, as claimed, but man made god in man's image. man is not the creation of god, but god is the creation of man. this god who was supposed to have created the universe out of nothing has himself gradually been resolved into nothingness in the minds of his votaries, and to-day, enthroned in the brain of christendom, there reigns a mere phantom, "without body, parts, or passions" part iii. morality. chapter xxv. the bible not a moral guide. we are asked to accept the bible as the revealed will of an all-powerful, all-wise and all-just god. we are asked to revere it beyond all other books, to make a fetich of it. above all, we are asked to accept it as a divine and infallible moral guide. christians profess to accept it as such; and many who are not christians--many who reject the authenticity of the most of it, and who doubt the credibility of much of it--parrot-like, repeat the claims of supernaturalists, dwell upon its "beautiful moral teachings," and abet the efforts of the clergy to place it in our public schools, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is not in any sense a moral guide. what is morality? what is morality? paley, by many considered the chief of modern christian authorities, basing his conception of morality on the bible, defines it as "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of god [as revealed in the bible], and for the sake of everlasting happiness [and to escape everlasting misery]." supernaturalism and selfishness are thus its sole principles; supernaturalism being its source and selfishness being the motive for its observance. here virtue does not bring its own reward, the will of god is not omnipotent, and mankind, like a spoiled child, must be bribed or frightened to obey its precepts. this is the christian conception of morality. but it is a false conception. morality is not supernatural and divine, but natural and human. it is purely utilitarian. utility, regardless of the will of god, is its all-pervading principle. whatever is beneficial to man is right, is moral; and whatever is injurious to him is wrong, is immoral. the end and aim of moral conduct, according to hobbes, is self-preservation and happiness; not everlasting happiness in another world, as taught by paley, but life-lasting happiness in this. dr. priestley's phrase, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," is pronounced by jeremy bentham, one of the most eminent of ethical writers, "a true standard for whatever is right or wrong, useful, useless, or mischievous in human conduct." more and more, as men become civilized and enlightened, the egoistic principles of religionists give way to the altruistic principle of rationalists. "live for others" is the sublime teaching of the positivist comte. in obeying this noble precept we are not sacrificing, but augmenting our own happiness. "to do good is my religion," said thomas paine. the rewards and punishments of this religion, which is here but another name for morality, are happily expressed by abraham lincoln: "when i do good i feel good, and when i do bad i feel bad." the husband and wife who labor for each other's happiness, regardless of their own; the father and mother who deprive themselves to make their children happy; men, like sir moses montefiore and baron hirsch, and women, like florence nightingale and clara barton, who devote their time and wealth to aid in removing the poverty and alleviating the sufferings of humanity--these, by increasing the happiness of others, increase their own. when the true principles of morality are universally understood and accepted, divine revelations will be cast aside and supernatural religions will die; the zealot's visions of a celestial paradise will vanish, and the philanthropist's dream of a heaven on earth will be realized. bible codes. the ten commandments in the old testament and the sermon on the mount, including the golden rule, in the new, are supposed to comprise the best moral teachings of the bible. they are declared to be so far superior to all other moral codes as to preclude the idea of human origin. the decalogue is a very imperfect moral code; not at all superior to the religious and legislative codes of other ancient peoples. the last six of these commandments, while not above criticism, are in the main just, and were recognized alike by jew and gentile. they are a crude attempt to formulate the crystallized experiences of mankind. the first four (first three according to catholic and lutheran versions) possess no moral value whatever. they are simply religious emanations from the corrupt and disordered brain of priestcraft. they only serve to obscure the principles of true morality and produce an artificial system which bears the same relation to natural morality that a measure of chaff and grain does to a measure of winnowed grain. as a literary composition and as a partial exposition of the peculiar tenets of a heretical jewish sect, the sermon on the mount is interesting; but as a moral code it is of little value. along with some admirable precepts, it contains others, like the following, which are false and pernicious: "blessed are the poor in spirit;" "blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth;" "if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out;" "if thy right hand offend thee cut it off;" "whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery;" "resist not evil;" "whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;" "if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;" "love your enemies;" "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;" "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on;" "take therefore no thought for the morrow." christians claim that unbelievers have no moral standard, that they alone have such a standard--an infallible standard--the bible. if we ask them to name the best precept in this standard they cite the golden rule. and yet the golden rule is in its very nature purely a human rule of conduct. "whatsoever ye [men, not god] would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." this rule enjoins what christians profess to condemn, that every person shall form his own moral standard. in this rule the so-called divine laws are totally ignored. the golden rule, so far as the bible is concerned, is a borrowed gem. chinese, greek, and roman sages had preached and practiced it centuries before the sermon on the mount was delivered. this rule, one of the best formulated by the ancients, is not, however, a perfect rule of human conduct. it does not demand that our desires shall always be just. but it does recognize and enjoin the principle of reciprocity, and is immeasurably superior to the rule usually practised by the professed followers of jesus: whatsoever we would that you should do unto us, do it; and whatsoever we wish to do unto you, that will we do. the three christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity, fairly represent this whole system of so-called bible morals--two false or useless precepts to one good precept. charity is a true virtue, but "faith and hope," to quote volney, "may be called the virtues of dupes for the benefit of knaves." and if the knaves have admitted charity to be the greatest of these virtues, it is because they are the recipients and not the dispensers of it. bible models. the noblest types of manhood, like bruno, spinoza, paine, and ingersoll, have been slandered, anathematized, and slain by christians, while the gods, the heroes, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the priests of the bible have been presented as the highest models of moral excellence. of these, jehovah, abraham, jacob, moses, david, paul, and christ are represented as the greatest and the best. who was jehovah? "a being of terrific character--cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust."--jefferson. who was abraham? an insane barbarian patriarch who married his sister, denied his wife, and seduced her handmaid; who drove one child into the desert to starve, and made preparations to butcher the other. who was jacob? another patriarch, who won god's love by deceiving his father, cheating his uncle, robbing his brother, practicing bigamy with two of his cousins, and committing fornication with two of his housemaids. who was moses? a model of meekness; a man who boasted of his own humility; a man who murdered an egyptian and hid his body in the sand; a man who exterminated whole nations to secure the spoils of war, a man who butchered in cold blood thousands of captive widows, a man who tore dimpled babes from the breasts of dying mothers and put them to a cruel death; a man who made orphans of thirty-two thousand innocent girls, and turned sixteen thousand of them over to the brutal lusts of a savage soldiery. who was david? "a man after god's own heart." a vulgar braggadocio, using language to a woman the mere quoting of which would send me to prison; a traitor, desiring to lead an enemy's troops against his own countrymen; a thief and robber, plundering and devastating the country on every side; a liar, uttering wholesale falsehoods to screen himself from justice; a red-handed butcher, torturing and slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children, making them pass through burning brick-kilns, carving them up with saws and axes, and tearing them in pieces under harrows of iron; a polygamist, with a harem of wives and concubines; a drunken debauchee, dancing half-naked before the maids of his household; a lecherous old libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier; a murderer, having this faithful soldier put to death after desolating his home; a hoary-headed fiend, foaming with vengeance on his dying bed, demanding with his latest breath the deaths of two aged men, one of whom had most contributed to make his kingdom what it was, the other a man to whom he had promised protection. who was paul? a religious fanatic; a jew and a christian. as a jew, in the name of jehovah, he persecuted christians; as a christian, in the name of christ, he persecuted jews; and both as a jew and a christian, and in the name of both jehovah and christ, he practiced dissimulation and hallowed falsehood. who was christ? he is called the "divine teacher." yes, "he led the crowd, he taught them justice, truth, and peace, in semblance; but he lit within their souls the quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword he brought on earth to satiate with the blood of truth and freedom his malignant soul." --shelley. immoral teachings of the bible. in the modern and stricter sense of the term, morality is scarcely taught in the bible. neither moral, morals, and morality, nor their equivalents, ethical and ethics, are to be found in the book. t. b. wakeman, president of the liberal university of oregon, a life-long student of sociology and ethics, says: "the word 'moral' does not occur in the bible, nor even the idea. hunting for morals in the bible is like trying to find human remains in the oldest geologic strata--in the eozoon, for instance. morals had not then been born." i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions nearly every vice and crime. here is the long list of wrongs which it authorizes and defends: . lying and deception. . cheating. . theft and robbery. . murder. . wars of conquest. . human sacrifices. . cannibalism. . witchcraft. . slavery. . polygamy. . adultery and prostitution. . obscenity. . intemperance. . vagrancy. . ignorance. . injustice to woman. . unkindness to children. . cruelty to animals. . tyranny. . intolerance and persecution. the bible is, for the most part, the crude literature of a people who lived , years, and more, ago. certain principles of right and wrong they recognized, but the finer principles of morality were unknown to them. they were an ignorant people. an ignorant people is generally a religious people, and a religious people nearly always an immoral people. they believed that they were god's chosen people--god's peculiar favorites--and that because of this they had the right to rob and cheat, to murder and enslave the rest of mankind. from these two causes, chiefly, ignorance and religion, i. e., superstition, emanated the immoral deeds and opinions which found expression in the writings of their priests and prophets. the passages in the bible which deal with vice and crime may be divided into three classes: . there are passages which condemn vice and crime. these i indorse. . there are many passages in which the crimes and vices of the people are narrated merely as historical facts without either sanctioning or condemning them. the book merits no censure because of these. . there are numerous passages which sanction vice and crime. these, and these alone, in the chapters which follow, i shall adduce to prove the charges that i make against the bible as a moral guide. chapter xxvi. lying--cheating--stealing. lying. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions lying and deception. "and the lord said, who shall persuade ahab that he may go up and fall at ramoth-gilead? and one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. and there came forth a spirit and stood before the lord, and said, i will persuade him. and the lord said unto him, wherewith? and he said, i will go forth, and i will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. and he said, thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and do so. now therefore, behold the lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, thy prophets" ( kings xxii, - ). "if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, i the lord have deceived that prophet" (ezek. xiv, ). "o lord, thou hast deceived me" (jer. xx, ). "wilt thou [god] be altogether unto me as a liar?" (jer. xv, .) "god shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie" ( thess. ii, ). respecting the forbidden fruit god said: "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (gen. ii, ). but the serpent said, "ye shall not surely die" (iii, ). satan's declaration proved true, god's declaration proved untrue. thus, according to the bible, the first truth told to man was told by the devil; the first lie told to man was told by god. in regard to the promised land god says: "doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which i sware to make you dwell therein, ... and ye shall know my breach of promise" (num. xiv, - ). god commands moses to deceive pharaoh (ex. iii, ), he rewards the midwives for their deception (ex. i, - ), and instructs samuel to deceive saul ( sam. xvi, ). "and the lord said unto samuel, ... fill thine horn with oil, and go, i will send thee to jesse the beth-lehemite: for i have provided me a king among his sons. and samuel said, how can i go? if saul hear it he will kill me. and the lord said, take a heifer with thee, and say, i am come to sacrifice to the lord." would an omnipotent and a just god use falsehood and deceit? if there be such a god we must believe that he is an honest and a truthful being. but this god of the bible violates nearly every pledge he makes, and instructs his children to lie and deceive. the patriarchs all follow his example and instructions. abraham tries to deceive pharaoh and abimelech (gen. xii, - ; xx, ); sarah tries to deceive the lord himself (gen. xviii, - ). abraham becomes the parent of a liar. isaac said of rebecca, his wife, "she is my sister" (gen. xxvi, ). rebecca in turn deceives her husband (gen. xxvii, - ). jacob sustains the reputation of the family for lying. "and he came unto his father, and said, my father; and he said, here am i; who art thou, my son? and jacob said unto his father, i am esau, thy first-born.... and he discerned him not, so he blessed him. and he said, art thou my very son, esau? and he said, i am" (gen. xxvii, - ). jacob's wives, leah and rachel, both used deceit. the former deceived her husband (gen. xxix, ); the latter deceived her father (gen. xxxi, , ). his twelve sons were all addicted to the same vice (gen. xxxvii; xlii, ), and these became the founders of the twelve tribes of israel, god's chosen people. david, elisha, and jeremiah, three of god's holiest men, were liars ( sam. xxvii, - ; kings, viii, - ; jer. xxxviii, - ). speaking of the hebrews and bible writers prior to the exile and the introduction of persian ethics, dr. briggs says: "they seem to know nothing of the sin of speaking lies as such. what is the evidence from this silence? they were altogether unconscious of its sinfulness. the holiest men did not hesitate to lie, whenever they had a good object in view, and they showed no consciousness of sin in it. and the writers who tell of their lies are as innocent as they." the decalogue itself does not forbid lying. it forbids perjury; but mere lying is not forbidden. christ taught in parables that he might deceive the people. "and he said unto them, unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of god, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them" (mark iv, , ). paul used deception and boasted of it. he says: "being crafty, i caught you with guile" ( cor. xii, ). "unto the jews i became as a jew, that i might gain the jews" ( cor. ix, ). "i am made all things to all men" ( cor. ix, ). "for if the truth of god hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am i also judged as a sinner?" (rom. iii, .) the primitive christians, accepting the bible as infallible authority, naturally regarded lying for god's glory not a vice but a virtue. mosheim in his "ecclesiastical history" says: "it was an established maxim with many christians, that it was pardonable in an advocate for religion to avail himself of fraud and deception, if it were likely they might conduce toward the attainment of any considerable good." dean milman, in his "history of christianity," says: "it was admitted and avowed that to deceive into christianity was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself." dr. lardner says: "christians of all sorts were guilty of this fraud." bishop fell writes: "in the first ages of the church, so extensive was the license of forging, so credulous were the people in believing that the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured." m. daillé, one of the most distinguished of french protestants, says: "for a good end they made no scruple to forge whole books." dr. gieseler says they "quieted their conscience respecting the forgery with the idea of their good intention." dr. priestley says they "thought it innocent and commendable to lie for the sake of truth." scaliger says: "they distrusted the success of christ's kingdom without the aid of lying." that these admissions are true, that primitive christianity was propagated chiefly by falsehood, is tacitly admitted by all christians. they characterize as forgeries, or unworthy of credit, three-fourths of the early christian writings. the thirty-second chapter of the twelfth book of eusebius's "evangelical preparation" bears this significant title: "how far it may be proper to use falsehood as a medicine, and for the benefit of those who require to be deceived." bishop heliodorus affirms that a "falsehood is a good thing when it aids the speaker and does no harm to the hearers." synesius, another early christian bishop, writes: "the people are desirous of being deceived; we cannot act otherwise with them." that is what most modern theologians think. with dr. thomas burnett, they believe that "too much light is hurtful to weak eyes." that the methods employed in establishing the church are still used in perpetuating its power, a glance at the so-called christian literature of the day will suffice to show. read the works of our sectarian publishers, examine the volumes that compose our sunday-school libraries, peruse our religious papers and periodicals, and you will see that age has but confirmed this habit formed in infancy. every church dogma is a lie; and based upon lies, the church depends upon fraud for its support. the work of its ministers is not to discover and promulgate truths, but to invent and disseminate falsehoods. in the words of isaiah, they well might say: "we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." the church offers a premium on falsehood and imposes a punishment for truthfulness. with a bribe in one hand and a club in the other, she has sought to prolong her sway. the allurements of the one and the fear of the other have filled the world with hypocrisy. in our halls of congress, in the editorial sanctum, in the professor's chair, behind the counter, in the workshop, at the fireside, everywhere, we find men professing to believe what they know to be false, or wearing the seal of silence on their lips, while rank imposture stalks abroad and truth is trampled in the mire before them. every truth seeker is taunted and ridiculed; every truth teller persecuted and defamed; the scientist and philosopher are discouraged and opposed; the heretic and infidel calumniated and maligned. in proof of this, witness the abuse heaped upon the darwins and huxleys, see the countless calumnies circulated against the paines and ingersolls. it is said that paulus jovius kept a bank of lies. to those who paid him liberally he gave noble pedigrees and reputations; those who did not he slandered and maligned. paulus is dead, but the church, guided by bible morality, continues his business. cheating. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide, because it sanctions cheating and the use of dishonorable methods in obtaining wealth and power. "and jacob sod [boiled] pottage; and esau came from the fields, and he was faint; and esau said to jacob, feed me, i pray thee, with that same red pottage; for i am faint.... and jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright. and esau said, behold, i am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do me? and jacob said, swear to me this day; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright unto jacob. then jacob gave esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and rose up and went away" (gen. xxv, - ). this transaction, one of the basest recorded, receives the sanction of the bible. jacob, with god's assistance, by using striped rods, cheated laban out of his cattle: "and it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. "when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feebler were laban's and the stronger jacob's. and the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle" (gen. xxx, - ). "if he [laban] said thus, the speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled; and if he said thus, the ringstreaked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstreaked. thus god hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me" (gen. xxxi, , ). thus, by defrauding his uncle, his famishing brother, and his blind and aged father, this god-beloved patriarch stands forth the prince of cheats--the patron saint of rogues. the israelites obtain the egyptians' property by false pretenses. "and i [god] will give this people favor in the sight of the egyptians; and it shall come to pass that when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil [rob] the egyptians" (ex. iii, , ). "and the lord said unto moses, ... speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold" (ex xi, , ). "and the children of israel did according to the word of moses; and they borrowed of the egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and the lord gave the people favor in the sight of the egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required; and they spoiled the egyptians" (ex. xii, , ). here obtaining goods under false pretenses and embezzlement are commended by god himself. it may be claimed that the egyptians had wronged the israelites. suppose they had; could god secure justice for them only by treachery and fraud? suppose your son worked for a farmer, and that farmer defrauded him of his wages; would you advise your son to borrow a horse of his employer and decamp with it in order to obtain redress, especially when you had the power to obtain redress by lawful means? instead of encouraging these slaves in an act that would eventually lead them to become a race of thieves and robbers, an honest god would have taken their masters by the collar and said, "you have received the labor of these men and women; pay them for it!" in the mosaic law we find the following beautiful statute: "ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien" (deut. xiv, ). "anything that dieth of itself" is diseased. diseased flesh is poisonous. to authorize its use, even if those receiving it are not deceived, is immoral. out west, a family, good christians, had a hog to die of some disease. what did they do with it? eat it? no, their bible told them this would be wrong. they dressed it nicely, took it into an adjoining neighborhood, and sold it to strangers. was this right? the bible says it was. with the widespread influence of a book inculcating such lessons in dishonesty, what must be the inevitable result? men distrust their fellow men; along our business thoroughfares fraud drives with brazen front; in almost every article of merchandise we buy we find a lie enshrined; at every corner sits some jacob slyly whittling spotted sticks to win his neighbor's flocks. stealing. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions theft and robbery. its pages teem with accounts of robberies, and in many instances god is said to have planned them and shared in the spoils. he instructs moses to send a marauding expedition against the midianites. they put the inhabitants to the sword, and return with , cattle. of this booty god exacts head for himself and , head for his priests. the remainder he causes to be divided between the soldiers and citizens. so elated are the israelites with their success, so grateful to god for his assistance, that they make him a gift of , shekels of stolen gold (num. xxxi). when joshua took jericho, "they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron they put into the treasury of the lord" (josh, vi, - ). when he captured ai, "the cattle and the spoils of that city israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the lord which he commanded joshua" (josh, viii, ). jehovah gets the spoils of jericho, and israel those of ai. david, a modest shepherd lad, is placed under the tutelage of jehovah only to become the cruelest robber of his time. on one occasion, purely for plunder, he despoiled three nations and "saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to gath, saying, lest they should tell on us" ( sam. xxvii, - ). it is said that the italian bandit never plans a robbery without invoking a divine blessing upon his undertaking, doubtless believing that the god of david, of moses, and of joshua still reigns. jacob's wives, leah and rachel, were both thieves. leah appropriated the property of her son; rachel stole her father's jewels. neither act was condemned. "when thou comest into thy neighbor's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure, but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel. "when thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbor's standing corn" (deut. xxiii, , ). "men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (prov. vi, ). grand larceny is condemned, but petty larceny is commended. christ enjoined submission to robbery: "of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again" (luke vi, ). chapter xxvii. murder--war. murder. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions murder. it is true the sixth commandment says, "thou shalt not kill;" but this law is practically annulled by innumerable commands from the same source, like the following, to kill: "thus saith the lord god of israel, put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor" (ex. xxxii, ). "spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling" ( sam. xv, ). "slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children" (ezek. ix, ) "cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood" (jer. xlviii, ). for the leader and legislator of his chosen people, god selects a murderer. the first recorded act of moses was premeditated murder. "he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the egyptian, and hid him in the sand" (ex. ii ). for committing a murder, phinehas is rewarded by jehovah with "the covenant of an everlasting priesthood" (num. xxv, - ). samuel "hewed agag," a captive king, "in pieces before the lord" ( sam. xv, , ). jehu murders all the house of ahab, and god rewards him for it: "and joram turned his hands and fled, and said to ahaziah, there is treachery, o ahaziah. and jehu drew a bow with his full strength, and smote jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out at his heart and he sunk down in his chariot. "but when ahaziah, the king of judah, saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house. and jehu followed after him, and said, smite him also in the chariot. and they did so. "and when jehu was come to jezreel, jezebel heard of it, and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. and as jehu entered in at the gate she said, had zimri peace who slew his master? and he lifted up his face to the window, and said, who is on my side? who? and there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. and he said, throw her down. so they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses; and he trode her under foot. and when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her; for she is a king's daughter. and they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands." the dogs had devoured her. "and ahab had seventy sons in samaria. and jehu wrote letters and sent to samaria.... and it came to pass when the letter came to them, that they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them to jezreel." "so jehu slew all that remained of the house of ahab in jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining." "and the lord said unto jehu, because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of israel" ( kings ix, , , , - ; x, , , , ). the assassination of eglon by ehud was characterized by the basest treachery and brutality. eglon was king of moab. ehud carried a present to him, and after he had delivered the present he told the king that he had a private message for him. eglon ordered his attendants to retire, and when alone ehud drew a large dagger from beneath his cloak and thrust it through the body of the king. and the bible tells us that god raised up ehud expressly for this work (jud. iii, - ). the warmest eulogy in the bible is bestowed upon a murderess. sisera is a fugitive from battle. he reaches in safety the tent of heber, his friend. heber is absent, but jael, his wife, receives the fugitive, and bids him welcome. she gives him food, spreads a soft couch for him, and covers him with her mantle. wearied with his retreat, and unconscious of impending danger, sisera soon sinks into a profound slumber. with a tent nail in one hand and a hammer in the other, jael approaches the bedside of her sleeping guest. she bends over him, listens to assure herself that he is asleep, then places the nail against his temple, and with a blow drives it through his head. a struggle, and sisera is dead, a victim of one of the most damnable deeds ever committed. in honor of this assassination, god's favorite prophetess, deborah, sings: "blessed above women shall jael, the wife of heber the kenite, be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent. he asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. she put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; and with the hammer she smote sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. at her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead. the mother of sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" (jud. v, - .) we wish to place before our children, for their emulation, good and noble characters. we have been taught that in the bible such characters may be found. you desire a model woman to place before your daughter. what one will you select? here is a woman whom the bible pronounces "blessed above women." this must be a suitable model, then. blessed for what? for committing one of the most infamous of murders. we had a kansas girl who followed in the footsteps of this "blessed woman." years ago, across the prairies of southern kansas stretched a lonely road. by its side, far from other habitations, stood an unpretentious dwelling, inhabited by four persons--father, mother, son, and daughter. but the daughter was the ruling spirit there. their only volume, we are told, was a bible, and this the daughter read. the house contains two rooms besides the cellar. the rooms are separated simply by a curtain. in the front room is kept a small stock of groceries. here, too, with its back against the curtain, and fastened to the floor, stands a chair. above the door is a sign with this inviting word, "provisions." a traveler enters and makes some purchases, displaying a well-filled purse. he is treated hospitably, and invited to remain awhile and rest. wearied, he drops into the chair, his head pressing against the curtain. armed with a hammer, this follower of jael now approaches from the rear. one well-directed blow, and the tired traveler sinks into eternal rest. his pockets are rifled, and his body thrown into the cellar, to be taken out at night and buried in the little garden behind the dwelling. time rolls on; the traveler does not return. day after day his wife at home, with anxious heart, peers through the window and sighs, "why don't he come?" at length suspicion rests upon this den of infamy. a search is instituted, and the garden is found to be a cemetery, filled with the bodies of murdered travelers--one a little child. in the mean time this female monster with her kin has fled. detectives are still searching for her. they'll never find her. where is she? in heaven with jael. now let some modern deborah sing, "blessed above maidens shall kate bender be!" war. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions wars of conquest and extermination. "blessed be the lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight" (ps. cxliv, ). the old testament is largely a record of wars and massacres. god is represented as "a man of war." at his command whole nations are exterminated. "ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, ... and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein" (num. xxxiii, , ). "and thou shalt consume all the people which the lord thy god shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them" (deut. vii, ). "of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them" (deut. xx, , ). "and they warred against the midianites, as the lord commanded moses; and they slew all the males.... and the children of israel took all the women of midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. and they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles with fire" (num. xxxi, - ). moses is angry because the women and children have been saved, and from this fiendish conqueror comes the mandate: "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man." the mourning remnants of twenty thousand families are thus to be destroyed. the fathers, far away, lie still in death beside the smouldering ruins of their once fair homes; and now their wives and little ones are doomed to die. the signal is sounded, and the massacre begins. the mothers, on bended knees, with tearful eyes and pleading lips, are ruthlessly cut down. their prattling babes, in unsuspecting innocence, smile on the uplifted sword as if it were a glittering toy, and the next moment feel it speeding through their little frames. the daughters only are spared--spared to be the wretched slaves of those whose hands are red with the life-blood of their dear ones. and this is but a prelude to the sanguinary scenes that are to follow. "rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river arnon; behold i have given into thine hand sihon the amorite, king of heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. this day will i begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee." "and we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones of every city, we left none to remain" (deut. ii, , , ). "the lord our god delivered into our hands og also, the king of bashan, and all his people, and we smote him until none was left to him remaining. and we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities.... and we utterly destroyed them as we did unto sihon king of heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city" (deut. iii, - ). moses dies, and joshua next leads jehovah's troops. "and the lord said unto joshua, see, i have given into thine hand jericho.... and they utterly destroyed all that was in that city, both man and woman, young and old" (josh. vi, , ). "and the lord said unto joshua, stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward ai; for i will give it into thine hand.... and so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand.... and joshua burnt ai, and made it a heap forever" (josh. viii, , , ). "and joshua passed from libnah, and all israel with him, unto lachish, and encamped against it, and fought against it. and the lord delivered lachish into the hands of israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein" (josh. x, , ). "and from lachish joshua passed unto eglon, and all israel with him; and they encamped against it, and fought against it. and they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day" (josh. x, , ). thus city after city falls, and nation after nation is vanquished, until thirty-one kingdoms have been destroyed. and still there "remaineth much land to be possessed," and many millions more of unoffending people to be slain to please this god of war. christ came, heralded as the "prince of peace." but he "came not to send peace but a sword"--a sword his own arm was too weak to wield, but which his followers have used with dire effect. expunge from the history of christendom the record of its thousand wars and little will remain. from the time that constantine inscribed the emblem of the cross upon his banner to the present hour, the church of christ has been upheld by the sword. five million troops maintain its political supremacy in europe to-day. to "express our national acknowledgment of almighty god as the source of all authority in civil government; of the lord jesus christ as the ruler of nations, and of his revealed will as of supreme authority;" in short, to make this a "christian nation," as bible moralists demand, means a standing army in this country of five hundred thousand men. the bible has inspired more wars in christendom than all else combined. it is a fountain of blood, and the crimson rivers that have flowed from it would float the navies of the world. chapter xxviii. human sacrifices--cannibalism--witchcraft. human sacrifices. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions human sacrifices. "no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the lord. none devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death" (lev. xxvii, , ). god commands abraham to sacrifice his son: "take now thy son, thine only son isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering" (gen. xxii, ). the order was countermanded, but the perusal of this text has driven thousands to insanity and murder. that a famine may cease, david sacrifices the sons of saul: "wherefore david said unto the gibeonites, what shall i do for you? and wherewith shall i make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the lord?... and they answered the king, the man that consumed us and devised against us.... let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the lord.... and the king said, i will give them. and he delivered them unto the hands of the gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest" ( sam. xxi). the sacrifice, we are told, was accepted, and the famine ceased. five of these innocent victims, if the bible be true, were the sons of michal, david's own wife. two were the sons of rizpah. throughout that long summer--from april till october--in the heat and glare of the day and the chill and darkness of the night, rizpah, broken-hearted, tenderly watches and protects the decaying bodies of her dead sons and relatives. "and rizpah the daughter of aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night." when i dwell on this dark tragedy, and contrast the love and devotion of this agonized and despairing hebrew mother with the malignant hatred and heartless cruelty of this bible god and his despicable agent, humanity rises to the highest heaven and divinity sinks to the lowest hell. the pathetic story of jephthah's daughter is familiar to all. jephthah is a warrior, and makes a vow that if he is permitted to conquer the children of ammon, upon his return the first that meets him at the door will be offered up for a burnt offering unto the lord. he is successful; the lord permits him to defeat the children of ammon. upon his return the first to meet him is his daughter, an only child. he tells her of his vow. she prays for two brief months to live. her prayer is granted, and at the expiration of this time, the bible tells us that jephthah "did with her according to the vow which he had vowed" (jud. xi, - ). describing the fulfilment of this terrible vow, dr. oort says: "this victim, crowned with flowers, was led round the altar with music and song in honor of yahweh. she met her cruel fate without shrinking. but who shall say how sick at heart her father was when he struck that fatal blow with his own hand and saw the blood of his darling child poured out upon the sacred stone, while her body was burned upon the altar?" (bible for learners, vol. i., p. .) "in that frightful sacrifice that he performed--breaking the holiest domestic ties--we do but see the disastrous results of a mistaken faith" (ibid., p. ). the celebrated jewish commentator, dr. kalisch, while endeavoring to palliate as far as possible the crimes of his people, admits that human sacrifices were not uncommon among them: "the fact stands indisputable that human sacrifices offered to jehovah were possible among the hebrews long after the time of moses, without meeting a check or censure from the teachers and leaders of the nation" (leviticus, part i., p. ). "one instance like that of jephthah not only justifies, but necessitates, the influence of a general custom. pious men slaughtered human victims, not to moloch, nor to any other foreign deity, but to the national god, jehovah" (ibid., p. ). jules soury says: "nothing is better established than the existence of human sacrifices among the hebrews in honor of iahveh, and that down to the time of josiah, perhaps even until the return from the babylonish captivity" (religion of israel, p. ). the church, having received the benefits of a sacrificed god, deems human sacrifices no longer necessary. but what can be said of the church as a whole cannot be said of all its individual members. scarcely a year passes without the sacrifice of human beings by those who believe the bible to be inspired, and who believe that what was right three thousand years ago is right to-day. the sacrifice of little ben smith at los angeles, in , is still remembered by some. his father was converted at a methodist revival. he became very religious. the press dispatches stated that "for several months he devoted his time to the study of the bible until he not only convinced himself that he ought to make a human sacrifice, but brought his wife and their only child, a boy of thirteen, to acquiesce, in his views." i quote from the mother's testimony: "when he talked to me and persuaded me that a good wife ought to think as her husband did, i got so as to take whatever he said as the truth. he made us fast, and when ben asked him if god had ordered us to starve he said yes. when he announced that the boy must be killed we both remonstrated, but finally thought it was all right. on the day appointed for the ceremony he called ben out of the house and told him he had to die for our savior. the little fellow knelt down and i got on my knees by his side; john raised the knife, looked hard into the boy's face, and then drove the knife into his breast." here the mother was overcome with grief. regaining her composure, she continued: "i am always thinking of ben; i am always hearing him in the night asking to be brought in and laid on his bed, and begging for a little water before he died." let me recall another half-forgotten scene. in a quiet village of new england live a pair whom nature meant for good, kind citizens. but they have become infatuated with the bible. they believe it to be infallible. day after day they pore over its pages. they dwell with especial interest upon the story of abraham and isaac, until at last they become impressed with the belief that they, too, are called upon to offer up their child. the fatal hour arrives. nerved for the cruel deed, they approach the bedside of their child, a sweet-faced, curly-haired girl of four. how placidly she rests! folded upon her breast are dimpled hands, white as the winter snow; curtained in slumber are eyes as mild as the summer sky. how beautiful! how pure! we would risk our lives to save that pretty thing from harm. how dear, then, must she be to that father and that mother! she is their idol. but that idol is about to be sacrificed upon the altar of superstition. there they stand--the mother with a lamp in her hand, the father with a knife. they gaze for a moment upon their sleeping victim. then the father lifts his arm and plunges the knife into the heart of his child! a quiver--the blue eyes open, and cast a reproachful look upon the parent. the little lips exclaim, "o papa!" and the sacrifice is made! you may say these people were insane. aye, but what made them insane? and what, more than almost any other cause, is filling our asylums with these unfortunate people? the vain attempt to reconcile with reason the irreconcilable teachings of the bible. cannibalism. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it teaches the horrible custom of cannibalism. "the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers" (ezek. v, ). "and ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat" (lev. xxvi, ). "and i will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend" (jer. xix, ). "and thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters.... so that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave; so that he will not give to any of them the flesh of his children whom he shall eat.... the tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, ... for she shall eat them" (deut. xxviii, - ). "the hands of the pitiful women have sodden [boiled] their own children" (lam. iv, ). "and the king said unto her, what aileth thee? and she answered, this woman said unto me, give thy son that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. so we boiled my son, and did eat him. and i said unto her on the next day, give thy son that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son" ( kings vi, , ). you will say that these were punishments inflicted upon these people for their sins. and you will have us believe that these punishments were just. strange justice! a merciful god compelling a starving mother to kill and devour her own child! "except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" (john vi, ). the church perpetuates the idea, if not the practice, of cannibalism. the christian takes a piece of bread, and tries to make himself and the world believe that he is eating the body of christ; he takes a sup of wine, and says, "this is christ's blood." your sacramental feast points to the time when savage priests gathered around the festal board and supped on human flesh and blood. primitive christians, many of them, were guilty of cannibalism. in their agapæ they were accustomed to kill and eat an infant. dr. cave in his "primitive christianity" (part iii., ch. i) says: "epiphanius reports that the gnostics (a sect of primitive christians) at their meetings were wont to take an infant begotten in their promiscuous mixtures, and, beating it in a mortar, to season it with honey and pepper and some other spices and perfumes to make it palatable, and then like swine or dogs to devour it, and then to conclude all with prayer." meredith, in "the prophet of nazareth," says: "so well known were those horrid vices to be carried on by christians in their nocturnal and secret assemblies, and so certain it was thought that every one who was a christian participated in them, that for a person to be known to be a christian was thought a strong presumptive proof that he was guilty of these offenses.... it would appear, however, that, owing to the extreme measures taken against them by the romans, both in italy and in all the provinces, the christians, by degrees, were forced to abandon entirely in their agapæ infant murders, together with every species of obscenity, retaining, nevertheless, some of them, such as the kiss of charity, and the bread and wine, which they contended was transubstantiated into real flesh and blood." in the remote districts of christian russia, where the rays of our civilization have not yet penetrated the darkness of theology, where bible morals are still supreme, we are told that even at the present time a more terribly real form attaches to this eucharistic ceremony. from harper's weekly i quote the following: "we hear of horrid sects at present in russia, practicing cannibal and human sacrifices with rites almost more devilish than any recorded in history. 'the communism of the flesh of the lamb' and 'the communism of the blood of the lamb' really seem to have been invented by the lowest demons of the bottomless pit. the subject is too revolting to be pursued in detail; it is enough to say that an infant seven days old is bandaged over the eyes, stretched over a dish, and a silver spoon thrust into the side so as to pierce the heart. the elect suck the child's blood--that is 'the blood of the lamb!' the body is left to dry up in another dish full of sage, then crushed into powder and eaten--that is 'the flesh of the lamb!'" witchcraft. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it recognizes as a verity the delusion of witchcraft and punishes with death its victims. the god that inspired the account of saul's interview with the witch of endor was as thorough a believer in witchcraft as the most superstitious crone of the middle ages. manasseh "used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards" ( chron. xxxiii, ). isaiah speaks of "wizards that peep and mutter" (isa. viii, ). samuel ( sam, xv, ) and micah (v, ) and nahum (iii, ) and paul (gal. v, ) all admit the reality of witchcraft. the decline in the belief of wizards and witches denotes a decline of faith in the bible. until a very recent period, those who professed to believe in the divinity of the bible also professed to believe in the reality of witchcraft. "giving up witchcraft," says john wesley, "is, in effect, giving up the bible" (journal, ). sir william blackstone says: "to deny the possibility--nay, actual existence--of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of god in various passages both of the old and new testaments." sir matthew hale says: "the bible leaves no doubt as to the reality of witchcraft and the duty of putting its subjects to death." "i should have no compassion on these witches." said luther; "i would burn them all" (table talk). "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (ex. xxii, ). "a man also or a woman that hath a familial spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death" (lev. xx, ). oh, that i could bring to view the suffering and death these texts have caused! millions have died because of them. one thousand were burned at como in one year; were burned at würzburg in one year; perished at geneva in three months; were burned in a single village of savoy; nine women were burned in a single fire at leith; sixty were hanged at suffolk; , were legally executed during one session of parliament, while thousands more were put to death by mobs; remy, a christian judge, executed ; were burned by one bishop at bamburg; boguet burned at st. cloud; thousands were put to death by the lutherans of norway and sweden; catholic spain butchered thousands; presbyterians were responsible for the death of , in scotland; , were sentenced to death during the reign of francis i.; , died at treves; the number killed in paris in a few months is declared to have been "almost infinite." dr. sprenger places the total number of executions for witchcraft in europe at nine millions. for centuries witch fires burned in nearly every town of europe, and this bible text, "thou shall not suffer a witch to live," was the torch that kindled them. four hundred were burned at toulouse in one day. think of it! four hundred women--guilty of no crime, save that which exists in the diseased imaginations of their accusers--four hundred mothers, wives, and daughters, taken out upon the public square, chained to posts, the fagots piled around them, and burned to death! see them writhing in the flames--listen to their piteous shrieks--four hundred voices raised in one wild chorus of agony! and all because the bible says, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." only a few years ago, in the province of novgorod, russia, a woman was burnt for witchcraft. agrafena was a soldier's widow, and possessed of more than ordinary gifts of mind. but ignorance and superstition prevailed around her. every strange occurrence, every disease that could not be accounted for, was the result of witchcraft. one day a farmer's daughter was seized with some violent disease, and in her paroxysms of pain she chanced to breathe the name of agrafena. that was enough; agrafena was a witch. a mob was raised and led to the widow's dwelling. they called her to the door, parleyed with her a moment, then thrust her back into the house, fastened its doors, and set it on fire. and while it was burning, this mob, led by christian priests, stood around it, singing praises to god--their strains blended with the shrieks of this dying woman--dying because the bible says, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." and in our own america the blighting influence of this delusion and this brutal statute has been felt. with the soil of our republic is mingled the dust of murdered women--murdered because the bible says, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." chapter xxix. slavery--polygamy. slavery. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions the infamous crime of human slavery. "both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you; of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever" (lev. xx. v, - ). in certain cases they were even permitted to enslave the members of their own race. "if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. if his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself" (ex. xxi, - ). if he desires his liberty he must desert his wife and little ones. to become a freeman he must become an exile. "and if the servant shall plainly say, i love my master, my wife, and my children; i will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ears through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever" ( , ). "and he said, cursed be canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. "and he said, blessed be the lord god of shem; and canaan shall be his servant. "god shall enlarge japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of shem; and canaan shall be his servant" (gen. ix, - ). nor is it the jewish scriptures alone which sanction slavery. the christian scriptures are not less emphatic in their indorsement of it. "let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor" ( tim. vi, ). "exhort servants to be obedient unto their masters" (titus ii, ). "servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling" (eph. vi, ). "servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" ( pet. ii, ). it may be urged that the term "servant" here refers to a hired servant. not so; wherever the word "servant" occurs in the new testament, it means slave in its worst sense. the fugitive slave law, which made us a nation of kidnappers, derived its authority from the new testament. paul had established a precedent by returning a fugitive slave to his master. referring to this act of paul, the rev. dr. stringfellow of virginia wrote: "oh, how immeasurably different paul's conduct to this slave and master, from the conduct of our abolition brethren! this is sufficient to teach any man that slavery is not, in the sight of god, what it is in the sight of the abolitionists" (scriptural view of slavery). the rev. moses stuart of massachusetts wrote: "what, now, have we here? paul sending back a christian servant, who had run away from his christian master.... paul's conscience sent back the fugitive slave. paul's conscience, then, like his doctrines, was very different from that of the abolitionists." it was no easy task to convince the bible moralist that slavery was wrong. when the french revolutionists rejected the bible, they abolished slavery in the colonies. when the church regained control of the government, the bible came back, and with it slavery. when clarkson's bill for the abolition of slavery was before parliament, lord chancellor thurlow characterized it as a "miserable and contemptible bill," and "contrary to the word of god." charles bradlaugh, in the north american review, writing of his own christian england, says: "george iii., a most christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the christian house of lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. when christian missionaries, some sixty years ago, preached to demerara negroes under the rule of christian england, they were treated by christian judges, holding commission from christian england, as criminals for so preaching. a christian commissioned officer, member of the established church of england, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as ." the most zealous defenders of slavery in this country were bible moralists. the rev. alexander campbell wrote: "there is not one verse in the bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. it is not then, we conclude, immoral." the rev. e. d. simms, professor in randolph-macon college, wrote: "these extracts from holy writ unequivocally assert the right of property in slaves." the rev. r. furman, d. d., baptist, of south carolina, said: "the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the holy scriptures, both by precept and example." rev. thomas witherspoon, presbyterian, of alabama, said: "i draw my warrant from the scriptures of the old and new testament to hold the slave in bondage." said the rev. mr. crawder, methodist, of virginia: "slavery is not only countenanced, permitted, and regulated by the bible, but it was positively instituted by god himself." you say that this is the testimony of interested parties, that the south was interested in perpetuating slavery. true, but where did your northern theologians stand? rev. dr. wilbur fisk, president of wesleyan university, thus wrote: "the new testament enjoins obedience upon the slave as an obligation due to a present rightful authority." the rev. dr. nathan lord, president of dartmouth college, wrote: "slavery was incorporated into the civil institutions of moses; it was recognized accordingly by christ and his apostles. they regulated it by the just and benevolent principles of the new testament. they condemned all intermeddlers with it." professor hodge, of princeton, said: "the savior found it around him, the apostles met with it in asia, greece, and italy. how did they treat it? not by denunciation of slave-holding as necessarily sinful." said the rev. dr. taylor, principal of the theological department of yale college: "i have no doubt that if jesus christ were now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder." it is now half-forgotten that the north as well as the south once practiced slavery--that new england, new york, new jersey, and pennsylvania all held slaves. christian new england, which made the bible both its legal and moral code, for more than one hundred years, held negroes and indians in slavery, and even sold quaker children into bondage. "parish ministers all over new england," says the rev. william goodell, "owned slaves" (american slave code, p. ). clerical slaveholders in the south trampled under foot the relations of wife and mother; and clerical slaveholders in the north did the same. mr. goodell says: "even in puritan new england, seventy years ago, female slaves, in ministers' and magistrates' families, bore children, black or yellow, without marriage. no one inquired who their fathers were, and nothing more was thought of it than of the breeding of sheep or swine" (ibid., p. ). "a congregational minister at hampton, conn. (rev. mr. mosely), separated by sale a husband and wife who were both of them members of his own church, and who had been, by his own officiating act as a minister, united in marriage" (ibid., p. ). let me cite one of the laws of the bible relative to the treatment of slaves--a law which demons would blush to indorse, but which a merciful (?) god enacted for the guidance of his children: "if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money" (ex. xxi, , ). here a master may brutally beat his slave, and if that slave linger in the agonies of death a day or two before dying, he shall not be punished, because the slave "is his money." goodell's "american slave code," a work written by a christian clergyman, and which i have already quoted, contains four hundred pages of outrages, like the following, committed by men who accepted the bible as their moral guide: "a minister in south carolina, a native of the north, had a stated sabbath appointment to preach, about eight miles from his residence. he was in the habit of riding thither in his gig. behind him ran his negro slave on foot, who was required to be at the place of appointment as soon as his master, to take care of his horse. sometimes he fell behind, and kept his master waiting for him a few minutes, for which he always received a reprimand, and was sometimes punished. on one occasion of this kind, after sermon, the master told the slave that he would take care to have him keep up with him, going home. so he tied him by the wrists, with a halter, to his gig behind, and drove rapidly home. the result was that, about two or three miles from home, the poor fellow's feet and legs failed him, and he was dragged on the ground all the rest of the way by the wrists! on alighting and looking round, the master exclaimed, 'well; i thought you would keep up with me this time!' so saying, he coolly walked into the house. the servants came out and took up the poor sufferer for dead. after a time he revived a little, lingered for a day or two, and died!" was this brutal minister punished? he was not. "if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." was he silenced from preaching? was he even reprimanded by the church? no. without punishment, without censure, he continued to preach bible morals and abuse his slaves. frederick douglass, the greatest of his race and a slave, says: "my master found religious sanctity for his cruelty.... i have seen him tie up a lame young woman and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of scripture: 'he that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes.'" slavery flourished on this continent because the bible taught that it was lawful and just. to oppose slavery was to oppose the plainest teachings of this book. the abolition movement was an infidel movement. the emancipation proclamation was a nullification of "god's law." the great rebellion was a contest between bible morality and natural morality. the latter triumphed, but the conflict filled half a million graves, brought grief to many million hearts, and covered the land with desolation. and this advocate of slavery is the idol protestants worship; this is the book they wish to become the law of our land; this is the moral guide they wish to place in our public schools! in the name of those who died for the freedom of their fellow-men; in the name of those made childless, fatherless, and companionless by this cruel strife; in the name of those whose backs still bear the scars of the master's lash; in the name of human liberty, i protest against this retrogressive movement! polygamy. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions that other twin relic of barbarism, polygamy. the mosaic law provides that "if a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated," he shall not ignore the legal rights of the hated wife's children (deut. xxi, - ). this statute recognizes both the existence and the validity of the institution. another statute (deut. xxv, ) provides that if a man die, his surviving brother shall become the husband of his widow, and this regardless as to whether the brother be married or single. the first eighteen verses of the eighteenth chapter of leviticus are devoted to what is termed "unlawful marriages." here polygamy is recognized and regulated to the extent of prohibiting a man from marrying the sister of a living wife. but there is one statute which places the validity of this institution, so far as the bible is concerned, beyond all controversy. deuteronomy (xxiii, ) declares that no illegitimate child shall enter into the congregation of the lord, even up to the tenth generation. now, polygamy was either lawful or unlawful. if unlawful, then the children of polygamists were illegitimate children, and disqualified for the sanctuary. but the children of polygamists were not thus disqualified. the founders of the twelve tribes of israel were all children of a polygamist. the most renowned bible characters were polygamists. abraham had two wives, and when he died the lord said, "abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (gen. xxvi, ). jacob was a polygamist, and after he had secured four wives and concubines, god blessed him and said, "be fruitful and multiply" (gen. xxxv, ). gideon had "many wives" (jud. viii, ), and it was to him an angel came and said, "the lord is with thee" (jud. vi, ). david had a score of wives and concubines, and "david was a man after god's own heart;" "david did right in the eyes of the lord." god himself said to david, "i delivered thee out of the hands of saul; and i gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives" ( sam. xii, , ). "and god gave solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart"--sufficient to hold a thousand wives and concubines. many years ago the mormon, orson pratt, wrote a defense of polygamy, based upon the bible. a noted lawyer of new york sent a copy of it to the rev. dr. w. b. sprague with the interrogation, "can you answer this?" back came the frank reply, "no; can you?" it is claimed that the new testament is opposed to polygamy. it is not. william ellery channing says: "there is no prohibition of polygamy in the new testament. it is an indisputable fact that although christianity was first preached in asia, which had been from the earliest ages the seat of polygamy, the apostles never denounced it as a crime, and never required their converts to put away all wives but one." elizabeth cady stanton says: "it was at a jewish polygamous wedding that jesus performed his first miracle, and polygamy was practiced by christians for centuries." it is true that many primitive christians did not practice polygamy. and why? because pagan greece and rome had taught them better. it was to them, and not to their scriptures, that they were indebted for the monogamic system of marriage. the roman catholic church did not generally sustain polygamy; but it did sustain a system of concubinage which was certainly as bad. for centuries the keeping of concubines was almost universal among the catholic clergy, one abbot keeping no less than seventy. the founders of the protestant church, however, accepting the bible as their guide, attaching to it a degree of authority which had never been attached to it before, were candid and consistent enough to admit the validity of the institution. referring to this subject, sir william hamilton, a christian and a protestant, says: "as to polygamy in particular, which not only luther, melanchthon, and bucer, the three leaders of the german reformation, speculatively adopted, but to which above a dozen distinguished divines among the reformers stood formally committed" (discussions on philosophy and literature). speaking of luther and melanchthon, hamilton says: "they had both promulgated opinions in favor of polygamy, to the extent of vindicating to the spiritual minister a right of private dispensation, and to the temporal magistrate the right of establishing the practice if he chose by public law" (ibid). in accordance with these views, john of leydon, a zealous protestant, established polygamy at munster, and murdered or drove from their homes all who dared to oppose the odious custom. other protestants followed his example. on the th of december, , at wittenberg, luther and melanchthon drew up the famous "consilium," authorizing the landgrave, philip of hesse, to have a plurality of wives. this instrument bears the signatures of martin luther, philip melanchthon, martin bucer, dionysius melander, john lening, antony corvinus, adam kraft, justus winther, and balthasar raida, nine of the leading protestant divines of germany. it is a well-known fact that luther advised henry viii. to adopt polygamy in his case, but by divorcing two wives, and murdering two more, the founder of the english church avoided it. the advocacy of polygamy by the chief reformers prevented ferdinand i. from declaring for the reformation. the german princes, too, generally opposed it; and this opposition, coupled with the fact that the most licentious sects espoused it, finally caused a reaction in favor of monogamy. protestants, it ill became you to point the finger of scorn at the mormons of utah. yet with characteristic consistency you were demanding the suppression of polygamy in the territories, while at the same time you were endeavoring to have the whole country accept as infallible authority a book which sanctions the pernicious custom. make the bible the fundamental law of the land, as you demand, and polygamy will become, in theory at least, a national instead of a local institution. chapter xxx. adultery--obscenity. adultery. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions adultery and prostitution. adultery is made prominent by the recital of the numerous adulteries of abraham, lot, jacob, judah, samson, david, and other bible saints, and sanctified by the approved adulteries of abraham and jacob. both abraham and isaac were willing to sell the virtue of their wives to save themselves from harm. two instances are recorded of fathers having offered their own daughters to gratify the lust of a sensual mob, and these abominable acts are represented as especially meritorious. read the nineteenth chapter of genesis and the nineteenth chapter of judges; dwell upon the eighth verse of the former and the twenty-fourth verse of the latter; and then, if you can indorse the spirit of these narratives, you are unfit to be the parent of a daughter. the mosaic law authorizes a father to sell his daughter for a concubine or mistress (euphemistically translated "maid servant"). god's instructions respecting the thirty-two thousand captive midianite maidens impliedly sanction concubinage and prostitution. these bible teachings have been the cause of countless outrages against the chastity of woman. john wesley says: "almost all the soldiers in the christian world ... have claimed, more especially in time of war, another kind of liberty: that of borrowing the wives and daughters of the men that fell into their hands" (wesley's miscellaneous works, vol. iii., p. ). luther, drawing his morality from the bible, gave concubinage his indorsement: "there is nothing unusual in princes keeping concubines; and although the lower orders may not perceive the excuses of the thing, the more intelligent know how to make allowance" (consilium). luther might with equal truthfulness have said, "there is nothing unusual in priests and preachers keeping concubines," and he might have helped to confirm it by a few leaves from his own private history. in a letter to his confidential friend, spalatin, he confessed to numerous adulteries. god instructs his prophet hosea to marry a prostitute. he subsequently commands him to love and hire an adulteress (hosea i, , ; iii, , ). christ forgave the woman taken in adultery, while his favorite female companion was a reformed (?) prostitute. referring to his female ancestors, dr. alexander walker, a christian, says: "it is remarkable that in the genealogy of christ only four women have been named: tamar, who seduced the father of her late husband; rachab, a common prostitute; ruth, who, instead of marrying one of her cousins, went to bed with another of them, and bathsheba, an adultress, who espoused david, the murderer of her husband" (woman, p. ). the early christians were notorious for their adulteries. dr. cave, in his "primitive christianity" (part ii., ch. v), says it was commonly charged "that the christians knew one another by certain privy marks and signs, and were wont to be in love almost before they knew one another; that they exercised lust and filthiness under a pretense of religion, promiscuously calling themselves brothers and sisters, that by the help of so sacred a name their common adulteries might become incestuous." of the carpocratians, who dr. lardner says "are not accused of rejecting any part of the new testament," dr. cave says: "both men and women used to meet at supper (which was called their love-feast), when after they had loaded themselves with a plentiful meal, to prevent all shame, if they had any remaining, they put out the lights, and then promiscuously mixed in filthiness with one another" (ibid). in his epistle to the corinthians, paul says: "it is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the gentiles" ( cor. v, ). it is an indisputable fact that the most notorious adulterers are those whose profession makes them most familiar with the teachings of the bible, and compels them to accept its teachings as divine. obscenity. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide, and protest against its being placed in the hands of the young, because its pages are defiled with obscenity. aside from thousands of coarse and vulgar expressions contained in it, there are at least a hundred passages so obscene that their appearance in any other book would exclude that book from the mails and send its publisher to prison. the united states courts have declared parts of the bible to be obscene. there are entire chapters, such as the thirty-eighth chapter of genesis, that reek with obscenity from beginning to end. in proof of the charge of obscenity, i refer you to the following: isaiah xxxvi, ; ezek. iv, - ; gen. xix, - ; xxx, - ; xxxviii; kings xviii, ; lev. xv, - ; job xl, , ; kings xiv, ; isaiah iii, . that portions of the bible are obscene and unfit to be read, is admitted even by christians. noah webster, a protestant, edited an expurgated edition of the bible. in vindication of his work, he says: "many passages are expressed in language which decency forbids to be repeated in families and in the pulpit." the rev. dr. embree, methodist, of kansas, in a speech before the topeka school board advocating the reading of bible selections in the public schools of that city, recently said: "i would not want the bible read indiscriminately. i think some of it unfit to be read by any one." the rev. father maguire, catholic, in his debate with the rev. mr. greg, at dublin, gave utterance to the following: "i beg of you not to continue such a practice; it is disreputable. i will ask mr. greg a question (and i beg of you, my brethren of the protestant church, to bear this in mind), i will ask him if he dare to take up the bible and read from the book of genesis the fact of onan--i ask him will he read that? will he read the fact relative to lot and his two daughters? will he read these and many other passages which i could point out to him in the holy bible, which i would not take one thousand guineas, nay, all the money in the world, and read them here to-day?" richard lalor shiel, m. p., and privy counselor to the queen, thus wrote: "part of the holy writings consist of history, and the narration of facts of a kind that cannot be mentioned in the presence of a virtuous woman without exciting horror. shall a woman be permitted to read in her chamber what she would tremble to hear at her domestic board? shall she con over and revolve what she would rather die than utter?" and if unfit for the perusal of a matured woman, shall innocent childhood be polluted by these vile, indecent tales? chapter xxxi. intemperance--vagrancy--ignorance. intemperance. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it fosters the evil of intemperance. while the sacred books of buddhists and mohammedans, by forbidding the use of intoxicating drinks, have contributed to make drunkenness among these people disreputable and rare, the bible, by encouraging their use, has made intemperance in christian countries frightfully prevalent and almost respectable. "thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink" (deut. xiv, ). "give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more" (prov. xxxi, , ). "drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake" ( tim. v, ). "go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for god now accepteth thy works" (eccles. ix, ). "corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids" (zech. ix, ). "they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof" (amos ix, ). "wine that maketh glad the heart of man" (ps. civ, ). "wine which cheereth god and man" (jud. ix, ). "in the holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine to be poured unto the lord for a drink offering" (num. xxviii, ). will that wing of the prohibition army which accepts the bible as its guide inscribe these texts upon its banner? as a reward for the jews keeping the judgments of the lord he was to bless their wine (deut. vii, ). liberal giving to the lord was to be rewarded with an abundance of wine. "honor the lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine" (prov. iii, , ). one of the most direful calamities was a wine famine. "awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.... the drink offering is cut off from the house of the lord; the priests, the lord's ministers, mourn.... gird yourselves and lament, ye priests howl, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my god; for ... the drink offering is withholden from the house of your god" (joel i, , , ). god's especial favorites had a weakness for wine. when he drowned the world's inhabitants he saved noah, knowing that as soon as the waters subsided he would plant a vineyard, make wine, and become intoxicated. when sodom was destroyed the only righteous man he found was that foul drunkard, lot. when david made his celebrated feast in honor of the lord he gave to every man and woman a flagon of wine. he kept some for himself and so merry did his heart become that he "danced before the lord with all his might." thus joyously sings solomon: "i have drunk my wine with my milk [milk punch]; eat, o friends! drink, yea, drink abundantly." in the morning he sings another song: "open to me ... my love ... for my head is filled with dew." how many a wayward fellow like solomon has risen from the gutter, sorrowfully wended his way home, and serenaded his sleeping spouse with that same melody! when solomon erected his temple to god he gave to his laborers "twenty thousand baths [nearly , gallons] of wine" ( chron. ii, ). the nazarite, it is claimed, was commanded to abstain from wine. yes, but only during the period of his separation. "after that the nazarite may drink wine" (num. vi, ). god commanded jeremiah to tempt with wine those who abstained from its use: "go unto the house of the rechabites and speak with them, and bring them into the house of the lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink" (jer. xxxv, ). christ spoke as follows: "john the baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine.... the son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber" (luke, vii, , ). this censure was evidently not unmerited. the first act in christ's ministerial career was to manufacture three barrels of wine for a wedding feast; his last recorded act was a benediction upon the wine cup. theology being no longer in demand, the protestant clergy, contrary to the teachings of the bible, and the traditions of the church, now find it popular and profitable to espouse the cause of temperance. but in championing one rational virtue they employ two christian vices, hypocrisy and intolerance. the most inconsistent, the most uncharitable opponents of the liquor traffic to-day are these fresh converts who profess to be doing their master's will and who claim that his word is the advocate of total abstinence and prohibitory laws. with fierce invective they declaim against the old god bacchus, yet every anathema they hurl at him will apply with equal justice to their god and christ. one of the most unscrupulous arguments ever adduced in support of any cause is that now advanced by some christian temperance advocates to the effect that the wine sanctioned in the bible was not intoxicating. with the same ease that they declare that in the bible "black" means "white," that "hate" means "love," and "day" means "age," they declare that bible wine does not mean wine, but unfermented grape juice. the rev. dr. w. m. thompson, rev. william wright, rev. s. h. calhoun, rev. c. v. a. van dyke, and other able hebrew and sanscrit scholars of western asia, who have made the history and customs of its people both ancient and modern a life study, affirm that such a thing as non-intoxicating wine was unknown, that the unfermented juice of the grape was never recognized as wine. dr. philip schaff, the foremost bible scholar of this country, affirms the same: "the wine of the bible was no doubt pure and unadulterated.... it was genuine and real wine, and, like all wine in use in grape-growing countries, exhilarating. to lay down the principle that the use of intoxicating drink as a beverage is a sin--per se--is to condemn the greater part of christendom, to contradict the bible, and to impeach christ himself, who drank wine and made wine by miracle to supply the marriage guests." at the general assembly of the presbyterian church held at belfast, ireland, in , an exhaustive examination and discussion was given this subject. the result was the adoption by an almost unanimous vote of the following resolution offered by the rev. robert wales, professor of dialectic theology, belfast: "as the wine used in the oblations of the old testament time at the passover and by our lord jesus christ himself in the institution of the supper was the ordinary wine of the country, that is, the fermented juice of the grape, we cannot sanction the use of the unfermented juice of the grape as a symbol in the ordinance." that the sacramental wine used by the early christians was intoxicating, and that they were addicted to using it to excess at the lord's supper, is admitted by paul ( cor. xi, - ). referring to this subject, the christian register says: "we deplore intemperance, and welcome every truthful argument against it, but the argument founded on the non-intoxicating character of bible wine is a weak and diluted fallacy." vagrancy. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it encourages poverty and vagrancy. jesus christ was the panegyrist of poverty and the promoter of vagrancy: "blessed be ye poor" (luke vi, ). "but woe unto you that are rich" (luke vi, ). "a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven" (matt. xix, ). "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god" (mark x, ). "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth" (matt. vi, ). when the judicious use of wealth is promotive of human happiness, and when poverty is the source of so much misery and crime, such teachings are not only false, but pernicious. "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on.... behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns.... and why take ye thought for raiment? consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.... therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?... the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (matt. vi, - ). to-day our land is infested with an army of tramps. their skirmishers are deployed along every highway; their points of attack are the kitchen and the haymow; their text-book on military science is the sermon on the mount. "they sow not, neither do they reap;" "they toil not, neither do they spin." they beg and steal. these are christ's followers--the truest followers he has on earth to-day. in the streets of our cities we see men clad in rags, idle, and drunken, and penniless. we see them arrested for vagrancy, thrust into prison, or made to labor for their bread. these are christ's martyrs. poor tramp and vagrant! how you are "persecuted for righteousness' sake!" men despise you; the farmer drives you from his door; the social economist racks his brain to devise a plan for your suppression; state governments legislate against you; everywhere you are treated as an outcast--and all because, taking the bible for your guide, you endeavor faithfully to conform to its teachings. ignorance. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it condemns the use of reason and the acquisition of knowledge. "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it" (gen. ii, ). "she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. and the eyes of them both were opened" (iii, , ). "therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden" ( ). "he that believeth not shall be damned" (mark xvi, ). for partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, our parents were banished from paradise; for obeying the dictates of reason, we are consigned to hell. education, physical, moral, and intellectual, is discouraged. bodily exercise profiteth little.--paul. be not righteous overmuch.--solomon. neither make thyself over wise.--solomon. choice mottoes, the above, to hang up on the walls of the school-room! "beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy" (col. ii, ). "knowledge puffeth up" ( cor. viii, ). "thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath perverted thee" (isa. xlvii, ). "i gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; i perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. for in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (ecles. i, , ). "if any man be ignorant let him be ignorant" ( cor. xiv, ). "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with god" ( cor. iii, ). "the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge" (prov. i, ). the fear of the lord is the beginning of ignorance. this fear has kept the world in intellectual bondage. it is a flaming sword that priestcraft has placed in every highway of learning to frighten back the timid searchers after truth. "the clergy, with a few honorable exceptions," says buckle, "have in all modern countries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the danger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct, seem always to have perceived." the bible, and the religion emanating from it, are the fruitful parents of ignorance and idiocy. they demand a sacrifice of the very attribute which exalts the man of sense above the idiot; they bid him pluck out the eyes of reason, and in their place insert the sightless balls of faith. "reason should be destroyed in all christians," says luther (l. ungedr. pred. bru., p. ). "one destitute of reason," is a phrase employed by webster to define the word "fool." "we are fools for christ's sake," exclaims paul ( cor. iv, ). chapter xxxii. injustice to women--unkindness to children--cruelty to animals. injustice to women. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it has degraded woman. the holy offices of wife and mother it covers with reproach. its teachings carried out, as they were during the centuries of christian rule, leave woman but two paths in which to tread--the one leading into slavery, the other into exile. servitude in the house of a husband, or self-banishment into a convent--these are the sad alternatives presented for her choice. "thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee" (gen. iii, ). "wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands" (col. iii, ). "as the church is subject unto christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (eph. v, ). "let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church" ( cor. xiv, , ). "ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.... for after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in god, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as sarah obeyed abraham, calling him lord" ( peter iii, - ). "let woman learn in silence with all subjection. but i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. for adam was first formed, then eve. and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" ( tim. ii, - ). oh! the unspeakable outrage that woman has suffered because of that old jewish fable! the teachings of the bible respecting marriage are an insult to every married woman. christ discouraged marriage (matt. xix, - ), while a more despicable dissertation on marriage than paul gives in the seventh chapter of corinthians was never penned. in contracting matrimonial alliances, woman's rights and choice are not consulted. the father does his daughter's courting, and sells or gives her to whom he pleases. a father is even allowed to sell his daughter for a slave (ex. xxi, ). in the decalogue the wife is classed with slaves and cattle as a mere chattel. kidnapping is commanded for the purpose of obtaining wives. "therefore they [god's priests] commanded the children of benjamin, saying, go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daughters of shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of shiloh, and go to the land of benjamin.... and the children of benjamin did so, and took them wives according to their number of them that danced whom they caught" (jud. xxi, - ). the levitical law makes motherhood a sin that can be expiated only by offering a sin offering at the birth of every child. the degree of sinfulness depends upon the sex of the child; giving birth to a daughter being esteemed a greater sin than giving birth to a son (lev. xii). the laws of the bible in regard to divorce are most unjust. a husband is permitted to divorce his wife if she displease him, while a wife is not allowed to obtain a divorce for any cause whatever. "when a man hath taken a wife, and marries her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, ... then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house" (deut. xxiv, ). "when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.... and it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will" (deut. xxi, - ). wives were compelled to suffer outrage for the sins of their husbands. "thus saith the lord, behold, i will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and i will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun" ( sam. xii, ). "their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished" (is. xiii, ). "i will gather all nations against jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished" (zech. xiv, ). "let their wives be bereaved of their children and be widows" (jer. xviii, ). the teachings of the bible have been used by the church to keep woman in a subordinate position. "there is not a more cruel chapter in history," says dr. moncure d. conway, "than that which records the arrest by christianity of the natural growth of european civilization regarding woman. in germany it found woman participating in the legislative assembly, and sharing the interests and counsels of man, and drove her out and away.... even more fatal was the overthrow of woman's position in rome. read the terrible facts as stated by gibbon, by milman, and sir henry maine; read and ponder them, and you will see the tremendous wrong that christianity did to woman." even the priceless virtue of chastity, in the name of law and in the name of the bible, was trampled under foot. mrs. gage, in "woman, church, and state," says: "women were taught by the church and state alike that the feudal lord, or seigneur, had a right to them, not only against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. the law known as marchetta, or marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. they were regarded as the rightful prey of the feudal lord from one to three days after their marriage.... france, germany, prussia, england, scotland, and all christian countries where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of marquette." respecting this law, michelet writes: "the lords spiritual had this right no less than the lords temporal. the parson, being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride" (la sorcerie, page ). in this country, while the most illiterate and depraved man is clothed with the rights of a sovereign, the noblest woman is held in a subordinate position; and from the bible, priests and politicians have procured the chains that hold her in subjection. referring to the bible, america's greatest woman, elizabeth cady stanton, says: "i know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman" (eighty years and more). brave helen gardener says: "every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women in a christian country has been 'authorized by the bible' and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit" (men, women, and gods, page ). "women are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position of hopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to jehovah, but to the justice and honor of the men who have defied his commandments. that she does not crouch to-day where st. paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are grand and brave enough to ignore st. paul, and rise superior to his god" (ibid, page ). george w. foote of england says it will yet be the proud boast of woman that she never contributed a line to the bible. unkindness to children. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because its teachings respecting the treatment of children are cruel and unjust. it advocates the use of corporal punishment for children. "thou shalt beat him with the rod" (prov. xxiii, ). "withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die" (ibid xxiii, ). "foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him" (ibid xxii, ). "the rod and reproof give wisdom" (ibid xxix, ). it advocates capital punishment for children: "if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place.... and all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he die" (deut. xxi, , , ). it advocates the indiscriminate and merciless slaughter of little children: "their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes" (isa. xiii, ). "samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her god; they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces" (hosea xiii, ). "as he [elisha] was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him.... and he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the lord. and there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them" ( kings ii, , ). it advocates the punishment of children for the misdeeds of their parents. "i the lord thy god am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (ex. xx, ). "i will stir up the medes against them, ... their eye shall not spare children" (isa. xiii, , ). "i will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children" (lev. xxvi, ). david prays that the children of his adversaries may become vagabonds and beggars; and jeremiah, that the children of his enemies may perish by famine. god kills bath-sheba's child: "and the lord struck the child that uriah's wife bore unto david, and it was very sick.... and it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died" ( sam. xii, - ). poor babe! tortured and murdered for its parents' crime! cruelty to animals. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it sanctions and enjoins unkindness and cruelty to animals. portions of the old testament, and particularly those relating to sacrifices, are calculated to foster a spirit of brutality, and a total disregard for animal life. god revels in the blood of the innocent. the offering of fruits made by cain is rejected by him; the bloody sacrifice of abel is accepted. nearly the entire book of leviticus is devoted to such laws as these: "if he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the lord. and he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation; and aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar" (lev. iii, , ). "and if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtle-doves, or of young pigeons. and the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar" (lev. i, , ). the minutest directions for conducting these bloody sacrifices come from the lips of jehovah himself, and are too brutal and disgusting to repeat. the number of animals sacrificed was incredible. at times whole herds were killed. on one occasion asa sacrificed oxen and , sheep. david made an offering of , bullocks and , sheep. at the dedication of the temple, , domestic beasts were sacrificed by solomon. and this wholesale slaughter of innocent animals, we are told, was highly pleasing to the lord. but "what was his high pleasure in the fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood, to the pain of the bleating mothers, which still yearned for their dead offspring? or the pangs of the sad ignorant victim underneath the pious knife?" --byron. a god of mercy, it would seem, ought to protect the weaker orders of his creation; but the god of the bible manifests an utter disregard for them. when the being created in his own image proved too true a copy, and he wished to destroy it, he sent a deluge, "and all flesh died that moved upon the earth." to wreak his vengeance upon pharaoh, he visited with disease and death his unoffending cattle. in times of war, he ordered his followers to "slay both man and beast." saul's great transgression, the chief cause of his dethronement and death, was that he saved alive some sheep and oxen instead of killing them as god desired. david and joshua, god's favorite warriors, houghed the horses of their enemies, and thus disabled turned them loose to die. we teach a child that it is wrong to rob the nests of birds. it opens the bible and reads: "if a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee" (deut. xxii, , ). throughout christendom "man's inhumanity to man" is only equaled by his cruelty to the inferior animals. the buddhist, who has not the bible for his guide, considers it a sin to harm the meanest creature. even the savage kills only what he needs for food, or such as threaten him with danger. but the christian, whose bible gives him dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, maims and murders in pure wantonness, and after years of patient service, even turns his beast of burden out to die of hunger and neglect. for the sake of these dumb creatures, would that our world had less theology, and more humanity; had fewer moodys, and more henry berghs! chapter xxxiii. tyranny--intolerance. tyranny. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because it enjoins submission to tyrants. "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, ... whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors" ( pet. ii, ). "let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god. whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of god; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation" (rom. xiii, , ). and these sentiments were uttered when a nero sat upon the throne--when palestine was being crushed beneath the iron heel of despotism--when brave and patriotic men were struggling for freedom. the bible has ever been the bulwark of tyranny. when the oppressed millions of france were endeavoring to throw off their yoke--when the washingtons, the franklins, the paines, and the jeffersons were contending for american liberty--craven priests stood up in the pulpit, opened this book, and gravely read: "the powers that be are ordained of god; they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." in the american revolution every tory was a christian, and nearly every orthodox christian was a tory. writing in , john wesley says: "i have just received two letters from new york.... they inform me that all the methodists there were firm for the government, and on that account persecuted by the rebels" (wesley's miscellaneous works, vol. iii., page ). referring to our revolutionary fathers, robert dale owen says: "i know not what the private opinions of those sturdy patriots were, who, in the old philadelphia state house, appended their signatures to the immortal document. but this i do know, that when they did so, it was in defiance of the bible; it was in direct violation of the law of the new testament. "if a being who cannot lie penned the bible, then george washington and every soldier who drew sword in the republic's armies for liberty expiate, at this moment, in hell-fire, the punishment of their ungodly strife! there, too, john hancock and every patriot whose name stands to america's title deed, have taken their places with the devil and his angels! all resisted the power; all, unless god lie, have received to themselves damnation" (bacheler-owen debate, vol. ii., page ). from the first century to the twentieth--from paul to leo--these bible teachings have dominated the christian world. of the early christian fathers, lecky writes: "the teaching of the early fathers on the subject is perfectly unanimous and unequivocal. without a single exception, all who touched upon the subject pronounced active resistance to the established authorities to be under all circumstances sinful" (rationalism in europe, vol. ii., page ). jeremy taylor, one of the greatest of modern divines, speaking not for himself alone, but for all christians, says: "the matter of scripture being so plain that it needs no interpretation, the practice and doctrine of the church, which is usually the best commentary, is now but of little use in a case so plain; yet this also is as plain in itself, and without any variety, dissent, or interruption universally agreed upon, universally practiced and taught, that, let the powers set over us be what they will, we must suffer it and never right ourselves" (ductor dubitantium, book iii., chapter iii). this has been the chief cause of christian triumph and christian supremacy. it has secured for the church the adherence and support of every tyrant in christendom. thomas jefferson truly says: "in every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." writing of his country and his country's church, macaulay says: "the church of england continued to be for more than years the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. the divine right of kings and the duty of passively obeying all their commands were her favorite tenets. she held these tenets firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness, while law was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the people were eaten as though they were bread" (essays, vol. i., page ). intolerance. i refuse to accept the bible as a moral guide because its teachings have filled the world with intolerance and persecution. "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers: namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you [that is, accept another religion] ... thou shalt not consent unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people" (deut. xiii, - ). kill your friend, kill your brother, kill your wife, kill your child, for accepting another religious belief! did a merciful god inspire this prayer? "let his days be few; and let another take his office. let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children" (ps. cix, - ). "in the literature of the world there is nothing more heartless, more infamous, than the th psalm."--ingersoll. let me quote from the new testament: "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (mark xvi, ). "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (matt. xxv, ). "these shall go away into everlasting punishment" (matt. xxv, ). "cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" (mark ix, ). these passages ought to consign to everlasting abhorrence the being who uttered them, the book containing them, and the church indorsing them. this dogma of endless punishment is the dogma of fiends, the most infamous dogma that human lips have ever breathed! what needless terror it has inspired! what misery it has caused! think of the millions of innocent children whose young lives it has filled with gloom! this horrible nightmare of hell has strewn the pathway of childhood with thorns where flowers should have been made to bloom; it has filled the minds of children with fear and made them wretched when their hearts should have been filled with joy; it has robbed home of wife and mother, it has driven thousands of pure and loving women to madness and despair. i had rather trace my descent to the tiger or hyena than to the creation of a god who dooms his creatures to eternal pain; and the time will come when the remembrance of the theologians who have taught this hideous lie will provoke more shame and pity than the ancestral apes do now. "if there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house" ( john i, ). amid the storms of a winter night, a traveler, perishing with cold and hunger, knocks at your door and begs for food and shelter. you interrogate him as to his religious belief, and finding that he is not a member of your church you forbid him to enter. in the morning when you discover his lifeless body by the roadside, how impressed you will be with the transcendent beauty of bible morals! paul preached a sermon on charity, and then wrote to the galatians as follows: "if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (gal. i, ). from the same pen, too, came this sneaking, infamous hint: "i would they were even cut off which trouble you" (gal. v, ). what ghastly fruits these teachings have produced! we see earth covered with the yellow bones of murdered heretics and scholars; we see the persecutions and butcheries of constantine, of theodosius, of clovis, of justinian, and of charlemagne; we see the crusades, in which nearly twenty millions perish; we see the followers of godfrey in jerusalem--see the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children--see the mosques piled seven deep with murdered saracens--the jews burnt in their synagogues; we see coeur de lion slaughter in cold blood thousands of captive saracens; we see the franks in constantinople, plundering, ravishing, murdering; we see the moors expelled from spain; we see the murder of the huguenots and waldenses--the slaughter of german peasants--the desolation of ireland--holland covered with blood; we witness smithfield and bartholomew; we see the inquisition with its countless instruments of fiendish cruelty; we see the auto-da-fé, where heretics, clad in mockery, are led to torture and to death; we see men stretched upon the rack, disjointed, and torn limb from limb; we see them flayed alive--their bleeding bodies seared with red-hot irons; we see them covered with pitch and oil and set on fire; we see them hurled headlong from towers to the stony streets below; we see them buried alive; we see them hanged and quartered; we see their eyes bored out with heated augers--their tongues torn out--their bones broken with hammers--their bodies pierced with a thousand needles; we see aged women tied to the heels of fiery steeds--see their mangled and bleeding bodies dragged with lightning speed over the frozen earth; we see new-born babes flung into the flames to perish with their mothers, or with their mothers sewed in sacks and sunk into the sea; in short, on every hand, as a result of this book's teachings, we see hate, torture, death! but, thanks to the brave infidels who have gone before, you, bible moralists, can use these instruments of cruelty to silence heretics to christianity no more. "where are the hands which once for this foul creed, 'mid flame and torture, made an atheist bleed? gone--like the powers your fathers used so well to send souls heavenward through the flames of hell. and you, poor palsied creatures! you, ere long, with them thrice cursed shall swell gehenna's throng. your god is dead; your heaven a hope bewrayed; your hell a by-word, and your creed a trade; your vengeance--what? a mere polluting touch-- cripple striking with a broken crutch!" chapter xxxiv. conclusion. twenty crimes and vices--lying, cheating, stealing, murder, wars of conquest, human sacrifices, cannibalism, witchcraft, slavery, polygamy, adultery, obscenity, intemperance, vagrancy ignorance, injustice to woman, unkindness to children, cruelty to animals, tyranny, persecution--are, we have seen, sanctioned by the bible. scattering this book broadcast over the land, making it the chief text-book of the sunday-school and, above all, placing it in our public schools and compelling our youth to accept it as infallible authority, is a monstrous wrong; and you who advocate it are the enemies of virtue and the promoters of vice. james anthony froude says: "considering all the heresies, the enormous crimes, the wickedness, the astounding follies, which the bible has been made to justify, and which its indiscriminate reading has suggested; considering that it has been, indeed, the sword which our lord said he was sending, and that not the devil himself could have invented an implement more potent to fill the hated world with lies and blood and fury, i think certainly that to send hawkers over the world loaded with copies of this book, scattering it in all places, among all persons, ... is the most culpable folly of which it is possible for man to be guilty." there are within the lids of this bible a hundred chapters sanctioning the bloodiest deeds in all the annals of crime; and this is the book you wish to place in the hands of our sons! there are within the lids of this bible a hundred chapters which no modest woman can read without her cheek becoming tinged with the blush of shame; and this is the book you wish to place in the hands of our daughters! if you delight to feast upon such carrion you have the right to do so, but you have no right to thrust it down the throats of your neighbors. as a liberal, i concede to the christian cuckoo the right to propagate her species; but i protest against her laying her eggs in the secular nest and having them hatched by the state. i contend that the bible does not present an infallible moral standard, and i have given many valid reasons why it does not. i expect the defenders of this book to complete the task that i have here essayed. they will claim that the bible is opposed to crime. they will, no doubt, cite numerous passages in confirmation of this claim. let them do this. then place the results of our labors side by side. this will show that the bible abounds with teachings that conflict. this fact established, the dogma of its divinity must fall. and this is what i am endeavoring to do--to tear this dogma from the human brain. not until this is done can we have a pure morality. so long as men's minds are confused and corrupted by these conflicting and demoralizing teachings, so long will immorality prevail. you cannot make men moral while they accept as their moral guide a book which sanctions every crime and presents as the best models of human excellence the most notorious villains. you cannot make them moral by teaching them that a lie is better for being called inspired, that a vice becomes a virtue with age, that a dead rogue should be canonized and a live one killed. not until this dogma is destroyed can you appreciate what is meritorious in the bible. there are in it some noble precepts. it contains along with the false much that is true; along with the bad much that is good; but while you are compelled to accept all--the true and the false, the good and the bad, as alike infallible, as alike divine--it can be of no value to you. you may contend that i mistake the meaning of what i have quoted from this book. but the language is too plain to be mistaken. do not tell me that it states one thing and means another. this is, you affirm, the word of your god. is your god wanting in candor? so far as the bible is concerned, the criminal has as much to support the justness of his crime as the christian has to sustain the truthfulness of his creed. the various doctrines of the church are not upheld by stronger scripture proofs than have been cited in justification of the crimes that i have named. bible apologists tell us that it is only in this book that wrongdoers confess and record their sins, and that this is evidence of its divinity. were this true we might say that the bible is the only book whose authors are so devoid of shame as to parade their sins. but this claim is not true. it was not the sinners who wrote these accounts of their sins any more than it is the criminals to-day who write and publish the accounts of their crimes. bible lands, we are told, are more moral than other lands. this is false. the morality of pagan china and japan, without the bible, is not inferior to that of christian europe with it. modern europe with its partial rejection of the bible is superior in morality to medieval europe with its full acceptance of it. the morals of the people have improved in about the same ratio that their faith in the book has declined. a further declension of faith will bring a further improvement in morals. in christian countries those who have discarded its teachings are morally superior to those who still accept them. it is the ignorant who are the most devout believers in this book, and it is the ignorant who are the most immoral. the intelligence and morality to be found in christian lands are not the results of bible teachings, but exist in spite of them. that some great and good men have commended the bible as a moral guide is true. these commendations are given wide publicity. but the testimonials of these men are, for the most part, not the result of careful reading and study. they have been inspired by the teachings of childhood, by the sentiment that prevails around them, or by a perusal of only the choicest portions of the book. these testimonials, too, are mostly from men who, while expressing admiration for many of its teachings, do not believe and do not profess to believe in its divinity. many of these testimonials are forgeries. "if you discard the bible, what," asks the christian, "will you give us as a moral guide?" enter a public library blindfolded; take from its shelves a volume at random, and you will scarcely select a worse one. the book you select may not pertain to morals. it may not even contain the word "moral." but neither does the bible. must we go to the ignorant past for our morality? does human experience count for nothing? have the most marvelous advances been made in every other department of human knowledge during the past two thousand years and none in ethical science? read bentham, mill, and spencer. let your children study count volney's "law of nature," and miss wixon's "right living." these books are not infallible and divine, they are fallible and human; but they are immeasurably superior to any books that supernaturalists can offer. not in moses nor jesus, not in the decalogue nor sermon on the mount, is there to be found a statement of moral duties so just and so comprehensive as the following from volney: "what do you conclude from all this? i conclude from it that all the social virtues are only the habitude of actions useful to society and to the individual who practices them; that they all refer to the physical object of man's preservation; that nature having implanted in us the want of that preservation, has made a law to us of all its consequences, and a crime of everything that deviates from it; that we carry in us the seed of every virtue, and of every perfection; that it only requires to be developed that we are only happy inasmuch as we observe the rules established by nature for the end of our preservation; and that all wisdom, all perfection, all law, all virtue, all philosophy, consist in the practice of these axioms founded on our own organization:--preserve thyself; instruct thyself; moderate thyself; live for thy fellow-men, that they may live for thee." the bible moralist would have us believe that from this book all morality has been derived; that god is the author and the bible the revelation and sole repository of moral laws. but it is not from gods and bibles that these laws have come. in the words of tyndall, "not in the way assumed by our dogmatic teachers has the morality of human nature been propped up. the power that has molded us thus far has worked with stern tools upon a rigid stuff.... that power did not work with delusions, nor will it stay its hands when such are removed. facts, rather than dogmas, have been its ministers--hunger, shame, pride, love, hate, terror, awe--such were the forces, the interaction and adjustment of which during the immeasurable ages of his development wove the triplex web of man's physical, intellectual, and moral nature, and such are the forces that will be effectual to the end." accepting the bible--not for what it is claimed to be, the word of god, but for what it is, the work of man--i can excuse, in a degree, the crude ideas of right and wrong and the laxity of morals that prevailed among the people whose history it purports to record. the age in which they lived, the circumstances that surrounded them, must palliate, to some extent, their deeds and theories. but it is humiliating to think that in these better times, illuminated by the light of a glorious civilization, there are those who spurn the robes of virtue that reason in the loom of grave experience has woven, and who from the dark and musty closets of the past drag forth for use the soiled and blood-stained garments that barbarians wore. with this chapter our review of the bible ends. we have examined successively the authenticity of its books, the credibility of its statements, and the morality of its teachings. the authenticity of the bible must be abandoned. it will be abandoned, and abandoned soon. its credibility, impaired by a knowledge of its lack of authenticity and the exposure of its numberless errors, will be contended for awhile longer. but this, in turn, will go. when its credibility has been destroyed, and it is acknowledged to be mostly a volume of fables and legends, priestcraft continuing to survive, the clergy, as a dernier resort, will descant upon the divine lessons of morality taught by these fables and legends. but the relentless iconoclasts of criticism will break this image also, and the bible as a moral guide and religious authority will be laid away forever. appendix. arguments against the divine origin and in support of the human origin of the bible. a celebrated theologian has used with much ingenuity and effect the watch as an argument in support of the divine origin of the universe. i have a watch. like other watches it is not infallible. but supposing that i should claim for it infallibility and divinity; that while other watches are of human invention and workmanship, this particular make of watches is the work of god. the claim would be deemed too absurd for serious consideration. i would be regarded as a lunatic or a jester. now, it is no more absurd to claim infallibility and divinity for a watch than it is to claim infallibility and divinity for a book. yet millions of people of recognized sanity and intelligence profess to believe, and many of them do sincerely believe, that a book called the bible is divine. how do we account for this? it is simply the result of centuries of religious education. i could have taken my children and taught them that my watch is divine. had i kept them isolated as far as possible from other people, had i commanded them to shun discussion, and forbidden them to reason about it, as the clergy do in regard to the bible, they would probably believe it. i was taught that the bible is divine. i believed it. but in a fortunate hour i listened to the voice of reason; i examined the claims of its advocates; i read it; and the halo of holiness surrounding the old book vanished. as a supplement to my review of the bible i shall present some arguments, thirty-six in number, against the divine origin and in support of the human origin of the bible. the brevity and incompleteness of many of them will, i admit, justify the conclusion not proven. i have space for little more than a mere statement of them. the evidence supporting them will be found in the preceding chapters of this book. in a discussion of this question the champion of the bible is placed at a tremendous disadvantage--is handicapped as it were--at the very commencement by this fact: while both the advocates and opponents of bible divinity admit that man exists and has written books, it has not been proven that a god even exists, much less that he has written or inspired a book. but let us concede, for the sake of argument, that there is a god; that he is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-just; and that he can write or inspire a book. is the bible the work of such a being? it is not. the following are my arguments: . its mechanical construction and appearance. the bible is printed with type made by man, on paper made by man, and bound in a volume by man. in its mechanical construction and appearance it does not differ from other books. . the character of its contents. the contents of this book consist of thoughts--human thoughts--every thought bearing unmistakable evidence of having emanated from the human mind. there is not a thought expressed in the bible, the meaning of which can be comprehended, that is beyond the power of man to conceive. if it contains thoughts, the meaning of which cannot be comprehended, they are not a revelation, and are self-evidently human. . the manner in which its contents were communicated to man. these thoughts are expressed in human language. the bible originally appeared, it is claimed, in the hebrew, aramaic, and greek languages, two of them obscure languages of western asia. the president of the united states does not issue an important proclamation in the cherokee or tagalese language, and the ruler of the universe would not have issued a message intended for all mankind in the most obscure languages of the world. had he given a message to man he would have provided a universal language for its transmission. . lack of divine supervision in its translation into other tongues. failing to provide a universal language for its transmission, god would at least have supervised its translation into other languages. only in this way could its inerrancy and divinity have been preserved. yet no divine supervision has been exercised over the translators, the transcribers, and the printers of this book. divine supervision, it is admitted, was confined to the original writers. . not given to man until at a late period in his existence. this is an argument advanced by napoleon bonaparte. napoleon rejected the bible. he said that if it had been given to man at the creation he might have accepted it, but that its late appearance proved to him that it was of human origin. . not given as a guide to all mankind, but only to an insignificant portion of it. not only has the bible been confined to a small period of man's existence, it is nearly all addressed to one small race of earth's inhabitants. while christians affirm that it is a universal message intended for all, its doctrines and ceremonies pertain to the jews. this is wholly true of the old testament, and, with the exception of a few doubtful passages, true of the four gospels, the chief books of the new testament. now, is it reasonable to suppose that this great and just all-father, as he is called, would for centuries take into his special confidence and care a few of his children and ignore and neglect the others? . it deals for the most part, not with the works of god, but with the works of man. what man does and knows is not a divine revelation. paine says: "revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done upon earth, of which man himself is the actor or witness; and consequently all the historical and anecdotal part of the bible, which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compass of the word revelation, and therefore is not the word of god." . but one of many bibles. there are many bibles. the world is divided into various religious systems. the adherents of each system have their sacred book, or bible. brahmins have the vedas and puranas, buddhists the tripitaka, zoroastrians the zend avesta, confucians the five king, mohammedans the koran, and christians the holy bible. the adherents of each claim that their book is a revelation from god--that the others are spurious. now, if the christian bible were a revelation--if it were god's only revelation, as affirmed--would he allow these spurious books to be imposed upon mankind and delude the greater portion of his children? . many versions of this bible. not only are there many bibles in the world, there are many versions of the christian bible. the believers in a divine revelation have not been agreed as to what books belong to this revelation. the ancient jews, who are said to have sustained more intimate relations with god than any other race, were not agreed in regard to this. the accepted hebrew version contains books ( as divided by the jews), the samaritan version contains but books (some copies ); while the septuagint version contains . the early christians were not agreed. the syriac version of the new testament contains books; the italic (some copies ); the egyptian ; the vulgate . the sinaitic and alexandrian mss. each contains books, but they are not all the same. the gothic version omitted four books in the old testament. the ethiopic omitted books in both the old and new testaments which are now accepted, and included books in both which are now rejected. the bibles of the roman catholic, of the greek catholic, and of the protestant churches do not contain the same books. this disagreement regarding the books of the bible is proof of their human origin. . incompetency of those who determined the canon. if the bible were the word of god it would not have required the deliberations of a church council to determine the fact. and yet the christian canon was determined in this manner; and it took centuries of time and many councils to make a collection of books that was acceptable to the church. not until the close of the fourth century were all the books of the bible adopted. it is commonly supposed that the members of these councils were men of great learning and still greater honesty. on the contrary, they were mostly men of little learning and less honesty. they were ignorant, fanatical, and immoral. their deliberations were characterized by trickery, lying, mob violence, and even murder. many of them, so far from being able to read and critically examine the books of the bible, could not read their own names. even the molders of their opinions concerning the canon--irenæus, tertullian, clement of alexandria, jerome, and augustine--were they living now, would be considered very ordinary clay. the historical facts in regard to the formation of the bible, if generally known, would be sufficient to dispel all illusions respecting its divinity. . books belonging to this so-called revelation lost or destroyed. there were many other jewish and christian writings for which divinity was claimed and which bible writers themselves declare to be of as much importance and authority as those which still exist. the transitory and perishable nature of these books proves their human origin, and shows that while those that remain are more enduring they are not immortal and imperishable, and hence not divine. . different versions of the same book do not agree. there are a hundred versions and translations of the books of the bible. no two versions of any book agree. the translators and copyists have altered nearly every paragraph. the earlier versions alone contain more than , different readings. the original text no longer exists and cannot be restored. every version, it is admitted, abounds with corruptions. now, to assert that a book is at the same time divine and corrupt is a contradiction of terms. god, it is affirmed, is all-wise, all-powerful, and all-just. if he is all-wise he knew when his work was being corrupted; if he is all-powerful he could have prevented it; if he is all-just he would have prevented it. this god, it is declared, is everywhere and sees everything. he watches the sparrows when they fall, and numbers the hairs of our heads. he knows the secrets of every heart. if he made a revelation to his children, upon the acceptance and observance of which depends their eternal happiness, and then knowingly and wilfully allowed this revelation to be perverted and misunderstood, he is not a just god, but an unjust devil. . the mutability of its contents. the alterations made by transcribers and translators demonstrate the mutability of its contents, and this disproves its divine character. to admit that man can alter the work of god is to admit that human power transcends divine power. if the thoughts composing the bible were divine man could not alter them. . the anonymous character of its books. if the bible is to be accepted even as a reliable human record its authors ought, at least, to be persons of acknowledged intelligence and veracity. and yet almost nothing is known of its authors. the authorship of fully fifty books of the bible is absolutely unknown. its books are nearly all either anonymous or self-evident forgeries. this is true of the most important books. the pentateuch we know was not written by moses, nor the four gospels by matthew, mark, luke, and john. aside from the anonymous character of the writings of the bible, with a few exceptions, they evince neither a superior degree of intelligence nor a high regard for the truth. . its numerous contradictions. if the bible were divine there would be perfect harmony in all its statements. one contradiction is fatal to the claim of inerrancy and divinity. now the bible contains not merely one, but hundreds of contradictions. nearly every book contains statements that are contradicted by the writers of other books. this is especially true of the four gospels. the writers of these agree that a being called jesus christ lived and died; but regarding nearly every event connected with his life and death they disagree. human discord, and not divine harmony, dwells in its pages. . its historical errors. if the bible were divine its history would be infallible. but it is not. it presents as historical facts the most palpable fictions, and denies or misstates the best authenticated truths of history. referring to bible writers, the eminent dutch divines, drs. kuenen, oort, and hooykaas, in their preface to "the bible for learners," say: "as a rule, they concern themselves very little with the question whether what they narrated really happened so or not." its history is fallible and human. . its scientific errors. god, the alleged author of this book, it is claimed, created the universe. he ought, then, to be familiar with his own works. the writers of the bible, on the contrary, display a lamentable ignorance of the universe and its phenomena. the rev. dr. lindsay alexander, orthodox calvinist, in his "biblical theology," referring to these writers, says: "we find in their writings statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with what modern research has shown to be scientific truth." the demonstrated truths of modern science were unknown to them. they give us the crude ideas of primitive man and not the infallible knowledge of an omniscient god. . its alleged miracles. the bible is filled with marvelous stories. the sun and moon stand still; the globe is submerged with water to the depth of several miles; rods are transformed into serpents, dust into lice, and water into blood and wine; animals hold converse with man in his own language; men pass through fiery furnaces unharmed; a child is born without a natural father; the dead arise from the grave and walk the earth again. these marvelous stories--these miracles--are adduced to prove the divine origin of the bible. they prove its human origin. if these miracles prove the divinity of the bible, then nearly all the books of old are divine, for they abound with these same miracles. if these stories be true, if these miracles occurred, the laws of nature were arrested and suspended. the laws of nature are immutable. if the laws of nature are immutable they cannot be suspended. the laws of nature cannot be suspended; they never have been suspended; these stories are false; and being false, the bible is not divine. . its immoral teachings. if the bible were of divine origin its moral teachings would be divine. it would be what its adherents affirm it to be, an infallible moral guide. but its moral teachings are not divine; it is not an infallible moral guide. it contains, like other bibles, some moral precepts; but it also sanctions nearly every crime and vice. war and murder, bigotry and persecution, tyranny and slavery, demonism and witchcraft, adultery and prostitution, drunkenness and vagrancy, robbery and cheating, falsehood and deception, are all authorized and commended by this book. it cannot, therefore, be divine. . its inferior literary character. if the bible were the word of god, as a literary composition it would be above criticism. it would be as far superior to all other books as god is superior to man. its rhetoric would transcend in beauty the glorious coloring of a titian. its logic would be faultless. the bible is not such a book. it contains some admirable pieces and these owe much of their literary merit to the translators, appearing as our version did in the golden age of english literature. as a whole it is far inferior to the literature of ancient greece and rome; inferior to the literature of modern italy, of france, of germany, and of england. if the bible be the word of god it is a long way from god up to shakespeare. . its writers do not claim to be inspired. had the writers of the bible been inspired they would have known it and would have proclaimed it. had they claimed to be inspired it would not prove the bible to be divine, for like mohammed, they might have been deluded, or, like a more recent finder of a holy book, impostors. but they do not even claim that their books are divine revelations. some of these books contain what purport to be divine revelations, but the books themselves do not pretend to be divine. the only exception is the book called revelation, admittedly the most doubtful book of the bible. "all scripture is given by inspiration." waiving the questions of authenticity and correct translation, who wrote this? paul. what was the scripture when he wrote? the old testament, the old testament alone. the writers of the old testament do not claim to be divinely inspired. this is a claim made by the later jews and by the early christians. paul and the other writers of the new testament do not claim that their writings are divine. this, too, is a claim made by others long after they were written. the fact that the writers of the bible do not believe and do not assert that their books are of divine origin, that this claim was first made many years after they were composed, by those who knew nothing of their origin, is of itself, in the absence of all other evidence, sufficient to demonstrate their human origin. . god has never declared it to be his word. the bible does not, as we have seen, purport to be the word of god. nowhere, neither in the book nor outside of it, has he declared it to be his revealed will. it contains various messages, chiefly of local concern, which he is said to have delivered to man; but the book, as such, is not ascribed to him nor claimed by him. . whatever its origin it cannot be a divine revelation to us. even supposing that the writers of the bible had claimed to be inspired and that these books really were a divine revelation to them, they would not, as paine justly argues, be a divine revelation to us. the only evidence we would have of their divinity would be the claim of the writer--a claim that any writer might make--a claim that even an honest writer might make were he, like many religious writers, the victim of a delusion. . a written revelation unnecessary. to affirm the necessity of a written revelation from god to man, as christians do, is to deny his divine attributes and ascribe to him the limitations of man. if god be omnipotent and omnipresent a written revelation is unnecessary. to impute to him an unnecessary act is to impute to him an imperfection, and to impute to him an imperfection is to impugn his divinity. we do not write a communication to one who is present. think of an infinite, all-powerful, and ever-present god communing with his living children through an obscure and corrupted message said to have been delivered to a tribe of barbarians three thousand years ago! . its want of universal acceptance. a divine revelation intended for all mankind can be harmonized only with a universal acceptance of this revelation. god, it is affirmed, has made a revelation to the world. those who receive and accept this revelation are saved; those who fail to receive and accept it are lost. this god, it is claimed, is all-powerful and all-just. if he is all-powerful he can give his children a revelation. if he is all-just he will give this revelation to all. he will not give it to a part of them and allow them to be saved and withhold it from the others and suffer them to be lost. your house is on fire. your children are asleep in their rooms. what is your duty? to arouse them and rescue them--to awaken all of them and save all of them. if you awaken and save only a part of them when it is in your power to save them all you are a fiend. if you stand outside and blow a trumpet and say, "i have warned them, i have done my duty," and they perish, you are still a fiend. if god does not give his revelation to all; if he does not disclose its divinity to all; if he does not make it comprehensible and acceptable to all; in short, if he does not save all, he is the prince of fiends. if all the world's inhabitants but one accepted the bible and there was one who could not honestly accept it, its rejection by one human being would prove that it is not from an all-powerful and an all-just god; for an all-powerful god who failed to reach and convince even one of his children would not be an all-just god. has the bible been given to all the world? do all accept it? three-fourths of the human race reject it; millions have never heard of it. . non-agreement of those who profess to accept it. if the bible were the work of god there would be no disagreement in regard to its teachings. its every word would be as clear as the light of day. yet those who profess to accept it as divine are not agreed as to what it means. in the christian world are a hundred sects, each with a different interpretation of its various teachings. take the rite of baptism. baptism is enjoined by the bible. but what is baptism? the three leading protestant denominations of this country are the baptist, the presbyterian, and the methodist. i ask the baptist what constitutes baptism, and he tells me immersion; i ask the presbyterian, and he tells me sprinkling; i ask the methodist which is proper, and he tells me to take my choice. sectarianism is conclusive proof that the bible is human. . inability of those who affirm both a human and a divine element in it to distinguish the one from the other. confronted by its many glaring errors and abominable teachings, some contend that a part of it is the work of man and a part the work of god. and yet they are unable to separate the one from the other. if a hundred attempts were made by them to eliminate the human from the divine no two results would be the same. their inability to distinguish this supposed divine element from the human is proof that both have the same origin--that both are human. . the character of its reputed divine author. the bible is an atrocious libel on god. it traduces his character, and denies his divinity. the god of the bible is not this all-powerful, all-wise, and all-just ruler of the universe, but a creature of the human imagination, limited in power and knowledge, and infinite only in vanity and cruelty. . the belief of primitive christians in its divinity not an immediate conviction but a growth. had the books of the bible been divinely inspired their divinity would have been recognized at once. when they originally appeared they were believed and known to be the works of man and accepted as such. referring to the old testament, dr. davidson says: "the degree of authority attaching to the biblical books grew from less to greater, till it culminated in a divine character, a sacredness rising even to infallibility" (the canon of the bible, p. ). of the new testament dr. westcott says: "it cannot, however, be denied that the idea of the inspiration of the new testament, in the sense in which it is maintained now, was the growth of time" (on the canon of the new testament, p. ). the admitted fact that these books were originally presented and received as human productions, and that the idea of inspiration and divinity was gradually and slowly developed by the priesthood, is conclusive proof that they are of human and not of divine origin. . its acceptance by modern christians the result of religious teaching. in india the people believe that the vedas and other sacred books or bibles are divine. why do they believe it? because for a hundred generations they have been taught it by their priests. the turks believe that the koran came from god. they believe it because for twelve centuries this has been their religious teaching. for nearly two thousand years christian priests have taught that the holy bible is the word of god. as a result of this the masses of europe and america believe it to be divine. each generation, thoroughly impregnated with superstition, transmitted the disease to the succeeding one and made it easy for the clergy to impose their teachings on the people and perpetuate their rule. the belief of christians in the divinity of the bible, like the belief of hindoos in the divinity of the vedas, and of mohammedans in the divinity of the koran, is the result of religious teaching. the ease with which a belief in the divine character of a book obtains, even in an enlightened age, is illustrated by the inspired (?) books that have appeared in this country from time to time, and for several of which numerous adherents have been secured. about seventy-five years ago a curious volume, called the book of mormon, made its appearance. a few impostors and deluded men proclaimed its divinity. a priesthood was established; mormon education and mormon proselytism began their work, and already nearly a million converts have been made to the divinity of this book. dr. isaac watts says: "the greatest part of the christian world can hardly give any reason why they believe the bible to be the word of god, but because they have always believed it, and they were taught so from their infancy." really the entire christian world--pope, bishop, priest, and layman--the learned and the unlearned--can give no other valid reason. profoundly true are these words of the historian lecky: "the overwhelming majority of the human race necessarily accept their opinions from authority. whether they do so avowedly, like the catholics, or unconsciously, like most protestants, is immaterial. they have neither time nor opportunity to examine for themselves. they are taught certain doctrines on disputed questions as if they were unquestionable truths, when they are incapable of judging, and every influence is employed to deepen the impression. this is the origin of their belief. not until long years of mental conflict have passed can they obtain the inestimable boon of an assured and untrammeled mind. the fable of the ancient is still true. the woman even now sits at the portal of life, presenting a cup to all who enter in which diffuses through every vein a poison that will cling to them for ever. the judgment may pierce the clouds of prejudice; in the moments of her strength she may even rejoice and triumph in her liberty; yet the conceptions of childhood will long remain latent in the mind to reappear in every hour of weakness, when the tension of the reason is relaxed, and when the power of old associations is supreme" (history of rationalism, vol. ii., pp. , ). schopenhauer says: "there is in childhood a period measured by six, or at most by ten years, when any well inculcated dogma, no matter how extravagantly absurd, is sure to retain its hold for life." considering the impressionable character of the immature mind, and how nearly impossible it is to eradicate the impressions of childhood, the wonder is not that so many believe in the divinity of the bible, unreasonable as the belief is, but rather that so many disbelieve it. . an article of merchandise. bibles are manufactured and sold just as other books are manufactured and sold. some are printed on poor paper, cheaply bound, and sold at a low price; while others are printed on the best of paper, richly bound, and sold at a high price. but all are sold at a profit. the publisher and the book seller, or bible agent, derive pecuniary gain from their publication and sale. it may be urged that the bible can be obtained for the asking, that millions of copies are gratuitously distributed. but this is done in the interest of christian propagandism. nearly all religious, political, and social organizations, to promote their work, make a free distribution of their literature. the printing and selling of bibles is as much a part of the publishing business as the printing and selling of novels. one of the leading publishing houses of this country is that of the american bible society. wealthy and deluded christians have been successfully importuned to contribute millions to this society. directly or indirectly the clergy reap the harvest, leaving the gleanings to the lay employees, many of whom labor at starvation wages. in great britain the crown has claimed the sole and perpetual right to print the bible (a. v.). for monetary or other considerations her kings have delegated this right to publishers who have amassed fortunes from its sale. twenty years ago bible publishing was characterized as the worst monopoly in england. if the bible were divine god would not allow it to be used as merchandise. it would be as free as light and air. . a pillar of priestcraft. not only is the bible printed and sold like other books, but its so-called divine teachings themselves are used as merchandise. there are in christendom half a million priests and preachers. these priests and preachers are supported by the people. even the humble laborer and the poor servant girl are obliged to contribute a portion of their hard earnings for this purpose. in this country alone two thousand million dollars are invested for their benefit; while two hundred million dollars are annually expended for their support. for what are these men employed? to interpret god's revelation to mankind, we are told. an all-powerful god needing an interpreter! according to the clergy, god though omnipresent has had to send a communication to his children, and though omnipotent he cannot make them understand it. those ignorant of other tongues and unable to make known their wants require interpreters. the various indian tribes employ them. for the sake of gain these men degrade their god to the level of an american savage, representing him as incapable of expressing his thoughts to man, and representing themselves as the possessors of both human and divine wisdom and authorized to speak for him. these bibles are simply the agents employed by priests to establish and perpetuate their power. they claim to be god's vicegerents on earth. as their credentials they present these old religious and mythological books. these books abound with the marvelous and mysterious--the impossible and unreasonable--and are easily imposed upon the credulous. if the contents of a book be intelligible and reasonable you can not convince these people that it is other than natural and human; but if its contents be unintelligible and unreasonable it is easy to convince them that it is supernatural and divine. smith's bible dictionary says: "the language of the apostles is intentionally obscure." of course; if it were not obscure there would be no need of priests to interpret it, and what is scripture for if not to give employment to the priests? we are triumphantly told that the bible has withstood the assaults of critics for two thousand years. but as much can be said of other sacred books. any business will thrive as long as it is profitable. bibles will be printed as long as there is a demand for them; and there will be a demand for them as long as priests do a lucrative business with them. considering their abilities the vendors of the gospel are among the best paid men in the world to-day. the wealth of men and the smiles of women are bestowed upon them more lavishly than upon any other class. there are thousands in the ministry enjoying comfortable and even luxurious livings who would eke out a miserable subsistence in any other vocation. . its advocates demand its acceptance by faith rather than by reason. in the gospels and in the pauline epistles, the principal books of the new testament, christ, the reputed founder, and paul, the real founder of the christian religion, both place religious faith, i. e., blind credulity, above reason. this evinces a lack of divine strength and is a confession of human weakness. modern advocates of the bible in presenting the dogma of divine inspiration ask us to discard reason and accept it by faith. in the affected opinion of these men, to examine this question is dangerous, to criticise the bible is impious, and to deny or even doubt its divinity is a crime. what is this but a tacit acknowledgment that the faith they wish us to exercise is wanting in themselves? this condemnation of reason and commendation of credulity is an insult to human intelligence. a dogma which reason is obliged to reject, and which faith alone can accept, is self-evidently false; and its retention is not for the purpose of supporting a divine truth, but for the purpose of supporting a human lie. . the refusal of its advocates to correct its acknowledged errors. that the clergy are controlled by mercenary motives rather than a love of truth is attested by the fact that they continue to teach the admitted errors of the bible. our authorized version, it is conceded by christian scholars, contains hundreds of errors. that the revisers corrected many of these errors is admitted. yet the clergy cling to these errors and refuse to accept a corrected text. the principal reasons assigned for retaining the old version instead of adopting the new are these: . the english of three hundred years ago possesses a certain charm which distinguishes the bible from more modern works and secures for it a greater reverence. . its division into chapters and verses renders it more convenient. . the adoption of the new would expose the errors of the old, suggest the possible fallibility of the new, and sow the seeds of doubt. thus expediency prompts them to teach the acknowledged errors of man in preference to what they claim to be the truths of god. this proves the human character of the bible and the insincerity of its professed exponents. . its authority maintained by fraud and force. for sixteen hundred years--from the time that constantine, to gain a political advantage over his rivals, became a convert to the christian faith--corruption and coercion have been the predominant agents in maintaining its supremacy. fagot, and sword, and gun, and gibbet, and rack and thumbscrew, and every artifice that cunning and falsehood could devise, have been used to uphold the dogma of this book's divinity. to-day, in nearly every nation of europe, the powers of the state are employed to compel allegiance to it. and in this free republic, everywhere, with bribe and threat, the authorities are invoked to force its bloody and filthy pages into the hands of innocent school girls to pollute with superstition, lust, and cruelty their young and tender minds. these deeds of violence, these pious frauds, these appeals to the civil powers, all prove it to be the work of man and not the word of god. . the intelligence of the world for the most part rejects it. if the bible were divine the wise would be the best qualified to realize and appreciate the fact; for while all may err the judgment of the intelligent is better than the judgment of the ignorant. in christendom the ignorant nearly all believe the bible to be the infallible word of god, every verse of which is to be accepted literally. a more intelligent class reject the objectionable portions of it, or give to them a more rational and humane interpretation. those of the highest intelligence--the great leaders of the world in national affairs, in the domain of literature, in science and philosophy, and in biblical and religious criticism--the washingtons and lincolns, the franklins and jeffersons, the fredericks and napoleons, the gambettas and garibaldis; the shakespeares and byrons, the goethes and schillers, the carlyles and emersons, the eliots and de staëls; the humboldts and darwins, the huxleys and haeckels, the drapers and tyndalls, the comtes and spencers; the humes and gibbons, the voltaires and renans, the bauers and strausses, the paines and ingersolls--all these reject its divinity. a gladstone is an anomaly. dr. watson of scotland gives frank expression to a fact of which his fellow clergymen are fully cognizant, but which they are loth to admit. he says: "the great, and the wise, and the mighty, are not with us. these men, the master minds, the imperial leaders among men are outside our most christian church." the ignorant suppose that the intelligent accept the bible; because the intelligent, dependent in a large degree upon the ignorant, and knowing that of all passions religious prejudice and hatred are the worst, do not care to arouse their antagonism by an unnecessary avowal of their disbelief. this is especially true of men in public life. but these men think; and to their intellectual friends they talk. in his "history of the bible," bronson c. keeler says: "the only men distinguished for their learning who now believe it to be the inspired word of god, are the men who are, either directly or indirectly, making their living out of it." do these learned divines themselves believe it? nearly every intelligent clergyman entertains and confidentially expresses opinions regarding the bible which he dare not proclaim from the pulpit. but master and slave are alike growing weary--the master of his duplicity, the slave of his burden. emancipation for both is approaching. to-day the clergy smile when they meet; some day they will laugh outright, this stupendous farce will be ended, and man will be free. a handbook of freethought. containing in condensed and systematized form a vast amount of evidence against the superstitious doctrines of christianity. selected by w. s. bell. new york: the truth seeker company, lafayette place. preface. i have aimed in preparing this work to put into compact and orderly form a large amount of irrefragable evidence against the superstitions of the church. i have often felt the need of such a work for my own use. the matter herewith presented has been culled from some of the ablest writers living and dead. as a book of reference i hope it may be a valuable aid to all investigators and truthseekers. its running head lines, chapter heads, subheads, and classified subjects make it a "handbook." san francisco. january , . creation. in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. (gen. : .) no sooner do we read this sentence than we find our minds full of perplexing questions. quite naturally we ask in the "beginning" of what? it could not mean in the beginning of god, for it is supposed that he had no beginning; it could not mean the beginning of eternity, as that is without commencement or end, and it could not have been in the beginning of matter as it is eternal. if then matter is eternal, the story about the creation of the heaven and the earth is nothing more than a myth--a childish story that has come down to us from the dark ages of the remote past. the indestructibility of matter is the corner-stone of modern philosophy, and the indestructibility of matter implies its eternal existence, that is, it never was created and it never will cease to exist. theologians have taught for centuries that god created matter out of nothing. enlightened people have to smile when they hear these stories repeated. some theologians who have discovered the folly of such empty traditions have tried to reconstruct them by means of new interpretations. the rev. de witt talmage, of brooklyn, has discovered that god created matter out of a piece of omnipotence. this discovery is important, and may lead to grand results; still there are some people who doggedly refuse to accept this invention, and maintain that omnipotence is nothing more than an attribute, and that one could with as much propriety speak of god's creating matter out of omniscience, or omnipresence. there are others who do not claim that matter was made out of nothing, but that it was in a chaotic state, and that at a certain time (before time was), god formed it into the universe in six days of creation. but this explanation does not help us out of our difficulties. for if god did not create matter out of nothing then it is eternal, and there could be no such thing as creation, or creator. there is nothing in this old story at all, if it proves on examination that the "creator" did not create matter; for in that case matter is co-eternal with god, and like him, is uncaused. when this old definition of creation fails the theological superstructure built upon it totters and falls to the ground. for if the creator did not originate the universe from nothing, then matter is eternal, and god is not omnipotent, is not infinite, is not god. thus we see that we have no reason whatever to think that there ever was a beginning to matter, or that creation of matter is at all thinkable. the words "beginning" and "creation," as thus used are without meaning. it is a marvel how long the mind of man has been subject to this childish fable. surely the wise men of the different ages who heard it perceived its unreasonableness. but the wise men were few and the unwise were many, and the superstructure built over their heads in the form of theocracies and theologies, laid upon the foundations of this myth were too formidable to admit of free thought. the prophets must prophesy according to the traditions of the fathers. new interpretations were never welcome in this world. a radical idea is always a source of pain to the superficial or bigoted mind. and above all heresy was the worst of all things, and everything new was heresy. and because human reason was all the time making discoveries which revealed better things than had been known, and because reason exposed the weakness and falsity of traditions and superstitions, therefore reason itself was condemned and put under ban and was called "carnal reason," and in order to overcome it, faith, blind belief, was set up as the greatest of all human virtues. and so strong was reason in its persistent attempts to get at the truth, it became necessary to preach faith all the time and to make salvation in another world depend upon it. and, as if this was not enough, he was constantly reminded that the sentence, "believe or be damned" did not relate wholly to another world. damnation often began in this world. the persecutions, inquisitions, crusades, st. bartholomew massacres all show how hard it is with those who have faith to have kindness of heart. "and god said let there be light and there was light." but how do we know he said so? who was the reporter at that early date? in fact even if it were true, how could any one have ever found it out? and if any one had found it how could we know it? the same question might be asked in reference to creation. who discovered the fact? how could we know that some one had learned it even if it were true? "and god saw the light that it was good." from this expression, we should infer that he did not know beforehand whether the light he was about experimentally to originate would be a good thing or not; but after having spoken it into existence and contemplating it for a while, he pronounced it good. the approval is spoken of it much after the manner of men. for instance we see a painter after having put the finishing touches on his picture step back and with satisfaction look at it, and say, "it is the greatest effort of my life." "and god divided the light from the darkness." the originator of this story had not the slightest idea of the nature of light. he supposed it to be a substance that could be separated from darkness, which he also imagined a substance, as white beans may be separated from black beans. in his imagination he probably saw god throwing pieces and chunks of darkness on one side and rays and beams of light on the other. it is hard for a man who has been born but once to understand these things. ("mistakes of moses," ingersoll.) "and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night; and the evening and the morning were the first day." bible expounders have found it difficult to reconcile the word "day" with the teachings of geology. according to common chronology the creation of this universe out of nothing took place four thousand and four years before the birth of christ, which would make the universe about six thousand years old. the testimony of geology is that the formation of this earth as it now is, must have a record of millions of years. and astronomy demonstrates that there are stars so far from this earth that it would take an indefinitely long time for the light from them to reach this earth. here then are two witnesses against this story which makes the earth about six thousand years old. these witnesses cannot be impeached. what shall be done with the record? oh, put a new interpretation upon it. "a person who is not a critic," says huxley, "and is not a hebrew scholar, can only stand up and admire the marvelous flexibility of the language which admits of such adverse interpretations." the great expounders who explain the inexplicable things assure us that the six days of creation spoken of in the book of genesis do mean literal days of twenty-four hours, but that the word "day" is here used to mean an indefinite period, "a great while." but there are so many, and such great difficulties in the way of our accepting this explanation that we are forced to reject it. in the first place the record says "days," and says nothing in connection with the word that would lead us to think the writer meant anything by the word more than it usually signifies; while on the other hand all the uses of the word seem to imply that a day in every instance where the word is used, means a period of twenty-four hours. hugh miller, and an eminent geologist, attempted to reconcile genesis with geology, and after a laborous effort to achieve this end committed suicide. he attempted an impossible task. there is not the slightest grounds for supposing the writer of genesis to mean by the word "day" anything more than we mean by the same word. the language, "the evening and the morning were the first day," can admit of but one interpretation, and that is the duration of twenty-four hours. we shall find that the writer uses the word "day" where, by no possible flexibility of interpretation, can the word mean anything other than this, and gives no hint that he means anything different in the use of the word in the latter case from its signification in its previous use. "and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work." "for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it." "it is a sign between me and the children of israel forever; for in six days the lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." and still another instance may be given to show that the word "day" has no double meaning: "and god made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night." the word "day" obviously means what we mean by it when we use it in connection with night. these proofs settle the question of the meaning of the word "day." it means in genesis just what it means when we use it. the account given of creation in speaking of "days" meant literally twenty-four hours; and geology and astronomy prove such statements to be childish and foolish. if we should admit that the word "day" in this narrative meant millions of years, then the first sabbath upon which the lord rested and was refreshed also meant millions of years. if this be so then it is safe to infer that he is still resting. this may in some degree account for the fact that the ministers are trying to run the world in his name. for if god exerts his power over the world to guide and control it according to his own sovereign will it is nothing less than high handed presumption if not rebellious usurpation on the part of the clergy to attempt to take the management out of his hands. in the second chapter of genesis, adam is said to have been made before the animals were created. after adam had given names to all the animals as they passed before him in grand review, there was no helpmeet found among them for him, and as an afterthought god formed a woman for him out of a rib. but here was a very long period between the creation of adam and eve. according to the first chapter of genesis adam and eve were created at the same time, and before the creation of the animal kingdom, but in the second chapter man was the first creature made and woman the last. this would make adam millions of years older than eve, if the word "day" means millions of years in the first chapter of genesis. "and god said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters. and god made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. and god called the firmament heaven." according to this writer's ideas heaven and earth were two flat spheres, upon each of which were vast quantities of water. the firmament in which were set the sun, moon, and stars was in some way supported at a short distance above the earth. the hebrew term rakia so translated, is generally regarded as expressive of simple expansion, and is so rendered in the margin of the a. v. (authorized version). (gen. : .) the root means to expand by beating whether by the hand, the foot, or any other instrument. it is especially used of beating out metals into thin plates. (ex. : , and num. : .) the sense of solidity is combined with the ideas of expansion and tenuity in the term. the same idea of solidity runs through all the references to the rakia. in exodus : , it is represented as a solid floor. so again in ezekiel : - , the "firmament" is the floor on which the throne of the most high is placed. further, the office of the rakia in the economy of the world demanded strength and substance. it was to serve as a division between the waters above and the waters below. (gen. : .) in keeping with this view the rakia was provided with "windows" (gen. : , isa. : , mal. : ), and "doors" (ps. : ) through which the rain and the snow might descend. a secondary purpose which the rakia served was to support the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars (gen. : ), in which they were fixed as nails, and from which consequently, they might be said to drop off. (isa. : - , mat. : .) in all these particulars we recognize the same view as was entertained by the greeks, and to a certain extent by the latins. if it be objected to the mosaic account that the view embodied in the word rakia does not harmonize with strict philosophical truth, the answer to such an objection is, that the writer describes things as they appear rather than as they are. (smith's "abridged bible dictionary," firmament.) one not acquainted with the wonderful flexibility of biblical interpretation, might conclude after reading this explicit definition of the rakia that the story of creation was an inspired revelation, but not true. we ourselves are inclined to this opinion, and we accept the conclusion that the mosaic description of the firmament "does not harmonize with strict philosophical truth; and possibly we shall conclude that all parts of the mosaic cosmogony will show that the writer who attempts to give a history of the beginning of the universe, did nothing more than describe things as they appeared to his mind's eye, rather than as they actually were. "and god said, let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so." this was on the third day, and we read that on the fifth day, "god created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind." but in the evolution of life upon this earth, grasses, trees and plants do not precede the evolution of marine animals. here again we come upon one of those instances where the account given does not harmonize with strict philosophical truth; but the answer to such objections is that "the writer describes things as they appear rather than as they are." in modern language we should say he was merely guessing at the riddle of existence. "and god made two great lights, and the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night; and he made the stars also." the creation of the sun and the moon was on the fourth day. but it is not made clear how there could have been a morning and an evening of three previous days, in the absence of the sun. then again there is no possible explanation for the existence of vegetation without sunlight. grasses, trees, and plants will not grow without sunlight. and still another difficulty meets us in the same passage. the writer says god made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. and this also is lacking in harmony with "strict philosophical truth," for there is only one great light; the moon has no light, but merely reflects the sun's rays. it is true it seems to be a light, and as "the writer describes things as they appear rather than as they are," we can hold him responsible only for the revelation he makes as a matter of inspiration and not for its truth. before the sun was created, the writer gives us to understand that the dry land appeared--or to put it more definitely, god commanded saying, "let the dry land appear." but to whom was it to appear when there was no eye yet created to look upon it, and if there had been, there was no sunlight, and therefore if the world had been full of eyes the land would not have appeared! this is a problem. did the waters lie on the mountain tops, and refuse to run down to the valleys, until they were commanded? for how was it possible for a writer who describes things as they appear, to attempt to give us a glimpse of things which certainly could not have appeared, only to a mind diseased? but not wishing to appear captious we will let this pass, only however with the explicit understanding that the writer, in this case certainly attempted to describe things as they could not appear. we find our perplexities increasing as we proceed. especially when we attempt to read the stone book of geology in company with the hebrew book of genesis. whoever he may have been, and there can be no doubt of the sex of the writer, as the book everywhere betrays the spirit of the "lord of creation," man, he seems to think that the earth was created before the sun, when the truth is the earth is the child of the sun. one could as well speak of a son being older than his father as to talk of the creation of the sun, after the earth had been created. thus, statement after statement of the story about creation falls for lack of support--and like bubbles the airy word pictures burst at the first touch of science. what gross ignorance the writer betrays in speaking of the vast universe. it is nothing; it needs no extended description, five words are enough to describe the creation of an infinite universe, and hence to the writer it was quite sufficient to merely say, "he made the stars also." and two of these words are supplied by the transcribers. as it seemed to this original cosmogonist the work of getting up a universe was not a matter of very great importance. we are not disposed to credit this story for the reason that, the author makes it necessary for god to take five days to create the solar system, but for the infinite universe beyond, he needed less than one day. the mosaic cosmogonist had no soul for astronomy or he would have seen the necessity of more time in the creation of the starry systems. we could have no patience with his description if it were not for the fact of which we are so well assured by smith's bible dictionary, that he is not giving us matter of fact but is "describing things as they appear rather than as they are." but no sooner do we quit one difficulty than we are beset with another. in looking over the leaves of the stone book of geology we find fossils of animals which existed untold ages before man, and as they had eyes there must therefore have been light, the sun must have existed an indefinitely long period before man. and last of all on the sixth day late on saturday afternoon, god created man in his own image. and as he stepped back and surveyed the week's work which was before him he pronounced himself satisfied with it all. everything was just as he would have it. everything was perfect. "and god saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good." in fact there was not a single thing he could see a chance to make any improvement on; for it is impossible for us to think of a perfect creator making an imperfect creature. and if by any mistake he had made anything not just as it ought to be, and as he intended, we should think that knowing the fact he would make the necessary improvement; and if he would not, then we must conclude that he is not infinitely good. thus every turn we make in this story drives us to the conclusion that it is not true, that it is only an ancient myth. it is the brass of ignorance which has been palmed off upon us for the gold of truth. "so god created man in his own image," and yet in the next breath the writer informs us that after adam and eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, they became more like god, and if they had been permitted to eat of the tree of life they would have become still more like him. but it is hard for one who has not been born again to understand how adam and eve could become more and more like god, when they were created in his image and pronounced very good. the command given them was, "ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die." but the serpent said unto the woman, "ye shall not surely die; for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil." and this was just how it turned out. after they had eaten of this prohibited tree, they became more like the gods than they had been. but we are led to immediately ask, could they have been made in the first place like them? and unless they were both counterfeits we cannot imagine how an image can be improved--that is, become more of an image. and the lord god said, "behold the man has become as one of us, (just as the serpent had foretold) to know good and evil." here is a clear contradiction of terms. and in order to explain the matter at all satisfactorily to ourselves we have to recur to the assurance of authority that it is not claimed that the narration is literal history of fact, but merely the writer's opinions of how it seemed to him it ought to be. "behold i have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and, every tree which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat." here is an explicit statement of adam's right to eat of any fruit he might find. but in the third chapter of this wonderful book, we find that there are two trees whose fruit he is prohibited from eating, "of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, god hath said he shall not eat of it." then after adam and eve had refreshed themselves from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which made them as the gods knowing good and evil, the lord god said, "now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the lord sent him forth from the garden of eden to till the ground from whence he was taken." we fail to see any reason for the apparent change of plan in the mind of the lord. he first grants adam and eve the privilege of eating any fruit they chose, and afterward prohibited them from eating of the fruit of two trees, which would have most benefited them. certainly we can see no good reason for prohibiting them from acquiring knowledge, especially of good and evil, since the gods had this sort of knowledge themselves. in fact we would naturally suppose that the more accurate man's knowledge of good and evil is the better off he would be; he would certainly be more moral. but let us imagine that it was not desirable for adam and eve to have such knowledge and morality and thus to resemble so closely the gods themselves, is there any good reason why they should not have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life, and thereby lived forever? why should the fact that they had become more like the gods be a sufficient reason for preventing them from sharing in the immortal life? would not it have been altogether probable that adam and eve would continue to become more and more like the gods, seeing that they had begun so persistently to acquire the godlike virtues? "and when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," etc. we see that it was wisdom that was prohibited, and not murder, robbery, or drunkenness. why was knowledge and wisdom forbidden to man when these above all things else he needed most? why is it that religion has always condemned learning, discoveries, inventions, reforms, etc.? knowledge is the forbidden fruit of all the gardens of the gods. but how could these celestial creators expect to prevent man from gaining knowledge after they had created him with a brain to think? to think is to have knowledge, and to have some knowledge is to thirst for more, and thus it was absolute madness to create man with a brain and command him not think. as well throw a bird into the air, and shoot it for flying, or spear a fish for swimming in the water, as to damn a human being for coming into possession of the knowledge of good and evil. the story seems to imply many contradictions which are not explicitly expressed. for adam and eve must have been moral beings to have understood the supposed commands of god. if they were moral then they already knew what good and evil was. the way in which this primitive couple acquired knowledge reminds one of the description of the creation of the sun. in the first chapter of this wonderful book, we find light created, and on the fourth day afterward the sun is made. this is reversing the order of cause and effect, as in this effect comes before cause. there is this explanation, however, that the world was new and had not got fairly into working order. in the case of adam and eve, we have no such explanation to offer. we find them from the very first moment, rational beings, and of course having a knowledge of good and evil; but the historian who gives us the account, declares that they came into the possession of knowledge not by virtue of their brains; but because of their eating of certain fruit. the effect is made to be the cause. there is only one way out of the dilemma. the writer described things "as they seemed rather than as they are." even so great a man as the hon. w. e. gladstone has to betake himself to specious arguments in attempting to refute the testimony of science when opposed to genesis. his logic is kindred to that quoted from smith's bible dictionary, wherein the writer says of the author of genesis that he "describes things as they appear, rather than as they are." mr. gladstone in the "order of creation," says: proceeding, on what i hold to be open ground, to state my own idea of the key to the meaning of the mosaic record (genesis), i suggest that it was intended to give moral, and not scientific instruction to those for whom it was written. who was it that "intended to give moral, and not scientific instruction?" if it was the author of genesis who intended it for only moral instruction, then it cannot be claimed to be a revelation from god; but if on the other hand it was god who intended to give only moral instruction, then he is responsible for making the author of genesis record that which is not true. what a sight for gods and men! to see the ex-premier of england pettifogging at the bar of reason for a dying, nay dead superstition; for certainly genesis as a revelation is dead so far as reason and science are concerned. but this hostility to knowledge instituted in the garden of eden has been perpetuated through all the ages. faith has been held up as the all-important virtue, as by it the priests could get the people to believe anything. somewhere goethe says, "belief is not the beginning but the end of knowledge." in the early days of the church it was found necessary to abandon reason. the world had too many philosophers who stood prepared to expose the superstitions which set themselves up with authority. the injunction given to and heeded by chiefly the low and ignorant was, "do not examine; only believe and thy faith will make thee blessed." "wisdom is a bad thing in life, foolishness is to be preferred." but this sentiment was older than that date, for we find in the writings of paul the same teaching, "if any man among you seemeth to be wise, let him become a fool that he may be wise." at another time he insists that, "we are fools for christ's sake." my advice is to eat of the fruit of knowledge, and have your eyes opened to the truth no matter what it is. it may be that some delusive santa claus may fade away in the distance before your clearer vision. let it go. nothing is so expensive as error. seek to know the truth, and struggle to throw off such prejudices as tempt you to fashion truth to your own intellectual myopia or moral obliquities. eat and become more truly a man; eat and become more beautifully a woman. "and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life i have given every herb for meat." this writer never visited a menagerie. his knowledge of the habits of the animal kingdom are as innocent as if he had never sought for knowledge, had never examined natural history, or else he would have known that such animals as lions, tigers, and wolves could not feed on grass. the vultures of the air do not live upon seeds or hay, but must have fish or flesh. daniel going into a den of lions fed on hay, would be about as brave as a milk maid's going into the stall to milk a cow. we cannot conjecture what state of mind the mosaic cosmogonist could have been in when he described the lion as a herbivorous animal. it is so wide a departure from the most common knowledge of the habits of animals that our confidence in the accuracy of the historian is greatly shaken. it is commonly believed that if man had not eaten of the forbidden fruit he would have been immortal. now the very fact that adam and eve ate at all, proves them to have been mortal. for eating implies a nutritive system, which means growth, maturity, and decay of the organism. death is natural, and not a penalty--not a curse pronounced upon the primitive pair for disobedience. they would have died even if they had partaken of the tree of life. and in connection with this erroneous idea of the loss of immortality is another respecting labor. it has been a doctrine taught by the church that labor is a curse pronounced upon the family of man in consequence of adam's transgression, and proof often quoted is, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." this is the consequence of cherishing an ambition to become more like the gods. because he was foolish enough to disobey in the matter of tasting some tempting fruit which attracted his eye, he and all his posterity must toil hard to get a mere subsistence, and then go to hell and roast forever. to an ordinary man this seems rather rough for so small an offense--to sweat in this life is bad enough, but to roast in another is too much, and we utter our righteous protest against it. and since we now have our choice between hell, hades, sheol or gehenna i, for one, prefer hades as its temperature is lower. but this story like many others lacks consistency. for we read that before adam transgressed the commandment, "the lord took the man and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it." this looks like work, and gardeners and farmers would look upon all such arrangements as work, especially would they thus regard it, if the garden was large and it was the duty of one person to take the entire care of it, to that is, do all the work. labor therefore was natural to man and did not come upon him as a curse. it was not in consequence of his eating prohibited apples that the necessity of toil was imposed upon him as a curse, but because mental and physical activity are natural, and he could not exist without them. labor is natural and honorable. the hands and brain of man imply labor, as necessarily as the lungs imply air, or the gills of the fish imply water. man could not exist without it; but the great evil which has arisen is the abuse of labor. some have been enabled to get possession of wealth and thereby have the power to control the laborer and take such a share out of the profits of his toil as they see fit. the stronger prey upon the weaker. our present civilization does not civilize, because it does not remove this relic of barbarism which allows the rich to rob the poor of the profits of their labor. the laborer who produces the wealth of the country is the one who does not get its benefits. the old form of european civilization which justifies and aids the rich in becoming richer and making the poor poorer is beginning to show traces of its existence in this country. and we must say we cannot see how or when this sort of civilization with gilded top and rotten base is to come to an end. surely there is no way out of our barbarous degradation except by the development of the individual through his intelligence into liberty, morality, and manhood. "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto adam to see what he would name them." some animals, as the armadillo, and sloth of south america would consume more time in going from south america to the garden of eden, than adam's life covered. and how could the polar bear and the humming bird of the tropics pass through the different temperatures to reach the garden of eden? and how long could they survive if they were even there, and how could they find their way back to their former habitats? did the fish all swim up to the shore and range themselves in a row to be named? we wish to call attention to the grand review of the animals, to point out the implication that adam could not find a helpmeet among them. we read: "and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them to adam to see what he would name them. and whatsoever adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. and adam gave names to all the cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field, but for adam there was not found an helpmeet for him." now the very words, "was not found," imply that search was made for a helpmeet, but none could be found. and because none could be found, therefore the lord god went immediately to work to make a woman for him. the creator threw him into a deep sleep, and while in that unconscious condition and unable to do or say a thing in his own defense, the lord took out a rib, or as ingersoll says, "a cutlet," while dr. talmage insists that god took out adam's "side" and reformed it into a woman, and as the text reads, "brought her unto the man." was he not there right on the spot? was it necessary for the lord after taking out the rib to go off a distance by himself that he might finish the work undisturbed? unless something of the kind was necessary we do not see the force of the sentence, "brought her unto the man." the greenlanders have a story that relates the creation of woman from man's thumb. this is significant and much more probable. there is wisdom in this even if it be regarded as a myth. the bare fact that woman has always been under man's thumb shows some kinetic relation. the masculine gender has not been reluctant to manifest a disposition to preserve the gentler sex in this position. he calls her by pet names, and bestows compliments upon her, and declares upon the honor of a despot that there is no name so sacred as mother, and that there is no virtue so precious as that possessed by woman--he will even die for her, but still he prefers to keep her in subjection under his thumb. liberty will come to woman when she becomes tired of being a mere plaything, a pet, a favorite slave, and then, and not till then may she rise into the full dignity of womanhood, and throw off thumb authority and all allegiance to the legends which give the thumb its authority. woman needs again to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, even if she be driven out of the social garden and ostracised therefrom with the flaming sword of respectability guarding the gates against her return. her first rebellion brought knowledge and progress to man, and her second rebellion must be against both god and man. "and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die." never in the history of snakes was there a match for this first one. it is highly probable that his snakeship did not have a protracted existence after this emeute of the garden. in fact we never hear of him more. some historians say he changed his name and went west, and some have gone so far as to say that satan, who attacked job many centuries after the seduction of adam and eve was nothing more than the old serpent under a new name. one thing is certain, and that is, that the snake in the garden of eden immortalized himself in a short time. but we can hardly comprehend the curse pronounced upon it for so laudable a work. this was the curse: "above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." it would seem from this, that the serpent did not go naturally upon his belly, but some how or other he diddled along on the tip end of his tail. we fail to see any reason for this sort of locomotion unless it was to help him look out for other snakes. and we are perplexed to understand why he should be sentenced to eat dust. if he was cursed, it seems that the curse is quite conveniently borne by him; for he finds it just to his gait to go upon his belly, and as for eating dust, he never did and never will. he is defiant, rebellious, and successful. the more we study the character of this original snake the more we find to admire in him. it is true we do not always understand just how things could happen as they did, but we take them as they read and make the best of them. for instance we can form no idea of how it was possible for the serpent to talk to eve, and reason with her like a philosopher. he talked to her the same as if he had had vocal organs, and a brain similar but superior to man's. unless he had a mouth and head like a human being we cannot see how he could have talked; and if his head was of that type we cannot see how he could have been called a snake. there was a great many suggestions prompted by reading the account of this wonderful serpent. we cannot understand why he should have been made. or why, if it were necessary to have him, he was not placed under some restraint? why was he not created so that god himself could govern him? or why after seeing he had made him a little too wise, and a trifle too devilish he did not kill him? or if that were impracticable or impossible, why did he not put up signs on all the fences around eden, "adam and eve beware of snakes!" "and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord god amongst the trees of the garden. and the lord god called unto adam and said unto him, where art thou?" but we are amazed at the very thought that it was possible for them to get out of sight of the omniscient eye! we read in many books, and have heard it all our lives that god sees all things, but according to this account, his first creatures, fresh from his plastic hands, and very near to him got beyond his omniscient sight. how could this be, when "the eyes of the lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good?" "for his eyes are upon the ways of man and he seeth all his goings." "for the eyes of the lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth." and yet, notwithstanding he made all things, and sees all things, and knows all things, adam and eve were able to get behind the trees and hide away out of his sight. on another occasion it is recorded that the lord had come down from heaven to see whether the reports which were brought up to him were true or not. "and the lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded." and in still another place it is written: "and the lord said because of the city of sodom and gomorrah is great and because their sin is grievous i will go down now and see whether they have done according to the cry of it, which is come up before me, and if not i will know." and yet other equally inspired writers, describing things as they appeared rather than as they are, solemnly declare that "all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do." but we pass on leaving adam behind the tree, hid away from the presence of the lord, to notice other sacred passages which are not in harmony with strict philosophical truth. "unto the woman he said, i will greatly multiply thy sorrow; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee." now there is no reason to suppose that the pain of childbirth has ever been increased in woman. her physiological structure has in no way undergone a radical change. besides, all animals bearing offspring bear pains. did the curse upon woman extend to the females of animals bearing offspring? but wherein does the male suffer his share in this divine punishment? "and he shall rule over thee." this is a matter of fact--and is equally true of those people who know nothing of israel or israel's god. man has ruled over woman in all times and in all countries, and will continue to reign over her until she aspires to and contends for her rights. the path of woman's future is steep, slippery, and long. many ages will pass before she attains the glory and beauty possible to womanhood, but with prophetic eyes we see that time coming. with joy we labor and wait, that at some future day this world will be made happy and grand through the evolution of truth, love, and liberty in the elevation of woman. another part of the curse is that, "thorns and thistles shall it (the ground) bring forth," but geology shows that thorns and thistles were as plentiful in the primeval world as they are now. hence there must be some mistake on the part of the writer in setting down the origin of thorns and thistles for that particular date. "and adam called his wife eve because she was the mother of all living." this is another astonishing statement. eve was the mother of all (human beings) living, and there were none living but herself and adam! if she was the mother of all living, she was not only adam's mother, but her own mother too. it is true that when cain grew to manhood and slew his brother, there were some people down in the land of nod, but when god made them we have no means of knowing. they were not a people of much consequence as no notice is taken of them by our author, and besides they permitted cain to come and live among them and take a wife. perhaps these people were before adam and eve, for it is stated that in the city there were workers of iron and brass. brass is a compound of copper and zinc, and these workers must have had a knowledge of the arts of mining and compounding metals. the mark, too, was set upon cain that "whosoever" might not slay him; then there must have been a "whosoever." it is very likely that if cain built a city he must have had the aid of carpenters and workmen, and it may be that he found his wife in the land of nod among the "whosoever" "workers in of iron and brass." i think the clergy will agree that there was a "whosoever." it would have been needless to put a mark on cain to preserve his life from a "whosoever" if there were no "whosoever," and my opinion is that mr. cain married some of the daughters of mr. "whosoever" in the land of nod. "and adam called his wife eve because she was the mother of all living!" that eclipses everything. and we were about concluding that nothing of the kind had ever been known before, but we remember the story about ahaziah, and that he was two years older than his father. thirty and two years old was he (jehoram) when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in jerusalem. and ahaziah his son reigned in his stead. two and twenty years old was ahaziah when he began to reign. (kings : , , .) in the book of chronicles we have another account. thirty and two years old was he (jehoram) when he began to reign and he reigned in jerusalem eight years. and the inhabitants of jerusalem made ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead. forty and two years old was ahaziah when he began to reign. ( chron. : , and chron. : , .) jehoram was thirty-two years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned eight years, which made him forty years old at his death, and his son ahaziah who took up the reins of government which dropped from the hands of his father, was forty-two years old--just two years older than his father, and the youngest son at that. "unto adam also and to his wife did the lord god make coats of skins and clothed them." there is no description of the style of these dresses, and we are left without data for judging of their fitness, only we are inclined to the opinion that the country where it was just the temperature for the natives to go naked, skin coats would be a trifle too winterish in style. we fail too see the necessity for such heavy clothing, or in fact for any clothing at all, inasmuch as they were created to go naked. for we read that, "they were both naked the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." or if they must have some protection for their modesty why were not fig-leaf aprons quite sufficient for that climate? and still further we can see no necessity for the lord to turn tailor and make their clothes when adam and eve had already learned to sew; for "they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons," and as the seasons changed they could easily have learned to make garments of comfort for themselves, and also to set the fashions for the rest of the world. the origin of the universe is an insoluble mystery. and yet to the uninformed mind it seems to be no problem at all. we daily hear such people reasoning in this way: "there must have been a first cause of all things, and that first cause we call god." it is only because the mind of man is uninformed, that he reasons in this way. it requires only a little reflection to see that there could have been no first cause. it is clear that every cause must have an effect, for unless it produces an effect it cannot be a cause. hence we cannot infer that there can be an effect which of itself does not become a cause, producing other effects, so that it is absolutely impossible in the nature of cause and effect, for a last cause or a first cause to exist. as a last cause would be a cause only when it produced an effect, and the last effect would be an effect only when it became a cause. it is equally true that there could be no first cause; for whatever is, is the result of some previous cause. we can view causation only as a chain in form of a circle. "if we apply to this question the notion of time we see the limit of our thought, because if we try to think of an absolute creative power before creation, we discover that the idea is unthinkable, as infinite and absolute creative power in the presence of inactivity and nothing are incompatible. it could not have been creative power without creating something. we are therefore unable to think of absolute creative power as inert--we are equally unable to think of it inactive in the presence of chaos, and as impotent to conceive of its existence as absolute. we cannot think of it existing after creation, as rest and inactivity are again incompatible with the notion of force." we may look at this subject in whatever way we choose we shall find that in no way whatever can we form any idea of a first cause, an infinite and absolute creator. let us see. "the first cause cannot be absolute, that is, it cannot exist out of all relation to the universe. whereas a cause not only sustains some relation to its effect, but exists as a cause only by virtue of such relations. suppress the effect and the cause has ceased to be a cause. absolute cause, therefore, is like the phrase, circular triangle. the two words stand for conceptions which cannot be made to unite. we attempt, says mr. mansel, to escape from this apparent contradiction by introducing the succession of time. the absolute exists first by itself and afterward becomes a cause. but here we are checked by the third conception of the infinite. how can the infinite become that which it has not from the first." ("fisk's cosmic philos.") look at it whatever way we may the finite mind cannot grasp the conception of the infinite. nay, cannot know of the existence of the infinite. hence all efforts to explain the first cause, the absolute, and the infinite, are more artificial and unreal than painted ships upon a painted sea. we may view the subject in still another light. if god reasons, his knowledge is limited and he is finite. man reasons because his knowledge is circumscribed. if he knew everything he would have no doubts, and hence would not need to investigate, experiment, recollect, and compare. he would not be compelled to lay down certain definite data, and follow their implications through rules of logic, and through scientific experiment in order to reach conclusions. the end would be as clearly before his mind as the beginning; in fact there would be to such a mind no beginning and no end. but we cannot imagine an infinite being who needs to recollect past events. but if we deny that in the mind of god there is the faculty of memory, we thereby deny that he reasons. the same may be said of doubt, for if the mind of god is never troubled with doubts, it is simply because he does not reason. much of the mind's activity is employed in doubts. doubt and inquiry are necessary elements of thought. does god doubt? does he investigate, compare, and test matters by experiment? if he does then he is not infinite, and if he does not, then he does not reason. has he imagination? if he exercises this important function of the mind then he deals in unrealities, idealizes, has dreams, cherishes visions, builds air castles. if he does not thus exercise imagination he cannot be said to reason. it is an old argument that design implies a designer. the essential weakness of this argument lies in what is called "proofs of design." and in support of this idea it is commonly urged that there are everywhere apparent in nature evidences of order, harmony, and adaptation. but to put this argument into a sentence, the maggot in the cheese could offer the same arguments to show there was a design in his position in the cheese. he could argue that everything about him showed order, harmony, and adaptation. it was just the cheese for him. but even if we should admit this statement, it would not prove the existence of god, for if an intelligent mind had created the universe, it is certain that that mind itself must have been governed by law which yields to order, harmony, and adaptation, and if these imply a designer in one case they must also in the other, and therefore every designer must have had a designer. the difference between the two cosmogonies as given in the first two chapters of genesis. in the first, the earth emerges from the waters and is therefore saturated with moisture. (gen. : , .) in the second, the whole face of the ground requires to be moistened. (gen. : .) in the first, the birds and beasts are created before man. (gen. : , , .) in the second, man is created before the birds and beasts. (gen. : , .) in the first, all the "fowls that fly" are made out of the waters. (gen. : .) in the second, the "fowls of the air" are made out of the ground. (gen. : .) in the first, man is made lord of the whole earth. (gen. : .) in the second, he is merely placed in the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it. (gen. : , .) in the first, man and woman are created together. (gen. : .) in the second, the beasts and birds are created between the man and woman. (gen. : , , , .)--bishop colenso. evidence of the vast age of the universe. "i have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. i have observed stars, of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth. nay more, if those distant bodies had ceased to exist two million of years ago, we should still see them, as the light would travel after the body was gone. * * * "the light from the nearest star requires some three years to reach the earth. from a star one thousand three hundred and forty-four times farther it would require about four thousand years, and for such a cluster as we have imagined, no less than six thousand years are needed." (sir wm. herschell, "life and works of sir wm. herschell" by edward s. holden.) sir wm. thomson, in encyclopedia britannica, article, geology, showed from data available at the time, "that the superficial consolidation of the globe (this earth) could not have occurred less than twenty millions of years ago." "and as any table of the earth's crust will show you there are rocks above and below the chalk, for the production of which millions heaped upon millions of years were required." (clodd's "childhood of religions.") such eminent scientists as sir wm. thomson, helmholtz, newcomb, croll, bishop, reade, lyell, darwin, and others think it would have taken many millions of years for the original nebulæ to condense to the present dimensions of the sun. prophecy. "a prophecy, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, signifies a prediction of future events, which could not have been foreseen by human sagacity, and the knowledge of which was supernaturally communicated to the prophet. it is clear, therefore, that in order to establish the claim of anticipatory statement, promise, or denunciation, to the rank of a prophecy, four points must be ascertained with precision; namely, ( .) what the event was to which the alleged prediction was intended to refer; ( .) that the prediction was uttered in specific, not vague, language before the event; ( .) that the event took place specifically, not loosely, as predicted; ( .) and that it could not have been foreseen by human sagacity. * * * "it is probably not too much to affirm that we have no instance in the prophetical books of the old testament of a prediction, in the case of which we possess, at once and combined, clear and unsuspicious proof of the date, the precise event predicted, the exact circumstances of the event, and the inability of human sagacity to foresee it. "the state of the case appears to be this: that all the old testament prophesies have been assumed to be genuine inspired predictions; and, when falsified in their obvious meaning and received interpretation, by the event, have received immediately a new interpretation, and been supposed to refer to some other event. when the result has disappointed expectation, the conclusion has been, not that the prophecy was false, but the interpretation was erroneous. it is obvious that a mode of reasoning like this is peculiar to theological inquirers. * * * "in justification of this idea of a double sense, he (dr. arnold) continues: 'the notion of a double sense in prophecy has been treated by some persons with contempt. yet it may be said that it is almost necessarily involved in the idea of prophecy. every prophecy has according to the very definition of the word, a double source; it has, if i may venture so to speak, two authors, the one human, the other divine.... if uttered by the tongue of man, it must also, unless we suppose him to be a mere instrument (in the same sense as a flute or a harp), be colored by his own mind. the prophet expresses in words certain truths conveyed to his mind; but his mind does not fully embrace them, nor can it; for how can man fully comprehend the mind of god? every man lives in time, and belongs to time; the present must be to him clearer than the future.... but with god there is no past, nor future; every truth is present to him in all its extent, so that his expression, if i may so speak, differs essentially from that which can be comprehended by the mind, or uttered by the tongue of man. thus every prophecy as uttered by man (that is, by an intelligent and not a mere mechanical instrument), and at the same time as inspired by god, must, so far as appears, have a double sense; one, the sense entertained by the human mind of the writer; the other, the sense infused into it by god.' we must confess our amazement at the obvious and extreme unsoundness of this whole passage. not only does it painfully remind us of the double meaning so often and so justly charged upon the pagan oracles--but it assumes the strange and contradictory improbabilities: first, that god was unable to convey his meaning to the mind of the prophet; secondly, that he infused this meaning into the words which were uttered, although he could not infuse it into the mind of the man who uttered them; and thirdly, that we can see further into the mind and meaning of god than those to whom he spoke; that they in expressing the ideas which he had put into their minds, mistook or imperfectly conceived those ideas,--but that to us is given to discover a thought which those words contained, but did not express, or which, if they did express it, they were not understood by the writer to express. now, either the ideas which god wished to communicate were conveyed to the mind of the prophet, or they were not; if they were so conveyed, then the prophet must have comprehended them, and intended to express them correctly--for it is monstrous to suppose that god would infuse ideas into a man's mind for the purpose of being communicated to the public; which ideas he yet did not enable him to communicate; and then all the above confused subtleties fall to the ground. if, on the other hand, these ideas were not so conveyed to the prophet's mind, then it must have been the words and not the ideas which were inspired, and god used the prophet simply as a flute (a supposition scouted by dr. arnold) and we are thus driven to the equally monstrous supposition that god used words which did not convey his meaning, even to the very favored individual to whom and through whom he spoke." (greg's "creed of christendom," pp. , .) "we have already had ample proof that the jewish writers not only did not scruple to narrate past events as if predicting future ones--to present history in the form of prophecy, but that they habitually did so. the original documents from which the books of moses were compiled, must have been written, as we have seen in the time of the earliest kings, while the book of deuteronomy was not composed, and the whole pentateuch did not assume its present form till, probably, the reign of josiah; yet they abound in such anticipatory narrative--in predictions of events long past. the instances are far too numerous to quote." (greg's "creed of christendom," p. .) "there is not throughout the whole bible any word that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that describes what we call poetry. the case is, that the word prophet, to which latter times have affixed new ideas, was the bible word for poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making poetry. it also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any instrument of music. "we read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns--of prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbols, and with every other instrument of music then in fashion. were we now to speak of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the expression would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous, and to some people contemptuous, because we have changed the meaning of the word. "we are told of saul being among the prophets, and also that he prophesied, but we are not told what they prophesied, nor what he prophesied. the case is, there was nothing to tell; for these prophets were a company of musicians and poets, and saul joined in the concert, and this was called prophesying."--thomas paine on the prophecies. "there is no reason to think that a prophet ever received a revelation which was not spoken directly and pointedly to his own time. (ency. brit. "bible.") "it is plain, however, that the whole work (the pentateuch) is not the uniform production of one pen, but that in some way a variety of records of different ages, and styles have been combined to form a single narrative. accordingly, jewish tradition bears evidence that moses wrote the pentateuch, joshua the book named after him, samuel the book of judges, and so forth. as all hebrew history is anonymous, a sure sign that people had not yet learned to lay weight on questions of authorship, it is not probable that this tradition rests on any surer ground than conjecture." (ency. brit., "bible.") "i have now fully and fairly analyzed and exposed many of the most important prophecies or pretended prophecies of the whole bible, i have shown that very few of them are real prophecies at all; that those which are real prophecies, very few ever have been, or ever can be fulfilled; that the very few which seem to have been fulfilled were written after the occurrence of the events claimed to be their fulfilments, and that, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, none of these prophecies ever have been, or ever can be, of any service to the world. and thus fall all the prophetic props of priestcraft. not one of them can bear the test of fair examination." (kelso's "bible analayzed.") miracles. "at the very outset of inquiry into the origin and true character of christianity we are brought face to face with the supernatural. christianity professes to be a divine revelation of truths which the human intellect could not otherwise have discovered. it is not a form of religion developed by the wisdom of man and appealing to his reason, but a system miraculously communicated to the human race, the central doctrines of which are either supernatural or untenable. if the truths said to be revealed were either of an ordinary character, or naturally attainable they would at once discredit the claim to divine origin. no one could maintain that a system discoverable by reason would be supernaturally communicated. the whole argument for christianity turns upon the necessity of such a revelation, and the consequent probability that it would be made. * * * "the spontaneous offer of miraculous evidence, indeed, has always been advanced as a special characteristic of christianity logically entitling it to acceptance in contradistinction to all other religions. 'it is an acknowledged historical fact,' says bishop butler, 'that christianity offered itself to the world, and demanded to be received, upon the allegation, that is, as unbelievers would speak, upon the pretence of miracles, publicly wrought to attest the truth of it in such an age; ... and christianity, including the dispensation of the old testament, seems distinguished by this from all other religions.' "having then ascertained that miracles are absolutely necessary to attest the reliability of a divine revelation we may proceed to examine them more closely, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the representation of these phenomena which are in the bible. throughout the old testament the doctrine is inculcated that supernatural communications must have supernatural attestation. god is described as arming his servants with power to perform wonders, in order that they may thus be accredited as his special messengers. the patriarchs and the people of israel generally are represented as demanding 'a sign' of the reality of the communications said to come from god, without which, we are led to suppose, they not only would not have believed, but would have been justified in disbelieving, that the messengers actually came from him. thus gideon asks for a sign that the lord talked with him. 'and the lord said unto him, surely i will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the midianites as one man.' 'and he (gideon) said unto him, if now i have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me.' (judges : , .) "and hezekiah demands proof of the truth of isaiah's prophecy that he should be restored to health. 'and hezekiah said unto isaiah, what shall be the sign that the lord will heal me, and that i shall go up unto the house of the lord the third day?' ( kings : .) "it is, however, unnecessary to refer to instances, for it may be affirmed that upon all occasions, miraculous evidence of an alleged divine mission is stated to have been required and accorded. "the startling information is at the same time given, however, that miracles may be wrought to attest what is false as well as to accredit what is true. in one place, it is declared that if a prophet actually gives a sign or wonder and it comes to pass, but teaches the people on the strength of it, to follow other gods, they are not to hearken to him, and the prophet is to be put to death. 'if there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.' (deut. : , , .) "the false miracle is here attributed to god himself. 'for the lord your god proveth you, to know whether you love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul.' (deut. : .) "in the book of the prophet ezekiel the case is stated in a still stronger way, and god is represented as directly deceiving the prophet. 'and if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, i the lord have deceived that prophet, and i will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people israel.' (ezek. : .) "the narrative of god's hardening pharaoh's heart in order to bring more plagues upon the land of egypt is in this vein. god, in fact, is represented as exerting his almighty power to deceive a man and then destroying him for being deceived. in the same spirit is the passage in which micaiah describes the lord as putting a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets who incited ahab to go to ramoth-gilead. ( kings : - .) "the miracles wrought by the egyptian sorcerers in competing with moses were done by another power than god. we have notable instances of the belief in signs and wonders wrought by this other power. jesus is represented as warning his disciples against false prophets, who work signs and wonders. 'many will say to me in that day, lord, lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? of whom he should say, i never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' (mat. : , .) and again in another place: 'for false prophets shall arise, and shall work signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, the elect.' (mark : .) also, when the pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by beelzebub, the prince of the devils, jesus asks: 'by whom do your children cast them out?' a reply which would lose all its point if they were not admitted to be able to cast out devils. in another passage john is described as saying: 'master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbade him.' without multiplying instances, however, there can be no doubt of the fact that the reality of false miracles and lying wonders is admitted in the bible. the obvious deduction from this representation of miracles is that the source and purpose of such supernatural phenomena must always be exceedingly uncertain. their evidential value is, therefore, profoundly affected, 'it being,' as dr. newman has said of ambiguous miracles, 'antecedently improbable that the almighty should rest the credit of his revelation upon events which but obscurely implied his immediate presence.' as it is affirmed that other supernatural beings exist, as well as an assumed personal god, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that such phenomena are at any time especially due to the intervention of the deity. dr. newman recognizes this, but passes over the difficulty with masterly lightness of touch. after advancing the singular argument that our knowledge of spirits is only derived from scripture, and that their existence cannot be deduced from nature, whilst he asserts that the being of a god--a personal god be it remembered--can be so discovered, and that, therefore, miracles can only properly be attributed to him, he proceeds: 'still it may be necessary to show that on our own principles we are not open to inconsistency. that is, it has been questioned whether, in admitting the existence and power of the spirits on the authority of revelation, we are not in danger of invalidating the evidence upon which that authority rests. for the cogency of the argument for miracles depends on the assumption, that interruptions in the course of nature must ultimately proceed from god; which is not true, if they may be effected by other beings without his sanction. and it must be conceded, that, explicit as scripture is in considering miracles as signs of divine agency, it still does seem to give created spirits some power of working them; and even, in its most literal sense, intimates the possibility of their working them in opposition to the true doctrine (deut. : - ; mat. : ; thes. : - ).' (dr. newman's two essays on miracles, p. .) "dr. newman repudiates the attempts of various writers to overcome this difficulty by making a distinction between great miracles and small, many miracles and few, or by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested in order to determine the author of the miracles, or by denying the power of spirits altogether, and explaining away scripture statements of demoniacal possession and the narrative of the lord's temptation. 'without having recourse to any of these dangerous modes of answering the objection,' he says, 'it may be sufficient to reply, that, since, agreeably to the antecedent sentiment of reason, god has adopted miracles as the seal of a divine message, we believe he will never suffer them to be so counterfeited as to deceive the humble inquirer.' (ibid. p. .) "this is the only reply which even so powerful a reasoner as dr. newman can give to an objection based on distinct statements of scripture itself. he cannot deny the validity of the objection, he can only hope or believe in spite of it. personal belief independent of evidence is the most common and the weakest of arguments; at best it is prejudice masked in the garb of reason. it is perfectly clear that miracles being thus acknowledged to be common both to god and to other spirits they cannot be considered a distinctive attestation of divine intervention; and as spinoza finely argued, not even the mere existence of god, can be inferred from them; for as a miracle is a limited act and never expressed more than certain and limited power, it is certain that we cannot from such an effect, conclude even the existence of a cause whose power is infinite. "this dual character obviously leads to many difficulties in defining the evidential function and force of miracles, and we may best appreciate the dilemma which is involved by continuing to follow the statements and arguments of divines themselves. to the question whether miracles are absolutely to command the obedience of those in whose sight they are performed, and whether upon their attestation, the doer and his doctrine are to be accepted as of god, archbishop french unhesitatingly replies: 'it cannot be so, for side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of god runs another line of wonders, the counter-workings of him who is ever the ape of the most high.' (dr. french's 'notes on the miracles of our lord.') eighth ed., p. . "'this fact,' he says, 'that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, is in itself sufficient evidence that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and finally, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims.' "this being the case, it is important to discover how miracles perform their function as the indispensible evidence for a divine revelation, for with this disability they do not seem to possess much potentiality. archbishop french then offers the following definition of the function of miracles: 'a miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass. that which alone it claims for him at the first is a right to be listened to; it puts him in the alternative of being from heaven or from hell. the doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being good, and only then can the miracle seal it as divine.' but the first appeal is from the doctrine to the conscience, to the moral nature of man. under certain circumstances, he maintains their evidence is utterly to be rejected. 'but the purpose of the miracle' he says, 'being as we have seen, to confirm that which is good, so, upon the other hand, where conscience and mind witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand submission to the word which they seal. on the contrary, the great act of faith is to believe, against, and in despite of them all, in what god has revealed to, and implanted in the soul of the holy and the true; not to believe another gospel, though an angel from heaven, or one transformed into such should bring it (deut. : ; gal. : ); and instead of compelling assent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof, for they tell us that not merely lies are here, for to that the conscience bore witness already, but that he who utters them is more than a common deceiver, is eminently a liar and anti-christ, a false prophet; standing in more immediate connection than other deceived and evil men to the kingdom of darkness, so that satan has given him his power (rev. : ); is using him to be an especial organ of his, and to do a special work for him.' and he lays down the distinct principle that: 'the miracle must witness for itself, and then, and then only, the first is capable of witnessing for the second.' "these opinions are not peculiar to the archbishop of dublin, but are generally held by divines, although dr. french expresses them with unusual absence of reserve. dr. mozley emphatically affirms the same doctrine when he says: 'a miracle cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is contrary to our moral nature or a fundamental principle of religion.' dr. mansel speaks to the same effect: 'if a teacher claiming to work miracles proclaims doctrines contrary to previously established truths, whether to the conclusions of natural religion or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a contradiction is allowed even by the most zealous defenders of the evidential value of miracles, to invalidate the authority of the teacher. but the right conclusion from this admission is not that true miracles are invalid an evidences, but that the supposed miracles in this case are not true miracles at all; that is, are not the effects of divine power, but of human deception or of some other agency.' a passage from a letter written by dr. arnold, which is quoted by dr. french in support of his views, both illustrates the doctrine and the necessity which has led to its adoption. 'you complain,' says dr. arnold, writing to dr. hawkins, 'of those persons who judge of a revelation not by its evidence, but by its substance. it has always seemed to me that its substance is a most essential part of its evidence; and that miracles wrought in favor of what was foolish or wicked would only prove manicheism. we are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world, that the character of any supernatural power can only be judged by the moral character of the statements which it sanctions. thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from god or from the devil.' in another place dr. arnold declares: 'miracles must not be allowed to overrule the gospel; for it is only through our belief in the gospel that we accord our belief in them.' "it is obvious that the mutual dependence which is thus established between miracles and the doctrines in connection with which they are wrought destroys the evidential force of miracles, and that the first and final appeal is made to reason. the doctrine in fact proves the miracles instead of the miracle attesting the doctrine. divines, of course, attempt to deny this, but no other deduction from their own statements is logically possible. miracles according to scripture itself, are producible by various supernatural beings and may be satanic as well as divine: man on the other hand, is so ignorant of the unseen world that avowedly, he cannot, from the miracle itself, determine the agent by whom it was performed; the miracle, therefore, has no intrinsic evidential value. how, then, according to divines, does it attain any potentiality? only through a favorable decision on the part of reason on the 'moral nature of man' regarding the character of the doctrine. the result of the appeal to reason respecting the morality and credibility of the doctrine determines the evidential status of the miracle. the doctrine therefore, is the real criterion of the miracle which, without it, is necessarily an object of doubt and suspicion. "we have already casually referred to dr. newman's view of such a relation between miracle and doctrine, but may here more fully quote his suggestive remarks. 'others by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested,' he says, 'in order to determine the author of the miracle, have exposed themselves to the plausible charge of adducing, first the miracle to attest the divinity of the doctrine, and then the doctrine to prove the divinity of the miracle.' this argument he characterizes as one of the 'dangerous modes' of removing a difficulty, although he does not himself point out a safer, and in a note, he adds: 'there is an appearance of doing honor to the christian doctrines in representing them as intrinsically credible, which leads many into supporting opinions which, carried to their full extent, supercede the need of miracles altogether. it must be recollected, too, that they who are allowed to praise have the privilege of finding fault, and may reject, according to their a priori notions, as well as receive. doubtless the divinity of a clearly immoral doctrine could not be evidenced by miracles; for our belief in the moral attributes of god, is much stronger than our conviction of the negative proposition, that none but he can interfere with the system of nature. but there is always the danger of extending this admission beyond its proper limits, of supposing ourselves judges of the tendency of doctrines; and because, unassisted reason informs us what is moral and immoral in our own case, of attempting to decide on the abstract morality of actions.... these remarks are in nowise inconsistent with using (as was done in a former section) our actual knowledge of god's attributes, obtained from a survey of nature and human affairs, in determining the probability of certain professed miracles having proceeded from him. it is one thing to infer from the experience of life another to imagine the character of god from the gratuitous conceptions of our own minds.' although dr. newman apparently fails to perceive that he himself thus makes reason the criterion of miracles and therefore incurs the condemnation with which our quotation opens, the very indecision of his argument illustrates the dilemma in which divines are placed. dr. mozley, however, still more directly condemns the principle we are discussing, that the doctrine must be the criterion of the miracle, although he also, as we have seen elsewhere, substantially affirms it. he says: 'the position that the revelation proves the miracle, and not the miracles the revelation, admits of a good qualified meaning; but taken literally, it is a double offense against the rule, that things are properly proved by the proper proof of them; for a supernatural fact is the proper proof of supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine on the other hand is certainly not a proper proof of a supernatural fact.' "this statement is obviously true, but it is equally undeniable that, their origin being uncertain, miracles have no evidential force. how far then, we may inquire in order thoroughly to understand the position, can doctrines prove the reality of miracles or determine the agency by which they are performed? in the case of moral truths within the limits of reason, it is evident that doctrines, which are in accordance with our idea of what is good and right do not require miraculous evidence at all. they can secure acceptance by their own merits alone. at the same time it is universally admitted that the truth or goodness of a doctrine could not attest the divine origin of a miracle. such truths, however, have no proper connection with revelation at all. 'these truths,' to quote the words of bishop atterbury, 'were of themselves sufficiently obvious and plain, and needed not a divine testimony to make them plainer. but the truths which are necessary in this manner to be attested, are those which are of positive institution; those which if god had not pleased to reveal them, human reason could not have discovered; and those, which, even now, they are revealed, human reason cannot fully account for, and perfectly comprehend.' how is it possible then that reason, or the 'moral nature of man' can approve as good, or appreciate the fitness of, doctrines which in their very nature are beyond the criterion of reason. what reply, for instance, can reason give to any appeal to it regarding the doctrine of the trinity or of the incarnation? if doctrines, the truth and goodness of which are apparent, do not afford any evidence of divine revelation, how can doctrines which reason can neither discover nor comprehend attest the divine origin of miracles? dr. mozley clearly recognizes that they cannot do so. 'the proof of a revelation,' he says, and we may add, the proof of a miracle--itself a species of revelation--'which is contained in the substance of a revelation has this inherent check or limit in it; namely: that it cannot reach to what is undiscoverable by reason.' 'internal evidence is itself an appeal to reason, because at every step the test is our own appreciation of such and such an idea or doctrine, our own perception of its fitness; but human reason cannot in the nature of the case prove that which, by the very hypotheses, lies beyond reason.' it naturally follows that no doctrine which lies beyond reason, and therefore requires the attestation of miracles, can possibly afford that indication of the source and reality of miracles which is necessary to endow them with evidential value, and the supernatural doctrine must, therefore, be rejected in the absence of miraculous evidence of a decisive character. "canon mozley labors earnestly, but unsuccessfully, to restore to miracles as evidence some part of that potentiality of which these unfortunate limitations have deprived them. 'whilst on the one hand,' he says, 'we must admit indeed an inherent modification in the function of a miracle as an instrument of proof,' he argues that this is only a limitation, and no disproof of it, and he contends that: 'the evidence of miracles is not negatived because it has conditions.' his reasoning, however, is purely apologetic, and attempts by the unreal analogy of supposed limitations of natural principles and evidence to excuse the disqualifying limitations of the supernatural. he is quite conscious of the serious difficulty of the position: 'the question' he says, 'may at first sight create a dilemma.--if a miracle is nugatory on the side of one doctrine, what cogency has it on the side of another? is it legitimate to accept its evidence when we please and reject it when we please?' the only reply he seems able to give to these very pertinent questions is the remark which immediately follows them: 'but in truth a miracle is never without an argumentative force, although that force may be counterbalanced.' in other words, a miracle is always an argument, although it is often a bad one. it is scarcely necessary to go to the supernatural for bad arguments. "it might naturally be expected that the miraculous evidence selected to accredit a divine revelation should possess certain unique and marked characteristics. it must at least, be clearly distinctive of divine power and exclusively associated with divine truth. it is inconceivable that the deity, deigning thus to attest the reality of a communication from himself of truths beyond the criterion of reason, should not make the evidence simple and complete, because the doctrines proper to such a revelation, not being appreciable from internal evidence, it is obvious that the external testimony for them,--if it is to be of any use--must be unmistakable and decisive. the evidence which is actually produced, however, so far from satisfying these legitimate anticipations, lacks every one of the qualifications which reason antecedently declares necessary. miracles are not distinctive of divine power but are common to satan, and they are admitted to be performed in support of falsehood as well as in the service of truth. they bear, indeed, so little upon them the impress of their origin and true character, that they are dependent for their recognition upon our judgment of the very doctrines to attest which they are said to have been designed. "even taking the representation of miracles, therefore, which divines themselves give, they are utterly incompetent to perform their contemplated functions. if they are superhuman they are not supersatanic, and there is no sense in which they can be considered miraculously evidential of anything. to argue as theologians do, that the ambiguity of their testimony is intended as a trial of our faith is absurd, for reason being unable to judge of the nature either of supernatural fact or of supernatural doctrine it would be mere folly and injustice to subject to such a test beings avowedly incapable of sustaining it. whilst it is absolutely necessary, then, that a divine revelation should be attested by miraculous evidence to justify our believing it the testimony so called seems in all respects unworthy of the name, and presents anomalies much more suggestive of human invention than divine originality. we are, in fact, prepared by the scriptural account of miracles to expect that further examination will supply an explanation of such phenomena which will wholly remove them from the region of the supernatural. "we have seen that a divine revelation is such only by virtue of communicating to us something which we could not know without it, and which is in fact undiscoverable by human reason; and that miraculous evidence is absolutely requisite to establish its reality. it is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the specific revelation which we are considering, the very substance of which is supernatural and beyond the criterion of reason, and that its astounding announcements, if not demonstrated to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be pronounced 'the wildest delusions.' on examining the supposed miraculous evidence, however, we find that not only is it upon general grounds antecedently incredible, but that the testimony by which its realty is supported, so far from establishing the inferences drawn from the supposed supernatural phenomena, is totally insufficient even to certify the actual occurrence of the events narrated. "even if the reality of miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence for the divine revelation is destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited to one source, but that there are miracles satanic which are to be disbelieved, as well as divine and evidential ones to be believed. "similar miracles to those which are supposed to attest it are reported long antecedent to the promulgation of christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. "a stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. "the true character of miracles is at once betrayed by the fact that their supposed occurrence has been confined to ages of ignorance and superstition, and that they are absolutely unknown in any time or place where science has provided witnesses fitted to appreciate and ascertain the nature of such exhibitions of supernatural power. "there is no uncertainty as to the origin of belief in supernatural interference with nature. the assertion that spurious miracles have sprung up round a few instances of genuine miraculous power has not a single valid argument to support it. "when we turn from more general arguments to examine the documentary evidence for the reality of the supposed miraculous occurrences, and of the divine revelation which they accredit, we meet with the characteristics which might have been expected. we do not find any trace even of the existence of our gospels for a century and a half after the events they record. they are anonymous narratives, and there is no evidence of any value connecting these works with the writers to whom they are popularly attributed. the miraculous evidence upon which alone, it is admitted, we could be justified in believing its astounding doctrines being thus nugatory, the claims of christianity to be considered a divine revelation must necessarily be disallowed, and its supernatural elements, which are, in fact, the very substance of the system, inevitably sharing the same fate as the supposed miraculous evidence, must, therefore, be rejected as incredible and opposed to reason and complete induction." ("supernatural religion," p. .) "a miracle as evidence can establish no fact, for the reason that the miracle does not exist. the miracle itself must be attested. as we have no evidence of miracles, we are not called on to believe them, but to believe the story which relates them. 'but the miracle is above and beyond reason.' to this we reply: it is absurd to assume what is beyond reason, to account for what is opposed to reason." (ibid.) david hume's argument on miracles. "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. why is it more than probable that all men must die; that lead cannot of itself remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or, in other words, a miracle, to prevent them? nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of nature. it is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die suddenly; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. but it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. there must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. and as a uniform experience amounts to a proof there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible but by an opposite proof which is superior. ( .) "the plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior.' when any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, i immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. i weigh the one miracle against the other, and according to the superiority which i discover i pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. if the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. "in the foregoing reasoning we have supposed that the testimony upon which a miracle is founded may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy; but it is easy to show that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence. "for, first, there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and, at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men. "secondly. we may observe in human nature a principle which, if strictly examined, will be found to diminish extremely the assurance which we might, from human testimony, have in any kind of prodigy. the maxim by which we commonly conduct ourselves in our reasonings is, that the objects of which we have no experience resemble those of which we have; that what we have found to be most usual is always most profitable, and that where there is an opposition of argument we ought to give the preference to such as are founded on the greatest number of past observations; but though, in proceeding by this rule, we readily reject any fact which is unusual and incredible in an ordinary degree, yet in advancing further the mind observes not always the same rule, but when anything is affirmed utterly absurd and miraculous it rather the more readily admits of such a fact, upon account of that very circumstance which ought to destroy all its authority. the passion of surprise and wonder arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency toward the belief of those events from which it is derived. and this goes so far, that even those who can not enjoy this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events of which they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by rebound, and take pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others. "with what greediness are the miraculous accounts of travelers received, their descriptions of sea and land monsters, their relations of wonderful adventures, strange men and uncouth manners! but if the spirit of religion joins itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense, and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority. a religionist may be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no reality; he may know his narrative to be false, and yet persevere in it with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause; or even where this delusion has not place, vanity, excited by so strong a temptation, operates on him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other circumstances, and self-interest with equal force. his auditors may not have, and commonly have not, sufficient judgment to canvass his evidence; what judgment they have, they renounce by principle, in these sublime and mysterious subjects; or if they were ever so willing to employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of its operations. their credulity increases his impudence, and his impudence overpowers their credulity. "eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but, addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers and subdues their understanding. happily, this pitch it seldom attains. but what a tully or a demosthenes could scarcely effect over a roman or athenian audience, every capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher, can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions. "the many instances of forged miracles and prophecies, and supernatural events, which in all ages have either been detected by contrary evidence or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvelous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all relations of this kind. this is our natural way of thinking, even with regard to the most common and most credible events. for instance, there is no kind of report which rises so easily and spreads so quickly, especially in country places and provincial towns, as those concerning marriages: insomuch that two young persons of equal condition never see each other twice but the whole neighborhood immediately join them together. the pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the intelligence. and this is so well known that no man of sense gives attention to these reports till he finds them confirmed by some greater evidence. do not the same passions, and others still stronger, incline the generality of mankind to believe and report, with the greatest vehemence and assurance, all religious miracles? "thirdly. it forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority which always attend received opinions. when we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt to imagine ourselves transported into some new world, where the whole frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations in a different manner from what it does at present. battles, revolutions, pestilence, famine, and death, are never the effect of those natural causes which we experience. prodigies, omens, oracles, judgments, quite obscure the few natural events that are intermingled with them. but as the former grow thinner every page, in proportion as we advance nearer the enlightened ages, we soon learn that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind toward the marvelous; and that though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from sense and learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature. "it is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say upon the perusal of those wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. but it is nothing strange, i hope, that men should lie in all ages. you must surely have seen instances enough of that frailty. you have yourself heard many such marvelous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at least been abandoned even by the vulgar. be assured that those renowned lies, which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate. "it was a wise policy in that false prophet alexander, who, though now forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the first scene of his impostures in paphlagonia, where, as lucian tells us, the people were extremely ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion. people at a distance who are weak enough to think the matter at all worth inquiry have no opportunity of receiving better information. the stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. fools are industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing themselves of the particular facts by which it may be distinctly refuted. and thus the imposture above mentioned was enabled to proceed, from his ignorant paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries even among the grecian philosophers and men of the most eminent rank and distinction in rome; nay, could engage the attention of that sage emperor marcus aurelius, so far as to make him trust the success of a military expedition to his delusive prophecies. "the advantages are so great of starting an imposture among an ignorant people that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on the generality of them, which, though seldom, is sometimes the case, it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries than if the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge. the most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry the report abroad. none of their countrymen have a large correspondence of sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the delusion. men's inclination to the marvelous has full opportunity to display itself. and thus a story, which is universally exploded in the place where it was first started, will pass for certain at a thousand miles distant. but had alexander fixed his residence at athens, the philosophers of that renowned mart of learning would have spread, throughout the whole roman empire, their sense of the matter; which, being supported by so great an authority, and displayed by all the force of reason and eloquence, would have entirely opened the eyes of mankind. it is true lucian, passing by chance through paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. but though much to be wished, it does not always happen that every alexander meets with a lucian ready to expose and detect his impostures. "i may add as a fourth reason which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is, not opposed by any infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. to make this the better understood, let us consider that in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and it is impossible that the religions of ancient rome, of turkey, of siam, and of china, should all of them be established on any solid foundation. every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of those religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed, so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. in destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles on which that system was established; so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts; and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other. according to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a few barbarous arabians: and on the other hand, we are to regard the authority of titus, livius, plutarch, tacitus, and, in short, of all the authors and witnesses--grecian, chinese, and roman catholic, who have related any miracle in their particular religion; i say we are to regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. this argument may appear over subtile and refined; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge who supposes that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one is destroyed by the testimony of two others who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed. "one of the best-attested miracles in all profane history is that which tacitus reports of vespasian, who cured a blind man in alexandria by means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot, in obedience to a vision of the god serapis, who had enjoined them to have recourse to the emperor for these miraculous cures. the story may be seen in the works of that historian (hist. lib. v. cap. . suetonius gives nearly the same account in vitia vesp.), where every circumstance seems to add weight to the testimony, and might be displayed at large with all the force of argument and eloquence, if any one were now concerned to enforce the evidence of that exploded and idolatrous superstition: the gravity, solidity, age, and probity of so great an emperor, who, through the whole course of his life conversed in a familiar manner with his friends and courtiers, and never affected those extraordinary airs of divinity assumed by alexander and demetrius. the historian, a contemporary writer, noted for candor and veracity, and, withal, the greatest and most penetrating genius perhaps of all antiquity, and so free from any tendency to credulity that he even lies under the contrary imputation of atheism and profaneness. the persons from whose authority he related the miracle, of established character for judgment and veracity, as we may well presume; eye witnesses of the fact, and confirming their testimony after the flavian family was despoiled of the empire, and could no longer give any reward as the price of a lie. utrumque, qui interfuere, nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum, mendacio pretium. to which if we add the public nature of the facts as related, it will appear that no evidence can well be supposed stronger for so gross and palpable a falsehood. "there is also a memorable story related by cardinal de retz, which may well deserve our consideration. when that intriguing politician fled into spain to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through saragossa, the capital of arragon, where he was shown, in the cathedral, a man who had served seven years as a doorkeeper, and was well known to everybody in town that had ever paid his devotions at that church. he had been seen, for so long a time, wanting a leg; but recovered that limb by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump; and the cardinal assures us that he saw him with two legs. this miracle was vouched by all the canons of the church; and the whole company in town were appealed to for a confirmation of the fact; whom the cardinal found by their zealous devotion, to be thorough believers of the miracle. here the relater was also contemporary to the supposed prodigy, of an incredulous and libertine character, as well as of great genius, the miracle of so singular a nature as could scarcely admit of a counterfeit, and the witnesses very numerous, and all of them, in a manner spectators, of the fact to which they gave their testimony. and what adds mightily to the force of the evidence, and may double our surprise on this occasion, is that the cardinal himself, who relates the story, seems not to give any credit to it, and consequently can not be suspected of any concurrence in the holy fraud. he considered, justly, that it was not requisite, in order to reject a fact of this nature, to be able accurately to disprove the testimony, and to trace its falsehood through all the circumstances of knavery and credulity which produced it. he knew that as this was commonly altogether impossible at any small distance of time and place, so was it extremely difficult, even where one was immediately present, by reason of the bigotry, ignorance, cunning, and roguery of a great part of mankind. he therefore concluded, like a just reasoner, that such an evidence carried falsehood upon the very face of it, and that a miracle supported by any human testimony was more properly a subject of derision than of argument. "there surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person than those which were lately said to have been wrought in france upon the tomb of abbe paris, the famous jansenist, with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. the curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulcher. but, what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theater that is now in the world. nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the jesuits, though a learned body, supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions in whose favor the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. ( .) where shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? and what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? and this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation. "is the consequence just, because some human testimony has the utmost force and authority in some cases--when it relates the battle of phillipi or pharsalia, for instance--that therefore all kinds of testimony must, in all cases, have equal force and authority? suppose that the cæsarean and pompeian factions had, each of them, claimed the victory in these battles, and that the historians of each party had uniformly ascribed the advantage to their own sides; how could mankind, at this distance, have been able to determine between them? the contrariety is equally strong between the miracles related by herodotus or plutarch, and those delivered by mariana, bede, or any monkish historian. "the wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favors the passion of the reporter, whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself, or in any other way strikes in with his natural inclinations and propensities. but what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an embassador from heaven. who would not encounter many dangers and difficulties in order to obtain so sublime a character. or if, by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man has first made a convert of himself and entered seriously into the delusion, who ever scruples to make use of pious frauds in support of so holy and meritorious a cause. "the smallest spark may here kindle into the greatest flame: because the materials are always prepared for it. the avidum genus auricularum (lucretius)--the gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder. "how many stories of this nature have, in all ages, been detected and exploded in their infancy. how many more have been celebrated for a time and have afterward sunk into neglect and oblivion. where such reports, therefore, fly about, the solution of the phenomenon is obvious; and we judge in conformity to regular experience and observation when we account for it by the known and natural principles of credulity and delusion. and shall we, rather than have recourse to so natural a solution, allow of a miraculous violation of the most established laws of nature? "i need not mention the difficulty of detecting a falsehood in any private or even public history at the place where it is said to happen; much more when the scene is removed to ever so small a distance. even a court of judicature, with all the authority, accuracy, and judgment which they can employ, find themselves often at a loss to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. but the matter never comes to any issue if trusted to the common method of altercation and debate and flying rumors, especially when men's passions have taken part on either side. "in the infancy of new religions the wise and learned commonly esteem the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. and when afterward they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to undeceive the deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses which might clear up the matter have perished beyond recovery. "no means of detection remain but those which must be drawn from the very testimony itself of the reporters; and these, though always sufficient with the judicious and knowing, are commonly too fine to fall under the comprehension of the vulgar. "upon the whole, then, it appears that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof; and that even supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by another proof, derived from the very nature of the fact which it would endeavor to establish. it is experience only which gives authority to human testimony; and it is the same experience which assures us of the laws of nature. when, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but subtract the one from the other, and embrace an opinion, either on one side or the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder. but according to the principle here explained, this subtraction, with regard to all popular religions, amounts to an entire annihilation; and therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion. "i beg the limitations here made may be remarked when i say that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. for i own that, otherwise, there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; though perhaps it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history. thus, suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the first of january, , there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days; suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people; that all travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction--it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. the decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency toward that catastrophe comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform. "but suppose that all the historians who england treat of should agree that on the first day of january, , queen elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that after being interred a month she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed england for three years--i must confess that i should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. i should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it; i should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was nor possibly could be real. you would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence. the wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned queen, with the little or no advantage she could reap from so poor an artifice--all this might astonish me; but i would still reply that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that i should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature. "but should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion, men in all ages have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient with all men of sense not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without further examination. though the being to whom the miracle is ascribed be in this case almighty, it does not upon that account become a whit more probable, since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a being otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature. this still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. as the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles than in that concerning any other matter of fact, this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretense it may be covered. "lord bacon seems to have embraced the same principles of reasoning. 'we ought,' says he, 'to make a collection or particular history of all monsters and prodigious births or productions, and, in a word, of everything new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. but this must be done with the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of livy: and, no less so, every thing that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.' (nov. org. lib. , aph. .) "i am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as i think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the christian religion who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is by no means fitted to endure. to make this more evident, let us examine those miracles related in scripture; and, not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the pentateuch, which we shall examine according to the principles of these pretended christians, not as the word or testimony of god himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian. here, then, we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts which every nation gives of its origin. upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. it gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: of our fall from that state; of the age of man extended to near a thousand years; of the destruction of the world by a deluge; of the arbitrary choice of one people as the favorites of heaven, and that people the countrymen of the author; of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: i desire anyone to lay his hand upon his heart, and, after a serious consideration, declare whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received according to the measures of probability above established. "what we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and, indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. if it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven; so that upon the whole we may conclude that the christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience." "for hundreds of years, miracles were about the only things that happened. they were wrought by thousands of christians, and testified to by millions. the saints and martyrs, the best and greatest, were the witnesses and workers of wonders. even heretics, with the assistance of the devil, could suspend the 'laws of nature.' must we believe these wonderful accounts because they were written by 'good men,' by christians, 'who made their statements in the presence and expectation of death?' the truth is that these 'good men' were mistaken. they expected the miraculous. they breathed the air of the marvelous. they fed their minds on prodigies, and their imaginations feasted on effects without causes. they were incapable of investigating. doubts were regarded as 'rude disturbers of the congregation.' credulity and sanctity walked hand in hand. reason was danger. belief was safety. as the philosophy of the ancients was rendered almost worthless by the credulity of the common people, so the proverbs of christ, his religion of forgiveness, his creed of kindness, were lost on the mist of miracle and the darkness of superstition." (ingersoll's reply to black.) "believers in miracles should not try to explain them. there is but one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural agencies. the moment you explain a miracle it disappears. you should depend not upon explanation, but assertion. you should not be driven from the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. you should reply that all miracles are unreasonable. neither should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. the possible is not miraculous. you should take the ground that if miracles were reasonable, and possible, there would be no reward for believing them. the christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence. it is enough for god to work miracles without being called upon to substantiate them for the benefit of unbelievers." (ingersoll's "mistakes of moses," p. .) "so when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into the realm of supreme credulity. such assertions require you to believe not only what you have not seen, but what all reason and experience tell you, you never can see. they ask you not only to believe in a past event, but in a past event outside of all reason, unsupported by nature, opposed to all natural laws, beneath the realm of reason, out of the light of experience, under the shadow of superstition. the great electric light of the intellect is turned off at the church door." (helen h. gardener. "men, women, and gods.") some extra miracles. a snake talks, reasons, and has more knowledge than adam and eve. see third chapter of genesis. god talks to the snake in the same chapter. on another occasion god spoke to a fish. "and the lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out jonah upon dry land." (jonah : .) balaam's ass seems to have been able to talk, and to see angels. "and the lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto balaam, what have i done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" (numbers : .) the great quail story. "and there went forth a wind from the lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side (thirty-three and one-fifth miles), and as it were a day's journey (thirty-three and one-fifth miles) on the other side, round about the camp and as it were two cubits (three feet and four inches) high upon the face of the earth. and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed the wrath of the lord was kindled against the people, and the lord smote the people with a very great plague." (numbers : , .) and the people quailed before the lord; that is they quailed outwardly, but not inwardly. a suit of clothes lasting forty years, and even then not old. "yea forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not." (neh. : .) lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. the boston transcript knows of an erudite clergyman who spoke of the unfortunate woman of sodom as "lot's lady who was transformed into a monolith of chloride of sodium." cattle which were killed several times after they were dead. "and the lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of egypt died, but of the cattle of the children of israel died not one." (ex. : .) this is the first time they were killed, so far as we know of. the immediate cause of their taking off is ascribed to "murrain." in the twenty-fifth verse of the same chapter it is fully implied that they were killed again: "and the hail smote throughout all the land of egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field." now it is fair to infer that a hail which "brake every tree of the field" was destructive enough to kill animals. this makes the second time they were killed. in the twelfth chapter of exodus and twenty-ninth verse we read that some of the same cattle were killed again, making three times that they died: "and it came to pass that at midnight the lord smote all the first born of the land of egypt, from the first born of pharaoh that sat upon the throne unto the first born of the captive in the dungeon; and the first born of cattle." after these repeated deaths of the cattle, we find pharaoh and his horsemen in full pursuit of the fleeing hebrews, and pharaoh and his horsemen and horses, were drowned in the sea. of course it is difficult for one who is carnally minded, to understand how cattle can be killed so many times. possibly the "society for the prevention of cruelty to dumb animals" might have done good service had it been in full working order in those days. people get up in the morning dead. "and when they arose, behold they were all dead corpses." (isaiah : .) elisha returns to life. "and it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man unto the sepulcher of elisha: and when the man (the corpse) was let down, and touched the bones of elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." ( kings : .) it would have been a great consolation to us, if the writer had only added a few lines more, and told us what elisha did after he stood up on his feet. of course if he stood up, he could not stand on any one else's feet than his own, but did he climb out of the sepulcher and go on his way rejoicing? execrable historian to leave us in the dark when we so greatly need light! we fear the writer of matthew had this story in his mind, when speaking of the earthquake at the crucifixion of christ. he says, "and the graven were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."--"came out of the graves after his resurrection"; but they arose at the time of the earthquake, and the resurrection did not take place until the third day afterward. what were they doing all this time? standing up in their graves, dressed in their funeral wardrobe? if they appeared unto many there is no mention of the fact made by either jew or gentile. heaven. elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire. "and it came to pass as they still went on, and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." ( kings : .) the writer of luke, has given us almost a literal copy of this story in telling of jesus' ascent to heaven: "and he led them out as far as bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them; and it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." (luke : , .) "so then after the lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of god." (mark : .) to these writers heaven was only a few miles away. they had not the faintest conception of the distance of the nearest fixed star: "and he (jacob) dreamed and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of god ascending and descending on it." (gen. : .) the tower of babel was another method of reaching heaven. the writers of the gospels have no better ideas than the ancient jews had. i give below, a few out of many passages which show that the writers of the new testament regarded heaven as only a few miles away. "and, lo, the heavens were opened." (mat. : .) "he saw the heavens opened." (mark : .) "there came a voice from heaven saying." (mark : .) "and lo, a voice from heaven saying." (mat. : .) "for the angel of the lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it." (mat. : .) "and there appeared an angel unto him from heaven." (luke : .) "then came there a voice from heaven saying." (john : .) "i heard another voice from heaven saying." (john : .) all these and many more passages which might be cited go to show that these writers supposed heaven to be but a short distance away. there was a constant and familiar intercourse between the gods above and men below. the christian idea of heaven is but another form of the greek notion of mt. olympus--it is not only borrowed, but vague and mythical in the extreme--it is childish and has much of the flavor of santa claus stories. deluge. the great flood in which the waters piled up at the rate of about eight hundred feet per day for forty days was another of the extraordinary occurrences of bible record. in these degenerate times a downfall of three inches of rain, for one day is usually sufficient to satisfy everybody. but think of about eight hundred feet per day! a river turned into blood after it had just been transformed into blood: "and moses and aaron did so, as the lord commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of pharaoh, and in sight of his servants, and all the waters that were in the river were turned into blood. and the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of egypt. and the magicians of egypt did so with their enchantments." (ex. : , , .) the magicians turned a river of blood into blood, and killed dead fish, eh? the ass and the calf. "and he took the (golden) calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the waters, and made the children of israel drink of it." (ex. : .) but as gold does not burn in a fire, nor can it be ground to powder, or strewed upon the waters, or drunk, we are forced to conclude that the author of this little golden calf story, must have been an ass. jesus christ. the genealogy of jesus. "matthew ( : ) says, 'so all the generations from abraham to david are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into babylon unto christ are fourteen generations.' "luke ( : - ) relates christ's genealogy, and gives forty-three generations between david and christ, these two persons being included. here then in the genealogy of the same person is an utterly irreconcilable discrepancy of fifteen generations. this is truly a bad beginning. although these two accounts may both be false they cannot possibly both be true. if 'all the generations,' from david to jesus, were only 'twenty-eight,' as given by matthew, there could not possibly have been at the same time, 'forty-three' of them as given by luke. the case becomes much worse, however, when we discover that, with the exception of jesus, joseph, and david, these two authors give entirely different sets of men. since it is utterly impossible for the same individual to have descended through both of these lines of ancestors, it is equally impossible for both of these accounts to be true." (j. r. kelso's "bible analyzed.") "on the first glance these genealogies, as given by matthew and luke, are so evidently different that it has been the ordinary, if not invariable practice of christian harmonists and commentators to represent the former evangelist as recording the descent of joseph, while the latter evangelist is said to have given the pedigree of mary. we will say nothing of the plausibility of this explanation, which acknowledges the genealogies to be wholly different, and supposes they belong to two persons. our questions must rather effect the truthfulness of this mode of explaining away the difficulty. let the reader bear in mind how matthew states that 'jacob begat joseph the husband of mary,' and how luke's words are 'joseph which was the son of heli,' and then let the reader say whether it is truthful to allege that these different genealogies belong to different individuals. is it not plain that each of them professes to trace the lineal descent of one and the same man, joseph? if we are still to be told that when matthew professes to give the descent of joseph, he is to be understood as giving the descent of mary, then we simply rejoin that such an explanation is nothing more nor less than an abandonment of the idea of inspirational infallibility; for it represents the bible as saying one thing and meaning another." (mcnaught, "doctrine of inspiration.") when was jesus born? as to the time when jesus was born, we have no positive information. matthew says he was born in herod's time, and that herod caused all the little children to be killed on account of him. luke says jesus was born in the time of cyrenius, when augustus cæsar gave orders that all the people should be taxed. now, cyrenius succeeded archelaus, who reigned ten years after the death of herod. here is a contradiction that cannot be explained away. the exact day of herod's death can be almost arrived at, as shown by josephus, who says that on the night preceding the death of herod there was an eclipse of the moon. in calculating back to the time of this eclipse, it is found to have occurred on the fourth of march, four years before christ; another perplexing discrepancy. matthew says he was born in the days of herod, and john says it was in the days of cyrenius, fourteen years afterward. again, mark and luke say jesus began to be thirty years of age in the fifteenth year of the reign of tiberius, the very day of whose accession is known; and by counting back, we find that jesus must have been born four years before the christian era, which disagrees entirely with the statement of matthew. professor john fiske remarks that while the jesus of the dogma is the best known, the jesus of history is the least known of all the eminent names in history. "persons who had given much attention to the subject affirmed that there were not less than one hundred and thirty-two different opinions as to the year in which the messiah appeared." ("conflict between religion and science," p. .) dr. adam clarke, on observations of luke : , in his commentary says: "the nativity of jesus in december should be given up. the egyptians placed it in january; wagenseil in february; bochart in march. some mentioned by clemens alexandrine in april; others in may. epiphanius speaks of some who placed it in june, and others supposed it to have been in july. wagenseil, who was not sure of february, fixed it as probably in august; lightfoot on the fifteenth of september. but the latin church [catholic], supreme in power and infallible in judgment, placed it on the twenty-fifth of december, the very day on which the ancient romans celebrated the feast of their goddess, bruma. pope julius i. (in the fourth century) made the first alteration, and it appears to have been done for this reason." the christians often aim to make an argument that the chronology of the christian era is established by the confirmation that is given by the years being numbered from the supposed birth of jesus, but it is no proof at all. the idea of counting the years from the advent of jesus was not thought of for several centuries after the time when the vague legends said he was supposed to have lived. the plan of numbering the years from that apocryphal event was first invented by a monk, dionysius exiguus, about after christ. it was introduced into italy not long afterward, and was propagated by bede, who died in . it was ordered to be used by the bishops in the council of chalcedon in , but it was not generally employed for several centuries afterward. it was not legalized until the year . charles iii. of germany was the first sovereign who added "in the year of our lord" to his reign, in . (see haydn's dictionary of dates, and encyclopedia of chronology.) now, in recapitulation, let us see how much, by the common sense method of interpreting the gospels, we have been forced to reject as incredible. first, we have seen that joseph's dream concerning the immaculate conception was, after all, only a dream, and that wonderful dreams are not uncommon; samson's mother having had one which is so identical with joseph's, that we are persuaded that the dream of the latter is but a copy of the dream of the former; that almost all men of distinction in ancient times were reported to have had wonderful prodigies attending their conception and birth,--and that there is no evidence in the gospels of the resurrection of jesus. paul saw him in a vision, that is, in his mind's eye, but does not claim to have seen him in the flesh. and of the ascension, it is a self-evident fiction. the miracles are not only incredible from their being incompatible with and contrary to human experience, but the manner in which they are related proves that they never were performed. (see "miracles.") and concerning the moral teachings of jesus we find great imperfection. he did not come to save all men, but only the lost sheep of the house of israel; he taught that the end of the world was nigh at hand, when a great physical revolution should usher in the kingdom of heaven, but it did not come. we find also that jesus did not respect the rights of property; that he despised this world; that he condemned the rich because they were rich, and made great promises to the poor because they were poor; that he professed to pardon sin, and on one occasion pardoned a person's sins for washing his feet; that he exhibited an imperfect sense of justice in a great many instances; and, lastly, we find that there is no history of him excepting the gospels, and in these there is no unquestionable record of the time when or the place where he was born. we are forced to conclude that if ever there was such a person as jesus of nazareth, we have no trustworthy sources of positive knowledge concerning him. christianity rests upon a dream. "now the birth of jesus christ was on this wise: when as his mother mary was espoused to joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the holy ghost. then joseph her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. but while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, joseph thou son of david, fear not to take unto thee mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost." (mat. : - .) "before they came together, she was found to be with child of the holy ghost." . how could any one but mary say who the father of the child was? . if the conception was miraculous then neither mary nor any one else could know ought of the paternity of the child. . mary says nothing about the overshadowing of the holy ghost. . who found out that joseph had had such a dream? . was it duly reported and verified then and there? . the book that relates the dream is anonymous and does not appear in history until a. d. - . . the writers of the other three gospels know nothing of this dream. . there is no evidence that the writer of the first gospel ever personally knew mary. . luke ( : ) says that it was to mary that the angel of the lord appeared. . only a dream! the corner-stone of christianity rests upon a dream! take away this dream and christianity has nothing left. the golden rule. the moral teachings of the bible are not original. back of the pyramids in pre-historic times mothers taught their children to be kind to each other. not from heaven but out of the human heart came the golden rule. a mother's love was sufficient to reveal this best rule of life. human inspiration is the only inspiration needed to call forth the expression--"do unto others as ye would have them do unto you." sixty years before the christian era, hellel, a jewish rabbi wrote: "do not do to others, what you would not like others to do to you." two hundred and eighty years before christ, epicurus said: "it is more blessed to give than to receive." three hundred and fifty years before christ, socrates said: "act toward others as you desire them to act toward you." three hundred and seventy years before christ, aristippus said: "cherish reciprocal benevolence, which will make you as anxious for another's welfare as your own." three hundred and eighty-five years before christ, aristotle wrote: "we should conduct ourselves toward others, as we would have them act toward us." four hundred years before christ, sextus said: "what you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them." four hundred and twenty years before christ, plato wrote: "may i do to others as i would have them do to me." five hundred years before christ, confucius taught: "do unto another what you would have him do to you, and do not to another what you would not have him do unto you: it is the foundation principle of all the rest." ( th maxim confucius.) jesus concludes by saying, "for this is the law and the prophets," and confucius closes his rule by observing, "thou only needst this law alone; it is the foundation and principle of all the rest." and it should not be overlooked that jesus, in thus attributing the golden rule to "the law and the prophets," disclaims its authorship. confucius does the same. six hundred years before christ, thales said: "avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." six hundred and fifty years before christ, pittacus taught: "do not do to your neighbor what you would take ill from him." "that the system of morals propounded in the new testament contains no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from pagan authors, are well known to every scholar; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an objection against christianity, it is a strong recommendation of it, as indicating the intimate relation between the doctrines of christ and the moral sympathies of mankind in different ages. but to assert that christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part of the assertor, either gross ignorance or else wilful fraud." (buckle, "history of civilization," vol. , p. .) "did space admit, i could cite numerous passages from enoch in close correspondence with the new testament scripture, in many cases almost word for word. in that book, as in the talmud, and as was held by the jews in general (saving the sadducees), may be found the exact doctrines taught by jesus relative to the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, the punishment of the wicked in everlasting fire, and the reward of the righteous in heaven. the eschatology of jesus is borrowed in toto from that prevalent in judea during his lifetime. not one single new idea respecting the 'four final things,' death, judgment, heaven, and hell, can be found in jesus' teachings as embodied in the gospels."--wm. emmette coleman. jesus an essene. "of the resemblance between the essenes and the followers of christ in their principles and practices, i will let a christian writer speak--christian d. ginsburg, ll. d., who is a leading contributor to alexander's new edition of kitto's cyclopedia, the most orthodox of the chief english bible dictionaries. i will read a few extracts from an essay entitled, 'the essenes their history and doctrines.' dr. ginsburg says: 'the identity of many of the precepts and practices of essenism and christianity is unquestionable. essenism urged on its disciples to seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness; so did christ. (mat. : , and luke : .) the essenes forbade the laying up of treasures upon earth; so did christ. (mat. : , .) the essenes demanded of those who wished to join them, to sell all their possessions, and to divide it among the poor brethren; so christ. (mat. : , and luke : .) the essenes had all things in common, and appointed one of the brethren as steward to manage the common bag; so the primitive christians. (acts : , ; : , , and john : ; : .) essenism regarded all its members on the same level, forbidding the exercise of authority of one over the other, and enjoining mutual service; so christ. (mat. : - , and mark : , ; : , .) essenism commanded its disciples to call no man master upon the earth; so christ. (mat. : , .) essenism laid the greatest stress on being meek and lowly in spirit; so christ. (mat. : , .) 'christ commended the poor in spirit, those who hunger after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers; so the essenes.... christ combined the healing of the body with that of the soul; so the essenes. like the essenes, christ declared that the power to cast out evil spirits, to perform miraculous cures, etc., should be possessed by his disciples as signs of their belief. (mark : ; comp. also mat. : , and luke : , ; : .) like the essenes, christ commanded his disciples not to swear at all, but to say yea, yea, and nay, nay. the manner in which christ directed his disciples to go on their journey (mat. : , ) is the same which the essenes adopted when they started on a mission of mercy. the essenes, though repudiating offensive war, yet took weapons with them when they went on a perilous journey: christ enjoined his disciples to do the same thing. (luke : .) christ commended that elevated spiritual life, which enables a man to abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven's sake, and which cannot be attained by all men save those to whom it is given (mat. : - ; comp. also cor. ); so the essenes, who, as a body, in waiting for the kingdom of heaven, abstained from connubial intercourse. the essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, unto god, which they regarded as a reasonable service; the apostle paul exhorts the romans to do the same. (rom. : .) it was the great aim of the essenes to live such a life of purity and holiness as to be the temples of the holy spirit and to be able to prophesy; the apostle paul urges the corinthians to covet to prophesy. ( cor. : , .) when christ pronounced john to be elias (mat. : ), he declared that the baptist had already attained to that spirit and power which the essenes strove to obtain in their highest stage of purity. it will therefore hardly be doubted that our savior himself belonged to this holy brotherhood. this will especially be apparent when we remember that the whole jewish community, at the advent of christ, was divided into three parties, the pharisees, the sadducees, and the essenes, and that every jew had to belong to one of these sects. jesus, who in all things conformed to jewish law, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, would naturally associate himself with that order of judaism which was most congenial to his holy nature. moreover, the fact that christ, with the exception of once, was not heard of in public till his thirtieth year, implying that he lived in seclusion with this fraternity, and that though he frequently rebuked the scribes, pharisees, and sadducees, he never denounced the essenes, strongly confirms this conclusion.... the accounts given by josephus first mentioned their existence in the days of jonathan the maccabaean, b. c. ; and they most unquestionably show that the essenes existed at least two centuries before the christian era, and that they at first lived among the jewish community at large. their residence at jerusalem is also evident from the fact that there was a gate named after them. when they ultimately withdrew themselves from the rest of the jewish nation, the majority of them settled on the northwest shore of the dead sea, sufficiently distant to escape its noxious exhalations, and the rest lived in scattered communities throughout palestine and syria. both philo and josephus estimated them to be above four thousand in number. this must have been exclusive of women and children. we hear very little of them after this period (that is, a. d.); and there can hardly be any doubt that, owing to the great similarity which existed between their precepts and practices, and those of the primitive christians, the essenes, as a body, must have embraced christianity.'"--underwood, in underwood-marples debate. jesus' teachings not up to the moral standard of to-day. . jesus failed to explicitly teach any of the cardinal human virtues. if he taught kindness and forgiveness it was usually at the expense of justice. . he nowhere explains and inspires self-reliance and individual liberty. . he nowhere condemns kingcraft, priestcraft and tyranny. he opposes their abuses, but not the radical evils out of which they spring. . he has no just ideas of marriage and divorce. . he nowhere explains the nature of heaven and hell. . he does not teach the value of economy and thrift, but turns people loose with the notion that they must take no thought for the morrow. the following saying of jesus exhibits the lack of a high moral sense of justice, and also the fact that he does not pretend to be the savior of the whole human race. he said to his own countrymen: "unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of god, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins be forgiven them. (mark : .) from this we learn that jesus did not desire to save the gentiles; the parabolical style was used in order to prevent them from becoming converted and having their sins pardoned. in addition to this imperfection of the moral sense, jesus was sometimes unforgiving in his spirit and practice. he says on one occasion: "whosoever shall deny me before men, him will i also deny before my father which is in heaven." (mat. : .) it is true that he taught his disciples to love their enemies, but it is a precept he did not observe himself; he allowed himself to speak of those who did not accept his teachings as, "fools," "hypocrites," "thieves," "serpents," "vipers," and many other abusive epithets, which clearly exhibit on his part anger and hatred. we have another instance of his unforgiving spirit in that myth of the dying thief on the cross. it is there recorded that jesus prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies, but had he been consistent with that prayer, he would not have pardoned one thief without also pardoning the other. when he could ask god to forgive his enemies, it would have been demanded by his own rule, that he also forgive them; but, on the contrary, he only forgives the malefactor who spoke words in his praise. this spirit is carried out in the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. jesus exhibits an imperfect sense of justice. in failing to recognize the rights of property; in his denunciation of the rich; in his teachings of submission to wrong; in his professing to pardon sin, even before it is asked for, jesus errs. this moral sense is lacking in his teachings concerning god. take this as an illustration: "which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and i have nothing to set before him. and he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; i cannot rise and give thee. i say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." (luke : .) and so it is with god, he leads us to believe, for though he is our friend he will not grant our requests; but if we annoy and tease him, at last, worn out, he will answer our prayers to get rid of us. therefore, "ask and it shall be given you; for every one that asketh receiveth." the parable of the unfortunate widow is another instance in point: "there was in a city a judge who feared not god, neither regarded man [same kind of judges in our cities now]. and there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, avenge me of mine adversary. and he would not for a while; but afterwards he said within himself, though i fear not god, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, i will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." (luke : - .) it is just so in praying to god. he may not hear you or heed you at first, yet by a "continual coming and troubling him," he must of necessity at last become weary and grant you the desires of your heart, in order to escape being troubled. at one time the scribes and pharisees brought a woman to jesus who had been taken in the act of adultery, and asked for his judgment. he said: "he that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her." this was a well-directed rebuke, and they felt it, and they "went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last." then jesus, standing alone with the woman, asks, "woman where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? she said, no man, lord. and jesus said unto her, neither do i condemn thee; go and sin no more." (john : - .) in all parts of the bible adultery is condemned, and by all civil laws it is now prohibited, and all religious teaching forbids it, and there is no reason in this case why jesus should not have condemned the act, even while he showed mercy to the actor. here as elsewhere jesus shows mercy at the expense of justice. were these principles carried out in life, the criminal would go untried and unpunished. "go into the village over against you, and straightway you shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them unto me. and if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say, the lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them. all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, tell ye the daughter of zion, behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass. and the disciples went and did as jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, and the colt, and put on their clothes, and set him thereon." (mat. : - .) the writer would have us believe that jesus rode upon two asses at once; but the prophet who could invent such a story must have been an ass himself to suppose that jesus could ride upon two donkeys of such unequal size at one time. it was not the prophet, however, who perpetrated this outrage upon common sense, but the writer of matthew, whoever he was. mark, luke, and john mentioned the affair, and all agree in speaking of one ass only. had the writer read the prophet aright, he would have quoted it differently, "behold thy king cometh unto thee, ... lowly, and sitting upon an ass; even a colt, the foal of an ass." (zech. : .) another instance of this disregard of the interests of others is exhibited by jesus where he casts the devils out of two men and permits them to enter the swine, "and the swine ran down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters." mark ( : ) says there were about two thousand head, but there is not a word said about the equity of the proceeding. in this case jesus does not offer any compensation for the destruction of property which had been caused by him. he does not make even an apology or an explanation. no wonder, then, that the people became alarmed at this and asked him to go on his journey with as little delay as possible: "the whole city came out to meet jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts." (mat. : .) another instance of this lack of the sense of justice is displayed in the parable of dives and lazarus. the one goes to heaven, that is, to abraham's bosom, because he was poor, and the other to hell, because he was rich. say what we may our civilization is built upon wealth. civilization, the highest and noblest estate of man, is achieved by the utter repudiation of poverty. the legitimate love of money is the spur of all human progress. civilization would speedily degenerate into barbarism if this respect for property was removed. his views of poverty are in harmony with his teachings on other human interests: "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;" "take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." how evident it is that one of the most essential virtues of life is here repudiated. thoughtfulness about the future is a distinguishing trait of a wise man. to take no thought for the morrow would be as foolish as for one to bind himself hand and foot on the approach of his enemy. science inspires man with earnest inquiry about the morrow, and also enables him by his perception of it how better to live to-day. "give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away." (mat. : .) society as it now exists would not last a single day if his command were obeyed. borrowing and lending is poor business, even as it is now carried on, but what it would become under the universal practice it would be impossible to guess. "and if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. but love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again." (luke : .) so impracticable a precept is this, that no people have ever practiced it, nor could it be carried out without the demoralization and overthrow of civilization. jesus teaches the duty of submission to wrong. the general doctrines of resignation and contentment are incompatible with strength of character and progress in life. the most worthy members of society everywhere are just those people who have the least resignation and contentment. jesus does not seem to have cherished these conditions himself. he was neither contented nor resigned to the social status about him. "the powers that be" did not seem to him to be from above, but from beneath, and he accordingly waged war upon the existing social evils. but jesus also teaches the duty of submission to wrong: "and unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again." (luke : , .) just think of it! "and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again." society would be overthrown in a day if this command was carried out. we should have no commerce, no law protecting our various interests, no civilized society. paul echoes the same notion when he says, "now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" ( cor. : .) suffer yourselves to be defrauded! if human life has any virtue at all, it surely consists in some degree in doing the very opposite, that is, in not suffering ourselves to be defrauded. it is true that love seems at first sight to be an all-important virtue, and one incapable of abuse; but such love as induces us to submit to wrong is spurious. in the world as it exists about us, we are culpable when we suffer ourselves to be defrauded. the common virtues which are recognized by all men are courage and resistance to wrong. everywhere our eyes turn, we look to see the hero who nobly resists the wrongs and frauds which the powerful perpetrate upon the weak and helpless. "resistance to tyrants is the will of god" is the modern conception of duty. and in accordance therewith we have laws prohibiting wrong and fraud. besides there is no manliness, self-reliance, or self-respect compatible with such craven submission, which is spiritless and purposeless. john stuart mill observes of christianity: "its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; innocence rather than nobleness; abstinence from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good. in its precepts (as has been well said), 'thou shalt not' predominates over 'thou shalt.'" immoral teachings of jesus. "suppose ye that i am come to give peace on earth? i tell you nay; but rather division." (luke : .) "for i am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (mat. : .) "i am come to send fire on earth; and what will i, that it be already kindled." (luke : .) "for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. "the father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law." (luke : , .) "if any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (luke : .) "think not that i am come to send peace on earth. i come not to send peace, but a sword." (mat. : .) "and the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." (mat. : .) "and they said unto him, lord, behold here are two swords. and he said unto them, it is enough." (luke : .) "he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one." (luke : .) bitter and unreasonable denunciations of jesus. "all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers." (john : .) "ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." (john : .) "ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (mat. : .) "o, generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?" (mat. : .) "but he turned and said unto peter, get thee behind me, satan." (mat. : .) "depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (mat. : .) "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (mark : .) jesus a false prophet. "but when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily i say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of israel till the son of man be come." (mat. : .) "verily i say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom." (mat. : .) "immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. "and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. "and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. "now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. "verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." (mat. : - .) "but i tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of god." (luke : .) "and he said unto them, verily, i say unto you, that there be some of them, that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of god come with power." (mark : .) "now learn a parable of the fig tree: when her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that the summer is near: so ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass know that it is nigh, even at the doors. verily, i say unto you, that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done." (mark : - .) "and there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. and then shall they see the son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. "and when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh. "and he spake to them a parable; behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your ownselves that summer is now nigh at hand. so likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of heaven is nigh at hand." (luke : - .) "if i will that he tarry till i come what is that to thee?" (john : .) it is unnecessary to call attention to the fact that the foregoing passages imply that the end of the world was at hand. jesus was a false prophet. jesus curses the fig tree. "the jesus of the four gospels is alleged to have been god, all-wise; being hungry, he went to a fig tree, when the season of figs was not yet come. of course there were no figs on the tree, and jesus then caused the tree to wither away. this is an interesting account to a true orthodox trinitarian. such a one will believe: first, that jesus was god, who made the tree and prevented it from bearing figs; second, that, god the all-wise, who is not subject to human passions being hungry went to the fig tree, on which he knew there were no figs, expecting to find some there; third, that god the all-just then punished the tree because it did not bear figs in opposition to god's eternal ordination."--charles bradlaugh. contemporaneous historians are silent concerning the resurrection of jesus. philo, josephus, seneca, pliny the elder, and pliny the younger, diogenes, socrates, pausanias, suetonius, tacitus, adrian, marcus aurelius, lucian, and others have not one word to say about it. in answer to this a certain minister replies that: "seneca, diogenes, laertes, pausanias, tacitus, and marcus aurelius, were pagans, who certainly in works of stoic philosophy, travels, and geography would not discourse of jesus." in answer to this i maintain that it is altogether probable, if not certain, that some of these writers would have recorded the "darkness over all the earth," which lasted some three hours (luke : ) and the opening of the graves out of which many of the dead came and went into the city and showed themselves unto many: besides, there were several earthquakes. (mat. : , and : , also acts : .) such marvels, especially the darkness over all the earth, and the earthquakes could not have escaped the pen of all such historians and philosophers. "each of these philosophers (pliny the second and seneca) in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses which his indefatigable curiosity could collect; neither of them has mentioned or even alluded to the miraculous darkness at the crucifixion."--gibbon. the resurrection of jesus. comparing now the several narratives of the resurrection with one another, we find this general result: in mark jesus is said to have appeared three times. . to mary magdalene. . to two disciples. . to the disciples at meat. two such appearances only are recorded in matthew: . to the women. . to the eleven in galilee. in luke he appears: . to cleopas and his companion. . to peter. . to the eleven and others. in the last chapters of john the appearances amount to four: . to mary magdalene. . to the disciples without thomas. . to the disciples with thomas. . to several disciples on the tiberias lake. paul extends them to six: . to peter. . to the twelve. . to more than five hundred. . to james. . to all the apostles. . to paul. "upon this most momentous question every one of the christian writers is at variance with every other." (amberley's "analysis of religious belief," p. .) they differ as to the number of women who visited the sepulcher. john mentions only one; matthew names two, mary magdalene and the other mary. mark says there were three, the two marys and salome. luke says there were more than three, the two marys, joanna, and certain others with them. they differ as to the number of persons in white seen at the sepulcher. mark mentions one, "a young man." matthew speaks of one, an angel. luke says there were two men, and john that there were two angels. they disagree us to what was said by the persons in white. according to matthew and mark, they spoke of the resurrection of jesus and his departure into galilee, and sent a message to his disciples commanding them to follow him thither. in luke they simply said that he was risen, and referred to a former prediction of his to this effect. in john they simply asked mary, "woman! why weepest thou?" discrepancies as to where jesus went after his resurrection. matthew, dismissing jesus from history with these words, "go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost" ( : ), seems to know nothing of the ascension; for it in utterly incompatible with the assumption that he is an honest and faithful historian. he could not possibly neglect recording so important an event had he known it, and the plain inference--the irresistible conclusion is that if he did not record it, it was because no such thing had occurred. see with what brevity mark concludes the career of jesus. mark gives these as the parting words of jesus: "so then after the lord had spoken unto them he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of god." ( : .) how brief is the description of this wonderful scene! no writer that had witnessed such a sight could possibly condense his thoughts and feelings concerning it into one sentence. he would have had much to say; namely, of his own thoughts and emotions on the occasion, and what other witnesses said and did at the time the event occurred. writers who go into particulars on less marvelous affairs would not be likely to dash off the most wonderful event that had ever happened before human eyes in one sentence. the thing is utterly improbable and incredible. "he was received up into heaven" reveals the credulity and superstition of the times. how could the writer know where he had gone, if he had once passed away from his sight? moreover, he knew nothing of a local heaven or of a personal god, yet he says that jesus "sat (down) on the right hand of god," as though the infinite power which pervades the universe had two hands and was made in the image of man! the only rational explanation we can put upon such language is to suppose it written by one who was not present at the time referred to, but had heard of it and had undertaken to give his version of what he heard, perhaps in the attempt trying to reconcile two or three different versions of the story, and at the same time weave in his own opinion on the subject. at any rate, whoever wrote it, the writer does not claim to have been an eye-witness, and the legendary character of the account proves that the myth had been handed down to him. luke ( : , ) says: "and he led them out as far as to bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them; and it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." this version leaves out the sitting on the right hand of god--yet it has the same superstition of a local heaven--of which the writer speaks as if he had as positive and distinct knowledge as he claims to have of jesus and his resurrection. if matthew closes without giving us anything of the after life and death of jesus--if he breaks off abruptly without giving us any insight into the feelings of the disciples, luke does not. he says that after they had witnessed the departure of jesus they worshiped him and returned to jerusalem with great joy. ( : .) but this is totally unnatural. we cannot imagine disciples rejoicing in the loss of their friend. it is not human nature to be glad on such occasions. we always grieve in parting with friends. the father grieves when he parts with his son, the mother weeps when she gives the parting kiss to her daughter. it may be said in reply that the disciples had faith that jesus had gone to heaven. but this will not meet the difficulty, for christian mothers believe when they part with their sweet, innocent babes that they go straight to heaven, but does this belief dry their tears or soothe their anguished hearts? no, those mothers are frequently tormented to frenzy and even madness by the intense grief occasioned by loss of their dear ones. it is human nature to grieve upon the loss of friends, but here we find disciples who do not mourn when their dearest friend has departed from them. they were glad of it, and so they "returned to jerusalem with great joy." such a paragraph as this could have been inserted in the story by some subsequent writer, but never could have been written by one who had witnessed such an event. another feature of this description, as given by luke, is that it seems to be a slightly varied copy of the account given of elijah. "and it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and parted them both asunder; and elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." ( kings : .) how closely luke's account seems to resemble this! "and he led them out as far as to bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. and it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." (luke : , .) "and when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." (acts : .) how suggestive is the fact that the writers do not undertake to tell how he was translated! the writer of the book of kings gives us a "chariot of fire" and "a whirlwind" as the modus operandi of translating elijah from one world to the other (?), but here there are no agencies mentioned, and so far as the writers are concerned, there seems to be nothing incomplete or unreasonable in the statements that he "was carried up into heaven," and "was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight." we must suppose that persons witnessing such an extraordinary event would have some notions as to the means used in translating jesus above the clouds, and that they could not fail to express them in giving an account of what they had seen. their silence on this point, and the utter incredibility of the story make it apparent that the writer is merely recording myths. the last chapters of john are silent concerning the ascension. now, as it is generally admitted by the best biblical critics that the last twelve verses of the last chapter of mark are spurious, we have then only one of the four biographers of jesus who mentions the ascension. it is utterly improbable that these three other writers should deliberately refuse to give an account of the greatest event they had ever seen. we must consider the discrepancies of the writers concerning the number of days that jesus remained on earth after his resurrection. according to luke's account, he did not remain on earth one day. "to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (luke : )--that is, in heaven; see cor. : . in this same twenty-third chapter of luke, jesus does not ascend until the third day after his crucifixion; and in acts : , it is recorded that he was "seen of them forty days." another slight discrepancy occurs in relation to the length of time jesus was in the grave. matthew says ( : ), "for as jonas was three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." but as jesus was only two nights and one day in the grave there is no analogy between the two, hence the statement is radically erroneous. an orthodox clergyman critic explains this seeming contradiction in this way: "in regard to jesus being only one day and two nights in the grave, the very same quantity of time 'three days and three nights,' and which according to our computation was one whole day, parts of two others and two whole nights, is termed three days and three nights in the book of esther. there is no impropriety in this interpretation." the word "interpretation" as here used is slightly equivocal, as is also the phrase "according to our computation." it is peculiar to mathematics that it does not change according to our computation or any kind of interpretation. it is always true that two and two make four whether the book of esther acknowledges the fact or not. and it not only damages the gospels to bring forth this sort of evidence, but it seriously derogates from the inspiration of the book of esther, which thus attempts in defiance of arithmetic to make one day and two nights into three days and three nights. no one saw jesus come from the grave. when mary magdalene came to the sepulcher, "behold there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. and for fear of him the keepers did shake and become as dead men. and the angel answered and said unto the women, fear not ye, for i know that ye seek jesus, which was crucified. he is not here, for he is risen as he said. come see the place where the lord lay." (mat. : - .) we have here the stone at the door of the sepulcher, and yet the body of jesus had risen and departed from the tomb. there would seem to be no need in closing the grave after he had risen. but a more serious criticism must be made upon the fact that it is not pretended that there was any eye-witness of jesus coming from the sepulcher. we have only the word of an angel, but as a story abounding with conversations of angels is legendary we are not permitted to take their testimony. besides, we have serious contradictions concerning the number of angels seen. matthew says there was one angel, and that he rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. mark says that when mary magdalene and mary the mother of james and salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him; and very early in the morning, etc. "and they said among themselves, who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher? and when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. and entering, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted." ( : - .) luke also says the stone was rolled away when the women came to the sepulcher, and upon entering in, behold "two men" stood by them in shining garments. john says mary saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of jesus had lain. besides, she sees the stone rolled away from the door. matthew records the descent of an angel from heaven; the other biographers of jesus know nothing of this starting point of the angel. matthew here says that the angel rolled away the stone from the door, but mark, luke, and john say that the stone was rolled from the door of the sepulcher when mary magdalene came to it. matthew here relates that mary magdalene saw an angel sitting upon the stone at the door outside of the sepulcher, but mark says she saw a young man sitting down inside the sepulcher. luke avers that she saw two men standing inside of it, and john affirms that mary magdalene sees two men sitting, "one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of jesus had lain;" but they do not tell her that jesus had risen, as did the angel in matthew, and the young man in mark, and the two men in luke. according to john, jesus first appeared to mary magdalene. but according to luke jesus did not first appear to mary magdalene, but to two persons traveling from jerusalem to emmaus: the name of one of them we are told was cleopas. (luke : .) but this appearance of jesus to brethren who were not apostles is clearly legendary. the other synoptics seem to know nothing of it. it is wholly improbable that jesus should, after his resurrection, appear first of all to two unknown christians after this manner and accompany them upon such a journey. now all the attendant circumstances of this event are mysterious, inexplicable, and improbable; and the closing paragraph removes the account beyond sober history. "and it came to pass as he sat at meat with them, he took bread and blessed it and broke and gave to them. and their eyes were opened and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight." (luke : , .) "their eyes were holden," is superstitious, and as for his vanishing out of sight, we have the most unmistakable traces of legend--the fruit of ignorance and childish imagination. we are called upon to believe that with feet, the bones of which were broken and crushed with the spikes driven through them on the cross, he traveled back to jerusalem about as rapidly as did the two persons with whom he journeyed to emmaus. how could he walk upon feet thus crippled? his hands were yet unhealed, although his fellow-travelers did not perceive such wounds, nor did they notice that he stepped haltingly. he possessed the same material body which he had before his death. he could be seen and touched. all of which shows that he not only possessed a physical organization, but that it was the same body he had before his death. and yet this body could vanish from the two unknown brethren at emmaus, it could travel rapidly, it could come in through closed doors, it could ascend from earth out of sight contrary to the laws of gravitation; he had flesh and bones, and could eat and drink. "and when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and his feet, and while they believed not for joy and wondered, he said unto them, have ye any meat? and they took and gave him a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb, and he took it and did eat before them." (luke : - .) it is useless to attempt any explanation of this difficulty by calling his body a spiritual body. the disciples on this occasion, when jesus suddenly appeared among them, thought they had seen a spirit, but jesus wishing to disabuse their minds, said, "behold my hands and my feet, that it is i myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." (luke : .) if we accept this plain declaration, then, we are forced to enquire what became of this physical body. it surely must have died. it is certain that if he ate and drank, he had a nutritive system--a human organism--subject to death. and what became of this "corruptible body?" matthew and john do not pretend to know anything about the matter. mark has no knowledge of the final disposition of his body, for the last twelve verses of mark are generally regarded as spurious. why should not all these writers have possessed the same information that luke pretends to have? they do not write to complement and supplement the writings of one another, but each claims to give the important features of jesus' biography independently. is not the end of jesus' career on earth important, in order to understand his life and character? three of the four biographers by their silence say either that there is no importance to be attached to the ascension of jesus, or that it was unknown to them; in other words, that it did not occur. passing this, we encounter irreconcilable contradictions between different writers as to the locality where jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. matthew says the angel at the sepulcher informed the woman to "go quickly and tell his disciple that he is risen from the dead, and behold he goeth before you into galilee; there ye shall see him." ( : .) "and as they went to tell his disciples, behold, jesus met them and said, all hail!" ( : .) but as the angel had instructed them to go into galilee, so also does jesus give the same command, "go tell my brethren that they go into galilee, and there shall they see me." ( : .) mark gives a very similar account of the woman coming to the tomb and seeing the "young man," who said, "be not affrighted; ye seek jesus of nazareth, which was crucified; he is risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. but go your way and tell his disciples that he goeth before you into galilee, there ye shall see him, as he said unto you." ( : , .) the writers of the third and fourth gospels know nothing of any command to go into galilee; but on the contrary, luke relates the command of jesus to his disciples to remain where they were until they should receive blessings from god. "tarry ye in the city of jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." ( : .) here is manifestly an entire unconsciousness of any necessity of the disciples for going into galilee. for, after giving this command, luke goes on to say, "he led them out as far as bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. and it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." ( : , .) the two gospels of mark and luke make no mention of any journey; but on the contrary, the immediate ascension of jesus precludes the possibility of it. matthew, who knows nothing of any ascension, gives this very equivocal statement of the affair: "then the eleven disciples went away into galilee into a mountain where jesus had appointed them, and when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted." ( : , .) but this is too vague; the point which would most interest us to know is what they doubted and who it was that doubted. another equally vague expression is found in the fourth gospel, where it is related of peter and john that they went into the sepulcher, "then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulcher, and they saw and believed" ( : ); but what they saw and believed is not made plain, except that they saw an empty tomb, or at least one which contained only the "linen clothes;" but what they believed concerning this empty grave we are not informed. if their belief maintained any correspondence with what they saw, they believed that they had seen an empty grave. but our difficulties do not cease; we are surprised that these early visitors of sepulchers do not see anything of the material in which jesus was embalmed. it is recorded that "there came also nicodemus which at the first came to jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight." (john : .) it is but natural to suppose that if the linen clothes were laid off, the myrrh and aloes also would be found lying with them, for there is no probability that jesus would go abroad a la mummy. we might ask where the clothes came from that he wore after coming out of the sepulcher. his own garments had been taken by the soldiery when he died, that the scripture might be fulfilled (?), but where is the scripture fulfilled which informs us whence came his resurrection garments? he did not go into society nude, and yet we have no evidence that any provisions were made for a new suit of clothes. some have supposed that when mary saw him and mistook him for the gardener her mistake arose from the fact that he may have been clothed in the garments of the gardener. but how did he get possession of them? we must return to the contradictions in regard to the embalmment of jesus. matthew's version excludes the myrrh and aloes. he says, "and when joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb." ( : , .) the fourth gospel, as we have seen, relates that when joseph of arimathea and nicodemus had received the body of jesus, they embalmed it in "a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight." mark knows nothing of this, and his account wholly excludes it. joseph "bought fine linen and took him down and wrapped him in the linen and laid him in the sepulcher." ( : .) "and when the sabbath was past, mary magdalene and mary the mother of james, and salome, had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him." ( : .) if the women came on the third day to embalm the body, they certainly knew nothing of its embalmment on the day of his death. luke's version also excludes the version of the fourth gospel. as in mark, so in luke, they came on the first day of the week to perform this rite of embalmment. "and they [the women] returned and prepared spices and ointments ... and upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." ( : , and : .) some exegetes have interpreted this, by saying that "the women came to embalm the body of jesus, being wholly ignorant of what joseph and nicodemus had done." this might be sufficient if it were not for the fact that the women saw jesus after he was put in the tomb. "and mary magdalene and mary the mother of jesus beheld where he was laid." (mark : .) matthew corroborates this: "and there was mary magdalene and the other mary, sitting over against the sepulcher" ( : ) when jesus was placed in it. the obvious meaning of these texts is that they saw him wrapped in "the fine linen" and laid away in the tomb. here, then, are the contradictory statements. the writer of the fourth gospel relates how jesus was embalmed on the day of his death; the writers of the second and third gospels state that the women came on the third day to perform this service, wholly unconscious of such embalmment having taken place on the day of jesus' death; while the writer of the first gospel knows nothing of the embalmment on the day of his death, nor of the intended embalmment on the third day. he speaks of the early visit of the women as coming merely to see the grave. "in the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn, toward the first day of the week, came mary magdalene and the other mary to see the sepulcher." ( : .) further contradictions are found in the statements of the writers as to the time when the women prepared the spices. mark says ( : ), that when the "sabbath was past" the women bought spices with which to anoint the body of jesus. luke says they bought them before the sabbath; "and they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested on the sabbath day." ( : .) jesus foretells his resurrection. there are a number of passages in the gospels which show that jesus told his disciples over and over again that he should rise on the third day, and there are other passages which as plainly show that they had no thought of any such resurrection when the third day came. if he repeatedly told his followers that he was to be put to death in jerusalem and rise again the third day, we must conclude that his disciples would remember his sayings and that at least some of them would wait for the third day to come, expecting to see the miracle transpire. but we are astounded to read over and over again of this "rising again the third day," and yet find no friend remembering or expecting the event when the third day came. it is urged that jesus' followers did not understand his words, but this will not meet the case. if several of these disciples were intelligent enough to write the biography of their master they could not have been so stupid as not to understand such plain words; besides, we must remember that his enemies understood him. the pharisee said to pilate, "sir, we remember that the deceiver said while he was yet alive, after three days i will rise again." pilate said, "ye have a watch, go your way, make it sure as ye can." the disciples could not have failed to understand him, because it was a special effort on the part of jesus to show that he must die and rise again on the third day. "but their eyes were holden that they should not know him." (luke : .) this miraculous blindness is too irrational to discuss. it is certain that if their eyesight was good enough to see what was in the tomb "when it was yet dark" (john : ), they would surely recognize an intimate friend if they journeyed with him in the highway in the middle of the afternoon. "from that time forth began jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go up to jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and be raised again the third day." (mat. : .) "and while they abode in galilee, jesus said unto them, the son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again." (mat. : , .) "and jesus going up to jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way and said unto them, behold we go up to jerusalem and the son of man shall be betrayed unto the chiefs and priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again." (mat. : - .) "and he began to teach them, that the son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. and he spoke that saying openly." (mark : .) there is not a chance to refer this prediction to the esoteric teachings of jesus, for he "spake that saying openly." "for he taught his disciples, and said unto them, the son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed he shall rise the third day." (mark : .) "and he took again the twelve and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, saying, behold, we go up to jerusalem, and the son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the gentiles, and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him; and shall spit upon him; and the third day he shall rise again." (mark : , .) "the son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." (luke : .) "then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, behold, we go up to jerusalem, and all things that are written concerning the son of man shall be accomplished. for he shall be delivered unto the gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and spitted upon; and they shall scourge him, and put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again." (luke : - .) these teaching are so plain and repeated so often that it is inconceivable that his disciples should not comprehend his meaning. if these passages had been as enigmatical as the following, there might have been some grounds for the claim of ignorance or dullness on the part of the disciples: "for as jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (mat. : .) but the above predictions have nothing dark or obscure about them. the time of his resurrection is always specified as the third day. none of the disciples looking for a resurrection. with these numerous predictions of his resurrection before us, let us see whether they can be made to harmonize with other statements on the subject. when immediately after the transfiguration jesus warns his disciples not to reveal what they had seen until after he had risen from the dead, we are told that they questioned among themselves "what rising from the dead should mean." (mark : .) how is it possible that such doubt and surprise could be expressed by men who had first witnessed the resurrection of moses and elias, and who had also seen the resurrection of the daughter of jairus, the son of the widow of nain and lazarus! now it is plain that if they had ever witnessed these miraculous resurrections, they could not possibly have wondered "what the rising from the dead should mean." both statements cannot be true, for if they thus wondered, it is proof enough that they had never seen the dead raised to life; and if they did not so express themselves, then the gospels are unhistorical. that they never queried in this manner among themselves is evident from the fact that the resurrection from the dead was at that time a doctrine generally accepted by the jews. it is evident that those who undertook the embalmment of jesus had no thought of his resurrection within forty-eight hours. but suppose it conceded that jesus was deserted by his immediate friends, and his body handed over to joseph and nicodemus, who embalmed it in "a mixture of myrrh and olives about one hundred pound," possibly being ignorant of the repeated predictions of his resurrection on the third day, which were made to the disciples; still this is unavailing, as the disciples are also ignorant of any rising from the dead to take place on the third day. the women undertook the task of embalming the body of jesus, but they seem not to have got fully prepared for the task until the third day. when his body was taken down from the cross and wrapped in linen and put in the sepulcher, "the women also which came with him from galilee followed after, and beheld the sepulcher and how his body was laid, and they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." (luke : , , and : .) "in the end of the sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came mary magdalene, and the other mary to see the sepulcher." (mat. : .) these two writers, while not agreeing on the object of the women's visiting the sepulcher, nevertheless do agree that they did not go expecting to see the sepulcher empty. this early visit was made ostensibly to anoint or embalm the body of jesus. mary magdalene and the other women did not even dream of a resurrection--she did not come expecting to find the tomb empty, but was concerned to know how they should remove the stone from the mouth of the tomb. it is evident that if she had heard jesus say repeatedly that on the third day after his death he would rise again, she would not have forgotten it; and if she had, she must have recollected his predictions when she found the grave empty. in fact she never once thinks of a resurrection, but when she sees the empty grave, exclaims, "they have taken away the lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him." (john : .) luke says that, "as the women were much perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them in shining garments, and as they were afraid, and bowed themselves to the earth [people usually run away when they are frightened] they said unto them, why seek ye the living among the dead? he is not here, but is risen; remember how he spoke unto you when he was yet in galilee, saying: the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. and they remembered his words." (luke : - .) this is evidently an afterthought, an effort to fill out an imperfect record, but the patch is too perceptible; for had it been that the women needed only to have their memory jogged to recollect the prediction of jesus concerning his rising from the dead on the third day, we may infer that a similar reminder would refresh the memory of the eleven, but on the contrary they scouted the idea of such a thing. the women "returned from the sepulcher and told all these things unto the eleven, and the rest ... and their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." ( : , .) mark also says that the eleven did not believe the story of mary magdalene: "she went out and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. and they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not." ( : , .) they also had not so much as a dream of the resurrection of jesus. they were not waiting and watching for the third day to come that they might see the predictions of jesus fulfilled and their hearts filled to overflowing with joy at the sight. they were not at the sepulcher, as we might naturally expect. true, it was not too early for the women impelled by human love to be there with ointments and spices; but the eleven who were baptized with heavenly love (john : ), entertained not the first thought of visiting the grave. and even when the marvelous scenes witnessed by the women are clearly stated to the eleven who had heard him teach that he must go up to jerusalem and be killed and the third day rise again--who had heard this teaching and prediction repeatedly and openly, and in the plainest language, and yet did not believe anything in it or in the report of the women--all this is simply incredible. we are forced to conclude that if they were not at the tomb on the third day, and scouted the story of the women--for "their words seemed to them as idle tales"--they had never once heard jesus say he would rise from the dead on the third day. luke says, that of the eleven only peter went to the sepulcher, and that stooping down "he saw the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed wondering in himself at that which had come to pass." ( : .) he wonders, but expresses no thought of a resurrection. the writer of the fourth gospel contradicts luke in saying that there were two persons who went to the sepulcher on that occasion. "peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher.... then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw and believed. for as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." (john : , , .) "he saw and believed," but we are not told what he believed. he did not certainly believe in the resurrection of jesus. "for as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again." this passage is plainly legendary. it belongs to a later age when the dogma began to control the minds of christians; for it is true that the early christians did not insist so much upon the evidence of miracles as they did upon the prophecies. it must have been written long after that time, for it is not the "scriptures" they needed to know to be informed concerning his resurrection, but the plain language of jesus which he had with special effort, and in an open manner uttered in their ears but a few days before. it was wholly needless for them to know the scriptures in order to recollect these prophetic predictions. regard these statements as we may, they are certainly unhistorical. for if jesus so frequently spoke of his death and subsequent resurrection, then it is certain that they would have remembered his words, and if they had not cherished them with faith, yet when they had heard from the women of the empty grave, they would without doubt, have recalled his predictions, and claimed their fulfillment. but they do no such thing. they said of the women's story what was probably true, that "their words seemed to them as idle tales, and [therefore] they believed them not." the evidence of paul on the resurrection of jesus. he gives his testimony in this form: "for i delivered unto you first of all that which i also received, that christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. and that he was seen by cephas, then by the twelve. after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. after that he was seen by james, then by all the apostles. and last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." ( cor. : - .) in this statement paul does not pretend to have witnessed the event himself, but preaches it as a doctrine which he had "received." he speaks of it as a tradition, "that christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." this language betrays the influence of the dogma of a later date; for the writer in speaking of the five hundred by whom jesus was said to have been seen says, "of whom the greater part remain unto this present [day] but some are fallen asleep." "unto this present" [day] shows that the writer is making his record long after the event. paul wrote probably about twenty-five years after the date of the events he records. and the writers of the gospels also wrote at a late date. matthew says, "and this saying is commonly reported among the jews until this day." ( : .) the phrase "until this day" points out the fact that the gospel records were not completed until long after the time of their occurrence. in addition to this, there were many gospels recording the life and doings of jesus. "forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us." (luke : .) "believed among us"--he did not know, but merely believed these things. now suppose we had these other gospels, what harmony could we expect to find among the imaginary five hundred if they had left a record of what was "most surely believed." "he was seen by cephas." it is significant of paul's independence, that while the writers of the four gospels all explicitly declare that jesus first appeard to mary magdalene, paul knows nothing of such an appearance. that he makes no mention of this first appearance of jesus is evidence that he wrote independently of others, as he said he did, and also that he wrote before the evangelists wrote. he had no honors to bestow upon women, as his writings show, and if he had ever heard of this appearance to mary magdalene, he concluded that it was "an idle tale." (luke : .) it is noticeable also that although this doctrine is "received" as a prediction of the scriptures, yet no one is recorded in either of the gospels or writings of paul as having seen jesus rise from the sepulcher. even though it is affirmed that mary magdalene and the other mary had seen the angel from heaven roll back the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher, yet they did not witness any resurrection. all that paul "received" on this subject was the current traditions. as a pharisee, he believed in the doctrine of a general resurrection, and it was most natural for him to accept such tradition into his belief. that he wrote under the influence of a later age, when the dogma began to assume character, is manifest in the recourse he has to scripture evidences. "and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." ( cor. : .) but the passages usually cited as proof-predictions that jesus should rise from the dead, when examined, cannot be regarded as messianic at all; for the idea of a suffering messiah was wholly foreign to the jewish mind. the scriptures usually cited are isaiah ; psalms and ; psalms : ; hosea : . as illustrating the free use made of the scriptures, we have only to compare matthew : with parallel passages of mark and luke. mark ( : ), says, "and the pharisees came forth and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. and he sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily i say unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation." luke ( : - ) states that "when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, this is an evil generation; they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of jonas the prophet. for as jonas was a sign unto the ninevites, so shall the son of man be to this generation." matthew gives two versions of this incident, "a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign but the sign of the prophet jonas." ( : .) "certain of the scribes and of the pharisees answered, saying, master, we would see a sign from thee. but he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet jonas. for as jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (mat. : - .) here it will be observed is an illustration of the growth of the dogma and myth in adding this reference to jonas. and it is highly significant that the application of the myth of jonas is wholly fanciful, as the passage referred to (jonah : .) has not the slightest character of prophecy. that the scriptures are evidently tortured is obvious from the fact that jesus was only one day and two nights in the heart of the earth, and, as before said, the passage is not prophetic; besides, its varied form in the gospels plainly shows it to be a myth. "he was seen by cephas, then by the twelve, and after that he was seen by above five hundred brethren at once." but there were only eleven apostles until after the ascension, when matthias was elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of judas. "and they gave forth their lots, and the lot fell upon matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." (acts : .) this election of matthias took place after the ascension. he could not therefore have been seen by the "twelve" after his ascension (and there were not twelve until after the ascension), only by the "eye of faith." that jesus was seen by above five hundred is nothing more than naked statement. paul does not claim to have been one of that number. this episode, moreover, is not mentioned in any of the four gospels. it is remarkable that so great an event should be passed over by other writers also, for not a trace of it can be found elsewhere. it is difficult for us to understand how this marvelous scene could so completely perish out of sight of all writers except one who was not present, but merely heard of it afterward. that paul may have believed the story we do not deny--and that he believed that the greater part of the witnesses "remain unto this present" time. now if these survivors remained he does not mention the names of any of them. and besides, they were not within reach of the corinthians who might wish to hear and investigate their testimony, for the corinthians did not accept the resurrection of jesus as a matter of fact. how could five hundred disciples come together immediately at one time, when some time after the ascension the number of disciples at jerusalem was only one hundred and twenty? (acts : .) we need to know something of the character of those who gave paul this information, and the sources of their knowledge. for it is all-important to our inquiry to know from whom paul received these traditions and what evidences his informants had of the truth of the story they told. to believe in the reality of these appearances simply because paul states that he has "received" his information from others and believes it to be true, without inquiring as to the character of his informers, is the blindest credulity. who were the five hundred? what did they think of the event? how did paul or any other person know what they thought, if there were no written statements by them? where and when did the five hundred see the risen jesus? "last of all he was seen by me." in another place he says, "have i not seen jesus christ our lord?" ( cor. : .) elsewhere he relates: "but when he was pleased, god, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me, that i might preach him among the heathen, immediately i conferred not with flesh and blood, but i went into arabia and returned again to damascus." (gal. : - .) "for neither did i receive it from men nor was taught it, but through the revelation of jesus christ." (gal. : .) we shall find as we proceed that paul saw jesus subjectively. it is quite natural to so understand his words, "reveal his son in me." especially does this seem obvious when we remember that paul was a man who firmly believed in visions and revelations. in relating his own experience he states this fact plainly. "i knew a man in christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body i cannot tell--god knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven. and i knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body, i cannot tell--god knoweth) how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter. of such an one will i glory." ( cor. : - .) in acts there are three contradictory accounts of his seeing jesus in a vision. "and as he journeyed, he came near damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, saul, saul, why persecutest thou me? and he said, who art thou, lord? and the lord said i am jesus, whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. and he, trembling and astonished, said, lord, what wilt thou have me to do? and the lord said unto him, arise, and go into the city, and it will be told thee what thou must do. and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." (acts : - .) a second version is in this form: "and it came to pass that as i made my journey and was come nigh unto damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. and i fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me saul, saul, why persecutest thou me? and i answered, who art thou, lord? and he said unto me, i am jesus of nazareth, whom thou persecutest. and they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me. and i said, lord, what wilt thou have me do? and the lord said unto me, arise, and go into damascus, and there it shall be told thee of all the things which are appointed for thee to do." (acts : - .) the third account of the affair is given thus: "whereupon as i went to damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at mid-day, o king, i saw in the way alight from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me. and when we were all fallen to the earth, i heard a voice speaking unto me, saying, in the hebrew tongue, saul, saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. and i said, who art thou, lord? and he said, i am jesus of nazareth, whom thou persecutest.... whereupon, o king, i was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." (acts : - .) according to the first account the companions of paul "stood speechless" ( : ); in the third they "all fall to the earth." ( : .) then again, in the first account it is said that the men "stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one." in the second it is stated that "they that were with me saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice." these contradictions do not seem to clothe the vision of paul with the acceptable form of harmony. it will be observed that even in this vision paul is not described as seeing jesus. he sees a light and falls to the ground, and when he rises he is blind. "and they led him by the hand and brought him to damascus. and he was three days without sight." ( : .) in the continuation of this account paul has another vision: "and it came to pass that when i was come again to jerusalem, even while i prayed in the temple, i was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, make haste and get thee out of jerusalem." ( : , .) in connection with these visions and revelations it is highly significant that paul never claims to have seen jesus in the flesh, and he never speaks of the resurrection as material, but as spiritual. "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." ( cor. : .) "who shall change our vile bodies that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body," (phil. : .) evidently there is no claim for seeing jesus in the body made by paul in any of his writings. he preaches the doctrine of the resurrection, but this doctrine he, as a pharisee, believed before he became a christian. paul claims that in a vision he saw jesus. luke says that this was also the manner in which mary magdalene and the other women saw jesus. "and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive." ( : , .) this gives force to the claim of paul, that his seeing or vision of jesus was of the same class as the visions of all the others who had seen him. thus, after a careful examination of the writings attributed to the immediate followers of jesus, we find that not one of them says, "i saw jesus rise from the grave;" or "i saw jesus in the flesh after his resurrection." in legendary style it is frequently repeated that he "appeared" first to this and then to that one, but there is not the slightest evidence that any one saw him. and in this connection it is worthy of remark that jesus did not appear to any persons except his friends. this gives better occasion for suspicion that the story is mythical. "him god raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of god, even to us who did eat and drink with him." (acts : .) to appear to a few private friends for one day does not seem much like bringing life and immortality to light to the whole world. the method is too narrow and exclusive. and even of these few friends not one has left the record for us of what he saw. the writers who have recorded the current traditions of their time, agree in saying that mary magdalene found the grave empty: further than this the writers do not corroborate one another. how soon the resurrection of the physical body became popular we have no means of knowing. it was not certainly until some time after the writings of paul were given to the churches, for he, as we have seen, speaks, of it as a spiritual resurrection. so also does peter ( peter : ), speak of jesus "being slain in the flesh, but made alive again in the spirit." the legend became more and more marvelous as it spread abroad. enthusiasm inflamed the minds of the ignorant and superstitious until the subjective visions of paul became crystalized into objective realities. his visions, and the visions, revelations and messages of the angels of others were reduced in popular belief to historical facts. christianity without historical basis. . no one of the four gospels is mentioned in any other part of the new testament. [this assuredly would not have been the case had they been the oldest, and the foundation on which the whole was built.] . no work of art of any kind has ever been discovered, no painting or engraving, no sculpture or other relic of antiquity which may be looked upon as furnishing additional evidence of the existence of those gospels, and which was executed earlier than the latter part of the second century. even the explorations of the christian catacombs failed to bring to light any evidence of that character. . the four gospels were written in greek, and there was no translation of them into other languages earlier than the third century. . no manuscript of the gospels are in existence dating further back than the fourth century. of that century, or the next, there are three or four, and some twenty or thirty, more than a thousand years old. . no autograph manuscript of any of the gospels has ever been known, so far as there is any authentic record, nor has any credible witness ever claimed to have seen such a manuscript. no one has ever claimed to have seen such a manuscript of either of the four gospels in the hand-writing of luke, mark, matthew, or john. if the autograph manuscripts had ever existed they would have been preserved among the most sacred relics of the church. . during the first two centuries tradition was esteemed of more value and better evidence of the gospel history, than any written books or manuscripts. . the dialect in which the new testament books were written, a sort of hebraistic greek, has been considered evidence of their antiquity. but this dialect prevailed three centuries after christ, and was in full use during the second century. the same or similar hebraisms abound in the apocryphal gospels of that age. . the canonical gospels were selected by the bishops from a large number then in circulation. in taking a general review of the first hundred and seventy years of the christian religion the first thing that strikes the mind is the dearth of material from which to construct a reliable history. it is seen at once how much must rest upon probability in its different degrees--how much must be relegated to the province of speculation. the works of the only church historian who wrote during that period, lost or destroyed the few fragments that are left being of comparatively no value--the writings of porphyry and others who wrote against christianity, and those of the heretic christians, all destroyed--there remain only the works of some of the orthodox fathers, and the text of those in a mutilated and corrupted condition. such is the material at the hands of the historian. of course he cannot rely implicitly upon the unsupported assertion of any such writer for the truth of any historical fact whatever. in every instance he is obliged to scrutinize carefully, and endeavor to ascertain whether any ulterior motives may have prompted whatever statement may be under consideration. if he can find none, and the fact stands uncontradicted by other writers, it is cautiously accepted. under such circumstances progress is slow and uncertain. the most that any writer can hope to accomplish is to place in proper shape what is already known, and to establish here and there a landmark for the benefit of subsequent historians. in conclusion, as the result of this investigation, it may be repeated that no evidence is found of the existence in the first century of either of the following doctrines: the immaculate conception--the miracles of christ--the material resurrection. no one of these gospels is found in the epistles of the new testament, nor have we been able to find them in other writings of the first century. as to the four gospels, in coming to the conclusion that they were not written in the first century, we have but recorded the conviction of the most advanced scholars of the present day, irrespective of their religious views in other respects; with whom as now presented, is, how early in the second century were they composed? discarding as inventions of the second century, having no historical foundation, the three doctrines above named, and much else which must necessarily stand or fall with them, what remains of the christian religion? (c. b. waite, "history of the christian religion to the year .") the canon. "the infancy of the canon was cradled in an uncritical age and rocked with traditional ease. conscientious care was not directed from the first to the well authenticated testimony of eye-witnesses. of the three fathers who contributed most to its early growth, irenæus was credulous and blundering; tertullian passionate and one-sided; and clement, of alexandria, imbued with the treasures of greek wisdom, was mainly occupied with ecclesiastical ethics. "irenæus agrees that the gospels should be four in number, neither more nor less, because there are four universal winds and four quarters of the world. the word or architect of all things gave the gospel in a four-fold shape. according to this father the apostles were fully informed concerning all things, and had a perfect knowledge after their lord's ascension. "he says, 'matthew wrote his gospels while peter and paul were preaching in rome, and founding the church.' such assertions show both ignorance and exaggeration. "tertullian affirms that the tradition of the apostolic churches guarantees the four gospels, and refers his readers to the churches of corinth, philippi, ephesus, etc., for the authentic epistles of paul. what is this but the rhetoric of an enthusiast? "clement contradicts himself in making peter authorize mark's gospel to be read in the churches, while in another place he says the apostles 'neither forbade nor encouraged it.' "the three fathers of whom we are speaking had neither the ability nor inclination to examine the genesis of documents surrounded with an apostolic halo. no analysis of their authenticity and genuineness was seriously attempted. in its absence, custom, accident, taste, practical needs, directed the tendency of tradition. all the rhetoric employed to throw the value of their testimony as far back as possible, even up to or very near to the apostle john, is of the vaguest sort. appeals to the continuity of tradition and of church doctrine, to the exceptional veneration of these fathers for the gospels, to their opinions being formed earlier than the composition of the works in which they are expressed, possess no force. "the ends which the fathers in question had in view, their polemic motives, their uncritical, inconsistent assertions, their want of sure data, detract from their testimony. their decisions were much more the result of pious feeling, biased by the theological speculations of the times, than the conclusions of a sound judgment. the very arguments they use to establish certain conclusions show weakness of perception. what are the manifestations of spiritual feeling compared with the result of logical reasoning?" (davidson on the canon.) thus we have the testimony of one of the ablest and clearest minds that has ever written upon the canon which the fathers most depended upon to establish the authenticity of the small books forming it, were "ignorant," "credulous," "blundering," "passionate," "one-sided," "uncritical," "inconsistent," "possessed undue enthusiasm with contradictions;" "not possessing ability or inclination to examine;" "attempting no analysis of genuineness;" "an unreasonable apostolic reverence." "custom, accident, taste, and the tendency of tradition taking the place of careful examination;" "a disposition to misrepresent;" "exceptional veneration of the fathers for the gospels older than the composition;" "want of data;" "their decisions the result of pious feeling based upon [incorrect] theological speculations;" "unsound judgment;" "weakness of perception;" "lack of logical reasoning." these are the characteristics of the fathers depended upon to establish the authenticity of a gospel story which has no solid foundation to rest upon and which is clearly of an apocryphal character. ("answers to christian questions" pp. - , by d. m. bennett.) "one hundred and seventy years from the coming of christ elapsed before the collection assumed a form that carried with it the idea of holy and inspired." (davidson on the canon, p. .) "it is clear that the earliest church fathers did not use the books of the new testament as sacred documents clothed with divine authority, but followed for the most part, at least till the middle of the second century, apostolic tradition orally transmitted." (ibid, p. .) "their decisions (the fathers) were much more the result of pious feeling biased by the theological speculations of the times, than the conclusions of a sound judgment. the very arguments they use to establish certain conclusions show weakness of perception." (ibid p. .) "the men who first canonized them (the gospels) had no certain knowledge of their authors." (ibid p. .) "that luke did not write the gospel of luke." (ibid , p. .) "the canon was not the work of the christian church so much as of the men who were striving to form the church." (ibid p. .) "professor davidson says that the gospel of matthew, as we have it now could not have been written by matthew. intro. new test. , p. . he says that the present gospel of mark was not written by mark and that its author is unknown." (ibid , p. , .) of john's gospel he says: "its existence before a. d. is incapable either of decision or probable showing. the johannine authorship has receded before the tide of modern criticism, and though this tide is arbitrary at times, it is here irresistible. "no certain traces of the existence of the fourth gospel can be found till after justin martyr, that is till after the middle of the second century." (ibid , p. .) the value of papias' testimony. "suppose papias is referring to our present gospel of mark, what testimony have we to the authenticity of jesus' words as contained in it? just this: eusebius says that papias said that john the presbyter said that mark said that peter said that jesus said thus and so." (keeler's "short history of the bible," p. .) ignorance and dishonesty of the early fathers. that the charge of ignorance justly attaches to many of the fathers of the church, and that of dishonesty as well, there is abundant evidence, but a small portion of this can be given here. mosheim, in part chapter of his "ecclesiastical history," says: "the interest of virtue and true religion suffered yet more grievously by the monstrous errors that were universally adopted in this century, and became a source of innumerable calamities and mischiefs of succeeding ages. the first of these maxims was that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie when by that means the interest of the church might be promoted; and the second, equally horrible, though in another point of view, was "that errors in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper admonition were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures." the former of these erroneous maxims was now of long standing. it had been adopted for long ages past, and had produced an incredible number of ridiculous fables, fictitious prodigies, and pious frauds to the remarkable detriment to that glorious cause in which they were employed. and it must be frankly confessed that the greatest men and the most eminent saints of this century [the fourth] were more or less tainted with the infection of this corrupt principle, as will appear evident to such as look with an attentive eye to their writings and actions. we would willingly except from this charge ambrose, and hiliary augustine, gregory nazianzen, and jerome; but truth, which is more respectable than these venerable fathers, obliges us to involve them in the general accusation." at another time he says, as translated by vidal: "at the time when he [hermas] wrote, it was an established maxim with many christians to avail themselves of fraud and deception, if it was likely they would conduce toward the attainment of any considerable good." he again says: "it was considered that they who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation than censure." the french protestant writer, casaubon, talks in a similar way, thus: "it mightily affects me to see how many there were in the earliest times of the church who considered it a capital exploit to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own inventions in order that the new doctrine might be received by the wise among the gentiles. these officious lies, they said, were devised for a good end." le clerc, corroborating these opinions, says: "dissemblers of truth are nowhere to be met with in such abundance as among the writers of church history." m. daille, another learned and impartial french writer, in his celebrated work, the "use of the fathers," says: "we find them saying things which they did not themselves believe. they are mutually witnesses against each other, that they are not to be believed absolutely on their bare word." in book , chapter , he states upon the authority of st. jerome, that: "origin, methodius, eusebius, apollonaris, have written largely against celsus and porphyry. do but observe their manner of arguing, and what slippery problems they used. they alleged against the gentiles, not what they believed, but what they thought necessary." jerome himself adds: "i forbear mentioning the latin writers, as tertullian, cyprian, minutius, victorinus, lactantius, hiliary, lest i should rather seem to accuse others than defend myself." daille adds of the fathers: "they made no scruple to forge whole books." an able writer in the eclectic review of , page , speaks of the fathers in this way: "when we consider the number of gospels, acts, epistles, revelations, traditions, and constitutions which were put in circulation during the first three centuries, and which are unquestionably spurious, we find sufficient reason for examining with care and receiving with extreme caution productions attributed to eminent men in the primitive church. some of the early christians do not seem to have possessed in some points a nice sense of moral obligation. the writing of books under false names, and the circulating of fables, were not accounted violations of duty; or, if the impropriety of such conduct was felt, the end proposed--the promotion of the christian cause--was thought to justify the means employed for the accomplishment. (from d. m. bennett's "answers to christian questions," p. - .) jesus not a historical character. the following very pertinent argument is made use of by the rev. s. baring-gould in his "lost and hostile gospels": "it is somewhat remarkable that no contemporary, or even early account of the life of our lord exists, except from the pen of christian writers. that we have none by greek or roman writers is not, perhaps, to be wondered at; but it is singular that neither philo, josephus, nor justus of tiberius, should ever have alluded to christ or to primitive christianity. philo was born at alexandria about twenty years before christ. in the year a. d. he was sent by the alexandrian jews on a mission to caligula, to entreat the emperor not to put in force his order that his statue should be erected in the temple of jerusalem and in all the synagogues of the jews. philo was a pharisee. he traveled in palestine, and speaks of the essenes he saw there; but he says not a word about jesus christ or his followers. it is possible that he may have heard of the new sect, but he probably concluded it was but insignificant, and consisted merely of the disciples, poor and ignorant, of a galilean rabbi, whose doctrines he, perhaps did not stay to inquire into, and supposed they did not differ fundamentally from the traditional teaching of the rabbis of his day." the spurious passage in josephus. "at this time lived jesus, a wise man [if indeed he ought to be called a man]; for he performed wonderful works [he was a teacher of men who received the truth with gladness]; and he drew to him many jews and also many greeks. [this was the christ.] but when pilate, at the instigation of our chiefs, had condemned him to crucifixion, they who at first loved him did not cease; [for he appeared to them on the third day again; for the divine prophets had foretold this, together with many other wonderful things concerning him], and even to this time the community of christians called after him, continues to exist." that this passage is spurious has been almost universally acknowledged. one may be accused perhaps of killing dead birds, if one again examines and discredits the passage; but as the silence of josephus on the subject which we are treating is a point on which it will be necessary to insist, we cannot omit as brief a discussion as possible of the celebrated passage. the passage is first quoted by eusebius (fl. a. d. ) in two places (hist. eccl. lib. . c. ; demonst. evang. lib. .), but it was unknown to justin martyr (fl. a. d. ), clement of alexandria (fl. a. d. ), tertullian (fl. a. d. ), and origen (fl. a. d. ). such a testimony would certainly have been produced by justin in his apology, or in his controversy with trypho the jew, had it existed in the copies of josephus at his time. the silence of origen is still more significant. celsus in his book against christianity introduces a jew. origen attacks the arguments of celsus and his jew. he could not have failed to quote the words of josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. he indeed distinctly affirms that josephus did not believe in christ. (contra. celsus .) again the paragraph interrupts the chain of ideas in the original text. before this passage comes an account of how pilate, seeing there was a want of pure drinking water in jerusalem, conducted a stream into the city from a spring two hundred stadia distant, and ordered that the cost should be defrayed out of the treasury of the temple. this occasioned a riot. pilate disguised roman soldiers as jews, with swords under their cloaks, and sent them among the rabble, with orders to arrest the ringleaders. this was done. the jews finding themselves set upon by other jews, fell into confusion; one jew attacked another, and the whole company of rioters melted away. "and in this manner," says josephus, "was this insurrection suppressed." then follows the paragraph about jesus, beginning, "at this time lived jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man," etc., and the passage is immediately followed by, "about this time another misfortune threw the jews into disturbance; and in rome an event happened in the temple of isis which produced great scandal." and then he tells an indelicate story of religious deception which need not be repeated here. the misfortune which befell the jews was, as he afterward relates, that tiberius drove them out of rome. the reason of this was, he says, that a noble roman lady who had become a proselyte, had sent gold and purple to the temple at jerusalem. but this reason is not sufficient. it is clear from what precedes--a story of sacerdotal fraud--that there was some connection between the incidents in the mind of josephus. probably the jews had been guilty of religious deceptions in rome, and had made a business of performing cures and expelling demons, with talismans, and incantations, and for this had obtained rich payment. from the connection that exists between the passage about the "other misfortune which befell the jews," and the former one about the riot suppressed by pilate, it appears evident that the whole of the paragraph concerning our lord is an interpolation. that josephus could not have written the passage as it stands, is clear enough, for only a christian would speak of jesus in the terms employed. josephus was a pharisee and a jewish priest; he shows in all his writings that he believes in judaism. it has been suggested that josephus may have written about christ as in the passage quoted, but that the portions within brackets are the interpolations of a christian copyist. but when these portions within brackets are removed, the passage loses all its interest and is a dry statement utterly unlike the sort of notice josephus would have been likely to insert. he gives color to his narratives; his incidents are always sketched with vigor; this account would be meagre besides those of the riot of the jews and the rascality of the priests of isis. josephus asserts, moreover, that in his time there were four sects among the jews--the pharisees, the sadducees, the essenes, and the sect of judas of gamala. he gives tolerably copious particulars about these sects, and their teachings, but of the christian sect he says not a word. had he wished to write about it, he would have given full details, likely to interest his readers, and not have dismissed the subject in a couple of lines. it was perhaps felt by the early christians that the silence of josephus, so famous a historian and a jew, on the life, miracles, and death of the founder of christianity was extremely inconvenient; the fact could not fail to be noticed by their adversaries. some christian transcriber may have argued, either josephus knew nothing of the miracles performed by christ--in which case he is a weighty testimony against them--or he must have heard of jesus, but not having deemed his acts, as they were related to him, of sufficient importance to find a place in history. arguing thus, the copyist took the opportunity of rectifying the omission, written from the stand point of a pharisee, and therefore designated the lord as merely a wise man. (d. m. bennett in "jesus christ.") that this paragraph, concerning the lord jesus christ, is not josephus's but an interpolation, is argued from these several following considerations: . it is not quoted or referred to by any christian writer before eusebius, who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century, and afterward. . this paragraph was wanting in the copies of josephus which were seen by photius, in the ninth century. . it interrupts the course of the narration. . it is unsuitable to the general character of josephus, who is allowed not to have been a christian. . if josephus were the author of this paragraph, it would be reasonable to expect in him frequent mention of christ's miracles; whereas he is everywhere else silent about them. . the word christ or messiah appears not in any place in all the works of josephus, excepting two; namely, the paragraph which we have been considering, which is now in the eighteenth book of his antiquities; and another in the twentieth book of the name antiquities where is mention made of james, the brother jesus who is called 'christ.' (works of n. lardner, vol. , pp. , .) eusebius. the father of church history. in referring to his work of writing a history of the church up to his own times, he says: "we are attempting a kind of trackless and unbeaten path." again he says of philo judæus that he was a very "learned man." among many other things which contradict this estimate, is the fact that philo takes more than one hundred pages in showing how that dreams are sent from god. again, eusebius does not say that the last works of hegesippus, papias and dionysius of corinth, contain anything concerning the canonical gospels; therefore, they contained none. we give the opinion of a few well-known writers upon this "father of church history": in draper's intellectual development of europe, p. , bunsen and niebuhr are quoted--the one (bunsen) as saying that he purposely "perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms," and the other (niebuhr) declaring "he is a very dishonest writer." "eusebius had a peculiar faculty of diverging from the truth." ("history of christian religion," p. .) "the gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, eusebius, himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace of religion." (gibbon's "rome," vol. , p. .) "in one of the most learned and elaborate works that antiquity has left us, the thirty-second chapter of the twelfth book of his evangelical preparation, bears for its title this scandalous proposition: 'how it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived.'" (gibbon's "vindication," p. .) "but eusebius, the father of church history, capped the climax by fabricating the celebrated passage about "jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him such." ("anti-christ," p. .) "he (eusebius) has frankly told us that his principle in writing history was to conceal the facts that were injurious to the reputation of the church." (lecky's "european morals," vol. , p. .) "eusebius, who would never lie or falsify except to promote the glory of god." (taylor's diegesis, p. .) eusebius pronounces a panegyric upon constantine. the following is the list of constantine's murders as given by robert taylor: [**todo: verify table] maximinian, his wife's father a. d. bassianus, his sister anastacia's husband a. d. licinianus, his nephew by constantina a. d. fausta, his wife a. d. sopater, his former friend a. d. licinius, his sister constantina's husband a. d. crispus, his own son a. d. and the church still continues to regard these two persons as holy men of god, raised up for a wise purpose--the one an open, wholesale murderer, and the other a cowardly, cunning and corrupt priest. the vast injury they have done the human race can never be computed. they poisoned the fountains of civilization, and all christendom has been drinking its poisoned waters ever since. if there are anywhere in history two men who have done their fellow men more positive harm and wrong, i do not know them. their names should be held up to eternal scorn. baronius, a sincere advocate of the christian faith, calls eusebius: "the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history, a wily sychophant, a consummate hypocrite, a time serving persecutor, who had nothing in his known life or writings to support the belief that he himself believed in the christian system." eusebius is the source from whom all have drawn their material. of him dean milman in a note to gibbon's rome says: "it is deeply to be regretted that the history of this period rests so much on the loose, and, it must be admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of eusebius." (page .) spurious writings of the early church. "not long after christ's ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance." (mosheim's "ecclesiastical history.") "christian churches had scarcely been gathered and organized when here and there men rose up who, not being contented with the simplicity and purity of that religion which the apostles taught, attempted innovations, and fashioned religion according to their own liking." (mosheim's "ecclesiastical history," vol. , c. .) "to avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat tradition as we do a notorious and known liar, to whom we give no credit, unless what he says is confirmed to us by some person of undoubted veracity." (extract from bower's "lives of the popes.") "this opinion has always been in the world, that to settle a certain and assured estimation upon that which is good and true, it is necessary to remove out of the way whatever may be an hindrance to it. neither ought we to wonder that even those of the honest, innocent, primitive times made use of these deceits, seeing for a good end they made no scruple to forge whole books." (daille on the use of the fathers, b. , c. .) the bible not an inspired revelation. "what would be the characteristics of a revelation? st. a revelation would be free from inherent contradictions. does the new testament revelation stand this test? d. a revelation would not contradict natural laws, for nature is the only undisputed revelation to man. d. a revelation would be so authenticated that it would be more reasonable to admit than to deny its claims. the history of thousands of years proves that, so far, no revelation has been made that compels the mind's assent, as thousands of thinking men reject the so-called revelation of the new testament. the new testament does not claim infallibility for itself; and proving that a book is infallible does not prove that it was inspired, else we might claim inspiration for the problems of euclid." (anon.) "when moses told the children of israel that he received the two tables of commandments from the hands of god, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it, than his telling them so; and i have no authority for it than some historian telling me so. the commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator, could produce himself without having recourse to supernatural intervention." (thomas paine's "age of reason.") "revelation is a communication of something which the person, to whom that thing is revealed, did not know before. for if i have done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me i have done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it." (thomas paine's "age of reason.") "if it was worth god's while to make a revelation to man at all, it was certainly worth his while to see to it that it was correctly made. he would not have allowed the ideas and mistakes of pretended prophets and designing priests to become so mingled with the original text that it is impossible to tell where he ceased and where the priests and prophets began. neither will it do to say that god adapted his revelation to the prejudices of mankind. of course it was necessary for an infinite being to adapt his revelation to the intellectual capacity of man; but why should god confirm a barbarian in his prejudices? why should he fortify a heathen in his crimes? if a revelation is of any importance whatever, it is to eradicate prejudices from the human mind. it should be a lever with which to raise the human race. theologians have exhausted their ingenuity in finding excuses for god. it seems to me that they would be better employed in finding excuses for men. they tell us that the jews were so cruel and ignorant that god was compelled to justify, or nearly to justify, many of their crimes, in order to have any influence with them whatever. they tell us that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be criminal, the jews would have refused to receive the ten commandments. they insist that, under the circumstances, god did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along slowly, step by step, so that, in a few hundred years they would be induced to admit that it was hardly fair to steal a babe from its mother's breast. it has always seemed reasonable that an infinite god ought to have been able to make man grand enough to know, even without a special revelation, that it is not altogether right to steal the labor, or the wife, or the child of another. when the whole question is thoroughly examined, the world will find that jehovah had the prejudices, the hatreds, and superstitions of his day. "if there is anything of value, it is liberty. liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of life. without it the world is a prison and the universe an infinite dungeon. "if christ was in fact god, he knew all the future. before him, like a panorama, moved the history yet to be. he knew exactly how his words would be interpreted. he knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. he knew that the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. he knew that brave men would languish in dungeons, in darkness, filled with pain; that the church would use the instruments of torture, and that his followers would appeal to whip and chain. he must have seen the horizon of the future red with the flames of the auto da fe. he knew all the creeds that would spring like poisoned fungi from every text. he saw the sects waging war against each other. he saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building dungeons for their fellow men. he saw them using instruments of pain. he heard the groans, saw the faces white with agony, the tears, the blood--heard the shrieks and sobs of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. he knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of faggots. he knew that the inquisition would be born of teachings attributed to him. he saw all the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. he knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed, and woman's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. why did he fail to speak? why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world, that man should not persecute, for opinion's sake, his fellow man? why did he not cry, you shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and torment those who differ from you in creed? why did he not plainly say, i am the son of god? why did he not explain the doctrine of the trinity? why did he not tell the manner of baptism that was pleasing to him? why did he not say something positive, definite, and satisfactory about another world? why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven to the glad knowledge of another life? why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? "you may ask, and what of all this? i reply, as with everything in nature, so with the bible. it has a different story for each reader. is, then, the bible a different book to every human being who reads it? it is. can god, through the bible, make precisely the same revelation to two persons? he cannot. why? because the man who reads is not inspired. god should inspire readers as well as writers. "you may reply: god knew that his book would be understood differently by each one, and intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each. if this is so, then my understanding of the bible is the real revelation to me. if this is so, i have no right to take the understanding of another. i must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation i must stand. suppose, then, that i read this bible honestly, fairly, and when i get through am compelled to say, 'the book is not true.' if this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that god has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true is the revelation made to me, and by which i am bound. if the book and my brain are both the work of the same infinite god, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree? either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. the inspiration of the bible depends upon the credulity of him who reads. there was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history, were thought to be inspired: that time has passed. there was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled the world of thought: that time has passed. "these are the passages that have liberated woman! "according to the old testament, woman had to ask pardon, and had to be purified, for the crime of having borne sons and daughters. if in this world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her child. the doctrine that the woman is the slave, or serf, of man--whether it comes from heaven or from hell, from god or a demon, from the golden streets of the new jerusalem or from the very sodom of perdition--is savagery, pure and simple. "in no country in the world had women less liberty than in the holy land, and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than jehovah of the jews. the position of woman was far better in egypt than in palestine. before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of isis were sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the gods. before moses was born, women had sat upon the egyptian throne. upon ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same chair. in persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest civilizations 'they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as goddesses in heaven.' at the advent of christianity, in all pagan countries women officiated at the sacred altars. they guarded the eternal fire. they kept the sacred books. from their lips came the oracles of fate. under the domination of the christian church, woman became the merest slave for at least a thousand years. it was claimed that through woman the race had fallen, and that her loving kiss had poisoned all the springs of life. christian priests asserted that but for her crime the world would have been an eden still. the ancient fathers exhausted their eloquence in the denunciation of woman, and repeated again and again the slander of st. paul. the condition of woman has improved just in proportion that man has lost confidence in the inspiration of the bible. "the old argument that if christianity is a human fabrication its authors must have been either good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there are but two classes of persons--the good and the bad. there is, at least, one other class--the mistaken, and both of the other classes may belong to this. thousands of most excellent people have been deceived, and the history of the world is filled with instances where men have honestly supposed that they had received communications from angels and gods." (ingersoll's reply to black.) "but an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. he must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. he must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. if an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential, will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from god, through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly. "after all, the real question is, not whether the bible is inspired, but whether it is true. if it is true, it does not need to be inspired. if it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. the multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though god had arranged the figures himself. if the bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. as a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake." (ingersoll's "mistakes of moses," p. .) "it may be argued that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in plainest words. to this it seems a sufficient reply, to ask, why a being of infinite power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any means make known to them his will?" (ingersoll's "mistakes of moses," p. .) "millions have declared this book to be infinitely holy, to prove that they were right have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow men. the inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword, and fire, by dungeon, chain, and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed with promises of heaven. "had we been born in turkey, most of us would have been mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the koran. we should have believed that mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an angel by the name of gabriel who was so broad between the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very smart mule to travel the distance. if some man had denied this story we should have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinctions between virtue and vice. we should have said to him 'what do you propose to give us in place of this angel? we cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing.' we would have insisted that the wisest and best men believed the koran." (ingersoll's "mistakes of moses," p. .) the pentateuch. "the pentateuch is affirmed to have been written by moses under the influence of divine inspiration. considered thus a record vouchsafed and dictated by the almighty, it commands not only scientific but universal consent. "but here in the first place it may be demanded, who or what is it that has put forth this great claim in its behalf? "not the work itself. it nowhere claims the authorship of one man, or makes the impious declaration that it is the writing of almighty god." (draper's "conflict between religion and science.") the bible not inspired. . the bible is full of errors: "in , the american bible society appointed a committee of its members to prepare a standard edition of king james's version, free from typographical errors. they prepared such an edition, correcting, as they stated, twenty-four thousand errors; but alarmed at the attacks made upon it, it was withdrawn; and the american bible society continues to this day to circulate for the word of god a book having in it twenty-four thousand acknowledged errors." ("common sense thoughts on the bible," wm. denton.) . the bible sanctions cruelties. the wars of extermination waged by the jews upon surrounding nations afford ample proof. . the bible indorses immorality. it indorses war, slavery, polygamy, intemperance, and superstition. . the writers of the gospels do not claim to be inspired. . we do not know when, where, or by whom, either the gospels or the books supposed to be written by moses, were composed. . paul says: "all scripture is given by inspiration of god; but there is ( .) no definite meaning attached to the word inspiration. ( .) he does not refer to the gospels for they had no existence when he wrote. . inspiration is not a success. there are a thousand different sects quarreling about the meaning of the "inspired scriptures." . inspiration should be pure. the bible abounds in obscenity. . the bible undergoes revisions, improvements, etc. an infallible book cannot be improved. . the bible has no plan or system, and hence has no definite object. millions upon millions of christians have differed regarding its teachings. . the bible is a fetich. millions of people have a slavish regard for the holy bible who have little or no respect for humanity, truth, or justice. god's ways are not our ways. "now this god either did or he did not believe in and command murder and rapine in the days when he used to sit around evenings and chat with abraham and moses and the rest of them. his especial plans and desires were 'revealed' or they were not. the ideas of justice and right were higher in those days than they are now, or else we are wiser and better than god, or else the bible is not his revealed will. you can take your choice. my choice is to keep my respect for divine justice and honor, and let the bible bear the burden of its own mistakes. "if religion is a revelation, then it is not a growth, and it would have been most perfect in design and plan when it was nearest its birth. now accepting the bible theory of jehovah, we find that when the communications of god were immediate and personal there could have been no mistake as to his will. to deal with it as a growth or evolution toward better things is to abandon the whole tenet of a revealed law of god. but to deal with it as a revelation is to make god a being too repulsive and brutal to contemplate for one moment with respect. "he either did or did not tell those men those things. which will you accept?" (helen gardener's "men, women, and gods.") "revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from god to man. no one will deny or dispute the power of the almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. but admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. when he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. it is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. "it is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication--after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and i have only his word for it that it was made to him. "when i am told that the koran was written in heaven, and brought to mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. [ ] i did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, i have a right not to believe it. "when also i am told that a woman called the virgin mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, joseph, said that an angel told him so, i have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this--for neither joseph nor mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so--it is hearsay upon hearsay, and i do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence. "it is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of jesus christ being the son of god. he was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. it was not a new thing at that time, to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. their jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. the jews who had kept strictly to the belief of one god, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story. "it is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the christian church, sprung out of the tail of heathen mythology. a direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. the trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand; the statue of mary succeeded the statue of diana of ephesus, the deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints; the mythologists had gods for everything; the christian mythologists had saints for everything; the church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and rome was the place of both. the christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud. "nothing that is here said can apply even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of jesus christ. he was a virtuous and an amiable man. the morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by confucius, and by some of the greek philosophers, many years before; by the quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any. "jesus christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or anything else; not a line of what is called the new testament is of his own writing. the history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. his historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground. "the first part, that of the miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected." (thomas paine's "age of reason.") self-contradictions of the bible. theological doctrines. god is satisfied with his works. and god saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. (gen. : .) god is dissatisfied with his works. and it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (gen. : .) god dwells in chosen temples. and the lord appeared to solomon by night, and said unto him: i have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.... for now have i chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. ( chr. : , .) god dwells not in temples. howbeit the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands. (acts : .) god dwells in light. dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto. ( tim. : .) god dwells in darkness. the lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. ( kings : .) he made darkness his secret place. (ps. : .) clouds and darkness are round about him. (ps. : .) god is seen and heard. and i will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts. (ex. : .) and the lord spake unto moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. (ex. : .) and the lord called unto adam, and said unto him, where art thou? and he said i heard thy voice in the garden, and i was afraid. (gen. : , .) for i have seen god face to face, and my life is preserved. (gen. : .) in the year that king uzziah died, i saw, also, the lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. (is. : .) then went up moses and aaron, nadab and abihu, and seventy of the elders of israel. and they saw the god of israel.... they saw god, and did eat and drink. (ex. : , , .) god is invisible and cannot be heard. no man hath seen god at any time. (john : .) ye have neither heard his voice, at any time, nor seen his shape. (john : .) and he said, thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live. (ex. : .) god is tired and rests. for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. (ex. : .) i am weary with repenting. (jer. : .) thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. (is. : .) god is never tired and never rests. hast thou never heard that the everlasting god, the lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, never is weary? (is. : .) god is omnipresent, sees and knows all things. the eyes of the lord are in every place. (prov. : .) whither shall i flee from thy presence? if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. (ps. : - .) there is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. for his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. (job : , .) god is not omnipresent, neither sees nor knows all things. and the lord came down to see the city and the tower. (gen. : .) and the lord said, because the cry of sodom and gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, i will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and, if not, i will know. (gen. : , .) and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord god, amongst the trees of the garden. (gen. : .) god knows the hearts of men. thou, lord, which knowest the hearts of all men. (acts : .) thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thought afar off. thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. (ps. : , .) for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. (ps. : .) god tries men to find out what is in their hearts. the lord, your god, proveth you, to know whether ye love the lord your god, with all your heart and with all your soul. (deut. : .) the lord thy god led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart. (deut. : .) for now i know that thou fearest god, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. (gen. : .) god is all-powerful. behold, i am the lord, the god of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?... there is nothing too hard for thee. (jer. : , .) with god all things are possible. (mat. : .) god is not all-powerful. and the lord was with judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. (judges : .) god is unchangeable. with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (james : .) for i am the lord; i change not. (mal. : .) i, the lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and i will do it. i will not go back, neither will i spare, neither will i repent. (ezekiel : .) god is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. (num. : .) god is changeable. and it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (gen. : .) and god saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and god repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. (jonah : .) wherefore the lord god of israel saith, i said indeed, that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me forever; but now the lord saith, be it far from me.... behold, the days come that i will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house. ( sam. : , .) in those days was hezekiah sick unto death. and the prophet isaiah, the son of amoz, came to him, and said unto him, thus saith the lord, set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.... and it came to pass afore isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the lord came unto him, saying, turn again and tell hezekiah, the captain of my people, thus saith the lord, ... i have heard thy prayer, ... and i will add unto thy days, fifteen years. ( kings : , , , .) and the lord said unto moses, depart and go up hence, thou and the people.... for i will not go up in the midst of thee.... and the lord said unto moses, i will do this thing, also, that thou hast spoken.... my presence shall go with thee, and i will give thee rest. (ex. : , , , .) god is just and impartial. the lord is upright, ... and there is no unrighteousness in him. (ps. : .) shall not the judge of all the earth do right? (gen. : .) a god of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. (deut. : .) there is no respect of persons with god. (rom. : .) ye say the way of the lord is not equal. hear now, o house of israel; is not my way equal? (ezek. : .) he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. love ye, therefore, the stranger. (deut. : , .) god is unjust and partial. cursed be canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. (gen. : .) for i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. (ex. : .) for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of god, according to election, might stand, ... it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. as it is written, jacob have i loved, but esau have i hated. (rom. : , , .) for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. (mat. : .) ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien. (deut. : .) and david spake unto the lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, lo, i have sinned, and i have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? ( sam. : .) god is not the author of evil. the law of the lord is perfect.... the statutes of the lord are right.... the commandment of the lord is pure. (ps. : , .) god is not the author of confusion. ( cor. : .) a god of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (deut. : .) for god cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. (james : .) god is the author of evil. out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not evil and good? (lam. : .) thus saith the lord, behold i frame evil against you and devise a device against you. (jer. : .) i make peace and create evil. i, the lord, do all these things. (is. : .) shall there be evil in a city, and the lord hath not done it? (amos : .) therefore i gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. (ezek. : .) god gives freely to those who ask. if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask god, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. (james : .) for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth. (luke : .) god withholds his blessings and prevents their reception. he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and i should heal them. (john : .) for it was of the lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor. (josh. : .) lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardened our heart? (is. : .) god is to be found by those who seek him. every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth. (mat. : .) those that seek me early shall find me. (prov. : .) god is not to be found by those who seek him. then shall they call upon me but i will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me. (prov. : .) and when ye spread forth your hands, i will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers i will not hear. (is. : .) they cried, but there was none to save them; even unto the lord, but he answered them not. (ps. : .) god is peaceful. the god of peace. (rom. : .) god is not the author of confusion, but of peace. ( cor. : .) god is warlike. the lord is a man of war. (ex. : .) the lord of hosts is his name. (is. : .) blessed be the lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight. (ps. : .) god is kind, merciful, and good. the lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. (james : .) for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. (lam. : .) for his mercy endureth forever. ( chron. : .) i have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the lord god. (ezek. : .) the lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. (ps. : .) who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. ( tim. : .) god is love. ( john : .) good and upright is the lord. (ps. : .) god is cruel, unmerciful, destructive, and ferocious. i will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them. (jer. : .) and thou shalt consume all the people which the lord thy god shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. (deut. : .) now go and smite amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling. ( sam. : , .) because they had looked into the ark of the lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand, and three score and ten men. ( sam. : .) the lord thy god is a consuming fire. (deut. : .) the lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them, ... and they died. (josh. : .) god's anger is slow, and endures but for a moment. the lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. (ps. : .) his anger endureth but a moment. (ps. : .) god's anger is fierce, frequent, and endures long. and the lord's anger was kindled against israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the lord was consumed. (num. : .) and the lord said unto moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the lord may be turned away from israel. (num. : .) for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn forever. (jer. : .) god is angry ["with the wicked," interpolated by the translators] everyday. (ps. : .) and the lord met him and sought to kill him. (ex. : .) god commands, approves of, and delights in burnt offerings, sacrifices, and holy days. thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement. (ex. : .) on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls and offer an offering made by fire unto the lord. (lev. : .) and thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar; ... it is a sweet savor; an offering made by fire unto the lord. (ex. : .) and the priest shall burn all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the lord. (lev. : .) god disapproves of, and has no pleasure in, burnt offerings, sacrifices, and holy days. for i spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that i brought them out of the land of egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. (jer. : .) your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me. (jer. : .) will i eat of the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? offer unto god thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the most high. (psalm : , .) bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies i cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.... to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the lord. i am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and i delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. when ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand? (is. : , , .) god forbids human sacrifice. take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them [the gentile nations;] ... for every abomination to the lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods. (deut. : , .) god commands and accepts human sacrifices. no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the lord of all that he hath, both of man and of beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the lord. none devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death. (lev. : , .) the king [david] took the two sons of rizpah, ... and the five sons of michael; ... and he delivered them into the hands of the gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the lord.... and after that god was entreated for the land. ( sam. : , , .) and he [god] said, take now thy son, thine only son isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering. (gen. : .) and jephthah vowed a vow unto the lord, and said, if thou shalt without fail deliver the children of ammon into my hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me when i return in peace from the children of ammon, shall surely be the lord's, and i will offer it up for a burnt offering. so jephthah passed over unto the children of ammon to fight against them; and the lord delivered them into his hands.... and jephthah came to mizpeh unto his house and behold, his daughter came out to meet him.... and he sent her away for two months; and she went with her companions and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. and it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned unto her father, who did according to his vow which he had vowed. (judges : , , , , , .) god tempts no man. let no man say when he is tempted, i am tempted of god; for god cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. (james : .) god does tempt men. and it came to pass after these things that god did tempt abraham. (gen. : .) and again the anger of the lord was kindled against israel, and he moved david against them to say, go number israel and judah. ( sam. : .) and the lord said unto satan, hast thou considered my servant job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth god and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. (job. : .) o lord, thou hast deceived me, and i was deceived, [marginal reading, enticed.] (jer. : .) lead us not into temptation. (mat. : .) god cannot lie. god is not a man, that he should lie. (num. : .) it was impossible for god to lie. (heb. : .) god lies; he sends forth lying spirits to deceive. ah, lord god! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people. (jer. : .) wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar? (jer. : .) for this cause god shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. ( thes. : .) now, therefore, behold, the lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. ( kings : .) then god sent an evil spirit. (judges : .) and if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, i the lord have deceived that prophet. (ezek. : .) because of man's wickedness god destroys him. and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.... and the lord said, i will destroy man whom i have created. (gen. : , .) because of man's wickedness god will not destroy him. and the lord said in his heart, i will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will i again smite any more every living thing. (gen. : .) god's attributes are revealed in his works. for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead. (rom. : .) god's attributes cannot be discovered. canst thou, by searching, find out god? (job. : .) there is no searching of his understanding. (is. : .) there is but one god. the lord our god is one lord. (deut. : .) there is none other god but one. ( cor. : .) there is a plurality of gods. and god said, let us make man in our image. (gen. : .) and the lord god said, behold the man is become as one of us. (gen. : .) and the lord appeared unto him [abraham] in the plains of mamre.... and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, my lord, if now i have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, i pray thee, from thy servant. (gen. : , , .) for there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the word, and the holy ghost. ( john : .) moral precepts. robbery commanded. when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the egyptians. (ex. : , .) and they borrowed of the egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment.... and they spoiled the egyptians. (ex. : , .) robbery forbidden. thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. (lev. : .) thou shalt not steal. (ex. : .) lying commanded, approved, and sanctioned. and the lord said unto samuel, ... i will send thee to jesse, the bethlemite; for i have provided me a king among his sons. and samuel said, how can i go? if saul hear it he will kill me. and the lord said, take a heifer with thee, and say, i am come to sacrifice to the lord. ( sam. : , .) and the woman [rahab] took the two men and hid them and said thus: there came men unto me, but i wist not whence they were; and it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out; whither the men went i wot not; pursue after them quickly, for ye shall overtake them. but she had brought them up to the roof of the house and hid them with the stalks of flax. (josh. : , , .) was not rahab, the harlot, justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had them sent out another way? (james : .) and the king of egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? and the midwives said unto pharaoh, because the hebrew women are not as the egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. therefore god dealt well with the midwives. (ex. : - .) and there came forth a spirit, and stood before the lord, and said, i will persuade him ... i will go forth and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. and he said, thou shalt persuade him and prevail also; go forth and do so. ( kings : , .) ye shall know my breach of promise. (num. : .) for if the truth of god hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am i also judged as a sinner? (rom. : .) being crafty, i caught you with guile. ( cor. : .) lying forbidden. thou shalt not bear false witness. (ex. : .) lying lips are an abomination to the lord. (prov. : .) all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. (rev. : .) killing commanded and sanctioned. thus saith the lord god of israel, put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. (ex. : .) so jehu slew all that remained of the house of ahab.... and the lord said unto jehu, because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of ahab according to all that was in my heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of israel. ( kings : , .) killing forbidden. thou shalt not kill. (ex. : .) no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. ( john : .) the blood-shedder must die. at the hand of every man's brother will i require the life of man. whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. (gen. : , .) the blood-shedder must not die. and the lord set a mark upon cain, lest any finding him should kill him. (gen. : .) the making of images forbidden. thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that in in the earth beneath. (ex. : .) the making of images commanded. thou shalt make two cherubims of gold.... and the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another. (ex. : , .) slavery and oppression ordained. cursed be canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. (gen. : .) of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy.... they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your brethren, the children of israel, ye shall not rule with rigor. (lev. : , .) i will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the children of judah, and they shall sell them to the sabeans, to a people afar off; for the lord hath spoken it. (joel : .) slavery and oppression forbidden. undo the heavy burdens.... let the oppressed go free, ... break every yoke. (is. : .) thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him. (ex. : .) he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. (ex. : .) neither be ye called masters. (mat. : .) improvidence enjoined. consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.... if god so clothe the grass of the field ... shall he not much more clothe you?... therefore, take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?... take, therefore, no thought for the morrow. (mat. : , , , .) give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again.... and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great. (luke : , .) sell that ye have and give alms. (luke : .) improvidence condemned. but if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. ( tim. : .) a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children. (prov. : .) anger approved. be ye angry and sin not. (eph. : .) and he [elisha] turned back and looked on them and cursed them in the name of the lord. and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tare forty and two children of them. ( kings : .) and when he had looked round about on them with anger, ... he saith unto the man, stretch forth thy hand. (mark : .) anger disapproved. be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry; for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. (eccl. : .) make no friendship with an angry man. (prov. : .) the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of god. (james : .) good works to be seen of men. let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works. (mat. : .) good works not to be seen of men. take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. (mat. : .) judging of others forbidden. judge not, that ye be not judged. for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. (mat. : , .) judging of others approved. do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? if, then, ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. ( cor. : , , .) do not ye judge them that are within? ( cor. : .) jesus taught non-resistance. resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn him the other also. (mat. : .) all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (mat. : .) jesus taught and practiced physical resistance. he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. (luke : .) and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple. (john : .) jesus warned his followers not to fear being killed. be not afraid of them that kill the body. (luke : .) jesus himself avoided the jews for fear of being killed. after these things jesus walked in galilee; for he would not walk in jewry, because the jews sought to kill him. (john : .) public prayer sanctioned. and solomon stood before the altar of the lord, in the presence of all the congregation of israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven. [then follows the prayer.] and it was so, that when solomon had made an end of praying all his prayer and supplication unto the lord, he arose from before the altar of the lord, from kneeling on his knees, with his hands spread up to heaven.... and the lord said unto him, i have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me. ( kings : , , and : .) public prayer disapproved. when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.... but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret. (mat. : , .) importunity in prayer commended. because this widow troubleth me, i will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.... and shall not god avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him? (luke : , .) because of his importunity he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth. (luke : .) importunity in prayer condemned. but when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. be ye not therefore like unto them; for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. (mat. : , .) the wearing of long hair by men sanctioned. and no razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a nazarite unto god from the womb. (judges : .) all the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head; until the days be fulfilled in the which he separateth himself unto the lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow. (num. : .) the wearing of long hair by men condemned. doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? ( cor. : .) circumcision instituted. this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee: every man child among you shall be circumcised. (gen. : .) circumcision condemned. behold, i, paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, christ shall profit you nothing. (gal. : .) the sabbath instituted. and god blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. (gen. : .) remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. (ex. : .) the sabbath repudiated. the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, i cannot away with; it is iniquity. (is. : .) one man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (rom. : .) let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon; or of the sabbath days. (col. : .) the sabbath instituted because god rested the seventh day. for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (ex. : .) the sabbath instituted for a very different reason. and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of egypt, and that the lord thy god brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the lord thy god commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. (deut. : .) no work to be done on the sabbath under penalty of death. whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (ex. : .) they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.... and all the congregation brought him without the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the lord commanded moses. (num. : , .) jesus broke the sabbath and justified the act. therefore did the jews persecute jesus, and sought to slay him because he had done these things on the sabbath day. (john : .) at that time jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were a hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. but when the pharisees saw it they said unto him, behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day. but he said unto them, ... have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? (mat. : , , , .) baptism commanded. go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost. (mat. : .) baptism not commanded. for christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.... i thank god that i baptized none of you but crispus and gaius. ( cor. : , .) every kind of animal allowed for food. every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. (gen. : .) whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat. ( cor. : .) there is nothing unclean of itself. (rom. : .) certain kinds of animals prohibited for food. nevertheless, these shall ye not eat, of them that chew the cud or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel and the hare, and the coney; for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore, they are unclean unto you. and the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass. (deut. : , .) the taking of oaths sanctioned. if a man vow a vow unto the lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. (num. : .) he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the god of truth. (is. : .) now, therefore, swear unto me here by god.... and abraham said, i will swear.... there they sware both of them. (gen. : , , .) because he [god] could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. (heb. : .) and i ... made them swear by god. (neh. : .) the taking of oaths forbidden. but i say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven for it is god's throne; nor by the earth for it is his footstool. (mat. : .) marriage approved and sanctioned. and the lord said, it is not good that the man should be alone: i will make him a help-meet for him. (gen. : .) and god said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. (gen. : .) for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. (mat. : .) marriage is honorable in all. (heb. : .) marriage disapproved. it is good for a man not to touch a woman.... for i [paul] would that all men were even as i myself.... it is good for them if they abide even as i. ( cor. : , , .) freedom of divorce permitted. when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, ... then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. (deut. : .) when thou goest out to war against thine enemies, and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thy hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman and hast a desire unto her, ... then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; ... and after that thou shalt go in unto her and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. and it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money; thou shalt not make merchandize of her. (deut. : - .) divorce restricted. but i say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. (mat. : .) adultery sanctioned. but all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (num. : .) and the lord said unto hosea, go, take thee a wife of whoredoms.... then said the lord to me, go yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress.... so i bought her; ... and i said unto her, thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man; so will i also be for thee. (hosea : , and : , , .) adultery forbidden. thou shalt not commit adultery. (ex. : .) whoremongers and adulterers god will judge. (heb. : .) marriage or cohabitation with a sister denounced. cursed is he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. (deut. : .) and if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, ... it is a wicked thing. (lev. : .) abraham married his sister, and god blessed the union. and abraham said, ... she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. (gen. : , .) and god said unto abraham, as for sarah, thy wife, ... i will bless her, and give thee a son also of her. (gen. : , .) a man may marry his brother's widow. if brethren dwell together, and one of them die and have no child the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger; her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife. (deut. : .) a man may not marry his brother's widow. if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing; ... they shall be childless. (lev. : .) hatred to kindred enjoined. if any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (luke : .) hatred to kindred condemned. honor thy father and mother. (eph. : .) husbands, love your wives.... for no man ever yet hated his own flesh. (eph. : , .) whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. ( john : .) intoxicating beverages recommended. give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts. let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. (prov. : , .) and thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink. (deut. : .) drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities. ( tim. : .) wine that maketh glad the heart of man. (ps. : .) wine which cheereth god and man. (judges : .) intoxicating beverages discountenanced. wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. (prov. : .) look not thou upon the wine when it is red; when it giveth his color in the cup.... at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. (prov. : , .) it is our duty to obey rulers, who are god's ministers and punish evil doers only. let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god; the powers that be are ordained of god. whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of god; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. for rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil.... for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are god's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. (rom. : , , , .) the scribes and pharisees sit in moses seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. (mat. : , .) submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent of him for the punishment of evil-doers. ( pet. : , .) i counsel thee to keep the king's commandment.... whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing. (eccl. : , .) it is not our duty always to obey rulers, who sometimes punish the good, and receive damnation therefor. but the midwives feared god, and did not as the king of egypt commanded them.... therefore god dealt well with the midwives. (ex. : , .) shadrach, meshach, and abednego answered and said, ... be it known unto thee, o king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (dan. : , .) wherefore king darius signed the writing and the decree, ... (that whoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, ... he shall be cast into the den of lions).... now, when daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and ... kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed, ... as he did aforetime. (dan. : , , .) and the rulers were gathered together against the lord and against his christ. for of a truth, against thy holy child jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both herod and pontius pilate, with the gentiles, and the people of israel, were gathered together. (acts : , .) beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the market places, and the chief seats in the synagogues.... these shall receive greater damnation. (mark : , , .) and herod with his men of war set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to pilate.... and pilate gave sentence.... and when they were come to the place which is called calvary, there they crucified him.... and the people stood by beholding. and the rulers also with them derided him. (luke : , , , .) woman's rights denied. and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (gen. : .) i suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. ( tim. : .) they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. ( cor. : .) even as sarah obeyed abraham, calling him lord. ( peter : .) woman's rights affirmed. and deborah, a prophetess, ... judged israel at that time.... and deborah said unto barak, up, for this is the day in which the lord hath delivered sisera into thy hand.... and the lord discomfited sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before barak. (judges : , , .) the inhabitants of the villages ceased; they ceased in israel, until that i, deborah, arose, that i arose, a mother in israel. (judges : .) and on my hand-maidens i will pour out in those days my spirit, and they shall prophesy. (acts : .) and the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. (acts : .) obedience to masters enjoined. servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh.... and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the lord. (col. : , .) servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. ( peter : .) obedience due to god only. thou shalt worship the lord thy god, and him only shalt thou serve. (mat. : .) be ye not the servants of men. ( cor. : .) neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, even christ. (mat. : .) there is an unpardonable sin. he that shall blaspheme against the holy ghost hath never forgiveness. (mark : .) there is no unpardonable sin. and by him all that believe are justified from all things. (acts : .) historical facts. man was created after the other animals. and god made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind.... and god said, let us make man.... so god created man in his own image. (gen. : , , .) man was created before the other animals. and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him a help-meet for him. and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them. (gen. : , .) noah, by god's command, took into the ark clean beasts by sevens. and the lord said unto noah, ... of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens.... and noah did according to all that the lord commanded him. (gen. : , , .) noah, by god's command, took into the ark clean beasts by twos. of clean beasts ... there went in two and two unto noah into the ark, ... as god had commanded noah. (gen. : , .) seed time and harvest were never to cease. while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest ... shall not cease. (gen. : .) seed time and harvest did cease for seven years. and the seven years of dearth began to come.... and the famine was over all the face of the earth. (gen. : , .) for these two years hath the famine been in the land; and yet there are five years in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. (gen. : .) god hardened pharaoh's heart. but i will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. (ex. : .) and the lord hardened the heart of pharaoh. (ex. : .) pharaoh hardened his own heart. but when pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them. (ex. : .) all the cattle and horses in egypt died. behold, the hand of the lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep.... and all the cattle of egypt died. (ex. : , .) all the horses of egypt did not die. but the egyptians pursued after them (all the horses and chariots of pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army) and overtook them encamping by the sea. (ex. : .) john the baptist recognized jesus as the messiah. the next day john seeth jesus coming unto him, and saith, behold the lamb of god, which taketh away the sin of the world.... and i saw and bare record that this is the son of god. (john : , .) john the baptist did not recognize jesus as the messiah. now, when john had heard in the prison the works of christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? (mat. : , .) john the baptist was elias. this is elias which was for to come. (mat. : .) john the baptist was not elias. and they asked him, "what then? art thou elias? and he saith, i am not. (john : .) the father of joseph, mary's husband, was jacob. and jacob begat joseph, the husband of mary, of whom was born jesus. (mat. : .) the father of mary's husband was heli. being ... the son of joseph which was the son of heli. (luke : .) the father of salah was arphaxad. and arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begat salah. (gen. : .) the father of sala was cainan. which was the son of sala, which was the son of cainan, which was the son of arphaxad. (luke : , .) the infant jesus was taken into egypt. he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into egypt, and was there until the death of herod.... but when herod was dead ... he arose and took the young child and his mother and came ... and dwelt in a city called nazareth. (mat. : , , , , .) the infant jesus was not taken into egypt. and when the days of her purification, according to the law of moses, were accomplished, they brought him to jerusalem, to present him to the lord.... and when they had performed all things, according to the law of the lord, they returned ... to their own city, nazareth. (luke : , .) jesus was tempted in the wilderness. and immediately [after his baptism] the spirit driveth him into the wilderness. and he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of satan. (mark : , .) jesus was not tempted in the wilderness. and the third day [after his baptism] there was a marriage in cana of galilee.... and both jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage. (john : , .) jesus preached his first sermon sitting on the mount. and, seeing the multitude, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set his disciples came unto him. and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying. (mat. : , .) he preached his first sermon standing in the plain. and he came down with them and stood in the plain; and the company of his disciples and a great multitude of people ... came to hear him.... and he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said. (luke : , .) john was in prison when jesus went into galilee. now, after that john was put in prison, jesus came into galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of god. (mark : .) john was not in prison when jesus went into galilee. the day following jesus would go forth into galilee. (john : .) after these things came jesus and his disciples into the land of judea.... and john was also baptizing in enon.... for john was not yet cast into prison. (john : , , .) the disciples were commanded to take a staff and sandals. and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse; but be shod with sandals. (mark : , .) they were commanded to take neither staves nor sandals. provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves. (mat. : , .) two blind men besought jesus. and behold, two blind men sitting by the way-side, when they heard that jesus passed by, cried out, saying, have mercy on us, o lord thou son of david. (mat. : .) only one blind man besought him. a certain blind man sat by the way-side begging.... and he cried, saying, jesus, thou son of david, have mercy on me. (luke : , .) two men coming out of the tombs met jesus. there met him two, possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs. (mat. : .) only one man coming out of the tombs met him. there met him, coming out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. (mark : .) a centurion besought jesus to heal his servant. there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy. (mat. : , .) not the centurion, but his messengers, besought jesus. he sent unto him the elders of the jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. and when they came to jesus, they besought him. (luke : , .) jesus was crucified at the third hour. and it was the third hour, and they crucified him. (mark : .) he was not crucified until the sixth hour. and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour; and he saith unto the jews, behold your king.... shall i crucify your king? (john : , .) the two thieves reviled jesus. the thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. (mat. : .) and they that were crucified with him, reviled him. (mark : .) only one of the thieves reviled him. and one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him.... but the other answering, rebuked him, saying, dost thou not fear god, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? (luke : , .) vinegar mingled with gall was offered jesus. they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall. (mat. : .) wine mingled with myrrh was offered to him. and they gave him to drink, wine mingled with myrrh. (mark : .) satan entered into judas while at the supper. and after the sop satan entered into him. (john : .) satan entered into him before the supper. then entered satan into judas.... and he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him.... then came the day of unleavened bread when the passover must be killed. (luke : , , .) judas returned the pieces of silver. then judas ... brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. (mat. : .) judas did not return the pieces of silver. now, this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity. (acts : .) judas hanged himself. and he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. (mat. : .) judas did not hang himself, but died another way. and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. (acts : .) the potter's field was purchased by judas. now, this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity. (acts : .) the potter's field was purchased by the chief priests. and the chief priests took the silver pieces ... and bought with them the potter's field. (mat. : , .) but one woman came to the sepulcher. the first day of the week cometh mary magdalene, early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher. (john : .) two women came to the sepulcher. in the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came mary magdalene, and the other mary, to see the sepulcher. (mat. : .) three women came to the sepulcher. and when the sabbath was past, mary magdalene, and mary the mother of james, and salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. (mark : .) more than three women came to the sepulcher. it was mary magdalene, and joanna, and mary the mother of james, and other women that were with them. (luke : .) it was at sunrise when they came to the sepulcher. and very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher, at the rising of the sun. (mark : .) it was some time before sunrise when they came. the first day of the week, cometh mary magdalene, early, while it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher. (john : .) two angels were seen at the sepulcher, standing up. and it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. (luke : .) but one angel was seen, and he was sitting down. for the angel of the lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.... and the angel answered and said unto the women, fear not. (mat. : , .) two angels were seen within the sepulcher. and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white. (john : , .) but one angel was seen within the sepulcher. and entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment. (mark : .) the one angel seen was without the sepulcher. the angel ... rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. (mat. : .) the women went and told the disciples of christ's resurrection. and they departed quickly from the sepulcher, with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word. (mat. : .) and returned from the sepulcher, and told all these things unto the eleven. (luke : .) the women did not go and tell the disciples. and they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher; for they trembled and were amazed; neither said they anything to any man. (mark : .) the angels appeared after peter and john visited the sepulcher. peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, [whom jesus loved,] and came to the sepulcher, ... and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes.... then the disciples went away again. but mary stood without at the sepulcher, weeping; and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white. (john : , , - .) the angels appeared before peter alone visited the sepulcher. behold, two men stood by them [the women] in shining garments.... and they ... returned from the sepulcher, and told all these things unto the eleven.... then arose peter, and ran unto the sepulcher, and stooping down he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed wondering. (luke : , , .) jesus appeared first to mary magdalene only. now, when jesus was risen early, the first day of the week, he appeared first to mary magdalene. (mark : .) and when she had thus said, she turned herself back and saw jesus standing, and knew not that it was jesus. (john : .) jesus appeared first to the two marys. and as they [mary magdalene and the other mary] went to tell his disciples, behold jesus met them, saying, all hail. (mat. : .) he appeared to neither of the marys. (see luke : - .) jesus was to be three days and three nights in the grave. so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (mat. : .) he was but two days and two nights in the grave. and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.... it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath.... and pilate ... gave the body to joseph. and he ... laid him in a sepulcher.... now, when jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to mary magdalene. (mark : , , , , ; and : .) the holy ghost was bestowed at pentecost. but ye shall receive power after that the holy ghost is come upon you.... ye shall be baptized with the holy ghost not many days hence. (acts : , .) and when the day of pentecost was fully come they were all of one accord in one place.... and they were all filled with the holy ghost. (acts : , .) the holy ghost was bestowed before pentecost. and when he said this he breathed on them, and saith unto them, receive ye the holy ghost. (john : .) the disciples were commanded immediately after the resurrection to go into galilee. then said jesus unto them, be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go into galilee, and there shall they see me. (mat. : .) they were commanded immediately after the resurrection to tarry at jerusalem. but tarry ye in the city of jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. (luke : .) jesus first appeared to the eleven disciples in a room at jerusalem. and they rose up the same hour and returned to jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together.... and as they thus spake, jesus himself stood in the midst of them.... but they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. (luke : , , .) the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, ... came jesus and stood in the midst. (john : .) he first appeared to them on a mountain in galilee. then the eleven disciples went away into galilee, into a mountain where jesus had appointed them. and when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. (mat. : , .) jesus ascended from mount olivet. and when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.... then returned they unto jerusalem, from the mount called olivet. (acts : , .) he ascended from bethany. and he led them out as far as to bethany; and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. and it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. (luke : , .) did he ascend from either place? afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief.... so then, after the lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven. (mark : , .) paul's attendants heard the voice, and stood speechless. and the men which journeyed with him [paul] stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man. (acts : .) his attendants heard not the voice, and were prostrate. and they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. (acts : .) and when we were all fallen to the earth, i heard a voice. (acts : .) abraham departed to go into canaan. and abram took sarah, his wife, and lot, his brother's son, ... and they went forth to go into the land of canaan, and into the land of canaan they came. (gen. : .) abraham went not knowing where. by faith abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. (heb. : .) abraham had two sons. abraham had two sons; one by a bond-maid, the other by a free woman. (gal. : .) abraham had but one son. by faith, abraham when he was tried offered up isaac, ... his only begotten son. (heb. : .) keturah was abraham's wife. then again abraham took a wife, and her name was keturah. (gen. : .) keturah was abraham's concubine. the sons of keturah, abraham's concubine. ( chron. : .) abraham begat a son when he was a hundred years old, by the interposition of providence. sarah conceived and bare abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which god had spoken to him. (gen. : .) and being not weak in the faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about a hundred years old. (rom. : .) therefore sprang there from one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky. (heb. : .) abraham begat six children more after he was a hundred years old, without any interposition of providence. then again abraham took a wife, and her name was keturah; and she bare him zimram, and jockshan, and medan, and midian, and ishbak, and shuah. (gen. : , .) jacob bought a sepulcher of the sons of hamor. and the bones of joseph ... buried they in shechem, in a parcel of ground which jacob bought of the sons of hamor, the father of shechem. (josh. : .) abraham bought it of the sons of emmor. in the sepulcher that abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of emmor, the father of sychem. (acts : .) god promised the land of canaan to abraham and his seed. and the lord said unto abraham,... all the land which thou seest, to thee will i give it, and to thy seed forever.... unto thee and to thy seed after thee. (gen. : , , and : .) abraham and his seed never received the promised land. and he gave him [abraham] none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. (acts : .) by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with isaac and jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.... these all died in faith, not having received the promises. (heb. : , .) baasha died in the twenty-sixth year of asa. so baasha slept with his fathers, ... and elah, his son, reigned in his stead.... in the twenty and sixth year of asa, king of judah, began elah to reign over israel. ( kings : , .) baasha did not die in the twenty-sixth year of asa. in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of asa, baasha, king of israel, came up against judah. ( chron. : .) ahaziah was the youngest son of jehoram. and the inhabitants of jerusalem made ahaziah, his [jehoram's] youngest son, king in his stead; for the band of men that came with the arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. ( chron. : .) ahaziah was not the youngest son of jehoram. the lord stirred up against jehoram the spirit of the philistines, and of the arabians, ... and they came up into judah ... and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, and sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. ( chron. : , .) ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, being eighteen years younger than his father. thirty and two years old was he [jehoram] when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in jerusalem.... and ahaziah reigned in his stead.... two and twenty years old was ahaziah when he began to reign. ( kings : , , .) ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign, being two years older than his father. thirty and two years old was he [jehoram] when he began to reign, and he reigned in jerusalem eight years. and the inhabitants of jerusalem made ahaziah his youngest son, king in his stead. forty and two years old was ahaziah when he began to reign. ( chron. : , and : , .) michal had no child. therefore michal, the daughter of saul, had no child unto the day of her death. ( sam. : .) michal had five children. the five sons of michal, the daughter of saul. ( sam. : .) david was tempted by the lord to number the people. and the anger of the lord was kindled against israel, and he moved david against them to say, go, number israel and judah. ( sam. : .) david was tempted by satan to number the people. and satan stood up against israel, and provoked david to number israel. ( chron. : .) there were , warriors of israel and , of judah. and joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king; and there were in israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of judah five hundred thousand men. ( sam. : .) there were , , of israel and , of judah. and joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto david. and all they of israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand [ , , ] men that drew the sword; and judah was four hundred three score and ten thousand [ , ] men that drew the sword. ( chron. : .) david sinned in numbering the people. and david's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. and david said unto the lord, i have sinned greatly in that i have done. ( sam. : .) david never sinned except in the matter of uriah. david did that which was right in the eyes of the lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of uriah the hittite. ( kings : .) david slew syrian charioteers and , horsemen. and david slew the men of the seven hundred chariots of the syrians, and forty thousand horsemen. ( sam. : .) david slew , syrian charioteers and , footmen. and david slew of the syrians seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen. ( chron. : .) david paid for a threshing floor fifty shekels of silver. so david bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. ( sam. : .) david paid for it six hundred shekels of gold. so david gave to ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold. ( chron. : .) goliath was slain by david. and there went out a champion out of the camp of the philistines, named goliath of gath.... so david ... smote the philistine and slew him. ( sam. : , .) goliath was slain by elhanan. elhanan, the son of jaare-origim, a bethlehemite, slew ["the brother of," supplied by the translators] goliath the gittite. ( sam. : .) speculative doctrines. christ is equal with god. i and my father are one. (john : .) who, being in the form of god, thought it not robbery to be equal with god. (phil. : .) christ is not equal with god. my father is greater than i. (john : .) of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only. (mat. : .) christ judged men. the father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the son.... as i hear i judge. (john : , .) christ judged no man. i judge no man. (john : .) if any man hear my words and believe not, i judge him not; for i came not to judge the world, but to save the world. (john : .) jesus was all powerful. all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (mat. : .) the father loveth the son, and hath given all things into his hand. (john : .) jesus was not all powerful. and he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk and healed them. (mark : .) the law was superceded by the christian dispensation. the law and the prophets were until john; since that time the kingdom of god is preached. (luke : .) having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. (eph. : .) but now we are delivered from the law. (rom. : .) the law was not superceded by the christian dispensation. i come not to destroy but to fulfill. for verily i say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. (mat. : , , .) christ's mission was peace. and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising god and saying, glory to god in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (luke : , .) and thou, child, shall be called the prophet of the highest.... to guide our feet into the way of peace. (luke : , .) and his name shall be called ... the prince of peace. (is. : .) christ's mission was not peace. think not that i am come to send peace on earth; i came not to send peace, but a sword. (mat. : .) i am come to send fire on the earth. (luke : .) christ received not testimony from man. ye sent unto john and he bare witness unto the truth. but i receive not testimony from man. (john : , .) christ did receive testimony from man. and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. (john : .) christ's witness of himself is true. i am one that bear witness of myself.... though i bear record of myself, yet my record is true. (john : , .) christ's witness of himself is not true. if i bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. (john : .) it was lawful for the jews to put jesus to death. the jews answered him, we have a law, and by our law he ought to die. (john : .) it was not lawful for the jews to put him to death. the jews therefore said unto him, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death. (john : .) children are punished for the sins of their parents. i, the lord thy god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. (ex. : .) because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. ( sam. : .) children are not punished for the sins of their parents. the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. (ezek. : .) neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. (deut. : .) man is justified by faith alone. by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified. (rom. : .) knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of jesus christ. (gal. : .) the just shall live by faith. and the law is not of faith. (gal. : , .) for if abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory. (rom. : .) man is not justified by faith alone. was not abraham our father justified by works?... ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. (james : , .) the doers of the law shall be justified. (rom. : .) it is impossible to fall from grace. and i give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. (john : .) neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord. (rom. : , .) it is possible to fall from grace. but when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die. (ezek. : .) for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost, and have tasted the good word of god, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. (heb. : , , .) for if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the lord and savior jesus christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. ( peter : , .) no man is without sin. for there is no man that sinneth not. ( kings : .) who can say, i have made my heart clean; i am pure from my sin? (prov. : .) for there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not. (eccl. : .) there is none righteous, no, not one. (rom. : .) christians are sinless. whosoever is born of god doth not commit sin; ... he cannot sin, because he is born of god.... whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.... he that committeth sin is of the devil. ( john : , , .) there is to be a resurrection of the dead. the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised. ( cor. : .) and i saw the dead, small and great, stand before god; ... and they were judged, every man according to their works. (rev. : , .) the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth. (john : , .) for if the dead rise not, then is not christ raised. ( cor. : .) there is to be no resurrection of the dead. as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. (job : .) the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward. (eccl. : .) they are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise. (is. : .) reward and punishment to be bestowed in this world. behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner. (prov. : .) reward and punishment to be bestowed in the next world. and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (rev. : .) then he shall reward every man according to his works. (mat. : .) according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. ( cor. : .) annihilation the portion of all mankind. why died not i from the womb? why did i not give up the ghost when i came out of the belly?... for now should i have lain still and been quiet; i should have slept; then had i been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver; or as a hidden, untimely birth i had not been; as infants which never saw the light. there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.... the small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master. wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul, which long for death, but it cometh not, ... which rejoice exceedingly and are glad, when they can find the grave? (job. : , - , - .) the dead know not anything.... for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. (eccl. : , .) for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast.... all go unto one place. (eccl. : , .) endless misery the portion of a part of mankind. these shall go away into everlasting punishment. (mat. : .) and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.... and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (rev. : , .) and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. (rev. : .) and many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (dan. : .) the earth is to be destroyed. the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. ( peter : .) they shall perish, but thou remainest. (heb. : .) and i saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. (rev. : .) the earth is never to be destroyed. who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed forever. (ps. : .) but the earth abideth forever. (eccl. : .) no evil shall happen to the godly. there shall no evil happen to the just. (prov. : .) who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? ( peter : .) evil does happen to the godly. whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. (heb. : .) and the lord said unto satan, hast thou considered my servant, job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man?... so went satan forth ... and smote job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. (job : , .) worldly good and prosperity the lot of the godly. there shall no evil happen to the just. (prov. : .) for the lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved forever.... the wicked watcheth the righteous and seeketh to slay him. the lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.... mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace. (ps. : , , , .) blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.... whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. (ps. : , .) and the lord was with joseph, and he was a prosperous man. (gen. : .) so the lord blessed the latter end of job more than his beginning. (job : .) worldly misery and destitution the lot of the godly. they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; ... they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (heb. : , .) these are they which came out of great tribulation. (rev. : .) yea, and all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution. ( tim. : .) and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. (luke : .) worldly prosperity a blessing and a reward of righteousness. there is no man that hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands. (mark : , .) i have been young, and now am old; yet have i not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. (ps. : .) blessed is the man that feareth the lord.... wealth and riches shall be in his house. (ps. : , .) if thou return unto the almighty, thou shalt be built up.... then thou shalt lay up gold as dust. (job : , .) in the house of the righteous is much treasure. (prov. : .) worldly prosperity a curse and a bar to future reward. blessed be ye poor. (luke : .) lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.... for where your treasure is there will your heart be also. (mat. : , .) and it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into abraham's bosom. (luke : .) it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god. (mat. : .) wo unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. (luke : .) the christian yoke is easy. come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest. take my yoke upon you.... for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (mat. : - .) who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? ( peter : .) the christian yoke is not easy. in the world ye shall have tribulation. (john : .) yea, and all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution. ( tim. : .) whom the lord loveth be chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.... but if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. (heb. : , .) the fruit of god's spirit is love and gentleness. the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. (gal. : .) the fruit of god's spirit is vengeance and fury. and the spirit of the lord came mightily upon him.... and he ... slew a thousand men. (judges : , .) and it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from god came upon saul, ... and there was a javelin in saul's hand. and saul cast the javelin; for he said, i will smite david even to the wall with it. ( sam. : , .) prosperity and longevity enjoyed by the wicked. wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. their houses are safe from fear. (job : , , .) they [men of the world] are full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes. (ps. : .) i was envious at the foolish when i saw the prosperity of the wicked.... they are not in trouble as other men.... behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. (ps. : , , .) there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. (eccl. : .) wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? (jer. : .) prosperity and longevity denied to the wicked. the light of the wicked shall be put out.... terrors shall make him afraid on every side.... he shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. he shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings. (job. : , , , .) but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days. (eccl. : .) bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. (ps. : .) the years of the wicked shall be shortened. (prov. : .) they [the hypocrites] die in youth. (job. : .) be not over much wicked, neither be foolish; why shouldst thou die before your time? (eccl. : .) poverty is a blessing. blessed be ye poor.... woe unto you that are rich! (luke : , .) hath not god chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom? (james : .) riches a blessing. the rich man's wealth is his strong tower, but the destruction of the poor is their poverty. (prov. : .) if thou return unto the almighty then thou shalt be built up.... thou shalt then lay up gold as dust. (job : , .) so the lord blessed the latter end of job more than his beginning, for he had , sheep, and , camels and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. (job : .) neither poverty nor riches a blessing. give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me; lest i be full and deny thee, and say, who is the lord? or lest i be poor and steal, and take the name of my god in vain. (prov. : , .) wisdom a source of enjoyment. happy is the man that findeth wisdom.... her ways are ways of pleasantness, and in her paths are peace. (prov. : , .) wisdom a source of vexation, grief, and sorrow. and i gave my heart to know wisdom.... i perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. for in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. (eccl. : , .) a good name a blessing. a good name is better than precious ointment. (eccl. : .) a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. (prov. : .) a good name is a curse. woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. (luke : .) laughter commended. to everything there is a season, and a time.... a time to weep and a time to laugh. (eccl. : , .) then i commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drink, and to be merry. (eccl. : .) a merry heart doeth good, like a medicine. (prov. : .) laughter condemned. woe unto you that laugh now. (luke : .) sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (eccl. : , .) the rod of correction a remedy for foolishness. foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (prov. : .) there is no remedy for foolishness. though thou shouldst bray a fool in mortar, ... yet will not his foolishness depart from him. (prov. : .) temptation to be desired. count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. (james : .) temptation not to be desired. lead us not into temptation. (mat. : .) prophecy is sure. we have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. ( peter : .) prophecy is not sure. at what instant i shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom i have pronounced, turn from their evil, i will repent of the evil that i thought to do unto them. and at what instant i shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then i will repent of the good wherewith i said i would benefit them. (jer. : - .) the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means.... from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. (jer. : , and : .) man's life was to be one hundred and twenty years. his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. (gen. : .) man's life is but seventy years. the days of our years are three score years and ten. (ps. : .) miracles a proof of divine mission. now, when john had heard in the prison the works of christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? jesus answered and said unto them, go and show john again those things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised. (mat. : - .) rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from god; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except god be with him. (john : .) and israel saw that great work which the lord did upon the egyptians; and the people feared the lord and believed the lord and his servant moses. (ex. : .) miracles not a proof of divine mission. and aaron cast down his rod before pharaoh, and before his servants and it became a serpent. then pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. now, the magicians of egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments, for they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents. (ex. : - .) if there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. (deut. : - .) if i by beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do our sons cast them out? (luke : .) moses was a very meek man. now, the man moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. (num. : .) moses was a very cruel man. and moses said unto them, have ye saved all the women alive?... now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man. (num. : , .) elijah went up to heaven. and elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. ( kings : .) none but christ ever ascended into heaven. no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man. (john : .) all scripture is inspired. all scripture is given by inspiration of god. ( tim. : .) some scripture is not inspired. but i speak this by permission and not by commandment.... but to the rest speak i, not the lord. ( cor. : , and : .) that which i speak, i speak it not after the lord. ( cor. : .) the devil. i have nothing new to offer on this old subject, and i therefore warn the reader not to expect any wonderful revelations. the devil is not an object of recent discovery. he is as old as the hills. everybody seems to know him, and he seems to know everybody. it would therefore be in vain for me to attempt to give any information respecting this old friend. however, as there are some thoughts which persist in bolting into my mind regarding old nick, i have concluded to jot them down for those who have a taste for devilish reading. it was always a question that greatly perplexed me, when a boy, why god should create the devil. i never could see it in any other light than that of an egregious blunder. why should an infinitely good being create an infinitely bad being? why did not the creator make all of his creatures perfect? why did he not save them from being lost? why did he form man to place him in the garden to be tempted and ruined when it was in the creator's power to prevent his fall? why did he not create him so good and so strong that it would be impossible for him to do wrong? why was the serpent (the devil) made so much stronger and wiser than man? if adam had only been made a great deal stronger, and the serpent less seductive, the human race might have had a glorious and brilliant career. but as it was a powerful serpent-devil on the one hand, and on the other, a weak-headed know-nothing man, is it not clear that better results could not have been expected? why did not the author of the red man (adam) tell him that he was going to have a severe temptation?--that he was soon to meet his great adversary? it is highly probable that adam could have made a better showing if he had only been advised of the situation in time. but as it was he did not have a fair chance. it would have been no more than justice to have told adam and eve all about the serpent-devil which was hid away somewhere in the garden like a snake in the grass. it would have been only fair to have posted on all the fences and walls about the garden, this sign, "adam and eve, beware of snakes!" this would have given them a chance for their lives. poor adam and eve! they were not a bad lot, but were transplanted too early, and were nipped in the bud by the great original serpent, who was acting according to his nature and circumstances, and therefore we cannot find it in our hearts to be too severe on his satanic majesty. if satan was great, it was not won by his own powers, he had greatness thrust upon him. let us be just; let us give the devil his due. i have no doubt but he has grievances, if there were any court where he could offer his complaints. the creator made both man and serpent-devil, knowing just what would and must come to pass, and he did it all for his own glory. he also made hell for his own glory. surely the lord's ways are not our ways. for no modoc indian would entertain such a design toward his children, no matter how bad they might be, or how vicious his own nature. we cannot think of a creator without seeing that he as the author of all things, is responsible for good and evil, for right and wrong, for ignorance and knowledge, for truth and error. man is therefore, no more responsible for his nature than a steam engine is responsible for its defects. the defects must be attributed to the maker in both cases. adam knew good and evil without eating of the tree of knowledge. he had a brain, and his thoughts were imperfect; sometimes they were relatively correct, and then again they were wholly wrong or in error. this was knowing good and evil, therefore he knew good and evil without eating of the prohibited fruit, just as surely as he had a brain. the tree of knowledge is a very childish story. knowledge does not grow on trees, nor does much of it exist in heads which entertain such fables as a divine revelation. man was created with a brain to do his thinking and knowing, and by its very nature of knowing he must know good and evil, and yet he is cursed for knowing good and evil. as well might the creator give the bird wings, toss it in the air and then damn it for flying. but even supposing the story to be true, namely, that the fruit of the tree made one to know good and evil, why should such desirable fruit be forbidden? what would the world be without the knowledge of good and evil? man cannot know good without also knowing evil. they are inseparable. god himself knows good and evil, and if it is good for him to have such knowledge, then it surely must be good for you and me. the love of knowledge is the fountain of life. man must have knowledge or his life is a mere cipher. all hail then to mother eve, who first tasted of the tree of knowledge, who first quenched her thirst at this fountain from which the whole race of thirsty souls have delighted to drink. mythology abounds in stories about the gods; about their imperfections and weaknesses, but this account of the serpent-devil and the tree of knowledge is the silliest fable of all, and has entailed indescribable misery upon the human race. the prohibition of knowledge has left an inherited twist in human nature. even now in the afternoon of the nineteenth century mankind does not know much--and it is largely due to this first commandment not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. has not the church always prohibited knowledge? has she not stood in the way of every great reform? knowledge is not important. only believe. believe in the bible, but believe it only as the priest explains it. it seems that the serpent-devil knew more about the nature of man, and what would result from his eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge than god did. jehovah told adam in plain terms, that if he ate of the fruit of that tree he would die that very day. but the serpent-devil told eve (in french i suppose) that she and her "hubby" would do no such a thing, but on the contrary it would be a great blessing to them, and that they would become as gods (there were lots of gods in those days and many of them "no great shakes"), knowing good and evil. it turned out just as the serpent-devil had told mother eve; they did not die. and when god saw what adam and eve had done he called a conclave of gods, and after due deliberation voted to drive them out of the garden penniless, to live upon the cold charities of an unfriendly world. and this is the same god who commands us to forgive and to love our enemies. that would not be god-like, and therefore i hold the commandment invalid. in this august assemblage of the celestial hosts, one of their number assigns the reasons for expelling adam and eve from the garden in these words: "behold the man (and woman) has become as one of us to know good and evil." (gen. : .) here we see it is a surprise to the gods that man had become as one of them, knowing good and evil. yet these gods are supposed to know all things from all eternity to all eternity. do the gods forget things as we poor mortals do? the serpent had told eve just what would happen, and god told adam just that which did not happen. the serpent said: "for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. ye shall not surely die." (gen. : , .) the serpent gave it straight, and god made a mistake to say the least. in all this story about the fall of man, the devil appears to be a better friend of man than his creator. the serpent was in reality not the enemy, but the friend of man. he spoke words of truth and encouragement to adam at a time when he needed good counsel. it is not to be forgotten that he spoke the truth. the poisonous tongue of malice has called him the father of lies, but this saying is a lie itself--and a bald-headed lie of sufficient antiquity to be itself most appropriately called the father of lies. the devil, lucifer, is the light-bearer, the truth revealer; but the world at large has an impression that there is a screw loose somewhere, and have unwittingly ascribed the evil to the devil, when a very slight study of his character and deeds will show that "the devil is not half as black as he is painted." the next account we have of him is in the book of job (not a hebrew writing), where he appears under the title of satan. it is to be borne in mind that he has many names. in the book of genesis we left him a serpent with a curse pronounced upon him: "because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle [what kind of cattle is a snake?] and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." (gen. : .) prior to the great fall of adam and eve, when they fell upward and became as the gods, it seems the serpent had always hopped along erect, on the tip end of his tail, but because he had divulged some court secrets, he was condemned to crawl upon his belly the rest of his natural life (which is, i should remark, uncommonly long); but in the book of job he says of himself that he has been "walking up and down in the earth." who told him to get up? was he not cursed to go on his belly for all time to come? how could he walk? a snake has no legs. when, where, how, and by whom was this transformation of a hideous serpent into a prince-like man, accomplished? i don't know. perhaps it is a sort of santa claus story, coming down to us from the childhood of the race. all peoples have similar traditions which spring from early myths. our devil story will have to get in line and march in the procession of fables. there are many people, and people of the very best kind, who do not have any devil. he has left them and gone on a permanent vacation. on the other hand, there are folks who could not feel happy if they thought there were no devil. to all such, who may read this, i would ask a few questions which if they will intelligently answer, i shall be greatly obliged. did the serpent talk? how could he speak without having the vocal organs necessary to human speech? who taught him the use of language? what language did he speak? was it french? i merely suggest the french, as adam and eve took french leave of the garden. did the serpent reason like a man? how could he with such a small head and not even a spoonful of brains, know so much more than adam and eve? yea, he even knew more than god himself--for god did not know, or else he fibbed, that man would not die if he ate the forbidden fruit. he did not seem to know that man would become as the gods by partaking of this tree, but the serpent knew all this and possibly much more; but how could so much superior knowledge be crowded into so small a head? some of our congressmen with domes of unusual dimensions do not know as much as this inexperienced serpent did. how are we to account for this? let some devilishly wise man explain to a benighted world why satan has been so wickedly traduced. in the book of job we have a second account of the devil: "now there was a day when the sons of god came to present themselves before the lord, and satan came also among them. and the lord said unto satan, whence comest thou? then satan answered the lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. and the lord said unto satan, hast thou considered my servant job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth god and escheweth evil? then satan answered the lord and said, doth job fear god for naught? hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blest the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. but put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. and the lord said unto satan, behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. so satan went from the presence of the lord." (job : - .) then follows an account of the destruction of the cattle and children of job, and yet he would not curse god. satan then suggested that to afflict him in person would bring out his weakness and deeply hidden wickedness. job was tormented with boils, and three gratuitous advisors, and did not curse god, but came very nearly giving his counselors a cuss word or two. they exasperated him beyond measure. now while it must be admitted that the devil does not show up to as great advantage in this fable as he does in that relating to the tree of knowledge, yet we should not jump to our conclusions. let us review this job story. we are surprised at the dignified manners of satan. he walks in with lordly airs among the sons of god. no one present said to him, "get out of here." he struts around in the gay company as one of them. we hardly know how to understand such familiarity possible between the sons of god and satan. if, however, the sons of god in those days were no better than the sons of god are in these, it is not in the least surprising that satan should conduct himself as well as the best of them. but why did god permit him to do these cruel things to job? in a certain book by god, we are told to "resist the devil and he will flee from thee." this would have been splendid medicine for the doctors who prescribed it. satan did not come there so far as we see to work any temptation. it was god who set up the temptation before satan. he began by asking satan what he thought of job. what mattered it what his opinion of job might be? why should his opinion be asked? was it not showing respect to him? god should have said, "get behind me satan." satan had seen many men who could not stand in the hour of trial, and not knowing job he took him for a man of that kind; god, however, knew job to be a "perfect" man and ought to have protected him from all evil. yet he did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary, clothed satan with power of destroying his cattle and children, and afflicting him with tormenting boils. we see then that it is not satan who is responsible for the sufferings of the patient man, but god himself, who first shows respect to satan's presence and his opinions, then gives him power by which he does a monstrous wrong to a good man and his family. but if satan's part is bad god's is worse. he is the author of all of job's miseries. if god had been just, he would not have led off to his satanic majesty with such a temptation as to ask him his opinion of job. it was immaterial what his opinion was; but it was all important that if there were a god in israel that he should protect and honor the "perfect" man, job. but aside from the barbarities of this myth, look at its childish absurdities. how could the omniscient, whose eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good, need to ask satan where he came from! was not god, the omnipresent, everywhere on earth? if satan had been going up and down the country would he not of necessity have met god again and again? obviously these great opponents must have often met. again, it was useless for god to ask satan what his opinion of job was, or would be after he tested him, as he knows all things past, present, and to come, in heaven, earth and hell (i mean hades). it is evident that satan's opinion is not needed or cared for, because after all the trials job suffered were ended, there is not one word given as to what satan's opinion of job was, and yet in the beginning of the story this seems to be its sole object. after job suffers a long time from bodily sores and "miserable comforters" satan vanishes from the scene in a very obscure way, and god blesses job with twice as much as he had before. he had more sheep, more camels, more oxen, and more asses. he became father of seven sons and three daughters, the same number of sons and daughters that were slain by satan, instigated by god. why were these ten innocent persons murdered? had they no rights that a just god was bound to respect? shall not the judge of all the earth do right? certainly he ought to. but in this case the judge pleads guilty of this crime. in reply to satan god says: "although thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause." (job : .) here is an unqualified confession of wronging job and his children without a show of justice; and even the cattle, i imagine, would protest against the outrageous slaughter perpetrated on them. if these asses were like balaam's, i am sure they would enter suit for damages. "so the lord blessed the latter end of job more than his beginning, for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. he had also seven sons and three daughters." (job : , .) it is clear that the lord had nothing to do whatever with these blessings. job had had sheep, camels, oxen, asses, and children before, without any assistance from the lord; and if he secured a similar stock of cattle and a family of children it was by his own management and husbandry. but supposing them a gift from god as damages sustained by job at the hand of satan through the instigation of god, yet they could not assuage his grief for the loved ones ruthlessly torn from his embrace. it is easy to see that this story is nothing more than an oriental tale--a myth. it is wanting not only in fact, but it teaches very bad morals. there is nothing ennobling in it. . god had no moral right to permit satan to come unrebuked into the company of the sons of god. an earthly father teaches his children to avoid "evil communications," but on this occasion the heavenly father did not scorn the company of satan, but treated him respectfully. . again, the infinite being would not need to ask the devil what his opinion of job was, for he would know beforehand. . the infinitely good being would not want the devil's opinion--nor would he value it a straw, if it were given before it was asked. . the infinitely just ruler of the universe would not give the great adversary of man and god such diabolical power over that "perfect and upright man" job. nor would he have permitted the three "miserable comforters," reeling mentally under the blind staggers of a blind theology, to have added more torment to that imposed by his satanic majesty. nor would he have permitted him to murder the seven sons and three daughters, as a mere matter of experiment in testing job's staying powers. all this is so horrible that the afterthought of more camels and asses, as a compensation is an insufficient patch to cover the unqualified wrongs done to the man of uz. even job does not shine as conspicuously in all this as he should. job ought to have protested with all his might and main against both god and devil, that his individual rights were invaded. he should have taken a change of venue, to have a hearing before some other god, where there was a slight hope of securing more justice. but he didn't and the consequence is we are all advised, when suffering the outrageous wrongs of despotism, to "be patient like job." it has been a great evil to the human family that job was no "kicker;" it has opened wide the flood gates of tyranny, and transfused the cowardly blood of sheep into the veins of men. oh, that job had kicked and taken an appeal, what an inspiration it would be to the fold of god now, to resist the shears of the fleecers! to rebel against the rule of robbers! some questions to be answered by the man who pounds the bible and claims to understand the greek scriptures: . who were the sons of god? . how many were there present, and were there still more of them elsewhere? . where did they come from? . were they any relation to the people of nod? . who were their mothers? . what were their occupations? . where are they now? . where did the devil come from? . did god create him or did he make himself? . if god made him then is he not responsible for all that old nick does? . if he is as terribly demoniacal as orthodox theology describes him, "why in 'l don't god kill the devil?" . if he cannot kill him does it not prove that the devil is his match; and if he can, but will not, does it not prove that he sustains him and approves of his work? . in the light of modern theology is not the devil almost always successful? does he not have a larger kingdom, a larger following than god? . why did the creator inflict such a hellish punishment upon adam and eve, and let the serpent off so lightly? . has the punishment inflicted upon the devil lessened his power? . have the curses which god has pronounced on the world made it better? . is there any place in the record, accounts of the devil's stealing, robbing, and murdering? . are there not numerous stories in the bible recounting the robberies and murders perpetrated in the name and by the sanction of god? some times the people of god destroyed five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand, seventy thousand, and in one instance six hundred and seventy thousand, as in the case of pharaoh and his hosts in the red sea. did satan ever try to do anything as hellish as this? . is the devil the father of lies? when did he tell a deliberate falsehood? to eve? oh no, it was the other party who did that business. . did he lie when he took jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, etc., and saith unto him, "all these will i give thee," etc.? (mat. : .) it is claimed that old beelzebub lied on this occasion. it would hit the bull's eye in the center if we were to say that the writer of this story about jesus being carried off bodily into an exceeding high mountain, was the boy responsible for this lie. but without resting the case there let us see how it opens out. it is urged that "the earth is the lord's and the fullness thereof;" but it may be urged that the devil is called "the prince of this world," implying that he has just claims both by conquest and possession; and therefore he could have given at least a quitclaim deed. the devil is an expensive luxury of the church. it costs about $ , , , annually for preaching against the devil. even if there is less said derogatory to his satanic majesty now-adays, yet it costs just as much, and more too, for drawing it mild, than it did formerly, for describing the split hoof, horns, and spear-headed tail, hell, etc. notwithstanding the fact that the people want less devil and more bread and beef, yet they must have some devil. hence the church clings to its devil-idol with which to scare the people. to give up the devil is to break up house-keeping all around. if there be no devil then there is no hell; and if no hell, there is no salvation; and if no salvation there is no need of preaching; and "no preach no pay." how could a fat minister with a fat salary, look such a ghost as that in the face? yes, it would be impossible for the church to survive without the devil. the clergy have to fall back upon him in times of revival to stir up the fears of uninformed people. the devil has had many hard names heaped upon him, for example: the tempter; the adversary or satan; beelzebub; the prince of devils; the strong one; the enemy, or the hostile one; the serpent; lying spirit; lucifer; son of the morning; prince of darkness; prince of the power of the air; the accuser; angel of the bottomless pit; angel of light; mammon; belial; legion; the foul spirit; the unclean spirit; the god of this world; the great red dragon; abaddon; apollyon, the destroyer, etc. besides these sacred titles, he is equally well known by certain house-hold names, as, old nick; old splitfoot; the old scratch; old harry; old horny; the old boy; the deuce; the dickens; auld clouty; nickie; ben; his satanic majesty, etc. it must be confessed that these names do not carry much sanctity with them, nor do they leave us in love with the character they represent. but before we proceed further, it is only simple justice (that is giving the devil his due), to call attention to the various names by which god has been known. the early hebrew literature speaks of gods, not god. we find the following names ascribed to them: el; elohim; el shaddai; shaddai; elvoh; yahve, or jah. the following is a personal photograph as nearly as we can draw it, of the jewish jehovah as described in the bible: "there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it." (ps. : .) "round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies." (ps. : .) "his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire." (rev. : .) "and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." (rev. : .) "he had horns coming out of his hand." (hab. : .) "and burning coals went forth at his feet." (hab. : .) "in the midst of the seven candle-sticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle." (rev. : .) "and he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." (rev. : .) this god has violated all the moral laws he ever gave to man. he approved of lying, robbing, adultery, murder, war, and all the great crimes known to man. is it any wonder that theodore parker should say to the calvinist who was trying to convert him, "the difference between us is simple,--your god is my devil." the reader has his choice--or he may say "good lord good devil," and float with the current. there is, however, no disguising the fact that between god and the devil, as described in the bible, the devil sustains the better moral character of the two. he is not spotless and clean, it is true, but he has infinitely less bloodshed to answer for than jehovah. where the devil did he come from? i am reminded of this form of expression by a little incident related of a scotch preacher, who took for his text, on one occasion, the following passage: "the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour." ( peter : .) it must be borne in mind, in order to better understand the full force and beauty of the preacher's division of the text into three heads, that it was common in earlier times to repeat the pronoun in a sentence, for example, john smith, his book, mary she has come home, etc. in charming accord with this old style, the minister divided his text into three parts. he said, "my brethren, we will first inquire where the devil he was walking to? and secondly, who the devil he wanted to devour? and thirdly, what the devil he was roaring about?" having gratuitously thrown in this gem, we proceed to answer the question, "where the devil, did he come from?" it is evident that the earlier hebrew literature is almost wholly free from any traces of a personal devil, and that later writings of the same people show strong outline of such a personality of evil. while it is true that satan is a hebrew word, it is equally true that the word does not denote a being at all, but means anything adverse or opposing. we may cite in illustration a few passages. second samuel : : "david said, what have we to do with you, ye sons of jeremiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me?" first kings : : "and jehovah stirred up an adversary unto solomon, hadad the adomite." first kings : : "and god stirred up another adversary, rezon, the son of eliadah." in these instances, the word rendered adversary or adversaries, is satan, and means nothing more than an opponent. when the jews were carried captives to babylon, they came into immediate contact with a people, the persians, who believed in a good being and a bad one. ormazd was their good god, and ahriman their devil. the latter was as clearly defined in the duality of zoroastrian theology, as the former. during their seventy years' captivity it could not be otherwise, than that the enslaved people should imbibe some of the customs and beliefs of their masters. if they went so far as to change the characters of their language from the original hebrew letters to those of the chaldas, it is easy to see that they would of course, adopt this notion of an evil principle and personality, so prevalent at that time in chaldea. after the babylonian exile the doctrine of a devil became a part of the jewish belief, and the evil spirit was termed satan, as he was the foe or adversary of god. in first chronicles : , there is a circumstance related in which satan or the devil is the principal agent. the words are: "and satan stood up against israel and provoked david to number israel." now the book of chronicles being written after the captivity, it was quite natural that the writer should consider and designate the enemy of god, the devil or satan. but the same event is mentioned in another of the jewish books, written before the captivity, and the temptation of david is referred to entirely another being. here the words are: "and again the anger of the lord was kindled against israel, and moved david against them, to say, 'go number israel and judah,' thus in the earlier books, the affair is attributed to the lord, but in the books written after the jewish connection with the chaldeans and persians, satan is blamed for the same act. this, beyond doubt proves the source of the christian superstition respecting the devil." ("the devil," by john watts.) "with this dualistic system the jews came in contact during their captivity at babylon, and are supposed to have retained permanent traces of it in their subsequent theology. the conception of the devil and of a lower kingdom of demons or devils is the evident illustration of this. (ency. brit. v. devil.) "the reason why there was no devil in the early books was because none was needed then. the gods considered themselves as being quite equal to any emergency that might arise in the way of wickedness."--m. d. conway. in other words, the devil is a myth coming out of the terrible darkness of remote ages. every fear that the primitive man and men of barbarous races have had, painted devils before their minds of every description. the master mind has said: "'tis the eye of child-hood that fears a painted devil." the thought that millions of people commonly well informed on general matters, still believe in this barbarous myth, must shock and oppress like an incubus every sensitive and well-informed mind. such people can smile pleasantly over the homely myth of santa claus, but the devil is altogether a different personage. an old lady was once told that the devil was dead. she sat silent for a moment, and then replied, "well, you may think so, but we hope for better things." as the horrid doctrine of witchcraft under the light of advancing knowledge has had to retire into the background of oblivion; as the puritan doctrine of infant damnation has been relegated to the limbo of forgetfulness; as hell's fire has burned to ashes and the ashes become cold, so too, is the doctrine of a personal devil retreating from the minds of all sensible people. soul farrago. what is, and where is the soul? until the greek philosophy taught the world how to use and abuse abstract notions, immaterialism was not an attainable phase of thought. (prof. bain, "mind and body," p. .) thought necessarily supposes conditions. to think is to condition, and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. for, as the greyhound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle out-soar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he may be supported; so the mind cannot transcend the sphere of limitation, within and through which exclusively the possibility of thought is realized. (sir william hamilton, "philosophy" p. .) in this paper an attempt is made to answer two very important questions, namely: what is, and where is the soul? in such fashion that everybody will be satisfied that he has a soul, and the exact spot it occupies in his mundane tabernacle. here are a number of opinions on this subject, by the most learned men the world has ever produced. in a multitude of counsel there is wisdom. the first witness i shall put upon the stand is: pythagoras: ( th c. b. c.) the soul is number and a harmony. taught the doctrine of metempsychosis. his disciples held the soul to be an aggregate of particles of great subtilty pervading the air in constant agitation. heraclitus: ( th c. b. c.) the soul is a spark of the stellar essence: "scintilla stellaris essentia." pherecides: ( th c. b. c.) souls existed from all eternity. anaximenes: (ionic philosopher, th c. b. c.) god is air, air is a life-giving principle to man. the soul is air. diogenes of appollonia: (greek natural philosopher, th c. b. c.) the soul of the world and the soul of man is air. anaxagoras: ( th c. b. c.) the soul is an immortal, aerial spirit. socrates: ( th c. b. c.) the soul is corporeal and eternal. epicurus: ( th c. b. c.) the soul is a bodily substance, composed of subtile particles, disseminated through the whole frame, and having a great resemblance to spirit or breath. empedocles: (sicilian philosopher and poet, th c. b. c.) declared himself to have been "a boy, a girl, a bush, a bird, a fish;" that the soul inhabits every form of animal and plant. aristotle: ( th c. b. c.) plants have souls without consciousness. animals have souls, but inseparable from body. the human body is inseparable from mind, but the human mind is divided into active and passive intellect. the active intellect is pure form, detached from matter, and immortal. josephus: ( st c.) there were three sects among the jews--the pharisees, sadducees, and the essenes. the pharisees believed in metempsychosis; the sadducees believed that the soul perished with the body; the essenes held that the soul was immortal. the soul descended in an aerial form into the body, from the highest region of the air, whither they were carried back again by a violent attraction, and after death those which had belonged to the good dwelled beyond the ocean in a country where there was neither heat nor cold, nor wind nor rain. pliny: ( d c.) the body and the soul have, from the moment of death, as little sensation as before birth. justin martyr: ( d c.) it is heresy to say that the soul is taken up into heaven, men rise with the same bodies. tatian: ( d c.) there are two spirits conjoined in the human body. a material and an immaterial spirit. athenagoras: ( d c.) the soul is spiritual, but with a spirituality subject to material tendencies. origen: ( d c.) the soul is neither spirit nor matter. augustine: ( th c.) the soul has neither length, breadth, nor thickness. it acts on the body through the corporeal substances of light and air, which substances are mingled through the denser parts of the body. the commands of the soul are first communicated to this subtile matter, and by it immediately conveyed to the heavier elements. tertullian: (latin father, about .) the soul has the human form, the same as its body, only it is delicate, clear, and ethereal. unless it were corporeal, how could it be effected by the body, be able to suffer, or be nourished within the body? st. ambrose: ( th c.) we know nothing but what is material, excepting only the ever venerable trinity. st. hilary: ( th c.) there is nothing created which is not corporeal, neither in heaven nor in earth, neither visible nor invisible; all is formed of elements; and souls, whether they inhabit a body, or are without a body, have always a corporeal substance. gregory nazianzen: ( th c.) soul, or spirit, is composed of two properties--motion and diffusion. bishop nemesius: ( th c.) the soul is an immaterial substance. it is involved, as plato taught, in eternal, self-produced motion, from which the motion of the body is derived. the pre-existence of the soul proves its supra-sensible character, and its immortality. faustus: (bishop of regium, in gaul, a. d. .) all created things are matter; the soul being composed of air, god alone is incorporeal. mamertus: (in reply to the bishop.) man was made in the image of god. now, as there can be no likeness to god in matter, therefore it must be found in the soul, therefore the soul is immaterial. the soul is present in every part of the body as well as in the whole, just as god is present in the whole universe, otherwise a part of it would be lost when any portion of the body is cut off. the soul is not contained in the body, but in reality contains it. hence, it must be immaterial, for no material substance can at once contain the body and be within it as its animating principle. thomas aquinas: ( th c.) the soul is the actuality of body, as heat, which is the source whence bodies are made hot, is not body, but a sort of actuality of body. the soul of man is an independent substance. duns scotus: ( th c. british philosopher.) the soul is a created something, the basis of all finite existence, including corporeal matter itself. albert magnus: ( th c.) held that the active intellect is a part of the soul, and is immortal by virtue of its community with god. gassendi: (french philosopher, th c.) there is no evidence of the spirituality of the soul. malebranche: (priest and philosopher, th c.) we see all in god, who is in fact our soul. locke: ( th c.) matter may think, and god may communicate thought to matter. paracelsus: ( th c.) taught there were four souls--vegetal, sensitive, rational, and spiritual. campanella demonstrates this last by the fact that carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer. mansel: ("philosophy of consciousness," p. .) we are not authorized to say that we know the soul to be simple, and that, therefore, it is indestructible; but only that we do not know the soul to be compound, and, therefore, that we cannot infer its mortality from the analogy of bodily dissolution. "buck's theo. dic." defines soul: that vital, immaterial, active substance, or principle in man, whereby he perceives, remembers, reasons, and wills. it is rather to be described as to its operations than to be defined as to its essence. various, indeed, have been the opinions of philosophers concerning its substance. parkhurst: (a distinguished hebrew lexicographer.) as a noun, nephesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call the soul. i must, for myself, confess that i can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning. hobbes: spirit is synonymous with ghost--a mere phantom of the imagination. locke: ("understanding," p. .) we can no more know that there are finite spirits really existing, by the idea we have of such things in our minds, than by the ideas any one has of fairies, or centaurs; he can come to know that things answering those ideas do really exist. voltaire: the greeks distinguish three sorts of souls--psyche, signifying the sensitive soul--the soul of the senses; hence it was that love, the son of aphrodite, had so much passion for psyche, and that she loved him so tenderly. pneuma, the breath which gave life and motion to the whole machine, and which we have rendered by spiritus--spirit--a vague term which has received a thousand different acceptations. and lastly, nous, intelligence. thus we possess three souls, without having the slightest notion of any of them.... what are we to think of a child with two heads, which is otherwise well formed? some say that it has two souls, because it is furnished with two pineal glands, with two callous substances, with two sensoria communia. others answer, that there cannot be two souls with but one breast and one navel.... the word soul is one of those which everyone pronounces without understanding it. we understand those things of which we have an idea, but we have no idea of soul--spirit; therefore, we do not understand it. john calvin: the soul is an immortal essence, the nobler part of man. it is a creation out of nothing, not an emanation; it is essence without motion, not motion without essence. it is not properly bounded by space, still it occupies the body as a habitation, animating its parts and endowing its organs for their several functions. dugald stewart: although we have the strongest evidence that there is a thinking and sentient principle within us, essentially distinct from matter, yet we have no direct evidence of the possibility of this principle exercising its various powers in a separate state from the body. on the contrary, the union of the two, while it subsists, is evidently of the most intimate nature. joseph priestly: it being a rigid canon of the newtonian logic not to multiply causes without necessity, we should adhere to a single substance until it be shown, which cannot be, that the properties of mind are incompatible with the properties of matter. he was opposed to protecting and perpetuating absurdity by dodging behind mystery. that there is no difference between spiritual substance and nothing at all. that the doctrine of a separate soul embarrasses the whole system of christianity. mcbeth: the times have been that when the brains were out the man would die, and there an end. buchner: experience and daily occupation teach us that the spirit perishes with the material substratum--that man dies. ("matter and force.") burmeister: that the soul of a deceased person does not re-appear after death, is not contested by rational people. spirits and ghosts are only seen by diseased or superstitious individuals. vogt: physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, as against any special existence of the soul. the soul does not enter the foetus like the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a product of the development of the brain, just as muscular activity is a product of muscular development. so soon as the substances composing the brain are aggregated in a similar form, will they exhibit the same functions. we have seen that we can destroy mental activity by injuring the brain. by observing the development of the child we also arrive at the conviction that the activity of the soul progresses in proportion as the brain is gradually developed. the foetus manifests no mental activity, which only shows itself after birth when the brain acquires the necessary material condition. mental activity changes with the period of life, and ceases altogether at death. lecky: ("rat. in europe," p. , v. i.) not one of the early fathers entertained the same opinion as the majority of christians do of the present day, that the soul is perfectly simple, and entirely destitute of all body, figure, form, and extension. on the contrary, they all acknowledged it to contain something corporeal, although of a different kind and nature from the bodies of this mortal sphere.... tertullian mentions a woman who had seen a soul, which she described as "a transparent and lucid figure, in the perfect form of a man." st. anthony saw the soul of ammon carried up to heaven. the soul of a libyan hermit named marc was borne to heaven in a napkin. angels also were not unfrequently seen, and were universally believed to have cohabited with the daughters of the antediluvians.... sometimes the soul was portrayed as a sexless child, rising out of the mouth of the corpse. john meslier: ("testimony of a dying priest.") the barbarians, like all ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. ask a barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, "a spirit." ask our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you, "it is a spirit." ask a theologian what he means by a spirit. he will answer that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. in good faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a substance. james f. ferrier: (institutes of metaphysics.) in vain does the spiritualist found an argument for the existence of a separate immaterial substance on the alleged incompatibility of the intellectual and physical phenomena to co-inhere in the same sub-stratum. materiality may very well stand the brunt of that unshotted broadside. this mild artifice can scarcely expect to be treated as a serious observation. such a hypothesis cannot be meant to be in earnest. who is to dictate to nature what phenomena, or what qualities inhere in what substances; what effects may result from what causes? matter is already in the field as an acknowledged entity--this both parties admit. mind, considered as an independent entity, is not so unmistakably in the field. therefore as entities are not to be multiplied without necessity, we are not entitled to postulate a new cause, so long as it is possible to account for the phenomena by a cause already in existence; which possibility has never yet been disproved. draper: (john william.) chemistry furnishes us with a striking example of the doctrine of diogenes of apollonia, that the air is actually a spiritual being; for, on the discovery of several of the gases by the early experimenters, they were not only regarded as of a spiritual nature, but actually received the name under which they pass to this day, gheist or gas, from a belief that they were ghosts. ("int. dev.," p. , v. .) w. r. grove: ("correlation and conservation of forces," p. .) the ancients when they witnessed natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power: thus amber and the magnet were supposed by thales to have a soul; the functions of digestion, assimilation, etc., were supposed by paracelsus to be effected by a spirit (the archæus). air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but subsequently became invested with a more material character, and the word gas, from geist, a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmission of a spiritual into a physical conception. buchner: now, in the same manner as the steam engine produces motion, so does the organic complication of force-endowed materials produce in the animal body a sum of effects, so interwoven as to become a unit, and is then by us called spirit, soul, thought. taylor: mr. darwin saw two malay women in keeling island, who had a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll. this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively like a table or a hat at a modern spirit-seance. ("early history of mankind," p. , v. .) savages believe that their pots, kettles, pans, etc., have souls. his knives, tobacco-pipes, the winds, water, fire, storm, etc., have souls. samuel johnson: ("oriental religions," p. .) various north-american tribes believe that the soul of a dying person may be drawn into the bosom of a sterile woman, or blown by the breath into that of the nearest relative, and so come again to birth in the way that the receiver desires. theodore parker, john wesley, jeremy taylor, coleridge, lamartine, agassiz, and hosts of other men well known to fame, taught that animals as well as men, had immortal souls. brodie: (president of the royal society, .) the mind of animals is essentially the same as that of man. every one familiar with the dog will admit that that creature knows right from wrong, and is conscious when he has committed a fault. du bois-reymond: with awe and wonder must the student of nature regard that microscopic molecule of nervous substance which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, orderly, loyal, dauntless soul of the ant. it has developed itself to its present state through a countless series of generations. john fiske: but the propriety of identifying soul and breath, which really quits the body at its decease, has furnished the chief name for the soul, not only to the hebrew, the sanskrit, and the classic tongues; not only to german and english, where geist, and ghost, according to max muller, have the meaning of "breath," and are akin to such words as gas, gust, and geyser; but also to numerous barbaric languages. ("myths and myth-makers," p. .) the belief in wraiths has survived into modern times, and now and then appears in that remnant of primeval philosophy known as "spiritualism," as for example, in the case of the lady who "thought she saw her own father look in at the church window at the moment he was dying at his own house." (ib., p. .) the kamtchadales expressly declare that all animals, even flies and bugs, will live after death,--a belief, which, in our day, has been indorsed on philosophical grounds by an eminent living naturalist. (ib., .) [mr. fiske refers to agassiz.] m. figuier: human souls are for the most part the surviving souls of deceased animals; in general, the souls of precocious children like mozart come from nightingales, while the souls of great architects have passed into them from beavers, and etc., etc. ("the to-morrow of death," p. .) w. lauder lindsay: by no kind of scientific evidence can it be proved that soul exists, whether in man or other animals.... nor should it be forgotten that, according to many writers, the word or term "soul" is regarded as synonymous with "mind," in which case there can be no question as to its possession by the higher animals. while the term "soul" has also been applied--in figurative senses no doubt--even to plants. ("mind in the lower animals," v. , p. .) it obviously lies with those who assert dogmatically that all men have immortal souls, while no animals possess them, to reconcile with such a conviction the provable fact that many animals are superior to many men, not only in general intelligence, but also as regards moral sense and religious feeling. (ib.) ideas of justice or right, feelings of decency or shame, that combination or essence of moral qualities known as conscience, are as certainly present in some animals as they appear to be absent in countless numbers of men. (ib., p. .) ernst haeckel: the final result of this comparison is this: that between the most highly developed animal souls, and the lowest developed human souls there exists only a small quantitative, but no qualitative difference, and this difference is much less than the difference between the lowest and the highest human souls, or than the difference between the lowest and the highest animal souls. ("hist. of creation," v. , p. .) some of the wildest tribes, of men, in southern asia and eastern africa have no trace whatever of the first foundations of all human civilization of family life, and marriage. they live together, in herds, like apes, generally climbing on trees and eating fruits; they do not know of fire, and use stones and clubs as weapons, just like the higher apes. (ib., p. .) descartes: ( c.) matter, whose essence is extension, is known by the senses; mind, whose essence is thinking, can be known only by self-consciousness. the thinking principle is immaterial. origen: the nature of the soul is such as to make her capable of existing eternally, backward as well as forward, because her spiritual essence, as such, makes it impossible that she should, either through age or violence, be dissolved. rev. joseph baylee, d. d.: (principal of st. aidan's college, birkenhead, england.) man is eternal. he was in existence before he was born; sinned before he was born, and if he had never been born would have suffered eternal damnation for that sin. (dis. on god and the bible between dr. baylee and mr. bradlaugh.) draper: ("conflict," p. .) moreover, to many devout persons there is something very revolting in the suggestion that the almighty is a servitor to the caprices and lusts of men, and that at a certain term after its origin, it is necessary for him to create for the embryo a soul. vedic theology: the soul is a particle of that all-pervading principle, the universal intellect, or soul of the world, detached for a while from its primitive source; and placed in connection with the bodily frame, but destined, by an inevitably as rivers run back to be lost in the ocean from whence they arose. the bible: as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. (job : .) they are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. (isa. : .) for the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. (eccl. : , .) for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. all go unto one place, all are of the dust and all turn to dust again. who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? (eccl. : - .) there (the grave) the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. (vide job : - .) having thus successfully responded to the interrogatory, what is the soul? that is to say, the constituent thereof, let us now very briefly settle the locus in quo: plato: the soul is located in the brain. aristotle: the soul is located in the heart. heraclitus: the soul is located in the blood. epicurus: the soul is located in the chest. critios: the soul is located in the blood. sommering: the soul is located in the ventricles. kant: the soul is located in the water contained in the ventricles. plotinus: the body is located in the soul, and not the soul in the body. ennemoser: the whole body is the seat of the soul. fischer: the soul is located in the nervous system. ficinus: the soul is located in the heart. descartes: the soul is located in the pineal gland. bontekoe: the soul is located in the corpus callosum. willis: the soul is located in the corpora striata. vieussens: the soul is located in the centrum ovale. boerhaave: the soul is located on the boundary line of the gray and white substance. mayer: the soul is located in the medulla oblongata. camper: the soul is located in the pineal gland, nates and testes. dohoney: scientifically speaking, man is a threefold being: body, soul, and spirit. the home of the spirit is the cerebrum, while the seat of the soul is the cerebellum. ("man," p. .) la pieronie: the dwelling place of the soul is in the callous body. buchner: some authors imagine that the soul, under certain circumstances, leaves the brain for a short time and occupies another part of the nervous system. the solar plexus, a concatenation of sympathetic nerves, situated in the abdomen, was especially pointed out as the favored spot. ("force and matter," p. .) prochaska: assumed that the cerebrum and the cerebellum were the seat of "soul sensations," and the sensorium commune the seat of "body sensations." whytt: as the schoolmen supposed the deity to exist in every ubi but not in any place, which is to say in latin that he exists everywhere, but in english nowhere, so they imagined the soul of man not to occupy space, but to exist in an indivisible point. prof. erdmann: the theory that the soul has its seat in the brain, must lead to the result that when the body is separated from the head, the soul should continue to exist. fortlage: there are certain errors in the human mind. the error of the seat of the soul in the brain is one of them. mcculloch says, in his able work on the "credibility of the scriptures": there is no word in the hebrew language that signifies either soul or spirit, in the technical sense in which we use the terms, as implying something distinct from the body. ("credibility of scriptures," p. , v. .) kitto, in his "cyclopedia of biblical literature," renders genesis : , as follows: "and jehovah god formed the man [heb. the adam] of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life: and the man became a living animal. bishop tilotson says: the immortality of the soul is rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the bible. the egyptian doctrine of the soul is one of the most important, as it is the most ancient, for this nation seems to have been the first to declare that the soul was immortal. (chambers' encyclopedia.) r. peterson. immortality. there is still another question. why should god, a being of infinite tenderness, leave the question of immortality in doubt? how is it that there is nothing in the old testament on this subject? why is it that he who made all the constellations did not put in his heaven the star of hope? how do you account for the fact that you do not find in the old testament, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse in malachi, a funeral service? is it not strange that some one in the old testament did not stand by an open grave of father or mother and say, "we shall meet again"? was it because the divinely inspired men did not know? you taunt me by saying that i know no more of the immortality of the soul than cicero knew. i admit it. i know no more than the lowest savage, no more than a doctor of divinity, that is to say, nothing.--ingersoll, ingersoll-field discussion. some urge that the soul is life. what is life? is it not the word by which we express the aggregate normal functional activity of vegetable and animal organisms, necessarily differing in degree, if not in kind, with each different organization? to talk of immortal life, and yet to admit the decay and destruction of the organization, is much the same as to talk of a square circle. you link together two words which contradict each other. the solution of the soul problem is not so difficult as many imagine. the greatest difficulty is, that we have been trained to use certain words as "god," "matter," "mind," "spirit," "soul," "intelligence," and we have been further trained to take these words as representatives of realities, which in fact, they do not represent. we have to unlearn much of our school lore. we have specially to carefully examine the meaning of each word we use. i am told that the mind and the body are separate from one another. are the brightness and steel of the knife separate? is not brightness the quality attaching to a certain modification of existence--steel? is not intelligence a quality attaching to a certain modification of existence--man? the word brightness has no meaning, except as relating to some bright thing. the word intelligence, no meaning, except as relating to some intelligent thing. i take some water and drop it upon the steel, in due course the process of oxidation takes place, and the brightness is gone. i drop into a man's brain a bullet; the process of the destruction of life takes place, and his intelligence is gone. by changing the state of the steel we destroy its brightness, and by disorganizing the man destroy his intelligence. is mind an entity or result? an existence or a condition? surely it is but the result of organic activity, a phenomenon of animal life. ("has man a soul?" charles bradlaugh.) the idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating its countless waves of hope and joy against the shores of time, and was not born of an book, nor of any religion, nor of any creed; it was born of human affection, and will continue to ebb and flow beneath the clouds and mists of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. it is the rainbow of hope shining upon the tears of grief. we love, therefore we wish to live, and the foundation of the idea of immortality is human affection and human love, and i have a thousand times more confidence in the affections of the human heart, in the deep and splendid feelings of the human soul than i have in any book that ever was or ever can be written by mortal man.--ingersoll. is this life the "be-all and end-all?" to answer that question, or to give my views on the subject as to whether man lives after death or is extinguished as a living being by death, would ordinarily involve a long preliminary discourse; but i think i can give you my views, such as they are, in a few words. life is sensation, sensibility, the power of feeling. without sensation there is no life. we feel with our nerves; we see with our eyes; we hear with our ears. without nerves there would be no feeling, without eyes no seeing, without ears no hearing. these senses, therefore, of feeling, seeing, hearing, exist in combination with certain forms of matter, and cannot exist without such combination. so the mind exists in combination with the matter, brain. without the brain there can be no mental phenomena, no thinking, no perceiving. these things are palpable; they are truths which may not be disputed. therefore, if death destroys our nerves, it destroys our power of feeling; if it destroys our eyes, it destroys our power of seeing; if it destroys our ears, it destroys our power of hearing; if it destroys our brain, it destroys our power of thinking and perceiving. the man lies down, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing; he is a corpse. separated from the brain, the mind cannot act, cannot think, cannot conceive; therefore, if it exists at all, it is the same as if it were dead. in that condition, the mind can no more think or perceive than the dust into which the decomposed nerves have fallen can feel. what follows then? that the man has come to an end, entirely; he is extinguished.--selected. so you must equally bear with the comparatively small number of scientists who, within the last three hundred years, have worked out the hypothesis that the soul is not matter, substance, or entity, at all, but simply the continuous action or process of the nervous systems of animals, and especially of the brain of man, in answer to their environment. in a word, the life, soul, spirit, mind, thought, feeling, and consciousness are but varying tones of the music which our nervous systems give out when the world plays upon them--much as the piano answers to the touch of our hands. the music was not in, nor the property of the piano, nor of the hand, but it arises and exists only by reason of the playing-contact of the two. thus the life or soul is not a property of brain-matter, or of our nerves, nor of the world or its impinging force; but when those world forces by touch, heat, light, electricity and foods do reach so as to act upon the nerves and brain, then comes their reaction, and we call that reaction feeling, life, soul, thought, reason, etc., through all of the varying music of consciousness, whether exhibited by a child, a savage, a newton or a goethe.--anon. materialism--prof. tyndall. if materialism is confounded, science is rendered dumb.... materialism, therefore, is not a thing to be mourned over, but to be honestly considered; accepted if wholly true, rejected if false. ("fragments of science," p. .) it ought to be known and avowed that the physical philosopher, as such, must be a pure materialist. his inquiries deal with matter and force, and with them alone. (ib., p. .) as regards knowledge, physical science is polar. (ib., p. .) it is the advance of [this] knowledge that has given a materialistic color to the philosophy of our age. (ib., p. .) we may fear and scorn materialism; but he who knew all about it, and could apply his knowledge, might become the preacher of a new gospel. (ib., p. .) through our neglect of the monitions of a reasonable materialism, we sin and suffer daily. (ib., p. .) the practical monitions are plain enough which declare that on our dealings with matter depend our weal or woe, physical and moral. (ib., p. .) it is our duty not to shirk--it ought rather to be our privilege to accept, the established results of physical inquiries; for here, assuredly, our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to truth. is mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence [on matter]? assuredly not. matter, on the contrary, is raised to the level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance would remove it. (ib., p. .) matter is not that empty capacity which philosophers and theologians have pictured it, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb. nature is seen to do all things spontaneously, without the meddling of the gods. (ib., p. .) matter i define as that mysterious thing by which all that is, is accomplished. how it came to have the power which it possesses is a question on which i never ventured an opinion. (ib., p. .) i discern in matter the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. (ib., p. .) does life belong to what we call matter, or is it an independent principle infused into matter at some suitable epoch? (ib., p. .) there does not exist a barrier, possessing the strength of a cobweb, in opposition to the hypothesis which ascribes the appearance of life to that "potency of matter" which finds its expression in natural evolution.... divorced from matter, where is life? (ib., p. .) to man, as we know him, matter is necessary to consciousness. (ib., p. .) every meal we eat, and every cup we drink, illustrates the mysterious control of mind by matter. (ib., p. .) if these statements startle, it is because matter has been defined and maligned by philosophers and theologians, who were ignorant alike of its mystical and transcendental powers. (ib., p. .) two courses, and two only, are possible: either let us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them let us radically change our notions of matter. (ib., p. .) without this total revolution of the notions now prevalent, the evolution hypothesis must stand condemned. (ib., p. .) if we look at matter as defined by our scientific text-books, the notion of conscious life coming out of it cannot be formed by the mind. (ib., p. .) spirit and matter have ever been present to us in the rudest contrast: the one as all noble, the other as all vile. but is this correct? upon the answer to this question, all depends. (ib., p. .) #/ physiology proves materialism to be true, and the following testimony to that fact by eminent scientific men is only a small part of what might be quoted of similar tenor: bain tells us: the most careful and studied observations of physiologists have shown beyond question, that the brain as a whole is indispensible to thought, feeling, and volition. dr. ferrier says: the brain is the organ of mind, and that mental operations are possible only in and through it. this fact is so well established that we may start from it as we should from any ultimate fact. prof. virchow, of berlin, says: every one must admit that without a brain, nay, more, without a good and well developed brain, the human mind has no existence.--man has a mind and rational will only in as much and in so far as he possesses a brain. huxley says: what we call the operations of the mind are functions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity. sensations are products of the inherent properties of the thinking organ. tyndall says: we believe that every thought and every feeling has its definite mechanical correlative in the nervous system; that it is accompanied by a certain separation and remarshalling of the atoms of the brain. dr. maudsley says: i do not go beyond what facts warrant, when i say that, when a thought occurs in the mind, there necessarily occurs a correlative change in the gray matter of the brain. without it, the thought could not arise; with it, it can not fail to rise. what is matter! i take a handful of earth in my hands, and into that dust i put seeds, and arrows from the eternal quiver of the sun smite it, and the seeds grow and bud and blossom, and fill the air with perfume in my sight. do you understand that? do you understand how this dust and these seeds and that light and this moisture produced that bud and that flower and that perfume? do you understand that any better than you do the production of thought? do you understand that any better than you do a dream? do you understand that any better than you do the thoughts of love that you see in the eyes of the one you adore? can you explain it? can you tell what matter is? have you the slightest conception? yet you talk about matter as though you were acquainted with its origin; as though you had compelled, with clenched hands, the very rocks to give up the secret of existence. do you know what force is? can you account for molecular action? are you familiar with chemistry? can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? is there not something in matter that forever eludes you? can you tell what matter really is? before you cry materialism, you had better find what matter is. can you tell of anything without a material basis? is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of a single atom? can you have a thought that is not suggested to you by what you call matter? did any man or woman or child ever have a solitary thought, dream or conception, that was not suggested to them by something they had seen in nature?--ingersoll. the origin of belief in the soul. * * * i had waited at some distance, and as the day grew stronger, saw that this new grave was not the only one upon that lonely height. on my right was a mound on which lay the betel-box, the pipe, the haversack, and "dah" (or chopper-knife) that in life had been his who lay beneath. i turned to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree, when i heard the sound of footsteps. the childless man and woman were passing. i knew the man, and i spoke to him. he had often been my guide in former visits to his village. he stopped. his wife passed on. i asked, tenderly i hope, as to his child. what was the cause of death? "fever." then he squatted down, drew out his pipe, filled and lit it. "whose grave is that?" i asked, pointing to the mound with the betel-box and "dah." "one of the men of my village," he replied; "he died some months ago." "why do you leave his betel-box, haversack, and 'dah' on the grave? what use can it be to him?" "it is our custom." "but why?" "his 'lah' (spirit) will require them." "but you see his 'lah' has not taken them. they are still there, and they are rotting away." "oh, no!" very promptly. "what you see are only the forms of the things. their 'lahs' have gone away and are with the man's 'lah.'" "where?" "in another world below this." "and so people's 'lahs' after death go to another world and work as in this?" "yes; and if they had no haversack, and no betel-box, and no 'dah' how would they get on? how could they cut down forest and cultivate rice for food if they had no 'dah'?" he added after a pause: "so our people say, but i don't know. i am ignorant. i am only a poor jungle fowl." "but," i persisted, "how do your people know that it is true--that the betel-box, the haversack, the knife, and other things have 'lahs,' or even that the man has a 'lah'?" the karen was silent for a while. then he said-- "my child is dead--his body is buried there. it can not move and go about; yet i know that in my sleep he will come to me. he will speak, and i shall speak to him. it is not his body but his 'lah' that will come. so also i lost an ax long ago. it fell in the forest somewhere. i could not find it, but in my sleep i have seen its 'lah' and have held it in my hand." he paused, and went on: "it must have a 'lah,' for iron and handle have rotted away long ago, yet i held them last night in my hand." "then the 'lah' lives independently of the body?" "yes. our people say so." i was silent. here among these savages i saw how the germs of belief in a future life are laid, from what delusion they spring. then looking back to the far-off times, when the ancestors of our own now civilized race were savages with minds as undeveloped as that of the savage before me, i saw how from the mystery of dream-appearances rose the belief in the dual nature of things. i saw how this belief, extending first to all things animate and inanimate, came in the slow evolution of man's intellect, by the elimination of the grosser and cruder portion of his thought to hold at length only of living things. no profound thought--no deep insight into human nature is needed to trace along general lines its further development. man in his selfish egoism making himself the center of all nature, has deemed that he alone is thus favored and raised above the rest of the universe. moreover it is a belief that with all its uncertainties has an intrinsic attractive beauty in the hope it gives to man, that love and happiness will last beyond the grave. above all--fatalest of all, it is a belief that offers to the craft of the priest, power over his fellow man. thus, flattering to man's self-love, useful as an engine of power, affording an easy explanation of mysteries in life and death, this belief in a soul really rising in "the mists and shadows of sleep," has come down to us as god-revealed from on high.--c. t. bingham, in "progress," london, england. "when a man dies what becomes of his soul?" a friend of mine meeting me in the streets of chicago one day, without much ceremony propounded the above question; "say, brother bell," he began, "i would like to have you tell me what becomes of a man's soul when he dies?" in reply i said, "do you see that man walking on the other side of the street?" "yes," he said, "that is old johnson." i then called his attention to the peculiar movement of the old gentleman. "see what a peculiar gait he has." he assented that our friend's gait was peculiar. as we were contemplating him, he stopped to look in a store window. when he halted i turned to my questioner and asked, "where has mr. johnson's gait gone since he stopped walking?" he very candidly acknowledged that a man's gait was not a thing, not an entity, but a mode of motion, and that when the body ceased to move, there was no gait. i asked him if thinking (the soul) was not a motion or activity of the brain, and that when it ceased to act, if there was any soul or thinking left. i have a very distinct remembrance that he talked a long time and said nothing. some soul questions. . where does the soul come from? . is the soul an entity or nonentity? . of what is the soul composed? . when does the soul enter the body, before or after birth? . in what part of the body is the soul located? . if the soul is located in all parts of the body what becomes of that part of the soul contained in an amputated part of a living body? . is the soul an organization independent of the body? . does the soul develop as the body develops? . is the soul of an infant of the same size and weight as the soul of an adult? . is the soul of a negro of the same color as the soul of a caucasian? . is the soul of an idiot as well developed as the soul of an intelligent person? . when does the soul leave the body, at death or at the resurrection day? . if the soul leaves the body at death, where does it sojourn while waiting for the resurrection morn? . if a living person was placed in an air-tight jar, and the jar sealed hermetically, at death how would the soul make its exit? . after leaving the body what direction does the soul pursue to reach its final destination? . what length of time does it require for the soul to reach its final destination? . where and at what distance from the earth is the soul land located? . has the soul the physical organs indispensible to mental action and consciousness? . if not, of what use would the soul be? . is the soul sensible or insensible to pain? . of what shape is the soul? . of what color is the soul? . does the soul retain its sex? . when and where are the souls made, or did they always exist? . we have five infallible witnesses to prove the existence of matter, namely, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and feeling. by these five witnesses we prove the existence and the component parts of matter. can you by the aid of these five senses prove the existence of souls?--w. c. clow. design argument. nothing could have come by chance, it is said, and therefore it is inferred that this universe must have been created by a god. let us view this famous argument for a moment. god is something or nothing. to say he is nothing is to say there is no god. if he is something, he is not merely a property or quality, but an existence per se--an entity, a substance, whether material or immaterial is unimportant. if he is a substance, a material, or spiritual being, there must be order, harmony, and adaptation, or fitness, in his divine nature, to enable him to perceive, reflect, design, and execute his plans. if deity does not reason, does not cogitate, but perceives truth without the labor of investigation and contrivance, he must still possess an adaptation or fitness thus to perceive, as well as to execute his design. to say god is without order, harmony, and adaptation, or fitness, is to say he is a mere chaos--worse than that imaginary chaos that theologians tell us would result if divine agency were withdrawn from the universe. if a being without order, harmony, and adaptation, or a divine chaos, can create an orderly universe then there is no consistency in saying that unintelligent matter could not have produced the objects that we behold. if order, harmony, and adaptation do exist in the divine mind (or in the substance which produces thought, power, and purpose in the divine mind) they must be eternal, for that which constitutes the essential nature of a god must be the eternal basis of his being. if the order, harmony, and adaptation in god are co-existent with him, are eternal, they must be independent of design, for that which never began to exist could not have been produced, and does not therefore admit of design. if order, harmony, and adaptation are independent of design in the divine mind, it is certain that order, harmony, and adaptation exist, and are not evidence of a pre-existent, designing intelligence. if order, harmony, and adaptation exist, which were not produced by design, which are therefore not evidence of design, it is unreasonable and illogical to infer designing intelligence from the fact alone that order, harmony, and adaptation exist in nature. therefore an intelligent deity cannot be inferred from the order, harmony, and adaptation in nature. if the order, harmony, and adaptation in deity, to produce his thoughts, and to execute his plans, are eternal, why may not the formation of matter into worlds, and the evolutions of the various forms of vegetable and animal life on this globe be the result of the ceaseless action of self-existent matter in accordance with an inherent eternal principle of adaptation? is it more reasonable to suppose the universe was created, or constructed by a being in whom exists the most wonderful order and harmony, and the most admirable adaptation to construct a universe (which order, harmony, and adaptation could have had no designing cause), than to suppose that the universe itself in its entirety is eternal, and the self-producing cause of all the manifestations we behold? is a god uncaused, and who made everything from nothing, more easy of belief than a universe uncaused and existing according to its own inherent nature? is it wonderful that matter should be self-existent; that it should possess the power to form suns, planets, and construct that beautiful ladder of life that reaches from the lowest forms of the vegetable kingdom up to man? how much more wonderful that a great being should exist, without any cause, who had no beginning, and who is infinitely more admirable than the universe itself. again, the plan of a work is as much evidence of intelligence and design as the work which embodies the plan. the plan of a steam engine in the mind of fitch--the plan of the locomotive in the mind of stephenson--was as much evidence of design as the piece of machinery after its mechanical construction. if god be an omniscient being--a being who knows everything; to whose knowledge no addition can be made--his plans must be eternal--without beginning, and therefore uncaused. if god's plans are not eternal; if from time to time new plans originate in his mind, there must be an addition to his knowledge, and if his knowledge admits of addition, it must be finite. but if his plans had no beginning; if, like himself, they are eternal, they must, like him, be independent of design. now, the plan of a thing, we have already seen, is as much evidence of design as the object which embodies the plan. since the plans of deity are no proof of design that produced them (for they are supposed to be eternal), the plan of this universe, of course, was no evidence of a designing intelligence that produced it. but since the plan of the universe is as much evidence of design as the universe itself, and since the former is no evidence of design, it follows that design cannot be inferred from the existence of the universe. the absurdity of the a posteriori argument of a god consists in the assumption that what we call order and adaptation in nature are evidence of design, when it is evident that whether there be a god or not, order and adaptation must have existed from eternity, and are not therefore necessarily proof of a designing cause. the reasoning of the theologian is like that of the hindoo in accounting for the position of the earth. "whatever exists must have some support," said he. the earth exists, and is therefore supported. he imagined it resting on the back of an elephant. the elephant needing some support, he supposed rested on the back of a huge tortoise. he forgot that according to his own premise that whatever exists must have some support, that the tortoise should rest on something. the inconclusiveness of his reasoning is apparent to a child. whatever exists is supported. the earth exists. therefore, the earth is supported; it rests on an elephant; the elephant rests on a tortoise; the tortoise exists, but nothing is said about its support. the theologian says order, harmony, and adaptation are evidence of a designing intelligence that produced them. the earth and its productions show order, harmony, and adaptation. therefore, the earth and its productions have been produced by an intelligent designer. just as the hindoo stopped reasoning when he imagined the earth on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, so the theologian stops reasoning when he says, god made the world. but as surely as from the premise that whatever exists must have some support, follows the conclusion that the tortoise rests on something, as rests on it the elephant, does it follow from the proposition that order, harmony, and adaptation are proof of an intelligent designer, that the order, harmony, and adaptation in the deity to produce the effects ascribed to him are evidence of an intelligent designer who made him, as the various parts of nature, adapted to one another, are evidence of an intelligent designer that produced them. this reasoning leads to the conclusion that there has been an infinite succession of creative and created gods, which is inconsistent with the idea of a first cause, the creator of the universe. then why attempt to explain the mysteries of the universe by imagining a god who produced everything but himself, and why argue from the order and fitness in the world the existence of a designer. it reminds me of the ostrich, that having buried its head in the sand, so as to render invisible its pursuers, fancies there is no further need of exertion to escape from the dangers and difficulties which surround it. "design represented as a search after final cause, until we come to a first cause, and then stop," says f. n. newman, "is an argument i confess which in itself brings me no satisfaction." "the attempt," says buckle, "which paley and others have made to solve this mystery by rising from the laws to the cause are evidently futile, because to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as the problem, and the arguments of the natural theologian, in so far as they are arguments, must depend on reason." design implies the use of means for the attainment of ends. man designs, plans, contrives and uses secondary agencies to accomplish his purposes, because unable to attain his ends directly. but how absurd to speak of contrivance and design in a being of infinite power and knowledge. man, to build steamships has to fell trees and hew them into various shapes, get iron from the earth and smelt it in furnaces, and work it into bolts, braces, nails, etc., hundreds of workmen, carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, cabinet-makers, painters, caulkers, riggers, etc., labor for months before the vessel can be launched. if man possessed the power to speak into existence a steamship, would he contrive, plan and use means to construct it? on the contrary, would it not come instantly into existence as a complete, perfect whole? but the existence of a steamer, since it is only a means to an end, would be inconsistent with unlimited power in man. if he were able to effect his purposes why should he construct a vessel with which to visit far off lands? infinite power would enable him to cross the ocean by the mere exercise of his will. it is evident at a glance that the use of means is incompatible with infinite knowledge and infinite power. this argument ... in proving too much proves nothing, and demonstrates its own worthlessness, and therefore we cast it aside. design implies finiteness; man designs and has to calculate and use means to accomplish his end. if he were all powerful would he use that power to construct ships to cross the ocean, or armies to win battles, when he could accomplish his end without, and by those means demonstrate that he is infinite in power? an infinite being would not have to employ means to complete his works; he would not have to doubt and cogitate before he accomplished his design; that would be the method of man. it is absurd to suppose that a god did all those things. we supposed god infinite in everything, in his power, in his love and kindness. he has power to do everything. and yet the world is so constructed that at every step we take we crush to death creatures as minutely and curiously formed as ourselves. they kill one another in numerous struggles, and life has been such a series of bloody battles, resulting in destruction of life, that the waterloos and solferinos of history are nothing in comparison. where is the design in the volcano that belches forth its fiery billows and buries in ruins a pompeii and a herculaneum? where is the design in the tornado that sends a fleet with its precious freight of humanity beneath the remorseless waves? where is the design in the suffering and torture that thousands feel this very moment in the chambers of sickness, and in the hospitals full of diseases? where is the evidence of a great being who has the power to make men happy, and yet allows the world to go on in all its misery--such misery as it makes one's heart ache to see, and which we, imperfect creatures as we are, would gladly stop if we could? and where is the design in the thousands of facts which science has brought to light, showing that there are organs and parts that serve no purpose at all, but on the contrary, are injurious to their possessors? why do some animals, like the dugong, have tusks that never cut through the gums? why has the guinea pig teeth that are shed before it is born? science tells us these rudimentary structures are the remnants of a former state, in which these parts were of service; but theology, which requires us to believe that a god made all these animals as we now see them, cannot possibly reconcile these facts with infinite wisdom and goodness. adaptation in organisms instead of having been produced by a deity, we hold is largely the result of natural selection. adaptation must exist as the adjustment of objects to their environments. if a flock of sheep be exposed to the weather of a severe climate, those of them having the thinnest wool, affording the least protection from the cold, will perish. those with the thickest wool and hardiest nature will survive every year, and by the law of heredity, transmit their favorable variations. by this process those best adapted to the climate live, and the others perish. thus in the struggle for life we have the "survival of the fittest," without any design whatever. but the theologian comes along and looking at the sheep, says: "see how god has adapted these sheep to the climate." he forgets the thousands that have shivered and perished in winter's cold as the condition of this adaptation. so animals change the color of their coverings in accordance with their environments. the bears among the icebergs of the north are white, because in the struggle for life every light variation has been favorable to the animal--has facilitated its escape from the hunter and its preying upon the living things upon which it subsists. those with darker coverings have gradually become extinct, leaving in undisputed possession of the snow banks and icebergs this species, which in color resembles the general aspect of its surroundings. look at the rabbits. some change their color every year; some are brown in the summer and white like the snow in winter. those with this tendency to change their color during the year, having the most favorable variation, have persisted, and this tendency, by heredity, has been accumulated, until it has become a part of the nature of the animal. these are but illustrations of a principle discovered by darwin and wallace, which explains largely how, not only color and thickness of coverings, but speed, strength and suppleness of body, keenness of sight and hearing, and all other parts and powers of organism have been developed in adaptation to their environment, without any special design whatever. it is said we have no evidence of the eternal existence of the universe, because we have no personal observation of it. but is there any personal observation to prove the existence of an eternal god? yet it is believed in by our opponents. we believe the universe always has existed in the past, because we see no trace of a beginning; we believe it will always exist in the future, because we see no prospect or possibility of an end. worlds have their formation and dissolution; but the substance is neither augmented nor diminished. matter is indestructible and eternal. we are not, therefore, in need of a creator. b. f. underwood. do the natural affairs of this world show a designer? is there a conscious intelligence at work guiding all the affairs of this world? we see no evidence of a wise and benevolent design in the creation of wild, ravenous birds and beasts of prey. we fail to see anything like a kind providence in earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, tidal-waves, storms at sea, drouth, famine, and pestilence. is there a supreme intelligence which causes monstrosities, sends epidemics, horrid diseases, plants parasites upon the human body? are lice, tape-worms, bed-bugs, fleas, flies, grasshoppers, and mosquitoes "blessings in disguise?" are abject poverty and misery divine blessings? is ignorance a gracious boon in mercy sent? pain and misery are not exceptional features of man's life on earth, but they are chief characteristics of it. are some unconscious of their degradation? shall we infer therefrom that ignorance is bliss? if this unconsciousness of degradation on the part of some shall be considered as evidence of a benevolent designer, then what shall we say in the case of those who are conscious of their degradation? "if," says haeckel, "we contemplate the common life and mutual relations between plants and animals (man included) we shall find everywhere and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life which the goodness of the creator ought to have prepared for his creatures: we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered struggle of all against all." large fish eat small ones, large birds devour the smaller, and the ferocious beasts of prey live upon the weaker and less fleet animals. in this struggle for existence there is one perpetual battle; the smaller, weaker and less fleet are captured and devoured by the stronger, and man destroys and eats any of them at his pleasure. is there a display of intelligence and benevolent design in creating man with strength and wisdom to slaughter his prey at will? then where is the benevolence of design in creating the animals to be thus slaughtered? the universe, we shall find, does not exhibit evidence of a conscious intelligent design. says shelley: "we must prove design before we can infer a designer." mr. talmage insists that it takes no especial brain to reason out a "design" in nature, and in a moment afterward says: "when the world slew jesus, it showed what it would do with the eternal god if once it could get its hands upon him." why should a god of infinite wisdom create people who would gladly murder their creator? was there any particular "design" in that? does the existence of such people conclusively prove the existence of a good designer? ("ingersoll's interviews," p. .) providence. religious people see providence in everything. strange it is, too, that the most marked displays of providence are seen in shipwrecks, railroad collisions, or in all devastating fires, floods, and plagues. in such appalling calamities as lead most sensible men to say with Ã�neas, "if there be gods, they certainly take no interest in the affairs of men," the christian sees proof of a good guardian, a saving god, where nothing but destruction and ruin mark his pathway. there is a strange fatuity manifested by believers in this doctrine. not long since a young man died very suddenly in boston. there was a post-mortem examination by regular physicians, and a coroner's jury, who mutually deliberated over the body as to the cause of its death. the doctors found the young man's stomach somewhat irritated. on close inspection the contents of the stomach were found to be a mixture of bread and butter, mince pie and coffee, ham and eggs, buckwheat cakes, oyster stew, plum pudding, pound cake, corned beef, ice cream, more mince pie, and baked beans. the jury gave the case most grave and deliberate consideration, and in accordance therewith returned the verdict: "came to his death by a mysterious dispensation of the afflictive hand of providence." just so! anything, however evil, unjust or foolish may be attributed to providence; yet he remains both wise and good. why, if this world is created and controlled by infinite wisdom and benevolence, are not all things beautiful? one of man's noblest endeavors is to beautify. but we see many flowers and plants which are not beautiful. many parts of the earth are inhospitable and forbidding. what beauties on the other hand lie buried at the bottom of the ocean, its flora, shells, and corals! but no human eye ever sees them. wherein is the evidence of design? where is the evidence of design in the horrid monsters which once filled the oceans? where is the design in creating such monstrosities as we see among animals? did the designer intend that parasites should infest the human body? the creator made the parasites (lice) and their proper dwelling-place seems to be the human body. the human body gives them their proper food. they are so constituted as to reproduce themselves rapidly and thus persist in feeding upon man. the question is immediately raised: "were the lice made for man, or man for the lice?" when did it ever occur to a sane mind that bed-bugs and mosquitoes and fleas were created with a benevolent design? these facts are irreconcileable with the notion of a supreme and beneficent providence. where is the evidence of benevolent design in earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, drouth, famine, and ten thousand ills which flesh is heir to? where is the moral purpose? where is the benevolence in peopling the earth with millions of human beings who live lives of poverty and misery? but it is argued that we cannot see it all now, but by and by it will be made plain to us, that is, when we get into the other world. this is begging the question. the christian says creation shows a creator, who first created the universe and now presides over it. but when we bring the facts of this world, its abounding evils and human miseries, to show the absence of any benevolent superintendence, he promises to make good his argument in the next world. this is asking a fellow to wait too long. again, it is argued by the christian that god ordained pain to work out good; but how comes it that this ordination of working good out of evil does not take place? sometimes one man is made better by it, and another is brutalized by it. how does this come to pass if pain was ordained to work good? has the plan of the designer failed? "the evils of this world are ordained for the purpose of developing our souls; only by pain and suffering can we be prepared for heaven." little children who die, according to this dogma, can never be developed. are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your father? (mat. : .) but sparrows do fall to the ground nevertheless. and if some do not fall to the ground that wicked bird the sparrow-hawk, devours them sometimes before they have an opportunity to fall. it is the same wise and kind providence who makes the sparrow and the sparrow-hawk, but perhaps the poor sparrow does not recognize the wisdom and mercy of having a destroyer. but our good christian friends will have it that all things come to pass by the direct control of an all-wise and all-good providence. the chicago fire, the boston fire, and others are all dispensations of providence, if we may believe the ministers, and they are the only ones who pretend to have positive information of the facts. the bursting of a mill-dam, or a tidal-wave, or anything and everything else that carries the besom of destruction to thousands is to them a well-known intervention of the hand of a wise and merciful providence. it is the same, with good fortune; if we as a people have great prosperity, large harvests and abundance of trade, it is because of this "all-wise providence." he brings the evil and the good, miseries and joys, sins and salvation. how do we know there is a kind providence watching over this world? "oh!" says our christian friend, "we see this manifested in the kindly adaptations of nature to man's conditions, everything seems to have been made for man's comfort." but, this general adaptation of man to nature and of nature to man, proves nothing of a conscious intelligence ruling over the universe. the maggot in the cheese might look around him and say, if he could talk: "all this cheese was made for me, because it's perfectly adapted to my wants and conditions." man and maggot are adapted to their surroundings, because their surroundings have made them what they are. after attempting to prove the existence of a special providence, and failing, the christian then craw-fishes into absurd talk of a mysterious providence, a dark dispensation of providence, an inscrutable providence, an inexplicable providence. and when driven from this refuge, he at last exclaims: "well, if it all seems dark and hidden from our understanding here, it will all be made clear when we pass over to the other side." yes, but you admit by this statement that you know now positively nothing of a conscious intelligence ruling the universe, why not say so? the fundamental idea of a special providence, is that he prevents accidents; but in spite of special providence, accidents do occur. and even these mishaps, which show that no such thing as providence exists, are claimed by the superstitious as proof of a mysterious providence. francis bacon says: "we shall do well to bear in mind the ancient story of one who in pagan times was shown a temple with a picture of all the persons who had been saved from shipwreck, after paying their vows. when asked whether he did acknowledge the power of the gods, "aye," he answered, "but where are they painted who were drowned after their vows?" (jevon's "principles of science," part , p. .) we learn from the little care which nature takes of single individuals. thousands of them are sacrificed without hesitation or repentance in the plenty of nature. even with regard to man we make the same experience. not one half of the human race reach the second year of their age, but die almost without having known that they ever lived. we learn this very thing also from the misfortunes and mishaps of all men, the good as well as the bad, which cannot well be made to agree with the special preservation or co-operation of the creator. (feuerbach's "essence of religion.") but with the conception of a supreme beneficence this gratuitous infliction of misery, in common with other terrestrial creatures capable of feeling, is also absolutely incompatible.--spencer. in short, there can be no hypothesis of a "moral government" of the world which does not implicitly assert an "immoral government." (fisk's "cosmic philosophy," vol. , p. .) but the believer in the inspiration of the bible is compelled to declare that there was a time when slavery was right--when men could buy, and women could sell, their babes. he is compelled to insist that there was a time when polygamy was the highest form of virtue; when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy; when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. he must maintain that jehovah is just as bad now as he was four thousand years ago, or that he was just as good then as he is now, but that human conditions have so changed that slavery, polygamy, religious persecutions, and wars of conquest are now perfectly devilish. once they were right--once they were commanded by god himself; now, they are prohibited. there has been such a change in the conditions of man that, at the present time, the devil is in favor of slavery, polygamy, religious persecution, and wars of conquest. that is to say, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that jehovah held four thousand years ago, but in the meantime jehovah has remained exactly the same--changeless and incapable of change.... a very curious thing about these commandments is that their supposed author violated nearly every one. from sinai, according to the account, he said: "thou shalt not kill," and yet he ordered the murder of millions; "thou shalt not commit adultery," and yet he gave captured maidens to gratify the lust of captors; "thou shalt not steal," and yet he gave to jewish marauders the flocks and herds of others; "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his wife," and yet he allowed his chosen people to destroy the homes of neighbors and to steal their wives; "honor thy father and thy mother," and yet this same god had thousands of fathers butchered, and with the sword of war killed children yet unborn; "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and yet he sent abroad "lying spirits" to deceive his own prophets, and in a hundred ways paid tribute to deceit. so far as we know, jehovah kept only one of these commandments--he worshipped no other god. ("ingersoll's reply to black.") it is said of christ that he was infinitely kind and generous, infinitely merciful because when on earth he cured the sick, the lame, and the blind. has he not as much power now as he had then? if he has and is the god of all worlds, why does he not now give back to the widow her son? why does he withhold light from the blind, and why does one who had the power miraculously to feed thousands allow millions to die for want of food? where is he now? ("ingersoll's interviews.") first cause. assuming then, the existence of a first cause, let us inquire for a moment into its nature. the first cause must be infinite. for if we regard it as finite, we regard it as bounded or limited, and are thus compelled to think of a region beyond its limits, which region is uncaused. and if we admit this, we virtually abandon the doctrine of causation altogether. we, therefore, have no alternative but to regard the first cause an infinite. we are no less irresistibly compelled to regard the first cause as independent. for if it be dependent, that on which it depends must be the first cause. the first cause can therefore have no necessary relation to any other form of being; since if the presence of any other form of existence is necessary to its completeness, it is partially dependent upon such other form of existence, and cannot be the first cause. thus the first cause, besides being infinite, must be complete in itself, existing independently of all relations,--that is, it must be absolute. to such conclusions, following the most refined metaphysical philosophy of the day, are we easily led. by the very limitations of our faculties, we are compelled to think of a first cause of all phenomena; and we are compelled to think of it as both infinite and absolute. nevertheless, it will not be difficult to show that such a conclusion is utterly illusive; and that in joining together, the three conceptions of cause, of infinite, and of absolute, we have woven for ourselves a net-work of contradictions, more formidable, more disheartening than any that we have yet been required to contemplate. for, in the first place, that which is a cause cannot at the same time be absolute. for the definition of the absolute is that which exists out of all relations; whereas a cause not only sustains some definite relation to its effect, but it exists as a cause only by virtue of such relation. suppress the effect, and the cause has ceased to be a cause. the phrase "absolute cause," therefore, which is equivalent to "non-relative cause," is like the phrase "circular triangle." the two words stand for conceptions which cannot be made to unite. "we attempt," says mr. mansel, "to escape from this apparent contradiction by introducing the idea of succession in time. the absolute exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes a cause. but here, we are checkmated by the third conception, that of the infinite. how can the infinite become that which it was not from the first? if causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite; that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits. "but supposing all these obstacles overcome, so that we might frame a valid conception of a cause which is also absolute and infinite: have we then explained the origin of the universe? have we advanced one step toward explaining how the absolute can be the source of the relative, or how the infinite can give rise to the finite?" to continue with mr. mansel, "if the condition of causal activity is a higher state than that of quiescence, the absolute ... has passed from a condition of comparative imperfection to one of comparative perfection; and therefore was not originally perfect. if the state of activity is an inferior state to that of quiesence, the absolute in becoming a cause has lost its original perfection. there remains only the supposition that the two states are equal, and the act of creation one of complete indifference. but this supposition annihilates the unity of the absolute." (john fiske, "cosmic philosophy.") the sunday question. it is related that once upon a time, a number of grave and reverend rabbins earnestly disputed among themselves, whether it was lawful or not to eat an egg that was laid upon the sabbath day. in the minds of some of these grave and wise masters it was held to be a prohibited egg, but in the stomachs of others of their number such eggs were held as too good to be despised. in the blue laws of connecticut by rev. sam peters, we have puritan scruples put in rhyme: "upon the sabbath day they'll no physick take, lest it should worke, and so the sabbath breake." there have always been great disputes over this subject which we call in general terms the "sunday question." why do so many misunderstandings arise upon this matter? simply because people do not understand the question. millions of devout worshippers use the terms sunday and sabbath as if they were synonymous. millions of superstitious persons cherish obligations to maintain better conduct on sunday than on any other day in the week. they cannot understand that it is fit and proper to do on sunday anything that it is fit and proper to do on any other day. the tendency to perform the duties of life correctly on sunday leaves room and disposition not to perform them so well on the other six days of the week. such people live cream lives on sunday and skim-milk lives all the rest of the week. it won't do; because it tends to demoralize rather than establish the noble sentiments of morality and manhood. if we would know how to observe sunday we must know something more about it than we have unconsciously learned from the nursery stories of our childhood. let us begin with the names of the days of the week. we trace these names to our saxon ancestors. by them the seven days of the week were called son-daeg, moon-daeg, tuis-daeg, woden's-daeg, thurres-daeg or thor's-day, friga's-daeg, and seterne's-daeg. these were the names of ancient deities. as seven planets and seven metals were at that time known--the sun, the moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus and saturn being the planets of astrology--a due allotment was made, gold was held sacred to the sun, silver to the moon, iron to mars, etc. even the portions of time were in a like manner dedicated; the seven days of the week were respectively given to the seven planets of astrology. the names imposed on these days, and the order in which they occur, are obviously connected with the ptolemaic hypothesis of astronomy, each of the planets having an hour assigned to it in its order of occurrence, and the planet ruling first the hour of each day giving its name to that day. thus arranged, the week is a remarkable instance of the longevity of an institution adapted to the wants of man. it has survived through many changes of empire and has forced itself on the ecclesiastical system of europe, which, unable to change its idolatrous aspect, has encouraged the vulgar error that it owes its authenticity to the holy scriptures; an error too plainly betrayed by the pagan names that the days bear, and also by their order of occurrence. ("intellectual development of europe," by john w. draper, vol. , p. .) it is remarkable that every day of the week is by different nations devoted to the public celebration of religious services:--sunday by the christians, monday by the greeks, tuesday by the persians, wednesday by the assyrians, thursday by the egyptians, friday by the turks, saturday by the jews. from a passage in genesis, in which the first reference to a sabbath occurs, the inference has been drawn (an inference not warranted by the text) that the first parents of the human race were taught by god himself to divide time into weeks, and to set apart a portion as a day of rest, and for religious purposes. if so, it would of course follow that this institution, or some traces of it, would be found among all nations; and the impression, therefore, on the mind of a very large class of persons, is a very natural one, that however much a sabbath may have fallen into disuse, or be now disregarded, the week of seven days has been kept by all generations of mankind from the days of creation, and continues to be observed in every part of the world. ("westminster review," october , p. .) it is, however, true that observance of one day in seven as a day of rest, recreation, and pleasure obtains in many countries. how then did it come about if it was not revealed to man, that we keep in a special manner one day in seven? the observance of a seventh part of the week is no more a revelation than the multiplication table is. it was natural for man to measure the spaces of time. the revolution of the earth, or from sun to sun was a day, and from new moon to new moon was a month of twenty-eight days. it was a most natural thing to have feasts at the full of the moon and at new moon; between these times were the "horned moon," and this marked another division of time. it was easy to divide the full moon into four periods, each of seven days. hence originated the observance of one day in seven. after the moon time had been divided into four parts each of seven days and the days specifically named, then the old phraseology of "new moon days" was dropped as it was no longer needed. there are two different reasons given for observing the sabbath: for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. (exodus : .) and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of egypt, and that the lord thy god brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the lord thy god commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. (deuteronomy : .) here are two distinct and contradictory accounts given of the origin of the sabbath. according to the first, god instituted the sabbath on the seventh day of time, immediately after his six days of creation. but if we are to believe the writer of deuteronomy the sabbath was set up as a memorial day of the jews' escape from egyptian bondage; an occurrence that took place something like two thousand five hundred years after the year one, of creation. both of these statements cannot be correct, as one excludes the other. and in view of the fact that man naturally learned to divide time into days, moons, and quarter moons we are strongly inclined to think that both of these ancient accounts are mythical. "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." the word holy has lost its original signification. the hebrew word kadosh means "to set apart." parkhurst renders it, "to separate, to set apart from its common and ordinary to some higher use or purpose." it is used in this sense in genesis : "and god divided [i.e. separated] the light from the darkness." the vessels of the sanctuary were to be "holy unto the lord;" that is, they were to be kept strictly separate from other vessels, for the sanctuary. the saba or sabbath was a day of rest, and the command to keep it holy did not mean that it should be observed with solemnity, or kept by offering sacrifices or in the performance of other religious ceremonies. other days were working days, but the sabbath was to be a day of rest. "the word holy," says a modern writer on the sabbath, "has now become so associated in our minds with puritanical ideas of self-mortification and with modern religious forms of worship, that we are naturally misled by it from the meaning of the original. many pious persons suppose that the command to keep the sabbath day holy was equivalent to an injunction to attend a parish church, hear two or more sermons in the course of the sunday and during the rest of the day to keep in-doors and read the bible. the jews, however, did not do this, for the bible was not written, and sermons in its exposition (which would have wanted texts) could not well be preached. nor does it appear from any passage in the books of moses, that religious admonitions or discourses of any kind formed a part of the tabernacle service." the jewish sabbath was emphatically a day of rest. work, therefore, was strictly prohibited; for "whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." (exodus : .) this law was not so literal as subsequent interpreters have made it. we have an account of only one person being put to death for this crime. it is recorded in numbers, : - that "while the children of israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day." and they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto moses and aaron, and unto all the congregation. and they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. and the lord said unto moses, the man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. and all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the lord commanded moses. this was the only case in all the hebrew writings, of stoning a man for gathering sticks on the sabbath. but this single instance has engendered an infinite amount of bitter persecution in the hearts of the over-righteous, who keep the sabbath holy and try also to make their neighbors observe it in a like manner. sir humphrey davy relates in his "salmonia," page , , that he "was walking on arthur's seat with some of the most distinguished professors of edinburgh attached to the geological opinions of the late dr. hutton, a discussion took place upon the phenomena presented by the rocks under our feet, and to exemplify a principle, professor playfair broke some stones, in which i assisted the venerable and amiable philosopher. "we had hardly examined the fragments, when a man from the crowd, who had been assisting at field-preaching, came up and warned us off, saying, 'ye think ye are only stane-breakers; but i ken ye are sabbath breakers, and ye deserve to be staned with your ain stanes.'" accidents which take place on sunday are looked upon by some people as "judgments of god." in scotland on january th, the citizens were dreadfully alarmed by an earthquake, on account of which a day of fasting and humiliation was appointed by the magistrates and clergy. the particular sin for which this scourge was thought to be sent, was the custom of salmon-fishing on sunday. but this rigid feature of the jewish sabbath was of a negative character, as the day was observed as a day of feasting and joy--a day something like our thanksgiving. a variety of minor regulations referring to bodily indulgences on that day, abundantly prove, if further proof were needed, its recognized character as a "feast-day" in the natural and general sense of the term, in judaism. it was to be honored by the wearing of finer garments, by three special meals of the best cheer the house could afford; and it was considered a particularly meritorious thing on the part of the master of the house to busy himself personally as much as possible with the furnishing of the viands, nay, the fetching of the very wood for the cooking, so as to do as much honor to the "bride-sabbath" as in him lay. fasting, mourning, mortification of all and every kind, even special supplicatory prayers are strictly prohibited. (chamber's encyclopedia.) if sunday takes the place of the sabbath, then the new testament would clearly reveal the fact; but it does nothing of the kind. if the new religion was designed to take the place of the old, then we should expect to find jesus plainly teaching that after his death sunday should be observed in place of and as the sabbath. but far from this, we find him repudiating the jewish sabbath, and saying nothing at all about a new day of ceremonies and worship. we give a number of instances where jesus intentionally repudiates and violates the common usages respecting the sabbath: the impotent man answered him, sir, i have no man, when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while i am coming, another steppeth down before me. jesus saith unto him, rise, take up thy bed, and walk. and immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath. the jews therefore said unto him that was cured, it is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. and therefore did the jews persecute jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. (john : , , , and .) the jewish law regarding the sabbath was strict. it was not lawful to carry burdens on that day. thus saith the lord, take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of jerusalem. (jeremiah : .) and it came to pass that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began as they went to pluck the ears of corn. and the pharisees said unto him, behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? and he said unto them, have ye never read what david did, when he had need, and was a hungered, he and they that were with him? how he went into the house of god in the days of abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shew-bread, which is not lawful to eat, but for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him? and he said unto them, the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. (mark : - .) jesus had repeated conflicts with the jews on this question. he would not honor the jewish sabbath, and consequently the jews made war upon him, threatening to take his life. and the scribes and pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. but he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, rise up, and stand forth in the midst. and he arose and stood forth. then said jesus unto them, i will ask you one thing: is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it? and looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, stretch forth thy hand. and he did so; and his hand was restored whole as the other. (luke : - .) and they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to jesus. (luke : .) we read in luke : - , that "there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." and when jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. and he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified god. and the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, there are six days in which man ought to work; in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. with the commandment before his eyes, saying: "take heed to yourselves and bear no burdens on the sabbath day as i commanded your fathers," (jeremiah : ), jesus deliberately bade the cripple take up his bed and walk, on the sabbath day. it is remarkable that those people who love to sabbatize so much, and to make others do so too, do not see that while jesus violated intentionally the jewish sabbath, that he never gave his disciples the slightest hint that they should observe sunday in any manner whatever. paul, the founder of the christian church, rejects the sabbath. let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days. (colossians : .) one man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. he that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the lord he doth not regard it. (romans : , .) but now, after that ye have known god, or rather are known of god, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? ye observe days and months and times and years. (galatians : , .) bear in mind, reader, that there is not so much as a dot in the new testament in favor of substituting saturday for the jewish sabbath, or for observing it as a sabbath day. jesus and paul both repudiate it. the history of the church is against the use of sunday as the sabbath. st. cyril, bishop of jerusalem, in the year , says: "turn thou not out of the way into samaritanism or judaism, for jesus christ hath redeemed thee; henceforth reject all observance of sabbaths, and call not meats, which are really matters of indifference, common or unclean." st. jerome, in the year , says: "on the lord's day they went to church, and returning from church they would apply themselves to their allotted works and make garments for themselves and others. the day is not a day of fasting, but a day of joy; the church has always considered it a day of joy, and none but heretics have thought otherwise." sir william danville, in his "six texts," p. , says: "centuries of the christian era passed away before the sunday was observed by the christian church as a sabbath. history does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of constantine in a. d. . the edict of constantine. in the code of justinian lib. , title , sec. and , we find the first legal edict regulating the sabbath: let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture, because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven. by a multitude of religious teachers of the present day, this decree of constantine is recognized as the foundation of all "sabbath" or "lord's day" legislation; as the first recognition by the "body politic" of the usages or institutions of christianity. but nothing can be more easily shown than that this decree was not made in the interest of christianity; that it did not respect the sabbath or lord's day; and that it was not issued by a christian ruler. the reader will notice that the decree was partial; that it related only to certain classes, leaving other classes to still pursue their usual avocations; and that it was respecting "the venerable day of the sun." now we appeal with confidence to every student and reader of the bible, that in all the scriptures there is no such a day or institution known as "the venerable day of the sun." and we affirm that, in this decree, constantine not only did not mention any christian institution, but he had no reference to any christian institution. on this point let such a reputable writer as dr. schaff testify: he enjoined the civil observance of sunday, though not as dies domini [lord's day], but as dies solis [day of the sun], in conformity to his worship of apollo, and in company with an ordinance for the regular consulting of the haruspex ( ). ("history of the christian church," vol. .) the edict of the sun's day was issued march ; that for consulting the haruspex was issued the day following, march . this edict of march concerned the inspection of the entrails of beasts as a means of foretelling future events. it was a heathen practice, and the decree was a heathen edict, made by a heathen ruler. this of itself is sufficient to show in what light we must regard his edict for honoring "the venerable day of the sun." dr. schaff says that constantine issued his sun's day decree "in conformity to his worship of apollo." who was apollo, and what relation did his worship bear to reverencing "the day of the sun?" webster says: "a deity among the greeks and romans, and worshiped under the name of phoebus, the sun." noted men who have rejected the observance of sunday as the sabbath. for if there was no need of circumcision before abraham, or of the observance of sabbaths, feasts, and sacrifices, before moses, no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of god, jesus christ, the son of god, has been born without sin.--justin martyr. they (the patriarchs) did not therefore regard circumcision nor observe the sabbath, neither do we; neither do we abstain from certain foods, nor regard other injunctions which moses subsequently delivered to be observed in types and symbols, because such things as these do not belong to christians.--eusebius. as regards the sabbath or sunday, there is no necessity for keeping it; but if we do, it ought not to be on account of moses's commandment, but because nature teaches us from time to time to take a day of rest.... if anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, then i order you to work on it, to dance on it, to do anything that will reprove this encroachment on christian spirit and liberty.--martin luther. the law of the sabbath being thus repealed, that no particular day of worship has been appointed in its place is evident.--milton. they who think that by the authority of the church, the observance of the lord's day was appointed instead of the sabbath, as if necessary, are greatly deceived.--melancthon. and truly we see what such a doctrine has profited; for those who adopt it far exceed the jews in a gross, carnal, and superstitious observance of the sabbath.--john calvin. these things refute those who suppose that the first day of the week (that is, the lord's day) was substituted in place of the sabbath, for no mention is made of such a thing by christ or his apostles.--grotius. it will be plainly seen that jesus did decidedly and avowedly violate the sabbath. the dogma of the assembly of divines at westminster, that the observance of the sabbath is a part of the moral law, is to me utterly unintelligible.--archbishop whately. as for the sabbath, we be lords over the sabbath, and may yet change it into monday, or into any other day as we see need, or make every tenth day a holy day only, if we see cause why. we may make two every week, if it were expedient, and not one enough to teach the people. neither was there any cause to change it from saturday than to put difference between us and the jews, and lest we should become servants unto the day, after their superstition. neither need we any holy day at all if the people might be taught without it.--william tyndall. the effect of which consideration is, that the lord's day did not succeed in the place of the sabbath, but the sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution.--jeremy taylor. the festival of sunday, like all other festivals, was always a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from them and the early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the sabbath to sunday. perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place, for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on sunday as a sin.--neander. dr. mcnight says: the whole law of moses being abrogated by christ, christians are under no obligation to observe any of the jewish holidays--not even the sabbath. (com. on epistles, col.) sabbath engenders cruelty. the history of the sabbatarians proves them to be both ignorant and cruel. we have only to make a few quotations from standard authors to prove the charge. at the same time that james shocked in so violent a manner, the religious principles of his scottish subjects, he acted in opposition to those of his english. he had observed, in his progress through england, that a judaical observance of the sunday, chiefly by means of the puritans, was every day gaining ground throughout the kingdom; and that the people under color of religion, were contrary to former practice, debarred such sports and recreations as contributed both to their health and amusement. festivals which in other nations and ages are partly dedicated to public worship, partly to mirth and society, were here totally appropriated to the offices of religion and served to nourish those sullen and gloomy contemplations, to which the people were of themselves so unfortunately subject. the king imagined that it would be easy to infuse cheerfulness into the dark spirit of devotion. he issued a proclamation to allow and encourage, after divine service, all kinds of lawful games and exercises; and by his authority he endeavored to give sanction to a practice which his subjects regarded as the utmost instance of profaneness and impiety. ("hume's history of england," vol. , p. .) hume, speaking of the puritans, remarks: they [the house of commons] also enacted laws for the strict observance of sunday which the puritans affected to call the sabbath, and which, they sanctified by most melancholy indolence. (vol. , p. .) besides this, it is important to remark that the puritans were more fanatical than superstitious. they were so ignorant of the real principles of government, as to direct penal laws against private vices. ("buckle's history of civilization in england," vol. , p. .) the same spirit is rampant now in our prohibition laws, sunday laws, profane swearing laws, etc. repressing vices does not extinguish them but causes them to become more deep-seated and wide-spread. moral natures can be made more moral only by the use of moral means. the puritans. not dancers go to heaven, but mourners; not laughers but weepers; whose tune is lachrymae, whose music sighs for sin; who know no other cinquepace but this to heaven, to go mourning all the day long for their iniquities; to mourn in secret like doves, to chatter like cranes for their own and others' sins. fastings, prayers, mourning, tears, tribulations, martyrdom were the only sounds that led all the saints to heaven. ("bayne's chief actors in the puritan revolution," p. .) presbyterianism in scotland was the twin of english puritanism; presbyterianism prohibited all sorts of pleasure as being sinful and of the devil. the following extracts are copied from buckle's history of civilization in england, volume , page : smiling, provided it stopped short of laughter, might occasionally be allowed; still, being a carnal pastime it was a sin to smile on sunday. it was wrong to take pleasure in beautiful scenery; for a pious man had no concern with such matters which were beneath him, and which should be left to the unconverted. the unregenerate might delight in these vanities, but they who were properly instructed saw nature as she really was, and knew that she, for about five thousand years, had been constantly on the move, her vigor was well nigh spent, and her pristine energy had departed. to the eye of ignorance she still seemed fair and fresh; the fact, however, was that she was worn out and decrepit; she was suffering from extreme old age; her frame no longer elastic, was leaning on one side, and she soon would perish. owing to the sin of man all things were getting worse, and nature was degenerating so fast that already the lilies were losing their whiteness and the roses their smell. on this account, it was improper to care for beauty of any kind; or to speak more accurately, there was no real beauty. the world afforded nothing worth looking at save and except the scotch kirk, which was incomparably the most beautiful thing under heaven. to look at that was a lawful enjoyment but every other pleasure was sinful. to write poetry, for instance, was a grievous offense, and worthy of special condemnation. to listen to music was equally wrong; for men had no right to disport themselves in such idle recreation. hence the clergy forbade music to be introduced even during the festivities of a marriage. dancing was so extremely sinful that an edict expressly prohibiting it was enacted by the general assembly, and read in every church in edinburgh. it was a sin for any scotch town to hold a market either on saturday or monday, because both days were near sunday. it was a sin to go from one town to another on sunday, however pressing the business might be. it was a sin to visit your friend on sunday; it was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered or your beard shaved. no one, on sunday, should pay attention to his health or think of his body at all. on that day horse exercise was sinful; so was walking in the fields or in the meadows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting at the door of your own house. to go to sleep on sunday before the duties of the day were over was also sinful and deserved church censure. bathing, being pleasant as well as wholesome, was a particularly grievous offense; and no man could be allowed to swim on sunday. it mattered not what man liked; the mere fact of his liking it made it sinful. whatever was natural was wrong. the clergy deprived the people of their holidays, their amusements, their shows, their games, and their sports; they repressed every appearance of joy, they forbade all merriment, they stopped all festivities, they choked up every avenue by which pleasure could enter, and spread over the country an universal gloom. on sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefitting others; and the scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the people that on that day it was sinful to serve a vessel in distress, and that it was a proof of religion to let ship and crew perish. they might go; none but their wives and children would suffer, and that was nothing in comparison with breaking the sabbath. so, too, did the clergy teach, that on no occasion must food or shelter be given to a starving man, unless his opinions were orthodox. sunday should be regarded as a day of rest and recreation. but every one should be protected in his individual liberty of choosing how he shall rest and enjoy himself. my neighbors certainly have no right to say how i shall conduct myself on sunday, nor would they have if they were elected to the state or national legislature. my right to freedom of conscience is inalienable. it is true that i may be robbed of my liberty by those in power. the sunday laws are the spoliation of the weak by the strong. a most remarkable trait of this nation is that it is constituted more than any other people that the sun ever shone upon of law makers and law breakers. it forebodes national decay. the people who indulge in this spirit are lacking in moral sentiment, and the current history of the politics and religion of this country furnish a lamentable proof of the fact. unconstitutionality of sunday laws. there is no provision in the constitution requiring the citizens of the united states to observe sunday in a religious manner; but there are on the contrary, distinct and unqualified guarantees made to secure the religious liberty of every one. sunday is a day of rest in the eyes of the constitution but not a day of religious worship. constitutionally it is every one's privilege to spend sunday as he chooses. he may, if he wishes, go to sunday-school, class-meeting, preaching, prayer-meeting, and preaching again, and thus employ all his time on sunday in religious exercises; or if he prefers, he need go only once to service and fall asleep as soon as it begins. others who desire it may visit the parks, green fields, ride upon the cool waters or visit the libraries, museums, picture galleries, zoological gardens and such other places of amusement and instruction as they see fit. it is the right of every american citizen to decide in what way he should pursue his own happiness. we read in article of the constitution, that "no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the united states." this foundation principle was supplemented by a provision in the first amendment, which says: "congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." what could be clearer than this, that the framers of the constitution intended to exclude all religious questions from the charter of liberty? the constitution recognizes the beliefs of neither jew nor gentile--neither christian nor infidel. the one special object of the framers of the constitution was to establish a free government, and especially did they aim to secure to the people their individual rights, and no right was so greatly in demand by the people as the right of a free conscience; the right to exercise their own judgment upon questions of religion. "we, the people of the united slates, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the united states of america." the declaration of independence shows us that this question of liberty was that which the framers of the constitution were seeking to establish: "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." with these words of the declaration of independence before us and the provision in article of the constitution, namely, thus, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any public trust under the united states," and the further guarantee in the first amendment, that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"--it is as clear as a sunbeam that all laws seeking to enforce a religious observance of sunday are unconstitutional, and should not be executed; and where attempts are made to bind religious observance of the day upon liberal people they should resist it as an intolerable despotism. the different states of the union have numerous sunday laws, which in most cases are a dead letter. take for instance massachusetts. in its history seventy-five cases have been decided mostly in favor of a rigid enforcement of its sunday laws. but both laws and decisions are powerless in controlling the people to observe sunday as sabbath. the present laws of massachusetts prohibit games, sports, concerts, plays, work, travel, idling, fishing, hunting, buying and selling, but no one feels bound to obey them. occasionally some new society springs up calling itself "the society of law and order," and goes to work to set the world right. the first thing to be done is to enforce the sunday laws, preventing barbers from shaving, milkmen from distributing milk, newsdealers from selling papers, flower girls from selling flowers, cigar stores from selling cigars, croquet players from enjoying on their own premises an hour's exercise and amusement, steamboats from carrying excursions from the city, ball players from practicing their games, the angler from taking a few trout, and many others from finding rest and recreation in other ways. but these good people who think that the world is out of joint and they are called to set it right, find it a greater task than they had bargained for, and so they soon tire, and the old world wags along as it did before the "law and order" society came into existence. sunday laws are a solemn farce, and a burning shame. they are a warfare upon the rights of man, in the interest of ancient traditions and modern despotism. as for travel on the lord's day, lo! how the people go their journeys, take their pleasure rides, rattle over the streets with their horse-cars, thunder through the villages past churches with their locomotives, and plow the bogs and coastways with their yachts and excursion steamers. who questions the right? in the line of sport and diversion, how common such things as boating and fishing and hunting and ball playing and roving over pastures, through woods, picking berries and gathering nuts, and attending many a public entertainment to which an admittance fee is charged and taken for purposes of gain, but whose character, however sacred in name, is as secular as a banjo concert or a play of the drama. no complaint. as regards traffic, do not livery stable keepers let their horses as freely on sundays as on week days? do not druggists sell as freely what they possess, whether cigars or whisky, hairbrushes or perfumery? do not hotels ply their business as freely, always at the tobacco stand and often at the bar? do not newsboys run as loose with their shouts of "herald and gazette?" while if you sail down of a lord's day to martha's vineyard, where "religion is the chief concern," shall you not see cigar stores, fruit stores, toy stores, souvenir stores, etc., undisguisedly open for business, and pedlars hawking canes and gim-cracks unchallenged by any deacon or dignitary? when, therefore, the legislature (of massachusetts) enacted as late as that whoever does any manner of work or business on the lord's day shall be punished by a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, instead of a fine not exceeding ten dollars, the former penalty, it would seem that the intention must have been to provide a penalty commensurate with the gravest breaches of the statute. what are these, if they be not the running of passenger and freight railway trains, whose mercenary noise makes havoc of all sunday calm and quiet; the repairing of railway tracks and bridges, the gangs of workmen oft so large and belligerent enough to take a city; the repairing of machinery in shops and mills; the racket of the press turning out sunday editions of newspapers secular as politics and earthly as a quack medicine advertisement? these truly are open and most gross violations of the law, but against them what murmur has been heard taking the form of prosecution? nay, the breaches of the law that are prosecuted and have been are for the most part the petty breaches, while the more flagrant offenders, as a rule, have offended with impunity and still so offend. considering, therefore, the sturdiness with which the people of the commonwealth resist the law's repeal, and the indifference with which they treat its violations, it must be confessed that artemus ward's sarcasm, as applied to "prohibition," applies here with peculiar force--in favor of the law, but against its enforcement. ("the sunday law of massachusetts," by a member of the massachusetts bar, p. .) puck, in its history of the united states, says: "the puritans instituted many beautiful customs, and they had some very remarkable laws. they provided strict penalties against sabbath breaking. on sunday, they decreed that every able-bodied man, woman, and child in the country should go to church three times a day. they forbade reading anything except the bible, forbade walking in the fields, and generally shut down on amusements. then they called it the lord's day, and thus strove to make the lord unpopular." ben. franklin on connecticut sundays. the following is an extract from a letter written by dr. franklin to jared ingersoll of new haven. the original is in the possession of the new haven colony historical society: philadelphia, dec. , . i should be glad to know what it is that distinguishes connecticut religion from common religion:--communicate, if you please, some of these particulars that you think will amuse me as a virtuoso. when i travelled in flanders i thought of your excessively strict observation of sunday; and that a man could hardly travel on that day among you upon this lawful occasion, without hazard of punishment, while where i was every one travelled, if he pleased, or diverted himself in any other way; and in the afternoon both high and low went to the play or to the opera, where there was plenty of singing, fiddling and dancing. i looked round for god's judgments, but saw no signs of them. the cities were well built and full of inhabitants, the markets filled with plenty, the people well favored and well clothed; the fields well tilled; the cattle fat and strong; the fences, houses and windows all in repair; and no old tenor anywhere in the country:--which would almost make one suspect that the deity is not so angry at that offence as a new england justice. b. franklin. if you have any inalienable rights your freedom of conscience must be one of the most fundamental. that is, it is for you to say how you will deport yourself on matters of religion. it is nothing less than despotism for your neighbor to step up to you and say: "brother jones, i want to see you at church to-day, and if you are not there i will see to it that there is a law passed which will make you attend church." this is what the puritans actually did. they did it all for the glory of god, but our modern puritans, the orthodox, seek to stop milk wagons from delivering milk on sunday morning, flower girls from selling flowers on the streets of new york, all because of the welfare and purity of society. in several cities in texas the sale of cigars on sunday is a violation of the law. but where do these members of the state and national legislatures get their power from? do they have any except that which is delegated to them by the people? they do not get the power from the people to usurp their inalienable rights. but here is a legislature passing laws upon the religious observance of sunday, who have never been instructed to secure the enactment of such laws. and even if ninety-nine out of a hundred should so instruct their representative, the law could not be binding upon the one hundredth person who did not so instruct his (mis)representative in congress. he can be made to obey by their brute force. and this is what legislation amounts to generally. the people are not represented by the law makers, but their interests and rights are invaded one after another until the poor people are subjugated. among the rights of man perhaps there is none which is more generally recognized abstractly, and more frequently violated practically, than his right to freedom of conscience, or, in other words, his religious liberty. how does this come about? one of the principal reasons for this anomaly is that most people think that we ought to obey without question the will of the majority. they seem to think that an enactment by congress settles the question, whatever it may be. here is the secret of the sunday legislation. the church is a spiritual despotism always seeking to materialize. it is in the nature of power of all kinds to seek for more power. as a spiritual despotism the church is not a success. the nineteenth century has said to this mental and moral lazarus, "take up thy bed and walk." but it has no place to walk to, and hence it refuses to obey the voice of humanity. it is slowly, however, undergoing the transformation of a dissolving view. a common sense view of the sunday question. jesus said that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. now, at first sight, this seems a true and wise saying, but upon reflection we are forced to modify our estimate of it. in the first place there is no evidence that the sabbath was ever made at all. it is the result of many things. the causes assigned for the institution of this day are conflicting. one reason assigned is because the lord rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. it is a very empty noddle that can believe that statement. such a childish view of creation would remind us of some one who had carried a heavy load up six flights of stairs, and then sat down puffing and blowing until he was rested and refreshed. fancy an omnipotent being tired, hungry, and sleepy. a common sense view of the creation story leads us to reject it all as a myth. another reason assigned for the origin of the sabbath is that it was instituted in commemoration of god's deliverance of the hebrews out of egypt. but this is a flat contradiction of the previous reason given for observing the sabbath. this contradiction is enough to invalidate the evidence of both these testimonies; but that is not all--the first story about god almighty being tired after a week's hard work, and his resting and being refreshed on the seventh day, is so evidently a myth as to need no argument. it is on a par with all stories about the man in the moon, and the bit of legend recounting the escape of the hebrews from egypt is full of contradictions and impossibilities which renders the story absolutely useless as a piece of evidence. no one knows when or where the observance of the seventh day as a day of rest and recreation began. it doubtless had small beginnings in different countries and different times, and has been subject to the law of evolution. the sabbath was not a man-made product, but grew in character and importance as time rolled on. therefore it is not true to say the sabbath was made for man. all the making we see in history is what the priests have done in this direction. while it is not true that the priests originated the sabbath, yet it is true so far as we can trace the existence of the priesthood that we find them continually making the day a day for themselves. sunday is priests' day. everybody must go to church to listen to an ignorant man talk, scold, misrepresent, and abuse everyone who does not believe as he does. and this is called divine service. when the priest rests temporarily from his labors upon the sinner and the skeptic, he trains his guns upon some of those who profess as strongly as himself to be true blue christians. take the extremes; the salvation army saint and a fashionable member of the fashionable episcopal church. the latter looks down upon the former and calls them "trash, rubbish," and other classical names, while the soldier of the temporal army returns the compliment by styling his brethren of the episcopal persuasion as "the devil's dudes." behold! how these christians love--to go for one another. we have seen that there is no history for the institution of the sabbath. we have learned also that to keep this day holy did not mean to attend preaching or prayer-meetings, or special religious services of any kind. we have discovered that the jewish sabbath was not incorporated into the early christian church. we have seen also that jesus repudiated the jewish sabbath. that paul, the founder of the church, also rejects the sabbath; and that the early fathers did not observe it. that the great men of the middle ages repudiated it. it was left for the puritans and scotch presbyterians to bewilder the undeveloped mind and poison the susceptible hearts of the people, by teaching the gloomy doctrines of puritanism and presbyterianism. puritanism and presbyterianism die hard. they still live. their spirit is hostile to freedom. talk to them of liberty and you will readily wake the remark, "oh yes, we believe in liberty, but not in license." now what does license mean with such people? why it means that you shall conform to their religious notions and practices. especially must you remember the sabbath to keep it holy; that is, you are at liberty to do just as you please, if you please to do as pleases them. protestants all agree upon the right of free conscience, the right to believe as one chooses (which however he never can do, because he must believe according to evidence). it is the great boast of protestantism that the individual has a free will (another error), and that he must search the scriptures, and decide for himself. they say every man has an open bible put before him, and he must make up his own mind on the "truth of god." when he has made up his mind, and seeks to enter a church which is full of liberty, what do the officers of the church say to him? do they tell him that his conscience is free and the bible is an open book for him to read and interpret as he can? oh, no! there is no free conscience, or open bible business when one is getting into a church. on such occasions the candidate is taken by the proper officers into an ante room, and placed upon a procrustean bed usually called a creed, and if he is the proper length, all right, but if not he must either be stretched or sawed off to the proper dimensions. and these are the people who have such a holy horror of license. a friend of mine went once to buy a pup. the price was five dollars; but as there were three pups in the basket my friend said he would give five dollars for one if he could have his choice. "oh yes, you can have your choice," said the owner, "if ye'll choose this pup" [pointing to the most inferior one in the basket]. so it is with the church; you can have all the liberty in the world to believe, if you believe the doctrines of this or that sect. you can have your own choice, if you choose to obey the priesthood. you can have all the liberty to think as freely as you can on all subjects, if you will never mention your thoughts. here is what m. guizot, an eminent christian writer has to say about the liberty granted by the church: when the question of political securities came into debate between power and liberty; when any step was taken to establish a system of permanent institutions, which might effectually protect liberty from the invasions of power in general; the church always ranged herself on the side of despotism. ("guizot's history of civilization," p. .) with some people almost every act, if it be not strictly religious, is a desecration of the lord's day. it is a solemn day, and for one to smile is a desecration of the holy day, while laughing is gross wickedness. to entertain one's friends on sunday or to enjoy music, is carnal and therefore a desecration of the lord's day. to love flowers is evidence of depravity; to admire the beauties of nature, as a golden sunset, or a summer's sunrise, are palpable evidences of being a "man of sin." to do anything but attend church, look solemn, mourn and pray, weep and read the bible, is of the devil. what a spectacle that man presents to the world who is struggling for perfection through religious beliefs and exercises. he never gets exactly there, but confidently and complacently thinks himself there or thereabouts. his next great work is to call upon others in life's highway to follow in his footsteps. he gets some followers who join with him in thanking god that they are not as other men are. their self-righteousness becomes intense, and they become filled with the spirit of the lord and preach believe (as we do) or be damned. then begins persecution and torture. it is always your "dead-in-earnest" man that gets up persecutions. he is trying to gain perfection, and the natural ripe fruit of religious perfection is bigotry, intolerance, and despotism. beware, oh! reader, of him who is seeking perfection, for you are nothing better than a worm under his heel, and if he does not crush you, it is because he is better than his god. god will crush you in the next world for not agonizing for perfection in this. everybody's sunday. i quote the following from "the sabbath question," a very able pamphlet by my esteemed friend, alfred e. giles: we prize sunday as a sabbath or rest day. but it is a physiological fact that the cessation from action that refreshes or rests some persons on that day, does not so operate on everybody. we would that sunday should be a joy, a delight to all the people; that every man, woman, and child should anticipate its approach with pleasure. on that day, if on no other, let the edifices of the church be open free to all who love its praises, prayers, and instructions. let the tables and alcoves of the public library be accessible to such persons as feel that they can find suitable mental and spiritual food. if the social science association, now active in promoting good fellowship and liberal feeling, desire to, let it also add its proportion of good things to the feast of the day. let the art museums, halls of science, academies of music, public parks, and galleries of paintings disclose their treasures on sundays freely to visitors. let all persons be unmolested on that day to seek the enjoyment and kind of rest they may respectively need, they alone being judges thereof, always provided that no one shall infringe on the equal liberty of any other person. "rest is not quitting the busy career-- rest is the fitting of self to its sphere; 'tis loving and serving the highest and best-- 'tis onward, unswerving, and that is true rest." what is civilization? very many regard it as an entity, a thing, rather than a process. it can no more be called a thing or an entity, than life, growth, or thinking, but like these, it is a process. "dr. whately speaks of it as if it were a 'thing' which could be handed about from one nation to another, or hidden away in some dark corner." (fiske's "cosmic philosophy," vol. , p. .) in general terms we may define it as a progressive movement of the individual and of society. its results are the highest attainments, the acquisition of the best things, as wealth, culture, and morality. but these "best things" must be shared liberally by the laboring classes or the civilization cannot long survive. every civilization of the past has been false in this respect. the pyramids of egypt have a record of kings possessing millions of slaves. greece produced a civilization inspired by a love of the beautiful, and has consequently contributed more toward the civilization of mankind than any other people. but no nation has conspicuously sought to secure to its people the rights of liberty and justice. and until the time comes when the people get these rights, there can be no true civilization. humanity must become the supreme purpose of life. the augean stables of legislation must be renovated for the presence of better men who shall take the places of the corrupt demagogues who now fill our highest offices of public trust. the very fact that a dozen of our united states senators represent $ , , speaks volumes of itself. many of these men have secured the most if not all their great wealth since they have been the custodians of the people's public interests. a true civilization has never yet appeared in the world. much that is written in proof of our boasted civilization is twaddle. we are living in many respects as barbarians lived thousands of years ago. but to return to our definitions. it should be borne in mind that civilization is not an end, but a means to higher ends; the results are not therefore fixed and final, as they in turn become causes of other results. if we regard civilization as a refined and cultured state of society, we shall find that it means more than this--that it is rather the activity of mind which leads to higher refinements, to investigation, invention, discovery, and that it constantly inspires man with desires for still nobler achievements. civilization is the onward and upward movement of the human race. this fermentation of humanity is the product of many factors, and has been effected by all sorts of human activities. war, commerce, agriculture, inventions, crusades, discoveries, literature, art, religion, skepticism, government, languages, science, manufactures, climate, soil, food, and many other things have assisted in developing the mind and heart of man, and in improving his physical condition. in the present century, science has worked wonders by way of discovery and invention, increasing the intellectual activities, thereby widening the knowledge of men and augmenting the sum of human happiness. we should not overlook the fact that the world's advancement has been vastly more in the line of intellectual improvement and material prosperity than in the development of man's moral nature. our civilization is much like our dress, it abounds in shoddy and tinsel. there is much in the dome of modern civilization that glares in the sunlight, while its foundations, which are out of sight, are rotten. our great cities show us that the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer. where will this end? can a splendid civilization be established on such a basis? distinguished men have entertained widely different notions of the causes of human progress. one writer thinks that government possesses the secret power of progress; another claims all advancement for christianity, and others that morality is the cause, while yet others attribute the magic power to the forces of nature. mr. buckle maintains that man's progress is due to his physical environment. and a moment's reflection will show us that there is much truth in his claim. we know that it is utterly impossible to establish a grand civilization in the tropics or in the polar regions. suppose we should send all the ministers in the country, all the gold and silver in the united states treasury and millions of our best citizens to greenland, could they build up a splendid civilization there? not at all. nature is too inhospitable. society flourishes only in a temperate climate. if it were the church that created civilization then we should see similar results in different latitudes and among different races. but the facts are opposed to this claim. wherever there is a high civilization there is good soil and temperate climate. as an illustration of this fact i may refer the reader to the abyssinians, who have had the bible in their possession about twice as long as the anglo-saxons; and yet they are all a race of barbarians still. christianity was introduced in that country about a.d. . the people still remain rude and barbarous. bruce relates how he saw the people cut steaks from living cattle and eat them raw. (ency. brit.) mr. buckle claims that the favorable environment produces progress in the race, and that as man progresses he gains more control over nature and utilizes her forces. he makes the desert to blossom, he overcomes diseases, as plague, leprosy, and prevents famine, and because of his increased knowledge wars are becoming less frequent and less barbarous. from these facts he claims that the advance of civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws, and an increasing influence of mental laws. in proof of his position that climate, soil, and food are the determining influences of progress, he refers us to the climate of asia and africa as compared with the climate of europe and america, pointing out the latter as having vast mineral resources and great facilities of travel over highways, rivers, and lakes. the temperate climate is in every way therefore most favorable to the highest civilization. in the tropics man does not have to exhaust himself in obtaining his food, as it grows spontaneously and in abundance, but the burning sun takes out of him his energy and enterprise; while on the other hand the inhabitant of greenland has to fight for life against the severe cold. his efforts and manner of life are exhausting, and tend to dwarf him physically, morally, and mentally. however much man may do in overcoming nature, these two hindrances of extreme heat and excessive cold remain insuperable barriers in his way. war has been a civilizing power, although it has been fearful expensive of blood, treasure, and public morals. the american revolution of secured the independence of this country. the french revolution of , transformed the whole of europe. the recent great rebellion in this country emancipated the slave, and has made a more perfect union of the north and south. the crusades were a great revolutionary movement in europe, beginning in , and lasting about two hundred years. in fact there was no such a thing as europe before this great epoch. the different countries which constitute europe, had, prior to the crusades, almost no intercourse with one another, and consequently each was comparatively ignorant of the manners and customs of the others. the uprising of millions of men, women, and children, as warriors of christ, who set out from time to time, from england, france, germany, and spain to rescue the holy land from the infidel, the mohammedan, brought wonderful experiences to the few thousand who survived to tell their stories. the pathways over which these deluded people thronged were whitened with the bleached bones of those who had fallen victims of disease, exposure, hunger, and the sword. what a monstrous blind sacrifice this was, offered up on the altar of ignorance! of course it could do the world no good to rescue the holy land. if god wanted that land rescued he could do it himself. and that he did not do so is self-evident that he did not want it rescued, besides, he would not allow even his own peculiar people to rescue it. the church is still offering its sacrifices of public weal, of blood, and treasure in trying to rescue, abroad, the pagan from his paganism, and at home, the infidel from his infidelity, while god could do it himself if he so desired, but he does not, neither does he permit his own "peculiar" people to do it. the crusaders had no commission from heaven for this business--they were not the agents of god, but only pretenders--and the church of to-day has no more right to pretend to save the world than the crusaders had to deliver the holy sepulchre from the so-called pagans. the one and the others are alike impostors upon a credulous world. the crusades did nothing in the matter of rescuing the holy land. in this respect they were failures. the god of hosts did not lead them on to certain victory. but if they did not secure what they aimed at, they found something infinitely better--a wider knowledge of the world. the intercourse between these different peoples which was occasioned by the marching of armies through their lands, gave new ideas to all; broke up the feudal system, and serfdom, secured the supremacy of a common law over the independent jurisdiction of the chiefs who claimed the right of private wars. in a word, it was the origin of europe, the first great awakening of the intellect of the masses. not only were the old manners and customs changed, but there was stimulated in society an increased mental activity; and the narrow routine in which it had been accustomed to move was destroyed. society began its new transformations into governments and nations, which says guizot, is the characteristic of modern civilization. industrial influences. the causes which mostly disturbed or accelerated the normal progress of society in antiquity were the appearance of great men. in modern times the appearance of great inventions. printing has secured the intellectual achievements of the past, and furnished a sure guarantee of future progress. gunpowder and military machinery have rendered the triumph of barbarians impossible. steam has united nations in the closest bonds. innumerable mechanical contrivances have given a decisive preponderance to that industrial element which has colored all the developments of our civilization. the leading characteristics of modern societies are in consequence marked out much more by the triumphs of inventive skill than by the sustained energy of moral causes. ("lecky's history of european morals," vol. , p. .) it is not necessary to point in what way the printing press, art, commerce, and science, have promoted the progress of the race. it is so apparent to every intelligent reader that these have been the stepping stones over which we have passed from barbarism to civilization, that amplification is unnecessary. the splendid results of science are everywhere so manifest that we hardly need refer to them. what transformations the world has undergone through the uses of the steam engine, the spinning jenny, telegraph, ocean cable, railroads, sewing machines, photography, spectrum analysis, and thousands of other useful inventions. we see advancement achieved in free government, free schools, free libraries, free trade, labor reform, prison reform, and reform in the treatment of lunatics, paupers and criminals, and reform seeking to adjust the wrongs perpetrated upon women. besides all these improvements there is every indication in the spirit of to-day that we are soon to witness greater improvements, if not radical changes in government; changes affecting capital and labor. skepticism. skepticism played a prominent part in the eighteenth century. doubt instead of faith, possessed the minds of many of the most distinguished men of thought, such as voltaire, hume, diderot, rousseau, d'holbach, gibbon, and others. some of the more prominent skeptics rejected christianity on the common ground of incredibility of the scriptures. but as they had no form of belief or knowledge to substitute in place of the dogmas they rejected, it was not difficult for the clergy with specious explanations to cover up the doubts and disbeliefs which the skeptics raised. something more was needed to break the spell of superstition and arouse the minds of men to thought and action. in the first part of the present century the philosophy of evolution began to find place in the minds of most profound thinkers. science has done what skepticism failed to accomplish; it has given knowledge instead of faith. it has cultivated intense intellectual habits in modern society and given mankind a sure test of truth, in its method of verification, by means of experiment, observation and deduction. science. science is inexorably hostile to supernaturalism--cannot recognize a particle of it. it knows nothing of a super-nature; with science all is nature, and nature is all. from pre-historic times the race has been under the control of ignorance and superstition, the parents of fear and cruelty; but now that science begins to dispel ignorance and superstition, we find courage, kindness, and other humanities taking their places. and we should say just here that infidelity is no longer synonymous with mere disbelief; it means more than this. it stands for all that reason approves. freethought is the first fruits of skepticism, and this means honest inquiry on all subjects, old and new. it means independence and manhood in private as well as public life--the right of everyone to think and express his thought regardless of creeds and customs, the right to live his own life in the enjoyment of the broadest possible liberty compatible with the liberty of others. freethinkers are the prophets of this age, proclaiming justice as the right of all, and predicting a day of wrath to those who trample upon the rights of a long-suffering people. in the light of science, priestcraft must fade away like snow under the increasing heat of the sun. metaphysical method. the church made no progress in science and art for a thousand years. the energies of the mind had no outlet except in a few channels which were not fruitful. the scholars of the middle ages exerted great mental force upon empty questions, as "quiddities," "entities," "occult virtues," "efficient causes," "realism and nominalism," and the "essence of things." were any of these problems ever solved? what corresponding benefit has resulted from these long and zealous discussions? what general conclusions have been reached? what first principles have been established by them? the speculative philosophy created violent agitation in the church; but from its very nature it offered no positive truth, no verifiable facts to take the place of theology. the metaphysical method was fruitless, because its supporters sought to explain every problem by the process of thought alone. tennemann has fairly stated the good and bad of scholastic philosophy. it gave rise to a great display of address, subtlety, sagacity in the explanations and distinction of abstract ideas, but at the same time to many trifling and minute speculations, to a contempt of positive knowledge and too much unnecessary refinement. (hallam, "middle ages," vol. , p. .) for centuries the church maintained metaphysical discussions about the nature of christ, one party arguing that he was of the same substance (homoousion) as the father, and an another as strongly argued that he was of like substance (homoiusion) as the father. these controversies were attended with bloody conflicts. if one party were in possession of the revealed will of god, it was quite natural that all other parties should listen to them. if they would not they incurred the wrath of god, and if god was angry his people ought to imitate him; if god was going to damn heretics in the next world, his saints, who are his agents here, ought to damn them in this. recapitulation. no writer of distinction has been able, publicly, to show that christianity has been a powerful factor for good in the civilization of the world. the definitions of civilization necessarily exclude superstition. we have seen that civilization is not an "entity" but a progressive movement produced by favorable conditions, for example, temperate climate, good soil, abundance of lakes, rivers, and mineral resources. human activities upon a large scale have evolved still higher and better conditions for parts of the race. we have shown how war, commerce, agriculture, inventions, crusades, discoveries, literature, art, skepticism, government, languages, science, and philosophy have added to the sum of human well-being in one way and another. the revival of learning did not spring from the church, but from pagan literature, and mohammedan schools. and it requires no great research to learn that the church has never been favorably inclined toward true learning, that is, toward science. it has insisted upon teaching an ignorant world the unknown and unknowable. "carnal reason" and "blasphemous science" were never pet lessons for its subjects. it chose rather the motto, "ignorance is the mother of devotion." some things christianity has not done. it has professed to offer the world a revelation of the will of god. and what has this book, the bible, revealed? what information does it give man of the nature of this earth, of geology, geography, or of the millions of stars seen and unseen; of agriculture? is it not true that he who invented the plow was a greater man than moses? what does the bible teach about government, agriculture, mining, inventions, discoveries, arts, printing, morals, liberty, and all other branches of useful learning? it contains no instructions upon the most important and useful subjects. and of itself, the bible makes no claim to be an inspired revelation from god. the church, with all its assumptions and presumptions, is not the teacher of the world, as it has nothing but superstition to teach. the conflict between christianity and civilization. christianity is conservative, and, like the bourbon, never gets a new idea or forgets an old one, and it is in its very nature, therefore, non-progressive. the advancement of humanity has been achieved not by and through christianity, but in conflict with and triumph over it. christianity itself has been subject to modification and progress from forces without, rather than virtues within itself. the savage doctrine "believe or be damned," is no longer a popular pulpit theme. eternal torment has ceased to torment or terrify the living, election and reprobation are no longer a commodity greatly in demand, and the divine right of kings is rapidly fading out of mind. infant damnation is not mentioned--babes do not go to hell in these days--they all crowd into abraham's capacious bosom. the devil is not so black as he used to be--it was reported lately that he is dead. taking it all in all, there has been a great improvement in the doctrines of the church. it should never be forgotten, however, that it professes to save the world, while the truth is just the opposite, that is, the world saves the church. common sense has taught the church the foolishness and wickedness of these absurd and cruel doctrines, and has saved it from immediate decay by forcing it to give them up. the church makes progress because it must, not because it seeks to do so. the sanity of man is saving him from the insanity of religion. the world moves and christianity, though it hangs back, must nevertheless move with it. the progressive element is in man, and when he is outside of the church he advances in knowledge and morality; but within its walls he is sure to be conservative and non-progressive. for why should he seek to make any progress? has he not the revealed will of god--a complete guide to duty here and to destiny hereafter? surely he needs no books to supersede the bible or other virtues than those awakened by the grace of god. the bible sanctions great crimes. we come now to look at the crimes perpetrated by the people of god, to show how the bible and christianity lie as insuperable obstructions in the pathway of progress. wars of extermination. and when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, and it shall be, if it make the answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee and shall serve thee. and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee (that is, by defending their wives and children) then thou shalt besiege it. and when the lord god hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword; but the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat of the spoil of thine enemies, which the lord thy god hath given thee. thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. but of the cities of these people, which the lord thy god doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. (deut. : - .) so joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed as the lord god of israel had commanded. (joshua : .) thus saith the lord of hosts, i remember that which amelek did to israel (some three hundred years previous), how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from egypt. now go and smite amelek, and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ( sam. : , .) now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. but all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (numbers : , .) to believe these bloody massacres to have been done by the express command of the supreme ruler of the universe, made man brutal and despotic. and it is for this very reason that we have had so many wars among christian nations. the old testament is a record of cruelty and blood; and if we fall back in time on this side of the cross of christ, we shall find the same spirit, and the same bloody deeds perpetrated upon all those who were not numbered as the peculiar people of god. constantine established christianity in the roman empire by the sword; and his holy successors have maintained it by the same power ever since. polygamy. although christians now condemn polygamy, they uphold a bible that not only approves it, but also shows distinctly that god instituted it. solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, and was not condemned for his polygamy or concubinage, but was condemned for going after other gods: and the lord was angry with solomon because his heart was turned away from the lord. ( kings : .) there is nowhere any condemnation of solomon for his polygamy to be found in the bible. on the contrary, he is extolled to the highest degree. god is represented as saying: "i have found david, a man after mine own heart." (acts : .) "yet among many nations was there no king like unto him (solomon) who was beloved of god." (neh. : .) david, although he was a man after god's own heart, was not so highly esteemed as solomon who was blest with a thousand wives. david did not have quite as many wives, and consequently did not achieve the royal grandeur of his son solomon. the lord gave david a number of wives: "and abigail hasted and arose, and rode upon an ass with five damsels of her's that went with her; and she went after the messengers of david and became his wife. david also took ahinoam, of jezreel, and they were also, both of them, his wives. ( sam. : , .) and david took him more wives out of jerusalem. ( sam. : .) and i gave thee (david) thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom. ( sam. : .) the christian apologist says that "the lord endured them to practice polygamy in consequence of the hardness of their hearts." but it is explicitly shown in the above passage that the lord gave david a number of wives. "i gave thee thy master's wives into thy bosom," certainly exonerates david, and throws the responsibility on jehovah. david is not censured for his polygamy, but is uniformly spoken of with approval except in one instance. in counseling solomon jehovah said: "and if thou wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and commandments as thy father david did walk, then i will lengthen thy days." ( kings : .) because david did that which was right in the eyes of the lord and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of uriah the hittite. ( kings : .) the truth is that nearly all the patriarchs and prophets were polygamists. they had not the faintest idea of true marriage, but took women according to their caprice, and kept them as long as they were pleased with them and cast them off when tired of them. it is a remarkable fact that we do not often read of any marriage ceremony when these men after god's own heart took them wives. a man in these days who "takes up" with a woman without marriage is called a free-lover. were the patriarchs who took a number of women as wives without a marriage ceremony free-lovers? just now the christians cannot endure polygamy among the mormons. they indorse it as a bible institution, good enough for abraham, isaac, and all the rest, but out of fashion just now. the worst of it all is, the christian sends missionaries and bibles to the heathens and afterward reports wonderful success in converting them from their paganism and polygamy through the means of preaching, praying, and missionary work; but when he thinks of the mormon he forgets what wonders the missionary has done abroad in converting the polygamists, and insists that our congress send winchester rifles to utah rather than missionaries. the holy ghost is of no account there. the gospel of peace must now as ever resort to the divine efficacy of bullets rather than bibles, to secure a victory for truth, justice, and love. christianity shows the same brutal instincts of war in its treatment of the mormons that constantine exhibited in establishing the church by the sword. the subjection of woman. the bible nowhere teaches the equality of man and woman, but from genesis to revelation it treats her as man's inferior. the mythology of the ancient hebrew story of the garden of eden has proved to be a veritable curse to her. "and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" (gen. : ), has been the poisoned chalice put to her lips for over two thousand years. paul the founder of the church, insists upon the subjection of woman. "likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands." ( peter : .) wives submit yourselves to your own husbands. (col. : .) as the church is subject unto christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (eph. : .) the church has uniformly maintained this doctrine, and demanded in the marriage ceremony that she promise to love, honor, and obey her husband. for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. neither was the man created for the woman but the woman (was created) for the man. ( cor. : , .) divorce. woman is unjustly treated in the matter of divorce, in both the old and the new testament. in the old testament the husband had the power to divorce his wife if she failed to please him, while the wife could not divorce her husband for any cause. when a man hath taken a wife and marries her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eye, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand and send her out of his house. (deut. : .) when thou goest forth to war against thine enemies and the lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captives and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to be thy wife, then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house and bewail her father and mother a full month, and after that thou shalt go in unto her and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. and it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will, but thou shalt not sell her at all for money; thou shalt not make merchandise of her because thou hast humbled her. (deut. : - .) jesus says, "whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery." (luke : .) in this case there is a lack of qualification as to whether the man be innocent or not; and there is no allowance made in case the man who married her who was put away should be ignorant of her being a divorced woman. again, "but i say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery." (mat. : .) here we find not a word about the fornication of the husband. in short, there is no equality of rights and duties taught in these passages. jesus, in the gospels of matthew, mark, and luke teaches that it is adultery to marry a divorced woman. no matter what the crime of the husband has been, a wife is not allowed to put him away and marry another. if he is a fornicator, and his wife is divorced from him and remarries, she commits adultery. this is only a slight modification of the divorce law--that old law according to which the husband had only to write his wife a bill of divorcement and send her off; but it was not lawful for the wife to write a bill and send the husband away. all christian nations have repudiated the teachings of both the old and the new testament on the question of divorce. marriage is now rapidly losing its sacramental character. if matches are made in heaven, it is evident that the work is poorly done, and for all practical purposes they might as well be made on earth; and the general opinion is inclined so strongly in that direction that greater attention is now given to the laws of life, which instruct us how to make happy earthly matches, leaving the matches of heaven to be formed when we get there. the jews practiced the sale of their daughters: and if any man shall sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the man-servants do. if she pleases not her master who hath betrothed her to himself. (ex. : .) jacob purchased leah and rachel, by serving laban their father seven years for each of them. he agreed to serve seven years for rachel, and after he had fulfilled his obligation, laban deceived him by palming off leah in the dark upon him as rachel. but though so deeply wronged jacob did not despair, but served another seven years for her whom he loved. see genesis twenty-ninth chapter. in the purchase of wives there was usually no ceremony, more than the witnessing of the sale. we read of david and solomon taking wives, but no mention is made of any marriage ceremony. a jealous husband could torture his wife, by having her poisoned. see numbers : - . there was no such law for a jealous wife. there was no law of even-handed justice for a greatly wronged and outraged wife. the laws were made for the benefit of man, not for the protection of woman. why? because they were made by man. the new testament as well as the old, holds woman in servile bondage. jesus and paul were celibates, and their teachings and practice in regard to woman, have done her incalculable wrong. the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man. neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman (was created) for the man. ( cor. : , .) paul gets this idea from the mythical story of creation in genesis. in that childish story god is represented as making woman as "an help meet," for adam. indeed her creation does not seem to have been intended at all, but the creator seeing that it was not good for man to be alone, "caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took out one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead: and the rib which the lord god had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man." (gen. : , .) woman was an afterthought to the lords of creation then, and she is an afterthought to the lords of creation now. in that ancient myth woman was doomed to perpetual servitude because she was of an investigating turn of mind, and sought to know good and evil. the sentence was, "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (gen. : .) neither jesus nor paul proclaimed the dignity of marriage, or discerned the necessity of enlarging the sphere of woman. jesus shared the common sentiments of his age, and looked upon the marriage relation as incompatible with the establishment of the kingdom of heaven. he deemed it necessary to call his disciples away from their families, and even to advise the men to make eunuchs of themselves if they were able to do so. (mat. : .) in his teachings on the question of divorce, he is far from perceiving the even-handed justice which the case demands. he says (mark : , ) that if either the husband or the wife put away one the other and marry again, commits adultery. all second marriages would therefore be unlawful according to this teaching. in matthew ( : ) he permits the husband to put away the wife for the crime of fornication, but makes no provision for the wife to put away the husband for the same offense. his disciples received an unfavorable impression of marriage, and after listening to him on this subject, they suggested: "if the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry." (mat. : .) how could these plain people have misunderstood him upon a subject with so little chance for misapprehension? paul's teachings were adverse to the marital relations: "art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife." ( cor. : .) "it is better to marry than to burn." ( cor. : .) what an idea of marriage! he does not have the least conception of love, or of the higher and refining joys of the conjugal relation. but permits him who cannot keep himself from beastliness to marry. in this his judgment is remarkably short-sighted, for he does not regard the sacrifice which the woman must make who marries the beast. he looks upon woman as a mere safety-valve for men's passions,--her rights are not considered: she has no rights. he will permit man to marry, but young widows he denounces as heaping up damnation to themselves in marrying: "but the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against christ, they will marry having damnation, because they cast off their first faith." ( tim. : , .) to marry was to wax wanton against christ, which was nothing less than damnation! but old widows who were above sixty years of age could join the church if they had "been the wife of one man" and "had washed the saints' feet." ( tim. : , .) i wonder what he thought of rejecting all young widowers, and accepting none under sixty years of age, and only those of them who had washed their grandmother's feet? paul not only advocates celibacy which is an evil to woman, but where the marriage relation exists he insists upon the subjection of woman to her husband: "likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands;" ( peter : .) "obedient to their own husbands;" (titus : .) "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection;" ( tim. : .) "therefore as the church is subject unto christ so let the wives be (subject) to their own husbands in everything." (eph. : .) the reasons given for woman's subjection are, "the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man. neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman (was created) for the man." ( cor. : , .) "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." wherefore? because "adam was first formed, then eve." "and adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." ( tim. : - .) woman has always been the guilty cause of man's great misfortune. adam was not to blame but eve was the guilty one. lot was innocent but his daughters were fearfully wicked. joseph did not tempt anyone, but his master's wife tempted him. job, dear man, was all patience, but his wife flew into a rage, and tried to have him curse god and die. solomon, the pure-hearted and single-minded man of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines was inspired to say, "one man among a thousand have i found, but a woman among all these have i not found." (eccl. : .) and to this day the christian marriage ceremony demands of woman that she promise to love, honor, and obey her husband. the bible sanctions slavery. what driveling idiots we mortals have been to suppose for a moment that a good being, a heavenly father, would let one part of his family hold the other in slavery! moreover of the children of the strangers, that do sojourn, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. and ye shall take as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever, but over your brethren, the children of israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor. (lev. : , .) if thou buy a hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. if he came in by himself he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him; if his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself. (ex. : - .) the new testament sanctions slavery. servants, obey in all things your master according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing god. (col. : .) servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. ( peter : .) in addition to these positive indorsements of slaveholding, it should be remembered that jesus never condemned it, and it was not difficult, therefore, for the church also to indorse and support it. the american church was the bulwark of american slavery. the slave system in this country always received the support of the church. in the early history of the country it was occasionally condemned by some of the bravest ministers, but as the nation grew powerful, so also did this sum of all villainies. not only the ministers of the slave states, but ministers of the free states lent their support to this despotism. the rev. n. bangs, d.d., of new york, said: it appears evident that however much the apostles might have deprecated slavery as it then existed throughout the roman empire, he did not feel it his duty as an embassador of christ, to disturb those relations which subsisted between master and servants, by denouncing slavery as such a mortal sin that they could not be the servants of christ in such a relation. rev. e. d. simms, professor in randolph-macon college, a methodist institution, affirmed that, "those extracts from holy writ unequivocally assert the right of property in slaves." the rev. wilbur fisk, d.d., late president of the (methodist) wesleyan university, in connecticut: "the relation of master and slave may and does in many cases, exist under such circumstances as free the master from the just charge of immorality." rev. moses stuart, of andover, insisted that, "the precepts of the new testament respecting the demeanor of slaves and their masters, beyond all question, recognized the existence of slavery." the rev. dr. taylor, of yale college, said: "i have no doubt that if jesus christ was now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder." the "independent" makes an admission. speaking of the degradation of the southern negroes, it says: "for this protestant christianity solely is to blame. it allowed slavery. it was slow to see its enormity. in the south it supported slavery with all its power. it let the negroes live in ignorance of the word of god. it raised no voice against unchristian laws forbidding slaves to be taught to read, and forbidding marriage." we could give hundreds of just such quotations from ministers who upheld slavery as a divine institution. and these were the blind leaders of the blind until leaders and people were precipitated into the life and death struggle of the nation. if the preachers had been honest and brave we would never have had to pass through the terrible ordeal of the great rebellion. the northern churches were almost all in sympathy with the "divine institution." their ministers did not dare to condemn the system lest they should be deposed for their abolitionism. the writer was pastor of a methodist church in brooklyn in , and was dismissed from his pastorate on account of his anti-slavery preaching. after president lincoln's emancipation proclamation the synods and general conferences arrayed themselves against the system, but not before. the reformation. it is a common belief in protestant countries that protestantism has been the cause of all modern enlightenment, "overlooking," says mr. buckle, "the important fact that until enlightenment had begun, there was no protestantism required. enlightenment was the cause of protestantism. many causes had been at work to bring up the public mind to a higher intelligence and a braver love of independence." the reformation broke out at least twenty times before luther, and was put down. arnold, of brescia was put down; fra dolcino was put down; the albigenses were put down; the vaudois were put down; the lollards were put down; the hussites were put down.--mill, on liberty. the reformation was therefore the result of previous enlightenment, a demand for larger liberty. it was the protest of reason against authority. liberalism is the full protest against all forms of superstition and despotism. we have greatly over-estimated the work of the reformation. it did not greatly change the humanities of society, as the protestants so fondly imagine. protestants were found to be the persecutors when they had the power, just as the romanists had been; circumstances, however, modified and restrained them from such atrocities as the latter had perpetrated. persecution for religious heterodoxy, in all its degrees, was in the sixteenth century, the principle as well as the practice of every church. (hallam, "middle ages," vol. , p. .) christianity teaches immorality. the doctrine of the atonement has been the dry rot in our civilization. it has led millions to believe that they could escape the consequences of violated laws of nature. millions of people believe to-day that they can go through life in utter disregard of all that is right and good, and at the last moment when they come to shuffle off this mortal coil, all they will then need to do will be simply to call upon jesus and receive his approbation and permission to enter the shining courts above. "jesus died and paid it all," relieves the votary from the demands of morality, and, "the devil tempted me and i sinned," exonerates him from all guilt. this sort of teaching has filled our prisons with those who fully believe it--and they are behind the bars because they have lived according to their belief. the malignant and mendacious cry that freethought leads the truthseeker always downward to a bad life is refuted by the fact that those who fill the prisons of our country are not infidels, but believers in the divine revelation who have lived up to the advantages offered by the "gathering them in" doctrine of atonement. the murderers who are hanged on friday in the different states almost every week, nearly all christians, are prepared to go to heaven and there join in the company and songs of innocent children and pure maids and matrons who, by their presence, make heaven worthy the name; but these fiends, if they should happen to be pardoned by the governor, there could not be found a reputable christian who would want to take one of them home to live in his family of noble wife and lovely children, for a single day. and yet he is fit for heaven, fit for the company of angels and the purified of earth. the dying words of a good religious man were, "i am no infidel," and that man's name is john d. lee, of utah, who, in cold blood, murdered innocent men, women, and children, and after eluding justice for twenty years or more was arrested, tried, found guilty and shot to death, with the words on his lips, "i am no infidel." but his confession was unnecessary, as freethinkers do not die that way, and the reason they do not die in that manner is because they do not believe in the great bankrupt act--the atonement. they have no savior, and hence have to save themselves. they have no titles to mansions in the skies but have some claims on earth which they prefer to stay with as long as they can. the doctrine of the atonement is very immoral and no one can begin to estimate the wickedness it has fostered in society, by leading people to believe they can pass through life committing all sorts of crimes and at last, when they find themselves about to die, can call upon jesus and find eternal life "by believing on his name." "long as the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return." "this couplet has helped many a one to die easy." oh, yes, it has, but it has encouraged too many to live easy--to live entirely too easy--so easy that they did not need to gain intelligence, to practice morality and pay their honest debts. "between the saddle and the ground was mercy asked and pardon found." a salvation so extemporaneously performed, i fear could not endure; it resembles too closely the winter revivals whose fruits have all disappeared before the summer's harvest is over. "nothing, either great or small, nothing, sinner, no! jesus did, did it all long, long ago. weary, working, burdened one, wherefore toil you so? cease your doing, all was done long, long ago. till to jesus' work you cling by a simple faith, doing is a deadly thing, doing ends in death. cast your deadly doing down, down at jesus' feet, rise in him, in him alone, gloriously complete." where are those who have risen in him gloriously complete? show us just one. prayer is immoral. it is immoral because it seeks to accomplish certain ends without using the proper means, or it tries to do what reason teaches us cannot be done. when some years ago we had yellow fever at memphis the praying people all over this country united in supplicating the unknown to remove the plague; but notwithstanding their united petitions to a throne of grace and to "a prayer-answering god," they utterly failed. the yellow fever remained until the angel of frost came and touched the air with its white wings of health. fred douglass said he prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until he prayed with his legs. "give us this day our daily bread," is a childish superstition. what millions of poor women have starved to death with this prayer on their lips. jesus made a prayer in the garden of gethsemane which was not answered. now if the son of god may pray and receive no answer, what can the common rank and file sinner expect? when the native african sees an eclipse, he fancies some huge monster is attempting to devour the sun, or the moon, as the case may be. he resorts to his tom-tom, by which he hopes to frighten away the fearful monster. after the eclipse has passed away he turns to his skeptical brethren and says, "i told you so," just as his more civilized brother who prays for rain, and after it comes, no matter whether it is a day or a month afterward, turns upon his incredulous friends, and asks them triumphantly, "didn't i tell you so?" the tom-tom business in africa and christian prayers for rain, are on a dead level with each other. sinner.--is god infinite in his wisdom? parson.--he is. sinner.--does he at all times know just what ought to be done? parson.--he does. sinner.--does he always do just what ought to be done? parson.--he does. sinner.--why do you pray to him? parson.--because he is unchangeable. ("ingersoll's interviews," p. .) prayer is simply supplication to god. god is a mystery; a mystery so profound that nothing is known of him, save that he is a mystery. even his existence cannot be demonstrated. his non-existence is equally undemonstrable, because no man has a definite conception of him to use as a starting point for investigation. some claim that he is a person, others that he is omnipresent. both of these cannot be; for personality and omnipresence are incompatible. prayer is based on the supposition of his personality. it implies necessarily a person in a certain place, and possessed of certain attributes. he must be omnipotent, omniscient, unchangeable, and all-good. nothing less than this will come up to the conception of what a god should be. christians tell us god possesses all these attributes. we accept their statement because it is impossible to prove the contrary. on this basis, then let us examine prayer. god is said to be all goodness. goodness is the performance of duty. perfect goodness is the performance of all duty, and of nothing beyond. it is also the performance of all duty without reluctance or hesitation. prayer is an insult to this quality of god's character. it implies that his goodness is not perfect. every blessing for which man can ask, it is the duty of god either to grant or to withhold. in either case, prayer implies the possibility of imperfection. to ask god to grant a blessing which it is his duty to grant, is to assume that he will not do his duty without being urged. such an assumption is downright insolence. to ask for a blessing which it is god's duty to withhold, is to assume that he can be persuaded to commit sin. this, too, can only be regarded as an insult. in both cases prayer is useless, because god is not likely to grant a blessing asked in the same breath an insult is given. we are told that god is pleased with prayer, because it shows our faith in his goodness. it rather shows our lack of faith. to be continually asking for blessings, implies a doubt whether we shall get them if we do ask. he who never prays shows the most faith, for he takes it for granted that god is good, and if he is good, he will provide for his children unasked. the child has faith that his father will provide for him, but he never asks him to do so. such conduct would prove him unworthy of his father's care. so with prayer; the praying man is the true skeptic, and the infidel is the true believer. prayer makes god a changeable being. it implies that he will grant any favor we ask, whether he had previously designed to do so or not. if we were privy to his designs, and knew what blessings he intended to bestow, we could ask only for such as he had intended to give us. in the absence of this knowledge we pray blindly for blessings which it may be, he has determined to withhold. this necessarily implies that he may change his designs. if the object pleaded for is a good one, such a change would be perfectly proper in an earthly monarch. in god it would be fanciful in the extreme. it would place his will at the disposal of a million fallible human beings. it would overthrow the harmony of his government, and replace it by the most reckless chance. our reception of a blessing would depend no longer on god's goodness; it would depend on whether some other person of greater persuasive power, was or was not asking an opposite blessing at the same time. god would be in constant indecision, and we should be in constant doubt. prayer, then, is based on the changeableness of an unchangeable being, and therefore valueless. prayer, in theory, is based on the supposition of god's personality; prayer, in practice, assumes that god is omnipotent. it supposes that he can be in all places at all times. people are praying at all hours of the day and in all quarters of the globe. to hear them all god must be at such places at such times. to do this he must cease to be a personal being, he must cease to be god. he will then have no intelligence, no volition, for these depend on a personal organization. prayer, therefore, logically annihilates the being to whom it is addressed. prayer implies doubt of the wisdom of god. to pray is to ask for a certain blessing. we assume that such a blessing is best for us, and inform god of the fact. after insulting his goodness by asking for a blessing, we insult his intelligence by specifying what that blessing shall be. prayers are rarely or never asked for general blessings alone. a person who asks for a blessing and leaves the choice of that blessing wholly to god, is liable to be considered a lunatic by all true believers. yet to do otherwise is to deny god's omniscience. it assumes that god does not know what our wants are. if god is a rational being, he can only treat such an assumption with contempt. prayer has been tried for two thousand years and with no result. no prayer has ever been directly or indirectly answered by god. on the contrary, he apparently delighted in mocking those who call upon him. when the ville du havre went down, over two hundred ministers were praying for their lives, but in vain. two girls who trusted not in prayers, but in swimming-belts, alone were saved. ("logic of prayer," charles stevenson.) some years ago when the yellow fever raged at memphis, tennessee, the pious people of this country prayed most devoutly to have the plague swept away. these prayers were repeated, were offered up by the most faithful in the christian ranks, but all in vain. they had read in their bible that the prayers of the righteous availeth much. they had been taught to believe that "all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (mat. : .) there is no one thing that jesus taught more explicitly than this; the prayers of those who truly believe shall be answered. he said: therefore i say unto you, what things so ever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (mark : .) but we see that prayers are not answered. and besides, those prayers which it is claimed are answered carry no proof of the fact with them. did not millions of christians pray for the restoration of president garfield? how utterly delusive it is to palm off as truth the following promise upon credulous minds: again i say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything ye shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father, which is in heaven. (mat. : .) jesus himself offered a prayer that was not answered. in the garden of gethsemane he prayed: o my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as i will, but as thou wilt. (mat. : .) there is no evidence that god has ever interfered in the affairs of men. the hand of earth is stretched uselessly toward heaven. from the clouds there comes no help. in vain the shipwrecked cry to god. in vain the imprisoned ask for liberty and light--the world moves on, and the heavens are deaf and dumb and blind. the frost freezes, the fire burns, slander smites, the wrong triumphs, the good suffer, and prayer dies upon the lips of faith. ("ingersoll's interviews," p. .) "ask and it shall be given thee" is an erroneous and immoral teaching. it is false. it is not true that people get what they pray for. we hear pious persons praying, "give us this day our daily bread," but none of them expect to get their bread in that way. what an irresistible smile would wrinkle the faces of the devout if a poor widow should pray: "give us this day our daily coal," and another of the praying circle should ask, "give us this day our daily potatoes," and another should beg, "give us this day our daily beefsteak." while no one expects to get his daily supplies in answer to prayer, yet millions of pious souls are scandalized if you doubt the efficacy of prayer. they will admit that they have to work for their "daily bread," "but after all god gives it to us just the same." he gives it to the sinner who does not pray in the same manner, that is, if he labors he earns his own bread. in vain the seamstress in her sickness and poverty, prays, "give us this day our daily bread." she dies with these her last words on her lips. in vain the noble souls who have been thrown into prison for daring to tell and defend the truth, have fervently appealed to the judge of all the earth for freedom. in vain the martyr looked to heaven for deliverance. faith in prayer. "i will close this letter with a little incident, the story of which may not be so startling, but it is true. it is a story of child faith. johnny quinlan, of evanston, has the most wonderful confidence in the efficacy of prayer, but he thinks that prayer does not succeed unless it is accompanied with considerable physical strength. he believes that adult prayer is a good thing, but doubts the efficacy of juvenile prayer. "he has wanted a jersey cow for a good while, and tried prayer, but it didn't seem to get to the central office. last week he went to a neighbor who is a christian and believer in the efficacy of prayer, also the owner of a jersey cow. "'do you believe that prayer will bring me a yaller jersey cow?' said johnny. "'why, yes, of course. prayer will remove mountains. it will do anything.' "'well, then, suppose you give me the cow you've got and pray for another one.'" (bill nye.) a specimen prayer. "o lord, our heavenly father, thou who dwellest in heaven [flattery] thou art the creator and preserver of all things; [flattery] we thank thee that we live and move and have our being; [imagine a response of, 'you are quite welcome, i am sure,'] that we are neither dead nor damned--for hadst thou visited one sin in a thousand, we should be beyond the reach of hope and mercy. [he's not just, or he would have done it.] thousands of our fellow mortals, as good by nature as we, and far better by practice, are now trying the unalterable laws of an unending eternity. [not a very good comment on his justice.] yet we have [by his partiality] still another opportunity to make our calling and election sure. we come before thee, o lord, to ask the forgiveness of our sins. [must have indulgence.] o lord, look in mercy on us and remember us in thy love. o we pray thee that thou wouldst prosper thy cause. [he hadn't thought of that for sometime before.] o send more laborers into the harvest, for the harvest is great and the laborers are few, [another piece of information.] o lord, hasten the time when all shall know thee from the least unto the greatest [we are satisfied that you are not diligent enough in this matter, and we want you to hurry up.] o lord, check the progress of evil [you ought to know enough to do it without being told,] and promote the cause of truth, [which you would do, if you were as much interested in the matter as we are.] o lord, hear our prayer [do pay attention and don't forget in an hour, like a stupid dolt, what we have been telling you,] and answer our petitions. and in the end, when we are called to die, save us [which on account of our unworthiness, you may not do, or on account of your forgetfulness you may neglect, and leave us the subject of one of the devil's infernal jokes,] and the praise, and the honor, and the glory, we will ascribe through endless ages to thee. [a great consideration, which will certainly be some inducement to you to save,--only just think what an advantage such an arrangement will be to you.] all of which we ask for jesus' sake, amen." (newspaper clipping.) the boston man's prayer. "oh god, if there be a god, save my soul if i have a soul, from hell if there is a hell, amen, if it is necessary." prayer an echo. 'from the earliest dawn of nature's birth, since sorrow and sin first darkened the earth; from sun to sun, from pole to pole, where'er the waves of humanity roll, the breezy robe this planet wears has quivered and echoed with countless prayers. each hour a million knees are bent, a million prayers to heaven are sent; there's not a summer beam but sees some humble suppliant on his knees; there's not a breeze that murmurs by but wafts some faithful prayer on high; there's not a woe afflicts our race but someone bears to the throne of grace; and for every temptation our souls may meet we ask for grace at the mercy seat. * * * * * * * * * * * * the beams smile on, and heaven serene still bends, as though no prayers had been; and the breezes moan, as still they wave, when man is powerless, heaven cannot save." --charles stevenson. other worldliness. it seems to some people selfish for one to attempt to live in the personal enjoyment of this world, but to lend all one's energies toward gaining heaven is to them just right. caring for one's health and family is selfishness, but struggling to save one's soul is the noblest work of life. the truth is christian doctrines are purely selfish. when man does certain duties, as they are called, because he wants to get to heaven, his conduct is intensely selfish. the gospel constantly invites the followers of jesus to act, from the consideration that "great is your reward in heaven." very many christians say that if it were not for the hope of future reward, they would not try to do right. in other words they confess that they do not act from moral motives. they are moved by the selfish motives of other worldliness. to act morally we must do right because it is right and for no other consideration. when we look beyond the act to see how much we are going to make out of it, then our conduct is not moral. he who is going through the performance of duties because he wants to get to heaven, has yet to learn the meaning of morality. christianity is intolerant. revelation does not admit of two sides to religious questions. there is only one side, say the moodys and talmages, and that side is god's side. we have no right to question holy writ. we must accept it. "believe or be damned," does not admit of the latitude of free thought, or the right of reason to question the authority of the bible. "reason is 'carnal,' says the christian idolator, and you cannot rely upon it--only trust in jesus and you are saved." the following historical facts prove beyond question that intolerance is the very soul of christianity: "when any step was taken to establish a system of permanent institutions, which might effectually protect liberty from the invasions of power in general, the church always ranged herself on the side of despotism." (guizot's "history of civilization in europe," p. .) "persecution for religious heterodoxy, in all its degrees, was in the sixteenth century, the principle as well as the practice of every church." (hallam's "middle ages," vol. , p. .) when queen mary, the first queen of england, had burned latimer, ridley and others, and her ministers had chided her for it, she replied that she did not think god could be angry with her for burning the heretics a few hours in this world, for their heresy, since he was going to burn them eternally in the next world for the same thing. here you have the unadulterated article. it is nothing, if not intolerant, and in every age and country, with sword and hand, has commanded the trembling people to believe or be damned. and the christian who does not do his utmost toward having heretics and infidels burned at the stake, is trying to be better than his god. hell, hades, gehenna, sheol. how many mortals have been frightened out of their senses by the false alarm of fire in the next world. preachers have pictured to mothers their children who died without the sacraments of the church being administered to them, as rolling on the fiery billows of hell. parents have been demented by such descriptions, and have gone to lunatic asylums, or to their graves in consequence. millions thus frightened have joined the church, and confessed belief in the creed, although they may not have known the meaning of a single article of it. but once having avowed their adherence to the church have lived lives of hypocrisy ever afterward because they had not the honor and the courage to break away from their bondage. what stories the pulpit has related of infidels being struck dead for profanity and blasphemy. these holy pulpit alarmists will have much to answer for if there is any such thing as a judgment day or a god in israel. it is plain that jesus taught the doctrine of future, if not endless punishment. it was endless punishment to those who committed the unpardonable sin: "and whosoever speaketh a word against the son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the holy ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." (mat. : .) other passages may be cited to show that jesus taught the horrible doctrine of eternal torment, and all efforts on the part of modern commentators to explain away hell are in vain. "and these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." (mat. : .) if these words do not teach the doctrine of endless torment, it would be a hard matter to express it in the vernacular. pictures of hell. john bunyan describes this interesting locality, and its inhabitants thus: "all the devils in hell will be with thee howling and roaring, screeching and yelling in such a manner that, thou wilt be at thy wits end, and be ready to run stark mad from anguish and torment. * * * here thou must lie and fry, and scorch, and broil, and burn forevermore." the father of new england theology, jonathan edwards, portrays his own imagination after this fashion: "the saints in glory will be far more sensible, how dreadful the wrath of god is, and will better understand how terrible the sufferings of the damned are, yet this will be no occasion of grief to them, but rejoicings. they will not be sorry for the damned: it will cause no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to them, but on the contrary when they see this sight, it will occasion rejoicing, and excite them to joyful praises." dr. emmons reveals his own "true inwardness" by giving it the following description: "the happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist of watching the torment of the damned in hell. among these it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives and friends on earth. one part of the business of the blest is to celebrate the doctrine of reprobation. while the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of mercy who instead of taking the part of those miserable objects will sing, amen, hallelujah: praise the lord." again, he says: "when they (the saints) see how great the misery is from which god hath saved them and how great a difference he hath made between their state and the state of others who were by nature, and perhaps by practice no more sinful and ill deserving than they, it will give them more a sense of the wonderfulness of god's grace to them in making them so to differ. the sight of hell-torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever." "where saints and angels from their blest abode, chanting loud hallelujahs to their god. look down on sinners in the realm of woe and draw fresh pleasures from the scenes below." the rev. thomas button, describes the bottomless character of his fancies thus: "the godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge in the condemnation of her ungodly husband. the godly husband shall say, amen! to the damnation of her who lay in his bosom. the godly parent shall say hallelujah! at the passing of the sentence upon the ungodly child. and the godly child, shall from his heart, approve the damnation of his wicked parents who begot him, and the mother who bore him." thomas vincent, a reverend, raves after this fashion: "this will fill them, the saints, with astonishing admiration and joy, when they see some of their near relatives going to hell; their fathers, their mothers, their children, their husbands, their wives, their human friends, and companions while they themselves are saved. * * * those affections they now have for relatives out of christ will cease, and they will not have the least trouble to see them sentenced to hell and thrust into the fiery furnace." my thoughts on awful subjects roll, damnation and the dead; what horrors seize the guilty soul upon a dying bed. where endless crowds of sinners lie, and darkness makes their chains; tortured with keen despair they cry, yet wait for fiercer pains. then swift and dreadful she descends down to the fiery coast amongst abominable fiends, herself a frighted ghost. adore and tremble, for your god is a consuming fire; his jealous eyes with wrath inflame, and raise his vengeance higher. almighty vengeance, how it burns! vast magazines of plagues and storms lie treasured for his foes. these grisly rhymes full of horrors are found in one of watt's hymn books written in england in the early part of the last century, but they are omitted from all modern hymn books. tertullian finds great joy in the idea of seeing his enemies in hell. "what shall be the magnitude of that scene! how shall i laugh! how shall i rejoice! how shall i triumph when i behold so many and such illustrious kings, who were said to have mounted into heaven, groaning with jupiter their god, in the lowest darkness of hell." (quoted by lecky, "rationalism in europe," vol. , p. .) "one great objection to the old testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by god, but all the cruelties recounted in the old testament ceased with death. the vengeance of jehovah stopped at the portal of the tomb. he never threatened to avenge himself upon the dead; and not one word, from the first mistake in genesis to the last curse of malachi, contains the slightest intimation that god will punish in another world. it was reserved for the new testament to make known the frightful doctrine of eternal pain. it was the teacher of universal benevolence who rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man on the lurid gulfs of hell. within the breast of non-resistance was coiled the worm that never dies." (ingersoll's reply to black.) "is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light from the glare of hell? infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. to worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes the soul. while there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no perfectly good being can be perfectly happy. against the heartlessness of this doctrine every grand and generous soul should enter its solemn protest. i want no part in any heaven where the saved, the ransomed, and the redeemed drown with merry shout the cries and sobs of hell--in which happiness forgets misery--where the tears of the lost increase laughter and deepen the dimples of joy. the idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. this idea tends to show that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. only from dens, lairs, and caves--only from mouths filled with cruel fangs--only from hearts of fear and hatred--only from the conscience of hunger and lust--only from the lowest and most debased, could come this most cruel, heartless, and absurd of all dogmas." (ingersoll's reply to black.) "a religion that teaches a mother that she can be happy in heaven, with her children in hell--in everlasting torment--strikes at the very roots of family affection. it makes the human heart stone. love that means no more than that, is not love at all. no heart that has ever loved can see the object of its affection in pain, and itself be happy. the thing is impossible. any religion that can make that possible is more to be dreaded than war or famine or pestilence or death. it would eat out all that is great and beautiful and good in this life. it would make life a mockery and love a curse." (helen h. gardener's "men, women, and gods.") "they divided the world into saints and sinners, and all the saints were going to heaven, and all the sinners yonder. now, then, you stand in the presence of a great disaster. a house is on fire, and there is seen at a window the frightened face of a woman with a babe in her arms, appealing for help; humanity cries out, "will some one go to the rescue?" they do not ask for a methodist, baptist, or a catholic; they ask for a man. all at once there starts from the crowd one that nobody ever suspected of being a saint; one may be, with a bad reputation; but he goes up the ladder and is lost in the smoke and flame; and a moment after he emerges, and the great circles of flames hiss around him; in a moment more he has reached the window; in another moment, with the woman and child in his arms, he reaches the ground and gives his fainting burden to the by-standers, and the people all stand hushed for a moment, as they always do at such times, and then the air is rent with acclamations. tell me that that man in going to be sent to hell, to eternal flames, who is willing to risk his life rather than a woman and child should suffer from the fire one moment! i despise that doctrine of hell! any man that believes in eternal hell is afflicted with at least two diseases; petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain." (ingersoll's "ghosts.") the church opposed to progress. "the church has opposed every reform and until quite recently, almost every useful invention. in the england of elizabeth it was declared from the pulpit that the introduction of forks would demoralize the people and provoke the divine wrath." ("martyrdom of man," p. .) in the year caxton published the first book ever printed in england. in the then bishop of london, in a convocation of his clergy, said, "if we do not destroy this dangerous invention it will one day destroy us." that bishop was a prophet. hume says: "it was remarkable that no physician in europe, who had reached the age of forty years, ever to the end of his life adopted harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and that his practice in london diminished extremely, from the reproach drawn on him by that great and signal discovery. so slow is the progress in every science even when not opposed by factitious and superstitious prejudices." (hume's "history of england.") when buffon had published natural history, in which was included his "theory of the earth," he was officially informed by the faculty of theology in paris that several of his propositions were "reprehensible and contrary to the creed of the church." and when columbus asserted the rotundity of the earth, he was ridiculed by the clergy, who maintained that "everything would roll off on the other side and be consumed in the fires of hell, if the world should turn over." benjamin franklin's experiments with the lightning, were condemned, as he was only invoking upon himself the wrath of an angry god. professor morse was freely ridiculed by the clergy for his attempt to construct a telegraph. roger bacon, who invented spectacles and improved the telescope, was accused of having "sold himself to the devil." it is scarcely necessary to recall the persecutions of copernicus, bruno, and galileo on account of their discoveries in astronomy. at eaton, in shelly's time, "chemistry was a forbidden thing." we read in the life of locke that "there was a meeting of the heads of the houses of oxford, where it was proposed to censure and discourage the reading of this essay (on the human understanding) and after various debates, it was concluded that without any public censure each head of a house should endeavor to prevent its being read in his own college." (spencer's "social statics," p. .) "with respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings (that is the circumnavigation of the earth) it is to be remembered that catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the sky as a floor of heaven, and hell in the under world." (draper's "conflict," p. .) the clergy for years have ridiculed darwinism, and scouted the philosophy of evolution, even after the best minds of europe had accepted it. but after all their ridicule of darwinism, when darwin had passed away the great heart of england did not fail to show the esteem in which the people at large held him, but lovingly laid his remains to rest in westminster abbey with the dust of her noblest dead. it is in the very nature of christianity to persecute. it cannot live on terms of equality with anything on earth. it must rule. it must be supreme, and all institutions and all individuals must obey its mandates. it has in all of its vocabulary no such word as liberty. every knee must bow to it, every tongue confess its authority, and every pocket--pay it tithes. and so gigantic has been its power that obedience in every age has been almost universal. millions have professed to obey the despot who have had no idea of what they were professing, and hence had not so much even an a dream of liberty. poor man has been trampled in the dust, and sometimes used as food for cannon, to satisfy the ambition of pope or king, and when not serviceable in that way, he was forced to worship god and serve the priests. "let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." (rom. : .) that is, the higher powers are the priests. the commandments of these higher powers are expressed in such words as "submit," "obey," "serve," "pay tithes," "believe,"--and to heed them is to lose the higher opportunities of manhood. protestant persecutions. william cobbett on the english church.--a letter to lord tenderten, lord chief justice of england, april , . "my lord: i have read the report of your lordship's speech made on the th inst. on the second reading of the catholic bill; and there is one passage of it on which i think it my duty thus publicly to remark. the passage to which i allude relates to the character of the law established church, and also to the probable fate that will, in consequence of this bill, attend her in ireland. "first, then, my lord, let us take your proposition 'that there in no church so tolerant as this.' i am sure your lordship has never read her history; i am sure you have not. if you had you never would have uttered these words. not being content to deal in general terms, i will not say she has been, and was from the outset, the most intolerant church that the world ever saw; that she started at first armed with halters, ripping-knives, axes, and racks; that her footsteps were marked with blood, while her back bent under the plunder of her innumerable innocent victims; and that for refinement in cruelty and extent of rapacity she never had an equal, whether corporate or sole. i will not thus speak of her in general terms, but i will lay before your lordship some historical facts, to make good that contradiction which i have given to your words. i assert that this law-church is the most intolerant church i ever read or heard of; and this assertion i now proceed to make good. "this church began to exist in , and in the reign of edward vi. until now the religion of the country had been for several years, under the tyrant henry viii., a sort of mongrel; but now it became wholly protestant by law. the articles of religion and the common prayer-book were now drawn up, and were established by acts of parliament. the catholic altars were pulled down in all the churches; the priests, on pain of ouster and fine, were compelled to teach the new religion, that is to say, to be apostates; and the people who had been born and bred catholics were not only punished if they heard mass, but were also punished if they did not go to hear the new parsons; that is to say, if they refused to become apostates. the people, smarting under this tyranny, rose in insurrection in several parts, and, indeed, all over the country. they complained that they had been robbed of their religion, and of the relief to the poor which the old church gave; and they demanded that the mass and the monasteries should be restored, and that the priests should not be allowed to marry. and how were they answered? the bullet and bayonet at the hands of german troops slaughtered a part, caused another part to be imprisoned and flogged, and the remainder to submit, outwardly, at least, to the law-church. and now mark this tolerant and merciful church. many of the old monastics and priests, who had been expelled from their convents and livings, were compelled to beg their bread about the country, and thus found subsistence among the pious catholics. this was an eye-sore to the law-church, who deemed the very existence of these men, who refused to apostatize, a libel on her. therefore, in company, actually in company with the law that founded the new church came forth a law to punish beggars, by burning them in the face with a red-hot iron and by making them slaves for two years, with power in their masters to make them wear an iron collar. your lordship must have read this act of parliament, passed in the first year of the first protestant reign, and coming forth in company with the common prayer-book. this was tolerant work, to be sure; and fine proof we have here of this church being 'favorable to civil and religious liberty.' not content with stripping these faithful catholic priests of their livings; not content with turning them out upon the wide world; this tolerant church must cause them to perish with hunger or be branded slaves. "such was the tolerant spirit of this church when she was young. as to her burnings under cranmer (who made the prayer book), they are hardly worthy of particular notice, when we have before us the sweeping cruelties of this first protestant reign, during which, short as it was, the people of england suffered so much that the suffering actually thinned their numbers; it was a people partly destroyed, and that, too, in the space of about six years; and this is acknowledged even in acts of parliament of that day. but this law-church was established in reality during the reign of elizabeth, which lasted forty-five years; that is, from to ; and though this church has always kept up its character, even to the present day, its deeds during this long reign are the most remarkable. "elizabeth established what she called 'a court of high commission' consisting chiefly of bishops of your lordship's 'most tolerant church,' in order to punish all who did not conform to her religious creed, she being 'the head of the church.' this commission was empowered to have control over the 'opinions' of all men, and to punish all men according to their 'discretion, short of death.' they had power to extort evidence by prison or the rack. they had power to compel a man (on oath) to 'reveal his thoughts,' and to 'accuse his friend, brother, parent, wife, or child;' and this, too, on 'pain of death.' these monsters, in order to 'discover priests,' and to crush the old religion, 'fined, imprisoned, racked,' and did such things as would have made nero shudder to think of. they sent hundreds to the rack in order to get from them confessions, 'on which confession many of them were put to death.' "i have not room to make even an enumeration of the deeds of religious persecution during this long and 'tolerant' reign; but i will state a few of them: . it was death to make a new catholic priest within the kingdom. . it was death for a catholic priest to come into the kingdom from abroad. . it was death to harbor a catholic priest coming from abroad. . it was death to confess to such a priest. . it was death for any priest to say mass. . it was death for any one to hear mass. . it was death to deny, or not to swear, if called on, that this woman was the head of the church of christ. . it was an offense (punishable by heavy fine) not to go to the protestant church. this fine was £ a lunar month, or £ a year, and of our present money £ , a year. thousands upon thousands refused to go to the law-church; and thus the head of the church sacked thousands upon thousands of estates! the poor conscientious catholics who refused to go to the 'most tolerant church,' and who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into the jails until the counties petitioned to be relieved from keeping them. they were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, and having their ears bored with a red-hot iron. but this very great 'toleration' not answering the purpose, an act was passed to banish for life all these non-goers to church, if they were not worth twenty pounds, and, in case of return they were to be punished with death. "i am, my lord, not making loose assertions here; i am all along stating from acts of parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your lordship must know well. i am not declaiming, but relating undeniable facts; with facts of the same character, with a bare list, made in the above manner, i could fill a considerable volume. the names of the persons put to death merely for being catholics, during this long and dreary reign, would, especially if we were to include ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of our army and navy, both taken together. the usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties, then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and tear out the heart, and hold it up, fling the bowels into the fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then boil the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. this was done, including ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the church in which they had been born and bred. there were one hundred and eighty-seven ripped up and boiled in england in the years from to ; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of elizabeth's reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to church and hear the common prayer! all, or nearly all of them were racked before they were put to death; and the cruelties in prison, and the manner of execution, were the most horrible that can be conceived. they were flung into dungeons, kept in their filth, and fed on bullock's liver, boiled and unwashed tripe, and such things as dogs are fed on. edwards genings, a priest, detected in saying mass in holborn, was after sentence of death offered his pardon if he would go to church; but having refused to do this, and having at the place of execution boldly said that he would die a thousand deaths rather than acknowledge the queen to be the spiritual head of the church, topliffe, the attorney-general, ordered the rope to be cut the moment the victim was turned off, 'so that' (says this historian) 'the priest being little or nothing stunned, stood on his feet casting his eyes toward heaven, till the hangman tripped up his heels, and flung him on the block, where he was ripped up and quartered.' he was so much alive even after the boweling that he cried with a loud voice, 'oh! it smarts!' and then he exclaimed, 'sancte gregorie, ora pro me,' while the hangman having sworn a most wicked oath cried, 'zounds! his heart is in my hand, and yet gregory is in his mouth!'"--wm. cobbett. "for centuries the irish were killed like game. we know not a few good englishmen who would be convulsed with the story of the murder of smith or jones, but whom the killing of an o'tool or o'dacherty, or any 'o'' or 'mac' would not move in the least. that be it remembered in . the collection of tithes alone cost a million lives. henry viii. aggravated all the outrages ever committed, and was determined the faith of the irish should undergo a radical protestant conversion. raleigh butchered limerick garrison in cold blood after lord grey had selected seven hundred to be hanged. james i. confiscated one-tenth of all the land in ireland and destroyed thousands of lives for religion's sake. protestant rectors kept private prisons for confining all who dissented from their faith. dr. leland, a protestant clergyman, wrote that the favorite object of the english parliament was the total extermination of all the catholics in ireland. "cromwell began by massacreing for three days the garrison of drogheda after quarter had been promised. whole towns were put up and sold. the catholics were banished from three-fourths of ireland and confined to connaught, and after a certain day every one found outside were shot or hung. fleetwood, the reverend, said the lord will appear in this work. on every wolf's scalp and priest's head a premium of £ was offered! young girls and boys were gathered up by the thousands and carried to the west indies. so by was once populous ireland so devastated that an occupied house was a curiosity and commented on. says one writer, s. w. petry, 'there perished in over six hundred thousand lives whose blood somebody must atone to god for.'" (newspaper article.) "the sword of the church was unsheathed and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted on the agonies they inflicted. acting as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of god; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception--these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. they crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed god to finish the holy work in hell. millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. the catholic burned the lutheran, the lutheran burned the catholic, the episcopalian tortured the presbyterian, the presbyterian tortured the episcopalian. every denomination killed all it could of every other, and each christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.... they have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. in the name of god every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of jesus christ. for more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. her vengeance has been measured only by her power. during all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. with the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine; merciless as fire; with conscience of a serpent; such is the history of the church of god." (ingersoll's "heretics and heresies.") the puritans intolerant. capital laws of connecticut, established by the general court, december , . . if any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other god but the lord god, he shall be put to death. (deut. : ; : , , and ex. : .) . if any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit) they shall be put to death. (ex. : ; lev. : ; deut. : , .) . if any person shall blaspheme the name of god, the father, son or holy ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death. (lev. : , .) . if any person shall commit any wilful murder, which is manslaughter committed upon malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man's necessary and just defense nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death. (ex. : , , ; numb. : , .) . if any person shall slay another through guile, either by poisoning, or other such devilish practice, he shall be put to death. (ex. : .) . if any man or woman shall lie with a beast or brute creature, by carnal copulation, they shall surely be put to death, and the beast shall be slain and buried. (lev. : , .) . if any man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death. (lev. : .) . if any person committeth adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (lev. : ; : ; deut. : , .) . if any man shall forcibly and without consent ravish a maid or woman, that is lawfully married or contracted, he shall be put to death. (deut. : .) . if any man shall steal a man or mankind, he shall be put to death. (ex. : .) . if any man rise up by false witnesses, wittingly and of purpose to take away any man's life he shall be put to death. (deut. : , , .) . if any man shall conspire or attempt any invasion, insurrection, or rebellion against the commonwealth, he shall be put to death. "all these are copied from the capital laws of massachusetts, established (with her body of liberties) december, ,--except the ninth (against rape of a married or betrothed woman), which was enacted by massachusetts in june, . one of the massachusetts laws punished manslaughter with death, was not adopted by connecticut, and only the first clause of the massachusetts law against conspiracy, rebellion, etc. was taken." ("blue laws, true and false," by trumbull.) "december , two additional capital laws were added to the statute of connecticut." (ibid. p. .) . if any child or children about years old and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he, or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been unchristianly negligent in the education of such children or so provoke them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto, to preserve themselves from death or maiming. (ex. : , ; lev. : .) . if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son of sufficient years and understanding, namely, years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and that when they have chastened him, will not hearken to them, then may his father and mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death. (deut. : , .) "persuade men that when ascribing to the deity justice and mercy, they are speaking of qualities generally distinct from those which exist among mankind--qualities which we are altogether unable to conceive, and which may be compatible with acts which men would term grossly unjust and unmerciful; tell them that guilt may be entirely unconnected with a personal act that millions of infants may be called into existence for a moment to be precipitated into a place of torment, that vast nations may live and die, and then be rased again to endure never-ending punishment, because they did not believe in a religion of which they never heard, or because a crime was committed thousands of years before they were in existence; convince them that all this is part of a transcendentally perfect and righteous scheme, and there is no imaginable abyss to which such a doctrine would not lead." (lecky's "rationalism in europe," vol. , p. .) lecky proceeds to show that men who believe in salvation by the church will always persecute dissenters, and all history attests the truth of his remarks. catholics persecuted protestants; protestants persecuted puritans; and puritans, in there turn, persecuted other dissenters. nor did the work stop here; though limited in their power, yet these dissenters even to-day find ways by which they can persecute dissenters from them without resort to physical means. there was not, two centuries ago, a single sect that did not uphold persecution. galileo. "for sixteen years the church had rest. but in galileo ventured on the publication of his work entitled 'the system of the world,' its object being the vindication of the copernican doctrine. he was again summoned before the inquisition at rome, accused of having asserted that the earth moves around the sun. he was declared to have brought upon himself the penalty of heresy. on his knees with his hand on the bible, he was compelled to abjure, and curse the doctrine of the movement of the earth. what a spectacle! this venerable man, the most illustrious of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges as well as himself knew to be true! he was then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during the remaining ten years of his life, and he was denied burial in consecrated ground. must not that be false which requires for its support so much imposture, so much barbarity? the opinions thus defended by the inquisition are now objects of derision to the whole civilized world." (draper's "conflict between religion and science.") bruno. "on the th of february, , a vast concourse of people was assembled in the largest open space in rome, gathered together by the irresistible sympathy which men always feel, with the terrible and tragic in human existence. in the center stood a huge pile of faggots, from out its logs and branches rose a stake, crowding around the pile were eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph, religion was about to be avenged; a heretic was coming to expiate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas proclaimed by the church--the crime of teaching that the earth moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds. the stake is erected for the 'maintenance and defense of the holy church, and the rights and liberties of the same.' whom does the crowd await? giordano bruno--the poet, philosopher, and heretic--the teacher of galileo's heresy--the friend of sir philip sidney, and the open antagonist of aristotle. a hush comes over the crowd. the procession solemnly advances, the soldiers peremptorily clearing the way for it. his face is placid though pale. they offer him the crucifix; he turns his head; he refuses to kiss it! 'the heretic!' they show him the image of him who died upon the cross for the sake of the living truth--he refuses the symbol! a yell bursts from the multitude. "they chain him to the stake. he remains silent. will he not pray for mercy? will he not recant? now the last hour has arrived--will he die in his obstinacy, when a little hypocrisy would save him from so much agony? it is even so; he is stubborn and unalterable. they light the faggots; the branches crackle; the flame ascends; the victim writhes--and now we see him no more. the smoke envelopes him; but not a prayer, not a plaint, not a single cry escapes him. in a little while the wind has scattered the ashes of giordano bruno." (g. h. lewes's "history of philosophy.") "what a contrast between this scene of manly honor, of unshaken firmness, of inflexible adherence to the truth, and that other scene which took place more than fifteen centuries previously by the fireside in the hall of caiaphas the high priest, when the cock crew, and 'the lord turned and looked upon peter.' (luke : .) and yet it is upon peter that the church has grounded her right to act as she did to bruno. "but perhaps the day is approaching when posterity will offer an expiation for this great ecclesiastical crime, and a statue of bruno be unveiled under the dome of st. peter's at rome." (draper's "conflict between religion and science.") "a divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man." (draper's "conflict between religion and science.") torture. "the system (of mediæval tortures) was matured under the mediæval habit of thought, it was adopted by the inquisitors, and it received its finishing touches from their ingenuity. in every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side by side, and in almost every country the abolition of torture was at last effected by a movement which the church opposed, and by men whom she cursed." (lecky's "rationalism in europe," vol. , p. .) "but the most powerful consideration with a truly benevolent man, if he be a christian, for the extirpation of heresy by force, is the belief that its unfortunate victims will suffer unending torments in hell. not for a few days, not for a few years must they suffer, but forever. under the burden of such an awful thought can the sincere, kind-hearted christian fold his arms and look calmly upon the efforts of men who are spreading unbelief or heresy in every direction, who are not only going to hell themselves, but are taking with them thousands of their fellow men. is it not natural that the sincere christian, having the power, should suppress such opinions? that if necessary he should resort to coercive measures? that if new heresies are constantly springing up he should punish some of the offenders with severity, and thereby endeavor to deter others from leaving the true faith? under the influence of such a faith, must not the desire for the suppression of the heresy be a measure of the desire for the suppression of the most injurious and dangerous errors? and will not the zeal to destroy them be in proportion to the love of truth and regard for the welfare of humanity? will not, therefore, the most sincere, earnest, and devoted christians, in an age of unquestioning faith, be the most active and zealous persecutors? on a priori grounds we cannot help arriving at such a conclusion, and the facts of history attest the correctness of the conclusion thus arrived at from a consideration of the natural effects of the doctrine that certain opinions involve merit and others guilt. "it has been shown by llorente that the men who founded the inquisition were men whose characters were free from the stains of vice, and who were actuated in their cruel work of torturing and burning men, by the most philanthropic motives. many of the worst persecutors, catholic and protestant alike, as mr. buckle has mentioned, have been among the most conscientious of men and women. their cruelty was the result of their faith. what, they argued, are the fleeting pains of a few thousand men compared with the eternal agony of the thousands and tens of thousands they will, unless checked, lead to hell. thus argued the christians when they first obtained power and used it in killing pagans; thus argued the catholics of the middle ages; thus argued the protestants of geneva; thus argued the advocates of episcopacy, the defenders of the kirk of scotland, and the pious puritans of new england. in proportion as men believe that correct theological beliefs involve merit and are essential to salvation, and that theological errors involve guilt and are punished with torments in hell, and have power, they must be persecutors. such has been the case in the past. it was only when rationalism, acting in opposition to the church, rendered persecution impossible, that theologians discovered that the punishment of men was at variance with their religion. 'with the merits of this pleasing though tardy conversion,' says lecky, 'i am not now concerned; but few persons, i think, can follow the history of christian persecution without a feeling of extreme astonishment that some modern writer, not content with maintaining that the doctrine of exclusive salvation ought not to have produced persecution, have ventured, in defiance of unanimous testimony of theologians of so many centuries, to dispute the plain historical fact that it did produce it.'" ("history of morals," vol. , p. .) "but independently of the influence of the old testament teachings, the christian system makes persecution inevitable in proportion as the system is believed. intolerance and persecution are a natural result of the doctrine that certain religious opinions involve moral guilt. the bible declares, 'he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.' this makes unbelief and heresy a crime, and unbelievers and heretics criminals. it makes it the religious duty of christians to legislate for the extirpation of the former and the punishment of the latter. can men treat with charity and kindness those with whom they believe god is displeased--those who are spreading doctrines that are regarded as plainly an offense to god? is it not the wish of god that unbelief and heresy should be destroyed, and, as an obedient subject, is it not natural that the christian should, as far as possible, carry out the wishes of the god he worships?" the new testament teaches intolerance. "'he that believeth not shall be damned.' (mark : .) st. paul exclaims (galatians ), 'if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.' he also says ( tim. ), 'if any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our lord jesus christ ... he is proud, knowing nothing ... from such withdraw thyself.' 'of whom ( tim. ) is hymenæus and alexander; whom i have delivered unto satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.' in these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. and that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommunications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of christianity abundantly prove."--b. f. underwood. "are men restrained by superstition? are men restrained by what you call religion? i used to think they were not; now i admit they are. no man has ever been restrained from the commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. there was a man who committed murder. they got the evidence, but he confessed that he did it. 'what did you do it for?' 'money.' 'did you get any money?' 'yes.' 'how much?' 'fifteen cents.' 'what kind of a man was he?' 'a laboring man i killed.' 'what did you do with the money?' 'i bought liquor with it.' 'did he have anything else?' 'i think he had some meat and bread.' 'what did you do with that?' 'i ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was friday.' so you see it will restrain in some things."--ingersoll. the inquisition in spain, . "upon the th of february, , a sentence of the holy office condemned all the inhabitants of the netherlands to death as heretics. from this universal doom, only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. a proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex or condition. this is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines." (john l. motley, "the rise of the dutch republic," vol. , p. .) the inquisition. "in . innocent iii. established the inquisition. in de montfort began the massacre of the albigenses. in the fourth council of the lateran enjoined all rulers, 'as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to swear a public oath that they would labor earnestly and to the full extent of their power, to exterminate from their dominions all those who were branded as heretics by the church.'" (lecky's "rationalism in europe," vol. , p. .) "llorente, who had free access to the archives of the spanish inquisition, assures us that by that tribunal alone more than , persons were burnt, and more than , condemned to punishment less severe than death. the number of those put to death for their religion in the netherlands alone, in the reign of charles v. has been estimated by a very high authority at , , and at least half as many perished under his son. (ibid. pp., , .) the church opposed to liberty. "how has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. and there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it. never. by making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the church sought to prevent discussion--sought to prevent argument, sought to prevent a man from giving his honest opinion. certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. in the silence of slavery it exists. it lives because lips are locked. it lives because men are slaves." (ingersoll, "the reynolds blasphemy trial.") "so i say if you believe the bible say so; if you do not believe it say so. and here is the vital mistake, i might almost say, in protestantism itself. the protestants when they fought the catholics, said: 'read the bible for yourselves--stop taking it from your priests--read the sacred volume with your own eyes. it is a revelation from god to his children, and you are the children,' and then they said: 'if after you read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in jail, and god will put you in hell.' that is a fine position to get a man in. it is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at his pictures, saying: 'they are the finest in the place, and i want your candid opinion. a man who looked at them the other day said they were daubs, and i kicked him down stairs--now i want your candid judgment.'" (ibid.) the bible opposed to liberty. to-day we say that every man has a right to worship god or not, to worship him as he pleases. is it the doctrine of the bible? let us see: "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; "namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; "thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou conceal him; "but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. "and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the lord thy god, which brought thee out of the land of egypt, from the house of bondage." (deut. : .) and do you know according to that, if your wife--your wife that you love as your own soul--if you had lived in palestine, and your wife had said to you, "let us worship a sun whose golden beams clothe the world in glory; let us worship the sun; let us bow to that great luminary; i love the sun because it gave me your face; because it gave me the features of my babe; let us worship the sun,"--it was then your duty to lay your hands upon her, your eye must not pity her, but it was your duty to cast the first stone against that tender and loving breast. i hate such doctrine! i hate such books! i hate gods that will write such books! i tell you that it is infamous. "if there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the lord thy god giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the lord thy god, in transgressing his covenant, "and hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun, moon, or any of the host of heaven, which i have not commanded; "and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in israel; "then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die." (deut. : - .)--ingersoll. secularism. "secularism has no mysteries, no mummeries, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles and no persecutions. "it is a protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical tyranny, against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom, or the priest of any phantom. it is a protest against wasting this life for the sake of one we know not of. it proposes to let the gods take care of themselves. "it means the destruction of the business of those who trade in fear. it proposes to give serenity and content to the human soul. it will put out the fires of eternal pain. it is striving to do away with violence and vice, with ignorance, poverty, and disease. it lives for the ever present to-day, and the ever coming to-morrow. it does not believe in praying and receiving, but in earning and deserving. it regards work as worship, labor as prayer, and wisdom as the savior of mankind."--robert g. ingersoll. popular questions and objections. . it is objected that freethought is destructive, not constructive. (a) it is destructive of error, crime, cruelty, superstition and all kinds of wrong and oppression. (b) it is constructive in its defense and support of the rights of man, woman, and child. (c) it is constructive in seeking to establish the highest form of morality, that is, rational morality. (d) it is constructive, because it inspires man with a thirst for knowledge, and puts him in sympathy with science. (e) it is positive and reconstructive in inspiring man with moral courage. "what will you give us in place of religion?" (a) we would put in place of religion, liberty, morality, honesty, courage, knowledge, and manliness. (b) we do not wish to take away the golden rule; but we insist that it is not a christian precept. it was in the world long before jesus, before moses, and before abraham. long before the pyramids were built mothers called their children to their knees and said to them, "children be good to each other to-day." this is the golden rule. we see then that it is of human origin, and not a part of christianity, as christianity is founded upon the supernatural. it is the old, old way that religions have of borrowing human virtues and ascribing them to the gods. (c) we do not teach men to despise charity, but to so improve human conditions that charity and charitable institutions shall not be needed. (d) "what will you give us in place of the bible?" we do not propose to take it away. we only ask people to read it as they do other books--accepting the good and rejecting the bad. "what are we to have in place of the consolation of the gospel?" the gospel means glad tidings. what are the glad tidings? . that man is totally depraved and polluted. good news! . that he deserves eternal torment. glad tidings! . and that nine tenths of the human race will get their deserts. "many are called, but few are chosen." glorious news! . that hell is in view,--near at hand. delightful tidings! . that the reprobate cannot escape. glorious gospel! . that god hates the most of the race and has from eternity doomed them to eternal woe. and all this is the gospel of glad tidings! suppose we expose the delusion of eternal torments, what does man want in its place? does he need a smaller hell to taper off on, before he can give up hell altogether? what does any one want in place of infant damnation? and so also with witchcraft, polygamy, slavery, and many other wrongs--must we have something to take their place? i heard of a kid gloved dude, who put his finger into a bucket of water, and after taking it out looked for the hole in the water. as well might the poor fellow sick in the hospital ask the doctor, who promises to cure him of the small pox, what he will give him in its stead. does he want the itch or measles in place of the small pox? "how does the freethinker come to know so much more than millions of good and great men who for eighteen centuries have believed in christianity?" (a) here we have the old question of majorities. millions of good and great men once firmly believed in witchcraft. luther said: "i would have no compassion on these witches, i would burn them all." john wesley said: "giving up witchcraft is giving up the bible." sir matthew hale believed in witchcraft. (b) the good and great men of many ages believed in hell--that is, for somebody else. practically hell is now in the lower case, if not entirely closed up for repairs. (c) millions of good and wise men for many centuries believed that this earth was flat, and that the sun went daily round it. and these good and wise people burned all those who did not agree with them. (d) millions of the best of earth at one time believed that it was right and proper to hang a man for stealing a sheep. (e) at one time almost every body believed that it was well-pleasing to god, for christians to torture and murder heretics. (f) millions of the wisest and best men have at different times believed that the world was speedily coming to an end. (g) the great men of the past professed to believe in christianity because they were compelled to do so through fear of persecution, torture, and death. millions of prominent men in society to-day, have to pretend to believe in the doctrines of the church in order to be respectable. (h) in every country under the sun people believe in their own religion.--the good and great mohammedans, believe in islamism. the good and great buddhists believe in buddhism, and the good and great brahmins, believe in brahminism. (i) the wise men of to-day in europe and america do not believe in christianity. the men of science do not attempt to prove the claims of christianity. it is claimed that infidelity is demoralizing in its tendency. (a) with such lives before us as those of paine, ingersoll, palmer, bennett, wright, seaver, and many others this charge proves to be groundless. (b) liberal principles are not degrading. truth, liberty, and justice cannot demoralize, but blind faith does. "infidels always repent on their death bed." (a) paine did not. bennett did not. dr. t. brown did not. courtlandt palmer, horace seaver, elizur wright, did not--and millions of other good men have died tranquilly without any belief whatever in another world. "can infidelity save the world?" one thing is certain, namely, that christianity cannot do it, as it has been trying to do so for eighteen centuries. there is no such thing as salvation possible. the world can be improved most rapidly by allowing everyone to mind his own business--by giving man his natural and equal rights, by inspiring him with liberty, for nothing so fully prepares people for liberty as liberty itself. "what has freethought done for the world?" (a) what has christianity done for the world? why it has built schools, churches, and charitable institutions. (b) it is true that christianity instituted schools, colleges, and universities; but not for the purpose of educating the people in truth, but in only such knowledge as would not conflict with its own superstitions. christian schools have been for ages at war with science and liberty. (c) it is true that the church builds asylums for the poor--but it is the church that is in a large degree responsible for the impoverished condition of the people. and the very money that builds the almshouse was begged from the poor, by the church. the church has nothing of itself to give except preaching. when the church builds an institution it first becomes a beggar. (d) the church builds insane asylums. and the church has filled them with her own people. there are more people made crazy and insane by religious excitements than by any other one thing. "what have infidels given for education, charity, and science?" we will give the names of six noted freethinkers, and could give more, but give these six to begin with: stephen girard, robert owen, james lick, william maclure, john rodman, and peter brigham. these gentleman who were all infidels, gave at least fifteen millions of dollars for education, science, and charity. the vast sum given by stephen girard for a secular education of orphan children has been stolen by christians and put to another use. orthodoxy and liberalism compared. . orthodoxy has a creed, but liberalism has none. a creed is something you do not understand, but it is nevertheless necessary for you to profess that you believe it--and the more unreasonable and impossible this something is the greater merit you have in saying you believe it. . orthodoxy has a bible. liberalism accepts all bibles and books for what they are worth. . orthodoxy has a savior--liberalism seeks to make all men saviors. it should not be forgotten that the orthodox savior has failed after trying for eighteen centuries. he even fails to save his own professed people and to make them any better than other folks. . orthodoxy has a prospective heaven. liberalism takes no stock in harps and crowns in the sky country--and is not terrorized by smoke from the sulphur lake. . orthodoxy insists that the most imperative duty is to believe, while liberalism teaches that man should think, question, and investigate, and always be governed by reason. the one preaches "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear (us the preachers);" the other teaches that "he who has brains to think, let him think." . orthodoxy commands you to obey. liberalism inspires you to defy despotism and to love liberty. . orthodoxy tells you that there is merit in believing. liberalism shows you that there is no merit in belief. . orthodoxy maintains that belief is subject to one's will. liberalism proves that intelligent belief depends upon evidence, and that religious beliefs are inherited. . orthodoxy hinges most of its teachings upon the traditions of the past, the mysteries of the present and the hopes of an imaginary future. liberalism admits of no postponement. "one world at a time," and now is the time. . orthodoxy is opposed to the teachings of science. see the lives of galileo, bruno, copernicus. . orthodoxy persecutes her own followers; for example: dr. thomas, professor swing, professor william robertson smith of aberdeen college, scotland, professor winchell of vanderbilt university, professor blauvelt, professor john miller of princeton, new jersey, and hosts of others. . orthodoxy seeks to guide men by authority, mottoes, and texts. liberalism inspires man to govern and guide himself through the exercise of his own reason. . orthodoxy teaches that the innocent must suffer that the guilty may escape. liberalism teaches that justice should be meted out to all. the great scheme of salvation failed because it was a "scheme." it is now pretty well known as a "bankrupt scheme." . "the bible has stood the attack of infidelity during eighteen centuries." ignorance has stood the attack of knowledge for a much longer time, and yet ignorance has not so very materially suffered--it is still ignorance. vice has stood the attacks of virtue ever since the world began. superstition has been besieged by science for many centuries, and yet superstition seems hale and hearty and bids fair to have a long life. is it true that those who believe in the bible are willing to have it tested by reason, justice, or humanity? it is not true that it has stood the test of science. christians are not willing to have the bible tested. "the infidel rejects the religion of his mother." not always; but even suppose it were true, did not jesus reject the religion of his mother? did not paul, peter, luther, wesley--did they not all reject the religion of their mothers? does not preaching consist in asking people to reject the religion of their mothers and to come over to the preacher's religion? "freethinkers are ruthless, and do not care how much they hurt our feelings. they speak coarsely upon sacred subjects." yes; but do not christians hurt our feelings? they send us to hell, and then put on a look of injured innocence if we do not sweetly return them "thanks." it is often charged that freethinkers do not believe anything. while it is true that we are not strong in any form of religious beliefs, yet it is true that we have most positive and decided convictions in regard to this world. we advocate freedom, truth, justice, equity, and every known human virtue. these all have an existence, we believe in all these present existing virtues. we believe in the realities, but the saint believes in the unrealities. he relishes as the meat and drink of his soul, such airy nothings as: dreams, visions, trances, inspirations, revelations, mysteries, miracles, witches, evil spirits, demons, devils, angels, immaculate conception, raising of the dead, drinking poison with impunity, omens, signs, sorcery, magic, resurrection, and ascension. "we are fools for christ's sake," says the apostle, and in the language of the quaker, we must say, we have not the heart to contradict him. it is objected that "freethought has no moral standard."--yes it has--it has reason the only true lamp to man's path. "but reason is fallible, you can not always trust it." you cannot always trust the reason of him who is not well developed mentally and well informed. but the bible is fallible, and always fallible, and you can trust it in but very few places except where it presents truth; and this moral truth is older than it. so we could get along without the bible, but we could hardly get along without reason, although some people try to. "there is no agreement among freethinkers." that is their glory. freethought has no procrustean bed upon which it may bring all of its constituency to one and the same size. the glory of freethought is that it inspires man to become free and possess his liberty against all invaders. to be free is to be a man, and not to be free is to be a slave. is there, let me ask, anything like agreement among the creeds? have the bible expounders always seen eye to eye? do the biblical critics all harmonize? where, i would like to know, can you find more disagreement than in the christian church? infidelity. "infidelity is honest. when it reaches the confines of reason, it says: i know no further. "infidelity does not palm its guess upon the ignorant as a demonstration. infidelity proves nothing by slander--establishes nothing by abuse. "infidelity has nothing to hide. it has no 'holy of holies,' except the abode of truth. it has no curtain that the hand of investigation has not the right to draw aside. it lives in the cloudless light, in the very noon of human eyes. "infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed. it does not cringe before an angry god. "infidelity says to every man: investigate for yourself. there is no punishment for unbelief. "infidelity asks for no protection from legislatures. it wants no man fined because he contradicts its doctrines. "infidelity relies simply upon evidence--not evidence of the dead, but of the living. "infidelity has no infallible pope. it relies only on infallible fact. it has no priest except the interpreter of nature. the universe is its church. its bible is everything that is true. it implores every man to verify every word for himself, and it implores him to say if he does not believe it, that he does not. "infidelity does not fear contradiction. it is not afraid of being laughed at. it invites the scrutiny of all doubters, of all unbelievers. it does not rely upon awe, but upon reason. it says to the whole world: it is dangerous not to think. it is dangerous not to be honest. it is dangerous not to investigate. it is dangerous not to follow where reason leads. "infidelity requires every man to judge for himself. infidelity preserves the manhood of man." (ingersoll's "interviews," p. .) por.--why, man, what's the matter? don't tear your hair. sir hugh.--i have been beaten in a discussion, overwhelmed and humiliated. por.--why didn't you call your adversary a fool? sir hugh.--my god! i forgot it! the objects of orthodoxy and liberalism. liberalism, like all reform movements, is poorly understood by all the masses. the more ignorant of the clergy know nothing of its real objects, and the few who do understand it dare not tell the truth, therefore we can not refer to its real objects too often. in this article we propose to place side by side the principle objects of orthodoxy and liberalism without comment so that our readers will be able to study them in contrast and see which is the more reasonable. orthodoxy seeks first and above all to glorify god; liberalism seeks first and above all to glorify man. orthodoxy seeks to save men from hell; liberalism seeks to save them from vice, ignorance, and superstition. orthodoxy teaches men how to die; liberalism teaches them how to live. orthodoxy says believe and be saved; liberalism says behave and be saved. orthodoxy promises happiness to the elect in another world; liberalism seeks to make all happy in this one. orthodoxy encourages men to seek for mansions in the skies; liberalism encourages them to secure homes on earth. orthodoxy teaches men to rely on god and pray; liberalism teaches them to rely on themselves and work. orthodoxy teaches self-abnegation; liberalism teaches self-respect. orthodoxy tells you what the bible means; liberalism takes it for granted the bible means what it says. orthodoxy says salvation is by faith only; liberalism says it is by honesty, education, and industry. orthodoxy offers a substitute for the sins of such as believe; liberalism expects every man to answer for his own acts. (independent pulpit.) christianity and materialism compared. christianity teaches: materialism teaches: . the existence of a god . the self-existence, the infinite in presence, yet a eternity, and the sufficiency of personal being; infinite in nature, and the universality and knowledge, yet a being who invariableness of natural law. cogitates, contrives, plans, and designs, like man; infinite in . that in the history of this power, yet the author of a world world there has been an evolution full of imperfections; infinite from the simple to the complex, in goodness (as well as power), from the special to the general, yet permits martyrs to expire from the homogeneous to the amid flames, and patriots and heterogeneous. philanthropists to languish in dungeons; unchangeable, yet at a . that good and evil are relative certain time after a terms. all morality is founded on beginningless state of inaction, utility and evolved by the wants aroused from his idleness and and necessities of human existence. made a universe out of nothing; honesty is right, not because a god is not the cause of evil, yet the has so declared, but because man's creator of everything and security, safety, and happiness are everybody save himself; is free promoted by it. from infirmities, yet is pleased with some things and displeased . that man's condition, although with others; is without body, imperfect, is improvable by his own parts, or passions, and yet is of unaided efforts. the masculine gender. . that man should look to himself . the original perfection of and not to a spectacle of suffering everything. and death of eighteen hundred years ago, for improvement and elevation. . the existence of a devil--a creature made by god, and the . that belief and unbelief are author of evil that will exist involuntary and without moral merit forever. or demerit. . that man is a "fallen . that instead of worshiping god, creature," and unable to improve we should direct all our efforts to by his own unassisted efforts. improve ourselves, letting "gods attend on things for gods to know." . that man can be "saved" only through the blood and merits of . that man, wherever he may exist, christ. it is rational to believe, will be fitted to his condition. an . that belief in the christian unbroken everlasting sleep, which system involves moral merit; probably awaits us all, affords no disbelief, sin. ground for fear. and how infinitely preferable to a future state of . that it is man's duty to punishment in which the majority of worship god by prayer and praise. our race will be forever miserable! . that a comparatively small . that the teachings of reason and portion of mankind in the future the lessons of experience are the will be happy; the greater only revelations man has received. portion will be in torment eternally. . that the bible should be tested by the same rules of historical and . that man has received a book modern criticism that are applied revelation, of which, however, to other ancient documents. but a comparatively small part of the race has ever obtained . that the barbarous acts of the information. israelites, like those of other ancient nations, were the result of . that reason should be their undeveloped, and uncivilized subordinated to the teachings of condition. the bible. . that the universe is full of . that the acts of the jews, mysteries, above our comprehension, such as are practiced now by but none contrary to our reason. barbarians only, were commanded by god, and were, therefore, . that the difference of opinion right. among liberals is consistent with their common position that man has . that there are mysteries no infallible standard. that the contrary to experience and enlightened reason of man is the reason, which must nevertheless highest and best standard he be believed. possesses. . although god has given man a . that woman is man's equal and revelation, there is great natural companion--exists for him uncertainty as to what he meant only in the sense in which he to say on several subjects of exists for her. great importance. . that slavery, polygamy, and . that woman is man's inferior despotism are evils whenever and and subordinate, was made for his wherever they exist. gratification and convenience, while man was made for himself . that man should attend to the and the glory of god. affairs of this world, and, contrary to the notion of jesus, . that god has approved and should take "thought for the sanctioned polygamy, slavery, and morrow." despotism. . that evil is due to natural . that man should take no causes. man can gradually remove thought for the morrow. he should the evils that afflict him by pattern after the lilies of the becoming acquainted with his field. nature, relations, and surroundings. . that man's ills and sufferings are ascribable largely . jesus was probably a reformer, to the immediate agency of a a "come-outer," an "infidel" of his personal, malicious devil--a time. we can esteem him as a being of extended presence, of benefactor without worshiping him almost infinite knowledge, of as a god. great strategy, and immense power. . the present is better than the past, and the golden age of the . that jesus was god almighty world is in the future. incased in human flesh. . that the golden age of the earth was in the past. b. f. underwood. "safest to believe." it has often been argued that credulity is safer than skepticism--that "it is safest to believe;" inasmuch as if a man believes in heaven and hell, and there be no such places, he is, if no gainer, at least no loser; whereas the infidel may lose, and cannot gain. upon the same principle, it were safest to believe all the religions of the world at once--christian, mohammedan, jewish, hindoo, confucian, and all the rest; because it is but insuring the matter by halves to trust to one only. if allah be not the only god and mahomet be an imposter, there is no harm done and nothing lost; and if there be not a paradise in another world, there has been a pleasant dream of anticipated joys in this. let us ask, is the balance of profit and loss fairly struck? are the chances all in favor of the believer and all against the skeptic? is there nothing to be thrown into the opposite scale? surely much. if religion be a fallacy, it is a fallacy pregnant with mischief. it excites the fears without foundation; it fosters feelings of separation between the believer and the unbeliever; it consumes valuable time that can never be recalled, and valuable talents that ought to be better employed; it draws money from our pockets to support a delusion; it teaches the elect to look upon their fellow men as heathen and castaways, living in sin here, and doomed to perdition hereafter; it awakens harassing doubts, gloomy despondency, and fitful melancholy; it turns our thoughts from the things of the world, where alone true knowledge is found; it speaks of temporal miseries and temporal pleasures as less than nothing and vanity, and thus fosters indifference to the causes of the weal and woe of mankind; worse than all, it chains us down to an antiquated orthodoxy, and forbids the free discussion of those very subjects which it most concerns us to investigate. if religion be a fallacy, its votaries are slaves. whereupon, then, rests the assertion, that if the believer does not gain, he cannot lose? is it nothing to lose time and talents, to waste our labor on that which is not bread, and our money upon that which profiteth not? is it nothing to feel that the human beings that surround us are children of the devil and heirs of hell? is it nothing to think that we may perhaps look across the great gulf and see some one we have loved on earth tormented in a fiery lake; and hear him ask us to dip a finger in water that it may cool his parched tongue? is it no loss to live in disquiet by day, and in fear by night; to pass through dark seasons of doubt and temptation, and to be conscious that we are but as strangers and pilgrims here, toiling through a weary valley of cares and sorrows? is it no loss to hold back when truth oversteps the line of orthodoxy, and when there ought to be free discussion, to shrink before we know not what? is all this no loss? or, is it not rather the loss of all that a free and rational being most values? those engaged in the trade of religion, imagine themselves to have a mighty advantage against infidels upon the strength of the old, worn out argument that whether the christian religion be true or false there can be no harm in believing; and that belief is, at any rate, the safer side. now to say nothing of this old popish argument, which a sensible man must see is the very essence of popery, and would oblige us to believe all the absurdities and nonsense in the world: inasmuch as if there be no harm in believing, and there be some harm and danger in not believing, the more we believe, the better; and all the argument for any religion whatever would be, that it should frighten us out of our wits; the more terrible, the more true; and it would be our duty to become the converts of that religion, whatever it might be, whose priests could swear the loudest, and damn and curse the fiercest. this is a wolfish argument in sheep's clothing. (truth seeker tract.) the "safe side." "ours is the safe side," says the christian; "for if infidelity be true then both infidel and christian have the same destiny, namely to die and end all, but if christianity be true what will become of the infidel?" in reply to this we say, that although at death both believer and unbeliever fall asleep side by side upon the bosom of mother earth, yet it does not make yours the safe side; because if christianity be true then the most of the human race go into eternal torment. orthodoxy has always taught that "many are called but few are chosen." now if nine tenths of the race are going to suffer endless pain i do not see how those who are going to constitute a large part of that number and are to be eternally lost, can call it the "safe side." for it should not be forgotten that the vast majority of those who are going to suffer the wrath of god, are professed christians. "many will say unto me in that day, lord, lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will i profess unto them--i never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity." (mat. : , .) no, no, it will not do to trust that side as the "safe side" where "many are called but few are chosen." we need something safer than that. again, we do not see how it can be the "safe side," to despise this life, in hopes of another that we know nothing of. if infidelity be true, all christians are superstitious idolaters. if infidelity be true, christians are deceived and are corrupting the minds of millions of children with superstition which will render them bigoted, cruel, and unhappy. and this is about the size of it. how, then, can it be the safe side. the safe side is always to be fair and honorable. it is safe always to examine both sides. it is safe to be on the alert for more truth. it is safe to accept the truth even when it cuts away old prejudices and old beliefs. it is safe not to be a sectarian. it is not safe to be a partizan, but it is safe to be free, courageous, and honest in all things. it is not safe for you to cling to myths, fables, and superstitions, and to leave them as a blighting inheritance to your children. popular objections to infidelity answered, showing some mistakes of christians. . that we are negative, only.--we deny what we deem to be false, we affirm what we believe to be true, christians do the same; only much that they affirm, we deny, and much that they deny, we affirm. negation is necessary and healthful. no affirmation is possible that does not presuppose a negation. negation is but the assailing side of affirmation. we deny the fables of mythology; we affirm the demonstrable truths of science. . that we have no incentive to good deeds.--if the christian acts as he believes, he does good to escape hell and gain heaven--he respects the rights of others through fear of punishment and hope of reward. hence it is that he cannot understand how the man who rejects his creed can be a good man. we do right because all the experience of the race has shown that what we call "right" is conducive to happiness; because the line of right action is the line of least resistance; because we believe in the principle of reciprocity, and because every act of every individual becomes a part of the inheritance of the race, and thus as we are, so shall be our children. if we are intemperate, diseased, and criminal, our children shall suffer in consequence thereof. what higher or stronger incentive to right action can be offered? . that we are unhappy.--why should we be more unhappy than the christian? why should we not be more happy? we live in the same world; we believe in making the most of its opportunities for obtaining happiness, while he (theoretically, at least,) believes that earthly joy depreciates heavenly bliss; we are cursed by no fear of an angry god, by no dreams of an endless hell and of a revengeful devil; the christian no more than the infidel, is exempt from accident, sickness and death, and the agony of parting with loved ones is his no less than ours. he accepts revelation and creation, and hence believes that we belong to a falling race; we accept science and evolution, and hence believe that we belong to a rising race. which is the most rational and hope inspiring belief? . that it is "safest to believe."--if this proves anything it proves too much. if our future (if we have one) can be rendered more secure by pretending to believe when we do not, then the protestant should accept catholicism, and the catholic, protestantism, while the members of every sect should believe all that is taught by all other sectarists and christians of every school should believe all that is contained in the sacred books of other religions. . that we hurt the feelings of those who cherish the old faith.--why should the christian complain that we disturb settled convictions and cut loose the anchored bark of faith? has not christianity ever been a missionary religion? it seeks to disturb the religion of the whole world. christians attack all religions other than their own--our offence is that we include christianity in the category of false faiths. (lucifer.) "all owing to the bible." "it is a very common argument with christians, that only those nations which have had the bible are refined, civilized and learned. the following is the boastful manner in which christians set forth the claims of their religion: "take a map of the world, draw a line around those countries that have enjoyed the highest degree of refinement, and you will encircle just those nations that have received the bible as their authority in religion." in refutation of this assumption horace seaver writes: "from this language the plain inference is, that those nations have been indebted to the influence of the bible for the positions to which they have attained. let us follow out a little this line of argument and see where it will lead. "the ancient egyptians stood as far in advance of their contemporaries as do the nations of christendom at the present day, as the remains of their cities and temples fully attest. and if the argument is good, they were indebted for that superiority to their worship of cats, crocodiles, and onions! "the ancient greek might have exclaimed, as he beheld the proud position to which greece attained--'see what we owe to a belief in our glorious mythology; we have reached the highest point of enlightenment the world has ever witnessed; we stand unequaled in power, wealth, the cultivation of the arts, and all that makes a nation refined, polished, and great!' "how immeasurably would his faith in the elevating tendency of his religion have been increased could he have looked with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and beheld the enlightened and christianized nations of the nineteenth century adopting the remains of grecian architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music and literature as their models! pagan rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress of nations--the home of philosophers and sages--the land in which the title 'i am a roman citizen,' was the proudest that mortal could wear--rome, by the above christian argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and glory to her mythology. "the turk and the saracen, likewise, have had their day of power and renown. bagdad was the seat of science and learning at a time when the nations of europe were sunk in darkness and superstition. the turk and saracen should have pointed to the koran as the source of their refinement. "thus we see that the christian argument we are noticing, if it proves anything, it proves too much. if the nations of christendom are indebted to the bible for their enlightenment, likewise were the egyptians indebted to their cat and crocodile and onion worship, the greeks and romans to their mythology and the turks and saracens to their koran."--seaver. the following is from william denton's "common sense thoughts on the bible:" "'but it is well known, that in those countries where the bible is read, studied, and believed in, there is more knowledge and greater freedom, more virtue and happiness, than in any other countries.'" "if true, and if all this was the result of reading and believing the bible, it would not prove the bible to be divine. a book may be useful, though merely human. but where is the proof that we owe our virtue, liberty, and enlightenment to the bible? the abyssinians have had the bible in their possession twice as long as the anglo-saxons, and yet they are a race of barbarians still. what did the bible accomplish for the people of syria, and asia minor, who were first blessed with it? so little, that the koran superseded it; the mohammedans being superior in almost every respect, to the christians whom they conquered and converted. the greeks and romans were as far in advance of surrounding nations as we are or profess to be. was it the bible that elevated and made them and made their unsurpassed poets, painters, sculptors, and orators? their priests, doubtless, attributed their superiority to the superior religion they possessed. so bible believers oppose science and reform to the last; but when they triumph in spite of their opposition, they are the first to shout glory to the bible for what it has accomplished."--denton. "i had a conversation with a gentleman once--and these gentlemen are always mistaking something that goes along with a thing for the cause of the thing--and he stated to me that his particular religion was the cause of all advancement. i said to him, 'no, sir; the causes of all advancement in my judgment, are plug hats and suspenders.' and i said to him, 'you go to turkey, where they are semi-barbarians, and you won't find a pair of suspenders or a plug hat in all that country; you go to russia, and you will find now and then a pair of suspenders at moscow or st. petersburg; but you go on down until you strike austria, and black hats begin; then you go to paris, berlin, and new york, and you will find everybody wears suspenders and everybody wears black hats. wherever you find education and music, there you will find black hats and suspenders.' he said that any man who said to him that plug hats and suspenders had done more for mankind than the bible and religion he would not talk to." (ingersoll's "ghosts.") the bible on temperance. passages commending or enjoining the use of wine or strong drink, or both, or including a plentiful supply of wine among the blessings to be bestowed upon favored individuals or tribes, etc.; or including the deprivation of it among the punishments inflicted upon the disobedient. "jacob, blessing judah, said: (gen. : , ): 'binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.' "doesn't look as though yahweh, the 'god of jacob,' thought wine a very bad article. "num. : : 'after that the nazarite may drink wine.' "in deut. : , god, through moses, said to his chosen people: 'and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; and he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil,' etc., etc. "just think of it, woman's christian temperance union people, god has solemnly promised to bless his faithful children with an especially large vintage, a better vintage than that of their unbelieving neighbors! rather rough on the heretic french and the infidel germans! "deut. : : 'that i will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil.' "yahweh is determined that the supply of wine shall not fall short. "deut. : : 'and thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the lord thy god, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household.' "rev. mr. stevenson to the box! repeat your testimony, please. 'i said that, the education of the children of the republic in temperance principles logically involves the maintenance in those schools of the bible as the great text book in morals.' "deut. : : 'thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press of that wherewith the lord thy god hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.' "this is said regarding the manumitted hebrew slave. and so it is a blessing for god to give the fruit of the wine-press to his children? and we are to emulate him? "it seems that god punishes his people by blasting their vineyards, and thus cutting short their supply of wine, as below: "deut. : : 'thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.' "verse of the same chapter tells the people that their cattle and wine and oil shall be taken from them if they disobey god's commands. this is the famous 'cursing chapter' of the bible, and is just the reading calculated to make a man believe that god was the first pope of rome. "deuteronomy is a very good book for the woman's christian temperance union, and i suggest that it hold a special meeting to pray for the evidently 'rum'-loving god who wrote it. there is much other matter in it that helps to make it an admirable work for use in the schools. "judges : : 'and the vine said unto them, should i leave my wine, which cheereth god and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?' "ah! so it appears that god, the 'original prohibitionist,' according to the woman's christian temperance union drinks wine, else how could it cheer him? "second sam. : : 'and he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.' "query: what would the christian temperance ladies have done with that wine had they been present when david, the man after god's own heart, dealt it out to all, men as well as women? "second sam. : : 'and ziba said, the asses be for the king's household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine that such as faint in the wilderness may drink.' "in kansas and iowa many get 'faint in the wilderness,' judging by the business of the drugstores. no doubt they have all seen this prescription given by god. "second chron. : : 'and behold, i will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.' "the article which solomon, 'the wisest of all men,' gave to the servants of the king of tyre in one-fourth payment for their labor in preparing the temple which he built to the lord, was probably especially blessed by the lord for that use, and so rendered non-intoxicating, else we must conclude that he pays those who build houses for him in what friend st. john would call 'liquid damnation.' "and inasmuch as solomon was the wisest of all men (or god made a mistake when he so said), and the temple was for the said god, i am justified in concluding that this god regards wine as a legal tender, and so i put the above passage in this category as one in which god has sanctified the use of wine. "neh. : : (to the usurers): 'restore, i pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.' "neh. : : 'for the children of israel and the children of levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil ... and we will not forsake the house of our god.' "wine, old or 'new,' seems to have been always acceptable to 'our god,' whether tendered as a holy offering or otherwise. "'the lord' makes wine, according to the psalmist: "psalm : : 'and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.' "if 'the lord' lived in iowa, lozier and foster would have him arrested for violation of the new iron-clad prohibitory law. "prov. : : 'so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.' "prov. : , : 'give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.' "in these two verses, the author of proverbs has more than nullified all the good things he said in his earlier chapters, and which i have quoted in list a. i am quite sure that where they have prevented the drinking of one glass of wine or strong drink, these passages have led to the drinking of one thousand. and this is a mild statement of the case. "eccl. : : 'go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for god now accepteth thy works.' "song of sol. : : 'let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for thy love is better than wine.' "from this we gather that, next to love wine is the best thing in the world. this is the opinion of most bacchanalian experts, i believe. solomon seems to have had much experience. "song of sol. : : 'i have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, o friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, o believers.' "is this the earliest mention of milk punch? "song of sol. : : 'i would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.' metaphorical, undoubtedly. "isa. : : 'thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.' "have your wine full strength, as much as you would have your silver unalloyed, is the admonition of god's prophet. "isa. : : 'the new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth; all the merry-hearted do sigh.' "one more in the long list of passages wherein it is said that god punished his chosen people by cutting off their vintage. what god regards as a real deprivation to lose must be good to have and to keep, in his opinion, whatever the woman's christian temperance union people may think about it. verse says: 'they shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.' verse : 'there is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.' "god thus punished them by taking away their wine, on the same principle that he punishes us by killing our children, as christians say that he does. will they contend that children are inherently an evil? they must if they follow the same line of reasoning that they do in interpreting these texts. "isa. : , : 'in that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine. i the lord do keep it; i will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, i will keep it night and day.' "figurative, doubtless! so is the next, but all the influence of these passages is on the side of intemperance, necessarily, for the simple reason that the great mass of the people will take them literally, and for the further reason that the constant association of wine with 'good news' and symbols of religion familiarize the mind with it and serve to give it something of a sacred character. this last mentioned fact helps to explain why the church so long opposed the modern temperance movement. but here is the passage above indicated, isa. : : 'ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat: yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.' "isa. : : 'the lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, surely i will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored.' "rev. stevenson should suggest to the lord that, whereas wine is an evil thing, and the bible a 'great text book of morals,' and the palladium of temperance, essential in the proper training of our children, therefore, he, the lord, should have clearly shown that he meant that the enemies of his chosen people should take from them their wine that through such deprivation they should be better and happier. but, no! he ranks wine with corn, and registers a mighty oath that the people shall have them both. "isa. : : 'thus saith the lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so i will do for my servants' sake, that i may not destroy them all.' "jer. : : 'therefore they shall come and sing in the height of zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil,' etc. "jer. : : 'but ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in the cities that ye have taken.' "probably 'wine' here means grapes, though it is used in the same construction as 'oil.' "jer. : : 'and joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of moab, and i have caused wine to fail from the wine presses.' "dan. : : 'and the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.' "here god intends, plainly, to convey the impression that wine is nourishing! the only way in which the christian temperance people can relieve him from the imputation of teaching lessons so opposite to theirs is to enter the plea that he did not inspire the writer! "hos. : , : 'for she did not know that i gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for baal. therefore i will return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.' "of course, if these passages and very many of like import, are any argument against wine, they are of equal weight in the scale against corn, wool, and many other useful and necessary articles. the authors of such verses, wherever found, unquestionably looked upon wine as one of god's good gifts to his children, but which he was compelled to sometimes deprive them of because of their disobedience. "hos. : : 'the floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.' "that is, israel shall be punished for her transgressions by the destruction of the fertility of the soil. "evidently the perfume of wine was pleasing unto the lord, for he says, in promising his blessing to the repentant people (hos. : ): 'they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the wine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of lebanon.' "joel : : 'awake, ye drunkards, and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.' "this, taken by itself, would be an unqualified condemnation of intoxicants, but such was not the prophet's meaning. the verse concludes: 'because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouths.' "in the vision of the prophet he sees the great evils that have come upon his country; the palmer-worm, and the locust, and the canker-worm have destroyed the crops. 'the meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off from the house of the lord, ... the corn is wasted, the oil languisheth,' etc. while in the verse quoted the drinkers are mildly requested to howl, in verse thirteen we have, 'gird yourselves and lament, ye priests; howl ye ministers of the altar.' no temperance admonition or lesson here, that is plain. "joel : : 'and it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of judah shall flow with water,' etc. "thus, again, among the great blessings to be bestowed upon the faithful is wine in abundance. one of the facts that strikes me most forcibly, in making such an examination as this, is the almost universal favor with which the hebrew prophets looked upon wine and wine-drinking; and in prophesying the evils to come upon their people because of their disobedience to god or their oppression of their fellows, they rarely fail to include the cutting off of the wine supply. this they evidently regarded as one of the greatest of calamities. our christian temperance friends would gladly, so they say, visit wholesale destruction upon the vineyards and barley fields, and they seem almost to seek to convey the impression that god made a mistake when he created grapes and barley. this proves how honest they are when they say that the bible is a temperance book. in amos : , we have another example of the above-mentioned fact in the utterances of the prophet. denouncing the people for their injustice, he says: 'ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.' in the preceding sentence he had said: 'ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them.' houses were good, wine was good; but because of their sins they should be deprived of both. there is here no argument either direct or implied in behalf of abstinence. "amos : : 'and i will bring again the captivity of my people of israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.' "it does not seem that even mr. stevenson would venture to claim this verse as a bible argument for temperance. they shall drink the wine! "micah. : : 'thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.' "how can apparently honorable men claim that god, as revealed in the bible, disapproves of the use of intoxicants when he is continually telling his chosen people that he will punish them by destroying their corn, and their wine, and their oil; evidently taking particular pains to impress upon them the fact that they (wine, corn, and oil) are equally good and useful? "zeph. : : 'they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.' "the same old story: "in chapter , verse , haggai calls for a drouth upon the land to punish the people, and he includes, as usual, the corn, and the oil, and the new wine among the things to be destroyed. "zech. : : 'for how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty; corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.' "rather a singular apportionment of his bounty, unless 'corn' means something stronger than wine. "matt. : : 'the son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold, a man is gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. but wisdom is justified of her children.' but are these her children who claim jesus as very god and yet fly directly in the face of his precepts and practice? or is it moral uprightness instead of wisdom that they lack? "in mat. : to , and mark : to , jesus gives us the parable of the vineyard and the husbandman, and in it all there is no hint that there was anything wrong in the business of winemaking. "the thought that we find expressed in mat. : , is given again in luke : - - , where we read: 'for john the baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, he hath a devil. the son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! but wisdom is justified of all her children.' "whoever uttered these words, man or god; whoever wrote them, john or some one else one hundred or more years later, there can be no disputing regarding the lesson which is taught. it is that each individual is to determine for himself or herself in all things pertaining to personal conduct and habits. 'let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind' is the central idea of the various renderings. there is no rebuke, expressed or implied, of intemperance; there is nothing that can be tortured into a condemnation of wine-drinking or into an approval of the principle of total abstinence, or that of prohibition. here was his opportunity to condemn the drinking of wine, to speak for that which is now called temperance; but from his lips fell no words of warning; to those gathered about him he said nothing in favor of the great reform which christians of to-day, falsely assuming to speak in his name, declare finds its sanction and inspiration, its bulwark and tower of defense, in the bible. "it seems that the good samaritan (luke : ) had with him a supply of wine with which he dressed the wounds of the stranger. "john : - : 'and when they wanted wine, the mother of jesus saith unto him, they have no wine. jesus saith unto her, woman, what have i to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. his mother saith unto the servants, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. and there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. jesus saith unto them, fill the water-pots with water. and they filled them up to the brim. and he saith unto them, draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. and they bare it. when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. this beginning of miracles did jesus in cana of galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.' "john : : 'so jesus came again into cana of galilee, where he made the water wine.' "the first miracle which jesus performed was to convert six pots of water into wine! and this feat convinced his disciples of his supernatural origin and powers! and he did this to manifest forth his glory! either this is true or the bible is false. whether true or not, it has been a most powerful argument against abstinence; it has resulted directly in making drunkards, as it has indirectly in making hypocrites and jesuitical sophists. i of course mean by this last sentence that the seeming necessity to prove the bible a temperance work has made any number of christian apologists resort to all kinds of specious arguments and make any number of false claims in order to make good their assertions. the assumption that this wine was not of an intoxicating nature is purely gratuitous. there is not even the ghost of a fact to be found in support of it. hundreds of passages, which i have quoted under their appropriate heads, prove beyond a doubt that the wine so often mentioned in the bible was intoxicating; the words of the governor prove that this miraculously produced portion of it certainly was of the very best, for it is against all reason to suppose that men accustomed to the taste and effects of wine would pronounce simple grape-juice to be better than all that had already been served to them at the feast; and, finally, the declaration that this act of jesus was a miracle and that it made his disciples to 'believe on him,' gives the last stroke to the already nearly dead 'non-intoxicating' theory. "col. : : 'let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.' "in other words, judge for yourselves in all these matters, submit to no dictation from without. how does that strike you, messrs. bible prohibitionists? " tim. : : 'drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.' "it is probable that this short verse has led to the consumption of more wine and caused more intemperance than any other equal number of words in any language or contained in any book. it has had more potent effect upon the mind of the christian believer than have twenty passages which have in a hesitating, half-hearted, uncertain way caution against the use of much wine. "comparing this class of passages with those grouped under 'a,' we find that the bible pleas for temperance are out voted more than five to one by those in favor of the use of intoxicants. the record is an astonishingly bad one for the bible as a total abstinence and prohibition work, and should put to the blush all of its worshipers and apologists who have been so foolish or unscrupulous as to claim that it is indispensable to the temperance cause and in the education of our children. both claims are absurd." (e. c. walker's "bible temperance.") the inconsistency of agnosticism. "it seems to me as irrational to say there is no god as to say there is a god."--editor twentieth century. "but pray, why? does not that proposition tacitly concede that it is irrational to say there is a god? if so, how can it be irrational to deny an irrational proposition or absurdity? are not the two propositions antithetical? if so, one or the other is, of necessity, false. conceding then, as he does, the absurdity of the god idea, why will mr. pentecost persist, inconsistently, in maintaining that there is no difference between the rationality of theism and materialism, with its incidental atheism? "will he kindly tell us the difference in degree of rationality between the position that there is a personal devil and that there is a god? are not both notions of the same origin and equally absurd? are not both transmitted to us from the dark ages, from the same book, and must not both stand or fall together? yet mr. pentecost would not, from pure deference and respect for our poor, non-evolved pious friends, assume an agnostic's attitude and concede that 'it is as irrational to say there is no devil as to say there is a devil.' of course not. he simply denies the existence of his satanic majesty without equivocation, and the proof of his existence not being forthcoming his denial is equivalent to proof that such a being does not exist. "in law and equity the affirmative is obliged to prove its case. if then a proposition is self-evidently absurd, unnatural and absolutely impossible, why concede to those affirming, without a shadow of proof, that their belief is equally rational with our unbelief, that 'it may be so,' 'i don't know,' etc. "having discarded as authoritative ancient traditions, there is absolutely no logic, no reason, no science, no analogy that will sustain or demonstrate the existence of a god. and in view of this fact a simple denial is all-sufficient to prove the negative. as the plea of the prisoner at the bar of 'not guilty' is equivalent to proof of his innocence and bound to be respected by court and juror, unless, indeed, the affirmative, beyond a shadow of a doubt, establishes his guilt, so the atheist's fearless denial, nowadays, must demand profound respect, and is equivalent to proof, unless, indeed, the church brings proof, outside of a discarded bible, of the truth of its basic idea. "now, though unnecessary to prove a negative, and the god-idea not having been established by history, revelation, science, or reason, yet alleged arguments being continually advanced in the vain endeavor to resuscitate a vanishing religion, a few propositions are here advanced which prove there is no god. "there is a universe. this proves there is no god. "the universe is infinite. this excludes anything else of like character--two infinities being an absurdity. "the universe (nature) is here and there and everywhere. this proves that god cannot be here and there and everywhere. "two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. matter (implying energy and force) monopolizing every point of space, nothing else can occupy it in addition. "the universe exists now. something cannot come from nothing, therefore the universe has always existed. "being eternal and infinite, this excludes anything anterior, exterior, or superior to it. "is god in the universe or the universe in god? if there is a god, either of these propositions must be true, yet both are glaringly absurd. "can an engineer drive a locomotive and be a locomotive at the same time? if not, how can a god manipulate an infinite universe and be infinite 'himself?' "yet the universe, outside of a god, is an absolute reality, as much so as a locomotive is a reality outside of the engineer. the world is a reality, our planets, the sun, all the countless millions of stars within reach of our telescopes and the infinitude of stars and systems beyond the reach of our strongest lenses, which science infers to exist, all these are a reality and all these, yes, every object of knowledge is a reality, and all these are not god! how then, in the name of reason i ask, can a god, of whom we know absolutely nothing, be infinite, when an infinite number of material objects--not god--fill all space? "but does the universe exist in god? if we but imagine for a moment the aspect of the universe to resemble a huge machine of infinite proportions, eternally active in all its vast proportions, the idea of the universe existing within a god will appear equally childish and simple. "all phenomena are the results of energy co-existent and inseparable from matter. all cosmic motion, change, and life may be traced to this physical and chemical energy pervading all nature--never to a god. "mind--the so-called infinite as well as finite--implies limit, localization, conditions, etc. this fact tends to prove that while god, perchance, might concentrate his mind on the world or some particular sect or individual, considering their exhortations, the rest of the world and the universe for the time being would be godless! "from a late scientific authority i quote in proof: 'it is impossible for a person's mind to be in two places at the same time.' noted chess players may play twenty games simultaneously, but it is done by speedy transfer of thoughts from one game to another and not by considering two moves at once. "thus 'omniscience' is impossible. "again; mind implies limit and necessitates organism, brain, nervous force, etc. this again makes impossible a god. let the church demonstrate how a god without a brain can be a god and all it implies, or how a god with a brain can be infinite, and i will kneel down and worship with them. "is this dogmatism? the 'dogmatism of the infidel' we hear so much about? if it is, then asserting that twice two is four is dogmatism. then we state all the facts of mathematics, all the truths of history is dogmatism. we simply confine ourselves to fact, to knowledge and demonstrated truth. there we stop and refuse to accept the crude notions transmitted from our ignorant ancestors, which, it is dogmatically asserted, are true in spite of our knowledge and reason. "i protest against being accused of dogmatism, i studiously endeavor to be fair and make no pretensions to scholarship and learning. but i emphatically protest against the dogmatism of others who, assuming a superior air of knowledge assert notions contrary to fact. supposing some one should affirm that twice two is five, would it be dogmatism, to deny the proposition, and would thinking minds be justified to assume the attitude of agnostics and concede that while in their opinion twice two is four, yet twice two may be five, 'i don't know,' 'one proposition is as irrational as the other,' etc.? "we know a universe exists. existing now proves it is eternal. this simple fact absolutely makes impossible, yes, needless, a god. "i simply assert that twice two is four and cannot possibly be five. that the universe filling all space nothing else can fill it in addition. if this be dogmatism all knowledge is a farce."--wettstein. god responsible for the ills man suffers. "if god foreknew whatever was to come to pass, he must have been perfectly well aware that his whole creation, including the scheme of redemption, would be the most stupendous failure imaginable,--as it certainly has been if the christian religion be true. for what rational or humane man would raise a family of children, if he knew beforehand that they would all be vagabonds and criminals, ending their days in prison or on the scaffold? what prudent farmer would intentionally sow wheat on land certain to produce a bad crop? what sensible business man would knowingly embark in an enterprise sure to prove disastrous, and to involve himself and his family in irretrievable ruin? and yet such conduct on the part of men would be far less irrational and criminal than that of which the creator is guilty, if the doctrine of his foreknowledge and omnipotence be true. for, according to this doctrine, he alone is responsible for whatever has occurred and will occur, and for all the suffering in the world, since he had full power to prevent it but did not, and does not; and the conclusion to be drawn from this fact is, that he intended all things to be just as they have been in the past, are now and are to be in the future. for, if he possessed absolute power, he might have placed man under entirely different circumstances, and surrounded him by influences which would have led him into the path of perfect rectitude, but did not choose to do so; and we fail to understand how man can be justly held responsible either for his own creation, for the nature with which he is endowed, or for the environment which determines his conduct." (j. w. stillman's "god and the universe.") the idea of god must go. "i think it is not a good thing for people to believe in god. i think it is a bad thing for them to do so. i think the belief in god is one of the things that is helping very strongly to keep knaves in power and honest people in weakness; it is one of the things that is preventing the people from thinking for themselves and helping themselves. the human mind will never be perfectly free, and peasants and mechanics and day laborers will never be perfectly fairly treated in this world, until the church is utterly destroyed. i do not want to see the church reformed. i want to see her utterly destroyed, because as long as she exists the ruling classes in society will always have in her a faithful ally to help them carry on their infernal schemes of pillage. i do not want people to have a better idea of god or an idea of a better god. i want the idea of god entirely rooted out of the mind, because i know that as long as any idea of god remains in the mind, the priest and the politician will have something to work upon, and this world will never be free and happy until the priest and the politician are gone. "one man will tell you that god is a roman catholic, another that he is a presbyterian, another that he is a baptist, and so on. one man will say that he is a republican, another that he is a single taxer, another that he is a socialist, and so on. what we must come to see is, that nothing is done in human society that is not done by men. poverty must be destroyed, not because it is god's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. and general wealth must be achieved, not because it is god's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. beware of those men who tell you what is or what is not the will of god. in every case you will find a person who is intellectually asleep, or half asleep, or mentally dishonest, or else you will find--and this is more likely--a priest or a politician, a person who wants to get you to not think about what he is teaching you. we have been dragged through enough mire and blood and darkness doing things according to the will of god. it is now time we began to think things out for ourselves."--pentecost. "mr. barnum said that christians had a different way of thinking about god now from that of fifty years ago. 'when i first heard of the doctrine of the universalists,' said he, 'i felt so utterly astonished that i thought i'd drop dead in my boots. the orthodox faith painted god as so revengeful a being that you could hardly distinguish the difference between god and the devil. if i had almighty power and could take a pebble and give it life, knowing beforehand that fifty-nine seconds out of every sixty would be extreme misery, i would be a monster. yet this is how god was described, and people talk about loving such a being.'" (newspaper clipping.) atheism. . something (substance) must have always been, or anything could not now be. . then this something was eternal, and hence self-existent. . since self-existent and eternal, it must have been infinite, and hence was everything existing everywhere. . therefore, all that is, has always been; that is, everything has eternally existed everywhere. but will you say that this something, this self-existent, eternal everything, is god? very well. then nothing but god could be. then he must be the all of everything existing everywhere. then where is your universe? you see you cannot have a universe if you have a god. we have the universe; hence you cannot have a god. "but he created the universe," you say. very well; from what did he create it? nothing? omnipresent god alone extending on, and on, and forever on through all the everywheres, cramming all the immensities full of his essential self. he could not have created the universe beyond himself, since there was no beyond. there could have been no place in which to put it outside of himself when created, since there was no outside. if created, it must have been from his own essence; and then it would not have been a creation of anything, but a changing of himself into something different; and that was not possible, since he was self-existent, and must necessarily exist the same forever, since he was eternal, and must exist unchangeable. so the universe could not have been made from nothing, since all the spaces everywhere were crammed completely full of everything, and hence there was no unoccupied premises where the raw material could have been stored away. it could not have been created from god-substance, since that already was; it could not have been formed from god's pre-existing self, since that would have been to change the eternally unchangeable into something else--to annihilate himself as god by working himself over into the universe. you see that there can be but one eternal all. you cannot have both--a god and the universe. and since we have the universe, that is, everything eternally existing everywhere, we need no god, there is no room for a god, and there has never been anything for a god to do. therefore, there is no god. as an infinite god must necessarily fill the entirety of space, there could be no room for aught else. god and man could not live together in the same universe. god would necessarily be everything; then the universe must be nothing. but we have the universe, and that is everything; therefore god is nothing--existing nowhere. a mote that is, is better than a god that is not. if we part with god and obtain a universe, we make a magnificent exchange. the issue has always been god versus matter. when people come to understand that matter has always been, that it eternally had the start of everything else, and hence needed no creation, it will be seen that there never has been any necessity for a god, and as the universe is ever governed by law, there is nothing for a god to do. men must believe in matter, because it is everything, and does everything. something is always better than nothing. if god is not matter he is not anything; and the idea of god is destined to become obsolete, and gradually pass into utter forgetfulness. the god-idea has been the center and foundation of all the superstitions of the world. when men have learned to dispense with it, their emancipation will be great indeed.--sam preston. jehovah a failure. . he was unsuccessful in creation. he made adam and eve and the serpent; but all his plans were frustrated in a short time; and "it repented the lord that he had made man." . in repeopling the world from noah's family he decidedly failed again. how easy it would have been after drowning the whole world, to create a new man and woman of perfect character, and omit the devil business. . in attempting to save the world through jesus christ he made another failure. it is not in the nature of things for this world to be saved. "to be saved" means too much, and it means too little. man can not be saved entirely from his weakness, ignorance, and selfishness; and hence can never be perfect. man can be made morally better, intellectually wiser, physically healthier, individually and socially happier; but his betterment cannot be achieved through preaching, bible-reading, praying and other religious exercises. it must come through liberty. he must have equal rights with his fellow men. he must have justice established between man and man. the toiler must get the fruits of his toil. a good home has a more sacred influence over the hearts of men to make them kind and good, than all the preaching in the world. with a home of his own man has a little heaven of his own, and a truer and better love of his neighbor. "the character of a god is the character of the people who have made him. when therefore i expose the crimes of jehovah, i expose the defective morality of israel; and when i criticise the god of modern europe, i criticise the defective intellects of europeans. the reader must endeavor to bear this in mind; for though he may think that his idea of the creator is actually the creator, that belief is not shared by me." (winwood reade, "martyrdom of man.") atonement. atonement for sin, an immoral doctrine. . the doctrine of the atonement is of heathen origin, and is predicated upon the assumption that no sin can be fully expiated without the shedding of blood. in the language of paul, "without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin." a barbarous and bloody doctrine truly! but this doctrine was almost universally prevalent amongst the orientals long before paul's time. . christians predicate the dogma of atonement for sin upon the assumption that christ's death and sufferings were a substitute for adam's death, incurred by the fall. but as adam's sentence was death, and he suffered that penalty, this assumption cannot be true. . if the penalty for sin was death, as taught in genesis , and christ suffered that penalty for man, then man should not die; but, as he does, it makes the doctrine preposterous. it could not have meant spiritual death, as some argue, because a part of the penalty was that of being doomed to return to dust (gen. : ). . if crucifixion was indispensably necessary as a penalty, then the punishment should have been inflicted either upon the instigator or perpetrator of the deed; either the serpent or adam should have been nailed to the cross. . we are told in reply, that as an infinite sin was committed, it required an infinite sacrifice. but adam, being a finite being, could not commit an infinite sin; and christ's sacrifice and sufferings could not be infinite unless he had continued to suffer to all eternity. therefore the assumption is false. . an all-wise god would not let things get into such a condition as to require the murder of his only son from any consideration whatever. . and no father, cherishing a proper regard and love for his son, could have required him to be, or consented to have him put to death in a cruel manner; for the claims of mercy and paternal affection are as imperative as justice. . to put an intelligent and innocent being to death, for any purpose is a violation of the moral law, and as great a sin as that for which he died. hecatombs of victims cannot atone for the infraction of the moral law which is engraven upon our souls. . if it were necessary for christ to be put to death, then judas is entitled to one half the merit of it for inaugurating the act, as it could not have taken place without his aid; and no one who took part in it should be censured, but praised. . it is evident, that, if everybody had been quakers no atonement would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed. . the atonement is either one god putting another to death or god putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science or reason can indorse. . anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin. . the atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty, which is a twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. if a father should catch four of his children stealing and the fifth one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would commit a double crime: st, that of punishing an innocent child; d, that of exonerating and encouraging the four children in the commission of crime. the atonement involves the same principle. . no person with true moral manhood would consent to be be saved on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins, rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. and the man who would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward, with a soul not worth saving. . who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through blood to get to the heavenly mansion. i want neither animals, men, nor gods murdered to save my soul. . if there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first atonement--that of murdering an innocent being, "in whose mouth was no guile;" and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this atonement, and so on. and thus it would be atonement after atonement, murder after murder, ad infinitum. what shocking consequences and absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition! . it seems strange that any person can cherish the thought for a moment that the infinite father would require a sacrificial offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering "his only begotten son." another monstrous absurdity! . the advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward his creator in the relation of a debtor, and the atonement cancels the debt. to be sure! how does it do it?--graves. a minority not a sect. "a protestant minister of oakland, california, in a recent address on the public school system of the united states, expressed himself as follows: 'in one of the schools of san francisco herbert spencer's "data of ethics" was introduced as a text book of morals--as palpable a violation of the law forbidding sectarian instruction as the introduction of the catholic or methodist catechism; for hebert spencer belongs to a very small and narrow sect which promulgates the creed of agnosticism.' "if the reverend speaker had taken the ground that the 'data of ethics' was too abstruse to be placed in the hands of public school pupils we should have felt inclined to sustain his objection. but when he says that to introduce such a book is to give a sectarian character to the school in which it is used, we must enter a protest. science is never sectarian; philosophy is never sectarian. sectarian teaching begins when you ask a man or a child to assume what cannot be proved, for the sake of keeping within the dogmatic lines that fence round some particular creed. the followers of mr. spencer may be in a minority, but they are no more a sect than were the adherents of the copernican system of astronomy, or than are the believers in the darwinian theory of natural selection. mr. spencer makes no appeal to faith, but finds his premises in the common experience of mankind. a pupil who was being taught out of the 'data of ethics' would be quite at liberty to dispute either the premises or the arguments of the author; and he would not be silenced by the declaration that mr. spencer is infallible. but when catechisms are taught they are taught, not as containing matter for discussion, but as containing doctrines that must not be disputed, on pain of more or less disagreeable consequences. similarly when the bible is read in school it is read not as a fallible record of events, or a fallible guide in morals, but as something absolutely authoritative--the very voice of god. it is perfectly obvious then, where sectarianism in education begins; it begins just at the point where doctrines of any kind accepted on faith by a portion of the community and not discussible on grounds of reason, are made a part of public school instruction. sectarianism comes in whenever the teacher is obliged to say, 'hush' to the inquiring scholar who wants his reason satisfied before he will believe. there is no sectarianism, on the other hand, in making use of a book which lays no claim to any kind of privilege, and which, therefore, cannot force the belief of anyone. the followers of mr. spencer do not form a sect because they have no beliefs which they wish to exempt from criticism or discussion, and because they hold themselves at full liberty to pass beyond the bounds of mr. spencer's thought whenever they can see their way to doing so. mr. spencer's 'data of ethics' may not contain all the truth on the subject of morals, but the truth which it does contain lends itself to demonstration; and no one can be the worse for being taught demonstrable truths. upon that foundation he can afterward build what he likes--hay, stubble, or what not; and after his superstructure has been tried by the fire of experience, as it is very likely to be, he will still have something solid left on which to rebuild in perchance wiser fashion. we do not advocate the introduction of the 'data of ethics' into the public schools: but we are convinced that it would be a very good thing for the rising generation if some of the ideas contained in that book could be brought home to their minds." (popular science monthly, november .) note [ ] referring to the story of moses receiving the two tables of commandments. see page . a short history of freethought ancient and modern by john m. robertson third edition, revised and expanded in two volumes vol. i (issued for the rationalist press association, limited) london: watts & co., johnson's court, fleet street, e.c. to sydney ansell gimson contents volume i page preface xi chap. i--introductory § . origin and meaning of the word freethought § . previous histories § . the psychology of freethinking chap. ii--primitive freethinking chap. iii--progress under ancient religions § . early association and competition of cults § . the process in india § . mesopotamia § . ancient persia § . egypt § . phoenicia § . ancient china § . mexico and peru § . the common forces of degeneration chap. iv--relative freethought in israel § . the early hebrews § . the manipulated prophetic literature § . the post-exilic literature chap. v--freethought in greece § . beginnings of ionic culture § . homer, stesichoros, pindar, and Æschylus § . the culture-conditions § . from thales to the eleatic school § . pythagoras and magna graecia § . anaxagoras, perikles, and aspasia § . from demokritos to euripides § . sokrates, plato, and aristotle § . post-alexandrian greece: ephoros, pyrrho, zeno, epicurus, theodorus, diagoras, stilpo, bion, strato, evêmeros, carneades, clitomachos; the sciences; advance and decline of astronomy; lucian, sextus empiricus, polybius, strabo; summary chap. vi--freethought in ancient rome § . culture beginnings, to ennius and the greeks § . lucretius, cicero, cæsar § . decline under the empire § . the higher pagan ethics chap. vii--ancient christianity and its opponents § . freethought in the gospels: contradictory forces § . the epistles: their anti-rationalism § . anti-pagan rationalism. the gnostics § . rationalistic heresy. arius. pelagius. jovinian. aerius. vigilantius. the religious wars § . anti-christian thought: its decline. celsus. last lights of critical thought. macrobius. theodore. photinus. the expulsion of science. the appropriation of pagan endowments § . the intellectual and moral decadence. boethius chap. viii--freethought under islam § . mohammed and his contemporaries. early "zendekism" § . the influence of the koran § . saracen freethought in the east. the motazilites. the spread of culture. intellectual collapse § . al-ma'arri and omar khayyám. sufîism § . arab philosophy and moorish freethought. avempace. abubacer. averroës. ibn khaldun § . rationalism in later islam. sufîism. bâbism in contemporary persia. freethinking in mohammedan india and africa chap. ix--christendom in the middle ages § . heresy in byzantium. iconoclasm. leo. photius. michael. the early paulicians § . critical heresy in the west. vergilius. claudius. agobard. john scotus. the case of gottschalk. berengar. roscelin. nominalism and realism. heresy in florence and in france § . popular anti-clerical heresy. the paulicians (cathari) in western europe: their anticipation of protestantism. abuses of the church and papacy. vogue of anti-clerical heresy. peter de brueys. eudo. paterini. waldenses § . heresy in southern france. the crusade against albigensian heresy. arrest of provençal civilization: rise and character of the inquisition § . freethought in the schools. the problem set to anselm. roscelin. nominalism and realism. testimony of giraldus cambrensis: simon of tournay. william of conches. abailard. john of salisbury § . saracen and jewish influences. maimonides. ibn ezra. averroïsts. amalrich. david of dinant. thomas aquinas. unbelief at paris university. suppressive action of the church. judicial torture § . freethought in italy. anti-clericalism in florence. frederick ii. michael scotus. dante's views. pietro of abano. brunetto latini. cecco stabili. boccaccio. petrarch. averroïsm § . sects and orders. italian developments. the brethren of the free spirit. beghards, etc. franciscans. humiliati. abbot joachim. segarelli and dolcino § . thought in spain. arab influences. heresy under alfonso x. the first inquisition. arnaldo of villanueva. enrique iv. pedro do osma. the new inquisition. the causes of spanish evolution § . thought in england. roger bacon. chaucer. items in piers ploughman. lollardry. wiclif § . thought in france. françois de rues. jean de meung. reynard the fox. paris university. the sects. the templars. william of occam. marsiglio. pierre aureol. nominalism and realism. "double truth." unbelief in the paris schools § . thought in the teutonic countries. the minnesingers. walter der vogelweide. master eckhart. sects. the imitatio christi chap. x--freethought in the renaissance § . the italian evolution. saracen sources. anti-clericalism. discredit of the church. lorenzo valla. masuccio. pulci. executions for blasphemy. averroïsm. nifo. unbelief at rome. leonardo da vinci. platonism. pico della mirandola. machiavelli. guicciardini. belief in witchcraft. pomponazzi. pomponio leto. the survival of averroïsm. jewish freethought § . the french evolution. desperiers. rabelais. dolet. the vaudois massacres. unbelieving churchmen. marguerite of navarre. ronsard. bodin. vallée. estienne. pleas for tolerance. revival of stoicism § . the english evolution. reginald pecock. duke humphrey. unbelief in immortality § . the remaining european countries. nicolaus of cusa. hermann van ryswyck. astrology and science. summary chap. xi--the reformation politically considered § . the german conditions. the new learning. economic causation § . the problem in italy, spain, and the netherlands. savonarola. catholic reaction. the new inquisition. heresy in italy. its suppression. the index expurgatorius. italian and northern "character" § . the hussite failure in bohemia. early anti-clericalism. militz and his school. huss and jerome. the taborite wars. helchitsky § . anti-papalism in hungary. early anti-clericalism. rapid success of the reformation. its decline. new heresy. socinianism. biandrata. davides. recovery of the church § . protestantism in poland. early anti-clericalism. inroad of protestantism. growth of unitarianism. goniondzki. pauli. catholic reaction § . the struggle in france. attitude of king francis. economic issues. pre-lutheran protestantism. persecution. berquin. protestant violences. fortunes of the cause in france § . the political process in britain. england not specially anti-papal. the causation. henry's divorce. spoliation chap. xii--the reformation and freethought § . germany and switzerland. mutianus. crotus. bebel. rise of unitarianism. luther and melanchthon. their anti-democratic politics. their dogmatism. zwingli. calvin and his victims. gruet. the libertini. servetus. gripaldi. calvin's polity. ochino. anthoine. moral failure of protestantism § . england. henry and wolsey. advanced heresy. persecution. sir thomas more § . the netherlands. calvinism and arminianism. reaction towards catholicism. barneveldt. grotius § . conclusion. the intellectual failure. indirect gains to freedom chap. xiii.--the rise of modern freethought § . the italian influence. deism. unitarianism. latitudinarianism. aconzio. nizolio. pereira § . spain. huarte § . france. treatises against atheism: de mornay. new skepticism: sanchez. montaigne. charron. the satyre-menippée. garasse on the beaux esprits. mersenne's attack preface this, the third edition, represents a considerable expansion of the second ( ), which in its turn was a considerable expansion of the first ( ). the book now somewhat approximates, in point of fullness, to the modest ideal aimed at. anything much fuller would cease to be a "short history." the process of revision, carried on since the last issue, has, i hope, meant some further advance towards correctness, and some improvement in arrangement--a particularly difficult matter in such a book. as before, the many critical excursus have been so printed that they may be recognized and skipped by those readers who care to follow only the narrative. the chapter on the nineteenth century, though much expanded, like those on the eighteenth, remains, i fear, open to objection on the score of scantiness. i can only plead that the ample and excellent work of mr. a. w. benn has now substantially met the need for a fuller survey of that period. it is fitting that i should acknowledge the generous critical reception given by most reviewers to the previous editions of a book which, breaking as it did new ground, lacked the gain from previous example that accrues to most historical writing. my many debts to historians of culture are, i trust, indicated in the notes; but i have to repeat my former acknowledgments as to the biographical dictionary of freethinkers of my dead friend, j. m. wheeler, inasmuch as the aid i have had from his manifold research does not thus appear on the surface. it remains to add my thanks to a number of friendly correspondents who have assisted me by pointing out shortcomings and errors. further assistance of the same kind will be gratefully welcomed. it is still my hope that the book may help some more leisured student in the construction of a more massive record of the development of rational thought on the side of human life with which it deals. an apology is perhaps due to the purchasers of the second edition, which is now superseded by a fuller record. i can but plead that i have been unable otherwise to serve their need; and express a hope that the low price of the present edition will be a compensation. j. m. r. september, . a short history of freethought chapter i introductory § . origin and meaning of the word the words "freethinking" and "freethinker" first appear in english literature about the end of the seventeenth century, and seem to have originated there and then, as we do not find them earlier in french or in italian, [ ] the only other modern literatures wherein the phenomena for which the words stand had previously arisen. the title of "atheist" had been from time immemorial applied to every shade of serious heresy by the orthodox, as when the early christians were so described by the image-adoring polytheists around them; and in latin christendom the term infidelis, translating the apistos of the new testament, which primarily applied to jews and pagans, [ ] was easily extensible, as in the writings of augustine, to all who challenged or doubted articles of ordinary christian belief, all alike being regarded as consigned to perdition. [ ] it is by this line of descent that the term "infidelity," applied to doubt on such doctrines as that of the future state, comes up in england in the fifteenth century. [ ] it implied no systematic or critical thinking. the label of "deist," presumably self-applied by the bearers, begins to come into use in french about the middle of the sixteenth century; [ ] and that of "naturalist," also presumably chosen by those who bore it, came into currency about the same time. lechler traces the latter term in the latin form as far back as the ms. of the heptaplomeres of bodin, dated ; but it was common before that date, as de mornay in the preface to his de la vérité de la religion chrétienne ( ) declaims "against the false naturalists (that is to say, professors of the knowledge of nature and natural things)"; and montaigne in one of his later essays ( ) has the phrase "nous autres naturalistes." [ ] apart from these terms, those commonly used in french in the seventeenth century were bel esprit (sometimes, though not necessarily, connoting unbelief), esprit fort and libertin, the latter being used in the sense of a religious doubter by corneille, molière, and bayle. [ ] it seems to have first come into use as one of the hostile names for the "brethren of the free spirit," a pantheistic and generally heretical sect which became prominent in the thirteenth century, and flourished widely, despite destructive persecution, till the fifteenth. their doctrine being antinomian, and their practice often extravagant, they were accused by churchmen of licentiousness, so that in their case the name libertini had its full latitude of application. in the sixteenth century the name of libertines is found borne, voluntarily or otherwise, by a similar sect, probably springing from some remnant of the first, but calling themselves spirituales, who came into notice in flanders, were favoured in france by marguerite of navarre, sister of francis i, and became to some extent associated with sections of the reformed church. they were attacked by calvin in the treatise contre la sects fanatique et furieuse des libertins ( and ). [ ] the name of libertini was not in the sixteenth century applied by any genevese writer to any political party; [ ] but by later historians it was in time either fastened on or adopted by the main body of calvin's opponents in geneva, who probably included some members of the sect or movement in question. they were accused by him of general depravity, a judgment not at all to be acquiesced in, in view of the controversial habits of the age; though they probably included antinomian christians and libertines in the modern sense, as well as orthodox lovers of freedom and orderly non-christians. as the first brethren of the free spirit, so-called, seem to have appeared in italy (where they are supposed to have derived, like the waldenses, from the immigrant paulicians of the eastern church), the name libertini presumably originated there. but in renaissance italy an unbeliever seems usually to have been called simply ateo, or infedele, or pagano. "the standing phrase was non aver fede." [ ] in england, before and at the reformation, both "infidel" and "faithless" usually had the theological force of "non-christian." thus tyndale says of the turks that though they "knowledge one god," yet they "have erred and been faithless these eight hundred years"; adding the same of the jews. [ ] throughout elizabeth's reign, "infidel" seems thus to have commonly signified only a "heathen" or jew or mohammedan. bishop jewel, for instance, writes that the anglo-saxon invaders of britain "then were infidels"; [ ] and the word appears to be normally used in that sense, or with a playful force derived from that, by the divines, poets, and dramatists, including shakespeare, as by milton in his verse. [ ] ben jonson has the phrase: i did not expect to meet an infidel, much less an atheist, here in love's list. [ ] one or two earlier writers, [ ] indeed, use "infidel" in the modern sense; and it was at times so used by early elizabethans. [ ] but foxe brackets together "jews, turks, or infidels"; [ ] and hooper, writing in , speaks, like jewel, of the heathen as "the infidels." [ ] hooker ( - ), in his fifth sermon, § , [ ] uses the word somewhat indefinitely, but in his margin makes "pagans and infidels" equivalent to "pagans and turks." so also, in the ecclesiastical polity, [ ] "infidels" means men of another religion. on the title-page of reginald scot's discoverie of witchcraft ( ), on the other hand, we have "the infidelitie of atheists"; but so late as we find "j. h." [john healy], the translator of augustine's city of god, rendering infideles and homines infideles by "unbelievers." [ ] "infidelity," in the modern sense, occurs in sir t. browne. [ ] in england, as in the rest of europe, however, the phenomenon of freethought had existed, in specific form, long before it could express itself in propagandist writings, or find any generic name save those of atheism and infidelity; and the process of naming was as fortuitous as it generally is in matters of intellectual evolution. phrases approximating to "free thought" occur soon after the restoration. thus glanvill repeatedly writes sympathetically of "free philosophers" [ ] and "free philosophy." [ ] in we find sprat, the historian of the royal society, describing the activity of that body as having arisen or taken its special direction through the conviction that in science, as in warfare, better results had been obtained by a "free way" than by methods not so describable. [ ] as sprat is careful to insist, the members of the royal society, though looked at askance by most of the clergy [ ] and other pietists, were not as such to be classed as unbelievers, the leading members being strictly orthodox; but a certain number seem to have shown scant concern for religion; [ ] and while it was one of the society's first rules not to debate any theological question whatever, [ ] the intellectual atmosphere of the time was such that some among those who followed the "free way" in matters of natural science would be extremely likely to apply it to more familiar problems. [ ] at the same period we find spinoza devoting his tractatus theologico-politicus ( ) to the advocacy of libertas philosophandi; and such a work was bound to have a general european influence. it was probably, then, a result of such express assertion of the need and value of freedom in the mental life that the name "freethinker" came into english use in the last quarter of the century. before "deism" came into english vogue, the names for unbelief, even deistic, were simply "infidelity" and "atheism"--e.g., bishop fotherby's atheomastix ( ), baxter's unreasonableness of infidelity ( ) and reasons of the christian religion ( ), passim. bishop stillingfleet's letter to a deist ( ) appears to be the first published attack on deism by name. his origines sacræ ( ) deals chiefly with deistic views, but calls unbelievers in general "atheists." cudworth, in his true intellectual system of the universe (written , published ), does not speak of deism, attacking only atheism, and was himself suspected of socinianism. w. sherlock, in his practical discourse of religious assemblies ( nd ed., ), attacks "atheists and infidels," but says nothing of "deists." that term, first coined, as we have seen, in french, seems first to have found common currency in france--e.g., on the title-pages of the apologetic works of marin mersenne, and . the term "atheist" was often applied at random at this period; but atheism did exist. when the orthodox boyle pushed criticism in physical science under such a title as the sceptical chemist, the principle could not well be withheld from application to religion; and it lay in the nature of the case that the name "freethinker," like that of "skeptic," should come to attach itself specially to those who doubted where doubt was most resented and most resisted. at length the former term became specific. in the meantime the word "rationalist," which in english has latterly tended to become the prevailing name for freethinkers, had made its appearance, without securing much currency. in a london news-letter dated october , , it is stated, concerning the presbyterians and independents, that "there is a new sect sprung up among them, and these are the rationalists; and what their reason dictates to them in church or state stands for good until they be convinced with better." [ ] on the continent, the equivalent latin term (rationalista) had been applied about the beginning of the century to the aristotelian humanists of the helmstadt school by their opponents, [ ] apparently in the same sense as that in which bacon used the term rationales in his redargutio philosophiarum--"rationales autem, aranearum more, telas ex se conficiunt." under this title he contrasts (as spiders spinning webs out of themselves) the mere aristotelean speculators, who framed à priori schemes of nature, with empiricists, who, "like ants, collect something and use it," preferring to both the "bees" who should follow the ideal method prescribed by himself. [ ] there is here no allusion to heterodox opinion on religion. [bishop hurst, who (perhaps following the apophthegms) puts a translation of bacon's words, with "rationalists" for rationales, as one of the mottoes of his history of rationalism, is thus misleading his readers as to bacon's meaning.] in john amos comenius, in his theologia naturalis, applies the name rationalista to the socinians and deists; without, however, leading to its general use in that sense. later we shall meet with the term in english discussions between and , applied usually to rationalizing christians; but as a name for opponents of orthodox religion it was for the time superseded, in english, by "freethinker." in the course of the eighteenth century the term was adopted in other languages. the first french translation ( ) of collins's discourse of freethinking is entitled discours sur la liberté de penser; and the term "freethinkers" is translated on the title-page by esprit fort, and in the text by a periphrasis of liberté de penser. later in the century, however, we find voltaire in his correspondence frequently using the substantive franc-pensant, a translation of the english term which subsequently gave way to libre penseur. the modern german term freigeist, found as early as in the allusion to "alten quäcker und neuen frey-geister" on the title-page of the folio anabaptisticum et enthusiasticum pantheon, probably derives from the old "brethren of the free spirit"; while schöngeist arose as a translation of bel esprit. in the middle of the eighteenth century freidenker came into german use as a translation of the english term. in a general sense "free thoughts" was a natural expression, and we have it in ben jonson: "being free master of mine own free thoughts." [ ] but not till about the year did the phrase begin to have a special application to religious matters. the first certain instance thus far noted of the use of the term "freethinker" is in a letter of molyneux to locke, dated april , , [ ] where toland is spoken of as a "candid freethinker." in an earlier letter, dated december , , molyneux speaks of a certain book on religion as somewhat lacking in "freedom of thought"; [ ] and in burnet's letters [ ] occurs still earlier the expression "men ... of freer thoughts." in the new english dictionary a citation is given from the title-page of s. smith's brochure, the religious impostor ... dedicated to doctor s-l-m-n and the rest of the new religious fraternity of freethinkers, near leather-sellers' hall. printed ... in the first year of grace and freethinking, conjecturally dated . it is thought to refer to the sect of "freeseekers" mentioned in luttrell's brief historical relation (iii, ) under date . in that case it is not unbelievers that are in question. so in shaftesbury's inquiry concerning virtue (first ed. ) the expression "freethought" has a general and not a particular sense; [ ] and in baker's reflections upon learning, also published in , in the remark: "after the way of freethinking had been lai'd open by my lord bacon, it was soon after greedily followed"; [ ] the reference is, of course, to scientific and not to religious thought. but in shaftesbury's essay on the freedom of wit and humour ( ) the phrases "free-writers" and "a freethought" [ ] have reference to "advanced" opinions, though in his letters to ainsworth (may , ) he had written, "i am glad to find your love of reason and freethought. your piety and virtue i know you will always keep." [ ] compare the miscellaneous reflections (v, ) in the characteristics [ ] ( ), where the tendency to force the sense from the general to the special is incidentally illustrated. shaftesbury, however, includes the term "free liver" among the "naturally honest appellations" that have become opprobrious. in swift's sentiments of a church of england man ( ) the specialized word is found definitely and abusively connoting religious unbelief: "the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion--that is to say, all those who usually pass under the name of freethinkers"; steele and addison so use it in the tatler in ; [ ] and leslie so uses the term in his truth of christianity demonstrated ( ). the anonymous essay, réflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, by deslandes (amsterdam, ), is translated in english ( ) as reflections on the death of free-thinkers, and the translator uses the term in his prefatory letter to the author, beside putting it in the text (pp. , , , , , etc.), where the original had esprit fort. it was not till , however, that anthony collins's discourse of freethinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a sect called freethinkers, gave the word a universal notoriety, and brought it into established currency in controversy, with the normal significance of "deist," collins having entirely repudiated atheism. even after this date, and indeed in full conformity with the definition in collins's opening sentence, ambrose philips took the freethinker as the title of a weekly journal (begun in ) on the lines of the spectator, with no heterodox leaning, [ ] the contributors including boulter, afterwards archbishop of dublin, and the son of bishop burnet. but despite this attempt to keep the word "freethinking" as a name for simple freedom from prejudice in secular affairs, the tendency to specialize it as aforesaid was irresistible. as names go, it was on the whole a good one; and the bitterness with which it was generally handled on the orthodox side showed that its implicit claim was felt to be disturbing, though some antagonists of course claimed from the first that they were as "free" under the law of right reason as any skeptic. [ ] at this time of day the word may be allowed prescriptive standing, as having no more drawbacks than most other names for schools of thought or attitudes of mind, and as having been admitted into most european languages. the question-begging element is not greater in this than in many other terms of similar intention, such as "rationalism"; and it incurs no such charge of absurdity as lies against the invidious religious term, "infidelity." the term "infidel" invites "fidel." a plausible objection may, indeed, arise on the score that such a term as "freethought" should not be set up by thinkers who almost invariably reject the term "freewill"--the rationalistic succession having for two hundred and fifty years been carried on mainly by determinists. but the issues raised by the two terms are on wholly different planes; and while in both cases the imperfection of the instrument of language is apparent, it is not in the present case a cause of psychological confusion, as it is in the discussion of the nature of will. the freewill fallacy consists in applying universally to the process of judgment and preference (which is a process of natural causation like another) a conception relevant only to human or animal action, as interfered with or unaffected by extraneous compulsion. to the processes of nature, organic or inorganic, the concepts "free" and "bond" are equally irrelevant: a tiger is no more "free" to crave for grass and recoil from flesh than is water to flow uphill; while, on the other hand, such "appetites" are not rationally to be described as forms of bondage. only as a mode distinguishable from its contrary can "freedom" be predicated of any procedure, and it is so predicated of actions; whereas the whole category of volitions is alleged and denied by the verbal disputants to be "free." some attempt to save the case by distinguishing between free and alleged "unfree" volitions; but the latter are found to be simply cases of choices dictated by intense need, as in the case of deadly thirst. the difference, therefore, is only one of degree of impulse, not in the fact of choice. the term "freewill," therefore, is irrational, as being wholly irrelevant to the conception of volition. but "freethought," on the other hand, points to an actual difference in degree of employment of the faculty of criticism. the proposition is that some men think more "freely" than others in that they are (a) not terrorized by any veto on criticism, and (b) not hampered, or less hampered, by ignorant pre-suppositions. in both cases there is a real discrimination. there is no allegation that, absolutely speaking, "thought is free" in the sense of the orthodox formula; on the contrary, it is asserted that the rationalist's critical course is specifically determined by his intellectual structure and his preparation, and that it is sometimes different structure, but more often different preparation, that determines the anti-critical or counter-critical attitude of the believer. change in the preparation, it is contended, will put the latter in fuller use of his potential resources; his inculcated fear of doubt and docility of assent being simply acquiescences in vetoes on his attention to certain matters for reflection--that is to say, in arbitrary limitations of his action. it is further implied that the instructed man, other things being equal, is "freer" to think than the uninstructed, as being less obstructed; but for the purpose of our history it is sufficient to posit the discriminations above noted. the essential thing to be realized is the fact that from its earliest stages humanity has suffered from conventional or traditionary hindrances to the use of judgment. this holds good even as to the early play of the simple inventive faculty, all innovations in implements being met by the inertia of habit; and when men reached the stages of ritual practice, social construction, and religious doctrine, the forces of repression became powerful in proportion to the seriousness of the problem. it is only in modern times that freedom in these relations has come to be generally regarded as permissible; and it has always been over questions of religion that the strife has been keenest. for practical purposes, then, freethought may be defined as a conscious reaction against some phase or phases of conventional or traditional doctrine in religion--on the one hand, a claim to think freely, in the sense not of disregard for logic, but of special loyalty to it, on problems to which the past course of things has given a great intellectual and practical importance; on the other hand, the actual practice of such thinking. this sense, which is substantially agreed on, will on one or other side sufficiently cover those phenomena of early or rudimentary freethinking which wear the guise of simple concrete opposition to given doctrines or systems, whether by way of special demur or of the obtrusion of a new cult or doctrine. in either case, the claim to think in a measure freely is implicit in the criticism or the new affirmation; and such primary movements of the mind cannot well be separated, in psychology or in history, from the fully conscious practice of criticism in the spirit of pure truth-seeking, or from the claim that such free examination is profoundly important to moral and intellectual health. modern freethought, specially so-called, is only one of the developments of the slight primary capacity of man to doubt, to reason, to improve on past thinking, to assert his personality as against sacrosanct and menacing authority. concretely considered, it has proceeded by the support and stimulus of successive accretions of actual knowledge; and the modern consciousness of its own abstract importance emerged by way of an impression or inference from certain social phenomena, as well as in terms of self-asserting instinct. there is no break in its evolution from primitive mental states, any more than in the evolution of the natural sciences from primitive observation. what particularly accrues to the state of conscious and systematic discrimination, in the one case as in the other, is just the immense gain in security of possession. § . previous histories it is somewhat remarkable that in england this phenomenon has thus far [ ] had no general historic treatment save at the hands of ecclesiastical writers, who, in most cases, have regarded it solely as a form of more or less perverse hostility to their own creed. the modern scientific study of religions, which has yielded so many instructive surveys, almost of necessity excludes from view the specific play of freethought, which in the religion-making periods is to be traced rather by its religious results than by any record of its expression. all histories of philosophy, indeed, in some degree necessarily recognize it; and such a work as lange's history of materialism may be regarded as part--whether or not sound in its historical treatment--of a complete history of freethought, dealing specially with general philosophic problems. but of freethought as a reasoned revision or rejection of current religious doctrines by more or less practical people, we have no regular history by a professed freethinker, though there are many monographs and surveys of periods. the latest and freshest sketch of the kind is professor j. b. bury's brief history of freedom of thought ( ), notable for the force of its championship of the law of liberty. the useful compilation of the late mr. charles watts, entitled freethought: its rise, progress, and triumph (n. d.), deals with freethought in relation only to christianity. apart from treatises which broadly sketch the development of knowledge and of opinion, the nearest approaches to a general historic treatment are the dictionnaire des athées of sylvain maréchal ( : e édit., par j. b. l. germond, ) and the biographical dictionary of freethinkers by the late joseph mazzini wheeler. the quaint work of maréchal, expanded by his friend lalande, exhibits much learning, but is made partly fantastic by its sardonic plan of including a number of typical religionists (including job, john, and jesus christ!), some of whose utterances are held to lead logically to atheism. mr. wheeler's book is in every respect the more trustworthy. in excuse of maréchal's method, it may be noted that the prevailing practice of christian apologists had been to impute atheism to heterodox theistic thinkers of all ages. the historia universalis atheismi et atheorum falso et merito suspectorum of j. f. reimmann (hildesiæ, ) exhibits this habit both in its criticism and in its practice, as do the theses de atheismo et superstitione of buddeus (trajecti ad rhenum, ). these were the standard treatises of their kind for the eighteenth century, and seem to be the earliest systematic treatises in the nature of a history of freethought, excepting a historia naturalismi by a. tribbechov (jenæ, ) and a historia atheismi breviter delineata by jenkinus thomasius (altdorf, ; basileæ, ; london, ). in the same year with reimmann's historia appeared j. a. fabricius's delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum qui veritatem religionis christianæ adversus atheos, epicureos, deistas, seu naturalistas ... asseruerunt (hamburghi), in which it is contended (cap. viii) that many philosophers have been falsely described as atheists; but in the freydenker lexicon of j. a. trinius (leipzig, ), planned as a supplement to the work of fabricius, are included such writers as sir thomas browne and dryden. the works of the late rev. john owen, evenings with the skeptics, skeptics of the italian renaissance, and skeptics of the french renaissance, which, though not constituting a literary whole, collectively cover a great deal of historical ground, must be expressly excepted from the above characterization of clerical histories of freethought, in respect of their liberality of view. they deal largely, however, with general or philosophical skepticism, which is a special development of freethought, often by way of reasonings in which many freethinkers do not acquiesce. (all strict skeptics, that is to say--as distinguished from religionists who profess skepticism up to a certain point by way of making a surrender to orthodox dogmatism [ ]--are freethinkers; but most freethinkers are not strictly skeptics.) the history of philosophic skepticism, again, is properly and methodically treated in the old work of carl friedrich stäudlin, geschichte und geist des skepticismus ( bde., leipzig, ), the historic survey being divided into six periods: , before pyrrho; , from pyrrho to sextus; , from sextus to montaigne; , from montaigne to la mothe le vayer; , from la mothe le vayer to hume; , from hume to kant and platner. the posthumous work of Émile saisset, le scepticisme: Ænésidème--pascal--kant ( ), is a fragment of a projected complete history of philosophic skepticism. stäudlin's later work, the geschichte des rationalismus und supernaturalismus ( ), is a shorter but more general history of the strife between general freethought and supernaturalism in the christian world and era. it deals cursorily with the intellectual attitude of the early fathers, the early heretics, and the scholastics; proceeding to a fuller survey of the developments since the reformation, and covering unitarianism, latitudinarianism, english and french deism, and german rationalism of different shades down to the date of writing. stäudlin may be described as a rationalizing supernaturalist. like most works on religious and intellectual history written from a religious standpoint, those of stäudlin treat the phenomena as it were in vacuo, with little regard to the conditioning circumstances, economic and political; critical thought being regarded purely as a force proceeding through its own proclivities. saisset is at very much the same point of view. needless to say, valuable work may be done up to a certain point on this method, which is seen in full play in hegel; and high praise is due to the learned and thoughtful treatise of r. w. mackay, the progress of the intellect as exemplified in the religious development of the greeks and hebrews ( vols. ), where it is partially but ably supplemented by the method of inductive science. that method, again, is freshly and forcibly applied to a restricted problem in w. a. schmidt's geschichte der denk- und glaubensfreiheit im ersten jahrhundert der kaiserherrschaft und des christenthums ( ). later come the vorgeschichte des rationalismus ( - ) and geschichte des rationalismus ( ) of the theologian tholuck. of these the latter is unfinished, coming down only to the middle of the eighteenth century; while the former does not exactly fulfil its title, being composed of a volume ( abth. , ) on das akademische leben des ten jahrhunderts, and of one on das kirchliche leben des ten jahrhunderts ( abth. , ), both being restricted to german developments. they thus give much matter extraneous to the subject, and are not exhaustive as to rationalism even in germany. hagenbach's die kirchengeschichte des . und . jahrhunderts ( th. , ), a series of lectures, translated in english, abridged, under the title german rationalism in its rise, progress, and decline ( ), conforms fairly to the latter title, save as regards the last clause. of much greater scholarly merit is the geschichte der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, vom ende des achten jahrhunderts bis zum anfange des vierzehnten, by hermann reuter ( , ). this is at once learned, judicious, and impartial. its definition of "aufklärung" is substantially in agreement with the working definition of freethought given above. among other surveys of periods of innovating thought, as distinguished from histories of ecclesiastical heresy, or histories of "religious" or theological thought which only incidentally deal with heterodox opinion, should be noted the careful geschichte des englischen deismus of g. f. lechler ( ); the slighter sketch of e. sayous, les déistes anglais et le christianisme ( ); the somewhat diffuse work of cesare cantù, gli eretici d'italia ( tom. - ); the very intelligent study of felice tocco, l'eresia nel medio evo ( ); schmidt's histoire des cathares ( tom. ); chr. u. hahn's learned geschichte der ketzer im mittelalter ( bde. - ); and the valuable research of f. t. perrens, les libertins en france au xviie siècle ( ). a similar scholarly research for the eighteenth century in france is still lacking, and the many monographs on the more famous freethinkers leave a good deal of literary history in obscurity. such a research has been very painstakingly made for england in the late sir leslie stephen's history of english thought in the eighteenth century ( vols., nd ed., ), which, however, ignores scientific thought. one of the best monographs of the kind is la critique des traditions religieuses chez les grecs, des origines au temps de plutarque, by professor paul decharme ( ), a survey at once scholarly and attractive. the brilliant treatise of mr. f. m. cornford, from religion to philosophy ( ), sketches on more speculative lines the beginnings of greek rationalism in ionia. the geschichte des monismus im altertum of prof. dr. a. drews ( ) is a wide survey, of great synthetic value. contributions to the general history of freethought, further, have been made in the works of j. w. draper (a history of the intellectual development of europe, vols, , many reprints; and history of the conflict between religion and science, , many reprints), both full of suggestion and stimulus, but requiring thorough revision as to detail; in the famous introduction to the history of civilization in england of h. t. buckle ( vols. - ; new ed. in vol. with annotations by the present writer, ); in the history of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in europe of w. e. h. lecky ( vols. ; r. p. a. rep. ), who was of buckle's school, but fell below him in point of coherence; in the comprehensive history of the warfare of science with theology of professor andrew d. white ( vols. --a great expansion of his earlier essay, the warfare of science, nd ed. ); and in the essay of mr. e. s. p. haynes, religious persecution: a study in political psychology ( ; r. p. a. rep. ), as well as in many histories of philosophy and of sciences. the so-called history of rationalism of the american bishop j. f. hurst, first published in , and "revised" in , is in the main a work of odium theologicum, dealing chiefly with the evolution of theology and criticism in germany since the reformation. even to that purpose it is very inadequate. its preface alleges that "happily the vital body of evangelical truth has received only comparatively weak and timorous attacks from the more modern representatives of the rank and rabid rationalism which reached its climax near the close of the eighteenth, and has had a continuous decline through the nineteenth, century." it urges, however, as a reason for defensive activity, the consideration that "the work of satan is never planless"; and further pronounces that the work of rationalism "must determine its character. this work has been most injurious to the faith and life of the church, and its deeds must therefore be its condemnation" (introd. p. ). thus the latest approximation to a history of theological rationalism by a clerical writer is the most negligible. in english, apart from studies of given periods and of the progress of science and culture, the only other approaches to a history of freethought are those of bishop van mildert, the rev. j. e. riddle, and the rev. adam storey farrar. van mildert's historical view of the rise and progress of infidelity [ ] constituted the boyle lectures for - ; mr. riddle's natural history of infidelity and superstition in contrast with christian faith formed part of his bampton lectures for ; and mr. farrar produced his critical history of freethought in reference to the christian religion as the bampton lectures for . all three were men of considerable reading, and their works give useful bibliographical clues; but the virulence of van mildert deprives his treatise of rational weight; mr. riddle, who in any case professes to give merely a "natural history" or abstract argument, and not a history proper, is only somewhat more constrainedly hostile to "infidelity"; and even mr. farrar, the most judicial as well as the most comprehensive of the three, proceeds on the old assumption that "unbelief" (from which he charitably distinguishes "doubt") generally arises from "antagonism of feeling, which wishes revelation untrue"--a thesis maintained with vehemence by the others. [ ] writers so placed, indeed, could not well be expected to contemplate freethought scientifically as an aspect of mental evolution common to all civilizations, any more than to look with sympathy on the freethought which is specifically anti-christian. the annotations to all three works, certainly, show some consciousness of the need for another temper and method than that of their text, [ ] which is too obviously, perhaps inevitably, composed for the satisfaction of the ordinary orthodox animus of their respective periods; but even the best remains not so much a history as an indictment. in the present sketch, framed though it be from the rationalistic standpoint, it is proposed to draw up not a counter indictment, but a more or less dispassionate account of the main historical phases of freethought, viewed on the one hand as expressions of the rational or critical spirit, playing on the subject-matter of religion, and on the other hand as sociological phenomena conditioned by social forces, in particular the economic and political. the lack of any previous general survey of a scientific character will, it is hoped, be taken into account in passing judgment on its schematic defects as well as its inevitable flaws of detail. § . the psychology of freethinking though it is no part of our business here to elaborate the psychology of doubt and belief, it may be well to anticipate a possible criticism on the lines of recent psychological speculation, and to indicate at the outset the practical conception on which the present survey broadly proceeds. to begin with, the conception of freethinking implies that of hindrance, resistance, coercion, difficulty; and as regards objective obstacles the type of all hindrance is restraint upon freedom of speech or publication. in other words, all such restraint is a check upon thinking. on reflection it soon becomes clear that where men dare not say or write what they think, the very power of thinking is at length impaired in the ablest, while the natural stimulus to new thought is withdrawn from the rest. no man can properly develop his mind without contact with other minds, suggestion and criticism being alike factors in every fruitful mental evolution; and though for some the atmosphere of personal intercourse is but slightly necessary to the process of mental construction, even for these the prospect of promulgation is probably essential to the undertaking of the task; and the study of other writers is a condition of useful ratiocination. in any case, it is certain that the exercise of argument is a condition of intellectual growth. not one man in a million will or can argue closely with himself on issues on which he knows he can say nothing and can never overtly act; and for the average man all reasoning on great problems is a matter of prompting from without. the simple fact that the conversation of uneducated people runs so largely to citation of what "he says" makes clear this dependence. each brings something to the common store, and progress is set up by "pooling" the mass of small intellectual variations or originalities. thus in the long run freedom of speech is the measure of a generation's intellectual capacity; [ ] and the promoters of such freedom are typically the truest servants of progress. on the other hand, there is still a common disposition to ascribe to a species of intellectual malice the disturbance that criticism causes to the holders of established beliefs. recent writers have pressed far the theorem that "will" enters as an element into every mental act, thus giving a momentary appearance of support to the old formula that unbelief is the result of an arbitrary or sinister perversity of individual choice. needless to say, however, the new theorem--which inverts without refuting spinoza's denial of the entity of volition--applies equally to acts of belief; and it is a matter of the simplest concrete observation that, in so far as will or wilfulness in the ordinary sense operates in the sphere of religion, it is at least as obvious and as active on the side of belief [ ] as on the other. a moment's reflection on the historic phenomena of orthodox resistance to criticism will satisfy any student that, whatever may have been the stimulus on the side of heresy, the antagonism it arouses is largely the index of primary passion--the spontaneous resentment of the believer whose habits are disturbed. his will normally decides his action, without any process of judicial deliberation. it is another way of stating the same fact to point out the fallacy of the familiar assumption that freethinking represents a bias to "negation." in the nature of the case, the believer has to do at least as much negation as his opponents; and if again we scan history in this connection, we shall see cause to conclude that the temperamental tendency to negation--which is a form of variation like another--is abundantly common on the side of religious conservatism. nowhere is there more habitual opposition to new ideas as such. at best the believer, so-called, rejects a given proposition or suggestion because it clashes with something he already believes. the new proposition, however, has often been reached by way not of preliminary negation of the belief in question, but of constructive explanation, undertaken to bring observed facts into theoretic harmony. thus the innovator has only contingently put aside the old belief because it clashes with something he believes in a more vital way; and he has done this with circumspection, whereas his opponent too often repels him without a second thought. the phenomena of the rise of the copernican astronomy, modern geology, and modern biology, all bear out this generalization. nor is the charge of negativeness any more generally valid against such freethinking as directly assails current doctrines. there may be, of course, negative-minded people on that side as on the other; and such may fortuitously do something to promote freethought, or may damage it in their neighbourhood by their atmosphere. but everything goes to show that freethinking normally proceeds by way of intellectual construction--that is, by way of effort to harmonize one position with another; to modify a special dogma to the general run of one's thinking. rationalism stands not for "skepticism" in the strict philosophic sense, but for a critical effort to reach certainties. the attitude of pure skepticism on a wide scale is really very rare--much rarer even than the philosophic effort. so far from freethinkers being given to "destroying without building up," they are, as a rule, unable to destroy a dogma either for themselves or for others without setting a constructive belief in its place--a form of explanation, that is; such being much more truly a process of construction than would be the imposition of a new scheme of dogma. in point of fact, they are often accused, and by the same critics, of an undue tendency to speculative construction; and the early atheists of greece and of the modern period did so err. but that is only a proof the more that their freethinking was not a matter of arbitrary volition or an undue negativeness. the only explanation which ostensibly countervails this is the old one above glanced at--that the unbeliever finds the given doctrine troublesome as a restraint, and so determines to reject it. it is to be feared that this view has survived mr. a. s. farrar. yet it is very clear that no man need throw aside any faith, and least of all christianity, on the ground of its hampering his conduct. to say nothing of the fact that in every age, under every religion, at every stage of culture from that of the savage to that of the supersubtle decadent or mystic, men have practised every kind of misconduct without abandoning their supernatural credences--there is the special fact that the whole christian system rests on the doctrine of forgiveness of sins to the believer. the theory of "wilful" disbelief on the part of the reprobate is thus entirely unplausible. such disbelief in the terms of the case would be uneasy, as involving an element of incertitude; and his fear of retribution could never be laid. on the other hand, he has but inwardly to avow himself a sinner and a believer, and he has the assurance that repentance at the last moment will outweigh all his sins. it is not, of course, suggested that such is the normal or frequent course of believing christians; but it has been so often enough to make the "libertine" theory of unbelief untenable. indeed, the singular diversity between profession and practice among christians has in all periods called out declarations by the more fervid believers that their average fellow-christians are "practical atheists." more judicial minds may be set asking instead how far men really "believe" who do not act on their opinions. as one high authority has put it, in the middle ages the normal opposition of theory and practice "was peculiarly abrupt. men's impulses were more violent, and their conduct more reckless, than is often witnessed in modern society; while the absence of a criticizing and measuring spirit made them surrender their minds more unreservedly than they would do now to a complete and imposing theory.... resistance to god's vicar might be, and indeed was admitted to be, a deadly sin, but it was one which nobody hesitated to commit." [ ] and so with other sins, the sinner having somewhere in the rear of his consciousness the reflection that his sins could be absolved. and, apart from such half-purposive forms of licence among christians, there have been countless cases of purposive licence. in all ages there have been antinomian christians, [ ] whether of the sort that simply rest on the "seventy times seven" of the gospel, or of the more articulately logical kind who dwell on the doctrine of faith versus works. for the rest, as the considerate theologian will readily see, insistence on the possibility of a sinister motive for the unbeliever brings up the equal possibility of a sinister motive on the part of the convert to christianity, ancient or modern. at every turn, then, the charge of perversity of the will recoils on the advocate of belief; so that it would be the course of common prudence to abandon it, even were it not in itself, as a rule, so plainly an expression of irritated bias. on the other hand, it need not be disputed that unbelief has been often enough associated with some species of libertinism to give a passing colour for the pretence of causal connection. the fact, however, leads us to a less superficial explanation, worth keeping in view here. freethinking being taken to be normally a "variation" of intellectual type in the direction of a critical demand for consistency and credibility in beliefs, its social assertion will be a matter on the one side of force of character or degree of recklessness, and on the other hand of force of circumstances. the intellectual potentiality and the propagandist purpose will be variously developed in different men and in different surroundings. if we ask ourselves how, in general, the critical tendency is to arise or to come into play, we are almost compelled to suppose a special stimulus as well as a special faculty. critical doubt is made possible, broadly speaking, by the accumulation of ideas or habits of certain kinds which insensibly undo a previous state of homogeneity of thought. for instance, a community subsiding into peace and order from a state of warfare and plunder will at length find the ethic of its daily life at variance with the conserved ethic of its early religion of human sacrifice and special family or tribal sanctions; or a community which has accumulated a certain amount of accurate knowledge of astronomy will gradually find such knowledge irreconcilable with its primitive cosmology. a specially gifted person will anticipate the general movement of thought; but even for him some standing-ground must be supposed; and for the majority the advance in moral practice or scientific knowledge is the condition of any effective freethinking. between top and bottom, however, there are all grades of vivacity, earnestness, and courage; and on the side of the normal resistance there are all varieties of political and economic circumstance. it follows, then, that the avowed freethinker may be so in virtue either of special courage or of antecedent circumstances which make the attitude on his part less courageous. and it may even be granted to the quietist that the courage is at times that of ill-balanced judgment or heady temperament; just as it may be conceded to the conservative that it is at times that which goes with or follows on disregard of wise ways of life. it is well that the full force of this position be realized at the outset. when we find, as we shall, some historic freethinkers displaying either extreme imprudence or personal indiscipline, we shall be prepared, in terms of this preliminary questioning, to realize anew that humanity has owed a great deal to some of its "unbalanced" types; and that, though discipline is nearly the last word of wisdom, indiscipline may at times be the morbid accompaniment or excess of a certain openness of view and spontaneity of action which are more favourable to moral and intellectual advance than a cold prudence or a safe insusceptibility. but cold or calm prudence in turn is not a vice; and it is hardly possible to doubt that there have been in all ages varying numbers of unbelievers who shrugged their shoulders over the follies of faith, and declined to tilt against the windmills of fanaticism. there is much reason for surmising that shakespeare was a case in point. it is not to be supposed, then, because some freethinkers who came out into the open were unbalanced types, that their psychology is the psychology of freethought, any more than that of general gordon or francis of assisi is to be reckoned typical on the side of belief. there must have been myriads of quiet unbelievers, rational all round, whose unbelief was a strictly intellectual process, undisturbed by temperament. in our own day such types abound, and it is rather in them than in the abnormal types of past freethought--the brunos and the voltaires--that the average psychology of freethought is to be looked for and understood. as for the case of the man who, already at odds with his fellows in the matter of his conduct, may in some phases of society feel it the easier to brave them in the matter of his avowed creed, we have already seen that even this does not convict him of intellectual dishonesty. and were such cases relatively as numerous as they are scarce--were the debauched deists even commoner than the vinous steeles and fieldings--the use of the fact as an argument would still be an oblique course on the side of a religion which claims to have found its first and readiest hearing among publicans and sinners. for the rest, the harm done in the world's history by unbalanced freethinkers is as dust in the balance against the immeasurable evil deliberately wrought on serious religious motives, to say nothing of the constant deviation of the mass of believers from their own professed code. it may, finally, help a religious reader to a judicial view of the phenomenon of freethought if he is reminded that every step forward in the alleged historic evolution of his own creed would depend, in the case put, on the existence of persons capable of rejecting a current and prevailing code in favour of one either denounced as impious or marked off by circumstances as dangerous. the israelites in egypt, the prophets and their supporters, the gospel jesus and his adherents, all ostensibly stand in some degree for positions of "negation," of hardy innovation, of disregard to things and persons popularly venerated; wherefore collins, in the discourse above mentioned, smilingly claimed at least the prophets as great freethinkers. on that head it may suffice to say that some of the temperamental qualifications would probably be very much the same for those who of old brought about religious innovation in terms of supernatural beliefs, and for those who in later times innovate by way of minimizing or repudiating such beliefs, though the intellectual qualifications might be different. bruno and dolet and vanini and voltaire, faulty men all four, could at least be more readily conceived as prophets in early jewry, or reformers under herod, than as pharisees, or even sadducees, under either regimen. be that as it may, however, the issues between freethought and creed are ultimately to be settled only in respect of their argumentative bases, as appreciable by men in society at any given time. it is with the notion of making the process of judicial appreciation a little easier, by historically exhibiting the varying conditions under which it has been undertaken in the past, that these pages are written. chapter ii primitive freethinking to consider the normal aspects of primitive life, as we see them in savage communities and trace them in early literature, is to realize the enormous hindrance offered to critical thinking in the primary stages of culture by the mere force of habit. "the savage," says our leading anthropologist, "by no means goes through life with the intention of gathering more knowledge and framing better laws than his fathers. on the contrary, his tendency is to consider his ancestors as having handed down to him the perfection of wisdom, which it would be impiety to make the least alteration in. hence among the lower races there is obstinate resistance to the most desirable reforms, and progress can only force its way with a slowness and difficulty which we of this century can hardly imagine." [ ] among the bantu of south africa, before the spread of european rule, "any person in advance of his fellows was specially liable to suspicion [of sorcery], so that progress of any kind towards what we should term higher civilization was made exceedingly difficult by this belief." [ ] the real or would-be sorcerer could thus secure the elimination of the honest inventor; fear of sorcery being most potent as against the supposed irregular practitioner. the relative obstinacy of conservatism in periods and places of narrow knowledge is again illustrated in lane's account of the modern egyptians in the first half of the nineteenth century: "some egyptians who had studied for a few years in france declared to me that they could not instil any of the notions which they had there acquired even into the minds of their most intimate friends." [ ] so in modern japan there were many assassinations of reformers, and some civil war, before western ideas could gain a footing. [ ] the less the knowledge, in short, the harder to add to it. it is hardly possible to estimate with any confidence the relative rates of progress; but, though all are extremely slow, it would seem that reason could sooner play correctively on errors of secular practice [ ] than on any species of proposition in religion--taking that word to connote at once mythology, early cosmology, and ritual ethic. mere disbelief in a particular medicine-man or rain-maker who failed would not lead to any reflective disbelief in all; any more than the beating or renunciation of his fetish by a savage or barbarian means rejection of his fetishism, or than the renunciation of a particular saint by a modern catholic [ ] means abandonment of prayer to saints for intercession. the question as to whether savages do beat their idols is a matter in some dispute. sir a. b. ellis, a high authority, offers a notable denial to the current belief that negroes "beat their gods if their prayers are unanswered." "after an experience of the gold coast extending over thirteen years," he writes, "i have never heard of, much less witnessed, anything of the kind, although i have made inquiries in every direction" (the tshi-speaking peoples, , p. ). other anthropologists have collected many instances in other races--e.g., fr. schultze, der fetischismus, , p. . in one case, a priest beats a fetish in advance, to secure his careful attention. (id. pp. - , citing the personal narrative of bastian.) it seems to be a matter of psychic stage. the more primitive negro is as it were too religious, too much afraid of his gods, who are not for him "idols," but spirits residing in images or objects. where the state of fear is only chronic another temper may arise. among the bataks of sumatra disappointed worshippers often scold a god; and their legends tell of men who declared war on a deity and shot at him from a mountain. (warneck, die religion des batak, , p. . cp. gen. ii, - .) a temper of defiance towards deity has been noted in an aryan kafir of the hindu-kush. (sir g. s. robertson, the káfirs of the hindu-kush, , p. .) some peoples go much further. among the polynesians, when a god failed to cure a sick chief or notable, he "was regarded as inexorable, and was usually banished from the temple and his image destroyed" (w. ellis, polynesian researches, nd ed. , i, ). so among the chinese, "if the god does not give rain they will threaten and beat him; sometimes they publicly depose him from the rank of deity" (frazer, lectures on the early history of kingship, , pp. - . cp. ross, pansebeia, th ed., , p. ). there are many analogous phenomena. in old samoa, in the ritual of mourning for the dead, the family god was first implored to restore the deceased, and then fiercely abused and menaced. [ ] see, too, the story of the people of niue or savage island in the south pacific, who in the time of a great pestilence, thinking the sickness was caused by a certain idol, broke it in pieces and threw it away (turner, samoa a hundred years ago, , p. ). see further the cases cited by constant, de la religion, , vol. i, ptie. ii, pp. - ; and by peschel, the races of man, eng. tr. , pp. - , in particular that of rastus, the last pagan lapp in europe, who quarrelled with his fetish stone for killing his reindeer in revenge for the withholding of its customary offering of brandy, and "immediately embraced christianity." (compare e. rae, the white sea peninsula, , p. .) see again the testimony of herman melville in his typee, ch. xxiv; and that of t. williams, fiji and the fijians, ed. , i, : "sometimes the natives get angry with their deities, and abuse and even challenge them to fight." herodotos has similar stories of barbarians who defy their own and other deities (iv, , , ). compare the case of king rum bahadur of nepaul, who cannonaded his gods. spencer, study of sociology, pp. - . also the anecdote cited by spencer (id. p. ) from sir r. burton's goa, p. . here there is no disbelief, no reflection, but simple resentment. compare, too, the amusing story of a blasphemy by rossini, told by louis viardot, libre examen, e éd. pp. - , note. that threats against the gods are possible at a semi-civilized stage is proved by various passages in medieval literature. thus in caxton's charles the grete, a translation from an older french original, charles is made to say: "o lord god, if ye suffre that olyver be overcome and that my ryght at thys tyme be loste and defyled, i make a vowe that al crystyante shal be destroyed. i shal not leve in fraunce chirche ne monasterye, ymage ne aulter," etc. (early eng. text soc. rep. , pp. - .) such language was probably used by not a few medieval kings in moments of fury; and there is even record that at the battle of dunbar certain of the scots presbyterian clergy intimated to their deity that he would not be their god if he failed them on that day. if such flights be reckoned possible for christian kings and clerics in the christian era, there would seem to be no unlikelihood about the many stories of god-beating and god-defying among contemporary savages, though so good an observer as sir a. b. ellis may not have witnessed them in the part of africa best known to him. the conclusion reached by sir a. b. ellis is that the negroes of the gold coast are not properly to be described as fetishists. fetishism, on his view, is a worship of objects as in themselves endowed with magical power; whereas the gold coast negro ascribes no virtue to the object commonly called his fetish, regarding it simply as inhabited by a supernatural power. this writer sees "true fetishism" in the attitude of italian peasants and fishermen who beat and ill-treat their images when prayers are not answered, and in that of spaniards who cover the faces of their images or turn them to the wall when about to do anything which they think the saint or deity would disapprove of. on this view, fetishism is a later yet lower stage of religious evolution than that of the negro. on the other hand, miss kingsley takes fetishism to be the proper name of the attitude of the negro towards particular objects as divinely inhabited, and represents it as a kind of pantheism (west african studies, nd ed. , ch. v). and since, by her definition, "gods of fetish" do not necessarily "require a material object to manifest themselves in" (p. ), the term "fetish" is thus detached from all of its former meanings. it seems expedient, as a matter of terminology, to let fetishism mean both object- or image-worship and the belief in the special inhabiting of objects by deities, with a recognition that the beliefs may be different stages in an evolution, though, on the other hand, they are obviously likely to coalesce or concur. in the "obeah" system of the negroes of the west indies the former belief in the indwelling spirit has become, or has coalesced with, belief in the magical powers of the object (keane, man, past and present, , p. ). as to defiance or contumely towards the gods, finally, we have the testimony of the swiss missionary junod that the south african thonga, whom he studied very closely, have in their ritual "a regular insulting of the gods." (life of a south african tribe, ii, , p. .) why not? "prayers to the ancestors ... are ... absolutely devoid of awe" (p. ), though "the ancestor-gods are certainly the most powerful spiritual agency acting on man's life" (p. ); and "the spirits of the ancestors are the main objects of religious worship" (p. ). the thonga, again, use "neither idolatry nor fetishism," having no "idols" (p. ), though they recognize "hidden virtues" in plants, animals, and stones (p. ). they simply regard their ancestor-gods very much as they do their aged people, whom they generally treat with little consideration. but the dead can do harm, and must therefore be propitiated--as savages propitiate, with fear or malice or derision in their hearts, as the case may be. (cp. p. .) on the other hand, despite the denial of their "fetishism," they believe that ancestor-gods may come in the shape of animals; and they so venerate a kind of palladium (made up like a medicine-man's amulet) as to raise the question whether this kind of belief is not just that which miss kingsley called "fetish." (junod, pp. , - .) whatever may be the essence, or the varieties, of fetishism, it is clear that the beating of idols or threatening of gods does not amount to rational doubt concerning the supernatural. some general approach to that attitude may perhaps be inferred in the case of an economic revolt against the burdens of a highly specialized religious system, which may often have occurred in unwritten history. we shall note a recorded instance of the kind in connection with the question whether there are any savage tribes without religion. but it occurs in the somewhat highly evolved barbarism of pre-christian hawaii; and it can set up no inference as to any development of critical unbelief at lower levels. in the long stage of lower savagery, then, the only approach to freethinking that would seriously affect general belief would presumably be that very credulity which gave foothold to religious beliefs to begin with. that is to say, without anything in the nature of general criticism of any story or doctrine, one such might to some extent supersede another, in virtue of the relative gift of persuasion or personal weight of the propounders. up to a certain point persons with a turn for myth or ritual-making would compete, and might even call in question each other's honesty, as well as each other's inspiration. since the rise of scientific hierology there has been a disposition among students to take for granted the good faith of all early religion-makers, and to dismiss entirely that assumption of fraud which was so long made by christian writers concerning the greater part of every non-christian system. the assumption had been passed on from the freethinkers of antiquity who formulated the view that all religious doctrine had been invented by politicians in order to control the people. [ ] christian polemists, of course, applied it to all systems but their own. when, however, all systems are seen to be alike natural in origin, such charges are felt to recoil on the system which makes them; and latterly [ ] christian writers, seeing as much, have been fain to abandon the conception of "priestcraft," adroitly representing it as an extravagance of rationalism. it certainly served rationalistic purposes, and the title of the supposititious medieval work on "the three impostors" points to its currency among unbelievers long ago; but when we first find it popularly current in the seventeenth century, it is in a christian atmosphere. [ ] some of the early deists and others have probably in turn exaggerated the amount of deliberate deceit involved in the formation of religious systems; but nevertheless "priestcraft" is a demonstrable factor in the process. what is called the psychology of religion has been much obscured in response to the demand of religious persons to have it so presented as to flatter them in that capacity. [ ] such a claim cannot be permitted to overrule the fair inductions of comparative science. anthropological evidence suggests that, while religion clearly begins in primordial fear and fancy, wilful fraud must to some extent have entered into all religious systems alike, even in the period of primeval credulity, were it only because the credulity was so great. one of the most judicial and sympathetic of the christian scholars who have written the history of greece treats as unquestionable the view that alike in pagan and christian cults "priestcraft" has been "fertile in profitable devices, in the invention of legends, the fabrication of relics, and other modes of imposture"; [ ] and the leading hierologist of the last generation pronounces decisively as to an element of intentional deceit in the koran-making of mohammed [ ]--a judgment which, if upheld, can hardly fail to be extended to some portions of all other sacred books. however that may be, we have positive evidence that wilful and systematic fraud enters into the doctrine of contemporary savages, and that among some "primitives" known myths are deliberately propounded to the boys and women by the male adults. [ ] indeed, the majority of modern travellers among primitives seem to have regarded their priests and sorcerers in the mass as conscious deceivers. [ ] if, then, we can point to deliberate imposture alike in the charm-mongering and myth-mongering of contemporary savages and in the sacred-book-making of the higher historical systems, it seems reasonable to hold that conscious deceit, as distinguished from childlike fabrication, would chronically enter into the tale-making of primitive men, as into their simpler relations with each other. it is indeed impossible to conceive how a copious mythology could ever arise without the play of a kind of imaginativeness that is hardly compatible with veracity; and it is probably only the exigencies of ecclesiastical life that cause modern critics still to treat the most deliberate fabrications and forgeries in the hebrew sacred books as somehow produced in a spirit of the deepest concern for truth. an all-round concern for truth is, in fact, a late intellectual development, the product of much criticism and much doubt; hence, perhaps, the lenity of the verdicts under notice. certain wild tribes here and there, living in a state of great simplicity, are in our own day described as remarkably truthful; [ ] but they are not remarkable for range of supernatural belief; and their truthfulness is to be regarded as a product of their special stability and simplicity of life. the trickery of a primitive medicine-man, of course, is a much more childlike thing than the frauds of educated priesthoods; and it is compatible with so much of spontaneous pietism as is implied in the common passing of the operator into the state of convulsion and trance--a transition which comes easily to many savages. [ ] but even at that stage of psychosis, and in a community where simple secular lying is very rare, the professional wizard-priest becomes an adept in playing upon credulity. [ ] it belongs, in short, to the very nature of the priestly function, in its earlier forms, to develop in a special degree the normal bias of the undisciplined mind to intellectual fraud. granting that there are all degrees of self-consciousness in the process, we are bound to recognize that in all of us there is "the sophist within," who stands between us and candour in every problem either of self-criticism or of self-defence. and, if the instructed man recognizes this clearly and the uninstructed does not, none the less is the latter an exemplification of the fact. his mental obliquities are not any less real because of his indifference to them than are the acts of the hereditary thief because he does them without shame. and if we consider how the fetish-priest is at every turn tempted to invent and prevaricate, simply because his pretensions are fundamentally preposterous; and how in turn the priest of a higher grade, even when he sincerely "believes" in his deity, is bound to put forward as matters of knowledge or revelation the hypotheses he frames to account for either the acts or the abstentions of the god, we shall see that the priestly office is really as incompatible with a high sincerity in the primitive stages as in those in which it is held by men who consciously propound falsities, whether for their mere gain or in the hope of doing good. it may be true that the priestly claim of supernatural sanction for an ethical command is at times motived by an intense conviction of the rightness of the course of conduct prescribed; but none the less is such a habit of mind fatal to intellectual sincerity. either there is sheer hallucination or there is pious fraud. given, however, the tendency to deceit among primitive folk, distrust and detection in a certain number of cases would presumably follow, constituting a measure of simple skepticism. by force partly of this and partly of sheer instability of thought, early belief would be apt to subsist for ages like that of contemporary african tribes, [ ] in a state of flux. [ ] comparative fixity would presumably arise with the approach to stability of life, of industry, and of political institutions, whether with or without a special priesthood. the usages of early family worship would seem to have been no less rigid than those of the tribal and public cults. for primitive man as for the moderns definite organization and ritual custom must have been a great establishing force as regards every phase of religious belief; [ ] and it may well have been that there was thus less intellectual liberty of a kind in the long ages of what we regard as primitive civilization than in those of savagery and barbarism which preceded them. on that view, systems which are supposed to represent in the fullest degree the primeval spontaneity of religion may have been in part priestly reactions against habits of freedom accompanied by a certain amount of skepticism. a modern inquirer [ ] has in some such sense advanced the theory that in ancient india, in even the earlier period of collection of the rig-veda, which itself undermined the monarchic character of the pre-vedic religion, there was a decay of belief, which the final redaction served to accelerate. such a theory can hardly pass beyond the stage of hypothesis in view of the entire absence of history proper in early indian literature; but we seem at least to have the evidence of the veda itself that while it was being collected there were deniers of the existence of its gods. [ ] the latter testimony alone may serve as ground for raising afresh an old question which recent anthropology has somewhat inexactly decided--that, namely, as to whether there are any savages without religious beliefs. [for old discussions on the subject see cicero, de natura deorum, i, ; cumberland, disquisitio de legibus naturæ, , introd. (rejecting negative view as resting on inadequate testimony); locke, essay on the human understanding, bk. i, ch. iii, § ; ch. iv, § (accepting negative view); protests against it by vico (scienza nuova, , as cited above, p. ); by shaftesbury (letters to a student, , rep. in letters, , pp. - ); by rev. john milne, an account of mr. lock's religion (anon.), , pp. - ; and by sir w. anstruther, essays moral and divine, edinburgh, , p. ; further protests by lafitau (moeurs des sauvages ameriquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, , i, ), following boyle, to the effect that the very travellers and missionaries who denied all religion to savages avow facts which confute them; and general view by fabricius, delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, hamburghi, , ch. viii. cp. also swift, discourse concerning the mechanical operation of the spirit, § . büchner (force and matter, ch. on "the idea of god"); lord avebury = sir john lubbock (prehistoric times, th ed., pp. - ; origin of civilization, th ed., pp. - ); and mr. spencer (principles of sociology, iii, § ) have collected modern travellers' testimonies as to the absence of religious ideas in certain tribes. cp. also j. a. st. john's (bohn) ed. of locke, notes on passages above cited, and on bk. iv, ch. x, § . as lord avebury points out, the word "religion" is by some loosely or narrowly used to signify only a higher theology as distinct from lower supernaturalist beliefs. he himself, however, excludes from the field of "religion" a belief in evil spirits and in magic--here coinciding with the later anthropologists who represented magic and religion as fundamentally "opposed"--a view rejected even by some religionists. cp. avebury, marriage, totemism, and religion, ( ), p. sq.; rev. e. crawley, the mystic rose, , p. ; prof. t. witten davies, magic, divination, and demonology, , pp. - . the proved erroneousness of many of the negative testimonies has been insisted on by benjamin constant (de la religion, , i, - ); theodore parker (discourse of matters pertaining to religion, and , ed. , p. ); g. roskoff (das religionswesen der rohesten naturvölker, , abschn. i and ii); dr. tylor (primitive culture, rd ed., i, pp. - ); and dr. max müller (introd. to the science of religion, ed. , p. sq.; hibbert lectures, p. sq.; natural religion, , pp. - ; anthropological religion, , pp. - .) the rev. h. a. junod (life of a south african tribe, vol. ii, , p. ) shows how easily misconception on the subject may arise. galton (narrative of an explorer, ch. viii, ed. , p. ) writes: "i have no conception to this day whether or no the ovampo have any religion, for click was frightened and angry if the subject of death was alluded to." the context shows that the native regarded all questions on religious matters with suspicion. schweinfurth, again, contradicts himself twice within three pages as to the beliefs of the bongo in a "supreme being" and in a future state; and thus leaves us doubting his statement that the neighbouring race, the dyoor, "put no faith at all in any witchcraft" (the heart of africa, rd ed. i, - ). much of the confusion turns on the fact that savages who practise no worship have religious beliefs (cp. max müller, hibbert lectures, ed. , p. , citing monsignor salvado; and carl lumholtz, among cannibals, , p. ). the dispute, as it now stands, mainly turns on the definition of religion (cp. chantepie de la saussaye, manual of the science of religion, eng. tr. , pp. - , where lubbock's position is partly misunderstood). dr. tylor, while deciding that no tribes known to us are religionless, leaves open the question of their existence in the past. a notable example of the prolongation of error on this subject through orthodox assumptions is seen in dr. a. w. howitt's otherwise valuable work on the native tribes of south australia ( ). dr. howitt produces (pp. - ) abundant evidence to show that a number of tribes believe in a "supernatural anthropomorphic being," variously named nurrundere, nurelli, bunjil, mungan-ngaua, daramalun, and baiame ("the same being under different names," writes dr. howitt, p. ). this being he describes as "the tribal all-father," "a venerable kindly headman of a tribe, full of knowledge and tribal wisdom, and all-powerful in magic, of which he is the source, with virtues, failings, and passions such as the aborigines regard them" (pp. - ). but he insists (p. ) that "in this being, though supernatural, there is no trace of a divine nature," and, again, that "the australian aborigines do not recognize any divinity, good or evil" (p. ), though (p. ) "it is most difficult for one of us to divest himself of the tendency to endow such a supernatural being [as the all-father] with a nature quasi-divine, if not altogether so." dr. howitt does not name any european deity who satisfies him on the point of divinity! obviously the australian deities have evolved in exactly the same way as those of other peoples, yahweh included. dr. howitt, indeed, admits (p. ) that the australian notions "may have been at the root of monotheistic beliefs." they certainly were; and when he adds that, "although it cannot be alleged that these aborigines have consciously any form of religion, it may be said that their beliefs are such that, under favourable conditions, they might have developed into an actual religion," he indicates afresh the confusion possible from unscientific definitions. the sole content of his thesis is, finally, that a "supernatural" being is not "divine" till the priests have somewhat trimmed him, and that a religion is not "actual" till it has been sacerdotally formulated. dr. howitt's negations are as untenable as mr. andrew lang's magnification of the australian all-father into a perfect supreme being. the really important part of dr. howitt's survey of the problem is his conclusion that the kind of belief he has described exists only in a specified area of australia, and that this area is "the habitat of tribes ... where there has been the advance from group marriage to individual marriage, from descent in the female line to that in the male line" (p. ). messrs. spencer and gillen's denial of the existence of any belief in a personal deity among the tribes of central australia (northern tribes, , p. ) appears to stand for actual fact. as to the "divinity" of the ancestor-gods of the primitives, see pagan christs, nd ed. p. sq.] the problem has been unduly narrowed to the question whether there are any whole tribes so developed. it is obviously pertinent to ask whether there may not be diversity of opinion within a given tribe. such testimonies as those collected by sir john lubbock [lord avebury] and others, as to the existence of religionless savages, are held to be disposed of by further proof that tribes of savages who had been set down as religionless on the evidence of some of themselves had in reality a number of religious beliefs. travellers' questions had been falsely answered, either on the principle that non-initiates must not be told the mysteries, or from that sudden perception of the oddity of their beliefs which comes even to some civilized people when they try to state them to an unbelieving outsider. questions, again, could easily be misunderstood, and answers likewise. we find, for instance, that savages who scout the idea that the dead can "rise again" do believe in the continued disembodied existence of all their dead, and even at times conceive of them as marrying and procreating! on the whole, they conceive of a continuity of spirit-life on earth in human shape. to speak of such people as having no idea of "a life beyond the grave" would obviously be misleading, though they have no notion of a judgment day or of future rewards or punishments. [ ] undoubtedly, then, the negative view of savage religion had in a number of cases been hastily taken; but there remains the question, as a rule surprisingly ignored, whether some of the savages who disavowed all belief in things supernatural may not have been telling the simple truth about themselves, or even about their families and their comrades. as one sympathetic traveller notes of the samoyedes: "there can be no such thing as strict accuracy of grammar or expression among an illiterate people; nor can there be among these simple creatures any consistent or fixed appreciation even of their own forms of ... belief.... having no object in arriving at a common view of such matters, each samoyede, if questioned separately, will give more or less his own disconnected impression of his faith." [ ] and this holds of unfaith. a savage asked by a traveller, "do you believe" so-and-so, might very well give a true negative answer for himself; [ ] and the traveller's resulting misconception would be due to his own arbitrary assumption that all members of any tribe must think alike. a good witness expressly testifies: "in the tribe [of australians] with which i was best acquainted, while the blacks had a term for ghost and believed that there were departed spirits who were sometimes to be seen among the foliage, individual men would tell you upon inquiry that they believed that death was the last of them" (eaglehawk and crow: a study of the australian aborigines, by john mathew, m.a., b.d., , p. ). as to the risk of wrong negative inferences, on the other hand, see pp. , . one of the best of our missionary witnesses, h. a. junod, in his valuable study of the south african thonga, testifies both to the commonness of individual variation in the way of religious fancy and the occurrence of sporadic unbelief, usually ended by fear. individuals freely indulge in concrete speculations--e.g., as to the existence of animal souls--which do not win vogue (life of a south african tribe, vol. ii, , p. sq.), though the reporter seems to overlook the possibility that such ideas may be adopted by a tribe. freethinking ideas have, of course, by far the least chance of currency. "the young folks of libombo used to blaspheme in their hearts, saying, 'there are no gods.' but," added the witness, "we very soon saw that there were some, when they killed one of us," who trod on a snake (work cited, pp. - ). that testimony illustrates well the difficulties of rational progress in a primitive community. but at times the process may be encouraged by the environment. the early missionary ellis gives an instance of a community in hawaii that had abandoned all religious practices: "we asked them who was their god. they said they had no god; formerly they had many: but now they had cast them all away. we asked them if they had done well in abolishing them. they said 'yes,' for tabu had occasioned much labour and inconvenience, and drained off the best of their property. we asked them if it was a good thing to have no god.... they said perhaps it was; for they had nothing to provide for the great sacrifices, and were under no fear of punishment for breaking tabu; that now one fire cooked their food, and men and women ate together the same kind of provisions." (w. ellis, tour through hawaii or owhyhee, , p. .) the community in question had in their own way reached the lucretian verdict, tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum. unless, again, such witnesses as moffat be unfaithful reporters as well as mistaken in their inferences, some of the natives with whom they dealt were all but devoid of the ordinary religious notions [ ] which in the case of other natives have enabled the missionaries to plant their doctrines. nor is there anything hard of belief in the idea that, just as special religious movements spread credence in certain periods, a lack of active teachers in certain tribes may for a time have let previously common beliefs pass almost out of knowledge. if it be true that the black death wrought a great decline in the ecclesiastical life of england in the fourteenth century, [ ] a long period of life-destroying conditions might eliminate from the life of a savage tribe all lore save that of primary self-preservation. moffat incidentally notes the significant fact that rain-makers in his time were usually foreigners to the tribes in which they operated. [ ] the explanation is partly that given by him later, that "a rain-maker seldom dies a natural death," [ ] most being executed as impostors for their failures. to this effect there are many testimonies. [ ] among the bushmen, says lichtenstein, when a magician "happens to have predicted falsely several times in succession, he is thrust out of the kraal, and very likely burned or put to death in some other way." [ ] "a celebrated magician," says burton again, "rarely if ever dies a natural death." [ ] and it is told of the people of niue, or savage island, in the south pacific, that "of old they had kings; but as they were the high priests as well, and were supposed to cause the food to grow, the people got angry with them in times of scarcity, and killed them; and as one after the other was killed, the end of it was that no one wished to be king." [ ] so, in uganda, if a chief and his medicine-men cannot make rain, "his whole existence is at stake in times of distress." one chief was actually driven out; and the rain-doctors always live on sufferance. [ ] in such a state of things religion might well lose vogue. among some peoples of the slave coast, it appears, the regular priests, despite their power and prestige, are always under suspicion by reason of their frequent miscarriages; and they are--or were--not unfrequently put to death. [ ] here there is disbelief in the priest without disbelief in the god. but a disbelief in the priest which tended to exterminate him might well diminish religion. on the other hand, a relative indifference to religion in a given tribe might result from the influence of one or more leading men who spontaneously doubted the religious doctrine offered to them, as many in israel, on the face of the priestly records, disbelieved in the whole theocratic polity. in modern times preachers are constantly found charging "unbelief" on their own flocks, in respect not of any criticism of religious narrative or dogma, but of simple lack of ostensible faith in doctrines of prayer and providence nominally accepted. [ ] among peasants who have never seen a freethinking book or heard a professed freethinker's arguments may be heard expressions of spontaneous unfaith in current doctrines of providence. this is but a type of variations possible in primitive societies. despite the social potency of primitive custom, variation may be surmised to occur in the mental as in the physical life at all stages; and what normally happens in savagery and low civilization appears to be a cancelment of the skeptical variation by the total circumstances--the strength of the general lead to supernaturalism, the plausibility of such beliefs to the average intelligence, and the impossibility of setting up skeptical institutions to oppose the others. in civilized ages skeptical movements are repeatedly seen to dwindle for simple lack of institutions; which, however, are spontaneously set up by and serve as sustainers of religious systems. on the simpler level of savagery, skeptical personalities would in the long run fail to affirm themselves as against the institutions of ordinary savage religion--the seasonal feasts, the ceremonies attending birth and death, the use of rituals, images, charms, sorcery, all tending to stimulate and conserve supernatural beliefs in general. only the abnormally courageous would dare outspokenly to doubt or deny at all; and their daring would put them in special jeopardy. [ ] the ancient maxim, primus in orbe deos fecit timor, is verified by all modern study of primitive life. [ ] it is a recent traveller who gives the definition: "fetishism is the result of the efforts of the savage intelligence seeking after a theory which will account for the apparent hostility of nature to man." [ ] and this incalculable force of fear is constantly exploited by the religious bias from the earliest stages of sorcery. [ ] the check to intellectual evolution would here be on all fours with some of the checks inferribly at work in early moral evolution, where the types with the higher ideals would seem often to be positively endangered by their peculiarity, and would thus be the less likely to multiply. and what happened as between man and man would further tend to happen at times as between communities. given the possible case of a tribe so well placed as to be unusually little affected by fear of enemies and the natural forces, the influence of rationalistic chiefs or of respected tribesmen might set up for a time a considerable anti-religious variation, involving at least a minimizing of religious doctrine and practices. such a case is actually seen among the prosperous peoples of the upper congo, some of whom, like the poorer tribes known to moffat, have no "medicine-men" of their own, and very vague notions of deity. [ ] but when such a tribe did chance to come into conflict with others more religious, it would be peculiarly obnoxious to them; and, being in the terms of the case unwarlike, its chance of survival on the old lines would be small. such a possibility is suggested with some vividness by the familiar contrast between the modern communities of fiji and samoa--the former cruel, cannibalistic, and religious, the latter much less austerely religious and much more humane. the ferocious fijians "looked upon the samoans with horror, because they had no religion, no belief in any such deities [as the fijians'], nor any of the sanguinary rites which prevailed in other islands" (spencer, study of sociology, pp. - , following j. williams, narrative of missionary enterprise in the south sea islands, ed. , pp. - ; cp. the rev. a. w. murray, forty years' mission work, , p. ). the "no religion" is, of course, only relatively true. mr. lang has noticed the error of the phrase "the godless samoans" (cp. turner, samoa a hundred years ago, , pp. - ); but, while suggesting that the facts are the other way, he admits that in their creed "the religious sentiment has already become more or less self-conscious, and has begun to reason on its own practices" (myth, ritual, and religion, ii, ; nd ed., ii, ). taking the phenomena all along the line of evolution, we are led to the generalization that the rationalistic tendency, early or late, like the religious tendency, is a variation which prospers at different times in different degrees relatively to the favourableness of the environment. this view will be set forth in some detail in the course of our history. it is not, finally, a mere surmise that individual savages and semi-savages in our own time vary towards disbelief in the supernaturalism of their fellows. to say nothing of the rational skepticism exhibited by the zulu converts of bishop colenso, which was the means of opening his eyes to the incredibility of the pentateuch, [ ] or of the rationalism of the african chief who debated with sir samuel baker the possibility of a future state, [ ] we have the express missionary record that the forcible suppression of idolatry and tabu and the priesthood by king rihoriho in the island of hawaii, in , was accomplished not only "before the arrival of any missionary," but on purely common-sense grounds, and with no thought of furthering christianity, though he had heard of the substitution of christianity for the native religion by pomare in tahiti. rihoriho simply desired to save his wives and other women from the cruel pressure of the tabu system, and to divert the priests' revenues to secular purposes; and he actually had some strong priestly support. [ ] had not the missionary system soon followed, however, the old worship, which had been desperately defended in battle at the instigation of the conservative priests, would in all probability have grown up afresh, though perhaps with modifications. the savage and semi-savage social conditions, taken as a whole, are fatally unpropitious to rationalism. a parallel case to that of rihoriho is that of king finow of the tonga islands, described by mariner, who was his intimate. finow was noted for his want of religion. "he used to say that the gods would always favour that party in war in which there were the greatest chiefs and warriors"--the european mot strictly adapted to fiji conditions. "he did not believe that the gods paid much attention in other respects to the affairs of mankind; nor did he think that they could have any reason for doing so--no more than men could have any reason or interest in attending to the affairs of the gods." for the rest, "it is certain that he disbelieved most of the oracles delivered by the priests," though he carefully used them for political and military purposes; and he acquiesced in the usage of human sacrifices--particularly on his own account--while professing to deplore the taste of the gods in these matters. his own death seems to have been the result of poisoning by a priest, whom the king had planned to strangle. the king's daughter was sick, and the priest, instead of bringing about her recovery by his prayers, hardily explained that the illness was the act of the gods in punishment of the king's frequent disrespect to them. daughter and father were alternately ill, till the former died; and then it was that the king, by disclosing his resolve to strangle the priest, brought on his own death ( ). a few warriors were disposed to take revenge on the priest; but the majority, on learning the facts, shuddered at the impious design of the late king, and regarded his death as the natural vengeance of the gods. but, though such "impiety" as his was very rare, his son after him decided to abolish the priestly office of "divine chieftain," on the score that it was seen to avail for nothing, while it cost a good deal; and the chiefs and common people were soon brought to acquiesce in the policy. [ ] such cases appear to occur in many barbarous communities. it is recorded of the kaffir chief go that he was perfectly aware of the hollowness of the pretensions of the magicians and rain-makers of his tribe, though he held it impolitic to break with them, and called them in and followed their prescriptions, as did his subjects. [ ] of the galeka chief segidi it is similarly told that, while his medicine-men went into trances for occult knowledge preparatory to a military expedition, he carefully obtained real information through spies, and, while liberally rewarding his wizards, sent his sons to school at blythswood. [ ] yet again, in bede's ecclesiastical history, we have the story of king edwin's priest, coifi, naïvely avowing that he saw no virtue in his religion, [ ] inasmuch as many men received more royal favours than he, who had been most diligent in serving the gods. [ ] such a declaration might very well have been arranged for by the christian bishop paulinus, who was converting the king, and would naturally provide for coifi; but on any view a process of skepticism had taken place in the barbarian's mind. [ ] other illustrations come from the history of ancient scandinavia. grimm notes in several norse sagas and songs expressions of contempt for various gods, which appear to be independent of christian influence; [ ] and many warriors continued alike the christian and the pagan deities. in the saga of king olaf tryggvason, who enforced christianity on norway, it is declared by one chief that he relied much more on his own arm than on thor and odin; while another announced that he was neither christian nor pagan, adding: "my companions and i have no other religion than the confidence of our own strength and in the good success which always attends us in war." similar sentiments are recorded to have been uttered by rolf krake, a legendary king of denmark (circa ); [ ] and we have in the Æneid the classic type--doubtless drawn from barbaric life--of mezentius, divum contemptor, who calls his right arm his god, and in dying declares that he appeals to no deity. [ ] such utterances, indeed, do not amount to rational freethinking; but, where some could be thus capable of anti-theism, it is reasonable to surmise that among the more reflective there were some capable of simple atheism or non-belief, and of the prudence of keeping the fact to themselves. partial skepticism, of course, would be much more common, as among the aryan kafirs of the hindu-kush, with whom, before their conquest by the ameer of afghanistan, a british agent found among the younger men an inclination to be skeptical about some sacred ceremonies, while very sincere in their worship of their favourite deity, the god of war. [ ] it is thus seen to be inaccurate to say, as has been said by an accomplished antagonist of apriorism, that "under the yoke of tribal custom skepticism can hardly arise: there is no place for the half-hearted: as all men feel alike, so all think alike: skepticism arises when beliefs are put into formal propositions." [ ] it is broadly true that "there is no place for" the doubter as such in the tribal society; but doubters do exist. skepticism--in the sense in which the term is here used, that of rational disbelief--may even be commoner in some stages of the life of tribal customs than in some stages of backward civilization loaded with formulated creeds. what is true is that in the primitive life the rationalism necessarily fails, for lack of culture and institutions, to diffuse and establish itself, whereas superstition succeeds, being naturally institution-making. under such conditions skepticism is but a recurrent variation. [ ] it is significant, further, that in the foregoing cases of unbelief at the lower levels of civilization it is only the high rank of the doubter that secures publication for the fact of the doubt. in hawaii, or tonga, only a king's unbelief could make itself historically heard. so in the familiar story of the doubting inca of peru, who in public religious assembly is said to have avowed his conclusion that the deified sun was not really a living thing, it is the status of the speaker that gives his words a record. the doubt had in all likelihood been long current among the wise men of peru; it is indeed ascribed to two or three different incas; [ ] but, save for the incas' promulgation of it, history would bear no trace of peruvian skepticism. so again in the acolhuan state of tezcuco, the most civilized in the new world before the spanish conquest, the great king netzahualcoyotl is found opposing the cults of human sacrifice and worshipping an "unknown god," without an image and with only incense for offering. [ ] only the king in such an environment could put on record such a conception. there is, in fact, reason to believe that all ancient ameliorations of bloody rites were the work of humane kings or chiefs, [ ] as they are known to have been among semi-savages in our own day. [ ] in bare justice we are bound to surmise that similar developments of rationalism have been fairly frequent in unwritten history, and that there must have been much of it among the common folk; though, on the other hand, the very position of a savage king, and the special energy of character which usually goes to secure it, may count for much in giving him the courage to think in defiance of custom. in modern as in early christian times, it is always to the chief or king of a savage or barbarous tribe that the missionary looks for permission to proceed against the force of popular conservatism. [ ] apart from kings and chiefs, the priesthood itself would be the likeliest soil for skepticism, though, of course, not for the open avowal of it. there are to be noted, finally, the facts collected as to marked skeptical variation among children; [ ] and the express evidence that "it has not been found in a single instance that an uneducated deaf-mute has had any conception of the existence of a supreme being as the creator and ruler of the universe." [ ] these latter phenomena do not, of course, entitle us to accept professor gruppe's sweeping theorem that it is the religious variation that is abnormal, and that religion can have spread only by way of the hereditary imposition of the original insanity of one or two on the imagination of the many. [ ] deaf-mutes are not normal organisms. but all the facts together entitle us to decide that religion, broadly speaking, is but the variation that has chiefly flourished, by reason of its adaptation to the prevailing environment thus far; and to reject as unscientific the formulas which, even in the face of the rapidly-spreading rationalism of the more civilized nations, still affirm supernaturalist beliefs to be a universal necessity of the human mind. on the same grounds, we must reject the claim--arbitrarily set up by one historian in the very act of showing how religion historically oppugns science--that all sacred books as such "are true because they have been developed in accordance with the laws governing the evolution of truth in human history; and because in poem, chronicle, code, legend, myth, apologue, or parable, they reflect this development of what is best in the onward march of humanity." [ ] in this proposition the opening words, "are true because" are strictly meaningless. all literature whatever has been developed under the same general laws. but if it be meant that sacred books were specially likely to garner truth as such, the claim must be negated. in terms of the whole demonstration of the bias of theology against new truth in modern times, the irresistible presumption is that in earlier times also the theological and theocratic spirit was in general hostile to every process by which truth is normally attained. and if the thesis be limited to moral truth, it is still less credible. it is, in fact, inconceivable that literature so near the popular level as to suit whole priesthoods should be morally the best of which even the age producing it is capable; and nothing is more certain than that enlightened ethic has always had to impeach or explain away the barbarisms of some sacred books. the true summary is that in all cases the accepted sacred books have of necessity fallen short not only of scientific truth and of pure ethic, but even of the best speculation and the best ethic of the time of their acceptance, inasmuch as they excluded the criticism of the freethinking few on the sacred books themselves. there is sociological as well as physical science, and the former is flouted when the whole freethinking of the human race in the period of bible-making is either ignored or treated as worthless. it is probable, for instance, that in all stages of primitive religion there have been disbelievers in the value of sacrifice, who might or might not dare to denounce the practice. the demurrers to it in the hebrew prophetic literature are probably late; but they were in all likelihood anticipated in early times. among the fijians, for whom cannibalism was an essentially religious act, and the privilege of the males of the aristocracy, there were a number of the latter who, before and apart from the entrance of christianity, abominated and denounced the practice, reasoning against it also on utilitarian grounds, while the orthodox made it out to be a social duty. there were even whole towns which revolted against it and made it tabu; and it was by force mainly of this rationalistic reaction that the missionaries succeeded so readily in putting down the usage. [ ] it is impossible to estimate how often in the past such a revolt of reason against religious insanity has been overborne by the forces of pious habit. chapter iii progress under ancient religions § . early association and competition of cults when religion has entered on the stage of quasi-civilized organization, with fixed legends or documents, temples, and the rudiments of hierarchies, the increased forces of terrorism and conservatism are in nearly all cases seen to be in part countervailed by the simple interaction of the systems of different communities. there is no more ubiquitous force in the whole history of the subject, operating as it does in ancient assyria, in the life of vedic india and confucian china, and in the diverse histories of progressive greece and relatively stationary egypt, down through the christian middle ages to our own period of comparative studies. in ages when any dispassionate comparative study was impossible, religious systems appear to have been considerably modified by the influence of those of conquered peoples on those of their conquerors, and vice versâ. peoples who while at arm's length would insult and affect to despise each other's gods, and would deride each other's myths, [ ] appear frequently to have altered their attitude when one had conquered the other; and this not because of any special growth of sympathy, but by force of the old motive of fear. in the stage of natural polytheism no nation really doubted the existence of the gods of another; at most, like the hebrews of the early historic period, it would set its own god above the others, calling him "lord of lords." but, every community having its own god, he remained a local power even when his own worshippers were conquered, and his cult and lore were respected accordingly. this procedure, which has been sometimes attributed to the romans in particular as a stroke of political sagacity, was the normal and natural course of polytheism. thus in the hebrew books the assyrian conqueror is represented as admitting that it is necessary to leave a priest who knows "the manner of the god of the land" among the new inhabitants he has planted there. see kings xvii, . cp. ruth i, , and judges xvii, . the account by herodotos (ii, ) of the preservation of the pelasgic rites of dêmêtêr by the women of arcadia points to the same principle. see also hereinafter, ch. vi, § ; k. o. müller, introd. to a sci. study of mythol., eng. trans., p. ; adolf bastian, der mensch in der geschichte, , i, ; rhys, celtic britain, nd ed., p. ; max müller, anthropological religion, p. ; gibbon, ch. xxxiv--bohn ed., iii, , note; tylor, primitive culture, i, - ; and dr. f. b. jevons's introd. to the hist. of relig., , pp. - , where the fear felt by conquering races for the occult powers of the conquered is limited to the sphere of "magic." but when dr. jevons so defines magic as to admit of his proposition (p. ) that "the hostility from the beginning between religion and magic is universally admitted," he throws into confusion the whole phenomena of the early official-religious practice of magic, of which sacrifice and prayer are the type-forms that have best survived. and in the end he upsets his definition by noting (p. ) how magic, "even where its relation to religion is one of avowed hostility," will imitate religion. obviously magic is a function or aspect or element of primitive religion (cp. roskoff, das religionswesen der rohesten naturvölker, , p. ; sayce, pp. , , , and passim; and tiele, egyptian rel., pp. , ); and any "hostility," far from being universal, is either a social or a philosophical differentiation. on the whole question compare the author's pagan christs, nd ed., pp. - . in the opinion of weber (hist. of ind. lit., p. ) the magic arts "found a more and more fruitful soil as the religious development of the hindus progressed"; "so that they now, in fact, reign almost supreme." see again dr. jevons's own later admission, p. , where the exception of christianity is somewhat arbitrary. on this compare kant, religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft, b. iv, th. ii, § . similar cases have been noted in primitive cults still surviving. fear of the magic powers of "lower" or conquered races is in fact normal wherever belief in wizardry survives; and to the general tendency may be conjecturally ascribed such phenomena as that of the saturnalia, in which masters and slaves changed places, and the institution of the levites among the hebrews, otherwise only mythically explained. but if conquerors and conquered thus tended to amalgamate or associate their cults, equally would allied tribes tend to do so; and, when particular gods of different groups were seen to correspond in respect of special attributes, a further analysis would be encouraged. hence, with every extension of every state, every advance in intercourse made in peace or through war, there would be a further comparison of credences, a further challenge to the reasoning powers of thoughtful men. on the normal tendency to defer to local deities, compare tylor, primitive culture, as last cited; b. thomson, the fijians, , p. ; a. b. ellis, the tshi-speaking peoples of the gold coast, , p. , and the ewe-speaking peoples, , p. ; p. wurm, handbuch der religionsgeschichte, te aufl., p. (as to madagascar); sir h. johnston, the uganda protectorate, , ii, ; waitz, anthropologie der naturvölker, iii, ; p. kropotkin, memoirs of a revolutionist, ed. , p. ; w. w. skeat, malay magic, , pp. , ; thurston, castes and tribes of southern india, , i, - , , ; iii, ; iv, ; v, - ; w. h. r. rivers, the todas, , p. ; rae, the white sea peninsula, , p. ; Élie reclus, primitive folk, pp. - ; grant allen, evolution of the idea of god, , pp. , - ; castrén, vorlesungen über die finnische mythologie, , p. ; gummere, germanic origins, , p. , citing weinhold, deutsche frauen, i, ; gobineau, les religions et les philosophies dans l'asie centrale, e éd. p. ; e. higgins, hebrew idolatry and superstition, , pp. , ; robertson smith, religion of the semites, , p. ; wellhausen, heidenthum, pp. , , cited by smith, p. ; lang, making of religion, p. ; frazer, golden bough, nd ed. ii, . above all, see the record in old new zealand, "by a pakeha maori" ( nd ed. auckland, , p. ), of the believing resort of some white men to native wizards in new zealand. stevenson, again, is evidently proceeding upon observation when he makes his trader in the beach of falesà say: "we laugh at the natives and their superstitions; but see how many traders take them up, splendidly educated white men that have been bookkeepers (some of them) and clerks in the old country" (island nights' entertainments, , pp. - ). in abyssinia, "galla sorceresses are frequently called in by the christians of shoa to transfer sickness or to rid the house of evil spirits" (major w. cornwallis harris, the highlands of aethiopia, , iii, ). on the other hand, some sudanese tribes "believe in the virtue both of christian and moslem amulets, but have hitherto lent a deaf ear to the preachers of both these religions" (a. h. keane, man, past and present, , p. ). this tendency did not exclude, but would in certain cases conflict with, the strong primitive tendency to associate every god permanently with his supposed original locality. tiele writes (hist. of the egypt. relig., eng. trans. introd. p. xvii) that in no case was a place given to the gods of one nation in another's pantheon "if they did not wholly alter their form, character, appearance, and not seldom their very name." this seems an over-statement, and is inconsistent with tiele's own statement (hist. comparée des anc. relig. égyptiennes et sémitiques, french trans., , pp. - ) as to the adoption of sumerian and akkadian gods and creeds by the semites. what is clear is that local cults resisted the removal of their gods' images; and the attempt to deport such images to babylon, thus affecting the monopoly of the god of babylon himself, was a main cause of the fall of nabonidos, who was driven out by cyrus. (e. meyer, geschichte des alterthums, i ( ), .) but the assyrians invoked bel merodach of babylon, after they had conquered babylon, in terms of his own ritual; even as israelites often invoked the gods of canaan (cp. sayce, hibbert lectures, relig. of the anc. babylonians, p. ). and king mardouk-nadinakhe of babylon, in the twelfth century b.c., carried off statues of the assyrian gods from the town of hekali to babylon, where they were kept captive for years (maspero, hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, e éd. p. ). a god could migrate with his worshippers from city to city (meyer, iii, ; sayce, p. ); and the assyrian scribe class maintained the worship of their special god nebo wherever they went, though he was a local god to start with (sayce, pp. , , ). and as to the recognition of the gods of different egyptian cities by politic kings, see tiele's own statement, p. . cp. his outlines, pp. , , . a concrete knowledge of the multiplicity of cults, then, was obtruded on the leisured and travelled men of the early empires and of such a civilization as that of hellas; [ ] and when to such knowledge there was added a scientific astronomy (the earliest to be constituted of the concrete sciences), a revision of beliefs by such men was inevitable. [ ] it might take the form either of a guarded skepticism or of a monarchic theology, answering to the organization of the actual earthly empire; and the latter view, in the nature of the case, would much the more easily gain ground. the freethought of early civilization, then, would be practically limited for a long time to movements in the direction of co-ordinating polytheism, to the end of setting up a supreme though not a sole deity; the chief god in any given case being apt to be the god specially affected by the reigning monarch. allocation of spheres of influence to the principal deities would be the working minimum of plausible adjustment, since only in some such way could the established principle of the regularity of the heavens be formally accommodated to the current worship; and wherever there was monarchy, even if the monarch were polytheistic, there was a lead to gradation among the gods. [ ] a pantheistic conception would be the highest stretch of rationalism that could have any vogue even among the educated class. all the while every advance was liable to the ill-fortune of overthrow or arrest at the hands of an invading barbarism, which even in adopting the system of an established priesthood would be more likely to stiffen than to develop it. early rationalism, in short, would share in the fluctuations of early civilization; and achievements of thought would repeatedly be swept away, even as were the achievements of the constructive arts. § . the process in india the process thus deducible from the main conditions is found actually happening in more than one of the ancient cultures, as their history is now sketched. in the rig-veda, which if not the oldest is the least altered of the eastern sacred books, the main line of change is obvious enough. it remains so far matter of conjecture to what extent the early vedic cults contain matter adopted from non-aryan asiatic peoples; but no other hypothesis seems to account for the special development of the cult of agni in india as compared with the content and development of the other early aryan systems, in which, though there are developments of fire worship, the god agni does not appear. [ ] the specially priestly character of the agni worship, and the precedence it takes in the vedas over the solar cult of mitra, which among the kindred aryans of iran receives in turn a special development, suggest some such grafting, though the relations between aryans and the hindu aborigines, as indicated in the veda, seem to exclude the possibility of their adopting the fire-cult from the conquered inhabitants, [ ] who, besides, are often spoken of in the vedas as "non-sacrificers," [ ] and at times as "without gods." [ ] but this is sometimes asserted even of hostile aryans. [ ] in any case the carrying on of the two main cults of agni and indra side by side points to an original and marked heterogeneity of racial elements; while the varying combination with them of the worship of other deities, the old aryan varuna, the three forms of the sun-god aditya, the goddess aditi and the eight adityas, the solar mitra, vishnu, rudra, and the maruts, imply the adaptation of further varieties of hereditary creed. the outcome is a sufficiently chaotic medley, in which the attributes and status of the various gods are reducible to no code, [ ] the same feats being assigned to several, and the attributes of all claimed for almost any one. here, then, were the conditions provocative of doubt among the critical; and while it is only in the later books of the rig-veda that such doubt finds priestly expression, it must be inferred that it was current in some degree among laymen before the hymn-makers avowed that they shared it. the god soma, the personification of wine, identified with the moon-god chandra, [ ] "hurls the irreligious into the abyss." [ ] this may mean that his cult, like that of his congener dionysos in greece, was at first forcibly resisted, and forcibly triumphed. at an earlier period doubt is directed against the most popular god, indra, perhaps on behalf of a rival cult. [ ] later it seems to take the shape of a half-skeptical, half-mystical questioning as to which, if any, god is real. from the catholic standpoint, dr. e. l. fischer has argued that "varuna is in the ontological, physical, and ethical relation the highest, indeed the unique, god of ancient india"; and that the nature-gods of the veda can belong only to a later period in the religious consciousness (heidenthum und offenbarung, , pp. - ). such a development, had it really occurred, might be said to represent a movement of primitive freethought from an unsatisfying monotheism to a polytheism that seemed better to explain natural facts. a more plausible view of the process, however, is that of von bradke, to the effect that "the old indo-germanic polytheism, with its pronounced monarchic apex, which ... constituted the religion of the pre-vedic [aryan] hindus, lost its monarchic apex shortly before and during the rig-veda period, and set up for itself the so-called henotheism [worship of deities severally as if each were the only one], which thus represented in india a time of religious decline; a decline that, at the end of the period to which the rig-veda hymns belong, led to an almost complete dissolution of the old beliefs. the earlier collection of the hymns must have promoted the decline; and the final redaction must have completed it. the collected hymns show only too plainly how the very deity before whom in one song all the remaining gods bow themselves, in the next sinks almost in the dust before another. then there sounds from the rig-veda (x, ) the wistful question: who is the god whom we should worship?" (dyâus asura, ahuramazda, und die asuras, halle, , p. ; cp. note, supra, p. ). on this view the growth of monotheism went on alongside of a growth of critical unbelief, but, instead of expressing that, provoked it by way of reaction. dr. muir more specifically argues (sanskrit texts, v, ) that in the vedic hymns varuna is a god in a state of decadence; and, despite the dissent of m. barth (religions of india, p. ), this seems true. but the recession of varuna is only in the normal way of the eclipse of the old supreme god by a nearer deity, and does not suffice to prove a growth of agnosticism. m. fontane (inde védique, , p. ) asserts on other grounds a popular movement of negation in the vedic period, but offers rather slender evidence. there is better ground for his account of the system as one in which different cults had the upper hand at different times, the devotees of indra rejecting agni, and so on (pp. - ). to meet such a doubt, a pantheistic view of things would naturally arise, and in the vedas it often emerges. [ ] thus "agni is all the gods"; and "the gods are only a single being under different names." [ ] for ancient as for more civilized peoples such a doctrine had the attraction of nominally reconciling the popular cult with the skepticism it had aroused. rising thus as freethought, the pantheistic doctrine in itself ultimately became in india a dogmatic system, the monopoly of a priestly caste, whose training in mystical dialectic made them able to repel or baffle amateur criticism. such fortifying of a sophisticated creed by institutions--of which the brahmanic caste system is perhaps the strongest type--is one of the main conditions of relative permanence for any set of opinions; yet even within the brahmanic system, by reason, presumably, of the principle that the higher truth was for the adept and need not interfere with the popular cult, there were again successive critical revisions of the pantheistic idea. prof. garbe (philosophy of anc. india, sect. on hindu monism) argues that all monistic, and indeed all progressive, thinking in ancient india arose not among the brahmans, who were conscienceless oppressors, but among the warrior caste; citing stories in the upanishads in which brahmans are represented as receiving such ideas from warriors. the thesis is much weakened by the professor's acceptance of krishna as primarily a historic character, of the warrior class. but there is ground for his general thesis, which recognizes (p. ) that the brahmans at length assimilated the higher thought of laymen. max müller puts it that "no nation was ever so completely priestridden as the hindus were under the sway of the brahmanic law. yet, on the other side, the same people were allowed to indulge in the most unrestrained freedom of thought, and in the schools of their philosophy the very names of their gods were never mentioned. their existence was neither denied nor asserted...." (selected essays, , ii, ). "sankhya philosophy" [on which buddhism is supposed to be based], "in its original form, claims the name of an-îsvara, 'lordless' or 'atheistic,' as its distinctive title" (ibid. p. ). of the nature of a freethinking departure, among the early brahmanists as in other societies, was the substitution of non-human for human sacrifices--a development of peaceful life-conditions which, though not primitive, must have ante-dated buddhism. see tiele, outlines, pp. - and refs.; barth, religions of india, pp. - ; and müller, physical religion, p. . prof. robertson smith (religion of the semites, p. ) appears to hold that animal sacrifice was never a substitute for human; but his ingenious argument, on analysis, is found to prove only that in certain cases the idea of such a substitution having taken place may have been unhistorical. if it be granted that human sacrifices ever occurred--and all the evidence goes to show that they were once universal--substitution would be an obvious way of abolishing them. historical analogy is in favour of the view that the change was forced on the priesthood from the outside, and only after a time accepted by the brahmans. thus we find the khârvâkas, a school of freethinkers, rising in the alexandrian period, making it part of their business to denounce the brahmanic doctrine and practice of sacrifice, and to argue against all blood sacrifices; but they had no practical success (tiele, p. ) until buddhism triumphed (mitchell, hinduism, , p. ; rhys davids, tr. of dialogues of the buddha, , p. ). in the earliest upanishads the world-being seems to have been figured as the totality of matter, [ ] an atheistic view associated in particular with the teaching of kapila, [ ] who himself, however, was at length raised to divine status, [ ] though his system continues to pass as substantially atheistic. [ ] this view being open to all manner of anti-religious criticism, which it incurred even within the brahmanic pale, [ ] there was evolved an ideal formula in which the source of all things is "the invisible, intangible, unrelated, colourless one, who has neither eyes nor ears, neither hands nor feet, eternal, all-pervading, subtile, and undecaying." [ ] at the same time, the upanishads exhibit a stringent reaction against the whole content of the vedas. their ostensible object is "to show the utter uselessness--nay, the mischievousness--of all ritual performances; to condemn every sacrificial act which has for its motive a desire or hope of reward; to deny, if not the existence, at least the exceptional and exalted character of the devas; and to teach that there is no hope of salvation and deliverance except by the individual self recognizing the true and universal self and finding rest there, where alone rest can be found." [ ] and the critical development does not end there. "in the old upanishads, in which the hymns and sacrifices of the veda are looked upon as useless, and as superseded by the higher knowledge taught by the forest-sages, they are not yet attacked as mere impositions. that opposition, however, sets in very decidedly in the sutra period. in the nirukta (i, ) yâska quotes the opinion of kautsa, that the hymns of the veda have no meaning at all." [ ] in short, every form of critical revolt against incredible doctrine that has arisen in later europe had taken place in ancient india long before the alexandrian conquest. [ ] and the same attitude continued to be common within the post-alexandrian period; for panini, who must apparently be dated then, [ ] "was acquainted with infidels and nihilists"; [ ] and the teaching of brihaspati, [ ] on which was founded the system of the khârvâkas--apparently one of several sections of a freethinking school called the lokâyatas [ ] or lokâyatikas--is extremely destructive of vedic pretensions. "the veda is tainted by the three faults of untruth, self-contradiction, and tautology.... the impostors who call themselves vedic pandits are mutually destructive.... the three authors of the vedas were buffoons, knaves, and demons: all the well-known formulas of the pandits, and all the horrid rites for the queen commanded in the asvamedha--these were invented by buffoons, and so all the various kinds of presents to the priests; while the eating of flesh was similarly commanded by night-prowling demons." [ ] to what extent such aggressive rationalism ever spread it is now quite impossible to ascertain. it seems probable that the word lokâyata, defined by sanskrit scholars as signifying "directed to the world of sense," [ ] originally, or about b.c., signified "nature-lore," and that this passed as a branch of brahman learning. [ ] significantly enough, while the lore was not extensive, it came to be regarded as disposing men to unbelief, though it does not seem to have suggested any thorough training. at length, in the eighth century of our era, it is found applied as a term of abuse, in the sense of "infidel," by kumârila in controversy with opponents as orthodox as himself; and about the same period sankara connects with it a denial of the existence of a separate and immortal soul; [ ] though that opinion had been debated, and not called lokâyata, long before, when the word was current in the broader sense. [ ] latterly, in the fourteenth century, on the strength of some doggerel verses which cannot have belonged to the early brahmanic lokâyata, it stands for extreme atheism and a materialism not professed by any known school speaking for itself. [ ] the evidence, such as it is, is preserved only in sarva-darsana-samgraha, a compendium of all philosophical systems, compiled in the fourteenth century by the vedantic teacher mâdhavâchâra. [ ] one source speaks of an early text-book of materialism, the sutras of brihaspati; [ ] but this has not been preserved. thus in hindu as in later european freethought for a long period we have had to rely for our knowledge of freethinkers' ideas upon the replies made by their opponents. it is reasonable to conclude that, save insofar as the arguments of brihaspati were common to the khârvâkas and the buddhists, [ ] such doctrine as his or that of the later lokâyatikas cannot conceivably have been more than the revolt of a thoughtful minority against official as well as popular religion; and to speak of a time when "the aryan settlers in india had arrived at the conviction that all their devas or gods were mere names" [ ] is to suggest a general evolution of rational thought which can no more have taken place in ancient india than it has done to-day in europe. the old creeds would always have defenders; and every revolt was sure to incur a reaction. in the hitopadesa or "book of good counsel" (an undated recension of the earlier panchatantra, "the five books," which in its first form may be placed about the fifth century of our era) there occur both passages disparaging mere study of the sacred books [ ] and passages insisting upon it as a virtue in itself [ ] and otherwise insisting on ritual observances. [ ] they seem to come from different hands. the phenomenon of the schism represented by the two divisions of the yazur veda, the "white" and the "black," is plausibly accounted for as the outcome of the tendencies of a new and an old school, who selected from their brahmanas, or treatises of ritual and theology, the portions which respectively suited them. the implied critical movement would tend to affect official thought in general. this schism is held by weber to have arisen only in the period of ferment set up by buddhism; but other disputes seem to have taken place in abundance in the brahmanical schools before that time. (cp. tiele, outlines, p. ; weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , , ; max müller, anthropol. relig., , pp. - ; and rhys davids, buddhism, p. .) again, the ascetic and penance-bearing hermits, who were encouraged by the veneration paid them to exalt themselves above all save the highest gods, would by their utterances of necessity affect the course of doctrine. compare the same tendency as seen in buddhism and jainism (tiele, pp. , ). but in the later form of the vedânta, "the end of the veda," a monistic and pantheistic teaching holds its ground in our own day, after all the ups and downs of brahmanism, alongside of the aboriginal cults which brahmanism adopted in its battle with buddhism; alongside, too, of the worship of the veda itself as an eternal and miraculous document. "the leading tenets [of the vedânta] are known to some extent in every village." [ ] yet the vedântists, again, treat the upanishads in turn as a miraculous and inspired system, [ ] and repeat in their case the process of the vedas: so sure is the law of fixation in religious thought, while the habit of worship subsists. the highest activity of rationalistic speculation within the brahmanic fold is seen to have followed intelligibly on the most powerful reaction against the brahmans' authority. this took place when their sphere had been extended from the region of the punjaub, of which alone the rig-veda shows knowledge, to the great kingdoms of southern india, pointed to in the sutras, [ ] or short digests of ritual and law designed for general official use. in the new environment "there was a well-marked lay-feeling, a widespread antagonism to the priests, a real sense of humour, a strong fund of common sense. above all there was the most complete and unquestioned freedom of thought and expression in religious matters that the world had yet witnessed." [ ] the most popular basis for rejection of a given system--belief in another--made ultimately possible there the rise of a practically atheistic system capable, wherever embraced, of annulling the burdensome and exclusive system of the brahmans, which had been obtruded in its worst form, [ ] though not dominantly, in the new environment. buddhism, though it cannot have arisen on one man's initiative in the manner claimed in the legends, even as stripped of their supernaturalist element, [ ] was in its origin essentially a movement of freethought, such as could have arisen only in the atmosphere of a much mixed society [ ] where the extreme brahmanical claims were on various grounds discredited, perhaps even within their own newly-adjusted body. it was stigmatized as "the science of reason," a term equivalent to "heresy" in the christian sphere; [ ] and its definite rejection of the vedas made it anti-sacerdotal even while it retained the modes of speech of polytheism. the tradition which makes the buddha [ ] a prince suggests an upper-class origin for the reaction; and there are traces of a chronic resistance to the brahmans' rule among their fellow-aryans before the buddhist period. "the royal families, the warriors, who, it may be supposed, strenuously supported the priesthood so long as it was a question of robbing the people of their rights, now that this was effected turned against their former allies, and sought to throw off the yoke that was likewise laid upon them. these efforts were, however, unavailing: the colossus was too firmly established. obscure legends and isolated allusions are the only records left to us in the later writings of the sacrilegious hands which ventured to attack the sacred and divinely consecrated majesty of the brahmans; and these are careful to note at the same time the terrible punishments which befel those impious offenders" (weber, hist. ind. lit., p. ). the circumstances, however, that the buddhist writings were from the first in vernacular dialects, not in sanskrit, [ ] and that the mythical matter which accumulated round the story of the buddha is in the main aboriginal, and largely common to the myth of krishna, [ ] go to prove that buddhism spread specially in the non-aryan sphere. [ ] its practical (not theoretic) [ ] atheism seems to have rested fundamentally on the conception of karma, the transition of the soul, or rather of the personality, through many stages up to that in which, by self-discipline, it attains the impersonal peace of nirvana; and of this conception there is no trace in the vedas, [ ] though it became a leading tenet of brahmanism. to the dissolvent influence of greek culture may possibly be due some part of the success of buddhism before our era, and even later. hindu astronomy in the vedic period was but slightly developed (weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , , ); and "it was greek influence that first infused a real life into indian astronomy" (id. p. ; cp. letronne, mélanges d'Érudition, (?), p. ; narrien, histor. acc. of orig. and prog. of astron., p. , and lib. use. kn. hist. of astron., c. ii). this implies other interactions. it is presumably to greek stimulus that we must trace the knowledge by aryabhata (colebrooke's essays, ed. , ii, ; cp. weber, p. ) of the doctrine of the earth's diurnal revolution on its axis; and the fact that in india as in the mediterranean world the truth was later lost from men's hands may be taken as one of the proofs that the two civilizations alike retrograded owing to evil political conditions. in the progressive period (from about b.c. onwards for perhaps some centuries) greek ideas might well help to discredit traditionalism; and their acceptance at royal courts would be favourable to toleration of the new teaching. at the same time, buddhism must have been favoured by the native mental climate in which it arose. the main differentiation of buddhism from brahmanism, again, is its ethical spirit, which sets aside formalism and seeks salvation in an inward reverie and discipline; and this element in turn can hardly be conceived as arising save in an old society, far removed from the warlike stage represented by the vedas. whatever may have been its early association with brahmanism [ ] then, it must be regarded as essentially a reaction against brahmanical doctrine and ideals; a circumstance which would account for its early acceptance in the punjaub, where brahmanism had never attained absolute power and was jealously resisted by the free population. [ ] and the fact that jainism, so closely akin to buddhism, has its sacred books in a dialect belonging to the region in which buddhism arose, further supports the view that the reaction grew out of the thought of a type of society differing widely from that in which brahmanism arose. jainism, like buddhism, is substantially atheistic, [ ] and like it has an ancient monkish organization to which women were early admitted. the original crypto-atheism or agnosticism of the buddhist movement thus appears as a product of a relatively high, because complex, moral and intellectual evolution. it certainly never impugned the belief in the gods; on the contrary, the buddha is often represented as speaking of their existence, [ ] and at times as approving of their customary worship; [ ] but he is never said to counsel his own order to pray to them; he makes light of sacrifice; and above all he is made quite negative as to a future life, preaching the doctrine of karma in a sense which excludes individual immortality. [ ] "it cannot be denied that if we call the old gods of the veda--indra and agni and yama--gods, buddha was an atheist. he does not believe in the divinity of these deities. what is noteworthy is that he does not by any means deny their bare existence.... the founder of buddhism treats the old gods as superhuman beings." [ ] thus it is permissible to say both that buddhism recognizes gods and that it is practically atheistic. "the fact cannot be disputed away that the religion of buddha was from the beginning purely atheistic. the idea of the godhead ... was for a time at least expelled from the sanctuary of the human mind, [ ] and the highest morality that was ever taught before the rise of christianity was taught by men with whom the gods had become mere phantoms, without any altars, not even an altar to the unknown god" (max müller, introd. to the science of religion, ed. , p. . cp. the same author's selected essays, , ii, .) "he [buddha] ignores god in so complete a way that he does not even seek to deny him; he does not suppress him, but he does not speak of him either to explain the origin and anterior existence of man or to explain the present life, or to conjecture his future life and definitive deliverance. the buddha knows god in no fashion whatever" (barthélemy saint-hilaire, le bouddha et sa religion, , p. v). "buddhism and christianity are indeed the two opposite poles with regard to the most essential points of religion: buddhism ignoring all feeling of dependence on a higher power, and therefore denying the very existence of a supreme deity" (müller, introd. to sc. of rel., p. ). "lastly, the buddha declared that he had arrived at [his] conclusions, not by study of the vedas, nor from the teachings of others, but by the light of reason and intuition alone" (rhys davids, buddhism, p. ). "the most ancient buddhism despises dreams and visions" (id., p. ). "agnostic atheism ... is the characteristic of his [buddha's] system of philosophy" (id., p. ). "belief in a supreme being, the creator and ruler of the universe, is unquestionably a modern graft upon the unqualified atheism of sákya muni: it is still of very limited recognition. in none of the standard authorities ... is there the slightest allusion to such a first cause, the existence of which is incompatible with the fundamental buddhist dogma of the eternity of all existence" (h. h. wilson, buddha and buddhism, in essays and lectures, ed. by dr. r. rost, , ii, . cp. p. ). on the other hand, the gradual colouring of buddhism with popular mythology, the reversion (if, indeed, this were not early) to adoration and worship of the buddha himself, and the final collapse of the system in india before the pressure of brahmanized hinduism, all prove the potency of the sociological conditions of success and failure for creeds and criticisms. buddhism took the monastic form for its institutions, thus incurring ultimate petrifaction alike morally and intellectually; and in any case the normal indian social conditions of abundant population, cheap food, and general ignorance involved an overwhelming vitality for the popular cults. these the orthodox brahmans naturally took under their protection as a means of maintaining their hold over the multitude; [ ] and though their own highest philosophy has been poetically grafted on that basis, as in the epic of the mahâbhârata and in the bhagavat gita, [ ] the ordinary worship of the deities of these poems is perforce utterly unphilosophical, varying between a primitive sensualism and an emotionalism closely akin to that of popular forms of christianity. buddhism itself, where it still prevails, exhibits similar tendencies. [ ] it is disputed whether the brahman influence drove buddhism out of india by physical force, or whether the latter decayed because of maladaptation to its environment. its vogue for some seven hundred years, from about b.c. to about a.c., seems to have been largely due to its protection and final acceptance as a state religion by the dynasty of chandragupta (the sandracottos of the greek historians), whose grandson asoka showed it special favour. his rock-inscribed edicts (for which see max müller, introd. to science of rel., pp. - , ; anthrop. relig., pp. - ; rhys davids, buddhism, pp. - ; wheeler's hist. of india, vol. iii, app. ; asiatic society's journals, vols. viii and xii; indian antiquary, , vol. vi) show a general concern for natural ethics, and especially for tolerance; but his mention of "the terrors of the future" among the religious works he specially honours shows (if genuine) that normal superstition, if ever widely repudiated (which is doubtful), had interpenetrated the system. the king, too, called himself "the delight of the gods," as did his contemporary the buddhist king of ceylon (davids, buddhism, p. ). under asoka, however, buddhism was powerful enough to react somewhat on the west, then in contact with india as a result of the alexandrian conquest (cp. mahaffy, greek world under roman sway, ch. ii; weber's lecture on ancient india, eng. tr., pp. - ; indische skizzen, p. [cited in the present writer's christianity and mythology, p. ]; and weber's hist of ind. lit., p. and p. , note); and the fact that after his time it entered on a long conflict with brahmanism proves that it remained practically dangerous to that system. in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era buddhism in india "rapidly declined"--a circumstance hardly intelligible save as a result of violence. tiele, after expressly asserting the "rapid decline" (outlines, p. ), in the next breath asserts that there are no satisfactory proofs of such violence, and that, "on the contrary, buddhism appears to have pined away slowly" (p. : contrast his egypt. rel., p. xxi). rhys davids, in his buddhism, p. (so also max müller, anthrop. rel., p. ), argues for a process of violent extinction; but in his later work, buddhist india, he retracts this view and decides for a gradual decline in the face of a brahmanic revival. the evidences for violence and persecution are, however, pretty strong. (see h. h. wilson, essays, as cited, ii, - .) internal decay certainly appears to have occurred. already in gautama's own life, according to the legends, there were doctrinal disputes within his party (müller, anthrop. rel., p. ); and soon heresies and censures abounded (introd. to sc. of rel., p. ), till schisms arose and no fewer than eighteen sects took shape (davids, buddhism, pp. - ). thus early in our inquiry we may gather, from a fairly complete historical case, the primary laws of causation as regards alike the progress and the decadence of movements of rationalistic thought. the fundamental economic dilemma, seen already in the life of the savage, presses at all stages of civilization. the credent multitude, save in the very lowest stages of savage destitution, always feeds and houses those who furnish it with its appropriate mental food; and so long as there remains the individual struggle for existence, there will always be teachers ready. if the higher minds in any priesthood, awaking to the character of their traditional teaching, withdraw from it, lower minds, howbeit "sincere," will always take their place. the innovating teacher, in turn, is only at the beginning of his troubles when he contrives, on whatever bases, to set up a new organized movement. the very process of organization, on the one hand, sets up the call for special economic sustenance--a constant motive to compromise with popular ignorance--and, on the other hand, tends to establish merely a new traditionalism, devoid of the critical impulse in which it arose. [ ] and without organization the innovating thought cannot communicate itself, cannot hold its own against the huge social pressures of tradition. in ancient society, in short, there could be no continuous progress in freethinking: at best, there could but be periods or lines of relative progress, the result of special conjunctures of social and political circumstance. so much will appear, further, from the varying instances of still more ancient civilizations, the evolution of which may be the better understood from our survey of that of india. § . mesopotamia the nature of the remains we possess of the ancient babylonian and assyrian religions is not such as to yield a direct record of their development; but they suffice to show that there, as elsewhere, a measure of rationalistic evolution occurred. were there no other ground for the inference, it might not unreasonably be drawn from the post-exilic monotheism of the hebrews, who, drawing so much of their cosmology and temple ritual from babylon, may be presumed to have been influenced by the higher semitic civilizations in other ways also. [ ] but there is concrete evidence. what appears to have happened in babylonia and assyria, whose religious systems were grafted on that of the more ancient sumer-akkadian civilization, is a gradual subordination of the numerous local gods (at least in the thought of the more philosophic, including some of the priests) to the conception of one all-pervading power. this process would be assisted by that of imperialism; and in the recently-recovered code of hammurabi we actually find references to ilu "god" (as in the european legal phrase, "the act of god") without any further god-name. [ ] on the other hand, the unifying tendency would be resisted by the strength of the traditions of the babylonian cities, all of which had ancient cults before the later empires were built up. [ ] yet, again, peoples who failed in war would be in some measure led to renounce their god as weak; while those who clung to their faith would be led, as in jewry, to recast its ethic. the result was a set of compromises in which the provincial and foreign deities were either treated genealogically or grouped in family or other relations with the chief god or gods of the time being. [ ] certain cults, again, were either kept always at a higher ethical level than the popular one, or were treated by the more refined and more critical worshippers in an elevated spirit; [ ] and this tendency seems to have led to conceptions of purified deities who underlay or transcended the popular types, the names of the latter being held to point to one who was misconceived under their grosser aspects. [ ] astronomical knowledge, again, gave rise to cosmological theories which pointed to a ruling and creating god, [ ] who as such would have a specially ethical character. in some such way was reached a conception of a creator-god as the unity represented by the fifty names of the great gods, who lost their personality when their names were liturgically given to him [ ]--a conception which in some statements even had a pantheistic aspect [ ] among a "group of priestly thinkers," and in others took the form of an ideal theocracy. [ ] there is record that the babylonian schools were divided into different sects, [ ] and their science was likely to make some of these rationalistic. [ ] professor sayce even goes so far as to say that in the later cosmogony, "under a thin disguise of theological nomenclature, the babylonian theory of the universe has become a philosophical materialism." [ ] it might be taken for granted, further, that disbelief would be set up by such a primitive fraud as the alleged pretence of the priests of bel merodach that the god cohabited nightly with the concubine set apart for him (herodotos, i, - ), as was similarly pretended by the priests of amun at thebes. herodotos could not believe the story, which, indeed, is probably a late greek fable; but there must have been some skeptics within the sphere of the semitic cult of sacred prostitution. as regards freethinking in general, much would depend on the development of the chaldæan astronomy. that science, growing out of primitive astrology (cp. whewell, hist. of the induct. sciences, rd ed. i, ), would tend to discredit, among its experts, much of the prevailing religious thought; and they seem to have carried it so far as to frame a scientific theory of comets (seneca, citing apollonius myndius, quaest. nat., vii, ; cp. lib. use. kn. hist. of astron., c. ; e. meyer, gesch. des alterthums, i, ; and weber, ind. lit., p. ). such knowledge would greatly favour skepticism, as well as monotheism and pantheism. it was sought to be astrologically applied; but, as the horoscopes varied, this was again a source of unbelief (meyer, p. ). medicine, again, made little progress (herod., i, ). it can hardly be doubted, finally, that in babylonia and assyria there were idealists who, like the hebrew prophets, repudiated alike image-worship and the religion of sacrifices. the latter repudiation occurs frequently in later greece and rome. there, as in jerusalem, it could make itself heard in virtue of the restrictedness of the power of the priests, who in imperial babylonia and assyria, on the other hand, might be trusted to suppress or override any such propaganda, as we have seen was done in brahmanical india. concerning image-worship, apart from the proved fact of pantheistic doctrine, and the parallels in egypt and india, it is to be noted that isaiah actually puts in the mouth of the assyrian king a tirade against the "kingdoms of the idols" or "false gods," including in these jerusalem and samaria (isa. x, , ). the passage is dramatic, but it points to the possibility that in assyria just as in israel a disbelief in idols could arise from reflection on the spectacle of their multitude. the chequered political history of babylon and assyria, however, made impossible any long-continued development of critical and philosophical thought. their amalgamations of creeds and races had in a measure favoured such development; [ ] and it was probably the setting up of a single rule over large populations formerly at chronic war that reduced to a minimum, if it did not wholly abolish, human sacrifice in the later pre-persian empires; [ ] but the inevitably subject state of the mass of the people, and the chronic military upset of the government, were conditions fatally favourable to ordinary superstition. the new universalist conceptions, instead of dissolving the special cults in pantheism, led only to a fresh competition of cults on cosmopolitan lines, all making the same pretensions, and stressing their most artificial peculiarities as all-important. thus, when old tribal or local religions went proselytizing in the enlarged imperial field, they made their most worthless stipulations--as jewish circumcision and abstinence from pork, and the self-mutilation of the followers of cybelê--the very grounds of salvation. [ ] culture remained wholly in the hands of the priestly and official class, [ ] who, like the priesthoods of egypt, were held to conservatism by their vast wealth. [ ] accordingly we find the early religion of sorcery maintaining itself in the literature of the advanced empires. [ ] the attitude of the semitic priests and scribes towards the old akkadic as a sacred language was in itself, like the use of sacred books in general, long a check upon new thought; [ ] and though the assyrian life seems to have set this check aside, by reason of the lack of a culture class in assyria, the later babylonian kingdom which rose on the fall of assyria was too short-lived to profit much by the gain, being in turn overthrown in the second generation by cyrus. it is significant that the conqueror was welcomed by the babylonian priests as against their last king, the inquiring and innovating nabonidos [ ] (nabu-nahid), who had aimed at a monarchic polytheism or quasi-monotheism. he is described as having turned away from mardouk (merodach), the great babylonian god, who accordingly accepted cyrus in his stead. it is thus clear that cyrus, who restored the old state of things, was no strict monotheist of the later persian type, but a schemer who relied everywhere on popular religious interests, and conciliated the polytheists and henotheists of babylon as he did the yahweh-worshipping jews. [ ] the persian quasi-monotheism and anti-idolatry, however, already existed, and it is conceivable that they may have been intensified among the more cultured through the peculiar juxtaposition of cults set up by the persian conquest. mr. sayce's dictum (hib. lect., p. ), that the later ethical element in the akkado-babylonian system is "necessarily" due to semitic race elements, is seen to be fallacious in the light of his own subsequent admission (p. ) as to the lateness of the development among the semites. the difference between early akkadian and later babylonian was simply one of culture-stage. see mr. sayce's own remarks on p. ; and compare e. meyer (gesch. des alt., i, , , ), who entirely rejects the claim made for semitic ethics. see, again, tiele, outlines, p. , and mr. sayce's own account (anc. em. of the east, p. ) of the phoenician religion as "impure and cruel." other writers take the line of arguing that the phoenicians were "not semites," and that they differed in all things from the true semites (cp. dr. marcus dods, israel's iron age, , p. , and farrar, as there cited). the explanation of such arbitrary judgments seems to be that the semites are assumed to have had a primordial religious gift as compared with "turanians," and that the hebrews in turn are assumed to have been so gifted above other semites. we shall best guard against à priori injustice to the semites themselves, in the conjunctures in which they really advanced civilization, by entirely discarding the unscientific method of explaining the history of races in terms of hereditary character (see below, § , end). § . ancient persia the mazdean system, or worship of ahura mazda (ormazd), of which we find in herodotos positive historical record as an anti-idolatrous and nominally monotheistic creed [ ] in the fifth century b.c., is the first to which these aspects can be ascribed with certainty. as the jews are found represented in the book of jeremiah [ ] (assumed to have been written in the sixth century b.c.) worshipping numerous gods with images: and as polytheistic and idolatrous practices are still described in the book of ezekiel [ ] (assumed to have been written during or after the babylonian captivity), it is inadmissible to accept the unauthenticated writings of ostensibly earlier prophets as proving even a propaganda of monotheism on their part, the so-called mosaic law being known to be in large part of late invention and of babylonian derivation. [ ] in any case, the mass of the people were clearly image-worshippers. the persians, on the other hand, can be taken with certainty to have had in the sixth century an imageless worship (though images existed for other purposes), with a supreme god set above all others. the magian or mazdean creed, as we have seen, was not very devoutly held by cyrus; but dareios a generation later is found holding it with zeal; and it cannot have grown in a generation to the form it then bore. it must therefore be regarded as a development of the religion of some section of the "iranian" race, centering as it does round some deities common to the vedic aryans. the mazdean system, as we first trace it in history, was the religion of the medes, a people joined with the persians proper under cyrus; and the magi or priests were one of the seven tribes of the medes, [ ] as the levites were one of the tribes of israel. it may then be conjectured that the magi were the priests of a people who previously conquered or were conquered by the medes, who had then adopted their religion, as did the persians after their conquest by or union with the medes. cyrus, a semi-persian, may well have regarded the medes with some racial distrust, and, while using them as the national priests, would naturally not be devout in his adherence at a time when the two peoples were still mutually jealous. when, later, after the assassination of his son smerdis (bardes or bardija) by the elder son, king cambyses, and the death of the latter, the median and magian interest set up the "false smerdis," persian conspirators overthrew the pretender and crowned the persian dareios hystaspis, marking their sense of hostility to the median and magian element by a general massacre of magi. [ ] those magi who survived would naturally cultivate the more their priestly influence, the political being thus for the time destroyed; though they seem to have stirred up a median insurrection in the next century against dareios ii. [ ] however that may be, dareios i became a zealous devotee of their creed, [ ] doubtless finding that a useful means of conciliating the medes in general, who at the outset of his reign seem to have given him much trouble. [ ] the richest part of his dominions [ ] was east-iran, which appears to have been the original home of the worship of ahura-mazda. [ ] such is the view of the case derivable from herodotos, who remains the main authority; but recent critics have raised some difficulties. that the magians were originally a non-median tribe seems clear; dr. tiele (outlines, pp. , ) even decides that they were certainly non-aryan. compare ed. meyer (gesch. des alt., i, , note, , §§ , ), who holds that the mazdean system was in its nature not national but abstract, and could therefore take in any race. several modern writers, however (canon rawlinson, ed. of herodotos, i, - ; five great monarchies, nd ed. ii, - , iii, - ; lenormant, chaldean magic, eng. tr. pp. , - ; sayce, anc. emp. of the east, p. ), represent the magians as not only anti-aryan (= anti-persian), but opposed to the very worship of ormazd, which is specially associated with their name. it seems difficult to reconcile this view with the facts; at least it involves the assumption of two opposed sets of magi. the main basis for the theory seems to be the allusion in the behistun inscription of dareios to some acts of temple-destruction by the usurping magian gomates, brother and controller of the pretender smerdis. (see the inscription translated in records of the past, i, - .) this meyer sets aside as an unsettled problem, without inferring that the magians were anti-mazdean (cp. § and § , note). as to the massacre, however, meyer decides (i, ) that herodotos blundered, magnifying the killing of "the magus" into a slaughter of "the magi." but this is one of the few points at which herodotos is corroborated by ktesias (cp. grote, iii, , note). a clue to a solution may perhaps be found in the facts that, while the priestly system remained opposed to all image-worship, dareios made emblematic images of the supreme god (meyer, i, , ) and of mithra; and that artaxerxes mnemon later put an image of mithra in the royal temple of susa, besides erecting many images to anaitis. (rawlinson, five great monarchies, iii, - , - .) there may have been opposing tendencies; the conquest of babylon being likely to have introduced new elements. the persian art now arising shows the most marked assyrian influences. the religion thus imposed on the persians seems to have been imageless by reason of the simple defect of art among its cultivators; [ ] and to have been monotheistic only in the sense that its chief deity was supreme over all others, including even the great evil power, ahriman (angra mainyu). its god-group included mithra, once the equal of ahura-mazda, [ ] and later more prominent than he; [ ] as well as a goddess, anahita, apparently of akkadian origin. before the period of cyrus, the eastern part of persia seems to have been but little civilized; [ ] and it was probably there that its original lack of images became an essential element in the doctrine of its priests. as we find it in history, and still more in its sacred book, the zendavesta, which as we have it represents a late liturgical compilation, [ ] mazdeism is a priest-made religion rather than the work of one zarathustra or any one reformer; and its rejection of images, however originated, is to be counted to the credit of its priests, like the pantheism or nominal monotheism of the mesopotamian, brahmanic, and egyptian religions. the original popular faith had clearly been a normal polytheism. [ ] for the rest, the mazdean ethic has the usual priestly character as regards the virtue it assigns to sacrifice; [ ] but otherwise compares favourably with brahmanism. as to this cult being priest-made, see meyer, i, , , . tiele (outlines, pp. , ) assumes a special reformation such as is traditionally associated with zarathustra, holding that either a remarkable man or a sect must have established the monotheistic idea. meyer (i, ) holds with m. darmesteter that zarathustra is a purely mythical personage, made out of a storm-god. dr. menzies (hist. of relig. p. ) holds strongly by his historic actuality. the problem is analogous to those concerning moses and buddha; but though the historic case of mohammed bars a confident decision in the negative, the balance of presumption is strongly against the traditional view. see the author's pagan christs, pp. - . there is no reason to believe, however, that among the persian peoples the higher view of things fared any better than elsewhere. [ ] the priesthood, however enlightened it may have been in its inner culture, never slackened the practice of sacrifice and ceremonial; and the worship of subordinate spirits and the propitiation of demons figured as largely in their beliefs as in any other. in time the cult of the saviour-god mithra came to the front very much as did that of jesus later; and in the one case as in the other, despite ethical elements, superstition was furthered. when, still later, the recognition of ahriman was found to endanger the monotheistic principle, an attempt seems to have been made under the sassanian dynasty, in our own era, to save it by positing a deity who was father of both ahura-mazda and angra-mainyu; [ ] but this last slight effort of freethinking speculation came to nothing. social and political obstacles determined the fate of magian as of other ancient rationalism. according to rawlinson, zoroastrianism under the parthian (arsacide) empire was gradually converted into a complex system of idolatry, involving a worship of ancestors and dead kings (sixth orient. mon. p. ; seventh mon. pp. - , ). gutschmid, however, following justin (xli, , - ), pronounces the parthians zealous followers of zoroastrianism, dutifully obeying it in the treatment of their dead (geschichte irans von alexander bis zum untergang der arsakiden, , pp. - )--a law not fully obeyed even by dareios and his dynasty (heeren, asiatic nations, eng. tr. i, ). rawlinson, on the contrary, says the parthians burned their dead--an abomination to zoroastrians. certainly the name of the parthian king mithradates implies acceptance of mazdeism. at the same time rawlinson admits that in persia itself, under the parthian dynasty, zoroastrianism remained pure (seventh mon. pp. - ), and that, even when ultimately it became mixed up with normal polytheism, the dualistic faith and the supremacy of ormazd were maintained (five monarchies, nd ed. iii, - ; cp. darmesteter, zendavesta, i, lxvi, nd ed.). § . egypt the relatively rich store of memorials left by the egyptian religions yields us hardly any more direct light on the growth of religious rationalism than do those of mesopotamia, though it supplies much fuller proof that such a growth took place. all that is clear is that the comparison and competition of henotheistic cults there as elsewhere led to a measure of relative skepticism, which took doctrinal shape in a loose monism or pantheism. the language is often monotheistic, but never, in the early period, is polytheism excluded; on the contrary, it is affirmed in the same breath. [ ] the alternate ascendancy of different dynasties, with different gods, forced on the process, which included, as in babylon, a priestly grouping of deities in families and triads [ ]--the latter arrangement, indeed, being only a return to a primitive african conception. [ ] it involved further a syncretism or a combining of various gods into one, [ ] and also an esoteric explanation of the god-myths as symbolical of natural processes, or else of mystical ideas. [ ] there are even evidences of quasi-atheism in the shape of materialistic hymns on lucretian lines. [ ] at the beginning of the new kingdom ( b.c.) it had been fully established for all the priesthoods that the sun-god was the one real god, and that it was he who was worshipped in all the others. [ ] he in turn was conceived as a pervading spiritual force, of anthropomorphic character and strong moral bias. [ ] this seems to have been by way of a purification of one pre-eminent compound deity, amen-ra, to begin with, whose model was followed in other cults. [ ] "theocracies of this kind could not have been formed unconsciously. men knew perfectly well that they were taking a great step in advance of their fathers." [ ] there had occurred, in short, among the educated and priestly class a considerable development, going on through many centuries, alike in philosophical and in ethical thought; the ethics of the egyptian "book of the dead" being quite as altruistic as those of any portion of the much later christian gospels. [ ] such a development could arise only in long periods of peace and law-abiding life; though it is found to be accelerated after the persian conquest, which would force upon the egyptian priesthood new comparisons and accommodations. [ ] and yet all this was done "without ever sacrificing the least particle of the beliefs of the past." [ ] the popular polytheism, resting on absolute ignorance, was indestructible; and the most philosophic priests seem never to have dreamt of unsettling it, though, as we shall see, a masterful king did. an eminent egyptologist has written that, "whatever literary treasures may be brought to light in the future as the result of excavations in egypt, it is most improbable that we shall ever receive from that country any ancient egyptian work which can properly be classed among the literature of atheism or freethought; the egyptian might be more or less religious according to his nature and temperament, but, judging from the writings of his priests and teachers which are now in our hands, the man who was without religion and god in some form or other was most rare, if not unknown." [ ] it is not clear what significance the writer attaches to this statement. unquestionably the mass of the egyptians were always naïf believers in all that was given them as religion; and among the common people even the minds which, as elsewhere, varied from the norm of credulity would be too much cowed by the universal parade of religion to impugn it; while their ignorance and general crudity of life would preclude coherent critical thought on the subject. but to conclude that among the priesthood and the upper classes there was never any "freethinking" in the sense of disbelief in the popular and official religion, even up to the point of pantheism or atheism, is to ignore the general lesson of culture history elsewhere. necessarily there was no "literature of atheism or freethought." such literature could have no public, and, as a menace to the wealth and status of the priesthood, would have brought death on the writer. but in such a multitudinous priesthood there must have been, at some stages, many who realized the mummery of the routine religion, and some who transcended the commonplaces of theistic thought. from the former, if not from the latter, would come esoteric explanations for the benefit of the more intelligent of the laity of the official class, who could read; and it is idle to decide that deeper unbelief was privately "unknown." it is contended, as against the notion of an esoteric and an exoteric doctrine, that the scribes "did not, as is generally supposed, keep their new ideas carefully concealed, so as to leave to the multitude nothing but coarse superstitions. the contrary is evident from a number of inscriptions which can be read by anybody, and from books which anyone can buy." [ ] but the assumption that "anyone" could read or buy books in ancient egypt is a serious misconception. even in our own civilization, where "anyone" can presumably buy freethought journals or works on anthropology and the history of religions, the mass of the people are so placed that only by chance does such knowledge reach them; and multitudes are so little cultured that they would pass it by with uncomprehending indifference were it put before them. in ancient egypt, however, the great mass of the people could not even read; and no man thought of teaching them. this fact alone goes far to harmonize the ancient greek testimonies as to the existence of an esoteric teaching in egypt with tiele's contention to the contrary. see the pros and cons set forth and confusedly pronounced upon by professor chantepie de la saussaye, manual of the science of religion, eng. tr. pp. - . we know from diodorus (i, ), what we could deduce from our other knowledge of egyptian conditions, that, apart from the priests and the official class, no one received any literary culture save in some degree the higher grades of artificers, who needed some little knowledge of letters for their work in connection with monuments, sepulchres, mummy-cases, and so forth. cp. maspero, hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, p. . even the images of the higher gods were shown to the people only on festival-days (meyer gesch. des alterthums, i, ). the egyptian civilization was thus, through all its stages, obviously conditioned by its material basis, which in turn ultimately determined its polity, there being no higher contemporary civilization to lead it otherwise. an abundant, cheap, and regular food supply maintained in perpetuity a dense and easily-exploited population, whose lot through thousands of years was toil, ignorance, political subjection, and a primitive mental life. [ ] for such a population general ideas had no light and no comfort; for them was the simple human worship of the local natural gods or the presiding gods of the kingdom, alike confusedly conceived as great powers, figured often as some animal, which for the primeval mind signified indefinite capacity and unknown possibility of power and knowledge. [ ] myths and not theories, magic and not ethics, were their spiritual food, albeit their peaceful animal lives conformed sufficiently to their code. and the life-conditions of the mass determined the policy of priest and king. the enormous priestly revenue came from the people, and the king's power rested on both orders. as to this revenue see diodorus siculus, i, ; and erman, handbook of egyptian religion, eng. tr. , p. . according to diodorus, a third of the whole land of the kingdom was allotted to the priesthoods. about a sixth of the whole land seems to have been given to the gods by ramessu iii alone, besides , slaves, , cattle, and immense wealth of other kinds (flinders petrie, hist. of egypt, iii ( ), - ). the bulk of the possessions here enumerated seems to have gone to the temple of amen at thebes and that of the sun-god at heliopolis (erman, as cited). it is to be noted, however, that the priestly order included all the physicians, lawyers, clerks, schoolmasters, sculptors, painters, land measurers, drug sellers, conjurers, diviners, and undertakers. wilkinson, ancient egyptians, ed. birch, , i, - ; sharpe, egypt. mythol. p. ; meyer, gesch. des alt. i, § . "the sacred domains included herds of cattle, birds, fishermen, serfs, and temple servants" (flinders petrie, as cited, iii, ). when the revenues assigned for a temple of seti i were found to be misappropriated, and the building stopped, his son, ramessu ii, assigned a double revenue for the completion of the work and the worship (id.). like the later priesthood of christendom, that of egypt forged documents to establish claims to revenue (id. p. ). captured cattle in great quantities were bestowed on temples of amen (id. p. ), whose priests were especially grasping (id. p. ). thus in the one reign of ramessu iii they received fifty-six towns of egypt and nine of syria and , serfs (id. p. ). this was fully seen when king akhunaton (otherwise echnaton, or icheniton, or akhunaton, or akhunaten, or chuenaten, or khu-en-aten, or kku-n-aten, or khouniatonou, or khounaton!) = amen-hetep or amun-hotep (or amenophis) iv, moved by monotheistic zeal, departed so far from the customary royal policy as to put under the ban all deities save that he had chosen for himself, repudiating the god-name amen in his own name, and making one from that of his chosen sun-god, aten ("the sun's disk") or aton or atonou [ ] or iton [ ] (latterly held to be = the syrian adon, "the lord," symbolized by the sun's disk). there is reason to think that his was not a mere sun-worship, but the cult of a deity, "lord of the disk," who looked through the sun's disk as through a window. [ ] in any interpretation, however, the doctrine was wholly inacceptable to a priesthood whose multitudinous shrines its success would have emptied. of all the host of god-names, by one account only that of the old sun-god ra-harmachis was spared, [ ] as being held identical with that of aten; and by one account [ ] the disaffection of priests and people rose to the point of open rebellion. at length akhunaton, "glory of the disk," as he elected to name himself, built for himself and his god a new capital city in middle egypt, akhet-aten (or khut-aten), the modern tell-el-amarna, where he assembled around him a society after his own heart, and carried on his aten-worship, while his foreign empire was crumbling. the "tell-el-amarna tablets" were found in the ruins of his city, which was deserted a generation after his death. though the king enforced his will while he lived, his movement "bore no fruit whatever," his policy being reversed after his family had died out, and his own monuments and capital city razed to the ground by orthodox successors. [ ] in the same way the earlier attempt of the alien hyksos to suppress the native polytheism and image-worship had come to nothing. [ ] the history of akhunaton is established by the later egyptology. sharpe makes no mention of it, though the point had been discussed from onwards. cp. lepsius, letters from egypt, etc., bohn trans. , p. ; and nott and gliddon's types of mankind, , p. , and indigenous races of the earth, , pp. - , in both of which places will be found the king's portrait. see last reference for the idle theory that he had been emasculated, as to which the confutation by wiedemann (aegyptische geschichte, p. , cited by budge, hist. of egypt, , iv, ) is sufficient. in point of fact, he figures in the monuments as father of three or seven children (wiedemann, rel. of anc. eg. p. ; erman, p. ; budge, iv, , ). dispute still reigns as to the origin of the cult to which he devoted himself. a theory of its nature and derivation, based on that of mr. j. h. breasted (history of egypt, , p. ), is set forth in an article by mr. a. e. p. weigall on "religion and empire in ancient egypt" in the quarterly review, jan. . on this view aten or aton is simply adon = "the lord"--a name ultimately identified with adonis, the syrian sun-god and vegetation-god. the king's grandfather was apparently a syrian, presumably of royal lineage; and queen tii or thiy, the king's mother, who with her following had wrought a revolution against the priesthood of amen, brought him up as a devotee of her own faith. on her death he became more and more fanatical, getting out of touch with people and priesthood, so that "his empire fell to pieces rapidly." letters still exist (among the tell-el-amarna tablets) which were sent by his generals in asia, vainly imploring help. he died at the age of twenty-eight; and if the body lately found, and supposed to be his, is really so, his malady was water on the brain. mr. breasted, finding that akhunaton's god is described by him in inscriptions as "the father and the mother of all that he made," ranks the cult very high in the scale of theism. mr. weigall (art. cited, p. ; so also budge, hist. iv, ) compares a hymn of the king's with ps. civ, sq., and praises it accordingly. the parallel is certainly close, but the document is not thereby certificated as philosophic. on the strength of the fact that akhunaton "had dreamed that the aton religion would bind the nations together," mr. weigall credits him with harbouring "an illusive ideal towards which, thirty-two centuries later, mankind is still struggling in vain" (p. ). the ideal of subjugating the nations to one god, cherished later by jews, and still later by moslems, is hardly to be thus identified with the modern ideal of international peace. brugsch, in turn, credits the king with having "willingly received the teaching about the one god of light," while admitting that aten simply meant the sun's disk (hist. of egypt, -vol. ed. p. ). maspero, again, declares tii to have been an egyptian of old stock, and the god "atonou" to have been the deity of her tribe (hist. anc., as cited, p. ); and he pronounces the cult probably the most ancient variant of the religions of ra (p. ). messrs. king and hall, who also do not accept the theory of a syrian derivation, coincide with messrs. breasted and weigall in extolling akhunaton's creed. in a somewhat summary fashion they pronounce (work cited, p. ) that, "given an ignorance of the true astronomical character of the sun, we see how eminently rational a religion" was this. the conception of a moving window in the heavens, which appears to be the core of it, seems rather a darkening than a development of the "philosophical speculations of the priests of the sun at heliopolis," from which it is held by messrs. king and hall to have been derived. similarly ill-warranted is the decision (id. p. ) that in akhunaton's heresy "we see ... the highest attitude [? altitude] to which religious ideas had attained before the days of the hebrew prophets." alike in india and in egypt, pantheistic ideas of a larger scope than his or those of the hebrew prophets had been attained before akhunaton's time. dr. e. a. wallis budge, on the other hand, points out that the cult of the aten is really an ancient one in egypt, and was carried on by thothmes iii, father of amen-hetep ii, a century before akhunaton (amen-hetep iv), its "original home" being heliopolis (history of egypt, , iv, , ). so also von bissing, gesch. aeg. in umriss, p. (reading "iton"). rejecting the view that "aten" is only a form of "adon," dr. budge pronounces that "as far as can be seen now the worship of aten was something like a glorified materialism"--whatever that may be--"which had to be expounded by priests who performed ceremonies similar to those which belonged to the old heliopolitan sun-worship, without any connection whatsoever with the worship of yahweh; and a being of the character of the semitic god adôn had no place in it anywhere." further, he considers that it "contained no doctrines on the unity or oneness of aten similar to those which are found in the hymns to ra, and none of the beautiful ideas on the future life with which we are familiar from the hymns and other compositions in the book of the dead" (ib. pp. - ). by prof. flinders petrie queen tii or thiy is surmised to have been of armenian origin (see budge, iv, - , as to her being "mesopotamian"); and prof. petrie, like mr. breasted, has inferred that she brought with her the cult of which her son became the devotee. (so also brugsch, p. .) messrs. king and hall recognize that the cult had made some headway before akhunaton took it up; but deny that there is any reason for supposing queen tii to have been of foreign origin; adding: "it seems undoubted that the aten cult was a development of pure egyptian religious thought." certainty on such an issue seems hardly possible; but it may be said, as against the theory of a foreign importation, that there is no evidence whatever of any high theistic cult of adonis in syria at the period in question. adonis was primarily a vegetation-god; and the older view that aten simply means "the sun's disk" is hardly disposed of. it is noteworthy that under akhunaton's patronage egyptian sculpture enjoyed a term of freedom from the paralyzing convention which reigned before and after (king and hall, as cited, pp. - ). this seems to have been the result of the innovating taste of the king (budge, hist. iv, - ). as the centuries lapsed the course of popular religion was rather downward than upward, if it can be measured by the multiplication of superstitions. [ ] when under the ramesside dynasty the high-priests of amen became by marriage with the royal family the virtual rulers, sacerdotalism went from bad to worse. [ ] the priests, who held the allegorical key to mythology, seem to have been the main multipliers of magic and fable, mummery, ceremonial, and symbol; and they jealously guarded their specialty against lay competition. [ ] esoteric and exoteric doctrine flourished in their degrees side by side, [ ] the instructed few apparently often accepting or acting upon both; and primitive rites all the while flourished on the level of the lowest savagery, [ ] though the higher ethical teaching even improves, as in india. conflicts, conquests, and changes of dynasties seem to have made little difference in the life of the common people. [ ] religion was the thread by which any ruler could lead them; and after the brief destructive outbreak of cambyses, [ ] himself at first tolerant, the persian conquerors allowed the old faiths to subsist, caring only, like their predecessors, to prevent strife between the cults which would not tolerate each other. [ ] the ptolemies are found adopting and using the native cults as the native kings had done ages before them; [ ] and in the learned greek-speaking society created by their dynasty at alexandria there can have been at least as little concrete belief as prevailed in the priesthood of the older civilization. it developed a pantheistic philosophy which ultimately, in the hands of plotinus, compares very well with that of the upanishads and of later european systems. but this was a hot-house flower; and in the open world outside, where roman rule had broken the power of the ancient priesthood and greek immigration had overlaid the native element, christianity found an easy entrance, and in a declining society flourished at its lowest level. [ ] the ancient ferment, indeed, produced many stirrings of relative freethought in the form of christian heresies to be noted hereafter; one of the most notable being that of arius, who, like his antagonist athanasius, was an alexandrian. but the cast of mind which elaborated the dogma of the trinity is as directly an outcome of egyptian culture-history as that which sought to rationalize the dogma by making the popular deity a created person; [ ] and the long and manifold internecine struggles of the sects were the due duplication of the older strifes between the worshippers of the various sacred animals in the several cities. [ ] in the end the entire population was but so much clay to take the impress of the arab conquerors, with their new fanatic monotheism standing for the minimum of rational thought. for the rest, the higher forms of the ancient religion had been able to hold their own till they were absolutely suppressed, with the philosophic schools, by the byzantine government, which at the same time marked the end of the ancient civilization by destroying or scattering the vast collection of books in the serapeion, annihilating at once the last pagan cult and the stored treasure of pagan culture. with that culture too, however, there had been associated to the last the boundless credulity which had so long kept it company. in the second century of our era, under the antonines, we have apuleius telling of isis worshipped as "nature, parent of things, mistress of all elements, the primordial birth of the ages, highest of divinities, queen of departed spirits, first of the heavenly ones, the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses," who rules all things in earth and heaven, and who stands for the sole deity worshipped throughout the world under many names; [ ] the while her worshipper cherishes all manner of the wildest superstitions, which even the subtle philosophy of the alexandrian neo-platonic school did not discard. all alike, with the machinery of exorcism, were passed on to the worship of the christian queen of heaven, leaving out only the pantheism; and when that worship in turn was overthrown, the one god of islam enrolled in his train the same host of ancient hallucinations. [ ] the fatality of circumstance was supreme. § . phoenicia of the inner workings of thought in the phoenician religion we know even less, directly, than can be gathered as to any other ancient system of similar notoriety, [ ] so completely did the roman conquest of carthage, and the macedonian conquest of tyre and sidon, blot out the literary remains of their peoples. yet there are some indirect clues of a remarkable sort. it is hardly to be doubted, in the first place, that punic speculation took the same main lines as the early thought of egypt and mesopotamia, whose cultures, mixing in syria as early as the fifteenth century b.c., had laid the basis of the later phoenician civilization. [ ] the simple fact that among the syro-phoenicians was elaborated the alphabet adopted by all the later civilizations of the west almost implies a special measure of intellectual progress. we can indeed trace the normal movement of syncretism in the cults, and the normal tendency to improve their ethics. the theory of an original pure monotheism [ ] is no more tenable here than anywhere else; we can see that the general designation of the chief god of any city, usually recognizable as a sun-god, by a title rather than a name, [ ] though it pointed to a general worship of a pre-eminent power, in no sense excluded a belief in minor powers, ranking even as deities. it did not do so in the admittedly polytheistic period; and it cannot therefore be supposed to have done so previously. the chief phoenician gods, it is admitted, were everywhere called by one or several of the titles baal (lord), ram or rimmon (high), melech or molech (king), melkarth (king of the city), eliun (supreme), adonai (lord), bel-samin (lord of heaven), etc. (cp. rawlinson, history of phoenicia, p. ; tiele, hist. comp. des anc. relig., etc., fr. tr. , ch. iii, pp. - ; outlines, p. ; meyer, gesch. des alt. i, , and art. "phoenicia" in encyc. biblica, iii, - ; sayce, ancient empires, p. .) the just inference is that the sun-god was generally worshipped, the sun being for the semitic peoples the pre-eminent nature-power. "he alone of all the gods is by philo explained not as a deified man, but as the sun, who had been invoked from the earliest times" (meyer, last cit.). (all gods were not baals: the division between them and lesser powers corresponded somewhat, as tiele notes, to that between theoi and daimones with the greeks, and ases and vanes with the old scandinavians. so in babylonia and india the bels and asuras were marked off from lesser deities.) the fact that the western semites thus carried with them the worship of their chief deities in all their colonies would seem to make an end of the assumption (gomme, ethnology of folklore, p. ; menzies, history of religion, pp. , ) that there is something specially "aryan" in the "conception of gods who could and did accompany the tribes wheresoever they travelled." cp. meyer, gesch. des alt. iii, . the worship of the baal, however, being that of a special nature-power, cannot in early any more than in later times have been monotheistic. what happened was a preponderance of the double cult of the god and goddess, baal and ashtoreth, as in the unquestionably polytheistic period (rawlinson, p. ; tiele, hist. comp., as cited, p. ). apart from this normal tendency to identify gods called by the same title (a state of things which, however, in ancient as in modern catholic countries, tended at the same time to set up special adoration of a given image), there is seen in the later religion of phoenicia a spirit of syncretism which operated in a manner the reverse of that seen in later jewry. in the latter case the national god was ultimately conceived, however fanatically, as universal, all others being negated: in commercial phoenicia, many foreign gods were adopted, [ ] the tendency being finally to conceive them as all manifestations of one power. [ ] and there is reason to suppose that in the cosmopolitan world of the phoenician cities the higher intelligence reached a yet more subversive, though still fallacious, theory of religion. the pretended ancient phoenician cosmogony of sanchoniathon, preserved by eusebius, [ ] while worthless as a record of the most ancient beliefs, [ ] may be taken as representing views current not only in the time and society of philo of byblos ( c.e.), who had pretended to translate it, but in a period considerably earlier. this cosmogony is, as eusebius complains, deliberately atheistic; and it further systematically explains away all god stories as being originally true of remarkable men. where this primitive form of atheistic rationalism originated we cannot now tell. but it was in some form current before the time of the greek evêmeros, who systematically developed it about b.c.; for in a monotheistic application it more or less clearly underlies the redaction of much of the hebrew bible, where both patriarchal and regal names of the early period are found to be old god-names; and where the sun-god samson is made a "judge" [ ]--having originally been the judge-god. in the byblian writer, however, the purpose is not monotheistic, but atheistic; and the problem is whether this or that was the earlier development of the method. the natural presumption seems to be that the hebrew adaptors of the old mythology used an already applied method, as the christian fathers later used the work of evêmeros; and the citation from thallos by lactantius [ ] suggests that the method had been applied in chaldea, as it was spontaneously applied by the greek epic poets who made memorable mortals out of the ancient deities odysseus and Æneas, [ ] helen, castor and pollux, achilles, and many more. [ ] it is in any case credible enough that among the much-travelling phoenicians, with their open pantheon, an atheistic evêmerism was thought out by the skeptical types before evêmeros; and that the latter really drew his principles from phoenicia. [ ] at any rate, they were there received, doubtless by a select few, as a means of answering the customary demand for "something in place of" the rejected gods. concerning the tradition that an ancient phoenician, moschus, had sketched an atomic theory, we may again say that, though there is no valid evidence for the statement, it counts for something as proof that the phoenicians had an old repute for rationalism. the byblian cosmogony may be conceived as an atheistic refinement on those of babylon, adopted by the jews. it connects with the theogony ascribed to hesiod (which has asiatic aspects), in that both begin with chaos, and the gods of hesiod are born later. but whereas in hesiod chaos brings forth erebos and night (eros being causal force), and night bears Æther and day to erebos, while earth virginally brings forth heaven (uranos) and the sea, and then bears the first gods in union with heaven, the phoenician fragment proceeds from black chaos and wind, after long ages, through eros or desire, to a kind of primeval slime, from which arise first animals without intelligence, who in turn produce some with intelligence. the effort to expel deity must have been considerable, for sun and moon and stars seem to arise uncreated, and the sun's action spontaneously produces further developments. the first man and his wife are created by male and female principles of wind, and their offspring proceed to worship the sun, calling him beel samin. the other gods are explained as eminent mortals deified after their death. see the details in cory's ancient fragments, hodges' ed. pp. - . as to moschus, cp. renouvier, manuel de philos. ancienne, , i, ; and mosheim's ed. of cudworth's intellectual system, harrison's tr. i, ; also cudworth's eternal and immutable morality, same ed. iii, . on the general question of phoenician rationalism, compare pausanias's account (vii, ) of his discussion with a sidonian, who explained that apollo was simply the sun, and his son Æsculapius simply the healing art. at the same time there are signs even in phoenician worship of an effort after an ethical as well as an intellectual purification of the common religion. to call "the" phoenician religion "impure and cruel" [ ] is to obscure the fact that in all civilizations certain types and cults vary from the norm. in phoenicia as in israel there were humane anti-sensualists who either avoided or impugned the sensual and the cruel cults around them; as well as ascetics who stood by human sacrifice while resisting sexual licence. that the better types remained the minority is to be understood in terms of the balance of the social and cultural forces of their civilization, not of any racial bias or defect, intellectual or moral. the remark of e. meyer (gesch. des alt. i, , § ), that an ethical or mystical conception of the god was "entirely alien" to "the semite," reproduces the old fallacy of definite race-characters; and mr. sayce, in remarking that "the immorality performed in the name of religion was the invention of the semitic race itself" (anc. emp. p. ; contrast tiele, outlines, p. ), after crediting the semitic race with an ethical faculty alien to the akkadian (above, p. ), suggests another phase of the same error. there is nothing special to the semites in the case save degree of development, similar phenomena being found in many savage religions, in mexico, and in india. (meyer in later passages and in his article on ba'al in boscher's lexikon modifies his position as to semitic versus other religions.) on the other hand, there was a chaste as well as an unchaste worship of the phoenician ashtoreth. ashtoreth karnaim, or tanit, the virgin, as opposed to atergates and annit, the mother-goddesses, had the characteristics of artemis. cp. tiele, religion comparée, as cited, pp. - ; menzies, history of religion, pp. , - ; kuenen, religion of israel, i, ; smith, religion of the semites, pp. , . [in rome, venus cloacina, sometimes ignorantly described as a goddess of vice, was anciently "the goddess of chaste and holy matrimony" (ettore pais, ancient legends of roman history, eng. tr. , p. )]. for the rest, the cruelty of the phoenician cults, in the matter of human sacrifice, was fully paralleled among the early teutons. see tiele, outlines, p. ; and the author's pagan christs, pt. ii, ch. i, § . § . ancient china of all the ancient asiatic systems that of china yields us the first clear biographical trace of a practical rationalist, albeit a rationalist stamped somewhat by chinese conservatism. confucius (kung-fu-tse = kung the master) is a tangible person, despite some mythic accretions, whereas zarathustra and buddha are at best but doubtful possibilities, and even lao-tsze (said to have been born b.c.) is somewhat elusive. before confucius ( - b.c.), it is evident, there had been a slackening in religious belief among the governing classes. it is claimed for the chinese, as for so many other races, that they had anciently a "pure" monotheism; [ ] but the ascription, as usual, is misleading. they saw in the expanse of heaven the "supreme" power, not as a result of reflection on the claims of other deities among other races, but simply as expressing their primordial tribal recognition of that special god, before contact with the god-ideas of other peoples. monotheistic in the modern sense they could not be. concerning them as concerning the semites we may say that the claim of a primary monotheism for them "is also true of all primitive totemistic or clannish communities. a man is born into a community with such a divine head, and the worship of that god is the only one possible to him." [ ] beside the belief in the heaven-god, there stood beliefs in heavenly and earthly spirits, and in ancestors, who were worshipped with altars. [ ] the remark of professor legge (religions of china, p. ), that the relation of the names shang-ti = supreme ruler, and t'ien = the sky, "has kept the monotheistic element prominent in the religion proper of china down to the present time," may serve to avert disputation. it may be agreed that the chinese were anciently "monotheists" in the way in which they are at present, when they worship spirits innumerable. when, however, professor legge further says (p. ) that the ancient monotheism five thousand years ago was "in danger of being corrupted" by nature worship and divination, he puts in doubt the meaning of the other expression above cited. he states several times (pp. , , ) that the old monotheism remains; but speaks (p. ) of the mass of the people as "cut off from the worship of god for themselves." and see p. as to ancestor-worship by the emperor. tiele (outlines, p. ) in comparison somewhat overstresses the polytheistic aspect of the chinese religion in his opening definition; but he adds the essential facts. dr. legge's remark that "the idea of revelation did not shock" the ancient chinese (p. ) is obscure. he is dealing with the ordinary akkado-babylonian astrology. pauthier, on the contrary (chine moderne, , p. ), asserts that in china "no doctrine has ever been put forth as revealed." as regards ancestral worship, we have record of a display of disregard for it by the lords of lû in confucius's time; [ ] and the general attitude of confucius himself, religious only in his adherence to old ceremonies, is incompatible with a devout environment. it has been disputed whether he makes a "skeptic denial of any relation between man and a living god"; [ ] but an authority who disputes this complains that his "avoiding the personal name of tî, or god, and only using the more indefinite term heaven," suggests "a coldness of temperament and intellect in the matter of religion." [ ] he was, indeed, above all things a moralist; and concerning the spirits in general he taught that "to give one's self to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom." [ ] he would never express an opinion concerning the fate of souls, [ ] or encourage prayer; [ ] and in his redaction of the old records he seems deliberately to have eliminated mythological expressions. [ ] "i would say," writes dr. legge (who never forgets to be a missionary), "that he was unreligious rather than irreligious; yet, by the coldness of his temperament and intellect in this matter, his influence is unfavourable to the development of true religious feeling among the chinese people generally, and he prepared the way for the speculations of the literati of medieval and modern times, which have exposed them to the charge of atheism." [ ] the view that there was a very early "arrest of growth" in the chinese religion (menzies, history of religion, p. ), "before the ordinary developments of mythology and doctrine, priesthood," etc., had "time to take place," is untenable as to the mythology. the same writer had previously spoken (p. ) of the chinese system before confucius as having "already parted with all savage and irrational elements." that confucius would seek to eliminate these seems likely enough, though the documentary fact is disputed. in the elder contemporary of confucius, lao-tsze ("old philosopher"), the founder of taouism, may be recognized another and more remarkable early freethinker of a different stamp, in some essential respects much less conservative, and in intellectual cast markedly more original. where confucius was an admirer and student of antiquity, lao-tsze expressly put such concern aside, [ ] seeking a law of life within himself, in a manner suggestive of much indian and other oriental thought. so far as our records go, he is the first known philosopher who denied that men could form an idea of deity, that being the infinite; and he avowedly evolved, by way of makeshift, the idea of a primordial and governing reason (tau), closely analogous to the logos of later platonism. since the same idea is traceable in more primitive forms alike in the babylonian and brahmanic systems, [ ] it is arguable that he may have derived it from one of these sources; but the problem is very obscure. in any case, his system is one of rationalistic pantheism. [ ] his personal relation to confucius was that of a self-poised sage, impatient of the other's formalism and regard to prescription and precedent. where they compare is in their avoidance of supernaturalism, and in the sometimes singular rationality of their views of social science; in which latter respect, however, they were the recipients and transmitters of an already classic tradition. [ ] thus both had a strong bias to conservatism; and in lao-tsze it went the length of prescribing that the people should not be instructed. [ ] despite this, it is not going too far to say that no ancient people appears to have produced sane thinkers and scientific moralists earlier than the chinese. the golden rule, repeatedly formulated by confucius, seems to be but a condensation on his part of doctrine he found in the older classics; [ ] and as against lao-tsze he is seen maintaining the practical form of the principle of reciprocity. the older man, like some later teachers, preached the rule of returning kindness for evil, [ ] without leaving any biographical trace of such practice on his own part. confucius, dealing with human nature as it actually is, argued that evil should be met by justice, and kindness with kindness, else the evil were as much fostered as the good. [ ] it is to be regretted that christian writers should keep up the form of condemning confucius (so legge, religions of china, p. ; life and teachings of confucius, th ed. p. sq.; douglas, p. ) for a teaching the practice of which is normally possible, and is never transcended in their own church, where the profession of returning good for evil merely constitutes one of the great hypocrisies of civilization. dr. legge does not scruple to resort to a bad sophism in this connection. "if," he says, "we only do good to them that do good to us, what reward have we?" he thus insinuates that confucius vetoed any spontaneous act of benevolence. the question is not of such acts, but of kind acts to those who seek to injure us. on the other hand, mr. chalmers, who dedicates his translation of lao-tsze to dr. legge, actually taunts lao-tsze (p. ) with absurdity in respect of his doctrine. such is the sincerity of orthodox polemic. how little effect the self-abnegating teaching of lao-tsze, in turn, has had on his followers may be gathered from their very legends concerning him (douglas, p. ). there is a fallacy, further, in the christian claim that confucius (analects, v, ; xv, ) put the golden rule in a lower form than that of the gospels, in that he gave it the negative form, "do not that which ye would not have done unto you." this is really the rational and valid form of the rule. the positive form, unless construed in the restrictive sense, would merely prescribe a non-moral doing of favours in the hope of receiving favours in return. it appears, further, from the passage in the analects, v, , that the doctrine in this form was familiar before confucius. lao-tsze, on his part, had reduced religion to a minimum. "there is not a word in the tâo têh king [by lao-tsze] of the sixth century b.c. that savours either of superstition or religion." [ ] but the quietist and mystical philosophy of lao-tsze and the practicality of confucius alike failed to check the growth of superstition among the ever-increasing ignorant chinese population. says our christian authority: "in the works of lieh-tsze and chwang-tsze, followers of lao-tsze, two or three centuries later, we find abundance of grotesque superstition, though we are never sure how far those writers really believed the things they relate." in point of fact, lieh-tsze is now commonly held by scholars to be an imaginary personage, whose name is given to a miscellaneous collection of teachings and moral tales, much interpolated and added to long after the date assigned to him--circa b.c. [ ] it contains a purely pantheistic statement of the cosmic problem, [ ] and among the apologues is one in which a boy of twelve years is made tersely and cogently to rebut the teleological view of things. [ ] the writers of such sections are not likely to have held the superstitions set forth in others. but that superstition should supervene upon light where the means of light were dwindling was a matter of course. it was but the old fatality, seen in brahmanism, in buddhism, in egypt, in islam, and in christianity. confucius himself was soon worshipped. [ ] a reaction against him set in after a century or two, doctrines of pessimism on the one hand, and of universal love on the other, finding a hearing; [ ] but the influence of the great confucian teacher mencius (meng-tse) carried his school through the struggle. "in his teaching, the religious element retires still further into the background" [ ] than in that of confucius; and he is memorable for his insistence on the remarkable principle of confucius, that "the people are born good"; that they are the main part of the state; and that it is the ruler's fault if they go astray. [ ] some rulers seem to have fully risen to this view of things, for we have an account of a rationalistic duke, who lived earlier than b.c., refusing to permit the sacrifice of a man as a scapegoat on his behalf; and in the year b.c. such sacrifices were permanently abolished by the han emperor wen. [ ] but mencius, who, as a sociologist, excels not only lao-tsze but confucius, put his finger on the central force in chinese history when he taught that "it is only men of education who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart. as to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart." [ ] so clearly was the truth seen in china over two thousand years ago. but whether under feudalism or under imperialism, under anarchy or under peace--and the teachings of lao-tsze and mencius combined to discredit militarism [ ]--the chinese mass always pullulated on cheap food, at a low standard of comfort, and in a state of utter ignorance. hence the cult of confucius was maintained among them only by recognizing their normal superstition; but on that basis it has remained secure, despite competition, and even a term of early persecution. one iconoclastic emperor, the founder of the ch'in or ts'in dynasty ( or b.c.), sought to extirpate confucianism as a means to a revolution in the government; but the effort came to nothing. [ ] in the same way lao-tsze came to be worshipped as a god [ ] under the religion called taouism, a title sometimes mistranslated as rationalism, "a name admirably calculated to lead the mind astray as to what the religion is." [ ] it would seem as if the older notion of the tau, philosophically purified by lao-tsze, remained a popular basis for his school, and so wrought its degradation. the taoists or tao-sse "do their utmost to be as unreasonable as possible." [ ] they soon reverted from the philosophic mysticism of lao-tsze, after a stage of indifferentism, [ ] to a popular supernaturalism, [ ] which "the cultivated chinese now regard with unmixed contempt"; [ ] the crystallized common-sense of confucius, on the other hand, allied as it is with official ceremonialism, retaining its hold as an esoteric code for the learned. the evolution has thus closely resembled that which took place in india. nowhere, perhaps, is our sociological lesson more clearly to be read than in china. centuries before our era it had a rationalistic literature, an ethic no less earnest and far more sane that that of the hebrews, and a line of known teachers as remarkable in their way as those of ancient greece who flourished about the same period. but where even greece, wrought upon by all the other cultures of antiquity, ultimately retrograded, till under christianity it stayed at a chinese level of unprogressiveness for a thousand years, isolated china, helped by no neighbouring culture adequate to the need, has stagnated as regards the main mass of its life, despite some political and other fluctuations, till our own day. its social problem, like that of india, is now more or less dependent, unfortunately, on the solutions that may be reached in europe, where the problem is only relatively more mature, not fundamentally different. § . mexico and peru in the religions of pre-christian mexico and peru we have peculiarly interesting examples of "early" religious systems, flourishing at some such culture-level as the ancient akkadian, in full play at the time of the european renaissance. in mexico a partly "high" ethical code, as the phrase goes, went concurrently with the most frightful indulgence in human sacrifice, sustained by the continuous practice of indecisive war for the securing of captives, and by the interest of a vast priesthood. in this system had been developed all the leading features of those of the old world--the identification of all the gods with the sun; the worship of fire, and the annual renewal of it by special means; the conception of god-sacrifice and of communion with the god by the act of eating his slain representative; the belief in a virgin-mother-goddess; the connection of humanitarian ethic with the divine command; the opinion that celibacy, as a state of superior virtue, is incumbent on most priests and on all would-be saints; the substitution of a sacramental bread for the "body and blood" of the god-man; the idea of an interceding mother-goddess; the hope of a coming saviour; the regular practice of prayer; exorcism, special indulgences, confession, absolution, fasting, and so on. [ ] in peru, also, many of those conceptions were in force; but the limitation of the power and numbers of the priesthood by the imperial system of the incas, and the state of peace normal in their dominions, prevented the mexican development of human sacrifice. it seems probable that the toltecs, who either fled before or were for the most part subdued or destroyed by the barbarian chichimecs (in turn subdued by the aztecs) a few centuries before cortes, were on the whole a less warlike and more civilized people, with a less bloody worship. [ ] their god, quetzalcoatl, retained through fear by the aztecs, [ ] was a comparatively benign deity opposed to human sacrifice, apparently rather a late purification or partial rationalization of an earlier god-type than a primitively harmless conception. [ ] insofar as they were sundered by quarrels between the sectaries of the god quetzalcoatl and the god votan, though their religious wars seem to have been as cruel as those of the early christians of north africa, there appears to have been at work among them a movement towards unbloody religion. in any case their overthrow seems to stand for the military inferiority of the higher and more rational civilization [ ] to the lower and more religious, which in turn, however, was latterly being destroyed by its enormously burdensome military and priestly system, and may even be held to have been ruined by its own superstitious fears. [ ] among the recognizable signs of normal progress in the ordinary aztec religion were ( ) the general recognition of the sun as the god really worshipped in all the temples of the deities with special names; [ ] ( ) the substitution in some cults of baked bread-images for a crucified human victim. the question arises whether the aztecs, but for their overwhelming priesthood, might conceivably have risen above their system of human sacrifices, as the aryan hindus had done in an earlier age. their material civilization, which carried on that of the kindred toltecs, was at several points superior to that which the spaniards put in its place; and their priesthood, being a leisured and wealthy class, might have developed intellectually as did the brahmans, [ ] if its economic basis had been changed. but only a conquest or other great political convulsion could conceivably have overturned the vast cultus of human sacrifice, which overran all life, and cherished war as a means of procuring victims. in the kindred state of tezcuco, civilization seems to have gone further than in aztec anahuac; and about the middle of the fifteenth century one tezcucan king, the conqueror netzahualcoyotl, who has left writings in both prose and verse, is seen attaining to something like a philosophic creed, of a monotheistic stamp. [ ] he is said to have rejected all idol-worship, and erected, as aforesaid, an altar "to the unknown god," [ ] forbidding all sacrifices of blood in that worship. but among the tezcucans these never ceased; three hundred slaves were sacrificed at the obsequies of the conqueror's son, netzahualpilli; and the aztec influence over the superior civilization was finally complete. in peru, again, we find civilization advancing in respect of the innovation of substituting statuettes for wives and slaves in the tombs of the rich; and we have already noted [ ] the remarkable records of the avowed unbelief of several incas in the divinity of the nationally worshipped sun. for the rest, there was the dubious quasi-monotheistic cult of the creator-god, pachacamac, concerning whom every fresh discussion raises fresh doubt. [ ] mr. lang, as usual, leans to the view that pachacamac stands for a primordial and "elevated" monotheism (making of religion, pp. - ), while admitting the slightness of the evidence. garcilasso, the most eminent authority, who, however, is contradicted by others, represents that the conception of pachacamac as creator, needing no temple or sacrifice, was "philosophically" reached by the incas and their wise men (lang, p. ). the historical fact seems to be that a race subdued by the incas, the yuncas, had one temple to this deity; and that the incas adopted the cult. garcilasso says the yuncas had human sacrifices and idols, which the incas abolished, setting up their monotheistic cult in that one temple. this is sufficiently unlikely; and it may very well have been the fact that the yuncas had offered no sacrifices. but if they did not, it was because their material conditions, like those of the australians and fuegians, had not facilitated the practice; and in that case their "monotheism" likewise would merely represent the ignorant simplicity of a clan-cult. (compare tylor, primitive culture, ii, sq.; brinton, myths of the new world, p. .) on the other hand, if the incas had set up a cult without sacrifices to a so-called one god, their idea would be philosophical, as taking into account the multitude of clan-cults as well as their own national worships, and transcending these. but the outstanding sociological fact in incarial peru was the absolute subjection of the mass of the people; and though its material development and political organization were comparable to those of ancient persia under the akhamenidæ, so that the spanish conquest stood here for mere destruction, there is no reason to think that at the best its intellectual life could have risen higher than that of pre-alexandrian egypt, to which it offers so many resemblances. the incas' schools were for the nobility only. [ ] rationalistic incas and high priests might have ruled over a docile, unlettered multitude, gradually softening their moral code, in connection with their rather highly-developed doctrine (resembling the egyptian) of a future state. but these seem the natural limits, in the absence of contact with another civilization not too disparate for a fruitful union. in mexico, on the other hand, an interaction of native cultures had already occurred to some purpose; and the strange humanitarianism of the man-slaying priests, who made free public hospitals of part of their blood-stained temples, [ ] suggests a possibility of esoteric mental culture among them. they had certainly gone relatively far in their moral code, as apart from their atrocious creed of sacrifice, even if we discount the testimony of the benevolent priest sahagun; [ ] and they had the beginnings of a system of education for the middle classes. [ ] but unless one of the states which habitually warred for captives should have conquered the others--in which case a strong ruler might have put an end to the wholesale religious slaughter of his own subjects, as appears to have been done anciently in mesopotamia--the priests in all likelihood would never have transcended their hideous hallucination of sacrifice. their murdered civilization is thus the "great perhaps" of sociology; organized religion being the most sinister factor in the problem. § . the common forces of degeneration it is implied more or less in all the foregoing summaries that there is an inherent tendency in all systematized and instituted religion to degenerate intellectually and morally, save for the constant corrective activity of freethought. it may be well, however, to note specifically the forms or phases of the tendency. . dogmatic and ritual religion being, to begin with, a more or less general veto on fresh thinking, it lies in its nature that the religious person is as such less intelligently alive to all problems of thought and conduct than he otherwise might be--a fact which at least outweighs, in a whole society, the gain from imposing a terrorized conformity on the less well-biassed types. wherever conduct is a matter of sheer obedience to a superhuman code, it is ipso facto uncritical and unprogressive. thus the history of most religions is a record of declines and reformations, each new affirmation of moral freethought ad hoc being in turn erected into a set of sheer commands. to set up the necessary ferment of corrective thought even for a time, there seems to be needed (a) a provocation to the intelligence, as in the spectacle of conflict of cults; and (b) a provocation to the moral sense and to self-interest through a burdensome pressure of rites or priestly exactions. an exceptional personality, of course, may count for much in the making of a movement; though the accident of the possession of kingly power by a reformer seems to count for much more than does genius. . the fortunes of such reactions are determined by socio-economic or political conditions. they are seen to be at a minimum, as to energy and social effect, in the conditions of greatest social invariability, as in ancient egypt, where progress in thought, slow at best, was confined to the priestly and official class, and never affected popular culture. . in the absence of social conditions fitted to raise popular levels of life and thought, every religious system tends to worsen intellectually in the sense of adding to its range of superstition--that is, of ignorant and unreasoning belief. credulity has its own momentum. even the possession of limitary sacred books cannot check this tendency--e.g., hinduism, judaism, mohammedanism, mazdeism, christianity up till the age of doubt and science, and the systems of ancient egypt, babylon, and post-confucian china. this worsening can take place alongside of a theoretic purification of belief within the sphere of the educated theological class. christian writers have undertaken to show that such deterioration went on continuously in india from the beginning of the vedic period, popular religion sinking from varuna to indra, from indra to the deities of the atharva veda, and from these to the puranas (cp. dr. j. murray mitchell, hinduism past and present, , pp. , , , ). the argument, being hostile in bias from the beginning, ignores or denies the element of intellectual advance in the upanishads and other later literature; but it holds good of the general phenomena. it holds good equally, however, of the history of christianity in the period of the supremacy of ignorant faith and absence of doubt and science; and is relatively applicable to the religion of the uneducated mass at any time and place. on the other hand, it is not at all true that religious history is from the beginning, in any case, a process of mere degeneration from a pure ideal. simple statements as to primitive ideas are found to be misleading because of their simplicity. they can connote only the ethic of the life conditions of the worshipper. now, we have seen (p. ) that small primitive peoples living at peace and in communism, or in some respects well placed, may be on that account in certain moral respects superior to the average or mass of more civilized and more intelligent peoples. [as to the kindliness and unselfishness of some savages, living an almost communal life, and as to the scrupulous honesty of others, there is plenty of evidence--e.g., as to andaman islanders, max müller, anthrop. relig., citing colonel cadell, p. ; as to malays and papuans, dr. russel wallace, malay archipelago, p. (but cp. pp. , , ); as to esquimaux, keane, man, p. ; reclus, primitive folk, pp. , , (but cp. pp. - ). in these and other cases unselfishness within the tribe is the concomitant of the communal life, and represents no conscious ethical volition, being concurrent with phases of the grossest tribal egoism, in some cases with cannibalism, and with the perpetual oppression of women. in the case of the preaching of unselfishness to the young by the old among the australians, where lubbock and his authorities see "the tyranny of the old" (origin of civilization, th ed. pp. - ) mr. lang sees a pure primeval ethic. obviously the other is the true explanation. the closest and best qualified observers testify, as regards a number of tribes: "so far as anything like moral precepts are concerned in these tribes ... it appears to us to be most probable that they have originated in the first instance in association with the purely selfish ideas of the older men to keep all the best things for themselves, and in no case whatever are they supposed to have the sanction of a superior being" (spencer and gillen, north. tribes of cent. australia, , p. ).] the transition from that state to one of war and individualism would be in a sense degeneration; but on the other hand the entirely communistic societies are unprogressive. broadly speaking, it is by the path of social individuation that progress in civilization has been made, the early city states and the later large military states ultimately securing within themselves some of the conditions for special development of thought, arts, and knowledge. the residual truth is that the simple religion of the harmless tribe is pro tanto superior to the instituted religion of the more civilized nation with greater heights and lower depths of life, the popular religion in the latter case standing for the worse conditions. but the simple religion did not spring from any higher stage of knowledge. the old theorem revived by mr. lang (making of religion), as to religion having originally been a pure and highly ethical monotheism, from which it degenerated into animism and non-moral polytheism, is at best a misreading of the facts just stated. mr. lang never asks what "supreme being" and "monotheism" mean for savages who know nothing of other men's religions: he virtually takes all the connotations for granted. and as regards the most closely studied of contemporary savages our authorities come to an emphatic conclusion that they have no notion whatever of anything like a supreme being (spencer and gillen, north. tribes of cent. austr. pp. - . cp. a. h. keane, man, p. , as to the "great spirit" of the redskins). for the rest, mr. lang's theory is demonstrably wrong in its ethical interpretation of many anthropological facts, and as it stands is quite irreconcilable with the law of evolution, since it assumes an abstract monotheism as primordial. in general it approximates scientifically to the eighteenth-century doctrine of the superiority of savagery to civilization. (see it criticized in the author's studies in religious fallacy, and christianity and mythology, nd ed. pp. - , sq.) . even primary conditions of material well-being, if not reacted upon by social science or a movement of freethought, may in a comparatively advanced civilization promote religious degeneration. thus abundance of food is favourable to multiplication of sacrifice, and so to priestly predominance. [ ] the possession of domesticated animals, so important to civilization, lends itself to sacrifice in a specially demoralizing degree. but abundant cereal food-supply, making abundant population, may greatly promote human sacrifice--e.g., mexico. the error of mr. lang's method is seen in the use he makes (work cited, pp. - , ) of the fact that certain "low" races--as the australians, andamanese, bushmen, and fuegians--offer no animal sacrifice. he misses the obvious significance of the facts that these unwarlike races have as a rule no domesticated animals and no agriculture, and that their food supply is thus in general precarious. the andamanese, sometimes described (malthus, essay on population, ch. iii, and refs.; g. w. earl, papuans, , pp. - ) as very ill-fed, are sometimes said to be well supplied with fish and game (peschel, races of man, eng. tr. , p. ; max müller, anthrop. rel. citing cadell, p. ); but in any case they have had no agriculture, and seem to have only occasional animal food in the shape of a wild hog (colebrooke in asiatic researches, iv, ). the australians and fuegians, again, have often great difficulty in feeding themselves (peschel, pp. , , ; darwin, voyage, ch. ). it is argued concerning the australian aborigines that "as a rule they have an abundance" (a. f. calvert, the aborigines of western australia, , p. ); but this abundance is made out by cataloguing the whole edible fauna and flora of the coasts and the interior, and ignores the fact that for all hunting peoples food supply is precarious. for the australian, "the difficulty of capturing game with his primitive methods compels him to give his whole time to the quest of food" (keane, man, p. ). in the contrary case of the primitive vedic aryans, well supplied with animals, sacrifices were abundant, and tended to become more so (müller, nat. relig. pp. , ; physical relig. p. ; but cp. pp. , ; mitchell, hinduism, p. ; lefmann, geschichte des alten indiens, in oncken's series, , pp. , - ). of these sacrifices that of the horse seems to have been in aryan use in a most remote period (cp. m. müller, nat. rel. pp. - ; h. böttger, sonnencult der indogermanen, breslau, , pp. - ; preller, römische mythologie, ed. köhler, pp. , , ; griechische mythologie, te aufg. i, ; frazer, golden bough, ii, ). max müller's remark (physical religion, p. ), that "the idea of sacrifice did not exist at a very early period," because there is no common aryan term for it, counts for nothing, as he admits (p. ) that the sanskrit word cannot be traced back to any more general root; and he concedes the antiquity of the practice. on this cp. mitchell, hinduism, pp. - ; and the author's pagan christs, nd ed. p. . the reform in hindu sacrifice, consummated by buddhism, has been noted above. . even scientific knowledge, while enabling the thoughtful to correct their religious conceptions, in some forms lends itself easily to the promotion of popular superstition. thus the astronomy of the babylonians, while developing some skepticism, served in general to encourage divination and fortune-telling; and seems to have had the same effect when communicated to the chinese, the hindus, and the hebrews, all of whom, however, practised divination previously on other bases. . finally, the development of the arts of sculpture and painting, unaccompanied by due intellectual culture, tends to keep religion at a low anthropomorphic level, and worsens its psychology by inviting image-worship. [ ] it is not that the earlier and non-artistic religions are not anthropomorphic, but that they give more play for intellectual imagination than does a cult of images. but where the arts have been developed, idolatry has always arisen save when resisted by a special activity or revival of freethought to that end; and even in protestant christendom, where image-worship is tabooed, religious pictures now promote popular credulity and ritualism as they did in the italian renaissance. [ ] so manifold are the forces of intellectual degeneration--degeneration, that is, from an attained ideal or stage of development, not from any primordial knowledge. chapter iv relative freethought in israel the modern critical analysis of the hebrew sacred books has made it sufficiently clear that in jewish as in all other ancient history progress in religion was by way of evolving an ethical and sole deity out of normal primitive polytheism. [ ] what was special to the hebrews was the set of social conditions under which the evolution took place. through these conditions it was that the relative freethought which rejected normal polytheism was so far favoured as to lead to a pronounced monotheistic cultus, though not to a philosophic monotheism. § as seen in their earliest historical documents (especially portions of the book of judges), the hebrews are a group of agricultural and pastoral but warlike tribes of semitic speech, with household gods and local deities, [ ] living among communities at the same or a higher culture stage. their ancestral legends show similar religious practice. [ ] of the hebrew tribes some may have sojourned for a time in egypt; but this is uncertain, the written record being a late and in large part deliberately fictitious construction. [ ] at one time twelve such tribes may have confederated, in conformity with a common ancient superstition, seen in arab and greek history as well as in the jewish, as to the number twelve. as they advanced in civilization, on a basis of city life existing among a population settled in canaan before them, parts of which they conquered, one of their public cults, that of yahu or yahweh, finally fixed at jerusalem, became politically important. the special worshippers of this god (supposed to have been at first a thunder-god or nature-god) [ ] were in that sense monotheists; but not otherwise than kindred neighbouring communities such as the ammonites and moabites and edomites, each of which had its special god, like the cities of babylonia and egypt. but that the earlier conceptions of the people had assumed a multiplicity of gods is clear from the fact that even in the later literary efforts to impose the sole cult of yahweh on the people, the plural name elohim, "powers" or "gods" (in general, things to be feared), [ ] is retained, either alone or with that of yahweh prefixed, though cosmology had previously been written in yahweh's name. the yahwists did not scruple to combine an elohistic narrative, varying from theirs in cosmology and otherwise, with their own. [ ] as to the original similarity of hebraic and other canaanite religions cp. e. meyer, gesch. des alt. §§ - (i, - ); kuenen, i, ; wellhausen, israel, p. ; winckler, gesch. israels, passim; réville, prolég. de l'hist. des relig. , p. . "before being monotheistic, israel was simply monolatrous, and even that only in its religious élite" (réville). "their [the canaanites'] worship was the same in principle as that of israel, but it had a higher organization" (menzies, hist. of rel. p. ; cp. tiele, outlines, pp. - ). on the side of the traditional view, mr. lang, while sharply challenging most of the propositions of the higher critics, affirms that "we know that israel had, in an early age, the conception of the moral eternal; we know that, at an early age, the conception was contaminated and anthropomorphized; and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction" (making of religion, p. ). if "we know" this, the discussion is at an end. but mr. lang's sole documentary basis for the assertion is just the fabricated record, reluctantly abandoned by theological scholars as such. when this is challenged, mr. lang falls back on the position that such low races as the australians and fuegians have a "moral supreme being," and that therefore israel "must" have had one (p. ). it will be found, however, that the ethic of these races is perfectly primitive, on mr. lang's own showing, and that his estimate is a misinterpretation. as to their supreme beings, it might suffice to compare mr. lang's making of religion, chs. ix, xii, with his earlier myth, ritual, and religion, i, , ; ii, , etc.; but, as we have seen (above, p. ), the supreme being of the australians eludes the closest search in a number of tribes; and the "moral" factor is equally intangible. mr. lang in his later reasoning has merely added the ambiguous and misleading epithet "supreme," stressing it indefinitely, to the ordinary god-idea of the lower races. (cp. cox, mythol. of aryan races, ed. , p. ; and k. o. müller, introd. to sci. mythol. eng. tr. p. .) there being thus no highly imagined "moral eternal" in the religion of primitive man, the hebrews were originally in the ordinary position. their early practice of human sacrifice is implied in the legend of abraham and isaac, and in the story of jephthah. (cp. micah vi, , and kuenen on the passage, i, .) in their reputed earliest prophetic books we find them addicted to divination (hosea iv, ; micah v, . cp. the prohibition in lev. xx, ; also kings xxiii, , and isa. iii, ; as to the use of the ephod, teraphim, and urim and thummim, see kuenen, relig. of israel, eng. tr. i, - ) and to polytheism. (amos v, , viii, ; hosea i, , , etc. cp. jud. viii, ; sam. vii, .) these things mr. lang seems to admit (p. , note), despite his previous claim; but he builds (p. ) on the fact that the hebrews showed little concern about a future state--that "early israel, having, so far as we know, a singular lack of interest in the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to developing, undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteous eternal"--whereas later greeks and romans, like egyptians, were much concerned about life after death. mr. lang's own general theory would really require that all peoples at a certain stage should act like the israelites; but he suspends it in the interest of the orthodox view as to the early hebrews. at the same time he omits to explain why the hebrews failed to adopt the future-state creed when they were "contaminated"--a proposition hardly reconcilable, on any view, with the sentence just quoted. the solution, however, is simple. israel was not at all "singular" in the matter. the early (homeric) greeks and romans (cp. as to hades the iliad, passim; odyssey, bk. xi, passim; tiele, outlines, p. , as to the myth of persephone; and preller, römische mythologie, ed. köhler, , pp. - , as to the early romans), like the early vedic aryans (tiele, outlines, p. ; müller, anthropol. relig. p. ), and the early babylonians and assyrians (meyer, gesch. des alt. i, - ; sayce, hib. lect. p. ) took little thought of a future state. "homer knows no influence of the psyche on the realm of the visible, and also no cult implying it.... a later poet, who made the last addition to the odyssey, first introduced hermes the 'leader of souls' [perhaps taken from a popular belief in some part of hellas].... underneath, in the gloomy shades, the souls waver, unconscious or at the best in a glimmering half-consciousness, endowed with faint voices, feeble, indifferent.... to speak, as do many old and recent scholars, of the 'immortal life' of such souls, is erroneous. they live rather as the spectre of the living in a mirror.... if the psyche outlives her visible mate (the body), she is powerless without him.... thus is the homeric world free from ghosts (for after the burning of the body the psyche appears no more even in dream).... the living has peace from the dead.... no dæmonic power is at work apart from or against the gods; and the night gives to the disembodied spirits no freedom" (rohde, psyche, te aufl. , pp. - ). this minimization of the normal primitive belief in spirits is one of the reasons for seeing in the homeric poems the outcome of a period of loosened belief. it is not to be supposed that the pre-homeric greeks, like the easterns with whom the greeks met in ionia, had not the usual ghost-lore of savages and barbarians; and it may be that for all the early civilizations under notice the explanation is that primitive ghost-cults were abandoned by migrating and conquering races, who rejected the ghost-cults of the races whom they conquered, though they ostensibly accepted their gods. in any case they made little religious account of a future state for themselves. this attitude has again been erroneously regarded (e.g., dickinson, the greek view of life, p. ) as peculiar to the greeks. mr. lang's assumption may, in fact, be overthrown by the single case of the phoenicians, who showed no more concern about a future life than did the hebrews (see canon rawlinson's history of phoenicia, , pp. - ), but who are not pretended to have given themselves up much to "developing, undisturbed, the belief in a righteous eternal." the truth seems to be that in all the early progressive and combative civilizations the main concern was as to the continuance of this life. on that head the hebrews were as solicitous as any (cp. kuenen, i, ); and they habitually practised divination on that score. further, they attached the very highest importance to the continuance of the individual in his offspring. the idea of a future state is first found highly developed in the long-lived cults of the long-civilized but unprogressive egyptians; and the babylonians were developing in the same direction. yet the hebrews took it up (see the evidence in schürer, jewish people in the time of jesus, eng. tr. div. ii, vol. ii, p. ) just when, according to mr. lang, their cult was "rescued, in a great degree, from corruption"; and, generally speaking, it was in the stage of maximum monotheism that they reached the maximum of irrationality. for the rest, belief in "immortality" is found highly developed in a sociologically "degenerate" and unprogressive people such as the tasmanians (müller, anthrop. rel. p. ), who are yet primitively pure on mr. lang's hypothesis; and is normal among negroes and australian blackfellows. this primary polytheism is seen to the full in that constant resort of israelites to neighbouring cults, against which so much of the hebrew doctrine is directed. to understand their practice the modern reader has to get rid of the hallucination imposed on christendom by its idea of revelation. the cult of yahweh was no primordial hebrew creed, deserted by backsliding idolaters, but a finally successful tyranny of one local cult over others. it is probable that it was originally not palestinian, but sinaitic, and that yahweh became the god of caleb-judah only under david. [ ] therefore, without begging the question as to the moral sincerity of the prophets and others who identified yahwism with morality, we must always remember that they were on their own showing devotees of a special local worship, and so far fighting for their own influence. similar prophesying may conceivably have been carried on in connection with the same or other god-names in other localities, and the extant prophets freely testify that they had yahwistic opponents; but the circumstance that yahweh was worshipped at jerusalem without any image might be an important cause of differentiation in the case of that cult. in any case it must have been through simple "exclusivism" that they reached any form of "monotheism." [ ] the inveterate usage, in the bible-making period, of forging and interpolating ancient or pretended writings, makes it impossible to construct any detailed history of the rise of yahwism. we can but proceed upon data which do not appear to lend themselves to the purposes of the later adaptors. in that way we see cause to believe that at one early centre the so-called ark of yahweh contained various objects held to have supernatural virtue. [ ] in the older historic documents it has, however, no such sacredness as accrues to it later, [ ] and no great traditional prestige. this ark, previously moved from place to place as a fetish, [ ] is said to have been transferred to jerusalem by the early king david, [ ] whose story, like that of his predecessors saul and his son solomon, is in part blended with myth. as to david, compare sam. xvi, , with xvii, , . daoud (= dodo = dumzi = tammuz = adonis) was a semitic deity (sayce, hib. lec. pp. - , and art. "the names of the first three kings of israel," in modern review, jan. ), whom david resembles as an inventor of the lyre (amos, vi, ; cp. hitzig, die psalmen, theil, , p. ). but saul and solomon also were god-names (sayce, as cited), as was samuel (id. pp. , ; cp. lenormant, chaldean magic, eng. tr. p. ); and when we note these data, and further the plain fact that samson is a solar myth, being a personage evemerized from samas, the sun-god, we are prepared to find further traces of evemeristic redaction in the hebrew books. to say nothing of other figures in the book of judges, we find that jacob and joseph were old canaanitish deities (sayce, lectures, p. ; records of the past, new series, v, ; hugo winckler, geschichte israels, ii, - ); and that moses, as might be expected, was a name for more than one semitic god (sayce, pp. - ), and in particular stood for a sun-god. abraham and isaac in turn appear to be ancient deities (meyer, gesch. des alt. i, , § ; winckler, gesch. israels, ii, - ). miriam was probably in similar case (cp. pagan christs, nd ed. pp. - ). on an analysis of the joshua myth as redacted, further, we may surmise another reduction of an ancient cult to the form of history, perhaps obscuring the true original of the worship of mary and jesus. it seems probable, finally, that such figures as elijah, who ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot, and elisha, the "bald head" and miracle-worker, are similar constructions of personages out of sun-god lore. in such material lies part of the refutation of the thesis of renan (hist, des langues sémit. e édit. pp. , ) that the semites were natural monotheists, devoid of mythology. [renan is followed in whole or in part by nöldeke, sketches from eastern hist. eng. tr. p. ; soury, relig. of israel, eng. tr. pp. , ; spiegel, erânische alterthumskunde, i, ; also roscher, draper, peschel, and bluntschli, as cited by goldziher, mythology among the hebrews, eng. tr. p. , note. on the other side compare goldziher, ch. i; steinthal's prometheus and samson, eng. tr. (with goldziher), pp. , , etc., and his geschichte der sprachwissenschaft bei den griechen und den römern, , pp. - ; kuenen, rel. of israel, i, ; smith, rel. of the semites, p. ; ewald, hist. of israel, eng. tr. th ed. i, - ; müller, chips, i, sq.; selected essays, , ii, sq.; nat. rel. p. .] renan's view seems to be generally connected with the assumption that life in a "desert" makes a race for ever unimaginative or unitary in its thought. the arabian nights might be supposed a sufficient proof to the contrary. the historic truth seems to be that, stage for stage, the ancient semites were as mythological as any other race; but that (to say nothing of the babylonians and assyrians) the mythologies of the hebrews and of the arabs were alike suppressed as far as possible in their monotheistic stage. compare renan's own admissions, pp. , , , and hist. du peuple d'israël, i, - . at other places, however, yahweh was symbolized and worshipped in the image of a young bull, [ ] a usage associated with the neighbouring semitic cult of molech, but probably indigenous, or at least early, in the case of yahweh also. a god, for such worshippers, needed to be represented by something, if he were to be individualized as against others; and where there was not an ark or a sacred stone or special temple or idol there could be no cult at all. "the practices of ancient religion require a fixed meeting-place between the worshippers and their god." [ ] the pre-exilic history of yahweh-worship seems to be in large part that of a struggle between the devotees of the imageless worship fixed to the temple at jerusalem, and other worships, with or without images, at other and less influential shrines. so far as can be gathered from the documents, it was long before monotheistic pretensions were made in connection with yahwism. they must in the first instance have seemed not only tyrannical but blasphemous to the devotees of the old local shrines, who in the earlier hebrew writings figure as perfectly good yahwists; and they clearly had no durable success before the period of the exile. some three hundred years after the supposed period of david, [ ] and again eighty years later, we meet with ostensible traces [ ] of a movement for the special aggrandizement of the yahweh cult and the suppression of the others which competed with it, as well as of certain licentious and vicious practices carried on in connection with yahweh worship. concerning these, it could be claimed by those who had adhered to the simpler tradition of one of the early worships that they were foreign importations. they were, in fact, specialties of a rich ancient society, and were either native to canaanite cities which the hebrews had captured, or copied by them from such cities. but the fact that they were thus, on the showing of the later yahwistic records, long associated with yahwist practice, proves that there was no special elevation about yahwism originally. even the epithet translated "holy" (kadosh) had originally no high moral significance. it simply meant "set apart," "not common" (cp. kuenen, religion of israel, i, ; wellhausen, israel, in prolegomena vol. p. ); and the special substantive (kadesh and kedeshah) was actually the name for the most degraded ministrants of both sexes in the licentious worship (see deut. xxiii, , , and marg. rev. vers. cp. kings xiv, ; xv, ; kings xxiii, ). on the question of early hebrew ethics it is somewhat misleading to cite wellhausen (so lang, making of religion, p. ) as saying (israel, p. ) that religion inspired law and morals in israel with exceptional purity. in the context wellhausen has said that the starting-point of israel was normal; and he writes in the prolegomena (p. ) that "good and evil in hebrew mean primarily nothing more than salutary and hurtful: the application of the words to virtue and sin is a secondary one, these being regarded as serviceable or hurtful in their effects." § given the co-existence of a multitude of local cults, and of various local yahweh-worships, it is conceivable that the yahwists of jerusalem, backed by a priest-ridden king, should seek to limit all worship to their own temple, whose revenues would thereby be much increased. but insoluble perplexities are set up as to the alleged movement by the incongruities in the documents. passing over for the moment the prophets amos and hosea and others who ostensibly belong to the eighth century b.c., we find the second priestly reform, [ ] consequent on a finding or framing of "the law," represented as occurring early in the reign of josiah ( - b.c.). but later in the same reign are placed the writings of jeremiah, who constantly contemns the scribes, prophets, and priests in mass, and makes light of the ark, [ ] besides declaring that in judah [ ] there are as many gods as towns, and in jerusalem as many baal-altars as streets. the difficulty is reduced by recognizing the quasi-historical narrative as a later fabrication; but other difficulties remain as to the prophetic writings; and for our present purpose it is necessary briefly to consider these. . the "higher criticism," seeking solid standing-ground at the beginning of the tangible historic period, the eighth century, singles out [ ] the books of amos and hosea, setting aside, as dubious in date, nahum and joel; and recognizing in isaiah a composite of different periods. if amos, the "herdsman of tekoa," could be thus regarded as an indubitable historical person, he would be a remarkable figure in the history of freethought, as would his nominal contemporary hosea. amos is a monotheist, worshipping not a god of israel but a yahweh or elohim of hosts, called also by the name adon or adonai, "the lord," who rules all the nations and created the universe. further, the prophet makes yahweh "hate and despise" the feasts and burnt-offerings and solemn assemblies of his worshippers; [ ] and he meddles impartially with the affairs of the kingdoms of judah and israel. in the same spirit hosea menaces the solemn assemblies, and makes yahweh desire "mercy and not sacrifice." [ ] similar doctrine occurs in the reputedly genuine or ancient parts of isaiah, [ ] and in micah. [ ] isaiah, too, disparages the sabbath and solemn meetings, staking all upon righteousness. . these utterances, so subversive of the priestly system, are yet held to have been preserved through the ages--through the assyrian conquest, through the babylonian captivity, through the later period of priestly reconstruction--by the priestly system itself. in the state of things pictured under ezra and nehemiah, only the zealous adherents of the priestly law can at the outset have had any letters, any literature; it must have been they, then, who treasured the anti-priestly and anti-ritual writings of the prophets--unless, indeed, the latter were preserved by the jews remaining at babylon. . the perplexity thus set up is greatly deepened when we remember that the period assigned to the earlier prophets is near the beginning of the known age of alphabetic writing, [ ] and before the known age of writing on scrolls. a herdsman of judea, with a classic and flowing style, is held to have written out his hortatory addresses at a time when such writing is not certainly known to have been practised anywhere else; [ ] and the pre-eminent style of isaiah is held to belong to the same period. "his [amos's] language, with three or four insignificant exceptions, is pure, his style classical and refined. his literary power is shown in the regularity of structure which often characterizes his periods ... as well as in the ease with which he evidently writes.... anything of the nature of roughness or rusticity is wholly absent from his writings" (driver, introd. to lit. of old test. ch. vi, § , p. , ed. ). isaiah, again, is in his own narrow field one of the most gifted and skilful writers of all antiquity. the difficulty is thus nearly as great as that of the proposition that the hebrew of the pentateuch is a thousand years older than that of the latest prophetical books, whose language is substantially the same. (cp. andrews norton, the pentateuch, ed. , pp. - ; renan, hist. des langues sémit. e édit. p. .) . the specialist critics, all trained as clergymen, and mostly loth to yield more than is absolutely necessary to skepticism, have surrendered the antiquity claimed for joel, recognizing that the arguments for that are "equally consistent with a date after the captivity." [ ] one of the conclusions here involved is that "egypt is probably mentioned only as the typical instance of a power hostile to judah." thus, when we remember the later jewish practice of speaking of rome as "babylon," or "edom," allusions by amos and hosea to "assyria" have no evidential force. the same reasoning applies to the supposed ancient portions of isaiah. . even on the clerical side, among the less conservative critics, it is already conceded that there are late "insertions" in amos. some of these insertions are among, or analogous to, the very passages relied on by kuenen to prove the lofty monotheism of amos. if these passages, however, suggest a late date, no less do the others disparaging sacrifices. the same critics find interpolations and additions in hosea. but they offer no proof of the antiquity of what they retain. the principal passages in amos given up as insertions by dr. cheyne, the most perspicacious of the english hebraists, are: iv, ; v, - ; ix, - ; and ix, - . see his introduction to ed. of prof. robertson smith's prophets of israel, p. xv; and his art. on amos in the encyclopædia biblica. compare kuenen, i, , . dr. cheyne regards as insertions in hosea the following: i, -ii, ; "and david their king" in iii, ; viii, ; and xiv, - (as cited, pp. xviii-xix). obviously these admissions entail others. . the same school of criticism, while adhering to the traditional dating of amos and hosea, has surrendered the claim for the psalms, placing most of these in the same age with the books of job, proverbs, ecclesiastes, and ecclesiasticus. [ ] now, the sentiment of opposition to burnt-offerings is found in some of the psalms in language identical with that of the supposed early prophets. [ ] instead of taking the former for late echoes of the latter, we may reasonably suspect that they belong to the same culture-stage. the principle is in effect recognized by dr. cheyne when he writes: "just as we infer from the reference to cyrus in xliv, ; xlv, , that the prophecy containing it proceeds from the age of the conqueror, so we may infer from the fraternal feeling towards egypt and assyria (syria) in xix, - , that the epilogue was written when hopes of the union and fusion of israelitish and non-israelitish elements first became natural for the jews--i.e., in the early jewish period" (introd. to the book of isaiah, , pp. - ). . from the scientific point of view, finally, the element of historical prediction in the prophets is one of the strongest grounds for presuming that they are in reality late documents. in regard to similar predictions in the gospels (mt. xxiv, ; mk. xiii, ; lk. xxi, ), rational criticism decides that they were written after the event. no other course can consistently be taken as to early hebrew predictions of captivity and restoration; and the adherence of many biblical scholars at this point to the traditional view is psychologically on a par with their former refusal to accept a rational estimate of the pentateuchal narrative. on some points, such as the flagrant pseudo-prediction in isaiah xix, , all reasonable critics surrender. thus "könig sees rightly that xix, , can refer only to jewish colonies in egypt, and refrains from the arbitrary supposition that isaiah was supernaturally informed of the future establishment of such colonies" (cheyne, introd. to smith's prophets of israel, p. xxxiii). but in other cases dr. cheyne's own earlier positions appear to involve such an "arbitrary supposition," as do kuenen's; and smith explicitly posited it as to the prophets in general. and even as to isaiah xix, , whereas hitzig, as havet later, rightly brings the date down to the actual historic time of the establishment of the temple at heliopolis by onias (josephus, ant. xiii, , ; wars, vii, , ), about b.c., dr. cheyne (introd. to isaiah, p. ) compromises by dating it about b.c. the lateness of the bulk of the prophetical writings has been ably argued by ernest havet (le christianisme et ses origines, vol. iv, , ch. vi; and in the posthumous vol., la modernité des prophètes, ), who supports his case by many cogent reasonings. for instance, besides the argument as to isaiah xix, , above noted: ( ) the frequent prediction of the ruin of tyre by nebuchadnezzar (isa. ch. xxiii; jer. xxv, ; ezek. xxvi, ; ch. xxvii), false as to him (a fact which might be construed as a proof of the fallibility of the prophets and the candour of their transcribers), is to be understood in the light of other post-predictions as referring to the actual capture of the city by alexander. ( ) hosea's prediction of the fall of judah as well as of israel, and of their being united, places the passage after the exile, and may even be held to bring it down to the period of the asmoneans. so with many other details: the whole argument deserves careful study. m. havet's views were, of course, scouted by the conservative specialists, as their predecessors scouted the entire hypothesis of graf, now taken in its essentials as the basis of sound biblical criticism. m. scherer somewhat unintelligently objected to him (Études sur la litt. contemp. vii, ) that he was not a hebraist. there is no question of philology involved. it was non-hebraists who first pointed out the practical incredibility of the central pentateuchal narrative, on the truth of which kuenen himself long stood with other hebraists. (cp. wellhausen, proleg. pp. , ; also his ( th) ed. of bleek's einleit. in das alte test. , p. ; and kuenen, hexateuch, eng. tr. pp. xv, .) colenso's argument, in the gist of which he was long preceded by lay freethinkers, was one of simple common sense. the weak side of m. havet's case is his undertaking to bring the prophets bodily down to the maccabean period. this is claiming too much. but his negative argument is not affected by the reply (darmesteter, les prophètes d'israël, , pp. - ) to his constructive theory. [since the above was written, two french critics, mm. dujardin and maurice vernes, have sought vigorously to reconstruct the history of the prophetic books upon new lines. i have been unable to acquiesce in their views at essential points, but would refer the reader to the lucid and interesting survey of the problem in mr. t. whittaker's priests, philosophers, and prophets (black, ), ch. vi.] it is true that where hardly any documentary datum is intrinsically sure, it is difficult to prove a negative for one more than for another. the historical narratives being systematically tampered with by one writer after another, and even presumptively late writings being interpolated by still later scribes, we can never have demonstrative proof as to the original date of any one prophet. thus it is arguable that fragments of utterance from eighth-century prophets may have survived orally and been made the nucleus of later documents. this view would be reconcilable with the fact that the prophets isaiah, hosea, amos, and micah are all introduced with some modification of the formula that they prophesied "in the days of uzziah, jotham, ahaz, and hezekiah, kings of judah," jeroboam's name being added in the cases of hosea and amos. but that detail is also reconcilable with absolute fabrication. to say nothing of sheer bad faith in a community whose moral code said nothing against fraud save in the form of judicial perjury, the hebrew literature is profoundly compromised by the simple fact that the religious development of the people made the prestige of antiquity more essential there for the purposes of propaganda than in almost any other society known to us. hence an all-pervading principle of literary dissimulation; and what freethinking there was had in general to wear the guise of the very force of unreasoning traditionalism to which it was inwardly most opposed. only thus could new thought find a hearing and secure its preservation at the hands of the tribe of formalists. even the pessimist koheleth, wearied with groping science, yet believing nothing of the doctrine of immortality, must needs follow precedent and pose as the fabulous king solomon, son of the half-mythic david. § we are forced, then, to regard with distrust all passages in the "early" prophets which express either a disregard of sacrifice and ritual, or a universalism incongruous with all that we know of the native culture of their period. the strongest ground for surmising a really "high" development of monotheism in judah before the captivity is the stability of the life there as compared with northern israel. [ ] in this respect the conditions might indeed be considered favourable to priestly or other culture; but, on the other hand, the records themselves exhibit a predominant polytheism. the presumption, then, is strong that the "advanced" passages in the prophets concerning sacrifice belong to an age when such ideas had been reached in more civilized nations, with whose thought travelled jews could come in contact. it is true that some such ideas were current in egypt many centuries before the period under notice--a fact which alone discounts the ethical originality claimed for the hebrew prophets. e.g., the following passage from the papyrus of ani, belonging to the nineteenth dynasty, not later than b.c.: "that which is detestable in the sanctuary of god is noisy feasts; if thou implore him with a loving heart of which all the words are mysterious, he will do thy matters, he hears thy words, he accepts thine offerings" (religion and conscience in ancient egypt, by flinders petrie, , p. ). the word rendered "mysterious" here may mean "magical" or "liturgical," or may merely prescribe privacy or silence; and this last is the construction put upon it by renouf (hibbert lectures, nd ed. p. ) and erman (handbook of eg. relig. eng. tr. p. ). the same doctrine is put in a hymn to thoth (id.). but in any case we must look for later culture-contacts as the source of the later hebrew radicalism under notice, though egyptian sources are not to be wholly set aside. see kuenen, i, ; and brugsch, as there cited; but cp. wellhausen, israel, p. . it is clear that not only did they accept a cosmogony from the babylonians, but they were influenced by the lore of the zoroastrian persians, with whom, as with the monotheists or pantheists of babylon, they would have grounds of sympathy. it is an open question whether their special hostility to images does not date from the time of persian contact. [ ] concerning the restoration, it has been argued that only a few jewish exiles returned to jerusalem "both under cyrus and under dareios"; and that, though the temple was rebuilt under dareios hystaspis, the builders were not the gola or returned exiles, but that part of the judahite population which had not been deported to babylon. [ ] the problem is obscure; [ ] but, at least, the separatist spirit of the redacted narratives of ezra and nehemiah (which in any case tell of an opposite spirit) is not to be taken as a decisive clue to the character of the new religion. for the rest, the many jews who remained in babylon or spread elsewhere in the persian empire, and who developed their creed on a non-local basis, were bound to be in some way affected by the surrounding theology. and it is tolerably certain that not only was the notion of angels derived by the jews from either the babylonians or the persians, but their rigid sabbath and their weekly synagogue meetings came from one or both of these sources. that the sabbath was an akkado-babylonian and assyrian institution is now well established (g. smith, assyrian eponym canon, , p. ; jastrow, relig. of bab. and assyria, p. ; sayce, hib. lect. p. , and in variorum teacher's bible, ed. , aids, p. ). it was before the fact was ascertained that kuenen wrote of the sabbath (i, ) as peculiar to israel. the hebrews may have had it before the exile; but it was clearly not then a great institution; and the mention of sabbaths in amos (viii, ) and isaiah (i, ) is one of the reasons for doubting the antiquity of those books. the custom of synagogue meetings on the sabbath is post-exilic, and may have arisen either in babylon itself (so wellhausen, israel, p. ) or in imitation of parsee practice (so tiele, cited by kuenen, iii, ). compare e. meyer, gesch. des alt. iii ( ), § . the same alternative arises with regard to the belief in angels, usually regarded as certainly persian in origin (cp. kuenen, iii, ; tiele, outlines, p. ; and sack, die altjüdische religion, , p. ). this also could have been babylonian (sayce, in var. bible, as cited, p. ); even the demon asmodeus in the book of tobit, usually taken as persian, being of babylonian derivation (id.). cp. darmesteter's introd. to zendavesta, nd ed. ch. v. on the other hand, the conception of satan, the adversary, as seen in chr. xxi, ; zech. iii, , , seems to come from the persian ahriman, though the satan of job has not ahriman's status. such a modification would come of the wish to insist on the supremacy of the good god. and this quasi-monotheistic view, again, we are led to regard, in the case of the prophets, as a possible babylonian derivation, or at least as a result of the contact of yahwists with babylonian culture. to a foreign influence, finally, must be definitely attributed the later priestly code, over-ruling deuteronomy, lowering the levites, setting up a high priest, calling the dues into the sanctuary, resting on the torah the cultus which before was rested on the patriarchs, and providing cities and land for the aaronidae and the levites (wellhausen, prolegomena, pp. , , , , ; israel, pp. , )--the latter an arrangement impossible in mountainous palestine, as regards the land-measurements (id. proleg. p. , following gramberg and graf), and clearly deriving from some such country as babylonia or persia. as to the high-priest principle in babylon and assyria, see sayce, hibbert lectures, pp. - ; jastrow, as cited, p. . of the general effect of such contacts we have clear traces in two of the most remarkable of the later books of the old testament, job and ecclesiastes, both of which clearly belong to a late period in religious development. the majority of the critics still confidently describe job as an original hebrew work, mainly on the ground, apparently, that it shows no clear marks of translation, though its names and its local colour are all non-jewish. in any case it represents, for its time, a cosmopolitan culture, and contains the work of more than one hand, the prologue and epilogue being probably older than the rest; while much of the dialogue is obviously late interpolation. compare cheyne, job and solomon, , p. ; bradley, lectures on job, p. ; bleek-wellhausen, einleitung, § ( ), ed. , p. ; driver, introd. pp. - ; cornill, einleit. in das alte test. te. aufl. , §§ , ; sharpe, hist. of the hebrew nation, th ed. p. sq.; dillon, skeptics of the old test. , pp. - . renan's dating of the book six or seven centuries before ecclesiastes (l'ecclésiaste, p. ; job, pp. xv-xliii) is oddly uncritical. it must clearly be dated after jeremiah and ezekiel (dillon, as cited); and cornill even ascribes it to the fourth or third century b.c. dr. cheyne notes that in the skeptical passages the name yahweh is very seldom used (only once or twice, as in xii, ; xxviii, ); and dr. driver admits that the whole book not only abounds in aramaic words, but has a good many "explicable only from the arabic." other details in the book suggest the possible culture-influence of the himyarite arabs, who had reached a high civilization before b.c. dr. driver's remark that "the thoughts are thoroughly hebraic" burkes the entire problem as to the manifest innovation the book makes in hebrew thought and literary method alike. sharpe (p. ) is equally arbitrary. cp. renan, job, , pp. xxv, where the newness of the whole treatment is admitted. dr. dillon (pp. - ), following bickell, has pointed out more or less convincingly the many interpolations made in the book after, and even before, the making of the septuagint translation, which originally lacked lines of the matter in the present hebrew version. the discovery of the saidic version of the lxx text of job decides the main fact. (see professor bickell's das buch job, .) "it is quite possible even now to point out, by the help of a few disjointed fragments still preserved, the position, and to divine the sense, of certain spiteful and defiant passages, which, in the interest of 'religion and morals,' were remorselessly suppressed; to indicate others which were split up and transposed; and to distinguish many prolix discourses, feeble or powerful word-pictures, and trite commonplaces, which were deliberately inserted later on, for the sole purpose of toning down the most audacious piece of rationalistic philosophy which has ever yet been clothed in the music of sublime verse" (dillon, pp. - ). "besides the four hundred verses which must be excluded on the ground that they are wanting in the septuagint version, and were therefore added to the text at a comparatively recent period, the long-winded discourse of elihu must be struck out, most [? much] of which was composed before the book was first translated into greek.... in the prologue in prose ... elihu is not once alluded to; and in the epilogue, where all the [other] debaters are named and censured, he ... is absolutely ignored.... elihu's style is toto coelo different from that of the other parts of the poem; ... while his doctrinal peculiarities, particularly his mention of interceding angels, while they coincide with those of the new testament, are absolutely unknown to job and his friends.... the confusion introduced into the text by this insertion is bewildering in the extreme; and yet the result is but a typical specimen of the ... tangle which was produced by the systematic endeavour of later and pious editors to reduce the poem to the proper level of orthodoxy" (id. pp. - ). again: "ch. xxiv, - , - , and ch. xxx, - , take the place of job's blasphemous complaint about the unjust government of the world." it need hardly be added here that not only the authorized but the revised version is false in the text "i know that my redeemer liveth," etc. (xix, - ), that being a perversion dating from jerome. the probable meaning is given in dr. dillon's version:-- but i know that my avenger liveth; though it be at the end upon my dust, my witness will avenge these things, and a curse alight upon mine enemies. the original expressed a complete disbelief in a future life (ch. xiv). compare dr. dillon's rhythmic version of the restored text. what marks off the book of job from all other hebrew literature is its dramatic and reflective handling of the ethical problem of theism, which the prophets either evade or dismiss by declamation against jewish sins. not that it is solved in job, where the rôle of satan is an inconclusive resort to the persian dualistic solution, and where the deity is finally made to answer job's freethinking by sheer literary thunder, much less ratiocinative though far more artistic than the theistic speeches of the friends. but at least the writer or writers of job's speeches consciously grasped the issue; and the writer of the epilogue evidently felt that the least yahweh could do was to compensate a man whom he had allowed to be wantonly persecuted. the various efforts of ancient thought to solve the same problem will be found to constitute the motive power in many later heterodox systems, theistic and atheistic. broadly speaking, it is solved in practice in terms of the fortunes of priests and worshippers. at all stages of religious evolution extreme ill-fortune tends to detach men from the cults that have failed to bring them succour. be it in the case of african indigenes slaying their unsuccessful rain-doctor, anglo-saxon priests welcoming christianity as a surer source of income than their old worship, pagans turning christian at the fall of julian, or christians going over to islam at the sight of its triumph--the simple primary motive of self-interest is always potent on this as on other sides; and at all stages of jewish history, it is evident, there were many who held by yahweh because they thought he prospered them, or renounced him because he did not. and the very vicissitude of things would breed a general skepticism. [ ] in zephaniah (i, ) there is a specific allusion to those "that say in their heart, the lord will not do good, neither will he do evil." judaism is thus historically a series of socio-political selections rather than a sequence of hereditary transmission. the first definite and exclusive yahwistic cult was an outcome of special political conditions; and its priests would adhere to it in adversity insofar as they had no other economic resort. every return of sunshine, on the other hand, would minister to faith; and while many jews in the time of assyro-babylonian ascendancy decided that yahweh could not save, those yahwists who in the actual captivity prospered commercially in the new life would see in such prosperity a fresh proof of yahweh's support, [ ] and would magnify his name and endow his priests accordingly. for similar reasons, the most intense development of judaism occurs after the maccabean revolt, when the military triumph of the racial remnant over its oppressors inspired a new and enduring enthusiasm. on the other hand, foreign influences would chronically tend to promote doubt, especially where the foreigner was not a mere successful votary exalting his own god, but a sympathetic thinker questioning all the godisms alike. this consideration is a reason the more for surmising a partly foreign source for the book of job, where, as in the passage cited from zephaniah, there is no thought of one deity being less potent than another, but rather an impeachment of divine rule in terms of a conceptual monotheism. in any case, the book stands for more than jewish reverie; and where it is finally turned to an irrelevant and commonplace reaffirmation of the goodness of deity, a certain number of sincerer thinkers in all likelihood fell back on an "agnostic" solution of the eternal problem. in certain aspects the book of job speaks for a further reach of early freethinking than is seen in ecclesiastes (koheleth), which, however, at its lower level of conviction, tells of an unbelief that could not be overborne by any rhetoric. it unquestionably derives from late foreign influences. it is true that even in the book of malachi, which is commonly dated about b.c., there is angry mention of some who ask, "where is the god of judgment?" and say, "it is vain to serve god"; [ ] even as others had said it in the days of assyrian oppression; [ ] but in malachi these sentiments are actually associated with foreign influences, and in koheleth such influences are implicit. by an increasing number of students, though not yet by common critical consent, the book is dated about b.c., when greek influence was stronger in jewry than at any previous time. grätz even puts it as late as the time of herod the great. but compare dillon, p. ; tyler, ecclesiastes, , p. ; plumptre's ecclesiastes, , introd. p. ; renan, l'ecclésiaste, , pp. - ; kuenen, religion of israel, iii, ; driver, introduction, pp. - ; bleek-wellhausen, einleitung, p. . dr. cheyne and some others still put the date before b.c. here again we are dealing with a confused and corrupted text. the german prof. bickell has framed an ingenious and highly plausible theory to the effect that the present incoherence of the text is mainly due to a misplacing of the leaves of the copy from which the current transcript was made. see it set forth by dillon, pp. - ; cp. cheyne, job and solomon, p. sq. there has, further, been some tampering. the epilogue, in particular, is clearly the addition of a later hand--"one of the most timid and shuffling apologies ever penned" (dillon, p. , note). but the thought of the book is, as renan says, profoundly fatigued; and the sombre avowals of the absence of divine moral government are ill-balanced by sayings, probably interpolated by other hands, averring an ultimate rectification even on earth. what remains unqualified is the deliberate rejection of the belief in a future life, couched in terms that imply the currency of the doctrine; [ ] and the deliberate caution against enthusiasm in religion. belief in a powerful but remote deity, with a minimum of worship and vows, is the outstanding lesson. [ ] "to me, koheleth is not a theist in any vital sense in his philosophic meditations" (cheyne, job and solomon, p. ). "koheleth's pessimistic theory, which has its roots in secularism, is utterly incompatible with the spirit of judaism.... it is grounded upon the rejection of the messianic expectations, and absolute disbelief in the solemn promises of jahveh himself.... it would be idle to deny that he had far more in common with the 'impious' than with the orthodox" (dillon, pp. - ). that there was a good deal of this species of tired or stoical semi-rationalism among the jews of the hellenistic period may be inferred from various traces. the opening verses of the thirtieth chapter of the book of proverbs, attributed to agur, son of jakeh, are admittedly the expression of a skeptic's conviction that god cannot be known, [ ] the countervailing passages being plainly the additions of a believer. agur's utterances probably belong to the close of the third century b.c. here, as in job, there are signs of arab influence; [ ] but at a later period the main source of skepticism for israel was probably the hellenistic civilization. it is told in the talmud that in the maccabean period there came into use the formula, "cursed be the man that cherisheth swine; and cursed be the man that teacheth his son the wisdom of the greeks"; and there is preserved the saying of rabbi simeon, son of gamaliel, that in his father's school five hundred learnt the law, and five hundred the wisdom of the greeks. [ ] before gamaliel, the greek influence had affected jewish philosophic thought; and it is very probable that among the sadducees who resisted the doctrine of resurrection there were some thinkers of the epicurean school. to that school may have belonged the unbelievers who are struck at in several rabbinical passages which account for the sin of adam as beginning in a denial of the omnipresence of god, and describe cain as having said: "there is no judgment; there is no world to come, and there is no reward for the just, and no punishment for the wicked." [ ] but of greek or other atheism there is no direct trace in the hebrew literature; [ ] and the rationalism of the sadducees, who were substantially the priestly party, [ ] was like the rationalism of the brahmans and the egyptian priests--something esoteric and withheld from the multitude. in the apocryphal wisdom of solomon, which belongs to the first century a.c., the denial of immortality, so explicit in ecclesiastes, is treated as a proof of utter immorality, though the deniers are not represented as atheists. [ ] they thus seem to have been still numerous, and the imputation of wholesale immorality to them is of course not to be credited; [ ] but there is no trace of any constructive teaching on their part. so far as the literature shows, save for the confused judaic-platonism of philo of alexandria, there is practically no rational progress in jewish thought after koheleth till the time of contact with revived greek thought in saracen spain. the mass of the people, in the usual way, are found gravitating to the fanatical and the superstitious levels of the current creed. the book of ruth, written to resist the separatism of the post-exilic theocracy, [ ] never altered the jewish practice, though allowed into the canon. the remarkable levitical legislation providing for the periodical restoration of the land to the poor never came into operation, [ ] any more than the very different provision giving land and cities to the children of aaron and the levites. none of the more rationalistic writings in the canon seems ever to have counted for much in the national life. to conceive of "israel," in the fashion still prevalent, as being typified in the monotheistic prophets, whatever their date, is as complete a misconception as it would be to see in mr. ruskin the expression of the everyday ethic of commercial england. the anti-sacrificial and universalist teachings in the prophets and in the psalms never affected, for the people at large, the sacrificial and localized worship at jerusalem; though they may have been esoterically received by some of the priestly or learned class there, and though they may have promoted a continual exodus of the less fanatical types, who turned to other civilizations. despite the resistance of the sadducees and the teaching of job and ecclesiastes, the belief in a resurrection rapidly gained ground [ ] in the two or three centuries before the rise of jesuism, and furnished a basis for the new creed; as did the messianic hope and the belief in a speedy ending of the world, with both of which jewish fanaticism sustained itself under the long frustration of nationalistic faith before the maccabean interlude and after the roman conquest. it was in vain that the great teacher hillel declared, "there is no messiah for israel"; the rest of the race persisted in cherishing the dream. [ ] with the major hallucination thus in full possession, the subordinate species of superstition flourished as in egypt and india; so that at the beginning of our era the jews were among the most superstitious peoples in the world. [ ] when their monotheism was fully established, and placed on an abstract footing by the destruction of the temple, it seems to have had no bettering influence on the practical ethics of the gentiles, though it may have furthered the theistic tendency of the stoic philosophy. juvenal exhibits to us the jew proselyte at rome as refusing to show an unbeliever the way, or guide him to a spring. [ ] sectarian monotheism was thus in part on a rather lower ethical and intellectual [ ] plane than the polytheism, to say nothing of the epicureanism or the stoicism, of the society of the roman empire. it cannot even be said that the learned rabbinical class carried on a philosophic tradition, while the indigent multitude thus discredited their creed. in the period after the fall of jerusalem, the narrow nationalism which had always ruled there seems to have been even intensified. in the talmud "the most general representation of the divine being is as the chief rabbi of heaven; the angelic host being his assessors. the heavenly sanhedrim takes the opinion of living sages in cases of dispute. of the twelve hours of the day three are spent by god in study, three in the government of the world (or rather in the exercise of mercy), three in providing food for the world, and three in playing with leviathan. but since the destruction of jerusalem all amusements were banished from the courts of heaven, and three hours were employed in the instruction of those who had died in infancy." [ ] so little can a nominal monotheism avail, on the basis of a completed sacred book, to keep thought sane when freethought is lacking. finally, judaism played in the world's thought the great reactionary and obscurantist part by erecting into a dogma the irrational conception that its deity made the universe "out of nothing." at the time of the redaction of the book of genesis this dogma had not been glimpsed: the hebrew conception was the babylonian--that of a pre-existent chaos put into shape. but gradually, in the interests of monotheism, the anti-scientific doctrine was evolved [ ] by way of negative to that of the gentiles; and where the great line of ionian thinkers passed on to the modern world the developed conception of an eternal universe, [ ] judaism passed on through christianity, as well as in its own "philosophy," the contrary dogma, to bar the way of later science. chapter v freethought in greece the highest of all the ancient civilizations, that of greece, was naturally the product of the greatest possible complex of culture-forces; [ ] and its rise to pre-eminence begins after the contact of the greek settlers in Æolia and ionia with the higher civilizations of asia minor. [ ] the great homeric epos itself stands for the special conditions of Æolic and ionic life in those colonies; [ ] even greek religion, spontaneous as were its earlier growths, was soon influenced by those of the east; [ ] and greek philosophy and art alike draw their first inspirations from eastern contact. [ ] whatever reactions we may make against the tradition of oriental origins, [ ] it is clear that the higher civilization of antiquity had oriental (including in that term egyptian) roots. [ ] at no point do we find a "pure" greek civilization. alike the "mycenæan" and the "minoan" civilizations, as recovered for us by modern excavators, show a composite basis, in which the east is implicated. [ ] and in the historic period the connection remains obvious. it matters not whether we hold the phrygians and karians of history to have been originally an aryan stock, related to the hellenes, and thus to have acted as intermediaries between aryans and semites, or to have been originally semites, with whom greeks intermingled. [ ] on either view, the intermediaries represented semitic influences, which they passed on to the greek-speaking races, though they in turn developed their deities in large part on psychological lines common to them and the semites. [ ] as to the obvious asiatic influences on historic greek civilization, compare winwood reade, the martyrdom of man, , p. ; von ihering, vorgeschichte der indo-europäer, eng. tr. ("the evolution of the aryan"), p. ; schömann, griech. alterthümer, te aufl. , i, ; e. meyer, gesch. des alterth. ii, ; a. bertrand, Études de mythol. et d'archéol. grecques, , pp. - ; bury, introd. p. . it seems clear that the egyptian influence is greatly overstated by herodotos (ii. - , etc.), who indeed avows that he is but repeating what the egyptians affirm. the egyptian priests made their claim in the spirit in which the jews later made theirs. herodotos, besides, would prefer an egyptian to an asiatic derivation, and so would his audience. but it must not be overlooked that there was an egyptian influence in the "minoan" period. a hellenistic enthusiasm has led a series of eminent scholars to carry so far their resistance to the tradition of oriental beginnings [ ] as to take up the position that greek thought is "autochthonous." [ ] if it were, it could not conceivably have progressed as it did. only the tenacious psychological prejudice as to race-characters and racial "genius" could thus long detain so many students at a point of view so much more nearly related to supernaturalism than to science. it is safe to say that if any people is ever seen to progress in thought, art, and life, with measurable rapidity, its progress is due to the reactions of foreign intercourse. the primary civilizations, or what pass for such, as those of akkad and egypt, are immeasurably slow in accumulating culture-material; the relatively rapid developments always involve the stimulus of old cultures upon a new and vigorous civilization, well-placed for social evolution for the time being. there is no point in early greek evolution, so far as we have documentary trace of it, at which foreign impact or stimulus is not either patent or inferrible. [ ] in the very dawn of history the greeks are found to be a composite stock, [ ] growing still more composite; and the very beginnings of its higher culture are traced to the non-grecian people of thrace, [ ] who worshipped the muses. as seen by herodotos and thucydides, "the original hellenes were a particular conquering tribe of great prestige, which attracted the surrounding tribes to follow it, imitate it, and call themselves by its name. the spartans were, to herodotos, hellenic; the athenians, on the other hand, were not. they were pelasgian, but by a certain time 'changed into hellenes and learnt their language.' in historical times we cannot really find any tribe of pure hellenes in existence." [ ] the later supremacy of the greek culture is thus to be explained in terms not of an abnormal "greek genius," [ ] but of the special evolution of intelligence in the greek-speaking stock, firstly through constant crossing with others, and secondarily through its furtherance by the special social conditions of the more progressive greek city-states, of which conditions the most important were their geographical dividedness and their own consequent competition and interaction. [ ] the whole problem of oriental "influence" has been obscured, and the solution retarded, by the old academic habit of discussing questions of mental evolution in vacuo. even the reaction against idolatrous hellenism proceeded without due regard to historical sequence; and the return reaction against that is still somewhat lacking in breadth of inference. there has been too much on one side of assumption as to early oriental achievement; and too much tendency on the other to assume that the positing of an "influence" on the greeks is a disparagement of the "greek mind." the superiority of that in its later evolution seems too obvious to need affirming. but that hardly justifies so able a writer as professor burnet in concluding (early greek philosophy, nd ed. introd. pp. - ) that "the" egyptians knew no more arithmetic than was learned by their children in the schools; or in saying (id. p. ) that "the" babylonians "studied and recorded celestial phenomena for what we call astrological purposes, not from any scientific interest." how can we have the right to say that no babylonians had a scientific interest in the data? such interest would in the nature of the case miss the popular reproduction given to astrological lore. but it might very well subsist. professor burnet, albeit a really original investigator, has not here had due regard to the early usage of collegiate or corporate culture, in which arcane knowledge was reserved for the few. thus he writes (p. ) concerning the greeks that "it was not till the time of plato that even the names of the planets were known." surely they must have been "known" to some adepts long before: how else came they to be accepted? as professor burnet himself notes (p. ), "in almost every department of life we find that the corporation at first is everything and the individual nothing. the peoples of the east hardly got beyond this stage at all: their science, such as it is, is anonymous, the inherited property of a caste or guild, and we still see clearly in some cases that it was once the same among the hellenes." is it not then probable that astronomical knowledge was so ordered by easterns, and passed on to hellenes? there still attaches to the investigation of early greek philosophy the drawback that the philosophical scholars do not properly posit the question: what was the early ionic greek society like? how did the hellenes relate to the older polities and cultures which they found there? professor burnet makes justifiable fun (p. , note) of dr. gomperz's theory of the influence of "native brides"; but he himself seems to argue that the greeks could learn nothing from the men they conquered, though he admits (p. ) their derivation of "their art and many of their religious ideas from the east." if religion, why not religious speculation, leading to philosophy and science? this would be a more fruitful line of inquiry than one based on the assumption that "the" babylonians went one way and "the" greeks another. after all, only a few in each race carried on the work of thought and discovery. we do not say that "the english" wrote shakespeare. why affirm always that "the" greeks did whatever great greeks achieved? on the immediate issue professor burnet incidentally concedes what is required. after arguing that the east perhaps borrowed more from the west than did the west from the east, he admits (p. ): "it would, however, be quite another thing to say that greek philosophy originated quite independently of oriental influence." § by the tacit admission of one of the ablest opponents of the theory of foreign influence, hellenic religion as fixed by homer for the hellenic world was partly determined by asiatic influences. ottfried müller decided not only that homer the man (in whose personality he believed) was probably a smyrnean, whether of Æolic or ionic stock, [ ] but that homer's religion must have represented a special selection from the manifold greek mythology, necessarily representing his local bias. [ ] now, the greek cults at smyrna, as in the other Æolic and ionic cities of asia minor, would be very likely to reflect in some degree the influence of the karian or other asiatic cults around them. [ ] the early attic conquerors of miletos allowed the worship of the karian sun-god there to be carried on by the old priests; and the attic settlers of ephesos in the same way adopted the neighbouring worship of the lydian goddess (who became the artemis or "great diana" of the ephesians), and retained the ministry of the attendant priests and eunuchs. [ ] smyrna was apparently not like these a mixed community, but one founded by achaians from the peloponnesos; but the genera] ionic and Æolic religious atmosphere, set up by common sacrifices, [ ] must have been represented in an epic brought forth in that region. the karian civilization had at one time spread over a great part of the Ægean, including delos and cyprus. [ ] such a civilization must have affected that of the greek conquerors, who only on that basis became civilized traders. [ ] it is not necessary to ask how far exactly the influence may have gone in the iliad: the main point is that even at that stage of comparatively simple hellenism the asiatic environment, karian or phoenician, counted for something, whether in cosmogony or in furthering the process of god-grouping, or in conveying the cult of cyprian aphrodite, [ ] or haply in lending some characteristics to zeus and apollo and athênê, [ ] an influence none the less real because the genius of the poet or poets of the iliad has given to the whole olympian group the artistic stamp of individuality which thenceforth distinguishes the gods of greece from all others. indeed, the very creation of a graded hierarchy out of the independent local deities of greece, the marrying of the once isolated pelasgic hêrê to zeus, the subordination to him of the once isolated athênê and apollo--all this tells of the influence of a semitic world in which each baal had his wife, and in which the monarchic system developed on earth had been set up in heaven. [ ] but soon the asiatic influence becomes still more clearly recognizable. there is reason to hold with schrader that the belief in a mildly blissful future state, as seen even in the odyssey [ ] and in the theogony ascribed to hesiod, [ ] is "a new belief which is only to be understood in view of oriental tales and teaching." [ ] in the theogony, again, the semitic element increases, [ ] kronos being a semitic figure; [ ] while semelê, if not dionysos, appears to be no less so. [ ] but we may further surmise that in homer, to begin with, the conception of okeanos, the earth-surrounding ocean-stream, as the origin of all things, [ ] comes from some semitic source; and that hesiod's more complicated scheme of origins from chaos is a further borrowing of oriental thought--both notions being found in ancient babylonian lore, whence the hebrews derived their combination of chaos and ocean in the first verses of genesis. [ ] it thus appears that the earlier oriental [ ] influence upon greek thought was in the direction of developing religion, [ ] with only the germ of rationalism conveyed in the idea of an existence of matter before the gods, [ ] which we shall later find scientifically developed. but the case is obscure. insofar as the theogony, for instance, partly moralizes the more primitively savage myths, [ ] it may be that it represents the spontaneous need of the more highly evolved race to give an acceptable meaning to divine tales which, coming from another race, have not a quite sacrosanct prescription, though the tendency is to accept them. on the other hand, it may have been a further foreign influence that gave the critical impulse. "it is plain enough that homer and hesiod represent, both theologically and socially, the close of a long epoch, and not the youth of the greek world, as some have supposed. the real signification of many myths is lost to them, and so is the import of most of the names and titles of the elder gods, which are archaic and strange, while the subordinate personages generally have purely greek names" (professor mahaffy, history of classical greek literature, , i, ). § whatever be the determining conditions, it is clear that the homeric epos stands for a new growth of secular song, distinct from the earlier poetry, which by tradition was "either lyrical or oracular." the poems ascribed to the pre-homeric bards "were all short, and they were all strictly religious. in these features they contrasted broadly with the epic school of homer. even the hexameter metre seems not to have been used in these old hymns, and was called a new invention of the delphic priests. [ ] still further, the majority of these hymns are connected with mysteries apparently ignored by homer, or with the worship of dionysos, which he hardly knew." [ ] intermediate between the earlier religious poetry and the homeric epic, then, was a hexametric verse, used by the delphic priesthood; and to this order of poetry belongs the theogony which goes under the name of hesiod, and which is a sample of other and older works, [ ] probably composed by priests. and the distinctive mark of the homeric epos is that, framed as it was to entertain feudal chiefs and their courts, it turned completely away from the sacerdotal norm and purpose. "thus epic poetry, from having been purely religious, became purely secular. after having treated men and heroes in subordination to the gods, it came to treat the gods in relation to men. indeed, it may be said of homer that in the image of man created he god." [ ] as to the non-religiousness of the homeric epics, there is a division of critical opinion. meyer insists (gesch. des alt. ii, ) that, as contrasted with the earlier religious poetry, "the epic poetry is throughout secular (profan); it aims at charming its hearers, not at propitiating the gods"; and he further sees in the whole ionian mood a certain cynical disillusionment (id. ii, ). cp. benn, philos. of greece, p. , citing hegel. e. curtius (g. g. i, ) goes so far as to ascribe a certain irony to the portraiture of the gods (ionian apollo excepted) in homer, and to trace this to ionian levity. to the same cause he assigns the lack of any expression of a sense of stigma attaching to murder. this sense he holds the greek people had, though homer does not hint it. (cp. grote, i, , whose inference curtius implicitly impugns.) girard (le sentiment religieux en grèce, ), on the contrary, appears to have no suspicion of any problem to solve, treating homer as unaffectedly religious. the same view is taken by prof. paul decharme. "on chercherait vainement dans l'iliade et dans l'odyssée les premières traces du scepticisme grec à l'égard des fables des dieux. c'est avec une foi entière en la réalité des événements mythiques que les poètes chantent les légendes ...; c'est en toute simplicité d'âme aussi que les auditeurs de l'épopée écoutent...." (la critique des traditions religieuses chez les grecs, , p. .) thus we have a kind of balance of contrary opinions, german against french. any verdict on the problem must recognize on the one hand the possibilities of naïve credulity in an unlettered age, and on the other the probability of critical perception on the part of a great poet. i have seen both among boers in south africa. on the general question of the mood of the homeric poems compare gilbert murray, four stages of greek religion, , p. , and hist. of anc. greek lit. pp. , ; and a. benn, the philosophy of greece in relation to the character of its people, , pp. - . still, it cannot be said that in the iliad there is any clear hint of religious skepticism, though the gods are so wholly in the likeness of men that the lower deities fight with heroes and are worsted, while zeus and hêrê quarrel like any earthly couple. in the odyssey there is a bare hint of possible speculation in the use of the word atheos; but it is applied only in the phrase ouk atheei, "not without a god," [ ] in the sense of similar expressions in other passages and in the iliad. [ ] the idea was that sometimes the gods directly meddled. when odysseus accuses the suitors of not dreading the gods, [ ] he has no thought of accusing them of unbelief. [ ] homer has indeed been supposed to have exercised a measure of relative freethought in excluding from his song the more offensive myths about the gods, [ ] but such exclusion may be sufficiently explained on the score that the epopees were chanted in aristocratic dwellings, in the presence of womenkind, without surmising any process of doubt on the poet's part. on the other hand, it was inevitable that such a free treatment of things hitherto sacred should not only affect the attitude of the lay listener towards the current religion, but should react on the religious consciousness. god-legends so fully thrust on secular attention were bound to be discussed; and in the adaptations of myth for liturgical purposes by stesichoros (fl. circa b.c.) we appear to have the first open trace of a critical revolt in the greek world against immoral or undignified myths. [ ] in his work, it is fair to say, we see "the beginning of rationalism": "the decisive step is taken: once the understanding criticizes the sanctified tradition, it raises itself to be the judge thereof; no longer the common tradition but the individual conviction is the ground of religious belief." [ ] religious, indeed, the process still substantially is. it is to preserve the credit of helena as a goddess that stesichoros repudiates the homeric account of her, [ ] somewhat in the spirit in which the framers of the hesiodic theogony manipulated the myths without rejecting them, or the hebrew redactors tampered with their text. but in stesichoros there is a new tendency to reject the myth altogether; [ ] so that at this stage freethought is still part of a process in which religious feeling, pressed by an advancing ethical consciousness, instinctively clears its standing ground. it is in pindar, however ( - b.c.), that we first find such a mental process plainly avowed by a believer. in his first olympic ode he expressly declares the need for bringing afterthought to bear on poetic lore, that so men may speak nought unfitting of the gods; and he protests that he will never tell the tale of the blessed ones banqueting on human flesh. [ ] in the ninth ode he again protests that his lips must not speak blasphemously of such a thing as strife among the immortals. [ ] here the critical motive is ethical, though, while repudiating one kind of scandal about the gods, pindar placidly accepts others no less startling to the modern sense. his critical revolt, in fact, is far from thoroughgoing, and suggests rather a religious man's partial response to pressure from others than any independent process of reflection. [ ] "he [pindar] was honestly attached to the national religion and to its varieties in old local cults. he lived a somewhat sacerdotal life, labouring in honour of the gods, and seeking to spread a reverence for old traditional beliefs. he, moreover, shows an acquaintance with orphic rites and pythagorean mysteries, which led him to preach the doctrine of immortality, and of rewards and punishments in the life hereafter. [note.--the most explicit fragment (thrênoi, ), is, however, not considered genuine by recent critics.]... he is indeed more affected by the advance of freethinking than he imagines; he borrows from the neologians the habit of rationalizing myths, and explaining away immoral acts and motives in the gods; but these things are isolated attempts with him, and have no deep effect upon his general thinking" (mahaffy, hist. of greek lit. i, - ). for such a development we are not, of course, forced to assume a foreign influence: mere progress in refinement and in mental activity could bring it about; yet none the less it is probable that foreign influence did quicken the process. it is true that from the beginnings of the literary period greek thought played with a certain freedom on myth, partly perhaps because the traditions visibly came from various races, and there was no strong priesthood to ossify them. after homer and hesiod, men looked back to those poets as shaping theology to their own minds. [ ] but all custom is conservative, and pindar's mind had that general cast. on the other hand, external influence was forthcoming. the period of pindar and Æschylus [ - b.c.] follows on one in which greek thought, stimulated on all sides, had taken the first great stride in its advance beyond all antiquity. egypt had been fully thrown open to the greeks in the reign of psammetichos [ ] ( b.c.); and a great historian, who contends that the "sheer inherent and expansive force" of "the" greek intellect, "aided but by no means either impressed or provoked from without," was the true cause, yet concedes that intercourse with egypt "enlarged the range of their thoughts and observations, while it also imparted to them that vein of mysticism which overgrew the primitive simplicity of the homeric religion," and that from asia minor in turn they had derived "musical instruments and new laws of rhythm and melody," as well as "violent and maddening religious rites." [ ] and others making similar à priori claims for the greek intelligence are forced likewise to admit that the mental transition between homer and herodotos cannot be explained save in terms of "the influence of other creeds, and the necessary operation of altered circumstances and relations." [ ] in the persae of Æschylus we even catch a glimpse of direct contact with foreign skepticism; [ ] and again in the agamemnon there is a reference to some impious one who denied that the gods deigned to have care of mortals. [ ] it seems unwarrantable to read as "ridicule of popular polytheism" the passage in the same tragedy: [ ] "zeus, whosoever he be; if this name be well-pleasing to himself in invocation, by this do i name him." it may more fitly be read [ ] as an echo of the saying of herakleitos that "the wise [= the logos?] is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of zeus." [ ] but in the poet's thought, as revealed in the prometheus, and in the agamemnon on the theme of the sacrifice of iphigeneia, there has occurred an ethical judgment of the older creeds, an approach to pantheism, a rejection of anthropomorphism, and a growth of pessimism that tells of their final insufficiency. the leaning to pantheism is established by the discovery that the disputed lines, "zeus is sky, earth, and heaven: zeus is all things, yea, greater than all things" (frag. ), belonged to the lost tragedy of the heliades (haigh, tragic drama of the greeks, , p. ). for the pessimism see the prometheus, - . the anti-anthropomorphism is further to be made out from the lines ascribed to Æschylus by justin martyr (de monarchia, c. ) and clemens alexandrinus (stromata, v, ). they are expressly pantheistic; but their genuineness is doubtful. the story that Æschylus was nearly killed by a theatre audience on the score that he had divulged part of the mysteries in a tragedy (haigh, the attic theatre, , p. ; tragic drama, pp. - ) does not seem to have suggested to aristotle, who tells it (nicomachean ethics, iii, ), any heterodox intention on the tragedian's part; but it is hard to see an orthodox believer in the author either of the prometheus, wherein zeus is posed as brutal might crucifying innocence and beneficence, or of the agamemnon, where the father, perplexed in the extreme, can but fall back helplessly on formulas about the all-sufficiency of zeus when called upon to sacrifice his daughter. cp. haigh, tragic drama, p. sq. "some critics," says mr. haigh (p. ), "have been led to imagine that there is in Æschylus a double zeus--the ordinary god of the polytheistic religion and the one omnipotent deity in whom he really believed. they suppose that he had no genuine faith in the credibility of the popular legends, but merely used them as a setting for his tragedies; and that his own convictions were of a more philosophical type," as seen in the pantheistic lines concerning zeus. to this mr. haigh replies that it is "most improbable that there was any clear distinction in the mind of Æschylus" between the two conceptions of zeus; going on, however, to admit that "much, no doubt, he regarded as uncertain, much as false. even the name 'zeus' was to him a mere convention." mr. haigh in this discussion does not attempt to deal with the problem of the prometheus. the hesitations of the critics on this head are noteworthy. karl ottfried müller, who is least himself in dealing with fundamental issues of creed, evades the problem (lit. of anc. greece, , p. ) with the bald suggestion that "Æschylus, in his own mind, must have felt how this severity [of zeus], a necessary accompaniment of the transition from the titanic period to the government of the gods of olympus, was to be reconciled with the mild wisdom which he makes an attribute of zeus in the subsequent ages of the world. consequently, the deviation from right ... would all lie on the side of prometheus." this nugatory plea--which is rightly rejected by burckhardt (griech. culturgesch. ii, )--is ineffectually backed by the argument that the friendly oceanides recur to the thought, "those only are wise who humbly reverence adrasteia (fate)"--as if the positing of a supreme fate were not a further belittlement of zeus. other critics are similarly evasive. patin (eschyle, éd. , p. sq.), noting the vagaries of past criticism, hostile and other, avowedly leaves the play an unsolved enigma, affirming only the commonly asserted "piety" of Æschylus. girard (le sentiment religieux en grèce, pp. - ) does no better, while dogmatically asserting that the poet is "the greek faithful to the faith of his fathers, which he interprets with an intelligent and emotional (émue) veneration." meyer (iii, §§ - ) draws an elaborate parallel between Æschylus and pindar, affirming in turn the "tiefe frömmigkeit" of the former--and in turn leaves the enigma of the prometheus unsolved. professor decharme, rightly rejecting the fanciful interpretations of quinet and others who allegorize prometheus into humanity revolting against superstition, offers a very unsatisfying explanation of his own (p. ), which practically denies that there is any problem to solve. prof. mahaffy, with his more vivacious habit of thought, comes to the evaded issue. "how," he asks, "did the athenian audience, who vehemently attacked the poet for divulging the mysteries, tolerate such a drama? and still more, how did Æschylus, a pious and serious thinker, venture to bring such a subject on the stage with a moral purpose?" the answers suggested are: ( ) that in all old religions there are tolerated anomalous survivals; ( ) that "a very extreme distortion of their gods will not offend many who would feel outraged at any open denial of them"; ( ) that all greeks longed for despotic power for themselves, and that "no athenian, however he sympathized with prometheus, would think of blaming zeus for ... crushing all resistance to his will." but even if these answers--of which the last is the most questionable--be accepted, "the question of the poet's intention is far more difficult, and will probably never be satisfactorily answered." finally, we have this summing-up: "Æschylus was, indeed, essentially a theologian ... but, what is more honourable and exceptional, he was so candid and honest a theologian that he did not approach men's difficulties for the purpose of refuting them or showing them weak and groundless. on the contrary, though an orthodox and pious man, though clearly convinced of the goodness of providence, and of the profound truth of the religion of his fathers, he was ever stating boldly the contradictions and anomalies in morals and in myths, and thus naturally incurring the odium and suspicion of the professional advocates of religion and their followers. he felt, perhaps instinctively, that a vivid dramatic statement of these problems in his tragedies was better moral education than vapid platitudes about our ignorance, and about our difficulties being only caused by the shortness of our sight" (hist. of greek lit. i, - , - ). here, despite the intelligent handling, the enigma is merely transferred from the great tragedian's work to his character: it is not solved. no solution is offered of the problem of the pantheism of the fragment above cited, which is quite irreconcilable with any orthodox belief in greek religion, though such sayings are at times repeated by unthinking believers, without recognition of their bearing. that the pantheism is a philosophical element imported into the greek world from the babylonian through the early ionian thinkers seems to be the historical fact (cp. whittaker, as last cited): that the importation meant the dissolution of the national faith for many thinking men seems to be no less true. it seems finally permissible, then, to suggest that the "piety" of Æschylus was either discontinuous or a matter of artistic rhetoric and public spirit, and that the prometheus is a work of profound and terrible irony, unburdening his mind of reveries that religion could not conjure away. the discussion on the play has unduly ignored the question of its date. it is, in all probability, one of the latest of the works of Æschylus (k. o. müller, lit. of anc. greece, p. ; haigh, tragic drama, p. ). müller points to the employment of the third actor--a late development--and haigh to the overshadowing of the choruses by the dialogue; also to the mention (ll. - ) of the eruption of etna, which occurred in b.c. this one circumstance goes far to solve the dispute. written near the end of the poet's life the play belongs to the latest stages of his thinking; and if it departs widely in its tone from the earlier plays, the reasonable inference is that his ideas had undergone a change. the agamemnon, with its desolating problem, seems to be also one of his later works. rationalism, indeed, does not usually emerge in old age, though voltaire was deeply shaken in his theism by the earthquake of lisbon; but Æschylus is unique even among men of genius; and the highest flight of greek drama may well stand for an abnormal intellectual experience. in this primary entrance of critical doubt into drama we have one of the sociological clues to the whole evolution of greek thought. it has been truly said that the constant action of the tragic stage, the dramatic putting of arguments and rejoinders, pros and cons--which in turn was a fruit of the actual daily pleadings in the athenian dikastery--was a manifold stimulus alike to ethical feeling and to intellectual effort, such as no other ancient civilization ever knew. "the appropriate subject-matter of tragedy is pregnant not only with ethical sympathy, but also with ethical debate and speculation," to an extent unapproached in the earlier lyric and gnomic poetry and the literature of aphorism and precept. "in place of unexpanded results, or the mere communication of single-minded sentiment, we have even in Æschylus, the earliest of the great tragedians, a large latitude of dissent and debate--a shifting point of view--a case better or worse--and a divination of the future advent of sovereign and instructed reason. it was through the intermediate stage of tragedy that grecian literature passed into the rhetoric, dialectics, and ethical speculation which marked the fifth century b.c." [ ] this development was indeed autochthonous, save insofar as the germ of the tragic drama may have come from the east in the cult of dionysos, with its vinous dithyramb: the "greek intellect" assuredly did wonderful things at athens, being placed, for a time, in civic conditions peculiarly fitted for the economic evocation of certain forms of genius. but the above-noted developments in pindar and in Æschylus had been preceded by the great florescence of early ionian philosophy in the sixth century, a growth which constrains us to look once more to asia minor for a vital fructification of the greek inner life, of a kind that athenian institutions could not in themselves evoke. for while drama flourished supremely at athens, science and philosophy grew up elsewhere, centuries before athens had a philosopher of note; and all the notable beginnings of hellenic freethought occurred outside of hellas proper. § the greeks varied from the general type of culture-evolution seen in india, persia, egypt, and babylon, and approximated somewhat to that of ancient china, in that their higher thinking was done not by an order of priests pledged to cults, but by independent laymen. in greece, as in china, this line of development is to be understood as a result of early political conditions--in china, those of a multiplicity of independent feudal states; in greece, those of a multiplicity of city states, set up first by the geographical structure of hellas, and reproduced in the colonies of asia minor and magna graecia by reason of the acquired ideal and the normal state of commercial competition. to the last, many greek cults exhibited their original character as the sacra of private families. such conditions prevented the growth of a priestly caste or organization. [ ] neither china nor pagan greece was imperialized till there had arisen enough of rationalism to prevent the rise of a powerful priesthood; and the later growth of a priestly system in greece in the christian period is to be explained in terms first of a positive social degeneration, accompanying a complete transmutation of political life, and secondly of the imposition of a new cult, on the popular plane, specially organized on the model of the political system that adopted it. under imperialism, however, the two civilizations ultimately presented a singular parallel of unprogressiveness. in the great progressive period, the possible gains from the absence of a priesthood are seen in course of realization. for the greek-speaking world in general there was no dogmatic body of teaching, no written code of theology and moral law, no sacred book. [ ] each local cult had its own ancient ritual, often ministered by priestesses, with myths, often of late invention, to explain it; [ ] only homer and hesiod, with perhaps some of the now lost epics, serving as a general treasury of myth-lore. the two great epopees ascribed to homer, indeed, had a certain biblical status; and the homerids or other bards who recited them did what in them lay to make the old poetry the standard of theological opinion; but they too lacked organized influence, and could not hinder higher thinking. [ ] the special priesthood of delphi, wielding the oracle, could maintain their political influence only by holding their function above all apparent self-seeking or effort at domination. [ ] it only needed, then, such civic conditions as should evolve a leisured class, with a bent towards study, to make possible a growth of lay philosophy. those conditions first arose in the ionian cities; because there first did greek citizens attain commercial wealth, [ ] as a result of adopting the older commercial civilization whose independent cities they conquered, and of the greater rapidity of development which belongs to colonies in general. [ ] there it was that, in matters of religion and philosophy, the comparison of their own cults with those of their foreign neighbours first provoked their critical reflection, as the age of primitive warfare passed away. and there it was, accordingly, that on a basis of primitive babylonian science there originated with thales of miletos (fl. b.c.), a phoenician by descent, [ ] the higher science and philosophy of the greek-speaking race. [ ] it is historically certain that lydia had an ancient and close historical connection with babylonian and assyrian civilization, whether through the "hittites" or otherwise (sayce, anc. emp. of the east, , pp. - ; curtius, griech. gesch. i, , ; meyer, gesch. des alterth. i, , , , - ; soury, bréviaire de l'hist. du matérialisme, , pp. , sq. cp. as to armenia, edwards, the witness of assyria, , p. ); and in the seventh century the commercial connection between lydia and ionia, long close, was presumably friendly up to the time of the first attacks of the lydian kings, and even afterwards (herodotos i, - ), alyattes having made a treaty of peace with miletos, which thereafter had peace during his long reign. this brings us to the time of thales ( - b.c.). at the same time, the ionian settlers of miletos had from the first a close connection with the karians (herod. i, , and above pp. - ), whose near affinity with the semites, at least in religion, is seen in their practice of cutting their foreheads at festivals (id. ii, ; cp. grote, ed. , i, , note; e. curtius, i, , ; busolt, i, ; and spiegel, eranische alterthumskunde, i, ). thales was thus in the direct sphere of babylonian culture before the conquest of cyrus; and his milesian pupils or successors, anaximandros and anaximenes, stand for the same influences. herakleitos in turn was of ephesus, an ionian city in the same culture-sphere; anaxagoras was of klazomenai, another ionian city, as had been hermotimos, of the same philosophic school; the eleatic school, founded by xenophanes and carried on by parmenides and the elder zeno, come from the same matrix, elea having been founded by exiles from ionian phokaia on its conquest by the persians; and pythagoras, in turn, was of the ionian city of samos, in the same sixth century. finally, protagoras and demokritos were of abdera, an ionian colony in thrace; leukippos, the teacher of demokritos, was either an abderite, a milesian, or an elean; and archelaos, the pupil of anaxagoras and a teacher of sokrates, is said to have been a milesian. wellhausen (israel, p. of vol. of prolegomena, eng. tr.) has spoken of the rise of philosophy on the "threatened and actual political annihilation of ionia" as corresponding to the rise of hebrew prophecy on the menace and the consummation of the assyrian conquest. as regards ionia, this may hold in the sense that the stoppage of political freedom threw men back on philosophy, as happened later at athens. but thales philosophized before the persian conquest. § thales, like homer, starts from the babylonian conception of a beginning of all things in water; but in thales the immediate motive and the sequel are strictly cosmological and neither theological nor poetical, though we cannot tell whether the worship of a god of the waters may not have been the origin of a water-theory of the cosmos. the phrase attributed to him, "that all things are full of gods," [ ] clearly meant that in his opinion the forces of things inhered in the cosmos, and not in personal powers who spasmodically interfered with it. [ ] it is probable that, as was surmised by plutarch, a pantheistic conception of zeus existed for the ionian greeks before thales. [ ] to the later doxographists he "seems to have lost belief in the gods." [ ] from the mere second-hand and often unintelligent statements which are all we have in his case, it is hard to make sure of his system; but that it was pantheistic [ ] and physicist seems clear. he conceived that matter not only came from but was resolvable into water; that all phenomena were ruled by law or "necessity"; and that the sun and planets (commonly regarded as deities) were bodies analogous to the earth, which he held to be spherical but "resting on water." [ ] for the rest, he speculated in meteorology and in astronomy, and is credited with having predicted a solar eclipse [ ]--a fairly good proof of his knowledge of chaldean science [ ]--and with having introduced geometry into greece from egypt. [ ] to him, too, is ascribed a wise counsel to the ionians in the matter of political federation, [ ] which, had it been followed, might have saved them from the persian conquest; and he is one of the many early moralists who laid down the golden rule as the essence of the moral law. [ ] with his maxim, "know thyself," he seems to mark a broadly new departure in ancient thought: the balance of energy is shifted from myth and theosophy, prophecy and poesy, to analysis of consciousness and the cosmic process. from this point greek rationalism is continuous, despite reactions, till the roman conquest, miletos figuring long as a general source of skepticism. anaximandros ( - b.c.), pupil and companion of thales, was like him an astronomer, geographer, and physicist, seeking for a first principle (for which he may or may not have invented the name [ ]); rejecting the idea of a single primordial element such as water; affirming an infinite material cause, without beginning and indestructible, [ ] with an infinite number of worlds; and--still showing the chaldean impulse--speculating remarkably on the descent of man from something aquatic, as well as on the form and motion of the earth (figured by him as a cylinder [ ]), the nature and motions of the solar system, and thunder and lightning. [ ] it seems doubtful whether, as affirmed by eudemus, he taught the doctrine of the earth's motion; but that this doctrine was derived from the babylonian schools of astronomy is so probable that it may have been accepted in miletos in his day. only by inferring a prior scientific development of remarkable energy can we explain the striking force of the sayings of anaximandros which have come down to us. his doctrine of evolution stands out for us to-day like the fragment of a great ruin, hinting obscurely of a line of active thinkers. the thesis that man must have descended from a different species because, "while other animals quickly found food for themselves, man alone requires a long period of suckling: had he been originally such as he is now, he could never have survived," is a quite masterly anticipation of modern evolutionary science. we are left asking, how came an early ionian greek to think thus, outgoing the assimilative power of the later age of aristotle? only a long scientific evolution can readily account for it; and only in the mesopotamian world could such an evolution have taken place. [ ] anaximenes (fl. b.c.), yet another milesian, pupil or at least follower in turn of anaximandros, speculates similarly, making his infinite and first principle the air, in which he conceives the earth to be suspended; theorizes on the rainbow, earthquakes, the nature and the revolution of the heavenly bodies (which, with the earth, he supposed to be broad and flat); and affirms the eternity of motion and the perishableness of the earth. [ ] the ionian thought of the time seems thus to have been thoroughly absorbed in problems of natural origins, and only in that connection to have been concerned with the problems of religion. no dogma of divine creation blocked the way: the trouble was levity of hypothesis or assent. thales, following a semitic lead, places the source of all things in water. anaximandros, perhaps following another, but seeking a more abstract idea, posited an infinite, the source of all things; and anaximenes in turn reduces that infinite to the air, as being the least material of things. he cannot have anticipated the chemical conception of the reduction of all solids to gases: the thesis was framed either à priori or in adaptation of priestly claims for the deities of the elements; and others were to follow with the guesses of earth and fire and heat and cold. still, the speculation is that of bold and far-grasping thinkers, and for these there can have been no validity in the ordinary god-ideas of polytheism. there is reason to think that these early "schools" of thought were really constituted by men in some way banded together, [ ] thus supporting each other against the conservatism of religious ignorance. the physicians were so organized; the disciples of pythagoras followed the same course; and in later greece we shall find the different philosophic sects formed into societies or corporations. the first model was probably that of the priestly corporation; and in a world in which many cults were chronically disendowed it may well have been that the leisured old priesthoods, philosophizing as we have seen those of india and egypt and mesopotamia doing, played a primary part in initiating the work of rational secular thought. the recent work of mr. f. m. cornford, from philosophy to religion ( ), puts forth an interesting and ingenious theory to the effect that early greek philosophy is a reduction to abstract terms of the practice of totemistic tribes. on this view, when the gods are figured in homer as subject to moira (destiny), there has taken place an impersonation of nomos, or law; and just as the divine cosmos or polity is a reflection of the earthly, so the established conception of the absolute compulsoriness of tribal law is translated into one of a fate which overrules the gods (p. sq.). so, when anaximandros posits the doctrine of four elements [he did not use the word, by the way; that comes later; see burnet, ch. i, p. , citing diels], "we observe that this type of cosmic structure corresponds to that of a totemic tribe containing four clans" (p. ). on the other hand, the totemistic stage had long before been broken down. the "notion of the group-soul" had given rise to the notion of god (p. ); and the primitive "magical group" had dissolved into a system of families (p. ), with individual souls. on this prior accumulation of religious material early philosophy works (p. ). it does not appear why, thus recognizing that totemism was at least a long way behind in thales's day, mr. cornford should trace the ionian four elements straight back to the problematic four clans of the totemistic tribe. dr. frazer gives him no data whatever for aryan totemism; and the ionian cities, like those of mesopotamia and egypt, belong to the age of commerce and of monarchies. it would seem more plausible, on mr. cornford's own premises, to trace the rival theories of the four elements to religious philosophies set up by the priests of four gods of water, earth, air, and fire. if the early philosophers "had nothing but theology behind them" (p. ), why not infer theologies for the old-established deities of mesopotamia? mr. cornford adds to the traditional factors that of "the temperaments of the individual philosophers, which made one or other of those schemes the more congenial to them." following dr. f. h. bradley, he pronounces that "almost all philosophic arguments are invented afterwards, to recommend, or defend from attack, conclusions which the philosopher was from the outset bent on believing before he could think of any arguments at all. that is why philosophical reasonings are so bad, so artificial, so unconvincing." upon this very principle it is much more likely that the philosophic cults of water, earth, air, and fire originated in the worships of gods of those elements, whose priests would tend to magnify their office. it is hard to see how "temperament" could determine a man's bias to an air-theory in preference to a water-theory. but if the priests of ea the water-god and those of bel the god of air had framed theories of the kind, it is conceivable that family or tribal ties and traditions might set men upon developing the theory quasi-philosophically when the alien gods came to be recognized by thinking men as mere names for the elements. [ ] (compare flaubert's salammbô as to the probable rivalry of priests of the sun and moon.) a pantheistic view, again, arose as we saw among various priesthoods in the monarchies where syncretism arose out of political aggregations. what is clear is that the religious or theistic basis had ceased to exist for many educated greeks in that environment. the old god-ideas have disappeared, and a quasi-scientific attitude has been taken up. it is apparently conditioned, perhaps fatally, by prior modes of thought; but it operates in disregard of so-called religious needs, and negates the normal religious conception of earthly government or providence. nevertheless, it was not destined to lead to the rationalization of popular thought; and only in a small number of cases did the scientific thinkers deeply concern themselves with the enlightenment of the mass. in another ionian thinker of that age, indeed, we find alongside of physical and philosophical speculation on the universe the most direct and explicit assault upon popular religion that ancient history preserves. xenophanes of kolophon (? - ), a contemporary of anaximandros, was forced by a persian invasion or by some revolution to leave his native city at the age of twenty-five; and by his own account his doctrines, and inferribly his life, had gone "up and down greece"--in which we are to include magna graecia--for sixty-seven years at the date of writing of one of his poems. [ ] this was presumably composed at elea (hyela or velia), founded about b.c., on the western italian coast, south of paestum, by unsubduable phokaians seeking a new home after the persian conquest, and after they had been further defeated in the attempt to live as pirates in corsica. [ ] thither came the aged xenophanes, perhaps also seeking freedom. he seems to have lived hitherto as a rhapsode, chanting his poems at the courts of tyrants as the homerids did the iliad. it is hard indeed to conceive that his recitations included the anti-religious passages which have come down to us; but his resort in old age to the new community of elea is itself a proof of a craving and a need for free conditions of life. [ ] setting out on his travels, doubtless, with the ionian predilection for a unitary philosophy, he had somewhere and somehow attained a pantheism which transcended the concern for a "first principle"--if, indeed, it was essentially distinct from the doctrine of anaximandros. [ ] "looking wistfully upon the whole heavens," says aristotle, [ ] "he affirms that unity is god." from the scattered quotations which are all that remain of his lost poem, on nature (or natural things), [ ] it is hard to deduce any full conception of his philosophy; but it is clear that it was monistic; and though most of his later interpreters have acclaimed him as the herald of monotheism, it is only in terms of pantheism that his various utterances can be reconciled. it is clearly in that sense that aristotle and plato [ ] commemorate him as the first of the eleatic monists. repeatedly he speaks of "the gods" as well as of "god"; and he even inculcates the respectful worship of them. [ ] the solution seems to be that he thinks of the forces and phenomena of nature in the early way as gods or powers, but resolves them in turn into a whole which includes all forms of power and intelligence, but is not to be conceived as either physically or mentally anthropomorphic. "his contemporaries would have been more likely to call xenophanes an atheist than anything else." [ ] the common verdict of the historians of philosophy, who find in xenophanes an early and elevated doctrine of "monotheism," is closely tested by j. freudenthal, ueber die theologie des xenophanes, . as he shows, the bulk of them (cited by him, pp. - ) do violence to xenophanes's language in making him out the proclaimer of a monotheistic doctrine to a polytheistic world. that he was essentially a pantheist is now recognized by a number of writers. cp. windelband, as cited, p. ; decharme, as cited, p. sq. bréton, poésie philos. en grèce, pp. , sq., had maintained the point, against cousin, in , before freudenthal. but freudenthal in turn glosses part of the problem in ascribing to xenophanes an acceptance of polytheism (cp. burnet, p. ), which kept him from molestation throughout his life; whereas anaxagoras, who had never attacked popular belief with the directness of xenophanes, was prosecuted for atheism. anaxagoras was of a later age, dwelling in an athens in which popular prejudice took readily to persecution, and political malice resorted readily to religious pretences. xenophanes could hardly have published with impunity in periklean athens his stinging impeachments of current god-ideas; and it remains problematic whether he ever proclaimed them in face of the multitude. it is only from long subsequent students that we get them as quotations from his poetry; there is no record of their effect on his contemporaries. that his god-idea was pantheistic is sufficiently established by his attacks on anthropomorphism, taken in connection with his doctrine of the all. whether as teaching meant for public currency or as a philosophic message for the few, the pantheism of xenophanes expressed itself in an attack on anthropomorphic religion, no less direct and much more ratiocinative than that of any hebrew prophet upon idolatry. "mortals," he wrote, in a famous passage, "suppose that the gods are born, and wear man's clothing, [ ] and have voice and body. but if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and make works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies like their own--horses like horses, cattle like cattle." and again: "ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the thracians say theirs have reddish hair and blue eyes; so also they conceive the spirits of the gods to be like themselves." [ ] on homer and hesiod, the myth-singers, his attack is no less stringent: "they attributed to the gods all things that with men are of ill-fame and blame; they told of them countless nefarious things--thefts, adulteries, and deception of each other." [ ] it is recorded of him further that, like epicurus, he absolutely rejected all divination. [ ] and when the eleans, perhaps somewhat shaken by such criticism, asked him whether they should sacrifice and sing a dirge to leukothea, the child-bereft sea-goddess, he bade them not to sing a dirge if they thought her divine, and not to sacrifice if she were human. [ ] beside this ringing radicalism, not yet out of date, the physics of the eleatic freethinker is less noticeable. his resort to earth as a material first principle was but another guess or disguised theosophy added to those of his predecessors, and has no philosophic congruity with his pantheism. it is interesting to find him reasoning from fossil-marks that what was now land had once been sea-covered, and been left mud; and that the moon is probably inhabited. [ ] yet, with all this alertness of speculation, xenophanes sounds the note of merely negative skepticism which, for lack of fruitful scientific research, was to become more and more common in greek thought: [ ] "no man," he avows in one verse, "knows truly anything, and no man ever will." [ ] more fruitful was his pantheism or pankosmism. "the all (oulos)" he declared, "sees, thinks, and hears." [ ] "it was thus from xenophanes that the doctrine of pankosmism first obtained introduction into greek philosophy, recognizing nothing real except the universe as an indivisible and unchangeable whole." [ ] his negative skepticism might have guarded later hellenes against baseless cosmogony-making if they had been capable of a systematic intellectual development. his sagacity, too, appears in his protest [ ] against that extravagant worship of the athlete which from first to last kept popular greek life-philosophy unprogressive. but here least of all was he listened to. it is after a generation of such persistent questioning of nature and custom by pioneer greeks that we find in herakleitos of ephesus (fl. b.c.)--still in the ionian culture-sphere--a positive and unsparing criticism of the prevailing beliefs. no sage among the ionians (who had already produced a series of powerful thinkers) left a deeper impression than he of massive force and piercing intensity: above all of the gnomic utterances of his age, his have the ring of character and the edge of personality; and the gossiping diogenes, after setting out by calling him the most arrogant of men, concedes that the brevity and weight of his expression are not to be matched. it was due rather to this, probably, than to his metaphysic--though that has an arresting quality--that there grew up a school of herakliteans calling themselves by his name. and though doubt attaches to some of his sayings, and even to his date, there can be small question that he was mordantly freethinking, though a man of royal descent. he has stern sayings about "bringing forth untrustworthy witnesses to confirm disputed points," and about eyes and ears being "bad witnesses for men, when their souls lack understanding." [ ] "what can be seen, heard, and learned, this i prize," is one of his declarations; and he is credited with contemning book-learning as having failed to give wisdom to hesiod, pythagoras, xenophanes, and hekataios. [ ] the belief in progress, he roundly insists, stops progress. [ ] from his cryptic utterances it maybe gathered that he too was a pantheist; [ ] and from his insistence on the immanence of strife in all things, [ ] as from others of his sayings, that he was of the stoic mood. it was doubtless in resentment of immoral religion that he said [ ] homer and archilochos deserved flogging; as he is severe on the phallic worship of dionysos, [ ] on the absurdity of prayer to images, and on popular pietism in general. [ ] one of his sayings, êthos anthrôpô daimôn, [ ] "character is a man's dæmon," seems to be the definite assertion of rationalism in affairs as against the creed of special providences. a confusion of tradition has arisen between the early herakleitos, "the obscure," and the similarly-named writer of the first century of our era, who was either one herakleides or one using the name of herakleitos. as the later writer certainly allegorized homer--reducing apollo to the sun, athenê to thought, and so on--and claimed thus to free him from the charge of impiety, it seems highly probable that it is from him that the scholiast on the iliad, xv, , cites the passage scolding the atheists who attacked the homeric myths. the theme and the tone do not belong to b.c., when only the boldest--as herakleitos--would be likely to attack homer, and when there is no other literary trace of atheism. grote, however (i, , note), cites the passages without comment as referring to the early philosopher, who is much more probably credited, as above, with denouncing homer himself. concerning the later herakleitos or herakleides, see dr. hatch's hibbert lectures on the influence of greek ideas and usages upon the christian church, , pp. , . but even apart from the confusion with the late herakleides, there is difficulty in settling the period of the ephesian thinker. diogenes laërtius states that he flourished about the th olympiad ( - b.c.). another account, preserved by eusebius, places him in the th or st olympiad, in the infancy of sokrates, and for this date there are other grounds (ueberweg, i, ); but yet other evidences carry us back to the earlier. as diogenes notes five writers of the name--two being poets, one a historian, and one a "serio-comic" personage--and there is record of many other men named herakleitos and several herakleides, there is considerable room for false attributions. the statement of diogenes that the ephesian was "wont to call opinion the sacred disease" (i, , § ) is commonly relegated to the spurious sayings of herakleitos, and it suggests the last mentioned of his namesakes. but see max müller, hibbert lectures on indian religion, p. , for the opinion that it is genuine, and that by "opinion" was meant "religion." the saying, says dr. müller, "seems to me to have the massive, full, and noble ring of herakleitos." it is hardly for rationalists to demur. much discussion has been set up by the common attribution to herakleitos in antiquity of the doctrine of the ultimate conflagration of all things. but for this there is no ground in any actual passage preserved from his works; and it appears to have been a mere misconception of his doctrine in regard to fire. his monistic doctrine was, in brief, that all the opposing and contrasted things in the universe, heat and cold, day and night, evil and good, imply each other, and exist only in the relation of contrast; and he conceived fire as something in which opposites were solved. [ ] upon this stroke of mysticism was concentrated the discussion which might usefully have been turned on his criticism of popular religion; his negative wisdom was substantially ignored, and his obscure speculation, treated as his main contribution to thought, was misunderstood and perverted. a limit was doubtless soon set to free speech even in elea; and the eleatic school after xenophanes, in the hands of his pupil parmenides (fl. b.c.), zeno (fl. ), melissos of samos (fl. ), and their successors, is found turning first to deep metaphysic and then to verbal dialectic, to discussion on being and not being, the impossibility of motion, and the trick-problem of achilles and the tortoise. it is conceivable that thought took these lines because others were socially closed. parmenides, a notably philosophic spirit (whom plato, meeting him in youth, felt to have "an exceptionally wonderful depth of mind," but regarded as a man to be feared as well as reverenced), [ ] made short work of the counter-sense of not being, but does not seem to have dealt at close quarters with popular creeds. melissos, a man of action, who led a successful sally to capture the athenian fleet, [ ] was apparently the most pronounced freethinker of the three named, [ ] in that he said of the gods "there was no need to define them, since there was no knowledge of them." [ ] such utterance could not be carried far in any greek community; and there lacked the spirit of patient research which might have fruitfully developed the notable hypothesis of parmenides that the earth is spherical in form. [ ] but he too was a loose guesser, adding categories of fire and earth and heat and cold to the formative and material "principles" of his predecessors; and where he divagated weaker minds could not but lose themselves. from melissos and parmenides there is accordingly a rapid descent in philosophy to professional verbalism, popular life the while proceeding on the old levels. it was in this epoch of declining energy and declining freedom that there grew up the nugatory doctrine, associated with the eleatic school, [ ] that the only realities are mental, [ ] a formula which eluded at once the problems of nature and the crudities of religion, and so made its fortune with the idle educated class. meant to support the cause of reason, it was soon turned, as every slackly-held doctrine must be, to a different account. in the hands of plato it developed into the doctrine of ideas, which in the later christian world was to play so large a part, as "realism," in checking scientific thought; and in greece it fatally fostered the indolent evasion of research in physics. [ ] ultimately this made for supernaturalism, which had never been discarded by the main body even of rationalizing thinkers. [ ] thus the geographer and historian hekataios of miletos (fl. b.c.), living at the great centre of rationalism, while rejecting the mass of greek fables as "ridiculous," and proceeding in a fashion long popular to translate them into historical facts, yet affected, in the poetic greek fashion, to be of divine descent. [ ] at the same time he held by such fables as that of the floating island in the nile and that of the supernormal hyperboreans. this blending of old and new habits of mind is indeed perhaps the strongest ground for affirming the genuineness of his fragments, which has been disputed. [ ] but from his time forward there are many signs of a broad movement of criticism, doubt, inquiry, and reconstruction, involving an extensive discussion of historical as well as religious tradition. [ ] there had begun, in short, for the rapidly-developing greeks, a "discovery of man" such as is ascribed in later times to the age of the italian renaissance. in the next generation came the father of humanists, herodotos, who implicitly carries the process of discrimination still further than did hekataios; while sophocles [ - b.c.], without ever challenging popular faith, whether implicitly as did Æschylus, or explicitly as did euripides, "brought down the drama from the skies to the earth; and the drama still follows the course which sophocles first marked out for it. it was on the gods, the struggles of the gods, and on destiny that Æschylus dwelt; it is with man that sophocles is concerned." [ ] still, there was only to be a partial enlightenment of the race, such as we have seen occurring, perhaps about the same period, in india. sophocles, even while dramatizing the cruel consequences of greek religion, never made any sign of being delivered from the ordinary greek conceptions of deity, or gave any help to wiser thought. the social difference between greece and the monarchic civilizations was after all only one of degree: there, as elsewhere, the social problem was finally unsolved; and the limits to greek progress were soon approached. but the evolution went far in many places, and it is profoundly interesting to trace it. § compared with the early milesians and with xenophanes, the elusive pythagoras (fl. - b.c.) is not so much a rationalistic as a theosophic freethinker; but to freethought his name belongs insofar as the system connected with it did rationalize, and discarded mythology. if the biographic data be in any degree trustworthy, it starts like milesian speculation from oriental precedents. [ ] pythagoras was of samos in the Ægean; and the traditions have it that he was a pupil of pherekydes the syrian, and that before settling at krôton, in italy, he travelled in egypt, and had intercourse with the chaldean magi. some parts of the pythagorean code of life, at least, point to an eastern derivation. the striking resemblance between the doctrine and practice of the pythagoreans and those of the jewish essenes has led zeller to argue (philos. der griechen, th. iii, abth. ) that the latter were a branch of the former. bishop lightfoot, on the other hand, noting that the essenes did not hold the specially prominent pythagorean doctrines of numbers and of the transmigration of souls, traces essenism to zoroastrian influence (ed. of colossians, app. on the essenes, pp. - ; rep. in dissertations on the apostolic age, , pp. - ). this raises the issue whether both pythagoreanism and essenism were not of persian derivation; and dr. schürer (jewish people in the time of jesus, eng. tr. div. ii, vol. ii, p. ) pronounces in favour of an oriental origin for both. the new connection between persia and ionia just at or before the time of pythagoras (fl. b.c.) squares with this view; but it is further to be noted that the phenomenon of monasticism, common to pythagoreans and essenes, arises in buddhism about the pythagorean period; and as it is hardly likely that buddhism in the sixth century b.c. reached asia minor, there remains the possibility of some special diffusion of the new ideal from the babylonian sphere after the conquest by cyrus, there being no trace of a persian monastic system. the resemblances to orphicism likewise suggest a babylonian source, as does the doctrine of numbers, which is not zoroastrian. as to buddhism, the argument for a buddhist origin of essenism shortly before our era (cp. a. lillie, buddhism in christendom and the influence of buddhism on primitive christianity; e. bunsen, the angel-messiah; or, buddhists, essenes, and christians--all three to be read with much caution) does not meet the case of the pythagorean precedents for essenism. prof. burnet (early greek philos. nd ed. p. ) notes close indian parallels to pythagoreanism, but overlooks the intermediate persian parallels, and falls back very unnecessarily on the bald notion that "the two systems were independently evolved from the same primitive systems." as regards the mystic doctrine that numbers are, as it were, the moving principle in the cosmos--another thesis not unlikely to arise in that babylonian world whence came the whole system of numbers for the later ancients [ ]--we can but pronounce it a development of thought in vacuo, and look further for the source of pythagorean influence in the moral and social code of the movement, in its science, in its pantheism, [ ] its contradictory dualism, [ ] and perhaps in its doctrine of transmigration of souls. on the side of natural science, its absurdities [ ] point to the fatal lack of observation which so soon stopped progress in greek physics and biology. [ ] yet in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and the science of sound the school seems to have done good scientific work; being indeed praised by the critical aristotle for doing special service in that way. [ ] it is recorded that philolaos, the successor of pythagoras, was the first to teach openly (about b.c.) the doctrine of the motion of the earth [ ]--which, however, as above noted, was also said to have been previously taught by anaximandros [ ] (from whom some incline to derive the pythagorean theory of numbers in general [ ]) and by hiketas or iketas (or niketas) of syracuse. [ ] ekphantos, of that city, is also credited with asserting the revolution of the earth on its axis; and he too is grouped with the pythagoreans, though he seems to have had a pantheism of his own. [ ] philolaos in particular is said to have been prosecuted for his teaching, [ ] which for many was a blasphemy; and it may be that this was the reason of its being specially ascribed to him, though current in the east long before his day. in the fragments ascribed to him is affirmed, in divergence from other pythagoreans, the eternity of the earth; and in other ways he seems to have been an innovator. [ ] in any case, the pythagorean conception of the earth's motion was a speculative one, wide of the facts, and not identical with the modern doctrine, save insofar as pythagoras--or philolaos--had rightly conceived the earth as a sphere. [ ] it is noteworthy, however, that in conjecturing that the whole solar system moves round a "central fire," pythagoras carried his thought nearly as far as the moderns. the fanciful side of his system is seen in his hypothesis of a counter-earth (anti-chthon) invented to bring up the number of celestial bodies in our system to ten, the "complete" number. (berry, as cited.) narrien (p. ) misses this simple explanation of the idea. as to politics, finally, it seems hard to solve the anomaly that pythagoras is pronounced the first teacher of the principle of community of goods, [ ] and that his adherents at krôton formed an aristocratic league, so detested by the people for its anti-democratism that its members were finally massacred in their meeting-place, their leader, according to one tradition, being slain with them, while according to a better grounded account he had withdrawn and died at metapontion. the solution seems to be that the early movement was in no way monastic or communistic; that it was, however, a secret society; that it set up a kind of puritanism or "methodism" which repelled conservative people; and that, whatever its doctrines, its members were mostly of the upper class. [ ] if they held by the general rejection of popular religion attributed to pythagoras, they would so much the more exasperate the demos; for though at krôton, as in the other grecian colonial cities, there was considerable freedom of thought and speech, the populace can nowhere have been freethinking. [ ] in any case, it was after its political overthrow, and still more in the italian revival of the second century b.c., that the mystic and superstitious features of pythagoreanism were most multiplied; and doubtless the master's teachings were often much perverted by his devotees. it was only too easy. he had laid down, as so many another moralist, that justice consisted in reciprocity; but he taught of virtue in terms of his theory of numbers [ ]--a sure way of putting conduct out of touch with reality. thus we find some of the later pythagoreans laying it down as a canon that no story once fully current concerning the gods was to be disbelieved [ ]--the complete negation of philosophical freethought and a sharp contradiction of the other view which represented the shade of pythagoras as saying that he had seen in tartaros the shade of homer hanged to a tree, and that of hesiod chained to a pillar of brass, for the monstrous things they had ascribed to the gods. [ ] it must have taken a good deal of decadence to bring an innovating sect to that pass; and even about b.c. we find the freethinking ennius at rome calling himself a pythagorean; [ ] but the course of things in magna graecia was mostly downward after the sixth century; the ferocious destruction of sybaris by the krotoniates helping to promote the decline. [ ] intellectual life, in magna graecia as in ionia, obeyed the general tendency. an opposite view of the pythagorean evolution is taken by professor burnet. he is satisfied that the long list of the pythagorean taboos, which he rightly pronounces to be "of a thoroughly primitive type" (p. ), and not at all the subtle "symbols" which they were latterly represented to be, were really the lore of pythagoras. it is not easy thus to conceive a thinker of the great ionian age as holding by thoroughly primitive superstitions. perhaps the solution lies in aristotle's statement that pythagoras was first a mathematician, and only in later life a pherekydean miracle-monger (burnet, p. , note ). he may actually have started the symbolic view of the taboos which he imposed. before the decadence comes, however, the phenomenon of rationalism occurs on all sides in the colonial cities, older and younger alike; and direct criticism of creed kept pace with the indirect. about b.c. theagenes of rhegion, in southern italy, had begun for the greeks the process of reducing the unacceptable god-stories in homer and hesiod--notably the battle of the gods in the iliad--to mere allegories of the cosmic elements [ ]--a device natural to and practised by liberal conservatives in all religious systems under stress of skeptical attack, and afterwards much employed in the hellenic world. [ ] soon the attack became more stringent. at syracuse we find the great comic dramatist epicharmos, about b.c., treating the deities on the stage in a spirit of such audacious burlesque [ ] as must be held to imply unbelief. aristophanes, at athens, indeed, shows a measure of the same spirit while posing as a conservative in religion; but epicharmos was professedly something of a pythagorean and philosopher, [ ] and was doubtless protected by hiero, at whose court he lived, against any religious resentment he may have aroused. the story of simonides's answer to hiero's question as to the nature of the gods--first asking a day to think, then two days, then four, then avowing that meditation only made the problem harder [ ]--points to the prevalent tone among the cultured. § at last the critical spirit finds utterance, in the great periklean period, at athens, but first by way of importation from ionia, where miletos had fallen in the year . anaxagoras of klazomenai (fl. - b.c.; d. ) is the first freethinker historically known to have been legally prosecuted and condemned [ ] for his freethought; and it was in the athens of perikles, despite perikles's protection, that the attack was made. coming of the ionian line of thinkers, and himself a pupil of anaximenes of miletos, he held firmly by the scientific view of the cosmos, and taught that the sun, instead of being animated and a deity as the athenians believed, was "a red-hot mass many times larger than the peloponnesos" [ ]--and the moon a fiery (or earthy) solid body having in it plains and mountains and valleys--this while asserting that infinite mind was the source and introducer of all the motion in the infinite universe; [ ] infinite in extent and infinitely divisible. this "materialistic" doctrine as to the heavenly bodies was propounded, as sokrates tells in his defence, in books that in his day anyone could buy for a drachma; and anaxagoras further taught, like theagenes, that the mythical personages of the poets were mere abstractions invested with name and gender. [ ] withal he was no brawler; and even in pious athens, where he taught in peace for many years, he might have died in peace but for his intimacy with the most renowned of his pupils, perikles. the question of the deity of the sun raised an interesting sociological question. athenians saw no blasphemy in saying that gê (gaia) or dêmêter was the earth: they had always understood as much; and the earth was simply for them a goddess; a vast living thing containing the principle of life. they might similarly have tolerated the description of the sun as a kind of red-hot earth, provided that its divinity were not challenged. the trouble lay rather in the negative than in the positive assertion, though the latter must for many have been shocking, inasmuch as they had never been wont to think about the sun as they did about the earth. it is told of perikles ( - b.c.) by the pious plutarch, himself something of a believer in portents, that he greatly admired anaxagoras, from whom he "seems to have learned to despise those superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce in those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about them, refer them all to the immediate action of the gods." [ ] and even the stately eloquence and imperturbable bearing of the great statesman are said to have been learned from the ionian master, whom he followed in "adorning his oratory with apt illustrations from physical science." [ ] the old philosopher, however, whom men called "nous" or intelligence because of the part the name played in his teaching, left his property to go to ruin in his devotion to ideas; and it is told, with small probability, that at one time, old and indigent, he covered his head with his robe and decided to starve to death; till perikles, hearing of it, hastened to beseech him to live to give his pupil counsel. [ ] at length it occurred to the statesman's enemies to strike at him through his guide, philosopher, and friend. they had already procured the banishment of another of his teachers, damon, as "an intriguer and a friend of despotism"; [ ] and one of their fanatics, diopeithes, a priest and a violent demagogue, [ ] laid the way for an attack on anaxagoras by obtaining the enactment of a law that "prosecutions should be laid against all who disbelieved in religion and held theories of their own about things on high." [ ] anaxagoras was thus open to indictment on the score alike of his physics and of his mythology; though, seeing that his contemporary diogenes of apollonia (who before demokritos taught "nothing out of nothing: nothing into nothing," and affirmed the sphericity of the earth) was also in some danger of his life at athens, [ ] it is probable that the prosecution was grounded on his physicist teaching. saved by perikles from the death punishment, but by one account fined five talents, [ ] he either was exiled or chose to leave the intolerant city; and he made his home at lampsakos, where, as the story runs, he won from the municipality the favour that every year the children should have a holiday in the month in which he died. [ ] it is significant of his general originality that he was reputed the first greek who wrote a book in prose. [ ] philosophically, however, he counted for less than he did as an innovating rationalist. his doctrine of nous amounted in effect to a reaffirmation of deity; and he has been not unjustly described [ ] as the philosophic father of the dualistic deism or theism which, whether from within or from without the christian system, has been the prevailing form of religious philosophy in the modern world. it was, in fact, the only form of theistic philosophy capable of winning any wide assent among religiously biassed minds; and it is the more remarkable that such a theist should have been prosecuted because his notion of deity was mental, and excluded the divinization of the heavenly bodies. in the memorable episode of his expulsion from athens we have a finger-post to the road travelled later by greek civilization. at athens itself the bulk of the free population was ignorant and bigoted enough to allow of the law being used by any fanatic or malignant partisan against any professed rationalist; and there is no sign that perikles dreamt of applying the one cure for the evil--the systematic bestowal of rationalistic instruction on all. the fatal maxim of ancient skepticism, that religion is a necessary restraint upon the multitude, brought it about that everywhere, in the last resort, the unenlightened multitude became a restraint upon reason and freethought. [ ] in the more aristocratically ruled colonial cities, as we have seen, philosophic speech was comparatively free: it was the ignorant athenian democracy that brought religious intolerance into greek life, playing towards science, in form of law, the part that the fanatics of egypt and palestine had played towards the worshippers of other gods than their own. with a baseness of which the motive may be divided between the instincts of faction and of faith, the anti-periklean party carried their attack yet further; and on their behalf a comic playwright, hermippos, brought a charge of impiety against the statesman's unwedded wife, aspasia. [ ] there can be no doubt that that famous woman cordially shared the opinions and ideals of her husband, joining as she habitually did in the philosophic talk of his home circle. as a milesian she was likely enough to be a freethinker; and all that was most rational in athens acknowledged her culture and her charm. [ ] perikles, who had not taken the risk of letting anaxagoras come to trial, himself defended aspasia before the dikastery, his indignation breaking through his habitual restraint in a passion of tears, which, according to the jealous Æschines, [ ] won an acquittal. placed as he was, perikles could but guard his own head and heart, leaving the evil instrument of a religious inquisition to subsist. how far he held with anaxagoras we can but divine. [ ] there is probably no truth in plutarch's tale that "whenever he ascended the tribune to speak he used first to pray to the gods that nothing unfitted for the occasion might fall from his lips." [ ] but as a party leader he, as a matter of course, observed the conventions; and he may have reasoned that the prosecutions of anaxagoras and aspasia, like that directed against pheidias, stood merely for contemporary political malice, and not for any lasting danger to mental freedom. however that might be, athens continued to remain the most aggressively intolerant and tradition-mongering of hellenic cities. so marked is this tendency among the athenians that for modern students herodotos, whose history was published in b.c., is relatively a rationalist in his treatment of fable, [ ] bringing as he did the spirit of ionia into things traditional and religious. but even herodotos remains wedded to the belief in oracles or prophecies, claiming fulfilment for those said to have been uttered by bakis; [ ] and his small measure of spontaneous skepticism could avail little for critical thought. to no man, apparently, did it occur to resist the religious spirit by systematic propaganda: that, like the principle of representative government, was to be hit upon only in a later age. [ ] not by a purely literary culture, relating life merely to poetry and myth, tradition and superstition, were men to be made fit to conduct a stable society. and the spirit of pious persecution, once generated, went from bad to worse, crowning itself with crime, till at length the overthrow of athenian self-government wrought a forlorn liberty of scientific speech at the cost of the liberty of political action which is the basis of all sound life. whatever may have been the private vogue of freethinking at athens in the periklean period, it was always a popular thing to attack it. some years before or after the death of perikles there came to athens the alien hippo, the first specifically named atheist [ ] of greek antiquity. the dubious tradition runs that his tomb bore the epitaph: "this is the grave of hippo, whom destiny, in destroying him, has made the equal of the immortal gods." [ ] if, as seems likely, he was the hippo of rhegion mentioned by hippolytos, [ ] he speculated as to physical origins in the manner of thales, making water generate fire, and that in turn produce the world. [ ] but this is uncertain. upon him the comic muse of athens turned its attacks very much as it did upon socrates. the old comic poet kratinos, a notorious wine-bibber, produced a comedy called the panoptai (the "all-seers" or "all eyes"), in which it would appear that the chorus were made to represent the disciples of hippo, and to wear a mask covered with eyes. [ ] drunkenness was a venial fault in comparison with the presumption to speculate on physics and to doubt the sacred lore of the populace. the end of the rule of ignorance was that a theistic philosopher who himself discouraged scientific inquiry was to pay a heavier penalty than did the atheist hippo. § while athens was gaining power and glory and beauty without popular wisdom, the colonial city of abdera, in thrace, founded by ionians, had like others carried on the great impulse of ionian philosophy, and had produced in the fifth century some of the great thinkers of the race. concerning the greatest of these, demokritos, and the next in importance, protagoras, we have no sure dates; [ ] but it is probable that the second, whether older or younger, was influenced by the first, who indeed has influenced all scientific philosophy down to our own day. how much he learned from his master leukippos cannot now be ascertained. [ ] the writings which went under his name appear to have been the productions of the whole abderite school; [ ] and epicurus declared that leukippos was an imaginary person. [ ] what passes for his teaching was constructive science of cardinal importance; for it is the first clear statement of the atomic theory; the substitution of a real for an abstract foundation of things. whoever were the originator of the theory, there is no doubt as to the assimilation of the principle by demokritos, who thus logically continued the non-theistic line of thought, and developed one of the most fruitful of all scientific principles. that this idea again is a direct development from babylonian science is not impossible; at least there seems to be no doubt that demokritos had travelled far and wide, [ ] whether or not he had been brought up, as the tradition goes, by persian magi; [ ] and that he told how the cosmic views of anaxagoras, which scandalized the athenians, were current in the east. [ ] but he stands out as one of the most original minds in the whole history of thought. no greek thinker, not aristotle himself, has struck so deep as he into fundamental problems; though the absurd label of "the laughing philosopher," bestowed on him by some peculiarly unphilosophic mind, has delayed the later recognition of his greatness, clear as it was to bacon. [ ] the vital maxim, "nothing from nothing: nothing into nothing," derives substantially from him. [ ] his atomic theory, held in conjunction with a conception of "mind-stuff" similar to that of anaxagoras, may be termed the high-water mark of ancient scientific thought; and it is noteworthy that somewhat earlier in the same age empedokles of agrigentum, another product of the freer colonial life, threw out a certain glimmer of the darwinian conception--perhaps more clearly attained by anaximandros--that adaptations prevail in nature just because the adaptations fit organisms to survive, and the non-adapted perish. [ ] in his teaching, too, the doctrine of the indestructibility of matter is clear and firm; [ ] and the denial of anthropomorphic deity is explicit. [ ] but empedokles wrought out no solid system: "half-mystic and half-rationalist, he made no attempt to reconcile the two inconsistent sides of his intellectual character"; [ ] and his explicit teaching of metempsychosis [ ] and other pythagoreanisms gave foothold for more delusion than he ever dispelled. [ ] on the whole, he is one of the most remarkable personalities of antiquity, moving among men with a pomp and gravity which made them think of him as a god, denouncing their sacrifices, and no less their eating of flesh; and checking his notable self-exaltation by recalling the general littleness of men. but he did little to enlighten them; and aristotle passed on to the world a fatal misconception of his thought by ascribing to him the notion of automatism where he was asserting a "necessity" in terms of laws which he avowedly could not explain. [ ] against such misconception he should have provided. demokritos, however, shunned dialectic and discussion, and founded no school; [ ] and although his atomism was later adopted by epicurus, it was no more developed on a basis of investigation and experiment than was the biology of empedokles. his ethic, though wholly rationalistic, leant rather to quietism and resignation than to reconstruction, [ ] and found its application only in the later static message of epicurus. greek society failed to set up the conditions needed for progress beyond the point gained by its unguided forces. thus when protagoras ventured to read, at the house of the freethinking euripides, a treatise of his own, beginning with the avowal that he offered no opinion as to the existence of the gods, life being too short for the inquiry, [ ] the remark got wind, and he had to fly for his life, though euripides and perhaps most of the guests were very much of the same way of thinking. [ ] in the course of his flight, the tradition goes, the philosopher was drowned; [ ] and his book was publicly burned, all who possessed copies being ordered by public proclamation to give them up--the earliest known instance of "censorship of the press." [ ] partisan malice was doubtless at work in his case as in that of anaxagoras; for the philosophic doctrine of protagoras became common enough. it is not impossible, though the date is doubtful, that the attack on him was one of the results of the great excitement in athens in the year b.c. over the sacrilegious mutilation of the figures of hermes, the familial or boundary-god, in the streets by night. it was about that time that the poet diagoras of melos was proscribed for atheism, he having declared that the non-punishment of a certain act of iniquity proved that there were no gods. [ ] it has been surmised, with some reason, that the iniquity in question was the slaughter of the melians by the athenians in b.c., [ ] and the athenian resentment in that case was personal and political rather than religious. [ ] for some time after the athenian courts made strenuous efforts to punish every discoverable case of impiety; and parodies of the eleusinian mysteries (resembling the mock masses of catholic europe) were alleged against alkibiades and others. [ ] diagoras, who was further charged with divulging the eleusinian and other mysteries, and with making firewood of an image of herakles, telling the god thus to perform his thirteenth labour by cooking turnips, [ ] became thenceforth one of the proverbial atheists of the ancient world, [ ] and a reward of a silver talent was offered for killing him, and of two talents for his capture alive; [ ] despite which he seems to have escaped. but no antidote to the bane of fanaticism was found or sought; and the most famous publicist in athens was the next victim. the fatality of the athenian development is seen not only in the direct hostility of the people to rational thought, but in their loss of their hold even on their public polity. for lack of political judgment, moved always by the passions which their literary culture cherished, they so mishandled their affairs in the long and demoralizing peloponnesian war that they were at one time cowed by their own aristocracy, on essentially absurd pretexts, into abandoning the democratic constitution. its restoration was followed at the final crisis by another tyranny, also short-lived, but abnormally bloody and iniquitous; and though the people at its overthrow showed a moderation in remarkable contrast to the cruelty and rapacity of the aristocrats, the effect of such extreme vicissitude was to increase the total disposition towards civic violence and coercion. and while the people menaced freethinking in religion, the aristocracies opposed freethinking in politics. thus under the thirty tyrants all intellectual teaching was forbidden; and kritias, himself accused of having helped alkibiades to parody the mysteries, sharply interdicted the political rationalism of sokrates, [ ] who according to tradition had been one of his own instructors. it was a result of the general movement of mind throughout the rest of the hellenic world that freethinkers of culture were still numerous. archelaos of miletos, the most important disciple of anaxagoras; according to a late tradition, the master of sokrates; and the first systematic teacher of ionic physical science in athens, taught the infinity of the universe, grasped the explanation of the nature of sound, and set forth on purely rationalistic lines the social origin and basis of morals, thus giving sokrates his practical lead. [ ] another disciple of anaxagoras, metrodoros of lampsakos (not to be confounded with metrodoros of chios, and the other metrodoros of lampsakos who was the friend of epicurus, both also freethinkers), carried out zealously his master's teaching as to the deities and heroes of homer, resolving them into mere elemental combinations and physical agencies, and making zeus stand for mind, and athenê for art. [ ] and in the belles lettres of athens itself, in the dramas of euripides [ - b.c.], who is said to have been the ardent disciple of anaxagoras, [ ] to have studied herakleitos, [ ] and to have been the friend of sokrates and protagoras, there emerge traces enough of a rationalism not to be reconciled with the old belief in the gods. if euripides has nowhere ventured on such a terrific paradox as the prometheus, he has in a score of passages revealed a stress of skepticism which, inasmuch as he too uses all the forms of hellenic faith, [ ] deepens our doubt as to the beliefs of Æschylus. euripides even gave overt proof of his unbelief, beginning his melanippe with the line: "zeus, whoever zeus be, for i know not, save by report," an audacity which evoked a great uproar. in a later production the passage was prudently altered; [ ] but he never put much check on his native tendency to analyse and criticize on all issues--a tendency fostered, as we have seen, [ ] by the constant example of real and poignant dialectic in the athenian dikastery, and the whole drift of the athenian stage. in his case the tendency even overbalances the artistic process; [ ] but it has the advantage of involving a very bold handling of vital problems. not satisfied with a merely dramatic presentment of lawless gods, euripides makes his characters impeach them as such, [ ] or, again, declare that there can be no truth in the "miserable tales of poets" which so represent them. [ ] not content with putting aside as idle such a fable as that of the sun's swerving from his course in horror at the crime of atreus, [ ] and that of the judgment of paris, [ ] he attacks with a stringent scorn the whole apparatus of oracles, divination, and soothsaying. [ ] and if the athenian populace cried out at the hardy opening of the melanippe, he nonetheless gave them again and again his opinion that no man knew anything of the gods. [ ] of orthodox protests against freethinking inquiry he gives a plainly ironical handling. [ ] as regards his constructive opinions, we have from him many expressions of the pantheism which had by his time permeated the thought of perhaps most of the educated greeks. [ ] here again, as in the case of Æschylus, there arises the problem of contradiction; for euripides, too, puts often in the mouths of his characters emphatic expressions of customary piety. the conclusion in the two cases must be broadly the same--that whereas an unbelieving dramatist may well make his characters talk in the ordinary way of deity and of religion, it is unintelligible that a believing one should either go beyond the artistic bounds of his task to make them utter an unbelief which must have struck the average listener as strange and noxious, or construct a drama of which the whole effect is to insist on the odiousness of the action of the supreme god. and the real drift of euripides is so plain that one modern and christian scholar has denounced him as an obnoxious and unbelieving sophist who abused his opportunity as a producer of dramas under religious auspices to "shake the ground-works of religion" [ ] and at the same time of morals; [ ] while another and a greater scholar, less vehement in his orthodoxy, more restrainedly condemns the dramatist for employing myths in which he did not believe, instead of inventing fresh plots. [ ] christian scholars are thus duly unready to give him credit for his many-sided humanity, nobly illustrated in his pleas for the slave and his sympathy with suffering barbarians. [ ] latterly the recognition of euripides's freethinking has led to the description of him as "euripides the rationalist," in a treatise which represents him as a systematic assailant of the religion of his day. abating somewhat of that thesis, which imputes more of system to the euripidean drama than it possesses, we may sum up that the last of the great tragedians of athens, and the most human and lovable of the three, was assuredly a rationalist in matters of religion. it is noteworthy that he used more frequently than any other ancient dramatist the device of a deus ex machina to end a play. [ ] it was probably because for him the conception had no serious significance. [ ] in the alkestis its [non-mechanical] use is one of the most striking instances of dramatic irony in all literature. the dead alkestis, who has died to save the life of her husband, is brought back from the shades by herakles, who figures as a brawling bully. only the thinkers of the time could realize the thought that underlay such a tragi-comedy. dr. verrall's euripides the rationalist, , is fairly summed up by mr. haigh (tragic drama of the greeks, pp. , , notes): "he considers that euripides was a skeptic of the aggressive type, whose principal object in writing tragedy was to attack the state religion, but who, perceiving that it would be dangerous to pose as an open enemy, endeavoured to accomplish his ends by covert ridicule.... his plays ... contain in reality two separate plots--the ostensible and superficial plot, which was intended to satisfy the orthodox, and the rationalized modification which lay half concealed beneath it, and which the intelligent skeptic would easily detect." for objections to this thesis see haigh, as cited; jevons, hist. of greek lit. p. , note; and dr. mozley's article in the classical review, nov. , pp. - . as to the rationalism of euripides in general see many of the passages cited by bishop westcott in his essays in the hist. of relig. thought in the west, , pp. - . and cp. dickinson, the greek view of life, pp. - ; grote, hist. i, - ; zeller, socrates and the socratic schools, eng. tr. rd ed. p. ; murray, anc. greek lit. pp. , - . over the latest play of euripides, the bacchæ, as over one of the last plays of Æschylus, the prometheus, there has been special debate. it was probably written in macedonia (cp. ll., , ), whither the poet had gone on the invitation of king archelaos, when, according to the ancient sketch of his life, "he had to leave athens because of the malicious exultation over him of nearly all the city." the trouble, it is conjectured, "may have been something connected with his prosecution for impiety, the charge on which socrates was put to death a few years after" (murray, euripides translated into english rhyming verse, , introd. essay, p. lii). inasmuch as the play glorifies dionysos, and the "atheist" pentheus (l. ) who resists him is slain by the maddened bacchantes, led by his own mother, it is seriously argued that the drama "may be regarded as in some sort an apologia and an eirenicon, or as a confession on the part of the poet that he was fully conscious that in some of the simple legends of the popular faith there was an element of sound sense (!) which thoughtful men must treat with forbearance, resolved on using it, if possible, as an instrument for inculcating a truer morality, instead of assailing it with a presumptuous denial" (j. e. sandys, the bacchæ of euripides, , introd. pp. lxxv-vi). here we have the conformist ethic of the average english academic brought to bear on, and ascribed to, the personality of the greek dramatist. an academic of the same order, prof. mahaffy, similarly suggests that "among the half-educated macedonian youth, with whom literature was coming into fashion, the poet may have met with a good deal of that insolent second-hand skepticism which is so offensive to a deep and serious thinker, and he may have wished to show them that he was not, as they doubtless hailed him, the apostle of this random speculative arrogance" (euripides in class. writ. ser. , p. ). as against the eminently "random" and "speculative arrogance" of this particular passage--a characteristic product of the obscurantist functions of some british university professors in matters of religion, and one which may fitly be pronounced offensive to honest men--it may be suggested on the other hand that, if euripides got into trouble in athens by his skepticism, he would be likely in macedonia to encounter rather a greater stress of bigotry than a freethinking welcome, and that a non-critical presentment of the savage religious legend was forced on him by his environment. much of the academic discussion on the subject betrays a singular slowness to accept the dramatic standpoint. even prof. murray, the finest interpreter of euripides, dogmatically pronounces (introd. cited p. lvii) that "there is in the bacchæ real and heartfelt glorification of dionysus," simply because of the lyrical exaltation of the bacchic choruses. but lyrical exaltation was in character here above all other cases; and it was the dramatist's business to present it. to say that "again and again in the lyrics you feel that the mænads are no longer merely observed and analysed: the poet has entered into them and they into him," is nothing to the purpose. that the words which fall from the chorus or its leader are at times "not the words of a raving bacchante, but of a gentle and deeply musing philosopher," is still nothing to the purpose. the same could be said of shakespeare's handling of macbeth. what, in sooth, would the real words of a raving bacchante be like? if milton lent dignity to satan in puritan england, was euripides to do less for dionysos in macedonia? that he should make pentheus unsympathetic belongs to the plot. if he had made a noble martyr of the victim as well as an impassive destroyer of the god, he might have had to leave macedonia more precipitately than he left athens. prof. murray recognizes all the while that "euripides never palliates things. he leaves this savage story as savage as he found it"; that he presents a "triumphant and hateful dionysus," who gives "a helpless fatalistic answer, abandoning the moral standpoint," when challenged by the stricken agavê, whom the god has moved to dismember her own son; and that, in short, "euripides is, as usual, critical or even hostile to the myth that he celebrates" (as cited, pp. liv-lvi). to set against these solid facts, as does mr. sandys (as cited, pp. lxxiii-iv), some passages in the choruses (ll. , , , ), and in a speech of dionysos ( ), enouncing normal platitudes about the wisdom of thinking like other people and living a quiet life, is to strain very uncritically the elastic dramatic material. so far from being "not entirely in keeping" with the likely sentiments of a chorus of asiatic women, the first-cited passages--telling that cleverness is not wisdom, and that true wisdom acquiesces in the opinions of ordinary people--are just the kind of mock-modest ineptitudes always current among the complacent ignorant; and the sage language ascribed to the heartless god is simply a presentment of deity in the fashion in which all greeks expected to have it presented. the fact remains that the story of the bacchæ, in which the frenzied mother helps to tear to pieces her own son, and the god can but say it is all fated, is as revolting to the rational moral sense as the story of the prometheus. if this be an eirenicon, it is surely the most ironical in literary history. to see in the impassive delineation of such a myth an acceptance by the poet of popular "sound sense," and "a desire to put himself right with the public in matters on which he had been misunderstood," seems possible only to academics trained to a particular handling of the popular creed of their own day. this view, first put forward by tyrwhitt (conjecturæ in Æschylum, etc. ), was adopted by schoone (p. of his ed. cited by sandys). lobeck, greatly daring wherever rationalism was concerned, suggested that euripides actually wrote against the rationalists of his time, in commendation of the bacchic cult, and to justify the popular view in religious matters as against that of the cultured (aglaophamus--passages quoted by sandys, p. lxxvi). musgrave, following tyrwhitt, makes the play out to be an attack on kritias, alkibiades, and other freethinkers, including even sokrates! k. o. müller, always ineptly conventional in such matters, finds euripides in this play "converted into a positive believer, or, in other words, convinced that religion should not be exposed to the subtilties of reasoning; that the understanding of man cannot subvert ancestral traditions which are as old as time," and so on; and in the polonius-platitudes of tiresias and the worldly-wise counsels of cadmus he finds "great impressiveness" (hist. lit. anc. greece, p. ). the bulk of the literature of the subject, in short, suggests sombre reflections on the moral value of much academic thinking. there are, however, academic suffrages on the side of common sense. mr. haigh (tragic drama of the greeks, pp. - ) gently dismisses the "recantation" theory; hartung points out (euripides restitutus, , ii, , cited by sandys) that euripides really treats the legend of pentheus very much as he treats the myth of hippolytos thirty years earlier, showing no change of moral attitude. e. pfander (cited by sandys) took a similar view; as did mr. tyrrell in his edition of the play ( ), though the latter persisted in taking the commonplaces of the chorus about true wisdom ( ) for the judgments of the dramatist. euripides could hardly have been called "the philosopher of the stage" (athenæus, iv, ) on the strength of sentiments which are common to the village wiseacres of all ages. the critical method which ascribes to euripides a final hostility to rationalism would impute to shakespeare the religion of isabella in measure for measure, when the talk of the duke as a friar counselling a condemned man is wholly "pagan" or unbelieving. in his admirable little book, euripides and his age ( ), prof. murray repeats his account of the bacchæ with some additions and modifications. he adheres to the "heartfelt glorification of dionysus," but adds (p. ): "no doubt it is dionysus in some private sense of the poet's own ... some spirit of ... inspiration and untrammelled life. the presentation is not consistent, however magical the poetry." as to the theory that "the veteran free-lance of thought ... now saw the error of his ways and was returning to orthodoxy," he pronounces that "such a view strikes us now as almost childish in its incompetence" (p. ). he also reminds us that "the whole scheme of the play is given by the ancient ritual.... all kinds of small details which seemed like ... rather fantastic invention on the part of euripides are taken straight from Æschylus or the ritual, or both.... the bacchæ is not free invention; it is tradition" (pp. - ). and in sum: "it is well to remember that, for all his lucidity of language, euripides is not lucid about religion" (p. ). in conclusion we may ask, how could he be? he wrote plays for the greek stage, which had its very roots in religious tradition, and was run for the edification of a crudely believing populace. it is much that in so doing euripides could a hundred times challenge the evil religious ethic given him for his subject-matter; and his lasting vogue in antiquity showed that he had a hold on the higher greek conscience which no other dramatist ever possessed. but while euripides must thus have made a special appeal to the reflecting minority even in his own day, it is clear that he was not at first popular with the many; and his efforts, whatever he may have hoped to achieve, could not suffice to enlighten the democracy. the ribald blasphemies of his enemy, the believing aristophanes, [ ] could avail more to keep vulgar religion in credit than the tragedian's serious indictment could effect against it; and they served at the same time to belittle euripides for the multitude in his own day. aristophanes is the typical tory in religion; non-religious himself, like swift, he hates the honestly anti-religious man; and he has the crowd with him. the athenian faith, as a catholic scholar remarks, [ ] "was more disposed to suffer the buffooneries of a comedian than the serious negation of a philosopher." the average greek seemed to think that the grossest comic impiety did no harm, where serious negation might cause divine wrath. [ ] and so there came no intellectual salvation for athens from the drama which was her unique achievement. the balance of ignorance and culture was not changed. evidently there was much rationalism among the studious few. plato in the laws [ ] speaks both of the man-about-town type of freethinker and of those who, while they believe in no gods, live well and wisely and are in good repute. but with plato playing the superior mind and encouraging his fellow-townsmen to believe in the personality of the sun, moon, and planets, credulity could easily keep the upper hand. [ ] the people remained politically unwise and religiously superstitious, the social struggle perpetuating the division between leisure and toil, even apart from the life of the mass of slaves; while the eternal pre-occupation of militarism left even the majority of the upper class at the intellectual level natural to military life in all ages. there came, however, a generation of great intellectual splendour following on that of the supreme development of drama just before the fall of greek freedom. athens had at last come into the heritage of greek philosophic thought; and to the utterance of that crowning generation the human retrospect has turned ever since. this much of renown remains inalienable from the most renowned democracy of the ancient world. § the wide subject of the teaching of sokrates, plato, and aristotle must here be noticed briefly, with a view only to our special inquiry. all three must be inscribed in any list of ancient freethinkers; and yet all three furthered freethought only indirectly, the two former being in different degrees supernaturalists, while the last touched on religious questions only as a philosopher, avoiding all question of practical innovation. the same account holds good of the best of the so-called sophists, as gorgias the sicilian (? - ), who was a nihilistic skeptic; hippias of elis, who, setting up an emphatic distinction between nature and convention, impugned the political laws and prejudices which estranged men of thought and culture; and prodikos of kos (fl. ), author of the fable of herakles at the parting of the ways, who seems to have privately criticized the current gods as mere deifications of useful things and forces, and was later misconceived as teaching that the things and forces were gods. cp. cicero, de nat. deorum, i, ; sextus empiricus, adv. mathematicos, ix, ; ueberweg, vol. i, p. ; renouvier, i, - . cicero saw very well that if men came to see in dêmêtêr merely a deification of corn or bread, in dionysos wine, in hephaistos fire, and in poseidon only water, there was not much left in religion. on the score of their systematic skepticism, that is, their insistence on the subjectivity of all opinion, prof. drews pronounces the sophists at once the "aufklärer" and the pragmatists of ancient greece (gesch. des monismus, p. ). but their thought was scarcely homogeneous. . sokrates [ - ] was fundamentally and practically a freethinker, insofar as in most things he thought for himself, definitely turning away from the old ideal of mere transmitted authority in morals. [ ] starting in all inquiries from a position of professed ignorance, he at least repudiated all dogmatics. [ ] being, however, preoccupied with public life and conduct, he did not carry his critical thinking far beyond that sphere. in regard to the extension of solid science, one of the prime necessities of greek intellectual life, he was quite reactionary, drawing a line between the phenomena which he thought intelligible and traceable and those which he thought past finding out. "physics and astronomy, in his opinion, belonged to the divine class of phenomena in which human research was insane, fruitless, and impious." [ ] yet at the same time he formulated, apparently of his own motion, the ordinary design argument. [ ] the sound scientific view led up to by so many previous thinkers was set forth, even in religious phraseology, by his great contemporary hippokrates, [ ] and he opposed it. while partially separating himself in practice from the popular worships, he held by the belief in omens, though not in all the ordinary ones; and in one of the platonic dialogues he is made to say he holds by the ordinary versions of all the myths, on the ground that it is a hopeless task to find rational explanations for them. [ ] he hoped, in short, to rationalize conduct without seeking to rationalize creed--the dream of plato and of a thousand religionists since. he had indeed the excuse that the myth-rationalizers of the time after hekataios, following the line of least psychic resistance, like those of england and germany in the eighteenth century, explained away myths by reducing them to hypothetical history, thus asking credence for something no better verified than the myth itself. but the rationalizers were on a path by which men might conceivably have journeyed to a truer science; and sokrates, by refusing to undertake any such exploration, [ ] left his countrymen to that darkening belief in tradition which made possible his own execution. there was in his cast of mind, indeed--if we can at all accept plato's presentment of him--something unfavourable to steady conviction. he cannot have had any real faith in the current religion; yet he never explicitly dissented. in the republic he accepts the new festival to the thracian goddess bendis; and there he is made by plato to inculcate a quite orthodox acceptance of the delphic oracle as the source of all religious practice. but it is impossible to say how much of the teaching of the platonic sokrates is sokratic. and as to plato there remains the problem of how far his conformities were prudential, after the execution of sokrates for blasphemy. the long-debated issue as to the real personality of sokrates is still open. it is energetically and systematically handled by prof. august döring in die lehre des sokrates als sociales reformsystem ( ), and by dr. hubert röck in der unverfälschte sokrates ( ). see, in particular, döring, pp. - , and röck, pp. - . from all attempts to arrive at a conception of a consistent sokrates there emerges the impression that the real sokrates, despite a strong critical bent of mind, had no clearly established body of opinions, but was swayed in different directions by the itch for contradiction which was the driving power of his dialectic. for the so-called sokratic "method" is much less a method for attaining truth than one for disturbing prejudice. and if in plato's hands sokrates seldom reaches a conclusion that his own method might not overthrow, we are not entitled to refuse to believe that this was characteristic of the man. concerning sokrates we have xenophon's circumstantial account [ ] of how he reasoned with aristodemos, "surnamed the little," who "neither prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, nor consulted any oracle, and ridiculed those who did." aristodemos was a theist, believing in a "great architect" or "artist," or a number of such powers--on this he is as vague as the ancient theists in general--but does not think the heavenly powers need his devotions. sokrates, equally vague as to the unity or plurality of the divine, puts the design argument in the manner familiar throughout the ages, [ ] and follows it up with the plea, among others, that the states most renowned for wisdom and antiquity have always been the most given to pious practices, and that probably the gods will be kind to those who show them respect. the whole philosopheme is pure empiricism, on the ordinary plane of polytheistic thought, and may almost be said to exhibit incapacity for the handling of philosophic questions, evading as it does even the elementary challenge of aristodemos, against whom sokrates parades pious platitudes without a hint of "sokratic" analysis. unless such a performance were regarded as make-believe, it is difficult to conceive how athenian pietists could honestly arraign sokrates for irreligion while aristodemos and others of his way of thinking went unmolested. taken as illustrating the state of thought in the athenian community, the trial and execution of sokrates for "blasphemy" and "corrupting the minds of the young" go far to prove that there prevailed among the upper class in athens nearly as much hypocrisy in religious matters as exists in the england of to-day. doubtless he was liable to death from the traditionally orthodox greek point of view, [ ] having practically turned aside from the old civic creed and ideals; but then most educated athenians had in some degree done the same. [ ] euripides, as we have seen, is so frequently critical of the old theology and mythology in his plays that he too could easily have been indicted; and aristophanes, who attacked euripides in his comedies as scurrilously as he did sokrates, would no doubt have been glad to see him prosecuted. [ ] the psychology of aristophanes, who freely ridiculed and blasphemed the gods in his own comedies while reviling all men who did not believe in them, is hardly intelligible save in the light of parts of the english history of our own time, when unbelieving indifferentists on the conservative side have been seen ready to join in turning the law against a freethinking publicist for purely party ends. in the case of sokrates the hostility was ostensibly democratic, for, according to Æschines, sokrates was condemned because he had once given lessons to kritias, [ ] one of the most savage and unscrupulous of the thirty tyrants. inasmuch as kritias had become entirely alienated from sokrates, and had even put him to silence, such a ground of hostility would only be a fresh illustration of that collective predilection of men to a gregarious iniquity which is no less noteworthy in the psychology of groups than their profession of high moral standards. and such proclivities are always to be reckoned with in such episodes. anytos, the leading prosecutor, seems to have been a typical bigot, brainless, spiteful, and thoroughly self-satisfied. not only party malice, however, but the individual dislikes which sokrates so industriously set up, [ ] must have counted for much in securing the small majority of the dikastery that pronounced him guilty-- to ; and his own clear preference for death over any sort of compromise did the rest. [ ] he was old, and little hopeful of social betterment; and the temperamental obstinacy which underlay his perpetual and pertinacious debating helped him to choose a death that he could easily have avoided. but the fact remains that he was not popular; that the mass of the voters as well as of the upper class disliked his constant cross-examination of popular opinion, [ ] which must often have led logical listeners to carry on criticism where he left off; and that after all his ratiocination he left athens substantially irrational, as well as incapable of justice, on some essential issues. his dialectic method has done more to educate the later world than it did for greece. upon the debate as to the legal punishability of sokrates turns another as to the moral character of the athenians who forced him to drink the hemlock. professor mahaffy, bent on proving the superiority of athenian culture and civilization to those of christendom, effectively contrasts the calm scene in the prison-chamber of sokrates with the hideous atrocities of the death penalty for treason in the modern world and the "gauntness and horror of our modern executions" (social life in greece, rd. ed. pp. - ); and mr. bleeckly (socrates and the athenians, , pp. - ) similarly sets against the pagan case that of the burning of heretics by the christian church, and in particular the auto da fé at valladolid in , when fifteen men and women--the former including the conscientious priests who had proposed to meet the hostility of protestant dissent in the netherlands by reforms in the church: the latter including delicately-nurtured ladies of high family--were burned to death before the eyes of the princess regent of spain and the aristocracy of castile. it is certainly true that this transaction has no parallel in the criminal proceedings of pagan athens. christian cruelty has been as much viler than pagan, culture for culture, as the modern christian environment is uglier than the athenian. before such a test the special pleaders for the civilizing power of christianity can but fall back upon alternative theses which are the negation of their main case. first we are told that "christianity humanizes men"; next that where it does not do so it is because they are too inhuman to be made christians. but while the orthodoxy of pagan athens thus comes very well off as against the frightful crime-roll of organized christianity, the dispassionate historian must nonetheless note the dehumanizing power of religion in athens as in christendom. the pietists of athens, in their less brutish way, were as hopelessly denaturalized as those of christian europe by the dominion of a traditional creed, held as above reason. it matters not whether or not we say with bishop thirlwall (hist. of greece, nd ed. iv, ) that "there never was a case in which murder was more clearly committed under the forms of legal procedure than in the trial of socrates," or press on the other side the same writer's admission that in religious matters in athens "there was no canon, no book by which a doctrine could be tried; no living authority to which appeal could be made for the decision of religious controversies." the fact that christendom had "authorities" who ruled which of two sets of insane dogmas brought death upon its propounder, does not make less abominable the slaying of bruno and servetus, or the immeasurable massacre of less eminent heretics. but the less formalized homicides sanctioned by the piety of periklean athens remain part of the proof that unreasoning faith worsens men past calculation. if we slur over such deeds by generalities about human frailty, we are but asserting the impossibility of rationally respecting human nature. if, putting aside all moral censure, we are simply concerned to trace and comprehend causation in human affairs, we have no choice but to note how upon occasion religion on one hand, like strong drink on another, can turn commonplace men into murderers. in view of the limitations of sokrates, and the mental measure of those who voted for putting him to death, it is not surprising that through all greek history educated men (including aristotle) continued to believe firmly in the deluge of deukalion [ ] and the invasion of the amazons [ ] as solid historical facts. such beliefs, of course, are on all fours with those current in the modern religious world down till the present century: we shall, in fact, best appraise the rationality of greece by making such comparisons. the residual lesson is that where greek reason ended, modern social science had better be regarded as only beginning. thukydides, the greatest of all the ancient historians, and one of the great of all time, treated human affairs in a spirit so strictly rationalistic that he might reasonably be termed an atheist on that score even if he had not earned the name as a pupil of anaxagoras. [ ] but his task was to chronicle a war which proved that the greeks were to the last children of instinct for the main purposes of life, and that the rule of reason which they are credited with establishing [ ] was only an intermittent pastime. in the days of demosthenes we still find them politically consulting the pythian oracle, despite the consciousness among educated men that the oracle is a piece of political machinery. we can best realize the stage of their evolution by first comparing their public religious practice with that of contemporary england. no one now regards the daily prayers of the house of commons as more than a reverent formality. but nikias at syracuse staked the fortunes of war on the creed of omens. we can perhaps finally conceive with fair accuracy the subordination of greek culture and politics to superstition by likening the thought-levels of pre-alexandrian athens to those of england under cromwell. . the decisive measure of greek accomplishment is found in the career of plato [ - ]. one of the great prose writers of the world, he has won by his literary genius--that is, by his power of continuous presentation as well as by his style--no less than by his service to supernaturalist philosophy in general, a repute above his deserts as a thinker. in christian history he is the typical philosopher of dualism, [ ] his prevailing conception of the universe being that of an inert matter acted on or even created by a craftsman-god, the "divine artificer," sometimes conceived as a logos or divine reason, separately personalized. thus he came to be par excellence the philosopher of theism, as against aristotle and those of the pythagoreans who affirmed the eternity of the universe. [ ] in the history of freethought he figures as a man of genius formed by sokrates and reflecting his limitations, developing the sokratic dialectic on the one hand and finally emphasizing the sokratic dogmatism to the point of utter bigotry. if the athenians are to be condemned for putting sokrates to death, it must not be forgotten that the spirit, if not the letter, of the laws drawn up by plato in his old age fully justified them. [ ] that code, could it ever have been put in force, would have wrought the death of every honest freethinker as well as most of the ignorant believers within its sphere. alone among the great serious writers of greece does he implicate greek thought in the gospel of intolerance passed on to modern europe from antiquity. it is recorded of him [ ] that he wished to burn all the writings of demokritos that he could collect, and was dissuaded only on the score of the number of copies. what was best in plato, considered as a freethinker, was his early love of ratiocination, of "the rendering and receiving of reasons." even in his earlier dialogues, however, there are signs enough of an arbitrary temper, as well as of an inability to put science in place of religious prejudice. the obscurantist doctrine which he put in the mouth of sokrates in the phædrus was also his own, as we gather from the exposition in the republic. in that brilliant performance he objects, as so many believers and freethinkers had done before him, to the scandalous tales in the poets concerning the gods and the sons of gods; but he does not object to them as being untrue. his position is that they are unedifying. [ ] for his own part he proposes that his ideal rulers frame new myths which shall edify the young: in his utopia it is part of the business of the legislator to choose the right fictions; [ ] and the systematic imposition of an edifying body of pious fable on the general intelligence is part of his scheme for the regeneration of society. [ ] honesty is to be built up by fraud, and reason by delusion. what the hebrew bible-makers actually did, plato proposed to do. the one thing to be said in his favour is that by thus telling how the net is to be spread in the sight of the bird he put the decisive obstacle--if any were needed--in the way of his plan. it is, indeed, inconceivable that the author of the republic and the laws dreamt that either polity as a whole would ever come into existence. his plans of suppressing all undesirable poetry, arranging community of women, and enabling children to see battles, are the fancy-sketches of a dilettant. he had failed completely as a statesman in practice; as a schemer he does not even posit the first conditions of success. as to his practical failure see the story of his and his pupils' attempts at syracuse (grote, history, ix, - ). the younger dionysios, whom they had vainly attempted to make a model ruler, seems to have been an audacious unbeliever to the extent of plundering the temple of persephone at lokris, one of jupiter in the peloponnesos, and one of Æsculapius at epidaurus. clement of alexandria (protrept. c. ) states that he plundered "the statue of jupiter in sicily." cicero (de nat. deorum, iii, , ) and valerius maximus (i, ) tell the story of the elder dionysios; but of him it cannot be true. in his day the plunder of the temples of dêmêtêr and persephone in sicily by the carthaginians was counted a deadly sin. see freeman, history of sicily, iv, - , and story of sicily, pp. - . in cicero's dialogue it is noted that after all his impieties dionysios [the elder, of whom the stories are mistakenly told] died in his bed. athenæus, however, citing the biographer klearchos, tells that the younger dionysios, after being reduced to the rôle of a begging priest of kybelê, ended his life very miserably (xii, ). nonetheless, the prescription of intolerance in the laws [ ] classes plato finally on the side of fanaticism, and, indeed, ranks him with the most sinister figures on that side, since his earlier writing shows that he would be willing to punish men alike for repeating stories which they believed, and for rejecting what he knew to be untruths. [ ] by his own late doctrine he vindicated the slayers of his own friend. his psychology is as strange as that of aristophanes, but strange with a difference. he seems to have practised "the will to believe" till he grew to be a fanatic on the plane of the most ignorant of orthodox athenians; and after all that science had done to enlighten men on that natural order the misconceiving of which had been the foundation of their creeds, he inveighs furiously in his old age against the impiety of those who dared to doubt that the sun and moon and stars were deities, as every nurse taught her charges. [ ] and when all is said, his gods satisfy no need of the intelligence; for he insists that they only partially rule the world, sending the few good things, but not the many evil [ ]--save insofar as evil may be a beneficent penalty and discipline. at the same time, while advising the imprisonment or execution of heretics who did not believe in the gods, plato regarded with even greater detestation the man who taught that they could be persuaded or propitiated by individual prayer and sacrifice. [ ] thus he would have struck alike at the freethinking few and at the multitude who held by the general religious beliefs of greece, dealing damnation on all save his own clique, in a way that would have made torquemada blench. [ ] in the face of such teaching as this, it may well be said that "greek philosophy made incomparably greater advances in the earlier polemic period [of the ionians] than after its friendly return to the poetry of homer and hesiod" [ ]--that is, to their polytheistic basis. it is to be said for plato, finally, that his embitterment at the downward course of things in athens is a quite intelligible source for his own intellectual decadence: a very similar spectacle being seen in the case of our own great modern utopist, sir thomas more. but plato's own writing bears witness that among the unbelievers against whom he declaimed there were wise and blameless citizens; [ ] while in the act of seeking to lay a religious basis for a good society he admitted the fundamental immorality of the religious basis of the whole of past greek life. . aristotle [ - ], like sokrates, albeit in a very different way, rendered rather an indirect than a direct service to freethought. where sokrates gave the critical or dialectic method or habit, "a process of eternal value and of universal application," [ ] aristotle supplied the great inspiration of system, partly correcting the sokratic dogmatism on the possibilities of science by endless observation and speculation, though himself falling into scientific dogmatism only too often. that he was an unbeliever in the popular and platonic religion is clear. apart from the general rationalistic tenor of his works, [ ] there was a current understanding that the peripatetic school denied the utility of prayer and sacrifice; [ ] and though the essentially partisan attempt of the anti-macedonian party to impeach him for impiety may have turned largely on his hyperbolic hymn to his dead friend hermeias (who was a eunuch, and as such held peculiarly unworthy of being addressed as on a level with semi-divine heroes), [ ] it could hardly have been undertaken at all unless he had given solider pretexts. the threatened prosecution he avoided by leaving the city, dying shortly afterwards. siding as he did with the macedonian faction, he had put himself out of touch with the democratic instincts of the athenians, and so doubly failed to affect their thinking. but nonetheless the attack upon him by the democrats was a political stratagem. the prosecution for blasphemy had now become a recognized weapon in politics for all who had more piety than principle, and perhaps for some who had neither. and aristotle, well aware of the temper of the population around him, had on the whole been so guarded in his utterance that a fantastic pretext had to be fastened on for his undoing. prof. bain (practical essays, p. ), citing grote's remark on the "cautious prose compositions of aristotle," comments thus: "that is to say, the execution of sokrates was always before his eyes; he had to pare his expressions so as not to give offence to athenian orthodoxy. we can never know the full bearings of such a disturbing force. the editors of aristotle complain of the corruption of his text: a far worse corruption lies behind. in greece sokrates alone had the courage of his opinions. while his views as to a future life, for example, are plain and frank, the real opinion of aristotle on the question is an insoluble problem." (see, however, the passage in the metaphysics cited below.) the opinion of grote and bain as to aristotle's caution is fully coincided in by lange, who writes (gesch. des mater. i, ): "more conservative than plato and sokrates, aristotle everywhere seeks to attach himself as closely as possible to tradition, to popular notions, to the ideas embodied in common speech, and his ethical postulates diverge as little as may be from the customary morals and laws of greek states. he has therefore been at all times the favourite philosopher of conservative schools and movements." it is clear, nevertheless, if we can be sure of his writings, that he was a monotheist, but a monotheist with no practical religion. "excluding such a thing as divine interference with nature, his theology, of course, excludes the possibility of revelation, inspiration, miracles, and grace." [ ] in a passage in the metaphysics, after elaborating his monistic conception of nature, he dismisses in one or two terse sentences the whole current religion as a mass of myth framed to persuade the multitude, in the interest of law and order. [ ] his influence must thus have been to some extent, at least, favourable to rational science, though unhappily his own science is too often a blundering reaction against the surmises of earlier thinkers with a greater gift of intuition than he, who was rather a methodizer than a discoverer. [ ] what was worst in his thinking was its tendency to apriorism, which made it in a later age so adaptable to the purposes of the roman catholic church. thus his doctrines of the absolute levity of fire and of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum set up a hypnotizing verbalism, and his dictum that the earth is the centre of the universe was fatally helpful to christian obscurantism. for the rest, while guiltless of plato's fanaticism, he had no scheme of reform whatever, and was as far as any other greek from the thought of raising the mass by instruction. his own science, indeed, was not progressive, save as regards his collation of facts in biology; and his political ideals were rather reactionary; his clear perception of the nature of the population problem leaving him in the earlier attitude of malthus, and his lack of sympathetic energy making him a defender of slavery when other men had condemned it. [ ] he was in some aspects the greatest brain of the ancient world; and he left it, at the close of the great grecian period, without much faith in man, while positing for the modern world its vaguest conception of deity. plato and aristotle between them had reduced the ancient god-idea to a thin abstraction. plato would not have it that god was the author of evil, thus leaving evil unaccounted for save by sorcery. aristotle's god does nothing at all, existing merely as a potentiality of thought. and yet upon those positions were to be founded the theisms of the later world. plato had not striven, and aristotle had failed, to create an adequate basis for thought in real science; and the world gravitated back to religion. [in previous editions i remarked that "the lack of fresh science, which was the proximate cause of the stagnation of greek thought, has been explained like other things as a result of race qualities: 'the athenians,' says mr. benn (the greek philosophers, i, ), 'had no genius for natural science: none of them were ever distinguished as savans.... it was, they thought, a miserable trifling [and] waste of time.... pericles, indeed, thought differently....' on the other hand, lange decides (i, ) "that with the freedom and boldness of the hellenic spirit was combined ... the talent for scientific deduction. these contrary views," i observed, "seem alike arbitrary. if mr. benn means that other hellenes had what the athenians lacked, the answer is that only special social conditions could have set up such a difference, and that it could not be innate, but must be a mere matter of usage." mr. benn has explained to me that he does not dissent from this view, and that i had not rightly gathered his from the passage i quoted. in his later work, the philosophy of greece considered in relation to the character and history of its people ( ), he has pointed out how, in the period of hippias and prodikos, "at athens in particular young men threw themselves with ardour into the investigation of" problems of cosmography, astronomy, meteorology, and comparative anatomy (p. ). the hindering forces were athenian bigotry (pp. - , ) and the mischievous influence of sokrates (pp. , ). speaking broadly, we may say that the chaldeans were forward in astronomy because their climate favoured it to begin with, and religion and their superstitions did so later. hippokrates of kos became a great physician because, with natural capacity, he had the opportunity to compare many practices. the athenians failed to carry on the sciences, not because the faculty or the taste was lacking among them, but because their political and artistic interests, for one thing, preoccupied them--e.g., sokrates and plato; and because, for another, their popular religion, popularly supported, menaced the students of physics. but the ionians, who had savans, failed equally to progress after the alexandrian period; the explanation being again not stoppage of faculty, but the advent of conditions unfavourable to the old intellectual life, which in any case, as we saw, had been first set up by babylonian contacts. (compare, on the ethnological theorem of cousin, g. bréton, essai sur la poésie philos. en grèce, p. .) on the other hand, lange's theory of gifts "innate" in the hellenic mind in general is the old racial fallacy. potentialities are "innate" in all populations, according to their culture stage, and it was their total environment that specialized the greeks as a community.] § the overthrow of the "free" political life of athens was followed by a certain increase in intellectual activity, the result of throwing back the remaining store of energy on the life of the mind. by this time an almost open unbelief as to the current tales concerning the gods would seem to have become general among educated people, the withdrawal of the old risk of impeachment by political factions being so far favourable to outspokenness. it is on record that the historian ephoros (of cumæ in Æolia: fl. b.c.), who was a pupil of isocrates, openly hinted in his work at his disbelief in the oracle of apollo, and in fabulous traditions generally. [ ] in other directions there were similar signs of freethought. the new schools of philosophy founded by zeno the stoic (fl. : d. or ) and epicurus ( - ), whatever their defects, compare not ill with those of plato and aristotle, exhibiting greater ethical sanity and sincerity if less metaphysical subtlety. of metaphysics there had been enough for the age: what it needed was a rational philosophy of life. but the loss of political freedom, although thus for a time turned to account, was fatal to continuous progress. the first great thinkers had all been free men in a politically free environment: the atmosphere of cowed subjection, especially after the advent of the romans, could not breed their like; and originative energy of the higher order soon disappeared. sane as was the moral philosophy of epicurus, and austere as was that of zeno, they are alike static or quietist, [ ] the codes of a society seeking a regulating and sustaining principle rather than hopeful of new achievement or new truth. and the universal skepticism of pyrrho has the same effect of suggesting that what is wanted is not progress, but balance. it is significant that he, who carried the sokratic profession of nescience to the typical extreme of doctrinal nihilism, was made high-priest of his native town of elis, and had statues erected in his honour. [ ] considered as freethinkers, all three men tell at once of the critical and of the reactionary work done by the previous age. pyrrho, the universal doubter, appears to have taken for granted, with the whole of his followers, such propositions as that some animals (not insects) are produced by parthenogenesis, that some live in the fire, and that the legend of the phoenix is true. [ ] such credences stood for the arrest of biological science in the sokratic age, with aristotle, so often mistakenly, at work; while, on the other hand, the sokratic skepticism visibly motives the play of systematic doubt on the dogmas men had learned to question. zeno, again, was substantially a monotheist; epicurus, adopting but not greatly developing the science of demokritos, [ ] turned the gods into a far-off band of glorious spectres, untroubled by human needs, dwelling for ever in immortal calm, neither ruling nor caring to rule the world of men. [ ] in coming to this surprising compromise, epicurus, indeed, probably did not carry with him the whole intelligence even of his own school. his friend, the second metrodoros of lampsakos, seems to have been the most stringent of all the censors of homer, wholly ignoring his namesake's attempts to clear the bard of impiety. "he even advised men not to be ashamed to confess their utter ignorance of homer, to the extent of not knowing whether hector was a greek or a trojan." [ ] such austerity towards myths can hardly have been compatible with the acceptance of the residuum of epicurus. that, however, became the standing creed of the sect, and a fruitful theme of derision to its opponents. doubtless the comfort of avoiding direct conflict with the popular beliefs had a good deal to do with the acceptance of the doctrine. this strange retention of the theorem of the existence of anthropomorphic gods, with a flat denial that they did anything in the universe, might be termed the great peculiarity of average ancient rationalism, were it not that what makes it at all intelligible for us is just the similar practice of modern non-christian theists. the gods of antiquity were non-creative, but strivers and meddlers and answerers of prayer; and ancient rationalism relieved them of their striving and meddling, leaving them no active or governing function whatever, but for the most part cherishing their phantasms. the god of modern christendom had been at once a creator and a governor, ruling, meddling, punishing, rewarding, and hearing prayer; and modern theism, unable to take the atheistic or agnostic plunge, relieves him of all interference in things human or cosmic, but retains him as a creative abstraction who somehow set up "law," whether or not he made all things out of nothing. the psychological process in the two cases seems to be the same--an erection of æsthetic habit into a philosophic dogma, and an accommodation of phrase to popular prejudice. whatever may have been the logical and psychological crudities of epicureanism, however, it counted for much as a deliverance of men from superstitious fears; and nothing is more remarkable in the history of ancient philosophy than the affectionate reverence paid to the founder's memory [ ] on this score through whole centuries. the powerful lucretius sounds his highest note of praise in telling how this greek had first of all men freed human life from the crashing load of religion, daring to pass the flaming ramparts of the world, and by his victory putting men on an equality with heaven. [ ] the laughter-loving lucian two hundred years later grows gravely eloquent on the same theme. [ ] and for generations the effect of the epicurean check on orthodoxy is seen in the whole intellectual life of the greek world, already predisposed in that direction. [ ] the new schools of the cynics and the cyrenaics had alike shown the influence in their perfect freedom from all religious preoccupation, when they were not flatly dissenting from the popular beliefs. antisthenes, the founder of the former school (fl. b.c.), though a pupil of sokrates, had been explicitly anti-polytheistic, and an opponent of anthropomorphism. [ ] aristippos of cyrene, also a pupil of socrates, who a little later founded the hedonic or cyrenaic sect, seems to have put theology entirely aside. one of the later adherents of the school, theodoros, was like diagoras labelled "the atheist" [ ] by reason of the directness of his opposition to religion; and in the rome of cicero he and diagoras are the notorious atheists of history. [ ] to theodoros, who had a large following, is attributed an influence over the thought of epicurus, [ ] who, however, took the safer position of a verbal theism. the atheist is said to have been menaced by athenian law in the time of demetrius phalereus, who protected him; and there is even a story that he was condemned to drink hemlock; [ ] but he was not of the type that meets martyrdom, though he might go far to provoke it. [ ] roaming from court to court, he seems never to have stooped to flatter any of his entertainers. "you seem to me," said the steward of lysimachos of thrace to him on one occasion, "to be the only man who ignores both gods and kings." [ ] in the same age the same freethinking temper is seen in stilpo of megara (fl. ), of the school of euclides, who is said to have been brought before the areopagus for the offence of saying that the pheidian statue of athênê was "not a god," and to have met the charge with the jest that she was in reality not a god but a goddess; whereupon he was exiled. [ ] the stories told of him make it clear that he was an unbeliever, usually careful not to betray himself. euclides, too, with his optimistic pantheism, was clearly a heretic; though his doctrine that evil is non-ens [ ] later became the creed of some christians. yet another professed atheist was the witty bion of borysthenes, pupil of theodoros, of whom it is told, in a fashion familiar to our own time, that in sickness he grew pious through fear. [ ] among his positions was a protest or rather satire against the doctrine that the gods punished children for the crimes of their fathers. [ ] in the other schools, speusippos (fl. ), the nephew of plato, leant to monotheism; [ ] strato of lampsakos, the peripatetic (fl. ), called "the naturalist," taught sheer pantheism, anticipating laplace in declaring that he had no need of the action of the gods to account for the making of the world; [ ] dikaiarchos (fl. - ), another disciple of aristotle, denied the existence of separate souls, and the possibility of foretelling the future; [ ] and aristo and cleanthes, disciples of zeno, varied likewise in the direction of pantheism; the latter's monotheism, as expressed in his famous hymn, being one of several doctrines ascribed to him. [ ] contemporary with epicurus and zeno and pyrrho, too, was evêmeros (euhemerus), whose peculiar propaganda against godism seems to imply theoretic atheism. as an atheist he was vilified in a manner familiar to modern ears, the alexandrian poet callimachus labelling him an "arrogant old man vomiting impious books." [ ] his lost work, of which only a few extracts remain, undertook to prove that all the gods had been simply famous men, deified after death; the proof, however, being by way of a fiction about old inscriptions found in an imaginary island. [ ] as above noted, [ ] the idea may have been borrowed from skeptical phoenicians, the principle having already been monotheistically applied by the bible-making jews, [ ] though, on the other hand, it had been artistically and to all appearance uncritically acted on in the homeric epopees. it may or may not then have been by way of deliberate or reasoning evêmerism that certain early greek and roman deities were transformed, as we have seen, into heroes or hetairai. [ ] in any case, the principle seems to have had considerable vogue in the later hellenistic world; but with the effect rather of paving the way for new cults than of setting up scientific rationalism in place of the old ones. quite a number of writers like palaiphatos, without going so far as evêmeros, sought to reduce myths to natural possibilities and events, by way of mediating between the credulous and the incredulous. [ ] their method is mostly the naïf one revived by the abbé banier in the eighteenth century of reducing marvels to verbal misconceptions. thus for palaiphatos the myth of kerberos came from the facts that the city trikarenos was commonly spoken of as a beautiful and great dog; and that geryon, who lived there, had great dogs called kerberoi; actæon was "devoured by his dogs" in the sense that he neglected his affairs and wasted his time in hunting; the amazons were shaved men, clad as were the women in thrace, and so on. [ ] palaiphatos and the herakleitos who also wrote de incredibilibus agree that pasiphae's bull was a man named tauros; and the latter writer similarly explains that scylla was a beautiful hetaira with avaricious hangers-on, and that the harpies were ladies of the same profession. if the method seems childish, it is to be remembered that as regards the explanation of supernatural events it was adhered to by german theologians of a century ago; and that its credulity in incredulity is still to be seen in the current view that every narrative in the sacred books is to be taken as necessarily standing for a fact of some kind. one of the inferrible effects of the evêmerist method was to facilitate for the time the adoption of the egyptian and eastern usage of deifying kings. it has been plausibly argued that this practice stands not so much for superstition as for skepticism, its opponents being precisely the orthodox believers, and its promoters those who had learned to doubt the actuality of the traditional gods. evêmerism would clinch such a tendency; and it is noteworthy that evêmeros lived at the court of kassander ( - b.c.) in a period in which every remaining member of the family of the deified alexander had perished, mostly by violence; while the contemporary ptolemy i of egypt received the title of sotêr, "saviour," from the people of rhodes. [ ] it is to be observed, however, that while in the next generation antiochus i of syria received the same title, and his successor antiochus ii that of theos, "god," the usage passes away; ptolemy iii being named merely evergetês, "the benefactor" (of the priests), and even antiochus iii only "the great." superstition was not to be ousted by a political exploitation of its machinery. [ ] in athens the democracy, restored in a subordinate form by kassander's opponent, demetrius poliorkêtes ( b.c.), actually tried to put down the philosophic schools, all of which, but the aristotelian in particular, were anti-democratic, and doubtless also comparatively irreligious. epicurus and some of his antagonists were exiled within a year of his opening his school ( b.c.); but the law was repealed in the following year. [ ] theophrastos, the head of the aristotelian school, was indicted in the old fashion for impiety, which seems to have consisted in denouncing animal sacrifice. [ ] these repressive attempts, however, failed; and no others followed at athens in that era; though in the next century the epicureans seem to have been expelled from lythos in crete and from messenê in the peloponnesos, nominally for their atheism, in reality probably on political grounds. [ ] thus zeno was free to publish a treatise in which, besides far out-going plato in schemes for dragooning the citizens into an ideal life, he proposed a state without temples or statues of the gods or law courts or gymnasia. [ ] in the same age there is trace of "an interesting case of rationalism even in the delphic oracle." [ ] the people of the island of astypalaia, plagued by hares or rabbits, solemnly consulted the oracle, which briefly advised them to keep dogs and take to hunting. about the same time we find lachares, temporarily despot at athens, plundering the shrine of pallas of its gold. [ ] even in the general public there must have been a strain of surviving rationalism; for among the fragments of menander (fl. ), who, in general, seems to have leant to a well-bred orthodoxy, [ ] there are some speeches savouring of skepticism and pantheism. [ ] it was in keeping with this general but mostly placid and non-polemic latitudinarianism that the new academy, the second birth, or rather transformation, of the platonic school, in the hands of arkesilaos and the great carneades ( - ), and later of the carthaginian clitomachos, should be marked by that species of skepticism thence called academic--a skepticism which exposed the doubtfulness of current religious beliefs without going the pyrrhonian length of denying that any beliefs could be proved, or even denying the existence of the gods. for the arguments of carneades against the stoic doctrine of immortality see cicero, de natura deorum, iii, , ; and for his argument against theism see sextus empiricus, adv. math. ix, , . mr. benn pronounces this criticism of theology "the most destructive that has ever appeared, the armoury whence religious skepticism ever since has been supplied" (the philosophy of greece, etc., p. ). this seems an over-statement. but it is just to say, as does mr. whittaker (priests, philosophers, and prophets, , p. ; cp. p. ), that "there has never been a more drastic attack than that of carneades, which furnished cicero with the materials for his second book, on divination"; and, as does prof. martha (Études morales sur l'antiquité, , p. ), that no philosophic or religious school has been able to ignore the problems which carneades raised. as against the essentially uncritical stoics, the criticism of carneades is sane and sound; and he has been termed by judicious moderns "the greatest skeptical mind of antiquity" [ ] and "the bayle of antiquity"; [ ] though he seems to have written nothing. [ ] there is such a concurrence of testimony as to the victorious power of his oratory and the invincible skill of his dialectic [ ] that he must be reckoned one of the great intellectual and rationalizing forces of his day, triumphing as he did in the two diverse arenas of greece and rome. his disciple and successor clitomachos said of him, with cicero's assent, that he had achieved a labour of hercules "in liberating our souls as it were of a fierce monster, credulity, conjecture, rash belief." [ ] he was, in short, a mighty antagonist of thoughtless beliefs, clearing the ground for a rational life; and the fact that he was chosen with diogenes the peripatetic and critolaos the stoic to go to rome to plead the cause of ruined athens, mulcted in an enormous fine, proved that he was held in high honour at home. athens, in short, was not at this stage "too superstitious." unreasoning faith was largely discredited by philosophy. on this basis, in a healthy environment, science and energy might have reared a constructive rationalism; and for a time astronomy, in the hands of aristarchos of samos (third century b.c.), eratosthenes of cyrene, the second keeper of the great alexandrian library ( nd cent. b.c.), and above all of hipparchos of nikaia, who did most of his work in the island of rhodes, was carried to a height of mastery which could not be maintained, and was re-attained only in modern times. [ ] thus much could be accomplished by "endowment of research" as practised by the ptolemies at alexandria; and after science had declined with the decline of their polity, and still further under roman rule, the new cosmopolitanism of the second century of the empire reverted to the principle of intelligent evocation, producing under the antonines the "second" school of alexandria. but the social conditions remained fundamentally bad; and the earlier greatness was never recovered. "history records not one astronomer of note in the three centuries between hipparchos and ptolemy"; and ptolemy (fl. c.e.) not only retrograded into astronomical error, but elaborated on oriental lines a baseless fabric of astrology. [ ] other science mostly decayed likewise. the greek world, already led to lower intellectual levels by the sudden ease and wealth opened up to it through the conquests of alexander and the rule of his successors, was cast still lower by the roman conquest. pliny, extolling hipparchos with little comprehension of his work, must needs pronounce him to have "dared a thing displeasing to god" in numbering the stars for posterity. [ ] in the air of imperialism, stirred by no other, original thought could not arise; and the mass of the greek-speaking populations, rich and poor, gravitated to the level of the intellectual [ ] and emotional life of more or less well-fed slaves. in this society there rapidly multiplied private religious associations--thiasoi, eranoi, orgeones--in which men and women, denied political life, found new bonds of union and grounds of division in cultivating worships, mostly oriental, which stimulated the religious sense and sentiment. [ ] such was the soil in which christianity took root and flourished; while philosophy, after the freethinking epoch following on the fall of athenian power, gradually reverted to one or other form of mystical theism or theosophy, of which the most successful was the neo-platonism of alexandria. [ ] when the theosophic julian rejoiced that epicureanism had disappeared, [ ] he was exulting in a symptom of the intellectual decline that made possible the triumph of the faith he most opposed. christianity furthered a decadence thus begun under the auspices of pagan imperialism; and "the fifth century of the christian era witnessed an almost total extinction of the sciences in alexandria" [ ]--an admission which disposes of the dispute as to the guilt of the arabs in destroying the great library. here and there, through the centuries, the old intellectual flame burns whitely enough: the noble figure of epictetus in the first century of the new era, and that of the brilliant lucian in the second, in their widely different ways remind us that the evolved faculty was still there if the circumstances had been such as to evoke it. menippos in the first century b.c. had played a similar part to that of lucian, in whose freethinking dialogues he so often figures; but with less of subtlety and intellectuality. lucian's was indeed a mind of the rarest lucidity; and the argumentation of his dialogue zeus tragædos covers every one of the main aspects of the theistic problem. there is no dubiety as to his atheistic conclusion, which is smilingly implicit in the reminder he puts in the mouth of hermes, that, though a few men may adopt the atheistic view, "there will always be plenty of others who think the contrary--the majority of the greeks, the ignorant many, the populace, and all the barbarians." but the moral doctrine of epictetus is one of endurance and resignation; and the almost unvarying raillery of lucian, making mere perpetual sport of the now moribund olympian gods, was hardly better fitted than the all-round skepticism of the school of sextus empiricus to inspire positive and progressive thinking. this latter school, described by cicero as dispersed and extinct in his day, [ ] appears to have been revived in the first century by Ænesidemos, who taught at alexandria. [ ] it seems to have been through him in particular that the pyrrhonic system took the clear-cut form in which it is presented at the close of the second century by the accomplished sextus "empiricus"--that is, the empirical (i.e., experiential) physician, [ ] who lived at alexandria and athens (fl. - c.e.). as a whole, the school continued to discredit dogmatism without promoting knowledge. sextus, it is true, strikes acutely and systematically at ill-founded beliefs, and so makes for reason; [ ] but, like the whole pyrrhonian school, he has no idea of a method which shall reach sounder conclusions. as the stoics had inculcated the control of the passions as such, so the skeptics undertook to make men rise above the prejudices and presuppositions which swayed them no less blindly than ever did their passions. but sextus follows a purely skeptical method, never rising from the destruction of false beliefs to the establishment of true. his aim is ataraxia, a philosophic calm of non-belief in any dogmatic affirmation beyond the positing of phenomena as such; and while such an attitude is beneficently exclusive of all fanaticism, it unfortunately never makes any impression on the more intolerant fanatic, who is shaken only by giving him a measure of critical truth in place of his error. and as sextus addressed himself to the students of philosophy, not to the simple believers in the gods, he had no wide influence. [ ] avowedly accepting the normal view of moral obligations while rejecting dogmatic theories of their basis, the doctrine of the strict skeptics had the effect, from pyrrho onwards, of giving the same acceptance to the common religion, merely rejecting the philosophic pretence of justifying it. taken by themselves, the arguments against current theism in the third book of the hypotyposes [ ] are unanswerable; but, when bracketed with other arguments against the ordinary belief in causation, they had the effect of leaving theism on a par with that belief. against religious beliefs in particular, therefore, they had no wide destructive effect. lucian, again, thought soundly and sincerely on life; his praise of the men whose memories he respected, as epicurus and demonax (if the life of demonax attributed to him be really his), is grave and heartfelt; and his ridicule of the discredited gods was perfectly right so far as it went. it is certain that the unbelievers and the skeptics alike held their own with the believers in the matter of right living. [ ] in the period of declining pagan belief, the maxim that superstition was a good thing for the people must have wrought a quantity and a kind of corruption that no amount of ridicule of religion could ever approach. polybius (fl. b.c.) agrees with his complacent roman masters that their greatness is largely due to the carefully cultivated superstition of their populace, and charges with rashness and folly those who would uproot the growth; [ ] and strabo, writing under tiberius--unless it be a later interpolator of his work--confidently lays down the same principle of governmental deceit, [ ] though in an apparently quite genuine passage he vehemently protests the incredibility of the traditional tales about apollo. [ ] so far had the doctrine evolved since plato preached it. but to countervail it there needed more than a ridicule which after all reached only the class who had already cast off the beliefs derided, leaving the multitude unenlightened. the lack of the needed machinery of enlightenment was, of course, part of the general failure of the græco-roman civilization; and no one man's efforts could have availed, even if any man of the age could have grasped the whole situation. rather the principle of esoteric enlightenment, the ideal of secret knowledge, took stronger hold as the mass grew more and more comprehensively superstitious. even at the beginning of the christian era the view that homer's deities were allegorical beings was freshly propounded in the writings of herakleides and cornutus (phornutus); but it served only as a kind of mystical gnosis, on all fours with christian gnosticism, and was finally taken up by neo-platonists, who were no nearer rationalism for adopting it. [ ] so with the rationalism to which we have so many uneasy or hostile allusions in plutarch. we find him resenting the scoffs of epicureans at the doctrine of providence, and recoiling from the "abyss of impiety" [ ] opened up by those who say that "aphrodite is simply desire, and hermes eloquence, and the muses the arts and sciences, and athênê wisdom, and dionysos merely wine, hephaistos fire, and dêmêtêr corn"; [ ] and in his essay on superstition he regretfully recognizes the existence of many rational atheists, confessing that their state of mind is better than that of the superstitious who abound around him, with their "impure purifications and unclean cleansings," their barbaric rites, and their evil gods. but the unbelievers, with their keen contempt for popular folly, availed as little against it as plutarch himself, with his doctrine of a just mean. the one effectual cure would have been widened knowledge; and of such an evolution the social conditions did not permit. to return to a state of admiration for the total outcome of greek thought, then, it is necessary to pass from the standpoint of simple analysis to that of comparison. it is in contrast with the relatively slight achievement of the other ancient civilizations that the greek, at its height, still stands out for posterity as a wonderful growth. that which, tried by the test of ideals, is as a whole only one more tragic chapter in the record of human frustration, yet contains within it light and leading as well as warning; and for long ages it was as a lost paradise to a darkened world. it has been not untruly said that "the greek spirit is immortal, because it was free": [ ] free not as science can now conceive freedom, but in contrast with the spiritual bondage of jewry and egypt, the half-barbaric tradition of imperial babylon, and the short flight of mental life in rome. above all, it was ever in virtue of the freedom that the high things were accomplished; and it was ever the falling away from freedom, the tyranny either of common ignorance or of mindless power, that wrought decadence. there is a danger, too, of injustice in comparing athens with later states. when a high authority pronounces that "the religious views of the demos were of the narrowest kind," [ ] he is not to be gainsaid; but the further verdict that "hardly any people has sinned more heavily against the liberty of science" is unduly lenient to christian civilization. the heaviest sins of that against science, indeed, lie at the door of the catholic church; but to make that an exoneration of the modern "peoples" as against the ancient would be to load the scales. and even apart from the catholic church, which practically suppressed all science for a thousand years, the attitude of protestant leaders and protestant peoples, from luther down to the second half of the nineteenth century, has been one of hatred and persecution towards all science that clashed with the sacred books. [ ] in the greek world there was more scientific discussion in the three hundred years down to epicurus than took place in the whole of christian europe in thirteen hundred; and the amount of actual violence used towards innovators in the pagan period, though lamentable enough, was trifling in comparison with that recorded in christian history, to say nothing of the frightful annals of witch-burning, to which there is no parallel in civilized heathen history. the critic, too, goes on to admit that, while "sokrates, anaxagoras, and aristotle fell victims in different degrees to the bigotry of the populace," "of course their offence was political rather than religious. they were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in the state religion." and, as we have seen, all three of the men named taught in freedom for many years till political faction turned popular bigotry against them. the true measure of athenian narrowness is not to be reached, therefore, without keeping in view the long series of modern outrages and maledictions against the makers and introducers of new machinery, and the multitude of such episodes as the treatment of priestley in christian birmingham, little more than a century ago. on a full comparison the greeks come out not ill. it was, in fact, impossible that the greeks should either stifle or persecute science or freethought as it was either stifled or persecuted by ancient jews (who had almost no science by reason of their theology) or by modern christians, simply because the greeks had no anti-scientific hieratic literature. it remains profoundly significant for science that the ancient civilization which on the smallest area evolved the most admirable life, which most completely transcended all the sources from which it originally drew, and left a record by which men are still charmed and taught, was a civilization as nearly as might be without sacred books, without an organized priesthood, and with the largest measure of democratic freedom that the ancient world ever saw. chapter vi freethought in ancient rome § the romans, so much later than the greeks in their intellectual development, were in some respects peculiarly apt--in the case of their upper class--to accept freethinking ideas when greek rationalism at length reached them. after receiving from their greek neighbours in southern italy, in the pre-historic period, the germs of higher culture, in particular the alphabet, they rather retrograded than progressed for centuries, the very alphabet degenerating for lack of literary activity [ ] in the absence of any culture class, and under the one-idea'd rule of the landowning aristocracy, whose bent to military aggression was correlative to the smallness of the roman facilities for commerce. in the earlier ages nearly everything in the nature of written lore was a specialty of a few priests, and was limited to their purposes, which included some keeping of annals. [ ] the use of writing for purposes of family records seems to have been the first literary development among the patrician laity. [ ] in the early republican period, however, the same conditions of relative poverty, militarism, and aristocratic emulation prevented any development even of the priesthood beyond the rudimentary stage of a primitive civic function; and the whole of these conditions in combination kept the roman pantheon peculiarly shadowy, and the roman mythology abnormally undeveloped. the character of the religion of the romans has been usually explained in the old manner, in terms of their particular "genius" and lack of genius. on this view the romans primordially tended to do whatever they did--to be slightly religious in one period, and highly so in another. teuffel quite unconsciously reduces the theorem to absurdity in two phrases: "as long as the peculiar character of the roman nation remained unaltered" ... (hist. of roman lit. ed. schwabe, eng. tr. , i, ): "the peculiar roman character had now come to an end, and for ever" (id. p. ). by no writer has the subject been more unphilosophically treated than by mommsen, whose chapter on roman religion (vol. i, ch. xii) is an insoluble series of contradictions. (see the present writer's christianity and mythology, pp. - .) m. boissier contradicts himself hardly less strangely, alternately pronouncing the latin religion timid and confident, prostrate and dignified (la religion romaine d'auguste aux antonins, e édit. i, , , , ). both writers ascribe every characteristic of roman religion to the character of "the romans" in the lump--a method which excludes any orderly conception. it must be abandoned if there is to be any true comprehension of the subject. other verdicts of this kind by ihne, jevons, and others, will no better bear examination. (see christianity and mythology, pt. i, ch. iii, § .) dr. warde fowler, the latest english specialist to handle the question, confidently supports the strange thesis (dating from schwartz) that the multitude of deities and daimons of the early latins were never thought of as personal, or as possessing sex, until greek mythology and sculpture set the fashion of such conceptions, whereupon "this later and foreign notion of divinity so completely took possession of the minds of the romans of the cosmopolitan city that varro is the only writer who has preserved the tradition of the older way of thinking" (the religious experience of the roman people, , p. ). that is to say, the conception of the gods in the imageless period was an "older way of thinking," in which deities called by male and female names, and often addressed as pater and mater, were not really thought of as anthropomorphic at all! how the early romans conceived their non-imaged deities dr. fowler naturally does not attempt to suggest. we get merely the unreasoned and unexplained negative formula that "we may take it as certain that even the greater deities of the calendar, janus, jupiter, mars, quirinus, and vesta, were not thought of as existing in any sense in human form, nor as personal beings having any human characteristics. the early romans were destitute of mythological fancy...." either, then, the early romans were psychologically alien to every other primitive or barbaric people, as known to modern anthropology, or, by parity of reasoning, all anthropomorphism is the spontaneous creation of sculptors, who had no ground whatever in previous psychosis for making images of gods. the greeks, on this view, had no anthropomorphic notion of their deities until suddenly sculptors began to make images of them, whereupon everybody promptly and obediently anthropomorphized! the way out of this hopeless theorem is indicated for dr. fowler by his own repeated observation that the roman jus divinum, in which he finds so little sign of normal "mythological fancy," represented the deliberately restrictive action of an official priesthood for whom all religio was a kind of state magic or "medicine." he expressly insists (p. ) on "the wonderful work done by the early authorities from the state in eliminating from their rule of worship (jus divinum) almost all that was magical, barbarous, or, as later romans would have called it, superstitious" (lect. ii, p. ; cp. lect. iii.). he even inclines to the view that the patrician religion "was really the religion of an invading race, like that of the achæans in greece, engrafted on the religion of a primitive and less civilized population" (pp. viii, ). this thesis is not necessary to the rebuttal of his previous negation; but it obviously resists it, unless we are to make the word "roman" apply only to patricians. an invading tribe might, in the case of rome as in that of the homeric greeks, abandon ordinary and localized primitive beliefs which it had held in its previous home, and thereafter be officially reluctant to recognize the local superstitions of its conquered plebs. but the roman case can be understood without assuming any continuity of racial divergence. livy shows us that the latin peasantry were, if possible, more given to superstitious fears and panics than any other, constantly reporting portents and prodigia which called for state ritual, and embarrassing military policy by their apprehensions. a patrician priesthood, concerned above all things for public polity, would in such circumstances naturally seek to minimize the personal side of the popular mythology, treating all orders of divinity as mere classes of powers to be appeased. the fact (id. p. ) that among the early romans, as among other primitives, women were rigidly excluded from certain sacra points to a further ground for keeping out of official sight the sex life of the gods. but the very ritual formula of the fratres arvales, sive deus sive dea (p. ), proves that the deities were habitually thought of as personal, and male or female. dr. fowler alternately and inconsistently argues that the "vulgar mind was ready to think of god-couples" (p. ), and that the conjunctions of masculine and feminine names in the roman pantheon "do not represent popular ideas of the deities, but ritualistic forms of invocation" (p. ). the answer is that the popular mind is the matrix of mythology, and that if a state ritual given to minimizing mythology recognized a given habit of myth-making it was presumably abundant outside. in short, the whole academic process of reducing early roman religion to something unparalleled in anthropology is as ill-founded in the data as it is repugnant to scientific thought. the differentiation of greek and roman religion is to be explained by the culture-history of the two peoples; and that, in turn, was determined by their geographical situation and their special contacts. roman life was made systematically agricultural and militarist by its initial circumstances, where greek life in civilized asia minor became industrial, artistic, and literary. the special "genius" of homer, or of various members of an order of bards developed by early colonial-feudal grecian conditions, would indeed count for much by giving permanent artistic definiteness of form to the greek gods, where the early romans, leaving all the vocal arts mainly to the conservative care of their women and children as something beneath adult male notice, missed the utilization of poetic genius among them till they were long past the period of romantic simplicity (cp. mommsen, bk. i, ch. ; eng. tr. , vol. i, pp. - ). hence the comparative abstractness of their unsung gods (cp. schwegler, römische geschichte, i, - , and refs.; boissier, la religion romaine, as cited, i, ), and the absence of such a literary mythology as was evolved and preserved in greece by local patriotisms under the stimulus of the great epopees and tragedies. the doctrine that "the italian is deficient in the passion of the heart," and that therefore "italian" literature has "never produced a true epos or a genuine drama" (mommsen, ch. , vol. i, p. ), is one of a thousand samples of the fallacy of explaining a phenomenon in terms of itself. teuffel with equal futility affirms the contrary: "of the various kinds of poetry, dramatic poetry seems after all to be most in conformity with the character of the roman people" (as cited, p. ; cp. p. as to the epos). on the same verbalist method, mommsen decides as to the etruscan religion that "the mysticism and barbarism of their worship had their foundation in the essential character of the etruscan people" (ch. , p. ). schwegler gives a more objective view of the facts, but, like other german writers whom he cites, errs in speaking of early deities like picus as "only aspects of mars," not realizing that mars is merely the surviving or developed deity of that type. he also commits the conventional error of supposing that the early roman religion is fundamentally monotheistic or pantheistic, because the multitudinous "abstract" deities are "only" aspects of the general force of nature. the notion that the romans did not anthropomorphize their deities like all other peoples is a surprising fallacy. thus when rome, advancing in the career of conquest, had developed a large aristocratic class, living a city life, with leisure for intellectual interests, and had come in continuous contact with the conquered grecian cities of southern italy, its educated men underwent a literary and a rationalistic influence at the same time, and were the more ready to give up all practical belief in their own slightly-defined gods when they found greeks explaining away theirs. here we see once more the primary historic process by which men are led to realize the ill-founded character of their hereditary creeds: the perception is indirectly set up by the reflective recognition of the creeds of others, and all the more readily when the others give a critical lead. indeed, greek rationalism was already old when the romans began to develop a written and artistic literature: it had even taken on the popular form given to it by evêmeros a century before the romans took it up. doubtless there was skepticism among the latter before ennius: such a piece of religious procedure as the invention of a god of silver (argentinus), son of the god of copper (Æsculanus), on the introduction of a silver currency, b.c., must have been smiled at by the more intelligent. [ ] mommsen states (ii, ) that at this epoch the romans kept "equally aloof from superstition and unbelief," but this is inaccurate on both sides. the narrative of livy exhibits among the people a boundless and habitual superstition. the records of absurd prodigies of every sort so throng his pages that he himself repeatedly ventures to make light of them. talking oxen, skies on fire, showers of flesh, crows and mice eating gold, rivers flowing blood, showers of milk--such were the reports chronically made to the roman government by its pious subjects, and followed by anxious religious ceremonies at rome (cp. livy, iii, , ; x, ; xi, - ; xxiv, ; xxvii, , , , etc., etc. in the index to drakenborch's livy there are over five columns of references to prodigia). on the other hand, though superstition was certainly the rule, there are traces of rationalism. on the next page after that cited, mommsen himself admits that the faith of the people had already been shaken by the interference allowed to the priestly colleges in political matters; and in another chapter (bk. ii, ch. ; vol. ii, ) he recalls that a consul of the claudian gens had jested openly at the auspices in the first punic war, b.c. the story is told by cicero, de natura deorum, ii, , and suetonius, tiberius, c. . the sacred poultry, on being let out of their coop on board ship, would not feed, so that the auspices could not be taken; whereupon the consul caused them to be thrown into the water, etiam per jocum deos inridens, saying they might drink if they would not eat. his colleague junius in the same war also disregarded the auspices; and in both cases, according to balbus the stoic in cicero's treatise, the roman fleets were duly defeated; whereupon claudius was condemned by the people, and junius committed suicide. cp. valerius maximus, l. i, c. iv, § . such stories would fortify the age-long superstition as to auspices and omens, which was in full force among greek commanders as late as xenophon, when many cultured greeks were rationalists. but it was mainly a matter of routine, in a sphere where freethought is slow to penetrate. there was probably no thought of jesting when, in the year b.c., after men had grown weary alike of earthquakes and of the religious services prescribed on account of them; and after the consuls had been worn out by sacrifices and expiations, it was decreed that "if on any day a service had been arranged for a reported earthquake, no one should report another on that day" (livy, xxxiv, ). cato, who would never have dreamt of departing from a roman custom, was the author of the saying (cicero, de div. ii, ) that haruspices might well laugh in each other's faces. he had in view the etruscan practice, being able to see the folly of that, though not of his own. cp. mommsen, iii, . as to the etruscan origin of the haruspices, in distinction from the augurs, see schwegler, i, , ; ihne, eng. ed. i, - , note; and o. müller as there cited. but it is with the translation of the sacred history of evêmeros by ennius, about b.c., that the literary history of roman freethought begins. in view of the position of ennius as a teacher of greek and belles lettres (he being of greek descent, and born in calabria), it cannot be supposed that he would openly translate an anti-religious treatise without the general acquiescence of his aristocratic patrons. cicero says of him that he "followed" as well as translated evêmeros; [ ] and his favourite greek dramatists were the freethinking euripides and epicharmos, from both of whom he translated. [ ] the popular superstitions, in particular those of soothsaying and divination, he sharply attacked. [ ] if his patrons all the while stood obstinately to the traditional usages of official augury and ritual, it was in the spirit of political conservatism that belonged to their class and their civic ideal, and on the principle that religion was necessary for the control of the multitude. in etruria, where the old culture had run largely to mysticism and soothsaying on quasi-oriental lines, the roman government took care to encourage it, by securing the theological monopoly of the upper-class families, [ ] and thus set up a standing hot-bed of superstition. in the same spirit they adopted from time to time popular cults from greece, that of the phrygian mother of the gods being introduced in the year b.c. the attempt ( b.c.) to suppress the bacchic mysteries, of which a distorted and extravagant account [ ] is given by livy, was made on grounds of policy and not of religion; and even if the majority of the senate had not been disposed to encourage the popular appetite for emotional foreign worships, the multitude of their own accord would have introduced the latter, in resentment of the exclusiveness of the patricians in keeping the old domestic and national cults in their own hands. [ ] as now eastern conquests multiplied the number of foreign slaves and residents in rome, the foreign worships multiplied with them; and with the worships came such forms of freethought as then existed in greece, asia minor, and egypt. in resistance to these, as to the orgiastic worships, political and religious conservatism for a time combined. in b.c. the greek epicurean philosophers alkaios and philiskos were banished from the city, [ ] a step which was sure to increase the interest in epicureanism. twelve years later the catonic party carried a curt decree in the senate against the greek rhetors, [ ] uti romae ne essent; and in the interest aroused by carneades and the other athenian ambassadors led to their being suddenly sent home, on cato's urging. [ ] it seems certain that carneades made converts to skepticism, among them being the illustrious scipio Æmilianus. [ ] in the sequel the greeks multiplied, especially after the fall of macedonia, [ ] and in the year we find the censors vetoing the practices of the latin rhetors as an unpleasing novelty, [ ] thus leaving the greeks in possession of the field. [ ] but, the general social tendency being downwards, it was only a question of time when the rationalism should be overgrown by the superstition. in there had been another vain edict against the foreign soothsayers and the worshippers of sabazius; [ ] but it was such cults that were to persist, while the old roman religion passed away, [ ] save insofar as it had a non-literary survival among the peasantry. § while self-government lasted, rationalism among the cultured classes was fairly common. the great poem of lucretius, on the nature of things, with its enthusiastic exposition of the doctrine of epicurus, remains to show to what a height of sincerity and ardour a roman freethinker could rise. no greek utterance that has come down to us makes so direct and forceful an attack as his on religion as a social institution. he is practically the first systematic freethinking propagandist; so full is he of his purpose that after his stately prologue to alma venus, who is for him but a personification of the genetic forces of nature, he plunges straight into his impeachment of religion as a foul tyranny from which thinking men were first freed by epicurus. the sonorous verse vibrates with an indignation such as shelley's in queen mab: religion is figured as horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans; a little further on its deeds are denounced as scelerosa atque impia, "wicked and impious," the religious term being thus turned against itself; and a moving picture of the sacrifice of iphigeneia justifies the whole. "to so much of evil could religion persuade." it is with a bitter consciousness of the fatal hold of the hated thing on most men's ignorant imagination that he goes on to speak of the fears [ ] so assiduously wrought upon by the vates, and to set up with strenuous speed the vividly-imagined system of epicurean science by which he seeks to fortify his friend against them. that no thing comes from nothing, or lapses into nothing; that matter is eternal; that all things proceed "without the gods" by unchanging law, are his insistent themes; and for nigh two thousand years a religious world has listened with a reluctant respect. his influence is admitted to have been higher and nobler than that of the religion he assailed. "lucretius was the first not only to reveal a new power, beauty, and mystery in the world, but also to communicate to poetry a speculative impulse, opening up, with a more impassioned appeal than philosophy can do, the great questions underlying human life--such as the truth of all religious tradition, the position of man in the universe, and the attitude of mind and course of conduct demanded by that position." (sellar, roman poets of the republic: virgil, , p. .) "in the eyes of lucretius all worship seemed prompted by fear and based on ignorance of natural law.... but it is nevertheless true that lucretius was a great religious poet. he was a prophet, in deadly earnest, calling men to renounce their errors both of thought and conduct.... we may be certain that he was absolutely convinced of the truth of all that he wrote." (w. warde fowler, social life at rome in the age of cicero, , pp. - .) and yet throughout the whole powerful poem we have testimony to the pupillary character of roman thought in relation to grecian. however much the earnest student may outgo his masters in emphasis and zeal of utterance, he never transcends the original irrationality of asserting that "the gods" exist; albeit it is their glory to do nothing. it is in picturing their ineffable peace that he reaches some of his finest strains of song, [ ] though in the next breath he repudiates every idea of their control of things cosmic or human. he swears by their sacred breasts, proh sancta deum pectora, and their life of tranquil joy, when he would express most vehemently his scorn of the thought that it can be they who hurl the lightnings which haply destroy their own temples and strike down alike the just and the unjust. it is a survival of a quite primitive conception of deity, [ ] alongside of an advanced anti-religious criticism. the explanation of the anomaly seems to be twofold. in the first place, roman thought had not lived long enough--it never did live long enough--to stand confidently on its own feet and criticize its greek teachers. in cicero's treatise on the nature of the gods, the epicurean and the stoic in turn retail their doctrine as they had it from their school, the epicurean affirming the existence and the inaction of the gods with equal confidence, and repeating without a misgiving the formula about the gods having not bodies but quasi-bodies, with not blood but quasi-blood; the stoic, who stands by most of the old superstitions, professing to have his philosophical reasons for them. each sectarian derides the beliefs of the other; neither can criticize his own creed. it would seem as if in the habitually militarist society, even when it turns to philosophy, there must prevail a militarist ethic and psychosis in the intellectual life, each man choosing a flag or a leader and fighting through thick and thin on that side henceforth. on the other hand, the argumentation of the high-priest cotta in the dialogue turns to similar purpose the kindred principle of civic tradition. he argues in turn against the epicurean's science and the stoic's superstition, contesting alike the claim that the gods are indifferent and the claim that they govern; and in the end he brazenly affirms that, while he sees no sound philosophic argument for religious beliefs and practices, he thinks it is justifiable to maintain them on the score of prescription or ancestral example. here we have the senatorial or conservative principle, [ ] availing itself of the skeptical dialectic of carneades. in terms of that ideal, which prevailed alike with believers and indifferentists, [ ] and mediated between such rival schools as the epicurean and stoic, we may partly explain the epicurean theorem itself. for the rest, it is to be understood as an outcome partly of surviving sentiment and partly of forced compromise in the case of its greek framers, and of the habit of partizan loyalty in the case of its roman adherents. in the arguments of cotta, the unbelieving high-priest, we presumably have the doctrine of cicero himself, [ ] who in the academica avows his admiration of carneades's reasoning, and in the de divinatione follows it, but was anchored by officialism to state usage. with his vacillating character, his forensic habit, and his genius for mere speech, he could not but betray his own lack of intellectual conviction; and such weakness as his found its natural support in the principle of use and wont, the practice and tradition of the commonwealth. on that footing he had it in him to boast like any pedigreed patrician of the historic religiousness of rome, he himself the while being devoid of all confident religious belief. his rhetoric on the subject can hardly be otherwise estimated than as sheer hustings hypocrisy. doubtless he gave philosophic colour to his practice by noting the hopeless conflict of the creeds of the positive sects, very much as in our own day conservative dialectic finds a ground for religious conformity in the miscarriages of the men of science. [ ] but cicero does not seem even to have had a religious sentiment to cover the nakedness of his political opportunism. not only does he in the tusculan disputations put aside in the platonic fashion all the homeric tales which anthropomorphize and discredit the gods; [ ] but in his treatise on divination he shows an absolute disbelief in all the recognized practices, including the augury which he himself officially practised; and his sole excuse is that they are to be retained "on account of popular opinion and of their great public utility." [ ] as to prodigies, he puts in germ the argument later made famous by hume: either the thing could happen (in the course of nature) or it could not; if it could not, the story is false; if it could, non esse mirandum--there is no miracle. [ ] in his countless private letters, again, he shows not a trace of religious feeling, [ ] or even of interest in the questions which in his treatises he declares to be of the first importance. [ ] even the doctrine of immortality, to which he repeatedly returns, seems to have been for him, as for so many christians since, only a forensic theme, never a source of the private consolation he ascribed to it. [ ] in cicero's case, in fine, we reach the conclusion that either the noted inconstancy of his character pervaded all his thinking, or that his gift for mere utterance, and his demoralizing career as an advocate, overbore in him all sincere reflection. but, indeed, the practical subversion of all rational ethic in the public life of late republican rome, wherein men claimed to be free and self-governing, yet lived by oppressing the rest of the world, was on all hands fatal to the moral rectitude which inspires a critical philosophy. modern scholarship still clings to the long-established view that cicero was practically right, and that lucretius was practically wrong. augustus, says dr. warde fowler, was fortunate in finding in virgil "one who was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, who could urge the roman by an imaginative example to return to a living pietas--not merely to the old religious forms, but to the intelligent sense of duty to god and man which had built up his character and his empire. in cicero's day there was also a great poet, he too in some sense a prophet; but lucretius could only appeal to the roman to shake off the slough of his old religion, and such an appeal was at the time both futile and dangerous. looking at the matter historically, and not theologically, we ought to sympathize with the attitude of cicero and scaevola towards the religion of the state. it was based on a statesmanlike instinct; and had it been possible for that instinct to express itself practically in a positive policy like that of augustus, it is quite possible that much mischief might have been averted" (social life at rome, pp. - ). it is necessary to point out ( ) that the early roman's "sense of duty to god and man" was never of a kind that could fitly be termed "intelligent"; and ( ) that it was his character that made his creed, and not his creed his character, though creed once formed reacts on conduct. further, it may be permitted to suggest that we might consider historical problems morally, and to deprecate the academic view that "statesmanship" is something necessarily divorced from veracity. the imperfect appeal of lucretius to the spirit of truth in an ignorant and piratical community, living an increasingly parasitic life, was certainly "futile"; but it is a strange sociology that sees in it something "dangerous," while regarding the life of perpetual conquest and plunder as a matter of course, and the practice of systematic deceit as wholesome. the summary of the situation is that cicero's policy of religious make-believe could no more have "saved" rome than plato's could have saved athens, or than that of augustus did save the empire. it went downhill about as steadily after as before him; and it continued to do so under christianity as under paganism. the decline was absolutely involved in the policy of universal conquest; and neither creeds nor criticism of creeds could have "averted" the result while the cause subsisted. but there is something gratuitously anti-rational in the thesis that such a decay might have been prevented by a politic manipulation of beliefs known to be false, and that some regeneration was really worked in rome by the tale of pious Æneas. in his religious experience of the roman people ( ) dr. fowler is more circumspect. in the upper-class rome of cicero's day his type seems to have been predominant, [ ] the women alone being in the mass orthodox, [ ] and in their case the tendency was to add new superstitions to the old. among public men there subsisted a clear understanding that public religion should continue for reasons of state. when we find an eminent politician like the elder m. Æmilius scaurus prosecuted in the year b.c. on a charge of neglecting certain religious ceremonies connected with his offices, we know that there had been neither conscientious abstention on his part nor sincere religious resentment on the other side, but merely a resort by political enemies, after greek precedent, to a popular means of blackening an antagonist; for the same scaurus, who was a member of the college of augurs, had actually rebuilt or restored the temple of fides, said to have been founded by numa, and that of mens (prudence), which had been set up after the great defeat of the romans at the trasimene lake; [ ] the early and the late procedure alike illustrating the political and pragmatic character of the state religion. [ ] in the supreme figure of julius cæsar we see the roman brain at its strongest; and neither his avowed unbelief in the already popular doctrine of immortality, [ ] nor his repeatedly expressed contempt for the auspices, [ ] withheld him from holding and fulfilling the function of high pontiff. the process of skepticism had been rapid among the men of action. the illiterate marius carried about with him a syrian prophetess; of sulla, who unhesitatingly plundered the temple of delphi, it was said that he carried a small figure of apollo as an amulet; [ ] of cæsar, unless insofar as it may be true that in his last years, like napoleon, he grew to believe in omens as his powers failed, under the stress of perpetual conflict, [ ] it cannot be pretended that he was aught but a convinced freethinker. [ ] the greatest and most intellectual man of action in the ancient world had no part in the faith which was supposed to have determined the success of the most powerful of all the ancient nations. dean merivale, noting that cæsar "professed without reserve the principles of the unbelievers," observes that, "freethinker as he was, he could not escape from the universal thraldom of superstition in which his contemporaries were held" (hist. of the romans under the empire, ed. , ii, ). the reproach, from a priest, is piquant, but misleading. all the stories on which it is founded apply to the last two or three years of cæsar's life; and supposing them to be all true, which is very doubtful, they would but prove what has been suggested above--that the overstrained soldier, rising to the dizzy height of a tremendous career, partly lost his mental balance, like so many another. (cp. mackail, latin literature, , p. .) such is the bearing of the doubtful story (pliny, hist. nat. xxviii, ) that after the breaking down of a chariot (presumably the casualty which took place in his fourfold triumph; see dio cassius, xlviii, ) he never mounted another without muttering a charm. m. boissier (i, ) makes the statement of pliny apply to cæsar's whole life; but although pliny gives no particulars, even dean merivale (p. ) connects it with the accident in the triumph. to the same time belongs the less challengeable record (dio cassius, lx, ) of his climbing on his knees up the steps of the capitol to propitiate nemesis. the very questionable legend, applied so often to other captains, of his saying, i have thee, africa, when he stumbled on landing (sueton. jul. ), is a proof not of superstition but of presence of mind in checking the superstitious fears of the troops, and was so understood by suetonius; as was the rather flimsy story of his taking with him in africa a man nicknamed salutio (sueton. ibid.) to neutralize the luck of the opposing cornelii. the whole turn given to the details by the clerical historian is arbitrary and unjudicial. nor is he accurate in saying that cæsar "denied the gods" in the senate. he actually swore by them, per deos immortales, in the next sentence to that in which he denied a future state. the assertion of the historian (p. ), that in denying the immortality of the soul cæsar denied "the recognized foundation of all religion," is a no less surprising error. the doctrine never had been so recognized in ancient rome. a christian ecclesiastic might have been expected to remember that the jewish religion, believed by him to be divine, was devoid of the "recognized foundation" in question, and that the canonical book of ecclesiastes expressly discards it. of course cæsar offered sacrifices to gods in whom he did not believe. that was the habitual procedure of his age. § it is significant that the decay of rationalism in rome begins and proceeds with the empire. augustus, whose chosen name was sacerdotal in its character, [ ] made it part of his policy to restore as far as possible the ancient cults, many of which had fallen into extreme neglect, between the indifference of the aristocratic class [ ] and the devotion of the populace, itself so largely alien, to the more attractive worships introduced from egypt and the east. that he was himself a habitually superstitious man seems certain; [ ] but even had he not been, his policy would have been natural from the roman point of view. a historian of two centuries later puts in the mouth of mæcenas an imagined counsel to the young emperor to venerate and enforce the national religion, to exclude and persecute foreign cults, to put down alike atheism and magic, to control divination officially, and to keep an eye on the philosophers. [ ] what the empire sought above all things was stability; and a regimen of religion, under imperial control, seemed one of the likeliest ways to keep the people docile. julius himself had seemed to plan such a policy, [ ] though he also planned to establish public libraries, [ ] which would hardly have promoted faith among the educated. augustus, however, aimed at encouraging public religion of every description, repairing or rebuilding eighty-two temples at rome alone, giving them rich gifts, restoring old festivals and ceremonies, reinstituting priestly colleges, encouraging special foreign worships, and setting up new civic cults; himself playing high pontiff and joining each new priesthood, to the end of making his power and prestige so far identical with theirs; [ ] in brief, anticipating the later ruling principle of the church of rome. the natural upshot of the whole process was the imperial apotheosis, or raising of each emperor to godhead at death. the usage of deifying living rulers was long before common in egypt and the east, [ ] and had been adopted by the conquering spartan lysander in asia minor as readily as by the conquering alexander. julius cæsar seems to have put it aside as a nauseous flattery; [ ] but augustus wrought it into his policy. it was the consummation at once of the old political conception of religion and of the new autocracy. in a society so managed, all hope of return to self-government having ceased, the level of thought sank accordingly. there was practically no more active freethought. livy, indeed, speaks so often of the contempt shown in his own day for tales of prodigies, and of what he calls contempt for the gods, [ ] that there can be no question of the lack of religion among the upper classes at the beginning of the empire. but even in livy's day unbelief had ceased to go beyond a shrugging of the shoulders. horace, with his credat judæus apella, and his frank rejection of the fear of the deos tristes, [ ] was no believer, but he was not one to cross the emperor, [ ] and he was ready to lend himself to the official policy of religion. [ ] ovid could satirize [ ] the dishonest merchant who prayed to the gods to absolve his frauds; but he hailed augustus as the sacred founder and restorer of temples, [ ] prayed for him as such, busied himself with the archæology of the cults, and made it, not quite without irony, a maxim to "spare an accepted belief." [ ] virgil, at heart a pantheist with rationalistic leanings, [ ] but sadly divided between lucretius and augustus, his poetical and his political masters, [ ] tells all the transition from the would-be scientific to the newly-credulous age in the two wistful lines:-- felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas ... fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestes [ ] --"happy he who has been able to learn the causes of things; fortunate also he who has known the rural gods." the gods, rural and other, entered on their due heritage in a world of decadence; virgil's epic is a religious celebration of antiquity; and livy's history is written in the credulous spirit, or at least in the tone, of an older time, with a few concessions to recent common sense. [ ] in the next generation seneca's monotheistic aversion to the popular superstitions is the high-water mark of the period, and represents the elevating power of the higher greek stoicism. on this score he belongs to the freethinking age, while his theistic apriorism belongs to the next. [ ] all the while his principle of conformity to all legal observances [ ] leaves him powerless to modify the environment. as the empire proceeds, the echoes of the old freethought become fewer and fewer. it is an entire misconception to suppose that christianity came into the roman world as a saving counter-force to licentious unbelief. unbelief had in large part disappeared before christianity made any headway; and that creed came as one of many popular cults, succeeding in terms of its various adaptations to the special conditions, moral and economic. it was easy for the populace of the empire to deify a ruler: as easy as for those of the east to deify jesus; or for the early romans to deify romulus; at rome it was the people, now so largely of alien stock, who had most insisted on deifying cæsar. [ ] but the upper class soon kept pace with them in the zest for religion. in the first century, the elder pliny recalls the spirit of lucretius by the indignant eloquence with which he protests against the burdensome belief in immortality; [ ] and the emphasis with which he scouts alike the polytheism of the multitude, the universal worship of fortune, and the idea that man can know the infinite divinity which is the universe; [ ] but, though seneca and others reject the fear of future torment, pliny is the last writer to repudiate with energy the idea of a future state. [ ] a number of epitaphs still chime with his view; but already the majority are on the other side; [ ] and the fear of hell was normally as active as the hope of heaven; while the belief in an approaching end of the world was proportionally as common as it was later under christianity. [ ] and though pliny, discussing the bases of magic, of which he recognized the fraudulence, ranks among them the influences of religion, as to which he declared mankind to be still in extreme darkness, [ ] we have seen how he in turn, on theistic grounds, frowned upon hipparchos for daring to number the stars. [ ] thus, whatever may be the truth as to the persecutions of the christians in the first two centuries of the empire, the motive was in all cases certainly political or moral, as in the earlier case of the bacchic mysteries, not rationalistic hostility to its doctrines as apart from christian attacks on the established worships. some unbelievers there doubtless were after petronius, whose perdurable maxim that "fear first made gods in the world," [ ] adopted in the next generation by statius, [ ] was too pregnant with truth to miss all acceptance among thinking men. the fact that statius in his verse ranked domitian with the gods made its truth none the less pointed. the alexandrian rationalist chaeremon, who had been appointed one of the tutors of nero, had explained the egyptian religion as a mere allegorizing of the physical order of the universe. [ ] it has been remarked too that in the next century the appointment of the freethinking greek lucian by marcus aurelius to a post of high authority in egypt showed that his writings gave no great offence at court, [ ] where, indeed, save under the two great antonines, religious seriousness was rare. these, however, were the exceptions: the whole cast of mind developed under the autocracy, whether in the good or in the bad, made for belief and acquiescence or superstition rather than for searching doubt and sustained reasoning. the statement of mosheim or of his commentators (eccles. hist. cent. pt. i, ch. i, § , note; murdock's trans. reid's ed.) that juvenal (sat. xiii, ) "complains of the many atheists at rome" is a perversion of the passage cited. juvenal's allusion to those who put all things down to fortune and deny a moral government of the world begins with the phrase "sunt qui," "there are (those) who"; he makes far more account of the many superstitious, and never suggests that the atheists are numerous in his day. neither does he "complain"; on the contrary, his allusion to the atheists as such is non-condemnatory as compared with his attacks on pious rogues, and is thus part of the ground for holding that he was himself something of a freethinker--one of the last among the literary men. in the tenth satire ( sqq.) he puts the slightly theistic doctrine, sometimes highly praised (ed. ruperti, , in loc.), that men should not pray for anything, but leave the decision to the gods, to whom man is dearer than to himself. there too occurs the famous doctrine ( ) that if anything is to be prayed for it should be the mens sana in corpore sano, and the strong soul void of the fear of death. the accompanying phrase about offering "the intestines and the sacred sausages of a whitish pig" is flatly contemptuous of religious ceremonial; and the closing lines, placing the source of virtue and happiness within, are strictly naturalistic. in the two last:-- nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia; nos [or sed] te nos facimus, fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus, the frequent reading abest for habes seems to make the better sense: "no divinity is wanting, if there be prudence; but it is we, o fortune, who make thee a goddess, and throne thee in heaven." in any case, the insistence is on man's lordship of himself. (the phrase occurs again in sat. xiv, .) but the worship of fortune--which pliny declares to be the prevailing faith of his day (hist. nat. ii, v (vii), )--was itself a cult like another, with temples and ritual; and the astrology which, he adds, is beginning to supersede fortune-worship among the learned and the ignorant alike, was but a reversion to an older eastern religion. his own preference is for sun-worship, if any; but he falls back on the conviction that the power of god is limited, and that god is thus seen to be simply nature (id. ). the erroneous notion that the roman aristocracy ran mainly to atheism was widely propagated by voltaire, who made it part of his argument against the atheism of his own day (jenni; art. athéisme, in the dict. philos., etc.). it will not bear examination. as regards the general tone of roman literature from the first century onwards, the summing-up of renan is substantially just: "the freethinkers ... diminish little by little, and disappear.... juvenal alone continues in roman society, down to the time of hadrian, the expression of a frank incredulity.... science dies out from day to day. from the death of seneca, it may be said that there is no longer a thoroughly rationalistic scholar. pliny the elder is inquisitive, but uncritical. tacitus, pliny the younger, suetonius, avoid commenting on the inanity of the most ridiculous inventions. pliny the younger (ep. vii, ) believes in puerile stories of ghosts; epictetus (xxxi, ) would have all practise the established worship. even a writer so frivolous as apuleius feels himself bound to take the tone of a rigid conservative about the gods (florida, i, ; de magia, , , , ). a single man, about the middle of this century, seems entirely exempt from supernatural beliefs; that is lucian. the scientific spirit, which is the negation of the supernatural, exists only in a few; superstition invades all, enfeebling all reason" (les Évangiles, ed. , pp. - ). that the mental paralysis connects causally with the political conditions will perhaps not now be denied. a censorship of the written word belongs congenitally to autocracy; and only the personal magnanimity of cæsar and the prudence of augustus delayed its development in rome. soon it became an irresistible terrorism. even cæsar, indeed, so far forgot one of the great rules of his life as to impeach before the senate the tribunes who had quite justifiably prosecuted some of the people who had hailed him as king; [ ] and the fact that the senate was already slavish enough to eject them gives the forecast of the future. augustus long showed a notable forbearance to all manner of verbal opposition, and even disparagement; but at length he also began to prosecute for private aspersions, [ ] and even to suppress histories of a too critical stamp. tiberius began his reign with the high-pitched sentiment that "in a free state tongue and mind should be free"; [ ] and for a time he bore himself with an exemplary restraint; but he too, in turn, took the colour of his place, and became murderously resentful of any semblance of aspersion on himself. [ ] the famous sentiment ascribed to him in the annals of tacitus, deorum injuriae diis curae [ ]--"the gods' wrongs are the gods' business"--is not noted by suetonius, and has an un-roman sound. what suetonius tells is [ ] that he was "very negligent concerning the gods and religions," yet addicted to the astrologers, and a believer in fate. the fact remains that while, as aforesaid, there must have been still a number of unbelievers, there is no sign after lucretius of any roman propaganda against religion; and the presumption is that the augustan policy of promoting the old cults was extended to the maintenance of the ordinary roman view that disrespect to the gods was a danger to the state. in the reign of nero we find trace of a treatise de religionis erroribus by fabricius vejento, [ ] wherein was ridiculed the zeal of the priests to proclaim mysteries which they did not understand; but, whether or not its author was exiled and the book burnt on their protest, such literature was not further produced. [ ] there was, in fact, no spirit left for a lucretian polemic against false beliefs. everything in the nature of a searching criticism of life was menaced by the autocracy; nero decreeing that no man should philosophize at rome, [ ] after slaying or banishing a series of philosophers; [ ] domitian crucifying the very scribes who copied the work of hermogenes of tarsus, in which he was obliquely criticized. [ ] when men in the mass crouched before such tyranny, helplessly beholding emperor after emperor overtaken by the madness that accrues to absolute power, they were disabled for any disinterested warfare on behalf of truth. all serious impeachment of religion proceeds upon an ethical motive; and in imperial rome there was no room for any nobility of ethic save such as upbore the stoics in their austere pursuit of self-control, in a world too full of evil to be delighted in. thus it came about that the cæsars, who would doubtless have protected their co-operating priesthoods from any serious attack on the official religion, [ ] had practically no occasion to do so. lucian's jests were cast at the gods of greece, not at those of the roman official cults; hence his immunity. what the cæsars were concerned to do was rather to menace any alien religion that seemed to undermine the solidarity of the state; and of such religions, first the jewish, and later the christian, were obvious examples. thus we have it that tiberius "put down foreign religions" (externas ceremonias), in particular the egyptian and judaic rites; pulling down the temple of isis, crucifying her priests, expelling from rome all jews and proselytes, and forcing the jewish youth to undergo military service in unhealthy climates. [ ] even the astrologers, in whose lore he believed, he expelled until they promised to renounce their art--a precedent partly set up by augustus, [ ] and followed with varying severity by all the emperors, pagan and christian alike. and still the old italian religion waned, as it must. on the one hand, the italic population was almost wholly replaced or diluted by alien stocks, slave or free, with alien cults and customs; on the other, the utter insincerity of the official cults, punctiliously conserved by well-paid, unbelieving priests, invited indifference. in the nature of things, an unchanging creed is moribund; life means adaptation to change; and it was only the alien cults that in rome adapted themselves to the psychic mutation. among the educated, who had read their lucretius, the spectacle of the innumerable cults of the empire conduced either to entire but tacit unbelief, or to a species of vaguely rationalistic [ ] yet sentimental monotheism, in which reason sometimes figured as universal deity. [ ] among the uneducated the progression was constant towards one or other of the emotional and ritualistic oriental faiths, so much better adapted to their down-trodden life. § one element of betterment there was in the life of declining rome, until the roman ideals were superseded by oriental. even the augustan poets, horace and ovid, had protested like the hebrew prophets, and like plato and like cicero, against the idea that rich sacrifices availed with the gods above a pure heart; and such doctrine, while paganism lasted, prevailed more and more. [ ] at the same time, horace rejects the judæo-stoic doctrine, adopted in the gospels, that all sins are equal, and lays down the rational moral test of utility--utilitas justi propè mater et aequi. [ ] the better and more thoughtful men who grew up under the autocracy, though inevitably feebler and more credulous in their thinking than those of the later commonwealth, developed at length a concern for conduct, public and private, which lends dignity to the later philosophic literature, and lustre to the imperial rule of the antonines. this concern it was that, linking greek theory to roman practice, produced a code of rational law which could serve europe for a thousand years. this concern too it was, joined with the relatively high moral quality of their theism, that ennobled the writing of seneca [ ] and epictetus and maximus of tyre; and irradiates the words as well as the rule of marcus aurelius. in them was anticipated all that was good [ ] in the later christian ethic, even as the popular faiths anticipated the christian dogmas; and they cherished a temper of serenity that the fathers fell far short of. to compare their pages with those of the subsequent christian fathers--seneca with lactantius, "the christian cicero"; maximus with arnobius; epictetus with tertullian; the admirable marcus, and his ideal of the "dear city of zeus," with the shrill polemic of augustine's city of god and the hysteria of the confessions--is to prove a rapid descent in magnanimity, sanity, self-command, sweetness of spirit, and tolerance. what figures as religious intolerance in the cæsars was, as we have seen, always a political, never a religious, animosity. any prosecution of christians under the antonines was certainly on the score of breach of law, turbulence, or real or supposed malpractices, not on that of heresy--a crime created only by the christians themselves, in their own conflicts. the scientific account of the repellent characteristics of the fathers, of course, is not that their faith made them what they were, but that the ever-worsening social and intellectual conditions assorted such types into their ecclesiastical places, and secured for them their influence over the types now prevailing among the people. they too stand for the intellectual dissolution wrought by imperialism. when all the higher forms of intellectual efficiency were at an end, it was impossible that on any religious impulse whatever there should be generated either a higher code of life or a saner body of thought than those of the higher paganism of the past. their very arguments against paganism are largely drawn from old "pagan" sources. those who still speak of the rise of christianity in the ancient world as a process of "regeneration" are merely turning historical science out of doors. the christian fathers had all the opportunity that a life of quasi-intellectual specialism could supply; and their liberty of criticism as regarded the moribund pagan creeds was a further gymnastic; but nothing could countervail the insanity of their intellectual presuppositions, which they could not transcend. inheriting the judaic hypnotism of the sacred book, they could reason only as do railers; and the moral readjustment which put them in revolt against the erotic element in pagan mythology was a mere substitution of an ascetic neurosis for the old disease of imagination. strictly speaking, their asceticism, being never rationalized, never rose to the level of ethic as distinguished from mere taboo or sacrosanct custom. as we shall see, they could not wholly escape the insurgence of the spirit of reason; but they collectively scouted it with a success attained by no other ostensibly educated priesthood of antiquity. they intellectually represent, in fact, the consummation of the general mediterranean decadence. for the rest, the "triumph" of the new faith was simply the survival of the forms of thought, and, above all, of the form of religious community, best fitted to the political and intellectual environment. the new church organization was above all things a great economic endowment for a class of preachers, polemists, and propagandists; and between the closing of the old spheres of public life and the opening of the new, [ ] the new faith was established as much by political and economic conditions as by its intellectual adaptation to an age of mental twilight. of the religion of the educated pagans in its last forms, then, it is finally to be said that it was markedly rationalistic as compared with the christianity which followed, and has been on that ground stigmatized by christian orthodoxy down till our own day. the religion of marcus aurelius is self-reverence, self-study, self-rule, plus faith in deity; and it is not to be gainsaid that, next to his adoptive father antoninus pius, he remains the noblest monarch in ancient history; the nearest parallel being the more superstitious but still noble julian, the last of the great pagan rulers. in such rulers the antique philosophy was in a measure justified of its children; and if it never taught them to grapple with the vast sociological problem set up by the empire, and so failed to preserve the antique civilization, it at least did as much for them in that regard as the new faith did for its followers. chapter vii ancient christianity and its opponents § the christian gospels, broadly considered, stand for a certain measure of freethinking reaction against the jewish religion, and are accordingly to be reckoned with in the present inquiry; albeit their practical outcome was only an addition to the world's supernaturalism and traditional dogma. to estimate aright their share of freethought, we have but to consider the kind and degree of demand they made on the reason of the ancient listener, as apart, that is, from the demand made on their basis for the recognition of a new deity. when this is done it will be found that they express in parts a process of reflection which outwent even critical common sense in a kind of ecstatic stoicism, an oriental repudiation of the tyranny of passions and appetites; in other parts a mysticism that proceeds as far beyond the credulity of ordinary faith. socially considered, they embody a similar opposition between an anarchistic and a partly orthodox or regulative ideal. the plain inference is that they stand for many independent movements of thought in the græco-roman world. it is actually on record that the reduction of the whole law to love of one's neighbour [ ] was taught before the christian era by the famous rabbi hillel; [ ] and the gospel itself [ ] shows that this view was current. in another passage [ ] the reduction of the ten commandments to five again indicates a not uncommon disregard for the ecclesiastical side of the law. but the difference between the two passages points of itself to various forces of relative freethought. any attentive study of the gospels discloses not merely much glossing and piecing and interpolating of documents, but a plain medley of doctrines, of ideals, of principles; and to accept the mass of disconnected utterances ascribed to "the lord," many of them associated with miracles, as the oral teaching of any one man, is a proceeding so uncritical that in no other study could it now be followed. the simple fact that the pauline epistles (by whomsoever written) show no knowledge of any jesuine miracles or teachings whatever, except as regards the last supper ( cor. xi, - --a passage obviously interpolated), admits of only three possible interpretations: ( ) the jesus then believed in had not figured as a teacher at all; or ( ) the writer or writers gave no credit or attached no importance to reports of his teachings. either of these views (of which the first is plainly the more plausible) admits of ( ) the further conclusion that the pauline jesus was not the gospel jesus, but an earlier one--a fair enough hypothesis; but on that view the mass of dominical utterances in the gospels is only so much the less certificated. when, then, it is admitted by all open-minded students that the events in the narrative are in many cases fictitious, even when they are not miraculous, it is wholly inadmissible that the sayings should be trustworthy, as one man's teachings. analysing them in collation, we find even in the synoptics, and without taking into account the fourth gospel, such wide discrepancies as the following:-- . the doctrine: "the kingdom of god is among you" (lk. xvii, ), side by side with promises of the speedy arrival of the son of man, whose coming = the kingdom of god (cp. mt. iii, , ; iv, ; mk. i, ). . the frequent profession to supersede the law (mt. v, , , , , etc.); and the express declaration that not one jot or tittle thereof is to be superseded (mt. v, - ). . proclamation of a gospel for the poor and the enslaved (lk. iv, ); with the tacit acceptance of slavery (lk. xvii, , , ; where the word translated "servant" in the a.v., and let pass by mcclellan, blackader, and other reforming english critics, certainly means "slave"). . stipulation for the simple fulfilment of the law as a passport to eternal life, with or without further self-denial (mt. xix, - ; lk. x, ; xviii, ); on the other hand a stipulation for simple benevolence, as in the egyptian ritual (mt. xxv; cp. lk. ix, ); and yet again stipulations for blind faith (mt. x, ) and for blood redemption (mt. xxvi, ). . alternate promise (mt. vi, ; xix, ) and denial (mt. x, - ) of temporal blessings. . alternate commands to secrecy (mt. xii, ; viii, ; ix, ; mk. iii, ; v, ; vii, ) and to publicity (mt. vii, - ; mk. v, ) concerning miracles, with a frequent record of their public performance. . specific restriction of salvation to israelites (mt. x, , ; xv, ; xix, ); equally specific declaration that the kingdom of god shall be to another nation (mt. xxii, ); no less specific assurance that the son of man (not the twelve as in mt. xix, ) shall judge all nations, not merely israel (mt. xxv, ; cp. viii, ). . profession to teach all, especially the simple and the childlike (mt. xviii, ; xi, , - ; mk. x, ); on the contrary, a flat declaration (mt. xiii, - ; mk. iv, ; lk. viii, ; cp. mk. iv, ) that the saving teaching is only for the special disciples; yet again (mt. xv, ; mk. vi, ; viii, , ) imputations of lack of understanding to them. . companionship of the teacher with "publicans and sinners" (mt. ix, ); and, on the other hand, a reference to the publicans as falling far short of the needed measure of loving-kindness (mt. v, ). . explicit contrarieties of phrase, not in context (mt. xii, ; lk. xi, ). . flat contradictions of narrative as to the teacher's local success (mt. xiii, - ; lk. iv, ). . insistence that the messiah is of the davidic line (mt. i; xxi, ; lk. i, ; ii, ), and that he is not (mt. xxii, - ; mk. xii, - ; lk. xx). . contradictory precepts as to limitation and non-limitation of forgiveness (mt. xviii, , ). such variously serious discrepancies count for more than even the chronological and other divergences of the records concerning the birth, the supper, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, as proofs of diversity of source; and they may be multiplied indefinitely. the only course for criticism is to admit that they stand for the ideas of a variety of sects or movements, or else for an unlimited manipulation of the documents by individual hands. many of them may very well have come from various so-called "lords" and "messiahs"; but they cannot be from a single teacher. there remains open the fascinating problem as to whether some if not all of the more notable teachings may not be the utterances of one teacher of commanding originality, whose sectaries were either unable to appreciate or unable to keep separate his doctrine. [ ] undoubtedly some of the better teachings came first from men of superior capacity and relatively deep ethical experience. the veto on revenge, and the inculcation of love to enemies, could not come from commonplace minds; and the saying preserved from the gospel according to the hebrews, "unless ye cease from sacrificing the wrath shall not cease from you," has a remarkable ring. [ ] but when we compare the precept of forgiveness with similar teachings in the hebrew books and the talmud, [ ] we realize that the capacity for such thought had been shown by a number of jewish teachers, and that it was a specific result of the long sequence of wrong and oppression undergone by the jewish people at the hands of their conquerors. the unbearable, consuming pain of an impotent hate, and the spectacle of it in others--this experience among thoughtful men, and not an unconditioned genius for ethic in one, is the source of a teaching which, categorically put as it is in the gospels, misses its meaning with most who profess to admire it; the proof being the entire failure of most christians in all ages to act on it. to say nothing of similar teaching in old testament books and in the talmud, we have it in the most emphatic form in the pre-christian "slavonic enoch." [ ] a superior ethic, then, stands not for one man's supernormal insight, but for the acquired wisdom of a number of wise men. and it is now utterly impossible to name the individual framers of the gospel teachings, good or bad. the central biography dissolves at every point before critical tests; it is a mythical construction. [ ] of the ideas in the sermon on the mount, many are ancient; of the parabolic and other teachings, some of the most striking occur only in the third gospel, and are unquestionably late. and when we are asked to recognize a unique personality behind any one doctrine, such as the condemnation of sacrifice in the uncanonical hebrew gospel, we can but answer ( ) that on the face of the case this doctrine appears to come from a separate circle; ( ) that the renunciation of sacrifice was made by many greek and roman writers, [ ] and by earlier teachers among the hebrews; [ ] and ( ) that in the talmud, and in such a pre-christian document as the "slavonic enoch," there are teachings which, had they occurred in the gospels, would have been confidently cited as unparalleled in ancient literature. the talmudic teachings, so vitally necessary in jewry, that "it is better to be persecuted than persecutor," and that, "were the persecutor a just man and the persecuted an impious, god would still be on the side of the persecuted," [ ] are not equalled for practical purposes by any in the christian sacred books; and the enochic beatitude, "blessed is he who looks to raise his own hand for labour," [ ] is no less remarkable. but it is impossible to associate these teachings with any outstanding personality, or any specific movements; and to posit a movement-making personality in the sole case of certain scattered sayings in the gospels is critically inadmissible. there is positively no ground for supposing that any selected set of teachings constituted the basis or the original propaganda of any single christian sect, primary or secondary; and the whole known history of the cult tells against the hypothesis that it ever centred round those teachings which to-day specially appeal to the ethical rationalist. such teachings are more likely to be adventitious than fundamental, in a cult of sacrificial salvation. when an essentially rationalistic note is struck in the gospels, as in the insistence [ ] that a notable public catastrophe is not to be regarded in the old jewish manner as a punishment for sin, it is cancelled in the next sentence by an interpolation which unintelligently reaffirms the very doctrine denied. [ ] so with the teaching [ ] that the coming worship is to be neither judaic nor samaritan: the next sentence reaffirms jewish particularism in the crudest way. the main movement, then, was clearly superstitious. it remains to note the so-far rationalistic character of such teachings as the protests against ceremonialism and sabbatarianism, the favouring of the poor and the outcast, the extension of the future life to non-israelites, and the express limitation of prayer (mt. vi, ; lk. xi, ) to a simple expression of religious feeling--a prescription which has been absolutely ignored through the whole history of the church, despite the constant use of the one prayer prescribed--itself a compilation of current jewish phrases. the expression in the dominical prayer translated "give us this day [or day by day] our daily bread" (mt. vi, ; lk. xi, ) is pointless and tautological as it stands in the english and other protestant versions. in verse is the assurance that the father knows beforehand what is needed; the prayer is, therefore, to be a simple process of communion or advocation, free of all verbiage; then, to make it specially ask for the necessary subsistence, without which life would cease, and further to make the demand each day, when in the majority of cases there would be no need to offer such a request, is to stultify the whole. if the most obvious necessity is to be urged, why not all the less obvious? the vulgate translation, "give us to-day our super-substantial bread," though it has the air of providing for the mass, is presumptively the original sense; and is virtually supported by mcclellan (n. t. , ii, - ), who notes that the repeated use of the article, ton arton hêmôn ton epiousion, implies a special meaning, and remarks that of all the suggested translations "daily" is "the very one which is mostly manifestly and utterly condemned." compare the bearing of the verses mt. vi, - , - , which expressly exclude the idea of prayer for bread, and lk. xi, . the idea of a super-substantial bread seems already established in philo, de legum allegor. iii, - , - . naturally the average theologian (e.g., bishop lightfoot, cited by mcclellan) clings to the conception of a daily appeal to the god for physical sustenance; but in so doing he is utterly obscuring the original doctrine. properly interpreted, the prayer forms a curious parallel to the close of the tenth satire of juvenal, above cited, where all praying for concrete boons is condemned, on the ground that the gods know best, and that man is dearer to them than to himself; but where there is permitted (of course, illogically) an appeal for soundness of mind and spiritual serenity. the documents would be nearly contemporary, and, though independent, would represent kindred processes of ethical and rational improvement on current religious practice. on the other hand, the prayer, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"--which again rings alien to the context--would have been scouted by juvenal as representing a bad survival of the religion of fear. several early citations and early mss., it should be noted, give a briefer version of the prayer, beginning, "father, hallowed be thy name," and dropping the "thy will be done" clause, as well as the "deliver us from evil," though including the "lead us not into temptation." it may or may not have been that this rationalization of religion was originally preached by the same sect or school as gave the exalted counsel to resist not evil and to love enemies--a line of thought found alike in india and in china, and, in the moderate form of a veto on retaliation, in greece and rome. [ ] but it is inconceivable that the same sect originally laid down the doctrines of the blood sacrifice and the final damnation of those who did not accept the messiah (mt. x). the latter dogmas, with the myths, naturally became the practical creed of the later church, for which the counsel of non-solicitous prayer and the love of enemies were unimaginable ideals. [ ] equally incapable of realization by a state church was the anti-pharisaical and "bohemian" attitude ascribed to the founder, and the spirit of independence towards the reigning powers. for the rest, the occult doctrine that a little faith might suffice to move mountains--a development from the mysticisms of the hebrew prophets--could count for nothing save as an incitement to prayer in general. the freethinking elements in the gospels, in short, were precisely those which historic christianity inevitably cast aside. § already in the epistles the incompatibility of the original critical spirit with sectarian policy has become clear. paul--if the first epistle to the thessalonians be his--exhorts his converts to "prove all things, hold fast what is good"; [ ] and by way of making out the christist case against unpliable jews he argues copiously in his own way; but as soon as there is a question of "another jesus" [ ] being set up, he is the sectarian fanatic pure and simple, and he no more thinks of applying the counsel of criticism to his dogma [ ] than of acting on his prescription of love in controversy. "reasonings" (logismous) are specially stigmatized: they must be "cast down." [ ] the attitude towards slavery now becomes a positive fiat in its support; [ ] and all political freethinking is superseded by a counsel of conformity. [ ] the slight touch of rationalism in the judaic epistle of james, where the principle of works is opposed to that of faith, is itself quashed by an anti-rational conception of works. [ ] from a sect so taught, freethinking would tend to disappear. it certainly obtruded itself early, for we have the pauline complaint [ ] that "some among you say there is no rising from the dead"; but men of that way of thinking had no clear ground for belonging to the community, and would soon be preached out of it, leaving only so much of the spirit of criticism as produced heresies within the sphere of supernaturalism. § when the new creed, spreading through the empire, comes actively in contact with paganism, the rationalistic principle of anti-idolatry, still preserved by the jewish impulse, comes into prominence; and insofar as they criticized pagan myths and pagan image-worship, the early christians may be said to have rationalized. [ ] polytheists applied the term "atheistical" alike to them [ ] and the jews. [ ] as soon as the cult was joined by lettered men, the primitive rationalism of evêmeros was turned by them to account; and a series of fathers, including clement of alexandria, arnobius, lactantius, and augustine, pressed the case against the pagan creeds with an unflagging malice which, if exhibited by later rationalists towards their own creed, christians would characterize in strong terms. but the practice of criticism towards other creeds was, with the religious as with the philosophical sects, no help to self-criticism. the attitude of the christian mass towards pagan idols and the worship of the emperor was rather one of frenzy [ ] than of intellectual superiority; [ ] and the fathers never seem to have found a rationalistic discipline in their polemic against pagan beliefs. where the unbelieving lucian brightly banters, they taunt and asperse, in the temper of barbarians deriding the gods of the enemy. none of them seems to realize the bearing against his own creed of the pagan argument that to die and to suffer is to give proof of non-deity. [ ] in the end, the very image-worship which had been the main ground of their rational attack on paganism became the universal usage of their own church; and its worship of saints and angels, of father, son, and virgin mother, made it more truly a polytheism than the creed of the later pagans had been. [ ] it is therefore rather to the heresies within the church than to its attacks on the old polytheism that we are to look for early christian survivals of ancient rationalism; and for the most part, after the practically rationalistic refusal of the early ebionites to accept the doctrine of the virgin birth, [ ] these heresies were but combinations of other theosophies with the christian. already in the spurious epistles to timothy we have allusion to the "antitheses of the gnosis" [ ] or pretended occult knowledge; and to early gnostic influences may be attributed those passages in the gospel, above cited, which affirm that the messiah's teaching is not for the multitude but for the adepts. [ ] all along, gnosticism [ ] stood for the influence of older systems on the new faith; an influence which among gentiles, untrained to the cult of sacred books, must have seemed absolutely natural. in the third century ammonios saccas, of alexandria, said to have been born of christian parents, set up a school which sought to blend the christian and the pagan systems of religion and philosophy into a pantheistic whole, in which the old gods figured as subordinate dæmons or as allegorical figures, and christ as a reformer. [ ] the special leaning of the school to plato, whose system, already in vogue among the scholars of alexandria, had more affinity than any of its rivals [ ] to christianity, secured for it adherents of many religious shades, [ ] and enabled it to develop an influence which permanently affected christian theology; this being the channel through which the doctrine of the trinity entered. according to mosheim, almost no other philosophy was taught at alexandria down to the sixth century. [ ] only when the regulative zeal of the church had begun to draw the lines of creed definitely [ ] on anti-philosophic lines did the syncretic school, as represented by plotinus, porphyry, and hierocles, [ ] declare itself against christianity. among the church sects, as distinguished from the philosophic, the syncretic tendency was hardly less the vogue. some of the leading fathers of the second century, in particular clement of alexandria and origen, show the platonic influence strongly, [ ] and are given, the latter in particular, to a remarkably free treatment of the sacred books, seeing allegory wherever credence had been made difficult by previous science, [ ] or inconvenient by accepted dogma. but in the multiplicity of gnostic sects is to be seen the main proof of the effort of christians, before the complete collapse of the ancient civilization, to think with some freedom on their religious problems. [ ] in the terms of the case--apart from the judaizing of the elcesaites and clemens romanus--the thought is an adaptation of pagan speculation, chiefly oriental and egyptian; and the commonest characteristics are: ( ) in theology, an explanation of the moral confusion of the world by assuming two opposed powers, [ ] or by setting a variety of good and bad subordinate powers between the world and the supreme being; and ( ) in ethics, an insistence either on the inherent corruptness of matter or on the incompatibility of holiness with physical pleasure. [ ] the sects influenced chiefly from asia teach, as a rule, a doctrine of two great opposing powers; those influenced from egypt seek rather the solution of gradation of power under one chief god. all alike showed some hostility to the pretensions of the jews. thus:-- . saturninus of antioch (second century) taught of a good and an evil power, and that the world and man were made by the seven planetary spirits, without the knowledge or consent of either power; both of whom, however, sought to take control, the good god giving men rational souls, and subjecting them to seven creators, one of whom was the god of the jews. christ was a spirit sent to bring men back to the good god; but only their asceticism could avail to consummate the scheme. (irenæus, against heresies, i, ; epiphanius, hæreses, xxiii.) . similarly, marcion (son of a bishop of pontus) placed between the good and bad powers the creator of the lower world, who was the god and lawgiver of the jews, a mixed nature, but just: the other nations being subjects of the evil power. jesus, a divine spirit sent by the supreme god to save men, was opposed by both the god of the jews and the evil power; and asceticism is the way to carry out his saving purpose. of the same cast were the sects of bardesanes and tatian. (irenæus, against heresies, i, , ; epiphanius, hæreses, c. ; eusebius, eccles. hist. iv, . mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ - . as to marcion, see harnack, outlines, ch. v; mackay, rise and progress of christianity, pt. iii, §§ , , ; irenæus, iv, , ; tertullian, against marcion.) . the manichean creed (attributed to the persian mani or manichæus, third century) proceeded on the same dualistic lines. in this the human race had been created by the power of evil or darkness, who is the god of the jews, and hence the body and its appetites are primordially evil, the good element being the rational soul, which is part of the power of light. by way of combining christism and mithraism, christ is virtually identified with mithra, and manichæus claims to be the promised paraclete. ultimately the evil power is to be overcome, and kept in eternal darkness, with the few lost human souls. here again the ethic is extremely ascetic, and there is a doctrine of purgatory. (milman, hist. of christianity, bk. iii, ch. i; mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ - ; beausobre, hist. critique de manichée et du manichéisme, ; lardner, cred. of the gospels, pt. ii, ch. lxiii.) . among the egyptian gnostics, again, basilides taught that the one supreme god produced seven perfect secondary powers, called Æons (ages), two of whom, dynamis and sophia (power and wisdom), procreated superior angels, who built a heaven, and in turn produced lower grades of angels, which produced others, till there were grades, all ruled by a prince named abraxas (whose name yields the number ). the lowest grades of angels, being close to eternal matter (which was evil by nature), made thereof the world and men. the supreme god then intervened, like the good power in the oriental system, to give men rational souls, but left them to be ruled by the lower angels, of whom the prince became god of the jews. all deteriorated, the god of the jews becoming the worst. then the supreme god sent the prince of the Æons, christ, to save men's souls. taking the form of the man jesus, he was slain by the god of the jews. despite charges to the contrary, this system too was ascetic, though lenient to paganism. similar tenets were held by the sects of carpocrates and valentinus, all rising in the second century; valentinus setting up thirty Æons, male and female, in pairs, with four unmarried males, guardians of the pleroma or heaven--namely, horus, christ, the holy spirit, and jesus. the youngest Æon, sophia, brought forth a daughter, achamoth (scientia), who made the world out of rude matter, and produced demiourgos, the artificer, who further manipulated matter. (irenæus, bk. i, chs. , ; bk. ii.) these sects in turn split into others, with endless peculiarities. such was the relative freethought of credulous theosophic fantasy, [ ] turning fictitious data to fresh purpose by way of solving the riddle of the painful earth. the problem was to account for evil consistently with a good god; and the orientals, inheriting a dualistic religion, adapted that; while the egyptians, inheriting a syncretic monotheism, set up grades of powers between the all-ruler and men, on the model of the grades between the autocrat, ancient or modern, and his subjects. the manichæans, the most thoroughly organized of all the outside sects, appear to have absorbed many of the adherents of the great mithraic religion, and held together for centuries, despite fierce persecution and hostile propaganda, their influence subsisting till the middle ages. [ ] the other gnosticisms fared much worse. lacking sacred books, often setting up a severe ethic as against the frequently loose practice of the churches, [ ] and offering a creed unsuited to the general populace, all alike passed away before the competition of the organized church, which founded on the canon [ ] and the concrete dogmas, with many pagan rites and beliefs [ ] and a few great pagan abracadabras added. § more persistently dangerous to the ancient church were the successive efforts of the struggling spirit of reason within to rectify in some small measure its most arbitrary dogmas. of these efforts the most prominent were the quasi-unitarian doctrine of arius (fourth century), and the opposition by pelagius and his pupil cælestius (early in fifth century) to the doctrine of hereditary sin and predestinate salvation or damnation--a judaic conception dating in the church from tertullian, and unknown to the greeks. [ ] the former was the central and one of the most intelligible conflicts in the vast medley of early discussion over the nature of the person of the founder--a theme susceptible of any conceivable formula, when once the principle of deification was adopted. between the gnosticism of athenagoras, which made the logos the direct manifestation of deity, and the judaic view that jesus was "a mere man," for stating which the byzantine currier theodotos was excommunicated at rome by bishop victor [ ] in the third century, there were a hundred possible fantasies of discrimination; [ ] and the record of them is a standing revelation of the intellectual delirium in the ancient church. theodotos the currier is said to have made disciples [ ] who induced one natalius to become "a bishop of this heresy"; and his doctrine was repeatedly revived, notably by artemon. according to a trinitarian opponent, they were much given to science, in particular to geometry and medicine. [ ] but such an approach to rationalism could not prosper in the atmosphere in which christianity arose. arianism itself, when put on its defence, pronounced jesus to be god, after beginning by declaring him to be merely the noblest of created beings, and thus became merely a modified mysticism, fighting for the conception homoiousios (of similar nature) as against that of homoousios (of the same nature). [ ] even at that, the sect split up, its chief dissenters ranking as semi-arians, and many of the latter at length drifting back to nicene orthodoxy. [ ] at first strong in the east, where it persecuted when it could, it was finally suppressed, after endless strifes, by theodosius at the end of the fourth century; only to reappear in the west as the creed of the invading goths and lombards. in the east it had stood for ancient monotheism; in the west it prospered by early missionary and military chance till the papal organization triumphed. [ ] its suppression meant the final repudiation of rationalism; though it had for the most part subsisted as a fanaticism, no less than did the nicene creed. more philosophical, and therefore less widespread, was the doctrine associated in the second century with the name of praxeas, in the third with those of sabellius and paul of samosata, and in the fourth with that of photinus. of this the essence was the conception of the triune deity as being not three persons but three modes or aspects of one person--a theorem welcomed in the later world by such different types of believer as servetus, hegel, and coleridge. far too reasonable for the average believer, and far too unpropitious to ritual and sacraments for the average priest, it was always condemned by the majority, though it had many adherents in the east, until the establishment of the church made christian persecution a far more effective process than pagan persecution had ever been. pelagianism, which unlike arianism was not an ecclesiastical but a purely theological division, [ ] fared better, the problem at issue involving the permanent crux of religious ethics. augustine, whose supreme talent was for the getting up of a play of dialectic against every troublesome movement in turn, without regard to his previous positions, [ ] undertook to confute pelagius and cælestius as he did every other innovator; and his influence was such that, after they had been acquitted of heresy by a church council in palestine and by the roman pontiff, the latter was induced to change his ground and condemn them, whereupon many councils followed suit, eighteen pelagian bishops being deposed in italy. at that period christendom, faced by the portent of the barbarian conquest of the empire, was well adjusted to a fatalistic theology, and too uncritical in its mood to realize the bearing of such doctrine either on conduct or on sacerdotal pretensions. but though the movement in its first form was thus crushed, and though in later forms it fell considerably short of the measure of ethical rationalism seen in the first, it soon took fresh shape in the form of so-called semi-pelagianism, and so held its ground while any culture subsisted; [ ] while pelagianism on the theme of the needlessness of "prevenient grace," and the power of man to secure salvation of his own will, has been chronic in the church. for a concise view of the pelagian tenets see murdock's note on mosheim, following walch and schlegel (reid's edition, pp. - ). they included ( ) denial that adam's sin was inherited; ( ) assertion that death is strictly natural, and not a mere punishment for adam's sin; ( ) denial that children and virtuous adults dying unbaptized are damned, a middle state being provided for them; ( ) assertion that good acts come of a good will, and that the will is free; grace being an enlightenment of the understanding, and not indispensable to all men. the relative rationalism of these views is presumptively to be traced to the facts that pelagius was a briton and cælestius an irishman, and that both were greek scholars. (when tried in palestine they spoke greek, like the council, but the accuser could speak only latin.) they were thus bred in an atmosphere not yet laden with latin dogma. in "confuting" them augustine developed the doctrine (intelligible as that of an elderly polemist in a decadent society) that all men are predestined to salvation or damnation by god's "mere good pleasure"--a demoralizing formula which he at times hedged with illogical qualifications. (cp. murdock's note on mosheim, as cited, p. ; gieseler, § .) but an orthodox champion of augustine describes him as putting the doctrine without limitations (rev. w. r. clarke, st. augustine, in "the fathers for english readers" series, p. ). it was never adopted in the east (gieseler, p. ), but became part of christian theology, especially under protestantism. on the other hand, the council of trent erected several pelagian doctrines into articles of faith; and the protestant churches have in part since followed. see sir w. hamilton's discussions on philosophy and literature, , pp. - , note; and milman, hist. of latin christianity, i, , . the latin church thus finally maintained in religion the tradition of sworn adherence to sectarian formulas which has been already noted in the roman philosophic sects, and in so doing reduced to a minimum the exercise of the reason, alike in ethics and in philosophy. its dogmatic code was shaped under the influence of ( ) irenæus and tertullian, who set scripture above reason and, when pressed by heretics, tradition above even scripture, [ ] and ( ) augustine, who had the same tendencies, and whose incessant energy secured him a large influence. that influence was used not only to dogmatize every possible item of the faith, but to enforce in religion another roman tradition, formerly confined to politics--that of systematic coercion of heretics. before and around augustine there had indeed been abundant mutual persecution of the bitterest kind between the parties of the church as well as against pagans; the donatists, in particular, with their organization of armed fanatics, the circumcelliones, had inflicted and suffered at intervals all the worst horrors of civil war in africa during a hundred years; arians and athanasians came again and again to mutual bloodshed; and the slaying of the pagan girl-philosopher, hypatia, [ ] by the christian monks of alexandria is one of the vilest episodes in the whole history of religion. on the whole, it is past question that the amount of homicide wrought by all the pagan persecution of the earlier christians was not a tithe of that wrought by their successors in their own quarrels. but the spirit which had so operated, and which had been repudiated even by the bitter tertullian, was raised by augustine to the status of a christian dogma, [ ] which, of course, had sufficient support in the sacred books, judaic and jesuist, and which henceforth inspired such an amount of murderous persecution in christendom as the ancient world had never seen. when, the temple revenues having been already confiscated, the pagan worships were finally overthrown and the temples appropriated by the edict of honorius in the year , augustine, "though not entirely consistent, disapproved of the forcible demolition of the temples." [ ] but he had nothing to say against the forcible suppression of their worship, and of the festivals. ambrose went as far; [ ] and such men as firmicus maternus would have had the emperors go much further. [ ] economic interest had now visibly become at least as potent in the shaping of the christian course as it had ever been in building up a pagan cult. for the humble conditions in which the earlier priests and preachers had gained a livelihood by ministering to scattered groups of poor proselytes, there had been substituted those of a state church, adopted as such because its acquired range of organization had made it a force fit for the autocrat's purposes when others had failed. the sequent situation was more and more unfavourable to both sincerity of thought and freedom of speech. not only did thousands of wealth-seekers promptly enter the priesthood to profit by the new endowments allotted by constantine to the great metropolitan churches. almost as promptly the ideal of toleration was renounced; and the christians began against the pagans a species of persecution that proceeded on no higher motive than greed of gain. not only were the revenues of the temples confiscated as we have seen, but a number of christians took to the business of plundering pagans in the name of the laws of constantius forbidding sacrifice, and confiscating the property of the temples. libanius, in his oration for the temples [ ] ( ), addressed to theodosius, circumstantially avers that the bands of monks and others who went about demolishing and plundering temples were also wont to rob the peasants, adding:-- they also seize the lands of some, saying "it is sacred"; and many are deprived of their paternal inheritance upon a false pretence. thus those men thrive upon other people's ruin who say "they worship god with fasting." and if they who are wronged come to the pastor in the city ... he commends (the robbers) and rejects the others.... moreover, if they hear of any land which has anything that can be plundered, they cry presently, "such an one sacrificeth, and does abominable things, and a troop ought to be sent against him." and presently the self-styled reformers (sôphronistai) are there.... some of these ... deny their proceedings.... others glory and boast and tell their exploits.... but they say, "we have only punished those who sacrifice and thereby transgress the law which forbids sacrifice." o emperor, when they say this, they lie.... can it be thought that they who are not able to bear the sight of a collector's cloak should despise the power of your government?... i appeal to the guardians of the law [to confirm the denial]. [ ] the whole testimony is explicit and weighty, [ ] and, being corroborated by ammianus marcellinus, is accepted by clerical historians. [ ] ammianus declares that some of the courtiers of the christian emperors before julian were "glutted with the spoils of the temples." [ ] the official creed, with its principle of rigid uniformity and compulsion, is now recognizable as the only expedient by which the church could be held together for its economic ends. under the eastern empire, accordingly, when once a balance of creed was attained in the church, the same coercive ideal was enforced, with whatever differences in the creed insisted on. whichever phase of dogma was in power, persecution of opponents went on as a matter of course. [ ] athanasians and arians, nestorians and monophysites, used the same weapons to the utmost of their scope; cyril of alexandria led his fanatics to the pillage and expulsion of the jews, as his underling peter led them to the murder of hypatia; other bishops wrought the destruction of temples throughout egypt; [ ] theodosius, marcian, st. leo, zeno, justinian, all used coercion against every heresy without a scruple, affirming every verbal fantasy of dogma at the point of the sword. it was due to no survival of the love of reason that some of the more stubborn heresies, driven into communion with the new civilization of the arabs, were the means of carrying some of the seeds of ancient thought down the ages, to fructify ultimately in the mental soil of modern europe. § against the orthodox creed, apart from social and official hostility, there had early arisen critics who reasoned in terms of jewish and pagan beliefs, and in terms of such rationalism as survived. of the two former sorts some remains have been preserved, despite the tendency of the church to destroy their works. of the latter, apart from lucian, we have traces in the fathers and in the neo-platonists. thus tertullian and lactantius tell of the many who believe in a non-active and passionless god, [ ] and disdain those who turn christian out of fear of a hereafter; and again [ ] of stoics who deride the belief in demons. a third-century author quoted by eusebius [ ] speaks of apistoi who deny the divine authorship of the holy scriptures, in such a fashion as to imply that this was done by some who were not merely pagan non-christians but deniers of inspiration. jamblichos, too, [ ] speaks of opponents of the worship of the gods in his day (early in the fourth century). [ ] in the fifth century, again, augustine complains bitterly of those impious and reckless persons who dare to say that the evangelists differ among themselves. [ ] he argues no less bitterly against the increduli and infideles who would not believe in immortality and the possibility of eternal torment; [ ] and he meets them in a fashion which constantly recurs in christian apologetics, pointing to natural anomalies, real or alleged, and concluding that since we cannot understand all we see we should believe all we hear--from the church. those who derided the story of jonah and the whale he meets by accusing them of believing the story of arion and the dolphin. [ ] in the same way he meets [ ] their protest against the iniquity of eternal punishment by a juggle over the ostensible anomaly of long punishments by human law for short misdeeds. whatever may have been his indirect value of his habit of dialectic, he again and again declares for prone faith and against the resort to reason; and to this effect may be cited a long series of fathers and ecclesiastics, all eager to show that only in a blind faith could there be any moral merit. [ ] such arguments were doubtless potent to stupefy what remained of critical faculty in the roman world. in the same period salvian makes a polemic against those who in christian gaul denied that god exercised any government on earth. [ ] they seem, however, to have been normal christians, driven to this view by the barbarian invasions. fronto, the tutor of marcus aurelius, again, seems to have attacked the christians partly as rationalist, partly as conservative. [ ] in general, the orthodox polemic is interesting only insofar as it preserves that of the opposition. the dialogue with trypho by justin martyr (about ) is a mere documental discussion between a christian and a jew, each founding on the hebrew scriptures, and the christian doing nearly all of the argument. there is not a scintilla of independent rationalism in the whole tedious work. [ ] justin was a type of the would-be "philosopher" who confessedly would take no trouble to study science or philosophize, but who found his sphere in an endless manipulation of the texts of sacred books. but the work of the learned origen against celsus preserves for us a large part of the true discourse of celsus, a critical and extremely well-informed argument against christianity by a pagan of the platonic [ ] school in the time of marcus aurelius, [ ] on grounds to a considerable extent rationalistic. [ ] the line of rejoinder followed by origen, one of the most cultured of the christian fathers, is for the most part otherwise. when celsus argues that it makes no difference by what name the deity is called, origen answers [ ] that on the contrary certain god-names have a miraculous or magical virtue for the casting out of evil spirits; that this mystery is known and practised by the egyptians and persians; and that the mere name of jesus has been proved potent to cast out many such demons. when, on the other hand, celsus makes a jew argue against the christist creed on the basis of the jewish story that the founder's birth was illegitimate, [ ] the father's answer begins in sheer amiable ineptitude, [ ] which soon passes into shocked outcry. [ ] in other passages he is more successful, as when he convicts celsus's jew of arguing alternately that the disciples were deceived, and that they were deceivers. [ ] this part of the discussion is interesting chiefly as showing how educated jews combated the gospels in detail, at a level of criticism not always above that of the believers. sometimes the jew's case is shrewdly put, as when he asks, [ ] "did jesus come into the world for this purpose, that we should not believe him?"--a challenge not to be met by origen's theology. one of the acutest of celsus's thrusts is the remark that jesus himself declared that miracles would be wrought after him by followers of satan, and that the argument from miracles is thus worthless. [ ] to this the rejoinder of origen is suicidal; but at times the assailant, himself a believer in all manner of miracles, gives away his advantage completely enough. of a deeper interest are the sections in which celsus (himself a believer in a supreme deity and a future state, and in a multitude of lower powers, open to invocation) rests his case on grounds of general reason, arguing that the true son of god must needs have brought home his mission to all mankind; [ ] and sweeps aside as foolish the whole dispute between jews and christians, [ ] of which he had given a sample. most interesting of all are the chapters [ ] in which the christian cites the pagan's argument against the homo-centric theory of things. celsus insists on the large impartiality of nature, and repudiates the fantasy that the whole scheme is adjusted to the well-being and the salvation of man. here the christian, standing for his faith, may be said to carry on, though in the spirit of a new fanaticism, the anti-scientific humanism first set up by sokrates; while the pagan, though touched by religious apriorism, and prone to lapse from logic to mysticism in his turn, approaches the scientific standpoint of the elder thinkers who had set religion aside. [ ] not for thirteen hundred years was his standpoint to be regained among men. his protest against the christian cultivation of blind faith, [ ] which origen tries to meet on rationalistic lines, would in a later age be regarded as conveying no imputation. even the simple defensive subtleties of origen are too rationalistic for the succeeding generations of the orthodox. the least embittered of the fathers, he is in his way the most reasonable; and in his unhesitating resort to the principle of allegory, wherever his documents are too hard for belief, we see the last traces of the spirit of reason as it had been in plato, not yet paralysed by faith. henceforth, till a new intellectual life is set up from without, christian thought is more and more a mere disputation over the unintelligible, in terms of documents open always to opposing constructions. against such minds the strictest reason would be powerless; and it was fitting enough that lucian, the last of the great freethinkers of the hellenistic world, should merely turn on popular christianity some of his serene satire [ ]--more, perhaps, than has come down to us; though, on the other hand, his authorship of the de morte peregrini, which speaks of the "crucified sophist," has been called in question. [ ] the forcible-feeble dialogue philopatris, falsely attributed to lucian, and clearly belonging to the reign of julian, is the last expression of general skepticism in the ancient literature. the writer, a bad imitator of lucian, avows disbelief alike in the old gods and in the new, and professes to respect, if any, the "unknown god" of the athenians; but he makes no great impression of intellectual sincerity. apart from this, and the lost anti-christian work [ ] of hierocles, governor of bithynia under diocletian, the last direct literary opponents of ancient christianity were porphyry and julian. as both were believers in many gods, and opposed christianity because it opposed these, neither can well rank on that score as a freethinker, even in the sense in which the speculative gnostics were so. the bias of both, like that of plutarch, seems to have been to the utmost latitude of religious belief; and, apart from personal provocations and the ordinary temper of religious conservatism, it was the exiguity of the christian creed that repelled them. porphyry's treatise, indeed, was answered by four fathers, [ ] all of whose replies have disappeared, doubtless in fulfilment of the imperial edict for the destruction of porphyry's book--a dramatic testimony to the state of mental freedom under theodosius ii. [ ] what is known of his argument is preserved in the incidental replies of jerome, augustine, eusebius, and others. [ ] the answer of cyril to julian has survived, probably in virtue of julian's status. his argumentations against the unworthy elements, the exclusiveness, and the absurdities of the jewish and christian faith are often reasonable enough, as doubtless were those of porphyry; [ ] but his own theosophic positions are hardly less vulnerable; and porphyry's were probably no better, to judge from his preserved works. yet it is to be said that the habitual tone and temper of the two men compares favourably with that of the polemists on the other side. they had inherited something of the elder philosophic spirit, which is so far to seek in patristic literature, outside of origen. the latest expressions of rationalism among churchmen were to the full as angrily met by the champions of orthodoxy as the attacks of enemies; and, indeed, there was naturally something of bitterness in the resistance of the last few critical spirits in the church to the fast-multiplying insanities of faith. thus, at the end of the fourth century, the italian monk jovinian fought against the creed of celibacy and asceticism, and was duly denounced, vituperated, ecclesiastically condemned, and banished, penal laws being at the same time passed against those who adhered to him. [ ] contemporary with him was the eastern aerius, who advocated priestly equality as against episcopacy, and objected to prayers for the dead, to fasts, and to the too significant practice of slaying a lamb at the easter festival. [ ] in this case matters went the length of schism. with less of practical effect, in the next century, vigilantius of aquitaine made a more general resistance to a more manifold superstition, condemning and ridiculing the veneration of tombs and bones of martyrs, pilgrimages to shrines, the miracle stories therewith connected, and the practices of fasting, celibacy, and the monastic life. he too was promptly put down, largely by the efforts of his former friend jerome, the most voluble and the most scurrilous pietist of his age, who had also denounced the doctrine of jovinian. [ ] for centuries no such appeal was heard in the western church. the spirit of reason, however, is well marked at the beginning of the fifth century in a pagan writer who belongs more truly to the history of freethought than either julian or porphyry. macrobius, a roman patrician of the days of honorius, works out in his saturnalia, with an amount of knowledge and intelligence which for the time is remarkable, the principle that all the gods are but personifications of aspects or functions of the sun. but such doctrine must have been confined, among pagans, to the cultured few; and the monotheism of the same writer's treatise on the dream of scipio was probably not general even among the remaining pagans of the upper class. [ ] after julian, open rationalism being already extinct, anti-christian thought was simply tabooed; and though the leading historians for centuries were pagans, they only incidentally venture to betray the fact. it is told, indeed, that in the days of valens and valentinian an eminent physician named posidonius, son of a great physician and brother of another, was wont to say, "that men do not grow fanatic by the agency of evil spirits, but merely by the superfluity of certain evil humours; and that there is no power in evil spirits to assail the human race"; [ ] but though that opinion may be presumed to have been held by some other physicians, the special ascription of it to posidonius is a proof that it was rarely avowed. with public lecturing forbidden, with the philosophic schools at athens closed and plundered by imperial force, [ ] with heresy ostracized, with pagan worship, including the strong rival cult of mithraism, outwardly suppressed by the same power, [ ] unbelief was naturally little heard of after the fifth century. about its beginning we find chrysostom boasting [ ] that the works of the anti-christian writers had persuaded nobody, and had almost disappeared. as regarded open teaching, it was only too true, though the statement clashes with chrysostom's own complaint that porphyry had led many away from the faith. [ ] proclus was still to come ( - ), with his eighteen arguments against the christians, proceeding on the principle, still cherished from the old science, that the world was eternal. but such teaching could not reach even the majority of the more educated; and the jewish dogma of creation ex nihilo became sacrosanct truth for the darkening world. in the east eusebius, [ ] and in the west lactantius, [ ] expressed for the whole church a boundless contempt of everything in the nature of scientific research or discussion; and it was in fact at an end for the christian world for well-nigh a thousand years. for lactantius, the doctrine of a round earth and an antipodes was mere nonsense; he discusses the thesis with the horse-laughter of a self-satisfied savage. [ ] under the feet of arrogant and blatant ignorance we see trampled the first form of the doctrine of gravitation, not to be recovered for an æon. proclus himself cherished some of the grossest pagan superstitions; and the few christians who had in them something of the spirit of reason, as cosmas "indicopleustes," "the indian navigator," who belongs to the sixth century, were turned away from what light they had by their sacred books. cosmas was a nestorian, denying the divinity of mary, and a rational critic as regards the orthodox fashion of applying old testament prophecies to jesus. [ ] but whereas pagan science had inferred that the earth is a sphere, his bible taught him that it is an oblong plain; and the great aim of his topographia christiana, sive christianorum opinio de mundo, was to prove this against those who still cultivated science. such pleadings were not necessary for the general christian public, who knew nothing save what their priests taught them. in chrysostom's day this was already the case. there remained but a few rational heresies. one of the most notable was that of theodore of mopsuestia, the head of the school of antioch and the teacher of nestorius, who taught that many of the old testament prophecies commonly applied to jesus had reference to pre-christian events, and discriminated critically among the sacred books. that of job he pronounced to be merely a poem derived from a pagan source, and the song of songs he held to be a mere epithalamium of no religious significance. in his opinion solomon had the logos gnôseôs the love of knowledge, but not the logos sophias the love of wisdom. [ ] no less remarkable was the heresy of photinus, who taught that the trinity was a matter not of persons, but of modes of deity. [ ] such thinking must be pronounced the high-water mark of rational criticism in the ancient church; and its occurrence in an age of rapid decay is memorable enough. but in the nature of things it could meet with only the scantiest support; and the only critical heresy which bulked at all largely was that of the unitarian anomoeans or eunomians, [ ] who condemned the worship of relics, [ ] and made light of scriptural inspiration when texts, especially from the old testament, were quoted against them. [ ] naturally chrysostom himself denounced them as unbelievers. save for these manifestations, the spirit of sane criticism had gone from the christian world, with science, with art, with philosophy, with culture. but the verdict of time is given in the persistent recoil of the modern spirit from the literature of the age of faith to that of the elder age of nascent reason; and the historical outcome of the state of things in which chrysostom rejoiced was the re-establishment of universal idolatry and practical polytheism in the name of the creed he had preached. every species of superstition known to paganism subsisted, slightly transformed. while the emperors savagely punished the pagan soothsayers, the christians held by the same fundamental delusion; and against the devices of pagan magic, in the reality of which they unquestioningly believed, they professed triumphantly to practise their own sorceries of holy water, relics, prayer, and exorcism, no man daring to impugn the insanities of faith. [ ] on the face of religious life, critical reason was extinct. § it might safely have been inferred, but it is a matter of proved fact, that while the higher intellectual life was thus being paralysed, the primary intellectual virtues were attained. as formerly in jewry, so now in christendom, the practice of pious fraud became normal: all early christian literature, and most of the ecclesiastical history of many succeeding centuries, is profoundly compromised by the habitual resort to fiction, forgery, and interpolation. the mystical poetry of the pagans, the jewish history of josephus, the gospels, the epistles, all were interpolated in the same spirit as had inspired the production of new gospels, new epistles, new books of acts, new sibylline verses. and even where to this tendency there was opposed the growing demand of the organized church for a faithful text, when the documents had become comparatively ancient, the disposition to invent and suppress, to reason crookedly, to delude and mislead, was normal among churchmen. this is the verdict of orthodox ecclesiastical history, a dozen times repeated. [ ] it of course carries no surprise for those who have noted the religious doctrine of plato, of polybius, of cicero, of varro, of strabo, of dio cassius. while intelligence thus retrograded under the reign of faith, it is impossible to maintain, in the name of historical science, the conventional claim that the faith wrought a countervailing good. what moral betterment there was in the decaying roman world was a matter of the transformed social conditions, and belongs at least as much to paganism as to christianity: even the asceticism of the latter, which in reality had no reformative virtue for society at large, was a pre-christian as well as an anti-christian phenomenon. it is indeed probable that in the times of persecution the christian community would be limited to the more serious and devoted types [ ]--that is to say, to those who would tend to live worthily under any creed. but that the normal christian community was superior in point of morals is a poetic hallucination, set up by the legends concerning the martyrs and by the vauntings of the fathers, which are demonstrably untrustworthy. the assertion, still at times made by professed positivists, that the discredit of the marriage tie in roman life necessitated a new religion, and that the new religion was regenerative, is only a quasi-scientific variation of the legend. the evidence as to the failure of the faith to reform its adherents is continuous from the first generation onwards. "paul" complains bitterly of the sexual licence among his first corinthian converts ( cor. v, , ), and seeks to check it by vehement commands, some mystical (id. v. ), some prescribing ostracism (vv. - )--a plain confession of failure, and a complete reversal of the prescription in the gospel (mt. xviii, ). if that could be set aside, the command as to divorce could be likewise. justin martyr (dial. with trypho, ch. ) describes the orthodox jews of his day as of all men the most given to polygamy and arbitrary divorce. (cp. deut. xxiv, ; edersheim, history, p. .) then the christian assumption as to roman degeneration and eastern virtue cannot be sustained. at the beginning of the third century we have the decisive evidence of tertullian that many of the charges of immorality made by serious pagans against christians were in large part true. first he affirms (ad nationes, l. i, c. ) that the pagan charges are not true of all, "not even of the greatest part of us." in regard to the charge of incest (c. ), instead of denying it as the earlier apologist minucius felix had done in the age of persecution, he merely argues that the same offence occurs through ignorance among the pagans. the chapter concludes by virtually admitting the charge with regard to misconduct in "the mysteries." still later, when he has turned montanist, tertullian explicitly charges his former associates with sexual licence (de jejuniis, cc. , : de virginibus velandis, c. ), pointing now to the heathen as showing more regard for monogamy than do the christians (de exhort. castitatis, c. ). from the fourth century onward the history of the church reveals at every step a conformity on the part of its members to average pagan practice. the third canon of the nicene council forbids clerics of all ranks from keeping as companions or housekeepers women who are not their close blood relations. in the fifth century salvian denounces the christians alike of gaul and africa as being boundlessly licentious in comparison with the arian barbarians (de gubernatione dei, lib. , , ). they do not even, he declares, deny the charge, contenting themselves with claiming superior orthodoxy. (cp. bury, hist. of the later roman empire, i, - , and finlay, ii, , for another point of view.) on all hands heresy was reckoned the one deadly sin (gieseler, § , p. , and refs.), and all real misdeeds came to seem venial by comparison. as to sexual vice and crime among the christianized germans, see gieseler, § , vol. ii, - . in the east the conditions were the same. the story of the indecent performances of theodora on the stage (gibbon, ch. xl), probably untrue of her, implies that such practices openly occurred. milman (hist. of chr. bk. iv, ch. ii. ed. cited, ii, ) recognizes general indecency, and notes that zosimus charged it on christian rule. salvian speaks of unlimited obscenity in the theatres of christian gaul (de gub. dei, l. ). cp. gibbon as to the character of the devout justinian's minister trebonian; who, however, was called an atheist. (suidas, s.v.) on the collapse of the iconoclastic movement, licence became general (finlay, hist. of greece, ed. tozer, ii, ). but even in the fourth century chrysostom's writings testify to the normality of all the vices, as well as the superstitions, that christianity is supposed to have banished; the churches figuring, like the ancient temples, as places of assignation. (cp. the extracts of lavollée, les moeurs byzantines, in essais de littérature et d'histoire, , pp. - , ; the s.p.c.k.'s st. chrysostom's picture of his age, , pp. , , , , , - , , ; chrysostom's homilies, eng. tr. , hom. xii on st cor. pp. - ; jerome, adv. vigilantium, cited by gieseler, ii, , note , and in gilly's vigilantius and his times, , pp. - .) the clergy were among the most licentious of all, and chrysostom had repeatedly to preach against them (lavollée, ch. iv; mosheim, as last cited; gibbon, ch. xlvii, bohn ed. iv, ). the position of women was practically what it had been in post-alexandrian greece and asia-minor (lavollée, ch. v; cp. st. chrysostom's picture of his age, pp. - ); and the practice corresponded. in short, the supposition that the population of constantinople as we see it under justinian, or that of alexandria in the same age, could have been morally austere, is fantastic. it would indeed be unintelligible that intellectual decline without change of social system should put morals on a sound footing. the very asceticism which seeks to mortify the body is an avowal of the vice from which it recoils, and insofar as this has prevailed under christianity it has specifically hindered general temperance, [ ] inasmuch as the types capable of self-rule thus leave no offspring. on the other hand, with the single exception of the case of the gladiatorial combats (which had been denounced in the first century by the pagan seneca, [ ] and in the fourth by the pagan libanius, but lasted in rome long after christianity had become the state religion; [ ] while the no less cruel combats of men with wild beasts were suppressed only when the finances of the falling empire could no longer maintain them), [ ] the vice of cruelty seems to have been in no serious degree cast out. [ ] cruelty to slaves was certainly not less than in the rome of the antonines; and chrysostom [ ] denounces just such atrocities by cruel mistresses as had been described by horace and juvenal. the story of the slaying of hypatia, indeed, is decisive as to christian ferocity. [ ] in fine, the entire history of christian egypt, asia, and africa, progressively decadent till their easy conquest by the saracens, and the entire history of the christian byzantine empire, at best stagnant in mental and material life during the thousand years of its existence, serve conclusively to establish the principle that in the absence of freethought no civilization can progress. more completely than any of the ancient civilizations to which they succeeded, they cast out or were denuded of the spirit of free reason. the result was strictly congruous. the process, of course, was one of socio-political causation throughout; and the rule of dogma was a symptom or effect of the process, not the extraneous cause. but that is only the clinching of the sociological lesson. of a deep significance, in view of the total historical movement, is the philosophical teaching of the last member of the ancient roman world who exhibited philosophical capacity--the long famous boethius, minister of the conqueror theodoric, who put him to death in the year . ostensibly from the same hand we have the de consolatione philosophiae, which is substantially non-christian, and a number of treatises expounding orthodox christian dogma. in the former "we find him in strenuous opposition ... to the christian theory of creation; and his dualism is at least as apparent as plato's. we find him coquetting with the anti-christian doctrine of the immortality of the world, and assuming a position with regard to sin which is ultra-pelagian and utterly untenable by a christian theologian. we find him, with death before his eyes, deriving consolation not from any hopes of a resurrection ... but from the present contempt of all earthly pain and ill which his divine mistress, 'the perfect solace of wearied souls,' has taught him." [ ] seeing that theodoric, though a professed admirer of the ancient life, had absolutely put down, on pain of death, [ ] every remaining religious practice of paganism, it is certain that boethius must have officially professed christianity; but his book seems to make it certain that he was not a believer. the only theory on which the expounder of such an essentially pagan philosophy can be conceived as really the author of the christian tractates ascribed to boethius is that, under the stroke of undeserved ruin and unjust doom, the thinker turned away from the creed of his official life and sought healing in the wisdom of the older world. [ ] whether we accept this solution or, in despite of the specific testimony, reject the theological tractates as falsely ascribed--either by their writer or by others--to boethius, [ ] the significant fact remains that it was not the christian tracts but the pagan consolation that passed down to the western nations of the middle ages as the last great intellectual legacy from the ancient world. it had its virtue for an age of mental bondage, because it preserved some pulse of the spirit of free thought. chapter viii freethought under islam [ ] § the freethinking of mohammed may be justly said to begin and end with his rejection of popular polytheism and his acceptance of the idea of a single god. that idea he ostensibly held as a kind of revelation, not as a result of any traceable process of reasoning; and he affirmed it from first to last as a fanatic. one of the noblest of fanatics he may be, but hardly more. denouncing all idolatry, he anchored his creed to the ka'aba, the sacred black stone of the remote past, which is to this day its most revered object. that the monotheistic idea, in its most vivid form, reached him in middle age by way of a vision is part of the creed of his followers; and that it derived in some way from jews, or persians, or christians, as the early unbelievers declared, [ ] is probable enough. but there is evidence that among his fellow-arabs the idea had taken some slight root before his time, even in a rationalistic form, and it is clear that there were before his day many believers, though also many unbelievers, in a future state. [ ] there is no good ground for the oft-repeated formula about the special monotheistic and other religious proclivities of "the semite"; [ ] semites being subject to religious influences like other peoples, in terms of culture and environment. the moslems themselves preserved a tradition that one zaid, who died five years before the prophet received his first inspiration, had of his own accord renounced idolatry without becoming either jew or christian; but on being told by a jew to become a hanyf, [ ] that is to say, of the religion of abraham, who worshipped nothing but god, he at once agreed. [ ] in the oldest extant biography of mohammed an address of zaid's has been preserved, of which six passages are reproduced in the koran; [ ] and there are other proofs [ ] that the way had been partly made for mohammedanism before mohammed, especially at medina, to which he withdrew (the hej'ra) with his early followers when his fellow-tribesmen would not accept his message. he uses the term hanyf repeatedly as standing for his own doctrine. [ ] in some of the arab poetry of the generation before mohammed, again, there is "a deep conviction of the unity of god, and of his elevation over all other beings," as well as a clearly developed sense of moral responsibility. [ ] the doctrine of a supreme god was indeed general; [ ] and mohammed's insistence on the rejection of the lesser deities or "companions of god" was but a preaching of unitarianism to half-professed monotheists who yet practised polytheism and idolatry. the arabs at his time, in short, were on the same religious plane as the christians, but with a good deal of unbelief; "zendekism" or rationalistic deism (or atheism) being charged in particular on mohammed's tribe, the koreish; [ ] and the prophet used traditional ideas to bring them to his unitary creed. in one case he even temporarily accepted their polytheism. [ ] the several tribes were further to some extent monolatrous, [ ] somewhat as were the semitic tribes of palestine; and before mohammed's time a special worshipper of the star sirius sought to persuade the koreish to give up their idols and adore that star alone. thus between their partially developed monotheism, their partial familiarity with hanyf monotheism, and their common intercourse with the nominally monotheistic jews and christians, many arabs were in a measure prepared for the prophet's doctrine; which, for the rest, embodied many of their own traditions and superstitions as well as many orally received from christians and jews. "the koran itself," says palmer, "is, indeed, less the invention or conception of mohammed than a collection of legends and moral axioms borrowed from desert lore and couched in the language and rhythm of desert eloquence, but adorned with the additional charm of enthusiasm. had it been merely mohammed's own invented discourses, bearing only the impress of his personal style, the koran could never have appealed with so much success to every arab-speaking race as a miracle of eloquence." [ ] kuenen challenges sprenger's conclusions and sums up: "we need not deny that mohammed had predecessors; but we must deny that tradition gives us a faithful representation of them, or is correct in calling them hanyfs. [ ] on the other hand, he concedes that "mohammed made islam out of elements which were supplied to him very largely from outside, and which had a whole history behind them already, so that he could take them up as they were without further elaboration." [ ] "during the first century of islam the forging of traditions became a recognized political and religious weapon, of which all parties availed themselves. even men of the strictest piety practised this species of fraud, and maintained that the end justified the means." [ ] the final triumph of the religion, however, was due neither to the elements of its sacred book nor to the moral or magnetic power of the prophet. this power it was that won his first adherents, who were mostly his friends and relatives, or slaves to whom his religion was a species of enfranchisement. [ ] from that point forward his success was military--thanks, that is, to the valour of his followers--his fellow citizens never having been won in mass to his teaching. [ ] such success as his might conceivably be gained by a mere military chief. nor could the spread of islam after his death have taken place save in virtue of the special opportunities for conquest lying before its adherents--opportunities already seen by mohammed, either with the eye of statesmanship or with that of his great general, omar. [ ] it is an error to assume, as is still commonly done, that it was the unifying and inspiring power of the religion that wrought the saracen conquests. warlike northern barbarians had overrun the western empire without any such stimulus; the prospect of booty and racial kinship sufficed them for the conquest of a decadent community; and the same conditions existed for the equally warlike saracens, [ ] who also, before mohammed, had learned something of the military art from the græco-romans. [ ] their religious ardour would have availed them little against the pagan legions of the unbelieving cæsar; and as a matter of fact they could never conquer, though they curtailed, the comparatively weak byzantine empire; its moderate economic resources and traditional organization sufficing to sustain it, despite intellectual decadence, till the age of saracen greatness was over. nor did their faith ever unify them save ostensibly for purposes of common warfare against the racial foe--a kind of union attained in all ages and with all varieties of religion. fierce domestic strifes broke out as soon as the prophet was dead. it would be as true to say that the common racial and military interest against the græco-roman and persian states unified the moslem parties, as that islam unified the arab tribes and factions. apart from the inner circle of converts, indeed, the first conquerors were in mass not at all deeply devout, and many of them maintained to the end of their generation, and after his death, the unbelief which from the first met the prophet at mecca. [ ] against the creed of mohammed "the conservative and material instincts of the people of the desert rose in revolt; and although they became moslems en masse, the majority of them neither believed in islam nor knew what it meant. often their motives were frankly utilitarian: they expected that islam would bring them luck.... if things went ill, they blamed islam and turned their backs on it." [ ] it is told of a moslem chief of the early days that he said: "if there were a god, i would swear by his name that i did not believe in him." [ ] a general fanaticism grew up later. but had there been no islam, enterprising arabs would probably have overrun syria and persia and africa and spain all the same. [ ] attila went further, and he is not known to have been a monotheist or a believer in paradise. nor were jenghiz khan and tamerlane indebted to religious faith for their conquests. on the other hand, when a khalifate was anywhere established by military force, the faith would indeed serve as a nucleus of administration, and further as a means of resisting the insidious propaganda of the rival faith, which might have been a source of political danger. it was their sacred book and prophet that saved the arabs from accepting the religion of the states they conquered as did the goths and franks. the faith thus so far preserved their military polity when that was once set up; but it was not the faith that made the polity possible, or gave the power of conquest, as is conventionally held. at most, it partly facilitated their conquests by detaching a certain amount of purely superstitious support from the other side. and it never availed to unify the race, or the islamic peoples. on the fall of othman "the ensuing civil wars rent the unity of islam from top to bottom, and the wound has never healed." [ ] the feud between northern and southern arabs "rapidly developed and extended into a permanent racial enmity." [ ] and when, after the ommayade dynasty had totally failed to unify semite and aryan in persia, the task was partially accomplished by the abassides, it was not through any greater stress of piety, but by way of accepting the inevitable, after generations of division and revolt. [ ] § it may perhaps be more truly claimed for the koran that it was the basis of arab scholarship; since it was in order to elucidate its text that the first arab grammars and dictionaries and literary collections were made. [ ] here again, however, the reflection arises that some such development would have occurred in any case, on the basis of the abundant pre-islamic poetry, given but the material conquests. the first conquerors were illiterate, and had to resort to the services and the organization of the conquered [ ] for all purposes of administrative writings, using for a time even the greek and persian languages. there was nothing in the koran itself to encourage literature; and the first conquerors either despised or feared that of the conquered. [ ] when the facts are inductively considered, it appears that the koran was from the first rather a force of intellectual fixation than one of stimulus. as we have seen, there was a measure of rationalism as well as of monotheism among the arabs before mohammed; and the prophet set his face violently against all unbelief. the word "unbeliever" or "infidel" in the koran normally signifies merely "rejector of mohammed"; but a number of passages [ ] show that there were specific unbelievers in the doctrine of a future state as well as in miracles; and his opponents put to him challenges which showed that they rationally disbelieved his claim to inspiration. [ ] hence, clearly, the scarcity of miracles in his early legend, on the arab side. on a people thus partly "refined, skeptical, incredulous," [ ] much of whose poetry showed no trace of religion, [ ] the triumph of islam gradually imposed a tyrannous dogma, entailing abundance of primitive superstition under the ægis of monotheistic doctrine. some moral service it did compass, and for this the credit seems to be substantially due to mohammed; though here again he was not an innovator. like previous reformers, [ ] he vehemently denounced the horrible practice of burying alive girl children; and when the koran became law his command took effect. his limitation of polygamy too may have counted for something, despite the unlimited practice of his latter years. for the rest, he prescribes, in the traditional eastern fashion, liberal almsgiving; this, with normal integrity and patience, and belief in "god and the last day, and the angels, and the scriptures, and the prophets," [ ] is the gist of his ethical and religious code, with much stress on hell-fire and the joys of paradise, and at the same time on predestination, and with no reasoning on any issue. § the history of saracen culture is the history of the attainment of saner ideas and a higher plane of thought. within a century of the hej'ra [ ] there had arisen some rational skepticism in the moslem schools, as apart from the chronic schisms and strifes of the faithful. a school of theology had been founded by hasan-al-basri at bassorah; and one of his disciples, wasil ibn attâ, following some previous heretics--mabad al jhoni, ghailan of damascus, and jonas al aswari [ ]--rejected the predestination doctrine of the koran as inconsistent with the future judgment; arguing for freewill and at the same time for the humane provision of a purgatory. from this beginning dates the motazileh or class of motazilites (or mu`tazilites), [ ] the philosophic reformers and moderate freethinkers of islam. other sects of a semi-political character had arisen even during the last illness of the prophet, and others soon after his death. [ ] one party sought to impose on the faithful the "sunna" or "traditions," which really represented the old arabian ideas of law, but were pretended to be unwritten sayings of mohammed. [ ] to this the party of ali (the prophet's cousin) objected; whence began the long dispute between the shiah or shîites (the anti-traditionists), and the sunnites; the conquered and oppressed persians tending to stand with the former, and generally, in virtue of their own thought, to supply the heterodox element under the later khalifates. [ ] thus shîites were apt to be motazilites. [ ] on ali's side, again, there broke away a great body of kharejites or separatists, who claimed that the imaum or head of the faith should be chosen by election, while the shîites stood for succession by divine right. [ ] all this had occurred before any schools of theology existed. the motazilites, once started, divided gradually into a score of sects, [ ] all more or less given to rationalizing within the limits of monotheism. [ ] the first stock were named kadarites, because insisting on man's power (kadar) over his acts. [ ] against them were promptly ranged the jabarites, who affirmed that man's will was wholly under divine constraint (jabar). [ ] yet another sect, the sifatites, opposed both of the others, some of them [ ] standing for a literal interpretation of the koran, which is in part predestinationist, and in parts assumes freewill; while the main body of orthodox, following the text, professed to respect as insoluble mystery the contradictions they found in it. [ ] the history of islam in this matter is strikingly analogous to that of christianity from the rise of the pelagian heresy. it is to be noted that, while the heretics in time came under greek and other foreign influences, their criticism of the koran was at the outset their own. [ ] the shîites, becoming broadly the party of the persians, admitted in time persian, jewish, gnostic, manichæan, and other dualistic doctrines, and generally tended to interpret the koran allegorically. [ ] a particular school of allegorists, the bathenians, even tended to purify the idea of deity in an agnostic direction. [ ] all of these would appear to have ranked genetically as motazilites; and the manifold play of heretical thought gradually forced a certain habit of reasoning on the orthodox, [ ] who as usual found their advantage in the dissidences of the dissenters. on the other hand, the motazilites found new resources in the study and translation of greek works, scientific and philosophical. [ ] they were thus the prime factors, on the arab side, in the culture-evolution which went on under the earlier of the abasside khalifs ( - ). greek literature reached them mainly through the syrian christians, in whose hands it had been put by the nestorians, driven out of their scientific school at edessa and exiled by leo the isaurian ( - ); [ ] possibly also in part through the philosophers who, on being exiled from athens by justinian, settled for a time in persia. [ ] the total result was that already in the ninth century, within two hundred years of the beginning of mohammed's preaching, the saracens in persia had reached not only a remarkable height of material civilization, their wealth exceeding that of byzantium, but a considerable though quasi-secret measure of scientific knowledge and rational thought, [ ] including even some measure of pure atheism. all forms of rationalism alike were called zendekism by the orthodox, the name having the epithetic force of the christian terms "infidelity" and "atheism". [ ] secrecy was long imposed on the motazilites by the orthodoxy of the khalifs, [ ] who as a rule atoned for many crimes and abundant breaches of the law of the koran by a devout profession of faith. freethinking, however, had its periods of political prosperity. even under the ommayade dynasty, the khalif al walid ibn yazid (the eleventh of the race) was reputed to be of no religion, but seems to have been rather a ruffian than a rationalist. [ ] under the abassides culture made much more progress. the khalif al mansour, though he played a very orthodox part, [ ] favoured the motazilites ( - ), being generally a patron of the sciences; and under him were made the first translations from the greek. [ ] despite his orthodoxy he encouraged science; and it was as insurgents and not as unbelievers that he destroyed the sect of rewandites (a branch of the anti-moslem ismailites), who are said to have believed in metempsychosis. [ ] partly on political but partly also on religious grounds his successor al mahdi made war on the ismailites, whom he regarded as atheists, and who appear to have been connected with the motazilite "brethren of purity," [ ] destroying their books and causing others to be written against them. [ ] they were anti-koranites; hardly atheists; but a kind of informal rationalism approaching to atheism, and involving unbelief in the koran and the prophet, seems to have spread considerably, despite the slaughter of many unbelievers by al mahdi. its source seems to have been persian aversion to the alien creed. [ ] the great philosophic influence, again, was that of aristotle; and though his abstract god-idea was nominally adhered to, the scientific movement promoted above all things the conception of a reign of law. [ ] al hadi, the successor of al mahdi, persecuted much and killed many heretics; and haroun al raschid (aaron the orthodox) menaced with death those who held the moderately rational tenet that "the koran was created," [ ] as against the orthodox dogma (on all fours with the brahmanic doctrine concerning the veda) that it was eternal in the heavens and uncreated. one of the rationalists, al mozdar, accused the orthodox party of infidelity, as asserting two eternal things; and there was current among the motazilites of his day the saying that, "had god left men to their natural liberty, the arabians could have composed something not only equal but superior to the koran in eloquence, method, and purity of language." [ ] haroun's crimes, however, consisted little in acts of persecution. the persian barmekides (the family of his first vizier, surnamed barmek) were regarded as protectors of motazilites; [ ] and one of the sons, jaafer, was even suspected of atheism, all three indeed being charged with it. [ ] their destruction, on other grounds, does not seem to have altered the conditions for the thinkers; but haroun's incompetent son emin was a devotee and persecutor. his abler brother and conqueror al mamoun ( - ), on the other hand, directly favoured the motazilites, partly on political grounds, to strengthen himself with the persian party, but also on the ground of conviction. [ ] he even imprisoned some of the orthodox theologians who maintained that the koran was not a created thing, though, like certain persecutors of other faiths, he had expressly declared himself in favour of persuasion as against coercion. [ ] in one case, following usage, he inflicted a cruel torture. "his fatal error," says a recent scholar, "was that he invoked the authority of the state in matters of the intellectual and religious life." [ ] compared with others, certainly, he did not carry his coercion far, though, on being once publicly addressed as "ameer of the unbelievers," he caused the fanatic who said it to be put to death. [ ] in private he was wont to conduct meetings for discussion, attended by believers and unbelievers of every shade, at which the only restriction was that the appeal must be to reason, and never to the koran. [ ] concerning his personal bias, it is related that he had received from kabul a book in old persian, the eternal reason, which taught that reason is the only basis for religion, and that revelation cannot serve as a standing ground. [ ] the story is interesting, but enigmatic, the origin of the book being untraceable. whatever were his views, his coercive policy against the orthodox extremists had the usual effect of stimulating reaction on that side, and preparing the ultimate triumph of orthodoxy. [ ] the fact remains, however, that mamoun was of all the khalifs the greatest promoter of science [ ] and culture; the chief encourager of the study and translation of greek literature; [ ] and, despite his coercion of the theologians on the dogma of the eternity of the koran, tolerant enough to put a christian at the head of a college at damascus, declaring that he chose him not for his religion but for his science. in the same spirit he permitted the free circulation of the apologetic treatise of the armenian christian al kindy, in which islam and the koran are freely criticized. as a ruler, too, he ranks among the best of his race for clemency, justice, and decency of life, although orthodox imputations were cast on his subordinates. his successors motasim and wathek were of the same cast of opinion, the latter being, however, fanatical on behalf of his rationalistic view of the koran as a created thing. [ ] a violent orthodox reaction set in under the worthless and turk-ruled khalif motawakkel [ ] ( - ), by whose time the khalifate was in a state of political decadence, partly from the economic exhaustion following on its tyrannous and extortionate rule; partly from the divisive tendencies of its heterogeneous sections; partly from the corrupting tendency of all despotic power. [ ] despite the official restoration of orthodoxy, the private cultivation of science and philosophy proceeded for a time; the study and translation of greek books continued; [ ] and rationalism of a kind seems to have subsisted more or less secretly to the end. in the tenth century it is said to have reached even the unlearned; and though the motazilites gradually drifted into a scholastic orthodoxy, downright unbelief came up alongside, [ ] albeit secretly. faith in mohammed's mission and law began again to shake; and the learned disregarded its prescriptions. mystics professed to find the way to god without the koran. many decided that religion was useful for regulating the people, but was not for the wise. on the other side, however, the orthodox condemned all science as leading to unbelief, [ ] and developed an elaborate and quasi-systematic theology. it was while the scientific encyclopedists of bassorah were amassing the knowledge which, through the moors, renewed thought in the west, that al ashari built up the kalâm or scholastic theology which thenceforth reigned in the mohammedan east; [ ] and the philosopher al gazzali (or gazel), on his part, employed the ancient and modern device of turning a profession of philosophical scepticism to the account of orthodoxy. [ ] in the struggle between science and religion, in a politically decadent state, the latter inevitably secured the administrative power. [ ] under the khalifs motamid (d. ) and motadhed (d. ) all science and philosophy were proscribed, and booksellers were put upon their oath not to sell any but orthodox books. [ ] thus, though philosophy and science had secretly survived, when the political end came the popular faith was in much the same state as it had been under haroun al raschid. under islam as under all the faiths of the world, in the east as in the west, the mass of the people remained ignorant as well as poor; and the learning and skill of the scholars served only to pass on the saved treasure of greek thought and science to the new civilization of europe. the fact that the age of military and political decadence was that of the widest diffusion of rationalism is naturally fastened on as giving the explanation of the decline; but the inference is pure fallacy. the bagdad khalifate declined as the christianized roman empire declined, from political and external causes; and the turks who overthrew it proceeded to overthrow christian byzantium, where rationalism never reared its head. the conventional view is thus set forth in a popular work (the saracens, by arthur gilman, , p. ): "unconsciously mamun began a process by which that implicit faith which had been at once the foundation and the inspiration of islam, which had nerved its warriors in their terrible warfare, and had brought the nation out of its former obscurity to the foremost position among the peoples of the world, was to be taken from them." we have seen that this view is entirely erroneous as regards the rise of the saracen power; and it is no less so as regards the decline. at the outset there had been no "implicit faith" among the conquerors. the eastern saracens, further, had been decisively defeated by the byzantines in the very first flush of their fanaticism and success; and the western had been routed by charles martel long before they had any philosophy. there was no overthrow of faith among the warriors of the khalifate. the enlistment of turkish mercenaries by mamoun and motasim, by way of being independent of the persian and arab factions in the army and the state, introduced an element which, at first purely barbaric, became as orthodox as the men of haroun's day had been. yet the decadence, instead of being checked, was furthered. nor were the strifes set up by the rationalistic view of the koran nearly so destructive as the mere faction-fights and sectarian insurrections which began with motawakkel. the falling-away of cities and provinces under the feeble moktader ( - ) had nothing whatever to do with opinions, but was strictly analogous to the dissolution of the kingdom of charlemagne under his successors, through the rise of new provincial energies; and the tyranny of the turkish mercenaries was on all fours with that of the pretorians of the roman empire, and with that of the janissaries in later turkey. the writer under notice has actually recorded (p. ) that the warlike sect of ismailitic karmathians, who did more than any other enemy to dismember the khalifate, were unbelievers in the koran, deniers of revelation, and disregarders of prayer. the later khalifs, puppets in the hands of the turks, were one and all devout believers. on the other hand, fresh moslem and non-moslem dynasties arose alternately as the conditions and opportunities determined. jenghiz khan, who overran asia, was no moslem; neither was tamerlane; but new moslem conquerors did overrun india, as pagan alexander had done in his day. theological ideas counted for as little in one case as in the other. sultan mahmoud of ghazni ( - ), who reared a new empire on the basis of the province of khorassan and the kingdom of bokhara, and who twelve times successfully invaded india, happened to be of turkish stock; but he is also recorded to have been in his youth a doubter of a future state, as well as of his personal legitimacy. his later parade of piety (as to which see baron de slane's tr. of ibn khallikan's biog. dict. iii, ) is thus a trifle suspect (british india, in edin. cab. lib. rd ed. i, , following ferishta); and his avarice seems to have animated him to the full as much as his faith, which was certainly not more devout than that of the brahmans of somnauth, whose hold he captured. (cp. prof. e. g. browne, a literary history of persia, ii ( ), .) during his reign, besides, unbelief was rife in his despite (weil, geschichte der chalifen, iii, ), though he burned the books of the motazilites, besides crucifying many ismaïlian heretics (browne, p. ). the conventional theorem as to the political importance of faith, in short, will not bear investigation. even freeman here sets it aside (hist. and conq. of the saracens, p. ). § it is in the later and nominally decadent ages of the bagdad khalifate, when science and culture and even industry relatively prospered by reason of the personal impotence of the khalifs, that we meet with the most pronounced and the most perspicacious of the freethinkers of islam. in the years - there dwelt in the little syrian town of marratun-numan the blind poet abu'l-ala-al-ma'arri, who wrote a parody of the koran, [ ] and in his verse derided all religions as alike absurd, and yet was for some reason never persecuted. he has been pronounced "incomparably greater" than omar khayyám "both as a poet and as an agnostic." [ ] one of his sayings was that "the world holds two classes of men--intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." [ ] he may have escaped on the strength of a character for general eccentricity, for he was an ardent vegetarian and an opponent of all parentage, declaring that to bring a child into the world was to add to the sum of suffering. [ ] the fact that he was latterly a man of wealth, yet in person an ascetic and a generous giver, may be the true explanation. whatever be the explanation of his immunity, the frankness of his heterodoxy is memorable. nourished perhaps by a temper of protest set up in him by the blindness which fell upon him in childhood after smallpox, the spirit of reason seems to have been effectually developed in him by a stay of a year and a-half at bagdad, where, in the days of al mansour, "christians and jews, buddhists and zoroastrians, sabians and sufis, materialists and rationalists," met and communed. [ ] before his visit, his poems are substantially orthodox; later, their burden changes. he denies a resurrection, and is "wholly incredulous of any divine revelation. religion, as he conceives it, is a product of the human mind, in which men believe through force of habit and education, never stopping to consider whether it is true." "his belief in god amounted, as it would seem, to little beyond a conviction that all things are governed by inexorable fate." concerning creeds he sings in one stave:-- now this religion happens to prevail until by that one it is overthrown; because men will not live with men alone, but always with another fairy-tale [ ]-- a summing-up not to be improved upon here. a century later still, and in another region, we come upon the (now) most famous of all eastern freethinkers, omar khayyám. he belonged to naishápúr in khorassan, a province which had long been known for its rationalism, [ ] and which had been part of the nucleus of the great asiatic kingdom created by sultan mahmoud of ghazni at the beginning of the eleventh century, soon after the rise of the fatimite dynasty in egypt. under that sultan flourished ferdusi (firdausi), one of the chief glories of persian verse. after mahmoud's death, his realm and parts of the khalifate in turn were overrun by the seljuk turks under togrul beg; under whose grandson malik it was that omar khayyám, astronomer and poet, studied and sang in khorassan. the turk-descended shah favoured science as strongly as any of the abassides; and when he decided to reform the calendar, omar was one of the eight experts he employed to do it. thus was set up for the east the jaláli calendar, which, as gibbon has noted, [ ] "surpasses the julian and approaches the accuracy of the gregorian style." omar was, in fact, one of the ablest mathematicians of his age. [ ] his name, omar ibn ibrahim al-khayyámi, seems to point to arab descent. "al-khayyámmi" means "the tent-maker"; but in no biographic account of him is there the slightest proof that he or his father ever belonged to that or any other handicraft. [ ] always he figures as a scholar and a man of science. since, therefore, the patronymic al-khayyámi is fairly common now among arabs, and also among the still nomadic tribes of khuzistan and luristan, the reasonable presumption is that it was in his case a patronymic also. [ ] his father being a man of some substance, he had a good schooling, and is even described in literary tradition as having become an expert koran scholar, by the admission of the orthodox al gazzali, who, however, is represented in another record as looking with aversion on omar's scientific lore. [ ] the poet may have had his lead to freethought during his travels after graduating at naishapur, when he visited samarkhand, bokhara, ispahan, and balk. [ ] he seems to have practised astrology for a living, even as did kepler in europe five hundred years later; and he perhaps dabbled somewhat in medicine. [ ] a hostile orthodox account of him, written in the thirteenth century, represents him as "versed in all the wisdom of the greeks," and as wont to insist on the necessity of studying science on greek lines. [ ] of his prose works, two, which were of standard authority, dealt respectively with precious stones and climatology. [ ] beyond question the poet-astronomer was undevout; and his astronomy doubtless helped to make him so. one contemporary writes: "i did not observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions; nor have i seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such belief." [ ] the biographical sketch by ibn al kifti, before cited, declares that he "performed pilgrimages not from piety but from fear," having reason to dread the hostility of contemporaries who knew or divined his unbelief; and there is a story of a treacherous pupil who sought to bring him into public odium. [ ] in point of fact he was not, any more than abu' l-ala, a convinced atheist, but he had no sympathy with popular religion. "he gave his adherence to no religious sect. agnosticism, not faith, is the keynote of his works." [ ] among the sects he saw everywhere strife and hatred in which he could have no part. his earlier english translators, reflecting the tone of the first half of the last century, have thought fit to moralize censoriously over his attitude to life; and the first, prof. cowell, has austerely decided that omar's gaiety is "but a risus sardonicus of despair." [ ] even the subtler fitzgerald, who has so admirably rendered some of the audacities which cowell thought "better left in the original persian," has the air of apologizing for them when he partly concurs in the same estimate. but despair is not the name for the humorous melancholy which omar, like abu' l-ala, weaves around his thoughts on the riddle of the universe. like abu' l-ala, again, he talks at times of god, but with small signs of faith. in epigrams which have seldom been surpassed for their echoing depth, he disposes of the theistic solution and the lure of immortality; whereafter, instead of offering another shibboleth, he sings of wine and roses, of the joys of life and of their speedy passage; not forgetting to add a stipulation for beneficence. [ ] it was his way of turning into music the undertone of all mortality; and that it is now preferable, for any refined intelligence, to the affectation of zest for a "hereafter" on which no one wants to enter, would seem to be proved by the remarkable vogue he has secured in modern england, chiefly through the incomparable version of fitzgerald. much of the attraction, certainly, is due to the canorous cadence and felicitous phrasing of those singularly fortunate stanzas; and a similar handling might have won as high a repute among us for abu' l-ala, whom, as we have seen, some of our orientalists set higher, and whose verse as recently rendered into english has an indubitable charm. fitzgerald, on the other hand, has added much to omar. but the thoughts of omar remain the kernels of fitzgerald's verses; and whereas the counsel, "gather ye roses while ye may," is common enough, it must be the weightier bearing of his deeper and more daring ideas that gives the quatrains their main hold to-day. in the more exact rendering of those translators who closely reproduce the original he remains beyond question a freethinker, [ ] placing ethic above creed, though much given to the praise of wine. never popular in the moslem world, [ ] he has had in ours an unparalleled welcome; and it must be because from his scientific vantage ground in the east, in the period of the norman conquest, he had attained in some degree the vision and chimed with the mood of a later and larger age. that omar in his day and place was not alone in his mood lies on the face of his verse. many quatrains ascribed to him, indeed, are admittedly assignable to other persian poets; and one of his english editors notes that "the poetry of rebellion and revolt from orthodox opinion, which is supposed to be peculiar to him, may be traced in the works of his predecessor avicenna, as well as in those of afdal-i-káshí, and others of his successors." [ ] the allusions to the tavern, a thing suspect and illicit for islam, show that he was in a society more persian than arab, one in which was to be found nearly all of the free intellectual life possible in the moslem east; [ ] and doubtless persian thought, always leaning to heresy, and charged with germs of scientific speculation from immemorial antiquity, prepared his rationalism; though his monism excludes alike dualism and theism. "one for two i never did misread" is his summing up of his philosophy. [ ] but the same formula might serve for the philosophy of the sect of sufis, [ ] who in all ages seem to have included unbelievers as well as devoutly mystical pantheists. founded, it is said, by a woman, rabia, in the first century of the hej'ra, [ ] the sect really carries on a pre-mohammedan mysticism, and may as well derive from greece [ ] as from asia. its original doctrine of divine love, as a reaction against moslem austerity, gave it a fixed hold in persia, and became the starting point of innumerable heterodox doctrines. [ ] under the khalif moktader, a persian sufi is recorded to have been tortured and executed for teaching that every man is god. [ ] in later ages, sufiism became loosely associated with every species of independent thinking; and there is reason to suspect that the later poets sadi (fl. thirteenth century) and hafiz [ ] (fl. fourteenth century), as well as hundreds of lesser status, held under the name of sufiism views of life not far removed from those of omar khayyám; who, however, had bantered the sufis so unmercifully that they are said to have dreaded and hated him. [ ] in any case, sufiism has included such divergent types as al gazzali, [ ] the skeptical defender of the faith; devout pantheistic poets such as jâmi; [ ] and singers of love and wine such as hafiz, whose extremely concrete imagery is certainly not as often allegorical as serious sufis assert, though no doubt it is sometimes so. [ ] it even became nominally associated with the destructive ismaïlitism of the sect of the assassins, whose founder, hassan, had been the schoolfellow of omar khayyám. [ ] of sufiism as a whole it may be said that whether as inculcating quietism, or as widening the narrow theism of islam into pantheism, or as sheltering an unaggressive rationalism, it has made for freedom and humanity in the mohammedan world, lessening the evils of ignorance where it could not inspire progress. [ ] it long anticipated the semi-rationalism of those christians who declare heaven and hell to be names for bodily or mental states in this life. [ ] on its more philosophic side too it connects with the long movement of speculation which, passing into european life through the western saracens, revived greek philosophic thought in christendom after the night of the middle ages, at the same time that saracen science passed on the more precious seeds of real knowledge to the new civilization. § there is the less need to deal at any length in these pages with the professed philosophy of the eastern arabs, seeing that it was from first to last but little associated with any direct or practical repudiation of dogma and superstition. [ ] what freethought there was had only an unwritten currency, and is to be traced, as so often happens in later european history, through the protests of orthodox apologists. thus the persian al gazzali, in the preface to his work, the destruction of the philosophers, declares of the subjects of his attack that "the source of all their errors is the trust they have in the names of sokrates, hippokrates, plato, and aristotle; the admiration they profess for their genius and subtlety; and the belief, finally, that those great masters have been led by the profundity of their faculty to reject all religion, and to regard its precepts as the product of artifice and imposture." [ ] this implies an abundant rationalism, [ ] but, as always, the unwritten unbelief lost ground, its non-publication being the proof that orthodoxy prevailed against it. movements which were originally liberal, such as that of the motecallemîn, ran at length to mere dialectic defence of the faith against the philosophers. fighting the aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of matter, they sought to found a new theistic creationism on the atoms of demokritos, making god the creator of the atoms, and negating the idea of natural law. [ ] eastern moslem philosophy in general followed some such line of reaction and petrifaction. the rationalistic al kindi (fl. ) seems to have been led to philosophize by the motazilite problems; but his successors mostly set them aside, developing an abstract logic and philosophy on greek bases, or studying science for its own sake, though as a rule professing a devout acceptance of the koran. [ ] such was avicenna (ibn sina: d. ), who taught that men should revere the faith in which they were educated; though in comparison with his predecessor al farabi, who leant to platonic mysticism, he is a rationalistic aristotelian, [ ] with a strong leaning to pantheism. of him an arabic historian writes that in his old age he attached himself to the court of the heretical ala-ud-dawla at ispahan, in order that he might freely write his own heretical works. [ ] after al gazzali (d. ), who attacked both avicenna [ ] and al farabi somewhat in the spirit of cicero's skeptical cotta attacking the stoics and the epicureans, [ ] there seems to have been a further development of skepticism, the skeptical defence of the faith having the same unsettling tendency in his as in later hands. ibn khaldun seems to denounce in the name of faith his mixture of pietism and philosophy; and makrisi speaks of his doctrines as working great harm to religion [ ] among the moslems. but the socio-political conditions were too unpropitious to permit of any continuous advance on rational lines. ere long an uncritical orthodoxy prevailed in the eastern schools, and it is in moorish spain that we are to look for the last efforts of arab philosophy. the course of culture-evolution there broadly corresponds with that of the saracen civilization in the east. in spain the moors came into contact with the roman imperial polity, and at the same time with the different culture elements of judaism and christianity. to both of these faiths they gave complete toleration, thus strengthening their own in a way that no other policy could have availed to do. whatever was left of græco-roman art, handicraft, and science, saving the arts of portraiture, they encouraged; and whatever of agricultural science remained from carthaginian times they zealously adopted and improved. like their fellow-moslems in the east, they further learned all the science that the preserved literature of greece could give them. the result was that under energetic and enlightened khalifs the moorish civilization became the centre of light and knowledge as well as of material prosperity for medieval europe. whatever of science the world possessed was to be found in their schools; and thither in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries flocked students from the christian states of western and northern europe. it was in whole or in part from saracen hands that the modern world received astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, botany, jurisprudence, and philosophy. they were, in fact, the revivers of civilization after the age of barbarian christianity. [ ] and while the preservation of greek science, lost from the hands of christendom, would have been a notable service enough, the arabs did much more. alhazen (d. ) is said to have done the most original work in optics before newton, [ ] and in the same century arab medicine and chemistry made original advances. [ ] while the progressive period lasted, there was of course an abundance of practical freethought. but after a marvellously rapid rise, the moorish civilization was arrested and paralysed by the internal and the external forces of anti-civilization--religious fanaticism within and christian hostility without. everywhere we have seen culture-progress depending more or less clearly on the failure to find solutions for political problems. the most fatal defect of all arab civilization--a defect involved in its first departure by way of conquest, and in its fixedly hostile relation to the christian states, which kept it constantly on a military basis--was the total failure to substitute any measure of constitutional rule for despotism. it was thus politically unprogressive, even while advancing in other respects. but in other respects also it soon reached the limits set by the conditions. whereas in persia the arabs overran an ancient civilization, containing many elements of rationalism which acted upon their own creed, the moors in spain found a population only slightly civilized, and predisposed by its recent culture, as well as by its natural conditions, [ ] to fanatical piety. thus when, under their tolerant rule, jews and christians in large numbers embraced islam, the new converts became the most fanatical of all. [ ] all rationalism existed in their despite, and, abounding as they did, they tended to gain power whenever the khalif was weak, and to rebel furiously when he was hostile. when, accordingly, the growing pressure of the feudal christian power in northern spain at length became a menacing danger to the moorish states, weakened by endless intestine strife, the one resource was to call in a new force of moslem fanaticism in the shape of the almoravide [ ] berbers, who, to the utmost of their power, put down everything scientific and rationalistic, and established a rigid koranolatry. after a time they in turn, growing degenerate while remaining orthodox, were overrun by a new influx of conquering fanatics from africa, the almohades, who, failing to add political science to their faith, went down in the thirteenth century before the christians in spain, in a great battle in which their prince sat in their sight with the koran in his hand. [ ] here there could be no pretence that "unbelief" wrought the downfall. the jonah of freethought, so to speak, had been thrown overboard; and the ship went down with the flag of faith flying at every masthead. [ ] it was in the last centuries of moorish rule that there lived the philosophers whose names connect it with the history of european thought, retaining thus a somewhat factitious distinction as compared with the men of science, many of them nameless, who developed and transmitted the sciences. the pantheistic avempace (ibn badja: d. ), who defended the reason against the theistic skepticism of al gazzali, [ ] was physician, astronomer, and mathematician, as well as metaphysician; as was abubacer (abu bekr, also known as ibn tophail: d. ), who regarded religious systems as "only a necessary means of discipline for the multitude," [ ] and as being merely symbols of the higher truth reached by the philosopher. both men, however, tended rather to mysticism than to exact thought; and abubacer's treatise, the self-taught philosopher, which has been translated into latin (by pococke in ), english, dutch, and german, has had the singular fortune of being adopted by the quakers as a work of edification. [ ] very different was the part played by averroës (ibn roshd), the most famous of all moslem thinkers, because the most far-reaching in his influence on european thought. for the middle ages he was pre-eminently the expounder of aristotle, and it is as setting forth, in that capacity, the pantheistic doctrine which affirms the eternity of the material universe and makes the individual soul emanate from and return to the soul of all, that he becomes important alike in moslem and christian thought. diverging from the asceticism and mysticism of avempace and abubacer, and strenuously opposing the anti-rationalism of al gazzali, against whose chief treatise he penned his own destruction of the destruction of the philosophers, averroës is the least mystical and the most rational of the arab thinkers. [ ] at nearly all vital points he oppugns the religious view of things, denying bodily resurrection, which he treats (here following all his predecessors in heretical arab philosophy) as a vulgar fable; [ ] and making some approach to a scientific treatment of the problem of "freewill" as against, on the one hand, the ethic-destroying doctrine of the motecallemîn, who made god's will the sole standard of right, and affirmed predestination (jabarism); and against, on the other hand, the anti-determinism of the kadarites. [ ] even in his politics he was original; and in his paraphrase of plato's republic he has said a notable word for women, pointing out how small an opening is offered for their faculties in moslem society. [ ] of all tyrannies, he boldly declared, the worst is that of priests. in time, however, a consciousness of the vital hostility of his doctrine to current creeds, and of the danger he consequently ran, made him, like so many of his later disciples, anxious to preserve priestly favour. as regards religion he was more complaisant than abubacer, pronouncing mohammedanism the most perfect of all popular systems, [ ] and preaching a patriotic conformity on that score to philosophic students. from him derives the formula of a two-fold truth--one truth for science or philosophy, and another for religion--which played so large a part in the academic life of christendom for centuries. [ ] in two of his treatises, on the harmony of religion with philosophy and on the demonstration of religious dogmas, he even takes up a conservative attitude, proclaiming that the wise man never utters a word against the established creed, and going so far as to say that the freethinker who attacks it, inasmuch as he undermines popular virtue, deserves death. [ ] even in rebutting, as entirely absurd, the doctrine of the creation of the world, and ascribing its currency to the stupefying power of habit, he takes occasion to remark piously that those whose religion has no better basis than faith are frequently seen, on taking up scientific studies, to become utter zendeks. [ ] but he lived in an age of declining culture and reviving fanaticism; and all his conformities could not save him from proscription, at the hands of a khalif who had long favoured him, for the offence of cultivating greek antiquity to the prejudice of islam. all study of greek philosophy was proscribed at the same time, and all books found on the subject were destroyed. [ ] disgraced and banished from court, averroës died at morocco in ; other philosophers were similarly persecuted; [ ] and soon afterwards the moorish rule in spain came to an end in the odour of sanctity. [ ] so complete was now the defeat of the intellectual life in western islam that the ablest writer produced by the arab race in the period of the renaissance, ibn khaldun of tunis ( - ), writes as a bigoted believer in revelation, though his writings on the science of history were the most philosophic since the classic period, being out of all comparison superior to those of the christian chroniclers of his age. [ ] so rationalistic, indeed, is his method, relatively to his time, that it is permissible to suspect him of seeking to propitiate the bigots. [ ] but neither they nor his race in general could learn the sociological lessons he had it in him to teach. their development was arrested for that period. § of later freethought under islam there is little to record as regards literary output, but the phenomenon has never disappeared. buckle, in his haste, declared that he could write the history of turkish civilization on the back of his hand; [ ] but even in turkey, at a time of minimum friendly contact with other european life, there have been traces of a spirit of freethinking nearly as active as that astir in christendom at the same period. thus at the end of the seventeenth century we have circumstantial testimony to the vogue of a doctrine of atheistic naturalism at constantinople. the holders of this doctrine were called muserin, a term said to mean "the true secret is with us." they affirmed a creative and all-sustaining nature, in which man has his place like the plants and like the planets; and they were said to form a very large number, including cadis and other learned as well as some renegade persons. [ ] but turkish culture-conditions in the eighteenth century were not such as to permit of intellectual progress on native lines; and to this day rationalism in that as in other moslem countries is mainly a matter of reflex action set up by the impact of european scientific knowledge, or social contact. there is no modern rationalistic literature. motazilism, so-called, is still heard of in arabia itself. [ ] in the ottoman empire, indeed, it is little in evidence, standing now as it does for a species of broad-church liberalism, analogous to christian unitarianism; [ ] but in persia the ancient leaning to rationalism is still common. the old-world pantheism which we have seen conserved in omar khayyám gave rise in later centuries to similar developments among the parsees both in persia and in india; and from the sixteenth century onwards there are clear traces among them of a number of rationalizing heresies, varying from pantheism and simple deism to atheism and materialism. [ ] in persia to-day there are many thinkers of these casts of thought. [ ] about a british traveller estimated that, assuming there were between , and , sufis in the country, those figures probably fell greatly short of the number "secretly inclined to infidelity." [ ] whatever be the value of the figures, the statement is substantially confirmed by later observers; [ ] missionaries reporting independently that in persia "most of the higher class, of the nobility, and of the learned professions ... are at heart infidels or sceptics." [ ] persian freethought is of course, in large part, the freethought of ignorance, and seems to co-exist with astrological superstition; [ ] but there is obviously needed only science, culture, and material development to produce, on such a basis, a renascence as remarkable as that of modern japan. the verdict of vambéry is noteworthy: "in all asia, with the exception of china, there is no land and no people wherein there is so little of religious enthusiasm as in persia; where freethinkers are so little persecuted, and can express their opinions with so little disturbance; and where, finally, as a natural consequence, the old religious structure can be so easily shattered by the outbreak of new enthusiasts. whoever has read khayyám's blasphemies against god and the prophet, his jesting verses against the holiest ceremonies and commandments of islam; and whoever knows the vogue of this book and other works directed against the current religion, will not wonder that bâb with the weapon of the word won so many hearts in so short a time." [ ] the view that bâbism affiliates to rationalism is to be understood in the sense that the atmosphere of the latter made possible the growth of the former, its adherents being apparently drawn rather from the former orthodox. [ ] the young founder of the sect, mirza-ali-mohammed, declared himself "the bâb," i.e. "the gate" (to the knowledge of god), as against the orthodox moslem teachers who taught that "since the twelve imâms, the gate of knowledge is closed." hence the name of the sect. mirza-ali, who showed a strong tendency to intolerance, quickly created an aggressive movement, which was for a time put down by the killing of himself and many of his followers. since his execution the sect has greatly multiplied and its doctrines have much widened. for a time the founder's intolerant teachings were upheld by ezél, the founder of one of the two divisions into which the party speedily fell; while his rival béha, who gave himself out as the true prophet, of whom the bâb was merely the precursor, developed a notably cosmopolitan and equalitarian doctrine, including a vague belief in immortality, without heaven, hell, or purgatory. ezél eventually abandoned his claims, and his followers now number less than two thousand; while the béhaïtes number nearly three millions out of the seven millions of the persian population, and some two millions in the adjacent countries. the son of béha, abbas effendi, who bears the title of "the great branch," now rules the cult, which promises to be the future religion of persia. [ ] one of the most notable phenomena of the earlier movement was the entrance of a young woman, daughter of a leading ulema, who for the first time in moslem history threw off the regulation veil and preached the equality of the sexes. [ ] she was one of those first executed. persecution, however, has long ceased, and as a result of her lead the position of woman in the cult is exceptionally good. thus the last century has witnessed within the sphere of islam, so commonly supposed to be impervious to change, one of the most rapid and radical religious changes recorded in history. there is therefore no ground for holding that in other moslem countries progress is at an end. everything depends, broadly speaking, on the possibilities of culture-contact. the changes in persia are traceable to the element of heretical habit which has persisted from pre-moslem times; future and more scientific development will depend upon the assimilation of european knowledge. in egypt, before the period of european intervention, freethinking was at a minimum; and though toleration was well developed as regarded christians and jews, freethinking moslems dared not avow themselves. [ ] latterly rationalism tends to spread in egypt as in other moslem countries; even under mohammed ali the ruling turks had begun to exhibit a "remarkable indifference to religion," and had "begun to undermine the foundations of el-islam"; and so shrewd and dispassionate an observer as lane expected that the common people would "soon assist in the work," and that "the overthrow of the whole fabric may reasonably be expected to ensue at a period not very remote." [ ] to evolve such a change there will be required a diffusion of culture which is not at all likely to be rapid under any government; but in any case the ground that is being lost by islam in egypt is not being retaken by christianity. in the other british dominions, mohammedans, though less ready than educated hindus to accept new ideas, cannot escape the rationalizing influence of european culture. nor was it left to the british to introduce the rationalistic spirit in moslem india. at the end of the sixteenth century the eclectic emperor akbar, [ ] himself a devout worshipper of the sun, [ ] is found tolerantly comparing all religions, [ ] depreciating islam, [ ] and arriving at such general views on the equivalence of all creeds, and on the improbability of eternal punishment, [ ] as pass for liberal among christians in our own day. if such views could be generated by a comparison of the creeds of pre-british india they must needs be encouraged now. the mohammedan mass is of course still deeply fanatical, and habitually superstitious; but not any more immovably so than the early saracens. in the eighteenth century arose the fanatical wahabi sect, which aims at a puritanic restoration of primeval islam, freed from the accretions of later belief, such as saint-worship; but the movement, though variously estimated, has had small success, and seems destined to extinction. [ ] of the traditional seventy-three sects in islam only four to-day count as orthodox. [ ] it may be worth while, in conclusion, to note that the comparative prosperity or progressiveness of islam as a proselytizing and civilizing force in africa--a phenomenon regarded even by some christians with satisfaction, and by some with alarm [ ]--is not strictly or purely a religious phenomenon. moslem civilization suits with negro life in africa in virtue not of the teaching of the koran, but of the comparative nearness of the arab to the barbaric life. he interbreeds with the natives, fraternizes with them (when not engaged in kidnapping them), and so stimulates their civilization; where the european colonist, looking down on them as an inferior species, isolates, depresses, and degrades them. it is thus conceivable that there is a future for islam at the level of a low culture-stage; but the arab and turkish races out of africa are rather the more likely to concur in the rationalistic movement of the higher civilization. even in africa, however, a systematic observer notes, and predicts the extension of, "a strong tendency on the part of the mohammedans towards an easy-going rationalism, such as is fast making way in algeria, where the townspeople and the cultivators in the more settled districts, constantly coming in contact with europeans, are becoming indifferent to the more inconvenient among their mohammedan observances, and are content to live with little more religion than an observance of the laws, and a desire to get on well with their neighbours." [ ] thus at every culture-level we see the persistence of that force of intellectual variation which is the subject of our inquiry. chapter ix christendom in the middle ages it would be an error, in view of the biological generalization proceeded on and the facts noted in this inquiry, to suppose that even in the dark ages, so called, [ ] the spirit of critical reason was wholly absent from the life of christendom. it had simply grown very rare, and was the more discountenanced where it strove to speak. but the most systematic suppression of heresies could not secure that no private heresy should remain. as voltaire has remarked, there was "nearly always a small flock separated from the great." [ ] apart too from such quasi-rationalism as was involved in semi-pelagianism, [ ] critical heresy chronically arose even in the byzantine provinces, which by the curtailment of the empire had been left the most homogeneous and therefore the most manageable of the christian states. it is necessary to note those survivals of partial freethinking, when we would trace the rise of modern thought. § . heresy in byzantium it was probably from some indirect influence of the new anti-idolatrous religion of islam that in the eighth century the soldier-emperor, leo the isaurian, known as the iconoclast, derived his aversion to the image-worship [ ] which had long been as general in the christian world as ever under polytheism. so gross had the superstition become that particular images were frequently selected as god-parents; of others the paint was partly scratched off to be mixed with the sacramental wine; and the bread was solemnly put in contact with them. [ ] leo began ( ) by an edict simply causing the images to be placed so high that they could not be kissed, but on being met with resistance and rebellion he ordered their total removal ( ). one view is that he saw image-worship to be the main hindrance to the spread of the faith among jews and moslems, and took his measures accordingly. [ ] save on this one point he was an orthodox christian and trinitarian, and his long effort to put down images and pictures was in itself rather fanatical [ ] than rationalistic, though a measure of freethinking was developed among the religious party he created. [ ] of this spirit, as well as of the aversion to image-worship, [ ] something must have survived the official restoration of idolatry; but the traces are few. the most zealous iconoclasts seem never to have risen above the flat inconsistency of treating the cross and the written gospels with exactly the same adoration that their opponents paid to images; [ ] and their appeal to the scriptures--which was their first and last argument--was accordingly met by the retort that they themselves accepted the authority of tradition, as did the image-worshippers. the remarkable hostility of the army to the latter is to be explained, apparently, by the local bias of the eastern regions from which the soldiers were mainly recruited. in the ninth century, when saracen rivalry had stung the byzantines into some partial revival of culture and science, [ ] the all-learned patriarch photius (c. - ), who reluctantly accepted ecclesiastical office, earned a dangerous repute for freethinking by declaring from the pulpit that earthquakes were produced by earthly causes and not by divine wrath. [ ] but this was an almost solitary gleam of reason in a generation wholly given up to furious strife over the worship of images, and photius was one of the image-worshippers. the battle swung from extreme to extreme. the emperor michael ii, "the stammerer" ( - ), held a medium position, and accordingly acquired the repute of a freethinker. a general under leo v, "the armenian," he had conspired against him, and when on the verge of execution had been raised to the throne in place of leo, who was assassinated at the altar. the new emperor aimed above all things at peace and quietness; but his methods were thoroughly byzantine, and included the castration of the four sons of leo. michael himself is said to have doubted the future resurrection of men, to have maintained that judas was saved, and to have doubted the existence of satan because he is not named in the pentateuch [ ]--a species of freethinking not far removed from that of the iconoclasts, whose grounds were merely biblical. a generation later came michael iv, "the sot," bred a wastrel under the guardianship of his mother, theodora (who in restored image-worship and persecuted the paulicians), and her brother bardas, who ultimately put her in a convent. michael, repeatedly defeated by the saracens, long held his own at home. taking into favour basil, who married his (michael's) mistress, he murdered bardas, and a year later ( ) was about to murder basil in turn, when the latter anticipated him, murdered the emperor, and assumed the purple. it was under basil, who put down the iconoclasts, that photius, after formally deposing and being deposed by the pope of rome ( - ) was really deposed and banished ( ), to be restored to favour and office ten years later. in , on the death of basil, he was again deposed, dying about . in that kaleidoscope of plot and faction, fanaticism and crime, there is small trace of sane thinking. michael iv, in his disreputable way, was something of a freethinker, and could even with impunity burlesque the religious processions of the clergy, [ ] the orthodox populace joining in the laugh; but there was no such culture at constantinople as could develop a sober rationalism, or sustain it against the clergy if it showed its head. intelligence in general could not rise above the plane of the wrangle over images. while the struggle lasted, it was marked by all the ferocity that belonged from the outset to christian strifes; and in the end, as usual, the more irrational bias triumphed. it was in a sect whose doctrine at one point coincided with iconoclasm that there were preserved such rude seeds of oriental rationalism as could survive the rule of the byzantine emperors, and carry the stimulus of heresy to the west. the rise of the paulicians in armenia dates from the seventh century, and was nominally by way of setting up a creed on the lines of paul as against the paganized system of the church. rising as they did on the borders of persia, they were probably affected from the first by mazdean influences, as the dualistic principle was always affirmed by their virtual founder, constantine, afterwards known as sylvanus. [ ] their original tenets seem to have been anti-manichean, anti-gnostic (though partly marcionite), opposed to the worship of images and relics, to sacraments, to the adoration of the virgin, of saints, and of angels, and to the acceptance of the old testament; and in an age in which the reading of the sacred books had already come to be regarded as a privilege of monks and priests, they insisted on reading the new testament for themselves. [ ] in this they were virtually founding on the old pagan conception of religion, under which all heads of families could offer worship and sacrifice without the intervention of a priest, as against the judæo-christian sacerdotalism, which vetoed anything like a private cultus. in the teaching of sylvanus, further, there were distinct manichean and gnostic characteristics--notably, hostility to judaism; the denial that christ had a real human body, capable of suffering; and the doctrine that baptism and the communion were properly spiritual and not physical rites. [ ] in the ninth century, when they had become a powerful and militant sect, often at war with the empire, they were still marked by their refusal to make any difference between priests and laymen. anti-ecclesiasticism was thus a main feature of the whole movement; and the byzantine government, recognizing in its doctrine a particularly dangerous heresy, had at once bloodily attacked it, causing sylvanus to be stoned to death. [ ] still it grew, even to the length of exhibiting the usual phenomena of schism within itself. one section obtained the protection of the first iconoclastic emperor, who agreed with them on the subject of images; and a later leader, sergius or tychicus, won similar favour from nicephorus i; but leo the armenian (suc. ), fearing the stigma of their other heresies, and having already trouble enough from his iconoclasm, set up against them, as against the image-worshippers, a new and cruel persecution. [ ] they were thus driven over to the saracens, whose advance-guard they became as against the christian state; but the iconoclast constantine copronymus sympathetically [ ] transplanted many of them to constantinople and thrace, thus introducing their doctrine into europe. the empress theodora ( - ), who restored image-worship, [ ] sought to exterminate those left in armenia, slaying, it is said, a hundred thousand. [ ] many of the remnant were thus forced into the arms of the saracens; and the sect did the empire desperate mischief during many generations. [ ] meantime those planted in thrace, in concert with the main body, carried propaganda into bulgaria, and these again were further reinforced by refugees from armenia in the ninth century, and in the tenth by a fresh colony transplanted from armenia by the emperor john zimisces, who valued them as a bulwark against the barbarous slavs. [ ] fresh persecution under alexius i at the end of the eleventh century failed to suppress them; and imperial extortion constantly drove to their side numbers of fresh adherents, [ ] while the bulgarians for similar reasons tended in mass to adopt their creed as against that of constantinople. so greatly did the cult flourish that at its height it had a regular hierarchy, notably recalling that of the early manicheans--with a pope, twelve magistri, and seventy-two bishops, each of whom had a filius major and filius minor as his assistants. withal the democratic element remained strong, the laying on of the hands of communicants on the heads of newcomers being part of the rite of reception into full membership. thus it came about that from bulgaria there passed into western europe, [ ] partly through the slavonic sect called bogomiles or bogomilians [ ] (= theophiloi, "lovers of god"), who were akin to the paulicians, partly by more general influences, [ ] a contagion of democratic and anti-ecclesiastical heresy; so that the very name bulgar became the french bougre = heretic--and worse. [ ] it specified the most obvious source of the new anti-romanist heresies of the albigenses, if not of the vaudois (waldenses). § . critical heresy in the west in the west, meanwhile, where the variety of social elements was favourable to new life, heresy of a rationalistic kind was not wholly lacking. about the middle of the eighth century we find one feargal or vergilius, an irish priest in bavaria, accused by st. boniface, his enemy, of affirming, "in defiance of god and his own soul," the doctrine of the antipodes, [ ] which must have reached him through the ancient greek lore carried to ireland in the primary period of christianization of that province. of that influence we have already seen a trace in pelagius and coelestius; and we shall see more later in john the scot. after being deposed by the pope, vergilius was reinstated; was made bishop of salzburg, and held the post till his death; and was even sainted afterwards; but the doctrine disappeared for centuries from the christian world. other heresies, however, asserted themselves. though image-worship finally triumphed there as in the east, it had strong opponents, notably claudius, bishop of turin (fl. ) under the emperor louis the pious, son of charlemagne, and his contemporary agobard, bishop of lyons. [ ] it is a significant fact that both men were born in spain; and either to saracen or to jewish influence--the latter being then strong in the moorish and even in the christian [ ] world--may fairly be in part attributed their marked bias against image-worship. claudius was slightly and agobard well educated in latin letters, so that an early impression [ ] would seem to have been at work in both cases. however that may be, they stood out as singularly rationalistic theologians in an age of general ignorance and superstition. claudius vehemently resisted alike image-worship, saint-worship, and the papal claims, and is recorded to have termed a council of bishops which condemned him "an assembly of asses." [ ] agobard, in turn, is quite extraordinary in the thoroughness of his rejection of popular superstition, being not only an iconoclast but an enemy to prayer for change in the weather, to belief in incantations and the power of evil spirits, to the ordeal by fire, to the wager of battle, [ ] and to the belief in the verbal inspiration of the sacred books. in an age of enormous superstition and deep ignorance, he maintained within the church that reason was the noble gift of god. [ ] he was a rationalist born out of due time. [ ] a grain of rationalism, as apart from professional self-interest, may also have entered into the outcry made at this period by the clergy against the rigidly predestinarian doctrine of the monk gottschalk. [ ] his enemy, rabanus or hrabanus (called "the moor"), seems again to represent some saracen influence, inasmuch as he reproduced the scientific lore of isidore of seville. [ ] but the philosophic semi-rationalism of john scotus (d. ), later known as erigena (john the scot = of ireland--the original "scots" being irish), seems to be traceable to the greek studies which had been cherished in christianized ireland while the rest of western europe lost them, and represents at once the imperfect beginning of the relatively rationalistic philosophy of nominalism [ ] and the first western revival of the philosophy of plato and aristotle, howbeit by way of accommodation to the doctrine of the church. [ ] that john the scot was an irishman remains practically certain, even if we give up the term "erigena," which, as has been shown by floss, the most careful editor of his works, is not found in the oldest mss. the reading there is ierugena, which later shades into erugena and eriugena. (cp. ueberweg, i, ; poole, pp. - , note; dr. th. christlieb, leben und lehre des johannes scotus erigena, , p. sq.; and huber, johannes scotus erigena: ein beitrag zur geschichte der philosophie und theologie im mittelalter, , pp. - .) from this elusive cognomen no certain inference can be drawn, too many being open; though the fact that john had himself coined the term graiugena for a late greek writer makes it likely that he called himself ierugena in the sense of "born in the holy (island)" = ireland. but the name scotus, occurring without the ierugena, is common in old mss.; and it is almost impossible that any save a scot of ireland should have possessed the scholarship of john in the ninth century. in the west, greek scholarship and philosophy had been special to ireland from the time of pelagius; and it is from greek sources that john draws his inspiration and cast of thought. m. taillandier not unjustly calls the ireland of that era "l'île des saints, mais aussi l'île des libres penseurs." (scot Érigène et la philosophie scolastique, , p. .) to the same effect huber, pp. - . in writing that johannes "was of scottish nationality, but was probably born and brought up in ireland," ueberweg (i, ) obscures the fact that the people of ireland were the scoti of that period. all the testimony goes to show "that ireland was called scotia, and its ruling people scoti, from the first appearance of these names down to the eleventh century. but that [the] present scotland was called scotia, or its people scoti, before the eleventh century, not so much as one single authority can be produced" (pinkerton, enquiry into the history of scotland, , ii, ). irish scots gave their name to scotland, and it was adopted by the teutonic settlers. while the land of john the scot's birth is thus fairly certain, the place of his death remains a mystery. out of a statement by asser that king alfred made one john, a priest, abbot of athelney, and that the said abbot was murdered at the altar by hired assassins, there grew a later story that alfred made john the scot abbot of malmesbury, and that he was slain with the styli of two of his pupils. it is clear that the john of asser was an "old saxon," and not the philosopher; and it is difficult to doubt that the second story, which arises in the twelfth century, is a hearsay distortion of the first. cp. christlieb, who argues (p. sq.) for two johns, one of them scotus, and both assassinated, with huber, who sets forth (p. sq.) the view here followed. there is really no adequate ground for believing that john the scot was ever a priest. we know not where or when he died; but the presumption is that it was in france, and not long after the death of his patron charles-- . (huber, p. .) called in by archbishop hincmar of rheims, himself a normally superstitious believer, [ ] to answer gottschalk, john scotus in turn was accused of heresy, as he well might be on many points of his treatise, de praedestinatione [ ] ( ). he fiercely and not very fairly condemned gottschalk as a heretic, charging him with denying both divine grace and freewill, but without disposing of gottschalk's positive grounds; and arguing that god could not be the cause of sin, as if gottschalk had not said the same thing. his superior speculative power comes out in his undertaking to show that for the divine being sin is non-ens; and that therefore that being cannot properly be said either to foreknow or to predestinate, or to punish. but the argument becomes inconsistent inasmuch as it further affirms deity to have so constituted the order of things that sin punishes itself. [ ] it is evident that in assimilating his pantheistic conceptions he had failed to think out their incompatibility with any theistic dogma whatever; his reasoning, on the whole, being no more coherent than gottschalk's. he had in fact set out from an arbitrary theistic position that was at once judaic, christian, and platonic, and went back on one line to the gnostics; while on another his argument that sin has no real existence is a variant from an old thesis--made current, as we saw, by euclides of megara--with which orthodoxy had met the manicheans. [ ] but to the abstract doctrine he gave a new practical point by declaring that the doctrine of hell-fire was a mere allegory; that heaven and hell alike were states of consciousness, not places. [ ] and if such concrete freethinking were not enough to infuriate the orthodox, they had from him the most explicit declarations that authority is derivable solely from reason. [ ] in philosophy proper he must be credited, despite his inconsistency, with deep and original thought. [ ] like every theologian of philosophic capacity before and since, he passes into pantheism as soon as he grapples closely with the difficulties of theism, and "the expressions which he uses are identical with those which were afterwards employed by spinoza.... it was a tradition of the fourth or fifth century transferred to the ninth, an echo from alexandria." [ ] condemned by pope nicholas i and by two church councils, [ ] his writings none the less availed to keep that echo audible to later centuries. the range and vigour of his practical rationalism may be gathered from his attitude in the controversy begun by the abbot paschasius radbert ( ) on the nature of the eucharist. paschasius taught that there was a real transformation of the bread and wine into the divine body and blood; and the doctrine, thus nakedly put, startled the freer scholars of the time, who were not yet habituated to latin orthodoxy. another learned monk, ratramnus, who had written a treatise on predestination at the request of the rationalizing emperor, charles the bald (discussing the problem in gottschalk's sense [ ] without naming him), produced on the same monarch's invitation a treatise in which transubstantiation was denied, and the "real presence" was declared to be spiritual [ ]--a view already known to paschasius as being held by some. [ ] john scotus, also asked by the emperor to write on the subject, went so far as to argue that the bread and wine were merely symbols and memorials. [ ] as usual, the irrational doctrine became that of the church; [ ] but the other must have wrought for reason in secret. for the rest, he set forth the old "modal" view of the trinity, resolving it into the different conceptual aspects of the universe, and thus propounding one more vital heresy. [ ] nothing but a succession of rationalizing emperors could have secured continuance for such teaching as that of ratramnus and john the scot. for a time, the cruelty meted out to gottschalk kept up feeling in favour of his views; bishop remigius of lyons condemned hincmar's treatment of him; and others sought to maintain his positions, with modifications, though hincmar carried resolutions condemning them at the second synod of chiersy. on the other hand, archbishop wenilo of sens, bishop prudentius of troyes, and florus, a deacon of lyons, all wrote against the doctrines of john the scot; and the second synod of valence ( ), while opposing hincmar and affirming duplex predestination, denounced with fury the reasonings of john the scot, ascribing them to his nation as a whole. [ ] the pope taking the same line, the fortunes of the rationalistic view of the eucharist and of hell-fire were soon determined for the middle ages, though in the year we find the archbishop of canterbury confronted by english ecclesiastics who asserted that there was no transubstantiation, the elements being merely a figure of the body and blood of christ. [ ] the economic explanation clearly holds alike as regards the attack on john and the condemnation of gottschalk for a doctrine which had actually been established for centuries, on the authority of augustine, as strict orthodoxy. in augustine's time, the determining pressures were not economic: a bankrupt world was seeking to explain its fate; and augustine had merely carried a majority with him against pelagius, partly by his personal influence, partly by force of the fatalist mood of the time. but in the renascent world of gottschalk's day the economic exploitation of fear had been carried several stages forward by the church; and the question of predestination had a very direct financial bearing. the northern peoples, accustomed to compound for crimes by money payments, had so readily played into the hands of the priesthood by their eagerness to buy surcease of purgatorial pain that masses for the dead and "penitential certificates" were main sources of ecclesiastical revenue. therefore the condemnations of such abuses passed by the councils, on the urging of the more thoughtful clergy, were constantly frustrated by the plain pecuniary interest of the priests. [ ] it even appears that the eucharist was popularly regarded not as a process of religious "communion," but as a magical rite objectively efficacious for bodily preservation in this life and the next. thus it came about that often "priests presented the offering of the mass alone and by themselves, without any participation of the congregation." [ ] if then it were to be seriously understood that the future lot of all was foreordained, all expenditure on masses for the dead, or to secure in advance a lightening of purgatorial penance, or even to buy off penance on earth, was so much waste; and the teutons were still as ready as other barbarians to make their transactions with church, god, and the saints a matter of explicit bargain. [ ] gottschalk, accordingly, had to be put down, in the general interests of the church. it could not truthfully be pretended that he deviated from augustine, for he actually held by the "semi-pelagian" inconsistency that god predestinates good, but merely foreknows evil. [ ] there was in fact no clear opposition between his affirmations and those of rabanus maurus, who also professed to be an augustinian; but the latter laid forensic stress on the "desire" of god that all men should be saved, and on the formula that christ died for all; while gottschalk, more honestly, insisted that predestination is predestination, and applied the principle not merely, as had been customary, to the future state of the good, but to that of the bad, [ ] insisting on a prædestinatio duplex. his own fate was thus economically predestinate; and he was actually tortured by the scourge till he cast into the fire his written defence, "a document which contained nothing but a compilation of testimonies from scripture, and from the older church-teachers." [ ] gottschalk later challenged a fourfold ordeal of "boiling water, oil, and pitch." his primary doctrine had been the immutability of the divine will; but he brought himself to the belief that god would work a miracle in his favour. his conception of "foreordination" was thus framed solely with regard to the conception of a future state. the ordeal was not granted, the orthodox party fearing to try conclusions, and he died without the sacraments, rather than recant. then began the second reaction of feeling against his chief persecutor, hincmar. neander, vi, . a recent writer, who handles very intelligently and temperately the problem of persecution, urges that in that connection "one ought not to lay great stress on the old argument of the hallam and macaulay school as to the strength of vested interests, though it has a certain historical importance, because the priest must subsist somehow" (religious persecution: a study in psychology, by e. s. p. haynes, , p. ). if the "certain importance" be in the ratio of the certainty of the last adduced fact, the legitimate "stress" on the argument in question would seem sufficient for most purposes. the writer adds the note: "it is not unfair, however, to quote the case of dr. middleton, who, writing to lord radnor in in respect of his famous work on miracles, admits frankly enough that he would never have given the clergy any trouble, had he received some good appointment in the church." if the essayist has met with no other historic fact illustrative of the play of vested interests in ecclesiastical history, it is extremely candid of him to mention that one. later on, however, he commits himself to the proposition that "the history of medieval persecution leads one to infer that the clergy as a whole were roused to much greater activity by menaces to their material comforts in this world than by an altruistic anxiety for the fate of lay souls in the next" (id. p. . cp. p. ). this amount of "stress" on vested interests will probably satisfy most members of the hallam and macaulay school; and is ample for the purposes of the present contention. from this point onward, the slow movement of new ideas may for a time be conveniently traced on two general lines--one that of the philosophic discussion in the schools, reinforced by saracen influences, the other that of partially rationalistic and democratic heresy among the common people, by way first of contagion from the east. the latter was on the whole as influential for sane thought as the former, apart from such ecclesiastical freethinking as that of berengar of tours and roscelin (rousselin), canon of compiègne. berengar (c. ) was led by moral reflection [ ] to doubt the priestly miracle of the eucharist, and thenceforth he entered into a stormy controversy on the subject, in the course of which he twice recanted under bodily fear, but passionately returned to his original positions. fundamentally sincere, and indignantly resentful of the gross superstition prevailing in the church, he struck fiercely in his writings at popes leo ix and nicholas ii and archbishop lanfranc, [ ] all of whom had opposed him. at length, after much strife, he threw up the contest, spending the latter part of his long life in seclusion; pope gregory vii, who was personally friendly to him, having finally shielded him from persecution. it seems clear that, though accused, with others of his school, of rejecting certain of the gospel miracles, [ ] he never became a disbeliever; his very polemic testifying to the warmth of his belief on his own lines. his teaching, however, which went far by reason of the vividness of his style, doubtless had the effect of promoting not only the rationalistic-christian view of the eucharist, [ ] but a criticism which went further, inasmuch as his opponents forced on the bystanders the question as to what reality there was in the christian creed if his view were true. [ ] all such influences, however, were but slight in total mass compared with the overwhelming weight of the economic interest of the priesthood; and not till the reformation was berengar's doctrine accepted by a single organized sect. the orthodox doctrine, in fact, was all-essential to the catholic church. given the daily miracle of the "real presence," the church had a vital hold on the christian world, and the priest was above all lay rivalry. seeing as much, the council of the lateran ( ) met the new criticism by establishing the technical doctrine of the real presence for the first time as an article of faith; and as such it will doubtless stand while there is a catholic priesthood. berengar's original view must have been shared by thousands; but no catholic carried on his propaganda. the question had become one of life and death. berengar's forced prevarications, which are unsympathetically set forth by mosheim ( cent., pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ - ), are made much more intelligible in the sympathetic survey of neander (vi, - ). see also the careful inquiry of reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, sq. as to berengar's writings, see further murdock's note to mosheim, last cit., § . the formal compromise forced on him by pope hildebrand, who was personally friendly to him, consisted in adding to his denial of the change of the bread and wine into "body and blood" the doctrine that the body and blood were "superadded to the bread and wine in and by their consecration." this formula, of course, did not represent the spirit of berengar's polemic. as to the disputes on the subject, which ran to the most unseemly length of physiological detail, see voltaire, essai sur les moeurs, ch. xlv. it is noteworthy that augustine had very expressly set forth a metaphorical interpretation of the eucharist--de doctrina christiana, l. iii, c. . but just as the church later set aside the verdict of thomas aquinas that the virgin mary was "born in sin," so did it reverse augustine's judgment on the eucharist. always the more irrational view carried the day, as being more propitious to sacerdotal claims. so far as the church by her keenly self-regarding organization could attain it, all opinion was kept within the strict bounds of her official dogma, in which life in the middle ages so long stagnated. for centuries, despite the turmoil of many wars--which, indeed, helped to arrest thought--the life of the mind presented a uniformity hardly now conceivable. the common expectation of the ending of the world, in the year , in particular had an immense prepotency of paralysing men's spirits; and the grooves of habit thus fixed were hard to alter. for most men, the notion of possible innovation in thought did not exist: the usual was the sacred: the very ideal of an improvement or reformation, when it arose, was one of reaching back to a far-away perfection of the past, never of remoulding things on lines laid down by reason. yet even into this half-stifled world there entered, by eastern ways, and first in the guise of rude demotic departures from priestly prescription, the indestructible spirit of change. § . popular anti-clerical heresy the first western traces of the imported paulician heresy are about the year , [ ] when a rustic of châlons is heard of as destroying a cross and a religious picture, and asserting that the prophets are not wholly to be believed. [ ] from this time forward, the world having begun to breathe again after the passing of the year without any sign of the day of judgment, heresy begins to multiply, the chief movers being "distinguished by a tendency to rationalism." [ ] in there is a trace of it in aquitaine. [ ] in the year (or, as the date is sometimes put, in ) we hear of the unveiling of a secret society of rationalizing mystics at orleans, ten canons of one church being members. [ ] an italian woman was said to be the founder, and thirteen were burned alive on their refusal to recant. according to the records, they denied all miracles, including the virgin birth and the resurrection; rejected baptism and the miracle of the eucharist; took the old "docetic" view of jesus, denying his actual humanity; and affirmed the eternity of matter and the non-creation of the world. they were also accused, like the first christians, of promiscuous nocturnal orgies and of eating sacrificed infants; but unless such charges are to be held valid in the other case, they cannot be here. [ ] the stories told of the manichean community who lived in the castle of monforte, near asti in lombardy, in the years - , and who at length were likewise burned alive, are similarly mixed with fable. [ ] on this case it is recorded that, while the archbishop of milan investigated the heresy, the burning of the victims was the work of the fanatical populace of milan, and was done against his will. a less savage treatment may have made possible the alleged success of gerhard, bishop of cambray and arras, in reconciling to the church at arras, in or , a number of laymen--also said to have been taught by an italian--who as a body rejected all external worship, setting aside priestly baptism and the sacraments, penance and images, funeral rites, holy oil, church bells, cross-worship, altars, and even churches, and denied the necessity of an order of priests. [ ] few of the protestants of a later age were so thorough-going; but the fact that many of the sect stood to the old marcionite veto on marriage and the sexual instinct gives to their propaganda its own cast of fanaticism. this last tenet it seemingly was that gave the paulicians their common greek name of cathari, [ ] "the pure," corrupted or assimilated in italian to gazzari, whence presumably the german word for heretic, ketzer. [ ] such a doctrine had the double misfortune that if acted on it left the sect without the normal recruitment of members' children, while if departed from it brought on them the stigma of wanton hypocrisy; and as a matter of fact every movement of the kind, ancient and modern, seems to have contained within it the two extremes of asceticism and licence, the former generating the latter. it could hardly, however, have been the ascetic doctrine that won for the new heresy its vogue in medieval europe; nor is it likely that the majority of the heretics even professed it. if, on the other hand, we ask how it was that in an age of dense superstition so many uneducated people were found to reject so promptly the most sacrosanct doctrines of the church, it seems hardly less difficult to account for the phenomenon on the bare ground of their common sense. critical common sense there must have been, to allow of it at all; but it is reasonable to suppose that then, as clearly happened later at the reformation, common sense had a powerful stimulus in pecuniary interest. with the evidence as to christian practice in the fourth century on the one hand, and the later evidence as to clerical life on the other, we are certain of a common play of financial motive throughout the middle ages. and whereas it is intelligible that such rapacity as we have seen described by libanius should evoke a heresy which rejected alike religious ceremonial and the claims of the priest, it is further reasonable to surmise that resentment of priestly rapacity and luxury helped men to similar heresy in western europe when the doctrine reached them. if any centuries are to be singled out as those of maximum profligacy and extortion among the clergy, they are the ninth and the three following. [ ] it had been part of the policy of charlemagne everywhere to strengthen the hands of the clergy by way of checking the power of the nobles; [ ] and in the disorder after his death the conflicting forces were in semi-anarchic competition. the feudal habit of appointing younger sons and underlings to livings wherever possible; the disorders and strifes of the papacy; and the frequent practice of dispossessing priests to reward retainers, thereby driving the dispossessed to plunder on their own account, must together have created a state of things almost past exaggeration. it was a matter of course that the clergy on their part should make the utmost possible use of their influence over men's superstitious fears in order to acquire bequests of lands; [ ] and such bequests in turn exasperated the heirs thus disinherited. thus orthodoxy and heterodoxy alike had strong economic motives; and in these may be placed a main part of the explanation of the gross savagery of persecution now normal in the church. such a heresy as that of gottschalk, we saw, by denying to the priest all power of affecting the predestined course of things here or hereafter, logically imperilled the very existence of the whole hierarchy, and was by many resented accordingly. the same principle entered into the controversies over the eucharist. still more would the clergy resent the new manichean heresy, of which every element, from the euchite tenet of the necessity of personal prayer and mortification, as against the innate demon, to the rejection of all the rites of normal worship and all the pretensions of priests, was radically hostile to the entire organization of the church. when the heretics in due course developed a priestly system of their own, [ ] the hostility was only the more embittered. the crisis was the more acute, finally, because in the latter part of the tenth century the common expectation that the world would end with the year had inspired enormous donations to the church, [ ] with a proportionally oppressive effect on the general population, moving them to economic self-defence. it is in fact clear that an anti-clerical element entered largely into the beginnings of the communal movement in france in the eleventh century. in we find the citizens of cambrai forming a league to drive out the canons; [ ] and though that beginning of revolt was crushed out by massacre, the same spirit expressed itself in heresy. the result was that religious persecution ere long eclipsed political. bishop wazon of lüttich (d. ) in vain protested against the universal practice of putting the heretics to death. [ ] manicheans who were detected in at goslar, in germany, were hanged, [ ] a precedent being thus established in the day of small things. all this went on while the course of the papacy was so scandalous to the least exacting moral sense that only the ignorance of the era could sustain any measure of reverence for the church as an institution. in the year the ablest of the emperors of that age, otto the great, had the consent of the people of rome to his deposition of pope john xii, a disorderly youth of twenty-five, "the most profligate if not the most guilty of all who have worn the tiara," [ ] and to his appointing the pope in future; but teutonic administration soon drove the populace to repeated revolt, quenched by massacre, till at length john returned, speedily to be slain by a wronged husband. economic interest entered largely into the subsequent attempts of the romans to choose their own pope and rule their own city, and into the contrary claim of the emperors to do both; and in the nature of things the usually absent emperors could only spasmodically carry their point. the result was an epoch of riotous disorder in the papacy. between john and leo ix ( - ) six popes were deposed, two murdered, and one mutilated; [ ] and the church was a mere battle-ground of the factions of the roman and italian nobility. [ ] at last, in , "a disgraceful contest between three claimants of the papal chair shocked even the reckless apathy of italy"; [ ] and the emperor henry iii deposed them all and appointed a pope of his own choosing, the clergy again consenting. soon, however, as before, the local claim was revived; and in the papacy of the powerful gregory vii, known as hildebrand, the head of the church determinedly asserted its autonomy and his own autocracy. then came the long "war of the investitures" between the popes and the emperors, in which the former were substantially the gainers. the result was, in addition to the endless miseries set up by war, a systematic development of that financial corruption which already had been scandalous enough. the cathedral chapters and the nobles traded in bishoprics; the popes sold their ratifications for great sums; the money was normally borrowed by the bishops from the papal usurers; and there was witnessed throughout europe the spectacle of the church denouncing all usury as sin, while its own usurers were scrupulously protected, the bishops paying to them their interest from the revenues they were able to extort. [ ] satirical comment naturally abounded wherever men had any knowledge of the facts; and what current literature there was reflected the feeling on all sides. the occurrence of the first and second crusades, the work respectively of peter the hermit and st. bernard, created a period of new fanaticism, somewhat unfavourable to heresy; but even in that period the new sects were at work, [ ] and in the twelfth century, when crusading had become a mere feudal conspiracy of conquest and plunder, [ ] heresy reappeared, to be duly met by slaughter. a perfect ferment of anti-clerical heresy had arisen in italy, france, and flanders. [ ] at orvieto, in italy, the heretics for a time actually had the mastery, and were put down only after a bloody struggle. [ ] in france, for a period of twenty years from , peter de brueys opposed infant baptism, the use of churches, holy crosses, prayers for the dead (the great source of clerical income), and the doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist (the main source of their power), and so set up the highly heretical sect of petrobrussians. [ ] driven from his native district of vallonise, he long maintained himself in gascony, till at length he was seized and burned ( or ). the monk henry (died in prison ) took a similar line, directly denouncing the clergy in switzerland and france; as did tanquelin in flanders (killed by a priest, ); though in his case there seems to have been as much of religious hallucination as of the contrary. [ ] a peasant, eudo of stella (who died in prison), is said to have half-revolutionized brittany with his anti-ecclesiastical preaching. [ ] the more famous monk arnold of brescia (strangled and burned in ), a pupil of abailard, but orthodox in his theology and austere in his life, simplified his plan of reform (about ) into a proposal that the whole wealth of the clergy, from the pope to the monks, should be transferred to the civil power, leaving churchmen to lead a spiritual life on voluntary offerings. [ ] for fifteen years the stir of his movement lasted in lombardy, till at length his formation of a republic at rome forced the papacy to combine with the emperor frederick ii, who gave arnold up to death. but though his movement perished, anti-clericalism did not; and heretical sects of some kind persisted here and there, in despite of the church, till the age of the reformation. in italy, during the age of the renaissance, all alike were commonly called paterini or patarini--a nickname which seems to come from pataria, a milanese word meaning "popular faction" or "rowdies." [ ] thus in the whole movement of fresh popular thought there is a manifest connection with the democratic movement in politics, though in the schools the spirit of discussion and dialectic had no similar relationship. during the first half of the century its warfare with the emperors, and the frequent appointment of anti-popes, prevented any systematic policy on the part of the holy see, [ ] repression being mostly left to the local ecclesiastical authorities. it was in that innocent ii issued the first papal decree against cathari, expelling them from the church and calling on the temporal power to give full effect to their excommunication. [ ] in pope alexander iii, being exiled from rome by frederick i and the anti-pope victor, called a great council at tours, where again a policy of excommunication was decided on, the secular authorities being commanded to imprison the excommunicated and confiscate their property, but not to slay them. in the same year some cathari arrested at cologne had been sentenced to be burned; but the council did not go so far. as a result the decree had little or no effect. [ ] so powerless was the church at this stage that in the cathari held a council of their own near toulouse; a bishop of their order, nicetas, coming from constantinople to preside; and a whole system of french sees was set on foot. [ ] so numerous had the cathari now become that their highest grade, the perfecti, alone was reckoned to number , ; [ ] and from this time it is of cathari that we read in the rolls of persecution. about four more of them, from flanders, were burned at cologne; and others, of the higher grade called bos homes (= boni homines, "good men"), at toulouse. in , the heresy still gaining ground, an oecumenical council (the third lateran) was held at rome under pope alexander iii, decreeing afresh their excommunication, and setting up a new machinery of extirpation by proclaiming a crusade at once against the orderly heretics of southern france and the companies of openly irreligious freebooters who had arisen as a result of many wars and much misgovernment. to all who joined in the crusade was offered an indulgence of two years. in the following year henry of clairvaux, cardinal of albano, took the matter in hand as papal plenipotentiary; and in he raised a force of horse and foot and fell upon the ill-defended territory of the viscount of beziers, where many heretics, including the daughter of raymond of toulouse, had taken refuge. the chief stronghold was captured, with two catharist bishops, who renounced their heresy, and were promptly given prebends in toulouse. many others submitted; but as soon as the terms for which the crusaders had enlisted were over and the army disbanded, they returned to their heretical practices. [ ] two years later an army collected in central france made a campaign against the freebooters, slaying thousands in one battle, hanging fifteen hundred after another, and blinding eighty more. but freebooting also continued. [ ] the first crusade against heresy having failed, it was left by the papacy for a number of years to itself; though anti-pope lucius iii in sought to set up an inquisition; and in a papal legate held a council at montpellier, seeking to create another crusade. the zeal of the faithful was mainly absorbed in palestine; while the nobles at home were generally at war with each other. heresy accordingly continued to flourish, though there was never any suspension of local persecution outside of provence, where the heretics were now in a majority, having more theological schools and scholars than the church. [ ] in france in particular, in the early years of the reign of philip augustus (suc. ), many paterini were put to death by burning; [ ] and the clergy at length persuaded the king to expel the jews, the work being done almost as cruelly as it was two centuries later in spain. in england, where there was thus far little heresy, it was repressed by henry ii. some thirty rustics came from flanders in , fleeing persecution, and vainly sought to propagate their creed. zealous to prove his orthodoxy in the period of his quarrel with becket, henry presided over a council of bishops called by him at oxford to discuss the case; and the heretics were condemned to be scourged, branded in the face, and driven forth--to perish in the winter wilds. "england was not hospitable to heresy;" and practically her orthodoxy was "unsullied until the rise of wiclif." [ ] in southern europe and northern italy in the last quarter of the century a foremost place began to be taken by the sect of the waldenses, or vaudois (otherwise the poor men of lyons), which--whether deriving from ancient dissent surviving in the vaux or valleys of piedmont, [ ] or taking its name and character from the teaching of the lyons merchant, peter waldus, or an earlier peter of vaux or valdis [ ]--conforms substantially to the general heretical tendencies of that age, in that it rejected the papal authority, contended for the reading of the bible by the laity, condemned tithes, disparaged fasting, stipulated for poverty on the part of priests and denied their special status, opposed prayers for the dead, and preached peace and non-resistance. in , at metz, they were found in possession of a french translation of the new testament, the psalms, and the book of job--a new and startling invasion of the priestly power in the west. above all, their men and women alike went about preaching in the towns, in the houses, and in the churches, and administered the eucharist without priests. [ ] thus cathari, paterini, manicheans, and non-manichean albigenses and waldenses were on all fours for the church, as opponents of its economic claims; and when at length, under celestine iii and innocent iii, the holy see began to be consolidated after a long period of incessant change, [ ] desperate measures began to be contemplated. organized heresy was seen to be indestructible save by general extirpation; and on economic grounds it was not to be tolerated. at orvieto the heresy stamped out with blood in was found alive again in ; was again put down in by burning, hanging, and expulsion; and yet was again found active at the close of the century. [ ] in innocent iii is found beginning a new inquisition among the albigenses; and in , while threatening them with exile and confiscation, [ ] he made a last diplomatic attempt to force the obstinately heretical people of orvieto to take an oath of fidelity in the year . it ended in the killing of his representative by the people. [ ] the papacy accordingly laid plans to destroy the enemy at its centre of propagation. § . heresy in southern france in provence and languedoc, the scene of the first great papal crusade against anti-clerical heresy, there were represented all the then existing forces of popular freethought; and the motives of the crusade were equally typical of the cause of authority. . in addition to the paulician and other movements of religious rationalism above noted, the languedoc region was a centre of semi-popular literary culture, which was to no small extent anti-clerical, and by consequence somewhat anti-religious. the latin-speaking jongleurs or minstrels, known as goliards, [ ] possessing as they did a clerical culture, were by their way of life committed to a joyous rather than an ascetic philosophy; and though given to blending the language of devotion with that of the drinking-table, very much after the fashion of hafiz, they were capable of burlesquing the mass, the creed, hymns to the virgin, the lord's prayer, confessions, and parts of the gospels, as well as of keenly satirizing the endless abuses of the church. [ ] "one is astonished to meet, in the middle ages, in a time always represented as crushed under the yoke of authority, such incredible audacities on the papacy, the episcopacy, chivalry, on the most revered dogmas of religion, such as paradise, hell, etc." [ ] the rhymers escaped simply because there was no police that could catch them. denounced by some of the stricter clergy, they were protected by others. they were, in fact, the minstrels of the free-living churchmen. [ ] of this type is guiot of provence, a black friar, the author of la bible guiot, written between and . he is a lover of good living, a champion of aristocrats, a foe of popular movements, [ ] and withal a little of a buffoon. but it is to be counted to him for righteousness that he thought the wealth devoured by the clergy might be more usefully spent on roads, bridges, and hospitals. [ ] he has also a good word for the old pagans who lived "according to reason"; and as to his own time, he is sharply censorious alike of princes, pope, and prelates. the princes are rascals who "do not believe in god," and depress their nobility; and the breed of the latter has sadly degenerated. the pope is to be prayed for; but he is ill counselled by his cardinals, who conform to the ancient tendency of rome to everything evil; many of the archbishops and bishops are no better; and the clergy in general are eaten up by greed and simony. [ ] this is in fact the common note. [ ] a kindred spirit is seen in much of the verse alike of the northern trouvères and the southern troubadours. a modern catholic historian of medieval literature complains that their compositions "abound with the severest ridicule of such persons and of such things as, in the temper of the age, were highly estimated and most generally revered," and notes that in consequence they were ranked by the devout as "lewd and impious libertines." [ ] in particular they satirized the practice of excommunication and the use made by the church of hell and purgatory as sources of revenue. [ ] their anti-clerical poetry having been as far as possible destroyed by the inquisition, its character has to be partly inferred from the remains of the northern trouvères--e.g., ruteboeuf and raoul de houdan, of whom the former wrote a voya de paradis, in which sloth is a canon and pride a bishop, both on their way to heaven; while raoul has a songe d'enfer in which hell is treated in a spirit of the most audacious burlesque. [ ] in a striking passage of the old tale aucassin et nicolette there is naïvely revealed the spontaneous revolt against pietism which underlay all these flings of irreverence. "into paradise," cries aucassin, "go none but ... those aged priests, and those old cripples, and the maimed, who all day long and all night cough before the altars, and in the crypts beneath the churches; those ... who are naked and barefoot and full of sores.... such as these enter in paradise, and with them have i nought to do. but in hell will i go. for to hell go the fair clerks and the fair knights who are slain in the tourney and the great wars, and the stout archer and the loyal man. with them will i go. and there go the fair and courteous ladies [of many loves]; and there pass the gold and the silver, the ermine and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels, and the happy of the world. with these will i go...." [ ] it was such a temper, rather than reasoned unbelief, that inspired the blasphemous parodies in reynard the fox and other popular works of the middle ages. the provençal literature, further, was from the first influenced by the culture of the saracens, [ ] who held sicily and calabria in the ninth and tenth centuries, and had held part of languedoc itself for a few years in the eighth. on the passing of the duchy of provence to raymond berenger, count of barcelona, at the end of the eleventh century, not only were the half-saracenized catalans mixed with the provençals, but raymond and his successors freely introduced the arts and science of the saracens into their dominion. [ ] in the norman kingdom of sicily too the saracen influence was great even before the time of frederick ii; and thence it reached afresh through italy to provence, [ ] carrying with it everywhere, by way of poetry, an element of anti-clerical and even of anti-christian rationalism. [ ] though this spirit was not that of the cathari and waldenses, yet the fact that the latter strongly condemned the crusades [ ] was a point in common between them and the sympathizers with saracen culture. and as the tolerant saracen schools of spain or the christian schools of the same region, which copied their curriculum, [ ] were in that age resorted to by youth from each of the countries of western europe for scientific teaching [ ]--all the latest medical and most other scientific knowledge being in their hands--the influence of such culture must have been peculiarly strong in provence. [ ] the medieval mystery-plays and moralities, already common in provence, mixed at times with the normal irreverence of illiterate faith [ ] a vein of surprisingly pronounced skeptical criticism, [ ] which at the least was a stimulus to critical thought among the auditors, even if they were supposed to take it as merely dramatic. inasmuch as the drama was hereditarily pagan, and had been continually denounced and ostracized by fathers and councils, [ ] it would be natural that its practitioners, even when in the service of the church, should be unbelievers. the philosophy and science of both the arabs and the spanish jews were specially cultivated in the provence territory. the college of montpellier practised on arab lines medicine, botany, and mathematics; and the jews, who had been driven from spain by the almohades, had flourishing schools at narbonne, beziers, nîmes, and carcassonne, as well as montpellier, and spread alike the philosophy of averroës and the semi-rational theology of the jewish thinker maimonides, [ ] whose school held broadly by averroïsm. for the rest, every one of the new literary influences that were assailing the church would tend to flourish in such a civilization as that of languedoc, which had been peaceful and prosperous for over two hundred years. unable to lay hold of the popular poets and minstrels who propagated anti-clericalism, the papacy could hope to put down by brute force the social system in which they flourished, crushing the pious and more hated heretic with the scoffer. and languedoc was a peculiarly tempting field for such operations. its relative lack of military strength, as well as its pre-eminence in heresy, led innocent iii, a peculiarly zealous assertor of the papal power, [ ] to attack it in preference to other and remoter centres of enmity. in the first year of his pontificate, , he commenced a new and zealous inquisition [ ] in the doomed region; and in the year , when as much persecution had been accomplished as the lax faith of the nobility and many of the bishops would consent to--an appeal to the king of france to interfere being disregarded--the scheme of a crusade against the dominions of raymond count of toulouse was conceived and gradually matured. the alternate weakness and obstinacy of raymond, and the fresh provocation given by the murder, in , of the arrogant papal legate, pierre de castelnau, [ ] permitted the success of the scheme in such hands. the crusade was planned exactly on the conditions of those against the saracens--the heretics at home being declared far worse than they. [ ] the crusaders were freed from payment of interest on their debts, exempted from the jurisdiction of all law courts, and absolved from all their sins past or future. [ ] to earn this reward they were to give only forty days' service [ ]--a trifle in comparison with the hardships of the crusades to palestine. "never therefore had the cross been taken up with a more unanimous consent." [ ] bishops and nobles in burgundy and france, the english simon de montfort, the abbot of citeaux, and the bernardine monks throughout europe, combined in the cause; and recruits came from austria and saxony, from bremen, even from slavonia, as well as from northern france. [ ] the result was such a campaign of crime and massacre as european history cannot match. [ ] despite the abject submission of the count of toulouse, who was publicly stripped and scourged, and despite the efforts of his nephew the count of albi to make terms, village after village was fired, all heretics caught were burned, and on the capture of the city and castle of beziers ( ), every man, woman, and child within the walls was slaughtered, many of them in the churches, whither they had run for refuge. the legate, arnold abbot of citeaux, being asked at an early stage how the heretics were to be distinguished from the faithful, gave the never-to-be-forgotten answer, "kill all; god will know his own." [ ] seven thousand dead bodies were counted in the great church of st. mary magdalene. the legate in writing estimated the total quarry at , ; others put the number at sixty thousand. [ ] when all in the place were slain, and all the plunder removed, the town was burned to the ground, not one house being left standing. warned by the fate of beziers, the people of carcassonne, after defending themselves for many days, secretly evacuated their town; but the legate contrived to capture a number of the fugitives, of whom he burned alive four hundred, and hanged fifty. [ ] systematic treachery, authorized and prescribed by the pope, [ ] completed the success of the undertaking. the church had succeeded, in the name of religion, in bringing half of europe to the attainment of the ideal height of wickedness, in that it had learned to make evil its good; and the papacy had on the whole come nearer to destroying the moral sense of all christendom [ ] than any conceivable combination of other causes could ever have done in any age. according to a long current fiction, it was the pope who first faltered when "the whole of christendom demanded the renewal of those scenes of massacre" (sismondi, crusades, p. ); but this is disproved by the discovery of two letters in which, shortly before his death, he excitedly takes on himself the responsibility for all the bloodshed (michelet, hist. de france, vii, introd. note to § iv). michelet had previously accepted the legend which he here rejects. the bishops assembled in council at lavaur, in , demanded the extermination of the entire population of toulouse. finally, the papal policy is expressly decreed in the third canon of the fourth general council of lateran, . on that canon see the statutes of the fourth general council of lateran, by the rev. john evans, . on the crusade in general, cp. lea, history of the inquisition, bk. i, ch. iv; gieseler, per. iii, div. iii, § . the first crusade was followed by others, in which simon de montfort reached the maximum of massacre, varying his procedure by tearing out eyes and cutting off noses when he was not hanging victims by dozens or burning them by scores or putting them to the sword by hundreds [ ] (all being done "with the utmost joy") [ ]; though the "white company" organized by the bishop of toulouse [ ] maintained a close rivalry. the church's great difficulty was that as soon as an army had bought its plenary indulgence for all possible sin by forty days' service, it disbanded. nevertheless, "the greater part of the population of the countries where heresy had prevailed was exterminated." [ ] organized christianity had contrived to murder the civilization of provence and languedoc [ ] while the fanatics of islam in their comparatively bloodless manner were doing as much for that of moorish spain. heresy indeed was not rooted out: throughout the whole of the thirteenth century the inquisition met with resistance in languedoc [ ]; but the preponderance of numbers which alone could sustain freethinking had been destroyed, and in course of time it was eliminated by the sleepless engines of the church. it was owing to no lack of the principle of evil in the christian system, but simply to the much greater and more uncontrollable diversity of the political elements of christendom, that the whole culture and intelligence of europe did not undergo the same fate. the dissensions and mutual injuries of the crusaders ultimately defeated their ideal [ ]; after simon de montfort had died in the odour of sanctity [ ] the crusade of louis viii of france in seems to have been essentially one of conquest, there being practically no heretics left; and the disasters of the expedition, crowned by the king's death, took away the old prestige of the movement. meanwhile, the heresy of the albigenses, and kindred ideas, had been effectually driven into other parts of europe [ ]; and about we find gregory ix burning a multitude of them at the gates of the church of santa maria maggiore in rome [ ] and compassing their slaughter in france and germany. [ ] in italy the murderous pertinacity of the dominicans gradually destroyed organized heresy despite frequent and desperate resistance. about we hear of one eloquent zealot, chosen podestà by the people of verona, using his power to burn in one day sixty heretics, male and female. [ ] the political heterogeneity of europe, happily, made variation inevitable; though the papacy, by making the detection and persecution of heresy a means of gain to a whole order of its servants, had set on foot a machinery for the destruction of rational thought such as had never before existed. it is still common to speak of the personnel of the inquisition as disinterested, and to class its crimes as "conscientious." buckle set up such a thesis, without due circumspection, as a support to one of his generalizations. (see the present writer's ed. of his introduction to the history of civilization in england, pp. - , notes, and the passages in mccrie and llorente there cited.) dr. lea, whose history of the inquisition is the greatest storehouse of learning on the subject, takes up a similar position, arguing (i, ): "that the men who conducted the inquisition, and who toiled sedulously in its arduous, repulsive, and often dangerous labour, were thoroughly convinced that they were furthering the kingdom of god, is shown by the habitual practice of encouraging them with the remission of sins, similar to that offered for a pilgrimage to the holy land"--a somewhat surprising theorem. parallel reasoning would prove that soldiers never plunder and are always godly; that the crusaders were all conscientious men; and that policemen never take bribes or commit perjury. the interpretation of history calls for a less simple-minded psychology. that there were devoted fanatics in the inquisition as in the church is not to be disputed; that both organizations had economic bases is certain; and that the majority of office-bearers in both, in the ages of faith, had regard to gain, is demonstrated by all ecclesiastical history. dr. lea's own history shows clearly enough (i, - ) that the inquisition, from the first generation of its existence, lived upon its fines and confiscations. "persecution, as a steady and continuous policy, rested, after all, upon confiscation.... when it was lacking, the business of defending the faith lagged lamentably" (i, ). "but for the gains to be made out of fines and confiscations its [the inquisition's] work would have been much less thorough, and it would have sunk into comparative insignificance as soon as the first frantic zeal of bigotry had exhausted itself" (pp. - ). why, in the face of these avowals, "it would be unjust to say that greed and thirst for plunder were the impelling motives of the inquisition" (p. ) is not very clear. see below, ch. x, § , as to the causation in spain. cp. mocatta, the jews and the inquisition, pp. , , . on the inquisition in portugal, in turn, professor w. e. collins sums up that "it was founded for reasons ostensibly religious but actually fiscal" (in the "cambridge modern history," vol. ii, the reformation, ch. xii, p. ). every charge of economic motive that catholicism can bring against protestantism is thus balanced by the equivalent charge against its own inquisition. § . freethought in the schools the indestructibility of freethought, meanwhile, was being proved even in the philosophic schools, under all their conformities to faith. already in the ninth century we have seen scotus erigena putting the faith in jeopardy by his philosophic defence of it. another thinker, roscelin (or roussellin: fl. ), is interesting as having made a critical approach to freethought in religion by way of abstract philosophy. with him definitely begins the long academic debate between the nominalists and realists so called. in an undefined way, it had existed as early as the ninth century, [ ] the ground being the christian adoption of plato's doctrine of ideas--that individual objects are instances or images of an ideal universal, which is a real existence, and prior to the individual thing: "universalia ante rem." to that proposition aristotle had opposed the doctrine that the universal is immanent in the thing--"universalia in re"--the latter alone being matter of knowledge; [ ] and in the middle ages those who called aristotle master carried his negation of plato to the extent of insisting that the "universal" or "abstract," or the "form" or "species," is a mere subjective creation, a name, having no real existence. this, the nominalist position--mistakenly ascribed to aristotle [ ]--was ultimately expressed in the formula, "universalia post rem." such reasonings obviously tend to implicate theology; and roscelin was either led or helped by his nominalist training to deny either explicitly or implicitly the unity of the trinity, arguing in effect that, as only individuals are real existences, the actuality of the persons of the trinity involves their disunity. [ ] the thesis, of course, evoked a storm, the english archbishop anselm and others producing indignant answers. of roscelin's writing only one letter is extant; and even anselm, in criticizing his alleged doctrine, admits having gathered it only from his opponents, whose language suggests perversion. [ ] but if the testimony of his pupil abailard be truthful, [ ] he was at best a confused reasoner; and in his theology he got no further than tritheism, then called ditheism. [ ] thus, though "nominalism, by denying any objective reality to general notions, led the way directly to the testimony of the senses and the conclusions of experience," [ ] it did so on lines fatally subordinate to the theology it sought to correct. roscelin's thesis logically led to the denial not only of trinity-in-unity but of the incarnation and transubstantiation; yet neither he nor his opponents seem to have thought even of the last consequence, he having in fact no consciously heretical intention. commanded to recant by the council of soissons in , he did so, and resumed his teaching as before; whereafter he was ordered to leave france. coming to england, he showed himself so little of a rebel to the papacy as to contend strongly for priestly celibacy, arguing that all sons of priests and all born out of wedlock should alike be excluded from clerical office. expelled from england in turn for these views, by a clergy still anti-celibate, he returned to paris, to revive the old philosophic issue, until general hostility drove him to aquitaine, where he spent his closing years in peace. [ ] such handling of the cause of nominalism gave an obvious advantage to realism. that has been justly described by one clerical scholar as "philosophy held in subordination to church-authority"; [ ] and another has avowed that "the spirit of realism was essentially the spirit of dogmatism, the disposition to pronounce that truth was already known," while "nominalism was essentially the spirit of progress, of inquiry, of criticism." [ ] but even a critical philosophy may be made to capitulate to authority, as even à priori metaphysic may be to a certain extent turned against it. realism had been markedly heretical in the hands of john scotus; and in a later age the realist john huss was condemned to death--perhaps on political grounds, but not without signs of sectarian hate--by a majority of nominalists at the council of constance. everything depended on the force of the individual thinker and the degree of restraint put upon him by the authoritarian environment. [ ] the world has even seen the spectacle of a professed indifferentist justifying the massacre of st. bartholomew; and the platonist marsilio ficino vilified savonarola, basely enough, after his execution, adjusting a pantheistic christianity to the needs of the political situation in medicean florence. valid freethinking is a matter of thoroughness and rectitude, not of mere theoretic assents. tried by that test, the nominalism of the medieval schools was no very potent emancipator of the human spirit, no very clear herald of freedom or new concrete truth. a doctrine which was so far adjusted to authority as to affirm the unquestionable existence of three deities, father, son, and spirit, and merely disputed the not more supra-rational theorem of their unity, yielded to the rival philosophy a superiority in the kind of credit it sought for itself. nominalism was thus "driven to the shade of the schools," where it was "regarded entirely in a logical point of view, and by no means in its actual philosophic importance as a speculation concerning the grounds of human knowledge." [ ] for roscelin himself the question was one of dialectics, not of faith, and he made no practical rationalists. the popular heresies bit rather deeper into life. [ ] it is doubtless true of the paulicians that "there was no principle of development in their creed: it reflected no genuine freedom of thought" (poole, illustrations, p. ); but the same thing, as we have seen, is clearly true of scholasticism itself. it may indeed be urged that "the contest between ratramn and paschase on the doctrine of the eucharist; of lanfranc with berengar on the same subject; of anselm with roscelin on the nature of universals; the complaints of bernard against the dialectical theology of abelard; are all illustrations of the collision between reason and authority ... varied forms of rationalism--the pure exertions of the mind within itself ... against the constringent force of the spiritual government" (hampden, bampton lectures on the scholastic philosophy, rd ed. p. ; cp. hardwick, church history: middle age, p. ); but none of the scholastics ever professed to set authority aside. none dared. john scotus indeed affirmed the identity of true religion with true philosophy, without professing to subordinate the latter; but the most eminent of the later scholastics affirmed such a subordination. "the vassalage of philosophy consisted in the fact that an impassable limit was fixed for the freedom of philosophizing in the dogmas of the church" (ueberweg, i, ); and some of the chief dogmas were not allowed to be philosophically discussed; though, "with its territory thus limited, philosophy was indeed allowed by theology a freedom which was rarely and only by exception infringed upon" (ib. cp. milman, latin christianity, th ed. ix, ). "the suspicion of originality was fatal to the reputation of the scholastic divine" (hampden, pp. - ). the popular heresy, indeed, lacked the intellectual stimulus that came to the schools from the philosophy of averroës; but it was the hardier movement of the two. already in the eleventh century, however, the simple fact of the production of a new argument for the existence of god by anselm, archbishop of canterbury, is a proof that, apart from the published disputes, a measure of doubt on the fundamental issue had arisen in the schools. it is urged [ ] that, though the argumentation of anselm seems alien to the thought of his time, there is no proof that the idea of proving the existence of god was in any way pressed on him from the outside. it is, however, inconceivable that such an argument should be framed if no one had raised a doubt. and as a matter of fact the question was discussed in the schools, anselm's treatise being a reproduction of his teaching. the monks of bec, where he taught, urged him to write a treatise wherein nothing should be proved by mere authority, but all by necessity of reason or evidence of truth, and with an eye to objections of all sorts. [ ] in the preface to his cur deus homo, again, he says that his first book is an answer to the objections of infidels who reject christianity as irrational. [ ] further, the nature of part of anselm's theistic argument and the very able but friendly reply of gaunilo (a count of montigni, who entered a convent near tours, - ) show that the subject was within the range of private discussion. anselm substantially follows st. augustine; [ ] and men cannot have read the ancient books which so often spoke of atheism without confronting the atheistic idea. it is not to be supposed that gaunilo was an unbeliever; but his argumentation is that of a man who had pondered the problem. [ ] despite the ostensibly rationalistic nature of his argument, however, anselm stipulated for absolute submission of the intellect to the creed of the church; [ ] so that the original subtitle of his proslogium, fides quaerens intellectum, in no way admits rational tests. in the next century we meet with new evidence of sporadic unbelief, and new attempts to deal with it on the philosophic side. john of salisbury ( - ) tells of having heard many discourse on physics "otherwise than faith may hold"; [ ] and the same vivacious scholar put in his list of "things about which a wise man may doubt, so ... that the doubt extend not to the multitude," some "things which are reverently to be inquired about god himself." [ ] giraldus cambrensis ( - ), whose abundant and credulous gossip throws so much light on the inner life of the church and the laity in his age, tells that the learned simon of tournay "thought not soundly on the articles of the faith," saying privately, to his intimates, things that he dared not utter publicly, till one day, in a passion, he cried out, "almighty god! how long shall this superstitious sect of christians and this upstart invention endure?"; whereupon during the night he lost the power of speech, and remained helpless till his death. [ ] other ecclesiastical chroniclers represent simon as deriding alike jesus, moses, and mahomet--an ascription to him of the "three impostors" formula. [ ] again, giraldus tells how an unnamed priest, reproved by another for careless celebration of the mass, angrily asked whether his rebuker really believed in transubstantiation, in the incarnation, in the virgin birth, and in resurrection; adding that it was all carried on by hypocrites, and assuredly invented by cunning ancients to hold men in terror and restraint. and giraldus comments that inter nos there are many who so think in secret. [ ] as his own picture of the church exhibits a gross and almost universal rapacity pervading it from the highest clergy to the lowest, the statement is entirely credible. [ ] yet again, in the romance of the holy grail, mention is twice made of clerical doubters on the doctrine of the trinity; [ ] and on that side, in the crusading period, both the monotheistic doctrine of islam and the arab philosophy of averroës were likely to set up a certain amount of skepticism. in the twelfth century, accordingly, we have nicolas of amiens producing his tractate de articulis (or arte) catholicæ fidei in the hope of convincing by his arguments men "who disdain to believe the prophecies and the gospel." [ ] to meet such skepticism too was one of the undertakings of the renowned abailard ( - ), himself persecuted as a heretic for the arguments with which he sought to guard against unbelief. of the details of his early life it concerns us here to note only that he studied under roscelin, and swerved somewhat in philosophy from his master's theoretic nominalism, which he partly modified on aristotelian lines, though knowing little of aristotle. [ ] after his retirement from the world to the cloister, he was induced to resume philosophic teaching; and his pupils, like those of anselm, begged their master to give them rational arguments on the main points of the faith. [ ] he accordingly rashly prepared a treatise, de unitate et trinitate divina, in which he proceeded "by analogies of human reason," avowing that the difficulties were great. [ ] thereupon envious rivals, of whom he had made many by his arrogance as well as by his fame, set up against him a heresy hunt; and for the rest of his life he figured as a dangerous person. while, however, he took up the relatively advanced position that reason must prepare the way for faith, since otherwise faith has no certitude, [ ] he was in the main dependent on the authority either of second-hand aristotle [ ] or of the scriptures, though he partly set aside that of the fathers. [ ] when st. bernard accused him of arianism and of heathenism he was expressing personal ill-will rather than criticizing. abailard himself complained that many heresies were current in his time [ ]; and as a matter of fact "more intrepid views than his were promulgated without risk by a multitude of less conspicuous masters." [ ] for instance, bernard sylvester (of chartres), in his cosmology, treated theological considerations with open disrespect [ ]; and william of conches, who held a similar tone on physics, [ ] taught, until threatened with punishment, that the holy ghost and the universal soul were convertible terms. [ ] this remarkably rational theologian further rejected the literal interpretation of the creation of eve; in science he adopted the demokritean doctrine of atoms; and in new testament matters he revived the old rationalistic heresy that the three persons of the trinity are simply three aspects of the divine personality--power, wisdom, and will--which doctrine he was duly forced to retract. it is clear from his works that he lived in an atmosphere of controversy, and had to fight all along with the pious irrationalists who, "because they know not the forces of nature, in order that they may have all men comrades in their ignorance, suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason." "if they perceive any man to be making search, they at once cry out that he is a heretic." the history of a thousand years of struggle between reason and religion is told in those sentences. as to william's doctrines and writings see poole, pp. - , - . his authorship of one treatise is only latterly cleared up. in the work which under the title of elementa philosophiae is falsely ascribed to bede, and under the title de philosophia mundi to honorius of autun (see poole, pp. - , sq.), but which is really the production of william of conches, there occurs the passage: "what is more pitiable than to say that a thing is, because god is able to do it, and not to show any reason why it is so; just as if god did everything that he is able to do! you talk like one who says that god is able to make a calf out of a log. but did he ever do it? either, then, show a reason why a thing is so, or a purpose wherefore it is so, or else cease to declare it so." migne, patrolog. latin. xc, . it is thus an exaggeration to say of abailard, as does cousin, that "il mit de côté la vieille école d'anselme de laon, qui exposait sans expliquer, et fonda ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui le rationalisme" (ouvr. inédits d'abélard, , intr. p. ii). abailard was not more explicit on concrete issues than this contemporary--who survived him, and studied his writings. if, indeed, as is said, he wrote that "a doctrine is believed not because god has said it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so," [ ] he went as far on one line as any theologian of his time; but his main service to freethought seems to have lain in the great stimulus he gave to the practice of reasoning on all topics. [ ] his enemy, st. bernard, on the contrary, gave an "immense impulse to the growth of a genuinely superstitious spirit among the latin clergy." [ ] dr. rashdall pronounces abailard "incomparably the greatest intellect of the middle ages; one of the great minds which mark a period in the world's intellectual history"; and adds that "abailard (a christian thinker to the very heart's core, however irredeemable (sic) the selfishness and overweening vanity of his youth) was at the same time the representative of the principle of free though reverent inquiry in matters of religion and individual loyalty to truth." (the universities of europe in the middle ages, , i, - .) if the praise given be intended to exalt abailard above john scotus, it seems excessive. on a survey of abailard's theological teachings, a modern reader is apt to see the spirit of moral reason most clearly in one set forth in his commentary on the epistle to the romans, to the effect that jesus was not incarnate to redeem men from damnation, but solely to instruct them by precept and example, and that he suffered and died only to show his charity towards men. the thesis was implicit if not explicit in the teaching of pelagius; and for both men it meant the effort to purify their creed from the barbaric taint of the principle of sacrifice. in our own day, revived by such theologians as the english maurice, it seems likely to gain ground, as an accommodation to the embarrassed moral sense of educated believers. but it is heresy if heresy ever was, besides being a blow at the heart of catholic sacerdotalism; and abailard on condemnation retracted it as he did his other pelagian errors. retractation, however, is publication; and to have been sentenced to retract such teaching in the twelfth century is to leave on posterity an impression of moral originality perhaps as important as the fame of a metaphysician. in any case, it is a careful judge who thus finally estimates him: "when he is often designated as the rationalist among the schoolmen, he deserves the title not only on account of the doctrine of the trinity, which approaches sabellianism in spite of all his polemics against it, and not only on account of his critical attempts, but also on account of his ethics, in which he actually completely agrees in the principal point with many modern rationalists." [ ] and it is latterly his singular fate to be valued at once by many sympathetic catholics, who hold him finally vindicated alike in life and doctrine, and by many freethinkers. how far the stir set up in europe by his personal magnetism and his personal record may have made for rational culture, it is impossible to estimate; but some consequence there must have been. john of salisbury was one of abailard's disciples and admirers; and, as we saw, he not only noted skepticism in others but indicated an infusion of it in his own mind--enough to earn for him from a modern historian the praise of being a sincere skeptic, as against those false skeptics who put forward universal doubt as a stalking horse for their mysticism. [ ] but he was certainly not a universal skeptic [ ]; and his denunciation of doubt as to the goodness and power of god [ ] sounds orthodox enough. what he gained from abailard was a concern for earnest dialectic. the worst side of scholasticism at all times was that it was more often than not a mere logical expatiation in vacuo; this partly for sheer lack of real knowledge. john of salisbury probably did not do injustice to the habit of verbiage it developed [ ]; and the pupils of abailard seem to have expressed themselves strongly to him concerning the wordy emptiness of most of what passed current as philosophic discourse; speaking of the teachers as blind leaders of the blind. [ ] one version of the legend against simon of tournay is to the effect that, after demonstrating by the most skilful arguments the truth of the doctrine of the trinity, he went on to say, when enraptured listeners besought him to dictate his address so that it might be preserved, that if he had been evilly minded he could refute the doctrine by yet better arguments. [ ] heresy apart, this species of dialectical insincerity infected the whole life of the schools, even the higher spirits going about their work with a certain amount of mere logical ceremony. § . saracen and jewish influences even in the schools, however, over and above the influence of the more original teachers, there rises at the close of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth some measure of a new life, introduced into philosophy through the communication of aristotle to the western world by the saracens, largely by the mediation of the jews. [ ] the latter, in their free life under the earlier moorish toleration, had developed something in the nature of a school of philosophy, in which the judaic platonism set up by philo of alexandria in the first century was blended with the aristotelianism of the arabs. as early as the eighth and ninth centuries, anti-talmudic (the karaïtes) and pro-talmudic parties professed alike to appeal to reason [ ]; and in the twelfth century the mere production of the guide of the perplexed by the celebrated moses maimonides ( - ) [ ] tells of a good deal of practical rationalism (of the kind that reduced miracle stories to allegories), of which, however, there is little direct literary result save of a theosophic kind. [ ] levi ben gershom ( - ), commonly regarded as the greatest successor of maimonides, is like him guardedly rationalistic in his commentaries on the scriptures. [ ] but the doctrine which makes aristotle a practical support to rationalism, and which was adopted not only by averroës but by the motazilites of islam--the eternity of matter--was rejected by maimonides (as by nearly all other jewish teachers, with the partial exception of levi ben gershom), [ ] on biblical grounds; though his attempts to rationalize biblical doctrine and minimize miracles made him odious to the orthodox jews, some of whom, in france, did not scruple to call in the aid of the christian inquisition against his partisans. [ ] the long struggle between the maimonists and the orthodox is described as ending in the "triumph of peripatetism" or averroïsm in the synagogue [ ]; but averroïsm as modified by maimonides is only a partial accommodation of scripture to common sense. it would appear, in fact, that jewish thought in the saracen world retrograded as did that of the saracens themselves; for we find maimonides exclaiming over the apparent disbelief in creatio ex nihilo in the "chapters of rabbi eliezer the great," believed by him to be ancient, but now known to be a product of the eighth century. [ ] the pantheistic teaching of solomon ben gebirol or ibn gebirol, better known as avicebron, [ ] who in point of time preceded the arab avempace, and who later acquired much christian authority, was orthodox on the side of the creation dogma even when many jews were on that head rationalistic. [ ] the high-water mark, among the jews, of the critical rationalism of the time, is the perception by aben or ibn ezra ( - ) that the pentateuch was not written by moses--a discovery which gave spinoza his cue five hundred years later; but ibn ezra, liberioris ingenii vir, as spinoza pronounced him, had to express himself darkly. [ ] thus the jewish influence on christian thought in the middle ages was chiefly metaphysical, carrying on greek and arab impulses; and to call the jewish people, as does renan, "the principal representative of rationalism during the second half of the middle age" is to make too much of the academic aspects of freethinking. on the side of popular theology it is difficult to believe that they had much unitarian influence; though joinville in his life of saint louis tells how, in a debate between churchmen and jews at the monastery of cluny, a certain knight saw fit to break the head of one of the jews with his staff for denying the divinity of jesus, giving as his reason that many good christians, listening to the jewish arguments, were in a fair way to go home unbelievers. it was in this case that the sainted king laid down the principle that when a layman heard anyone blaspheme the christian creed his proper course was not to argue, but to run the blasphemer through with his sword. [ ] such admitted inability on the part of the laity to reason on their faith, however, was more likely to accompany a double degree of orthodoxy than to make for doubt; and the clerical debating at the abbey of cluny, despite the honourable attitude of the abbot, who condemned the knight's outrage, was probably a muster of foregone conclusions. for a time, indeed, in the energetic intellectual life of northern france the spirit of freethought went far and deep. after the great stimulus given in abailard's day to all discussion, we find another breton teacher, amaury or amalrich of bène or bena (end of twelfth century) and his pupil david of dinant, partly under the earlier arab influence, [ ] partly under that of john the scot, [ ] teaching a pronounced pantheism, akin to that noted as flourishing later among the brethren of the free spirit [ ] and some of the franciscan fraticelli. such a movement, involving disregard for the sacraments and ceremonies of the church, was soon recognized as a dangerous heresy, and dealt with accordingly. the church caused amaury to abjure his teachings; and after his death, finding his party still growing, dug up and burned his bones. at the same time ( ) a number of his followers were burned alive; david of dinant had to fly for his life; [ ] and inasmuch as the new heresy had begun to make much of aristotle, presumably as interpreted by averroës, a council held at paris vetoed for the university the study alike of the pagan master and his commentators, interdicting first the physics and soon after the metaphysics. [ ] this veto held until , when the school which adapted the lore of aristotle to christian purposes began to carry the day. the heretical aristotelianism and the orthodox system which was to overpower it were alike radiated from the south, where the arab influence spread early and widely. there, as we shall see, the long duel between the emperor frederick ii and the papacy made a special opportunity for speculative freethought; and though this was far from meaning at all times practical enmity to christian doctrine, [ ] that was not absent. it is clear that before thomas aquinas ( - ) a naturalist and averroïst view of the universe had been much discussed, since he makes the remark that "god is by some called natura naturans" [ ]--nature at work--an idea fundamental alike to pantheism and to scientific naturalism. and throughout his great work--a marvel of mental gymnastic which better than almost any other writing redeems medieval orthodoxy from the charge of mere ineptitude--thomas indicates his acquaintance with unorthodox thought. in particular he seems to owe the form of his work as well as the subject-matter of much of his argument to averroës. [ ] born within the sphere of the saracen-sicilian influence, and of high rank, he must have met with what rationalism there was, and he always presupposes it. [ ] "he is nearly as consummate a skeptic, almost atheist, as he is a divine and theologian," says one modern ecclesiastical dignitary; [ ] and an orthodox apologist [ ] more severely complains that "aquinas presented ... so many doubts on the deepest points ... so many plausible reasons for unbelief ... that his works have probably suggested most of the skeptical opinions which were adopted by others who were trained in the study of them.... he has done more than most men to put the faith of his fellow-christians in peril." of course he rejects averroïsm. yet he, like his antagonist duns scotus, inevitably gravitates to pantheism when he would rigorously philosophize. [ ] what he did for his church was to combine so ingeniously the semblance of aristotelian method with constant recurrence to the sacred books as to impose their authority on the life of the schools no less completely than it dominated the minds of the unlearned. meeting method with method, and showing himself well aware of the lore he circumvented, he built up a system quite as well fitted to be a mere gymnastic of the mind; and he thereby effected the arrest for some three centuries of the method of experimental science which aristotle had inculcated. he came just in time. roger bacon, trained at paris, was eagerly preaching the scientific gospel; and while he was suffering imprisonment at the hands of his franciscan superiors for his eminently secular devotion to science, the freer scholars of the university were developing a heresy that outwent his. now, however, began to be seen once for all the impossibility of rational freedom in or under a church which depended for its revenue on the dogmatic exploitation of popular credulity. for a time the aristotelian influence, as had been seen by the churchmen who had first sought to destroy it, [ ] tended to be averroïst and rationalist. [ ] in , however, there begins a determined campaign, led by the bishop of paris, against the current averroïst doctrines, notably the propositions "that the world is eternal"; "that there never was a first man"; "that the intellect of man is one"; "that the mind, which is the form of man, constituting him such, perishes with the body"; "that the acts of men are not governed by divine providence"; "that god cannot give immortality or incorruptibility to a corruptible or mortal thing." [ ] on such doctrines the bishop and his coadjutors naturally passed an anathema ( ); and at this period it was that albertus magnus and thomas aquinas wrote their treatises against averroïsm. [ ] still the freethinkers held out, and though in official commands were given that the discussion of such matters in the university should cease, another process of condemnation was carried out in . this time the list of propositions denounced includes the following: "that the natural philosopher as such must deny the creation of the world, because he proceeds upon natural causes and reasons; while the believer (fidelis) may deny the eternity of the world, because he argues from supernatural causes"; "that creation is not possible, although the contrary is to be held according to faith"; "that a future resurrection is not to be believed by the philosopher, because it cannot be investigated by reason"; "that the teachings of the theologians are founded on fables"; "that there are fables and falsities in the christian religion as in others"; "that nothing more can be known, on account of theology"; "that the christian law prevents from learning"; [ ] "that god is not triune and one, for trinity is incompatible with perfect simplicity"; "that ecstatic states and visions take place naturally, and only so." such vital unbelief could have only one fate; it was reduced to silence by a papal bull, [ ] administered by the orthodox majority; and the memory of the massacres of the year , and of the awful crusade against the albigenses, served to cow the thinkers of the schools into an outward conformity. henceforward orthodox aristotelianism, placed on a canonical footing in the theological system of thomas aquinas, ruled the universities; and scholasticism counts for little in the liberation of european life from either dogma or superstition. [ ] the practically progressive forces are to be looked for outside. in the thirteenth century in england we find the franciscan friars in the school of robert grosstête at oxford discussing the question "whether there be a god?" [ ] but such a dispute was an academic exercise like another; and in any case the authorities could be trusted to see that it came to nothing. the work of thomas himself serves to show how a really great power of comprehensive and orderly thought can be turned to the subversion of judgment by accepting the prior dominion of a fixed body of dogma and an arbitrary rule over opinion. and yet, so strong is the principle of ratiocination in his large performance, and so much does it embody of the critical forces of antiquity and of its own day, that while it served the church as a code of orthodoxy its influence can be seen in the skeptical philosophy of europe as late as spinoza and kant. it appears to have been as a result of his argumentation that there became established in the later procedure of the church the doctrine that, while heretics who have once received the faith and lapsed are to be coerced and punished, other unbelievers (as moslems and jews) are not. this principle also, it would appear, he derived from the moslems, as he did their rule that those of the true faith must avoid intimacy with the unbelievers, though believers firm in the faith may dispute with them "when there is greater expectation of the conversion of the infidels than of the subversion of the fidels." and to the rule of non-inquisition into the faith of jews and moslems the church professed to adhere while the inquisition lasted, after having trampled it under foot in spirit by causing the expulsion of the jews and the moriscoes from spain. [ ] we shall perhaps best understand the inner life of the schools in the middle ages by likening it to that of the universities of our own time, where there is unquestionably much unbelief among teachers and taught, but where the economic and other pressures of the institution suffice to preserve an outward acquiescence. in the middle ages it was immeasurably less possible than in our day for the unbeliever to strike out a free course of life and doctrine for himself. if, then, to-day the scholarly class is in large measure tied to institutions and conformities, much more so was it then. the cloister was almost the sole haven of refuge for studious spirits, and to attain the haven they had to accept the discipline and the profession of faith. we may conclude, accordingly, that such works as abailard's sic et non, setting forth opposed views of so many doctrines and problems, stood for and made for a great deal of quiet skepticism; [ ] that the remarkable request of the monks of bec for a ratiocinative teaching which should meet even extravagant objections, covered a good deal of resigned unfaith; and that in the franciscan schools at oxford the disputants were not all at heart believers. indeed, the very existence of the doctrine of a "twofold truth"--one truth for religion and another for philosophy--was from the outset a witness for unbelief. but the unwritten word died, the litera scripta being solely those of faith, and liberation had to come, ages later, from without. even when a bold saying won general currency--as that latterly ascribed, no doubt falsely, to king alfonso the wise of castile, that "if he had been of god's council when he made the world he could have advised him better"--it did but crystallize skepticism in a jest, and supply the enemy with a text against impiety. all the while, the church was forging new and more murderous weapons against reason. it is one of her infamies to have revived the use in christendom of the ancient practice of judicial torture, and this expressly for the suppression of heresy. the later european practice dates from the bull of innocent iv, ad extirpanda, dated . at first a veto was put on its administration by clerical hands; but in alexander iv authorized the inquisitors and their associates to absolve one another for such acts. by the beginning of the fourteenth century torture was in use not only in the tribunals of the inquisition but in the ordinary ecclesiastical courts, whence it gradually entered into the courts of lay justice. [ ] it is impossible to estimate the injury thus wrought at once to culture and to civilization, at the hands of the power which claimed specially to promote both. [ ] § . freethought in italy apart from the schools, there was a notable amount of hardy freethinking among the imperialist nobles of northern italy, in the time of the emperors henry iv and v, the attitude of enmity to the holy see having the effect of encouraging a rude rationalism. in , while henry v was vigorously carrying on the war of investitures begun by his father, and formerly condemned by himself, the countess matilda of tuscany bequeathed her extensive fiefs to the papacy; and in the following year henry took forcible possession of them. at this period the strife between the papal and the imperial factions in the tuscan cities was at its fiercest; and the florentine chronicler giovanni villani alleges that among many other heretics in and were some "of the sect of the epicureans," who "with armed hand defended the said heresy" against the orthodox. [ ] but it is doubtful whether the heresy involved was anything more than imperialist anti-papalism. another chronicler speaks of the heretics as paterini; and even this is dubious. the title of epicurean in the time of villani and dante stood for an unbeliever in a future state; [ ] but there was an avowed tendency to call all ghibellines paterini; and other heretical aspersions were likely to be applied in the same way. [ ] as the averroïst philosophy had not yet risen, and rationalistic opinions were not yet current among the western saracens, any bold heresy among the anti-papalists of florence must be assigned either to a spontaneous growth of unbelief or to the obscure influence of the great poem of lucretius, never wholly lost from italian hands. but the lucretian view of things among men of the world naturally remained a matter of private discussion, not of propaganda; and it was on the less rationalistic but more organized anti-clericalism that there came the doom of martyrdom. so with the simple deism of which we find traces in the polemic of guibert de nogent (d. ), who avowedly wrote his tract de incarnatione adversus judæos rather as an apology against unbelievers among the christians; [ ] and again among the pilgrim community founded later in france in commemoration of thomas à becket. [ ] such doubters said little, leaving it to more zealous reformers to challenge creed with creed. freethought in south-western europe, however, had a measure of countenance in very high places. in the thirteenth century the emperor frederick ii had the repute of being an infidel in the double sense of being semi-moslem [ ] and semi-atheist. by pope gregory ix he was openly charged, in a furious afterthought, [ ] with saying that the world had been deceived by three impostors (baratores)--moses, jesus, and mohammed; also with putting jesus much below the other two, and with delighting to call himself the forerunner of antichrist. the pope's letter, dated july , , is given by matthew paris (extracts in gieseler, vol. iii, § ), and in labbe's concilia, t. xiii, col. . cp. the other references given by renan, averroès, e édit. pp. - . as voltaire remarks (essai sur les moeurs, ch. lii), the pope's statement is the basis for the old belief that frederick had written a treatise dealing with moses, jesus, and mohammed as the three impostors. the story is certainly a myth; and probably no such book existed in his century. cp. maclaine's note to mosheim, cent. pt. i, end; renan, averroès, pp. - , . the authorship of such a book has nevertheless been ascribed by catholic writers successively to averroës, simon of tournay, frederick, his minister, pierre des vignes, arnaldo de villanueva, boccaccio, poggio, pietro aretino, machiavelli, symphorien, champier, pomponazzi, cardan, erasmus, rabelais, ochinus, servetus, postel, campanella, muret, geoffroi vallée, giordano bruno, dolet, hobbes, spinoza, and vanini (cp. sentimens sur le traité des trois imposteurs in the french ed. of ; and lea, hist. of the inquis. iii, ); and the seventeenth-century apologist mersenne professed to have seen it in arabic (lea, iii, ). these references may be dismissed as worthless. in the french physician and mathematician morin wrote an epistola de tribus impostoribus under the name of panurge, but this attacked the three contemporary writers gassendi, neure, and bernier; and in kortholt of kiel published under the title de tribus impostoribus magnis an attack on herbert, hobbes, and spinoza. the three impostors current later, dealing with moses, jesus, and mohammed, may have been written about the same time, but, as we shall see later, is identical with l'esprit de spinoza, first published in . a latin treatise purporting to be written de tribus famosissimis deceptoribus, and addressed to an otho illustrissimus (conceivably otho duke of bavaria, th c.), came to light in ms. in , and was described in , but was not printed. the treatise current later in french cannot have been the same. on the whole subject see the note of r. c. christie (reprinted from notes and queries) in his selected essays and papers, , pp. , ; and the full discussion in reuter's geschichte der religiösen aufklärung, ii, - . the book de tribus impostoribus, bearing the date , of which several copies exist, seems to have been really published, with its false date, at vienna in . frederick was in reality superstitious enough; he worshipped relics; and he was nearly as merciless as the popes to rebellious heretics and manicheans; [ ] his cruelty proceeding, seemingly, on the belief that insubordination to the emperor was sure to follow intellectual as distinguished from political revolt against the church. he was absolutely tolerant to jews and moslems, [ ] and had trusted moslem counsellors, thereby specially evoking the wrath of the church. greatly concerned to acquire the lore of the arabs, [ ] he gave his favour and protection to michael scotus, the first translator of portions of averroës into latin, [ ] and presumptively himself a heretic of the averroïst stamp; whence the legend of his wizardry, adopted by dante. [ ] thus the doubting and persecuting emperor assisted at the birth of the philosophic movement which for centuries was most closely associated with unbelief in christendom. for the rest, he is recorded to have ridiculed the doctrine of the virgin birth, the viaticum, and other dogmas, "as being repugnant to reason and to nature"; [ ] and his general hostility to the pope would tend to make him a bad churchman. indeed the testimonies, both christian and moslem, as to his freethinking are too clear to be set aside. [ ] certainly no monarch of that or any age was more eagerly interested in every form of culture, or did more, on tyrannous lines, to promote it; [ ] and to him rather than to simon de montfort europe owes the admission of representatives of cities to parliaments. [ ] of his son manfred it is recorded that he was a thorough epicurean, believing neither in god nor in the saints. [ ] but positive unbelief in a future state, mockery of the christian religion, and even denial of deity--usually in private, and never in writing--are frequently complained of by the clerical writers of the time in france and italy; [ ] while in spain alfonso the wise, about , speaks of a common unbelief in immortality, alike as to heaven and hell; and the council of tarragona in decrees punishments against such unbelievers. [ ] in italy, not unnaturally, they were most commonly found among the ghibelline or imperial party, the opponents of the papacy, despite imperial orthodoxy. "incredulity, affected or real, was for the oppressed ghibellines a way among others of distinguishing themselves from the guelph oppressors." [ ] the commonest form of rationalistic heresy seems to have been unbelief in immortality. thus dante in the inferno estimates that among the heretics there are more than a thousand followers of epicurus, "who make the soul die with the body," [ ] specifying among them the emperor frederick ii, a cardinal, [ ] the ghibelline noble farinata degli uberti, and the guelph cavalcante cavalcanti. [ ] he was thinking, as usual, of the men of his own age; but, as we have seen, this particular heresy had existed in previous centuries, having indeed probably never disappeared from italy. other passages in dante's works [ ] show, in any case, that it was much discussed in his time; [ ] and it is noteworthy that, so far as open avowal went, italian freethought had got no further two hundred years later. in the period before the papacy had thoroughly established the inquisition, and diplomacy supervened on the tempestuous strifes of the great factions, there was a certain hardihood of speech on all subjects, which tended to disappear alongside of even a more searching unbelief. "le e siècle n'a eu aucune mauvaise pensée que le e n'ait eue avant lui" (renan, averroès, p. ). renan, however, seems astray in stating that "le poème de la descente de saint paul aux enfers parle avec terreur d'une société secrète qui avait juré la destruction de christianisme" (id. p. ). the poem simply describes the various tortures of sinners in hell, and mentions in their turn those who "en terre, à sainte iglise firent guerre," and in death "verbe deu refusouent"; also those "ki ne croient que deu fust nez (né), ne que sainte marie l'eust portez, ne que por le peuple vousist (voulait) mourir, ne que peine deignast soffrir." see the text as given by ozanam, dante, ed. ième, ptie. iv--the version cited by renan. so, with regard to the belief in magic, there was no general advance in the later renaissance on the skepticism of pietro of abano, a famous paduan physician and averroïst, who died, at the age of , in . he appears to have denied alike magic and miracles, though he held fast by astrology, and ascribed the rise and progress of all religions to the influence of the stars. himself accused of magic, he escaped violent death by dying naturally before his trial was ended; and the inquisition burned either his body or his image. [ ] after him, superstition seems to have gone step for step with skepticism. dante's own poetic genius, indeed, did much to arrest intellectual evolution in italy. before his time, as we have seen, the trouvères of northern france and the goliards of the south had handled hell in a spirit of burlesque; and his own teacher, brunetto latini, had framed a poetic allegory, il tesoretto, in which nature figures as the universal power, behind which the god-idea disappeared. [ ] but dante's tremendous vision ultimately effaced all others of the kind; and his intellectual predominance in virtue of mere imaginative art is at once the great characteristic and the great anomaly of the early renaissance. happily the inseparable malignity of his pietism was in large part superseded by a sunnier spirit; [ ] but his personality and his poetry helped to hold the balance of authority on the side of faith. [ ] within a few years of his death there was burned at florence ( ) one of the most daring heretics of the later middle ages, cecco stabili d'ascoli, a professor of philosophy and astrology at bologna, who is recorded to have had some intimacy with dante, and to have been one of his detractors. [ ] cecco has been described as "representing natural science, against the christian science of dante"; [ ] and though his science was primitive, the summing-up is not unwarranted. combining strong anti-christian feeling with the universal belief in astrology, he had declared that jesus lived as a sluggard (come un poltrone) with his disciples, and died on the cross, under the compulsion of his star. [ ] in view of the blasphemer's fate, such audacity was not often repeated. as against dante, the great literary influence for tolerance and liberalism if not rationalism of thought was boccaccio ( - ), whose decameron [ ] anticipates every lighter aspect of the renaissance--its levity, its licence, its humour, its anti-clericalism, its incipient tolerance, its irreverence, its partial freethinking, as well as its exuberance in the joy of living. on the side of anti-clericalism, the key-note is struck so strongly and so defiantly in some of the opening tales that the toleration of the book by the papal authorities can be accounted for only by their appreciation of the humour of the stories therein told against them, as that [ ] of the jew who, after seeing the utter corruption of the clergy at rome, turned christian on the score that only by divine support could such a system survive. no protestant ever passed a more scathing aspersion on the whole body of the curia than is thus set in the forefront of the decameron. still more deeply significant of innovating thought, however, is the famous story of the three rings, [ ] embodied later by lessing in his nathan the wise as an apologue of tolerance. such a story, introduced with whatever parade of orthodox faith, could not but make for rational skepticism, summarizing as it does the whole effect of the inevitable comparison of the rival creeds made by the men of italy and those of the east in their intercourse. the story itself, centring on saladin, is of eastern origin, [ ] and so tells of even more freethinking than meets the eye in the history of islam. [ ] it is noteworthy that the rabbi simeon duran ( - ), who follows on this period, appears to be the first jewish teacher to plead for mutual toleration among the conflicting schools of his race. [ ] current in italy before boccaccio, the tale had been improved from one italian hand to another; [ ] and the main credit for its full development is boccaccio's. [ ] though the church never officially attempted to suppress the book--leaving it to savonarola to destroy as far as possible the first edition--the more serious clergy naturally resented its hostility, first denouncing it, then seeking to expurgate all the anti-clerical passages; [ ] and the personal pressure brought to bear upon boccaccio had the effect of dispiriting and puritanizing him; so that the decameron finally wrought its effect in its author's despite. [ ] so far as we can divine the deeper influence of such a work on medieval thought, it may reasonably be supposed to have tended, like that of averroïsm, towards unitarianism or deism, inasmuch as a simple belief in deity is all that is normally implied in its language on religious matters. on that view it bore its full intellectual fruit only in the two succeeding centuries, when deism and unitarianism alike grew up in italy, apparently from non-scholastic roots. it is an interesting problem how far the vast calamity of the black death ( - ) told either for skepticism or for superstition in this age. in boccaccio's immortal book we see a few refined florentines who flee the pest giving themselves up to literary amusement; but there is also mention of many who had taken to wild debauchery, and there are many evidences as to wild outbreaks of desperate licence all over europe. [ ] on the other hand, many were driven by fear to religious practices; [ ] and in the immense destruction of life the church acquired much new wealth. at the same time the multitudes of priests who died [ ] had as a rule to be replaced by ill-trained persons, where the problem was not solved by creating pluralities, the result being a general falling-off in the culture and the authority of the clergy. [ ] but there seems to have been little or no growth of such questioning as came later from the previously optimistic voltaire after the earthquake of lisbon; and the total effect of the immense reduction of population all over europe seems to have been a lowering of the whole of the activities of life. certainly the students of paris in were surprisingly freethinking on scriptural points; [ ] but there is nothing to show that the great pestilence had set up any new movement of ethical thought. in some ways it grievously deepened bigotry, as in regard to the jews, who were in many regions madly impeached as having caused the plague by poisoning the wells, and were then massacred in large numbers. side by side with boccaccio, his friend petrarch ( - ), who with him completes the great literary trio of the late middle ages, belongs to freethought in that he too, with less aggressiveness but also without recoil, stood for independent culture and a rational habit of mind as against the dogmatics and tyrannies of the church. [ ] he was in the main a practical humanist, not in accord with the verbalizing scholastic philosophy of his time, and disposed to find his intellectual guide in the skeptical yet conservative cicero. the scholastics had become as fanatical for aristotle or averroës as the churchmen were for their dogmas; [ ] and petrarch made for mental freedom by resisting all dogmatisms alike. [ ] the general liberality of his attitude has earned him the titles of "the first modern man" [ ] and "the founder of modern criticism" [ ]--both somewhat high-pitched. [ ] he represented in reality the sobering and clarifying influence of the revived classic culture on the fanaticisms developed in the middle ages; and when he argued for the rule of reason in all things [ ] it was not that he was a deeply searching rationalist, but that he was spontaneously averse to all the extremes of thought around him, and was concerned to discredit them. for himself, having little speculative power, he was disposed to fall back on a simple and tolerant christianity. thus he is quite unsympathetic in his references to those scholars of his day who privately indicated their unbelief. knowing nothing of the teaching of averroës, he speaks of him, on the strength of christian fictions, as "that mad dog who, moved by an execrable rage, barks against his lord christ and the catholic faith." [ ] apart from such conventional odium theologicum, his judgment, like his literary art, was clear and restrained; opening no new vistas, but bringing a steady and placid light to bear on its chosen sphere. between such humanistic influences and that of more systematic and scholastic thought, italy in that age was the chief source of practical criticism of christian dogmas; and the extent to which a unitarian theism was now connected with the acceptance of the philosophy of averroës brought it about, despite the respectful attitude of dante, who gave him a tranquil place in hell, [ ] that he came to figure as antichrist for the faithful. [ ] petrarch in his letters speaks of much downright hostility to the christian system on the part of averroïsts; [ ] and the association of averroïsm with the great medical school of padua [ ] must have promoted practical skepticism among physicians. being formally restricted to the schools, however, it tended there to undergo the usual scholastic petrifaction; and the common-sense deism it encouraged outside had to subsist without literary discipline. in this form it probably reached many lands, without openly affecting culture or life; since averroïsm itself was professed generally in the carmelite order, who claimed for it orthodoxy. [ ] alongside, however, of intellectual solvents, there were at work others of a more widely effective kind, set up by the long and sinister historic episode of the great papal schism. the church, already profoundly discredited in the eleventh century by the gross disorders of the papacy, continued frequently throughout the twelfth to exhibit the old spectacle of rival popes; and late in the fourteenth ( ) there broke out the greatest schism of all. ostensibly beginning in a riotous coercion of the electing cardinals by the roman populace, it was maintained on the one side by the standing interest of the clergy in italy, which called for an italian head of the church, and on the other hand by the french interest, which had already enforced the residence of the popes at avignon from to . it was natural that, just after the papal chair had been replaced in italy by gregory ix, the romans should threaten violence to the cardinals if they chose any but an italian; and no less natural that the french court should determine to restore a state of things in which it controlled the papacy in all save its corruption. during the seventy years of "the captivity," rome had sunk to the condition of a poor country town; and to the italian clergy the struggle for a restoration was a matter of economic life and death. for thirty-nine years did the schism last, being ended only by the prolonged action of the great council of constance in deposing the rivals of the moment and appointing martin v ( ); and this was achieved only after there had slipped into the chair of peter "the most worthless and infamous man to be found." [ ] during the schism every species of scandal had flourished. indulgences had been sold and distributed at random; [ ] simony and venality abounded more than ever; [ ] the courts of rome and avignon were mere rivals in avarice, indecorum, and reciprocal execration; and in addition to the moral occasion for skepticism there was the intellectual, since no one could show conclusively that the administration of sacraments was valid under either pope. [ ] § . sects and orders despite, therefore, the premium put by the church on devotion to its cause and doctrine, and despite its success in strangling specific forms of heresy, hostility to its own pretensions germinated everywhere, [ ] especially in the countries most alien to italy in language and civilization. an accomplished catholic scholar [ ] sums up that "from about the middle of the twelfth century the whole secular and religious literature of europe grew more and more hostile to the papacy and the curia." the church's own economic conditions, constantly turning its priesthood, despite all precautions, into a money-making and shamelessly avaricious class, ensured it a perpetuity of ill-will and denunciation. the popular literature which now began to grow throughout christendom with the spread of political order was everywhere turned to the account of anti-clerical satire; [ ] and only the defect of real knowledge secured by the church's own policy prevented such hostility from developing into rational unbelief. as it was, a tendency to criticize at once the socio-economic code and practice and the details of creed and worship is seen in a series of movements from the thirteenth century onwards; and some of the most popular literature of that age is deeply tinged with the new spirit. after the overthrow of the well-organized anti-clericalism of the cathari and other heretics in languedoc, however, no movement equally systematic and equally heretical flourished on any large scale; and as even those heresies on their popular side were essentially supernaturalist, and tended to set up one hierarchy in place of another, it would be vain to look for anything like a consistent or searching rationalism among the people in the period broadly termed medieval, including the renaissance. it would be a bad misconception to infer from the abundant signs of popular disrespect for the clergy that the mass of the laity even in italy, for instance, were unbelievers. [ ] they never were anything of the kind. at all times they were deeply superstitious, easily swayed by religious emotion, credulous as to relics, miracles, visions, prophecies, responsive to pulpit eloquence, readily passing from derision of worldly priests to worship of austere ones. [ ] when machiavelli said that religion was gone from italy, he was thinking of the upper classes, among whom theism was normal, [ ] and the upper clergy, who were often at once superstitious and corrupt. as for the common people, it was impossible that they should be grounded rationalists as regarded the great problems of life. they were merely the raw material on which knowledge might work if it could reach them, which it never did. and the common people everywhere else stood at or below the culture level of those of italy. for lack of other culture than biblical, then, even the popular heresy tended to run into mysticisms which were only so far more rational than the dogmas and rites of the church that they stood for some actual reflection. a partial exception, indeed, may be made in the case of the brethren of the free spirit, a sect set up in germany in the early years of the thirteenth century, by one ortlieb, on the basis of the pantheistic teachings of amaury of bène and david of dinant. [ ] their doctrines were set forth in a special treatise or sacred book, called the nine rocks. the fratres liberi spiritus seem to have been identical with the sect of the "holy spirit"; [ ] but their tenets were heretical in a high degree, including as they did a denial of personal immortality, and consequently of the notions of heaven, hell, and purgatory. even the sect's doctrine of the holy spirit was heretical in another way, inasmuch as it ran, if its opponents can be believed, to the old antinomian assertion that anyone filled with the spirit was sinless, whatever deeds he might do. [ ] as always, such antinomianism strengthened the hands of the clergy against the heresy, though the brethren seem to have been originally very ascetic; and inasmuch as their pantheism involved the idea that satan also had in him the divine essence, they were duly accused of devil-worship. [ ] on general principles they were furiously persecuted; but all through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and even in the fifteenth, they are found in various parts of central and western europe, [ ] often in close alliance with the originally orthodox communities known in france and holland by the names of turlupins and beguins or beguines, and in germany and belgium as beguttæ or beghards, [ ] akin to the lollards. these in turn are to be understood in connection with developments which took place in the thirteenth century within the church--notably the rise of the great orders of mendicant friars, of which the two chief were founded about by francis of assisi and the spanish dominic, the latter a fierce persecutor in the albigensian crusade. nothing availed more to preserve or restore for a time the church's prestige. the old criticism of priestly and monastic avarice and worldliness was disarmed by the sudden appearance and rapid spread of a priesthood and brotherhood of poverty; and the obvious devotion of thousands of the earlier adherents went to the general credit of the church. yet the descent of the new orders to the moral and economic levels of the old was only a question of time; and no process could more clearly illustrate the futility of all schemes of regenerating the world on non-rational principles. apart from the vast encouragement given to sheer mendicancy among the poor, the orders themselves substantially apostatized from their own rules within a generation. the history of the franciscans in particular is like that of the church in general--one of rapid lapse into furious schism, with a general reversion to gross self-seeking on the part of the majority, originally vowed to utter poverty. elias, the first successor of francis, appointed by the saint himself, proved an intolerable tyrant; and in his day began the ferocious strife between the "spirituals," who insisted on the founder's ideal of poverty, and the majority, who insisted on accepting the wealth which the world either bestowed or could be cajoled into bestowing on the order. the majority, of course, ultimately overbore the spirituals, the papacy supporting them. [ ] they followed the practically universal law of monastic life. the humiliati, founded before the thirteenth century, had to be suppressed by the pope in the sixteenth, for sheer corruption of morals; and the franciscans and dominicans, who speedily became bitterly hostile to each other, were in large measure little better. even in the middle of the thirteenth century they were attacked by the sorbonne doctor, william of st. amour, in a book on the perils of the latter times; [ ] and in england in the fourteenth century we find wiclif assailing the begging friars as the earlier satirists had assailed the abbots and monks. that all this reciprocal invective was not mere partizan calumny, but broadly true as against both sides, is the conclusion forced upon a reader of the philobiblon ascribed to richard de bury, bishop of durham and treasurer and chancellor under edward iii. in that book, written either by the bishop or by one of his chaplains, robert holkot, [ ] the demerits of all orders of the clergy from the points of view of letters and morals are set forth with impartial emphasis; [ ] and the character of the bishop in turn is no less effectively disposed of after his death by adam murimuth, a distinguished lawyer and canon of st. paul's. [ ] the worst of the trouble for the church was that the mendicants were detested by bishops and the beneficed priests, whose credit they undermined, and whose revenues they intercepted. that the franciscans and dominicans remained socially powerful till the reformation was due to the energy developed by their corporate organization and the measure of education they soon secured on their own behalf; not to any general superiority on their part to the "secular" clergy so-called. [ ] indeed it was to the latter, within the church, that most pre-reformation reformers looked for sympathy. at the outset, however, the movement of the mendicant friars gave a great impulsion to the lay communities of the type of the beguines and beghards who had originated in the netherlands, and who practised at once mendicancy and charity very much on the early franciscan lines; [ ] and the spirit of innovation led in both cases to forms of heresy. that of the beguines and beghards arose mainly through their association with the brethren of the free spirit; and they suffered persecution as did the latter; while among the "spiritual" franciscans, who were despisers of learning, there arose a species of new religion. at the beginning of the century, abbot joachim, of flora or flores in calabria (d. ), who "may be regarded as the founder of modern mysticism," [ ] had earned a great reputation by devout austerities, and a greater by his vaticinations, [ ] which he declared to be divine. one of his writings was condemned as heretical, thirteen years after his death, by the council of lateran; but his apocalyptic writings, and others put out in his name, had a great vogue among the rebellious franciscans. at length, in , there was produced in paris a book called the everlasting gospel, consisting of three of his genuine works, with a long and audacious introduction by an anonymous hand, which expressed a spirit of innovation and revolt, mystical rather than rational, that seemed to promise the utter disruption of the church. it declared that, as the dispensation of the son had followed on that of the father, so christ's evangel in turn was to be superseded by that of the "holy spirit." [ ] adopted by the "spiritual" section of the franciscans, it brought heresy within the organization itself, the introduction being by many ascribed--probably in error--to the head of the order, john of parma, a devotee of joachim. on other grounds, he was ultimately deposed; [ ] but the ferment of heresy was great. and while the franciscans are commonly reputed to have been led by small-minded generals, [ ] their order, as renan notes, [ ] not only never lost the stamp of its popular and irregular origin, but was always less orthodox in general than the dominican. but its deviations were rather ultra-religious than rational; and some of its heresies have become orthodoxy. thus it was the franciscans, notably duns scotus, who carried the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the virgin against the dominicans, who held by the teaching of thomas aquinas that she was conceived "in sin." [ ] mary was thus deified on a popular impulse, dating from paganism, at the expense of christism; and, considering that both thomas and st. bernard had flatly rejected the immaculate conception, its ultimate adoption as dogma is highly significant. [ ] in the year , when, according to the "eternal gospel," the new dispensation of the holy spirit was to begin, there was an immense excitement in northern italy, marked by the outbreak of the order of flagellants, self-scourgers, whose hysteria spread to other lands. gherardo segarelli, a youth of parma, came forward as a new christ, had himself circumcised, swaddled, cradled, and suckled; [ ] and proceeded to found a new order of "apostolicals," after the manner of a sect of the previous century, known by the same name, who professed to return to primitive simplicity and to chastity, and reproduced what they supposed to be the morals of the early church, including the profession of ascetic cohabitation. [ ] some of their missionaries got as far as germany; but segarelli was caught, imprisoned, reduced to the status of a bishop's jester, and at length, after saving his life for a time by abjuration, burned at parma, in the year . despite much persecution of the order, one of its adherents, fra dolcino, immediately began to exploit segarelli's martyrdom, and renewed the movement by an adaptation of the "eternal gospel," announcing that segarelli had begun a new era, to last till the day of judgment. predicting the formation of native states, as well as the forcible purification of the papacy, he ultimately set up an armed movement, which held out in the southern alps for two years, till the apostolicals were reduced to cannibalism. at length ( ) they were overpowered and massacred, and dolcino was captured, with his beautiful and devoted companion, margherita di trank. she was slowly burned to death before his eyes, refusing to abjure; and he in turn was gradually tortured to death, uttering no cry. [ ] the order subsisted for a time in secret, numbers cherishing dolcino's memory, and practising a priestless and riteless religion, prohibiting oaths, and wholly repudiating every claim of the church. [ ] yet another sect, called by the name of "the spirit of liberty"--probably the origin of the name libertini, later applied to freethinkers in france--was linked on the one hand to the apostolicals and on the other to the german brethren of the free spirit, as well as to the franciscan fraticelli. this sect is heard of as late as , when one of its members was burned. [ ] and there were yet others; till it seemed as if the latin church were to be resolved into an endless series of schisms. but organization, as of old, prevailed; the cohesive and aggressive force of the central system, with the natural strifes of the new movements, whether within or without [ ] the church, sufficed to bring about their absorption or their destruction. it needed a special concurrence of economic, political, and culture forces to disrupt the fabric of the papacy. § . thought in spain of all the chapters in the history of the inquisition, the most tragical is the record of its work in spain, for there a whole nation's faculty of freethought was by its ministry strangled for a whole era. there is a prevalent notion that in spain fanaticism had mastered the national life from the period of the overthrow of arianism under the later visigothic kings; and that there the extirpation of heresy was the spontaneous and congenial work of the bulk of the nation, giving vent to the spirit of intolerance ingrained in it in the long war with the moors. "spain," says michelet, "has always felt herself more catholic than rome." [ ] but this is a serious misconception. wars associated with a religious cause are usually followed rather by indifference than by increased faith; and the long wars of the moors and the christians in spain had some such sequel, [ ] as had the crusades, and the later wars of religion in france and germany. it is true that for a century after the (political) conversion of the visigothic king recared ( ) from arianism to catholicism--an age of complete decadence--the policy of the spanish church was extremely intolerant, as might have been expected. the jews, in particular, were repeatedly and murderously persecuted; [ ] but after the fall of the visigoths before the invading moors, the treatment of all forms of heresy in the christian parts of the peninsula, down to the establishment of the second or new inquisition under torquemada, was in general rather less severe than elsewhere. [ ] an exception is to be noted in the case of the edicts of and , by alfonso ii and pedro ii ("the catholic") of aragon, against the waldenses. [ ] the policy in the first case was that of wholesale expulsion of the heretics anathematized by the church; and, as this laid the victims open to plunder all round, there is a presumption that cupidity was a main part of the motive. peter the catholic, in turn, who decreed the stake for the heretics that remained, made a signally complete capitulation to the holy see; but the nation did not support him; and the tribute he promised to pay to the pope was never paid. [ ] in the thirteenth century, when the moors had been driven out of castile, rationalistic heresy seems to have been as common in spain as in italy. already arab culture had spread, archbishop raymond of toledo ( - ) having caused many books to be translated from arabic into latin; [ ] and inasmuch as racial warfare had always involved some intercourse between christians and moors, [ ] the averroïst influence which so speedily reached sicily from toledo through michael scot must have counted for something in spain. about alfonso x, "the wise" king of castile, describes the heresies of his kingdom under two main divisions, of which the worse is the denial of a future state of rewards and punishments. [ ] this heresy, further, is proceeded against by the council of tarragona in . and though alfonso was orthodox, and in his legislation a persecutor, [ ] his own astronomic and mathematical science, so famous in the after times, came to him from the arabs and the jews whom he actually called in to assist him in preparing his astronomic tables. [ ] such science was itself a species of heresy in that age; and to it the orthodox king owes his catholic reputation as a blasphemer, as antichrist, [ ] and as one of the countless authors of the fabulous treatise on the "three impostors." he would further rank as a bad churchman, inasmuch as his very laws against heresy took no account of the roman inquisition (though it was nominally established by a papal rescript in ), [ ] but provided independently for the treatment of offenders. needless to say, they had due regard to finance, non-believers who listened to heresy being fined ten pounds weight of gold, with the alternative of fifty lashes in public; while the property of lay heretics without kin went to the fisc. [ ] the law condemning to the stake those christians who apostatized to islam or judaism [ ] had also a financial motive. such laws, however, left to unsystematic application, were but slightly operative; and the people fiercely resisted what attempts were made to enforce them. [ ] at the end of the thirteenth century the heresies of the french beguines and the franciscan "spirituals" spread in aragon, both by way of books and of preaching, and even entered portugal. against these, in the years - , the inquisitors maintained a persecution. [ ] but it has been put on record by the famous arnaldo of villanueva--astronomer, scholar, alchemist, reformer, and occultist [ ] (d. )--whose books were at that period condemned by a council of friars because of his championship of the spirituals, that king frederick ii of aragon had confessed to him his doubts as to the truth of the christian religion--doubts set up by the misconduct of priests, abbots, and bishops; the malignities of the heads of the friar orders; and the worldliness and political intrigues of the holy see. [ ] such a king was not likely to be a zealous inquisitor; and the famous joachite franciscan juan de pera-tallada (jean de la rochetaillade), imprisoned at avignon for his apocalyptic teachings about , seems to have died in peace in spain long afterwards. [ ] it cannot even be said that the ordinary motive of rapacity worked strongly against heresy in spain in the middle ages, since there the templars, condemned and plundered everywhere else, were acquitted; and their final spoliation was the work of the papacy, the spanish authorities resisting. [ ] we shall find, further, the orthodox spanish king of naples in the fifteenth century protecting anti-papal scholarship. and though dominic, the primary type of the inquisitor, had been a castilian, no spaniard was pope from the fourth to the fourteenth century, and very few were cardinals. [ ] as late as the latter half of the fifteenth century, within a generation of the setting-up of the murderous new inquisition, spain seems to have been on the whole as much given to freethinking as france, and much more so than england. on the one hand, averroïsm tinged somewhat the intellectual life through the moorish environment, so that in we find revolted nobles complaining that king enrique iv is suspected of being unsound in the faith because he has about him both enemies of catholicism and nominal christians who avow their disbelief in a future state. [ ] on the other hand, it had been noted that many were beginning to deny the need or efficacy of priestly confession; and about a professor at salamanca, pedro de osma, actually printed an argument to that effect, further challenging the power of the pope. so slight was then the machinery of inquisition that he had to be publicly tried by a council, which merely ordered him to recant in public; and he died peacefully in . [ ] it was immediately after this, in the reign of ferdinand and isabella, that the inquisition was newly and effectively established in spain; and the determining motive was the avarice of the king and queen, not the catholic zeal of the people. the inquisitor-general of messina came to madrid in in order to obtain confirmation of a forged privilege, pretended to have been granted to the dominicans in sicily by frederick ii in --that of receiving one-third of the property of every heretic they condemned. to such a ruler as ferdinand, such a system readily appealed; and as soon as possible a new inquisition was established in spain, isabella consenting. [ ] from the first it was a system of plunder. "men long dead, if they were represented by rich descendants, were cited before the tribunal, judged, and condemned; and the lands and goods that had descended to their heirs passed into the coffers of the catholic kings." [ ] the solemn assertion by queen isabella, that she had never applied such money to the purposes of the crown, has been proved from state papers to be "a most deliberate and daring falsehood." [ ] the revenue thus iniquitously obtained was enormous; and it is inferrible that the pecuniary motive underlay the later expulsion of the jews and the moriscoes as well as the average practice of the inquisition. the error as to the original or anciently ingrained fanaticism of the spanish people, first made current by ticknor (hist. spanish lit., th ed. i, ), has been to some extent diffused by buckle, who at this point of his inquiry reasoned à priori instead of inductively as his own principles prescribed. see the notes to the present writer's edition of his introduction (routledge, ), pp. , - . the special atrocity of the inquisition in spain was not even due directly to the papacy (cp. burke, ii, ): it was the result first of the rapacity of ferdinand, utilizing a papal institution; and later of the political fanaticisms of charles v and philip ii, both of teutonic as well as spanish descent. philip alleged that the inquisition in the netherlands was more severe than in spain (ed. of buckle cited, p. , note). in the words of bishop stubbs: "to a german race of sovereigns spain finally owed the subversion of her national system and ancient freedom" (id. p. , note). such a process, however, would not have been possible in any country, at any stage of the world's history, without the initiative and the support of some such sacrosanct organization as the catholic church, wielding a spell over the minds even of those who, in terror and despair, fought against it. as in the thirteenth century, so at the end of the fifteenth, [ ] the inquisition in spain was spasmodically resisted in aragon and castile, in catalonia, and in valencia; the first inquisitor-general in aragon being actually slain in the cathedral of saragossa in , despite his precaution of wearing a steel cap and coat of mail. [ ] vigorous protests from the cortès even forced some restraint upon the entire machine; but such occasional resistance could not long countervail the steady pressure of regal and official avarice and the systematic fanaticism of the dominican order. it was thus the fate of spain to illustrate once for all the power of a dogmatic religious system to extirpate the spirit of reason from an entire nation for a whole era. there and there only, save for a time in italy, did the inquisition become all-powerful; and it wrought for the evisceration of the intellectual and material life of spain with a demented zeal to which there is no parallel in later history. in the reign of ferdinand and isabella, after several random massacres and much persecution of the "new christians" or doubtful converts from judaism, [ ] the unconverted jews of spain were in penned into ghettos, and were in expelled bodily from the country, with every circumstance of cruelty, so far as church and state could compass their plans. by this measure at least , subjects [ ] of more than average value were lost to the state. portugal and other christian countries took the same cruel step a few years later; but spain carried the policy much further. from the year of its establishment, the inquisition was hotly at work destroying heresy of every kind; and the renowned torquemada, the confessor of isabella, is credited with having burned over ten thousand persons in his eighteen years of office as grand inquisitor, besides torturing many thousands. close upon a hundred thousand more were terrified into submission; and a further six thousand burned in effigy in their absence or after death. [ ] the destruction of books was proportionally thorough; [ ] and when lutheran protestantism arose it was persistently killed out; thousands leaving the country in view of the hopelessness of the cause. [ ] at this rate, every vestige of independent thought must soon have disappeared from any nation in the world. if she is to be judged by the number of her slain and exiled heretics, spain must once have been nearly as fecund in reformative and innovating thought as any state in northern europe; but the fatal conjunction of the royal and the clerical authority sufficed for a whole era to denude her of every variety of the freethinking species. [ ] § . thought in england lying on the outskirts of the world of culture, england in the later middle ages and the period of the italian renaissance lived intellectually, even where ministered to by the genius of chaucer, for the most part in dependence on continental impulses; yet not without notable outcrops of native energy. there is indeed no more remarkable figure in the middle ages than roger bacon (? - ), the english franciscan friar, schooled at paris. his career remains still in parts obscure. born at or near ilchester, in somersetshire, he studied at oxford under edmund rich, richard fitzacre, robert grosstête, and adam de marisco; and later, for a number of years, at paris, where he is supposed to have held a chair. on his return he was lionized; but a few years afterwards, in , we find him again in paris, banished thither by his order. [ ] he was not absolutely imprisoned, but ordered to live under official surveillance in a dwelling where he was forbidden to write, to speak to novices, or observe the stars--rules which, it is pretty clear, he broke, one and all. [ ] after some eight years of this durance, cardinal guido falcodi (otherwise guy foucaud or de foulques), who while acting as papal legate in england at the time of the rising of simon de montfort may have known or heard of bacon, became interested in him through his chaplain, raymond of laon, who spoke (in error) of the imprisoned friar as having written much on science. the cardinal accordingly wrote asking to see the writings in question. bacon sent by a friend an explanation to the effect that he had written little, and that he could not devote himself to composition without a written mandate and a papal dispensation. about this time the cardinal was elevated to the papacy as clement iv; and in that capacity, a year later ( ), he wrote to bacon authorizing him to disobey his superior, but exhorting him to do it secretly. bacon, by his own account, had already spent in forty years of study , libri [ ] in addition to purchases of books and instruments and teacher's fees; and it is not known whether the pope furnished the supplies he declared he needed. [ ] to work, however, he went with an astonishing industry, and in the course of less than eighteen months [ ] he had produced his chief treatise, the opus majus; the opus minus, designed as a summary or sample of the former; and the later opus tertium, planned to serve as a preamble to the two others. [ ] through all three documents there runs the same inspiration, the opus tertium and the majus constituting a complete treatise, which gives at once the most vivid idea of the state of culture at the time, and the most intimate presentment of a student's mind, that survive from the thirteenth century. it was nothing less than a demand, such as was made by francis bacon three hundred and fifty years later, and by auguste comte in the nineteenth century, for a reconstruction of all studies and all tuition. neither pope nor emperor could have met it; but clement gave roger his freedom, and he returned to oxford, papally protected, at the end of . four years later clement died, and was succeeded by gregory x, a franciscan. at this stage of his life bacon revealed that, whatever were his wrongs, he was inclined to go halfway to meet them. in a new writing of similar purport with the others, the compendium philosophiæ, written in , [ ] he not only attacked in detail the ecclesiastical system, [ ] but argued that the christians were incomparably inferior to pagans in morals, and therefore in science; [ ] that there was more truth in aristotle's few chapters on laws than in the whole corpus juris; [ ] that the christian religion, as commonly taught, was not free of errors; and that philosophy truly taught, and not as in the schools, was perhaps the surer way to attain both truth and salvation. [ ] again he was prosecuted; and this time, after much delay, it was decided that the entire order should deal with the case. not till did the trial come off, under the presidency of the chief of the order, jerome of ascoli. bacon was bracketed with another insubordinate brother, jean d'olive; and both were condemned. in bacon's case his doctrine was specified as continentem aliquas novitates suspectas, propter quas fuit idem rogerius carceri condempnatus. [ ] this time bacon seems to have undergone a real imprisonment, which lasted fourteen years. during that time four more popes held office, the last of them being the said jerome, elevated to the papal chair as nicholas iv. not till his death in was bacon released--to die two years later. he was in fact, with all his dogmatic orthodoxy, too essentially in advance of his age to be otherwise than suspect to the typical ecclesiastics of any time. the marvel is that with his radical skepticism as to all forms of human knowledge; his intense perception of the fatality of alternate credulity and indifference which kept most men in a state of positive or negative error on every theme; his insatiable thirst for knowledge; his invincible repugnance to all acknowledgment of authority, [ ] and his insistence on an ethical end, he should have been able to rest as he did in the assumption of a divine infallibility vested in what he knew to be a corruptible text. it was doubtless defect of strictly philosophic thought, as distinguished from practical critical faculty, that enabled him to remain orthodox in theology while anti-authoritarian in everything else. as it was, his recalcitrance to authority in such an age sufficed to make his life a warfare upon earth. and it is not surprising that, even as his franciscan predecessor robert grosstête, bishop of lincoln, came to be reputed a sorcerer on the strength of having written many treatises on scientific questions--as well as on witchcraft--roger bacon became a wizard in popular legend, and a scandal in the eyes of his immediate superiors, for a zest of secular curiosity no less uncommon and unpriestlike. [ ] "it is sometimes impossible to avoid smiling," says one philosophic historian of him, "when one sees how artfully this personified thirst for knowledge seeks to persuade himself, or his readers, that knowledge interests him only for ecclesiastical ends. no one has believed it: neither posterity ... nor his contemporaries, who distrusted him as worldly-minded." [ ] worldly-minded he was in a noble sense, as seeking to know the world of nature; and perhaps the most remarkable proof of his originality on this side is his acceptance of the theory of the earth's sphericity. peter de alliaco, whose imago mundi was compiled in , transcribed from roger bacon's opus majus almost literally, but without acknowledgment, a passage containing quotations from aristotle, pliny, and seneca, all arguing for the possibility of reaching india by sailing westward. columbus, it is known, was familiar with the imago mundi; and this passage seems greatly to have inspired him in his task. [ ] this alone was sufficient practical heresy to put bacon in danger; and yet his real orthodoxy can hardly be doubted. [ ] he always protested against the scholastic doctrine of a "twofold truth," insisting that revelation and philosophy were at one, but that the latter also was divine. [ ] it probably mattered little to his superiors, however, what view he took of the abstract question: it was his zeal for concrete knowledge that they detested. his works remain to show the scientific reach of which his age was capable, when helped by the lore of the arabs; for he seems to have drawn from averroës some of his inspiration to research; [ ] but in the england of that day his ideals of research were as unattainable as his wrath against clerical obstruction was powerless; [ ] and averroïsm in england made little for innovation. [ ] the english renaissance properly sets-in in the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the glory of that of italy is passing away. in the fourteenth century, indeed, a remarkable new life is seen arising in england in the poetry and prose of chaucer, from contact with the literature of italy and france; but while chaucer reflects the spontaneous medieval hostility to the self-seeking and fraudulent clergy, and writes of deity with quite medieval irreverence, [ ] he tells little of the renaissance spirit of critical unbelief, save when he notes the proverbial irreligion of the physicians, [ ] or smiles significantly over the problem of the potency of clerical cursing and absolution, [ ] or shrugs his shoulders over the question of a future state. [ ] in such matters he is noticeably undevout; and though it is impossible to found on such passages a confident assertion that chaucer had no belief in immortality, it is equally impossible in view of them to claim that he was a warm believer. prof. lounsbury, who has gone closely and critically into the whole question of chaucer's religious opinions, asks concerning the lines in the knight's tale on the passing of arcite: "can modern agnosticism point to a denial more emphatic than that made in the fourteenth century of the belief that there exists for us any assurance of the life that is lived beyond the grave?" (studies in chaucer, , ii, - ). prof. skeat, again, affirms (notes to the tales, clar. press compl. chaucer, v, ) that "the real reason why chaucer could not here describe the passage of arcite's soul to heaven is because he had already copied boccaccio's description, and had used it with respect to the death of troilus" (see troil. v, - ; stanzas , , from the end). this evades the question as to the poet's faith. in point of fact, the passage in troilus and criseyde is purely pagan, and tells of no christian belief, though that poem, written before the tales, seems to parade a christian contempt for pagan lore. (cp. lounsbury, as cited, p. .) the ascription of unbelief seems a straining of the evidence; but it would be difficult to gainsay the critic's summing-up: "the general view of all his [chaucer's] production leaves upon the mind the impression that his personal religious history was marked by the dwindling devoutness which makes up the experience of so many lives--the fallings from us, the vanishings, we know not how or when, of beliefs in which we have been bred. one characteristic which not unusually accompanies the decline of faith in the individual is in him very conspicuous. this is the prominence given to the falsity and fraud of those who have professedly devoted themselves to the advancement of the cause of christianity.... much of chaucer's late work, so far as we know it to be late, is distinctly hostile to the church.... it is, moreover, hostile in a way that implies an utter disbelief in certain of its tenets, and even a disposition to regard them as full of menace to the future of civilization" (lounsbury, vol. cited, pp. - ). against this general view is to be set that which proceeds on an unquestioning acceptance of the "retractation" or confession at the close of the canterbury tales, as to the vexed question of the genuineness of which see the same critic, work cited, i, - ; iii, . the fact that the document is appended to the concluding "parson's tale" (also challenged as to authenticity), which is not a tale at all, and to which the confession refers as "this little treatise or rede," suggests strongly a clerical influence brought to bear upon the aging poet. to infer real devotion on his part from his sympathetic account of the good parson, or from the dubious retractation appended to the tales, is as unwarrantable as is the notion, dating from the reformation period, that he was a wicliffite. [ ] even if the retractation be of his writing, under pressure in old age, it points to a previous indifferentism; and from the great mass of his work there can be drawn only the inference that he is essentially non-religious in temper and habit of mind. but he is no disputant, no propagandist, whether on ecclesiastical or on intellectual grounds; and after his day there is social retrogression and literary relapse in england for two centuries. that there was some practical rationalism in his day, however, we gather from the vision of piers ploughman, by the contemporary poet langland (fl. - ), where there is a vivid account of the habit among anti-clerical laymen of arguing against the doctrine of original sin and the entailment of adam's offence on the whole human race. [ ] to this way of thinking chaucer probably gave a stimulus by his translation of the de consolatione philosophiae of boethius, where is cited the "not unskilful" dilemma: "if god is, whence come wicked things? and if god is not, whence come good things?" [ ] the stress of the problem is hard upon theism; and to ponder it was to resent the doctrine of inherited guilt. the church had, in fact, visibly turned this dogma to its own ends, insisting on the universal need of ghostly help even as it repelled the doctrine of unalterable predestination. in both cases, of course, the matter was settled by scripture and authority; and langland's reply to the heretics is mere angry dogmatism. there flourished, further, a remarkable amount of heresy of the species seen in provence and northern italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such sectaries being known in england under the generic name of "lollards," derived from the flemish, in which it seems to have signified singers of hymns. [ ] lollards or "beghards," starting from the southern point of propagation, spread all over civilized northern europe, meeting everywhere persecution alike from the parish priests and the mendicant monks; and in england as elsewhere their anti-clericalism and their heresy were correlative. in the formal lollard petition to parliament in , however, there is evident an amount of innovating opinion which implies more than the mere stimulus of financial pressure. not only the papal authority, monasteries, clerical celibacy, nuns' vows, transubstantiation, exorcisms, bought blessings, pilgrimages, prayers for the dead, offerings to images, confessions and absolutions, but war and capital punishment and "unnecessary trades," such as those of goldsmiths and armourers, are condemned by those early utopists. [ ] in what proportion they really thought out the issues they dealt with we can hardly ascertain; but a chronicler of wiclif's time, living at leicester, testifies that you could not meet two men in the street but one was a lollard. [ ] the movement substantially came to nothing, suffering murderous persecution in the person of oldcastle (lord cobham) and others, and disappearing in the fifteenth century in the demoralization of conquest and the ruin of the civil wars; but apart from chaucer's poetry it is more significant of foreign influences in england than almost any other phenomenon down to the reign of henry viii. it is still doubtful, indeed, whence the powerful wiclif derived his marked protestantism as to some catholic dogmas; but it would seem that he too may have been reached by the older paulician or other southern heresy. [ ] as early as a form of heresy approaching the albigensian and the waldensian is found in the province of canterbury, certain persons there maintaining that christians were not bound by the authority of the pope and the fathers, but solely by that of the bible and "necessary reason." [ ] it is true that wiclif never refers to the waldenses or albigenses, or any of the continental reformers of his day, though he often cites his english predecessor, bishop grosstête; [ ] but this may have been on grounds of policy. to cite heretics could do no good; to cite a bishop was helpful. the main reason for doubting a foreign influence in his case is that to the last he held by purgatory and absolute predestination. [ ] in any case, wiclif's practical and moral resentment of ecclesiastical abuses was the mainspring of his doctrine; and his heresies as to transubstantiation and other articles of faith can be seen to connect with his anti-priestly attitude. he, however, was morally disinterested as compared with the would-be plunderers who formed the bulk of the anti-church party of john of gaunt; and his failure to effect any reformation was due to the fact that on one hand there was not intelligence enough in the nation to respond to his doctrinal common sense, while on the other he could not so separate ecclesiastical from feudal tyranny and extortion as to set up a political movement which should strike at clerical evils without inciting some to impeach the nobility who held the balance of political power. charged with setting vassals against tyrant lords, he was forced to plead that he taught the reverse, though he justified the withholding of tithes from bad curates. [ ] the revolt led by john ball in , which was in no way promoted by wiclif, [ ] showed that the country people suffered as much from lay as from clerical oppression. the time, in short, was one of common ferment, and not only were there other reformers who went much farther than wiclif in the matter of social reconstruction, [ ] but we know from his writings that there were heretics who carried their criticism as far as to challenge the authority and credibility of the scriptures. against these accusatores and inimici scripturae he repeatedly speaks in his treatise de veritate scripturae sacrae, [ ] which is thus one of the very earliest works in defence of christianity against modern criticism. [ ] his position, however, is almost wholly medieval. one qualification should perhaps be made, in respect of his occasional resort to reason where it was least to be expected, as on the question of restrictions on marriage. [ ] but on such points he wavered; and otherwise he is merely scripturalist. the infinite superiority of christ to all other men, and christ's virtual authorship of the entire scriptures, are his premisses--a way of begging the question so simple-minded that it is clear the other side was not heard in reply, though these arguments had formed part of his theological lectures, [ ] and so pre-supposed a real opposition. wiclif was in short a typical protestant in his unquestioning acceptance of the bible as a supernatural authority; and when his demand for the publication of the bible in english was met by "worldly clerks" with the cry that it would "set christians in debate, and subjects to rebel against their sovereigns," he could only protest that they "openly slander god, the author of peace, and his holy law." later english history proved that the worldly clerks were perfectly right, and wiclif the erring optimist of faith. for the rest, his essentially dogmatic view of religion did nothing to counteract the spirit of persecution; and the passing of the statute for the burning of heretics in , with the ready consent of both houses of parliament, constituted the due dogmatic answer to dogmatic criticism. yet within a few years the commons were proposing to confiscate the revenues of the higher clergy: [ ] so far was anti-clericalism from implying heterodoxy. § . thought in france as regards france, the record of intellectual history between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries is hardly less scanty than as regards england. in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the intellectual life of the french philosophic schools, as we saw, was more vigorous and expansive than that of any other country; so that, looking further to the provençal literature and to the french beginnings of gothic architecture, france might even be said to prepare the renaissance. [ ] outside of the schools, too, there was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a notable dissemination of partially philosophical thought among the middle-class laity. at that period the anti-clerical tendency was strongest in france, where in the thirteenth century lay scholarship stood highest. in the reign of philippe le bel (end of thirteenth century) was composed the poem fauvel, by françois de rues, which is a direct attack on pope and clergy; [ ] and in the famous roman de la rose, as developed by jean le clopinel (= the limper) of meung-sur-loire, there enters, without any criticism of the christian creed, an element of all-round naturalism which indirectly must have made for reason. begun by guillaume de lorris in the time of st. louis in a key of sentiment and lyricism, the poem is carried on by jean de meung under philippe le bel in a spirit of criticism, cynicism, science, and satire, which tells of many developments in forty years. the continuation can hardly have been written, as some literary historians assume, about its author's twenty-fifth year; but it may be dated with some certainty between and . to the work of his predecessor, amounting to less than , lines, he added , , pouring forth a medley of scholarship, pedantry, philosophic reflection, speculation on the process of nature and the structure and ills of society, on property, morals, marriage, witchcraft, the characters of women, monks, friars, aristocrats--the whole pageant of medieval knowledge and fancy. the literary power of the whole is great, and may be recommended to the general reader as comparing often with that shown in the satirical and social-didactic poems of burns, though without much of the breath of poetry. particularly noteworthy, in the historic retrospect, is the assimilization of the ancient stoic philosophy of "living according to nature," set forth in the name of a "reason" who is notably free from theological prepossessions. it is from this standpoint that jean de meung assails the mendicant friars and the monks in general: he would have men recognize the natural laws of life; and he carries the principle to the length of insisting on the artificial nature of aristocracy and monarchy, which are justifiable only as far as they subserve the common good. thus he rises above the medieval literary prejudice against the common people, whose merit he recognizes as montaigne did later. on the side of science, he expressly denies [ ] that comets carry any such message as was commonly ascribed to them alike by popular superstition and by theology--a stretch of freethinking perhaps traceable to seneca, but nonetheless centuries in advance of the christendom of the time. [ ] on the side of religion, again, he is one of the first to vindicate the lay conception of christian excellence as against the ecclesiastical. his naturalism, so far, worked consistently in making him at once anti-ascetic and anti-supernaturalist. it is not to be inferred, however, that jean de meung had learned to doubt the validity of the christian creed. his long poem, one of the most popular books in europe for two hundred years, could never have had its vogue if its readers could have suspected it to be even indirectly anti-christian. he can hardly have held, as some historians believe, [ ] the status of a preaching friar; but he claims that he neither blames nor defames religion, [ ] respecting it in all forms, provided it be "humble and loyal." he was in fact a man of some wealth, much culture, and orderly in life, thus standing out from the earlier "goliard" type. when, then, he pronounces nature "the minister of this earthly state," "vicar and constable of the eternal emperor," he has no thought of dethroning deity, or even of setting aside the christian faith. in his rhymed testament he expresses himself quite piously, and lectures monks and women in an edifying fashion. to say therefore that jean de meung's part of the roman de la rose is a "popular satire on the beliefs of romanism" (owen, skeptics of ital. renais. p. ) is to misstate the case. his doctrine is rather an intellectual expression of the literary reaction against asceticism (cp. bartoli, storia della letteratura italiana, i, , quoting lenient) which had been spontaneously begun by the goliards and troubadours. at the same time the poem does stand for the new secular spirit alike in "its ingrained religion and its nascent freethought" (saintsbury, p. ); and with the reynard epic it may be taken as representing the beginning of "a whole revolution, the resurgence and affirmation of the laity, the new force which is to transform the world, against the church" (bartoli, storia, i, ; cp. demogeot, hist. de la litt. fr. e éd. pp. - , ; lanson, pp. - ). the frequent flings at the clergy (cp. the partly chaucerian english version, skeat's ed. of chaucer's works, i, ; bell's ed. iv, ) were sufficient to draw upon this as upon other medieval poems of much secular vogue the anger of "the church" (sismondi, lit. of south. europe, i, ); but they were none the less relished by believing readers. "the church" was in fact not an entity of one mind; and some of its sections enjoyed satire directed against the others. when, then, we speak of the anti-clerical character of much medieval poetry, we must guard against exaggerated implications. it is somewhat of a straining of the facts, for instance, to say of the humorous tale of reynard the fox, so widely popular in the thirteenth century, that it is essentially anti-clerical to the extent that "reynard is laic: isengrim [the wolf] is clerical" (bartoli, storia della letteratura italiana, i, ; cp. owen, skeptics of the italian renaissance, p. ). the reynard epic, in origin a simple humorous animal-story, had various later forms. some of these, as the latin poem, and especially the version attributed to peter of st. cloud, were markedly anti-clerical, the latter exhibiting a spirit of all-round profanity hardly compatible with belief (cp. gervinus, geschichte der deutschen dichtung, te ausg. i, - ; gebhart, les origines de la renais. en italie, , p. ); but the version current in the netherlands, which was later rendered into english prose by caxton, is of a very different character (gervinus, p. sq.). in caxton's version it is impossible to regard reynard as laic and isengrim as clerical; though in the latin and other versions the wolf figures as monk or abbot. (see also the various shorter satires published by grimm in his reinhart fuchs, .) often the authorship is itself clerical, one party or order satirizing another; sometimes the spirit is religious, sometimes markedly irreverent. (gervinus, pp. - ). "la plupart de ces satires sont l'oeuvre des moines et des abbés" (lenient, la satire en france au moyen âge, , préf. p. ); and to say that these men were often irreligious is not to say that they were rationalists. it is to be remembered that nascent protestantism in england under henry viii resorted to the weapons of obscene parody (blunt, ref. of ch. of england, ed. , i, , note). "in fine," we may say with a judicious french historian, "one cannot get out of his time, and the time was not come to be non-christian. jean de meung did not perceive that his thought put him outside the church, and upset her foundations. he is believing and pious, like rutebeuf.... the gospel is his rule: he holds it; he defends it; he disputes with those who seem to him to depart from it; he makes himself the champion of the old faith against the novelties of the eternal gospel.... his situation is that of the first reformers of the sixteenth century, who believed themselves to serve jesus christ in using their reason, and who very sincerely, very piously, hoped for the reform of the church through the progress of philosophy." [ ] "nevertheless," adds the same historian, "one cannot exaggerate the real weight of the work. by his philosophy, which consists essentially in the identity, the sovereignty, of nature and reason, he is the first link in the chain which connects rabelais, montaigne, molière; to which voltaire also links himself, and even in certain regards boileau." [ ] men could not then see whither the principle of "nature" and reason was to lead, yet even in the age of jean de meung the philosophic heads went far, and he can hardly have missed knowing as much, if, as is supposed, he studied at paris, as he certainly lived and died there. in the latter part of the thirteenth century, as before noted, rationalism at the paris university was frequently carried in private to a rejection of all the dogmas peculiar to christianity. at that great school roger bacon seems to have acquired his encyclopædic learning and his critical habit; and there it was that in the first half of the fourteenth century william of occam nourished his remarkable philosophic faculty. from about the middle of the fourteenth century, however, there is a relative arrest of french progress for some two centuries. [ ] three main conditions served to check intellectual advance: the civil wars which involved the loss of the communal liberties which had been established in france between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries; [ ] the exhaustion of the nation by the english invasion under edward iii; the repressive power of the church; and the general devotion of the national energies to war. after the partial recovery from the ruinous english invasion under edward iii, civil strifes and feudal tyranny wrought new impoverishment, making possible the still more destructive invasion under henry v; so that in the first half of the fifteenth century france was hardly more civilized than england. [ ] it is from the french invasion of italy under charles viii that the enduring renascence in france broadly dates. earlier impulses had likewise come from italy: lanfranc, anselm, peter lombard, thomas aquinas, and others of lesser note, [ ] had gone from italy to teach in france or england; but it needed the full contact of italian civilization to raise monarchic france to the stage of general and independent intellectual life. during the period in question, there had been established the following universities: paris, ; toulouse, ; montpellier, ; avignon, ; orléans, ; cahors, ; angers, ; orange, ; dôle, ; poitiers, ; caen, ; valence, ; nantes, ; bourges, ; bordeaux, (desmaze, l'université de paris, , p. . other dates for some of these are given on p. ). but the militarist conditions prevented any sufficient development of such opportunities. in the fourteenth century, says littré (Études sur les barbares, p. ), "the university of paris ... was more powerful than at any other epoch.... never did she exercise such a power over men's minds." but he also decides that in that epoch the first florescence of french literature withered away (p. ). the long location of the anti-papacy at avignon ( - ) doubtless counted for something in french culture (v. le clerc, hist. litt. de la france au xive siècle, i, ; gebhart, pp. - ); but the devastation wrought by the english invasion was sufficient to countervail that and more. see the account of it by petrarch (letter of the year ) cited by littré, Études, pp. - ; and by hallam, middle ages, i, , note. cp. michelet, hist. de france, vi, ch. iii; dunton, england in the fifteenth century, , pp. - . as to the consequences of the english invasion of the fifteenth century see martin, hist. de france, e édit. vi, - ; sismondi, hist. des français, , xii, ; hallam, middle ages, i, - . in northern france of the fourteenth century, as in provence and italy and england, there was a manifold stir of innovation and heresy: there as elsewhere the insubordinate franciscans, with their eternal gospel, the paterini, the beghards, fought their way against the dominican inquisition. but the inquisitors burned books as well as men; and much anti-ecclesiastical poetry, some dating even from the carlovingian era, shared the fate of many copies of the talmud, translations of the bible, and, à fortiori, every species of heretical writing. in effect, the inquisition for the time "extinguished freethought" [ ] in france. as in england, the ferment of heresy was mixed with one of democracy; and in the french popular poetry of the time there are direct parallels to the contemporary english couplet, "when adam delved and eve span, where was then the gentleman?" [ ] such a spirit could no more prosper in feudal france than in feudal england; and when france emerged from her mortal struggle with the english, to be effectively solidified by louis xi, there was left in her life little of the spirit of free inquiry. it has been noted that whereas the chronicler joinville, in the thirteenth century, is full of religious feeling, froissart, in the fourteenth, priest as he is, exhibits hardly any; and again comines, in the fifteenth, reverts to the orthodoxy of the twelfth and thirteenth. [ ] the middle period was one of indifference, following on the killing out of heresy: [ ] the fifteenth century is a resumption of the middle ages, and comines has the medieval cast of mind, [ ] although of a superior order. there seems to be no community of thought between him and his younger italian contemporaries, machiavelli and guicciardini; though, "even while comines was writing, there were unequivocal symptoms of a great and decisive change." [ ] the special development in france of the spirit of "chivalry" had joined the normal uncivilizing influence of militarism with that of clericalism; the various knightly orders, as well as knighthood pure and simple, being all under ecclesiastical sanctions, and more or less strictly vowed to "defend the church," [ ] while supremely incompetent to form an intelligent opinion. it is the more remarkable that in the case of one of the crusading orders heresy of the most blasphemous kind was finally charged against the entire organization, and that it was on that ground annihilated ( ). it remains incredible, however, that the order of the templars can have systematically practised the extravagances or held the tenets laid to their charge. they had of course abused their power and departed from their principles like every other religious order enabled to amass wealth; and the hostility theirs aroused is perfectly intelligible from what is known of the arrogance of its members and the general ruffianism of the crusaders. their wealth alone goes far to explain the success of their enemies against them; for, though the numbers of the order were much smaller than tradition gives out, its possessions were considerable. these were the true ground of the french king's attack. [ ] but that its members were as a rule either cathari or anti-christians, either disguised moslems or deists, or that they practised obscenity by rule, there is no reason to believe. what seems to have happened was a resort by some unbelieving members to more or less gross burlesque of the mysteries of initiation--a phenomenon paralleled in ancient greece and in the modern catholic world, and implying rather hardy irreligion than any reasoned heresy whatever. the long-continued dispute as to the guilt of the knights templars is still chronically re-opened. hallam, after long hesitation, came finally to believe them guilty, partly on the strength of the admissions made by michelet in defending them (europe in the middle ages, th ed. i, - --note of ). he attaches, however, a surprising weight to the obviously weak "architectural evidence" cited by hammer-purgstall. heeren (essai sur l'influence des croisades, , pp. - ) takes a more judicial view. the excellent summing-up of lea (hist. of the inquis. bk. iii, ch. v, pp. - ) perhaps gives too little weight to the mass of curious confirmatory evidence cited by writers on the other side (e.g., f. nicolai, versuch über die beschuldigungen welche dem tempelherrenorden gemacht worden, ); but his conclusion as to the falsity of the charges against the order as a whole seems irresistible. the solution that offensive practices occurred irregularly (lea, pp. - ) is pointed to even by the earlier hostile writers (nicolai, p. ). it seems to be certain that the initiatory rites included the act of spitting on the crucifix--presumptively a symbolic display of absolute obedience to the orders of those in command (jolly, philippe le bel, pp. - ). that there was no catharism in the order seems certain (lea, p. ). the suggestion that the offensive and burlesque practices were due to the lower grade of "serving brethren," who were contemned by the higher, seems, however, without firm foundation. the courage for such freaks, and the disposition to commit them, were rather more likely to arise among the crusaders of the upper class, who could come in contact with moslem-christian unbelief through those of sicily. for the further theory that the "freemasons" (at that period really cosmopolitan guilds of masons) were already given to freethinking, there is again no evidence. that they at times deliberately introduced obscene symbols into church architecture is no proof that they were collectively unbelievers in the church's doctrines; though it is likely enough that some of them were. obscenity is the expression not of an intellectual but of a physical and unreasoning bias, and can perfectly well concur with religious feeling. the fact that the medieval masons did not confine obscene symbols to the churches they built for the templars (hallam, as cited, pp. - ) should serve to discredit alike the theory that the templars were systematically anti-christian, and the theory that the freemasons were so. that for centuries the builders of the christian churches throughout europe formed an anti-christian organization is a grotesque hypothesis. at most they indulged in freaks of artistic satire on the lines of contemporary satirical literature, expressing an anti-clerical bias, with perhaps occasional elements of blasphemy. (see menzel, gesch. der deutschen, cap. , note.) it could well be that there survived among the freemasons various gnostic ideas; since the architectural art itself came in a direct line from antiquity. such heresy, too, might conceivably be winked at by the church, which depended so much on the heretics' services. but their obscenities were the mere expression of the animal imagination and normal salacity of all ages. only in modern times, and that only in catholic countries, has the derivative organization of freemasonry been identified with freethought propaganda. in england in the seventeenth century the freemasonic clubs--no longer connected with any trade--were thoroughly royalist and orthodox (nicolai, pp. - ), as they have always remained. some remarkable intellectual phenomena, however, do connect with the french university life of the first half of the fourteenth century. william of occam (d. ), the english franciscan, who taught at paris, is on the whole the most rationalistic of medieval philosophers. though a pupil of the realist duns scotus, he became the renewer of nominalism, which is the specifically rationalistic as opposed to the religious mode of metaphysic; and his anti-clerical bias was such that he had to fly from france to bavaria for protection from the priesthood. his disputatio super potestate ecclesiastica, and his defensorium directed against pope john xxii (or xxi), were so uncompromising that in the pope gave directions for his prosecution. what came of the step is not known; but in we find him actually imprisoned with two italian comrades in the papal palace at avignon. thence they made their escape to bavaria. [ ] to the same refuge fled marsiglio of padua, author (with john of jandun) of the defensor pacis ( ), "the greatest and most original political treatise of the middle ages," [ ] in which it is taught that, though monarchy may be expedient, the sovereignty of the state rests with the people, and the hereditary principle is flatly rejected; while it is insisted that the church properly consists of all christians, and that the clergy's authority is restricted to spiritual affairs and moral suasion. [ ] of all medieval writers on politics before machiavelli he is the most modern. only less original is occam, who at paris came much under marsiglio's influence. his philosophic doctrines apparently derive from pierre aureol (petrus aureolus, d. ), who with remarkable clearness and emphasis rejected both realism and the doctrine that what the mind perceives are not realities, but formæ speculares. pierre it was who first enounced the law of parsimony in philosophy and science--that causes are not to be multiplied beyond mental necessity--which is specially associated with the name of occam. [ ] both anticipated modern criticism [ ] alike of the platonic and the aristotelian philosophy; and occam in particular drew so decided a line between the province of reason and that of faith that there can be little doubt on which side his allegiance lay. [ ] his dialectic is for its time as remarkable as is that of hume, four centuries later. the most eminent orthodox thinker of the preceding century had been the franciscan john duns scotus ( or - ), who, after teaching great crowds of students at oxford, was transferred in to paris, and in to cologne, where he died. a realist in his philosophy, duns scotus opposed the aristotelian scholasticism, and in particular criticized thomas aquinas as having unduly subordinated faith and practice to speculation and theory. the number of matters of faith which thomas had held to be demonstrable by reason, accordingly, was by duns scotus much reduced; and, applying his anti-rationalism to current belief, he fought zealously for the dogma that mary, like jesus, was immaculately conceived. [ ] but occam, turning his predecessor's tactic to a contrary purpose, denied that any matter of faith was demonstrable by reason at all. he granted that on rational grounds the existence of a god was probable, but denied that it was strictly demonstrable, and rejected the ontological argument of anselm. as to matters of faith, he significantly observed that the will to believe the indemonstrable is meritorious. [ ] it is difficult now to recover a living sense of the issues at stake in the battle between nominalism and realism, and of the social atmosphere in which the battle was carried on. broadly speaking, the nominalists were the more enlightened school, the realists standing for tradition and authority; and it has been alleged that "the books of the nominalists, though the art of printing tended strongly to preserve them, were suppressed and destroyed to such a degree that it is now exceedingly difficult to collect them, and not easy to obtain copies even of the most remarkable." [ ] on the other hand, while we have seen occam a fugitive before clerical enmity, we shall see nominalists agreeing to persecute a realist to the death in the person of huss in the following century. so little was there to choose between the camps in the matter of sound civics; and so easily could the hierarchy wear the colours of any philosophical system. contemporary with occam was durand de st. pourçain, who became a bishop (d. ), and, after ranking as of the school of thomas aquinas, rejected and opposed its doctrine. with all this heresy in the air, the principle of "double truth," originally put in currency by averroïsm, came to be held in france as in italy, in a sense which implied the consciousness that theological truth is not truth at all. [ ] occam's pupil, buridan, rector of the university of paris (fl. ), substantially avoided theology, and dealt with moral and intellectual problems on their own merits. [ ] it is recorded by albert of saxony, who studied at paris in the first half of the century, that one of his teachers held by the theory of the motion of the earth. [ ] even a defender of church doctrines, pierre d'ailly, accepted occam's view of theism, [ ] and it appears to be broadly true that occam had at paris an unbroken line of successors down to the reformation. [ ] in a world in which the doctrine of a two-fold truth provided a safety-valve for heresy, such a philosophical doctrine as his could not greatly affect lay thought; but at paris university in the year there was a startling display of freethinking by the philosophical students, not a little suggestive of a parody of the averroïst propositions denounced by the bishop of paris exactly a century before. under cover of the doctrine of two-fold truth they propounded a list of theses, in which they ( ) denied the trinity, the divinity of jesus, the resurrection, and the immortality of the soul; ( ) affirmed the eternity of matter and the uselessness of prayer, but also posited the principles of astrology; ( ) argued that the higher powers of the soul are incapable of sin, and that voluntary sexual intercourse between the unmarried is not sinful; and ( ) suggested that there are fables and falsehoods in the gospels as in other books. [ ] the element of youthful gasconnade in the performance is obvious, and the archbishop sharply scolded the students; but there must have been much free discussion before such a manifesto could have been produced. nevertheless, untoward political conditions prevented any dissemination of the freethinking spirit in france; and not for some two centuries was there such another growth of it. the remarkable case of nicolaus of autricuria, who in was forced to recant his teaching of the atomistic doctrine, [ ] illustrates at once the persistence of the spirit of reason in times of darkness, and the impossibility of its triumphing in the wrong conditions. § . thought in the teutonic countries the life of the rest of europe in the later medieval period has little special significance in the history of freethought. france and italy, by german admission, were the lands of the medieval aufklärung. [ ] the poetry of the german minnesingers, a growth from that of the troubadours, presented the same anti-clerical features; [ ] and the story of reynard the fox was turned to anti-ecclesiastical purpose in germany as in france. the relative freethinking set up by the crusaders' contact with the saracens seems to be the source of doubt of the minnesinger freidank concerning the doom of hell-fire on heretics and heathens, the opinion of walter der vogelweide that christians, jews, and moslems all serve the same god, [ ] and still more mordant heresy. but such bold freethinking did not spread. material prosperity rather than culture was the main feature of german progress in the middle ages; architecture being the only art greatly developed. heresy of the anti-ecclesiastical order indeed abounded, and was duly persecuted; but the higher freethinking developments were in the theosophic rather than the rationalistic direction. albert the great (fl. ), "the universal doctor," the chief german teacher of the middle ages, was of unimpeached orthodoxy. [ ] the principal german figure of the period is master eckhart (d. ), who, finding religious beliefs excluded from the sphere of reason by the freer philosophy of his day, undertook to show that they were all matters of reason. he was, in fact, a mystically reasoning preacher, and he taught in the interests of popular religion. naturally, as he philosophized on old bases, he did not really subject his beliefs to any skeptical scrutiny, but took them for granted and proceeded speculatively upon them. this sufficed to bring him before the inquisition at cologne, where he recanted conditionally on an appeal to the pope. dying soon after, he escaped the papal bull condemning twenty-eight of his doctrines. his school later divided into a heretical and a church party, of which the former, called the "false free spirits," seems to have either joined or resembled the antinomian brethren of the free spirit, then numerous in germany. the other section became known as the "friends of god," a species of mystics who were "faithful to the whole medieval imaginative creed, transubstantiation, worship of the virgin and saints, purgatory." [ ] through tauler and others, eckhart's pietistic doctrine gave a lead to later protestant evangelicalism; but the system as a whole can never have been held by any popular body. [ ] dr. lasson pronounces (ueberweg, i, ) that the type of eckhart's character and teaching "was derived from the innermost essence of the german national character." at the same time he admits that all the offshoots of the school departed more or less widely from eckhart's type--that is, from the innermost essence of their own national character. it would be as plausible to say that the later mysticism of fénelon derived from the innermost essence of the french character. the imitatio christi has been similarly described as expressing the german character, on the assumption that it was written by thomas à kempis. many have held that the author was the frenchman gerson (hallam, lit. of europe, ed. , i, - ). it was in all probability, as was held by suarez, the work of several hands, one a monk of the twelfth century, another a monk of the thirteenth, and the third a theologian of the fifteenth; neither gerson nor thomas à kempis being concerned (le clerc, hist. litt. du xive siècle, e édit. pp. - ; cp. neale's hist. of the so-called jansenist church of holland, , pp. - ). the imitatio christi ( ), the most popular christian work of devotion ever published, [ ] tells all the while of the obscure persistence of the search for knowledge and for rational satisfactions. whatever be the truth as to its authorship, it belongs to all christendom in respect of its querulous strain of protest against all manner of intellectual curiosity. after the first note of world-renunciation, the call to absorption in the inner religious life, there comes the sharp protest against the "desire to know." "surely an humble husbandman that serveth god is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, laboureth to understand the course of the heavens.... cease from an inordinate desire of knowing." [ ] no sooner is the reader warned to consider himself the frailest of all men than he is encouraged to look down on all reasoners. "what availeth it to cavil and dispute much about dark and hidden things, when for being ignorant of them we shall not be so much as reproved at the day of judgment? it is a great folly to neglect the things that are profitable and necessary, and give our minds to that which is curious and hurtful.... and what have we to do with genus and species, the dry notions of logicians?" [ ] the homily swings to and fro between occasional admissions that "learning is not to be blamed," perhaps interpolated by one who feared to have religion figure as opposed to knowledge, and recurrent flings--perhaps also interpolated--at all who seek book-lore or physical science; but the note of distrust of reason prevails. "where are all those doctors and masters whom thou didst well know whilst they lived and flourished in learning? now others have their livings, and perchance scarce ever think of them. while they lived they seemed something, but now they are not spoken of." [ ] it belongs to the whole conception of retreat and aloofness that the devout man should "meddle not with curiosities, but read such things as may rather yield compunction to his heart than occupation to his head"; and the last chapter of the last book closes on the note of the abnegation of reason. "human reason is feeble and may be deceived, but true faith cannot be deceived. all reason and natural search ought to follow faith, not to go before it, nor to break in upon it.... if the works of god were such that they might be easily comprehended by human reason, they could not be justly called marvellous or unspeakable." thus the very inculcation of humility, by its constant direction against all intellectual exercise, becomes an incitement to a spiritual arrogance; and all manner of science finds in the current ideal of piety its pre-ordained antagonist. chapter x freethought in the renaissance § . the italian evolution what is called the renaissance was, broadly speaking, an evolution of the culture forces seen at work in the later "middle ages," newly fertilized by the recovery of classic literature; and we shall have to revert at several points of our survey to what we have been considering as "medieval" in order to perceive the "new birth." the term is inconveniently vague, and is made to cover different periods, sometimes extending from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, sometimes signifying only the fifteenth. it seems reasonable to apply it, as regards italy, to the period in which southern culture began to outgo that of france, and kept its lead--that is, from the end of the fourteenth century [ ] to the time of the counter-reformation. that is a comparatively distinct sociological era. renascent italy is, after ancient greece, the great historical illustration of the sociological law that the higher civilizations arise through the passing-on of seeds of culture from older to newer societies, under conditions that specially foster them and give them freer growth. the straitened and archaic pictorial art of byzantium, unprogressive in the hidebound life of the eastern empire, developed in the free and striving italian communities till it paralleled the sculpture of ancient greece; and it is to be said for the church that, however she might stifle rational thought, she economically elicited the arts of painting and architecture (statuary being tabooed as too much associated with pagan worships), even as greek religion had promoted architecture and sculpture. by force, however, of the tendency of the arts to keep religion anthropomorphic where deeper culture is lacking, popular belief in renaissance italy was substantially on a par with that of polytheistic greece. before the general recovery of ancient literature, the main motives to rationalism, apart from the tendency of the aristotelian philosophy to set up doubts about creation and providence and a future state, were ( ) the spectacle of the competing creed of islam, [ ] made known to the italians first by intercourse with the moors, later by the crusades; and further and more fully by the saracenized culture of sicily and commercial intercourse with the east; ( ) the spectacle of the strife of creeds within christendom; [ ] and ( ) the spectacle of the worldliness and moral insincerity of the bulk of the clergy. it is in that atmosphere that the renaissance begins; and it may be said that freethought stood veiled beside its cradle. in such an atmosphere, even on the ecclesiastical side, demand for "reforms" naturally made headway; and the council of constance ( - ) was convened to enact many besides the ending of the schism. [ ] but the council itself was followed by seven hundred prostitutes; [ ] and its relation to the intellectual life was defined by its bringing about, on a charge of heresy, the burning of john huss, who had come under a letter of safe-conduct from the emperor. the baseness of the act was an enduring blot on the church; and a hundred years later, in a germany with small goodwill to bohemia, luther made it one of his foremost indictments of the hierarchy. but in the interim the spirit of reform had come to nothing. cut off from much of the force that was needed to effect any great moral revolution in the church, the reforming movement soon fell away, [ ] and the church was left to ripen for later and more drastic treatment. how far, nevertheless, anti-clericalism could go among the scholarly class even in italy is seen in the career of one of the leading humanists of the renaissance, lorenzo valla ( - ). in the work of his youth, de voluptate et vero bono, a hardy vindication of aggressive epicureanism--at a time when the title of epicurean stood for freethinker [ ]--he plainly sets up a rationalist standard, affirming that science is founded on reason and nature, and that nature is god. not content with a theoretic defiance of the faith, he violently attacked the church. it was probably to the protection of alfonso of aragon, king of naples, who though pious was not pro-clerical, [ ] that valla was able to do what he did, above all to write his famous treatise, de falso credita et ementita constantini donatione, wherein he definitely proved once for all that the "donation" in question was a fiction. [ ] such an opinion had been earlier maintained at the council of basle by Æneas sylvius, afterwards pope pius ii, and before him by the remarkable nicolaus of cusa; [ ] but when the existence of valla's work was known he had to fly from rome afresh ( ) to naples, where he had previously been protected for seven years. applying the same critical spirit to more sacrosanct literature, he impugned the authenticity of the apostles' creed, and of the letter of abgarus to jesus christ, given by eusebius; proceeding further to challenge many of the mistranslations in the vulgate. [ ] for his untiring propaganda he was summoned before the inquisition at naples, but as usual was protected by the king, whom he satisfied by professing faith in the dogmas of the church, as distinguished from ecclesiastical history and philology. it was characteristic of the life of italy, hopelessly committed on economic grounds to the church, that valla finally sought and found reconciliation with the papacy. he knew that his safety at naples depended on the continued anti-papalism of the throne; he yearned for the society of rome; and his heart was all the while with the cause of latin scholarship rather than with that of a visionary reformation. in his as in so many cases, accordingly, intellectual rectitude gave way to lower interests; and he made unblushing offers of retractation to cardinals and pope. in view of the extreme violence of his former attacks, [ ] it is not surprising that the reigning pope, eugenius iv, refused to be appeased; but on the election of nicholas v ( ) he was sent for; and he died secretary to the curia and canon of st. john lateran. [ ] where so much of anti-clericalism could find harbourage within the church, there was naturally no lack of it without; and from the period of boccaccio till the catholic reaction after the reformation a large measure of anti-clerical feeling is a constant feature in italian life. it was so ingrained that the church had on the whole to leave it alone. from pope to monk the mass of the clergy had forfeited respect; and gibes at their expense were household words, [ ] and the basis of popular songs. tommaso guardati of salerno, better known as masuccio, attacks all orders of clergy in his collection of tales with such fury that only the protection of the court of naples could well have saved him; and yet he was a good catholic. [ ] the popular poetic literature, with certain precautions, carried the anti-clerical spirit as far as to parade a humorous non-literary skepticism, putting in the mouths of the questionable characters in its romances all manner of anti-religious opinions which it would be unsafe to print as one's own, but which in this way reached appreciative readers who were more or less in sympathy with the author's sentiments and stratagems. the morgante maggiore of pulci ( ) is the great type of such early voltairean humour: [ ] it revives the spirit of the goliards, and passes unscathed in the new renaissance world, where the earlier provençal impiety had gone the way of the inquisition bonfire, books and men alike. beneath its mockery there is a constant play of rational thought, and every phase of contemporary culture is glanced at in the spirit of always unembittered humour which makes pulci "the most lovable among the great poets of the renaissance." [ ] it is noteworthy that pulci is found affirming the doctrine of an antipodes with absolute openness, and with impunity, over a hundred years before galileo. this survival of ancient pagan science seems to have been obscurely preserved all through the middle ages. in the eighth century, as we have seen, the priest feargal or vergilius, of bavaria, was deposed from his office by the pope, on the urging of st. boniface, for maintaining it; but he was reinstated, died a bishop, and became a saint; and not only that doctrine, but that of the two-fold motion of the earth, was affirmed with impunity before pulci by nicolaus of cusa [ ] (d. ); though in the fourteenth century nicolaus of autricuria had to recant his teaching of the atomistic theory. [ ] as pulci had specially satirized the clergy and ecclesiastical miracles, his body was refused burial in consecrated ground; but the general temper was such as to save him from clerical enmity up to that point. the inquisition too was now greatly enfeebled throughout central and northern as well as southern italy. in the materialist, mathematician, and astrologer amadeo de' landi, of milan, was accused of heresy by the orthodox franciscans. not only was he acquitted, but his chief accuser was condemned in turn to make public retractation, which he however declined to do. [ ] fifty years later the inquisition was still nearly powerless. in we find a freethinking physician at bologna, gabriele de salò, protected by his patrons against its wrath, although he "was in the habit of maintaining that christ was not god, but the son of joseph and mary ...; that by his cunning he had deceived the world; that he may have died on the cross on account of crimes which he had committed," [ ] and so forth. nineteen years before, galeotto marcio had come near being burned for writing that any man who lived uprightly according to his own conscience would go to heaven, whatever his faith; and it needed the pope, sixtus iv, his former pupil, to save him from the inquisition. [ ] others, who went further, ran similar risks; and in giorgio da novara was burned at bologna, presumptively for denying the divinity of jesus. [ ] a bishop of aranda, however, is said to have done the same with impunity, in the same year, [ ] besides rejecting hell and purgatory, and denouncing indulgences as a device of the popes to fill their pockets. during this period too the philosophy of averroës, as set forth in his "great commentary" on aristotle, was taught in north italy with an outspokenness not before known. gaetano of siena began to lecture on the commentary at padua in ; it was in part printed there in ; and from to nicoletto vernias seems to have taught, in the paduan chair of philosophy, the averroïst doctrine of the world-soul, thus virtually denying the christian doctrine of immortality. violent opposition was raised when his pupil niphus (nifo) printed similar doctrine in a treatise de intellectu et dæmonibus ( ); but the professors when necessary disclaimed the more dangerous tenets of averroïsm. [ ] nifo it was who put into print the maxim of his tribe: loquendum est ut plures, sententiendum ut pauci--"think with the few; speak with the majority." [ ] as in ancient greece, humorous blasphemy seems to have fared better than serious unbelief. [ ] as is remarked by hallam, the number of vindications of christianity produced in italy in the fifteenth century proves the existence of much unbelief; [ ] and it is clear that, apart from academic doubt, there was abundant freethinking among men of the world. [ ] erasmus was astonished at the unbelief he found in high quarters in rome. one ecclesiastic undertook to prove to him from pliny that there is no future state; others openly derided christ and the apostles; and many avowed to him that they had heard eminent papal functionaries blaspheming the mass. [ ] the biographer of pope paul ii has recorded how that pontiff found in his own court, among certain young men, the opinion that faith rested rather on trickeries of the saints (sanctorum astutiis) than on evidence; which opinion the pope eradicated. [ ] but in the career of perugino ( - ), who from being a sincerely religious painter became a skeptic in his wrath against the church which slew savonarola, [ ] we have evidence of a movement of things which no papal fiat could arrest. as to the beliefs of the great artists in general we have little information. employed as they so often were in painting religious subjects for the churches, they must as a rule have conformed outwardly; and the artistic temper is more commonly credent than skeptical. but in the case of one of the greatest, leonardo da vinci ( - ), we have evidence of a continual play of critical scrutiny on the world, and a continual revolt against mere authority, which seem incompatible with any acceptance of christian dogma. in his many notes, unpublished till modern times, his universal genius plays so freely upon so many problems that he cannot be supposed to have ignored those of religion. his stern appraisement of the mass of men [ ] carries with it no evangelical qualifications; his passion for knowledge is not christian; [ ] and his reiterated rejection of the principle of authority in science [ ] and in literature [ ] tells of a spirit which, howsoever it might practise reticence, cannot have been inwardly docile to either priesthood or tradition. in all his reflections upon philosophic and scientific themes he is, in the scientific sense, materialistic--that is, inductive, studious of experiment, insistent upon tangible data. [ ] "wisdom is daughter of experience"; [ ] "truth is the daughter of time"; [ ] "there is no effect in nature without a reason"; [ ] "all our knowledge originates in sensations" [ ]--such are the dicta he accumulates in an age of superstition heightened by the mutability of life, of ecclesiastical tyranny tempered only by indifferentism, of faith in astrology and amulets, of benumbing tradition in science and philosophy. on the problem of the phenomena of fossil shells he pronounces with a searching sagacity of inference [ ] that seems to reveal at once the extent to which the advance of science has been blocked by pious obscurantism. [ ] in all directions we see the great artist, a century before bacon, anticipating bacon's protests and questionings, and this with no such primary bias to religion as bacon had acquired at his mother's knee. when he turns to the problems of body and spirit he is as dispassionate, as keenly speculative, as over those of external nature. [ ] of magic he is entirely contemptuous, not in the least on religious grounds, though he glances at these, but simply for the folly of it. [ ] all that tells of religious feeling in him is summed up in a few utterances expressive of a vague theism; [ ] while he has straight thrusts at religious fraud and absurdity. [ ] it is indeed improbable that a mind so necessitated to discourse of its thought, however gifted for prudent silence, can have subsisted without private sympathy from kindred souls. skepticism was admittedly abundant; and leonardo of all men can least have failed to reckon with its motives. perhaps the most fashionable form of quasi-freethinking in the italy of the fifteenth century was that which prevailed in the platonic academy of florence in the period, though the chief founder of the academy, marsilio ficino, wrote a defence of christianity, and his most famous adherent, giovanni pico della mirandola, planned another. renaissance platonism began with the greek georgios gemistos, surnamed plethon because of his devotion to plato, which was such as to scandalize common christians and exasperate aristotelians. the former had the real grievance that his system ostensibly embodied polytheism and logically involved pantheism; [ ] and one of his antagonists, gennadios georgios scolarios, who became patriarch of constantinople, caused his book on laws to be burned; [ ] but the allegation of his aristotelian enemy and countryman, georgios trapezuntios, that he prayed to the sun as creator of the world, [ ] is only one of the polemical amenities of the period. ostensibly he was a believing christian, stretching christian love to accommodate the beliefs of plato; but it was not zeal for orthodoxy that moved cosimo dei medici, at florence, to embrace the new platonism, and train up marsilio ficino to be its prophet. the furor allegoricus which inspired the whole school [ ] was much more akin to ancient gnosticism than to orthodox christianity, and constantly points to pantheism [ ] as the one philosophic solution of its ostensible polytheism. when, too, ficino undertakes to vindicate christianity against the unbelievers in his della religione cristiana, "the most solid arguments that he can find in its favour are the answers of the sibyls, and the prophecies of the coming of jesus christ to be found in virgil, plato, plotinus, and porphyry." [ ] how far such a spirit of expatiation and speculation, however visionary and confused, tended to foster heresy is seen in the brief career of the once famous young pico della mirandola, ficino's wealthy pupil. parading a portentous knowledge of tongues [ ] and topics at the age of twenty-four, he undertook ( ) to maintain a list of nine hundred conclusiones or propositions at rome against all comers, and to pay their expenses. though he had obtained the permission of the pope, innocent viii, the challenge speedily elicited angry charges of heresy against certain of the theses, and the pope had to stop the proceedings and issue an ecclesiastical commission of inquiry. some of the propositions were certainly ill adjusted to catholic ideas, in particular the sayings that "neither the cross of christ nor any image is to be adored adoratione latriæ"--with worship; that no one believes what he believes merely because he wishes to; and that jesus did not physically descend into hell. [ ] pico, retiring to florence, defended himself in an apologia, which provoked fresh outcry; whereupon he was summoned to proceed to rome; and though the powerful friendship of lorenzo dei medici procured a countermand of the order, it was not till that he received, from alexander vi, a full papal remission. among the unachieved projects of his later life, which ended at the age of thirty-one, was that of a treatise adversus hostes ecclesiæ, to be divided into seven sections, the first dealing with "the avowed and open enemies of christianity," and the second with "atheists and those who reject every religious system upon their own reasoning"; and the others with jews, moslems, idolaters, heretics, and unrighteous believers. [ ] the vogue of unbelief thus signified was probably increased by the whole speculative habit of pico's own school, [ ] which tended only less than averroïsm to a pantheism subversive of the christian creed. it is noteworthy that, while ficino believed devoutly in astrology, [ ] pico rejected it, and left among his confused papers a treatise against it which his nephew contrived to transcribe and publish; [ ] but it does not appear that this served either the cause of religion or that of science. the educated italian world, while political independence lasted, remained in various degrees freethinking, pantheistic, and given to astrology, no school or teacher combining rationalism in philosophy with sound scientific methods. one of the great literary figures of the later renaissance, niccolò machiavelli ( - ), is the standing proof of the divorce of the higher intelligence of italy from the faith as well as the cause of the church before the reformation. with this divorce he expressly charges the church itself, giving as the first proof of its malfeasance that the peoples nearest rome were the least religious. [ ] to him the church was the supreme evil in italian politics, [ ] the "stone in the wound." in a famous passage he gives his opinion that "our religion, having shown us the truth and the true way, makes us esteem less political honour (l'onore del mondo)"; and that whereas the pagan religion canonized only men crowned with public honour, as generals and statesmen, "our religion has glorified rather the humble and contemplative men than the active," placing the highest good in humility and abjection, teaching rather to suffer than to do, and so making the world debile and ready to be a prey to scoundrels. [ ] the passage which follows, putting the blame on men for thus misreading their religion, is a fair sample of the grave mockery with which the men of that age veiled their unfaith. [ ] machiavelli was reputed in his own world an atheist; [ ] and he certainly was no religionist. he indeed never avows atheism, but neither did any other writer of the epoch; [ ] and the whole tenour of his writings is that of a man who had at least put aside the belief in a prayer-answering deity; [ ] though, with the intellectual arbitrariness which still affected all the thought of his age, he avows a belief that all great political changes are heralded by prodigies, celestial signs, prophecies, or revelations [ ]--here conforming to the ordinary superstition of his troublous time. it belongs, further, to the manifold self-contradiction of the renaissance that, holding none of the orthodox religious beliefs, he argues insistently and at length for the value and importance of religion, however untrue, as a means to political strength. through five successive chapters of his discourses on livy he presses and illustrates his thesis, praising numa as a sagacious framer of useful fictions, and as setting up new and false beliefs which made for the unification and control of the roman people. the argument evolved with such strange candour is, of course, of the nature of so much renaissance science, an à priori error: there was no lack of religious faith and fear in primitive rome before the age of numa; and the legend concerning him is a product of the very primordial mythopoiesis which machiavelli supposes him to have set on foot. it is in the spirit of that fallacious theory of a special superinduced religiosity in romans [ ] that the great florentine proceeds to charge the church with having made the italians religionless and vicious (senza religione e cattivi). had he lived a century or two later he might have seen in the case of zealously believing spain a completer political and social prostration than had fallen in his day on italy, and this alongside of regeneration in an unbelieving france. but indeed it was the bitterness of spirit of a suffering patriot looking back yearningly to an idealized rome, rather than the insight of the author of the prince, [ ] that inspired his reasoning on the political uses of religion; for at the height of his exposition he notes, with his keen eye for fact, how the most strenuous use of religious motive had failed to support the samnites against the cool courage of romans led by a rationalizing general; [ ] and he notes, too, with a sardonic touch of hopefulness, how savonarola had contrived to persuade the people of contemporary florence that he had intercourse with deity. [ ] italy then had faith enough and to spare. such argument, in any case, even if untouched by the irony which tinges machiavelli's, could never avail to restore faith; men cannot become believers on the motive of mere belief in the value of belief; and the total effect of machiavelli's manifold reasoning on human affairs, with its startling lucidity, its constant insistence on causation, its tacit negation of every notion of providence, must have been, in italy as elsewhere, rather to prepare the way for inductive science than to rehabilitate supernaturalism, even among those who assented to his theory of roman development. in his hands the method of science begins to emerge, turned to the most difficult of its tasks, before copernicus had applied it to the simpler problem of the motion of the solar system. after centuries in which the name of aristotle had been constantly invoked to small scientific purpose, this man of the world, who knew little or nothing of aristotle's politics, [ ] exhibits the spirit of the true aristotle for the first time in the history of christendom; and it is in his land after two centuries of his influence that modern sociology begins its next great stride in the work of vico. he is to be understood, of course, as the product of the moral and intellectual experience of the renaissance, which prepared his audience for him. guicciardini, his contemporary, who in comparison was unblamed for irreligion, though an even warmer hater of the papacy, has left in writing the most explicit avowals of incredulity as to the current conceptions of the supernatural, and declares concerning miracles that as they occur in every religion they prove none. [ ] at the same time he professes firm faith in christianity; [ ] and others who would not have joined him there were often as inconsistent in the ready belief they gave to magic and astrology. the time was, after all, one of artistic splendour and scientific and critical ignorance; [ ] and its freethought had the inevitable defects that ignorance entails. thus the belief in the reality of witchcraft, sometimes discarded by churchmen, [ ] is sometimes maintained by heretics. rejected by john of salisbury in the twelfth century, and by the freethinking pietro of abano in , it was affirmed and established by thomas aquinas, asserted by gregory ix, and made a motive for uncounted slaughters by the inquisition. in a theologian had been forced to retract, and still punished, for expressing doubt on the subject; and in pope sixtus vi reserved to the papacy the privilege of making and selling the waxen models of limbs used as preservatives against enchantments. in the sixteenth century a whole series of books directed against the belief were put on the index, and a jesuit handbook codified the creed. yet a minorite friar, alfonso spina, pronounced it a heretical delusion, and taught that those burned suffered not for witchcraft but for heresy, [ ] and on the other hand some men of a freethinking turn held it. thus the progress of rational thought was utterly precarious. of the literary freethinking of the later renaissance the most famous representative is pomponazzi, or pomponatius ( - ), for whom it has been claimed that he "really initiated the philosophy of the italian renaissance." [ ] the italian renaissance, however, was in reality near its turning-point when pomponazzi's treatise on the immortality of the soul appeared ( ); and that topic was the commonest in the schools and controversies of that day. [ ] he has been at times spoken of as an averroïst, on the ground that he denied immortality; but he did so in reality as a disciple of alexander of aphrodisias, a rival commentator to averroës. what is remarkable in his case is not the denial of immortality, which we have seen to be frequent in dante's time, and more or less implicit in averroïsm, but his contention that ethics could do very well without the belief [ ]--a thing that it still took some courage to affirm, though the spectacle of the life of the faithful might have been supposed sufficient to win it a ready hearing. presumably his rationalism, which made him challenge the then canonical authority of the scholasticized aristotle, went further than his avowed doubts as to a future state; since his profession of obedience to the church's teaching, and his reiteration of the old academic doctrine of two-fold truth--one truth for science and philosophy, and another for theology [ ]--are as dubious as any in philosophic history. [ ] of him, or of lorenzo valla, more justly than of petrarch, might it be said that he is the father of modern criticism, since valla sets on foot at once historical and textual analysis, while pomponazzi anticipates the treatment given to biblical miracles by the rationalizing german theologians of the end of the eighteenth century. [ ] he too was a fixed enemy of the clergy; and it was not for lack of will that they failed to destroy him. he happened to be a personal favourite of leo x, who saw to it that the storm of opposition to pomponazzi--a storm as much of anger on behalf of aristotle, who had been shown by him to doubt the immortality of the soul, as on behalf of christianity--should end in an official farce of reconciliation. [ ] he was however not free to publish his treatises, de incantationibus and de fato, libero arbitrio, et prædestinatione. these, completed in , were not printed till after his death, in and ; [ ] and by reason of their greater simplicity, as well as of their less dangerous form of heresy, were much more widely read than the earlier treatise, thus contributing much to the spread of sane thought on the subjects of witchcraft, miracles, and special providences. whether his metaphysic on the subject of the immortality of the soul had much effect on popular thought may be doubted. what the renaissance most needed in both its philosophic and its practical thought was a scientific foundation; and science, from first to last, was more hindered than helped by the environment. in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, charges of necromancy against physicians and experimenters were frequently joined with imputations of heresy, and on such charges not a few were burned. [ ] the economic conditions too were all unfavourable to solid research. when galileo in was made professor of mathematics at pisa, his salary was only scudi (= dollars), while the professor of medicine got , . (karl von gebler, galileo galilei, eng. tr. , p. .) at padua, later, galileo had florins, with a prospect of rising to as many scudi. (letter given in the private life of galileo, boston, , p. .) the grand duke finally gave him a pension of , scudi at florence. (id. p. .) this squares with bacon's complaint (advancement of learning, bk. ii; de augmentis, bk. ii, ch. i--works, routledge ed. pp. , - ) that, especially in england, the salaries of lecturers in arts and professions were injuriously small, and that, further, "among so many noble foundations of colleges in europe ... they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to the study of arts and sciences at large." in italy, however, philosophy was fairly well endowed. pomponazzi received a salary of bolognese lire when he obtained the chair of philosophy at bologna in . (christie, essay cited, p. .) medicine was nearly as dogmatic as theology. even philosophy was in large part shouldered aside by the financial motives which led men to study law in preference; [ ] and when the revival of ancient literature gained ground it absorbed energy to the detriment of scientific study, [ ] the wealthy amateurs being ready to pay high prices for manuscripts of classics, and for classical teaching; but not for patient investigation of natural fact. the humanists, so-called, were often forces of enlightenment and reform; witness such a type as the high-minded pomponio leto (pomponius laetus), pupil and successor of lorenzo valla, and one of the many "pagan" scholars of the later renaissance; [ ] but the discipline of mere classical culture was insufficient to make them, as a body, qualified leaders either of thought or action, [ ] in such a society as that of decaying italy. only after the fall of italian liberties, the decay of the church's wealth and power, the loss of commerce, and the consequent decline of the arts, did men turn to truly scientific pursuits. from italy, indeed, long after the reformation, came a new stimulus to freethought which affected all the higher civilization of northern europe. but the failure to solve the political problem, a failure which led to the spanish tyranny, meant the establishment of bad conditions for the intellectual as for the social life; and an arrest of freethought in italy was a necessary accompaniment of the arrest of the higher literature. what remained was the afterglow of a great and energetic period rather than a spirit of inquiry; and we find the old averroïst scholasticism, in its most pedantic form, lasting at the university of padua till far into the seventeenth century. "a philosophy," remarks in this connection an esteemed historian, "a mode of thought, a habit of mind, may live on in the lecture-rooms of professors for a century after it has been abandoned by the thinkers, the men of letters, and the men of the world." [ ] the avowal has its bearings nearer home than padua. while it lasted, the light of italy had shone upon all the thought of europe. not only the other nations but the scholars of the jewish race reflected it; for to the first half of the sixteenth century belongs the jew menahem asariah de rossi, whose work, meor enayim, "light of the eyes," is "the first attempt by a jew to submit the statements of the talmud to a critical examination, and to question the value of tradition in its historical records." and he did not stand alone among the jews of italy; for, while elijah delmedigo, at the end of the fifteenth century, was in a didactic maimonist fashion doubtful of literary tradition, his grandson, joseph solomon delmedigo, flourishing early in the seventeenth century, "wrote various pamphlets of a deeply skeptical character." [ ] that this movement of jewish rationalism should be mainly limited to the south was inevitable, since there only were jewish scholars in an intellectual environment. there could be no better testimony to the higher influence of the italian renaissance. § . the french evolution in the other countries influenced by italian culture in the sixteenth century the rationalist spirit had various fortune. france, as we saw, had substantially retrograded at the time of the italian new-birth, her revived militarism no less than her depression by the english conquests having deeply impaired her intellectual life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. thus the true renascence of letters in france began late, and went on during the reformation period; and all along it showed a tincture of freethought. from the midst of the group who laid the foundations of french protestantism by translations of the bible there comes forth the most articulate freethinker of that age, bonaventure desperiers, author of the cymbalum mundi ( ). early associated with calvin and olivetan in revising the translation of the bible by lefèvre d'etaples (rev. ), desperiers turned away from the protestant movement, as did rabelais and Étienne dolet, caring as little for the new presbyter as for the old priest; and all three were duly accused by the protestants of atheism and libertinage. [ ] in the same year desperiers aided dolet, scholar and printer, to produce his much-praised commentarii linguæ latinæ; and within two years he had printed his own satire, cymbalum mundi, [ ] wherein, by way of pagan dialogues, are allegorically ridiculed the christian scheme, its miracles, bible contradictions, and the spirit of persecution, then in full fire in france against the protestants. in the first dialogue mercury is sent to athens by zeus the father to have the "book of the destinies" rebound--an adaptation of an ancient sarcasm against the christians by celsus. [ ] he, robbing others, is robbed of the book, and another (= the new testament) is put in its place. in the second dialogue figure rhetulus (= lutherus) and cubercus (= bucerus?), who suppose they have found the main pieces of the philosopher's stone, which mercury had broken and scattered in the sand of the theatre arena. protestants and catholics are thus alike ridiculed. the allegory is not always clear to modern eyes; but there was no question then about its general bearing; and desperiers, though groom of the chamber (after clement marot) to marguerite of france (later of navarre), had to fly for his life, as marot did before him. the first edition of his book, secretly printed at paris, was seized and destroyed; and the second ( ), printed for him at lyons, whither he had taken his flight, seems to have had a similar fate. from that time he disappears, probably dying, whether or not by suicide is doubtful, [ ] before , when his miscellaneous works were published. they include his oeuvres diverses--many of them graceful poems addressed to his royal mistress, marguerite--which, with his verse translation of the andria of terence and his discours non plus melancoliques que divers, make up his small body of work. in the discours may be seen applied to matters of history and scholarship the same critical spirit that utters itself in the cymbalum, and the same literary gift; but for orthodoxy his name became a hissing and a byword, and it is only in modern times that french scholarship has recognized in desperiers the true literary comrade and potential equal of rabelais and marot. [ ] the age of francis was too inclement for such literature as his cymbalum; and it was much that it spared gringoire (d. ), who, without touching doctrine, satirized in his verse both priests and protestants. it is something of a marvel, further, that it spared rabelais (? - ), whose enormous raillery so nearly fills up the literary vista of the age for modern retrospect. it has been said by a careful student that "the free and universal inquiry, the philosophic doubt, which were later to work the glory of descartes, proceed from rabelais"; [ ] and it is indeed an impression of boundless intellectual curiosity and wholly unfettered thinking that is set up by his entire career. sent first to the convent school of la baumette, near angers, he had there as a schoolfellow geoffroy d'estissac, afterwards his patron as bishop of maillezais. sent later to the convent school of fontenay-le-comte, he had the luck to have for schoolfellows there the four famous brothers du bellay, so well able to protect him in later life; and, forced to spend fifteen years of his young life ( - ) at fontenay as a franciscan monk, he turned the time to account by acquiring an immense erudition, including a knowledge of greek, then rare. [ ] naturally the book-lover was not popular among his fellow-monks; and his greek books were actually confiscated by the chapter, who found in his cell certain writings of erasmus, [ ] to whom as a scholar he afterwards expressed the deepest intellectual obligations. thereafter, by the help of his friend d'estissac, now bishop of the diocese, rabelais received papal permission to join the order of the benedictines and to enter the abbey of maillezais as a canon regular ( ); but soon after, though he was thus a fully-ordained priest, we find him broken loose, and living for some six years a life of wandering freedom as a secular priest, sometimes with his friend the bishop, winning friends in high places by his learning and his gaiety, everywhere studying and observing. at the bishop's priory of ligugé he seems to have studied hard and widely. in he is found at montpellier, extending his studies in medicine, in which he speedily won distinction, becoming b.m. on december , and a lecturer in the following year. he was later esteemed one of the chief anatomists of his day, being one of the first to dissect the human body and to insist on the need of such training for physicians; [ ] and in [ ] we find him characterized as the "true great universal spirit of this time." [ ] in the same year he published at lyons, where he was appointed physician to the chief hospital, an edition of the latin letters of the ferrarese physician manardi; and his own commentaries on galen and hippocrates, which had a very poor sale. [ ] at lyons he made the acquaintance of dolet, marot, and desperiers; and his letter (of the same year) to erasmus (printed as addressed to bernard de salignac [ ]) showed afresh how his intellectual sympathies went. about he produced his gargantua and pantagruel, the first two books of his great humoristic romance; and in began his series of almanacks, continued till , presumably as printer's hack-work. from the fragments which have been preserved, they appear to have been entirely serious in tone, one containing a grave theistic protest against all astrological prediction. along with the almanack of , however, he produced a pantagruelian prognostication; and this, which alone has been preserved entire, [ ] passes hardy ridicule on astrology, [ ] one of the most popular superstitions of the day, among high and low alike. almost immediately the sorbonne was on his track, condemning his pantagruel in . [ ] a journey soon afterwards to rome, in the company of his friend bishop jean du bellay, the french ambassador, may have saved him some personal experience of persecution. two years later, when the bishop went to rome to be made cardinal, rabelais again accompanied him; and he appears to have been a favourite alike with pope clement vii and paul iii. at the end of we find him, in a letter to his patron, the bishop of maillezais, scoffing at the astrological leanings of the new pope, paul iii. [ ] nonetheless, upon a formal supplicatio pro apostasia, he obtained from the pope in an absolution for his breach of his monastic vows, with permission to practise medicine in a benedictine monastery. shortly before, his little son théodule had died; [ ] and it may have been grief that inspired such a desire: in any case, the papal permission to turn monk again was never used, [ ] though the pardon was doubtless serviceable. taking his degree as doctor at montpellier in may, , he there lectured for about a year on anatomy; and in the middle of he recommenced a wandering life, [ ] practising in turn at narbonne, castres, and lyons. then, after becoming a benedictine canon of st. maur in , we find him in piedmont from to , under the protection of the viceroy, guillaume de bellay. [ ] during this period the frequent reprints of the first two books of his main work, though never bearing his name, brought upon him the denunciations alike of priests and protestants. ramus, perhaps in revenge for being caricatured as raminagrobis, pronounced him an atheist. [ ] calvin, who had once been his friend, had in his book de scandalis angrily accused him of libertinage, profanity, and atheism; and henceforth, like desperiers, he was about as little in sympathy with protestantism as with the zealots of rome. thus assailed, rabelais had seen cause, in an edition of , to modify a number of the hardier utterances in the original issues of the first two books of his pantagruel, notably his many epithets aimed at the sorbonne. [ ] in the reprints there are substituted for biblical names some drawn from heathen mythology; expressions too strongly savouring of calvinism are withdrawn; and disrespectful allusions to the kings of france are elided. in his concern to keep himself safe with the sorbonne he even made a rather unworthy attack [ ] ( ) on his former friend Étienne dolet for the mere oversight of reprinting one of his books without deleting passages which rabelais had expunged; [ ] but no expurgation could make his évangile, as he called it, [ ] a christian treatise, or keep for him an orthodox reputation; and it was with much elation that he obtained in from king francis--whose private reader was his friend duchâtel, bishop of tulle--a privilege to print the third book of pantagruel, which he issued in , signed for the first time with his name, and prefaced by a cry of jovial defiance to the "petticoated devils" of the sorbonne. they at once sought to convict him of fresh blasphemies; but even the thrice-repeated substitution of an n for an m in âme, making "ass" out of "soul," was carried off, by help of bishop duchâtel, as a printer's error; and the king, having laughed like other readers, maintained the imprimatur. but although it gave rabelais formal leave to reprint the first and second books, he was careful for the time not to do so, leaving the increasing risk to be run by whoso would. it was on the death of francis in that rabelais ran his greatest danger, having to fly to metz, where for a time he acted as salaried physician of the city. about this time he seems to have written the fourth and fifth books of pantagruel; and to the treatment he had suffered at catholic hands has been ascribed the reversion to calvinistic ideas noted in the fifth book. [ ] in , however, on the birth of a son to henri ii, his friend cardinal bellay returned to power, and rabelais to court favour with him. the derider of astrology did not scruple to cast a prosperous horoscope for the infant prince--justifying by strictly false predictions his own estimate of the art, since the child died in the cradle. there was now effected the dramatic scandal of the appointment of rabelais in to two parish cures, one of which, meudon, has given him his most familiar sobriquet. he seems to have left both to be served by vicars; [ ] but the wrath of the church was so great that early in he resigned them; [ ] proceeding immediately afterwards to publish the fourth book of pantagruel, for which he had duly obtained official privilege. as usual, the sorbonne rushed to the pursuit; and the parlement of paris forbade the sale of the book despite the royal permission. that permission, however, was reaffirmed; and this, the most audacious of all the writings of rabelais, went forth freely throughout france, carrying the war into the enemies' camp, and assailing alike protestants and churchmen. in the following year, his work done, he died. it is difficult to estimate the intellectual effect of his performance, which was probably much greater at the end of the century than during his life. patericke, the english translator of gentillet's famous discours against machiavelli ( ), points to rabelais among the french and agrippa (an odd parallel) among the germans as the standard-bearers of the whole train of atheists and scoffers. "little by little, that which was taken in the beginning for jests turned to earnest, and words into deeds." [ ] rabelais's vast innuendoes by way of jests about the people of ruach (the spirit) who lived solely on wind; [ ] his quips about the "reverend fathers in devil," of the "diabological faculty"; [ ] his narratives about the papefigues and papimanes; [ ] and his gibes at the decretals, [ ] were doubtless enjoyed by many good catholics otherwise placated by his attacks on the "demoniacal calvins, impostors of geneva"; [ ] and so careful was he on matters of dogma that it remains impossible to say with confidence whether or not he finally believed in a future state. [ ] that he was a deist or unitarian seems the reasonable inference as to his general creed; [ ] but there also he throws out no negations--even indicates a genial contempt for the philosophe ephectique et pyrrhonien [ ] who opposes a halting doubt to two contrary doctrines. in any case, he was anathema to the heresy-hunters of the sorbonne, and only powerful protection could have saved him. dolet ( - ) was certainly much less of an unbeliever [ ] than rabelais; [ ] but where rabelais could with ultimate impunity ridicule the whole machinery of the church, [ ] dolet, after several iniquitous prosecutions, in which his jealous rivals in the printing business took part, was finally done to death in priestly revenge [ ] for his youthful attack on the religion of inquisitorial toulouse, where gross pagan superstition and gross orthodoxy went hand in hand. [ ] he certainly "lived a life of sturt and strife." born at orléans, he studied in his boyhood at paris; later at padua, under simon villanovanus, whom he heard converse with sir thomas more; then, at , for a year at venice, where he was secretary to langeac, the french bishop of limoges. it was at toulouse, where he went in to study law, that he began his quarrels and his troubles. in that year, and in that town, the young jean de caturce, a lecturer in the school of law, was burned alive on a trivial charge of heresy; and dolet witnessed the tragedy. [ ] previously there had been a wholesale arrest of suspected lutherans--"advocates, procureurs, ecclesiastics of all sorts, monks, friars, and curés." [ ] thirty-two saved themselves by flight; but among those arrested was jean de boysonne, the most learned and the ablest professor in the university, much admired by rabelais, [ ] and afterwards the most intimate friend of dolet. it was his sheer love of letters that brought upon him the charge of heresy; [ ] but he was forced publicly to abjure ten lutheran heresies charged upon him. the students of the time were divided in the old fashion into "nations," and formed societies as such; and dolet, chosen in as "orator" of the "french" group, as distinct from the gascons and the tolosans, in the course of a quarrel of the societies delivered two latin orations, in one of which he vilipended alike the cruelty and the superstitions of toulouse. a number of the leading bigots of the place were attacked; and dolet was after an interval of some months thrown into prison, charged with exciting a riot and with contempt of the parlement of toulouse. his incarceration did not last long; but never thereafter was he safe; and in the remaining thirteen years of his life he was five more times in prison, for nearly five years in all. [ ] after he had settled at lyons, and produced his commentaries, he had the bad fortune to kill an enemy who drew sword upon him; and the pardon he obtained from the king through the influence of marguerite of navarre remained technically unratified for six years, during which time he was only provisionally at liberty, being actually in prison for a short time in . apart from this episode he showed himself both quarrelsome and vainglorious, alienating friends who had done much for him; but his enemies were worse spirits than he. the power of the man drove him to perpetual production no less than to strife; and his mere activity as a printer went far to destroy him. "no calling was more hateful to the friends of bigotry and superstition than that of a printer" (christie, as cited, p. ). nearly all the leading printers of france and germany were either avowedly in sympathy with protestant heresy or suspected of being so (id. p. ); and the issue of an edict by king francis in for the suppression of printing was at the instance of the sorbonne. we shall see that in germany the support of the printers, and their hostility to the priests and monks, contributed greatly to the success of lutheranism. in he was indicted as a heretic, but really for publishing protestant books of devotion and french translations of the bible. among the formal offences charged were: ( ) his having in his cato christianus cited as the second commandment the condemnation of all images; ( ) his use of the term "fate" in the sense of predestination; ( ) his substitution of habeo fidem for credo; ( ) the eating of flesh in lent; and ( ) the act of taking a walk during the performance of mass. [ ] on this indictment the two inquisitors orry and faye delivered him over to the secular arm for execution. again he secured the king's pardon ( ), through the mediation of pierre duchâtel, the good bishop of tulle; but the ecclesiastical resistance was such that, despite dolet's formal recantation, it required a more plenary pardon, the express orders of the king, and three official letters to secure his release after a year's detention. [ ] that was, however, swiftly followed by a final and successful prosecution. by a base device two parcels were made of prohibited books printed by dolet and of protestant books issued at geneva; and these, bearing his name in large, were forwarded to paris. the parcels were seized, and he was again arrested, early in january, . he contrived to escape to piedmont; but, returning secretly after six months to print documents of defence, he was discovered and sent to prison in paris. the last pardon having covered all previous writings, the prosecutors sought in his translation of the pseudo-platonic dialogues axiochus and hipparchus, printed with his last vindication; and, finding a slight over-emphasis of sokrates's phrase describing the death of the body ("thou shalt no longer be," rendered by "thou shalt no longer be anything at all"), pronounced this a wilful propounding of a heresy, though in fact there had been no denial of the doctrine of immortality. [ ] this time the prey was held. after dolet had been in prison for twenty months the parlement of paris ratified the sentence of death; and he was burned alive on august , . the utter wickedness of the whole process [ ] at least serves to relieve by neighbourhood the darkness of the stains cast on protestantism by the crimes of calvin. the whole of the clerical opposition to the new learning at this period is not unjustly to be characterized as a malignant cabal of ignorance against knowledge. in germany as in france real learning was substantially on the side of the persecuted writers. when, in march of , dolet was entertained at a banquet to celebrate the pardon granted to him by the king for his homicide at lyons on the last day of the previous year, there came to it, by dolet's own account, the chief lights of learning in france--budé, the chief greek scholar of his time; berauld, his nearest compeer; danès and toussain, both pupils of budé and the first royal professors of greek at paris; marot, "the french maro"; rabelais, then regarded as a great new light in medicine; voulté, [ ] and others. the men of enlightenment at first instinctively drew together, recognizing that on all hands they were surrounded by rabid enemies, who were the enemies of knowledge. but soon the stresses of the time drove them asunder. voulté, who in this year was praising rabelais in latin epigrams, was attacking him in the next as an impious disciple of lucian; [ ] and, after having warmly befriended dolet, was impeaching him, not without cause, as an ingrate. it was an age of passion and violence; and voulté was himself assassinated in "by a man who had been unsuccessful in a law-suit against him." [ ] infamous as was the cruelty with which dolet was persecuted to the death, his execution was but a drop in the sea of blood then being shed in france by the church. the king, sinking under his maladies, had become the creature of the priests, who in defiance of the chancellor obtained his signature ( ) to a decree for a renewed persecution of the heretics of the vaudois; and an army, followed by a catholic mob and accompanied by the papal vice-legate of avignon, burst upon the doomed territory and commenced to burn and slay. women captured were violated and then thrown over precipices; and twice over, when a multitude of fugitives in a fortified place surrendered on the assurance that their lives and property would be spared, the commander ordered that all should be put to death. when old soldiers refused to enact such an infamy, others joyfully obeyed, the mob aiding; and among the women were committed, as usual, "all the crimes of which hell could dream." three towns were destroyed, , persons massacred, executed, six or seven hundred more sent to the galleys, and many children sold as slaves. [ ] thus was the faith vindicated and safeguarded. of the freethought of such an age there could be no adequate record. its tempestuous energy, however, implies not a little of private unbelief; and at a time when in england, two generations behind france in point of literary evolution, there was, as we shall see, a measure of rationalism among religionists, there must have been at least as much in the land of rabelais and desperiers. the work of guillaume postell, de causis seu principiis et originibus naturæ contra atheos, published in , testifies to kinds of unbelief that outwent the doubt of rabelais; though postell's general extravagance discounts all of his utterances. it is said of guillaume pellicier ( - ), bishop of montpellier, who first turned protestant and afterwards, according to gui patin, atheist, that he would have been burned but for the fact of his consecration. [ ] and the english chroniclers preserve a scandal concerning an anonymous atheist, worded as follows: " . this yeare, in october, died in the universitie of parris, in france, a great doctor, which said their was no god, and had bene of that opinion synce he was twentie yeares old, and was above fouerscore yeares olde when he died. and all that tyme had kept his error secrett, and was esteamed for one of the greatest clarkes in all the universitie of parris, and his sentence was taken and holden among the said studentes as firme as scripture, which shewed, when he was asked why he had not shewed his opinion till his death, he answered that for feare of death he durst not, but when he knew that he should die he said their was no lief to come after this lief, and so died miserably to his great damnation." [ ] among the eminent ones then surmised to lean somewhat to unbelief was the sister of king francis, marguerite of navarre, whom we have noted as a protectress of the pantheistic libertini, denounced by calvin. she is held to have been substantially skeptical until her forty-fifth year; [ ] though her final religiousness seems also beyond doubt. [ ] in her youth she bravely protected the protestants from the first persecution of onwards; and the strongly protestant drift of her miroir de l'âme pécheresse exasperated the catholic theologians; but after the protestant violences of she seems to have sided with her brother against the reform. [ ] the strange taste of the heptaméron, of which again her part-authorship seems certain, [ ] constitutes a moral paradox not to be solved save by recognizing in her a woman of genius, whose alternate mysticism and bohemianism expressed a very ancient duality in human nature. a similar mixture will explain the intellectual life of the poet ronsard. a persecutor of the huguenots, [ ] he was denounced as an atheist by two of their ministers; [ ] and the pagan fashion in which he handled christian things scandalized his own side, albeit he was hostile to rabelais. but though the spirit of the french renaissance, so eagerly expressed in the défense et illustration de la langue françoise of joachim du bellay ( ), is at its outset as emancipated as that of the italian, we find ronsard in his latter years edifying the pious. [ ] any ripe and consistent rationalism, indeed, was then impossible. one of the most powerful minds of the age was bodin ( - ), whose république is one of the most scientific treatises on government between aristotle and our own age, and whose colloquium heptaplomeres [ ] is no less original an outline of a naturalist [ ] philosophy. it consists of six dialogues, in which seven men take part, setting forth the different religious standpoints of jew, christian, pagan, lutheran, calvinist, and catholic, the whole leading up to a doctrine of tolerance and universalism. bodin was repeatedly and emphatically accused of unbelief by friends and foes; [ ] and his rationalism on some heads is beyond doubt; yet he not only held by the belief in witchcraft, but wrote a furious treatise in support of it; [ ] and he dismissed the system of copernicus as too absurd for discussion. [ ] he also formally vetoes all discussion on faith, declaring it to be dangerous to religion; [ ] and by these conformities he probably saved himself from ecclesiastical attack. [ ] nonetheless, he essentially stood for religious toleration: the new principle that was to change the face of intellectual life. a few liberal catholics shared it with him to some extent [ ] long before st. bartholomew's day; eminent among them being l'hopital, [ ] whose humanity, tolerance, and concern for practical morality and the reform of the church brought upon him the charge of atheism. he was, however, a believing catholic. [ ] deprived of power, his edict of tolerance repealed, he saw the long and ferocious struggle of catholics and huguenots renewed, and crowned by the massacre of st. bartholomew's day ( ). broken-hearted, and haunted by that monstrous memory, he died within six months. two years later there was put to death at paris, by hanging and burning, on the charge of atheism, geoffroi vallée, a man of good family in orléans. long before, at the age of sixteen, he had written a freethinking treatise entitled la béatitude des chrétiens, ou le fléau de la foy--a discussion between a huguenot, a catholic, a libertin, an anabaptist and an atheist. he had been the associate of ronsard, who renounced him, and helped, it is said, to bring him to execution. [ ] it is not unlikely that a similar fate would have overtaken the famous protestant scholar and lexicographer, henri estienne ( - ), had he not died unexpectedly. his false repute of being "the prince of atheists" [ ] and the "pantagruel of geneva" was probably due in large part to his sufficiently audacious apologie pour hérodote [ ] ( ) and to his having translated into latin ( ) the hypotyposes of sextus empiricus, a work which must have made for freethinking. but he was rather a protestant than a rationalist. in the former book he had spoken, either sincerely or ironically, of the "detestable book" of bonaventure desperiers, calling him a mocker of god; and impeached rabelais as a modern lucian, believing neither in god nor immortality; [ ] yet his own performance was fully as well fitted as theirs to cause scandal. it is in fact one of the richest repertories ever formed of scandalous stories against priests, monks, nuns, and popes. [ ] one literary movement towards better things had begun before the crowning infamy of the massacre appalled men into questioning the creed of intolerance. castalio, whom we shall see driven from geneva by calvin in for repugning to the doctrine of predestination, published pseudonymously, in , in reply to calvin's vindication of the slaying of servetus, a tract, de haereticis quomodo cum iis agendum sit variorum sententiæ, in which he contrived to collect some passage from the fathers and from modern writers in favour of toleration. to these he prefaced, by way of a letter to the duke of wirtemberg, an argument of his own, the starting-point of much subsequent propaganda. [ ] aconzio, another italian, followed in his steps; and later came mino celso of siena, with his "long and elaborate argument against persecution," de haereticis capitali supplicio non afficiendis ( ). [ ] withal, castalio died in beggary, ostracized alike by protestants and catholics, and befriended only by the sozzini, whose sect was the first to earn collectively the praise of condemning persecution. [ ] but in the next generation there came to reinforce the cause of humanity a more puissant pen than any of these; while at the same time the recoil from religious cruelty was setting many men secretly at utter variance with faith. in france in particular a generation of insane civil war for religion's sake must have gone far to build up unbelief. even among many who did not renounce the faith, there went on an open evolution of stoicism, generated through resort to the teaching of epictetus. the atrocities of christian civil war and christian savagery were such that christian faith could give small sustenance to the more thoughtful and sensitive men who had to face them and carry on the tasks of public life the while. the needed strength was given by the masculine discipline which pagan thought had provided for an age of oppression and decadence, and which had carried so much of healing even for the christians who saw decadence carried yet further, that in the fifth century the enchiridion of epictetus had been turned by st. nilus into a monastic manual, even as ambrose manipulated the borrowed stoicism of cicero. [ ] with its devout theism, the book had appealed to those northern scholars who had mastered greek in the early years of the sixteenth century, when the refugees of constantinople had set up platonic studies in italy. after , italian hellenism rapidly decayed; [ ] but in the north it never passed away; and from the stronger men of the new learning in germany the taste for epictetus passed into france. in the semi-protestant legist coras--later slain in the massacre of st. bartholomew--published at toulouse a translation of the apocryphal dialogue of epictetus and hadrian; in the protestant poet rivaudeau translated the enchiridion, which thenceforth became a culture force in france. [ ] the influence appears in montaigne, in whose essays it is pervasive; but more directly and formally in the book of justus lipsius, de constantia ( ), and the same scholar's posthumous dialogues entitled manducatio ad philosophiam stoïcam and physiologia stoïcorum ( ), which influenced all scholarly europe. thus far the stoic ethic had been handled with christian bias and application; and guillaume du vair, who embodied it in his work la sainte philosophie ( ), was not known as a heretic; but in his hands it receives no christian colouring, and might pass for the work of a deist. [ ] and its popularity is to be inferred from his further production of a fresh translation of the enchiridion and a traité de la philosophie morale des stoïques. under henri iv he rose to high power; and his public credit recommended his doctrine. such were the more visible fruits of the late spread of the renaissance ferment in france while, torn by the frantic passions of her pious catholics, she passed from the plane of the renaissance to that of the new europe, in which the intellectual centre of gravity was to be shifted from the south to the north, albeit italy was still to lead the way, in galileo, for the science of the modern world. § . the english evolution in england as in france the intellectual life undergoes visible retrogression in the fifteenth century, while in italy, with the political problem rapidly developing towards catastrophe, it flourished almost riotously. from the age of chaucer, considered on its intellectual side and as represented mainly by him, there is a steep fall to almost the time of sir thomas more, around whom we see as it were the sudden inrush of the renaissance upon england. the conquest of france by henry v and the wars of the roses, between them, brought england to the nadir of mental and moral life. but in the long and ruinous storm the middle ages, of which wiclif is the last powerful representative, were left behind, and a new age begins to be prepared. of a very different type from wiclif is the remarkable personality of the welshman reginald (or reynold) pecock ( ?- ?), who seems divided from wiclif by a whole era of intellectual development, though born within about ten years of his death. it is a singular fact that one of the most rationalistic minds among the serious writers of the fifteenth century should be an english bishop, [ ] and an ultramontane at that. pecock was an opponent at once of popular bibliolatry and of priestly persecution, declaring that "the clergy would be condemned at the last day if they did not draw men into consent to the true faith otherwise than by fire and sword and hanging." [ ] it was as the rational and temperate defender of the church against the attacks of the lollards in general that he formulated the principle of natural reason as against scripturalism. this attitude it is that makes his treatise, the repressor of overmuch blaming of the clergy, the most modern of theoretic books before more and hooker and bacon. that he was led to this measure of rationalism rather by the exigencies of his papalism than by a spontaneous skepticism is suggested by the fact that he stands for the acceptance of miraculous images, shrines, and relics, when the lollards are attacking them. [ ] on the other hand, it is hard to be certain that his belief in the shrines was genuine, so ill does it consist with his attitude to bibliolatry. in a series of serenely argued points he urges his thesis that the bible is not the basis of the moral law, but merely an illustration thereof, and that the natural reason is obviously presupposed in the bulk of its teaching. he starts from the formulas of thomas aquinas, but reaches a higher ground. it is the position of hooker, anticipated by a hundred years; and this in an age of such intellectual backwardness and literary decadence that the earlier man must be pronounced by far the more remarkable figure. in such a case the full influence of the renaissance seems to be at work; though in the obscurity of the records we can do no more than conjecture that the new contacts with french culture between the invasion of france by henry v in and the expulsion of the english in may have introduced forces of thought unknown or little known before. if indeed there were english opponents of scripture in wiclif's day, the idea must have ripened somewhat in pecock's. whether, however, the victories of jeanne d'arc made some unbelievers as well as many dastards among the english is a problem that does not seem to have been investigated. pecock's reply to the lollards creates the curious situation of a churchman rebutting heretics by being more profoundly heretical than they. in his system, the scriptures "reveal" only supernatural truths not otherwise attainable, a way of safeguarding dogma not likely to reassure believers. there is reason, indeed, to suspect that pecock held no dogma with much zeal; and when in his well-named treatise (now lost), the provoker, he denied the authenticity of the apostles' creed, "he alienated every section of theological opinion in england." see miss a. m. cooke's art. reginald pecock in dict. of nat. biog. this valuable notice is the best short account of pecock; though the nature of his case is most fully made out by hook, as cited below. it is characteristic of the restricted fashion in which history is still treated that neither in the student's history of professor gardiner nor in the short history of green is pecock mentioned. earlier ideas concerning him were far astray. the notion of foxe, the martyrologist, that pecock was an early protestant, is a gross error. he held not a single protestant tenet, being a rationalizing papist. a german ecclesiastical historian of the eighteenth century (werner, kirchengeschichte des ten jahrhunderts, , cited by lechler) calls pecock the first english deist. see a general view of his opinions in lewis's life of dr. reynold pecock (rep. ), ch. v. the heresies charged on him are given on p. ; also in the r. t. s. writings and examinations, , pp. - . while rejecting bibliolatry, he yet argued that popes and councils could make no change in the current creed; and he thus offended the high churchmen. cp. massingberd, the english reformation, th ed. pp. - . the main causes of the hostility he met from the english hierarchy and government appear to have been, on the one hand, his change of political party, which put him in opposition to archbishop bourchier, and on the other his zealous championship of the authority of the papacy as against that of the councils of the church. it was expressly on the score of his denunciation of the councils that he was tried and condemned. [ ] thus the reward of his effort to reason down the menacing lollards and rebut wiclif [ ] was his formal disgrace and virtual imprisonment. had he not recanted, he would have been burned: as it was, his books were; and it is on record that they consisted of eleven quartos and three folios of manuscript. either because of his papalism or as a result of official intrigue, church and lords and commons were of one mind against him; and the mob would fain have burned him with his books. [ ] in that age of brutal strife, when "neither the church nor the opponents of the church had any longer a sway over men's hearts," [ ] he figures beside the mindless prelates and their lay peers somewhat as does more later beside henry viii, as reason versus the beast; and it was illustrative of his entire lack of fanaticism that he made the demanded retractations--avowing his sin in "trusting to natural reason" rather than to scripture and the authority of the church--and went his way in silence to solitude and death. the ruling powers disposed of lollardism in their own way; and in the wars of the roses every species of heretical thought seems to disappear. the bribe held out to the nation by the invasion of france had been fatally effectual to corrupt the spirit of moral criticism which inspired the lollard movement at its best; and the subsequent period of rapine and strife reduced thought and culture to the levels of the middle ages. a hint of what was possible in the direction of freethought in the england of henry v and henry vi emerges in some of the records concerning duke humphrey of gloucester, the youngest son of henry iv. gifted but ill-balanced, humphrey was the chief patron of learning in england in his day; and he drank deeply of the spirit of renaissance scholarship. [ ] sir thomas more preserves the story--reproduced also in the old play, the first part of the contention of the two famous houses of york and lancaster--of how he exposed the fraud of a begging impostor who pretended to have recovered his sight through the virtue of a saint's relics; and a modern pietistic historian decides that the duke "had long ceased to believe in miracles and relics." [ ] but if this be true, it is the whole truth as to humphrey's freethinking. it was the highest flight of rationalism permissible in his day and sphere. on the view that humphrey was a freethinker, the pious pauli, who says (as cited, p. ) of the renaissance of letters, "the weak and evil side of this revived form of literature is that its disciples should have elevated the morality, or rather the immorality, of classical antiquity above christian discipline and virtue," sees fit further to pronounce that the bad account of gloucester's condition of body drawn up eleven years before his death by the physician kymer is a proof of the "wild unbridled passions by which the duke was swayed," and throws a lurid light upon "the tendencies and disposition of his mind." humphrey lived till , and died suddenly, under circumstances highly suggestive of poisoning by his enemies. his brothers henry and john died much younger than he; but in their case the religious historian sees no ground for imputation. but the historian's inference is overstrained. in reality humphrey never indicated any lack of theological faith. the poet lydgate, no unbeliever, described him as "chose of god to be his owne knyghte," and so rigorous "that heretike dar not comen in his sihte" (verses transcribed in furnivall's early english meals and manners, , pp. lxxxv-vi). his most comprehensive biographer decides that he was "essentially orthodox," despite his uncanonical marriage with his second wife and his general reputation for sexual laxity. "he was punctilious in the performance of his religious duties" and "a stern opponent of the lollards"; he "countenanced the extinction of heresy by being present at the burning at smithfield of an old priest who denied the validity of the sacraments of the church"; and an archbishop of milan pronounced him to be "known everywhere as the chiefest friend and preserver of holy church" (k. h. vickers, humphrey, duke of gloucester: a biography, , pp. , - ). of such a personage no exegesis can make a rationalist. of other traces of critical thinking in england in that age there is little to be said, so little literature is there to convey them. but there are signs of the influence of the "pagan" thought of the renaissance in religious books. the old revelation of the monk of evesham, ostensibly dating from , was first printed about , [ ] with a "prologe" explaining that it "was not shewed to hym only for hym butte also for the confort and profetyng of all cristyn pepulle that none man shuld dowte or mystruste of anothir life and world"; "and as for the trowthe of this reuelacyon no man nother woman ought to dowte in any wise," seeing it is thus miraculously provided that "alle resons and mocyons of infydelite the which risith often tymes of man's sensualite shall utwardly be excluded and quenched." evidently the old problem of immortality had been agitated. § . the remaining european countries not till late in the fifteenth century is the intellectual side of the renaissance influence to be seen bearing fruit in germany, of which the turbulent and semi-barbaric life in the medieval period was little favourable to mental progress. of political hostility to the church there was indeed an abundance, long before luther; [ ] but amid the many traces of "irreligion" there is practically none of rational freethinking. what reasoned thought there was, as we have seen, turned to christian mysticism of a pantheistic cast, as in the teaching of tauler and eckhart. [ ] another and a deeper current of thought is seen in the remarkable philosophic work of bishop nicolaus of kues or cusa ( - ), who, professedly by an independent movement of reflection, but really as a result of study of greek philosophy, reached a larger pantheism than had been formulated by any churchman since the time of john the scot. [ ] there is little or no trace, however, of any influence attained by his teaching, which indeed could appeal only to a very few minds of that day. less remarkable than the metaphysic of nicolaus, though also noteworthy in its way, is his dialogue "on peace, or concordance of faith," in which, somewhat in the spirit of boccaccio's tale of the three kings, he aims at a reconciliation of all religions, albeit by way of proving the christian creed to be the true one. in the netherlands and other parts of western europe the popular anti-ecclesiastical heresy of the thirteenth century spread in various degrees; but there is only exceptional trace of literate or properly rationalistic freethinking. among the most notable developments was the movement in holland early in the fourteenth century, which compares closely with that of the higher paulicians and mystics of the two previous centuries, its chief traits being a general pantheism, a denial of the efficacy of the sacrament of the altar, an insistence that all men are sons of god, and a general declaration for "natural light." [ ] but this did not progressively develop. lack of leisured culture in the low countries, and the terrorism of the inquisition, would sufficiently account for the absence of avowed unbelief, though everywhere, probably, some was set up by the contact of travellers with the culture of italy. it is fairly to be inferred that in a number of cases the murderous crusade against witchcraft which was carried on in the fifteenth century served as a means of suppressing heresy, rationalistic or other. at arras, for instance, in , the execution of a number of leading citizens on a charge of sorcery seems to have been a blow at free discussion in the "chambers of rhetoric." [ ] and that rationalism, despite such frightful catastrophes, obscurely persisted, is to be gathered from the long vogue of the work of the spanish physician raymund of sebonde, [ ] who, having taught philosophy at toulouse, undertook (about ) to establish christianity on a rational foundation [ ] in his theologia naturalis, made famous later by montaigne. to what length the suppressed rationalism of the age could on occasion go is dramatically revealed in the case of hermann van ryswyck, a dutch priest, burned for heresy at the hague in . he was not only a priest in holy orders, but one of the order of inquisitors; and he put forth the most impassioned denial and defiance of the christian creed of which there is any record down to modern times. tried before the inquisitors in , he declared "with his own mouth and with sane mind" that the world is eternal, and was not created as was alleged by "the fool moses" that there is no hell, and no future life; that christ, whose whole career was flatly contrary to human welfare and reason, was not the son of omnipotent god, but a fool, a dreamer, and a seducer of ignorant men, of whom untold numbers had been slain on account of him and his absurd evangel; that moses had not physically received the law from god; and that "our" faith was shown to be fabulous by its fatuous scripture, fictitious bible, and crazy gospel. and to this exasperated testimony he added: "i was born a christian, but am no longer one: they are the chief fools." sentenced in to perpetual imprisonment, he was again brought forward ten years later, and, being found unbroken by that long durance, was as an unrepentant heretic sentenced to be burned on december , , the doom being carried out on the same day. the source of his conviction can be gathered from his declaration that "the most learned aristotle and his commentator averroës were nearest the truth"; but his wild sincerity and unyielding courage were all his own. "nimis infelix quidam" is the estimate of an inquisitor of that day. [ ] not so, unless they are most unhappy who die in battle, fighting for the truth they prize. but it has always been the christian way to contemn all save christian martyrs. there is a tolerably full account of ryswyck's case in a nearly contemporary document, which evidently copies the official record. ryswyck is described as "sacre theologie professorem ordinis predicatorum et inquisitorum"; and his declaration runs: "quod mundum fuit ab eterna et non incipit per creationem fabricatum a stulto mose, ut dicit biblia indistincta.... nec est infernus, ut nostri estimant. item post hanc vitam nulla erit vita particularis.... item doctissimus aristoteles et ejus commentator auerrois fuerunt veritati propinquissimi. item christum fuit stultus et simplex fantasticus et seductor simplicium hominum.... quot enim homines interfecti sunt propter ipsum et suum euangelium fatuum! item quod omnia que christus gessit, humano generi et rationi recte sunt contraria. item christum filium dei omnipotentem aperte nego. et mosen legem a deo visibiliter et facialiter suscepisse recuso. item fides nostra fabulosa est, ut probat nostra fatua scriptura et ficta biblia et euangelium delirum.... omnes istos articulos et consimilos confessus est proprio ore et sana mente coram inquisitore et notario et testibus, addens: ego christianus natus, sed iam non sum christianus, quoniam illi stultissimi sunt." paul frédéricq, corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis neerlandicae, gent, , i, , - . thus the renaissance passed on to the age of the reformation the seeds of a rationalism which struck far deeper than the doctrine of luther, but at the same time left a social soil in which such seeds could ill grow. its own defeat, social and intellectual, may be best realized in terms of its failure to reach either political or physical science. lack of the former meant political retrogression and bondage; and lack of the latter a renewed dominion of superstition and bibliolatry--two sets of conditions of which each facilitated the other. nothing is more significant of the intellectual climate of the renaissance than the persistence at all its stages of the belief in astrology, of which we find some dregs even in bacon. that pseudo-science indeed stands, after all, for the spirit of science, and is not to be diagnosed as mere superstition; being really an à priori fallacy fallen into in the deliberate search for some principle of coördination in human affairs. though adhered to by many prominent catholics, including charles v, and by many protestants, including melanchthon, it is logically anti-christian, inasmuch as it presupposes in the moral world a reign of natural law, independent of the will or caprice of any personal power. herein it differs deeply from magic; [ ] though in the renaissance the return to the lore of antiquity often involved an indiscriminate acceptance and blending of both sorts of occult pagan lore. [ ] magic subordinates nature to will: astrology, as apart from angelology, subordinates will to cosmic law. for many perplexed and thoughtful men, accordingly, it was a substitute, more or less satisfying, for the theory, grown to them untenable, of a moral government of the universe. it was in fact a primary form of sociology proper, as it had been the primary form of astronomy; to which latter science, even in the renaissance, it was still for many the introduction. it flourished, above all things, on the insecurity inseparable from the turbulent italian life of the renaissance, even as it had flourished on the appalling vicissitude of the drama of imperial rome; and it is conceivable that the inclination to true science which is seen in such men as galileo, after the period of italian independence, was nourished by the greater stability attained for a time under absolutist rule. and though protestantism, on the other hand, adhered in the main unreasoningly to the theory of a moral control, that dogma at least served to countervail the dominion of astrology, which was only a dogmatism with a difference, and as such inevitably hindered true science. [ ] on the whole, protestantism tended to make more effectual that veto on pagan occultism which had been ineffectually passed from time to time by the catholic church; albeit the motive was stress of christian superstition, and the veto was aimed almost as readily at inductive and true science as at the deductive and false. we shall find the craze of witchcraft, in turn, dominating protestant countries at a time when freethinkers and liberal catholics elsewhere were setting it at naught. there can be little doubt that, broadly speaking, the new interest in scripture study and ecclesiastical history told against the free play of thought on scientific and scholarly problems; we shall find bacon realizing the fact a hundred years after luther's start; and the influence has operated down to our own day. in this resistance catholics played their part. the famous cornelius agrippa [ ] ( - ) never ceased to profess himself a catholic, and had small sympathy with the reformers, though always at odds with the monks; and his long popular treatise de incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium, atque excellentia verbi dei declamatio ( ) is a mere polemic for scripturalism against alike false science and true, monkish superstition and reason. vilified as a magician by the monks, and as an atheist and a scoffer by angry humanists, [ ] he did but set error against error, being himself a believer in witchcraft, a hater of anatomy, and as confident in his contempt of astronomy as of astrology. and his was a common frame of mind for centuries. still, the new order contained certain elements of help for a new life, as against its own inclement principles of authority and dogma; and the political heterogeneity of europe, seconded by economic pressures and by new geographic discovery, sufficed further to prevent any far-reaching organization of tyranny. under these conditions, new knowledge could incubate new criticism. but it would be an error-breeding oversight to forget that in the many-coloured world before the reformation there was not only a certain artistic and imaginative sunlight which the reformation long darkened, but even, athwart the mortal rigours of papal rule, a certain fitful play of intellectual insight to which the peoples of the reformation became for a time estranged. chapter xi the reformation, politically considered § . the german conditions in a vague and general sense the ecclesiastical revolution known as the reformation was a phenomenon of freethought. to be so understood, indeed, it must be regarded in contrast to the dominion of the catholic church, not to the movement which we call the renaissance. that movement it was that made the reformation possible; and if we have regard to the reign of bibliolatry which protestantism set up, we seem to be contemplating rather a superimposing of semitic darkness upon hellenic light than an intellectual emancipation. emancipation of another kind the reformation doubtless brought about. in particular it involved, to an extent not generally realized, a secularization of life, through the sheer curtailment, in most protestant countries, of the personnel and apparatus of clericalism, and the new disrepute into which, for a time, these fell. alike in germany and in england there was a breaking-up of habits of reverence and of self-prostration before creed and dogma and ritual. but this liberation was rather social than intellectual, and the product was rather licence and irreverence than ordered freethought. on the other hand, when the first unsettlement was over, the new growth of bibliolatry tended rather to deepen the religious way of feeling and make more definite the religious attitude. tolerance did not emerge until after a whole era of embittered strife. the reformation, in fact, was much more akin to a revolt against a hereditary king than to the process of self-examination and logical scrutiny by which men pass from belief to disbelief in a theory of things, a dogma, or a document. the beginning of such a process had indeed taken place in germany before luther, insofar as the new learning represented by such humanists as erasmus, such scholars as reuchlin, [ ] and such satirists as ulrich von hutten, set up a current of educated hostility to the ignorance and the grosser superstitions of the churchmen. for germany, as for england, this movement was a contagion from the new scholarship and platonism of italy; [ ] and the better minds in the four universities founded in the pre-lutheran generation (tübingen, ; mayence, ; frankfort-on-the-oder, ; wittemberg, ) necessarily owed much to italian impulses, which they carried on, though the universities as a whole were bitterly hostile to the new learning. [ ] the dutch freethinker ryswyck, as we saw, was fundamentally an averroïst; and italy was the stronghold of averroïsm, of which the monistic bias probably fostered the unitarianism of the sixteenth century. but it was not this literary and scholarly movement that effected the reformation so-called, which was rather an economic and political than a mental revolution. the persistence of protestant writers in discussing the early history of the reformation without a glance at the economic causation is one of the great hindrances to historic science. from such popular works as those of d'aubigné and häusser it is practically impossible to learn what socially took place in germany; and the general protestant reader can learn it only--and imperfectly--from the works on the catholic side, as audin's histoire de la vie de luther (eng. tr. ) and döllinger's die reformation, and the more scientific protestant studies, such as those of ranke and bezold (even there not at any great length), to neither of which classes of history will he resort. in england the facts are partially realized, in the light of an ecclesiastical predilection, through high church histories such as that of blunt, which proceed upon a catholic leaning. cobbett's intemperate exposure of the economic causation has found an audience chiefly among catholics. bezold admits that "with perfect justice have recent historians commented on the former underrating of an economic force which certainly played its part in the spread and establishment of the reformation" (gesch. der deutschen reformation, , p. ). the broad fact is that in not a single country could the reformation have been accomplished without enlisting the powerful classes or corporations, or alternatively the de facto governments, by proffering the plunder of the church. only in a few swiss cantons, and in holland, does the confiscation seem to have been made to the common good (cp. the present writer's evolution of states, pp. , ). but even in holland needy nobles had finally turned protestant in the hope of getting church lands. (see motley, rise of the dutch republic, ed. , p. .) elsewhere appropriation of church lands by princes and nobles was the general rule. even as to germany, it is impossible to accept michelet's indulgent statement that most of the confiscated church property "returned to its true destination, to the schools, the hospitals, the communes; to its true proprietors, the aged, the child, the toiling family" (hist. de france, x, ; see the same assertion in henderson, short history of germany, , i, ). plans to that effect were drawn up; but, as the princes were left to carry out the arrangement, they took the lion's share. ranke (hist. of the ref. bk. iv, ch. v; eng. tr. -vol. ed. , pp. - ) admits much grabbing of church lands as early as ; merely contending, with luther, that papist nobles had begun the spoliation. (cp. bezold, pp. - ; menzel, gesch. der deutschen, cap. .) in saxony, when monks broke away from their monasteries, the nobles at once appropriated the lands and buildings (ranke, p. ). luther made a warm appeal to the elector against the nobles in general (ranke, p. ; luther's letter, nov. , , in werke, ed. de wette, iii, ; letter to spalatin, jan. , , id. p. ; also p. ). see too his indignant protests against the rapine of the princes and nobles and the starvation of the ministers in the table talk, chs. , . even philip of hesse did not adhere to his early and disinterested plans of appropriation (ranke, pp. - , - ). all that ranke can claim is that "some great institutions were really founded"--to wit, two homes for "young ladies of noble birth," four hospitals, and the theological school of marburg. and this was in the most hopeful region. there is positive evidence, further, that not only ecclesiastical but purely charitable foundations were plundered by the protestants (witzel, cited by döllinger, die reformation, ihre innere entwickelung und ihre wirkungen, , i, , , , ); and, as school foundations were confiscated equally with ecclesiastical in england, there is no reason to doubt the statement. practically the same process took place in scotland, where the share of church property proposed to be allotted to the protestant ministers was never given, and their protests were treated with contempt (burton, history of scotland, iv, - ). knox's comments were similar to luther's (works, laing's ed. ii, - ). dr. gardiner, a fairly impartial historian, sums up that, after the german settlement of , "the princes claimed the right of continuing to secularize church lands within their territories as inseparable from their general right of providing for the religion of their subjects.... about a hundred monasteries are said to have fallen victims in the palatinate alone; and an almost equal number, the gleanings of a richer harvest which had been reaped before the convention of passau, were taken possession of in northern germany" (the thirty years' war, th ed. p. ). the credit of bringing the various forces to a head, doubtless, remains with luther, though ground was further prepared by literary predecessors such as john of wesel and john wessel, erasmus, reuchlin, and ulrich von hutten. but even the signal courage of luther could not have availed to fire an effectual train of action unless a certain number of nobles had been ready to support him for economic reasons. even the shameless sale of indulgences by tetzel was resented most keenly on the score that it was draining germany of money; [ ] and nothing is more certain than that luther began his battle not as a heretic but as an orthodox catholic reformer, desiring to propitiate and not to defy the papacy. economic forces were the determinants. this becomes the more clear when we note that the reformation was only the culmination or explosion of certain intellectual, social, and political forces seen at work throughout christendom for centuries before. in point of mere doctrine, the protestants of the sixteenth century had been preceded and even distanced by heretics of the eleventh, and by teachers of the ninth. the absurdity of relic-worship, the folly of pilgrimages and fastings, the falsehood of the doctrine of transubstantiation, the heresy of prayers to the saints, the unscripturalness of the hierarchy--these and a dozen other points of protest had been raised by paulicians, by paterini, by beghards, by apostolicals, by lollards, long before the time of luther. as regards his nearer predecessors, indeed, this is now a matter of accepted protestant history. [ ] what is not properly realized is that the conditions which wrought political success where before there had been political failure were special political conditions; and that to these, and not to supposed differences in national character, is due the geographical course of the reformation. § . the problem in italy, spain, and the netherlands we have seen that the spirit of reform was strong in italy three hundred years before luther; and that some of the strongest movements within the church were strictly reformatory, and originally disinterested in a high degree. in less religious forms the same spirit abounded throughout the renaissance; and at the end of the fifteenth century savonarola was preaching reform religiously enough at florence. his death, however, was substantially due to the perception that ecclesiastical reform, as conducted by him, was a socio-political process, [ ] whence the reformer was a socio-political disturber. intellectually he was no innovator; on the contrary, he was a hater of literary enlightenment, and he was as ready to burn astrologers as were his enemies to burn him. [ ] his claim, in his triumph of the cross, to combat unbelievers by means of sheer natural reason, indicates only his inability to realize any rationalist position--a failure to be expected in his age, when rationalism was denied argumentative utterance, and when the problems of christian evidences were only being broached. the very form of the book is declamatory rather than ratiocinative, and every question raised is begged. [ ] that he failed in his crusade of church reform, and that luther succeeded in his, was due to no difference between italian and german character, but to the vast difference in the political potentialities of the two cases. the fall of public liberty in florence, which must have been preceded as it was accompanied by a relative decline in popular culture, [ ] and which led to the failure of savonarola, may be in a sense attributed to italian character; but that character was itself the product of peculiar social and political conditions, and was not inferior to that of any northern population. [ ] the savonarolan movement had all the main features of the puritanism of the northern "reform." savonarola sent organized bodies of boys, latterly accompanied by bodies of adults, to force their way into private houses and confiscate things thought suitable for the reformatory bonfire. burckhardt, p. ; perrens, jérome savonarole, e édit. pp. - . the things burned included pictures and busts of inestimable artistic value, and manuscripts of exquisite beauty. perrens, p. . compare villari, as cited; george eliot's romola, bk. iii, ch. xlix; and merejkowski's the forerunner (eng. tr.), bk. vii. previous reformers had set up "bonfires of false hair and books against the faith" (armstrong, as cited, p. ); and savonarola's bands of urchins were developments from previous organizations, bent chiefly on blackmail. (id.) but he carried the tyranny furthest, and actually proposed to put obstinate gamblers to the torture. perrens, p. . villari in his sentimental commemoration lecture on savonarola (studies historical and critical, eng. tr. ) ignores these facts. when, a generation later, the propaganda of the lutheran movement reached italy, it was more eagerly welcomed than in any of the teutonic countries outside of the first lutheran circle, though a vigilant system was at once set on foot for the destruction of the imported books. [ ] it had made much headway at milan and florence in ; [ ] and we have the testimony of pope clement vii himself that before the lutheran heresy was widely spread not only among the laity but among priests and friars, both mendicant and non-mendicant, many of whom propagated it by their sermons. [ ] the ruffianism and buffoonery of the german lutheran soldiers in the army of charles v at the sack of rome in was hardly likely to win adherents to their sect; [ ] yet the number increased all over italy. in - they were numerous and audacious at bologna, [ ] where in a commission of cardinals and prelates, appointed by pope paul iii, had reported strongly on the need for reformation in the church. in they were so strong at venice as to contemplate holding public assemblies; in the neighbouring towns of vicentino, vicenza, and trevisano they seem to have been still more numerous; [ ] and cardinal caraffa reported to the pope that all italy was infected with the heresy. [ ] now began the check. among the protestants themselves there had gone on the inevitable strifes over the questions of the trinity and the eucharist; the more rational views of zwingli and servetus were in notable favour; [ ] and the catholic reaction, fanned by caraffa, was the more facile. measures were first taken against heretical priests and monks; ochino and peter martyr had to fly; and many monks in the monastery of the latter were imprisoned. at rome was founded, in , the congregation of the holy office, a new inquisition, on the deadly model of that of spain; and thenceforth the history of protestantism in italy is but one of suppression. the hostile force was all-pervading, organized, and usually armed with the whole secular power; and though in naples the old detestation of the inquisition broke out anew so strongly that even the spanish tyranny could not establish it, [ ] the papacy elsewhere carried its point by explaining how much more lenient was the italian than the spanish inquisition. such a pressure, kept up by the strongest economic interest in italy, no movement could resist; and it would have suppressed the reformation in any country or any race, as a similar pressure did in spain. prof. gebhart (orig. de la renais. en italie, p. ) writes that "italy has known no great national heresies: one sees there no uprising of minds which resembles the profound popular movements provoked by waldo, wiclif, john huss, or luther." the decisive answer to this is soon given by the author himself (p. ): "if the order of franciscans has had in the peninsula an astonishing popularity; if it has, so to speak, formed a church within the church, it is that it responded to the profound aspirations of an entire people." (cp. p. .) yet again, after telling how the franciscan heresy of the eternal gospel so long prevailed, m. gebhart speaks (p. ) of the italians as a people whom "formal heresy has never seduced." these inconsistencies derive from the old fallacy of attributing the course of the reformation to national character. (see it discussed in the present writer's evolution of states, pp. - , - , - .) burckhardt, while recognizing--as against the theory of "something lacking in the italian mind"--that the italian movements of church reformation "failed to achieve success only because circumstances were against them," goes on to object that the course of "mighty events like the reformation ... eludes the deductions of the philosophers," and falls back on "mystery." (renaissance in italy, eng. tr. p. .) there is really much less "mystery" about such movements than about small ones; and the causes of the reformation are in large part obvious and simple. baur, even in the act of claiming special credit for the personality of luther as the great factor in the reformation, admits that only in the peculiar political conditions in which he found himself could he have succeeded. (kirchengeschichte der neueren zeit, , p. .) the broad explanation of the italian failure is that in italy reform could not for a moment be dreamt of save as within the church, where there was no economic leverage such as effected the reformation from the outside elsewhere. it was a relatively easy matter in germany and england to renounce the pope's control and make the churches national or autonomous. to attempt that in italy would have meant creating a state of universal and insoluble strife. (symonds, renaissance in italy, vol. i, ed. , p. . symonds, however, omits to note the financial dependence of italian society on the papal system; and his verdict that luther and the nations of the north saw clearly "what the italians could not see" is simply the racial fallacy over again.) apart from that, the italians, as we have seen, were as much bent on reformation as any other people in mass; and the earlier franciscan movement was obviously more disinterested than either the later german or the english, in both of which plunder was the inducement to the leading adherents, as it was also in switzerland. there the wholesale bestowal of church livings on italians was the strongest motive to ecclesiastical revolution; and in zürich, the first canton which adopted the reformation, the process was made easy by the state guaranteeing posts and pensions for life to the whole twenty-four canons of the chapter. (vieusseux, history of switzerland, , pp. , ; cp. zschokke, schweizerland's geschichte, te ausg. ch. , and jackson, huldreich zwingli, , pp. - , - .) the protestants had further the support of the unbelieving soldiery, made anti-religious in the italian wars, who rejoiced in the process of priest-baiting and plunder (vieusseux, p. ). the process of suppression in italy was prolonged through sixty years. in numbers of protestants began to fly; hundreds more were cast into prison; and, save in a few places, public profession of the heresy was suppressed. in the papacy persuaded the venetian senate to put down the protestant communities in their dominions, and in there began in venice a persecution in which many were sent to the galleys. to reach secret protestantism, the papacy dispersed spies throughout italy, ferrara being particularly attended to, as a known hotbed. [ ] after the death of the comparatively merciful paul iii ( ), julius iii authorized new severities. a ferrarese preacher was put to death; and the duchess renée, the daughter of louis xii, who had notoriously favoured the heretics, was made virtually a prisoner in her own palace, secluded from her children. at faenza, a nobleman died under torture at the hands of the inquisitors, and a mob in turn killed some of these; [ ] but the main process went on throughout the country. an old waldensian community in calabria having reverted to its former opinions under the new stimulus, it was warred upon by the inquisitors, who employed for the purpose outlaws; and multitudes of victims, including sixty women, were put to the torture. [ ] at montalto, in , another waldensian community were taken captive; eighty-eight men were slaughtered, their throats being cut one by one; many more were tortured; the majority of the men were sent to the spanish galleys; and the women and children were sold into slavery. [ ] in venice many were put to death by drowning. [ ] of individual executions there were many. in a documented list of seventy-eight persons burned alive or hanged and burned at rome from to , [ ] only a minority are known to have been lutherans, the official records being kept on such varying principles that it is impossible to tell how many of the victims were catholic criminals; [ ] while some heretics are represented--it would seem falsely--as having died in the communion of the church. but probably more than half were lutherans or calvinists. the first in the list ( ) are giovanni mollio, [ ] a minorite friar of montalcino, who had been a professor at brescia and bologna, and giovanni teodori [ ] of perugia; and the former is stated in the official record to have recommended his soul to god, the virgin mary, st. francis, and st. anthony of padua, though he had been condemned as an obstinate lutheran. the next victims ( ) are the milanese friar ambrogio de cavoli, who dies "firm in his false opinion," and pomponio angerio or algieri of nola, a student aged twenty-four, who, "as being obstinate, was burned alive." [ ] these were the first victims of caraffa after his elevation to the papal chair as paul iv. under pius iv three were burned in ; under pius v two in , six in , six in , and so on. francesco cellario, an ex-franciscan friar, living as a refugee and protestant preacher in the grisons, was kidnapped, taken to rome, and burned [ ] ( ). a neapolitan nobleman, pompeo de monti, caught in rome, was officially declared to have "renounced head by head all the errors he had held," and accordingly was benignantly beheaded. [ ] quite a number, including the learned protonotary carnesecchi ( ), are alleged to have died "in the bosom of the church." [ ] on the other hand, some of the inquisitors themselves came under the charge of heresy, two cardinals and a bishop being actually prosecuted [ ]--whether for lutheranism or for other forms of private judgment does not appear. simple lutheranism, however, seems to have been the usual limit of heresy among those burned. aonio paleario (originally antonio della paglia or de' pagliaricci) of veroli [ ]--poet and professor of rhetoric at milan, hanged in (in his seventieth year) either for denouncing the inquisition or for lutheranism--was an extreme heretic from the catholic point of view. his actio in romanos pontificos et eorum asseclas is still denounced by the church. [ ] if, however, he was the author of the trattato utilissimo del beneficio di giesu crocifisso verso i christiani, he was simply an evangelical of the school of luther, exalting faith and making light of works; and its "remedies against the temptation of doubt" deal solely with theological difficulties, not with critical unbelief. [ ] this treatise, immensely popular in the sixteenth century, was so zealously destroyed by the church that when ranke wrote no copy was known to exist. [ ] the trattato was placed on the first papal index expurgatorius in ; and the nearly complete extinction of the book is an important illustration of the church's faculty of suppressing literature. the index, anticipated by charles v in the netherlands several years earlier, was established especially to resist the reformation; and its third class contained a prohibition of all anonymous books published since . the destruction of books in italy in the first twenty years of the work of the congregation of the index was enormous, nearly every library being decimated, and many annihilated. all editions of the classics, and even of the fathers, annotated by protestants, or by erasmus, were destroyed; the library of the medicean college at florence, despite the appeals of duke cosmo, was denuded of many works of past generations, now pronounced heretical; and many dead writers who had passed for good catholics were put on the index. booksellers, plundered of their stocks, were fain to seek another calling; and printers, seeing that any one of them who printed a condemned work had every book printed by him put on the index, were driven to refuse all save works officially accredited. it was considered a merciful relaxation of the procedure when, after the death of paul iv ( ), certain books, such as erasmus's editions of the fathers, were allowed to be merely mutilated. [ ] the effect of the whole machinery in making italy in the seventeenth century relatively unlearned and illiterate cannot easily be overstated. in fine, the reformation failed in italy because of the economic and political conditions, as it failed in spain; as it failed in a large part of germany; as it would have failed in holland had philip ii made his capital there (in which case spain might very well have become protestant); and as it would have failed in england had elizabeth been a catholic, like her sister. during the sixty years from to , thousands of italian protestants left italy, as thousands of spanish protestants fled from spain, and thousands of english protestants from england in the reign of mary. [ ] to make the outcome in italy and spain a basis for a theory of racial tendency in religion, or racial defect of "public spirit," is to explain history in a fashion which, in physical science, has long been discredited as an argument in a circle. mccrie, at the old standpoint, says of the inquisition that "this iniquitous and bloody tribunal could never obtain a footing either in france or in germany"; that "the attempt to introduce it in the netherlands was resisted by the adherents of the old as well as the disciples of the new religion; and it kindled a civil war which ... issued in establishing civil and religious liberty"; and that "the ease with which it was introduced into italy showed that, whatever illumination there was among the italians ... they were destitute of that public spirit and energy of principle which were requisite to shake off the degrading yoke by which they were oppressed." the ethical attitude of the christian historian is noteworthy; but we are here concerned with his historiography. a little reflection will make it clear that the non-establishment of the inquisition in france and germany was due precisely to the fact that the papacy was not in these countries as it was in italy, and that the native governments resented external influence. as to the netherlands, the statement is misleading in the extreme. the inquisition set up by charles v was long and fully established in the low countries; and motley recognizes that it was there more severe even than in spain. it was charles v who, in , gave orders for the establishment of the inquisition in naples, when the people so effectually resisted. the view, finally, that the attempt to suppress heresy caused the dutch revolt is merely part of the mythology of the reformation. charles v, at the outset of his reign, stood to spain in the relation of a foreign king who, with his flemish courtiers, exploited spanish revenues. only by making madrid his capital and turning semi-spanish did he at all reverse that relation between the two parts of his dominions. so late as he set up an exceptionally merciless form of the inquisition in the low countries, and this without losing any of the loyalty of the middle and upper classes, protestantism having made its converts only among the poor. in too he had set up an index expurgatorius with the assistance of the theological faculty at louvain; and there was actually a flemish index in print before the papal one (mccrie, ref. in italy, p. ; ticknor, hist. of spanish lit. th ed. i, ). what set up the breach between the netherlands and spain was the failure of philip ii to adjust himself to dutch interests as his father had adjusted himself to spanish. the sunderance was on lines of economic interest and racial jealousy; and dutch protestantism was not the cause but the effect. in the war, indeed, multitudes of dutch catholics held persistently with their protestant fellow-countrymen against spain, as many english catholics fought against the armada. as late as the majority of the people of groningen were still catholics, as the great majority are now in north brabant and limburg; and in the catholics in the netherlands were nearly a third of the whole. from first to last too the dutch protestant creed and polity were those set up by calvin, a frenchman. to those accustomed to the conventional view, the case may become clearer on a survey of the course of anti-papalism in other countries than those mentioned. the political determination of the process in the sixteenth century, indeed, cannot be properly realized save in the light of kindred movements of earlier date, when the "teutonic conscience" made, not for reform, but for fixation. § . the hussite failure in bohemia that the causal forces in the reformation were neither racial religious bias nor special gift on the part of any religious teachers is made tolerably clear by the pre-lutheran episode of the hussites in bohemia a century before the german movement. in bohemia as elsewhere clerical avarice, worldliness, and misconduct had long kept up anti-clerical feeling; and the adoption of wiclif's teaching by huss [ ] at the end of the fourteenth century was the result, and not the cause, of bohemian anti-papalism. [ ] the waldensians, whose doctrines were closely akin to those of huss, were represented in bohemia as early as the twelfth century; and so late as their community was a teaching centre, able to send money help to the waldensians of italy. so apparent was the heredity that Æneas sylvius, afterwards pope pius ii, maintained that the hussites were a branch of the waldenses. [ ] before huss too a whole series of native reformers, beginning with the moravian militz, archdeacon of prague, had set up a partly anti-clerical propaganda. militz, who gave up his emoluments ( ) to become a wandering preacher, actually wrote a libellus de anti-christo, affirming that the church was already in anti-christ's power, or nearly so. [ ] it was written while he was imprisoned by the inquisition at rome at the instance of the mendicant orders, whom he censured. as, however, the later hostility he incurred, up to his death, was on the score of his influence with the people, the treatise cannot well have been current in his lifetime. a contemporary, conrad of waldhausen, holding similar views, joined militz in opposing the mendicant friars as wiclif was doing at the same period; and the king of bohemia (the emperor charles iv) gave zealous countenance to both. a follower of militz, matthias of janow, a prebendary of prague, holding the same views as to anti-christ, wrote a book on the abomination of desolation of priests and monks, and yet another to similar effect. there was thus a considerable movement in the direction of church reform before either huss or wiclif was heard in bohemia; and a bohemian king had shown a reforming zeal, apparently not on financial motives, before any other european potentate. and whereas racial jealousy of the dominant italians was a main factor in the movement of luther, the much more strongly motived jealousy of the czechs against the germans who exploited bohemia was a main element in the salient movement of the hussites. [ ] called in to work the silver mines, and led further by the increasing field for commerce and industry, [ ] the more civilized germans secured control of the czech church and monasteries, appropriating most of the best livings. as they greatly predominated also at the university of prague, huss, whose inspiration was largely racial patriotism, wrought with his colleague jerome to have the university made strictly national. [ ] when, accordingly, the german heads of the university still ( and ) condemned the doctrines of wiclif as preached by huss, the motives of the censors were as much racial and economic as theological; that is to say, the "teutonic conscience" operated in its own interest to the exaltation of papal rule against the czech conscience. the first crisis in the racial struggle ended in huss's obtaining a royal decree ( ) giving three votes in university affairs (wherein, according to medieval custom, the voting was by nations) to the bohemians, and only one to the germans, though the latter were the majority. thereupon a multitude of the german students marched back to germany, where there was founded for them the university of leipzig; [ ] and the racial quarrel was more envenomed than ever. at the same time the ecclesiastical authorities, closely allied with the german interest, took up the cause of the church against heresy; and archbishop sbinko of prague, having procured a papal bull, caused a number of wiclifian and other manuscripts to be burned [ ] ( ), soon after excommunicating huss. the now nationalist university protested, and the king sequestrated the estates of the archbishop on his refusal to indemnify the owners of the manuscripts. in , further, huss denounced the proposed papal crusade against naples, and in the sale of indulgences by permission of pope john xxiii, exactly as luther denounced those of leo x a century later, calling the pope antichrist in the lutheran manner, while his partizans burned the papal bulls. [ ] for the rest, he preached against image-worship, auricular confession, ceremonialism, and clerical endowments. [ ] at the council of constance ( ), accordingly, there was arrayed against him a solid mass of german churchmen, including the ex-rector of prague university, now bishop of misnia. further, the germans were scholastically, as a rule, nominalists, and huss a realist; and as gerson, the most powerful of the french prelates, was zealous for the former school, he threw his influence on the german side, [ ] as did the bishop of london on the part of england. [ ] the forty-five wiclifian heresies, therefore, were re-condemned; huss was sentenced to imprisonment, though he had gone to the council under a letter of safe-conduct from the emperor; [ ] and on his refusal to retract he was burned alive (july , ). jerome, taking flight, was caught, and, being imprisoned, recanted; but later revoked the recantation and was burned likewise (may , ). the subsequent fortunes of the hussite party were determined as usual by the political and economic forces. the king of bohemia had joyfully accepted huss's doctrine that the tithes were not the property of the churchmen; and had locally protected him as his "fowl with the golden eggs," proceeding to plunder the church as did the german princes in the next age. [ ] when, later, the revolutionary hussites began plundering churches and monasteries, the bohemian nobles in their turn profited, [ ] and became good hussites accordingly; while yet another aristocracy was formed in prague by the citizens who managed the confiscations there. [ ] as happened earlier in hungary and later in germany, again, there followed a revolt of the peasants against their extortionate masters; [ ] and there resulted a period of ferocious civil war and exacerbated fanaticism. ziska, the hussite leader, had been a strong anti-german; [ ] and when the emperor entered into the struggle the racial hatred grew more intense than ever. on the hussite side the claim for "the cup" (that is, the administration of the eucharist with wine as well as bread, in the original manner, departed from by the church in the eleventh century) indicated the nature of the religious feeling involved. more memorable was the communistic zeal of the advanced section of the taborites (so called from the town of tabor, their headquarters), who anticipated the german movement of the anabaptists, [ ] a small minority of them seeking to set up community of women. for the rest, all the other main features of later protestantism came up at the same time--the zealous establishment of schools for the young; [ ] the insistence on the bible as the sole standard of knowledge and practice; inflexible courage in warfare and good military organization, with determined denial of sacerdotal claims. [ ] the ideal collapsed as similar ideals did before and afterwards. first the main body of the hussites, led by ziska, though at war with the catholics in general and the germans in particular, warred murderously also on the extremer communists, called the adamites, and destroyed them ( ). then, as the country became more and more exhausted by the civil war, the common people gradually fell away from the taborites, who were the prime fanatics of the period. the zeal of the communist section, too, itself fell away; and at length, in , the taborites, betrayed by one of their generals, were defeated with great slaughter by the nobles in the battle of lipan. meanwhile, the upper aristocracy had reaped the economic fruits of the revolution at the expense of townsmen, small proprietors, and peasants; [ ] and, just as the lot of the german peasants in luther's day was worse after their vain revolt than before, so the bohemian peasantry at the close of the fifteenth century had sunk back to the condition of serfdom from which they had almost completely emerged at the beginning. it is doubtful, indeed, whether the material lot of the poor was bettered in any degree at any stage of the protestant revolution, in any country. so little efficacy for social betterment has a movement guided by a light set above reason. that there was in the period some christian freethinking of a finer sort than the general taborite doctrine is proved by the recovery of the unprinted work of the czech peter helchitsky (chelcicky), the net of faith, which impeached the current orthodoxy and the ecclesiastico-political system on the lines of the more exalted of the paulicians and the lollards, very much to the same effect as the modern gospel of tolstoy. in the midst of a party of warlike fanatics helchitsky denounced war as mere wholesale murder, taught the sinfulness of wealth, declaimed against cities as the great corrupters of life, and preached a peaceful and non-resistant anarchism, ignoring the state. but his party in turn developed into that of the bohemian brethren, an intensely puritan sect, opposed to learning, and ashamed of the memory of the communism in which their order began. [ ] of permanent gain to culture there is hardly a trace in the entire evolution. § . anti-papalism in hungary as in bohemia, so in hungary, there was a ready popular inclination to religious independence of rome before the lutheran period. the limited sway of the hungarian monarchy left the nobles abnormally powerful, and their normal jealousy of the wealth of the church made them in the thirteenth century favourable to the waldenses and recalcitrant to the inquisition. [ ] in the period of the hussite wars a similar protection was long given to the thousands of refugees led by ziska from bohemia into hungary in . [ ] the famous king matthias corvinus, who put severe checks on clerical revenue, had as his favourite court poet the anti-papal bishop of wardein, john, surnamed pannonicus, who openly derided the papal jubilee as a financial contrivance. [ ] under matthias's successor, the ill-fated uladislaus ii, began a persecution, pushed on by his priest-ruled queen ( ), which drove many hussites into wallachia; and at the date of luther's movement the superior clergy of hungary were a powerful body of feudal nobles, living mainly as such, wielding secular power, and impoverishing the state. [ ] as the crusade got up by the papacy against the turks ( ) drew away many serfs, and ended in a peasant war against the nobility, put down with immense slaughter, and followed by oppression both of peasants and small landholders, there was a ready hearing for the lutheran doctrines in hungary. nowhere, probably, did so many join the reformation movement in so short a time. [ ] as elsewhere, a number of the clergy came forward; and the resistance of the rest was proportionally severe, though queen mary, the wife of king louis ii, was pro-lutheran. [ ] books were burned by cartloads; and the diet was induced to pass a general decree for the burning of all lutherans. [ ] the great turkish invasion under soliman ( ) could not draw the priests from their heresy-hunt; but the subsequent division of sovereignty between john zapoyla and ferdinand i, and above all the disdainful tolerance of the turkish sultan in the parts under his authority, [ ] permitted of a continuous spread of the anti-papal doctrine. about four bishops joined the lutheran side, one getting married; and in transylvania in particular the whole church property was ere long confiscated to "the state"; so that in , when only two monasteries remained, the bishop withdrew. of the tithes, it is said, the protestant clergy held three-fourths, and retained them till . [ ] in , according to the same authority, only three families of magnates still adhered to the pope; the lesser nobility were nearly all protestant; and the lutherans among the common people were as thirty to one. [ ] as a matter of course, church property had been confiscated on all hands by the nobles, ferdinand having been unable to hinder them. soon after the battle of mohäcs ( ) the nobles in diet decided not to fill up the places of deceased prelates, but to make over the emoluments of the bishoprics to "such men as deserved well of their country." within a short time seven great territories were so accorded to as many magnates and generals, "nearly all of whom separated from the church of rome, and became steady supporters of the reformation." [ ] the hungarian "reformation" was thus remarkably complete. its subsequent decadence is one of the proofs that, even as the reformation movement had succeeded by secular force, so it was only to be maintained on the same footing by excluding catholic propaganda. in hungary, as elsewhere, strife speedily arose among reformers on the two issues on which reason could play within the limits of scripturalism--the doctrine of the eucharist and the divinity of jesus. on the former question the majority took the semi-rationalist view of zwingli, making the eucharist a simple commemoration; and a strong minority in transylvania became socinian. the italian unitarian giorgio biandrata (or blandrata [ ]), driven to poland from switzerland for his anti-trinitarianism, and called from poland to be the physician of the prince of transylvania, organized a ten days' debate between trinitarians and unitarians at weissenberg in ; and at the close the latter obtained from the nobles present all the privileges enjoyed by the lutherans, even securing control of the cathedral and schools of clausenburg. [ ] it is remarkable that this, the most advanced movement of protestantism, has practically held its ground in transylvania to modern times. [ ] the advance, however, meant desperate schism, and disaster to the main protestant cause. the professors of wittemberg appealed to the orthodox authorities to suppress the heresy, with no better result than a public repudiation of the doctrine of the trinity at the synod of wardein, [ ] and an organization of the unitarian churches. in due course these in turn divided. in biandrata's colleague, ferencz davides, contended for a cessation of prayers to christ, whereupon biandrata invited fausto sozzini from basel to confute him; and the confutation finally took the shape of a sentence of perpetual imprisonment on davides in by the prince of transylvania, to whom biandrata and sozzini referred the dispute. the victim died in a few days--by one account, in a state of frenzy. [ ] between the helvetic and augsburg confessionalists, meanwhile, the strife was equally bitter; and it needed only free scope for the new organization of the jesuits to secure the reconquest of the greater part of hungary for the catholic church. the course of events had shown that the protestant principle of private judgment led those who would loyally act on it further and further from the historic faith; and there was no such general spirit of freethought in existence as could support such an advance. in contrast with the ever-dividing and mutually anathematizing parties of the dissenters, the ostensible solidity of the catholic church had an attraction which obscured all former perception of her corruptions; and the fixity of her dogma reassured those who recoiled in horror from zwinglianism and socinianism, as the adherents of these systems recoiled in turn from that of davides. only the absolute suppression of the jesuits, as in elizabethan england, could have saved the situation; and the political circumstances which had facilitated the spread of protestantism were equally favourable to the advent of the reaction. as the huguenot nobles in france gradually withdrew from their sect in the seventeenth century, so the protestant nobles in hungary began to withdraw from theirs towards the end of the sixteenth. what the jesuits could not achieve by propaganda was compassed by imperial dragonnades; and in only a few protestant congregations remained in all styria and carinthia. [ ] admittedly, however, the jesuits wrought much by sheer polemic, the pungent writings of their cardinal pazmány having the effect of converting a number of nobles; [ ] while the protestants, instead of answering the most effective of pazmány's attacks, the guide to truth, spent their energies in fighting each other. [ ] in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there ensued enough of persecution by the catholic rulers to have roused a new growth of protestantism, if that could longer avail; but the balance of forces remained broadly unchanged. orthodox protestantism and orthodox unitarianism, having no new principle of criticism as against those turned upon themselves by the jesuits, and no new means of obtaining an economic leverage, have made latterly no headway against catholicism, which is to-day professed by more than half the people of hungary, while among the remainder the greek catholics and greek orientals respectively outnumber the helvetic and lutheran churches. the future is to some more searching principle of thought. § . protestantism in poland the chief triumph of the jesuit reaction was won in poland; and there, perhaps, is to be found the best illustration of the failure of mere protestantism, on the one hand, to develop a self-maintaining intellectual principle, and the worse failure, on the other hand, of an organized and unresisted catholicism to secure either political or intellectual vitality. opposition to the papacy on nationalist as well as on general grounds is nearly as well marked in polish history as in bohemian, from the pagan period onwards, the first christian priesthood being chiefly foreign, [ ] while, as in bohemia, the people clung to vernacular worship. in we find king boleslav the dauntless (otherwise the cruel) executing the bishop of cracow, taxing the lands of the church, and vetoing the bestowal of posts on foreigners. [ ] he in turn was driven into exile by a combination of clergy and nobles. a century later a polish diet vetoes the confiscation of the property of deceased bishops by the sovereign princes of the various provinces; and a generation later still the veto is seen to be disregarded. [ ] in the middle of the thirteenth century there are further violent quarrels between dukes and clergy over tithes, the former successfully ordering and the latter vainly resisting a money commutation; till in duke boleslav of cracow is induced to grant the bishops almost unlimited immunities and powers. [ ] under casimir the great ( - ) further strifes occur on similar grounds between the equestrian order and the clergy, the king sometimes supporting the latter against the former, as in the freeing of serfs, and sometimes enforcing taxation of church lands with violence. [ ] in the next reign the immunities granted by boleslav in are cancelled by the equestrian order, acting in concert. and while these strifes had all been on economic grounds, we meet in with a heretical movement, set up by john pirnensis, who denounced the pope as antichrist in the fashion of the bohemian reformers of the next generation. the people of breslau seem to have gone over bodily to the heresy; and when the inquisition of cracow attempted forcible repression the chief inquisitor was murdered in a riot. [ ] it was thus natural that in the fourteenth century the hussite movement should spread greatly in poland, and the papacy be defied in matters of nomination by the king. [ ] the poles had long frequented the university of prague; and huss's colleague jerome was called in to organize the university of cracow in . against the hussite doctrines the catholic clergy had to resort largely to written polemic, [ ] their power being small; though the king confirmed their synodical decree making heresy high treason. in poland obtained its law of habeas corpus, [ ] over two centuries before england; and under that safeguard numbers of the nobility declared themselves hussites. in some of the chief of these formed a confederation against church and crown; and in they proclaimed an abolition of tithes, and demanded, on the lines of the earlier english lollards, that the enormous estates of the clergy should be appropriated to public purposes. in the diet of , again, a learned noble, john ostrorog, who had studied at padua, delivered an address, afterwards expanded into a latin book, denouncing the revenue exactions of the papacy, and proposing to confiscate the annates, or first fruits of ecclesiastical offices so exacted; proceeding further to bring against the polish clergy in general all the usual charges of simony, avarice, and fraud, and indicting the mendicant orders as having demoralized the common people. [ ] the poles having no such nationalist motive in their hussitism as had the bohemians, who were fighting german domination, there took place in poland no such convulsions as followed the bohemian movement; but, when the lutheran impulse came in the next century, the german element which had been added to poland by the incorporation of the order and territory of the teutonic knights in made an easy way for the german heresy. in dantzic the lutheran inhabitants in took the churches from the catholics, and, terrorizing the town council, shut up and secularized the monasteries and convents. [ ] in , with due bloodshed, the king effected a counter-revolution in the catholic interest; but still the heresy spread, the law of habeas corpus thwarting all clerical attempts at persecution, and the king being at heart something of an indifferentist in religion. [ ] in the province of great poland was formed ( - ) a lutheran church, protected by a powerful family; and in cracow a group of scholars formed a non-sectarian organization to evangelize the country. among them, about , occurred the first expression of polish unitarianism, the innovator being adam pastoris, a dutch or belgian priest, who seems to have used at times the name of spiritus. [ ] on lines of simple protestantism the movement was rapid, many aristocrats and clergy declaring for it; [ ] and in the diets of and was shown an increasingly strong anti-catholic feeling, which the church was virtually powerless to punish. in a parish priest publicly married a wife, and the bishop of cracow abandoned the attempt to displace him. the next bishop, zebrzydowski, a favourite pupil of erasmus, was said by a socinian writer of the period to have openly expressed disbelief in immortality and other dogmas; [ ] but when in a noble refused to pay tithes, he ecclesiastically condemned him to death, and declared his property confiscated. the sentence, however, could not be put in force; and when the other heads of the church, seeing their revenues menaced and their clergy in large part tending to heresy, [ ] attempted a general and severe prosecution of backsliding priests, the resistance of the magistracy brought the effort to nothing. [ ] the diet of practically abrogated the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and despite much intrigue the economic interest of the landowners continued to maintain the protestant movement, which was rapidly organized on german and swiss models. it was by the play of its own elements of strife that its ascendancy was undermined. on the one hand, an influential cleric, orzechowski, who had married and turned protestant, reconciled himself to rome on the death of his wife, having already begun a fierce polemic against the unitarian tendencies appearing on the protestant side in the teaching of the italian stancari ( ); on the other hand, those tendencies gained head till they ruptured the party, of which the trinitarian majority further quarrelled violently among themselves till, as in hungary, many were driven back to the arms of catholicism. in a synod held in , one peter goniondzki [ ] (gonesius)--who as a catholic had violently opposed stancari in , but in the interim had studied in switzerland and turned protestant--took up a more anti-trinitarian position than stancari's, affirming three gods, of whom the son and the spirit were subordinate to the father. a few years later he declared against infant baptism--here giving forth opinions he had met with in moravia; and he rapidly drew to him a considerable following alike of ministers and of wealthy laymen. [ ] it was thus not the primary influence of lelio sozzini, who had visited poland in and did not return till , that set up the remarkable growth of unitarianism in that country. it would seem rather that in the country of copernicus the relative weakness of the church had admitted of a more common approach to freedom of thought than was seen elsewhere; [ ] and the impunity of the new movements brought many heterodox fugitives (as it did jews) from other lands. one of the newcomers, the learned italian, george biandrata, whose unitarianism had been cautiously veiled, was made one of the superintendents of the "helvetic" church of little poland, and aimed at avoidance of dogmatic strifes; but after his withdrawal to transylvania gregorius pauli, a minister of cracow, of italian descent, went further than gonesius had done, and declared jesus to be a mere man. [ ] he further preached community of goods, promised a speedy millennium, and condemned the bearing of arms. [ ] after various attempts at suppression and compromise by the orthodox majority, a group of unitarian ministers and nobles formally renounced the doctrine of the trinity at the conference of petrikov in ; and, on a formal condemnation being passed by an orthodox majority at cracow in , there was formed a unitarian church, with forty-two subscribing ministers, zwinglian as to the eucharist, and opposed to infant baptism. [ ] ethically, its doctrine was humane and pacificatory, its members being forbidden to go to law or to take oaths; and for a time the community made great progress, the national diet being, by one account, "filled with arians" for a time. [ ] meantime the calvinist, zwinglian, and lutheran protestant churches quarrelled as fiercely in poland as elsewhere, every compromise breaking down, till the abundant relapses of nobles and common people to catholicism began to rebuild the power of the old church, which found in "the great cardinal," hosius, a statesman and controversialist unequalled on the protestant side. backed by the jesuits, he gained by every protestant dispute, the jesuit order building itself up with its usual skill. and the course of politics told conclusively in the same direction. king stephen battory favoured the jesuits; and king sigismund iii, who had been educated as a catholic by his mother, systematically gave effect to his personal leanings by the use of his peculiar feudal powers. under the ancient constitution the king had the bestowal of a number of life-tenures of great estates, called starosties; and the granting of these sigismund made conditional on the acceptance of catholicism. [ ] thus the protestantism of the nobles, which had been in large part originally determined by economic interests, was dissolved by a reversal of the same force, very much in the fashion in which it was disintegrated in france by the policy of richelieu at the same period. at the close of sigismund's reign protestantism was definitively broken up; and the jesuit ascendancy permitted even of frequent persecutions of heresy. from these unitarians could not escape; and at length, in , they were expelled from the country, now completely subject to jesuitism. in the country in which protestantism and unitarianism in turn had spread most rapidly under favouring political and social conditions, the rise of contrary conditions had most rapidly and decisively overthrown them. the record of the heresy of poland, bohemia, and hungary, in fine, is very much a reduplication of that of early christianity. men presented with an obscure and self-contradictory "revelation" set themselves zealously to extract from it a body of certain truth, and in that hopeless undertaking did but multiply strife, till the majority, wearied with the fruitless quest, resigned themselves like their ancient prototypes to a rule of dogma under which the reasoning faculty became inert. sane rationalism had to find another path, in a more enlightened day. § . the struggle in france the political and economic conditioning of the reformation may perhaps best be understood by following the fortunes of protestantism in france. when luther began his schism, france might reasonably have been held a much more likely field for its extension than england. while king henry was still to earn from the papacy the title of "defender of the faith" as against luther, king francis had exacted from the pope ( ) a concordat by which the appointment of all abbots and bishops in france was vested in the crown, the papacy receiving only the annates, or first year's revenue. for centuries too the french throne and the papacy had been chronically at strife; for seventy years a french pope, subservient to the king, had sat at avignon; and before the concordat the "pragmatic sanction," first enacted in by the devout st. louis, had since the reign of charles vii, who reinforced it ( ), kept the gallican church on a semi-independent footing towards rome. by the account of the chancellor du prat in , the "pragmatic," then superseded by the concordat, had isolated france among the catholic peoples, causing her to be regarded as inclined to heresy. [ ] in the council of pisa, convoked by louis xii, had denounced pope julius ii as a dangerous schismatic, and he had retaliated by placing france under interdict. in the previous year the french king had given his protection to a famous farce by pierre gringoire, in which, on shrove tuesday, the pope was openly ridiculed. [ ] nowhere, in short, was the papacy as such less respected. the whole strife, however, between the french kings and the popes had been for revenue, not on any question of doctrine. in the three years ( - ) during which louis xi had for his own purposes suspended the pragmatic sanction, it was found that , , crowns had gone from france to rome for "expetatives" and "dispensations," besides , crowns for bulls for archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, priories, and deaneries. [ ] this drain was naturally resisted by church and crown alike. louis xi restored the pragmatic sanction. louis xii re-enacted it in with new severity; and the effect of the concordat of francis i was merely to win over the pope by dividing between the king and him the power of plunder by the sale of ecclesiastical offices. [ ] it was accordingly much resented by the parlement, the university, the clergy, and the people of paris; but the king overbore all opposition. though, therefore, he had at times some disposition to make a "reform" on the lutheran lines, he had no such motive thereto as had the kings and nobles of the other northern countries; and he had further no such personal motive as had henry viii of england. under the existing arrangement he was as well provided for as might be, since "the patronage of some six hundred bishoprics and abbeys furnished him with a convenient and inexpensive method of providing for his diplomatic service, and of rewarding literary merit." [ ] the troubles in germany, besides, were a warning against letting loose a movement of popular fanaticism. [ ] when, therefore, protestantism and lutheranism began to show head in france, they had no friends at once powerful and zealous. before luther, in , jacques lefèvre d'Étaples laid down in the commentary on his latin translation of the pauline epistles the lutheran doctrine of grace, and in effect denied the received doctrine of transubstantiation. [ ] in his former pupil, guillaume briçonnet, bishop of meaux, invited him and some younger reformers, among them guillaume farel, to join him in teaching in his diocese; and in appeared lefèvre's translation of and commentary on the gospels, which effectually began the protestant movement in france. [ ] persecution soon began. the king's adoring sister, margaret, duchess of alençon (afterwards queen of navarre), was the friend of briçonnet, but was powerless to help at home even her own intimates. [ ] at first the king and his mother encouraged the movement at meaux while sending out a dozen preachers through france to combat the lutheran teaching; [ ] but in , setting out on his italian campaign, the king saw fit to conciliate his clergy, and his clerical chancellor du prat began measures of repression, the queen-mother assenting, and briçonnet's own brother assisting. already, in , the sorbonne had condemned luther's writings, and the parlement of paris had ordered the surrender of all copies. in the works of louis de berquin, the anti-clerical friend of erasmus, were condemned, and himself imprisoned; and briçonnet consented to issue synodal decrees against luther's books and against certain lutheran doctrines preached in his own diocese. only by the king's intervention was berquin at this time released. the first man slain was jean chastellain, a shoemaker of tournay, burned at vic in lorraine on january , . the next was a wool-carder of meaux, [ ] who was first whipped and branded for a fanatical outrage, then burned to death, with slow tortures, for a further outrage against an image of the virgin at metz (july, ). later, an ecclesiastic of the meaux group, jacques banvan of picardy, was prosecuted at paris for anti-lutheran heresy, and publicly recanted; but repented, retracted his abjuration, and was burned on the place de grève, in august, ; a nameless "hermit of livry" suffering the same death about the same time beside the cathedral of notre dame. [ ] meantime lefèvre had taken refuge in strasburg, and, despite a letter of veto from the king, now in captivity at madrid, his works were condemned by the sorbonne. when released, the king not only recalled him but made him tutor to his children. ecclesiastical pressures, however, forced him finally to take refuge under the queen of navarre at nérac, in gascony, where he mourned his avoidance of martyrdom. [ ] so determined had been the persecution that in berquin was a second time imprisoned, and with difficulty saved from death by the written command of the captive king, sent on his sister's appeal. [ ] and when the released king, to secure the deliverance of his hostage sons, felt bound to conciliate the pope, and to secure funds had to conciliate the clergy, marguerite, compelled to marry the king of navarre, could do nothing more for protestantism, [ ] being herself openly and furiously denounced by the catholic clergy. [ ] bought by a clerical subsidy, the king, on the occasion of a new outrage on a statue of the virgin ( ), [ ] associated himself with the popular indignation; and when the audacious berquin, despite the dissuasions of erasmus, resumed his anti-catholic polemic, and in particular undertook to prove that béda, the chief of the sorbonne, was not a christian, [ ] he was re-arrested, tried, and condemned to be publicly branded and imprisoned for life. on his announcing an appeal to the absent king, and to the pope, a fresh sentence, this time of death, was hurriedly passed; and he was strangled and burned ( ) within two hours of the sentence, [ ] to the intense joy of the ecclesiastical multitude. after various vacillations, the king in had the fresh pretext of protestant outrage--the affixing of an anti-catholic placard in all of the principal thoroughfares of paris, and to the door of the king's own room [ ]--for permitting a fresh persecution after he had refused the pope's request that he should join in a general extermination of heresy, [ ] and there began at paris a series of human sacrifices. it will have been observed that protestant outrages had provoked previous executions; and there is some ground for the view that, but for the new and exasperating outrage of , the efforts which were being officially made for a modus vivendi might have met with success. [ ] this hope was now frustrated. in november, , seven men were condemned to be burned alive, one of them for printing lutheran books. in december others followed; and in january, , on the occasion of a royal procession "to appease the wrath of god," six lutherans (by one account, three by another) were burned alive by slow fires, one of the victims being a school-mistress. [ ] it was on this occasion that the king, in a public speech, declared: "were one of my arms infected with this poison, i would cut it off. were my own children tainted, i should immolate them." [ ] under such circumstances religious zeal naturally went far. in six months there were passed sentences of death, of which twenty-seven were executed, the majority of the condemned having escaped by flight. thereafter the individual burnings are past counting. on an old demand of the sorbonne, the king actually sent to the parlement an edict abolishing the art of printing; [ ] which he duly recalled when the parlement declined to register it. but the french government was now committed to persecution. the sorbonne's declaration against luther in had proclaimed as to the heretics that "their impious and shameless arrogance must be restrained by chains, by censures--nay, by fire and flame, rather than confuted by argument"; [ ] and in that spirit the ruling clergy proceeded, the king abetting them. in he ordained that heresy should be punished as sedition; [ ] and in occurred the massacres of the vaudois, before described. the result of this and further savageries was simply the wider diffusion of heresy, and a whole era of civil war, devastation, and demoralization. meantime calvin had been driven abroad, to found a protestant polity at geneva and give a lead to those of england and scotland. the balance of political forces prevented a protestant polity in france; but nowhere else in the sixteenth century did protestantism fight so long and hard a battle. that the reformation was a product of "teutonic conscience" is an inveterate fallacy. [ ] the country in which protestantism was intellectually most disinterested and morally most active was france. "the main battle of erudition and doctrine against the catholic church," justly contends guizot, "was sustained by the french reformers; it was in france and holland, and always in french, that most of the philosophic, historical, and polemic works on that side were written; neither germany nor england, certainly, employed in the cause at that epoch more intelligence and science." [ ] nor was there in france--apart from the provocative insults to catholics above mentioned--any such licence on the protestant side as arose in germany, though the french protestants were as violently intolerant as any. their ultimate decline, after long and desperate wars ending in a political compromise, was due to the play of socio-economic causes under the wise and tolerant administration of richelieu, who opened the royal services to the protestant nobles. [ ] the french character had proved as unsubduable in protestantism as any other; and the generation which in large part gradually reverted to catholicism did but show that it had learned the lesson of the strifes which had followed on the reformation--that protestantism was no solution of either the moral or the intellectual problems of religion and politics. § . the political process in britain it was thus by no predilection or faculty of "race" that the reformation so-called came to be associated historically with the northern or "teutonic" nations. they simply succeeded in making permanent, by reason of more propitious political circumstances, a species of ecclesiastical revolution in which other races led the way. as hussitism failed in bohemia, lollardism came to nothing in england in the same age, after a period of great vogue and activity. [ ] the designs of parliament on the revenues of the church at the beginning of the fifteenth century [ ] had failed by reason of the alliance knit between church and crown in the times when the latter needed backing; and at the accession of henry viii england was more orthodox than any of the other leading states of northern europe. [ ] henry was himself passionately orthodox, and was much less of a reformer in his mental attitude than was wolsey, who had far-reaching schemes for de-romanizing the church alike in england and france, and who actually gave the king a handle against him by his plans for turning church endowments to educational purposes. [ ] the personal need of the despotic king for a divorce which the pope dared not give him was the first adequate lead to the rejection of the papal authority. on this the plunder of the monasteries followed, as a forced measure of royal finance, [ ] of precaution against papal influence, and for the creation of a body of new interests vitally hostile to a papal restoration. the king and the mass of the people were alike catholics in doctrine; the protestant nobles who ruled under edward vi were for the most part mere cynical plunderers, appropriating alike church goods, lands, and school endowments more shamelessly than even did the potentates of germany; and on the accession of queen mary the nation gladly reverted to romish usages, though the spoil-holders would not surrender a yard of church lands. [ ] had there been a succession of catholic sovereigns, catholicism would certainly have been restored. protestantism was only slowly built up by the new clerical and heretical propaganda, and by the state of hostility set up between england and the catholic powers. it was the episode of the spanish armada that, by identifying catholicism with the cause of the great national enemy, made the people grow definitely anti-catholic. even in shakespeare's dramas the old state of things is seen not yet vitally changed. in scotland, though there the priesthood had fewer friends than almost anywhere else, the act of reformation was mainly one of pure and simple plunder of church property by the needy nobility, in conscious imitation of the policy of henry viii, at a time when the throne was vacant; and there too protestant doctrine was only gradually established by the new race of preachers, trained in the school of calvin. in ireland, on the other hand, protestantism became identified with the cause of the oppressor, just as for england romanism was the cause of the enemy-in-chief. "race" and "national character," whatever they may be understood to mean, had nothing whatever to do with the course of events, and doctrinal enlightenment had just as little. [ ] in the words of a distinguished clerical historian: "no truth is more certain than this, that the real motives of religious action do not work on men in masses; and that the enthusiasm which creates crusaders, inquisitors, hussites, puritans, is not the result of conviction, but of passion provoked by oppression or resistance, maintained by self-will, or stimulated by the mere desire of victory." [ ] to this it need only be added that the desire of gain is also a factor, and that accordingly the anti-papal movement succeeded where the balance of political forces could be turned against the clerical interest, and failed where the latter predominated. chapter xii the reformation and freethought § . germany and switzerland in the circumstances set forth in the last chapter, the reformation could stand for only the minimum of freethought needed to secure political action. some decided unbelief there was within its original sphere; [ ] the best known instance being the private latitudinarianism of such humanist teachers as mutianus (mudt) and crotus (jäger), of the erfurt university, in the closing years of the fifteenth century. trained in italy, mutianus, after his withdrawal to private life at gotha, in his private correspondence [ ] avowed the opinion that the sacred books contained many designed fables; that the books of job and jonah were such; and that there was a secret wisdom in the moslem opinion that christ himself was not crucified, his place being taken by someone resembling him. to his young friend spalatin he propounded the question: "if christ alone be the way, the truth, and the life, how went it with the men who lived so many centuries before his birth? had they had no part in truth and salvation?" and he hints the answer that "the religion of christ did not begin with his incarnation, but is as old as the world, as his birth from the father. for what is the real christ, the only son of god, save, as paul says, the wisdom of god, with which he endowed not only the jews in their narrow syrian land, but also the greeks, the romans, and the germans, however different might be their religious usages." though some such doctrine could be found in eusebius, [ ] it was remarkable enough in the germany of four hundred years ago. but mutianus went still further. to his friend heinrich urban he wrote that "there is but one god and one goddess" under the many forms and names of jupiter, sol, apollo, moses, christ, luna, ceres, proserpina, tellus, maria. "but," he prudently added, "heed that you do not spread it abroad. one must hide it in silence, like eleusinian mysteries. in religious matters we must avail ourselves of the cloak of fable and enigma. thou, with the grace of jupiter--that is, the best and greatest god--shouldst silently despise the little gods. when i say jupiter, i mean christ and the true god. but enough of these all too high things." such language hints of much current rationalism that can now only be guessed at, since it was unsafe even to write to friends as mutianus did. on concrete matters of religion he is even more pronounced, laughing at the worship of the coat and beard and foreskin of jesus, calling lenten food fool's food, contemning the begging monks, rejecting confession and masses for the dead, and pronouncing the hours spent in altar-service lost time. in his house at gotha, behind the cathedral, his friend crotus burlesqued the mass, called the relics of saints bones from the gallows, and otherwise blasphemed with his host. [ ] but such esoteric doctrine and indoors unbelief can have had no part in the main movement; and though at the same period we see among the common people the satirist heinrich bebel, a swabian peasant's son, jesting for them over the doctrines of trinity in unity, the resurrection, doomsday, and the sacraments, [ ] it is certain that that influence counted for little in the way of serious thinking. it was only as separate and serious heresies that such doctrines could long propagate themselves; and luther in his letter to the people of antwerp [ ] speaks of one sect or group as rejecting baptism, another the eucharist, another the divinity of jesus, and yet another affirming a middle state between the present life and the day of judgment. one teacher in antwerp he describes as saying that every man has the holy ghost, that being simply reason and understanding, that there is no hell, and that doing as we would be done by is faith; but this heretic does not seem to have founded a sect. the most extensive wave of really innovating thought was that set up by the social and anti-sacerdotal revolt of the anabaptists, among whom occurred also the first popular avowals of unitarianism. in the way of literature, unitarian doctrine came from john campanus, of jülich; ludwig hetzer, a priest of zürich; and (in a minor degree) johann denk, school-rector in nüremberg in , [ ] and afterwards one of the earlier leaders of the anabaptist movement. all three were men of academic training; and hetzer, who wrote explicitly against the divinity of christ, had previously made with the aid of denk a german translation, which was used by luther, of the hebrew prophets ( ). he was beheaded at constance in , nominally on the charge of practising free-love. [ ] campanus, who published a book attacking the doctrine of the trinity and the teaching of luther, had to leave wittemberg in consequence, and finally died after a long imprisonment in cleve. denk--an amiable and estimable man [ ]--is said, on very scant grounds, to have recanted before he died. not only from such thoroughgoing heresy, but from the whole anabaptist secession, and no less from the rising of the peasants, the main lutheran movement kept itself utterly aloof; and, though the catholics naturally identified the extremer parties with the reformation, its official or "centre" polity made little for intellectual or political as distinct from ecclesiastical innovation. towards the peasants' revolt, which at first he favoured, inasmuch as the peasants, whom he had courted, came to him for counsel, luther's final attitude was so brutal that it has to-day almost no apologist; and in this as in some of his other evil departures the "mild" melanchthon went with him. [ ] their doctrine was the very negation of all democracy, and must be interpreted as an absolute capitulation to the nobles, without whose backing they knew themselves to be ecclesiastically helpless. in the massacres to which luther gave his eager approval a hundred thousand men were destroyed. [ ] "from this time onwards," pronounces baur, "luther ceases to be the representative of the spirit of his time; he represents only one side of it.... thenceforth his writings have no more the universal bearing they once had, but only a particular.... in the political connection we must date from luther's attitude to the peasants' war the lutheran theory of unconditional obedience. christianity, as luther preached it, has given to princes unlimited power of despotism and tyranny; while the poor man, who, without right of protest, must submit to everything, will be compensated for his earthly sufferings in heaven." [ ] naturally the princes henceforth grew more and more lutheran. as naturally the crushed peasantry turned away from the reformation in despair. luther had in the first instance approached them, not they him. before the revolt the reformers had made the peasant a kind of hero in their propaganda; [ ] and when in the first and moderate stage of the rising its motives were set forth in sixty-two articles, these were purely agrarian. "there is no trace of a religious element in them, no indication that their authors had ever heard of luther or of the gospel." [ ] then it was that luther commended them; and thereafter "a religious element began to obtrude." [ ] when the overthrow began, doubtless sincerely reprobating the violences of the insurgents, he hounded on the princes in their work of massacre, melanchthon chiming in. thereafter, as melanchthon admitted, the people showed a detestation of the lutheran clergy; [ ] and among many there was even developed a kind of "materialistic atheism." [ ] the political outcome, as aforesaid, was a thoroughly undemocratic organization of protestantism in germany; and, though the ecclesiastical tyranny which resulted from the more democratic system of calvin was not more favourable to progress or happiness, the final german system of cujus regio, ejus religio--every district taking the religion of its ruler--must be summed up as a mere negation of the right of private judgment. save for the attempt of a frenchman, françois lambert of avignon, to organize a self-governing church, german protestantism showed almost no democratic feeling. [ ] the one poor excuse for luther was that the peasants had never recognized the need or duty of maintaining their clergy. [ ] and seeing how the wealth of the church went to the nobles and the well-to-do, and how downtrodden were the peasants all along, it would be surprising indeed if they had. they were not the workers of the ecclesiastical reformation, and it wrought little or nothing for them. the side on which the whole movement made for new light was its promotion of common schools, which enabled many of the people for the first time to read. [ ] this tendency had been seen among the waldenses, the lollards, and the hussites, and for the same reasons. such movements depended for their existence on the reading of the sacred books by the people for themselves; and to make readers was their first concern. in this connection, of course, note must be taken of the higher educational revival before the reformation, [ ] without which the ecclesiastical revolution could not have taken place even in germany. as we saw, a literary expansion preceded the hussite movement in bohemia; and the stir of concern for written knowledge, delightedly acclaimed by ulrich von hutten, is recognized by all thoughtful historians in germany before the rise of luther. such enlightenment as that of mutianus was far in advance of luther's own; and enlightenment of a lower degree cannot have been lacking. the ability to read, indeed, must have been fairly general in the middle class in germany, for it appears that the partisan favour shown everywhere to luther's writings by the printers and booksellers gave him an immense propagandist advantage over his catholic opponents, who could secure for their replies only careless or bad workmanship, and were thus made to seem actually illiterate in the eyes of the reading public. [ ] as regards switzerland, again, it is the admitted fact that "the educational movement began before the religious revival, and was a cause of the reformation rather than a result." [ ] so in holland, the brethren of the common lot (fratres vitæ communis), a partially communistic but orthodox order of learned and unlearned laymen which lasted from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, did much for the schooling of the common people, and passed on their impulse to germany. [ ] similarly in scotland the schools seem to have been fairly numerous even in the later catholic period. [ ] there, and in some other countries, it was the main merit of the reformation to carry on zealously the work so begun, setting up common schools in every parish. in lutheran germany this work was for a long period much more poorly done, as regarded the peasantry. these had been trodden down after their revolt into a state of virtual slavery. "the broad midlands and the entire eastern part of germany were filled with slaves, who had neither status nor property nor education"; [ ] and it was long before any large number of the people were taught to read and write, [ ] the schooling given at the best being a scanty theological drill. [ ] but indeed for two-thirds of its adherents everywhere the reformation meant no other reading than that of the bible and catechisms and theological treatises. coming as it did within one or two generations of the invention of printing, it stood not for new ideas, but for the spread of old. that invention had for a time positively checked the production of new books, the multiplication of the old having in a measure turned attention to the past; [ ] and the diffusion of the bible in particular determined the mental attitude of the movement in mass. the thinking of its more disinterested promoters began and ended in bibliolatry: luther and calvin alike did but set up an infallible book and a local tyranny against an infallible pope and a tyranny centring at rome. neither dreamt of toleration; and calvin, the more competent mind of the two, did but weld the detached irrationalities of the current theology into a system which crushed reason and stultified the morality in the name of which he ruled geneva with a rod of iron. [ ] it is remarkable that both men reverted to the narrowest orthodoxies of the earlier church, in defiance of whatever spirit of reasonable inquiry had been on the side of their movement. "it is a quality of faith," wrote luther, "that it wrings the neck of reason and strangles the beast"; [ ] and he repeatedly avowed that it was only by submitting his mind absolutely to the scriptures that he could retain his faith. [ ] "he despised reason as heartily as any papal dogmatist could despise it. he hated the very thought of toleration or comprehension." [ ] and when calvin was combated by the catholic pighius on the question of predestination and freewill, his defence was that he followed christ and the apostles, while his opponents resorted to human thoughts and reasonings. [ ] on the same principle he dealt with the copernican theory. after once breaking away from rome both leaders became typical anti-freethinkers, never even making savonarola's pretence to resort to rationalist methods, though of course not more anti-rationalist than he. the more reasonable zwingli, who tried to put an intelligible aspect on one or two of the mysteries of the faith, was scouted by both, as they scouted each other. it is noteworthy that zwingli, the most open-minded of the reformers, owed his relative enlightenment to his general humanist culture, [ ] and in particular to the influence of pico della mirandola and of erasmus. it has even been argued that his whole theological system is derived from pico, [ ] but it appears to have been from erasmus that he drew his semi-rationalistic view of the eucharist, [ ] a development of that of berengar, representing it as a simple commemoration. such thinking was far from the "spirit of the reformation"; and luther, after the colloquy of marburg ( ), in which he and melanchthon debated against zwingli and oecolampadius, spoke of those "sacramentarians" as "not only liars, but the very incarnation of lying, deceit, and hypocrisy." [ ] zwingli's language is less ferocious; but it is confessed of him that he too practised coercion against minorities in the case alike of the anabaptists and of the monasteries and nunneries, and even in the establishment of his reformed eucharist. [ ] the expulsion of the nuns of st. katherinenthal in particular was an act of sheer tyranny; and the outcome of the methods enforced by him at zürich was the bitter hostility of the five forest cantons, which remained catholic. in war with them he lost his life; and after his death ( ) his sacramental doctrine rapidly disappeared from swiss and continental protestantism, [ ] even as it failed to make headway in england. [ ] at his fall "the words of triumph and cursing used by lutherans and others were shameful and almost inhuman." [ ] in the sequel, for sheer lack of a rational foundation, the other protestant sects in turn fell to furious dissension and persecution, some apparently finding their sole bond of union in hatred of the rest. see menzel, geschichte der deutschen, te aufl. cap. , for a sample of lutheran popery; and as to the strifes cp. c. beard, the reformation, as cited, pp. - ; dunham, history of the germanic empire, , iii, - , , ; strype, memorials of cranmer, ed. , iii, - ; a. f. pollard, in "the cambridge modern history," vol. ii, the reformation, ch. viii, pp. - . in the last-cited compilation, however, the strifes of the protestant sects are barely indicated. as to luther's attitude towards new science, see his derision of copernicus, on scriptural grounds, in the table talk, ch. lxix, of astronomy and astrology. (the passage is omitted from the english translation in the bohn library, p. ; and the whole chapter is dropped from the german abridgment published by reclam.) melanchthon was equally unteachable, and actually proposed to suppress the new teachings by punitive methods. (initia doctrinæ physicæ, cited by white, warfare of science and theology, , i, .) it has been loosely claimed for luther that he was "an enemy to religious persecution" (lieber, manual of political ethics, , pt. i, p. ), when the only evidence offered is (id. p. ) that he declared against killing for heresy, because innocent men were likely to be slain--"quare nullo modo possum admittere, falsos doctores occidi." as early as , renouncing his previous doctrine of non-coercion, he invoked the intervention of the state to punish blasphemy, declaring that the power of the sword was given by god for such ends (bezold, p. ). melanchthon too declared that "our commands are mere platonic laws when the civil power does not give its support" (id. p. ). a certain intellectual illusion is set up even by bezold when he writes that in luther's resort to physical force "the hierarchical principle had triumphed over one of the noblest principles of the reformation." "the reformation" had no specific principles. among its promoters were professed all manner of principles. the reformation was the outcome of all their activities, and to make of it an entity or even a distinct set of theories is to obscure the phenomena. such flaws of formulation, however, are trifling in comparison with the mis-statement of the historic fact which is still normal in academic as in popular accounts of the reformation. it would be difficult, for instance, to give seriously a more misleading account of the lutheran reformation than the proposition of dr. edward caird that, "in thrusting aside the claim of the church to place itself between the individual and god, luther had proclaimed the emancipation of men not only from the leading strings of the church, but, in effect, from all external authority whatever, and even, in a sense, from all merely external teaching or revelation of the truth" (hegel, , p. ). luther thrust his own church precisely where the catholic church had been; bitterly denounced new heresies; and put the bible determinedly "between the individual and god." in luther's own day sebastian franck unanswerably accused him of setting up a paper pope in place of the human pope he had rejected. luther's declaration was that "the ungodly papists prefer the authority of the church far above god's word, a blasphemy abominable and not to be endured, wherewith ... they spit in god's face. truly god's patience is exceeding great, in that they be not destroyed" (table talk, ch. i). another misconception is set up by pattison, who seems to have been much concerned to shield calvin from the criticism of the civilized conscience (see below, p. ). he pronounces that calvin's "great merit lies in his comparative neglect of dogma. he seized the idea of reformation as a real renovation of human character" (essays, ii, ). if so, the reformer can have had little satisfaction, for he never admitted having regenerated geneva. but the claim that he "comparatively" neglected dogma is true only in the sense that he was more inquisitorially zealous about certain forms of private conduct than was luther. gruet, indeed, he helped to slay upon political charges, taking a savage vengeance upon a personal opponent. but even in gruet's case he sought later to add a religious justification to his crime. and it was in the name of dogma that he put servetus to death, exiled castalio, imprisoned bolsec, broke with old friends, and imperilled the entire genevan polity. pattison's praise would be much more appropriate to zwingli. luther, though he would probably have been ready enough to punish copernicus as a heretic, was saved the evil chance which befel calvin of being put in a place of authority where he could in god's name commit judicial murder. it is by acts so describable that the name of calvin is most directly connected with the history of freethought. in nowise entitled to rank with its furtherers, he is to be enrolled in the evil catalogue of its persecutors. in the case of jacques gruet on a mixture of political and religious charges, in that of michael servetus on grounds of dogma pure and simple, he cast upon the record of genevan protestantism and upon his own memory an ineffaceable stain of blood. gruet, an adherent of the perrinist faction of geneva, a party opposed to calvin, on being arrested for issuing a placard against the clerical junto in power, was found, by the accounts of the calvinist historians, to have among his papers some revealing his disbelief in the christian religion. [ ] this, however, proves to be a partisan account of the matter, and is hardly even in intention truthful. in the first place, it was admitted by calvin that the placard, affixed by night to the chair of st. peter in geneva, was not in gruet's handwriting; yet he was arrested, imprisoned, and put to the torture with the avowed object of making him confess "that he had acted at the instigation of françois favre, of the wife of perrin, and of other accomplices of the same party whom he must have had." perrin was the former captain-general of geneva, a popular personage, opposed to calvin and detested by him. no match for the vigilant reformer, perrin had been through calvin's intrigues deprived of his post; and there was a standing feud between his friends and the calvinistic party in power. the main part of the charges against gruet was political; and the most circumstantial was based upon a draft, found among his papers, of a speech which he had ostensibly proposed to make in the general council calling for reform of abuses. the speech contained nothing seditious, but the intention to deliver it without official permission was described as lèse-majesté--a term now newly introduced into genevan procedure. the other documentary proofs were trivial. in one fragment of a letter there was an ironical mention of "notre galant calvin"; and in a note on a margin of calvin's book against the anabaptists he had written in latin "all trifles." for the rest, he was accused of writing two pages in latin "in which are comprised several errors," and of being "inclined (plutôt enclin) to say, recite and write false opinions and errors as to the true words of our saviour." [ ] concerning his errors the only documentary proof preserved is from an alleged scrap of his writing in corrupt latin, cited by calvin as a sample of his inability to write latin correctly: omnes tam humane quam divine que dicantur leges factae sunt ad placitum hominum, which may be rendered, "all so-called laws, divine as well as human, are made at the will of men." in the act of sentence, he is declared further to have written obscene verses justifying free love; to have striven to ruin the authority of the consistory, menaced the ministers, and abused calvin; and to have "conspired with the king of france against the safety of calvin and the state." to make out these charges, for the last of which there seems to be no evidence whatever, gruet was put to the torture many times during many days "according to the manner of the time," says one of calvin's biographers. [ ] in reality such unmeasured use of torture was in geneva a calvinistic innovation. gruet, refusing under the worst stress of torture to incriminate anyone else, at length, in order to end it, pleaded guilty to the charges against him, praying in his last extremity for a speedy death. on july , , his half-dead body was beheaded on the scaffold, the torso being tied and the feet nailed thereto. such were the judicial methods and mercies of a reformed christianity, guided by a chief reformer. the biographer henry "cannot repress a sigh" over the thirty days of double torture of gruet (ii, ), but goes on to make a most disingenuous defence of calvin, first asserting that he was not responsible, and then arguing that it would be as unjust to try calvin by modern standards as to blame him for not wearing a perruque à la louis xiv, or proceeding by the code napoléon! the same moralist declares (p. ) that "it is really inspiriting to hear how calvin stormed in his sermons against the opposite party": and is profoundly impressed by the "deep religious earnestness" with which calvin in claimed that "the council ought again to declare aloud that this blasphemer has been justly condemned, that the wrath of god may be averted from the city." finally (p. ), recording how gruet's "book" was burned in , the biographer pronounces that "the gospel thus gained a victory over its enemies; in the same manner as in germany freedom triumphed when luther burnt the pope's bull." as to the alleged anti-religious writings of gruet, they were not produced or even specified till , three years after his execution, when they were said to have been found partly in the roof of what had been his house (now occupied by the secretary of the consistory), partly behind a chimney, and partly in a dustbin. put together, they amounted to thirteen leaves, in a handwriting which was declared by calvin to be "juridically, by good examination of trustworthy men, recognized to be that of gruet." the time and the singular manner of their discovery raises the question whether the papers had not been placed by the finders. the execution of gruet, the first bloodshed under calvin's régime, had roused new hatred against him; the slain man figured as a martyr in the eyes of the party to which he belonged; and it had become necessary to discredit him and them if the ascendancy of calvin was to be secure. it is solely upon calvin's account that we have to depend for our knowledge of gruet's alleged anti-christian doctrine; for the document, after being described and condemned, was duly burned by the common hangman. if genuine, it was a remarkable performance. according to the act of condemnation, which is in the handwriting of calvin, it derided all religions alike, blasphemed god, jesus, the holy ghost, the virgin mary, moses, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the disciples, the gospels, the old and new testaments, the gospel miracles, and the resurrection. [ ] not a single phrase is quoted; we have mere general description, execration, and sentence. whether the document was a planned forgery, or part of a copy by gruet of an anti-christian treatise theretofore secretly circulated, will never be known. the story of gruet soon swelled into a legend. according to one narrative, he had copied with his own hand and circulated in geneva the mysterious treatise, de tribus impostoribus, the existence of which, at that period, is very doubtful. [ ] on the strength of this and other cases [ ] the libertines have been sometimes supposed to be generally unbelievers; but there is no more evidence for this than for the general ascription to them of licentious conduct. it appears certain indeed that at that time the name libertine was not recognized as a label for all of calvin's political opponents, but was properly reserved for the sect so-called; [ ] but even a vindicator of calvin admits that "it is undeniable that the libertines [i.e. the political opponents of calvin, so-called by modern writers] of were the true political representatives of the patriots of ." [ ] the presumption is that the political opposition included the more honest and courageous men of liberal and tolerant tendencies, as calvin's own following included men of "free" life. [ ] the really antinomian libertini of the period were to be found among the pantheistic-christian sect or school so-called, otherwise known as spirituals, who seem to have been a branch of the brethren of the free spirit, or fraternity of the "spirit of liberty." these calvin denounced in his manner; but in he had also forced into exile his former friend, sebastian castalio (or castalion; properly chatillon), master of the public school at geneva, for simply rejecting his doctrine of absolute predestination, striving to have him driven in turn from basel; and in he had caused to be imprisoned and banished a physician and ex-carmelite, jerome bolsec, for publicly denying the same dogma. bolsec, being prevented by calvin's means from settling in any neighbouring protestant community, returned to catholicism, [ ] as did many others. after calvin's death bolsec took his revenge in an attack on the reformer in his public and private character, [ ] which has been treated as untrustworthy by the more moderate catholic scholars who deal with the period; [ ] and which, as regards its account of his private morals, is probably on all fours with calvin's own unscrupulous charges against the "libertines" and others who opposed him. the tenets of the libertini are somewhat mystifying, as handled by calvin and his biographer henry, both alike animated by the odium theologicum in the highest degree. by calvin's own account they were mystical christians, speaking of christ as "the spirit which is in the world and in us all," and of the devil and his angels as having no proper existence, being identical with the world and sin. further, they denied the eternity of the human soul and the freedom of the will; and calvin charges them with subverting alike belief in god and morality (henry, life of calvin, eng. tr. ii, - ). the last charge could just as validly be brought against his own predestinarianism; and as regards ethics we find calvin alternately denouncing the libertines for treating all sin as unpardonable, and for stating that in christ none could sin. apparently he gives his inferences as their doctrines; and the antinomianism which, in the case of the trial of madame ameaux, henry identifies with pantheism, was by his own showing of a christian cast. little credit, accordingly, can be given to his summing up that among the libertines of geneva there exhibited itself "a perfectly-formed anti-christianity," which he calls "a true offspring of hell" (ii, ). the residuum of truth appears to be that in the pantheism of this sect, as neander says concerning the brethren of the free spirit among the beghards, there were "the foretokens of a thoroughly anti-christian tendency, hostile to everything supernatural, every sentiment of a god above the world; a tendency which contained ... the germ of absolute rationalism" (hist. of the chr. church, torrey's tr. ix, ). pantheism, logically extended, obviously reduces the supernatural and the natural to unity, and is thus atheistic. but that the pantheists of geneva in calvin's day reached logical consistency is incredible. the libertine sect, in all likelihood, was only partially antinomian, and only in very small part consciously anti-christian. at this period ( ), on the same issue of predestination, calvin broke utterly with one of his closest friends, jacques de bourgogne, sieur de falais. [ ] it seemed as if the protestant polity were disrupting in a continuous convulsion of dogmatic strife; and melanchthon wrote to bucer in despair over the madness and misery of a time in which geneva was returning to the fatalism of the stoics, and imprisoning whosoever would not agree with zeno. [ ] by this time it must have been clear to some that behind the strifes of raging theologians there lay a philosophic problem which they could not sound. it is therefore not surprising to learn that already basel university, as fifty years before at erfurt, there was a latitudinarian group of professors who aimed at a universal religion, and came near "naturalism" in the attempt; [ ] while elsewhere in switzerland, as we shall see later, there grew up the still freer way of thought which came to be known as deism. a great impulse to that development, as well as to simple unitarianism, must have been given by the execution of michael servetus. [ ] that ill-starred heretic, born of spanish stock in france, brought to the propaganda of unitarianism, of which he may be reckoned the inaugurator, a determination as strong as calvin's own. sent by his father to study civil law at toulouse, he began there to study the bible, doubtless under the stimulus of the early protestant discussions of the time. the result was a prompt advance beyond the protestant standpoint. leaving toulouse after two or three years' residence, he visited bologna and augsburg in the train of the confessor of charles v. thereafter he visited lyons and geneva, and had some intercourse with oecolampadius at basel, where he put in the hands of a bookseller the signed manuscript of his first book, de trinitatis erroribus libri septem. the bookseller sent it on to hagenau, in alsace, which as an "imperial city" seems to have had special freedom in the matter of book-publishing; and thither, after visiting bucer and capito at strasburg, servetus went to have it printed in . [ ] in this treatise, produced in his twenty-first year, he definitely rejects trinitarianism, while putting somewhat obscurely his own idea of the nature of jesus christ--whom, it should be noted, he held in high reverence. in the following year he produced at the same place another small treatise, dialogorum de trinitate libri duo, wherein he recasts his first work, "retracting" it and apologizing for its crudity, but standing substantially to its positions. it was not till that he printed at vienne in dauphiné, without his name, his christianismi restitutio. [ ] in the interval he had been doing scientific work as an editor of ptolemy ( , lyons), and as a student of and lecturer on anatomy and medicine at paris, where ( ) he met calvin on his last visit to france. in he is found studying at louvain; and, after practising medicine at avignon and charlieu, he again studies medicine at montpellier. the archbishop of vienne, who had heard him lecture at paris, established him at vienne as his confidential physician ( - ), and there it was that he produced the book for which he died. about - he had rashly written to calvin, sending him the ms. of the much-expanded recast of his books which later appeared as the restitutio. calvin sent a hostile reply, and on the same day wrote to farel: "if he come, and my influence can avail, i shall not suffer him to depart alive." servetus had denounced the papacy as fiercely as any protestant could wish, yet his heresy on the question of the trinity [ ] was enough to doom him to instant death at calvin's hands. servetus could not get back his ms., and wrote to a friend about that he felt sure the affair would bring him to his death. [ ] when in - he had the book privately printed at vienne, and the bulk of the edition was sent to lyons and frankfort, the toils closed around him, the ecclesiastical authorities at lyons being apprised of the facts by de trie, a genevan protestant, formerly of lyons. the whole protestant world, in fact, was of one opinion in desiring to suppress servetus's anti-trinitarian books, and the wonder is that he had so long escaped both protestant and catholic fury. luther had called his first book horribly wicked; and melanchthon, who in foresaw from the second much dangerous debate, wrote in to the venetian senate to warn them against letting either be sold. [ ] it is significant of the random character of protestant as of catholic thought that servetus, like melanchthon, was a convinced believer in astrology, [ ] while luther on biblical grounds rejected astrology and the copernican astronomy alike, and held devoutly by the belief in witchcraft. the superiority of servetus consists in his real scientific work--he having in part given out the true doctrine of the circulation of the blood [ ]--and his objection to all persecution of heresy. [ ] philosophically, he was more than a mere scripturist. though pantheism was not charged upon him, we have calvin's testimony that he propounded it in the strongest form. [ ] calvin's guilt in the matter begins with his devices to have servetus seized by the catholic authorities of lyons [ ]--to set misbelievers, as he regarded them, to slay the misbeliever--and his use of servetus's confidential letters against him. [ ] he was not repelling a heresy from his own city, but heretic-hunting far away in sheer malignity. the catholics were the less cruel gaolers, and let their prisoner escape, condemning him to death at vienne in absence. after some months of wandering he had the temerity to seek to pass into italy by way of geneva, and was there at length recognized, and arrested. after a long trial he was sentenced to be burned alive (oct. , ). the trial at geneva is a classic document in the records of the cruelties committed in honour of chimeras; and calvin's part is the sufficient proof that the protestant could hold his own with the catholic inquisitor in the spirit of hate. [ ] it has been urged, in his excuse, that the doctrines of servetus were blasphemously put; but in point of fact calvin passed some of his bitterest denunciation on the statement, cited (from lorenz friese) in a note in servetus's edition of ptolemy's geography, that judea is actually a barren and meagre country, and not "flowing with milk and honey." despite the citation of ample proof, and the plea that the passage was drawn from a previous edition, it was by calvin adjudged blasphemous in that it "necessarily inculpated moses and grievously outraged the holy spirit." [ ] the language of calvin against servetus at this point is utterly furious. had servetus chanced to maintain the doctrine of the earth's motion, he would certainly have been adjudged a blasphemer on that score also; for in the argument to his commentary on genesis ( ) calvin doggedly maintains the ptolemaic theory. his language tells of much private freethinking around him on the mosaic doctrine, and his tone leaves no doubt as to how he would treat published heresy on that theme. the audacity of servetus in suggesting that the rd chapter of isaiah had historical reference to cyrus is for him anathema. [ ] even before this hideous episode, calvin's passion of malevolence against his theological opponents in his own sect is such as to shock some of his adoring biographers. [ ] all the protestant leaders, broadly speaking, grew more intolerant as they grew in years--a fair test as between the spirit of dogma and the spirit of freethought. calvin had begun by pleading for tolerance and clemency; luther, beginning as a humanitarian, soon came to be capable of hounding on the german nobility against the unhappy peasants; melanchthon, tolerant in his earlier days, applauded the burning of servetus; [ ] beza laboriously defended the act. erasmus stood for tolerance; and luther accordingly called him godless, an enemy of true religion, a slanderer of christ, a lucian, an epicurean, and (by implication) the greatest knave alive. [ ] the burning of servetus in , however, marked a turning point in protestant theological practice on the continent. there were still to come the desperate religious wars in france, in which more than , houses were destroyed, abominable savageries were committed, and all civilization was thrown back, both materially and morally; and there was yet to come the still more appalling calamity of the thirty years' war in germany--a result of the unstable political conditions set up at the reformation; but theological human sacrifices were rapidly discredited. servetus was not the first victim, but he was nearly the last. the jurist matthieu gripaldi (or gribaldo) lectured on law at toulouse, cahors, valence, and padua successively, and, finding his anti-trinitarian leanings everywhere a source of danger to him, had sought a retreat at fargias near geneva, then in the jurisdiction of berne. venturing to remonstrate with calvin against the sentence on servetus, he brought upon himself the angry scrutiny of the heretic-hunter, and was banished from the neighbourhood. for a time he found refuge in a new professorship at tübingen; but there too the alarm was raised, and he was expelled. coming back to fargias, he gave refuge to the heretic valentinus gentilis on his escape from geneva; and again calvin attacked him, delivering him to the authorities of berne. an abjuration saved him for the time; but he would probably have met the martyr's fate in time had not his death by the plague, in , guaranteed him, as bayle remarks, against any further trial for heresy. [ ] the effect of theological bias on moral judgment is interestingly exemplified in the comment of mosheim on the case of servetus. unable to refer to the beliefs of deists or atheists without vituperation, mosheim finds it necessary to add to his account of servetus as a highly-gifted and very learned man the qualification: "yet he laboured under no small moral defects, for he was beyond all measure arrogant, and at the same time ill-tempered, contentious, unyielding, and a semi-fanatic." every one of these characterizations is applicable in the highest degree to calvin, and in a large degree to luther; yet for them the historian has not a word of blame. even among rationalists it has not been uncommon to make light of calvin's crimes on the score that his energy maintained a polity which alone sustained protestantism against the catholic reaction. this is the verdict of michelet: "the renaissance, betrayed by the accident of the mobilities of france, turning to the wind of light volitions, would assuredly have perished, and the world would have fallen into the great net of the fishers of men, but for that supreme concentration of the reformation on the rock of geneva by the bitter genius of calvin." and again: "against the immense and darksome net into which europe fell by the abandonment of france nothing less than this heroic seminary could avail" (hist. de france, vol. x, la réforme: end of pref. and end of vol.). though this verdict has been accepted by such critical thinkers as pattison (essays, ii, - ) and lord morley (romanes lecture on machiavelli, , p. ), it is difficult to find for it any justification in history. the nature of the proposition is indeed far from clear. michelet appears to mean that geneva saved europe as constituting a political rallying-point, a nucleus for protestantism. pattison, pronouncing that "calvinism saved europe" (essays, ii, ), explains that it was by "a positive education of the individual soul"; and that "this, and this alone, enabled the reformation to make head against the terrible repressive forces brought to bear by spain--the inquisition and the jesuits" (p. ). the thesis thus vanishes in rhetoric, for it is quite impossible to give such a formula any significance in the light of the history of protestantism in britain, scandinavia, germany, and holland. it implies that where protestantism finally failed--as in italy, france, bohemia, hungary, poland, belgium, parts of germany, and parts of switzerland--it was because the individual spirit had not been educated enough, which is a mere omission to note the real economic and political causation. neither michelet nor pattison had any scientific notion of the nature of the process. if we revert to michelet's claim, we get no more satisfaction. the very fact that calvin's polity could subsist without any special military protection is the proof that it could have subsisted without the gross cruelty and systematic persecution which marked it out from the rest of the world, making geneva "a kind of frozen hell of austerity and retribution and secret sin." to say otherwise is to say that freedom and toleration are less attractive to men than ferocity, tyranny, and gloom. calvin drove many men back to catholicism, and had his full share in the mortal schism which set calvinists and lutherans at daggers drawn for a century, while catholicism re-conquered poland and bohemia and hungary, held france, and nearly re-conquered lutheran germany. there is no reason to suppose that the reformation would have gone otherwise in britain, scandinavia, and holland had geneva gone as far in tolerance as it actually did in intolerance. to call it, as michelet does, an "asylum," in view of calvin's expulsion or execution of every man who dared to differ from him, is courageous. at the close of his argument (p. ) pattison sums up that, "greatly as the calvinistic churches have served the cause of political liberty, they have contributed nothing to the cause of knowledge." the admission is in the main valid; but the claim will not stand, unless "political liberty" is to be newly defined. the calvinistic rule at geneva was from the first a class tyranny, which became more and more narrow in its social basis. the calvinist clergy and populace of holland turned their backs on republican institutions, and became violent monarchists. the calvinists of england and scotland were as determined persecutors as ever lived. and, indeed, how should liberty anywhere flourish when knowledge is trodden under foot? the treatment of bernardino ochino, who had turned protestant after being vicar-general of the capuchin order, shows the slackening of ferocity after the end of servetus. ochino in a late writing ventured guardedly to suggest certain relaxations of the law of monogamy--a point on which some lutherans went much further than he--and was besides mildly heretical about the trinity. [ ] he was in consequence expelled with his family from the canton of zürich ( ), at the age of seventy-six. finding switzerland wholly inhospitable, and being driven by the catholics from poland, where he had sought to join the socinians, he went to die in moravia. [ ] this was no worse treatment than lutherans and calvinists normally meted out to each other; [ ] and several of the italian protestants settled at geneva who leant to unitarian views--among them gribaldo, biandrata, and alciati--found it prudent to leave that fortress of orthodoxy, where they were open to official challenge. [ ] finally, when the italian valentinus gentilis, or gentile, the anti-trinitarian, variously described as tritheist, deist, and arian, uttered his heresies at geneva, he contrived, after an imprisonment, a forced recantation, and a public degradation ( ), to escape thence with his life, but was duly beheaded at berne in , refusing this time to recant. [ ] this ends the main swiss era of theological murder; but a century was to pass before sectarian hatreds subsided, or the spirit of persecution was brought under control of civilization. in , indeed, a protestant minister, nicholas anthoine, was burned at geneva on the charge of apostasy to judaism. as he had been admittedly insane for a time, and had repeatedly shown much mental excitement, [ ] his execution tells of a spirit of cruelty worthy of the generation of calvin. the protestant bibliolatry, in short, was as truly the practical negation of freethought and tolerance as was catholicism itself; and it was only their general remoteness from each other that kept the different reformed communities from absolute war where they were not, as in switzerland, held in check by the dangers around them. [ ] as it was, they had their full share in the responsibility for the furious civil wars which so long convulsed france, and for those which ultimately reduced germany to the verge of destruction, arresting her civilization for over a hundred years. to sum up. in germany protestantism failed alike as a moral and as an intellectual reform. the lack of any general moral motive in the ecclesiastical revolution is sufficiently proved by the general dissolution of conduct which, on the express admission of luther, followed upon it. [ ] this was quite apart from the special disorders of the anabaptist movement, which, on the other hand, contained elements of moral and religious rationalism, as against bibliolatry, that have been little recognized. [ ] of that movement the summing-up is that, like the lutheran, it turned to evil because of sheer lack of rationalism. among its earlier leaders were men such as denk, morally and temperamentally on a higher plane than any of the lutherans. but anabaptism too was fundamentally scriptural and revelationist, not rational; and it miscarried in its own way even more hopelessly than the theological "reform." lutheranism, renouncing the rational and ethical hope of social betterment, ran to insane dissension over irrational dogma; anabaptism, ignorantly attaching the hope of social betterment to religious delusion, ran to irrational social schemes, ending in anarchy, massacre, and extinction. but the lutheran failure was intellectually and morally no less complete. luther was with good reason ill at ease about his cause when he died in ; and melanchthon, dying in , declared himself glad to be set free from the rabies theologorum. [ ] the test of the new regimen lay, if anywhere, in the university of wittemberg; and there matters were no better than anywhere else. [ ] german university life in general went from bad to worse till a new culture began slowly to germinate after the thirty years' war; [ ] and the germs came mainly from the neighbouring nations. german switzerland exhibited similar symptoms, the reformation being followed by no free intellectual life, but by a tyranny identical in spirit and method with that of rome. [ ] it rests, finally, on the express testimony of leading reformers that the main effect of the reformation in the intellectual life of germany was to discredit all disinterested learning and literature. melanchthon in particular, writing at dates as far apart as and , repeatedly and emphatically testifies to the utter disregard of erudition and science in the interests of pietism, corroborating everything said to the same effect by erasmus. [ ] on the social and political side the rule of the protestant princes was not only as tyrannous but as indecorous as that of their catholic days, each playing pope in his own dominions; [ ] and their clergy were not in a position to correct them. menzel notes that the normal drunkenness of the protestant aristocracy at this period made current in europe the expression "a german swine." and whereas germany before the reformation was at various points a culture force for europe--whence the readiness in other nations at first to follow the lutheran lead--it progressively became more and more of an object-lesson of the evils of heresy, thus fatally weakening the cause of protestantism in france, where its fortunes hung in the balance. even in the matter of theology, protestantism did not hold its own against catholic criticism. both began by discriminating in the scriptural canon, rejecting some books and depreciating others, all the while professing to make the word of god their sole or final standard. when the catholics pressed the demand as to how they could settle what was the true word of god, their followers and successors could make no answer, and had to fall back on an indiscriminate acceptance of the canon. again, luther and calvin alike maintained the doctrine of "assurance," and this was one of the points in calvinism accepted by arminius. the catholics, naturally making the most of the admitted increase of sexual and other licence in germany and elsewhere under lutheranism, dwelt upon luther's predestinarianism in general, and the doctrine of assurance in particular, as the source of the demoralization; and at the council of trent it was expressly condemned. thereafter, though it was "part and parcel of the confessions of all the churches of the reformation down to the westminster assembly," it was in the last-named conclave ( ) declared not to be of the essence of faith; and the scottish general assembly subsequently deposed and condemned holders of this, the original protestant doctrine. similar modifications took place elsewhere. thus the protestant world drifted back to a catholic position, affirmed at the council of trent against protestantism; [ ] and in holland we shall see, in the rise of arminianism, a similar surrender on the protestant side to the general pressure of catholicism upon the ethical weaknesses of predestinarianism. on that point, however, the original catholic doctrine of predestination was revived by the spanish jesuit luis molina ( - ; not to be confused with the later quietist, miguel de molinos), who in his treatise liberi arbitrii concordia cum gratiæ donis ( ) set it forth as consequent upon god's foreknowledge of man's free use of his will. as a result of the dispute between the thomists and molina's followers, known as the molinists, the pope in pronounced that the views of both sides were permissible--a course which had already been taken twenty years before with the controversy on predestination aroused by the doctrines of michael baius at the university of louvain. [ ] thus the dissensions of catholics in a manner kept in countenance the divided protestants; but the old confidence of affirmation and formulation was inevitably sapped by the constant play of controversy; and from this protestantism necessarily suffered most. intellectually, there was visible retrogression in the protestant world. it is significant that throughout the sixteenth century most of the great scientific thinkers and the freethinkers with the strongest bent to new science lived in the catholic world. rabelais and bruno were priests; copernicus a lay canon; galileo had never withdrawn from the church which humiliated him; even kepler returned to the catholic environment after professing protestantism. he was in fact excommunicated by the tübingen protestant authorities in [ ] for condemning the lutheran doctrine that the body of christ could be in several places at once. the immunity of such original spirits as gilbert and harriott from active molestation is to be explained only by the fact that they lived in the as yet un-puritanized atmosphere of elizabethan england, before the age of bibliolatry. it would seem as if the spirit of scripturalism, invading the very centres of thought, were more fatal to original intellectual life than the more external interferences of catholic sacerdotalism. [ ] in the phrase of arnold, protestantism turned the key on the spirit, where catholicism was normally content with an outward submission to its ceremonies, and only in the most backward countries, as spain, destroyed entirely the atmosphere of free mental intercourse. it was after a long reaction that bruno and galileo were arraigned at rome. the clerical resistance to new science, broadly speaking, was more bitter in the protestant world than in the catholic; and it was merely the relative lack of restraining power in the former that made possible the later scientific progress. the history of lutheranism upon this side is an intellectual infamy. at wittemberg, during luther's life, reinhold did not dare to teach the copernican astronomy; rheticus had to leave the place in order to be free to speak; and in the subject was put in the hands of peucer, who taught that the copernican theory was absurd. finally, the rector of the university, hensel, wrote a text-book for schools, entitled the restored mosaic system of the world, showing with entire success that the new doctrine was unscriptural. [ ] a little later the lutheran superintendent, pfeiffer, of lübeck, published his pansophia mosaica, insisting on the literal truth of the entire genesaic myth. [ ] in the next century calovius ( - ), who taught successively at königsberg, dantzic, and wittemberg, maintained the same position, contending that the story of joshua's staying the sun and moon refuted copernicus. [ ] when pope gregory xiii, following an impulse abnormal in his world, took the bold step of rectifying the calendar ( ), the protestants in germany and switzerland vehemently resisted the reform, and in some cities would not tolerate it, [ ] thus refusing, on theological grounds, the one species of co-operation with catholicism that lay open to them. and the anti-scientific attitude persisted for over a century in switzerland as in scotland. at geneva, j.-a. turretin ( - ), writing after kepler and newton had done their work, laboriously repeated the demonstration of calovius, and reaffirmed the positions of calvin. so far as its ministers could avail, the sacred book was working the old effect. § . england freethought gained permanently as little in england as elsewhere in the process of substituting local tyranny for that of rome. the secularizing effect of the reformation, indeed, was even more marked there than elsewhere. what wolsey had aimed at doing with moderation and without revolution was done after him with violence on motives of sheer plunder, and a multitude not only of monasteries but of churches were disendowed and destroyed. the monastic churches were often magnificent, and "when the monasteries were dissolved, divine service altogether ceased in ninety out of every hundred of these great churches, and the remaining ten were left ... without any provision whatever" for public worship. [ ] all this must have had a secularizing effect, which was accentuated by the changes in ritual; and by the middle of the century it was common to treat both churches and clergy with utter irreverence, which indeed the latter often earned by their mode of life. [ ] riots in churches, especially in london, were common; there was in fact a habit of driving mules and horses through them; [ ] and buying and selling and even gaming were often carried on. but with all this there was no intellectual enlightenment, and in high places there was no toleration. under henry viii anti-romanist heretics were put to death on the old romanist principles. in , again, was burned james bainham, who not only rejected the specially catholic dogmas, but affirmed the possible salvation of unbelievers. under the protectorate which followed there was indeed much religious semi-rationalism, evidently of continental derivation, which is discussed in the theological literature of the time. roger hutchinson, writing about , repeatedly speaks of contemporary "sadducees and libertines" who say ( ) "that all spirits and angels are no substances, but inspirations, affections, and qualities"; ( ) "that the devil is nothing but nolitum, or a filthy affection coming of the flesh"; ( ) "that there is neither place of rest nor pain after this life; that hell is nothing else but a tormenting and desperate conscience; and that a joyful, quiet, and merry conscience is heaven." see the image of god, or layman's book, , ch. xxiv: parker society's rep. , pp. , , . cp. p. and sermon ii, on the lord's supper (id. p. ), as to "julianites" who "do think mortal corpo, mortal anima." to the period - is also assigned the undated work of john veron, a frutefull treatise of predestination and of the divine providence of god, with an apology of the same against the swynishe gruntinge of the epicures and atheystes of oure time. there was evidently a good deal of new rationalism, which has been generally ignored in english historiography. its foreign source is suggested by the use of the term "libertines," which derives from france and geneva. see below, p. . the above-cited tenets are, in fact, partly identical with those of the libertins denounced at geneva by calvin. such doctrine, which we shall find in vogue fifty years later, cannot have been printed, and probably can have been uttered only by men of good status, as well as culture; and even by them only because of the weakness of the state church in its transition stage. yet heresy went still further among some of the sects set up by the anabaptist movement, which in england as in germany involved some measure of unitarianism. a letter of hooper to bullinger in tells of "libertines and wretches who are daring enough in their conventicles not only to deny that christ is the messiah and saviour of the world, but also to call that blessed seed a mischievous fellow and deceiver of the world." [ ] this must have been said with locked doors, for much milder heresy was heavily punished, the worst penalties falling upon that which stood equally with orthodoxy on biblical grounds. in , under henry viii, were burned three persons "because they denied transubstantiation, and had not received the sacrament at easter." see the letter of hilles to bullinger, original letters, as cited, i, . the case of jean bouchier or bocher, burned in , is well known. it is worth noting that the common charge against cranmer, of persuading the young king to sign her death warrant, is false, being one of the myths of foxe. the warrant was passed by the whole privy council, cranmer not being even present. see the parker society's reprint of roger hutchinson, , introd. pp. ii- . hutchinson apparently approved; and it is significant of the clerical attitude of the time that he calls (image of god, ch. xxx, p. ) for the punishment of anabaptists by death if necessary, but does not suggest it for "sadducees and libertines." the elizabethan archbishops and the puritans were equally intolerant; and the idea of free inquiry was undreamt of. that there had been much private discussion in clerical circles, however, is plain from the th and th of the thirty-nine articles ( ), which repudiate natural morality and hold "accursed" those who say that men can be saved under any creed. [ ] this fulmination would not have occurred had the heresy not been pressing; but the "curse" would thenceforth set the key of clerical and public utterance. the reformation, in fact, speedily over-clouded with fanaticism what new light of freethought had been glimmering before; turning into bibliolaters those who had rationally doubted some of the catholic mysteries, and forcing back, either into silence or, by reaction, into catholic bigotry, those more refined spirits who, like sir thomas more, had before been really in advance of their age intellectually and morally, and desired a transmutation of the old system rather than its overthrow. nothing so nearly rational as the utopia ( - ) appeared again in english literature for a century; it is indeed, in some respects, a lead to social science in our own day. more, with all his spontaneous turn for pietism, had evidently drunk in his youth or prime [ ] at some freethinking source, for his book recognizes the existence of unbelievers in deity and immortality; and though he pronounces them unfit for political power, as did milton, locke, and voltaire long after him, he stipulates that they be tolerated. [ ] broadly speaking, the book is simply deistic. "from a world," says a popular historian, clerically trained--"from a world where fifteen hundred years of christian teaching had produced social injustice, religious intolerance, and political tyranny, the humorist philosopher turns to a 'nowhere' in which the efforts of mere natural human virtue realized those ends of security, equality, brotherhood, and freedom, for which the very institution of society seems to have been framed." [ ] in his own case, however, we see the nemesis of the sway of feeling over judgment, for, beginning by keeping his prejudice above the reason of whose teaching he is conscious, he ends by becoming a blind religious polemist and a bitter persecutor. cp. isaac disraeli's essay, "the psychological character of sir thomas more," in the amenities of literature, and the present writer's essay, "culture and reaction," in essays in sociology, vol. i. lord acton, vindicating more as against wolsey, pleads (histor. essays and studies, , p. ) that more before his death protested that no protestant perished by his act. this seems to be true in the bare sense that he did not exceed his ostensible legal duties, and several times restrained the execution of the law (archdeacon hutton, sir thomas more, , pp. - ). but the fact remains that more expressly justified and advocated the burning of heretics as "lawful, necessary, and well done." title of ch. xiii of dialogue, the supper of the lord. cp. title of ch. xv. it is in the wake, then, of the overthrow of catholicism in the second generation that a far-reaching freethought begins to be heard of in england; and this clearly comes by way of new continental and literary contact, which would have occurred in at least as great a degree under catholicism, save insofar as unbelief was facilitated by the irreverence developed by the ecclesiastical revolution, or by the state of indifference which among the upper classes was the natural sequel of the shameless policy of plunder and the oscillation between protestant and catholic forms. and it was finally in such negative ways only that protestantism furthered freethought anywhere. § . the netherlands hardly more fortunate was the earlier course of things intellectual after the reformation in the netherlands, where by the fifteenth century remarkable progress had been made alike in science and the arts, and where erasmus acquired his culture and did his service to culture's cause. the fact that protestantism had to fight for its life against philip was of course not the fault of the protestants; and to that ruinous struggle is to be attributed the arrest of the civilization of flanders. but it lay in the nature of the protestant impulse that, apart from the classical culture which in holland was virtually a successful industry, providing editions for all europe, it should turn all intellectual life for generations into vain controversy. the struggle between reform and popery was followed by the struggle between calvinism and arminianism; and the second was no less bitter if less bloody than the first, [ ] the religious strife passing into civil feud. the secret of the special bitterness of calvinist resentment towards the school of arminius lay in the fact that the latter endorsed some of the most galling of the catholic criticisms of calvinism. arminius [latinized name of jacob harmensen or van harmin, - , professor of theology at leyden] was personally a man of great amiability, averse to controversy, but unable to reconcile the calvinist view of predestination with his own quasi-rational ethic, and concerned to secure that the dogma should not be fastened upon all dutch protestants. in his opinion, no effective answer could be made on calvinist lines to the argument of cardinal bellarmin [ ] that from much calvinist doctrine there flowed the consequences: "god is the author of sin; god really sins; god is the only sinner; sin is no sin at all." [ ] this was substantially true; and arminius, like bellarmin, unable to see that the calvinist position was simply a logical reduction to moral absurdity of all theistic ethic, sought safety in fresh dogmatic modifications. of these the calvinists, in turn, could easily demonstrate the logical incoherence; and in a ring of dilemmas from which there was no logical exit save into naturalism there arose an exacerbated strife, as of men jostling each other in a prison where some saw their nominal friends in partial sympathy with their deadly enemies, who jeered at their divisions. the wonder is that the chaos of dispute and dogmatic tinkering which followed did not more rapidly disintegrate faith. calvinists sought modifications under stress of dialectic, like their predecessors; and the high "supralapsarian" doctrine--the theory of the certain regeneration or "perseverance" of "the saints"--shaded into "the creabilitarian opinion" [ ] and yet another; while the "sublapsarian" view claimed also to safeguard predestination. so long as men remained in the primary protestant temper, convinced that they possessed in their bibles an infallible revelation, such strife could but generate new passion, even as it had done on the other irrational problem of the eucharist. for men of sane and peaceful disposition, the only modes of peace were resignation and doubt; and in the case of the doubters the first intellectual movements would be either back towards rome [ ] or further on towards deism. the former course would be taken by some who had winced under the jeers of the catholics; the latter by the hardier spirits who judged catholicism for themselves. as most of the fighting had been primed by and transacted over texts, the surrender of the belief in an inspired scripture greatly reduced the friction; and in holland as elsewhere deism would be thus spontaneously generated in the protestant atmosphere. a few went even further. "i have no doubt that many persons have secretly revolted from the reformed church to the papists," wrote uitenbogaert to vorstius in . "i firmly believe," he added, "that atheism is creeping by degrees into the minds of some." [ ] where mere arminianism could bring barneveldt to the block, even deism could not be avowed; and generations had to pass before it could have the semblance of a party; but the proof of the new vogue of unbelief lies in the labour spent by grotius (hugo or huig van groot, - ) on his treatise de veritate religionis christianæ ( )--a learned and strenuous defence of the faith which had so lacerated his fatherland, first through the long struggle with spain, and again in the feud of arminians and calvinists. when barneveldt was put to death, grotius had been sentenced to imprisonment for life; and it was only after three years of the dungeon that, by the famous stratagem of his wife, he escaped in . the fact that he devoted his freedom in france first to his great treatise on the law of war and peace ( ), seeking to humanize the civil life of the world, and next to his defence of the christian religion, is the proof of his magnanimity; but the spectacle of his life must have done as much to set thinkers against the whole creed as his apologetic did to reconcile them to it. he, the most distinguished dutch scholar and the chief apologist of christianity in his day, had to seek refuge, on his escape from prison, in catholic france, whose king granted him a pension. the circumstance which in holland chiefly favoured freethought, the freedom of the press, was, like the great florescence of the arts in the seventeenth century, a result of the whole social and political conditions, not of any protestant belief in free discussion. that there were freethinkers in holland in and before grotius's time is implied in the pains he took to defend christianity; but that they existed in despite and not by grace of the ruling protestantism is proved by the fact that they did not venture to publish their opinions. in france, doubtless, he found as much unbelief as he had left behind. in the end, grotius and casaubon alike recoiled from the narrow protestantism around them, which had so sadly failed to realize their hopes. [ ] "in grotius had become wholly averse to the reformation. he thought it had done more harm than good"; and had he lived a few years longer he would probably have become a catholic. [ ] § . conclusion thus concerning the reformation generally "we are obliged to confess that, especially in germany, it soon parted company with free learning; that it turned its back upon culture; that it lost itself in a maze of arid theological controversy; that it held out no hand of welcome to awakening science. presently we shall see that the impulse to an enlightened study and criticism of the scriptures came chiefly from heretical quarters; that the unbelieving spinoza and the arminian le clerc pointed the way to investigations which the great protestant systematizers thought neither necessary nor useful. even at a later time it has been the divines who have most loudly declared their allegiance to the theology of the reformation who have also looked most askance at science, and claimed for their statements an entire independence of modern knowledge." [ ] in fine, "to look at the reformation by itself, to judge it only by its theological and ecclesiastical development, is to pronounce it a failure"; and the claim that "to consider it as part of a general movement of european thought ... is at once to vindicate its past and to promise it the future"--this amounts merely to avowing the same thing. only as an eddy in the movement of freethought is the reformation intellectually significant. politically it is a great illustration of the potency of economic forces. while, however, the reformation in itself thus did little for the spirit of freethought, substituting as it did the arbitrary standard of "revelation" for the not more arbitrary standard of papal authority, it set up outside its own sphere some new movements of rational doubt which must have counted for much in the succeeding period. it was not merely that, as we shall see, the bloody strifes of the two churches, and the quarrels of the protestant sects among themselves, sickened many thoughtful men of the whole subject of theology; but that the disputes between romanists and anti-romanists raised difficult questions as to the bases of all kinds of belief. as always happens when established beliefs are long attacked, the subtler spirits in the conservative interest after a time begin putting in doubt beliefs of every species; a method often successful with those who cannot carry an argument to its logical conclusions, and who are thus led to seek harbour in whatever credence is on the whole most convenient; but one which puts stronger spirits on the reconsideration of all their opinions. thus we shall find, not only in the skepticism of montaigne, which is historically a product of the wars of religion in france, but in the more systematic and more cautious argumentation of the abler protestants of the seventeenth century, a measure of general rationalism much more favourable alike to natural science and to biblical and ethical criticism than had been the older environment of authority and tradition, brutal sacerdotalism, and idolatrous faith. men continued to hate each other religiously for trifles, to quarrel over gestures and vestures, and to wrangle endlessly over worn-out dogmas; but withal new and vital heresies were set on foot; new science generated new doubt; and under the shadow of the aging tree of theology there began to appear the growths of a new era. as protestantism had come outside the "universal" church, rearing its own tabernacles, so freethought came outside both, scanning with a deepened intentness the universe of things. and thus began a more vital innovation than that dividing the reformation from the renaissance, or even that dividing the renaissance from the middle ages. chapter xiii the rise of modern freethought § . the italian influence the negative bearing of the reformation on freethought is made clear by the historic fact that the new currents of thought which broadly mark the beginning of the "modern spirit" arose in its despite, and derive originally from outside its sphere. it is to italy, where the political and social conditions thus far tended to frustrate the inquisition, that we trace the rise alike of modern deism, modern unitarianism, modern pantheism, modern physics, and the tendency to rational atheism. the deistic way of thinking, of course, prevailed long before it got that name; and besides the vogue of averroïsm we have noted the virtual deism of more's utopia ( ). the first explicit mention of deism noted by bayle, however, is in the epistle dedicatory to the second and expanded edition of the instruction chrétienne of the swiss protestant viret ( ), where professed deists are spoken of as a new species bearing a new name. on the admission of viret, who was the friend and bitter disciple of calvin, they rejected all revealed religion, but called themselves deists by way of repudiating atheism; some keeping a belief in immortality, some rejecting it. in the theological manner he goes on to call them all execrable atheists, and to say that he has added to his treatise on their account an exposition of natural religion grounded on the "book of nature"; stultifying himself by going on to say that he has also dealt with the professed atheists. [ ] of the deists he admits that among them were men of the highest repute for science and learning. thus within ten years of the burning of servetus we find privately avowed deism and atheism in the area of french-speaking protestantism. doubtless the spectacle of protestant feuds and methods would go far to foster such unbelief; but though, as we have seen, there were aggressive unitarians in germany before , who, being scholars, may or may not have drawn on italian thought, thereafter there is reason to look to italy as the source of the propaganda. thence came the two sozzini, the founders of socinianism, of whom lelio, the uncle of fausto, travelled much in northern europe (including england) between and . [ ] as the earlier doctrine of servetus shows clear affinities to that of the sozzini, and his earlier books were much read in italy between and , he may well have given them their impulse. [ ] it is evidently to servetus that zanchi referred when he wrote to bullinger in that "spain bore the hens, italy hatched the eggs, and we now hear the chickens piping." [ ] before socinianism had taken form it was led up to, as we have seen, in the later writings of the ex-monk bernardino ochino ( - ), who, in the closing years of a much chequered career, combined mystical and unitarian tendencies with a leaning to polygamy and freedom of divorce. [ ] his influence was considerable among the swiss protestants, though they finally expelled him for his heresies. from geneva or from france, in turn, apparently came some of the english freethought of the middle period of the sixteenth century; [ ] for in speaker williams in the house of commons, in a list of misbelievers, speaks of "pelagians, libertines, papists, and such others, leaving god's commandments to follow their own traditions, affections, and minds" [ ]--using theologically the foreign term, which never became naturalized in english in its foreign sense. it was about the year , again, that roger ascham wrote his scholemaster, wherein are angrily described, as a species new in england, men who, "where they dare," scorn both protestant and papist, "rejecting scripture, and counting the christian mysteries as fables." [ ] he describes them as "atheoi in doctrine"; adding, "this last word is no more unknowne now to plane englishe men than the person was unknown somtyme in england, untill some englishe man took peines to fetch that develish opinion out of italie." [ ] the whole tendency he connects in a general way with the issue of many new translations from the italian, mentioning in particular petrarch and boccaccio. among good protestants his view was general; and so lord burghley in his advice to his son writes: "suffer not thy sons to pass the alps, for they shall learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism." as it happened, his grandson the second earl of exeter, and his great-grandson lord roos, went to rome, and became not atheists but roman catholics. such episodes should remind us that in that age of ignorance and superstition the church had always an immense advantage. those who, like gentillet in his raging discours, commonly known as the contre-machiavel ( ), ascribed to "atheism" and the teaching of machiavelli all the crimes and oppressions wrought by catholics, [ ] were ludicrously perverting the facts. massacres in churches, which are cited by gentillet as impossible to believing catholics, were wrought, as we have seen, on the largest scale by the church in the thirteenth century. so, when scaliger calls the italians of his day "a set of atheists," we are to understand it rather of "the hypocrisy than of the professed skepticism of the time." [ ] but rationalism and semi-rationalism did prevail in italy more than in any other country. [ ] like the old averroïsm, the new pietistic unitarianism persisted in italy and radiated thence afresh when it had flagged in other lands. the exploded unitarian tradition [ ] runs that the doctrine arose in the year among a group of more than forty learned men who were wont to assemble in secret at vicenza, near venice. claudius of savoy, however, emphatically gave out his anti-trinitarian doctrine at berne in , after having been imprisoned at strasburg and banished thence; [ ] and ochino and lelio sozzini left italy in . but there seems to have been a continuous evolution of unitarian heresy in the south after the german movement had ceased. giorgio biandrata, whom we have seen flying to poland from geneva, had been seized by the inquisition at pavia for such opinion. still it persisted. in giulio guirlando of treviso, and in francesco saga of rovigo, were burned at venice for anti-trinitarianism. giacomo aconzio too, who dedicated his stratagems of satan (basel, ) to queen elizabeth, and who pleaded notably for the toleration of heresy, [ ] was a decided latitudinarian. [ ] it is remarkable that the whole ferment occurs in the period of the catholic reaction, the council of trent, and the subjection of italy, when the papacy was making its great effort to recover its ground. it would seem that in the compulsory peace which had now fallen on italian life men's thoughts turned more than ever to mental problems, as had happened in greece after the rise of alexander's empire. the authority of the church was outwardly supreme; the jesuits had already begun to do great things for education; [ ] the revived inquisition was everywhere in italy; its prisons, as we have seen, were crowded with victims of all grades during a whole generation; pius v and the hierarchy everywhere sought to enforce decorum in life; the "pagan" academies formed on the florentine model were dissolved; and classic culture rapidly decayed with the arts, while clerical learning flourished, [ ] and a new religious music began with palestrina. yet on the death of paul iv the roman populace burned the office of the inquisition to the ground and cast the pope's statue into the tiber; [ ] and in that age ( ) was born giordano bruno, one of the types of modern freethought. the great service of italy to modern freethought, however, was to come later, in respect of the impulse given to the scientific spirit by bruno, vanini, and galileo. on the philosophical or critical side, the italy of the middle of the sixteenth century left no enduring mark on european thought, though her serious writers were numerous. aconzio had published, before his de stratagematibus satanæ, a treatise de methodo, sive recta investigandarum tradendarumque scientiarum ratione (basel, ), wherein he pleads strenuously for a true logical method as the one way to real knowledge of things. in this he anticipates bacon, as did, still earlier, mario nizolio in his antibarbarus sive de veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos (parma, ). nizolio's main effort is towards the discrediting of aristotle, whom, like so many in the generation following, he regarded as the great bulwark of scholastic obscurantism. he insists that all knowledge must proceed from sensation, which alone has immediate certainty; and thus stands for direct scientific observation as against tradition and verbalism. but ludovicus vives had before him (in his de causis corruptarum artium, antwerp, ) claimed that the true aristotelian went direct to nature, as aristotle himself had done; and nizolio did nothing in practical science to substantiate his polemic against the logic-choppers. he and aconzio in effect cancel each other. each had glimpsed a truth, one seeing the need for a right method in inference, the other protesting against the idea that abstract reasoning could lead to knowledge; but neither made good his argument by any treasure trove of fact. another writer of the same decade, gomez pereira, joined in the revolt against aristotelianism, publishing in his margarita antoniana, wherein, in advance of descartes, he maintained the absence of sensation in brutes. [ ] for the rest, he championed freedom in speculation, denying that authority should avail save in matters of faith. but he too failed to bring forth fruits meet for freedom. neither by abstract exposition of right methods of reasoning, nor by abstract attacks on wrong methods, could any vital impulse yet be given to thought. what was lacking was the use of reason upon actual problems, whether of human or of natural science. all the while europe was anchored to ancient delusion, historical and scientific. even as the horrors of age-long religious war could alone drive men to something like toleration in the religious life, there was needed the impact of actual discovery to win them to science as against scholasticism. and rational thinking on the religion which resisted all new science was to be still later of attainment, save for the nameless men who throughout the ages of faith rejected the creeds without publishing their unbelief. of these italy had always a large sprinkling. § . spain the fact that sixteenth-century spain could be charged, on the score of servetus, with producing the "hen" of socinianism, is an important reminder of the perpetuity of variation and of the fatality of environment. the portuguese sanchez, whom we shall find laying new potential foundations of skepticism in france alongside of montaigne, could neither have acquired nor propounded his philosophy in his native land. but it is to be noted that an elder contemporary of sanchez, living and dying in spain, was able, in the generation after servetus, to make a real contribution to the revival of freethought, albeit under shelter of a firm profession of orthodoxy. no book of the kind, perhaps, had a wider european popularity than the examen de ingenios para las ciencias of huarte de san juan, otherwise juan huarte y navarro (c. - ). like servetus and sanchez and many another, huarte had his bias to reason fostered by a medical training; and it is as a "natural philosopher" that he stands for a rational study of causation. as a pioneer of exact science, indeed, he counts for next to nothing. taking as his special theme the divergences of human faculty, he does but found himself on the à priori system of "humours" and "temperatures" passed on by aristotle to galen and hippocrates, inconsistently affirming on the one hand that the "characters" not only of whole nations but of the inhabitants of provinces are determined by their special climates and aliments, and on the other hand that individual faculty is determined by the proportions of hot and cold, moist and dry "temperatures" in the parents. apart from his insistence on the functions of the brain, and from broadly rational deliverances as to the kinds of faculty which determine success in theology and law, arms and arts, his "science" is naught. dealing with an obscure problem, he brought to it none of the exact inductiveness which alone had yielded true knowledge in the simpler field of astronomy. in virtue, however, either of his confidence in affirmation or of his stand for rational inquiry, or of both, huarte's book, published in , went the round of europe. translated into italian in (or earlier; new rendering ), it was thence rendered into english by richard carew in . [ ] a french version appeared in , and two others in and . a later english translation, from the original, was produced in ; and lessing thought the book worth putting into german in . the rationalistic importance of huarte lies in his insistence on the study of "second causes" and his protest against the burking of all inquiry by a reference to deity. on this head he anticipates much of the polemic of bacon. the explanation of all processes and phenomena by the will of god, he observes, "is so ancient a manner of talk, and the natural philosophers have so often refuted it, that the seeking to take the same away were superfluous, neither is it convenient.... but i have often gone about to consider the reason and the cause whence it may grow that the vulgar sort is so great friend to impute all things to god, and to reave them from nature, and do so abhor the natural means." [ ] his solution is the impatience of men over the complexity of nature, their spiritual arrogance, their indolence, and their piety. for himself, he pronounces, as middleton did in england nearly two centuries later, that "god doth no longer those unwonted things of the new testament; and the reason is, for that on his behalf he hath performed all necessary diligence that men might not pretend ignorance. and to think that he will begin anew to do the like miracles ... is an error very great.... god speaks once (saith job) and turns not to a second replial." [ ] only thus could the principle of natural causation be affirmed in the spain of philip ii. huarte is careful to affirm miracles while denying their recurrence; and throughout he writes as a good scripturist and catholic. but he sticks to his naturalist thesis that "nature makes able," and avows that "natural philosophers laugh at such as say, this is god's doing, without assigning the order and discourse of the particular causes whence they may spring." [ ] the fact that the book was dedicated to philip tells of royal protection, without which the author could hardly have escaped the inquisition. years after, we shall find lilly in england protesting on the stage against the conception of natura naturans; and bacon powerfully reaffirming huarte's doctrine, with the same reservations. the spaniard must have counted for something as a pleader for elementary reason, if bacon did. but this is practically the only important contribution from spain to the intellectual renascence then going on in europe. as we have seen, it was not that spaniards had any primordial bias to dogmatism and persecution: it was simply that their whole socio-political evolution, largely determined by spanish discovery and dominion in the new world, set up institutions and forces which became specially powerful to stamp out freethought. the work of progress was done in lands where lack of external dominion left on the one hand a greater fund of variant energy, and on the other made for a lesser power of repression on the part of church and state. § . france while italy continues to be reputed throughout the sixteenth century a hotbed of freethinking, styled "atheism," it appears to have been in france, alongside of the wars of religion, that positive unbelief, as distinct from scripturalist unitarianism, made most new headway among laymen. it was in france that the forces of change had greatest play. the mere contact with italy which began with the invasion of charles vii in meant a manifold moral and mental influence, affecting french literature and life alike; and the age of strife and destruction which set in with the first huguenot wars could not but be one of disillusionment for multitudes of serious men. we have seen as much in the work of bonaventure des periers and rabelais; but the spread of radical unbelief is to be traced, as is usual in the ages of faith, by the books written against it. already in we have seen guillaume postell publishing his book, contra atheos. [ ] unbelief increasing, there is published in an atheomachie by one de bourgeville; but the massacre must have gone far to frustrate him. in appears another atheomachie, ou réfutation des erreurs et impiétés des athéistes, libertins, etc., issued at geneva, but bearing much on french life; and in the same year is issued the long-time popular work of the huguenot philippe de mornay, de la vérité de la religion chrestienne, contre les athées, epicuriens, payens, juifs, mahumedistes, et autres infidèles. [ ] in both the epistle dedicatory (to henry of navarre) and the preface the author speaks of the great multiplication of unbelief, the refutation of which he declares to be more needful among christians than it ever had been among the heathen. but, like most of the writers against atheism in that age, he declares [ ] that there are no atheists save a few young fools and utterly bad men, who turn to god as soon as they fall sick. the reputed atheists of antiquity are vindicated as having denied not the principle of deity but the false gods of their age--this after the universality of a belief in gods in all ages had been cited as one of the primary proofs of god's existence. in this fashion is compiled a book of nine hundred pages, ostensibly for the confutation of a few fools and knaves, described as unworthy of serious consideration. evidently the unbelief of de mornay's day was a more vigorous growth than he affected to think; and his voluminous performance was followed by others. in , christophe cheffontaines published his epitome novæ illustrationis christianae fidei adversus impios, libertinos et atheos; and still skepticism gained ground, having found new abettors. first came the portuguese francisco sanchez ( - ?), born in portugal, but brought as a child to bordeaux, which seems to have been a place of refuge for many fugitive heretics from both sides of the peninsula. sanchez has recorded that in his early youth he had no bias to incredulity of any kind; but at some stage of his adolescence he travelled in italy and spent some time at rome. the result was not that special disbelief in christianity which was proverbially apt to follow, but a development on his part of philosophic skepticism properly so-called, which found expression in a latin treatise entitled quod nihil scitur--"that nothing is known." composed as early as , in the author's twenty-fourth year, the book was not published till , a year after the first issue of the essais of montaigne. it is natural to surmise that while sanchez was at bordeaux he may have known something of his famous contemporary; but though montaigne is likely to have read the quod nihil scitur in due course, he nowhere speaks of it; and in sanchez was a professor of medicine at montpellier, then a town of huguenot leanings. soon he left it for toulouse, the hotbed of catholic fanaticism, where he contrived to live out his long life in peace, despite his production of a pyrrhonist treatise and of a remarkable latin poem ( ) on the comet of . the quod nihil scitur is a skeptical flank attack on current science, in no way animadverting on religion, as to which he professed orthodoxy: the poem is a frontal attack on the whole creed of astrology, then commonly held by averroïsts and aristotelians, as well as by orthodox catholics. yet he seems never to have been molested. it would seem as if a skepticism which ostensibly disallowed all claims to "natural" knowledge, while avowedly recognizing "spiritual," was then as later thought to make rather for faith than against it. that such virtual pyrrhonism as that of sanchez can ever have ministered to religious zeal is not indeed to be supposed: it is rather as a weapon against the confidence of the "naturalist" that the skeptical method has always recommended itself to the calculating priest. and inasmuch as astrology could be, and was, held by a non-religious theory, though many christians added it to their creed, a polemic against that was the least dangerous form of rationalizing then possible. at all times there had been priests who so reasoned, though, as we have seen in dealing with the men of the protestant reformation, the belief in astral influences is too closely akin to the main line of religious tradition to be capable of ejection on religious grounds. with his hostility to credulous hopes and fears in the sphere of nature, sanchez is naturally regarded as a forerunner and helper of freethought. but there is nothing to show that his work had any effect in undermining the most formidable of all the false beliefs of christendom. [ ] like so many others of his age, he flouted aristotelean scholasticism, but was perforce silent as to the verbalisms and sophistries of simple theology. it may fairly be inferred that his poem on the comet of helped to create that current of reasoned disbelief [ ] which we find throwing up almost identical expressions in montaigne, shakespeare, and molière, [ ] concerning the folly of connecting the stars with human affairs. but a skepticism which left untouched the main matter of the creeds could not affect conduct in general; and while sanchez passed unchecked the watchdogs of the inquisition, the fiery bruno and vanini were in his day to meet their fiery death at its hands--the latter in toulouse, perhaps under the eyes of sanchez. having resigned his professorship of medicine, he seems to have lived to a ripe age, dying in . probably those very deaths availed more for the rousing of critical thought than did the dialectic of the pyrrhonist. to the life of the reason may with perfect accuracy be applied the claim so often made for that of religion--that it feeds on feeling and is rooted in experience. revolt from the cruelties and follies of faith plays a great part in the history of freethought. in the greatest french writer of that age, a professed catholic, but in mature life averse alike to catholic and to protestant bigotry, the shock of the massacre of saint bartholomew can be seen disintegrating once for all the spirit of faith. montaigne typifies the kind of skepticism produced in an unscientific age by the practical demonstration that religion can avail immeasurably more for evil than for good. [ ] a few years before the massacre he had translated for his dying father [ ] the old theologia naturalis of raymond of sebonde; and we know from the later apology in the essays that freethinking contemporaries declared the argument of raymond to be wholly insufficient. [ ] it is clear from the same essay that montaigne felt as much; though the gist of his polemic is a vehement attack upon all forms of confident opinion, religious and anti-religious alike. "in replying to arguments of so opposite a tenour, montaigne leaves christianity, as well as raimond sebonde, without a leg to stand upon. he demolishes the arguments of sebonde with the rest of human presumption, and allows christianity, neither held by faith nor provable by reason, to fall between the two stools." [ ] the truth is that montaigne's skepticism was the product of a mental evolution spread over at least twenty years. in his youth his vivid temperament kept him both credulous and fanatical, so much so that in he took the reckless oath prescribed by the catholic parlement of paris. as he avows with his incomparable candour, he had been in many things peculiarly susceptible to outside influences, being always ready to respond to the latest pressure; [ ] and the knowledge of his susceptibility made him self-distrustful. but gradually he found himself. beginning to recoil from the ferocities and iniquities of the league, he yet remained for a time hotly anti-protestant; and it seems to have been his dislike of protestant criticism that led him to run amuck against reason, at the cost of overthrowing the treatise he had set out to defend. the common end of such petulant skepticism is a plunge into uneasy yet unreasoning faith; but, though montaigne professed catholicism to the end, the sheer wickedness of the catholic policy made it impossible for him to hold sincerely to the creed any more than to the cause. [ ] above all things he hated cruelty. [ ] it was the massacre that finally made montaigne renounce public life; [ ] it must have affected likewise his working philosophy. that philosophy was not, indeed, an original construction: he found it to his hand partly in the deism of his favourite seneca; partly in the stoical ethic of epictetus, then so much appreciated in france; and partly in the hypotyposes of sextus empiricus, of which the latin translation is known to have been among his books; from which he took several of the mottoes inscribed on his library ceiling, [ ] and from which he frequently quotes towards the end of his apology. the body of ideas compacted on these bases cannot be called a system: it was not in montaigne's nature to frame a logical scheme of thought; and he was far from being the philosophic skeptic he set out to be [ ] by way of confounding at once the bigots and the atheists. he was essentially ondoyant et divers, as he freely admitted. as he put it in a passage added to the later editions of the essais, [ ] he was a kind of métis, belonging neither to the camp of ignorant faith nor to that of philosophic conviction, whether believing or unbelieving. he early avows that, had he written what he thought and knew of the affairs of his times, he would have published judgments "à mon gré mesme et selon raison," in his opinion true and reasonable, but "illégitimes et punissables." [ ] again, "whatsoever is beyond the compass of custom, we deem likewise to be beyond the compass of reason, god knows how unreasonably, for the most part." [ ] yet in the next breath he will exclaim at those who demand changes. often he comments keenly on the incredible readiness of men to go to war over trifles; but in another mood he accuses the nobility of his day of unwillingness to take up arms "except upon some urgent and extreme necessity." [ ] in the same page he will tell us that he is "easily carried away by the throng," and that he is yet "not very easy to change, forsomuch as i perceive a like weakness in contrary opinions." [ ] "i am very easily to be directed by the world's public order," [ ] is the upshot of his easy meditations. and a conformist he remained in practice to the last, always bearing himself dutifully towards mother church, and generally observing the proprieties, though he confesses that he "made it a conscience to eat flesh upon a fish day." [ ] his conformities, verbal and practical, have set certain catholics upon proving his orthodoxy, though his essays are actually prohibited by the church. a benedictine, dom devienne, published in a dissertation sur la religion de montaigne, of which the main pleas are that the essais often affirm the divinity of the christian faith; that the essayist received the freedom of the city of rome under the eyes of the pope; and that his epitaph declared his orthodoxy! a generation later, one labouderie undertook to set forth le christianisme de montaigne in a volume of pages ( ). this apologist has the courage to face the protest of pascal: "montaigne puts everything in a doubt so universal and so general that, doubting even whether he doubts, his uncertainty turns upon itself in a perpetual and unresting circle.... it is in this doubt which doubts of itself, and in this ignorance which is ignorant of itself, that the essence of his opinion consists.... in a word, he is a pure pyrrhonist" (pensées, supp. to pt. i, art. ). the reply of the apologist is that montaigne never extends his skepticism to "revelation," but on the contrary declares that revelation alone gives man certainties (work cited, p. ). that is of course merely the device of a hundred skeptics of the middle ages; the old shibboleth of a "twofold truth" modified by a special disparagement of reason, with no attempt to meet the rejoinder that, if reason has no certainties, there can be no certainty that revelation is what it claims to be. when the apologist concludes that montaigne's aim en froissant la raison humaine is to "oblige men to recognize the need of a revelation to fix his incertitudes," it suffices to answer that montaigne in so many words declares at the outset of the apologie de raimond sebonde that he knows nothing of theology, which is equivalent to saying that he is not a student of the bible. as a matter of fact he never quotes it! in the last and most characteristic essay of all, discoursing at large of experience, he makes the most daring attack on laws in general, as being always arbitrary and often irrational, and not seldom more criminal than the offences they punish. after a planless discourse of diseases and diets, follies of habit and follies of caprice, the wisdom of self-rule and the wisdom of irregularity, he contrives to conclude at once that we should make the best of everything and that "only authority is of force with men of common reach and understanding, and is of more weight in a strange language"--a plea for catholic ritual. yet in the same page he pronounces that "supercelestial opinions and under-terrestrial manners are things that amongst us i have ever seen to be of singular accord." there is no final recognition here of religion as even a useful factor in life. in point of fact montaigne's whole habit of mind is perfectly fatal to orthodox religion; and it is clear that, despite his professions of conformity, he did not hold the christian beliefs. [ ] he was simply a deist. again and again he points to sokrates as the noblest and wisest of men; there is no reference to jesus or any of the saints. whatever he might say in the apology, in the other essays he repeatedly reveals a radical unbelief. the essay on custom strikes at the root of all orthodoxy, with its thrusts at "the gross imposture of religions, wherewith so many worthy and sufficient men have been besotted and drunken," and its terse avowal that "miracles are according to the ignorance wherein we are by nature, and not according to nature's essence." [ ] above all, he rejected the great superstition of the age, the belief in witchcraft; and, following the lead of wier, [ ] suggested a medical view of the cases of those who professed wizardry. [ ] this is the more remarkable because his rubber-ball fashion of following impulsions and rebounding from certainty made him often disparage other men's certainties of disbelief just because they were certainties. declaring that he prefers above all things qualified and doubtful propositions, [ ] he makes as many confident assertions of his own as any man ever did. but the effect of the whole is a perpetual stimulus to questioning. his function in literature was thus to set up a certain mental atmosphere, [ ] and this the extraordinary vitality of his utterance enabled him to do to an incalculable extent. he had the gift to disarm or at least to baffle hostility, to charm kings, [ ] to stand free between warring factions. no book ever written conveys more fully the sensation of a living voice; and after three hundred years he has as friendly an audience as ever. owen notes (french skeptics, p. ; cp. champion, pp. - ) that, though the papal curia requested montaigne to alter certain passages in the essays, "it cannot be shown that he erased or modified a single one of the points." sainte-beuve, indeed, has noted many safeguarding clauses added to the later versions of the essay on prayers (i, ): but they really carry further the process of doubt. m. champion has well shown how the profession of personal indecision and mere self-portraiture served as a passport for utterances which would have brought instant punishment on an author who showed any clear purpose. as it was, nearly a century passed before the essais were placed upon the roman index librorum prohibitorum ( ). to the orthodox of his own day montaigne seems to have given entire satisfaction. thus florimond de boemond, in his antichrist ( e éd. , p. ), begins his apologetic with a skeptical argument, which he winds up by referring the reader with eulogy to the apologie of montaigne. the modern resort to the skeptical method in defence of traditional faith seems to date from this time. see prof. fortunat strowski, histoire du sentiment religieux en france au xviie siècle; , i, , note. (de montaigne à pascal.) the momentum of such an influence is seen in the work of charron ( - ), montaigne's friend and disciple. the essais had first appeared in ; the expanded and revised issue in ; and in there appeared charron's de la sagesse, which gives methodic form and as far as was permissible a direct application to montaigne's naturalistic principles. charron's is a curious case of mental evolution. first a lawyer, then a priest, he became a highly successful popular preacher and champion of the catholic league; and as such was favoured by the notorious marguerite (the second [ ]) of navarre. on the assassination of the duke of guise by order of henri iii he delivered an indignant protest from the pulpit, of which, however, he rapidly repented. [ ] becoming the friend of montaigne in , he shows already in , in his three truths, the influence of the essayist's skepticism, [ ] though charron's book was expressly framed to refute, first, the atheists; second, the pagans, jews, mohammedans; and, third, the christian heretics and schismatics. the wisdom, published only eight years later, is a work of a very different cast, proving a mental change. even in the first work "the growing teeth of the skeptic are discernible beneath the well-worn stumps of the believer"; [ ] but the second almost testifies to a new birth. professedly orthodox, it was yet recognized at once by the devout as a "seminary of impiety," [ ] and brought on its author a persecution that lasted till his sudden death from apoplexy, which his critics pronounced to be a divine dispensation. in the second and rearranged edition, published a year after his death, there are some modifications; but they are so far from essential [ ] that buckle found the book as it stands a kind of pioneer manual of rationalism. [ ] its way of putting all religions on one level, as being alike grounded on bad evidence and held on prejudice, is only the formal statement of an old idea, found, like so many others of charron's, in montaigne; but the didactic purpose and method turn the skeptic's shrug into a resolute propaganda. so with the formal and earnest insistence that true morality cannot be built on religious hopes and fears--a principle which charron was the first to bring directly home to the modern intelligence, [ ] as he did the principle of development in religious systems. [ ] attempting as it does to construct a systematic practical philosophy of life, the book puts aside so positively the claims of the theologians, [ ] and so emphatically subordinates religion to the rule of natural reason, [ ] that it constitutes a virtual revolution in public doctrine for christendom. as montaigne is the effective beginner of modern literature, so is charron the beginner of modern secular teaching. he is a naturalist, professing theism; and it is not surprising to find that for a time his book was even more markedly than montaigne's the french "freethinker's breviary." strowski, as cited, pp. - , sq., founding on garasse and mersenne. strowski at first pronounces charron "in reality only a collector of commonplaces" (p. ); but afterwards obliviously confesses (p. ) that "his audacities are astonishing," and explains that "he formulates, perhaps without knowing it, a whole doctrine of irreligion which outgoes the man and the time--a thought stronger than the thinker!" and again he forgetfully speaks of "cette critique hardie et méthodique, j'allais écrire scientifique" (p. ). all this would be a new form of commonplace. it was only powerful protection that could save such a book from proscription; but charron and his book had the support at once of henri iv and the president jeannin--the former a proved indifferentist to religious forms; the latter the author of the remark that a peace with two religions was better than a war which had none. such a temper had become predominant even among professed catholics, as may be gathered from the immense popularity of the satyre menippée ( ). ridiculing as it did the insensate fanaticism of the catholic league, that composition was naturally described as the work of atheists; but there seems to have been no such element in the case, the authors being all catholics of good standing, and some of them even having a record for zeal. [ ] the satyre was in fact the triumphant revolt of the humorous common sense of france against the tyranny of fanaticism, which it may be said to have overthrown at one stroke, [ ] inasmuch as it made possible the entry of henri into paris. by a sudden appeal to secular sanity and the sense of humour it made the bulk of the catholic mass ashamed of its past course. [ ] on the other hand, it is expressly testified by the catholic historian de thou that all the rich and the aristocracy held the league in abomination. [ ] in such an atmosphere rationalism must needs germinate, especially when the king's acceptance of catholicism dramatized the unreality of the grounds of strife. after the assassination of the king in , the last of the bloody deeds which had kept france on the rack of uncertainty in religion's name for three generations, the spirit of rationalism naturally did not wane. in the paris of the early seventeenth century, doubtless, the new emancipation came to be associated, as "libertinism," with licence as well as with freethinking. in the nature of the case there could be no serious and free literary discussion of the new problems either of life or belief, save insofar as they had been handled by montaigne and charron; and, inasmuch as the accounts preserved of the freethought of the age are almost invariably those of its worst enemies, it is chiefly their side of the case that has been presented. thus in the jesuit father françois garasse published a thick quarto of over a thousand pages, entitled la doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, ou prétendus tels, in which he assails the "libertins" of the day with an infuriated industry. the eight books into which he divides his treatise proceed upon eight alleged maxims of the freethinkers, which run as follows:-- i. there are very few good wits [bons esprits] in the world; and the fools, that is to say, the common run of men, are not capable of our doctrine; therefore it will not do to speak freely, but in secret, and among trusting and cabalistic souls. ii. good wits [beaux esprits] believe in god only by way of form, and as a matter of public policy (par maxime d'etat). iii. a bel esprit is free in his belief, and is not readily to be taken in by the quantity of nonsense that is propounded to the simple populace. iv. all things are conducted and governed by destiny, which is irrevocable, infallible, immovable, necessary, eternal, and inevitable to all men whomsoever. v. it is true that the book called the bible, or the holy scripture, is a good book (un gentil livre), and contains a lot of good things; but that a bon esprit should be obliged to believe under pain of damnation all that is therein, down to the tail of tobit's dog, does not follow. vi. there is no other divinity or sovereign power in the world but nature, which must be satisfied in all things, without refusing anything to our body or senses that they desire of us in the exercise of their natural powers and faculties. vii. supposing there be a god, as it is decorous to admit, so as not to be always at odds with the superstitious, it does not follow that there are creatures which are purely intellectual and separated from matter. all that is in nature is composite, and therefore there are neither angels nor devils in the world, and it is not certain that the soul of man is immortal. viii. it is true that to live happily it is necessary to extinguish and drown all scruples; but all the same it does not do to appear impious and abandoned, for fear of offending the simple or losing the support of the superstitious. this is obviously neither candid [ ] nor competent writing; and as it happens there remains proof, in the case of the life of la mothe le vayer, that "earnest freethought in the beginning of the seventeenth century afforded a point d'appui for serious-minded men, which neither the corrupt romanism nor the narrow protestantism of the period could furnish." [ ] garasse's own doctrine was that "the true liberty of the mind consists in a simple and docile (sage) belief in all that the church propounds, indifferently and without distinction." [ ] the later social history of catholic france is the sufficient comment on the efficacy of such teaching to regulate life. in any case the new ideas steadily gained ground; and on the heels of the treatise of garasse appeared that of marin mersenne, l'impieté des déistes, athées et libertins de ce temps combattue, avec la refutation des opinions de charron, de cardan, de jordan brun, et des quatraines du déiste ( ). in a previous treatise, quæstiones celeberrimæ in genesim ... in quo volumine athei et deisti impugnantur et expugnantur ( ), mersenne set agoing the often-quoted assertion that, while atheists abounded throughout europe, they were so specially abundant in france that in paris alone there were some fifty thousand. even taking the term "atheist" in the loosest sense in which such writers used it, the statement was never credited by any contemporary, or by its author; but neither did anyone doubt that there was an unprecedented amount of unbelief. the quatraines du déiste, otherwise l'antibigot, was a poem of one hundred and six stanzas, never printed, but widely circulated in manuscript in its day. it is poor poetry enough, but its doctrine of a lucretian god who left the world to itself sufficed to create a sensation, and inspired mersenne to write a poem in reply. [ ] such were the signs of the times when pascal was in his cradle. mersenne's statistical assertion was made in two sheets of the quæstiones celeberrimæ, "qui ont été supprimé dans la plupart des exemplaires, à cause, sans doute, de leur exagération" (bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartésienne, , i, , where the passage is cited). the suppressed sheets included a list of the "atheists" of the time, occupying five folio columns. (julian hibbert, plutarchus and theophrastus on superstition, etc., ; app. catal. of works written against atheism, p. ; prosper marchand, lettre sur le cymbalum mundi, in éd. bibliophile jacob, , p. , note; prof. strowski, de montaigne à pascal, , p. sq.) mersenne himself, in the preface to his book, stultifies his suppressed assertion by declaring that the impious in paris boast falsely of their number, which is really small, unless heretics be reckoned as atheists. garasse, writing against them, all the while professed to know only five atheists, three of them italians (strowski, as cited). end of vol. i. notes [ ] cp. lechler, geschichte des englischen deismus, , p. ; a. s. farrar, critical history of freethought, , p. ; larousse's dictionnaire, art. libre pensée; sayous, les déistes anglais et le christianisme, , p. . [ ] jesus is made to apply it either to his disciples or to willing followers in matt. xvii, , where the implication seems to be that lack of faith alone prevents miraculous cures. so with apistia in matt. xiii, . in the epistles, a pagan as such is apistos--e.g., cor. vi, . here the vulgate has infideles: in matt. xiii, , the word is incredulitatem. [ ] cp. luke xii, ; tit. i, ; rev. xxi, . [ ] in the prologue to the first print of the old ( ) revelation of the monk of evesham, . [ ] bayle, dictionnaire, art. viret, note d. [ ] essais, liv. iii. ch. . Édit. firmin-didot, , ii, . [ ] see f. t. perrens, les libertins en france au xviie siècle, , introd. § , for a good general view of the bearings of the word. it stood at times for simple independence of spirit, apart from religious freethinking. thus madame de sevigné (lettre à mme. de grignan, juin, ) writes: "je suis libertine, plus que vous." [ ] stähelin, johannes calvin, , i, sq.; perrens as cited, pp. - ; mosheim, eccles. hist., cent., part ii, ch. v, §§ - , and notes; cent., part ii, ch. v, §§ - ; cent., § , part ii, ch. ii. §§ - . [ ] a. bossert, calvin, . p. . [ ] burckhardt, renaissance in italy, eng. tr. ed. , p. , note. [ ] answer to sir t. more, parker soc. rep. , pp. - . [ ] controversy with harding, parker soc. rep. of works, , i, . [ ] paradise lost, i, ; samson agonistes, . [ ] the new inn, - , act iii. sc. . [ ] the new english dictionary gives instances in and . [ ] if mr. froude's transcript of a manuscript can here be relied on. history, ed. , x, . (ed. , xi, .) [ ] four questions propounded (pref. to acts and monuments). [ ] answer to the bishop of winchester, parker soc. rep., p. . [ ] works, ed. , ii, . [ ] b. v, ch. i, § . works, i, . [ ] de civitate dei, xx, , end; xxi, , beginn., etc. [ ] religio medici, , pt. i. §§ , . [ ] essay ii, of scepticism and certainty (rep. of reply to thomas white, app. to scepsis scientifica in ) in glanvill's collected essays on several important subjects in philosophy and religion, , pp. , . [ ] plus ultra: or, the progress and advancement of knowledge since the days of aristotle, , p. . [ ] history of the royal society, , p. . describing the beginnings of the society, sprat remarks that oxford had at that time many members "who had begun a free way of reasoning" (p. ). [ ] buckle, introd. to hist. of civ. in eng., -vol. ed. p. . [ ] sprat, p. (printed as ). [ ] id., p. . the french academy had the same rule. [ ] some of sprat's uses of the term have a very general sense, as when he writes (p. ) that "amsterdam is a place of trade without the mixture of men of freer thoughts." the latter is an old application, as in "the free sciences" or "the liberal arts." [ ] cited by archbishop trench, the study of words, th ed., p. , from the clarendon state papers, app. vol. iii, p. . [ ] art. rationalismus and supernaturalismus in herzog and plitt's real-encyk. für prot. theol. und kirche, . xii, . [ ] philosophical works of bacon, ed. ellis and spedding, iii, . see the same saying quoted among the apophthegms given in tenison's baconiana (routledge's ed. of works, p. ). [ ] every man in his humour ( ), act iii, sc. . [ ] some familiar letters between mr. locke and several of his friends, , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] ed. rotterdam, . p. . [ ] b. ii, pt. ii, § . [ ] ch. on logic, cited by professor fowler in his ed. of the novum organum, , introd. p. . [ ] §§ and . [ ] letters, , p. . [ ] orig. ed. iii, , , ; ed. j. m. r., , ii, , . [ ] nos. , , . [ ] cp. johnson on a. philips in lives of the poets. swift, too, issued his free thoughts upon the present state of affairs in . [ ] thus bentley, writing as phileleutherus lipsiensis against collins, claims to have been "train'd up and exercis'd in free thought from my youth." dr. samuel clarke somewhere makes a similar statement; and the point is raised by berkeley in his minute philosopher, dial. i, § . one of the first replies to collins, a letter to the free-thinkers, by a layman, dated february , - , likewise insists on the right of believers to the title, declaring that "a free-thinker may be the best or worst of men." shaftesbury on the other side protests that the passion of orthodoxy "holds up the intended chains and fetters and declares its resolution to enslave" (characteristics, iii. ; ed. , ii, ). later, the claim of bentley and clarke became common; and one tract on christian evidences, a layman's faith, , whose author shows not a grain of the critical spirit, professes to be written "by a freethinker and a christian." [ ] written in . [ ] cp. hauréau, histoire de la philosophie scolastique, ed. - , i, - . [ ] second ed. with enlarged appendix (of authorities and references), , vols. [ ] farrar, pref., p. x; riddle, p. ; van mildert, i, , etc. [ ] van mildert even recast his first manuscript. see the memoir of joshua watson, , p. . [ ] cp. w. a. schmidt, geschichte der denk- und glaubensfreiheit im ersten jahrhundert der kaiserherrschaft und des christenthums, , pp. - . [ ] its legitimacy on that side is expressly contended for by professor william james in his volume the will to believe ( ), the positions of which were criticized by the present writer in the university magazine, april and june, . [ ] bryce, the holy roman empire, th ed., p. . [ ] a religious basis for sexual licence is of course a common feature in non-christian religions also. classic instances are well known. as to sexual promiscuity in an "intensely religious" savage community, see turner, samoa a hundred years ago, , p. . [ ] e. b. tylor, anthropology, , p. . cp. lang, custom and myth, ed. , p. ; j. g. frazer, lectures on the early history of the kingship, , pp. - . [ ] theal, the beginning of south african history, , p. . see also the rev. j. macdonald, light in africa, , p. . [ ] account of the manners and customs of the modern egyptians, th ed. , i, , note. [ ] life of mr. yukichi fukuzawa, tokyo, , pp. - , - . [ ] see tylor, primitive culture, rd ed. i, , as to savage conservatism in handicraft; but compare his researches into the early history of mankind, , p. , as to countervailing forces. [ ] e.g., in the first chapter of saint-simon's mémoires, the account of the french soldiers who at the siege of namur burned and broke the images of saint médard for sending so much rain. cp. irvine, letters on sicily, , p. ; and ramage, wanderings through italy, ed. , p. . constant, de la religion, , vol. i, ptie. ii, p. , gives a number of christian instances. [ ] rev. j. b. stair, old samoa, , pp. - . [ ] sextus empiricus, adv. mathematicos, ix, , ; pseudo-plutarch, de placitis philosophorum, i, ; lactantius, de ira dei, x, ; cicero, de natura deorum, i, ; augustine, de civitate dei, iv, . it is noteworthy that the skeptic sextus rejects the opinion as absurd, even as does the high-priest cotta in cicero. [ ] vico was one of the first, after sextus empiricus and his modern commentator fabricius, to insist (following the saying of petronius, primus in orbe deos fecit timor) that "false religions were founded not by the imposture of some, but by the credulity of all" (scienza nuova [ ], lib. i, prop. ). yet when denying (id., de' principii, ed. , p. ) the assertions of travellers as to tribes without religion, he insisted that they were mere fictions planned to sell the authors' books--here imputing fraud as lightly as others had done in the case of the supposed founders of religions. [ ] e.g., the elizabethan play selimus (huth lib. ed. of greene, vol. xiv, ed. grosart), dated , vv. - . (in "temple dramatists" ed., vv. - .) see also below, vol. ii, ch. xiii. [ ] on the principle of self-expression in religion, cp. feuerbach, das wesen der religion, in werke, ed. - , i, , , , etc. [ ] bishop thirlwall, history of greece, ed. , i, , . cp. curtius, griechische geschichte, , i, . [ ] tiele, outlines of the hist. of religions, eng. tr., p. . cp. robertson smith, the old testament in the jewish church, nd ed., p. , note. [ ] spencer and gillen, the northern tribes of central australia, , pp. , , , , . [ ] see the article by e. j. glave, of stanley's force, on "fetishism in congoland," in the century magazine, april, , p. . compare f. schultze, der fetischismus, , pp. , , , , etc.; theal, the beginning of south african history, , pp. , ; kranz, natur- und kulturleben der zulus, , pp. , - ; moffat, missionary labours, th thous., pp. , - ; a. b. ellis, the tshi-speaking peoples, , pp. - , - , ; sir g. s. robertson, the káfirs of the hindu-kush, ed. , pp. , ; e. rae, the white sea peninsula, , p. ; turner, samoa, , p. . it is certain that the wizards of contemporary savage races are frequently killed as impostors by their own people. see below, p. . [ ] tylor, anthropology, p. ; primitive culture, rd ed., i, . [ ] the fact that this phenomenon occurs everywhere among primitives, from the south seas to lapland, should be noted in connection with the latterly revived claims of so-called "mysticism." [ ] cp. e. rae, the white sea peninsula, , pp. , . [ ] glave, article cited, pp. - . [ ] cp. max müller, natural religion, , p. ; anthropological religion, , p. ; lang, myth, ritual, and religion, nd ed. ii, sq. [ ] compare bishop butler's charge to the clergy of durham, and bishop wordsworth on religious restoration in england, , p. , etc. [ ] p. von bradke, dyâus asura, ahura mazda, und die asuras, halle. , p. . [ ] rig-veda, x, (as translated by muir, müller, dutt, and von bradke); and x, (dutt's rendering). it is to be noted that the refrain "who is the god whom we should worship?" is entirely different in ludwig's rendering of x, . [bertholet's religionsgeschichtliches lesebuch ( ) compiled on the principle that "the best translations are good enough for us," follows the rendering of muir, müller, dutt, and von bradke (p. ).] cp. max müller, hibbert lectures, p. , and natural religion, pp. - , citing r. v., viii, , , etc., for an apparently undisputed case of skepticism. see again langlois's version of vi, , iii, (p. ). he cannot diverge much more from the german and english translators than they do from each other. [ ] junod, as above cited, pp. , , , . cp. dalton, as cited, p. . [ ] e. rae, the white sea peninsula, , pp. - . [ ] on the other hand, there might be genuine defect of knowledge of the religion of others of the tribe. this is said to occur in thousands of cases in christian countries: why not also among savages? see the express testimony of sir g. s. robertson, the káfirs of the hindu-kush, ed. , pp. , . [ ] e.g., moffat, missionary labours, end of ch. xvi and beginning of ch. xix. [ ] see dr. gasquet, the great pestilence, . [ ] missionary labours, ch. xix: stereo. ed. pp. , . it is noteworthy that the women were the first to avow unbelief in an unsuccessful rainmaker (id. p. ). [ ] missionary labours, as cited, p. . [ ] cp. schultze, der fetischismus, , pp. - ; a. h. keane, man, past and present, , p. ; thurston, castes and tribes of southern india, , i, . [ ] travels in southern africa in the years - , , ii, . cp. rev. j. macdonald, light in africa, , p. , as to the compulsion on men of superior intelligence to play the wizard, by reason of the common connection of wizardry with any display of mental power. there is no more tragical aspect in the life-conditions of primitive peoples. [ ] the lake regions of central africa, , ii, . [ ] turner, samoa a hundred years ago, , pp. - . cp. herodotos, iv, , as to the slaying of "false prophets" among the scythians; and i, , as to the impaling of the magi by astyages. [ ] paul kollmann, the victoria nyanza, , p. . [ ] sir a. b. ellis, the tshi-speaking peoples of the gold coast, , p. . [ ] e.g., an aged female relative of the writer, quite orthodox in all her habits, and devout to the extent of calling the book of esther "godless" because the word "god" does not occur in it, yet at a pinch declared that she had "never heard of providence putting a boll of meal inside anybody's door." her daughter-in-law, also of quite religious habits, quoted the saying with a certain sense of its audacity, but endorsed it, as she had cause to do. yet both regularly practised prayer and asserted divine beneficence. [ ] see b. seeman, "fiji and the fijians," in galton's vacation tourists, , pp. - , as to the terrorism resorted to by fijian priests against unbelievers. "punishment was sure to overtake the skeptic, let his station in life be what it might"--i.e., supernatural punishment was threatened, and the priests were not likely to let it fail. cp. basil thomson, the fijians: a study of the decay of custom, , introd., p. xi: "the reformers of primitive races never lived long: if they were low-born they were clubbed, and that was the end of them and their reforms; if they were chiefs, and something happened to them, either by disease or accident, men saw therein the figure of an offended deity; and obedience to the existing order of things became stronger than before." cp. pagan christs, nd ed., pp. - , as to kings who wished to put down human sacrifices. [ ] see pagan christs, nd ed., pp. - . [ ] e. j. glave, art. cited, p. . cp. lubbock, prehistoric times, pp. , . [ ] cp. the rev. j. macdonald, light in africa, , pp. - , as to the "universal suspicion" which falls upon tribesmen of rationalistic and anti-superstitious tendencies, making them "almost doubt their own sanity." [ ] sir h. h. johnston, the river congo, ed. , p. . cp. moffat, as cited above. [ ] colenso, the pentateuch, vol. i, pref. p. vii; introd. p. . [ ] spencer, principles of sociology, iii, § . [ ] w. ellis, polynesian researches, , iv, - , - . [ ] account of the natives of the tonga islands, compiled from the communications of w. mariner, by john martin, m.d., rd ed. , i, - , - , - ; ii, - , - , . mariner, who saw much of the priests, found no reason to suspect them of any systematic deception. see ii, . but his narrative leaves small room for doubt as to the procedure of the priest of toobo totai. [ ] dr. a. kropf, das volk der xosa-kaffern in östlichen südafrika, berlin, , pp. - . dr. kropf, a missionary of forty years' experience, states that many of the kaffirs latterly disbelieve in their sorcerers; but this may be partly a result of missionary teaching--not so much the religious as the scientific. see the testimony of the rev. j. macdonald, life in africa, , pp. - . [ ] rev. j. macdonald, life in africa, pp. - . [ ] it is clear that in the christianization of europe much use was made of the argument that the best lands had fallen to the christian peoples. see the epistle of bishop daniel of winchester to st. boniface (ep. lxvii) cited in schlegel's note to mosheim, reid's ed. of murdock's translation, p. . [ ] bede, eccles. hist., ii, . [ ] cp. a. h. mann in social england, illustr. ed., i, . [ ] teutonic mythology, eng. trans. , i, . [ ] crichton and wheaton, scandinavia, , i, , note. compare dr. ph. schweitzer, geschichte der skandinavischen litteratur, i, : "in the higher circles [in the pagan period] from an early date (schon lange) unbelief and even contempt of religion flourished ... probably never reaching the lower grades of the people." see also c. f. allen, histoire de danemark, french trans., copenhagen, , i, . [ ] Æneid, vii, ; x, , . mezentius does not deny that gods exist: see x, . [ ] sir g. s. robertson, the káfirs of the hindu-kush, ed. , p. . [ ] professor t. clifford allbutt, harveian oration on science and medieval thought, , p. . [ ] mr. basil thomson, in the able introduction to his excellent work on the fijians, speaks of primitive reformers (p. xi) as "rare souls born before their time." but there is no special "time" for reformers, who, as such, must be in advance of their average contemporaries. [ ] garcilasso, . viii, c. ; . ix, c. ; herrera, dec. v, . iv, c. . see the passages in réville's hibbert lectures, pp. - . [ ] prescott, conquest of mexico, kirk's ed., pp. sq., - , ; h. h. bancroft, native races of the pacific states, v, - ; clavigero, history of mexico, eng. tr. ed. , b. iv, §§ , ; vii. § . [ ] see the author's pagan christs, nd ed. pp. - , . cp. lafcadio hearn, japan, , pp. - . [ ] cp. t. williams, fiji and the fijians, ed. , i, ; turner, samoa a hundred years ago, , p. . [ ] "a long time elapses between each step that their [missionaries'] stations advance: and when they do it invariably is under the influence of some chief that they are even then led on." dalton, narrative of an explorer in tropical south africa, ed. , p. . [ ] see professor sully's studies of childhood, . [ ] rev. s. smith, church work among the deaf and dumb, , cited by spencer, principles of sociology, iii, § . cp. the testimony cited there from dr. kitto, lost senses, p. . [ ] die griechischen culte und mythen, , pp. , , , etc. what is true as regards the thesis is that some of the central insanities of religion, such as the cult of human sacrifice, seem to have been propagated in all directions from an asiatic centre. see the author's pagan christs, nd ed. pp. , , , , , etc. cp. the rev. d. macdonald's asiatic origin of the oceanic languages, luzac & co., ; the nubische grammatik of lepsius, ; and terrien de lacouperie, western origin of the early chinese civilization, , pp. , - . [ ] dr. andrew white, a history of the warfare of science with theology in christendom, , i, . [ ] dr. b. seeman, viti, , pp. - . [ ] cp. lang (myth, ritual, and religion, i, ) as to the contemptuous disbelief of savages in christian myths. mr. lang observes that this shows savages and civilized men to have "different standards of credulity." that, however, does not seem to be the true inference. each order of believer accepts the myths of his own creed, and derides others. [ ] cp. decharme, la critique des trad. relig. chez les grecs, , p. . [ ] the same process will be recorded later in the case of the intercourse of crusaders and saracens; and in the seventeenth century it is noted by la bruyère (caractères, ch. xvi, des esprits forts, par. ) as occurring in his day. the anonymous english author of an essay on the agreement of the customs of the east indians with those of the jews ( , pp. - ) naïvely endorses la bruyère. macaulay's remark to the edinburgh electors, on the view taken of sectarian strifes by a man who in india had seen the worship of the cow, is well known. [ ] cp. sayce, hibbert lectures, pp. , - ; robertson smith, religion of the semites, p. ; tiele, egyptian religion, p. ; and outlines, p. . [ ] cp. tiele, outlines, pp. - , and fischer, heidenthum und offenbarung, p. . professor max müller's insistence that the lines of vedic religion could not have been "crossed by trains of thought which started from china, from babylon, or from egypt" (physical religion, p. ), does not affect the hypothesis put above. the professor admits (p. ) the exact likeness of the babylonian fire-cult to that of agni. [ ] but cp. müller, anthropolog. relig., p. , as to possible later developments; and see above, pp. - , as to the many cases in which conquering races have actually adopted the gods of the conquered. [ ] muir, original sanskrit texts, ii ( nd ed.), , , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] max müller, selected essays, , ii, - . [ ] cp. oldenberg, die religion des veda, , pp. , - ; ghosha, hist. of hindu civ. as illust. in the vedas, calcutta, , pp. - ; max müller, phys. relig., , pp. - . [ ] max müller, selected essays, ii, . [ ] muir, original sanskrit texts, v, . [ ] max müller, hibbert lectures, p. , citing r. v., viii, , ; and ii, , . the first passage runs: "if you wish for strength, offer to indra a hymn of praise: a true hymn, if indra truly exist; for some one says, indra does not exist! who has seen him? whom shall we praise?" the hymn of course asseverates his existence. [ ] cp. rig-veda, i, , ; x, (cited by ghosa, pp. , ); viii, (cited by müller, natural religion, pp. - ); and x, , , (cited by romesh chunder dutt, hist. of civ. in anc. india, ed. , i, - ); muir, sanskrit texts, v, sq.; tiele, outlines, p. ; weber, hist. of ind. lit., eng. trans., p. ; max müller, hibbert lectures, ed. , pp. - , , ; phys. relig., p. ; barth, religions of india, eng. trans., p. ; tylor, primitive culture, ii, . [ ] barth, religions of india, pp. , , citing rig-veda, v, , ; i, , ; viii, , . the phrase as to agni is common in the brâhmanas, but is not yet so in the vedas. the second text cited is rendered by müller: "that which is one the sages speak of in many ways--they call it agni, yama, mâtarisvan" (selected essays, , ii, ). [ ] colebrooke's miscellaneous essays, ed. , i, - . weber (ind. lit., pp. , , , - ) has advanced the view that the adherents of this doctrine, who gradually became stigmatized as heretics, were the founders or beginners of buddhism. but the view that the universe is a self-existent totality appears to enter into the brahmans' sankhya teaching, which is midway between the popular nyaya system and the esoteric vedânta (ballantyne, christianity contrasted with hindu philosophy, , pp. xviii, , ). as to the connection between the sankhya system and buddhism, see oldenberg, der buddha, sein leben, seine lehre, seine gemeinde, te aufl., excurs, pp. . [ ] h. h. wilson, works, - , ii, . [ ] weber, hist. ind. lit., p. . [ ] ballantyne, pp. , ; major jacob, manual of hindu pantheism, , p. . [ ] cp. max müller, chips from a german workshop, ed. , i, - , and banerjea's dialogues on the hindu philosophy, p. , cited by major jacob, hindu pantheism, p. . [ ] jacob, as cited, p. . [ ] max müller, hibbert lectures, pp. - . cp. barth, religions of india, p. . [ ] müller, hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] cp. weber, hist. ind. lit., p. . [ ] id. pp. , - . [ ] max müller, hibbert lectures, p. , note, citing panini, iv, , . [ ] apparently belonging to the later or middle buddhist period. müller, hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] on these cp. müller, p. , note; garbe, philos. of anc. india, eng. tr. nd ed. chicago, , p. ; and weber, ind. lit. p. , note, with the very full research of professor rhys davids, dialogues of the buddha, , pp. - . [ ] müller, hibbert lectures, pp. - . cp. garbe. p. . [ ] garbe, as cited. [ ] rhys davids, dialogues of the buddha, p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. ib. [ ] trans. in english by cowell and gough, . [ ] garbe, as cited, p. . [ ] see müller, hibbert lectures, pp. - , citing burnouf. [ ] müller, hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] bk. i, stories ii, , , ; vii. . [ ] bk. i, , ; st. ii, . [ ] st. vi. . [ ] major jacob, as cited, preface. [ ] müller, psychol. relig., pp. , , ; lect. on the vedânta philos., , p. . [ ] chunder dutt, hist. of civ. in anc. india, as cited, i, - . [ ] rhys davids, trans. of dialogues of the buddha, p. . cp. his buddhism, p. , as to buddhist censures of an extravagant skepticism which denied every religious theory. in one of the dialogues (ii, , p. ) a contemporary sophist is cited as flatly denying a future state. mr. lillie, however (buddhism in christendom, , p. ), contends as against professor rhys davids that the upanishads were only "whispered to pupils who had gone through a severe probation." [ ] prof. weber (hist. ind. lit., p. ) says the peoples of the punjaub never at all submitted to the brahmanical rule and caste system. but the subject natives there must at the outset have been treated as an inferior order. cp. tiele, outlines, p. and refs.; and rhys davids, buddhism, p. . [ ] cp. weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , - ; max müller, chips, i, - ; kuenen, hibbert lectures, pp. - ; and the general discussion of the problem in the author's pagan christs, nd ed. pp. - . [ ] brahmanism had itself been by this time influenced by aboriginal elements, even to the extent of affecting its language. weber, as cited, p. . cp. müller, anthrop. relig., p. . [ ] major jacob, as cited, p. . [ ] i.e., "the enlightened," a title given to sages in general. weber, p. . [ ] weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , ; müller, natural religion, p. . [ ] see senart, essai sur la légende de buddha, e édit., p. ff. [ ] cp. weber, pp. - , . [ ] see weber, pp. , ; also rhys davids, buddhism, pp. , , etc. [ ] tiele, outlines, p. . [ ] cp. weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , - ; max müller, natural religion, p. ; jacobi, as there cited; tiele, outlines, pp. - ; rhys davids, american lectures on buddhism, pp. - ; buddhism, p. ; and the author's pagan christs, pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - . [ ] weber, hist. ind. lit., pp. , . [ ] barth, religions of india, p. . [ ] rhys davids, buddhism, pp. , , . [ ] cp. pagan christs, pp. - . [ ] rhys davids, trans. of dialogues, pp. - ; amer. lec. on buddhism, , pp. - ; hibbert lectures, , p. ; buddhism, pp. , - . [ ] max müller, selected essays, , ii, . [ ] as the context in professor müller's work shows, these phrases are inaccurate. [ ] cp. weber, ind. lit., p. , note; and banerjea, dialogues on the hindu philosophy, p. , cited by major jacob, pp. - . [ ] see muir, sanskrit texts, iv, (cited by jacob, pp. - ), as to the brahman view of the licence ascribed to krishna. and see iii, (cited by jacob, p. ), as to a remarkable disparagement of vedism in the bhagavat gita. [ ] müller, selected essays, ii, : h. h. wilson, as last cited, ii, sq. [ ] see this brought out in a strikingly dramatic way in mr. dennis hird's novel, the believing bishop. [ ] cp. dr. a. jeremias, monotheistische strömungen innerhalb der babylonischen religion, , p. --a very candid research. [ ] the hammurabi code, by chilperic edwards, , pp. , , (§§ , , ). the invocations of named gods by hammurabi at the close of the code, however, suggest that the force of the word was "a god." cp. p. with what follows; and see note on p. . on this question compare jeremias, as cited, pp. , . [ ] maspero, hist. anc. des peup. de l'orient, e éd. p. ; sayce, hib. lect., pp. , , ; e. meyer, gesch. des alt., i ( ), (§ ); iii ( ), sq. (§ ). [ ] sayce, pp. , ; lenormant, chaldean magic, eng. ed. p. . [ ] jastrow, religions of babylonia and assyria, , p. . [ ] jastrow, p. ; sayce, pp. , - . cp. kuenen, religion of israel, eng. tr., i, ; menzies, history of religion, , p. ; gunkel, israel und babylonien, , p. ; jeremias, as cited, pp. - . [ ] meyer, iii, ; jastrow, p. ; sayce, p. sq., sq.; lenormant, chaldean magic, p. ; jeremias, pp. - . [ ] sayce, p. . cp. robertson smith, religion of the semites, p. . [ ] jastrow, p. , note, p. ; sayce, pp. - , ; lenormant, pp. , , , ; jeremias, p. . [ ] tiele, outlines, p. ; sayce, ancient empires of the east, pp. - ; rawlinson, five great monarchies, nd ed. iii, ; maspero, p. . [ ] strabo, xvi, c. , § . [ ] cp. rawlinson, five great monarchies, i, ; iii, - . [ ] hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] meyer, iii, § ; sayce, pp. , . [ ] cp. jastrow, p. ; sayce, p. ; and tiele, hist. comparée, p. . it seems probable that human sacrifice was latterly restricted to the case of criminals. [ ] cp. meyer, iii, . [ ] meyer, i, , and note. [ ] cp. t. g. pinches, the old testament in the light of the hist. records of assyria and babylonia, , pp. - . [ ] jastrow, pp. , ; sayce, pp. , , , ; meyer, i, ; lenormant, p. ; jeremias, p. . [ ] sayce, pp. , ; cp. jastrow, p. . [ ] meyer, i, ; sayce, hib. lect., pp. - ; anc. emp. of the east, p. . [ ] meyer, iii, § . [ ] herod. i, . [ ] jer. xi, , etc. [ ] ezek. chs. vi, viii. [ ] cp. the recent literature on the recovered code of hammurabi. [ ] herod. i, . [ ] id. iii, . [ ] cp. grote, history of greece, pt. ii, ch. (ed. , iii, ), note. [ ] meyer, gesch. des alt., i, (§ ), (§ ), (§ ); tiele, outlines, p. . [ ] herod. i, . [ ] cp. herod. iii, , ; grote, vol. iii, p. . [ ] meyer, as cited, i, , (§ ); tiele, outlines, pp. , . [ ] meyer, i, (§ ). [ ] darmesteter, the zendavesta (s. b. e. ser.), vol. i, introd., p. lx ( st ed.). [ ] rawlinson, religions of the anc. world, p. ; meyer, §§ , - . [ ] meyer, i, (§ ). [ ] cp. meyer, i, - ; renan, as cited by him, p. ; darmesteter, as cited, cc. iv-ix, nd ed.; tiele, outlines, p. . [ ] meyer, i, (§ ). [ ] meyer, i, (§ ); tiele, outlines, p. ; darmesteter, ormazd et ahriman, , pp. - . [ ] meyer, i, § (p. ). [ ] tiele, outlines, p. . cp. lenormant (chaldean magic, p. ), who attributes the heresy to immoral median magi; and spiegel (avesta, , i, ), who considers it a derivation from babylon. [ ] le page renouf, hibbert lectures on relig. of anc. egypt, nd ed. p. ; wiedemann, religion of the ancient egyptians, eng. tr. , p. . cp. p. . renouf (pp. - ) supplies an interesting analysis. [ ] meyer, gesch. des alt. i, ; wiedemann, as cited, p. sq. [ ] cp. major glyn leonard, the lower niger and its tribes, , pp. , , . [ ] wiedemann, as cited, p. . [ ] meyer, p. (§ ); tiele, hist. of the egypt. relig. eng. tr., pp. , . [ ] le page renouf, hibbert lectures, nd ed. p. . [ ] meyer, geschichte des alten egyptens, in oncken's series, , b. iii, kap. , p. ; gesch. des alt. i. ; tiele, egypt. relig. pp. , , ; maspero, hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, é ed., pp. - ; le page renouf, as cited, pp. - ; wiedemann, pp. , , ; erman, handbook of egyptian religion, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] erman, pp. , . [ ] tiele, egypt. rel. pp. , , . [ ] tiele, p. . [ ] brugsch, religion und mythologie der alten aegypter, ; hälfte, pp. - ; kuenen, religion of israel, eng. trans. i, - ; tiele, pp. - ; erman, pp. , - . [ ] cp. wiedemann, p. . [ ] tiele, pp. , , . cp. meyer, geschichte des alterthums, i, - (§ ). wiedemann, p. . [ ] dr. wallis budge, egyptian magic, , end. [ ] tiele, p. . cp. p. . [ ] cp. maspero, as cited, pp. - . [ ] meyer, i, . [ ] maspero's spelling. [ ] von bissing's spelling. [ ] de garis davies, the tombs of amarna. [ ] maspero (hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, ed. , p. ) says he respected also osiris and horus. [ ] brugsch, egypt under the pharaohs, ed. , p. . maspero (as cited, p. ) recognizes no such revolt. [ ] maspero, hist. anc. de l'orient, e éd. pp. - ; brugsch, hist. of egypt under the pharaohs, eng. trans. ed. , ch. x; meyer, geschichte des alten aegyptens, b. iii, kap. , ; gesch. des alterthums, i, - ; tiele, pp. - ; flinders petrie, history of egypt, iii ( ), ; wiedemann, pp. - ; erman, pp. - ; l. w. king and h. h. hall, egypt and western asia in the light of recent discoveries, , pp. - ; f. w. von bissing, geschichte aegyptens in umriss, , pp. - . [ ] tiele, p. ; meyer, gesch. des alt. i, . [ ] "we do not find magic predominant [in the tales] until the ptolemaic age. at that time the physical magic of the early times reappears in full force" (petrie, religion and conscience in ancient egypt, , p. . cp. maspero, p. ; budge, egyptian magic, pp. , ). [ ] petrie, hist. iii, - , . [ ] tiele, pp. - ; meyer, gesch. des alt. i, - . [ ] tiele, pp. - , , . [ ] herodotos, ii, , - , etc. cp. maspero, p. . [ ] "the osiride and cosmic gods rose in importance as time went on, while the abstract gods continually sank on the whole. this agrees with the general idea that the imported gods have to yield their position gradually to the older and more deeply-rooted faiths" (petrie, as last cited, p. ). [ ] the familiar narrative of herodotos is put in doubt by the monuments. sayce, ancient empires, p. . but cp. meyer, i, (§ ). [ ] tiele, p. . [ ] see figures , , , , , , , in sharpe's hist. of egypt, th ed. [ ] cp. sharpe, ii, - ; budge, egyptian magic, p. . [ ] compare the orthodox view of bishop westcott, essays in the history of religious thought in the west, , pp. - . [ ] these fights had not ceased even in the time of julian (sharpe, ii, ). cp. juvenal, sat. xv, sq. [ ] metamorphoses, b., xi. [ ] cp. lane, manners and customs of the modern egyptians, passim. [ ] cp. meyer, gesch. des alt. i, - . [ ] meyer, i, . [ ] put by canon rawlinson, history of phoenicia, , p. . [ ] as to the universality of this tendency, see meyer, ii, . [ ] meyer, geschichte des alterthums, i, , § ; tiele, outlines, p. ; histoire comparée des anciennes religions, fr. tr. pp. - . [ ] rawlinson, phoenicia, p. ; sayce, anc. emp. p. ; menzies, hist. of relig. p. . [ ] præparatio evangelica, b. i, c. - . [ ] meyer, i, . [ ] cp. sayce, hibbert lectures, p. , as to persian methods of the same kind. [ ] div. inst. i, . [ ] e. meyer, geschichte des alterthums, ii, , . [ ] as to greek instances, cp. bury, hist. of greece, ed. , pp. , , , , ; and as to roman, see ettore pais, ancient legends of roman history, eng. trans. , ch. x, where it is shown that virginia and lucretia are primarily ancient latin divinities; and (ch. vii) that both numa and servius tullius are probably in the same case, servius rex being in all likelihood the servus rex nemorensis of the arician grove, round whom turns the research of dr. j. g. frazer's golden bough; while tullius is an old latin word for a spring. see also ch. iv as to acca larentia, another goddess reduced by the historians to the status of a hetaira, as was flora. horatius cocles (id. p. ) is also a god reduced to a hero. [ ] so sayce, ancient empires, p. . [ ] sayce, ancient empires, p. . [ ] legge, religions of china, , pp. , ; douglas, confucianism and taouism, , pp. , . [ ] menzies, history of religion, p. . [ ] legge, pp. , , , , ; tiele, outlines, p. ; douglas, p. . [ ] legge, religions of china, p. . [ ] see the citations made by legge, p. . [ ] id. p. ; cp. menzies, p. . [ ] legge, p. ; cp. p. ; douglas, p. . [ ] legge, religions, p. ; life and teachings of confucius, th ed. p. ; douglas, p. ; tiele, outlines, p. . [ ] tiele, p. ; legge, religions, p. . [ ] tiele, pp. - ; douglas, pp. , . but cp. legge, religions, pp. , . [ ] legge, life and teachings, pp. - . [ ] douglas, pp. , . [ ] see the author's pagan christs, pp. - . [ ] pauthier, chine moderne, p. . there is a tradition that lao-tsze took his doctrine from an ancient sage who flourished before b.c.; and he himself (tau teh king, trans. by chalmers, the speculations of lao-tsze, , ch. ) cites doctrine as to tau from "those who have spoken (before me)." cp. cc. , , , , . [ ] cp. e. j. simcox, primitive civilizations, , ii, . [ ] pauthier, p. ; chalmers, pp. , . [ ] legge, religions, p. . [ ] tau teh king, as cited, pp. . , ch. , ; pauthier, p. ; legge, p. . [ ] analects, xxv, ; legge, religions, p. ; life and teachings, p. ; douglas, p. . [ ] legge, religions, p. . we do find, however, an occasional allusion to deity, as in the phrase "the great architect" (chalmers' trans. . ch. lxxiv, p. ), and "heaven" is spoken of in a somewhat personalized sense. still, mr. chalmers complains (p. xv) that lao-tsze did not recognize a personal god, but put "an indefinite, impersonal, and unconscious tau" above all things (ch. iv). [ ] f. h. balfour, art. "a philosopher who never lived," in leaves from my chinese scrap-book, , p. sq. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] legge, religions of china, p. ; tiele, outlines, p. . [ ] legge, life and works of mencius, , pp. , , , etc. [ ] tiele, p. . [ ] legge, life and works of mencius, pp. , , , , etc. [ ] miss simcox, primitive civilizations, ii, - , following chavannes. [ ] legge's mencius, p. ; cp. p. . [ ] cp. legge's mencius, pp. , ; chalmers' lao-tsze, pp. , , , (chs. xxx, xxxi, xxxvi, lxvii, lxxiv); douglas, taouism, chs. ii, iii. [ ] legge, religions of china, p. . the ruler in question seems to have been of non-chinese descent. e. h. parker, china, , p. . [ ] legge, religions of china, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] tiele, p. . [ ] douglas, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] tiele, p. ; douglas, p. . taouism, however, has a rather noteworthy ethical code. see douglas, ch. vi. it has to be noted that the translations of the tâo têh king have varied to a disquieting degree. cp. drews, gesch. des monismus, p. . [ ] details are given in the author's pagan christs, pt. iv. [ ] nadaillac (l'amérique préhistorique, , pp. - ) gives them little of this credit, pronouncing them at once cruel and degenerate. he credits them, however, with being the first makers of roads and aqueducts in central america, and cites the record of their free public hospitals, maintained by the sacerdotal kings. prescott, on the other hand, overstated the bloodlessness of their religion (conquest of mexico, kirk's ed. , p. and ed. note). [ ] réville, hibbert lectures, on the native religions of mexico and peru, , pp. - . [ ] j. g. müller, geschichte der amerikanischen urreligionen, ed. , pp. - ; h. h. bancroft, native races of the pacific states, iii, . (passage cited in author's pagan christs, pp. - ; where is also noted dr. tylor's early view, discarded later, that quetzalcoatl was a real personage.) [ ] cp. prescott, as cited. [ ] réville, p. . [ ] j. g. müller, as cited, pp. - ; réville, p. . dr. réville speaks of the worship of the unifying deity as pretty much "effaced" by that of the lower gods. it seems rather to have been a priestly effort to syncretize these. still, such an effacement did take place, as we have seen, in central asia in ancient times, after a syncretic idea had been reached (above, p. ). as to the alleged monotheism of king netzahuatl (or netzahualcoyotl), of tezcuco, mentioned above, p. , see lang, making of religion, p. , note, and p. ; prescott, conquest of mexico, as cited, p. ; and j. g. müller, as cited, pp. - , . [ ] as to the capabilities of the aztec language, see bancroft, native races, ii, - (quoted in pagan christs, p. , note). [ ] refs. above, p. . cp. lang, making of religion, p. , note, and p. ; j. g. müller, as cited, pp. - ; and nadaillac, as cited, p. . [ ] the christianized descendant of the tezcucan kings, ixtilxochitl, who wrote their history, adds the words, "cause of causes"--a very unlikely formula in the place and circumstances. [ ] above, p. . cp. lang, as last cited, pp. , . [ ] cp. kirk's ed. of prescott's conquest of peru, , p. ; réville, p. - ; lang, as cited below. [ ] réville, p. , citing garcilasso. see same page for a story of resistance to the invention of an alphabet. [ ] réville, p. . citing torquemada, . viii, c. . end. [ ] history of the affairs of new spain, french trans. , . vi, ch. , pp. - . cp. prescott, conquest of mexico, kirk's ed. pp. , . [ ] prescott, p. . [ ] "the priest says, 'the spirit is hungry.' the fact being that he himself is hungry. he advises the killing of an animal" (max müller, anthropological religion, p. ). [ ] on the general tendency cp. chantepie de la saussaye, manual of the science of religion, pp. - . [ ] in the windows of the shop of the s. p. c. k., in london, may be often seen large displays of reproduced madonna-pictures, by catholic artists, at popular prices. [ ] compare the author's pagan christs, pp. - . [ ] jud. xvii, xviii. [ ] gen. xxxi, , , . [ ] compare hugo winckler, geschichte israels, i, - . [ ] compare tiele, outlines, p. ; hist. comp. des anc. relig. p. sq.; kuenen, relig. of israel, iii, , , . winckler (gesch. israels, i, - ) pronounces the original semitic yahu, and the yahweh evolved from him, to have been each a "wetter-gott." [ ] the word is applied to the apparition of samuel in the story of the witch of endor ( sam. xxviii, ). [ ] the unlearned reader may here be reminded that in gen. i the hebrew word translated "god" is "elohim" and that the phrase in gen. ii rendered "the lord god" in our versions is in the original "yah-weh-elohim." the first chapter, with its plural deity, is, however, probably the later as well as the more dignified narrative, and represents the influence of babylonian quasi-science. see, for a good general account of the case, the witness of assyria, by c. edwards, , ch. ii. cp. wellhausen, proleg. to hist. of israel, eng. tr. pp. - ; e. j. fripp, composition of the book of genesis, , passim; driver, introd. to the lit. of the old test. , pp. - . [ ] winckler, gesch. isr. i, - . [ ] cp. meyer, gesch. des alt. i, . [ ] see the myth of the offerings put in it by the philistines ( sam. vi). [ ] sam. iii, . cp. ch. ii, - . contrast lev. xvi, , ff. [ ] sam. iv, - . cp. v. vii, . [ ] sam. vi. [ ] kings xii, ; hosea viii, - . cp. jud. viii. ; hosea viii, . [ ] smith, religion of the semites, p. . but see above, p. . [ ] th cent. b.c. [ ] kings xviii, , ; xxiii, . [ ] kings xxiii. [ ] jer. i, ; iii, ; vi, ; vii, - ; viii, ; xviii, ; xx, , ; xxiii, . [ ] jer. ii, ; xi, . [ ] so kuenen, vol. i. app. i to ch. . [ ] amos v, , . [ ] hosea ii, ; vi, . [ ] isa. i, - . [ ] mic. vi, - . [ ] cp. m. müller, nat. rel. pp. - ; psychol. rel. pp. - ; wellhausen, israel, p. . if the moabite stone be genuine--and it is accepted by stade (gesch. des volkes israel, in oncken's series, , i, ) and by most contemporary scholars--the hebrew alphabetic writing is carried back to the ninth century b.c. an account of the stone is given in the witness of assyria, by c. edwards, ch. xi. see again mommsen, hist. of rome, bk. i, ch. , eng. tr. , i, , for a theory of the extreme antiquity of the alphabet. [ ] dr. cheyne (art. amos in encyc. biblica) gives some good reasons for attaching little weight to such objections, but finally joins in calling amos "a surprising phenomenon." [ ] driver, introd. to lit. of old test. ch. vi, § (p. , ed. ). cp. kuenen, relig. of israel, i, ; and robertson smith, art. joel, in encyc. brit. [ ] cp. wellhausen, israel, p. ; driver, ch. vii ( st ed. pp. sq., esp. pp. , , , ); stade, gesch. des volkes israel, i, . [ ] e.g. ps. l, - ; li, - , where v. is obviously a priestly addition, meant to countervail vv. , . [ ] cp. kuenen, i, ; wellhausen, prolegomena, p. ; israel, p. . [ ] as to a possible prehistoric connection of hebrews and perso-aryans, see kuenen, i, , discussing tiele and spiegel, and iii, , , treating of tiele's view, set forth in his godsdienst van zarathustra, that fire-worship was the original basis of yahwism. cp. land's views, discussed by kuenen, p. ; and renan, hist. des langues sémit. p. . [ ] cheyne, introd. to isaiah, prol. pp. xxx, xxxviii, following kosters. [ ] there is a cognate dispute as to the condition of the samaritans at the time of the return. stade (gesch. den volkes israel, i, ) holds that they were numerous and well-placed. winckler (alttestamentliche untersuchungen, , p. ) argues that, on the contrary, they were poor and unorganized, and looked to the jews for help. so also e. meyer, gesch. des alt. iii ( ), . [ ] cp. rowland williams, the hebrew prophets, ii ( ), . this translator's rendering of the phrase cited by zephaniah runs: "neither good does the eternal nor evil." [ ] cp. e. meyer, geschichte des alterthums, iii, . [ ] mal. ii, ; iii, . cp. ii, , . [ ] cp. jer. xxxiii, ; xxxviii, . [ ] eccles. iii, - . [ ] ch. v. renan's translation lends lucidity. [ ] driver, introduction, p. . prof. dillon (skeptics of the old testament, p. ) goes so far as to pronounce agur a "hebrew voltaire," which is somewhat of a straining of the few words he has left. cp. dr. moncure conway, solomon and solomonic literature, , p. . in any case, agur belongs to an age of "advanced religious reflection" (cheyne, job and solomon, p. ). [ ] driver, introduction, p. . [ ] biscoe, hist. of the acts of the apostles, ed. , p. , following selden and lightfoot. [ ] s. schechter, studies in judaism, , p. , citing sanhedrin, , and pseudo-jonathan to gen. iv, . cp. pp. - , citing a mention of epicurus in the mishna. [ ] the familiar phrase in the psalms (xiv, i; liii, ), "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god," supposing it to be evidence for anything, clearly does not refer to any reasoned unbelief. atheism could not well be quite so general as the phrase, taken literally, would imply. [ ] cp. w. r. sorley, jewish christians and judaism, , p. ; robertson smith, old test. in the jewish ch. ed. , pp. - . these writers somewhat exaggerate the novelty of the view they accept. cp. biscoe, history of the acts, ed. , p. . [ ] wisdom, c. . [ ] cp. the implications in ecclesiasticus, vi, - ; xvi, - , as to the ethics of many believers. [ ] kuenen, ii, - . [ ] kalisch, comm. on leviticus, xxv, , pt. ii, p. . [ ] in the wisdom of solomon, iii, ; iv, , the old desire for offspring is seen to be in part superseded by the newer belief in personal immortality. [ ] schechter, studies in judaism, , p. . compare pp. - . [ ] see supernatural religion, th ed. i, - , - ; mosheim, comm. on christ. affairs before constantine, vidal's tr. i, ; schürer, jewish people in the time of jesus, eng. tr. div. ii, vol. iii, p. . [ ] sat. xiv, - . [ ] cp. horace, sat. v, . [ ] rev. a. edersheim, history of the jewish nation after the destruction of jerusalem, , p. , citing the avoda sara, a treatise directed against idolatry! other rabbinical views cited by dr. edersheim as being in comparison "sublime" are no great improvement on the above--e.g., the conception of deity as "the prototype of the high priest, and the king of kings,"--"who created everything for his own glory." with all this in view, dr. edersheim thought it showed "spiritual decadence" in philo judæus to speak of persian magi and indian gymnosophists in the same laudatory tone as he used of the essenes, and to attend "heathenish theatrical representations" (p. ). [ ] see ps. xc, ; prov. viii, , . [ ] this is seen persisting in the lore of the neo-platonist writer sallustius philosophus ( th c.), de diis et mundo, c. , though quite unscientifically held. [ ] cp. tiele, outlines, pp. , , . [ ] cp. e. meyer, geschichte des alterthums, ii, . [ ] cp. k. o. müller, literature of ancient greece, ed. , p. . [ ] duncker, gesch. des alterth. aufl. iii, - , - , sq.; e. meyer, gesch. des alterth. ii, , , , , , (see also ii, , , , , note, etc.); w. christ, gesch. der griech. lit. te aufl. p. ; gruppe, die griech. culte und mythen, , p. sq. [ ] e. curtius, griech. gesch. i, , , , , , , , etc.; meyer, ii, . [ ] see the able and learned essay of s. reinach, le mirage orientate, reprinted from l'anthropologie, . i do not find that its arguments affect any of the positions here taken up. see pp. - . [ ] meyer, ii. ; benn, the philosophy of greece, , p. . [ ] cp. bury, history of greece, ed. , pp. vi, , , - , , etc.; burrows, the discoveries in crete, , ch. ix; maisch, manual of greek antiquities, eng. tr. §§ , , , ; h. r. hall, the oldest civilization of greece, , pp. , . [ ] cp. k. o. müller, hist. of the doric race, eng. tr. , i, - ; busolt, griech. gesch. , i, ; grote, hist. of greece, -vol. ed. , iii, - , - ; duncker, iii, , n.; e. meyer, gesch. des alterthums, i, - (§§ - ); e. curtius, i, ; schömann, griech. alterthümer, as cited, i, - , ; burrows, ch. ix. [ ] cp. meyer, ii, ; and his art. "baal" in roscher's ausführl. lex. mythol. i, . [ ] the fallacy of this tradition, as commonly put, was well shown by renouvier long ago--manuel de philosophie ancienne, , i, - . cp. ritter, as cited below. [ ] cp. on one side, ritter, hist. of anc. philos. eng. tr. i, ; renan, Études d'hist. religieuse, pp. - ; zeller, hist. of greek philos. eng. tr. , i, - ; and on the other, ueberweg, hist. of philos. eng. tr. i, , and the weighty criticism of lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, - (eng. tr. i, , note ). [ ] cp. curtius, i, ; bury, introd. and ch. i. [ ] cp. bury, as cited. [ ] as to the primary mixture of "pelasgians" and hellenes, cp. busolt, i, - ; curtius, i, ; schömann, i, - ; thirlwall, hist. of greece, ed. , i, - , . k. o. müller (doric race, eng. tr. i, ) and thirlwall, who follows him (i, - ), decide that the thracians cannot have been very different from the hellenes in dialect, else they could not have influenced the latter as they did. this position is clearly untenable, whatever may have been the ethnological facts. it would entirely negate the possibility of reaction between greeks, kelts, egyptians, semites, romans, persians, and hindus. [ ] murray, four stages of greek religion, , p. . [ ] cp. meyer, gesch. des alt. ii, . [ ] the question is discussed at some length in the author's evolution of states, . [ ] lit. of anc. greece, pp. - . the discussion of the homeric problem is, of course, alien to the present inquiry. [ ] introd. to scientif. mythol. eng. tr. pp. , , . cp. curtius, i, . [ ] cp. curtius, i, , as to the absence in homer of any distinction between greeks and barbarians; and grote, -vol. ed. , iii, - , as to the same feature in archilochos. [ ] duncker, gesch. des alt., as cited, iii. - ; pp. , sq. cp. k. o. müller, as last cited, pp. , ; curtius, i, - , , , , , , , etc.; grote, iii, - ; and meyer, ii, . [ ] duncker, iii, ; curtius, i, , ; grote, iii, - . [ ] busolt, griech. gesch. , i, - . cp. pp. - ; and curtius, i, . [ ] on the general question cp. gruppe, die griechischen culte und mythen, pp. ff., , ff., ff., ff. [ ] preller, griech. mythol. aufl. i, ; tiele, outlines, p. ; r. brown, jr., semit. influ. in hellenic mythol. , p. ; murray, hist. of anc. greek lit. p. ; h. r. hall, oldest civilization of greece, , p. . [ ] see tiele, outlines, pp. , . cp., again, curtius, griech. gesch. i, , as to the probability that the "twelve gods" were adjusted to the confederations of twelve cities; and again p. . [ ] "even the title 'king' (anax) seems to have been borrowed by the greek from phrygian.... it is expressly recorded that tyrannos is a lydian word. basileus ('king') resists all attempts to explain it as a purely greek formation, and the termination assimilates it to certain phrygian words." (prof. ramsay, in encyc. brit. art. phrygia). in this connection note the number of names containing anax (anaximenes, anaximandros, anaxagoras, etc.) among the ionian greeks. [ ] iv, sq. [ ] it is now agreed that this is merely a guess. the document, further, has been redacted and interpolated. [ ] prehist. antiq. of the aryan peoples, eng. tr. p. . wilamowitz holds that the verses od. xi, - , are interpolations made later than b.c. [ ] tiele, outlines, p. ; preller, p. . [ ] meyer says on the contrary (gesch. des alt. ii, , anm.) that "kronos is certainly a greek figure"; but he cannot be supposed to dispute that the greek kronos cult is grafted on a semitic one. [ ] sayce, hibbert lectures, pp. , . cp. cox, mythol. of the aryan nations, p. , note. it has not, however, been noted in the discussions on semelê that semlje is the slavic name for the earth as goddess. ranke, history of servia, eng. tr. p. . [ ] iliad, xiv, , . [ ] sayce, hibbert lectures, p. sq.; ancient empires, p. . note p. in the lectures as to the assyrian influence, and p. as to the homeric notion in particular. cp. w. christ, gesch. der griech. literatur, § . [ ] it is unnecessary to examine here the view of herodotos that many of the greek cults were borrowed from egypt. herodotos reasoned from analogies, with no exact historical knowledge. but cp. renouvier, manuel, i, , as to probable egyptian influence. [ ] cp. meyer, ii, §§ - , as to the eastern initiative of orphic theology. [ ] it is noteworthy that the traditional doctrine associated with the name of orpheus included a similar materialistic theory of the beginning of things. athenagoras, apol. c. . cp. renouvier, manuel de philos. anc. i, - ; and meyer, ii, . [ ] cp. meyer, ii, . as to the oriental elements in hesiod see further gruppe, die griechischen culte und mythen, , pp. , , , . [ ] cp. however, bury (hist. of greece, pp. , ), who assumes that the greeks brought the hexameter with them to hellas. contrast murray, four stages, p. . [ ] mahaffy, history of classical greek literature, , i, . [ ] id. p. . cp. w. christ, as cited, p. . [ ] mahaffy, pp. - . [ ] od. xviii, . [ ] od. vi, ; il. v, . [ ] od. xxii, . [ ] in od. xiv, , antitheoi means not "opposed to the gods," but "god-like," in the ordinary homeric sense of noble-looking or richly attired, as men in the presence of the gods. cp. vi, . yet a scholiast on a former passage took it in the sense of god-opposing. clarke's ed. in loc. liddell and scott give no use of atheos, in the sense of denying the gods, before plato (apol. c. etc.), or in the sense of ungodly before pindar (p. iv, ) and Æschylus (eumen. ). for sophocles it has the force of "god-forsaken"--oedip. tyr. ( ), ( ), ( ). cp. electra, ( ). but already before plato we find the terms apistos and atheos, "faithless" or "infidel" and "atheist," used as terms of moral aspersion, quite in the christian manner (euripides, helena, ), where there is no question of incredulity. [ ] cp. lang, myth, ritual, and religion, nd ed. i, - . and cit. there from professor jebb. [ ] cp. meyer, gesch. des alterthums, ii, - ; grote, as cited, i, - . [ ] meyer, ii, , . [ ] the tradition is confused. stesichoros is said first to have aspersed helen, whereupon she, as goddess, struck him with blindness: thereafter he published a retractation, in which he declared that she had never been at troy, an eidolon or phantasm taking her name; and on this his sight was restored. we can but divine through the legend the probable reality, the documents being lost. see grote, as cited, for the details. for the eulogies of stesichoros by ancient writers, see girard, sentiment religieux en grèce, , pp. - . [ ] cp. meyer ( ), iii. § . [ ] ol. i, - , - . [ ] ol. ix, - . [ ] he dedicated statues to zeus, apollo, and hermes. pausanias, ix, , . [ ] herodot. ii. . [ ] a ruler of libyan stock, and so led by old libyan connections to make friends with greeks. he reigned over fifty years, and the greek connection grew very close. curtius, i, - . cp. grote, i, - . [ ] grote, -vol. ed. , i, , , , . cp. i, - ; ii, ; iii, - , etc. [ ] k. o. müller, introd. to mythology, p. . [ ] "then one [of the persians] who before had in nowise believed in [or, recognized the existence of] the gods, offered prayer and supplication, doing obeisance to earth and heaven" (persae, - ). [ ] agamemnon, - . this is commonly supposed to be a reference to diagoras the melian (below, p. ). [ ] agam. - ( - ). [ ] so whittaker, priests, philosophers, and prophets, , pp. - . [ ] so buckley, in bohn trans. of Æschylus, p. . he characterizes as a "skeptical formula" the phrase "zeus, whoever he may be"; but goes on to show that such formulas were grounded on the semitic notion that the true name of god was concealed from man. [ ] grote, ed. , vii, - . see the whole exposition of the exceptionally interesting th chapter. [ ] cp. meyer, ii, ; k. o. müller, introd. to mythol. pp. - ; duncker, p. ; curtius, i, ; thirlwall, i, - ; burckhardt, griech. culturgesch. , ii. . as to the ancient beginnings of a priestly organization, see curtius, i, - , . as to the effects of its absence, see heeren, polit. hist. of anc. greece, eng. tr. , pp. - ; burckhardt, as cited, ii, - ; meyer, as last cited; zeller, philos. der griechen, te aufl. i, sq. lange's criticism of zeller's statement (gesch. des materialismus, te aufl. i, - , note ) practically concedes the proposition. the influence of a few powerful priestly families is not denied. the point is that they remained isolated. [ ] cp. k. o. mÜller, introd. to mythol. p. ; curtius, i, , , ; duncker, iii, - , ; thirlwall, i, ; barthélemy st. hilaire, préf. to tr. of metaphys. of aristotle, p. . professor gilbert murray, noting that homer and hesiod treated the gods as elements of romance, or as facts to be catalogued, asks: "where is the literature of religion: the literature which treated the gods as gods? it must," he adds, "have existed"; and he holds that we "can see that the religious writings were both early and multitudinous" (hist. of anc. greek lit. p. ; cp. meyer and mahaffy as cited above, pp. - . "writings" is not here to be taken literally; the early hymns were unwritten). the priestly hymns and oracles and mystery-rituals in question were never collected; but perhaps we may form some idea of their nature from the "homeridian" and orphic hymns to the gods, and those of the alexandrian antiquary callimachus. it is further to be inferred that they enter into the hesiodic theogony. (decharme, p. , citing bergk.) [ ] meyer, ii, ; curtius, i, - , ; thirlwall, i, ; grote, i, - . [ ] meyer, ii, - . [ ] cp. curtius, i, - , ; duncker, iii, . [ ] curtius, i, ; meyer, ii, . [ ] curtius, i, , , , ; grote, iii, ; lange, gesch. des materialismus, te aufl. i, (eng. tr. i, ). [ ] herodotos, i, ; diogenes laërtius, thales, ch. i. [ ] on the essentially anti-religious rationalism of the whole ionian movement, cp. meyer, ii, - . [ ] the first philosophers of greece, by a. fairbanks, , pp. , , . this compilation usefully supplies a revised text of the ancient philosophic fragments, with a translation of these and of the passages on the early thinkers by the later, and by the epitomists. a good conspectus of the remains of the early greek thinkers is supplied also in grote's plato and the other companions of sokrates, ch. i; and a valuable critical analysis of the sources in prof. j. burnet's early greek philosophy. [ ] cp. lange, gesch. des mat. i, (eng. tr. i, , n.). mr. benn (the greek philosophers, i, ) and prof. decharme (p. ) seem to read this as a profession of belief in deities in the ordinary sense. but cp. r. w. mackay, the progress of the intellect, , i, . burnet (ch. i, § ) doubts the authenticity of this saying, but thinks it "extremely probable that thales did say that the magnet and amber had souls." [ ] mackay, as cited, p. . [ ] fairbanks, p. . [ ] diogenes laërtius, thales, ch. . [ ] fairbanks, pp. , . [ ] herodotos, i, . [ ] cp. burnet, early greek philos. nd. ed. introd. § . to thales is ascribed by the greeks the "discovery" of the constellation ursus major. diog. ch. . as it was called "phoenike" by the greeks, his knowledge would be of phoenician derivation. cp. humboldt, kosmos, bohn tr. iii, . [ ] diog. laërt. ch. . on this cp. burnet, introd. § . [ ] herod. i, . cp. diog. laërt. ch. . [ ] diog. laërt. ch. . [ ] cp. burnet, p. . [ ] fairbanks, pp. - . mr. benn (greek philosophers, i, ) decides that the early philosophers, while realizing that ex nihilo nihil fit, had not grasped the complementary truth that nothing can be annihilated. but even if the teaching ascribed to anaximandros be set aside as contradictory (since he spoke of generation and destruction within the infinite), we have the statement of diogenes laërtius (bk. ix, ch. , § ) that diogenes of apollonia, pupil of anaximenes, gave the full lucretian formula. [ ] diogenes laërtius, however (ii, ), makes him agree with thales. [ ] fairbanks, pp. - . diogenes makes him the inventor of the gnomon and of the first map and globe, as well as a maker of clocks. cp. grote, i, , note. [ ] see below, p. , as to demokritos' statement concerning the eastern currency of scientific views which, when put by anaxagoras, scandalized the greeks. [ ] fairbanks, pp. - . [ ] see windelband, hist. of anc. philos. eng. tr. , p. , citing diels and wilamowitz-möllendorf. cp. burnet, introd. § . [ ] it will be observed that mr. cornford's book, though somewhat loosely speculative is very freshly suggestive. it is well worth study, alongside of the work of prof. burnet, by those interested in the scientific presentation of the evolution of thought. [ ] diog. laërt. ix, ; fairbanks, p. . [ ] herodotos, i, - ; grote, iii, ; meyer, ii, § . [ ] cp. guillaume bréton, essai sur la poésie philosophique en grèce, , pp. - . the life period of xenophanes is still uncertain. meyer (ii, § ) and windelband (hist. of anc. philos. eng. tr. p. ) still adhere to the chronology which puts him in the century - , making him a young man at the foundation of elea. [ ] cousin, developed by g. bréton, work cited, p. sq., traces xenophanes's doctrine of the unity of things to the school of pythagoras. it clearly had antecedents. but xenophanes is recorded to have argued against pythagoras as well as thales and epimenides (diog. laërt. ix, , §§ , ). [ ] metaphysics, i, ; cp. fairbanks, pp. - . [ ] one of several so entitled in that age. cp. burnet, introd. § . [ ] metaph., as cited; plato, soph. d. [ ] long fragment in athenæus, xi, ; burnet, p. . [ ] burnet, p. . [ ] cp. burnet, p. . [ ] fairbanks, p. , fr. , ; clem. alex. stromata, bk. v, wilson's tr. ii, - . cp. bk. vii, c. . [ ] fairbanks, fr. . [ ] cicero, de divinatione, i, , ; aetius, de placitis reliquiæ, in fairbanks, p. . [ ] aristotle, rhetoric, ii, , § . a similar saying is attributed to herakleitos, on slight authority (fairbanks, p. ). [ ] cicero, academica, ii, ; lactantius, div. inst. iii, . anaxagoras and demokritos held the same view. diog. laërt, bk. ii, ch. iii, iv (§ ); pseudo-plutarch, de placitis philosoph. ii, . [ ] cp. mackay, progress of the intellect, i, . [ ] diog. laërt. in life of pyrrho, bk. ix, ch. xi, (§ ). the passage, however, is uncertain. see fairbanks, p. . [ ] fairbanks. fr. . fairbanks translates with zeller: "the whole [of god]." grote: "the whole kosmos, or the whole god." it should be noted that the original in sextus empiricus (adv. math. ix, ) is given without the name of xenophanes, and the ascription is modern. [ ] grote, as last cited, p. . [ ] fairbanks, fr. . in athenæus, x, . [ ] polybius, iv, ; sextus empiricus, adversus mathematicos, viii, ; fairbanks, pp. , ; frag. , . cp. , , . [ ] diog. laërt. ix, i, . [ ] fairbanks, fr. . [ ] id. frag. , . [ ] id. frag. , , , . [ ] diog. laërt. last cited. this saying is by some ascribed to the later herakleides (see fairbanks, fr. and note); but it does not seem to be in his vein, which is wholly pro-homeric. [ ] clem. alex. protrept. ch. , wilson's tr. p. . the passage is obscure, but mr. fairbanks's translation (fr. ) is excessively so. [ ] clemens, as cited, p. ; fairbanks, fr. , , . cp. burnet, p. . [ ] fairbanks, fr. . [ ] cp. burnet, pp. - . [ ] theaetetus, d. see good estimates of parmenides in benn's greek philosophers, i, - , and philosophy of greece in relation to the character of its people, pp. - ; in j. a. symonds's studies of the greek poets, rd ed. , vol. i, ch. ; and in zeller, i, sq. [ ] plutarch, perikles, ch. . [ ] mr. benn finally gives very high praise to melissos (philos. of greece, pp. - ); as does prof. burnet (early gr. philos. p. ). he held strongly by the ionian conception of the eternity of matter. fairbanks, p. . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. iv, (§ ). [ ] diog. laërt. ix, (§ ). [ ] as to this see windelband, hist. anc. philos. pp. - . [ ] cp. mackay, progress of the intellect, i. . [ ] "the difference between the ionians and eleatæ was this: the former endeavoured to trace an idea among phenomena by aid of observation; the latter evaded the difficulty by dogmatically asserting the objective existence of an idea" (mackay, as last cited). [ ] cp. mackay, i, - , as to the survival of veneration of the heavenly bodies in the various schools. [ ] grote, i, . [ ] meyer, ii, , (§§ , ). [ ] id. §§ , . [ ] jevons, hist. of greek lit. , p. . [ ] compare meyer, ii, § , as to the close resemblances between pythagoreanism and orphicism. [ ] meyer, i, ; ii, . [ ] fairbanks, pp. , , , etc. [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] prof. burnet insists (introd. p. ) that "the" greeks must be reckoned good observers because their later sculptors were so. as well say that artists make the best men of science. [ ] metaph. i, ; fairbanks, p. . "it is quite safe to attribute the substance of the first book of euclid to pythagoras." burnet, early greek philos. nd ed. p. . [ ] diog. laërt. philolaos (bk. viii, ch. ). [ ] l. u. k. hist. of astron. p. ; a. berry's short hist. of astron. , p. ; narrien's histor. acc. of the orig. and prog. of astron. , p. . [ ] see benn, greek philosophers, i, . [ ] diog. laërt. in life of philolaos; cicero, academica, ii, . cicero, following theophrastus, is explicit as to the teaching of hiketas. [ ] hippolytos, ref. of all heresies, i, . cp. renouvier, manuel de la philos. anc. i, , , - . [ ] pseudo-plutarch, de placitis philosoph. iii, , . [ ] ueberweg, i, . cp. tertullian (apol. ch. ), who says pythagoras taught that the world was uncreated; and the contrary statement of aetius (in fairbanks, pp. - ). [ ] berry, short hist. of astron. pp. , . the question is ably handled by renouvier, manuel, i, - . [ ] diog. laërt., viii, i, . [ ] the whole question is carefully sifted by grote, iv, - . prof. burnet (early greek philos. nd ed. pp. - ) sums up that the pythagorean order was an attempt to overrule or supersede the state. [ ] cp. burnet, p. , note . prof. burnet speaks of the pythagorean order as a "new religion" appealing to the people rather than the aristocrats, who were apt to be "freethinking." but on the next page he pictures the "plain man" as resenting precisely the religious neology of the movement. the evidence for the adhesion of aristocrats seems pretty strong. [ ] fairbanks, p. . [ ] grote, plato and the other companions of socrates, ed. , iv, . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. viii, ch. i, (§ ). [ ] ennius, fragmenta, ed. hesselius, , pp. , - ; horace, epist. ii, , ; persius, sat. vi. [ ] grote, history, iv, . [ ] scholiast on iliad, xx, ; tatian, adv. græcos, c. ( ); w. christ, gesch. der griech. literatur, te aufl. p. ; grote, ch. xvi (i, ). [ ] see above, p. . [ ] k. o. müller, dorians, eng. tr. ii, - ; mommsen, hist. of rome, eng. tr. ed. , iii, . [ ] grote. i, , note. [ ] cicero, de natura deorum, i, . [ ] philolaos, as we saw, is said to have been prosecuted, but is not said to have been condemned. [ ] fairbanks, pp. , , ; diog. laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, (§ ). [ ] fairbanks, pp. - . cp. grote, plato, i, , and ueberweg, i, , as to nature of the nous of anaxagoras. [ ] grote, i, ; hesychius, s.v. agamemnona; cp. diog. laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, (§ ); tatian, adv. græcos, c. ( ). [ ] plutarch, perikles, ch. . [ ] id. chs. , . [ ] id. c. . the old man is said to have uttered the reproach: "perikles, those who want to use a lamp supply it with oil." [ ] plutarch, perikles, ch. . [ ] cp. meyer, gesch. des alt. iv, . [ ] plutarch, perikles, ch. . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. ix (§ ), citing the defence of sokrates by demetrius phalereus. [ ] id. bk. ii, ch. iii, (§ ), citing sotion. another writer of philosophers' lives, hermippus (same cit.), said he had been thrown into prison; and yet a third, hieronymus, said he was released out of pity because of his emaciated appearance when produced in court by perikles. [ ] diog. laërt. last cit. (§ ). [ ] id. (§ ). [ ] drews, gesch. des monismus im altertum, p. . [ ] even in the early progressive period "the same time which set up rationalism developed a deep religious influence in the masses." (meyer, gesch. des alt. ii, . cp. iii, ; also grote, vii, ; and benn, philosophy of greece, , pp. - .) [ ] plutarch, perikles, ch. . [ ] cp. grote, v, ; curtius, ii, - . [ ] plutarch, as cited. plutarch also states, however, that the only occasion on which perikles gave way to emotion in public was that of the death of his favourite son. [ ] holm (griechische geschichte, ii, ) decides that perikles sought to ionise his fellow athenians; and dr. burnet, coinciding (early greek philosophy, , p. ), suggests that he and aspasia brought anaxagoras to athens with that aim. [ ] perikles, ch. . [ ] "der kleinasiatische rationalist herodot" is the exaggerated estimate of a. bauer, in ilberg's neue jahrbücher für das klassische altertum, ix ( ), , following eduard meyer (iv, § ), who, however (§ ), points to the lack of scientific thought or training in herodotos as in thukydides. ignorance of nature remained a greek characteristic. [ ] bk. viii, ch. . cp. viii, , ; ix, . [ ] cp. meyer, iv, § , as to the inadequacy of athenian culture, and the unchanging ignorance of the populace on matters of physical science. [ ] plutarch, against the stoics, ch. ; simplicius, physica, i, . [ ] clem. alex. protrept. c. . [ ] refutation of all heresies, i, . [ ] cp. aristotle, metaphysics, i, ; de anima, i, . [ ] decharme, critique des trad. relig. p. , citing scholiast on aristoph., clouds, . [ ] see the point discussed by lange, geschichte des materialismus, te aufl. i, - , - , notes and (eng. tr. i, , ). ritter and preller say "protagoras floret circa a. - "; "democritus natus circa a. floret a. - , obit. circa a. ." [ ] cp. ueberweg, i, - ; renouvier, manuel de la philos. anc. i, . [ ] burnet, p. . [ ] diog. laërt. x, . [ ] lange, i, - (tr. p. ); clem. alex. stromata, i, ; diog. laërt. bk. ix, § . [ ] on this also see lange, i, (tr. p. , note). [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. vii, (§ ). cp. renouvier, i, - . [ ] see in particular the de principiis atque originibus (works, routledge's -vol. ed. , pp. - ). [ ] meyer, who dwells on his scientific shortcomings (gesch. des alt. v. § ), makes no account of this, his vital doctrine. [ ] fairbanks, pp. - . the idea is not put by empedokles with any such definiteness as is suggested by lange, i, - (tr. pp. - ), and ueberweg, hist. of philos. eng. tr. i, , n. but ueberweg's exposition is illuminating. [ ] fairbanks, pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] benn, i, . [ ] fairbanks, p. . [ ] see a good study of empedokles in j. a. symonds' studies of the greek poets, rd ed. , vol. i, ch. ; and another in renouvier, manuel, i, - . [ ] cp. grote, plato, i, , and note. [ ] cp. renouvier, i, - ; lange, p. (tr. p. ). [ ] cp. meyer, § . [ ] diogenes laërtius, bk. ix, ch. viii, § ( ); cp. grote, vii, , note. [ ] for a defence of protagoras against plato, see grote, vii, - . [ ] sextus empiricus, adversus mathematicos, ix, . [ ] beckmann, history of inventions, eng. tr. , ii, . [ ] diod. sic. xiii, ; hesychius, cit. in cudworth, ed. harrison, i, . [ ] ueberweg, i, ; thukydides, v, . the bias of sextus empiricus is further shown in his account of diagoras as moved in his denunciation by an injury to himself. [ ] it is told by sextus empiricus (adv. math. ix, ) that diagoras is said to have invented the dithyramb (in praise of iacchos), and to have begun a poem with the words, "all things come by the daimon and fortune." but sextus writes with a fixed skeptical bias. [ ] grote, vi, , , , - . [ ] athenagoras, apol., ch. ; clem. alex., protrept. ch. . see the documentary details in meyer, iv, . [ ] cicero, de natura deorum, i, , , ; iii, (the last reference gives proof of his general rationalism); lactantius, de irâ dei, c. . in calling sokrates "the melian," aristophanes (clouds, ) was held to have virtually called him "the atheist." [ ] diod. xiii, ; suidas, s.v. diagoras; aristophanes, birds, . it is noteworthy that in their fury against diagoras the athenians put him on a level of common odium with the "tyrants" of past history. cp. burckhardt, griechische culturgeschichte, i, . [ ] grote, vi, - . as to the freethinking of kritias, see sextus empiricus, adv. math. ix, . according to xenophon (memorabilia, i, ), kritias made his decree in revenge for sokrates's condemnation of one of his illicit passions. prof. decharme (pp. - ) gives a good account of him. [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ii, ch. iv; hippolytos, refutation of all heresies, i, ; renouvier, manuel, i, - . [ ] cp. cudworth, intellectual system, ed. harrison, i, ; renouvier, manuel, i, , ; ii, , ; tatian, adv. græcos, c. ( ); diog. laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, (§ ); grote, i, , , note; hatch, infl. of greek ideas, p. . [ ] haigh, tragic drama of the greeks, p. . cp. burnett, p. . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ii (§ ). [ ] "he never so utterly abandoned the religion of his country as to find it impossible to acquiesce in at least some part of traditional religion." jevons, hist. of greek lit. . p. . [ ] haigh, the attic theatre, , p. . [ ] above, p. . [ ] "he had also acquired in no small degree that love of dexterous argumentation and verbal sophistry which was becoming fashionable in the athens of the fifth century. not unfrequently he exhibits this dexterity when it is clearly out of place." haigh, tragic drama of the greeks, p. . cp. jevons, hist. of greek lit. p. . schlegel is much more censorious. [ ] ion., - , - ; andromache, - ; electra, - ; hercules furens, - ; iphigenia in tauris, , - . [ ] hercules furens, , - ; iphigenia in tauris, - . [ ] electra, - . [ ] troades, - . [ ] ion, - , ; helena, - ; iphigenia in tauris, - ; electra, ; phoenissæ, ; fragm. ; bacchæ, - ; hippolytus, . it is noteworthy that even sophocles (oed. tyr., ) makes a character taunt tiresias the soothsayer with venality. [ ] philoctetes, fr. ; helena, - ; bellerophon, fr. . [ ] bacchæ, - . [ ] helena, ; fragm. , , ; troades, - . [ ] a. schlegel, lectures on dramatic literature, bohn tr. p. . [ ] this charge is on a par with that of hygiainon, who accused euripides of impiety on the score that one of his characters makes light of oaths. aristotle, rhetoric, iii, . [ ] k. o. müller, hist. of the lit. of anc. greece, , p. . the complaint is somewhat surprising from such a source. the only play with an entirely invented plot mentioned by aristotle is agathon's flower (aristotle, poetic, ix); and such plays would not have been eligible for representation at the great festivals. [ ] cp. jevons, hist. of greek lit. pp. - . [ ] haigh. the attic theatre, p. . cp. müller, pp. - . [ ] see, however, the æsthetic theorem of prof. murray, euripides and his age, pp. - . [ ] it seems arguable that the aversion of aristophanes to euripides was primarily artistic, arising in dislike of some of the features of his style. on this head his must be reckoned an expert judgment. the old criticism found in euripides literary vices; the new seems to ignore the issue. but a clerical scholar pronounces that "aristophanes was the most unreasoning laudator temporis acti. genius and poet as he was, he was the sworn foe to intellectual progress." hence his hatred of euripides and his championship of Æschylus. (rev. dr. w. w. merry, introd. to clar. press ed. of the frogs, .) [ ] girard, essai sur thucydide, , pp. - . [ ] cp. haigh, the attic theatre, p. . in the same way ktesilochos, the pupil of apelles, could with impunity make zeus ridiculous by exhibiting him pictorially in child-bed, bringing forth dionysos (pliny, hist. nat. xxxv, . § ). [ ] bk. x, ad init. [ ] cp. benn, philos. of greece, p. . [ ] zeller, socrates and the socratic schools, eng. tr. rd ed. p. : hegel, as there cited grote, plato, ed. , i, . [ ] cp. owen, evenings with the skeptics, i, sq., , , , etc. [ ] grote, history, i, ; xenophon, memorabilia, i, , §§ - . [ ] cp. benn. the philosophy of the greeks, , p. . [ ] grote, i, - ; hippocrates, de aeribus, aquis, locis, c. ( ). [ ] plato, phædrus, jowett's tr. rd ed. i. ; grote, history, i, . [ ] compare, however, the claim made for him, as promoting "objectivity," by prof. drews, gesch. des monismus im altertum, . p. . [ ] memorabilia, i, . [ ] "the predominatingly theistic character of philosophy ever since has been stamped on it by socrates, as it was stamped on socrates by athens" (benn, philos. of greece, p. ). [ ] zeller, socrates and the socratic schools, as cited, p. . the case against sokrates is bitterly urged by forchhammer, die athenen und sokrates, ; see in particular pp. - . cp. grote, hist. vii, . [ ] "had not all the cultivated men of the time passed through a school of rationalism which had entirely pulled to pieces the beliefs and the morals of their ancestors?" zeller, as last cited, pp. - . cp. haigh, tragic drama, p. . [ ] see aristophanes's frogs, - . [ ] Æschines, timarchos, cited by thirlwall, iv, . cp. xenophon, mem. i, . [ ] "nothing could well be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of cross-examining and convicting of ignorance every distinguished man whom he could approach." grote, vii. . cp. pp. - . cp. also trevelyan's life of macaulay, ed. , p. : and renouvier, manuel de la philos. anc. , iv, § iii. see also, however, benn, phil. of greece, pp. - . for a view of sokrates's relations to his chief accuser, which partially vindicates or whitewashes the latter, see prof. g. murray's anc. greek lit. pp. - . there is a good monograph by h. bleeckly, socrates and the athenians: an apology, , which holds the balances fairly. [ ] on the desire of sokrates to die see grote, vii, - . [ ] the assertion of plutarch that after his death the prosecutors of sokrates were socially excommunicated, and so driven to hang themselves (moralia: of envy and hatred), is an interesting instance of moral myth-making. it has no historic basis; though diogenes (ii, § ) and diodorus siculus (xiv, ), late authorities both, allege an athenian reaction in sokrates' favour. probably the story of the suicide of judas was framed in imitation of plutarch's. [ ] grote, history, i, . [ ] id. i, . not till strabo do we find this myth disbelieved; and strabo was surprised to find most men holding by the old story while admitting that the race of amazons had died out. id. p. . [ ] life of thukydides, by marcellinus, ch. , citing antyllas. cp. girard, essai sur thucydide, p. ; and the prefaces of hobbes and smith to their translations. [ ] girard, p. . [ ] "his writings," remarks dr. hatch, "contain the seeds of nearly all that afterwards grew up on christian soil" (influence of greek ideas and usages upon the christian church, , p. ). [ ] clem. alex. stromata, v, ; fairbanks, pp. - ; grote, plato, ch. . [ ] cp. grote, plato, iv, , . professor bain, however (practical essays, , p. ), raises an interesting question by his remark, as to the death of sokrates: "the first person to feel the shock was plato. that he was affected by it to the extent of suppressing his views on the higher questions we can infer with the greatest probability. aristotle was equally cowed." [ ] diog. laër. bk. ix, ch. vii, § ( ). [ ] republic, bk. ii, , to iii, ; jowett's tr. rd ed. iii, sq., sq. in bk. x, it is true, he does speak of the poets as unqualified by knowledge and training to teach truth (jowett's tr. iii, sq.); but plato's "truth" is not objective, but idealistic, or rather fictitious-didactic. [ ] id. jowett. pp. , , etc. [ ] id. bk. iii; jowett, pp. - . [ ] laws, x; jowett, v, - . [ ] received myths are forbidden; and the preferred fictions are to be city law. cp. the laws, ii, iii; jowett, v, , . [ ] laws, jowett's tr. rd ed. v, - . cp. the comment of benn, i, - . [ ] republic, bk. ii, ; jowett, iii, . [ ] laws, x, - , ; jowett, v, - , - . [ ] on the inconsistency of the whole doctrine see see grote's plato, iv, - . [ ] ueberweg, hist. of philos. eng. tr. i, . cp. lange, geschichte des materialismus, i, - (tr. i, - ), and the remarkable verdict of bacon (de augmentis, bk. iii, ch. ; works, -vol. ed. , p. ; cp. advancement of learning, bk. ii, p. ) as to the superiority of the natural philosophy of demokritos over those of plato and aristotle. bacon immediately qualifies his verdict; but he repeats it, as regards both aristotle and plato, in the novum organum, bk. i, aph. . see, however, mr. benn's final eulogy of plato as a thinker, i, , and murray's anc. greek lit. pp. - . [ ] laws, x, ; jowett, v, . [ ] grote, history, vii, . [ ] cp. grote, aristotle, nd ed. p. . [ ] origen, against celsus, ii, ; cp. i, ; iii, ; vii, . [ ] grote, aristotle, p. . [ ] benn, greek philosophers, i, . mr. benn refutes sir a. grant's view that aristotle's creed was a "vague pantheism"; but that phrase loosely conveys the idea of its non-religiousness. it might be called a lucretian monotheism. cp. benn, i, ; and drews, gesch. des monismus, p. . [ ] metaphysics, xi (xii), , (p. , b). the passage is so stringent as to raise the question how he came to run the risk in this one case. it was probably a late writing, and he may have taken it for granted that the metaphysics would never be read by the orthodox. [ ] cp. the severe criticisms of benn, vol. i, ch. vi; berry, short hist. of astron. p. ; and lange, ges. des mater. i, - , and notes, citing eucken and cuvier. aristotle's science is very much on a par with that of bacon, who saw his imperfections, but fell into the same kinds of error. both insisted on an inductive method; and both transgressed from it. see, however, lange's summary, p. , also p. , as to the unfairness of whewell; and ch. v of soury's bréviaire de l'histoire du matérialisme, , especially end. [ ] politics, i, . [ ] strabo, bk. ix, ch. iii, § . strabo reproaches ephoros with repeating the current legends all the same; but it seems clear that he anticipated the critical tactic of gibbon. [ ] as to the stoics, cp. zeller, § , ; benn, the philosophy of greece, pp. - . as to epicurus, cp. benn, p. . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, , § . the lengthy notice given by diogenes shows the impression pyrrho's teaching made. see a full account of it, so far as known, in the rev. j. owen's evenings with the skeptics, , i, sq., and the monograph of zimmerman, there cited. [ ] these propositions occur in the first of the ten pyrrhonian tropoi or modes (diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, ), of which the authorship is commonly assigned to Ænesidemos (fl. - ). cp. owen, evenings with the skeptics, i, , - . but as given by diogenes they seem to derive from the early pyrrhonian school. [ ] thus, where democritos pronounced the sun to be of vast size, epicurus held it to be no larger than it seemed (cicero, de finibus, i, )--a view also loosely ascribed to herakleitos (diog. laërt. bk. ix, ch. i, , § ). see, however, wallace's epicureanism ("ancient philosophies" series), , pp. sq., sq., , as to the scientific merits of the system. [ ] the epicurean doctrine on this and other heads is chiefly to be gathered from the great poem of lucretius. prof. wallace's excellent treatise gives all the clues. see p. as to the epicurean god-idea. [ ] grote, history, i, , note; plutarch, non posse suaviter vivi sec. epicur. [ ] compare wallace, epicureanism, pp. - , and ch. xi; and mackintosh, on the progress of ethical philosophy, th ed. p. . [ ] de rerum natura, i, - . [ ] alexander seu pseudomantis, cc. , , , , cited by wallace, pp. - . [ ] the repute of the epicureans for irreligion appears in the fact that when romanized athens had consented to admit foreigners to the once strictly athenian mysteries of eleusis, the epicureans were excluded. [ ] cicero, de natura deorum, i, ; clemens alexandrinus, stromata, v, ; sextus empiricus, adv. mathematicos, ix, , . [ ] diog. laërt. bk ii, ch. viii, §§ , - ( , - ). he was also nicknamed "the god." id. and ch. xii, (§ ). [ ] cicero, de natura deorum, i, , , . [ ] diogenes, as last cited, § ( ). [ ] id. §§ , ( - ). [ ] professor wallace's account of the court of lysimachos of thrace as a "favourite resort of emancipated freethinkers" (epicureanism, p. ) is hardly borne out by his authority, diogenes laërtius, who represents lysimachos as unfriendly towards theodoros. hipparchia the cynic, too, opposed rather than agreed with the atheist. [ ] diog., last cit. cp. cicero, tusculans, ii, . philo judæus (quod omnis probus liber, c. ; cp. plutarch, de exilio, c. ) has a story of his repelling taunts about his banishment by comparing himself to hercules, who was put ashore by the alarmed argonauts because of his weight. but he is further made to boast extravagantly, and in doing so to speak as a believer in myths and deities. the testimony has thus little value. [ ] diog. bk. ii, ch. xii, § ( ). [ ] id. ch. x, § ( ). [ ] id. ch. xii, § ( ) and bk. iv, ch. vii, §§ , , ( , , ). [ ] plutarch, de defectu orac. ch. . bion seems to have made an impression on plutarch, who often quotes him, though it be but to contradict him. [ ] cicero, de natura deorum, i, . [ ] id. ib.; academics, iv, . [ ] cicero, tusculans, i, , ; academics, ii, ; and refs. in ed. davis. [ ] sir a. grant's tr. of the hymn is given in capes's stoicism ("chief ancient philosophies" series), , p. ; and the greek text by mahaffy, greek life and thought, p. . cp. cicero, de nat. deor. i, . [ ] pseudo-plutarch, de placitis philosoph. i, . [ ] eusebius, præp. evang. bk. ii, ch. ; plutarch, isis and osiris, ch. . [ ] p. . [ ] it may be noted that diogenes of babylon, a follower of chrysippos, applied the principle to greek mythology. cicero, de nat. deor. i, . [ ] above, p. , note . [ ] see grote, i, - and notes. [ ] palaiphatos, de incredibilibus: de actæone, de geryone, de cerbero, de amazonibus, etc. [ ] e. r. bevan (art. "the deification of kings in the greek cities" in eng. histor. rev. oct. , p. ) argues that the practice was not primarily eastern, but greek. see, however, herodotos, vii, ; arrian, anabas. alexand. iv, ; q. curtius, viii, - ; and plutarch, artaxerxes, ch. , as to the normal attitude of the greeks, even as late as alexander. [ ] see plutarch, isis and osiris, chs. , , for the later hellenistic tone on the subject of apotheosis apart from the official practice of the empire. [ ] gibbon, ch. xl. bohn ed. iv, , and note. [ ] mahaffy, greek life, pp. - ; diog. laërt. bk. ii, ch. v, (§ ). [ ] wallace, epicureanism (pp. - ), citing suidas, s.v. epicurus. [ ] diogenes laërtius, bk. vii, ch. i, (§ ); cp. origen, against celsus, bk. i, ch. ; clemens alex, stromata, bk. v, ch. ii. [ ] mahaffy, as cited, p. , n.; athenæus, ix, (p. ). [ ] ( b.c.) burckhardt, griechische culturgeschichte, i, ; pausanias, i, . [ ] cp. g. guizot, ménandre, , pp. - , and app. [ ] cp. guizot, pp. - , and the fragments cited by justin martyr, de monarchia, ch. . [ ] whittaker, as cited, p. . [ ] martha, as cited, p. . [ ] diog. laërt. bk. iv, ch. ix, (§ ). [ ] diog. laërt. bk. iv, ch. ix, , (§ ); noumenios in euseb. præp. evang. xiv, ; cicero, de oratore, ii, ; lucilius, cited by lactantius, div. inst. [ ] cicero, academics, ii, . [ ] berry, short hist. of astron. pp. - ; narrien, histor. account, as cited, ch. xi; l. u. k. hist. of astron. ch. vi. it is noteworthy that hipparchos, like so many of his predecessors, had some of his ideas from babylonia. strabo, prooem., § . [ ] ptolemy normally lumps unbelief in religion with all the vices of character. cp. the tetrabiblos, iii, (paraphrase of proclus). [ ] hist. nat. ii, . [ ] lucian's dialogue philopseudes gives a view of the superstitions of average greeks in the second century of our era. cp. mr. williams's note to the first dialogue of the dead, in his tr. p. . [ ] see m. foucart's treatise, des assoc. relig. chez les grecs, , e ptie. [ ] on the early tendency to orthodox conformity among the unbelieving alexandrian scholars, see mahaffy, greek life and thought, pp. - . [ ] frag. cited by wallace, p. . [ ] rev. baden powell, hist. of nat. philos. , p. . [ ] de oratore, iii, ; de finibus, ii, , . [ ] see saisset, le scepticisme, , pp. - , for a careful discussion of dates. [ ] his own claim was to be of the "methodical" school. hypotyp. i, . [ ] see his doctrine expounded by owen, evenings with the skeptics, i, sq. [ ] cp. owen, p. . [ ] these seem to be derived from carneades. cp. ueberweg, i, . [ ] "the general character of the greek skeptics from sokrates to sextos is quite unexceptionable" (owen, evenings, i, ). [ ] polybius, bk. vi, ch. lvi. cp. bk. xvi, frag. ( ), where he speaks impatiently of the miracle-stories told of certain cults, and, repeating his opinion that some such stories are useful for preserving piety among the people, protests that they should be kept within bounds. [ ] bk. i, ch. ii, § . plutarch (isis and osiris, ch. ) puts the more decent principle that all the apparent absurdities have good occult reasons. [ ] bk. ix, ch. iii, § . cp. bk. x, ch. iii, § . the hand of an interpolator frequently appears in strabo (e.g., bk. ix, ch. ii, § ; ch. iii, § ); and the passage cited in bk. i is more in the style of the former than of the latter. [ ] see dr. hatch, influence of greek ideas upon the christian church, , pp. - , notes; also above, pp. and , note. [ ] de defect. orac. c. ; isis and osiris, ch. . [ ] de amore, c. ; isis and osiris, chs. , ; and de defect. orac. c. . [ ] schmidt, gesch. der denk- und glaubensfreiheit im erst. jahr., , p. . [ ] burnet, early greek philos. , p. . cp. nd ed. p. . [ ] it is to be presumed that dr. burnet, when penning his estimate, had not in memory such a record as dr. a. d. white's history of the warfare between science and theology. [ ] mommsen, history of rome, bk. i, ch. (eng. tr. , vol. i, pp. - ). mommsen's view of the antiquity of writing among the latins (p. ) is highly speculative. he places its introduction about or before b.c.; yet he admits that they got their alphabet from the greeks, and he can show no greek contacts for that period. cp. pp. - (ch. x). schwegler (römische geschichte, , i, ) more reasonably places the period after that of the etruscan domination, while recognizing the greek origin of the script. cp. ettore pais, ancient legends of roman history, eng. tr. , pp. - ; pelham, outlines of roman history, , p. . [ ] schwegler, i, ch. i, § ; teuffel, hist. of roman lit. ed. schwabe, eng. tr. , i, - , - . [ ] teuffel, i, - . [ ] mommsen, bk. ii, ch. . eng. tr. ii, . such creation of deities by mere abstraction of things and functions had been the rule in the popular as distinguished from the civic religion. cp. augustine, de civitate dei, iv, , ; vi, , etc. it was the concomitant of the tendency noted by livy: adeo minimis etiam rebus prava religio inserit deos (xxvii, ). but the practice was not peculiar to the romans, for among the greeks were gods or goddesses of wealth, peace, mercy, shame, fortune, rumour, energy, action, persuasion, consolation, desire, yearning, necessity, force, etc. see pausanias passim. the inference is that the more specific deities in all religions, with personal names, are the product of sacerdotal institutions or of poetic or other art. m. boissier (i, ), like ihne, takes it for granted that the multitude of deified abstractions had no legends; but this is unwarranted. they may have had many; but there were no poets to sing, or priests to preserve and ritualize them. [ ] de natura deorum, i, . [ ] mr. schuckburgh (history of rome, , p. , note) cites a translated passage in his fragments (cicero, de div. ii, ; de nat. deorum, iii, ), putting the epicurean view that the gods clearly did not govern human affairs, "which he probably would have softened if he had not agreed with it." cp. mommsen, iii, (bk. ii, ch. ). [ ] fragmenta, ed. hesselius, p. ; cicero, de divinatione, i, . [ ] mommsen, i, ; ii, ; iii, (bk. i, ch. ; bk. ii, ch. ; bk. iii, ch. ). cicero, de div. i, . [ ] livy, xxix, . dr. warde fowler (religious experience of the roman people, p. ) censures mr. heitland for calling livy's story "an interesting romance" (hist. of rom. rep. ii, note); remarking that "it is the fashion now to reject as false whatever is surprising," and adding (p. ): "it is certain, from the steps taken by the government ... that it is in the main a true account." it may suffice to ask whether dr. fowler believes in all or any of the prodigia mentioned by livy because the government "took steps" about them. [ ] cp. boissier, la religion romaine, i, , . [ ] teuffel, i, . [ ] aulus gellius (xv, ) says the edict was de philosophis et de rhetoribus latinis, but the senatus-consultum, as given by him, does not contain the adjective; and he goes on to tell that aliquot deinde annis post--really sixty-nine years later--the censors fulminated against homines qui novum genus disciplinæ instituerunt ... eos sibi nomen imposuisse latinas rhetoras. the former victims, then, were presumably greek. cp. shuckburgh, p. ; and long, decline of the roman republic, , ii, . professor pelham (outlines of roman history, , p. , note) mistakenly cites the senatus-consultum as containing the word "latini." the reading latinis in gellius's own phrase has long been suspected. see ed. frederic and gronov, . [ ] plutarch, cato, c. . [ ] cicero, de. repub., passim, ed. halm. [ ] polybius, xxxii, . [ ] suetonius, de claris rhetoribus. [ ] see in cicero, de oratore, iii, , the account by the censor crassus of his reasons for preferring the greek rhetors. [ ] valerius maximus, i, , . [ ] the culture history of the republican period, as partially recovered by recent archæology, shows a process of dissolution and replacement from a remote period. cp. ettore pais, ancient legends of roman history, eng. tr. , ch. ii, notably p. . [ ] de rerum natura, i, - ; cp. v, . [ ] ii, - (the passage cited by mr. gladstone in the house of commons in one of the bradlaugh debates, with a confession of its noble beauty); and again ii, - , and iii, - . [ ] see christianity and mythology, pp. - . [ ] see the account of the doctrine of the high-priest scaevola, preserved by augustine, de civ. dei, iv, . he and varro (id. iv, ; vi, - ) agreed in rejecting the current myths, but insisted on the continued civic acceptance of them. on the whole question compare boissier, la religion romaine, i, - . [ ] thus the satirist lucilius, who ridiculed the popular beliefs, was capable, in his capacity of patriot, of crying out against the lack of respect shown to religion and the gods (boissier, pp. - ). the purposive insincerity set up in their thinking by such men must, of course, have been injurious to character. [ ] cp. the de divinatione, i, . [ ] e.g., mr. a. j. balfour's foundations of belief. [ ] tusc. disp. i, . [ ] de divinatione, ii, , , cp. ii, ; and de nat. deorum, i, . it is not surprising that in a later age, when the remaining pagans had no dialectic faculty left, the christian fathers, by using cicero as a weapon against the cults, could provoke them into calling him impious (arnobius, adv. gentes, iii, , ). [ ] de divinatione, ii, . [ ] boissier, i, . [ ] de nat. deorum, ii, . [ ] boissier, p. . [ ] "it seems to me that, on the whole, among the educated and the rich, the indifferent must have been in the majority" (boissier, p. ). [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. long, decline of roman republic, i, ; ii, - . long remarks that domitius, the accuser of scaurus (who had prevented his election to the college of augurs), "used the name of religion for the purpose of damaging a political enemy; and the trick has been repeated, and is repeated, up to the present day. the romans must have kept records of many of these trials. they were the great events of the times ...; and so we learn that three tribes voted against scaurus, and thirty-two voted for him; but in each of these thirty-two tribes there was only a small majority of votes (pauca puncta) in favour of scaurus." [ ] see long, i, , for a cynical estimate of the mode of manipulation of the sibylline and other sacred books. [ ] sallust, bellum catilin. c. . [ ] suetonius, julius, cc. , ; cicero, de divinatione, ii, . cp. merivale, history of the romans under the empire, ed. , ii, . [ ] plutarch, sulla, c. ; marius, c. . long (decline of roman republic, ii, ) says of sulla that, "though he could rob a temple when he wanted money, he believed in the religion of his time. we should call him superstitious; and a man who is superstitious is capable of any crime, for he believes that the gods can be conciliated by prayers and presents." [ ] compare the fears which grew upon cromwell in his last days. [ ] pompeius, on the other hand, had many seers in his camp; but after his overthrow expressed natural doubts about providence. cicero, de div. ii, , ; plutarch, pompeius, c. . [ ] boissier, i, . [ ] see augustine's citation from varro, de civ. dei, vi, . cp. sueton. aug. . [ ] the only record to the contrary is the worthless scandal as to his "suppers of the twelve gods" (sueton. aug. ). the statement of w. a. schmidt that "none of the julians was orthodox" (geschichte der denk- und glaubensfreiheit im ersten jahrhundert, , p. ) is somewhat overstrained. [ ] dio cassius, lii, . [ ] e.g., his encouragement of a new college of priests founded in his honour. dio, xliv, . [ ] sueton. julius, , . the first public library actually opened in rome was founded by asinius pollio under augustus, and was placed in the forecourt of the temple of liberty: augustus founded two others; tiberius a fourth, in his palace; vespasian a fifth, in the temple of peace; domitian a sixth, on the capitol. w. a. schmidt, gesch. der denk- und glaubensfreiheit, pp. - , and refs. [ ] boissier, pp. - ; suetonius, aug. xxix-xxxi. [ ] l'abbé beurlier, le culte impérial, , introd. and ch. ; boissier, ch. . cp. p. , note, above. [ ] it would seem that the occasion on which he enraged the senate by not rising to receive them (sueton. jul. ) was that on which they came to announce that they had made him a god, jupiter julius, with a special temple and a special priest. see long, decline of the roman republic, v, . he might very well have intended to rebuke their baseness. but cp. boissier, i, , citing dio, xlvi, . [ ] iii, ; x, ; xliii, . [ ] sat. v, - . [ ] as to the conflict between horace's bias and his policy, cp. boissier, i. - . [ ] e.g., carm. iii, . [ ] fasti, v, - . [ ] fasti, ii, - . [ ] fasti, iv, . the preceding phrase, pro magno teste vetustas creditur, certainly has an ironic ring. [ ] Æneid, vi, - . [ ] cp. boissier, i, - . [ ] georgics, ii, , . diderot originated the idea that the first of these lines and the two which follow it in virgil had reference to lucretius. grimm, correspondance littéraire, ed. - , vi, - . it is acquiesced in by w. warde fowler, social life at rome in the age of cicero, , p. . sellar (roman poets of the augustan age: virgil, . p. ) is doubtful on the point. [ ] cp. boissier, i, . [ ] boissier, ii, - . [ ] ep. xcv. [ ] suetonius, jul. . [ ] the same note occurs in virgil, Æneid, vi, - . [ ] hist. nat. ii, , ( ). pliny identifies nature and deity: "per quæ declaratur haud dubie naturæ potentia, idque esse quod deum vocamus" (last cit., end). [ ] hist. nat. vii, ( ). cp. boissier, i, . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] see the praiseworthy treatise of mr. j. a. farrer, paganism and christianity, , chs. , , and . [ ] "... vires religionis, ad quas maxime etiamnum caligat humanum genus." hist. nat. xxx, . [ ] above, p. . [ ] primus in orbe deos fecit timor. frag. , ed. burmanni. the whole passage is noteworthy. see also his satyricon, c. , as to his estimate of sacerdotal sincerity. [ ] thebaid, iii, . [ ] porphyry, epistle to anebo (with jamblichus). chaeremon, however, is said to have regarded comets as divine portents. origen, ag. celsus, bk. i, ch. . [ ] prof. c. martha, les moralistes sous l'empire romain, ed. , p. . [ ] w. a. schmidt, who cites this act (geschichte der denk- und glaubensfreiheit, pp. - ) as the beginning of the end of free speech in rome, does not mention the detail given by dio (xliv, ), that cæsar suspected the tribunes of having set on some of the people to hail him as king. but the unproved suspicion does not justify his course, which was a bad lapse of judgment, even if the suspicion were just. from this point a conspiracy against his life was natural. cp. long, decline of the roman republic, v, - . as to the facts. [ ] see w. a. schmidt, pp. - , for a careful analysis of the evolution. as to the book-censure, see pp. - . [ ] suetonius, tiberius, c. . [ ] id. c. . [ ] annals, i, . that such a phrase should have been written by an emperor in an official letter, and yet pass unnoticed through antiquity save in one historical work, recovered only in the renaissance, is one of the minor improbabilities that give colour to the denial of the genuineness of the annals. [ ] tiberius, c. . [ ] petronius, satyricon, ad init. [ ] in the annals (xiv, ) it is stated that the book attacked senators and pontiffs; that it was condemned to be burned, and vejento to be exiled; and that the book was much sought and read while forbidden; but that it fell into oblivion when all were free to read it. here, again, there is no other ancient testimony. vejento is heard of, however, in juvenal, iv, , - . [ ] philostratus, life of apollonius, iv. . [ ] cp. schmidt, pp. - . [ ] suetonius, domitian, c. . [ ] cp. schmidt, p. . [ ] suetonius, tiberius, c. ; josephus, antiquities, xviii, , §§ , . josephus specifies isolated pretexts, which suetonius does not mention. they are not very probable. [ ] who destroyed , copies of prophetical books. suetonius, aug. c. . [ ] see, in the next chapter, as to the rationalistic mythology of macrobius. [ ] cp. propertius, ii, , sqq.; iii, , - ; iv, , ; tibullus, iv, , - ; juvenal, as before cited, and xv, , - . [ ] plato, alcib.; cicero, pro cluentio, c. ; horace, carm. iii, , ; ovid, heroides, acont. cydipp. - ; persius, sat. ii, ; seneca, de beneficiis, i, . cp. diod. sic. xii, ; varro, in arnobius, adv. gentes, vii, . [ ] sat. iii, - . cp. cicero, de finibus, iv, , , ; matt. v. - ; james, ii, . lactantius, again (div. inst. iii, ). denounces the doctrine of the equality of offences as laid down by zeno, giving no sign of knowing that it is also set forth in his own sacred books. [ ] on seneca's moral teaching, cp. martha, les moralistes sous l'empire romain, pp. - ; boissier, la religion romaine, ii, - . m. boissier further examines fully the exploded theory that seneca received christian teaching. on this compare bishop lightfoot, dissertations on the apostolic age, pp. - . [ ] seneca was so advanced in his theoretic ethic as to consider all war on a level with homicide. epist. xcv, . [ ] it is to be noted that preaching had begun among the moralists of rome in the first century, and was carried on by the priests of isis in the second; and that in egypt monasticism had long been established. martha, as cited, p. ; boissier, i, - . cp. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, c. iii, §§ , , as to monasticism. [ ] mt. xxii, ; mk. xii, . [ ] talmud, tract. sabbath, . [ ] mk. xii, . [ ] lk. xviii, . [ ] see the impressive argument of dr. moncure conway in his solomon and solomonic literature, , ch. xviii. [ ] see dr. nicholson's the gospel according to the hebrews, , p. . cp. conway, p. . dr. nicholson insists that at least the word "sacrificing" must be spurious, because "it is surely impossible that jesus ever uttered this threat"! [ ] cp. the author's christianity and mythology, pt. iii. div. ii, § . [ ] the book of the secrets of enoch, known as the "slavonic enoch," ch. xliv, (eng. tr. , pp. , ). [ ] see the author's pagan christs, pt. ii. [ ] above, p. . [ ] hosea, vi, ; psalms, xl, , ; ecclesiastes, v, . [ ] talmud, yoma-derech eretz; midrash, vayikra-rabba, xxvii, and . [ ] ch. lii (p. ). [ ] luke xiii, . [ ] cp. conway, solomon and solomonic literature, , pp. , , . [ ] john iv, . [ ] e.g., plato, crito, jowett's tr. rd ed. ii, ; seneca, de ira, ii, . valerius maximus (iv, , ) even urges the returning of benefits for injuries. [ ] it is impossible to find in the whole patristic literature a single display of the "love" in question. in all early christian history there is nothing to represent it save the attitude of martyrs towards their executioners--an attitude seen often in pagan literature. (e.g., Ælian, var. hist. xii, .) [ ] thess. v, . [ ] cor. xi, ; gal. i, . [ ] cp. rom. ix, - . [ ] cor. x, . needless to say, such an expression savours strongly of late invention; but in any case it tells of the attitude of the christian teachers of the second century. [ ] cor. vii, - (where the phrase translated in english "use it rather" unquestionably means "rather continue" = remain a slave. cp. eph. vi, , and variorum teacher's bible in loc.). [ ] rom. xiii, . cp. peter ii, - ; tit. iii, . the anti-roman spirit in the apocalypse is judaic, not gentile-christian; the book being of jewish origin. [ ] james ii, . [ ] cor. xv, . [ ] the apology of athenagoras ( nd c.) is rather a defence of monotheism than a christian document; hence, no doubt, its speedy neglect by the church. [ ] justin martyr, apol. c. ; min. felix, octavius, c. . [ ] "the inhabitants of coelesyria, idumea, and judea are principally influenced by aries and ares, and are generally audacious, atheistical, and treacherous" (ptolemy, tetrabiblos, ii, --paraphrase of proclus). [ ] cp. tertullian, de idolatria, passim, and ad scapulam, c. . [ ] for the refusal to worship men as gods they had, of course, abundant pagan precedent. see above, p. , note. [ ] e.g., tertullian, de testimonio animæ, c. ; arnobius, adversus gentes, i, , etc.; lactantius, divine institutes, c. xv; epit. c. vii. [ ] cp. j. a. farrer, paganism and christianity, ch. vii. [ ] irenæus, against heresies, i, . cp. hagenbach, lehrbuch der dogmengeschichte, te aufl. § , (p. ), as to cerinthus. [ ] tim. vi, . the word persistently translated "oppositions" is a specific term in gnostic lore. cp. r. w. mackay, rise and progress of christianity, , p. , note. [ ] cp. harnack, outlines of the history of dogma, mitchell's trans. p. (ch. vi), p. (bk. ii, ch. vi); gieseler, comp. of eccles. hist. i, § , eng. tr. i, , as to the attitude of origen. [ ] the term "gnostic," often treated as if applicable only to heretical sects, was adopted by clemens of alexandria as an honourable title. cp. gieseler, p. , as cited. [ ] mosheim, eccles. hist. cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ - . cp., however, abbé cognat, clément d'alexandrie, , pp. - , and ueberweg, i, , as to the obscurity resting on the original teaching of ammonios. [ ] cp. gieseler, compendium, i, § (tr. vol. i, p. ). [ ] id. §§ , , pp. - . [ ] e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ - . [ ] as to the earlier latitudinarianism, cp. gieseler, as cited, p. . [ ] gieseler, § . [ ] mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ - ; gieseler, as cited, § , pp. - ; eusebius, eccles. hist. vi, ; b. saint-hilaire, de l'école d'alexandrie, , p. ; baur, ch. hist. eng. tr. ii, - . but cp. cognat, clément d'alexandrie, l. v, ch. v. [ ] cp. mosheim on origen, comm. de rebus christ. ante const. §§ , , summarized in schlegel's note to ec. hist. reid's ed. pp. - ; gieseler, § ; renan, marc-aurèle, pp. , . dr. hatch (influence of greek ideas on the christian church, pp. - ) notes that the allegorical method, which began in a tendency towards rationalism, came later to be typically orthodox. [ ] "gnosis was an attempt to convert christianity into philosophy; to place it in its widest relation to the universe, and to incorporate with it the ideas and feelings approved by the best intelligence of the times." mackay, rise and progress of christianity, p. . but cp. the per contra on p. : "it was but a philosophy in fetters, an effort of the mind to form for itself a more systematic belief in its own prejudices." again (p. ): "a reaction towards freethought was the essence of gnosis." so also robins, a defence of the faith, , pt. i, pp. - , . [ ] this view could be supported by the platonists from plato, laws, bk. x. cp. chaignet, la vie et les écrits de platon, , p. ; and milman, hist. of christianity, bk. ii, ch. v, ed. paris, , i, . it is explicitly set forth by plutarch, i. and o., cc. - . [ ] on the subject in general cp. mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. v; also his commentaries on the affairs of the christians before constantine, eng. tr. vol. ii; harnack, outlines of the hist. of dogma, ch. iv; king, the gnostics and their remains; mackay, rise and progress of christianity, pt. iii, §§ , , ; renan, l'Église chrétienne, chs. ix, x; milman, hist. of christianity, bk. ii, ch. v; lardner, hist. of heretics, in works, ed. , vol. viii; baur, church history, pt. iii; jeremie, hist. of the chr. church in nd and rd cent., ch. v (in encyc. metropolitana). [ ] "mysticism itself is but an insane rationalism" (hampden, bampton lect. on scholastic philosophy, rd ed. intr. p. liii). it may be described as freethought without regard to evidence--that "lawless thought" which christian polemists are wont to ascribe to rationalists. [ ] gieseler, §§ , (pp. , , ). [ ] in the fourth century and later, however, the gospel of asceticism won great orthodox vogue through the writings of the so-called dionysius the areopagite. cp. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, c. iii, § ; westcott, religious thought in the west, , pp. - . [ ] compare the process by which the talmudic system unified judaism. wellhausen, israel, as cited, pp. - ; milman, history of christianity, bk. ii, ch. , ed. paris, , i, . [ ] "there is good reason to suppose that the christian bishops multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the jews and the pagans more friendly to them" (mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. iv. cp. ch. iii, § ; ch. iv, §§ - ; cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ - ; ch. iv, §§ - ; cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ). this generalization is borne out by nearly every other church historian. cp. harnack, outlines, pt. ii, bk. i, ch. i; milman, bk. iv, ch. , pp. - ; gieseler. §§ , , , ; renan, marc-aurèle, e edit. p. . baur, church history, eng. tr. ii, - . [ ] gieseler, § , p. ; hagenbach, lehrbuch der dogmengeschichte, te aufl. § . [ ] eusebius, v, ; gieseler, § , p. . [ ] cp. gieseler, §§ - , pp. - ; harnack, outlines, pt. ii, bk. i, esp. pp. - . [ ] one being another theodotos, a money-changer. [ ] eusebius, as last cited. the sect was accused of altering the gospels to suit its purposes. the charge could probably be made with truth against every sect in turn, as against the church in general. [ ] in the end the doctrine declared orthodox was the opposite of what had been declared orthodox in the sabellian and other controversies (mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § ); and all the while "the arians and the orthodox embraced the same theology in substance" (murdock, note on mosheim, reid's ed. p. ). an eminent modern catholic, however, has described arianism as "a deistic doctrine which had not the courage to bury itself in the fecund obscurities of dogma" (ozanam, la civilisation chrétienne chez les francs, , p. ). [ ] gieseler, § . p. . [ ] cp. the author's short history of christianity, nd ed. pp. - . [ ] "pelagianism is christian rationalism" (harnack, outlines, pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. iv, § , p. ). [ ] he was first a manichean; later an anti-manichean, denying predestination; later, as an opponent of the pelagians, an assertor of predestination. cp. mackay, rise and progress of christianity, pt. v, § . as to his final manicheanism, see milman, hist. of latin christianity, rd ed. i, . [ ] cp. harnack, outlines, pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. v, § (p. ). [ ] cp. hampden, bampton lectures on the scholastic philosophy, , pp. xxxv-xxxvi, and refs. [ ] sokrates, eccles. hist. bk. vii, ch. . [ ] epist. . cp. schlegel's notes on mosheim, in reid's ed. pp. , ; rev. w. r. clarke, saint augustine, pp. - (a defence); milman, history of latin christianity, bk. ii, ch. ii, rd. ed. i, ; boissier, la fin du paganisme, e édit. i, - . harnack's confused and contradictory estimate of augustine (outlines, pt. ii, bk ii, chs. iii, iv) ignores this issue. he notes, however (pp. - ), some of augustine's countless self-contradictions. [ ] milman, hist. of christianity, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, ii, , , and note. for the views of ambrose see p. . in gaul, st. martin put down the old shrines by brute force. id. p. . [ ] cp. beugnot, histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident, , i, . [ ] de errore profanarum religionum, end. [ ] see it translated in full by lardner in his testimonies of ancient heathens, ch. xlix. works, ed. , vol. viii. [ ] lardner, as cited, pp. - . [ ] as to the high character of libanius, who used his influence to succour his christian friends in the reign of julian, see lardner, pp. - . [ ] milman, hist. of christianity, bk. iii, ch. vi; vol. ii, p. . see the passage there cited from the funeral oration of libanius on julian, as to christians building houses with temple stones; also the further passages, pp. , , , of mr. king's tr. of the oration in his julian the emperor (bohn lib.). [ ] ammianus, xxii, . [ ] gibbon, ch. xlvii. bohn ed. v, - , , , . mosheim, passim. [ ] milman, as cited, p. . [ ] de testimonio animæ, c. ; de ira dei. [ ] tertullian, as cited, c. . [ ] b. vi, ch. . [ ] on the mysteries, bk. x, ch. . [ ] cp. minucius felix ( nd c.), octavius, c. . [ ] de consensu evangelistarum, i, . [ ] de civ. dei, xxi, , - . [ ] id. i, . [ ] id. xxi, . [ ] see the citations in abailard's sic et non, § . quod fides humanis rationibus sit adstruenda, et contra. [ ] de gubernatione dei, l. . [ ] see renan, l'Église chrétienne, p. . as to crescens, the enemy of justin martyr ( apol. c. ), see id. p. . cp. arnobius, adversus gentes, passim, as to pagan objections. what remains of porphyry will be found in lardner's testimonies of the heathen, ch. xxxvii. cp. baur, church history, eng. tr. ii, - . [ ] the controversy between jason and papiscus regarding christ, mentioned by origen (ag. celsus, bk. iv, ch. ), seems to have been of the same nature. [ ] origen repeatedly calls him an epicurean; but this is obviously false. the platonizing christian would not admit that a platonist was anti-christian. [ ] origen places him in the reign of hadrian; but the internal evidence is all against that opinion. kain dates the treatise - . [ ] cp. renan, marc-aurèle, e édit. pp. - . [ ] b. i, cc. , . [ ] b. i, cc. , . [ ] c. . [ ] cc. , . [ ] b. ii, c. . [ ] b. ii, c. . [ ] b. ii, c. . [ ] b. ii, c. . [ ] b. iii, c. . [ ] b. iv, cc. - , - , . [ ] cp. a. kind, teleologie und naturalismus in der altchristlichen zeit, ; soury, bréviaire de l'histoire du matérialisme, pp. - . [ ] b. i, chs. - ; iii, . [ ] cp. renan, marc-aurèle, pp. - . [ ] christian excisions have been suspected in the peregrinus, § (bernays, lucian und die kyniker, , p. ). but see mr. j. m. cotterill's peregrinus proteus, edinburgh, , for a theory of the spuriousness of the treatise, which is surmised to be a fabrication of henri etienne. [ ] logoi philaletheis, known only from the reply of eusebius, contra hiroclem. hierocles made much of apollonius of tyana, as having greatly outdone jesus in miracles, while ranking simply as a god-beloved man. [ ] methodius, eusebius, apollinaris, and philostorgius. [ ] cod. justin. de summa trinitate. l. i, tit. i, c. . [ ] citations are given by baur, ch. hist. ii, sq. [ ] cp. mackay, rise and progress of christianity, p. . chrysostom (de mundi creatione, vi, ) testifies that porphyry "led many away from the faith." he ably anticipated the "higher criticism" of the book of daniel. see baur, as cited. porphyry, like celsus, powerfully retorted on the old testament the attacks made by christians on the immorality of pagan myths, and contemned the allegorical explanations of the christian writers as mere evasions. the pagan explanations of pagan myths, however, were of the same order. [ ] gieseler, § , ii, . cp. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § . [ ] gieseler, § , vol. ii, p. ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ; and schlegel's note in reid's ed. p. . [ ] milman, hist. of chr. bk. iii, ch. xi (ii, - ); mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ; gilly, vigilantius and his times, , pp. , sq., sq. as to jerome's persecuting ferocity see also gieseler, ii, note. for a catholic polemic on jerome's side see amedée thierry, saint jérome, e édit. pp. , - . [ ] see a good account of the works of macrobius in prof. dill's roman society in the last century of the western empire, bk. i, ch. iv. [ ] philostorgius, eccles. hist. epit. bk. viii, ch. x. [ ] by justinian in . the banished thinkers were protected by chosroes in persia, who secured them permission to return (gibbon, bohn ed. iv. - ; finlay, hist. of greece, ed. tozer, i, , ). theodosius ii had already forbidden all public lectures by independent teachers (id. pp. - ). [ ] theodosius i, arcadius, and theodosius ii ( - ) successively passed laws forbidding and persecuting paganism (finlay. i, ; beugnot. hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident, i, sq.). mithraism was suppressed in the same period (jerome, epist. cvii, ad laetam, sokrates, eccles. hist. bk. v, ch. xvi). it is to be remembered that constans and constantius, the sons of constantine, had commenced, at least on paper, to persecute paganism as soon as their father's new creed was sufficiently established (cod. theod. xvi, , , ), and this with the entire approval of the whole church. it was not their fault that it subsisted till the time of theodosius ii (cp. gieseler, § , pp. - ; and beugnot, i, - ). on the edict of theodosius i see milman, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, p. . [ ] in s. babylam, contra julianum, c. ii. cp. his hom. iv on st cor. eng. tr. , p. . [ ] there is also a suggestion in one passage of chrysostom (hom. in cor. vi, , ) that some christians tended to doubt the actuality of apostolic miracles, seeing that no miracles took place in their own day. [ ] præparatio evangelica, xv, . [ ] div. inst. iii, . [ ] id. iii, . [ ] topographia, lib. v, cited by murdock in note on mosheim. cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § , reid's ed. p. . cp. same ed. p. , note; and gibbon, bohn ed. iv, ; v, . [ ] , ii, , . [ ] see schlegel's note on mosheim. cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § . [ ] the first name came from anomoios, "unlike-natured (to the father)," that being their primary doctrinal heresy concerning jesus. the second seems to have been a euphemism of their own making, with the sense of "holding the good law." [ ] jerome, adv. vigilantium, cc. , . [ ] epiphanius, adv. hæres. lxx, § . [ ] cp. augustine, de civ. dei, viii, - ; xxi, ; de trinitate, iii, , ( , ); epist. cxxxviii, - ; sermo cc, in epiph. dom. ii; jerome, vita s. hilarion, cc. , . [ ] mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ , ; cent. pt. i, ch. i, § ; pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ , ; cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ , ; gieseler, § , p. ; waddington, hist. of the church, , pp. - ; milman, hist. of chr. bk. iv, ch. iii, ed. cited, ii, . cp. mackay, rise and progress of christianity, pp. - . [ ] cp. the explicit admissions of mosheim, e. h. cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ; cont. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ , ; cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § ; ch. iii, § ; gieseler, § , vol. ii, p. . it is to be noted, however, that even the martyrs were at times bad characters who sought in martyrdom remission for their sins (gieseler, § , p. ; de wette, as there cited). [ ] cp. gieseler, ii, - . [ ] epist. vii, ; xcv, . cp. cicero, tusculans, ii, . [ ] cp. the bohn ed. of gibbon, note by clerical editor, iii, . [ ] the express declaration of salvian, de gubernatione dei, l. . on the general question compare mr. farrer's paganism and christianity, ch. x; milman, as last cited, p. ; and gieseler, ii, , note . the traditional view that the games were suppressed by honorius, though accepted by gibbon and by professor dill (roman society in the last century of the western empire, nd ed. p. ), appears to be an error. cp. beugnot, destr. du paganisme, ii, ; finlay, hist. of greece, i, . [ ] as to the specially cruel use of judicial torture by the later inquisition, see h. c. lea, superstition and force, rd ed. p. . [ ] lavollée, as cited, p. . cp. st. chrysostom's picture of his age, p. , and the admissions of milman, bk. iv, ch. i. [ ] as to the spirit of hatred roused by controversy among believers, see gieseler, § , vol. ii, pp. - ; and ullmann's gregory of nazianzum, eng. tr. , pp. - . [ ] h. fraser stewart, boethius: an essay, , pp. - . [ ] cp. beugnot, destruction du paganisme, ii, - . [ ] id. p. . mr. stewart in another passage (p. ) argues that "the consolation is intensely artificial"--this by way of explaining that it was a deliberate exercise, not representing the real or normal state of its author's mind. yet he has finally to avow (p. ) that "it remains a very noble book"--a character surely incompatible with intense artificiality. [ ] this is the view of maurice (medieval philosophy, nd ed. , pp. - ), who decides that boethius was neither a christian nor a "pagan"--i.e., a believer in the pagan gods. this is simply to say that he was a rationalist--a "pagan philosopher," like aristotle. but, as is noted by prof. bury (ed. of gibbon, iv. ), boethius's authorship of a book, de sancta trinitate, et capita quædam dogmatica, et librum contra nestorium, is positively asserted in the anecdoton holderi (ed. by usener, leipzig, , p. ), a fragment found in a th century ms. [ ] the strict meaning of this term, given by mohammed ("the true religion with god is islam"; sura, iii, ), is "submission"--such being the attitude demanded by the prophet. "moslem" or "muslim" means one who accepts islam. koran means strictly, not "book," but "reading" or recitation. [ ] rodwell's tr. of the koran, ed. , pref. p. xv. [ ] sale, preliminary discourse to tr. of the koran, ed. , i, ; muir's life of mohammad, ed. weir, , p. . cp. freeman, history and conquests of the saracens, , p. . the late prof. palmer, in introd. to his tr. of the koran (sacred books of the east series), i, p. xv, says that "by far the greater number had ceased to believe in anything at all"; but this is an extravagance, confuted by himself in other passages--e.g. p. xi. [ ] these generalizations are always matched, and cancelled, by others from the same sources. thus prof. d. b. macdonald writes of "the always flighty and skeptical arabs," and, a few pages later, of the god-fearing fatalism "of all muslim thought, the faith to which the semite ever returns in the end." development of muslim theology, etc. (in "semitic series"), new york, , pp. , . [ ] the word means either convert or pervert; in heb. and syr. "heretic"; in arabic, "orthodox." it must not be confounded with hanyfite, the name of an orthodox sect, founded by one hanyfa. [ ] see rodwell's tr. of the koran, ed. , pref. pp. xvi, xvii; and sura, xvi (lxxiii in rodwell's chron. arrangement), v. , p. , note . [ ] sprenger, das leben und die lehre des mohammad, - , i, sq. cp. p. sq. [ ] rodwell, p. , note to sura iii (xcvii) ; and pref. p. xvi; caussin de perceval, essai sur l'histoire des arabes avant l'islamisme, , i, - ; nicholson, lit. hist. of the arabs, pp. , . "to the great mass of the citizens of mecca the new doctrine was simply the hanyfism to which they had become accustomed; and they did not at first trouble themselves at all about the matter." palmer, introd. to tr. of koran, i, p. xxiv. cp. sprenger, as cited, i, - , . [ ] the word hanyf or hanif recurs in sura ii, ; iii, , ; iv, ; vi, , ; x, , xvi, ; xxii, ; xxx, . cp. h. derenbourg, la science des religions et l'islamisme, , pp. - . palmer's translation, marred as it unfortunately is by slanginess, is on such points specially trustworthy. rodwell's does not always indicate the use of the word hanyf; but the german version of ullmann, the french of kanimirski, and sale's, do not indicate it at all. sprenger (p. ) derives the hanyfs from essenes who had almost lost all knowledge of the bible. cp. p. . prof. macdonald writes that the word "is of very doubtful derivation. but we have evidence from heathen arab poetry that these hanifs were regarded as much the same as christian monks, and that the term hanif was used as a synonym for rahib, monk." work cited, p. . [ ] sprenger, as cited, p. . [ ] cp. sale's prelim. discourse, as cited, i, ; and palmer, introd. p. xv; and nicholson, pp. - . [ ] al mostaraf, cited by pococke, specimen histor. arab. p. ; sale, prelim. disc. as cited, p. . [ ] cp. nicholson, pp. - and refs. [ ] sale, as cited, pp. - . [ ] palmer, introd. to his haroun alraschid, , p. . cp. derenbourg, la science des religions et l'islamisme, p. , controverting kuenen. [ ] hibbert lectures, on national and universal religions, ed. , p. and note ii. [ ] id. p. . [ ] nicholson, lit. hist. of the arabs, p. . [ ] rodwell, note to sura xcvi (r. i), . [ ] sprenger estimates that at his death the number really converted to his doctrine did not exceed a thousand. cp. nicholson, pp. - . [ ] renan ascribes the idea wholly to omar. Études d'histoire et de critique, ed. , p. . the faithful have preserved a sly saying that "omar was many a time of a certain opinion, and the koran was then revealed accordingly." nöldeko, enc. brit. art. on koran, in sketches from eastern history, , p. . on the other hand, sedillot decides (histoire des arabes, . p. ) that "in mohammed it is the political idea that dominates." so nicholson (p. ): "at medina the days of pure religious enthusiasm have passed away for ever, and the prophet is overshadowed by the statesman." cp. pp. , . [ ] on the measure of racial unity set up by abyssinian attacks as well as by the pretensions of the byzantine and persian empires, see sedillot, pp. , . cp. van vloten, recherches sur la domination arabe, amsterdam, . pp. - . . [ ] professor stanilas guyard, la civilisation musulmane, , p. . [ ] cp. renan, Études, pp. - ; hauri, der islam in seinem einfluss auf das leben seiner bekenner, , pp. - ; nicholson, p. . it was at medina that a strict mohammedanism first arose. [ ] nicholson, pp. - , and ref. [ ] hauri, der islam, p. . [ ] cp. montesquieu, grandeur et décadence des romains, ch. . [ ] nicholson, p . [ ] id. p. . [ ] van vloten, p. and passim. [ ] prof. guyard, as cited, pp. , ; c. e. oelsner, des effets de la religion de mohammed, etc., , p. . [ ] guyard, p. ; palmer, haroun alraschid, introd. p. . [ ] the alleged destruction of the library of alexandria by omar is probably a myth, arising out of a story of omar's causing some persian books to be thrown into the water. see prof. bury's notes in his ed. of gibbon, v, - . cp. oelsner, as cited, pp. - . [ ] sura, vi, , ; xix, ; xxvii, - ; liv, ; lxxxiii, - . according to lviii, , however, some polytheists denied the future state. [ ] cp. renan, Études d'histoire et de critique, pp. - . [ ] renan, as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . renan and sprenger conflict on this point, the former having regard, apparently, to the bulk of the poetry, the latter to parts of it. [ ] sedillot, p. . one of these was zaid. nicholson, p. . [ ] see the passage (sura ii) cited with praise by the sympathetic mr. bosworth smith in his mohammed and mohammedanism, nd ed. p. ; where also delighted praise is given to the "description of infidelity" in sura xxiv, - . the "infidels" in question were simply non-moslems. [ ] the flight (of the prophet to medina from mecca, in ), from which begins the mohammedan era. [ ] sale, as cited, p. . [ ] weil, geschichte der chalifen, ii, - ; dugat, histoire des philosophes et des théologiens mussulmans, , pp. - ; h. steiner, die mu`taziliten, oder die freidenker im islam, , pp. - ; guyard, p. ; sale, p. (sec. viii); nicholson, p. sq. the term motazila broadly means "dissenter," or "belonging to a sect." [ ] steiner, p. . [ ] palmer, introd. to haroun alraschid, p. . [ ] as to the persian influence on arab thought, cp. a. müller, der islam, i, ; palmer, as last cited; weil, geschichte der chalifen, ii, ff.; nicholson, p. ; van vloten, recherches sur la domination arabe, p. . van vloten's treatise is a lucid sketch of the socio-political conditions set up in persia by the arab conquest. [ ] weil, ii, . [ ] g. dugat, histoire des philosophes et des théologiens mussulmans, p. ; sale, pp. , - . [ ] dugat, p. ; steiner, p. ; sale, p. . [ ] "motazilism represents in islam a protestantism of the shade of schleiermacher" (renan, averroès et l'averroïsme, e ed. p. ). cp. syed ameer ali, crit. exam. of life of mohammed, pp. - ; sale, p. . [ ] dugat, pp. , ; guyard, p. ; steiner, pp. - ; renan, averroès, p. . the kadarites, as sale notes (pp. - ), are really an older group than the motazilites, so-called, their founder having rejected predestination before wasil did. kuenen (hibbert lect. p. ) writes as if all the motazilites were maintained of freewill, but they varied. see prof. macdonald, as cited, p. sq. [ ] sale, pp. , - . [ ] for a view of the various schools of sifatites see sale, pp. - . [ ] guyard, pp. - ; g. d. osborn, the khalifs of baghdad, , p. . [ ] steiner, p. . major osborn (work cited, p. ) attributes their rise to the influence of eastern christianity, but gives no proof. [ ] guyard, p. . cp. sale, p. ; van vloten, p. . [ ] dugat, p. . thus the orthodox sect of hanyfites were called by one writer followers of reason, since they relied rather on their judgment than on tradition. [ ] steiner, p. ; nicholson, p. . [ ] steiner, pp. , , - ; sale, p. ; macdonald, p. . [ ] sedillot, hist. des arabes, p. ; prof. a. müller, der islam (in oncken's series), i, ; ueberweg, i, . [ ] ueberweg, p. ; weil, gesch. der chalifen, ii, . [ ] for an orthodox account of the beginnings of freethinking (called zendekism) see weil, ii, . cp. p. ; also tabari's chronicle, pt. v, ch. xcvii; and renan, averroès, p. . already, among the ommayade khalifs, yezid iii held the motazilite tenet of freewill. weil, p. . [ ] nicholson, pp. , . the name zendek (otherwise spelt zindiq) seems to have originally meant a manichæan. browne, literary history of persia, ii ( ), ; nicholson, p. and ref. macdonald, p. , thinks it literally meant "initiate." [ ] steiner, p. . an association called "brethren of purity" or "sincere brethren" seem to have carried motazilism far, though they aimed at reconciling philosophy with orthodoxy. they were in effect the encyclopedists of arab science. ueberweg, i, ; nicholson, p. sq. see dr. f. dieterici, die naturanschauung und naturphilosophie der araber im ten jahrhundert, aus den schriften der lautern brüder, , vorrede, p. viii, and flügel, as there cited. flügel dates the writings of the brethren about ; but the association presumably existed earlier. cp. renan, averroès, p. ; and s. lane-poole's studies in a mosque, , ch. vi, as to their performance. prof. macdonald is disposed to regard them as "part of the great fatimid propaganda which honeycombed the ground everywhere under the sunnite abassids," but admits that the fatimid movement is "the great mystery of muslim history" (pp. - ). [ ] sale, pp. - , note. [ ] he made five pilgrimages to mecca, and died on the last, thus attaining to sainthood. [ ] weil, gesch. der chalifen, ii, ; dugat, pp. - ; a. müller, der islam, i. ; macdonald, p. . in mansour's reign was born al allaf, "sheikh of the motazilites." [ ] dugat, p. . the hâyetians, who had unitarian christian leanings, also held by metempsychosis. sale, p. . [ ] nicholson, p. and refs. [ ] dugat, p. . he persecuted zendeks in general. nicholson, pp. - . [ ] id. p. ; sale, pp. - ; tabari's chronicle, pt. v, ch. xcvii, zotenberg's tr. , iv, - . tabari notes (p. ) that all the moslem theologians agree in thinking zendekism much worse than any of the false religions, since it rejects all and denies god as well as the prophet. [ ] cp. steiner, pp. sq., sq.; ueberweg, hist. of philos., i, . [ ] dugat, p. . see sale, pp. - , - , as to the champions of this principle. [ ] sale, p. ; macdonald, p. . [ ] dugat, p. ; osborn, the khalifs of baghdad, p. . [ ] palmer, haroun alraschid, p. . they were really theists. [ ] weil, geschichte der chalifen, ii, , , ; a. müller, der islam, pp. - . "it was believed that he was at heart a zindiq." nicholson, p. . [ ] dugat, pp. - . [ ] prof. macdonald, as cited, p. . [ ] dugat, p. . [ ] see extract by major osborn, khalifs, p. . [ ] osborn, khalifs, p. . [ ] macdonald, pp. - , . [ ] nicholson, pp. - . he it was who first caused to be measured a degree of the earth's surface. the attempt was duly denounced as atheistic by a leading theologian, takyuddin. montucla, hist. des mathématiques, éd. lalande, i, sq.; draper, conflict of religion and science, p. . [ ] a. müller, der islam, i, sq.; weil, gesch. der chalifen, ii, ff. [ ] dugat, pp. - ; sale, p. . apart from this one issue, general tolerance seems to have prevailed. osborn, khalifs, p. . [ ] dugat, p. ; steiner, p. . according to abulfaragius, motawakkel had the merit of leaving men free to believe what they would as to the creation of the koran. sale, p. . [ ] a good analysis is given by dugat, pp. - . [ ] the whole of aristotle, except, apparently, the politics, had been translated in the time of the philosopher avicenna (fl. ). [ ] macdonald, pp. , - . [ ] steiner, die mu'taziliten, pp. - , following gazzali (al gazel); weil, gesch. der chalifen, iii, . [ ] guyard, pp. - ; renan, averroès, pp. - ; macdonald, p. sq. the cultivators of kalâm were called motecallemîn. [ ] ueberweg, i, , ; steiner, p. ; whewell, hist. of the inductive sciences, rd ed. i, - . compare the laudatory account of al gazzali by prof. macdonald (pt. iii, ch. iv), who pronounces him "certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of islam" (p. ). [ ] hence, among other things, a check on the practice of anatomy, religious feeling being opposed to it under islam as under christianity. dugat, pp. - . [ ] dugat, pp. - . [ ] browne, literary history of persia, ii ( ), , ; r. a. nicholson, literary history of the arabs, , p. . [ ] browne, as cited, p. . cp. von kremer, culturgeschichte des orients, - , ii, - ; macdonald, p. . [ ] dugat, p. ; weil, iii, . [ ] dugat, pp. - . [ ] nicholson, pp. - . [ ] the diwan of abu'l-ala, by henry baerlein, , st. . cp. , , , , , , , , and the extracts given by nicholson, pp. - . [ ] weil, ii, . [ ] decline and fall, ch. lvii. bohn ed. vi, , and note. cp. e. h. whinfield, the quatrains of omar khayyám, , p. . [ ] see the preface to fitzgerald's translation of the rubáiyát. [ ] in one quatrain, of doubtful authenticity, is the line "khayyám, who longtime stitched the tents of learning" (whinfield, xxxviii), which excludes the idea of literal handicraft. [ ] j. k. m. shirazi, life of omar al-khayyámi, ed. , pp. - . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - , - . [ ] cited in introd. to dole's variorum ed. of the rubáiyát, , i, p. xix. cp. macdonald, p. . [ ] "dost thou desire to taste eternal bliss? vex thine own heart, but never vex another." (whinfield, vi.) "seek not the kaaba, rather seek a heart." (id. vii.) this note is often repeated. e.g. xxxii, li. [ ] see in the very competent translation of mrs. h. m. cadell (who remarked that "fitzgerald has rather written a poem upon omar than translated him"), quatrains , , , , , , , , , d, , b, , , . etc.; in the artistically turned version of mr. a. h. talbot, which follows very faithfully the literal prose translation of mr. heron-allen, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; and in whinfield's version, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . [ ] shirazi, pp. - . early in the thirteenth century he was denounced by a sufi mystic as an "unhappy philosopher, atheist, and materialist." browne, lit. hist. of persia, ii, . abu'l-ala, of course, was similarly denounced. [ ] whinfield, cited by browne, pp. - . [ ] cp. mrs. cadell, the rub'yat of omar khayam, . garnett's introd. pp. xvii, xviii-xxi, xxiv, and shirazi, as cited, pp. - . [ ] fitzgerald's pref. th ed. p. xiii; whinfield, no. . cp. quatrains cited in art. sufiism, in relig. systems of the world, nd ed. pp. - . [ ] cp. whinfield, p. , note on no. . [ ] guyard, as cited, p. . but cp. ueberweg, i, ; nicholson, pp. - . [ ] it is not impossible, max müller notwithstanding, that the name may have come originally from the greek sophoi, "the wise," though it is usually connected with sufi = the woollen robe worn by the sufite. there are other etymologies. cp. fraser, histor. and descrip. account of persia, , p. , note; dugat, p. ; and art. sufiism in relig. systems of the world, nd ed. p. . on the sufi system in general see also max müller, psychol. relig. lect. vi. [ ] cp. renan, averroès, p. , as to sufi latitudinarianism. [ ] guyard, p. ; relig. systems, p. . [ ] hafiz in his own day was reckoned impious by many. cp. malcolm, sketches of persia, , ii, . [ ] fitzgerald's pref. p. x. [ ] yet he was disposed to put to death those who claimed mystic intercourse with deity. sale, pp. - . [ ] whose salaman and absal, tr. by fitzgerald, is so little noticed in comparison with the rubáiyát of omar. [ ] e. c. browne, in religious systems, as cited, p. ; dugat, p. . [ ] shirazi, pp. - ; fitzgerald's pref. following mirkhond; fraser, persia, p. . [ ] cp. dugat, p. ; syed ameer ali, pp. - ; gobineau, les religions et les philosophies dans l'asie centrale, e édit. p. . [ ] sale, p. . the same doctrine is fairly ancient in india. (muir, original sanskrit texts, v, , note.) a belief that hell-fire will not be eternal was held among the motazilite sect of jâhedhians. sale, p. . the thamamians, again, held that at the resurrection all infidels, idolaters, atheists, jews, christians, magians, and heretics, shall be reduced to dust. id. ib. [ ] cp. renan, averroès, p. . cp. p. . [ ] renan's tr. in averroès, p. . the wording of the last phrase suggests a misconstruction. [ ] cp. p. . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] steiner, die mu'taziliten, p. . [ ] ueberweg, i, ; renan, averroès, pp. , . [ ] e. g. browne, lit. hist. of persia, ii, . [ ] whom he pronounced a pagan and an infidel. hauréau, ii, i, . [ ] cp. renan, averroès, pp. , - ; whewell, hist. of the inductive sciences, rd. ed. i, . renan, following degenerando (cp. whewell, as cited), credits gazzali with anticipating hume's criticism of the idea of causation; but gazzali's position is that of dogmatic theism, not of naturalism. see lewes, hist. of philos., th ed. ii, . [ ] hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ptie ii, i, . [ ] cp. seignobos, hist. de la civ. ii, ; stanley lane-poole, the moors in spain, pref.; milman, latin christianity, th ed. ix. - ; u. r. burke, history of spain, i, ch. ; baden powell, as cited, pp. - ; gebhart, origines de la renaissance en italie, , pp. - ; and post, ch. x. [ ] baden powell, hist. of nat. philos. , p. ; whewell, hist. of the induct. sciences, rd ed. ii. - . [ ] dr. l. leclerc, hist. de la médecine arabe, , i, ; dr. e. von meyer, hist. of chemistry, eng. tr. nd ed. p. . [ ] cp. buckle, introd. to hist. of civ. in england, -vol. ed. p. . [ ] lane-poole, the moors in spain, p. . [ ] properly morabethin--men of god or of religion; otherwise known as "marabouts." [ ] sedillot, p. . [ ] cp. dozy, hist. des musulmans d'espagne, iii, - ; ueberweg, i, . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] ueberweg. i. ; renan, averroès, pp. , . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] ueberweg, i, ; steiner, p. ; renan, averroès, p. sq. [ ] ueberweg, i, ; renan, pp. , . [ ] renan, averroès, p. , and references. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . cp. the avertissement, p. iii. [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . renan surmises that the popular hostility to the philosophers, which was very marked, was largely due to the element of the conquered christians, who were noted for their neglect of astronomy and natural science. [ ] cp. ueberweg. i. - . [ ] cp. flint, history of the philosophy of history, ed. , vol. i, p. . [ ] cp. flint, p. , as to their hostility to him. [ ] huth, life and writings of buckle, ii, . [ ] ricaut, present state of the ottoman empire, , p. . [ ] dugat, p. . the ameer ali syed, moulvi, m.a., ll.b., whose critical examination of the life and teachings of mohammed appeared in , writes as a motazilite of a moderate type. [ ] macdonald, pp. , , . [ ] a. franck, Études orientales, , pp. - , citing the dabistan. [ ] gobineau, les religions et les philosophies dans l'asie centrale, e édit. ch. v; j. k. m. shirazi, life of omar khayyámi, ed. , p. . the latter writer notes, however, that "the cultured classes, who ought to know better, are at no pains to dissipate the existing religious prejudice against one [omar] of whose reputation every persian may well feel proud." "at the present time ... the name of omar is no less execrated by the shi-ite mob in persia than it was in his own day." id. p. . [ ] fraser, persia, p. . this writer (p. ) describes sufiism as "the superstition of the freethinker," and as "often assumed as a cloak to cover entire infidelity." [ ] e.g., dr. wills, the land of the lion and the sun, ed. , p. . [ ] smith and dwight, missionary researches in armenia, , p. . cp. rev. h. southgate, tour through armenia, etc. , ii, ; and morier's hadji baba of ispahan ( ), ch. xlvii, near end. [ ] fraser, persia, p. ; malcolm, sketches of persia, ii, ; gobineau, as cited, ch. v. [ ] h. vambéry, der islam im neunzehnten jahrhundert, , pp. - . vambéry further remarks: "the half-fanatical, half-freethinking tone of persians has often surprised me in my controversies with the most zealous schiites." [ ] as to the rise of this sect see gobineau, as cited, pp. - ; e. g. browne's the episode of the bâb; and his lecture on bâbism in religious systems of the world. cp. renan, les apôtres, pp. - . [ ] h. arakélian, mémoire sur le bâbisme en perse, in the actes du premier congrès international d'histoire des religions, paris, , ptie. fasc. i. [ ] gobineau, pp. sq.; sq.; arakélian, p. . [ ] lane, manners and customs of the modern egyptians, th ed. , i, , . "there are, i believe," says lane (writing originally in ), "very few professed muslims who are really unbelievers; and these dare not openly avow their unbelief through fear of losing their heads for their apostacy. i have heard of two or three such who have been rendered so by long and intimate intercourse with europeans; and have met with one materialist, who has often had long discussions with me." [ ] id. ii, . (suppl. iii, "of late innovations in egypt.") [ ] see the documents reproduced by max müller, introd. to the science of religion, ed. , app. . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. pp. , , , . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] guyard, p. ; steiner, p. , note; lane, the modern egyptians, ed. , i. - . cp. spencer, study of sociology, ch. xii, p. ; bosworth smith, mohammed and mohammedanism, nd ed. pp. - . [ ] derenbourg, p. ; steiner, p. ; lane, i, . [ ] cp. bosworth smith, mohammed and mohammedanism, lectures i and iv; canon isaac taylor, address to church congress at wolverhampton, , and letters to times, oct. and nov. . on the other or anti-mohammedan side see canon robinson, hausaland, rd ed. , p. sq.--a somewhat obviously prejudiced argument. see pp. - . [ ] sir harry h. johnston, history of the colonization of africa by alien races, , p. . [ ] this label has been applied by scholars to the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. one writer, who supposes it to cover the period from to , and protests, is attacking only a misconception. (m. a. lane, the level of social motion, new york, ., p. .) the renaissance is commonly reckoned to begin about the end of the fourteenth century (cp. symonds, age of the despots, ch. i). but the whole period from the fall of the roman empire to the fall of constantinople, or to the reformation, is broadly included in the "middle ages." [ ] essai sur les moeurs, ch. xlv. [ ] according to which god predestinated good, but merely foreknew evil. [ ] for leo's contacts with the saracens see finlay, hist. of greece, ed. tozer, ii, - , , - , - , , etc., and compare p. . see also hardwick, church history: middle age, , p. , note ; and waddington, history of the church, , p. , note. [ ] kurtz, hist. of the chr. church, eng. tr. i, . [ ] kurtz, p. . [ ] as to his hostility to letters see gibbon, ch. liii--bohn ed. vi, . of course the other side were not any more liberal. cp. finlay, ii, . [ ] gieseler, ii, . per. iii, div. i, pt. i, § . in the next century this was said to have gone in some churches to the point of rejection of christ. id. p. , note . [ ] id. pp. , ; finlay, ii, . [ ] neander, hist. of chr. church, bohn tr. v, ; vi, . [ ] on their connection at this time with the culture-movement of the khalifate of mamoun, see finlay, ii, - ; gibbon, ch. liii--bohn ed. vi, - . [ ] finlay, ii, , note. the enemies of photius accused him of lending himself to the emperor's buffooneries. neander, vi, - . cp. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ; and gibbon, ch. xxxiii--ed. cited, vi, . finlay declares (p. ) that no greek of the intellectual calibre of photius, john the grammarian, and leo the mathematician, has since appeared. [ ] neander, vi, . [ ] finlay, ii, - , . [ ] hardwick, church history: middle age, , p. . it is noteworthy that the "heathen" magyars held the mazdean dualistic principle, and that their evil power was named armanyos (= ahrimanes). mailáth, geschichte der magyaren, , i, - . [ ] gibbon, ch. liv; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ; gieseler, per. iii, div. i, pt. i, § ; g. s. faber, the ancient vallenses and waldenses, , pp. - . some fresh light is thrown on the paulician doctrines by the discovery of the old armenian book, the key of truth, edited and translated by f. c. conybeare, oxford, . it belonged to the armenian sect of thonraki, or thonrakians, or thondrakians--people of the village of thondrac (neander, vi, )--founded by one sembat, originally a paulician, in the ninth century (hardwick, church history: middle age, p. ; neander, last cit.). for a criticism of mr. conybeare's theories see the church quarterly review, jan. , art. v. [ ] gieseler, per. iii, §§ , , vol. ii, pp. , ; hardwick, p. . the sect of euchites, also anti-priestly, seem to have joined them. faber denies any manichean element. [ ] gibbon, as cited, vi, . [ ] gibbon, vi, ; hardwick, pp. - . [ ] gibbon, vi, , and note; finlay, ii, . [ ] despite the express decision, the use of statues proper (agalmata) gradually disappeared from the greek church, the disuse finally creating a strong antipathy, while pictures and ikons remained in reverence (tozer's note to finlay, ii, ; cp. waddington, history of the church, , p. , note). it is probable that the sheer loss of artistic skill counted for much in the change. cp. milman, latin christianity, bk. xiv, ch. ix; th ed. ix, - . it is noteworthy that, whereas in the struggle over images their use was for two long periods legally abolished, it was in both cases restored by empresses irene and theodora. [ ] hardwick, p. , note; neander, vi, . [ ] cp. kurtz, his. of the chr. church, eng. tr. i, . [ ] gibbon, vi, ; finlay, iii, ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v. [ ] finlay, iii, . [ ] gibbon, as cited; r. lane poole, illustrations of the history of medieval thought, , pp. - ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v. [ ] finlay, iii, - ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § . hardwick, pp. - ; kurtz, i, - . [ ] gieseler, per. iii, div. ii, pt. iii, § . [ ] gibbon, vi, , note; poole, p. , note; de potter, l'esprit de l'Église, , vi, , note. [ ] boniface, ep. lxvi, cited by poole, p. ; reid's mosheim, p. , note ; neander, hist. of the christian church, bohn tr. v, - ; hardwick, p. . [ ] for excellent accounts of both see mr. poole's illustrations, pp. - . as to claudius cp. monastier, hist. of the vaudois church, eng. tr. , pp. - , and faber, the ancient vallenses, bk. iii, ch. iv. [ ] see mr. poole's illustrations, pp. - , for an account of the privileges then accorded to jews. [ ] this is not incompatible with their having opposed both saracens (claudius in actual war) and jews, as christian bishops. [ ] poole, illustrations, p. . [ ] this when the church found its account in adopting all such usages. lea, superstition and force, pp. , , etc. it is to be noted, however, that one council, that of valence, , perhaps under the influence of agobard's teaching, published a canon prohibiting all duels, and praying the emperor to abolish them. cited by waddington, history of the church, , p. , note, from fleury. [ ] de grandine et tonitruis, c. ; and de imaginibus, c. , cited by reuter. [ ] "he had the clearest head in the whole ninth century; and as an influence (mann der tendenz) is above comparison" (reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, ). as to his acute handling of the thorny question of reason and authority see reuter, i, - . [ ] poole, pp. - . [ ] noack, philosophie-geschichtliches lexikon, s. v. rabanus. as to the doubtful works in which rabanus coincides with scotus erigena, cp. poole, p. ; noack, as cited; ueberweg, i, - . [ ] ueberweg, pp. , ; poole, pp. , , . [ ] ueberweg, pp. - . that there was, however, an irish scholasticism as early as the eighth century is shown by mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § , note . cp. huber, johannes scotus erigena, , p. sq.; taillandier, scot erigène et la philosophie scolastique, , p. . [ ] lea, as cited, p. . [ ] "the learned and freethinking guest of charles le chauve," hardwick calls him, p. . it needed the protection of charles to save him from the orthodox, hincmar included. see ampère, histoire littéraire de la france, , iii, - , as to the anger against him. [ ] see the whole argument summarized by huber, p. sq. [ ] cp. poole, illustrations, pp. , , ; neander, bohn tr. vi, sq.; and the present writer's introd. to shaftesbury's characteristics, ed. , p. xxxiv. and see above, p. . [ ] de divisione naturæ, l. v; de prædestinatione, c. ; poole, pp. - ; neander, vi, - ; huber, as cited, p. . [ ] in the treatise on the division of nature. see the extracts given in the cabinet cyclopædia survey of europe in the middle ages, ii, - . they prove, says the author of the survey, "that john erigena had none of the spirit of christianity." [ ] poole, pp. , . [ ] s. robins, a defence of the faith, , pp. - . [ ] huber, pp. - . [ ] cp. neander, hist. of the chr. church, bohn tr. vi, . [ ] de corpore et sanguine domini, rep. oxford, , cc. - , , , - , etc. [ ] c. : "non sicut quidam volunt, anima sola hoc mysterio pascitur." neander, vi, . [ ] hardwick, pp. , ; neander, vi, . [ ] cp. neander, vi, . [ ] poole, p. . [ ] c. : "ineptas quæstiunculas et aniles pæne fabulas scotorumque pultes." neander, vi, . [ ] neander, vi, , citing mabillon, analecta, i, . [ ] compare the gemma ecclesiastica of giraldus cambrensis for an inside view of the avarice of the clergy in his day. [ ] neander, hist. of the chr. church, v, . see the whole section for a good account of the general economic and moral evolution. neander repeatedly (pp. - ) insists on the "magical" element in the doctrine of the mass, as established by gregory the great. [ ] see neander, as cited, v, . the point was well put some centuries later by the italian story-teller masuccio, an orthodox catholic but a vehement anti-clericalist, in a generalization concerning the monks: "the best punishment for them would be for god to abolish purgatory; they would then receive no more alms, and would be forced to go back to their spades." cited by burckhardt, the civilization of the renaissance in italy, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] neander, vi, . rabanus maurus distinctly belied him on this score. (id. p. .) [ ] formerly, only the saved had been spoken of as prædestinati, the reprobate being called præsciti. neander, vi, . [ ] neander, vi, . cp. hampden, bampton lectures on the scholastic philosophy, rd ed. p. ; and ampère, histoire littéraire de france, , iii, . [ ] poole, p. . cp. neander, vi, . [ ] neander, vi, - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . as to the wide extent of the discussion see reuter, geschichte der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, . [ ] in , however, atto, bishop of verceil, is found complaining that some people from the italian border had introduced heresies. [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § ; poole, illustrations, p. . [ ] hardwick, p. . [ ] kurtz, history of the christian church, eng. tr. , i, . [ ] hénault, abrégé chronologique, ann. ; neander, hist. of the chr. relig. and church, eng. tr. bohn ed. vi, sq.; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § ; de potter, l'esprit de l'Église, vi, - ; poole, pp. - ; lea, history of the inquisition, i, , - , ; gieseler, per. iii, div. ii, § . the contemporary accounts say nothing as to the heretics being manicheans. neander, p. , note. [ ] cp. murdock's note on mosheim, reid's ed. p. ; monastier, hist. of the vaudois church, p. ; waddington, p. ; hardwick, p. , note, and p. . [ ] de potter, pp. - ; gieseler, as cited, p. ; lea, i, , . [ ] mosheim, as last cited, § ; gieseler, ii, (§ ); hardwick, pp. , . [ ] mosheim. cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § , and murdock's notes; cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ , . [ ] hardwick, p. ; kurtz, i, . the derivation through the italian is however disputed. cp. murdock's note to mosheim, reid's ed. p. , and gieseler, ii, . the chazari, a turkish (crimean) people, partly christian and partly moslem in the ninth century (gieseler, as cited), may have given the name of gazzari, as bulgar gave bougre; and the german ketzer may have come directly from chazar. the christianity of the chazars, influenced by neighbourhood with islam, seems to have been a very free syncretism. [ ] cp. gieseler, per. iii, §§ , ; abbé queant, gerbert, ou sylvestre ii, , pp. - , citing chevé, histoire des papes, t. ii, and baronius, annales, ad ann. , n. ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - ; with his and murdock's refs.; cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ , ; cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § ; ch. iii, §§ - ; cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § ; cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - . the authorities are often eminent churchmen, as agobard, ratherius, bernard, and gregory viii. [ ] see mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § , note z. cp. duruy, hist. de france, ii, . [ ] cp. prof. abdy, lectures on feudalism, , p. . [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § . [ ] cp. morin, origines de la démocratie, e éd. pp. - ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § . [ ] morin, p. . compare, on the whole communal movement, duruy, hist. de france, ch. xxi, and michelet. [ ] gieseler, per. iii, § , end; lea, i, , . [ ] monastier, hist. of the vaudois ch., p. ; lea, i, . [ ] bryce, the holy roman empire, th ed. p. . see p. for a list of john's offences; and cp. p. as to other papal records. for a contemporary account of pope honorius ii (d. ) see milman, latin christianity, iii, - . [ ] hallam, middle ages, th ed. ii, . [ ] cp. müller, allgemeine geschichte, b. xiv, cap. . [ ] bryce, p. . [ ] "janus," the pope and the councils, eng. tr. pp. - . [ ] cp. heeren, essai sur l'influence des croisades, , p. . [ ] sir g. cox, the crusades, p. . [ ] cp. lea, i, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] hardwick, p. ; lea, i, ; reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, - ; mosheim, as last cited, § . [ ] cp. motley, rise of the dutch republic, ed. , p. . [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ - , and varior. notes; monastier, pp. - , - ; milman, latin christianity, v, - . [ ] hardwick, p. ; mosheim, as last cited, § ; monastier, p. . [ ] hardwick, p. , note; kurtz, i, . cp. the transactions of the new shakespeare society, - , pt. ii, p. ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § , and note; milman, latin christianity, v, . on the sects in general see de potter, vi, - ; and cantù, gli eretici d'italia, , i, - . [ ] lea, i, . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] kurtz, i, ; lea, i, . [ ] hardwick, p. , note; murdock's note to mosheim, p. ; monastier, pp. - . [ ] lea, i, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] kitchin, history of france, th ed. , i, ; citing chron. de st. denis, p. . the annales victoriani at philip's death ( ) pronounce him ecclesiarum et religionarum personarum amator et fautor (hénault's abrégé chronologique). among the many cathari put to death in his reign was nicholas, the most famous painter in france--burned at braine in . lea, i, . [ ] lea, i, - . cp. ranke, hist. of the popes, eng. tr. -vol. ed. p. . [ ] cp. hardwick, p. ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § , and notes in reid's ed.; monastier, hist. of the vaudois church, eng. tr. , pp. - ; faber, the ancient vallenses and albigenses, pp. , , etc. as vigilantius took refuge in the cottian alps, his doctrine may have survived there, as argued by monastier (p. ) and faber (p. ). the influence of claudius of turin, as they further contend, might also come into play. on the whole subject see gieseler, per. iii, div. iii, § . [ ] cp. mosheim with faber, bk. iii, chs. iii, viii; hardwick, as cited; and monastier, pp. - . waddington, p. , holds mosheim to be in error; and there are some grounds for dating the waldensian heresy before waldus, who flourished - (id. p. ). waldus had to flee from france, and finally died in bohemia, (kurtz, i, ). [ ] cp. lea, hist. of the inquisition, i, - . waldensian theology varied from time to time. [ ] between and there were ten popes, three of them anti-popes. celestine iii held the chair from to ; and innocent iii from the latter year to . [ ] de potter, vi, ; lea, i, . [ ] lea, i, . [ ] de potter, vi, . [ ] see bartoli, storia della letteratura italiana, , i, , note, also his i precursori del renascimento, , p. . in this section and in the next chapter i am indebted for various clues to the rev. john owen's skeptics of the italian renaissance. as to the goliards generally, see that work, pp. - ; bartoli, storia, cap. viii; milman, latin christianity, bk. xiv, ch. iv; and gebhart, les origines de la renaissance en italie, , pp. - . the name goliard came from the type-name golias, used by many satirists. [ ] bartoli, storia, i, - . cp. schlegel's note to mosheim, reid's ed. p. , following ratherius; and gebhart, as cited. milman ( th ed. ix, ) credits the goliards with "a profound respect for sacred things, and freedom of invective against sacred persons." this shows an imperfect knowledge of much of their work. [ ] c. lenient, la satire en france au moyen âge, , pp. - . [ ] owen, as cited, pp. , ; bartoli, storia, i, . [ ] disparagement of the serf is a commonplace of medieval literature. langlois, la vie en france au moyen âge, , p. , and note; lanson, hist. de la litt. française, p. . at this point the semi-aristocratic jongleurs and the writers of bourgeois bias, such as some of the contributors to reynard the fox, coincided. the renart stories are at once anti-aristocratic, anti-clerical, and anti-demotic. [ ] c. lenient, la satire en france, p. . lenient cites from erasmus's letters (sept. , ) a story of a german burned alive in his time for venting the same idea. [ ] langlois, as cited, pp. - . [ ] cp. langlois, pp. , , , etc. c. lenient, as cited, p. . [ ] rev. joseph berington, literary history of the middle ages, ed. , p. . cp. owen, p. . [ ] owen, p. ; bartoli, storia, i, , as to the french fabliaux. [ ] labitte, la divine comédie avant dante, in charpentier ed. of dante, pp. - . [ ] aucassin and nicolette, tr. by eugene mason, p. . [ ] sismondi, literature of southern europe, eng. tr. i, - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] zeller, histoire d'italie, , p. ; renan, averroès, p. . [ ] "the troubadours in truth were freethinkers" (owen, italian skeptics, p. ). cp. lea, hist. of the inquisition, ii, ; and hardwick, p. , note , as to the common animus against the papacy. [ ] heeren, essai sur l'influence des croisades, french tr. , p. , note; owen, italian skeptics, p. , note. [ ] abbé queant, gerbert, ou sylvestre ii, , pp. - . [ ] sismondi, as cited, p. ; owen, pp. , ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. i, § ; cent. pt. ii, ch. i, § , and reid's note to § ; hampden, bampton lectures, p. . the familiar record that gerbert, afterwards pope sylvester ii, studied in spain among the arabs (ueberweg, i, ) has of late years been discredited (olleris, vie de gerbert, , chs. ii and xxv; ueberweg, p. ; poole, illustrations, p. ); but its very currency depended on the commonness of some such proceeding in his age. in any case, the teaching he would receive at the spanish monastery of borel would owe all its value to saracen culture. cp. abbé queant, gerbert, pp. - . the greatness of the service he rendered to northern europe in introducing the arabic numerals is expressed in the legend of his magical powers. compare the legends as to roger bacon. [ ] sismondi, p. . [ ] cp. g. h. lewes, the spanish drama, , pp. - ; littré, Études sur les barbares et le moyen âge, e édit. p. . [ ] see the passages cited by owen, p. . [ ] cp. bartoli, storia, pp. - . [ ] gebhart, les origines de la renaissance, pp. , ; renan, averroès et l'averroïsme, pp. , , ; libri, hist. des sciences mathématiques en italie, i, ; michelet, hist. de france, t. vii, renaissance, introd. note du § vii; hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, . cp. franck, Études orientales, , p. . [ ] as to the pope's character compare sismondi, hist. of the crusades against the albigenses (eng. tr. from vols. vi and vii of his histoire des français), p. ; hallam, europe during the middle ages, th ed. ii, ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - . [ ] as to previous acts of inquisition and persecution by pope alexander iii (noted above) see llorente, hist. crit. de l'inquisition en espagne, french tr. e édit. i, - , and lea, history of the inquisition, i, . cp. gieseler, per. iii, div. iii, § (amer. ed. ii, ). [ ] hardwick, p. ; lea, i, . [ ] sismondi, crusades against the albigenses, p. . [ ] on the previous history of indulgences see lea, history of the inquisition, i, - ; de potter, esprit de l'Église, vii, - . for the later developments cp. lea's studies in church history, , p. ; vieusseux, history of switzerland, , pp. , . [ ] sismondi, crusades, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] lea, i, . [ ] for a modern catholic defence of the whole proceedings see the comte de montalembert's histoire de sainte elisabeth de hongrie, e édit. intr. pp. - . [ ] sismondi, crusades, p. , and refs.; lea, i, . [ ] sismondi, pp. - , and refs. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. , . cp. p. as to later treachery towards saracens; and p. as to the deeds of the bishop of toulouse. see again pp. - as to the massacre of marmande. [ ] as to the international character of the crusade see sismondi, crusades, p. . [ ] sismondi, p. sq. [ ] pp. , . [ ] pp. , . [ ] p. . "the worship of the reformed albigenses had everywhere ceased" (p. ). cp. p. as to the completeness of the final massacres. it is estimated (monastier, p. , following de la mothe-langon) that a million albigenses were slain in the first half of the thirteenth century. the figures are of course speculative. [ ] cp. lea, ii, ; lenient, la satire en france an moyen âge, , p. . [ ] lea, vol. ii, ch. i. [ ] sismondi, pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - ; lea, ii, , , , , , etc. [ ] sismondi, p. ; llorente, as cited, i, - ; lea, ii, . [ ] matthew paris records that in four hundred and forty-three heretics were burned in saxony and pomerania. previously multitudes had been burned by the inquisitor conrad, who was himself finally murdered in revenge. he was the confessor of saint elizabeth of hungary, and he taught her among other things, "be merciful to your neighbour," and "do to others whatsoever you would that they should do to you." see his praises recorded by montalembert, as cited, vol. i, ch. x. cp. gieseler, per. iii, div. iii, § (ii, ). [ ] lea, ii, . this was the "peace-maker" described by dr. lea as--in that capacity--"so worthy a disciple of the great teacher of divine love" (i, ). [ ] ueberweg, i, ; poole, pp. , . [ ] as to the verbal confusion of aristotle's theory see ueberweg. [ ] id. i, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] cp. mosheim's note, reid's ed. p. . [ ] ueberweg, i, . [ ] poole, p. , note; milman, latin christianity, th ed. i, . [ ] hampden, bampton lectures, on the scholastic philosophy, , p. . [ ] mosheim, as cited, and refs. [ ] hampden, p. . [ ] a. s. farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, , p. . farrar adds: "'neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, set credo ut intelligam' are the words of the realist anselm (prolog. i, , ed. gerberon): 'dubitando ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus' are those of the nominalist abailard (sic et non, p. , ed. cousin)." [ ] cp. hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, ch. , as to orthodoxy among both nominalists and realists. [ ] hampden, pp. , . [ ] cp. lea, hist. of the inquisition, iii, . [ ] poole, illustr. of the hist. of medieval thought, pp. - . [ ] præfatio in monologium. [ ] as to the various classes of doubters known to anselm see reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, - , and refs. anselm writes: fides enim nostra contra impios ratione defenda est. epist. ii, . [ ] ueberweg, i, . [ ] see it in ueberweg, i, - ; cp. ch. de rémusat, saint anselme, , pp. - ; dean church, saint anselm, ed. , pp. - . as to previous instances of anselm's argument cp. poole, illustrations, p. sq. [ ] cp. ueberweg, i, - . [ ] cited by hampden, bampton lect. p. . [ ] metalogicus, vii, ; poole, p. . [ ] gemma ecclesiastica, distinctio i, c. ; works, ed. brewer, rolls series, ii, - ; pref. p. xxxv. [ ] cp. hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ptie. ii ( ), i, . hauréau points out that simon's writings are strictly orthodox, whatever his utterances may have been. [ ] distinctio, ii, c. ; pp. liv, . [ ] cp. pearson, hist. of england during the early and middle ages, ii, . [ ] the saynt graal, ed. furnivall, , pp. , ; history of the holy grail, ed. furnivall, , pp. - ; pearson, as cited, i, - . [ ] hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, , p. . [ ] poole, pp. - . [ ] "humanas ac philosophicas rationes requirebant; et plus quæ intelligi quam quæ dici possent efflagitabant" (historia calamitatum mearum, ed. gréard, p. ). [ ] id. ib. [ ] ueberweg, i, . [ ] ueberweg, i, . cp. milman, latin christianity, ix, . [ ] ueberweg, i, - . [ ] hampden, bampton lect. pp. - . [ ] poole, p. . it is not impossible that, as sismondi suggests (histoire des français, ed. , v, - ), abailard was persecuted mainly because of the dangerous anti-papal movement maintained in italy for fifteen years ( - ) by his doctrinally orthodox pupil, arnold of brescia. but hampden (p. ), agreeing with guizot (hist. de civ. en europe; hist. mod. leçon ), pronounces that "there was no sympathy between the efforts of the italian republics to obtain social liberty, and those within the church to recover personal freedom of thought." [ ] poole, pp. - , . [ ] ueberweg, i, . [ ] poole, p. . [ ] cp. poole, p. . it is difficult to doubt that the series of patristic deliverances against reason in the first section of sic et non was compiled by abailard in a spirit of dissent. [ ] cp. hardwick, p. ; and see p. , note, for bernard's dislike of his demand for clearness: "nihil videt per speculum et in aenigmate, sed facie ad faciem omnia intuetur." [ ] poole, p. . cp. dr. hastings rashdall on the "pious scurrility" of bernard. the universities of europe in the middle ages, , i, , note. contrast the singularly laudatory account of st. bernard given by two contemporary positivists, mr. cotter morison in his life and times of st. bernard, and mr. f. harrison in his essay on that work in his choice of books. the subject is discussed in the present writer's paper on "the ethics of propaganda" in essays in ethics. [ ] erdmann, history of philosophy, eng. tr. rd ed. i, . [ ] hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i ( ), - . [ ] id. citing the polycraticus, l. vii, c. . [ ] polycraticus, l. vii, c. . [ ] cp. poole, pp. - ; the extracts of hampden, pp. - ; and the summing-up of hauréau. hist. de la philos. scolastique, i ( ), . [ ] historia calamitatum, as cited. cp. p. for abailard's own opinion of anselm of laon, whom he compares to a leafy but fruitless tree. [ ] matthew paris, sub. ann. . there is a somewhat circumstantial air about this story, simon's reply being made to begin humorously with a jesule. jesule! matthew, however, tells on this item the story of simon's miraculous punishment which giraldus tells on a quite different text. matthew is indignant with the scholastic arrogance which has led many to "suppress" the miracle. [ ] ueberweg, i, , ; hampden, p. sq. cp. renan, averroès, p. sq. [ ] ueberweg, i, . the karaïtes may be described as jewish protestants or puritans. cp. schechter, studies in judaism, , pp. - . [ ] schechter (as cited, pp. , ) gives two sets of dates, the second being - . [ ] for a good survey of the medieval hebrew thought in general see joel, beiträge zur gesch. der philos. ; and as to maimonides see a. franck's Études orientales, ; hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ptie ii, i, - ; and renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] schechter, studies in judaism, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] ueberweg, i, ; schechter, p. . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . [ ] schechter, pp. - . [ ] hauréau pronounces (ii, i, - ) that avicebron should be ranked among the most sincere and resolute of pantheists. his chief work was the fons vitæ. [ ] renan, averroès, pp. , . [ ] spinoza, tractatus theologico-politicus, c. , ad init. [ ] mémoires de joinville, ed. , ii, . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] huber, johannes scotus erigena, p. ; christlieb, leben und lehre des johannes scotus erigena, , p. . copies of john's writings were found in the hands of the sectaries of amalrich and david; and in the writings in question were condemned and burnt accordingly. hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, . [ ] ueberweg, i, , ; milman, latin christianity, ix, - ; renan, p. ; hahn, geschichte der ketzer im mittelalter, - , iii, - . [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § . [ ] poole, p. ; ueberweg, i, . [ ] lecky's description (rationalism in europe, ed. , i, ) of averroïsm as a "stern and uncompromising infidelity" is hopelessly astray. [ ] summa theologica, prima secundae, quæst. lxxxv, art. . compare hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, , for a trace of the idea of natura naturans in john scotus and heiric, in the ninth century. [ ] renan, p. sq. [ ] cp. reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, ii, . [ ] milman, latin christianity, th ed. ix, . [ ] robins. a defence of the faith, , pt. i, pp. - . compare rashdall, universities in the middle ages, i, ; and maurice, medieval philosophy, nd ed. pp. - . it is noteworthy that the summa of thomas was a favourite study of descartes, who read hardly any other theologian. [ ] cp. milman, ix, . [ ] see the comments of giraldus cambrensis in the proem to his speculum ecclesiæ brewer's ed. in rolls series, i. ; and pref. pp. xii-xiii. [ ] cp. renan. averroès, p. , as to the polemic of william of auvergne. [ ] renan, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - , and refs. [ ] renan, pp. - , and refs.; ueberweg, i, , and refs.; maywald, die lehre von der zweifachen wahrheit, , p. ; lange, i, (tr. i, ). [ ] of john xxi, who had in condemned the doctrine of a twofold truth. [ ] cp. gebhart, origines de la renaissance, pp. - . and see above, p. . [ ] berington, lit. hist. of the middle ages, p. . see above, p. . [ ] see the summa of the inquisitor bartholomæus fumus, venet. , s.v. infidelitas, fol. , § ; and the summa of thomas, secunda secundæ, quæst. x, art. . [ ] it is sometimes described as a formidable product of doubt; and again by m. de rémusat as "consecrated to controversy rather than to skepticism." cp. pearson, hist. of england in the early and middle ages, , i. . the view in the text seems the just mean. cp. lea, hist. of the inquisition, i. . in itself the book is for a modern reader a mere collection of the edifying contradictions of theologians; but such a collection must in any age have been a perplexity to faith; and it is not surprising that it remained unpublished until edited by cousin (see the ouvrages inédits, intr. pp. clxxxv-ix). that writer justly sums up that such antinomies "condamnent l'esprit à un doute salutaire." the rev. a. s. farrar pronounces that "the critical independence of nominalism, in a mind like that of abailard, represents the destructive action of freethought, partly as early protestantism, partly as skepticism" (crit. hist. of freethought, p. ). [ ] lea, hist. of the inquisition, i, - , - , ; u. burke, hist. of spain, hume's ed. , ii, - . for a detailed description of the methods of ecclesiastical torture, burke refers to the treatise, de catholicis institutionibus, by simancas, bishop of beja, rome, , tit. lxv, de tormentis, p. sq. [ ] torture was inflicted on witnesses in england in , by special inquisitors, under the mandate of clement v, in defiance of english law; and under edward ii it was used in england as elsewhere against the templars. [ ] istorie fiorentine, iv, . [ ] see below, p. . [ ] villari, two first centuries of florentine history, eng. tr. , pp. - . [ ] reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, . [ ] id. i, - . [ ] the moslems were inclined to regard him as of their creed "because educated in sicily." cantù, gli eretici d'italia, , i, . [ ] see gieseler, as cited below; and reid's mosheim, p. , note. [ ] milman, latin christianity, vi, ; lea, hist. of the inquisition, i, . [ ] milman, vi, , . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . michael scotus may have been, like john scotus, an irishman, but his refusal to accept the archbishopric of cashel, on the ground that he did not know the native language, makes this doubtful. the identification of him with a scottish knight, sir michael scott, still persisted in by some scholars on the strength of sir walter scott's hasty note to the lay of the last minstrel, is destitute of probability. see the rev. j. wood brown's inquiry into the life and legend of michael scot, , pp. - , - . [ ] inferno, xx, - . [ ] cantù, gli eretici d'italia, i, - ; the pope's letter, as cited; renan, averroès, pp. - , . [ ] see the verdict of gieseler, eng. tr. iii ( ), p. , note. [ ] milman, vi, - . [ ] id. p. . cp. the author's evolution of states, , p. . [ ] g. villani, istorie fiorentine, vi, . [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. i, ch. ii, § , citing in particular moneta's summa contra catharos et valdenses, lib. v, cc. , , ; tempier (bishop of paris), indiculum errorum ( ) in the bibliotheca patrum maxima, t. xxv; bulæus, hist. acad. paris, iii, --as to the averroïsts at paris, described above, p. . cp. renan, averroès, pp. - , citing william of auvergne, and pp. , ; ozanam, dante, e édit. pp. , , - ; gebhart, origines de la renais, pp. - ; lange, i, (tr. i, ); sharon turner, hist. of england during the middle ages, nd ed. v, - . [ ] lea, hist. of the inquisition, iii, - . [ ] perrens, la civilisation florentine du e au e siècle, , p. . above, p. . [ ] inferno, canto x, - , . [ ] ottavio ubaldini, d. , of whom the commentators tell that he said that if there were such a thing as a soul he had lost his for the cause of the ghibellines. [ ] as to whom see renan, averroès, p. , note; gebhart, renaissance, p. . his son guido, "the first friend and the companion of all the youth of dante," was reputed an atheist (decameron, vi, ). cp. cesare balbo, vita di dante, ed. , pp. - . but see owen, skeptics of the ital. renais., p. , note. [ ] in the convito, ii, , he writes that, "among all the bestialities, that is the most foolish, the most vile, the most damnable, which believes no other life to be after this life." another passage (iv, ) heaps curses on the "most foolish and vile beasts ... who presume to speak against our faith." [ ] cp. ozanam, dante, e édit. pp. - , as to anti-christian movements. [ ] lecky, rationalism in europe, i, , note; renan, averroès, pp. - ; cantù, gli eretici d'italia, i, . and note on p. . [ ] cp. labitte, la divine comédie avant dante, as cited, p. . [ ] michelet argues that italy was "anti-dantesque" in the renaissance (hist. de france, vii, intr. § and app.), but he exaggerates the common disregard of the commedia. [ ] as to an element of doubt, even in dante, concerning divine government, see burckhardt, p. . but the attempt made by some critics to show that the "sins" to which dante confessed had been intellectual--i.e., heresies--falls to the ground. see döllinger, studies in european history, eng. tr. , pp. - ; and cp. cantù, gli eretici d'italia, i, sq. on the whole question. [ ] cesare balbo, vita di dante, ed. , pp. - , . [ ] cantù. eretici d' italia, i, . cantù gives an account of the trial process. [ ] g. villani, x, . it is to be noted that the horoscope of jesus was cast by several professed believers, as albertus magnus and pierre d'ailli, cardinal and bishop of cambrai, as well as by cardan. see bayle, art. cardan, note q; and cp. renan, averroès, p. . [ ] cp. owen, pp. , - ; hallam, lit. hist., i, - ; milman, bk. xiv, ch. v, end. [ ] decam., gior. i, nov. . [ ] gior. i, nov. . [ ] dr. marcus landau, die quellen des dekameron, te aufl. , p. . [ ] the story is recorded to have been current among the motecallemîn--a party kindred to the motazilites--in bagdad. renan, averroès, p. , citing dozy. renan thinks it may have been of jewish origin. id. p. , note. [ ] schechter, studies in judaism, , pp. - . [ ] it is found some time before boccaccio in the cento novelle antiche (no. or ) in a simpler form; but landau (p. ) thinks boccaccio's immediate source was the version of busone da gubbio (b. ), who had improved on the version in the cento novelle, while boccaccio in turn improved on him by treating the jew more tolerantly. bartoli (i precursori del boccaccio, , pp. - ) disputes any immediate debt to busone; as does owen, skeptics of the ital. renais., p. , note. [ ] burckhardt (renaissance in italy, p. , note) points out that boccaccio is the first to name the christian religion, his italian predecessors avoiding the idea; and that in one eastern version the story is used polemically against the christians. [ ] owen, p. , and refs. [ ] id. pp. - . he was even so far terrorized by the menaces of a monk (who appeared to him to have occult knowledge of some of his secrets) as to propose to give up his classical studies; and would have done so but for petrarch's dissuasion. petrarch's letter (epist. senil., i, ) is translated (lett. xii) by m. develay, lettres de péttrarque à boccace. [ ] gasquet, the great pestilence, , pp. , , , and refs. [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] probably , in england alone, including monks. id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - , , . [ ] below, § . [ ] as to his anti-clericalism, cp. gebhart, orig. de la renais., p. , and ref.; owen, p. . [ ] cp. rashdall, universities in the middle ages, i, . [ ] see the exposition of owen, pp. - . and refs. on p. . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . [ ] méziéres, pétrarque, , p. . [ ] it is to be noted that in his opposition to the scholastics he had predecessors. cp. gebhart, orig. de la renais., p. . [ ] owen, p. . it is to be remembered that dante also (convito, ii, , ; iii, ; iv, ) exalts reason; but he uses the word in the old sense of mere mentality--the thinking as distinguished from the sensuous element in man; and he was fierce against all resort to reason as against faith. petrarch was of course more of a rationalist. as to his philosophic skepticism, see owen, p. . he drew the line only at doubting those things "in which doubt is sacrilege." nevertheless he grounded his belief in immortality not on the christian creed, but on the arguments of the pagans (burckhardt, p. ). [ ] epist. sine titulo, cited by renan, averroès, p. . for the phrases put in averroës' mouth by christians, see pp. - . [ ] inferno, iv, . [ ] renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - ; cantù, gli eretici d'ltalia, i, and refs. [ ] renan, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] justinger, cited in the pope and the council, eng. tr. p. . [ ] hardwick, p. , note. [ ] cp. bonnechose, reformers before the the reformation, eng. tr. , i, - . [ ] "janus" (i.e. döllinger), the pope and the council, eng. tr. nd ed. , pp. - . this weighty work, sometimes mistakenly ascribed to huber, who collaborated in it, was recast by commission and posthumously published as das papstthum, by j. friedrich, münchen, . [ ] hallam, middle ages, th ed. ii, ; lea, hist. of the inquis., i, - ; gieseler, § (ii, ); freytag, bilder aus der deutschen vergangenheit, te aufl. ii, - . [ ] the pope and the council, p. . for proofs see same work, pp. - . [ ] "la satire est la plus complète manifestation de la pensée libre au moyen âge. dans ce monde ou le dogmatisme impitoyable au sein de l'Église et de l'école frappe comme hérétique tout dissident, l'esprit critique n'a pas trouvé de voie plus sûre, plus rapide et plus populaire, que la parodie" (lenient, la satire en france au moyen âge, , p. ). [ ] cp. lenient, as cited, p. . [ ] see in symonds's renaissance in italy, vol. i (age of the despots), ed. , pp. - , and appendix iv, on "religious revivals in medieval italy." those revivals occurred from time to time after savonarola. [ ] cp. villari, machiavelli, i, . [ ] gieseler, per. iii. div. iii, § ; lea, hist. of inquis., ii, - . [ ] kurtz, i, - . [ ] lea, i, - . cp. ullmann, reformers before the reformation, eng. tr. ii, - ; and mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § , and notes. the doctrine of the treatise de novem rupibus is that of an educated thinker, and is in parts strongly antinomian, but always on pantheistic grounds. [ ] lea, i, - . [ ] cp. reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung, ii, - . [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - , and notes; ch. v, § . the names beguin and beghard seem to have been derived from the old german verb beggan, to beg. in the netherlands, beguine was a name for women; and beghard for men. [ ] see the record in lea, hist. of the inquisition, bk. iii, chs. i-iii. [ ] praised in the roman de la rose, eng. vers. in skeat's chaucer, i, ; bell's ed. iv, . william was answered by the dominican thomas aquinas. [ ] see biog. introd. to ed. of the philobiblon by e. c. thomas, , pp. xliii-xlvii. [ ] c. , querimonia librorum contra clericos jam promotos; c. , ... contra religiosos possessionatos; c. , ... contra religiosos mendicantes. [ ] ed. thomas, as cited, pp. xlvi-vii. [ ] cp. mosheim, c. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - ; hallam, middle ages, ch. vii, pt. ; gebhart, origines de la renais., p. ; berington, lit. hist. of the middle ages, p. ; lea, hist. of inq., bk. iii, ch. i. the special work of the dominicans was the establishment everywhere of the inquisition. mosheim, as last cited, ch. v, §§ - , and notes; lea, ii, - ; milman, latin christianity, ix, - ; llorente, hist. crit. de l'inquis. en espagne, as cited, i, - , , etc. [ ] as to the development of the beguines from an original basis of charitable co-operation see ullmann, reformers before the reformation, ii, ; lea, ii, . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] see the thirteenth-century memoirs of fra salimbene, eng. tr. in t. k. l. oliphant's the duke and the scholar, , pp. , - , - , , . [ ] the introduction to the book, probably written by the franciscan gerhard, made st. francis the angel of rev. xiv, ; and the ministers of the new order were to be his friars. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - , and notes. cp. lea, as cited; and hahn, gesch. der ketzer im mittelalter, - , iii, - --a very full account of joachim's teaching. [ ] lea, iii, - . [ ] le clerc, hist. litt. de la france, xx, ; milman, latin christianity, ix, . [ ] averroès, pp. - . [ ] cp. mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § ; and burnet's letters, ed. rotterdam, , p. . [ ] cp. milman, latin christianity, ix, - . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] hardwick, p. ; lea, iii, ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ - . a sect of apostolici had existed in asia minor in the fourth century. kurtz, i, . cp. lea, i, , note. those of the twelfth century were vehemently opposed by st. bernard. [ ] lea, iii, - . [ ] lea, p. ; kurtz, i, ; hardwick, p. , note; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § , and note. see dante, inferno, xxviii, - , as to dolcino. [ ] lea, p. . [ ] as to the external movements connected with joachim's gospel see mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ - . they were put down by sheer bloodshed. cp. ueberweg, i, ; lea, pp. - , . [ ] hist. de france, vol. x; la réforme, ed. , p. . [ ] see the author's notes to his ed. of buckle (routledge), , pp. , . [ ] u. r. burke, history of spain, hume's ed. i, - . [ ] mccrie, reformation in spain, ed. , p. ; burke, as cited, ii, - . [ ] lea, hist. of the inquisition, i, . [ ] burke, i, . [ ] hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ii, - . [ ] id. ii, . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] personally he discouraged heresy-hunting. burke, ii, . [ ] burke, i, - ; dunham, hist. of spain and portugal, , iv, . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] burke, ii, . [ ] lea, ii, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] burke, ii, - . [ ] lea, iii, - . [ ] id. pp. - ; mccrie, reformation in spain, p. . [ ] bonet-maury, les précurseurs de la réforme, , pp. - . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] burke, ii, . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] lea, iii, . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] lea, ii, ; burke, ii, - . [ ] burke, ii, , citing lafuente, ix, . [ ] id. citing bergenroth, calendar, etc. i, . [ ] even as late as , in aragon, when in a riot against the inquisition the inquisitors barely escaped with their lives. burke, ii, , note. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] there had previously been sharp social persecution by the cortès, in , on "anti-semitic" grounds, the jews being then debarred from all the professions, and even from commerce. they were thus driven to usury by christians, who latterly denounce the race for usuriousness. cp. michelet, hist. de france, x, ed. , p. , note. [ ] the number has been put as high as , . cp. f. d. mocatta, the jews and the inquisition, , p. ; e. la rigaudière, hist. des perséc. relig. en espagne, , pp. - ; prescott, hist. of ferdinand and isabella, kirk's ed. , p. ; and refs. in ed. of buckle cited, p. . [ ] llorente, hist. crit. de l'inquis. en espagne, ed. , i, . as to llorente's other estimates, which are of doubtful value, cp. prescott's note, ed. cited, p. . but as to llorente's general credit, see the vindication of u. r. burke, ii, - . [ ] llorente, i, . [ ] mccrie, reformation in spain, ch. viii. [ ] cp. la rigaudière, pp. - ; buckle, as cited, pp. , ; u. r. burke, i, , . [ ] cp. Émile charles, roger bacon, paris, , p. . [ ] cp. hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ptie. ii, , vol. ii, p. . [ ] this sum of libri has been taken by english writers to stand for english "pounds." it may however have represented parisian livres. [ ] prof. brewer, introd. to opera inedita of roger bacon, , pp. xiv-xxiii. [ ] id. p. xlvi. [ ] id. p. xxx, sq. [ ] id. pp. liv-lv. [ ] compendium philosophiæ, cap. i, in op. ined., pp. - . [ ] id. p. . cp. p. as to the multitude of theologians at paris banished for sodomy. [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. cc. ii-v, pp. - . [ ] brewer, p. xciii, note, cites this in an extract from the chronicle of antoninus, archbishop of florence, a late writer of the fifteenth century, who "gives no authority for his statement." dr. bridges, however, was enabled by m. sabatier to trace the passage back to the ms. chronica xxiv generalium ordinis minorum, which belongs to the first half of the fourteenth century; and the passage, as m. sabatier remarks, has all the appearance of being an extract from the official journal of this order. (bridges, the "opus majus" of roger bacon, suppl. vol. , p. .) [ ] "il etait né rebelle." "le mépris systématique de l'autorité, voilà vraiment ce qu'il professe." (hauréau, ptie. ii, ii, , .) [ ] see the sympathetic accounts of baden powell, hist. of nat. philos. , pp. - ; white, warfare of science with theology, i, - . [ ] erdmann, history of philosophy, eng. tr. rd ed. i, . [ ] humboldt, examen crit. de l'hist. de la géographie, - , i, - , gives the passages in the opus majus and the imago mundi, and paraphrase of the latter in columbus's letter to ferdinand and isabella from jamaica (given also in p. l. ford's writings of christopher columbus, , p. sq.). cp. ellis's note to francis bacon's temporis partus masculus, in ellis and spedding's ed. of bacon's works, iii, . it should be remembered in this connection that columbus found believers, in the early stage of his undertaking, only in two friars, one a franciscan and one a dominican. see ford's ed. of the writings, p. . [ ] cp. hauréau, ptie. ii, ii, . [ ] opus majus, pars ii, cap. . [ ] renan, averroès, p. . bacon mentions averroës in the opus majus, p. i, cc. , ; p. ii, c. ; ed. bridges, iii ( ), , , . in the passage last cited he calls him "homo solidae sapientiae, corrigens multa priorum et addens multa, quamvis corrigendus sit in aliquibus, et in multis complendus." [ ] see the careful notice by prof. adamson in dict. of nat. biog. cp. milman, latin christianity, ix, - ; lewes, hist. of philos. ii, - . [ ] two englishmen, the carmelite john of baconthorpe (d. ) and walter burleigh, were among the orthodox averroïsts; the latter figuring as a realist against william of occam. [ ] legend of good women, ll. - ; parliament of fowls, ll. - . [ ] prologue to the canterbury tales, ( ). [ ] id. - ( - ). cp. tale of the wife of bath; - . [ ] legend of good women, prol. ll. - ; knight's tale, ll. - ( - of ms. group a). [ ] the notion connects with the spurious ploughman's tale and pilgrim's tale, as to which see lounsbury, as cited, i, - ; ii, - . [ ] vision of piers ploughman, ll. sq. wright's ed. i, - . [ ] chaucer's boece, b. i. prose iv. ll. - , in skeat's student's chaucer. [ ] mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § , and note. cp. green, short history of the english people, ch. v, § , ed. , p. . [ ] cp. green, short hist. ch. v, § ; massingberd, the english reformation, p. . [ ] cited by lechler, wycliffe and his english precursors, eng. tr. -vol. ed. p. . [ ] cp. prof. montagu burrows, wiclif's place in history, , p. . maitland (eight essays, ) suggested derivation from the movement of abbot joachim and others of that period. [ ] wilkins' concilia, ii, . [ ] cp. vaughan, as cited by hardwick, church history: middle age, p. . [ ] hardwick, pp. , . the doctrine of purgatory was, however, soon renounced by the lollards (id. p. ). [ ] see the passages cited in lewis's life of wiclif, ed. , pp. - . cp. burrows, as cited, p. ; le bas, life of wiclif, , pp. - . [ ] lechler, wycliffe and his eng. precursors, pp. - ; hardwick, p. . [ ] cp. green, short history, ch. v, § . [ ] lechler, p. . it forms bk. vi of wiclif's theological summa. [ ] baxter, in his address "to the doubting and unbelieving readers" prefixed to his reasons of the christian religion, , names savonarola, campanella, ficinus, vives, mornay, grotius, cameron, and micraelius as defenders of the faith, but no writer of the fourteenth century. [ ] cp. le bas, pp. - ; and hardwick, church hist.: middle age, p. . [ ] lechler, p. . [ ] blunt, reformation of the church of england, , i, , and refs. [ ] it is noteworthy that french culture affected the very vocabulary of dante, as it did that of his teacher, brunetto latini. cp. littré, etudes sur les barbares et le moyen âge, e édit. pp. - . the influence of french literature is further seen in boccaccio, and in italian literature in general from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. gebhart, pp. - . [ ] saintsbury, short hist. of french lit. , p. . [ ] passage not translated in the old eng. version. [ ] cp. lenient, pp. - . [ ] lenient, p. . [ ] this declaration, as it happens, is put in the mouth of "false-seeming," but apparently with no ironical intention. [ ] lanson, hist. de la litt. française, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] duruy, hist. de france, ed. , i, - ; gebhart, orig. de la renais. pp. , , - , - , - ; le clerc and renan, hist. litt. de la france au xive siècle, i, ; ii, ; littré, Études, as cited, pp. - . [ ] duruy, i, sq., ; gebhart, pp. - ; morin, origines de la démocratie: la france au moyen âge, e édit. , p. sq. [ ] cp. michelet, hist. de france, vii, renaissance, introd. § ii. between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, he insists, "le jour baisse horriblement." [ ] ozanam, dante, e édit. pp. , , - . [ ] littré, Études, as cited, pp. - . [ ] le clerc, as cited, p. ; gebhart, pp. - . [ ] sir james f. stephen, horæ sabbaticæ, , i, . [ ] the italians said of the french pope clement vi ( - ) that he had small religion. m. villani, cronica, iii, (ed. ). [ ] cp. dr. t. arnold, lect. on mod. hist. th ed. pp. - ; buckle, vol. ed. i, - ( -vol. ed. p. ); stephen, as cited, i, . "it is hardly too much to say that comines's whole mind was haunted at all times and at every point by a belief in an invisible and immensely powerful and artful man whom he called god" (last cited). [ ] buckle, i, ( -vol. ed. p. ). [ ] buckle, ii, ( -vol. ed. p. ); hallam, middle ages, iii, - . religious ceremonies were attached to the initiation of knights in the th century. seignobos, hist. de la civilisation, ii, . [ ] duruy, i, , - . cp. j. jolly, philippe le bel, , l. iii, ch. iv, p. . it is to be remembered that philippe had for years been sorely pressed for money to retrieve his military disasters. see h. hervieu, recherches sur les premiers états généraux, , pp. sq., sq. he used his ill-gotten gains to restore the currency, which he had debased. id. pp. - . [ ] hauréau, hist. de la philos. scolastique, ptie ii, vol. ii, - . [ ] poole, illustrations, p. . cp. villari, life and times of machiavelli, ii, - ; tullo massarani, studii di politica e di storia, a ed. , pp. - ; neander, ch. hist. eng. tr. , ix, . [ ] poole, pp. - . cp. hardwick, church history, middle age, , pp. - . [ ] ueberweg, i, - . [ ] "his (occam's) philosophy is that of centuries later." (milman, latin christianity, ix, . cp. pp. - .) [ ] cp. hardwick, p. , and rettberg, as there cited. [ ] milman, latin christianity, ix, - ; mosheim, c. pt. ii, ch. iii, § . as to his religious bigotry, see milman, p. , notes. [ ] ueberweg, i, - ; cp. poole, illustrations, pp. - . [ ] james mill, analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, ed. , i, - . [ ] cp. ueberweg, p. . mr. poole's judgment (p. ) that occam "starts from the point of view of a theologian" hardly does justice to his attitude towards theology. occam had indeed to profess acceptance of theology; but he could not well have made less account of its claims. [ ] ueberweg, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. ib. [ ] poole, p. . [ ] ullmann, reformers before the reformation, i, , citing john of goch, de libertate christiana, lib. i, cc. , . compare the averroïst propositions of - , given above, pp. - . [ ] lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, - (eng. tr. i, - ). [ ] reuter, gesch. der religiösen aufklärung im mittelalter, i, . [ ] gervinus, gesch. der deutschen dichtung, te ausg. i, - . even in the period before the minnesingers the clerical poetry had its anti-clerical side. id. p. . towards the end of the th century nigellus wireker satirized the monks in his brunellus, seu speculum stultorum. menzel, gesch. der deutschen, cap. . see menzel's note, before cited, for a remarkable outbreak of anti-clerical if not anti-christian satire, in the form of sculpture in an ancient carving in the strasburg cathedral. [ ] reuter, gesch. der relig. aufklärung, ii, - ; gervinus, i, ; ii, ; kurtz, gesch. der deutschen litteratur, , i, , col. . [ ] milman, latin chr., ix, . albert was an aristotelian--a circumstance which makes sad havoc of menzel's proposition (geschichte, cap. ) that the "german spirit" did not take naturally to aristotle. menzel puts the fact and the theory on opposite pages. [ ] milman, latin christianity, ix, . cp. p. . [ ] for a full account of eckhart's teaching see dr. a. lasson's monograph (§ ) in ueberweg's hist. of philos., i, - ; also ullmann, reformers before the ref., ii, - . cp. lea, hist. of inquis., ii, - , - , as to the sects. as to tauler, see milman, ix, - . he opposed the more advanced pantheism of the beghards. id. p. . [ ] in the years following its publication there were published over , separate editions. [ ] bk. i, ch. ii, , . [ ] bk. i, ch. iii. , . [ ] id. § . [ ] j. a. symonds writes that in the age of dante, petrarch, and boccaccio "what we call the renaissance had not yet arrived" (renaissance in italy: age of the despots, ed. , p. ). [ ] cp. renan, averroès, e édit. pp. - , ; lewes, hist. of philos., th ed. ii, ; reuter, gesch. der relig. aufklärung im mittelalter, i, - . it is noteworthy that the troubadour, austore d'orlac, in cursing the crusades and the clergy who promoted them, suggests that the christians should turn moslems, seeing that god is on the side of the unbelievers (gieseler, per. iii. div. iii, § , note ). [ ] cp. burckhardt, civ. of the renais. in italy, eng. tr. ed. , pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] hardwick, p. , note. [ ] cp. hardwick, p. ; "janus," the pope and the council, p. . [ ] burckhardt, p. , note. [ ] villari, life and times of machiavelli, eng. tr. rd ed. vol. i, introd. p. . cp. burckhardt, pp. , . [ ] as to its history see "janus," the pope and the council, p. sq. [ ] villari, as last cited, pp. , . [ ] it is noteworthy, however, that he did not detect, or at least did not declare, the spuriousness of the text of the three witnesses (hallam, lit. of europe, iii, , note). here the piety of alfonso, who knew his bible by heart, may have restrained him. [ ] see the passages transcribed by hallam, lit. of europe, i, . [ ] villari, as last cited, pp. - . [ ] cp. gebhart, renaissance en italie, pp. - ; burckhardt, pp. - ; lea, hist. of the inquisition, i, - . "the authors of the most scandalous satires were themselves mostly monks or benficed priests." (burckhardt, p. .) [ ] burckhardt, pp. - ; j. a. symonds, renaissance in italy: the age of the despots, ed. , p. ; villari, life of machiavelli, i, . [ ] see it well analysed by owen, pp. - . cp. hallam, lit. of europe, i, . m. perrens describes pulci as "emancipated from all belief"; but holds that he "bantered the faith without the least design of attacking religion" (la civilisation florentine, p. ). but cp. villari, life of machiavelli, i, - . [ ] owen, p. . so also hunt, and the editor of the parnaso italiano, there cited. [ ] below, § . [ ] above, p. . [ ] lea, ii, - . cp. pp. - . [ ] burckhardt, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. , note. [ ] cp. r. c. christie's essay, "pomponatius--a skeptic," in his selected essays and papers, , pp. - ; renan, averroès, pp. - . [ ] comm. in aristot. de gen. et corr., lib. i, fol. g. cited by ellis in note on bacon, who quotes a version of the phrase in the de augmentis, b. v, end. as to nifo see nourrisson, machiavel, , ch. xii. [ ] as to ribald blasphemies by the roman clergy see erasmus, epist. xxvi, (ed. le clerc), cited by hardwick, church history: middle age, p. , note. [ ] lit. hist. of europe, i, . following eichhorn, hallam notes vindications by marsilio ficino, alfonso de spina (a converted jew), Æneas sylvius, and pico di mirandola; observing that the work of the first-named "differs little from modern apologies of the same class." [ ] cp. ranke, history of the popes, bohn tr. ed. , i, . [ ] epist. above cited; burigni, vie d'erasme, , i, - . [ ] paul canensius, cited by ranke. [ ] this view seems to solve the mystery as to perugino's creed. vasari (ed. milanesi, iii, ) calls him "persona di assai poca religione." mezzanotte (della vita di p. vanucci, etc. , p. sq.) indignantly rejects the statement, but notes that in ciatti's ms. annals of perugia, ad ann. , the mind of the painter is said to have been come una tavola rasa in religious matters. mezzanotte holds that pietro has been there confounded with a later perugian painter. [ ] leonardo da vinci, frammenti letterari e filosofici, trascelti par dr. edmondo solmi. firenze, . pensieri sulla scienza, , . [ ] ib. , , , , . [ ] ib. - , . [ ] some of the humanists called him unlettered (omo senza lettere), and he calls them gente stolta, a foolish tribe. [ ] ib. , , , , , , , etc. [ ] ib. . [ ] ib. . [ ] ib. . [ ] ib. . cp. - . [ ] id. pensieri sulla natura. - . [ ] shortly after leonardo we find girolamo fracastorio ( - ) developing the criticism further, and in particular disposing of the futile formula, resorted to by the scientific apriorists of the time, that the "plastic force of nature" created fossils like other things. [ ] id. pensieri sulla morale, passim. [ ] ib. . [ ] ib. , . [ ] ib. , . [ ] cp. burckhardt, pp. , , notes; villari, life of machiavelli, i, . "it was easy to see by his words that he hoped for the restoration of the pagan religion" (id. life of savonarola, eng. tr. p. ). [ ] only a few fragments of it survive. villari, life of savonarola, p. . [ ] carriere, philos. weltanschauung der reformationszeit, , p. . [ ] cp. villari, life of machiavelli, i, - . [ ] cp. perrens, hist. de florence ( - ), i, . [ ] id. p. . cp. villari, machiavelli, i, ; savonarola, p. . [ ] "of the majority of the twenty-two languages he was supposed to have studied, he knew little more than the alphabet and the elements of grammar" (villari, machiavelli, i, ). as to pico's character, which was not saintly, see perrens, histoire, as cited, i, - . [ ] cp. greswell, memoirs of politianus, picus, etc. nd ed. , ; mccrie, the reformation in italy, ed. , p. , note. [ ] greswell, pp. - . [ ] cp. k. m. sauer, gesch. der italien. litteratur, , p. ; villari, machiavelli, i, . [ ] villari, machiavelli, i, . [ ] greswell, pp. - . [ ] discorsi sopra tito livio, i, . [ ] istorie fiorentine, liv. i; discorsi, i, . [ ] discorsi, ii, . [ ] for another point of view see owen, as cited, p. . [ ] in the italian translation of bacon's essays, made for bacon in by an english hand, machiavelli is branded in one passage as an impio, and in another his name is dropped. see routledge ed. of bacon's works, pp. , . the admiring paolo giovio called him irrisor et atheos; and cardinal pole said the prince was so full of every kind of irreligion that it might have been written by the hand of satan (nourrisson, machiavel, , p. ). [ ] burckhardt, pp. - . cp. owen, pp. - . it is thus impossible to be sure of the truth of the statement of gregorovius (lucrezia borgia, eng. tr. , p. ) that "there were no women skeptics or freethinkers; they would have been impossible in the society of that day." where dissimulation of unbelief was necessarily habitual, there may have been some women unbelievers as well as many men. [ ] owen's characterization of machiavelli's asino d'oro as a "satire on the freethought of his age" (p. ) will not stand investigation. see his own note, p. . [ ] discorsi, i, . [ ] as we saw, polybius in his day took a similar view, coming as he did from greece, where military failure had followed on a certain growth of unbelief. machiavelli was much influenced by polybius. villari, ii, . [ ] cp. tullo massarani, studii di letteratura e d'arte, , p. . [ ] discorsi, i, . [ ] id. i, , end. [ ] villari, ii, - . [ ] burckhardt, p. ; owen, p. , and refs. [ ] owen, p. . see the whole account of guicciardini's rather confused opinions. [ ] though italy had most of what scientific knowledge existed. burckhardt, p. . [ ] "a man might at the same time be condemned as a heretic in spain for affirming, and in italy for denying, the reality of the witches' nightly rides" (the pope and the council, p. ). [ ] the pope and the council, pp. - . it was another spina who wrote on the other side. [ ] f. fiorentino, pietro pomponazzi, , p. . [ ] owen, pp. - ; renan, averroès, pp. - ; christie, as cited, p. . [ ] cp. owen, pp. , ; lange, i, - (tr. i, - ). he, however, granted that the mass of mankind, "brutish and materialized," needed the belief in heaven and hell to moralize them (christie, pp. - ). [ ] this principle, though deriving from averroïsm, and condemned, as we have seen, by pope john xxi, had been affirmed by so high an orthodox authority as albertus magnus. cp. owen, pp. - , note. while thus officially recognized, it was of course denounced by the devout when they saw how it availed to save heretics from harm. mr. owen has well pointed out (p. ) the inconsistency of the believers who maintain that faith is independent of reason, and yet denounce as blasphemous the profession to believe by faith what is not intelligible by philosophy. [ ] owen, pp. , note. "son école est une école de laïques. de médecins, d'esprits forts, de libres penseurs" (bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartèsienne, , i, ). [ ] owen. p. ; christie, p. . [ ] christie, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] burckhardt, p. . [ ] gebhart, pp. - ; burckhardt, p. . [ ] cp. burckhardt, p. . [ ] burckhardt, pp. - ; villari, life of machiavelli, pp. - . [ ] burckhardt, pt. iii, ch. xi. [ ] dr. rashdall, the universities of europe in the middle ages, , i, . cp. renan, averroès, avert. [ ] schechter, studies in judaism, pp. , - . [ ] notice of bonaventure desperiers, by bibliophile jacob [i.e. lacroix], in ed. of cymbalum mundi, etc. [ ] for a solution of the enigma of the title see the clef of eloi johanneau in ed. cited, p. . cymbalum mundi was a nickname given in antiquity to (among others) an alexandrian grammarian called didymus--the name of doubting thomas in the gospel. the book is dedicated by thomas du clevier à son ami pierre tyrocan, which is found to be, with one letter altered (perhaps by a printer's error), an anagram for thomas incrédule à son ami pierre croyant, "unbelieving thomas to his friend believing peter." clef cited, pp. - . [ ] origen, against celsus, vi, . [ ] the readiness of piety in all ages to invent frightful deaths for unbelievers must be remembered in connection with this and other records. cp. notice cited, p. xx, and note. the authority for this is henri estienne, apologie pour hérodote, liv. i, chs. , end, and . [ ] so charles nodier, cited in the notice by bibliophile jacob, pp. xxiii-xxiv. the english translator of professed to see no unbelief in the book. [ ] perrens, les libertins en france au xviie siècle, , p. . [ ] notice historique in bibliophile jacob's ed. of rabelais, ; stapfer, rabelais, pp. , ; w. f. smith, biog. not. to his trans. of rabelais, , i, p. xxii. [ ] rathery, notice biog. to ed. of burgaud des marets, i, . jacob's account of his relations with his friends budé and amy at this stage is erroneous. see rathery, p. . [ ] le double, rabelais anatomiste et physiologiste, , pp. , ; and pref. by professor duval, p. xiii; stapfer, p. ; a. tilley, françois rabelais, , pp. - . [ ] in the same year he was induced to publish what turned out to be two spurious documents purporting to be ancient roman remains. see heulhard, rabelais légiste, and jacob, notice, p. xviii. [ ] rathery, p. . [ ] jacob, p. xix. [ ] as to this see tilley, p. . [ ] see it at the end of the ed. of bibliophile jacob. [ ] cp. stapfer, pp. - ; rathery, p. . [ ] rathery, p. . [ ] cp. jacob, notice, p. xxxviii; smith, ii, . [ ] rathery, p. ; stapfer, pp. - . [ ] stapfer, p. . [ ] jacob, p. xxxix. [ ] rathery, pp. - . the notion of lacroix, that rabelais visited england, has no evidence to support it. cp. rathery, p. , and smith, p. xxiii. [ ] cp. jacob, p. lx. ramus himself, for his attacks on the authority of aristotle, was called an atheist. cp. waddington, ramus, sa vie, etc., , p. . [ ] see the list in the avertissement of m. burgaud des marets to éd. firmin didot. cp. stapfer, pp. , . for example, the "theologian" who makes the ludicrous speech in liv. i, ch. xix, becomes (chs. and ) a "sophist"; and the sorbonistes, sorbonicoles, and sorbonagres of chs. and become mere maistres, magistres, and sophistes likewise. [ ] it is doubtful whether rabelais wrote the whole of the notice prefixed to the next edition, in which this attack was made; but it seems clear that he "had a hand in it" (tilley, françois rabelais, p. ). [ ] r. christie, Étienne dolet, pp. - . christie, in his vacillating way, severely blames dolet, and then admits that the book may have been printed while dolet was in prison, and that in any case there was no malice in the matter. this point, and the persistent catholic calumnies against dolet, are examined by the author in art. "the truth about Étienne dolet," in national reformer, june and , . [ ] epistre, pref. to liv. iv. ed. jacob, p. . [ ] cp. w. f. smith's trans. of rabelais, , ii, p. x. in this book, however, other hands have certainly been at work. rabelais left it unfinished. [ ] jacob, notice, p. lxiii; stapfer, p. . [ ] so rathery, p. ; and stapfer, p. . jacob, p. lxii, says he resigned only one. rathery makes the point clear by giving a copy of the act of resignation as to meudon. [ ] a discourse ... against nicholas machiavel, eng. tr. ( ), ed. , epist. ded. p. . [ ] liv. iv, ch. xliii. [ ] liv. iii, ch. xxiii. [ ] liv. iv, ch. xlv-xlviii. [ ] liv. iv, ch. xlix sq. [ ] liv. iv, ch. xxxii. [ ] prof. stapfer, rabelais, sa personne, son génie, son oeuvre, , pp. - . cp. the notice of bibliophile jacob, ed. of rabelais, pp. lvii-lviii; and perrens, les libertins, p. . in his youth he affirmed the doctrine. stapfer, p. . [ ] cp. rené millet, rabelais, , pp. - . [ ] liv. iii, ch. xxxvi. [ ] the description of him by one french biographer, m. boulmier (estienne dolet, ), as "le christ de la pensée libre" is a gross extravagance. dolet was substantially orthodox, and even anti-protestant, though he denounced the cruel usage of protestants. [ ] wallace (antitrinitarian biography, , ii. ) asserts that dolet "not only became a convert to the opinions of servetus, but a zealous propagator of them." for this there is not a shadow of evidence. [ ] cp. voltaire, lettres sur rabelais, etc. i. [ ] cp. author's art. above cited; r. c. christie, Étienne dolet, nd ed. , p. ; octave galtier, Étienne dolet (n.d.), pp. , , etc. [ ] christie, as cited, pp. - , - ; galtier, p. sq. [ ] it is to this that rabelais alludes (ii, ) when he tells how at toulouse they "stuck not to burn their regents alive like red herrings." [ ] christie, p. . [ ] liv. iii, ch. xxix. [ ] christie, p. . [ ] one of his enemies wrote of him that prison was his country--patria doleti. [ ] procès d'estienne dolet, paris, , p. ; galtier, pp. - ; christie, pp. - . [ ] procès, p. viii.; galtier, p. . [ ] galtier, p. sq.; christie, p. . [ ] a modern french judge, the president baudrier, was found to affirm that the laws, though "unduly severe," were "neither unduly nor unfairly pressed" against dolet! christie, p. . [ ] concerning whom see christie, as cited, pp. . [ ] tilley, as last cited, p. . [ ] christie, p. . [ ] christie, as cited, pp. - ; lutteroth, la reformation en france pendant sa première période, , pp. - ; prof. h. m. baird, rise of the huguenots, , i, sq. [ ] perrens, les libertins, p. ; patin, lettres, ed. reveillé-parise, , i, . [ ] wriothesley's chronicle (camden society, ), pp. - . [ ] nodier, quoted by bibliophile jacob in ed. of cymbalum mundi, as cited, p. xviii. [ ] cp. brantome, des dames illustres, oeuvres, ed. , ii, . [ ] bayle, dictionnaire, art. marguerite de navarre (the first), notes f and g. [ ] bayle, note n. cp. nodier, as cited, p. xix, as to the collaboration of desperiers and others. [ ] bayle, art. ronsard, note d. [ ] garasse, la doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, , pp. - . ronsard replied to the charge in his poem, des misères du temps. [ ] bayle, art. ronsard, note o. cp. perrens, les libertins, p. . [ ] ms. . first printed in by guhrauer, again in by l. noack. [ ] as before noted, he was one of the first to use the word. cp. lechler, geschichte des englischen deismus, pp. , , notes. [ ] bayle, art. bodin, note o. cp. renan, averroès, e édit. p. ; and the lettres de gui patin, iii, (letter of juillet, ), cited by perrens, les libertins, p. . leibnitz, in an early letter to jac. thomasius, speaks of the ms. of the colloquium, then in circulation, as proving its writer to be "the professed enemy of the christian religion," adding: "vanini's dialogues are a trifle in comparison." (philosophische schriften, ed. gerhardt, i, ; martineau, study of spinoza, p. .) carriere, however, notes (weltanschauung, p. ) that in later years leibnitz learned to prize bodin's treatise highly. [ ] cp. lecky, rationalism in europe, i, , - . in the république too he has a chapter on astrology, to which he leans somewhat. [ ] république, liv. iv, ch. ii. [ ] id. liv. iv, ch. vii. "bodin in this sophistry was undoubtedly insincere" (hallam, lit. of europe, ii, ). [ ] cp. perrens, les libertins. p. . [ ] cp. villemain, vie de l'hopital, in Études de l'hist. moderne, . pp. - , . [ ] buckle ( -vol. ed. ii, ; -vol. ed. p. ) errs in representing l'hopital as the only statesman of the time who dreamt of toleration. it is to be noted, on the other hand, that the huguenots themselves protested against any toleration of atheists or anabaptists; and even the reputed freethinker gabriel naudé, writing his science des princes, ou considérations politiques sur les coups d'état, in , defended the massacre on political grounds (owen, skeptics of the french renaissance, p. , note). bodin implicitly execrated it. cp. hallam, lit. of europe, ii, . [ ] villemain, p. . [ ] garasse, doctrine curieuse, pp. ~ ; mémoires de garasse, ed. ch. nisard, , pp. - ; perrens, p. . [ ] bibliophile jacob, introd. to beroalde de verville. [ ] estienne's full title is: l'introduction au traité de la conformité des merveilles, anciennes avec les modernes: ou, traité préparatif à l'apologie pour hérodote. [ ] apologie pour hérodote, ed. , pp. , (liv. i, chs. xiv, xviii.) cymbalum mundi, ed. bibliophile jacob, pp. xx, . [ ] the index was specially framed to call attention to these items. the entry, "fables des dieux des payens cousines germaines des legendes des saints," is typical. [ ] bayle, dictionnaire, art. castalion; hallam, lit. of europe, ii, ; lecky, rationalism in europe, ii, - . hallam finds castalio's letter to the duke of wirtemberg "cautious"; but lecky quotes some strong expressions from what he describes as the preface of martin bellius (castalio's pseudonym) to cluten's de haereticis persequendis, ed. . castalio died in . as to his translations from the bible, see bayle's note. [ ] hallam, ii, ; mccrie, reformation in italy, ed. , p. . [ ] even stähelin (johannes calvin, ii, ) condemns calvin's action and tone towards castalio, though he makes the significant remark that the latter "treated the bible pretty much as any other book." [ ] hatch, hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] burckhardt, p. . [ ] prof. fortunat strowski, histoire du sentiment religieux en france au e siècle, ptie i, de montaigne à pascal, , pp. - . [ ] "du vair ne songe pas au médiateur; s'il y a dans son traité des allusions à notre seigneur, le nom de jésus-christ ne s'y trouve, je crois bien, pas une fois. il songe encore moins aux pieux adjuvants qui excitent l'imagination; pas un mot de l'invocation des saints, pas un mot des sacrements" (strowski, as cited, p. ). [ ] cp. prof. thorold rogers, economic interpretation of history, p. . [ ] in the lollards were denounced under that name by the bishop of worcester as "eternally damned sons of antichrist." [ ] see the repressor, babington's ed. in the rolls series, , part ii. [ ] hook, lives of the archbishops (life of bourchier), , v, - . [ ] he repels, e.g., wiclif's argument that a priest's misconduct sufficed to destroy his right to his endowments. repressor, babington's ed. as cited, ii, . [ ] hook, as cited, v, . [ ] gardiner, student's history, p. . cp. green, ch. vi, § i, , pp. , ; stubbs const. hist., iii, - . [ ] cp. pauli, pictures of old england, eng. tr. routledge's rep. pp. - . [ ] pauli, p. . [ ] see arber's reprint. [ ] cp. souchay, gesch. der deutschen monarchie, - , iii, - . [ ] on this cp. souchay, pp. - . [ ] see a good synopsis in pünjer's history of the christian philosophy of religion, eng. tr. pp. - ; and another in moritz carriere's die philosophische weltanschauung der reformationszeit, , pp. - , which, however, is open to pünjer's criticism that it is coloured by modern hegelianism. [ ] dr. paul frédéricq, geschiedenis der inquisitie in de nederlanden, - , gent, - , ii, - . [ ] michelet, hist. de france, vii--éd. , pp. , . [ ] this name has many forms; and it is contended that sabieude is the correct one. see owen, evenings with the skeptics, , ii, . [ ] cp. hallam, introd. to lit. of europe, ed. , i, - , and the analysis in prof. dowden's montaigne, , p. sq. [ ] van hoogstraten, in frédéricq, as cited below. [ ] dr. frazer's assumption (golden bough, rd ed. pt. i, i, ) that magic assumes an invariable order of nature, is unsubstantiated even by his vast anthropological erudition. magic varies arbitrarily, and the idea of a fixed "order" does not belong to the magician's plane of thought. [ ] maury, la magie et l'astrologie, e éd. pp. - . [ ] "judicial astrology ... which supplanted and degraded the art of medicine" (prof. clifford allbutt, harveian oration on science and medieval thought, , app. p. ). there is a startling survival of it in the physiology of harvey. id. p. . [ ] heinrich cornelius agrippa von nettesheim. [ ] above, p. . [ ] who, however, was no rationalist, but an orientalizing mystic. cp. carriere, die philos. weltanschauung der reformationszeit, , pp. - . [ ] cp. ranke, hist. of the ref. in germany, bk. ii, ch. i (eng. tr. routledge's -vol. ed. , p. ). the point is fairly put by audin in the introduction to his histoire de luther. compare green: "the awakening of a rational christianity, whether in england or in the teutonic world at large, begins with the florentine studies of sir john colet" (short hist. ch. vi, § iv). colet, however, was strictly orthodox. ulrich von hutten spent five of the formative years of his life in italy. [ ] hamilton, discussions on philosophy and literature, , p. . [ ] as to the general resentment of the money drain cp. strauss, gespräche von ulrich von hutten, , vorrede, p. xiv, and the dialogues, pp. . . cp. ranke, bk. ii, ch. i (eng. tr. as cited, pp. - ). [ ] see ullmann, reformers before the reformation, passim. even the peasants' rising was adumbrated in the movement of hans böheim of nikleshausen (fl. ), whose doctrine was both democratic and anti-clerical. (work cited, ii, - ; cp. bezold, gesch. der deutschen reform. , ch. vii.) [ ] see guicciardini's analysis of the parties, cited by e. armstrong in the "cambridge modern history," vol. i, the renaissance, p. . [ ] burckhardt, civilization of the renaissance in italy, eng. tr. pp. - . [ ] see the sympathetic analysis of the book by villari, life of savonarola, eng. tr. pp. - , where it is much overrated. [ ] as to the education of the florentine common people in the fourteenth century cp. burckhardt, pp. - ; symonds, age of the despots, p. . [ ] cp. armstrong, as cited, pp. - . [ ] mccrie, reformation in italy, ed. , pp. - , . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. , citing reynald's annales, ad. ann. ; trechsel, lelio sozzini und die anti-trinitarier seiner zeit, , pp. - . [ ] mccrie reasons otherwise, from the fact that the sack of rome was by many catholics regarded as a divine judgment on the papacy; but he omits to mention the pestilence which followed and destroyed the bulk of the conquering army (menzel, gesch. der deutschen, cap. ). [ ] mccrie, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. pp. , , . mccrie thinks it useful to suggest (p. ) that anti-trinitarianism seems to have begun at siena, "whose inhabitants were proverbial among their countrymen for levity and inconstancy of mind"--citing dante, inferno, canto xxix, - . thus does theology illumine sociology. in a note on the same page the historian cites the testimony of melanchthon (epist. coll. , ) as to the commonness of "platonic and skeptical theories" among his italian correspondents in general; and quotes further the words of calvin, who for once rises above invective to explain as to heresy (opera, viii, ) that "in italis, propter rarum acumen, magis eminet." the historian omits, further, to trace german unitarianism to the levity of a particular community in germany. [ ] a. von reumont, the carafas of maddaloni, eng. tr. , pp. - ; mccrie, p. . it was not protestantism that made the revolt. the contemporary historian porzios states that the lutherans were so few that they could easily be counted. von reumont, as cited, p. . it was not heresy that moved the neapolitans, but the knowledge that perjurers could be found in naples to swear to anything, and that the machine would thus be made one of pecuniary extortion. [ ] mccrie, reformation in italy, p. . [ ] mccrie, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . this seems to have been one of the latest instances of enslavement in italy. as to the selling of many capuan women in rome after the capture of capua in , see burckhardt, p. , note. [ ] mccrie, pp. - . [ ] domenico orano, liberi pensatori bruciati in roma dal xvi al xviii secolo, roma, . giordano bruno is th in the list; and there are only eight more. the th case was in ; and the last--the burning of a dead body--in . [ ] orano, p. . [ ] signor orano gives the name as buzio, citing the italian translation of mccrie, and pronouncing cantù (ii, ) wrong in making it mollio. but in the ed. of mccrie's work the name is given (pp. - , - ) as john mollio. cantù then appears to have been right; but the date he gives, , seems to be a blunder. [ ] mccrie gives this name as tisserano. [ ] orano, p. ; mccrie, pp. - . [ ] mccrie, p. ; orano, p. . [ ] orano, pp. - . mccrie, p. , says he was strangled; but the official record is "fu mozza la testa." [ ] orano, p. . as to carnesecchi's career see mccrie, pp. - ; and babington's ed. of paleario, , introd. pp. lxv-lxvi. [ ] mccrie, p. . see trechsel, lelio sozzini, p. , as to baldo lupetino. [ ] as to whom see mccrie, pp. - , - , and the copious life and times of aonio paleario, by m. young. vols. . [ ] marini, galileo e l'inquisizione, roma, , p. , note. [ ] babington's ed. p. sq. [ ] it was afterwards unearthed, however; and babington's ed. ( ) is an almost facsimile reprint, with old french and english versions. [ ] cp. mccrie, pp. - . [ ] cp. mccrie, ref. in italy, ch. v; ref. in spain, ch. viii; green, short hist. pp. , . [ ] huss, in his youth, at first turned from wiclif's writings with horror. bonnechose, the reformers before the reformation, eng. tr. , i, . [ ] cp. krasinski, histor. sketch of the reformation in poland, , i, . [ ] krasinski, sketch of relig. hist. of slav. nations, ed. , pp. - . [ ] neander, ix, sq.; hardwick, pp. - . militz effected a remarkable reformation of life in prague. neander, p. . [ ] see the very intelligent survey of the situation in kautsky's communism in central europe in the time of the reformation, eng. tr. , p. sq. [ ] kautsky, p. . [ ] k. raumer, contrib. to the hist. of the german universities, new york, , p. ; dr. rashdall, universities of europe in the middle ages, vol. ii, pt. i, - ; bonnechose, i, ; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § ; gieseler, per. iii, div. v, § ; krasinski, as cited, pp. - . [ ] krasinski, sketch, p. ; kautsky, p. ; maclaine's note to mosheim, as last cited; rashdall, pp. - , . the exodus has been much exaggerated. only were enrolled at leipzig. [ ] many of these were of great beauty and value, and must have been owned by rich men. krasinski, sketch, p. . [ ] hardwick. p. . jerome caused the bull to be "fastened to an immodest woman," and so paraded through the town before being burnt. gieseler, iv, , note . [ ] bonnechose, ii, ; gieseler, as cited. [ ] see mosheim's very interesting note; and gieseler, iv, - . [ ] krasinski, p. . [ ] for an account of the devices of catholic historians to explain away the council's treachery see bonnechose, note e. to vol. i, p. . the council itself simply declared that faith was not to be kept with a heretic. id. p. ; gieseler, p. . [ ] bonnechose, ii, - . cp. krasinski, p. . [ ] kautsky, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] krasinski, p. . [ ] see their principles stated in kautsky, p. . [ ] Æneas sylvius, who detested the taborites, declared them to have only one good quality, the love of letters. letter to carvajal, cited by krasinski, p. , note. [ ] kautsky, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] kautsky, pp. - . see further the account of helchitsky's book in tolstoy's the kingdom of god is within you, ch. i. [ ] hist. of the prot. church in hungary (anon.), eng. tr. , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. pp. , , citing the chronicler thurnschwamm. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] hist. of the prot. church in hungary, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] called blandvater in the history above cited, which is copied in this error by hardwick. [ ] schlegel's note to mosheim, reid's ed. p. . [ ] cp. mosheim, last cit. [ ] hist. of the prot. church in hungary, p. . [ ] wallace, antitrinitarian biog. ii, - . schlegel, as cited. biandrata later gave up his unitarianism, turning either jesuit or protestant. he was murdered by his nephew for his money. wallace, ii, . [ ] history cited, p. . as to the persecutions see pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] krasinski, hist. of the reformation in poland, , i, - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] hist. of the reformation in poland, p. . [ ] id. i. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] hist. of the reformation in poland, i, - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. , , following wengierski; wallace, antitrin. biog. ii, art. . [ ] krasinski, pp. , , note. [ ] id. i, . [ ] id. p. , note. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] i.e., peter of goniond, a small town in podlachia. [ ] krasinski, i, - ; mosheim. cent. sect. iii, pt. ii, ch. iv, § ; and schlegel's and reid's notes. [ ] cp. mosheim, chapter last cited, § sq. [ ] krasinski, i, . [ ] wallace, antitrin. biog. ii, - . [ ] krasinski, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] krasinski, ref. in poland, ii, - ; rel. hist. of slav. nations, p. . [ ] lutteroth, la reformation en france pendant sa première période, p. . [ ] a. a. tilley, in vol. ii of camb. mod. hist. the reformation, ch. ix. p. . [ ] prof. h. m. baird, hist. of the rise of the huguenots, , i, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] tilley, as cited, p. . [ ] lutteroth, pp. - . [ ] tilley, p. . the translation was notable as a revision of the vulgate version, which was printed side by side with it. [ ] lutteroth, pp. - ; baird, i, . [ ] michelet, hist. de france, tom. x, la réforme, ch. viii. [ ] lutteroth, p. . [ ] michelet. éd. , x, ; baird, i, , note. [ ] see baird, i, , note, as to the dates, which are usually put a year too early. [ ] baird, i, - , and note. [ ] id. p. . [ ] michelet, x, ; baird, i, - . [ ] lutteroth, p. ; michelet. x, . [ ] other such outrages followed, and did much to intensify persecution. [ ] erasmus had said that one pamphlet of béda's contained "eighty lies, three hundred calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies" (michelet, x, ). [ ] baird, i, - ; michelet, x, - . [ ] michelet, x, - . [ ] baird, i, . [ ] cp. tilley, p. . [ ] lutteroth, p. ; michelet, x, (giving the text of a contemporary record); baird, i, - --a very full account. [ ] see baird, i, , note, as to the authenticity of the utterance, which was doubted by voltaire. [ ] michelet, x, ; baird, i, . [ ] cit. by baird, i, , note. [ ] baird, i, - . [ ] it is endorsed by professor clifford, lectures and essays, nd ed. p. . [ ] hist. de la civ. en france, e édit. i, . [ ] see the case well made out by buckle, ch. viii-- -vol. ed. pp. - . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] stubbs, const. hist., rd ed. ii, , , . [ ] cp. froude, hist. of england, ed. , i, ; burnet, hist. of the reformation, nares' ed. i, - . henry, says burnet, "cherished churchmen more than any king in england had ever done." compare further shaftesbury, miscellaneous reflections, in the characteristics, misc. iii, ch. i, ed. , vol. iii, p. ; lea, hist. of the inquisition, as cited above, p. . [ ] rev. dr. j. h. blunt, the reformation of the church of england, ed. , i, - . wolsey was more patient with protestant heresy than henry ever was, though on his death-bed he counselled the king to put down the lutherans. [ ] cp. burnet, as cited, pref. p. xl, and p. ; heylyn, hist. of the ref. pref.; blunt, i, - . in the king had actually repudiated his debts, cancelling borrowings made under the privy seal, and thus setting an example to the catholic king philip ii in a later generation. [ ] heylyn, as cited, and i, - , ed. ; a. f. leach, english schools at the reformation, , pp. - ; j. e. g. de montmorency, state intervention in english education, , pp. - . [ ] the subject is treated at some length in the dynamics of religion, by "m. w. wiseman" (j. m. r.), , pp. - ; and in the saxon and the celt, pp. - . [ ] bishop stubbs, const. hist. of england, rd ed. iii, . cp. bishop creighton, the age of elizabeth, p. ; hallam, lit. of europe, i, . [ ] ranke, history of the popes, bohn tr. , p. ; hardwick, church history: reformation, ed. , p. . [ ] much of this has never been published. most of it is in a ms. codex of the city library at frankfurt. extracts in tentzel's supplementum historiæ gothanæ, , in the narratio de eobano hesso of j. camerarius, , etc. see strauss's ulrich von hutten, te aufl. , p. , n. (ed. , i, ) et seq. [ ] eccles. hist., bk. i, ch. iv. [ ] strauss, ulrich von hutten, as cited, pp. - ; bezold, gesch. der deutschen reformation, , p. . bezold describes mutianus as "der freigeistige kanonikus zu gotha," and points out, concerning his universalism, that "the historic christ thus slips through his fingers." [ ] bezold, as last cited. "here is the skepticism kept in the background by mutianus and celtis, popularized in the rudest way." [ ] briefe, ed. de wette, iii, . [ ] karl hagen, deutschlands lit. u. relig. verhältnisse im reformations-zeitalter, , ii, ; letter of capito to zwingli, ep. zwinglii i, ; f. c. baur, kirchengeschichte, iv, ; trechsel, die protestantischen antitrinitarier vor faustus socinus, - , i, - , ; wallace, antitrinitarian biography, , i, art. , , . [ ] schlegel's note to mosheim, reid's ed. p. ; baur, iv, ; trechsel, i, - . [ ] see a good account of him by beard, hibbert lectures on the reformation, p. sq. [ ] for an impartial criticism of their language see henderson's short hist. of germany, i, - . cp. baur, kirchengeschichte, iv, - ; a. f. pollard in camb. mod. hist. ii, - ; beard, hibbert lect. on the reformation, p. ; and kautsky, communism in central europe in the time of the reformation, eng. tr. , pp. - . [ ] kohlrausch, hist. of germany, eng. tr. p. . [ ] to the same effect menzel, gesch. der deutschen, capp. , . [ ] pollard, as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] ranke, as cited, pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. michelet, hist. de france, x, la réforme, ed. , pp. , . [ ] cp. burckhard, de ulrichi hutteni vita commentarius, , i, . for a general view see ranke, pp. - . [ ] jakob marx, die ursachen der schnellen verbreitung der reformation, , § . [ ] prof. j. m. vincent, in prof. s. m. jackson's huldreich zwingli, , p. . [ ] cp. ullmann, reformers before the reformation, i, ; ii, passim; mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § ; and bonet-maury's thesis, de opera scholastica fratrum vitæ communis, . [ ] burton, history of scotland, iii, - . but the end in view was probably, as burton half admits, the recruiting of the church. cp. cosmo innes, sketches of early scotch history, p. sq., and scottish legal antiquities, pp. - . [ ] menzel, cap. . [ ] menzel, cap. (ed. , p. ). [ ] ranke (p. ) becomes positively lyrical over the happy lot of the peasant who received luther's catechism ( ). "it contains enduring comfort in every affliction, and, under a slight husk, the kernel of truths able to satisfy the wisest of the wise." such declamation holds the place that ought to have been filled by an account of economic conditions. [ ] bishop stubbs, const. hist. of england, iii. . the bishop, however, holds that in the time of lollard prosperity the ability to read was widely diffused in england (p. ); and it seems certain that in the first half of the sixteenth century printing multiplied enormously. cp. michelet. hist. de france, x, ed. . p. sq. [ ] cp. willis, servetus and calvin, , bk. ii. ch. i; audin, histoire de calvin, éd. abrég. ch. xxiv-xxvii; and essay on "machiavelli and calvin" in the present writer's essays in sociology, . vol. i. [ ] werke., ed. walch. viii. (on ep. to galat.), cited by beard. [ ] id. viii, (on cor. xv). cp. other citations in beard, pp. - . [ ] green, short history, ch. vi, § v, p. . [ ] cp. stäbelin, johannes calvin, . ii, - . [ ] he was educated at basel and berne and at vienna university, and of all the leading reformers he seems to have had most knowledge of classical literature. hess, life of zwingle, eng. tr. , pp. - , following myconius and hottinger. [ ] chr. sigwart, ulrich zwingli, der charakter seiner theologie, mit besonderer rücksicht auf pico von mirandula, , pp. - . prof. jackson, huldreich zwingli, p. , note, states that sigwart later modified his views. [ ] so states melanchthon, cited by jackson, p. , note. cp. pp. , - . [ ] cited by jackson, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. , note. [ ] id. according to heylyn, the earl of warwick countenanced the zwinglians in his intrigues against the protector somerset; and their views were further welcomed by other nobles as making for the plundering of rich altars. hist. of the reform. of the ch. of eng., ed. . pref. p. vii. but heylyn appears to identify the zwinglians at this stage with the calvinists. cp. p. x. [ ] henry, das leben calvins, ii, kap. , and beilage (appendix not given in the english translation); stähelin, johannes calvin, , i, - . [ ] cp. calvin's letter to viret, july , (letters of calvin, ed. bonnet, eng. tr. , ii, ), where it is alleged that in the two pages "the whole of scripture is laughed at, christ aspersed, the immortality of the soul called a dream and a fable, and finally the whole of religion torn in pieces. i do not think he is the author of it," adds calvin; "but as it is in his handwriting he will be compelled to appear in his defence." [ ] stähelin, i, . henry avows that gruet was "subjected to the torture morning and evening during a whole month" (eng. tr. ii. ). other biographers dishonestly exclude the fact from their narratives. [ ] cp. calvin's letter to the seigneury of geneva, in letters, ii. - . [ ] henry, life of calvin, eng. tr. ii, - . gruet's fragment can hardly have been the de tribus impostoribus, inasmuch as calvin makes no mention of any reference to mohammed in his fragment, whereas the title of the other book proceeded on the specification of mohammed as well as jesus and moses. the existing treatise of that name, in any case, is of later date. of the famous treatise in question, which was not published till long afterwards, henry admits that it "professes to show tranquilly, and with regret, but without abuse," the fraudulent character of the three revealed religions. concerning gruet's essay he asks: "what are all the anti-christian writings of the french revolution compared with the hellish laughter which seemed to peal from its pages?" for this description he has not a line to cite. [ ] for instance, one man was accused of having blasphemed against a storm which terrified the pious. [ ] dändliker, geschichte der schweiz, - , ii, ; above, p. . [ ] mark pattison, essays, , ii, . [ ] dändliker, as cited, endorsing roget. cp. hallam, lit. of europe, i, , and hamilton, discus. on philos. and lit., nd ed. p. , as to the "dissolution of morals" in the lutheran world. [ ] mosheim, cent. sec. iii, pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ - ; audin, histoire de calvin, chs. xxix, xxx. [ ] histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, constance et mort de iean calvin, jadis ministre de geneue, receuilly par m. hierosme hermes bolsec, docteur médecin à lyon. lyon, . [ ] the reprint of bolsec's book prepared by m. l. f. chastel (lyon, ) appears to be faithful; but the catholic animus shown deprives the annotations of critical value. [ ] stähelin, ii, - . [ ] stähelin, ii, . arminius pointed to this letter as a proof that melanchthon had abandoned his early predestinarianism (declaratio of , xx. ; works of arminius, ed. nichols, i. ). but of course melanchthon had previously guarded himself in his loci communes ( ) and elsewhere. (id. pp. - .) [ ] stähelin, ii. . [ ] latinized name of miguel servedo, alias reves, born at tudela in navarre in , son of hernando villanueva, a notary of an aragonese family, of which villanueva had been the seat. the statement of de la roche that servetus was born in aragon, though long current, is now exploded. [ ] de la roche, mémoires de littérature, cited in an impartial history of servetus, , p. . [ ] christianismi restitutio, h.e. totius ecclesiæ apostolicæ ad sua limina vocatio in integrum, restituta cognitione dei, fidei christianæ, justificationis nostræ, regenerationis, baptismi, coenæ domini manducationis. restituto denique nobis regno coelesti, babylonis impia captivitate solutâ, et antichristo cum suis penitus destructo, . of this book de la roche ( ) knew of no printed copy, having read it solely in ms. perfect copies, however, are preserved in vienna and paris; and an imperfect one in edinburgh university library has been completed from the original draft, which has matter not in the printed copy. it has been pointed out that the book is not absolutely anonymous, inasmuch as it has at the end the initials m. s. v.--the v. standing for the name villanova or villanovanus, which he bore as a student at louvain and put on the title-pages of his scientific works; and servetus is actually introduced as an interlocutor in one of the dialogues. [ ] it is to be remembered, however, that he pronounced all trinitarians to be "veros atheos." history of servetus, p. . [ ] "mihi ob eam rem moriendum esse certo scio." [ ] melanchthon, epist., lib. i, ep. ; mccrie, reformation in italy, p. ; trechsel, lelio sozini, , pp. - . [ ] willis, servetus and calvin, , p. . [ ] see the careful account of dr. austin flint, of now york, in his pamphlet, rabelais as a physiologist, rep. from new york medical journal of june , . [ ] willis, p. . [ ] letter to farel, aug. . (letters, eng. tr. ii, ). cp. henry, ii, - . [ ] id. ch. xix. see the letter of trie, given in henry's life of calvin (eng. tr. ii, - ), with the admission that trie was in calvin's counsels. henry vainly endeavours to make light (pp. - ) of calvin's written words to farel concerning servetus: "si venerit, modo valeat mea autoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar." still, it must in fairness be remembered that trie, by his own account, persuaded calvin, who was reluctant, to his act of complicity with the inquisitors of lyons. cp. bossert, calvin, pp. - . [ ] willis, ch. xx. cp. pp. , . the defence of calvin in mackenzie's life ( , p. ) on the score that he was not likely to communicate with catholic officials does not meet the case as to trie. and cp. p. . [ ] ten years after the death of servetus, calvin calls him a "dog and wicked scoundrel" (willis, p. ; cp. hist. of servetus, p. , citing calvin's comm. on acts xx); and in his commentary on genesis (i, , ed. , p. ) he says of him: "latrat hic obscoenus canis." and servetus had asked his pardon at the end. [ ] white, warfare of science with theology, , i, ; history of servetus, , p. sq.: willis, servetus and calvin, p. . [ ] wallace, antitrinitarian biography, i, . [ ] see stähelin, johannes calvin, ii, - . [ ] f. a. cox. life of melanchthon, , pp. - ; willis, pp. , . [ ] table talk, ch. . cp. michelet's life of luther, eng. tr. , pp. - ; and hallam, lit. of europe, i, - . michelet's later enthusiasm for luther (hist. de france, x, ch. v, ed. , pp. - ) is oblivious of many of the facts noted in his earlier studies. [ ] bayle, art. gribaud; christie, Étienne dolet, nd ed. pp. - . wallace, antitrinitarian biography, ii, art. . [ ] benrath, bernardino ochino of siena, eng. tr. . pp. - , - . [ ] mccrie, p. ; audin, ch. xxxv; benrath, bernardino ochino, p. . [ ] cp. pusey, histor. enquiry into ger. rationalism, , p. sq.; beard, p. . [ ] stähelin, ii. . biandrata went to hungary, where, as we saw (p. ), he turned persecutor, and then protestant. [ ] mosheim, cent. sec. iii, pt. ii, ch. iv, § ; audin, pp. - ; aretius, short hist. of valentinus gentilis, eng. tr. ; stähelin, ii, - ; wallace, antitrinitarian biography, ii, art. . [ ] see the historical account of his life and trial in the harleian miscellany, iv, sq. [ ] see stähelin, ii, , , etc. [ ] cp. menzel, geschichte der deutschen, te aufl. cap. ; a. f. pollard, in cam. mod. hist., vol. ii, ch. vii, p. ; the dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] see beard, hibbert lectures, pp. - , . the same avowal was made in the eighteenth century by mosheim ( cent. sec. iii, pt. ii, § ). [ ] f. a. cox, life of melanchthon, , p. , citing adam, vitæ philosophorum (p. ). cp. pp. - . [ ] k. von raumer, as cited, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - ; pusey, as cited, p. . [ ] dändliker, geschichte der schweiz, ii, - , sq., - . [ ] see the extracts in beard's hibbert lectures, pp. - . [ ] menzel, geschichte der deutschen, cap. . [ ] cp. hamilton, discussions in philosophy and literature, , pp. - , note. [ ] mosheim, reid's ed. pp. - . such solutions were common in papal polity. id. p. . [ ] bishop schuster, johann kepler und die grossen kirchlichen streitfragen seiner zeit, , p. sq. it is noteworthy that kepler's mother was sentenced for witchcraft, and saved by the influence of her son. johann keppler's leben und werken nach neuerlich aufgefundenen mss., von g. l. c. freiherrn von breitschwert, , p. sq. [ ] "there is much reason to believe that the fetters upon scientific thought were closer under the strict interpretation of scripture by the early protestants than they had been under the older church" (white, warfare of science with theology, i, ). concerning the protestant hostility to the copernican system and to kepler, see schuster, as cited, pp. sq., sq. [ ] white, as cited, i, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] menzel, cap. ; dändliker, geschichte der schweiz, , ii, . the cantons of glarus, outer appenzell, st. gall, and the grisons formally rejected the gregorian calendar. id. ib. zschokke (des schweizerlands geschichte, te ausg. , p. ) implies that the protestants in general ignored it. ranke (hist. of the popes, bohn tr. , i, ) mentions that "all catholic nations took part in this reform." [ ] blunt, ref. of the church of england, ed. , ii, . of the twenty-six cathedrals in the reign of henry viii, thirteen had been monastic churches, and these were "razed to the smallest possible dimensions as to number and endowments." id. p. . [ ] strype's memorials of cranmer, ed. , ii, . [ ] blunt, i, - . [ ] original letters relative to the english reformation, parker society, , i, . [ ] bishop burnet (exposition of the thirty-nine articles, art. ) has given currency to the pretence that the words "saved by the law" are meant to exclude the sense "saved in the law," the latter salvation being allowed as possible. that there was no such thought on the part of the framers of the article is shown by the latin version, where the expression is precisely "in lege." burnet prints the latin, yet utterly ignores its significance. [ ] book ii of the utopia was written at antwerp, during his six months' stay there on an embassy. [ ] bk. ii, sec. "of the religions" (arber's ed. pp. - ; morley's ed. pp. - ). [ ] green, short history, ch. vi, § ; ed. p. . compare green's whole estimate. michelet's hostile criticism (x, ) is surprisingly inept. for the elements of naturalism in the utopia see bk. ii, sections "of their journeying" and "of the religions." [ ] cp. t. c. grattan, the netherlands, , pp. - . [ ] who, as it happened, avowed that "religion was almost extinct" in europe at the time of the rise of the lutheran and calvinistic heresies. concio xxviii. opera, vi, , ed. , cited by blunt, ref. of church of england, ed. , i, , note. [ ] cp. the works of arminius, ed. by james nichols, , i, , note. [ ] id. p. note. [ ] cp. schuster, as cited, pp. sq., sq. [ ] nichols's arminius, i, p. . [ ] hallam, lit. of europe, ii, - ; pattison, isaac casaubon, nd ed. pp. - . as to casaubon's own intolerance, however, see p. . [ ] hallam, ii, , . [ ] beard, hibbert lectures, p. . [ ] bayle, dictionnaire, art. viret, note d. [ ] calvin, scenting his heresy, warned him in (bayle, art. marianus socin, the first, note b); but they remained on surprisingly good terms till lelio's death in . cp. stähelin, johannes calvin, ii. - . [ ] cp. the english history of servetus, , p. , and trechsel, lelio sozzini und die antitrinitarier seiner zeit (bd. ii. of die protestantischen antitrinitarier), , pp. - . [ ] cited by trechsel, p. , note. [ ] cp. bayle, art. ochin; miss lowndes, michel de montaigne, p. ; owen, french skeptics, p. ; benrath, bernardino ochino of siena, eng. tr. , pp. - . mccrie mentions (ref. in italy, p. , note) that ochino's dialogue on polygamy has been translated and published in england "by the friends of that practice." (in . rep. .) [ ] above, pp. - , sermons (orthodox) by ochino were published in english in , and often reprinted. [ ] d'ewes, journals of parliament in the reign of elizabeth, , p. . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] the scholemaster, arber's rep. p. . [ ] e.g., work cited, pt. ii, max. , and max. , end. eng. tr. , pp. , . [ ] mark pattison, essay on joseph scaliger, in essays, routledge's ed. i, . [ ] when pattison declares that italian curiosity had bred "not secret unbelief but callous acquiescence" he sets up a spurious antithesis; and when he generalizes that in italy "men did not disbelieve the truths of the christian religion," he understates the case. he errs equally in the opposite direction when he alleges (ib. p. ) that in the france of montaigne "a philosophical skepticism had become the creed of all thinking men." such a difference between france and italy was impossible. [ ] see mccrie, reformation in italy, ed. , pp. - . [ ] trechsel, die protestantischen antitrinitarier vor faustus socinus, i ( ), ; mosheim, cent. rd sec. pt. ii, ch. iv, § . [ ] hallam, lit. of europe, ii, . [ ] art. acontius, in dict. of national biog. cp. j. j. tayler. retrospect of the religious life of england, nd ed. pp. - . as to the attack on latitudinarianism in the thirty-nine articles, see above, p. . [ ] bacon, adv. of learning, bk. i; filum labyrinthi, § (routledge ed. pp. , , ). [ ] cp. zeller, hist. de l'italie, pp. - ; green, short hist. ch. viii, § . [ ] mccrie, p. . it was said by scaliger that "in the time of pius iv [between paul iv and pius v] people talked very freely in rome." id. ib. note. "it was even considered characteristic of good society in rome to call the principles of christianity in question. 'one passes,' says p. ant. bandino, 'no longer for a man of cultivation unless one put forth heterodox opinions concerning the christian faith.'" ranke, hist. of the popes, bohn, tr. ed. , i, , citing caracciolo's ms. life of paul iv. [ ] hallam, ii, . [ ] under the alternative titles of the examination of men's wits and a trial of wits. rep. , , . [ ] carew's tr. ed. , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] according to henri estienne, postell himself vended strange heresies, one being to the effect that to make a good religion there were needed three--the christian, the jewish, and the turkish. apologie pour hérodote, liv. i, ed. , pp. - . [ ] published at antwerp. it was reprinted in , , and ; translated into latin in , and frequently reprinted in that form; translated into english (begun by sir philip sidney and completed by arthur golding) in , and in that form at least thrice reprinted in blackletter. [ ] ed. , p. . eng. tr. , p. . [ ] or even in modifying philosophic doctrine, save perhaps as regards descartes, later. cp. bartholmess, hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, , i, - . [ ] see owen, skeptics of the french renaissance, pp. - --a fairer and more careful estimate, than that of hallam, lit. of europe, ii, - . [ ] essais, bk. ii, ch. xiii, ed. firmin-didot, vol. ii, - ; king lear, i, , near end; les amants magnifiques, i, ; iii, . montaigne echoes pliny (hist. nat. ii, ), as molière does cicero, de divinatione, ii, . [ ] "our religion," he writes, "is made to extirpate vices; it protects, nourishes, and incites them" (essais, liv. ii, ch. xii; éd. firmin-didot, ii, ). "there is no enmity so extreme as the christian." (i quote in general florio's translation for the flavour's sake; but it should be noted that he makes many small slips.) [ ] owen was mistaken (skeptics of the french renaissance, p. ) in supposing that montaigne spent several years over this translation. by montaigne's own account at the beginning of the apologie, it was done in a few days. cp. miss lowndes's excellent monograph, michel de montaigne, pp. , . [ ] Éd. firmin-didot, ii, . [ ] miss lowndes, p. . cp. champion, introd. aux essais de montaigne, . [ ] essais, liv. ii, ch. xii; liv. iii, ch. v. ed. cited, i, ; ii, . [ ] for a view of montaigne's development see m. champion's excellent introduction--a work indispensable to a full understanding of the essais. [ ] liv. ii, ch. xi. [ ] cp. the essais, liv. iii, ch. i (ed. cited, ii, ). owen gives a somewhat misleading idea of the passage (french skeptics, p. ). [ ] miss lowndes, michel de montaigne, p. . cp. owen, p. . [ ] he was consistent enough to doubt the new cosmology of copernicus (essais, as cited, i, ); and he even made a rather childish attack on the reform of the calendar (liv. iii, chs. x, xi); but he was a keen and convinced critic of the prevailing abuses in law and education. owen's discussion of his opinions is illuminating; but that of champion makes a still more searching analysis as regards the conflicting tendencies in montaigne. [ ] liv. i, ch. liv. [ ] liv. i, ch. xx, end. [ ] liv. i, ch. xxii. [ ] liv. ii, ch. ix. [ ] liv. ii, ch. xvii. ed. cited, ii, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] liv. iii, ch. xiii. ed. cited, ii, . [ ] cp. the clerical protests of sterling (lond. and westm. rev. july, , p. ) and dean church (oxford essays, p. ) with the judgment of champion, pp. - . sterling piously declares that "all that we find in him [montaigne] of christianity would be suitable to apes and dogs...." [ ] liv. i, ch. xxii. cp. liv. iii, ch. xi. [ ] below, § . [ ] liv. iii, ch. xi. [ ] liv. iii, ch. xi. [ ] cp. citations in buckle, -vol. ed. ii, , note ( -vol. ed. p. ); locky. rationalism, i, - ; and perrens, les libertins, p. . [ ] as to henri iv see perrens, p. . [ ] not, as owen states (french skeptics, p. ), the sister of francis i, who died when charron was eight years old, but the daughter of henri ii, and first wife of henri of navarre, afterwards henri iv. [ ] cp. prof. strowski, de montaigne à pascal, as cited, p. sq., and the discours chrétien of charron--an extract from a letter of --published with the ed. of the sagesse. [ ] cp. sainte-beuve, as cited by owen, p. , note, and owen's own words, p. . [ ] owen, p. . cp. pp. , . [ ] bayle, art. charron. "a brutal atheism" is the account of charron's doctrine given by the jesuit garasse. cp. perrens, p. . [ ] owen (p. ) comes to this conclusion after carefully collating the editions. cp. p. , note. the whole of the alterations, including those proposed by president jeannin, will be found set forth in the edition of , and the reprints of that. one of the modified passages (first ed. p. ; ed. , p. ) is the montaignesque comment (noted by prof. strowski, p. ) on the fashion in which men's religion is determined by their place of birth. "c'est du montaigne aggravé," complains m. strowski. and it is left unchanged in substance. [ ] "the first ... attempt made in a modern language to construct a system of morals without the aid of theology" ( -vol. ed. ii, ; -vol. ed. p. ). [ ] cp. owen, pp. - . [ ] buckle, -vol. ed. ii, ; -vol. ed. p. . [ ] e.g., the preface to the first edition, ad init. [ ] e.g., liv. ii, ch. xxviii of revised ed. (ed. , p. ). [ ] see the biog. pref. of labitte to the charpentier edition, p. xxv. the satyre in its own turn freely charges atheism and incest on leaguers; e.g., the harangue de m. de lyon, ed. cited, pp. , . this was by rapin, whom garasse particularly accuses of libertinage. see the doctrine curieuse, as cited, p. . [ ] it had to be four times reprinted in a few weeks; and the subsequent editions are innumerable. ever since its issue it has been an anti-fanatical force in france. [ ] cp. ch. read's introd. to ed. of the satyre, p. iii. (an exact reprint.) the satyre anticipates (ed. read, p. ; ed. labitte, p. ) the modern saying that the worst peace is better than the best war. [ ] de thou, t. v, liv. , p. , cited in ed. of the satyre, p. . de thou was one of the catholics who loathed the savagery of the church; and was accordingly branded by the pope as a heretic. buckle, -vol. ed. pp. , , notes. [ ] m. labitte, himself a catholic, speaks of garasse's "forfanterie habituelle" and "ton d'insolence sincère qui déguise tant de mensonges" (pref. cited, p. xxxi.). prof. strowski (p. ) admits too that "il ne faut pas trop s'attacher aux révélations sensationelles du père garasse: les maximes qu'il prête aux beaux esprits, il les leur prête en effet, elles ne leur appartient pas toutes. la société secrète, la confrérie des bouteilles, ou il les dit engagés, est un invention de sa verve bouffonne." but the professor, with a "n'importe!", forgives him, and trades on his matter. [ ] owen, french skeptics, p. . cp. lecky, rationalism, i, , citing maury, as to the resistance of libertins to the superstition about witchcraft. [ ] doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits, as cited, p. . this is one of the passages which fully explain the opinion of the orthodox of that age that garasse "helped rather than hindered atheism" (reimmann, hist. atheismi, , p. ). [ ] mersenne ascribed the quatrains to a skilled controversialist. quæstiones, pref. a short history of freethought ancient and modern by john m. robertson third edition, revised and expanded in two volumes vol. ii (issued for the rationalist press association, limited) london: watts & co., johnson's court, fleet street, e.c. contents volume ii page chap. xiii--the rise of modern freethought (continued) § . england. persecution and executions under henry viii, edward vi, mary, and elizabeth. charges of atheism. lilly's polemic. reginald scot on witchcraft. the family of love. hamond, lewes, kett. apologetic literature. influence of machiavelli. nashe's polemic. marlowe, raleigh, harriott, kyd. protests of pilkington and hooker. polemic of bishop morton. shakespeare. the drama generally. executions under james. bacon. suckling § . popular thought in europe. callidius. flade. wier. coornhert. grotius. gorlæus. zwicker. koerbagh. beverland. socinianism. the case of spain. cervantes § . scientific thought. copernicus. giordano bruno. vanini. galileo. the aristotelian strife. vives. ramus. descartes. gassendi chap. xiv--british freethought in the seventeenth century § . lord herbert of cherbury. hobbes. selden § . the popular ferment: attempted suppression of heresy by parliament. lawrence clarkson. the levellers and toleration. forms of unbelief. the term "rationalist." propaganda against atheism. culverwel. the polemic of henry more. freethought at the restoration. the case of biddle. the protests of howe, stillingfleet, and baxter. freethought in scotland. the argument of mackenzie. english apologetics of casaubon, ingelo, temple, wilkins, tillotson, cudworth, boyle, and others. martin clifford. emergence of deism. avowals of archdeacon parker, sherlock, and south. dryden. discussion on miracles. charles blount. leslie's polemic. growth of apologetic literature. toland. the licensing act § . literary, scientific, and academic developments. sir thomas browne. jeremy taylor. john spencer. joseph glanvill. cartesianism. glisson. influence of gassendi. resistance to copernican theory. lord falkland. colonel fry. locke. bury. temple. the marquis of halifax. newton. unitarianism. penn. firmin. latitudinarianism. tillotson. dr. t. burnet. dr. b. connor. john craig. the "rationalists" chap. xv--french and dutch freethought in the seventeenth century . influence of montaigne and charron. gui patin. naudé. la mothe le vayer . catholic pyrrhonism . descartes's influence. boileau. jesuit and royal hostility . vogue of freethinking. malherbe. joan fontanier. théophile de viau. claude petit. corneille. molière . cyrano de bergerac . pascal's skepticism. religious quarrels . huet's skepticism . cartesianism. malebranche . buffier. scientific movements . richard simon. la peyrère . dutch thought. louis meyer. cartesian heresy . spinoza . biblical criticism. spinozism. deurhoff. b. bekker . bayle . developments in france. the polemic of abbadie. persecution of protestants. fontenelle . st. evremond. regnard. la bruyère. spread of skepticism. fanaticism at court chap. xvi--british freethought in the eighteenth century § . toland. blasphemy law. strifes among believers. cudworth. bishops browne and berkeley. heresy in the church. the schools of newton, leibnitz, and clarke. hutchinson. halley. provincial deism. saunderson. simson. literary orthodoxy. addison. steele. berkeley. swift. new deism. shaftesbury. trenchard. unitarianism. asgill. coward. dodwell. whiston § . anthony collins. bentley's attack. mandeville. woolston. middleton. deism at oxford. tindal. middleton and waterland § . unitarianism: its spread among presbyterians. chubb. hall. elwall § . berkeley's polemic. lady mary montagu. pope. deism and atheism. coward. strutt § . parvish. influence of spinoza § . william pitt. morgan. annet. dodwell the younger § . the work achieved by deism. the social situation. recent disparagements and german testimony § . arrest of english science. hale. burnet. whiston. woodward. effects of imperialism. contrast with france. the mathematicians § . supposed "decay" of deism. butler. william law. hume § . freethought in scotland. execution of thomas aikenhead. confiscation of innovating books. legislation against deism. anstruther's and halyburton's polemic. strife over creeds. john johnstone. william dudgeon. hutcheson. leechman. forbes. miller. kames. smith. ferguson. church riots § . freethought in ireland. lord molesworth. archbishop synge. bishop clayton § . situation in england in . richardson's lament. middleton. deism among the clergy. sykes. the deistic evolution § . materialism. la mettrie. shifting of the social centre: socio-political forces. gray's avowal. hume's estimate. goldsmith's. the later deism. bolingbroke § . diderot's diagnosis. influence of voltaire. chatterton. low state of popular culture. prosecutions of poor freethinkers. jacob ilive. peter annet. later deistic literature. unitarianism. evanson. tomkyns. watts. lardner. priestley. toulmin. d. williams § . gibbon. spread of unbelief. the creed of the younger pitt. fox. geology. hutton. cowper's and paley's complaints. erasmus darwin. mary wollstonecraft § . burns and scotland § . panic and reaction after the french revolution. new aristocratic orthodoxy. thomas paine. new democratic freethought chap. xvii--french freethought in the eighteenth century . boulainvilliers. strifes in the church. fénelon and ramsay. fanaticism at court. new freethinking. gilbert. tyssot de patot. deslandes. persecution of protestants . output of apologetics . the political situation . huard and huet . montesquieu . jean meslier . freethinking priests. pleas for toleration. boindin . voltaire . errors as to the course of development . voltaire's character and influence . progress of tolerance. marie huber. resistance of bigotry. de prades. the encyclopédie. fontenelle as censor . chronological outline of the literary movement . new politics. the less famous freethinkers: burigny; fontenelle; de brosses; meister; vauvenargues; mirabaud; fréret . n.-a. boulanger. dumarsais. prémontval. solidity of much of the french product . general anonymity of the freethinkers. the orthodox defence . the prominent freethinkers. rousseau . astruc . freethought in the académie. beginnings in classical research. emergence of anti-clericalism. d'argenson's notes . the affair of pompignan . marmontel's bélisaire . the scientific movement: la mettrie . study of nature. fontenelle. lenglet du fresnoy. de maillet's telliamed. mirabaud. resistance of voltaire to the new ideas. switzerland. buffon and the church . maupertuis. diderot. condillac. robinet. helvétius . diderot's doctrines and influence . d'alembert and d'holbach . freethought and the revolution . the conventional myth and the facts. necker. abbé grégoire. the argument of michelet. the legend of the goddess of reason. sacrilege in the english and french revolutions. hébert. danton. chaumette. clootz. the atheist salaville . religious and political forces of revolt. the polemic of rivarol . the political causation. rebellion in the ages of faith . the polemic of mallet du pan. saner views of barante. freethinkers and orthodox in each political camp. mably. voltaire. d'holbach. rousseau. diderot. orthodoxy of the mass. the thesis of chamfort . the reign of persecution . orthodox lovers of tolerance . napoleon chap. xviii--german freethought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . moral decline under lutheranism. freethought before the thirty years' war. orthodox polemic. the movement of matthias knutzen . influence of spinoza. stosch. output of apologetics . leibnitz . pietism. orthodox hostility. spread of rationalism . thomasius . dippel . t. l. lau . wolff . freemasonry and freethinking. j. l. schmidt. martin knutzen . j. c. edelmann . abbot jerusalem . english and french influences. the scientific movement. orthodox science. haller. rapid spread of rationalism . frederick the great . mauvillon. nicolai. riem. schade. basedow. eberhard. steinbart. spalding. teller . semler. töllner. academic rationalism . bahrdt . moses mendelssohn. lessing. reimarus . vogue of deism. wieland. cases of isenbiehl and steinbuhler. a secret society. clerical rationalism. schulz. the edict of frederick william ii. persistence of skepticism. the marokkanische briefe. mauvillon. herder . goethe . schiller . kant . influence of kant. the sequel. hamann. chr. a. crusius. platner. beausobre the younger . fichte. philosophic strifes . rationalism and conservatism in both camps . austria. jahn. joseph ii. beethoven chap. xix--freethought in the remaining european states § . holland. elizabeth wolff. leenhof. booms. influence of bayle. passerano. lack of native freethought literature § . the scandinavian states. . course of the reformation. subsequent wars. retrogression in denmark . holberg's nicolas klimius . sweden. queen christina . swedenborg . upper-class indifference. gustavus iii. kjellgren and bellman. torild. retrogression in sweden . revival of thought in denmark. struensee. mary wollstonecraft's survey § . the slavonic states. . poland. liszinski . russia. nikon. peter the great. kantemir. catherine § . italy. . decline under spanish rule. naples . vico . subsequent scientific thought. general revival of freethought under french influence . beccaria. algarotti. filangieri. galiani. genovesi. alfieri. bettinelli. dandolo. giannone. algarotti and the popes. the scientific revival. progress and reaction in tuscany. effects of the french revolution § . spain and portugal. . progress under bourbon rule in spain. aranda. d'alba . tyranny of the inquisition. aranda. olavidès . duke of almodobar. d'azara. ricla . the case of samaniego . bails. cagnuelo. centeno . faxardo. iriarte . ista. salas . reaction after charles iii . portugal. pombal § . switzerland. socinianism and its sequelæ. the turrettini. geneva and rousseau. burlamaqui. spread of deism chap. xx--early freethought in the united states . deism of the revolutionary statesmen . first traces of unbelief. franklin . jefferson. john adams. washington . thomas paine . paine's treatment in america . palmer. houston. deism and unitarianism chap. xxi.--freethought in the nineteenth century the reaction. tone in england. clericalism in italy and spain. movement in france and germany the forces of renascence. international movement. summary of critical forces. developments of science. lines of resistance section .--popular propaganda and culture . democracy. paine. translations from the french . huttman. houston. wedderburn . pietist persecution. richard carlile. john clarke. robert taylor. charles southwell. g. j. holyoake. women helpers . hetherington. operation of blasphemy law . robert owen . the reign of bigotry. influence of gibbon . charles bradlaugh and secularism. imprisonment of g. w. foote. treatment of bradlaugh by parliament. resultant energy of secularist attack . new literary developments. lecky. conway. winwood reade. spencer. arnold. mill. clifford. stephen. amberley. new apologetics . freethought in france. social schemes. fourier. saint-simon. comte. duruy and sainte-beuve . bigotry in spain. popular freethought in catholic countries. journalism . fluctuations in germany. persistence of religious liberalism. marx and socialism. official orthodoxy . the scandinavian states and russia . "free-religious" societies . unitarianism in england and america . clerical rationalism in protestant countries. switzerland. holland. dutch south africa . developments in sweden . the united states. ingersoll. lincoln. stephen douglas. frederick douglass. academic persecution. changes of front section .--biblical criticism . rationalism in germany. the schleiermacher reaction: its heretical character. orthodox hostility . progress in both camps. strauss's critical syncretism . criticism of the fourth gospel . strauss's achievement . official reaction . fresh advance. schwegler. bruno bauer . strauss's second life of jesus. his politics. his voltaire and old and new faith. his total influence . fluctuating progress of criticism. important issues passed-by. nork. ghillany. daumer. ewerbeck. colenso. kuenen. kalisch. wellhausen . new testament criticism. baur. zeller. van manen . falling-off in german candidates for the ministry as in congregations. official orthodox pressures . attack and defence in england. the tractarian reaction. progress of criticism. hennell. the united states: parker. english publicists: f. w. newman; r. w. mackay; w. r. greg. translations. e. p. meredith; thomas scott; w. r. cassels . new testament criticism in france. renan and havet section .--poetry and general literature . the french literary reaction. chateaubriand . predominance of freethought in later belles lettres . béranger. de musset. victor hugo. leconte de lisle. the critics. the reactionists . poetry in england. shelley. coleridge. the romantic movement. scott. byron. keats . charles lamb . carlyle. mill. froude . orthodoxy and conformity. bain's view of carlyle, macaulay, and lyell . the literary influence. ruskin. arnold. intellectual preponderance of rationalism . english fiction from miss edgeworth to the present time . richard jefferies . poetry since shelley . american belles lettres . leopardi. carducci. kleist. heine . russian belles lettres . the scandinavian states section .--the natural sciences . progress in cosmology. laplace and modern astronomy. orthodox resistance. leslie . physiology in france. cabanis . physiology in england. lawrence. morgan . geology after hutton. hugh miller. baden powell . darwin . robert chambers . orthodox resistance. general advance . triumph of evolutionism. spencer. clifford. huxley section .--the sociological sciences . eighteenth-century sociology. salverte. charles comte. auguste comte . progress in england. orthodoxy of hallam. carlyle. grote. thirlwall. long . sociology proper. orthodox hostility . mythology and anthropology. tylor. spencer. avebury. frazer section .--philosophy and ethics . fichte. schelling. hegel . germany after hegel. schopenhauer. hartmann . feuerbach. stirner . arnold ruge . büchner . philosophy in france. maine de biran. cousin. jouffroy . movement of lamennais . comte and comtism . philosophy in britain. bentham. james mill. grote. political rationalism . hamilton. mansel. spencer . semi-rationalism in the churches . j. s. mill section .--modern jewry jewish influence in philosophy since spinoza. modern balance of tendencies section .--the oriental civilizations asiatic intellectual life. japan. discussions on japanese psychosis. fukuzawa. the recent cult of the emperor. china. india. turkey. greece conclusion index chapter xiii the rise of modern freethought--(continued) § . england while france was thus passing from general fanaticism to a large measure of freethought, england was passing by a less tempestuous path to a hardly less advanced stage of opinion. it was indeed a bloody age; and in we have record of nineteen men and five women of holland, apparently anabaptists, who denied the "humanity" of christ and rejected infant baptism and transubstantiation, being sentenced to be burned alive--two suffering at smithfield, and the rest at other towns, by way of example. others in henry's reign suffered the same penalty for the same offence; and in a priest named nicholson or lambert, refusing on the king's personal pressure to recant, was "brent in smithfield" for denying the bodily presence in the eucharist. [ ] the first decades of "reformation" in england truly saw the opening of new vials of blood. more and fisher and scores of lesser men died as catholics for denying the king's "supremacy" in religion; as many more for denying the catholic tenets which the king held to the last; and not a few by the consent of more and fisher for translating or circulating the sacred books. latimer, martyred under mary, had applauded the burning of the anabaptists. one generation slew for denial of the humanity of christ; the next for denial of his divinity. under edward vi there were burned no catholics, but several heretics, including joan bocher and a dutch unitarian, george van pare, described as a man of saintly life. [ ] still the english evolution was less destructive than the french or the german, and the comparative bloodlessness of the strife between protestant and catholic under mary [ ] and elizabeth, the treatment of the jesuit propaganda under the latter queen as a political rather than a doctrinal question, [ ] prevented any such vehemence of recoil from religious ideals as took place in france. when in the law de hæretico comburendo, which had slept for seventeen years, was set to work anew under elizabeth, the first victims were dutch anabaptists. of a congregation of them at aldgate, twenty-seven were imprisoned, of whom ten were burned, and the rest deported. two others, john wielmacker and hendrich ter woort, were anti-trinitarians, and were burned accordingly. foxe appealed to the queen to appoint any punishment short of death, or even that of hanging, rather than the horrible death by burning; but in vain. "all parties at the time concurred" in approving the course taken. [ ] orthodoxy was rampant. unbelief, as we have seen, however, there certainly was; and it is recorded that walter, earl of essex, on his deathbed at dublin in , murmured that among his countrymen neither popery nor protestantism prevailed: "there was nothing but infidelity, infidelity, infidelity; atheism, atheism; no religion, no religion." [ ] and when we turn aside from the beaten paths of elizabethan literature we see clearly what is partly visible from those paths--a number of freethinking variations from the norm of faith. ascham, as we saw, found some semblance of atheism shockingly common among the travelled upper class of his day; and the testimonies continue. edward kirke, writing his "glosses" to spenser's shepherd's calendar in , observes that "it was an old opinion, and yet is continued in some men's conceit, that men of years have no fear of god at all, or not so much as younger folk," experience having made them skeptical. erasmus, he notes, in his adages makes the proverb "nemo senex metuit jovem" signify merely that "old men are far from superstition and belief in false gods." but kirke insists that, "his great learning notwithstanding, it is too plain to be gainsaid that old men are much more inclined to such fond fooleries than younger men," [ ] apparently meaning that elderly men in his day were commonly skeptical about divine providence. other writers of the day do not limit unbelief to the aged. lilly, in his euphues ( ), referring to england in general or oxford in particular as athens, asks: "be there not many in athens which think there is no god, no redemption, no resurrection?" further, he complains that "it was openly reported of an old man in naples that there was more lightness in athens than in all italy ... more papists, more atheists, more sects, more schisms, than in all the monarchies in the world"; [ ] and he proceeds to frame an absurd dialogue of "euphues and atheos," in which the latter, "monstrous, yet tractable to be persuaded," [ ] is converted with a burlesque facility. lilly, who writes as a man-of-the-world believer, is a poor witness as to the atheistic arguments current; but those he cites are so much better than his own, up to the point of terrified collapse on the atheist's part, that he had doubtless heard them. the atheist speaks as a pantheist, identifying deity with the universe; and readily meets a simple appeal to scripture with the reply that "whosoever denieth a godhead denieth also the scriptures which testifie of him." [ ] but in one of his own plays, played in , lilly puts on the stage a glimpse of current controversy in a fashion which suggests that he had not remained so contemptuously confident of the self-evident character of theism. in campaspe (i, ) he introduces, undramatically enough, plato, aristotle, cleanthes, crates, and other philosophers, who converse concerning "natural causes" and "supernatural effects." aristotle is made to confess that he "cannot by natural reason give any reason of the ebbing and flowing of the sea"; and plato contends against cleanthes, "searching for things which are not to be found," that "there is no man so savage in whom resteth not this divine particle, that there is an omnipotent, eternal, and divine mover, which may be called god." cleanthes replies that "that first mover, which you term god, is the instrument of all the movings which we attribute to nature. the earth ... seasons ... fruits ... the whole firmament ... and whatsoever else appeareth miraculous, what man almost of mean capacity but can prove it natural." nothing is concluded, and the debate is adjourned. anaxarchus declares: "i will take part with aristotle, that there is natura naturans, and yet not god"; while crates rejoins: "and i with plato, that there is deus optimus maximus, and not nature." it is a curious dialogue to put upon the stage, by the mouth of children-actors, and the arbitrary ascription to aristotle of high theistic views, in a scene in which he is expressly described by a fellow philosopher as a naturalist, suggests that lilly felt the danger of giving offence by presenting the supreme philosopher as an atheist. it is evident, however, both from euphues and from campaspe, that naturalistic views were in some vogue, else they had not been handled in the theatre and in a book essentially planned for the general reader. but however firmly held, they could not be directly published; and a dozen years later, over thirty years after the outburst of ascham, we still find only a sporadic and unwritten freethought, however abundant, going at times in fear of its life. private discussion, indeed, there must have been, if there be any truth in bacon's phrase that "atheists will ever be talking of that opinion, as if they ... would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others" [ ]--an argument which would make short work of the vast literature of apologetic theism--but even private talk had need be cautious, and there could be no publication of atheistic opinions. printed rationalism could go no further than such a protest against superstition as reginald scot's discoverie of witchcraft ( ), which, however, is a sufficiently remarkable expression of reason in an age in which a bodin held angrily by the delusion. [ ] elizabeth was herself substantially irreligious, [ ] and preferred to keep the clergy few in number and subordinate in influence; [ ] but her ministers regarded the church as part of the state system, and punished all open or at least aggressive heresy in the manner of the inquisition. yet the imported doctrine of the subjective character of hell and heaven, [ ] taken up by marlowe, held its ground, and is denounced by stubbes in his anatomie of abuses [ ] ( ); and other foreign philosophy of the same order found religious acceptance. a sect called the "family of love," deriving from holland (already "a country fruitfull of heretics"), [ ] went so far as to hold that "christ doth not signify any one person, but a quality whereof many are partakers"--a doctrine which we have seen ascribed by calvin to the libertins of geneva a generation before; [ ] but it does not appear that they were persecuted. [ ] some isolated propagandists, however, paid the last penalty. one matthew hamont or hamond, a ploughwright, of hetherset, was in tried by the bishop and consistory of norwich "for that he denyed christe," and, being found guilty, was burned, after having had his ears cut off, "because he spake wordes of blasphemie against the queen's maiistie and others of her counsell." [ ] the victim would thus seem to have been given to violence of speech; but the record of his negations, which suggest developments from the anabaptist movement, is none the less notable. in stow's wording, [ ] they run:-- "that the newe testament and gospell of christe are but mere foolishnesse, a storie of menne, or rather a mere fable. "item, that man is restored to grace by the meere mercy of god, wythout the meane of christ's bloud, death, and passion. "item, that christe is not god, nor the saviour of the world, but a meere man, a sinfull man, and an abhominable idoll. "item, that al they that worshippe him are abhominable idolaters; and that christe did not rise agayne from death to life by the power of his godhead, neither, that hee did ascende into heaven. "item, that the holy ghoste is not god, neither that there is any suche holy ghoste. "item, that baptisme is not necessarie in the churche of god, neither the use of the sacrament of the body and bloude of christ." there is record also of a freethinker named john lewes burned at the same place in for "denying the godhead of christ, and holding other detestable heresies," in the manner of hamond. [ ] in the same year elias thacker and john coping were hanged at st. edmonsbury "for spreading certaine bookes, seditiously penned by one robert browne against the booke of common prayer"; and "their bookes so many as could be found were burnt before them." [ ] further, one peter cole, an ipswich tanner, was burned in (also at norwich) for similar doctrine; and francis kett, a young clergyman, ex-fellow of corpus christi college, cambridge, was burned at the same place in for heresy of the unitarian order. [ ] hamond and cole seem, however, to have been in their own way religious men, [ ] and kett a devout mystic, with ideas of a second advent. [ ] all founded on the bible. most surprising of all perhaps is the record of the trial of one john hilton, clerk in holy orders, before the upper house of convocation on december , , on the charge of having "said in a sermon at st. martin's-in-the-fields that the old and new testaments are but fables." (lansdowne mss. british museum, no. , fol. , cited by prof. storojenko, life of robert greene, eng. tr. in grosart's "huth library" ed. of greene's works, i, , note.) as hilton confessed to the charge and made abjuration, it may be surmised that he had spoken under the influence of liquor. even on that view, however, such an episode tells of a considerable currency of unbelieving criticism. apart from constructive heresy, the perpetual religious dissensions of the time were sure to stimulate doubt; and there appeared quite a number of treatises directed wholly or partly against explicit unbelief, as: the faith of the church militant, translated from the latin of the danish divine hemming ( ), and addressed "to the confutation of the jewes, turks, atheists, papists, hereticks, and all other adversaries of the truth whatsoever"; "the touchstone of true religion ... against the impietie of atheists, epicures, libertines, hippocrites, and temporisours of these times" ( ); an enemie to atheisme, translated by t. rogers from the latin of avenar ( ); the preacher henry smith's god's arrow against atheists ( , rep. ); an english translation of the second volume of la primaudaye's l'académie française, containing a refutation of atheistic doctrine; and no fewer than three "treatises of the nature of god"--all anonymous, the third known to be by bishop thomas morton--all appearing in the year . all this smoke--eight apologetic treatises in eighteen years--implies some fire; and the translator of la primaudaye, one "t. b.," declares in his dedication that there has been a general growth of atheism in england and on the continent, which he traces to "that monster machiavell." among english atheists of that school he ranks the dramatist robert greene, who had died in ; and it has been argued, not quite convincingly, that it was to machiavelli that greene had pointed, in his death-bed recantation a groatsworth of wit ( ), as the atheistic instructor of his friend marlowe, [ ] who introduces "machiavel" as cynical prologist to his jew of malta. greene's own "atheism" had been for the most part a matter of bluster and disorderly living; and we find his zealously orthodox friend thomas nashe, in his strange news ( ), calling the puritan zealot who used the pseudonym of martin marprelate "a mighty platformer of atheism"; even as his own and greene's enemy, gabriel harvey, called nashe an atheist. [ ] but nashe in his christ's tears over jerusalem ( ), though he speaks characteristically of the "atheistical julian," discusses contemporary atheism in a fashion descriptive of an actual growth of the opinion, concerning which he alleges that there is no "sect now in england so scattered [i.e., so widely spread] as atheisme." the "outward atheist," he declares, "establishes reason as his god"; and he offers some sufficiently primitive arguments by way of confutation. "they follow the pironicks [i.e., pyrrhonists], whose position and opinion it is that there is no hell or misery but opinion. impudently they persist in it, that the late discovered indians show antiquities thousands before adam." for the rest, they not only reject the miracles of moses as mere natural expedients misrepresented, but treat the whole bible as "some late writers of our side" treat the apocrypha. and nashe complains feelingly that while the atheists "are special men of wit," and that "the romish seminaries have not allured unto them so many good wits as atheism," the preachers who reply to them are men of dull understanding, the product of a system under which preferment is given to graduates on the score not of capacity but of mere gravity and solemnity. "it is the superabundance of wit," declares nashe, "that makes atheists: will you then hope to beat them down with fusty brown-bread dorbellism?" [ ] there had arisen, in short, a ferment of rationalism which was henceforth never to disappear from english life. in , indeed, we find atheism formally charged against two famous men, christopher marlowe and sir walter raleigh, of whom the first is documentarily connected with kett, and the second in turn with marlowe. an official document, [ ] preserved by some chance, reveals that marlowe was given--whether or not over the wine-cup--to singularly audacious derision of the received beliefs; and so explicit is the evidence that it is nearly certain he would have been executed for blasphemy had he not been privately killed ( ) while the proceedings were pending. the "atheism" imputed to him is not made out in any detail; but many of the other utterances are notably in keeping with marlowe's daring temper; and they amount to unbelief of a stringent kind. in doctor faustus [ ] he makes mephistopheles affirm that "hell hath no limits ... but where we are is hell"--a doctrine which we have seen to be current before his time; and in his private talk he had gone much further. nashe doubtless had him in mind when he spoke of men of "superabundance of wit." not only did he question, with raleigh, the biblical chronology: he affirmed "that moyses was but a juggler, and that one heriots" [i.e., thomas harriott, or harriots, the astronomer, one of raleigh's circle] "can do more than he"; and concerning jesus he used language incomparably more offensive to orthodox feeling than that of hamond and kett. there is more in all this than a mere assimilation of machiavelli; though the further saying "that the first beginning of religion was only to keep men in awe"--put also by greene [if not by marlowe], with much force of versification, in the mouth of a villain-hero in the anonymous play of selimus [ ]--tells of that influence. marlowe was indeed not the man to swear by any master without adding something of his own. atheism, however, is not inferrible from any of his works: on the contrary, in the second part of his famous first play he makes his hero, described by the repentant greene as the "atheist tamburlaine," declaim of deity with signal eloquence, though with a pantheistic cast of phrase. in another passage, a moslem personage claims to be on the side of a christ who would punish perjury; and in yet another the hero is made to trample under foot the pretensions of mohammed. [ ] it was probably his imputation of perjury to christian rulers in particular that earned for marlowe the malignant resentment which inspired the various edifying comments published after his unedifying death. had he not perished as he did in a tavern brawl, he might have had the nobler fate of a martyr. concerning raleigh, again, there is no shadow of proof of atheism, though his circle, which included the earls of northumberland and oxford, was called a "school of atheism" in a latin pamphlet by the jesuit parsons, [ ] published at rome in ; and this reputation clung to him. it is matter of literary history, however, that he, like montaigne, had been influenced by the hypotyposes of sextus empiricus; [ ] his short essay the sceptick being a naïf exposition of the thesis that "the sceptick doth neither affirm neither deny any position; but doubteth of it, and applyeth his reason against that which is affirmed, or denied, to justifie his non-consenting." [ ] the essay itself, nevertheless, proceeds upon a set of wildly false propositions in natural history, concerning which the adventurous reasoner has no doubts whatever; and altogether we may be sure that his artificial skepticism did not carry him far in philosophy. in the discovery of guiana ( ) he declares that he is "resolved" of the truth of the stories of men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders; and in his history of the world ( - ) he insists that the stars and other celestial bodies "incline the will by mediation of the sensitive appetite." [ ] in other directions, however, he was less credulous. in the same history he points out, as marlowe had done in talk, how incompatible was such a phenomenon as the mature civilization of ancient egypt in the days of abraham with the orthodox chronology. [ ] this, indeed, was heresy enough, then and later, seeing that not only did bishop pearson, in , in a work on the creed which has been circulated down to the nineteenth century, indignantly denounce all who departed from the figures in the margin of the bible; but coleridge, a century and a half later, took the very instance of egyptian history as triumphantly establishing the accuracy of the bible record against the french atheists. [ ] as regards raleigh's philosophy, the evidence goes to show only that he was ready to read a unitarian essay, presumably that already mentioned, supposed to be kett's; and that he had intercourse with marlowe and others (in particular his secretary, harriott) known to be freethinkers. a prosecution begun against him on this score, at the time of the inquiry concerning marlowe (when raleigh was in disgrace with the queen), came to nothing. it had been led up to by a translation of parsons's pamphlet, which affirmed that his private group was known as "sir walter rawley's school of atheisme," and that therein "both moyses and our savior, the old and the new testaments, are jested at, and the scholars taught among other things to spell god backwards." [ ] this seems to have been idle gossip, though it tells of unbelief somewhere; and raleigh's own writings always indicate [ ] belief in the bible; though his dying speech and epitaph are noticeably deistic. that he was a deist, given to free discussion, seems the probable truth. in passing sentence at the close of raleigh's trial for treason in , in which his guilt is at least no clearer than the inequity of the proceedings, lord chief justice popham unscrupulously taunted him with his reputation for heresy. "you have been taxed by the world with the defence of the most heathenish and blasphemous opinions, which i list not to repeat, because christian ears cannot endure to hear them, nor the authors and maintainers of them be suffered to live in any christian commonwealth. you know what men said of harpool." [ ] if the preface to his history of the world, written in the tower, be authentic, raleigh was at due pains to make clear his belief in deity, and to repudiate alike atheism and pantheism. "i do also account it," he declares, "an impiety monstrous, to confound god and nature, be it but in terms." [ ] and he is no more tolerant than his judge when he discusses the question of the eternity of the universe, then the crucial issue as between orthodoxy and doubt. "whosoever will make choice rather to believe in eternal deformity [=want of form] or in eternal dead matter, than in eternal light and eternal life, let eternal death be his reward. for it is a madness of that kind, as wanteth terms to express it." [ ] inasmuch as aristotle was the great authority for the denounced opinion, raleigh is anti-aristotelean. "i shall never be persuaded that god hath shut up all light of learning within the lantern of aristotle's brains." [ ] but in the whole preface there is only one, and that a conventional, expression of belief in the christian dogma of salvation; and as to that we may note his own words: "we are all in effect become comedians in religion." [ ] still, untruthful as he certainly was, [ ] we may take him as a convinced theist of the experiential school, standing at the ordinary position of the deists of the next century. notably enough, he anticipates the critical position of hume as to reason and experience: "that these and these be the causes of these and these effects, time hath taught us and not reason; and so hath experience without art." [ ] such utterance, if not connected with professions of piety, might in those days give rise to such charges of unbelief as were so freely cast at him. but the charges seem to have been in large part mere expressions of the malignity which religion so normally fosters, and which can seldom have been more bitter than then. raleigh is no admirable type of rectitude; but he can hardly have been a worse man than his orthodox enemies. and we must estimate such men in full view of the low standards of their age. the belief about raleigh's atheism was so strong that we have archbishop abbot writing to sir thomas roe on feb. , - , that raleigh's end was due to his "questioning" of "god's being and omnipotence." it is asserted by francis osborn, who had known raleigh, that he got his title of atheist from queen elizabeth. see the preface (author to reader) to osborn's miscellany of sundry essays, etc., in th ed. of his works, . as to atheism at elizabeth's court see j. j. tayler, retrospect of relig. life of england, nd ed. p. , and ref. lilly makes one of his characters write of the ladies at court that "they never jar about matters of religion, because they never mean to reason of them" (euphues, arber's ed. p. ). a curious use was made of raleigh's name and fame after his death for various purposes. in or appeared "vox spiritus, or sir walter rawleigh's ghost; a conference between signr. gondamier ... and father bauldwine"--a "seditious" tract by one captain gainsford. it appears to have been reprinted in as "prosopoeia. sir walter rawleigh's ghost." then in came a new treatise, "sir walter rawleigh's ghost, or england's forewarner," published in at utrecht by thomas scott, an english minister there, who was assassinated in the same year. the title having thus had vogue, there was published in "rawleigh's ghost, or, a feigned apparition of syr walter rawleigh to a friend of his, for the translating into english the booke of leonard lessius (that most learned man), entituled de providentia numinis et animi immortalitate, written against the atheists and polititians of these days." the translation of a jesuit's treatise ( ) thus accredited purports to be by "a. b." in a reprint of the "feigned" disappears from the title-page; but "sir walter rawleigh's ghost" remains to attract readers; and the translation, now purporting to be by john holden, who claims to have been a friend of raleigh's, is dedicated to his son carew. in the preface the ghost adjures the translator (who professes to have heard him frequently praise the treatise of lessius) to translate the work with raleigh's name on the title, so as to clear his memory of "a foul and most unjust aspersion of me for my presumed denial of a deity." the latest documentary evidence as to the case of marlowe is produced by mr. f. s. boas in his article, "new light on marlowe and kyd," in the fortnightly review, february, , reproduced in his edition of the works of thomas kyd (clarendon press, ). in addition to the formerly known data as to marlowe's "atheism," it is now established that thomas kyd, his fellow dramatist, was arrested on the same charge, and that there was found among his papers one containing "vile hereticall conceiptes denyinge the divinity of jhesus christe our saviour." this kyd declared he had had from marlowe, denying all sympathy with its view. nevertheless, he was put to the torture. the paper, however, proves to be a vehement unitarian argument on scriptural grounds, and is much more likely to have been written by francis kett than by marlowe. in the mss. now brought to light, one cholmeley, who "confessed that he was persuaded by marlowe's reasons to become an atheiste," is represented by a spy as speaking "all evil of the counsell, saying that they are all atheistes and machiavillians, especially my lord admirall." the same "atheist," who imputes atheism to others as a vice, is described as regretting he had not killed the lord treasurer, "sayenge that he could never have done god better service." for the rest, the same spy tells that cholmeley believed marlowe was "able to shewe more sound reasons for atheisme than any devine in englande is able to geve to prove devinitie, and that marloe told him that he hath read the atheist lecture to sir walter raleigh and others." on the last point there is no further evidence, save that sir walter, his dependent thomas harriott, and mr. carewe rawley, were on march , - , charged upon sworn testimonies with holding "impious opinions concerning god and providence." there was, however, no prosecution. harriott had published in a work on his travels in virginia, at the close of which is a passage in the devoutest vein telling of his missionary labours (quoted by mr. boas, art. cited, p. ). yet by he had, with his master, a reputation for atheism; and that it was not wholly on the strength of his great scientific knowledge is suggested by the statement of anthony à wood that he "made a philosophical theology, wherein he cast off the old testament." of this no trace remains; but it is established that he was a highly accomplished mathematician, much admired by kepler; and that he "applied the telescope to celestial purposes almost simultaneously with galileo" (art. harriott in dict. of nat. biog.; cp. art. in encyc. brit.). "harriott ... was the first who dared to say a=b in the form a - b = , one of the greatest sources of progress ever opened in algebra" (prof. a. de morgan, newton, his friend and his niece, , p. ). further, he improved algebraic notation by the use of small italic letters in place of roman capitals, and threw out the hypothesis of secondary planets as well as of stars invisible from their size and distance. "he was the first to verify the results of galileo." rev. baden powell, hist. of nat. philos. , pp. , . cp. rigaud, as cited by powell; ellis's notes on bacon, in routledge's -vol. ed. , pp. - ; and storojenko, as above cited, p. , note. against the aspersion of harriott at raleigh's trial may be cited the high panegyric of chapman, who terms him "my admired and soul-loved friend, master of all essential and true knowledge," [ ] and one "whose judgment and knowledge, in all kinds, i know to be incomparable and bottomless, yea, to be admired as much as his most blameless life, and the right sacred expense of his time, is to be honoured and reverenced"; with a further "affirmation of his clear unmatchedness in all manner of learning." [ ] the frequency of such traces of rationalism at this period is to be understood in the light of the financial and other scandals of the reformation; the bitter strifes of church and dissent; and the horrors of the wars of religion in france, concerning which bacon remarks in his essay of unity in religion that the spectacle would have made lucretius "seven times more epicure and atheist than he was." the proceedings against raleigh and kyd, accordingly, did not check the spread of the private avowal of unbelief. a few years later we find hooker, in the fifth book of his ecclesiastical polity ( ), bitterly declaring that the unbelievers in the higher tenets of religion are much strengthened by the strifes of believers; [ ] as a dozen years earlier bishop pilkington told of "young whelps" who "in corners make themselves merry with railing and scoffing at the holy scriptures." [ ] and in the treatise of the nature of god, by bishop thomas morton ( ), a quasi-dialogue in which the arguing is all on one side, the passive interlocutor indicates, in the process of repudiating them, a full acquaintance with the pleas of those who "would openly profess themselves to be of that [the atheistic] judgment, and as far as they might without danger defend it by argument against any whatever." the pleas include the lack of moral control in the world, the evidences of natural causation, the varieties of religious belief, and the contradictions of scripture. and such atheists, we are told, "make nature their god." [ ] from hooker's account also it is clear that, at least with comparatively patient clerics like himself, the freethinkers would at times deliberately press the question of theism, and avow the conviction that belief in god was "a kind of harmless error, bred and confirmed by the sleights of wiser men." he further notes with even greater bitterness that some--an "execrable crew"--who were themselves unbelievers, would in the old pagan manner argue for the fostering of religion as a matter of state policy, herein conning the lesson of machiavelli. for his own part hooker was confessedly ill-prepared to debate with the atheists, and his attitude was not fitted to shake their opinions. his one resource is the inevitable plea that atheists are such for the sake of throwing off all moral restraint [ ]--a theorem which could hardly be taken seriously by those who knew the history of the english and french aristocracies, protestant and catholic, for the past hundred years. hooker's own measure of rationalism, though remarkable as compared with previous orthodoxy, went no further than the application of the argument of pecock that reason must guide and control all resort to scripture and authority; [ ] and he came to it under stress of dispute, as a principle of accommodation for warring believers, not as an expression of any independent skepticism. when his pious antagonist travers cited him as saying that "his best author was his own reason" [ ] he was prompt to reply that he meant "true, sound, divine reason; ... reason proper to that science whereby the things of god are known; theological reason, which out of principles in scripture that are plain, soundly deduceth more doubtful inferences." [ ] of the application of rational criticism to scriptural claims he had no idea. the unbelievers of his day were for him a frightful portent, menacing all his plans of orthodox toleration; and he would have had them put down by force--a course which in some cases, as we have seen, had in that age been actually taken, and was always apt to be resorted to. but orthodoxy all the while had a sure support in the social and political conditions which made impossible the publication of rationalistic opinions. while the whole machinery of public doctrine remained in religious hands or under ecclesiastical control, the mass of men of all grades inevitably held by the traditional faith. what is remarkable is the amount of unbelief, either privately explicit or implicit in the higher literature, of which we have trace. above all there remains the great illustration of the rationalistic spirit of the english literary renascence of the sixteenth century--the drama of shakespeare. of that it may confidently be said that every attempt to find for it a religious foundation has failed. [ ] gervinus, while oddly suggesting that "in not only not seeking a reference to religion in his works, but in systematically avoiding it even when opportunity offered," shakespeare was keeping clear of an embroilment with the clergy, nevertheless pronounces the plays to be wholly secular in spirit. while contending that "in action the religious and divine in man is nothing else than the moral," the german critic admits that shakespeare "wholly discarded from his works ... that which religion enjoins as to faith and opinion." [ ] and, while refusing the inference of positive unbelief on the poet's part, he pronounces that, "just as bacon banished religion from science, so did shakespeare from art.... from bacon's example it seems clear that shakespeare left religious matters unnoticed on the same grounds." [ ] the latest and weightiest criticism comes to the same conclusion; and it is only on presupposition that any other can be reached. one of the ablest of shakespearean critics sums up that "the elizabethan drama was almost wholly secular; and while shakespeare was writing he practically confined his view to the world of non-theological observation and thought, so that he represents it in substantially one and the same way whether the period of the story is pre-christian or christian." [prof. a. c. bradley, shakespearean tragedy, nd ed. p. . in the concluding pages of his lecture on hamlet, professor bradley slightly modifies this statement, suggesting that the ghost is made to appear as "the representative of the hidden ultimate power, the messenger of divine justice" (p. ). here, it seems to the present writer, professor bradley obtrudes the chief error of his admirable book--the constant implication that shakespeare planned his plays as moral wholes. the fact is that he found the ghost an integral part of the old play which he rewrote; and in making it, in professor bradley's words, "so majestical a phantom," he was simply heightening the character as he does others in the play, and as was his habit in the presentment of a king. in his volume of lectures entitled oxford lectures on poetry ( ), professor bradley goes more fully into the problem of shakespeare's religion. here he somewhat needlessly obscures the issue by contending (p. ) that it is preposterous to suppose that shakespeare was "an ardent and devoted atheist or brownist or roman catholic," and makes the most of the poet's sympathetic treatment of religious types and religious sentiments; but still sums up that he "was not, in the distinctive sense of the word, a religious man," and that "all was, for him, in the end, mystery" (p. ).] this perhaps somewhat understates the case. the elizabethan drama was not wholly secular; [ ] and certainly the dramatists individually were not. peele's david and bethsabe is wholly biblical in theme, and, though sensual in sentiment, substantially orthodox in spirit; and elsewhere he has many passages of protestant and propagandist fervour. [ ] greene and lodge give a highly scriptural ring to their looking-glass for london; and lodge, who uses religious expressions freely in his early treatise, a defence of poetry, music, and stage plays, [ ] later translated josephus. kyd in arden of feversham [ ] accepts the christian view at the close, though the spanish tragedy is pagan; and the pre-shakespearean king leir and his three daughters ( ), probably the work of kyd and lodge, has long passages of specifically christian sentiment. nashe, again, was a hot religious controversialist despite his bohemian habits and his indecorous vein; greene on his repentant deathbed was profusedly censorious of atheism; [ ] lilly, as we have seen, is combatively theistic in his campaspe; while jonson, as we shall see, girds at skeptics in volpone and the magnetick lady, and further wrote a quantity of devotional verse. even the "atheist" marlowe, as we saw, puts theistic sentiment into the mouth of his "atheist tamburlaine"; and of doctor faustus, despite incidental heresy, the dénouement is religiously orthodox. thomas heywood may even be pronounced a religious man, [ ] as he was certainly a strong protestant, [ ] though an anti-puritan; and his prose treatise the hierarchy of the blessed angels ( ) exhibits a religious temperament. the same may be said of dekker, who is recorded to have written at least the prologue and the epilogue for a play on pontius pilate, [ ] and is believed to be the author of the best scenes in the virgin martyr, in which he collaborated with massinger. he too uses supererogatory religious expressions, [ ] and shows his warm protestantism in the whore of babylon, as he does his general religious sentiment in his treatise the seven deadly sins. chapman was certainly a devout theist, and probably a christian. in the "domestic" tragedy, a warning for fair women ( ), which is conjecturally ascribed to lodge, the conclusion is on christian lines, as in arden; and the same holds of the witch of edmonton, by dekker and others. of none of these dramatists could it be said, on the mere strength of his work, that he was "agnostic," though marlowe was certainly a freethinker. the others were, first or last, avowedly religious. shakespeare, and shakespeare alone, after marlowe, is persistently non-religious in his handling of life. lear, his darkest tragedy, is predominantly pagan; and the tempest, in its serener vein, is no less so. but indeed all the genuine plays alike ignore or tacitly negate the idea of immortality; even the conventional religious phrases of macbeth being but incidental poetry. in the words of a clerical historian, "the religious phrases which are thinly scattered over his work are little more than expressions of a distant and imaginative reverence. and on the deeper grounds of religious faith his silence is significant.... the riddle of life and death ... he leaves ... a riddle to the last, without heeding the common theological solutions around him." [ ] the practical wisdom in which he rose above his rivals no less than in dramatic and poetic genius, kept him prudently reticent on his opinions, as it set him upon building his worldly fortunes while the others with hardly an exception lived in shallows and miseries. as so often happens, it was among the ill-balanced types that there was found the heedless courage to cry aloud what others thought; but shakespeare's significant silence reminds us that the largest spirits of all could live in disregard of contemporary creeds. for, while there is no record of his having privately avowed unbelief, and certainly no explicit utterance of it in his plays, [ ] in no genuine work of his is there any more than bare dramatic conformity to current habits of religious speech; and there is often significantly less. in measure for measure the duke, counselling as a friar the condemned claudio, discusses the ultimate issues of life and death without a hint of christian credence. so silent is the dramatist on the ecclesiastical issues of his day that protestants and catholics are enabled to go on indefinitely claiming him as theirs; the latter dwelling on his generally kindly treatment of friars; the former citing the fact that some protestant preacher--evidently a protégé of his daughter susannah--was allowed lodging at his house. but the preacher was not very hospitably treated; [ ] and other clues fail. there is good reason to think that shakespeare was much influenced by montaigne's essays, read by him in florio's translation, which was issued when he was recasting the old hamlet; and the whole treatment of life in the great tragedies and serious comedies produced by him from that time forward is even more definitely untheological than montaigne's own doctrine. [ ] nor can he be supposed to have disregarded the current disputes as to fundamental beliefs, implicating as they did his fellow-dramatists marlowe, kyd, and greene. the treatise of de mornay, of which sir philip sidney began and arthur golding finished the translation, [ ] was in his time widely circulated in england; and its very inadequate argumentation might well strengthen in him the anti-theological leaning. a serious misconception has been set up as to shakespeare's cast of mind by the persistence of editors in including among his works without discrimination plays which are certainly not his, as the henry vi group, to which he contributed little, and in particular the first part, of which he wrote probably nothing. it is on the assumption that that play is shakespeare's work that lecky (rationalism in europe, ed. , i, - ) speaks of "that melancholy picture of joan of arc which is perhaps the darkest blot upon his genius." now, whatever passages shakespeare may have contributed to the second and third parts, it is certain that he has barely a scene in the first, and that there is not a line from his hand in the la pucelle scenes. many students think that dr. furnivall has even gone too far in saying that "the only part ... to be put down to shakespeare is the temple garden scene of the red and white roses" (introd. to leopold shakespeare, p. xxxviii); so little is there to suggest even the juvenile shakespeare there. (the high proportion of double-endings is a ground for reckoning it a late sample of marlowe, who in his posthumously published translation of lucan had approached that proportion. cp. the author's vol. on titus andronicus, p. .) but that any critical and qualified reader can still hold him to have written the worst of the play is unintelligible. the whole work would be a "blot on his genius" in respect of its literary weakness. the doubt was raised long before lecky wrote, and was made good a generation ago. when lecky further proceeds, with reference to the witches in macbeth, to say (id. note) that it is "probable that shakespeare ... believed with an unfaltering faith in the reality of witchcraft," he strangely misreads that play. nothing is clearer than that it grounds macbeth's action from the first in macbeth's own character and his wife's, employing the witch machinery (already used by middleton) to meet the popular taste, but never once making the witches really causal forces. an "unfaltering" believer in witchcraft who wrote for the stage would surely have turned it to serious account in other tragedies. this shakespeare never does. on lecky's view, he is to be held as having believed in the fairy magic of the midsummer night's dream and the tempest, and in the actuality of such episodes as that of the ghost in macbeth. but who for a moment supposes him to have had any such belief? it is probable that the entire undertaking of macbeth ( ?) and later of the tempest ( ?) was due to a wish on the part of the theatre management to please king james, whose belief in witchcraft and magic was notorious. even the use of the ghost in hamlet is an old stage expedient, common to the pre-shakespearean play and to others of kyd's and peele's. shakespeare significantly altered the dying words of hamlet from the "heaven receive my soul" of the old version to "the rest is silence." the bequest of his soul to the deity in his will is merely the regulation testamentary formula of the time. in his sonnets, which hint his personal cast if anything does, there is no real trace of religious creed or feeling. and it is clearly the hand of fletcher, a no less sensual writer than peele, that penned the part of henry viii in which occurs the protestant tag: "in her [elizabeth's] days ... god shall be truly known." [ ] while, however, shakespeare is notably naturalistic as compared with the other elizabethan dramatists, it remains true that their work in the mass tells little of a habitually religious way of thinking. apart from the plays above named, and from polemic passages and devotional utterances outside their plays, they hint as little of christian dogma as of christian asceticism. hence, in fact, the general and bitter hostility of the puritans to the stage. even at and after shakespeare's death, the drama is substantially "graceless." jonson, who was for a time a catholic, but reverted to the church of england, disliked the puritans, and in bartholomew fair derides them. the age did not admit of a pietistic drama; and when there was a powerful pietistic public, it made an end of drama altogether. to elizabeth's reign probably belongs the atheist's tragedy of cyril tourneur, first published in , but evidently written in its author's early youth--a coarse and worthless performance, full of extremely bad imitations of shakespeare. [ ] but to the age of elizabeth also belongs, perhaps, the sententious tragedy of mustapha by fulke greville, lord brooke, first surreptitiously published in . a century and a half later the deists were fond of quoting [ ] the concluding chorus sacerdotum, beginning: o wearisome condition of humanity, born under one law, to another bound; vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity; created sick, commanded to be sound: if nature did not take delight in blood, she would have made more easy ways to good. it is natural to suspect that the author of such lines was less orthodox than his own day had reputed him; and yet the whole of his work shows him much pre-occupied with religion, though perhaps in a deistic spirit. but brooke's introspective and undramatic poetry is an exception: the prevailing colour of the whole drama of the shakespearean period is pre-puritan and semi-pagan; and the theological spirit of the next generation, intensified by king james, was recognized by cultured foreigners as a change for the worse. [ ] the spirit of free learning for the time was gone, expelled by theological rancours; and when selden ventured in his history of tythes ( ) to apply the method of dispassionate historical criticism to ecclesiastical matters he was compelled to make a formal retractation. [ ] early protestants had attacked, as a papal superstition, the doctrine that tithes were levied jure divino: protestants had now come to regard as atheistic the hint that tithes were levied otherwise. [ ] not that rationalism became extinct. the "italianate" incredulity as to a future state, which sir john davies had sought to repel by his poem, nosce teipsum ( ), can hardly have been overthrown even by that remarkable production, which in the usual orthodox way pronounces all doubters to be "light and vicious persons," who, "though they would, cannot quite be beasts." [ ] and there were other forms of doubt. in appeared the unmasking of the politique atheist, by j. h. [john hull], batchelor of divinitie, which, however, is in the main a mere attempt to retort upon catholics the charge of atheism laid by them against protestants. soon after, in , we find dr. john dove producing a confutation of atheisme in the manner of previous continental treatises, making the word "atheism" cover many shades of theism; and an essayist writing in asserts that, on account of the self-seeking and corruption so common among churchmen, "prophane atheisme hath taken footing in the hearts of ignorant and simple men." [ ] the orthodox ben jonson, in his volpone ( ), puts in the mouth of a fool [ ] the lines:-- and then, for your religion, profess none, but wonder at the diversity of all; and, for your part, protest, were there no other but simply the laws o' th' land, you would content you. nic machiavel and monsieur bodin both were of this mind. but the testimony is not the less significant; as is the account in the magnetick lady ( ) of a young physician to the family that, letting god alone, ascribes to nature more than her share; licentious in discourse, and in his life a profest voluptuary. [ ] such statements of course prove merely a frequent coolness towards religion, not a vogue of reasoned unbelief. but the existence of rationalizing heresy is attested by the burning of two men, bartholomew legate and edward wightman, for avowing unitarian views, in . these, the last executions for heresy in england, were results of the theological zeal of king james, stimulated by the calvinistic fanaticism of archbishop abbot, the predecessor of laud. james's career as a persecutor began characteristically in a meddlesome attack upon a professor in holland. a german theologian of socinian leanings, named conrad vorstius, professor at steinfurth, had produced in a somewhat heretical treatise, de deo, but had nevertheless been appointed in professor of theology at leyden, in succession to arminius. it was his acceptance of arminian views, joined with his repute as a scholar, [ ] that secured him the invitation, which was given without the knowledge that at a previous period he had been offered a similar appointment by the socinians. in his anti-bellarminus contractus, "a brief refutation of the four tomes of bellarmin," he had taken the arminian line, repudiating the calvinist positions which, in the opinion of arminius, could not be defended against the catholic attack. but he was too speculative and ratiocinative to be safe in an age in which the fear of spreading socinianism and the hate of calvinists towards arminianism had set up a reign of terror. vorstius was both "unsettling" and heterodox. his opinions were "such as in our own day would certainly disqualify him from holding such an office in any christian university"; [ ] and james, worked upon by abbot, went so far as to make the appointment of vorstius a diplomatic question. the stadhouder maurice and the bulk of the dutch clergy being of his view, the more tolerant statesmen of holland, and the mercantile aristocracy, yielded from motives of prudence, and vorstius was dismissed in order to save the english alliance. remaining thenceforth without employment, he was further denounced in by the synod of dort, and banished by the states general. thereafter he lived for two years in hiding; and soon after obtaining a refuge in holstein, died, worn out by his troubles. in england, meantime, james drew up with his own hands a catalogue of the heresies found by him in vorstius's treatise, and caused the book to be burned in london and at the two universities. [ ] on the heels of this amazing episode came the cases of wightman and legate. finding, in a personal conversation, that legate had "ceased to pray to christ," the king had him brought before the bishop of london's consistory court, which sentenced the heretic to newgate. being shortly released, he had the imprudence to threaten an action for false imprisonment, whereupon he was re-arrested. chief justice coke held that, technically, the consistory court could not sentence to burning; but hobart and bacon, the law officers of the crown, and other judges, were of opinion that it could. legate, accordingly, was duly tried, sentenced, and burned at smithfield; and wightman a few days later was similarly disposed of at lichfield. [ ] bacon's share in this matter is obscure, and has not been discussed by either his assailants or his vindicators. as for the general public, the historian records that "not a word was uttered against this horrible cruelty. as we read over the brief contemporary notices which have reached us, we look in vain for the slightest intimation that the death of these two men was regarded with any other feelings than those with which the writers were accustomed to hear of the execution of an ordinary murderer. if any remark was made, it was in praise of james for the devotion which he showed to the cause of god." [ ] that might have been reckoned on. it was not twenty years since hamond, lewis, cole, and kett had been burned on similar grounds; and there had been no outcry then. for generations "direness" had been too familiar to men's thoughts to admit of their being shocked by a judicial murder or two the more. catholic priests had been executed by the score: why not a pair of unitarians? [ ] little had gone on in the average intellectual life in the interim save religious discussion and bibliolatry, and not from such culture could there come any growth of human kindness or any clearer conception of the law of reciprocity. but, whether by force of recoil from a revival of the fires of smithfield or from a perception that mere cruelty did not avail to destroy heresy, the theological ultima ratio was never again resorted to on english ground. though no public protest was made, the retrospective fuller testifies that "such burning of heretics much startled common people, pitying all in pain, and prone to asperse justice itself with cruelty, because of the novelty (!) and hideousness of the punishment." [ ] it is noteworthy that within a few years of the burning of legate and wightman there appeared quite a cluster of treatises explicitly contending for toleration. in came religion's peace: or, a plea for liberty of conscience, by leonard busher, the first english book of the kind. in came persecution for religion judged and condemned; and in an humble supplication to the king's majesty, pressing the same doctrine. [ ] there is no record of any outcry over these works, though they are tolerably freespoken in their indictment of the coercive school; and they had all to be reprinted a generation later, their point having never been carried; but it may be surmised that their appeal, which is substantially well reasoned from a secular as well as from a theological point of view, had something to do with the abandonment of persecution unto death. even king james, in opening the parliament of , professed to recognize that no religion or heresy was ever extirpated by violence. that an age of cruel repression of heresy had promoted unbelief is clear from the atheomastix of bishop fotherby ( ), which notes among other things that as a result of constant disputing "the scriptures (with many) have lost their authority, and are thought onely fit for the ignorant and idiote." [ ] on this head the bishop attempts no answer; and on his chosen theme he is perhaps the worst of all apologists. his admission that there can be no à priori proof of deity [ ] may be counted to him for candour; but the childishness of his reasoning à posteriori excludes the ascription of philosophic insight. he does but use the old pseudo-arguments of universal consent and design, with the simple device of translating polytheistic terms into monotheistic. all the while he makes the usual suggestions that there are few or no atheists to convert, and these not worth converting--this at a folio's length. the book tells only of difficulties evaded by vociferation. and while the growing stress of the strife between the ecclesiasticism of the crown and the forces of nonconformity more and more thrust to the front religio-political issues, there began alongside of those strifes the new and powerful propaganda of deism, which, beginning with the latin treatise, de veritate, of lord herbert of cherbury ( ), was gradually to leaven english thought for over a century. further, there now came into play the manifold influence of francis bacon, whose case illustrates perhaps more fully than any other the difficulties, alike external and internal, in the way of right thinking. taken as a whole, his work is on account of those difficulties divided against itself, insisting as he does alternately on a strict critical method and on the subjection of reason to the authority of revelation. he sounds a trumpet-call to a new and universal effort of free and circumspect intelligence; and on the instant he stipulates for the prerogative of scripture. though only one of many who assailed alike the methodic tyranny of aristotelianism [ ] and the methodless empiricism of the ordinary "scientific" thought of the past, he made his attack with a sustained and manifold force of insight and utterance which still entitles him to pre-eminence as the great critic of wrong methods and the herald of better. yet he not only transgresses often his own principal precepts in his scientific reasoning; he falls below several of his contemporaries and predecessors in respect of his formal insistence on the final supremacy of theology over reason, alike in physics and in ethics. where hooker is ostensibly seeking to widen the field of rational judgment on the side of creed, bacon, the very champion of mental emancipation in the abstract, declares the boundary to be fixed. of those lapses from critical good faith, part of the explanation is to be found in the innate difficulty of vital innovation for all intelligences; part in the special pressures of the religious environment. on the latter head bacon makes such frequent and emphatic protest that we are bound to infer on his part a personal experience in his own day of the religious hostility which long followed his memory. "generally," he wrote of himself in one fragment, "he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion, that the secrets of nature were the secrets of god, and part of that glory whereinto the mind of man if it seek to press shall be oppressed;... and on the other side, in men of a devout policy he noted an inclination to have the people depend upon god the more when they are less acquainted with second causes, and to have no stirring in philosophy, lest it may lead to innovation in divinity or else should discover matter of further contradiction to divinity" [ ]--a summary of the whole early history of the resistance to science. [ ] in the works which he wrote at the height of his powers, especially in his masterpiece, the novum organum ( ), where he comes closest to the problems of exact inquiry, he specifies again and again both popular superstition and orthodox theology as hindrances to scientific research, commenting on "those who out of faith and veneration mix their philosophy with theology and traditions," [ ] and declaring that of the drawbacks science had to contend with "the corruption of philosophy by superstition and an admixture of theology is far the more widely spread, and does the greatest harm, whether to entire systems or to their parts. for the human understanding is obnoxious to the influence of the imagination no less than to the influence of common notions." [ ] in the same passage he exclaims at the "extreme levity" of those of the moderns who have attempted to "found a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of genesis, on the book of job, and other parts of the sacred writings"; [ ] and yet again, coupling as obstinate adversaries of natural philosophy "superstition, and the blind and immoderate zeal of religion," he roundly affirms that "by the simpleness of certain divines access to any philosophy, however pure, is well nigh closed." [ ] these charges are repeatedly salved by such claims as that "true religion" puts no obstacles in the way of science; [ ] that the book of job runs much to natural philosophy; [ ] and, in particular, in the last book of the de augmentis scientiarum, redacted after his disgrace, by the declaration--more emphatic than those of the earlier advancement of learning--that "sacred theology ought to be derived from the word and oracles of god, and not from the light of nature or the dictates of reason." [ ] in this mood he goes so far as to declare, with the thorough-going obscurantists, that "the more discordant and incredible the divine mystery is, the more honour is shown to god in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith." [it was probably such deliverances as these that led to the ascription to bacon of the christian paradoxes, first published (surreptitiously), without author's name, in . as has been shown by dr. grosart (lord bacon not the author of "the christian paradoxes," ) that treatise was really by herbert palmer, b.d., who published it in full in part ii of his memorials of godliness and christianity, th ed. . the argument drawn from this treatise as to bacon's skepticism is a twofold mystification. the paradoxes are the deliberate declaration of a pietist that he believes the dogmas of revelation without rational comprehension. the style is plainly not bacon's; but bacon had said the same thing in the sentence quoted above. dr. grosart's explosive defence against the criticism of ritter (work cited, p. ) is an illustration of the intellectual temper involved.] yet even in the calculated extravagance of this last pronouncement there is a ground for question whether the fallen chancellor, hoping to retrieve himself, and trying every device of his ripe sagacity to avert opposition, was not straining his formal orthodoxy beyond his real intellectual habit. as against such wholesale affirmation we have his declarations that "certain it is that god worketh nothing in nature but by second causes," and that any pretence to the contrary "is mere imposture as it were in favour towards god, and nothing else but to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie"; [ ] his repeated objection to the discussion of final causes; [ ] his attack on plato and aristotle for rejecting the atheistic scientific method of democritus; [ ] his peremptory assertion that motion is a property of matter; [ ] and his almost democritean handling of the final problem, in which he insists that primal matter is, "next to god, the cause of causes, itself only without a cause." [ ] further, though he speaks of scriptural miracles in a conventional way, [ ] he drily pronounces in one passage that, "as for narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of religions, they are either not true or not natural, and therefore impertinent for the story of nature." [ ] finally, as against the formal capitulation to theology at the close of the de augmentis, he has left standing in the first book of the latin version the ringing doctrine of the original advancement of learning ( ), that "there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning"; [ ] and in his wisdom of the ancients [ ] he has contrived to turn a crude myth into a subtle allegory in behalf of toleration. thus, despite his many resorts to and prostrations before the scriptures, the general effect of his writings in this regard is to set up in the minds of his readers the old semi-rationalistic equivoque of a "two-fold truth"; reminding us as they do that he "did in the beginning separate the divine testimony from the human." when, therefore, he announces that "we know by faith" that "matter was created from nothing," [ ] he has the air of juggling with his problem; and his further suggestion as to the possibility of matter being endowed with a force of evolution, however cautiously put, is far removed from orthodoxy. accordingly, the charge of atheism--which he notes as commonly brought against all who dwell solely on second causes [ ]--was actually cast at his memory in the next generation. [ ] it was of course false: on the issue of theism he is continually descanting with quite conventional unction; as in the familiar essay on atheism. [ ] his dismissal of final causes as "barren" meant merely that the notion was barren of scientific result; [ ] and he refers the question to metaphysic. [ ] but if his theism was of a kind disturbing to believers in a controlling providence, as little was it satisfactory to christian fervour: and it can hardly be doubted that the main stream of his argument made for a non-biblical deism, if not for atheism; his dogmatic orthodoxies being undermined by his own scientific teaching. lechler (gesch. des englischen deismus, pp. - ) notes that bacon involuntarily made for deism. cp. amand saintes, hist. de la philos. de kant, , p. ; and kuno fischer, francis bacon, eng. tr. , ch. xi, pp. - . dean church (bacon, in "men of letters" series, pp. , ) insists that bacon held by revelation and immortality; and can of course cite his profession of such belief, which is not to be disputed. (cp. the careful judgment of prof. fowler in his bacon, pp. - , and his ed. of the novum organum, , pp. - .) but the tendency of the specific baconian teaching is none the less to put these beliefs aside, and to overlay them with a naturalistic habit of mind. at the first remove from bacon we have hobbes. as regards his intellectual inconsistencies, we can but say that they are such as meet us in men's thinking at every new turn. though we can see that bacon's orthodoxy "doth protest too much," with an eye on king and commons and public opinion, we are not led to suppose that he had ever in his heart cast off his inherited creed. he shows frequent christian prejudice in his references to pagans; and can write that "to seek to extinguish anger utterly is but the bravery of the stoics," [ ] pretending that the christian books are more accommodating, and ignoring the sermon on the mount. in arguing that the "religion of the heathen" set men upon ending "all inquisition of nature in metaphysical or theological discourse," and in charging the turks with a special tendency to "ascribe ordinary effects to the immediate workings of god," [ ] he is playing not very scrupulously on the vanity of his co-religionists. as he was only too well aware, both tendencies ruled the christian thought of his own day, and derive direct from the sacred books--not from "abuse," as he pretends. and on the metaphysical as on the common-sense side of his thought he is self-contradictory, even as most men have been before and since, because judgment cannot easily fulfil the precepts it frames for itself in illuminated hours. latter-day students have been impressed, as was leibnitz, by the original insight with which bacon negated the possibility of our forming any concrete conception of a primary form of matter, and insisted on its necessary transcendence of our powers of knowledge. [ ] on the same principle he should have negated every modal conception of the still more recondite something which he put as antecedent to matter, and called god. [ ] yet in his normal thinking he seems to have been content with the commonplace formula given in his essay on atheism--that we cannot suppose the totality of things to be "without a mind." he has here endorsed in its essentials what he elsewhere calls "the heresy of the anthropomorphites," [ ] failing to apply his own law in his philosophy, as elsewhere in his physics. when, however, we realize that similar inconsistency is fallen into after him by spinoza, and wholly escaped perhaps by no thinker, we are in a way to understand that with all his deflections from his own higher law bacon may have profoundly and fruitfully influenced the thought of the next generation, if not that of his own. the fact of this influence has been somewhat obscured by the modern dispute as to whether he had any important influence on scientific progress. [ ] at first sight the old claim for him in that regard seems to be heavily discounted by the simple fact that he definitely rejected the copernican system of astronomy. [ ] though, however, this gravely emphasizes his fallibility, it does not cancel his services as a stimulator of scientific thought. at that time only a few were yet intelligently convinced copernicans; and we have the record of how, in bacon's day, harvey lost heavily in credit and in his medical practice by propounding his discovery of the circulation of the blood, [ ] which, it is said, no physician over forty years old at that time believed in. for the scientific men of that century--and only among them did copernicanism find the slightest acceptance--it was thus no fatal shortcoming in bacon to have failed to grasp the true scheme of sidereal motion, any more than it was in galileo to be wrong about the tides and comets. they could realize that it was precisely in astronomy, for lack of special study and expert knowledge, that bacon was least qualified to judge. intellectual influence on science is not necessarily dependent on actual scientific achievement, though that of course furthers and establishes it; and the fact of bacon's impact on the mind of the next age is abundantly proved by testimonies. for a time the explicit tributes came chiefly from abroad; though at all times, even in the first shock of his disgrace, there were englishmen perfectly convinced of his greatness. to the winning of foreign favour he had specially addressed himself in his adversity. grown wary in act as well as wise in theory, he deleted from the latin de augmentis a whole series of passages of the advancement of learning which disparaged catholics and catholicism; [ ] and he had his reward in being appreciated by many jesuit and other catholic scholars. [ ] but protestants such as comenius and leibnitz were ere long more emphatic than any catholics; [ ] and at the time of the restoration we find bacon enthusiastically praised among the more open-minded and scientifically biassed thinkers of england, who included some zealous christians. [ ] it was not that his special "method" enabled them to reach important results with any new facility; its impracticability is now insisted on by friends as well as foes. [ ] it was that he arraigned with extraordinary psychological insight and brilliance of phrase the mental vices which had made discoveries so rare; the alternate self-complacency and despair of the average indolent mind; the "opinion of store" which was "cause of want"; the timid or superstitious evasion of research. in all this he was using his own highest powers, his comprehension of human character and his genius for speech. and though his own scientific results were not to be compared with those of galileo and descartes, the wonderful range of his observation and his curiosity, the unwearying zest of his scrutiny of well-nigh all the known fields of nature, must have been an inspiration to multitudes of students besides those who have recorded their debt to him. it is probable that but for his literary genius, which though little discussed is of a very rare order, his influence would have been both narrower and less durable; but, being one of the great writers of the modern world, he has swayed men down till our own day. certain it is that alongside of his doctrine there persisted in england, apart from all printed utterance, a movement of deistic rationalism, of which the eighteenth century saw only the fuller development. sir john suckling ( - ), rewriting about his letter to the earl of dorset, an account of religion by reason, tells how in a first sketch it "had like to have made me an atheist at court," and how "the fear of socinianism at this time renders every man that offers to give an account of religion by reason, suspected to have none at all"; [ ] but he also mentions that he knows it "still to be the opinion of good wits that the particular religion of christians has added little to the general religion of the world." [ ] himself a young man of talent, he offers quasi-rational reconciliations of faith with reason which can have satisfied no real doubter, and can hardly have failed to introduce doubt into the minds of some of his readers. § . popular thought in europe of popular freethought in the rest of europe there is little to chronicle for a hundred and fifty years after the reformation. the epoch-making work of copernicus, published in , had little or no immediate effect in germany, where, as we have seen, physical and verbal strifes had begun with the ecclesiastical revolution, and were to continue to waste the nation's energy for a century. in , all attempts at ecclesiastical reconciliation having failed, the emperor charles v, in whom melanchthon had seen a model monarch, [ ] decided to put down the protestant heresy by war. luther had just died, apprehensive for his cause. civil war now raged till the peace of augsburg in ; whereafter charles abdicated in favour of his son philip. here were in part the conditions which in france and elsewhere were later followed by a growth of rational unbelief; and there are some traces even at this time of partial skepticism in high places in the german world, notably in the case of the emperor maximilian ii, who, "grown up in the spirit of doubt," [ ] would never identify himself with either protestants or catholics. [ ] but in germany there was still too little intellectual light, too little brooding over experience, to permit of the spread of such a temper; and the balance of forces amounted only to a deadlock between the ecclesiastical parties. protestantism on the intellectual side, as already noted, had sunk into a bitter and barren polemic [ ] among the reformers themselves; and many who had joined the movement reverted to catholicism. [ ] meanwhile the teaching and preaching jesuits were zealously at work, turning the dissensions of the enemy to account, and contrasting its schism upon schism with the unity of the church. but protestantism was well welded to the financial interest of the many princes and others who had acquired the church lands confiscated at the reformation; since a return to catholicism would mean the surrender of these. [ ] thus there wrought on the one side the organized spirit of anti-heresy [ ] and on the other the organized spirit of bibliolatry, neither gaining ground; and between the two, intellectual life was paralysed. protestantism saw no way of advance; and the prevailing temper began to be that of the dark ages, expectant of the end of the world. [ ] superstition abounded, especially the belief in witchcraft, now acted on with frightful cruelty throughout the whole christian world; [ ] and in the nature of the case catholicism counted for nothing on the opposite side. the only element of rationalism that one historian of culture can detect is the tendency of the german moralists of the time to turn the devil into an abstraction by identifying him with the different aspects of human folly and vice. [ ] there was, as a matter of fact, a somewhat higher manifestation of the spirit of reason in the shape of some new protests against the superstition of sorcery. about a catholic priest named cornelius loos callidius was imprisoned by a papal nuncio for declaring that witches' confessions were merely the results of torture. forced to retract, he was released; but again offended, and was again imprisoned, dying in time to escape the fate of a councillor of trèves, named flade, who was burned alive for arguing, on the basis of an old canon (mistakenly named from the council of ancyra), that sorcery is an imaginary crime. [ ] such an infamy explains a great deal of the stagnation of many christian generations. but courage was not extinct; and in there appeared the famous john wier's treatise on witchcraft, [ ] a work which, though fully adhering to the belief in the devil and things demoniac, argued against the notion that witches were conscious workers of evil. wier [ ] was a physician, and saw the problem partly as one in pathology. other laymen, and even priests, as we have seen, had reacted still more strongly against the prevailing insanity; but it had the authority of luther on its side, and with the common people the earlier protests counted for little. reactions against protestant bigotry in holland on other lines were not much more successful, and indeed were not numerous. one of the most interesting is that of dirk coornhert ( - ), who by his manifold literary activities [ ] became one of the founders of dutch prose. in his youth coornhert had visited spain and portugal, and had there, it is said, seen an execution of victims of the inquisition, [ ] deriving thence the aversion to intolerance which stamped his whole life's work. it does not appear, however, that any such peninsular experience was required, seeing that the dutch inquisition became abundantly active about the same period. learning latin at thirty, in order to read augustine, he became a translator of cicero and--singularly enough--of boccaccio. an engraver to trade, he became first notary and later secretary to the burgomaster of haarlem; and, failing to steer clear of the strifes of the time, was arrested and imprisoned at the hague in . on his release he sought safety at kleef in santen, whence he returned after the capture of brill to become secretary of the new national government at haarlem; but he had again to take to flight, and lived at kleef from to . in he debated at leyden with two preachers of delft on predestination, which he declared to be unscriptural; and was officially ordered to keep silence. thereupon he published a protest, and got into fresh trouble by drawing up, as notary, an appeal to the prince of orange on behalf of his catholic fellow-countrymen for freedom of worship, and by holding another debate at the hague. [ ] always his master-ideal was that of toleration, in support of which he wrote strongly against beza and calvin (this in a latin treatise published only after his death), declaring the persecution of heretics to be a crime in the kingdom of god; and it was as a moralist that he gave the lead to arminius on the question of predestination. [ ] "against protestant and catholic sacerdotalism and scholastic he set forth humanist world-wisdom and biblical ethic," [ ] to that end publishing a translation of boëthius ( ), and composing his chief work on zedekunst (ethics). christianity, he insisted, lay not in profession or creed, but in practice. by way of restraining the ever-increasing malignity of theological strifes, he made the quaint proposal that the clergy should not be allowed to utter anything but the actual words of the scriptures, and that all works of theology should be sequestrated. for these and other heteroclite suggestions he was expelled from delft (where he sought finally to settle, ) by the magistrates, at the instance of the preachers, but was allowed to die in peace at gouda, where he wrote to the last. [ ] all the while, though he drew for doctrine on plutarch, cicero, seneca, and marcus aurelius equally with the bible, coornhert habitually founded on the latter as the final authority. [ ] on no other footing could any one in his age and country stand as a teacher. it was not till after generations of furious intolerance that a larger outlook was possible in the netherlands; and the first steps towards it were naturally taken independently of theology. although grotius figured for a century as one of the chief exponents of christian evidences, it is certain that his great work on the law of war and peace ( ) made for a rationalistic conception of society. "modern historians of jurisprudence, like lerminier and bluntschli, represent it as the distinctive merit of grotius that he freed the science from bondage to theology." [ ] the breach, indeed, is not direct, as theistic sanctions are paraded in the prolegomena; but along with these goes the avowal that natural ethic would be valid even were there no god, and--as against the formula of horace, utilitas justi mater--that "the mother of natural right is human nature itself." [ ] where grotius, defender of the faith, figured as a heretic, unbelief could not speak out, though there are traces of its underground life. the charge of atheism was brought against the excercitationes philosophicæ of gorlæus, published in ; but, the book being posthumous, conclusions could not be tried. views far short of atheism, however, were dangerous to their holders; for the merely socinian work of voelkel, published at amsterdam in , was burned by order of the authorities, and a second impression shared the same fate. [ ] in the states of holland forbade the publication of all unitarian books and all socinian worship; and though the veto as to books was soon evaded, that on worship was enforced. [ ] still, holland was relatively tolerant as beside other countries; and when the unitarian physician daniel zwicker ( - ), of dantzig, found his own country too hot to hold him, he came to holland (about ) "for security and convenience." [ ] he was able to publish at amsterdam in his latin irenicum irenicorum, wherein he lays down three principles for the settlement of christian difficulties, the first being "the universal reason of mankind," while scripture and tradition hold only the second and third places. his book is a remarkable investigation of the rise of the doctrines of the logos and the trinity, which he traced to polytheism, making out that the first christians, whom he identified with the nazarenes, regarded jesus as a man. the book evoked many answers, and it is somewhat surprising that zwicker escaped serious persecution, dying peacefully in amsterdam in , whereas writers much less pronounced in their heresy incurred aggressive hostility. descartes, as we shall see, during his stay in holland was menaced by clerical fanaticism. some fared worse. in the generation after grotius, one koerbagh, a doctor, for publishing ( ) a dictionary of definitions containing advanced ideas, had to fly from amsterdam. at culenberg he translated a unitarian work and began another; but was betrayed, tried for blasphemy, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, to be followed by ten years' banishment. he compromised by dying in prison within the year. even as late as the juri-consult hadrian beverland (afterwards appointed, through isaac vossius, to a lay office under the church of england) was imprisoned and struck off the rolls of leyden university for his peccatum originale, in which he speculated erotically as to the nature of the sin of adam and eve. the book was furiously answered, and publicly burned. [ ] it was only after an age of such intolerance that holland, at the end of the seventeenth century, began to become for england a model of freedom in opinion, as formerly in trade. and it seems to have been through holland, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, that there came the fresh unitarian impulse which led to the considerable spread of the movement in england after the revolution of . [ ] unitarianism, which we have seen thus invading holland somewhat persistently during half a century, was then as now impotent beyond a certain point by reason of its divided allegiance, though it has always had the support of some good minds. its denial of the deity of jesus could not be made out without a certain superposing of reason on scripture; and yet to scripture it always finally appealed. the majority of men accepting such authority have always tended to believe more uncritically; and the majority of men who are habitually critical will always repudiate the scriptural jurisdiction. in poland, accordingly, the movement, so flourishing in its earlier years, was soon arrested, as we have seen, by the perception that it drove many protestants back to catholicism; among these being presumably a number whose critical insight showed them that there was no firm standing-ground between catholicism and naturalism. every new advance within the unitarian pale terrified the main body, many of whom were mere arians, holding by the term trinity, and merely making the son subordinate to the father. thus when one of their most learned ministers, simon budny, followed in the steps of ferencz davides (whom we have seen dying in prison in transylvania in ), and represented jesus as a "mere" man, he was condemned by a synod ( ) and deposed from his office ( ). he recanted, and was reinstated, [ ] but his adherents seem to have been excommunicated. the sect thus formed were termed semi-judaizers by another heretic, martin czechowicz, who himself denied the pre-existence of jesus, and made him only a species of demi-god; [ ] yet fausto sozzini, better known as faustus socinus, who also wrote against them, and who had worked with biandrata to have davides imprisoned, conceded that prayer to christ was optional. [ ] faustus, who arrived in poland in , seems to have been moved to his strenuously "moderate" policy, which for a time unified the bulk of the party, mainly by a desire to keep on tolerable terms with protestantism. that, however, did not serve him with the catholics; and when the reaction set in he suffered severely at their hands. his treatise, de jesu christu servatore, created bitter resentment; and in the catholic rabble of cracow, led "as usual by the students of the university," dragged him from his house. his life was saved only by the strenuous efforts of the rector and two professors of the university; and his library was destroyed, with his manuscripts, whereof "he particularly regretted a treatise which he had composed against the atheists"; [ ] though it is not recorded that the atheists had ever menaced either his life or his property. he seems to have been zealous against all heresy that outwent his own, preaching passive obedience in politics as emphatically as any churchman, and condemning alike the rising of the dutch against spanish rule and the resistance of the french protestants to their king. [ ] this attitude may have had something to do with the better side of the ethical doctrines of the sect, which leant considerably to non-resistance. czechowicz (who was deposed by his fellow-socinians for schism) seems not only to have preached a patient endurance of injuries, but to have meant it; [ ] and to the socinian sect belongs the main credit of setting up a humane compromise on the doctrine of eternal punishment. [ ] the time, of course, had not come for any favourable reception of such a compromise in christendom; and it is noted of the german socinian, ernst schoner (sonerus), who wrote against the orthodox dogma, that his works are "exceedingly scarce." [ ] unitarianism as a whole, indeed, made little headway outside of poland and transylvania. in spain, meantime, there was no recovery from the paralysis wrought by the combined tyranny of church and crown, incarnate in the inquisition. the monstrous multiplication of her clergy might alone have sufficed to set up stagnation in her mental life; but, not content with the turning of a vast multitude [ ] of men and women away from the ordinary work of life, her rulers set themselves to expatriate as many more on the score of heresy. a century after the expulsion of the jews came the turn of the moors, whose last hold in spain, granada, had been overthrown in . within a generation they had been deprived of all exterior practice of their religion; [ ] but that did not suffice, and the inquisition never left them alone. harried, persecuted, compulsorily baptized, deprived of their arabic books, they repeatedly revolted, only to be beaten down. at length, in the opening years of the seventeenth century ( - ), under philip iii, on the score that the great armada had failed because heretics were tolerated at home, it was decided to expel the whole race; and now a million moriscoes, among the most industrious inhabitants of spain, were driven the way of the jews. it is needless here to recall the ruinous effect upon the material life of spain: [ ] the aspect of the matter which specially concerns us is the consummation of the policy of killing out all intellectual variation. the moriscoes may have counted for little in positive culture; but they were one of the last and most important factors of variation in the country; and when spain was thus successively denuded of precisely the most original and energetic types among the jewish, the spanish, and the moorish stocks, her mental arrest was complete. to modern freethought, accordingly, she has till our own age contributed practically nothing. huarte seems to have had no spanish successors. the brilliant dramatic literature of the reigns of the three philips, which influenced the rising drama alike of france and england, is notably unintellectual, [ ] dealing endlessly in plot and adventure, but yielding no great study of character, and certainly doing nothing to further ethics. calderon was a thorough fanatic, and became a priest; [ ] lope de vega found solace under bereavement in zealously performing the duties of an inquisitor; and was so utterly swayed by the atrocious creed of persecution which was blighting spain that he joined in the general exultation over the expulsion of the moriscoes. even the mind of cervantes had not on this side deepened beyond the average of his race and time; [ ] his old wrongs at moorish hands perhaps warping his better judgment. his humorous and otherwise kindly spirit, so incongruously neighboured, must indeed have counted for much in keeping life sweet in spain in the succeeding centuries of bigotry and ignorance. but from the seventeenth century till the other day the brains were out, in the sense that genius was lacking. that species of variation had been too effectually extirpated during two centuries to assert itself until after a similar duration of normal conditions. the "immense advantage of religious unity," which even a modern spanish historian [ ] has described as a gain balancing the economic loss from the expulsion of the moriscoes, was precisely the condition of minimum intellectual activity--the unity of stagnation. no kind of ratiocinative thought was allowed to raise its head. a latin translation of the hypotyposes of sextus empiricus had been permitted, or at least published, in catholic france; but when martin martinez de cantatapiedra, a learned orientalist and professor of theology, ventured to do the same thing in spain--doubtless with the idea of promoting faith by discouraging reason--he was haled before the inquisition, and the book proscribed ( ). he was further charged with lutheran leanings on the score that he had a preference for the actual text of scripture over that of the commentators. [ ] in such an atmosphere it was natural that works on mathematics, astronomy, and physics should be censured as "favouring materialism and sometimes atheism." [ ] it has been held by one historian that at the death of philip ii there arose some such sense of relief throughout spain as was felt later in france at the death of louis xiv; that "the spaniards now ventured to sport with the chains which they had not the power to break"; and that cervantes profited by the change in conceiving and writing his don quixote. [ ] but the same historian had before seen that "poetic freedom was circumscribed by the same shackles which fettered moral liberty. thoughts which could not be expressed without fear of the dungeon and the stake were no longer materials for the poet to work on. his imagination, instead of improving them into poetic ideas ... had to be taught to reject them. but the eloquence of prose was more completely bowed down under the inquisitorial yoke than poetry, because it was more closely allied to truth, which of all things was the most dreaded." [ ] cervantes, lope de vega, and calderon proved that within the iron wall of catholic orthodoxy, in an age when conclusions were but slowly being tried between dogma and reason, there could be a vigorous play of imaginative genius on the field of human nature; even as in velasquez, sheltered by royal favour, the genius of colour and portraiture could become incarnate. but after these have passed away, the laws of social progress are revealed in the defect of all further spanish genius. even of cervantes it is recorded--on very doubtful authority, however--that he said "i could have made don quixote much more amusing if it were not for the inquisition"; and it is matter of history that a passage in his book [ ] disparaging perfunctory works of charity was in ordered by the holy office to be expunged as impious and contrary to the faith. see h. e. watts, miguel de cervantes, p. . don quixote was "always under suspicion of the orthodox." id. p. . mr. watts, saying nothing of cervantes's approval of the expulsion of the moriscoes, claims that his "head was clear of the follies and extravagances of the reigning superstition" (id. p. ). but the case is truly summed up by mr. ormsby when he says: "for one passage capable of being tortured into covert satire" against things ecclesiastical, "there are ten in don quixote and the novels that show--what indeed is very obvious from the little we know of his life and character--that cervantes was a faithful son of the church" (tr. of don quixote, , introd. i, ). when the total intellectual life of a nation falls ever further in the rear of the world's movement, even the imaginative arts are stunted. turkey excepted, the civilized nations of europe which for two centuries have contributed the fewest great names to the world's bead-roll have been spain, austria, portugal, belgium, and greece, all noted for their "religious unity." and of all of these spain is the supreme instance of positive decadence, she having exhibited in the first half of the sixteenth century a greater complex of energy than any of the others. [ ] the lesson is monumental. § . scientific thought it remains to trace briefly the movement of scientific and speculative thought which constituted the transition between the scholastic and the modern philosophy. it may be compendiously noted under the names of copernicus, bruno, vanini, galileo, ramus, gassendi, bacon, and descartes. the great performance of copernicus (nicolaus koppernigk, - ), given to the world with an editor's treacherous preface as he lay paralysed on his deathbed, did not become a general possession for over a hundred years. the long reluctance of its author to let it be published, despite the express invitation of a cardinal in the name of the pope, was well founded in his knowledge of the strength of common prejudice; and perhaps partly in a sense of the scientific imperfection of his own case. [ ] only the special favour accorded to his first sketch at rome--a favour which he had further carefully planned for in his dedicatory epistle to pope paul--saved his main treatise from prohibition till long after its work was done. [ ] it was in fact, with all its burden of traditional error, the most momentous challenge that had yet been offered in the modern world to established beliefs, alike theological and lay, for it seemed to flout "common sense" as completely as it did the cosmogony of the sacred books. it was probably from scraps of ancient lore current in italy in his years of youthful study there that he first derived his idea; and in italy none had dared publicly to propound the geocentric theory. its gradual victory, therefore, is the first great modern instance of a triumph of reason over spontaneous and instilled prejudice; and galileo's account of his reception of it should be a classic document in the history of rationalism. it was when he was a student in his teens that there came to pisa one christianus urstitius of rostock, a follower of copernicus, to lecture on the new doctrine. the young galileo, being satisfied that "that opinion could be no other than a solemn madness," did not attend; and those of his acquaintance who did made a jest of the matter, all save one, "very intelligent and wary," who told him that "the business was not altogether to be laughed at." thenceforth he began to inquire of copernicans, with the result inevitable to such a mind as his. "of as many as i examined i found not so much as one who told me not that he had been a long time of the contrary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as convinced by the strength of the reasons proving the same; and afterwards questioning them one by one, to see whether they were well possessed of the reasons of the other side, i found them all to be very ready and perfect in them, so that i could not truly say that they took this opinion out of ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of their wits." on the other hand, the opposing aristoteleans and ptolemeans had seldom even superficially studied the copernican system, and had in no case been converted from it. "whereupon, considering that there was no man who followed the opinion of copernicus that had not been first on the contrary side, and that was not very well acquainted with the reasons of aristotle and ptolemy, while, on the contrary, there was not one of the followers of ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of copernicus, and had left that to embrace this of aristotle," he began to realize how strong must be the reasons that thus drew men away from beliefs "imbibed with their milk." [ ] we can divine how slow would be the progress of a doctrine which could only thus begin to find its way into one of the most gifted scientific minds of the modern world. it was only a minority of the élite of the intellectual life who could receive it, even after the lapse of a hundred years. the doctrine of the earth's two-fold motion, as we have seen, had actually been taught in the fifteenth century by nicolaus of cusa ( - ), who, instead of being prosecuted, was made a cardinal, so little was the question then considered (ueberweg, ii, - ). see above, vol. i, p. , as to pulci. only very slowly did the work even of copernicus make its impression. green (short history, ed. , p. ) makes first the mistake of stating that it influenced thought in the fifteenth century, and then the further mistake of saying that it was brought home to the general intelligence by galileo and kepler in the later years of the sixteenth century (id. p. ). galileo's european notoriety dates from ; his dialogues of the two systems of the world appeared only in ; and his dialogues of the new sciences in . kepler's indecisive mysterium cosmographicum appeared only in ; his treatise on the motions of the planet mars not till . one of the first to bring the new cosmological conception to bear on philosophic thought was giordano bruno of nola ( - ), whose life and death of lonely chivalry have won him his place as the typical martyr of modern freethought. [ ] he may be conceived as a blending of the pantheistic and naturalistic lore of ancient greece, [ ] assimilated through the florentine platonists, with the spirit of modern science (itself a revival of the greek) as it first takes firm form in copernicus, whose doctrine bruno early and ardently embraced. baptized filippo, he took giordano as his cloister-name when he entered the great convent of s. domenico maggiore at naples in , in his fifteenth year. no human being was ever more unfitly placed among the dominicans, punningly named the "hounds of the lord" (domini canes) for their work as the corps of the inquisition; and very early in his cloister life he came near being formally proceeded against for showing disregard of sacred images, and making light of the sanctity of the virgin. [ ] he passed his novitiate, however, without further trouble, and was fully ordained a priest in , in his twenty-fourth year. passing then through several neapolitan monasteries during a period of three years, he seems to have become not a little of a freethinker on his return to his first cloister, as he had already reached arian opinions in regard to christ, and soon proceeded to substitute a mystical and pythagorean for the orthodox view of the trinity. [ ] for the second time a "process" was begun against him, and he took flight to rome ( ), presenting himself at a convent of his order. news speedily came from naples of the process against him, and of the discovery that he had possessed a volume of the works of chrysostom and jerome with the scholia of erasmus--a prohibited thing. only a few months before bartolomeo carranza, bishop of toledo, who had won the praise of the council of trent for his index of prohibited books, had been condemned to abjure for the doctrine that "the worship of the relics of the saints is of human institution," and had died in the same year at the convent to which bruno had now gone. thus doubly warned, he threw off his priestly habit, and fled to the genoese territory, [ ] where, in the commune of noli, he taught grammar and astronomy. in he visited successively turin, venice, padua, bergamo, and milan, resuming at the last-named town his monk's habit. thereafter he again returned to turin, passing thence to chambéry at the end of , and thence to geneva early in . [ ] his wish, he said, was "to live in liberty and security"; but for that he must first renounce his dominican habit; other italian refugees, of whom there were many at geneva, helping him to a layman's suit. becoming a corrector of the press, he seems to have conformed externally to calvinism; but after a stay of two and a-half months he published a short diatribe against one antonio de la faye, who professed philosophy at the academy; and for this he was arrested and sentenced to excommunication, while his bookseller was subjected to one day's imprisonment and a fine. [ ] after three weeks the excommunication was raised; but he nevertheless left geneva, and afterwards spoke of calvinism as the "deformed religion." after a few weeks' sojourn at lyons he went to toulouse, the very centre of inquisitional orthodoxy; and there, strangely enough, he was able to stay for more than a year, [ ] taking his degree as master of arts and becoming professor of astronomy. but the civil wars made toulouse unsafe; and at length, probably in or , he reached paris, where for a time he lectured as professor extraordinary. [ ] in he reached england, where he remained till , lecturing, debating at oxford on the copernican theory, and publishing a number of his works, four of them dedicated to his patron castelnau de mauvissière, the french ambassador. oxford was then a stronghold of bigoted aristotelianism, where bachelors and masters deviating from the master were fined, or, if openly hostile, expelled. [ ] in that camp bruno was not welcome. but he had other shelter, at the french embassy in london, and there he had notable acquaintances. he had met sir philip sidney at milan in ; and his dialogue, cena de le ceneri, gives a vivid account of a discussion in which he took a leading part at a banquet given by sir fulke greville. his picture of "oxford ignorance and english ill-manners" [ ] is not lenient; and there is no reason to suppose that his doctrine was then assimilated by many; [ ] but his stay in the household of castelnau was one of the happiest periods of his chequered life. while in england he wrote no fewer than seven works, four of them dedicated to castelnau, and two--the heroic fervours and the expulsion of the triumphant beast--to sir philip sidney. returning to paris on the recall of castelnau in , he made an attempt to reconcile himself to the church, but it was fruitless; and thereafter he went his own way. after a public disputation at the university in , he set out on a new peregrination, visiting first mayence, marburg, and wittemberg. at marburg he was refused leave to debate; and at wittemberg he seems to have been carefully conciliatory, as he not only matriculated but taught for over a year ( - ), till the calvinist party carried the day over the lutheran. [ ] thereafter he reached prague, helmstadt, frankfort, and zurich. at length, on the fatal invitation of the venetian youth mocenigo, he re-entered italian territory, where, in venice, he was betrayed to the inquisition by his treacherous and worthless pupil. [ ] what had been done for freethought by bruno in his fourteen years of wandering, debating, and teaching through europe it is impossible to estimate; but it is safe to say that he was one of the most powerful antagonists to orthodox unreason that had yet appeared. of all men of his time he had perhaps the least affinity with the christian creed, which was repellent to him alike in the catholic and the protestant versions. the attempt to prove him a believer on the strength of a non-autograph manuscript [ ] is idle. his approbation of a religion for the discipline of uncivilized peoples is put in terms of unbelief. [ ] in the spaccio della bestia trionfante he derides the notion of a union of divine and human natures, and substantially proclaims a natural (theistic) religion, negating all "revealed" religions alike. where boccaccio had accredited all the three leading religions, bruno disallows all with paganism, though he puts that above christianity. [ ] and his disbelief grew more stringent with his years. among the heretical propositions charged against him by the inquisition were these: that there is transmigration of souls; that magic is right and proper; that the holy spirit is the same thing as the soul of the world; that the world is eternal; that moses, like the egyptians, wrought miracles by magic; that the sacred writings are but a romance (sogno); that the devil will be saved; that only the hebrews are descended from adam, other men having descended from progenitors created by god before adam; that christ was not god, but was a notorious sorcerer (insigne mago), who, having deceived men, was deservedly hanged, not crucified; that the prophets and the apostles were bad men and sorcerers, and that many of them were hanged as such. the cruder of these propositions rest solely on the allegation of mocenigo, and were warmly repudiated by bruno: others are professedly drawn, always, of course, by forcing his language, but not without some colourable pretext, from his two "poems," de triplice, minimo, et mensura, and de monade, numero et figura, published at frankfort in , in the last year of his freedom. [ ] but the allusions in the sigillus sigillorum [ ] to the weeping worship of a suffering adonis, to the exhibition of suffering and miserable gods, to transpierced divinities, and to sham miracles, were certainly intended to contemn the christian system. alike in the details of his propaganda and in the temper of his utterance, bruno expresses from first to last the spirit of freethought and free speech. libertas philosophica [ ] is the breath of his nostrils; and by his life and his death alike he upholds the ideal for men as no other before him did. the wariness of rabelais and the non-committal skepticism of montaigne are alike alien to him; he is too lacking in reticence, too explosive, to give due heed even to the common-sense amenities of life, much more to hedge his meaning with safeguarding qualifications. and it was doubtless as much by the contagion of his mood as by his lore that he impressed men. his personal and literary influence was probably most powerful in respect of his eager propaganda of the copernican doctrine, which he of his own force vitally expanded and made part of a pantheistic conception of the universe. [ ] where copernicus adhered by implication to the idea of an external and limitary sphere--the last of the eight of the ptolemaic theory--bruno reverted boldly to the doctrine of anaximandros, and declared firmly for the infinity of space and of the series of the worlds. in regard to biology he makes an equivalent advance, starting from the thought of empedocles and lucretius, and substituting an idea of natural selection for that of creative providence. [ ] the conception is definitely thought out, and marks him as one of the renovators of scientific no less than of philosophic thought for the modern world; though the special paralysis of science under christian theology kept his ideas on this side pretty much a dead letter for his own day. and indeed it was to the universal and not the particular that his thought chiefly and most enthusiastically turned. a philosophic poet rather than a philosopher or man of science, he yet set abroad for the modern world that conception of the physical infinity of the universe which, once psychologically assimilated, makes an end of the medieval theory of things. on this head he was eagerly affirmative; and the merely pyrrhonic skeptics he assailed as he did the "asinine" orthodox, though he insisted on doubt as the beginning of wisdom. of his extensive literary output not much is stamped with lasting scientific fitness or literary charm; and some of his treatises, as those on mnemonics, have no more value than the product of his didactic model, raymond lully. as a writer he is at his best in the sweeping expatiation of his more general philosophic treatises, where he attains a lifting ardour of inspiration, a fervour of soaring outlook, that puts him in the front rank of the thinkers of his age. and if his literary character is at times open to severe criticism in respect of his lack of balance, sobriety, and self-command, his final courage atones for such shortcomings. his case, indeed, serves to remind us that at certain junctures it is only the unbalanced types that aid humanity's advance. the perfectly prudent and self-sufficing man does not achieve revolutions, does not revolt against tyrannies; he wisely adapts himself and subsists, letting the evil prevail as it may. it is the more impatient and unreticent, the eager and hot-brained--in a word, the faulty--who clash with oppression and break a way for quieter spirits through the hedges of enthroned authority. the serenely contemplative spirit is rather a possession than a possessor for his fellows; he may inform and enlighten, but is not in himself a countering or inspiriting force: a shelley avails more than a goethe against tyrannous power. and it may be that the battling enthusiast in his own way wins liberation for himself from "fear of fortune and death," as he wins for others liberty of action. [ ] even such a liberator, bearing other men's griefs and taking stripes that they might be kept whole, was bruno. and though he quailed at the first shock of capture and torture, when the end came he vindicated human nature as worthily as could any quietist. it was a long-drawn test. charged on the traitor's testimony with many "blasphemies," he denied them all, [ ] but stood to his published writings [ ] and vividly expounded his theories, [ ] professing in the usual manner to believe in conformity with the church's teachings, whatever he might write on philosophy. it is impossible to trust the inquisition records as to his words of self-humiliation; [ ] though on the other hand no blame can rationally attach to anyone who, in his place, should try to deceive such enemies, morally on a level with hostile savages. it is certain that the inquisitors frequently wrung recantations by torture. [ ] what is historically certain is that bruno was not released, but sent on to rome, and was kept there in prison for seven years. he was not the sort of heretic likely to be released; though the fact of his being a dominican, and the desire to maintain the church's intellectual credit, delayed so long his execution. certainly not an atheist (he called himself in several of his book-titles philotheus; he consigns insano ateismo to perdition; [ ] and his quasi-pantheism or monism often lapses into theistic modes), [ ] he yet was from first to last essentially though not professedly anti-christian in his view of the universe. if the church had cause to fear any philosophic teaching, it was his, preached with the ardour of a prophet and the eloquence of a poet. his doctrine that the worlds in space are innumerable was as offensive to orthodox ears as his specific negations of christian dogma, outgoing as it did the later idea of kepler and galileo. he had, moreover, finally refused to make any fresh recantation; and the only detailed document extant concerning his final trial describes him as saying to his judges: "with more fear, perchance, do you pass sentence on me than i receive it." [ ] according to all accessible records, he was burned alive at rome in february, , in the field of flowers, near where his statue now stands. as was probably customary, they tied his tongue before leading him to the stake, lest he should speak to the people; [ ] and his martyrdom was an edifying spectacle for the vast multitude of pilgrims who had come from all parts of christendom for the jubilee of the pope. [ ] at the stake, when he was at the point of death, there was duly presented to him the crucifix, and he duly put it aside. an attempt has been made by professor desdouits in a pamphlet (la légende tragique de jordano bruno; paris, ) to show that there is no evidence that bruno was burned; and an anonymous writer in the scottish review (october, , art. ii), rabidly hostile to bruno, has maintained the same proposition. doubt on the subject dates from bayle. its main ground is the fewness of the documentary records, of which, further, the genuineness is now called in question. but no good reason is shown for doubting them. they are three. . the latin letter of gaspar schopp (scioppius), dated february , , is an eye-witness's account of the sentencing and burning of bruno at that date. (see it in full, in the original latin, in berti, p. sq., and in app. v to frith, life of bruno, and partly translated in prof. adamson's lectures, as cited. it was rep. by struvius in his acta literaria, tom. v, and by la croze in his entretiens sur divers sujets in , p. .) it was not printed till , but the grounds urged for its rejection are totally inadequate, and involve assumptions, which are themselves entirely unproved, as to what scioppius was likely to do. finally, no intelligible reason is suggested for the forging of such a document. the remarks of prof. desdouits on this head have no force whatever. the writer in the scottish review (p. , and note) suggests as "at least as possible an hypothesis as any other that he [bruno] was the author of the forged accounts of his own death." comment is unnecessary. . there are preserved two extracts from roman news-letters (avvisi) of the time; one, dated february , , commenting on the case; the other, dated february , relating the execution on the th. (see both in s. r., pp. - . they were first printed by berti in documenti intorno a giordano bruno, rome, , and are reprinted in his vita, ed. , cap. xix; also by levi, as cited.) against these testimonies the sole plea is that they mis-state bruno's opinions and the duration of his imprisonment--a test which would reduce to mythology the contents of most newspapers in our own day. the writer in the scottish review makes the suicidal suggestion that, inasmuch as the errors as to dates occur in schopp's letter, "the so-called schopp was fabricated from these notices, or they from schopp"--thus admitting one to be historical. . there has been found, by a catholic investigator, a double entry in the books of the lay brotherhood of san giovanni decollato, whose function was to minister to prisoners under capital sentence, giving a circumstantial account of bruno's execution. (see it in s. r., pp. , , .) in this case, the main entry being dated " . thursday. february th," the anonymous writer argues that "the whole thing resolves itself into a make-up," because february was the wednesday. the entry refers to the procedure of the wednesday night and the thursday morning; and such an error could easily occur in any case. whatever may be one day proved, the cavils thus far count for nothing. all the while, the records as to bruno remain in the hands of the catholic authorities; but, despite the discredit constantly cast on the church on the score of bruno's execution, they offer no official denial of the common statement; while they do officially admit (s. r., p. ) that on february bruno was sentenced as an "obstinate heretic," and "given over to the secular court." on the other hand, the episode is well vouched; and the argument from the silence of ambassadors' letters is so far void. no pretence is made of tracing bruno anywhere after february, . since the foregoing note appeared in the first edition i have met with the essay of mr. r. copley christie, "was giordano bruno really burned?" (macmillan's magazine, october, ; rep. in mr. christie's selected essays and papers, ). this is a crushing answer to the thesis of m. desdouits, showing as it does clear grounds not only for affirming the genuineness of the letter of scioppius, but for doubting the diligence of m. desdouits. mr. christie points out ( ) that in his book ecclesiasticus, printed in , scioppius refers to the burning of bruno almost in the words of his letter of ; ( ) that in kepler wrote to a correspondent of the burning of bruno, giving as his authority j. m. wacker, who in was living at rome as the imperial ambassador; and ( ) that the tract machiavellizatio, , in which the letter of scioppius was first printed, was well known in its day, being placed on the index, and answered by two writers without eliciting any repudiation from scioppius, who lived till . as m. desdouits staked his case on the absence of allusion to the subject before (overlooking even the allusion by mersenne, in , cited by bayle), his theory may be taken as exploded. bruno has been zealously blackened by catholic writers for the obscenity of some of his writing [ ] and the alleged freedom of his life--piquant charges, when we remember the life of the papal italy in which he was born. lucilio vanini (otherwise julius cæsar vanini), the next martyr of freethought, also an italian (b. at taurisano, ), is open to the more relevant charges of an inordinate vanity and some duplicity. figuring as a carmelite friar, which he was not, he came to england ( ) and deceitfully professed to abjure catholicism, [ ] gaining, however, nothing by the step, and contriving to be reconciled to the church, after being imprisoned for forty-nine days on an unrecorded charge. previously he had figured, like bruno, as a wandering scholar at amsterdam, brussels, cologne, geneva, and lyons; and afterwards he taught natural philosophy for a year at genoa. his treatise, amphitheatrum Æterna providentiæ (lyons, ), is professedly directed against "ancient philosophers, atheists, epicureans, peripatetics, and stoics," and is ostensibly quite orthodox. [ ] in one passage he untruthfully tells how, when imprisoned in england, he burned with the desire to shed his blood for the catholic church. [ ] in another, after declaring that some christian doctors have argued very weakly against the epicureans on immortality, he avows that he, "christianus nomine cognomine catholicus," could hardly have held the doctrine if he had not learned it from the church, "the most certain and infallible mistress of truth." [ ] as usual, the attack leaves us in doubt as to the amount of real atheism current at the time. the preface asserts that "atheotêto autem secta pestilentissima quotidie, latius et latius vires acquirit eundo," and there are various hostile allusions to atheists in the text; [ ] but the arguments cited from them are such as might be brought by deists against miracles and the christian doctrine of sin; and there is an allusion of the customary kind to "nicolaus machiavellus atheorum facile princeps," [ ] which puts all in doubt. the later published dialogues, de admirandis naturæ arcanis, [ ] while showing a freer critical spirit, would seem to be in part earlier in composition, if we can trust the printer's preface, which represents them as collected from various quarters, and published only with the reluctant consent of the author. [ ] this, of course, may be a mystification; in any case the dialogues twice mention the amphitheatrum; and the fourth book, in which this mention occurs, may be taken on this and other grounds to set forth his later ideas. even the dialogues, however, while discussing many questions of creed and science in a free fashion, no less profess orthodoxy; and, while one passage is pantheistic, [ ] they also denounce atheism. [ ] and whereas one passage does avow that the author in his amphitheatrum had said many things he did not believe, the context clearly suggests that the reference was not to the main argument, but to some of its dubious facts. [ ] in any case, though the title--chosen by the editors--speaks daringly enough of "nature, the queen and goddess of mortals," vanini cannot be shown to be an atheist; [ ] and the attacks upon him as an immoral writer are not any better supported. [ ] the publication of the dialogues was in fact formally authorized by the sorbonne, [ ] and it does not even appear that when he was charged with atheism and blasphemy at toulouse that work was founded on, save in respect of its title. [ ] the charges rested on the testimony of a treacherous associate as to his private conversation; and, if true, it only amounted to proving his pantheism, expressed in his use of the word "nature." at his trial he expressly avowed and argued for theism. the judges, by one account, did not agree. yet he was convicted, by the voices of the majority, and burned alive (february , ) on the day of his sentence. drawn on a hurdle, in his shirt, with a placard on his shoulders inscribed "atheist and blasphemer of the name of god," he went to his death with a high heart, rejoicing, as he cried in italian, to die like a philosopher. [ ] a catholic historian, [ ] who was present, says he hardily declared that "jesus facing death sweated with fear: i die undaunted." but before burning him they tore out his tongue by the roots; and the christian historian is humorous over the victim's long cry of agony. [ ] no martyr ever faced death with a more dauntless courage than this lonely antagonist of destiny that went down scornful before many spears; [ ] and if the man had all the faults falsely imputed to him, [ ] his death might shame his accusers. vanini, like bruno, can now be recognized and understood as an italian of vivacious temperament, studious without the student's calm, early learned, alert in debate, fluent, imprudent, and ill-balanced. by his own account he studied theology under the carmelite bartolomeo argotti, phoenix of the preachers of the time; [ ] but from the english carmelite, john bacon, "the prince of averroïsts," [ ] he declares, he "learned to swear only by averroës"; and of pomponazzi he speaks as his master, and as "prince of the philosophers of our age." [ ] he has criticized both freely in his amphitheatrum; but whereas that work is a professed vindication of orthodoxy, we may infer from the de arcanis that the arguments of these skeptics, like those of the contemporary atheists whom he had met in his travels, had kept their hold on his thought even while he controverted them. for it cannot be disputed that the long passages which he quotes from the "atheist at amsterdam" [ ] are put with a zest and cogency which are not infused into the professed rebuttals, and are in themselves quite enough to arouse the anger and suspicion of a pious reader. a writer who set forth so fully the acute arguments of unbelievers, unprintable by their authors, might well be suspected of writing at christianity when he confuted the creeds of the pagans. as was noted later of fontenelle, he put arguments against oracles which endangered prophecy; his dismissal of sorcery as the dream of troubled brains appeals to reason and not to faith; and his disparagement of pagan miracles logically bore upon the christian. when he comes to the question of immortality he grows overtly irreverent. asked by the interlocutor in the last dialogue to give his views on the immortality of the soul, he begs to be excused, protesting: "i have vowed to my god that that question shall not be handled by me till i become old, rich, and a german." and without overt irreverence he is ever and again unserious. perfectly transparent is the irony of the appeal, "let us give faith to the prescripts of the church, and due honour to the sacrosanct gregorian apparitions," [ ] and the protestation, "i will not invalidate the powers of holy water, to which alexander, doctor and pontifex of the christians, and interpreter of the divine will, accorded such countless privileges." [ ] and even in the amphitheatrum, with all the parade of defending the faith, there is a plain balance of cogency on the side of the case for the attack, [ ] and a notable disposition to rely finally on lines of argument to which faith could never give real welcome. the writer's mind, it is clear, was familiar with doubt. in the malice of orthodoxy there is sometimes an instinctive perception of hostility; and though vanini had written, among other things, [ ] an apologia pro lege mosaïcâ et christianâ, to which he often refers, and an apologia pro concilio tridentino, he can be seen even in the hymn to deity with which he concludes his amphitheatrum to have no part in evangelical christianity. he was in fact a deist with the inevitable leaning of the philosophic theist to pantheism; and whatever he may have said to arouse priestly hatred at toulouse, he was rather less of an atheist than spinoza or bruno or john scotus. on his trial, [ ] pressed as to his real beliefs by judges who had doubtless challenged his identification of god with nature, he passed from a profession of orthodox faith in a trinity into a flowing discourse which could as well have availed for a vindication of pantheism as for the proposition of a personal god. seeing a straw on the ground, he picked it up and talked of its history; and when brought back again from his affirmation of deity to his doctrine of nature, he set forth the familiar orthodox theorem that, while nature wrought the succession of seeds and fruits, there must have been a first seed which was created. it was the habitual standing ground of theism; and they burned him all the same. it remains an open question whether personal enmity on the part of the prosecuting official [ ] or a real belief that he had uttered blasphemies against jesus or mary was the determining force, or whether even less motive sufficed. a vituperative jesuit of that age sees intolerable freethinking in his suggestion of the unreality of demoniacal possession and the futility of exorcisms. [ ] and for that much they were not incapable of burning men in catholic toulouse in the days of mary de medici. there are in fact reasons for surmizing that in the cases alike of bruno and of vanini it was the attitude of the speculator towards scientific problems that primarily or mainly aroused distrust and anger among the theologians. vanini is careful to speak equivocally of the eternity of the universe; and though he makes a passing mention of kepler, [ ] he does not name copernicus. he had learned something from the fate of bruno. yet in the dialogue de coeli forma et motore [ ] he declares so explicitly for a naturalistic explanation of the movements of the heavenly bodies that he must have aroused in some orthodox readers such anger as was set up in plato by a physical theory of sun and stars. after an à priori discussion on aristotelian lines, the querist in the dialogue asks what may fitly be held, with an eye to religion, concerning the movements of the spheres. "this," answers vanini, "unless i am in error: the mass of the heaven is moved in its proper gyratory way by the nature of its elements." "how then," asks the querist, "are the heavens moved by certain and fixed laws, unless divine minds, participating in the primal motion, there operate?" "where is the wonder?" returns vanini. "does not a certain and fixed law of motion act in the most paltry clockwork machines, made by a drunken german, even as there works silently in a tertian and quartan fever a motion which comes and goes at fixed periods without transgressing its line by a moment? the sea also at certain and fixed times, by its nature, as you peripatetics affirm, is moved in progressions and regressions. no less, then, i affirm the heaven to be forever carried by the same motion in virtue of its nature (a sua pura forma) and not to be moved by the will of intelligence." and the disciple assents. kepler had seen fit, either in sincerity or of prudence, to leave "divine minds" in the planets; and vanini's negation, though not accompanied by any assertion of the motion of the earth, was enough to provoke the minds which had only three years before put copernicus on the index, and challenged galileo for venting his doctrine. it is at this stage that we begin to realize the full play of the counter-reformation, as against the spirit of science. the movement of mere theological and ecclesiastical heresy had visibly begun to recede in the world of mind, and in its stead, alike in protestant and in catholic lands, there was emerging a new activity of scientific research, vaguely menacing to all theistic faith. kepler represented it in germany, harriott and harvey and gilbert and bacon in england; from italy had come of late the portents of bruno and galileo; even spain yielded the examen de ingenios of huarte ( ), where with due protestation of theism the physicist insists upon natural causation; and now vanini was exhibiting the same incorrigible zest for a naturalistic explanation of all things. his dialogues are full of such questionings; the mere metaphysic and theosophy of the amphitheatrum are being superseded by discussions on physical and physiological phenomena. it was for this, doubtless, that the de arcanis won the special vogue over which the jesuit garasse was angrily exclaiming ten years later. [ ] not merely the doubts cast upon sorcery and diabolical possession, but the whole drift, often enough erratic, of the inquiry as to how things in nature came about, caught the curiosity of the time, soon to be stimulated by more potent and better-governed minds than that of the ill-starred vanini. and for every new inquirer there would be a hostile zealot in the church, where the anti-intellectual instinct was now so much more potent than it had been in the days before luther, when heresy was diagnosed only as a danger to revenue. it was with galileo that there began the practical application of the copernican theory to astronomy, and, indeed, the decisive demonstration of its truth. with him, accordingly, began the positive rejection of the copernican theory by the church; for thus far it had never been officially vetoed--having indeed been generally treated as a wild absurdity. almost immediately after the publication of galileo's sidereus nuncius ( ) his name is found in the papers of the inquisition, with that of cremonini of padua, as a subject of investigation. [ ] the juxtaposition is noteworthy. cremonini was an aristotelian, with averroïst leanings, and reputed an atheist; [ ] and it was presumably on this score that the inquisition was looking into his case. at the same time, as an aristotelian he was strongly opposed to galileo, and is said to have been one of those who refused to look through galileo's telescope. [ ] galileo, on the other hand, was ostensibly a good catholic; but his discovery of the moons of jupiter was a signal confirmation of the copernican theory, and the new status at once given to that made a corresponding commotion in the church. thus he had against him both the unbelieving pedants of the schools and the typical priests. in his book the great discoverer had said nothing explicitly on the subject of the copernican theory; but in lectures and conversations he had freely avowed his belief in it; and the implications of the published treatise were clear to all thinkers. [ ] and though, when he visited rome in , he was well received by pope paul v, and his discoveries were favourably reported of by the four scientific experts nominated at the request of cardinal bellarmin to examine them, [ ] it only needed that the biblical cry should be raised to change the situation. the church still contained men individually open to new scientific ideas; but she was then more than ever dominated by the forces of tradition; and as soon as those forces had been practically evoked his prosecution was bound to follow. the cry of "religion in danger" silenced the saner men at rome. the fashion in which galileo's sidereal discoveries were met is indeed typical of the whole history of freethought. the clergy pointed to the story of joshua stopping the sun and moon; the average layman scouted the new theory as plain folly; and typical schoolmen insisted that "the heavens are unchangeable," and that there was no authority in aristotle for the new assertions. with such minds the man of science had to argue, and in deference to such he had at length to affect to doubt his own demonstrations. [ ] the catholic reaction had finally created as bitter a spirit of hostility to free science in the church as existed among the protestants; and in italy even those who saw the moons of jupiter through his telescope dared not avow what they had seen. [ ] it was therefore an unfortunate step on galileo's part to go from padua, which was under the rule of venice, then anti-papal, [ ] to tuscany, on the invitation of the grand duke. when in he published his treatise on the solar spots, definitely upholding copernicus against jesuits and aristotelians, trouble became inevitable; and his letter [ ] to his pupil, father castelli, professor of mathematics at pisa, discussing the biblical argument with which they had both been met, at once evoked an explosion when circulated by castelli. new trouble arose when galileo in wrote his apology in the form of a letter to his patroness the dowager grand duchess cristina of tuscany, extracts from which became current. an outcry of ignorant dominican monks [ ] sufficed to set at work the machinery of the index, [ ] the first result of which ( ) was to put on the list of condemned books the great treatise of copernicus, published seventy-three years before. galileo personally escaped for the present through the friendly intervention of the pope, paul v, on the appeal of his patron, the grand duke of tuscany, apparently on the ground that he had not publicly taught the copernican theory. it would seem as if some of the heads of the church were at heart copernicans; [ ] but they were in any case obliged to disown a doctrine felt by so many others to be subversive of the church's authority. see the details of the procedure in domenico berti, il processo originale de galileo galilei, ed. , cap. iv; in fahie, ch. viii; and in gebler, ch. vi. the last-cited writer claims to show that, of two records of the "admonition" to galileo, one, the more stringent in its terms, was false, though made at the date it bears, to permit of subsequent proceedings against galileo. but the whole thesis is otiose. it is admitted (gebler, p. ) that galileo was admonished "not to defend or hold the copernican doctrine." gebler contends, however, that this was not a command to keep "entire silence," and that therefore galileo is not justly to be charged with having disobeyed the injunction of the inquisition when, in his dialogues on the two principal systems of the world, the ptolemaic and copernican ( ), he dealt dialectically with the subject, neither affirming nor denying, but treating both theories as hypotheses. but the real issue is not galileo's cautious disobedience (see gebler's own admissions, p. ) to an irrational decree, but the crime of the church in silencing him. it is not likely that the "enemies" of galileo, as gebler supposes (pp. , ), anticipated his later dialectical handling of the subject, and so falsified the decision of the inquisition against him in . gebler had at first adopted the german theory that the absolute command to silence was forged in ; and, finding the document certainly belonged to , framed the new theory, quite unnecessarily, to save galileo's credit. the two records are quite in the spirit and manner of inquisitorial diplomacy. as berti remarks, "the holy office proceeded with much heedlessness (legerezza) and much confusion" in . its first judgment, in either form, merely emphasizes the guilt of the second. cp. fahie, pp. - . thus officially "admonished" for his heresy, but not punished, in , galileo kept silence for some years, till in he published his (erroneous) theory of the tides, which he sent with an ironical epistle to the friendly archduke leopold of austria, professing to be propounding a mere dream, disallowed by the official veto on copernicus. [ ] this, however, did him less harm than his essay il saggiatore ("the scales"), in which he opposed the jesuit grassi on the question of comets. receiving the imprimatur in , it was dedicated to the new pope, urban viii, who, as the cardinal maffeo barberini, had been galileo's friend. the latter could now hope for freedom of speech, as he had all along had a number of friends at the papal court, besides many priests, among his admirers and disciples. but the enmity of the jesuits countervailed all. they did not succeed in procuring a censure of the saggiatore, though that subtly vindicates the copernican system while professing to hold it disproved by the fiat of the church; [ ] but when, venturing further, he after another lapse of years produced his dialogues on the two systems, for which he obtained the papal imprimatur in , they caught him in their net. having constant access to the pope, they contrived to make him believe that galileo had ridiculed him in one of the personages of his dialogues. it was quite false; but one of the pope's anti-copernican arguments was there unconsciously made light of; and his wounded vanity was probably a main factor in the impeachment which followed. [ ] his holiness professed to have been deceived into granting the imprimatur; [ ] a special commission was set on foot; the proceedings of were raked up; and galileo was again summoned to rome. he was old and frail, and sent medical certificates of his unfitness for such travel; but it was insisted on, and as under the papal tyranny there was no help, he accordingly made the journey. after many delays he was tried, and, on his formal abjuration, sentenced to formal imprisonment ( ) for teaching the "absurd" and "false doctrine" of the motion of the earth and the non-motion of the sun from east to west. in this case the pope, whatever were his motives, acted as a hot anti-copernican, expressing his personal opinion on the question again and again, and always in an anti-copernican sense. in both cases, however, the popes, while agreeing to the verdict, abstained from officially ratifying it, [ ] so that, in proceeding to force galileo to abjure his doctrine, the inquisition technically exceeded its powers--a circumstance in which some catholics appear to find comfort. seeing that three of the ten cardinals named in the preamble to the sentence did not sign, it has been inferred that they dissented; but there is no good reason to suppose that either the pope or they wilfully abstained from signing. they had gained their point--the humiliation of the great discoverer. compare gebler, p. ; private life, p. , quoting tiraboschi. for an exposure of the many perversions of the facts as to galileo by catholic writers see parchappe, galilée, sa vie, etc., e partie. to such straits has the catholic church been reduced in this matter that part of its defence of the treatment of galileo is the plea that he unwarrantably asserted that the fixity of the sun and the motion of the earth were taught in the scriptures. sir robert inglis is quoted as having maintained this view in england in (mendham, the literary policy of the church of rome, nd ed. , p. ), and the same proposition was maintained in by a roman cardinal. see galileo e l'inquisizione, by monsignor marini, roma, , pp. , - , etc. had galileo really taught as is there asserted, he would only have been assenting to what his priestly opponents constantly dinned in his ears. but in point of fact he had not so assented; for in his letter to castelli (see gebler, pp. - ) he had earnestly deprecated the argument from the bible, urging that, though scripture could not err, its interpreters might misunderstand it; and even going so far as to argue, with much ingenuity, that the story of joshua, literally interpreted, could be made to harmonize with the copernican theory, but not at all with the ptolemaic. the thesis revived by monsignor marini deserves to rank as the highest flight of absurdity and effrontery in the entire discussion (cp. berti, giordano bruno, , p. , note). every step in both procedures of the inquisition insists on the falsity and the anti-scriptural character of the doctrine that the earth moves round the sun (see berti, il processo, p. sq.; gebler, pp. - , - ); and never once is it hinted that galileo's error lay in ascribing to the bible the doctrine of the earth's fixity. in the roman index of the works of galileo and copernicus are alike vetoed, with all other writings affirming the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun; and in the index of are included libri omnes docentes mobilitatem terrae et immobilitatem solis (putnam, the censorship of the church of rome, - , i, , ). the stories of his being tortured and blinded, and saying "still it moves," are indeed myths. [ ] the broken-spirited old man was in no mood so to speak; he was, moreover, in all respects save his science, an orthodox catholic, [ ] and as such not likely to defy the church to its face. in reality he was formally in the custody of the inquisition--and this not in a cell, but in the house of an official--for only twenty-two days. after the sentence he was again formally detained for some seventeen days in the villa medici, but was then allowed to return to his own rural home at acatri, [ ] on condition that he lived in solitude, receiving no visitors. he was thus much more truly a prisoner than the so-called "prisoner of the vatican" in our own day. the worst part of the sentence, however, was the placing of all his works, published and unpublished, on the index expurgatorius, and the gag thus laid on all utterance of rational scientific thought in italy--an evil of incalculable influence. "the lack of liberty and speculation," writes a careful italian student, "was the cause of the death first of the accademia dei lincei, an institution unique in its time; then of the accademia del cimento. thus italy, after the marvellous period of vigorous native civilization in the thirteenth century, after a second period of civilization less native but still its own, as being latin, saw itself arrested on the threshold of a third and not less splendid period. vexations and prohibitions expelled courage, spontaneity, and universality from the national mind; literary style became uncertain, indeterminate; and, forbidden to treat of government, science, or religion, turned to things frivolous and fruitless. for the great academies, instituted to renovate and further the study of natural philosophy, were substituted small ones without any such aim. intellectual energy, the love of research and of objective truth, greatness of feeling and nobility of character, all suffered. nothing so injures a people as the compulsion to express or conceal its thought solely from motives of fear. the nation in which those conditions were set up became intellectually inferior to those in which it was possible to pass freely in the vast regions of knowledge. her culture grew restricted, devoid of originality, vaporous, umbratile; there arose habits of servility and dissimulation; great books, great men, great purposes were denaturalized." [ ] it was thus in the other countries of europe that galileo's teaching bore its fruit, for he speedily got his condemned dialogues published in latin by the elzevirs; and in , also at the hands of the elzevirs, appeared his dialogues of the new sciences [i.e., of mechanics and motion], the "foundation of mechanical physics." by this time he was totally blind, and then only, when physicians could not help him save by prolonging his life, was he allowed to live under strict surveillance in florence, needing a special indulgence from the inquisition to permit him even to go to church at easter. the desire of his last blind days, to have with him his best-beloved pupil, father castelli, was granted only under rigid limitation and supervision, though even the papacy could not keep from him the plaudits of the thinkers of europe. finally he passed away in his rural "prison"--after five years of blindness--in , the year of newton's birth. at that time his doctrines were under anathema in italy, and known elsewhere only to a few. hobbes in tried in vain to procure for the earl of newcastle a copy of the earlier dialogues in london, and wrote: "it is not possible to get it for money.... i hear say it is called-in, in italy, as a book that will do more hurt to their religion than all the books of luther and calvin, such opposition they think is between their religion and natural reason." [ ] not till did the papacy permit other books teaching the copernican system; in galileo was still under ban; not until was permission given to treat the theory as true; and not until was the work of copernicus withdrawn from the index. [ ] while modern science was thus being placed on its special basis, a continuous resistance was being made in the schools to the dogmatism which held the mutilated lore of aristotle as the sum of human wisdom. like the ecclesiastical revolution, this had been protracted through centuries. aristotelianism, whether theistic or pantheistic, whether orthodox or heterodox, [ ] had become a dogmatism like another, a code that vetoed revision, a fetter laid on the mind. even as a negation of christian superstition it had become impotent, for the peripatetics were not only ready to make common cause with the jesuits against galileo, as we have seen; some of them were content even to join in the appeal to the bible. [ ] the result of such uncritical partisanship was that the immense service of aristotle to mental life--the comprehensive grasp which gave him his long supremacy as against rival system-makers, and makes him still so much more important than any of the thinkers who in the sixteenth century revolted against him--was by opponents disregarded and denied, though the range and depth of his influence are apparent in all the polemic against him, notably in that of bacon, who is constantly citing him, and relates his reasoning to him, however antagonistically, at every turn. naturally, the less sacrosanct dogmatism was the more freely assailed; and in the sixteenth century the attacks became numerous and vehement. luther was a furious anti-aristotelian, [ ] as were also some calvinists; but in we find beza declaring to ramus [ ] that "the genevese have decreed, once and for ever, that they will never, neither in logic nor in any other branch of learning, turn away from the teaching of aristotle." at oxford the same code held. [ ] in italy, telesio, who notably anticipates the tone of bacon as to natural science, and is largely followed by him, influenced bruno in the anti-aristotelian direction, [ ] though it was in a long line from aristotle that he got his principle of the eternity of the universe. the spaniard ludovicus vives, too ( - ), pronounced by lange one of the clearest heads of his age, had insisted on progress beyond aristotle in the spirit of naturalist science. [ ] but the typical anti-aristotelian of the century was ramus (pierre de la ramée, - ), whose long and strenuous battle against the ruling school at paris brought him to his death in the massacre of st. bartholomew. [ ] ramus hardily laid it down that "there is no authority over reason, but reason ought to be queen and ruler over authority." [ ] such a message was of more value than his imperfect attempt to supersede the aristotelian logic. bacon, who carried on in england the warfare against the aristotelian tradition, never ventured so to express himself as against the theological tyranny in particular, though, as we have seen, the general energy and vividness of his argumentation gave him an influence which undermined the orthodoxies to which he professed to conform. on the other hand, he did no such service to exact science as was rendered in his day by kepler and galileo and their english emulators; and his full didactic influence came much later into play. like fallacies to bacon's may be found in descartes, whose seventeenth-century reputation as a champion of theism proved mainly the eagerness of theists for a plausible defence. already in his own day his arguments were logically confuted by both gassendi and hobbes; and his partial success with theists was a success of partisanism. it was primarily in respect of his habitual appeal to reason and argument, in disregard of the assumptions of faith, and secondarily in respect of his real scientific work, that he counts for freethought. ultimately his method undermined his creed; and it is not too much to say of him that, next to copernicus, kepler, and galileo, [ ] he laid a good part of the foundation of modern philosophy and science, [ ] gassendi largely aiding. though he never does justice to galileo, from his fear of provoking the church, it can hardly be doubted that he owes to him in large part the early determination of his mind to scientific methods; for it is difficult to believe that the account he gives of his mental development in the discours de la méthode ( ) is biographically true. it is rather the schemed statement, by a ripened mind, of how it might best have been developed. nor did descartes, any more than bacon, live up to the intellectual idea he had framed. all through his life he anxiously sought to propitiate the church; [ ] and his scientific as well as his philosophic work was hampered in consequence. in england henry more, who latterly recoiled from his philosophy, still thought his physics had been spoiled by fear of the church, declaring that the imprisonment of galileo "frighted des cartes into such a distorted description of motion that no man's reason could make good sense of it, nor modesty permit him to fancy anything nonsense in so excellent an author." [ ] but nonetheless the unusual rationalism of descartes's method, avowedly aiming at the uprooting of all his own prejudices [ ] as a first step to truth, displeased the jesuits, and could not escape the hostile attention of the protestant theologians of holland, where descartes passed so many years of his life. despite his constant theism, accordingly, he had at length to withdraw. [ ] a jesuit, père bourdin, sought to have the discours de la méthode at once condemned by the french clergy, but the attempt failed for the time being. france was just then, in fact, the most freethinking part of europe; [ ] and descartes, though not so unsparing with his prejudices as he set out to be, was the greatest innovator in philosophy that had arisen in the christian era. he made real scientific discoveries, too, where bacon only inspired an approach and schemed a wandering road to them. he first effectively applied algebra to geometry; he first scientifically explained the rainbow; he at once accepted and founded on harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, which most physiologists of the day derided; and he welcomed aselli's discovery of the lacteals, which was rejected by harvey. [ ] and though as regards religion his timorous conformities deprive him of any heroic status, it is perhaps not too much to pronounce him "the great reformer and liberator of the european intellect." [ ] one not given to warm sympathy with freethought has avowed that "the common root of modern philosophy is the doubt which is alike baconian and cartesian." [ ] only less important, in some regards, was the influence of pierre gassend or gassendi ( - ), who, living his life as a canon of the church, reverted in his doctrine to the philosophy of epicurus, alike in physics and ethics. [ ] it seems clear that he never had any religious leanings, but simply entered the church on the advice of friends who pointed out to him how much better a provision it gave, in income and leisure, than the professorship he held in his youth at the university of aix. [ ] professing like descartes a strict submission to the church, he yet set forth a theory of things which had in all ages been recognized as fundamentally irreconcilable with the christian creed; and his substantial exemption from penalties is to be set down to his position, his prudence, and his careful conformities. the correspondent of galileo and kepler, he was the friend of la mothe le vayer and naudé; and gui patin was his physician and intimate. [ ] strong as a physicist and astronomer where descartes was weak, he divides with him and galileo the credit of practically renewing natural philosophy; newton being gassendist rather than cartesian. [ ] indeed, gassendi's youthful attack on the aristotelian physics ( ) makes him the predecessor of descartes; and he expressly opposed his contemporary on points of physics and metaphysics on which he thought him chimerical, and so promoted unbelief where descartes made for orthodoxy. [ ] of the criticisms on his méditations to which descartes published replies, those of gassendi are, with the partial exception of those of hobbes, distinctly the most searching and sustained. the later position of hume, indeed, is explicitly taken up in the first objection of cratérus; [ ] but the persistent pressure of gassendi on the theistic and spiritistic assumptions of descartes reads like the reasoning of a modern atheist. [ ] yet the works of descartes were in time placed on the index, condemned by the king's council, and even vetoed in the universities, while those of gassendi were not, though his early work on aristotelianism had to be stopped after the first volume because of the anger it aroused. [ ] himself one of the most abstemious of men, [ ] like his master epicurus (of whom he wrote a life, ), he attracted disciples of another temperamental cast as well as many of his own; and as usual his system is associated with the former, who are duly vilified by orthodoxy, although certainly no worse than the average orthodox. among his other practical services to rationalism was a curious experiment, made in a village of the lower alps, by way of investigating the doctrine of witchcraft. a drug prepared by one sorcerer was administered to others of the craft in presence of witnesses. it threw them into a deep sleep, on awakening from which they declared that they had been at a witches' sabbath. as they had never left their beds, the experiment went far to discredit the superstition. [ ] one significant result of the experiment was seen in the course later taken by colbert in overriding a decision of the parlement of rouen as to witchcraft ( ). that parlement proposed to burn fourteen sorcerers. colbert, who had doubtless read montaigne as well as gassendi, gave montaigne's prescription that the culprits should be dosed with hellebore--a medicine for brain disturbance. [ ] in , finally, the king issued a declaration forbidding the tribunals to admit charges of mere sorcery; [ ] and any future condemnations were on the score of blasphemy and poisoning. yet further, in the section of his posthumous syntagma philosophicum ( ) entitled de effectibus siderum, [ ] gassendi dealt the first great blow on the rationalist side to the venerable creed of astrology, assailed often, but to little purpose, from the side of faith; bringing to his task, indeed, more asperity than he is commonly credited with, but also a stringent scientific and logical method, lacking in the polemic of the churchmen, who had attacked astrology mainly because it ignored revelation. it is sobering to remember, however, that he was one of those who could not assimilate harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, which descartes at once adopted and propounded. such anomalies meet us many times in the history of scientific as of other lines of thought; and the residual lesson is the recognition that progress is infinitely multiplex in its causation. nothing is more vital in this regard than scientific truth, which is as a light-house in seas of speculation; and those who, like galileo and descartes, add to the world's exact knowledge, perform a specific service not matched by that of the bacons, who urge right method without applying it. yet in that kind also an incalculable influence has been wielded. many minds can accept scientific truths without being thereby led to scientific ways of thought; and thus the reasoners and speculators, the brunos and the vaninis, play their fruitful part, as do the mentors who turn men's eyes on their own vices of intellectual habit. and in respect of creeds and philosophies, finally, it is not so much sheer soundness of result as educativeness of method, effectual appeal to the thinking faculty and to the spirit of reason, that determines a thinker's influence. this kind of impact we shall find historically to be the service done by descartes to european thought for a hundred years. from descartes, then, as regards philosophy, more than from any professed thinker of his day, but also from the other thinkers we have noted, from the reactions of scientific discovery, from the terrible experience of the potency of religion as a breeder of strife and its impotence as a curber of evil, and from the practical freethinking of the more open-minded of that age in general, derives the great rationalistic movement, which, taking clear literary form first in the seventeenth century, has with some fluctuations broadened and deepened down to our own day. chapter xiv british freethought in the seventeenth century § the propagandist literature of deism begins with an english diplomatist, lord herbert of cherbury, the friend of bacon, who stood in the full stream of the current freethought of england and france [ ] in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. english deism, as literature, is thus at its very outset affiliated with french; all of its elements, critical and ethical, are germinal in bodin, montaigne, and charron, each and all of whom had a direct influence on english thought; and we shall find later french thought, as in the cases of gassendi, bayle, simon, st. evremond, and voltaire, alternately influenced by and reacting on english. but, apart from the undeveloped rationalism of the elizabethan period, which never found literary expression, the french ferment seems to have given the first effective impulse; though it is to be remembered that about the same time the wars of religion in germany, following on an age of theological uproar, had developed a common temper of indifferentism which would react on the thinking of men of affairs in france. we have seen the state of upper-class and middle-class opinion in france about . it was in paris in that year that herbert published his de veritate, after acting for five years as the english ambassador at the french court--an office from which he was recalled in the same year. [ ] by his own account the book had been "begun by me in england, and formed there in all its principal parts," [ ] but finished at paris. he had, however, gone to france in , and had served in various continental wars in the years following; and it was presumably in these years, not in his youth in england, that he had formed the remarkable opinions set forth in his epoch-making book. hitherto deism had been represented by unpublished arguments disingenuously dealt with in published answers; henceforth there slowly grows up a deistic literature. herbert was a powerful and audacious nobleman, with a weak king; and he could venture on a publication which would have cost an ordinary man dear. yet even he saw fit to publish in latin; and he avowed hesitations. [ ] the most puzzling thing about it is his declaration that grotius and the german theologian tielenus, having read the book in ms., exhorted him "earnestly to print and publish it." it is difficult to believe that they had gathered its substance. herbert's work has two aspects, a philosophical and a political, and in both it is remarkable. [ ] like the discours de la méthode of descartes, which was to appear thirteen years later, it is inspired by an original determination to get at the rational grounds of conviction; and in herbert's case the overweening self-esteem which disfigures his autobiography seems to have been motive force for the production of a book signally recalcitrant to authority. where bacon attacks aristotelianism and the habits of mind it had engendered, herbert counters the whole conception of revelation in religion. rejecting tacitly the theological basis of current philosophy, he divides the human mind into four faculties--natural instinct, internal sense, external sense, and the discursive faculty--through one or other of which all our knowledge emerges. of course, like descartes, he makes the first the verification of his idea of god, pronouncing that to be primary, independent, and universally entertained, and therefore not lawfully to be disputed (already a contradiction in terms); but, inasmuch as scriptural revelation has no place in the process, the position is conspicuously more advanced than that of bacon in the de augmentis, published the year before, and even than that of locke, sixty years later. on the question of concrete religion herbert is still more aggressive. his argument [ ] is, in brief, that no professed revelation can have a decisive claim to rational acceptance; that none escapes sectarian dispute in its own field; that, as each one misses most of the human race, none seems to be divine; and that human reason can do for morals all that any one of them does. the negative generalities of montaigne here pass into a positive anti-christian argument; for herbert goes on to pronounce the doctrine of forgiveness for faith immoral. like all pioneers, herbert falls into some inconsistencies on his own part; the most flagrant being his claim to have had a sign from heaven--that is, a private and special revelation--encouraging him to publish his book. [ ] but his criticism is nonetheless telling and persuasive so far as it goes, and remains valid to this day. nor do his later and posthumous works [ ] add to it in essentials, though they do much to construct the deistic case on historical lines. the de religione gentilium in particular is a noteworthy study of pre-christian religions, apparently motived by doubt or challenge as to his theorem of the universality of the god-idea. it proves only racial universality without agreement; but it is so far a scholarly beginning of rational hierology. the english dialogue between a teacher and his pupil, which seems to have been the first form of the religio gentilium, [ ] is a characteristic expression of his whole way of thought, and was doubtless left unpublished for the prudential reasons which led him to put all his published works in latin. but the fact that the latin quotations are translated shows that the book had been planned for publication--a risk which he did wisely to shun. the remarkable thing is that his latin books were so little debated, the de veritate being nowhere discussed before culverwel. [ ] baxter in could say that herbert, "never having been answered, might be thought unanswerable"; [ ] and his own "answer" is merely theological. the next great freethinking figure in england is thomas hobbes ( - ), the most important thinker of his age, after descartes, and hardly less influential. but the purpose of hobbes being always substantially political and regulative, his unfaith in the current religion is only incidentally revealed in the writings in which he seeks to show the need for keeping it under monarchic control. [ ] hobbes is in fact the anti-presbyterian or anti-puritan philosopher; and to discredit anarchic religion in the eyes of the majority he is obliged to speak as a judicial churchman. yet nothing is more certain than that he was no orthodox christian; and even his professed theism resolves itself somewhat easily into virtual agnosticism on logical pressure. no thought of prudence could withhold him from showing, in a discussion on words, that he held the doctrine of the logos to be meaningless. [ ] of atheism he was repeatedly accused by both royalists and rebels; and his answer was forensic rather than fervent, alike as to his scripturalism, his christianity, and his impersonal conception of deity. [ ] reviving as he did the ancient rationalistic doctrine of the eternity of the world, [ ] he gave a clear footing for atheism as against the judæo-christian view. in affirming "one god eternal" of whom men "cannot have any idea in their mind, answerable to his nature," he was negating all creeds. he expressly contends, it is true, for the principle of a providence; but it is hard to believe that he laid any store by prayer, public or private; and it would appear that whatever thoughtful atheism there was in england in the latter part of the century looked to him as its philosopher, insofar as it did not derive from spinoza. [ ] nor could the naturalist school of that day desire a better, terser, or more drastic scientific definition of religion than hobbes gave them: "fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, religion; not allowed, superstition." [ ] as the churchmen readily saw, his insistence on identifying the religion of a country with its law plainly implied that no religion is any more "revealed" than another. with him too begins ( ) the public criticism of the bible on literary or documentary grounds; [ ] though, as we have seen, this had already gone far in private; [ ] and he gave a new lead, partly as against descartes, to a materialistic philosophy. [ ] his replies to the theistic and spiritistic reasonings of descartes's méditations are, like those of gassendi, unrefuted and irrefutable; and they are fundamentally materialistic in their drift. [ ] he was, in fact, in a special and peculiar degree for his age, a freethinker; and so deep was his intellectual hostility to the clergy of all species that he could not forego enraging those of his own political side by his sarcasms. [ ] here he is in marked contrast with descartes, who dissembled his opinion about copernicus and galileo for peace' sake, [ ] and was the close friend of the apologist mersenne down to his death. [ ] with the partial exception of the more refined and graceful pecock, hobbes has of all english thinkers down to his period the clearest and hardest head for all purposes of reasoning, save in the single field of mathematics, where he meddled without mastery; and against the theologians of his time his argumentation is as a two-edged sword. that such a man should have been resolutely on the side of the king in the civil war is one of the proofs of the essential fanaticism and arbitrariness of the orthodox puritans, who plotted more harm to the heresies they disliked than was ever wreaked on themselves. hobbes came near enough being clerically ostracized among the royalists; but among the earlier puritans, or under an independent puritan parliament at any time, he would have stood a fair chance of execution. it was doubtless largely due to the anti-persecuting influence of cromwell, as well as to his having ostensibly deserted the royalists, that hobbes was allowed to settle quietly in england after making his submission to the rump parliament in . in his leviathan and de cive were together condemned by the restoration parliament in its grotesque panic of piety after the great fire of london; and it was actually proposed to revive against him the writ de heretico comburendo; [ ] but charles ii protected and pensioned him, though he was forbidden to publish anything further on burning questions, and leviathan was not permitted in his lifetime to be republished in english. [ ] he was thus for his generation the typical "infidel," the royalist clergy being perhaps his bitterest enemies. his spontaneous hostility to fanaticism shaped his literary career, which began in with a translation of thucydides, undertaken by way of showing the dangers of democracy. next came the de cive (paris, ), written when he was already an elderly man; and thenceforth the civil war tinges his whole temper. it is in fact by way of a revolt against all theological ethic, as demonstrably a source of civil anarchy, that hobbes formulates a strictly civic or legalist ethic, denying the supremacy of an abstract or à priori natural moral law (though he founded on natural law), as well as rejecting all supernatural illumination of the conscience. [ ] in the church of rome itself there had inevitably arisen the practice of casuistry, in which to a certain extent ethics had to be rationally studied; and early protestant casuistry, repudiating the authority of the priest, had to rely still more on reason. compare whewell, lectures on the history of moral philosophy, ed. , pp. - , where it is affirmed that, after the reformation, "since the assertions of the teacher had no inherent authority, he was obliged to give his proofs as well as his results," and "the determination of cases was replaced by the discipline of conscience" (p. ). there is an interesting progression in english protestant casuistry from w. perkins ( - ) and w. ames (pub. ), through bishops hall and sanderson, to jeremy taylor. mosheim ( cent. sec. ii, pt. ii, § ) pronounces ames "the first among the reformed who attempted to elucidate and arrange the science of morals as distinct from that of dogmatics." see biog. notes on perkins and ames in whewell, pp. - , and reid's mosheim, p. . but hobbes passed in two strides to the position that natural morality is a set of demonstrable inferences as to what adjustments promote general well-being; and further that there is no practical code of right and wrong apart from positive social law. [ ] he thus practically introduced once for all into modern christendom the fundamental dilemma of rationalistic ethics, not only positing the problem for his age, [ ] but anticipating it as handled in later times. [ ] how far his rationalism was ahead of that of his age may be realized by comparing his positions with those of john selden, the most learned and, outside of philosophy, one of the shrewdest of the men of that generation. selden was sometimes spoken of by the hobbists as a freethinker; and his table talk contains some sallies which would startle the orthodox if publicly delivered; [ ] but not only is there explicit testimony by his associates as to his orthodoxy: [ ] his own treatise, de jure naturali et gentium juxta disciplinam ebræorum, maintains the ground that the "law of nature" which underlies the variants of the laws of nations is limited to the precepts and traditions set forth in the talmud as delivered by noah to his posterity. [ ] le clerc said of the work, justly enough, that in it "selden only copies the rabbins, and scarcely ever reasons." it is likely enough that the furious outcry against selden for his strictly historical investigation of tithes, and the humiliation of apology forced upon him in that connection in , [ ] made him specially chary ever afterwards of any semblance of a denial of the plenary truth of theological tradition; but there is no reason to think that he had ever really transcended the biblical view of the world's order. he illustrates, in fact, the extent to which a scholar could in that day be anti-clerical without being rationalistic. like the bulk of the parliamentarians, though without their fanaticism, he was thoroughly opposed to the political pretensions of the church, [ ] desiring however to leave episcopacy alone, as a matter outside of legislation, when the house of commons abolished it. yet he spoke of the name of puritan as one which he "trusted he was not either mad enough or foolish enough to deserve." [ ] there were thus in the parliamentary party men of very different shades of opinion. the largest party, perhaps, was that of the fanatics who, as mrs. hutchinson--herself fanatical enough--tells concerning her husband, "would not allow him to be religious because his hair was not in their cut." [ ] next in strength were the more or less orthodox but anti-clerical and less pious scripturalists, of whom selden was the most illustrious. by far the smallest group of all were the freethinkers, men of their type being as often repelled by the zealotry of the puritans as by the sacerdotalism of the state clergy. the rebellion, in short, though it evoked rationalism, was not evoked by it. like all religious strifes--like the vaster thirty years' war in contemporary germany--it generated both doubt and indifferentism in men who would otherwise have remained undisturbed in orthodoxy. § when, however, we turn from the higher literary propaganda to the verbal and other transitory debates of the period of the rebellion, we realize how much partial rationalism had hitherto subsisted without notice. in that immense ferment some very advanced opinions, such as quasi-anarchism in politics [ ] and anti-scripturalism in religion, were more or less directly professed. in january, (n.s.), the authorities of the city of london, alarmed at the unheard-of amount of discussion, petitioned parliament to put down all private meetings; [ ] and on february , (n.s.), a solemn fast, or "day of publique humiliation," was proclaimed on the score of the increase of "errors, heresies, and blasphemies." on the same grounds, the presbyterian party in parliament pressed an "ordinance for the suppression of blasphemies and heresies," which, long held back by vane and cromwell, was carried in their despite in , by large majorities, when the royalists renewed hostilities. it enacted the death penalty against all who should deny the doctrine of the trinity, the divinity of christ, the inspiration of the bible, a day of judgment, or a future state; and prescribed imprisonment for arminianism, rejection of infant baptism, anti-sabbatarianism, anti-presbyterianism, or defence of the doctrine of purgatory or the use of images. [ ] and of aggressive heresy there are some noteworthy traces. in a pamphlet entitled "hell broke loose: a catalogue of the many spreading errors, heresies, and blasphemies of these times, for which we are to be humbled" (march , , n.s.), the first entry--and in the similar catalogue in edwards's gangræna, the second entry--is a citation of the notable thesis, "that the scripture, whether a true manuscript or no, whether hebrew, greek, or english, is but humane, and not able to discover a divine god." [ ] this is cited from "the pilgrimage of the saints, by lawrence clarkson," presumably the lawrence clarkson who for his book the single eye was sentenced by resolution of parliament on september , , to be imprisoned, the book being burned by the common hangman. [ ] he is further cited as teaching that even unbaptized persons may preach and baptize. of the other heresies cited the principal is the old denial of a future life, and especially of a physical and future hell. in general the heresy is pietistic or antinomian; but we have also the declaration "that right reason is the rule of faith, and that we are to believe the scriptures and the doctrine of the trinity, incarnation, resurrection, so far as we see them to be agreeable to reason and no further." concerning jesus there are various heresies, from simple unitarianism to contemptuous disparagement, with the stipulation for a "christ formed in us." but though there are cases of unquotable or ribald blasphemy there is little trace of scholarly criticism of the bible, of reasoning against miracles or the inconsistencies of scripture, as apart from the doctrine of deity. nonetheless, it is very credible that "multitudes, unsettled ... have changed their faith, either to scepticisme, to doubt of everything, or atheisme, to believe nothing." [ ] against the furious intolerance of the puritan legislature some pleaded with new zeal for tolerance all round; arguing that certainty on articles of faith and points of religion was impossible--a doctrine promptly classed as a bad heresy. [ ] the plea that toleration would mean concord was met by the confident and not unfounded retort that the "sectaries" would themselves persecute if they could. [ ] but this could hardly have been true of all. notable among the new parties were the levellers, who insisted that the state should leave religion entirely alone, tolerating all creeds, including even atheism; and who put forward a new and striking ethic, grounding on "universal reason" the right of all men to the soil. [ ] in the strictly theological field the most striking innovation, apart from simple unitarianism, is the denial of the eternity or even the existence of future torments--a position first taken up, as we have seen, either by the continental socinians or by the unnamed english heretics of the tudor period, who passed on their heresy to the time of marlowe. [ ] in this connection the learned booklet [ ] entitled of the torments of hell: the foundations and pillars thereof discover'd, search'd, shaken, and removed ( ) was rightly thought worth translating into french by d'holbach over a century later. [ ] it is an argument on scriptural lines, denying that the conception of a place of eternal torment is either scriptural or credible; and pointing out that many had explained it in a "spiritual" sense. humane feeling of this kind counted for much in the ferment; but a contrary hate was no less abundant. the presbyterian thomas edwards, who in a vociferous passion of fear and zeal set himself to catalogue the host of heresies that threatened to overwhelm the times, speaks of "monsters" unheard-of theretofore, "now common among us--as denying the scriptures, pleading for a toleration of all religions and worships, yea, for blasphemy, and denying there is a god." [ ] "a toleration," he declares, "is the grand design of the devil, his masterpiece and chief engine"; "every day now brings forth books for a toleration." [ ] among the sects named by him [ ] there were "libertines," "antiscripturists," "skeptics and questionists," [ ] who held nothing save the doctrine of free speech and liberty of conscience; [ ] as well as socinians, arians, and anti-trinitarians; and he speaks of serious men who had not only abandoned their religious beliefs, but sought to persuade others to do the same. [ ] under the rule of cromwell, tolerant as he was of christian sectarianism, and even of unitarianism as represented by biddle, the more advanced heresies would get small liberty; though that of thomas muggleton and john reeve, which took shape about as the muggletonian sect, does not seem to have been molested. muggleton, a mystic, could teach that there was no devil or evil spirit, save in "man's spirit of unclean reason and cursed imagination"; [ ] but it was only privately that such men as henry marten and thomas chaloner, the regicides, could avow themselves to be of "the natural religion." the statement of bishop burnet, following clarendon, that "many of the republicans began to profess deism," cannot be taken literally, though it is broadly intelligible that "almost all of them were for destroying all clergymen ... and for leaving religion free, as they called it, without either encouragement or restraint." see burnet's history of his own time, bk. i, ed. , p. . the phrase, "they were for pulling down the churches," again, cannot be taken literally. of those who "pretended to little or no religion and acted only upon the principles of civil liberty," burnet goes on to name sidney, henry nevill, marten, wildman, and harrington. the last was certainly of hobbes's way of thinking in philosophy (croom robertson, hobbes, p. , note); but wildman was one of the signers of the anabaptist petition to charles ii in (clarendon, hist. of the rebellion, bk. xv, ed. , p. ). as to marten and chaloner, see carlyle's cromwell, iii, ; and articles in nat. dict. of biog. vaughan (hist. of england, , ii, , note) speaks of walwyn and overton as "among the freethinkers of the times of the commonwealth." they were, however, biblicists, not unbelievers. prof. gardiner (hist. of the commonwealth and protectorate, ii, , citing a news-letter in the clarendon mss.) finds record in of "a man [who] preached flat atheism in westminster hall, uninterrupted by the soldiers of the guard"; but this obviously counts for little. between the advance in speculation forced on by the disputes themselves, and the usual revolt against the theological spirit after a long and ferocious display of it, there spread even under the commonwealth a new temper of secularity. on the one hand, the temperamental distaste for theology, antinomian or other, took form in the private associations for scientific research which were the antecedents of the royal society. on the other hand, the spirit of religious doubt spread widely in the middle and upper classes; and between the dislike of the roundheads for the established clergy and the anger of the cavaliers against all puritanism there was fostered that "contempt of the clergy" which had become a clerical scandal at the restoration and was to remain so for about a century. [ ] their social status was in general low, and their financial position bad; and these circumstances, possible only in a time of weakened religious belief, necessarily tended to further the process of mental change. within the sphere of orthodoxy, it operated openly. it is noteworthy that the term "rationalist" emerges as the label of a sect of independents or presbyterians who declare that "what their reason dictates to them in church or state stands for good, until they be convinced with better." [ ] the "rationalism," so-called, of that generation remained ostensibly scriptural; but on other lines thought went further. of atheism there are at this stage only dubious biographical and controversial traces, such as mrs. hutchinson's characterization of a nottingham physician, possibly a deist, as a "horrible atheist," [ ] and the rev. john dove's confutation of atheism ( ), which does not bear out its title. ephraim pagitt, in his heresiography ( ), speaks loosely of an "atheistical sect who affirm that men's soules sleep with them until the day of judgment"; and tells of some alleged atheist merely that he "mocked and jeared at christ's incarnation." [ ] similarly a work, entitled dispute betwixt an atheist and a christian ( ), shows the existence not of atheists but of deists, and the deist in the dialogue is a fleming. more trustworthy is the allusion in nathaniel culverwel's discourse of the light of nature (written in , published posthumously in ) to "those lumps and dunghills of all sects ... that young and upstart generation of gross anti-scripturalists, that have a powder-plot against the gospel, that would very compendiously behead all christian religion at one blow, a device which old and ordinary heretics were never acquainted withal." [ ] the reference is presumably to the followers of lawrence clarkson. yet even here we have no mention of atheism, which is treated as something almost impossible. indeed, the very course of arguing in favour of a "light of nature" seems to have brought suspicion on culverwel himself, who shows a noticeable liking for herbert of cherbury. [ ] he is, however, as may be inferred from his angry tone towards anti-scripturalists, substantially orthodox, and not very important. it is contended for culverwel by modern admirers (ed. cited, p. xxi) that he deserves the praise given by hallam to the later bishop cumberland as "the first christian writer who sought to establish systematically the principle of moral right independent of revelation." [see above, p. , the similar tribute of mosheim to ames.] but culverwel does not really make this attempt. his proposition is that reason, "the candle of the lord," discovers "that all the moral law is founded in natural and common light, in the light of reason, and that there is nothing in the mysteries of the gospel contrary to the light of reason" (introd. end); yet he contends not only that faith transcends reason, but that abraham's attempt to slay his son was a dutiful obeying of "the god of nature" (pp. - ). he does not achieve the simple step of noting that the recognition of revelation as such must be performed by reason, and thus makes no advance on the position of bacon, much less on those of pecock and hooker. his object, indeed, was not to justify orthodoxy by reason against rationalistic unbelief, but to make a case for reason in theology against the lutherans and others who, "because socinus has burnt his wings at this candle of the lord," scouted all use of it (introd.). culverwel, however, was one of the learned group in emanuel college, cambridge, whose tradition developed in the next generation into latitudinarianism; and he may be taken as a learned type of a number of the clergy who were led by the abundant discussion all around them into professing and encouraging a ratiocinative habit of mind. thus we find dean stuart, clerk of the closet to charles i, devoting one of his short homilies to jerome's text, tentemus animas quæ deficiunt a fide naturalibus rationibus adjurare. "it is not enough," he writes, "for you to rest in an imaginary faith, and easiness in beleeving, except yee know also what and why and how you come to that beleef. implicite beleevers, ignorant beleevers, the adversary may swallow, but the understanding beleever hee must chaw, and pick bones before hee come to assimilate him, and make him like himself. the implicite beleever stands in an open field, and the enemy will ride over him easily: the understanding beleever is in a fenced town." (catholique divinity, , pp. - --a work written many years earlier.) the discourse on atheism, again, in the posthumous works of john smith of cambridge (d. ), is entirely retrospective; but soon another note is sounded. as early as , the year after the issue of hobbes's leviathan, the prolific walter charleton, who had been physician to the king, published a book entitled the darkness of atheism expelled by the light of nature, wherein he asserted that england "hath of late produced and doth ... foster more swarms of atheistical monsters ... than any age, than any nation hath been infested withal." in the following year henry more, the cambridge platonist, published his antidote against atheism. the flamboyant dedication to viscountess conway affirms that the existence of god is "as clearly demonstrable as any theorem in mathematicks"; but, the reverend author adds, "considering the state of things as they are, i cannot but pronounce that there is more necessity of this my antidote than i could wish there were." at the close of the preface he pleasantly explains that he will use no biblical arguments, but talk to the atheist as a "mere naturalist"; inasmuch as "he that converses with a barbarian must discourse to him in his own language," and "he that would gain upon the more weak and sunk minds of sensual mortals is to accommodate himself to their capacity, who, like the bat and owl, can see nowhere so well as in the shady glimmerings of their twilight." then, after some elementary play with the design argument, the entire third book of forty-six folio pages is devoted to a parade of old wives' tales of witches and witchcraft, witches' sabbaths, apparitions, commotions by devils, ghosts, incubi, polter-geists--the whole vulgar medley of the peasant superstitions of europe. it is not that the platonist does violence to his own philosophic tastes by way of influencing the "bats and owls" of atheism. this mass of superstition is his own special pabulum. in the preface he has announced that, while he may abstain from the use of the scriptures, nothing shall restrain him from telling what he knows of spirits. "i am so cautious and circumspect," he claims, "that i make use of no narrations that either the avarice of the priest or the credulity and fancifulness of the melancholist may render suspected." as for the unbelievers, "their confident ignorance shall never dash me out of confidence with my well-grounded knowledge; for i have been no careless inquirer into these things." it is after a polter-geist tale of the crassest description that he announces that it was strictly investigated and attested by "that excellently-learned and noble gentleman, mr. e. boyle," who avowed "that all his settled indisposedness to believe strange things was overcome by this special conviction." [ ] and the section ends with the proposition: "assuredly that saying is not more true in politick, no bishop, no king, than this in metaphysicks, no spirit, no god." such was the mentality of some of the most eminent and scholarly christian apologists of the time. it seems safe to conclude that the platonist made few converts. more avowed that he wrote without having read previous apologists; and others were similarly spontaneous in the defence of the faith. in there is noted [ ] a treatise called atheismus vapulans, by william towers, whose message can in part be inferred from his title; [ ] and in charleton issued his immortality of the human soul demonstrated by the light of nature, wherein the argument, which says nothing of revelation, is so singularly unconfident, and so much broken in upon by excursus, as to leave it doubtful whether the author was more lacking in dialectic skill or in conviction. and still the traces of unbelief multiply. baxter and howe were agreed, in , that there were both "infidels and papists" at work around them; and in howe writes: "i know some leading men are not christians." [ ] "seekers, vanists, and behmenists" are specified as groups to which both infidels and papists attach themselves. and howe, recognizing how religious strifes promote unbelief, bears witness "what a cloudy, wavering, uncertain, lank, spiritless thing is the faith of christians in this age become!... most content themselves to profess it only as the religion of their country." [ ] alongside of all this vindication of christianity there was going on constant and cruel persecution of heretic christians. the unitarian john biddle, master of the gloucester grammar school, was dismissed for his denial of the trinity; and in he was imprisoned, and his book burned by the hangman. in he was again imprisoned; and in he was banished to the scilly islands. returning to london after the restoration, he was again arrested, and died in gaol in . [ ] under the commonwealth ( ) james naylor, the quaker, narrowly escaped death for blasphemy, but was whipped through the streets, pilloried, bored through the tongue with a hot iron, branded in the forehead, and sent to hard labour in prison. many hundreds of quakers were imprisoned and more or less cruelly handled. from the origines sacræ ( ) of stillingfleet, nevertheless, it would appear that both deism and atheism were becoming more and more common. [ ] he states that "the most popular pretences of the atheists of our age have been the irreconcilableness of the account of times in scripture with that of the learned and ancient heathen nations, the inconsistency of the belief of the scriptures with the principles of reason; and the account which may be given of the origin of things from the principles of philosophy without the scriptures." these positions are at least as natural to deists as to atheists; and stillingfleet is later found protesting against the policy of some professed christians who give up the argument from miracles as valueless. [ ] his whole treatise, in short, assumes the need for meeting a very widespread unbelief in the bible, though it rarely deals with the atheism of which it so constantly speaks. after the restoration, naturally, all the new tendencies were greatly reinforced, [ ] alike by the attitude of the king and his companions, all influenced by french culture, and by the general reaction against puritanism. whatever ways of thought had been characteristic of the puritans were now in more or less complete disfavour; the belief in witchcraft was scouted as much on this ground as on any other; [ ] and the deistic doctrines found a ready audience among royalists, whose enemies had been above all things bibliolaters. there is evidence that charles ii, at least up to the time of his becoming a catholic, and probably even to the end, was at heart a deist. see burnet's history of his own time, ed. , pp. , , and notes; and cp. refs. in buckle, -vol. ed. i, , note; -vol. ed. p. . st. evremond, who knew him and many of his associates, affirmed expressly that charles's creed "étoit seulement ce qui passe vulgairement, quoiqu' injustement, pour une extinction totale de religion: je veux dire le déisme" (oeuvres mélées: t. viii of oeuvres, ed. , p. ). his opinion, st. evremond admits, was the result of simple recognition of the actualities of religious life, not of reading, or of much reflection. and his adoption of catholicism, in st. evremond's opinion, was purely political. he saw that catholicism made much more than protestantism for kingly power, and that his catholic subjects were the most subservient. we gather this, however, still from the apologetic treatises and the historians, not from new deistic literature; for in virtue of the press licensing act, passed on behalf of the church in , no heretical book could be printed; so that herbert was thus far the only professed deistic writer in the field, and hobbes the only other of similar influence. baxter, writing in on the unreasonableness of infidelity, handles chiefly anabaptists; and in his reformed pastor ( ), though he avows that "the common ignorant people," seeing the endless strifes of the clergy, "are hardened by us against all religion," the only specific unbelief he mentions is that of "the devil's own agents, the unhappy socinians," who had written "so many treatises for ... unity and peace." [ ] but in his reasons of the christian religion, issued in , he thinks fit to prove the existence of god and a future state, and the truth and the supernatural character of the christian religion. any deist or atheist who took the trouble to read through it would have been rewarded by the discovery that the learned author has annihilated his own case. in his first part he affirms: "if there were no life of retribution after this, obedience to god would be finally men's loss and ruine: but obedience to god shall not be finally men's loss and ruine: ergo, there is another life." [ ] in the second part he writes that "man's personal interest is an unfit rule and measure of god's goodness"; [ ] and, going on to meet the new argument against christianity based on the inference that an infinity of stars are inhabited, he writes:-- ask any man who knoweth these things whether all this earth be any more in comparison of the whole creation than one prison is to a kingdom or empire, or the paring of one nail ... in comparison of the whole body. and if god should cast off all this earth, and use all the sinners in it as they deserve, it is no more sign of a want of benignity or mercy in him than it is for a king to cast one subject of a million into a jail ... or than it is to pare a man's nails, or cut off a wart, or a hair, or to pull out a rotten aking tooth. [ ] thus the second part absolutely destroys one of the fundamental positions of the first. no semblance of levity on the part of the freethinkers could compare with the profound intellectual insincerity of such a propaganda as this; and that deism and atheism continued to gain ground is proved by the multitude of apologetic treatises. even in church-ridden scotland they were found necessary; at least the young advocate george mackenzie, afterwards to be famous as the "bluidy mackenzie" of the time of persecution, thought it expedient to make his first appearance in literature with a religio stoici ( ), wherein he sets out with a refutation of atheism. it is difficult to believe that his counsel to christians to watch the "horror-creating beds of dying atheists" [ ]--a false pretence as it stands--represented any knowledge whatever of professed atheism in his own country; and his discussion of the subject is wholly on the conventional lines--notably so when he uses the customary plea, later associated with pascal, that the theist runs no risk even if there is no future life, whereas the atheist runs a tremendous risk if there is one; [ ] but when he writes of "that mystery why the greatest wits are most frequently the greatest atheists," [ ] he must be presumed to refer at least to deists. and other passages show that he had listened to freethinking arguments. thus he speaks [ ] of those who "detract from scripture by attributing the production of miracles to natural causes"; and again [ ] of those who "contend that the scriptures are written in a mean and low style; are in some places too mysterious, in others too obscure; contain many things incredible, many repetitions, and many contradictions." his own answers are conspicuously weak. in the latter passage he continues: "but those miscreants should consider that much of the scripture's native splendour is impaired by its translators"; and as to miracles he makes the inept answer that if secondary causes were in operation they acted by god's will; going on later to suggest on his own part that prophecy may be not a miraculous gift, but "a natural (though the highest) perfection of our human nature." [ ] apart from his weak dialectic, he writes in general with cleverness and literary finish, but without any note of sincerity; and his profession of concern that reason should be respected in theology [ ] is as little acted on in his later life as his protest against persecution. [ ] the inference from the whole essay is that in scotland, as in england, the civil war had brought up a considerable crop of reasoned unbelief; and that mackenzie, professed defender of the faith as he was at twenty-five, and official persecutor of nonconformists as he afterwards became, met with a good deal of it in his cultured circle. in his later booklet, reason: an essay ( ), he speaks of the "ridiculous and impudent extravagance of some who ... take pains to persuade themselves and others that there is not a god." [ ] he further coarsely asperses all atheists as debauchees, [ ] though he avows that "infidelity is not the cause of false reasoning, because such as are not atheists reason falsely." when anti-theistic thought could subsist in the ecclesiastical climate of puritan scotland, it must have flourished somewhat in england. in appeared a philosophicall essay towards an eviction of the being and attributes of god, etc., of which the preface proclaims "the bold and horrid pride of atheists and epicures" who "have laboured to introduce into the world a general atheism, or at least a doubtful skepticisme in matters of religion." in was published meric casaubon's treatise, of credulity and incredulity in things natural, civil, and divine, assailing not only "the sadducism of these times in denying spirits, witches," etc., but "epicurus ... and the juggling and false dealing lately used to bring atheism into credit"--a thrust at gassendi. a similar polemic is entombed in a ponderous folio "romance" entitled bentivolio and urania, by nathaniel ingelo, d.d., a fellow first of emanuel college, and afterwards of queen's college, cambridge ( ; th ed. amended, ). the second part, edifyingly dedicated to the earl of lauderdale, one of the worst men of his day, undertakes to handle the "atheists, epicureans, and skepticks"; and in the preface the atheists are duly vituperated; while epicurus is described as a gross sensualist, in terms of the legend, and the skeptics as "resigned to the slavery of vice." in the sixth book the atheists are allowed a momentary hearing in defence of their "horrid absurdities," from which it appears that there were current arguments alike anthropological and metaphysical against theism. the most competent part of the author's own argument, which is unlimited as to space, is that which controverts the thesis of the invention of religious beliefs by "politicians" [ ]--a notion first put in currency, as we have seen, by those who insisted on the expediency and value of such inventions; as, polybius among the ancients, and machiavelli among the moderns; and further by christian priests, who described all non-christian religions as human inventions. dr. ingelo's folio seems to have had many readers; but he avowedly did not look for converts; and defences of the faith on a less formidable scale were multiplied. a "person of honour" (sir charles wolseley) produced in an essay on the unreasonableness of atheism made manifest, which, without supplying any valid arguments, gives some explanation of the growth of unbelief in terms of the political and other antecedents; [ ] and in appeared richard barthogge's divine goodness explicated and vindicated from the exceptions of the atheists. baxter in [ ] complains that "infidels are grown so numerous and so audacious, and look so big and talk so loud"; and still the process continues. in sir william temple writes indignantly of "those who would pass for wits in our age by saying things which, david tells us, the fool said in his heart." [ ] in the same year appeared the reasonableness of scripture-belief, by sir charles wolseley, and the atheist silenced, by one j. m.; in , dr. thomas good's firmianus et dubitantius, or dialogues concerning atheism, infidelity, and popery; in , the posthumous treatise of bishop wilkins (d. ), of the principles and duties of natural religion, with a preface by tillotson; and a brevis demonstratio, with the modest sub-title, "the truth of christian religion demonstrated by reasons the best that have yet been out in english"; in , bishop stillingfleet's letter to a deist; and in the massive work of cudworth on the true intellectual system of the universe attacking atheism (not deism) on philosophic lines which sadly compromised the learned author. [ ] english dialectic being found insufficient, there was even produced in a translation by the rev. joshua bonhome of the french l'athéisme convaincu of david dersdon, published twenty years before. all of these works explicitly avow the abundance of unbelief; tillotson, himself accused of it, pronounces the age "miserably overrun with skepticism and infidelity"; and wilkins, avowing that these tendencies are common "not only among sensual men of the vulgar sort, but even among those who pretend to a more than ordinary measure of wit and learning," attempts to meet them by a purely deistic argument, with a claim for christianity appended, as if he were concerned chiefly to rebut atheism, and held his own christianity on a very rationalistic tenure. the fact was that the orthodox clergy were as hard put to it to repel religious antinomianism on the one hand as to repel atheism on the other; and no small part of the deistic movement seems to have been set up by the reaction against pious lawlessness. [ ] thus we have tillotson, writing as dean of canterbury, driven to plead in his preface to the work of wilkins that "it is a great mistake" to think the obligation of moral duties "doth solely depend upon the revelation of god's will made to us in the holy scriptures." it was such reasoning that brought upon him the charge of freethinking. if it be now possible to form any accurate picture of the state of belief in the latter part of the seventeenth century, it may perhaps be done by recognizing three categories of temperament or mental proclivity. first we have to reckon with the great mass of people held to religious observance by hebetude, [ ] devoid of the deeper mystical impulse or psychic bias which exhibited itself on the one hand among the dissenters who partly preserved the "enthusiasms" of the commonwealth period, and on the other among the more cultured pietists of the church who, banning "enthusiasm" in its stronger forms, cultivated a certain "enthusiasm" of their own. religionists of the latter type were ministered to by superstitious mystics like henry more, who, even when undertaking to "prove" the existence of god and the separate existence of the soul by argument and by demonology, taught them to cultivate a "warranted enthusiasm," and to "endeavour after a certain principle more noble and inward than reason itself, and without which reason will falter, or at least reach but to mean and frivolous things" ... "something in me while i thus speak, which i must confess is of so retruse a nature that i want a name for it, unless i should adventure to term it divine sagacity, which is the first rise of successful reason, especially in matters of great comprehension and moment." [ ] there was small psychic difference between this dubiously draped affirmation of the "inner light" and the more orotund proclamations of it by the dissenters who, for a considerable section of the people, still carried on the tradition of rapturous pietism; and the dissenters were not always at a disadvantage in that faculty for rhetoric which has generally been a main factor in doctrinal religion. [ ] from the popular and the eclectic pietist alike the generality of the anglican clergy stood aloof; and among them, in turn, a rationalistic and anti-mythical habit of mind in a manner joined men who were divided in their beliefs. the clergymen who wrote lawyer-like treatises against schism were akin in psychosis to those who, in their distaste for the parade of inspiration, veered towards deism. tillotson was not the only man reputed to have done so: fervid dissenters declared that many of the established clergy paid "more respect to the light of reason than to the light of the scriptures," and further "left christ out of their religion, disowned imputed righteousness, derided the operations of the holy spirit as the empty pretences of enthusiasts." [ ] of men of this temperament, some would open dialectic batteries against dissent; while others, of a more searching proclivity, would tend to construct for themselves a rationalistic creed out of the current medley of theological and philosophic doctrine. the great mass of course maintained an allegiance of habit to the main formulas of the faith, putting quasi-rational aspects on the trinity, providence, redemption, and the future life, very much as the adherents of political parties normally vindicate their supposed principles; and there was a good deal of surviving temperamental piety even in the restoration period. [ ] but the outstanding feature of the age, as contrasted with previous periods, was the increasing commonness of the skeptical or rationalistic attitude in general society. sir charles wolseley protests [ ] that "irreligion, 'tis true, in its practice hath still been the companion of every age, but its open and public defence seems the peculiar of this"; adding that "most of the bad principles of this age are of no earlier a date than one very ill book, and indeed but the spawn of the leviathan." this, as we have seen, is a delusion; but the influence of hobbes was a potent factor. all the while, the censorship of the press, which was one of the means by which the clerical party under charles combated heresy, prevented any new and outspoken writing on the deistic side. the treatise of humane [i.e. human] reason ( ) [ ] of martin clifford, a scholarly man-about-town, [ ] who was made master of the charterhouse, went indeed to the bottom of the question of authority by showing, as spinoza had done shortly before, [ ] that the acceptance of authority is itself in the last resort grounded in reason. the author makes no overt attack on religion, and professes christian belief, but points out that many modern wars had been on subjects of religion, and elaborates a skilful argument on the gain to be derived from toleration. reason alone, fairly used, will bring a man to the christian faith: he who denies this cannot be a christian. as for schism, it is created not by variation in belief, but by the refusal to tolerate it. this ingenious and well-written treatise speedily elicited three replies, all pronouncing it a pernicious work. dr. laney, bishop of ely, is reported to have declared that book and author might fitly be burned together; [ ] and dr. isaac watts, while praising it for "many useful notions," found it "exalt reason as the rule of religion as well as the guide, to a degree very dangerous." [ ] its actual effect seems to have been to restrain the persecution of dissenters. [ ] in , three years after clifford's death, there appeared an apology for a treatise of humane reason, by albertus warren, wherein one of the attacks, entitled plain dealing, by a cambridge scholar, is specially answered. [ ] this helped to evoke the anonymous discourse of things above reason ( ), by robert boyle, the distinguished author of the sceptical chemist, whom we have seen backing up henry more in acceptance of the grossest of ignorant superstitions. the most notable thing about the discourse is that it anticipates berkeley's argument against freethinking mathematicians. [ ] the stress of new discussion is further to be gathered from the work of howe, on the reconcilableness of god's prescience of the sins of men with the wisdom and sincerity of his counsels and exhortations, produced in at boyle's request. as a modern admirer admits that the thesis was a hopeless one, [ ] it is not to be supposed that it did much to lessen doubt in its own day. the preface to stillingfleet's letter to a deist ( ), which for the first time brings that appellation into prominence in english controversy, tacitly abandoning the usual ascription of atheism to all unbelievers, avows that "a mean esteem of the scriptures and the christian religion" has become very common "among the skepticks of this age," and complains very much, as butler did sixty years later, of the spirit of "raillery and buffoonery" in which the matter was too commonly approached. the "letter" shows that a multitude of the inconsistencies and other blemishes of the old testament were being keenly discussed; and it cannot be said that the bishop's vindication was well calculated to check the tendency. indeed, we have the angry and reiterated declaration of archdeacon parker, writing in , that "the ignorant and the unlearned among ourselves are become the greatest pretenders to skepticism; and it is the common people that nowadays set up for skepticism and infidelity"; that "atheism and irreligion are at length become as common as vice and debauchery"; and that "plebeans and mechanicks have philosophized themselves into principles of impiety, and read their lectures of atheism in the streets and highways. and they are able to demonstrate out of the leviathan that there is no god nor providence," and so on. [ ] as the archdeacon's method of refutation consists mainly in abuse, he doubtless had the usual measure of success. a similar order of dialectic is employed by dr. sherlock in his practical discourse of religious assemblies ( ). the opening section is addressed to the "speculative atheists," here described as receding from the principles of their "great master, mr. hobbs," who, "though he had no great opinion of religion in itself, yet thought it something considerable when it became the law of the nation." such atheists, the reverend writer notes, when it is urged on them that all mankind worship "some god or other," reply that such an argument is as good for polytheism and idolatry as for monotheism; so, after formally inviting them to "cure their souls of that fatal and mortal disease, which makes them beasts here and devils hereafter," and lamenting that he is not dealing with "reasonable men," he bethinks him that "the laws of conversation require us to treat all men with just respects," and admits that there have been "some few wise and cautious atheists." to such, accordingly, he suggests that the atheist has already a great advantage in a world morally restrained by religion, where he is under no such restraint, and that, "if he should by his wit and learning proselyte a whole nation to atheism, hell would break loose on earth, and he might soon find himself exposed to all those violences and injuries which he now securely practises." for the rest, they had better not affront god, who may after all exist, and be able to revenge himself. [ ] and so forth. of deists as such, sherlock has nothing to say beyond treating as "practical atheists" men who admit the existence of god, yet never go to church, though "religious worship is nothing else but a public acknowledgment of god." their non-attendance "is as great, if not a greater affront to god, and contempt of him, than atheism itself." [ ] but the reverend writer's strongest resentment is aroused by the spectacle of freethinkers asking for liberty of thought. "it is a fulsome and nauseous thing," he breathlessly protests, "to see the atheists and infidels of our days to turn great reformers of religion, to set up a mighty cry for liberty of conscience. for whatever reformation of religion may be needful at this time, whatever liberty of conscience may be fit to be granted, yet what have these men to do to meddle with it; those who think religion a mere fable, and god to be an utopian prince, and conscience a man of clouts set up for a scarecrow to fright such silly creatures from their beloved enjoyments, and hell and heaven to be forged in the same mint with the poet's styx and acheron and elysian fields? we are like to see blessed times, if such men had but the reforming of religion." [ ] dr sherlock was not going to do good if the devil bade him. the faith had a wittier champion in south; but he, in a westminster abbey sermon of - , [ ] mournfully declares that "the weakness of our church discipline since its restoration, whereby it has been scarce able to get any hold on men's consciences, and much less able to keep it; and the great prevalence of that atheistical doctrine of the leviathan; and the unhappy propagation of erastianism; these things (i say) with some others have been the sad and fatal causes that have loosed the bands of conscience and eaten out the very heart and sense of christianity among us, to that degree, that there is now scarce any religious tye or restraint upon persons, but merely from those faint remainders of natural conscience, which god will be sure to keep alive upon the hearts of men, as long as they are men, for the great ends of his own providence, whether they will or no. so that, were it not for this sole obstacle, religion is not now so much in danger of being divided and torn piecemeal by sects and factions, as of being at once devoured by atheism. which being so, let none wonder that irreligion is accounted policy when it is grown even to a fashion; and passes for wit, with some, as well as for wisdom with others." how general was the ferment of discussion may be gathered from dryden's religio laici ( ), addressed to the youthful henry dickinson, translator of père richard simon's critical history of the old testament (fr. ). the french scholar was suspect to begin with; and bishop burnet tells that richard hampden (grandson of the patriot), who was connected with the rye house plot and committed suicide in the reign of william and mary, had been "much corrupted" in his religious principles by simon's conversation at paris. in the poem, dryden recognizes the upsetting tendency of the treatise, albeit he terms it "matchless":-- for some, who have his secret meaning guessed, have found our author not too much a priest; and his flowing disquisition, which starts from poetic contempt of reason and ends in prosaic advice to keep quiet about its findings, leaves the matter at that. the hopelessly confused but musical passage: dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars, to lonely, weary, wandering travellers, is reason to the soul, begins the poem; but the poet thinks it necessary both in his preface and in his piece to argue with the deists in a fashion which must have entertained them as much as it embarrassed the more thoughtful orthodox, his simple thesis being that all ideas of deity were débris from the primeval revelation to noah, and that natural reason could never have attained to a god-idea at all. and even at that, as regards the herbertian argument: no supernatural worship can be true, because a general law is that alone which must to all and everywhere be known: he confesses that of all objections this indeed is chief to startle reason, stagger frail belief; and feebly proceeds to argue away the worst meaning of the creed of "the good old man" athanasius. finally, we have a fatherly appeal for peace and quietness among the sects:-- and after hearing what our church can say, if still our reason runs another way, that private reason 'tis more just to curb than by disputes the public peace disturb; for points obscure are of small use to learn, but common quiet is mankind's concern. it must have been the general disbelief in dryden's sincerity on religious matters that caused the ascription to him of various freethinking treatises, for there is no decisive evidence that he was ever pronouncedly heterodox. his attitude to rationalism in the religio laici is indeed that of one who either could not see the scope of the problem or was determined not to indicate his recognition of it; and on the latter view the insincerity of both poem and preface would be exorbitant. by his nominal hostility to deism, however, dryden did freethought a service of some importance. after his antagonism had been proclaimed, no one could plausibly associate freethinking with licentiousness, in which dryden so far exceeded nearly every poet and dramatist of his age that the non-juror jeremy collier was free to single him out as the representative of theatrical lubricity. but in simple justice it must also be avowed that of all the opponents of deism in that day he is one of the least embittered, and that his amiable superficiality of argument must have tended to stimulate the claims of reason. the late dr. verrall, a keen but unprejudiced critic, sums up as regards dryden's religious poetry in general that "what is clear is that he had a marked dislike of clergy of all sorts, as such"; that "the main points of deism are noted in religio laici ( - ); and that "his creed was presumably some sort of deism" (lectures on dryden, , pp. - ). further, "the state of innocence is really deistic and not christian in tone: in his play of tyrannic love, the religion of st. catharine may be mere philosophy"; and though the poet in his preface to that play protests that his "outward conversation shall never be justly taxed with the note of atheism or profaneness," the disclaimer "proves nothing as to his positive belief: deism is not profane." in absalom and achitophel, again, the "coarse satire on transubstantiation ( ff.) shows rather religious insensibility than hostile theology," though "the poem shows his dislike of liberty and private judgment ( - )." of the religio laici the critic asks: "now in all this, is there any religion at all?" the poem "might well be dismissed as mere politics but for its astounding commencement" (p. ). the critic unexpectedly fails to note that the admired commencement is an insoluble confusion of metaphors. how far the process of reasoning had gone among quiet thinking people before the revolution may be gathered from the essay entitled miracles no violations of the laws of nature, published in . [ ] its thesis is that put explicitly by montaigne and implicitly by bacon, that ignorance is the only worker of miracles; in other words, "that the power of god and the power of nature are one and the same"--a simple and straightforward way of putting a conception which cudworth had put circuitously and less courageously a few years before. no scriptural miracle is challenged qua event. "among the many miracles related to be done in favour of the israelites," says the writer, "there is (i think) no one that can be apodictically demonstrated to be repugnant to th' establisht order of nature"; [ ] and he calmly accepts the biblical account of the first rainbow, explaining it as passing for a miracle merely because it was the first. he takes his motto from pliny: "quid non miraculo est, cum primum in notitiam venit?" [ ] this is, however, a preliminary strategy; as is the opening reminder that "most of the ancient fathers ... and of the most learned theologues among the moderns" hold that the scriptures as regards natural things do not design to instruct men in physics but "aim only to excite pious affections in their breasts." we accordingly reach the position that the scripture "many times speaks of natural things, yea even of god himself, very improperly, as aiming to affect and occupy the imagination of men, not to convince their reason." many scriptural narratives, therefore, "are either delivered poetically or related according to the preconceived opinions and prejudices of the writer." "wherefore we here absolutely conclude that all the events that are truly related in the scripture to have come to pass, proceeded necessarily ... according to the immutable laws of nature; and that if anything be found which can be apodictically demonstrated to be repugnant to those laws ... we may safely and piously believe the same not to have been dictated by divine inspiration, but impiously added to the sacred volume by sacrilegious men; for whatever is against nature is against reason; and whatever is against reason is absurd, and therefore also to be rejected and refuted." [ ] lest this should be found too hard a doctrine there is added, àpropos of joshua's staying of the sun and moon, a literary solution which has often done duty in later times. "to interpret scripture-miracles, and to understand from the narrations of them how they really happened, 'tis necessary to know the opinions of those who first reported them ... otherwise we shall confound ... things which have really happen'd with things purely imaginary, and which were only prophetic representations. for in scripture many things are related as real, and which were also believ'd to be real even by the relators themselves, that notwithstanding were only representations form'd in the brain, and merely imaginary--as that god, the supreme being, descended from heaven ... upon mount sinai...; that elias ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot ... which were only representations accommodated to their opinions who deliver'd them down to us." [ ] such argumentation had to prepare the way for hume's essay of miracles, half a century later; and concerning both reasoners it is to be remembered that their thought was to be "infidelity" for centuries after them. it needed real freethinking, then, to produce such doctrine in the days of the rye house plot. meanwhile, during an accidental lapse of the press laws, the deist charles blount [ ] ( - ) had produced with his father's help his anima mundi ( ), in which there is set forth a measure of cautious unbelief; following it up ( ) by his much more pronounced essay, great is diana of the ephesians, a keen attack on the principle of revelation and clericalism in general, and his translation [from the latin version] of philostratus's life of apollonius of tyana, so annotated [ ] as to be an ingenious counterblast to the christian claims, and so prefaced as to be an open challenge to orthodoxy. the book was condemned to be burnt; and only the influence of blount's family, [ ] probably, prevented his being prosecuted. the propaganda, however, was resumed by blount and his friends in small tracts, and after his suicide [ ] in these were collected as the oracles of reason ( ), his collected works (without the apollonius) appearing in . by this time the political tension of the revolution of was over; le clerc's work on the inspiration of the old testament, raising many doubts as to the authorship of the pentateuch, had been translated in ; spinoza's tractatus theologico-politicus ( ) had been translated into english in , and had impressed in a similar sense a number of scholars; his ethica had given a new direction to the theistic controversy; the boyle lecture had been established for the confutation of unbelievers; and after the political convulsion of has subsided it rains refutations. atheism is now so fiercely attacked, and with such specific arguments--as in bentley's boyle lectures ( ), edwards's thoughts concerning the causes of atheism ( ), and many other treatises--that there can be no question as to the private vogue of atheistic or agnostic opinions. if we are to judge solely from the apologetic literature, it was more common than deism. yet it seems impossible to doubt that there were ten deists for one atheist. bentley's admission that he never met an explicit atheist [ ] suggests that much of the atheism warred against was tentative. it was only the deists who could venture on open avowals; and the replies to them were most discussed. much account was made of one of the most compendious, the short and easy method with the deists ( ), by the nonjuror charles leslie; but this handy argument (which is really adopted without acknowledgment from an apologetic treatise by a french protestant refugee, published in [ ]) was not only much bantered by deists, but was sharply censured as incompetent by the french protestant le clerc; [ ] and many other disputants had to come to the rescue. a partial list will suffice to show the rate of increase of the ferment:-- . dr. rust, discourse on the use of reason in ... religion, against enthusiasts and deists. . duke of buckingham, a short discourse upon the reasonableness of men's having a religion or worship of god. . the atheist unmask'd. by a person of honour. . peter allix, d.d. reflexions, etc., as above cited. . archbishop tenison, the folly of atheism. . discourse of natural and revealed religion. . john ray, wisdom of god manifested in the works of the creation. (many reprints.) . c. ellis, the folly of atheism demonstrated. . bentley's sermons on atheism. (first boyle lectures.) . archbishop davies, an anatomy of atheism. a poem. . a conference between an atheist and his friend. . j. goodman, a winter evening conference between neighbours. . bishop kidder, a demonstration of the messias. (boyle lect.) . john locke, the reasonableness of christianity. . john edwards, b.d., some thoughts concerning the several causes and occasions of atheism. (directed against locke.) . an account of the growth of deism in england. . reflections on a pamphlet, etc. (the last named). . sir c. wolseley, the unreasonableness of atheism demonstrated. (rep.) . dr. nichols' conference with a theist. pt. i. (answer to blount.) . j. edwards, d.d., a demonstration of the evidence and providence of god. . e. pelling, discourse ... on the existence of god. (pt. ii in ). . stephen eye, a discourse concerning natural and revealed religion. . bishop gastrell, the certainty and necessity of religion. (boyle lect.) . h. prideaux, discourse vindicating christianity, etc. . c. leslie, a short and easy method with the deists. . dr. j. harris, a refutation of atheistical objections. (boyle lect.) . thos. emes, the atheist turned deist, and the deist turned christian. . c. lidgould, proclamation against atheism, etc. . j. bradley, an impartial view of the truth of christianity. (answer to blount.) . bishop bradford, the credibility of the christian revelation. (boyle lect.) . rev. p. berault, discourses on the trinity, atheism, etc. . t. knaggs, against atheism. . w. scot, discourses concerning the wisdom and goodness of god. . a confutation of atheism. . dr. stanhope, the truth and excellency of the christian religion. (boyle lect.) . an antidote of atheism. (? reprint of more). . translation of herbert's ancient religion of the gentiles. . charles gildon, the deist's manual (a recantation). . ed. pelling, discourse concerning the existence of god. part ii. . dr. samuel clarke, a demonstration of the being and attributes of god, etc. (boyle lect. of .) . a preservative against atheism and infidelity. . th. wise, b.d., a confutation of the reason and philosophy of atheism (recast and abridgment of cudworth). . t. oldfield, mille testes; against the atheists, deists, and skepticks. . the case of deism fully and fairly stated, with dialogue, etc. . dr. j. hancock, arguments to prove the being of a god. (boyle lect.) still there was no new deistic literature apart from toland's christianity not mysterious ( ) and his unauthorized issue (of course without author's name) of shaftesbury's inquiry concerning virtue in ; and in that there is little direct conflict with orthodoxy, though it plainly enough implied that scripturalism would injuriously affect morals. it seems at that date, perhaps through the author's objection to its circulation, to have attracted little attention; but he tells that it incurred hostility. [ ] blount's famous stratagem of [ ] had led to the dropping of the official censorship of the press, the licensing act having been renewed for only two years in and dropped in ; but after the prompt issue of blount's collected works in that year, and the appearance of toland's christianity not mysterious in the next, the new and comprehensive blasphemy law of [ ] served sufficiently to terrorize writers and printers in that regard for the time being. [ ] bare denial of the trinity, of the truth of the christian religion, or of the divine authority of the scriptures, was made punishable by disability for any civil office; and on a second offence by three years' imprisonment, with withdrawal of all legal rights. the first clear gain from the freedom of the press was thus simply a cheapening of books in general. by the licensing act of charles ii, and by a separate patent, the stationers' company had a monopoly of printing and selling all classical authors; and while their editions were disgracefully bad, the importers of the excellent editions printed in holland had to pay them a penalty of s. d. on each copy. [ ] by the same act, passed under clerical influence, the number even of master printers and letter-founders had been reduced, and the number of presses and apprentices strictly limited; and the total effect of the monopolies was that when dutch-printed books were imported in exchange for english, the latter sold more cheaply at amsterdam than they did in london, the english consumer, of course, bearing the burden. [ ] the immediate effect, therefore, of the lapse of the licensing act must have been to cheapen greatly all foreign books by removal of duties, and at the same time to cheapen english books by leaving printing free. it will be seen above that the output of treatises against freethought at once increases in . but the revolution of , like the great rebellion, had doubtless given a new stimulus to freethinking; and the total effect of freer trade in books, even with a veto on "blasphemy," could only be to further it. this was ere long to be made plain. § alongside of the more popular and native influences, there were at work others, foreign and more academic; and even in professedly orthodox writers there are signs of the influence of deistic thought. thus sir thomas browne's religio medici (written about , published ) has been repeatedly characterized [ ] as tending to promote deism by its tone and method; and there can be no question that it assumes a great prevalence of critical unbelief, to which its attitude is an odd combination of humorous cynicism and tranquil dogmatism, often recalling montaigne, [ ] and at times anticipating emerson. there is little savour of confident belief in the smiling maxim that "to confirm and establish our belief 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own"; or in the avowal, "in divinity i love to keep the road; and though not in an implicit yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel of the church, by which i move." [ ] the pose of the typical believer: "i can answer all the objections of satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution i learned of tertullian, certum est quia impossibile est," [ ] tells in his case of no anxious hours; and such smiling incuriousness is not conducive to conviction in others, especially when followed by a recital of some of the many insoluble dilemmas of scripture. when he reasons he is merely self-subversive, as in the saying, "'tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables; for even in sortileges and matters of greatest uncertainty there is a settled and pre-ordered course of effects"; [ ] and after remarking that the notions of fortune and astral influence "have perverted the devotion of many into atheism," he proceeds to avow that his many doubts never inclined him "to any point of infidelity or desperate positions of atheism; for i have been these many years of opinion there never was any." [ ] yet in his later treatise on vulgar errors ( ) he devotes a chapter [ ] to the activities of satan in instilling the belief that "there is no god at all ... that the necessity of his entity dependeth upon ours...; that the natural truth of god is an artificial erection of man, and the creator himself but a subtile invention of the creature." he further notes as coming from the same source "a secondary and deductive atheism--that although men concede there is a god, yet should they deny his providence. and therefore assertions have flown about, that he intendeth only the care of the species or common natures, but letteth loose the guard of individuals, and single existences therein." [ ] browne now asserts merely that "many there are who cannot conceive that there was ever any absolute atheist," and does not clearly affirm that satan labours wholly in vain. the broad fact remains that he avows "reason is a rebel unto faith"; and in the vulgar errors he shows in his own reasoning much of the practical play of the new skepticism. [ ] yet it is finally on record that in , on the trial of two women for witchcraft, browne declared that the fits suffered from by the children said to have been bewitched "were natural, but heightened by the devil's co-operating with the malice of the witches, at whose instance he did the villainies." [ ] this amazing deliverance is believed to have "turned the scale" in the minds of the jury against the poor women, and they were sentenced by the sitting judge, sir matthew hale, to be hanged. it would seem that in browne's latter years the irrational element in him, never long dormant, overpowered the rational. the judgment is a sad one to have to pass on one of the greatest masters of prose in any language. in other men, happily, the progression was different. the opening even of jeremy taylor's ductor dubitantium, so far as it goes, falls little short of the deistic position. [ ] a new vein of rationalism, too, is opened in the theological field by the great cambridge scholar john spencer, whose discourse concerning prodigies ( ; nd ed. ), though quite orthodox in its main positions, has in part the effect of a plea for naturalism as against supernaturalism. spencer's great work, de legibus hebræorum ( ), is, apart from spinoza, the most scientific view of hebrew institutions produced before the rise of german theological rationalism in the latter part of the eighteenth century. holding most of the jewish rites to have been planned by the deity as substitutes for or safeguards against those of the gentiles which they resembled, he unconsciously laid, with herbert, the foundations of comparative hierology, bringing to the work a learning which is still serviceable to scholars. [ ] and there were yet other new departures by clerical writers, who of course exhibit the difficulty of attaining a consistent rationalism. one clergyman, joseph glanvill, is found publishing a treatise on the vanity of dogmatizing ( ; amended in under the title scepsis scientifica), [ ] wherein, with careful reservation of religion, the spirit of critical science is applied to the ordinary processes of opinion with much energy, and the "mechanical philosophy" of descartes is embraced with zeal. following raleigh and hobbes, [ ] glanvill also puts the positive view of causation [ ] afterwards fully developed by hume. [ ] yet he not only vetoed all innovation in "divinity," but held stoutly by the crudest forms of the belief in witchcraft, and was with henry more its chief english champion in his day against rational disbelief. [ ] in religion he had so little of the skeptical faculty that he declared "our religious foundations are fastened at the pillars of the intellectual world, and the grand articles of our belief as demonstrable as geometry. nor will ever either the subtile attempts of the resolved atheist, or the passionate hurricanes of the wild enthusiast, any more be able to prevail against the reason our faith is built on, than the blustering winds to blow out the sun." [ ] he had his due reward in being philosophically assailed by the catholic priest thomas white as a promoter of skepticism, [ ] and by an anglican clergyman, wroth with the royal society and all its works, as an infidel and an atheist. [ ] this was as true as clerical charges of the kind usually were in the period. but without any animus or violence of interpretation, a reader of glanvill's visitation sermon on the agreement of reason and religion [ ] might have inferred that he was a deist. it sets forth that "religion primarily and mainly consists in worship and vertue," and that it "in a secondary sense consists in some principles relating to the worship of god, and of his son, in the ways of devout and vertuous living"; christianity having "superadded" baptism and the lord's supper to "the religion of mankind." apart from his obsession as to witchcraft--and perhaps even as to that--glanvill seems to have grown more and more rationalistic in his later years. the scepsis omits some of the credulous flights of the vanity of dogmatizing; [ ] the re-written version in the collected essays omits such dithyrambs as that above quoted; and the sermon in its revised form sets out with the emphatic declaration: "there is not anything that i know which hath done more mischief to religion than the disparaging of reason under pretence of respect and favour to it; for hereby the very foundations of christian faith have been undermined, and the world prepared for atheism. and if reason must not be heard, the being of a god and the authority of scripture can neither be proved nor defended; and so our faith drops to the ground like an house that hath no foundation." such reasoning could not but be suspect to the orthodoxy of the age. apart from the influence of hobbes, who, like descartes, shaped his thinking from the starting-point of galileo, the cartesian philosophy played in england a great transitional part. at the university of cambridge it was already naturalized; [ ] and the influence of glanvill, who was an active member of the royal society, must have carried it further. the remarkable treatise of the anatomist glisson, [ ] de natura substantiæ energetica ( ), suggests the influence of either descartes or gassendi; and it is remarkable that the clerical moralist cumberland, writing his disquisitio de legibus naturæ ( ) in reply to hobbes, not only takes up a utilitarian position akin to hobbes's own, and expressly avoids any appeal to the theological doctrine of future punishments, but introduces physiology into his ethic to the extent of partially figuring as an ethical materialist. [ ] in regard to gassendi's direct influence it has to be noted that in there appeared the vanity of judiciary astrology, translated by "a person of quality," from p. gassendus; and further that, as is remarked by reid, locke borrowed more from gassendi than from any other writer. [ ] [it is stated by sir leslie stephen (english thought in the eighteenth century, nd ed. i, ) that in england the philosophy of descartes made no distinguished disciples; and that john norris "seems to be the only exception to the general indifference." this overlooks ( ) glanvill, who constantly cites and applauds descartes (scepsis scientifica, passim). ( ) in henry more's divine dialogues, again ( ), one of the disputants is made to speak (dial. i, ch. xxiv) of "that admired wit descartes"; and he later praises him even when passing censure (above, p. ). more had been one of the admirers in his youth, and changed his view (cp. ward's life of dr. henry more, pp. - ). but his first letter to descartes begins: "quanta voluptate perfusus est animus meus, vir clarissime, scriptis tuis legendis, nemo quisquam præter te unum potest conjectare." ( ) there was published in a translation of des fourneillis's letter in defence of the cartesian system, with françois bayle's general system of the cartesian philosophy. ( ) the continual objections to the atheistic tendency of descartes throughout cudworth's true intellectual system imply anything but "general indifference"; and ( ) barrow's tone in venturing to oppose him (cit. in whewell's philosophy of discovery, , p. ) pays tribute to his great influence. ( ) molyneux, in the preface to his translation of the six metaphysical meditations of descartes in , speaks of him as "this excellent philosopher" and "this prodigious man." ( ) maxwell, in a note to his translation ( ) of bishop cumberland's disquisitio de legibus naturæ, remarks that the doctrine of a universal plenum was accepted from the cartesian philosophy by cumberland, "in whose time that philosophy prevailed much" (p. ). see again ( ) clarke's answer to butler's fifth letter ( ) as to the "universal prevalence" of descartes's notions in natural philosophy. ( ) the scottish lord president forbes (d. ) summed up that "descartes's romance kept entire possession of men's belief for fully fifty years" (works, ii, ). ( ) and his fellow-judge, sir william anstruther, in his "discourse against atheism" (essays, moral and divine, , pp. , , ), cites with much approval the theistic argument of "the celebrated descartes" as "the last evidences which appeared upon the stage of learning" in that connection. cp. berkeley, siris, § . of berkeley himself, professor adamson writes (encyc. brit. iii, ) that "descartes and locke ... are his real masters in speculation." the cartesian view of the eternity and infinity of matter had further become an accepted ground for "philosophical atheists" in england before the end of the century (molyneux, in familiar letters of locke and his friends, , p. ). as to the many writers who charged descartes with promoting atheism, see mosheim's notes in harrison's ed. of cudworth's intellectual system, i, - ; clarke, as above cited; leibnitz's letter to philip, cited by latta, leibnitz, , p. , note; and brewster's memoirs of newton, ii, . sir leslie stephen seems to have followed, under a misapprehension, whewell, who contends merely that the cartesian doctrine of vortices was never widely accepted in england (philos. of discovery, pp. - ; cp. hist. of the induct. sciences, ed. , ii, , - ). buckle was perhaps similarly misled when he wrote in his note-book: "descartes was never popular in england" (misc. works, abridged ed. i, ). whewell himself mentions that clarke, soon after taking his degree at cambridge, "was actively engaged in introducing into the academic course of study, first, the philosophy of descartes in its best form, and, next, the philosophy of newton" (lectures on moral philosophy, ed. , pp. - ). and professor fowler, in correcting his first remarks on the point, decides that "many of the mathematical teachers at cambridge continued to teach the cartesian system for some time after the publication of newton's principia" (ed. of nov. org., p. xi). it is clear, however, that insofar as new science set up a direct conflict with scriptural assumptions it gained ground but slowly and indirectly. it is difficult to-day to realize with what difficulty the copernican and galilean doctrine of the earth's rotation and movement round the sun found acceptance even among studious men. we have seen that bacon finally rejected it. and as professor masson points out, [ ] not only does milton seem uncertain to the last concerning the truth of the copernican system, but his friends and literary associates, the "smectymnuans," in their answer to bishop hall's humble remonstrance ( ), had pointed to the copernican doctrine as an unquestioned instance of a supreme absurdity. glanvill, remarking in that "it is generally opinion'd that the earth rests as the world's centre," avows that "for a man to go about to counter-argue this belief is as fruitless as to whistle against the winds. i shall not undertake to maintain the paradox that confronts this almost catholic opinion. its assertion would be entertained with the hoot of the rabble; the very mention of it as possible, is among the most ridiculous." [ ] all he ventures to do is to show that the senses do not really vouch the ordinary view. not till the eighteenth century, probably, did the common run of educated people anywhere accept the scientific teaching. on the other hand, however, there was growing up not a little socinian and other unitarianism, for some variety of which we have seen two men burned in . church measures had been taken against the importation of socinian books as early as . the famous lord falkland, slain in the civil war, is supposed to have leant to that opinion; [ ] and chillingworth, whose religion of protestants ( ) was already a remarkable application of rational tests to ecclesiastical questions in defiance of patristic authority, [ ] seems in his old age to have turned socinian. [ ] violent attacks on the trinity are noted among the heresies of . [ ] colonel john fry, one of the regicides, who in parliament was accused of rejecting the trinity, cleared himself by explaining that he simply objected to the terms "persons" and "subsistence," but was one of those who sought to help the persecuted unitarian biddle. in the parliament ordered the destruction of a certain socinian catechism; and by the heresy seems to have become common. [ ] it is now certain that milton was substantially a unitarian, [ ] and that locke and newton were at heart no less so. [ ] the temper of the unitarian school appears perhaps at its best in the anonymous rational catechism published in . it purports to be "an instructive conference between a father and his son," and is dedicated by the father to his two daughters. the "catechism" rises above the common run of its species in that it is really a dialogue, in which the rôles are at times reversed, and the catechumen is permitted to think and speak for himself. the exposition is entirely unevangelical. right religion is declared to consist in right conduct; and while the actuality of the christian record is maintained on argued grounds, on the lines of grotius and parker, the doctrine of salvation by faith is strictly excluded, future happiness being posited as the reward of good life, not of faith. there is no negation, the author's object being avowedly peace and conciliation; but the epistle dedicatory declares that religious reasoners have hitherto "failed in their foundation-work. they have too much slighted that philosophy which is the natural religion of all men; and which, being natural, must needs be universal and eternal: and upon which therefore, or at least in conformity with which, all instituted and revealed religion must be supposed to be built." we have here in effect the position taken up by toland ten years later; and, in germ, the principle which developed deism, albeit in connection with an affirmation of the truth of the christian records. of the central christian doctrine there is no acceptance, though there is laudation of jesus; and reprints after bore the motto, from locke: [ ] "as the foundation of virtue, there ought very earnestly to be imprinted on the mind of a young man a true notion of god, as of the independent supreme being, author, and maker of all things: and, consequent to this, instil into him a love and reverence of this supreme being." we are already more than half-way from unitarianism to deism. indeed, the theism of locke's essay on the human understanding undermined even his unitarian scripturalism, inasmuch as it denies, albeit confusedly, that revelation can ever override reason. in one passage he declares that "reason is natural revelation," while "revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by god immediately, which reason vouchsafes the truth of." [ ] this compromise appears to be borrowed from spinoza, who had put it with similar vagueness in his great tractatus, [ ] of which pre-eminent work locke cannot have been ignorant, though he protested himself little read in the works of hobbes and spinoza, "those justly decried names." [ ] the tractatus being translated into english in the same year with the publication of the essay, its influence would concur with locke's in a widened circle of readers; and the substantially naturalistic doctrine of both books inevitably promoted the deistic movement. we have locke's own avowal that he had many doubts as to the biblical narratives; [ ] and he never attempts to remove the doubts of others. since, however, his doctrine provided a sphere for revelation on the territory of ignorance, giving it prerogative where its assertions were outside knowledge, it counted substantially for unitarianism insofar as it did not lead to deism. see the essay, bk. iv, ch. xviii. locke's treatment of revelation may be said to be the last and most attenuated form of the doctrine of "two-fold truth." on his principle, any proposition in a professed revelation that was not provable or disprovable by reason and knowledge must pass as true. his final position, that "whatever is divine revelation ought to overrule all our opinions" (bk. iv, ch. xviii, § ), is tolerably elastic, inasmuch as he really reserves the question of the actuality of revelation. thus he evades the central issue. naturally he was by critical foreigners classed as a deist. cp. gostwick, german culture and christianity, , p. . the german historian tennemann sums up that clarke wrote his apologetic works because "the consequences of the empiricism of locke had become so decidedly favourable to the cause of atheism, skepticism, materialism, and irreligion" (manual of the hist. of philos. eng. tr. bohn ed. § ). in his "practical" treatise on the reasonableness of christianity ( ) locke played a similar part. it was inspired by the genuine concern for social peace which had moved him to write an essay on toleration as early as , [ ] and to produce from onwards his famous letters on toleration, by far the most persuasive appeal of the kind that had yet been produced; [ ] all the more successful so far as it went, doubtless, because the first letter ended with a memorable capitulation to bigotry: "lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of god. promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. the taking away of god, though but even in thought, dissolves all. besides, also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration." this handsome endorsement of the religion which had repeatedly "dissolved all" in a pandemonium of internecine hate, as compared with the one heresy which had never broken treaties or shed blood, is presumably more of a prudent surrender to normal fanaticism than an expression of the philosopher's own state of mind; [ ] and his treatise on the reasonableness of christianity is an attempt to limit religion to a humane ethic, with sacraments and mysteries reduced to ceremonies, while claiming that the gospel ethic was "now with divine authority established into a legible law, far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to." [ ] its effect was, however, to promote rationalism without doing much to mitigate the fanaticism of belief. locke's practical position has been fairly summed up by prof. bain: "locke proposed, in his reasonableness of christianity, to ascertain the exact meaning of christianity, by casting aside all the glosses of commentators and divines, and applying his own unassisted judgment to spell out its teachings.... the fallacy of his position obviously was that he could not strip himself of his education and acquired notions.... he seemed unconscious of the necessity of trying to make allowance for his unavoidable prepossessions. in consequence, he simply fell into an old groove of received doctrines; and these he handled under the set purpose of simplifying the fundamentals of christianity to the utmost. such purpose was not the result of his bible study, but of his wish to overcome the political difficulties of the time. he found, by keeping close to the gospels and making proper selections from the epistles, that the belief in christ as the messiah could be shown to be the central fact of the christian faith; that the other main doctrines followed out of this by a process of reasoning; and that, as all minds might not perform the process alike, these doctrines could not be essential to the practice of christianity. he got out of the difficulty of framing a creed, as many others have done, by simply using scripture language, without subjecting it to any very strict definition; certainly without the operation of stripping the meaning of its words, to see what it amounted to. that his short and easy method was not very successful the history of the deistical controversy sufficiently proves" (practical essays, pp. - ). that locke was felt to have injured orthodoxy is further proved by the many attacks made on him from the orthodox side. even the first letter on toleration elicited retorts, one of which claims to demonstrate "the absurdity and impiety of an absolute toleration." [ ] on his positive teachings he was assailed by bishop stillingfleet; by the rev. john milner, b.d.; by the rev. john morris; by william carrol; and by the rev. john edwards, b.d.; [ ] his only assailant with a rationalistic repute being dr. thomas burnet. some attacked him on his essays; some on his reasonableness of christianity; orthodoxy finding in both the same tendency to "subvert the nature and use of divine revelation and faith." [ ] in the opinion of the rev. mr. bolde, who defended him in some considerations published in , the hostile clericals had treated him "with a rudeness peculiar to some who make a profession of the christian religion, and seem to pride themselves in being the clergy of the church of england." [ ] this is especially true of edwards, a notably ignoble type; [ ] but hardly of milner, whose later account of mr. lock's religion out of his own writings, and in his own words ( ), pressed him shrewdly on the score of his "socinianism." in the eyes of a pietist like william law, again, locke's conception of the infant mind as a tabula rasa was "dangerous to religion," besides being philosophically false. [ ] yet locke agreed with law [ ] that moral obligation is dependent solely on the will of god--a doctrine denounced by the deist shaftesbury as the negation of morality. see the inquiry concerning virtue or merit, pt. iii, § ; and the letters to a student, under date june , (p. in rand's life, letters, etc., of shaftesbury, ). the extraordinary letter of newton to locke, written just after or during a spell of insanity, first apologizes for having believed that locke "endeavoured to embroil me with women and by other means," and goes on to beg pardon "for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas." in his subsequent letter, replying to that of locke granting forgiveness and gently asking for details, he writes: "what i said of your book i remember not." (letters of september and october , , given in fox bourne's life of locke, ii, - , and sir d. brewster's memoirs of sir isaac newton, , ii, - .) newton, who had been on very friendly terms with locke, must have been repeating, when his mind was disordered, criticisms otherwise current. after printing in full the letters above cited, brewster insists, on his principle of sacrificing all other considerations to newton's glory (cp. de morgan, newton: his friend: and his niece, , pp. - ), that all the while newton was "in the full possession of his mental powers." the whole diction of the first letter tells the contrary. if we are not to suppose that newton had been temporarily insane, we must think of his judgment as even less rational, apart from physics, than it is seen to be in his dissertations on prophecy. certainly newton was at all times apt to be suspicious of his friends to the point of moral disease (see his attack on montague, in his letter to locke of january , - ; in fox bourne, ii, ; and cp. de morgan, as cited, p. ); but the letter to locke indicates a point at which the normal malady had upset the mental balance. it remains, nevertheless, part of the evidence as to bitter orthodox criticism of locke. on the whole, it is clear, the effect of his work, especially of his naturalistic psychology, was to make for rationalism; and his compromises furthered instead of checking the movement of unbelief. his ideal of practical and undogmatic christianity, indeed, was hardly distinguishable from that of hobbes, [ ] and, as previously set forth by the rev. arthur bury in his naked gospel ( ), was so repugnant to the church that that book was burned at oxford as heretical. [ ] locke's position as a believing christian was indeed extremely weak, and could easily have been demolished by a competent deist, such as collins, [ ] or a skeptical dogmatist who could control his temper and avoid the gross misrepresentation so often resorted to by locke's orthodox enemies. but by the deists he was valued as an auxiliary, and by many latitudinarian christians as a helper towards a rationalistic if not a logical compromise. rationalism of one or the other tint, in fact, seems to have spread in all directions. deism was ascribed to some of the most eminent public men. bishop burnet has a violent passage on sir william temple, to the effect that "he had a true judgment in affairs, and very good principles with relation to government, but in nothing else. he seemed to think that things are as they were from all eternity; at least he thought religion was only for the mob. he was a great admirer of the sect of confucius in china, who were atheists themselves, but left religion to the rabble." [ ] the praise of confucius is the note of deism; and burnet rightly held that no orthodox christian in those days would sound it. other prominent men revealed their religious liberalism. the accomplished and influential george savile, marquis of halifax, often spoken of as a deist, and even as an atheist, by his contemporaries, [ ] appears clearly from his own writings to have been either that or a unitarian; [ ] and it is not improbable that the similar gossip concerning lord keeper somers was substantially true. [ ] that sir isaac newton was "some kind of unitarian" [ ] is proved by documents long withheld from publication, and disclosed only in the second edition of sir david brewster's memoirs. there is indeed no question that he remained a mere scripturalist, handling the texts as such, [ ] and wasting much time in vain interpretations of daniel and the apocalypse. [ ] temperamentally, also, he was averse to anything like bold discussion, declaring that "those at cambridge ought not to judge and censure their superiors, but to obey and honour them, according to the law and the doctrine of passive obedience" [ ]--this after he had sat on the convention which deposed james ii. in no aspect, indeed, apart from his supreme scientific genius, does he appear as morally [ ] or intellectually pre-eminent; and even on the side of science he was limited by his theological presuppositions, as when he rejected the nebular hypothesis, writing to bentley that "the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a divine power, seems to me apparently absurd." [ ] there is therefore more than usual absurdity in the proclamation of his pious biographer that "the apostle of infidelity cowers beneath the implied rebuke" [ ] of his orthodoxy. the very anxiety shown by newton and his friends [ ] to checkmate "the infidels" is a proof that his religious work was not scientific even in inception, but the expression of his neurotic side; and the attempt of some of his scientific admirers to show that his religious researches belong solely to the years of his decline is a corresponding oversight. newton was always pathologically prepossessed on the side of his religion, and subordinated his science to his theology even in the principia. it is therefore all the more significant of the set of opinion in his day that, tied as he was to scriptural interpretations, he drew away from orthodox dogma as to the trinity. not only does he show himself a destructive critic of trinitarian texts and an opponent of athanasius [ ]: he expressly formulates the propositions ( ) that "there is one god the father ... and one mediator between god and man, the man christ jesus"; ( ) that "the father is the invisible god whom no eye hath seen or can see. all other beings are sometimes visible"; and ( ) that "the father hath life in himself, and hath given the son to have life in himself." [ ] such opinions, of course, could not be published: under the act of they would have made newton liable to loss of office and all civil rights. in his own day, therefore, his opinions were rather gossipped-of than known; [ ] but insofar as his heresy was realized, it must have wrought much more for unbelief than could be achieved for orthodoxy by his surprisingly commonplace strictures on atheism, which show the ordinary inability to see what atheism means. the argument of his short scheme of true religion brackets atheism with idolatry, and goes on: "atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors. can it be by accident that all birds, beasts, and men have their right side and left side alike shaped (except in their bowels), and just two eyes, and no more, on either side of the face?" etc. (brewster, ii, ). the logical implication is that a monstrous organism, with the sides unlike, represents "accident," and that in that case there has either been no causation or no "purpose" by omnipotence. it is only fair to remember that no avowedly "atheistic" argument could in newton's day find publication; but his remarks are those of a man who had never contemplated philosophically the negation of his own religious sentiment at the point in question. brewster, whose judgment and good faith are alike precarious, writes that "when voltaire asserted that sir isaac explained the prophecies in the same manner as those who went before him, he only exhibited his ignorance of what newton wrote, and what others had written" (ii, , note; ). the writer did not understand what he censured. voltaire meant that newton's treatment of prophecy is on the same plane of credulity as that of his orthodox predecessors. even within the sphere of the church the unitarian tendency, with or without deistic introduction, was traceable. archbishop tillotson (d. ) was often accused of socinianism; and in the next generation was smilingly spoken of by anthony collins as a leading freethinker. the pious dr. hickes had in fact declared of the archbishop that "he caused several to turn atheists and ridicule the priesthood and religion." [ ] the heresy must have been encouraged even within the church by the scandal which broke out when dean sherlock's vindication of trinitarianism ( ), written in reply to a widely-circulated antitrinitarian compilation, [ ] was attacked by dean south [ ] as the work of a tritheist. the plea of dr. wallis, locke's old teacher, that a doctrine of "three somewhats"--he objected to the term "persons"--in one god was as reasonable as the concept of three dimensions, [ ] was of course only a heresy the more. outside the church, william penn, the great quaker, held a partially unitarian attitude; [ ] and the first of his many imprisonments was on a charge of "blasphemy and heresy" in respect of his treatise the sandy foundation shaken, which denied ( ) that there were in the one god "three distinct and separate persons"; ( ) the doctrine of the need of "plenary satisfaction"; and ( ) the justification of sinners by "an imputative righteousness." but though many of the early quakers seem to have shunned the doctrine of the trinity, penn really affirmed the divinity of christ, and was not a socinian but a sabellian in his theology. positive unitarianism all the while was being pushed by a number of tracts which escaped prosecution, being prudently handled by locke's friend, thomas firmin. [ ] a new impulse had been given to unitarianism by the learning and critical energy of the prussian dr. zwicker, who had settled in holland; [ ] and among those englishmen whom his works had found ready for agreement was gilbert clerke (b. ), who, like several later heretics, was educated at sidney college, cambridge. in he published a unitarian work entitled anti-nicenismus, and two other tracts in latin, all replying to the orthodox polemic of dr. bull, against whom another unitarian had written considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the trinity in , bitterly resenting his violence. [ ] in appeared yet another treatise of the same school, the judgment of the fathers concerning the doctrine of the trinity. much was thus done on unitarian lines to prepare an audience for the deists of the next reign. [ ] but the most effective influence was probably the ludicrous strife of the orthodox clergy as to what orthodoxy was. the fray over the doctrine of the trinity waxed so furious, and the discredit cast on orthodoxy was so serious, [ ] that in the year an act of parliament was passed forbidding the publication of any more works on the subject. meanwhile the so-called latitudinarians, [ ] all the while aiming as they did at a non-dogmatic christianity, served as a connecting medium for the different forms of liberal thought; and a new element of critical disintegration was introduced by a speculative treatment of genesis in the archæologiæ philosophiæ ( ) of dr. thomas burnet, a professedly orthodox scholar, master of the charterhouse and chaplain in ordinary to king william, who nevertheless treated the creation and fall stories as allegories, and threw doubt on the mosaic authorship of parts of the pentateuch. though the book was dedicated to the king, it aroused so much clerical hostility that the king was obliged to dismiss him from his post at court. [ ] his ideas were partly popularized through a translation of two of his chapters, with a vindicatory letter, in blount's oracles of reason ( ); and that they had considerable vogue may be gathered from the essay towards a vindication of the vulgar exposition of the mosaic history of the fall of adam, by john witty, published in . burnet, who published three sets of anonymous remarks on the philosophy of locke ( - ), criticizing its sensationist basis, figured after his death ( ), in posthumous publications, as a heretical theologian in other regards; and then played his part in the general deistic movement; but his allegorical view of genesis does not seem to have seriously affected speculation in his time, the bulk of the debate turning on his earlier telluris theoria sacra ( ; trans. ), to which there were many rejoinders, both scientific and orthodox. on this side he is unimportant, his science being wholly imaginative; and in the competition between his theory and j. woodward's essay towards a natural history of the earth ( ) nothing was achieved for scientific progress. much more remarkable, but outside of popular discussion, were the evangelium medici ( ) of dr. b. connor, wherein the gospel miracles were explained away, on lines later associated with german rationalism, as natural phenomena; and the curious treatise of newton's friend, john craig, [ ] theologiæ christianæ principia mathematica ( ), wherein it is argued that all evidence grows progressively less valid in course of time; [ ] and that accordingly the christian religion will cease to be believed about the year , when probably will occur the second coming. connor, when attacked, protested his orthodoxy; craig held successively two prebends of the church of england; [ ] and both lived and died unmolested, probably because they had the prudence to write in latin, and maintained gravity of style. about this time, further, the title of "rationalist" made some fresh headway as a designation, not of unbelievers, but of believers who sought to ground themselves on reason. such books as those of clifford and boyle tell of much discussion as to the efficacy of "reason" in religious things; and in , as above noted, there appears a rational catechism, [ ] a substantially unitarian production, notable for its aloofness from evangelical feeling, despite its many references to biblical texts in support of its propositions. in the essays moral and divine of the scotch judge, sir william anstruther, published in , there is a reference to "those who arrogantly term themselves rationalists" [ ] in the sense of claiming to find christianity not only, as locke put it, a reasonable religion, but one making no strain upon faith. already the term had become potentially one of vituperation, and it is applied by the learned judge to "the wicked reprehended by the psalmist." [ ] forty years later, however, it was still applied rather to the christian who claimed to believe upon rational grounds than to the deist or unbeliever; [ ] and it was to have a still longer lease of life in germany as a name for theologians who believed in "scripture" on condition that all miracles were explained away. chapter xv french and dutch freethought in the seventeenth century . we have seen france, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, pervaded in its upper classes by a freethought partly born of the knowledge that religion counted for little but harm in public affairs, partly the result of such argumentation as had been thrown out by montaigne and codified by charron. that it was not the freethinking of mere idle men of the world is clear when we note the names and writings of la mothe le vayer ( - ), gui patin ( - ), and gabriel naudé ( - ), all scholars, all heretics of the skeptical and rationalistic order. the last two indeed, sided with the catholics in politics, patin approving of the fronde, and naudé of the massacre, on which ground they are sometimes claimed as believers. [ ] but though in the nature of the case their inclusion on the side of freethought is not to be zealously contended for, they must be classed in terms of the balance of testimony. patin was the admiring friend of gassendi; and though he was never explicitly heretical, and indeed wrote of socinianism as a pestilent doctrine, [ ] his habit of irony and the risk of written avowals to correspondents must be kept in view in deciding on his cast of mind. he is constantly anti-clerical; [ ] and the germinal skepticism of montaigne and charron clearly persists in him. it is true that, as one critic puts it, such rationalists were not "quite clear whither they were bound. at first sight," he adds, "no one looks more negative than gui patin.... he was always congratulating himself on being 'delivered from the nightmare'; and he rivals the eighteenth century in the scorn he pours on priests, monks, and especially 'that black loyolitic scum from spain' which called itself the society of jesus. yet patin was no freethinker. skeptics who made game of the kernel of religion came quite as much under the lash of his tongue as bigots who dared defend its husks. his letters end with the characteristic confession: 'credo in deum, christum crucifixum, etc.; ... de minimis non curat prætor'" (viscount st. cyres in cambridge modern history, v, ). but the last statement is an error, and patin did not attack gassendi, though he did descartes. he says of rabelais: "c'étoit un homme qui se moquoit de tout; en verité il y a bien des choses dont on doit raisonnablement se moquer ... elles sont presque tous remplies de vanité, d'imposture et d'ignorance: ceux qui sont un peu philosophes ne doivent-ils pas s'en moquer?" (lett. , éd. cited, iii, ). again he writes that "la vie humaine n'est qu'un bureau de rencontre et un théâtre sur lesquels domine la fortune" (lett. , iii, ). this is pure montaigne. the formula cited by viscount st. cyres is neither a general nor a final conclusion to the letters of patin. it occurs, i think, only once ( juillet, , à m. belin) in the letters, and not at the end of that one (lett. , éd. cited, i, ). concerning his friend naudé, patin writes: "je suis fort de l'avis de feu m. naudé, qui disoit qu'il y avait quatre choses dont il se fallait garder, afin de n'être point trompé, savoir, de prophéties, de miracles, de révélations, et d'apparitions" (lett. , éd. cited, ii, ). again, he writes of a symposium of naudé, gassendi, and himself: "peut-être, tous trois, guéris de loup-garou et delivrés du mal des scrupules, qui est le tyran des consciences, nous irons peut-être jusque fort près du sanctuaire. je fis l'an passé ce voyage de gentilly avec m. naudé, moi seul avec lui tête-à-tête; il n'y avait point de témoins, aussi n'y en falloit-il point: nous y parlâmes fort librement de tout, sans que personne en ait été scandalisé" (lett. , ii, ). this seems tolerably freethinking. all that the christian editor cares to claim upon the latter passage is that assuredly "l'unité de dieu, l'immortalité de l'âme, l'égalité des hommes devant la loi, ces verités fondamentales de la raison et consacrées par le christianisme, y étaient placées au premier rang" in the discussion. as to the skepticism of naudé the editor remarks: "ce qu'il y a de remarquable, c'est que gui patin soutenait que son ami ... avait puisé son opinion, en général très peu orthodoxe, en italie, pendant le long séjour qu'il fit dans ce pays avec le cardinal bagni" (ii, ; cp. lett. ; iii, , where naudé is again cited as making small account of religion). certainly patin and naudé are of less importance for freethought than la mothe le vayer. that scholar, a "conseiller d'estat ordinaire," tutor of the brother of louis xiv, and one of the early members of the new academy founded by richelieu, is an interesting figure [ ] in the history of culture, being a skeptic of the school of sextus empiricus, and practically a great friend of tolerance. standing in favour with richelieu, he wrote at that statesman's suggestion a treatise on the virtue of the heathen, [ ] justifying toleration by pagan example--a course which raises the question whether richelieu himself was not strongly touched by the rationalism of his age. if it be true that the great cardinal "believed as all the world did in his time," [ ] there is little more to be said; for unbelief, as we have seen, was already abundant, and even somewhat fashionable. certainly no ecclesiastic in high power ever followed a less ecclesiastical policy; [ ] and from the date of his appointment as minister to louis xiii ( ), for forty years, there was no burning of heretics or unbelievers in france. if he was orthodox, it was very passively. [ ] and le vayer's way of handling the dicta of st. augustine and thomas aquinas as to the virtues of unbelievers being merely vices is for its time so hardy that the cardinal's protection alone can explain its immunity from censure. st. augustine and st. thomas, says the critic calmly, had regard merely to eternal happiness, which virtue alone can obtain for no one. they are, therefore, to be always interpreted in this special sense. and so at the very outset the ground is summarily cleared of orthodox obstacles. [ ] the petit discours chrétien sur l'immortalité de l'âme, also addressed to richelieu, tells of a good deal of current unbelief on that subject; and the epistle dedicatory professes pain over the "philosopher of our day [vanini] who has had the impiety to write that, unless one is very old, very rich, and a german, one should never expatiate on this subject." but on the very threshold of the discourse, again, the skeptic tranquilly suggests that there would be "perhaps something unreasonable" in following augustine's precept, so popular in later times, that the problem of immortality should be solved by the dictates of religion and feeling, not of "uncertain" reason. "why," he asks, "should the soul be her own judge?" [ ] and he shows a distinct appreciation of the avowal of augustine in his retractationes that his own book on the immortality of the soul was so obscure to him that in many places he himself could not understand it. [ ] the "little christian discourse" is, in fact, not christian at all; and its arguments are but dialectic exercises, on a par with those of the discours sceptique sur la musique which follows. he was, in short, a skeptic by temperament; and his preface d'une histoire [ ] shows his mind to have played on the "mississippi of falsehood called history" very much as did that of bayle in a later generation. le vayer's dialogues of oratius tubero ( ) is philosophically his most important work; [ ] but its tranquil pyrrhonism was not calculated to affect greatly the current thought of his day; and he ranked rather as a man of all-round learning [ ] than as a polemist, being reputed "a little contradictory, but in no way bigoted or obstinate, all opinions being to him nearly indifferent, excepting those of which faith does not permit us to doubt." [ ] the last phrase tells of the fact that it affects to negate: le vayer's general skepticism was well known. [ ] he was not indeed an original thinker, most of his ideas being echoes from the skeptics of antiquity; [ ] and it has been not unjustly said of him that he is rather of the sixteenth century than of the seventeenth. [ ] . on the other hand, the resort on the part of the catholics to a skeptical method, as against both protestants and freethinkers, which we have seen originating soon after the issue of montaigne's essais, seems to have become more and more common; and this process must rank as in some degree a product of skeptical thought of a more sincere sort. in any case it was turned vigorously, even recklessly, against the protestants. thus we find daillé, at the outset of his work on the true use of the fathers, [ ] complaining that when protestants quote the scriptures some romanists at once ask "whence and in what way those books may be known to be really written by the prophets and apostles whose names and titles they bear." this challenge, rashly incurred by luther and calvin in their pronouncements on the canon, later protestants did not as a rule attempt to meet, save in the fashion of la placette, who in his work de insanibili ecclesiæ romanæ scepticismo ( ) [ ] undertakes to show that romanists themselves are without any grounds of certitude for the authority of the church. it was indeed certain that the catholic method would make more skeptics than it won. . between the negative development of the doctrine of montaigne and the vogue of upper-class deism, the philosophy of descartes, with its careful profession of submission to the church, had at first an easy reception; and on the appearance of the discours de la méthode ( ) it speedily affected the whole thought of france; the women of the leisured class, now much given to literature, being among its students. [ ] from the first the jansenists, who were the most serious religious thinkers of the time, accepted the cartesian system as in the main soundly christian; and its founder's authority had some such influence in keeping up the prestige of orthodoxy as had that of locke later in england. boileau, who wrote a satire in defence of the system when it was persecuted after descartes's death, is named among those whom he so influenced. [ ] but a merely external influence of this kind could not counteract the fundamental rationalism of descartes's thought, and the whole social and intellectual tendency towards a secular view of life. soon, indeed, descartes became suspect, partly by reason of the hostile activities of the jesuits, who opposed him because the jansenists generally held by him, though he had been a jesuit pupil, and had always some adherents in that order; [ ] partly by reason of the inherent naturalism of his system. that his doctrine was incompatible with the eucharist was the standing charge against it, [ ] and his defence was not found satisfactory, [ ] though his orthodox followers obtained from queen christina a declaration that he had been largely instrumental in converting her to catholicism. [ ] pascal reproached him with having done his best to do without god in his system; [ ] and this seems to have been the common clerical impression. thirteen years after his death, in , his work was placed on the index librorum prohibitorum, under a modified censure, [ ] and in a royal order was obtained under which his philosophy was proscribed in all the universities of france. [ ] cartesian professors and curés were persecuted and exiled, or compelled to recant; among the victims being père lami of the congregation of the oratory and père andré the jesuit; [ ] and the oratorians were in forced to undergo the humiliation of not only renouncing descartes and all his works, but of abjuring their former cartesian declarations, in order to preserve their corporate existence. [ ] precisely in this period of official reaction, however, there was going on not merely an academic but a social development of a rationalistic kind, in which the persecuted philosophy played its part, even though some freethinkers disparaged it. . the general tendency is revealed on the one hand by the series of treatises from eminent churchmen, defending the faith against unpublished attacks, and on the other hand by the prevailing tone in belles lettres. malherbe, the literary dictator of the first quarter of the century, had died in with the character of a scoffer; [ ] and the fashion now lasted till the latter half of the reign of louis xiv. in , two years after the burning of vanini, a young man named jean fontanier had been burned alive on the place de grève at paris, apparently for the doctrines laid down by him in a manuscript entitled le trésor inestimable, written on deistic and anti-catholic lines. [ ] he was said to have been successively protestant, catholic, turk, jew, and atheist; and had conducted himself like one of shaken mind. [ ] but the cases of the poet théophile de viau, who about suffered prosecution on a charge of impiety, [ ] and of his companions berthelot and colletet--who like him were condemned but set free by royal favour--appear to be the only others of the kind for over a generation. frivolity of tone sufficed to ward off legal pursuit. it was in , some years after the death of mazarin, who had maintained richelieu's policy of tolerance, that claude petit was burnt at paris for "impious pieces"; [ ] and even then there was no general reversion to orthodoxy, the upper-class tone remaining, as in the age of richelieu and mazarin, more or less unbelieving. when corneille had introduced a touch of christian zeal into his polyeucte ( ) he had given general offence to the dilettants of both sexes. [ ] molière, again, the disciple of gassendi [ ] and "the very genius of reason," [ ] was unquestionably an unbeliever; [ ] and only the personal protection of louis xiv, which after all could not avail to support such a play as tartufe against the fury of the bigots, enabled him to sustain himself at all against them. . equally freethinking was his brilliant predecessor and early comrade, cyrano de bergerac ( - ), who did not fear to indicate his frame of mind in one of his dramas. in la mort d'agrippine he puts in the mouth of sejanus, as was said by a contemporary, "horrible things against the gods," notably the phrase, "whom men made, and who did not make men," [ ] which, however, generally passed as an attack on polytheism; and though there was certainly no blasphemous intention in the phrase, frappons, voilà l'hostie [= hostia, victim], some pretended to regard it as an insult to the catholic host. [ ] at times cyrano writes like a deist; [ ] but in so many other passages does he hold the language of a convinced materialist, and of a scoffer at that, [ ] that he can hardly be taken seriously on the former head. [ ] in short, he was one of the first of the hardy freethinkers who, under the tolerant rule of richelieu and mazarin, gave clear voice to the newer spirit. under any other government, he would have been in danger of his life: as it was, he was menaced with prosecutions; his agrippine was forbidden; the first edition of his pédant joué was confiscated; during his last illness there was an attempt to seize his manuscripts; and down till the time of the revolution the editions of his works were eagerly bought up and destroyed by zealots. [ ] his recent literary rehabilitation thus hardly serves to realize his importance in the history of freethought. between cyrano and molière it would appear that there was little less of rationalistic ferment in the france of their day than in england. bossuet avows in a letter to huet in that impiety and unbelief abound more than ever before. [ ] . even in the apologetic reasoning of the greatest french prose writer of that age, pascal, we have the most pregnant testimony to the prevalence of unbelief; for not only were the fragments preserved as pensées ( ), however originated, [ ] developed as part of a planned defence of religion against contemporary rationalism, [ ] but they themselves show their author profoundly unable to believe save by a desperate abnegation of reason, though he perpetually commits the gross fallacy of trusting to reason to prove that reason is untrustworthy. his work is thus one continuous paralogism, in which reason is disparaged merely to make way for a parade of bad reasoning. the case of pascal is that of berkeley with a difference: the latter suffered from hypochondria, but reacted with nervous energy; pascal, a physical degenerate, prematurely profound, was prematurely old; and his pietism in its final form is the expression of the physical collapse. this is disputed by m. lanson, an always weighty authority. he writes (p. ) that pascal was "neither mad nor ill" when he gave himself up wholly to religion. but ill he certainly was. he had chronically suffered from intense pains in the head from his eighteenth year; and m. lanson admits (p. ) that the pensées were written in intervals of acute suffering. this indeed understates the case. pascal several times told his family that since the age of eighteen he had never passed a day without pain. his sister, madame perier, in her biographical sketch, speaks of him as suffering "continual and ever-increasing maladies," and avows that the four last years of his life, in which he penned the fragments called pensées, "were but a continual languishment." the port royal preface of says the same thing, speaking of the "four years of languor and malady in which he wrote all we have of the book he planned," and calling the pensées "the feeble essays of a sick man." cp. pascal's prière pour demander à dieu le bon usage des maladies: and owen french skeptics, pp. , . doubtless the levity and licence of the libertins in high places [ ] confirmed him in his revolt against unbelief; but his own credence was an act rather of despairing emotion than of rational conviction. the man who advised doubters to make a habit of causing masses to be said and following religious rites, on the score that cela vous fera croire et vous abêtira--"that will make you believe and will stupefy you" [ ]--was a pathological case; and though the whole jansenist movement latterly stood for a reaction against freethinking, it can hardly be doubted that the pensées generally acted as a solvent rather than as a sustainer of religious beliefs. [ ] this charge was made against them immediately on their publication by the abbé de villars, who pointed out that they did the reverse of what they claimed to do in the matter of appealing to the heart and to good sense, since they set forth all the ordinary arguments of pyrrhonism, denied that the existence of god could be established by reason or philosophy, and staked the case on a "wager" which shocked good sense and feeling alike. "have you resolved," asks this critic in dialogue, "to make atheists on pretext of combatting them?" [ ] the same question arises concerning the famous lettres provinciales ( ), written by pascal in defence of arnauld against the persecution of the jesuits, who carried on in arnauld's case their campaign against jansen, whom they charged with mis-stating the doctrine of augustine in his great work expounding that father. once more the catholic church was swerving from its own established doctrine of predestination, the spanish jesuit molina having set up a new movement in the pelagian or arminian direction. the cause of the jansenists has been represented as that of freedom of thought and speech; [ ] and this it relatively was insofar as jansen and arnauld sought for a hearing, while the jesuit-ridden sorbonne strove to silence and punish them. pascal had to go from printer to printer as his letters succeeded each other, the first three being successively prosecuted by the clerical authorities; and in their collected form they found publicity only by being printed at rouen and published at amsterdam, with the rubric of cologne. all the while jansenism claimed to be strict orthodoxy; and it was in virtue only of the irreducible element of rationalism in pascal that the school of port royal made for freethought in any higher or more general sense. indeed, between his own reputation for piety and that of the jansenists for orthodoxy, the provincial letters have a conventional standing as orthodox compositions. it is strange, however, that those who charge upon the satire of the later philosophers the downfall of catholicism in france should not realize the plain tendency of these brilliant satires to discredit the entire authority of the church, and, further, by their own dogmatic weaknesses, to put all dogma alike under suspicion. [ ] few thoughtful men can now read the provinciales without being impressed by the utter absurdity of the problem over which the entire religious intelligence of a great nation was engrossed. it was, in fact, the endless wrangles of the religious factions over unintelligible issues that more than any other single cause fostered the unbelief previously set up by religious wars; [ ] and pascal's writings only deepened the trouble. even bossuet, in his history of the variations of the protestant churches ( ), did but throw a new light on the hollowness of the grounds of religion; and for thoughtful readers gave a lead rather to atheism than to catholicism. the converts it would make to the catholic church would be precisely those whose adherence was of least value, since they had not even the temperamental basis which, rather than argument, kept bossuet a believer, and were catholics only for lack of courage to put all religion aside. when "variation" was put as a sign of error by a churchman the bulk of whose life was spent in bitter strifes with sections of his own church, critical people were hardly likely to be confirmed in the faith. within ten years of writing his book against the protestants, bossuet was engaged in an acrid controversy with fénelon, his fellow prelate and fellow demonstrator of the existence and attributes of god, accusing him of holding unchristian positions; and both prelates were always fighting their fellow-churchmen the jansenists. if the variations of protestants helped catholicism, those of catholics must have helped unbelief. . a similar fatality attended the labours of the learned huet, bishop of avranches, whose demonstratio evangelica ( ) is remarkable (with boyle's discourse of things above reason) as anticipating berkeley in the argument from the arbitrariness of mathematical assumptions. he too, by that and by his later works, made for sheer philosophical skepticism, [ ] always a dangerous basis for orthodoxy. [ ] such an evolution, on the part of a man of uncommon intellectual energy, challenges attention, the more so seeing that it typifies a good deal of thinking within the catholic pale, on lines already noted as following on the debate with protestantism. honestly pious by bent of mind, but always occupied with processes of reasoning and research, huet leant more and more, as he grew in years, to the skeptical defence against the pressures of protestantism and rationalism, at once following and furthering the tendency of his age. that the skeptical method is a last weapon of defence can be seen from the temper in which the demonstrator assails spinoza, whom he abuses, without naming him, in the fashion of his day, and to whose arguments concerning the authorship of the pentateuch he makes singularly feeble answers. [ ] they are too worthless to have satisfied himself; and it is easy to see how he was driven to seek a more plausible rebuttal. [ ] a distinguished english critic, noting the general movement, pronounces, justly enough, that huet took up philosophy "not as an end, but as a means--not for its own sake, but for the support of religion"; and then adds that his attitude is thus quite different from pascal's. [ ] but the two cases are really on a level. pascal too was driven to philosophy in reaction against incredulity; and though pascal's work is of a more bitter and morbid intensity, huet also had in him that psychic craving for a supernatural support which is the essence of latter-day religion. and if we credit this spirit to pascal and to huet, as we do to newman, we must suppose that it partly touched the whole movement of pro-catholic skepticism which has been above noted as following on the reformation. it is ascribing to it as a whole too much of calculation and strategy to say of its combatants that "they conceived the desperate design of first ruining the territory they were prepared to evacuate; before philosophy was handed over to the philosophers the old aristotelean citadel was to be blown into the air." [ ] in reality they caught, as religious men will, with passion rather than with policy, at any plea that might seem fitted to beat down the presumption of "the wild, living intellect of man"; [ ] and their skepticism had a certain sincerity inasmuch as, trained to uncritical belief, they had never found for themselves the grounds of rational certitude. inasmuch too as protestantism had no such ground, and rationalism was still far from having cleared its bases, huet, as things went, was within his moral rights when he set forth his transcendentalist skepticism in his quæstiones alnetanæ in . though written in very limpid latin, [ ] that work attracted practically no attention; and though, having a repute for provincialism in his french style, huet was loth to resort to the vernacular, he did devote his spare hours through a number of his latter years to preparing his traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l'esprit humain, which, dying in , he left to be published posthumously ( ). the outcry against his criticism of descartes and his demonstratio had indisposed him for further personal strife; but he was determined to leave a completed message. thus it came about that a sincere and devoted catholic bishop "left, as his last legacy to his fellow-men, a work of the most outrageous skepticism." [ ] . meanwhile the philosophy of descartes, if less strictly propitious to science at some points than that of gassendi, was both directly and indirectly making for the activity of reason. in virtue of its formal "spiritualism," it found access where any clearly materialistic doctrine would have been tabooed; so that we find the cartesian ecclesiastic régis not only eagerly listened to and acclaimed at toulouse in , but offered a civic pension by the magistrates [ ]--this within two years of the placing of descartes's works on the index. after arousing a similar enthusiasm at montpellier and at paris, régis was silenced by the archbishop, whereupon he set himself to develop the cartesian philosophy in his study. the result was that he ultimately went beyond his master, openly rejecting the idea of creation out of nothing, [ ] and finally following locke in rejecting the innate ideas which descartes had affirmed. [ ] another young churchman, desgabets, developing from descartes and his pupil malebranche, combined with their "spiritist" doctrine much of the virtual materialism of gassendi, arriving at a kind of pantheism, and at a courageous pantheistic ethic, wherein god is recognized as the author alike of good and evil [ ]--a doctrine which we find even getting a hearing in general society, and noticed in the correspondence of madame de sévigné in . [ ] malebranche's treatise de la recherche de la vérité ( ) was in fact a development of descartes which on the one hand sought to connect his doctrine of innate ideas with his god-idea, and on the other hand headed the whole system towards pantheism. the tendency had arisen before him in the congregation of the oratory, to which he belonged, and in which the cartesian philosophy had so spread that when, in , the alarmed superiors proposed to eradicate it, they were told by the members that, "if cartesianism is a plague, there are two hundred of us who are infected." [ ] but if cartesianism alarmed the official orthodox, malebranche wrought a deeper disintegration of the faith. in his old age his young disciple de mairan, who had deeply studied spinoza, pressed him fatally hard on the virtual coincidence of his philosophy with that of the more thoroughgoing pantheist; and malebranche indignantly repudiated all agreement with "the miserable spinoza," [ ] "the atheist," [ ] whose system he pronounced "a frightful and ridiculous chimera." [ ] "nevertheless, it was towards this chimera that malebranche tended." [ ] on all hands the new development set up new strife; and malebranche, who disliked controversy, found himself embroiled alike with jansenists and jesuits, with orthodox and with innovating cartesians, and with his own spinozistic disciples. the jansenist arnauld attacked his book in a long and stringent treatise, des vrayes at des fausses idées ( ), [ ] accumulating denials and contradictions with a cold tenacity of ratiocination which never lapsed into passion, and was all the more destructive. for the jansenists malebranche was a danger to the faith in the ratio of his exaltation of it, inasmuch as reference of the most ordinary beliefs back to "faith" left them no ground upon which to argue up to faith. [ ] this seems to have been a common feeling among his readers. for the same reason he made no appeal to men of science. he would have no recognition of secondary causes, the acceptance of which he declared to be a dangerous relapse into paganism. [ ] there was thus no scientific principle in the new doctrine which could enable it to solve the problems or absorb the systems of other schools. locke was as little moved by it as were the jansenists. malebranche won readers everywhere by his charm of style; [ ] but he was as much of a disturber as of a reconciler. the very controversies which he set up made for disintegration; and fénelon found it necessary to "refute" malebranche as well as spinoza, and did his censure with as great severity as arnauld's. [ ] the mere fact that malebranche put aside miracles in the name of divine law was fatal from the point of view of orthodoxy. . yet another philosophic figure of the reign of louis xiv, the jesuit père buffier ( - ), deserves a passing notice here--out of his chronological order--though the historians of philosophy have mostly ignored him. [ ] he is indeed of no permanent philosophic importance, being a precursor of the scottish school of reid, nourished on locke, and somewhat on descartes; but he is significant for the element of practical rationalism which pervades his reasoning, and which recommended him to voltaire, reid, and destutt de tracy. on the question of "primary truths in theology" he declares so boldly for the authority of revelation in all dogmas which pass comprehension, and for the non-concern of theology with any process of rational proof, [ ] that it is hardly possible to suppose him a believer. on those principles, islam has exactly the same authority as christianity. in his metaphysic "he rejects all the ontological proofs of the existence of god, and, among others, the proof of descartes from infinitude: he maintains that the idea of god is not innate, and that it can be reached only from consideration of the order of nature." [ ] he is thus as much of a force for deism as was his master, locke; and he outgoes him in point of rationalism when he puts the primary ethic of reciprocity as a universally recognized truth, [ ] where locke had helplessly fallen back on "the will of god." on the other hand he censures descartes for not admitting the equal validity of other tests with that of primary consciousness, thus in effect putting himself in line with gassendi. for the rest, his examen des préjugés vulgaires, the most popular of his works, is so full of practical rationalism, and declares among other things so strongly in favour of free discussion, that its influence must have been wholly in the direction of freethought. "give me," he makes one of his disputants say, "a nation where they do not dispute, do not contest: it will be, i assure you, a very stupid and a very ignorant nation." [ ] such reasoning could hardly please the jesuits, [ ] and must have pleased freethinkers. and yet buffier, like gassendi, in virtue of his clerical status and his purely professional orthodoxy, escaped all persecution. while an evolving cartesianism, modified by the thought of locke and the critical evolution of that, was thus reacting on thought in all directions, the primary and proper impulse of descartes and locke was doing on the continent what that of bacon had already done in england--setting men on actual scientific observation and experiment, and turning them from traditionalism of every kind. the more religious minds, as malebranche, set their faces almost fanatically against erudition, thus making an enemy of the all-learned huet, [ ] but on the other hand preparing the way for the scientific age. for the rest we find the influence of descartes at work in heresies at which he had not hinted. finally we shall see it taking deep root in holland, furthering a rationalistic view of the bible and of popular superstitions. . yet another new departure was made in the france of louis xiv by the scholarly performance of richard simon ( - ), who was as regards the scriptural texts what spencer of cambridge was as regards the culture-history of the hebrews, one of the founders of modern methodical criticism. it was as a devout catholic refuting protestants, and a champion of the bible against spinoza, that simon began his work; but, more sincerely critical than huet, he reached views more akin to those of spinoza than to those of the church. [ ] the congregation of the oratory, where simon laid the foundations of his learning, was so little inclined to his critical views that he decided to leave it; and though persuaded to stay, and to become for a time a professor of philosophy at julli, he at length broke with the order. then, from his native town of dieppe, came his strenuous series of critical works--l'histoire critique du vieux testament ( ), which among other things decisively impugned the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch; the histoire critique du texte du nouveau testament (rotterdam, ); numerous other volumes of critical studies on texts, versions, and commentators; and finally a french translation of the new testament with notes. his bibliothèque critique ( vols. under the name of saint-jore) was suppressed by an order in council; the translation was condemned by bossuet and the archbishop of paris; and the two first-named works were suppressed by the parlement of paris and attacked by a host of orthodox scholars; but they were translated promptly into latin and english; and they gave a new breadth of footing to the deistic argument, though simon always wrote as an avowed believer. before simon, the protestant isaac la peyrère, the friend of la mothe le vayer and gassendi, and the librarian of condé, had fired a somewhat startling shot at the pentateuch in his præadamitæ [ ] and systema theologica ex præ-adamitarum hypothesi (both : printed in holland [ ]), for which he was imprisoned at brussels, with the result that he recanted and joined the church of rome, going to the pope in person to receive absolution, and publishing an epistola ad philotimum (frankfort, ), in which he professed to explain his reasons for abjuring at once his calvinism and his treatise. it is clear that all this was done to save his skin, for there is explicit testimony that he held firmly by his preadamite doctrine to the end of his life, despite the seven or eight confutations of his work published in . [ ] were it not for his constructive theses--especially his idea that adam was a real person, but simply the father of the hebrews and not of the human race--he would deserve to rank high among the scientific pioneers of modern rationalism, for his negative work is shrewd and sound. like so many other early rationalists, collectively accused of "destroying without replacing," he erred precisely in his eagerness to build up, for his negations have all become accepted truths. [ ] as it is, he may be ranked, after toland, as a main founder of the older rationalism, developed chiefly in germany, which sought to reduce as many miracles as possible to natural events misunderstood. but he was too far before his time to win a fair hearing. where simon laid a cautious scholarly foundation, peyrère suddenly challenged immemorial beliefs, and failed accordingly. . such an evolution could not occur in france without affecting the neighbouring civilization of holland. we have seen dutch life at the beginning of the seventeenth century full of protestant fanaticism and sectarian strife; and in the time of descartes these elements, especially on the calvinist side, were strong enough virtually to drive him out of holland ( ) after nineteen years' residence. [ ] he had, however, made disciples; and his doctrine bore fruit, finding doubtless some old soil ready. thus in one of his disciples, the amsterdam physician louis meyer, published a work entitled philosophia sacrae scripturae interpres, [ ] in which, after formally affirming that the scripture is the infallible word of god, he proceeds to argue that the interpretation of the word must be made by the human reason, and accordingly sets aside all meanings which are irreconcilable therewith, reducing them to allegories or tropes. apart from this, there is somewhat strong evidence that in holland in the second half of the century cartesianism was in large part identified with a widespread movement of rationalism, of a sufficiently pronounced kind. peter von mastricht, professor of theology at utrecht, published in a latin treatise, novitatum cartesianarum gangræna, in which he made out a list of fifty-six anti-christian propositions maintained by cartesians. among them are these: that the divine essence, also that of angels, and that of the soul, consists only in cogitation; that philosophy is not subservient to divinity, and is no less certain and no less revealed; that in things natural, moral, and practical, and also in matters of faith, the scripture speaks according to the erroneous notions of the vulgar; that the mystery of the trinity may be demonstrated by natural reason; that the first chaos was able of itself to produce all things material; that the world has a soul; and that it may be infinite in extent. [ ] the theologian was thus visibly justified in maintaining that the "novelties" of cartesianism outwent by a long way those of arminianism. [ ] it had in fact established a new point of view; seeing that arminius had claimed for theology all the supremacy ever accorded to it in the church. [ ] . as meyer was one of the most intimate friends of spinoza, being with him at death, and became the editor of his posthumous works, it can hardly be doubted that his treatise, which preceded spinoza's tractatus by four years, influenced the great jew, who speedily eclipsed him. [ ] spinoza, however ( - ), was first led to rationalize by his amsterdam friend and teacher, van den ende, a scientific materialist, hostile to all religion; [ ] and it was while under his influence that he was excommunicated by his father's synagogue. from the first, apparently, spinoza's thought was shaped partly by the medieval hebrew philosophy [ ] (which, as we have seen, combined aristotelean and saracen influences), partly by the teaching of bruno, though he modified and corrected that at various points. [ ] later he was deeply influenced by descartes, whom he specially expounded for a pupil in a tractate. [ ] here he endorses descartes's doctrine of freewill, which he was later to repudiate and overthrow. but he drew from descartes his retained principle that evil is not a real existence. in a much less degree he was influenced by bacon, whose psychology he ultimately condemned; but from hobbes he took not only his rationalistic attitude towards "revelation," but his doctrine of ecclesiastical subordination. [ ] finally evolving his own conceptions, he produced a philosophic system which was destined to affect all european thought, remaining the while quietly occupied with the handicraft of lens-grinding by which he earned his livelihood. the grand pensionary of the netherlands, john de witt, seems to have been in full sympathy with the young heretic, on whom he conferred a small pension before he had published anything save his cartesian principia ( ). the much more daring and powerful tractatus theologico-politicus ( [ ]) was promptly condemned by a dutch clerical synod, along with hobbes's leviathan, which it greatly surpassed in the matter of criticism of the scriptural text. it was the most stringent censure of supernaturalism that had thus far appeared in any modern language; and its preface is an even more mordant attack on popular religion and clericalism than the main body of the work. what seems to-day an odd compromise--the reservation of supra-rational authority for revelation, alongside of unqualified claims for the freedom of reason [ ]--was but an adaptation of the old scholastic formula of "twofold truth," and was perhaps at the time the possible maximum of open rationalism in regard to the current creed, since both bacon and locke, as we have seen, were fain to resort to it. as revealed in his letters, spinoza in almost all things stood at the point of view of the cultivated rationalism of two centuries later. he believed in a historical jesus, rejecting the resurrection; [ ] disbelieved in ghosts and spirits; [ ] rejected miracles; [ ] and refused to think of god as ever angry; [ ] avowing that he could not understand the scriptures, and had been able to learn nothing from them as to god's attributes. [ ] the tractatus could not go so far; but it went far enough to horrify many who counted themselves latitudinarian. it was only in holland that so aggressive a criticism of christian faith and practice could then appear; and even there neither publisher nor author dared avow himself. spinoza even vetoed a translation into dutch, foreseeing that such a book would be placed under an interdict. [ ] it was as much an appeal for freedom of thought (libertas philosophandi) as a demonstration of rational truth; and spinoza dexterously pointed (c. ) to the social effects of the religious liberty already enjoyed in amsterdam as a reason for carrying liberty further. there can be no question that it powerfully furthered alike the deistic and the unitarian movements in england from the year of its appearance; and, though the states-general felt bound formally to prohibit it on the issue of the second edition in , its effect in holland was probably as great as elsewhere: at least there seems to have gone on there from this time a rapid modification of the old orthodoxy. still more profound, probably, was the effect of the posthumous ethica ( ), which he had been prevented from publishing in his lifetime, [ ] and which not only propounded in parts an absolute pantheism (= atheism [ ]), but definitely grounded ethics in human nature. if more were needed to arouse theological rage, it was to be found in the repeated and insistent criticism of the moral and mental perversity of the defenders of the faith [ ]--a position not indeed quite consistent with the primary teaching of the treatise on the subject of will, of which it denies the entity in the ordinary sense. spinoza was here reverting to the practical attitude of bacon, which, under a partial misconception, he had repudiated; and he did not formally solve the contradiction. his purpose was to confute the ordinary orthodox dogma that unbelief is wilful sin; and to retort the charge without reconciling it with the thesis was to impair the philosophic argument. [ ] it was not on that score, however, that it was resented, but as an unpardonable attack on orthodoxy, not to be atoned for by any words about the spirit of christ. [ ] the discussion went deep and far. a reply to the tractatus which appeared in , by an utrecht professor (then dead), is spoken of by spinoza with contempt; [ ] but abler discussion followed, though the assailants mostly fell foul of each other. franz cuper or kuyper of amsterdam, who in published an arcana atheismi revelata, professedly refuting spinoza's tractatus, was charged with writing in bad faith and with being on spinoza's side--an accusation which he promptly retorted on other critics, apparently with justice. [ ] the able treatise of prof. e. e. powell on spinoza and religion is open to demur at one point--its reiterated dictum that spinoza's character was marred by "lack of moral courage" (p. ). this expression is later in a measure retreated from: after "his habitual attitude of timid caution," we have: "spinoza's timidity, or, if you will, his peaceable disposition." if the last-cited concession is to stand, the other phrases should be withdrawn. moral courage, like every other human attribute, is to be estimated comparatively; and the test-question here is: did any other writer in spinoza's day venture further than he? moral courage is not identical with the fanaticism which invites destruction; fanaticism supplies a motive which dispenses with courage, though it operates as courage might. but refusal to challenge destruction gratuitously does not imply lack of courage, though of course it may be thereby motived. a quite brave man, it has been noted, will quietly shun a gratuitous risk where one who is "afraid of being afraid" may face it. when all is said, spinoza was one of the most daring writers of his day; and his ethic made it no more a dereliction of duty for him to avoid provoking arrest and capital punishment than it is for either a protestant or a rationalist to refrain from courting death by openly defying catholic beliefs before a catholic mob in spain. it is easy for any of us to-day to be far more explicit than spinoza was. it is doubtful whether any of us, if we had lived in his day and were capable of going as far in heresy, would have run such risks as he did in publishing the tractatus theologico-politicus. for those who have lived much in his society, it should be difficult to doubt that, if allowed, he would have dared death on the night of the mob-murder of the de witts. the formerly suppressed proof of his very plain speaking on the subject of prayer, and his indications of aversion to the practice of grace before meals (powell, pp. - ) show lack even of prudence on his part. prof. powell is certainly entitled to censure those recent writers who have wilfully kept up a mystification as to spinoza's religiosity; but their lack of courage or candour does not justify an imputation of the same kind upon him. that spinoza was "no saint" (powell, p. ) is true in the remote sense that he was not incapable of anger. but it would be hard to find a christian who would compare with him in general nobility of character. the proposition that he was not "in any sense religious" (id. ib.) seems open to verbal challenge. . the appearance in of a dutch treatise "against all sorts of atheists," [ ] and in , at amsterdam, of an attack in french on spinoza's scriptural criticism, [ ] points to a movement outside of the clerical and scholarly class. all along, indeed, the atmosphere of the arminian or "remonstrant" school in holland must have been fairly liberal. [ ] already in locke's friend le clerc had taken up the position of hobbes and spinoza and simon on the pentateuch in his sentimens de quelques théologiens de hollande (translated into english and published in as "five letters concerning the inspiration of the holy scriptures"). [ ] and although le clerc always remained something of a scripturalist, and refused to go the way of spinoza, he had courage enough to revive an ancient heresy by urging, in his commentary on the fourth gospel ( ), that "the logos" should be rendered "reason"--an idea which he probably derived from the unitarian zwicker without realizing how far it could take him. his ultimate recantation, on the subject of the authorship of the pentateuch, served only to weaken his credit with freethinkers, and came too late to arrest the intellectual movement which he had forwarded. a rationalizing spirit had now begun to spread widely in holland; and within twenty years of spinoza's death there had arisen a dutch sect, led by pontiaan van hattem, a pastor at philipsland, which blended spinozism with evangelicalism in such a way as to incur the anathema of the church. [ ] in the time of the english civil war the fear of the opponents of the new multitude of sects was that england should become "another amsterdam." [ ] this very multiplicity tended to promote doubt; and in we find anthony collins [ ] pointing to holland as a country where freedom to think has undermined superstition to a remarkable degree. during his stay, in the previous generation, locke had found a measure of liberal theology, in harmony with his own; but in those days downright heresy was still dangerous. deurhoff (d. ), who translated descartes and was accused of spinozism, though he strongly attacked it, [ ] had at one time to fly holland, though by his writings he founded a pantheistic sect known as deurhovians; and balthasar bekker, a cartesian, persecuted first for socinianism, incurred so much odium by publishing in a treatise denying the reality of witchcraft that he had to give up his office as a preacher. cp. art. in biographie universelle, and mosheim, cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § , and notes in reid's ed. bekker was not the first to combat demonology on scriptural grounds; arnold geulincx, of leyden, and the french protestant refugee daillon having less confidently put the view before him, the latter in his daimonologia, (trans. in english, ), and the former in his system of ethics. gassendi, as we saw, had notably discredited witchcraft a generation earlier; reginald scot had impugned its actuality in ; and wier, still earlier, in . and even before the reformation the learned king christian ii of denmark (deposed ) had vetoed witch-burning in his dominions. (allen, hist. de danemark, french tr. , i, .) as scot's discoverie had been translated into dutch in , bekker probably had a lead from him. glanvill's blow at modern sadducism ( ), reproduced in sadducismus triumphatus, undertakes to answer some objections of the kind later urged by bekker; and the discussion was practically international. bekker's treatise, entitled de betooverte wereld, was translated into english--first in , from the french, under the title the world bewitched (only vol. published), and again in as the world turned upside down. in the french translation, le monde enchanté ( tom. ), it had a great vogue. a refutation was published in english in an historical treatise of spirits, by j. beaumont, in . it is noteworthy that bekker was included as one of "four modern sages (vier neuer welt-weisen)" with descartes, hobbes, and spinoza, in a german folio tractate (hostile) of . . no greater service was rendered in that age to the spread of rational views than that embodied in the great dictionnaire historique et critique [ ] of pierre bayle ( - ), who, born in france, but driven out by the revocation of the edict of nantes, spent the best part of his life and did his main work at rotterdam. persecuted there for his freethinking, to the extent of having to give up his professorship, he yet produced a virtual encyclopedia for freethinkers in his incomparable dictionary, baffling hostility by the pyrrhonian impartiality with which he handled all religious questions. in his youth, when sent by his protestant father to study at toulouse, he had been temporarily converted, as was the young gibbon later, to catholicism; [ ] and the retrospect of that experience seems in bayle's case, as in gibbon's, to have been a permanent motive to practical skepticism. [ ] but, again, in the one case as in the other, skepticism was fortified by abundant knowledge. bayle had read everything and mastered every controversy, and was thereby the better able to seem to have no convictions of his own. but even apart from the notable defence of the character of atheists dropped by him in the famous pensées diverses sur la comète ( ), and in the Éclaircissements in which he defended it, it is abundantly evident that he was an unbeliever. the only alternative view is that he was strictly or philosophically a skeptic, reaching no conclusions for himself; but this is excluded by the whole management of his expositions. [ ] it is recorded that it was his vehement description of himself as a protestant "in the full force of the term," accompanied with a quotation from lucretius, that set the clerical diplomatist polignac upon re-reading the roman atheist and writing his poem anti-lucretius. [ ] bayle's ostensible pyrrhonism was simply the tactic forced on him by his conditions; and it was the positive unbelievers who specially delighted in his volumes. he laid down no cosmic doctrines, but he illuminated all; and his air of repudiating such views as spinoza's had the effect rather of forcing spinozists to leave neutral ground than of rehabilitating orthodoxy. on one theme he spoke without any semblance of doubt. above all men who had yet written he is the champion of toleration. [ ] at a time when in england the school of locke still held that atheism must not be tolerated, he would accept no such position, insisting that error as such is not culpable, and that, save in the case of a sect positively inciting to violence and disorder, all punishment of opinion is irrational and unjust. [ ] on this theme, moved by the memory of his own life of exile and the atrocious persecution of the protestants of france, he lost his normal imperturbability, as in his letter to an abbé (if it be really his), entitled ce que c'est que la france toute catholique sous le règne de louis le grand, in which a controlled passion of accusation makes every sentence bite like an acid, leaving a mark that no dialectic can efface. but it was not only from catholicism that he suffered, and not only to catholics that his message was addressed. one of his most malignant enemies was the protestant jurieu, who it was that succeeded in having him deprived of his chair of philosophy and history at rotterdam ( ) on the score of the freethinking of his pensées sur la comète. this wrong cast a shadow over his life, reducing him to financial straits in which he had to curtail greatly the plan of his dictionary. further, it moved him to some inconsistent censure of the political writings of french protestant refugees [ ]--jurieu being the reputed author of a violent attack on the rule of louis xiv, under the title les soupirs de la france esclave qui aspire après la liberté ( ). [ ] yet again, the malicious jurieu induced the consistory of rotterdam to censure the dictionary on the score of the tone and tendency of the article "david" and the renewed vindications of atheists. but nothing could turn bayle from his loyalty to reason and toleration; and the malice of the bigots could not deprive him of his literary vogue, which was in the ratio of his unparalleled industry. as a mere writer he is admirable: save in point of sheer wit, of which, however, he has not a little, he is to this day as readable as voltaire. by force of unfailing lucidity, wisdom, and knowledge, he made the conquest of literary europe; and fifty years after his death we find the jesuit delamare in his (anonymous) apologetic treatise, la foi justifiée de tout reproche de contradiction avec la raison ( ), speaking of him to the deists as "their theologian, their doctor, their oracle." [ ] he was indeed no less; and his serene exposure of the historic failure of christianity was all the more deadly as coming from a master of theological history. . meantime, spinoza had reinforced the critical movement in france, [ ] where decline of belief can be seen proceeding after as before the definite adoption of pietistic courses by the king, under the influence of madame de maintenon. abbadie, writing his traité de la verité de la religion chrétienne at berlin in , speaks of an "infinity" of prejudiced deists as against the "infinity" of prejudiced believers [ ]--evidently thinking of northern europeans in general; and he strives hard to refute both hobbes and spinoza on points of biblical criticism. in france he could not turn the tide. that radical distrust of religious motives and illumination which can be seen growing up in every country in modern europe where religion led to war, was bound to be strengthened by the spectacle of the reformed sensualist harrying heresy in his own kingdom in the intervals of his wars with his neighbours. the crowning folly of the revocation of the edict of nantes [ ] ( ), forcing the flight from france of some three hundred thousand industrious [ ] and educated inhabitants for the offence of protestantism, was as mad a blow to religion as to the state. less paralysing to economic life than the similar policy of the church against the moriscoes in spain, it is no less striking a proof of the paralysis of practical judgment to which unreasoning faith and systematic ecclesiasticism can lead. orthodoxy in france was as ecstatic in its praise of the act as had been that of spain in the case of the expulsion of the moriscoes. the deed is not to be laid at the single door of the king or of any of his advisers, male or female: the act which deprived france of a vast host of her soundest citizens was applauded by nearly all cultured catholicism. [ ] not merely the bishops, bossuet and fénelon [ ] and masillon, but the jansenist arnauld; not merely the female devotees, mademoiselle de scudéry and madame deshoulières, but racine, la bruyère, and the senile la fontaine--all extolled the senseless deed. the not over-pious madame de sévigné was delighted with the "dragonnades," declaring that "nothing could be finer: no king has done or will do anything more memorable"; the still less mystical bussy, author of the histoire amoureuse des gaules, was moved to pious exultation; and the dying chancelier le tellier, on signing the edict of revocation, repeated the legendary cry of simeon, nunc dimitte servum tuum, domine! to this pass had the catholic creed and discipline brought the mind of france. only the men of affairs, nourished upon realities--the vaubans, saint simons, and catinats--realized the insanity of the action, which colbert (d. ) would never have allowed to come to birth. the triumphers, doubtless, did not contemplate the expatriation of the myriads of protestants who escaped over the frontiers in the closing years of the century in spite of all the efforts of the royal police, "carrying with them," as a later french historian writes, "our arts, the secrets of our manufactures, and their hatred of the king." the catholics, as deep in civics as in science, thought only of the humiliation and subjection of the heretics--doubtless feeling that they were getting a revenge against protestantism for the test act and the atrocities of the popish plot mania in england. the blow recoiled on their country. within a generation, their children were enduring the agonies of utter defeat at the hands of a coalition of protestant nations every one of which had been strengthened by the piously exiled sons of france; and in the midst of their mortal struggle the revolted protestants of the cévennes so furiously assailed from the rear that the drain upon the king's forces precipitated the loss of their hold on germany. for every protestant who crossed the frontiers between and , perhaps, a catholic neared or crossed the line between indifferentism and active doubt. the steady advance of science all the while infallibly undermined faith; and hardly was the bolt launched against the protestants when new sapping and mining was going on. fontenelle ( - ), whose conversations on the plurality of worlds ( ) popularized for the elegant world the new cosmology, cannot but have undermined dogmatic faith in some directions; above all by his graceful and skilful histoire des oracles (also ), where "the argumentation passes beyond the thesis advanced. all that he says of oracles could be said of miracles." [ ] the jesuits found the book essentially "impious"; and a french culture-historian sees in it "the first attack which directs the scientific spirit against the foundations of christianity. all the purely philosophic arguments with which religion has been assailed are in principle in the work of fontenelle." [ ] in his abstract thinking he was no less radical, and his traité de la liberté [ ] established so well the determinist position that it was decisively held by the majority of the french freethinkers who followed. living to his hundredth year, he could join hands with the freethought of gassendi and voltaire, [ ] descartes and diderot. yet we shall find him later, in his official capacity of censor of literature, refusing to pass heretical books, on principles that would have vetoed his own. he is in fact a type of the freethought of the age of louis xiv--epicurean in the common sense, unheroic, resolute only to evade penalties, guiltless of over-zeal. not in that age could men generate an enthusiasm for truth. . of the new epicureans, the most famous in his day was saint-evremond, [ ] who, exiled from france for his politics, maintained both in london and in paris, by his writings, a leadership in polite letters. in england he greatly influenced young men like bolingbroke; and a translation (attributed to dryden) of one of his writings seems to have given bishop butler the provocation to the first and weakest chapter of his analogy. [ ] as to his skepticism there was no doubt in his own day; and his compliments to christianity are much on a par with those paid later by the equally conforming and unbelieving shaftesbury, whom he also anticipated in his persuasive advocacy of toleration. [ ] regnard, the dramatist, had a similar private repute as an "epicurean." and even among the nominally orthodox writers of the time in france a subtle skepticism touches nearly all opinion. la bruyère is almost the only lay classic of the period who is pronouncedly religious; and his essay on the freethinkers, [ ] against whom his reasoning is so forcibly feeble, testifies to their numbers and to the stress of debate set up by them. even he, too, writes as a deist against atheists, hardly as a believing christian. if he were a believer he certainly found no comfort in his faith: whatever were his capacity for good feeling, no great writer of his age betrays such bitterness of spirit, such suffering from the brutalities of life, such utter disillusionment, such unfaith in men. and a certain doubt is cast upon all his professions of opinion by the sombre avowal: "a man born a christian and a frenchman finds himself constrained [ ] in satire: the great subjects are forbidden him: he takes them up at times, and then turns aside to little things, which he elevates by his ... genius and his style." [ ] m. lanson remarks that "we must not let ourselves be abused by the last chapter [des esprits forts], a collection of philosophic reflections and reasonings, where la bruyère mingles plato, descartes, and pascal in a vague christian spiritualism. this chapter, evidently sincere, but without individuality, and containing only the reflex of the thoughts of others, is not a conclusion to which the whole work conducts. it marks, on the contrary, the lack of conclusion and of general views. what is more, with the chapter on the sovereign, placed in the middle of the volume, it is destined to disarm the temporal and spiritual powers, to serve as passport for the independent freedom of observation in the rest of the caractères" (p. ). on this it may be remarked that the essay in question is not so much christian as theistic; but the suggestion as to the object is plausible. taine (essais de critique et d'histoire, ed. ) first remarks (p. ) on the "christianisme" of the essay, and then decides (p. ) that "he merely exposes in brief and imperious style the reasonings of the school of descartes." it should be noted, however, that in this essay la bruyère does not scruple to write: "if all religion is a respectful fear of god, what is to be thought of those who dare to wound him in his most living image, which is the sovereign?" (§ in ed. walckenaer, p. . pascal holds the same tone. vie, par madame perier.) this appears first in the fourth edition; and many other passages were inserted in that and later issues: the whole is an inharmonious mosaic. concerning la bruyère, the truth would seem to be that the inconsequences in the structure of his essays were symptomatic of variability in his moods and opinions. taine and lanson are struck by the premonitions of the revolution in his famous picture of the peasants, and other passages; and the latter remarks (p. ) that "the points touched by la bruyère are precisely those where the writers of the next age undermined the old order: la bruyère is already philosophe in the sense which voltaire and diderot gave to that term." but we cannot be sure that the plunges into convention were not real swervings of a vacillating spirit. it is difficult otherwise to explain his recorded approbation of the revocation of the edict of nantes. the dialogues sur le quiétisme, published posthumously under his name ( ), appear to be spurious. this was emphatically asserted by contemporaries (sentiments critiques sur les caractères de m. de la bruyère, , p. ; apologie de m. de la bruyère, , p. , both cited by walckenaer) who on other points were in opposition. baron walckenaer (Étude, ed. cited, p. sq.) pronounces that they were the work of elliès du pin, a doctor of the sorbonne, and gives good reasons for the attribution. the abbé d'olivet in his histoire de l'académie française declares that la bruyère only drafted them, and that du pin edited them; but the internal evidence is against their containing anything of la bruyère's draught. they are indeed so feeble that no admirer cares to accept them as his. (cp. note to suard's notice sur la personne et les écrits de la bruyère, in didot ed. , p. .) written against madame guyon, they were not worth his while. if the apologetics of huet and pascal, bossuet and fénelon, had any influence on the rationalistic spirit, it was but in the direction of making it more circumspect, never of driving it out. it is significant that whereas in the year of the issue of the demonstratio the duchesse d'orléans could write that "every young man either is or affects to be an atheist," le vassor wrote in : "people talk only of reason, of good taste, of force of mind, of the advantage of those who can raise themselves above the prejudices of education and of the society in which one is born. pyrrhonism is the fashion in many things: men say that rectitude of mind consists in 'not believing lightly' and in being 'ready to doubt.'" [ ] pascal and huet between them had only multiplied doubters. on both lines, obviously, freethought was the gainer; and in a jesuit treatise, le monde condamné par luymesme, published in , the préface contre l'incrédulité des libertins sets out with the avowal that "to draw the condemnation of the world out of its own mouth, it is necessary to attack first the incredulity of the unbelievers (libertins), who compose the main part of it, and who under some appearance of christianity conceal a mind either judaic [read deistic] or pagan." such was france to a religious eye at the height of the catholic triumph over protestantism. the statement that the libertins formed the majority of "the world" is of course a furious extravagance. but there must have been a good deal of unbelief to have moved a priest to such an explosion. and the unbelief must have been as much a product of revulsion from religious savagery as a result of direct critical impulse, for there was as yet no circulation of positively freethinking literature. for a time, indeed, there was a general falling away in french intellectual prestige, [ ] the result, not of the mere "protective spirit" in literature, as is sometimes argued, but of the immense diversion of national energy under louis xiv to militarism; [ ] and the freethinkers lost some of the confidence as well as some of the competence they had exhibited in the days of molière. [ ] there had been too little solid thinking done to preclude a reaction when the king, led by madame de maintenon, went about to atone for his debaucheries by an old age of piety. "the king had been put in such fear of hell that he believed that all who had not been instructed by the jesuits were damned. to ruin anyone it was necessary only to say, 'he is a huguenot, or a jansenist,' and the thing was done." [ ] in this state of things there spread in france the revived doctrine or temper of quietism, set up by the spanish priest, miguel de molinos ( - ), whose spiritual guide, published in spanish in , appeared in in italian at rome, where he was a highly influential confessor. it was soon translated into latin, french, and dutch. in he was cited before the inquisition; in the book was condemned to be burned, and he was compelled to retract sixty-eight propositions declared to be heretical; whereafter, nonetheless, he was imprisoned till his death in . in france, whence the attack on him had begun, his teaching made many converts, notably madame guyon, and may be said to have created a measure of religious revival. but when fénelon took it up ( ), modifying the terminology of molinos to evade the official condemnation, he was bitterly attacked by bossuet as putting forth doctrine incompatible with christianity; the prelates fought for two years; and finally the pope condemned fénelon's book, whereupon he submitted, limiting his polemic to attacks on the jansenists. thus the gloomy orthodoxy of the court and the mysticism of the new school alike failed to affect the general intelligence; there was no real building up of belief; and the forward movement at length recommenced. chapter xvi british freethought in the eighteenth century § it appears from our survey that the "deistic movement," commonly assigned to the eighteenth century, had been abundantly prepared for in the seventeenth, which, in turn, was but developing ideas current in the sixteenth. when, in , john toland published his christianity not mysterious, the sensation it made was due not so much to any unheard-of boldness in its thought as to the simple fact that deistic ideas had thus found their way into print. [ ] so far the deistic position was explicitly represented in english literature only by the works of herbert, hobbes, and blount; and of these only the first (who wrote in latin) and the third had put the case at any length. against the deists or atheists of the school of hobbes, and the scriptural unitarians who thought with newton and locke, there stood arrayed the great mass of orthodox intolerance which clamoured for the violent suppression of every sort of "infidelity." it was this feeling, of which the army of ignorant rural clergy were the spokesmen, that found vent in the blasphemy act of . the new literary growth dating from the time of toland is the evidence of the richness of the rationalistic soil already created. thinking men craved a new atmosphere. locke's reasonableness of christianity is an unsuccessful compromise: toland's book begins a new propagandist era. toland's treatise, [ ] heretical as it was, professed to be a defence of the faith, and avowedly founded on locke's anonymous reasonableness of christianity, its young author being on terms of acquaintance with the philosopher. [ ] he claimed, in fact, to take for granted "the divinity of the new testament," and to "demonstrate the verity of divine revelation against atheists and all enemies of revealed religion," from whom, accordingly, he expected to receive no quarter. brought up, as he declared, "from my cradle, in the grossest superstition and idolatry," he had been divinely led to make use of his own reason; and he assured his christian readers of his perfect sincerity in "defending the true religion." [ ] twenty years later, his primary positions were hardly to be distinguished from those of ratiocinative champions of the creed, save in respect that he was challenging orthodoxy where they were replying to unbelievers. toland, however, lacked alike the timidity and the prudence which so safely guided locke in his latter years; and though his argument was only a logical and outspoken extension of locke's position, to the end of showing that there was nothing supra-rational in christianity of locke's type, it separated him from "respectable" society in england and ireland for the rest of his life. the book was "presented" by the grand juries of middlesex and dublin; [ ] the dissenters in dublin being chiefly active in denouncing it--with or without knowledge of its contents; [ ] half-a-dozen answers appeared; and when in toland produced another, entitled amyntor, showing the infirm foundation of the christian canon, there was again a speedy crop of replies. despite the oversights inevitable to such pioneer work, this opens, from the side of freethought, the era of documentary criticism of the new testament; and in some of his later freethinking books, as the nazarenus ( ) and the pantheisticon ( ), he continues to show himself in advance of his time in "opening new windows" for his mind. [ ] the latter work represents in particular the influence of spinoza, whom he had formerly criticized somewhat forcibly [ ] for his failure to recognize that motion is inherent in matter. on that head he lays down [ ] the doctrine that "motion is but matter under a certain consideration"--an essentially "materialist" position, deriving from the pre-socratic greeks, and incidentally affirmed by bacon. [ ] he was not exactly an industrious student or writer; but he had scholarly knowledge and instinct, and several of his works show close study of bayle. as regards his more original views on christian origins, he is not impressive to the modern reader; but theses which to-day stand for little were in their own day important. thus in his hodegus (pt. i of the tetradymus, ) it is elaborately argued that the "pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day" was no miracle, but the regular procedure of guides in deserts, where night marches are the rule; the "cloud" being simply the smoke of the vanguard's fire, which by night flared red. later criticism decides that the whole narrative of the exodus is myth. toland's method, however, was relatively so advanced that it had not been abandoned by theological "rationalists" a century later. of that movement he must be ranked an energetic pioneer: though he lacked somewhat the strength of character that in his day was peculiarly needed to sustain a freethinker. much of his later life was spent abroad; and his letters to serena ( ) show him permitted to discourse to the queen of prussia on such topics as the origin and force of prejudice, the history of the doctrine of immortality, and the origin of idolatry. he pays his correspondent the compliment of treating his topics with much learning; and his manner of assuming her own orthodoxy in regard to revelation could have served as a model to gibbon. [ ] but, despite such distinguished patronage, his life was largely passed in poverty, cheerfully endured, [ ] with only chronic help from well-to-do sympathizers, such as shaftesbury, who was not over-sympathetic. when it is noted that down to there had appeared no fewer than fifty-four answers to his first book, [ ] his importance as an intellectual influence may be realized. a certain amount of evasion was forced upon toland by the blasphemy law of ; inferentially, however, he was a thorough deist until he became pantheist; and the discussion over his books showed that views essentially deistic were held even among his antagonists. one, an irish bishop, got into trouble by setting forth a notion of deity which squared with that of hobbes. [ ] the whole of our present subject, indeed, is much complicated by the distribution of heretical views among the nominally orthodox, and of orthodox views among heretics. [ ] thus the school of cudworth, zealous against atheism, was less truly theistic than that of blount, [ ] who, following hobbes, pointed out that to deny to god a continual personal and providential control of human affairs was to hold to atheism under the name of theism; [ ] whereas cudworth, the champion of theism against the atheists, entangled himself hopelessly [ ] in a theory which made deity endow nature with "plastic" powers and leave it to its own evolution. the position was serenely demolished by bayle, [ ] as against le clerc, who sought to defend it; and in england the clerical outcry was so general that cudworth gave up authorship. [ ] over the same crux, in ireland, bishop browne and bishop berkeley accused each other of promoting atheism; and archbishop king was embroiled in the dispute. [ ] on the other hand, the theistic descartes had laid down a "mechanical" theory of the universe which perfectly comported with atheism, and partly promoted that way of thinking; [ ] and a selection from gassendi's ethical writings, translated into english [ ] ( ), wrought in the same direction. the church itself contained cartesians and cudworthians, socinians and deists. [ ] each group, further, had inner differences as to free-will [ ] and providence; and the theistic schools of newton, clarke, and leibnitz rejected each other's philosophies as well as that of descartes. leibnitz complained grimly that newton and his followers had "a very odd opinion concerning the work of god," making the universe an imperfect machine, which the deity had frequently to mend; and treating space as an organ by which god perceives things, which are thus regarded as not produced or maintained by him. [ ] newton's principles of explanation, he insisted, were those of the materialists. [ ] john hutchinson, a professor at cambridge, in his treatise of power, essential and mechanical, also bitterly assailed newton as a deistical and anti-scriptural sophist. [ ] clarke, on the other hand, declared that the philosophy of leibnitz was "tending to banish god from the world." [ ] alongside of such internecine strife, it was not surprising that the great astronomer halley, who accepted newton's principles in physics, was commonly reputed an atheist; and that the freethinkers pitted his name in that connection against newton's. [ ] as it was he who first suggested [ ] the idea of the total motion of the entire solar system in space--described by a modern pietist as "this great cosmical truth, the grandest in astronomy" [ ]--they were not ill justified. it can hardly be doubted that if intellectual england could have been polled in , under no restraints from economic, social, and legal pressure, some form of rationalism inconsistent with christianity would have been found to be nearly as common as orthodoxy. in outlying provinces, in devon and cornwall, in ulster, in edinburgh and glasgow, as well as in the metropolis, the pressure of deism on the popular creed evoked expressions of arian and socinian thought among the clergy. [ ] it was, in fact, the various restraints under notice that determined the outward fortunes of belief and unbelief, and have substantially determined them since. when the devout whiston was deposed from his professorship for his arianism, and the unbelieving saunderson was put in his place, [ ] and when simson was suspended from his ministerial functions in glasgow, [ ] the lesson was learned that outward conformity was the sufficient way to income. [ ] hard as it was, however, to kick against the pricks of law and prejudice, it is clear that many in the upper and middle classes privately did so. the clerical and the new popular literature of the time prove this abundantly. in the tatler and its successors, [ ] the decorous addison and the indecorous steele, neither of them a competent thinker, frigidly or furiously asperse the new tribe of freethinkers; while the evangelically pious berkeley and the extremely unevangelical swift rival each other in the malice of their attacks on those who rejected their creed. berkeley, a man of philosophic genius but intense prepossessions, maintained christianity on grounds which are the negation of philosophy. [ ] swift, the genius of neurotic misanthropy, who, in the words of macaulay, "though he had no religion, had a great deal of professional spirit," [ ] fought venomously for the creed of salvation. and still the deists multiplied. in the earl of shaftesbury [ ] they had a satirist with a finer and keener weapon than was wielded by either steele or addison, and a much better temper than was owned by swift or berkeley. he did not venture to parade his unbelief: to do so was positively dangerous; but his thrusts at faith left little doubt as to his theory. he was at once dealt with by the orthodox as an enemy, and as promptly adopted by the deists as a champion, important no less for his ability than for his rank. nor, indeed, is he lacking in boldness in comparison with contemporary writers. the anonymous pamphlet entitled the natural history of superstition, by the deist john trenchard, m.p. ( ), does not venture on overt heresy. but shaftesbury's letter concerning enthusiasm ( ), his essay on the freedom of wit and humour ( ), and his treatise the moralists ( ), had need be anonymous because of their essential hostility to the reigning religious ethic. such polemic marks a new stage in rationalistic propaganda. swift, writing in , angrily proposes to "prevent the publishing of such pernicious works as under pretence of freethinking endeavour to overthrow those tenets in religion which have been held inviolable in almost all ages." [ ] but his further protest that "the doctrine of the trinity, the divinity of christ, the immortality of the soul, and even the truth of all revelation, are daily exploded and denied in books openly printed," points mainly to the unitarian propaganda. among freethinkers he names, in his argument against abolishing christianity ( ), asgill, coward, toland, and tindal. but the first was an ultra-christian; the second was a christian upholder of the thesis that spirit is not immaterial; and the last, at that date, had published only his four discourses (collected in ) and his rights of the christian church, which are anti-clerical, but not anti-christian. prof. henry dodwell, who about published two letters of advice, i, for the susception of holy orders; ii, for studies theological, especially such as are rational, and in an epistolary discourse concerning the soul's natural mortality, maintaining the doctrine of conditional immortality, [ ] which he made dependent on baptism in the apostolical succession, was a devout christian; and no writer of that date went further. dodwell is in fact blamed by bishop burnet for stirring up fanaticism against lay-baptism among dissenters. [ ] it would appear that swift spoke mainly from hearsay, and on the strength of the conversational freethinking so common in society. [ ] but the anonymous essays of shaftesbury which were issued in might be the immediate provocation of his outbreak. [ ] an official picture of the situation is formally drawn in a representation of the present state of religion, with regard to the late excessive growth of infidelity, heresy, and profaneness, drawn up by the upper house of convocation of the province of canterbury in . [ ] this sets forth, as a result of the disorders of the rebellion, a growth of all manner of unbelief and profanity, including denial of inspiration and the authority of the canon; the likening of christian miracles to heathen fables; the treating of all religious mysteries as absurd speculations; arianism and socinianism and scoffing at the doctrine of the trinity; denial of natural immortality; erastianism; mockery of baptism and the lord's supper; decrying of all priests as impostors; the collecting and reprinting of infidel works; and publication of mock catechisms. it is explained that all such printing has greatly increased "since the expiration of the act for restraining the press"; and mention is made of an arian work just published to which the author has put his name, and which he has dedicated to the convocation itself. this was the first volume of whiston's primitive christianity revived, the work of a devout eccentric, who had just before been deprived of his professorship at cambridge for his orally avowed heresy. whiston, whose cause was championed, and whose clerical opponents were lampooned, in an indecorous but vigorous sketch, the tryal of william whiston, clerk, for defaming and denying the holy trinity, before the lord chief justice reason ( ; rd ed. ), always remained perfectly devout in his arian orthodoxy; but his and his friends' arguments were rather better fitted to make deists than to persuade christians; and convocation's appeal for a new act "restraining the present excessive and scandalous liberty of printing wicked books at home, and importing the like from abroad" was not responded to. there was no love lost between bolingbroke and shaftesbury; but the government in which the former, a known deist, was secretary of state, could hardly undertake to suppress the works of the latter. § deism had been thus made in a manner fashionable [ ] when, in , anthony collins ( - ) began a new development by his discourse of freethinking. he had previously published a notably freethinking essay concerning the use of reason ( ), albeit without specific impeachment of the reigning creed; carried on a discussion with clarke on the question of the immateriality of the soul; and issued treatises entitled priestcraft in perfection ( , dealing with the history of the thirty-nine articles) [ ] and a vindication of the divine attributes ( ), exposing the hobbesian theism of archbishop king on lines followed twenty years later by berkeley in his minute philosopher. but none of these works aroused such a tumult as the discourse of freethinking, which may be said to sum up and unify the drift not only of previous english freethinking, but of the great contribution of bayle, whose learning and temper influence all english deism from shaftesbury onwards. [ ] collins's book, however, was unique in its outspokenness. to the reader of to-day, indeed, it is no very aggressive performance: the writer was a man of imperturbable amenity and genuine kindliness of nature; and his style is the completest possible contrast to that of the furious replies it elicited. it was to collins that locke wrote, in : "believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues; and, if i mistake not, you have as much of it as i ever met with in anybody." [ ] the discourse does no discredit to this uncommon encomium, being a luminous and learned plea for the conditions under which alone truth can be prosperously studied, and the habits of mind which alone can attain it. of the many replies, the most notorious is that of bentley writing as phileleutherus lipsiensis, a performance which, on the strength of its author's reputation for scholarship, has been uncritically applauded by not a few critics, of whom some of the most eminent do not appear to have read collins's treatise. [ ] bentley's is in reality pre-eminent only for insolence and bad faith, the latter complicated by lapses of scholarship hardly credible on its author's part. see the details in dynamics of religion, ch. vii. i am compelled to call attention to the uncritical verdict given on this matter by the late sir leslie stephen, who asserts (english thought, i, ) that bentley convicts collins of "unworthy shuffling" in respect of his claim that freethinking had "banished the devil." bentley affirmed that this had been the work, not of the freethinkers, but of "the royal society, the boyles and the newtons"; and sir leslie comments that "nothing could be more true." nothing could be more untrue. as we have seen (above p. ), boyle was a convinced believer in demonology; and newton did absolutely nothing to disperse it. glanvill, a royal society man, had been a vehement supporter of the belief in witchcraft; and the society as such never meddled with the matter. as to collins's claim for the virtue of freethinking, sir leslie strangely misses the point that collins meant by the word not unbelief, but free inquiry. he could not have meant to say that holland was full of deists. in collins's sense of the word, the royal society's work in general was freethinking work. one mistranslation which appears to have been a printer's error, and one mis-spelling of a greek name, are the only heads on which bentley confutes his author. he had, in fact, neither the kind of knowledge nor the candour that could fit him to handle the problems raised. it was bentley's cue to represent collins as an atheist, though he was a very pronounced deist; [ ] and in the first uproar collins thought it well to fly to holland to avoid arrest. [ ] but deism was too general to permit of such a representative being exiled; and he returned to study quietly, leaving bentley's vituperation and prevarication unanswered, with the other attacks made upon him. in he published his brief but masterly inquiry concerning human liberty--anonymous, like all his works--which remains unsurpassed as a statement of the case for determinism. [ ] the welcome given to bentley's attack upon collins by the orthodox was warm in proportion to their sense of the general inadequacy of the apologetics on their side. amid the common swarm of voluble futilities put forth by churchmen, the strident vehemence as well as the erudite repute of the old scholar were fitted at least to attract the attention of lay readers in general. most of the contemporary vindications of the faith, however, were fitted only to move intelligent men to new doubt or mere contempt. a sample of the current defence against deism is the treatise of joseph smith on the unreasonableness of deism, or, the certainty of a divine revelation, etc. , where deists in general are called "the wicked and unhappy men we have to deal with": [ ] and the argumentation consists in alleging that a good god must reveal himself, and that if the miracle stories of the new testament had been false the jews would have exposed and discarded them. against such nugatory traditionalism, the criticism of collins shone with the spirit of science. not till did he publish his next work, a discourse of the grounds and reasons of the christian religion, a weighty attack on the argument from prophecy, to which the replies numbered thirty-five; on which followed in his scheme of literal prophecy considered, a reply to criticisms. the former work was pronounced by warburton one of the most plausible ever written against christianity, and he might well say so. it faced the argument from prophecy not merely with the skepticism of the ordinary deist, but with that weapon of critical analysis of which the use had been briefly shown by hobbes and spinoza. apparently for the first time, he pointed out that the "virgin prophecy" in isaiah had a plain reference to contemporary and not to future events; he showed that the "out of egypt" prophecy referred to the hebrew past; and he revived the ancient demonstration of porphyry that the book of daniel is maccabean. the general dilemma put by collins--that either the prophecies must be reduced, textually and otherwise, to non-prophetic utterances, or christianity must give up prophetic claims--has never since been solved. the deistic movement was now in full flood, the acute mandeville [ ] having issued in his free thoughts on religion, and in a freshly-expanded edition of his very anti-evangelical fable of the bees; while an eccentric ex-clergyman, thomas woolston, who had already lost his fellowship of sidney-sussex college, cambridge, for vagaries of doctrine and action, contributed in - his freshly reasoned but heedlessly ribald discourses on miracles. voltaire, who was in england in , tells that thirty thousand copies were sold; [ ] while sixty pamphlets were written in opposition. woolston's were indeed well fitted to arouse wrath and rejoinder. the dialectic against the argument from miracles in general, and the irrelevance or nullity of certain miracles in particular, is really cogent, and anticipates at points the thought of the nineteenth century. but woolston was of the tribe who can argue no issue without jesting, and who stamp levity on every cause by force of innate whimsicality. thus he could best sway the light-hearted when his cause called for the winning-over of the earnest. arguments that might have been made convincing were made to pass as banter, and serious spirits were repelled. it was during this debate that conyers middleton, fellow of trinity college, cambridge, produced his letter from rome ( ), wherein the part of paganism in christianity is so set forth as to carry inference further than the argument ostensibly goes. in that year the heads of oxford university publicly lamented the spread of open deism among the students; and the proclamation did nothing to check the contagion. in fogg's weekly journal of july , , it is announced that "one of the principal colleges in oxford has of late been infested with deists; and that three deistical students have been expelled; and a fourth has had his degree deferred two years, during which he is to be closely confined in college; and, among other things, is to translate leslie's short and easy method with the deists." [ ] it is not hard to divine the effect of such exegetic methods. in , the author of an apologetic pamphlet in reply to woolston laments that even at the universities young men "too often" become tainted with "infidelity"; and, on the other hand, directing his battery against those who "causelessly profess to build their skeptical notions" on the writings of locke, he complains of dr. holdsworth and other academic polemists who had sought to rob orthodoxy of the credit of such a champion as locke by "consigning him over to that class of freethinkers and skeptics to which he was an adversary." [ ] with the most famous work of matthew tindal, [ ] christianity as old as creation ( ), the excitement seems to have reached high-water mark. here was vivacity without flippancy, and argument without irrelevant mirth; and the work elicited from first to last over a hundred and fifty replies, at home and abroad. tindal's thesis is that the idea of a good god involved that of a simple, perfect, and universal religion, which must always have existed among mankind, and must have essentially consisted in moral conduct. christianity, insofar as it is true, must therefore be a statement of this primordial religion; and moral reason must be the test, not tradition or scripture. one of the first replies was the vindication of scripture by waterland, to which middleton promptly offered a biting retort in a letter to dr. waterland ( ) that serves to show the slightness of its author's faith. after demolishing waterland's case as calculated rather to arouse than to allay skepticism, he undertakes to offer a better reply of his own. it is to the simple effect that some religion is necessary to mankind in modern as in ancient times; that christianity meets the need very well; and that to set up reason in its place is "impracticable" and "the attempt therefore foolish and irrational," in addition to being "criminal and immoral," when politically considered. [ ] such legalist criticism, if seriously meant, was hardly likely to discredit tindal's book. its directness and simplicity of appeal to what passed for theistic common-sense were indeed fitted to give it the widest audience yet won by any deist; and its anti-clericalism would carry it far among his fellow whigs to begin with. [ ] one tract of the period, dedicated to the queen regent, complains that "the present raging infidelity threatens an universal infection," and that it is not confined to the capital, but "is disseminated even to the confines of your kingdom." [ ] tindal, like collins, wrote anonymously, and so escaped prosecution, dying in , when the second part of his book, left ready for publication, was deliberately destroyed by bishop gibson, into whose hands it came. in he and shaftesbury are described by an orthodox apologist as the "two oracles of deism." [ ] woolston, who put his name to his books, after being arrested in may, , and released on bail, was prosecuted in on the charge of blasphemy, in that he had derided the gospel miracles and represented jesus alternately as an impostor, a sorcerer, and a magician. his friendly counsel ingeniously argued that woolston had aimed at safeguarding christianity by returning to the allegorical method of the early fathers; and that he had shown his reverence for jesus and religion by many specific expressions; but the jury took a simpler view, and, without leaving the court, found woolston guilty. he was sentenced to pay a fine of £ , to suffer a year's imprisonment, and either to find surety for his future good conduct or pay or give sureties for £ , . [ ] he is commonly said to have paid the penalty of imprisonment for the rest of his life (d. ), being unable to pay the fine of £ ; but voltaire positively asserts that "nothing is more false" than the statement that he died in prison; adding: "several of my friends have seen him in his house: he died there, at liberty." [ ] the solution of the conflict seems to be that he lived in his own house "in the rules of" the king's bench prison--that is, in the precincts, and under technical supervision. [ ] in any case, he was sentenced; and the punishment was the measure of the anger felt at the continuous advance of deistic opinions, or at least against hostile criticism of the scriptures. § unitarianism, formerly a hated heresy, was now in comparison leniently treated, because of its deference to scriptural authority. where the deists rejected all revelation, unitarianism held by the bible, calling only for a revision of the central christian dogma. it had indeed gained much theological ground in the past quarter of a century. nothing is more instructive in the culture-history of the period than the rapidity with which the presbyterian succession of clergy passed from violent calvinism, by way of "baxterian" arminianism, to arianism, and thence in many cases to unitarianism. first they virtually adopted the creed of the detested laud, whom their fathers had hated for it; then they passed step by step to a heresy for which their fathers had slain men. a closely similar process took place in geneva, where servetus after death triumphed over his slayer. [ ] in , after a generation of common suffering, a precarious union was effected between the english presbyterians, now mostly semi-arminians, and the independents, still mostly calvinists: but in it was dissolved. [ ] thereafter the former body, largely endowed by the will of lady hewley in , became as regards its trust deeds the freest of all the english sects in matters of doctrine. [ ] the recognition of past changes had made their clergy chary of a rigid subscription. naturally the movement did not gain in popularity as it fell away from fanaticism; but the decline of nonconformity in the first half of the eighteenth century was common to all the sects, and did not specially affect the presbyterians. of the many "free" churches established in england and wales after the act of toleration ( ), about half were extinct in ; [ ] and of the presbyterian churches the number in yorkshire alone fell from fifty-nine in to a little over forty in . [ ] economic causes were probably the main ones. the state-endowed parish priest had an enduring advantage over his rival. but the hewley endowment gave a certain economic basis to the presbyterians; and the concern for scholarship which had always marked their body kept them more open to intellectual influences than the ostensibly more free-minded and certainly more democratic sectaries of the independent and baptist bodies. [ ] the result was that, with free trust deeds, the presbyterians openly exhibited a tendency which was latent in all the other churches. in , at a special assembly of presbyterian ministers at salters' hall, it was decided by a majority of to that subscription to the orthodox doctrine of the trinity should no longer be demanded of candidates for the ministry. [ ] of the , the majority professed to be themselves orthodox; but there was no question that antitrinitarian opinions had become common, especially in devonshire, where the heresy case of mr. peirce of exeter had brought the matter to a crisis. [ ] from this date "arian" opinions spread more rapidly in the dwindling denomination, shading yet further into unitarianism, step for step with the deistic movement in the church. "in less than half a century the doctrines of the great founders of presbyterianism could scarcely be heard from any presbyterian pulpit in england." [ ] "in the english presbyterian ministry the process was from arian opinions to those called unitarian ... by a gradual sliding," even as the transition had been made from calvinism to arminianism in the previous century. [ ] presbyterianism having thus come pretty much into line with anglicanism on the old question of predestination, while still holding fast by scriptural standards as against the deists, the old stress of anglican dislike had slackened, despite the rise of the new heretical element. unitarian arguments were now forthcoming from quarters not associated with dissent, as in the case of thomas chubb's first treatise, the supremacy of the father asserted ( ), courteously dedicated "to the reverend the clergy, and in particular to the right reverend gilbert lord bishop of sarum, our vigilant and laborious diocesan." chubb ( - ) had been trained to glove-making, and, as his opponents took care to record, acted also as a tallow-chandler; [ ] and the good literary quality of his work made some sensation in an england which had not learned to think respectfully of bunyan. chubb's impulse to write had come from the perusal of whiston's primitive christianity revived, in , and that single-minded arian published his book for him. the unitarians would naturally repudiate all connection with such a performance as a sober reply to mr. higgs's merry arguments from the light of nature for the tritheistic doctrine of the trinity, which was condemned by the house of lords on february , , to be burnt, as having "in a daring, impious manner, ridiculed the doctrine of the trinity and all revealed religion." its author, joseph hall, a serjeant-at-arms to the king, seems to have undergone no punishment, and more decorous antitrinitarians received public countenance. thus the unitarian edward elwall, [ ] who had published a book called a true testimony for god and his sacred law ( ), for which he was prosecuted at stafford in , was allowed by the judge to argue his cause fully, and was unconditionally acquitted, to the displeasure of the clergy. § anti-scriptural writers could not hope for such toleration, being doubly odious to the church. berkeley, in , had complained bitterly [ ] of the general indifference to religion, which his writings had done nothing to alter; and in he angrily demanded that blasphemy should be punished like high treason. [ ] his minute philosopher ( ) betrays throughout his angry consciousness of the vogue of freethinking after twenty years of resistance from his profession; and that performance is singularly ill fitted to alter the opinions of unbelievers. in his earlier papers attacking them he had put a stress of malice that, in a mind of his calibre, is startling even to the student of religious history. [ ] it reveals him as no less possessed by the passion of creed than the most ignorant priest of his church. for him all freethinkers were detested disturbers of his emotional life; and of the best of them, as collins, shaftesbury, and spinoza, he speaks with positive fury. in the minute philosopher, half-conscious of the wrongness of his temper, he sets himself to make the unbelievers figure in dialogue as ignorant, pretentious, and coarse-natured; while his own mouthpieces are meant to be benign, urbane, wise, and persuasive. yet in the very pages so planned he unwittingly reveals that the freethinkers whom he goes about to caricature were commonly good-natured in tone, while he becomes as virulent as ever in his eagerness to discredit them. not a paragraph in the book attains to the spirit of judgment or fairness; all is special pleading, overstrained and embittered sarcasm, rankling animus. gifted alike for literature and for philosophy, keen of vision in economic problems where the mass of men were short-sighted, he was flawed on the side of his faith by the hysteria to which it always stirred him. no man was less qualified to write a well-balanced dialogue as between his own side and its opponents. to candour he never attains, unless it be in the sense that his passion recoils on his own case. even while setting up ninepins of ill-put "infidel" argument to knock down, he elaborates futilities of rebuttal, indicating to every attentive reader the slightness of his rational basis. on the strength of this performance he might fitly be termed the most ill-conditioned sophist of his age, were it not for the perception that religious feeling in him has become a pathological phase, and that he suffers incomparably more from his own passions than he can inflict on his enemies by his eager thrusts at them. more than almost any gifted pietist of modern times he sets us wondering at the power of creed in certain cases to overgrow judgment and turn to naught the rarest faculties. no man in berkeley's day had a finer natural lucidity and suppleness of intelligence; yet perhaps no polemist on his side did less either to make converts or to establish a sound intellectual practice. plain men on the freethinking side he must either have bewildered by his metaphysic or revolted by his spite; while to the more efficient minds he stood revealed as a kind of inspired child, rapt in the construction and manipulation of a set of brilliant sophisms which availed as much for any other creed as for his own. to the armoury of christian apologetic now growing up in england he contributed a special form of the skeptical argument: freethinkers, he declared, made certain arbitrary or irrational assumptions in accepting newton's doctrine of fluxions, and it was only their prejudice that prevented them from being similarly accommodating to christian mysteries. [ ] it is a kind of argument dear to minds pre-convinced and incapable of a logical revision, but worse than inept as against opponents; and it availed no more in berkeley's hands than it had done in those of huet. [ ] to theosophy, indeed, berkeley rendered a more successful service in presenting it with the no better formula of "existence [i.e., in consciousness] dependent upon consciousness"--a verbalism which has served the purposes of theology in the philosophic schools down till our own day. for his, however, the popular polemic value of such a theorem must have been sufficiently countervailed by his vehement championship of the doctrine of passive obedience in its most extreme form--"that loyalty is a virtue or moral duty; and disloyalty or rebellion, in the most strict and proper sense, a vice or crime against the law of nature." [ ] it belonged to the overstrung temperament of berkeley that, like a nervous artist, he should figure to himself all his freethinking antagonists as personally odious, himself growing odious under the obsession; and he solemnly asserts, in his discourse to magistrates, that there had been "lately set up within this city of dublin" an "execrable fraternity of blasphemers," calling themselves "blasters," and forming "a distinct society, whereof the proper and avowed business shall be to shock all serious christians by the most impious and horrid blasphemies, uttered in the most public manner." [ ] there appears to be not a grain of truth in this astonishing assertion, to which no subsequent historian has paid the slightest attention. in a period in which freethinking books had been again and again burned in dublin by the public hangman, such a society could be projected only in a nightmare; and berkeley's hallucination may serve as a sign of the extent to which his judgment had been deranged by his passions. [ ] his forensic temper is really on a level with that of the most incompetent swashbucklers on his side. when educated christians could be so habitually envenomed as was berkeley, there was doubtless a measure of contrary heat among english unbelievers; but, apart altogether from what could be described as blasphemy, unbelief abounded in the most cultured society of the day. bolingbroke's rationalism had been privately well known; and so distinguished a personage as the brilliant and scholarly lady mary wortley montagu, hated by pope, is one of the reputed freethinkers of her time. [ ] in the very year of the publication of berkeley's minute philosopher, the first two epistles of the essay on man of his own friend and admirer, pope, gave a new currency to the form of optimistic deism created by shaftesbury, and later elaborated by bolingbroke. pope was always anxiously hostile in his allusions to the professed freethinkers [ ]--among whom bolingbroke only posthumously enrolled himself--and in private he specially aspersed shaftesbury, from whom he had taken so much; [ ] but his prudential tactic gave all the more currency to the virtual deism he enunciated. given out without any critical allusion to christianity, and put forward as a vindication of the ways of god to men, it gave to heresy, albeit in a philosophically incoherent exposition, the status of a well-bred piety. a good authority pronounces that "the essay on man did more to spread english deism in france than all the works of shaftesbury"; [ ] and we have explicit testimony that the poet privately avowed the deistic view of things. [ ] the line of the essay which now reads: the soul, uneasy and confined from home, originally ran "at home"; but, says warton, "this expression seeming to exclude a future existence, as, to speak the plain truth, it was intended to do, it was altered"--presumably by warburton. (warton's essay on pope, th ed. ii, .) the spinozistic or pantheistic character of much of the essay on man was noted by various critics, in particular by the french academician de crousaz (examen de l'essay de m. pope sur l'homme, , p. , etc.) after promising to justify the ways of god to man, writes crousaz (p. ), pope turns round and justifies man, leaving god charged with all men's sins. when the younger racine, writing to the chevalier ramsay in , charged the essay with irreligion, pope wrote him repudiating alike spinoza and leibnitz. (warton, ii, .) in , however, the abbé gauchat renewed the attack, declaring that the essay was "neither christian nor philosophic" (lettres critiques, i, ). warburton at first charged the poem with rank atheism, and afterwards vindicated it in his manner. (warton, i, .) but in germany, in the youth of goethe, we find the essay regarded by christians as an unequivocally deistic poem. (goethe's wahrheit und dichtung, th. ii, b. vii: werke, ed. , xi, .) and by a modern christian polemist the essay is described as "the best positive result of english deism in the eighteenth century" (gostwick, german culture and christianity, , p. ). in point of fact, deism was the fashionable way of thinking among cultured people. though voltaire testifies from personal knowledge that there were in england in his day many principled atheists, [ ] there was little overt atheism, [ ] whether by reason of the special odium attaching to that way of thought, or of a real production of theistic belief by the concurrence of the deistic propaganda on this head with that of the clergy, themselves in so many cases deists. [ ] bishop burnet, in the conclusion to the history of his own time, pronounces that "there are few atheists, but many infidels, who are indeed very little better than the atheists." collins observed that nobody had doubted the existence of god until the boyle lecturers began to prove it; and clarke had more than justified the jest by arguing, in his boyle lectures for , that all deism logically leads to atheism. but though the apologists roused much discussion on the theistic issue, the stress of the apologetic literature passed from the theme of atheism to that of deism. shaftesbury's early inquiry concerning virtue had assumed the existence of a good deal of atheism; but his later writings, and those of his school, do not indicate much atheistic opposition. [ ] even the revived discussion on the immateriality and immortality of the soul--which began with the grand essay of dr. william coward, [ ] in , and was taken up, as we have seen, by the non-juror dodwell [ ]--was conducted on either orthodox or deistic lines. coward wrote as a professed christian, [ ] to maintain, "against impostures of philosophy," that "matter and motion must be the foundation of thought in men and brutes." collins maintained against clarke the proposition that matter is capable of thought; and samuel strutt ("of the temple"), whose philosophical inquiry into the physical spring of human actions, and the immediate cause of thinking ( ), is a most tersely cogent sequence of materialistic argument, never raises any question of deity. the result was that the problem of "materialism" was virtually dropped, strutt's essay in particular passing into general oblivion. it was replied to, however, with the inquiry of collins, as late as , by a christian controversialist who admits strutt to have been "a gentleman of an excellent genius for philosophical inquiries, and a close reasoner from those principles he laid down" (an essay towards demonstrating the immateriality and free agency of the soul, , p. ). the rev. mr. monk, in his life of bentley ( nd ed. , ii, ), absurdly speaks of strutt as having "dressed up the arguments of lord herbert of cherbury and other enemies of religion in a new shape." the reverend gentleman cannot have paid any attention to the arguments either of herbert or of strutt, which have no more in common than those of toland and hume. strutt's book was much too closely reasoned to be popular. his name was for the time, however, associated with a famous scandal at cambridge university. when in proceedings were taken against what was described as an "atheistical society" there, strutt was spoken of as its "oracle." one of the members was paul whitehead, satirized by pope. another, tinkler ducket, a fellow of caius college, in holy orders, was prosecuted in the vice-chancellor's court on the twofold charge of proselytizing for atheism and of attempting to seduce a "female." in his defence he explained that he had been for some time "once more a believer in god and christianity"; but was nevertheless expelled. see monk's life of bentley, as cited, ii, sq. § no less marked is the failure to develop the "higher criticism" from the notable start made in in the very remarkable inquiry into the jewish and christian revelations by samuel parvish, who made the vital discovery that deuteronomy is a product of the seventh century b.c. [ ] his book, which is in the form of a dialogue between a christian and a japanese, went into a second edition ( ); but his idea struck too deep for the critical faculty of that age, and not till the nineteenth century was the clue found again by de wette, in germany. [ ] parvish came at the end of the main deistic movement, [ ] and by that time the more open-minded men had come to a point of view from which it did not greatly matter when deuteronomy was written, or precisely how a cultus was built up; while orthodoxy could not dream of abandoning its view of inspiration. there was thus an arrest alike of historical criticism and of the higher philosophic thought under the stress of the concrete disputes over ethics, miracles, prophecy, and politics; and a habit of taking deity for granted became normal, with the result that when the weak point was pressed upon by law and butler there was a sense of blankness on both sides. but among men theistically inclined, the argument of tindal against revelationism was extremely telling, and it had more literary impressiveness than any writing on the orthodox side before butler. by this time the philosophic influence of spinoza--seen as early as in shaftesbury's inquiry concerning virtue, [ ] and avowed by clarke when he addressed his demonstration ( ) "more particularly in answer to mr. hobbs, spinoza, and their followers"--had spread among the studious class, greatly reinforcing the deistic movement; so that in berkeley, who ranked him among "weak and wicked writers," described him as "the great leader of our modern infidels." see the minute philosopher, dial. vii, § . similarly leland, in the supplement ( ) to his view of the deistical writers (afterwards incorporated as letter vi), speaks of spinoza as "the most applauded doctor of modern atheism." sir leslie stephen's opinion (english thought, i, ), that "few of the deists, probably," read spinoza, seems to be thus outweighed. if they did not in great numbers read the ethica, they certainly read the tractatus and the letters. as early as we find stillingfleet, in the preface to his letter to a deist, speaking of spinoza as "a late author [who] i hear is mightily in vogue among many who cry up anything on the atheistical side, though never so weak and trifling"; and further of a mooted proposal to translate the tractatus theologico-politicus into english. a translation was published in . in the scotch professor george sinclar, in the "preface to the reader" of his satan's invisible world discovered, writes that "there are a monstrous rabble of men, who following the hobbesian and spinosian principles, slight religion and undervalue the scripture," etc. in gildon's work of recantation, the deist's manual ( , p. ), the indifferent pleonexus, who "took more delight in bags than in books," and demurs to accumulating the latter, avows that he has a few, among them being hobbes and spinoza. evelyn, writing about - , speaks of "that infamous book, the tractatus theologico-politicus," as "a wretched obstacle to the searchers of holy truth" (the history of religion, , p. xxvii). cp. halyburton, natural religion insufficient, edinburgh, , p. , as to the "great vogue among our young gentry and students" of hobbes, spinoza, and others. § among the deists of the upper classes was the young william pitt, afterwards lord chatham, if, as has been alleged, it was he who in , two years before he entered parliament, contributed to the london journal a "letter on superstition," the work of a pronounced freethinker. [ ] on the other hand, such deistic writing as that with which chubb, in a multitude of tracts, followed up his early unitarian essay of , brought an ethical "christian rationalism" within the range of the unscholarly many. thomas morgan (d. ), a physician, began in the moral philosopher, - , [ ] to sketch a rationalistic theory of christian origins, besides putting the critical case with new completeness. morgan had been at one time a dissenting minister at frome, somerset, and had been dismissed because of his deistical opinions. towards the jehovah and the ethic of the old testament he holds, however, the attitude rather of an ancient gnostic than of a modern rationalist; and in his philosophy he is either a very "godly" deist or a pantheist miscarried. [ ] at the same time peter annet ( - ), a schoolmaster and inventor of a system of shorthand, widened the propaganda in other directions. he seems to have been the first freethought lecturer, for his first pamphlet, judging for ourselves: or, freethinking the great duty of religion, "by p. a., minister of the gospel" ( ), consists of "two lectures delivered at plaisterers' hall." through all his propaganda, of which the more notable portions are his supernaturals examined and a series of controversies on the resurrection, there runs a train of shrewd critical sense, put forth in crisp and vivacious english, which made him a popular force. what he lacked was the due gravity and dignity for the handling of such a theme as the reversal of a nation's faith. like woolston, he is facetious where he should be serious; entertaining where he had need be impressive; provocative where he should have aimed at persuasion. we cannot say what types he influenced, or how deep his influence went: it appears only that he swayed many whose suffrages weighed little. at length, when in he issued nine numbers of the free inquirer, in which he attacked the pentateuch with much insight and cogency, but with a certain want of rational balance (shown also in his treatise, social bliss considered, ), he was made a victim of the then strengthened spirit of persecution, being sentenced to stand thrice in the pillory with the label "for blasphemy," and to suffer a year's hard labour. nevertheless, he was popular enough to start a school on his release. such popularity, of course, was alien to the literary and social traditions of the century; and from the literary point of view the main line of deistic propaganda, as apart from the essays and treatises of hume and the posthumous works of bolingbroke, ends with the younger henry dodwell's (anonymous) ironical essay, christianity not founded on argument ( ). so rigorously congruous is the reasoning of that brilliant treatise that some have not quite unjustifiably taken it for the work of a dogmatic believer, standing at some such position as that taken up before him by huet, and in recent times by cardinal newman. [ ] he argues, for instance, not merely that reason can yield none of the confidence which belongs to true faith, but that it cannot duly strengthen the moral will against temptations. [ ] but the book at once elicited a number of replies, all treating it unhesitatingly as an anti-christian work; and leland assails it as bitterly as he does any openly freethinking treatise. [ ] its thesis might have been seriously supported by reference to the intellectual history of the preceding thirty years, wherein much argument had certainly failed to establish the reigning creed or to discredit the unbelievers. § of the work done by english deism thus far, it may suffice to say that within two generations it had more profoundly altered the intellectual temper of educated men than any religious movement had ever done in the same time. this appears above all from the literature produced by orthodoxy in reply, where the mere defensive resort to reasoning, apart from the accounts of current rationalism, outgoes anything in the previous history of literature. the whole evolution is a remarkable instance of the effect on intellectual progress of the diversion of a nation's general energy from war and intense political faction to mental activities. a similar diversion had taken place at the restoration, to be followed by a return to civil and foreign strife, which arrested it. it was in the closing years of anne, and in the steady régime of walpole under the first two georges, that the ferment worked at its height. collins's discourse of freethinking was synchronous with the peace of utrecht: the era of war re-opened in , much against the will of walpole, who resigned in . home and foreign wars thereafter became common; and in clive opened the period of imperialistic expansion, determining national developments on that main line, concurrently with that of the new industry. could the discussion have been continuous--could england have remained what she was in the main deistic period, a workshop of investigation and a battleground of ideas--all european development might have been indefinitely hastened. but the deists, for the most part educated men appealing to educated men or to the shrewdest readers among the artisans, had not learned to reckon with the greater social forces; and beyond a certain point they could not affect england's intellectual destinies. it is worse than idle to argue that "the true cause of the decay of deism is to be sought in its internal weakness," in the sense that "it was not rooted in the deepest convictions, nor associated with the most powerful emotions of its adherents." [ ] no such charge can be even partially proved. the deists were at least as much in earnest as two-thirds of the clergy: the determining difference, in this regard, was the economic basis of the latter, and their social hold of an ignorant population. the clergy, who could not argue the deists down in the court of culture, had in their own jurisdiction the great mass of the uneducated lower classes, and the great mass of the women of all classes, whom the ideals of the age kept uneducated, with a difference. and while the more cultured clergy were themselves in large measure deists, the majority, in the country parishes, remained uncritical and unreflective, caring little even to cultivate belief among their flocks. the "contempt of the clergy" which had subsisted from the middle of the seventeenth century (if, indeed, it should not be dated from the middle of the sixteenth) meant among other things that popular culture remained on a lower plane. with the multitude remaining a ready hotbed for new "enthusiasm," and the women of the middle and upper orders no less ready nurturers of new generations of young believers, the work of emancipation was but begun when deism was made "fashionable." and with england on the way to a new era at once of industrial and imperial expansion, in which the energies that for a generation had made her a leader of european thought were diverted to arms and to commerce, the critical and rationalizing work of the deistical generation could not go on as it had begun. that generation left its specific mark on the statute-book in a complete repeal of the old laws relating to witchcraft; [ ] on literature in a whole library of propaganda and apology; on moral and historic science in a new movement of humanism, which was to find its check in the french revolution. how it affected the general intelligence for good may be partly gathered from a comparison of the common english political attitudes towards ireland in the first and the last quarters of the century. under william was wrought the arrest of irish industry and commerce, begun after the restoration; under anne were enacted the penal laws against catholics--as signal an example of religious iniquity as can well be found in all history. by the middle of the century these laws had become anachronisms for all save bigots. "the wave of freethought that was spreading over europe and permeating its literature had not failed to affect ireland.... an atmosphere of skepticism was fatal to the penal code. what element of religious persecution there had been in it had long ceased to be operative" (r. dunlop, in camb. mod. hist. vi, ). macaulay's testimony on this head is noteworthy: "the philosophy of the eighteenth century had purified english whiggism of the deep taint of intolerance which had been contracted during a long and close alliance with the puritanism of the eighteenth century" (history, ch. xvii, end). the denunciations of the penal laws by arthur young in [ ] are the outcome of two generations of deistic thinking; the spirit of religion has been ousted by judgment. [ ] could that spirit have had freer play, less hindrance from blind passion, later history would have been a happier record. but for reasons lying in the environment as well as in its own standpoint, deism was not destined to rise on continuous stepping-stones to social dominion. currency has been given to a misconception of intellectual history by the authoritative statement that in the deistic controversy "all that was intellectually venerable in england" appeared "on the side of christianity" (sir leslie stephen, english thought in the eighteenth century, i, ). the same thing, in effect, is said by lecky: "it was to repel these [deistic] attacks ['upon the miracles'] that the evidential school arose, and the annals of religious controversy narrate few more complete victories than they achieved" (rise and influence of rationalism, pop. ed. i, ). the proposition seems to be an echo of orthodox historiography, as buckle had before written in his note-book: "in england skepticism made no head. such men as toland and tindal, collins, shaftesbury, woolston, were no match for clarke, warburton, and lardner. they could make no head till the time of middleton" (misc. works, abridged ed. i, )--a strain of assertion which clearly proceeds on no close study of the period. in the first place, all the writing on the freethinking side was done under peril of blasphemy laws, and under menace of all the calumny and ostracism that in christian society follow on advanced heresy; while the orthodox side could draw on the entire clerical profession, over ten thousand strong, and trained for and pledged to defence of the faith. yet, when all is said, the ordinary list of deists amply suffices to disprove sir l. stephen's phrase. his "intellectually venerable" list runs: bentley, locke, berkeley, clarke, butler, waterland, warburton, sherlock, gibson, conybeare, smalbroke, leslie, law, leland, lardner, foster, doddridge, lyttelton, barrington, addison, pope, swift. he might have added newton and boyle. sykes, [ ] balguy, stebbing, and a "host of others," he declares to be "now for the most part as much forgotten as their victims"; young and blackmore he admits to be in similar case. it is expressly told of doddridge, he might have added, that whereas that well-meaning apologist put before his students at northampton the ablest writings both for and against christianity, leaving them to draw their own conclusions, many of his pupils, "on leaving his institution, became confirmed arians and socinians" (nichols in app. p to life of arminius--works of arminius, , i, - ). this hardly spells success. [ ] all told, the list includes only three or four men of any permanent interest as thinkers, apart from newton; and only three or four more important as writers. the description of waterland, [ ] warburton, [ ] smalbroke, [ ] sherlock, leslie, and half-a-dozen more as "intellectually venerable" is grotesque; even bentley is a strange subject for veneration. on the other hand, the list of "the despised deists," who "make but a poor show when compared with this imposing list," runs thus: herbert, hobbes, blount, halley (well known to be an unbeliever, though he did not write on the subject), toland, shaftesbury, collins, mandeville, tindal, chubb, morgan, dodwell, middleton, hume, bolingbroke, gibbon. it would be interesting to know on what principles this group is excluded from the intellectual veneration so liberally allotted to the other. it is nothing to the purpose that shaftesbury and mandeville wrote "covertly" and "indirectly." the law and the conditions compelled them to do so. it is still more beside the case to say that "hume can scarcely be reckoned among the deists. he is already [when?] emerging into a higher atmosphere." hume wrote explicitly as a deist; and only in his posthumous dialogues did he pass on to the atheistic position. at no time, moreover, was he "on the side of christianity." on the other hand, locke and clarke and pope were clearly "emerging into a higher atmosphere" than christianity, since locke is commonly reckoned by the culture-historians, and even by sir leslie stephen, as making for deism; pope was the pupil of bolingbroke, and wrote as such; and clarke was shunned as an arian. newton, again, was a unitarian, and leibnitz accused his system of making for irreligion. it would be hard to show, further, who are the "forgotten victims" of balguy and the rest. balguy criticized shaftesbury, whose name is still a good deal better known than balguy's. the main line of deists is pretty well remembered. and if we pair off hume against berkeley, hobbes against locke, middleton (as historical critic) against bentley, shaftesbury against addison, mandeville against swift, bolingbroke against butler, collins against clarke, herbert against lyttelton, tindal against waterland, and gibbon against--shall we say?--warburton, it hardly appears that the overplus of merit goes as sir leslie stephen alleges, even if we leave newton, with brain unhinged, standing against halley. the statement that the deists "are but a ragged regiment," and that "in speculative ability most of them were children by the side of their ablest antagonists," is simply unintelligible unless the names of all the ablest deists are left out. locke, be it remembered, did not live to meet the main deistic attack on christianity; and sir leslie admits the weakness of his pro-christian performance. the bases of sir leslie stephen's verdict may be tested by his remarks that "collins, a respectable country gentleman, showed considerable acuteness; toland, a poor denizen of grub street, and tindal, a fellow of all souls, made a certain display of learning, and succeeded in planting some effective arguments." elsewhere (pp. - ) sir leslie admits that collins had the best of the argument against his "venerable" opponents on prophecy; and huxley credits him with equal success in the argument with clarke. the work of collins on human liberty, praised by a long series of students and experts, and entirely above the capacity of bentley, is philosophically as durable as any portion of locke, who made collins his chosen friend and trustee, and who did not live to meet his anti-biblical arguments. tindal, who had also won locke's high praise by his political essays, profoundly influenced such a student as laukhard (lechler, p. ). and toland, whom even mr. a. s. farrar (bampton lectures, p. ) admitted to possess "much originality and learning," has struck lange as a notable thinker, though he was a poor man. leibnitz, who answered him, praises his acuteness, as does pusey, who further admits the uncommon ability of morgan and collins (histor. enq. into german rationalism, , p. ). it is time that the conventional english standards in these matters should be abandoned by modern rationalists. the unfortunate effect of sir leslie stephen's dictum is seen in the assertion of prof. höffding (hist. of modern philos. eng. tr. , i, ), that sir leslie "rightly remarks of the english deists that they were altogether inferior to their adversaries"; and further (p. ), that by the later deists, "collins, tindal, morgan, etc., the dispute as to miracles was carried on with great violence." it is here evident that prof. höffding has not read the writers he depreciates, for those he names were far from being violent. had he known the literature, he would have named woolston, not collins and tindal and morgan. he is merely echoing, without inquiring for himself, a judgment which he regards as authoritative. in the same passage he declares that "only one of all the men formerly known as the 'english deists' [toland] has rendered contributions of any value to the history of thought." if this is said with a knowledge of the works of collins, shaftesbury, and mandeville, it argues a sad lack of critical judgment. but there is reason to infer here also that prof. höffding writes in ignorance of the literature he discusses. while some professed rationalists thus belittle a series of pioneers who did so much to make later rationalism possible, some eminent theologians do them justice. thus does prof. cheyne begin his series of lectures on founders of old testament criticism ( ): "a well-known and honoured representative of progressive german orthodoxy (j. a. dorner) has set a fine example of historical candour by admitting the obligations of his country to a much-disliked form of english heterodoxy. he says that english deism, which found so many apt disciples in germany, 'by clearing away dead matter, prepared the way for a reconstruction of theology from the very depths of the heart's beliefs, and also subjected man's nature to stricter observation.' [ ] this, however, as it appears to me, is a very inadequate description of the facts. it was not merely a new constructive stage of german theoretic theology, and a keener psychological investigation, for which deism helped to prepare the way, but also a great movement, which has in our own day become in a strict sense international, concerned with the literary and historical criticism of the scriptures. beyond all doubt, the biblical discussions which abound in the works of the deists and their opponents contributed in no slight degree to the development of that semi-apologetic criticism of the old testament of which j. d. michaelis, and in some degree even eichhorn, were leading representatives.... it is indeed singular that deism should have passed away in england without having produced a great critical movement among ourselves." not quite so singular, perhaps, when we note that in our own day sir leslie stephen and lecky and prof. höffding could sum up the work of the deists without a glance at what it meant for biblical criticism. § if we were to set up a theory of intellectual possibilities from what has actually taken place in the history of thought, and without regard to the economic and political conditions above mentioned, we might reason that deism failed permanently to overthrow the current creed because it was not properly preceded by discipline in natural science. there might well be stagnation in the higher criticism of the hebrew scriptures when all natural science was still coloured by them. in nothing, perhaps, is the danger of sacred books more fully exemplified than in their influence for the suppression of true scientific thought. a hundredfold more potently than the faiths of ancient greece has that of christendom blocked the way to all intellectually vital discovery. if even the fame and the pietism of newton could not save him from the charge of promoting atheism, much less could obscure men hope to set up any view of natural things which clashed with pulpit prejudice. but the harm lay deeper, inasmuch as the ground was preoccupied by pseudo-scientific theories which were at best fanciful modifications of the myths of genesis. types of these performances are the treatise of sir matthew hale on the primitive origination of mankind ( ); dr. thomas burnet's sacred theory of the earth ( - ); and whiston's new theory of the earth ( )--all devoid of scientific value; hale's work being pre-newtonian; burnet's anti-newtonian, though partly critical as regards the sources of the pentateuch; and whiston's a combination of newton and myth with his own quaint speculations. even the natural history of the earth of prof. john woodward ( ), after recognizing that fossils were really prehistoric remains, decided that they were deposited by the deluge. [ ] woodward's book is in its own way instructive as regards the history of opinion. a "professor of physick" in gresham college, f.c.p., and f.r.s., he goes about his work in a methodical and ostensibly scientific fashion, colligates the phenomena, examines temperately the hypotheses of the many previous inquirers, and shows no violence of orthodox prepossession. he claims to have considered moses "only as an historian," and to give him credit finally because he finds his narrative "punctually true." [ ] he had before him an abundance of facts irreconcilable with the explanation offered by the flood story; yet he actually adds to that myth a thesis of universal decomposition and dissolution of the earth's strata by the flood's action [ ]--a hypothesis far more extravagant than any of those he dismissed. with all his method and scrutiny he had remained possessed by the tradition, and could not cast it off. it would seem as if such a book, reducing the tradition to an absurdity, was bound at least to put its more thoughtful readers on the right track. but the legend remained in possession of the general intelligence as of woodward's; and beyond his standpoint science made little advance for many years. moral and historical criticism, then, as regards some main issues, had gone further than scientific; and men's thinking on certain problems of cosmic philosophy was thus arrested for lack of due basis or discipline in experiential science. the final account of the arrest of exact biblical criticism in the eighteenth century, however, is that which explains also the arrest of the sciences. english energy, broadly speaking, was diverted into other channels. in the age of chatham it became more and more military and industrial, imperialist and commercial; and the scientific work of newton was considerably less developed by english hands than was the critical work of the first deists. long before the french revolution, mathematical and astronomical science were being advanced by french minds, the english doing nothing. lagrange and euler, clairaut and d'alembert, carried on the task, till laplace consummated it in his great theory, which is to newton's what newton's was to that of copernicus. it was frenchmen, freethinkers to a man, who built up the new astronomy, while england was producing only eulogies of newton's greatness. "no british name is ever mentioned in the list of mathematicians who followed newton in his brilliant career and completed the magnificent edifice of which he laid the foundation." [ ] "scotland contributed her maclaurin, but england no european name." [ ] throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century "there was hardly an individual in this country who possessed an intimate acquaintance with the methods of investigation which had conducted the foreign mathematicians to so many sublime results." [ ] "the english mathematicians seem to have been so dazzled with the splendour of newton's discoveries that they never conceived them capable of being extended or improved upon"; [ ] and newton's name was all the while vaunted, unwarrantably enough, as being on the side of christian orthodoxy. halley's great hypothesis of the motion of the solar system in space, put forward in , borne out by cassini and le monnier, was left to be established by mayer of göttingen. [ ] there was nothing specially incidental to deism, then, in the non-development of the higher criticism in england after collins and parvish, or in the lull of critical speculation in the latter half of the century. it was part of a general social readjustment in which english attention was turned from the mental life to the physical, from intension of thought to extension of empire. playfair (as cited, p. ; brewster, memoirs of newton, i, , note) puts forward the theory that the progress of the higher science in france was due to the "small pensions and great honours" bestowed on scientific men by the academy of sciences. the lack of such an institution in england he traces to "mercantile prejudices," without explaining these in their turn. they are to be understood as the consequences of the special expansion of commercial and industrial life in england in the eighteenth century, when france, on the contrary, losing india and north america, had her energies in a proportional degree thrown back on the life of the mind. french freethought, it will be observed, expanded with science, while in england there occurred, not a spontaneous reversion to orthodoxy any more than a surrender of the doctrine of newton, but a general turning of attention in other directions. it is significant that the most important names in the literature of deism after are those of hume and smith, late products of the intellectual atmosphere of pre-industrial scotland; of bolingbroke, an aristocrat of the deistic generation, long an exile in france, who left his works to be published after his death; and of gibbon, who also breathed the intellectual air of france. § it has been commonly assumed that after chubb and morgan the deistic movement in england "decayed," or "passed into skepticism" with hume; and that the decay was mainly owing to the persuasive effect of bishop butler's analogy ( ). [ ] this appears to be a complete misconception, arising out of the habit of looking to the mere succession of books without considering their vogue and the accompanying social conditions. butler's book had very little influence till long after his death, [ ] being indeed very ill-fitted to turn contemporary deists to christianity. it does but develop one form of the skeptical argument for faith, as berkeley had developed another; and that form of reasoning never does attain to anything better than a success of despair. the main argument being that natural religion is open to the same objections as revealed, on the score ( ) of the inconsistency of nature with divine benevolence, and ( ) that we must be guided in opinion as in conduct by probability, a mohammedan could as well use the theorem for the koran as could a christian for the bible; and the argument against the justice of nature tended logically to atheism. but the deists had left to them the resource of our modern theists--that of surmising a beneficence above human comprehension; and it is clear that if butler made any converts they must have been of a very unenthusiastic kind. it is therefore safe to say with pattison that "to whatever causes is to be attributed the decline of deism from onwards, the books polemically written against it cannot be reckoned among them." [ ] on the other hand, even deists who were affected by the plea that the bible need not be more consistent and satisfactory than nature, could find refuge in unitarianism, a creed which, as industriously propounded by priestley [ ] towards the end of the century, made a numerical progress out of all proportion to that of orthodoxy. the argument of william law, [ ] again, which insisted on the irreconcilability of the course of things with human reason, and called for an abject submission to revelation, could appeal only to minds already thus prostrate. both his and butler's methods, in fact, prepared the way for hume. and in the year , five years after the issue of the analogy and seven before the issue of hume's essay on miracles, we find the thesis of that essay tersely affirmed in a note to book ii of an anonymous translation (ascribed to t. francklin) of cicero's de natura deorum. the passage is worth comparing with hume: "hence we see what little credit ought to be paid to facts said to be done out of the ordinary course of nature. these miracles [cutting the whetstone, etc., related by cicero, de div. i, c. xvii] are well attested. they were recorded in the annals of a great people, believed by many learned and otherwise sagacious persons, and received as religious truths by the populace; but the testimonies of ancient records, the credulity of some learned men, and the implicit faith of the vulgar, can never prove that to have been, which is impossible in the nature of things ever to be." m. tullius cicero of the nature of the gods ... with notes, london, , p. . it does not appear to have been noted that in regard to this as to another of his best-known theses, hume develops a proposition laid down before him. what hume did was to elaborate the skeptical argument with a power and fullness which forced attention once for all, alike in england and on the continent. it is not to be supposed, however, that hume's philosophy, insofar as it was strictly skeptical--that is, suspensory--drew away deists from their former attitude of confidence to one of absolute doubt. nor did hume ever aim at such a result. what he did was to countermine the mines of berkeley and others, who, finding their supra-rational dogmas set aside by rationalism, deistic or atheistic, sought to discredit at once deistic and atheistic philosophies based on study of the external world, and to establish their creed anew on the basis of their subjective consciousness. as against that method, hume showed the futility of all apriorism alike, destroying the sham skepticism of the christian theists by forcing their method to its conclusions. if the universe was to be reduced to a mere contingent of consciousness, he calmly showed, consciousness itself was as easily reducible, on the same principles, to a mere series of states. idealistic skepticism, having disposed of the universe, must make short work of the hypostatized process of perception. hume, knowing that strict skepticism is practically null in life, counted on leaving the ground cleared for experiential rationalism. and he did, insofar as he was read. his essay, of miracles (with the rest of the inquiries of - , which recast his early treatise of human nature, ), posits a principle valid against all supernaturalism whatever; while his natural history of religion ( ), though affirming deism, rejected the theory of a primordial monotheism, and laid the basis of the science of comparative hierology. [ ] finally, his posthumous dialogues concerning natural religion ( ) admit, though indirectly, the untenableness of deism, and fall back decisively upon the atheistic or agnostic position. [ ] like descartes, he lacked the heroic fibre; but like him he recast philosophy for modern europe; and its subsequent course is but a development of or a reaction against his work. § it is remarkable that this development of opinion took place in that part of the british islands where religious fanaticism had gone furthest, and speech and thought were socially least free. freethought in scotland before the middle of the seventeenth century can have existed only as a thing furtive and accursed; and though, as we have seen from the religio stoici of sir george mackenzie, unbelief had emerged in some abundance at or before the restoration, only wealthy men could dare openly to avow their deism. [ ] early in the clergy had actually succeeded in getting a lad of eighteen, thomas aikenhead, hanged for professing deism in general, and in particular for calling the old testament "ezra's fables," ridiculing the doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation, and expressing the hope and belief that christianity would be extinct within a century. [ ] the spirit of the prosecution may be gathered from the facts that the boy broke down and pleaded penitence, [ ] and that the statute enacted the capital penalty only for obstinately persisting in the denial of any of the persons of the trinity. [ ] he had talked recklessly against the current creed among youths about his own age, one of whom was in locke's opinion "the decoy who gave him the books and made him speak as he did." [ ] it would appear that a victim was very much wanted; and aikenhead was not allowed the help of a counsel. it is characteristic of the deadening effect of dogmatic religion on the heart that an act of such brutish cruelty elicited no cry of horror from any christian writer. at this date the clergy were hounding on the privy council to new activity in trying witches; and all works of supposed heretical tendency imported from england were confiscated in the edinburgh shops, among them being thomas burnet's sacred theory of the earth. [ ] scottish intellectual development had in fact been arrested by the reformation, so that, save for napier's logarithms ( ) and such a political treatise as rutherford's lex rex ( ), the nation of dunbar and lyndsay produced for two centuries no secular literature of the least value, and not even a theology of any enduring interest. deism, accordingly, seems in the latter half of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century to have made fully as much progress in scotland as in england; and the bigoted clergy could offer little intellectual resistance. as early as the scottish general assembly, with theological candour, passed an act "against the atheistical opinions of the deists." (abridgment of the acts of the general assemblies, , pp. , ; cunningham, hist. of the ch. of scotland, ii, .) the opinions specified were "the denying of all revealed religion, the grand mysteries of the gospels ... the resurrection of the dead, and, in a word, the certainty and authority of scripture revelation; as also, their asserting that there must be a mathematical evidence for each purpose ... and that natural light is sufficient to salvation." all this is deism, pure and simple. but sir w. anstruther (a judge in the court of session), in the preface to his essays moral and divine, edinburgh, , speaks of "the spreading contagion of atheism, which threatens the ruin of our excellent and holy religion." to atheism he devotes two essays; and neither in these nor in one on the incarnation does he discuss deism, the arguments he handles being really atheistic. scottish freethought would seem thus to have gone further than english at the period in question. as to the prevalence of deism, however, see the posthumous work of prof. halyburton, of st. andrews, natural religion insufficient (edinburgh, ), epist. of recom.; pref. pp. , , and pp. , , , , , etc. halyburton's treatise is interesting as showing the psychological state of argumentative scotch orthodoxy in his day. he professes to repel the deistical argument throughout by reason; he follows huet, and concurs with berkeley in contending that mathematics involves anti-rational assumptions; and he takes entire satisfaction in the execution of the lad aikenhead for deism. yet in a second treatise, an essay concerning the nature of faith, he contends, as against locke and the "rationalists," that the power to believe in the word of god is "expressly deny'd to man in his natural estate," and is a supernatural gift. thus the calvinists, like baxter, were at bottom absolutely insincere in their profession to act upon reason, while insolently charging insincerity on others. even apart from deism there had arisen a widespread aversion to dogmatic theology and formal creeds, so that an apologist of speaks of his day as "a time when creeds and confessions of faith are so generally decried, and not only exposed to contempt, as useless inventions ... but are loaded by many writers of distinguished wit and learning with the most fatal and dangerous consequences." [ ] this writer admits the intense bitterness of the theological disputes of the time; [ ] and he speaks, on the other hand, of seeing "the most sacred mysteries of godliness impudently denied and impugned" by some, while the "distinguishing doctrines of christianity are by others treacherously undermined, subtilized into an airy phantom, or at least doubted, if not disclaimed." [ ] his references are probably to works published in england, notably those of locke, toland, shaftesbury, and collins, since in scotland no such literature could then be published; but he doubtless has an eye to scottish opinion. while, however, the rationalism of the time could not take book form, there are clear traces of its existence among educated men, even apart from the general complaints of the apologists. thus the professor of medicine at glasgow university in the opening years of the eighteenth century, john johnston, was a known freethinker. [ ] in the way of moderate or christian rationalism, the teaching of the prosecuted simson seems to have counted for something, seeing that francis hutcheson at least imbibed from him "liberal" views about future punishment and the salvation of the heathen, which gave much offence in the presbyterian pulpit in ulster. [ ] and hutcheson's later vindication of the ethical system of shaftesbury in his inquiry concerning the ideas of beauty and virtue ( ) must have tended to attract attention in scotland to the characteristics after his instalment as a professor at glasgow. in an english pamphlet, in , he was satirized as introducing shaftesbury's system into a university, [ ] and it was from the shaftesbury camp that the first literary expression of freethought in scotland was sent forth. a young scotch deist of that school, william dudgeon, published in a dialogue entitled the state of the moral world considered, wherein the optimistic position was taken up with uncommon explicitness; and in the same writer printed a catechism founded upon experience and reason, prefaced by an introductory letter on natural religion, which takes a distinctly anti-clerical attitude. the catechism answers to its title, save insofar as it is à priori in its theism and optimistic in its ethic, as is another work of its author in the same year, a view of the necessarian or best scheme, defending the shaftesburyan doctrine against the criticism of crousaz on pope's essay. still more heterodox is his little volume of philosophical letters concerning the being and attributes of god ( ), where the doctrine goes far towards pantheism. all this propaganda seems to have elicited only one printed reply--an attack on his first treatise in . in the letter prefaced to his catechism, however, he tells that "the bare suspicion of my not believing the opinions in fashion in our country hath already caused me sufficient trouble." [ ] his case had in fact been raised in the church courts, the proceedings going through many stages in the years - ; but in the end no decision was taken, [ ] and the special stress of his rationalism in doubtless owes something alike to the prosecution and to its collapse. despite such hostility, he must privately have had fair support. [ ] the prosecution of hutcheson before the glasgow presbytery in reveals vividly the theological temper of the time. he was indicted for teaching to his students "the following two false and dangerous doctrines: first, that the standard of moral goodness was the promotion of the happiness of others; and, second, that we could have a knowledge of good and evil without and prior to a knowledge of god." [ ] there has been a natural disposition on the orthodox side to suppress the fact that such teachings were ever ecclesiastically denounced as false, dangerous, and irreligious; and the prosecution seems to have had no effect beyond intensifying the devotion of hutcheson's students. among them was adam smith, of whom it has justly been said that, "if he was any man's disciple, he was hutcheson's," inasmuch as he derived from his teacher the bases alike of his moral and political philosophy and of his deistic optimism. [ ] another prosecution soon afterwards showed that the new influences were vitally affecting thought within the church itself. hutcheson's friend leechman, whom he and his party contrived to elect as professor of theology in glasgow university, was in turn proceeded against ( - ) for a sermon on prayer, which hutcheson and his sympathizers pronounced "noble," [ ] but which "resolved the efficacy of prayer into its reflex influence on the mind of the worshipper" [ ]--a theorem which has chronically made its appearance in the scottish church ever since, still ranking as a heresy, after having brought a clerical prosecution in the last century on at least one divine, prof. william knight, and rousing a scandal against another, the late dr. robert wallace. [ ] leechman in turn held his ground, and later became principal of his university; but still the orthodox in scotland fought bitterly against every semblance of rationalism. even the anti-deistic essays of lord-president forbes of culloden, head of the court of session, when collected [ ] and posthumously published, were offensive to the church as laying undue stress on reason; as accepting the heterodox biblical theories of dr. john hutchinson; and as making the awkward admission that "the freethinkers, with all their perversity, generally are sensible of the social duties, and act up to them better than others do who in other respects think more justly than they." [ ] such an utterance from such a dignitary told of a profound change; and, largely through the influence of hutcheson and leechman on a generation of students, the educated scotland of the latter half of the eighteenth century was in large part either "moderate" or deistic. after generations of barren controversy, [ ] the very aridity of the presbyterian life intensified the recoil among the educated classes to philosophical and historical interests, leading to the performances of hume, smith, robertson, millar, ferguson, and yet others, all rationalists in method and sociologists in their interests. of these, millar, one of smith's favourite pupils, and a table-talker of "magical vivacity," [ ] was known to be rationalistic in a high degree; [ ] while smith and ferguson were certainly deists, as was henry home (the judge, lord kames), who had the distinction of being attacked along with his friend hume in the general assembly of the church of scotland in - . home wrote expressly to controvert hume, alike as to utilitarianism and the idea of causation; but his book, essays on morality and natural religion (published anonymously, ), handled the thorny question of free-will in such fashion as to give no less offence than hume had done; and the orthodox bracketed him with the subject of his criticism. his doctrine was indeed singular, its purport being that there can be no free-will, but that the deity has for wise purposes implanted in men the feeling that their wills are free. the fact of his having been made a judge of the court of session since writing his book had probably something to do with the rejection of the whole subject by the general assembly, and afterwards by the edinburgh presbytery; but there had evidently arisen a certain diffidence in the church, which would be assiduously promoted by "moderates" such as principal robertson, the historian. it is noteworthy that, while home and hume thus escaped, the other home, john, who wrote the then admired tragedy of douglas, was soon after forced to resign his position as a minister of the church for that authorship, deism having apparently more friends in the fold than drama. [ ] while the theatre was thus being treated as a place of sin, many of the churches in scotland were the scenes of repeated sunday riots. a new manner of psalm-singing had been introduced, and it frequently happened that the congregations divided into two parties, each singing in its own way, till they came to blows. according to one of hume's biographers, unbelievers were at this period wont to go to church to see the fun. [ ] naturally orthodoxy did not gain ground. in the case of adam smith we have one of the leading instances of the divorce between culture and creed in the scotland of that age. his intellectual tendencies, primed by hutcheson, were already revealing themselves when, seeking for something worth study in the unstudious oxford of his day, he was found by some suspicious supervisor reading hume's treatise of human nature. the book was seized and the student scolded. [ ] when, in , he became professor of moral philosophy in glasgow university, he aroused orthodox comment by abandoning the sunday class on christian evidences set up by hutcheson, and still further, it is said, by petitioning the senatus to be allowed to be relieved of the duty of opening his class with prayer. [ ] the permission was not given; and the compulsory prayers were "thought to savour strongly of natural religion"; while the lectures on natural theology, which were part of the work of the chair, were said to lead "presumptuous striplings" to hold that "the great truths of theology, together with the duties which man owes to god and his neighbours, may be discovered by the light of nature without any special revelation." [ ] smith was thus well founded in rationalism before he became personally acquainted with voltaire and the other french freethinkers; and the pious contemporary who deplores his associations avows that neither before nor after his french tour was his religious creed ever "properly ascertained." [ ] it is clear, however, that it steadily developed in a rationalistic direction. in the theory of moral sentiments ( ) the prevailing vein of theistic optimism is sufficiently uncritical; but even there there emerges an apparent doubt on the doctrine of a future state, and positive hostility to certain ecclesiastical forms of it. [ ] in the sixth edition, which he prepared for the press in , he deleted the passage which pronounced the doctrine of the atonement to be in harmony with natural ethics. [ ] but most noteworthy of all is his handling of the question of religious establishments in the wealth of nations. [ ] it is so completely naturalistic that only the habit of taking the christian religion for granted could make men miss seeing that its account of the conditions of the rise of new cults applied to that in its origin no less than to the rise of any of its sects. as a whole, the argument might form part of gibbon's fifteenth chapter. and even allowing for the slowness of the average believer to see the application of a general sociological law to his own system, there must be inferred a great change in the intellectual climate of scottish life before we can account for smith's general popularity at home as well as abroad after his handling of "enthusiasm and superstition" in the wealth of nations. the fact stands out that the two most eminent thinkers in scotland in the latter half of the eighteenth century were non-christians, [ ] and that their most intellectual associates were in general sympathy with them. § in ireland, at least in dublin, during the earlier part of the century, there occurred, on a smaller scale, a similar movement of rationalism, also largely associated with shaftesbury. in dublin towards the close of the seventeenth century we have seen molyneux, the friend and correspondent of locke, interested in "freethought," albeit much scared by the imprudence of toland. at the same period there germinated a growth of unitarianism, which was even more fiercely persecuted than that of toland's deism. the rev. thomas emlyn, an englishman, co-pastor of the protestant dissenting congregation of wood street (now strand street), dublin, was found by a presbyterian and a baptist to be heretical on the subject of the trinity, and was indicted in for blasphemy. he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of £ , , which was partly commuted on his release. he protested that south and sherlock and other writers on the trinitarian controversy might have been as justly prosecuted as he; but irish protestant orthodoxy was of a keener scent than english, and emlyn was fain, when released, to return to his native land. [ ] his colleague boyse, like many other churchmen, wished that the unhappy trinitarian controversy "were buried in silence," but was careful to conform doctrinally. more advanced thinkers had double reason to be reticent. as usual, however, persecution provoked the growth it sought to stifle; and after the passing of the irish toleration act of , a more liberal measure than the english, there developed in ulster, and even in dublin, a unitarian movement akin to that proceeding in england. [ ] in the next generation we find in the same city a coterie of shaftesburyans, centring around lord molesworth, the friend of hutcheson, a man of affairs devoted to intellectual interests. it was within a few years of his meeting molesworth that hutcheson produced his inquiry, championing shaftesbury's ideas; [ ] and other literary men were similarly influenced. it is even suggested that hutcheson's clerical friend synge, whom we have seen [ ] in attempting a ratiocinative answer to the unbelief he declared to be abundant around him, was not only influenced by shaftesbury through molesworth, but latterly "avoided publication lest his opinions should prejudice his career in the church." [ ] after the death of molesworth, in , the movement he set up seems to have languished; [ ] but, as we have seen, there were among the irish bishops men given to philosophic controversy, and the influence of berkeley cannot have been wholly obscurantist. when in we read of the arian bishop clayton [ ] proposing in the irish house of lords to drop the nicene and athanasian creeds, we realize that in ireland thought was far from stagnant. the heretic bishop, however, died (february, ) just as he was about to be prosecuted for the anti-athanasian heresies of his last book; and thenceforth ireland plays no noticeable part in the development of rationalism, political interests soon taking the place of religious, with the result that orthodoxy recovered ground. it cannot be doubted that the spectacle of religious wickedness presented by the operation of the odious penal laws against catholics, and the temper of the protestant ascendancy party in religious matters, had bred rational skepticism in ireland in the usual way. molesworth stands out in irish history as a founder of a new and saner patriotism; and his doctrines would specially appeal to men of a secular and critical way of thinking. heretical bishops imply heretical laymen. but the environment was unpropitious to dispassionate thinking. the very relaxation of the penal code favoured a reversion to "moderate" orthodoxy; and the new political strifes of the last quarter of the century, destined as they were to be reopened in the next, determined the course of irish culture in another way. § in england, meanwhile, there was beginning the redistribution of energies which can be seen to have prepared for the intellectual and political reaction of the end of the century. there had been no such victory of faith as is supposed to have been wrought by the forensic theorem of butler. an orthodox german observer, making a close inquest about , cites the british magazine as stating in that half the educated people were then deists; and he, after full inquiry, agrees. [ ] in the same year, richardson speaks tragically in the postscriptum to clarissa of seeing "skepticism and infidelity openly avowed, and even endeavoured to be propagated from the press; the great doctrines of the gospel brought into question"; and he describes himself as "seeking to steal in with a disguised plea for religion." instead of being destroyed by the clerical defence, the deistic movement had really penetrated the church, which was become as rationalistic in its methods as its function would permit, and the educated classes, which had arrived at a state of compromise. pope, the chief poet of the preceding generation, had been visibly deistic in his thinking; as dryden had inferribly been before him; and to such literary prestige was added the prestige of scholarship. the academic conyers middleton, whose letter from rome had told so heavily against christianity in exposing the pagan derivations of much of catholicism, and who had further damaged the doctrine of inspiration in his anonymous letter to dr. waterland ( ), while professing to refute tindal, had carried to yet further lengths his service to the critical spirit. in his famous free inquiry into the miracles of post-apostolic christianity ( ), again professing to strike at rome, he had laid the foundations of a new structure of comparative criticism, and had given permanent grounds for rejecting the miracles of the sacred books. middleton's book appeared a year after hume's essay of miracles, and it made out no such philosophic case as hume's against the concept of miracle; but it created at once, by its literary brilliance and its cogent argument, a sensation such as had thus far been made neither by hume's philosophic argument nor by francklin's anticipation of that. [ ] middleton had duly safeguarded himself by positing the certainty of the gospel miracles and of those wrought by the apostles, on the old principle [ ] that prodigies were divinely arranged so far forth as was necessary to establish christianity, but no further. "the history of the gospel," he writes, "i hope may be true, though the history of the church be fabulous." [ ] but his argument against post-apostolic miracles is so strictly naturalistic that no vigilant reader could fail to realize its fuller bearing upon all miracles whatsoever. with hume and francklin, he insisted that facts incredible in themselves could not be established by any amount or kind of testimony; and he suggested no measure of comparative credibility as between the two orders of miracle. with the deists in general, he argued that knowledge "either of the ways or will of the creator" was to be had only through study of "that revelation which he made of himself from the beginning in the beautiful fabric of this visible world." [ ] an antagonist accordingly wrote that his theses were: "first, that there were no miracles wrought in the primitive church; secondly, that all the primitive fathers were fools or knaves, and most of them both one and the other. and it is easy to observe, the whole tenor of your argument tends to prove, thirdly, that no miracles were wrought by christ or his apostles; and fourthly, that these too were fools or knaves, or both." [ ] a more temperate opponent pressed the same point in less explosive language. citing middleton's demand for an inductive method, this critic asks with much point: "what does he mean by 'deserting the path of nature and experience,' but giving in to the belief of any miracles, and acknowledging the reality of events contrary to the known effects of the established laws of nature?" [ ] no other answer was seriously possible. in the very act of ostentatiously terming tindal an "infidel," middleton describes an answer made to him by the apologist chapman as a sample of a kind of writing which did "more hurt and discredit" to christianity "than all the attacks of its open adversaries." [ ] in support of the miracles of the gospel and the apostolic history he offers merely conventional pleas: against the miracles related by the fathers he brings to bear an incessant battery of destructive criticism. we may sum up that by the middle of the eighteenth century the essentials of the christian creed, openly challenged for a generation by avowed deists, were abandoned by not a few scholars within the pale of the church, of whom middleton was merely the least reticent. after his death was published his vindication of the inquiry ( ); and in his collected works ( ) was included his reflections on the variations or inconsistencies which are found among the four evangelists, wherein it is demonstrated that "the belief of the inspiration and absolute infallibility of the evangelists seems to be more absurd than even that of transubstantiation itself." [ ] the main grounds of orthodoxy were thus put in doubt in the name of a critical orthodoxy. in short, the deistic movement had done what it lay in it to do. the old evangelical or pietistic view of life was discredited among instructed people, and in this sense it was christianity that had "decayed." its later recovery was economic, not intellectual. thus skelton writes in that "our modern apologists for christianity often defend it on deistical principles" (deism revealed, pref. p. xii. cp. vol. ii, pp. , ). see also sir leslie stephen as cited above, p. , note; and gostwick, german culture and christianity, , pp. - . an interesting instance of liberalizing orthodoxy is furnished by the rev. arthur ashley sykes, who contributed many volumes to the general deistic discussion, some of them anonymously. in the preface to his essay on the truth of the christian religion ( ; nd ed. enlarged, ) sykes remarks that "since ... systematical opinions have been received and embraced in such a manner that it has not been safe to contradict them, the burden of vindicating christianity has been very much increased. its friends have been much embarrassed through fear of speaking against local truths; and its adversaries have so successfully attacked those weaknesses that christianity itself has been deemed indefensible, when in reality the follies of christians alone have been so." were christians left to the simple doctrines of christ and the apostles, he contends, infidelity could make no converts. and at the close of the book he writes: "would to god that christians would be content with the plainness and simplicity of the gospel.... that they would not vend under the name of evangelical truth the absurd and contradictory schemes of ignorant or wicked men! that they would part with that load of rubbish which makes thinking men almost sink under the weight, and gives too great a handle for infidelity!" such writing could not give satisfaction to the ecclesiastical authorities; and as little could sykes's remarkable admission (the principles and connection of natural and revealed religion, , p. ): "when the advantages of revelation are to be specified, i cannot conceive that it should be maintained as necessary to fix a rule of morality. for what one principle of morality is there which the heathen moralists had not asserted or maintained? before ever any revelation is offered to mankind they are supposed to be so well acquainted with moral truths as from them to judge of the truth of the revelation itself." again he writes:-- "nor can revelation be necessary to ascertain religion. for religion consisting in nothing but doing our duties from a sense of the being of god, revelation is not necessary to this end, unless it be said that we cannot know that there is a god, and what our duties are, without it. reason will teach us that there is a god ... that we are to be just and charitable to our neighbours; that we are to be temperate and sober in ourselves" (id. p. ). this is simple shaftesburyan deism, and all that the apologist goes on to contend for is that revelation "contains motives and reasons for the practice of what is right, more and different from what natural reason without this help can suggest." he seems, however, to have believed in miracles, though an anonymous essay on the nature, design, and origin of sacrifices ( ) which is ascribed to him quietly undermines the whole evangelical doctrine. throughout, he is remarkable for the amenity of his tone towards "infidels." balguy, a man of less ability, is notably latitudinarian in his theology. in the very act of criticizing the deists, he complains of locke's arbitrariness in deriving morality from the will of god. religion, he argues, is so derived, but morality is inherent in the whole nature of things, and is the same for god and men. this position, common to the school of clarke, is at bottom that of shaftesbury and the naturalists. all that balguy says for religion is that a doctrine of rewards and punishments is necessary to stimulate the average moral sense; and that the christian story of the condescension of omnipotence in coming to earth and suffering misery for man's sake ought to overwhelm the imagination! (see a letter to a deist, nd ed. , pp. , , , ; foundation of moral goodness, pt. ii, , p. sq.) the next intellectual step in natural course would have been a revision of the deistic assumptions, insofar, that is, as certain positive assumptions were common to the deists. but, as we have seen, certain fresh issues were raised as among the deists themselves. in addition to those above noted, there was the profoundly important one as to ethics. shaftesbury, who rejected the religious basis, held a creed of optimism; and this optimism was assailed by mandeville, who in consequence was opposed as warmly by the deist hutcheson and others as by law and berkeley. to grapple with this problem, and with the underlying cosmic problem, there was needed at least as much general mental activity as went to the antecedent discussion; and the main activity of the nation was now being otherwise directed. the negative process, the impeachment of christian supernaturalism, had been accomplished so far as the current arguments went. toland and collins had fought the battle of free discussion, forcing ratiocination on the church; collins had shaken the creed of prophecy; shaftesbury had impugned the religious conception of morals; and mandeville had done so more profoundly, laying the foundations of scientific utilitarianism. [ ] so effective had been the utilitarian propaganda in general that the orthodox brown (author of the once famous estimate of the life of his countrymen), in his criticism of shaftesbury ( ), wrote as a pure utilitarian against an inconsistent one, and defended christianity on strictly utilitarian lines. woolston, following up collins, had shaken the faith in new testament miracles; middleton had done it afresh with all the decorum that woolston lacked; and hume had laid down with masterly clearness the philosophic principle which rebuts all attempts to prove miracles as such. [ ] tindal had clinched the case for "natural" theism as against revelationism; and the later deists, notably morgan, had to some extent combined these results. [ ] this literature was generally distributed; and so far the case had been thrashed out. § to carry intellectual progress much further there was needed a general movement of scientific study and a reform in education. the translation of la mettrie's man a machine ( ) [ ] found a public no better prepared for the problems he raised than that addressed by strutt eighteen years before; and the reply of luzac, man more than a machine, in the preface to which the translator ( ) declared that "irreligion and infidelity overspread the land," probably satisfied what appetite there was for such a discussion. there had begun a change in the prevailing mental life, a diversion of interest from ideas as such to political and mercantile interests. the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century is the period of the rise of ( ) the new machine industries, and ( ) the new imperialistic policy of chatham. [ ] both alike withdrew men from problems of mere belief, whether theological or scientific. [ ] that the reaction was not one of mere fatigue over deism we have already seen. it was a general diversion of energy, analogous to what had previously taken place in france in the reign of louis xiv. as the poet gray, himself orthodox, put the case in , "the mode of freethinking has given place to the mode of not thinking at all." [ ] in hume's opinion the general pitch of national intelligence south of the tweed was lowered. [ ] this state of things of course was favourable to religious revival; but what took place was rather a new growth of emotional pietism in the new industrial masses (the population being now on a rapid increase), under the ministry of the wesleys and whitefield, and a further growth of similar religion in the new provincial middle-class that grew up on the industrial basis. the universities all the while were at the lowest ebb of culture, but officially rabid against philosophic freethinking. [ ] it would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that all this meant a dying out of deism among the educated classes. the statement of goldsmith, about , that deists in general "have been driven into a confession of the necessity of revelation, or an open avowal of atheism," [ ] is not to be taken seriously. goldsmith, whose own orthodoxy is very doubtful, had a whimsical theory that skepticism, though it might not injure morals, has a "manifest tendency to subvert the literary merits" of any country; [ ] and argued accordingly. deism, remaining fashionable, did but fall partly into the background of living interests, the more concrete issues of politics and the new imaginative literature occupying the foreground. it was early in the reign of george iii that sir william blackstone, having had the curiosity to listen in succession to the preaching of every clergyman in london, "did not hear a single discourse which had more christianity in it than the writings of cicero," and declared that it would have been impossible for him to discover from what he heard whether the preacher were a follower of confucius, of mahomet, or of christ. [ ] when the church was thus deistic, the educated laity can have been no less so. the literary status of deism after was really higher than ever. it was now represented by hume; by adam smith (moral sentiments, ); by the scholarship of conyers middleton; and by the posthumous works ( - ) of lord bolingbroke, who, albeit more of a debater than a thinker, debated often with masterly skill, in a style unmatched for harmony and energetic grace, which had already won him a great literary prestige, though the visible insincerity of his character, and the habit of browbeating, always countervailed his charm. his influence, commonly belittled, was much greater than writers like johnson would admit; and it went deep. voltaire, who had been his intimate, tells [ ] that he had known some young pupils of bolingbroke who altogether denied the historic actuality of the gospel jesus--a stretch of criticism beyond the assimilative power of that age. his motive to write for posthumous publication, however, seems rather to have been the venting of his tumultuous feelings than any philosophic purpose. an overweening deist, he is yet at much pains to disparage the à priori argument for deism, bestowing some of his most violent epithets on dr. samuel clarke, who seems to have exasperated him in politics. but his castigation of "divines" is tolerably impartial on that side; and he is largely concerned to deprive them of grounds for their functions, though he finally insists that churches are necessary for purposes of public moral teaching. his own teachings represent an effort to rationalize deism. the god whom he affirms is to be conceived or described only as omnipotent and omniscient (or all-wise), not as good or benevolent any more than as vindictive. thus he had assimilated part of the spinozistic and the atheistic case against anthropomorphism, while still using anthropomorphic language on the score that "we must speak of god after the manner of men." beyond this point he compromises to the extent of denying special while admitting collective or social providences; though he is positive in his denial of the actuality or the moral need of a future state. as to morals he takes the ordinary deistic line, putting the innate "law of nature" as the sufficient and only revelation by the deity to his creatures. on the basis of that inner testimony he rejects the old testament as utterly unworthy of deity, but endorses the universal morality found in the gospels, while rejecting their theology. it was very much the deism of voltaire, save that it made more concessions to anti-theistic logic. the weak side of bolingbroke's polemic was its inconsistency--a flaw deriving from his character. in the spirit of a partisan debater he threw out at any point any criticism that appeared for the moment plausible; and, having no scientific basis or saving rectitude, would elsewhere take up another and a contradictory position. careful antagonists could thus discredit him by mere collation of his own utterances. [ ] but, the enemy being no more consistent than he, his influence was not seriously affected in the world of ordinary readers; and much of his attack on "divines," on dogmas, and on old testament morality must have appealed to many, thus carrying on the discredit of orthodoxy in general. leland devoted to him an entire volume of his view of the principal deistical writers, and in all bestows more space upon him than on all the others together--a sufficient indication of his vogue. in his lifetime, however, bolingbroke had been extremely careful to avoid compromising himself. mr. arthur hassall, in his generally excellent monograph on bolingbroke (statesmen series, , p. ), writes, in answer to the attack of johnson, that "bolingbroke, during his lifetime, had never scrupled to publish criticisms, remarkable for their freedom, on religious subjects." i cannot gather to what he refers; and mr. walter sichel, in his copious biography ( vols. - ), indicates no such publications. the letters on the study and use of history, which contain (lett. iii, sect. ) a skeptical discussion of the pentateuch as history, though written in - , were only posthumously published, in . the examen important de milord bolingbroke, produced by voltaire in , but dated , is voltaire's own work, based on bolingbroke. in his letter to swift of september , (swift's works, scott's ed. , xvi, - ), bolingbroke angrily repudiates the title of esprit fort, declaring, in the very temper in which pious posterity has aspersed himself, that "such are the pests of society, because they endeavour to loosen the bands of it.... i therefore not only disown, but i detest, this character." in this letter he even affects to believe in "the truth of the divine revelation of christianity." he began to write his essays, it is true, before his withdrawal to france in , but with no intention of speedily publishing them. in his letter to mr. pope (published with the letter to wyndham, ), p. , he writes: "i have been a martyr of faction in politics, and have no vocation to be so in philosophy." cp. pp. - . it is thus a complete blunder on the part of bagehot to say (literary studies, hutton's ed. iii, ) that butler's analogy, published in , was "designed as a confutation of shaftesbury and bolingbroke." it is even said (warton, essay on pope, th ed. ii, - ) that pope did not know bolingbroke's real opinions; but pope's untruthfulness was such as to discredit such a statement. cp. bolingbroke's letter as cited, p. , and his philosophical works, vo-ed. , ii, . it is noteworthy that a volume of controversial sermons entitled a preservative against unsettled notions and want of principles in religion, so entirely stupid in its apologetics as to be at times positively entertaining, was published in by joseph trapp, m.a., "chaplain to the right honble. the lord viscount bolingbroke." in seeking to estimate bolingbroke's posthumous influence we have to remember that after the publication of his works the orthodox members of his own party, who otherwise would have forgiven him all his vices and insincerities, have held him up to hatred. scott, for instance, founding on bolingbroke's own dishonest denunciation of freethinkers as men seeking to loosen the bands of society, pronounced his arrangement for the posthumous issue of his works "an act of wickedness more purely diabolical than any hitherto upon record in the history of any age or nation" (note to bolingbroke's letter above cited in swift's works, xvi, ). it would be an error, on the other hand, to class him among either the great sociologists or the great philosophers. mr. sichel undertakes to show (vol. ii, ch. x) that bolingbroke had stimulated gibbon to a considerable extent in his treatment of early christianity. this is in itself quite probable, and some of the parallels cited are noteworthy; but mr. sichel, who always writes as a panegyrist, makes no attempt to trace the common french sources for both. he does show that voltaire manipulated bolingbroke's opinions in reproducing them. but he does not critically recognize the incoherence of bolingbroke's eloquent treatises. mr. hassall's summary is nearer the truth; but that in turn does not note how well fitted was bolingbroke's swift and graceful declamation to do its work with the general public, which (if it accepted him at all) would make small account of self-contradiction. § in view of such a reinforcement of its propaganda, deism could not be regarded as in the least degree written down. in , in fact, we find diderot recounting, on the authority of d'holbach, who had just returned from a visit to this country, that "the christian religion is nearly extinct in england. the deists are innumerable; there are almost no atheists; those who are so conceal it. an atheist and a scoundrel are almost synonymous terms for them." [ ] nor did the output of deistic literature end with the posthumous works of bolingbroke. these were followed by translations of the new writings of voltaire, [ ] who had assimilated the whole propaganda of english deism, and gave it out anew with a wit and brilliancy hitherto unknown in argumentative and critical literature. the freethinking of the third quarter of the century, though kept secondary to more pressing questions, was thus at least as deeply rooted and as convinced as that of the first quarter; and it was probably not much less common among educated men, though new social influences caused it to be more decried. the hapless chatterton, fatally precocious, a boy in years and experience of life, a man in understanding at seventeen, incurred posthumous obloquy more for his "infidelity" than for the harmless literary forgeries which reveal his poetic affinity to a less prosaic age. it is a memorable fact that this first recovery of the lost note of imaginative poetry in that "age of prose and reason" is the exploit of a boy whose mind was as independently "freethinking" on current religion as it was original even in its imitative reversion to the poetics of the past. turning away from the impossible mythicism and mysticism of the tudor and stuart literatures, as from the fanaticism of the puritans, the changing english world after the restoration had let fall the artistic possession of imaginative feeling and style which was the true glory of the time of renascence. the ill-strung genius of chatterton seems to have been the first to reunite the sense of romantic beauty with the spirit of critical reason. he was a convinced deist, avowing in his verse, in his pathetic will ( ), in a late letter, and at times in his talk, that he was "no christian," and contemning the ethic of scripture history and the absurdity of literal inspiration. [ ] many there must have been who went as far, with less courage of avowal. what was lacking to the age, once more, was a social foundation on which it could not only endure but develop. in a nation of which the majority had no intellectual culture, such a foundation could not exist. green exaggerates [ ] when he writes that "schools there were none, save the grammar schools of edward and elizabeth"; [ ] but by another account only twelve public schools were founded in the long reign of george iii; [ ] and, as a result of the indifference of two generations, masses of the people "were ignorant and brutal to a degree which it is hard to conceive." [ ] a great increase of population had followed on the growth of towns and the development of commerce and manufactures even between and ; [ ] and thereafter the multiplication was still more rapid. there was thus a positive fall in the culture standards of the majority of the people. according to massey, "hardly any tradesman in had more instruction than qualified him to add up a bill"; and "a labourer, mechanic, or domestic servant who could read or write possessed a rare accomplishment." [ ] as for the charity schools established between and , their express object was to rear humble tradesmen and domestics, not to educate in the proper sense of the term. in the view of life which accepted this state of things the educated deists seem to have shared; at least, there is no record of any agitation by them for betterment. the state of political thought was typified in the struggle over "wilkes and liberty," from which cool temperaments like hume's turned away in contempt; and it is significant that poor men were persecuted for freethinking while the better-placed went free. jacob ilive, for denying in a pamphlet ( ) the truth of revelation, was pilloried thrice, and sent to hard labour for three years. in the grand jury of middlesex "presented" the editor and publisher of bolingbroke's posthumous works [ ]--a distinction that in the previous generation had been bestowed on mandeville's fable of the bees; and in , as before noted, peter annet, aged seventy, was pilloried twice and sent to prison for discrediting the pentateuch; as if that were a more serious offence than his former attacks on the gospels and on st. paul. the personal influence of george iii, further, told everywhere against freethinking; and the revival of penalties would have checked publishing even if there had been no withdrawal of interest to politics. yet more or less freethinking treatises did appear at intervals in addition to the works of the better-known writers, such as bolingbroke and hume, after the period commonly marked as that of the "decline of deism." in the list may be included a few by unitarians, who at this stage were doing critical work. like a number of the earlier works above mentioned, the following (save evanson) are overlooked in sir leslie stephen's survey:-- . essay on natural religion. falsely attributed to dryden. . deism fairly stated and fully vindicated, etc. anon. . j. g. cooper, life of socrates. . john dove, a creed founded on truth and common sense. . the british oracle. (two numbers only.) . the pillars of priestcraft and orthodoxy shaken. four vols. of freethinking pamphlets, collected (and some written) by thomas gordon, formerly secretary to trenchard. edited by r. barron. (rep. .) . w. dudgeon, philosophical works (reprints of those of , - , - , - , above mentioned). privately printed--at glasgow? . e. evanson, the doctrines of a trinity and the incarnation, etc. . ---- three discourses ( . upon the man after god's own heart; . upon the faith of abraham; . upon the seal of the foundation of god). . ---- letter to bishop hurd. . w. nicholson, the doubts of the infidels. (rep. by r. carlile.) . w. turner, answer to dr. priestley's letters to a philosophical unbeliever. . dr. g. hoggart toulmin, the antiquity and duration of the world. . ---- the eternity of the universe. [ ] (rep. .) . dr. t. cooper, tracts, ethical, theological, and political. . e. evanson, the dissonance of the four evangelists. (rep. .) . dr. j. a. o'keefe, on the progress of the human understanding. . john c. davies, the scripturian's creed. prosecuted and imprisoned. (book rep. and .) of the work here noted a considerable amount was done by unitarians, evanson being of that persuasion, though at the time of writing his earlier unitarian works he was an anglican vicar. [ ] during the first half of the eighteenth century, despite the movement at the end of the seventeenth, specific anti-trinitarianism was not much in evidence, the deistic controversy holding the foreground. but gradually unitarianism made fresh headway. one dissenting clergyman, martin tomkyns, who had been dismissed by his congregation at stoke newington for his "arian or unitarian opinions," published in a sober appeal to a turk or an indian, concerning the plain sense of the trinity, in reply to the treatise of dr. isaac watts on the christian doctrine of the trinity. a second edition of tomkyns's book appeared in , with a further reply to watts's dissertations of . the result seems to have been an unsettlement of the orthodoxy of the hymn-writer. there is express testimony from dr. lardner, a very trustworthy witness, that watts in his latter years, "before he was seized with an imbecility of his faculties," was substantially a unitarian. his special papers on the subject were suppressed by his executors; but the full text of his solemn address to the great and blessed god goes far to bear out lardner's express assertion. [ ] other prominent religionists were more outspoken. the most distinguished names associated with the position were those of lardner and priestley, of whom the former, trained as a simple "dissenter," avowedly reached his conclusions without much reference to socinian literature; [ ] and the second, who was similarly educated, no less independently gave up the doctrines of the atonement and the trinity, passing later from the arian to the socinian position after reading lardner's letter on the logos. [ ] as priestley derived his determinism from collins, [ ] it would appear that the deistical movement had set up a general habit of reasoning which thus wrought even on christians who, like lardner and priestley, undertook to rebut the objections of unbelievers to their faith. a generally rationalistic influence is to be noted in the works of the unitarian antipædobaptist dr. joshua toulmin, author of lives of socinus ( ) and biddle ( ), and many other solid works, including a sermon on "the injustice of classing unitarians with deists and infidels" ( ). in his case the "classing" was certainly inconvenient. in the effigy of paine was burned before his door, and his windows broken. his house was saved by being closely guarded; but his businesses of schoolkeeping and bookselling had to be given up. it thus becomes intelligible how, after a period in which dissent, contemned by the state church, learned to criticize that church's creed, there emerged in england towards the close of the eighteenth century a fresh movement of specific unitarianism. evanson and toulmin were scholarly writers, though without the large learning of lardner and the propagandist energy and reputation of priestley; and the unitarian movement, in a quiet fashion, made a numerical progress out of all proportion to that of orthodoxy. it owed much of its immunity at this stage, doubtless, to the large element of tacit deism in the church; and apart from the scholarly work of lardner both priestley and evanson did something for new testament criticism, as well as towards the clearing-up of christian origins. evanson was actually prosecuted in , on local initiative, for a sermon of unitarian character delivered by him in the parish church of tewkesbury on easter-day of ; and, what is much more remarkable, members of his congregation, at a single defence-meeting in an inn, collected £ to meet his costs. [ ] five years later he had given up the belief in eternal punishment, though continuing to believe in "long protracted" misery for sinners. [ ] still later, after producing his dissonance, he became uncommonly drastic in his handling of the canon. he lived well into the nineteenth century, and published in a vigorous tractate, second thoughts on the trinity, recommended to the right reverend the lord bishop of gloucester. in that he treats the first gospel as a forgery of the second century. the method is indiscriminating, and the author lays much uncritical stress upon prophecy. on the whole, the unitarian contribution to rational thought, then as later, was secondary or ancillary, though on the side of historical investigation it was important. lardner's candour is as uncommon as his learning; and priestley [ ] and evanson have a solvent virtue. [ ] in all three the limitation lies in the fixed adherence to the concept of revelation, which withheld them from radical rationalism even as it did from arianism. evanson's ultra-orthodox acceptance of the apocalypse is significant of his limitations; and priestley's calibre is indicated by his life-long refusal to accept the true scientific inference from his own discovery of oxygen. a more pronounced evolution was that of the welsh deist david williams, who, after publishing two volumes of sermons on religious hypocrisy ( ), gave up his post as a dissenting preacher, and, in conjunction with franklin and other freethinkers, opened a short-lived deistic chapel in margaret street, london ( ), where there was used a "liturgy on the universal principles of religion and morality." [ ] § on the other hand, apart from the revival of popular religion under whitefield and wesley, which won multitudes of the people whom no higher culture could reach, there was no recovery of educated belief upon intellectual lines; though there was a steady detachment of energy to the new activities of conquest and commerce which mark the second half of the eighteenth century in england. on this state of things supervened the massive performance of the greatest historical writer england had yet produced. gibbon, educated not by oxford but by the recent scholarly literature of france, had as a mere boy seen, on reading bossuet, the theoretic weakness of protestantism, and had straightway professed romanism. shaken as to that by a skilled swiss protestant, he speedily became a rationalist pure and simple, with as little of the dregs of deism in him as any writer of his age; and his great work begins, or rather signalizes (since hume and robertson preceded him), a new era of historical writing, not merely by its sociological treatment of the rise of christianity, but by its absolutely anti-theological handling of all things. the importance of the new approach may be at once measured by the zeal of the opposition. in no case, perhaps, has the essentially passional character of religious resistance to new thought been more vividly shown than in that of the contemporary attacks upon gibbon's history. there is not to be found in controversial literature such another annihilating rejoinder as was made by gibbon to the clerical zealots who undertook to confound him on points of scholarship, history, and ratiocination. the contrast between the mostly spiteful incompetence of the attack and the finished mastery of the reply put the faith at a disadvantage from which it never intellectually recovered, though other forces reinstated it socially. by the admission of macaulay, who thought gibbon "most unfair" to religion, the whole troup of his assailants are now "utterly forgotten"; and those orthodox commentators who later sought to improve on their criticism have in turn, with a notable uniformity, been rebutted by their successors; till gibbon's critical section ranks as the first systematically scientific handling of the problem of the rise of christianity. he can be seen to have profited by all the relevant deistic work done before him, learning alike from toland, from middleton, and from bolingbroke; though his acknowledgments are mostly paid to respectable protestants and catholics, as basnage, beausobre, lardner, mosheim, and tillemont; and the sheer solidity of the work has sustained it against a hundred years of hostile comment. [ ] while gibbon was thus earning for his country a new literary distinction, the orthodox interest was concerned above all things to convict him of ignorance, incompetence, and dishonesty; and davis, the one of his assailants who most fully manifested all of these qualities, and who will long be remembered solely from gibbon's deadly exposure, was rewarded with a royal pension. another, apthorp, received an archiepiscopal living; while chelsum, the one who almost alone wrote against him like a gentleman, got nothing. but no cabal could avail to prevent the instant recognition, at home and abroad, of the advent of a new master in history; and in the worst times of reaction which followed, the history of the decline and fall of the roman empire impassively defied the claims of the ruling creed. in a literary world which was eagerly reading gibbon [ ] and voltaire, [ ] there was a peculiar absurdity in burke's famous question ( ) as to "who now reads bolingbroke" and the rest of the older deists. [ ] the fashionable public was actually reading bolingbroke even then; [ ] and the work of the older deists was being done with new incisiveness and thoroughness by their successors. [ ] in the unstudious world of politics, if the readers were few the indifferentists were many. evanson could truthfully write to bishop hurd in that "that general unbelief of revealed religion among the higher orders of our countrymen, which, however your lordship and i might differ in our manner of accounting for it, is too notorious for either of us to doubt of, hath, by a necessary consequence, produced in the majority of our present legislators an absolute indifference towards religious questions of every kind." [ ] beside burke in parliament, all the while, was the prime minister, william pitt the younger, an agnostic deist. whether or not the elder pitt was a deist, the younger gave very plain signs of being at least no more. gladstone (studies subsidiary to the works of bishop butler, ed. , pp. - ) has sought to discredit the recorded testimony of wilberforce (life of wilberforce, , i, ) that pitt told him "bishop butler's work raised in his mind more doubts than it had answered." gladstone points to another passage in wilberforce's diary which states that pitt "commended butler's analogy" (life, i, ). but the context shows that pitt had commended the book for the express purpose of turning wilberforce's mind from its evangelical bias. wilberforce was never a deist, and the purpose accordingly could not have been to make him orthodox. the two testimonies are thus perfectly consistent; especially when we note the further statement credibly reported to have been made by wilberforce (life, i, ), that pitt later "tried to reason me out of my convictions." we have yet further the emphatic declaration of pitt's niece, lady hester stanhope, that he "never went to church in his life ... never even talked about religion" (memoirs of lady hester stanhope, , iii, - ). this was said in emphatic denial of the genuineness of the unctuous death-bed speech put in pitt's mouth by gifford. lady hester's high veracity is accredited by her physician (travels of lady hester stanhope, , i, pref. p. ). no such character can be given to the conventional english biography of the period. we have further to note the circumstantial account by wilberforce in his letter to the rev. s. gisborne immediately after pitt's death (correspondence, , ii, - ), giving the details he had had in confidence from the bishop of lincoln. they are to the effect that, after some demur on pitt's part ("that he was not worthy to offer up any prayer, or was too weak,") the bishop prayed with him once. wilberforce adds his "fear" that "no further religious intercourse took place before or after, and i own i thought what was inserted in the papers impossible to be true." there is clear testimony that charles james fox, pitt's illustrious rival, was no more of a believer than he, [ ] though equally careful to make no profession of unbelief. and it was fox who, above all the english statesmen of his day, fought the battle of religious toleration [ ]--a service which finally puts him above burke, and atones for many levities of political action. among thinking men too the nascent science of geology was setting up a new criticism of "revelation"--this twenty years before the issue of the epoch-making works of hutton. [ ] in england the impulse seems to have come from the writings of the abbé langlet du fresnoy, de maillet, and mirabaud, challenging the biblical account of the antiquity of the earth. the new phase of "infidelity" was of course furiously denounced, one of the most angry and most absurd of its opponents being the poet cowper. [ ] still rationalism persisted. paley, writing in , protests that "infidelity is now served up in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination, in a fable, a tale, a novel, or a poem, in interspersed or broken hints, remote and oblique surmises, in books of travel, of philosophy, of natural history--in a word, in any form rather than that of a professed and regular disquisition." [ ] the orthodox dr. j. ogilvie, in the introduction to his inquiry into the causes of the infidelity and skepticism of the times ( ), begins: "that the opinions of the deists and skeptics have spread more universally during a part of the last century and in the present than at any former æra since the resurrection of letters, is a truth to which the friends and the enemies of religion will give their suffrage without hesitation." in short, until the general reversal of all progress which followed on the french revolution, there had been no such change of opinion as burke alleged. one of the most popular poets and writers of the day was the celebrated erasmus darwin, a deist, whose zoonomia ( ) brought on him the charge of atheism, as it well might. however he might poetize about the creator, dr. darwin in his verse and prose alike laid the foundations of the doctrines of the transmutation of species and the aqueous origin of simple forms of life which evolved into higher forms; though the idea of the descent of man from a simian species had been broached before him by buffon and helvétius in france, and lords kames and monboddo in scotland. the idea of a natura naturans was indeed ancient; but it has been authoritatively said of erasmus darwin that "he was the first who proposed and consistently carried out a well-rounded theory with regard to the development of the living world--a merit which shines forth more brilliantly when we compare it with the vacillating and confused attempts of buffon, linnæus, and goethe. it is the idea of a power working from within the organisms to improve their natural position" [ ]--the idea which, developed by lamarck, was modified by the great darwin of the nineteenth century into the doctrine of natural selection. and in the closing years of the century there arose a new promise of higher life in the apparition of mary wollstonecraft, ill-starred but noble, whose letters on sweden, norway, and denmark ( ) show her to have been a freethinking deist of remarkable original faculty, [ ] and whose vindication of the rights of woman ( ) was the first great plea for the emancipation of her sex. § even in rural scotland, the vogue of the poetry of burns told of germinal doubt. to say nothing of his mordant satires on pietistic types--notably holy willie's prayer, his masterpiece in that line--burns even in his avowed poems [ ] shows small regard for orthodox beliefs; and his letters reveal him as substantially a deist, shading into a unitarian. such pieces as a prayer in the prospect of death, and a prayer under the pressure of violent anguish, are plainly unevangelical; [ ] and the allusions to jesus in his letters, even when writing to mrs. maclehose, who desired to bring him to confession, exclude orthodox belief, [ ] though they suggest unitarianism. he frequently refers to religion in his letters, yet so constantly restricts himself to the affirmation of a belief in a benevolent god and in a future state that he cannot be supposed to have held the further beliefs which his orthodox correspondents would wish him to express. a rationalistic habit is shown even in his professions of belief, as here: "still i am a very sincere believer in the bible; but i am drawn by the conviction of a man, not the halter of an ass"; [ ] and in the passage: "though i have no objection to what the christian system tells us of another world, yet i own i am partial to those proofs and ideas of it which we have wrought out of our own heads and hearts." [ ] withal, burns always claimed to be "religious," and was so even in a somewhat conventional sense. the lines: an atheist-laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended [ ] exhibit a sufficiently commonplace conception of omnipotence; and there is no sign that the poet ever did any hard thinking on the problem. but, emotionalist of genius as he was, his influence as a satirist and mitigator of the crudities and barbarities of scots religion has been incalculably great, and underlies all popular culture progress in scotland since his time. constantly aspersed in his own day and world as an "infidel," he yet from the first conquered the devotion of the mass of his countrymen; though he would have been more potent for intellectual liberation if he had been by them more intelligently read. few of them now, probably, realize that their adored poet was either a deist or a unitarian--presumably the former. § with the infelicity in prediction which is so much commoner with him than the "prescience" for which he is praised, burke had announced that the whole deist school "repose in lasting oblivion." the proposition would be much more true of out of every thousand writers on behalf of christianity. it is characteristic of burke, however, that he does not name shaftesbury, a whig nobleman of the sacred period. [ ] a seeming justice was given to burke's phrase by the undoubted reaction which took place immediately afterwards. in the vast panic which followed on the french revolution, the multitude of mediocre minds in the middle and upper classes, formerly deistic or indifferent, took fright at unbelief as something now visibly connected with democracy and regicide; new money endowments were rapidly bestowed on the church; and orthodoxy became fashionable on political grounds just as skepticism had become fashionable at the restoration. class interest and political prejudice wrought much in both cases; only in opposite directions. democracy was no longer bibliolatrous, therefore aristocracy was fain to became so, or at least to grow respectful towards the church as a means of social control. gibbon, in his closing years, went with the stream. and as religious wars have always tended to discredit religion, so a war partly associated with the freethinking of the french revolutionists tended to discredit freethought. the brutish wrecking of priestley's house and library and chapel by a mob at birmingham in was but an extreme manifestation of a reaction which affected every form of mental life. but while priestley went to die in the united states, another english exile, temporarily returned thence to his native land, was opening a new era of popular rationalism. even in the height of the revolutionary tumult, and while burke was blustering about the disappearance of unbelief, thomas paine was laying deep and wide the english foundations of a new democratic freethought; and the upper-class reaction in the nature of the case was doomed to impermanency, though it was to arrest english intellectual progress for over a generation. the french revolution had re-introduced freethought as a vital issue, even in causing it to be banned as a danger. that freethought at the end of the century was rather driven inwards and downwards than expelled is made clear by the multitude of fresh treatises on christian evidences. growing numerous after , they positively swarm for a generation after paley ( ). cp. essays on the evidence and influence of christianity, bath, , pref.; andrew fuller, the gospel its own witness, , pref. and concluding address to deists; watson's sermon of , in two apologies, ed. , p. ; priestley's memoirs (written in ), , pp. - ; wilberforce's practical view, , passim (e.g., pp. - , th ed. ); rev. d. simpson, a plea for religion ... addressed to the disciples of thomas paine, . the latter writer states ( nd ed. p. ) that "infidelity is at this moment running like wildfire among the common people"; and fuller ( nd ed. p. ) speaks of the monthly magazine as "pretty evidently devoted to the cause of infidelity." a pamphlet on the rise and dissolution of the infidel societies in this metropolis (london, ), by w. hamilton reid, describes the period as the first "in which the doctrines of infidelity have been extensively circulated among the lower orders"; and a summary of christian evidences, by bishop porteous ( ; th ed. ), affirms, in agreement with the report of the lords' committee on treasonable societies, that "new compendiums of infidelity, and new libels on christianity, are dispersed continually, with indefatigable industry, through every part of the kingdom, and every class of the community." freethought, in short, was becoming democratized. as regards england, paine is the great popular factor; and it is the bare truth to say that he brought into the old debate a new earnestness and a new moral impetus. the first part of the age of reason, hastily put together in expectation of speedy death in , and including some astronomic matter that apparently antedates , [ ] is a swift outline of the position of the rationalizing deist, newly conscious of firm standing-ground in astronomic science. that is the special note of paine's gospel. he was no scholar; and the champions of the "religion of galilee" have always been prompt to disparage any unlearned person who meddles with religion as an antagonist; but in the second part of his book paine put hard criticism enough to keep a world of popular readers interested for well over a hundred years. the many replies are forgotten: the biblical criticism of paine will continue to do its work till popular orthodoxy follows the lead of professional scholarship and gives up at once the acceptance and the circulation of things incredible and indefensible as sacrosanct. mr. benn (hist. of eng. rationalism in the nineteenth century, i, ) remarks that paine's new testament criticisms are "such as at all times would naturally occur to a reader of independent mind and strong common sense." if so, these had been up to paine's time, and remained long afterwards, rare characteristics. and there is some mistake about mr. benn's criticism that "the repeated charges of fraud and imposture brought against the apostles and evangelists ... jar painfully on a modern ear. but they are largely due to the mistaken notion, shared by paine with his orthodox contemporaries, that the gospels and acts were written by contemporaries and eye-witnesses of the events related." many times over, paine argues that the documents could not have been so written. e.g. in conway's ed. of works, pp. , , , , , , , etc. the reiterated proposition is "that the writers cannot have been eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of what they relate; ... and consequently that the books have not been written by the persons called apostles" (p. ). and there is some exaggeration even in mr. benn's remark that, "strangely enough, he accepts the book of daniel as genuine." paine (ed. p. ) merely puts a balance of probability in favour of the genuineness. it may be sometimes--it is certainly not always--true that paine "cannot distinguish between legendary or [? and] mythical narratives" (benn, p. ); but it is to be feared that the disability subsists to-day in more scholarly quarters. despite his deadly directness, paine, in virtue of his strong sincerity, probably jars much less on the modern ear than he did on that of his own, which was so ready to make felony of any opinion hostile to reigning prejudices. but if it be otherwise, it is to be feared that no less offence will be given by mr. benn's own account of the hexateuch as "the records kept by a lying and bloodthirsty priesthood"; even if that estimate be followed by the very challengeable admission that "priesthoods are generally distinguished for their superior humanity" (benn, p. , and note). henceforth there is a vital difference in the fortunes of freethought and religion alike. always in the past the institutional strength of religion and the social weakness of freethought had lain in the credulity of the ignorant mass, which had turned to naught an infinity of rational effort. after the french revolution, when over a large area the critical spirit began simultaneously to play on faith and life, politics and religion, its doubled activity gave it a new breadth of outlook as of energy, and the slow enlightenment of the mass opened up a new promise for the ultimate reign of reason. chapter xvii french freethought in the eighteenth century . the fruits of the intellectual movement of the seventeenth century are seen beginning to take form on the very threshold of the eighteenth. in , at the height of the reign of the king's confessors, there was privately printed the lettre d'hippocrate à damagète, described as "the first french work openly destructive of christianity." it was ascribed to the comte de boulainvilliers, a pillar of the feudal system. [ ] thus early is the sound of disintegration heard in the composite fabric of church and state; and various fissures are seen in all parts of the structure. the king himself, so long morally discredited, could only discredit pietism by his adoption of it; the jansenists and the molinists [i.e., the school of molina, not of molinos] fought incessantly; even on the side of authority there was bitter dissension between bossuet and fénelon; [ ] and the movement of mysticism associated with the latter came to nothing, though he had the rare credit of converting, albeit to a doubtful orthodoxy, the emotional young scotch deist chevalier ramsay. [ ] where the subtlety of fénelon was not allowed to operate, the loud dialectic of bossuet could not avail for faith as against rationalism, whatever it might do to upset the imperfect logic of protestant sects. in no society, indeed, does mere declamation play a larger part than in that of modern france; but in no society, on the other hand, is mere declamation more sure to be disdained and derided by the keener spirits. in the years of disaster and decadence which rounded off in gloom the life of the grand monarque, with defeat dogging his armies and bankruptcy threatening his finances, the spirit of criticism was not likely to slacken. literary polemic, indeed, was hardly to be thought of at such a time, even if it had been safe. in the king destroyed the jansenist seminary of port royal, wreaking an ignoble vengeance on the very bones of the dead there buried; and more heretical thinkers had need go warily. yet even in those years of calamity, perhaps by reason of the very stress of it, some freethinking books somehow passed the press, though a system of police espionage had been built up by the king, step for step with some real reforms in the municipal government of paris. the first was a romance of the favourite type, in which a traveller discovers a strange land inhabited by surprisingly rational people. such appear to have been the histoire de calejava, by claude gilbert, produced at dijon in , and the imaginary travels of juan de posos, published at amsterdam in . both of these were promptly suppressed; the next contrived to get into circulation. the work of symon tyssot de patot, voyages et avantures de jacques massé, published in , puts in the mouths of priests of the imaginary land discovered by the traveller such mordant arguments against the idea of a resurrection, the story of the fall, and other items of the christian creed, that there could be small question of the deism of the author; [ ] and the prefatory lettre de l'éditeur indicates misgivings. the réflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, by deslandes, ostensibly published at amsterdam in , seems to have had a precarious circulation, inasmuch as brunet never saw the first edition. to permit of the issue of such a book as jacques massé--even at bordeaux--the censure must have been notably lax; as it was again in the year of the king's death, when there appeared a translation of collins's discourse of freethinking. for the moment the government was occupied over an insensate renewal of the old persecution of protestants, promulgating in a decree that all who died after refusing the sacraments should be refused burial, and that their goods should be confiscated. the edict seems to have been in large measure disregarded. . at the same time the continuous output of apologetics testified to the gathering tide of unbelief. the benedictine lami followed up his attack on spinoza with a more popular treatise, l'incrédule amené à la religion par la raison ( ); the abbé genest turned descartes into verse by way of preuves naturelles de l'existence de dieu et de l'immortalité de l'âme ( ); and the anti-lucretius of cardinal polignac ( - ), though only posthumously published in full ( ), did but pass on to the next age, when deism was the prevailing heresy, a deistic argument against atheism. it is difficult to see any christian sentiment in that dialectic performance of a born diplomatist. [ ] when the old king died, even the fashion of conformity passed away among the upper classes; [ ] and the feverish manufacture of apologetic works testifies to an unslackened activity of unbelief. in jean denyse, professor of philosophy at the college of montaigu, produced la vérité de la religion chrétienne demontrée par ordre géométrique (a title apparently suggested by spinoza's early exposition of descartes), without making any permanent impression on heterodox opinion. not more successful, apparently, was the performance of the abbé houteville, first published in . [ ] much more amiable in tone, and more scientific in temper, than the common run of defences, it was found, says an orthodox biographical dictionary, to be "better fitted to make unbelievers than to convert them," seeing that "objections were presented with much force and fulness, and the replies with more amenity than weight." [ ] that the abbé was in fact not rigorously orthodox might almost be suspected from his having been appointed, in the last year of his life ( ), "perpetual secretary" to the académie, an office which somehow tended to fall to more or less freethinking members, being held before him by the abbé dubos, and after him by mirabaud, the abbé duclos, [ ] d'alembert, and marmontel. the traités des premières veritéz of the jesuit father buffier ( ) can hardly have been more helpful to the faith. [ ] another experiment by way of popularizing orthodoxy, the copious histoire du peuple de dieu, by the jesuit berruyer, first published in , [ ] had little better fortune, inasmuch as it scandalized the orthodox by its secularity of tone without persuading the freethinkers. condemned by the bishop of montpellier in , it was censured by rome in ; and the second part, produced long afterwards, aroused even more antagonism. . there was thus no adaptation on the side of the church to the forces which in an increasing degree menaced her rule. under the regency of orléans ( - ), the open disorder of the court on the one hand and the ruin of the disastrous financial experiment of law on the other were at least favourable to toleration; but under the duc de bourbon, put in power and soon superseded by fleury (bishop of fréjus and tutor of louis xv; later cardinal) there was a renewal of the rigours against the protestants and the jansenists; the edict of was renewed; emigration recommenced; and only public outcry checked the policy of persecution on that side. but fleury and the king went on fighting the jansenists; and while this embittered strife of the religious sections could not but favour the growth of freethought, it was incompatible alike with official tolerance of unbelief and with any effectual diffusion of liberal culture. had the terrorism and the waste of louis xiv been followed by a sane system of finance and one of religious toleration; and had not the exhausted and bankrupt country been kept for another half century--save for eight years of peace and prosperity from to --on the rack of ruinous wars, alike under the regency of orléans and the rule of louis xv, the intellectual life might have gone fast and far. as it was, war after war absorbed its energy; and the debt of five milliards left by louis xiv was never seriously lightened. under such a system the vestiges of constitutional government were gradually swept away. . as the new intellectual movement began to find expression, then, it found the forces of resistance more and more organized. in particular, the autocracy long maintained the severest checks on printing, so that freethought could not save by a rare chance attain to open speech. any book with the least tendency to rationalism had to seek printers, or at least publishers, in holland. huard, in publishing his anonymous translation of the hypotyposes of sextus empiricus ( ), is careful to say in his preface that he "makes no application of the pyrrhonian objections to any dogma that may be called theological"; but he goes on to add that the scandalous quarrels of christian sects are well fitted to confirm pyrrhonists in their doubts, the sects having no solid ground on which to condemn each other. as such an assertion was rank heresy, the translation had to be issued in amsterdam, and even there without a publisher's name. [ ] and still it remains clear that the age of louis xiv had passed on to the next a heritage of hidden freethinking, as well as one of debt and misgovernment. what takes place thereafter is rather an evolution of and a clerical resistance to a growth known to have begun previously, and always feared and hated, than any new planting of unbelief in orthodox soil. as we have seen, indeed, a part of the early work of skepticism was done by distinguished apologists. huet, dying in , left for posthumous publication his traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l'esprit humain ( ). it was immediately translated into english and german; and though it was probably found somewhat superfluous in deistic england, and supersubtle in lutheran germany, it helped to prepare the ground for the active unbelief of the next generation in france. . a continuous development may be traced throughout the century. montesquieu, who in his early persian letters ( ) had revealed himself as "fundamentally irreligious" [ ] and a censor of intolerance, [ ] proceeded in his masterly little book on the greatness and decadence of the romans ( ) and his famous spirit of laws ( ) to treat the problems of human history in an absolutely secular and scientific spirit, making only such conventional allusions to religion as were advisable in an age in which all heretical works were suppressible. [ ] the attempts of la harpe and villemain [ ] to establish the inference that he repented his youthful levity in the persian letters, and recognized in christianity the main pillar of society, will not bear examination. the very passages on which they found [ ] are entirely secular in tone and purpose, and tell of no belief. [ ] so late as there appeared a work, les lettres persanes convaincues d'impiété, by the abbé gaultier. the election of montesquieu was in fact the beginning of the struggle between the philosophe party in the academy and their opponents; [ ] and in his own day there was never much doubt about montesquieu's deism. in his posthumous pensées his anti-clericalism is sufficiently emphatic. "churchmen," he writes, "are interested in keeping the people ignorant." he expresses himself as a convinced deist, and, with no great air of conviction, as a believer in immortality. but there his faith ends. "i call piety," he says, "a malady of the heart, which plants in the soul a malady of the most ineradicable kind." "the false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the supreme being to upset nature on our behalf." "three incredibilities among incredibilities: the pure mechanism of animals [the doctrine of descartes]; passive obedience; and the infallibility of the pope." [ ] his heresy was of course divined by the guardians of the faith, through all his panegyric of it. even in his lifetime, jesuits and jansenists combined to attack the spirit of laws, which was denounced at an assembly of the clergy, put on the roman index, and prohibited by the censure until malesherbes came into office in . [ ] the count de cataneo, a venetian noble in the service of the king of prussia, published in french about a treatise on the source, the strength, and the true spirit of laws, [ ] in which the political rationalism and the ethical utilitarianism of cumberland and grotius were alike repelled as irreconcilable with the doctrine of revelation. it was doubtless because of this atmosphere of hostility that on the death of montesquieu at paris, in , diderot was the only man of letters who attended his funeral, [ ] though the académie performed a commemorative service. [ ] nevertheless, montesquieu was throughout his life a figure in "good society," and suffered no molestation apart from the outcry against his books. he lived under a tradition of private freethinking and public clericalism, even as did molière in the previous century; and where the two traditions had to clash, as at interment, the clerical dominion affirmed itself. but even in the church there were always successors of gassendi, to wit, philosophic unbelievers, as well as quiet friends of toleration. and it was given to an obscure churchman to show the way of freethought to a generation of lay combatants. . one of the most comprehensive freethinking works of the century, the testament of jean meslier, curé of etrépigny, in champagne (d. , , or ), though it inspired numbers of eighteenth-century freethinkers who read it in manuscript, was never printed till - . it deserves here some special notice. [ ] at his death, by common account, meslier left two autograph copies of his book, after having deposited a third copy in the archives of the jurisdiction of sainte-menehould. by a strange chance one was permitted to circulate, and ultimately there were some hundred copies in paris, selling at ten louis apiece. as he told on the wrapper of the copy he left for his parishioners, he had not dared to speak out during his life; but he had made full amends. he is recorded to have been an exceptionally charitable priest, devoted to his parishioners, whose interests he indignantly championed against a tyrannous lord of the manor; [ ] apropos of descartes's doctrine of animal automatism, which he fiercely repudiates, he denounces with deep feeling all cruelty to animals, at whose slaughter for food he winces; and his book reveals him as a man profoundly impressed at once by the sufferings of the people under heartless kings and nobles, and the immense imposture of religion which, in his eyes, maintained the whole evil system. some men before him had impugned miracles, some the gospels, some dogma, some the conception of deity, some the tyranny of kings. he impugns all; and where nearly all the deists had eulogized the character of the gospel jesus, the priest envelops it in his harshest invective. he must have written during whole years, with a sombre, invincible patience, dumbly building up, in his lonely leisure, his unfaltering negation of all that the men around him held for sacred, and that he was sworn to preach--the whole to be his testament to his parishioners. in the slow, heavy style--the style of a cart horse, voltaire called it--there is an indubitable sincerity, a smouldering passion, but no haste, no explosion. the long-drawn, formless, prolix sentences say everything that can be said on their theme; and when the long book was done it was slowly copied, and yet again copied, by the same heavy, unwearying hand. he had read few books, it seems--only the bible, some of the fathers, montaigne, the "turkish spy," naudé, charron, pliny, tournémine on atheism, and fénelon on the existence of god, with some history, and moreri's dictionary; but he had re-read them often. he does not cite bayle; and montaigne is evidently his chief master. but on his modest reading he had reached as absolute a conviction of the untruth of the entire judæo-christian religion as any freethinker ever had. moved above all by his sense of the corruption and misrule around him, he sets out with a twofold indictment against religion and government, of which each part sustains the other, and he tells his parishioners how he had been "hundreds of times" [ ] on the point of bursting out with an indignant avowal of his contempt for the rites he was compelled to administer, and the superstitions he had to inculcate. then, in a grimly-planned order, he proceeds to demolish, section by section, the whole structure. religions in general he exhibits as tissues of error, illusion, and imposture, the endless sources of troubles and strifes for men. their historical proofs and documentary bases are then assailed, and the gospels in particular are ground between the slow mill-stones of his dialectic; miracles, promises, and prophecies being handled in turn. the ethic and the doctrine are next assailed all along the line, from their theoretic bases to their political results; and the kings of france fare no better than their creed. as against the theistic argument of fénelon, the entire theistic system is then oppugned, sometimes with precarious erudition, generally with cumbrous but solid reasoning; and the eternity of matter is affirmed with more than averroïstic conviction, the cartesians coming in for a long series of heavy blows. immortality is further denied, as miracles had been; and the treatise ends with a stern affirmation of its author's rectitude, and, as it were, a massive gesture of contempt for all that will be said against him when he has passed into the nothingness which he is nearing. "i have never committed any crime," he writes, [ ] "nor any bad or malicious action: i defy any man to make me on this head, with justice, any serious reproach"; but he quotes from the psalms, with grim zest, phrases of hate towards workers of iniquity. there is not even the hint of a smile at the astonishing bequest he was laying up for his parishioners and his country. he was sure he would be read, and he was right. the whole polemic of the next sixty years, the indictment of the government no less than that of the creed, is laid out in his sombre treatise. to the general public, however, he was never known save by the "extract"--really a deistic adaptation--made by voltaire, [ ] and the re-written summary by d'holbach and diderot entitled le bon sens du curé meslier ( ). [ ] even this publicity was delayed for a generation, since voltaire, who heard of the testament as early as , seems to have made no use of it till . but the entire group of fighting freethinkers of the age was in some sense inspired by the old priest's legacy. . apart from this direct influence, too, others of the cloth bore some part in the general process of enlightenment. a good type of the agnostic priest of the period was the abbé terrasson, the author of the philosophic romance sethos ( ), who died in . not very judicious in his theory of human evolution (which he represented as a continuous growth from a stage of literary infancy, seen in homer), he adopted the newtonian theory at a time when the entire academy stood by cartesianism. among his friends he tranquilly avowed his atheism. [ ] he died "without the sacraments," and when asked whether he believed all the doctrine of the church, he replied that for him that was not possible. [ ] another anti-clerical abbé was gaidi, whose poem, la religion à l'assemblé du clergé de france ( ), was condemned to be burned. [ ] among or alongside of such disillusioned churchmen there must have been a certain number who, desiring no breach with the organization to which they belonged, saw the fatal tendency of the spirit of persecution upon which its rulers always fell back in their struggle with freethought, and sought to open their eyes to the folly and futility of their course. freethinkers, of course, had to lead the way, as we have seen. it was the young turgot who in published two powerful lettres sur la tolérance, and in a further series of admirable lettres d'un ecclésiastique à un magistrat, pleading the same cause. [ ] but similar appeals were anonymously made, by a clerical pen, at a moment when the church was about to enter on a new and exasperating conflict with the growing band of freethinking writers who rallied round voltaire. the small book of questions sur la tolérance, ascribed to the abbé tailhé or tailhié and the canonist maultrot (geneva, ), is conceived in the very spirit of rationalism, yet with a careful concern to persuade the clergy to sane courses, and is to this day worth reading as a utilitarian argument. but the church was not fated to be led by such light. the principle of toleration was left to become the watchword of freethought, while the church identified herself collectively with that of tyranny. anecdotes of the time reveal the coincidence of tyranny and evasion, intolerance and defiance. of nicolas boindin ( - ), procureur in the royal bureau des finances, who was received into the academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres in , it is told that he "would have been received in the french academy if the public profession he made of being an atheist had not excluded him." [ ] but the publicity was guarded. when he conversed with the young marmontel [ ] and others at the café procope, they used a conversational code in which the soul was called margot, religion javotte, liberty jeanneton, and the deity monsieur de l'Être. once a listener of furtive aspect asked boindin who might be this monsieur de l'Être who behaved so ill, and with whom they were so displeased? "monsieur," replied boindin, "he is a police spy"--such being the avocation of the questioner. [ ] "the morals of boindin," says a biographical dictionary of the period, "were as pure as those of an atheist can be; his heart was generous; but to these virtues he joined presumption and the obstinacy which follows from it, a bizarre humour, and an unsociable character." [ ] other testimonies occur on the first two heads, not on the last. but he was fittingly refused "christian" interment, and was buried by night, "sans pompe." . with the ground prepared as we have seen, freethought was bound to progress in france in the age of louis xv; but it chanced that the lead fell into the hands of the most brilliant and fecund of all the writers of the century. voltaire [ ] ( - ) was already something of a freethinker when a mere child. so common was deism already become in paris at the end of the seventeenth century that his godfather, an abbé, is said to have taught him, at the age of three, a poem by j. b. rousseau, [ ] then privately circulated, in which moses in particular and religious revelations in general are derided as fraudulent. [ ] knowing this poem by heart in his childhood, the boy was well on the way to his life's work. it is on record that many of his school-fellows were, like himself, already deists, though his brother, a juvenile jansenist, made vows to propitiate the deity on the small unbeliever's behalf. [ ] it may have been a general reputation for audacious thinking that led to his being charged with the authorship of a stinging philippic published in , after the death of louis xiv. the unknown author, a young man, enumerated the manifold abuses and iniquities of the reign, concluding: "i have seen all these, and i am not twenty years old." voltaire was then twenty-two; but d'argenson, who in the poem had been called "the enemy of the human race," finding no likelier author for the verses, put him under surveillance and exiled him from paris; and on his imprudent return imprisoned him for nearly a year in the bastille ( ), releasing him only when the real author of the verses avowed himself. unconquerable then as always, voltaire devoted himself in prison to his literary ambitions, planning his henriade and completing his oedipe, which was produced in with signal success. voltaire was thus already a distinguished young poet and dramatist when, in , after enduring the affronts of an assault by a nobleman's lacqueys, and of imprisonment in the bastille for seeking amends by duel, he came to england, where, like deslandes before him, he met with a ready welcome from the freethinkers. [ ] four years previously, in the powerful poem, for and against, [ ] he had put his early deistic conviction in a vehement impeachment of the immoral creed of salvation and damnation, making the declaration, "i am not a christian." thus what he had to learn in england was not deism, but the physics of newton and the details of the deist campaign against revelationism; and these he mastered. [ ] not only was he directly and powerfully influenced by bolingbroke, who became his intimate friend, but he read widely in the philosophic, scientific, and deistic english literature of the day, [ ] and went back to france, after three years' stay, not only equipped for his ultimate battle with tyrannous religion, but deeply impressed by the moral wholesomeness of free discussion. [ ] not all at once, indeed, did he become the mouthpiece of critical reason for his age: his literary ambitions were primarily on the lines of belles lettres, and secondarily on those of historical writing. after his pour et contre, his first freethinking production was the not very heretical lettres philosophiques or lettres anglaises, written in england in , and, after circulating in ms., published in five editions in ; and the official burning of the book by the common hangman, followed by the imprisonment of the bookseller in the bastille, [ ] was a sufficient check on such activity for the time. save for the jests about adam and eve in the mondain ( ), a slight satire for which he had to fly from paris; and the indirect though effective thrusts at bigotry in the ligue ( ; later the henriade); in the tragedy of mahomet ( ; printed in ), in the tales of memnon and zadig ( - ), and in the idées de la mothe le vayer ( ) and the défense de milord bolingbroke ( ), he produced nothing else markedly deistic till , when he published the "poem to the king of prussia," otherwise named sur la loi naturelle (which appears to have been written in , while he was on a visit to the margravine of bayreuth), and that on the earthquake of lisbon. so definitely did the former poem base all morality on natural principles that it was ordered to be burned by the parlement of paris, then equally alarmed at freethinking and at molinism. [ ] and so impossible was it still in france to print any specific criticism of christianity that when in he issued his verse translations of the song of solomon and ecclesiastes they also were publicly burned, though he had actually softened instead of heightening the eroticism of the first and the "materialism" of the second. [ ] . it is thus a complete mistake on the part of buckle to affirm that the activity of the french reformers up to was directed against religion, and that it was thereafter turned against the state. certainly there was much freethinking among instructed men and others, but it proceeded, as under louis xiv, mainly by way of manuscripts and conversation, or at best by the circulation of english books and a few translations of these; and only guardedly before by means of published french books. [ ] the abbé ranchon, in his ms. life of cardinal fleury, truly says that "the time of the regency was a period of the spirit of dissoluteness and irreligion"; but when he ascribes to "those times" many "licentious and destructive writings" he can specify only those of the english deists. "precisely in the time of the regency a multitude of those offensive and irreligious books were brought over the sea: france was deluged with them." [ ] it is incredible that multitudes of frenchmen read english in the days of the regency. french freethinkers like saint evremond and deslandes, who visited or sojourned in london before , took their freethought there with them; and the only translations then in print were those of collins's discourse of freethinking and shaftesbury's essays on the use of ridicule and on enthusiasm. apart from these, the only known french freethinking book of the regency period was the work of vroes, a councillor at the court of brabant, on the spirit of spinoza, reprinted as des trois imposteurs. meslier died not earlier than ; the histoire de la philosophie payenne of burigny belongs to ; the lettres philosophiques of voltaire to ; the earlier works of d'argens to - ; the nouvelles libertés de penser, edited by dumarsais, to ; and the militant treatise of de la serre, best known as the examen de la religion, to . the ferment thus kept up was indeed so great that about the ecclesiastical authorities decided on the remarkable step of adopting for their purposes the apologetic treatise adapted by jacob vernet, professor of belles lettres at geneva, from the works of jean-alphonse turrettin, [ ] not only a protestant but a substantially socinian professor of ecclesiastical history at the same university. the treatise is itself a testimony to the advance of rationalism in the protestant world; and its adoption, even under correction, by the catholic church in france tells of a keen consciousness of need. but the dreaded advance, as we have seen, was only to a small extent yet traceable by new literature. the examen critique des apologistes de la religion chrétienne of lévesque de burigny was probably written about , and then and thereafter circulated in manuscript, but it was not published till ; and even in manuscript its circulation was probably small, though various apologetic works had testified to the increasing uneasiness of the orthodox world. such titles as la religion chrétienne demontrée par la resurrection (by armand de la chapelle, ) and la religion chrétienne prouvée par l'accomplissement des prophéties (by père baltus, ) tell of private unbelief under the regency. in appeared the voluminous treatise (anonymous) of the abbé de la chambre, traité de la véritable religion contre les athées, les déistes, etc. ( vols.). in , again, there appeared a learned, laborious, and unintelligent work in three volumes (authorized in ), le libertinage combattu par la témoignage des auteurs profanes, by an unnamed benedictine [ ] of the congregation of st. vanne. it declares that, between atheism and deism, there has never been so much unbelief as now; but it cites no modern books, and is devoted to arraying classic arguments in support of theism and morals. part of the exposition consists in showing that epicurus, lucian, and euripides, whom modern atheists are wont to cite as their masters, were not and could not have been atheists; and the pious author roundly declares in favour of paganism as against atheism. so much smoke tells of fire; but only in and did the printed examen of de la serre and the pensées philosophiques of diderot begin to build up in france the modern school of critical and philosophic deism. when in the abbé gauchat began his series of lettres critiques, he set out by attacking voltaire's lettres philosophiques, diderot's pensées philosophiques, the anonymous discours sur la vie heureuse ( ), les moeurs [ ] ( ), and pope's essay on man; taking up in his second volume the lettres persanes of montesquieu ( ), and other sets of lettres written in imitation of them. in the third volume he has nothing more aggressive of voltaire's to deal with than la henriade, the mahomet, and some of his fugitive pieces. and the bishop of puy, writing in his la dévotion conciliée avec l'esprit, could say to the faithful: "you live in an age fertile in pretended esprits forts, who, too weak nevertheless to attack in front an invincible religion, skirmish lightly around it, and in default of the reasons they lack, employ raillery." [ ] the chivalrous bishop knew perfectly well that had a serious attack been published author and publisher would have been sent if possible to the bastille, if not to the scaffold. but his evidence is explicit. there is here no recognition of any literary bombardment, though there was certainly an abundance of unbelief. [ ] buckle has probably mistaken the meaning of the summing up of some previous writer to the effect that up to or a few years later the political opposition to the court was religious, in the sense of ecclesiastical or sectarian (jansenist), [ ] and that it afterwards turned to matters of public administration. [ ] it would be truer to say that the early lettres philosophiques, the reading of which later made the boy lafayette a republican at nine, were a polemic for political and social freedom, and as such a more direct criticism of the french administrative system than voltaire ever penned afterwards, save in the voix du sage et du peuple ( ). in point of fact, as will be shown below, only some twenty scattered freethinking works had appeared in french up to , almost none of them directly attacking christian beliefs; and, despite the above-noted sallies of voltaire, condorcet comes to the general conclusion that it was the hardihood of rousseau's deism in the "confession of a savoyard vicar" in his Émile ( ) that spurred voltaire to new activity. [ ] this is perhaps not quite certain; there is some reason to believe that his "sermon of the fifty," his "first frontal attack on christianity," [ ] was written a year before; but in any case that and other productions of his at once left rousseau far in the rear. even now he had no fixed purpose of continuous warfare against so powerful and cruel an enemy as the church, which in had actually procured an edict pronouncing the death penalty against all writers of works attacking religion; though the fall of the jesuits in raised new hopes of freedom. but when, after that hopeful episode, there began a new movement of jansenist fanaticism; and when, after the age of religious savagery had seemed to be over, there began a new series of religious atrocities in france itself ( - ), he girded on a sword that was not to be laid down till his death. even so late as , in his last letter to damilaville ( fév.), voltaire expresses a revulsion against the aggressive freethought propaganda of the time which is either one of his epistolary stratagems or the expression of a nervous reaction in a time of protracted bad health. "mes chagrins redoublent," he writes, "par la quantité incroyable d'écrits contre la religion chrétienne, qui se succédent aussi rapidement en hollande que les gazettes et les journaux." his enemies have the barbarism to impute to him, at his age, "une partie de ces extravagances composées par de jeunes gens et par des moines défroqués." his immediate ground for chagrin may have been the fact that this outbreak of anti-christian literature was likely to thwart him in the campaign he was then making to secure justice to the sirven family as he had already vindicated that of calas. sirven barely missed the fate of the latter. the misconception of buckle, above discussed, has been widely shared even among students. thus lord morley, discussing the "creed of the savoyard vicar" in rousseau's Émile ( ), writes that "souls weary of the fierce mockeries that had so long been flying like fiery shafts against the far jehovah of the hebrews, and the silent christ of the later doctors and dignitaries," may well have turned to it with ardour (rousseau, ed. , ii, ). he further speaks of the "superiority of the sceptical parts of the savoyard vicar's profession ... over the biting mockeries which voltaire had made the fashionable method of assault" (p. ). no specifications are offered, and the chronology is seen to be astray. the only mockeries which voltaire could be said to have made fashionable before were those of his lettres philosophiques, his mondain, his défense de milord bolingbroke, and his philosophically humorous tales, as candide, zadig, micromégas, etc.: all his distinctive attacks on judaism and christianity were yet to come. [the abbé guyon, in his l'oracle des nouveaux philosophes (berne, - , tom.), proclaims an attack on doctrines taught "dans les livres de nos beaux esprits" (avert. p. xi); but he specifies only denials of ( ) revelation, ( ) immortality, and ( ) the biblical account of man's creation; and he is largely occupied with diderot's pensées philosophiques, though his book is written at voltaire. the second volume is devoted to candide and the précis of ecclesiastes and the song of solomon--not very fierce performances.] lord morley, as it happens, does not make this chronological mistake in his earlier work on voltaire, where he rightly represents him as beginning his attack on "the infamous" after he had settled at ferney ( ). his "fierce mockeries" begin at the earliest in . the mistake may have arisen through taking as true the fictitious date of for the writing of the examen important de milord bolingbroke. it belongs to . buckle's error, it may be noted, is repeated by so careful a student as dr. redlich, local government in england, eng. tr. , i, . . the rest of voltaire's long life was a sleepless and dexterous warfare, by all manner of literary stratagem, [ ] facilitated by vast literary fame and ample acquired wealth, against what he called "the infamous"--the church and the creed which he found still swift to slay for mere variation of belief, and slow to let any good thing be wrought for the bettering of men's lives. of his prodigious literary performance it is probably within the truth to say that in respect of rapid influence on the general intelligence of the world it has never been equalled by any one man's writing; and that, whatever its measure of error and of personal misdirection, its broader influence was invariably for peace on earth, for tolerance among men, and for reason in all things. his faults were many, and some were serious; but to no other man of his age, save possibly beccaria, can be attributed so much beneficent accomplishment. he can perhaps better be estimated as a force than as a man. so great was the area of his literary energy that he is inevitably inadequate at many points. lessing could successfully impugn him in drama; diderot in metaphysic; gibbon in history; and it is noteworthy that all of these men [ ] at different times criticized him with asperity, testing him by the given item of performance, and disparaging his personality. yet in his own way he was a greater power than any of them; and his range, as distinguished from his depth, outgoes theirs. in sum, he was the greatest mental fighter of his age, perhaps of any age: in that aspect he is a "power-house" not to be matched in human history; and his polemic is mainly for good. it was a distinguished english academic who declared that "civilization owes more to voltaire than to all the fathers of the church put together." [ ] if in a literary way he hated his personal foes, much more did he hate cruelty and bigotry; and it was his work more than any that made impossible a repetition in europe of such clerical crimes as the hanging of the protestant pastor, la rochette; the execution of the protestant, calas, on an unproved and absurdly false charge; the torture of his widow and children; the beheading of the lad la barre for ill-proved blasphemy. [ ] as against his many humanities, there is not to be charged on him one act of public malevolence. in his relations with his fickle admirer, frederick the great, and with others of his fellow-thinkers, he and they painfully brought home to freethinkers the lesson that for them as for all men there is a personal art of life that has to be learned, over and above the rectification of opinion. but he and the others wrought immensely towards that liberation alike from unreason and from bondage which must precede any great improvement of human things. voltaire's constant burden was that religion was not only untrue but pernicious, and when he was not dramatically showing this of christianity, as in his poem la ligue ( ), he was saying it by implication in such plays as zaïre ( ) and mahomet ( ), dealing with the fanaticism of islam; while in the essai sur les moeurs ( ), really a broad survey of general history, and in the siècle de louis xiv, he applied the method of montesquieu, with pungent criticism thrown in. later, he added to his output direct criticisms of the christian books, as in the examen important de milord bolingbroke ( ), and the recherches historiques sur le christianisme (? ), continuing all his former lines of activity. meanwhile, with the aid of his companion the marquise du chatelet, an accomplished mathematician, he had done much to popularize the physics of newton and discredit the scientific fallacies of the system of descartes; all the while preaching a newtonian but rather agnostic deism. this is the purport of his philosophe ignorant, his longest philosophical essay. [ ] the destruction of lisbon by the earthquake of seems to have shaken him in his deistic faith, since the upshot of his poem on that subject is to leave the moral government of the universe an absolute enigma; and in the later candide ( ) he attacks theistic optimism with his matchless ridicule. indeed, as early as , in his traité de la métaphysique, written for the marquise du chatelet, he reaches virtually pantheistic positions in defence of the god-idea, declaring with spinoza that deity can be neither good nor bad. but, like so many professed pantheists, he relapsed, and he never accepted the atheistic view; on the contrary, we find him arguing absurdly enough, in his homily on atheism ( ), that atheism had been the destruction of morality in rome; [ ] on the publication of d'holbach's system of nature in he threw off an article dieu: réponse au système de la nature, where he argued on the old deistic lines; and his tale of jenni; or, the sage and the atheist ( ), is a polemic on the same theme. by this time the inconsistent deism of his youth had itself been discredited among the more thoroughgoing freethinkers; and for years it had been said in one section of literary society that voltaire after all "is a bigot; he is a deist!" [ ] but for freethinkers of all schools the supreme service of voltaire lay in his twofold triumph over the spirit of religious persecution. he had contrived at once to make it hateful and to make it ridiculous; and it is a great theistic poet of our own day that has pronounced his blade the sharpest, shrewdest steel that ever stabbed to death imposture through the armour joints. [ ] to be perfect, the tribute should have noted that he hated cruelty much more than imposture; and such is the note of the whole movement of which his name was the oriflamme. voltaire personally was at once the most pugnacious and the most forgiving of men. few of the christians who hated him had so often as he fulfilled their own precept of returning good for evil to enemies; and none excelled him in hearty philanthropy. it is notable that most of the humanitarian ideas of the latter half of the century--the demand for the reform of criminal treatment, the denunciation of war and slavery, the insistence on good government, and toleration of all creeds--are more definitely associated with the freethinking than with any religious party, excepting perhaps the laudable but uninfluential sect of quakers. the character of voltaire is still the subject of chronic debate; but the old deadlock of laudation and abuse is being solved in a critical recognition of him as a man of genius flawed by the instability which genius so commonly involves. carlyle (that model of serenity), while dwelling on his perpetual perturbations, half-humanely suggests that we should think of him as one constantly hag-ridden by maladies of many kinds; and this recognition is really even more important in voltaire's case than in carlyle's own. he was "a bundle of nerves," and the clear light of his sympathetic intelligence was often blown aside by gusts of passion--often enough excusably. but while his temperamental weaknesses exposed him at times to humiliation, and often to sarcasm; and while his compelled resort to constant stratagem made him more prone to trickery than his admirers can well care to think him, the balance of his character is abundantly on the side of generosity and humanity. one of the most unjustifiable of recent attacks upon him (one regrets to have to say it) came from the pen of the late prof. churton collins. in his book on voltaire, montesquieu, and rousseau in england ( ) that critic gives in the main an unbiassed account of voltaire's english experience; but at one point (p. ) he plunges into a violent impeachment with the slightest possible justification. he in effect adopts the old allegation of ruffhead, the biographer of pope--a statement repeated by johnson--that voltaire used his acquaintance with pope and bolingbroke to play the spy on them, conveying information to walpole, for which he was rewarded. the whole story collapses upon critical examination. ruffhead's story is, in brief, that pope purposely lied to voltaire as to the authorship of certain published letters attacking walpole. they were by bolingbroke; but pope, questioned by voltaire, said they were his own, begging him to keep the fact absolutely secret. next day at court everyone was speaking of the letters as pope's; and pope accordingly knew that voltaire was a traitor. for this tale there is absolutely nothing but hearsay evidence. ruffhead, as johnson declared, knew nothing of pope, and simply used warburton's material. the one quasi-confirmation cited by mr. collins is bolingbroke's letter to swift (may , ) asking him to "insinuate" that walpole's only ground for ascribing the letters to bolingbroke "is the authority of one of his spies ... who reports, not what he hears ... but what he guesses." this is an absolute contradiction of the pope story, at two points. it refers to a guess at bolingbroke, and tells of no citation from pope. to put it as confirming the charge is to exhibit a complete failure of judgment. after this irrational argument, mr. collins offers a worse. he admits (p. ) that voltaire always remained on friendly terms with both pope and bolingbroke; but adds that this "can scarcely be alleged as a proof of his innocence, for neither pope nor bolingbroke would, for such an offence, have been likely to quarrel with a man in a position so peculiar as that of voltaire. his flattery was pleasant...." such an argument is worse than nugatory. that bolingbroke spoke ill in private of voltaire on general grounds counts for nothing. he did the same of pope and of nearly all his friends. mr. collins further accuses voltaire of baseness, falsehood, and hypocrisy on the mere score of his habit of extravagant flattery. this was notoriously the french mode in that age; but it had been just as much the mode in seventeenth-century england, from the jacobean translators of the bible to dryden--to name no others. and mr. collins in effect charges systematic hypocrisy upon both pope and bolingbroke. other stories of ruffhead's against voltaire are equally improbable and ill-vouched--as mr. collins incidentally admits, though he forgets the admission. they all come from warburton, himself convicted of double-dealing with pope; and they finally stand for the hatred of frenchmen which was so common in eighteenth-century england, and is apparently not yet quite extinct. those who would have a sane, searching, and competent estimate of voltaire, leaning humanely to the side of goodwill, should turn to the voltaire of m. champion. a brief estimate was attempted by the present writer in the r. p. a. annual for . . it is difficult to realize how far the mere demand for tolerance which sounds from voltaire's plays and poems before he has begun to assail credences was a signal and an inspiration to new thinkers. certain it is that the principle of toleration, passed on by holland to england, was regarded by the orthodox priesthood in france as the abomination of desolation, and resisted by them with all their power. but the contagion was unquenchable. it was presumably in holland that there were printed in the two volumes of lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme, distinguée de ce qui n'en est que l'accessoire, by marie huber, a genevese lady living in lyons; also the two following parts ( ), replying to criticisms on the earlier. in its gentle way, the book stands very distinctly for the "natural" and ethical principle in religion, denying that the deity demands from men either service or worship, or that he can be wronged by their deeds, or that he can punish them eternally for their sins. this was one of the first french fruits, after voltaire, of the english deistic influence; [ ] and it is difficult to understand how the authoress escaped molestation. perhaps the memory of the persecution inflicted on the mystic madame guyon withheld the hand of power. as it was, four protestant theologians opened fire on her, regarding her doctrine as hostile to christianity. one pastor wrote from geneva, one from amsterdam, and two professors from zurich--the two last in latin. [ ] from about onwards, the rationalist movement in eighteenth-century france rapidly widens and deepens. the number of rationalistic writers, despite the press laws which in that age inflicted the indignity of imprisonment on half the men of letters, increased from decade to decade, and the rising prestige of the philosophes in connection with the encyclopédie ( - ) gave new courage to writers and printers. at once the ecclesiastical powers saw in the encyclopédie a dangerous enemy; and in january, , the sorbonne condemned a thesis "to the celestial jerusalem," by the abbé de prades. it had at first ( ) been received with official applause, but was found on study to breathe the spirit of the new work, [ ] to which the abbé had contributed, and whose editor, diderot, was his friend. sooth to say, it contained not a little matter calculated to act as a solvent of faith. under the form of a vindication of orthodox catholicism, it negated alike descartes and leibnitz; and declared that the science of newton and the dutch physiologists was a better defence of religion than the theses of clarke, descartes, cudworth, and malebranche, which made for materialism. the handling, too, of the question of natural versus revealed religion, in which "theism" is declared to be superior to all religions si unam excipias veram, "if you except the one true," might well arouse distrust in a vigilant catholic reader. [ ] the whole argument savours far more of the scientific comparative method than was natural in the work of an eighteenth-century seminarist; and the principle, "either we are ocular witnesses of the facts or we know them only by hearsay," [ ] was plainly as dangerous to the christian creed as to any other. according to naigeon, [ ] the treatise was wholly the work of de prades and another abbé, yvon; [ ] but it remains probable that diderot inspired not a little of the reasoning; and the clericals, bent on putting down the encyclopédie, professed to have discovered that he was the real author of the thesis. either this belief or a desire to strike at the encyclopédie through one of its collaborators [ ] was the motive of the absurdly belated censure. such a fiasco evoked much derision from the philosophic party, particularly from voltaire; and the sorbonne compassed a new revenge. soon after came the formal condemnation of the first two volumes of the encyclopédie, of which the second had just appeared. [ ] d'argenson, watching in his vigilant retirement the course of things on all hands, sees in the episode a new and dangerous development, "the establishment of a veritable inquisition in france, of which the jesuits joyfully take charge," though he repeatedly remarks also on the eagerness of the jansenists to outgo the jesuits. [ ] but soon the publication of the encyclopédie is resumed; and in d'argenson contentedly notes the official bestowal of "tacit permissions to print secretly" books which could not obtain formal authorization. the permission had been given first by the president malesherbes; but even when that official lost the king's confidence the practice was continued by the lieutenant of police. [ ] despite the staggering blow of the suppression of the encyclopédie, the philosophes speedily triumphed. so great was the discontent even at court that soon ( ) madame de pompadour and some of the ministry invited d'alembert and diderot to resume their work, "observing a necessary reserve in all things touching religion and authority." madame de pompadour was in fact, as d'alembert said at her death, "in her heart one of ours," as was d'argenson. but d'alembert, in a long private conference with d'argenson, insisted that they must write in freedom like the english and the prussians, or not at all. already there was talk of suppressing the philosophic works of condillac, which a few years before had gone uncondemned; and freedom must be preserved at any cost. "i acquiesce," writes the ex-minister, "in these arguments." [ ] curiously enough, the freethinking fontenelle, who for a time (the dates are elusive) held the office of royal censor, was more rigorous than other officials who had not his reputation for heterodoxy. one day he refused to pass a certain manuscript, and the author put the challenge: "you, sir, who have published the histoire des oracles, refuse me this?" "if i had been the censor of the oracles," replied fontenelle, "i should not have passed it." [ ] and he had cause for his caution. the unlucky tercier, who, engrossed in "foreign affairs," had authorized the publication of the de l'esprit of helvétius, was compelled to resign the censorship, and severely rebuked by the paris parlement. [ ] but the culture-history of the period, like the political, was one of ups and downs. from time to time the philosophic party had friends at court, as in the persons of the marquis d'argenson, malesherbes, and the duc de choiseul, of whom the last-named engineered the suppression of the jesuits. [ ] then there were checks to the forward movement in the press, as when, in , choiseul was forced to retire on the advent of madame du barry. the output of freethinking books is after that year visibly curtailed. but nothing could arrest the forward movement of opinion. . a new era of propaganda and struggle had visibly begun. in the earlier part of the century freethought had been disseminated largely by way of manuscripts [ ] and reprints of foreign books in translation; but from the middle onwards, despite denunciations and prohibitions, new books multiply. to the policy of tacit toleration imposed by malesherbes a violent end was temporarily put in , when the jesuits obtained a proclamation of the death penalty against all writers who should attack the christian religion, directly or indirectly. it was doubtless under the menace of this decree that deslandes, before dying in , caused to be drawn up by two notaries an acte by which he disavowed and denounced not only his grands hommes morts en plaisantant but all his other works, whether printed or in ms., in which he had "laid down principles or sustained sentiments contrary to the spirit of religion." [ ] but in , on the suppression of the jesuits, there was a vigorous resumption of propaganda. "there are books," writes voltaire in , "of which forty years ago one would not have trusted the manuscript to one's friends, and of which there are now published six editions in eighteen months." [ ] voltaire single-handed produced a library; and d'holbach is credited with at least a dozen freethinking treatises, every one remarkable in its day. but there were many more combatants. the reputation of voltaire has overshadowed even that of his leading contemporaries, and theirs and his have further obscured that of the lesser men; but a list of miscellaneous freethinking works by french writers during the century, up to the revolution, will serve to show how general was the activity after . it will be seen that very little was published in france in the period in which english deism was most fecund. a noticeable activity of publication begins about . but it was when the long period of chronic warfare ended for france with the peace of paris ( ); when she had lost india and north america; when she had suppressed the jesuit order ( ); and when england had in the main turned from intellectual interests to the pursuit of empire and the development of manufacturing industry, that the released french intelligence [ ] turned with irresistible energy to the rational criticism of established opinions. the following table is thus symbolic of the whole century's development:-- . lettre d'hypocrate à damagète, attributed to the comte de boulainvilliers. (cologne.) rep. in bibliothèque volante, amsterdam, . . [claude gilbert.] histoire de calejava, ou de l'isle des hommes raisonnables, avec le parallèle de leur morale et du christianisme. dijon. suppressed by the author: only one copy known to have escaped. . [gueudeville.] dialogues de m. le baron de la houtan et d'un sauvage dans l'amérique. (amsterdam.) . lettre sur l'enthousiasme (fr. tr. of shaftesbury, by samson). la haye. . [tyssot de patot, symon.] voyages et avantures de jaques massé. (bourdeaux.) . essai sur l'usage de la raillerie (fr. tr. of shaftesbury, by van effen). la haye. . [deslandes, a. f. b.] reflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant. [ ] (amsterdam.) . discours sur la liberté de penser [french tr. of collins's discourse of freethinking], traduit de l'anglois et augmenté d'une lettre d'un médecin arabe. (tr. by henri scheurléer and jean rousset.) [rep. .] [ ] . [vroes.] la vie et l'esprit de m. benoît de spinoza. . same work rep. under the double title: de tribus impostoribus: des trois imposteurs. frankfort on main. . [lévesque de burigny.] histoire de la philosophie payenne. la haye, tom. . [bernard, j.-f.] dialogues critiques et philosophiques. "par l'abbé de charte-livry." (amsterdam.) rep. . . réfutation des erreurs de benoît de spinoza, par fénelon, le p. laury, benédictin, et boulainvilliers, avec la vie de spinoza ... par colerus, etc. (collected and published by lenglet du fresnoy). bruxelles (really amsterdam). the treatise of boulainvilliers is really a popular exposition. . re-issue of deslandes's réflexions. . [voltaire.] lettres philosophiques. edd. within the year. [condemned to be burned. publisher imprisoned.] . [longue, louis-pierre de.] les princesses malabares, ou le célibat philosophique. deistic allegory. [condemned to be burned.] . marquis d'argens. la philosophie du bon sens. (berlin: th edition, dresden, .) . ----, lettres juives. tom. (berlin.) . [marie huber.] lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme, distingue de ce qui n'en est que l'accessoire. tom. (nominally london.) rep. and . . ----, suite to the foregoing, "servant de réponse aux objections," etc. also suite de la troisième partie. . [deslandes.] pigmalion, ou la statue animée. [condemned to be burnt by parlement of dijon, .] . ----, de la certitude des connaissances humaines ... traduit de l'anglais par f. a. d. l. v. . nouvelles libertés de penser. amsterdam. [edited by dumarsais. contains the first print of fontenelle's traité de la liberté, dumarsais's short essays le philosophe and de la raison, mirabaud's sentimens des philosophes sur la nature de l'âme, etc.] . [lieut. de la serre.] la vraie religion traduite de l'ecriture sainte, par permission de jean, luc, marc, et matthieu. (nominally trévoux, "aux dépens des pères de la société de jésus.") [appeared later as examen, etc. condemned to be burnt by parlement of paris.] this book was republished in the same year with "demontrée par" substituted in the title for "traduite de," and purporting to be "traduit de l'anglais de gilbert burnet," with the imprint "londres, g. cock, ." it appeared again in as examen de la religion dont on cherche l'éclaircissement de bonne foi. attribué à m. de saint-evremont, traduit, etc., with the same imprint. it again bore the latter title when reprinted in , and again in the Évangile de la raison in . voltaire in declared it to be the work of dumarsais, pronouncing it to be assuredly not in the style of saint-evremond (grimm, iv, - ; voltaire, lettre à damilaville, déc. ), adding "mais il est fort tronqué et détestablement imprimé." this is true of the reprints in the Évangile de la raison ( , etc.), of one of which the present writer possesses a copy to which there has been appended in ms. a long section which had been lacking. the Évangile as a whole purports to be "ouvrage posthume de m. d. m......y." [ ] but its first volume includes four pieces of voltaire's, and his abridged testament de jean meslier. further, de la serre is recorded to have claimed the authorship in writing on the eve of his death. barbier, dict. des anonymes, e éd, no. . he is said to have been hanged as a spy at maestricht, april , . . [la mettrie.] histoire naturelle de l'âme. [condemned to be burnt, .] rep. as traité de l'âme. . [diderot.] pensées philosophiques. [condemned to be burnt.] . [p. estève.] l'origine de l'univers expliquée par un principe de matière. (berlin.) . [benoît de maillet.] telliamed, ou entretiens d'un philosophe indien avec un missionaire français. (printed privately, ; rep. .) . [la mettrie.] l'homme machine. . nouvelles libertés de penser. rep. . [mirabaud, j. b. de.] le monde, son origine et son antiquité. [edited by the abbé le maserier (who contributed the preface and the third part) and dumarsais.] . de prades. sorbonne thesis. . [gouvest, j. h. maubert de.] lettres iroquoises. "irocopolis, chez les vénérables." tom. (rep. as lettres cherakésiennes.) . [génard, f.] l'École de l'homme, ou parallèle des portraits du siècle et des tableaux de l'écriture sainte. [ ] amsterdam, tom. [author imprisoned.] . [baume-desdossat, canon of avignon.] la christiade. [book suppressed. author fined.] [ ] . maupertuis. système de la nature. . astruc, jean. conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il parait que moïse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la genèse. bruxelles. . prémontval, a. i. le guay de. le diogène de d'alembert, ou pensées libres sur l'homme. berlin. ( nd ed. enlarged, .) . burigny, j. l. théologie payenne. tom. (new ed. of his histoire de la philosophie, .) . [diderot.] pensées sur l'interpretation de la nature. . beausobre, l. de (the younger). pyrrhonisme du sage. berlin. (burned by paris parlement.) . recherches philosophiques sur la liberté de l'homme. trans. of collins's philosophical inquiry concerning human liberty. . [voltaire.] poème sur la loi naturelle. . analyse raisonnée de bayle. tom. [by the abbé de marsy. suppressed. [ ] continued in , in new vols., by robinet.] . morelly. code de la nature. . [deleyre.] analyse de la philosophie de bacon. (largely an exposition of deleyre's own views.) . prémontval. vues philosophiques. (amsterdam.) in this year--apparently after one of vigilant repression--was pronounced the death penalty against all writers attacking religion. hence a general suspension of publication. in the jesuits were suppressed, and the policy of censorship was soon paralysed. . helvétius. de l'esprit. (authorized. then condemned.) . [voltaire.] candide. ("genève.") . translation of hume's natural history of religion and philosophical essays. (by mérian.) amsterdam. . [n.-a. boulanger. [ ]] recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental, et des superstitions. "ouvrage posthume de mr. d. j. d. p. e. c." . rep. of de la serre's la vraie religion as examen de la religion, etc. . [d'holbach.] le christianisme dévoilé. [imprint: "londres, ." really printed at nancy in . wrongly attributed to boulanger and to damilaville.] rep. and . grimm (corr. inédite, , p. ) speaks in of this book in his notice of boulanger, remarking that the title was apparently meant to suggest the author of l'antiquité dévoilée, but that it was obviously by another hand. the antiquité, in fact, was the concluding section of boulanger's posthumous despotisme oriental ( ), and was not published till . grimm professed ignorance as to the authorship, but must have known it, as did voltaire, who by way of mystification ascribed the book to damilaville. see barbier. . rousseau. Émile. [publicly burned at paris and at geneva. condemned by the sorbonne.] . robinet, j. b. de la nature. vol. i. (vol. ii in ; iii and iv in .) . [voltaire.] saül. genève. . ---- dialogue entre un caloyer et un honnête homme. . rep. of de la serres' examen. . discours sur la liberté de penser. (rep. of trans. of collins.) . [voltaire.] dictionnaire philosophique portatif. [ ] [first form of the dictionnaire philosophique. burned in .] . lettres secrètes de m. de voltaire. [holland. collection of tracts made by robinet, against voltaire's will.] . [voltaire.] mélanges, tom. genève. . [dulaurens, abbé h. j.] l'arétin. . l'Évangile de la raison. ouvrage posthume de m. d. m----y. [ed. by abbé dulaurens; containing the testament de jean meslier (greatly abridged and adapted by voltaire); voltaire's catéchisme de l'honnête homme, sermon des cinquante, etc.; the examen de la religion, attribué à m. de st. evremond; rousseau's vicaire savoyard, from Émile; dumarsais's analyse de la religion chrétienne, etc. rep. and .] . recueil nécessaire, avec l'Évangile de la raison, tom. rep. of parts of the Évangile. rep. , [ ] , with voltaire's examen important de milord bolingbroke substituted for that of de la serre (attribué a m. de st. evremond), and with a revised set of extracts from meslier. . castillon, j. l. essai de philosophic morale. . boulanger, n. a. l'antiquité dévoilée. [ ] tom. [recast by d'holbach. life of author by diderot.] . voyage de robertson aux terres australes. traduit sur le manuscrit anglois. amsterdam. barbier (dict. des ouvr. anon., e éd. iii, ) has a note concerning this voyage which pleasantly illustrates the strategy that went on in the issue of freethinking books. an ex-censor of the period, he tells us, wrote a note on the original edition pointing out that it contains (pp. - ) a tirade against "parlements." this passage was "suppressed to obtain permission to bring the book into france," and a new passage attacking the encyclopédistes under the name of pansophistes was inserted at another point. the ex-censor had a copy of an edition of , in mo, better printed than the first and on better paper. in this, at p. , line , begins the attack on the encyclopédistes, which continues to p. . if this is accurate, there has taken place a double mystification. i possess a copy dated , in mo, in which no page has so many as lines, and in which there has been no typographical change whatever in pp. - , where there is no mention of encyclopédistes. but pp. - are clearly a typographical substitution, in different type, with fewer lines to the page. here there is a narrative about the pansophistes of the imaginary "australie"; but while it begins with enigmatic satire it ends by praising them for bringing about a great intellectual and social reform. if the censure was induced to pass the book as it is in this edition by this insertion, it was either very heedless or very indulgent. there is a sweeping attack on the papacy (pp. - ), and another on the jesuits (pp. - ); and it leans a good deal towards republicanism. but on a balance, though clearly anti-clerical, it is rather socio-political than freethinking in its criticism. the words on the title-page, traduit sur le manuscrit anglois, are of course pure mystification. it is a romance of the utopia school, and criticizes english conditions as well as french. . de prades. abrégé de l'histoire ecclésiastique de fleury. (berlin.) pref. by frederick the great. (rep. .) . [burigny.] examen critique des apologistes de la religion chrétienne. published (by naigeon ?) under the name of fréret. [ ] [twice rep. in . condemned to be burnt, .] . [voltaire.] le philosophe ignorant. . [abbé millot.] histoire philosophique de l'homme. [naturalistic theory of human beginnings.] . castillon. almanach philosophique. . doutes sur la religion (attributed to gueroult de pival), suivi de l'analyse du traité théologique-politique de spinoza (by boulainvilliers). [rep. with additions in under the title doutes sur les religions révélées, adressés à voltaire, par Émilie du chatelet. ouvrage posthume.] . [dulaurens.] l'antipapisme révélé. . lettre de thrasybule à leucippe. [published under the name of fréret (d. ). written or edited by naigeon. [ ]] . [d'holbach.] l'imposture sacerdotale, ou recueil de pièces sur la clergé, traduites de l'anglois. . [voltaire.] collection des lettres sur les miracles. . ---- examen important de milord bolingbroke. . marmontel. bélisaire. (censured by the sorbonne.) . [damilaville.] l'honnêtetê théologique. . reprint of le christianisme dévoilé. [condemned to be burnt, and .] . [voltaire.] questions sur les miracles. par un proposant. . seconde partie of the recherches sur l'origine du despotisme. . meister, j. h. de l'origine des principes religieux. author banished from his native town, zurich, "in perpetuity" (decree rescinded in ), and book publicly burned there by the hangman. [ ] meister published a modified edition at zurich in . orig. rep. in the recueil philosophique, . . catalogue raisonné des esprits forts, depuis le curé rabelais jusqu'au curé meslier. . [d'holbach.] la contagion sacrée, ou histoire naturelle de la superstition. [condemned to be burnt, .] . ---- lettres philosophiques sur l'origine des préjugés, etc., traduites de l'anglois (of toland). . ---- lettres à eugénie, ou preservatif contre les préjugés. tom. . ---- théologie portative. "par l'abbé bernier." [also burnt, .] . traité des trois imposteurs. (see and .) rep. , , . . naigeon, j. a. le militaire philosophe. [adaptation of a ms. the last chapter by d'holbach.] . d'argens. oeuvres complètes, tom. berlin. . examen des prophéties qui servent de fondement à la religion chrétienne (tr. from collins by d'holbach). . robinet. considérations philosophiques. - . l'Évangile du jour. tom. series of pieces, chiefly by voltaire. . [diderot. also ascribed to castillon.] histoire générale des dogmes et opinions philosophiques ... tirée du dictionnaire encyclopédique. londres, tom. . [mirabaud.] opinions des anciens sur les juifs, and réflexions impartiales sur l'Évangile [ ] (rep. in as examen critique du nouveau testament). . [isoard-delisle, otherwise delisle de sales.] de la philosophie de la nature. tom. [author imprisoned. book condemned to be burnt, .] . [seguier de saint-brisson.] traité des droits de génie, dans lequel on examine si la connoissance de la verité est avantageuse aux hommes et possible au philosophe. "carolsrouhe," . [a strictly naturalistic-ethical theory of society. contains an attack on the doctrine of rousseau, in Émile, on the usefulness of religious error.] . l'enfer détruit, traduit de l'anglois [by d'holbach.] . [d'holbach.] histoire critique de jésus christ. . ---- examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de saint paul (tr. from english of peter annet). . ---- essai sur les préjugés. (not by dumarsais, whose name on the title-page is a mystification.) . ---- système de la nature. tom. . recueil philosophique. tom. [edited by naigeon. contains a rep. of dumarsais's essays le philosophe and de la raison, an extract from tindal, essays by vauvenargues and fréret (or fontenelle), three by mirabaud, diderot's pensées sur la religion, several essays by d'holbach, meister's de l'origine des principes religieux, etc.] . analyse de bayle. rep. of the four vols. of de marsy, with four more by robinet. . l'esprit du judaisme. (trans. from collins by d'holbach.) . raynal (with diderot and others). histoire philosophique des deux indes. containing atheistic arguments by diderot. [suppressed, .] in this year there were condemned to be burned seven freethinking works: d'holbach's contagion sacrée; voltaire's dieu et les hommes; the french translation (undated) of woolston's discourses on the miracles of jesus christ; fréret's (really burigny's) examen critique de la religion chrétienne; an examen impartial des principales religions du monde, undated; d'holbach's christianisme dévoilé; and his système de la nature. . le bon sens. [adaptation from meslier by diderot and d'holbach. condemned to be burnt, .] . de la nature humaine. [trans. of hobbes by d'holbach.] . helvétius. de l'homme. ouvrage posthume. tom. [condemned to be burnt, jan. , . rep. .] . carra, j. l. système de la raison, ou le prophète philosophe. . [burigny (?).] recherches sur les miracles. . [d'holbach.] la politique naturelle. tom. . ----. système sociale. tom. . abauzit, f. réflexions impartiales sur les Évangiles, suivies d'un essai sur l'apocalypse. (abauzit died .) . [condorcet.] lettres d'un théologien. (atheistic.) . new edition of theologie portative. tom. [condemned to be burnt.] . [voltaire.] histoire de jenni, ou le sage et l'athée. [attack on atheism.] . [d'holbach.] la morale universelle. tom. . ---- ethocratie. . examen critique du nouveau testament, "par m. fréret." [not by fréret. a rep. of mirabaud's réflexions impartiales sur l'Évangile, , which was probably written about , being replied to in the réfutation du celse moderne of the abbé gautier, and .] . carra. esprit de la morale et de la philosophie. . barthez, p. j. nouveaux éléments de la science de l'homme. . vie d'apollonius de tyane par philostrate, avec les commentaires donnés en anglois par charles blount sur les deux premiers livres. [trans. by j.-f. salvemini de castillon, berlin.] amsterdam, tom. (in addition to blount's pref. and notes there is a scoffing dedication to pope clement xiv.) . duvernet, abbé th. j. l'intolérance religieuse. . clootz, anacharsis. la certitude des preuves du mahométisme. [reply by way of parody to bergier's work, noted on p. .] . second ed. of raynal's histoire philosophique, with additions. (condemned to be burnt, .) . maréchal, sylvain. le nouveau lucrèce. . brissot de warville. lettres philosophiques sur s. paul. . doray de longrais. faustin, ou le siècle philosophique. . pougens, m. c. j. de. récréations de philosophie et de morale. . maréchal. livre échappé au déluge. [author dismissed.] . marquis pastoret. zoroastre, confucius, et mahomet. . meister. de la morale naturelle. . pastoret. moïse considéré comme legislateur et comme moraliste. . maréchal. almanach des honnêtes gens. [author imprisoned; book burnt.] . volney. les ruines des empires. . duvernet, abbé. les dévotions de madame de betzamooth. . cerutti (jesuit father). bréviaire philosophique, ou histoire du judaisme, du christianisme, et du déisme. - . naigeon. dictionnaire de la philosophie ancienne et moderne. . dupuis. de l'origine de tous les cultes. tom. . la fable de christ dévoilée; ou lettre du muphti de constantinople à jean ange braschy, muphti de rome. . rep. of d'holbach's contagion sacrée, with notes by lemaire. . maréchal. pensées libres sur les prêtres. a rome, et se trouve à paris, chez les marchands de nouveautés. l'an ier de la raison, et vi de la république française. . it will be noted that after --coincidently, indeed, with a renewed restraint upon the press--there is a notable falling-off in the freethinking output. rationalism had now permeated educated france; and, for different but analogous reasons, the stress of discussion gradually shifted as it had done in england. france in stood to the religious problem somewhat as england did in , repeating the deistic evolution with a difference. by that time england was committed to the new paths of imperialism and commercialism; whereas france, thrown back on the life of ideas and on her own politico-economic problems, went on producing the abundant propaganda we have noted, and, alongside of it, an independent propaganda of economics and politics. at the end of , the leading french diarist [ ] notes that "there is formed at paris a new sect, called the economists," and names its leading personages, quesnay, mirabeau the elder, the abbé baudeau, mercier de la rivière, and turgot. these developed the doctrine of agricultural or "real" production which so stimulated and influenced adam smith. but immediately afterwards [ ] the diarist notes a rival sect, the school of forbonnais, who founded mainly on the importance of commerce and manufactures. each "sect" had its journal. the intellectual ferment had inevitably fructified thought upon economic as upon historical, religious, and scientific problems; and there was in operation a fourfold movement, all tending to make possible the immense disintegration of the state which began in . after the economists came the "patriots," who directed towards the actual political machine the spirit of investigation and reform. and the whole effective movement is not unplausibly to be dated from the fall of the jesuits in . [ ] inevitably the forces interacted: montesquieu and rousseau alike dealt with both the religious and the social issues; d'holbach in his first polemic, the christianisme dévoilé, opens the stern impeachment of kings and rulers which he develops so powerfully in the essai sur les préjugés; and the encyclopédie sent its search-rays over all the fields of inquiry. but of the manifold work done by the french intellect in the second and third generations of the eighteenth century, the most copious and the most widely influential body of writings that can be put under one category is that of which we have above made a chronological conspectus. of these works the merit is of course very various; but the total effect of the propaganda was formidable, and some of the treatises are extremely effective. the examen critique of burigny, [ ] for instance, which quickly won a wide circulation when printed, is one of the most telling attacks thus far made on the christian system, raising as it does most of the issues fought over by modern criticism. it tells indeed of a whole generation of private investigation and debate; and the abbé bergier, assuming it to be the work of fréret, in whose name it is published, avows that its author "has written it in the same style as his academic dissertations: he has spread over it the same erudition; he seems to have read everything and mastered everything." [ ] perhaps not the least effective part of the book is the chapter which asks: "are men more perfect since the coming of jesus christ?"; and it is here that the clerical reply is most feeble. the critic cites the claims made by apologists as to the betterment of life by christianity, and then contrasts with those claims the thousand-and-one lamentations by christian writers over the utter badness of all the life around them. bergier in reply follows the tactic habitually employed in the same difficulty to-day: he ignores the fact that his own apologists have been claiming a vast betterment, and contends that religion is not to be blamed for the evils it condemns. not by such furtive sophistry could the church turn the attack, which, as bergier bitterly observes, was being made by voltaire in a new book every year. as always, the weaker side of the critical propaganda is its effort at reconstruction. as in england, so in france, the faithful accused the critics of "pulling down without building up," when in point of fact their chief error was to build up--that is, to rewrite the history of human thought--before they had the required materials, or had even mastered those which existed. thus voltaire and rousseau alike framed à priori syntheses of the origins of religion and society. but there were closer thinkers than they in the rationalistic ranks. fontenelle's essay de l'origine des fables, though not wholly exempt from error, admittedly lays aright the foundations of mythology and hierology; and de brosses in his treatise du culte des dieux fétiches ( ) does a similar service on the side of anthropology. meister's essay de l'origine des principes religieux is full of insight and breadth; and, despite some errors due to the backwardness of anthropology, essentially scientific in temper and standpoint. his later essay, de la morale naturelle, shows the same independence and fineness of speculation, seeming indeed to tell of a character which missed fame by reason of over-delicacy of fibre and lack of the driving force which marked the foremost men of that tempestuous time. vauvenargues's essay de la suffisance de la religion naturelle is no less clinching, granted its deism. so, on the side of philosophy, mirabaud, who was secretary of the académie from to , handles the problem of the relation of deism to ethics--if the posthumous essays in the recueil philosophique be indeed his--in a much more philosophic fashion than does voltaire, arguing unanswerably for the ultimate self-dependence of morals. the lettre de thrasybule à leucippe, ascribed to fréret, again, is a notably skilful attack on theism. . one of the most remarkable of the company in some respects is nicolas-antoine boulanger ( - ), of whom diderot gives a vivid account in a sketch prefixed to the posthumous l'antiquité dévoilée par ses usages ( ). at the collège de beauvais, boulanger was so little stimulated by his scholastic teachers that they looked for nothing from him in his maturity. when, however, at the age of seventeen, he began to study mathematics and architecture, his faculties began to develop; and the life, first of a military engineer in - , and later in the service of the notable department of roads and bridges--the most efficient of all state services under louis xv--made him an independent and energetic thinker. the chronic spectacle of the corvée, the forced labour of peasants on the roads, moved him to indignation; but he sought peace in manifold study, the engineer's contact with nature arousing in him all manner of speculations, geological and sociological. seeking for historic light, he mastered latin, which he had failed to do at school, reading widely and voraciously; and when the latins failed to yield him the light he craved he systematically mastered greek, reading the greeks as hungrily and with as little satisfaction. then he turned indefatigably to hebrew, syriac, and arabic, gleaning at best verbal clues which at length he wrought into a large, loose, imaginative yet immensely erudite schema of ancient social evolution, in which the physicist's pioneer study of the structure and development of the globe controls the anthropologist's guesswork as to the beginnings of human society. the whole is set forth in the bulky posthumous work recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental ( ), and in the further treatise l'antiquité dévoilée ( tom. ), which is but the concluding section of the first-named. it all yields nothing to modern science; the unwearying research is all carried on, as it were, in the dark; and the sleepless brain of the pioneer can but weave webs of impermanent speculation from masses of unsifted and unmanageable material. powers which to-day, on a prepared ground of ascertained science, might yield the greatest results, were wasted in a gigantic effort to build a social science out of the chaos of undeciphered antiquity, natural and human. but the man is nonetheless morally memorable. diderot pictures him with a head socratically ugly, simple and innocent of life, gentle though vivacious, reading rabbinical hebrew in his walks on the high roads, suffering all his life from "domestic persecution," "little contradictory though infinitely learned," and capable of passing in a moment, on the stimulus of a new idea, into a state of profound and entranced absorption. diderot is always enthusiastically generous in praise; but in reading and reviewing boulanger's work we can hardly refuse assent to his friend's claim that "if ever man has shown in his career the true characters of genius, it was he." his immense research was all compassed in a life of thirty-seven years, occupied throughout in an active profession; and the diction in which he sets forth his imaginative construction of the past reveals a constant intensity of thought rarely combined with scholarly knowledge. but it was an age of concentrated energy, carrying in its womb the revolution. the perusal of boulanger is a sufficient safeguard against the long-cherished hallucination that the french freethinking of his age was but a sparkle of raillery. even among some rationalists, however, who are content to take hearsay report on these matters, there appears still to subsist a notion that the main body of the french freethinkers of the eighteenth century were mere scoffers, proceeding upon no basis of knowledge and with no concern for research. such an opinion is possible only to those who have not examined their work. to say nothing more of the effort of boulanger, an erudition much more exact than voltaire's and a deeper insight than his and rousseau's into the causation of primitive religion inspires the writings of men like burigny and fréret on the one hand, and fontenelle and meister on the other. the philosophic reach of diderot, one of the most convinced opponents of the ruling religion, was recognized by goethe. and no critic of the "philosophes" handled more uncompromisingly than did dumarsais [ ] the vanity of the assumption that a man became a philosopher by merely setting himself in opposition to orthodox belief. dumarsais, long scholastically famous for his youthful treatise des tropes, lived up to his standard, whatever some of the more eminent philosophes may have done, being found eminently lovable by pietists who knew him; while for d'alembert he was "the la fontaine of the philosophers" in virtue of his lucid simplicity of style. [ ] the analyse de la religion chrétienne printed under his name in some editions of the Évangile de la raison has been pronounced supposititious. it seems to be the work of at least two hands [ ] of different degrees of instruction; but, apart from some errors due to one of these, it does him no discredit, being a vigorous criticism of scriptural contradictions and anomalies, such as a "jansenist atheist" might well compose, though it makes the usual profession of deistic belief. later polemic works, inspired by those above noticed, reproduce some of their arguments, but with an advance in literary skill, as in the anonymous bon sens given forth ( ) by diderot and d'holbach as the work of jean meslier, but really an independent compilation, embodying other arguments with his, and putting the whole with a concision and brilliancy to which he could make no approach. prémontval, a bad writer, [ ] contrives nonetheless to say many pungent things of a deistic order in his diogène de d'alembert, and, following marie huber, puts forward the formula of religion versus theology, which has done so much duty in the nineteenth century. of the whole literature it is not too much to say that it covered cogently most of the important grounds of latter-day debate, from the questions of revelation and the doctrine of torments to the bases of ethics and the problem of deity; and it would be hard to show that the nineteenth century has handled the main issues with more sincerity, lucidity, or logic than were attained by frenchmen in the eighteenth. to-day, no doubt, in the light of a century and a-half of scientific, historic, and philosophic accumulation, the rationalist case is put with more profundity and accuracy by many writers than it could be in the eighteenth century. but we have to weigh the freethinkers of that age against their opponents, and the french performers against those of other countries, to make a fair estimate. when this is done their credit is safe. when german and other writers say with tholuck that "unbelief entered germany not by the weapons of mere wit and scoffing as in france; it grounded itself on learned research," [ ] they merely prove their ignorance of french culture-history. an abundance of learned research in france preceded the triumphant campaign of voltaire, who did most of the witty writing on the subject; and whose light artillery was to the last reinforced by the heavier guns of d'holbach. it is only in the analysis of the historical problem by the newer tests of anthropology and hierology, and in the light of latterly discovered documents, that our generation has made much advance on the strenuous pioneers of the age of voltaire. and even in the field of anthropology the sound thinking of fontenelle and de brosses long preceded any equally valid work by rationalists in germany; though spencer of cambridge had preceded them in his work of constructive orthodoxy. . though the bibliographers claim to have traced the authorship in most cases, such works were in the first instance generally published anonymously, [ ] as were those of voltaire, d'holbach, and the leading freethinkers; and the clerical policy of suppression had the result of leaving them generally unanswered, save in anonymous writings, when they nevertheless got into private circulation. it was generally impolitic that an official answer should appear to a book which was officially held not to exist; so that the orthodox defence was long confined mainly to the classic performances of pascal, bossuet, huet, fénelon, and some outsiders such as the protestant abbadie, who settled first in berlin and later in london. the polemic of every one of the writers named is a work of ability; even that of abbadie (traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne, ), though now little known, was in its day much esteemed. [ ] in the age of louis xiv those classic answers to unbelief were by believers held to be conclusive; and thus far the french defence was certainly more thorough and philosophical than the english. but french freethought, which in herbert's day had given the lead to english, now drew new energy from the english growth; and the general arguments of the old apologists did not explicitly meet the new attack. their books having been written to meet the mostly unpublished objections of previous generations, the church through its chosen policy had the air of utter inability to confute the newer propaganda, though some apologetic treatises of fair power did appear, in particular those of the abbé bergier. [ ] by the avowal of a christian historian, "so low had the talents of the once illustrious church of france fallen that in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when christianity itself was assailed, not one champion of note appeared in its ranks; and when the convocation of the clergy, in , published their famous anathema against the dangers of unbelief, and offered rewards for the best essays in defence of the christian faith, the productions called forth were so despicable that they sensibly injured the cause of religion." [ ] the freethinking attack, in fact, had now become overwhelming. after the suppression of the jesuit order ( ) [ ] the press grew practically more and more free; and when, after the accession of pope clement xiv ( ), the freethinking books circulated with less and less restraint, bergier extended his attack on deism, and deists and clerics joined in answering the atheistic système de la nature of d'holbach. but by this time the deistic books were legion, and the political battle over the taxation of church property had become the more pressing problem, especially seeing that the mass of the people remained conforming. the manifesto of the clergy in was accompanied by an address to the king "on the evil results of liberty of thought and printing," following up a previous appeal by the pope; [ ] and in consideration of the donation by the clergy of sixteen million livres the government recommended the parlement of paris to proceed against impious books. there seems accordingly to have been some hindrance to publication for a year or two; but in appeared the bon sens of d'holbach and diderot; and there was no further serious check, the jesuits being disbanded by the pope in . the english view that french orthodoxy made a "bad" defence to the freethinking attack as compared with what was done in england (sir j. f. stephen, horæ sabbaticæ, nd. ser. p. ; alison, as cited above) proceeds on some misconception of the circumstances, which, as has been shown, were substantially different in the two countries. could the english clergy have resorted to official suppression of deistic literature, they too would doubtless have done so. swift and berkeley bitterly desired to. but the view that the english defence was relatively "good," and that butler's in particular was decisive, is also, as we have seen, fallacious. in sir leslie stephen's analysis, as apart from his preamble, the orthodox defence is exhibited as generally weak, and often absurd. nothing could be more futile than the three "pastoral letters" published by the bishop of london ( , , ) as counterblasts to the freethinking books of this period. in france the defence began sooner, and was more profound and even more methodical. pascal at least went deeper, and bossuet (in his discours sur l'histoire universelle) more widely, into certain inward and outward problems of the controversy than did any of the english apologists; huet produced, in his demonstratio evangelica, one of the most methodical of all the defensive treatises of the time; abbadie, as before noted, gave great satisfaction, and certainly grappled zealously with hobbes and spinoza; allix, though no great dialectician, gave a lead to english apologetics against the deists (above, p. ), and was even adapted by paley; and fénelon, though his traité de l'existence et des attributs de dieu ( ) and lettres sur la religion ( ) are not very powerful processes of reasoning, contributed through his reproduced conversations ( ) with ramsay a set of arguments at least as plausible as anything on the english side, and, what is more notable, marked by an amenity which almost no english apologist attained. the ground had been thus very fully covered by the defence in france before the main battle in england began; and when a new french campaign commenced with voltaire, the defence against that incomparable attack, so far as the system allowed of any, was probably as good as it could have been made in england, save insofar as the protestants gave up modern miracles, while most of the catholics claimed them for their church. counterblasts such as the essay of linguet, le fanatisme des philosophes ( ), were but general indictments of rationalism; and other apologetic treatises, as we saw, handled only the most prominent books on the other side. it should be noted, too, that as late as the police made it almost impossible to obtain in paris works of voltaire recently printed in holland (grimm, vii, , , ). but, as paley admitted with reference to gibbon ("who can refute a sneer?"), the new attack was in any case very hard to meet. a sneer is not hard to refute when it is unfounded, inasmuch as it implies a proposition, which can be rebutted or turned by another sneer. the anglican church had been well enough pleased by the polemic sneers of swift and berkeley; but the other side had the heavier guns, and of the mass of defences produced in england nothing remains save in the neat compilation of paley. alison's whole avowal might equally well apply to anything produced in england as against voltaire. the skeptical line of argument for faith had been already employed by huet and pascal and fénelon, with visibly small success; berkeley had achieved nothing with it as against english deism; and butler had no such effect in his day in england as to induce french catholics to use him. (he does not appear to have been translated into french till .) an oratorian priest, again, translated the anti-deistic essays of president forbes; and the pensées theologiques relatives aux erreurs du temps of père jamin ( ; e édit. ) were thought worthy of being translated into german, poor as they were. with their empty affirmation of authority they suggest so much blank cartridge, which could avail nothing with thinking men; and here doubtless the english defence makes a better impression. but, on the other hand, voltaire circulated widely in england, and was no better answered there than in france. his attack was, in truth, at many points peculiarly baffling, were it only by its inimitable wit. the english replies to spinoza, again, were as entirely inefficient or deficient as the french; the only intelligent english answers to hume on miracles (the replies on other issues were of no account) made use of the french investigations of the jansenist miracles; and the replies to gibbon were in general ignominious failures. finally, though the deeper reasonings of diderot were over the heads alike of the french and the english clergy, the système de la nature of d'holbach was met skilfully enough at many points by g. j. holland ( ), who, though not a frenchman, wrote excellent french, and supplied for french readers a very respectable rejoinder; [ ] whereas in england there was practically none. in this case, of course, the defence was deistic; as was that of voltaire, who criticized d'holbach as bolingbroke attacked spinoza and hobbes. but the examen du matérialisme of the abbé bergier ( ), who was a member of the academy of sciences, was at least as good as anything that could then have been done in the church of england; and the same may be said of his reply to fréret's (really burigny's) examen. it is certainly poor enough; but bishop watson used some of its arguments for his reply to paine. broadly speaking, as we have said, much more of french than of english intelligence had been turned to the dispute in the third quarter of the century. in england, political and industrial discussion relieved the pressure on creed; in france, before the revolution, the whole habit of absolutism tended to restrict discussion to questions of creed; and the attack would in any case have had the best of it, because it embodied all the critical forces hitherto available. the controversy thus went much further than the pre-humian issues raised in england; and the english orthodoxy of the end of the century was, in comparison, intellectually as weak as politically and socially it was strong. in france, from the first, the greater intellectual freedom in social intercourse, exemplified in the readiness of women to declare themselves freethinkers (cp. jamin, as cited, ch. xix, § ), would have made the task of the apologists harder even had they been more competent. . above the scattered band of minor combatants rises a group of writers of special power, several of whom, without equalling voltaire in ubiquity of influence, rivalled him in intellectual power and industry. the names of diderot, d'holbach, d'alembert, helvétius, and condorcet are among the first in literary france of the generation before the revolution; after them come volney and dupuis; and in touch with the whole series stands the line of great mathematicians and physicists (to which also belongs d'alembert), laplace, lagrange, lalande, delambre. when to these we add the names of montesquieu, buffon, chamfort, rivarol, vauvenargues; of the materialists la mettrie and cabanis; of the philosophers condillac and destutt de tracy; of the historian raynal; of the poet andré chénier; of the politicians turgot, mirabeau, danton, desmoulins, robespierre--all (save perhaps raynal) deists or else pantheists or atheists--it becomes clear that the intelligence of france was predominantly rationalistic before the revolution, though the mass of the nation certainly was not. it is necessary to deprecate mr. lecky's statement (rationalism in europe, i, ) that "raynal has taken, with diderot, a place in french literature which is probably permanent"--an estimate as far astray as the declaration on the same page that the english deists are buried in "unbroken silence." raynal's vogue in his day was indeed immense (cp. morley, diderot, ch. xv); and edmond scherer (Études sur la litt. du e siècle, , pp. - ) held that raynal's histoire philosophique des deux indes had had more influence on the french revolution than even rousseau's contrat social. but the book has long been discredited (cp. scherer, pp. - ). a biographical dictionary of spoke of it as "cet ouvrage ampoulé qu'on ne lit pas aujourd'hui." although the first edition ( ) passed the censure only by means of bribery, and the second ( ) was publicly burned, and its author forced to leave france, he was said to reject, in religion, "only the pope, hell, and monks" (scherer, p. ); and most of the anti-religious declamation in the first edition of the histoire is said to be from the pen of diderot, who wrote it very much at random, at raynal's request. no list of orthodox names remotely comparable with these can be drawn from the literature of france, or indeed of any other country of that time. jean jacques rousseau ( - ), the one other pre-eminent figure, though not an anti-christian propagandist, is distinctly on the side of deism. in the contrat social, [ ] writing with express approbation of hobbes, he declares that "the christian law is at bottom more injurious than useful to the sound constitution of the state"; and even the famous confession of faith of a savoyard vicar in the Émile is anti-revelationist, and practically anti-clerical. he was accordingly anathematized by the sorbonne, which found in Émile nineteen heresies; the book was seized and burned both at paris and at geneva within a few weeks of its appearance, [ ] and the author decreed to be arrested; even the contrat social was seized and its vendors imprisoned. all the while he had maintained in Émile doctrines of the usefulness of religious delusion and fanaticism. still, although his temperamental way of regarding things has a clear affinity with some later religious philosophy of a more systematic sort, he undoubtedly made for freethought as well as for the revolutionary spirit in general. thus the cause of christianity stood almost denuded of intellectually eminent adherents in the france of ; for even among the writers who had dealt with public questions without discussing religion, or who had criticized rousseau and the philosophes--as the abbés mably, morellet, millot--the tone was essentially rationalistic. it has been justly enough argued, concerning rousseau (see below, p. ), that the generation of the revolution made him its prophet in his own despite, and that had he lived twenty years longer he would have been its vehement adversary. but this does not alter the facts as to his influence. a great writer of emotional genius, like rousseau, inevitably impels men beyond the range of his own ideals, as in recent times ruskin and tolstoy, both anti-socialists, have led thousands towards socialism. in his own generation and the next, rousseau counted essentially for criticism of the existing order; and it was the revolutionaries, never the conservatives, who acclaimed him. de tocqueville (hist. philos. du règne de louis xv, , i, ) speaks of his "impiété dogmatique." martin du theil, in his j. j. rousseau apologiste de la religion chrétienne ( e édit. ), makes out his case by identifying emotional deism with christianity, as did rousseau himself when he insisted that "the true christianity is only natural religion well explained." rousseau's praise of the gospel and of the character of jesus was such as many deists acquiesced in. similar language, in the mouth of matthew arnold, gave rather more offence to gladstone, as a believing christian, than did the language of simple unbelief; and a recent christian polemist, at the close of a copious monograph, has repudiated the association of rousseau with the faith (see j. f. nourrisson, j. j. rousseau et le rousseauisme, , p. sq.). what is true of him is that he was more religiously a theist than voltaire, whose impeachment of providence in the poem on the earthquake of lisbon he sought strenuously though not very persuasively to refute in a letter to the author. but, with all his manifold inconsistencies, which may be worked down to the neurosis so painfully manifest in his life and in his relations to his contemporaries, he never writes as a believer in the dogmas of christianity or in the principle of revelation; and it was as a deist that he was recognized by his christian contemporaries. a demi-christian is all that michelet will call him. his compatriot the swiss pastor roustan, located in london, directed against him his offrande aux autels et à la patrie, ou défense du christianisme ( ), regarding him as an assailant. the work of the abbé bergier, le déisme refuté par lui-même ( , and later), takes the form of letters addressed to rousseau, and is throughout an attack on his works, especially the Émile. when, therefore, buckle ( -vol. ed. p. ) speaks of him as not having attacked christianity, and lord morley (rousseau, ch. xiv) treats him as creating a religious reaction against the deists, they do not fully represent his influence on his time. as we have seen, he stimulated voltaire to new audacities by his example. . an interlude in the critical campaign, little noticed at the time, developed importance a generation later. in jean astruc, doctor of medicine, published after long hesitation his conjectures on the original documents which moses seems to have used in composing the book of genesis. only in respect of his flash of insight into the composite structure of the pentateuch was astruc a freethinker. his hesitation to publish was due to his fear that les pretendus esprits forts might make a bad use of his work; and he was quite satisfied that moses was the author of the pentateuch as it stands. the denial of that authorship, implied in the criticisms of hobbes and spinoza, he described as "the disease of the last century." this attitude may explain the lack of interest in astruc's work shown by the freethinkers of the time. [ ] nonetheless, by his perception of the clue given by the narrative use of the two names yahweh and elohim in genesis, he laid a new foundation of the higher criticism of the bible in modern times, advancing alike on spinoza and on simon. for freethought he had "builded better than he knew." . in the select parisian arena of the académie, the intellectual movement of the age is as it were dramatized; and there more clearly than in the literary record we can trace the struggle of opinions, from the admission of voltaire ( ) onwards. in the old days the académie had been rather the home of convention, royalism, and orthodoxy than of ideas, though before voltaire there were some freethinking members of the lesser académies, notably boindin. [ ] the admission of montesquieu ( ), after much opposition from the court, preludes a new era; and from the entrance of voltaire, fourteen years after his first attempt, [ ] the atmosphere begins perceptibly to change. when, in , the academician bonamy had read a memoir on the character and the paganism of the emperor julian, partly vindicating him against the aspersions of the christian fathers, the academy feared to print the paper, though its author was a devout catholic. [ ] when the abbé la bletterie, also orthodox, read to the academy portions of his vie de julien, the members were not now scandalized, though the abbé's jansenism moved the king to veto his nomination. so, when blanchard in read a memoir on les exorcismes magiques there was much trepidation among the members, and again the secretary inserted merely an analysis, concluding with the words of philetas, "believe and fear god; beware of questioning." [ ] even such a play of criticism as the challenging of the early history of rome by lévesque de pouilly (brother of lévesque de burigny) in a dissertation before the académie in , roused the fears and the resentment of the orthodox; the abbé sallier, in undertaking to refute him, insinuated that he had shown a spirit which might be dangerous to other beliefs; and whispers of atheism passed among the academicians. [ ] pouilly, who had been made a freethinker by english contacts, went again to england later, and spent his last years at rheims. [ ] his thesis was much more powerfully sustained in by beaufort, in the famous dissertation sur l'incertitude des cinq premiers siècles de l'histoire romaine; but beaufort was of a refugee-huguenot stock; his book was published, under his initials, at utrecht; and not till did the académie award him a medal--on the score of an earlier treatise. and in the religio veterum persarum of the english orientalist hyde, published as long before as , found a vehement assailant within the academy in the abbé foucher, who saw danger in a favourable view of any heathen religion. yet even in the time of louis xiv the abbé mongault, tutor of the son of the regent, and noted alike for his private freethinking and for the rigid orthodoxy which he instilled into his pupil, treated the historic subject of the divine honours rendered to roman governors with such latitude as to elicit from fréret, in his éloge of mongault, the remark that the tutor had reserved to himself a liberty of thought which he doubtless felt to be dangerous in a prince. [ ] and after the old order can be seen passing away. d'argenson notes in his diary in : "i observe in the académie de belles-lettres, of which i am a member, that there begins to be a decided stir against the priests. it began to show itself at the death of boindin, to whom our bigots refused a service at the oratory and a public commemoration. our deist philosophers were shocked, and ever since, at each election, they are on guard against the priests and the bigots. nowhere is this division so marked, and it begins to bear fruits." [ ] the old statesman indicates his own sympathies by adding: "why has a bad name been made of the title of deist? it is that of those who have true religion in their hearts, and who have abjured a superstition that is destructive to the whole world." it was in this year that d'alembert, who took nearly as much pains to stay out as voltaire had done to enter, [ ] was elected a member; and with two leading encyclopédistes in the forty, and a friendly abbé (duclos) in the secretaryship ( ), and another zealous freethinker, lévesque de burigny, admitted in , [ ] the fortunes of freethought were visibly rising. its influence was thrown on the side of the academic orator thomas, a sincere believer but a hater of all persecution, and as such offensive to the church party. [ ] . in there came a check. the encyclopédie, which had been allowed to resume publication after its first suppression in , was again stopped; and the battle between philosophes and fanatics, dramatized for the time being in palissot's comedy les philosophes and in voltaire's rejoinder to fréron, l'Écossaise, came to be fought out in the academy itself. the poet lefranc de pompignan, [ ] elected in without any opposition from the freethinkers, had in his youth translated pope's "deist's prayer," and had suffered for it to the extent of being deprived by d'aguesseau of his official charge [ ] for six months. with such a past, with a keen concern for status, and with a character that did not stick at tergiversation, pompignan saw fit to signalize his election by making his discours de réception (march, ) a violent attack on the whole philosophic school, which, in his conclusion, he declared to be undermining "equally the throne and the altar." the academicians heard him out in perfect silence, leaving it to the few pietists among the audience to applaud; but as soon as the reports reached ferney there began the vengeance of voltaire. first came a leaflet of stinging sentences, each beginning with quand: "when one has translated and even exaggerated the 'deist's prayer' composed by pope ...," and so on. the maddened pompignan addressed a fatuous memorial to the king (who notoriously hated the philosophes, and had assented only under petticoat influence to voltaire's election [ ]); and, presuming to print it without the usual official sanction, suffered at the hands of malesherbes the blow of having the printer's plant smashed. other combatants entered the fray. voltaire's leaflet "les quand" was followed by "les si, les pour, les qui, les quoi, les car, les ah!"--by him or others--and the master-mocker produced in swift succession three satires in verse, [ ] all accompanied by murderous prose annotations. the speedy result was pompignan's retirement into provincial life. he could not face the merciless hail of rejoinders; and when at his death, twenty-five years later, the abbé maury had to pronounce his éloge, the mention of his famous humiliation was hardly tempered by compassion. [ ] . voltaire could not compass, as he for a time schemed, the election of diderot; but other philosophes of less note entered from time to time; [ ] marmontel was elected in ; and when in the academy's prize for poetry was given to chamfort for a piece which savoured of what were then called "the detestable principles of montesquieu, rousseau, and helvétius," and in its prize for eloquence went to the same writer, the society as a whole had acquired a certain character for impiety. [ ] in there had occurred the famous ecclesiastical explosion over marmontel's philosophic romance bélisaire, a performance in which it is somewhat difficult to-day to detect any exciting quality. it was by a chapter in praise of toleration that the "universal and mediocre marmontel" [ ] secured from the sorbonne the finest advertisement ever given to a work of fiction, the ecclesiastics of the old school being still too thoroughly steeped in the past to realize that a gospel of persecution was a bad warcry for a religion that was being more and more put on the defensive. only an angry fear before the rising flood of unlicensed literature, combining with the long-baffled desire to strike some blow at freethinking, could have moved the sorbonne to select for censure the duly licensed work [ ] of a popular academician and novelist; and it should be remembered that it was at a time of great activity in the unlicensed production of freethinking literature that the attack was made. the blow recoiled signally. the book was of course promptly translated into all the languages of europe, selling by tens of thousands; [ ] and two sovereigns took occasion to give it their express approval. these were the empress catherine (who caused the book to be translated by members of her court while she was making a tour of her empire, she herself taking a chapter), and the empress maria-theresa. from catherine, herself a freethinker, the approbation might have been expected; but the known orthodoxy and austerity of maria-theresa made her support the more telling. in france a small literary tempest raged for a year. marmontel published his correspondence with the syndic of the sorbonne and with voltaire; and in all there appeared some dozen documents pro and con, among them an anonymous satire by turgot, les xxxvii verités opposées aux xxxvii impiétés de bélisaire, "par un bachelier ubiquiste," [ ] which, with the contributions of voltaire, gave the victim very much the best of the battle. . alongside of the more strictly literary or humanist movement, too, there went on one of a scientific kind, which divided into two lines, a speculative and a practical. on the former the freelance philosopher julien offray la mettrie gave a powerful initial push by his materialistic theses, in which a medical knowledge that for the time was advanced is applied with a very keen if unsystematic reasoning faculty to the primary problem of mind and body; and others after him continued the impulse. la mettrie produced his natural history of the mind in ; [ ] and in appeared the essay on the origin of human knowledge of the abbé condillac, both essentially rationalistic and anti-theological works, though differing in their psychological positions, condillac being a non-materialist, though a strong upholder of "sensism." la mettrie followed up his doctrine with the more definitely materialistic but less heedfully planned works, l'homme plante and l'homme machine ( ), the second of which, published at leyden [ ] and wickedly dedicated to the pious baron von haller, was burned by order of the magistrates, its author being at the same time expelled from holland. both books are remarkable for their originality of thought, biological and ethical. though la mettrie professed to think the "greatest degree of probability" was in favour of the existence of a personal god, [ ] his other writings gave small support to the hypothesis; and even in putting it he rejects any inference as to worship. and he goes on to quote very placidly an atheist who insists that only an atheistic world can attain to happiness. it is notable that he, the typical materialist of his age, seems to have been one of its kindliest men, by the consent of all who knew him, [ ] though heedless in his life to the point of ending it by eating a monstrous meal out of bravado. the conventional denunciation of la mettrie (endorsed by lord morley, voltaire, p. ) proceeds ostensibly upon those of his writings in which he discussed sexual questions with absolute scientific freedom. he, however, insisted that his theoretic discussion had nothing whatever to do with his practice; and there is no evidence that he lived otherwise than as most men did in his age, and ours. still, the severe censure passed on him by diderot (essai sur les règnes de claude et de néron, ed. , ii, - ) seems to convict him of at least levity of character. voltaire several times holds the same tone. but diderot writes so angrily that his verdict incurs suspicion. as lange notes, there has been much loose generalization as to the place and bearing of la mettrie in the history of french thought. hettner, who apparently had not thought it worth while to read him, has ascribed his mental movement to the influence of diderot's pensées philosophiques ( ), whereas it had begun in his own histoire naturelle de l'âme, published a year before. la mettrie's originality and influence in general have been underestimated as a result of the hostility set up by disparagement of his character. the idea of a fundamental unity of type in nature--an idea underlying all the successive steps of lamarck, geoffroy saint-hilaire, goethe, and others, towards the complete conception of evolution--is set forth by him in l'homme plante in , the year in which appeared de maillet's telliamed. buffon follows in time as in thought, only beginning his great work in ; maupertuis, with his pseudonymous dissertation on the universal system of nature, applies la mettrie's conception in ; and diderot's pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature, stimulated by maupertuis, appeared only in . la mettrie proceeded from the classification of linnæus, but did not there find his idea. in the words of lange, "these forgotten writings are in nowise so empty and superficial as is commonly assumed." gesch. des materialismus, i, - . lange seems to have been the first to make a judicial study of la mettrie's work, as distinguished from the scandals about his character. . a more general influence, naturally, attached to the simple concrete handling of scientific problems. the interest in such questions, noticeable in england at the restoration and radiating thence, is seen widely diffused in france after the publication of fontenelle's entretiens, and thenceforward it rapidly strengthens. barren theological disputations set men not merely against theology, but upon the study of nature, where real knowledge was visibly possible. to a certain extent the study took openly heretical lines. the abbé lenglet du fresnoy, who was four times imprisoned in the bastille, supplied material of which d'argens made much use, tending to overthrow the biblical chronology and to discredit the story of the flood. [ ] benoît de maillet ( - ), who had been for fifteen years inspector of the french establishments in egypt and barbary, left for posthumous publication ( ) a work of which the first title was an anagram of his name, telliamed, ou entretiens d'un philosophe indien avec un missionaire français. of this treatise the thesis is that the shell deposits in the alps and elsewhere showed the sea to have been where land now was; and that the rocks were gradually deposited in their different kinds in the fashion in which even now are being formed mud, sand, and shingle. de maillet had thus anticipated the central conception of modern geology, albeit retaining many traditional delusions. his abstention from publication during his lifetime testifies to his sense of the danger he underwent, the treatise having been printed by him only in , at the age of seventy-nine; and not till ten years after his death was it given to the world, with "a preface and dedication so worded as, in case of necessity, to give the printer a fair chance of falling back on the excuse that the work was intended for a mere jeu d'esprit." [ ] the thesis was adopted, indeed plagiarized, [ ] by mirabaud in his le monde, son origine et son antiquité ( ). strangely enough, voltaire refused to be convinced, and offered amazing suggestions as to the possible deposit of shells by pilgrims. [ ] it is not unlikely that it was voltaire's opposition rather than any orthodox argumentation that retarded in france the acceptance of an evolutionary view of the origin of the earth and of life. it probably had a more practical effect on scientific thought in england [ ]--at least as regards geology: its speculations on the modification of species, which loosely but noticeably anticipate some of the inferences of darwin, found no acceptance anywhere till lamarck. in the opinion of huxley, the speculations of robinet, in the next generation, "are rather behind than in advance of those of de maillet"; [ ] and it may be added that the former, with his pet theory that all nature is "animated," and that the stars and planets have the faculty of reproducing themselves like animals, wandered as far from sound bases as de maillet ever did. the very form of de maillet's work, indeed, was not favourable to its serious acceptance; and in his case, as in those of so many pioneers of new ideas, errors and extravagances and oversights in regard to matters of detail went to justify "practical" men in dismissing novel speculations. needless to say, the common run of scientific men remained largely under the influence of religious presuppositions in science even when they had turned their backs on the church. nonetheless, on all sides the study of natural fact began to play its part in breaking down the dominion of creed. even in hidebound protestant switzerland, the sheer ennui of puritanism is seen driving the descendants of the huguenot refugees to the physical sciences for an interest and an occupation, before any freethinking can safely be avowed; and in france, as buckle has shown in abundant detail, the study of the physical sciences became for many years before the revolution almost a fashionable mania. and at the start the church had contrived that such study should rank as unbelief, and so make unbelievers. when buffon [ ] in - published his histoire naturelle, the delight which was given to most readers by its finished style was paralleled by the wrath which its théorie de la terre aroused among the clergy. after much discussion buffon received early in from the sorbonne an official letter specifying as reprehensible in his book fourteen propositions which he was invited to retract. he stoically obeyed in a declaration to the effect that he had "no intention to contradict the text of scripture," and that he believed "most firmly all there related about the creation," adding: "i abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth." [ ] still he was attacked as an unbeliever by the bishop of auxerre in that prelate's pastoral against the thesis of de prades. [ ] during the rest of his life he outwardly conformed to religious usage, but all men knew that in his heart he believed what he had written; and the memory of the affront that the church had thus put upon so honoured a student helped to identify her cause no less with ignorance than with insolence and oppression. for all such insults, and for the long roll of her cruelties, the church was soon to pay a tremendous penalty. . but science, like theology, had its schisms, and the rationalizing camp had its own strifes. maupertuis, for instance, is remembered mainly as one of the victims of the mockery of voltaire (which he well earned by his own antagonism at the court of frederick); yet he was really an energetic man of science, and had preceded voltaire in setting up in france the newtonian against the cartesian physics. in his system of nature [ ] (not to be confused with the later work of d'holbach under the same title) he in propounded a new version of the hylozoisms of ancient greece; developed the idea of an underlying unity in the forms of natural life, already propounded by la mettrie in his l'homme plante; connected it with leibnitz's formula of the economy of nature ("minimum of action"--the germ of the modern "line of least resistance"), and at the same time anticipated some of the special philosophic positions of kant. [ ] diderot, impressed by but professedly dissenting from maupertuis's système in his pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature ( ), promptly pointed out that the conception of a primordially vitalized atom excluded that of a creator, and for his own part thereafter took that standpoint. [ ] in came the traité des sensations of condillac, in which is most systematically developed the physio-psychological conception of man as an "animated statue," of which the thought is wholly conditioned by the senses. the mode of approach had been laid down before by la mettrie, by diderot, and by buffon; and condillac is rather a developer and systematizer than an originator; [ ] but in this case the process of unification was to the full as important as the first steps; [ ] and condillac has an importance which is latterly being rediscovered by the school of spencer on the one hand and by that of james on the other. condillac, commonly termed a materialist, no more held the legendary materialistic view than any other so named; and the same may be said of the next figure in the "materialistic" series, j. b. robinet, a frenchman settled at amsterdam, after having been, it is said, a jesuit. his nature ( vols. - ) is a remarkable attempt to reach a strictly naturalistic conception of things. [ ] but he is a theorist, not an investigator. even in his fixed idea that the universe is an "animal" he had perhaps a premonition of the modern discovery of the immense diffusion of bacterial life; but he seems to have had more deriders than disciples. he founds at once on descartes and on leibnitz, but in his philosophical considerations on the natural gradation of living forms ( ) he definitely sets aside theism as illusory, and puts ethics on a strictly scientific and human footing, [ ] extending the arguments of hume and hutcheson somewhat on the lines of mandeville. [ ] on another line of reasoning a similar application of mandeville's thesis had already been made by helvétius in his traité de l'esprit [ ] ( ), a work which excited a hostility now difficult to understand, but still reflected in censures no less surprising. one of the worst misrepresentations in theological literature is the account of helvétius by the late principal cairns (unbelief in the eighteenth century, , p. ) as appealing to government "to promote luxury, and, through luxury, public good, by abolishing all those laws that cherish a false modesty and restrain libertinage." helvétius simply pressed the consequences of the existing theory of luxury, which for his own part he disclaimed. de l'esprit, disc. ii, ch. xv. dr. pünjer (i, ) falls so far below his usual standard as to speak of helvétius in a similar fashion. as against such detraction it is fitting to note that helvétius, like la mettrie, was one of the most lovable and most beloved men of his time, though, like him, sufficiently licentious in his youth. it was at once suppressed by royal order as scandalous, licentious, and dangerous, though helvétius held a post at court as maître d'hôtel to the queen. ordered to make a public retractation, he did so in a letter addressed to a jesuit; and this being deemed insufficient, he had to sign another, "so humiliating," wrote grimm, [ ] "that one would not have been astonished to see a man take refuge with the hottentots rather than put his name to such avowals." the wits explained that the censor who had passed the book, being an official in the bureau of foreign affairs, had treated de l'esprit as belonging to that department. [ ] a swarm of replies appeared, and the book was formally burnt, with voltaire's poem sur la loi naturelle, and several obscure works of older standing. [ ] the de l'esprit, appearing alongside of the ever-advancing encyclopédie, [ ] was in short a formidable challenge to the powers of bigotry. its real faults are lack of system, undue straining after popularity, some hasty generalization, and a greater concern for the air of paradox than for persuasion; but it abounds in acuteness and critical wisdom, and it definitely and seriously founds public ethics on utility. its most serious error, the assumption that all men are born with equal faculties, and that education is the sole differentiating force, was repeated in our own age by john stuart mill; but in helvétius the error is balanced by the thoroughly sound and profoundly important thesis that the general superiorities of nations are the result of their culture-conditions and politics. [ ] the over-balance of his stress on self-interest [ ] is an error easily soluble. on the other hand, we have the memorable testimony of beccaria that it was the work of helvétius that inspired him to his great effort for the humanizing of penal laws and policy; [ ] and the only less notable testimony of bentham that helvétius was his teacher and inspirer. [ ] it may be doubted whether any such fruits can be claimed for the teachings of the whole of the orthodox moralists of the age. for the rest, helvétius is not to be ranked among the great abstract thinkers; but it is noteworthy that his thinking went on advancing to the end. always greatly influenced by voltaire, he did not philosophically harden as did his master; and though in his posthumous work, les progrès de la raison dans la recherche du vrai (published in ), he stands for deism against atheism, the argument ends in the pantheism to which voltaire had once attained, but did not adhere. . over all of these men, and even in some measure over voltaire, diderot ( - ) stands pre-eminent, on retrospect, for variety of power and depth and subtlety of thought; though for these very reasons, as well as because some of his most masterly works were never printed in his lifetime, he was less of a recognized popular force than some of his friends. in his own mental history he reproduces the course of the french thought of his time. beginning as a deist, he assailed the contemporary materialists; in the end, with whatever of inconsistency, he was emphatically an atheist and a materialist. one of his most intimate friends was damilaville, of whom voltaire speaks as a vehement anti-theist; [ ] and his biographer naigeon, who at times overstated his positions but always revered him, was the most zealous atheist of his day. [ ] compare, as to diderot's position, soury's contention (p. ) that we shall never make an atheist and a materialist out of "this enthusiastic artist, this poet-pantheist" (citing rosenkranz in support), with his own admissions, pp. - , and with lord morley's remarks, pp. , , . see also lange, i, sq.; ii, (eng. tr. ii, , ). in the affectionate éloge of his friend meister ( ) there is an express avowal that "it had been much to be desired for the reputation of diderot, perhaps even for the honour of his age, that he had not been an atheist, or that he had been so with less zeal." the fact is thus put beyond reasonable doubt. in the correspondance littéraire of grimm and diderot, under date september , (vii, ), there is a letter in criticism of descartes, thoroughly atheistic in its reasoning, which is almost certainly by diderot. and if the criticism of voltaire's dieu, above referred to (p. ), be not by him, he was certainly in entire agreement with it, as with grimm in general. rosenkranz finally (ii, ) sums up that "diderot war als atheist pantheist," which is merely a way of saying that he was scientifically monistic in his atheism. lange points out in this connection (i, ) that the hegelian schema of philosophic evolution, "with its sovereign contempt for chronology," has wrought much confusion as to the real developments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. it is recorded that diderot's own last words in serious conversation were: "the beginning of philosophy is incredulity"; and it may be inferred from his writings that his first impulses to searching thought came from his study of montaigne, who must always have been for him one of the most congenial of spirits. [ ] at an early stage of his independent mental life we find him turning to the literature which in that age yielded to such a mind as his the largest measure both of nutriment and stimulus--the english. in he translated shaftesbury's inquiry concerning virtue and merit; and he must have read with prompt appreciation the other english freethinkers then famous. ere long, however, he had risen above the deistical plane of thought, and grappled with the fundamental issues which the deists took for granted, partly because of an innate bent to psychological analysis, partly because he was more interested in scientific problems than in scholarly research. the pensées philosophiques, published in , really deserve their name; and though they exhibit him as still a satisfied deist, and an opponent of the constructive atheism then beginning to suggest itself, they contain abstract reasonings sufficiently disturbing to the deistic position. [ ] the promenade du sceptique (written about , published posthumously) goes further, and presents tentatively the reply to the design argument which was adopted by hume. in its brilliant pages may be found a conspectus of the intellectual life of the day, on the side of the religious problem. every type of thinker is there tersely characterized--the orthodox, the deist, the atheist, the sheer skeptic, the scoffer, the pantheist, the solipsist, and the freethinking libertine, the last figuring as no small nuisance to the serious unbeliever. so drastic is the criticism of orthodoxy that the book was unprintable in its day; [ ] and it was little known even in manuscript. but ere long there appeared the letter on the blind, for the use of those who see ( ), in which a logical rebuttal alike of the ethical and the cosmological assumptions of theism, developed from hints in the pensées, is put in the mouth of the blind english mathematician, sanderson. it is not surprising that whereas the pensées had been, with some other books, ordered by the paris parlement to be burnt by the common hangman, the lettre sur les aveugles led to his arrest and an imprisonment of six months [ ] in the château de vincennes. both books had of course been published without licence; [ ] but the second book was more than a defiance of the censorship: it was a challenge alike to the philosophy and the faith of christendom; and as such could not have missed denunciation. [ ] but diderot was not the kind of man to be silenced by menaces. in the famous sorbonne thesis of the abbé de prades ( ) he probably had, as we have seen, some share; and when de prades was condemned and deprived of his licence ( ) diderot wrote the third part of the apologie (published by de prades in holland), which defended his positions; and possibly assisted in the other parts. [ ] the hand of diderot perhaps may be discovered in the skilful allusions to the skeptical demonstratio evangelica of huet, which de prades professes to have translated when at his seminary, seeking there the antidote to the poison of the deists. the entire handling of the question of pagan and christian miracles, too, suggests the skilled dialectician, though it is substantially an adaptation of leslie's short and easy method with the deists. the alternate eulogy and criticism of locke are likely to be his, as is indeed the abundant knowledge of english thought shown alike in the thesis and in the apologie. whether he wrote the passage which claims to rebut an argument in his own pensées philosophiques [ ] is surely doubtful. but his, certainly, is the further reply to the pastoral of the jansenist bishop of auxerre against de prades's thesis, in which the perpetual disparagement of reason by catholic theologians is denounced [ ] as the most injurious of all procedures against religion. and his, probably, is the peroration [ ] arraigning the jansenists and imputing to their fanaticism and superstition, their miracle-mongering and their sectarian bitterness, the discredit which among thinking men had latterly fallen upon church and creed alike. [ ] de prades, who in his thesis and apologie had always professed to be a believing christian, was not a useful recruit to rationalism. passing from holland to berlin, he was there appointed, through the influence of voltaire, reader and amanuensis to the king, [ ] who in arranged for him an official reconciliation with the church. a formal retractation was sent to the pope, the sorbonne, and the bishop of montauban; [ ] and frederick in due course presented him to a catholic canonry at glogau. in , however, he was put under arrest on the charge, it is commonly said, of supplying military information to his countrymen; [ ] and thereafter, returning to france in , he obtained a french benefice. diderot, who was now a recognized champion of freethought, turned away with indignation. [ ] thenceforward he never faltered on his path. it is his peculiar excellence to be an original and innovating thinker not only in philosophy but in psychology, in æsthetics, in ethics, in dramatic art; and his endless and miscellaneous labours in the encyclopédie, of which he was the most loyal and devoted producer, represent an extraordinary range of interests. he suffered from his position as a hack writer and as a forced dissembler in his articles on religious matters; and there is probably a very real connection between his compulsory insincerities [ ] in the encyclopédie--to say nothing of the official prosecution of that and of others of his works--and his misdeeds in the way of indecent fiction. when organized society is made to figure as the heartless enemy of thinking men, it is no great wonder if they are careless at times about the effect of their writings on society. but it stands to his lasting honour that his sufferings at the hands of priests, printers, and parlements never soured his natural goodness of heart. [ ] having in his youth known a day's unrelieved hunger, he made a vow that he would never refuse help to any human being; and, says his daughter, no vow was ever more faithfully kept. no one in trouble was ever turned away from his door; and even his enemies were helped when they were base enough to beg of him. it seems no exaggeration to say that the bulk of his life was given to helping other people; and the indirect effect of his work, which is rather intellectually disinterested than didactic, is no less liberative and humanitarian. "to do good, and to find truth," were his mottoes for life. his daughter, madame de vandeul, who in her old age remained tranquilly divided between the religion instilled into her by her pious mother and the rationalism she had gathered from her father and his friends, testified, then, to his constant goodness in the home; [ ] and his father bore a similar testimony, contrasting him with his pious brother. [ ] he was, in his way, as beneficent as voltaire, without voltaire's faults of private malice; and his life's work was a great ministry of light. it was goethe who said of him in the next generation that "whoever holds him or his doings cheaply is a philistine." his large humanity reaches from the planes of expert thought to that of popular feeling; and while by his letter on the blind he could advance speculative psychology and pure philosophy, he could by his tale the nun (la religeuse, [ ] written about , published ) enlist the sympathies of the people against the rule of the church. it belonged to his character to be generously appreciative of all excellence; he delighted in other men's capacity as in pictures and poetry; and he loved to praise. at a time when bacon and hobbes were little regarded in england he made them newly famous throughout europe by his praises. in him was realized bacon's saying, admiratio semen scientiae, in every sense, for his curiosity was as keen as his sensibility. . with diderot were specially associated, in different ways, d'alembert, the mathematician, for some years his special colleague on the encyclopédie, and baron d'holbach. the former, one of the staunchest friends of voltaire, though a less invincible fighter than diderot, counted for practical freethought by his miscellaneous articles, his little book on the jesuits ( ), his pensées philosophiques, his physics, and the general rationalism of his preliminary discourse to the encyclopédie. it is noteworthy that in his intimate correspondence with voltaire he never avows theism, and that his and diderot's friend, the atheist damilaville, died in his arms. [ ] on dumarsais, too, he penned an éloge of which voltaire wrote: "dumarsais only begins to live since his death; you have given him existence and immortality." [ ] and perpetual secretary as he was of the academy, the fanatical daughter of madame geoffrin could write to him in : "for many years you have set all respectable people against you by your indecent and imprudent manner of speaking against religion." [ ] baron d'holbach, a naturalized german of large fortune, was on the other hand one of the most strenuous propagandists of freethought in his age. personally no less beloved than helvétius, [ ] he gave his life and his fortune to the work of enlightening men on all the lines on which he felt they needed light. much of the progress of the physical sciences in pre-revolutionary france was due to the long series--at least eleven in all--of his translations of solid treatises from the german; and his still longer series of original works and translations from the english in all branches of freethought--a really astonishing movement of intellectual energy despite the emotion attaching to the subject-matter--was for the most part prepared in the same essentially scientific temper. of all the freethinkers of the period he had perhaps the largest range of practical erudition; [ ] and he drew upon it with unhasting and unresting industry. imitating the tactic of voltaire, he produced, with some assistance from diderot, naigeon, and others, a small library of anti-christian treatises under a variety of pseudonyms; [ ] and his principal work, the famous system of nature ( ), was put out under the name of mirabaud, an actual person, then dead. summing up as it does with stringent force the whole anti-theological propaganda of the age, it has been described as a "thundering engine of revolt and destruction." [ ] it was the first published atheistic [ ] treatise of a systematic kind, if we except that of robinet, issued some years before; and it significantly marks the era of modern freethought, as does the powerful essai sur les préjugés, published in the same year, [ ] by its stern impeachment of the sins of monarchy--here carrying on the note struck by jean meslier in his manuscript of half-a-century earlier. rather a practical argument than a dispassionate philosophic research, its polemic against human folly laid it open to the regulation retort that on its own necessarian principles no such polemic was admissible. that retort is, of course, ultimately invalid when the denunciation is resolved into demonstration. if, however, it be termed "shallow" on the score of its censorious treatment of the past, [ ] the term will have to be applied to the hebrew books, to the gospel jesus, to the christian fathers, to pascal, milton, carlyle, ruskin, and a good many other prophets, ancient and modern. the synthesis of the book is really emotional rather than philosophic, and hortatory rather than scientific; and it was all the more influential on that account. to the sensation it produced is to be ascribed the edict of condemning a whole shelf of previous works to be burnt along with it by the common hangman. . the death of d'holbach ( ) brings us to the french revolution. by that time all the great freethinking propagandists and non-combatant deists of the voltairean group were gone, save condorcet. voltaire and rousseau had died in , helvétius in , turgot in , d'alembert in , diderot in . after all their labours, only the educated minority, broadly speaking, had been made freethinkers; and of these, despite the vogue of the system of nature, only a minority were atheists. deism prevailed, as we have seen, among the foremost revolutionists; but atheism was relatively rare. voltaire, indeed, impressed by the number of cultured men of his acquaintance who avowed it, latterly speaks [ ] of them as very numerous; and grimm must have had a good many among the subscribers to his correspondence, to permit of his penning or passing the atheistic criticism there given of voltaire's first reply to d'holbach. nevertheless, there was no continuous atheistic movement; and after the new freethinking works run to critical and ethical attack on the christian system rather than on theism. volney combined both lines of attack in his famous ruins of empires ( ); and the learned dupuis, in his voluminous origin of all cults ( ), took an important step, not yet fully reckoned with by later mythologists, towards the mythological analysis of the gospel narrative. after these vigorous performances, the popular progress of french freethought was for long practically suspended [ ] by the tumult of the revolution and the reaction which followed it, though laplace went on his way with his epoch-making theory of the origin of the solar system, for which, as he told napoleon, he had "no need of the hypothesis" of a god. the admirable condorcet had died, perhaps by his own hand, in , when in hiding from the terrorists, leaving behind him his esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, in which the most sanguine convictions of the rationalistic school are reformulated without a trace of bitterness or of despair. . no part of the history of freethought has been more distorted than that at which it is embroiled in the french revolution. the conventional view in england still is that the revolution was the work of deists and atheists, but chiefly of the latter; that they suppressed christianity and set up a worship of a goddess of reason, represented by a woman of the town; and that the bloodshed of the terror represented the application of their principles to government, or at least the political result of the withdrawal of religious checks. [ ] those who remember in the briefest summary the records of massacre connected with the affirmation of religious beliefs--the internecine wars of christian sects under the roman empire; the vast slaughters of manichæans in the east; the bloodshed of the period of propagation in northern europe, from charlemagne onwards; the story of the crusades, in which nine millions of human beings are estimated to have been destroyed; the generation of wholesale murder of the heretics of languedoc by the papacy; the protracted savageries of the hussite war; the early holocaust of protestant heretics in france; the massacres of german peasants and anabaptists; the reciprocal persecutions in england; the civil strifes of sectaries in switzerland; the ferocious wars of the french huguenots and the league; the long-drawn agony of the war of thirty years in germany; the annihilation of myriads of mexicans and peruvians by the conquering spaniards in the name of the cross--those who recall these things need spend no time over the proposition that rationalism stands for a removal of restraints on bloodshed. but it is necessary to put concisely the facts as against the legend in the case of the french revolution. (a) that many of the leading men among the revolutionists were deists is true; and the fact goes to prove that it was chiefly the men of ability in france who rejected christianity. of a number of these the normal attitude was represented in the work of necker, sur l'importance des idées religieuses ( ), which repudiated the destructive attitude of the few, and may be described as an utterance of pious theism or unitarianism. [ ] orthodox he cannot well have been, since, like his wife, he was the friend of voltaire. [ ] but the majority of the constituent assembly was never even deistic; it professed itself cordially catholic; [ ] and the atheists there might be counted on the fingers of one hand. [ ] the abbé bergier, in answering d'holbach (examen du matérialisme, ii, ch. i, § ), denies that there has been any wide spread of atheistic opinion. this is much more probable than the statement of the archbishop of toulouse, on a deputation to the king in , that "le monstrueux athéisme est devenu l'opinion dominante" (soulavie, règne de louis xvi, iii, ; cited by buckle, -vol. ed. p. , note). joseph droz, a monarchist and a christian, writing under louis philippe, sums up that "the atheists formed only a small number of adepts" (histoire du règne de louis xvi, éd. , p. ). and rivarol, who at the time of writing his lettres à m. necker was substantially an atheist, says in so many words that, while rousseau's "confession of a savoyard vicar" was naturally very attractive to many, such a book as the "système de la nature," were it as attractive as it is tedious, would win nobody" (oeuvres, éd. , p. ). still, it ran into seven editions between and . nor were there lacking vigorous representatives of orthodoxy: the powerful abbé grégoire, in particular, was a convinced jansenist christian, and at the same time an ardent democrat and anti-royalist. [ ] he saw the immense importance to the church of a good understanding with the revolution, and he accepted the constitution of . with him went a very large number of priests. m. léonce de lavergne, who was pious enough to write that "the philosophy of the eighteenth century had had the audacity to lay hands on god; and this impious attempt has had for punishment the revolutionary expiation," also admits that, "of the clergy, it was not the minority but the majority which went along with the tiers État." [ ] many of the clergy, however, being refractory, the assembly pressed its point, and the breach widened. it was solely through this political hostility on the part of the church to the new constitution that any civic interference with public worship ever took place. grégoire was extremely popular with the advanced types, [ ] though his piety was conspicuous; [ ] and there were not a few priests of his way of thinking, [ ] among them being some of the ablest bishops. [ ] on the flight of the king, he and they went with the democracy; and it was the obstinate refusal of the others to accept the constitution that provoked the new legislative assembly to coerce them. though the new body was more anti-clerical than the old, however, it was simply doing what successive protestant monarchs had done in england and ireland; and probably no government in the world would then have acted otherwise in a similar case. [ ] patience might perhaps have won the day; but the revolution was fighting for its life; and the conservative church, as all men knew, was eager to strangle it. had the clergy left politics alone, or simply accepted the constitutional action of the state, there would have been no religious question. to speak of such a body of priests, who had at all times been eager to put men to death for heresy, as vindicating "liberty of conscience" when they refused fealty to the constitution, [ ] is somewhat to strain the terms. the expulsion of the jesuits under the old régime had been a more coercive measure than the demand of the assembly on the allegiance of the state clergy. and all the while the reactionary section of the priesthood was known to be conspiring with the royalists abroad. it was only when, in , the conservative clergy were seen to be the great obstacle to the levy of an army of defence, that the more radical spirits began to think of interfering with their functions. [ ] (b) an à priori method has served alike in freethinkers' and in pietists' hands to obscure the facts. when michelet insists on the "irreconcilable opposition of christianity to the revolution"--a thesis in which he was heartily supported by proudhon [ ]--he means that the central christian dogmas of salvation by sacrifice and faith exclude any political ethic of justice [ ]--any doctrine of equality and equity. but this is only to say that christianity as an organization is in perpetual contradiction with some main part of its professed creed; and that has been a commonplace since constantine. it does not mean that either christians in multitudes or their churches as organizations have not constantly proceeded on ordinary political motives, whether populist or anti-populist. in germany we have seen lutheranism first fomenting and afterwards repudiating the movement of the peasants for betterment; and in england in the next century both parties in the civil war invoke religious doctrines, meeting texts with texts. jansenism was in constant friction with the monarchy from its outset; and louis xiv and louis xv alike regarded the jansenists as the enemies of the throne. "christianity" could be as easily "reconciled" with a democratic movement in the last quarter of the eighteenth century as with the massacre of saint bartholomew's day in the sixteenth. if those christians who still charge "the bloodshed of the french revolution" on the spirit of incredulity desire to corroborate michelet to the extent of making christianity the bulwark of absolute monarchy, the friend of a cruel feudalism, and the guardian genius of the bastille, they may be left to the criticism of their fellow-believers who have embraced the newer principle that the truth of the christian religion is to be proved by connecting it in practice with the spirit of social reform. to point out to either party, as did michelet, that evangelical christianity is a religion of submission and preparation for the end of all things, and has nothing to do with rational political reform, is to bestow logic where logic is indomiciliable. while rationalism undoubtedly fosters the critical spirit, professed christians have during many ages shown themselves as prone to rebellion as to war, whether on religious or on political pretexts. (c) for the rest, the legend falsifies what took place. the facts are now established by exact documentary research. the government never substituted any species of religion for the catholic. [ ] the festival of reason at nôtre dame was an act not of the convention but of the commune of paris and the department; the convention had no part in promoting it; half the members stayed away when invited to attend; and there was no goddess of reason in the ceremony, but only a goddess of liberty, represented by an actress who cannot even be identified. [ ] throughout, the devoutly theistic rousseau was the chief literary hero of the movement. the two executive committees in no way countenanced the dechristianization of the churches, but on the contrary imprisoned persons who removed church properties; and these in turn protested that they had no thought of abolishing religion. the acts of irresponsible violence did not amount to a hundredth part of the "sacrilege" wrought in protestant countries at the reformation, and do not compare with the acts charged on cromwell's troopers. the policy of inviting priests and bishops to abdicate their functions was strictly political; and the archbishop gobel did not abjure catholicism, but only surrendered his office. that a number of priests did gratuitously abjure their religion is only a proof of what was well known--that a good many priests were simple deists. we have seen how many abbés fought in the freethought ranks, or near them. diderot in a letter of tells of a day which he and a friend had passed with two monks who were atheists. "one of them read the first draft of a very fresh and very vigorous treatise on atheism, full of new and bold ideas; i learned with edification that this doctrine was the current doctrine of their cloisters. for the rest, these two monks were the 'big bonnets' of their monastery; they had intellect, gaiety, good feeling, knowledge." [ ] and a priest of the cathedral of auxerre, whose recollections went back to the revolutionary period, has confessed that at that time "philosophic" opinions prevailed in most of the monasteries. his words even imply that in his opinion the unbelieving monks were the majority. [ ] in the provinces, where the movement went on with various degrees of activity, it had the same general character. "reason" itself was often identified with deity, or declared to be an emanation thereof. hébert, commonly described as an atheist for his share in the movement, expressly denied the charge, and claimed to have exhorted the people to read the gospels and obey christ. [ ] danton, though at his death he disavowed belief in immortality, had declared in the convention in that "we have not striven to abolish superstition in order to establish the reign of atheism." [ ] even chaumette was not an atheist; [ ] and the prussian clootz, who probably was, had certainly little or no doctrinary influence; while the two or three other professed atheists of the assembly had no part in the public action. (d) finally, robespierre was all along thoroughly hostile to the movement; in his character of rousseauist and deist he argued that atheism was "aristocratic"; he put to death the leaders of the cult of reason; and he set up the worship of the supreme being as a counter-move. broadly speaking, he affiliated to necker, and stood very much at the standpoint of the english unitarianism of the present day. thus the bloodshed of the reign of terror, if it is to be charged on any species of philosophic doctrine rather than on the unscrupulous policy of the enemies of the revolution in and out of france, stands to the credit of the belief in a god, the creed of frederick, turgot, necker, franklin, pitt, and washington. the one convinced and reasoning atheist among the publicists of the revolution, the journalist salaville, [ ] opposed the cult of reason with sound and serious and persuasive argument, and strongly blamed all forcible interference with worship, while at the same time calmly maintaining atheism as against theism. the age of atheism had not come, any more than the triumph of reason. mallet du pan specifies, as among those who "since have pushed the blood-stained car of anarchy and atheism," chamfort, gronvelle, garat, and cerutti. chamfort was as high-minded a man as mallet himself, and is to-day so recognized by every unprejudiced reader. the others are forgotten. gronvelle, who as secretary of the executive council read to louis xvi his death-sentence, wrote de l'autorité de montesquieu dans la révolution présente ( ). garat was minister of justice in and of the interior in , and was ennobled by napoleon. he had published considérations sur la révolution ( ) and a mémoire sur la révolution ( ). cerutti, originally a jesuit, became a member of the legislative assembly, and was the friend of mirabeau, whose funeral oration he delivered. . the anti-atheistic and anti-philosophic legend was born of the exasperation and bad faith of the dethroned aristocracy, themselves often unbelievers in the day of their ascendancy, and, whether unbelievers or not, responsible with the church and the court for that long insensate resistance to reform which made the revolution inevitable. mere random denunciation of new ideas as tending to generate rebellion was of course an ancient commonplace. medieval heretics had been so denounced; wiclif was in his day; and when the count de cataneo attacked montesquieu's spirit of laws, he spoke of all such reasonings as "attempts which shake the sacred basis of thrones." [ ] but he and his contemporaries knew that freethinkers were not specially given to mutiny; and when, later, french churchmen had begun systematically to accuse the philosophers of undermining alike the church and the throne, [ ] the unbelieving nobles, conscious of entire political conservatism, had simply laughed. better than anyone else they knew that political revolt had other roots and motives than incredulity; and they could not but remember how many french kings had been rebelled against by the church, and how many slain by priestly hands. their acceptance of the priestly formula came later. in the life of the brilliant rivarol, who associated with the noblesse while disdained by many of them because of his obscure birth, we may read the intellectual history of the case. brilliant without patience, keen without scientific coherence, [ ] rivarol in met the pious deism of necker with a dialectic in which cynicism as often disorders as illuminates the argument. with prompt veracity he first rejects the ideal of a beneficent reign of delusion, and insists that religion is seen in all history powerless alike to overrule men's passions and prejudices, and to console the oppressed by its promise of a reversal of earthly conditions in another world. but in the same breath, by way of proving that the atheist is less disturbing to convention than the deist, he insists that the unbeliever soon learns to see that "irreverences are crimes against society"; and then, in order to justify such conformity, asserts what he had before denied. and the self-contradiction recurs. [ ] the underlying motive of the whole polemic is simply the grudge of the upper class diner-out against the serious and conscientious bourgeois who strives to reform the existing system. conscious of being more enlightened, the wit is eager at once to disparage necker for his religiosity and to discredit him politically as the enemy of the socially useful ecclesiastical order. yet in his second letter sur la morale ( ) he is so plainly an unbeliever that the treatise had to be printed at berlin. the due sequence is that when the revolution breaks out rivarol sides with the court and the noblesse, while perfectly aware of the ineptitude and malfeasance of both; [ ] and, living in exile, proceeds to denounce the philosophers as having caused the overturn by their universal criticism. in he had declared that he would not even have written his letters to necker if he were not certain that "the people does not read." then the people had read neither the philosophers nor him. but in exile he must needs frame for the émigrés a formula, true or false. it is the falsity of men divided against themselves, who pay themselves with recriminations rather than realize their own deserts. [ ] and in the end rivarol is but a deist. . if any careful attempt be made to analyse the situation, the stirring example of the precedent revolution in the british american colonies will probably be recognized as counting for very much more than any merely literary influence in promoting that of france. a certain "republican" spirit had indeed existed among educated men in france throughout the reign of louis xv: d'argenson noted it in and later. [ ] but this spirit, which d'argenson in large measure shared, while holding firmly by monarchy, [ ] was simply the spirit of constitutionalism, the love of law and good government, and it derived from english example and the teachings of such englishmen as locke, [ ] insofar as it was not spontaneous. if acceptance of the doctrine of constitutional government can lead to anarchy, let it be avowed; but let not the cause be pretended to be deism or atheism. the political teaching for which the paris parlement denounced rousseau's Émile in , and for which the theologians of the sorbonne censured marmontel's bélisaire in , was the old doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. but this had been maintained by a whole school of english protestant christians before bossuet denounced the protestant jurieu for maintaining it. nay, it had been repeatedly maintained by catholic theologians, from thomas aquinas to suarez, [ ] especially when there was any question of putting down a protestant monarch. protestants on their part protested indignantly, and reciprocated. the recriminations of protestants and catholics on this head form one of the standing farces of human history. coger, attacking marmontel, unctuously cites bayle's censure of his fellow protestants in his avis aux réfugiéz [ ] for their tone towards kings and monarchy, but says nothing of bayle's quarrel with jurieu, which motived such an utterance, or of his critique générale of maimbourg's histoire du calvinisme, in which he shows how the catholic historian's principles would justify the rebellion alike of catholics in every protestant country and of protestants in every catholic country, [ ] though all the while it is assumed that true christians never resort to violence. and, unless there has been an error as to his authorship, bayle himself, be it remembered, had in his letter ce que c'est que la france toute catholique sous le règne de louis le grand passed as scathing a criticism on louis xiv as any protestant refugee could well have compassed. sectarian hypocrisies apart, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people--for opposing which the freethinker hobbes has been execrated by generations of christians--is the professed political creed of the very classes who, in england and the united states, have so long denounced french freethinkers for an alleged "subversive" social teaching which fell far short of what english and american protestants had actually practised. the revolt of the american colonies, in fact, precipitated democratic feeling in france in a way that no writing had ever done. lafayette, no freethinker, declared himself republican at once on reading the american declaration of the rights of man. [ ] in all this the freethinking propaganda counted for nothing directly and for little indirectly, inasmuch as there was no clerical quarrel in the colonies. and if we seek for even an indirect or general influence, apart from the affirmation of the duty of kings to their people, the thesis as to the activity of the philosophes must at once be restricted to the cases of rousseau, helvétius, raynal, and d'holbach, for marmontel never passed beyond "sound" generalities. as for the pretence that it was freethinking doctrines that brought louis xvi to the scaffold, it is either the most impudent or the most ignorant of historical imputations. the "right" of tyrannicide had been maintained by catholic schoolmen before the reformation, and by both protestants and catholics afterwards, times without number, even as they maintained the right of the people to depose and change kings. the doctrine was in fact not even a modern innovation, the theory being so well primed by the practice--under every sort of government, jewish and pagan in antiquity, moslem in the middle ages, and christian from the day of pepin to the day of john knox--that a certain novelty lay on the side of the "divine right of kings" when that was popularly formulated. and on the whole question of revolution, or the right of peoples to recast their laws, the general doctrine of the most advanced of the french freethinkers is paralleled or outgone by popes and church councils in the middle ages, by occam and marsiglio of padua and wiclif and more than one german legist in the fourteenth century, by john major and george buchanan in scotland, by goodman in england, and by many huguenots in france, in the sixteenth; by hotman in his francogallia in ; by the author of the soupirs de la france esclave [ ] in ; and by the whole propagandist literature of the english and american revolutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth. so far from being a specialty of freethinkers, "sedition" was in all these and other cases habitually grounded on biblical texts and religious protestations; so that bacon, little given as he was to defending rationalists, could confidently avow that "atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation ... but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. therefore atheism did never perturb states.... but superstition hath been the confusion of many states." for "superstition" read "sectarianism," "fanaticism," and "ecclesiasticism." bacon's generalization is of course merely empirical, atheism being capable of alliance with revolutionary passion in its turn; but the historical summary holds good. only by men who had not read or had forgotten universal history could the ascription of the french revolution to rationalistic thought have been made. [ ] . a survey of the work and attitude of the leading french freethinkers of the century may serve to settle the point once for all. voltaire is admittedly out of the question. mallet du pan, whose resistance to the revolution developed into a fanaticism hardly less perturbing to judgment [ ] than that of burke, expressly disparaged him as having so repelled men by his cynicism that he had little influence on their feelings, and so could not be reckoned a prime force in preparing the revolution. [ ] "mably," the critic adds, "whose republican declamations have intoxicated many modern democrats, was religious to austerity: at the first stroke of the tocsin against the church of rome, he would have thrown his books in the fire, excepting his scathing apostrophes to voltaire and the atheists. marmontel, saint-lambert, morellet, encyclopedists, were adversaries of the revolution." [ ] on the other hand, barante avows that mably, detesting as he did the freethinking philosophers of his day, followed no less than others "a destructive course, and contributed, without knowing it, to weaken the already frayed ties which still united the parts of an ancient society." [ ] as barante had previously ascribed the whole dissolution to the autocratic process under louis xiv, [ ] even this indictment of the orthodox mably is invalid. voltaire, on the other hand, barante charges with an undue leaning to the methods of louis xiv. voltaire, in fact, was in things political a conservative, save insofar as he fought for toleration, for lenity, and for the most necessary reforms. and if voltaire's attack on what he held to be a demoralizing and knew to be a persecuting religion be saddled with the causation of the political crash, the blame will have to be carried back equally to the english deists and the tyranny of louis xiv. to such indictments, as barante protests, there is no limit: every age pivots on its predecessor; and to blame for the french revolution everybody but a corrupt aristocracy, a tyrannous and ruinously spendthrift monarchy, and a cruel church, is to miss the last semblance of judicial method. it may be conceded that the works of meslier and d'holbach, neither of whom is noticed by barante, are directly though only generally revolutionary in their bearing. but the main works of d'holbach appeared too close upon the revolution to be credited with generating it; and meslier, as we know, had been generally read only in abridgments and adaptations, in which his political doctrine disappears. mallet du pan, striking in all directions, indicts alternately rousseau, whose vogue lay largely among religious people, and the downright freethinkers. the great fomenter of the revolution, the critic avows, was rousseau. "he had a hundred times more readers than voltaire in the middle and lower classes.... no one has more openly attacked the right of property in declaring it a usurpation.... it is he alone who has inoculated the french with the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and with its most extreme consequences." [ ] after this "he alone," the critic obliviously proceeds to exclaim: "diderot and condorcet: there are the true chiefs of the revolutionary school," adding that diderot had "proclaimed equality before marat; the rights of man before siéyès; sacred insurrection before mirabeau and lafayette; the massacre of priests before the septembrists." [ ] but this is mere furious declamation. only by heedless misreading or malice can support be given to the pretence that diderot wrought for the violent overthrow of the existing political system. passages denouncing kingly tyranny had been inserted in their plays by both corneille and voltaire, and applauded by audiences who never dreamt of abolishing monarchy. a phrase about strangling kings in the bowels of priests is expressly put by diderot in the mouth of an Éleuthéromane or liberty-maniac; [ ] which shows that the type had arisen in his lifetime in opposition to his own bias. this very poem he read to the prince von galitzin, the ambassador of the empress catherine and his own esteemed friend. [ ] the tyranny of the french government, swayed by the king's mistresses and favourites and by the jesuits, he did indeed detest, as he had cause to do, and as every man of good feeling did with him; but no writing of his wrought measurably for its violent overthrow. [ ] d'argenson in was expressing his fears of a revolution, and noting the "désobeissance constante" of the parlement of paris and the disaffection of the people, before he had heard of "un m. diderot, qui a beaucoup d'esprit, mais qui affecte trop l'irreligion." and when he notes that the jesuits have secured the suppression of the encyclopédie as being hostile "to god and the royal authority," he does not attach the slightest weight to the charge. he knew that louis called the pious jansenists "enemies of god and of the king." [ ] mallet du pan grounds his charge against diderot almost solely on "those incendiary diatribes intercalated in the histoire philosophique des deux indes which dishonour that work, and which raynal, in his latter days, excised with horror from a new edition which he was preparing." but supposing the passages in question to be all diderot's [ ]--which is far from certain--they are to be saddled with responsibility for the reign of terror only on the principle that it was more provocative in the days of tyranny to denounce than to exercise it. to this complexion mallet du pan came, with the anti-revolutionists in general; but to-day we can recognize in the whole process of reasoning a reductio ad absurdum. the school in question came in all seriousness to ascribe the evils of the revolution to everything and everybody save the men and classes whose misgovernment made the revolution inevitable. some of the philosophers, it is true, themselves gave colour to the view that they were the makers of the revolution, as when d'alembert said to romilly that "philosophy" had produced in his time that change in the popular mind which exhibited itself in the indifference with which they received the news of the birth of the dauphin. [ ] the error is none the less plain. the philosophes had done nothing to promote anti-monarchism among the common people, who did not read. [ ] it was the whole political and social evolution of two generations that had wrought the change; and the people were still for the most part believing catholics. frederick the great was probably within the mark when in he privately reminded the more optimistic philosophers that their entire french public did not number above , persons. the people of paris, who played the chief part in precipitating the revolution, were spontaneously mutinous and disorderly, but were certainly not in any considerable number unbelievers. "while voltaire dechristianized a portion of polite society the people remained very pious, even at paris. in louis xv, so unpopular, was acclaimed because he knelt, on the pont neuf, before the holy sacrament." [ ] and this is the final answer to any pretence that the revolution was the work of the school of d'holbach. bergier the priest, and rivarol the conservative unbeliever, alike denied that d'holbach's systematic writings had any wide public. doubtless the same men were ready to eat their words for the satisfaction of vilifying an opponent. it has always been the way of orthodoxy to tell atheists alternately that they are an impotent handful and that they are the ruin of society. but by this time it ought to be a matter of elementary knowledge that a great political revolution can be wrought only by far-reaching political forces, whether or not these may concur with a propaganda of rationalism in religion. [ ] if any "philosopher" so-called is to be credited with specially promoting the revolution, it is either rousseau, who is so often hailed latterly as the engineer of a religious reaction, and whose works, as has been repeatedly remarked, "contain much that is utterly and irreconcilably opposed" to the revolution, [ ] or raynal, who was only anti-clerical, not anti-christian, and who actually censured the revolutionary procedure. when he published his first edition he must be held to have acquiesced in its doctrine, whether it were from diderot's pen or his own. rousseau and raynal were the two most popular writers of their day who dealt with social as apart from religious or philosophical issues, and to both is thus imputed a general subversiveness. but here too the charge rests upon a sociological fallacy. the parlement of paris, composed of rich bourgeois and aristocrats, many of them jansenists, very few of them freethinkers, most of them ready to burn freethinking books, played a "subversive" part throughout the century, inasmuch as it so frequently resisted the king's will. [ ] the stars in their courses fought against the old despotism. rousseau was ultimately influential towards change because change was inevitable and essential, not because he was restless. the whole drift of things furthered his ideas, which at the outset won no great vogue. he was followed because he set forth what so many felt; and similarly raynal was read because he chimed with a strengthening feeling. in direct contradiction to mallet du pan, chamfort, a keener observer, wrote while the revolution was still in action that "the priesthood was the first bulwark of absolute power, and voltaire overthrew it. without this decisive and indispensable first step nothing would have been done." [ ] the same observer goes on to say that rousseau's political works, and particularly the contrat social, "were fitted for few readers, and caused no alarm at court.... that theory was regarded as a hollow speculation which could have no further consequences than the enthusiasm for liberty and the contempt of royalty carried so far in the pieces of corneille, and applauded at court by the most absolute of kings, louis xiv. all that seemed to belong to another world, and to have no connection with ours; ... in a word, voltaire above all has made the revolution, because he has written for all; rousseau above all has made the constitution because he has written for the thinkers." [ ] and so the changes may be rung for ever. the final philosophy of history cannot be reached by any such artificial selection of factors; [ ] and the ethical problem equally evades such solutions. if we are to pass any ethico-political judgment whatever, it must be that the evils of the revolution lie at the door not of the reformers, but of the men, the classes, and the institutions which first provoked and then resisted it. [ ] to describe the former as the authors of the process is as intelligent as it was to charge upon sokrates the decay of orthodox tradition in athens, and to charge upon that the later downfall of the athenian empire. the wisest men of the age, notably the great turgot, sought a gradual transformation, a peaceful and harmless transition from unconstitutional to constitutional government. their policy was furiously resisted by an unteachable aristocracy. when at last fortuitous violence made a breach in the feudal walls, a people unprepared for self-rule, and fought by an aristocracy eager for blood, surged into anarchy, and convulsion followed on convulsion. that is in brief the history of the revolution. . while the true causation of the revolution is thus kept clear, it must not be forgotten, further, that to the very last, save where controlled by disguised rationalists like malesherbes, the tendency of the old régime was to persecute brutally and senselessly wherever it could lay hands on a freethinker. in , only a year before the first explosion of the revolution, there appeared the almanach des honnêtes gens of sylvain maréchal, a work of which the offence consisted not in any attack upon religion, but in simply constructing a calendar in which the names of renowned laymen were substituted for saints. instantly it was denounced by the paris parlement, the printer prosecuted, and the author imprisoned; and de sauvigny, the censor who had passed the book, was exiled thirty leagues from paris. [ ] some idea of the intensity of the tyranny over all literature in france under the old régime may be gathered from buckle's compendious account of the books officially condemned, and of authors punished, during the two generations before the revolution. apart from the record of the treatment of buffon, marmontel, morellet, voltaire, and diderot, it runs: "the ... tendency was shown in matters so trifling that nothing but the gravity of their ultimate results prevents them from being ridiculous. in , imbert translated clarke's letters on spain, one of the best works then existing on that country. this book, however, was suppressed as soon as it appeared; and the only reason assigned for such a stretch of power is that it contained some remarks respecting the passion of charles iii for hunting, which were considered disrespectful to the french crown, because louis xv himself was a great hunter. several years before this la bletterie, who was favourably known in france by his works, was elected a member of the french academy. but he, it seems, was a jansenist, and had moreover ventured to assert that the emperor julian, notwithstanding his apostasy, was not entirely devoid of good qualities. such offences could not be overlooked in so pure an age; and the king obliged the academy to exclude la bletterie from their society. that the punishment extended no further was an instance of remarkable leniency; for fréret, an eminent critic and scholar, was confined in the bastille because he stated, in one of his memoirs, that the earliest frankish chiefs had received their titles from the romans. the same penalty was inflicted four different times upon lenglet du fresnoy. in the case of this amiable and accomplished man, there seems to have been hardly the shadow of a pretext for the cruelty with which he was treated; though on one occasion the alleged offence was that he had published a supplement to the history of de thou. "indeed, we have only to open the biographies and correspondence of that time to find instances crowding upon us from all quarters. rousseau was threatened with imprisonment, was driven from france, and his works were publicly burned. the celebrated treatise of helvétius on the mind was suppressed by an order of the royal council; it was burned by the common hangman, and the author was compelled to write two letters retracting his opinions. some of the geological views of buffon having offended the clergy, that illustrious naturalist was obliged to publish a formal recantation of doctrines which are now known to be perfectly accurate. the learned observations on the history of france, by mably, were suppressed as soon as they appeared: for what reason it would be hard to say, since m. guizot, certainly no friend either to anarchy or to irreligion, has thought it worth while to republish them, and thus stamp them with the authority of his own great name. the history of the indies, by raynal, was condemned to the flames, and the author ordered to be arrested. lanjuinais, in his well-known work on joseph ii, advocated not only religious toleration, but even the abolition of slavery; his book, therefore, was declared to be 'seditious'; it was pronounced 'destructive of all subordination,' and was sentenced to be burned. the analysis of bayle, by marsy, was suppressed, and the author was imprisoned. the history of the jesuits, by linguet, was delivered to the flames; eight years later his journal was suppressed; and, three years after that, as he still persisted in writing, his political annals were suppressed, and he himself was thrown into the bastille. delisle de sales was sentenced to perpetual exile and confiscation of all his property on account of his work on the philosophy of nature. the treatise by mey, on french law, was suppressed; that by boncerf, on feudal law, was burned. the memoirs of beaumarchais were likewise burned; the Éloge on fénelon, by la harpe, was merely suppressed. duvernet, having written a history of the sorbonne, which was still unpublished, was seized and thrown into the bastille, while the manuscript was yet in his own possession. the celebrated work of de lolme on the english constitution was suppressed by edict directly it appeared. the fate of being suppressed or prohibited also awaited the letters of gervaise in ; the dissertations of courayer in ; the letters of montgon in ; the history of tamerlane, by margat, also in ; the essay on taste, by cartaud, in ; the life of domat, by prévost de la jannès, in ; the history of louis xi, by duclos, in ; the letters of bargeton in ; the memoirs on troyes, by grosley, in the same year; the history of clement xi, by reboulet, in ; the school of man, by génard, also in ; the therapeutics of garlon in ; the celebrated thesis of louis, on generation, in ; the treatise on presidial jurisdiction, by jousse, in ; the ericie of fontenelle in ; the thoughts of jamin in ; the history of siam, by turpin, and the Éloge of marcus aurelius, by thomas, both in ; the works on finance by darigrand, in , and by le trosne in ; the essay on military tactics, by guibert, in ; the letters of boucquet in the same year; and the memoirs of terrai, by coquereau, in . such wanton destruction of property was, however, mercy itself compared to the treatment experienced by other literary men in france. desforges, for example, having written against the arrest of the pretender to the english throne, was, solely on that account, buried in a dungeon eight feet square and confined there for three years. this happened in ; and in , audra, professor at the college of toulouse, and a man of some reputation, published the first volume of his abridgement of general history. beyond this the work never proceeded; it was at once condemned by the archbishop of the diocese, and the author was deprived of his office. audra, held up to public opprobrium, the whole of his labours rendered useless, and the prospects of his life suddenly blighted, was unable to survive the shock. he was struck with apoplexy, and within twenty-four hours was lying a corpse in his own house." . among many other illustrations of the passion for persecution in the period may be noted the fact that after the death of the atheist damilaville his enemies contrived to deprive his brother of a post from which he had his sole livelihood. [ ] it is but one of an infinity of proofs that the spirit of sheer sectarian malevolence, which is far from being eliminated in modern life, was in the french church of the eighteenth century the ruling passion. lovers of moderate courses there were, even in the church; but even among professors of lenity we find an ingrained belief in the virtue of vituperation and coercion. and it is not until the persecuted minority has developed its power of written retaliation, and the deadly arrows of voltaire have aroused in the minds of persecutors a new terror, that there seems to arise on that side a suspicion that there can be any better way of handling unbelief than by invective and imprisonment. after they had taught the heretics to defend themselves, and found them possessed of weapons such as orthodoxy could not hope to handle, we find churchmen talking newly of the duty of gentleness towards error; and even then clinging to the last to the weapons of public ostracism and aspersion. so the fight was of necessity fought on the side of freethought in the temper of men warring on incorrigible oppression and cruelty as well as on error. the wonder is that the freethinkers preserved so much amenity. . this section would not be complete even in outline without some notice of the attitude held towards religion by napoleon, who at once crowned and in large measure undid the work of the revolution. he has his place in its religious legend in the current datum that he wrought for the faith by restoring a suppressed public worship and enabling the people of france once more to hear church-bells. in point of fact, as was pointed out by bishop grégoire in , "it is materially proved that in , before he was consul, and four years before the concordat, according to a statement drawn up at the office of the domaines nationaux, there were in france , parishes where the culte was carried on." [ ] other commonplaces concerning napoleon are not much better founded. on the strength of a number of oral utterances, many of them imperfectly vouched for, and none of them marked by much deliberation, he has been claimed by carlyle [ ] as a theist who philosophically disdained the "clatter of materialism," and believed in a personal creator of an infinite universe; while by others he is put forward as a kind of expert in character study who vouched for the divinity of jesus. [ ] in effect, his verdict that "this was not a man" would tell, if anything, in favour of the view that jesus is a mythical construction. he was, indeed, by temperament quasi-religious, liking the sound of church bells and the atmosphere of devotion; and in his boyhood he had been a rather fervent catholic. as he grew up he read, like his contemporaries, the french deists of his time, and became a deist like his fellows, recognizing that religions were human productions. declaring that he was "loin d'être athée," he propounded to o'meara all the conventional views--that religion should be made a support to morals and law; that men need to believe in marvels; that religion is a great consolation to those who believe in it; and that "no one can tell what he will do in his last moments." [ ] the opinion to which he seems to have adhered most steadily was that every man should die in the religion in which he had been brought up. and he himself officially did so, though he put off almost to the last the formality of a deathbed profession. his language on the subject is irreconcilable with any real belief in the christian religion: he was "a deist à la voltaire who recalled with tenderness his catholic childhood, and who at death reverted to his first beliefs." [ ] for the rest, he certainly believed in religion as a part of the machinery of the state, and repeated the usual platitudes about its value as a moral restraint. he was candid enough, however, not to pretend that it had ever restrained him; and no freethinker condemned more sweepingly than he the paralysing effect of the catholic system on spain. [ ] to the church his attitude was purely political; and his personal liking for the pope never moved him to yield, where he could avoid it, to the temporal pretensions of the papacy. the concordat of , that "brilliant triumph over the genius of the revolution," [ ] was purely and simply a political measure. if he had had his way, he would have set up a system of religious councils in france, to be utilized against all disturbing tendencies in politics. [ ] had he succeeded, he was capable of suppressing all manifestations of freethought in the interests of "order." [ ] he had, in fact, no disinterested love of truth; and we have his express declaration, at st. helena, on the subject of molière's tartufe: "i do not hesitate to say that if the piece had been written in my time, i would not have permitted its representation." [ ] freethought can make no warm claim to the allegiance of such a ruler; and if the church of rome is concerned to claim him as a son on the score of his deathbed adherence, after a reign which led the catholic clergy of spain to hold him up to the faithful as an incarnation of the devil, [ ] she will hardly gain by the association. napoleon's ideas on religious questions were in fact no more noteworthy than his views on economics, which were thoroughly conventional. chapter xviii german freethought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . when two generations of protestant strife had turned to naught the intellectual promise of the reformation, and much of the ground first won by it had lapsed to catholicism, the general forward movement of european thought availed to set up in germany as elsewhere a measure of critical unbelief. there is abundant evidence that the lutheran clergy not only failed to hold the best intelligence of the country with them, but in large part fell into personal disrepute. [ ] "the scenes of clerical immorality," says an eminently orthodox historian, "are enough to chill one's blood even at the distance of two centuries." [ ] a church ordinance of acknowledges information to the effect that a number of clergymen and schoolmasters are guilty of "whoredom and fornication," and commands that "if they are notoriously guilty they shall be suspended." details are preserved of cases of clerical drunkenness and ruffianism; and the women of the priests' families do not escape the pillory. [ ] nearly a century later, arnold resigned his professorship at giessen "from despair of producing any amendment in the dissolute habits of the students." [ ] it is noted that "the great moral decline of the clergy was confined chiefly to the lutheran church. the reformed [calvinistic] was earnest, pious, and aggressive" [ ]--the usual result of official hostility. in such circumstances, the active freethought existing in france at the beginning of the seventeenth century could not fail to affect germany; and even before the date of the polemic of garasse and mersenne there appeared ( ) a counterblast to the new thought in the theologia naturalis of j. h. alsted, of frankfort, directed adversus atheos, epicureos, et sophistas hujus temporis. the preface to this solid quarto (a remarkable sample of good printing for the period) declares that "there are men in this diseased (exulcerato) age who dare to oppose science to revelation, reason to faith, nature to grace, the creator to the redeemer, and truth to truth"; and the writer undertakes to rise argumentatively from nature to the christian god, without, however, transcending the logical plane of de mornay. the trouble of the time, unhappily for the faith, was not rationalism, but the inextinguishable hatreds of protestant and catholic, and the strife of economic interests dating from the appropriations of the first reformers. at length, after a generation of gloomy suspense, came the explosion of the hostile ecclesiastical interests, and the long-drawn horror of the thirty years' war, which left germany mangled, devastated, drained of blood and treasure, decivilized, and well-nigh destitute of the machinery of culture. no such printing as that of alsted's book was to be done in the german world for many generations. but as in france, so in germany, the exhausting experience of the moral and physical evil of religious war wrought something of an antidote, in the shape of a new spirit of rationalism. not only was the peace of westphalia an essentially secular arrangement, subordinating all religious claims to a political settlement, [ ] but the drift of opinion was markedly freethinking. already in one writer describes "three classes of skeptics among the nobility of hamburg: first, those who believe that religion is nothing but a mere fiction, invented to keep the masses in restraint; second, those who give preference to no faith, but think that all religions have a germ of truth; and third, those who, confessing that there must be one true religion, are unable to decide whether it is papal, calvinist, or lutheran, and consequently believe nothing at all." no less explicit is the written testimony of walther, the court chaplain of ulrich ii of east friesland, : "these infernal courtiers, among whom i am compelled to live against my will, doubt those truths which even the heathen have learned to believe." [ ] in germany as in france the freethinking which thus grew up during the religious war expanded after the peace. as usual, this is to be gathered from the orthodox propaganda against it, setting out in with a preservative against the pest of present-day atheists, [ ] by one theophilus gegenbauer. so far was this from attaining its end that there ensued ere long a more positive and aggressive development of freethinking than any other country had yet seen. a wandering scholar, matthias knutzen of holstein (b. ), who had studied philosophy at königsberg, went about in teaching a hardy religion of humanity, rejecting alike immortality, god and devil, churches and priests, and insisting that conscience could perfectly well take the place of the bible as a guide to conduct. his doctrines are to be gathered chiefly from a curious latin letter, [ ] written by him for circulation, headed amicus amicis amica; and in this the profession of atheism is explicit: "insuper deum negamus." in two dialogues in german he set forth the same ideas. his followers, as holding by conscience, were called gewissener; and he or another of his group asserted that in jena alone there were seven hundred of them. [ ] the figures were fantastic, and the whole movement passed rapidly out of sight--hardly by reason of the orthodox refutations, however. germany was in no state to sustain such a party; and what happened was a necessarily slow gestation of the seed of new thought thus cast abroad. knutzen's latin letter is given in full by a welsh scholar settled in germany, jenkinus thomasius (jenkin thomas), in his historia atheismi (altdorf, ), ed. basel, , pp. - ; also by la croze in his (anon.) entretiens sur divers sujets, , p. sq. thomasius thus codifies its doctrine:--" . there is neither god nor devil. . the magistrate is nothing to be esteemed; temples are to be condemned, priests to be rejected. . in place of the magistrate and the priest are to be put knowledge and reason, joined with conscience, which teaches to live honestly, to injure none, and to give each his own. . marriage and free union do not differ. . this is the only life: after it, there is neither reward nor punishment. . the scripture contradicts itself." knutzen admittedly wrote like a scholar (thomasius, p. ); but his treatment of scripture contradictions belongs to the infancy of criticism; though la croze, replying thirty years later, could only meet it with charges of impiety and stupidity. as to the numbers of the movement see trinius, freydenker lexicon, , s. v. knutzen. kurtz (hist. of the christian church, eng. tr. , i, ) states that a careful academic investigation proved the claim to a membership of to be an empty boast (citing h. rossel, studien und kritiken, , iv). this doubtless refers to the treatise of musæus, jena, , cited by la croze, p. . some converts knutzen certainly made; and as only the hardiest would dare to avow themselves, his influence may have been considerable. "examples of total unbelief come only singly to knowledge," says tholuck; "but total unbelief had still to the end of the century to bear penal treatment." he gives the instances ( ) of the swedish baron skytte, reported in by spener to the frankfort authorities for having said at table, before the court preacher, that the scriptures were not holy, and not from god but from men; and ( ) "a certain minister" who at the end of the century was prosecuted for blasphemy. (das kirchliche leben des ten jahrhunderts, abth. pp. - .) even anabaptists were still liable to banishment in the middle of the century. id. abth. , p. . as to clerical intolerance see pp. - . on the merits of the knutzen movement cp. pünjer, hist, of the christian philos. of religion, eng. tr. i, - . . while, however, clerical action could drive such a movement under the surface, it could not prevent the spread of rationalism in all directions; and there was now germinating a philosophic unbelief [ ] under the influence of spinoza. nowhere were there more prompt and numerous answers to spinoza than in germany, [ ] whence it may be inferred that within the educated class he soon had a good many adherents. in point of fact the elector palatine offered him a professorship of philosophy at heidelberg in , promising him "the most ample freedom in philosophical teaching," and merely stipulating that he should not use it "to disturb the religion publicly established." [ ] on the other hand, professor rappolt, of leipzig, attacked him as an atheist, in an oratio contra naturalistas in ; professor musæus, of jena, assailed him in ; [ ] and the chancellor kortholt, of kiel, grouped him, herbert, and hobbes as the three great impostors in . [ ] after the appearance of the ethica the replies multiplied. on the other hand, cuffelaer vindicated spinoza in ; and in f. w. stosch, a court official, and son of the court preacher, published a stringent attack on revelationism, entitled concordia rationis et fidei, partly on spinozistic lines, which created much commotion, and was forcibly suppressed and condemned to be burnt by the hangman at berlin, [ ] as it denied not only the immateriality but the immortality of the soul and the historical truth of the scriptural narratives. this seems to have been the first work of modern freethought published by a german, [ ] apart from knutzen's letter; but a partial list of the apologetic works of the period, from gegenbauer onwards, may suffice to suggest the real vogue of heterodox opinions:-- . th. gegenbauer. preservatio wider die pest der heutigen atheisten. erfurt. . j. musæus. examen cherburianismi. contra e. herbertum de cherbury. . anton reiser. de origine, progressu, et incremento antitheismi seu atheismi. [ ] augsburg. . rappolt. oratio contra naturalistas. leipzig. . j. müller. atheismus devictus (in german). hamburg. . j. lassen. arcana-politica-atheistica (in german). . ---- besiegte atheisterey. . chr. pfaff. disputatio contra atheistas. . j. musæus. spinozismus. jena. . val. greissing. corona transylvani; exerc. , de atheismo, contra cartesium et math. knutzen. wittemberg. . tobias wagner. examen ... atheismi speculativi. tübingen. . k. rudrauff, giessen. dissertatio de atheismo. . chr. kortholt. de tribus impostoribus magnis liber. kiloni. . th. undereyck. der närrische atheist in seiner thorheit ueberzeugt. bremen. . jenkinus thomasius. historia atheismi. altdorf. . j. lassen. arcana-politica-atheistica. reprint. . a. h. grosse. an atheismus necessario ducat ad corruptionem morum. rostock. . em. weber. beurtheilung der atheisterei. . tribbechov. historia naturalismi. jena. . loescher. prænotiones theologicæ contra naturalistarum et fanaticorum omne genus, atheos, deistas, indifferentistas, etc. wittemberg. . schwartz. demonstrationes dei. leipzig. . rechenberg. fundamenta veræ religionis prudentum, adversus atheos, etc. . j. c. wolfius. dissertatio de atheismi falso suspectis. wittemberg. . j. n. fromman. atheus stultus. tübingen. . anon. widerlegung der atheisten, deisten, und neuen zweifeler. frankfort. [later came the works of buddeus ( ) and reimmann and fabricius, noted above, vol. i, ch. i, § .] . for a community in which the reading class was mainly clerical and scholastic, the seeds of rationalism were thus in part sown in the seventeenth century; but the ground was not yet propitious. leibnitz ( - ), the chief thinker produced by germany before kant, lived in a state of singular intellectual isolation; [ ] and showed his sense of it by writing his philosophic treatises chiefly in french. one of the most widely learned men of his age, he was wont from his boyhood to grapple critically with every system of thought that came in his way; and, while claiming to be always eager to learn, [ ] he was as a rule strongly concerned to affirm his own powerful bias. early in life he writes that it horrifies him to think how many men he has met who were at once intelligent and atheistic; [ ] and his propaganda is always dominated by the desire rather to confute unbelief than to find out the truth. as early as (aet. ) he wrote an essay to that end, which was published as a confessio naturæ contra atheistas. against spinoza he reacted instantly and violently, pronouncing the tractatus on its first (anonymous) appearance an "unbearably bold (licentiosum) book," and resenting the hobbesian criticism which it "dared to apply to sacred scripture." [ ] yet in the next year we find him writing to arnauld in earnest protest against the hidebound orthodoxy of the church. "a philosophic age," he declares, "is about to begin, in which the concern for truth, flourishing outside the schools, will spread even among politicians. nothing is more likely to strengthen atheism and to upset faith, already so shaken by the attacks of great but bad men [a pleasing allusion to spinoza], than to see on the one side the mysteries of the faith preached upon as the creed of all, and on the other hand become matter of derision to all, convicted of absurdity by the most certain rules of common reason. the worst enemies of the church are in the church. let us take care lest the latest heresy--i will not say atheism, but--naturalism, be publicly professed." [ ] for a time he seemed thus disposed to liberalize. he wrote to spinoza on points of optics before he discovered the authorship; and he is represented later as speaking of the tractatus with respect. he even visited spinoza in , and obtained a perusal of the manuscript of the ethica; but he remained hostile to him in theology and philosophy. to the last he called spinoza a mere developer of descartes, [ ] whom he also habitually resisted. this was not hopeful; and leibnitz, with all his power and originality, really wrought little for the direct rationalization of religious thought. [ ] his philosophy, with all its ingenuity, has the common stamp of the determination of the theist to find reasons for the god in whom he believed beforehand; and his principle that all is for the best is the fatal rounding of his argumentative circle. thus his doctrine that that is true which is clear was turned to the account of an empiricism of which the "clearness" was really predetermined by the conviction of truth. his theodicée, [ ] written in reply to bayle, is by the admission even of admirers [ ] a process of begging the question. deity, a mere "infinition" of finite qualities, is proved à priori, though it is expressly argued that a finite mind cannot grasp infinity; and the necessary goodness of necessary deity is posited in the same fashion. it is very significant that such a philosopher, himself much given to denying the religiousness of other men's theories, was nevertheless accused among both the educated and the populace of being essentially non-religious. nominally he adhered to the entire christian system, including miracles, though he declared that his belief in dogma rested on the agreement of reason with faith, and claimed to keep his thought free on unassailed truths; [ ] and he always discussed the bible as a believer; yet he rarely went to church; [ ] and the low german nickname lövenix (= glaubet nichts, "believes nothing") expressed his local reputation. no clergyman attended his funeral; but indeed no one else went, save his secretary. [ ] it is on the whole difficult to doubt that his indirect influence not only in germany but elsewhere had been and has been for deism and atheism. [ ] he and newton were the most distinguished mathematicians and theists of the age; and leibnitz, as we saw, busied himself to show that the philosophy of newton [ ] tended to atheism, and that that of their theistic predecessor descartes would not stand criticism. [ ] spinoza being, according to him, in still worse case, and locke hardly any sounder, [ ] there remained for theists only his cosmology of monads and his ethic of optimism--all for the best in the best of all possible worlds--which seems at least as well fitted as any other theism to make thoughtful men give up the principle. . other culture-conditions concurred to set up a spirit of rationalism in germany. after the thirty years' war there arose a religious movement, called pietism by its theological opponents, which aimed at an emotional inwardness of religious life as against what its adherents held to be an irreligious orthodoxy around them. [ ] contending against rigid articles of credence, they inevitably prepared the way for less credent forms of thought. [ ] though the first leaders of pietism grew embittered with their unsuccess and the attacks of their religious enemies, [ ] their impulse went far, and greatly influenced the clergy through the university of halle, which in the first part of the eighteenth century turned out , clergymen in one generation. [ ] against the pietists were furiously arrayed the lutherans of the old order, who even contrived in many places to suppress their schools. [ ] virtues generated under persecution, however, underwent the law of degeneration which dogs all intellectual subjection; and the inner life of pietism, lacking mental freedom and intellectual play, grew as cramped in its emotionalism as that of orthodoxy in its dogmatism. religion was thus represented by a species of extremely unattractive and frequently absurd formalists on the one hand, and on the other by a school which at its best unsettled religious usage, and otherwise tended alternately to fanaticism and cant. [ ] thus "the rationalist tendencies of the age were promoted by this treble exhibition of the aberrations of belief." [ ] "how sorely," says tholuck, "the hold not only of ecclesiastical but of biblical belief on men of all grades had been shaken at the beginning of the eighteenth century is seen in many instances." [ ] orthodoxy selects that of a holstein student who hanged himself at wittemberg in , leaving written in his new testament, in latin, the declaration that "our soul is mortal; religion is a popular delusion, invented to gull the ignorant, and so govern the world the better." [ ] but again there is the testimony of the mint-master at hanover that at court there all lived as "free atheists." and though the name "freethinker" was not yet much used in discussion, it had become current in the form of freigeist--the german equivalent still used. this, as we have noted, [ ] was probably a survival from the name of the old sect of the "free spirit," rather than an adaptation from the french esprit fort or the english "freethinker." . after the collapse of the popular movement of matthias knutzen, the thin end of the new wedge may be seen in the manifold work of christian thomasius ( - ), who in published a treatise on "divine jurisprudence," in which the principles of pufendorf on natural law, already offensive to the theologians, were carried so far as to give new offence. reading pufendorf in his nonage as a student of jurisprudence, he was so conscious of the conflict between the utilitarian and the scriptural view of moral law that, taught by a master who had denounced pufendorf, he recoiled in a state of theological fear. [ ] some years later, gaining self-possession, he recognized the rationality of pufendorf's system, and both expounded and defended him, thus earning his share in the hostility which the great jurist encountered at clerical hands. between that hostility and the naturalist bias which he had acquired from pufendorf, there grew up in him an aversion to the methods and pretensions of theologians which made him their lifelong antagonist. [ ] pufendorf had but guardedly introduced some of the fundamental principles of hobbes, relating morals to the social state, and thus preparing the way for utilitarianism. [ ] this sufficed to make the theologians his enemies; and it is significant that thomasius, heterodox at the outset only thus far forth, becomes from that point onwards an important pioneer of freethought, toleration, and humane reform. innovating in all things, he began, while still a privatdocent at leipzig university, a campaign on behalf of the german language; and, not content with arousing much pedantic enmity by delivering lectures for the first time in his mother tongue, and deriding at the same time the bad scholastic latin of his compatriots, he set on foot the first vernacular german periodical, [ ] which ran for two years ( - ), and caused so much anger that he was twice prosecuted before the ecclesiastical court of dresden, the second time on a charge of contempt of religion. the periodical was in effect a crusade against all the pedantries, the theologians coming in for the hardest blows. [ ] other satirical writings, and a defence of intermarriage between calvinists and lutherans, [ ] at length put him in such danger that, to escape imprisonment, he sought the protection of the elector of brandenburg at halle, where he ultimately became professor of jurisprudence in the new university, founded by his advice. there for a time he leant towards the pietists, finding in that body a concern for natural liberty of feeling and thinking which was absent from the mental life of orthodoxy; but he was "of another spirit" than they, and took his own way. in philosophy an unsystematic pantheist, he taught, after plutarch, bayle, and bacon, that "superstition is worse than atheism"; but his great practical service to german civilization, over and above his furthering of the native speech, was his vigorous polemic against prosecutions for heresy, trials for witchcraft, and the use of torture, all of which he did more than any other german to discredit, though judicial torture subsisted for another half-century. [ ] it was by his propaganda that the princes of germany were moved to abolish all trials for sorcery. [ ] in such a battle he of course had the clergy against him all along the line; and it is as an anti-clerical that he figures in clerical history. the clerical hostility to his ethics he repaid with interest, setting himself to develop to the utmost, in the interest of lay freedom, the lutheran admission of the divine right of princes. [ ] this he turned not against freedom of opinion but against ecclesiastical claims, very much in the spirit of hobbes, who may have influenced him. the perturbed mosheim, while candidly confessing that thomasius is the founder of academic freedom in germany, pronounces that the "famous jurists" who were led by thomasius "set up a new fundamental principle of church polity--namely, the supreme authority and power of the civil magistrate," so tending to create the opinion "that the ministers of religion are not to be accounted ambassadors of god, but vicegerents of the chief magistrates. they also weakened not a little the few remaining prerogatives and advantages which were left of the vast number formerly possessed by the clergy; and maintained that many of the maxims and regulations of our churches which had come down from our fathers were relics of popish superstition. this afforded matter for long and pernicious feuds and contests between our theologians and our jurists.... it will be sufficient for us to observe, what is abundantly attested, that they diminished much in various places the respect for the clergy, the reverence for religion, and the security and prosperity of the lutheran church." [ ] pusey, in turn, grudgingly allows that "the study of history was revived and transformed through the views of thomasius." [ ] . a personality of a very different kind emerges in the same period in johann conrad dippel ( - ), who developed a system of rationalistic mysticism, and as to whom, says an orthodox historian, "one is doubtful whether to place him in the class of pietists or of rationalists, of enthusiasts or of scoffers, of mystics or of freethinkers." [ ] the son of a preacher, he yet "exhibited in his ninth year strong doubts as to the catechism." after a tolerably free life as a student he turned pietist at strasburg, lectured on astrology and palmistry, preached, and got into trouble with the police. in he published under the pen-name of "christianus democritus" his book, gestäuptes papstthum der protestirenden ("the popery of the protestantizers whipped"), in which he so attacked the current christian ethic of salvation as to exasperate both churches. [ ] the stress of his criticism fell firstly on the unthinking scripturalism of the average protestant, who, he said, while reproaching the catholic with setting up in the crucifix a god of wood, was apt to make for himself a god of paper. [ ] in his repudiation of the "bargain" or "redemption" doctrine of the historic church he took up positions which were as old as abailard, and which were one day to become respectable; but in his own life he was much of an ishmaelite, with wild notions of alchemy and gold-making; and after predicting that he should live till , he died suddenly in , leaving a doctrine which appealed only to those constitutionally inclined, on the lines of the earlier english quakers, to set the inner light above scripture. [ ] . among the pupils of thomasius at halle was theodore louis lau, who, born of an aristocratic family, became minister of finances to the duke of courland, and after leaving that post held a high place in the service of the elector palatine. while holding that office lau published a small latin volume of pensées entitled meditationes theologicæ-physicæ, notably deistic in tone. this gave rise to such an outcry among the clergy that he had to leave frankfort, only, however, to be summoned before the consistory of königsberg, his native town, and charged with atheism ( ). he thereupon retired to altona, where he had freedom enough to publish a reply to his clerical persecutors. [ ] . while thomasius was still at work, a new force arose of a more distinctly academic cast. this was the adaptation of leibnitz's system by christian wolff, who, after building up a large influence among students by his method of teaching, [ ] came into public prominence by a rectorial address [ ] at halle ( ) in which he warmly praised the ethics of confucius. such praise was naturally held to imply disparagement of christianity; and as a result of the pietist outcry wolff was condemned by the king to exile from prussia, under penalty of the gallows, [ ] all "atheistical" writings being at the same time forbidden. wolff's system, however, prevailed so completely, in virtue of its lucidity and the rationalizing tendency of the age, that in the year there were said to be already authors of his cast of thinking. nevertheless, he refused to return to halle on any invitation till the accession ( ) of frederick the great, one of his warmest admirers, whereafter he figured as the german thinker of his age. his teaching, which for the first time popularized philosophy in the german language, in turn helped greatly, by its ratiocinative cast, to promote the rationalistic temper, though orthodox enough from the modern point of view. under the new reign, however, pietism and wolffism alike lost prestige, [ ] and the age of anti-christian and christian rationalism began. thus the period of freethinking in germany follows close upon one of religious revival. the , theologians trained at halle in the first generation of the century had "worked like a leaven through all germany." [ ] "not since the time of the reformation had germany such a large number of truly pious preachers and laymen as towards the end of the first half of the eighteenth century." [ ] there, as elsewhere, religion intellectually collapsed. as to wolff's rationalistic influence see cairns, unbelief in the eighteenth century, , p. ; pusey, pp. - ; pünjer, p. ; lechler, pp. - . "it cannot be questioned that, in his philosophy, the main stress rests upon the rational" (kahnis, as cited, p. ). "francke and lange (pietists) ... saw atheism and corruption of manners springing up from wolff's school" (before his exile). id. p. . wolff's chief offence lay in stressing natural religion, and in indicating, as tholuck observes, that that could be demonstrated, whereas revealed religion could only be believed (abriss, p. ). he greatly pleased voltaire by the dictum that men ought to be just even though they had the misfortune to be atheists. it is noted by tholuck, however (abriss, as cited, p. , note), that the decree for wolff's expulsion was inspired not by his theological colleagues but by two military advisers of the king. tholuck's own criticism resolves itself into a protest against wolff's predilection for logical connection in his exposition. the fatal thing was that wolff accustomed german christians to reason. . even before the generation of active pressure from english and french deism there were clear signs that rationalism had taken root in german life. on the impulse set up by the establishment of the grand lodge at london in , freemasonic lodges began to spring up in germany, the first being founded at hamburg in . [ ] the deism which in the english lodges was later toned down by orthodox reaction was from the first pronounced in the german societies, which ultimately passed on the tradition to the other parts of the continent. but the new spirit was not confined to secret societies. wolffianism worked widely. in the so-called wertheim bible ( ) johann lorenz schmid, in the spirit of the leibnitz-wolffian theology, "undertook to translate the bible, and to explain it according to the principle that in revelation only that can be accepted as true which does not contradict the reason." [ ] this of course involved no thorough-going criticism; but the spirit of innovation was strong enough in schmid to make him undermine tradition at many points, and later carried him so far as to translate tindal's christianity as old as creation. so far was he in advance of his time that when his wertheim bible was officially condemned throughout germany he found no defenders. [ ] the wolffians were in comparison generally orthodox; and another writer of the same school, martin knutzen, professor at königsberg ( - ), undertook in a youthful thesis de æternitate mundi impossibili ( ) to rebut the old averroïst doctrine, revived by modern science, of the indestructibility of the universe. a few years later ( ) he published a treatise entitled the truth of christianity demonstrated by mathematics, which succeeded as might have been expected. . to the same period belong the first activities of johann christian edelmann ( - ), one of the most energetic freethinkers of his age. trained philosophically at jena under the theologian budde, a bitter opponent of wolff, and theologically in the school of the pietists, he was strongly influenced against official orthodoxy through reading the impartial history of the church and of heretics, by gottfried arnold, an eminently anti-clerical work, which nearly always takes the side of the heretics. [ ] in the same heterodox direction he was swayed by the works of dippel. at this stage edelmann produced his unschuldige wahrheiten ("innocent truths"), in which he takes up a pronouncedly rationalist and latitudinarian position, but without rejecting "revelation"; and in he went to berleburg, where he worked on the berleburg translation of the bible, a pietist undertaking, somewhat on the lines of dippel's mystical doctrine, in which a variety of incredible scriptural narratives, from the six days' creation onwards, are turned to mystical purpose. [ ] in this occupation edelmann seems to have passed some years. gradually, however, he came more and more under the influence of the english deists; and he at length withdrew from the pietist camp, attacking his former associates for the fanaticism into which their thought was degenerating. it was under the influence of spinoza, however, that he took his most important steps. a few months after meeting with the tractatus he began ( ) the first part of his treatise moses mit aufgedecktem angesichte ("moses with unveiled face"), an attack at once on the doctrine of inspiration and on that of the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch. the book was intended to consist of twelve parts; but after the appearance of three it was prohibited by the imperial fisc, and the published parts burned by the hangman at hamburg and elsewhere. nonetheless, edelmann continued his propaganda, publishing in or the divinity of reason, [ ] and in christ and belial. in or his works were again publicly burned at frankfurt by order of the imperial authorities; and he had much ado to find anywhere in germany safe harbourage, till he found protection under frederick at berlin, where he died in . edelmann's teaching was essentially spinozist and pantheistic, [ ] with a leaning to the doctrine of metempsychosis. as a pantheist he of course entirely rejected the divinity of jesus, pronouncing inspiration the appanage of all; and the gospels were by him dismissed as late fabrications, from which the true teachings of the founder could not be learned; though, like nearly all the freethinkers of that age, he estimated jesus highly. [ ] a german theologian complains, nevertheless, that he was "more just toward heathenism than toward judaism; and more just toward judaism than toward christianity"; adding: "what he taught had been thoroughly and ingeniously said in france and england; but from a german theologian, and that with such eloquent coarseness, with such a mastery in expatiating in blasphemy, such things were unheard of." [ ] the force of edelmann's attack may be gathered from the same writer's account of him as a "bird of prey" who rose to a "wicked height of opposition, not only against the lutheran church, but against christianity in general." . even from decorous and official exponents of religion, however, there came "naturalistic" and semi-rationalistic teaching, as in the reflections on the most important truths of religion [ ] ( - ) of j. f. w. jerusalem, abbot of marienthal in brunswick, and later of riddagshausen ( - ). jerusalem had travelled in europe, and had spent two years in holland and one in england, where he studied the deists and their opponents. "in england alone," he declared, "is mankind original." [ ] though really written by way of defending christianity against the freethinkers, in particular against bolingbroke and voltaire, [ ] the very title of his book is suggestive of a process of disintegration; and in it certain unedifying scriptural miracles are actually rejected. [ ] it was probably this measure of adaptation to new needs that gave it its great popularity in germany and secured its translation into several other languages. goethe called him a "freely and gently thinking theologian"; and a modern orthodox historian of the church groups him with those who "contributed to the spread of rationalism by sermons and by popular doctrinal and devotional works." [ ] jerusalem was, however, at most a semi-rationalist, taking a view of the fundamental christian dogmas which approached closely to that of locke. [ ] it was, as goethe said later, the epoch of common sense; and the very theologians tended to a "religion of nature." [ ] . alongside of home-made heresy there had come into play a new initiative force in the literature of english deism, which began to be translated after , [ ] and was widely circulated till, in the last third of the century, it was superseded by the french. the english answers to the deists were frequently translated likewise, and notoriously helped to promote deism [ ]--another proof that it was not their influence that had changed the balance of activity in england. under a freethinking king, even clergymen began guardedly to accept the deistic methods; and the optimism of shaftesbury began to overlay the optimism of leibnitz; [ ] while a french scientific influence began with la mettrie, [ ] maupertuis, and robinet. even the leibnitzian school, proceeding on the principle of immortal monads, developed a doctrine of the immortality of the souls of animals [ ]--a position not helpful to orthodoxy. there was thus a general stirring of doubt among educated people, [ ] and we find mention in goethe's autobiography of an old gentleman of frankfort who avowed, as against the optimists, "even in god i find defects (fehler)." [ ] on the other hand, there were instances in germany of the phenomenon, already seen in england in newton and boyle, of men of science devoting themselves to the defence of the faith. the most notable cases were those of the mathematician euler and the biologist von haller. the latter wrote letters (to his daughter) on the most important truths of revelation ( ) [ ] and other apologetic works. euler in published at berlin, where he was professor, his defence of revelation against the reproaches of freethinkers; [ ] and in his letters to a german princess, of which the argument notably coincides with part of that of berkeley against the freethinking mathematicians. haller's position comes to the same thing. all three men, in fact, grasped at the argument of despair--the inadequacy of the human faculties to sound the mystery of things; and all alike were entirely unable to see that it logically cancelled their own judgments. even a theologian, contemplating haller's theorem of an incomprehensible omnipotence countered in its merciful plan of salvation by the set of worms it sought to save, comments on the childishness of the philosophy which confidently described the plans of deity in terms of what it declared to be the blank ignorance of the worms in question. [ ] euler and haller, like some later men of science, kept their scientific method for the mechanical or physical problems of their scientific work, and brought to the deepest problems of all the self-will, the emotionalism, and the irresponsibility of the ignorant average man. each did but express in his own way the resentment of the undisciplined mind at attacks upon its prejudices; and haller's resort to poetry as a vehicle for his religion gives the measure of his powers on that side. thus in germany as in england the "answer" to the freethinkers was a failure. men of science playing at theology and theologians playing at science alike failed to turn the tide of opinion, now socially favoured by the known deism of the king. german orthodoxy, says a recent christian apologist, fell "with a rapidity reminding one of the capture of jericho." [ ] goethe, writing of the general attitude to christianity about , sums up that "the christian religion wavered between its own historic-positive base and a pure deism, which, grounded on morality, was in turn to re-establish ethics." [ ] frederick's attitude, said an early kantian, had had "an almost magical influence" on popular opinion (willich, elements of the critical philosophy, , p. ). with this his french teachers must have had much to do. lord morley pronounces (voltaire, th ed. p. ) that french deism "never made any impression on germany," and that "the teaching of leibnitz and wolff stood like a fortified wall against the french invasion." this is contradicted by much german testimony; in particular by lange's (gesch. des mater. i, ), though he notes that french materialism could not get the upper hand. laukhard, who expressed the highest admiration for tindal, as having wholly delivered him from dogmatism, avowed that voltaire, whom everybody read, had perhaps done more harm to priest religion than all the books of the english and german deists together (leben, - , th. i, p. ). tholuck gravely affirms (abriss, p. ) that the acquaintance with the french "deistery and frivolity" in germany belongs to a "somewhat later period than that of the english." naturally it did. the bulk of the english deistic literature was printed before the printing of the french had begun! french mss. would reach german princes, but not german pastors. but tholuck sadly avows that the french deism (of the serious and pre-voltairean portions of which he seems to have known nothing) had a "frightful" influence on the upper classes, though not on the clergy (p. ). following him, kahnis writes (internal history, p. ) that "english and french deism met with a very favourable reception in germany--the latter chiefly in the higher circles, the former rather among the educated middle classes." (he should have added, "the younger theologians.") baur, even in speaking disparagingly of the french as compared with the english influence, admits (lehrbuch der dogmengeschichte, te aufl. p. ) that the former told upon germany. cp. tennemann, bohn. tr. pp. , . hagenbach shows great ignorance of english deism, but he must have known something of german; and he writes (tr. p. ) that "the imported deism," both english and french, "soon swept through the rifts of the church, and gained supreme control of literature." cp. pp. - . see croom robertson's hobbes, pp. - , as to the persistence of a succession of hobbes and locke in germany in the teeth of the wolffian school, which soon lost ground after . it is further noteworthy that brucker's copious historia critica philosophiæ ( - ), which as a mere learned record has great merit, and was long the standard authority in germany, gives great praise to locke and little space to wolff. (see enfield's abstract, pp. , sq.) the wolffian philosophy, too, had been rejected and disparaged by both herder and kant--who were alike deeply influenced by rousseau--in the third quarter of the century; and was generally discredited, save in the schools, when kant produced the critique of pure reason. see below, pp. , . . frederick, though reputed a voltairean freethinker par excellence, may be claimed for germany as partly a product of the rationalizing philosophy of wolff. in his first letter to voltaire, written in , four years before his accession, he promises to send him a translation he has had made of the "accusation and the justification" of wolff, "the most celebrated philosopher of our days, who, for having carried light into the darkest places of metaphysics, and for having treated the most difficult matters in a manner no less elevated than precise and clear, is cruelly accused of irreligion and atheism"; and he speaks of getting translated wolff's treatise of god, the soul, and the world. when he became a thoroughgoing freethinker is not clear, for voltaire at this time had produced no explicit anti-christian propaganda. at first the new king showed himself disposed to act on the old maxim that freethought is bad for the common people. in - he caused to be suppressed two german treatises by one gebhardi, a contributor to gottsched's magazines, attacking the biblical miracles; and in he sent a young man named rüdiger to spandau for six months' confinement for printing an anti-christian work by one dr. pott. [ ] but as he grew more confident in his own methods he extended to men of his own way of thinking the toleration he allowed to all religionists, save insofar as he vetoed the mutual vituperation of the sects, and such proselytizing as tended to create strife. with an even hand he protected catholics, greek christians, and unitarians, letting them have churches where they would; [ ] and when, after the battle of striegau, a body of protestant peasantry asked his permission to slay all the catholics they could find, he answered with the gospel precept, "love your enemies." [ ] beyond the toleration of all forms of religion, however, he never went; though he himself added to the literature of deism. apart from his verses we have from him the posthumous treatise pensées sur la religion, probably written early in his life, where the rational case against the concepts of revelation and of miracles is put with a calm and sustained force. like the rest, he is uncritical in his deism; but, that granted, his reasoning is unanswerable. in talk he was wont to treat the clergy with small respect; [ ] and he wrote more denunciatory things concerning them than almost any freethinker of the century. [ ] bayle, voltaire, and lucretius were his favourite studies; and as the then crude german literature had no attraction for him, he drew to his court many distinguished frenchmen, including la mettrie, maupertuis, d'alembert, d'argens, and above all voltaire, between whom and him there was an incurable incompatibility of temper and character, and a persistent attraction of force of mind, which left them admiring without respecting each other, and unable to abstain from mutual vituperation. under frederick's vigorous rule all speech was free save such as he considered personally offensive, as voltaire's attack on maupertuis; and after a stormy reign he could say, when asked by prince william of brunswick whether he did not think religion one of the best supports of a king's authority, "i find order and the laws sufficient.... depend upon it, countries have been admirably governed when your religion had no existence." [ ] religion certainly had no part in his personality in the ordinary sense of the term. voltaire was wont to impute to him atheism; when la mettrie died, the mocker, then at frederick's court, remarked that the post of his majesty's atheist was vacant, but happily the abbé de prades was there to fill it. in effect, frederick professed voltaire's own deism; but of all the deists of the time he had least of the religious temperament and most of sheer cynicism. the attempt of carlyle to exhibit frederick as a practical believer is a flagrant instance of that writer's subjective method. he tells (hist. of friedrich, bk. xviii, ch. x) that at the beginning of the battle of leuthen a column of troops near the king sang a hymn of duty (which carlyle calls "the sound of psalms"); that an officer asked whether the singing should be stopped, and that the king said "by no means." his "hard heart seems to have been touched by it. indeed, there is in him, in those grim days, a tone (!) as of trust in the eternal, as of real religious piety and faith, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in his history. his religion--and he had in withered forms a good deal of it, if we will look well--being almost always in a strictly voiceless state, nay, ultra voiceless, or voiced the wrong way, as is too well known." then comes the assertion that "a moment after" the king said "to someone, ziethen probably, 'with men like these, don't you think i shall have victory this day!'" here, with the very spirit of unveracity at work before his eyes, carlyle plumps for the fable. yet the story, even if true, would give no proof whatever of religious belief. in point of fact, frederick was a much less "religious" deist than voltaire. he erected no temple to his unloved god. and a perusal of his dialogue of pompadour and the virgin (dialogues des morts) may serve to dispose of the thesis that the german mind dealt reverently and decently with matters which the french mind handled frivolously. that performance outgoes in ribaldry anything of the age in french. as the first modern freethinking king, frederick is something of a test case. son of a man of narrow mind and odious character, he was himself no admirable type, being neither benevolent nor considerate, neither truthful nor generous; and in international politics, after writing in his youth a treatise in censure of machiavelli, he played the old game of unscrupulous aggression. yet he was not only the most competent, but, as regards home administration, the most conscientious king of his time. to find him a rival we must go back to the pagan antonines and julian, or at least to st. louis of france, who, however, was rather worsened than bettered by his creed. [ ] henri iv of france, who rivalled him in sagacity and greatly excelled him in human kindness, was far his inferior in devotion to duty. the effect of frederick's training is seen in his final attitude to the advanced criticism of the school of d'holbach, which assailed governments and creeds with the same unsparing severity of logic and moral reprobation. stung by the uncompromising attack, frederick retorts by censuring the rashness which would plunge nations into civil strife because kings miscarry where no human wisdom could avoid miscarriage. he who had wantonly plunged all germany into a hell of war for his sole ambition, bringing myriads to misery, thousands to violent death, and hundreds of his own soldiers to suicide, could be virtuously indignant at the irresponsible audacity of writers who indicted the whole existing system for its imbecility and injustice. but he did reason on the criticism; he did ponder it; he did feel bound to meet argument with argument; and he left his arguments to the world. the advance on previous regal practice is noteworthy: the whole problem of politics is at once brought to the test of judgment and persuasion. beside the christian georges and the louis's of his century, and beside his christian father, his superiority in judgment and even in some essential points of character is signal. such was the great deist king of the deist age; a deist of the least religious temper and of no very fine moral material to begin with. the one contemporary monarch who in any way compares with him in enlightenment, joseph ii of austria, belonged to the same school. the main charge against frederick as a ruler is that he did not act up to the ideals of the school of voltaire. in reply to the demand of the french deists for an abolition of all superstitious teaching, he observed that among the , , inhabitants of france at most , were capable of philosophic views, and that the remaining , , were held to their opinions by "insurmountable obstacles." [ ] this, however, had been said by the deists themselves (e.g., d'holbach, préf. to christianisme dévoilé); and such an answer meant that he had no idea of so spreading instruction that all men should have a chance of reaching rational beliefs. this attitude was his inheritance from the past. yet it was under him that prussia began to figure as a first-rate culture force in europe. . the social vogue of deistic thought could now be traced in much of the german belles-lettres of the time. the young jakob von mauvillon ( - ), secretary of the king of poland and author of several histories, in his youth translated from the latin into french holberg's voyage of nicolas klimius ( ), which made the tour of europe, and had a special vogue in germany. later in life, besides translating and writing abundantly and intelligently on matters of economic and military science--in the latter of which he had something like expert status--mauvillon became a pronounced heretic, though careful to keep his propaganda anonymous. the most systematic dissemination of the new ideas was that carried on in the periodical published by christoph friedrich nicolai ( - ) under the title of the general german library (founded ), which began with fifty contributors, and at the height of its power had a hundred and thirty, among them being lessing, eberhard, and moses mendelssohn. in the period from its start to the year it ran to volumes; and it has always been more or less bitterly spoken of by later orthodoxy as the great library of that movement. nicolai, himself an industrious and scholarly writer, produced among many other things a satirical romance famous in its day, the life and opinions of magister sebaldus nothanker, ridiculing the bigots and persecutors the type of klotz, the antagonist of lessing, and some of nicolai's less unamiable antagonists, [ ] as well as various aspects of the general social and literary life of the time. to nicolai is fully due the genial tribute paid to him by heine, [ ] were it only for the national service of his "library." its many translations from the english and french freethinkers, older and newer, concurred with native work to spread a deistic rationalism, labelled aufklärung, or enlightenment, through the whole middle class of germany. [ ] native writers in independent works added to the propaganda. andreas riem ( - ), a berlin preacher, appointed by frederick a hospital chaplain, [ ] wrote anonymously against priestcraft as no other priest had yet done. "no class of men," he declared, in language perhaps echoed from his king, "has ever been so pernicious to the world as the priesthood. there were laws at all times against murderers and bandits, but not against the assassin in the priestly garb. war was repelled by war, and it came to an end. the war of the priesthood against reason has lasted for thousands of years, and it still goes on without ceasing." [ ] georg schade ( - ), who appears to have been one of the believers in the immortality of animals, and who in was imprisoned for his opinions in the danish island of christiansoe, was no less emphatic, declaring, in a work on natural religion on the lines of tindal ( ), that "all who assert a supernatural religion are godless impostors." [ ] constructive work of great importance, again, was done by j. b. basedow ( - ), who early became an active deist, but distinguished himself chiefly as an educational reformer, on the inspiration of rousseau's Émile, [ ] setting up a system which "tore education away from the christian basis," [ ] and becoming in virtue of that one of the most popular writers of his day. it is latterly admitted even by orthodoxy that school education in germany had in the seventeenth century become a matter of learning by rote, and that such reforms as had been set up in some of the schools of the pietists had in basedow's day come to nothing. [ ] as basedow was the first to set up vigorous reforms, it is not too much to call him an instaurator of rational education, whose chief fault was to be too far ahead of his age. this, with the personal flaw of an unamiable habit of wrangling in all companies, caused the failure of his "philanthropic institute," established in , on the invitation of the prince of dessau, to carry out his educational ideals. quite a number of other institutions, similarly planned, after his lead, by men of the same way of thinking, as canope and salzmann, in the same period, had no better success. goethe, who was clearly much impressed by basedow, and travelled with him, draws a somewhat antagonistic picture of him on retrospect (wahrheit und dichtung, b. xiv). he accuses him in particular of always obtruding his anti-orthodox opinions; not choosing to admit that religious opinions were being constantly obtruded on basedow. praising lavater for his more amiable nature, goethe reveals that lavater was constantly propounding his orthodoxy. goethe, in fine, was always lenient to pietism, in which he had been brought up, and to which he was wont to make sentimental concessions. he could never forget his courtly duties towards the established convention, and so far played the game of bigotry. hagenbach notes (i, , note), without any deprecation, that after basedow had published in - his philalethie, a perfectly serious treatise on natural as against revealed religion, one of the many orthodox answers, that by pastor goeze, so inflamed against him the people of his native town of hamburg that he could not show himself there without danger. and this is the man accused of "obtruding his views." baur is driven, by way of disparagement of basedow and his school, to censure their self-confidence--precisely the quality which, in religious teachers with whom he agreed, he as a theologian would treat as a mark of superiority. baur's attack on the moral utilitarianism of the school is still less worthy of him. (gesch. der christl. kirche, iv, - ). it reads like an echo of kahnis (as cited, p. sq.). yet another influential deist was johann august eberhard ( - ), for a time a preacher at charlottenburg, but driven out of the church for the heresy of his new apology of sokrates; or the final salvation of the heathen ( ). [ ] the work in effect placed sokrates on a level with jesus, [ ] which was blasphemy. [ ] but the outcry attracted the attention of frederick, who made eberhard a professor of philosophy at halle, where later he opposed the idealism of both kant and fichte. substantially of the same school was the less pronouncedly deistic cleric steinbart, [ ] author of a utilitarian system of pure philosophy, or christian doctrine of happiness, now forgotten, who had been variously influenced by locke and voltaire. [ ] among the less heterodox but still rationalizing clergy of the period were j. j. spalding, author of a work on the utility of the preacher's office, a man of the type labelled "moderate" in the scotland of the same period, and as such antipathetic to emotional pietists; [ ] and zollikofer, of the same school--both inferribly influenced by the deism of their day. considerably more of a rationalist than these was the clergyman w. a. teller ( - ), author of a new testament lexicon, who reached a position virtually deistic, and intimated to the jews of berlin that he would receive them into his church on their making a deistic profession of faith. [ ] . if it be true that even the rationalizing defenders of christianity led men on the whole towards deism, [ ] much more must this hold true of the new school who applied rationalistic methods to religious questions in their capacity as theologians. of this school the founder was johann salomo semler ( - ), who, trained as a pietist at halle, early thought himself into a more critical attitude, [ ] albeit remaining a theological teacher. son of a much-travelled army chaplain, who in his many campaigns had learned much of the world, and in particular seen something of religious frauds in the catholic countries, semler started with a critical bias which was cultivated by wide miscellaneous reading from his boyhood onwards. as early as , in his doctoral dissertation defending certain texts against the criticism of whiston, he set forth the view, developed a century later by baur, that the early christian church contained a pauline and a petrine party, mutually hostile. the merit of his research won him a professorship at halle; and this position he held till his death, despite such heresy as his rejection from the canon of the books of ruth, esther, ezra, nehemiah, the song of solomon, the two books of chronicles, and the apocalypse, in his freie untersuchung des canons ( - )--a work apparently inspired by the earlier performance of richard simon. [ ] his intellectual life was for long a continuous advance, always in the direction of a more rationalistic comprehension of religious history; and he reached, for his day, a remarkably critical view of the mythical element in the old testament. [ ] not only did he recognize that genesis must have pre-mosaic origins, and that such books as the proverbs and the psalms were of later date and other origin than those traditionally assigned: [ ] his historical sense worked on the whole narrative. thus he recognized the mythical character of the story of samson, and was at least on the way towards a scientific handling of the new testament. [ ] but in his period and environment a systematic rationalism was impossible; he was always a "revelation-believing christian"; his critical intelligence was always divided against itself; [ ] and his powers were expended in an immense number of works, [ ] which failed to yield any orderly system, while setting up a general stimulus, in despite of their admitted unreadableness. [ ] in his latter days he strongly opposed and condemned the more radical rationalism of his pupil bahrdt, and of the posthumous work of reimarus, here exemplifying the common danger of the intellectual life, for critical as well as uncritical minds. after provoking many orthodox men by his own challenges, he is roused to fury alike by the genial rationalism of bahrdt and by the cold analysis of reimarus; and his attack on the wolfenbüttel fragments published by lessing is loaded with a vocabulary of abuse such as he had never before employed [ ]--a sure sign that he had no scientific hold of his own historical conception. like the similarly infuriated semi-rational defenders of the historicity of jesus in our own day, he merely "followed the tactic of exposing the lack of scientific knowledge and theological learning" of the innovating writer. always temperamentally religious, he died in the evangelical faith. but his own influence in promoting rationalism is now obvious and unquestioned, [ ] and he is rightly to be reckoned a main founder of "german rationalism"--that is, academic rationalism on theologico-historical lines [ ]--although he always professed to be merely rectifying orthodox conceptions. in the opinion of pusey "the revival of historical interpretation by semler became the most extensive instrument of the degradation of christianity." among the other theologians of the time who exercised a similar influence to the wolffian, töllner attracts notice by the comparative courage with which, in the words of an orthodox critic, he "raised, as much as possible, natural religion to revelation," and, "on the other hand, lowered scripture to the level of natural light." [ ] first he published ( ) true reasons why god has not furnished revelation with evident proofs, [ ] arguing for the modern attenuation of the idea of revelation; then a work on divine inspiration ( ) in which he explicitly avowed that "god has in no way, either inwardly or outwardly, dictated the sacred books. the writers were the real authors" [ ]--a declaration not to be counterbalanced by further generalities about actual divine influence. later still he published a proof that god leads men to salvation even by his revelation in nature [ ] ( )--a form of christianity little removed from deism. other theologians, such as ernesti, went far with the tide of illuminism; and when the orthodox chr. a. crusius died at leipzig in , jean paul richter, then a student, wrote that people had become "too much imbued with the spirit of illuminism" to be of his school. "most, almost all the students," adds richter, incline to heterodoxy; and of the professor morus he tells that "wherever he can explain away a miracle, the devil, etc., he does so." of this order of accommodators, a prominent example was michaelis ( - ), whose reduction of the mosaic legislation to motives of every-day utility is still entertaining. . much more notorious than any other german deist of his time was carl friedrich bahrdt ( - ), a kind of raw teutonic voltaire, and the most popularly influential german freethinker of his age. in all he is said to have published a hundred and twenty-six books and tracts, [ ] thus approximating to voltaire in quantity if not in quality. theological hatred has so pursued him that it is hard to form a fair opinion as to his character; but the record runs that he led a somewhat bohemian and disorderly life, though a very industrious one. while a preacher in leipzig in he first got into trouble--"persecution" by his own account; "disgrace for licentious conduct," by that of his enemies. in any case, he was at this period quite orthodox in his beliefs. [ ] that there was no serious disgrace is suggested by the fact that he was appointed professor of biblical antiquities at erfurt; and soon afterwards, on the recommendation of semler and ernesti, at giessen ( ). while holding that post he published his "modernized" translation of the new testament, done from the point of view of belief in revelation, following it up by his new revelations of god in letters and tales ( ), which aroused protestant hostility. after teaching for a time in a new swiss "philanthropin"--an educational institution on basedow's lines--he obtained a post as a district ecclesiastical superintendent in the principality of türkheim on the hardt; whereafter he was enabled to set up a "philanthropin" of his own in the castle of heidesheim, near worms. the second edition of his translation of the new testament, however, aroused catholic hostility in the district; the edition was confiscated, and he found it prudent to make a tour in holland and england, only to receive, on his return, a missive from the imperial consistory declaring him disabled for any spiritual office in the holy german empire. seeking refuge in halle, he found semler grown hostile; but made the acquaintance of eberhard, with the result of abandoning the remains of his orthodox faith. henceforth he regarded jesus, albeit with admiration, as simply a great teacher, "like moses, confucius, sokrates, semler, luther, and myself"; [ ] and to this view he gave effect; in the third edition of his new testament translation, which was followed in by his letters on the bible in popular style (volkston), and in by his completion (ausführung) of the plan and aim of jesus in letters ( ), and his system of moral religion ( ). more and more fiercely antagonized, he duly retaliated on the clergy in his church and heretic almanack ( ); and after for a time keeping a tavern, he got into fresh trouble by printing anonymous satires on the religious edict of , directed against all kinds of heresy, [ ] and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in a fortress--a term reduced by the king to one year. thereafter he ended not very happily his troublous life in halle in . the weakest part of bahrdt's performance is now seen to be his application of the empirical method of the early theological rationalists, who were wont to take every biblical prodigy as a merely perverted account of an incident which certainly happened. that method--which became identified with the so-called "rationalism" of germany in that age, and is not yet discarded by rationalizing theologians--is reduced to open absurdity in his hands, as when he makes moses employ fireworks on mount sinai, and jesus feed the five thousand by stratagem, without miracle. but it was not by such extravagances that he won and kept a hearing throughout his life. it is easy to see on retrospect that the source of his influence as a writer lay above all things in his healthy critical ethic, his own mode of progression being by way of simple common sense and natural feeling, not of critical research. his first step in rationalism was to ask himself "how three persons could be one god"--this while believing devoutly in revelation, miracles, the divinity of jesus, and the atonement. under the influence of a naturalist travelling in his district, he gave up the orthodox doctrine of the atonement, feeling himself "as if new-born" in being freed of what he had learned to see as a "pernicious and damnable error." [ ] it was for such writing that he was hated and persecuted, despite his habitual eulogy of christ as "the greatest and most venerable of mortals." his offence was not against morals, but against theology; and he heightened the offence by his vanity. bahrdt's real power may be inferred from the fury of some of his opponents. "the wretched bahrdt" is dr. pusey's christian account of him. even f. c. baur is abusive. the american translators of hagenbach, messrs. gage and stuckenberg, have thought fit to insert in their chapter-heading the phrase "bahrdt, the theodore parker of germany." as hagenbach has spoken of bahrdt with special contempt, the intention can be appreciated; but the intended insult may now serve as a certificate of merit to bahrdt. bishop hurst solemnly affirms that "what jeffreys is to the judicial history of england, bahrdt is to the religious history of german protestantism. whatever he touched was disgraced by the vileness of his heart and the satanic daring of his mind" (history of rationalism, ed. , p. ; ed. , p. ). this concerning doctrines of a nearly invariable moral soundness, which to-day would be almost universally received with approbation. pünjer, who cannot at any point indict the doctrines, falls back on the professional device of classing them with the "platitudes" of the aufklärung; and, finding this insufficient to convey a disparaging impression to the general reader, intimates that bahrdt, connecting ethic with rational sanitation, "does not shrink from the coarseness of laying down" a rule for bodily health, which pünjer does not shrink from quoting (pp. - ). finally bahrdt is dismissed as "the theological public-house-keeper of halle." so hard is it for men clerically trained to attain to a manly rectitude in their criticism of anti-clericals. bahrdt was a great admirer of the gospel jesus; so cairns (p. ) takes a lenient view of his life. on that and his doctrine cp. hagenbach, pp. - ; pünjer, i, - ; noack, th. iii, kap. . goethe satirized him in a youthful prolog, but speaks of him not unkindly in the wahrheit und dichtung. as a writer he is much above the german average. . alongside of these propagators of popular rationalism stood a group of companion deists usually considered together--gotthold ephraim lessing ( - ), hermann samuel reimarus ( - ), and moses mendelssohn ( - ). the last-named, a jew, "lived entirely in the sphere of deism and of natural religion," [ ] and sought, like the deists in general, to give religion an ethical structure; but he was popular chiefly as a constructive theist and a defender of the doctrine of immortality on non-christian lines. his phædon ( ), setting forth that view, had a great vogue. [ ] one of his more notable teachings was an earnest declaration against any connection between church and state; but like locke and rousseau he so far sank below his own ideals as to agree in arguing for a state enforcement of a profession of belief in a god [ ]--a negation of his own plea. with much contemporary popularity, he had no permanent influence; and he seems to have been completely broken-hearted over jacobi's disclosure of the final pantheism of lessing, for whom he had a great affection. see the monograph of rabbi schreiber, of bonn, moses mendelssohn's verdienste um die deutsche nation (zürich, ), pp. - . the strongest claim made for mendelssohn by rabbi schreiber is that he, a jew, was much more of a german patriot than goethe, schiller, or lessing. heine, however, pronounces that "as luther against the papacy, so mendelssohn rebelled against the talmud" (zur gesch. der relig. und philos. in deutschland: werke, ed. , iii, ). lessing, on the other hand, is one of the outstanding figures in the history of biblical criticism, as well as of german literature in general. the son of a lutheran pastor, lessing became in a considerable measure a rationalist, while constantly resenting, as did goethe, the treatment of religion in the fashion in which he himself treated non-religious opinions with which he did not agree. [ ] it is clear that already in his student days he had become substantially an unbeliever, and that it was on this as well as other grounds that he refused to become a clergyman. [ ] nor was he unready to jeer at the bigots when they chanced to hate where he was sympathetic. [ ] on the side of religious problems, he was primarily and permanently influenced by two such singularly different minds as bayle [ ] and rousseau, the first appealing to and eliciting his keen critical faculty, the second his warm emotional nature; and he never quite unified the result. from first to last he was a freethinker in the sense that he never admitted any principle of authority, and was stedfastly loyal to the principle of freedom of utterance. he steadily refused to break with his freethinking friend mylius, and he never sought to raise odium against any more advanced freethinker on the score of his audacity. [ ] in his hamburgische dramaturgie, indeed, dealing with a german play in which mohammedanism in general, and one ismenor in particular, in the time of the crusades are charged with the sin of persecution, he remarks that "these very crusades, which in their origin were a political stratagem of the popes, developed into the most inhuman persecutions of which christian superstition has ever made itself guilty: the true religion had then the most and the bloodiest ismenors." [ ] in his early rettungen (vindications), again, he defends the dubious cardan and impersonally argues the pros and cons of christianity and mohammedanism in a fashion possible only to a skeptical mind. [ ] and in his youth, as in his last years, he maintained that "there have long been men who disregarded all revealed religions and have yet been good men. [ ] in his youth, however, he was more of a rousseauist than of an intellectual philosopher, setting up a principle of "the heart" against every species of analytic thought, including even that of leibnitz, which he early championed against the wolfian adaptation of it. [ ] the sound principle that conduct is more important than opinion he was always apt, on the religious side, to strain into the really contrary principle that opinions which often went with good conduct were necessarily to be esteemed. so when the rationalism of the day seriously or otherwise (in voltairean berlin it was too apt to be otherwise) assailed the creed of his parents, whom he loved and honoured, sympathy in his case as in goethe's always predetermined his attitude; [ ] and it is not untruly said of him that he did prefer the orthodox to the heterodox party, like gibbon, "inasmuch as the balance of learning which attracted his esteem was [then] on that side." [ ] we thus find him, about the time when he announces to his father that he had doubted concerning the christian dogmas, [ ] rather nervously proving his essential religiousness by dramatically defending the clergy against the prejudices of popular freethought as represented by his friend mylius, who for a time ran in leipzig a journal called the freigeist--not a very advanced organ. [ ] lessing was in fact, with his versatile genius and his vast reading, a man of moods rather than a systematic thinker, despite his powerful critical faculty; and alike his emotional and his critical side determined his aversion to the attempts of the "rationalizing" clergy to put religion on a common-sense footing. his personal animosity to voltaire and to frederick would also influence him; but he repugned even the decorous "rationalism" of the theologians of his own country. when his brother wrote him to the effect that the basis of the current religion was false, and the structure the work of shallow bunglers, he replied that he admitted the falsity of the basis, but not the incompetence of those who built up the system, in which he saw much skill and address. shallow bunglers, on the other hand, he termed the schemers of the new system of compromise and accommodation. [ ] in short, as he avowed in his fragment on bibliolatry, he was always "pulled this way and that" in his thought on the problem of religion. [ ] for himself, he framed (or perhaps adopted) [ ] a pseudo-theory of the education of the human race ( ), which has served the semi-rationalistic clergy of our own day in good stead; and adapted rousseau's catching doctrine that the true test of religion lies in feeling and not in argument. [ ] neither doctrine, in short, has a whit more philosophical value than the other "popular philosophy" of the time, and neither was fitted to have much immediate influence; but both pointed a way to the more philosophic apologists of religion, while baulking the orthodox. [ ] if all this were more than a piece of defensive strategy, it was no more scientific than the semi-rationalist theology which he contemned. the "education" theorem, on its merits, is indeed a discreditable paralogism; and only our knowledge of his affectional bias can withhold us from counting it a mystification. on analysis it is found to have no logical content whatever. "christianity" lessing made out to be a "universal principle," independent of its pseudo-historical setting; thus giving to the totality of the admittedly false tradition the credit of an ethic which in the terms of the case is simply human, and in all essentials demonstrably pre-christian. his propaganda of this kind squares ill with his paper on the origin of revealed religion, written about . there he professes to hold by a naturalist view of religion. all "positive" or dogmatic creeds he ascribes to the arrangements that men from time to time found it necessary to make as to the means of applying "natural" religion. "hence all positive and revealed religions are alike true and alike false; alike true, inasmuch as it has everywhere been necessary to come to terms over different things in order to secure agreement and unity in the public religion; alike false, inasmuch as that over which men came to terms does not so much stand close to the essential (nicht sowohl ... neben dem wesentlichen besteht), but rather weakens and oppresses it. the best revealed or positive religion is that which contains the fewest conventional additions to natural religion; that which least limits the effects of natural religion." [ ] this is the position of tindal and the english deists in general; and it seems to have been in this mood that lessing wrote to mendelssohn about being able to "help the downfall of the most frightful structure of nonsense only under the pretext of giving it a new foundation." [ ] on the historical side, too, he had early convinced himself that christianity was established and propagated "by entirely natural means" [ ]--this before gibbon. but, fighter as he was, he was not prepared to lay his cards on the table in the society in which he found himself. in his strongest polemic there was always an element of mystification; [ ] and his final pantheism was only privately avowed. it was through a series of outside influences that he went so far, in the open, as he did. becoming the librarian of the great bibliothek of wolfenbüttel, the possession of the hereditary prince (afterwards duke) of brunswick, he was led to publish the "anonymous fragments" known as the wolfenbüttel fragments ( - ), wherein the methods of the english and french deists are applied with a new severity to both the old and the new testament narratives. it is now put beyond doubt that they were the work of reimarus, [ ] who had in produced a defence of "natural religion"--that is, of the theory of a providence--against la mettrie, maupertuis, and older materialists, which had a great success in its day. [ ] at his death, accordingly, reimarus ranked as an admired defender of theism and of the belief in immortality. [ ] he was the son-in-law of the esteemed scholar fabricius, and was for many years professor of oriental languages in the hamburg academy. the famous research which preserves his memory was begun by him at the age of fifty, for his own satisfaction, and was elaborated by him during twenty years, while he silently endured the regimen of the intolerant lutheranism of his day. [ ] as he left the book it was a complete treatise entitled an apology for the rational worshipper of god; but his son feared to have it published, though lessing offered to take the whole risk; and it was only by the help of the daughter, elise reimarus, [ ] lessing's friend, that the fragments came to light. as the berlin censor would not give official permission, [ ] lessing took the course of issuing them piecemeal in a periodical series of selections from the treasures of the wolfenbüttel library, which had privilege of publication. the first, on the toleration of deists, which attracted little notice, appeared in ; four more, which made a stir, in ; and only in was "the most audacious of all," on the aim of jesus and his disciples, [ ] published as a separate book. collectively they constituted the most serious attack yet made in germany on the current creed, though their theory of the true manner of the gospel history of course smacks of the pre-scientific period. a generation later, however, they were still "the radical book of the anti-supernaturalists" in germany. [ ] as against miracles in general, the resurrection in particular, and biblical ethics in general, the attack of reimarus was irresistible, but his historical construction is pre-scientific. the method is, to accept as real occurrences all the non-miraculous episodes, and to explain them by a general theory. thus the appointment of the seventy apostles--a palpable myth--is taken as a fact, and explained as part of a scheme by jesus to obtain temporal power; and the scourging of the money-changers from the temple, improbable enough as it stands, is made still more so by supposing it to be part of a scheme of insurrection. the method further involves charges of calculated fraud against the disciples or evangelists--a historical misconception which lessing repudiated, albeit not on the right grounds. see the sketch in cairns, p. sq., which indicates the portions of the treatise produced later by strauss. cp. pünjer, i, - ; noack, th. iii, kap. . schweitzer (von reimarus zu wrede), in his satisfaction at the agreement of reimarus with his own conception of an "eschatological" jesus, occupied with "the last things," gives reimarus extravagant praise. strauss rightly notes the weakness of the indictment of moses as a worker of fraud (voltaire, te ausg. p. ). it is but fair to say that reimarus's fallacy of method, which was the prevailing one in his day, has not yet disappeared from criticism. as we have seen, it was employed by pomponazzi in the renaissance (vol. i, p. ), and reintroduced in the modern period by connor and toland. it is still employed by some professed rationalists, as dr. conybeare. it has, however, in all likelihood suggested itself spontaneously to many inquirers. in the phædrus plato presents it as applied by empirical rationalizers to myths at that time. though lessing at many points oppugned the positions of the fragments, he was led into a fiery controversy over them, in which he was unworthily attacked by, among others, semler, from whom he had looked for support; and the series was finally stopped by authority. there can now be no doubt that lessing at heart agreed with reimarus on most points of negative criticism, [ ] but reached a different emotional estimate and attitude. all the greater is the merit of his battle for freedom of thought. thereafter, as a final check to his opponents, he produced his famous drama nathan the wise, which embodies boccaccio's story of the three rings, and has ever since served as a popular lesson of tolerance in germany. [ ] in the end, he seems to have become, to at least some extent, a pantheist; [ ] but he never expounded any coherent and comprehensive set of opinions, [ ] preferring, as he put it in an oft-quoted sentence, the state of search for truth to any consciousness of possessing it. [ ] he left behind him, however, an important fragment, which constituted one of his most important services to national culture--his "new hypothesis concerning the evangelists as merely human writers." he himself thought that he had done nothing "more important or ingenious" [ ] of the kind; and though his results were in part unsound and impermanent, he is justly to be credited with the first scientific attempt to deduce the process of composition of the gospels [ ] from primary writings by the first christians. holding as he did to the authenticity and historicity of the fourth gospel, he cannot be said to have gone very deep; but two generations were to pass before the specialists got any further. lessing had shown more science and more courage than any other pro-christian scholar of the time, and, as the orthodox historian of rationalism has it, "though he did not array himself as a champion of rationalism, he proved himself one of the strongest promoters of its reign." [ ] . deism was now as prevalent in educated germany as in france or england; and, according to a contemporary preacher, "berliner" was about a synonym for "rationalist." [ ] wieland, one of the foremost german men of letters of his time, is known to have become a deist of the school of shaftesbury; [ ] and in the leading journal of the day he wrote on the free use of reason in matters of faith. [ ] some acts of persecution by the church show how far the movement had gone. in we find a catholic professor at mayence, lorenzo isenbiehl, deposed and sent back to the seminary for two years on the score of "deficient theological knowledge," because he argued (after collins) that the text isaiah vii, applied not to the mother of jesus but to a contemporary of the prophet; and when, four years later, he published a book on the same thesis, in latin, he was imprisoned. three years later still, a young jesuit of salzburg, named steinbuhler, was actually condemned to death for writing some satires on roman catholic ceremonies, and, though afterwards pardoned, died of the ill-usage he had undergone in prison. [ ] it may have been the sense of danger aroused by such persecution that led to the founding, in , of a curious society which combined an element of freethinking jesuitism with freemasonry, and which included a number of statesmen, noblemen, and professors--goethe, herder, and the duke of weimar being among its adherents. but it is difficult to take seriously the accounts given of the order. [ ] the spirit of rationalism, in any case, was now so prevalent that it began to dominate the work of the more intelligent theologians, to whose consequent illogical attempts to strain out by the most dubious means the supernatural elements from the bible narratives [ ] the name of "rationalism" came to be specially applied, [ ] that being the kind of criticism naturally most discussed among the clergy. taking rise broadly in the work of semler, reinforced by that of the english and french deists and that of reimarus, the method led stage by stage to the scientific performance of strauss and baur, and the recent "higher criticism" of the old and new testaments. noteworthy at its outset as exhibiting the tendency of official believers to make men, in the words of lessing, irrational philosophers by way of making them rational christians, [ ] this order of "rationalism" in its intermediate stages belongs rather to the history of biblical scholarship than to that of freethought, since more radical work was being done by unprofessional writers outside, and deeper problems were raised by the new systems of philosophy. within the lutheran pale, however, there were some hardy thinkers. a striking figure of the time, in respect of his courage and thoroughness, is the lutheran pastor j. h. schulz, [ ] who so strongly combatted the compromises of the semler school in regard to the pentateuch, and argued so plainly for a severance of morals from religion as to bring about his own dismissal ( ). [ ] schulz's philosophical meditation on theology and religion [ ] ( ) is indeed one of the most pronounced attacks on orthodox religion produced in that age. but it is in itself a purely speculative construction. following the current historical method, he makes moses the child of the egyptian princess, and represents him as imposing on the ignorant israelites a religion invented by himself, and expressive only of his own passions. jesus in turn is extolled in the terms common to the freethinkers of the age; but his conception of god is dismissed as chimerical; and schulz finally rests in the position of edelmann, that the only rational conception of deity is that of the "sufficient ground of the world," and that on this view no man is an atheist. [ ] schulz's dismissal appears to have been one of the fruits of the orthodox edict ( ) of the new king, frederick william ii, the brother of frederick, who succeeded in . it announced him--in reality a "strange compound of lawless debauchery and priest-ridden superstition" [ ]--as the champion of religion and the enemy of freethinking; forbade all proselytizing, and menaced with penalties all forms of heresy, [ ] while professing to maintain freedom of conscience. the edict seems to have been specially provoked by fresh literature of a pronouncedly freethinking stamp, though it lays stress on the fact that "so many clergymen have the boldness to disseminate the doctrines of the socinians, deists, and naturalists under the name of aufklärung." the work of schulz would be one of the provocatives, and there were others. in had appeared the anonymous moroccan letters, [ ] wherein, after the model of the persian letters and others, the life and creeds of germany are handled in a quite voltairean fashion. the writer is evidently familiar with french and english deistic literature, and draws freely on both, making no pretence of systematic treatment. such writing, quietly turning a disenchanting light of common sense on scriptural incredibilities and christian historical scandals, without a trace of polemical zeal, illustrated at once the futility of kant's claim, in the second edition of his critique of pure reason, to counteract "freethinking unbelief" by transcendental philosophy. and though the writer is careful to point to the frequent association of christian fanaticism with regicide, his very explicit appeal for a unification of germany, [ ] his account of the german protestant peasant and labourer as the most dismal figure in germany, holland, and switzerland, [ ] and his charge against germans of degrading their women, [ ] would not enlist the favour of the authorities for his work. within two years ( ) appeared, unsigned, an even more strongly anti-christian and anti-clerical work, the in part only true system of the christian religion, [ ] ascribed to jakob von mauvillon, [ ] whom we have seen twenty-one years before translating the freethinking romance of holberg. beginning his career as a serious publicist by translating raynal's explosive history of the indies ( vols. - ), he had done solid work as a historian and as an economist, and also as an officer in the service of the duke of brunswick and a writer on military science. the true system is hostile alike to priesthoods and to the accommodating theologians, whose attempt to rationalize christianity on historical lines it flouts in lessing's vein as futile. mauvillon finds unthinkable the idea of a revelation which could not be universal; rejects miracles and prophecies as vain bases for a creed; sums up the new testament as planless; and pronounces the ethic of christianity, commonly regarded as its strongest side, the weakest side of all. he sums up, in fact, in a logical whole, the work of the english and french deists. [ ] to such propaganda the edict of repression was the official answer. it naturally roused a strong opposition; [ ] but though it ultimately failed, through the general breakdown of european despotisms, it was not without injurious effect. the first edict was followed in a few months by one which placed the press and all literature, native and foreign, under censorship. this policy, which was chiefly inspired by the new king's minister of religion, woellner, was followed up in by the appointment of a committee of three reactionaries--hermes, hilmer, and woltersdorf--who not only saw to the execution of the edicts, but supervised the schools and churches. such a regimen, aided by the reaction against the revolution, for a time prevented any open propaganda on the part of men officially placed; and we shall see it hampering and humiliating kant; but it left the leaven of anti-supernaturalism to work all the more effectively among the increasing crowd of university students. many minds of the period, doubtless, are typified by herder, who, though a practising clergyman, was clearly a spinozistic theist, accommodating himself to popular christianity in a genially latitudinarian spirit. [ ] when in his youth he published an essay discussing genesis as a piece of oriental poetry, not to be treated as science or theology, he evoked an amount of hostility which startled him. [ ] learning his lesson, he was for the future guarded enough to escape persecution. he was led by his own temperamental bias, however, to a transcendental position in philosophy. originally in agreement with kant, [ ] as against the current metaphysic, in the period before the issue of the latter's critique of pure reason, he nourished his religious instincts by a discursive reading of history, which he handled in a comparatively scientific yet above all poetic or theosophic spirit, while kant, who had little or no interest in history, developed his thought on the side of physical science. [ ] the philosophic methods of the two men thus became opposed; and when herder found kant's philosophy producing a strongly rationalistic cast of thought among the divinity students who came before him for examination, he directly and sharply antagonized it [ ] in a theistic sense. yet his own influence on his age was on the whole latitudinarian and anti-theological; he opposed to the apriorism of kant the view that the concepts of space and time are the results of experience and an abstraction of its contents; his historic studies had developed in him a conception of the process of evolution alike in life, opinion, and faculty; and orthodoxy and philosophy alike incline to rank him as a pantheist. [ ] . meanwhile, the drift of the age of aufklärung was apparent in the practically freethinking attitude of the two foremost men of letters in the new germany--goethe and schiller. of the former, despite the bluster of carlyle, and despite the æsthetic favour shown to christianity in wilhelm meister, no religious ingenuity can make more than a pantheist, [ ] who, insofar as he touched on biblical questions, copied the half-grown rationalism of the school of semler. [ ] "the great pagan" was the common label among his orthodox or conformist contemporaries. [ ] as a boy, learning a little hebrew, he was already at the critical point of view in regard to biblical marvels, [ ] though he never became a scientific critic. he has told how, in his youth, when lavater insisted that he must choose between orthodox christianity and atheism, he answered that, if he were not free to be a christian in his own way (wie ich es bisher gehegt hätte), he would as soon turn atheist as christian, the more so as he saw that nobody knew very well what either signified. [ ] as he puts it, he had made a christ and a christianity of his own. [ ] his admired friend fräulein von klettenberg, the "beautiful soul" of one of his pieces, told him that he never satisfied her when he used the christian terminology, which he never seemed to get right; and he tells how he gradually turned away from her religion, which he had for a time approached, in its moravian aspect, with a too passionate zeal. [ ] in his letters to lavater, he wrote quite explicitly that a voice from heaven would not make him believe in a virgin birth and a resurrection, such tales being for him rather blasphemies against the great god and his revelation in nature. thousands of pages of earlier and later writings, he declared, were for him as beautiful as the gospel. [ ] nor did he ever yield to the christian church more than a platonic amity; so that much of the peculiar hostility that was long felt for his poetry and was long shown to his memory in germany is to be explained as an expression of the normal malice of pietism against unbelievers. [ ] such utterances as the avowal that he revered jesus as he revered the sun, [ ] and the other to the effect that christianity has nothing to do with philosophy, where hegel sought to bring it--that it is simply a beneficent influence, and is not to be looked to for proof of immortality [ ]--are clearly not those of a believer. to-day belief is glad to claim goethe as a friend in respect of his many concessions to it, as well as of his occasional flings at more consistent freethinkers. but a "great pagan" he remains for the student. in the opinion of later orthodoxy his "influence on religion was very pernicious." [ ] he indeed showed small concern for religious susceptibilities when he humorously wrote that from his youth up he believed himself to stand so well with his god as to fancy that he might even "have something to forgive him." [ ] one passage in goethe's essay on the pentateuch, appended to the west-oestlicher divan, is worth noting here as illustrating the ability of genius to cherish and propagate historical fallacies. it runs: "the peculiar, unique, and deepest theme of the history of the world and man, to which all others are subordinate, is always the conflict of belief and unbelief. all epochs in which belief rules, under whatever form, are illustrious, inspiriting, and fruitful for that time and the future. all epochs, on the other hand, in which unbelief, in whatever form, secures a miserable victory, even though for a moment they may flaunt it proudly, disappear for posterity, because no man willingly troubles himself with knowledge of the unfruitful" (first ed. pp. - ). goethe goes on to speak of the four latter books of moses as occupied with the theme of unbelief, and of the first as occupied with belief. thus his formula was based, to begin with, on purely fabulous history, into the nature of which his poetic faculty gave him no true insight. (see his idyllic recast of the patriarchal history in th. i, b. iv of the wahrheit und dichtung.) applied to real history, his formula has no validity save on a definition which implies either an equivoque or an argument in a circle. if it refer, in the natural sense, to epochs in which any given religion is widely rejected and assailed, it is palpably false. the renaissance and goethe's own century were ages of such unbelief; and they remain much more deeply interesting than the ages of faith. st. peter's at rome is the work of a reputedly unbelieving pope. if on the other hand his formula be meant to apply to belief in the sense of energy and enthusiasm, it is still fallacious. the crusades were manifestations of energy and enthusiasm; but they were profoundly "unfruitful," and they are not deeply interesting. the only sense in which goethe's formula could stand would be one in which it is recognized that all vigorous intellectual life stands for "belief"--that is to say, that lucretius and voltaire, paine and d'holbach, stand for "belief" when confidently attacking beliefs. the formula is thus true only in a strained and non-natural sense; whereas it is sure to be read and to be believed, by thoughtless admirers, in its natural and false sense, though the whole history of byzantium and modern islam is a history of stagnant and unfruitful belief, and that of modern europe a history of fruitful doubt, disbelief, and denial, involving new affirmations. goethe's own mind on the subject was in a state of verbalizing confusion, the result or expression of his temperamental aversion to clear analytical thought ("above all," he boasts, "i never thought about thinking") and his habit of poetic allegory and apriorism. "logic was invincibly repugnant to him" (lewes, life of goethe, rd ed. p. ). the mosaic of his thinking is sufficiently indicated in lewes's sympathetically confused account (id. pp. - ). where he himself doubted and denied current creeds, as in his work in natural science, he was most fruitful [ ] (though he was not always right--e.g., his polemic against newton's theory of colour); and the permanently interesting teaching of his faust is precisely that which artistically utters the doubt through which he passed to a pantheistic naturalism. . no less certain is the unbelief of schiller ( - ), whom hagenbach even takes as "the representative of the rationalism of his age." in his juvenile robbers, indeed, he makes his worst villains freethinkers; and in the preface he stoutly champions religion against all assailants; but hardly ever after that piece does he give a favourable portrait of a priest. [ ] he himself soon joined the aufklärung; and all his æsthetic appreciation of christianity never carried him beyond the position that it virtually had the tendency (anlage) to the highest and noblest, though that was in general tastelessly and repulsively represented by christians. he added that in a certain sense it is the only æsthetic religion, whence it is that it gives such pleasure to the feminine nature, and that only among women is it to be met with in a tolerable form. [ ] like goethe, he sought to reduce the biblical supernatural to the plane of possibility, [ ] in the manner of the liberal theologians of the period; and like him he often writes as a deist, [ ] though professedly for a time a kantist. on the other hand, he does not hesitate to say that a healthy nature (which goethe had said needed no morality, no natur-recht, [ ] and no political metaphysic) required neither deity nor immortality to sustain it. [ ] . the critical philosophy of immanuel kant ( - ) may be said to represent most comprehensively the outcome in german intelligence of the higher freethought of the age, insofar as its results could be at all widely assimilated. in its most truly critical part, the analytic treatment of previous theistic systems in the critique of pure reason ( ), he is fundamentally anti-theological; the effect of the argument being to negate all previously current proofs of the existence and cognizableness of a "supreme power" or deity. already the metaphysics of the leibnitz-wolff school were discredited; [ ] and so far kant could count on a fair hearing for a system which rejected that of the schools. certainly he meant his book to be an antidote to the prevailing religious credulity. "henceforth there were to be no more dreams of ghost-seers, metaphysicians, and enthusiasts." [ ] on his own part, however, no doubt in sympathy with the attitude of many of his readers, there followed a species of intuitional reaction. in his short essay what is freethinking? [ ] ( ) he defines aufklärung or freethinking as "the advance of men from their self-imputed minority"; and "minority" as the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. "sapere aude; dare to use thine own understanding," he declares to be the motto of freethought: and he dwells on the laziness of spirit which keeps men in the state of minority, letting others do their thinking for them as the doctor prescribes their medicine. in this spirit he justifies the movement of rational criticism while insisting, justly enough, that men have still far to go ere they can reason soundly in all things. if, he observes, "we ask whether we live in an enlightened (aufgeklärt) age the answer is, no, but in an age of enlightening (aufklärung)." there is still great lack of capacity among men in general to think for themselves, free of leading-strings. "only slowly can a community (publikum) attain to freethinking." but he repeats that "the age is the age of aufklärung, the age of frederick the great": and he pays a high tribute to the king who repudiated even the arrogant pretence of "toleration," and alone among monarchs said to his subjects, "reason as you will; only obey!" but the element of apprehension gained ground in the aging freethinker. in appeared the second edition of the critique, with a preface avowing sympathy with religious as against freethinking tendencies; and in the critique of practical reason ( ) he makes an almost avowedly unscientific attempt to restore the reign of theism on a basis of a mere emotional and ethical necessity assumed to exist in human nature--a necessity which he never even attempts to demonstrate. with the magic wand of the practical reason, as heine has it, he reanimated the corpse of theism, which the theoretic reason had slain. [ ] in this adjustment he was perhaps consciously copying rousseau, who had greatly influenced him, [ ] and whose theism is an avowedly subjectivist predication. but the same attitude to the problem had been substantially adopted by lessing; [ ] and indeed the process is at bottom identical with that of the quasi-skeptics, pascal, huet, berkeley, and the rest, who at once impugn and employ the rational process, reasoning that reason is not reasonable. kant did but set up the "practical" against the "pure" reason, as other theists before him had set up faith against science, or the "heart" against the "head," and as theists to-day exalt the "will" against "knowledge," the emotional nature against the logical. it is tolerably clear that kant's motive at this stage was an unphilosophic fear that naturalism would work moral harm [ ]--a fear shared by him with the mass of the average minds of his age. the same motive and purpose are clearly at work in his treatise on religion within the bounds of pure [i.e. mere] reason ( - ), where, while insisting on the purely ethical and rational character of true religion, he painfully elaborates reasons for continuing to use the bible (concerning which he contends that, in view of its practically "godly" contents, no one can deny the possibility of its being held as a revelation) as "the basis of ecclesiastical instruction" no less than a means of swaying the populace. [ ] miracles, he in effect avows, are not true; still, there must be no carping criticism of the miracle stories, which serve a good end. there is to be no persecution; but there is to be no such open disputation as would provoke it. [ ] again and again, with a visible uneasiness, the writer returns to the thesis that even "revealed" religion cannot do without sacred books which are partly untrue. [ ] the doctrine of the trinity he laboriously metamorphosed, as so many had done before him, and as coleridge and hegel did after him, into a formula of three modes or aspects of the moral deity [ ] which his ethical purpose required. and all this divagation from the plain path of truth is justified in the interest of goodness. all the while the book is from beginning to end profoundly divided against itself. it indicates disbelief in every one of the standing christian dogmas--creation, fall, salvation, miracles, and the supernatural basis of morals. the first paragraph of the preface insists that morality is founded on the free reason, and that it needs no religion to aid it. again and again this note is sounded. "the pure religious faith is that alone which can serve as basis for a universal church; because it is a pure reason-faith, in which everyone can participate." [ ] but without the slightest attempt at justification there is thrown in the formula that "no religion is thinkable without belief in a future life." [ ] thus heaven and hell [ ] and bible and church are arbitrarily imposed on the "pure religion" for the comfort of unbelieving clergymen and the moralizing of life. error is to cast out error, and evil, evil. the process of kant's adjustment of his philosophy to social needs as he regarded them is to be understood by following the chronology and the vogue of his writings. the first edition of the critique of pure reason "excited little attention" (stuckenberg, life of kant, p. ); but in appeared the second and modified edition, with a new preface, clearly written with a propitiatory eye to the orthodox reaction. "all at once the work now became popular, and the praise was as loud and as fulsome as at first the silence had been profound. the literature of the day began to teem with kantian ideas, with discussions of the new philosophy, and with the praises of its author.... high officials in berlin would lay aside the weighty affairs of state to consider the kritik, and among them were found warm admirers of the work and its author." id. p. . cp. heine, rel. und phil. in deutschland, b. iii--werke, iii, , . this popularity becomes intelligible in the light of the new edition and its preface. to say nothing of the alterations in the text, pronounced by schopenhauer to be cowardly accommodations (as to which question see adamson, as cited, and stuckenberg, p. , note ), kant writes in the preface that he had been "obliged to destroy knowledge in order to make room for faith"; and, again, that "only through criticism can the roots be cut of materialism, fatalism, atheism, freethinking unbelief (freigeisterischen unglauben), fanaticism and superstition, which may become universally injurious; also of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous rather to the schools, and can hardly reach the general public." (meiklejohn mistranslates: "which are universally injurious"--bohn ed. p. xxxvii.) this passage virtually puts the popular religion and all philosophies save kant's own on one level of moral dubiety. it is, however, distinctly uncandid as regards the "freethinking unbelief," for kant himself was certainly an unbeliever in christian miracles and dogmas. his readiness to make an appeal to prejudice appears again in the second edition of the critique when he asks: "whence does the freethinker derive his knowledge that there is, for instance, no supreme being?" (kritik der reinen vernunft, transc. methodenlehre, h. absch. ed. kirchmann, , p. ; bohn tr. p. .) he had just before professed to be dealing with denial of the "existence of god"--a proposition of no significance whatever unless "god" be defined. he now without warning substitutes the still more undefined expression "supreme being" for "god," thus imputing a proposition probably never sustained with clear verbal purpose by any human being. either, then, kant's own proposition was the entirely vacuous one that nobody can demonstrate the impossibility of an alleged undefined existence, or he was virtually asserting that no one can disprove any alleged supernatural existence--spirit, demon, moloch, krishna, bel, siva, aphrodite, or isis and osiris. in the latter case he would be absolutely stultifying his own claim to cut the roots of "superstition" and "fanaticism" as well as of freethinking and materialism; for, if the freethinker cannot disprove jehovah, neither can the kantist disprove allah and satan; and kant had no basis for denying, as he did with spinoza, the existence of ghosts or spirits. from this dilemma kant's argument cannot be delivered. and as he finally introduces deity as a psychologically and morally necessary regulative idea, howbeit indemonstrable, he leaves every species of superstition exactly where it stood before--every superstition being practically held, as against "freethinking unbelief," on just such a tenure. if he could thus react against freethinking before , he must needs carry the reaction further after the outbreak of the french revolution; and his religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft ( - ) is a systematic effort to draw the teeth of the aufklärung, modified only by his resentment of the tyranny of the political authority towards himself. concerning the age-long opposition between rationalism (verstandesaufklärung) and intuitionism or emotionalism (gefühlsphilosophie), it is claimed by modern transcendentalists that kant, or herder, or another, has effected a solution on a plane higher than either. (e.g. kronenberg, herder's philosophie, , p. .) the true solution certainly must account for both points of view--no very difficult matter; but no solution is really attained by either of these writers. kant alternately stood at the two positions; and his unhistorical mind did not seek to unify them in a study of human evolution. for popular purposes he let pass the assumption that a cosmic emotion is a clue to the nature of the cosmos, as the water-finder's hazel-twig is said to point to the whereabouts of water. herder, recognisant of evolution, would not follow out any rational analysis. all the while, however, kant's theism was radically irreconcilable with the prevailing religion. as appears from his cordial hostility to the belief in ghosts, he really lacked the religious temperament. "he himself," says a recent biographer, "was too suspicious of the emotions to desire to inspire any enthusiasm with reference to his own heart." [ ] this misstates the fact that his "practical reason" was but an abstraction of his own emotional predilection; but it remains true that that predilection was nearly free from the commoner forms of pious psychosis; and typical christians have never found him satisfactory. "from my heart," writes one of his first biographers, "i wish that kant had not regarded the christian religion merely as a necessity for the state, or as an institution to be tolerated for the sake of the weak (which now so many, following his example, do even in the pulpit), but had known that which is positive, improving, and blessed in christianity." [ ] he had in fact never kept up any theological study; [ ] and his plan of compromise had thus, like those of spencer and mill in a later day, a fatal unreality for all men who have discarded theology with a full knowledge of its structure, though it appeals very conveniently to those disposed to retain it as a means of popular influence. all his adaptations, therefore, failed to conciliate the mass of the orthodox; and even after the issue of the second critique (kritik der praktischen vernunft) he had been the subject of discussion among the reactionists. [ ] but that critique, and the preface to the second edition of the first, were at bottom only pleas for a revised ethic, kant's concern with current religion being solely ethical; [ ] and the force of that concern led him at length, in what was schemed as a series of magazine articles, [ ] to expound his notion of religion in relation to morals. when he did so he aroused a resentment much more energetic than that felt by the older academics against his philosophy. the title of his complete treatise, religion within the boundaries of mere reason, is obviously framed to parry criticism; yet so drastic is its treatment of its problems that the college of censors at berlin under the new theological régime vetoed the second part. by the terms of the law as to the censorship, the publisher was entitled to know the reason for the decision; but on his asking for it he was informed that "another instruction was on hand, which the censor followed as his law, but whose contents he refused to make known." [ ] greatly incensed, kant submitted the rejected article with the rest of his book to the theological faculty of his own university of königsberg, asking them to decide in which faculty the censorship was properly vested. they referred the decision to the philosophical faculty, which duly proceeded to license the book ( ). as completed, it contained passages markedly hostile to the church. his opponents in turn were now so enraged that they procured a royal cabinet order (october, ) charging him with "distorting and degrading many of the chief and fundamental doctrines of the holy scriptures and of christianity," and ordering all the instructors at the university not to lecture on the book. [ ] such was the reward for a capitulation of philosophy to the philosophic ideals of the police. kant, called upon to render an account of his conduct to the government, formally defended it, but in conclusion decorously said: "i think it safest, in order to obviate the least suspicion in this respect, as your royal majesty's most faithful subject, to declare solemnly that henceforth i will refrain altogether from all public discussion of religion, whether natural or revealed, both in lectures and in writings." after the death of frederick william ii ( ) and the accession of frederick william iii, who suspended the edict of , kant held himself free to speak out again, and published ( ) an essay on "the strife of the [university] faculties," wherein he argued that philosophers should be free to discuss all questions of religion so long as they did not handle biblical theology as such. the belated protest, however, led to nothing. by this time the philosopher was incapable of further efficient work; and when he died in the chief manuscript he left, planned as a synthesis of his philosophic teaching, was found to be hopelessly confused. [ ] the attitude, then, in which kant stood to the reigning religion in his latter years remained fundamentally hostile, from the point of view of believing christians as distinguished from that of ecclesiastical opportunists. what were for temporizers arguments in defence of didactic deceit, were for sincerer spirits fresh grounds for recoiling from the whole ecclesiastical field. kant must have made more rebels than compliers by his very doctrine of compliance. religion was for him essentially ethic; and there is no reconciling the process of propitiation of deity, in the christian or any other cult, with his express declaration that all attempts to win god's favour save by simple right-living are sheer fetichism. [ ] he thus ends practically at the point of view of the deists, whose influence on him in early life is seen in his work on cosmogony. [ ] he had, moreover, long ceased to go to church or follow any religious usage, even refusing to attend the services on the installation of a new university rector, save when he himself held the office. at the close of his treatise on religion, after all his anxious accommodations, he becomes almost violent in his repudiations of sacerdotalism and sectarian self-esteem. "he did not like the singing in the churches, and pronounced it mere bawling. in prayer, whether public or private, he had not the least faith; and in his conversation as well as his writings he treated it as a superstition, holding that to address anything unseen would open the way for fanaticism. not only did he argue against prayer; he also ridiculed it, and declared that a man would be ashamed to be caught by another in the attitude of prayer." one of his maxims was that "to kneel or prostrate himself on the earth, even for the purpose of symbolizing to himself reverence for a heavenly object, is unworthy of man." [ ] so too he held that the doctrine of the trinity had no practical value, and he had a "low opinion" of the old testament. yet his effort at compromise had carried him to positions which are the negation of some of his own most emphatic ethical teachings. like plato, he is finally occupied in discussing the "right fictions" for didactic purposes. swerving from thoroughgoing freethought for fear of moral harm, he ends by sacrificing intellectual morality to what seems to him social security. his doctrine, borrowed from lessing, of a "conceivable" revelation which told man only what he could find out for himself, is a mere flout to reason. while he carries his "categorical imperative," or à priori conception of duty, so extravagantly far as to argue that it is wrong even to tell a falsehood to a would-be murderer in order to mislead him, he approves of the systematic employment of the pulpit function by men who do not believe in the creed they there expound. the priest, with kant's encouragement, is to "draw all the practical lessons for his congregation from dogmas which he himself cannot subscribe with a full conviction of their truth, but which he can teach, since it is not altogether impossible that truth may be concealed therein," while he remains free as a scholar to write in a contrary sense in his own name. and this doctrine, set forth in the censured work of , is repeated in the moralist's last treatise ( ), wherein he explains that the preacher, when speaking doctrinally, "can put into the passage under consideration his own rational views, whether found there or not." kant thus ended by reviving for the convenience of churchmen, in a worse form, the medieval principle of a "twofold truth." so little efficacy is there in a transcendental ethic for any of the actual emergencies of life. on this question compare kant's religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft, stück iii, abth. i, § ; stück iv, th. ii, preamble and §§ i, , and ; with the essay ueber ein vermeintes recht aus menschenliebe zu lügen ( ), in reply to constant--rep. in kant's vorzügliche kleine schriften, , bd. ii, and in app. to rosenkranz's ed. of werke, vii, --given by t. k. abbott in his tr. of the critique of judgment. see also stuckenberg, pp. - , and the general comment of baur, kirchengeschichte des ten jahrhunderts, , p. . "kant's recognition of scripture is purely a matter of expedience. the state needs the bible to control the people; the masses need it in order that they, having weak consciences, may recognize their duty; and the philosopher finds it a convenient vehicle for conveying to the people the faith of reason. were it rejected it might be difficult, if not impossible, to put in its place another book which would inspire as much confidence." all the while "kant's principles of course led him to deny that the bible is authoritative in matters of religion, or that it is of itself a safe guide in morals.... its value consists in the fact that, owing to the confidence of the people in it, reason can use it to interpret into scripture its own doctrines, and can thus make it the means of popularizing rational faith. if anyone imagines that the aim of the interpretation is to obtain the real meaning of scripture, he is no kantian on this point" (stuckenberg, p. ). . the total performance of kant thus left germany with a powerful lead on the one hand towards that unbelief in religion which in the last reign had been fashionable, and on the other hand a series of prescriptions for compromise; the monarchy all the while throwing its weight against all innovation in doctrine and practice. in fichte is found expressing the utmost alarm at the combination of the european despotisms to "rout out freethought"; [ ] and so strong did the official reaction become that in the opinion of heine all the german philosophers and their ideas would have been suppressed by wheel and gallows but for napoleon, [ ] who intervened in the year . the prussian despotism being thus weakened, what actually happened was an adaptation of kant's teaching to the needs alike of religion and of rationalism. the religious world was assured by it that, though all previous arguments for theism were philosophically worthless, theism was now safe on the fluid basis of feeling. on the other hand, rationalism alike in ethics and in historical criticism was visibly reinforced on all sides. herder, as before noted, found divinity students grounding their unbelief on kant's teaching. staüdlin begins the preface to his history and spirit of skepticism ( ) with the remark that "skepticism begins to be a disease of the age"; and kant is the last in his list of skeptics. at the close of the century "the number of kantian theologians was legion," and it was through the kantian influence that "the various anti-orthodox tendencies which flourished during the period of illumination were concentrated in rationalism" [ ]--in the tendency, that is, to bring rational criticism to bear alike on history, dogma, and philosophy. borowski in complains that "beardless youths and idle babblers" devoid of knowledge "appeal to kant's views respecting christianity." [ ] these views, as we have seen, were partly accommodating, partly subversive in the extreme. kant regards jesus as an edifying ideal of perfect manhood, "belief" in whom as such makes a man acceptable to god, because of following a good model. "while he thus treats the historical account of jesus as of no significance, except as a shell into which the practical reason puts the kernel, his whole argument tends to destroy faith in the historic person of jesus as given in the gospel, treating the account itself as something whose truthfulness it is not worth while to investigate." [ ] in point of fact we find his devoted disciple erhard declaring: "i regard christian morality as something which has been falsely imputed to christianity; and the existence of christ does not at all seem to me to be a probable historical fact"--this while declaring that kant had given him "the indescribable comfort of being able to call himself openly, and with a good conscience, a christian." [ ] while therefore a multitude of preachers availed themselves of kant's philosophic licence to rationalize in the pulpit and out of it as occasion offered, and yet others opposed them only on the score that all divergence from orthodoxy should be avowed, the dissolution of orthodoxy in germany was rapid and general; and the anti-supernaturalist handling of scripture, prepared for as we have seen, went on continuously. even the positive disparagement of christianity was carried on by kantian students; and hamann, dubbed "the magician of the north" for his alluring exposition of emotional theism, caused one of them, a tutor, to be brought before a clerical consistory for having taught his pupil to throw all specifically christian doctrines aside. the tutor admitted the charge, and with four others signed a declaration "that neither morality nor sound reason nor public welfare could exist in connection with christianity." [ ] hamann's own influence was too much a matter of literary talent and caprice to be durable; and recent attempts to re-establish his reputation have evoked the deliberate judgment that he has no permanent importance. [ ] against the intellectual influence thus set up by kant there was none in contemporary germany capable of resistance. philosophy for the most part went in kant's direction, having indeed been so tending before his day. rationalism of a kind had already had a representative in chr. a. crusius ( - ), who in treatises on logic and metaphysics opposed alike leibnitz and wolff, and taught for his own part a kind of epicureanism, nominally christianized. to his school belonged platner (much admired by jean paul richter, his pupil) and tetens, "the german locke," who attempted a common-sense answer to hume. his ideal was a philosophy "at once intelligible and religious, agreeable to god and accessible to the people." [ ] platner on the other hand, leaning strongly towards a psychological and anthropological view of human problems, [ ] opposed first to atheism [ ] and later to kantian theism [ ] a moderate pyrrhonic skepticism; here following a remarkable lead from the younger beausobre, who in had published in french, at berlin, a treatise entitled le pyrrhonisme raisonnable, taking up the position, among others, that while it is hard to prove the existence of god by reason it is impossible to disprove it. this was virtually the position of kant a generation later; and it is clear that thus early the dogmatic position was discredited. . some philosophic opposition there was to kant, alike on intuitionist grounds, as in the cases of hamann and herder, and on grounds of academic prejudice, as in the case of kraus; but the more important thinkers who followed him were all as heterodox as he. in particular, johann gottlieb fichte ( - ), who began in authorship by being a kantian zealot, gave even greater scandal than the master had done. fichte's whole career is a kind of "abstract and brief chronicle" of the movements of thought in germany during his life. in his boyhood, at the public school of pforta, we find him and his comrades already influenced by the new currents. "books imbued with all the spirit of free inquiry were secretly obtained, and, in spite of the strictest prohibitions, great part of the night was spent in their perusal. the works of wieland, lessing, and goethe were positively forbidden; yet they found their way within the walls, and were eagerly studied." [ ] in particular, fichte followed closely the controversy of lessing with goeze; and lessing's lead gave him at once the spirit of freethought, as distinct from any specific opinion. never a consistent thinker, fichte in his student and tutorial days is found professing at once determinism and a belief in "providence," accepting spinoza and contemplating a village pastorate. [ ] but while ready to frame a plea for christianity on the score of its psychic adaptation to "the sinner," he swerved from the pastorate when it came within sight, declaring that "no purely christian community now exists." [ ] about the age of twenty-eight he became an enthusiastic convert to the kantian philosophy, especially to the critique of practical reason, and threw over determinism on what appear to be grounds of empirical utilitarianism, failing to face the philosophical issue. within a year of his visit to kant, however, he was writing to a friend that "kant has only indicated the truth, but neither unfolded nor proved it," and that he himself has "discovered a new principle, from which all philosophy can easily be deduced.... in a couple of years we shall have a philosophy with all the clearness of geometrical demonstration." [ ] he had in fact passed, perhaps under spinoza's influence, to pantheism, from which standpoint he rejected kant's anti-rational ground for affirming a god not immanent in things, and claimed, as did his contemporaries schelling and hegel, to establish theism on rational grounds. rejecting, further, kant's reiterated doctrine that religion is ethic, fichte ultimately insisted that, on the contrary, religion is knowledge, and that "it is only a corrupt society that has to use religion as an impulse to moral action." but alike in his kantian youth and later he was definitely anti-revelationist, however much he conformed to clerical prejudice by attacks upon the movement of freethought. in his "wander-years" he writes with vehemence of the "worse than spanish inquisition" under which the german clergy are compelled to "cringe and dissemble," partly because of lack of ability, partly through economic need. [ ] in his versuch einer kritik aller offenbarung ("essay towards a critique of all revelation"), published with some difficulty, kant helping ( ), he in effect negates the orthodox assumption, and, in the spirit of kant and lessing, but with more directness than they had shown, concludes that belief in revelation "is an element, and an important element, in the moral education of humanity, but it is not a final stage for human thought." [ ] in kant's bi-frontal fashion, he had professed [ ] to "silence the opponents of positive religion not less than its dogmatical defenders"; but that result did not follow on either side, and ere long, as a professor at jena, he was being represented as one of the most aggressive of the opponents. soon after producing his critique of all revelation he had published anonymously two pamphlets vindicating the spirit as distinguished from the conduct of the french revolution; and upon a young writer known to harbour such ideas enmity was bound to fall. soon it took the form of charges of atheism. it does not appear to be true that he ever told his students at jena: "in five years there will be no more christian religion: reason is our religion"; [ ] and it would seem that the first charges of atheism brought against him were purely malicious. [ ] but his career henceforth was one of strife and friction, first with the student-blackguardism which had been rife in the german universities ever since the thirty years' war, and which he partly subdued; then with the academic authorities and the traditionalists, who, when he began lecturing on sunday mornings, accused him of attempting to throw over christianity and set up the worship of reason. he was arraigned before the high consistory of weimar and acquitted; but his wife was insulted in the streets of jena; his house was riotously attacked in the night; and he ceased to reside there. then, in his wissenschaftslehre ("doctrine of knowledge," - ) he came into conflict with the kantians, with whom his rupture steadily deepened on ethical grounds. again he was accused of atheism in print; and after a defence in which he retorted the charge on the utilitarian theists he resigned. in berlin, where the new king held the old view that the wrongs of the gods were the gods' affair, he found harbourage; and sought to put himself right with the religious world by his book die bestimmung des menschen ("the vocation of man," ), wherein he speaks of the eternal infinite will as regulating human reason so far as human reason is right--the old counter-sense and the old evasion. by this book he repelled his rationalistic friends schelling and the schlegels; while his religious ally schleiermacher, who chose another tactic, wrote on it a bitter and contemptuous review, and "could hardly find words strong enough to express his detestation of it." [ ] a few years later fichte was writing no less contemptuously of schelling; and in his remaining years, though the napoleonic wars partly brought him into sympathy with his countrymen, from whom he had turned away in angry alienation, he remained a philosophic ishmael, warring and warred upon all round. he was thus left to figure for posterity as a religionist "for his own hand," who rejected all current religion while angrily dismissing current unbelief as "freethinking chatter." [ ] if his philosophy be estimated by its logical content as distinguished from its conflicting verbalisms, it is fundamentally as atheistic as that of spinoza. [ ] that he was conscious of a vital sunderance between his thought and that of the past is made clear by his answer, in , to the complaint that the people had lost their "religious feeling" (religiosität). his retort is that a new religious feeling has taken the place of the old; [ ] and that was the position taken up by the generation which swore by him, in the german manner, as the last had sworn by kant. but the successive philosophies of kant, fichte, schelling, and hegel, all rising out of the "illumination" of the eighteenth century, have been alike impermanent. nothing is more remarkable in the history of thought than the internecine strife of the systems which insisted on "putting something in the place" of the untenable systems of the past. they have been but so many "toppling spires of cloud." fichte, like herder, broke away from the doctrine of kant; and later became bitterly opposed to that of his former friend schelling, as did hegel in his turn. schleiermacher, hostile to kant, was still more hostile to fichte; and hegel, detesting schleiermacher [ ] and developing fichte, give rise to schools arrayed against each other, of which the anti-christian was by far the stronger. all that is permanent in the product of the age of german rationalism is the fundamental principle upon which it proceeded, the confutation of the dogmas and legends of the past, and the concrete results of the historical, critical, and physical research to which the principle and the confutation led. . it is true that the progressive work was not all done by the rationalists so-called. as always, incoherences in the pioneers led to retorts which made for rectification. one of the errors of bias of the early naturalists, as we have noted, was their tendency to take every religious document as genuine and at bottom trustworthy, provided only that its allegations of miracles were explained away as misinterpretations of natural phenomena. so satisfied were many of them with this inexpensive method that they positively resisted the attempts of supernaturalists, seeking a way out of their special dilemma, to rectify the false ascriptions of the documents. bent solely on one solution, they were oddly blind to evidential considerations which pointed to interpolation, forgery, variety of source, and error of literary tradition; while scholars bent on saving "inspiration" were often ready in some measure for such recognitions. these arrests of insight took place alternately on both sides, in the normal way of intellectual progress by alternate movements. all the while, it is the same primary force of reason that sets up the alternate pressures, and the secondary pressures are generated by, and are impossible without, the first. . the emancipation, too, was limited in area in the german-speaking world. in austria, despite a certain amount of french culture, the rule of the jesuits in the eighteenth century was too effective to permit of any intellectual developments. maria theresa, who knew too well that the boundless sexual licence against which she fought had nothing to do with innovating ideas, had to issue a special order to permit the importation of montesquieu's esprit des lois; and works of more subversive doctrine could not openly pass the frontiers at all. an attempt to bring lessing to vienna in , with a view to founding a new literary academy, collapsed before the opposition; and when prof. jahn, of the vienna university--described as "freethinking, latitudinarian, anti-supernaturalistic"--developed somewhat anti-clerical tendencies in his teaching and writing, he was forced to resign, and died a simple canon. [ ] the emperor joseph ii in his day passed for an unbeliever; [ ] but there was no general movement. "austria, in a time of universal effervescence, produced only musicians, and showed zest only for pleasure." [ ] yet among the music-makers was the german-born beethoven, the greatest master of his age. kindred in spirit to goethe, and much more of a revolutionist than he in all things, beethoven spent the creative part of his life at vienna without ceasing to be a freethinker. [ ] "formal religion he apparently had none." he copied out a kind of theistic creed consisting of three ancient formulas: "i am that which is": "i am all that is, that was, that shall be": "he is alone by himself; and to him alone do all things owe their being." beyond this his beliefs did not go. when his friend moscheles at the end of his arrangement of fidelio wrote: "fine, with god's help," beethoven added, "o man, help thyself." [ ] his reception of the catholic sacraments in extremis was not his act. he had left to mankind a purer and a more lasting gift than either the creeds or the philosophies of his age. chapter xix freethought in the remaining european states § . holland holland, so notable for relative hospitality to freethinking in the seventeenth century, continued to exhibit it in the eighteenth, though without putting forth much native response. after her desperate wars with louis xiv, the dutch state, now monarchically ruled, turned on the intellectual side rather to imitative belles lettres than to the problems which had begun to exercise so much of english thought. it was an age of "retrogression and weakness." [ ] elizabeth wolff, née bekker, one of the most famous of the numerous dutch women-writers of the century ( - ), is notable for her religious as well as for her political liberalism; [ ] but her main activity was in novel-writing; and there are few other signs of freethinking tendencies in popular dutch culture. it was impossible, however, that the influences at work in the neighbouring lands should be shut out; and if holland did not produce innovating books she printed many throughout the century. in there was published at amsterdam a work under the pseudonym of "juan di posos," wherein, by way of a relation of imaginary travels, something like atheism was said to be taught; but the pastor leenhof had in been accused of atheism for his treatise, heaven on earth, which was at most spinozistic. [ ] even as late as a spinozist shoemaker, booms, was banished for his writings; but henceforth liberal influences, largely traceable to the works of bayle, begin to predominate. welcomed by students everywhere, bayle must have made powerfully for tolerance and rationalism in his adopted country, which after his time became a centre of culture for the states of northern europe rather than a source of original works. holland in the eighteenth century was receptive alike of french and english thought and literature, especially the former; [ ] and, besides reprinting many of the french deists' works and translating some of the english, the dutch cities harboured such heretics as the italian alberto radicati, count passerano, who, dying at rotterdam in , left a collection of deistic treatises of a strongly freethinking cast to be posthumously published. the german traveller alberti, [ ] citing the london magazine, , states that passerano visited england and published works in english through a translator, joseph morgan, and that both were sentenced to imprisonment. this presumably refers to his anonymous philosophical dissertation upon death, "by a friend to truth," published in english in . [ ] it is a remarkable treatise, being a hardy justification of suicide, "composed for the consolation of the unhappy," from a practically atheistic standpoint. two years earlier he had published in english, also anonymously, a tract entitled christianity set in a true light, by a pagan philosopher newly converted; and it may be that the startling nature of the second pamphlet elicited a prosecution which included both. the pamphlet of , however, is a eulogy of the ethic of jesus, who is deistically treated as a simple man, but with all the amenity which the deists usually brought to bear on that theme. passerano's recueil des pièces curieuses sur les matières les plus interessants, published with his name at rotterdam in , [ ] includes a translation of swift's ironical project concerning babies, and an histoire abregée de la profession sacerdotale, which was published in a separate english translation. [ ] passerano is noticeable chiefly for the relative thoroughness of his rationalism. [ ] in the recueil he speaks of deists and atheists as being the same, those called atheists having always admitted a first cause under the names god, nature, eternal germs, movement, or universal soul. [ ] in was published in french a small mystification consisting of a sermon prêché dans la grande assemblée des quakers de londres, par le fameux frère e. e., and another little tract, la religion muhamedane comparée à la païenne de l'indostan, par ali-ebn-omar. "e. e." stood for edward elwall, a well-known unitarian of the time, who, as we saw, was tried at stafford assizes in for publishing a unitarian treatise, and who in published another, entitled the supernatural incarnation of jesus christ proved to be false ... and that our lord jesus christ was the real son of joseph and mary. the two tracts are both by passerano, and are on deistic lines, the text of the sermon being (in english) "the religion of the gospel is the true original religion of reason and nature." the proposition is of course purely ethical in its bearing. the currency given in holland to such literature tells of growing liberality of thought as well as of political freedom. but the conditions were not favourable to such general literary activity as prevailed in the larger states, though good work was done in medicine and the natural sciences. not till the nineteenth century did dutch scholars again give a lead to europe in religious thought. § . the scandinavian states . traces of new rationalistic life are to be seen in the scandinavian countries at least as early as the times of descartes. there, as elsewhere, the reformation had been substantially a fiscal or economic revolution, proceeding on various lines. in denmark the movement, favoured by the king, began among the people; the nobility rapidly following, to their own great profit; and finally christian iii, who ruled both denmark and norway, acting with the nobles, suppressed catholic worship, and confiscated to the crown the "castles, fortresses, and vast domains of the prelates." [ ] in sweden the king, gustavus vasa, took the initiative, moved by sore need of funds, and a thoroughly anti-ecclesiastical temper, [ ] the clergy having supported the danish rule which he threw off. the burghers and peasants promptly joined him against the clergy and nobles, enabling him to confiscate the bishops' castles and estates, as was done in denmark; and he finally secured himself with the nobles by letting them reclaim lands granted by their ancestors to monasteries. [ ] his anti-feudal reforms having stimulated new life in many ways, further evolution followed. in sweden the stimulative reign of gustavus vasa was followed by a long period of the strife which everywhere trod on the heels of the reformation. the second successor of gustavus, his son john, had married a daughter of the catholic sigismund of poland, and sought to restore her religion to power, causing much turmoil until her death, whereafter he abandoned the cause. his catholic son sigismund recklessly renewed the effort, and was deposed in consequence; john's brother charles becoming king. in denmark, meanwhile, frederick ii (d. ) had been a bigoted champion of lutheranism, expelling a professor of calvinistic leanings on the eucharist, and refusing a landing to the calvinists who fled from the netherlands. on the other hand he patronized and pensioned tycho brahé, who, until driven into banishment by a court cabal during the minority of christian iv, did much for astronomy, though unable to accept copernicanism. in there broke out between sweden and denmark the sanguinary two-years' "war of calmar," their common religion availing nothing to avert strife. thereafter gustavus adolphus of sweden, as protestant champion in the thirty years' war, in succession to christian iv of denmark, fills the eye of europe till his death in ; eleven years after which event sweden and denmark were again at war. in the latter country, for lack of goodwill between nobles and commoners, underwent a political revolution whereby its king, whose predecessors had held the crown on an elective tenure, became absolute, and set up a hereditary line. the first result was a marked intellectual stagnation. "divinity, law, and philosophy were wholly neglected; surgery was practised only by barbers; and when frederick iv and his queen required medical aid, no native physician could be found to whom it was deemed safe to entrust the cure of the royal patients.... the only name, after tycho brahé, of which astronomy can boast, is that of peter horrebow, and with him the cultivation of the science became extinct." [ ] . for long, the only personality making powerfully for culture was holberg, [ ] certainly a host in himself. of all the writers of his age, the only one who can be compared with him in versatility of power is voltaire, whom he emulated as satirist, dramatist, and historian; but all his dramatic genius could not avail to sustain against the puritanical pietism which then flourished, the danish drama of which he was the fecund creator. after producing a brilliant series of plays ( - ) he had to witness the closing of the copenhagen theatre, and take to general writing, historical and didactic. in he produced in latin his famous subterranean journey of nicolas klimius, [ ] one of the most widely famous performances of its age. [ ] he knew english, and must have been influenced by swift's gulliver's travels, which his story frequently recalls. the hero catastrophically reaches a "subterranean" planet, with another social system, and peopled by moving trees and civilized and socialized animals. with the tree-people, the potuans, the tale deals at some length, giving a chapter on their religion, [ ] after the manner of tyssot de patot in jacques massé. they are simple deists, knowing nothing of christianity; and the author makes them the mouthpieces of criticisms upon christian prayers, te deums, and hymn-singing in general. they believe in future recompenses, but not in providential government of this life; and at various points they improve upon the current ethic of christendom. [ ] there is a trace of the tone of frederick alike in the eulogy of tolerance and in the intimation that anyone who disputes about the character of the deity and the properties of spirits or souls is "condemned to phlebotomy" and to be detained in the general hospital (nosocomium). [ ] it was probably by way of precaution that in the closing paragraph of the chapter the potuans are alleged to maintain that, though their creed "seemed mere natural religion, it was all revealed in a book which was sent from the sky some centuries ago"; but the precaution is slight, as they are declared to have practically no dogmas at all. it is thus easy to read between the lines of the declaration of potuan orthodoxy: "formerly our ancestors contented themselves to live in natural religion alone; but experience has shown that the mere light of nature does not suffice, and that its precepts are effaced in time by the sloth and negligence of some and the philosophic subtleties of others, so that nothing can arrest freethinking (libertatem cogitandi) or keep it within just bounds. thence came depravation; and therefore it was that god had chosen to give them a written law." [ ] such a confutation of "the error of those who pretend that a revelation is unnecessary" must have given more entertainment to those in question than satisfaction to the defenders of the faith. but a general tone of levity and satire, maintained at the expense of various european nations, england included, [ ] together with his popularity as a dramatist, saved holberg from the imputation of heresy. his satire reached and was realized by the cultured few alone: the multitude was quite unaffected; and during the reign of christian vi all intellectual efforts beyond the reign of science were subjected to rigorous control. [ ] as a culture force, protestantism had failed in the north lands as completely as catholicism in the south. . in sweden, meantime, there had occurred some reflex of the intellectual renascence. towards the middle of the seventeenth century there are increasing traces of rationalism at the court of the famous christina, who already in her youth is found much interested in the objections of "jews, heathens, and philosophers against christian doctrine"; [ ] and her invitation of descartes to her court ( ) implies that sweden had been not a little affected by the revulsion of popular thought which followed on the thirty years' war in germany. christina herself, however, was a remarkable personality, unfeminine, strong-willed, with a vigorous but immature intelligence; and she did much of her early skeptical thinking for herself. in the course of a few years, the new spirit had gone so far as to make church-going matter for open scoffing at the swedish court; [ ] and the queen's adoption of romanism, for which she prepared by abdicating the crown, appears to have been by way of revulsion from a state of mind approaching atheism, to which she had been led by her freethinking french physician, bourdelot, after descartes's death. [ ] it has been confidently asserted that she really cared for neither creed, and embraced catholicism only by way of conformity for social purposes, retaining her freethinking views. [ ] it is certain that she was always unhappy in her swedish surroundings. but her course may more reasonably be explained as that of a mind which could not rest in deism or face atheism, and sought in catholicism the sense of anchorage which is craved by temperaments ill-framed for the discipline of reason. the author of the histoire des intrigues galantes de la reine christine de suède ( ), who seems to have been one of her suite, insists that while she "loved bigots no more than atheists," [ ] and although her religion had been shaken in her youth by bourdelot and other freethinkers, she was regular in all catholic observances; and that once, looking at the portrait of her father, she said he had failed to provide for the safety of his soul, and thanked god for having guided her aright. [ ] her annotations of descartes are of little importance; but it is noteworthy that she accorded to his orthodox adherents a declaration that he had "greatly contributed" to her "glorious conversion" to the catholic faith. [ ] whatever favour she may have shown to liberty of thought in her youth, no important literary results could follow in the then state of swedish culture, when the studies at even the new colleges were mainly confined to latin and theology. [ ] the german pufendorf, indeed, by his treatises on the law of nature and nations and on the duty of man and citizen (published at lund, where he was professor, in - ), did much to establish the utilitarian and naturalistic tendency in ethics which was at work at the same time in england; but his latent deism had no great influence even in germany, his scripture-citing orthodoxy countervailing it, although he argued for a separation of church and state. [ ] . that there was, however, in eighteenth-century sweden a considerable amount of unpublished rationalism may be gathered from the writings of emanuel swedenborg, himself something of a freethinker in his very supernaturalism. his frequent subacid allusions to those who "regarded nature instead of the divine," and "thought from science," [ ] tell not merely of much passive opposition to his own prophetic claims (which he avenged by much serene malediction and the allotment of bad quarters in the next world), but of reasoned rejection of all scriptural claims. thus in his sapientia angelica de divina providentia [ ] ( ) he sets himself [ ] to deal with a number of the ways in which "the merely natural man confirms himself in favour of nature against god" and "comes to the conclusion that religion in itself is nothing, but yet that it is necessary because it serves as a restraint." among the sources of unbelief specified are ethical revolt alike against the biblical narratives and against the lack of moral government in the world; the recognition of the success of other religions than the christian, and of the many heresies within that; and dissatisfaction with the christian dogmas. as swedenborg sojourned much in other countries, he may be describing men other than his countrymen; but it is very unlikely that the larger part of his intercourse with his fellows counted for nothing in this account of contemporary rationalism. with his odd mixture of scripturalism and innovating dogmatism, swedenborg disposes of difficulties about genesis by reducing adam and eve to an allegory of the "most ancient church," tranquilly dismissing the orthodox belief by asking, "for who can suppose that the creation of the world could have been as there described?" [ ] his own scientific training, which had enabled him to make his notable anticipation of the nebular theory, [ ] made it also easy for him to reduce to allegory the text of what he nevertheless insisted on treating as a divine revelation; and his moral sense, active where he felt no perverting resentment of contradiction by reasoners, [ ] made him reject the orthodox doctrine of salvation by faith, even as he did the orthodox doctrine of the trinity. on these points he seems to have had a lead from his father, bishop jasper svedberg, [ ] as he had in his overwhelming physiological bias to subjective vision-making. but a message which finally amounted to the oracular propounding of a new and bewildering supernaturalism, to be taken on authority like the old, could make for freethought only by rousing rational reaction. it was swedenborg's destiny to establish, in virtue of his great power of orderly dogmatism, a new supernaturalist and scripturalist sect, while his scientific conceptions were left for other men to develop. in his own country, in his own day, he had little success qua prophet, though always esteemed for his character and his high secular competence; and he finally figured rather as a heresiarch than otherwise. [ ] . according to one of swedenborg's biographers, the worldliness of most of the swedish clergy in the middle of the eighteenth century so far outwent even that of the english church that the laity were left to themselves; while "gentlemen disdained the least taint of religion, and except on formal occasions would have been ashamed to be caught church-going." [ ] but this was a matter rather of fashion than of freethought; and there is little trace of critical life in the period. in the latter part of the eighteenth century, doubtless, the aristocracies and the cultured class in the scandinavian states were influenced like the rest of europe by the spirit of french freethought, [ ] which everywhere followed the vogue of the french language and literature. thus we find gustavus iii of sweden, an ardent admirer of voltaire, defending him in company, and proposing in , before the death of his father prevented it, to make a pilgrimage to ferney. [ ] it is without regard to this testimony that gustavus, who was assassinated, is said to have died "with the fortitude and resignation of a christian." [ ] he was indeed flighty and changeable, [ ] and after growing up a voltairean was turned for a year or two into a credulous mystic, the dupe of pseudo-swedenborgian charlatans; [ ] but there is small sign of religious earnestness in his fashion of making his dying confession. [ ] claiming at an earlier date to believe more than joseph ii, who in his opinion "believed in nothing at all," he makes light of their joint parade of piety at rome, [ ] and seems to have been at bottom a good deal of an indifferentist. during his reign his influence on literature fostered a measure of the spirit of freethought in belles lettres; and in the poets j. h. kjellgren and j. m. bellman (both d. ) there is to be seen the effect of the german aufklärung and the spirit of voltaire. [ ] their contemporary, tomas thoren, who called himself torild (d. ), though more of an innovator in poetic style than in thought, wrote among other things a pamphlet on the freedom of the general intelligence. but torild's nickname, "the mad magister," tells of his extravagance; and none of the swedish belletrists of that age amounted to a european influence. finally, in the calamitous period which followed on the assassination of gustavus iii, all swedish culture sank heavily. the desperate energies of charles xii had left his country half-ruined in ; and even while linnæus and his pupils were building up the modern science of botany in the latter half of the century the economic exhaustion of the people was a check on general culture. the university of upsala, which at one time had over , students, counted only some at the close of the eighteenth century. [ ] . in denmark, on the other hand, the stagnation of nearly a hundred years had been ended at the accession of frederick v in . [ ] national literature, revivified by holberg, was further advanced by the establishment of a society of polite learning in ; under frederick's auspices danish naturalists and scholars were sent abroad for study; and in particular a literary expedition was sent to arabia. the european movement of science, in short, had gripped the little kingdom, and the usual intellectual results began to follow, though, as in catholic spain, the forces of reaction soon rallied against a movement which had been imposed from above rather than evolved from within. the most celebrated northern unbeliever of the french period was count struensee, who for some years ( - ) virtually ruled denmark as the favourite of the young queen, the king being half-witted and worthless. struensee was an energetic and capable though injudicious reformer: he abolished torture; emancipated the enslaved peasantry; secured toleration for all sects; encouraged the arts and industry; established freedom of the press; and reformed the finances, the police, the law courts, and sanitation. [ ] his very reforms, being made with headlong rapidity, made his position untenable, and his enemies soon effected his downfall and death. the young queen, who was not alleged to have been a freethinker, was savagely seized by the hostile faction and put on her trial on a charge of adultery, which being wholly unproved, the aristocratic faction proposed to try her on a charge of drugging her husband. only by the efforts of the british court was she saved from imprisonment for life in a fortress, and sent to hanover, where, three years later, she died. she too was a reformer, and it was on that score that she was hated by the nobles. [ ] both she and struensee, in short, were the victims of a violent political reaction. there is an elaborate account of struensee's conversion to christianity in prison by the german dr. munter, [ ] which makes him out by his own confession an excessive voluptuary. it is an extremely suspicious document, exhibiting strong political bias, and giving struensee no credit for reforms; the apparent assumption being that the conversion of a reprobate was of more evidential value than that of a reputable and reflective type. in spite of the reaction, rationalism persisted among the cultured class. mary wollstonecraft, visiting denmark in , noted that there and in norway the press was free, and that new french publications were translated and freely discussed. the press had in fact been freed by struensee, and was left free by his enemies because of the facilities it had given them to attack him. [ ] "on the subject of religion," she added, "they are likewise becoming tolerant, at least, and perhaps have advanced a step further in freethinking. one writer has ventured to deny the divinity of jesus christ, and to question the necessity or utility of the christian system, without being considered universally as a monster, which would have been the case a few years ago." [ ] she likewise noted that there was in norway very little of the fanaticism she had seen gaining ground, on wesleyan lines, in england. [ ] but though the danes had "translated many german works on education," they had "not adopted any of their plans"; there were few schools, and those not good. norway, again, had been kept without a university under danish rule; and not until one was established at christiania in could norwegian faculty play its part in the intellectual life of europe. the reaction, accordingly, soon afterwards began to gain head. already in "precautionary measures" had been attempted against the press; [ ] and, these being found inefficient, an edict was issued in enforcing penalties against all anonymous writers--a plan which of course struck at the publishers. but the great geographer, malte-brun, was exiled, as were heiberg, the dramatic poet, and others; and again there was "a temporary stagnation in literature," which, however, soon passed away in the nineteenth century. meantime sweden and denmark had alike contributed vitally to the progress of european science; though neither had shared in the work of freethought as against dogma. § . the slavonic states . in poland, where, as we saw, unitarian heresy had spread considerably in the sixteenth century, positive atheism is heard of in - , when count liszinski (or lyszczynski), among whose papers, it was said, had been found the written statement that there is no god, or that man had made god out of nothing, was denounced by the bishops of posen and kioff, tried, and found guilty of denying not only the existence of god but the doctrine of the trinity and the virgin birth. after being tortured, beheaded, and burned, his ashes were scattered from a cannon. [ ] the first step was to tear out his tongue, "with which he had been cruel towards god"; the next to burn his hands at a slow fire. it is all told by zulaski, the leading inquisitionist. [ ] but even had a less murderous treatment been meted out to such heresy, anarchic poland, ridden by jesuits, was in no state to develop a rationalistic literature. the old king, john sobieski, made no attempt to stop the execution, though he is credited with a philosophical habit of mind, and with reprimanding the clergy for not admitting modern philosophy in the universities and schools. [ ] . in russia the possibilities of modern freethought emerge only in the seventeenth century, when muscovy was struggling out of byzantine barbarism. the late-recovered treasure of ancient folk-poesy, partly preserved by chance among the northern peasantry, tells of the complete rupture wrought in the racial life by the imposition of byzantine christianity from the south. as early as the fourteenth century the strigolniks, who abounded at novgorod, had held strongly by anti-ecclesiastical doctrines of the paulician and lollard type; [ ] but orthodox fanaticism ruled life in general down to the age of peter the great. in the sixteenth century we find the usual symptom of criticism of the lives of the monks; [ ] but the culture was almost wholly ecclesiastical; and in the seventeenth century the effort of the turbulent patriarch nikon ( - ), to correct the corrupt sacred texts and the traditional heterodox practices, was furiously resisted, to the point of a great schism. [ ] he himself had violently denounced other innovations, destroying pictures and an organ in the manner of savonarola; but his own elementary reforms were found intolerable by the orthodox, [ ] though they were favoured by sophia, the able and ambitious sister of peter. [ ] the priest kriezanitch ( - ), who wrote a work on "the russian empire in the second half of the seventeenth century," denounced researches in physical science as "devilish heresies"; [ ] and it is on record that scholars were obliged to study in secret and by night for fear of the hostility of the common people. [ ] half-a-century later the orthodox majority seems to have remained convinced of the atheistic tendency of all science; [ ] and the friends of the new light doubtless included deists from the first. not till the reforms of peter had begun to bear fruit, however, could freethought raise its head. the great czar, who promoted printing and literature as he did every other new activity of a practical kind, took the singular step of actually withdrawing writing materials from the monks, whose influence he held to be wholly reactionary. [ ] in appeared the first russian journal; and in peter founded the first academy of sciences, enjoining upon it the study of languages and the production of translations. now began the era of foreign culture and translations from the french. [ ] prince kantemir, the satirist, who was with the russian embassy in london in , pronounced england, then at the height of the deistic tide, "the most civilized and enlightened of european nations." [ ] the fact that he translated fontenelle on the plurality of worlds tells further of his liberalism. [ ] gradually there arose a new secular faction, under western influences; and other forms of culture slowly advanced likewise, notably under elisabeth petrovna. at length, in the reign of catherine ii, called the great, french ideas, already heralded by belles lettres, found comparatively free headway. she herself was a deist, and a satirist of bigots in her comedies; [ ] she accomplished what peter had planned, the secularization of church property; [ ] and she was long the admiring correspondent of voltaire, to whom and to d'alembert and diderot she offered warm invitations to reside at her court. diderot alone accepted, and him she specially befriended, buying his library when he was fain to sell it, and constituting him its salaried keeper. in no country, not excepting england, was there more of practical freedom than in russia under her rule; [ ] and if after the outbreak of the revolution she turned political persecutor, she was still not below the english level. her half-crazy son paul ii, whom she had given cause to hate her, undid her work wherever he could. but neither her reaction nor his rule could eradicate the movement of thought begun in the educated classes; though in russia, as in the scandinavian states, it was not till the nineteenth century that original serious literature flourished. § . italy . returning to italy, no longer the leader of european thought, but still full of veiled freethinking, we find in the seventeenth century the proof that no amount of such predisposition can countervail thoroughly bad political conditions. ground down by the matchless misrule of spain, from which the conspiracy of the monk campanella vainly sought to free her, and by the kindred tyranny of the papacy, italy could produce in its educated class, save for the men of science and the students of economics, only triflers, whose unbelief was of a piece with their cynicism. while naples and the south decayed, mental energy had for a time flourished in tuscany, where, under the grand dukes from ferdinando i onwards, industry and commerce had revived; and even after a time of retrogression ferdinando ii encouraged science, now made newly glorious by the names of galileo and torricelli. but again there was a relapse; and at the end of the century, under a bigoted duke, florence was priest-ridden and, at least in outward seeming, gloomily superstitious; while, save for the better conditions secured at naples under the viceroyalty of the marquis of carpi, [ ] the rest of italy was cynically corrupt and intellectually superficial. [ ] even in naples, of course, enlightenment was restricted to the few. burnet observes that "there are societies of men at naples of freer thoughts than can be found in any other place of italy"; and he admits a general tendency of intelligent italians to recoil from christianity by reason of catholic corruption. but at the same time he insists that, though the laity speak with scorn of the clergy, "yet they are masters of the spirits of the people." [ ] yet it only needed the breathing time and the improved conditions under the bourbon rule in the eighteenth century to set up a wonderful intellectual revival. . first came the great work of vico, the principles of a new science ( ), whereof the originality and the depth--qualities in which, despite its incoherences, it on the whole excels montesquieu's spirit of laws--place him among the great freethinkers in philosophy. it was significant of much that vico's book, while constantly using the vocabulary of faith, grappled with the science of human development in an essentially secular and scientific spirit. this is the note of the whole eighteenth century in italy. [ ] vico posits deity and providence, but proceeds nevertheless to study the laws of civilization inductively from its phenomena. he permanently obscured his case, indeed, by insisting on putting it theologically, and condemning grotius and others for separating the idea of law from that of religion. only in a pantheistic sense has vico's formula any validity; and he never avows a pantheistic view, refusing even to go with grotius in allowing that hebrew law was akin to that of other nations. but a rationalistic view, had he put it, would have been barred. the wonder is, in the circumstances, not that he makes so much parade of religion, but that he could venture to undermine so vitally its pretensions, especially after he had found it prudent to renounce the project of annotating the great work of grotius, de jure belli et pacis, on the score that (as he puts it in his autobiography) a good catholic must not endorse a heretic. signor benedetto croce, in his valuable work on vico (the philosophy of giambattista vico, eng. tr. , pp. - ), admits that vico is fundamentally at one with the naturalists: "like them, in constructing his science of human society, he excludes with grotius all idea of god, and with pufendorf considers man as without help or attention from god, excluding him, that is, from revealed religion and its god." of vico's opposition to grotius, signor croce offers two unsatisfactory explanations. first: "vico's opposition, which he expresses with his accustomed confusion and obscurity, turns ... upon the actual conception of religion.... religion ... means for vico not necessarily revelation, but conception of reality." this reduces the defence to a quibble; but finally signor croce asks himself "why--if vico agreed with the natural-right school in ignoring revelation, and if he instead of it deepened their superficial immanental doctrine--why he put himself forward as their implacable enemy and persisted in boasting loudly before prelates and pontiffs of having formulated a system of natural rights different from that of the three protestant authors and adapted to the roman church." the natural suggestion of "politic caution" signor croce rejects, declaring that "the spotless character of vico entirely precludes it; and we can only suppose that, lacking as his ideas always were in clarity, on this occasion he indulged his tendency to confusion and nourished his illusions, to the extent of conferring upon himself the flattering style and title of defensor ecclesiæ at the very moment when he was destroying the religion of the church by means of humanity." it is very doubtful whether this equivocal vindication is more serviceable to vico's fame than the plain avowal that a writer placed as he was, in the catholic world of , could not be expected to be straightforward upon such an issue. vico comported himself towards the catholic church very much as descartes did. his own declaration as to his motives is surely valid as against a formula which combines "spotless character" with a cherished "tendency to confusion." the familiar "tendency to hedge" is a simpler conception. . it is noteworthy, indeed, that the "new science," as vico boasted, arose in the catholic and not in the protestant world. we might say that, genius apart, the reason was that the energy which elsewhere ran to criticism of religion as such had in catholic italy to take other channels. by attacking a protestant position which was really less deeply heterodox than his own, vico secured catholic currency for a philosopheme which on its own merits catholic theologians would have scouted as atheism. as it was, vico's sociology aroused on the one hand new rationalistic speculation as to the origin of civilization, and on the other orthodox protest on the score of its fundamentally anti-biblical character. it was thus attacked in by damiano romano, and later by finetti, a professor at padua, àpropos of the propaganda raised by vico's followers as to the animal origin of the human race. this began with vico's disciple, emmanuele duni, a professor at rome, who published a series of sociological essays in . thenceforth for many years there raged, "under the eyes of pope and cardinals," an italian debate between the ferini and antiferini, the affirmers and deniers of the animal origin of man, the latter of course taking up their ground on the bible, from which finetti drew twenty-three objections to vico. [ ] duni found it prudent to declare that he had "no intention of discussing the origin of the world, still less that of the hebrew nation, but solely that of the gentile nations"; but even when thus limited the debate set up far-reaching disturbance. at this stage italian sociology doubtless owed something to montesquieu and rousseau; but the fact remains that the scienza nuova was a book "truly italian; italian par excellence." [ ] it was vico, too, who led the way in the critical handling of early roman history, taken up later by beaufort, and still later by niebuhr; and it was he who began the scientific analysis of homer, followed up later by f. a. wolf. [ ] by a fortunate coincidence, the papal chair was held at the middle of the century ( - ) by the most learned, tolerant, and judicious of modern popes, benedict xiv, [ ] whose influence was used for political peace in europe and for toleration in italy; and whom we shall find, like clement xiv, on friendly terms with a freethinker. in the same age muratori and giannone amassed their unequalled historical learning; and a whole series of italian writers broke new ground on the field of social science, italy having led the way in this as formerly in philosophy and physics. [ ] the hanoverian dr. g. w. alberti, of italian descent, writes in that "italy is full of atheists"; [ ] and grimm, writing in , records that according to capable observers the effect of the french freethinking literature in the past thirty years had been immense, especially in tuscany. [ ] . between and may be counted twenty-eight italian writers on political economy; and among them was one, cesare beccaria, who on another theme produced perhaps the most practically influential single book of the eighteenth century, [ ] the treatise on crimes and punishments ( ), which affected penal methods for the better throughout the whole of europe. even were he not known to be a deist, his strictly secular and rationalist method would have brought upon him priestly suspicion; and he had in fact to defend himself against pertinacious and unscrupulous attacks, [ ] though he had sought in his book to guard himself by occasionally "veiling the truth in clouds." [ ] as we have seen, beccaria owed his intellectual awakening first to montesquieu and above all to helvétius--another testimony to the reformative virtue of all freethought. of the aforesaid eight-and-twenty writers on economics, probably the majority were freethinkers. among them, at all events, were count algarotti ( - ), the distinguished æsthetician, one of the group round frederick at berlin and author of il newtonianismo per le dame ( ); filangieri, whose work on legislation (put on the index by the papacy) won the high praise of franklin; the neapolitan abbate ferdinando galiani, one of the brightest and soundest wits in the circle of the french philosophes; the other neapolitan abbate antonio genovesi ( - ), the "redeemer of the italian mind," [ ] and the chief establisher of economic science for modern italy. [ ] to these names may be added those of alfieri, one of the strongest anti-clericalists of his age; bettinelli, the correspondent of voltaire and author of the resurrection of italy ( ); count dandolo, author of a french work on the new men ( ); and the learned giannone, author of the great anti-papal history of the kingdom of naples ( ), who, after more than one narrow escape, was thrown in prison by the king of sardinia, and died there ( ) after twelve years' confinement. to the merits of algarotti and genovesi there are high contemporary testimonies. algarotti was on friendly terms with cardinal ganganelli, who in became pope clement xiv. in the latter writes [ ] him: "my dear count, contrive matters so, in spite of your philosophy, that i may see you in heaven; for i should be very sorry to lose sight of you for an eternity. you are one of those rare men, both for heart and understanding, whom we could wish to love even beyond the grave, when we have once had the advantage of knowing them. no one has more reasons to be convinced of the spirituality and immortality of the soul than you have. the years glide away for the philosophers as well as for the ignorant; and what is to be the term of them cannot but employ a man who thinks. own that i can manage sermons so as not to frighten away a bel esprit; and that if every one delivered as short and as friendly sermons as i do, you would sometimes go to hear a preacher. but barely hearing will not do ... the amiable algarotti must become as good a christian as he is a philosopher: then should i doubly be his friend and servant." [ ] in an earlier letter, ganganelli writes: "the pope [benedict xiv] is ever great and entertaining for his bons mots. he was saying the other day that he had always loved you, and that it would give him very great pleasure to see you again. he speaks with admiration of the king of prussia ... whose history will make one of the finest monuments of the eighteenth century. see here and acknowledge my generosity! for that prince makes the greatest jest possible of the court of rome, and of us monks and friars. cardinal querini will not be satisfied unless he have you with him for some time at brescia. he one day told me that he would invite you to come and dedicate his library.... there is no harm in preaching to a philosopher who seldom goes to hear a sermon, and who will not have become a great saint by residing at potsdam. you are there three men whose talents might be of great use to religion if you would change their direction--viz. yourself, mons. de voltaire, and m. de maupertuis. but that is not the ton of the age, and you are resolved to follow the fashion." [ ] ganganelli in his correspondence reveals himself as an admirer of newton [ ] and somewhat averse to religious zeal. [ ] of the papal government he admitted that it was favourable "neither to commerce, to agriculture, nor to population, which precisely constitute the essence of public felicity," while suavely reminding the englishman of the "inconveniences" of his own government. [ ] to the learned muratori, who suffered at the hands of the bigots, he and pope benedict xiv gave their sympathy. [ ] but ganganelli's own thinking on the issues between reason and religion was entirely commonplace. "whatever," he wrote, "departs from the account given of the creation in the book of genesis has nothing to support it but paradoxes, or, at most, mere hypotheses. moses alone, as being an inspired author, could perfectly acquaint us with the formation of the world, and the development of its parts.... whoever does not see the truth in what moses relates was never born to know it." [ ] it was only in his relation to the bigots of his own church that his thinking was rationalistic. "the pope," he writes to a french marquis, "relies on providence; but god does not perform miracles every time he is asked to do it. besides, is he to perform one that rome may enjoy a right of seignory over the duchy of parma?" [ ] at his death an italian wrote of him that "the distinction he was able to draw between dogmas or discipline and ultramontane opinions gave him the courage to take many opportunities of promoting the peace of the state." his tolerance is sufficiently exhibited in one of his letters to algarotti: "i hope that you will preach to me some of these days, so that each may have his turn." [ ] freethought had achieved something when a roman cardinal, a predestinate pope, could so write to an avowed freethinker. concerning galiani we have the warm panegyric of grimm. "if i have any vanity with which to reproach myself," he writes, "it is that which i derive in spite of myself from the fact of the conformity of my ideas with those of the two rarest men whom i have the happiness to know, galiani and denis diderot." [ ] grimm held galiani to be of all men the best qualified to write a true ecclesiastical history. but the history that would have satisfied him and grimm was not to be published in that age. italy, however, had done her full share, considering her heritage of burdens and hindrances, in the intellectual work of the century; and in the names of galvani and volta stands the record of one more of her great contributions to human enlightenment. under duke leopold ii of tuscany the papacy was so far defied that books put on the index were produced for him under the imprint of london; [ ] and the papacy itself at length gave way to the spirit of reform, clement xiv consenting among other things to abolish the order of jesuits ( ), after his predecessor had died of grief over his proved impotence to resist the secular policy of the states around him. [ ] in tuscany, indeed, the reaction against the french revolution was instant and severe. leopold succeeded his brother joseph as emperor of austria in , but died in ; and in his realm, as was the case in denmark and in spain in the same century, the reforms imposed from above by a liberal sovereign were found to have left much traditionalism untouched. after , ferdinando iii suspended some of his father's most liberal edicts, amid the applause of the reactionaries; and in , after the first short stay of the revolutionary french army, out of its one million inhabitants no fewer than , were prosecuted for "french opinions." [ ] certainly some of the "french opinions" were wild enough; for instance, the practice among ladies of dressing alla ghigliottina, with a red ribbon round the neck, a usage borrowed about from france. [ ] as quinet sums up, the revolution was too strong a medicine for the italy of that age. the young abbate monti, the chief poet of the time, was a freethinker, but he alternated his strokes for freedom with unworthy compliances. [ ] such was the dawn of the new italian day that has since slowly but steadily broadened, albeit under many a cloud. § . spain and portugal . for the rest of europe during the eighteenth century, we have to note only traces of receptive thought. spain under bourbon rule, as already noted, experienced an administrative renascence. such men as count aranda ( - ) and aszo y del rio ( - ) wrought to cut the claws of the inquisition and to put down the jesuits; but not yet, after the long work of destruction accomplished by the church in the past, could spain produce a fresh literature of any far-reaching power. when aranda was about to be appointed in , his friends the french encyclopédistes prematurely proclaimed their exultation in the reforms he was to accomplish; and he sadly protested that they had thereby limited his possibilities. [ ] nonetheless he wrought much, the power of the inquisition in spain being already on the wane. dr. joaquin villanueva, one of the ecclesiastical statesmen who took part in its suppression by the cortes at cadiz in , tells how, in his youth, under the reign of charles iii, it was a current saying among the students at college that while the clever ones could rise to important posts in the church, or in the law, the blockheads would be sure to find places in the inquisition. [ ] it was of course still powerful for social terrorism and minor persecution; but its power of taking life was rapidly dwindling. between and it had burned only ten persons; from until it burned only four; thereafter none, [ ] the last case having provoked protests which testified to the moral change wrought in europe by a generation of freethought. in spain too, as elsewhere, freethought had made way among the upper classes; and in we find the duke d'alba (formerly huescar), ex-ambassador of spain to france, subscribing eighty louis for a statue to voltaire. "condemned to cultivate my reason in secret," he wrote to d'alembert, "i see this opportunity to give a public testimony of my gratitude to and admiration for the great man who first showed me the way." [ ] . still all freethinking in spain ran immense risks, even under charles iii. the spanish admiral solano was denounced by his almoner to the inquisition for having read raynal, and had to demand pardon on his knees of the inquisition and god. [ ] aranda himself was from first to last four times arraigned before the inquisition, [ ] escaping only by his prestige and power. so eminent a personage as p. a. j. olavidès, known in france as the count of pilos ( - ), could not thus escape. he had been appointed by charles iii prefect of seville, and had carried out for the king the great work of colonizing the sierra morena, [ ] of which region he was governor. at the height of his career, in , he was arrested and imprisoned, "as suspected of professing impious sentiments, particularly those of voltaire and rousseau, with whom he had carried on a very intimate correspondence." he had spoken unwarily to inhabitants of the new towns under his jurisdiction concerning the exterior worship of deity in spain, the worship of images, the fast days, the cessation of work on holy days, the offerings at mass, and all the rest of the apparatus of popular catholicism. [ ] olavidès prudently confessed his error, declaring that he had "never lost his inner faith." after two years' detention he was forced to make his penance at a lesser auto da fé in presence of sixty persons of distinction, many of whom were suspected of holding similar opinions, and were thus grimly warned to keep their counsel. during four hours the reading of his process went on, and then came the sentence. he was condemned to pass eight years in a convent; to be banished forever from madrid, seville, cordova, and the new towns of the sierra morena, and to lose all his property; he was pronounced incapable henceforth of holding any public employment or title of honour; and he was forbidden to mount a horse, to wear any ornament of gold, silver, pearls, diamonds, or other precious stones, or clothing of silk or fine linen. on hearing his sentence he fainted. afterwards, on his knees, he received absolution. escaping some time afterwards from his convent, he reached france. after some years more, he cynically produced a work entitled the gospel triumphant, or the philosopher converted, which availed to procure a repeal of his sentence; and he returned into favour. [ ] in his youth he "had not the talent to play the hypocrite." in the end he mastered the art as few had done. . another grandee, don christophe ximenez de gongora, duke of almodobar, published a free and expurgated translation of raynal's history of the indies under another title; [ ] and though he put upon the book only an anagram of his name, he presented copies to the king. the inquisitors, learning as much, denounced him as "suspected of having embraced the systems of unbelieving philosophers"; but this time the prosecution broke down for lack of evidence. [ ] a similar escape was made by don joseph nicholas d'azara, who had been minister of foreign affairs, minister plenipotentiary of the king at rome, and ambassador extraordinary at paris, and was yet denounced at saragossa and madrid as an "unbelieving philosopher." [ ] count ricla, minister of war under charles iii, was similarly charged, and similarly escaped for lack of proofs. [ ] . in another case, a freethinking priest skilfully anticipated prosecution. don philip de samaniego, "priest, archdeacon of pampeluna, chevalier of the order of st. james, counsellor of the king and secretary-general, interpreter of foreign languages," was one of those invited to assist at the auto da fé of olavidès. the impression made upon him was so strong that he speedily prepared with his own hand a confession to the effect that he had read many forbidden books, such as those of voltaire, mirabeau, rousseau, hobbes, spinoza, montesquieu, bayle, d'alembert, and diderot; and that he had been thus led into skepticism; but that after serious reflection he had resolved to attach himself firmly and forever to the catholic faith, and now begged to be absolved. the sentence was memorable. he was ordered first to confirm his confession by oath; then to state how and from whom he had obtained the prohibited books, where they now were, with what persons he had talked on these matters, what persons had either refuted or adopted his views, and which of those persons had seemed to be aware of such doctrines in advance; such a detailed statement being the condition of his absolution. samaniego obeyed, and produced a long declaration in which he incriminated nearly every enlightened man at the court, naming aranda, the duke of almodobar, ricla, and the minister florida blanca; also general ricardos, count of truillas, general massones, count of montalvo, ambassador at paris and brother of the duke of sotomayor; and counts campomanes, orreilly, and lascy. proceedings were begun against one and all; but the undertaking was too comprehensive, and the proofs were avowed to be insufficient. [ ] what became of samaniego, history saith not. a namesake of his, don felix-maria de samaniego, one of the leading men of letters of the reign of charles iv, was arraigned before the inquisition of logrogno as "suspected of having embraced the errors of modern philosophers and read prohibited books," but contrived, through his friendship with the minister of justice, to arrange the matter privately. [ ] . out of a long series of other men of letters persecuted by the inquisition for giving signs of enlightenment, a few cases are preserved by its historian, llorente. don benedict bails, professor of mathematics at madrid and author of a school-book on the subject, was proceeded against in his old age, towards the end of the reign of charles iii, as suspected of "atheism and materialism." he was ingenuous enough to confess that he had "had doubts on the existence of god and the immortality of the soul," but that after serious reflection he was repentant and ready to abjure all his errors. he thus escaped, after an imprisonment. don louis cagnuelo, advocate, was forced to abjure for having written against popular superstition and against monks in his journal the censor, and was forbidden to write in future on any subject of religion or morals. f. p. centeno, one of the leading critics of the reigns of charles iii and charles iv, was an augustinian monk; but his profession did not save him from the inquisition when he made enemies by his satirical criticisms, though he was patronized by the minister florida blanca. to make quite sure, he was accused at once of atheism and lutheranism. he had in fact preached against ceremonialism, and as censor he had deleted from a catechism for the free schools of madrid an article affirming the existence of the limbo of children who had died unbaptized. despite a most learned defence, he was condemned as "violently suspected of heresy" and forced to abjure, whereafter he went mad and in that state died. [ ] . another savant of the same period, don joseph de clavijo y faxardo, director of the natural history collection at madrid, was in turn arraigned as having "adopted the anti-christian principles of modern philosophy." he had been the friend of buffon and voltaire at paris, had admirably translated buffon's natural history, with notes, and was naturally something of a deist and materialist. having the protection of aranda, he escaped with a secret penance and abjuration. [ ] don thomas iriarte, chief of the archives in the ministry of foreign affairs, was likewise indicted towards the end of the reign of charles iii, as "suspected of anti-christian philosophy," and escaped with similarly light punishment. [ ] . still in the same reign, the jesuit francisco de ista, author of an extremely popular satire against absurd preachers, the history of the famous preacher fray gerondif, published under the pseudonym of don francisco lobon de salazar--a kind of ecclesiastical don quixote--so infuriated the preaching monks that the holy office received "an almost infinite number of denunciations of the book." ista, however, was a jesuit, and escaped, through the influence of his order, with a warning. [ ] influence, indeed, could achieve almost anything in the holy office, whether for culprits or against the uninculpable. in , don raymond de salas, a professor at salamanca, was actually prosecuted by the inquisition of madrid as being suspected of having adopted the principles of voltaire, rousseau, and other modern philosophers, he having read their works. the poor man proved that he had done so only in order to refute them, and produced the theses publicly maintained at salamanca by his pupils as a result of his teachings. the prosecution was a pure work of personal enmity on the part of the archbishop of santiago (formerly bishop of salamanca) and others, and salas was acquitted, with the statement that he was entitled to reparation. again and again did his enemies revive the case, despite repeated acquittals, he being all the while in durance, and at length he had to "abjure," and was banished the capital. after a time the matter was forced on the attention of the government, with the result that even charles iv was asked by his ministers to ordain that henceforth the inquisition should not arrest anyone without prior intimation to the king. at this stage, however, the intriguing archbishop successfully intervened, and the ancient machinery for the stifling of thought remained intact for the time. [ ] . it is plain that the combined power of the church, the orders, and the inquisition, even under charles iii, had been substantially unimpaired, and rested on a broad foundation of popular fanaticism and ignorance. the inquisition attacked not merely freethought but heresy of every kind, persecuting jansenists and molinists as of old it had persecuted lutherans, only with less power of murder. that much the bourbon kings and their ministers could accomplish, but no more. the trouble was that the enlightened administration of charles iii in spain did not build up a valid popular education, the sole security for durable rationalism. its school policy, though not without zeal, was undemocratic, and so left the priests in control of the mind of the multitude; and throughout the reign the ecclesiastical revenues had been allowed to increase greatly from private sources. [ ] like leopold of tuscany, he was in advance of his people, and imposed his reforms from above. when, accordingly, the weak and pious charles iv succeeded in , three of the anti-clerical ministers of his predecessor, including aranda, were put under arrest, [ ] and clericalism resumed full sway, to the extent even of vetoing the study of moral philosophy in the universities. [ ] mentally and materially alike, spain relapsed to her former state of indigence; and the struggle for national existence against napoleon helped rather traditionalist sentiment than the spirit of innovation. . portugal in the same period, despite the anti-clerical policy of the famous marquis of pombal, made no noticeable intellectual progress. though that powerful statesman in abolished slavery in the kingdom, [ ] he too failed to see the need for popular education, while promoting that of the upper classes. [ ] his expulsion of the jesuits, accordingly, did but raise up against him a new set of enemies in the shape of the jacobeos, "the blessed," a species of catholic puritan, who accused him of impiety. his somewhat forensic defence [ ] leaves the impression that he was in reality a deist; but though he fought the fanatics by imprisoning the bishop of coimbra, their leader, and by causing molière's tartufe to be translated and performed, he does not seem to have shown any favour to the deistical literature of which the bishop had composed a local index expurgatorius. [ ] in portugal, as later in spain, accordingly, a complete reaction set in with the death of the enlightened king. dom joseph died in , and pombal was at once disgraced and his enemies released, the pious queen maria and her ministers subjecting him to persecution for some years. in , the queen, who became a religious maniac, and died insane, [ ] is found establishing new nunneries, and so adding to one of the main factors in the impoverishment, moral and financial, of portugal. § . switzerland during the period we have been surveying, up to the french revolution, switzerland, which owed much of new intellectual life to the influx of french protestants at the revocation of the edict of nantes, [ ] exhibited no less than the other european countries the inability of the traditionary creed to stand criticism. calvinism by its very rigour generated a reaction within its own special field; and the spirit of the slain servetus triumphed strangely over that of his slayer. genevan calvinism, like that of the english presbyterians, was transmuted first into a modified arminianism, then into "arianism" or socinianism, then into the unitarianism of modern times. in the eighteenth century switzerland contributed to the european movement some names, of which by far the most famous is rousseau; and the potent presence of voltaire cannot have failed to affect swiss culture. before his period of influence, indeed, there had taken place not a little silent evolution of a unitarian and deistic kind; socinianism, as usual, leading the way. among the families of italian protestant refugees who helped to invigorate the life of switzerland, as french protestants did later that of germany, were the turrettini, of whom francesco came to geneva in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. one of his sons, benedict, made a professor at twenty-four, became a leading theologian and preacher of orthodox calvinism, and distinguished himself as an opponent of arminianism. [ ] still more distinguished in his day was benedict's son françois ( - ), also a professor, who repeated his father's services, political and controversial, to orthodoxy, and combated socinianism, as benedict had done arminianism. but françois's son jean-alphonse, also a professor (whose latin work on christian evidences, translated into french by a colleague, we have seen adopted and adapted by the catholic authorities in france), became a virtual unitarian [ ] ( - ), and as such is still anathematized by swiss calvinists. against the deists, however, he was industrious, as his grandfather, a heretic to catholicism, had been against the arminians, and his father against the socinians. the family evolution in some degree typifies the theological process from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century; and the apologetics of jean-alphonse testify to the vogue of critical deism among the educated class at geneva in the days of voltaire's nonage. he (or his translator) deals with the "natural" objections to the faith, cites approvingly locke, lardner, and clarke, and combats woolston, but names no other english deist. the heresy, therefore, would seem to be a domestic development from the roots noted by viret nearly two centuries before. one of turrettini's annotators complacently observes [ ] that though deists talk of natural religion, none of them has ever written a book in exposition of it, the task being left to the christians. the writer must have been aware, on the one hand, that any deist who in those days should openly expound natural religion as against revealed would be liable to execution for blasphemy in any european country save england, where, as it happened, herbert, hobbes, blount, toland, collins, shaftesbury, and tindal had all maintained the position, and on the other hand he must have known that the ethica of spinoza was naturalistic. the false taunt merely goes to prove that deists could maintain their heresy on the continent at that time without the support of books. but soon after turrettini's time they give literary indication of their existence even in switzerland; and in we find voltaire sending a package of copies of his treatise on toleration by the hand of "a young m. turretin of geneva," who "is worthy to see the brethren, though he is the grandson of a celebrated priest of baal. he is reserved, but decided, as are most of the genevese. calvin begins in our cantons to have no more credit than the pope." [ ] for this fling there was a good deal of justification. when in the council of geneva officially burned a pamphlet reprint of the vicaire savoyard from rousseau's Émile there was an immediate public protest by "two hundred persons, among whom there were three priests"; [ ] and some five weeks later "a hundred persons came for the third time to protest.... they say that it is permissible to every citizen to write what he will on religion; that he should not be condemned without a hearing; and that the rights of men must be respected." [ ] all this was not a sudden product of the freethinking influence of voltaire and rousseau, which had but recently begun. an older leaven had long been at work. the principes du droit naturel of j. j. burlamaqui ( ), save for its subsumption of deity as the originator of all human tendencies, is strictly naturalistic and utilitarian in its reasoning, and clearly exhibits the influence of hobbes and mandeville. [ ] voltaire, too, in his correspondence, is found frequently speaking with a wicked chuckle of the unitarianism of the clergy of geneva, [ ] a theme on which d'alembert had written openly in his article genève in the encyclopédie in . [ ] so early as , voltaire roundly affirms that there are only a few calvinists left: "tous les honnêtes gens sont déistes par christ." [ ] and when the younger salchi, professor at lausanne, writes in that "deism is become the fashionable religion.... europe is inundated with the works of deists; and their partisans have made perhaps more proselytes in the space of eighty years than were made by the apostles and the first fathers of the church," [ ] he must be held to testify in some degree concerning switzerland. the chief native service to intellectual progress thus far, however, was rendered in the field of the natural sciences, swiss religious opinion being only passively liberalized, mainly in a unitarian direction. chapter xx early freethought in the united states . perhaps the most signal of all the proofs of the change wrought in the opinion of the civilized world in the eighteenth century is the fact that at the time of the war of independence the leading statesmen of the american colonies were deists. such were benjamin franklin, the diplomatist of the revolution; thomas paine, its prophet and inspirer; washington, its commander; and jefferson, its typical legislator. but for these four men the american revolution probably could not have been accomplished in that age; and they thus represent in a peculiar degree the power of new ideas, in fit conditions, to transform societies, at least politically. on the other hand, the fashion in which their relation to the creeds of their time has been garbled, alike in american and english histories, proves how completely they were in advance of the average thought of their day; and also how effectively the mere institutional influence of creeds can arrest a nation's mental development. it is still one of the stock doctrines of religious sociology in england and america that deism, miscalled atheism, wrought the reign of terror in the french revolution; when as a matter of fact the same deism was at the head of affairs in the american. . the rise of rationalism in the colonies must be traced in the main to the imported english literature of the eighteenth century; for the first puritan settlements had contained at most only a fraction of freethought; and the conditions, so deadly for all manner even of devout heresy, made avowed unbelief impossible. the superstitions and cruelties of the puritan clergy, however, must have bred a silent reaction, which prepared a soil for the deism of the next age. [ ] "the perusal of shaftesbury and collins," writes franklin with reference to his early youth, "had made me a skeptic," after being "previously so as to many doctrines of christianity." [ ] this was in his seventeenth or eighteenth year, about , so that the importation of deism had been prompt. [ ] throughout life he held to the same opinion, conforming sufficiently to keep on fair terms with his neighbours, [ ] and avoiding anything like critical propaganda; though on challenge, in the last year of his life, he avowed his negatively deistic position. [ ] . similarly prudent was jefferson, who, like franklin and paine, extolled the gospel jesus and his teachings, but rejected the notion of supernatural revelation. [ ] in a letter written so late as to a unitarian correspondent, while refusing to publish another of similar tone, on the score that he was too old for strife, he declared that he "should as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of bedlam to sound understanding as to inculcate reason into that of an athanasian." [ ] his experience of the new england clergy is expressed in allusions to connecticut as having been "the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other states a century ahead of them"; and in congratulations with john adams (who had written that "this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it"), when "this den of the priesthood is at last broken up." [ ] john adams, whose letters with their "crowd of skepticisms" kept even jefferson from sleep, [ ] seems to have figured as a member of a congregationalist church, while in reality a unitarian. [ ] still more prudent was washington, who seems to have ranked habitually as a member of the episcopal church; but concerning whom jefferson relates that, when the clergy, having noted his constant abstention from any public mention of the christian religion, so penned an address to him on his withdrawal from the presidency as almost to force him to some declaration, he answered every part of the address but that, which he entirely ignored. it is further noted that only in his valedictory letter to the governors of the states, on resigning his commission, did he speak of the "benign influence of the christian religion" [ ]--the common tone of the american deists of that day. it is further established that washington avoided the communion in church. [ ] for the rest, the broad fact that all mention of deity was excluded from the constitution of the united states must be historically taken to signify a profound change in the convictions of the leading minds among the people as compared with the beliefs of their ancestors. at the same time, the fact that they as a rule dissembled their unbelief is a proof that, even where legal penalties do not attach to an avowal of serious heresy, there inheres in the menace of mere social ostracism a power sufficient to coerce the outward life of public and professional men of all grades, in a democratic community where faith maintains and is maintained by a competitive multitude of priests. with this force the freethought of our own age has to reckon, after inquisitions and blasphemy laws have become obsolete. . nothing in american culture-history more clearly proves the last proposition than the case of thomas paine, the virtual founder of modern democratic freethought in great britain and the states. [ ] it does not appear that paine openly professed any heresy while he lived in england, or in america before the french revolution. yet the first sentence of his age of reason, of which the first part was written shortly before his imprisonment, under sentence of death from the robespierre government, in paris ( ), shows that he had long held pronounced deistic opinions. [ ] they were probably matured in the states, where, as we have seen, such views were often privately held, though there, as franklin is said to have jesuitically declared in his old age, by way of encouraging immigration: "atheism is unknown; infidelity rare and secret, so that persons may live to a great age in this country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel." paine did an unequalled service to the american revolution by his common sense and his series of pamphlets headed the crisis: there is, in fact, little question that but for the intense stimulus thus given by him at critical moments the movement might have collapsed at an early stage. yet he seems to have had no thought there and then of avowing his deism. it was in part for the express purpose of resisting the ever-strengthening attack of atheism in france on deism itself that he undertook to save it by repudiating the judæo-christian revelation; and it is not even certain that he would have issued the age of reason when it did appear, had he not supposed he was going to his death when put under arrest, on which score he left the manuscript for publication. [ ] . its immediate effect was much greater in britain, where his rights of man had already won him a vast popularity in the teeth of the most furious reaction, than in america. there, to his profound chagrin, he found that his honest utterance of his heresy brought on him hatred, calumny, ostracism, and even personal and political molestation. in he had founded in paris the little "church of theo-philanthropy," beginning his inaugural discourse with the words: "religion has two principal enemies, fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. the first requires to be combated by reason and morality; the other by natural philosophy." [ ] these were his settled convictions; and he lived to find himself shunned and vilified, in the name of religion, in the country whose freedom he had so puissantly wrought to win. [ ] the quakers, his father's sect, refused him a burial-place. he has had sympathy and fair play, as a rule, only from the atheists whom he distrusted and opposed, or from thinkers who no longer hold by deism. there is reason to think that in his last years the deistic optimism which survived the deep disappointments of the french revolution began to give way before deeper reflection on the cosmic problem, [ ] if not before the treatment he had undergone at the hands of unitarians and trinitarians alike. the butlerian argument, that nature is as unsatisfactory as revelation, had been pressed upon him by bishop watson in a reply to the age of reason; and though, like most deists of his age, he regarded it as a vain defence of orthodoxy, he was not the man to remain long blind to its force against deistic assumptions. like franklin, he had energetically absorbed and given out the new ideals of physical science; his originality in the invention of a tubular iron bridge, and in the application of steam to navigation, [ ] being nearly as notable as that of franklin's great discovery concerning electricity. had the two men drawn their philosophy from the france of the latter part of the century instead of the england of the first, they had doubtless gone deeper. as it was, temperamental optimism had kept both satisfied with the transitional formula; and in the france of before and after the revolution they lived pre-occupied with politics. . the habit of reticence or dissimulation among american public men was only too surely confirmed by the treatment meted out to paine. few stood by him; and the vigorous deistic movement set up in his latter years by elihu palmer soon succumbed to the conditions, [ ] though palmer's book, the principles of nature ( , rep. by richard carlile, ), is a powerful attack on the judaic and christian systems all along the line. george houston, leaving england after two years' imprisonment for his translation of d'holbach's ecce homo, went to new york, where he edited the minerva ( ), reprinted his book, and started a freethought journal, the correspondence. that, however, lasted only eighteen months. all the while, such statesmen as madison and monroe, the latter paine's personal friend, seem to have been of his way of thinking, [ ] though the evidence is scanty. thus it came about that, save for the liberal movement of the hicksite quakers, [ ] the american deism of paine's day was decorously transformed into the later unitarianism, the extremely rapid advance of which in the next generation is the best proof of the commonness of private unbelief. the influence of priestley, who, persecuted at home, went to end his days in the states, had doubtless much to do with the unitarian development there, as in england; but it seems certain that the whole deistic movement, including the work of paine and palmer, had tended to move out of orthodoxy many of those who now, recoiling from the fierce hostility directed against the outspoken freethinkers, sought a more rational form of creed than that of the orthodox churches. the deistic tradition in a manner centred in the name of jefferson, and the known deism of that leader would do much to make fashionable a heresy which combined his views with a decorous attitude to the sacred books. chapter xxi freethought in the nineteenth century the reaction all over the civilized world, as we have seen, the terrors of the french revolution evoked an intellectual no less than a political reaction, its stress being most apparent and most destructive in those countries in which there had been previously the largest measure of liberty. nowhere was it more intense or more disastrous than in england. in countries such as denmark and spain, only lately and superficially liberalized, there was no great progress to undo: in england, though liberty was never left without an indomitable witness, there was a violent reversal of general movement, not to be wholly rectified in half a century. joined in a new activity with the civil power for the suppression of all innovating thought, the church rapidly attained to an influence it had not possessed since the days of sacheverel and a degree of wealth it had not before reached since the reformation. the wealth of the upper class was at its disposal to an unheard-of extent, there being apparently no better way of fighting the new danger of democracy; and dissent joined hands with the establishment to promote orthodoxy. the average tone in england in the first quarter of the century may be gathered from the language held by a man so enlightened, comparatively speaking, as sydney smith, wit, humourist, whig, and clergyman. in we find him, in a preface never reprinted, prescribing various measures of religious strategy in addition "to the just, necessary, and innumerable invectives which have been levelled against rousseau, voltaire, d'alembert, and the whole pandemonium of those martyrs to atheism, who toiled with such laborious malice, and suffered odium with such inflexible profligacy, for the wretchedness and despair of their fellow creatures." [ ] that this was not jesting may be gathered from his daughter's account of his indignation when a publisher sent him "a work of irreligious tendency," and when jeffrey admitted "irreligious opinions" to the edinburgh review. to the former he writes that every principle of suspicion and fear would be excited in me by a man who professed himself an infidel"; and to jeffrey: "do you mean to take care that the review shall not profess infidel principles? unless this is the case i must absolutely give up all connection with it." [ ] all the while any semblance of "infidelity" in any article in the review must have been of the most cautious kind. in the catholic countries, naturally, the reaction was no less violent. in italy, as we saw, it began in tuscany almost at once. the rule of napoleon, it is true, secured complete freedom of the press as regarded translation of freethinking books, an entire liberty of conscience in religious matters, and a sharp repression of clericalism, the latter policy going to the length of expelling all the religious orders and confiscating their property. [ ] all this counted for change; but the napoleonic rule all the while choked one of the springs of vital thought--to wit, the spirit of political liberty; and in - the clerical system returned in full force, as it did all over italy. everywhere freethought was banned. all criticism of catholicism was a penal offence; and in the kingdom of naples alone, in , there were , priests, , monks, , nuns, archbishops, and bishops, though in the french influence had caused the dissolution of some convents. [ ] at florence the censure forbade, in , the issue of a new edition of the translated work of cabanis on les rapports du physique et du moral; and mascagni, the physiologist, was invited to delete from his work a definition of man in which no notice was taken of the soul. [ ] it was even proclaimed that the works of voltaire and rousseau were not to be read in the public libraries without ecclesiastical permission; but this veto was not seriously treated. [ ] all native energy, however, was either cowed or cajoled into passivity. if, accordingly, the mind of italy was to survive, it must be by the assimilation of the culture of freer states; and this culture, reinforced by the writings of leopardi, generated a new intellectual life, which was a main factor in the ultimate achievement of italian liberation from austrian rule. spain, under charles iv, became so thoroughly re-clericalized at the very outbreak of the revolution that no more leeway seemed possible; but even in spain, early in the nineteenth century, the government found means to retrogress yet further, and the minister caballero sent an order to the universities forbidding the study of moral philosophy. the king, he justly declared, did not want philosophers, but good and obedient subjects. [ ] in france, where the downfall of napoleon meant the restoration of the monarchy, the intellectual reaction was really less powerful than in england. the new spirit had been too widely and continuously at work, from voltaire onwards, to be politically expelled; and the revolutions of and gave the proof that even on the political side the old spirit was incapable of permanent recovery. in germany, where freethinking was associated not with the beaten cause of the revolution but in large measure with the national movement for liberation from the tyranny of napoleon, [ ] the religious reaction was substantially emotional and unintellectual, though it had intellectual representatives, notably schleiermacher. apart from his culture-movement, the revival consisted mainly in a new pietism, partly orthodox, partly mystical; [ ] and on those lines it ran later to the grossest excesses. but among the educated classes of germany there was the minimum of arrest, because there the intellectual life was least directly associated with the political, and the ecclesiastical life relatively the least organized. the very separateness of the german states, then and later so often deplored by german patriots, was really a condition of relative security for freedom of thought and research; and the resulting multiplicity of universities meant a variety of intellectual effort not then paralleled in any other country. [ ] what may be ranked as the most important effect of the reaction in germany--the turning of kant, fichte, and hegel in succession to the task of reconciling rational philosophy with religion in the interests of social order--was in itself a rationalistic process as compared with the attitude of orthodoxy in other lands. german scholarship, led by the re-organized university of berlin, was in fact one of the most progressive intellectual forces in europe during the first half of the nineteenth century; and only its comparative isolation, its confinement to a cultured class, prevented it from affecting popular thought as widely as deism had done in the preceding century. even in the countries in which popular and university culture were less sharply divided, the german influence was held at bay like others. but in time the spirit of progress regained strength, the most decisive form of recovery being the new development of the struggle for political liberty from about onwards. in england the advance thenceforward was to be broadly continuous on the political side. on the continent it culminated for the time in the explosions of , which were followed in the germanic world by another political reaction, in which freethought suffered; and in france, after a few years, by the second empire, in which clericalism was again fostered. but these checks have proved impermanent. the forces of renascence as with the cause of democracy, so with the cause of rationalism, the forward movement grew only the deeper and more powerful through the check; and the nineteenth century closed on a record of freethinking progress which may be said to outbulk that of all the previous centuries of the modern era together. so great was the activity of the century in point of mere quantity that it is impossible, within the scheme of a "short history," to treat it on even such a reduced scale of narrative as has been applied to the past. a detailed history on national lines from the french revolution onwards would mean another book as large as the present. on however large a scale it might be written, further, it would involve a recognition of international influences such as had never before been evolved, save when on a much smaller scale the educated world all round read and wrote latin. since goethe, the international aspect of culture upon which he laid stress has become ever more apparent; and scientific and philosophical thought, in particular, are world-wide in their scope and bearing. it must here suffice, therefore, to take a series of broad and general views of the past century's work, leaving adequate critical and narrative treatment for separate undertakings. [ ] the most helpful method seems to be that of a conspectus ( ) of the main movements and forces that during the century affected in varying degrees the thought of the civilized world, and ( ) of the main advances made and the point reached in the culture of the nations, separately considered. at the same time, the forces of rationalism may be discriminated into particular and general. we may then roughly represent the lines of movement, in non-chronological order, as follows:-- i.--forces of criticism and corrective thought bearing expressly on religious beliefs. . in great britain and america, the new movements of popular freethought begun by paine, and lasting continuously to the present day. . in france and elsewhere, the reverberation of the attack of voltaire, d'holbach, dupuis, and volney, carried on most persistently in catholic countries by the freemasons, as against official orthodoxy after . . german "rationalism," proceeding from english deism, moving towards naturalist as against supernaturalist conceptions, dissolving the notion of the miraculous in both old and new testament history, analysing the literary structure of the sacred books, and all along affecting studious thought in other countries. . the literary compromise of lessing, claiming for all religions a place in a scheme of "divine education." . in england, the neo-christianity of the school of coleridge, a disintegrating force, promoting the "broad church" tendency, which in dean milman was so pronounced as to bring on him charges of rationalism. . the utilitarianism of the school of bentham, carried into moral and social science. . comtism, making little direct impression on the "constructive" lines laid by the founder, but affecting critical thought in many directions. . german philosophy, kantian and post-kantian, in particular the hegelian, turned to anti-christian and anti-supernaturalist account by strauss, vatke, bruno bauer, feuerbach, and marx. . german atheism and scientific "materialism"--represented by feuerbach and büchner (who, however, rejected the term "materialism" as inappropriate). . revived english deism, involving destructive criticism of christianity, as in hennell, f. w. newman, r. w. mackay, w. r. greg, theodore parker, and thomas scott, partly in co-operation with unitarianism. . american transcendentalism or pantheism--the school of emerson. . colenso's preliminary attack on the narrative of the pentateuch, a systematized return to voltairean common-sense, rectifying the unscientific course of the earlier "higher criticism" on the historical issue. . the later or scientific "higher criticism" of the old testament--represented by kuenen, wellhausen, and their successors. . new historical criticism of christian origins, in particular the work of strauss and baur in germany, renan and havet in france, and their successors. . exhibition of rationalism within the churches, as in germany, holland, and switzerland generally; in england in the essays and reviews; later in multitudes of essays and books, and in the ethical criticism of the old testament; in america in popular theology. . association of rationalistic doctrine with the socialist movements, new and old, from owen to bebel. . communication of doubt and moral questioning through poetry and belles-lettres--as in shelley, byron, coleridge, clough, tennyson, carlyle, arnold, browning, swinburne, goethe, schiller, heine, victor hugo, leconte de lisle, leopardi, and certain french and english novelists. ii.--modern science, physical, mental, and moral, sapping the bases of all supernaturalist systems. . astronomy, newly directed by laplace. . geology, gradually connected (as in britain by chambers) with . biology, made definitely non-deistic by darwin. . the comprehension of all science in the evolution theory, as by spencer, advancing on comte. . psychology, as regards localization of brain functions. . comparative mythology, as yet imperfectly applied to christism. . sociology, as outlined by comte, buckle, spencer, winwood reade, lester ward, giddings, tarde, durkheim, and others, on strictly naturalistic lines. . comparative hierology; the methodical application of principles insisted on by all the deists, and formulated in the interests of deism by lessing, but latterly freed of his implications. . above all, the later development of anthropology (in the wide english sense of the term), which, beginning to take shape in the eighteenth century, came to new life in the latter part of the nineteenth; and is now one of the most widely cultivated of all the sciences--especially on the side of religious creed and psychology. on the other hand, we may group somewhat as follows the general forces of retardation of freethought operating throughout the century:-- . penal laws, still operative in britain and germany against popular freethought propaganda, and till recently in britain against any endowment of freethought. . class interests, involving in the first half of the century a social conspiracy against rationalism in england. . commercial pressure thus set up, and always involved in the influence of churches. . in england, identification of orthodox dissent with political liberalism--a sedative. . concessions by the clergy, especially in england and the united states--to many, another sedative. . above all, the production of new masses of popular ignorance in the industrial nations, and continued lack of education in the others. . on this basis, business-like and in large part secular-minded organization of the endowed churches, as against a freethought propaganda hampered by the previously named causes, and in england by laws which veto all direct endowment of anti-christian heresy. it remains to make, with forced brevity, the surveys thus outlined. section .--popular propaganda and culture . if any one circumstance more than another differentiates the life of to-day from that of older civilizations, or from that of previous centuries of the modern era, it is the diffusion of rationalistic views among the "common people." in no other era is to be found the phenomenon of widespread critical skepticism among the labouring masses: in all previous ages, though chronic complaint is made of some unbelief among the uneducated, the constant and abject ignorance of the mass of the people has been the sure foothold of superstitious systems. within the last century the area of the recognizably civilized world has grown far vaster; and in the immense populations that have thus arisen there is a relative degree of enlightenment, coupled with a degree of political power never before attained. merely to survey, then, the broad movement of popular culture in the period in question will yield a useful notion of the dynamic change in the balance of thought in modern times, and will make more intelligible the special aspects of the culture process. this vital change in the distribution of knowledge is largely to be attributed to the written and spoken teaching of a line of men who made popular enlightenment their great aim. their leading type among the english-speaking races is thomas paine, whom we have seen combining a gospel of democracy with a gospel of critical reason in the midst of the french revolution. never before had rationalism been made widely popular. the english and french deists had written for the middle and upper classes. peter annet was practically the first who sought to reach the multitude; and his punishment expressed the special resentment aroused in the governing classes by such a policy. of all the english freethinkers of the earlier deistical period he alone was selected for reprinting by the propagandists of the paine period. paine was to annet, however, as a cannon to a musket, and through the democratic ferment of his day he won an audience a hundredfold wider than annet could have dreamt of reaching. the anger of the governing classes, in a time of anti-democratic panic, was proportional. paine would have been at least imprisoned for his rights of man had he not fled from england in time; and the sale of all his books was furiously prohibited and ferociously punished. yet they circulated everywhere, even in protestant ireland, [ ] hitherto affected only under the surface of upper-class life by deism. the circulation of bishop watson's apology in reply only served to spread the contagion, as it brought the issues before multitudes who would not otherwise have heard of them. [ ] all the while, direct propaganda was carried on by translations and reprints as well as by fresh english tractates. diderot's thoughts on religion, and fréret's letter from thrasybulus to leucippus, seem to have been great favourites among the painites, as was elihu palmer's principles of nature; and volney's ruins of empires had a large vogue. condorcet's esquisse had been promptly translated in ; the translation of d'holbach's system of nature reached a third edition in ; [ ] that of raynal's history had been reprinted in ; and that of helvétius on the mind in ; while an english abridgment of bayle in four volumes, on freethinking lines, appeared in . . meantime, new writers arose to carry into fuller detail the attacks of paine, sharpening their weapons on those of the more scholarly french deists. a life of jesus, including his apocryphal history, [ ] was published in , with such astute avoidance of all comment that it escaped prosecution. others, taking a more daring course, fared accordingly. george houston translated the ecce homo of d'holbach, first publishing it at edinburgh in , and reprinting it in london in . for the second issue he was prosecuted, fined £ , and imprisoned for two years in newgate. robert wedderburn, a mulatto calling himself "the rev.," in reality a superannuated journeyman tailor who officiated in hopkins street unitarian chapel, london, was in sentenced to two years' imprisonment in dorchester jail for a "blasphemous libel" contained in one of his pulpit discourses. his letters to the rev. solomon herschell (the jewish chief rabbi) and to the archbishop of canterbury show a happy vein of orderly irony and not a little learning, despite his profession of apostolic ignorance; and at the trial the judge admitted his defence to be "exceedingly well drawn up." his publications naturally received a new impetus, and passed to a more drastic order of mockery. . as the years went on, the persecution in england grew still fiercer; but it was met with a stubborn hardihood which wore out even the bitter malice of piety. one of the worst features of the religious crusade was that it affected to attack not unbelief but "vice," such being the plea on which wilberforce and others prosecuted, during a period of more than twenty years, the publishers and booksellers who issued the works of paine. [ ] but even that dissembling device did not ultimately avail. a name not to be forgotten by those who value obscure service to human freedom is that of richard carlile, who between and underwent nine years' imprisonment in his unyielding struggle for the freedom of the press, of thought, and of speech. [ ] john clarke, an ex-methodist, became one of carlile's shopmen, was tried in for selling one of his publications, and "after a spirited defence, in which he read many of the worst passages of the bible," was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and to find securities for good behaviour during life. the latter disability he effectively anticipated by writing, while in prison, a critical review of the life, character, and miracles of jesus, wherein christian feelings were treated as christians had treated the feelings of freethinkers, with a much more destructive result. published first, strangely enough, in the newgate magazine, it was republished in and , with impunity. thus did a brutal bigotry bring upon itself ever a deadlier retaliation, till it sickened of the contest. those who threw up the struggle on the orthodox side declaimed as before about the tone of the unbeliever's attack, failing to read the plain lesson that, while noisy fanaticism, doing its own worst and vilest, deterred from utterance all the gentler and more sympathetic spirits on the side of reason, the work of reason could be done only by the harder natures, which gave back blow for blow and insult for insult, rejoicing in the encounter. thus championed, freethought could not be crushed. the propagandist and publishing work done by carlile was carried on diversely by such free lances as robert taylor (ex-clergyman, author of the diegesis, , and the devil's pulpit, ), charles southwell ( - ), and william hone, [ ] who ultimately became an independent preacher. southwell, a disciple of robert owen, who edited the oracle of reason, was imprisoned for a year in for publishing in that journal an article entitled "the jew book"; and was succeeded in the editorship by george jacob holyoake ( - ), another owenite missionary, who met a similar sentence; whereafter george adams and his wife, who continued to publish the journal, were imprisoned in turn. matilda roalfe and mrs. emma martin about the same period underwent imprisonment for like causes. [ ] in this fashion, by the steady courage of a much-enduring band of men and women, was set on foot a systematic secularist propaganda--the name having relation to the term "secularism," coined by holyoake. . in this evolution political activities played an important part. henry hetherington ( - ), the strenuous democrat who in began the trade union movement, and so became the founder of chartism, fought for the right of publication in matters of freethought as in politics. after undergoing two imprisonments of six months each ( ), and carrying on for three and a half years the struggle for an untaxed press, which ended in his victory ( ), he was in indicted for publishing haslam's letters to the clergy of all denominations, a freethinking criticism of old testament morality. he defended himself so ably that lord denman, the judge, confessed to have "listened with feelings of great interest and sentiments of respect too"; and justice talfourd later spoke of the defence as marked by "great propriety and talent." nevertheless, he was punished by four months' imprisonment. [ ] in the following year, on the advice of francis place, he brought a test prosecution for blasphemy against moxon, the poet-publisher, for issuing shelley's complete works, including queen mab. talfourd, then serjeant, defended moxon, and pleaded that there "must be some alteration of the law, or some restriction of the right to put it in action"; but the jury were impartial enough to find the publisher guilty, though he received no punishment. [ ] among other works published by hetherington was one entitled a hunt after the devil, "by dr. p. y." (really by lieutenant lecount), in which the story of noah's ark was subjected to a destructive criticism. [ ] . holyoake had been a missionary and martyr in the movement of socialism set up by robert owen, whose teaching, essentially scientific on its psychological or philosophical side, was the first effort to give systematic effect to democratic ideals by organizing industry. it was in the discussions of the "association of all classes of all nations," formed by owen in , that the word "socialism" first became current. [ ] owen was a freethinker in all things; [ ] and his whole movement was so penetrated by an anti-theological spirit that the clergy as a rule became its bitter enemies, though such publicists as macaulay and john mill also combined with them in scouting it on political and economic grounds. [ ] up till the middle of he had on his side a large body of "respectable" and highly-placed philanthropists, his notable success in his own social and commercial undertakings being his main recommendation. his early essays on the formation of character, indeed, were sufficient to reveal his heterodoxy; but not until, at his memorable public meeting on august , , he began to expatiate on "the gross errors that have been combined with the fundamental notions of every religion that has hitherto been taught to men" [ ] did he rank as an aggressive freethinker. it was in his own view the turning-point of his life. he was not prosecuted; though brougham declared that if any politician had said half as much he would have been "burned alive"; but the alienation of "moderate" opinion at once began; and owen, always more fervid than prudent, never recovered his influence among the upper classes. nonetheless, "his secularistic teaching gained such influence among the working classes as to give occasion for the statement in the westminster review ( ) that his principles were the actual creed of a great portion of them." [ ] owen's polemic method--if it could properly be so called--was not so much a criticism of dogma as a calm impeachment of religion in a spirit of philanthropy. no reformer was ever more entirely free from the spirit of wrath: on this side owen towers above comparison. "there is no place found in him for scorn or indignation. he cannot bring himself to speak or think evil of any man. he carried out in his daily life his own teaching that man is not the proper object of praise or blame. throughout his numerous works there is hardly a sentence of indignation--of personal denunciation never. he loves the sinner, and can hardly bring himself to hate the sin." [ ] he had come by his rationalism through the influence rather of rousseau than of voltaire; and he had assimilated the philosophic doctrine of determinism--of all ideals the most difficult to realize in conduct--with a thoroughness of which the flawed rousseau was incapable. there was thus presented to the world the curious case of a man who on the side of character carried rationalism to the perfection of ideal "saintliness," while in the general application of rational thought to concrete problems he was virtually unteachable. for an absolute and immovable conviction in his own practical rightness was in owen as essential a constituent as his absolute benevolence. [ ] these were the two poles of his personality. he was, in short, a fair embodiment of the ideal formed by many people--doctrine and dogma apart--of the gospel jesus. and most christians accordingly shunned and feared or hated him. such a personality was evidently a formidable force as against the reinforced english orthodoxy of the first generation of the nineteenth century. the nature of owen's propaganda as against religion may be best sampled from his lecture, "the new religion: or, religion founded on the immutable laws of the universe, contrasted with all religions founded on human testimony," delivered at the london tavern on october , : [ ]-- "under the arrangements which have hitherto existed for educating and governing man, four general characters have been produced among the human race. these four characters appear to be formed, under the past and present arrangements of society, from four different original organizations at birth.... "no. . may be termed the conscientious religious in all countries. no. . unbelievers in the truth of any religion, but who strenuously support the religion of their country, under the conviction that, although religion is not necessary to insure their own good conduct, it is eminently required to compel others to act right. no. . unbelievers who openly avow their disbelief in the truth of any religion, such as deists, atheists, skeptics, etc., etc., but who do not perceive the laws of nature relative to man as an individual, or when united in a social state. no. . disbelievers in all past and present religions, but believers in the eternal unchanging laws of the universe, as developed by facts derived from all past experience; and who, by a careful study of these facts, deduce from them the religion of nature. class no. is formed, under certain circumstances, from those original organizations which possess at birth strong moral and weak intellectual faculties.... class no. is composed of those individuals who by nature possess a smaller quantity of moral and a larger quantity of intellectual faculty.... class no. is composed of men of strong moral and moderate intellectual faculty.... class no. comprises those who, by nature, possess a high degree of intellectual and moral faculty...." thus all forms of opinion were shown to proceed either from intellectual or moral defect, save the opinions of owen. such propositions, tranquilly elaborated, were probably as effective in producing irritation as any frontal attack upon any dogmas, narratives, or polities. but, though not even consistent (inasmuch as the fundamental thesis that "character is formed by circumstances" is undermined by the datum of four varieties of organization), they were potent to influence serious men otherwise broadly instructed as to the nature of religious history and the irrationality of dogma; and owen for a generation, despite the inevitable failure and frustration of his social schemes, exercised by his movement a very wide influence on popular life. to a considerable extent it was furthered by the popular deistic philosophy of george and andrew combe--a kind of deistic positivism--which then had a great vogue; [ ] and by the implications of phrenology, then also in its most scientific and progressive stage. when, for various reasons, owen's movement dissolved, the freethinking element seems to have been absorbed in the secular party, while the others appear to have gone in large part to build up the movement of co-operation. on the whole, the movement of popular freethought in england could be described as poor, struggling, and persecuted, only the most hardy and zealous venturing to associate themselves with it. the imprisonment of holyoake ( ) for six months, on a trifling charge of blasphemy, is an illustration of the brutal spirit of public orthodoxy at the time. [ ] where bigotry could thus only injure and oppress without suppressing heresy, it stimulated resistance; and the result of the stimulus was a revival of popular propaganda which led to the founding of a secular society in . . this date broadly coincides with the maximum domination of conventional orthodoxy in english life. from about the middle of the century the balance gradually changes. in we find the publisher henry bohn reissuing the worthless apologetic works of the rev. andrew fuller, with a "publisher's preface" in which they are said to "maintain an acknowledged pre-eminence," though written "at a period of our national history when the writings of volney and gibbon, and especially of thomas paine, fostered by the political effects of the french revolution, had deteriorated the morals of the people, and infused the poison of infidelity into the disaffected portion of the public." we have here still the note of early-nineteenth-century anglican respectability, not easily to be matched in human history for hollowness and blatancy. fuller is at once one of the most rabid and one of the most futile of the thousand and one defenders of the faith. a sample of his mind and method is the verdict that "if the light that is gone abroad on earth would permit the rearing of temples to venus, or bacchus, or any of the rabble of heathen deities, there is little doubt but that modern unbelievers would in great numbers become their devotees; but, seeing they cannot have a god whose worship shall accord with their inclinations, they seem determined not to worship at all." [ ] in the very next year the same publisher began the issue of a reprint of gibbon, with variorum notes, edited by "an english churchman," who for the most part defended gibbon against his orthodox critics. this enterprise in turn brought upon the pious publisher a fair share of odium. but the second half of the century, albeit soon darkened by new wars in europe, asia, and america, was to be for england one of liberalism alike in politics and in thought, free trade, and relatively free publication, with progress in enlightenment for both the populace and the "educated" classes. . in there was elected to the presidency of the london secular society the young charles bradlaugh, one of the greatest orators of his age, and one of the most powerful personalities ever associated with a progressive movement. early experience of clerical persecution, which even drove the boy from his father's roof, helped to make him a fighter, but never infirmed his humanity. in the main self-taught, he acquired a large measure of culture in french and english, and his rare natural gift for debate was sharpened by a legal training. a personal admirer of owen, he never accepted his social polity, but was at all times the most zealous of democratic reformers. thenceforward the working masses in england were in large part kept in touch with a freethought which drew on the results of the scientific and scholarly research of the time, and wielded a dialectic of which trained opponents confessed the power. [ ] in the place of the bland dogmatism of owen, and the calm assumption that all mankind could and should be schoolmastered into happiness and order, there came the alert recognition of the absoluteness of individualism as regards conviction, and its present pre-potency as regards social arrangements. every thesis was brought to the test of argument and evidence; and in due course many who had complained that owen would not argue, complained that the new school argued everything. the essential thing was that the people were receiving vitally needed instruction; and were being taught with a new power to think for themselves. incidentally they were freed from an old burden by bradlaugh's successful resistance to the demand of suretyship from newspapers, and by his no less successful battle for the right of non-theistic witnesses to make affirmation instead of taking the oath in the law courts. [ ] the inspiration and the instruction of the popular movement thus maintained were at once literary, scientific, ethical, historical, scholarly, and philosophic. shelley was its poet; voltaire its first story-teller; and gibbon its favourite historian. in philosophy, bradlaugh learned less from hume than from spinoza; in biblical criticism--himself possessing a working knowledge of hebrew--he collated the work of english and french specialists, down to and including colenso, applying all the while to the consecrated record the merciless tests of a consistent ethic. at the same time, the whole battery of argument from the natural sciences was turned against traditionalism and supernaturalism, alike in the lectures of bradlaugh and the other speakers of his party, and in the pages of his journal, the national reformer. the general outcome was an unprecedented diffusion of critical thought among the english masses, and a proportionate antagonism to those who had wrought such a result. when, therefore, bradlaugh, as deeply concerned for political as for intellectual righteousness, set himself to the task of entering parliament, he commenced a struggle which shortened his life, though it promoted his main objects. not till after a series of electoral contests extending over twelve years was he elected for northampton in ; and the house of commons in a manner enacted afresh the long resistance made to him in that city. [ ] when, however, on his election in , the conservative opposition began the historic proceedings over the oath question, they probably did even more to deepen and diffuse the popular freethought movement than bradlaugh himself had done in the whole of his previous career. the process was furthered by the policy of prosecuting and imprisoning ( ) mr. g. w. foote, editor of the freethinker, under the blasphemy laws--a course not directly ventured on as against bradlaugh, though it was sought to connect him with the publication of mr. foote's journal. to this day it is common to give a false account of the origin of the episode, representing bradlaugh as having "forced" his opinions on the attention of the house. rather he strove unduly to avoid wounding religious feeling. wont to make affirmation by law in the courts of justice, he held that the same law applied to the "oath of allegiance," and felt that it would be unseemly on his part to use the words of adjuration if he could legally affirm. on this point he expressly consulted the law officers of the crown, and they gave the opinion that he had the legal right, which was his own belief as a lawyer. the faction called the "fourth party," however, saw an opportunity to embarrass the gladstone government by challenging the act of affirmation, and thus arose the protracted struggle. only when a committee of the house decided that he could not properly affirm did bradlaugh propose to take the oath, in order to take his seat. the pretence of zeal for religion, made by the politicians who had raised the issue, was known by all men to be the merest hypocrisy. lord randolph churchill, who distinguished himself by insisting on the moral necessity for a belief in "some divinity or other," is recorded to have professed a special esteem for mr. (now lord) morley, the most distinguished positivist of his time. [ ] the whole procedure, in parliament and out, was so visibly that of the lowest political malice, exploiting the crudest religious intolerance, that it turned into active freethinkers many who had before been only passive doubters, and raised the secularist party to an intensity of zeal never before seen. at no period in modern british history had there been so constant and so keen a platform propaganda of unbelief; so unsparing an indictment of christian doctrine, history, and practice; such contemptuous rebuttal of every christian pretension; such asperity of spirit against the creed which was once more being championed by chicanery, calumny, and injustice. in those five years of indignant warfare were sown the seeds of a more abundant growth of rationalism than had ever before been known in the british islands. with invincible determination bradlaugh fought his case through parliament and the law courts, incurring debts which forced upon him further toils that clearly shortened his life, but never yielding for an instant in his battle with the bigotry of half the nation. liberalism was shamed by many defections; conservatism, with the assent of mr. balfour, was solid for injustice; [ ] and in the entire church of england less than a dozen priests stood for tolerance. but the cause at stake was indestructible. when bradlaugh at length took the oath and his seat in , under a ruling of the new speaker (peel) which stultified the whole action of the speaker and majorities of the previous parliament, and no less that of the law courts, straightforward freethought stood three-fold stronger in england than in any previous generation. apart from their educative work, the struggles and sufferings of the secularist leaders won for great britain the abolition within one generation of the old burden of suretyship on newspapers, and of the disabilities of non-theistic witnesses; the freedom of public meeting in the london parks; the right of avowed atheists to sit in parliament (bradlaugh having secured in their title to make affirmation instead of oath); and the virtual discredit of the blasphemy laws as such. it is probable also that the treatment meted out to mrs. besant--then associated with bradlaugh in freethought propaganda--marked the end of another form of tyrannous outrage, already made historic in the case of shelley. secured the custody of her children under a marital deed of separation, she was deprived of it at law ( ) on her avowal of atheistic opinions, with the result that her influence as a propagandist was immensely increased. . the special energy of the english secularist movement in the ninth decade was partly due to the fact that by that time there had appeared a remarkable amount of modern freethinking literature of high literary and intellectual quality, and good "social" status. down to the new literary names committed to the rejection of christianity, apart from the men of science who kept to their own work, were the theists hennell, f. w. newman, w. e. greg, r. w. mackay, buckle, and w. e. h. lecky, all of them influential, but none of them at once recognized as a first-rate force. but with the appearance of lecky's history of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in europe ( ), lacking though it was in clearness of thought, a new tone began to prevail; and his history of european morals from augustus to charlemagne ( ), equally readable and not more uncompromising, was soon followed by a series of powerful pronouncements of a more explicit kind. one of the first of the literary class to come forward with an express impeachment of christianity was moncure daniel conway, whose earthward pilgrimage ( ) was the artistic record of a gifted preacher's progress from wesleyan methodism, through unitarianism, to a theism which was soon to pass into agnosticism. in appeared the remarkable work of winwood reade, the martyrdom of man, wherein a rapid survey of ancient and medieval history, and of the growth of religion from savage beginnings, leads up to a definitely anti-theistic presentment of the future of human life with the claim to have shown "that the destruction of christianity is essential to the interests of civilization." [ ] some eighteen editions tell of the acceptance won by the book. less vogue, but some startled notice, was won by the duke of somerset's christian theology and modern scepticism ( ), a work of moderate rationalism, but by a peer. in appeared herbert spencer's introduction to the study of sociology, wherein the implicit anti-supernaturalism of that philosopher's first principles was advanced upon, in the chapter on "the theological bias," by a mordant attack on that christian creed. that attack had been preceded by matthew arnold's literature and dogma ( ), wherein the publicist who had censured colenso for not writing in latin described the christian doctrine of the trinity as "the fairy-tale of three lord shaftesburys." much pleading for the recognition by unbelievers of the value of the bible failed to convince christians of the value of such a thinker's christianity. a more important sensation was provided in by the posthumous publication of mill's autobiography, and, in the following year, by his three essays on religion, which exhibited its esteemed author as not only not a christian but as never having been one, although he formulated a species of limited liability theism, as unsatisfactory to the rationalists as to the orthodox. still the fresh manifestations of freethinking multiplied. on the one hand the massive treatise entitled supernatural religion ( ), and on the other the freethinking essays of prof. w. k. clifford in the fortnightly review, the most vigorously outspoken ever yet written by an english academic, showed that the whole field of debate was being reopened with a new power and confidence. the history of english thought in the eighteenth century, by leslie stephen ( ), set up the same impression from another side; yet another social sensation was created by the appearance of viscount amberley's analysis of religious belief ( ); and all the while the "higher criticism" proceeded within the pale of the church. the literary situation was now so changed that, whereas from to the "sensations" in the religious world were those made by rationalistic attacks, thereafter they were those made by new defences. h. drummond's natural law in the spiritual world ( ), mr. balfour's defence of philosophic doubt ( ) and foundations of belief ( ), and mr. kidd's social evolution ( ), were successively welcomed as being declared to render such a service. it is doubtful whether they are to-day valued upon that score in any quarter. . in the first half of the century popular forms of freethought propaganda were hardly possible in other european countries. france had been too long used to regulation alike under the monarchy and under the empire to permit of open promotion of unbelief in the early years of the restoration. yet as early as we find the protestant coquerel avowing that in his day the bourbonism of the catholic clergy had revived the old anti-clericalism, and that it was common to find the most high-minded patriots unbelievers and materialists. [ ] but still more remarkable was the persistence of deep freethinking currents in the catholic world throughout the century. about rationalism had become normal among the younger students at paris; [ ] and the revolution of that year elicited a charter putting all religions on an equality. [ ] soon the throne and the chambers were on a footing of practical hostility to the church. [ ] under louis philippe men dared to teach in the collège de france that "the christian dispensation is but one link in the chain of divine revelations to man." [ ] even during the first period of reaction after the restoration numerous editions of volney's ruines and of the abrégé [ ] of dupuis's origine de tous les cultes served to maintain among the more intelligent of the proletariat an almost scientific rationalism, which can hardly be said to have been improved on by such historiography as that of renan's vie de jésus. and there were other forces, over and above freemasonry, which in france and other latin countries has since the revolution been steadily anti-clerical. the would-be social reconstructor charles fourier ( - ) was an independent and non-christian though not an anti-clerical theist, and his system may have counted for something as organizing the secular spirit among the workers in the period of the monarchic and catholic reaction. fourier approximated to christianity inasmuch as he believed in a divine providence; but like owen he had an unbounded and heterodox faith in human goodness and perfectibility; and he claimed to have discovered the "plan of god" for men. but fourier was never, like owen, a popular force; and popular rationalism went on other lines. at no time was the proletariat of paris otherwise than largely voltairean after the revolution, of which one of the great services (carried on by napoleon) was an improvement in popular education. the rival non-christian systems of saint-simon ( - ) and auguste comte ( - ) also never took any practical hold among them; but throughout the century they have been fully the most freethinking working-class population in the world. as to fourier see the oeuvres choisies de fourier, ed. ch. gide, pp. - , . cp. solidarité: vue synthétique sur la doctrine de ch. fourier, par hippolyte renaud, e édit. , ch. i: "pour ramener l'homme à la foi" [en dieu], writes renaud, "il faut lui offrir aujourd'hui une foi complète et composée, une foi solidement assise sur le témoignage de la raison. pour cela il faut que la flambeau de la science dissipe toutes les obscurités" (p. ). this is not propitious to dogma; but fourier planned and promised to leave priests and ministers undisturbed in his new world, and even declared religions to be "much superior to uncertain sciences." gide, introd. to oeuvres choisies, pp. xxii-xxiii, citing manuscrits, vol. de - , p. . cp. dr. ch. pellarin, fourier, sa vie et sa théorie, e édit. p. . saint-simon, who proposed a "new christianity," expressly guarded against direct appeals to the people. see weil, saint-simon et son oeuvre, , p. . as to the saint-simonian sect, see an interesting testimony by renan, les apôtres, p. . the generation after the fall of napoleon was pre-eminently the period of new schemes of society; and it is noteworthy that they were all non-christian, though all, including even owen's, claimed to provide a "religion," and the french may seem all to have been convinced by napoleon's practice that some kind of cult must be provided for the peoples. owen alone rejected alike supernaturalism and cultus; and his movement left the most definite rationalistic traces. all seem to have been generated by the double influence of ( ) the social failure of the french revolution, which left so many anxious for another and better effort at reconstruction, and ( ) of the spectacle of the rule of napoleon, which seems to have elicited new ideals of beneficent autocracy. owen, fourier, saint-simon, and comte were all alike would-be founders of a new society or social religion. it seems probable that this proclivity to systematic reconstruction, in a world which still carried a panic-memory of one great social overturn, helped to lengthen the rule of orthodoxy. considerably more progress was made when freethought became detached from special plans of polity, and grew up anew by way of sheer truth-seeking on all the lines of inquiry. in france, however, the freethinking tradition from the eighteenth century never passed away, at least as regards the life of the great towns. and while napoleon iii made it his business to conciliate the church, which in the person of the somewhat latitudinarian darboy, archbishop of paris, had endorsed his coup d'état of , [ ] even under his rule the irreversible movement of freethought revealed itself among his own ministers. victor duruy, the eminent historian, his energetic minister of education, was a freethinker, non-aggressive towards the church, but perfectly determined not to permit aggression by it. [ ] and when the church, in its immemorial way, declaimed against all forms of rationalistic teaching in the colleges, and insisted on controlling the instruction in all the schools, [ ] his firm resistance made him one of its most hated antagonists. even in the senate, then the asylum of all forms of antiquated thought and prejudice, duruy was able to carry his point against the prelates, sainte-beuve strongly and skilfully supporting him. [ ] thus in the france of the third empire, on the open field of the educational battle-ground between faith and reason, the rationalistic advance was apparent in administration no less than in the teaching of the professed men of science and the polemic of the professed critics of religion. . in other catholic countries the course of popular culture in the first half of the century was not greatly dissimilar to that seen in france, though less rapid and expansive. thus we find the spanish inquisitor-general in declaring that "all the world sees with horror the rapid progress of unbelief," and denouncing "the errors and the new and dangerous doctrines" which have passed from other countries to spain. [ ] this evolution was to some extent checked; but in the latter half of the century, especially in the last thirty years, all the catholic countries of europe were more or less permeated with demotic freethought, usually going hand in hand with republican or socialistic propaganda in politics. it is indeed a significant fact that freethought propaganda is often most active in countries where the catholic church is most powerful. thus in belgium there are at least three separate federations, standing for hundreds of freethinking "groups"; in spain, a few years ago, there were freethought societies in all the large towns, and at least half-a-dozen freethought journals; in portugal there have been a number of societies--a weekly journal, o secolo, of lisbon, and a monthly review, o livre exame. in france and italy, where educated society is in large measure rationalistic, the masonic lodges do most of the personal and social propaganda; but there are federations of freethought societies in both countries. in switzerland freethought is more aggressive in the catholic than in the protestant cantons. [ ] in the south american republics, again, as in italy and france, the masonic lodges are predominantly freethinking; and in peru there was, a few years ago, a freethought league, with a weekly organ. as long ago as the american diplomatist and archæologist, squier, wrote that, "although the people of honduras, in common with those of central america in general, are nominally catholics, yet, among those capable of reflection or possessed of education, there are more who are destitute of any fixed creed--rationalists or, as they are sometimes called, freethinkers, than adherents of any form of religion." [ ] that the movement is also active in the other republics of the southern continent may be inferred from the facts that a positivist organization has long subsisted in brazil; that its members were active in the peaceful revolution which there substituted a republic for a monarchy; and that at the freethought congresses of rome and paris in and there was an energetic demand for a congress at buenos aires, which was finally agreed to for . while popular propaganda is hardly possible save on political lines, freethinking journalism has counted for much in the most catholic parts of southern europe. the influence of such journals is to be measured not by their circulation, which is never great, but by their keeping up a habit of more or less instructed freethinking among readers, to many of whom the instruction is not otherwise easily accessible. probably the least ambitious of them is an intellectual force of a higher order than the highest grade of popular religious journalism; while some of the stronger, as de dageraad of amsterdam, have ranked as high-class serious reviews. in the more free and progressive countries, however, freethought affects all periodical literature; and in france it partly permeates the ordinary newspapers. in england, where a series of monthly or weekly publications of an emphatically freethinking sort has been nearly continuous from about , [ ] new ones rising in place of those which succumbed to the commercial difficulties, such periodicals suffer an economic pinch in that they cannot hope for much income from advertisements, which are the chief sustenance of popular journals and magazines. the same law holds elsewhere; but in england and america the high-priced reviews have been gradually opened to rationalistic articles, the way being led by the english westminster review [ ] and fortnightly review, both founded with an eye to freer discussion. among the earlier freethinking periodicals may be noted the republican, - (edited by carlile); the deist's magazine, ; the lion, (carlile); the prompter, (carlile); the gauntlet, (carlile); the atheist and republican, - ; the blasphemer, ; the oracle of reason (founded by southwell), , etc.; the reasoner and herald of progress (largely conducted by holyoake), - ; cooper's journal; or, unfettered thinker, etc., , etc.; the movement, ; the freethinker's information for the people (undated: after ); freethinker's magazine, , etc.; london investigator, , etc. bradlaugh's national reformer, begun in , lasted till . mr. foote's freethinker, begun in , still subsists. various freethinking monthlies have risen and fallen since --e.g., our corner, edited by mrs. besant, - ; the liberal and progress, edited by mr. foote, - ; the free review, transformed into the university magazine, - . the reformer, a monthly, edited by mrs. bradlaugh bonner, subsisted from to . the literary guide, which began as a small sheet in , flourishes. since , a popular socialist journal, the clarion, has declared for rationalism through the pen of its editor, mr. r. blatchford ("nunquam"), whose polemic has caused much controversy. for a generation back, further, rationalistic essays have appeared from time to time not only in the fortnightly review (founded by g. h. lewes, and long edited by mr. john (now lord) morley, much of whose writing on the french philosophes appeared in its pages), but in the nineteenth century, wherein was carried on, for instance, the famous controversy between mr. gladstone and prof. huxley. in the early 'seventies, the cornhill magazine, under the editorship of leslie stephen, issued serially matthew arnold's literature and dogma and st. paul and protestantism. in the latter years of the century quite a number of reviews, some of them short-lived, gave space to advanced opinions. but propaganda has latterly become more and more a matter of all-pervading literary influence, the immense circulation of the sixpenny reprints of the r. p. a. having put the advanced literature of the last generation within the reach of all. . in germany, as we have seen, the relative selectness of culture, the comparative aloofness of the "enlightened" from the mass of the people, made possible after the war of independence a certain pietistic reaction, in the absence of any popular propagandist machinery or purpose on the side of the rationalists. in the opinion of an evangelical authority, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, "through modern enlightenment (aufklärung) the people had become indifferent to the church; the bible was regarded as a merely human book, the saviour merely as a person who had lived and taught long ago, not as one whose almighty presence is with his people still." [ ] according to the same authority, "before the war, the indifference to the word of god which prevailed among the upper classes had penetrated to the lower; but after it, a desire for the scriptures was everywhere felt." [ ] this involves an admission that the "religion of the heart" propounded by schleiermacher in his addresses on religion "to the educated among its despisers" [ ] ( ) was not really a christian revival at all. schleiermacher himself in declared that in prussia there was almost no attendance on public worship, and the clergy had fallen into profound discredit. [ ] a pietistic movement had, however, begun during the period of the french ascendancy; [ ] and seeing that the freethinking of the previous generation had been in part associated with french opinion, it was natural that on this side anti-french feeling should promote a reversion to older and more "national" forms of feeling. thus after the fall of napoleon the tone of the students who had fought in the war seems to have been more religious than that of previous years. [ ] inasmuch, however, as the "enlightenment" of the scholarly class was maintained, and applied anew to critical problems, the religious revival did not turn back the course of progress. "when the third centenary commemoration, in , of the reformation approached, the prussian people were in a state of stolid indifference, apparently, on religious matters." [ ] alongside of the pietistic reaction of the liberation period there went on an open ecclesiastical strife, dating from an anti-rationalist declaration by the court preacher reinhard at dresden in , [ ] between the rationalists or "friends of light" and the scripturalists of the old school; and the effect was a general disintegration of orthodoxy, despite, or it may be largely in virtue of, the governmental policy of rewarding the pietists and discouraging their opponents in the way of official appointments. [ ] the prussian measure ( ) of forcibly uniting the lutheran and calvinistic churches, with a neutral sacramental ritual in which the eucharist was treated as a historical commemoration, tended to the same consequences, though it also revived old lutheran zeal; [ ] and when the new revolutionary movement broke out in , popular feeling was substantially non-religious. "in the south of germany especially the conflict of political opinions and revolutionary tendencies produced, in the first instance, an entire prostration of religious sentiment." the bulk of society showed entire indifference to worship, the churches being everywhere deserted; and "atheism was openly avowed, and christianity ridiculed as the invention of priestcraft." [ ] one result was a desperate effort of the clergy to "effect a union among all who retained any measure of christian belief, in order to raise up their national religion and faith from the lowest state into which it has ever fallen since the french revolution." but the clerical effort evoked a counter effort. already, in , official interference with freedom of utterance led to the formation of a "free religious" society by dr. rupp, of königsberg, one of the "friends of light" in the state church; and he was followed by wislicenus of halle, a hegelian, and by uhlich of magdeburg. [ ] as a result of the determined pressure, social and official, which ensued on the collapse of the revolution of , these societies failed to develop on the scale of their beginnings; and that of magdeburg, which at the outset had , members, has latterly only ; though that of berlin has nearly , . [ ] there is further a freidenker bund, with branches in many towns; and the two organizations, with their total membership of some fifty thousand, may be held to represent the militant side of popular freethought in germany. this, however, constitutes only a fraction of the total amount of passive rationalism. there is a large measure of enlightenment in both the working and the middle classes; and the ostensible force of orthodoxy among the official and conformist middle class is in many respects illusory. the german police laws put a rigid check on all manner of platform and press propaganda which could be indicted as hurting the feelings of religious people; so that a jest at the holy coat of trèves could even in recent years send a journalist to jail, and the platform work of the militant societies is closely trammelled. yet there are, or have been, over a dozen journals which so far as may be take the freethought side; [ ] and the whole stress of bismarckian reaction and of official orthodoxy under the present kaiser has never availed to make the tone of popular thought pietistic. karl marx, the prophet of the german socialist movement ( - ), laid it down as part of its mission "to free consciousness from the religious spectre"; and his two most influential followers in germany, bebel and liebknecht, were avowed atheists, the former even going so far as to avow officially in the reichstag that "the aim of our party is on the political plane the republican form of state; on the economic, socialism; and on the plane which we term the religious, atheism"; [ ] though the party attempts no propaganda of the latter order. "christianity and social-democracy," said bebel again, "are opposed as fire and water." [ ] some index to the amount of popular freethought that normally exists under the surface in germany is furnished, further, by the strength of the german freethought movement in the united states, where, despite the tendency to the adoption of the common speech, there grew up in the last quarter of the nineteenth century many german freethinking societies, a german federation of atheists, and a vigorous popular organ, der freidenker. thus, under the sounder moral and economic conditions of the life of the proletariate in germany, straightforward rationalism, as apart from propaganda, is becoming among them more and more the rule. the bureaucratic control of education forces religious teaching in the common schools; and there is no "conscience clause" for unbelieving parents. [ ] a protestant pastor at the end of the century made an investigation into the state of religious opinion among the working socialists of some provincial towns and rural districts, and found everywhere a determined attitude of rationalism. the formula of the social democrats, "religion is a private matter," he bitterly perceives to carry the implication "a private matter for the fools"; and while he holds that the belief in a speedy collapse of the christian religion is latterly less common than formerly among the upper and middle classes, he complains that the socialists are not similarly enlightened. [ ] bebel's drastic teaching as to the economic and social conditions of the rise of christianity, [ ] and the materialistic theory of history set forth by marx and engels, he finds generally accepted. not only do most of the party leaders declare themselves to be without religion, but those who do not so declare themselves are so no less. [ ] nor is the unbelief a mere sequel to the socialism: often the development is the other way. [ ] the opinion is almost universal, further, that the clergy in general do not believe what they teach. [ ] atheists are numerous among the peasantry; more numerous among the workers in the provincial towns; and still more numerous in the large towns; [ ] and while many take a sympathetic view of jesus as a man and teacher, not a few deny his historic existence [ ]--a view set forth in non-socialist circles also. [ ] . under the widely-different political conditions in russia and the scandinavian states it is the more significant that in all alike rationalism is latterly common among the educated classes. in norway the latter perhaps include a larger proportion of working people than can be so classed even in germany; and rationalism is relatively hopeful, though social freedom is still far from perfect. it is the old story of toleration for a dangerously well-placed freethought, and intolerance for that which reaches the common people. in russia rationalism has before it the task of transmuting a system of autocracy into one of self-government. in no european country, perhaps, is rationalism more general among the educated classes; and in none is there a greater mass of popular ignorance. [ ] the popular icon-worship in moscow can hardly be paralleled outside of asia. on the other hand, the aristocracy became voltairean in the eighteenth century, and has remained more or less incredulous since, though it now joins hands with the church; while the democratic movement, in its various phases of socialism, constitutionalism, and nihilism, has been markedly anti-religious since the second quarter of the century. [ ] subsidiary revivals of mysticism, such as are chronicled in other countries, are of course to be seen in russia; but the instructed class, the intelliguentia, is essentially naturalistic in its cast of thought. this state of things subsists despite the readiness of the government to suppress the slightest sign of official heterodoxy in the universities. [ ] the struggle is thus substantially between the spirit of freedom and that of arbitrary rule; and the fortunes of freethought go with the former. . "free-religious" societies, such as have been noted in germany, may be rated as forms of moderate freethought propaganda, and are to be found in all protestant countries, with all shades of development. a movement of the kind has existed for a number of years back in america, in the new england states and elsewhere, and may be held to represent a theistic or agnostic thought too advanced to adhere even to the unitarianism which during the two middle quarters of the century was perhaps the predominant creed in new england. the theistic church conducted by the rev. charles voysey after his expulsion from the church of england in to his death in , and since then by the rev. dr. walter walsh, is an example. another type of such a gradual and peaceful evolution is the south place institute (formerly "chapel") of london, where, under the famous orator w. j. fox, nominally a unitarian, there was preached between and a theism tending to pantheism, perhaps traceable to elements in the doctrine of priestley, and passed on by mr. fox to robert browning. [ ] in the charge passed to moncure d. conway, under whom the congregation quietly advanced during twenty years from unitarianism to a non-scriptural rationalism, embracing the shades of philosophic theism, agnosticism, and anti-theism. in conway's lessons for the day will be found a series of peculiarly vivid mementos of that period, a kind of itinerary, more intimate than any retrospective record. the latter part of his life, partly preserved in one of the most interesting autobiographies of the century, was spent between england and the united states and in travel. after his first withdrawal to the states in the institute became an open platform for rationalist and non-theological ethics and social and historical teaching, and it now stands as an "ethical society" in touch with the numerous groups so named which have come into existence in england in the last dozen years on lines originally laid down by dr. felix adler in new york. at the time of the present writing the english societies of this kind number between twenty and thirty, the majority being in london and its environs. their open adherents, who are some thousands strong, are in most cases non-theistic rationalists, and include many former members of the secularist movement, of which the organization has latterly dwindled. on partly similar lines there were developed in provincial towns about the end of the century a small number of "labour churches," in which the tendency was to substitute a rationalist humanitarian ethic for supernaturalism; and the same lecturers frequently spoke from their platforms and from those of ethical and secularist societies. of late, however, the labour churches have tended to disappear. all this means no resumption of church-going, but, by the confession of the churches, a completer secularization of the sunday. . alongside of the lines of movement before sketched, there has subsisted in england during the greater part of the nineteenth century a considerable organization of unitarianism. in the early years of the nineteenth century it was strong enough to obtain the repeal ( ) of the penal laws against anti-trinitarianism, whereafter the use of the name "unitarian" became more common, and a sect so called was founded formally in . when the heretical preachers of the presbyterian sect began openly to declare themselves as unitarians, there naturally arose a protest from the orthodox, and an attempt was made in to save from its new destination the property owned by the heretical congregations. [ ] this was frustrated by the dissenters' chapels act of , which gave to each group singly the power to interpret its trust in its own fashion. thenceforward the sect prospered considerably, albeit not so greatly as in the united states. during the century english unitarianism has been associated with scholarship through such names as john kenrick and samuel sharpe, the historians of egypt, and j. j. tayler; and, less directly, with philosophy in the person of dr. james martineau, who, however, was rather a coadjutor than a champion of the sect. in the united states the movement, greatly aided to popularity by the eloquent humanism of the two channings, lost the prestige of the name of emerson, who had been one of its ministers, by the inability of his congregation to go the whole way with him in his opinions. in emerson told the young moncure conway that "the unitarian churches were stated to be no longer producing ministers equal to their forerunners, but were more and more finding their best men in those coming from orthodox churches," who "would, of course, have some enthusiasm for their new faith." [ ] latterly unitarians have been entitled to say that the trinitarian churches are approximating to their position. [ ] such an approach, however, involves rather a weakening than a strengthening of the smaller body; though some of its teachers are to the full as bigoted and embittered in their propaganda as the bulk of the traditionally orthodox. others adhere to their ritual practices in the spirit of use and wont, as emerson found when he sought to rationalize in his own church the usage of the eucharist. [ ] on the other hand, numbers have passed from unitarianism to thoroughgoing rationalism; and some whole congregations, following more or less the example of that of south place chapel, have latterly reached a position scarcely distinguishable from that of the ethical societies. . a partly similar evolution has taken place among the protestant churches of france, switzerland, hungary, and holland. french protestantism could not but be intellectually moved by the intense ferment of the revolution; and, when finally secured against active oppression from the catholic side, could not but develop an intellectual opposition to the catholic reaction after . in switzerland, always in intellectual touch with france and germany, the tendencies which had been stamped as socinian in the days of voltaire soon reasserted themselves so strongly as to provoke fanatical reaction. [ ] the nomination of strauss to a chair of theology at zürich by a radical government in actually gave rise to a violent revolt, inflamed and led by protestant clergymen. the executive council were expelled, and a number of persons killed in the strife. [ ] in the canton of aargau in , again, the cry of "religion in danger" sufficed to bring about a catholic insurrection against a liberal council; and yet again in it led, among the catholics of the valais canton, to the bloodiest insurrection of all. since these disgraceful outbreaks the progress of rationalism in switzerland has been steady. in a chair was given at berne to the rationalistic scholar zeller, without any such resistance as was made to strauss at zürich. in , out of a total number of , students in the five universities of switzerland and in the academies of fribourg and neuchâtel, the number of theological students was only , positively less than that of the teaching staff, which was . leaving out the academies named, which had no medical faculty, the number of theological students stood at out of , . the church in switzerland has thus undergone the relative restriction in power and prestige seen in the other european countries of long-established culture. the evolution, however, remains negative rather than positive. though a number of pastors latterly call themselves libres penseurs or penseurs libres, and a movement of ethical culture (morale sociale) has made progress, the forces of positive freethought are not numerically strong. an economic basis still supports the churches, and the lack of it leaves rationalism non-aggressive. [ ] a somewhat similar state of things exists in holland, where the "higher criticism" of both the old and new testaments made notable progress in the middle decades of the century. there then resulted not only an extensive decay of orthodoxy within the protestant church, but a movement of aggressive popular freethought, which was for a number of years well represented in journalism. to-day, orthodoxy and freethought are alike less demonstrative; the broad explanation being that the dutch people in the mass has ceased to be pietistic, and has secularized its life. even in the bible-loving boer republic of south africa (transvaal), in its time one of the most orthodox of the civilized communities of the world, there was seen in the past generation the phenomenon of an agnostic ex-clergyman's election to the post of president, in the person of t. f. burgers, who succeeded pretorius in . his election was of course on political and not on religious grounds; and panic fear on the score of his heresy, besides driving some fanatics to emigrate, is said to have disorganized a boer expedition under his command; [ ] but his views were known when he was elected. in the years - the terrible experience of the last boer war, in south africa as in britain, perhaps did more to turn critical minds against supernaturalism than was accomplished by almost any other agency in the same period. in britain the overturn was by way of the revolt of many ethically-minded christians against the attitude of the orthodox churches, which were so generally and so unscrupulously belligerent as to astonish many even of their freethinking opponents. [ ] as regards the boers and the cape dutch the resultant unbelief was among the younger men, who harassed their elders with challenges as to the justice or the activity of a god who permitted the liberties of his most devoted worshippers to be wantonly destroyed. among the more educated burghers in the orange free state commandos unbelief asserted itself with increasing force and frequency. [ ] an ethical rationalism thus motived is not likely to be displaced; and the christian churches of britain have thus the sobering knowledge that the war which they so vociferously glorified [ ] has wrought to the discredit of their creed alike in their own country and among the vanquished. . the history of popular freethought in sweden yields a good illustration, in a compact form, [ ] of the normal play of forces and counter-forces. since the day of christina, as we saw, though there have been many evidences of passive unbelief, active rationalism has been little known in her kingdom down till modern times, sweden as a whole having been little touched by the great ferment of the eighteenth century. the french revolution, however, stirred the waters there as elsewhere. tegnér, the poet-bishop, author of the once-famous frithiof's saga, was notable in his day for a determined rejection of the evangelical doctrine of salvation; and his letters contain much criticism of the ruling system. but the first recognizable champion of freethought in sweden is the thinker and historian e. g. geijer (d. ), whose history of his native land is one of the best european performances of his generation. in he was prosecuted for his attack upon the dogmas of the trinity and redemption--long the special themes of discussion in sweden--in his book thorild; but was acquitted by the jury. thenceforth sweden follows the general development of europe. in strauss's leben jesu was translated in swedish, and wrought its usual effect. on the popular side the poet wilhelm von braun carried on an anti-biblical warfare; and a blacksmith in a provincial town contrived to print in a translation of paine's age of reason. once more the spirit of persecution blazed forth, and he was prosecuted and imprisoned. h. b. palmaer (d. ) was likewise prosecuted for his satire, the last judgment in cocaigne (kräkwinkel), with the result that his defence extended his influence. in the same period the stockholm curate nils ignell (d. ) produced a whole series of critical pamphlets and a naturalistic history of the development of man, besides supplying a preface to the swedish translation of renan's vie de jésus. meantime translations of the works of theodore parker, by v. pfeiff and a. f. akerberg, had a large circulation and a wide influence; and the courage of the gymnasium rector n. j. cramer (d. ), author of the farewell to the church, gave an edge to the movement. the partly rationalistic doctrine of victor rydberg (d. ) was in comparison uncritical, and was proportionally popular. on another line the books of dr. nils lilja (d. ), written for working people, created a current of rationalism among the masses; and in the next generation g. j. leufstedt maintained it by popular lectures and by the issue of translations of colenso, ingersoll, büchner, and renan. hjalmar stromer (d. ) did similar platform work. meantime the followers of parker and rydberg founded in a monthly review, the truthseeker, which lasted till , and an association of "believers in reason," closely resembling the british ethical societies of our own day. among its leading adherents has been k. p. arnoldson, the well-known peace advocate. liberal clerics were now fairly numerous; positivism, represented by dr. anton nyström's general history of civilization, played its part; and the more radical freethinking movement, nourished by new translations, became specially active, with the usual effect on orthodox feeling. august strindberg, author and lecturer, was prosecuted in on a charge of ridiculing the eucharist, but was declared not guilty. the strenuous victor lennstrand, lecturer and journalist, prosecuted in and later for his anti-christian propaganda, was twice fined and imprisoned, with the result of extending his influence and discrediting his opponents. "utilitarian associations," created by his activity, were set up in many parts of the country; and his movement survives his death. . only in the united states has the public lecture platform been made a means of propaganda to anything like the extent seen in britain; and the greatest part of the work in the states has thus far been done by the late colonel ingersoll, the leading american orator of the last generation, and the most widely influential platform propagandist of the last century. no other single freethinker, it is believed, has reached such an audience by public speech; and between his propaganda and that of the freethought journals there has been maintained for a generation back a large body of vigorous freethinking opinion in all parts of the states. before the civil war this could hardly be said. in the middle decades of the century the conditions had been so little changed that after the death of president lincoln, who was certainly a non-christian deist, and an agnostic deist at that, [ ] it was sought to be established that he was latterly orthodox. in his presidential campaign of he escaped attack on his opinions simply because his opponent, stephen a. douglas, was likewise an unbeliever. [ ] the great negro orator, frederick douglas, was as heterodox as lincoln. [ ] it is even alleged that president grant [ ] was of the same cast of opinion. such is the general drift of intelligent thought in the united states, from washington onwards; and still the social conditions impose on public men the burden of concealment, while popular history is garbled for the same reasons. despite the great propagandist power of the late colonel ingersoll, therefore, american freethought remains dependent largely on struggling organizations and journals, [ ] and its special literature is rather of the popularizing than of the scholarly order. nowhere else has every new advance of rationalistic science been more angrily opposed by the priesthood; because nowhere is the ordinary prejudice of the priest more voluble or better-bottomed in self-complacency. as late as the methodist bishop keener delivered a ridiculous attack on the evolution theory before the oecumenical council of methodism at washington, declaring that it had been utterly refuted by a certain "wonderful deposit of the ashley beds." [ ] various professors in ecclesiastical colleges have been driven from their posts for accepting in turn the discoveries of geology, biology, and the "higher criticism"--for instance, woodrow of columbia, south carolina; toy of louisville; winchell of vanderbilt university; and more than one professor in the american college at beyrout. [ ] in every one of the three former cases, it is true, the denounced professor has been called to a better chair; and latterly some of the more liberal clergy have even commercially exploited the higher criticism by producing the "rainbow bible." generally speaking, however, in the united states sheer preoccupation with business, and lack of leisure, counteract in a measure the relative advantage of social freedom; and while culture is more widely diffused than in england, it remains on the whole less radical in the "educated" classes so-called. so far as it is possible to make a quantitative estimate, it may be said that in the more densely populated parts of the states there is latterly less of studious freethinking because there is less leisure than in england; but that in the western states there is a relative superiority, class for class, because of the special freedom of the conditions and the independent character of many of the immigrants who constitute the new populations. [ ] section .--biblical criticism it is within the last generation that the critical analysis of the jewish and christian sacred books has been most generally carried on; but the process has never been suspended since the german aufklärung arose on the stimuli of english and french deism. . at the beginning of the century, educated men in general believed in the semitic myths of creation, as given in genesis: long before the end of it they had more or less explicitly rectified their beliefs in the light of new natural science and new archæology. the change became rapid after ; but it had been led up to even in the period of reaction. while in france, under the restored monarchy, rationalistic activity was mainly headed into historical, philosophical, and sociological study, and in england orthodoxy predominated in theological discussion, the german rationalistic movement went on among the specialists, despite the liberal religious reaction of schleiermacher, [ ] who himself gave forth such an uncertain sound. his case and that of his father, an army chaplain, tell signally of the power of the mere clerical occupation to develop a species of emotional belief in one who has even attained rationalism. when the son, trained for the church, avowed to his father ( ) that he had lost faith in the supernatural jesus, the father professed to mourn bitterly, but three years later avowed that he in his own youth had preached christianity for twelve years while similarly disbelieving its fundamental tenet. [ ] he professionally counselled compromise, which the son duly practised, with such success that, whereas he originally addressed his discourses on religion ( ) to "the educated among its despisers," he was able to say in the preface to the third edition, twenty years later ( ), that the need now was to reason with the pietists and literalists, the ignorant and bigoted, the credulous and superstitious. [ ] in short, he and others had been able to set up a fashion of poetic religion among deists, but not to lighten the darkness of orthodox belief. the ostensible religious revival associated with schleiermacher's name was in fact a reaction of temperament, akin to the romantic movement in literature, of which chateaubriand in france was the exponent as regarded religious feeling. the german "rationalism" of the latter part of the eighteenth century, with its stolid translation of the miraculous into the historical, and its official accommodation of the result to the purposes of the pulpit, had not reached any firm scientific foundation; and schleiermacher on the other side, protesting that religion was a matter not of knowledge but of feeling, attracted alike the religious emotionalists, the seekers of compromise, and the romantics. his personal and literary charm, and his tolerance of mundane morals, gave him a german vogue not unlike that of chateaubriand in france. his intellectual cast and ultimate philosophic bias, however, together with his freedom of private life, [ ] ultimately alienated him from the orthodox, and thus it was that he died ( ) in the odour of heresy. heresy, in fact, he had preached from the outset; and it was only in a highly emancipated society that his teaching could have been fashionable. the statement that by his discourses "with one stroke he overthrew the card-castle of rationalism and the old fortress of orthodoxy" [ ] is literally quite false, for the old compromising pseudo-rationalism survived a long while, and orthodoxy still longer; and it is quite misleading inasmuch as it suggests a resurgence of faith. the same historian proceeds to record that some saw in the work "only a slightly disguised return to superstition, and others a brilliant confession of unbelief." "the general public saw in the discourses a new assault of romanticism upon religion. the clergy in particular were painfully aroused, and did not dissemble their irritation. spalding himself could not restrain his anger." schleiermacher's friend sach, who had passed the discourses in manuscript, woke up to denounce them as unchristian, pantheistic, and denuded of the ideas of god, immortality, and morality. [ ] in england the work would have been so denounced on all sides; and the bulk of schleiermacher's teaching would there have been reckoned revolutionary and "godless." he was a lover of both political and social freedom; and in his two memoranda on the church question in regard to prussia ( ) he made "a veritable declaration of war on the clerical spirit." [ ] recognizing that ecclesiastical discipline had reached a low ebb, he even proposed that civil marriage should precede religious marriage, and be alone obligatory; besides planning a drastic subjection of the prussian church to state regulation. [ ] in his pamphlet on the so-called epistle to timothy, of which he denied the authenticity, he played the part of a "destructive" critic. [ ] he "saw with pain the approach of the rising tide of confessionalism"--that is, the movement for an exact statement of creed. [ ] nor can it be said that, despite his attempts in later life to reach a more definite theology, schleiermacher really held firmly any christian or even theistic dogma. he seems to have been at bottom a pantheist; [ ] and the secret of his attraction for so many german preachers and theologians then and since is that he offered them in eloquent and moving diction a kind of profession of faith which avoided alike the fatal undertaking of the old religious rationalism to reduce the sacred narratives to terms of reason, and the dogged refusal of orthodoxy to admit that there was anything to explain away. philosophically and critically speaking, his teaching has no lasting intellectual substance, being first a negation of intellectual tests and then a belated attempt to apply them. it is not even original, being a development from rousseau and lessing. but it had undoubtedly a freeing and civilizing influence for many years; and it did little harm save insofar as it fostered the german proclivity to the nebulous in thought and language, and partly encouraged the normal resistance to the critical spirit. all irrationalism, to be sure, in some sort spells self-will and lawlessness; but the orthodox negation of reason was far more primitive than schleiermacher's. from that side, accordingly, he never had any sympathy. when, soon after his funeral, in which his coffin was borne and followed by troops of students, his church was closed to the friends who wished there to commemorate him, it was fairly clear that his own popularity lay mainly with the progressive spirits, and not among the orthodox; and in the end his influence tended to merge in that of the critical movement. [ ] . gradually that had developed a greater precision of method, though there were to be witnessed repetitions of the intellectual anomalies of the past, so-called rationalists losing the way while supernaturalists occasionally found it. it has been remarked by reuss that paulus, a clerical "rationalist," fought for the pauline authorship of the epistle to the hebrews in the very year in which tholuck, a reconverted evangelical, gave up the pauline authorship as hopeless; that when schleiermacher, ostensibly a believer in inspiration, denied the authenticity of the epistle to timothy, the [theological] rationalist wegscheider opposed him; and that the rationalistic eichhorn maintained the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch long after the supernaturalist vater had disproved it. [ ] still the general movement was inevitably and irrevocably rationalistic. beginning with the old testament, criticism gradually saw more and more of mere myth where of old men had seen miracle, and where the first rationalists saw natural events misconceived. soon the process reached the new testament, every successive step being resisted in the old fashion; and much laborious work, now mostly forgotten, was done by a whole company of scholars, among whom paulus, eichhorn, de wette, g. l. bauer, wegscheider, bretschneider, and gabler were prominent. [ ] the train as it were exploded on the world in the great life of jesus by strauss ( ), a year after the death of schleiermacher. this was in some respects the high-water mark of rational critical science for the century, inasmuch as it represented the fullest use of free judgment. the powerful and orderly mind of strauss, working systematically on a large body of previous unsystematic criticism, produced something more massive and coherent than any previous writer had achieved. it was not that he applied any new principle. criticism had long been slowly disengaging itself from the primary fallacy of taking all scriptural records as standing for facts, and explaining away the supernatural side. step by step it was recognized that not misinterpretation of events but mythology underlay much of the sacred history. already in an anonymous and almost unnoticed writer [ ] had argued that the entire gospel story was a pre-existent conception in the jewish mind. in g. l. bauer had produced a treatise on hebrew mythology, [ ] in which not only was the actuality of myth in bible narrative insisted on, but the general principle of animism in savage thought was clearly formulated. semler had seen that the stories of samson and esther were myths. even eichhorn--who reduced all the old testament stories to natural events misunderstood, accepted noah and the patriarchs as historical personages, and followed bahrdt in making moses light a fire on mount sinai--changed his method on coming to the new testament, and pointed out that only indemonstrable hypotheses could be reached by turning supernatural events into natural where there was no outside historical evidence. other writers--as krug, gabler, kaiser, wegscheider, and horst--ably pressed the mythical principle, some of them preceding bauer. the so-called "natural" theory--which was not at all that of the "naturalists" but the specialty of the compromising "rationalists"--was thus effectively shaken by a whole series of critics. but the power of intellectual habit and environment was still strikingly illustrated in the inability of all of the critics to shake off completely the old fallacy. bauer explained the divine promise to abraham as standing for the patriarch's own prophetic anticipation, set up by a contemplation of the starry heavens. another gave up the supernatural promise of the birth of the baptist, but held to the dumbness of zechariah. krug similarly accepted the item of the childless marriage, and claimed to be applying the mythical principle in taking the magi without the star, and calling them oriental merchants. kaiser took the story of the fish with a coin in its mouth as fact, while complaining of other less absurd reductions of miracle to natural occurrences. the method of paulus, [ ] the "christian evêmeros"--who loyally rejected all miracles, but got rid of them on the plan of explaining, e.g., that when jesus was supposed to be walking on the water he was really walking on the bank--was still popular, a generation after schleiermacher's reden. the mythical theory as a whole went on hesitating among definitions and genera--saga and legend, historical myth, mythical history, philosophical myth, poetic myth--and the differences of the mythological school over method arrested the acceptance of their fundamental principle. . no less remarkable was the check to the few attempts which had been made at clearing the ground by removing the fourth gospel from the historical field. lessing had taken this gospel as peculiarly historical, as did fichte and schleiermacher and the main body of critics after him. only in england (by evanson) had the case been more radically handled. in bretschneider, following up a few tentative german utterances, put forth, by way of hypothesis, a general argument [ ] to the effect that the whole presentment of jesus in the fourth gospel is irreconcilable with that of the synoptics, that it could not be taken as historical, and that it could not therefore be the work of the apostle john. [ ] the result was a general discussion and a general rejection. the innovation in theory was too sudden for assimilation: and bretschneider, finding no support, later declared that he had been "relieved of his doubts" by the discussion, and had thus attained his object. strauss himself, in his first leben jesu, failed to realize the case; and it was not till the second ( ) that he developed it, profiting by the intermediate work of f. c. baur. . but as regards the gospel history in general, the first leben jesu is a great "advance in force" as compared with all preceding work. himself holding undoubtingly to the vital assumption of the rationalizing school that the central story of jesus and the disciples and the crucifixion was history, he yet applied the mythical principle systematically to nearly all the episodes, handling the case with the calmness of a great judge and the skill of a great critic. even strauss, indeed, paid the penalty which seems so generally to attach to the academic discipline--the lack of ultimate hold on life. after showing that much of the gospel narrative was mere myth, and leaving utterly problematical all the rest, he saw fit to begin and end with the announcement that nothing really mattered--that the ideal jesus was unaffected by historic analysis, and that it was the ideal that counted. [ ] in a world in which nine honest believers out of ten held that the facts mattered everything, there could be no speedy or practical triumph for a demonstration which thus announced its own inutility. strauss had achieved for new testament criticism what kant and fichte and hegel had compassed for rational philosophy in general, ostensibly proffering together bane and antidote. as in their case, however, so in his, the truly critical work had an effect in despite of the theoretic surrender. among instructed men, historical belief in the gospels has never been the same since strauss wrote; and he lived to figure for his countrymen as one of the most thoroughgoing freethinkers of his age. . for a time there was undoubtedly "reaction," engineered with the full power of the prussian state in particular. the pious frederick william iv, already furious against swiss radicalism in , was moved by the revolutionary outbreaks of to a fierce repression of everything liberal in theological teaching. "this dismal period of prussian history was the bloom-period of the hengsterbergan theology" [ ]--the school of rabid orthodoxy. in , eduard zeller, bringing out in book form his work on the acts of the apostles (originally produced in the tübingen theological journal, - ), writes that "the exertions of our ecclesiastics, assisted by political reaction, have been so effectual that the majority of our theologians not only look with suspicion or indifference on this or that scientific opinion, but regard scientific knowledge in general with the same feelings"; and he leaves it an open question "whether time will bring a change, or whether german protestantism will stagnate in the byzantine conditions towards which it is now hastening with all sail on." [ ] for his own part, zeller abandoned the field of theology for that of philosophy, producing a history of greek philosophy, and one of german philosophy since leibnitz. . another expert of baur's school, albrecht schwegler, author of works on montanism, the post-apostolic age, and other problems of early christian history, and of a handbook of the history of philosophy which for half a century had an immense circulation, was similarly driven out of theological research by the virulence of the reaction, [ ] and turned to the task of roman history, in which he distinguished himself as he did in every other he essayed. the brains were being expelled from the chairs of theology. but this very fact tended to discredit the reaction itself; and outside of the prussian sphere of influence german criticism went actively on. gustav volkmar, turning his back on germany in , settled in switzerland, and in became professor at zürich, where he added to his early religion jesu ( ) and other powerful works his treatises on the origin of the gospels ( ), the gospels ( ), commentary on the apocalypse ( - ), and jesus nazarenus ( )--all stringent critical performances, irreconcilable with orthodoxy. elsewhere too there was a general resumption of progress. to this a certain contribution was made by bruno bauer ( - ), who, after setting out as an orthodox hegelian, outwent strauss in the opposite direction. in , as a licentiate at bonn, he produced two volumes on the religion of the old testament, in which the only critical element is the notion of a "historical evolution of revelation." soon he had got beyond belief in revelation. in appeared his critique of the gospel history of john, and in his much more disturbing critique of the gospel history of the synoptics, wherein there is substituted for strauss's formula of the "community-mind" working on tradition, that of individual literary construction. weisse and wilcke had convinced him that mark was the first gospel, and wilcke in particular that it was no mere copy of an oral tradition but an artistic construction. as he claimed, this was a much more "positive" conception than strauss's, which was fundamentally "mysterious." [ ] unfortunately, though he saw that the new position involved the non-historicity of the gospel jesus, he left his own historic conception "mysterious," giving no reason why the "urevangelist" framed his romance. bauer was non-anthropological, and left his theory as it began, one of an arbitrary construction by gospel-makers. immediately after his book appeared that of ghillany on human sacrifice among the ancient hebrews ( ), which might have given him clues; but they seem to have had for him no significance. as it was, his book on the synoptics raised a great storm; and when the official request for the views of the university faculties as to the continuance of his licence evoked varying answers, bauer settled the matter by a violent attack on professional theologians in general, and was duly expelled. [ ] for the rest of his long life he was a freelance, doing some relatively valid work on the pauline problem, but pouring out his turbid spirit in a variety of political writings, figuring by turns as an anti-semite ( ), a culture-historian, [ ] and a pre-bismarckian imperialist, despairing of german unity, but looking hopefully to german absorption in a vast empire of russia. [ ] naturally he found political happiness in , [ ] living on, a spent force, to do fresh books on christian origins, [ ] on german culture-history, and on the glories of imperialism. . in , after an abstention of twenty years from discussion of the problem, strauss restated his case in a life of jesus, adapted for the german people. here, accepting the contention of f. c. baur that the proper line of inquiry was to settle the order of composition of the synoptic gospels, and agreeing in baur's view that matthew came first, he undertook to offer more of positive result than was reached in his earlier research, which simply dealt scientifically with the abundant elements of dubiety in the records. the new procedure was really much less valid than the old. baur had quite unwarrantably decided that the sermon on the mount was one of the most certainly genuine of the discourses ascribed to jesus; [ ] and strauss, while exhibiting a reserve of doubt [ ] as to all "such speeches," nonetheless committed himself to the "certain" genuineness alike of the sermon and of the seven parables in the thirteenth chapter of matthew. [ ] many scholars who continue to hold by the historicity of jesus have since recognized that the sermon is no real discourse, but a compilation of gnomic sayings or maxims previously current in jewish literature. [ ] thus the certainties of baur and strauss pass into the category of the cruder certainties which strauss impugned; and the latter left the life of jesus an unsolved enigma after all his analysis. as he himself noted, the german new testament criticism of the previous twenty years had "run to seed" [ ] in a multitude of treatises on the sources, aims, composition, and mutual relations of the synoptics, as if these were the final issues. they had settled nothing; and after a lapse of fifty years the same problems are being endlessly discussed. the scientific course for strauss would have been to develop more radically the method of his first life: failing to do this, he made no new contribution to the problem, though he deftly enough indicated how little difference there was, save in formula, between baur's negations and his own. something of the explanation is to be detected in the sub-title, "adapted for the german people." from his first entrance into the arena he had met with endless odium theologicum; being at once deprived of his post as a philosophical lecturer at tübingen, and virulently denounced on all hands. his proposed appointment to a chair at zürich in , as we have seen, led there to something approaching a revolution. later, he found that acquaintance with him was made a ground of damage to his friends; and though he had actually been elected to the wirtemberg diet in by his fellow citizens of ludwigsburg town, after being defeated in his candidature for the new parliament at frankfort through the hostility of the rural voters, he had abundant cause to regard himself as a banned person in germany. a craving for the goodwill of the people as against the hatred of the priests was thus very naturally and justifiably operative in the conception of his second work; and this none the less because his fundamental political conservatism had soon cut short his representation of radical ludwigsburg. as he justly said, the question of the true history of christianity was not one for theologians alone. but the emotional aim affected the intellectual process. as previously in his life of ulrich von hutten, he strove to establish the proposition that the new reformation he desired was akin to the old; and that the germans, as the "people of the reformation," would show themselves true to their past by casting out the religion of dogma and supernaturalism. such an attempt to identify the spirit of freethought with the old spirit of bibliolatry was in itself fantastic, and could not create a genuine movement, though the book had a wide audience. the glaubenslehre, in which he made good his maxim that "the true criticism of dogma is its history," is a sounder performance. strauss's avowed desire to write a book as suitable to germans as was renan's vie de jésus to frenchmen was something less than scientific. the right book would be written for all nations. like most other germans, strauss exulted immensely over the war of . in what is now recognized as the national manner, he wrote two boastful open-letters to renan explaining that whatsoever germany did was right, and whatsoever france did was wrong, and that the annexation of alsace and lorraine was altogether just. these letters form an important contribution to the vast cairn of self-praise raised by latter-day german culture. but strauss's literary life ended on a nobler note and in a higher warfare. after all his efforts at popularity, and all his fraternization with his people on the ground of racial animosity (not visible in his volume of lectures on voltaire, written and delivered at the request of the princess alice), his fundamental sincerity moved him to produce a final "confession," under the title of the old and the new faith ( ). it asked the questions: "are we still christians?"; "have we still religion?"; "how do we conceive the world?"; "how do we order our life?"; and it answered them all in a calmly and uncompromisingly naturalistic sense, dismissing all that men commonly call religious belief. the book as a whole is heterogeneous in respect of its two final chapters, "of our great poets" and "of our great musicians," which seem to have been appended by way of keeping up the attitude of national fraternity evoked by the war. but they could not and did not avail to conciliate the theologians, who opened fire on the book with all their old animosity, and with an unconcealed delight in the definite committal of the great negative critic to an attitude of practical atheism. the book ran through six editions in as many months, and crystallized much of the indefinite freethinking of germany into something clearer and firmer. all the more was it a new engine of strife and disintegration; and the aging author, shocked but steadied by the unexpected outburst of hostility, penned a quatrain to himself, ending: "in storm hast thou begun; in storm shalt thou end." on the last day of the year he wrote an "afterword" summing up his work and his position. he had not written, he declared, by way of contending with opponents; he had sought rather to commune with those of his own way of thinking; and to them, he felt, he had the right to appeal to live up to their convictions, not compromising with other opinions, and not adhering to any church. for his "confession" he anticipated the thanks of a more enlightened future generation. "the time of agreement," he concluded, "will come, as it came for the leben jesu; only this time i shall not live to see it." [ ] a little more than a year later ( ) he passed away. it is noteworthy that he should have held that agreement had come as to the first leben jesu. he was in fact convinced that all educated men--at least in germany--had ceased to believe in miracles and the supernatural, however they might affect to conform to orthodoxy. and, broadly speaking, this was true: all new testament criticism of any standing had come round to the naturalistic point of view. but, as we have seen, the second leben jesu was far enough from reaching a solid historical footing; and the generation which followed made only a piecemeal and unsystematic advance to a scientific solution. . and it was long before even strauss's early method of scientific criticism was applied to the initial problems of old testament history. the investigation lagged strangely. starting from the clues given by hobbes, spinoza, and simon, and above all by the suggestion of astruc ( ) as to the twofold element implied in the god-names jehovah and elohim, it had proceeded, for sheer lack of radical skepticism, on the assumption that the pentateuchal history was true. on this basis, modern old testament criticism of a professional kind may be said to have been founded by eichhorn, who hoped by a quasi-rationalistic method to bring back unbelievers to belief. [ ] of his successors, some, like ilgen, were ahead of their time; some, like de wette, failed to make progress in their criticism; some, like ewald, remained always arbitrary; and some of the ablest and most original, as vatke, failed to coördinate fully their critical methods and results. [ ] thus, despite all the german activity, little sure progress had been made, apart from discrimination of sources, between the issue of the critical remarks on the hebrew scriptures of the scotch catholic priest, dr. geddes, in , and the publication of the first part of the work of bishop colenso on the pentateuch ( ). this, by the admission of kuenen, who had begun as a rather narrow believer, [ ] corrected the initial error of the german specialists by applying to the narrative the common-sense tests suggested long before by voltaire. [ ] that academic scholarship thus wasted two generations in its determination to adhere to the "reverent" method, and in its aversion to the "irreverence" which proceeded on the simple power to see facts, is a sufficient comment on the kantian doctrine that it was the business of scholars to adapt the sacred books to popular needs. tampering with the judgment of their flocks, the german theologians injured their own. as of old, part of the explanation lay in the malignant resistance of orthodoxy to every new advance. we have seen how strauss's appointment to a chair at zürich was met by swiss pietism. the same spirit sought to revert, even in "intellectually free" germany, to its old methods of repression. the authorities of berlin discussed with neander the propriety of suppressing strauss's leben jesu; [ ] and after a time those who shared his views were excluded even from philosophical chairs. [ ] later, the brochure in which edgar bauer defended his brother bruno against his opponents ( ) was seized by the police; and in the following year, for publishing the strife of criticism with church and state, the same writer was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. in private life, persecution was carried on in the usual ways; and the virulence of the theological resistance recalled the palmy days of lutheran polemics. in the sense that the mass of orthodoxy held its ground for the time being, the attack failed. naturally the most advanced and uncompromisingly scientific positions were least discussed, the stress of dispute going on around the criticism which modified without annihilating the main elements in the current creed, or that which did the work of annihilation on a popular level of thought. only in our day is german "expert" criticism beginning openly to reckon with propositions fairly and fully made out by german writers of three or more generations back. thus in corodi in his geschichte des chiliasmus dwelt on the pre-hebraic origins of the belief in angels, in immortality, and heaven and hell, and on the persian derivation of the jewish seven archangels; wegscheider in in his institutes of theology indicated further connections of the same order, and cited pagan parallels to the virgin-birth; j. a. l. richter in the same year pointed to indian and persian precedents for the logos and many other christian doctrines; and several other writers, strauss included, pointed to both persian and babylonian influences on jewish theology and myth. [ ] the mythologist and hebraist f. korn (who wrote as "f. nork"), in a series of learned and vigorous but rather loosely speculative works, [ ] indicated many of the mythological elements in christianity, and endorsed many of the astronomical arguments of dupuis, while holding to the historicity of jesus. [ ] when even these theses were in the main ignored, more mordant doctrine was necessarily burked. such subversive criticism of religious history as ghillany's die menschenopfer der alten hebräer ( ), insisting that human sacrifice had been habitual in early jewry, and that ritual cannibalism underlay the paschal eucharist, found even fewer students prepared to appreciate it than did the searching ethico-philosophical criticism passed on the christian creed by feuerbach. f. daumer, [ ] who in published a treatise on the same lines as ghillany's (der feuer und molochdienst), and followed it up in with another on the christian mysteries, nearly as drastic, wavered later in his rationalism and avowed his conversion to a species of faith. hence a certain setback for his school. in france the genial german revolutionist and exile ewerbeck published, under the titles of qu'est ce que la religion? and qu'est ce que la bible? ( ), two volumes of very freely edited translations from feuerbach, daumer, ghillany, lützelberger (on the simple humanity of jesus), and bruno bauer, avowing that after vainly seeking a publisher for years he had produced the books at his own expense. he had, however, so mutilated the originals as to make the work ineffectual for scholars, without making it attractive to the general public; and there is nothing to show that his formidable-looking arsenal of explosives had much effect on contemporary french thought, which developed on other lines. old testament criticism, nevertheless, has in the last generation been much developed, after having long missed some of the first lines of advance. after colenso's rectification of the fundamental error as to the historicity of the narrative of the pentateuch, so long and so obstinately persisted in by the german specialists in contempt of voltaire, the "higher criticism" proceeded with such substantial certainty on the scientific lines of kuenen and wellhausen that, whereas professor robertson smith had to leave the free church of scotland in [ ] for propagating kuenen's views, before the century was out canons of the english church were doing the work with the acquiescence of perhaps six clergymen out of ten; and american preachers were found promoting an edition of the bible which exhibited some of the critical results to the general reader. heresy on this score had "become merchandise." nevertheless, the professional tendency to compromise (a result of economic and other pressures) keeps most of the ecclesiastical critics far short of the outspoken utterances of m. m. kalisch, who in his commentary on leviticus ( - ) repudiates every vestige of the doctrine of inspiration. [ ] later clerical critics, notably canon driver, use language on that subject which cannot be read with critical respect. [ ] but among students at the end of the century the orthodox view was practically extinct. whereas the defenders of the faith even a generation before habitually stood to the "argument from prophecy," the conception of prophecy as prediction has now become meaningless as regards the so-called mosaic books; and the constant disclosure of interpolations and adaptations in the others has discredited it as regards the "prophets" themselves. for the rest, much of the secular history still accepted is tentatively reduced to myth in the geschichte israels of hugo winckler ( - ). the peculiar theory of dr. cheyne is no less "destructive." . in new testament criticism, though the strict critical method of strauss's first book was not faithfully followed, critical research went on continuously; and the school of f. c. baur of tübingen in particular imposed a measure of rational criticism on theologians in general. apart from strauss, baur was probably the ablest christian scholar of his day. always lamed by his professionalism, he yet toiled endlessly to bring scientific method into christian research. his paulus, der apostel jesu christi, ; kritische untersuchungen über die kanonischen evangelien, ; and das christenthum und die christliche kirche der drei ersten jahrhunderte, , were epoch-marking works, which recast so radically, in the name of orthodoxy, the historical conception of christian origins, that he figured as the most unsettling critic of his time after strauss. with his earlier researches in the history of the first christian sects and his history of the church, they constitute a memorable mass of studious and original work. in the case of the tübingen school as of every other there was "reaction," with the usual pretence by professional orthodoxy that the innovating criticism had been disposed of; but no real refutation has ever taken place. where baur reduced the genuine pauline epistles to four, the last years of the century witnessed the advent of van manen, who, following up earlier suggestions, wrought out the thesis that the epistles are all alike supposititious. this may or may not hold good; but there has been no restoration of traditionary faith among the mass of open-minded inquirers. such work as zeller's contents and origin of the acts of the apostles ( ), produced in baur's circle, has substantially held its ground; and such a comparatively "safe" book of the next generation as weizsäcker's apostolic age (eng. tr. of nd ed. ) leaves no doubt as to the untrustworthiness of the acts. thus at the close of the century the current professional treatises indicated a "christianity" stripped not only of all supernaturalism, and therefore of the main religious content of the historic creed, but even of credibility as regards large parts of the non-supernaturalist narratives of its sacred books. the minute analysis and collocation of texts which has occupied so much of critical industry has but made clearer the extreme precariousness of every item in the records. the amount of credit for historicity that continues to be given to them is demonstrably unjustifiable on scientific grounds; and the stand for a "christianity without dogma" is more and more clearly seen to be an economic adjustment, not an outcome of faithful criticism. . the movement of biblical and other criticism in germany has had a significant effect on the supply of students for the theological profession. the numbers of protestant and catholic theological students in all germany have varied as follows:--protestant: , , ; , , ; , , ; , , ; - , , . catholic: , , ; , ; , , ; , , ; , . [ ] thus, under the reign of reaction which set in after there was a prolonged recovery; and again since the figures rise for protestantism through financial stimulus. when, however, we take population into account, the main movement is clear. in an increasing proportion, the theological students come from the rural districts ( · in - ), the towns furnishing ever fewer; [ ] so that the conservative measures do but outwardly and formally affect the course of thought; the clergy themselves showing less and less inclination to make clergymen of their sons. [ ] even among the catholic population, though that has increased from ten millions in to sixteen millions in , the number of theological students has fallen from eleven to four per , inhabitants. [ ] thus, after many "reactions" and much bismarckism, the zeit-geist in germany was still pronouncedly skeptical in all classes in , [ ] when the church accommodation in berlin provided only two per cent. of the population, and even that provision outwent the demand. [ ] and though there have been yet other alleged reactions since, and the imperial influence is zealously used for orthodoxy, a large proportion of the intelligent workers in the towns remain socialistic and freethinking; and the mass of the educated classes remain unorthodox in the teeth of the socialist menace. reactionary professors can make an academic fashion: the majority of instructed men remain tacitly naturalistic. alongside of the inveterate rationalism of modern germany, however, a no less inveterate bureaucratism preserves a certain official conformity to religion. university freedom does not extend to open and direct criticism of the orthodox creed. on the other hand, the applause won by virchow in on his declaration against the doctrine of evolution, and the tactic resorted to by him in putting upon that doctrine the responsibility of socialist violence, are instances of the normal operation of the lower motives against freedom in scientific teaching. [ ] the pressure operates in other spheres in germany, especially under such a regimen as the present. men who never go to church save on official occasions, and who have absolutely no belief in the church's doctrine, nevertheless remain nominally its adherents; [ ] and the press laws make it peculiarly difficult to reach the common people with freethinking literature, save through socialist channels. thus the catholic church is perhaps nowhere--save in ireland and the united states--more practically influential than in nominally "protestant" germany, where it wields a compact vote of a hundred or more in the reichstag, and can generally count on well-filled churches as beside the half-empty temples of protestantism. another circumstance partly favourable to reaction is the simple maintenance of all the old theological chairs in the universities. as the field of scientific work widens, and increasing commerce raises the social standard of comfort, men of original intellectual power grow less apt to devote themselves to theological pursuits even under the comparatively free conditions which so long kept german biblical scholarship far above that of other countries. it can hardly be said that men of the mental calibre of strauss, baur, volkmar, and wellhausen continue to arise among the specialists in their studies. harnack, the most prominent german biblical scholar of our day, despite his great learning, creates no such impression of originality and insight, and, though latterly forced forward by more independent minds, exhibits often a very uncritical orthodoxy. thus it is à priori possible enough that the orthodox reactions so often claimed have actually occurred, in the sense that the experts have reverted to a prior type. a scientifically-minded "theologian" in germany has now little official scope for his faculty save in the analysis of the hebrew sacred books and the new testament documents as such; and this has been on the whole very well done, short of the point of express impeachment of the historic delusion; but there is a limit to the attraction of such studies for minds of a modern cast. thus there is always a chance that chairs will be filled by men of another type. . on a less extensive scale than in germany, critical study of the sacred books made some progress in england, france, and america in the first half of the century; though for a time the attention even of the educated world was centred much more upon the oxford "tractarian" religious reaction than upon the movement of rationalism. the reaction, associated mainly with the name of john henry newman, was rather against the political erastianism and æsthetic apathy of the whig type of christian than against german or other criticism, of which newman knew little. but against the attitude of those moderate anglicans who were disposed to disestablish the church in ireland and to modernize the liturgy somewhat, the language of the "tracts for the times" is as authoritarian and anti-rationalistic as that of catholics denouncing freethought. such expressions as "the filth of heretical novelty" [ ] are meant to apply to anything in the nature of innovation; the causes at stake are ritual and precedent, the apostolic succession and the status of the priest, not the truth of revelation or the credibility of the scriptures. the third tract appeals to the clergy to "resist the alteration of even one jot or tittle" of the liturgy; and concerning the burial service the line of argument is: "do you pretend you can discriminate the wheat from the tares? of course not." all attempts even to modify the ritual are an "abuse of reason"; and the true believer is adjured to stand fast in the ancient ways. [ ] at a pinch he is to "consider what reason says; which surely, as well as scripture, was given us for religious ends"; [ ] but the only "reason" thus recognized is one which accepts the whole apparatus of revelation. previous to and alongside of this single-minded reversion to the ideals of the dark ages--a phenomenon not unconnected with the revival of romanticism by scott and chateaubriand--there was going on a movement of modernism, of which one of the overt traces is milman's history of the jews ( ), a work to-day regarded as harmless even by the orthodox, but sufficient in its time to let newman see whither religious "liberalism" was heading. other and later researches dug much deeper into the problems of religious historiography. the unitarian c. c. hennell produced an inquiry concerning the origin of christianity ( ), so important for its time as to be thought worth translating into german by strauss; and this found a considerable response from the educated english public of its day. in the preface to his second edition ( ) hennell spoke very plainly of "the large and probably increasing amount of unbelief in all classes around us"; and made the then remarkably courageous declarations that in his experience "neither deism, pantheism, nor even atheism indicates modes of thought incompatible with uprightness and benevolence"; and that "the real or affected horror which it is still a prevailing custom to exhibit towards their names would be better reserved for those of the selfish, the cruel, the bigot, and other tormentors of mankind." it was in the circle of hennell that marian evans, later to become famous as george eliot, grew into a rationalist in despite of her religious temperament; and it was she who, when hennell's bride gave up the task, undertook the toil of translating strauss's leben jesu--though at many points she "thought him wrong." [ ] in the churches he had of course no overt acceptance. at this stage, english orthodoxy was of such a cast that the pious tregelles, himself fiercely opposed to all forms of rationalism, had to complain that the most incontrovertible corrections of the current text of the new testament were angrily denounced. [ ] in the next generation theodore parker in the united states, developing his critical faculty chiefly by study of the germans, at the cost of much obloquy forced some knowledge of critical results and a measure of theistic or pantheistic rationalism on the attention of the orthodox world; promoting at the same time a semi-philosophic, semi-ethical reaction against the calvinistic theology of jonathan edwards, theretofore prevalent among the orthodox of new england. in the old country a number of writers developed new movements of criticism from theistic points of view. f. w. newman, the scholarly brother of john henry, [ ] produced a book entitled the soul ( ), and another, phases of faith ( ), which had much influence in promoting rationalism of a rather rigidly theistic cast. r. w. mackay in the same period published two learned treatises, a sketch of the rise and progress of christianity ( ), notably scientific in method for its time; and the progress of the intellect as exemplified in the religious development of the greeks and hebrews ( ), which won the admiration of buckle; "george eliot" translated feuerbach's essence of christianity ( ) under her own name, marian evans; and w. r. greg, one of the leading publicists of his day, put forth a rationalist study of the creed of christendom: its foundations contrasted with its superstructure ( ), which has gone through many editions and is still reprinted. in appeared the prophet of nazareth, by evan powell meredith, who had been a baptist minister in wales. the book is a bulky prize essay on the theme of new testament eschatology, which develops into a deistic attack on the central christian dogma and on gospel ethics. another zealous theist, thomas scott, whose pamphlet-propaganda on deistic lines had so wide an influence during many years, produced an english life of jesus ( ), which, though less important than the works of strauss and less popular than those of renan, played a considerable part in the disintegration of the traditional faith among english churchmen. still the primacy in critical research on scholarly lines lay with the germans; and it was the results of their work that were co-ordinated, from a theistic standpoint, [ ] in the anonymous work, supernatural religion ( - ), a massive and decisive performance, too powerful to be disposed of by the episcopal and other attacks made upon it. [ ] since its assimilation the orthodox or inspirationist view of the gospels has lost credit among competent scholars even within the churches. the battleground is now removed to the problem of the historicity of the ostensible origins of the cult; and scholarly orthodoxy takes for granted many positions which fifty years ago were typical of "german rationalism." . in france systematic criticism of the sacred books recommenced in the second half of the century with such writings as those of p. larroque (examen critique des doctrines de la religion chrétienne, ); gustave d'eichthal (les Évangiles, ptie. i, ); and alphonse peyrat (histoire élémentaire et critique de jésus, ); whereafter the rationalistic view was applied with singular literary charm, if with imperfect consistency, by renan in his series of seven volumes on the origins of christianity, and with more scientific breadth of view by ernest havet in his christianisme et ses origines ( , etc.). renan's vie de jésus ( ) especially has been read throughout the civilized world. it has been quite justly pronounced, by german and other critics, a romance; but no other "life" properly so called has been anything else, strauss's first life being an analysis rather than a construction; and the epithet was but an unwitting avowal that to accept the gospels, barring miracles, as biography--which is what renan did--is to be committed to the unhistorical. he began by accepting the fourth as equipollent with the synoptics; and upon this strauss in his second life confidently called for a recantation, which came in due course. but renan, in his fitful way, had critical glimpses which were denied to strauss--for instance, as to the material of the sermon on the mount. the whole series of the origines, which wound up with marc aurèle ( ), has a similar fluctuating value, showing on the whole a progressive critical sense. the saint paul, for example, at the close suddenly discards the traditional view previously accepted in les apôtres, and recognizes that the ministry of paul can have been no more than a propaganda of small conventicles, whose total membership throughout the empire could not have been above a thousand. but renan's total service consisted rather in a highly artistic and winning application of rational historical methods to early christian history, with the effect of displacing the traditionist method, than in any lasting or comprehensive solution of the problem of the origins. havet's survey is both corrective and complementary to his. renan's influence on opinion throughout the world, however, was enormous, were it only because he was one of the most finished literary artists of his time. section .--poetry and general literature . the whole imaginative literature of europe, in the generation after the french revolution, reveals directly or indirectly the transmutation that the eighteenth century had worked in religious thought. either it reacts against or it develops the rationalistic movement. in france the literary reaction is one of the first factors in the orthodox revival. its leader and type was chateaubriand, in whose typical work, the génie du christianisme ( ), lies the proof that, whatever might be the "shallowness" of voltairism, it was profundity beside the philosophy of the majority who repelled it. on one who now reads it with the slightest scientific preparation, the book makes an impression in parts of something like fatuity. the handling of the scientific question at the threshold of the inquiry is that of a man incapable of a scientific idea. all the accumulating evidence of geology and palæontology is disposed of by the grotesque theorem that god made the world out of nothing with all the marks of antiquity upon it--the oaks at the start bearing "last year's nests"--on the ground that, "if the world were not at once young and old, the great, the serious, the moral would disappear from nature, for these sentiments by their essence attach to antique things." [ ] in the same fashion the fable of the serpent is with perfect gravity homologated as a literal truth, on the strength of an anecdote about the charming of a rattlesnake with music. [ ] it is humiliating, but instructive, to realize that only a century ago a "christian reaction," in a civilized country, was inspired by such an order of ideas; and that in the nation of laplace, with his theory in view, it was the fashion thus to prattle in the taste of the dark ages. [ ] the book is merely the eloquent expression of a nervous recoil from everything savouring of cool reason and clear thought, a recoil partly initiated by the sheer stress of excitement of the near past; partly fostered by the vague belief that freethinking in religion had caused the revolution; partly enhanced by the tendency of every warlike period to develop emotional rather than reflective life. what was really masterly in chateaubriand was the style; and sentimental pietism had now the prestige of fine writing, so long the specialty of the other side. yet a generation of monarchism served to wear out the ill-based credit of the literary reaction; and belles lettres began to be rationalistic as soon as politics began again to be radical. thus the prestige of the neo-christian school was already spent before the revolution of ; [ ] and the inordinate vanity of chateaubriand, who died in that year, had undone his special influence still earlier. he had created merely a literary mode and sentiment. . the literary history of france since his death decides the question, so far as it can be thus decided. from till our own day it has been predominantly naturalistic and non-religious. after guizot and the thierrys, the nearest approach to christianity by an influential french historian is perhaps in the case of the very heterodox edgar quinet. michelet was a mere heretic in the eyes of the faithful, saisset describing his book du prêtre, de la femme, et de la famille ( ), as a "renaissance of voltaireanism." [ ] his whole brilliant history, indeed, is from beginning to end rationalistic, challenging as it does all the decorous traditions, exposing the failure of the faith to civilize, pronouncing that "the monastic middle age is an age of idiots" and the scholastic world which followed it an age of artificially formed fools, [ ] flouting dogma and discrediting creed over each of their miscarriages. [ ] and he was popular, withal, not only because of his vividness and unfailing freshness, but because his convictions were those of the best intelligence around him. in poetry and fiction the predominance of one or other shade of freethinking is signal. balzac, who grew up in the age of reaction, makes essentially for rationalism by his intense analysis; and after him the difficulty is to find a great french novelist who is not frankly rationalistic. george sand will probably not be claimed by orthodoxy; and beyle, constant, flaubert, mérimée, zola, daudet, maupassant, and the de goncourts make a list against which can be set only the names of m. bourget, an artist of the second order, and of the distinguished décadent huysmans, who became a trappist after a life marked by a philosophy and practice of an extremely different complexion. . in french poetry the case is hardly otherwise. béranger, who passed for a voltairean, did indeed claim to have "saved from the wreck an indestructible belief"; [ ] and lamartine goes to the side of christianity; but de musset, the most inspired of décadents, was no more christian than heine, save for what a critic has called "la banale religiosité de l'espoir en dieu", [ ] and the pessimist baudelaire had not even that to show. de musset's absurd attack on voltaire in his byronic poem, rolla, well deserves the same epithets. it is a mere product of hysteria, representing neither knowledge nor reflection. the grandiose theism of victor hugo, again, is stamped only with his own image and superscription; and in his great contemporary leconte de lisle we have one of the most convinced and aggressive freethinkers of the century, a fine scholar and a self-controlled pessimist, who felt it well worth his while to write a little popular history of christianity ( ) which would have delighted d'holbach. it is significant, on the other hand, that the exquisite religious verse of verlaine was the product of an incurable neuropath, like the later work of huysmans, and stands for decadence pure and simple. while french belles lettres thus in general made for rationalism, criticism was naturally not behindhand. sainte-beuve, the most widely appreciative though not the most scientific or just of critics, had only a literary sympathy with the religious types over whom he spent so much effusive research; [ ] edmond scherer was an unbeliever almost against his will; taine, though reactionary on political grounds in his latter years, was the typical french rationalist of his time; and though m. brunetière, whose preferences were all for bossuet, made "the bankruptcy of science" the text of his very facile philosophy, the most scientific and philosophic head in the whole line of french critics, the late Émile hennequin, was wholly a rationalist; and even the rather reactionary jules lemaître did not maintain his early attitude of austerity towards renan. . in england it was due above all to shelley that the very age of reaction was confronted with unbelief in lyric form. his immature queen mab was vital enough with conviction to serve as an inspiration to a whole host of unlettered freethinkers not only in its own generation but in the next. its notes preserved, and greatly expanded, the tract entitled the necessity of atheism, for which he was expelled from oxford; and against his will it became a people's book, the law refusing him copyright in his own work, on the memorable principle that there could be no "protection" for a book setting forth pernicious opinions. whether he might not in later life, had he survived, have passed to a species of mystic christianity, reacting like coleridge, but with a necessary difference, is a question raised by parts of the hellas. gladstone seems to have thought that he had in him such a potentiality. but shelley's work, as done, sufficed to keep for radicalism and rationalism the crown of song as against the final tory orthodoxy [ ] of the elderly wordsworth and of southey; and coleridge's zeal for (amended) dogma came upon him after his hour of poetic transfiguration was past. and even coleridge, who held the heresies of a modal trinity and the non-expiatory character of the death of christ, was widely distrusted by the pious, and expressed himself privately in terms which would have outraged them. miracles, he declared, "are supererogatory. the law of god and the great principles of the christian religion would have been the same had christ never assumed humanity. it is for these things, and for such as these, for telling unwelcome truths, that i have been termed an atheist. it is for these opinions that william smith assured the archbishop of canterbury that i was (what half the clergy are in their lives) an atheist. little do these men know what atheism is. not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an atheist. i repeat it. not one man in ten thousand has goodness of heart or strength of mind to be an atheist." allsopp's letters, etc., as cited, p. . but at other times coleridge was a defender of the faith, while contemning the methods of the evidential school. id. pp. - , . on the other side, scott's honest but unintellectual romanticism, as we know from newman, certainly favoured the tractarian reaction, to which it was æsthetically though hardly emotionally akin. yet george eliot could say in later life that it was the influence of scott that first unsettled her orthodoxy; [ ] meaning, doubtless, that the prevailing secularity of his view of life and his objective handling of sects and faiths excluded even a theistic solution. scott's orthodoxy was in fact nearly on all fours with his jacobitism--a matter of temperamental loyalty to a tradition. [ ] but the far more potent influence of byron, too wayward to hold a firm philosophy, but too intensely alive to realities to be capable of scott's feudal orthodoxy, must have counted much for heresy even in england, and was one of the literary forces of revolutionary revival for the whole of europe. though he never came to a clear atheistical decision as did shelley, [ ] and often in private gave himself out for a calvinist, he so handled theological problems in his cain that he, like shelley, was refused copyright in his work; [ ] and it was widely appropriated for freethinkers' purposes. the orthodox southey was on the same grounds denied the right to suppress his early revolutionary drama, wat tyler, which accordingly was made to do duty in radical propaganda by freethinking publishers. keats, again, though he melodiously declaimed, in a boyish mood, against the scientific analysis of the rainbow, and though he never assented to shelley's impeachments of christianity, was in no active sense a believer in it, and after his long sickness met death gladly without the "consolations" ascribed to creed. [ ] . one of the best-beloved names in english literature, charles lamb, is on several counts to be numbered with those of the freethinkers of his day--who included godwin and hazlitt--though he had no part in any direct propaganda. himself at most a unitarian, but not at all given to argument on points of faith, he did his work for reason partly by way of the subtle and winning humanism of such an essay as new year's eve, which seems to have been what brought upon him the pedantically pious censure of southey, apparently for its lack of allusion to a future state; partly by his delicately-entitled letter, the tombs in the abbey, in which he replied to southey's stricture. "a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it is original" had been southey's pompous criticism, in a paper on infidelity. [ ] in his reply, lamb commented on southey's life-long habit of scoffing at the church of rome, and gravely repudiated the test of orthodoxy for human character. lamb's words are not generally known, and are worth remembering. "i own," he wrote, "i never could think so considerably of myself as to decline the society of an agreeable or worthy man upon difference of opinion only. the impediments and the facilitations to a sound belief are various and inscrutable as the heart of man. some believe upon weak principles; others cannot feel the efficacy of the strongest. one of the most candid, most upright, and single-meaning men i ever knew was the late thomas holcroft. i believe he never said one thing and meant another in his life; and, as near as i can guess, he never acted otherwise than with the most scrupulous attention to conscience. ought we to wish the character false for the sake of a hollow compliment to christianity?" of the freethinking and unpopular hazlitt, who had soured towards lamb in his perverse way, the essayist spoke still more generously. of leigh hunt he speaks more critically, but with the same resolution to stand by a man known as a heretic. but the severest flout to southey and his church is in the next paragraph, where, after the avowal that "the last sect with which you can remember me to have made common profession were the unitarians," he tells how, on the previous easter sunday, he had attended the service in westminster abbey, and when he would have lingered afterwards among the tombs to meditate, was "turned, like a dog or some profane person, out into the common street, with feelings which i could not help, but not very congenial to the day or the discourse. i do not know," he adds, "that i shall ever venture myself again into one of your churches." these words were published in the london magazine in ; but in the posthumous collected edition of the essays of elia all the portions above cited were dropped, and the paragraph last quoted from was modified, leaving out the last words. the essay does not seem to have been reprinted in full till it appeared in r. h. shepherd's edition of . but the original issue in the london magazine created a tradition among the lovers of lamb, and his name has always been associated with some repute for freethinking. there is further very important testimony as to lamb's opinions in one of allsopp's records of the conversation of coleridge:-- "no, no; lamb's skepticism has not come lightly, nor is he a skeptic [sic: query, scoffer?]. the harsh reproof to godwin for his contemptuous allusion to christ before a well-trained child proves that he is not a skeptic [? scoffer]. his mind, never prone to analysis, seems to have been disgusted with the hollow pretences, the false reasonings and absurdities of the rogues and fools with whom all establishments, and all creeds seeking to become established, abound. i look upon lamb as one hovering between earth and heaven; neither hoping much nor fearing anything. it is curious that he should retain many usages which he learnt or adopted in the fervour of his early religious feelings, now that his faith is in a state of suspended animation. believe me, who know him well, that lamb, say what he will, has more of the essentials of christianity than ninety-nine out of a hundred professing christians. he has all that would still have been christian had christ never lived or been made manifest upon earth." (allsopp's letters, etc., as cited, p. .) in connection with the frequently cited anecdote as to lamb's religious feeling given in leigh hunt's autobiography (rep. p. ), also by hazlitt (winterslow, essay ii, ed. , p. ), may be noted the following, given by allsopp: "after a visit to coleridge, during which the conversation had taken a religious turn, leigh hunt ... expressed his surprise that such a man as coleridge should, when speaking of christ, always call him our saviour. lamb, who had been exhilarated by one glass of that gooseberry or raisin cordial which he has so often anathematized, stammered out: 'ne-ne-never mind what coleridge says; he is full of fun.'" . while a semi-bohemian like lamb could thus dare to challenge the reigning bigotry, the graver english writers of the first half of the century who had abandoned or never accepted orthodoxy felt themselves for the most part compelled to silence or ostensible compliance. it was made clear by carlyle's posthumous reminiscences that he had early turned away from christian dogma, having in fact given up a clerical career because of unbelief. later evidence abounds. at the age of fifteen, by his own account, he had horrified his mother with the question: "did god almighty come down and make wheel-barrows in a shop?" [ ] of his college life he told: "i studied the evidences of christianity for several years, with the greatest desire to be convinced, but in vain. i read gibbon, and then first clearly saw that christianity was not true. then came the most trying time of my life." [ ] goethe, he claimed, led him to peace; but philosophic peace he never attained. "he was contemptuous to those who held to christian dogmas; he was angry with those who gave them up; he was furious with those who attacked them. if equanimity be the mark of a philosopher, he was of all great-minded men the least of a philosopher." [ ] to all freethinking work, scholarly or other, he was hostile with the hostility of a man consciously in a false position. strauss's leben jesu he pronounced, quite late in life, "a revolutionary and ill-advised enterprise, setting forth in words what all wise men had in their minds for fifty years past, and thought it fittest to hold their peace about." [ ] he was, in fact, so false to his own doctrine of veracity as to disparage all who spoke out; while privately agreeing with mill as to the need for speaking out. [ ] even mill did so only partially in his lifetime, as in his address to the st. andrews students ( ), when, "in the reception given to the address, he was most struck by the vociferous applause of the divinity students at the freethought passage." [ ] in the first half of the century such displays of courage were rare indeed. only after the death of romilly was it tacitly avowed, by the publication of a deistic prayer found among his papers, that he had had no belief in revelation. [ ] much later in the century, harriet martineau, for openly avowing her unbelief, incurred the angry public censure of her own brother. despite his anxious caution, carlyle's writing conveyed to susceptible readers a non-christian view of things. we know from a posthumous writing of mr. froude's that, when that writer had gone through the university and taken holy orders without ever having had a single doubt as to his creed, carlyle's books "taught him that the religion in which he had been reared was but one of many dresses in which spiritual truth had arrayed itself, and that the creed was not literally true so far as it was a narrative of facts." [ ] it was presumably from the sartor resartus and some of the essays, such as that on voltaire--perhaps, also, negatively from the general absence of christian sentiment in carlyle's works--that such lessons were learned; and though it is certain that many non-zealous christians saw no harm in carlyle, there is reason to believe that for multitudes of readers he had the same awakening virtue. it need hardly be said that his friend emerson exercised it in no less degree. mr. froude was remarkable in his youth for his surrender of the clerical profession, in the teeth of a bitter opposition from his family, and further for his publication of a freethinking romance, the nemesis of faith ( ); but he went far to conciliate anglican orthodoxy by his history. the romance had a temporary vogue rather above its artistic merits as a result of being publicly burned by the authorities of exeter college, oxford, of which he was a fellow. [ ] . this attitude of orthodoxy, threatening ostracism to any avowed freethinker who had a position to lose, must be kept in mind in estimating the english evolution of that time. a professed man of science could write in that "the new mode of interpreting the scriptures which has sprung up in germany is the darkest cloud which lowers upon the horizon of that country.... the germans have been conducted by some of their teachers to the borders of a precipice, one leap from which will plunge them into deism." he added that in various parts of europe "the heaviest calamity impending over the whole fabric of society in our time is the lengthening stride of bold skepticism in some parts, and the more stealthy onwards-creeping step of critical cavil in others." [ ] such declamation could terrorize the timid and constrain the prudent in such a society as that of early victorian england. the prevailing note is struck in macaulay's description of charles blount as "an infidel, and the head of a small school of infidels who were troubled with a morbid desire to make converts." [ ] all the while, macaulay was himself privately "infidel"; [ ] but he cleared his conscience by thus denouncing those who had the courage of their opinions. in this simple fashion some of the sanest writers in history were complacently put below the level of the commonplace dissemblers who aspersed them; and the average educated man saw no baseness in the procedure. the opinion deliberately expressed in this connection by the late professor bain is worth noting:-- "it can at last be clearly seen what was the motive of carlyle's perplexing style of composition. we now know what his opinions were when he began to write, and that to express them would have been fatal to his success; yet he was not a man to indulge in rank hypocrisy. he accordingly adopted a studied and ambiguous phraseology, which for long imposed upon the religious public, who put their own interpretation upon his mystical utterances, and gave him the benefit of any doubt. in the life of sterling he threw off the mask, but still was not taken at his word. had there been a perfect tolerance of all opinions, he would have begun as he ended; and his strain of composition, while still mystical and high-flown, would never have been identified with our national orthodoxy. "i have grave doubts as to whether we possess macaulay's real opinions on religion. his way of dealing with the subject is so like the hedging of an unbeliever that, without some good assurance to the contrary, i must include him also among the imitators of aristotle's 'caution.'... "when sir charles lyell brought out his antiquity of man, he too was cautious. knowing the dangers of his footing, he abstained from giving an estimate of the extension of time required by the evidences of human remains. society in london, however, would not put up with this reticence, and he had to disclose at dinner parties what he had withheld from the public--namely, that in his opinion the duration of man could not be less than , years" (practical essays, p. .) . thus for a whole generation honest and narrow-minded believers were trained to suppose that their views were triumphant over all attacks, [ ] and to see in "infidelity" a disease of an ill-informed past; and as the church had really gained in conventional culture as well as in wealth and prestige in the period of reaction, the power of mere convention to override ideas was still enormous. but through the whole stress of reaction and conservatism, even apart from the positive criticism of creed which from time to time forced its head up, there is a visible play of a new spirit in the most notable of the serious writing of the time. carlyle undermined orthodoxy even in his asseveration of unreasoned theism; emerson disturbs it alike when he acclaims mystics and welcomes evolutionary science; and the whole inspiration of mill's logic no less than of his liberty is something alien to the principle of authority. of ruskin, again, the same may be asserted in respect of his many searching thrusts at clerical and lay practice, his defence of colenso, and the obvious disappearance from his later books of the evangelical orthodoxy of the earlier. [ ] thus the most celebrated writers of serious english prose in the latter half of the century were in a measure associated with the spirit of critical thought on matters religious. in a much stronger degree the same thing may be predicated finally of the writer who in the field of english belles lettres, apart from fiction, came nearest them in fame and influence. matthew arnold, passing insensibly from the english attitude of academic orthodoxy to that of the humanist for whom christ is but an admirable teacher and god a "something not ourselves which makes for righteousness," became for the england of his later years the favourite pilot across the bar between supernaturalism and naturalism. only in england, perhaps, could his curious gospel of church-going and bible-reading atheism have prospered, but there it prospered exceedingly. alike as poet and as essayist, even when essaying to disparage colenso or to confute the germans where they jostled his predilection for the fourth gospel, he was a disintegrator of tradition, and, in his dogmatic way, a dissolver of dogmatism. when, therefore, beside the four names just mentioned the british public placed those of the philosophers spencer, lewes, and mill, and the scientists darwin, huxley, clifford, and tyndall, they could not but recognize that the mind of the age was divorced from the nominal faith of the church. . in english fiction, the beginning of the end of genuine faith was apparent to the prophetic eyes of wilberforce and robert hall, of whom the former lamented the total absence of christian sentiment from nearly all the successful fiction even of his day; [ ] and the latter avowed the pain with which he noted that miss edgeworth, whom he admired for her style and art, put absolutely no religion in her books, [ ] while hannah more, whose principles were so excellent, had such a vicious style. with thackeray and dickens, indeed, serious fiction might seem to be on the side of faith, both being liberally orthodox, though neither ventured on religious romance; but with george eliot the balance began to lean the other way, her sympathetic treatment of religious types counting for little as against her known rationalism. at the end of the century almost all of the leading writers of the higher fiction were known to be either rationalists or simple theists; and against the heavy metal of mr. meredith, mr. conrad, mr. hardy, mr. bennett, mr. moore (whose sympathetic handling of religious motives suggests the influence of huysmans), and the didactic-deistic mrs. humphry-ward, orthodoxy can but claim artists of the third or lower grades. the championship of some of the latter may be regarded as the last humiliation of faith. in there was current a vulgar novel entitled when it was dark, wherein was said to be drawn a blood-curdling picture of what would happen in the event of a general surrender of christian faith. despite some episcopal approbation, the book excited much disgust among the more enlightened clergy. the preface to miss marie corelli's mighty atom may serve to convey to the many readers who cannot peruse the works of that lady an idea of the temper in which she vindicates her faith. another popular novelist of a low artistic grade, the late mr. seton-merriman, has avowed his religious soundness in a romance with a russian plot, entitled the sowers. referring to the impressions produced by great scenes of nature, he writes: "these places and these times are good for convalescent atheists and such as pose as unbelievers--the cheapest form of notoriety" (p. ). the novelist's own christian ethic is thus indicated: "he had jewish blood in his veins, which ... carried with it the usual tendency to cringe. it is in the blood; it is part of that which the people who stood without pilate's palace took upon themselves and their children" (p. ). but the enormous mass of modern novels includes some tolerable pleas for faith, as well as many manifestoes of agnosticism. one of the works of the late "edna lyall," we two, was notable as the expression of the sympathy of a devout, generous, and amiable christian lady with the personality and career of mr. bradlaugh. . among the most artistically gifted of the english story-writers and essayists of the last generation of the century was richard jefferies (d. ), who in the story of my heart ( ) has told how "the last traces and relics of superstitions acquired compulsorily in childhood" finally passed away from his mind, leaving him a naturalist in every sense of the word. in the eulogy of richard jefferies published by sir walter besant in it is asserted that on his deathbed jefferies returned to his faith, and "died listening with faith and love to the words contained in the old book." a popular account of this "conversion" accordingly became current, and was employed to the usual purpose. as has been shown by a careful student, and as was admitted on inquiry by sir walter besant, there had been no conversion whatever, jefferies having simply listened to his wife's reading without hinting at any change in his convictions. [ ] despite his biographer's express admission of his error, christian journals, such as the spectator, have burked the facts; one, the christian, has piously charged dishonesty on the writer who brought them to light; and a third, the salvationist war cry, has pronounced his action "the basest form of chicanery and falsehood." [ ] the episode is worth noting as indicating the qualities which still attach to orthodox propaganda. . though shelley was anathema to english christians in his own clay, his fame and standing steadily rose in the generations after his death. nor has the balance of english poetry ever reverted to the side of faith. even tennyson, who more than once struck at rationalism below the belt, is in his own despite the poet of doubt as much as of credence, however he might wilfully attune himself to the key of faith; and the unparalleled optimism of browning evolved a form of christianity sufficiently alien to the historic creed. [ ] in clough and matthew arnold, again, we have the positive record of surrendered faith. alongside of arnold, swinburne put into his verse the freethinking temper that leconte de lisle reserved for prose; and the ill-starred but finely gifted james thomson ("b.v.") was no less definitely though despairingly an unbeliever. among our later poets, finally, the balance is pretty much the same. mr. watson has declared in worthily noble diction for a high agnosticism, and the late john davidson defied orthodox ethics in the name of his very antinomian theology; [ ] while on the side of the regulation religion--since mr. yeats is but a stray druid--can be cited at best the regimental psalmody of mr. kipling, lyrist of trumpet and drum; the stained-glass mariolatries of the late francis thompson; the declamatory orthodoxy of mr. noyes; and the godism of w. e. henley, whereat the prosaic godly look askance. . of the imaginative literature of the united states, as of that of england, the same generalization broadly holds good. the incomparable hawthorne, whatever his psychological sympathy with the puritan past, wrought inevitably by his art for the loosening of its intellectual hold; poe, though he did not venture till his days of downfall to write his eureka, thereby proves himself an entirely non-christian theist; and emerson's poetry, no less than his prose, constantly expresses his pantheism; while his gifted disciple thoreau, in some ways a more stringent thinker than his master, was either a pantheist or a lucretian theist, standing aloof from all churches. [ ] the economic conditions of american life have till recently been unfavourable to the higher literature, as apart from fiction; but the unique figure of walt whitman stands for a thoroughly naturalistic view of life; [ ] mr. howells appears to be at most a theist; mr. henry james has not even exhibited the bias of his gifted brother to the theism of their no less gifted father; and some of the most esteemed men of letters since the civil war, as dr. wendell holmes and colonel wentworth higginson, have been avowedly on the side of rationalism, or, as the term goes in the states, "liberalism." though the tone of ordinary conversation is more often reminiscent of religion in the united states than in england, the novel and the newspaper have been perhaps more thoroughly secularized there than here; and in the public honour done to so thorough a rationalist as the late dr. moncure conway at the hands of his alma mater, the dickinson college, west virginia, may be seen the proof that the official orthodoxy of his youth has disappeared from the region of his birth. . of the vast modern output of belles lettres in continental europe, finally, a similar account is to be given. the supreme poet of modern italy, leopardi, is one of the most definitely rationalistic as well as one of the greatest philosophic poets in literature; carducci, the greatest of his successors, was explicitly anti-christian; and despite all the claims of the catholic socialists, there is little modern catholic literature in italy of any european value. one of the most distinguished of modern italian scholars, professor a. de gubernatis, has in his letture sopra la mitologia vedica ( ) explicitly treated the christian legend as a myth. in germany we have seen goethe and schiller distinctly counting for naturalism; and of jean paul richter ( - ) an orthodox historian declares that his "religion was a chaotic fermenting of the mind, out of which now deism, then christianity, then a new religion, seems to come forth." [ ] the naturalistic line is found to be continued in heinrich von kleist, the unhappy but masterly dramatist of der zerbrochene krug, one of the truest geniuses of his time; and above all in heine, whose characteristic profession of reconciling himself on his deathbed with the deity he imaged as "the aristophanes of heaven" [ ] serves so scantily to console the orthodox lovers of his matchless song. his criticism of kant and fichte is a sufficient clue to his serious convictions; and that "god is all that there is" [ ] is the sufficient expression of his pantheism. the whole purport of his brilliant sketch of the history of religion and philosophy in germany ( ; nd ed. ) is a propaganda of the very spirit of freethinking, which constitutes for germany at once a literary classic and a manifesto of rationalism. as he himself said of the return of the aged schelling to catholicism, we may say of heine, that a deathbed reversion to early beliefs is a pathological phenomenon. the use latterly made of heine's deathbed re-conversion by orthodoxy in england is characteristic. the late letters and conversations in which he said edifying things of god and the bible are cited for readers who know nothing of the context, and almost as little of the speaker. he had similarly praised the bible in (letter of july, in b. iii of his volume on börne--werke, vii, ). to the reader of the whole it is clear that, while heine's verbal renunciation of his former pantheism, and his characterization of the pantheistic position as a "timid atheism," might have been made independently of his physical prostration, his profession of the theism at which he had formerly scoffed is only momentarily serious, even at a time when such a reversion would have been in no way surprising. his return to and praise of the bible, the book of his childhood, during years of extreme suffering and utter helplessness, was in the ordinary way of physiological reaction. but inasmuch as his thinking faculty was never extinguished by his tortures, he chronically indicated that his religious talk was a half-conscious indulgence of the overstrained emotional nature, and substantially an exercise of his poetic feeling--always as large a part of his psychosis as his reasoning faculty. even in deathbed profession he was neither a jew nor a christian, his language being that of a deism "scarcely distinguishable in any essential element from that of voltaire or diderot" (strodtmann, heine's leben und werke, te aufl. ii, ). "my religious convictions and views," he writes in the preface to the late romancero, "remain free of all churchism.... i have abjured nothing, not even my old heathen gods, from whom i have parted in love and friendship." in his will he peremptorily forbade any clerical procedure at his funeral; and his feeling on that side is revealed in his sad jests to his friend meissner in . "if i could only go out on crutches!" he exclaimed; adding: "do you know where i should go? straight to church." on his friends expressing disbelief, he went on: "certainly, to church! where should a man go on crutches? naturally, if i could walk without crutches, i should go to the laughing boulevards or the jardin mabille." the story is told in england without the conclusion, as a piece of "christian evidence." but even as to his theism heine was never more than wilfully and poetically a believer. in we find him jesting about "god" and "the gods," declaring he will not offend the lieber gott, whose vultures he knows and respects. "opium is also a religion," he writes in . "christianity is useless for the healthy ... for the sick it is a very good religion." "if the german people in their need accept the king of prussia, why should not i accept the personal god?" and in speaking of the postscript to the romancero he writes in : "alas, i had neither time nor mood to say there what i wanted--namely, that i die as a poet, who needs neither religion nor philosophy, and has nothing to do with either. the poet understands very well the symbolic idiom of religion, and the abstract jargon of philosophy; but neither the religious gentry nor those of philosophy will ever understand the poet." a few weeks before his death he signs a new year letter, "nebuchadnezzar ii, formerly prussian atheist, now lotosflower-adorer." at this time he was taking immense doses of morphia to make his tortures bearable. a few hours before his death a querying pietist got from him the answer: "god will pardon me; it is his business." the geständnisse, written in , ends in absolute irony; and his alleged grounds for giving up atheism, sometimes quoted seriously, are purely humorous (werke, iv, ). if it be in any sense true, as he tells in the preface to the romancero, that "the high clerisy of atheism pronounced its anathema" over him--that is to say, that former friends denounced him as a weak turncoat--it needed only the publication of his life and letters to enable freethinkers to take an entirely sympathetic view of his case, which may serve as a supreme example of "the martyrdom of man." on the whole question see strodtmann, as cited, ii, sq., and the geständnisse, which should be compared with the earlier written fragments of briefe über deutschland (werke, iii, ), where there are some significant variations in statements of fact. since heine, german belles lettres has not been a first-rate influence in europe; but some of the leading novelists, as auerbach and heyse, are well known to have shared in the rational philosophy of their age; and the christianity of wagner, whose precarious support to the cause of faith has been welcomed chiefly by its heteroclite adherents, counts for nothing in the critical scale. [ ] . but perhaps the most considerable evidence, in belles lettres, of the predominance of rationalism in modern europe is to be found in the literary history of the scandinavian states and russia. the russian development indeed had gone far ere the modern scandinavian literatures had well begun. already in the first quarter of the century the poet poushkine was an avowed heretic; and gogol even let his art suffer from his preoccupations with the new humanitarian ideas; while the critic biélinsky, classed by tourguénief as the lessing of russia, [ ] was pronouncedly rationalistic, [ ] as was his contemporary the critic granovsky, [ ] reputed the finest russian stylist of his day. at this period belles lettres stood for every form of intellectual influence in russia, [ ] and all educated thought was moulded by it. the most perfect artistic result is the fiction of the freethinker tourguénief, [ ] the sophocles of the modern novel. his two great contemporaries, dostoyevsky and tolstoy, count indeed for supernaturalism; but the truly wonderful genius of the former was something apart from his philosophy, which was merely childlike; and the latter, the least masterly if the most strenuous artist of the three, made his religious converts in russia chiefly among the uneducated, and was in any case sharply antagonistic to orthodox christianity. it does not appear that the younger writer, potapenko, a fine artist, is orthodox, despite his extremely sympathetic presentment of a superior priest; and the still younger gorky is an absolute naturalist. . in the scandinavian states, again, there are hardly any exceptions to the freethinking tendency among the leading living men of letters. in the person of the abnormal religionist sören kierkegaard ( - ) a new force of criticism began to stir in denmark. setting out as a theologian, kierkegaard gradually developed, always on quasi-religious lines, into a vehement assailant of conventional christianity, somewhat in the spirit of pascal, somewhat in that of feuerbach, again in that of ruskin; and in a temper recalling now a berserker and now a hebrew prophet. the general effect of his teaching may be gathered from the mass of the work of henrik ibsen, who was his disciple, and in particular from ibsen's brand, of which the hero is partly modelled on kierkegaard. [ ] ibsen, though his brand was counted to him for righteousness by the churches, showed himself a thorough-going naturalist in all his later work; björnson was an active freethinker; the eminent danish critic, georg brandes, early avowed himself to the same effect; and his brother, the dramatist, edward brandes, was elected to the danish parliament in despite his declaration that he believed in neither the christian nor the jewish god. most of the younger littérateurs of norway and sweden seem to be of the same cast of thought. section .--the natural sciences . the power of intellectual habit and tradition had preserved among the majority of educated men, to the end of the eighteenth century, a notion of deity either slightly removed from that of the ancient hebrews or ethically purified without being philosophically transformed, though the astronomy of copernicus, galileo, and newton had immensely modified the hebraic conception of the physical universe. we have seen that newton did not really hold by the christian scheme--he wrote, at times, in fact, as a pantheist--but some later astronomers seem to have done so. when, however, the great laplace developed the nebular hypothesis, previously guessed at by bruno and outlined by kant, orthodox psychological habit was rudely shaken as regards the biblical account of creation; and like every other previous advance in physical science this was denounced as atheistic [ ]--which, as we know, it was, laplace having declared in reply to napoleon that he had no need of the god hypothesis. confirmed in essentials by all subsequent science, laplace's system widens immensely the gulf between modern cosmology and the historic theism of the christian era; and the subsequent concrete developments of astronomy, giving as they do such an insistent and overwhelming impression of physical infinity, have made the "christian hypothesis" [ ] fantastic save for minds capable of enduring any strain on the sense of consistency. paine had brought the difficulty vividly home to the common intelligence; and though the history of orthodoxy is a history of the success of institutions and majorities in imposing incongruous conformities, the perception of the incongruity on this side must have been a force of disintegration. the freethinking of the french astronomers of the revolution period marks a decisive change; and as early as we find in a work on jewish antiquities by a scotch clergyman a very plain indication [ ] of disbelief in the hebrew story of the stopping of the sun and moon, or (alternatively) of the rotation of the earth. it is typical of the tenacity of religious delusion that a quarter of a century later this among other irrational credences was contended for by the swiss theologian gaussen, [ ] and by the orthodox majority elsewhere, when for all scientifically trained men they had become untenable. and that the general growth of scientific thought was disintegrating among scientific men the old belief in miracles may be gathered from an article, remarkable in its day, which appeared in the edinburgh review of january, (no. ), and was "universally attributed to prof. leslie," [ ] the distinguished physicist. reviewing the argument of laplace's essay, sur les probabilités, it substantially endorsed the thesis of hume that miracles cannot be proved by any testimony. leslie's own case is one of the milestones marking the slow recovery of progress in britain after the revolution. his appointment to the chair of mathematics, after playfair, at edinburgh university in was bitterly resisted by the orthodox on the score that he was a disbeliever in miracles and an "infidel" of the school of hume, who had been his personal friend. nevertheless he again succeeded playfair in the chair of physics in , and was knighted in . the invention of the hygrometer and the discovery of the relations of light and heat had begun to count for more in science than the profession of orthodoxy. . from france came likewise the impulse to a naturalistic handling of biology, long before the day of darwin. the protagonist in this case was the physician p.-j.-g. cabanis ( - ), the colleague of laplace in the school of sciences. growing up in the generation of the revolution, cabanis had met, in the salon of madame helvétius, d'holbach, diderot, d'alembert, condorcet, laplace, condillac, volney, franklin, and jefferson, and became the physician of mirabeau. his treatise on the rapports du physique et du morale de l'homme ( - ) [ ] might be described as the systematic application to psychology of that "positive" method to which all the keenest thought of the eighteenth century had been tending, yet with much of the literary or rhetorical tone by which the french writers of that age had nearly all been characterized. for cabanis, the psychology of helvétius and condillac had been hampered by their ignorance of physiology; [ ] and he easily put aside the primary errors, such as the "equality of minds" and the entity of "the soul," which they took over from previous thinkers. his own work is on the whole the most searching and original handling of the main problems of psycho-physiology that had yet been achieved; and to this day its suggestiveness has not been exhausted. but cabanis, in his turn, made the mistake of helvétius and condillac. not content with presenting the results of his study in the province in which he was relatively master, he undertook to reach ultimate truth in those of ethics and philosophy, in which he was not so. in the preface to the rapports he lays down an emphatically agnostic conviction as to final causes: "ignorance the most invincible," he declares, is all that is possible to man on that issue. [ ] but not only does he in his main work freely and loosely generalize on the phenomena of history and overleap the ethical problem: he penned shortly before his death a lettre sur les causes premières, addressed to fauriel, [ ] in which the aging intelligence is seen reverting to à priori processes, and concluding in favour of a "sort of stoic pantheism" [ ] with a balance towards normal theism and a belief in immortality. the final doctrine did not in the least affect the argument of the earlier, which was simply one of positive science; but the clerical world, which had in the usual fashion denounced the scientific doctrine, not on the score of any attack by cabanis upon religion, but because of its incompatibility with the notion of the soul, naturally made much of the mystical, [ ] and accorded its framer authority from that moment. as for the conception of "vitalism" put forward in the letter to fauriel by way of explanation of the phenomena of life, it is but a reversion to the earlier doctrine of stahl, of which cabanis had been a partisan in his youth. [ ] the fact remains that he gave an enduring impulse to positive science, [ ] his own final vacillation failing to arrest the employment of the method he had inherited and improved. most people know him solely through one misquotation, the famous phrase that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." this is not only an imperfect statement of his doctrine: it suppresses precisely the idea by which cabanis differentiates from pure "sensationalism." what he taught was that "impressions, reaching the brain, set it in activity, as aliments reaching the stomach excite it to a more abundant secretion of gastric juice.... the function proper to the first is to perceive particular impressions, to attach to them signs, to combine different impressions, to separate them, to draw from them judgments and determinations, as the function of the second is to act on nutritive substances," etc. [ ] it is after this statement of the known processus, and after pointing out that there is as much of pure inference in the one case as in the other, that he concludes: "the brain in a manner digests impressions, and makes organically the secretion of thought" and this conclusion, he points out, disposes of the difficulty of those who "cannot conceive how judging, reasoning, imagining, can ever be anything else than feeling. the difficulty ceases when one recognizes, in these different operations, the action of the brain upon the impressions which are passed on to it." the doctrine is, in short, an elementary truth of psychological science, as distinguished from the pseudo-science of the ego considered as an entity. to that pseudo-science cabanis gave a vital wound; and his derided formula is for true science to-day almost a truism. the attacks made upon his doctrine in the next generation only served to emphasize anew the eternal dilemma of theism. on the one hand his final "vitalism" was repugnant to those who, on traditional lines, insisted upon a distinction between "soul" and "vital force"; on the other hand, those who sought to make a philosophic case for theism against him made the usual plunge into pantheism, and were reproached accordingly by the orthodox. [ ] all that remained was the indisputable "positive" gain. . in england the influence of the french stimulus in physiology was seen even more clearly than that of the great generalization of laplace. professor william lawrence ( - ), the physiologist, published in an introduction to comparative anatomy and physiology, containing some remarks on the nature of life, which elicited from the then famous dr. abernethy a foul attack in his physiological lectures delivered before the college of surgeons. lawrence was charged with belonging to the party of french physiological skeptics whose aim was to "loosen those restraints on which the welfare of mankind depends." [ ] in the introductory lecture of his course of before the college of physicians, lawrence severely retaliated, repudiating the general charge, but reasserting that the dependence of life on organization is as clear as the derivation of daylight from the sun. the war was adroitly carried at once into the enemy's territory in the declaration that "the profound, the virtuous, and fervently pious pascal acknowledged, what all sound theologians maintain, that the immortality of the soul, the great truths of religion, and the fundamental principles of morals cannot be demonstrably proved by mere reason; and that revelation alone is capable of dissipating the uncertainties which perplex those who inquire too curiously into the sources of these important principles. all will acknowledge that, as no other remedy can be so perfect and satisfactory as this, no other can be necessary, if we resort to this with firm faith." [ ] the value of this pronouncement is indicated later in the same volume by subacid allusions to "those who regard the hebrew scriptures as writings composed with the assistance of divine inspiration," and who receive genesis "as a narrative of actual events." indicating various "grounds of doubt respecting inspiration," the lecturer adds that the stories of the naming of the animals and their collection in the ark, "if we are to understand them as applied to the living inhabitants of the whole world, are zoologically impossible." [ ] on the principle then governing such matters lawrence was in , on the score of his heresies, refused copyright in his lectures, which were accordingly reprinted many times in a cheap stereotyped edition, and thus widely diffused. [ ] this hardy attack was reinforced in by the publication of sir t. c. morgan's sketches of the philosophy of life, wherein the physiological materialism of cabanis is quietly but firmly developed, and a typical sentence of his figures as a motto on the title-page. the method is strictly naturalistic, alike on the medical and on the philosophic side; and "vitalism" is argued down as explicitly as is anthropomorphism. [ ] as a whole the book tells notably of the stimulus of recent french thought upon english. . a more general effect, however, was probably wrought by the science of geology, which in a stable and tested form belongs to the nineteenth century. of its theoretic founders in the eighteenth century, werner and dr. james hutton ( - ), the latter and more important [ ] is known from his investigation of the principles of knowledge ( ) to have been consciously a freethinker on more grounds than that of his naturalistic science; and his theory of the world ( ) was duly denounced as atheistic. [ ] whereas the physical infinity of the universe almost forced the orthodox to concede a vast cosmic process of some kind as preceding the shaping of the earth and solar system, the formation of these within six days was one of the plainest assertions in the sacred books; and every system of geology excluded such a conception. as the evidence accumulated, in the hands of men mostly content to deprecate religious opposition, [ ] there was duly evolved the quaint compromise of the doctrine that the biblical six "days" meant six ages--a fantasy still cherished in the pulpit. on the ground of that absurdity, nevertheless, there gradually grew up a new conception of the antiquity of the earth. thus a popular work on geology such as the ancient world, by prof. ansted ( ), could begin with the proposition that "long before the human race had been introduced on the earth this world of ours existed as the habitation of living things different from those now inhabiting its surface." even the thesis of "six ages," and others of the same order, drew upon their supporters angry charges of "infidelity." hugh miller, whose natural gifts for geological research were chronically turned to confusion by his orthodox bias, was repeatedly so assailed, when in point of fact he was perpetually tampering with the facts to salve the scriptures. [ ] of all the inductive sciences geology had been most retarded by the christian canonization of error. [ ] even the plain fact that what is dry land had once been sea was obstinately distorted through centuries, though ovid [ ] had put the observations of pythagoras in the way of all scholars; and though leonardo da vinci had insisted on the visible evidence; nay, deistic habit could keep even voltaire, as we saw, preposterously incredulous on the subject. when the scientific truth began to force its way in the teeth of such authorities as cuvier, who stood for the "mosaic" doctrine, the effect was proportionately marked; and whether or not the suicide of miller ( ) was in any way due to despair on perception of the collapse of his reconciliation of geology with genesis, [ ] the scientific demonstration made an end of revelationism for many. what helped most to save orthodoxy from humiliation on the scientific side was the attitude of men like professor baden powell, whose scientific knowledge and habit of mind moved him to attack the judaism of the bibliolaters in the name of christianity, and in the name of truth to declare that "nothing in geology bears the smallest semblance to any part of the mosaic cosmogony, torture the interpretation to what extent we may." [ ] in this was very bold language. . still more rousing, finally, was the effect of the science of zoology, as placed upon a broad scientific foundation by charles darwin. here again steps had been taken in previous generations on the right path, without any general movement on the part of scientific and educated men. darwin's own grandfather, erasmus darwin, had in his zoonomia ( ) anticipated many of the positions of the french lamarck, who in began developing the views he fully elaborated in , as to the descendance of all existing species from earlier forms. [ ] as early as geoffroy saint-hilaire had begun to suspect that all species are variants on a primordial form of life; and at the same time ( - ) goethe in germany had reached similar convictions. [ ] that views thus reached almost simultaneously in germany, england, and france, at the time of the french revolution, should have to wait for two generations before even meeting the full stress of battle, must be put down as one of the results of the general reaction. saint-hilaire, publishing his views in , was officially overborne by the cuvier school in france. in england, indeed, so late as , we find sir david brewster denouncing the nebular hypothesis: "that dull and dangerous heresy of the age.... an omnipotent arm was required to give the planets their position and motion in space, and a presiding intelligence to assign to them the different functions they had to perform." [ ] and murchison the geologist was no less emphatic against darwinism, which he rejected till his dying day ( ). . other anticipations of darwin's doctrine in england and elsewhere came practically to nothing, [ ] as regarded the general opinion, until robert chambers in published anonymously his vestiges of the natural history of creation, a work which found a wide audience, incurring bitter hostility not only from the clergy but from some specialists who, like huxley, were later to take the evolutionist view on darwin's persuasion. chambers it was that brought the issue within general knowledge; and he improved his position in successive editions. a hostile clerical reader, whewell, admitted of him, in a letter to a less hostile member of his profession, that, "as to the degree of resemblance between the author and the french physiological atheists, he uses reverent phrases: theirs would not be tolerated in england"; adding: "you would be surprised to hear the contempt and abhorrence with which owen and sedgwick speak of the vestiges." [ ] hugh miller, himself accused of "infidelity" for his measure of inductive candour, held a similar tone towards men of greater intellectual rectitude, calling the liberalizing religionists of his day "vermin" and "reptiles," [ ] and classifying as "degraded and lost" [ ] all who should accept the new doctrine of evolution, which, as put by chambers, was then coming forward to evict his own delusions from the field of science. the young max müller, with the certitude born of an entire ignorance of physical science, declared in that the doctrine of a human evolution from lower types "can never be maintained again," and pronounced it an "unhallowed imputation." [ ] . "contempt and abhorrence" had in fact at all times constituted the common christian temper towards every form of critical dissent from the body of received opinion; and only since the contempt, doubled with criticism, began to be in a large degree retorted on the bigots by instructed men has a better spirit prevailed. such a reaction was greatly promoted by the establishment of the darwinian theory. it was after the above-noted preparation, popular and academic, and after the theory of transmutation of species had been definitely pronounced erroneous by the omniscient whewell, [ ] that darwin produced ( ) his irresistible arsenal of arguments and facts, the origin of species, expounding systematically the principle of natural selection, suggested to him by the economic philosophy of malthus, and independently and contemporaneously arrived at by dr. alfred russel wallace. the outcry was enormous; and the church, as always, arrayed itself violently against the new truth. bishop wilberforce pointed out in the quarterly review that "the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of god," [ ] which was perfectly true; and at a famous meeting of the british association in he so travestied the doctrine as to goad huxley into a fierce declaration that he would rather be a descendant of an ape than of a man who (like the bishop) plunged into questions with which he had no real acquaintance, only to obscure them and distract his hearers by appeals to religious prejudice. [ ] the mass of the clergy kept up the warfare of ignorance; but the battle was practically won within twenty years. in france, germany, and the united states leading theologians had made the same suicidal declarations, entitling all men to say that, if evolution proved to be true, christianity was false. professor luthardt, of leipzig, took up the same position as bishop wilberforce, declaring that "the whole superstructure of personal religion is built upon the doctrine of creation"; [ ] leading american theologians pronounced the new doctrine atheistic; and everywhere gross vituperation eked out the theological argument. [ ] . thus the idea of a specific creation of all forms of life by an originating deity--the conception which virtually united the deists and christians of the eighteenth century against the atheists--was at length scientifically exploded. the principle of personal divine rule or providential intervention had now been philosophically excluded successively ( ) from astronomy by the system of newton; ( ) from the science of earth-formation by the system of laplace and the new geology; ( ) from the science of living organisms by the new zoology. it only needed that the deistic conception should be further excluded from the human sciences--from anthropology, from the philosophy of history, and from ethics--to complete, at least in outline, the rationalization of modern thought. not that the process was complete in detail even as regarded zoology. despite the plain implications of the origin of species, the doctrine of the descent of man ( ) came on many as a shocking surprise and evoked a new fury of protest. the lacunæ in darwin, further, had to be supplemented; and much speculative power has been spent on the task by haeckel, without thus far establishing complete agreement. but the desperate stand so long made on the score of the "missing link" seems to have been finally discredited in ; and the judæo-christian doctrine of special creation and providential design appears, even in the imperfectly educated society of our day, to be already a lost cause. as we have seen, however, it was not merely the clerical class that resisted the new truth: the men of science themselves were often disgracefully hostile; and that "class" continued to give a sufficiency of support to clericalism. if the study of the physical sciences be no guarantee for recognition of new truth in those sciences, still less is it a sure preparation for right judgment in matters of sociology, or, indeed, for a courageous attitude towards conventions. spencer in his earlier works used the language of deism [ ] at a time when comte had discarded it. it takes a rare combination of intellectual power, moral courage, and official freedom to permit of such a directly rationalistic propaganda as was carried on by professor clifford, or even such as has been accomplished by president andrew white in america under the comparatively popular profession of deism. it was only in his leisured latter years that huxley carried on a general conflict with orthodoxy. in middle age he frequently covered himself by attacks on professed freethinkers; and he did more than any other man of his time in england to conserve the bible as a school manual by his politic panegyric of it in that aspect at a time when bolder rationalists were striving to get it excluded from the state schools. [ ] other men of science have furnished an abundance of support to orthodoxy by more or less vaguely religious pronouncements on the problem of the universe; so that catholic and other obscurantist agencies are able to cite from them many quasi-scientific phrases [ ]--taking care not to ask what bearing their language has on the dogmas of the churches. physicists who attempt to be more precise are rarely found to be orthodox; and the moral and social science of such writers is too often a species of charlatanism. but the whole tendency of natural science, which as such is necessarily alien to supernaturalism, makes for a rejection of the religious tradition; and the real leaders of science are found more and more openly alienated from the creed of faith. we know that darwin, though the son and grandson of freethinkers, was brought up in ordinary orthodoxy by his mother, and "gave up common religious belief almost independently from his own reflections." [ ] all over the world that has since been an increasingly common experience among scientific men. section .--the sociological sciences . a rationalistic treatment of human history had been explicit or implicit in the whole literature of deism; and had been attempted with various degrees of success by bodin, vico, montesquieu, mandeville, hume, smith, voltaire, volney, and condorcet, as well as by lesser men. [ ] so clear had been the classic lead to naturalistic views of social growth in the politics of aristotle, and so strong the influence of the new naturalistic spirit, that it is seen even in the work of goguet ( ), who sets out as biblically as bossuet; while in germany herder and kant framed really luminous generalizations; and a whole group of sociological writers rose up in the scotland of the middle and latter parts of the century. [ ] here again there was reaction; but in france the orthodox guizot did much to promote broader views than his own; eusèbe salverte in his essay de la civilisation ( ) made a highly intelligent effort towards a general view; and charles comte in his traité de législation ( ) made a marked scientific advance on the suggestive work of herder. as we have seen, the eclectic jouffroy put human affairs in the sphere of natural law equally with cosmic phenomena. at length, in the great work of auguste comte, scientific method was applied so effectively and concretely to the general problem that, despite his serious fallacies, social science again took rank as a solid study. . in england the anti-revolution reaction was visible in this as in other fields of thought. hume and gibbon had set the example of a strictly naturalistic treatment of history; and the clerical robertson was faithful to their method; but hallam makes a stand for supernaturalism even in applying a generally scientific critical standard. the majority of historical events he is content to let pass as natural, even as the average man sees the hand of the doctor in his escape from rheumatism, but the hand of god in his escape from a railway accident. discussing the defeat of barbarossa at legnano, hallam pronounces that it is not "material to allege ... that the accidental destruction of frederic's army by disease enabled the cities of lombardy to succeed in their resistance.... providence reserves to itself various means by which the bonds of the oppressor may be broken; and it is not for human sagacity to anticipate whether the army of a conqueror shall moulder in the unwholesome marshes of rome or stiffen with frost in a russian winter." [ ] but hallam was nearly the last historian of distinction to vend such nugatory oracles as either a philosophy or a religion of history. even the oracular carlyle did not clearly stipulate for "special providences" in his histories, though he leant to that conception; and though ranke also uses mystifying language, he writes as a naturalist; while michelet is openly anti-clerical. grote was wholly a rationalist; the historic method of his friend and competitor, bishop thirlwall, was as non-theological as his; macaulay, whatever might be his conformities or his bias, wrote in his most secular spirit when exhibiting theological evolution; and george long indicated his rationalism again and again. [ ] it is only in the writings of the most primitively prejudiced of those german historians who eliminate ethics from historiography that the "god" factor is latterly emphasized in ostensibly expert historiography. . all study of economics and of political history fostered such views, and at length, in england and america, by the works of draper and buckle, in the sixth and later decades of the century, the conception of law in human history was widely if slowly popularized, to the due indignation of the supernaturalists, who saw the last great field of natural phenomena passing like others into the realm of science. draper's avowed theism partly protected him from attack; but buckle's straightforward attacks on creeds and on churches brought upon him a peculiarly fierce hostility, which was unmollified by his incidental avowal of belief in a future life and his erratic attacks upon unbelievers. for long this hostility told against his sociological teaching. spencer's principles of sociology nevertheless clinched the scientific claim by taking sociological law for granted; and the new science has continually progressed in acceptance. in the hands of all its leading modern exponents in all countries--lester ward, giddings, guyau, letourneau, tarde, ferri, durkheim, de greef, gumplowicz, lilienfeld, schäffle--it has been entirely naturalistic, though some catholic professors continue to inject into it theological assumptions. it cannot be said, however, that a general doctrine of social evolution is even yet fully established. the problem is complicated by the profoundly contentious issues of practical politics; and in the resulting diffidence of official teachers there arises a notable opening for obscurantism, which has been duly forthcoming. in the first half of the century such an eminent churchman as dean milman incurred at the hands of j. h. newman and others the charge of writing the history of the jews and of early christianity in a rationalistic spirit, presenting religion as a "human" phenomenon. [ ] later churchmen, with all their preparation, have rarely gone further. . two lines of scientific study, it would appear, must be thoroughly followed up before the ground can be pronounced clear for authoritative conclusions--those of anthropological archæology (including comparative mythology and comparative hierology) and economic analysis. on both lines, however, great progress has been made; and on the former in particular the result is profoundly disintegrating to traditional belief. the lessons of anthropology had been long available to the modern world before they began to be scientifically applied to the "science of religion." the issues raised by fontenelle and de brosses in the eighteenth century were in practice put aside in favour of direct debate over christian history, dogma, and ethic; though many of the deists dwelt on the analogies of "heathen" and "revealed" religion. as early as benjamin constant made a vigorous attempt to bring the whole phenomena under a general evolutionary conception in his work de la religion. [ ] but it was not till the treasure of modern anthropology had been scientifically massed by such students as theodor waitz (anthropologie der naturvölker, bde. - ) and adolf bastian (der mensch in der geschichte, bde. ), and above all by sir edward tylor, who first lucidly elaborated the science of it all, that the arbitrary religious conception of the psychic evolution of humanity began to be decisively superseded. in tylor could still say that "to many educated minds there seems something presumptuous and repulsive in the view that the history of mankind is part and parcel of the history of nature; that our thoughts, wills, and actions accord with laws as definite as those which govern the motion of waves, the combination of acids and bases, and the growth of plants and animals." [ ] but the old repulsion had already been profoundly impaired by biological and social science; and tylor's book met with hardly any of the odium that had been lavished on darwin and buckle. "it will make me for the future look on religion--a belief in the soul, etc.--from a different point of view," wrote darwin [ ] to tylor on its appearance. so thoroughly did the book press home the fact of the evolution of religious thought from savagery that thenceforward the science of mythology, which had never yet risen in professional hands to the height of vision of fontenelle, began to be decisively adapted to the anthropological standpoint. in the hands of spencer [ ] all the phenomena of primitive mental life--beliefs, practices, institutions--are considered as purely natural data, no other point of view being recognized; and the anthropological treatises of lord avebury (sir john lubbock) are at the same standpoint. when at length the mass of savage usages which lie around the beginnings of historic religion began to be closely scanned and classified, notably in the great latter-day compilations of sir j. g. frazer, what had appeared to be sacred peculiarities of the christian cult were seen to be but variants of universal primitive practice. thenceforth the problem for serious inquirers was not whether christianity was a supernatural revelation--the supernatural is no longer a ground of serious discussion--but whether the central narrative is historical in any degree whatever. the defence is latterly conducted from a standpoint indistinguishable from the unitarian. but an enormous amount of anthropological research is being carried on without any reference to such issues, the total effect being to exclude the supernaturalist premiss from the study of religion as completely as from that of astronomy. section .--philosophy and ethics . the philosophy of kant, while giving the theological class a new apparatus of defence as against common-sense freethinking, forced none the less on theistic philosophy a great advance from the orthodox positions. thus his immediate successors, fichte and schelling, produced systems of which one was loudly denounced as atheistic, and the other as pantheistic, [ ] despite its dualism. neither seems to have had much influence on concrete religious opinion outside the universities; [ ] and when schelling in old age turned catholic obscurantist, the gain to clericalism was not great. hegel in turn loosely wrought out a system of which the great merit is to substitute the conception of existence as relation for the nihilistic idealism of fichte and the unsolved dualism of schelling. this system he latterly adapted to practical exigencies [ ] by formulating, as kant had recently done, a philosophic trinity and hardily defining christianity as "absolute religion" in comparison with the various forms of "natural religion." nevertheless, he counted in a great degree as a disintegrating influence, and was in a very practical way anti-christian. more explicitly than kant, he admitted that the aufklärung, the freethinking movement of the past generation, had made good its case so far as it went; and though, by the admission of admirers, he took for granted without justification that it had carried its point with the world at large, [ ] he was chronically at strife with the theologians as such, charging them on the one hand with deserting the dogmas which he re-stated, [ ] and on the other declaring that the common run of them "know as little of god as a blind man sees of a painting, even though he handles the frame." [ ] of the belief in miracles he was simply contemptuous. "whether at the marriage of cana the guests got a little more wine or a little less is a matter of absolutely no importance; nor is it any more essential to demand whether the man with the withered hand was healed; for millions of men go about with withered and crippled limbs, whose limbs no man heals." on the story of the marks made for the information of the angel on the hebrew houses at the passover he asks: "would the angel not have known them without these marks?", adding: "this faith has no real interest for spirit." [ ] such writing, from the orthodox point of view, was not compensated for by a philosophy of christianity which denaturalized its dogmas, and a presentment of the god-idea and of moral law which made religion alternately a phase of philosophy and a form of political utilitarianism. as to the impression made by hegel on most christians, compare hagenbach, german rationalism (eng. tr. of kirchengeschichte), pp. - ; renan, Études d'histoire religieuse, e édit. p. ; j. d. morell, histor. and crit. view of the spec. philos. of europe in the nineteenth century, nd ed. , ii, - ; robins, a defence of the faith, , pt. i, pp. - , ; eschenmenger, die hegel'sche religions-philosophie, ; quoted in beard's voices of the church, p. ; leo, die hegelingen, ; and reinhard, lehrbuch der geschichte der philosophie, nd ed. , pp. - --also cited by beard, pp. - . the gist of hegel's rehabilitation of christianity is well set forth by prof. a. seth pringle-pattison in his essay on the philosophy of religion in kant and hegel (rep. in the philos. radicals and other essays, ), ch. iii. considered in connection with his demonstration that in politics the prussian state was the ideal government, it is seen to be even more of an arbitrary and unveridical accommodation to the social environment than kant's religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft. it approximates intellectually to the process by which the neo-platonists and other eclectics of the classic decadence found a semblance of allegorical or symbolical justification for every item in the old theology. nothing could be more false to the spirit of hegel's general philosophy than the representing of christianity as a culmination or "ultimate" of all religion; and nothing, in fact, was more readily seen by his contemporaries. we who look back, however, may take a more lenient view of hegel's process of adaptation than was taken in the next generation by haym, who, in his hegel und seine zeit ( ), presented him as always following the prevailing fashion in thought, and lending himself as the tool of reactionary government. hegel's officialism was in the main probably wholehearted. even as kant felt driven to do something for social conservation at the outbreak of the french revolution, and fichte to shape for his country the sinister ideal of the closed industrial state, so hegel, after seeing prussia shaken to its foundations at the battle of jena and being turned out of his own house by the looting french soldiers, was very naturally impelled to support the existing state by quasi-philosophico-religious considerations. it was an abandonment of the true function of philosophy; but it may have been done in all good faith. an intense political conservatism was equally marked in strauss, who dreaded "demagogy," and in schopenhauer, who left his fortune to the fund for the widows and families of soldiers killed or injured in the revolutionary strifes of . it came in their case from the same source--an alarmed memory of social convulsion. the fact remains that hegel had no real part in the state religion which he crowned with formulas. not only does hegel's conception of the absolute make deity simply the eternal process of the universe, and the divine consciousness indistinguishable from the total consciousness of mankind, [ ] but his abstractions lend themselves equally to all creeds; [ ] and some of the most revolutionary of the succeeding movements of german thought--as those of vatke, strauss, [ ] feuerbach, and marx--professedly founded on him. it is certainly a striking testimony to the influence of hegel that five such powerful innovators as vatke [ ] in old-testament, bruno bauer and strauss in new-testament criticism, feuerbach in the philosophy of religion, and marx in social philosophy, should at first fly the hegelian flag. it can hardly have been that hegel's formulas sufficed to generate the criticism they all brought to bear upon their subject matter; rather we must suppose that their naturally powerful minds were attracted by the critical and reconstructive aspects of his doctrine; but the philosophy which stimulated them must have had great affinities for revolution, as well as for all forms of the idea of evolution. . in respect of his formal championship of christianity hegel's method, arbitrary even for him, appealed neither to the orthodox nor, with a few exceptions, [ ] to his own disciples, some of whom, as ruge, at length definitely renounced christianity. [ ] in heine told his french readers that there were in germany "fanatical monks of atheism" who would willingly burn voltaire as a besotted deist; [ ] and heine himself, in his last years of suffering and of revived poetic religiosity, could see in hegel's system only atheism. bruno bauer at first opposed strauss, and afterwards went even further than he, professing hegelianism all the while. [ ] schopenhauer and hartmann in turn being even less sustaining to orthodoxy, and later orthodox systems failing to impress, there came in due course the cry of "back to kant," where at least orthodoxy had some formal semblance of sanction. hartmann's work on the self-decomposition of christianity [ ] is a stringent exposure of the unreality of what passed for "liberal christianity" in germany a generation ago, and an appeal for a "new concrete religion" of monism or pantheism as a bulwark against ultramontanism. on this monism, however, hartmann insisted on grounding his pessimism; and with this pessimistic pantheism he hoped to outbid catholicism against the "irreligious" strauss and the liberal christians--in his view no less irreligious. it does not seem to have had much acceptance. on the whole, the effect of all german philosophy has probably been to make for the general discredit of theistic thinking, the surviving forms of hegelianism being little propitious to current religion. and though schopenhauer and nietzsche can hardly be said to carry on the task of philosophy either in spirit or in effect, yet the rapid intensification of hostility to current religion which their writings in particular manifest [ ] must be admitted to stand for a deep revolt against the kantian compromise. and this revolt was bound to come about. the truth-shunning tactic of kant, fichte, and hegel--aiming at the final discrediting of the aufklärung as a force that had done its work, and could find no more to do, however it be explained and excused--was a mere expression of their own final lack of scientific instinct. it is hard to believe that thinkers who had perceived and asserted the fact of progression in religion could suppose that true philosophy consisted in putting a stop on à priori grounds to the historical analysis, and setting up an "ultimate" of philosophic theory. the straightforward investigators, seeking simply for truth, have passed on to posterity a spirit which, correcting their inevitable errors, reaches a far deeper and wider comprehension of religious evolution and psychosis than could be reached by the verbalizing methods of the self-satisfied and self-sufficing metaphysicians. these, so far as they prevailed, did but delay the advance of real knowledge. their work, in fact, was fatally shaped by the general reaction against the revolution, which in their case took a quasi-philosophic form, while in france and england it worked out as a crude return to clerical and political authoritarianism. [ ] . from the collisions of philosophic systems in germany there emerged two great practical freethinking forces, the teachings of ludwig feuerbach ( - ), who was obliged to give up his lecturing at erlangen in after the issue of his thoughts upon death and immortality, and ludwig büchner, who was deprived of his chair of clinic at tübingen in for his force and matter. the former, originally a hegelian, expressly broke away from his master, declaring that, whereas hegel belonged to the "old testament" of modern philosophy, he himself would set forth the new, wherein hegel's fundamentally incoherent treatment of deity (as the total process of things on the one hand, and an objective personality on the other) should be cured. [ ] feuerbach accordingly, in his essence of christianity ( ) and essence of religion ( ), supplied one of the first adequate modern statements of the positively rationalistic position as against christianity and theism, in terms of philosophic as well as historical insight--a statement to which there is no characteristically modern answer save in terms of the refined sentimentalism of the youthful renan, [ ] fundamentally averse alike to scientific precision and to intellectual consistency. feuerbach's special service consists in the rebuttal of the metaphysic in which religion had chronically taken refuge from the straightforward criticism of freethinkers, in itself admittedly unanswerable. they had shown many times over its historic falsity, its moral perversity, and its philosophic self-contradiction; and the more astute official defenders, leaving to the less competent the task of re-vindicating miracles and prophecy and defending the indefensible, proceeded to shroud the particular defeat in a pseudo-philosophic process which claimed for all religion alike an indestructible inner truth, in the light of which the instinctive believer could again make shift to affirm his discredited credences. it was this process which feuerbach exploded, for all who cared to read him. he had gone through it. intensely religious in his youth, he had found in the teaching of hegel an attractive philosophic garb for his intuitional thought. but a wider concern than hegel's for actual knowledge, and for the knowledge of the actual, moved him to say to his teacher, on leaving: "two years have i attached myself to you; two years have i completely devoted to your philosophy. now i feel the necessity of starting in the directly opposite way: i am going to study anatomy." [ ] it may have been that what saved him from the hegelian fate of turning to the end the squirrel-cage of conformist philosophy was the personal experience which put him in fixed antagonism to the governmental forces that hegel was moved to serve. the hostility evoked by his thoughts on death and immortality completed his alienation from the official side of things, and left him to the life of a devoted truth-seeker--a career as rare in germany as elsewhere. the upshot was that feuerbach, in the words of strauss, "broke the double yoke in which, under hegel, philosophy and theology still went." [ ] for the task he undertook he had consummately equipped himself. in a series of four volumes (history of modern philosophy from bacon to spinoza, ; exposition and criticism of the leibnitzian philosophy, ; pierre bayle, ; on philosophy and christianity, ) he explored the field of philosophy, and re-studied theology in the light of moral and historical criticism, before he produced his masterpiece, das wesen des christenthums. here the tactic of hegel is turned irresistibly on the hegelian defence; and religion, defiantly declared by hegel to be an affair of self-consciousness, [ ] is shown to be in very truth nothing else. "such as are a man's thoughts and dispositions, such is his god; so much worth as a man has, so much and no more has his god. consciousness of god is self-consciousness; knowledge of god is self-knowledge." [ ] this of course is openly what hegelian theism is in effect--philosophic atheism; and though feuerbach at times disclaimed the term, he declares in his preface that "atheism, at least in the sense of this work, is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself ... in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature." in the preliminary section on the essence of religion he makes his position clear once for all: "a god who has abstract predicates has also an abstract existence.... not the attribute of the divinity, but the divineness or deity of the attribute, is the first true divine being. thus what theology and philosophy have held to be god, the absolute, the infinite, is not god; but that which they have held not to be god, is god--namely the attribute, the quality, whatever has reality. hence, he alone is the true atheist to whom the predicates of the divine being--for example, love, wisdom, justice--are nothing; not he to whom merely the subject of these predicates is nothing.... these have an intrinsic, independent reality; they force their recognition upon man by their very nature; they are self-evident truths to him; they approve, they attest themselves.... the idea of god is dependent on the idea of justice, of benevolence...." this is obviously the answer to baur, who, after paying tribute to the personality of feuerbach, and presenting a tolerably fair summary of his critical philosophy, can find no answer to it save the inept protest that it is one-sided in respect of its reduction of religion to the subjective (the very course insisted on by a hundred defenders!), that it favours the communistic and other extreme tendencies of the time, and that it brings everything "under the rude rule of egoism." [ ] here a philosophic and an aspersive meaning are furtively combined in one word. the scientific subjectivism of feuerbach's analysis of religion is no more a vindication or acceptance of "rude egoism" than is the christian formula of "god's will" a condonation of murder. the restraint of egoism by altruism lies in human character and polity alike for the rationalist and for the irrationalist, as baur must have known well enough after his long survey of church history. his really contemptible escape from feuerbach's criticism, under cover of alternate cries of "communism" and "egoism"--a self-stultification which needs no comment--is simply one more illustration of the fashion in which, since the time of kant, philosophy in germany as elsewhere has been chronically demoralized by resort to non-philosophical tests. "max stirner" (pen-name of johann caspar schmidt, - ) carried the philosophic "egoism" of feuerbach about as far in words as might be; but his work on the ego (der einzige und sein eigenthum, ) remains an ethical curiosity rather than a force. [ ] . arnold ruge ( - ), who was of the same philosophical school, [ ] gave his life to a disinterested propaganda of democracy and light; and if in he capitulated to the new empire, and thereby won a small pension for the two last years of his life, he was but going the way of many another veteran, dazzled in his old age by very old fires. his addresses on religion, its rise and fall: to the educated among its reverers [ ] ( ) is a lucid and powerful performance, proceeding from a mythological analysis of religion to a cordial plea for rationalism in all things. the charge of "materialism" was for him no bugbear. "truly," he writes, "we are not without the earth and the solar system, not without the plants and the animals, not without head. but whoever has head enough to understand science and its conquests in the field of nature and of mind (geist) knows also that the material world rests in the immaterial, moves in it, and is by it animated, freed, and ensouled; that soul and idea are incarnate in nature, but that also logic, idea, spirit, and science free themselves out of nature, become abstracted and as immaterial power erect their own realm, the realm of spirit in state, science, and art." [ ] . on feuerbach's essence of religion followed the resounding explosion of büchner's force and matter ( ), which in large measure, but with much greater mastery of scientific detail, does for the plain man of his century what d'holbach in his chief work sought to do for his day. constantly vilified, even in the name of philosophy, in the exact tone and spirit of animal irritation which marks the religious vituperation of all forms of rationalism in previous ages; and constantly misrepresented as professing to explain an infinite universe when it does but show the hollowness of all supernaturalist explanations, [ ] the book steadily holds its ground as a manual of anti-mysticism. [ ] between them, feuerbach and büchner may be said to have framed for their age an atheistic "system of nature," concrete and abstract, without falling into the old error of substituting one apriorism for another. whosoever endorses baur's protest against the "one-sidedness" of feuerbach, who treats of religion on its chosen ground of self-consciousness, has but to turn to büchner's study of the objective world and see whether his cause fares any better. . in france the course of thought had been hardly less revolutionary. philosophy, like everything else, had been affected by the legitimist restoration; and between victor cousin and the other "classic philosophers" of the first third of the century orthodoxy was nominally reinstated. yet even among these there was no firm coherence. maine de biran, one of the shrinking spirits who passed gradually into an intolerant authoritarianism from fear of the perpetual pressures of reason, latterly declared ( ) that a philosophy which ascribed to deity only infinite thought or supreme intelligence, eliminating volition and love, was pure atheism; and this pronouncement struck at the philosophy of cousin. nor was this species of orthodoxy any more successful than the furious irrationalism of joseph de maistre in setting up a philosophic form of faith, as distinct from the cult of rhetoric and sentiment founded by chateaubriand. cousin was deeply distrusted by those who knew him, and at the height of his popularity he was contemned by the more competent minds around him, such as sainte-beuve, comte, and edgar quinet. [ ] the latter thinker himself counted for a measure of rationalism, though he argued for theism, and undertook to make good the historicity of jesus against those who challenged it. for the rest, even among the ostensibly conservative and official philosophers, théodore jouffroy, an eclectic, who held the chair of moral philosophy in the faculté des lettres at paris, was at heart an unbeliever from his youth up, [ ] and even in his guarded writings was far from satisfying the orthodox. "god," he wrote, [ ] "interposes as little in the regular development of humanity as in the course of the solar system." he added a fatalistic theorem of divine predetermination, which he verbally salved in the usual way by saying that predetermination presupposed individual liberty. eclecticism thus fell, as usual, between two stools; but it was not orthodoxy that would gain. on another line jouffroy openly bantered the authoritarians on their appeal to a popular judgment which they declared to be incapable of pronouncing on religious questions. [ ] . on retrospect, the whole official french philosophy of the period, however conservative in profession, is found to have been at bottom rationalistic, and only superficially friendly to faith. the abbé felice de lamennais declaimed warmly against l'indifférence en matière de religion ( vols. - ), resorting to the old catholic device, first employed by montaigne, of turning pyrrhonism against unbelief. having ostensibly discredited the authority of the senses and the reason (by which he was to be read and understood), he proceeded in the customary way to set up the ancient standard of the consensus universalis, the authority of the majority, the least reflective and the most fallacious. this he sought to elevate into a kind of corporate wisdom, superior to all individual judgment; and he marched straight into the countersense of claiming the pagan consensus as a confirmation of religion in general, while arguing for a religion which claimed to put aside paganism as error. the final logical content of the thesis was the inanity that the majority for the time being must be right. damiron, writing his essai sur l'histoire de la philosophie en france au xixe siècle in , replies in a fashion more amiable than reassuring, commenting on the "strange skepticism" of lamennais as to the human reason. [ ] for himself, he takes up the parable of lessing, and declares that where lessing spoke doubtfully, men had now reached conviction. it was no longer a question of whether, but of when, religion was to be recast in terms of fuller intelligence. "in this religious regeneration we shall be to the christians what the christians were to the jews, and the jews to the patriarchs: we shall be christians and something more." the theologian of the future will be half-physicist, half-philosopher. "we shall study god through nature and through men; and a new messiah will not be necessary to teach us miraculously what we can learn of ourselves and by our natural lights." christianity has been a useful discipline; but "our education is so advanced that henceforth we can be our own teachers; and, having no need of an extraneous inspiration, we draw faith from science." [ ] "prayer is good, doubtless," but it "has only a mysterious, uncertain, remote action on our environment." [ ] all this under louis philippe, from a professor at the École normale. not to this day has official academic philosophy in britain ventured to go so far. in france the brains were never out, even under the restoration. lamennais himself gave the proof. his employment of skepticism as an aid to faith had been, like montaigne's, the expression of a temperament slow to reach rational positions, but surely driven thither. as a boy of twelve, when a priest sought to prepare him for communion, he had shown such abnormal incredulity that the priest gave him up; and later he read omnivorously among the deists of the eighteenth century, rousseau attracting him in particular. later he passed through a religious crisis, slowly covering ground which others traverse early. he did not become a communicant till he was twenty-two; he entered the seminary only at twenty-seven; and he was ordained only when he was nearly thirty-two. yet he had experienced much. already in his réflexions sur l'état de l'église had been suppressed by napoleon's police; in he had written, along with his brother, in whose seminary he taught mathematics, a treatise maintaining the papal claims; and in the hundred days of he took flight to london. his mind was always at work. his essay on indifference expressed his need of a conviction; with unbelief he could reckon and sympathize; with indifference he could not; but when the indifference was by his own account the result of reflective unbelief he treated it in the same fashion as the spontaneous form. at bottom, his quarrel was with reason. yet the very element in his mind which prompted his anti-rational polemic was ratiocinative; and as he slowly reached clearness of thought he came more and more into conflict with catholicism. it was all very well to flout the individual reason in the name of the universal; but to give mankind a total infallibility was not the way to satisfy a pope or a church which claimed a monopoly of the gift. in he was well received by the pope; but when in he began to write liberal articles in the journal l'avenir, in which he collaborated with lacordaire, the comte de montalembert, and other neo-catholics, offence was quickly taken, and the journal was soon suspended. lamennais and his disciples lacordaire and montalembert went to rome to plead their cause, but were coldly received; and on their way home in received at munich a missive of severe reprimand. rendering formal obedience, lamennais retired, disillusioned, with his friends to his and his brother's estate in brittany, and began his process of intellectual severance. in january, , he performed mass, and at this stage he held by his artificial distinction between the spheres of faith and reason. in may of that year he declared his determination to place himself "as a writer outside of the church and catholicism," declaring that "outside of catholicism, outside faith, there is reason; outside of the church there is humanity; i place myself (je me renferme) in this sphere." [ ] still he claimed to be simple fidèle en religion, and to combine "fidelity in obedience with liberty in science." [ ] in january of , however, he had ceased to perform any clerical function; and his paroles d'un croyant, published in that year, stand for a faith which the church reckoned as infidelity. lacordaire, separating from his insubordinate colleague, published an examen de la philosophie de m. de lamennais, in which the true papal standpoint was duly taken. thenceforth lamennais was an ishmaelite. feeling as strongly in politics as in everything else, he was infuriated by the brutal suppression of the polish rising in - ; and the government of louis philippe pleased him as little as that of charles x had done. in he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for his brochure le pays et le gouvernement ( ). shortly before his death in he claimed that he had never changed: "i have gone on, that is all." but he had in effect changed from a catholic to a pantheist; [ ] and in , as a member of the national assembly, he more than once startled his colleagues by "an affectation of impiety." [ ] on his deathbed he refused to receive the curé of the parish, and by his own wish he was buried without any religious ceremony, in the fosse commune of the poor and with no cross on his grave. such a type does not very clearly belong to rationalism; and lamennais never enrolled himself save negatively under that flag. always emotional and impulsive, he had in his period of aggressive fervour as a churchman played a rather sinister part in the matter of the temporary insanity of auguste comte, lending himself to the unscrupulous tactics of the philosopher's mother, who did not stick at libelling her son's wife in order to get him put under clerical control. [ ] it was perhaps well for him that he was forced out of the church; for his love of liberty was too subjective to have qualified him for a wise use of power. but the spectacle of such a temperament forced into antagonism with the church on moral and social grounds could not but stimulate anti-clericalism in france, whatever his philosophy may have done to promote rational thinking. . the most energetic and characteristic philosophy produced in the new france was that of auguste comte, which as set forth in the cours de philosophie positive ( - ) practically reaffirmed while it recast and supplemented the essentials of the anti-theological rationalism of the previous age, and in that sense rebuilt french positivism, giving that new name to the naturalistic principle. though comte's direct following was never large, it is significant that soon after the completion of his cours we find saisset lamenting that the war between the clergy and the philosophers, "suspended by the great political commotion of ," had been "revived with a new energy." [ ] the later effort of comte to frame a politico-ecclesiastical system never succeeded beyond the formation of a politically powerless sect; and the attempt to prove its consistency with his philosophic system by claiming that from the first he had harboured a plan of social regulation [ ] is beside the case. a man's way of thinking may involve intellectual contradictions all through his life; and comte's did. positivism in the scientific sense cannot be committed to any one man's scheme for regulating society and conserving "cultus"; and comte's was merely one of the many evoked in france by the memory of an age of revolutions. it belongs, indeed, to the unscientific and unphilosophic side of his mind, the craving for authority and the temper of ascendency, which connect with his admiration of the medieval church. himself philosophically an atheist, he condemned atheists because they mostly contemned his passion for regimentation. by reason of this idiosyncrasy and of the habitually dictatorial tone of his doctrine, he has made his converts latterly more from the religious than from the freethinking ranks. but both in france and in england his philosophy tinged all the new thought of his time, his leading english adherents in particular being among the most esteemed publicists of the day. above all, he introduced the conception of a "science of society" where hitherto there had ruled the haziest forms of "providentialism." in france the general effect of the rationalistic movement had been such that when taine, under the third empire, assailed the whole "classic" school in his philosophes classiques ( ), his success was at once generally recognized, and a non-comtist positivism was thenceforth the ruling philosophy. the same thing has happened in italy, where quite a number of university professors are explicitly positivist in their philosophic teaching. [ ] . in britain, where abstract philosophy after berkeley had been mainly left to hume and the scotch thinkers who opposed him, metaphysics was for a generation practically overriden by the moral and social sciences; hartley's christian materialism making small headway as formulated by him, though it was followed up by the unitarian priestley. the reaction against the revolution, indeed, seems to have evicted everything in the nature of active philosophic thought from the universities in the first decade of the nineteenth century; at oxford it was taught in a merely traditionary fashion, in lamentable contrast to what was going on in germany; [ ] and in scotland in the 'thirties things had fallen to a similar level. [ ] it was over practical issues that new thought germinated in england. the proof of the change wrought in the direction of native thought is seen in the personalities of the men who, in the teeth of the reaction, applied rationalistic method to ethics and psychology. bentham and james mill were in their kindred fields among the most convinced and active freethinkers of their day, the former attacking both clericalism and orthodoxy; [ ] while the latter, no less pronounced in his private opinions, more cautiously built up a rigorously naturalistic psychology in his analysis of the human mind ( ). bentham's utilitarianism was so essentially anti-christian that he could hardly have been more disliked by discerning theists if he had avowed his share in the authorship of the atheistic analysis of the influence of natural religion, which, elaborated from his manuscript by no less a thinker than george grote, was published in . [ ] pseudonymous as that essay is, it seeks to guard against the risk of prosecution by the elaborate stipulation that what it discusses is always the influence of natural religion on life, revealed religion being another matter. but this is of course the merest stratagem, the whole drift of the book being a criticism of the effects of the current religion on contemporary society. it greatly influenced j. s. mill, whose essay on the utility of religion echoes its beginning; and if it had been a little less drab in style it might have influenced many more. but bentham's ostensible restriction of his logic to practical problems of law and morals secured him a wider influence than was wielded by any of the higher publicists of his day. the whole tendency of his school was intensely rationalistic; and it indirectly affected all thought by its treatment of economics, which from hume and smith onwards had been practically divorced from theology. even clerical economists, such as malthus and chalmers, alike orthodox in religion, furthered naturalism in philosophy in spite of themselves by their insistence on the law of population, which is the negation of divine benevolence as popularly conceived. a not unnatural result was a religious fear of all reasoning whatever, and a disparagement of the very faculty of reason. this, however, was sharply resisted by the more cultured champions of orthodoxy, [ ] to the great advantage of critical discussion. . when english metaphysical philosophy revived with sir william hamilton, [ ] it was on the lines of a dialectical resistance to the pantheism of germany, in the interests of faith; though hamilton's dogmatic views were always doubtful. [ ] admirably learned, and adroit in metaphysical fence, he always grounded his theism on the alleged "needs of our moral nature"--a declaration of philosophical bankruptcy. the vital issue was brought to the front after his death in the bampton lectures ( ) of his supporter dean mansel; and between them they gave the decisive proof that the orthodox cause had been philosophically lost while being socially won, since their theism emphasized in the strongest way the negative criticism of kant, leaving deity void of all philosophically cognizable qualities. hamilton and mansel alike have received severe treatment at the hands of mill and others for the calculated irrationalism and the consequent immoralism of their doctrine, which insisted on attributing moral bias to an admittedly unknowable absolute, and on standing for christian mysteries on the skeptical ground that reason is an imperfect instrument, and that our moral faculties and feelings "demand" the traditional beliefs. but they did exactly what was needed to force rationalism upon open and able minds. it is indeed astonishing to find so constantly repeated by trained reasoners the old religious blunder of reasoning from the inadequacy of reason to the need for faith. the disputant says in effect: "our reason is not to be trusted; let us then on that score rationally decide to believe what is handed down to us": for if the argument is not a process of reasoning it is nothing; and if it is to stand, it is an assertion of the validity it denies. evidently the number of minds capable of such self-stultification is great; but among minds at once honest and competent the number capable of detecting the absurdity must be considerable; and the invariable result of its use down to our own time is to multiply unbelievers in the creed so absurdly defended. it is difficult to free mansel from the charge of seeking to confuse and bewilder; but mere contact with the processes of reasoning in his bampton lectures is almost refreshing after much acquaintance with the see-saw of vituperation and platitude which up to that time mostly passed muster for defence of religion in nineteenth-century england. he made for a revival of intellectual life. and he suffered enough at the hands of his co-religionists, including f. d. maurice, to set up something like compassion in the mind of the retrospective rationalist. accused of having adopted "the absolute and infinite, as defined after the leaders of german metaphysics," as a "synonym for the true and living god," he protested that he had done "exactly the reverse. i assert that the absolute and infinite, as defined in the german metaphysics, and in all other metaphysics with which i am acquainted, is a notion which destroys itself by its own contradictions. i believe also that god is, in some manner incomprehensible by me, both absolute and infinite; and that those attributes exist in him without any repugnance or contradiction at all. hence i maintain throughout that the infinite of philosophy is not the true infinite." [ ] charged further with borrowing without acknowledgment from newman, the dean was reduced to crediting newman with "transcendent gifts" while claiming to have read almost nothing by him, [ ] and winding up with a quotation from newman inviting men to seek solace from the sense of nescience in blind belief. it was said of hamilton that, "having scratched his eyes out in the bush of reason, he scratched them in again in the bush of faith"; and when that could obviously be said also of his reverend pupil, the philosophic tide was clearly on the turn. within two years of the delivery of mansel's lectures his and hamilton's philosophic positions were being confidently employed as an open and avowed basis for the naturalistic first principles ( - ) of herbert spencer, wherein, with an unfortunate laxity of metaphysic on the author's own part, and a no less unfortunate lack of consistency as regards the criticism of religious and anti-religious positions, [ ] the new cosmic conceptions are unified in a masterly conception of evolution as a universal law. this service, the rendering of which was quite beyond the capacity of the multitude of spencer's metaphysical critics, marks him as one of the great influences of his age. strictly, the book is a "system of nature" rather than a philosophy in the sense of a study of the grounds and limitations of knowledge; that is to say, it is on the former ground alone that it is coherent and original. but its very imperfections on the other side have probably promoted its reception among minds already shaken in theology by the progress of concrete science; while at the same time such imperfections give a hostile foothold to the revived forms of theism. in any case, the "agnostic" foundation supplied by the despairing dialectic of hamilton and mansel has always constituted the most effective part of the spencerian case. . the effect of the ethical pressure of the deistic attack on the intelligence of educated christians was fully seen even within the anglican church before the middle of the century. the unstable coleridge, who had gone round the whole compass of opinion [ ] when he began to wield an influence over the more sensitive of the younger churchmen, was strenuous in a formal affirmation of the doctrine of the trinity, but no less anxious to modify the doctrine of atonement on which the conception of the trinity was historically founded. in the hands of maurice the doctrine of sacrifice became one of example to the end of subjective regeneration of the sinner. this view, which was developed by john the scot--perhaps from hints in origen [ ]--and again by bernardino ochino, [ ] is specially associated with the teaching of coleridge; but it was quite independently held in england before him by the anglican dr. parr ( - ), who appears to have been heterodox upon most points in the orthodox creed, [ ] and who, like servetus and coleridge and hegel, held by a modal as against a "personal" trinity. the advance in ethical sensitiveness which had latterly marked english thought, and which may perhaps be traced in equal degrees to the influence of shelley and to that of bentham, counted for much in this shifting of christian ground. the doctrine of salvation by faith was by many felt to be morally indefensible. such unitarian accommodations presumably reconciled to christianity and the church many who would otherwise have abandoned them; and the only orthodox rebuttal seems to have been the old and dangerous resort to the butlerian argument, to the effect that the god of nature shows no such benign fatherliness as the anti-sacrificial school ascribe to him. [ ] this could only serve to emphasize the moral bankruptcy of butler's philosophy, to which mansel, in an astonishing passage of his bampton lectures, [ ] had shown himself incredibly blind. the same pressure of moral argument was doubtless potent in the development of "socinian" or other rationalistic views in the protestant churches of germany, holland, hungary, switzerland, and france in the first half of the century. such development had gone so far that by the middle of the century the churches in question were, to the eye of an english evangelical champion, predominantly rationalistic, and in that sense "infidel." [ ] reactions have been claimed before and since; but in our own age there is little to show for them. in the united states, again, the ethical element probably predominated in the recoil of emerson from christian orthodoxy even of the unitarian stamp, as well as in the heresy of theodore parker, whose aversion to the theistic ethic of jonathan edwards was so strong as to make him blind to the reasoning power of that stringent calvinist. . a powerful and wholesome stimulus was given to english thought throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century by the many-sided influence of john stuart mill, who, beginning by a brilliant system of logic ( ), which he followed up with a less durable exposition of the principles of political economy ( ), became through his shorter works on liberty and on various political problems one of the most popular of the serious writers of his age. it was not till the posthumous issue of his autobiography and his three essays on religion ( ) that many of his readers realized how complete was his alienation from the current religion, from his childhood up. in his examination of sir william hamilton's philosophy ( ), indeed, he had indignantly repudiated the worship of an unintelligibly good god; but he had there seemed to take for granted the god-idea; and save in inconclusive passages in the liberty ( ) he had indicated no rejection of christianity. but though the liberty was praised by kingsley and contemned by carlyle, it made for freethinking no less than for tolerance; and his whole life's work made for reason. "the saint of rationalism" was gladstone's [ ] account of him as a parliamentarian. his posthumous presentment to the world of the strange conception of a limited-liability god, the victim of circumstances--a theorem which meets neither the demand for a theistic explanation of the universe nor the worshipper's craving for support--sets up some wonder as to his philosophy; but was probably as disintegrative of orthodoxy as a more philosophical performance would have been. section .--modern jewry in the culture-life of the dispersed jews, in the modern period, there is probably as much variety of credence in regard to religion as occurs in the life of christendom so called. such names as those of spinoza, jacobi, moses mendelssohn, heine, and karl marx tell sufficiently of jewish service to freethought; and each one of these must have had many disciples of his own race. deism among the educated jews of germany in the eighteenth century was probably common. [ ] the famous rabbi elijah of wilna (d. ), entitled the gaon, "the great one," set up a movement of relatively rationalistic pietism that led to the establishment in of a rabbinical college at walosin, which has flourished ever since, and had in no fewer than students, among whose successors there goes on a certain amount of independent study. [ ] in the freer world outside critical thought has asserted itself within the pale of orthodox judaism; witness such a writer as nachman krochmal ( - ), whose posthumous guide to the perplexed of the time [ ] ( ), though not a scientific work, is ethically and philosophically in advance of the orthodox judaism of its age. of krochmal it has been said that he "was inspired in his work by the study of hegel, just as maimonides had been by the study of aristotle." [ ] the result is only a liberalizing of jewish orthodoxy in the light of historic study, [ ] such as went on among christians in the same period; but it is thus a stepping-stone to further science. to-day educated jewry is divided in somewhat the same proportions as christendom into absolute rationalists and liberal and fanatical believers; and representatives of all three types, of different social grades, may be found among the zionists, whose movement for the acquisition of a new racial home has attracted so much attention and sympathy in recent years. whether or not that movement attains to any decisive political success, judaism clearly cannot escape the solvent influences which affect all european opinion. as in the case of the christian church, the synagogue in the centres of culture keeps the formal adherence of some who no longer think on its plane; but while attempts are made from time to time to set up more rationalistic institutions for jews with the modern bias, the general tendency is to a division between devotees of the old forms and those who have decided to live by reason. section .--the oriental civilizations we have already seen, in discussing the culture histories of india, china, and moslem persia, how ancient elements of rationalism continue to germinate more or less obscurely in the unpropitious soils of asiatic life. ignorance is in most oriental countries too immensely preponderant to permit of any other species of survival. but sociology, while recognizing the vast obstacles to the higher life presented by conditions which with a fatal facility multiply the lower, can set no limit to the possibilities of upward evolution. the case of japan is a sufficient rebuke to the thoughtless iterators of the formula of the "unprogressiveness of the east." while a cheerfully superstitious religion is there still normal among the mass, the transformation of the political ideals and practice of the nation under the influence of european example is so great as to be unparalleled in human history; and it has inevitably involved the substitution of rationalism for supernaturalism among the great majority of the educated younger generation. the late yukichi fukuzawa, who did more than any other man to prepare the japanese mind for the great transformation effected in his time, was spontaneously a freethinker from his childhood; [ ] and through a long life of devoted teaching he trained thousands to a naturalist way of thought. that they should revert to christian or native orthodoxy seems as impossible as such an evolution is seen to be in educated hindostan, where the higher orders of intelligence are probably not relatively more common than among the japanese. the final question, there as everywhere, is one of social reconstruction and organization; and in the enormous population of china the problem, though very different in degree of imminence, is the same in kind. perhaps the most hopeful consideration of all is that of the ever-increasing inter-communication which makes european and american progress tend in every succeeding generation to tell more and more on asiatic life. as to japan, professor b. h. chamberlain pronounced twenty years ago that the japanese "now bow down before the shrine of herbert spencer" (things japanese, rd ed. , p. . cp. religious systems of the world, rd ed. p. ), proceeding in another connection (p. ) to describe them as essentially an undevotional people. such a judgment would be hard to sustain. the japanese people in the past have exhibited the amount of superstition normal in their culture stage (cp. the voyages de c. p. thunberg au japon, french tr. , iii, ); and in our own day they differ from western peoples on this side merely in respect of their greater general serenity of temperament. there were in japan in no fewer than , buddhist temples, and , shinto temples and shrines; and the largest temple of all, costing "several million dollars," was built in the last dozen years of the nineteenth century. to the larger shrines there are habitual pilgrimages, the numbers annually visiting one leading buddhist shrine reaching from , to , , while at the shintô shrine of kompira the pilgrims are said to number about , each year. (see the evolution of the japanese, , by l. gulick, an american missionary organizer.) professor chamberlain appears to have construed "devotional" in the light of a special conception of true devotion. yet a christian observer testifies, of the revivalist sect of nichirenites, "the ranters of buddhism," that "the wildest excesses that seek the mantle of religion in other lands are by them equalled if not excelled" (griffis, the mikado's empire, , p. ); and professor chamberlain admits that "the religion of the family binds them [the japanese in general, including the 'most materialistic'] down in truly sacred bonds"; while another writer, who thinks christianity desirable for japan, though he apparently ranks japanese morals above christian, declares that in his travels he was much reassured by the superstition of the innkeepers, feeling thankful that his hosts were "not agnostics or secularists," but devout believers in future punishments (tracy, rambles through japan without a guide, , pp. , , etc.). a third authority with japanese experience, professor w. g. dixon, while noting a generation ago that "among certain classes in japan not only religious earnestness but fanaticism and superstition still prevail," decides that "at the same time it remains true that the japanese are not in the main a very religious people, and that at the present day religion is in lower repute than probably it has ever been in the country's history. religious indifference is one of the prominent features of new japan" (the land of the morning, , p. ). the reconciliation of these estimates lies in the recognition of the fact that the japanese populace is religious in very much the same way as those of italy and england, while the more educated classes are rationalistic, not because of any "essential" incapacity for "devotion," but because of enlightenment and lack of countervailing social pressure. to the eye of the devotional protestant the catholics of italy, with their regard to externals, seem "essentially" irreligious; and vice versâ. such formulas miss science. two hundred years ago charron, following previous schematists, made a classification in which northerners figured as strong, active, stupid, warlike, and little given to religion; the southerners as slight, abstinent, obstinate, unwarlike, and superstitious; and the "middle" peoples as between the two. la sagesse, liv. i, ch. . the cognate formulas of to-day are hardly more trustworthy. buddhism triumphed over shintôism in japan both in ancient and modern times precisely because its lore and ritual make so much more appeal to the devotional sense. (cp. chamberlain, pp. - ; dixon, ch. x; religious systems of the world, pp. , ; griffis, p. .) but the æsthetically charming cult of the family, with its poetic recognition of ancestral spirits (as to which see lafcadio hearn, japan: an attempt at interpretation, ), seems to hold its ground as well as any. so universal is sociological like other law that we find in japan, among some freethinkers, the same disposition as among some in europe to decide that religion is necessary for the people. professor chamberlain (p. ) cites fukuzawa, "japan's most representative thinker and educationist," as openly declaring that "it goes without saying that the maintenance of peace and security in society requires a religion. for this purpose any religion will do. i lack a religious nature, and have never believed in any religion. i am thus open to the charge that i am advising others to be religious while i am not so. yet my conscience does not permit me to clothe myself with religion when i have it not at heart.... of religions there are several kinds--buddhism, christianity, and what not. from my standpoint there is no more difference between those than between green tea and black.... see that the stock is well selected and the prices cheap...." (japan herald, september , ). to this view, however, fukuzawa did not finally adhere. the rev. isaac dooman, a missionary in japan who knew him well, testifies to a change that was taking place in his views in later life regarding the value of religion. in an unpublished letter to mr. robert young, of kobe, mr. dooman says that on one occasion, when conversing on the subject of christianity, fukuzawa remarked: "there was a time when i advocated its adoption as a means to elevate our lower classes; but, after finding out that all christian countries have their own lower classes just as bad, if not worse than ours, i changed my mind." further reflection, marked by equal candour, may lead the pupils of fukuzawa to see that nations cannot be led to adore any form of "tea" by the mere assurance of its indispensableness from leaders who confess they never take any. his view is doubtless shared by those priests concerning whom "it may be questioned whether in their fundamental beliefs the more scholarly of the shinshiû priests differ very widely from the materialistic agnostics of europe" (dixon, p. ). in this state of things the christian thinks he sees his special opportunity. professor dixon writes (p. ), in the manner of the missionary, that "decaying shrines and broken gods are to be seen everywhere. not only is there indifference, but there is a rapidly-growing skepticism.... the masses too are becoming affected by it.... shintôism and ... buddhism are doomed. what is to take their place?... it must be either christianity or atheism. we have the brightest hopes that the former will triumph in the near future...." the american missionary before cited, mr. gulick, argues alternately that the educated japanese are religious and that they are not, meaning that they have "religious instincts," while rejecting current creeds. the so-called religious instinct is in fact simply the spirit of moral and intellectual seriousness. mr. gulick's summing-up, as distinct from his theory and forecast, is as follows: "for about three hundred years the intelligence of the nation has been dominated by confucian thought, which rejects active belief in supra-human beings.... the tendency of all persons trained in confucian classics was towards thoroughgoing skepticism as to divine beings and their relation to this world. for this reason, beyond doubt, has western agnosticism found so easy an entrance into japan.... complete indifference to religion is characteristic of the educated classes of to-day. japanese and foreigners, christians and non-christians alike, unite in this opinion. the impression usually conveyed by this statement, however, is that agnosticism is a new thing in japan. in point of fact, the old agnosticism is merely reinforced by ... the agnosticism of the west" (the evolution of the japanese, pp. - ). this may be taken as broadly accurate. cp. the author's paper on "freethought in japan" in the agnostic annual for . professor e. h. parker notes (china and religion, , p. ) that "the japanese in translating western books are beginning, to the dismay of our missionaries, to leave out all the christianity that is in them." but a very grave danger to the intellectual and moral life of japan has been of late set up by a new application of shintôism, on the lines of the emperor-worship of ancient rome. a recent pamphlet by professor chamberlain, entitled the invention of a new religion (r. p. a.; ), incidentally shows that the japanese temperament is so far from being "essentially" devoid of devotion as to be capable of building up a fresh cultus to order. it appears that since the so-called restoration of , when the imperial house, after more than two centuries of seclusion in kyoto, was brought from its retirement and the emperor publicly installed as ruler by right of his divine origin, the sentiment of religious devotion to the imperial house has been steadily inculcated, reaching its height during the russo-japanese war, when the messages of victorious generals and admirals piously ascribed their successes over the enemy to the "virtues of the imperial ancestors." in every school throughout the empire there hangs a portrait of the emperor, which is regarded and treated as is a sacred image in russia and in catholic countries. the curators of schools have been known on occasion of fire and earthquake to save the imperial portrait before wife or child; and their action has elicited popular acclamation. on the imperial birthday teachers and pupils assemble, and passing singly before the portrait, bow in solemn adoration. the divine origin of the imperial house and the grossly mythical history of the early emperors are taught as articles of faith in japanese schools precisely as the cosmogony of genesis has been taught for ages in the schools of christendom. some years ago a professor who exposed the absurdity of the chronology upon which the religion is based was removed from his post, and a teacher who declined to bow before a casket containing an imperial rescript was dismissed. his life was, in fact, for some time in danger from the fury of the populace. so dominant has mikado-worship become that some japanese christian pastors have endeavoured to reconcile it with christianity, and to be mikado-worshippers and christ-worshippers at the same time. [ ] all creeds are nominally tolerated in japan, but avowed heresy as to the divine origin of the imperial house is a bar to public employment, and exposes the heretic to suspicion of treason. the new religion, which is merely old shintôism revised, has been invented as a political expedient, and may possibly not long survive the decease of mutsu hito, the late emperor, who continued throughout his reign to live in comparative seclusion, and has been succeeded by a young prince educated on european lines. but the cult has obtained a strong hold upon the people; and by reason of social pressure receives the conventional support of educated men exactly as christianity does in england, america, germany, and russia. thus there is not "plain sailing" for freethought in japan. in such a political atmosphere neither moral nor scientific thought has a good prognosis; and if it be not changed for the better much of the japanese advance may be lost. rationalism on any large scale is always a product of culture; and culture for the mass of the people of japan has only recently begun. down till the middle of the nineteenth century nothing more than sporadic freethought existed. [ ] some famous captains were irreverent as to the omens; and in a seventeenth-century manual of the principles of government, ascribed to the great founder of modern feudalism, iyéyasu, the sacrifices of vassals at the graves of their lords are denounced, and confucius is even cited as ridiculing the burial of effigies in substitution. [ ] but, as elsewhere under similar conditions, such displays of originality were confined to the ruling caste. [ ] i have seen, indeed, a delightful popular satire, apparently a product of mother-wit, on the methods of popular buddhist shrine-making; but, supposing it to be genuine and vernacular, it can stand only for that measure of freethought which is never absent from any society not pithed by a long process of religious tyranny. old japan, with its intense feudal discipline and its indurated etiquette, exhibited the social order, the grace, the moral charm, and the intellectual vacuity of a hive of bees. the higher mental life was hardly in evidence; and the ethical literature of native inspiration is of no importance. [ ] to this day the educated chinese, though lacking in japanese "efficiency" and devotion to drill of all kinds, are the more freely intellectual in their habits of mind. the japanese feudal system, indeed, was so immitigably ironbound, so incomparably destructive of individuality in word, thought, and deed, that only in the uncodified life of art and handicraft was any free play of faculty possible. what has happened of late is the rapid and docile assimilation of western science. another and a necessarily longer step is the independent development of the speculative and critical intelligence; and in the east, as in the west, this is subject to economic conditions. a similar generalization holds good as to the other oriental civilizations. analogous developments to those seen in the latter-day mohammedan world, and equally marked by fluctuation, have been noted in the mental life alike of the non-mohammedan and the mohammedan peoples of india; and at the present day the thought of the relatively small educated class is undoubtedly much affected by the changes going on in that of europe, and especially of england. the vast indian masses, however, are far from anything in the nature of critical culture; and though some system of education for them is probably on the way to establishment, [ ] their life must long remain quasi-primitive, mentally as well as physically. buddhism is theoretically more capable of adaptation to a rationalist view of life than is christianity; but its intellectual activities at present seem to tend more towards an "esoteric" credulity than towards a rational or scientific adjustment to life. of the nature of the influence of buddhism in burmah, where it has prospered, a vivid and thoughtful account is given in the work of h. fielding, the soul of a people, . at its best the cult there deifies the buddha; elsewhere, it is interwoven with aboriginal polytheism and superstition (davids, buddhism, pp. - ; max müller, anthro. rel., p. ). within brahmanism, again, there have been at different times attempts to set up partly naturalistic reforms in religious thought--e.g. that of chaitanya in the sixteenth century; but these have never been pronouncedly freethinking, and chaitanya preached a "surrender of all to krishna," very much in the manner of evangelical christianity. finally he has been deified by his followers. (müller, nat. rel. p. ; phys. rel. p. .) more definitely freethinking was the monotheistic cult set up among the sikhs in the fifteenth century, as the history runs, by nanak, who had been influenced both by parsees and by mohammedans, and whose ethical system repudiated caste. but though nanak objected to any adoration of himself, he and all his descendants have been virtually deified by his devotees, despite their profession of a theoretically pantheistic creed. (cp. de la saussaye, manual of the science of religion, eng. tr. pp. - ; müller, phys. rel. p. .) trumpp (die religion der sikhs, , p. ) tells of other sikh sects, including one of a markedly atheistic character belonging to the nineteenth century; but all alike seem to gravitate towards hinduism. similarly among the jainas, who compare with the buddhists in their nominal atheism as in their tenderness to animals and in some other respects, there has been decline and compromise; and their numbers appear steadily to dwindle, though in india they survived while buddhism disappeared. cp. de la saussaye, manual, pp. - ; rev. j. robson, hinduism, , pp. - ; tiele, outlines, p. . finally, the brahmo-somaj movement of the nineteenth century appears to have come to little in the way of rationalism (mitchell, hinduism, pp. - ; de la saussaye, pp. - ; tiele, p. ). the principle of the interdependence of the external and the internal life, finally, applies even in the case of turkey. the notion that turkish civilization in europe is unimprovable, though partly countenanced by despondent thinkers even among the enlightened turks, [ ] had no justification in social science, though bad politics may ruin the turkish, like other moslem states; and although turkish freethinking has not in general passed the theistic stage, [ ] and its spread is grievously hindered by the national religiosity, [ ] which the age-long hostility of the christian states so much tends to intensify, a gradual improvement in the educational and political conditions would suffice to evolve it, according to the observed laws of all civilization. it may be that a result of the rationalistic evolution in the other european states will be to make them intelligently friendly to such a process, where at present they are either piously malevolent towards the rival creed or merely self-seeking as against each other's influence on turkish destinies. in any case, it cannot seriously be pretended that the mental life of christian greece in modern times has yielded, apart from services to simple scholarship, a much better result to the world at large than has that of turkey. the usual reactions in individual cases of course take place. an american traveller writing in notes how illiterate greek priests glory in their ignorance, "asserting that a more liberal education has the effect of making atheists of the youth." he adds that he has "known several deacons and others in the university [of athens] that were skeptics even as to the truth of religion," and would gladly have become laymen if they could have secured a livelihood. [ ] but there was then and later in the century no measurable movement of a rationalistic kind. at the time of the emancipation the greek priesthood was "in general at once the most ignorant and the most vicious portion of the community"; [ ] and it remained socially predominant and reactionary. "whatever progress has been made in greece has received but little assistance from them." [ ] liberal-minded professors in the theological school were mutinied against by bigoted students, [ ] a type still much in evidence at athens; and the liberal thinker theophilus kaïres, charged with teaching "atheistic doctrines," and found guilty with three of his followers, died of jail fever while his appeal to the areopagus was pending. [ ] thus far christian bigotry seems to have held its own in what once was hellas. on the surface, greece shows little trace of instructed freethought; while in bulgaria, by greek testimony, school teachers openly proclaim their rationalism, and call for the exclusion of religious teaching from the schools. [ ] despite the political freedom of the christian state, there has thus far occurred there no such general fertilization by the culture of the rest of europe as is needed to produce a new intellectual evolution of any importance. the mere geographical isolation of modern greece from the main currents of european thought and commerce is probably the most retardative of her conditions; and it is hard to see how it can be countervailed. italy, in comparison, is pulsating with original life, industrial and intellectual. but, given either a renascence of mohammedan civilization or a great political reconstruction such as is latterly on foot, the whole life of the nearer east may take a new departure; and in such an evolution greece would be likely to share. conclusion any fuller survey of the intellectual history of the nineteenth century will but reveal more fully the signal and ever-widening growth of rational thought among all classes of the more advanced nations, and among the more instructed of the less advanced. the retrospect of the whole past tells of a continuous evolution, which in the twentieth century proceeds more extensively than ever before. there has emerged the curious fact that in our own country a measure of rational doubt has been almost constantly at work in the sphere in which it could perhaps least confidently be expected--to wit, that of poetry. from chaucer onwards it is hard to find a great orthodox poet. even spenser was as much platonist as christian; and marlowe, shakespeare, milton, dryden, pope, burns, wordsworth, shelley, byron, coleridge, keats, tennyson, arnold, and browning (to name no others) in their various ways baffle the demand of faith. latterly, the sex which has always been reckoned the more given to religion has shown many signs of adaptation to the higher law. in britain, as in france, women began to appear in the ranks of reason in the eighteenth century. [ ] in the nineteenth the number has increased at a significant rate. already in the fierce battles fought in the time of reaction after the french revolution women took their place on the side of freedom; and frances wright (madame d'arusmont) played a notable part as a freethinking publicist and philanthropist. [ ] since her day the names of harriet martineau and george eliot tell of the continual gain of knowledge; and women rationalists are now to be counted by thousands in all the more civilized countries. the same law holds of public life in general. gladstone eagerly maintained in his latter years that politicians, in virtue of their practical hold of life, were little given to skepticism; but the facts were and are increasingly against him. the balance of the evidence is against the ascription of orthodoxy to either of the pitts, or to fox; and we have seen that the statesmen of the american revolution, as of the french, were in general deists. garibaldi [ ] in italy, and gambetta in france, were freethinkers; lincoln and his opponent, douglas, were deists; towards the close of the century, in new zealand, sir robert stout and the late mr. john ballance, avowed rationalists, were among the foremost politicians of their generation; and in the english cabinet rationalism began to be represented in the person of lord morley. while such developments have been possible in the fierce light of political strife, the process of disintegration and decomposition has proceeded in society at large till unbelief can hardly be reckoned a singularity. within the pale of all the christian churches dogmatic belief has greatly dwindled, and goes on dwindling: and "christianity" is made to figure more and more as an ethical doctrine which has abandoned its historical foundations, while preserving formulas and rituals which have no part in rational ethics. the mythical cosmogony out of which the whole originally grew is no longer believed in by any educated person, though it is habitually presented to the young as divine truth. thousands of clergymen, economically gripped to a false position, would gladly rectify their professed creeds, but cannot; because the political and economic bases involve the consent of the majority, and changes cannot be made without angry resistance and uproar among the less instructed multitude of all classes. the protestant churches collectively dread to figure as repudiating the historic creed; while the roman catholic church, conscious of the situation, maintains a semblance of rigid discipline and a minimum standard of instruction for its adherents, counting on holding its ground while the faculty of uncritical faith subsists. only by the silent alienation of the more thoughtful and sincere minds from the priesthood can the show of orthodoxy be maintained even within the catholic pale. in all orders alike, nevertheless, the "practice" of religion decays with the theory. the churches are constantly challenged to justify their existence by social reforms and philanthropic works: no other plea passes as generally valid; and it is only by reason of a general transference of interest from religious to social problems that the decay of belief is disguised. "piety," in the old sense, counts relatively for little; and while orthodoxy is still a means of advantage in political life, religion counts for nothing in international relations. in the war of - , "bible-loving" england forced a quarrel on the most bible-loving race in the world; and at the time of the penning of these lines six nations are waging the greatest war of all time irrespectively of racial and religious ties alike, though all alike officially claim the support of omnipotence. in berlin a popular preacher edifies great audiences by proclaiming that "god is not neutral"; and his emperor habitually parades the same faith, with the support of all the theologians of germany--the state supremely guilty of the whole embroilment, and the deliberate perpetrator of the grossest aggression in modern history. on the side of the allies "christianity" is less systematically but still frequently invoked. on both sides the forms of prayer are officially practised by the non-combatants, very much as the romans in their wars maintained the practice of augury from the entrails of sacrificed victims; and "family prayer" is said to be reviving. everywhere, nevertheless, the more rational, remembering how in the "ages of faith" deadly wars were waged for whole generations in the very name of religion, recognize that christianity furnishes neither control for the present nor solution for the future; and that the hope of civilization lies in the resort of the nations to human standards of sanity and reciprocity. the ties which hold are those of fellow-citizenship. there can be no doubt among rationalists that if modern civilization escapes the ruin which militarism brought upon those of all previous eras, the principle of reason will continually widen its control, latterly seen to be everywhere strengthening apart from the dangerous persistence of militarist ideals and impulses. when it controls international relations, it will be dominant in the life of thought. in the words of a great fighter for freethought, "no man ever saw a religion die"; and there are abundant survivals of pre-christian paganism in europe after two thousand years of christianity; but it seems likely that when the history of the twentieth century is written it will be recognized that what has historically figured as religion belongs in all its forms to the past. the question is sometimes raised whether the age of decline will be marked by movements of active and persecuting fanaticism. here, again, the answer must be that everything depends upon the general fortunes of civilization. it is significant that a number of clerical voices proclaim a revival of religion as a product of war, while others complain that the state of struggle has a sterilizing effect upon religious life. while organized religions subsist, there will always be adherents with the will to persecute; and from time to time acts of public persecution occur, in addition to many of a private character. but in britain public persecution is latterly restricted to cases in which the technical offence of "blasphemy" is associated with acts which come under ordinary police jurisdiction. after the unquestionable blasphemies of arnold and swinburne had to be officially ignored, it became impossible, in the present stage of civilization, that any serious and decent literary indictment of the prevailing creeds should be made a subject of persecution; and before long, probably, such indictments will be abandoned in the cases of offenders against police regulations. the main danger appears to lie in catholic countries, and from the action of the catholic hierarchy. the common people everywhere, save in the most backward countries, are increasingly disinclined to persecution. in ireland there is much less of that spirit among the catholic population than among that of protestant ulster. but the infamous execution of francisco ferrer in spain, in , which aroused passionate reprobation in every civilized country, was defended in england and elsewhere with extravagant baseness by catholic littérateurs, who, with their reactionary priests, are the last to learn the lesson of tolerance. the indignation everywhere excited by the judicial murder [ ] of ferrer, however, gives promise that even the most zealous fanatics of the catholic church will hesitate again to rouse the wrath of the nations by such a reversion to the methods of the eras of religious rule. notes [ ] stow's annals, ed. , pp. , . [ ] burnet, hist. of the reformation, ed. nares, ii, ; iii, ; strype, memorials of cranmer, ed. - , ii, . [ ] the marian persecutions undoubtedly did much to stimulate protestantism. it is not generally realized that many of the burnings of heretics under mary were quasi-sacrifices on her behalf. on each occasion of her hopes of pregnancy being disappointed, some victims were sent to the stake. see strype, ed. cited, iii, , and peter martyr, there cited; froude, ed. , v, sq., sq. the influence of spanish ecclesiastics may be inferred. the expulsions of the jews and the moriscoes from spain were by way of averting the wrath of god. still, a spanish priest at court preached in favour of mercy. lingard, ed. , v, . [ ] the number slain was certainly not small. it amounted to at least , perhaps to . soames, elizabethan religious history, , p. - . under mary there perished some . durham dunlop, the church under the tudors, , p. and refs. [ ] soames, as cited, pp. - , and refs. [ ] froude, hist. of england, ed. , x, (ed. , xi, ), citing mss. ireland. [ ] gloss to february in the shepherd's calendar, globe ed. pp. - . [ ] euphues: the anatomy of wit, arber's reprint, pp. , . that the reference was mainly to oxford is to be inferred from the address "to my verie good friends the gentlemen schollers of oxford," prefixed to the ed. of . id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] essay of atheism. [ ] lecky, rationalism, i, - . scot's book (now made accessible by a reprint, ) had practically no influence in his own day; and king james, who wrote against it, caused it to be burned by the hangman in the next. scot inserts the "infidelitie of atheists" in the list of intellectual evils on his title-page; but save for an allusion to "the abhomination of idolatrie" all the others indicted are aspects of the black art. [ ] "no woman ever lived who was so totally destitute of the sentiment of religion" (green, short history, ch. vii, § , p. ). [ ] cp. soames, elizabethan religious history, , p. . yet when morris, the attorney of the duchy of lancaster, introduced in parliament a bill to restrain the power of the ecclesiastical courts, she had him dismissed and imprisoned for life, being determined that the control should remain, through those courts, in her own hands. heylyn, hist. of the reformation, ed. , pref. vol. i, pp. xiv-xv. [ ] see above, vol. i, pp. , , . [ ] collier's reprint, p. . [ ] camden, annals of elizabeth, sub. ann. ; rd ed. , p. . cp. soames, p. . [ ] hooker, pref. to ecclesiastical polity, ch. iii, § , ed. . camden (p. ) states that the dutch teacher henry nichalai, whose works were translated for the sect, "gave out that he did partake of god, and god of his humanity." [ ] see above, i, , as to a much more pronounced heresy in , which also seems to have escaped punishment. camden tells that the books of the "family of love" were burnt in , but mentions no other penalties. stow records that on october , , "proclamation was published at london for the apprehension and severe punishing of all persons suspected to be of the family of love." ed. , p. . five of them had been frightened into a public recantation in . id. p. . [ ] may , . the burning was on the th. [ ] stow's annals, ed. , pp. , - . ed. , p. . [ ] stow, ed. , p. ; david's evidence, by william burton, preacher of reading, (?), p. . [ ] stow, ed. , p. . [ ] burton, as cited. see below, pp. , , as to kett's writings. [ ] art. matthew hamond, in dict. of nat. biog. [ ] art. francis kett, in dict. of nat. biog. [ ] prof. storojenko, life of greene, eng. tr. in grosart's "huth library" ed. of greene's works, i, - . it is quite clear that malone and the critics who have followed him were wrong in supposing the unnamed instructor to be francis kett, who was a devout unitarian. prof. storojenko speaks of kett as having been made an arian at norwich, after his return there in , by the influence of lewes and haworth. query hamond? [ ] in pierce's supererogation, collier's ed. p. . [ ] rep. of nashe's works in grosart's "huth library" ed. vol. iv, pp. , , , , . etc. ed. mckerrow. , ii, - . [ ] ms. harl. , fol. . it is given in full in the appendix to the first issue of the selected plays of marlowe in the mermaid series, edited by mr. havelock ellis: and, with omissions, in the editions of cunningham, dyce, and bullen. [ ] act ii, sc. i. [ ] grosart's ed. in "temple dramatists" series, . - . there is plenty of "irreligion" in the passage, but not atheism, though there is a denial of a future state ( - ). the lines in question strongly suggest marlowe's influence or authorship, which indeed is claimed by mr. c. crawford for the whole play. but all the external evidence ascribes the play to greene. [ ] tamburlaine, part ii, act ii, sc. ii, iii; v, sc. i. [ ] writing as andrew philopater. see dict. of nat. biog., art. robert parsons, and storojenko, as cited, i, , and note. [ ] translated into latin by henri estienne in . [ ] remains of sir walter raleigh, ed. , p. . [ ] bk. i, ch. i, sec. . [ ] bk. ii, ch. i, sec. . [ ] essay on the prometheus. [ ] art. raleigh, in dict. of nat. biog., xlvii, . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] report in ed. of history of the world, p. ccxlix. "harpool" seems an error for harriott. cp. edwards, life of sir walter raleigh, , i, , . it is after naming "harpool" that the judge says: "let not any devil persuade you to think there is no eternity in heaven." [ ] ed. cited, p. xxviii. [ ] id. p. xxiv. [ ] id. p. xxii. [ ] id. p. xvi. [ ] cp. gardiner, history of england, - , -vol. ed. i, - ; iii, , . [ ] ed. cited, p. xxii. [ ] title of verses appended to trans. of achilles shield, . chapman spells the name harriots. [ ] pref. to complete trans. of iliad. [ ] bk. v, ch. ii, §§ - . works, ed. , i, - . [ ] exposition upon nehemiah ( ) in parker soc. ed. of works, , p. . [ ] work cited, pp. - , . [ ] works, i, ; ii, - . [ ] eccles. pol. bk. i, ch. vii; bk. ii, ch. i, vii; bk. iii, ch. viii, § ; bk. v, ch. viii; bk. vii, ch. xi; bk. viii, § (works, i, , , , ; ii, , ). see the citations in buckle, -vol. ed. iii, - ; -vol. ed. pp. - . [ ] supplication of travers, in hooker's works, ed. , ii, . [ ] answer to travers, id. p. . [ ] some typical attempts of the kind are discussed in the author's two lectures on the religion of shakespeare, (south place institute). [ ] shakespeare commentaries, eng. tr. , ii, - . [ ] id. ii, . [ ] in the last edition i had written to that effect; but i have modified the opinion. [ ] the allusion to "popish ceremonies" in titus andronicus is probably from his hand. see the author's work, did shakespeare write "titus andronicus"?, where it is argued that the play in question is substantially peele's and greene's. [ ] shakespeare soc. rep. , pp. , - , , , , etc. [ ] this has been shown to be his by fleay and mr. crawford. [ ] see his groatsworth of wit bought with a million of repentance. [ ] compare the jane shore portions of his edward iv with the close of a woman killed with kindness. note also the conclusion of the english traveller. [ ] see the poem england's elizabeth, . [ ] henslowe's diary, ed. greg, i, fol. . [ ] e.g., the lines, the best of men that e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer, a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, the first true gentleman that ever breathed, at the close of part i of the honest whore; and the phrase, "heaven's great arithmetician," at the close of old fortunatus. [ ] green, short hist. ch. vii, § end. cp. ruskin, sesame and lilies, lect. iii, § . [ ] the old work of w. j. birch, m.a., an inquiry into the philosophy and religion of shakspere ( ), is an unjudicial ex parte statement of the case for shakespeare's unbelief; but it is worth study. [ ] the town paid for his bread and wine, no doubt by way of compliment. [ ] cp. the author's montaigne and shakespeare, nd ed. sec. viii. [ ] a woorke concerning the trewnesse of the christian religion, . reprinted in , , and . [ ] as to the expert analysis of this play, which shows it to be in large part fletcher's, see furnivall, as cited, pp. xciii-xcvi. [ ] cp. seccombe and allen, the age of shakspere, , ii, . [ ] alberti, briefe betreffende den zustand der religion in gross-britannien, hanover, , ii, . alberti reads "god" at the end of the passage; i follow grosart's edition. [ ] hallam, lit. europe, ii, , ; pattison, isaac casaubon, nd ed. p. sq. [ ] pattison, as cited, p. ; g. w. johnson, memoirs of john selden, , pp. - . [ ] memoirs cited, pp. - . on the whole question see the review appended by selden to his history after a few copies had been distributed. [ ] poems of sir john davies, ed. grosart, , i, , . [ ] essaies politicke and morall, by d. t. gent, , fol. . [ ] act iv, sc. . [ ] act i, sc. . jonson himself could have been so indicted on the strength of certain verses. [ ] he had been offered professorships of divinity at saumur and marburg. [ ] gardiner, history of england, - , th ed. ii, . cp. bayle, art. vorstius, note n. by his theological opponents and by james, vorstius was of course called an atheist. he was in reality not a socinian, but a "strict arian, who believed that the son of god was at first created by the father, and then delegated to create the universe--a sort of inferior deity, who was nevertheless entitled to religious homage" (james nichols, note to app. p. on brandt's life of arminius in works of arminius, , i, ). nichols gives a full survey of the subject, pp. - . fuller (ch. hist. b. x, cent. , sec. iv, §§ - ) tells the story, and pronounces the opinions of vorstius "fitter to be remanded to hell than committed to writing." [ ] bayle (art. cited, note f) says both universities, as does fuller. at the synod of dort, however, the british representatives read only, it seems, a decree (dated sept. , ) of the vice-chancellor of cambridge, ordering the burning of the book there. (nichols, account of the synod of dort, in works of arminius, i, ). [ ] gardiner, pp. - . fuller (as last cited, §§ - ) gives a list of legate's "damnable tenets." see it in mrs. bradlaugh bonner's penalties upon opinion, pp. - . [ ] gardiner, as cited. fuller is cheerfully acquiescent, though he notes the private demurs, which he denounces. "god," he says, "may seem well pleased with this seasonable severity." [ ] in stow records how one randall was put on trial for "conjuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth and goods feloniously taken were become"; and four others were tried "for being present." four were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. randall was executed, and the others reprieved. (ed. , p. .) [ ] fuller actually alleges that "there was none ever after that openly avowed these heretical doctrines"--an unintelligible figment. [ ] all reprinted in for the hanserd knollys society, with histor. introd. by e. b. underhill, in the vol. tracts on liberty of conscience and persecution, - . they do not speak of legate or wightman. [ ] atheomastix, , pref. sig. b. , verso. the work was posthumous and incomplete. [ ] bk. i, ch. i, p. . [ ] in the advancement of learning, bk. i (routledge ed. p. ), he himself notes how, long before his time, the new learning had in part discredited the schoolmen. [ ] filum labyrinthi--an english version of the cogitata et visa--§ . [ ] cp. huarte, cited above, p. . [ ] nov. org. bk. i. aph. (works, routledge ed. p. ). [ ] id. aph. . [ ] id. ib. cp. the advancement of learning, bk. ii, and the de augmentis, bk. ix, near end. (ed. cited, pp. , .) [ ] nov. org. aph. . cp. aph. , , ; the valerius terminus, ch. xxv; the english filum labyrinthi, § ; and the de principiis atque originibus (ed. cited, p. ). [ ] valerius terminus, cap. i. (ed. cited, p. .) [ ] id. p. ; filum labyrinthi, p. . [ ] bk. ix, ch. i. (ed. cited, p. .) compare valerius terminus, ch. i (p. ), and de aug. bk. iii, ch. ii (p. ), as to the impossibility of knowing the will and character of god from nature, though (de aug. last cit.) it reveals his power and glory. [ ] advancement, bk. i (ed. cited, p. ). cp. valerius terminus, ch. i (p. ). [ ] advancement, bk. ii; de augmentis, bk. iii, chs. iv and v; valerius terminus, ch. xxv; novum organum, bk. i, aph. ; bk. ii, aph. . (ed. cited, pp. , , , , , .) [ ] de principiis atque originibus. (ed. cited, pp. - .) elsewhere (de aug. bk. iii, ch. iv, p. ) he expressly puts it that the system of democritus, which "removed god and mind from the structure of things," was more favourable to true science than the teleology and theology of plato and aristotle. [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] de augmentis, bk. iii, ch. ii; bk. iv, ch. ii. (ed. cited, pp. , .) [ ] id. bk. ii, ch. i. (ed. cited, p. .) [ ] de augmentis, ed. cited, p. . [ ] no. xviii, diomedes. ed. cited, p. . [ ] de principiis atque originibus, p. . [ ] nov. org. i. ; filum labyrinthi, § ; essay . [ ] francis osborn, pref. to his "miscellany," in works, th ed. . [ ] cp. valerius terminus, ch. i. [ ] this is noted by glassford in his tr. of the novum organum ( , p. ); and by ellis in his and spedding's edition of the works. (routledge ed. pp. , , note.) [ ] de augmentis, bk. iii, ch. iv, end. [ ] essay , of anger. [ ] valerius terminus, ch. xxv. [ ] de principiis, ed. cited, pp. - . cp. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] valerius terminus, ch. ii; de augmentis, bk. v, ch. iv. ed. cited, pp. , . [ ] cp. brewster, life of newton, , ii, - ; draper, intel. devel. of europe, ed. , ii, - ; dean church, bacon, pp. - ; fowler, bacon, ch. vi; lodge, pioneers of science, pp. - ; lange, gesch. d. materialismus, i, sq. (eng. tr. i, - ), and cit. from liebig--as to whom, however, see fowler, pp. , . [ ] novum organum, ii, and , § ; de aug. iii, ; thema coeli. ed. cited, pp. , , , , . whewell (hist. of induct. sciences, rd ed. i, , ) ignores the second and third of these passages in denying hume's assertion that bacon rejected the copernican theory with "disdain." it is true, however, that bacon had vacillated. the facts are fairly faced by prof. fowler in his bacon, , pp. - , and his ed. of novum organum, introd. pp. - . see also the summing-up of ellis in notes to passages above cited, and at p. . [ ] aubrey, lives of eminent persons, ed. , vol. ii, pt. ii, p. . [ ] see notes in ed. cited, pp. , , , , , , , , . [ ] fowler, ed. of nov. org. § , pp. - . [ ] id. § , p. ; ellis in ed. cited, p. . [ ] rawley's life, in ed. cited, p. ; osborn, as above cited; fowler, ed. of nov. org. introd. § ; t. martin, character of bacon, , pp. , , - . [ ] cp. fowler, bacon, pp. - ; mill, logic, bk. vi, ch. v, § ; jevons, princ. of science, -vol. ed. p. ; tyndall, scientific use of the imagination, rd ed. pp. , - , - ; t. martin, as cited, pp. - ; bagehot, postulates of eng. polit. econ. ed. , pp. - ; ellis and spedding, in ed. cited, pp. x, xii, , . the notion of a dialectic method which should mechanically enable any man to make discoveries is an irredeemable fallacy, and must be abandoned. bacon's own remarkable anticipation of modern scientific thought in the formula that heat is a mode of motion (nov. org. ii, ) is not mechanically yielded by his own process, noteworthy and suggestive though that is. [ ] pref. epistle. [ ] works, ed. dublin. , p. ; ed. , p. . [ ] kohlrausch, hist. of germany, eng. tr. p. . [ ] moritz ritter, geschichte der deutschen union, - , ii, . [ ] menzel, geschichte der deutschen, te aufl. cap. . [ ] cp. gardiner, thirty years' war, pp. - ; kohlrausch, p. ; pusey, histor. enq. into ger. rationalism, pp. - ; henderson, short hist. of germany, i, ch. xvi. [ ] kohlrausch, p. . a specially strong reaction set in about . ritter, geschichte der deutschen union, i, . cp. menzel, cap. . [ ] cp. gardiner, thirty years' war, pp. , , ; kohlrausch, p. . [ ] as to this see moritz ritter, as cited, i, , ; ii, sq.; dunham, hist. of the germanic empire, iii, ; henderson, i, sq. [ ] freytag, bilder aus d. deutschen vergangenheit, bd. ii, , p. ; bd. iii, ad init. [ ] cp. lecky, rationalism in europe, i, - . [ ] freytag, bilder, bd. ii, abth. ii, p. . [ ] the pope and the council, eng. tr. p. ; french tr. p. . [ ] de praestigiis daemonum, . see it described by lecky, rationalism, i, - ; hallam, lit. of europe, ii, . [ ] by dutch historians wier is claimed as a dutchman. he was born at grave, in north brabant, but studied medicine at paris and orleans, and after practising physic at arnheim in the netherlands was called to düsseldorf as physician to the duke of jülich, to whom he dedicated his treatise. his ideas are probably traceable to his studies in france. [ ] his collected works ( ) amount to nearly , folio pages. j. ten brink, kleine geschiedenis der nederlandsche letteren, , p. . [ ] ten brink, p. . jonckbloet (beknopte geschiedenis der nederl. letterkunde, ed. , p. ) is less specific. [ ] ten brink, pp. - . [ ] hallam, lit. of europe, ii, . [ ] ten brink, p. . [ ] jonckbloet, beknopte geschiedenis, p. ; ten brink, p. ; bayle, dictionnaire, art. koornhert; pünjer, hist. of the chr. philos. of religion, eng. tr. p. ; dr. e. gosse, art. on dutch literature in encyc. brit. th ed. xii, . [ ] ten brink, p. . [ ] flint, vico, p. . [ ] de jure belli et pacis, proleg. §§ , . [ ] bayle, art. voelkel. [ ] schlegel's note on mosheim, reid's ed. p. . [ ] nelson, life of bishop bull, nd ed. , p. . [ ] nicéron, mémoires pour servir, etc., xiv ( ), sq. one of the replies is the justa detestatio sceleratissimi libelli adriani beverlandi de peccato originali, by leonard ryssen, . a very free version of beverland's book appeared in french in under the title etat de l'homme dans le peché originel. it reached a sixth edition in . [ ] nelson, life of bishop bull, as cited, p. . [ ] krasinski, ref. in poland, , ii, ; mosheim, cent. sec. iii, pt. ii, ch. iv, § . budny translated the bible, with rationalistic notes. [ ] krasinski, p. . [ ] mosheim, last cit. § , note . [ ] krasinski, p. ; wallace, antitrin. biog. , ii, . [ ] bayle, art. fauste socin. krasinski, p. . [ ] krasinski, pp. - . fausto sozzini also could apparently forgive everybody save those who believed less than he did. [ ] cp. the inquiry as to locke's socinianism in j. milner's account of mr. lock's religion out of his own writings, , and lessing's zur geschichte und literatur, i, as to leibnitz's criticism of sonerus. [ ] enfield's history of philosophy (an abstract of brucker), ed. , p. . [ ] in the dominions of philip ii there are said to have been archbishops, bishops, , abbeys, , religious fraternities, , monasteries, , nunneries, , secular priests, , monks, , friars and other ecclesiastics. h. e. watts, miguel de cervantes, , pp. - . spain alone had , monasteries. [ ] buckle, -vol. ed. ii, ; -vol. ed. p. , and refs. [ ] cp. buckle, -vol. ed. ii, - ; -vol. ed. pp. - ; la rigaudière, hist. des perséc. relig. en espagne, , pp. - . [ ] cp. lewes, spanish drama, passim. [ ] "he inspires me only with horror for the faith which he professes. no one ever so far disfigured christianity; no one ever assigned to it passions so ferocious, or morals so corrupt" (sismondi, lit. of south of europe, bohn tr. ii, ). [ ] ticknor, hist. of spanish lit. th ed. ii, ; don quixote, pt. ii, ch. liv; ormsby, tr. of don quixote, , introd. i, . [ ] lafuente, historia de españa, , xvii, . it is not quite certain that lafuente expressed his sincere opinion. [ ] llorente, ii. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] bouterwek, hist. of spanish and portuguese literature, eng. tr. , i, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] part ii, ch. xxxvi. [ ] bouterwek, whose sociology, though meritorious, is ill-clarified, argues that the inquisition was in a manner congenital to spain because before its establishment the suspicion of heresy was already "more degrading in spain than the most odious crimes in other countries." but the same might have been said of the other countries also. as to earlier spanish heresy see above, vol. i, p. sq. [ ] despite the many fallacies retained by copernicus from the current astronomy, he must be pronounced an exceptionally scientific spirit. trained as a mathematician, astronomer, and physician, he showed a keen and competent interest in the practical problem of currency; and one of the two treatises which alone he published of his own accord was a sound scheme for the rectification of that of his own government. though a canon of frauenburg, he never took orders; but did manifold and unselfish secular service. [ ] it was shielded by thirteen popes--from paul iii to paul v. [ ] galileo, dialogi dei due massimi sistemi del mondo, ii (opere, ed. , xi, - ). [ ] a good study of bruno is supplied by owen in his skeptics of the italian renaissance. he has, however, omitted to embody the later discoveries of dufour and berti, and has some wrong dates. the life of giordano bruno, by i. frith (mrs. oppenheim), , gives all the data, but is inadequate on the philosophic side. a competent estimate is given in the late prof. adamson's lectures on the development of modern philosophy, etc., , ii, sq.; also in his art. in encyc. brit. for a hostile view see hallam, lit. of europe, ii, - . the biography of bartholmèss, jordano bruno, , is extremely full and sympathetic, but was unavoidably loose as to dates. much new matter has since been collected, for which see the vita di giordano bruno of domenico berti, rev. and enlarged ed. ; prof. j. l. mcintyre, giordano bruno, ; dufour, giordano bruno à génève: documents inédits, ; david levi, giordano bruno, o la religione del pensiero: l'uomo, l'apostolo e il martire, ; dr. h. brunnhofer's giordano bruno's weltanschauung und verhängniss, ; and the doctoral treatise of c. sigwart, die lebensgeschichte giordano brunos, tübingen, . for other authorities see owen's and i. frith's lists, and the final literaturnachweis in gustav louis's giordano bruno, seine weltanschauung und lebensverfassung, berlin, . the study of bruno has been carried further in germany than in england; but mr. whittaker (essays and notices, ) and prof. mcintyre make up much leeway. [ ] cp. bartholmèss, i, - ; lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, - (eng. tr. i, ); gustav louis, as cited, pp. , . [ ] berti, vita di giordano bruno, , pp. - , . bruno gives the facts in his own narrative before the inquisitors at venice. [ ] berti, pp. - , ; owen, p. . [ ] not to genoa, as berti stated in his first ed. see ed. , pp. , . [ ] berti, p. . owen has the uncorrected date, . [ ] dufour, giordano bruno à génève: documents inédits, ; berti, pp. - ; gustav louis, giordano bruno, pp. - . owen (p. ) has overlooked these facts, set forth by dufour in . the documents are given in full in frith, life, , p. sq. [ ] the dates are in doubt. cp. berti, p. , and frith, p. . [ ] see his own narrative before the inquisitors in . berti, p. . [ ] mcintyre, giordano bruno, , pp. - . [ ] frith, life, p. , and refs.; owen, p. ; bartholmèss, jordano bruno, i, - . [ ] cp. hallam, lit. of europe, ii, , note. as to bruno's supposed influence on bacon and shakespeare, cp. bartholmèss, i, - ; frith, life, pp. - ; and the author's montaigne and shakspere, pp. - . here there is no case; but there is much to be said for mr. whittaker's view (essays and notices, p. ) that spenser's late cantos on mutability were suggested by bruno's spaccio. prof. mcintyre supports. [ ] his praise of luther, and his compliments to the lutherans, are in notable contrast to his verdict on calvinism. what happened was that at wittemberg he was on his best behaviour, and was well treated accordingly. [ ] as to the traitor's motives cp. mcintyre, p. sq.; berti, p. sq. [ ] noroff, as cited in frith, p. . [ ] de l'infinito, ed. wagner, ii, ; cena de la ceneri, ed. wagner, i, ; acrotismus, ed. gfrörer, p. . [ ] cp. berti, pp. - ; whittaker, essays and notices, , p. ; and louis's section, stellung zu christenthum und kirche. [ ] berti, pp. - . it takes much searching in the two poems to find any of the ideas in question, and berti has attempted no collation; but, allowing for distortions, the inquisition has sufficient ground for outcry. [ ] sigillus sigillorum: de duodecima contractionis speciae. cp. f. j. clemens, giordano bruno und nicolaus von cusa, , pp. , ; and h. brunnhofer, giordano bruno's weltanschauung und verhängniss, , pp. , . [ ] in the treatise de lampade combinatoria lulliana ( ). according to berti (p. ) he is the first to employ this phrase, which becomes the watchword of spinoza (libertas philosophandi) a century later. [ ] berti, cap. iv; owen, p. ; ueberweg, ii, ; pünjer, p. sq.; whittaker, essays and notices, p. . as to bruno's debt to nicolaus of cusa cp. gustav louis, as cited, p. ; pünjer, as cited; carriere, die philosophische weltanschauung der reformationszeit, p. ; and whittaker, p. . the argument of carriere's second edition is analysed and rebutted by mr. whittaker, p. sq. [ ] de immenso, vii, c. , cited by whittaker, essays and notices, p. . [ ] as to bruno's own claim in the eroici furori, cp. whittaker, essays, p. . [ ] documents in berti, pp. - ; mcintyre, p. sq. [ ] see the document in berti, p. sq.; frith, pp. - . [ ] berti, p. sq. [ ] see berti, p. ; owen, pp. - ; frith, pp. - . [ ] the controversy as to whether galileo was tortured leaves it clear that torture was common. see dr. parchappe, galilée, sa vie, etc., , ptie. ii, ch. . [ ] spaccio della bestia trionfante, ed. wagner, ii, . [ ] prof. carriere has contended that a transition from pantheism to theism marks the growth of his thought; but, as is shown by mr. whittaker, he is markedly pantheistic in his latest work of all, though his pantheism is not merely naturalistic. essays and notices, pp. , - . [ ] italian versions differ verbally. cp. levi, p. ; berti, p. . that inscribed on the bruno statue at rome is a close rendering of the latin: majori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam, preserved by scioppius. [ ] avviso, in berti, p. ; in levi, p. . [ ] levi, pp. - . levi relates (p. ) that bruno at the stake was heard to utter the words: "o eterno, io fo uno sforzo supremo per attrarre in me quanto vi tra di più divino nell'universo." he cites no authority. an avviso reports that bruno said his soul would rise with the smoke to paradise (p. ; berti, p. ), but does not state that this was said at the stake. and levi accepts the other report that bruno was gagged. [ ] notably his comedy il candelaio. [ ] owen, skeptics of the italian renaissance, p. . a full narrative, from the documents, is given in r. c. christie's essay, "vanini in england," in the english historical review of april, , reprinted in his selected essays and papers, . [ ] see it analysed by owen, pp. - , and by carriere, weltanschauung, pp. - . [ ] amphitheatrum, , exercit. xix, pp. - . [ ] amphitheatrum, exercit. xxvii, p. . [ ] id. pp. , , , , etc. [ ] p. . machiavelli is elsewhere attacked. pp. , . [ ] julii cæsaris vanini neapolitani, theologi, philosophi, et juris utriusque doctoris, de admirandis naturæ reginæque deæque mortalium arcanis, libri quatuor. lutetiæ, . [ ] mr. owen makes a serious misstatement on this point, by which i was formerly misled. he writes (p. ) that from the publisher's preface we "learn that the dialogues were not written by vanini, but by his disciples. they are a collection of discursive conversations embodying their master's opinions." this is not what the preface says. it tells, after a high-pitched eulogy of vanini, that "nos publicæ utilitatis solliciti, alia eius monumenta, quæ avarius retinebat, per idoneos ex scriptores nancisci curavimus." in ascribing the matter of the dialogues to vanini's young days, mr. owen forgets the references to the amphitheatrum. [ ] "alex. sed in qua nam religione verè et piè deum coli vetusti philosophi existimarunt? vanini. in unica naturæ lege, quam ipsa natura, quæ deus est (est enim principium motus)...." de arcanis, as cited, p. . lib. iv, dial. . see rousselot's french tr. , p. . this passage is cited by hallam (lit. hist. ii, ) as avowing "disbelief of all religion except such as nature ... has planted in the minds of men"--a heedless perversion. [ ] de arcanis, pp. - , - (dial. , ); rousselot, pp. - , - . [ ] the special reference (lib. iv, dial. , p. ) is to a story of an infant prophesying when only twenty-four hours old. (amphitheatrum, ex. vi, p. ; cp. owen, p. , note.) on this and on other points cousin (cited by owen, pp. , , ) and hallam (lit. hist. ii, ) make highly prejudiced statements. quoting the final pages on which the dialoguist passes from serious debate to a profession of levity, and ends by calling for the play-table, the english historian dismisses him as "the wretched man." [ ] cp. carriere's analysis of the dialogues, pp. - ; and the apologia pro jul. cæsare vanino (by arpe), . [ ] see owen's vindication, pp. - . renan's criticism (averroès, pp. - ) is not quite judicial. see many others cited by carriere, p. . [ ] it is difficult to understand how the censor could let pass the description of nature in the title; but this may have been added after the authorization. the book is dedicated by vanini to marshal bassompierre, and the epistle dedicatory makes mention of the serenissima regina aeterni nominis maria medicæa, which would disarm suspicion. in any case the permit was revoked, and the book condemned to be burned. [ ] owen, p. . [ ] mercure français, , tom. v, p. . [ ] gramond (barthélemi de grammont), historia galliæ ab excessu henrici iv, , p. . carriere translates the passage in full, pp. - , ; as does david durand in his hostile vie et sentimens de lucilio vanini, . as to gramond see the lettres de gui patin, who (lett. , ed. reveillé-parise) calls him âme foible et bigote, and guilty of falsehood and flattery. [ ] gramond, p. . of vanini, as of bruno, it is recorded that at the stake he repelled the proffered crucifix. owen and other writers, who justly remark that he well might, overlook the once received belief that it was the official practice, with obstinate heretics, to proffer a red-hot crucifix, so that the victim should be sure to spurn it with open anger. [ ] stephen phillips, marpessa. [ ] cp. owen, pp. , , and carriere, pp. - , as to the worst calumnies. it is significant that vanini was tried solely for blasphemy and atheism. what is proved against him is that he and an associate practised a rather gross fraud on the english ecclesiastical authorities, having apparently no higher motive than gain and a free life. mr. christie notes, however, that vanini in his writings always speaks very kindly of england and the english, and so did not add ingratitude to his act of imposture. [ ] de arcanis, p. . lib. iii, dial. . [ ] amphitheatrum, p. . [ ] de arcanis, lib. iv, dial. , p. ; dial. , p. . cp. amphitheatrum, p. ; and de arcanis, p. . [ ] de arcanis, dial. and . in the amphitheatrum he adduces an equally skilful german atheist (p. ). [ ] dial. li, p. . [ ] dial. liv, p. . [ ] cp. rousselot, notice, p. xi. [ ] durand compiles a list of ten or eleven works of vanini from the allusions in the amphitheatrum and the de arcanis. [ ] reported by gramond, as cited. [ ] owen, pp. - . [ ] garasse, doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits, . [ ] de arcanis, dial. vii, p. . [ ] dial. iv, p. . [ ] doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, , p. . [ ] karl von gebler, galileo galilei and the roman curia, eng. tr. , pp. - . [ ] this appears from the letters of sagredo to galileo. gebler, p. . cp. gui patin, lett. , ed. reveillé-parise, , iii, ; bayle, art. cremonin, notes c and d; and renan, averroès, e édit. pp. - . patin writes that his friend naudé "avoit été intime ami de cremonin, qui n'étoit point meilleur chrétien que pomponace, que machiavel, que cardan et telles autres ... dont le pays abonde." [ ] lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, (eng. tr. i, ); gebler, p. . libri actually made the refusal; but all that is proved as to cremonini is that he opposed galileo's discoveries à priori. as to the attitude of such opponents see galileo's letter to kepler. j. j. fahie, galileo: his life and work, . pp. - . [ ] fahie, galileo, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] gebler, pp. , , and passim; the private life of galileo (by mrs. olney), boston, , pp. - . [ ] galileo's letter to kepler, cited by gebler, p. . [ ] the jesuits were expelled from venice in , in retaliation for a papal interdict. [ ] see it summarized by gebler, pp. - , and quoted in the private life, pp. - . [ ] the measure of reverence with which the orthodox handled the matter may be inferred from the fact that the dominican caccini, who preached against galileo in florence, took as one of his texts the verse in acts i: "viri galilaei, quid statis aspicientes in coelum," making a pun on the scripture. [ ] see this summarized by gebler, pp. - . [ ] see the private life of galileo, pp. - , , ; gebler, p. ; fahie, pp. - ; berti, il processo originale de galileo galilei, , p. . [ ] gebler (p. ) solemnly comments on this letter as a lapse into "servility" on galileo's part. [ ] gebler, pp. - . [ ] private life, pp. - ; gebler, pp. - . [ ] berti, pp. - ; private life, pp. - ; gebler, p. . [ ] gebler, p. ; private life, p. . [ ] gebler, pp. - ; private life, pp. - ; marini, pp. - . the "e pur si muove" story is first heard of in . as to the torture, it is to be remembered that galileo recanted under threat of it. see berti, pp. - ; marini, p. ; sir o. lodge, pioneers of science, , pp. - . berti argues that only the special humanity of the commissary-general, macolano, saved him from the torture. cp. gebler, p. , note. [ ] gebler, p. . [ ] private life, pp. - , ; gebler, p. . [ ] berti, il processo di galileo, pp. - . [ ] letter of hobbes to newcastle, in report of the hist. mss. comm. on the duke of portland's papers, , ii. hobbes explains that few copies were brought over, "and they that buy such books are not such men as to part with them again." "i doubt not," he adds, "but the translation of it will here be publicly embraced." [ ] gebler, pp. - ; putnam, censorship of the church of rome, i, - . [ ] see ueberweg, ii, , as to the conflicting types. in addition to cremonini, several leading aristotelians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were accused of atheism (hallam, lit. hist. ii, - ), the old charge against the peripatetic school. hallam (p. ) complains that cesalpini of pisa "substitutes the barren unity of pantheism for religion." cp. ueberweg, ii, ; renan, averroès, e édit. p. . an averroïst on some points, he believed in separate immortality. [ ] gebler, pp. , . gebler appears to surmise that cremonini may have escaped the attack upon himself by turning suspicion upon galileo, but as to this there is no evidence. [ ] ueberweg, ii, . [ ] epist. . [ ] see above, p. . [ ] bartholmèss, jordano bruno, i, . [ ] lange, gesch. des mater. i, - (eng. tr. i, ). born in valencia and trained at paris, vives became a humanist teacher at louvain, and was called to england ( ) to be tutor to the princess mary. during his stay he taught at oxford. being opposed to the divorce of henry viii, he was imprisoned for a time, afterwards living at bruges. [ ] see the monograph, ramus, sa vie, ses écrits, et ses opinions, par ch. waddington, . owen has a good account of ramus in his french skeptics. [ ] scholæ math. l. iii, p. , cited by waddington, p. . [ ] "in many respects galileo deserves to be ranked with descartes as inaugurating modern philosophy." prof. adamson, development of mod. philos. , i, . "we may compare his [hobbes's] thought with descartes's, but the impulse came to him from the physical reasonings of galileo." prof. croom robertson, hobbes, , p. . [ ] buckle, -vol. ed. pp. - ; -vol. ed. ii, - . cp. lange, i, (eng. tr. i, , note); adamson, philosophy of kant, , p. . [ ] cp. lange, i, (eng. tr. i, - , note); bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartésienne, , i, - , - ; bartholmèss, jordano bruno, i, - ; memoir in garnier ed. of oeuvres choisies, p. v, also pp. , , , . bossuet pronounced the precautions of descartes excessive. but cp. dr. land's notes in spinoza: four essays, , p. . [ ] coll. of philos. writings, ed. , pref. p. xi. [ ] discours de la méthode, pties. i, ii, iii, iv (oeuvres choisies, pp. , , , , ); meditation i (id. pp. - ). [ ] full details in kuno fischer's descartes and his school, eng. tr. , bk. i, ch. vi; bouillier, i, chs. xii, xiii. [ ] buckle, -vol. ed. pp. - ; -vol. ed. ii, , . [ ] buckle, pp. - ; ii, . [ ] id. p. ; ii, . the process is traced hereinafter. [ ] kuno fischer, francis bacon, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] for an exact summary and criticism of gassendi's positions see the masterly monograph of prof. brett of lahore, the philosophy of gassendi, --a real contribution to the history of philosophy. [ ] cp. adam smith, wealth of nations, bk. v, ch. i (mcculloch's ed. , pp. - ). it is told of him, with doubtful authority, that when dying he said: "i know not who brought me into the world, neither do i know what was to do there, nor why i go out of it." reflections on the death of freethinkers, by deslandes (eng. tr. of the réflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant), , p. . [ ] for a good account of gassendi and his group (founded on lange, § iii, ch. i) see soury, bréviaire de l'hist. de matérialisme, ptie. iii, ch. ii. [ ] voltaire, Éléments de philos. de newton, ch. ii; lange, i, (eng. tr. i, ) and . [ ] bayle, art. pomponace, notes f. and g. the complaint was made by arnauld, who with the rest of the jansenists was substantially a cartesian. [ ] see it in garnier's ed. of descartes's oeuvres choisies, p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] apparently just because the jansenists adopted descartes and opposed gassendi. but gassendi is extremely guarded in all his statements, save, indeed, in his objections to the méditations of descartes. [ ] see soury, pp. - , as to a water-drinking "debauch" of gassendi and his friends. [ ] rambaud, as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] voltaire, siècle de louis xiv, ed. didot, p. . "on ne l'eût pas osé sous henri iv et sous louis xiii," adds voltaire. cp. michelet, la sorcière, éd. séailles, , p. . [ ] tr. into english in , under the title the vanity of judiciary astrology. [ ] jenkin thomasius in his historia atheismi ( ) joins herbert with bodin as having five points in common with him (ed. , ch. ix, § , pp. - ). [ ] it might have been supposed that he was recalled on account of his book; but it was not so. he was recalled by letter in april, returned home in july, and seems to have sent his book thence to paris to be printed. [ ] autobiography, sir s. lee's nd ed. p. . [ ] the book was reprinted at london in latin in ; again at paris in ; and again at london in . it was translated and published in french in , but never in english. [ ] compare the verdict of hamilton in his ed. of reid, note a, § , (p. ). [ ] for a good analysis see pünjer, hist. of the christ. philos. of religion, eng. trans. , pp. - ; also noack, die freidenker in der religion, bern, , i, - ; and lechler, geschichte des englischen deismus, pp. - . [ ] see his autobiography, as cited, pp. - . [ ] de causis errorum, una cum tractate de religione laici et appendice ad sacerdotes ( ); de religione gentilium ( ). the latter was translated into english in . the former are short appendices to the de veritate. in was published for the first time from a manuscript, a dialogue between a tutor and his pupil, which, despite the doubts of lechler, may confidently be pronounced herbert's from internal evidence. see the "advertisement" by the editor of the volume, and cp. lee, p. xxx, and notes there referred to. the "five points," in particular, occur not only in the religio gentilium, but in the de veritate. the style is clearly of the seventeenth century. [ ] sir sidney lee can hardly be right in taking the dialogue to be the "little treatise" which herbert proposed to write on behaviour (autobiography, lee's nd ed. p. ). it does not answer to that description, being rather an elaborate discussion of the themes of herbert's main treatises, running to quarto pages. [ ] see below, p. . [ ] more reasons for the christian religion, , p. . [ ] it is to be remembered that the doctrine of the supremacy of the civil power in religious matters (erastianism) was maintained by some of the ablest men on the parliamentary side, in particular selden. [ ] leviathan, ch. iv, h. morley's ed. p. . [ ] cp. his letter to an opponent, considerations upon the reputation, etc., of thomas hobbes, , with chs. xi and xii of leviathan, and de corpore politico, pt. ii, c. . one of his most explicit declarations for theism is in the de homine, c. , where he employs the design argument, declaring that he who will not see that the bodily organs are a mente aliqua conditas ordinatasque ad sua quasque officia must be himself without mind. this ascription of "mind," however, he tacitly negates in leviathan, ch. xi, and de corpore politico, pt. ii, c. . [ ] de corpore, pt. ii, c. , § . [ ] cp. bentley's letter to bernard, , cited in dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] leviathan, pt. i, ch. vi. morley's ed. p. . [ ] leviathan, pt. iii, ch. xxxiii. [ ] above, p. . [ ] on this see lange, hist. of materialism, sec. iii, ch. ii. [ ] molyneux, an anti-hobbesian, in translating hobbes's objections along with the meditations ( ) claims that the slightness of descartes's replies was due to his unacquaintance with hobbes's works and philosophy in general (trans. cited, p. ). this is an obviously lame defence. descartes does parry some of the thrusts of hobbes; others he simply cannot meet. [ ] e.g., leviathan, pt. iv, ch. xlvii. [ ] kuno fischer, descartes and his school, pp. - . cp. bentley, sermons on atheism (i.e., his boyle lectures), ed. , p. . [ ] hobbes also was of mersenne's acquaintance, but only as a man of science. when, in , hobbes was believed to be dying, mersenne for the first time sought to discuss theology with him; but the sick man instantly changed the subject. in mersenne died. he thus did not live to meet the strain of leviathan ( ), which enraged the french no less than the english clergy. (croom robertson's hobbes, pp. - .) [ ] hobbes lived to see this law abolished ( ). there was left, however, the jurisdiction of the bishops and ecclesiastical courts over cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresy, and schism, short of the death penalty. [ ] croom robertson, hobbes, p. ; pepys's diary, sept. , . [ ] leviathan, ch. ii; morley's ed. p. ; chs. xiv, xv, pp. , , , ; ch. xxix, pp. , . [ ] leviathan, chs. xv, xvii, xviii. morley's ed. pp. , , , . [ ] "for two generations the effort to construct morality on a philosophical basis takes more or less the form of answers to hobbes" (sidgwick, outlines of the history of ethics, rd ed. p. ). [ ] as when he presents the law of nature as "dictating peace, for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes" (leviathan, ch. xv. morley's ed. p. ). [ ] see the headings, council, religion, etc. [ ] g. w. johnson, memoirs of john selden, , pp. , . [ ] g. w. johnson, p. . [ ] above, p. . [ ] g. w. johnson, pp. , . [ ] id. p. . cp. in the table talk, art. trinity, his view of the roundheads. [ ] memoirs of colonel hutchinson, ed. , i, . cp. i, ; ii, . [ ] cp. overton's pamphlet, an arrow against all tyrants and tyranny ( ), cited in the history of passive obedience since the reformation, , i, ; pt. ii of thomas edwards's gangræna: or a catalogue and discovery of many of the errours, heresies, blasphemies, and pernicious practices of the sectaries of this time, etc., nd ed. , pp. - (nos. - ). [ ] lords journals, january , - ; gangræna, as cited, p. ; cp. gardiner, hist. of the civil war, ed. , iii, . [ ] green, short hist. ch. viii, § , pp. - ; gardiner, hist. of the civil war, iv, . [ ] gangræna, p. . [ ] in he had been imprisoned at bury st. edmunds for "dipping" adults, and after six months' durance had been released on a recantation and promise of amendment. gangræna, as cited, pp. - . [ ] rev. james cranford, hæreseo-machia, a sermon, , p. . [ ] no. in gangræna. [ ] cranford, as cited, p. sq. [ ] see g. p. gooch's hist. of democ. ideas in england in the th century, , ch. vi. [ ] above, pp. and . [ ] in the british museum copy the name richardson is penned, not in a contemporary hand, at the end of the preface; and in the preface to vol. ii of the phenix, , in which the treatise is reprinted, the same name is given, but with uncertainty. the richardson pointed at was the author of the necessity of toleration in matters of religion ( ). e. b. underhill, in his collection of that and other tracts on liberty of conscience for the hanserd knollys society, , remains doubtful (p. ) as to the authorship of the tract on hell. [ ] the fourth english edition appeared in . [ ] gangræna, ep. ded. (p. ). cp. pp. , , - ; and bailie's letters, ed. , ii, - ; iii, . the most sweeping plea for toleration seems to have been the book entitled toleration justified, . (gangræna, p. .) the hanserd knollys collection, above mentioned, does not contain one of that title. [ ] gangræna, pp. - . [ ] pp. - . [ ] id. p. . as to other sects mentioned by him cp. tayler, p. . [ ] on the intense aversion of most of the presbyterians to toleration see tayler, retrospect of relig. life of eng. p. . they insisted, rightly enough, that the principle was never recognized in the bible. [ ] see the citations in buckle, -vol. ed. i, ; -vol. ed. p. . [ ] alex. ross, pansebeia, th ed. , p. . [ ] cp. the present writer's buckle and his critics, , ch. viii, § . [ ] see above, vol. i, p. . [ ] memoirs of colonel hutchinson, rd ed. i, . [ ] heresiography: the heretics and sectaries of these times, . epist. ded. [ ] discourse, ed. , p. . [ ] dr. j. brown's pref. to ed. of , p. xxii. [ ] more, collection of philosophical writings, th ed. , p. . [ ] fabricius, delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, , p. . [ ] no copy in british museum. [ ] urwick, life of john howe, with ed. of howe's select works, pp. xiii, xix. urwick, a learned evangelical, fully admits the presence of "infidels" on both sides in the politics of the time. [ ] discourse concerning union among protestants, ed. cited, pp. , , . in the preface to his treatise, the redeemer's tears wept over lost souls, howe complains of "the atheism of some, the avowed mere theism of others," and of a fashionable habit of ridiculing religion. this sermon, however, appears to have been first published in ; and the date of its application is uncertain. [ ] wallace, antitrinitarian biography, art. . [ ] the preface begins: "it is neither to satisfie the importunity of friends, nor to prevent false copies (which and such like excuses i know are expected in usual prefaces), that i have adventured abroad this following treatise: but it is out of a just resentment of the affronts and indignities which have been cast on religion, by such who account it a matter of judgment to disbelieve the scriptures, and a piece of wit to dispute themselves out of the possibility of being happy in another world." [ ] see bk. ii, ch. x. page , rd ed. . [ ] cp. glanvill, pref. address to his scepsis scientifica, owen's ed. , pp. lv-lvii; and henry more's divine dialogues, dial. i, ch. xxxii. [ ] cp. lecky, rationalism in europe, i. . [ ] the reformed pastor, abr. ed. , pp. , . [ ] work cited, ed. , p. . the proposition is reiterated. [ ] id. p. . [ ] reasons of the christian religion, pp. - . [ ] religio stoici, edinburgh, . p. . the essay was reprinted in , and in london in under the title of the religious stoic. [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] religio stoici, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] this last is interesting as a probable echo of opinions he had heard from some of his older contemporaries: "opinion kept within its proper bounds is an [ = the scottish "ane"] pure act of the mind; and so it would appear that to punish the body for that which is a guilt of the soul is as unjust as to punish one relation for another" (pref. pp. - ). he adds that "the almighty hath left no warrand upon holy record for persecuting such as dissent from us." [ ] reason: an essay, ed. , p. . cp. p. . [ ] id. p. . it is noteworthy that mackenzie puts in a protest against "implicit faith and infallibility, those great tyrants over reason" (p. ). but the essay as a whole is ill-planned and unimpressive. [ ] work cited, nd ed. pt. ii, pp. - . [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - , - . this explanation is also given by bishop wilkins in his treatise on natural religion, th ed. p. . [ ] replying to herbert's de veritate, which he seems not to have read before. [ ] pref. to obs. upon the united prov. of the netherlands, in works, ed. , i, . [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, pp. , - , , . [ ] as to the religious immoralism see mosheim, cent. sec. ii, pt. ii, ch. ii, § , and murdock's notes. [ ] compare the picture of average protestant deportment given by benjamin bennet in his discourses against popery, , p. . [ ] more, coll. of philos. writings, th ed. , gen. pref. p. . [ ] compare some of the extracts in thomas bennet's defence of the discourse of schism, etc., nd ed. , from the sermons of r. gouge ( ). the description of men as "mortal crumbling bits of dependency, yesterday's start-ups, that come out of the abyss of nothing, hastening to the bosom of their mother earth" (work cited, p. ) is a reminder that the resonant and cadenced rhetoric of the brownes and taylors and cudworths was an art of the age, at the command of different orders of propaganda. [ ] cited by bonnet, a defence of the discourse of schism, etc., as cited, p. . [ ] thus henry more's biographer, the rev. richard ward, says "the late mr. chiswel told a friend of mine that for twenty years together after the return of king charles the second the mystery of godliness, and dr. more's other works, ruled all the booksellers in london" (life of more, , pp. - ). we have seen the nature of some of more's "other works." [ ] the reasonableness of scripture belief, , epist. ded. [ ] rep. ; nd ed. ; rep. in the phoenix, vol. ii, ; rd ed. . [ ] a very hostile account of him is given in dict. of nat. biog. he was, however, the friend of cowley, and the "m. clifford" to whom sprat addressed his sketch of cowley's life. he was also a foe of dryden--the "malicious matt clifford" of dryden's sessions of the poets; and he attacked the poet in notes on dryden's poems (published ), and is supposed to have had a hand in the rehearsal. he was befriended by shaftesbury. [ ] tract. theol. polit. c. . [ ] wood, athenæ oxonienses, ii, - ; granger, biog. hist. of england, th ed. v, . [ ] johnson's life of dr. watts, , app. i. [ ] toulmin, hist. of the prot. dissenters, , citing johnson's life of dr. watts. [ ] it has been suggested that this was really written by clifford, for posthumous publication. the humorous sketch of "his character" at the close, suggesting that his vices seem to the writer to have outweighed his virtues, hints of ironical mystification. [ ] work cited, pp. , , , . [ ] dr. urwick, life of howe, as cited, p. xxxii. [ ] a demonstration of the divine authority of the law of nature and of the christian religion, by samuel parker, d.d., , pref. the first part of this treatise is avowedly a popularization of the argument of cumberland's disquisitio de legibus naturæ, . parker had previously published in latin a disiputatio de deo et providentia divina, in which he raised the question, an philosophorum ulli, et quinam athei fuerunt ( ). [ ] work cited, nd ed. , pp. , - , - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] twelve sermons preached upon several occasions, , pp. - . [ ] this has been ascribed, without any good ground, to charles blount. it does not seem to me to be in his style. [ ] premonition to the candid reader. [ ] hist. nat. vii, . [ ] pamphlet cited, pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] concerning whom see macaulay's history, ch. xix, ed. , ii, - --a very prejudiced account. blount is there spoken of as "one of the most unscrupulous plagiaries that ever lived," and as having "stolen" from milton, because he issued a pamphlet "by philopatris," largely made up from the areopagitica. compare macaulay's treatment of locke, who adopted dudley north's currency scheme (ch. xxi, vol. ii, p. ). [ ] bayle (art. apollonius, note), who is followed by the french translator of philostratus with blount's notes in (j. f. salvemini de castillon), says the notes were drawn from the papers of lord herbert of cherbury; but of this blount says nothing. [ ] as to these see the dict. of nat. biog. the statements of anthony wood as to the writings of blount's father, relied on in the author's dynamics of religion, appear to be erroneous. sir thomas pope blount, charles's eldest brother, shows a skeptical turn of mind in his essays ( rd ed. , essay ). himself a learned man, he disparages learning as checking thought; and, professing belief in the longevity of the patriarchs (p. ), pronounces popery and pagan religion to be mere works of priestcraft (essay ). he detested theological controversy and intolerance, and seems to have been a lockian. [ ] all that is known of this tragedy is that blount loved his deceased wife's sister and wished to marry her; but she held it unlawful, and he was in despair. according to pope, a sufficiently untrustworthy authority, he "gave himself a stab in the arm, as pretending to kill himself, of the consequence of which he really died" (note to epilogue to the satires, i, ). an overstrung nervous system may be diagnosed from his writing. [ ] boyle lectures on atheism, ed. , p. . [ ] reflexions upon the books of the holy scriptures to establish the truth of the christian religion, by peter allix, d.d., , i, - . [ ] as cited by leslie, truth of christianity demonstrated, , pp. - . [ ] characteristics, ii, (moralists, pt. ii, § ). one of the most dangerous positions from the orthodox point of view would be the thesis that while religion could do either great good or great harm to morals, atheism could do neither. (bk. i, pt. iii, § .) cp. bacon's essay, of atheism. [ ] blount, after assailing in anonymous pamphlets bohun the licenser, induced him to license a work entitled king william and queen mary conquerors, which infuriated the nation. macaulay calls the device "a base and wicked scheme." it was almost innocent in comparison with blount's promotion of the "popish plot" mania. see who killed sir edmund godfrey berry? by alfred marks. , pp. - , . [ ] see the text in mrs. bradlaugh bonner's penalties upon opinion, pp. - . macaulay does not mention this measure. [ ] the act had been preceded by a proclamation of the king, dated feb. . . [ ] as to an earlier monopoly of the london booksellers, see george herbert's letters to the archbishop of canterbury and to bacon, jan. , . in works of george herbert, ed. , i. - . [ ] see locke's notes on the licensing act in lord king's life of locke, , pp. - ; fox bourne's life of locke, ii. - ; macaulay's history, ii, . [ ] trinius, freydenker-lexicon, , p. ; pünjer, i, , - . browne was even called an atheist. arpe, apologia pro vanino, , p. , citing welschius. mr. a. h. bullen, in his introduction to his ed. of marlowe ( , vol. i, p. lviii), remarks that browne, who "kept the road" in divinity, "exposed the vulnerable points in the scriptural narratives with more acumen and gusto than the whole army of freethinkers, from anthony collins downwards." this is of course an extravagance, but, as mr. bullen remarks in the dict. of nat. biog. vii, , browne discusses "with evident relish" the "seeming absurdities in the scriptural narrative." [ ] browne's annotator points to the derivation of his skepticism from "that excellent french writer monsieur mountaign, in whom i often trace him" (sayle's ed. , i, p. xviii). [ ] religio medici, i, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] id. i, . [ ] religio medici, i, . [ ] bk. i, ch. x. [ ] here we have a theorem independently reached later (with the substitution of nature for god) by mary wollstonecraft and tennyson in turn. browne cites yet another: "that he looks not below the moon, but hath resigned the regiment of sublunary affairs unto inferior deputations"--a thesis adopted in effect by cudworth. [ ] by an error of the press, browne is made in mr. sayle's excellent reprint (i, ) to begin a sentence in the middle of a clause, with an odd result:--"i do confess i am an atheist. i cannot persuade myself to honour that the world adores." the passage should obviously read: "to that subterraneous idol (avarice) and god of the earth i do confess i am an atheist," etc. [ ] hutchinson, histor. essay conc. witchcraft, , p. ; nd ed. , p. . [ ] cp. whewell, lectures on the history of moral philosophy, ed. , p. . [ ] robertson smith, the religion of the semites, , pref. p. vi; rev. dr. duff, hist. of old test. criticism, r. p. a. , p. . [ ] this appears again, much curtailed and "so altered as to be in a manner new," in its author's collected essays on several important subjects in religion and philosophy ( ), under the title against confidence in philosophy. [ ] see the humane nature ( ), ch. iv, §§ - . [ ] scepsis scientifica, ch. , § . [ ] see the passages compared by lewes, history of philosophy, th ed. ii, . [ ] in his blow at modern sadducism ( th ed. ), sadducismus triumphatus ( ; rd ed. ), and a whip to the droll, fidler to the atheist ( --a letter to henry more, who was zealous on the same lines). these works seem to have been much more widely circulated than the scepsis scientifica. [ ] scepsis, ch. , § . [ ] see glanvill's reply in a letter to a friend ( ), re-written as essay ii, of scepticism and certainty: in a short reply to the learned mr. thomas white in his collected essays on several important subjects, . [ ] see the reply in plus ultra: or, the progress and advancement of knowledge since the days of aristotle, , epist. ded. pref. ch. xviii, and conclusion. [the re-written treatise, in the collected essays, eliminates the controversial matter.] [ ] first printed with glanvill's philosophia pia in . rep. as an essay in the collected essays. [ ] owen, pref. to scepsis, pp. xx-xxii. [ ] owen, pref. to ed. of scepsis scientifica, p. ix. [ ] of whom, however, a high medical authority declares that, "as a physiologist, he was sunk in realism" (that is, metaphysical apriorism). prof. t. clifford allbutt, harveian oration on science and medieval thought, , p. . [ ] cp. whewell, as last cited, pp. - ; hallam, literature of europe, iv, - . [ ] reid, intellectual powers, essay i, ch. i; hamilton's ed. of works, p. . glanvill calls gassendi "that noble wit." (scepsis scientifica, owen's ed. p. .) [ ] poet. works of milton, , introd. i, sq. [ ] scepsis scientifica, owen's ed. p. . in the condensed version of the treatise in glanvill's collected essays ( , p. ), the language is to the same effect. [ ] j. j. tayler, retrospect of the religious life of england, martineau's ed. p. ; wallace, antitrinitarian biography, iii, - . [ ] cp. buckle, -vol. ed. ii, - ; -vol. ed. pp. - . [ ] tayler, retrospect, pp. - ; wallace, iii, - . [ ] gangræna, pt. i, p. . [ ] tayler, p. . as to biddle, the chief propagandist of the sect, see pp. - , and wallace, art. . [ ] macaulay, essay on milton. cp. brown's ed. (clarendon press) of the poems of milton, ii, . [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, ch. v. [ ] of education, § . [ ] essay, bk. iv, ch. xix. § . [ ] tractatus theologico-politicus, c. . [ ] third letter to the bishop of worcester. [ ] some familiar letters between mr. locke and several of his friends, , pp. - . [ ] fox bourne, life of locke, , ii, . [ ] the first letter, written while he was hiding in holland in , was in latin, but was translated into french, dutch, and english. [ ] mr. fox bourne, in his biography (ii, ), apologizes for the lapse, so alien to his own ideals, by the remark that "the atheism then in vogue was of a very violent and rampant sort." it is to be feared that this palliation will not hold good--at least, the present writer has been unable to trace the atheism in question. for "atheism" we had better read "religion." [ ] second vindication of "the reasonableness of christianity," , pref. [ ] fox bourne, life of locke, ii, . [ ] son of the presbyterian author of the famous gangræna. [ ] said by carrol, dissertation on mr. lock's essay, , cited by anthony collins, essay concerning the use of reason, , p. . [ ] cited by fox bourne, life of locke, ii, . [ ] whose calibre may be gathered from his egregious doctoral thesis, concio ad clerum de dæmonum malorum existentia et natura ( ). after a list of the deniers of evil spirits, from the sadducees and sallustius to bekker and van dale, he addresses to his "dilectissimi in christo fratres" the exordium: "en, academici, veteres ac hodiernos sadducæos! quibuscum tota atheorum cohors amicissimè congruit; nam qui divinum numen, iidem ipsi infernales spiritus acriter negant." [ ] confutation of warburton ( ) in extracts from law's works, , i, - . [ ] cp. the essay, bk. i, ch. iii, § , with law's case of reason, in extracts, as cited, p. . [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, p. . [ ] fox bourne, ii, - . [ ] an ostensibly orthodox professor of our own day has written that locke's doctrine as to religion and ethics "shows at once the sincerity of his religious convictions and the inadequate conception he had formed to himself of the grounds and nature of moral philosophy" (fowler, locke, , p. ). [ ] burnet, history of his own time, ed. , p. . burnet adds that temple "was a corrupter of all that came near him." the editor protests against the whole attack as the "most unfair and exaggerated" of burnet's portraits; and a writer in the present state of the republick of letters, jan., , p. , carries the defence to claiming orthodoxy for temple. but the whole cast of his thought is deistic. cp. the essay upon the origin and nature of government, and ch. v of the observations upon the united provinces (works, ed. , i, , , - ). [ ] cp. macaulay, history, ch. ii. student's ed. i, . [ ] compare his advice to a daughter, § (in miscellanies, ), and his political thoughts and reflections: religion. [ ] see macaulay, ch. xx. student's ed. ii, . [ ] de morgan, as cited, p. . [ ] see brewster, ii, , - , , sq., sq. [ ] id. p. sq. [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. de morgan, pp. - . [ ] four letters from sir isaac newton to dr. bentley, ed. , p. . cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] brewster, ii, . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] brewster, p. . see the remaining articles, and app. xxx, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] discourse on tillotson and burnet, pp. , , , cited by collins, discourse of freethinking, , pp. - . [ ] the brief notes on the creed of st. athanasius (author unknown), printed by thomas firmin. late in appeared another antitrinitarian tract, by william freke, who was prosecuted, fined £ , and ordered to make a recantation in the four courts of westminster hall. the book was burnt by the hangman. wallace, art. . there had also been "two quarto volumes of tracts in support of unitarianism," published in (dr. w. h. drummond, an explanation and defence of the principles of protestant dissent, , p. ). [ ] "locke's ribald schoolfellow of nearly fifty years ago" (fox bourne, ii, ). [ ] id. ib. [ ] tayler, retrospect, p. ; wallace, antitrinitarian biography, i, - . [ ] fox bourne, ii, ; wallace, art. . [ ] above, pp. - . [ ] nelson's life of bishop bull, nd ed. , p. . [ ] "perhaps at no period was the unitarian controversy so actively carried on in england as between and ." history, opinions, etc., of the english presbyterians, , p. . [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - --tayler, retrospect, p. . [ ] as to whom see tayler, retrospect, ch. v. § . they are spoken of as "the new sect of latitude-men" in ; and in are said to be "at this day low churchmen." see a brief account of the new sect of latitude-men, by "s. p." of cambridge, , reprinted in the phenix, vol. ii, . and pref. to that vol. from "s. p.'s" account it is clear that they connected with the new scientific movement, and leant to cartesianism. as above noted, they included such prelates as wilkins and tillotson. the work of e. a. george, seventeenth century men of latitude ( ), deals with hales, chillingworth, whichcote, h. more, taylor, browne, and baxter. [ ] toulmin, histor. view of the prot. dissenters, , p. . a main ground of the offence taken was a somewhat trivial dialogue in burnet's book between eve and the serpent, indicating the "popular" character of the tale. this was omitted from a dutch edition at the author's request, and from the rd ed. (toulmin, as cited). it is given in the partial translation in blount's oracles of reason. [ ] see brewster's memoirs of newton, , ii, - , for a letter indicating craig's religious attitude. he contributed to dr. george cheyne's philosophical principles of religion, natural and revealed, . (pref. to pt. i, ed. .) [ ] see the note of pope and warburton on the dunciad, iv, . [ ] see arts. in dict. of nat. biog. [ ] reprinted at amsterdam, . [ ] essays as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] see christianity not founded on argument (by henry dodwell, jr.), , pp. , . waterland, as cited by bishop hurst, treats the terms reasonist and rationalist as labels or nicknames of those who untruly profess to reason more scrupulously than other people. the former term may, however, have been set up as a result of le clerc's rendering of "the logos," in john i, , by "reason"--an argument to which waterland repeatedly refers. [ ] prof. strowski, who is concerned to prove that the freethinkers of the period were mostly men-about-town, claims patin as a frondeur (de montaigne à pascal, p. ). but patin's attitude in this matter was determined by his detestation of mazarin, whom he regarded as an arch-scoundrel. naudé's defence of the massacre is forensic. [ ] lettres de gui patin, no. , édit. reveillé-parise, , i, . [ ] cp. reveillé-parise, as cited, notice sur gui patin, pp. xxiii-xxvii, and bayle, art. patin. [ ] see the notices of him in owen's skeptics of the french renaissance; and in sainte-beuve. port royal, iii, , etc. [ ] de la vertu des payens, in t. v. of the mo ed. of oeuvres, . [ ] hanotaux, hist. du cardinal de richelieu, , i, pref. p. . [ ] cp. buckle, ch. viii, -vol. ed. pp. - , - . [ ] see the good criticism of m. hanotaux in perrens, les libertins en france au xvii. siècle, p. sq. [ ] oeuvres, ed. , v, sq. bellarmin, as le vayer shows, had similarly explained away augustine. but the doctrine that heathen virtue was not true virtue had remained orthodox. [ ] ed. cited, iv, . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] tom. iii, . [ ] he wrote very many, the final collection filling three volumes folio, and fifteen in duodecimo. the cincq dialogues faits à l'imitation des anciens were pseudonymous, and are not included in the collected works. [ ] "on le régarde comme le plutarque de notre siècle" (perrault, les hommes illustres du xviie siècle, éd. , ii. ). [ ] perrault, ii, . [ ] bayle, dict. art. la mothe le vayer. cp. introd. to l'esprit de la mothe le vayer, par m. de m. c. d. s. p. d. l. (i.e. de montlinot, chanoine de saint pierre de lille), , pp. xviii, xxi, xxvi. [ ] m. perrens, who endorses this criticism, does not note that some passages he quotes from the dialogues, as to atheism being less disturbing to states than superstition, are borrowed from bacon's essay of atheism, of which le vayer would read the latin version. [ ] perrens, p. . [ ] in french, ; in latin, , amended. [ ] translated into english in , and into french, under the title traité du pyrrhonisme de l'église romaine, by n. chalaire, amsterdam, . [ ] bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartésienne, , i, sq., sq.; lanson, hist. de la litt. française, e édit. p. ; brunetière, Études critiques, e série, p. ; buckle, -vol. ed. p. . bouillier notes (i, ) that the femmes savantes ridiculed by molière are cartesians. [ ] bouillier, i, ; lanson, p. . [ ] bouillier, i, sq. [ ] id. p. sq. [ ] id. p. sq. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] "il disait très souvent," said pascal's niece:--"je ne puis pardonner à descartes: il aurait bien voulu, dans toute sa philosophie, pouvoir se passer de dieu; mais il n'a pu s'empêcher de lui accorder une chiquenade, pour mettre le monde en mouvement; après cela il n'a plus que faire de dieu." récit de marguerite perier ("de ce que j'ai ouï dire par m. pascal, mon oncle"), rep. with pensées, ed. . pp. - . [ ] bouillier, p. . [ ] id. p. sq. [ ] see bouillier, i, sq.; ii, sq.; and introd. to oeuvres philos. du père buffier, , p. ; and cp. rambaud, hist. de la civilisation française, e édit. ii, . [ ] bouillier, i, . [ ] perrens, pp. - . [ ] cp. perrens, pp. - , and refs. [ ] cp. strowski, de montaigne à pascal, p. . [ ] see duvernet, vie de voltaire, ch. i, and note ; and perrens, pp. - . [ ] for all that is known of petit see the avertissement to bibliophile jacob's edition of paris ridicule et burlesque au ième siècle, and refs. in perrens, p. . after petit's death, his friend du pelletier defended him as being a deist; but he seems in his youthful writings to have blasphemed at large, and he had been guilty of assassinating a young monk. he was burned, however, for blaspheming the virgin. [ ] guizot, corneille et son temps, ed. , p. . the circle of the hôtel rambouillet were especially hostile. cp. palissot's note to polyeucte, end. on the other hand, corneille found it prudent to cancel four skeptical lines which he had originally put in the mouth of the pagan severus, the sage of the piece. perrens, les libertins, p. . [ ] under whom he studied in his youth with a number of other notably independent spirits, among them cyrano de bergerac. see sainte-beuve's essay on molière, prefixed to the hachette edition. molière held by gassendi as against descartes. bouillier, i, sq. [ ] constant coquelin, art. "don juan" in the international review, september, , p. --an acute and scholarly study. [ ] "molière is a freethinker to the marrow of his bones" (perrens, p. ). cp. lanson, p. ; fournier, Études sur molière, , pp. - ; soury, brêv. de l'hist. du matér. p. . "ginguené," writes sainte-beuve, "a publié une brochure pour montrer rabelais précurseur de la révolution française: c'étoit inutile à prouver sur molière" (essay cited). [ ] act ii, sc. iv. in oeuvres comiques, etc., ed. jacob, rep. by garnier, pp. - . [ ] see jacob's note in loc., ed. cited, p. . [ ] e.g. his lettre contre un pédant (no. of the lettres satiriques in ed. cited, p. ), which, however, appears to have been mutilated in some editions; as one of the deistic sentences cited by m. perrens, p. , does not appear in the reprint of bibliophile jacob. [ ] e.g. the histoire des oiseaux in the histoire comique des états et empires du soleil, ed. jacob (garnier), p. ; and the fragment de physique (same vol.). [ ] see the careful criticism of perrens, pp. - . [ ] bibliophile jacob, pref. to ed. cited, pp. i-ii. [ ] perrens, p. . compare bossuet's earlier sermon for the second sunday of advent, , cited by perrens, pp. - , where he speaks with something like fury of the free discussion around him. [ ] cousin plausibly argues that pascal began writing pensées under the influence of a practice set up in her circle by madame de sablé. mme. de sablé, e édit. p. sq. [ ] it is to be remembered that the work as published contained matter not pascal's. cp. brunetière, Études, iii, - ; and the editions of the pensées by faugère and havet. [ ] as to some of these see perrens, pp. - . they included the great condé and some of the women in his circle; all of them unserious in their skepticism, and all "converted" when the physique gave the required cue. [ ] pensées, ed. faugère, ii, - . the "abêtira" comes from montaigne. [ ] thus mr. owen treats pascal as a skeptic, which philosophically he was, insofar as he really philosophized and did not merely catch at pleas for his emotional beliefs. "les pensées de pascal," writes prof. le dantec, "sont à mon avis le livre le plus capable de renforcer l'athéisme chez un athée" (l'athéisme, , pp. - ). they have in fact always had that effect. [ ] de la delicatesse, , dial. v, p. , etc. [ ] vinet, Études sur blaise pascal, e édit. p. sq. [ ] cp. the Éloge de pascal by bordas demoulin in didot ed. of the lettres, , pp. xxii-xxiii, and cit. from saint-beuve. mark pattison, it seems, held that the jesuits had the best of the argument. see the letters of lord acton to mary gladstone, , p. . as regards the effect of jansenism on belief, we find de tocqueville pronouncing that "le jansenisme ouvrit ... la brêche par laquelle la philosophie du e siècle devait faire irruption" (hist. philos. du règne de louis xv, , i, ). this could truly be said of pascal. [ ] cp. voltaire's letter of , cited by morley, voltaire, th ed. p. . [ ] cp. owen, french skeptics, pp. - , . [ ] this was expressly urged against huet by arnauld. see the notice in jourdain's ed. of the logique de port royal, , p. xi; perrens, les libertins, p. ; and bouillier hist. de la philos. cartésienne, , i, - , where are cited the letters of arnauld (nos. , , and in oeuvres compl. iii, , , ) denouncing huet's pyrrhonism as "impious" and perfectly adapted to the purposes of the freethinkers. [ ] cp. alexandre westphal, les sources du pentateuque, i ( ), pp. - . [ ] huet himself incurred a charge of temerity in his handling of textual questions. id. p. . [ ] pattison, essays, , i. - . [ ] pattison, as cited. [ ] "after all, a book [the bible] cannot make a stand against the wild, living intellect of man." newman, apologia pro vita sua, st ed. p. ; ed. , p. . the same is said by newman of religion in general (p. ). [ ] pattison disparages it as colourless, a fault he charges on jesuit latin in general. but by most moderns the latin style of huet will be found pure and pleasant. [ ] pattison, essays, i, . cp. bouillier, i, . [ ] fontenelle, Éloge sur régis; bouillier, philos. cartés., i, . [ ] réponse to huet's censura philosophiæ cartes., ; bouillier, i, . [ ] usage de la raison et de la foi, , liv. i, ptie. i, ch. vii; bouillier, p. . [ ] bouillier, i, - . [ ] lettre de août, , no. , éd. nodier. [ ] bouillier, ii, . [ ] méditations chrétiennes, ix, § . [ ] entretiens métaphysiques, viii. [ ] id. viii, ix. [ ] bouillier, ii, . so kuno fischer: "in brief, malebranche's doctrine, rightly understood, is spinoza's" (descartes and his school, eng. tr. , p. . cp. p. ). [ ] the work of arnauld was reprinted in with a remarkable approbation by clavel, in which he eulogizes the style and the dialectic of arnauld, and expresses the hope that the book may "guérir, s'il se peut, d'une étrange préoccupation et d'une excessive confiance, ceux qui enseignent ou soutiennent comme evident ce qu'il y a de plus dangereux dans la nouvelle philosophie non-obstant les défenses faites par le feu roi louis xiv à l'université d'angers en l'année et à l'université de paris aux années et de le laisser enseigner ou soutenir." [ ] des vrayes et des fausses idées, ch. xxviii. [ ] recherche de la vérité, liv. vi, ptie. ii, ch. iii. [ ] this was the main theme of the finished Éloge of fontenelle, and was acknowledged by bayle, daguesseau, arnauld, bossuet, voltaire, and diderot, none of whom agreed with him. bouillier, ii, . fontenelle opposed malebranche's philosophy in his doutes sur le système physique des causes occasionelles. id. p. . [ ] cp. bouillier, ii, - . [ ] he is not mentioned by ueberweg, lange, or lewes. his importance in æsthetics, however, is recognized by some moderns, though he is not named in mr. bosanquet's history of Æsthetic. [ ] traité des premières vérités, , §§ - . [ ] bouillier, introd. to buffier's oeuvres philosophiques, , p. xiii. [ ] remarques sur les principes de la metaphysique de locke, passages cited by bouillier. [ ] oeuvres, éd. bouillier, p. . [ ] cp. bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartés., ii, . [ ] malebranche, traité de morale, liv. ii, ch. . cp. bouillier, i, , - ; ii, . [ ] cp. westphal, les sources du pentateuque, , i, sq. [ ] præadamitæ, sive exercitatio super versibus , , cap. , epist. d. pauli ad romanos, quibus inducuntur primi homines ante adamum conditi. the notion of a pre-adamite human race, as we saw, had been held by bruno. (above, p. .) [ ] my copies of the præadamitæ and systema bear no place-imprint, but simply "anno salutis mdclv." both books seem to have been at once reprinted in mo. [ ] bayle, dictionnaire, art. peyrere. a correspondent of bayle's concludes his account of "le préadamite" thus: "le pereire étoit le meilleur homme du monde, le plus doux, et qui tranquillement croyoit fort peu de chose." there is a satirical account of him in the lettres de gui patin, april , (no. , ed. reveillé-parise, , iii, ), cited by bayle. [ ] see the account of his book by mr. lecky, rationalism in europe, i, - . rejecting as he did the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch, he ranks with hobbes and spinoza among the pioneers of true criticism. indeed, as his book seems to have been in ms. in , he may precede hobbes. patin had heard of peyrère's præadamitæ as ready for printing in . let. , ed. cited, i, . [ ] kuno fischer, descartes and his school, pp. - . [ ] colerus (i.e., köhler), vie de spinoza, in gfrörer's ed. of the opera, pp. xlv-xlvii. [ ] cited by george sinclar in pref. to satan's invisible world discovered, ,rep. . i have been unable to meet with a copy of mastricht's book. [ ] "novitates cartesianæ multis parasangas superunt arminianas." [ ] nichols, works of arminius, , i, b (paging partly duplicated). [ ] cp. bouillier, i, - . [ ] colerus, vie de spinoza, in gfrörer's ed. of opera, p. xxv; martineau, study of spinoza, , pp. - ; pollock, spinoza, nd ed. , pp. - . [ ] as set forth by joel, beiträge zur gesch. der philos., breslau, . see citations in land's note to his lecture in spinoza: four essays, , pp. - . [ ] land, "in memory of spinoza," in spinoza: four essays, pp. - ; sigwart, as there cited; pollock, spinoza, p. . cp. however, martineau, p. , note. [ ] renati des cartes princip. philos. more geometrico demonstratæ, . [ ] cp. martineau, pp. , . [ ] reprinted in , without place-name, and with the imprint of an imaginary hamburg publisher. [ ] tractatus, c. . [ ] ep. xxiv, to oldenburg. [ ] epp. lviii, lx, to boxel. [ ] ep. xxiii, to oldenburg. [ ] ep. xxiv. [ ] ep. xxxiv, to w. van bleyenberg. [ ] ep. xlvii, to jellis, feb. . [ ] ep. xix, , to oldenburg. [ ] "spinozism is atheistic, and has no valid ground for retaining the word 'god'" (martineau, p. ). this estimate is systematically made good by prof. e. e. powell of miami university in his spinoza and religion ( ). see in particular ch. v. the summing-up is that "the right name for spinoza's philosophy is atheistic monism" (pp. - ). [ ] ethica, pt. i, app.; pt. ii, end; pt. v, prop. , schol. cp. the letters, passim. [ ] the solution is, of course, that the attitude of the will in the forming of opinion may or may not be passionally perverse, in the sense of being inconsistent. to show that it is inconsistent may be a means of enlightening it; and an aspersion to that effect may be medicinal. spinoza might truly have said that passional perversity was at least as common on the orthodox side as on the other. in any case, he quashes his own criticism of bacon. cp. the author's essay on spinoza in pioneer humanists. [ ] pt. iv, prop. , schol. [ ] ep. ; june, . [ ] colerus, as cited, p. liv. cuper appears to have been genuinely anti-spinozist, while his opponent, breitburg, or bredenburg, of rotterdam, was a spinozist. both were members of the society of "collegiants," a body of non-dogmatic christians, which for a time was broken up through their dissensions. mosheim, cent. sec. ii, pt. ii, ch. vii, § , and note. [ ] theologisch, philosophisch, en historisch process voor god, tegen allerley atheisten. by francis ridder, rotterdam, . [ ] l'impiétié convaincu, "par pierre yvon," amsterdam, . really by the sieur noël aubert de versé. this appears to have been reprinted in under the title l'impie convaincu, ou dissertation contre spinosa, ou l'on réfute les fondemens de son athéisme. [ ] see fox bourne's life of locke, ii, - , as to locke's friendly relations with the remonstrants in - . [ ] see the summary of his argument by alexandre westphal, les sources du pentateuque, , i, sq. [ ] mosheim, reid's ed. p. ; martineau, pp. - . the first ms. of the treatise of spinoza, de deo et homine, found and published in the nineteenth century, bore a note which showed it to have been used by a sect of christian spinozists. see janet's ed. , p. . they altered the text, putting "faith" for "opinion." id. p. , notes. [ ] edwards, gangræna, as before cited. [ ] discourse of freethinking, p. . [ ] colerus, as cited, p. lviii. [ ] first ed. rotterdam, vols. folio, . [ ] albert cazes, pierre bayle, sa vie, ses idées, son influence, son oeuvre, , pp. , . [ ] a movement of skepticism had probably been first set up in the young bayle by montaigne, who was one of his favourite authors before his conversion (cazes, p. ). montaigne, it will be remembered, had been a fanatic in his youth. thus three typical skeptics of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries had known what it was to be catholic believers. [ ] cp. the essay on the skepticism of bayle in sir j. f. stephen's horæ sabbaticæ, vol. iii, and the remarks of perrens, les libertins, pp. - . [ ] Éloge de m. le cardinal polignac prefixed to bougainville's translation, l'anti-lucrèce, , i, . bayle's quoted words are: "oui, monsieur, je suis bon protestant, et dans toute la force du mot; car au fond de mon âme je proteste contre tout ce qui se dit et tout ce qui se fait." [ ] cp. the testimony of bonet-maury, histoire de la liberté de conscience en france, , p. . besides the writings above cited, note, in the dictionnaire, art. mahomet, § ix; art. conecte; art. simonide, notes h and g; art. sponde, note c. [ ] commentaire philosophique sur la parabole: contrains-les d'entrer, e ptie, vi. cp. the critique générale de l'histoire du calvinisme du père maimbourg, passim. [ ] see pref. to eng. tr. of hotman's franco-gallia, . [ ] rep. at amsterdam, , under the title, voeux d'un patriote. jurieu's authorship is not certain. cp. ch. nodier, mélanges tirés d'une petite bibliothèque, , p. . but it is more likely than the alternative ascription to le vassor. the book made such a sensation that the police of louis xiv destroyed every copy they could find; and in the chancelier maupeou was said to have paid livres for a copy at auction over the duc d'orléans. [ ] ed. , p. . [ ] the tractatus theologico-politicus had been translated into french in by saint-glain, a protestant, who gave it no fewer than three other titles in succession to evade prosecution. (note to colerus in gfrörer's ed. of spinoza, p. xlix.) in addition to the work of aubert de versé, above mentioned, replies were published by simon, de la motte (minister of the savoy chapel, london), lami, a benedictine, and others. their spirit may be divined from lami's title, nouvel athéisme renversé, . [ ] tom. i. § ii, ch. ix (ed. , i, . ). [ ] the destruction of protestant liberties was not the work of the single act of revocation. it had begun in detail as early as . from the withholding of court favour it proceeded to subsidies for conversions, and thence to a graduated series of invasions of protestant rights, so that the formal revocation was only the violent consummation of a process. see the recital in bonet-maury, histoire de la liberté de conscience en france, , pp. - . [ ] as to the loss to french industry see bonet-maury, as cited, p. , and refs. [ ] see duruy, hist. de la france, ii, ; bonet-maury, as cited, pp. - . [ ] as to whose attitude at this crisis see o. douen, l'intolérance de fénelon, . [ ] lanson, hist. de la litt. française, p. . [ ] id ib. cp. demogeot, p. . [ ] not printed till , in the nouvelles libertés de penser; and still read in ms. by grimm in . fontenelle was also credited with a heretical letter on the resurrection, and an essay on the infinite, pointing to disbelief. it should be noted, however, that he stands for deism in his essay, de l'existence de dieu, which is a guarded application of the design argument against what was then assumed to be the only alternative--the "fortuitous concourse of atoms." [ ] but voltaire and he were not at one. he is the "nain de saturne" in micromégas. [ ] b. ; d. . a man who lived to ninety can have been no great debauchee. [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, p. . [ ] cp. gidel, Étude prefixed to oeuvres choisies de saint-evremond, ed. garnier, pp. - . [ ] caractères ( ), ch. xvi: les esprits forts. [ ] "is embarrassed" in the first edition. [ ] des ouvrages de l'esprit, near end. § in ed. walckenaer, p. . [ ] m. le vassor, de la véritable religion, , préf. le vassor speaks in the same preface of "this multitude of libertins and of unbelievers which now terrifies us." his book seeks to vindicate the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch, inspiration, prophecies, and miracles, against spinoza, le clerc, and others. [ ] cp. huet, huetiana, § . [ ] the question is discussed in the author's buckle and his critics, pp. - , and ed. of buckle's introduction. buckle's view, however, was held by huet, huetiana, § . [ ] cp. perrens, pp. - . [ ] letter of the duchesse d'orléans, cited by rocquain, l'esprit révolutionnaire avant la révolution, , p. , note. [ ] as voltaire noted, toland was persecuted in ireland for his circumspect and cautious first book, and left unmolested in england when he grew much more aggressive. [ ] first ed. anonymous. second ed., of same year, gives author's name. another ed. in . [ ] see dynamics of religion, p. . [ ] pref. to nd ed. pp. vi, viii, xxiv, xxvi. [ ] as late as a vote for its prosecution was passed in the lower house of convocation. farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, p. . [ ] molyneux, in familiar letters of locke, etc. p. . [ ] no credit for this is given in sir leslie stephen's notice of toland in english thought in the eighteenth century, i, - . compare the estimate of lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, - (eng. tr. i, - ). lange perhaps idealizes his subject somewhat. [ ] in two letters published along with the letters to serena, . [ ] letters to serena, etc. , pref. [ ] de principiis atque originibus (routledge's -vol. ed. pp. , ). [ ] letters to serena, pp. , . [ ] sir henry craik (cited by temple scott, bohn ed. of swift's works, iii, ) speaks of toland as "a man of utterly worthless character." this is mere malignant abuse. toland is described by pope in a note to the dunciad (ii, ) as a spy to lord oxford. there could hardly be a worse authority for such a charge. [ ] gostwick, german culture and christianity, , p. . [ ] cp. stephen, as cited, p. . [ ] "the christianity of many writers consisted simply in expressing deist opinions in the old-fashioned phraseology" (stephen, i, ). [ ] cp. pünjer, christ. philos. of religion, i, - ; and dynamics of religion, pp. - . lord morley's reference to "the godless deism of the english school" (voltaire, th ed. p. ) is puzzling. cp. rosenkranz (diderot's leben und werke, , ii, ) on "den ungöttlichen gott der jesuiten and jansenisten, dies monströse zerrbild des alten jehovah, diesen apotheosirten tyrannen, diesen moloch." the latter application of the term seems the more plausible. [ ] macaulay's description of blount as an atheist is therefore doubly unwarranted. [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] continuation des pensées diverses ... à l'occasion de la comète ... de , amsterdam, , i, . [ ] warburton, divine legation, vol. ii, preface. [ ] stephen, english thought, i, - . [ ] this, according to john craig, was newton's opinion. "the reason of his [newton's] showing the errors of cartes's philosophy was because he thought it made on purpose to be the foundation of infidelity." letter to conduitt, april , , in brewster's memoirs of newton, ii, . clarke, in his answer to butler's fifth letter, expresses a similar view. [ ] "three discourses of happiness, virtue, and liberty, collected from the works of the learn'd gassendi by monsieur bernier. translated out of the french, ." [ ] cp. w. sichel, bolingbroke and his times, , i, . [ ] sir leslie stephen (i, ) makes the surprising statement that a "dogmatic assertion of free-will became a mark of the whole deist and semi-deist school." on the contrary, hobbes and anthony collins, not to speak of locke, wrote with uncommon power against the conception of free-will, and had many disciples on that head. [ ] letter to the princess of wales, november, , in brewster, ii, - . [ ] second letter to clarke, par. . [ ] abstract from the works of john hutchinson, , pp. - . [ ] clarke's answer to leibnitz's first letter, end. [ ] berkeley, defence of freethinking in mathematics, par. vii; and stock's memoir of berkeley. cp. brewster, memoirs of newton, ii, . [ ] in the philosophical transactions, , no. , i, v, vi. [ ] brewster, more worlds than one, , p. . [ ] lecky, hist. of england in the eighteenth cent. ed. , iii, - . [ ] the tradition of saunderson's unbelief is constant. in the memoir prefixed to his elements of algebra ( ) no word is said of his creed, though at death he received the sacrament. [ ] see the state of the process depending against mr. john simson, edinburgh, . simson always expressed himself piously, but had thrown out such expressions as ratio est principium et fundamentum theologiæ, which "contravened the act of assembly, " (vol. cited, p. ). the "process" against him began in , and dragged on for nearly twenty years, with the result of his resigning his professorship of theology at glasgow in , and seceding from the associate presbytery in . burton, history of scotland, viii, - . [ ] cp. the pamphlet by "a presbyter of the church of england," attributed to bishop hare, cited in dynamics of religion, pp. - , and by lecky, iii, . [ ] tatler, nos. , , ; spectator, nos. , , , ; guardian, nos. , , , , , , , , , , , , , . most of the guardian papers cited are by berkeley. they are extremely virulent; but steele's run them hard. [ ] analyst, queries and : defence of freethinking in mathematics, §§ , , . cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] letter in de morgan's newton: his friend: and his niece, , p. . [ ] the essays in the characteristics (excepting the inquiry concerning virtue and merit, which was published by toland, without permission, in ) appeared between and , being collected in the latter year. shaftesbury died in , in which year appeared his paper on the judgment of hercules. [ ] a project for the advancement of religion. bohn ed. of works, iii, . in this paper swift reveals his moral standards by the avowal (p. ) that "hypocrisy is much more eligible than open infidelity and vice: it wears the livery of religion ... and is cautious of giving scandal." [ ] sir leslie stephen (english thought, i, ) speaks of dodwell's thesis as deserving only "pity or contempt." cp. macaulay, student's ed. ii, - . but a doctrine of conditional immortality had been explicitly put by locke in his reasonableness of christianity, , p. . cp. prof. fraser's locke, , pp. - , and fox bourne's life of locke, ii, . the difference was that dodwell elaborately gave his reasons, which, as dr. clarke put it, made "all good men sorry, and all profane men rejoice." [ ] history of his own time, ed. , p. . [ ] compare his ironical argument against abolishing christianity, . [ ] he had, however, hailed the anonymous letter concerning enthusiasm as "very well writ," believing it to be by a friend of his own--(robert hunter, to whom, accordingly, it has since been mistakenly attributed by various bibliographers, including barbier). "enthusiasm," as meaning "popular fanaticism," was of course as repellent to a churchman as to the deists. [ ] printed in folio . rep. in vol. xi of the harleian miscellany, p. sq. ( nd ed. p. sq.). [ ] dr. e. synge, of dublin (afterwards archbishop of tuam), in his religion tryed by the test of sober and impartial reason, published in , seems to be writing before the issue of collins's book when he says (dedication, p. ) that the spread of the "disease not only of heterodoxy but of infidelity" is "too plain to be either denied or dissembled." [ ] leslie affirms in his truth of christianity demonstrated ( , p. ) that the satirical detection of his short method with the deists, to which the truth is a reply, was by the author of priestcraft in perfection; but, while the detection has some of collins's humour, it lacks his amenity, and is evidently not by him. [ ] an english translation of the dictionary, in vols. folio, with "many passages restored," appeared in . [ ] a collection of several pieces of mr. john locke, , p. . [ ] e.g. mark pattison, who calls collins's book of pages a "small tract." [ ] "ignorance," collins writes, "is the foundation of atheism, and freethinking the cure of it" (discourse of freethinking, p. ). like newton, he contemplated only an impossible atheism, never formulated by any writer. the philosophical principles of religion, natural and reveal'd, of dr. george cheyne ( , nd ed. ), similarly declares (pref. end) that "if the modern [i.e. newtonian] philosophy demonstrates nothing else, yet it infallibly proves atheism to be the most gross ignorance." thus the vindicator of "religion" was writing in the key of the deist. [ ] mr. temple scott, in his bohn ed. of swift's works (iii, ), asserts that swift's satire "frightened collins into holland." for this statement there is no evidence whatever, and as it stands it is unintelligible. the assertion that collins had had to fly to holland in (dr. conybeare, hist. of n. t. crit. r. p. a. , p. ) is also astray. [ ] second ed. . another writer, william lyons, was on the same track, publishing the infallibility of human judgment, its dignity and excellence ( nd ed. ), and a discourse of the necessity of human actions ( ). [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] as to whose positions see a paper in the writer's pioneer humanists, . [ ] there were six separate discourses. voltaire speaks of "three editions coup sur coup of ten thousand each" (lettre sur les auteurs anglais--in oeuvres, ed. . lxviii, ). this seems extremely unlikely as to any one discourse; and even , copies of each discourse is a hardly credible sale, though the writer of the sketch of his life ( ) says that "the sale of mr. woolston's works was very great." in any case, woolston's discourses are now seldomer met with than collins's discourse of freethinking. alberti (briefe betreffend den zustand der religion in gross-brittannien) wrote in that the discourses were even in that day somewhat rare, and seldom found together. many copies were probably destroyed by the orthodox, and many would doubtless be thrown away, as tracts so often are. [ ] tyerman's life of wesley, ed. , i, - . [ ] the infidel convicted, , pp. , . [ ] tindal ( - ) was the son of a clergyman, and in was elected a fellow of all souls, oxford. from to he was a roman catholic. under william iii he wrote three works on points of political freedom--one, , on the liberty of the press. his rights of the christian church, anonymously published in , a defence of erastianism, made a great sensation, and was prosecuted--only to be reprinted. his later defence of the rights of the christian church was in , by order of the house of commons, burned by the common hangman. [ ] middleton's works, nd ed. , iii, - . [ ] tindal (voltaire tells) regarded pope as devoid of genius and imagination, and so trebly earned his place in the dunciad. [ ] a layman's faith.... "by a freethinker and a christian," . [ ] title-page of rev. elisha smith's cure of deism, st ed. ; rd ed. . [ ] le moine, dissertation historique sur les écrits de woolston, sa condemnation, etc. pp. - , cited by salchi, lettres sur le déisme, , p. sq. [ ] lettre sur les auteurs anglais, as cited. voltaire tells that, when a she-bigot one day spat in woolston's face, he calmly remarked: "it was so that the jews treated your god." another story reads like a carefully-improved version of the foregoing. a woman is said to have accosted him as a scoundrel, and asked him why he was not yet hanged. on his asking her grounds for such an accost, she replied: "you have writ against my saviour. what would become of my poor sinful soul if it was not for my dear saviour--my saviour who died for such wicked sinners as i am." life of mr. woolston, prefixed to a reprint of his collected discourses, , p. . cp. salchi, p. . [ ] life cited, pp. , , . [ ] an historical defence of the trustees of lady hewley's foundations, by the rev. joseph hunter, , pp. , ; the history, opinions, and present legal position of the english presbyterians, , pp. , ; skeats, history of the free churches of england, ed. miall, p. . [ ] hunter, as cited, p. ; history of the presbyterians, as cited, p. ; fletcher, history of independency, , iv, - . [ ] hunter, pp. , . [ ] skeats, as cited, p. . [ ] hunter, pp. - . [ ] skeats (pp. - ) sums up that while the baptists had probably "never been entirely free from the taint" of unitarianism, the particular baptists and the congregationalists were saved from it by their lack of men of "eminently speculative mind"; while the presbyterians "were men, for the most part, of larger reading than other nonconformists, and the writings of whiston and clarke had found their way among them." but the tendency existed before whiston and clarke. [ ] history, cited, p. ; hunter, pp. - ; skeats, pp. - . [ ] skeats, pp. - , sq. [ ] skeats, p. . [ ] hunter, p. . [ ] as sir leslie stephen has observed (english thought, i, ), chubb "deserves the praise of malthusians." having a sufficiency of means for himself, but not more, he "lived a single life, judging it greatly improper to introduce a family into the world without a prospect of maintaining them." the proverb as to mouths and meat, he drily observes, had not been verified in his experience. (the author's account of himself, pref. to posthumous works, , i, p. iv.) [ ] one of the then numerous tribe of eccentrics. he held by judaic sabbatarianism, and affected a rabinnical costume. he made a competence, however, as an ironmonger. [ ] essay towards preventing the ruin of great britain. [ ] discourse to magistrates. [ ] guardian, nos. , , . [ ] the analyst, queries, - . [ ] see above, pp. - . [ ] discourse of passive obedience, § . [ ] works, ed. , p. . [ ] see the whole context, which palpitates with excitement. [ ] mr. walter sichel (bolingbroke and his times, , i, ) thinks fit to dispose of her attitude as "her aversion to the church and to everything that transcended her own faculties." so far as the evidence goes, her faculties were much superior to those of most of her orthodox contemporaries. for her tone see her letters. [ ] e.g. dunciad, ii, ; iii, ; iv, . [ ] voltaire commented pointedly on pope's omission to make any reference to shaftesbury, while vending his doctrine. (lettres philosophiques, xxii.) as a matter of fact pope does in the dunciad (iv, ) refer maliciously to the theocles of shaftesbury's moralists as maintaining a lucretian theism or virtual atheism. the explanation is that shaftesbury had sharply criticized the political course of bolingbroke, who in turn ignored him as a thinker. see the present writer's introd. to shaftesbury's characteristics, ed. (rep. in pioneer humanists); and cp. w. r. scott, francis hutcheson, , p. . [ ] texte, rousseau and the cosmopolitan spirit in literature, eng. tr. pp. - . [ ] chesterfield in his characters (app. to the letters) testifies that pope "was a deist believing in a future state; this he has often owned himself to me." (bradshaw's ed. of letters, iii, .) chesterfield makes a similar statement concerning queen caroline:--"after puzzling herself in all the whimsies and fantastical speculations of different sects, she fixed herself ultimately in deism, believing in a future state." (id. p. .) [ ] dict. philos. art. athée, § . [ ] wise, in his adaptation of cudworth, a confutation of the reason and philosophy of atheism ( ), writes (i, ) that "the philosophical atheists are but few in number," and their objections so weak "as that they deserve not a hearing but rather neglect"; but confusedly goes on to admit that "one or two broachers of 'em maybe thought able to infect a whole nation, as ... sad experience tells us." [ ] complaint to this effect was made by orthodox writers. the scotch professor halyburton, for instance, complains that in many sermons in his day "heathen morality has been substituted in the room of gospel holiness. and ethicks by some have been preached instead of the gospels of christ." natural religion insufficient (edinburgh), , p. . cp. pp. , - , , etc. bishop burnet, in the conclusion to his history of his own time, declares, "i must own that the main body of our clergy has always seemed dead and lifeless to me," and ascribes much more zeal to catholics and dissenters. (ed. , pp. - .) [ ] the moralists deals rather with strict skepticism than with substantive atheism. [ ] the grand essay: or, a vindication of reason and religion against impostures of philosophy. the book was, on march , , condemned by the house of commons to be burned in palace yard, along with its author's second thoughts concerning the human soul ( ). a second ed. of the latter appeared soon after. [ ] above, p. . [ ] mr. herbert paul, in his essay on swift (men and letters, , p. ), lumps as deists the four writers named by swift in his argument. not having read them, he thinks fit to asperse all four as bad writers. asgill, as was noted by coleridge (table talk, july , ; april , ), was one of the best writers of his time. he was, in fact, a master of the staccato style, practised by mr. paul with less success. [ ] work cited, p. . the book is now rare. [ ] cp. cheyne, founders of old testament criticism, , p. . [ ] dr. cheyne expresses surprise that a "theological writer" who got no far should not have been "prompted by his good genius to follow up his advantage." it is, however, rather remarkable that parvish, who was a bookseller at guildford (alberti, briefe, p. ), should have achieved what he did. it was through not being a theological writer that he went so far, no theologian of his day following him. [ ] see the author's introduction to ed. of the characteristics, , rep. in pioneer humanists. [ ] the question remains obscure. cp. the letter cited, reprinted at end of carver's ed. of paine's works (new york); f. thackeray's life of chatham, ii, ; and chatham's "scalping-knife" speech. [ ] a vindication of the moral philosopher appeared in . [ ] cp. lechler, pp. , . [ ] cp. cairns, unbelief in the eighteenth century, , p. . [ ] ed. , p. sq. [ ] view of the deistical writers, letter xi (x in st ed.). [ ] sir leslie stephen, english thought, i, . [ ] act th, geo. ii ( ), ch. . [ ] a tour in ireland, ed. , ii, - . [ ] young at this period was entirely secular in his thinking. telling of his recovery from a fever in , he writes: "i fear that not one thought of god ever occurred to me at that time" (autobiography, , p. ). afterwards he fell into religious melancholia (introd. note of editor). [ ] really an abler man than half the others in the list, but himself a good deal of a heretic. so far from attempting to make "victims," he pleaded for a more candid treatment of deistic objections. [ ] doddridge himself was not theologically orthodox, but was an evangelical christian. dr. stoughton, religion in england under queen anne and the georges, , i, - . [ ] whose doctrine sir leslie stephen elsewhere (p. ) calls a "brutal theology which gloried in trampling on the best instincts of its opponents," and a "most unlovely product of eighteenth-century speculation." [ ] of warburton sir leslie writes elsewhere (p. ) that "this colossus was built up of rubbish." see p. for samples. again he speaks (p. ) of the bishop's pretensions as "colossal impudence." it should be noted, further, that warburton's teaching in the divine legation was a gross heresy in the eyes of william law, who in his short but sufficient confutation pronounced its main thesis a "most horrible doctrine." ed. , as cited, i, . [ ] as to whose "senile incompetence" see same vol. p. . [ ] history of protestant theology, eng. tr. ii, . for the influence of deism on germany, see tholuck (vermischte schriften, bd. ii) and lechler (gesch. des englischen deismus).--note by dr. cheyne. [ ] an essay towards a natural history of the earth, rd ed. , pref. and pp. sq., sq. cp. white, warfare of science with theology, i. . [ ] end of pref. [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] playfair, in the edinburgh review, january, , cited by brewster, memoirs of newton, . i, . [ ] brewster, as last cited. [ ] grant, history of physical astronomy, , p. . [ ] baden powell, hist. of nat. philos. , p. . [ ] brewster, more worlds than one, , p. . [ ] sir james stephen, horæ sabbaticæ, ii, ; lechler, p. . [ ] see details in dynamics of religion, ch. viii. [ ] essay on "tendencies of religious thought in england: - ," in essays and reviews, th ed. p. . [ ] in criticizing whom sir leslie stephen barely notices his scientific work, but dwells much on his religious fallacies--a course which would make short work of the fame of newton. [ ] in his case of reason; or, natural religion fully and fairly stated, in answer to tindal ( ). see the argument set forth by sir leslie stephen, i, - . it is noteworthy, however, that in his spirit of prayer ( ), pt. ii, dial. i, law expressly argues that "no other religion can be right but that which has its foundation in nature. for the god of nature can require nothing of his creatures but what the state of their nature calls them to." like baxter, berkeley, butler, and so many other orthodox polemists, law uses the argument from ignorance when it suits him, and ignores or rejects it when used by others. [ ] the general reader should take note that in a. murray's issue of hume's essays (afterwards published by ward, lock, and co.), which omits altogether the essays on miracles and a future state, the natural history of religion is much mutilated, though the book professes to be a verbatim reprint. [ ] even before his death he was suspected of that view. when his coffin was being carried from his house for interment, one of "the refuse of the rabble" is said to have remarked, "ah, he was an atheist." "no matter," replied another, "he was an honest man" (curious particulars, etc., respecting chesterfield and hume, , p. ). [ ] see burton, hist. of scotland, viii, - , as to the case of pitcairne. [ ] howell's state trials, xiii ( ), coll. - . [ ] macaulay, history, ch. xxii; student's ed. ii, - ; burton, history of scotland, viii, - . aikenhead seems to have been a boy of unusual if unbalanced capacity, even by the bullying account of macaulay, who missed no opportunity to cover himself by stoning heretics. see the boy's arguments on the bases of ethics, set forth in his "dying speech," as cited by halyburton, natural religion insufficient, , pp. - , , and the version in the state trials, xiii, - . [ ] macaulay ascribes the savagery of the prosecution to the lord advocate, sir james stewart, "as cruel as he was base"; but a letter printed in the state trials, from a member of the privy council, says the sentence would have been commuted if "the ministers would intercede." they, however, "spoke and preached for cutting him off." trials, xiii, ; burton, viii, . [ ] letter to sir francis masham, printed in the state trials, xiii, - --evidently written by locke, who seems to have preserved all the papers printed by howell. [ ] macaulay, as cited. in one francis borthwick, who had gone abroad at the age of fourteen and turned jew, was accused of blaspheming jesus, and had to fly for his life, being outlawed. state trials, as cited, col. . [ ] a full account of the several ends and uses of confessions of faith, first published in as a preface to a collection of confessions of faith, by prof. w. dunbar, of edinburgh university, rd ed. , p. . [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] scotland and scotsmen in the eighteenth century. from the mss. of john ramsay, of ochtertyre, , i, . ramsay describes johnston as a "joyous, manly, honourable man," of whom kames "was exceedingly fond" (p. ). [ ] w. r. scott, francis hutcheson, , pp. , - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. alberti, briefe betreffende den zustand der religion in gross-brittannien, , pp. - . [ ] see dr. mccosh's scottish philosophy, , pp. - . dr. mccosh notes that at some points dudgeon anticipated hume. [ ] dr. mccosh, however, admits that the absence of the printer's name on the edition of dudgeon's works shows that there was then no thorough freedom of thought in scotland. [ ] rae, life of adam smith, , p. . prof. fowler shows no knowledge of this prosecution in his monograph on hutcheson (shaftesbury and hutcheson, ); and mr. w. r. scott, in his, seems to rely for the wording of the indictment solely on mr. rae, who gives no references, drawing apparently on unpublished mss. [ ] rae, as cited, pp. - . [ ] scott, as cited, p. . [ ] dr. james orr, david hume and his influence, etc., . pp. - . [ ] also for a time a theological professor in edinburgh university. [ ] the thoughts concerning religion, natural and revealed, appeared in ; the letter to a bishop in ; and the reflections on the sources of incredulity (left unfinished) posthumously about . forbes in his youth had been famed as one of the hardest drinkers of his day. [ ] reflections on incredulity, in works, undated, ii, - . yet the works of forbes were translated for orthodox purposes into german, and later into french by père houbigant ( ), who preserves the passage on freethinkers' morals, though curtailing the reflections as a whole. [ ] as to which see a sober enquiry into the grounds of the present differences in the church of scotland, . [ ] cockburn's life of jeffrey, ed. , p. . [ ] see the autobiography of the rev. dr. a. carlyle, , pp. - . millar's historical view of the english government (censured by hallam) was once much esteemed; and his origin of ranks is still worth the attention of sociologists. [ ] ritchie's life of hume, , pp. - ; tytler's life of lord kames, nd ed. , i, ch. v; burton's life of hume, i, - . [ ] ritchie, as cited, p. . [ ] mcculloch, life of smith prefixed to ed. of wealth of nations, ed. , p. ii. [ ] ramsay of ochtertyre, scotland and scotsmen in the eighteenth century, , i, - . mr. rae doubts the story, life of adam smith, , p. . [ ] ramsay, as last cited. [ ] ramsay, passage cited. [ ] theory of moral sentiments, pt. iii, ch. ii, end. [ ] cp. rae, pp. - . mr. rae thinks the deletion stood for no change of opinion, and cites smith's own private explanation (sinclair's life of sir john sinclair, i, ) that he thought the passage "unnecessary and misplaced." but this expression must be read in the light of smith's general reticence concerning established dogmas. certainly he adhered to his argument--which does not claim to be a demonstration--for the doctrine of a future state. [ ] bk. v, ch. i, pt. iii, art. . [ ] smith's admiration for voltaire might alone indicate his mental attitude. as to that see f. w. hirst, adam smith (eng. men of letters ser.), pp. - . but the assertion of skarzinski, that smith, after being an idealist under the influence of hume, "returned a materialist" from his intercourse with voltaire and other french freethinkers, is an exhibition of learned ignorance. see hirst, p. . [ ] an explanation and defence of the principles of protestant dissent, by the rev. dr. w. hamilton drummond, , pp. - . ; skeats, hist. of the free churches of england, ed. miall, pp. - ; wallace, anti-trinitarian biography, iii, art. . [ ] cp. drummond, as cited, pp. - ; history, opinions, etc., of the english presbyterians, , p. . [ ] w. r. scott, francis hutcheson, p. . [ ] above, p. , note. [ ] scott, pp. - , - . the suggestion is not quite convincing. synge, after becoming archbishop of tuam, continued to publish his propagandist tracts, among them an essay towards making the knowledge of religion easy to the meanest capacity ( th ed. ), which is quite orthodox, and which argues (p. ) that the doctrine of the trinity is to be believed, and not pried into, "because it is above our understanding to comprehend." all the while there was being sold also his early treatise, "a gentleman's religion: in three parts ... with an appendix, wherein it is proved that nothing contrary to our reason can possibly be the object of our belief, but that it is no just exception against some of the doctrines of christianity that they are above our reason." [ ] scott, p. . [ ] all that is told of this prelate by lecky (hist. of ireland in the th cent. . i, ) is that at killala he patronized horse-races. he was industrious on more episcopal lines. he wrote an introduction to the history of the jews; a vindication of biblical chronology; two treatises on prophecy; an anti-athanasian essay on spirit ( ), which aroused much controversy; a vindication of the histories of the old and new testament, in answer to bolingbroke ( vols. - ; nd ed. ; rep. with the essay on spirit, dublin, ), which led to his being prosecuted; and other works. the offence given by the vindication lay in his denunciation of the athanasian creed, and of the bigotry of those who supported it. see pt. iii, letters i and ii. the essay on spirit is no less heterodox. in other respects, however, clayton is ultra-orthodox. [ ] dr. g. w. alberti, briefe betreffende den zustand der religion in gross-brittannien, hannover, , p. . [ ] above, p. . [ ] put by huarte in . above, i, . [ ] inquiry, p. . [ ] inquiry, pref. pp. x, xxii. [ ] a letter to the rev. dr. conyers middleton, occasioned by his late "free inquiry," , pp. - . [ ] a free answer to dr. middleton's "free inquiry," by william dodwell [son of the elder and brother of the younger henry], rector of shottesbrook, , pp. - . [ ] inquiry, p. . [ ] works, nd ed. , ii, . [ ] cp. essay on mandeville, in the author's pioneer humanists, . [ ] as against the objections of mr. lang, see the author's paper in studies in religious fallacy. [ ] cp. the summary of farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, pp. - , which is founded on that of pusey's early historical enquiry concerning german rationalism, pp. - . [ ] rep. same year at dublin: nd ed. . the first ed. was ascribed to d'argens--an error caused though not justified by the publisher's notice. [ ] the point is further discussed in dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] cp. g. b. hertz, the old colonial system, , pp. , , , . [ ] letter xxxi, in mason's memoir. [ ] hill burton's life of hume, ii, , , - , . [ ] compare the verdicts of gibbon in his autobiography, and of adam smith, wealth of nations, bk. v, ch. i, art. ; and see the memoir of smith in ed. and mcculloch's ed., and rae's life of adam smith, p. . it appears that about many english people sent their sons to edinburgh university on account of the better education there. letter of blair, in burton's life of hume, ii, . [ ] essays, iv, end. [ ] present state of polite learning, , ch. vi. his story of how the father of st. foix cured the youth of the desire to rationalize his creed is not suggestive of conviction. the father pointed to a crucifix, saying, "behold the fate of a reformer." the story has been often plagiarized since--e.g., in galt's annals of the parish. [ ] abbey and overton, the english church in the eighteenth century, , ii, . [ ] dieu et les hommes, ch. xxxix. [ ] cp. bishop law, considerations on the theory of religion, th ed. , p. , note, and the analysis of bolingbroke's writings ( ) there cited. mr. sichel's reply to sir l. stephen's criticism may or may not be successful; but he does not deal with bishop law's. [ ] mémoires de diderot, ed. , ii, . [ ] these had begun as early as (micromégas). [ ] works, ed. , i, pp. cix, ; ii, , . cp. the poem kew gardens, left in ms. [ ] i here take a few sentences from my paper, the church and education, . [ ] short history, p. . the concise description of the endowed grammar schools, by nicholas carlisle, , shows that schools were founded in all parts of the country by private bequest or public action during the eighteenth century. [ ] collis, in transactions of the social science association, , p. . according to collis, had been founded by james i, under charles i, under the commonwealth, under charles ii, under james ii, under william and mary, under anne, under george i, and under george ii. he does not indicate their size. [ ] green, as last cited. [ ] gibbins, industrial history of england, , p. . [ ] hist. of england under george iii, ed. , ii, . [ ] the document is given in ritchie's life of hume, , pp. - . [ ] a reply, the world proved to be not eternal nor mechanical, appeared in . [ ] the doctrines of a trinity and the incarnation of god was published anonymously. [ ] see the biographical introduction to the unitarian reprint of watts's solemn address, , which gives the letters of lardner. and cp. skeats, hist. of the english free churches, ed. miall, p. . [ ] life of lardner, by dr. kippis, prefixed to works, ed. , i, p. xxxii. [ ] memoirs of priestley, , pp. - , , . the letter on the logos was addressed by lardner to the first lord barrington, and was first published anonymously, in . [ ] memoirs of priestley, p. . [ ] pamphlet of , printing the sermon, with reply to a local attack. [ ] ms. alteration in print. see also p. of epistle dedicatory. [ ] in criticizing whom sir leslie stephen barely notices his scientific work, but dwells much on his religious fallacies--a course which would make short work of the fame of newton. [ ] a church dignitary has described evanson's dissonance as "the commencement of the destructive criticism of the fourth gospel" (archdeacon watkins's bampton lectures, , p. ). [ ] williams (d. ), who published vols. of "lectures on education" and other works, has a longer claim on remembrance as the founder of the "literary fund." [ ] the subject is discussed at length in the essay on gibbon in the author's pioneer humanists. [ ] cp. bishop watson's apology for christianity ( ) as to the vogue of unbelief at that date. (two apologies, ed. , p. . cp. pp. , .) [ ] the panegyric on voltaire delivered at his death by frederick the great (nov. , ) was promptly translated into english ( ). [ ] reflections on the french revolution, , p. . [ ] see hannah more's letter of april, , in her life, abridged mo-ed. p. . an edition of shaftesbury, apparently, appeared in , and another in . [ ] the essays of hume, including the dialogues concerning natural religion ( ), were now circulated in repeated editions. mr. rae, in his valuable life of adam smith, p. , cites a german observer, wendeborn, as writing in that the dialogues, though a good deal discussed in germany, had made no sensation in england, and were at that date entirely forgotten. but a second edition had been called for in , and they were added to a fresh edition of the essays in . any "forgetting" is to be set down to preoccupation with other interests. [ ] letter to the bishop of lichfield and coventry, , p. . [ ] dr. parr, characters of c. j. fox, i, ; cited in charles james fox, a commentary, by w. s. landor, ed. by s. wheeler, , p. . fox's secretary and biographer, trotter, while anxious to discredit the statement of parr, gives such a qualified account (memoirs of the latter years of c. j. fox, , pp. - ) of fox's views on immortality as to throw much doubt on the stronger testimony of b. c. walpole (recollections of c. j. fox, , p. ). [ ] see j. l. le b. hammond, charles james fox, , ch. xiii. [ ] see a letter in bishop watson's life, i, ; and cp. buckle, ch. vii, note . [ ] see his task, bk. iii, - ( - ), for the prevailing religious tone. [ ] princ. of moral philos. bk. v, ch. ix. the chapter tells of widespread freethinking. [ ] ernest krause, erasmus darwin, eng. tr. , p. . cp. pp. , . [ ] letters vii, viii, ix, xix, xxii. [ ] e.g., the ordination, the address to the deil, a dedication to gavin hamilton, the kirk's alarm, etc. [ ] see also the pieces printed between these in the globe edition, pp. - . [ ] the benevolent supreme being, he writes, "has put the immediate administration of all this into the hands of jesus christ--a great personage, whose relation to him we cannot fathom, but whose relation to us is [that of] a guide and saviour." letter in globe ed. letters and , to mrs. dunlop, similarly fail to meet the requirements of the orthodox correspondent. the poem look up and see, latterly printed several times apart from burns's works, and extremely likely to be his, is a quite voltairean criticism of david. if the poem be ungenuine, it is certainly by far the ablest of the unacknowledged pieces ascribed to him, alike in diction and in purport. [ ] letter to mrs. dunlop, jan. , , in robert burns and mrs. dunlop, ed. by w. wallace, , p. . the passage is omitted from letter in the globe ed., and presumably from other reprints. [ ] letter to mrs. dunlop, july , . published for the first time in vol. cited, p. . [ ] epistle to a young friend. [ ] lecky, writing in , and advancing on burke, has said of the whole school, including shaftesbury, that "the shadow of the tomb rests on all: a deep, unbroken silence, the chill of death, surrounds them. they have long ceased to wake any interest" (rationalism in europe, i, ). as a matter of fact, they had been discussed by taylor in ; by pattison in ; and by farrar in ; and they have since been discussed at length by dr. hunt, by dr. cairns, by lange, by gyzicki, by m. sayous, by sir leslie stephen, by prof. höffding, and by many others. [ ] conway, introd. to age of reason, in his ed. of paine's works, iv, . [ ] lemontey, hist. de la régence et de la minorité de louis xv, , ii, , note. in there was published under the name of boulainvilliers (d. ) a so-called réfutation de spinoza, which was "really a popular exposition." pollock, spinoza, nd ed. p. . sir f. pollock assents to voltaire's remark that boulainvilliers "gave the poison and forgot to give the antidote." [ ] for a brief view of the facts, usually misconceived, see lanson, pp. - . fénelon seems to have been uncandid, while bossuet, by common consent, was malevolent. there is probably truth, however, in the view of shaftesbury (characteristics, ed. , ii, ), that the real grievance of fénelon's ecclesiastical opponents was the tendency of his mysticism to withdraw devotees from ceremonial duties. [ ] now remembered chiefly through the account of his intercourse with fénelon (repr. in didot ed. of fénelon's misc. works), and hume's long extract from his philosophical principles of natural and revealed religion in the concluding note to the essays. cp. m. matter, le mysticisme en france au temps de fénelon, , pp. - . [ ] tyssot de patot was professor of mathematics at deventer. in his lettres choisies, published in , there is an avowal that "he might be charged with having different notions from those of the vulgar in point of religion" (new memoirs of literature, iv ( ), ); and his accounts of pietists and unbelieving and other priests sufficiently convey that impression (id. pp. - ). [ ] towards the close of his "poem" polignac speaks of a defence of christianity as a future task. he died without even completing the anti-lucretius, begun half a century before. of him are related two classic anecdotes. sent at the age of twenty-seven to discuss church questions with the pope, he earned from his holiness the compliment: "you seem always to be of my opinion; and in the end it is yours that prevails." louis xiv gave him a long audience, after which the king said: "i have had an interview with a young man who has constantly contradicted me without my being able to be angry for a moment." (Éloge prefixed to bougainville's trans., l'anti-lucrèce, , i. .) [ ] cp. duvernet, vie de voltaire, ch. i. rivarol (lettres à necker, in oeuvres, ed. , p. ) wrote that under louis xv there began a "general insurrection" of discussion, and that everybody then talked "only of religion and philosophy during half a century." but this exaggerates the beginnings, of which rivarol could have no exact knowledge. [ ] la verité de la religion chrétienne prouvée par les faits: précédée d'un discours historique et critique sur la méthode des principaux auteurs qui ont écrit pour et contre le christianisme depuis son origine, . rep. , vols. to., vols. mo. [ ] nouveau dictionnaire historique portatif, , art. houteville, tom. ii. [ ] whose considérations sur les moeurs ( ) does not seem to contain a single religious sentiment. historiographer of france, he had not escaped the suppression of his histoire de louis xi, . [ ] see above, p. . buffier seems to have begun an attempt at spelling reform (by dropping doubled letters), followed in by huard and later by prémontval. [ ] vols. to., vols. mo. rep. with corrections . seconde partie, , vols. mo. [ ] a reprint in bears the imprint of london, with the note "aux dépens de la compagnie." [ ] lanson, p. . the persian letters, like the provincial letters of pascal, had to be printed at rouen and published at amsterdam. their freethinking expressions put considerable difficulties in the way of his election ( ) to the academy. see e. edwards, chapters of the biog. hist. of the french academy, , pp. - , and d. m. robertson, hist. of the french academy, , p. , as to the mystification about the alleged reprint without the obnoxious passages. [ ] lettre . [ ] "au point de vue religieux, montesquieu tirait poliment son coup de chapeau au christianisme" (lanson, p. ). e.g. in the esprit des lois, liv. xxiv, chs. i, ii, iii, iv, vi, and the footnote to ch. x of liv. xxv. montesquieu's letter to warburton ( mai, ), in acknowledgment of that prelate's attack on the posthumous works of bolingbroke, is a sample of his social make-believe. but no religious reader could suppose it to come from a religious man. [ ] also of e. edwards, as cited above. [ ] see the notes cited on pp. , of garnier's variorum ed. of the esprit des lois, . la harpe and villemain seem blind to irony. [ ] the flings at bayle (liv. xxiv, chs. ii, vi) are part of a subtly ironical vindication of ideal as against ecclesiastical christianity, and they have no note of faith. [ ] paul mesnard, hist. de l'académie française, , pp. - . [ ] pensées diverses: de la religion. [ ] lanson, p. , note. [ ] tr. in english, . it is noteworthy that cataneo formally accepts montesquieu's professions of orthodoxy. [ ] correspondance littéraire de grimm et diderot, ed. - , i, . see the footnote for an account of the indecent efforts of the jesuits to get at the dying philosopher. the curé of the parish who was allowed entry began his exhortation with: "vous savez, m. le président, combien dieu est grand." "oui, monsieur," returned montesquieu, "et combien les hommes sont petits." [ ] mesnard, hist. de l'académie française, p. . [ ] a full analysis is given by strauss in the second appendix to his voltaire: sechs vorträge, te aufl. . [ ] the details are dubious. see the memoir compiled by "rudolf charles" (r. c. d'ablaing van giessenburg), the editor of the testament, amsterdam, tom. - . it draws chiefly on the mémoires secrets de bachaumont, under date sept. , . [ ] testament, as cited, i, . [ ] iii, . [ ] first published in [or ? see bachaumont, oct. ], with the date ; and reprinted in the Évangile de la raison, . it was no fewer than four times ordered to be destroyed in the restoration period. [ ] probably diderot did the most of the adaptation. "il y a plus que du bon sens dans ce livre," writes voltaire to d'alembert; "il est terrible. s'il sort de la boutique du système de la nature, l'auteur s'est bien perfectionné" (lettre de juillet, ). [ ] "il leur faut un Être à ces messieurs; pour moi, je m'en passe." grimm, correspondance littéraire, ed. - , iv, . [ ] grimm, as cited, i, . grimm tells a delightful story of his reception of the confessor. [ ] "cet ouvrage, dont les vers sont grands et bien tournés, est une satire des plus licencieuses contre les moeurs de nos évêques." bachaumont, mémoires secrets, juin , . [ ] bonet-maury, hist. de la lib. de conscience en france, , p. . [ ] nouveau dictionnaire historique-portatif ... par une société de gens de lettres, ed. , i, . [ ] marmontel does not relate this in his mémoires, where he insists on the decorum of the talk, even at d'holbach's table. [ ] chamfort, caractères et anecdotes. [ ] nouveau dictionnaire, above cited, i, . [ ] name assumed for literary purposes, and probably composed by anagram from the real name arouet, with "le jeune" (junior) added, thus: a. r. o. v. e. t. l(e). i(eune). [ ] not to be confounded with the greater and later jean jacques rousseau. j. b. rousseau became voltaire's bitter enemy--on the score, it is said, of the young man's epigram on the elder poet's "ode to posterity," which, he said, would not reach its address. himself a rather ribald freethinker, rousseau professed to be outraged by the irreligion of voltaire. [ ] see the poem in note to ch. ii of duvernet's vie de voltaire. duvernet calls it "one of the first attacks on which philosophy in france had ventured against superstition" (vie de voltaire, ed. , p. ). [ ] duvernet, ch. ii. the free-hearted ninon de l'enclos, brightest of old ladies, is to be numbered among the pre-voltairean freethinkers, and to be remembered as leaving young voltaire a legacy to buy books. she refused to "sell her soul" by turning dévote on the invitation of her old friend madame de maintenon. madame d'Épinay, voltaire's "belle philosophe et aimable habacuc," madame du deffand, and madame geoffrin were among the later freethinking grandes dames of the voltairean period; and so, presumably, was the madame de créquí, quoted by rivarol, who remarked that "providence" is "the baptismal name of chance." as to madame geoffrin see the oeuvres posthumes de d'alembert, , i, , ; and the mémoires de marmontel, , ii, sq. if marmontel is accurate, she went secretly at times to mass (p. ). [ ] deslandes wrote some new chapters of his réflexions in london, for the english translation. eng. tr. , p. . [ ] pour et contre, ou Épitre à uranie. it was of course not printed till long afterwards. diderot, writing his promenade du sceptique in , says: "c'est, je crois, dans l'allée des fleurs [of his allegory] entre le champagne et le tokay, que l'épitre à uranie prit naissance." (l'allée des marronniers, ad init.) this seems unjust. [ ] he has been alternately represented as owing everything and owing very little to england. cp. texte, rousseau and the cosmopolitan spirit, eng. tr. p. . neither view is just. [ ] in his essay upon the civil wars of france, and ... upon epick poetry ( nd ed. , "corrected by himself"), written and published in english, he begins his "advertisement" with the remark: "it has the appearance of too great a presumption in a traveller who hath been but eighteen months in england, to attempt to write in a language which he cannot pronounce at all, and which he hardly understands in conversation." as the book is remarkably well written, he must have read much english. [ ] lord morley (voltaire, th ed. p. ) speaks of the english people as having then won "a full liberty of thought and speech and person." this, as we have seen, somewhat overstates the case. but discussion was much more nearly free than in france. [ ] probably as much on political as on religious grounds. the th letter, sur le parlement, must have been very offensive to the french government; and in , moved by angry criticisms, voltaire saw fit to modify its language. see lanson's ed. of the lettres, , i, , . [ ] condorcet, vie de voltaire, ed. , p. . in reprints the poem was entitled sur la religion naturelle, and was so commonly cited. [ ] condorcet, p. . [ ] see above, pp. - , as to the works of boulainvilliers, tyssot de patot, deslandes, and others who wrote between and . [ ] cited by schlosser, hist. of the eighteenth century, eng. tr. i, - . [ ] traité de la verité de la religion chrétienne, tiré en partie du latin de m. j. alphonse turrettin, professeur ... en l'académie de génève, par m. j. vernet, professeur de belles-lettres en la même académie. revue et corrigé par un théologien catholique. e éd. génève, . rep. in tom. . ecclesiastical approbation given janv. ; privilège, juillet, . [ ] dom remi desmonts, according to barbier. [ ] "par panage" (=toussaint?). rep. and (berlin). [ ] work cited, ed. , p. . [ ] a glimpse of old paris before or about is afforded by fontenelle's remark that the prevailing diseases might be known from the affiches. at every street corner were to be seen two, of which one advertised a traité sur l'incrédulité. (grimm, corr. litt. iii, .) [ ] thus duruy had said in his histoire de france ( st ed. ) that in the work of the jansenists of port royal "l'esprit d'opposition politique se cacha sous l'opposition religieuse" (ed. , ii, ). [ ] the case has been thus correctly put by m. rocquain, who, however, decides that "de religieuse qu'elle était, l'opposition devient politique" as early as about - . l'esprit révolutionnaire avant la révolution, ; table des matières, liv. e. duruy (last note) puts the tendency still earlier. [ ] "cette hardiesse étonna voltaire, et excita son émulation" (ed. cited, p. ). [ ] avertissement des éditeurs, in basle ed. of , vol. xlv, p. . [ ] it has been counted that he used no fewer than a hundred and thirty different pseudonyms; and the perpetual prosecution and confiscation of his books explains the procedure. as we have seen, the lettres philosophiques (otherwise the lettres anglaises) were burned on their appearance, in , and the bookseller put in the bastille; the recueil des pièces fugitives was suppressed in ; the voix du sage et du peuple was officially and clerically condemned in ; the poem on natural law was burned at paris in ; candide at geneva in ; the dictionnaire philosophique at geneva in , and at paris in ; and many of his minor pseudonymous performances had the same advertisement. but even the henriade, the charles xii, and the first chapters of the siècle de louis xiv were prohibited; and in the thirty volumes published of the edition of his works were condemned en masse. [ ] diderot, critique of le philosophe ignorant in grimm's corr. litt. juin ; lessing, hamburgische dramaturgie, stück - , ; gibbon, ch. i, note near end; ch. li, note on siege of damascus. rousseau was as hostile as any (see morley's rousseau, ch. ix, § ). but rousseau's verdict is the least important, and the least judicial. he had himself earned the detestation of voltaire, as of many other men. in a moment of pique, diderot wrote of voltaire: "cet homme n'est que le second dans tous les genres" (lettre à mdlle. voland, août, ). he forgot wit and humour! [ ] prof. jowett, of balliol college. see l. a. tollemache, benjamin jowett, master of balliol, th ed. pp. - . [ ] see details in lord morley's voltaire, th ed. pp. - , - . the erection by the french freethinkers of a monument to la barre in , opposite the cathedral of the sacred heart, montmartre, paris, is an expression at once of the old feud with the church and the french appreciation of high personal courage. la barre was in truth something of a scapegrace, but his execution was an infamy, and he went to his death as to a bridal. the erection of the monument has been the occasion of a futile pretence on the clerical side that for la barre's death the church had no responsibility, the movers in the case being laymen. nothing, apparently, can teach catholic churchmen that the church's past sins ought to be confessed like those of individuals. it is quite true that it was a parlement that condemned la barre. but what a religious training was it that turned laymen into murderous fanatics! [ ] m. lanson seems to overlook it when he writes (p. ) that "the affirmation of god, the denial of providence and miracles, is the whole metaphysic of voltaire." [ ] lord morley writes (p. ): "we do not know how far he ever seriously approached the question ... whether a society can exist without a religion." this overlooks both the homélie sur l'athéisme and the article athéisme in the dictionnaire philosophique, where the question is discussed seriously and explicitly. [ ] horace walpole, letter to gray, nov. , . compare the mordant criticism of grimm (corr. litt. vii, sq.) on his tract dieu in reply to d'holbach. "il raisonne là-dessus comme un enfant," writes grimm, "mais comme un joli enfant qu'il est." [ ] browning, the two poets of croisic, st. cvii. [ ] cp. ständlin, gesch. des rationalismus und supernaturalismus, , pp. - . hagenbach, kirchengeschichte des . und . jahrhunderts, te aufl. , i, - . [ ] zimmerman, de causis magis magisque invalescentis incredulitatis, et medela huic malo adhibenda, tiguri, , to. prof. breitinger of zurich wrote a criticism afterwards tr. ( ) as examen des lettres sur la religion essentielle. de roches, pastor at geneva, published in letter-form vols. entitled défense du christianisme, as "préservatif contre" the lettres of mdlle. huber ( ); and bouillier of amsterdam also vols. of lettres ( ). [ ] cp. bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartés, ii, - ; d'argenson, mémoires, ed. jannet, iv. . [ ] see the thesis (jerusalem coelesti) as printed in the apologie de m. l'abbé de prades, "amsterdam," , pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] mémoires sur la vie et les ouvrages de diderot, , p. . [ ] cp. bachaumont, mémoires secrets, fév. ; avril, . tn the latter entry, yvon is described as "poursuivi comme infidèle, quoique le plus croyant de france." in , after the bélisaire scandal, he was refused permission to proceed with the publication of his histoire ecclésiastique. [ ] this was de prades's own view of the matter (apologie, as cited, p. v); and d'argenson repeatedly says as much. mémoires, iv, , , , , . [ ] rocquain, l'esprit revolutionnaire avant la révolution, , pp. - ; morley, diderot, ch. v; d'argenson, iv, . the decree of suppression was dated fév. . [ ] mémoires, iv, , . [ ] id. iv, , . [ ] id. iv, - . [ ] maury, hist. de l'ancienne académie des inscriptions, , pp. - . [ ] journal historique de barbier, - , iv, . [ ] astruc, we learn from d'alembert, connected their decline with the influence of the new opinions. "ce ne sont pas les jansenistes qui tuent les jésuites, c'est l'encyclopédie." "le maroufle astruc," adds d'alembert, "est comme pasquin, il parle quelquefois d'assez bon sens." lettre à voltaire. mai, . [ ] cp. pref. (la vie de salvien) to french tr. of salvian, , p. lxix. i have seen ms. translations of toland and woolston. [ ] ms. statement, in eighteenth-century hand, on flyleaf of a copy of ed. of the grands hommes, in the writer's possession. [ ] lettre à d'alembert, octobre, . [ ] of the works noted below, the majority appear or profess to have been printed at amsterdam, though many bore the imprint londres. all the freethinking books and translations ascribed to d'holbach bore it. the arétin of abbé dulaurens bore the imprint: "rome, aux dépens de la congrégation de l'index." mystifications concerning authorship have been as far as possible cleared up in the present edition. [ ] given by brunet, who is followed by wheeler, as appearing in , and as translated into english, under the title dying merrily, in . but i possess an english translation of (pref. dated march ), entitled a philological essay: or, reflections on the death of freethinkers.... by monsieur d----, of the royal academy of sciences in france, and author of the poetae rusticantis literatum otium. translated from the french by mr. b----, with additions by the author, now in london, and the translator. [a note in a contemporary hand makes "b" boyer.] barbier gives for the first edition, for the second. rep. and . [ ] there is no sign of any such excitement in france over the translation as was aroused in england by the original; but an examen du traité de la liberté de penser, by de crousaz, was published at amsterdam in . [ ] this was probably meant to point to the abbé de marsy, who died in . [ ] the abbé sepher ascribed this book to one dupuis, a royal guardsman. [ ] this "prose poem" was not an intentional burlesque, as the ecclesiastical authorities alleged; but it did not stand for orthodoxy. see grimm's correspondance, i, . [ ] "a eu les honneurs de la brûlure, et toutes les censures cumulées des facultés de théologie, de la sorbonne et des évêques." bachaumont, déc. , . marsy, who was expelled from the order of jesuits, was of bad character, and was hotly denounced by voltaire. [ ] see grimm, corr. v. . [ ] a second edition appeared within the year. "quoique proscrit presque partout, et même en hollande, c'est de là qu'il nous arrive." bachaumont, déc. , . [ ] bachaumont, mai , . [ ] "se repand à paris avec la permission de la police." bachaumont, fév. . [ ] "il est facile de se convaincre que les parties les plus importantes et les plus solides de cet ouvrage sont empruntées aux travaux de burigny." l.-f. alfred maury, l'ancienne académie des incriptions et bellet-lettres, , p. . maury leaves it open question whether the compilation was made by burigny or by naigeon. the abbé bergier accepted it without hesitation as the work of fréret, who was known to hold some heretical views. (maury, p. .) barbier confidently ascribes the work to burigny. [ ] the mystification in regard to this work is elaborate. it purports to be translated from an english version, declared in turn by its translator to be made "from the greek." it is now commonly ascribed to naigeon. (maury, as cited, p. .) its machinery, and its definite atheism, mark it as of the school of d'holbach, though it is alleged to have been written by fréret as early as . it is however reprinted, with the examen critique des apologistes, in the edition of fréret's works without comment; and barbier was satisfied that it was the one genuine "philosophic" work ascribed to fréret, but that it was redacted by naigeon from imperfect mss. [ ] notice sur henri meister, pref. to lettres inédites de madame de staël à henri meister, , p. . [ ] "deux nouveaux livres infernaux ... connus comme manuscrits depuis longtemps et gardés dans l'obscurité des portefeuilles...." bachaumont, mars, . [ ] bachaumont, mémoires secrets, déc. , . [ ] id. jan. , . [ ] so pidansat de mairobert in his preface to the first ed. ( ) of the mémoires secrets of bachaumont, continued by him. see pref. to the abridged ed. by bibliophile jacob. [ ] as to the authorship see above, p. . [ ] la certitude des preuves du christianisme ( ). e édit. , avertissement. [ ] in the short essay le philosophe, which appeared in the nouvelles libertés de penser, and , and in the recueil philosophique, . in the rep. of the essai sur les préjugés (again rep. in ) it is unhesitatingly affirmed, on the strength of its title-page and the prefixed letter of dumarsais, dated , that that book is an expansion of the essay le philosophe, and that this was published in . but le philosophe is an entirely different production, which to a certain extent criticizes les philosophes so-called. the essai sur les préjugés published in is not the work of dumarsais; it is a new work by d'holbach. this was apparently known to frederick, who in his rather angry criticism of the book writes that, whereas dumarsais had always respected constituted authorities, others had "put out in his name, two years after he was dead and buried, a libel of which the veritable author could only be a schoolboy as new to the world as he was puzzle-headed." (mélanges en vers et en prose de frederic ii, , ii, ). dumarsais died in , but i can find no good evidence that the essai sur les préjugés was ever printed before . as to d'holbach's authorship see the oeuvres de diderot, ed. , xii, sq.--passage copied in the - ed. of the correspondance littéraire of grimm and diderot, xiv, sq. in a letter to d'alembert dated mars , , voltaire writes that in a newly-printed collection of treatises containing his own lois de minos is included "le philosophe de dumarsais, qui n'a jamais été imprimé jusqu'à present." this seems to be a complete mistake. [ ] grimm (iv, ) has some good stories of him. he announced one day that he had ound twenty-five fatal flaws in the story of the resurrection of lazarus, the first being that the dead do not rise. his scholarly friend nicolas boindin (see above, p. ) said: "dumarsais is a jansenist atheist; as for me, i am a molinist atheist." [ ] on two successive pages the title messiah is declared to mean "simply one sent" and simply "anointed." [ ] like buffier and huard, however, he strives for a reform in spelling, dropping many doubled letters, and writing home, bone, acuse, fole, apelle, honête, afreux, etc. [ ] abriss einer geschichte der umwälzung welche seit auf dem gebiete der theologie in deutschland statt gefunden, in tholuck's vermischte schriften, , ii, . the proposition is repeated pp. , . [ ] the exceptions were books published outside of france. [ ] madame de sévigné, for instance, declared that she would not let pass a year of her life without re-reading the second volume of abbadie. [ ] le déisme refuté par lui-même (largely a reply to rousseau), ; , apologie de la religion chrétienne; , la certitude des preuves du christianisme. in had appeared the lettres sur le déisme of the younger salchi, professor at lausanne. it deals chiefly with the english deists, and with d'argens. as before noted, the abbé gauchat began in his lettres critiques, which in time ran to volumes ( - ). there were also two journals, jesuit and jansenist, which fought the philosophes (lanson, p. ); and sometimes even a manuscript was answered--e.g. the réfutation du celse moderne of the abbé gautier ( ), a reply to mirabaud's unpublished examen critique. [ ] alison, history of europe, ed. , i, - . [ ] the jesuits were expelled from portugal in ; from bohemia and denmark in ; from the whole dominions of spain in ; from genoa and venice in the same year; and from naples, malta, and parma in . officially suppressed in france in , they were expelled thence in . pope clement xiii strove to defend them; but in the society was suppressed by papal bull by clement xiv; whereafter they took refuge in prussia and russia, ruled by the freethinking frederick and catherine. [ ] see the correspondance de grimm, ed. - , vii, sq. [ ] this apologetic work, after having been praised by the censor and registered with privilège du roi in november, , was officially suppressed on jan. , , and, it would appear, reissued in that year. [ ] liv. i. ch. viii. [ ] bachaumont, juin ; juillet , , ; novembre , . [ ] grimm notices astruc's dissertations sur l'immortalité, l'immaterialité, et la liberté de l'âme, published in (corr. i, ), but not his conjectures. at his death ( ) he pronounces him "un des hommes les plus decriés de paris," "il passait pour fripon, fourbe, méchant, en un mot pour un très-malhonnête homme." "il était violent et emporté, et d'une avarice sordide." finally, he died "sans sacremens" after having "fait le dévot" and attached himself to the jesuits in their day of power. corr. v, . but grimm was a man of many hates, and not the best of historians. [ ] cp. maury, l'ancienne académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, , pp. - . [ ] voltaire's various stratagems to secure election are not to his credit. see paul mesnard, histoire de l'académie française, , pp. - . but even montesquieu is said to have resorted to some questionable devices for the same end. id. p. . [ ] maury, l'ancienne académie des inscriptions, pp. - , , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] where he was lieutenant-général, and died in . [ ] maury, pp. , - . [ ] mémoires, ed. jannet, iv, . [ ] cp. mesnard, as cited, pp. - . [ ] maury, p. . [ ] id. pp. - . it is noteworthy that the orthodox thomas, and not any of the philosophes, was the first to impeach the government in academic discourses. mesnard, pp. - , sq. [ ] "l'excellent pompignan," m. lanson calls him, p. . [ ] "les provisions de sa charge pendant six mois en ." voltaire, lettre à mme. d'Épinay, juin, . "je le servis dans cette affaire," adds voltaire. [ ] mesnard, pp. , , , . [ ] le pauvre diable, ouvrage en vers aisés de feu m. vadé, mis en lumière par catherine vadé, sa cousine (falsely dated ); la vanité; and le russe à paris. [ ] mesnard, pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] lanson, hist. de la litt. française, p. . [ ] the formal approval of a sorbonnist was necessary. one refused it; another gave it. marmontel, mémoires, , iii, - . [ ] marmontel mentions that while he was still discussing a compromise with the syndic of the sorbonne, , copies had been sold throughout europe. mémoires, iii, . [ ] this satire was taken by the german freethinker eberhard, in his new apology for socrates, as the actual publication of the sorbonne. barbier, dict. des ouvr. anon et pseud., e édit., i, . [ ] published pseudonymously as a translation from the english: histoire naturelle de l'âme, traduite de l'anglais de m. charp, par feu m. h----, de l'académie des sciences. À la haye, . republished under the title traité de l'Âme. [ ] by elie luzac, to whom is ascribed the reply entitled l'homme plus que machine ( also). this is printed in the oeuvres philosophiques of la mettrie as if it were his: and lange (i, ) seems to think it was. but the bibliographers ascribe it to luzac, who was a man of culture and ability. [ ] l'homme machine, ed. assézat, , p. ; oeuv. philos. ed. , iii, . [ ] lange, gesch. des materialismus, i, sq. (eng. tr. ii, - ); soury, bréviare de l'hist. du matérialisme, pp. , - ; voltaire, homélie sur l'athéisme, end. frederick the great, who gave la mettrie harbourage, support, and friendship, and who was not a bad judge of men, wrote and read in the berlin academy the funeral éloge of la mettrie, and pronounced him "une âme pure et un coeur serviable." by "pure" he meant sincere. [ ] salchi, lettres sur le déisme, , pp. , , , sq. [ ] huxley, essay on darwin on the origin of species; r. p. a. ed. of twelve lectures and essays, p. . [ ] see the parallel passages in the lettres critiques of the abbé gauchat, vol. xv ( ), p. sq. [ ] see his essay des singularités de la nature, ch. xii, and his dissertation sur les changements arrivés dans notre globe. [ ] eng. tr. . [ ] essay cited, p. . the criticism ignores the greater comprehensiveness of robinet's survey of nature. [ ] george-louis leclerc, comte de buffon, - . [ ] lyell, principles of geology, th ed. , i, - . [ ] suite de l'apologie de m. l'abbé de prades, , p. sq. [ ] dissertatio inauguralis metaphysica de universali naturæ systemate, published at göttingen as the doctoral thesis of an imaginary dr. baumann, . in french, . [ ] soury, p. . the later speculations of maupertuis by their extravagance discredited the earlier. [ ] "scheinbar bekämpft er maupertuis desswegen, aber im geheimen stimmt er ihm bei"(rosenkranz, i, ). [ ] it should be noted that by condillac's avowal he was much aided by his friend mdlle. ferrand. [ ] cp. réthoré, condillac, ou l'empirisme et le rationalisme, , ch. i. [ ] lange, ii, , ; soury, pp. - . [ ] soury, pp. - ; lange, ii, . [ ] oddly enough he became ultimately press censor! he lived till , dying at rennes at the age of . [ ] this may best be translated treatise on the mind. the english translation of (rep. ) is entitled de l'esprit: or, essays on the mind, etc. [ ] correspondance, ii, . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] at the time the pietists declared that diderot had collaborated in de l'esprit. this was denied by grimm, who affirmed that diderot and helvétius were little acquainted, and rarely met; but his secretary, meister, wrote in that the finest pages in the book were diderot's. id. p. , note. in his sketch À la mémoire de diderot ( , app. to naigeon's mémoires, , p. , note), meister speaks of a number of "belles pages," but does not particularize. [ ] de l'esprit, disc, iii, ch. . [ ] cp. morley's criticism. diderot, ed. , pp. - . [ ] beccaria's letter to morellet, cited in ch. i of j. a. farrer's ed. of the crimes and punishments, p. . it is noteworthy that the partial reform effected earlier in england by oglethorpe, on behalf of imprisoned debtors ( - ), belongs to the time of propagandist deism there. [ ] morley, diderot, p. . [ ] lettre à d'alembert, janvier, . [ ] cp. rosenkranz, vorbericht, p. vi. [ ] cp. morley, diderot, ed. , p. . [ ] e.g. § . [ ] a police agent seized the ms. in diderot's library, and diderot could not get it back. malesherbes, the censor, kept it safe for him! [ ] according to naigeon (mémoires, , p. ), three months and ten days. [ ] the lettre purports, like so many other books of that and the next generation, to be published "a londres." [ ] diderot's daughter, in her memoir of him, speaks of his imprisonment in the bastille as brought about through the resentment of a lady of whom he had spoken slightingly; and her husband left a statement in ms. to the same effect (printed at the end of the mémoires by naigeon). the lady is named as madame dupré de saint-maur, a mistress of the king, and the offence is said to have been committed in the story entitled le pigeon blanc. howsoever this may have been, the prosecution was quite in the spirit of the period, and the earlier pensées were made part of the case against him. see delort, hist. de la détention des philosophes, , ii, - . m. de vandeul-diderot testifies that the marquis du chatelet, governor of vincennes, treated his prisoner very kindly. buckle ( -vol. ed. p. ) does not seem to have fully read the lettre, which he describes as merely discussing the differentiation of thought and sensation among the blind. [ ] his friend meister (À la mémoire de diderot, , app. to naigeon's mémoires de diderot, , p. ) writes as if diderot had written the whole apologie "in a few days." the third part, a reply to the pastoral of the bishop of auxerre, appeared separately as a suite to the others. [ ] apologie, as cited, e partie, p. sq. [ ] observations sur l'instruction pastorale de mons. l'Évêque d'auxerre, berlin, , p. . [ ] id. p. sq. [ ] cp. morley, diderot, pp. - . [ ] carlyle, frederick, bk. xviii, ch. ix, end. [ ] d'argenson, mémoires, iv, . [ ] carlyle, as cited. [ ] "quelle abominable homme!" he writes to mdlle. voland ( juillet, ); and lord morley pronounces de prades a rascal (diderot, p. ). carlyle is inarticulate with disgust--but as much against the original heresy as against the treason to frederick. as to that, thiébault was convinced that de prades was innocent and calumniated. everybody at court, he declares, held the same view. mes souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à berlin, e édit. , v, - . [ ] it is not clear how these are to be distinguished from the mutilations of the later volumes by his treacherous publisher le breton. of this treachery the details are given by grimm, corr. litt. ed. . vii, sq. [ ] buckle's account of him ( -vol. ed. p. ) as "burning with hatred against his persecutors" after his imprisonment is overdrawn. he was a poor hater. [ ] madame diderot, says her daughter, was very upright as well as very religious, but her temper, "éternellement grondeur, faisait de notre intérieur un enfer, dont mon père était l'ange consolateur" (letter to meister, in notice pref. to lettres inédites de mme. de staël à henri meister, , p. ). [ ] "hélas! disait mon excellent grand-père, j'ai deux fils: l'un sera sûrement un saint, et je crains bien que l'autre ne soit damné; mais je ne puis vivre avec le saint, et je suis très heureux du temps que je passe avec le damné" (letter of mme. de vandeul, last cited). freethinker as he was, his fellow-townsmen officially requested in to be allowed to pay for a portrait of him for public exhibition, and the bronze bust he sent them was placed in the hôtel de ville (ms. of m. de vandeul-diderot, as cited). [ ] madame de vandeul states that this story was motived by the case of diderot's sister, who died mad at the age of or (letter above cited; rosenkranz, i, ). [ ] lettre de voltaire à d'alembert, août, . [ ] lettre de décembre, . [ ] oeuvres posthumes de d'alembert, , i, . [ ] d'holbach was the original of the character of wolmar in rousseau's nouvelle héloïse, of whom julie says that he "does good without recompense." "i never saw a man more simply simple" was the verdict of madame geoffrin. corr. litt. de grimm (notice probably by meister), ed. - , xiv, . [ ] marmontel says of him that he "avoit tout lu et n'avoit jamais rien oublié d'interessant." mémoires, , ii, . [ ] see a full list of his works (compiled by julian hibbert after the list given in the ed. of diderot's works, xii, , and rep. in the - ed. of grimm and diderot's correspondance, xiv, ), prefixed to watson's ed. ( and later) of the english translation of the system of nature. [ ] morley, diderot, p. . the chapter gives a good account of the book. cp. lange, i, sq. (eng. trans, ii, sq.) as to its materialism. the best pages were said to be by diderot (corr. de grimm, as cited, p. ; the statement of meister, who makes it also in his Éloge). naigeon denied that diderot had any part in the système, but in there was published an edition with "notes and corrections" by diderot. [ ] it is to be noted that the english translation ( vols. rd ed. ; th ed. ) deliberately tampers with the language of the original to the extent of making it deistic. this perversion has been by oversight preserved in all the reprints. [ ] mirabeau spoke of the essai as "le livre le moins connu, et celui qui mérite le plus l'être." even the reprint of had become "extremely rare" in . the book seems to have been specially disquieting to orthodoxy, and was hunted down accordingly. [ ] so morley, p. . it does not occur to lord morley, and to the comtists who take a similar tone, that in thus disparaging past thinkers they are really doing the thing they blame. [ ] lettres de memmius à cicéron ( ); histoire de jenni ( ). in the earlier article, athée, in the dictionnaire philosophique, he speaks of having met in france very good physicists who were atheists. in his letter of september , , to madame necker, he writes concerning the système de la nature: "il est un peu honteux à notre nation que tant de gens aient embrassé si vite une opinion si ridicule." and yet prof. w. m. sloane, of columbia university, still writes of voltaire, in the manner of english bishops, as "atheistical" (the french revolution and religious reform, , p. ). [ ] though in we have maréchal's code d'une société d'hommes sans dieu, and in his pensées libres sur les prêtres. [ ] thus dr. cairns (unbelief in the eighteenth century, p. ) gravely argues that the french revolution proves the inefficacy of theism without a trinity to control conduct. he has omitted to compare the theistic bloodshed of the revolution with the trinitarian bloodshed of the crusades, the papal suppression of the albigenses, the hussite wars, and other orthodox undertakings. [ ] the book was accorded the monthyon prize by the french academy. in translation ( ) it found a welcome in england among churchmen by reason of its pro-christian tone and its general vindication of religious institutions. the translation was the work of mary wollstonecraft. see kegan paul's william godwin, , i, . mrs. dunlop, the friend of burns, recommending its perusal to the poet, paid it a curious compliment: "he does not write like a sectary, hardly like a christian, but yet while i read him, i like better my god, my neighbour, monsieur necker, and myself." robert burns and mrs. dunlop, ed. by w. wallace, , p. . [ ] see voltaire's letters to madame necker, corr. de grimm, ed. , vii, , . of the lady, grimm writes (p. ): "hypathie necker passe sa vie avec des systématiques, mais elle est devote à sa manière. elle voudrait être sincèrement hugenote, ou socinienne, ou déistique, ou plutôt, pour être quelque chose, elle prend le parti de ne se rendre compte sur rien." "hypathie" was voltaire's complimentary name for her. [ ] cp. aulard, le culte de la raison et le culte de l'Être suprême, , pp. - . m. gazier (Études sur l'histoire religieuse de la révolution française, , pp. , , sq.) speaks somewhat loosely of a prevailing anti-christian feeling when actually citing only isolated instances, and giving proofs of a general orthodoxy. yet he points out the complete misconception of thiers on the subject (p. ). [ ] cp. prof. w. m. sloane, the french revolution and religious reform, p. . [ ] gazier, as cited, pp. , , , - , , etc. [ ] les assemblées provinciales sous louis xvi, , pref. pp. viii-ix. [ ] gazier, l. ii, ch. i. [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] léonce de lavergne, as cited. [ ] the authority of turgot himself could be cited for the demand that the state clergy should accept the constitution of the state. cp. aulard, le culte de la raison, p. ; tissot, Étude sur turgot, , p. . [ ] gazier, p. . [ ] aulard, culte, pp. - . [ ] michelet, hist. de la révolution française, ed. vo and later, i, . cp. proudhon's de la justice, . [ ] "tout jugement religieux ou politique est une contradiction flagrante dans une religion uniquement fondée sur un dogme étranger à la justice." ed. cited, introd. p. . [ ] the grave misstatement of michelet on this head is exposed by aulard, culte, p. . [ ] yet it is customary among christians to speak of this lady in the most opprobrious terms. the royalist (but malcontent) marquis de villeneuve, who had seen the revolution in his youth, claimed in his old age to have afterwards "conversed with the goddess reason of paris and with the goddess reason of bourges" (where he became governor); but, though he twice alludes to those women, he says nothing whatever against their characters (de l'agonie de la france, , i, , ). prof. w. m. sloane, with all his religious prejudice, is satisfied that the women chosen as goddesses of reason outside of paris were "noted for their spotless character." work cited, p. . [ ] mémoires, ed. , ii, . [ ] père f.-j.-f. fortin, souvenirs, auxerre, , ii, . [ ] see the speech in aulard, culte, p. ; and cp. pp. - . [ ] "le peuple aura des fêtes dans lesquelles il offrira de l'encens à l'Être suprême, au maître de la nature, car nous n'avons pas voulu anéantir la superstition pour établir le règne de l'athéisme." speech of nov. , , in the moniteur. (discours de danton, ed. andré fribourg, , p. .) [ ] aulard, culte, pp. - . [ ] concerning whom see aulard, culte, pp. - . [ ] the source, the strength, and the true spirit of laws, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] e.g., in the arrêt du parlement of juin, , denouncing rousseau's Émile as tending to make the royal authority odious and to destroy the principle of obedience; and in the examen du béllisaire de m. marmontel, by coger (nouv. éd. augm. , p. sq. cp. marmontel's mémoires, , iii, , as to his being called ennemi du trône et de l'autel). this kind of invective was kept up against the philosophes to the moment of the revolution. see for instance le vrai religieux, discours dédié à madame louise de france, par le r. p. c. a. , p. : "une philosophie orgueilleuse a renversé les limites sacrées que la main du très-haut avoit elle-même élevées. la raison de l'homme a osé sonder les décrets de dieu.... dans les accès de son ivresse, n'a-t-elle pas sapé les fondemens du trône et des lois," etc. [ ] cp. the admissions of curnier (rivarol, sa vie et ses oeuvres, , p. ) in deprecation of burke's wild likening of rivarol's journalism to the annals of tacitus. [ ] oeuvres, ed. cited, pp. - , - . [ ] cp. the critique of sainte-beuve, prefixed to ed. cited, pp. - , and that of arsène houssaye, id. pp. - . mr. saintsbury, though biassed to the side of the royalist, admits that "rivarol hardly knows what sincerity is" (miscellaneous essays, , p. ). [ ] charles comte is thus partly inaccurate in saying (traité de législation, , i, ) that the charge against the philosophers began "on the day on which there was set up a government in france that sought to re-establish the abuses of which they had sought the destruction." what is true is that the charge, framed at once by the backers of the old régime, has always since done duty for reaction. [ ] mémoires, ed. jannet, iii, ; iv, ; v, , . [ ] id. iii, - . [ ] d'argenson, noting in his old age how "on n'a jamais autant parlé de nation et d'État qu'aujourd'hui," how no such talk had been heard under louis xiv, and how he himself had developed on the subject, adds, "cela vient du parlement et des anglois." he goes on to speak of a reissue of the translation of locke on civil government, originally made by the jansenists (mémoires, iv, - ). [ ] hallam, lit. of europe, ed. , iii, - . [ ] oeuvres diverses de pierre bayle, la haye, vols. fol. , ii, sq. [ ] this critique appears in the very volume to which coger refers for the avis aux réfugiéz. see lett. viii, xiii, xvii, etc., vol. and ed. cited, pp. , , , etc. [ ] cp. the survey of aulard, hist. polit. de la rév. française, e édit. , pp. - . [ ] probably the work of a jansenist. [ ] on the whole question of the growth of abstract revolutionary doctrine in politics cp. w. s. mckechnie on the de jure regni apud scotos in the "george buchanan" vol. of glasgow quatercentenary studies, , pp. - ; gierke, political theories of the middle ages, maitland's tr. , p. sq. [ ] mallet actually reproaches the philosophes in the mass--while admitting the hostility of many of them to the revolution--with "having accelerated french degeneration and depravation ... by rendering the conscience argumentative (raisonneuse), by substituting for duties inculcated by sentiment, tradition, and habit, the uncertain rules of the human reason and sophisms adapted to passions," etc., etc. (b. mallet, as cited, p. ). with all his natural vigour of mind, mallet du pan thus came to talk the language of the ordinary irrationalist of the reaction. certainly, if the stimulation of the habit of reasoning be a destructive course, the philosophes stand condemned. but as christians had been reasoning as best they could, in an eternal series of vain disputes, for a millennium and a-half before the revolution, with habitual appeal to the passions, the argument only proves how vacuous a christian champion's reasoning can be. [ ] art. in mercure britannique, no. , feb. , ; cited by b. mallet in mallet du pan and the french revolution, , app. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] tableau littéraire du dix-huitième siècle, e édit. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. morley, diderot, p. . lord morley points to the phrase in another form in a letter of voltaire's in . it really derives from jean meslier, who quotes it from an unlettered man (testament, i. ). [ ] rosenkranz, diderot's leben und werke, , ii, - . [ ] as lord morley points out, henri martin absolutely reverses the purport of a passage in order to convict diderot of justifying regicide. [ ] mémoires, ed. jannet, iv, , , , , , , , , . [ ] mallet du pan says he saw the ms., and knew diderot to have received , livres tournois for his additions. this statement is incredible. but meister is explicit, in his éloge, as to diderot having written for the book much that he thought nobody would sign, whereas raynal was ready to sign anything. [ ] memoirs of sir samuel romilly, rd ed. , i, . [ ] when d'argenson writes in (mémoires, éd. jannet, iv, ) that he hears "only philosophes say, as if convinced, that even anarchy would be better" than the existing misgovernment, he makes no suggestion that they teach this. and he declares for his own part that everything is drifting to ruin: "nulle réformation ... nulle amélioration.... tout tombe, par lambeaux." [ ] aulard, hist. polit. de la révol. p. . [ ] this is the sufficient comment on a perplexing page of lord morley's second monograph on burke (pp. - ), which i have never been able to reconcile with the rest of his writing. [ ] lecky, hist. of england in the eighteenth century, small ed. vi, . [ ] d'argenson notes this repeatedly, though in one passage he praises the parlement as having alone made head against absolutism (déc. ; ed. cited, iv, ). [ ] maximes et pensées, ed. , p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] chamfort in another passage maintains against soulavie that the academy did much to develop the spirit of freedom in thought and politics. id. p. . and this too is arguable, as we have seen. [ ] on this complicated issue, which cannot be here handled at any further length, see prof. p. a. wadia's essay the philosophers and the french revolution (social science series, ), which, however, needs revision; and compare the argument of nourrisson, j.-j. rousseau et le rousseauisme, , ch. xx. [ ] correspondance de grimm, ed. cited, xiv, - . lettre de janv. . [ ] lettre de voltaire à d'alembert, août, . [ ] histoire du mariage des prêtres en france, par m. grégoire, ancien évêque de blois, , p. v. compare the details in the appendice to the etudes of m. gazier, before cited. that writer's account is the more decisive seeing that his bias is clerical, and that, writing before m. aulard, he had to a considerable extent retained the old illusion as to the "decreeing of atheism" by the convention (p. ). see pp. - as to the readjustment effected by grégoire, while the conservative clergy were still striving to undo the revolution. [ ] heroes and hero-worship: napoleon. [ ] see the sentiments de napoléon sur le christianisme: conversations recueillies à sainte-hélène par le comte de montholon, . many of the utterances here set forth are irreconcilable with napoleon's general tone. [ ] o'meara, napoléon en exil, ed. lacroix, , ii, . [ ] ph. gonnard, les origines de la légende napoléonienne, , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] pasquier, cited by rose, life of napoleon, ed. , i, . the concordat was bitterly resented by the freethinkers in the army. id. p. . [ ] see jules barni's napoléon ier. ed. , p. , as to the amazing catechism imposed by napoleon on france in . for the history of its preparation and imposition see de labone, paris sous napoléon: la religion, , p. sq. [ ] as to the napoleonic censorship of literature, cp. madame de staël, considérations sur la révolution française, ptie. iv, ch. ; dix années d'exil, préf.; welschinger, la censure sous le premier empire, . [ ] las cases, mémorial de sainte-hélène, août, . [ ] mignet, hist. de la révolution française, e édit. ii, . [ ] cp. pusey, histor. enquiry into the probable causes of the rationalist character ... of the theology of germany, , p. . [ ] bishop hurst, history of rationalism, ed. , p. . [ ] id. pp. - (last ed. pp. - ), citing tholuck, deutsche universitäten, i, - , and dowding, life of calixtus, pp. - . [ ] pusey, p. . [ ] hurst, p. . [ ] cp. buckle, -vol. ed. pp. - . "the result of the thirty years' war was indifference, not only to the confession, but to religion in general. ever since that period, secular interests decidedly occupy the foreground" (kahnis, internal history of german protestantism, eng. tr. , p. ). [ ] quoted by bishop hurst, ed. cited, p. ( ). [ ] preservatio wider die pest der heutigen atheisten. [ ] dated from rome; but this was a mystification. [ ] kahnis, p. ; la croze, entretiens, , p. . [ ] even knutzen seems to have been influenced by spinoza. pünjer, hist. of the christ. philos. of religion, eng. tr. i, . pünjer, however, seems to have exaggerated the connection. [ ] cp. lange, gesch. des materialismus, te aufl. i, (eng. tr. ii, ). [ ] epistolæ ad spinozam et responsiones, in gfrörer, liii. [ ] colerus, vie de spinoza, in gfrörer's ed. of the opera, , pp. lv, lvi. [ ] pünjer, as cited, i, - : lange, last cit. lange notes that genthe's compendium de impostura religionum, which has been erroneously assigned to the sixteenth century, must belong to the period of kortholt's work. [ ] pünjer, p. ; lange, last cit.; tholuck, kirch. leben, abth. pp. - . [ ] it was nominally issued at amsterdam, really at berlin. [ ] this writer gives (p. ) a notable list of the forms of atheism: atheismus directus, indirectus, formalis, virtualis, theoreticus, practicus, inchoatus, consummatus, subtilis, crassus, privativus, negativus, and so on, ad lib. [ ] cp. buckle and his critics, pp. - ; pünjer, i, . [ ] letter cited by dr. latta. leibniz, , p. , note. [ ] philos. schriften, ed. gerhardt, i, ; martineau, study of spinoza, p. . [ ] letter to thomas, december , . [ ] quoted by tholuck, as last cited, p. . spener took the same tone. [ ] philos. schriften, ed. gerhardt, i, ; ii, ; latta, p. ; martineau, p. . cp. refutation of spinoza by leibnitz, ed. by foucher de careil. eng. tr. . [ ] his notable surmise as to gradation of species (see latta, pp. - ) was taken up among the french materialists, but did not then modify current science. [ ] the only lengthy treatise published by him in his lifetime. [ ] m. a. jacques, intr. to oeuvres de leibniz, , i, - . [ ] cp. tholuck, das kirchliche leben, as cited, abth. pp. - . kahnis, coinciding with erdmann, pronounces that, although leibnitz "acknowledges the god of the christian faith, yet his system assigned to him a very uncertain position only" (int. hist. of ger. protestantism, p. ). [ ] cp. pünjer, i, , as to his attitude on ritual. [ ] latta, as cited, p. ; vie de leibnitz, par de jaucourt, in ed. of the essais de théodicée, i, - . [ ] as to his virtual deism see pünjer, i, - . but he proposed to send christian missionaries to the heathen. tholuck, as last cited, p. . [ ] lettres entre leibnitz et clarke. [ ] discours de la conformité de la foi avec la raison, §§ - ; essais sur la bonté de dieu, etc., §§ , , , , - . [ ] the nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, refuting locke, appeared posthumously in . locke had treated his theistic critic with contempt. (latta, p. .) [ ] amand saintes, hist. crit. du rationalisme en allemagne, , ch. vi; heinrich schmid, die geschichte des pietismus, , ch. ii. [ ] saintes, p. ; cp. pusey, p. , as to "the want of resistance from the school of pietists to the subsequent invasion of unbelief." [ ] hagenbach, german rationalism, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] id. p. ; pusey, histor. enquiry into the causes of german rationalism, , pp. , ; tholuck, abriss einer geschichte des umwälzung ... seit auf dem gebiete der theologie in deutschland, in vermischte schriften, , ii, . [ ] pusey, pp. , , . [ ] cp. pusey, pp. - , , , , - , , - ; saintes, pp. , - ; hagenbach, pp. , , . [ ] pusey, p. . cp. saintes, ch. vi. [ ] das kirchliche leben, as cited, abth. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] vol. i, p. . [ ] h. luden, christian thomasius nach seinen schicksalen und schriften dargestellt, , p. . [ ] cp. schmid, geschichte des pietismus, pp. - . [ ] pufendorf's bulky treatise de jure naturæ et gentium was published at lund, where he was professor, in . the shorter de officio hominis et civis (also lund, ) is a condensation and partly a vindication of the other, and this it was that convinced thomasius. as to pufendorf's part in the transition from theological to rational moral philosophy, see hallam, lit. of europe, iv, - . he is fairly to be bracketed with cumberland; but hallam hardly recognizes that it was the challenge of hobbes that forced the change. [ ] freimüthige, lustige und ernsthafte, jedoch vernunft- und gesetzmässige gedanken, oder monatgespräche über allerhand, vornehmlich über neue bücher. there had been an earlier acta eruditorum, in latin, published at leipzig, and a french ephemerides savantes, hamburg, . other german and french periodicals soon followed that of thomasius. luden, p. . [ ] schmid, pp. - , gives a sketch of some of the contents. [ ] pusey, p. , note. it is surprising that pusey does not make more account of thomasius's naturalistic treatment of polygamy and suicide, which he showed to be not criminal in terms of natural law. [ ] compare weber, gesch. der deutschen lit. § (ed. , pp. - ); pusey, as cited, p. . note; enfield's hist. of philos. (abst. of brucker's hist. crit. philos.), . pp. - ; ueberweg, ii, ; and schlegel's note in reid's mosheim, p. , with karl hillebrand, six lect. on the hist. of german thought, , pp. - . there is a modern monograph by a. nicoladoni, christian thomasius; ein beitrag zur geschichte der aufklärung, . [ ] baron de bielfeld, progrès des allemands, e éd. , i, . "before thomasius," writes bielfeld, "an old woman could not have red eyes without running the risk of being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake." [ ] schmid, pp. - . thomasius's principal writings on this theme were: vom recht evangelischen fürsten in mitteldingen ( ); vom recht evangelischen fürsten in theologischen streitigkeiten ( ); vom recht evangelischen fürsten gegen ketzer ( ). [ ] ec. hist. cent. sect. ii, pt. ii, ch. i, §§ , . it is noteworthy that the pietists at halle did not scruple to ally themselves for a time with thomasius, he being opposed to the orthodox party. kahnis, internal hist. of ger. protestantism, p. . [ ] pusey, as cited, p. . cp. p. . [ ] hagenbach, kirchengeschichte des . und . jahrh., te aufl. i, . (this matter is not in the abridged translation.) [ ] see the furious account of him by mosheim, c. sec. ii, pt. ii, ch. i, § . [ ] hagenbach, last cit. p. . [ ] noack, die freidenker in der religion, th. iii, kap. ; bruno bauer, einfluss des englischen quäkerthums auf die deutsche cultur und auf das englisch-russische projekt einer weltkirche, , pp. - . [ ] pref. to french tr. of the meditationes, , pp. xii-xvii. lau died in . [ ] tholuck, abriss, as cited, p. . [ ] trans. in english, . [ ] hagenbach, tr. pp. - ; saintes, p. ; kahnis, as cited, p. . [ ] hagenbach, pp. - . it is to be observed (tholuck, abriss, p. ) that the wolffian philosophy was reinstated in prussia by royal mandate in , a year before the accession of frederick the great. but we know that frederick championed him. [ ] tholuck, abriss, as cited, p. . [ ] tholuck, abriss, as cited, p. . [ ] kahnis, p. . [ ] pünjer, i, . cp. tholuck, abriss, pp. - . [ ] tholuck, abriss, p. . schmid was for a time supposed to be the author of the wolfenbüttel fragments of reimarus (below, p. ). [ ] unpartheyische kirchen- und ketzerhistorie, - , tom. fol.--fuller ed. tom. fol. . compare mosheim's angry account of it with murdock's note in defence: reid's ed. p. . bruno bauer describes it as epoch-making (einfluss des englischen quäkerthums, p. ). this history had a great influence on goethe in his teens, leading him, he says, to the conviction that he, like so many other men, should have a religion of his own, which he goes on to describe. it was a re-hash of gnosticism. (wahrheit und dichtung, b. viii; werke, ed. , xi, sq.) [ ] cp. hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, : pünjer, i, . [ ] die göttlichkeit der vernunft. [ ] noack, th. iii, kap. : saintes, pp. - ; pünjer, p. . it is interesting to find edelmann supplying a formula latterly utilized by the so-called "new theology" in england--the thesis that "the reality of everything which exists is god," and that there can therefore be no atheists, since he who recognizes the universe recognizes god. [ ] naigeon, by altering the words of diderot, caused him to appear one of the exceptions; but he was not. see rosenkranz, diderot's leben und werke. vorb. p. vii. [ ] kahnis, pp. - . edelmann's life was written by pratje. historische nachrichten von edelmann's leben, . it gives a list of replies to his writings (p. sq.). apropos of the first issue of strauss's leben jesu, a volume of erinnerungen of edelmann was published at clausthal in by w. elster; and strauss in his dogmatik avowed the pleasure with which he had made the acquaintance of so interesting a writer. a collection of extracts from edelmann's works, entitled der neu eröffnete edelmann, was published at bern in ; and the unschuldige wahrheiten was reprinted in . his autobiography, written in , was published in . [ ] betrachtungen über die vornehmsten wahrheiten der religion. another apologetic work of the period marked by rational moderation and tolerance was the vertheidigten glauben der christen of the berlin court-preacher a. w. f. sack ( ). [ ] art. by wagenmann in allgemeine deutsche biographie. [ ] hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, . [ ] pünjer, i, . [ ] kurz, hist. of the christian church from the reformation, eng. tr. ii, . a jesuit, a. merz, wrote four replies to jerusalem. one was entitled frag ob durch die biblische simplicität allein ein freydenker oder deist bekehret ... werden könne ("can a freethinker or deist be converted by biblical simplicity alone?"), . [ ] cp. hagenbach, i, ; tr. p. . jerusalem was the father of the gifted youth whose suicide ( ) moved goethe to write the sorrows of werther, a false presentment of the real personality, which stirred lessing (his affectionate friend) to publish a volume of the dead youth's essays, in vindication of his character. the father had considerable influence in purifying german style. cp. goethe, wahrheit und dichtung, th. ii, b. vii; werke, ed. . xi, ; and hagenbach, i, . [ ] goethe, as last cited, pp. - . [ ] lechler, gesch. des englischen deismus, pp. - . the translations began with that of tindal ( ), which made a great sensation. [ ] pusey, pp. , , citing twesten; gostwick, german culture and christianity, p. , citing ernesti. thorschmid's freidenker bibliothek, issued in - , collected both translations and refutations. lechler, p. . [ ] lange, gesch. des materialismus, i. (eng. tr. ii, - ). [ ] lange, i, , (eng. tr. ii, , ). [ ] lange, i, - (ii, - ). [ ] goethe tells of having seen in his boyhood, at frankfort, an irreligious french romance publicly burned, and of having his interest in the book thereby awakened. but this seems to have been during the french occupation. (wahrheit und dichtung, b. iv; werke, xi, .) [ ] id. b. iv, end. [ ] translated into english ; nd ed. . the translator claims for haller great learning ( nd ed. p. xix). he seems in reality to have had very little, as he represents that jesus in his day "was the only teacher who recommended chastity to men" (p. ). [ ] rettung der offenbarung gegen die einwürfe der freigeister. haller wrote under a similar title, - . [ ] baur, gesch. der christl. kirche, iv, . [ ] gostwick, p. . [ ] wahrheit und dichtung, b. viii; werke, xi, . [ ] schlosser, hist. of eighteenth cent., eng. tr. . i, ; hagenbach, tr. p. . [ ] hagenbach, tr. p. . [ ] id., kirchengeschichte, i, . [ ] kahnis, p. ; tholuck, abriss, p. . [ ] see the extracts of büchner, zwei gekrönte freidenker, , pp. - . [ ] thiébault, mes souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à berlin, e édit. , i, - . see i, - , ii, - , as to the baselessness of the stories (e.g., pusey, histor. inq. into ger. rationalism, p. ) that frederick changed his views in old age. thiébault, a strict catholic, is emphatic in his negation: "the persons who assert that [his principles] became more religious ... have either lied or been themselves mistaken." carlyle naturally detests thiébault. the rumour may have arisen out of the fact that in his examen critique du système de la nature frederick counter-argues d'holbach's impeachment of christianity. the attack on kings gave him a fellow-feeling with the church. [ ] cp. the argument of faure, hist. de saint louis, , i, - ; ii, . [ ] examen de l'essai sur les préjugés, . see the passage in lévy-bruhl, l'allemagne depuis leibniz, p. ). [ ] g. weber, gesch. der deutschen literatur, te aufl. p. . [ ] zur gesch. der relig. und philos. in deutschland--werke, ed. , iii, - . goethe's blame (w. und d., b. vii) is passed on purely literary grounds. [ ] hagenbach, tr. pp. - ; cairns, p. . [ ] this post he left to become secretary of the academy of painting. [ ] cited by pünjer, i, - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] hagenbach, tr. pp. - ; saintes, pp. - ; pünjer, p. ; noack, th. iii, kap. . [ ] hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, , . [ ] id. i, sq. [ ] the book is remembered in france by reason of eberhard's amusing mistake of treating as a serious production of the sorbonne the skit in which turgot derided the sorbonne's findings against marmontel's bélisaire. [ ] hagenbach, tr. p. . [ ] eberhard, however, is respectfully treated by lessing in his discussion on leibnitz's view as to eternal punishment. [ ] noack, th. iii, kap. . [ ] saintes, pp. - . [ ] cp. hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, , . [ ] id. i, ; tr. pp. - ; saintes, p. ; kahnis, p. . pusey ( - , note) speaks of teller and spalding as belonging, with nicolai, mendelssohn, and others, to a "secret institute, whose object was to remodel religion and alter the form of government." this seems to be a fantasy. [ ] so steffens, cited by hagenbach, tr. p. . [ ] p. gastrow, joh. salomo semler, , p. . see pusey, - , note, for semler's account of the rigid and unreasoning orthodoxy against which he reacted. (citing semler's lebenschreibung, ii, - .) semler, however, records that baumgarten, one of the theological professors at halle, would in expansive moods defend theism and make light of theology (lebenschreibung, i, ). cp. tholuck, abriss, as cited, pp. , . pusey notes that "many of the principal innovators had been pupils of baumgarten" (p. , citing niemeyer). [ ] cp. dr. g. karo, johann salomo semler, , p. ; saintes, pp. - . [ ] cp. gostwick, p. ; pünjer, i, . [ ] karo, p. . [ ] cp. saintes, p. sq. [ ] cp. karo, pp. , , , . [ ] over a hundred and seventy in all. pünjer, i, ; gastrow, p. . [ ] karo, pp. - . [ ] gastrow, p. . [ ] pusey, p. ; a. s. farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, p. . [ ] cp. karo, p. sq.; stäudlin, cited by tholuck, abriss, p. . [ ] kahnis. p. . [ ] wahre gründe wanum gott die offenbarung nicht mit augenscheinlichen beweisen versehen hat. [ ] die göttliche eingebung, . [ ] beweis das gott die menschen bereits durch seine offenbarung in der natur zur seligkeit fuhre. [ ] gostwick, p. ; pünjer, i, , note. [ ] cp. kahnis, pp. - , as to bahrdt's early morals. [ ] geschichte seines lebens, etc. - , iv, . [ ] see below, p. . [ ] geschichte seines lebens, kap. ; ii, sq. [ ] baur, gesch. der chr. kirche, iv. . [ ] translated into english in . [ ] mendelssohn, jerusalem, abschn. i--werke, p. (eng. tr. , pp. - ); rousseau, contrat social, liv, iv, ch. viii, near end; locke, as cited above, p. . cp. bartholmèss, hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, , i, ; baur, as last cited. [ ] see his werke, ed. , v, --aus dem briefe, die neueste literatur betreffend, ter brief. [ ] if lessing's life were sketched in the spirit in which orthodoxy has handled that of bahrdt, it could be made unedifying enough. even goethe remarks that lessing "enjoyed himself in a disorderly tavern life" (wahrheit und dichtung, b. vii); and all that hagenbach maliciously charges against basedow in the way of irregularity of study is true of him. on that and other points, usually glossed over, see the sketch in taylor's historic survey of german poetry, , i, - . all the while, lessing is an essentially sound-hearted and estimable personality; and he would probably have been the last man to echo the tone of the orthodox towards the personal life of the freethinkers who went further in unbelief than he. [ ] e.g. his fable the bull and the calf (fabeln, ii, ), à propos of the clergy and bayle. [ ] sime, life of lessing, , i, . [ ] e.g. his early notice of diderot's lettre sur les aveugles. sime, i, . [ ] dramaturgie, stück . [ ] sime, i, - . [ ] sime, i, , ; ii, . [ ] in his gedanke über die herrnhuter, written in . see adolf stahr's lessing, sein leben und seine werke, te aufl. ii, sq. [ ] julian schmidt puts the case sympathetically: "he had learned in his father's house what value the pastoral function may have for the culture of the people. he was bibelfest, instructed in the history of his church, protestant in spirit, full of genuine reverence for luther, full of high respect for historical christianity, though on reading the fathers he could say hard things of the church." gesch. der deutschen litteratur von leibniz bis auf unsere zeit, ii ( ), . [ ] taylor, as cited, p. . [ ] sime, i, . [ ] see lessing's rather crude comedy, der freigeist, and sime's life, i, - , , . [ ] cp. his letters to his brother of which extracts are given by sime, ii, - . [ ] sime, ii, . [ ] as to the authorship see saintes, pp. - ; and sime's life of lessing, i, - , where the counter-claim is rejected. [ ] zur geschichte und literatur, aus dem ten beitr.--werke, vi. sq. see also in his theologische streitschriften the axiomata written against pastor goeze. cp. schwarz, lessing als theologe, , pp. , ; and pusey, as cited, p. . note. [ ] compare the regrets of pusey (pp. , ), cairns (p. ), hagenbach (pp. - ), and saintes (p. ). [ ] sämmtliche schriften, ed. lachmann, , xi ( ), . sime (ii, ) mistranslates this passage; and schmidt (ii, ) mutilates it by omissions. fontanes (le christianisme moderne: Étude sur lessing, , p. ) paraphrases it very loosely. [ ] sime, ii, . [ ] stahr, ii, ; sime, ii. . [ ] see sime, ii, , : stahr, ii, . hettner, an admirer, calls the early christianity of reason a piece of sophistical dialectic. litteraturgeschichte des ten jahrhunderts, ed. , iii. - . [ ] stahr, ii, . lessing said the report to this effect was a lie; but this and other mystifications appear to have been by way of fulfilling his promise of secrecy to the reimarus family. cairns, pp. , . cp. farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, note . [ ] see it analysed by bartholmèss, hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, i, - ; and by schweitzer, the quest of the historic jesus (trans. of von reimarus zu wrede), . [ ] gostwick, p. ; bartholmèss, i, . his book was translated into english (the principal truths of natural religion defended and illustrated) in ; into dutch in ; in part into french in ; and seven editions of the original had appeared by . [ ] stahr, ii, - . [ ] id. ii, . [ ] the statement that, in lessing's age, "in north germany men were able to think and write freely" (conybeare, hist. of n. t. crit., p. ) is thus seen to be highly misleading. [ ] von dem zwecke, jesus und seiner jünger, braunschweig, . [ ] taylor, histor. survey of german poetry, i, . [ ] stahr, ii, - . [ ] cp. introd. to willis's trans. of nathan. the play is sometimes attacked as being grossly unfair to christianity. (e.g. crouslé, lessing, , p. .) the answer to this complaint is given by sime, ii, sq. [ ] see cairns, appendix, note i; willis, spinoza, pp. - ; sime, ii, - ; and stahr, ii, - , giving the testimony of jacobi. cp. pünjer, i, - . but heine laughingly adjures moses mendelssohn, who grieved so intensely over lessing's spinozism, to rest quiet in his grave: "thy lessing was indeed on the way to that terrible error ... but the highest, the father in heaven, saved him in time by death. he died a good deist, like thee and nicolai and teller and the universal german library" (zur gesch. der rel. und philos. in deutschland, b. ii, near end.--werke, ed. , iii. ). [ ] see in stahr, ii, - . the various characterizations of his indefinite philosophy. stahr's own account of him as anticipating the moral philosophy of kant is as overstrained as the others. gastrow, an admirer, expresses wonder (johann salomo semler, p. ) at the indifference of lessing to the critical philosophy in general. [ ] sime, ii, ch. xxix, gives a good survey. [ ] letter to his brother, feb., . [ ] strauss, das leben jesu (the second) einleitung, § . [ ] hurst, history of rationalism, rd ed. p. . "it was a popular belief, as an organ of pious opinion announced to its readers, that at his death the devil came and carried him away like a second faust." sime, ii, . [ ] cited by hurst, hist. of rationalism, rd ed. p. . outside berlin, however, matters went otherwise till late in the century. kurz tells (gesch. der deutschen literatur, ii, b) that "the indifference of the learned towards native literature was so great that even in the year abbt could write that in rinteln there was nobody who knew the names of moses mendelssohn and lessing." [ ] karl hillebrand, lectures on the hist. of german thought, , p. . [ ] deutsche merkur, jan. and march, (werke, ed. , xxix, - ; cited by stäudlin, gesch. der rationalismus und supernaturalismus, , p. ). [ ] kurtz, hist. of the chr. church, eng. tr. , ii, . [ ] t. c. perthes, das deutsche staatsleben vor der revolution, sq., cited by kahnis pp. - . [ ] see above, pp. , . [ ] kant distinguishes explicitly between "rationalists," as thinkers who would not deny the possibility of a revelation, and "naturalists," who did. see the religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft, stück iv, th. i. this was in fact the standing significance of the term in germany for a generation. [ ] letter to his brother, february , . [ ] known as zopf-schulz from his wearing a pigtail in the fashion then common among the laity. "an old insolent rationalist," kurtz calls him (ii, ). [ ] hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, ; gostwick, pp. , . [ ] philosophische betrachtung über theologie und religion überhaupt, und über die jüdische insonderheit, . [ ] pünjer, i, - . [ ] coleridge, biographia literaria, ch. ix, bohn ed. p. . [ ] see the details in hagenbach, kirchengeschichte, i, - ; kahnis, p. . [ ] marokkanische briefe. aus dem arabischen. frankfurt and leipzig, . the letters purport to be written by one of the moroccan embassy at vienna in . [ ] briefe, xxi. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] das zum theil einzige wahre system der christlichen religion. it had been composed in its author's youth under the title false reasonings of the christian religion; and the ms. was lost through the bankruptcy of a dutch publisher. [ ] noack, th. iii, kap. , p. . [ ] mauvillon further collaborated with mirabeau, and became a great admirer of the french revolution. he left freethinking writings among his remains. they are not described by noack, and i have been unable to meet with them. [ ] it was a test of the depth of the freethinking spirit in the men of the day. semler justified the edict; bahrdt vehemently denounced it. hagenbach, i, . [ ] cp. crabb robinson's diary, iii, ; martineau, study of spinoza, p. ; willis, spinoza, pp. - . bishop hurst laments (hist. of rationalism, rd ed. p. ) that herder's early views as to the mission of christ "were, in common with many other evangelical views, doomed to an unhappy obscuration upon the advance of his later years by frequent intercourse with more skeptical minds." [ ] on the clerical opposition to him at weimar on this score see düntzer, life of goethe, eng. tr. , i, . [ ] cp. kronenberg, herder's philosophie nach ihrem entwickelungsgang, . [ ] kronenberg, p. . [ ] stuckenberg, life of immanuel kant, , pp. - ; kronenberg, herder's philosophie, pp. , . [ ] kahnis, p. , and erdmann, as there cited. erdmann finds the pantheism of herder to be, not spinozistic as he supposed, but akin to that of bruno and his italian successors. [ ] the chief sample passages in his works are the poem das göttliche and the speech of faust in reply to gretchen in the garden scene. it was the surmised pantheism of goethe's poem prometheus that, according to jacobi, drew from lessing his avowal of a pantheistic leaning. the poem has even an atheistic ring; but we have goethe's own account of the influence of spinoza on him from his youth onwards (wahrheit und dichtung, th. iii, b. xiv; th. iv, b. xvi). see also his remarks on the "natural" religion of "conviction" or rational inference, and that of "faith" (glaube) or revelationism, in b. iv (werke, ed. , xi, ); also kestner's account of his opinions at twenty-three, in düntzer's life, eng. tr. i, ; and again his letter to jacobi, january , , quoted by düntzer, ii, . [ ] see the alt-testamentliches appendix to the west-oestlicher divan. [ ] heine, zur gesch. der rel. u. phil. in deutschland (werke, ed. , iii, ). [ ] wahrheit und dichtung, th. i, b. iv (werke, ed. , xi, ). [ ] id. th. iii, b. xiv, par. (werke, xii, ). [ ] id. pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cited by baur, gesch. der christl. kirche, v, . [ ] compare, as to the hostility he aroused, düntzer, i, , , - , ; ii, note, , ; eckermann, gespräche mit goethe, märz , ; and heine, last cit. p. . [ ] eckermann, märz , . [ ] id. feb. , . [ ] hurst, hist. of rationalism, rd ed. p. . [ ] wahrheit und dichtung, th. iii, b. viii; werke, xi, . [ ] cp., however, the estimate of krause, above, p. . virchow, göthe als naturforscher, , goes into detail on the biological points, without reaching any general estimate. [ ] remarked by hagenbach, tr. p. . [ ] letter to goethe, august , (briefwechsel, no. ). the passage is given in carlyle's essay on schiller. [ ] in die sendung moses. [ ] see the philosophische briefe. [ ] carlyle translates, "no rights of man," which was probably the idea. [ ] letter to goethe, july , (briefwechsel, no. ). "it is evident that he was estranged not only from the church but from the fundamental truths of christianity" (rev. w. baur, religious life of germany, eng. tr. , p. ). f. c. baur has a curious page in which he seeks to show that, though schiller and goethe cannot be called christian in a natural sense, the age was not made un-christian by them to such an extent as is commonly supposed (gesch. der christl. kirche, v, ). [ ] cp. tieftrunk, as cited by stuckenberg, life of immanuel kant, p. . [ ] id. p. . in his early essay träume eines geistersehers, erläutert durch träume der metaphysik ( ) this attitude is clear. it ends with an admiring quotation from voltaire's candide. [ ] beantwortung der frage: was ist aufklärung? in the berliner monatschrift, dec. , rep. in kant's vorzügliche kleine schriften, , bd. i. [ ] for an able argument vindicating the unity of kant's system, however, see prof. adamson, the philosophy of kant, , p. sq., as against lange. with the verdict in the text compare that of heine, zur gesch. der relig. u. philos. in deutschland, b. iii (werke, as cited, iii, - ); that of prof. g. santayana, the life of reason, vol. i, , p. sq.; and that of prof. a. seth pringle-pattison, the philosophy of religion in kant and hegel, rep. in vol. entitled the philosophical radicals and other essays, , pp. , . [ ] stuckenberg, pp. , . [ ] cp. haym, herder nach seinem leben ... dargestellt, , i, , ; kronenberg, herder's philosophie, p. . [ ] cp. hagenbach, eng. tr. p. . [ ] religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft, stück iii, abth. i, § ; abth. ii (ed. , pp. - , - ). [ ] work cited, stück ii, abschn. ii, allg. anm. p. sq. [ ] e.g. stück iv, th. i, preamble (p. , ed. cited). [ ] id. stück iii, abth. ii, allg. anm.: "this belief," he avows frankly enough, "involves no mystery" (p. ). in a note to the second edition he suggests that there must be a basis in reason for the idea of a trinity, found as it is among so many ancient and primitive peoples. the speculation is in itself evasive, for he does not give the slightest reason for thinking the goths capable of such metaphysic. [ ] stück iii, abth. i, § ; pp. , . [ ] stück iii, abth. ii, p. . [ ] kant explicitly concurs in warburton's thesis that the jewish lawgiver purposely omitted all mention of a future state from the pentateuch; since such belief must be supposed to have been current in jewry. but he goes further, and pronounces that simple judaism contains "absolutely no religious belief." to this complexion can philosophic compromise come. [ ] stuckenberg, life of immanuel kant, p. . [ ] borowski, darstellung des lebens und charakters immanuel kant's, , cited by stuckenberg, p. . [ ] stuckenberg, pp. - . [ ] stuckenberg, p. . [ ] cp. f. c. baur, gesch. der christl. kirche, v, - . [ ] the first, on "radical evils," appeared in a berlin monthly in april, , and was then reprinted separately. [ ] stuckenberg, p. . [ ] ueberweg, ii, ; stuckenberg, p. . [ ] stuckenberg, pp. - . [ ] religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen vernunft, stück iv, th. . [ ] cp. stuckenberg, p. ; seth pringle-pattison, as cited. [ ] stuckenberg, pp. , , , . [ ] letter of may , , reproduced by heine. [ ] zur gesch. der rel. u. philos. in deutschland. werke, as cited, iii, , . [ ] stuckenberg, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] stuckenberg, p. . "it is only necessary," adds stuckenberg (p. , note ), "to develop kant's hints in order to get the views of strauss in his leben jesu." [ ] id. p. . erhard stated that pestalozzi shared his views on christian ethics. [ ] stuckenberg, p. . [ ] cp. weber, gesch. der deutschen literatur, te aufl. p. ; r. unger, hamann und die aufklärung, . [ ] bartholmèss, hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, , i, - . [ ] in demanding a "history of the human conscience" (neue anthropologie, ) platner seems to have anticipated the modern scientific approach to religion. [ ] gespräche über den atheismus, . [ ] lehrbuch der logik und metaphysik, . [ ] w. smith, memoir of fichte, nd ed. p. . [ ] id. pp. , , , , , etc. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] smith, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] adamson, fichte, , p. ; smith, as cited, pp. - . [ ] letter to kant, cited by smith, p. . [ ] asserted by stuckenberg, life of kant, p. . [ ] cp. robins, a defence of the faith, , pt. i, pp. - ; adamson, fichte, pp. - ; w. smith, memoir of fichte, pp. - . [ ] adamson, pp. , . [ ] grundzüge des gegenwärtigen zeitalters, te vorles. ed. , pp. - . [ ] compare the complaints of hurst, hist. of rationalism, rd ed. pp. - , and of coleridge, biographia literaria, bohn ed. p. . fichte's theory, says coleridge (after praising him as the destroyer of spinozism), "degenerated into a crude egoismus, a boastful and hyperstoic hostility to nature, as lifeless, godless, and altogether unholy, while his religion consisted in the assumption of a mere ordo ordinans, which we were permitted exotericé to call god." heine (as last cited, p. ) insists that fichte's idealism is "more godless than the crassest materialism." [ ] grundzüge, as cited, p. . [ ] cp. seth pringle-pattison, as cited, p. , note. [ ] kurtz, hist. of the chr. church, eng. tr. , ii, . jahn was well in advance of his age in his explanation of joshua's cosmic miracle as the mistaken literalizing of a flight of poetic phrase. see the passage in his introduction to the book of joshua, cited by rowland williams, the hebrew prophets, ii ( ), , note . [ ] r. n. bain, gustavus vasa and his contemporaries, , i. - . [ ] a. sorel, l'europe et la révolution française, i ( ), p. . [ ] see articles on beethoven by macfarren in dictionary of universal biography, and by grove in the dictionary of music and musicians. [ ] grove, art. cited, ed. , i, . [ ] jonckbloet, beknopte geschiedenis der nederl. letterkunde, ed. , p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] cp. trinius, freydenker-lexicon, pp. - ; colerus, vie de spinoza, as cited, p. lviii. [ ] see texte, rousseau and the cosmopolitan spirit, eng. tr. p. . [ ] briefe, , p. . [ ] this is the basis of pope's reference to "illustrious passeran" in his epilogue to the satires, , ii, . the rev. j. bramstone's satire, the man of taste ( ), spells the name "pasaran," whence may be inferred the extent of the satirist's knowledge of his topic. [ ] reprinted, in french, at london in , in a more complete and correct edition, published by j. brindley. [ ] the copy in the british museum is dated , and the title-page describes passerano as "a piemontæse exile now in holland, a christian freethinker." it is presumably a re-issue. [ ] warburton in a note on pope (epilogue, as cited) characteristically alleges that passerano had been banished from piedmont "for his impieties, and lived in the utmost misery, yet feared to practise his own precepts; and at last died a penitent." the source of these allegations may serve as warrant for disbelieving them. warburton, it will be observed, says nothing of an imprisonment in england. [ ] london ed. , pp. - . [ ] koch, histor. view of the european nations, eng. tr. rd ed. p. . cp. crichton and wheaton, scandinavia, , i, - ; otté, scandinavian history, , pp. - ; villiers, essay on the reformation, eng. tr. , p. . but cp. allen, histoire de danemark, fr. tr. i, - . [ ] otté, pp. - ; crichton-wheaton, i, - ; geijer, hist. of the swedes, eng. tr. i, . [ ] koch, p. ; geijer, i, . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . [ ] ludwig holberg, baron holberg, born at bergen, norway, . after a youth of poverty and struggle he settled at copenhagen in , as professor of metaphysics, and attained the chair of eloquence in . made baron by king frederick v of denmark at his accession in . d. . [ ] nicolai klimii iter subterraneum novam telluris theoriam ac historiam quintæ monarchiæ ... exhibens, etc. dr. gosse, in art. holberg, encyc. brit., makes the mistake of calling the book a poem. it is in latin prose, with verse passages. [ ] it was published thrice in danish, ten times in german, thrice in swedish, thrice in dutch, thrice in english, twice in french, twice in russian, and once in hungarian. [ ] cap. vi, de religione gentis potuanæ. [ ] cp. pp. - , ed. . [ ] cap. vi, p. ; cp. cap. viii, de academia, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] he had visited england in his youth. [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . on p. a somewhat contrary statement is made, which obscures the facts. cp. schlosser, iv, , as to christian's martinet methods. [ ] geijer, i, . [ ] id. p. ; otté, p. . [ ] geijer, i, . cp. ranke, hist. of the popes, eng. tr. ed. , ii, ; iii, - . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, - , and refs. [ ] cp. ranke, as cited, ii, . [ ] work cited, pp. - . this writer gives the only intelligible account of the private execution of christina's secretary, monaldeschi, by her orders. monaldeschi had either passed over to other hands some of her letters to him, or kept them so carelessly as to let them be stolen. id. p. . for her cruel act she shows no trace of religious or any other remorse. she was, in fact, a neurotic egoist. cp. ranke, ii, , . [ ] bouillier, hist. de la philos. cartés., i, - . [ ] geijer, i, . [ ] see his treatise, of the nature and qualification of religion in reference to civil society, eng. tr. by crull, . [ ] heaven and hell, , §§ , , . [ ] translated as the divine providence. [ ] §§ - . [ ] work cited, § . [ ] de cultu et amore dei, . tr. as the worship and love of god, ed. , p. . [ ] "when he was contradicted he kept silence." documents concerning swedenborg, ed. by dr. tafel, - , ii, . [ ] cp. swedenborg's letter to beyer, in documents, as cited, ii, . [ ] for many years he seldom went to church, being unable to listen peacefully to the trinitarian doctrine he heard there. documents, as cited, ii, . [ ] w. white, swedenborg: his life and writings, ed. , i, . [ ] schweitzer, geschichte der skandinavischen literatur, ii, , ; c.-f. allen, histoire de danemark, fr. tr. ii, - ; r. n. bain, gustavus vasa and his contemporaries, , i, . [ ] correspondance de grimm, ed. - , vii, . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . [ ] writing to his mother on his first visit to paris, he takes her, ostensibly as a libre esprit, into his confidence, disparaging marmontel and grimm as vain. joseph ii in turn pronounced gustavus "a conceited fop, an impudent braggart" (bain, as cited, i, ). both monarchs set up an impression of want of balance, and the mother of gustavus, who forced him to break with her, does the same. [ ] bain, as cited, i, - . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] id. i, - . [ ] cp. bain, ii, , , - . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . cp. pp. - . schlosser, iv, . [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, ; otté, p. ; c.-f. allen, as cited, ii, - ; schlosser, iv, sq. [ ] cp. mary wollstonecraft's letters from sweden, norway, and denmark, , let. xviii. one of the grounds on which the queen was charged with unchastity was, that she had established a hospital for foundlings. [ ] trans. from the german, ; nd ed. . see it also in the work, converts from infidelity, by andrew crichton; vols. vi and vii of constable's miscellany, . this singular compilation includes lives of boyle, bunyan, haller, and others, who were never "infidels." [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, - . [ ] work cited, letter vii. [ ] id. letter viii, near end. [ ] crichton-wheaton, ii, . [ ] he claimed that the remarks penned by him in an anti-atheistic work, challenging its argument, represented not unbelief but the demand for a better proof, which he undertook to produce. see krasinski, sketch of the religious history of the slavonic nations, , pp. - . it is remarkable that the pope, innocent xi, bitterly censured the execution. [ ] fletcher, history of poland, , p. . [ ] fletcher, pp. - . [ ] hardwick, church history: middle age, , pp. - . [ ] l. sichler, hist. de la litt. russe, , pp. - , . cp. rambaud, hist. de russie, e édit. pp. , , etc. (eng. tr. i, , , ). [ ] r. n. bain, the first romanovs, , pp. - ; rambaud, p. (tr. i, - ). the struggle ( ) elicited old forms of heresy, going back to manicheism and gnosticism. in this furious schism nikon destroyed irregular ikons or sacred images; and savage persecutions resulted from his insistence that the faithful should use three fingers instead of two in crossing themselves. many resisted to the death. [ ] prince serge wolkonsky, russian history and literature, , pp. - . [ ] morfill, history of russia, , p. ; bain, p. . [ ] cp. wolkonsky, p. . [ ] c. e. turner, studies in russian literature, , p. . [ ] id. pp. , , , , ; sichler, p. . [ ] sichler, p. . peter's dislike of monks won him the repute of a freethinker. morfill, p. . he was actually attacked as "antichrist" in a printed pamphlet on the score of his innovations. personally, he detested religious persecution, and was willing to tolerate anybody but jews; but he had to let persecution take place; and even to consent to removing statues of pagan deities from his palace. bain, pp. - . [ ] cp. bain, p. . [ ] turner, p. . kantemir was the friend of bolingbroke and montesquieu in paris. [ ] sichler, p. . [ ] turner, pp. - . [ ] see the passages cited by rambaud, p. , from her letter to voltaire. [ ] seume, ueber das leben ... der kaiserin catharina ii: werke, ed. , v, - ; rambaud, pp. - . [ ] see bishop burnet's letters, iv, ed. rotterdam, , pp. - . [ ] zeller, histoire d'italie, pp. - , ; procter, hist. of italy, nd ed. pp. , . [ ] burnet, as cited, pp. - . [ ] prof. flint, who insists on the deep piety of vico, notes that he "appears to have had strangely little interest in christian systematic theology" (vico, , p. ). [ ] siciliani, sul rinnovamento della filosofia positiva in italia, , pp. - . [ ] siciliani, p. . [ ] introduction (by mignet?) to the princess belgiojoso's tr. la science nouvelle, , p. cxiii. cp. flint, vico, . [ ] ganganelli, papst clemens xiv, seine briefe und seine zeit, vom verfasser der römischen briefe (von reumont), , pp. - , and p. , note. [ ] see the storia della economia pubblica in italia of g. pecchio, , p. sq., as to the claim of antonio serra (breve trattato, etc. ) to be the pioneer of modern political economy. cp. hallam, lit. of europe, iii, - . buckle ( -vol. ed. p. , note) has claimed the title for william stafford, whose compendious or briefe examination of certain ordinary complaints (otherwise called a briefe conceipt of english policy) appeared in . but cp. ingram (hist. of pol. econ. , pp. - ) as to the prior claims of bodin. [ ] briefe, as before cited, p. . [ ] correspondence littéraire, ed. - , vii, . cp. von reumont, ganganelli, p. . [ ] the dei delitti e delle pene was translated into languages. pecchio, p. . [ ] see in the th ed. of the dei delitti (harlem, ) the appended risposta ad uno scritto, etc., parte prima, accuse d'empietà. [ ] see his letter to the abbé morellet, cited by mr. farrer in ch. i of his ed. of crimes and punishments, , p. . it describes the milanese as deeply sunk in prejudices. [ ] pecchio, p. . [ ] cp. mcculloch, literature of political economy, , p. ; blanqui, hist. de l'economie politique, e édit. ii, . [ ] as to the genuineness of the ganganelli letters, originally much disputed, see von reumont's ganganelli, papst clemens xiv; seine briefe und seine zeit, , pp. - . [ ] lett. lvi, eng. tr. , i, - . no. lxxii in von reumont's ganganelli, . [ ] lett. xiii, . eng. tr. i, - ; no. cxiv in von reumont's translation. [ ] lett. vi and xiv; nos. ix and xxii in von reumont. [ ] lett. xxx, p. ; no. xxxiv in von reumont. [ ] lett. xci; no. xcii in von reumont. [ ] lett. cxlvi; no. xiii in von reumont. [ ] lett. lxxxii, or ; no. lxi in von reumont. [ ] lett. cxxiv, . this letter is not in von reumont's collection, and appears to be regarded by him as spurious--or unduly indiscreet. [ ] lett. lxxxiii, ; no. lxxiii in von reumont. [ ] corr. litt. as cited, vii, . [ ] zeller, p. . [ ] zeller, pp. - . [ ] julien luchaire, essai sur l'evolution intellectuelle de l'italie de à , , p. . [ ] parini wrote a reproving ode on the subject. (henri hauvette, littérature italienne, , p. .) he was one of those disillusioned by the course of the revolution. (id. p. .) [ ] hauvette, pp. - . [ ] coxe, memoirs of the bourbon kings of spain, ed. , iv, . [ ] villanueva, vida literaria, london, . [ ] buckle, iii, - ( -vol. ed. - ). the last victim seems to have been a woman accused of witchcraft. her nose was cut off before her execution. see the marokkanische briefe, , p. ; and buckle's note . [ ] letter of d'alembert to voltaire, mai, . [ ] grimm, corr. litt. x, . [ ] llorente, ii, . [ ] as to which see buckle, p. . [ ] llorente, ii, . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] grimm is evidently in error in his statement (correspondance, ed. - , x, ) that one of the main grievances against olavidès was his having caused to be made a spanish translation of raynal's book, which was never published. no such offence is mentioned by llorente. the case of almodobar had been connected in french rumour with that of olavidès. [ ] llorente, ii, . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] llorente, ii. - . [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. ii, - . llorente mentions that clavijo edited a journal named the thinker, "at a time when hardly anyone was to be found who thought." a frenchman, langle having asserted, in his voyage d'espagne, that the thinker was without merit, the historian comments that if langle is right in the assertion, it will be the sole verity in his book, but that, in view of his errors on all other matters, it is probable that he is wrong there also. [ ] llorente, p. . [ ] id. ii, - . the book was prohibited, but a printer at bayonne reissued it with an additional volume of the tracts written for and against it. [ ] id. ii, - . [ ] buckle, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] carnota, the marquis of pombal, nd ed. , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. p. godet, hist. litt. de la suisse française, . [ ] e. de budé, vie de françois turrettini, , pp. - . b. turrettini was commissioned to write a history of the reformation at geneva, which however remains in ms. he was further commissioned in to go to holland to obtain financial help for the city, then seriously menaced by savoy; and obtained , florins, besides smaller sums from hamburg and bremen. [ ] cp. budé, as cited, pp. (birth-date wrong), ; and the avis de l'Éditeur to the traité de la verité de la religion chrétienne of j. a. turretin, paris, . [ ] work cited, i, , note. [ ] lettre à damilaville, décembre, . the reserved youth may have been either jean-alphonse, grandson of the socinian professor, who was born in and died childless, or some other member of the numerous turrettini clan. [ ] voltaire to damilaville, juillet, . "il faut que vous sachiez," explains voltaire "que jean jacques n'a été condamné que parce qu'on n'aime pas sa personne." [ ] voltaire to damilaville, auguste, . [ ] cp. i, , , , , , , , , , ; ii, , etc. [ ] for instance: "je me recommande contr'eux [les prêtres] à dieu le père, car pour le fils, vous savez qu'il a aussi peu de crédit que sa mère à genève" (lettre à d'alembert, mars, ).... "une république où tout le monde est ouvertement socinien, exceptés ceux qui font anabaptistes ou moraves. figurez-vous, mon cher ami, qu'il n'y a pas actuellement un chrétien de genève à berne; cela fait frémir!" (to the same, fév. .) [ ] on this see the correspondence of voltaire and d'alembert, under dates , , and janvier, . [ ] lettre à d'alembert, août, . [ ] lettres sur le déisme, , p. . cp. pp. , , , , . [ ] john wesley in his journal, dating may, , speaks of having everywhere met many more "converts to infidelity" than "converts to popery," with apparent reference to carolina. [ ] such is the wording of the passage in the autobiography in the edinburgh edition of , p. , which follows the french translation of the original ms. in the edition of the autobiography and letters in the minerva library, edited by mr. bettany ( , p. ), which follows mr. bigelow's edition of , it runs: "being then, from reading shaftesbury and collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine...." [ ] only in , however, appeared the first anti-christian work published in america, ethan allen's reason the only oracle of man. as to its positions see conway, life of paine, ii, - . [ ] autobiography, bettany's ed. pp. , , , , etc. [ ] letter of march , . id. p. . [ ] cp. j. t. morse's thomas jefferson, pp. - . [ ] ms. cited by dr. conway, life of paine, ii, - . [ ] memoirs of jefferson, , iv, - . the date is . these and other passages exhibiting jefferson's deism are cited in rayner's sketches of the life, etc., of jefferson, , pp. - . [ ] memoirs of jefferson, iv, . [ ] dr. conway, life of paine, ii, . [ ] extract from jefferson's journal under date february , , in the memoirs, iv, . gouverneur morris, whom jefferson further cites as to washington's unbelief, is not a very good witness; but the main fact cited is significant. [ ] compare the testimony given by the rev. dr. wilson, of albany, in , as cited by r. d. owen in his discussion on the authenticity of the bible with o. bacheler (london, ed. , p. ), with the replies on the other side (pp. - ). washington's death-bed attitude was that of a deist. see all the available data for his supposed orthodoxy in sparks's life of washington, , app. iv. [ ] so far as is known, paine was the first writer to use the expression "the religion of humanity." see conway's life of paine, ii, . to paine's influence, too, appears to be due the founding of the first american anti-slavery society. id. i, - , , , etc. [ ] cp. conway's life of paine, ii, - . [ ] a letter of franklin to someone who had shown him a freethinking manuscript, advising against its publication (bettany's ed. p. ), has been conjecturally connected with paine, but was clearly not addressed to him. franklin died in , and paine was out of america from onwards. but the letter is in every way inapplicable to the age of reason. the remark: "if men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" could not be made to a devout deist like paine. [ ] conway, life of paine, ii, - . [ ] see dr. conway's chapter, "the american inquisition," vol. ii, ch. xvi; also pp. - , , . the falsity of the ordinary charges against paine's character is finally made clear by dr. conway, ch. xix, and pp. , , , . cp. the author's pamphlet, thomas paine: an investigation (bonner). the chronically revived story of his death-bed remorse for his writings--long ago exposed (conway, ii, )--is definitively discredited in the latest reiteration. that occurs in the life and letters of dr. r. h. thomas ( ), the mother of whose stepmother was the mrs. mary hinsdale, née roscoe, on whose testimony the legend rests. dr. thomas, a quaker of the highest character, accepted the story without question, but incidentally tells of the old lady (p. ) that "her wandering fancies had all the charm of a present fairy-tale to us." no further proof is needed, after the previous exposure, of the worthlessness of the testimony in question. [ ] conway, ii, . [ ] see the details in conway's life, ii, - , and note. he had also a scheme for a gunpowder motor (id. and i, ), and various other remarkable plans. [ ] conway, ii, - . [ ] testimonies quoted by r. d. owen, as cited, pp. - . [ ] conway, ii, . [ ] memoir of sydney smith, by his daughter, lady holland, ed. , p. . lady holland remarks on the same page that her father's religion had in it "nothing intolerant." [ ] memoir of sydney smith, p. . [ ] julien luchaire, essai sur l'évolution intellectuelle de l'italie, , pp. - . [ ] dr. ramage, nooks and byeways of italy, , pp. , - . ramage describes the helplessness of the better minds before . [ ] luchaire, pp. , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] doblado (blanco white), letters from spain, . p. . [ ] thus the traveller and belletrist j. g. seume, a zealous deist and opponent of atheism, and a no less zealous patriot, penned many fiercely freethinking maxims, as: "where were the most so-called positive religions, there was always the least morality"; "grotius and the bible are the best supports of despotism"; "heaven has lost us the earth"; "the best apostles of despotism and slavery are the mystics." apokryphen, - , in sämmtliche werke, , iv, , , , . [ ] c. h. cottrell, religious movements of germany, , p. sq. [ ] cp. the author's evolution of states, pp. - . [ ] when i thus planned the treatment of the nineteenth century in the first edition of this book, it was known to me that mr. alfred w. benn had in hand a work on the history of english rationalism in the nineteenth century; and the knowledge made me the more resolved to keep my own record condensed. duly published in (longmans, vols.), mr. benn's book amply fulfilled expectations; and to it i would refer every reader who seeks a fuller survey than the present. its freshness of thought and vigour of execution will more than repay him. even mr. benn's copious work, however--devoting as it does a large amount of space to a preliminary survey of the eighteenth century--leaves room for various english monographs on the nineteenth, to say nothing of the culture history of a dozen other countries. [ ] lecky, hist. of ireland in the eighteenth century, ed. , iii, . [ ] cp. conway's life of paine, ii, - . [ ] this translation, issued by "sherwood, neely, and jones, paternoster row, and all booksellers," purports to be "with additions." the translation, however, has altered d'holbach's atheism to deism. [ ] by w. huttman. the book is "embellished with a head of jesus"--a conventional religious picture. huttman's opinions may be divined from the last sentence of his preface, alluding to "the high pretentions and inflated stile of the lives of christ which issue periodically from the english press." [ ] cp. dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] see harriet martineau's history of the peace, ed. , ii, , and mrs. carlile campbell's the battle of the press (bonner, ), passim, as to the treatment of those who acted as carlile's shopmen. women were imprisoned as well as men--e.g. susanna wright, as to whom see wheeler's dictionary, and last ref. carlile's wife and sister were likewise imprisoned with him; and over twenty volunteer shopmen in all went to jail. [ ] hone's most important service to popular culture was his issue of the apocryphal new testament, which, by co-ordinating work of the same kind, gave a fresh scientific basis to the popular criticism of the gospel history. as to his famous trial for blasphemy on the score of his having published certain parodies, political in intention, see bk. i, ch. x (by knight) of harriet martineau's history of the peace. [ ] holyoake, sixty years of an agitator's life, i, - . see p. as to other cases. [ ] art. by holyoake in dict. of nat. biog. cp. sixty years, per index. [ ] articles in dict. of nat. biog. [ ] holyoake, sixty years, i, . [ ] kirkup, history of socialism, , p. . [ ] "from an early age he had lost all belief in the prevailing forms of religion" (kirkup, p. ). [ ] reformers of almost all schools, indeed, from the first regarded owen with more or less genial incredulity, some criticizing him acutely without any ill-will. see podmore's robert owen, , i, - . southey was one of the first to detect his lack of religious belief. id. p. , n. [ ] podmore, i, . [ ] kirkup, as cited, p. . [ ] podmore, ii, . [ ] "extraordinary self-complacency," "autocratic action," "arrogance," are among the expressions used of him by his ablest biographer. (podmore, ii, .) of him might be said, as of emerson by himself, "the children of the gods do not argue"--the faculty being absent. [ ] pamphlet sold at / d., and "to be had of all the booksellers." [ ] of george combe's constitution of man ( ), a deistic work, over , copies were sold in britain within twelve years, and , in america. advt. to th ed. . combe avows that his impulse came from the phrenologist spurzheim. [ ] see the details in his last trial by jury for atheism in england. [ ] the gospel its own witness, . rep. in bohn's ed. of the principal works and remains of the rev. andrew fuller, , pp. - . [ ] see prof. flint's tribute to the reasoning power of bradlaugh and holyoake in his anti-theistic theories, th ed. pp. - . [ ] see mrs. bradlaugh bonner's charles bradlaugh, i, , - . [ ] for a full record see part ii of mrs. bradlaugh bonner's charles bradlaugh. [ ] after bradlaugh had secured his seat, the noble lord even sought his acquaintance. [ ] though young conservative members, after , privately professed sympathy. [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] coquerel, essai sur l'histoire générale du christianisme, , préf. [ ] dr. christopher wordsworth, diary in france, , pp. - . [ ] "the miserable and deistical principle of the equality of all religions" (id. p. ). cp. pp. , . [ ] id. pp. , , , , , . [ ] id. pp. - . as to the general vogue of rationalism in france at that period, see pp. , : and compare saisset, essais sur la philosophie et la religion, ; the progress of religious thought as illustrated in the protestant church of france, by dr. j. r. beard, ; and wilson's article in essays and reviews. as to switzerland and holland, see pearson, infidelity, its aspects, etc., , pp. - , - . [ ] louis philippe sought to suppress this book, of which many editions had appeared before . see blanco white's life, , ii. . [ ] prof. e. lavisse, un ministre: victor duruy, (rep. of art. in revue de paris, janv. and mars , ), p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] llorente, hist. crit. de l'inquisition de l'espagne, e édit, iv, . [ ] rapport of ch. fulpius in the almanach de libre pensée, . [ ] squier, notes on central america, , p. . [ ] before the popular freethought propaganda had been partly carried on under cover of radicalism, as in carlile's republican, and lion, and in various publications of william hone. cp. h. b. wilson's article "the national church," in essays and reviews, th ed. p. . [ ] described as "our chief atheistic organ" by the late f. w. newman "because dr. james martineau declined to continue writing for it, because it interpolated atheistical articles between his theistic articles" (contributions ... to the early history of the late cardinal newman, , p. ). the review was for a time edited by j. s. mill, and for long after him by dr. john chapman. it lasted into the twentieth century, under the editorship of dr. chapman's widow, and kept a free platform to the end. [ ] pastor w. baur, hamburg, religious life in germany during the wars of independence, eng. tr. , p. . h. j. rose and pusey, in their controversy as to the causes of german rationalism, were substantially at one on this point of fact. rose, letter to the bishop of london, , pp. , , . [ ] id. p. . [ ] ueber die religion: reden an die gebildeten unter ihren verächtern. these are discussed hereinafter. [ ] lichtenberger, hist. of ger. theol. in the nineteenth cent. eng. tr. , pp. - . [ ] see the same volume, passim. [ ] karl von raumer, contrib. to the hist. of the german universities, eng. tr. , p. . the intellectual tone of w. baur and k. von raumer certainly protects them from any charge of "enlightenment." [ ] laing, notes of a traveller, , p. . [ ] c. h. cotterill, relig. movements of germany in the nineteenth century, , pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - , - . [ ] cp. laing, as cited, pp. - , . [ ] cotterill, as cited, p. . [ ] cotterill. as cited, pp. - . [ ] rapport de ida altmann, in almanach de libre pensée, , p. . [ ] the principal have been: das freie wort and frankfurter zeitung, frankfort-on-main; der freidenker, friedrichshagen, near berlin; das freireligiöse sonntagsblatt, breslau; die freie gemeinde, magdeburg; der atheist, nuremberg; menschentum, gotha; vossische zeitung, berlin; berliner volkszeitung, berlin; vorwärts (socialist), berlin; weser zeitung, bremen; hartungsche zeitung, königsberg; kölnische zeitung, cologne. [ ] studemund, der moderne unglaube in den unteren ständen, , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] a. d. mclaren, an australian in germany, , pp. , . [ ] studemund, der moderne unglaube in den unteren ständen, , pp. , . [ ] glossen zu yves guyot's und sigismund lacroix's "die wahre gestalt des christentums." [ ] studemund, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. pp. - . cp. p. . pastor studemund cites other inquirers, notably rade, gebhardt, lorenz, and dietzgen, all to the same effect. [ ] e.g. pastor a. kalthoff's was wissen wir von jesus? . since that date the opinion has found new and powerful supporters in germany. [ ] "the people in the country do not read; in the towns they read little. the journals are little circulated. in russia one never sees a cabman, an artisan, a labourer reading a newspaper" (ivan strannik, la pensée russe contemporaine, , p. ). [ ] cp. e. lavigne, introduction à l'histoire du nihilisme russe, , pp. , , ; arnaudo, le nihilisme, french trans. pp. , , , , , , etc.; tikhomirov, la russie, p. . [ ] tikhomirov, la russie, pp. - , - . [ ] cp. priestley, essay on the first principles of government, nd ed. , pp. - , and conway's centenary history of south place, pp. , , . [ ] see rev. joseph hunter, an historical defence of the trustees of lady henley's foundations, ; the history, opinions, and present legal position of the english presbyterians (official), ; an examination and defence of the principles of protestant dissent, by the rev. w. hamilton drummond, of dublin, . [ ] conway, autobiography, , i, . [ ] so prof. william james, the will to believe, etc., , p. . [ ] conway, emerson at home and abroad, , ch. vii. [ ] hagenbach, kirchengeschichte des . und . jahrhunderts, , ii, . rationalism seems to have spread soonest in the canton of zürich. id. ii, . [ ] grote, seven letters concerning the politics of switzerland, pp. - . hagenbach (kirchengeschichte, ii, - ) shows no shame over the insurrection at zürich. but cp. beard, in voices of the church in reply to dr. strauss, , pp. - . [ ] cp. the rapport of ch. fulpius in the almanach de libre pensée, . [ ] g. m. theal, south africa ("story of the nations" series), pp. , . mr. theal's view of the mental processes of the boers is somewhat à priori, and his explanation seems in part inconsistent with his own narrative. [ ] an english acquaintance of my own at cape town, who before the war not only was an orthodox believer, but found his chief weekly pleasure in attending church, was so astounded by the general attitude of the clergy on the war that he severed his connection, once for all. thousands did the same in england. [ ] i write on the strength of personal testimonies spontaneously given to me in south africa, some of them by clergymen of the dutch reformed church. [ ] see the evidence collected in the pamphlet the churches and the war, by alfred marks. new age office, . [ ] for the survey here reduced to outline i am indebted to two swedish friends. [ ] cp. lamon's life of lincoln, and j. b. remsburg's abraham lincoln: was he a christian? (new york, .) [ ] remsburg, pp. - . [ ] personal information. [ ] remsburg, p. . [ ] of these the new york truthseeker has been the most energetic and successful. [ ] white, warfare, i, . [ ] white, warfare, i, , , , , . [ ] this view is not inconsistent with the fact that popular forms of credulity are also found specially flourishing in the west. cp. bryce, the american commonwealth, rd ed. ii, - . [ ] as to the absolute predominance of rationalistic unbelief (in the orthodox sense of the word) in educated germany in the first third of the century, see the memoirs of f. perthes, eng. tr. nd ed. ii, - , , - . despite the various reactions claimed by perthes and others, it is clear that the tables have never since been turned. cp. pearson, infidelity, pp. - , - . schleiermacher was charged on his own side with making fatal concessions. kahnis, internal hist. of german protestantism, eng. tr. , pp. - ; robins, a defence of the faith, , i, ; and quinet as there cited. [ ] aus schleiermachers leben: in briefen, , i, , . the father's letters, with their unctuous rhetoric, are a revelation of the power of declamatory habit to eliminate sincere thought. [ ] werke, , i, . [ ] see kabnis, p. , and refs. as to his relations with frau grunow. "he belonged to the circle of prince louis, in which intellect and art, but not morality," reigned. ib. compare the sympathetic lichtenberger, hist. of ger. theol. in the nineteenth cent. eng. tr. , pp. - . it was of course his clerical character that disadvantaged schleiermacher in such matters. [ ] lichtenberger, as cited, p. . [ ] lichtenberger, as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] strauss, die halben und die ganzen, , p. . [ ] for estimates of his work cp. baur, kirchengeschichte des ten jahrh., p. ; kahnis, as last cited; pfleiderer, development of theology in germany, , bk. i, ch. iii; bk. ii, ch. ii; lichtenberger, as cited; and art. by rev. f. j. smith in theol. review, july, . [ ] reuss, history of the canon, eng. tr. , p. . cp. strauss, einleitung in das leben jesu, § . [ ] see a good account of the development in strauss's introductions to his two lives of jesus. [ ] in a volume entitled offenbarung und mythologie. [ ] hebräische mythologie des alten und neuen testaments. [ ] evangeliencommentar, - ; leben jesu, . [ ] probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum joannis apostoli indole et origine. [ ] it is thus inaccurate--strauss himself being the witness--to say, as does dr. conybeare (hist. of n. t. crit. p. ), that strauss was the first german writer to discern the unhistoricity of the fourth gospel. [ ] das leben jesu, pref. to first ed. end. [ ] hausrath, david friedrich strauss und die theologie seiner zeit, , ii, - . [ ] pref. to work cited. eng. tr. , i, , . [ ] lichtenberger, as cited, p. . [ ] kritik der evang. gesch. der synoptiker, ed. , vorrede, pp. v-xiii. [ ] baur, kirchengesch. des ten jahrh., pp. - . [ ] gesch. der politik, kultur, und aufklärung des ten jahrh. bde. - ; gesch. der französ. revolution, bde. . [ ] russland und das germanenthum, . [ ] lichtenberger, p. . [ ] philo, strauss, renan, und das urchristenthum, ; christus und die cäsaren, . [ ] das christenthum und die chr. kirche, , p. . [ ] das leben jesu für das deutsche volk bearbeitet, § , te aufl. p. , st par. [ ] id. ib. [ ] cp. christianity and mythology, pt. iii, div. ii, § . [ ] pref. to second leben jesu, ed. cited, p. xv. [ ] zeller, david friedrich strauss, te aufl. p. . [ ] cheyne, founders of old testament criticism, , p. . eichhorn seems to have known astruc's work only at second-hand, yet, without him, it might be contended, astruc's work would have been completely lost to science. (id. p. .) [ ] see dr. cheyne's surveys, which are those of a liberal ecclesiastic--a point of view on which he has since notably advanced. [ ] cheyne, pp. - . [ ] kuenen, the hexateuch, eng. tr. introd. pp. xiv-xvii. [ ] dr. beard, in voices of the church in reply to strauss, , pp. - . [ ] zeller, d. f. strauss, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] see gunkel, zum religionsgeschichtlichen verständnis des neuen testaments, , pp. - , note. [ ] mythen der alten perser als quellen christlicher glaubenslehren, ; der mystagog, oder deutung der geheimenlehren, symbole und feste der christlichen kirche, ; rabbinische quellen und parallelen zu neutestamentlichen schriftstellen, ; biblische mythologie des alten und neuen testaments, ; der festkalender, , etc. [ ] der mystagog, , p. vii, note, and p. . [ ] see nork's preamble on hr. fr. daumer, ein kurzweiliger molochsfänger, in his biblische mythologie, bd. i. [ ] after being acquitted in . the first charge was founded on his britannica article "bible"; the second on the article "hebrew language and literature," which appeared after the acquittal. [ ] these utterances were noted for their "vigour and independence" by kuenen, and also by dr. cheyne, who remarks that the earlier work of kalisch on exodus ( ) was somewhat behind the critical standpoint of contemporary investigators on the continent. (founders of old testament criticism, p. .) [ ] see his introduction to the study of the old testament, pref. "it is the spirit of compromise that i chiefly dread for our younger students," wrote dr. cheyne in (founders, p. ). his courteous criticism of dr. driver does not fail to point the moral in that writer's direction. [ ] conrad, the german universities for the last fifty years, eng. tr. , p. . see p. as to the financial measures taken; and p. as to the essentially financial nature of the "reaction." [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] id. p. . see pp. - as to austria. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] white, warfare, i, . in february, , on a given sunday, out of a protestant population of over two millions, only , persons attended church in berlin. art. on "creeds, heresy-hunting, and secession in german protestantism to-day," in hibbert journal for july, , p. . [ ] see haeckel's freedom in science and teaching, eng. tr. with pref. by huxley, , pp. xix, xxv, xxvii, - ; and clifford. [ ] büchner, for straightforwardly renouncing his connection with the state church a generation ago, was blamed by many who held his philosophic opinions. in our own day, there has arisen a considerable austrittsbewegung, or "withdrawal movement"; while creedless clerics strive to remain inside a church bent on ejecting them. a. d. mclaren, in hibbert journal for july, , art. cited. [ ] tracts for the times, vol. ii, ed. ; records of the church, no. xxiv. [ ] tracts for the times, no. . [ ] id. no. . [ ] cross's life, -vol. ed. p. . [ ] account of the printed text of the greek n. t., , pref. and pp. , - , . [ ] a third brother, charles robert, became an atheist. this, as well as his psychic infirmity, insures him sufficiently severe treatment at the hands of his theistic brother in the introduction to the latter's contributions chiefly to the early history of the late cardinal newman, . [ ] latterly abandoned by the learned author, who before his death disclosed his name--w. r. cassels. [ ] see the testimonies of pfleiderer, the development of theology since kant, eng. tr. , p. , and dr. samuel davidson, introd. to the study of the new testament, pref. to nd ed. [ ] ptie. i, liv. i, ch. v. [ ] id. i, liv. iii, ch. ii. [ ] it is further to be remembered, however, that mr. matthew arnold saw fit to defend chateaubriand, calling him "great," when his fame was being undone by common sense. [ ] c. wordsworth, diary in france, , pp. - , , . [ ] essais sur la philosophie et la religion, , p. . [ ] histoire, tom. vii, renaissance, introd. § . [ ] m. faguet writes (Études sur le xixe siècle, p. ) that "michelet croit à l'âme plus qu'à dieu, encore que profondément déiste. les théories philosophiques modernes lui étaient pénibles." this may be true, though, hardly any evidence is offered on the latter head; but when m. faguet writes, "est-il chrétien? je n'en sais rien ... mais il sympathise avec la pensée chrétienne," he seems to ignore the preface to the later editions of the histoire de la révolution française. to pronounce christianity, as michelet there does, essentially anti-democratic, and therefore hostile to the revolution, was, for him, to condemn it. [ ] letter to sainte-beuve, cited by levallois, sainte-beuve, , p. . [ ] lanson, hist. de la litt. française, p. . [ ] "l'incrédulité de sainte-beuve était sincère, radicale, et absolue. elle a été invariable et invincible pendant trente ans. voilà la vérité" (jules levallois, sainte-beuve, , préf. p. xxxiii). m. levallois, who writes as a theist, was one of sainte-beuve's secretaries. m. zola, who spoke of the famous critic's rationalism as "une négation n'osant conclure," admitted later that it was hardly possible for him to speak more boldly than he did (documents littéraires, , pp. , - ). and m. lavisse has shown (as cited above, p. ) with what courage he supported duruy in the senate against the attacks of the exasperated clerical party. see also his letter of to louis viardot in the avant-propos to that writer's libre examen: apologie d'un incrédule, e édit. , p. . [ ] that wordsworth was not an orthodox christian is fairly certain. both in talk and in poetry he put forth a pantheistic doctrine. cp. benn, hist. of eng. rationalism, i, - ; and coleridge's letter of aug. , , in allsopp's letters, etc., of s. t. coleridge, rd ed. , pp. - . [ ] leslie stephen, george eliot, p. . [ ] mr. benn (hist. of eng. rationalism, i, , sq.) has some interesting discussions on scott's relation to religion, but does not take full account of biographical data and of scott's utterances outside of his novels. the truth probably is that scott's brain was one with "watertight compartments." [ ] at the age of twenty-five we find him writing to gifford: "i am no bigot to infidelity, and did not expect that because i doubted the immortality of man i should be charged with denying the existence of god" (letter of june , ). [ ] by the court of chancery, in , the year in which copyright was refused to the lectures of dr. lawrence. harriet martineau, history of the peace, ii, . [ ] w. sharp, life of severn, , pp. - , , - . [ ] on reading lamb's severe rejoinder, southey, in distress, apologized, and lamb at once relented (life and letters of john rickman, by orlo williams, , p. ). hence the curtailment of lamb's letter in the ordinary editions of his works. [ ] william allingham: a diary, , p. . cp. p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] allingham, as cited, p. . [ ] id. p. . carlyle said the same thing to moncure conway. [ ] cp. prof. bain's j. s. mill, pp. , ; froude's london life of carlyle, i, . [ ] bain, p. . [ ] see brougham's letters in the correspondence of macvey napier, , pp. - . brougham is deeply indignant, not at the fact, but at the indiscreet revelation of it--as also at the similar revelation concerning pitt (p. ). [ ] my relations with carlyle, , p. . [ ] morning post, march , . [ ] germany, by bisset hawkins, m.d., f.r.s., f.r.c.p., inspector of prisons, late professor at king's college, etc., , p. . [ ] history, ch. xix. student's ed. ii, . [ ] sometimes he gives a clue; and we find brougham privately denouncing him for his remark (essay on ranke's history of the popes, th par.) that to try "without the help of revelation to prove the immortality of man" is vain. "it is next thing to preaching atheism," shouts brougham (letter of october , , in correspondence of macvey napier, p. ), who at the same time hotly insisted that cuvier had made an advance in natural theology by proving that there must have been one divine interposition after the creation of the world--to create species. (id. p. .) [ ] in , for instance, we find a scottish episcopal d.d. writing that "infidelity has had its day; it, depend upon it, will never be revived--no man of genius will ever write another word in its support." morehead, dialogues on natural and revealed religion, p. . [ ] cp. the author's modern humanists, pp. - . [ ] practical view of the prevailing religious system ( ), th ed. p. . wilberforce points with chagrin to the superiority of mohammedan writers in these matters. [ ] "in point of tendency i should class her books among the most irreligious i ever read," delineating good characters in every aspect, "and all this without the remotest allusion to christianity, the only true religion." cited in o. gregory's brief memoir of robert hall, , p. . the context tells how miss edgeworth avowed that she had not thought religion necessary in books meant for the upper classes. [ ] art. "the faith of richard jefferies," by h. s. salt, in westminster review, august, , rep. as pamphlet by the r. p. a., . [ ] the writer of these scurrilities is mr. bramwell booth, war cry, may , . [ ] cp. mrs. sutherland orr's article on "the religious opinions of robert browning" in the contemporary review, december, , p. ; and the present writer's tennyson and browning as teachers, . [ ] apropos of his theatrocrat, which he pronounced "the most profound and original of english books." mr. davidson in a newspaper article proclaimed himself on socio-political grounds an anti-christian. "i take the first resolute step out of christendom," was his claim (daily chronicle, december , ). [ ] see talks with emerson, by c. j. woodbury, , pp. - . [ ] it was in his old age that whitman tended most to "theize" nature. in conversation with dr. moncure conway, he once used the expression that "the spectacle of a mouse is enough to stagger a sextillion of infidels." dr. conway replied: "and the sight of the cat playing with the mouse is enough to set them on their feet again"; whereat whitman tolerantly smiled. [ ] kahnis, internal hist. of ger. protestantism, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] geständnisse, end (werke, ed. , iv, ). [ ] zur gesch. der relig. und philos. in werke, ed. cited, iii, . [ ] see ernest newman's study of wagner, , p. , note, as to the vagueness of wagnerians on the subject. [ ] tikhomirov, la russie, e édit. p. . [ ] see comte de voguë's le roman russe, p. , as to his propaganda of atheism. [ ] arnaudo, le nihilisme et les nihilistes, french tr. . [ ] tikhomirov, p. . [ ] "il [tourguénief] était libre-penseur, et détestât l'apparat religieux d'une manière toute particulière." i. pavlovsky, souvenirs sur tourguénief, , p. . [ ] see the article "un précurseur d'henrik ibsen, soeren kierkegaard," in the revue de paris, july , . [ ] prof. a. d. white, hist. of the warfare of science with theology, , i, , . [ ] the phrase is used by a french protestant pastor. la vérité chrétienne et la doute moderne (conférences), , pp. - . [ ] antiquities of the jews, by william brown, d.d., edinburgh, , i, - . brown quotes "from a friend" a demonstration of the monstrous consequences of a stoppage of the earth's rotation. [ ] theopneustia: the plenary inspiration of the holy scriptures, eng. trans. edinburgh, , pp. - . gaussen elaborately argues that if eighteen minutes were allowed for the stoppage of the earth's rotation, no shock would occur. finally, however, he argues that there may have been a mere refraction of the sun's rays--an old theory, already set forth by brown. [ ] dr. c. r. edmonds, introd. to rep. of leland's view of the deistical writers, tegg's ed. , p. xxiii. [ ] the work consists of twelve "mémoires" or treatises, six of which were read in - at the institute. they appeared in book form in . [ ] rapports, ier mémoire, § ii, near end. (Éd. , p. .) cp. préf. (pp. - ). [ ] ed. cited, p. . cp. p. , note. [ ] not published till . [ ] ueberweg, ii, . [ ] cp. luchaire, as cited, p. . [ ] lange, gesch. des materialismus, ii, . [ ] "since cabanis, the referring back of mental functions to the nervous system has remained dominant in physiology, whatever individual physiologists may have thought about final causes" (lange, ii, ). compare the tribute of cabanis's orthodox editor cerise (ed. , introd. pp. xlii-iii). [ ] rapports, iie mémoire, near end. (ed. cited, p. .) [ ] see the already cited introduction of cerise, who solved the problem religiously by positing "a force which executes the plans of god without our knowledge or intervention" (p. xix). he goes on to lament the pantheism of dr. dubois (whose examen des doctrines de cabanis, gall, et broussais ( ) was put forward as a vindication of the "spiritual" principle), and of the german school of physiology represented by oken and burdach. [ ] lawrence's lectures on physiology, zoology, and the natural history of man, th ed. , pp. - . the aspersion of abernethy is typical of the orthodox malignity of the time. cabanis in his preface had expressly contended for the all-importance of morals. the orthodox dr. cerise, who edited his book in , while acknowledging the high character of cabanis, thought fit to speak of "the materialists" as "interested in abasing man" (introd. p. xxi). on the score of fear of demoralization, the champions of "spirit" themselves exhibited the maximum of baseness. [ ] lawrence's lectures, p. , note. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] yet lawrence was created a baronet two months before his death. so much progress had been made in half a century. [ ] work cited, pp. sq., sq. the tone is at times expressive of a similar attitude towards historical religion--e.g.: "human testimony is of so little value ... that it cannot be received with sufficient caution. to doubt is the beginning of wisdom." id. p. . [ ] cp. whewell, hist. of the inductive sciences, rd ed. iii, . [ ] white, as cited, i, - , gives a selection of the language in general use among theologians on the subject. [ ] the early policy of the geological society of london ( ), which professed to seek for facts and to disclaim theories as premature (cp. whewell, iii, ; buckle, iii, ), was at least as much socially as scientifically prudential. [ ] see the excellent monograph of w. m. mackenzie, hugh miller: a critical study, , ch. vi; and cp. spencer's essay on illogical geology--essays, vol. i; and baden powell's christianity without judaism, , p. sq. miller's friend dick, the thurso naturalist, being a freethinker, escaped such error. (mackenzie, pp. - .) [ ] cp. the details given by whewell, iii, - , - , - , as to early theories of a sound order, all of which came to nothing. steno, a dane resident in italy in the seventeenth century, had reached non-scriptural and just views on several points. cp. white, hist. of the warfare of science with theology, i, . leonardo da vinci and frascatorio had reached them still earlier. above, vol. i, p. . [ ] metamorphoses, lib. xv. [ ] he had just completed a work on the subject at his death. cp. mackenzie, hugh miller, as cited, pp. - , - . [ ] christianity and judaism, pp. - . [ ] see charles darwin's historical sketch prefixed to the origin of species. [ ] meding, as cited by darwin, th ed. i, p. xv. goethe seems to have had his general impulse from kielmeyer, who also taught cuvier. virchow, göthe als naturforscher, , beilage x. [ ] memoirs of newton, i, . cp. more worlds than one, , pp. vi, . [ ] see darwin's sketch, as cited. [ ] letter of march , , in life of whewell, by mrs. stair douglas, nd ed. , pp. - . if this statement be true as to owen, he shuffled badly in his correspondence with the author of the vestiges. see the life of sir richard owen, , i, . [ ] mackenzie, hugh miller, p. . [ ] foot-prints of the creator, end. [ ] oxford essays, , p. . [ ] hist. of the inductive sciences, rd ed. iii, - ; life, as above cited. whewell is said to have refused to allow a copy of the origin of species to be placed in the trinity college library. white, i, . [ ] white, i, sq. [ ] edward clodd, thomas henry huxley, , pp. - . [ ] luthardt, fundamental truths of christianity, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] see the many examples cited by white. as late as the scottish clergyman dr. lee is quoted as calling the darwinians "gospellers of the gutter," and charging on their doctrine "utter blasphemy against the divine and human character of our incarnate lord" (white, i, ). carlyle is quoted as calling darwin "an apostle of dirt-worship." his admirers appear to regard him as having made amends by admitting that darwin was personally charming. [ ] e.g. the education, small ed. pp. , . [ ] i am informed on good authority that in later life huxley changed his views on the subject. he had abundant cause. as early as he is found complaining (pref. to eng. tr. of haeckel's freedom in science and teaching, p. xvii) of the mass of "falsities at present foisted upon the young in the name of the church." [ ] see a choice collection in the pamphlet what men of science say about god and religion, by a. e. proctor; catholic truth society. [ ] life and letters of charles darwin, ed. , iii, . [ ] it is doubtful whether c. a. walckenaer should be so described. his essai sur l'histoire de l'espèce humaine ( ) has real scientific value. [ ] see the author's buckle and his critics, . [ ] europe during the middle ages, th ed. i, . [ ] cp. his decline of the roman republic, , i, - ; and note on p. of his translation of plutarch's brutus, bohn ed. of lives, vol. iv. [ ] see the dynamics of religion, pp. - . [ ] it is difficult to understand the claim made for hegel by his translator, the rev. e. b. speirs, that any student of his lectures on the philosophy of religion "will be constrained to admit that in them we have the true 'sources' of the evolution principle as applied to the study of religion" (edit. pref. to trans. of work cited, i, p. viii). to say nothing of fontenelle and de brosses, constant had laid out the whole subject before hegel. [ ] primitive culture, i. . [ ] life and letters, i, . [ ] principles of sociology, vols. - . [ ] cp. saintes, hist. crit. du rationalisme en allemagne, p. . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] as to hegel's mental development cp. dr. beard on "strauss, hegel, and their opinions," in voices of the church in reply to strauss, , pp. - . [ ] e. caird, hegel, , p. . [ ] e.g. philos. of religion, introd. eng. tr. i, - . [ ] id. p. . cp. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] cp. morell, as cited, and pp. - ; and feuerbach, as summarized by baur, kirchengeschichte des ten jahrh. p. . [ ] cp. michelet as cited by morell, ii, - . [ ] as to strauss cp. beard, as above cited, pp. - , ; and zeller, david friedrich strauss, eng. tr. pp. , - , - , etc. [ ] as to vatke see pfleiderer, as cited, p. sq.; cheyne, founders of o. t. criticism, , p. . [ ] e.g. dr. hutchison stirling. see his trans. of schwegler's handbook of the history of philosophy, th ed. p. sq. [ ] baur, last cit. p. . [ ] geständnisse, werke, iv, . cp. iii, . [ ] cp. hagenbach, pp. - ; farrar, crit. hist. of freethought, pp. - . on bauer's critical development and academic career see baur, kirchengesch. des ten jahrh. pp. - . [ ] die selbstzersetzung des christenthums und die religion der zukunft, te aufl. trans. in eng. as the religion of the future, . [ ] see schopenhauer's dialogues on religion and immortality, and his essay on the christian system (eng. tr. by t. b. samplers), and nietzsche's antichrist. the latter work is discussed by the writer in essays in sociology, vol. ii. [ ] prof. seth pringle-pattison, who passes many just criticisms on their work (philos. of relig. in kant and hegel, rep. with the philosophical radicals), does not seem to suspect this determination. [ ] baur gives a good summary, kirchengeschichte, pp. - . [ ] "m. feuerbach et la nouvelle école hégélienne," in Études d'histoire religieuse. [ ] a. kohut, ludwig feuerbach, sein leben und seine werke, , p. . [ ] die halben und die ganzen, p. . "feuerbach a ruiné le système de hegel et fondé la positivisme." a. lévy, la philosophie de feuerbach et son influence sur la litt. allemande, , introd. p. xxii. [ ] e.g. "all knowledge, all conviction, all piety ... is based on the principle that in the spirit, as such, the consciousness of god exists immediately with the consciousness of itself." philos. of relig. eng. tr. introd. i. - . [ ] essence of christianity, eng. tr. , p. . [ ] kirchengeschichte des ten jahrhunderts, pp. - . [ ] cp. a. lévy, as cited, ch. iv. [ ] id. ch. ii. [ ] reden über religion, ihr entstehen und vergehen, an die gebildeten unter ihren verehrern--a parody of the title of the famous work of schleiermacher. [ ] work cited, p. . [ ] büchner expressly rejected the term "materialism" because of its misleading implications or connotations. cp. in mrs. bradlaugh bonner's charles bradlaugh the discussion in pt. ii, ch. i, § (by j. m. r.). [ ] while the cognate works of carl vogt and moleschott have gone out of print, büchner's, recast again and again, continues to be republished. [ ] cp. paul deschanel, figures littéraires, , pp. - , - ; lévy-bruhl, the philosophy of auguste comte, eng. tr. , p. ; and ch. adam, la philosophie en france, . p. . [ ] adam, as cited, pp. - . [ ] in his mélanges philosophiques ( ), eng. trans. (incomplete) by george ripley, philos. essays of th. jouffroy, edinburgh, , ii, . ripley, who was one of the american transcendentalist group and a member of the brook farm colony, indicates his own semi-rationalism in his introductory note, p. xxv. [ ] mélanges philosophiques, trans. as cited, ii, . [ ] essai, cited, i, , . [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] id. p. . [ ] correspondance, - , letter of may , . [ ] letters of august and november . [ ] cp. ch. adam, la philosophie en france, , p. . [ ] id. p. . [ ] littré, auguste comte et la philosophie positive, pp. , - . [ ] article in , rep. in essais sur la philosophie et la religion, , p. . [ ] see m. lévy-bruhl's philosophy of auguste comte, eng. tr. pp. - . m. lévy-bruhl really does not attempt to meet littre's argument, which he puts aside. [ ] cp. prof. botta's chapter in ueberweg's hist. of philos. ii, - . [ ] veitch's memoir of sir william hamilton, , p. . cp. hamilton's own discussions, , p. (rep. of article of ). [ ] veitch, p. . [ ] in his church of englandism and its catechism examined ( ), and not paul but jesus ( ), by "gamaliel smith." [ ] under the pseudonym of philip beauchamp. see the minor works of george grote, edited by professor bain, , p. ; athenæum, may , ; j. s. mill's autobiography, p. ; and three essays on religion, p. . [ ] cp. morell, spec. philos. of europe in the nineteenth century, ii, ; and life and corr. of whately, by e. jane whately, abridged ed. p. . [ ] articles in the edinburgh review ( - ); and professorial lectures at edinburgh ( - ). [ ] cp. veitch's memoir, pp. - . [ ] bampton lectures on the limits of religious thought, th ed. pref. p. xxxvi, note. after thus declaring all metaphysics to be profoundly delusive, mansel shows at his worst (philosophy of the conditioned, , p. ) by disparaging mill as an incompetent metaphysician. [ ] id. p. xxxviii. [ ] spencer has avowed in his autobiography (ii, ) what might be surmized by critical readers, that he wrote the first part of first principles in order to guard against the charge of "materialism." this motive led him to misrepresent "atheism," and there was a touch of retribution in the general disregard of his disavowal of materialism, at which he expresses surprise. the broad fact remains that for prudential reasons he set forth at the very outset of his system a set of conclusions which could properly be reached only at the end, if at all. [ ] as to his fluctuations, which lasted till his death, cp. the author's new essays towards a critical method, , pp. - , - , - . [ ] baur, die christliche lehre der versöhnung, , pp. - , - . [ ] benrath, bernardino ochino, eng. tr. pp. - . [ ] field's memoirs of parr, , ii, , - . [ ] see pearson's infidelity, its aspects, causes, and agencies, , p. sq. the position of maurice and parr (associated with other and later names) is there treated as one of the prevailing forms of "infidelity," and called spiritualism. in germany the orthodox made the same dangerous answer to the theistic criticism. see the memoirs of f. perthes, eng. tr. nd. ed. ii, - . [ ] ed. cited, pp. - . [ ] pearson, as cited, pp. - , - , - . [ ] letter in w. l. courtney's j. s. mill, , p. . [ ] cp. schechter, studies in judaism, , pp. , . schechter writes with a marked judaic prejudice. [ ] id. pp. - . [ ] this title imitates that of the famous more nebuchim of maimonides. [ ] zunz, cited by schechter, p. . [ ] whence krochmal is termed the father of jewish science. id. p. . [ ] a life of mr. yukichi fukuzawa, by asatarô miyamori, revised by prof. e. h. vickers, tokyo, , pp. - . [ ] pamphlet cited, p. . [ ] a curious example of sporadic freethought occurs in a pamphlet published towards the end of the eighteenth century. in a writer named motoori began a propaganda in favour of shintôism with the publication of a tract entitled spirit of straightening. this tract emphatically asserted the divinity of the mikado, and elicited a reply from another writer named ichikawa, who wrote: "the japanese word kami (god) was simply a title of honour; but in consequence of its having been used to translate the chinese character shin (shên) a meaning has come to be attached to it which it did not originally possess. the ancestors of the mikados were not gods, but men, and were no doubt worthy to be reverenced for their virtues; but their acts were not miraculous nor supernatural. if the ancestors of living men were not human beings, they are more likely to have been birds or beasts than gods." art.: "the revival of pure shinto," by sir e. n. satow, in trans. asiatic society of japan. [ ] lafcadio hearn, japan: an attempt at interpretation, , p. ; cp. p. . [ ] thus the third emperor of the ming dynasty in china ( - ), referring to the belief in a future life, makes the avowal: "i am fain to sigh with despair when i see that in our own day men are just as superstitious as ever" (prof. e. h. parker, china and religion, , p. ). [ ] see hearn, as cited, passim. [ ] cp. sir f. s. p. lely, suggestions for the better governing of india, , p. . [ ] see article on "the future of turkey" in the contemporary review, april, , by "a turkish official." [ ] yet, as early as the date of the crimean war, it was noted by an observer that "young turkey makes profession of atheism." ubicini, la turquie actuelle, , p. . cp. sir g. campbell, a very recent view of turkey, nd ed. , p. . vambéry makes somewhat light of such tendencies (der islam im ten jahrhundert, , pp. , ); but admits cases of atheism even among mollahs, as a result of european culture (p. ). [ ] ubicini (p. ), with vambéry and most other observers, pronounces the turks the most religious people in europe. [ ] h. m. baird, modern greece, new york, , pp. - . [ ] id., p. . [ ] id., p. . [ ] id., p. . [ ] id., p. . [ ] prof. neocles karasis, greeks and bulgarians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, london, , pp. - , citing a bulgarian journal. [ ] in the edinburgh mirror of (no. ) henry mackenzie speaks of women freethinkers as a new phenomenon. [ ] "she bought , acres in tennessee, and peopled them with slave families she purchased and redeemed" (wheeler, biog. dict.). [ ] see lord morley's life of gladstone, , ii, - , as to the embarrassment felt in english official circles at the time of garibaldi's visit. [ ] on the whole case see the life, trial, and death of francisco ferrer, by william archer: chapman & hall, ; and the martyrdom of ferrer, by joseph mccabe: r. p. a., .